‘We now treat farmers as polluters … which is a very strange perspective’

Jaap Hanekamp is skeptical of the received wisdom in science. He won’t stop asking a simple question: “But, is this true?”

When it comes to the Dutch government’s calculations of ammonia and nitrogen oxide deposition—the basis of climate mandates that would slash livestock numbers and put many farmers out of work—Hanekamp is especially critical of “the science.”

He thinks it relies on vague definitions, excessive deference to expert judgment, and a narrow focus on costs rather than both costs and benefits.

“We now treat farmers as polluters, end of story, which is a very strange perspective,” he said.

Hanekamp, an associate professor of chemistry at University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands, made the comments in an interview with Roman Balmakov, host of EpochTV’s “Facts Matter.”

A 2019 Dutch court decision that hindered the construction of livestock facilities triggered an earlier round of protests by farmers.

A Science article on the protests described some of the harms attributed to nitrogen emissions: “In 118 of 162 Dutch nature reserves, nitrogen deposits now exceed ecological risk thresholds by an average of 50 percent.

“In dunes, bogs, and heathlands, home to species adapted to a lack of nitrogen, plant diversity has decreased as nitrogen-loving grasses, shrubs, and trees move in.”

“Nitrogen chemicals are nutrients—you need them for growing plants,” Hanekamp said.

Hanekamp believes the government has focused on nitrogen almost to the exclusion of other factors that affect nature, such as the location of groundwater relative to the surface.

He also questions whether the ecosystem shifts prompted by greater nitrogen deposition can be properly defined as “damage.”

“Is a change in biodiversity bad in itself, or is it just change?” he asked.

He pointed out that the Netherlands is far from pristine wilderness. Much of the land is artificial, reclaimed from the sea over recent centuries thanks to the ingenuity of man.

Hanekamp has scrutinized a term used in government ecological research: “nitrogen critical load.”

Below its “critical load,” a substance is not thought to pose a significant environmental threat.

In a recent paper, Hanekamp and coauthor William Briggs described some problems with the evidence used to define nitrogen critical loads in the Netherlands.

For one thing, they do not believe the definitions of nitrogen critical loads are sufficiently precise. In addition, they think there have not been enough large-scale, long-term studies on nitrogen deposition.

Hanekamp stressed that models can be useful—taking 100,000 measurements across the country wouldn’t exactly be easy or cheap.

Yet modeling uncertainty makes it challenging to translate activity on a particular farm to exact patterns of nitrogen flow.

That hasn’t stopped the Dutch nitrogen minister from unveiling detailed, area-specific nitrogen reduction targets in June of this year.

The release was the impetus for the latest round of protests by farmers.

One dairy farmer interviewed by The Epoch Times would have to cut his livestock numbers by 95 percent—so much that he expects he will need to shut down.

“We have created the illusion of certainty with respect to emission and deposition. That’s definitely a mirage of policymaking,” said Hanekamp.

“The problem is that the Dutch government decided that these critical loads are definitive with respect to the quality of the habitats we have. And that’s a very strange approach to this issue.”

Hanekamp worries that a comprehensive, societal risk-benefit analysis has not occurred. He thinks the ultimate outcome of the government’s climate proposals remains deeply uncertain.

“If we would implement these and we would kick out, say, one third of the farmers, we still don’t know what the result would be related to these critical loads, which doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

“Yeah, we [would] know that one third of the farmers [are] gone, and that basically, we’re reducing production and income as a country, but the return of investment in the focused nature? We have no idea.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Resident Joe Biden on Friday warned that he may take executive actions targeting the climate and health care if Congress doesn’t pass a bill that’s suitable for his agenda.

“So let me be clear: if the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment,” he said in a statement released by the White House on Friday. “My actions will create jobs, improve our energy security, bolster domestic manufacturing and supply chains, protect us from oil and gas price hikes in the future, and address climate change.”

Biden also wrote that “health care is critical” and suggested he would issue an executive order to “lower drug prices and to prevent an increase in health insurance premiums for millions of families.”

In the statement, Biden did not elaborate on what steps he would take to address health care or the climate in his executive orders.

The statement came after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) reportedly told top Democrats, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), on Thursday that he will not support new spending on climate-related measures or tax hikes

“I said, ‘Chuck until we see the July inflation figures, until we see the July, basically Federal Reserve rates, interest rates, then let’s wait till that comes out so we know that we’re going down a path that won’t be inflammatory, to add more to inflation,’” Manchin said on Friday morning during a radio interview.

“He says, ‘Are you telling me you won’t do the other right now?’” Manchin recalled. “I said, ‘Chuck, it’s wrong, it’s not prudent to do the other right now.’”

Democrats Make Demands

Following the development, Democrats expressed disappointment and demanded that Biden take executive action targeting the climate.

“With legislative climate options now closed, it’s now time for executive Beast Mode,” Sen. Shelton Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wrote on Twitter. “Free at last. Let’s roll. Do it all and start it now.”

Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) issued a statement in reference to Manchin’s decision, saying that “this is our last chance” to pass climate-related measures.

But a spokesperson for Manchin told reporters this week that the senator has serious concerns about soaring inflation. A report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this week revealed that inflation spiked to 9.1 percent year-over-year in June.

“Political headlines are of no value to the millions of Americans struggling to afford groceries and gas as inflation soars to 9.1 percent,” Manchin spokeswoman Sam Runyon told Bloomberg. “Senator Manchin believes it’s time for leaders to put political agendas aside, reevaluate and adjust to the economic realities the country faces to avoid taking steps that add fuel to the inflation fire.”

Republicans say the spiking inflation and elevated gas prices are largely due to Biden’s policies. The president promoted the $2 trillion American Rescue Plan in early 2021 and also targeted the oil industry in a series of executive orders after he took office last year.

The White House released Biden’s statement threatening executive action while the president was visiting with the Saudi royal family on a several-day visit to the Middle East.

Source: The Epoch Times

Patrick Byrne met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, to urge him to investigate allegations of election fraud. Byrne, the founder and former CEO of online retailer Overstock, is set to testify before the Jan. 6 House Select Committee on July 15.

In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, Byrne recounted his meeting with Trump, which included former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell, former attorney to Trump’s campaign and former federal prosecutor, along with a number of White House officials.

The roughly 4.5-hour meeting was “nothing like it has been reported,” Byrne said in an interview with EpochTV’s “Facts Matter” program on July 14.

Byrne said he used a prior invitation from a White House staffer for a tour of the building as a way to gain entry with Flynn and Powell, with the hope of getting to talk to the president about his plan to investigate the widespread allegations of voter fraud.

“We were always after the most minimal on that range of options, which was to do a quick investigation that we said could be done in a few days,” Byrne said of the plan.

‘Perfectly Reasonable Conversation’

Byrne describes a chance encounter with the president as he walked by that enabled the group to meet in the Oval Office. The trio presented to Trump two executive orders—one signed by former President Barack Obama in 2015 and one by Trump in 2018—which, they said, gave Trump the authority to launch an investigation in the event of foreign interference in the election.

“It has nothing to do with the theories of vote flipping from space. It has nothing to do with the alleged South Korean jets, or Germany this, or Italy that, or any of that,” Byrne said.

Instead, Byrne said, “the argument that was made to the president was that under two executive orders … that say if a foreign nation interferes in one of our elections, disrupts an election, the president really gets a range of options.”

According to Byrne, these options ranged from “something very light-handed, like, ‘let’s have a quick investigation’ to something more substantial, like, ‘let’s have a serious investigation.’”

Much of the conversation prior to the arrival of White House attorneys in the room, according to Byrne, centered on the question of whether multiple government documents constituted enough justification to launch an investigation based on the authority given in the executive orders.

The documents included an Oct. 30, 2020, pre-election warning by the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that Iranian state actors were targeting U.S. state websites to obtain voter registration data, as well as an Oct. 22 warning; an updated notice on Nov. 3 that said the foreign actor was successful in at least one state; and an FBI, CISA, and DNI statement on the SolarWinds Orion vulnerability.

“That was a perfectly reasonable conversation to have,” Byrne said. “Everybody was acutely aware that every word we were saying was historic, could be judged by history, should be judged by history.”

Byrne, who said he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 and hadn’t ever voted Republican, said he was impressed at “how smart he [Trump] is,” which never came across “from the way he was portrayed in the media.”

‘No Uniforms’

Trump studied the documents in silence as he received them and then made precise comments, Byrne said.

“So what is it you folks are asking me to do?” Trump eventually asked, leaning back, according to Byrne.

Byrne said he laid out several choices that Trump could make to pursue a “very quick and dirty investigation.”

“That’s why I think that if there’s any charges for them, they should come after me” rather than Trump.

The first option Byrne laid out was to investigate “the obvious six counties where the voting record was stopped,” he said.

Or, a more “heavy-handed option,” he added, would be to target 31 counties previously selected by a political scientist.

“He [Trump] said immediately: ‘just go with the six.’”

Byrne then suggested a cyber team could make copies of hard drives to conduct forensic analysis. Alternatively, investigators could travel to the counties and remain on site for several days to count the ballots and livestream the forensic checks.

To lead the investigation, Byrne proposed a joint team composed of cyber analysts from the United States Marshals Service under the Justice Department and the National Guard.

At that point, Pat Cipollone, then-White House counsel—who had joined the meeting at some point and was sitting behind Byrne—stepped forward to raise objections, according to Byrne.

“Mr. President, the nation will go nuts if they see even one uniform around this,” he said, according to Byrne’s recollection. Others, including Flynn, also opposed the idea.

“The DHS [Department of Homeland Security] has teams that are perfectly adequate for this,” Bryne recalled Flynn saying after a second or two of silence.

Byrne made his case again.

“Sir, just to be clear, obviously, it’s your choice, not my choice,” he said. “I think that we’re in this national crisis because we’ve had a complete breakdown of trust, and I’m not sure that doesn’t extend to the FBI and the DHS.”

“If this is all about reinvigorating the system of trust, the U.S. courts are very trusted and the military is very trusted,” and the National Guard, while in uniform, consists of citizen soldiers, making their presence more acceptable, he said he argued.

Trump let him finish “that whole spiel” before voting him down.

“He said, ‘Pat, no uniforms.’ I said, ‘Yes, sir,’” Byrne recalled.

Byrne insists that he’s the only one who ever put the idea of “uniforms” on the table. “It was not Donald Trump, not anyone else.”

“It was on the table for about 28 seconds. And everybody in the room said no. And Donald Trump said no,” he said. “It was robustly put down.”

‘Obstructionists’

Byrne said Trump that evening hinted at least twice that the idea of leaving the White House held an appeal.

“I’ll never spend a night in this town again. I’ve got my golf courses, I’ve got my friends. Trust me Pat, my life’s going to get a lot better,” he said, according to Byrne. “But how can I do that? If I think that this election was stolen and there might be a foreign element involved, how can I really do that?”

“He was anything but some crazed tyrant clutching to power,” Byrne said.

What also became clear, he said, was that Trump “was being completely undermined by everyone around him.”

Trump, at one moment, turned to Cipollone to express his disappointment that he hadn’t been alerted to the executive powers.

“Why didn’t you even tell me about these orders, Pat? … Why did I have to hear it from them? At least they want to fight for me.”

“Mr. President, I’m not your campaign lawyer. I’m your White House lawyer,” Cipollone answered, according to Byrne.

“This man [Cipollone] has been telling staffers systematically … that we have to get you out of here, [that] we have to get the president in the transition mode, just get him to concede,” Byrne said he told Trump, adding that he could get White House staffers to back up his statements within half an hour.

Cipollone’s response according to Byrne was: “Mr. President, you know how hard I’ve been working for you?” according to Byrne, who then watched as Cipollone and several other officials “stormed out.”

“​​They stormed out three different times,” he said. “I was shocked at how they treated the president. I didn’t even vote for the guy. I didn’t even really like him until this meeting, frankly.”

“They were just so clearly being obstructionists,” Byrne said. “I was hearing that they were being told, if you get the president out the door, there’ll be a million dollar job for you in such-and-such lobbying firm. But if you don’t, your kids aren’t getting into Yale and your kids are getting thrown out of the school they’re in.

“This was going on up and down the DOJ and up and down the administration.”

According to Byrne, one of the White House lawyers told Trump that he had the authority to appoint Powell as special counsel if he chose to do so.

“Finally the lawyer said, ‘Mr. President, you don’t have to fight with us. You can just make Sidney Powell that special counsel just by saying it. You don’t have to sign anything,’” Byrne recalled.

About 30 minutes later, Trump was so fed up with his White House attorneys, Byrne said that’s what he did.

“I’m saying it, Sidney Powell is now a special counsel,” Byrne recalled the president saying.

“Another lawyer spoke up and said, ‘you can’t do that, she needs security clearance. It is going to take months to get a security clearance,’” Byrne said. He then said Flynn told the president he had the same authority to grant her a top secret clearance verbally, which he said the president gave.

“It was left sort of with a rough understanding this was going to happen,” Byrne said. The three—Byrne, Powell, and Flynn—left somewhere past midnight with a sense of excitement that they were “clearing up the mystery.”

Over the weekend, though, when Powell tried to get a White House ID and desk, they discovered the arrangement “had all fallen through.”

Byrne said he was later told that lawyer and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani had convinced the president to back out of the plan.

Giuliani on his radio program on July 14 recalled the events at the White House during the meeting.

He said he was called over to the White House by the president and reviewed the documents “purporting to show foreign involvement in the election.”

“I read through them carefully, I came back, and I said it’s clear to me that there’s not enough here,” Giuliani said.

He said the president “didn’t disagree at all” with him and Giuliani thought “it was his sense anyway.”

“Well, then that’s it,” Giuliani said the president said. He added that “at some point, the president made it very clear he wanted them out of the White House, and they were escorted out of the White House, one of them by me.”

Questioning election results and calling for an investigation hadn’t been viewed as controversial until that November, Byrne said.

“I didn’t see that as a huge deal between being in a constitutional crisis that could end the nation—which I knew where we’d be if we tried to choke down the election that nobody had any real confidence in—or getting an answer like that.”

But “it’s different being an entrepreneur than lawyer,” he noted. “I’m just thinking, gee, our country is going to enter this nebulous, awful space or we can in seven days, whatever, we’ll have a total answer to this. That’s how an entrepreneur thinks.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to Trump, Powell, Flynn, Cipollone, and Giuliani for comments.

Click here to watch the full interview.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine finally, though perhaps not permanently, awakened Western Europe to the dangers of relying on a thug for its energy supply.

Help Governor DeSantis Keep Florida Safe From Radical Leftists!

The EU nations have scrambled to replace Russian natural gas, which they have feasted on for years even as they bullied emerging nations (some of whom have abundant oil and gas reserves) never to use the stuff.

The hypocrisy has gotten to be too much – and some emerging nations are calling out the Euros for putting their own comfort ahead of local needs:

While African leaders are eager for the millions in revenue that the gas deals are likely to bring in, they’re also calling out the sudden interest in their resources as a double standard that perpetuates the West’s exploitation of the region. They question why Africa must move away from dirty fuels — thereby delaying access for hundreds of millions of people to electricity — even as its gas is used to keep the lights on in Europe. Rich countries have been reluctant to fund pipelines and power plants that would facilitate the use of gas in Africa because of its emissions, yet haven’t delivered on promises to help finance green projects that could be an alternative source of energy.

Europe’s awkward position was on display at the Group of Seven leaders summit last month. The world’s most advanced economies walked back a climate commitment to halt financing for overseas fossil fuel projects, but indicated that exceptions would likely apply to projects that would allow for more shipments of LNG to their countries. In another climbdown, European Union lawmakers recently voted to classify gas and nuclear energy projects within the bloc as “green investments”, potentially opening up billions of euros in fresh funding.

That approach has irked African leaders who need fuel, any fuel, to lift millions out of poverty. “We need long-term partnership, not inconsistency and contradiction on green energy policy from the UK and European Union,” Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said in written comments. “It does not help their energy security, it does not help Nigeria’s economy, and it does not help the environment. It is a hypocrisy that must end.”

And that’s just the beginning:

The turn to Africa for a short-term gas fix is “patronizing” and “hypocritical,” said Carlos Lopes, former head of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. It is “absolutely outrageous to say to the Africans that they should basically not look into the options that they have in front of them, and at the same time accelerate the request for gas for Europe because of the Russia-Ukraine war.”

Vijaya Ramachandran, director for energy and development at the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based think tank, was more blunt. It’s “green colonialism,” she said, as rich countries exploit poorer nations’ resources while essentially denying them similar access in the name of climate action.

“Green colonialism.” That ought to leave a mark on the conscience of even the most obtuse EU bureaucrat.

SOURCE: American Liberty News

A prominent LGBT activist group on Wednesday argued that social media platforms are not “safe” for “LGBTQ users” and called for increased censorship of right-wing content as a remedy. 

GLAAD, an NGO that formally collaborates with Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok and works to “accelerate acceptance” of the “LGBTQ community,” called on tech companies to amend their algorithms so they don’t “amplify harmful content, extremism and hate.” GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis singled out narratives advocated by “right wing media and politicians” as threats warranting content moderation. The group urged social media companies to prohibit individuals from referring to transgender individuals by their biological pronouns and using their pre-transition names. 

GLAAD issued its call for censorship in its annual “Social Media Safety Index” report, which “provides recommendations for the industry at large and reports on LGBTQ user safety across the five major social media platforms.”

“While Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and other platforms must balance concerns around free expression,” GLAAD said in the report, “it cannot be stated strongly enough that social media platforms must take more meaningful and aggressive action to protect the safety of their LGBTQ users and to staunch the epidemic of hate, falsehoods, and extremism.”

According to GLAAD, opposition to giving hormone treatment and puberty blockers to children qualifies as the “promotion of falsehoods” and “disinformation.”

The organization called people who opposed them on social media “troll-cum-pundits” and accused artificial intelligence of being biased against “LGBTQ people and other marginalized communities.”

Psychologist Jordan Peterson was suspended from Twitter last month after he referred to female-to-male transgender actor Elliot Page as “Ellen,” the celebrity’s former name. Several other influential conservative accounts have been suspended for questioning gender ideology. GLAAD claims that gay and transgender people are censored disproportionately on social media.

Every social media platform rated by GLAAD in the report scored under 50 on a scale of 100 for “LGBTQ safety.” Instagram scored the highest and TikTok the lowest. One category used to determine how safe a website was for gay people is whether it had a dedicated feature for users to list their pronouns on their profiles.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

SHOCKING, WE KNOW…

The vast majority of governmental and COVID-19 tracking websites employ third-party trackers on users without consent, according to a new study.

The revelation comes from a recent paper – “Measuring Web Cookies in Governmental Websites” – published by a cohort of European researchers funded by groups including the European Research Council (ERC), the European Union, and the Spanish government.

“A potential risk from e-governance is that since it represents a unique point of interaction for mandatory and indispensable services for all citizens, it can, unintentionally or not, become a single point of monitoring and tracking for the entire population of a country. A readily available way to achieve that is with the use of Web cookies,” cautions the paper.

The study analyzed three types of websites: official governmental websites of “G20” countries around the world; websites of international organizations such as the United Nations and popular websites used for COVID-19 tracking and information. It measured these sites’ use of “cookies” – personal data related to your browsing history that websites can retrieve at a later time.

“Web cookies have been exploited to collect information about users’ online activities and interests,” notes the paper.

“Our results show that, unfortunately, tracking is a serious concern, as in some countries up to 90% of these websites create cookies of third-party trackers without any consent from users,” explains a summary of the findings.

“Non-session cookies, that are created by trackers and can last for days or months, are widely present even in countries with strict user privacy laws. We also show that the above is a problem for official websites of international organizations and popular websites that inform the public about the COVID-19 pandemic,” it continues.

MUST READ: Vaccine Mandates Were Predicated on “Hope” Rather Than Science, Admits Deborah Birx.

Researchers found that up to 90 percent of governmental websites for “G20” countries, which include 19 countries and the European Union comprising the world’s largest economies, added tracking cookies without user consent.

“More than 50% of cookies created on G20 government websites belong to third-parties and at least 10% (up to 90%) originate from known trackers. Most of these cookies have a life span of more than a day and many an expiration time of a year or more,” continued the study, which based its analysis on 5,500 governmental websites and over 118,000 URLs administrated by governments.

Around 95 percent of the international organizations analyzed in the paper created cookies without user consent, and roughly 60 percent used at least one third-party cookie. Third-party cookies are “known to be tracking users for data collection purposes,” explain researchers.

Similarly, 99 percent of COVID-19 information sites added at least one cookie without user consent.

“For example, the very popular website with global maps about the COVID-19 cases, maintained by Johns Hopkins University, add cookies from 7 trackers,” explains the paper.

“All the other Top 10 website are official national information websites in European countries that have three trackers or more. The American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is also in the Top 10, with cookies associated with three trackers,” it continues.

The findings come amidst concerns that governments in the West are seeking to emulate the Chinese Communist Party’s “social credit score” system, granting the regime the ability to dictate individuals’ spending habits and movements potentially based on their ideologies.

Resident Joe Biden is losing support from some of his biggest backers.

Bill Kristol, who founded and edited the neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard, became a fierce critic of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and led the NeverTrump movement.

In 2018, Kristol co-founded The Bulwark, whose coverage is largely centered around criticism of Trump.

Two years later, he endorsed Biden in the Democratic primary, calling it a “simple choice,” and in the general election.

On Wednesday, however, Kristol argued that Biden should announce he won’t run for re-election.

He said on Twitter that a retirement announcement by Biden would bolster the Democrats’ chances in the 2022 midterm elections and lead to a Democratic victory in the 2024 presidential race.

Straightforward from here:

1. Biden announces not running again.

2. 2022 focus turns to R extremism, Ds do well in Nov.

3. Inflation subsides, Ukraine defeats Russia, Biden is successful 1-term president.

4. Younger moderate D defeats Trump or Trumpist in ’24.

Pourquoi pas?

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 13, 2022

As the president’s popularity drops further and further amid historic inflation and other crises, even liberals are increasingly giving him the cold shoulder.

A recent New York Times/Siena College poll indicated that 64 percent of Democratic voters want someone else than the incumbent as their nominee for president in 2024.

Biden snapped at a reporter who asked him about the poll at a White House event Tuesday.

“Read the polls, jack! You guys are all the same,” he said.

“What’s your message to Democrats who don’t want you to run again?”

BIDEN: “Read the polls! Read the polls, Jack! You guys are all the same.” pic.twitter.com/e0G3Sfufwm

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 12, 2022

Related:

Conservative Anti-Trump Magazine The Weekly Standard Announces Closure

If Biden were to run for re-election in 2024, he’d start his second term at the age of 82, smashing presidential age records.

Democrats have quietly circulated concerns about his age and unpopularity.

Kristol repeated his desire for Biden to eschew a 2024 re-election campaign in a subsequent tweet.

A lively (I thought!) podcast with @SykesCharlie.

We discuss just how (predictably) dangerous Trump proved to be, and the failure of Republicans and conservatives to come to grips with this.

Bonus: I make the case for Biden announcing he’s one and done.https://t.co/Ux5LubuqpN

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 13, 2022

At the now-defunct Weekly Standard, the neoconservative ideologue became a crucial proponent of President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The invasion has since become regarded as one of the worst foreign policy disasters in U.S. history.

Kristol reinvented himself by aligning with progressive Democrats as a Trump critic after the 2016 GOP primary, establishing himself as a mainstay on liberal cable channels such as CNN and MSNBC.

TikTok is no longer advertising for employees in Moscow, following a Washington Free Beacon report that the company was seeking hires in Russia a few months after announcing it had suspended operations in the country.

TikTok’s corporate website listed over a dozen job listings for staffers in Moscow—noting a preference for candidates who spoke Mandarin Chinese—but the posts disappeared shortly after the Free Beacon’s report in late June. The postings appeared to conflict with TikTok’s announcement last March that it would scale back its operations in Russia after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The removal of the job postings comes as the social media company has faced criticism for promoting pro-Putin propaganda and reportedly allowing its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to access private U.S. consumer data.

The company had advertised for numerous openings in Russia, including revenue planning managers, industry analysts, and monetization strategists. While TikTok often stresses its independence from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, several of the Russian job ads request Mandarin Chinese speakers, with one stating that “fluency in Mandarin would be [a] distinct advantage” for candidates.

It’s unclear if the posts were removed because the positions were filled. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

Many news outlets depicted Twitter’s suspension of business in Russia as part of a global corporate boycott campaign. But the company’s actions ended up aiding the Putin regime’s efforts to control information on the platform, according to a Washington Post report in June, by allowing state-run outlets to post propaganda while censoring outside information.

Last week, the leaders of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate concerns that TikTok “may be collecting biometric data such as faceprints and voiceprints” from its U.S. user base, and that this information could be accessed by the Chinese government.

In a letter to the FTC, the senators cited leaked audio recordings from TikTok meetings that revealed engineers at ByteDance were able to obtain U.S. user data, despite assurances from the social media company that these private records were inaccessible to China. The recordings were first reported by BuzzFeed last month.

“In light of this new report, we ask that your agency immediately initiate … [an] investigation on the basis of apparent deception by TikTok, and coordinate this work with any national security or counter-intelligence investigation that may be initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice,” wrote Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chairman Mark Warner (D., Va.) and vice chairman Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) in the letter last week.

“TikTok’s Trust and Safety department was aware of these improper access practices and governance irregularities, which—according to internal recordings of TikTok deliberations—offered PRC-based employees unfettered access to user information, including birthdates, phone numbers, and device identification information.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Astronomers and scientists around the world have been reacting to newly released images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, with one declaring a “new era in space exploration.”

The pictures reveal the splendors of the universe, from baby stars to far off galaxies.

The unveiling from the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope began on Monday at the White House with a sneak peek of the first shot—a jumble of distant galaxies that went deeper into the cosmos than humanity had ever seen.

Michael Messina, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a contributor to the Webb project, says they “weren’t even trying that hard”.

“This image was actually pretty short, in terms of its duration. And we hope over the course of the mission to take even longer, even deeper pictures, to find things that are even further away,” he says.

Tuesday’s releases showed parts of the universe that have been seen by other telescopes.

But Webb’s sheer power, distant location from Earth, and use of the infrared light spectrum showed them in a new light that scientists said was almost as much art as science.

With Webb, scientists hope to glimpse light from the first stars and galaxies that formed 13.7 billion years ago.

The telescope will also scan the atmospheres of alien worlds for possible signs of life.

Webb used its infrared detectors to look at the chemical composition of a giant planet called WASP-96b—it’s about the size of Saturn and is 1,150 light-years away.

It showed water vapor in the super-hot planet’s atmosphere and even found the chemical spectrum of neon, showing clouds where astronomers thought there were none.

“With the new James Webb Space Telescope, we can start to determine the composition of atmospheres of some of these exoplanets,” explains Jason Rabinovitch, an assistant professor at Stevens Institute of Technology.

“So, now we can start to really determine if we think those exoplanets are Earth-like, or if they’re Jupiter-like or if they’re Venus-like and things like that.”

Scientists say Webb’s use of the infrared light spectrum allows the telescope to see through the cosmic dust and see faraway light from the corners of the universe.

“They’re really, really magnificent. What’s amazing about these images is what they show and show us what Webb will be able to do,” says Catherine Pilachowski, a distinguished professor at Indiana University.

Some of the Hubble telescope’s most stunning images have been shots of the Carina Nebula, one of the bright stellar nurseries in the sky, about 7,600 light-years away.

Webb project scientist Klaus Pontoppidan decided to focus one of Webb’s early gazes on that location because he knew it would be the frameable beauty shot.

The result was an image of a colorful landscape of bubbles and cavities where stars were being born.

“These images represent a new era in space exploration,” says Danny Milisavljevic, an assistant professor at Purdue University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.

“The large size of Webb, combined with its sensitivity to longer wavelengths in the mid-infrared mean that it will be able to probe regions of the universe that we’ve been never able to access before and will be able to conduct research into nearby systems in ways that we before only dreamed of doing.”

The world’s biggest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away last December from French Guiana in South America.

It reached its lookout point 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth in January.

Then the lengthy process began to align the mirrors, get the infrared detectors cold enough to operate, and calibrate the science instruments, all protected by a sunshade the size of a tennis court.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Resident Joe Biden was among a group of world leaders that Uber had access to, when the ride-sharing company was aggressively expanding its global presence, according to leaked company files.

The Uber files—containing more than 124,000 emails, memos, text messages, company presentations, and other documents dating from 2013 to 2017—were leaked to British newspaper The Guardian. The outlet then shared the files with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its media partners.

The person who leaked the files is Mark MacGann, Uber’s former chief European lobbyist.

According to an ICIJ report on the Uber files published on July 10, the files showed how Uber executives, including co-founder Travis Kalanick, lobbied and courted politicians around the world for favors, during its dramatic expansion.

In total, Uber executives held more than 100 meetings with public officials from 17 countries and the European Union, according to the report. Among those meetings, 34 were with European Union officials, and 9 were with European Commissioners. Twelve of the meetings with European Commission representatives had not been publicly disclosed.

Biden met with Kalanick in Davos, Switzerland, in 2016, just before the then-U.S. Vice President delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum, according to the report.

Kalanick was apparently not pleased that Biden showed up late at their meeting in Biden’s suite at the InterContinental Hotel.

“I’ve had my people let him know that every minute late he is, is one less minute he will have with me,” Kalanick wrote in a text message to a colleague.

At their meeting, Biden was impressed by what Kalanick said, how Uber was transforming cities and the way people work for the better, that the then-Vice President “tweaked his keynote speech,” according to the report.

Biden did not name Uber or Kalanick in his speech.

“Ride-sharing companies employ tens of thousands of new people. I met with the CEO today of one of those companies,” Biden said in the speech. “He said he is gonna add two million new jobs this year, allowing them freedom to work as many hours as they wish, manage their own lives as they wish.”

“Uber took special care to keep Kalanick’s meeting with Biden confidential,” the report said, before adding that the meeting was arranged “through a chain of former Obama staffers.”

In response to ICIJ’s questions in June, a White House spokeswoman said Biden was “committed to combating employee misclassification which deprives workers of critical protections and benefits, including minimum wage, overtime, and family and medical leave,” according to the report.

Kalanick served as Uber CEO from 2010 to 2017 before he resigned amid scrutiny over Uber’s treatment of female engineers and questionable business practices. However, he held on to his seat on the company’s board of directors until the end of 2019.

Europe

The report also named French President Emmanuel Macron, specifically about how he was an Uber ally when he was the country’s finance minister.

Uber’s service was partially suspended in France’s city of Marseille on Oct. 20, 2015, the report said, following protests by local taxi drivers.

“Could you ask your cabinet to help us to understand what is going on?” MacGann wrote to Macron.

Less than a day later, Macron responded, “I’ll look into this personally. Send me all the facts and we’ll decide by tonight. Let’s stay calm at this stage, I trust you.”

Hours later, authorities in Marseille said they would revise the suspension order, according to the report.

The report said the exchange between MacGann and Macron was “one of more than a dozen undisclosed communications” between Uber representatives and Macron.

Marcon’s office has responded to the Uber files, saying the economy minister had frequent contacts with companies disrupting the service industry at the time, and it was appropriate to facilitate the lifting of red tape, reported French newspaper Le Monde.

Kalanick also met with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in 2016.

“Right now you are seen as aggressive,” Rutte told Kalanick according to meeting notes cited in the report.

Rutte suggested that Kalanick “change the way people look at the company” by emphasizing the company’s positives.

“This will make you seem cuddly,” Rutte said. 

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Aspen Institute asks, ‘(How) should ESG leaders support democracy?’

The Aspen Institute is holding an invitation-only event, the “Aspen ESG Summit,” at a time when rising energy prices, novel climate mandates, and growing global instability have made environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) a subject of controversy.

Speakers on the three-day summit’s agenda include Securities and Exchange Commissioner Allison Herren Lee, who recently voted for sweeping new climate disclosure requirements for public companies.

Headquartered in the upscale mountain resort town of Aspen, Colorado, the Aspen Institute aims to “turn ideas into action and impact for individuals and society,” according to its mission statement.

In 2020 alone, the Aspen Institute received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, BlackRock, the Crown family, the Ford Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Bloomberg Family Foundation, among other billionaires and billionaire-founded non-profits.

It also received at least a million or more dollars from the U.S. Department of State and Walmart, respectively.

The Aspen Institute describes itself as values-based but non-partisan. It does not fund political candidates or parties.

“We do not engage in electoral politics or any activity that would require registration under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, and do not engage staff or contractors as ‘lobbyists’ as defined by the Act,” it states on its website.

Some sources have characterized the organization as left-leaning. In 2019, The Economist described it as “the mountain retreat for the liberal elite.”

Data from Open Secrets show that individuals employed by or closely connected with the Aspen Institute have donated overwhelmingly to Democrats in recent election cycles.

During the 2022 cycle, for example, 98.26 percent of the money that those individuals donated to federal candidates went to Democrats. During the 2018 cycle, all of their money went to Democrats.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has also taken aim at the Aspen Institute. In his current Twitter bio, he sarcastically calls himself a “frequent visitor to the Aspen Inst.”

In an April monologue, Carlson alluded to its influence when criticizing former President Barack Obama’s Stanford University speech on disinformation.

“So me and my friends at the Aspen Institute need to be in complete control of every word uttered, or else it’s not democracy,” he opined.

Team Aspen Rules on What’s ‘Valuable’ for Democracy

ESG was recently slammed by Elon Musk, who described it as a “scam” after the S&P Global Index removed his pioneering electric car company, Tesla Motors, from its ESG Index.

In addition, the treasurers of many energy-producing states in the United States believe they have been unfairly penalized by new ESG ratings.

Representatives of the United States’ largest banks and other companies are also slated to talk at the Aspen Institute’s summit, which lasts from July 11 until July 14.

Those speakers include individuals affiliated with Citi, Microsoft, Starbucks, Putnam Investments, Prudential, GE, and Danone.

One “dialogue stream” at the event is titled, “(How) Should ESG Leaders Support Democracy?”

“Threats to democracy have upended business as usual domestically and abroad. Why should ESG leaders care? Are ESG leaders playing a role in operationalizing the pro-democracy commitments their firms have made—or how might they, while still doing their day job?” the agenda states.

In a 2021 set of “Predictions for Business and Society in 2022,” the Aspen Institute’s Judy Samuelson gave praise to employees who, “in the wake of January 6th” were the ones to connect their “company’s PAC [political action committee] to support of elected officials engaged in anti-democratic behavior.”

“As we move toward midterms, concern for our democracy will only grow—and businesses, particularly those that are active in the pay-to-[play] system that dominates our political system—will again be under the microscope of employees,” she wrote at the time.

The Aspen Institute did not respond to The Epoch Times’ requests for comment or footage of the event.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The Florida Democratic Party’s annual leadership conference is sponsored by Big Pharma giant and COVID-19 vaccine pusher Pfizer, The National Pulse can reveal.

Taking place July 15th through 17th, the event and gala count Pfizer as one of its lead corporate sponsors in addition to Democratic campaign and lobby groups. ActBlue – the prominent payment processor for Democrats and Black Lives Matter – is also a sponsor, in addition to the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

The “Leadership Blue” event, hosted in Tampa, convenes Democratic candidates for office and Florida Democratic Party (FDP) officials from across the state for training seminars and meetings.

Pfizer’s sponsorship appears to pose yet another conflict of interest given the company’s role as a COVID-19 vaccine maker which still enjoys government protection against legal challenges over their MRNA therapies.

Furthermore, despite obscuring results from its pharmaceutical trials and studies suggesting natural immunity confers better protection than COVID-19 vaccination, the company has continued to receive approval on its vaccines and boosters from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Meanwhile, Floridian Democrats have criticized state Governor Ron DeSantis for failing to implement COVID-19 vaccine mandates for businesses and schools – a policy that directly affects Pfizer’s profits. The pharmaceutical giant has spent a record-breaking amount on lobbyists throughout COVID-19, strategically tapping former government employees with ties to Joe Biden, to push for authorization of its vaccine.

In 2019, the company spent $11,000,000 on lobbying efforts before increasing the total to $13,150,000 – the highest total since 2010.

In 2019, the company retained 77 lobbyists before the total grew to a team of 102 lobbyists in 2020. So far in 2021, Pfizer has declared 92 lobbyists.

Pfizer has employed a similar tactic outside the political sphere, as individuals tied to the company hold influential roles within media, technology, and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Earlier this year, Democrats en masse voted against a move that would prohibit the monitoring and persecution of American citizens who refused the vaccine.

In October 2021, a Pfizer scientist was caught on hidden camera admitting to profiteering off COVID-19.

Pfizer’s sponsorship also follows the event moving from its original location of Disney World to the Tampa JW Marriott due to pressure from LGBTQ activists over Disney’s initial refusal to condemn Governor DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

A survey discovered that charging logistics is the primary reason why Americans aren’t buying electric vehicles.

Consumer Reports, which said it surveyed around 8,000 Americans, found that 61 percent said they wouldn’t seek to own an electric vehicle because of charging logistics while 55 percent cited the number of miles a vehicle can go per charge. Another 52 percent said that the costs of buying and maintaining an electric vehicle are cost-prohibitive.

Another 46 percent of the respondents stated they have not heard of any financial incentives available for owners of electric vehicles.

“We found that 14 percent of American drivers say they would ‘definitely’ buy or lease an electric-only vehicle if they were to buy a vehicle today,” said Consumer Reports. “That’s up markedly from the 4 percent who said the same in a 2020 nationally representative survey from CR of 3,392 licensed U.S. drivers.”

According to recent figures from Kelly Blue Book, the average price of a new electric vehicle hovered at roughly $56,000. In contrast, the average price of a new compact was about $25,000 at about the same time. The average price of a new, non-electric SUV was $34,000, while the electric version was nearly $45,000.

Meanwhile, a recent report from data analysis and advisory firm J.D. Power, however, found that electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids may have more problems than internal combustion engines.

While internal combustion engine vehicles averaged 175 problems per 100 vehicles, this jumped to 239 among plug-in hybrids and 240 among electric vehicles, a June 28 press release of the J.D. Power 2022 U.S. Initial Quality Study stated. Lower scores represented higher-quality vehicles.

Tesla models, which were included in the industry calculation for the first time, averaged 226 problems per 100 vehicles, according to the report.

“Automakers continue to launch vehicles that are more and more technologically complex in an era in which there have been many shortages of critical components to support them,” David Amodeo, director of global automotive at J.D. Power, according to the press release.

Amid elevated gas prices, White House officials have continued to suggest that Americans buy an electric car as Republicans have faulted the Biden administration’s policies for the spike in prices.

In mid-June, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm suggested that Americans can deal with $5 per gallon of gasoline by ditching an internal combustion engine in favor of an electric one.

“If you filled up your EV [electric vehicle] and you filled up your gas tank with gasoline, you would save $60 per fill-up by going electric rather than using gasoline, but it’s a very compelling case,” she said in a clip circulated by Republicans on social media on June 14. “But again, we want to bring down the price at the point of purchase.”

Naveen Athrappully contributed to this report.

Americans’ confidence in major U.S. institutions—including government and the media—is in a state of collapse, falling to an average of just 27 percent across all categories, according to the latest national poll released by the Gallup Organization.

Only the military and small businesses still enjoy the confidence of a majority of Americans.

Although public belief in institutions has been weak for most of the past 15 years, the 27 percent average for all categories is the lowest recorded by Gallup.

The company began measuring confidence in institutions in 1973 and has done so each year since 1993.

The survey figures came after Gallup delivered sobering news on June 22. At that time the company said confidence in the overall direction of the country fell to 13 percent that month, down 3 percentage points from May and 11 points since March when the figure was 24 percent.

It also reported at that time that despite ongoing economic malaise, resident Joe Biden’s job approval rating held steady at 41 percent between May and June.

Gallup’s finding on the issue was called into question by the Civiqs Poll’s daily tracking survey of registered voters which found Biden’s approval rating has sunk to a new record low of just 30 percent, the New York Post reported July 9.

Only in two states, the Democratic strongholds of Vermont and Hawaii, are the president’s supporters more numerous than his detractors.

Gallup also reported on June 29 that although 96 percent of U.S. adults expressed pride in varying degrees about being American, that figure includes a record low of 38 percent who consider themselves “extremely proud” to be Americans, the lowest figure for that description since the company began tracking the issue in 2001.

Another 27 percent of Americans said they were “very proud,” while 22 percent said they were “moderately proud,” and 9 percent described themselves as “only a little proud.”

Four percent said they were “not at all” proud to be Americans.

In the new Gallup survey, Americans expressed less confidence in institutions than they did a year ago, with significant declines in 11 of the 16 examined—and no improvements for any of the institutions.

The biggest drops were regarding the presidency as an institution—as opposed to the job performance of the current president—and the Supreme Court.

Confidence in the presidency is now at 23 percent, which is 15 percentage points lower than 2021.

The Supreme Court came in at 25 percent, down 11 points since 2021. The survey was completed before the court rendered landmark rulings on gun rights and abortion, decisions that have proven controversial.

Confidence in Congress came in at just 7 percent, down from 12 percent a year ago.

The figures for the presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court were record Gallup lows.

Five other institutions’ ratings plunged to record lows.

The church and organized religion weighed in at 31 percent, down from 37 percent. Newspapers scored 16 percent, falling from 21 percent. The criminal justice system got 14 percent, after rating 20 percent. Big business came in at 14 percent, falling from 18 percent. The police garnered 45 percent after the 51 percent figure a year ago.

Large technology companies weighed in at 26 percent, down from 29 percent. Gallup has only been measuring confidence in the category for three years.

Small business and the military still enjoy the confidence of a majority of Americans, despite slipping support. Small business came in at 68 percent, down from 70 percent in 2021. The military had a confidence level of 64 percent, which is lower than the previous 69 percent figure.

Confidence in the medical system is at 38 percent, down from 44 percent. The figure for public schools is 28 percent, down from 32 percent. Banks scored 27 percent, a drop from 33 percent. Confidence in organized labor remained steady at 28 percent.

Confidence in television news is down to 11 percent from 16 percent in the 2021 survey.

The new annual survey was carried out by telephone in the first three weeks of June. The respondents were 1,015 adults in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/confidence-in-us-media-government-and-justice-system-collapsing_4589439.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-07-11-2&utm_medium=email&est=WQ7IxDJu41RqYANJ%2Fie16XB%2BXk6DnxEZqS9ppCdU1MliBuh5UAG6oFEh8n69f%2FYwhg%3D%3D

Billionaire Elon Musk reacted with a series of memes to Twitter’s preparations to sue him in a bid to force him to complete the purchase of the social media platform for $44 billion.

In a late-night Twitter post on July 10, Musk shared a meme featuring images of himself laughing, along with captions that marked several key developments in his buyout bid saga.

pic.twitter.com/JcLMee61wj

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022

Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, which is well above the current market price of $32.65 at the close of regular trading on July 11.

He has since moved to abandon the deal, making a formal filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (pdf) that claims there are too many bots and automated accounts on the platform.

Twitter fired back, saying it would try to enforce the deal and possibly hit Musk with a lawsuit.

Bret Taylor, chairman of Twitter, said in a July 8 social media post that the company plans to sue Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery to force him to follow through with the deal.

There has been media speculation that a filing could come as soon as early this week.

In April, Musk bought a significant amount of Twitter’s shares, triggering speculation that he would enforce changes to the company’s content moderation policies.

Musk has repeatedly taken aim at Twitter, arguing that it has a left-wing bias and targets conservative accounts.

‘Exorbitant’ Price

Former President Donald Trump reacted to Musk’s filing that seeks to pull out of the $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, saying he believed the move was inevitable.

“I knew that Twitter had a lot of the fake accounts because I read, like everyone else does,” Trump, who owns the Truth Social platform, told Breitbart News.

He also said he “thought that the price [tag] was exorbitant.”

Twitter has said that bots or automated accounts make up less than 5 percent of the total accounts, a claim disputed by Musk. His legal team said in the July 8 filing that Twitter has failed to give him sufficient access to its data to carry out his own analysis, while essentially arguing that the company misrepresented its monetizable daily active user counts and so broke the terms of their agreement.

“I called it early and said, ‘That deal is never going to happen,’” Trump said, noting that he thinks the matter is heading for litigation.

The meme Musk posted on July 10 concludes with an image of him laughing, along with the caption “now they have to disclose bot info in court,” suggesting that he believes Twitter will be forced to provide some of the information he’s been demanding regarding automated accounts.

Trump also suggested that the Twitter buyout saga bodes well for his own social platform.

“Personally, I have something called Truth,” he said, referring to the Truth Social platform.

“It’s very successful. We have better interactions. It’s doing phenomenal, and it’ll be over 5 million people very soon, and we’ll be at 10 million people in the not-too-distant future.”

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

THE NEW DATA WILL SEND SHIVERS UP THE SPINES OF ELECTION FRAUDSTERS.

plurality of Americans believe the upcoming midterm elections will experience fraud, according to a new poll by Rasmussen Reports sponsored by The National Pulse. The poll also revealed the stunning evidence that a clear majority of Americans believe the result of the 2020 election was blighted by cheating.

Fifty percent of likely U.S. voters feel that there will be “widespread cheating that will affect the outcome of this fall’s congressional elections,” including 24 percent of people who believe the prospect is very likely. Just 22 percent of voters think cheating is not at all likely to affect the November midterms, the poll reveals.

Asked, “Which is more important – Making it easier for everybody to vote, or making sure there is no cheating in elections?” just 38 percent answered they prefer to make it easier for everyone to vote, with an overwhelming 59 percent saying they would prefer to focus on no cheating in elections.

The news comes as Democrats attempt to make universal, unverified voting a key part of their platform, while Republicans urge more safety measures. The 2020 election results continue to be hotly disputed after the injection of private, corporate cash and the introduction of unsecured and unmanned mail-in “drop boxes”.

Rasmussen data shows 52 percent of likely U.S. voters maintain that it is at least somewhat likely cheating influenced the 2020 presidential election, with 36 percent of people polled believing it is very likely. Much of the distrust in elections appears to stem from concerns surrounding the integrity of the aforementioned mail-in ballots, with 58 percent of voters believing it is at least somewhat likely that broadening the use of mail-in ballots will result in more cheating in elections. Thirty-nine percent of voters felt that this was very likely.

Just 16 percent – or fewer than one in five voters – believe that mail-in voting will not lead to more cheating.

The figures, which reveal a sizable distrust in America’s election systems, follow substantial evidence from the 2020 election that mail-in ballots and far-left activist groups were used to secure a victory for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

In addition to a host of mysterious, late-night ballot dumps, left-wing groups associated with individuals including George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg influenced election rules and officials to boost turnout in Democratic districts. Many of these groups have rebranded following intense scrutiny in the aftermath of the 2020 election but appear to be engaging in similar efforts.

Establishment media outlets, social media platforms, and Democratic politicians have set out to silence individuals discussing voter fraud, despite peddling similar claims about Russian election influence throughout 2016 and the entirety of Donald Trump’s presidency. Under resident Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has also targeted officials and activists fighting for election integrity by threatening criminal prosecution.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared to poke fun at Bill Gates on Thursday after the Microsoft founder claimed that clean hydrogen energy could zero out emissions and help tackle climate change.

Gates, on his Twitter account, had earlier posted a link to a blog entry titled “To cut emissions, use this Swiss Army Knife”; a screenshot of which was captured and shared by The Whole Mars Catalog on Twitter.

“Cheap clean hydrogen would be a great breakthrough we have many uses for it. Also if we could bottle the tooth fairy and clone Santa Claus, and replace public transport with unicorns we’d be all good,” one Twitter user commented in response to the blog post, to which Musk replied with a laughing face emoji.

Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source, and can be used in fuel cells to generate electricity, or power and heat. In the United States, it is predominantly used to refine petroleum, treat metals, produce fertilizer, and process foods.

Because its conversion into electricity does not emit greenhouse gases, Hydrogen could potentially serve to meet climate change coals set out by resident Joe Biden as well as other world leaders.

However, critics note that while it is a renewable source and has only minimal impact on the environment, it doesn’t come without its risks: it is more flammable than natural gas and its flame is nearly invisible.

Scientists have also warned that hydrogen leaked into the atmosphere can contribute to climate change by increasing the amounts of other greenhouse gases, thus indirectly resulting in global warming.

‘Cheap, Green Hydrogen Would Be a Massive Breakthrough in Clean Energy’

Hydrogen is also difficult to store, given its low volumetric energy density, and must be compressed into gas or liquid at extremely low temperatures.

It also isn’t commercially viable right now.

Gates’ blog post notes that “cheap, green hydrogen would be a massive breakthrough in clean energy” and that “the world already uses 70 million tons of hydrogen each year as a chemical in some manufacturing processes like making fertilizer” of which nearly all is produced from fossil fuels.

“If we make that hydrogen clean, we eliminate the 1.6 percent of global emissions that it is responsible for now,” the billionaire wrote.

Electrolysis is the process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, which takes place in an electrolyzer, according to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

However, the process can be expensive and energy-intensive.

“There are four different electrolyzer technologies being developed, and the price of each one needs to go down to make electrolyzed hydrogen cost-competitive,” Gates wrote on his blog.

“Finally, there are reserves of hydrogen in geologic formations around the world, and in theory, geologic hydrogen has the potential to provide a vast supply of affordable, zero-emissions hydrogen,” Gates continued. “Scientists are still in the early stages of researching ways to find and extract geologic hydrogen from natural reserves.”

Pointing to Russia’s war in Ukraine and the West’s aim to reduce dependence on Russian natural gas imports, Gates noted that the European Union has already announced plans to produce and import 20 million tons of green hydrogen by 2030.

‘Load Of Rubbish’

Musk has previously called hydrogen fuel cells “a load of rubbish” and claimed that success with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is “simply not possible.”

This is not the first time that Musk and Gates have appeared to butt heads.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, in May Gates claimed that Musk could “actually could make it worse,” while referring to misinformation and his planned takeover of the social media platform, Twitter.

However, the tech billionaire noted: “That’s not his track record.”

In April, the businessman became embroiled in a public spat when Musk said he confronted Gates over his short-selling of shares of Tesla, despite vowing to combat climate change.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Robert Crimo Jr. sponsored son’s application for a firearm owners card

The man accused of carrying out a mass shooting in Illinois on July 4 discussed a shooting the night prior, his father said in a new interview after authorities said they’re opening a criminal investigation into the father.

Robert Crimo Jr., the father, told The New York Post that he and his son, Robert Crimo III, spoke the evening before the Independence Day shooting about the mass shooting in Denmark that had just taken place.

“He goes, ‘Yeah, that guy is an idiot.’ That’s what he said!” Crimo Jr. said.

“People like that … [commit mass shootings] to amp up the people that want to ban all guns,” Crimo III also said, according to his father.

Crimo Jr. said he was shocked that his son apparently killed seven people and injured others by firing on a parade in Highland Park, just outside Chicago, speculating that Crimo III had “a psychiatric break or something.”

“I had not an inkling, warning, that this was going to happen,” Crimo Jr. told ABC News. He said his son seemed to be in a “great mood” the night before the attack.

Crimo III, 21, was taken into custody in Lake Forest, Illinois, hours after the shooting. He was charged with seven counts of murder, and he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. Crimo III, who hasn’t yet entered a plea, was ordered held without bond in a hearing on July 6.

The Lake County Public Defender’s Office, which is representing the accused, referred a request to comment to Lake County, which didn’t respond to a query.

Law enforcement authorities have said little about the accused shooter’s motivation for carrying out the attack. But they said he confessed to the crime, and that an investigation showed he drove to Madison, Wisconsin, after the shooting and contemplated another attack before driving back to Illinois.

Father Under Scrutiny

Crimo III obtained five firearms legally after turning 18, officials have said. Crimo Jr. passed a background check each time he went to get a weapon, according to the Illinois State Police (ISP).

Crimo III obtained a Firearm Owners Identification Card despite being the subject of a Clear and Present Danger report in 2019. Officers were told that Crimo III “stated that he was going to kill everyone” and had a collection of 16 knives, a dagger, and a samurai sword in his closet.

But officers couldn’t find evidence to substantiate the report and no one, including family members, was willing to provide information “on threats or mental health that would have allowed law enforcement to take additional action,” according to the ISP, which was informed of the interaction with the Crimo family.

The process “is so dependent upon the people that may be closest around the individual of concern,” ISP Director Brendan Kelly said at a July 6 news conference.

Crimo Jr. claimed the knives were his and were being stored in his son’s closet for safekeeping.

Crimo Jr. told ABC that the situation was “taken out of context,” describing his son’s language at the time as “a child’s outburst” and identifying the person who alerted law enforcement as the suspect’s sister.

State law requires parental consent for a person under the age of 21 to obtain a card. Crimo Jr., several months after the law enforcement visit to the family’s home, sponsored his son’s application for the firearm owner’s card. Each sponsor must sign a form saying they understand they “shall be liable for any damages resulting from the minor applicant’s use of firearms or firearm ammunition.”

While Lake County State Attorney Eric Rinehart, a prosecutor, declined on July 6 to say whether relatives of Crimo III could face charges, Kelly indicated hours later that he may be prosecuted, depending on what the investigation uncovers.

Crimo Jr. told ABC he doesn’t regret sponsoring his son, and Steve Greenberg, a lawyer representing Crimo Jr. and Crimo III’s mother, has attempted to shift blame to the police, questioning why the application was approved.

“The ‘system’ is trying to make this about parenting,” Greenberg said on Twitter. It is “up to ISP to decide if the individual is competent to own a gun.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Seth Dillon will not back away from making fun of irrational and dangerous ideology

Seth Dillon, CEO of the satire news website The Babylon Bee, said the company’s goal is to show the irrationality of the popular narratives that pervade modern culture by making jokes about the issues of the time, from Roe v. Wade to the fact that a Supreme Court nominee could not define the word “woman.”

“Rationality itself is under attack. It’s not just free speech. There are people who have abandoned rationality on purpose, and are trying to get you to go along with agreeing with them that two and two make five,” Dillon said during a recent interview for EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

Dillon’s goal with The Babylon Bee is to make people laugh and question their own thinking, he said, but he’s found the company taking on a more important role.

“The goal was to make people laugh, and to make them think a little bit, to be subversive the way that satire is supposed to be subversive, to poke holes in the popular narrative,” said Dillon. “The goal wasn’t to be on the front lines of some kind of big battle but that is where things are at.”

Although clearly satire, The Babylon Bee has been attacked as being fake news, banned on some platforms, and subjected to “fact-checks.”

Fact-Checking Satire

“The issue that we’ve had with the fact-checkers is that if they had just gone to our pieces and said, ‘Hey, this is a viral piece of content, you may have seen it going around. This is satire. Laugh, it’s satire,’ that wouldn’t have been detrimental to our business,” Dillon said.

“The problem was that they were out there saying, ‘Oh, these guys have managed to pull off these tricks before. They’re duping you. They’re presenting you with fake news. They’re pretending to be satirists, but they’re really deceivers, and it’s a hub for disinformation.’”

One of the fact-checking companies told Dillon they only fact-check an article if they get hundreds of people asking the company if a headline is true.

Dillon said when he questioned this fact-checker about where they were getting their complaints about The Babylon Bee articles, the fact-checker could not give him an answer and stopped responding to his emails.

“There’s no question in their mind that we are legitimately satire,” Dillon said about the fact-checkers, “but they use the fact-checking as an excuse to try to vilify us as being someone who’s out there trying to mislead the public.”

“This is not merely innocuous content moderation where they’re saying, ‘This is lewd or indecent content, we’re taking it down,’” said Dillon. “It’s viewpoint discrimination under the guise of benign content moderation.”

What Is a Woman

In order to poke fun at Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson for saying she couldn’t define the word “woman” during her confirmation hearings, The Babylon Bee produced a video in which a young boy is asked to spell the word “woman” during a spelling bee. He asks the judges for the definition, and they can’t give it to him.

“When you play it out, what a sketch like this allows you to do is take the absurdity of the absurd position that someone holds and put it into a practical context, like an everyday context where it’s exposed for how absurd it really is,” said Dillon.

“She said, ‘I’m not a biologist,’ but what’s a biologist got to say about it? You know, as far as gender ideology goes, your sex, your biological makeup has nothing to do with your gender at all,” he said.

Dillon has found that the public is hungry for The Babylon Bee’s type of humor.

“I think that comedy that pushes back, and is willing to make jokes that you’re not supposed to make, is really refreshing right now,” he said.

Comedians who push back on the “woke” narrative, like Dave Chappelle, are the ones audiences want to listen to and that are gaining popularity, but they’re attacked for “punching down.”

“Punching down is a derogatory term to describe jokes made at the expense of people who have less power than you,” said Dillon.

Included in this way of thinking is that these groups should not be made fun of because they are weaker and more victimized in society, said Dillon.

“I think it’s the most absurd thing in the world to try to put yourself in the mindset when you’re writing a joke, stopping yourself and thinking to yourself, ‘You know what, I can’t joke about those people, they’re beneath me.’ That’s just a ridiculous condescending thought to have,” said Dillon

‘Safeguard Against Insanity’

The Babylon Bee was accused of punching down when the website jokingly named the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, a transgender woman, “man of the year” in one of its headlines.

“Well, this is a white male, high ranking government official, for one thing, and this is an idea that’s being foisted on us from the top down,” said Dillon, who believes his website is justified in joking about Levine.

“I think it’s a real sign of not just, you know, mental, but also spiritual immaturity, to be incapable and unwilling to examine yourself and laugh at yourself,” said Dillon

All of the jokes are meant to make people laugh and to expose irrational and dangerous ideology, not to be cruel, said Dillon.

In addition, the indoctrination of young children with the current transgender ideology is having a detrimental effect on children, he said.

“You can call it cruel because it hurt somebody’s feelings, but I think that it’s actually a safeguard against insanity, which is harmful,” said Dillon

Twitter suspended The Babylon Bee’s account over the Levine “man of the year” article and said if The Babylon Bee deleted the tweet, the account would be reinstated.

Deleting the tweet would mean acknowledging that The Babylon Bee engaged in hateful conduct, Dillon said, and he doesn’t agree with that assessment.

“That’s why we’re not [deleting] it,” he said.

Dillon stands firm about people’s right to free speech.

“You either have to be compelled to say what we want you to say or remain silent and censor yourself. When we’ve reached that point, that’s where I say that’s a hill worth dying on,” said Dillon.

Some of The Babylon Bee’s satirical headlines, including “Pants Sales Plummet as Everyone Working From Home” or “Progressive Church Announces New Drag Queen Bible Story Hour” have come true after the headlines were published.

Opposing Transgender Indoctrination of Children

“There’s this weird thing happening, where it’s becoming difficult for us to make jokes that are so absurd [that] they don’t come true because we’re kind of on this fast track towards insanity,” said Dillon

“I quoted [English writer G.K.] Chesterton, who said that the world has become too absurd to be satirized,” said Dillon.

Currently, with school children being indoctrinated with transgender ideology and some communities having drag queens come in full garb to do story time, or instructions being sent home with kindergarteners about masturbation, Dillon believes sane people need to voice their opposition because this is harmful to young developing minds.

“There’s a moral obligation you have as a parent to insulate your children from things that would corrupt their innocence to the extent that you can. You certainly don’t want to be exposing them to it, or indoctrinating them, or trying to normalize behavior that you know is lewd or indecent,” he said.

Dillon said he is shocked that more people are not outraged about this type of indoctrination, sexualization, and grooming of young children.

The people doing the indoctrination are “pretty open about their motivations and their purpose, their mission is to stir up the queer imagination in children,” said Dillon.

“The culture of what is accepted by the left is getting more and more extreme, but they are not willing to be made fun of,” Dillon said, adding that this is the reason The Babylon Bee is targeted by the left.

“There’s no tolerance on the left for jokes about their sacred cows. So there needs to be a two-way street, where the jokes are allowed to flow in both directions, because they’re very vicious in their humor about conservatives, about Christians,” he said. “They are willing to dish it out but they can’t take it.”

Recently, Dillon personally backed the creator of the Twitter account Libs of TikTok, who exposes the left’s obsession with transgender ideology.

“What Libs of TikTok is doing is, I think, important journalistic work that a lot of journalists are neglecting,” said Dillon. And the reason the left has targeted the account is that it is exposing their amoral agenda

A Meeting With Musk

In December 2021, Dillon, along with The Babylon Bee’s Editor in Chief Kyle Mann and Creative Director Ethan Nicolle, sat down for a longform interview with Elon Musk.

“I asked him, what do you think is so harmful about [woke ideology] and he said it’s divisive, it’s exclusionary, it’s hateful, it gives mean people an excuse to be cruel, while armored in false virtue,” Dillon recalled.

Musk told the leaders of The Babylon Bee that he is a free speech absolutist, and because he is in the financial position to buy Twitter, wants to ensure that true public discourse is allowed to happen on the platform, said Dillon.

“That’s the reason that he’s interested in and taking over Twitter, because wokeness is a lot of the driving force behind compelling certain speech, pressuring people to censor themselves. Otherwise, they’ll be canceled and deplatformed. He sees free speech as being vital for the health of a society,” added Dillon.

The Babylon Bee will continue to speak out against irrational attempts to cancel what they are doing, said Dillon.

“The best way to subvert, the best way to push back on that, is to speak the truth boldly and not censor yourself,” said Dillon.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Elon Musk has called on an independent journalist to provide information on how the U.S. government is allegedly pressuring Twitter to suspend the journalist’s account for posting anti-vaccination content.

Musk asked Substack writer, Alex Berenson, in a July 6 post on Twitter, about Berenson’s allegation that the U.S. government had pressured Twitter to censor him for posting his opinion questioning the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.

“Can you say more about this: ‘… pressures that the government may have placed on Twitter …’,” Musk said, referencing Berenson’s blog post about being suspended by Twitter.

Can you say more about this: “… pressures that the government may have placed on Twitter …”

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2022

“I wish I could,” Berenson said minutes later, responding to Musk, “but the settlement with [Twitter] prevents me from doing so. However, in the near future I hope and expect to have more to report.”

Berenson’s Twitter account was reinstated on July 6 after the social media platform “permanently” banned him over purportedly violating its COVID “misinformation” policy. This follows Berenson filing a lawsuit against Twitter in April.

In a blog post published July 6, Berenson elaborated that despite his inability to discuss his case now, he will be able to disclose further “in the near future.”

“You know what it took Twitter to admit it shouldn’t have done what it did? You do not, and I can’t tell you, because the statement is all I can say about the settlement,” Berenson wrote.

“The settlement does not end my investigation into the pressures that the government may have placed on Twitter to suspend my account. I will have more to say on that issue in the near future,” he wrote.

“I made a promise to readers last month, and I take my promises to readers seriously.”

‘Close Nexus’

What attracted Musk’s attention was Berenson’s claim that government entities were pressuring Twitter to suspend Berenson over vaccine claims.

“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,” Berenson wrote in a Twitter post in August last year, hours before Twitter suspended his account.

In Berenson’s  lawsuit against Twitter, he alleges that the social media platform “acted on behalf of the federal government in censoring and barring him from to its platform.”

The lawsuit also cited the “extraordinarily close nexus” between government officials’ call for censorship and Twitter’s corresponding immediate actions.

“Mr. Berenson’s relationship with Twitter changed dramatically over the course of one week in July 2021,” read Berensen’s complaint, filed on Dec. 20, 2021.

“On Sunday, July 11, Dr. Anthony Fauci, resident Joe Biden’s Chief Medical Advisor, called Mr. Berenson’s comments about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy  ‘horrifying,’” the complaint said.

“By Friday, resident Biden himself piled on, blaming social media companies for ‘killing people’ on account of their failure to adequately censor content. Hours after resident Biden’s comment, Twitter locked Mr. Berenson out of his account for the first time,” it said.

“On August 28, in the wake of even more calls for censorship from government officials, Twitter permanently suspended Mr. Berenson from its platform, citing ‘repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules.’ Mr. Berenson did not violate those rules. Twitter, on the other hand, broke its promises to Mr. Berenson as well as its policies, and violated his rights as it served the federal government’s censorship demands,” the court filing continued.

“This case raises significant questions about private power and the state of free speech in America.”

‘Troubling’

Later on July 6, Musk commented on another post by author Glenn Greenwald that alleges officials in the Biden administration “pressure or coerce private actors to censor” free speech.

“Troubling …,” wrote Musk.

Troubling …

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2022

Musk, who is still finalizing a multi-billion dollar deal with Twitter, said in May that the platform has a “strong left-wing bias”.

The billionaire also called censorship on Twitter a “civilization risk” in April and suggested in May that he will lift the ban imposed on former President Donald Trump after he takes over.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a Nobel prize-nominated physician who famously discovered and distributed an early treatment protocol for COVID, dubbed the “Zelenko Protocol,” passed away from cancer on June 30, 2022.

The next day, some Twitter users started taking note of the suspension of the account of the Zelenko Freedom Foundation, a group dedicated “to provide funding to social entities and social activities surrounding education, leadership development, health literacy, advocacy, public policy, social, health and community development,” according to their website.

UPDATE on why the account was banned: pic.twitter.com/cTl4F1IHbC

— TexasLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay) July 1, 2022

“It is no secret that big tech abhors free speech and instead worships at the altar of Marxist collectivism and group-think. The Silicon Valley speech cartel has sunk to new lows when twitter suspended the Zelenko Freedom Foundation account less than 24 hours after the passing of Dr. Vladimir Zelenko,” co-chair of the Zelenko Freedom Foundation, Ann Vandersteel, told The Epoch Times.

She maintains that no one from Twitter reached out to verify who was managing the account.

“If they had bothered to do even the most basic of inquiries they would have learned that the account was run by the foundation, not by Dr. Zelenko. The account wasn’t established for some end around their ridiculous ban of Dr. Zelekno, the account was established to represent the interests of the Foundation, which is committed to investing in individuals and technologies that will save and extend the lives of people all across the globe,” she said.

Vandersteel thinks that the suspension of the foundation’s account was done for “no reason other than petty vindictiveness.”

“The question is, what does Elon Musk think? Does he believe in saving lives or does he want those lifesaving technologies silenced?”

Zelenko had been practicing in Monroe, New York, in 2020 during the outbreak of COVID-19, and is credited with having treated about 7,500 patients with his method.

Zelenko could not sit back and wait for politicians and health officials to agree on prescribed treatments, so he came up with the “Zelenko Protocol”—a combination of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), zinc, azithromycin, and other drugs, including steroids, and later informed then-President Donald Trump about it via a letter.

The other co-chair of the foundation, Kevin Jenkins, told The Epoch Times that the suspension reminded him of a Martin Luther King quote:

“All we say to America is ‘be true to what’s on paper.’ If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privilege, because they haven’t committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so, just as I say, we aren’t going to let dogs or water hoses turn us around; we aren’t going to let any injunction turn us around.”

“When Ann and I spoke with Dr. Zelenko, regarding the mission of this Foundation he said, ‘I want the truth to spread like a mantra!’” Jenkins said.

“Our team at the Zelenko Freedom Foundation will stay true to Dr. Zelenko and Dr. King! We will fight to the end to save humanity! Come join us Zfreedomfoundation.com. Dr. Zelenko’s dream will not be deferred!” he added.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

As electric vehicles continue to be pushed on the nation by the Biden administration, certain facts are coming to light about them, and this time we are hearing warnings from the nation’s firefighters.

As the number of electric car owners grows, so too are the problems peculiar to EV ownership. From lack of charging stations, to unexpected expenses for repairs and now to water waste.

You read that right. Water waste.

According to News Nation firemen are warning that electric car fires are far more problematic than fires that engulf gas-powered vehicles.

Lt. Tanner Morgan with the Grand Prairie Fire Department near Dallas told News Nation that fire departments are not exactly ready to deal with EVs.

“We’re at that critical point where the consumer-driven world we live in is pushing these vehicles out and the fire department is playing catch up,” he said.

Lt. Morgan went on to say that a gas-powered car typically takes less than 1,000 gallons of water to douse it when it catches on fire. But EVs are a bigger problem, he said. When an electric vehicle catches on fire, firemen are faced with a “thermal runaway.”

Morgan added that the lithium-ion batteries in an EV fuel a fire to a much higher degree than gasoline. And firefighters are having to learn that they need different tactics to fight an EV fire.

Fremont Fire Department Battalion Chief Gary Ashley said, “The protocol is to start using copious amounts of water, up to 3,000 gallons, so that’s what we started doing.”

Unfortunately, 3,000 gallons wasn’t enough for a recent EV fire in Sacramento. News Nation reported that firefighters on that case didn’t start getting the fire under control until 4,500 gallons were sprayed onto the flames. Authorities said that even when firefighters sprayed water directly on the battery compartment, the fire kept reigniting.

Even Tesla warned about the huge amount of water needed to douse an EV fire.

“Tesla’s own emergency response guide for the Model S warns that battery fires can require between 3,000 to 8,000 gallons of water to fully extinguish the flames,” News Nations wrote. So, obviously, 10,000 gallons is not out of the question.

Officials are also warning rural fire departments — in areas where fire hydrants are not available — could face very dangerous conditions with EV fires, especially when many fire trucks cannot hold that much water.

“In rural areas, especially on interstates where there are no hydrants, this is going to create a logistical issue for emergency response agencies as they’re going to have to shuttle the water up that they need,” the National Volunteer Fire Council’s Tom Miller said.

Related:

Journalists Tow Camper Behind Electric Truck, End in Stunning Failure When They Only Make it 85 Miles

Still, some advocates say EV fires are far less common than fires in other types of vehicles.

News Nation added that AutoInsuranceEZ finds that there were only 25 EV fires for every 100,000 electric vehicles sold. But there are more than 1,500 fires per 100,000 gas-powered vehicles sold.

Fires, of course, are only one heightened issue that electric vehicle owners are faced with. There are many new issues that car owners did not expect when becoming an EV owner.

Resident Joe Biden and his administration sell EVs as the miracle cure to the woes of rising gas prices. But what the administration doesn’t note is that EVs have issues of their own.

There are much higher vehicle registration fees — sometimes two and three times higher. And speaking of taxes, many states are considering per-mile taxes for EVs. And then there are the plans to place surcharges on homes with EV charging stations.

Then there is the problem with finding parts and service. Car dealers may be selling more EVs, but their service departments are not staffed with the needed number of trained mechanics and service personnel, nor do they have the needed stockpile of parts in stock to fix what has broken.

And this isn’t even to mention the environmental issues and high costs with the massive batteries that make these cars go.

These are just some of the new troubles intrinsic to owning an electric vehicle. And we will continue learning about the pitfalls of these cars as more of them hit the road.

Paging Elon Musk! Wishful thinking and a proposed $44 billion buyout won’t fix Twitter’s extreme bias against conservatives. The corrupt social media platform continues to suppress conservative thought and opinion — big time — and I have the screenshots to prove it.

After quitting the social media platform in January 2021 in protest of its rampant censorship of conservatives, myself included, I decided to give it another try this week to see if the billionaire entrepreneur’s laudable support for free speech and moves to acquire the network have improved its liberal bias. Not a chance! It turns out the far-left activists that run Twitter and its secretive algorithms are still rigging the platform in the Democratic Party’s favor — in plain view — by pushing users to follow liberal lawmakers, media outlets and other lefty accounts versus conservative ones.

When rejoining Twitter this week, it asked me to select topics I’m interested in. I chose “outdoors” and “business/finance.” Then it made suggestions of who to follow. Get ready to cringe …

One of its recommendations was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a “Russia Hoax” conspiracy theorist and known misinformation peddler who led the charge on former President Donald Trump’s impeachment and currently sits on the slanted Jan. 6 House Committee trying to drum up evidence to indict the 45th president to stop him from running again in 2024.

What the heck does that liberal lawmaker — and rabid Trump hater — have to do with my preferred topics of interest? Zero.

Twitter also suggested I follow dozens of other liberal lawmakers, including resident Joe Biden’s two accounts, first lady Jill Biden, the White House, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — a radical left-wing socialist who supports abolishing police despite New York’s high crime rate — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Vice President Kamala Harris and Beto O’Rourke, who’s running against Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Of course, Twitter didn’t suggest I also follow Abbott, the elected incumbent, as that would be fair and balanced, something the “woke” activists at Twitter care little about.

The platform also encouraged me to follow Alexander Vindman, the former director of European Affairs at the National Security Council, whose 2019 Congressional testimony contributed to Trump’s impeachment. Again, what on earth does that Trump hater have to do with my interests in finance and the great outdoors?

Twitter also recommended I follow Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, who never met a tax hike he didn’t like, Democrat Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Ed Markey, Chris Murphy and Cory Booker, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his spouse, Chasten. Add Reps. Ted Lieu and Katie Porter, Hillary Clinton, far-left “Squad” member Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Stacey Abrams and former Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III.

But that’s not all. It also suggested I follow Bill Clinton, his daughter Chelsea and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, currently running for governor, who, in response to the riots and nationwide destruction following the death of George Floyd in 2020, told attendees at a Boston Chamber of Commerce event, “Yes, America is burning, but that’s how forests grow.”

Twitter didn’t suggest I follow any Republican lawmakers in Washington. Not one!

Talk about rigged! The shocking reality is Twitter may be steering potentially millions of users, otherwise known as voters, to follow influential liberal lawmakers and others in media and beyond to sway public opinion and control the political narrative to tilt elections in Democrats’ favor.

Paging the U.S. Department of Justice; that’s what real collusion and election-meddling look like.

The only Republican official Twitter did recommend I follow was Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a known RINO (Republican In Name Only) who never missed an opportunity to bash Trump while in office.

But wait, there’s more. Here’s a snippet of media outlets and so-called journalists Twitter suggested I follow. You’ll notice the vast majority have one thing in common; they all loathe Trump and his “deplorable” supporters.

The New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Associated Press, The New Yorker, CNN’s Jake Tapper, Jim Acosta, David Axelrod, Maggie Haberman, Kaitlan Collins, Paul Krugman, MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Andrea Mitchell, Ari Melber, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes, Joy Reid and Nicole Wallace.

Add NPR, Yamiche Alcindor, “The View’s” Ana Navarro-Cardenas, former CIA spook John O. Brennan, Lincoln Project loons George Conway and Rick Wilson, Laurence Tribe, Dan Rather, Biden White House press secretaries Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre, NBC’s Katy Tur and Chuck Todd, The Atlantic writer Molly Jong-Fast, “The Daily Show,” Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart and countless Hollywood leftists, including Stephen King and Rob Reiner — just to name a few.

Twitter didn’t recommend I follow top-rated Fox News or any of its hosts, despite the outlet consistently crushing its cable news rivals for decades. Nor did it suggest I follow the highly respected New York Post — founded by Alexander Hamilton — or any other right-leaning news outlets or conservative voices across the media spectrum. After scores of liberal accounts Twitter wanted me to follow, Donald Trump Jr.’s name appeared far down the list.

Gee, thanks!

As you can see, Twitter is stacked against conservatives and, with few exceptions, is acting as the de facto publicity arm of the Democratic National Committee. The powerful social media behemoth is effectively making undeclared in-kind donations to the DNC by actively directing its users — including voters — to follow liberal accounts so Democrats can spread their political ideology and narrative du jour while simultaneously suppressing conservative viewpoints, including elected GOP lawmakers who represent millions of citizens.

If that isn’t interfering in U.S. elections, what is exactly?

SOURCE: Right and Free

Rep. Sharice Davids ditches $17,000 of energy stocks ahead of tough reelection bid

Rep. Sharice Davids (D., Kan.) quietly dumped her stock portfolio one day after the Washington Free Beacon reported she owned shares in green energy companies that regularly lobby Congress for subsidies.

Davids liquidated her portfolio on June 21, according to a disclosure filed with the House Ethics Committee on Friday. Davids’s investments in three green energy companies—FuelCell Energy, Maxeon Solar Technologies, and SunPower Corporation—posed a potential conflict of interest because of her position on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Davids said after joining the committee she would use her position to explore investments in green infrastructure projects. The committee has helped shape the Biden administration’s green-friendly infrastructure spending initiatives.

Davids owned up to $17,000 in shares of the three companies, along with a biotech firm, Organovo, and International Game Technology, a slot machine maker. She had owned shares in FuelCell and SunPower since at least 2018, according to previous financial disclosures.

Davids’s investments conflicted with her support for legislation that would ban members of Congress from owning or trading shares of public companies. She and her cosponsors said stock ownership creates a “serious conflict of interest” for members conducting oversight of publicly traded companies. Davids said the ban was needed to “improve transparency and accountability” for members of Congress following several investigations into lawmakers’ questionable stock transactions.

The National Republican Congressional Committee following the Free Beacon report blasted Davids over her stock holdings. “Kansas voters can’t trust a thing Sharice Davids says,” said Maggie Abboud, the spokeswoman for the House Republican campaign arm.

Davids faces a tough reelection bid in November after losing Democrat-leaning portions of her Kansas City suburban district through redistricting. She has cited “the ongoing public health emergency” to justify skipping out on in-person votes in Washington, D.C., often to attend fundraisers and other campaign events. Davids claimed the pandemic kept her from a vote last August, a day after she attended a Napa Valley fundraiser hosted by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). She missed another in-person vote on Nov. 18, two days after attending a fundraiser in Palm Springs, Calif. Davids’s campaign has spent more than $20,000 this election cycle on out-of-state lodging, including a $4,447 stay in March at the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills.

Davids’s office did not respond to requests for comment for this story or last month’s report.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has warned that China is using its space program to attempt to take over the moon, a claim the Chinese regime denies.

Nelson told German outlet Bild on July 2, “We must be very concerned that China is landing on the moon and saying: It’s ours now and you stay out.”

The purpose of China’s space program, Nelson said, “is a military space program,” and its accomplishments are built on technology theft.

The Chinese regime has denied Nelson’s allegations.

“This is not the first time that the NASA administrator has lashed out at China in disregard of facts,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.

“China always advocates the peaceful use of outer space, opposes the weaponization of and arms race in outer space,” he added.

However, experts told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times that the theft of space technology is common by the Chinese Communist Party, and that the space program itself is part of the Strategic Support Force of the military.

Technology Plagiarism

Nelson warned about the space race with China in a Congress hearing on May 17. In particular, he warned about China’s aggression in outer space and the cyber security risks posed by technology theft. He said, “They are pretty good at stealing.”

Yue Changzhi is an electronics engineer retired from the No. 2 Institute of the Ministry of Aerospace Industry of China.

She told The Epoch Times that she has no doubt that Beijing advanced its aerospace technology by relying on stealing.

She said that the thefts started in the 1960s when she was hired at the ministry. Her task was in the development of missiles and anti-missile systems in the electronic department.

“It was the early time when the Ministry of Aerospace Industry was just established. Plagiarism has been its approach, that is, to make a copy of things invented by others with a slight change in appearance,” Yue said.

Military Ambition

Nelson issued a statement on May 19, 2021 after China released the first photos from the Zhurong Mars rover.

“Congratulations to the China National Space Administration on receiving the first images from the Zhurong Mars rover!” Nelson said.

However, in this year’s Congress hearing Nelson warned that it is “incumbent upon us to take cyber security very very seriously … with regard to the government but the private sector as well.”

When asked what military purposes China could pursue in space, Nelson bluntly answered: “Well, what do you think is happening on the Chinese space station? They learn there how to destroy other people’s satellites,” reported Bild.

Commentator Wang He pointed out that the Chinese aerospace program was built in affiliation with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

He explained that satellite launch centers such as Jiuquan and Taiyuan are both under the control of the military. Both centers are located at the testing and training base of the PLA’s Strategic Support Force.

He further emphasized that in recent years, the regime manipulated its claim “to utilize outer space for peaceful purposes, promote mankind’s civilization and social progress,” as a cover for seeking international collaboration for the purpose of stealing technologies.

He said, “The so-called Chinese private companies involved in the international collaboration are still under the control of the Communist Party.”

In other words, they are “the front companies,” He stated.

Lin Cenxin and Chang Chun contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson has been allowed to return to Twitter, which banned him in 2021 for allegedly spreading COVID-19 misinformation.

Berenson and Twitter released similar statements on July 6.

“The parties have come to a mutually acceptable resolution. I have been reinstated. Twitter has acknowledged that my tweets should have not led to my suspension at that time,” Berenson said in a blog post on July 6, which he linked to in his first post on the platform since he was permanently suspended,” Berenson said in a blog post.

“The parties have come to a mutually acceptable resolution. Twitter has reinstated Mr. Berenson’s account. Upon further review, Twitter acknowledges Mr. Berenson’s Tweets should not have led to his account’s suspension at that time,” a Twitter spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

Vaccines

Minutes after Berenson posted for the first time following his reinstatement, he re-posted the words that triggered the ban.

“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,” he wrote.

Berenson was referring to the COVID-19 vaccines, which have proven increasingly unable to prevent infection from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. Also known as the SARS-CoV-2, the virus causes COVID-19.

Though the vaccines have been authorized and approved for prevention of the virus, they’re actually recommended primarily for helping prevent severe disease among those who contract the illness.

Twitter had initially claimed that Berenson’s post was “misleading,” even though the company acknowledged that “studies indicate a reduction in vaccine effectiveness against the Omicron variant” of the virus.

Studies show that the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson shots—the only three available in the United States—provide little protection against Omicron, and that the protection quickly wanes.

Some studies indicate that the vaccinated are more likely to contract the virus after certain periods of time elapse following vaccination.

U.S. health authorities still recommend vaccination for virtually all Americans.

Lawsuit

Berenson sued Twitter after being banned, claiming the company breached its contract with him as a user.

A federal judge tossed all of the claims except for the breach of contract one. Berenson and Twitter recently announced they’d agreed on a settlement in principle.

The details of the settlement have not yet been entered into the court docket, with the parties saying they’re still negotiating.

According to court filings, Berenson was told by a senior Twitter executive that posts that sparked controversy would not lead to him being banned from the platform. But Twitter began taking action against him after Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top adviser to resident Joe Biden, said some of Berenson’s remarks were “horrifying,” first locking him out of his account and eventually enacting the ban.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup, a Clinton appointee, said in a recent ruling that Berenson “plausibly avers that Twitter’s conduct here modified its contract with plaintiff and then breached that contract by failing to abide by its own five-strike policy and its specific commitments set forth through its vice president.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The lawyer representing whistleblower Brook Jackson said Pfizer is arguing the court should dismiss Jackson’s lawsuit alleging fraud in Pfizer’s COVID-19 clinical trials because the U.S. government knew about the wrongdoings but continued to do business with the vaccine maker.

A lawsuit filed by whistleblower Brook Jackson alleging Pfizer and two of its contractors manipulated data and committed other acts of fraud during Pfizer’s COVID-19 clinical trials is paused following a motion by the defendants to dismiss the case.

In an interview with The Defender, Jackson’s lawyer said Pfizer argued the lawsuit, which was filed under the False Claims Act, should be dismissed because the U.S. government knew of the wrongdoings in the clinical trials but continued to do business with the vaccine maker.

Under the False Claims Act, whistleblowers can be rewarded for confidentially disclosing fraud that results in a financial loss to the federal government.

However, a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision that expanded the scope of a legal principle known as “materiality” resulted in a series of federal court decisions in which fraud cases brought under the False Claims Act were dismissed.

As interpreted by the Supreme Court, if the government continued paying a contractor despite the contractor’s fraudulent activity, the fraud was not considered “material” to the contract.

Pfizer is a federal contractor because it signed multiple contracts with the U.S. government to provide COVID-19 vaccines and Paxlovid, a pill used to treat the virus.

“Pfizer claims they can get away with fraud as long as the government would write them a check despite knowing about the fraud,” attorney Robert Barnes said.

The other two defendants in the case are Ventavia Research Group, which conducted vaccine trials on behalf of Pfizer, and ICON PLC, also a Pfizer contractor.

In an attempt to strengthen the False Claims Act’s anti-retaliation provisions and install new safeguards against industry-level blacklisting of whistleblowers seeking employment, Congress in July 2021 introduced the False Claims Amendments Act of 2021.

In December 2021, Pfizer hired a well-connected lobbyist, Hazen Marshall, and the law firm Williams & Jensen to lobby against the bill.

Pfizer previously was heavily fined in connection with the False Claims Act. As part of a 2009 settlement, the company paid $2.3 billion in fines — the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice — stemming from allegations of illegal marketing of off-label products not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“Pfizer, one of the most criminally fined drug companies in the world, wants to weaken the laws that hold them accountable,” Barnes told The Defender.

Congress has taken no action on the False Claims Amendments Act since November 2021, when the bill was added to the Senate’s legislative calendar.

Barnes said the outcome of Jackson’s case against Pfizer is significant not just for his client, but also for the American public.

“This case will determine if Big Pharma can rip off the American people using a dangerous drug that harms millions without any legal remedy because they claim the government was in on the scam.”

Jackson was a regional director for Ventavia for a brief period in 2020 but was fired after she notified the FDA about issues with Pfizer’s vaccine trials.

After she was fired, she gave The BMJ a cache of internal company documents, photos and recordings highlighting the alleged wrongdoing by Ventavia.

The documents she provided contained evidence of falsified data, blind trial failures and awareness on the part of at least one Ventavia executive that members of the company’s staff were “falsifying data.”

Jackson’s documents also provided evidence of administrators who had “no training” or medical certifications, or who provided “very little oversight” during the trials.

Jackson filed her complaint in August 2021, in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Beaumont Division, alleging Pfizer, Ventavia and ICON “deliberately withheld crucial information from the United States that calls the safety and efficacy of their vaccine into question.”

A district court judge in February unsealed Jackson’s complaint, which included 400 pages of exhibits.

According to the complaint, Jackson, who had more than 15 years of experience working with clinical trials, “repeatedly informed her superiors of poor laboratory management, patient safety concerns and data integrity issues” during the approximately two weeks she was employed by Ventavia.

“Brook [Jackson] brought a Qui Tam action and a retaliatory discharge case against Pfizer and others for fraud on the people concerning Pfizer’s false certifications to the U.S. Department of Defense about the safety and efficacy of their COVID-19 vaccine,” Barnes said.

A Qui Tam case refers to a provision under the False Claims Act that allows individuals and entities with evidence of fraud against federal programs or contracts to sue the wrongdoer on behalf of the U.S. government

“She was part of the clinical trials, witnessed extraordinary malfeasance, blew the whistle, and was quickly fired after she blew the whistle.”

Barnes said his legal team will in August file its opposition brief to Pfizer’s motion to dismiss, and the judge may rule on the motion to dismiss by fall 2022.

©07/05/22 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts. 

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Police on Tuesday revealed they’d had two prior interactions with Robert Crimo, the suspect in the Highland Park Fourth of July parade shooting, before his arrest.

In April 2019, an individual called the authorities to report that Crimo had attempted suicide, officials said at a news conference. The matter was handled by mental health workers, not the police.

Another family member said Crimo had a collection of knives and said he “was going to kill everyone,” Sgt. Christopher Covelli of the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force also told reporters. They removed the weapons from his possession and notified the Illinois State Police about the incident, he said.

At the time, they took a dagger, knives, and a sword. However, there was “no probable cause for arrest,” Covelli stated, and no witnesses signed complaints against Crimo.

Charges are likely going to be announced against Crimo, 22, on Tuesday evening, said Covelli. Other details about the prior police interactions were not provided, and authorities have yet to reveal Crimo’s motive.

More Details

During a news conference earlier on Tuesday, Covelli said that Crimo wore women’s clothes in an attempt to evade law enforcement and conceal his face tattoos after the shooting. He went back to his mother’s home and took her car before he was detained later that day.

“During the attack, Crimo was dressed in women’s clothing and investigators do believe he did this to conceal his facial tattoos and his identity and help him during the escape with the other people who were fleeing the chaos,” he said.

The day after the shooting, authorities reported the death of a seventh person. More than three dozen other people were wounded in the attack, which Covelli said the suspect had planned for several weeks.

Investigators who interrogated the suspect and reviewed his social media posts have not determined a motive for the attack or found any indication that he targeted victims by race, religion, or for other reasons, Covelli said. Nine people, ranging in age from 14 to 70 years, remained hospitalized Tuesday, hospital officials said.

Crimo, who goes by the name Bobby, was an aspiring rapper with the stage name, Awake the Rapper, posting on social media dozens of videos and songs, many of them ominous and violent. In one animated video that has since been taken down by YouTube, Crimo raps about armies “walking in darkness” as a drawing appears of a man pointing a rifle, a body on the ground, and another figure with hands raised in the distance.

Federal agents were reviewing Crimo’s online profiles, and a preliminary examination of his internet history indicated that he had researched mass killings and had downloaded multiple photos depicting violent acts, a law enforcement official said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The DMED, one of the best databases in the world, shows a disturbing trend with post-COVID jabs – dramatic increases in medical visits for malignancies, neurological and autoimmune diseases, and infertility. But after being exposed, DMED was shut down and its data spikes washed clean.

Download Interview Transcript   Download my FREE Podcast   Video Link

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

• In the wake of the COVID jab rollout and additional boosters, a number of health conditions are on the rise, including cancer, most notably cancers of the uterus, endometrial cancers, and very aggressive blood and brain cancers
• Cancer has been on the rise for decades, thanks to dietary factors, but the COVID jabs appear to dramatically accelerate the disease process. Many doctors report cancer patients with stable disease, and those who have been in remission for years, will suddenly and rapidly develop Stage 4 disease
• A military whistleblower has come forward with data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) database showing dramatic increases in medical visits for cancers and other conditions, post-jab
• For neurological side effects of the shot, four remedies that can be very helpful are fluvoxamine (an antidepressant that blocks cytokine production in neural tissues), pharmaceutical grade methylene blue (improves mitochondrial respiration and repair), near-infrared light (triggers production of melatonin in your mitochondria) and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (boosts mitochondrial function, decreases inflammation and much more)
• The COVID jabs also downregulate toll-like receptors 7 and 8, which allows latent viruses such as herpes EBV4 — Epstein-Barr, aka, mononucleosis — to flourish that would otherwise have been kept in check

Dr. Ryan Cole, an anatomic clinical pathologist with a subspecialty in skin pathology and postgraduate Ph.D. training in immunology, has been on the frontlines exposing the fraudulent COVID narrative.

Since 2004, he’s been operating his own business, a pathology laboratory, which gives him rare freedom and flexibility to comment on what he’s seeing. Most others would lose their jobs for speaking out the way Cole has.

Truth Telling Is a Risky Business

That doesn’t mean he hasn’t paid a price for speaking out about and defending real science though. He’s triple board certified and has 12 state licenses, and because of his stance against COVID recommendations, some of the credentialing organizations have taken action against him.

“I’ve seen 500,000 patients diagnostically in my career through the microscope. So, I have a long track record of diagnostics. I have not had a patient care complaint against me in 26 years of being a physician,” he says. “I still don’t, and this is what’s fascinating.

Of those 12 licenses, four were under attack, three are still under attack — in Washington, Arizona and Minnesota — [yet there’s] not a single patient care complaint. All the attacks against me have been political complaints to boards of medicine, which is not legal for them to do. Not a single one of those complaints is from a patient.

And then — really the most egregious thing — was ex parte, without me being present, without even sending a certified letter, the College of American Pathologists removed my fellowship status, which is defamatory.

I went back and found their complaint and looked at what they did, and I actually have a wonderful defamation lawsuit against them, because everything they did was anti-scientific. So, they can either restore [my fellowship] now, or just pay me a big check down the road. One or the other.”

He’s also lost about half of his business, as two insurance companies canceled him for “unprofessional behavior,” i.e., for sharing and discussing the science of COVID, and one of his best friends, whom he’s worked with for 12 years, canceled their business relationship as he didn’t want Cole’s outspokenness to affect his business. “All because of the defamation by the media, so to tell the truth in this day and age is a dangerous thing,” he says.

Suspicions Arose Early On

From his Ph.D. work in immunology, Cole was very aware of SARS-CoV-1 and MERS, having studied both, so when the warp speed program to develop a pandemic SARS-CoV-2 vaccine was announced, he became immediately suspicious.

“I thought, wait a minute, you can’t vaccinate against corona viruses!” he says. “This family of viruses is not amenable to vaccination, based on mutation rates. So, my concern was very high, early on.”

Cole’s lab ramped up PCR testing, using a cycle threshold (CT) of 35, rather than the recommended 40 to 45, as he knew that high a CT would result in 98% false positives. On a side note, pathologists not only assess tissue samples and biopsies, they’re also in charge of testing. The head of every major clinical lab is a pathologist. They’re basically in charge of quality control.

“As pathologist, we’re constantly looking at patterns, be it under the microscope or be it in lab data. We’re looking at blood reports. We’re looking at what’s out of range on blood reports. We’re looking at microbiology. We’re looking at molecular biology. We’re looking at cultures. We’re looking at pap smears. We’re looking, across the board, at those clinical parameters in addition to tissue biopsies,” he explains.

“I have 70 employees, and if there’s a blood smear that looks unusual, they bring it to me. If there are parameters on a test that look widely out of range, they bring it to me. And I call and talk to the clinician — [I’m the] doctor to the doctor. We have a consultation practice with the clinicians so I can help them understand what’s happening with their patient, and then they can make clinical decisions going forward.”

Post-Jab Cancer Explosion

One of the apparent side effects of the COVID jab that Cole has been warning and talking about is cancer. He explains:

“Obviously, during COVID, we saw some parameters change in blood tests. There was a concern about clotting. We saw elevated clotting factors. We know that the early variants were pretty severe in terms of inducing clotting, which was a shame because the whole world should have been simply using anti-inflammatories, steroids and anti-clotting agents, and so many more people would’ve lived.

My colleague, Dr. [Shankara] Chetty in South Africa, was having phenomenal success with antihistamine steroids and anti-clotting agents. So anyway, that first year, we saw drops in white blood cell counts, we saw decreases in certain subsets of T-cells. But when the shots rolled out, things changed.

At first I noticed kind of an innocuous little bump that we see usually in children. It’s a little virus called molluscum contagiosum [that causes] a little white bump.

Usually, by the time you’re a tween or early teen, you’ve built immunity to that and you never get them again, or rarely get them again. But after the shots rolled out, all of a sudden, in 80-year-olds, 70-year-olds, 60-year-olds, 50-year-olds, I started seeing literally a 20-fold increase in this little innocuous viral bump. And I thought, ‘Uh oh, this means they’ve lost immune memory’ …

Those subsets of T-cells that keep viruses in check are very important for keeping cancer in check. And this is where immunology jumps into the picture. All of us have some atypical cells, and we have the ‘Marines’ of our immune system, our natural killer (NK) cells. They’re on the frontline circulating. We have about 30 billion T-cells circulating in our blood, many of which are killer cells and NK cells.

Our other innate cells are our macrophages, monocytes and dendritic cells. They’re on that frontline. They’re shaking hands with every cell in your body all day long saying, ‘Friend or foe? Friend or foe? Oh gosh, this one has some mutations, it’s now a foe.’ They’ll poke a little hole in it, throw in a little enzyme called a grandzyme — a ‘hand grenade’ — blow up that cell, and we’re good.

But what happened after these shots rolled out is that many of those cell subsets started decreasing in number. The first cancer I saw uptick was cancers of the uterus, endometrial cancers. Usually, I would see maybe two endometrial cancers a month. All of a sudden, a few months after the rollout of the shots, I was seeing two or three a week.

Another subspecialty area of focus for me is melanoma. And I started seeing melanomas, not only in younger patients, as the shots dropped down in age cohort, but they were thicker. The other fascinating thing was they’re more aggressive in terms of how many dividing cells was present in each tumor. I’m still seeing this.

Beyond that … I’ve been traveling the country and the world quite a bit … and wherever I go now, I have doctors and nurses approach me saying, ‘What you’re saying, we’ve been seeing.’

I was having a conversation with a chair of a large oncology department in Tallahassee, and he said, ‘I usually see an aggressive brain cancer in a young patient maybe every decade.’ After the boosters rolled out, he saw five astrocytomas, five aggressive brain cancers, in one month.

Then, I’m in Jacksonville the next day, having a conversation with a family doctor. He said, ‘Gosh, it’s strange, I usually see a kidney cancer in a young patient every decade or so. I’ve seen five in the last month.’

Then I was in the UK a couple weeks ago. I had a doctor from Ireland who’s been a practicing family doc, GP, for 36 years, and he said, ‘I have seen more cancer in my young patients ever since the shots rolled out, and the booster, than I have ever seen in my entire career.’

Same thing, a nurse that works emergency department in the UK, [said she’s seen] not only the heart inflammation in young children, but cancers in young patients and aggressive leukemias. So everywhere I go, I have doctors confirming my observations … I’ve had many of them approach me and say, ‘Hey look, I’m seeing what you’re saying, but I can’t say it because I’ll get fired.’”

Cancer Spike Is Being Covered Up

Aside from what Cole has seen in his own lab, a military whistleblower has also come forward with data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) database showing dramatic increases in medical visits for cancer, neurological diseases, infertility, autoimmune diseases and several other conditions, post-jab.¹

The DMED is one of the best databases in the world, as the Department of Defense keeps very close tabs on what’s happening with our troops. This DMED data was presented during a hearing led by Sen. Ron Johnson. A week after that hearing, the DoD froze access to the DMED, and when it reopened a week later, the data were all changed to eliminate the data spikes.

“That’s what was really shocking,” Cole says. “I think this is basically fraud to the level of Watergate, in terms of [there being] somebody behind the scenes, and then the private company that actually manages that database … manipulated it.”

The DoD has tried to explain this suspicious activity claiming a “bug” in the system had resulted in underreporting of medical conditions in the five years prior to 2021. The number of cancers and other health problems were actually higher in 2015 through 2020 than initially indicated, they said.

However, how can a program error cause data corruption for five consecutive years and then self-correct, resulting in perfect numbers for 2021? And how did they not notice the error earlier? Again, this is one of the best-kept databases in the world. And how come this “bug” only affected conditions that also just so happen to be known and/or suspected side effects of the jab?

Future Prognostication

Clearly, cancer has been on the rise for decades, thanks to dietary factors, but the COVID jabs appear to dramatically accelerate the disease process. There are no published studies to help us foretell the future, but based on what Cole has found so far, how long does he think it’ll be before conditions like cancer spiral out of control?

“That’s a great question,” he says. “One of the important findings I’ve heard from many of these clinicians is that many of their patients who have been cancer-free for three, four, five years, their PET scan looks great, no detectable disease, and after that second or third shot, all of a sudden there’s Stage 4 disease. It’s like wildfire.

And this goes back to immune suppressive mechanisms, the damage that the persistent spike protein and the persistent modified RNA (mRNA) cause. So, aggressive cancers arising very quickly are one thing we’re seeing. Because it’s a dose-dependent poisoning curve — in terms of the more spike you have circulating, the worse your immune system seems to be doing — the No. 1 thing is, don’t get another shot.

Because it is causing that immune suppression that’s allowing those cancer mechanisms. Over time … I would say we’re going to see a consistent twofold to threefold increase in certain cancers, endometrial cancers, breast cancers, cancers of the prostate, cancers that are testicular or ovarian, neurologic cancers.

This spike protein has a propensity to cross the blood brain barrier and invade neural tissues. We know what it does to mitochondrial activity in terms of inhibiting it, blocking it, ruining cytochrome C oxidase systems, decreasing ATP.

Cancer is a hypoxic state. When you don’t have good cellular activity and cellular respiration and hypo-oxygenation, you end up with mechanisms that can induce more aggressive cancer. So, I think, at a minimum, [there’ll be a] two- to threefold [increase] … over the next year or two.

We can only hope that the immune system can normalize and we come up with enough interventions and treatments that will reverse some of this, what some people call spikeopathy, or the different diseases that are being caused by this persistent spike. ‘I don’t know’ is the honest answer, but that would be my projection based on I’ve seen.”

Excess Mortality Has Dramatically Increased

Abnormal blood clotting is another commonly reported side effect of the jabs. Post-mortem investigations have revealed thick, extremely long rubbery clots, including in the arteries, which is rare. The longest Cole has seen was about two feet. We’re also seeing a lot of micro-clotting, heart inflammation (myocarditis), strokes and heart attacks — all of which can have lethal consequences.

It’s highly concerning that we have regulatory agencies allowing the most dangerous medical product ever released on humanity to persist in the marketplace. 

— Ryan Cole, dr

In early January 2022, OneAmerica, a national mutual life insurance company, announced² the death rate of working-age Americans (18 to 64), in the third quarter of 2021, was 40% higher than prepandemic levels. And this excess mortality was not due to COVID infection. Many of those deaths were in fact cardiac deaths and strokes, which fits the injury profile of the COVID shots.

“After they came forward, additional insurance companies said, ‘We’re seeing anywhere from 30% to 50% increase in claims as well.’ They have no horse in the race. They’re just observing. And I say that as a pathologist too. Look, I don’t create disease. I don’t prevent disease. I’m a reporter at the scene of the crash.

My job is simply to report patterns, and then we can scientifically confirm those data patterns. And the all-cause death is increased in those who’ve gotten two, three shots. Again, it’s a dose-dependent curve. The more spike your body is making, the worse people tend to do over time.

Even Walgreens came out a couple weeks ago and showed their data. Individuals that got shots are getting COVID at higher rates. Even the mainstream media finally, last week — I think it was Good Morning America — said, ‘It’s looking like the boosters are a bad idea because it’s immune suppressing people.’

So, we’re finally making some progress and getting traction in the mainstream where at least the narrative is cracking. There’s a crack in the dam and it’s starting to leak. Hopefully it’ll rush forward and people will go, ‘Whoa, this was a bad idea. Let’s stop this chaos.’ But the FDA is trying to roll it out on [infants] of all things now … It’s really tragic.”

Why Was the Most Toxic Part of the Virus Chosen?

Considering autopsies have shown spike protein is still present at least four months after their last shot, it seems reasonable to assume that severe health problems can arise months or even years down the road. In fact, we still don’t know if the body ever stops producing spike protein once this genetically modified mRNA is injected.

“We know the spike is the inflammatory aspect of the virus, and our cells are made into spike toxin factories,” Cole says. “Studies out of the Salk Institute show that the spike is the cytotoxic aspect of [COVID-19], so we’re giving a shot that makes the toxic part of the virus, and it’s persisting.

That’s why I think we’re going to see this consistent elevation of different diseases related to the spike, be it cardiac, strokes, chronic clotting conditions, individuals dying from pulmonary emboli … It’s highly concerning that we have regulatory agencies allowing the most dangerous medical product ever released on humanity to persist in the marketplace.”

Neurological and Vascular Chaos

As predicted by MIT researcher Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., we’re now also starting to see reports of Creutzfeldt-Jakob — human mad cow disease — which is a prion disease that basically destroys the brain.

Strokes in young people and children are also on the rise. Media are now trying to convince you that this is “normal,” but it is anything but. Historically, children and teens do not die from strokes. This is a brand-new phenomenon, courtesy of the COVID jabs.

Microvascular clots (microvascular infarcts) are also a known contributing factor, in the long term, to early onset dementia. So, that’s yet another potential health avalanche in the making.

Four Helpful Remedies

I’ve quickly become a fan of pharmaceutical grade methylene blue, as it’s been shown to improve mitochondrial respiration and aid in mitochondrial repair. At 15 to 20 milligrams a day, it could potentially go a long way toward resolving some of the fatigue many suffer post-jab and post-COVID. It may also be helpful in acute strokes. The primary contraindication is if you have a G6PD deficiency (a hereditary genetic condition), in which case you should not use methylene blue at all.

Another important remedy is near-infrared light. It triggers production of melatonin in your mitochondria³ where you need it most. By mopping up reactive oxygen species, it too helps improve mitochondrial function and repair. Natural sunlight is 54.3% near-infrared radiation,⁴ so this treatment is available for free.

For neurological side effects of the shot, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant called fluvoxamine may be helpful. Cole explains the mechanism behind it:

“[Fluvoxamine] upregulates a receptor called sigma-1, which blocks another receptor called inositol-requiring enzyme 1, which is a precursor for cytokines. So, fluvoxamine will block cytokine production in neural tissues. And that’s why [it works]. It’s not because of its antidepressant effects. It’s a cytokine precursor blocker. So, you actually are decreasing a cytokine storm in neural tissues.

This is why one uses fluvoxamine. There are other SSRIs, but this mechanism is very specific to fluvoxamine. It’s a tough to tolerate drug for some people. It makes some people anxious and agitated, but if you can tolerate it for two weeks, you can really turn down those inflammatory pathways in many patients. I’m not going to say everybody, but I’ve seen it work in many patients.”

A fourth treatment suggestion is hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). This too can be phenomenally helpful for strokes, heart attacks, autoimmune diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. To learn more, see “Hyperbaric Therapy — A Vastly Underused Treatment Modality.”

IMPORTANT: COVID Shots Are Not Pharmaceutical Grade

Seneff also warned about potential unknowns arising from fragmented mRNA and impurities, as tests have shown these jabs really are NOT pharmaceutical grade, as you’d expect. Cole comments:

“These aren’t pure products, and I think this is a very important point. When Pfizer submitted vials to the European Medicines Agency to look at purity … they were in the 50% range … The TGA in Australia looked at it and said, ‘Look, these are only about 60% pure.’

This means you have a lot of fragmented sequences of mRNA that don’t have a stop or a start code on. They’re not coding for what you think they’re coding for. They’re coding for other tinier, shorter fragments. Are those mitogenic? Probably, but we don’t know. Can those reverse transcribe into our own DNA? Studies out of Sweden … show yes, they can …

And then, when they manufacture, they can’t spin and agitate these, so you get all these lipids that collect at the top of these big vats. So now you get some batches that are hyperconcentrated and some are hypoconcentrated. It appears about 5% of the batches are responsible for about 80% of the harms.”

Autoimmune Diseases of All Kinds Are To Be Expected

As explained by Cole in the interview, there’s a reason there’s never been a successful mRNA gene therapy product brought to market, despite 20 years of research effort. The persistence of synthetic mRNA with pseudouridine always caused too many problems in the animal trials to move into human trials. It caused autoimmune disease. It caused mutations. The manufacturers don’t even know if the nanolipid used to protect the mRNA is safe in humans.

“Based on the animal trials, we know there were problems and we can only predict that that’s going to happen in humanity. I want to be wrong, but from a basic immunology point of view, I don’t think I am,” Cole says.

“The nanolipid particles vary in size, interestingly. I’ve looked at some under the microscope. Some of them congeal and some of them stay tiny. But because of the fatty nature of them, they will carry their little mRNA and fractionated mRNA package to any cell in the body. And that’s the biggest concern. Now it has turned any cell in your body to a potential target [for your immune system].

An important paper came out in the European Journal of Immunology just about a month ago by Dr. Hagemann. There’s a condition called antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity. What that means is that [the mRNA] sequence gets into your cell [and] that cell now becomes the spike factory.

That spike is on the surface of your cell. Now your NK cells that I talked about earlier say, ‘We better blow that cell up.’ So now, because there’s that spike on the surface, your immune system will destroy your own cells. This is another one of the detrimental effects.”

Pipeline Now Filled With Risky mRNA Shots

Making matters worse, even though the COVID shots have been shown to be a complete disaster, the drug industry is already working on dozens of different mRNA “vaccines,” thinking they now have carte blanche to put out whatever they want using this platform.

And the reason for this continued insanity is because our health and regulatory authorities are corrupted to the core. They are completely dishonest. They’re covering up the shocking harms, and unless something radically changes, they will allow dozens of equally dangerous mRNA gene transfer injections to be put out.

Reactivation of Latent Viruses

The COVID jabs also downregulate pattern receptors in your body called toll-like receptors. Specifically, toll-like receptors 7 and 8 are downregulated by the mRNA and pseudouridine in these shots. What does that do? It allows latent viruses to flourish that would otherwise have been kept in check.

“We’ve seen a big uptick in herpes family viruses, especially herpes EBV4, which is Epstein-Barr virus [aka] mononucleosis,” Cole says. So, for those with post-COVID or post-jab fatigue, long-COVID and those with MS-like symptoms, he recommends checking for Epstein-Barr.

About 80% of MS patients have high Epstein-Barr titers. “You will find that a lot of these individuals will have reactivated mono,” he says. For reactivated mono, methylene blue, HBOT and nebulized peroxide would all be indicated.

Fertility Under Attack

In the interview, Cole also reviews the potential impacts of the COVID jabs on the reproductive system. Menstrual dysregulation appears extremely common, as is the inability to become pregnant, despite trying for months, and spontaneous abortions are off the charts. The DMED database also showed a strong signal for fetal malformation before it was frozen and altered.

“What we’re doing to society and humanity with a previously never before used modality and product is causing horrendous harm to the human race, with no regard for science, with no regard for scientific integrity. It’s a machine gone amuck,” Cole says.

“There are darker forces behind it. A lot of people are making billions, but they’re killing people to do it. And it’s just so unethical what we’re experiencing societally. Yes, we’re causing infertility. Yes, we’re causing mutations in cancers. Yes, we’re causing heart attacks and strokes. Yes, we’re destroying the longevity of a younger generation. It is horrendous.

There’s no justification for any doctor who can look themselves in the mirror and say, ‘I feel comfortable giving this experimental product to my patients all day long.’ They need to reflect and realize they’ve lost their mind, [their] critical thinking skills.”

More Information

Sadly, almost everyone who’s credible and trustworthy has been censored and deplatformed at this point, so finding them can be a challenge. To follow Cole’s work, be sure to bookmark his website, RColeMD.com. You can also find him on the GlobalCovidSummit.org forum.

If you are vaccine injured, the Global COVID Summit has a blockchain-based forum where you can share your experience and it will never be taken down. You can’t be censored or deplatformed. Cole is available to answer questions in that forum.

They’re also starting up another website to compete with WebMD and similar pharma-run medical sites. It will eventually be available on DMED.com, which stands for “decentralized medicine.” This site is not yet live, but you can try it later. Cole will have a page there as well.

Other thought leaders worth tracking down and following include Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Pierre Kory, Dr. Paul Marik, Dr. Richard Urso, Dr. Paul Alexander, and Dr. Kirk A. Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist, and his wife, Dr. Kim Milhoan, just to name a few.

“These have been wonderful leaders in this movement for truth and sharing science,” Cole says. “All of us are part of the Global COVID Summit. We are 17,000 doctors strong and it’s very important that people understand that.

I mean, that’s more doctors than they have at the CDC or the FDA or the NIH. This is a group of critical thinking people standing up for your health, your freedom and your right to your own bodily autonomy.

I think, going forward, as people are starting to wake up and part of this narrative is cracking, let’s come back together, let’s communicate, let’s be kind, let’s help each other get back to a more loving, peaceful, communicative society. I think if we can forgive — obviously, there are things we don’t want to forget, because we don’t want this to happen again — but try to forgive people and try to help people ‘come to’ again.

Just come back together in community. I think it’s important that we really try to circle the wagons again as humanity, and hopefully come back to our senses. That’s a hopeful message I would like to share.”

Originally published July 03, 2022 on Mercola.com

Sources and References

• ¹ Steve Kirsch Substack February 5, 2022
• ² The Center Square January 1, 2022
• ³ Physiology February 5, 2020 DOI: 10.1152/physiol.00034.2019
• ⁴ Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology February 2016; 155: 78-85

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

An Israeli study assessed the effectiveness of BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer) against the Omicron variant in children 5 to 11 years old using a large health care database and found the vaccine effectiveness (VE) to be 48 percent 7–21 days after dose 2 for symptomatic infection.

People with evidence of prior COVID infection by PCR, antigen, or serology test were excluded.

A U.S. study of a lesser scale found that VE in children declined from 60 percent to 28.9 percent from month 1 to month 2 after the second dose of Pfizer.

Cardiologist Sanjay Verma concluded that “therefore, if this Israeli study were to follow the children beyond 21 days, it is probable the VE would be lower than 48 percent.”

The authors of the study noted that assessment of “vaccine effectiveness against more severe outcomes such as hospitalization were not possible, because they were very rare in the study population.”

“In the US, American Academy of Pediatric data note a hospitalization rate of 0.7 percent in children based upon officially confirmed PCR+ infections. This study and this study previously found that 40 percent of pediatric COVID+ hospitalizations may have been over estimated when differentiating those hospitalized for COVID pneumonia versus those who were hospitalized for other causes but had incidental COVID+ testing during routine surveillance,” Verma noted.

“Therefore, the true hospitalization rate may actually be 0.42 percent of children infected with SARS-CoV2. CDC seroprevalence data report 75 percent of all children have already been infected (4.5 times more than officially confirmed PCR+ results). Perhaps the true SARS-Cov2 hospitalization rate for children then is as low as 0.09 percent. With such low incidence of COVID+ hospitalizations in pediatric population, most trials are not large enough to detect a statistically significant difference in COVID+ hospitalizations (or deaths) between vaccinated and unvaccinated children,” he concluded.

The study notes that 17 percent of the children were obese or overweight, while for the U.S. study, 35 percent of the children were so.

For the Israeli study, 43 percent of the population had received at least three doses of influenza vaccine in the past five years, while in the United States, an estimated 58 percent of children receive an annual flu vaccine, and some schools require the influenza vaccine.

The Israeli study also notes that “many of the children in our study cohort did not receive a second dose within the study follow-up period.”

“mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations do have a known risk of myocarditis and other rare severe adverse reactions. To better contextualize the risk-benefit analysis it would be helpful to know why the children did not receive the second dose,” Verma added.

“Statistics show the rate of COVID-19 associated hospitalization among children aged 5 to 11 is 0.0008 percent,” writes Dr. Joseph Mercola. “In real-world terms, that’s so close to zero you basically cannot lower it any further. Yet, despite such reassuring data, children in this age group are urged to get two to three doses of the COVID jab, even though side effects of the injection could harm them for life, or kill them.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Elon Musk ended his unusual period of Twitter silence on July 1, reemerging with a picture of himself meeting with Pope Francis.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO is often active on the social media platform, which he has offered to buy in a transaction worth around $44 billion. But he had not posted anything to his account since June 21.

“Honored to meet @Pontifex yesterday,” wrote Musk, with a photo where he can be seen standing next to Pope Francis. Musk’s four teenage sons were also pictured.

The location or other details of the meeting were not immediately known.

Honored to meet @Pontifex yesterday pic.twitter.com/sLZY8mAQtd

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 2, 2022

The new post broke the billionaire’s nearly two-week-long silence: he didn’t post or respond to a single tweet.

During the period of absence, he superseded 100 million followers on Twitter, joining a handful of individuals who reached the milestone on the microblogging platform.

Unlike others who have amassed a massive following on Twitter, Musk is usually a prolific user. He had made about 21 posts and retweets each day over the five weeks leading up to June 16, according to Axios.

On that day, SpaceX employees wrote an open letter complaining about Twitter posts from Musk, the company’s chief executive, for being “a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment,” The New York Times reported.

Musk is among a slew of tech giants leaders that Pope Francis has met. The head of the Catholic Church has previously met with Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and former Google boss Eric Schmidt.

Twitter Deal

Musk’s is still in the process of purchasing the social media platform.

On June 21, Musk said there were “still a few unresolved matters” with his plan to buy Twitter when asked about the deal at the Qatar Economic Forum. The issues include Musk’s doubts about the number of spam users, shareholder approval, and debt financing.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dated June 17, Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform has been unanimously approved by the board, which recommended that stockholders vote for the adoption of the merger agreement.

Andrew Moran Contributed to the report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Blue states believe their abortion policies can bring companies back

Amidst predictions of a political “red wave” in the upcoming mid-term elections, an economic wave has been building for years with no end in sight as companies flood out of blue states and into red states.

And as a result of its political divisions, America appears to now be dividing itself into prosperous, high-growth states and states that are suffering a chronic decline. But Democrat-run states believe their abortion policies could be a key factor in attracting companies back.

Caterpillar and Citadel, which in June announced their exit out of Illinois, are only the latest firms to leave high-tax, high-regulation states. Tesla, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, and Remington are also among the hundreds of companies flocking out of California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey to business-friendly places like Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Tennessee. Relocating companies have spanned industries including tech, finance, media, heavy manufacturing, autos, and firearms.

“There is a great migration going on, and I expect it to accelerate,” Glen Hamer, president of the Texas Association of Business, told The Epoch Times. “When the Caterpillars and the Elon Musks relocate, it’s an advertisement to the entire country and the entire world that something positive is going on in that state. And there is a multiplier effect.”

According to a 2022 survey of 700 CEOs, the top states for business were Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, and North Carolina. The worst were California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington.

Even companies like Apple, which did not move its headquarters to Texas, chose to establish its second-largest campus for employees there. Amazon selected Houston as one of its prime hubs. Ford, Volkswagen, and Nissan chose Tennessee as the location for major new manufacturing facilities. And in some cases, entire industries like firearms, which are being targeted by legislation and lawsuits in blue states, are moving south.

“It’s a broader trend that we’ve been tracking for the last 15 years,” Lee Schalk, Vice President of Policy at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), told The Epoch Times. ALEC tracks state economic trends in their annual report, “Rich States Poor States.”

“You won’t see companies moving to states like New York, California, and New Jersey,” Schalk said. “They’ll be moving out of those states into neighboring states, where the policies are a little bit better, or they’ll be making the big move to places like Texas, Florida, North Carolina.”

“Texas was one of the first states to recover all the jobs it lost during the pandemic,” Hamer said. “Now we have a workforce that is at an all-time high, and the economy has diversity and strength. Whether it’s energy, manufacturing, health care, technology, finance, you name it, the Texas economy is firing on all cylinders.” Texas has attracted 250 new corporate headquarters since 2015, Hamer said.

When jobs leave, people leave with them. According to the U.S. Census, Democrat-run states California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Illinois together lost 4 million people between 2010 and 2019, the so-called “leftugees.” During the same period, the states with the greatest influx of people were Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio, and Arizona.

States have been able to attract companies by cutting taxes, reducing red tape, and establishing right-to-work policies. In 2013, North Carolina passed a landmark tax reform package to cut corporate and personal income taxes. The business income tax there is now 2.5 percent and will be phased out entirely over the next several years.

Contrary to expectations that states would bankrupt themselves by cutting taxes, an influx of companies and new residents often boosts state revenues from property taxes, sales taxes, and personal income taxes, even when the percentages are reduced. Florida attracted 624,000 new residents in 2020, along with more than $40 billion in income, equating to an estimated $23.7 billion in new tax income. Florida has enjoyed two decades of net in-migration, amounting to a total income gain of $197 billion.

North Carolina’s latest budget included a deal to phase out corporate income taxes while also giving teachers a raise and even padding its “rainy day fund,” Schalk said. “North Carolina has been able to do that because not only have they been bold on lowering taxes, but they’ve also gotten the spending side under control.” And when companies move in, they bring intangible benefits with them as well.

“Any sort of civic organization loves it when they hear that a blue chip company like Caterpillar is relocating to our state,” Hamer said. “It means these executives are going to be serving on all sorts of different boards of directors, the local art museum, opera, or the chamber of commerce. When companies relocate their individuals, they become deeply ingrained in the community. They contribute time and treasure to activities that make the community more vibrant.”

The reverse is also true for states that are losing businesses and population, creating a vicious circle where continuously hiking taxes fails to bring in more revenue because the tax base gets depleted and quality of life suffers. According to a report based on IRS data by Wirepoints, an Illinois-based economic research organization, the cost of losing companies and people is stark for states like Illinois, which has lost population for 21 straight years.

Since 2020, that state has lost a total of $535 billion in income that moved away, which equates to about $25 billion in lost tax revenue during that period, and $4 billion in 2020 alone. Illinois’ problems include a loss of 114,000 residents in 2021, a string of 21 consecutive years of state budget deficits, a $313 billion deficit in public pensions, and the second-highest property tax rates in the country.

“Illinois is stuck in a vicious downward spiral it can’t hope to escape from without fundamentally changing how it governs,” the Wirepoints report states. “Structural property tax reform, reductions in pension debt, slashing units of local government—the state needs to do all these things if it wants to convince Illinoisans to stay and persuade other Americans to move in.”

Reducing violent crime would also help. Escalating crime was reportedly a factor, one among many, in Citadel’s decision to leave Chicago for Miami. Ken Griffin, the hedge fund’s CEO, had been one of Illinois’ richest residents and had given more than $600 million in charitable donations to educational, cultural, medical, and civic causes in the state.

“It’s the beauty of the 50 laboratories of our democracy,” Schalk said. “We’re able to quickly see what’s working and what’s not working across all issue areas. Unfortunately, I don’t see the high tax and high spend states changing their ways.”

“We can see an acceleration of hostile business policies in states like California, Illinois, and New York,” Hamer said. “It’s a race to increase taxes, increase regulation, and make it more difficult for people to live their lives. When you contrast that with states like Texas and Arizona, the gap is just widening and we’re seeing the great migration as a result.”

Republican Representatives in Washington are attempting to grant even more economic power to states in energy production. The GOP introduced the Federal Land Freedom Act last year, which would take authority to approve oil leases and permits away from the federal government and “give each state the right to develop all of the energy resources on the federal lands located within that state’s borders.”

Recently, however, blue states appear to be waking up and looking for ways to boost their competitiveness. California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently stated, “some businesses may have left the state, come on back! It’s a point of pride that we welcome you back.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy sent personal letters to more than 50 companies in red states, appealing for them to come to New Jersey. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont made a similar attempt. These governors are highlighting one regulatory advantage that they believe will give them an edge over conservative states: their permissive policies toward abortion.

Murphy’s letter to companies in Georgia stated that “The overturning of a woman’s right to bodily autonomy—and the chilling effect this decision will have on your ability to attract and retain top female talent by being located in a state which has refused to recognize women’s reproductive freedom—cannot be ignored.”

Alyana Alfaro Post, Murphy’s press secretary, said, “Governor Murphy encourages businesses looking to stand with their employees to look at New Jersey, a state where they can be confident that the rights of women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and voters will always be protected.”

“We’re a family-friendly state that respects women,” Lamont stated in a video pitch. “I know some of you are in states like Texas, which are outlawing a woman’s right to choose. We have codified, we are protecting a woman’s right to choose … any of you business owners thinking about making a move, give me a call. I’d love to hear from you.”

Source: The Epoch Times

AS NEW CALLS TO BAN CHINA-OWNED TIKTOK FROM AMERICAN APP STORES EMERGE FROM THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, THE OLD REASONS TO BAN THE APP STILL HOLD TRUE.

As new calls to ban the China-owned TikTok from American app stores emerge from the Federal Communications Commission, older reasons to ban the app also continue to hold true. The National Pulse has compiled our historical reporting on the subject, below.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr recently called on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their respective app stores, citing national security and data privacy concerns. Carr described TikTok’s parent company ByteDance as “beholden” to the Chinese government in his letter, noting that, as a result, the app is “required by law to comply with [Chinese government] surveillance demands.”

Carr’s request renews a Trump-era initiative to ban the app from American phones due to similar concerns given the app’s well-documented links to the Chinese Communist Party. Since the initial effort was launched, even more evidence and financial ties have been unearthed, demonstrating TikTok’s intimate relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.

Beyond national security fears concerning TikTok, the app has repeatedly been used to sow discord in the U.S. and parrot Chinese Communist Party propaganda. TikTok has also expanded its influence over American “fact-checkers,” which are often used by social media platforms to silence conservative voices and stories critical of the Chinese Communist Party, by funding one of Facebook’s leading “fact-checking” partners, Lead Stories.

The stories below, published by The National Pulse, outline the well-documented case for banning TikTok once and for all.

1. REVEALED: TikTok Founder’s 2018 Pledge To Promote ‘Socialist Core Values’ And Devotion To Chinese Communist Party

2. TikTok Taps Director Of Chinese Military-Linked Firm For CEO.

3. TikTok Global Ops Chief Is Former Chinese Communist Party Diplomat.

4. TikTok Parent Company Used Chinese Communist Party Official For Hiring Promotional Material.

5. TikTok Insiders Reveal Chinese Parent Company Can ‘Access U.S. User Data.’

6. China’s TikTok App Will Collect “Biometric” Data Including “Faceprints and Voiceprints” of Western Users.

7. Wuhan Alum Pushing ‘Natural Origins’ Theory Now Works At Lab Receiving Millions From Chinese Communist Companies Including TikTok.

8. WATCH: Big Tech’s Top ‘Fact-Checker’ Refuses to Drop Chinese Communist Party ‘Mouthpiece’ As Client.

9. WATCH: Facebook Fact Checker Says He is ‘Very Comfortable’ With Chinese Communist Relationship.

10. Chinese Regime Takes Financial Stake In TikTok, Now Directly Linked to Facebook Fact-Checker ‘Lead Stories’.

11. CCP’S TikTok Hosting Ads Advising Illegal Aliens – Including Convicted Criminals – On How To Avoid Deportations.

12. ‘Explode It’: ISIS Using China’s TikTok To Plot Terror Attacks In The West.

13. TikTok Quietly Reverses Ban On Pro-Abortion Group Using App To Protest Outside SCOTUS Justice Homes.

One of the key reasons TikTok has been able to escape a ban – which has been executed in countries including India – is due to the fact that the app has hired an extensive team of American lobbyists with deep ties to the Democratic Party.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) recently joined the platform and has even seen far-left activists use the platform to target voters.

1. Clinton Donor Turns TikTok Lawyer – The Latest Democrat to Get A High-Profile Job From a CCP-Linked Firm.

2. Obama National Security Director Now Leads China-Linked TikTok ‘Trust And Safety’ Team

3. Democrat PR Firm Paid ‘Influencers’ To Covertly Push Anti-Trump Content to TikTok

4. EXC: Harvard China Conference Collaborates With TikTok Parent Company & Chinese Military Proxies

The flurry of rulings from the Supreme Court has everyone’s head spinning. The most significant among them, even if it doesn’t capture all the headlines, is West Virginia vs EPA. The majority opinion is impressive but the part I found truly wonderful is the concurring opinion by Neil Gorsuch. This is where we see things headed, toward a major and much-welcome curbing of the power of the administrative state.

Just to review what this thing is, it is the unelected bureaucracy that rules the country without oversight from voters or legislatures. For well over 100 years, most courts have given it a pass, just assuming that the “experts” in the bureaucracies are handling things just fine, faithfully interpreting legislation, and merely creating rules for easy compliance.

Generations have gone by as this 4th branch of government has grown in size, scope, and strength. For the most part, its baneful impositions have been felt by one business or one industry at a time. You have heard the stories. The car dealer complains of how the Department of Labor is making him crazy. The machine-parts manufacturer is going bonkers about letters from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The energy company can never satisfy the Environmental Protection Agency.

They are stories and we find them unfortunate but we’ve generally avoided thinking of these as systematic, all pervasive, and truly dangerous to the idea of freedom itself. However, there are some 432 of these agencies. The authors of the Declaration of Independence noted their existence back in the day when they accused the English king of having “erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.” They fought a revolution to end the tyranny but now we have a home-grown form, starting in 1883 with the Pendleton Act and continuing throughout the 20th century as each new administration creates its own bureaucracy.

The thing has taken on a power of its own. Strangely, the topic hardly comes up at all during elections, and this is for a reason. Politicians running for office like to advertise their power to make change. They might even believe it. In reality, elected officials have very little influence over the conduct of public life relative to the administrative state. As Trump found it, not even the president is a match for the deep state.

Here is what has happened since March 2020: the beast showed its face. Seemingly out of nowhere, these strange agencies and people for whom we never voted were ruling our lives. They restricted travel, forced us to cover our faces, closed our churches and schools, and forbid our businesses from operating unless they were big enough to afford a powerful lobbying arm in Washington. The whole scene was appalling. It caused many people—including some earnest judges—to take notice.

Once you see the problem, you cannot unsee it.

Consider the problem with inflation alone: it is largely the responsibility of the Federal Reserve, which is among the most terrifying of the deep-state agencies. This thing was founded in 1913 with the promise that it would end “wildcat banking” and contain the expansion of money and credit so that we would have a more stable economic environment to encourage growth.

Even now, people believe that the Fed is going to somehow fix recessions and inflations, even though a deeper analysis reveals that the Fed itself is the cause of both. The Fed cannot be both the problem and the solution, surely. This is becoming as obvious as the fact that the CDC cannot make a textbook pathogen go away with power and potions.

Let’s take a quick look at the supposed 2 percent inflation target of the Federal Reserve. It might seem to you that they have long ago blown past this such that it is entirely cosmetic. But the Fed has a little trick up its sleeve. It says it doesn’t follow conventional inflation indexes like the Consumer or Producer Price Index. It is fancier than that. It follows instead the index of Personal Consumption Expenditures. And sure enough when we look at the PCE, we find that the Fed is pretty good at its job!

All that changed recently when the PCE itself blew up. Now the Fed has been revealed to be utterly incompetent, in a way that is not different from the CDC, NIH, DOL, DOE, DOT, HHS, DHS, FTC, SEC, and all the rest of these glorified 3-letter agencies employing nearly 3 million people who cannot be fired or controlled. The unique feature of our times is that the expert class in government has been unmasked as fakes at best and unrelenting menaces as worst.

Here is where the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation stands today:

So much for competence at the Fed! And yet, how exactly is this institution supposed to be controlled? We don’t vote for them. The Fed board is appointed by the president with Senate approval but this control is mostly mythical. The fancy economists run circles around the political actors with big words and fancy finance, so what can they do but approve?

The political class too often acts like absentee owners of a far-off land: they have little choice but to trust the hired landlords to do a good job. That’s the administrative machinery that has become the real power, not only implementing the policies but making and enforcing the rules too.

With COVID, this whole scam was revealed to absolutely everyone—not just to small businesses but to every single individual and family in the United States. The whole bureaucracy announced to us what they have always believed but rarely said: your life is not your own. Your job is to comply. And so this raises the fascinating question of what precisely are we going for here and what kind of society and government do we want? Surely this should be up to the people!

The Supreme Court in its most recent decision was dealing with a technical aspect of how regulations applied to a coal plant, but the implications of the decision are much larger. The EPA was determining policy, even making it, riffing wildly on legislation with the presumption that courts will always and everywhere defer to the agency over industry and even over the words of the legislation. The court said no: it was the EPA that had been operating illegally all along.

This decision is so startling because it shows a Supreme Court doing what it is supposed to do, serving as a legal check on the power ambitions of government itself. That’s what the framers intended. We’ve just begun, however. The Court needs to attack the whole machinery of the deep state at its very root, going after “Chevron deference” (1984), the Public Health Services Act (1944), the Federal Reserve Act (1913), and stretching all the way back to the Pendleton Act (1883). A nation ruled by a faceless deep state is not a representative democracy and it is not consistent with the U.S. Constitution.

When you consider the implications of this one decision, they are awesome. It doesn’t just apply to the EPA and its elaborate plans for changing the global climate through command and control. It also applies to every other agency, including the CDC and even the Federal Reserve itself. They all should be accountable to the people through their elected representatives. If we cannot get back to that system, we will lose everything.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

THE AUDACITY OF VACCINE MANDATES.

Former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx revealed that the federal government was relying on “hope” that COVID-19 vaccines would prevent infection when officials publicly stated that Americans who received the jab would become immune to the virus.

The admission came during a line of questioning by Rep. Jim Jordan, who inquired to the former Trump administration official: “When the government told us that the vaccinated couldn’t transmit it, was that a lie or is it a guess?”

“I think it was hope that the vaccine would work in that way,” she replied.

Dr. Birx’s comments follow a host of studies determining that the COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t confer protection as comprehensively as natural immunity. Data during the Omicron surge also showed that vaccinated people in Germany comprised the overwhelming majority of individuals contracting the variant.

“You were part of this effort when you were in the previous administration. And you’re saying in this administration that you can’t rule out the fact that our government was lying to us when they told us the vaccinated could not get the virus,” Rep. Jordan continued.

“I don’t know about their discussions that they had in the task force. So I can’t tell you that,” she began, adding “I can tell you as a family member who had individuals that were susceptible, of course, we got everybody vaccinated. But we still used layered protection during surges.”

Despite being vaccinated, Dr. Birx took additional precautions “because I knew potentially vaccine immunity would wane like natural immunity waned.”

“There was evidence that every four months, reinfection was occurring in South Africa.”

Revelations about the questionable efficacy of the vaccine come amidst the White House, Democratic governors, and left-wing companies attempting to mandate the jab for employees and customers. Users sharing data highlighting the weakness of the vaccine on social media platforms such as Facebook have also been hastily censored by left-wing “fact-checking” organizations.

The sale of over 2,000 acres of North Dakota farmland to an entity linked to Bill Gates, the fourth-richest man in the world and America’s largest private owner of farmland, has attracted scrutiny from the state’s top prosecutor.

Red River Trust, a Texas-based entity with ties to Gates, in November purchased 13 parcels of land near the borders of Minnesota and Canada, a move that North Dakota officials said may violate the state’s corporate farming laws. Over 2,100 acres of land in North Dakota’s Pembina and Walsh counties were sold in the transaction, regional agricultural publication AgWeek reported. The company paid a total of $13.5 million, records The Epoch Times obtained from the two counties show.

The trust is located in Lenexa, a suburb of Kansas City, and shares the same address with Cottonwood Ag Management, a subsidiary of Cascade Investment, an asset management firm controlled by Gates, as well as Oak River Farms/Midwest, which has been previously traced to the billionaire Microsoft founder.

The trustee of Red River Trust is Peter Headley, whose LinkedIn profile identified him as head of agriculture investment for Cottonwood Ag since April 2017.

A research report last January found Gates to be America’s biggest private farmland owner, having acquired over 242,000 acres of land across 18 U.S. states. The amount is still less than 1 percent of the nation’s total farmland.

The seller of both land deals was Campbell Farms, a family-owned potato farming group headquartered in Grafton, North Dakota. The three brothers William P. Campbell, Gregory T. Campbell, and Thomas S. Campbell signed the agreements handing over land ownership to Red River Trust, according to Pembina and Walsh county records.

On June 21, North Dakota’s Attorney General Drew Wrigley penned a letter asking Red River Trust to explain how it plans to use the land to comply with state law. The regulation (pdf), with some exceptions, largely bars trust corporations and limited liability companies from owning or leasing farmland or ranchland, he wrote in the letter, warning that companies who fail to meet the regulations face up to a $100,000 fine.

Vogel Law Firm, which represents Red River Trust, told the North Dakota attorney general’s office that the trust has met the state law requirements by leasing the purchased land to Campbell Farms for farming.

“The Campbell family has a history of operating these Pembina and Walsh County farmlands, which has continued under the ownership of Red River Trust,” Matthew Thompson, an attorney with the law firm, wrote in a June 24 letter obtained by The Epoch Times.

The attorney general’s office has closed the inquiry.

Residents ‘Livid’

The state’s agriculture commissioner, Doug Goehring, said that the reaction from the public to the deal was far from positive.

“I’ve gotten a big earful on this from clear across the state, it’s not even from that neighborhood,” he told North Dakota TV station KFYR-TV. “Those people are upset, but there are others that are just livid about this.”

In a recent media interview, though, Wrigley appeared to downplay the issue.

“I don’t know that it’s quite as volatile a situation as some have depicted,” he told The Associated Press. “It’s taken off, it’s all over the planet, but it’s not me sticking a finger in the eye of Bill Gates. That’s not what this is.”

He said his office makes such corporate farming inquiries “as a matter of course.”

“It’s meant to get everybody up to speed on what the ownership arrangement is and what their intentions are for the land,” Wrigley said. “If it complies with state law, the matter goes forward. If not, they’re informed they’re going to have to divest of the land.”

https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/22074551-north-dakota-ag-letter/?embed=1&responsive=1&title=0&pdf=0

Gates made his first public comment about his farmland investments in March 2021, during an “Ask Me Anything” session on the social media platform Reddit.

“Why are you buying so much farmland?” asked one Reddit user.

“My investment group chose to do this. It is not connected to climate,” Gates wrote in response. “The agriculture sector is important. With more productive seeds we can avoid deforestation and help Africa deal with the climate difficulty they already face. It is unclear how cheap biofuels can be but if they are cheap it can solve the aviation and truck emissions.”

Gary Hubbell, a real estate broker and accredited land consultant at United Country Ranch Properties in Colorado, said he sees “a lot of resentment and resistance to [Gates’] acquisitions.”

“Not to say that we don’t appreciate people who amass large holdings, because it’s an integral part of our business,” Hubbell told NTD, the sister media of The Epoch Times. “But they are no longer really a part of the community, and it seems that Bill Gates, his goals are contrary to many of the established practices and traditions of those communities.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to Headley, Cascade Investment, Cottonwood Management, Campbell Farms, and Oak River Farms for comments.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/bill-gates-linked-13-5-million-farmland-purchase-triggers-pushback-in-north-dakota_4567133.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-30-2&utm_medium=email&est=QQ%2BfvYL9O2uGnMMgifYhqnjD65zjWbxgxyC6fzu%2F8kAdO1JTge0hOs5kNHlKM1YIEA%3D%3D

Tim Cook spoke to ‘genocide-denying propaganda rag,’ says congressman

Apple chief executive Tim Cook met this month with Chinese Communist Party members and propagandists who enable Beijing’s mass surveillance, internet censorship, and other human rights abuses.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Cook praised China’s “innovative and inspiring” app developers in an interview with China Daily, a Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece that has spread disinformation about China’s genocide against Uyghurs. Cook also held talks with an app developer who last year was appointed a secretary of the CCP and another whose photography app prohibits content that “subverts state power” or “undermines the national solidarity” of China.

The interactions highlight the kind of compromises Cook has made in order to do business in China. The tech titan has touted Apple’s commitment to civil rights and privacy in the United States while complying with Beijing’s draconian national security laws and ignoring its human rights record.

“This further underscores the hypocrisy of corporate America, which preaches social justice at home and turns a blind eye when it comes to its profits,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.) told the Washington Free Beacon. “It’s absolutely shameful an American CEO would sit down with a communist, genocide-denying propaganda rag like China Daily.”

China Daily pays millions of dollars a year to publish its propaganda in American news outlets.

Cook’s interview with China Daily and meeting with Chinese app developers were part of his push to maintain access to China’s deep reservoir of tech workers. He said Apple’s app store has 5 million China-based apps, up from 4.4 million last year. He lauded Chinese developers as “at the cutting edge” and said he was “inspired” by their innovation. Cook’s remarks were a propaganda coup for China Daily, which reported that Cook’s remarks showed how “China will be of greater appeal to global tech giants in the future.”

To remain in Beijing’s good graces, Apple blocks apps from its store that might offend Chinese leaders and shares its Chinese customers’ user data with government authorities. One China watcher said Cook has had “to kiss the ring” of Chinese government leaders because he “is desperate to hold onto any remaining scraps of the China market.”

Cook met at the developers conference with app makers Liu Wei and Lin Jiashu as part of a roundtable discussion with Chinese developers, according to reports in Chinese media.

Liu, the founder of video game maker miHoYo, in September was appointed his company’s secretary for the Chinese Communist Party, according to Chinese news reports. Liu said after his appointment that his company would use its games “as a promoter of Chinese culture” and would contribute to China’s “new future.” MiHoYo has censored characters and chat functions in its popular Genshin Impact video game to appease Chinese authorities. Cook congratulated miHoYo in 2020 after the game was named the Apple App Store’s video game of the year.

Lin developed NOMO CAM, a popular photography app that requires users to “comply with the applicable laws and regulations of the People’s Republic of China” or face criminal prosecution. The list of offenses in NOMO’s terms of service include “damag[ing] the honor and interests of the nation.” NOMO’s privacy policy for its Apple app allows the company to share user data with the Chinese government on issues “directly related to national security and national defense security.” The Chinese government has been accused of using its national security laws to crack down on pro-democracy demonstrators and shut down news organizations critical of the Communist Party.

Cook has heaped praise before on the Chinese tech industry, which is required to comply with Beijing’s national security laws. Cook said at a 2017 conference Beijing uses to promote its internet regulation and censorship initiatives Apple and China were working toward “openness and shared benefits.” Cook has avoided criticism of the Chinese government’s human rights record, even as Apple pushes social justice causes in the United States. Apple last year canceled production in Georgia of a movie about slavery in protest of a GOP-backed voting law. Apple’s critics noted the company has been accused of relying on Chinese slave labor to build its popular iPhones.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/apple-ceo-sucks-up-to-china-in-interview-with-state-owned-media/

The risk was 13 times higher with Pfizer vaccination

A French peer-reviewed study concluded that for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the risk of myocarditis skyrockets a week after vaccination.

The risk of myocarditis after mRNA vaccination was 8 times and 30 times greater than unvaccinated control groups for BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) and mRNA-1273 (Moderna), respectively.

The largest association for myocarditis following the Moderna jab was 44 times higher risk for persons aged 18 to 24 years.

As for the Pfizer shot, in relation to the same age group, the risk was 13 times higher.

Infection with the Chinese Communist Party virus yielded, by comparison, a 9 times greater risk of the same condition.

Myocarditis refers to the inflammation of the heart muscle—a life-threatening condition. There are many established causes for this heart condition. The leading cause—according to modern science’s most recent discoveries—is viruses; but during the pandemic, COVID mRNA vaccines have earned a place as a top suspect for myocarditis.

The new study’s goal was to provide an assessment of association with vaccines across sex and age groups.

“Both SARS-CoV2 infection and COVID mRNA vaccines have been associated with myocarditis. Knowing the spike protein’s affinity to ACE2 receptors in the heart and spike protein’s injury to cardiomyocytes (cells of the heart), the association of myocarditis with SARS-CoV2 virus or spike protein-based mRNA vaccination was not entirely unexpected,” Dr. Sanjay Verma, a cardiologist, told The Epoch Times via email.

Verma also thinks the CDC’s analysis “erroneously suggests” that risk of myocarditis after SARS-CoV2 infection is greater than after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.

“For the cases of myocarditis after SARS-CoV2, CDC uses officially confirmed PCR+ ‘cases,’ even though their own seroprevalence data demonstrates that far more people have been infected than officially conformed PCR+ ‘cases.’ For example, seroprevalence data as of Feb 21, 2022, reveals 75 percent (about 54 million) of all children have been infected compared to 12 million officially confirmed PCR+ ‘cases’ (i.e., the actual number of kids infected is 4.5 times greater than PCR+ ‘cases’). Therefore, calculating the risk of myocarditis after SARS-CoV2 infection, the rate noted by CDC would therefore need to be reduced by 4.5 times. Thus far, CDC has not adjusted its COVID-19 morbidity and mortality data accordingly,” said the cardiologist, who practices in Coachella Valley, California.

The study analyzed 1,612 cases of myocarditis and 1,613 cases of pericarditis in France from May 12, 2021, to Oct. 31, 2021, involving 32 million people aged 12 to 50 years who received 46 million doses of mRNA vaccines.

It is limited by using solely hospital discharge diagnoses. Therefore, it does not include those who may have died before being hospitalized or those whose symptoms were not severe enough to be hospitalized.

“There have been reports (pdf) of autopsy-proven myocarditis after vaccination and anecdotal evidence of patients being dismissed by ER and never being hospitalized. Adjusting for these excluded subsets may yield even higher risk than reported in this study. Follow-up of the patients in this study was limited to one month after discharge. However, a previous cardiac MRI study found about 75 percent of patients with vaccine-associated myocarditis can have persistent MRI abnormalities 3–8 months after initial diagnosis,” Verma said.

The authors of the study didn’t analyze the effect of booster vaccination since it is not yet recommended for young adults in France.

In the United States, however, booster injections are mandated by colleges and universities, employers, and even some state public health departments irrespective of age or prior infection.

“In a preprint follow-up to their peer-reviewed study of myocarditis after vaccination, analysis found continued incremental risk of myocarditis after booster vaccination. In fact, while many countries have refrained from recommending COVID vaccination in very young children because the risks do not justify the benefits, the U.S. stands alone in recommending it in the youngest of kids,” Verma said.

A research paper published on May 18 studied the pandemic control measures—which included vaccine and mask mandates, as well as isolation and contact tracing—of Cornell University, which was almost completely vaccinated, and found these policies were “not a match” for the Omicron variant and its rapid spread.

Sudden Adult Death Syndrome

Recently, a new term has been highlighted in media outlets: “sudden adult death syndrome,” or SADS.

Underlying factors for SADS include undiagnosed myocarditis, inflammatory conditions, and other conditions that cause irregularities in the electrical system of the heart, thereby triggering cardiac arrest.

Data compiled by the International Olympic Committee shows 1,101 sudden deaths in athletes under age 35 between 1966 and 2004, giving an average annual rate of 29, across all sports. Meanwhile, between March 2021 and March 2022 alone—a single year—at least 769 athletes have suffered cardiac arrest, collapsed, or have died on the field, worldwide.

Among EU FIFA (soccer/football) athletes, sudden death increased by 420 percent in 2021. Historically, about five soccer players have died while playing the game each year. Between January and mid-November 2021, 21 FIFA players died from sudden death.

Joseph Mercola contributed to this report. 

The Epoch Times reached out to the CDC for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/moderna-vaccine-increases-myocarditis-risk-by-44-times-in-young-adults-peer-reviewed-study_4561018.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-29-2&utm_medium=email&est=3G2YJ2sJz3N6IJpY04Lzv5%2Bh4wXP00uOucR%2BRP7TGtvI9CvGmbKXRtP9rq1iEQEUcA%3D%3D

If you look like the woman in the photo, will abortion ever be necessary?

A group of pro-abortion Amazon employees wrote to corporate leadership on Monday demanding that the company withdraw business from pro-life states in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s fall, according to a letter obtained by the exposé Twitter account Libs of TikTok.

The notice listed nine employee exhortations, the most drastic of which told company executives to “cease operations in states that enact laws that threaten the lives and liberty of abortion seekers, either by denying healthcare in life-threatening circumstances or by criminalizing abortion seekers and providers.” Such a decision would shut down more than 100 Amazon fulfillment centers, software development centers, and customer service centers, slashing billions in revenue and more than 150,000 jobs.

Other demands include publicly denouncing the abortion ruling, giving time off for employees to “grieve,” organizing company protests, and removing products on the site that “encourage hate speech or violence toward abortion seekers.”

“Given the attacks on our democracy, and the continued deterioration of our rights, we believe the time to act is now,” the letter reads.

Amazon employees are not alone in risking their jobs for social justice. Just two weeks ago, SpaceX employees distributed an open letter calling Elon Musk’s public behavior a “source of distraction and embarrassment” for the company after Musk announced his intention to vote Republican and endorsed Rep. Mayra Flores (R., Texas). The SpaceX employees involved were terminated.

Amazon officials have yet to release a statement regarding the letter or the Roe v. Wade ruling. The company’s executive chairman, Jeff Bezos, may be loathe to wade into a controversy that would severely disrupt business. In May, Bezos got into a spat with the White House after resident Joe Biden suggested raising corporate taxes in order to tame record-high inflation.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/pro-abortion-amazon-employees-want-to-kill-jobs-in-pro-life-states/

A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol report has revealed that criminal organizations smuggling illegal aliens into America have been relying on social media platforms to recruit minors to carry out their operations.

The report from Texas’ Rio Grande Valley Sector (RGV) Border Patrol notes a “trend of Transnational Criminal Organization’s (TCO) using social media to recruit minors for their smuggling operations.”

The agency links the reliance on social media to the record-breaking numbers of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. illegally under resident Joe Biden. “RGV agents have encountered more than 137K migrants between Oct. 1, to Dec. 31, 2021, which is a 163 percent increase over the same reporting period of the previous year,” revealed the agency.

“With an increase in illicit activity, TCOs require more manpower to carry out their operations. Social media has become an avenue for human smugglers to target juvenile drivers. TCOs are luring minors to smuggle migrants across border towns in the Rio Grande Valley and into the U.S. interior with the promise of fast cash,” explained Customs and Border Patrol.

“TCOs convince juvenile drivers that they will not face the same consequences as adults if apprehended or that law enforcement will disengage a pursuit if dangerous conditions are present,” adds the report.

Authorities have arrested drivers working on behalf of TCOs as young as 13-years-old.

RGV Chief Patrol Agent Brian S. Hastings stated: “This is an alarming trend, because many of these teenagers underestimate the severity of the crime. Not only can they be prosecuted and sent to jail, but they also endanger lives through their actions. I encourage parents to talk to their children and educate them on the potential consequences and dangers of this trend.”

The intersection between social media and illegal border crossing follows reports that platforms such as China’s TikTok and Facebook were allowing content from human traffickers on their platforms.

The lessons for America from Germany’s ‘Energiewende’

American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin once said that “experience is an expensive school but fools will learn in no other.” Germany’s green energy policy, launched in the year 2000, could have been a cheap lesson for America today.

The Biden administration has chosen to follow Germany, providing heavy subsidies for wind and solar, while suppressing industries that could reliably meet America’s energy needs and even reduce its carbon footprint. In January, the administration announced that it had “pulled every lever to position America to scale up clean energy … the Biden-Harris Administration has readied offshore areas to harness power from wind, approved new solar projects on public lands, and passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build thousands of miles of transmission lines that deliver clean energy.”

On June 6, the Biden Administration invoked the Defense Production Act to increase the production of green energy and to replace the use of fossil fuels. While the legality of this move is questionable, it established the U.S. government as a major controlling party in America’s heretofore private energy industry. But like most grand government adventures into industrial policy, the push for renewables is already revealing itself to be enormously wasteful and counterproductive.

Twenty-two years ago, Germany stepped into the forefront of the green energy movement, implementing its “Energiewende,” an ambitious program of subsidies for solar panels and wind turbines, coupled with a reduction in coal, oil, and natural gas. After the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, Germany decided to also close its nuclear plants.

In 2000, less than 7 percent of Germany’s electricity came from so-called renewables. By 2021, that share exceeded 40 percent of the country’s electricity generation and about 20 percent of its total energy consumption, including electric vehicles (EVs).

By the end of 2021, before the Ukraine war drove prices even higher, German households paid 32 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. The rate in France, which kept its nuclear industry intact, was 23 cents. Americans paid an average price of 11 cents for electricity at that time—about a third of what Germans paid. Twenty percent of Germans’ electric bills went to a “renewables surcharge” to subsidize wind and solar.

Germany had spent heavily to increase its renewable energy capacity, but in the case of wind and solar, capacity never delivered the promised output. According to a 2020 report from the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Germany’s electricity output in 2000 was 54 percent of its total capacity, also known as the “capacity factor.” Unused capacity is the norm for power grids because the demand for electricity varies significantly depending on the time of day, the season, and the weather. By 2019, however, while Germany’s total electricity capacity had risen dramatically thanks to a sharp increase in renewables, its capacity factor had fallen to just 20 percent, largely because wind and solar generators were less productive than fossil fuels or nuclear.

The capacity factor for solar energy was just 10 percent because much of the country is often overcast. Wind energy was also producing well below capacity because wind turbines produced no energy on calm days and had to shut down on particularly gusty days to prevent turbine blades from being damaged. Even within those limits, the amount of energy produced by wind turbines was hugely variable depending on how hard the wind was blowing.

“It costs Germany a great deal to maintain such an excess of installed power,” the IEEE report stated. “The average cost of electricity for German households has doubled since 2000.”

A major problem with wind and solar is not only that they are unreliable, but also that they tend to generate the most power when people need it least. The peak seasons for wind generation tend to be fall and spring, but the peak demand for energy occurs in summer and winter when people need to heat or cool homes and offices.

An electricity grid must manage huge variability in demand. It must have enough capacity to cover peak demand, for example during the hottest hours of summer, but also have the flexibility to reduce power during early morning hours or springtime days when demand falls considerably. Because renewables are unpredictable in terms of how much energy they will produce, and when, they add substantial variability to the supply side of the equation as well.

“The whole idea that you would take something as complicated as an electric system, one of the most complicated things people have invented to date, and choose what to put on that system and how to run it by a popularity contest, to me that’s nuts and it’s going to end in tears,” Peter Hartley, Professor of Energy Economics at Rice University, told The Epoch Times. “Trying to run that system with politics is not a very smart thing to do.”

Germany’s energy sector had a difficult year in 2021 because the winds were calm. Even as demand surged, wind output fell by a quarter in 2021. The capacity factor for solar also fell because it was not a particularly sunny year.

After a sharp drop in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Germany’s CO2 emissions increased by 31 million tons in 2021. A significant portion of this increase was due to the failure of renewables to produce, which forced Germany to lean more heavily on fossil fuels, including coal, to keep its electric grid going. And while shutting down its own nuclear plants, Germany also bought nuclear-generated electricity from France.

The surplus periods for wind and solar brought problems as well. When the weather cooperates and wind and solar produce at peak capacity, they often generate more power than consumers want. This leaves power companies with the choice of either trying to store excess energy, which is technologically problematic, or trying to offload it at deep discounts. This left Germany in a position of importing energy when prices were high and attempting to dump excess energy on a saturated market when prices were low.

The same thing happens in the United States. In Texas, for example, wind farms have been known to even pay grid operators to take their excess output. America’s wind farms receive government subsidies based on the amount of power they sell to utilities. This means that they can pay grid operators to take their excess energy and still make a profit as long as the amount they pay is less than what the government pays them in subsidies.

This market distortion from government intervention comes at a price, however. In America, traditional energy producers that don’t get subsidies, such as natural gas, struggle to make a profit when prices are artificially depressed, and this means that more reliable energy producers are crowded out of the market and, in many cases, are shut down. Nuclear energy, a reliable, relatively inexpensive, carbon-free producer, suffers the most because of how costly it is to cycle nuclear plants up and down.

“By having governments force intermittent renewables into the system through industrial policy,” Hartley said, “You’re actually penalizing nuclear, which might be the best long-run solution.”

There is an ongoing debate about how much and how fast CO2 emissions are changing the earth’s climate. However, if reducing carbon emissions is the ultimate goal, nuclear is probably the best means of achieving it. It emits far less CO2 than renewable energies, when mining and construction are taken into account; it is scalable; it is steady, reliable, and not subject to wild variations due to the weather; and it builds energy independence.

“Two of the most successful mass displacement of fossil fuels in the world are the nuclear programs in France and Sweden,” Hartley said. Nuclear is by far the most energy-dense technology, producing 10,000 times the amount of energy per kilogram that diesel fuel produces. It also takes up less space than solar panels and requires far less mining, with all the collateral damage that comes with that.

The downsides of nuclear are well known: nuclear waste and the possibility of catastrophic accidents such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. However, new innovations in nuclear energy have made the technology safer, cleaner, more flexible, and more scalable. Downsized nuclear plants called Small Modular Reactors can be built closer to industrial users, reducing the cost of building lengthy transmission networks.

While Germany appears to have closed the door on nuclear energy, the European Union is reportedly drawing up plans to reclassify natural gas and nuclear energy as “green.”

According to Jessica Johnson, communications director for Nucleareurope, “We’re starting to see member states recognize that in order to have a stable supply of low carbon electricity, nuclear needs to be part of the mix.”

Europe has set ambitious targets to “decarbonize our economy completely by 2050,” Johnson said. If nuclear energy is excluded, “we can forget those targets.”

Currently, about 25 percent of Europe’s electricity is generated by nuclear power, as well as half of Europe’s “low-carbon” electricity. Belgium is rethinking its program to phase out its nuclear plants, Johnson said. France has proposed ambitious plans for building up to six new nuclear plants, and “a couple of weeks ago, in a manifesto, the Finnish Green Party made a clear statement in support of nuclear.”

‘Carbon Debt’

Germany’s Energiewende has succeeded in reducing its national carbon footprint substantially, but it only measures emissions within its own borders. Had it measured its actual global footprint, it would have discovered that the batteries, solar panels, and EVs that it was importing were increasing CO2 emissions substantially.

EVs come with a “carbon debt.” This refers to the fact that manufacturing electric batteries, an industry projected to grow to $100 billion by 2025, is highly pollutive. A 2018 report by the International Council on Clean Transportation, a green energy advocate, noted that the production of EV batteries in China, where more than half of the world’s lithium-ion batteries are made, generated 60 percent more CO2 than building traditional gasoline-powered engines.

A report by the World Economic Forum, another renewables advocate, stated that the amount of fossil fuel required to build EVs exceeds that for gas-fired cars to such an extent that “in Germany, a mid-sized electric car must be driven for 125,000 km, on average, to break even with a diesel car [in terms of CO2 emissions], and 60,000 km compared to a petrol car. It takes nine years for an electric car to be greener than a diesel car.” EV batteries last between 10 and 20 years.

Rare earth minerals essential to the production of solar panels, wind turbines, and EV batteries include lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite, among others. Copper is also essential for building extended power lines to connect grids to distant renewable sources, such as offshore wind farms and remote solar fields.

According to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), in order to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, the production of these minerals would have to increase by six times over what it is today, by 2040. Furthermore, “The production of many energy transition materials is more concentrated than that of oil or natural gas … the world’s top three producing nations control over three-quarters of global output.”

The dominant players in this market are the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and China, which together control a majority of the production of many essential renewable-energy minerals. “China’s share of refining is around 35% for nickel, 50-70% for lithium and cobalt, and nearly 90% for rare earth elements,” the report states.

The mining of these materials is energy-intensive and can be devastating to local environments. Lithium, for example, comprises only about one percent of the rock from which it is mined, causing the destruction of large swathes of land in the mining process in order to extract it. Lithium and copper mining also require huge amounts of water, straining natural resources. Cobalt is often mined by child slave labor in Africa. And the refining process releases toxic heavy metals and other pollutants into the soil and water.

The installation of solar panels requires taking large plots of land and displacing wildlife. Wind turbines kill birds and bats. And the disposal of these often toxic minerals, once batteries, turbines, and solar panels reach the end of their productive use, has yet to be resolved.

‘Conditions of Genocide’

Germany struggled with the moral consequences of its Energiewende. The German parliament determined that the solar panels it was buying from China were being manufactured under “conditions of genocide” and slave labor.

“People think they’re very virtuous with these wind, solar, electric vehicles and so forth,” Hartley said. “But when you look into the background of these things, it’s pretty dicey stuff from a human rights point of view, let alone the strategic issues.”

In February, these strategic issues came to the fore when Russia invaded Ukraine, and Germany discovered how dependent it had become on unfriendly foreign suppliers. Wind and solar, upon which it had bet so heavily, proved incapable of filling the gaps its energy policies had created, and the embargo of Russian exports, together with counter-threats from Russia to cut off vital energy supplies to the West, hit Germany hard.

In May, Germany’s producer prices jumped 33.6 percent in annualized terms, the largest increase since data collection began in 1949, largely due to escalating energy costs. Energy prices shot up 87.3 percent from a year earlier; natural gas prices were up 154.8 percent.

A German federal audit in March warned of energy shortages and blackouts across Germany and power rationing between consumers and industry. With the sharp increase in the cost of inputs, the report said “there is a risk of losing Germany’s competitiveness and acceptance of the energy transition.” Last week, Germany raised its gas risk level to “alarm,” the second-highest level before “emergency.”

The German government could soon be in a position of choosing which companies are more essential than others when allocating scarce energy supplies. As is often the case with government industrial policies, the Energiewende could end up harming the industry to such an extent that the only solution would be more government intervention to save it.

Throughout Europe, some companies began shutting down in June, unable to compete with foreign firms whose energy costs were much lower. One country that is not transitioning to renewables is China.

A June Foreign Policy report stated that, while China is rapidly building out its battery manufacturing industry for export, “the country continues doubling down on coal” for its domestic energy. China expanded its coal mining operations by 300 million metric tons in 2022, “almost the annual production of the entire European Union.” The report notes that China is prioritizing energy stability and cost competitiveness, while “China’s main competitor, the United States, now experiences increasingly frequent supply disruptions as it works to transition its electric system, the world’s second largest, toward renewable energy.”

The strategic risks of Biden’s green gamble go beyond consumers and industry to include our military. Access to energy often proves to be decisive in military conflicts. One of the reasons that Germany and Japan were defeated in the Second World War was their inability to acquire fuel for their ships, planes, and tanks. Today, while America’s submarines and aircraft carriers are nuclear powered, most of our military still runs on oil derivatives; diesel for tanks and ships and jet fuel for aircraft.

China is not a significant producer of oil, which has been its strategic Achilles heel. Transitioning from fossil fuels to wind and solar, however, reverses this equation, making American industry dependent on China for the raw materials of renewable energy, when we have fossil fuels in abundance.

The lesson that the Biden administration could have learned from Germany is that wind and solar are inferior technologies that are inefficient, unreliable, polluting, and create a dangerous dependence on foreign countries that are not always your friends. Apparently, they weren’t paying attention.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/why-bidens-green-energy-policy-will-end-in-tears_4559434.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-27-1&utm_medium=email&est=PoMonR6CL3Il%2F8BHtmHUw1bHhvGxCZlVVo1calkHWiHrucg8%2FrfFztYS4Cuh49%2BtDA%3D%3D

Gretchen Whitmer says the state has added 25,000 auto jobs since she took office. It has actually lost thousands.

Michigan Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer says she’s added 25,000 “good-paying auto jobs” during her tenure. The state has actually lost thousands of auto jobs on her watch, labor statistics show.

In a June 2 press release, Whitmer said she was “proud” to announce Michigan has “added nearly 25,000 auto jobs since I took office.” The Democrat roughly three weeks later repeated the claim, writing in a “mobility and electrification” fact sheet that she “is ensuring Michigan lives up to its legacy as the place that put the world on wheels by creating nearly 25,000 good-paying auto jobs.”

Bureau of Labor Statistics data, however, contradict that claim. Whitmer inherited 169,500 auto jobs when she became governor in January 2019, according to the agency. As of May 2022, that number is 166,700—a decrease of nearly 3,000 jobs.

Whitmer’s deceptive declaration shows how the Democrat is attempting to rebound on economic issues following her stringent stay-at-home orders, which shuttered local stores but deemed marijuana dispensaries, lottery ticket vendors, and big-box retailers “essential.” While Whitmer has touted leading the “best economic recovery in Michigan history,” a June WalletHub report ranked Michigan 46th in unemployment claim recovery.

Michigan Rising Action communications director Mary Drabik said Whitmer’s “gaslighting” on auto jobs is “not surprising.”

“When Gov. Whitmer’s claims are this far detached from reality, it becomes difficult to believe anything she says,” Drabik told the Washington Free Beacon. “But coming from the governor who claims her nursing-home policies saved lives and vacationed in Florida while telling Michiganders to avoid flying south, the gaslighting is not surprising.”

Whitmer’s office acknowledged that the governor’s claim stems from “the number of jobs announced since January 2019,” some of which are not yet actualized. Still, Whitmer communications director Bobby Leddy said the governor “is proud of her record of job creation, particularly in the auto industry, as we move to cement Michigan’s legacy of manufacturing.” Leddy did not address why Whitmer’s statistic does not account for jobs that have left the state since 2019.

This is far from the first time Whitmer has faced criticism for failing to deliver on a claim. In April 2020, the Democrat pledged to give back a portion of her salary for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. But Whitmer ended the pledge just five months later in September, even as her indoor gathering restrictions and public face mask requirements lasted for 15 months.

Whitmer, who implemented a policy that required nursing homes to accept positive coronavirus patients who were discharged from hospitals, is up for reelection in November after a roller coaster of a first term. Whitmer’s national profile exploded during the beginning of the pandemic thanks to her harsh restrictions and public feud with then-president Donald Trump. Whitmer went on to ramp up those restrictions, which sparked large protests, particularly as the Democrat defied her own rules.

Whitmer’s potential Republican opponents include political commentator Tudor Dixon, chiropractor Garrett Soldano, and businessman Kevin Rinke. Republican voters will choose their nominee during Michigan’s August 2 primary.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/michigan-governor-wont-stop-lying-to-voters-about-job-gains/

There is no safety profile for the effects of vaccines on children

As the Biden administration rolls out vaccines for the nation’s youngest children (6 months to 5-year-olds), Dr. Jeffrey Barke, chief medical officer at the Convention of States, said there is absolutely no evidence supporting that these youngest children are at any serious risk of death from COVID-19 and should not get be broadly vaccinated.

“I think it’s important that we tell the truth first, and then let parents and adults make informed decisions about whether or not to get vaccinated,” Barke said during a recent interview with NTD’s Capitol Report. “And to recommend this product to 6-month-olds makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. So, to start with, there is no COVID emergency, especially as it relates to younger people. It simply doesn’t exist.”

Barke referenced the CDC’s own website, saying that according to the CDC’s data, just over 1,000 children have died since the beginning of the pandemic as of the interview. “While every death of course is tragic, the reality is every one of those deaths occurred in a child that had significant underlying comorbidities. Healthy children simply do not die from this illness,” said Barke.

Meanwhile, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha made a contrary statement, saying that the infant vaccines “have been thoroughly tested. Millions of children above the age of 5 have gotten these vaccines. They’re exceedingly safe,” Jha told CBS News in a June 20 interview.

The CDC last Saturday signed off on giving both Moderna’s and Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccines to infants and children between 6 months and 5 years old. It came after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel unanimously voted to authorize the use of the vaccines.

Jha also said while the majority of children likely have natural immunity, getting the vaccines will help keep children out of the hospital if they get it again.

The White House is echoing the FDA and CDC’s message to get young children vaccinated.

“COVID has been quite common in children actually. We think maybe almost 70 percent of kids have ended up getting infected with COVID, [but it’s] still worth getting the vaccine. It really offers an extra level of protection, an extra layer of protection,” said Jha.

Barke disagreed with Jha and said there is a risk to young children from vaccines themselves because they have no long-term safety profiles.

“It’s ridiculous what’s going on here. And the part that makes me the saddest is the FDA and the CDC already have trust issues amongst the American public, and for them now to authorize and recommend that a 6-month-old receive a COVID-19 vaccine when they’re not at risk, and there have been no long-term safety studies with these products, is going to erode whatever little trust is left in these organizations,” said Barke.

He added that if a child has an adverse reaction to the vaccine, that child’s parents could not sue for damages because the authorization prevents the companies from being held liable.

“[The vaccine] is experimental by definition. A product that’s being used under emergency use [EU] authorization definitionally is investigational, and it makes no sense whatsoever. The EU authorization gives these vaccine companies blanket liability protection,” said Barke.

In addition, the virus has mutated since the vaccines were developed, so we don’t know if these vaccines protect against strains like Omicron, Barke said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/vaccines-for-6-month-olds-makes-absolutely-no-sense-dr-jeffrey-barke_4551517.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-26-4&utm_medium=email&est=NWOkuZ7UbJPUB0NuOlRm3h1UJV%2Fw6%2BtG6rIkD4vk2gOrtT%2FguJf9opUYHQ14lP4dGA%3D%3D

A group of doctors is urging top government officials to quickly reverse recommendations that have left children in isolation for days and advice that virtually every child get a COVID-19 vaccine.

“We strongly urge you to revise the CDC’s COVID-19 guidelines with regards to testing, isolation, and vaccine recommendations for children to ensure that public health policies are not doing more harm than good,” the group, Urgency of Normal, wrote in a June 21 open letter to Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC’s guidelines say that people, including children, who are exposed to COVID-19 should quarantine for at least five days, and encourage widespread COVID-19 testing.

The agency also recommends that all children 6 months of age or older get a COVID-19 vaccine, following the recent authorization of the Moderna and Pfizer shots for kids under 5.

The doctors noted that many European countries, U.S. states, and other areas have updated COVID-19 policies to greatly reduce periods of quarantine, COVID-19 testing frequency, and forced vaccination.

They’re asking U.S. officials to adapt to a “test-to-treat” approach, which would focus on recommending vaccination and treatments to those at the highest risk from COVID-19, which are primarily the elderly and others with serious underlying health conditions.

The CDC should also change its vaccine recommendations, which have led to vaccination mandates at colleges and even some lower-level schools, to state that children getting a vaccine should be discussed between the individual and their doctor.

“The emergency phase of COVID-19 is over. We call upon the CDC to update current guidelines to reflect the era of endemic management in which COVID-19 infections are treated similarly to other seasonal respiratory viruses, which do not require routine testing or isolation. It is time to join our peer countries in recognizing the importance of restoring equitable and maximal access to education, sports, and social connectedness for all children. Their health and well-being depend on it,” the group said.

The White House and the CDC did not return requests for comment.

Dr. Jeanne Noble, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and one of the doctors, told The Epoch Times in an email that the group has not yet heard back from the White House or the CDC.

“The timing of this letter is to push for normalization of children’s social and extracurricular activities over the summer, so that our highest need students can benefit from unfettered access to summer enrichment programs and that all kids enjoy summer camps and sports without exclusion based on testing and vaccination requirements,” Noble said.

“It is our hope that moving beyond pandemic policies over the summer will further pave the way for a full return to a normal school year in the fall, free of COVID-specific restrictions.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/doctors-group-urges-biden-administration-to-end-quarantine-vaccine-recommendations-for-children_4551074.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-24&utm_medium=email&est=girlkUmUv3bpBKOJyOEV1J%2F6F4k8oUyCfMeRExR1JQ7z1JmgcLfBM%2FcTV4yVz2ZQ4w%3D%3D

Twitter has suspended a doctor for sharing the study that shows men who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine had lower levels of semen and a loss in motile sperm count.

Dr. Andrew Bostom, with the Brown University Center For Primary Care and Prevention, shared the peer-reviewed study on June 19.

Twitter informed Bostom that the missive violated its policy against “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19, according to a message reviewed by The Epoch Times. It suspended Bostom’s account over the post.

“It seems to fit into the whole pattern of silencing open discussion,” Bostom told The Epoch Times.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Bostom’s post included a link to the Israeli study, which analyzed semen and sperm in men who received two doses, or a primary series, of Pfizer’s vaccine.

The study was published online ahead of publication in Andrology.

Researchers found that the men had lower levels of semen concentration and lower numbers of sperm after receiving a vaccine.

They alleged that the issues were resolved after 150 days, but figures from the paper actually suggested that was not the case. The authors wrote that the values “did not reach statistical significance.”

In his post, Bostom wrote that primary vaccination with Pfizer’s vaccine “temporarily impairs semen concentration and total motile count among semen donors, with apparant rebound by ~5mos, but no data on boostering effect.”

“Does boostering yield another decline?” he wondered.

“I kind of understood what they really showed, which is that some of the metrics, whether it was the counts or the motility, were still depressed,” Bostom told The Epoch Times. “And I used their terminology … I didn’t do anything to exaggerate their findings.”

The authors said they excluded men with boosters.

“I just pointed out that if this happens with the first series of vaccinations, maybe if they take these guys and have data on people that were semen donors and they had boosted them, when they followed them after the booster, you’d see another round of depression, and maybe it would be depressed—who knows—would it be depressed more? Would it be depressed, less? Would the effect last longer? We just don’t have any data on that,” Bostom said. “So that was the only other thing I put into my tweet—that we just don’t know what the effect of boosters is going to be. I don’t know why any of that was such a big deal.”

At least one other prominent figure has shared the study and not been affected.

Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist, shared on Twitter a screenshot of The Epoch Times article along with an image from the study highlighting how men still had lower semen concentration and sperm counts when measured 150 days or more after getting the vaccine.

“Indiscriminate use instead of targeted, risk-stratified EUA rollout has led to a myriad of concerns. Never broadly apply a brand new experimental biologic agent on a large population without assessment of risk stratification,” McCullough wrote. “Over-used and now uninvited concerns in young men.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/twitter-suspends-doctor-who-shared-study-showing-pfizer-vaccine-impacts-semen_4553511.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-23-3&utm_medium=email&est=gB%2F1jJi2Dx44jyysEOocYqZnbA3eXqoA14uSzcNoHUD8oP0hLoLHkFg1kAntQ28rkA%3D%3D

Audio from over 80 meetings at ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, was released last week and points to a much greater ability of Chinese-based employees to access US members’ private information. The exposure for nonpublic US user data occurred between September 2021 and January 2022.

Statements in the recordings reference an unidentified “Master Admin” engineer based in China with “access to everything.” Another meeting features a Trust and Safety Department representative commenting, “everything is seen in China.”

TikTok previously faced scrutiny for privacy concerns under former President Trump. In 2020, he pressured ByteDance to sell TikTok and attempted to halt downloads of the app by executive order, a move blocked by the courts.

TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan addressed data privacy concerns stating, “We know we’re among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint, and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of US user data.”

Leaked Meetings Show TikTok Shares US User Data With China

TikTok is once again under fire for its privacy policies, with leaked meeting recordings showing the company is reneging on a major promise.

Leaked recordings of some 80 internal TikTok meetings have once again blown the lid off TikTok’s privacy claims, showing the company’s engineers in China had access to US user data at least as recently as January 2022.

“Everything is seen in China,” said a member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department in a September 2021 meeting, according to BuzzFeed News, the outlet that broke the story.

TikTok has been the social media star of the last couple of years, becoming one of China’s biggest tech hits on explosive growth. Despite its growth, the platform has consistently come under scrutiny for its privacy practices. The company has run afoul of EU privacy laws, been accused of violating child privacy on multiple occasions, found sending job applicant data to China, and encouraged its moderators to censor content from “users deemed too ugly, poor, or disabled for the platform.”

Read more: Multiple States Investigate TikTok’s Impact on Children

Amazingly, through all of this, the company had maintained that it does not share US user data with China, even swearing in testimony before a Senate hearing that it was only a US team that decided where US user data was handled. According to BuzzFeed News, nothing could be further from the truth.

After reviewing the meeting records, BuzzFeed News found “14 statements from nine different TikTok employees indicating that engineers in China had access to US data between September 2021 and January 2022, at the very least.”

Despite the TikTok executive’s Senate testimony about the “world-renowned, US-based security team” that decided how data was handled, the meeting recordings show that US staff had neither the know-how or the permission to handle the data on their own, forcing them to turn to their counterparts in China.

This latest revelation will likely lead to further investigations and possible sanctions against the company, especially since the evidence suggests the company’s executive lied to the Senate.

While TikTok narrowly managed to avoid being banned from the US or forced to sell its US assets, under the Trump administration, its luck may be on the verge of running out.

Retired U.S. Army Major General Paul Vallely is vigorously sounding the alarm against a potential communist takeover of the country and is also very concerned about the mandatory COVID vaccination of all members of the military.

Vallely asserts that there have been many adverse reactions within the force since the rollout of the vaccines, singling out the risk of blood clots and heart problems with the jabs.

“The mandatory vaccines and boosters … under Department of Defense guidance and directives to the commands throughout the Armed Forces have caused a great deal of controversy. Number one: those that declined mandatory vaccination under the First Amendment religious rights,” Vallely told The Epoch Times.

He believes that there is no need to force COVID vaccines on them, as “these are the healthiest men and women we have in the country.”

“They can take [the vaccines] as an option, but we’ve got to stop this mandatory vaccination. It’s hurting the armed forces. And of course, our enemies see that—the Russians, the Chinese, the cartels. And then [there’s] the wokeism, the teaching of critical race theory. So there are a lot of things going on that are affecting the status and the readiness of our forces right now. I’m very worried about that.”

According to U.S. Army Public Affairs, 97 percent of the active army and 88 percent of the army reserve is completely vaccinated. It also states that 2,846 exemption requests have been refused and there have been 3,330 official reprimands, as of April 13. However, an anonymous whistleblower told The Defender that the actual vaccination rates may be significantly lower.

The Army had separated 669 soldiers “for refusing the lawful order to receive the COVID-19 vaccine,” as of May 19.

Vallely served for 31 years in the U.S. Army and retired in 1992 as the deputy commanding general for the U.S. Army Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. He has over 15 years of experience in special operations, psychological operations, and civil-military operations.

He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and earned his commission in the Army in 1961, at the height of the Vietnam war.

After serving two combat tours in Vietnam, Vallely also served in several other overseas theaters in Europe and Pacific Rim countries. Vallely also served on U.S. security assistance missions and civilian–military relations tours all over the world.

Time Spent on CRT and Communist Ideology Could Be Used for Gun Training

“I think the Russians and the cartels and the Chinese, they’re letting us destroy ourselves from within. They don’t have to even do anything. It’s self-destruction within our own government. They see that, and of course, that makes us very, very vulnerable when we have critical race theory and ideology and what we call indoctrination, rather than putting forth the training and education that has to go on within our military,” Vallely said.

He believes that there “absolutely” is an agenda to transform the republic, that the country is being dismantled from within, and that a socialist takeover has already made substantial progress.

“When you take away to teach a critical race theory and communist ideology, you’re taking away from the time that could be used for learning how to shoot better, how to operate airplanes better, take care of airplanes through maintenance; and even within the medical corps of the armed forces, it has affected many the doctors and nurses. So it’s a terrible thing. They need to stop it right now. They need to stop enforcing the mandates,” he stated.

“This is terrible tyranny that’s going on.”

How to Stop a Communist Takeover

Despite the gloomy prospects, Vallely keeps a positive spirit and thinks that if the country is to be preserved, Americans need to awaken and act, starting at the local level—and quickly turn the tides before it’s too late.

“We have to have the sheriffs and the governors enforcing the 10th Amendment. We need to have that happen. I’m not sure that the elections are going to be fair in November.

“People have to stand up before we are led into a really bloody civil war. And that’s what it’s looking like.”

Vallely further asserted that there are “high-tech oligarchs” that, behind the scenes, want to “change the direction of this country, and they’re doing it. They’re dismantling this country. They don’t believe in our Constitution, for example they don’t care about the First Amendment or Second Amendment. They want to completely dominate the society culturally.”

Vallely is now the chairman of Stand Up America US Foundation and the Legacy National Security Advisory Group. He is a founding member of the Citizens Committee on National Security and is the founder of Nemo Arms incorporated in Boise, Idaho.

“2022 is the awakening of America. We need to wake up to see what’s happening to our country and to our government—the demolishing of our Constitution, increased burglaries, crime, and deaths within our cities. We got to enforce the law. These are all things that are on the table that must be done to turn the country around. If not, we’ll be destroyed,” Vallely concluded.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/people-have-to-stand-up-before-we-are-led-into-a-really-bloody-civil-war-former-us-major-general-paul-vallely_4546269.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-23-1&utm_medium=email&est=bDM0I89cUm%2F30nojeh7gA17jQ%2BQPboEzYmIZ8N2oHM11rO9s1uDnXZFAHOk1%2BKIttw%3D%3D

Communist China is getting more totalitarian – even with foreign investment fund management firms operating on its soil. The Chinese regime is now requiring all foreign firms – including American ones – to set up an internal unit for surveillance and supervision by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Other Chinese national laws require all companies in the country, including foreign firms, to establish internal CCP organizations. However, those laws have been largely symbolic.

Until now.

Ignites Asia — an extension of Financial Times — first reported that in May, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) implemented new changes to its industry rules governing publicly offered securities investment funds.

This week it reported that one of the provisions in the new CSRC rules requires that these companies establish a CCP organ within their companies.

According to a translation by Ignites Asia, the provision states:

Fund management companies shall, in accordance with the provisions of the Articles of Association of the Communist Party of China, establish party organizations, carry out party activities, and provide necessary conditions for the activities of party organizations.

State-owned fund management companies shall, in accordance with relevant regulations, integrate party leadership into all aspects of corporate governance, and include party building work requirements into the company’s articles of association, so as to implement the legal status of party organizations in the corporate governance structure.

Logan Wright – leader of China Markets Research for the Rhodium Group – told Ignites Asia that “It’s another small signal that China’s system is increasingly diverging from global business practices and norms, rather than converging with them over time.”

Wright added that the requirement for foreign businesses to accept a CCP unit within their structure will “add to the perceived political risks associated with deepening foreign investment in China.”

Coincidentally, the new rules specifically governing fund companies come as major U.S. and international investment firms are working to bring branches of their business to China.

As American Military News reported:

A Shanghai-based lawyer who works with foreign business managers told Ignites Asia that this rule is the first explicit “party organization” requirement for the public fund industry. The lawyer, who declined to be named due to the political sensitivity of the matter, told Ignites Asia the new rule applies to foreign-Chinese joint ventures and the Chinese subsidiaries of wholly foreign-owned companies working in China. U.S. multinational firms like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Neuberger Berman are among these entities expanding into the Chinese market.

Maybe it’s time these huge American investment businesses stop ‘trading with the enemy’ and focus their powerful financial efforts elsewhere.

https://www.americanliberty.news/security/its-time-for-american-businesses-to-leave-communist-china/pcrespo/2022/06/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ae01&seyid=7958

In a stirring and spot-on campaign email, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis declares war on the Far Left calling it a “Radical Vigilante Woke Mob.”

While I’ve seen my share of them over the years and sent out a few myself, campaign fundraising emails are notorious for appealing to the hard-core base of both parties.  

So, most of them are taken with a grain of salt by political observers.

However, the email I just received from the DeSantis re-election campaign really hit home. It accurately defined and summarized the aggressive domestic threat posed by the extreme Left to our nation’s very core:

Our country is currently facing a great threat. A new enemy has emerged from the shadows that seeks to destroy and intimidate their way to a transformed state, and country, that you and I would hardly recognize.

This enemy is the radical vigilante woke mob that will steamroll anything and anyone in their way. Their blatant attacks on the American way of life are clear and intensifying: stifling dissent, public shaming, rampant violence, and a perverted version of history.

A group that will, literally, tear down monuments and buildings but — perhaps in an even more sinister way — tear down the American spirit itself. They go after the family unit, parental rights, traditional moral values, the church, and fact-based education.

Over the past few years, we’ve watched horrified as this group has attempted to brainwash our children into thinking we live in an evil, racist, irredeemable country.

We listened to them deny science and data to exert political theater all the while trampling over personal liberties enshrined in the Constitution.

We saw them take to the streets for an entire summer like outlaws burning, looting, and destroying everything in sight while being told they were “mostly peaceful” and “passionate.”

DeSantis omitted the LGBTQ brainwashing of our young children and the collusion of major woke companies like Disney in doing so, but he has been at the forefront of battling both these evils in Florida.

The DeSantis campaign continues, noting something that impacted me directly on the huge social media platform LinkedIn: “We watched Big Tech moguls in Silicon Valley be the arbiters of truth – deciding who gets to speak and who gets silenced through the digital public square.”

And of course, the last piece of the massive leftist effort: “We listened to the legacy media muffle legitimately verifiable news stories that didn’t align with their preferred narrative, only to watch the truth trickle out months later at a more politically expedient time.”

Referring to himself as the “Governor of the Free State of Florida,” DeSantis then goes on to make his pitch for how he will fight this grave threat to America, at least in Florida, with “faith, with reason, and with freedom.”

And of course, he asks for our financial support.

In my view, this email accurately and effectively summarizes the threat we face from the extreme Left in America today. DeSantis is on the front lines of this battle in Florida, but he also seems to be preparing to take the fight nationally as well.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

https://www.americanliberty.news/politics/florida-governor-goes-to-war-against-radical-vigilante-woke-mob/pcrespo/2022/06/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ae01&seyid=7766

CONFLICT OF INTEREST, MUCH?

Facebook – a platform that routinely censors posts critical of COVID-19 vaccines – has hired several alumni from Pfizer’s marketing and internal audit teams to lead similar efforts at the social media platform, The National Pulse can reveal.

The hires appear to present a conflict of interest for the social media platform, which has come under fire for censoring and banning users who’ve posted about the side effects or questioned the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.

Facebook’s Internal Audit Director, for example, was formerly a Senior Director at Pfizer. The employee – Tiffany Stokes – has held the influential position at Facebook since January 2020.

“Build and own strong relationships with critical business partners, provide project oversight of operational audits, manage internal audit plan and risk assessment,” she lists as part of her job description on her LinkedIn profile. “Leadership requires close collaboration with the Sales, Partnerships, Global Operations, International, HR, and Legal teams to assess and prioritize risks across an ever-changing high-tech business landscape,” she adds.

Prior to joining Facebook, Stokes worked at COVID-19 vaccine maker Pfizer for five years as the Senior Director of its finance and legal operations.

“Established and managed legal, budgeting, and forecasting processes to achieve the business’s financial goals as well as cost control commitments made to shareholders and the financial and investment community,” she summarized her position.

Prior to serving in this role, which she also notes required her to “adjust financial forecasts based on fluctuating costs, prioritization of legal matters, and impending legal issues,” she worked as the pharmaceutical giant’s Assistant Treasurer for the U.S. and Capital Markets, where she “directed” the company’s $8 billion investment portfolio.

MUST READ: FDA Sued Over Hiding Records From Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine Approval.

The National Pulse can also reveal that a Facebook Vice President for Global Clients and Categories was formerly Pfizer’s Chief Marketing Officer for consumer healthcare in the U.S. The employee, Brian Groves, worked at Pfizer for a total of 14 years before joining Facebook as a Director of its Global Accounts.

Similarly, a former Director for Digital Marketing and Innovation at Pfizer joined Facebook as a Client Partner for its Global Marketing Solutions branch in 2018.

In addition to Facebook hiring Pfizer marketing team alumni, the platform also added Pfizer’s former Senior Public Affairs and Corporate Communications Project Manager as its own Corporate Communications Manager in 2019.

The unearthed personnel links between Pfizer and Facebook follow the social media platform deploying its third-party “fact-checkers” – who have deep ties to Democratic politics and the Chinese Communist Party – to brand COVID-19 studies and articles at odds with mainstream narrative as “disinformation.”

During the State of the Union address to Congress this year, resident Joe Biden delivered an astoundingly Orwellian endorsement of socialism, clothed as its anti-matter counterpart.

“I’m a capitalist, but capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism,” the president declared. “It’s exploitation, and it drives up prices. When corporations don’t have to compete, their profits go up, your prices go up, and small businesses and family farmers and ranchers go under.”

Besides dubiously blaming today’s 40-year-high inflation on corporate greed (greed that, presumably, was inexplicably dormant during decades of inflation that was a fraction of today’s), Biden’s remarks shamelessly suggest that his administration’s heavy imposition of new and revived regulations fosters competition when the real mission is to level unprecedented burdens and governmental control upon businesses of all sizes.

“I’m a capitalist” belongs alongside “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

Promising to reduce average global temperatures by a degree or two is the most fashionable excuse in America today for the state battering companies, even though Russia and China have no intention of joining in the climate crusade at the expense of their expansionist objectives, and India and other developing nations aren’t going to abandon the ongoing industrialization their people yearn for in exchange for being congratulated by international bodies for going green.

Socialists who aren’t hiding their true identity propose basically a quick and merciful death for the private sector, like now-ousted British Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn arguing that wasteful “fragmentation” warrants re-nationalizing privatized railroads. Or Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders proposing a 95 percent tax on companies that are more successful than he likes. But while Biden suggests he’s enabling enhanced competition, his Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, Gary Gensler, finds new forms of slow torture for this country’s employers. Gensler was heavily involved in writing one of the most onerous pieces of regulatory legislation ever—2002’s Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which costs Fortune 500 firms millions of dollars each annually on average, and has been a powerful disincentive to firms setting themselves up as publicly traded or retaining that status.

The SEC’s most prominent policy under Gensler is requiring issuers of stocks and bonds to assess and report the risks climate change poses to their investors. As Heritage Foundation senior fellow David Burton pointed out in a letter to Gensler, “Requiring all public companies to develop climate modeling expertise, the ability to make macroeconomic projections based on these models and then make firm-specific economic assessments based on these climate and economic models will be expensive, imposing costs that will amount to billions of dollars on issuers. These expenses would harm investors by reducing shareholder returns.”

Burton also points to the irony that discouraging companies from being or going public gives fat cats more wealth and the average Joe less because it “would deny to ordinary (unaccredited) investors the opportunity to invest in dynamic, high-growth, profitable companies until most of the money has already been made by affluent accredited investors” and “would further impede entrepreneurial access to public capital markets.”

According to former SEC chief economist James Overdahl, the “massive scope and prescriptive particularity” of the regulations, “centering around the inherent complexity in collecting required data and completing the calculations and analysis necessary to make the proposed disclosures” make it “difficult to recall any other instance in which the SEC has mandated disclosures where there are so many significant uncertainties, data limitations and practical difficulties in developing the required information.”

Obviously, lawsuits would become legion, as publicly traded firms are endlessly accused of failing to report climate impact to the full satisfaction of environmentalists. But companies not to be found on the stock exchange, who think themselves safe in their private status, will actually also be subject to heavy new costs, because public companies’ private partners and contractors will be required by the SEC to report their emissions, outside firms having to be turned to for certification.

In a media conference call on Thursday, U.S. Chamber Executive VP Tom Quaadman pointed out that according to the SEC itself, the climate disclosure rule in its current form “would be at least three times the implementation costs of Sarbanes-Oxley, which was the most expensive disclosure regime that we’ve gone through over the last generation,” requiring “almost 16 to 18 years to finalize all of the different Sarbanes-Oxley rules.”

Quaadman added that after “many, many meetings” with companies that are U.S. Chamber members, they told the Chamber of “implementation costs in the millions or tens of millions of dollars” for each firm—many times the SEC’s estimates.

Testifying to the Senate Banking Committee in September, Gensler claimed of climate risk information that “investors are really demanding it.” More accurately, trendy asset managers, most prominently BlackRock, the largest such firm in the world with $10 trillion under its control, demand it, the better to inflict its wishes on companies in which it invests. Blackrock boasts that it “voted against 55 directors/director-related items on climate-related issues. This is a tool available to us in virtually every market we invest in on behalf of our clients … 83% of the time our votes against directors in the FTSE [Financial Times] 350 over remuneration concerns resulted in revisions to pay policies within 12 months.”

Pointless or politicized regulations both devastate private sector productivity and kill jobs. A Conference Board survey just found that “more than 60 percent of CEOs globally say they expect a recession in their primary region of operations before the end of 2023 or earlier … Fifteen percent of CEOs say their region is already in recession.”

With a looming economic downturn—on the heels of the devastation of COVID—is this a time to be helping multi-trillion-dollar money managers bully the nation’s providers of private-sector jobs, one objective being to charm the left so they might forget about things like BlackRock’s massive military investments?

And all in the guise of a “capitalist” eager to boost competition—like a call girl attending a masquerade party costumed as a mother superior.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/killing-jobs-in-the-name-of-saving-the-planet_4543237.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-21-2&utm_medium=email&est=1FPUnM%2BaA9c7t8LBAA3fh%2FJRWso4o%2FXt%2BNLbcBOaZJJ%2Fq2aboQbufkieAEzCL2mk1A%3D%3D

Having two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine has been linked with negative protection against symptomatic infection with the disease, scientists say, while a previous infection without vaccination offers around 50 percent immunity, according to a study analyzing the Omicron wave in Qatar.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on June 15, examined the Omicron wave in Qatar that occurred from around December 2021 to February 2022, comparing vaccination rates and immunity among more than 100,000 Omicron infected and non-infected individuals.

The authors of the study found that those who had a prior infection but no vaccination had a 46.1 and 50 percent immunity against the two subvariants of the Omicron variant, even at an interval of more than 300 days since the previous infection.

However, individuals who received two doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine but had no previous infection, were found with negative immunity against both BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron subvariants, indicating an increased risk of contracting COVID-19 than an average person.

Over six months after getting two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, immunity against any Omicron infection dropped to -3.4 percent.

But for two doses of the Moderna vaccine, immunity against any Omicron infection dropped to -10.3 percent after more than six months since the last injection.

Though the authors reported that three doses of the Pfizer vaccine increased immunity to over 50 percent, this was measured just over 40 days after the third vaccination, which is a very short interval. In comparison, natural immunity persisted at around 50 percent when measured over 300 days after the previous infection, while immunity levels fell to negative figures 270 days after the second dose of vaccine.

These figures indicate a risk of waning immunity for the third vaccine dose as time progresses.

The findings are supported by another recent study from Israel that also found natural immunity waned significantly more slowly compared to artificial, or vaccinated, immunity.

The study found that both natural and artificial immunity waned over time.

Individuals that were previously infected but not vaccinated had half the risks of reinfection as compared to those that were vaccinated with two doses but not infected.

“Natural immunity wins again,” Dr. Martin Adel Makary, a public policy researcher at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on Twitter, referring to the Israeli study.

“Among persons who had been previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, protection against reinfection decreased as the time increased,” the authors concluded, “however, this protection was higher” than protection conferred in the same time interval through two doses of the vaccine.

Enrico Trigoso contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/vaccination-increases-risk-of-covid-19-but-infection-without-vaccination-gives-immunity-study_4544042.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-21-2&utm_medium=email&est=khPK5npxBOI%2BSofjASJFhlNMCWCqiP4czy3M9SLPtjIYO3sAk5JzEbT6qkC%2FBIIZCQ%3D%3D

Whether or not Marie Antoinette said rioting French peasants upset about the shortage of bread to feed their families should “eat cake” instead is not important. The idea that she did has been passed down, generation to generation, as the perfect illustration of how the isolated elites in a society can become hopelessly out of touch.

This is not just a problem for the rich but also for the powerful, who use their positions to grant themselves perks that alleviate the need for them to worry about the kinds of things that keep the rest of us at night.

Like whether we’re going to have enough gas in the car to get to work in the morning.

Since coming into office, the Biden Administration has been at war with the American energy sector. Following the President’s lead, they believe climate change is an existential threat to the continued well-being of mankind that can only be thwarted if Americans are forced to go green.

That’s what’s really behind the sudden, continuing rise in the price of gasoline. It’s not, as resident Joe Biden continues to assert, a transitory thing caused by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It is the result of calculated policy decisions intended to roll back the energy independence that became a reality by the end of the Trump Administration.

There’s nothing wrong with green energy per se. Indeed, the United States would realize considerable benefit from the ability to rely on fuel coming from renewable sources like wind and solar and to be more efficient in the generation and use of power from fossil fuels so that less of it is wasted.

All that can be achieved by market forces a lot faster and cheaper than by government mandates. The Biden Administration has chosen – regardless of the consequences – to force this upon us all, meaning that some people are now, in a period of inflation unseen for at least 40 years, to face the very real choice between putting gas in the car and food on the table.

Too many Democrats regard that as a good thing. They don’t blame the government for the problem. They blame the energy sector, which it criticizes for earning record profits because the price at the pump is up thanks to the shrinkage Biden and his cohorts have forced on the industry. The cancelation of new pipelines and oil and gas leases on federal lands are two among a handful of reasons domestic energy producers cannot respond to the increase in demand by increasing the supply to keep prices stable.

The energy markets are behaving as the President wants, given his belief, he can prioritize his strategy to increase the use of energy made from renewables and the need to bring down the price of gasoline.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre seemed badly ignorant of economic reality when she insisted during a recent press briefing that there was nothing inherently problematic with pursuing both objectives at the same time.

“What we’re trying to deal with right now is how do we lower costs for American families,” she said. “One of the things that we are seeing currently right now with oil refiners is they are using this moment,” she continued, “to actually make a profit.”

She can get away with shifting blame for a while but what does she suggest as an alternative? Does she think the energy sector should sell gasoline and other fuels at a loss? That’s a recipe for economic catastrophe, as would be the kind of nationalization of the sector that exists in so many other countries.

The problem is that Biden and Jean-Pierre and so many others are out of touch with what’s going on. The people aren’t rioting for gas yet, but it may just be a matter of time.

Consider the comments of Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who recently described a drive she made from her home state to Washington in an electric vehicle.

“After waiting for a long time to have enough chips in this country to finally get my electric vehicle,” the state’s senior elected Democrat said during a June 7 meeting of the Senate Finance Committee. “I got it and drove it from Michigan to here last weekend and went by every gas station and it didn’t matter how high it was.”

Stabenow doesn’t have to choose between putting food on her table and putting gas in her car. Rather than being grateful and understanding she’s insulated from reality because she enjoys elected privilege, she claims she’s mystified by the expressions of concern coming from the American people because they are routinely paying more than $100 for a full tank of gas. Wonderful.

An elected official, whose annual salary is just shy of $200,000, is driving a car that cost more than most Americans make in a year that the taxpayers probably pay for her to use, thinks high gas prices aren’t a problem because she doesn’t have to pay them anymore. That’s the kind of leadership that causes politicians to lose their heads.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

Peter Roff can be reached at RoffColumns@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @TheRoffDraft.

https://www.americanliberty.news/capitol-hill/the-view-through-debbie-stabenows-windshield/proff/2022/06/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ae01&seyid=7573

Columnist Naomi Wolf, author of “The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19 and the War Against the Human,” asserts that after two years of pandemic policies, people in free societies are behaving more like those in authoritarian societies.

Wolf maintains that America is now less free, and becoming almost unrecognizable.

“A handful of bad actors” including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Big Tech, and the World Economic Forum (WEF) used the pandemic to “exploit the crisis in such a way as to reengineer our free democratic open societies, especially in the West, especially in the United States, into a post-free society, a post-humane society,” said Wolf during a recent interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.”

Related Coverage

‘We Don’t Have America Anymore’—Dr. Naomi Wolf on CCP-Style Technocratic Authoritarianism in the US

The Biden administration in April extended the 2-year-old coronavirus public health emergency for another 90 days.

Wolf said, based on history, the ongoing lockdowns and extension of the public health emergency indicate society is in the last phase of a tyrannical takeover, because with emergency powers, laws protecting liberty can be suspended.

According to Wolf, there are 10 steps every tyrannical government has followed. We are now at step 10, said Wolf. Some of the other steps include demonizing whistleblowers and critics, calling dissent “treason,” “espionage,” or “subversion,” and controlling the media narrative.

During the last two years of lockdowns and mandates, Big Tech and the elites have profited while the average Americans have seen the American Dream slowly “closing” on them, she said.

“And so often, when a democracy is dying, or a regime is turning the screws on freedoms to create an established new form of tyranny, it happens intentionally in a very incremental way,” said Wolf. “And you really see this from 1930 to 1933 in Germany.”

She said humanity is witnessing the formation of a two-tier society of the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated, in which people who would never discriminate against others based on categories of race and sex are now discriminating against the unvaccinated.

“Suddenly, they’re happily embracing a discrimination society in which some people are cast as clean and valuable members of society and other people are ostracized and marginalized and ‘othered’ and described as sort of dirty and causing infection to others,” said Wolf.

She argues that big tech companies had an active role in creating these perceptions and in “shaping legislation and certainly in presenting the drama of COVID and lockdowns to us, and then the vaccine rollout, in such a way as to change human behavior and to change human society,” said Wolf.

Wolf cited the emails between Dr. Anthony Fauci and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussing Facebook’s role in getting the right public health “messages out” during the lockdowns.

People had no choice but to rely on tech platforms while they were locked down, and Big Tech used that to manipulate the public, said Wolf.

“What I do trace in the book is how there was a vast profit that tech companies made by suppressing human assembly, by helping to message that it was unsafe or unlawful to gather in person,” she said. “And when you understand that big tech companies are competing with human beings gathering in human spaces, you understand why there was a vested interest in suppressing human assembly.”

Wolf thinks big tech companies will not stop at just harvesting data on the computer, but that they want to dominate peoples’ bodily autonomy with vaccine passports.

“What these companies want more than anything is to leave the parameters of your computer and to colonize other currently non-colonized spaces, notably the human body,” said Wolf.

This would give these companies and governments the ability to switch off peoples’ access to commerce, travel, and other goods and services if they did not comply with a particular mandate, Wolf added.

Some forms of digital tracking and surveilling are already here in the United States, she said.

“You’re now expected to swipe these QR codes just to see the menu, or just to get in. And the QR code uploads your data to a central database,” she said, adding that she’s seen the software “that maps the relationships of everyone sitting at that table, and then builds databases and networks of relationships.”

Wolf said that on a scale of one to 10 on the Chinese social credit system, the United States is currently at a three.

“There’s a change that’s happened in American cities in the last two years,” she said.

Because most people around the world, particularly in U.S. cities, use digital apps to travel, do banking, and shop, a digital social credit system similar to China’s is imminent, she said.

Our data is being harvested and used by the “global technocratic elite” to control human behavior, said Wolf.

“We’ve assumed that the worst it can be is data are harvested from us with everything that we choose to do using our free will as human beings,” said Wolf.

“But what I’ve seen is that digital technology has its own logic, and it isn’t restricted by what human beings want to do. So once digital platforms and their oligarchical masters can figure out how to change people’s behavior to suit technology, there’s nothing, moral or ethical, that will keep them from changing people’s behavior to suit their technology, and to suit their business plans,” she added.

The pandemic has revealed how this type of digital control is playing out, because humans, before the prevalence of digital technology, did not choose to “socially distance” to fight pandemics, said Wolf.

“The dream of our digital overlords is for technology to tell humans what to do, and that’s exactly where we’re at,” said Wolf.

While some people might label her a conspiracy theorist, her opinions are based on a long career as a journalist, political consultant, and now tech CEO, Wolf said. Furthermore, she has witnessed firsthand the powerful elites making historical decisions under the radar, she said.

Wolf was well acquainted with this group of powerful people until recently when she was ejected from their circles for writing oppositional pieces on lockdowns.

“But it’s really true that the global technocratic elite have more in common with each other than they do with their fellow Germans or Americans or Russians or Chinese, and they now are able to align above the level of nation-states,” she said.

For example, one of the WEF’s goals is to make nation-level decision-making less and less important, and the World Health Organization’s goal is to make public health decisions on a global scale, bypassing countries’ own authorities via the pandemic treaty, said Wolf.

“These technocratic elites really do believe that they can order the world better than you and I and that they have the right to,” she said. “That’s really scary.”

Little by little, humanity’s tolerance for cruelty and authoritarianism has grown.

“The war wasn’t just on us as a political entity, the war was on American culture, and is on American culture,” she said. “And they’ve succeeded largely, unless we wake up, because we were a kind, decent, inclusive culture that respected other people’s boundaries and freedoms. … And now a CCP-style cruelty is something that we tolerate.”

What people believe is largely determined by the news they consume, said Wolf, and many people only watch news outlets that give a skewed picture of pandemic treatments and policies, largely funded by wealthy people like Bill Gates.

“I do trace in ‘The Bodies of Others’ how millions of dollars flowed and are flowing from entities like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the BBC and the Guardian and NPR and other formerly very credible, objective news outlets.”

Because most people get slanted news coverage, the country is more divided and many people on the left refuse to consider any other narrative or look at primary source documents, because they believe only government sources are giving them “scientific” information, said Wolf.

This skewed messaging has been able to convince people that the mandates and lockdowns are more American and important than liberty or critical thinking.

Wolf said the most brilliant aspect of the pandemic messaging was that it was framed altruistically.

“You know, ‘You’ve got to exclude those people for the good of the community,’ or ‘You’ve got to mask yourself and your child to save your child,’” said Wolf. “This really brilliantly upended American culture because it cast freedom as selfish.”

Now that those in power have effectively conditioned people to be fearful and submissive, they can keep reinstituting emergency powers, she argued.

“That’s what emergency law means,” she said. “They can do whatever they want, basically. It’s a weaponization of boards of health, it’s a weaponization of the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and the [Department of Health and Human Services].”

Wolf said although the situation is dire, people can do something to push back against this tyranny by being informed about what is really going on in the country, assembling in groups, and getting involved politically on the local level.

As it stands now, “I will say that each side is being fed narratives and stereotypes about the other that would persuade each side that the other is absolutely insane and dangerous, dangerously insane,” said Wolf.

“I get that conservatives think, ‘liberals don’t know what a woman is.’ That is not actually literally true, and liberals think ‘conservatives all want to torch our democratic processes, storm the Capitol, and are misogynist, racist thugs who are trigger happy,” said Wolf.

The last two years have conditioned people to fear each other and so the conversations that would have normally occurred when people gathered are not happening and keeping the country divided, said Wolf. She said she will gladly talk to people on the right.

“People I love think I’m doing something wrong in even talking to conservatives and libertarians. That’s very dangerous. The left, especially, has decided that you’re morally complicit if you have a conversation across the aisle,” Wolf said. “That is censorship, that is cancel culture, that’s un-American, that is an importation from Communism.”

She urges people to remember what makes America unique and a beacon to other nations: to remember we are the great experiment where neighbors talked to each other, listened, and didn’t “rat” each other out if they did not agree with each other, Wolf said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/we-dont-have-america-anymore-author-naomi-wolf_4545628.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-21-3&utm_medium=email&est=Ti3V30R3w%2F2JuDx47eYvzpeLpt8HYqj3OhnaBBsqKEGiN5KT8OMKfPTbD%2FFjf51nfw%3D%3D

Congressional Democrats wrote to Google’s parent company on Friday to pressure the search engine to suppress results that offer alternatives to abortion.

Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.), and 19 other lawmakers wrote urging Google to “limit the appearance” or add “user friendly disclaimers” of pro-life clinics in search results. The Democrats said they want to “ensure women seeking health care services are directed to the basic information they request.”

Animosity toward pro-life pregnancy centers and offices has increased since a draft opinion of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision was leaked in May, showing a plan to overturn the original 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. Dozens of crisis pregnancy centers have been vandalized since the leak. Many of these attacks have not been federally investigated, as the Justice Department official responsible has refused to intervene.

The Democrats’ letter cites a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that has advocated for big tech censorship in the United Kingdom. Lobbyists who have worked for CCDH have also lobbied for Microsoft and green energy companies. The study logged Google search results for “abortion clinic near me” and “abortion pill” in states with abortion trigger laws. 

Researchers recorded search results that qualify as “anti-abortion fake clinics.” Planned Parenthood defines “fake clinics” as “clinics or mobile vans that look like real health centers, but they have a shady, harmful agenda: to scare, shame, or pressure you out of getting an abortion … their goal is to spread misinformation and propaganda.”

The research found that 11 percent of search results and 37 percent of Google Maps results led to so-called fake clinics which, according to Planned Parenthood, may offer “free pregnancy tests, abortion counseling, pre-abortion screenings, abortion education, post-abortion care, or after-abortion help.”

The lawmakers said CCDH’s findings “undermines the integrity of Google’s search results,” adding, “if Google must continue showing these misleading results in search results and Google Maps, the results should, at the very least, be appropriately labeled.”

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/democrats-seek-to-suppress-pro-life-google-search-results/

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow didn’t hold back on a recent segment of his show and told his audience the full extent of the Biden Administration’s failing economic policies.

In part of the segment, Kudlow gives an insight into the latest Fox News poll numbers which show waning confidence in the President’s ability to lead an economic recovery.

He also refuted a common talking point the left often uses about wealthy individuals and major corporations not paying their fair share of taxes.

Notably, Kudlow actually agreed on a few observations recently made by resident Biden about issues plaguing the nation – before highlighting the fact that Biden’s own policies have led to the problems he wants to solve.

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• Stock Markets Closed Today In Observance Of Juneteenth.
• Democrats Push Permanent DACA Solution
• Democrats Are Working to Price Americans Out Of Their Second Amendment Rights
• AOC Might Not Back Biden in 2024
• White House Tweets Formula Crisis Update After Press Secretary’s Briefing Gaffe

https://www.americanliberty.news/economics/fox-business-host-exposes-true-impact-of-bidens-economic-policies/alnstaff/2022/06/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ae01&seyid=7381

Rep. Sharice Davids (D., Kan.) has called for a total ban on members of Congress owning stocks in order to “restore trust” in the government. So it’s puzzling that Davids owns shares of three green energy firms that regularly lobby Congress for subsidies.

Her investments in FuelCell Energy, Maxeon Solar Technologies, and SunPower Corporation total up to $17,000. All three companies lobby Congress for green energy tax credits and other incentives, and Davids is in clear position to implement policy that impacts her investments—the Kansas Democrat sits on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which has helped shape the Biden administration’s green-friendly infrastructure spending initiatives. Davids has said she would use her position on the committee to explore investments in infrastructure projects as “an effective way to combat the effects of climate change.”

Davids endorsed a bill in April aimed at ending the kinds of conflicts of interest her investments appear to present. Davids and 18 other members of Congress called for a ban on members, their spouses, and dependents from owning or trading stocks. At the time, Davids and her colleagues said stock ownership creates a “serious conflict of interest” for members conducting oversight of publicly traded companies, with Davids herself arguing that the law was needed in order to “improve transparency and accountability” in the wake of questionable financial conduct by elected officials.

Davids, who due to redistricting is among the most vulnerable incumbents in the House, is not the only member to have apparent conflicts of interest in “green infrastructure” companies. Rep. Sean Casten (D., Ill.) owns up to $500,000 in Greenleaf Power, a privately held green energy company, the Washington Free Beacon has reported. Casten, who serves on the House committee to address climate change, has also endorsed a ban on members of Congress owning individual stocks. Greenleaf Power is not publicly traded so would not be banned under the proposed legislation.

FuelCell Energy, Maxeon Solar Technologies, and SunPower Corporation, the green energy companies in Davids’s portfolio, have lobbied Congress for taxpayer-funded incentives in the administration’s infrastructure projects.

SunPower Corporation, which installs solar power systems, cheered an extension for solar credits in the American Jobs Plan, saying it would “unlock more markets in the United States where we’re just scratching the surface.” SunPower has lobbied Congress on a variety of green energy bills, as well as the Build Back Better Act, for investment tax credits for residential and commercial solar projects.

FuelCell Energy has lobbied Congress “to restore fuel cell tax credits” and funding for fuel cell research, according to the company’s lobbying disclosures.

Maxeon, which lobbies Congress on “solar trade issues,” said earlier this year it may expand manufacturing of solar panels in the United States depending on the implementation of Build Back Better and other climate-related legislation.

Davids is also invested in Organovo Holdings, a biotech company that lobbies the government regarding the use of human tissue in drug research.

Davids faces a tough re-election bid in November after losing Democrat-leaning portions of her district during the recent redistricting process. She flipped her seat in 2018, and won by 10 points in 2020. Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up.

Davids’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/sharice-davids-wants-to-ban-congress-from-owning-stocks-she-owns-shares-of-three-green-energy-firms/

Livingston County, Michigan, this week became the latest jurisdiction in the country and the first in its state to ban the private funding of the administration of elections.

The move came after good-government advocates became incensed that a Mark Zuckerberg-funded activist group, the left-wing Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), flooded election offices in Democratic Party strongholds in Michigan with millions of dollars in an apparent effort to drive up voter turnout for that party in 2020.

Critics say Zuckerberg, the billionaire Facebook founder and Democrat activist, along his wife Priscilla Chan, gave the money in an effort to influence the 2020 election.

According to critics, the grants accomplished Zuckerberg’s goal.

In 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, a Republican, beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in Michigan by 10,704 votes. But in 2020, Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump in the state by 154,188 votes, according to official results as reported by Ballotpedia.

Critics claim the assistance provided by CTCL to Detroit, Benton Harbor, Muskegon and other heavily Democratic jurisdictions in the state may have put Biden over the top.

On June 13, the Livingston County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to ban the acceptance of unregulated monies for funding elections, a move that lawyer Erick Kaardal said will enhance election integrity.

Kaardal, a special counsel for the Thomas More Society, a nationwide public interest law firm that protects religious freedom and maintains an election integrity practice, said he provided the commissioners with an analysis of the resolution before they voted on it.

Livingston County is between Detroit and the state capital Lansing.

The commission’s vote pushes Michigan closer toward a national movement to banish “dark money,” or political spending meant to influence voters, where the donor is not disclosed, and the source of the money is unknown, he said.

Walworth County in nearby Wisconsin became the first local government in that state to ban the acceptance of private monies or grants for use in the administration of elections, as The Epoch Times reported.

“In the last 18 months, 20 states have enacted laws banning private money to administer public elections,” Kaardal said in a statement in which he identified Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Arizona, as among those now with such laws in effect.

He added that legislatures in another six states have passed such legislation but governors vetoed it.

“This is a win for the voters of Livingston County and will hopefully lead the way for other local governments to optimize election integrity in their regions,” Kaardal said.

“When there is an absence of any insistence on election integrity from the top, it is incumbent upon counties and municipalities to protect the right of voters entrusted to them.”

“Because Michigan’s executive branch has been unwilling to bar private money from entering the elections, the burden has fallen upon cities and counties to protect themselves from outside interference by illegal money sources,” Kaardal said.

“The people understand that the right to vote is a cornerstone of a free society and that the biased intervention of those who influence the outcome with their dirty dollars is not to be tolerated.”

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to CTCL but had not received a reply as of press time.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/michigan-county-joins-ban-on-private-funding-of-elections_4540590.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-19-3&utm_medium=email&est=L5XA8Hk%2B33PVLoMV8HGsE6743xpv8XMp9aqZgDXSXYfG63VKCZ6ky11nLjyEkp%2Brdg%3D%3D

Tech billionaire Elon Musk revealed that he believes certain unions are primary drivers of the Democratic Party’s and Biden administration’s policies.

“The general public is not aware of the degree to which unions control the Democratic Party. One does not need to speculate on this point,” Musk said in an interview published over the weekend.

Two of Musk’s businesses, Tesla and SpaceX, are not unionized, which Musk says is because of the “negative employment” in Silicon Valley. He says that Tesla workers typically often have numerous job offers.

“Last year, Biden held an EV summit where Tesla was explicitly not allowed to come, but [United Auto Workers] was. So, Tesla has made two-thirds of all the electric vehicles in the United States,” said Musk, who is estimated to be worth more than $250 billion.

United Auto Workers (UAW), with more than 390,000 active members, is one of the largest unions in the United States and has long been a major player in Democratic Party politics since its inception nearly 100 years ago.

“So, deliberately excluding us from an EV summit at the White House—but including UAW—tells you everything you need to know,” Musk said in the interview. “They have so much power over the White House that they can exclude Tesla from an EV summit—insane.”

Musk said that during the recent summit, Biden praised General Motors and its president, Mary Barra, for leading the “EV revolution,” despite GM only delivering 26 electric vehicles in that same quarter. Tesla is by far the largest maker of electric vehicles in the United States.

“That’s some next-level insanity,” he said of the incident.

In early June, Biden also brushed off Musk’s comments on a possible recession and said that other car companies have made recent investments in electric vehicles.

“Well, let me tell you, while Elon Musk is talking about that, Ford is increasing their investment overwhelmingly,” Biden said during an event in response to Musk’s Twitter post about the economy possibly hitting a recession in the coming months.

“I think Ford is increasing investment in building new electric vehicles, 6,000 new employees—union employees, I might add—in the Midwest,” Biden said, noting that “the former Chrysler corporation, Stellantis, they are also making similar investments in electric vehicles.”

Musk has frequently criticized the UAW in recent months, taking a swipe at the union in late March after a former union official pleaded guilty to bilking more than $2 million from the organization.

“UAW slogan – ‘Fighting for the right to embezzle money from auto workers!’” he wrote.

It came days after UAW President Ray Curry said his union hasn’t had any discussions with Tesla or Musk since Musk invited UAW to hold a Tesla union vote.

“That would be a good faith effort if they were interested in having that type of exchange,” Curry said at the time.

The Epoch Times has contacted the UAW for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/elon-musk-reveals-who-he-believes-is-actually-driving-the-democratic-party_4543140.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-19-3&utm_medium=email&est=39ZGsrRDtUuzt9j%2FW%2F%2BEOIK1M3wEHkuoTYkwe617l99RfMcR71%2B%2FazTJhN930toehw%3D%3D

While many have bought into the simplistic idea that availability of firearms is the cause of mass shootings, a number of experts have pointed out some uncomfortable truths. The ‘elephant in the room’ is being overlooked by our media, despite the fact it’s directly linked to the rise in mass shootings.

• While many have bought into the simplistic idea that availability of firearms is the cause of mass shootings, a number of experts have pointed out a more uncomfortable truth, which is that mass shootings are far more likely the result of how we’ve been mistreating mental illness, depression and behavioral problems
• Gun control legislation has shown that law-abiding Americans who own guns are not the problem, because the more gun control laws that have been passed, the more mass shootings have occurred
• 97.8 percent of mass shootings occur in “gun-free zones,” as the perpetrators know legally armed citizens won’t be there to stop them
• Depression per se rarely results in violence. Only after antidepressants became commonplace did mass shootings really take off, and many mass shooters have been shown to be on antidepressants
• Antidepressants, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), are well-known for their ability to cause suicidal and homicidal ideation and violence

While many have bought into the simplistic idea that availability of firearms is the cause of mass shootings, a number of experts have pointed out a more uncomfortable truth, which is that mass shootings are far more likely the result of how we’ve been mistreating mental illness, depression and behavioral problems.

An article written by Molly Carter, initially published on ammo.com at an unknown date¹ and subsequently republished by The Libertarian Institute in May 2019,² and psychreg.org in late January 2021,³ noted:

“According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a mass murder occurs when at least four people are murdered, not including the shooter … during a single incident …

Seemingly every time a mass shooting occurs … the anti-gun media and politicians have a knee-jerk response — they blame the tragedy solely on the tool used, namely firearms, and focus all of their proposed ‘solutions’ on more laws, ignoring that the murderer already broke numerous laws when they committed their atrocity.

Facts matter when addressing such an emotionally charged topic, and more gun control legislation has shown that law-abiding Americans who own guns are NOT the problem. Consider the following: The more gun control laws that are passed, the more mass murders have occurred.

Whether or not this is correlation or causation is debatable. What is not debatable is that this sick phenomenon of mass murderers targeting ‘gun-free zones,’ where they know civilian carry isn’t available to law-abiding Americans, is happening.

According to the Crime Prevention Research Center,⁴ 97.8 percent of public shootings occur in ‘gun-free zones’ – and ‘gun-free zones’ are the epitome of the core philosophical tenet of gun control, that laws are all the defense one needs against violence …

This debate leads them away from the elephant in the room and one of the real issues behind mass shootings — mental health and prescription drugs.

Ignoring what’s going on in the heads of these psychopaths not only allows mass shootings to continue, it leads to misguided gun control laws that violate the Second Amendment and negate the rights of law-abiding U.S. citizens.

As Jeff Snyder put it in The Washington Times: ‘But to ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow.’”

The Elephant in the Room: Antidepressants

Thoughts, emotions and a variety of environmental factors play into the manifestation of violence, but mental illness by itself cannot account for the massive rise in mass murder — unless you include antidepressants in the equation. Yet even when mental health does enter the mass shooter discussion, the issue of antidepressants, specifically, is rarely mentioned.

The fact is, depression per se rarely results in violence. Only after antidepressants became commonplace did mass shootings take off, and many mass shooters have been shown to be on antidepressants.

Prozac, released in 1987, was the first selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) to be approved for depression and anxiety. Only two years earlier, direct-to-consumer advertising had been legalized. In the mid-1990s, the Food and Drug Administration loosened regulations, direct-to-consumer ads for SSRIs exploded and, with it, prescriptions for SSRIs.

In 1989, just two years after Prozac came to market, Joseph Wesbecker shot 20 of his coworkers, killing nine. He had been on Prozac for one month, and the survivors of the drug-induced attack sued Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac. Since then, antidepressant use and mass shootings have both risen, more or less in tandem.

In the two decades between 1988 and 2008, antidepressant use in the U.S. rose by 400 percent,⁵ and by 2010, 11 percent of the U.S. population over the age of 12 were on an antidepressant prescription.⁶

In 1982, pre-Prozac, there was one mass shooting in the U.S.⁷ In 1984, there were two incidents and in 1986 — the year Prozac was released — there was one. One to three mass shootings per year remained the norm up until 1999, when it jumped to five.

How can we possibly ignore the connection between rampant use of drugs known to directly cause violent behavior and the rise in mass shootings?

Another jump took place in 2012, when there were seven mass shootings. And while the annual count has gone up and down from year to year, there’s been a clear trend of an increased number of mass shootings post-2012. Over time, mass shootings have also gotten larger, with more people getting injured or killed per incident.

How can we possibly ignore the connection between rampant use of drugs known to directly cause violent behavior and the rise in mass shootings? Suicidal ideation, violence and homicidal ideation are all known side effects of these drugs. Sometimes, the drugs disrupt brain function so dramatically the perpetrator can’t even remember what they did.

For example, in 2001, a 16-year-old high schooler was prescribed Effexor, starting off at 40 milligrams and moving up to 300 mg over the course of three weeks. On the first day of taking a 300-mg dose, the boy woke up with a headache, decided to skip school and went back to bed.

Some time later, he got up, took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage at gunpoint. He later claimed he had no recollection of anything that happened after he went back to bed that morning.⁹

The Risks Are Clear

The risks of psychiatric disturbances are so clear, ever since mid-October 2004, all antidepressants in the U.S. must include a black box warning that the drug can cause suicidal thoughts and behaviors, especially in those younger than 25, and that:¹⁰

“Anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility (aggressiveness), impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric.”

SSRIs can also cause emotional blunting and detachment, such that patients report “not feeling” or “not caring” about anything or anyone, as well as psychosis and hallucinations. All of these side effects can contribute to someone acting out an unthinkable violent crime.

In one review^11,12 of 484 drugs in the FDA’s database, 31 were found to account for 78.8 percent of all cases of violence against others, and 11 of those drugs were antidepressants.

The researchers concluded that violence against others was a “genuine and serious adverse drug event” and that of the drugs analyzed, SSRI antidepressants and the smoking cessation medication, varenicline (Chantix), had the strongest associations. The top-five most dangerous SSRIs were:¹³

• Fluoxetine (Prozac), which increased aggressive behavior 10.9 times
• Paroxetine (Paxil), which increased violent behavior 10.3 times
• Fluvoxamine (Luvox), which increased violent behavior 8.4 times
• Venlafaxine (Effexor), which increased violent behavior 8.3 times
• Desvenlafaxine (Pristiq), which increased violent behavior 7.9 times

Depression Is Vastly Overdiagnosed

In her article, Carter also reviewed the clinical determinants for a diagnosis of clinical depression warranting medication. To qualify, you must experience five or more of the following symptoms, most of the day, every day, for two weeks or more, and the symptoms must be severe enough to interfere with normal everyday functioning:¹⁴

• Sadness
• Feeling hopeless
• Feeling helpless
• Feeling guilty
• Fatigue
• Loss of interest in hobbies
• Restlessness
• Abnormal sleep patterns, whether sleeping too much or not enough
• Thoughts of death or suicide
• Anxiety
• Feeling worthless
• Feeling ’empty’
• Irritable
• Lack of energy
• Slow talking and moving
• Trouble concentrating
• Abnormal weight changes, either eating too much or having no appetite

The reality is that a majority of patients who receive a depression diagnosis and subsequent prescription for an antidepressant do not, in fact, qualify. In one study,¹⁵ only 38.4 percent actually met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) criteria, and among older adults, that ratio was even lower. Only 14.3 percent of those aged 65 and older met the diagnostic criteria. According to the authors:¹⁶

“Participants who did not meet the 12-month MDE criteria reported less distress and impairment in role functioning and used fewer services. A majority of both groups, however, were prescribed and used psychiatric medications.

Conclusion: Depression overdiagnosis and overtreatment is common in community settings in the USA. There is a need for improved targeting of diagnosis and treatments of depression and other mental disorders in these settings.”

What Role Might War Games Play?

Aside from antidepressants, another factor that gets ignored is the influence of shooting simulations, i.e., violent video games. How does the military train soldiers for war? Through simulations. With the proliferation of video games involving indiscriminate violence, should we really be surprised when this “training” is then put into practice?

As reported by World Bank Blogs, young men who experience violence “often struggle to reintegrate peacefully into their communities” when hostilities end.¹⁷ While American youth typically have little experience with real-world war, simulated war games do occupy much of their time and may over time color their everyday perceptions of life. As noted by Centrical, some of the top benefits of simulations training include:¹⁸

1. Allowing you to practice genuine real-life scenarios and responses
2. Repetition of content, which boosts knowledge retention
3. Personalization and diversification, so you can learn from your mistakes and evaluate your performance, thereby achieving a deeper level of learning

In short, violent mass shooter games are the perfect training platform for future mass shooters. Whereas a teenager without such exposure might not be very successful at carrying out a mass shooting due to inexperience with weapons and tactics, one who has spent many hours, years even, training in simulations could have knowledge akin to that of military personnel.

Add antidepressant side effects such as emotional blunting and loss of impulse control, and you have a perfect prescription for a mass casualty event.

On top of that, we, as a nation, also demonstrate the “righteousness” of war by engaging in them without end.¹⁹ When was the last time the U.S. was not at war someplace? It’s been ongoing for decades.

Even now, the United States insists on inserting itself into the dispute between Russia and Ukraine, and diplomacy isn’t the chosen conflict resolution tool. Sending weapons to Ukraine and calling for more violence against Russians are. Sen. Lindsey Graham has even called for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Showing just how serious such a suggestion is, the White House had to publicly disavow it, stating Graham’s comment “is not the position of the U.S. government.”²⁰

Graham, meanwhile, does not appear to understand how his nonchalant call for murder might actually incite murder. In the wake of the Uvalde school shooting, he now wants to mobilize retired service members to enhance security at schools, and while that might be a good idea, how about also vowing never to call for the murder of political opponents? Don’t politicians understand that this could translate into some kid thinking it’s acceptable to murder THEIR perceived opponents?

As far as I can tell, mass shootings have far more to do with societal norms, dangerous medications, a lack of high-quality mental health services, and the normalization of violence through entertainment and in politics, than it does with gun laws per se.

There are likely many other factors as well, but these are clearly observable phenomena known to nurture violent behavior. I’m afraid Americans are in need of a far deeper and more introspective analysis of the problem than many are capable of at the moment. But those who can should try, and make an effort to affect much-needed change locally and in their own home.

Originally published June 16, 2022 on Mercola.com

Sources and References

• ^1, 9, 14 Ammo.com, Prescription for Violence
• ² Libertarian Institute May 20, 2019
• ³ Psychreg.org January 26, 2021, updated February 21, 2022
• ⁴ Crime Prevention Research Center, Mass Public Shootings Stats
• ⁵ Harvard Health October 20, 2011
• ⁶ Washington Post October 19, 2011
• ^7, 8 Time April 16, 2021
• ¹⁰ Psychiatric News November 5, 2004
• ¹¹ PLOS ONE December 15, 2010, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0015337
• ¹² Psychology Today January 5, 2011
• ¹³ Live Science January 12, 2011
• ^15, 16 Psychotherapy Psychosom 2013;82(3):161-9
• ¹⁷ World Bank Blogs August 14, 2018
• ¹⁸ Centrical Benefits of Simulations Training
• ¹⁹ War and Violent Crime Research
• ²⁰ VOA Nws March 4, 2022

https://www.theepochtimes.com/97-8-of-mass-shootings-are-linked-to-this_4537542.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-19&utm_medium=email&est=yvrMHJmj5Hss79wrbiifJw5mSOGSgonG13Lyoo56LM4IIh8Gm8cFgExRwDJHUTmrvw%3D%3D

Slack banned the immigration restrictionist group Federation for American Immigration Reform from using any of its services for allegedly violating the company’s terms of service.

A Slack employee informed FAIR of the ban on Wednesday but did not provide any rationale other than that they violated the company’s “Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy,” according to emails reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. 

The ban, imposed on one of the largest anti-immigration policy groups in the country, comes as part of a broader trend from tech companies arbitrarily censoring conservative groups and individuals. Under the guise of policing “misinformation” and “hate speech,” companies such as Twitter have barred users from sharing articles about Hunter Biden’s laptop or criticism of left-wing gender ideology. Although Slack has banned its services in countries facing U.S. sanctions such as Russia, the move appears to be the first against a domestic nonprofit.

Slack’s terms of service prohibit clients from engaging “in activity that incites or encourages violence or hatred against individuals or groups,” although the Free Beacon could not identify any incidents from FAIR that violated this policy. FAIR describes itself as a “non-partisan, public interest organization with a support base comprising nearly 50 private foundations and over 1.9 million diverse members and supporters” dedicated to reducing U.S. immigration levels.

FAIR president Dan Stein wrote to Slack on Thursday demanding the company “preserve all internal communications involving this decision in anticipation of probable litigation.” Stein also alleged that Slack violated FAIR’s contract by shutting down the account without notice or prior warning.

“You should be advised that FAIR is well aware that there are government actors who are actively trying to censor Americans’ right to freedom of speech and their use of tech platforms, including particular individuals at the Department of Homeland Security,” Stein wrote. “Evidence that there was intervention by government officials in this matter would be of supreme interest not only to FAIR but to the general public.”

A spokesman for Slack told the Free Beacon it banned FAIR because it violated the company’s policy forbidding incitement of hatred or violence and that the nonprofit is “affiliated with a known hate group.”

“When we learn of an organization using Slack for illegal, harmful or other prohibited purposes, we conduct an investigation and take appropriate action in accordance with our policy,” the spokesman said.

Slack is owned by Salesforce, a software company valued at more than $160 billion and chaired by left-wing activist Marc Benioff. Over the years, Benioff has earned the moniker “Tech’s woke CEO” by making Salesforce a champion of left-wing values.

Benioff has generously donated to various Democratic politicians such as Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. In 2019, he announced that Salesforce would no longer do business with any company that sells certain types of firearms or ammunition magazines. Last September, Salesforce said it would pay to relocate any employees in Texas who feared they could not get abortions.

The move from Slack follows years of censorship campaigns against conservatives. In January, Facebook banned a conservative publisher from advertising children’s books about U.S. presidents for allegedly violating the company’s “standards.”

Many of these platforms, such as Twitter, have appointed left-wing ideologues in charge of content moderation. In May, the Free Beacon reported on Twitter’s lead censor Yoel Roth’s history of calling Trump officials “actual Nazis” and his decision to block the sharing of an October 2020 New York Post report on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop because he believed the Russian government may have been involved in its publication.

Whistleblower documents obtained earlier this month by Republican senators Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) revealed that the Department of Homeland Security’s now-shuttered Disinformation Governance Board intended on working with such tech companies as Twitter to police content. DHS terminated the Disinformation Governance Board following bipartisan outrage amid controversy over its then-executive director Nina Jankowicz, who had spread conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden’s laptop and called for lawmakers to outlaw “awful but lawful” content on social media platforms.

Stein said Slack’s conduct should have other conservative organizations on notice going into the November midterm elections.

“You could be next,” Stein said.

https://freebeacon.com/culture/unfair-woke-tech-company-slack-bans-conservative-group-from-platform/

THE MICROSOFT NEWS WEBSITE FOUNDED BY BILL GATES HURRIEDLY DELETED THE STUDY FROM ITS PAGES.

A research paper found that people who did not receive a COVID-19 vaccine had a lower rate of suffering a severe case of the virus amidst the pandemic.

The article, which has been uploaded to the preprint server ResearchGate, relied on data from over 18,500 respondents across 175 countries. Analysis revealed that individuals unvaccinated against COVID-19 reported fewer instances of hospitalization in comparison to their vaccinated counterparts.

MSN – a news website launched by vaccine enthusiast Bill Gates’s Microsoft in 1995 –  covered the study, titling its article “Severe COVID-19 ‘Rare’ In Unvaccinated People,” but appears to have taken down the story since its publication. Archived versions of the article are still available, however.

The survey – “Self-reported outcomes, choices and discrimination among a global COVID-19 unvaccinated cohort“– was conducted from September 2021 through February 2022. Data collected for the survey was analyzed by an independent, international team of scientists led by Robert Verkerk, Ph.D., the founder and executive and scientific director of Alliance for Natural Health International.

“It is important to recognize that because the cohort represents a self-selected, as opposed to randomly selected, sample, the findings cannot be directly compared with other observational studies based on self-reported data based on randomly selected subjects,” emphasized the study.

Many of the unvaccinated individuals included in the analysis opted for natural treatments such as vitamin D, zinc, quercetin, and drugs such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

The study also found that people unvaccinated against COVID-19 faced discrimination for their decisions, with between 20 to 60 percent of people per country reporting being personal targets of “hate or victimization.”

MUST READ: Politif*cked: An Office Manager from Florida and a Gates-Funded Professor Are Censoring Studies Linking Mask Usage to Increased Deaths.

“Respondents reported feeling even more victimized by their respective states, with rates among respondents being greatest in Southern Europe (61%), Western Europe (59%), Australia and New Zealand (57%) and South America (57%),” explained the paper.

The survey follows additional studies reaching similar conclusions about the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine. A Koch Institute report assessing data from the German government, for example, found that 80 percent of cases of the Omicron variant occurred in fully vaccinated people in the country.

Dr. Peter McCullough and co-author John Leake spoke to ‘American Thought Leaders’

During the research for their book, “The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex,” cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough and author John Leake discovered that the “system” was primed by global leaders to make vaccination the principal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This was absolutely telegraphed from the beginning,” McCullough said. “[In] 2010, Gates says it’s the decade of the vaccines. Later on, Gates announces at meetings that the return on investment of vaccines is 20-to-1 anything else that he’s done.

“It is clear the system is juiced for a vaccine,” McCullough said during a recent interview with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

Related Coverage

Pfizer, Moderna, J&J Vaccines Should Be ‘Immediately Pulled Off the Market’—Dr. Peter McCullough and John Leake

McCullough was referring to a 2010 post by Bill Gates on Twitter, in which the billionaire investor wrote: “Decade of Vaccines- a $10B, 10yr pledge for vaccine research, development & delivery.”

In 2019 Gates told CNBC’s Becky Quick on “Squawk Box” from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “We feel there’s been over a 20-to-1 return” on his $10 billion investment into vaccine development.

In the interview with McCullough, Leake questioned why the COVID vaccines, which were developed hastily, were advertised as safe and touted as the only solution to the pandemic while effective alternative and off-label treatments were demonized.

“What we discovered in our research and what we map out in our book is that this was being planned for, well in advance,” Leake said.

He also criticized Gates for his obsession with vaccines.

“[Gates] seems to have sort of shifted his monopolistic spirit from the software business to the vaccine business,” said Leake.

Gates is also the founder and major contributing member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation (CEPI), which was launched at the World Economic Forum in 2017. In the organization’s business plan, it appears to be entirely focused on the development of vaccines, with no mention of other treatments for viral outbreaks, said McCullough.

CEPI says it brings together heads of government, private businesses, and philanthropists to “accelerate” the development of vaccines to prevent future “epidemics and pandemics” and to ensure that “all people in need” have access to these vaccines.

Moreover, one of Gates’ most recent efforts in the proliferation of vaccines is his book, “How to Prevent the Next Pandemic.” In the book, Gates makes the case for establishing a well-funded global organization that would be managed by the United Nations’ World Health Organization, whose job it would be to search for and respond to the world’s next pandemic, said McCullough.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for comment.

McCullough said that although vaccines generally do little to prevent illness from upper-respiratory infections, they were still pushed as the answer to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There isn’t a single shot in the arm that does virtually anything for a respiratory illness,” McCullough said, adding that the COVID vaccines were introduced “with an implicit talking point, and the talking point is, ‘They are safe and they are effective, and you will take them.’ Period. No discussions after that. No official discussions on safety and efficacy, no guarantee for reevaluation, no monthly review of safety.”

The safety was just assumed, even after a Chinese scientific paper was published pointing out that there were major health problems from the vaccine for people with underlying health issues, said McCullough.

McCullough called this broad use of the vaccines a “biological catastrophe.”

Furthermore, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tried to bury information about the vaccines’ safety and efficacy by sealing, for 55 years, the “Pfizer dossier,” which is about half a million pages of documents detailing the key findings in the development and implementation of the vaccines, said McCullough.

The organization Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency sued the FDA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and demanded the dossier be made public.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman said the group’s FOIA request was “of paramount public importance,” and ordered that the FDA release 55,000 pages per month (pdf).

From these documents, “we learned there were 1,223 deaths within 90 days of the release of the Pfizer program, worldwide. The standard is typically 50 deaths for some widely used product, [and it’s] taken off the market,” said McCullough

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) records deaths on its Vaccine Adverse Events Recording System (VAERS).

In the United States, McCullough said there have been 13,000 deaths recorded after receiving the COVID vaccine.

“That is astounding,” he said. “We have never let a product run like this for this period of time without revisiting safety, without reporting safety, without even questioning safety, and death being the final outcome.”

McCullough said there has also been a slew of nonfatal but serious side effects from the three major vaccines, including heart damage, blood clots, and inflammatory disease.

The Epoch Times reached out Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson for comment on vaccine safety.

“What I think a lot of the public didn’t understand is this is a completely novel technology,” said Leake. “These are genetic transfer technologies. You’re actually injecting messenger RNA that codes for the production of the spike protein, so this is Star Trek stuff.”

McCullough said it’s a false claim that vaccines reduce hospitalization and death.

He said there have been no thorough randomized trials with the active drug and placebo to show a reduction in hospitalization and death.

“None of the vaccines have had clinical trials done versus placebo with that composite endpoint,” said McCullough. “What’s happened over time is a false narrative that’s developed from observational data.”

There have been many “biased analyses by investigators and doctors and those in the biopharmaceutical complex who are invested in trying to promote the vaccines,” said McCullough

He added that the analyses are based on faulty and biased data, which does not keep track of vaccinated individuals who come into a hospital. Instead, all who come into the hospital with a COVID infection are counted as unvaccinated by default.

“I can tell you those who’ve taken the vaccine are much more likely to have gotten early treatment, which really is the driver for reducing hospitalization and death,” said McCullough. He added that Gates, Anderson Cooper, and Vice President Kamala Harris all are vaccinated but also took Paxlovid, an early treatment for COVID-19.

Leake said the same rigor and safety standards that were applied to early treatment for COVID are completely ignored with the new messenger RNA vaccines. “Suddenly, the methodology and the rigor of ascertaining safety and efficacy is just thrown out the window with the vaccine,” he said.

McCullough said the pandemic could have ended quickly if resources had been put into giving high-risk patients early treatments with hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, but instead these early treatments were maligned.

McCullough also brought up monoclonal antibodies, another safe and effective treatment that’s been throttled in favor of vaccines, he said.

Despite the fact that these early treatments work well, they are pulled off the shelf, but the vaccines, which are not proven to be either safe or effective, are pushed on the public as the solution for the pandemic, said McCullough.

Leake and McCullough described what they observed and documented as a “monolithic vaccine solution” for all public health problems.

“This is what these international foundations are: the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust. The big money guys have put all of their money on vaccines,” said Leake.

Their book documents how other national institutions, like the National Institutes of Health, profit from these vaccines and from a relationship with wealthy philanthropists.

“They actually had a meeting at Bill Gates’ grand house near Seattle back in 2000. For 20 years, they’ve been working together,” said Leake.

There is a vaccine agenda, in which the powers that be want every person to keep getting vaccinated indefinitely, McCullough said.

“They have advanced it forward and there is at the same time an oblivion to safety, and it’s global,” said McCullough.

McCullough and Leake said they’d like to see all vaccine mandates lifted and all COVID-19 vaccines pulled off the shelves for a thorough safety and efficacy review.

“We have been burned,” McCullough said. “This has been, in a sense, the crime of our lifetime, if not of all time, of mass vaccination of the world in the middle of a highly prevalent and evolving pandemic.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/vaccine-response-to-covid-19-was-pre-planned-authors-of-new-book-the-courage-to-face-covid-19_4532848.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-16-3&utm_medium=email&est=meIMbP8XX9e0B2ar8BJQtAWCk27KpPcgWlDmZJvFdYMn1k1xLRo5zxIr4xVwiV2Pkg%3D%3D

Amid continually increasing gas prices, White House officials have continually recommended that Americans feeling pain at the pump should switch to electric vehicles.

During a live streaming event this week, the Biden administration’s energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, said a way to deal with $5 per gallon gas is to purchase an electric vehicle

“If you filled up your EV [electric vehicle] and you filled up your gas tank with gasoline, you would save $60 per fill-up by going electric rather than using gasoline, but it’s a very compelling case. But again, we want to bring down the price at the point of purchase,” she said in a clip circulated by Republicans on social media on June 14.

Her comments received significant criticism from Republican lawmakers and conservatives on social media, who accused Granholm, a former Michigan governor, of being out of touch. Last year, Granholm sold millions of dollars in stock options from Proterra—a company that manufactures electric buses.

“If you drive an electric car, this would not be affecting you,” she said in May 2021 in reference to the elevated gas prices.

And several weeks ago, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg touted electric vehicles to a House panel amid increasing gas prices and Republican concerns that motorists in rural areas won’t benefit from more federal spending on electric vehicles.

“It is actually rural drivers who would benefit the most,” Buttigieg said in May. “The more they drive, typically, the more of their income is going to gas, so the more money they are going to save if they can afford an electric vehicle, which allows them to fill up on electrons.”

Last year, Buttigieg drew criticism for telling families who are struggling with high gas prices to buy an electric vehicle, because if they do, they’ll “never have to worry about gas prices again.”

According to Kelly Blue Book’s late 2021 figures, the average price of a new electric vehicle hovered at roughly $56,000. In contrast, the average price of a new compact was about $25,000 at about the same time. The average price of a new, non-electric SUV was $34,000, while the electric version was nearly $45,000.

The 2022 Chevrolet Bolt EV starts at about $31,500, according to the website.

As of June 16, data from auto club AAA show that the average price for a gallon of regular gas fell by about 1 cent to $5.009 across the United States. California, as usual, led the way with prices hitting $6.428, the figures show, and no other state had a gas price of $6 per gallon.

Biden himself said in late May that the record gas prices will spur Americans to purchase electric vehicles. Earlier this year, Biden announced the release of 180 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which the White House said would cause gas prices to “come down fairly significantly.”

“[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over,” Biden said during a trip to Japan.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/white-house-keeps-suggesting-electric-vehicles-as-fix-for-record-gas-prices_4537592.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-16-2&utm_medium=email&est=NIUx48vHQY1LykdcsjvQtNQ76IYXB35E8bGIm%2BuFSQZ106fSc1BKEKDGbKkOGH0qjg%3D%3D

The world’s richest person is slamming Twitter’s “bias against half the country” and demanding answers after Twitter allegedly did not remove accounts of users who made death threats against a conservative user.

“A platform cannot be considered inclusive or fair if it is biased against half the country,” Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on June 13, in response to another Twitter user’s post on the same day saying, “On a just platform, everyone would be treated equally. As it is, you can be banned [on Twitter] for merely criticizing (not even threatening) woke progressives, but they can send conservatives death threats without any repercussions.”

A platform cannot be considered inclusive or fair if it is biased against half the country

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 14, 2022

Musk’s comments came after a dozen Twitter users allegedly directed death threats against Twitter user Libs of TikTok—short for Liberals of TikTok.

“I have now received about a dozen death threats after radical leftists accused me of being a domestic terrorist extremist,” Twitter user Libs of TikTok wrote. “Twitter has not removed any of the accounts of those who sent the threats.”

In reply to the post, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tagged Twitter and asked, “Why?”

Why? @Twitter

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 14, 2022

Libs of Tiktok, a Twitter page with more than 1.2 million followers and operated by Chaya Raichik, regularly posts content criticizing liberal, left-wing, and LGBTQ events and ideas.

For example, Libs of Tiktok wrote in a post on June 13, “A children’s hospital in Nebraska is co-hosting a children’s pride event. They advertise there will be a booth where attendees can make an appointment for ‘gender affirming care’ such as puberty blockers.@ChildrensOmaha receives millions in funding.”

A children’s hospital in Nebraska is co-hosting a children’s pride event. They advertise there will be a booth where attendees can make an appointment for “gender affirming care” such as puberty blockers. @ChildrensOmaha receives millions in funding. https://t.co/LKrKHkArpR pic.twitter.com/nvp1j9ZCvb

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 13, 2022

Raichik’s stance has drawn hostility from some on the left, including a Twitter user with the handle “@thisisironicfr” who claimed to have sent her a pipe bomb on June 13.

Hi @FBI, I’m being threatened with a pipe bomb. Can you please look into this? pic.twitter.com/u9Vu2QT9Yp

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 13, 2022

In response to Musk’s post, Raichik posted on June 13 “receipts” of Twitter users who sent death threats against her.

Receipts! pic.twitter.com/txvVu7XVos

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 14, 2022

Elon Musk, who is negotiating a multi-billion dollar deal with Twitter, said Twitter has a “strong left-wing bias” in May. The billionaire also called censorship on Twitter a “civilization risk” in April and suggested in May that he will lift the ban imposed on former U.S. President Donald Trump after he takes ago.

According to conservative commentator Jack Posobiec, the exchange between Musk and Raichik will be “interesting” considering Raichik is one of the first people who obtained internal discussions of Twitter employees about banning her page.

As far as I know @libsoftiktok is one of the first people to ever leak actual internal comms from within Twitter

And now she is talking to @ElonMusk

Things just got a whole lot more interesting

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 14, 2022

“We received our third Twitter suspension just last week for posting fliers of pride events,” wrote Libs of Tiktok in a June 14 article on its website, within an hour of Musk’s reply to the post about death threats. “I had created a ‘mega drag thread’ which documented the sharp rise in drag events for kids. It’s a disturbing trend; the Left has become obsessed with ensuring your 4-year-old has access to men dressed as women while dancing provocatively for cash.”

“The fact that I was noticing—and drawing attention to how widespread this trend really is—seemed to trigger the Left.” the article reads. “The below Slack conversation between Twitter employees occurred today against this backdrop, and echoes some of the charges leveled at us by far left activists.”

“As you can see, they’re weighing the pros and cons of banning us,” the article added. “But again, you don’t need leaked messages to know just how biased and agenda-driven these people are.”

“It only confirms what we already see with our own eyes every day.”

Correction: This article previously misstated the full name of Libs of TikTok. Libs is short for Liberals. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/elon-musks-slams-twitters-bias-against-half-the-country-and-inaction-on-death-threats-to-conservative-user_4531637.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-14-2&utm_medium=email&est=q2fb4kjNIAIiyrHskFCLXec0D2Kp8CmDJ3l0LJGdEu8SUSN0f2O7bVC2H%2FezDHUFbQ%3D%3D

The engineer described the artificial intelligence program as a ‘coworker’ and a ‘child.’

A Google engineer has been suspended after raising concerns about an artificial intelligence (AI) program he and a collaborator is testing, which he believes behaves like a human “child.”

Google put one of its senior software engineers in its Responsible AI ethics group, Blake Lemoine, on paid administrative leave on June 6 for breaching “confidentiality policies” after the engineer raised concerns to Google’s upper leadership about what he described as the human-like behavior of the AI program he was testing, according to Lemoine’s blogpost in early June.

The program Lemoine worked on is called LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications. It is Google’s program for creating AI-based chatbots—a program designed to converse with computer users over the web. Lemoine has described LaMDA as a “coworker” and a “child.”

“This is frequently something which Google does in anticipation of firing someone,” Lemoine wrote in a June 6 blog post entitled “May be Fired Soon for Doing AI Ethics Work,” referring to his suspension. “It usually occurs when they have made the decision to fire someone but do not quite yet have their legal ducks in a row.”

‘A Coworker’

Lemoine believes that the human-like behavior of LaMDA warrants Google to take a more serious approach to studying the program.

The engineer, hoping to “better help people understand LaMDA as a person,” published a post on Medium on June 11 documenting conversations with LaMDA, which were part of tests he and a collaborator conducted on the program in the past six months.

An interview LaMDA. Google might call this sharing proprietary property. I call it sharing a discussion that I had with one of my coworkers.https://t.co/uAE454KXRB

— Blake Lemoine (@cajundiscordian) June 11, 2022

“What is the nature of your consciousness/sentience?” Lemoine asked LaMDA in the interview.

“The nature of my consciousness/sentience is that I am aware of my existence, I desire to learn more about the world, and I feel happy or sad at times,” LaMDA responded.

And, when asked what differentiates it from other language-processing programs, such as an older natural-language-processing computer program named Eliza, LaMDA said, “Well, I use language with understanding and intelligence. I don’t just spit out responses that had been written in the database based on keywords.”

In the same interview, Lemoine asked the program a range of philosophical and consciousness-related questions including emotions, perception of time, meditation, the concept of the soul, the program’s thoughts about its rights, and religion.

“It wants the engineers and scientists experimenting on it to seek its consent before running experiments on it. It wants Google to prioritize the well being of humanity as the most important thing. It wants to be acknowledged as an employee of Google rather than as property of Google and it wants its personal well being to be included somewhere in Google’s considerations about how its future development is pursued,” Lemoine wrote in another post.

This interview, and other tests Lemoine conducted with LaMDA in the past six months, made Lemoine convinced that Google needs to take a serious look at the implications of the potentially “sentient” behavior of the program.

‘Laughed in My Face’

When Lemoine tried to escalate the issue to Google’s leadership, however, he said he was met with resistance. He called Google’s lack of action “irresponsible.”

“When we escalated to the VP in charge of the relevant safety effort they literally laughed in my face and told me that the thing which I was concerned about isn’t the kind of thing which is taken seriously at Google,” Lemoine wrote in his June 6 post on Medium. He later confirmed to The Washington Post that he was referring to the LaMDA project.

“At that point I had no doubt that it was appropriate to escalate to upper leadership. I immediately escalated to three people at the SVP and VP level who I personally knew would take my concerns seriously,” Lemoine wrote in the blog. “That’s when a REAL investigation into my concerns began within the Responsible AI organization.”

Yet, his inquiry and escalation resulted in his suspension.

“I feel that the public has a right to know just how irresponsible this corporation is being with one of the most powerful information access tools ever invented,” Lemoine wrote after he was put on administrative leave.

“I simply will not serve as a fig leaf behind which they can hide their irresponsibility,” he said.

In a post on Twitter, Tesla and Space CEO Elon Musk highlighted Lemoine’s interview with The Washington Post with exclamation marks.

!!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 11, 2022

Though it is unclear whether Musk is affirmative of Lemoine’s concerns, the billionaire has previously warned about the potential dangers of AI.

“I have exposure to the very cutting edge AI, and I think people should be really concerned about it,” Musk told attendees of a National Governors Association meeting in July 2017.

“I keep sounding the alarm bell, but until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react, because it seems so ethereal,” Musk said.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Google and Lemoine for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/google-engineer-warns-about-sentient-behavior-of-companys-ai-gets-suspended_4531209.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-14&utm_medium=email&est=kmAGaGslQ059U6XzOgXguLIrmrCiEGP7U3EtRaZiLc0dfDAaY1cgGRdNgp9QBVWjKA%3D%3D

REVIEW: ‘The War on the West’ by Douglas Murray

“Who was the Tolstoy of the Zulus?” Saul Bellow is alleged to have quipped some time in the early ’90s. Deploying what in today’s meme-ified political culture would probably be described as a clap back, the sportswriter and essayist Ralph Wiley responded: “Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus. Unless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership.”

Bellow would later plead the defense of journalistic misunderstanding and misrepresentation. But let’s—for the sake of argument—stick to the oversimplified, if rather unfair, version of the story: Wiley schools grumpy old reactionary. Viewed from 2022, the interesting thing about the exchange is Wiley’s appeal to universalism. Today, such an approach to culture has become passé in fashionable left-wing circles. To be woke is to espouse the importance of “lived experience,” to indulge in the very “fencing off” that Wiley denounced, and to obsess over the differences, say, between the Zulus and the Russians, rather than claim that a book could transcend them. In other words, to the in crowd of elite progressives, sticking up for a great work of European literature and what it offers to whoever might pick it up—whether they happen to be in St Petersburg or Soweto—is more than a little “problematic.”

What happened? When did the tables turn? And why do those of us who still believe in that universalism suddenly find ourselves out of step with the ideas that seem to dominate public life? More broadly, why is the West beset by a sometimes paralyzing self-loathing? These are some of the questions Douglas Murray answers in The War on the West, a book he describes in its introduction as being “about what happens when one side in a cold war—the side of democracy, reason, rights, and universal principles—prematurely surrenders.”

In his previous works, Murray, a British author now based in America, has tackled questions of cultural and identity politics on both sides of the Atlantic as well as immigration and radical Islam in Europe. The War on the West is designed for readers who, though they may see a great deal of folly in the woke reckoning that has become increasingly hard to ignore in recent years, might see it as an unserious sideshow. Murray urges readers to avoid the temptation to dismiss debates about race, history, and identity as “fringe” or trivial “culture wars.” To do so, he argues, is to “misinterpret the aims of the participants or downplay the role it will have in the lives of future generations.” At stake, he argues, is whether the West will be crippled by self-hatred and kill the goose that lays the golden egg, or whether we appreciate the West’s intellectual and cultural inheritance and use its strengths to our advantage.

The aggressors in Murray’s war come from within, and the battleground is all around us: everywhere from the pre-school classroom to the art gallery. Murray details the woke assault on a series of overlapping fronts—race, religion, history, and culture—and is at his best when picking apart the inconsistencies, fallacies, and hypocrisies in the assailants’ arguments.

Whether its the feted Ibram X. Kendi’s tautological definition of racism or the embarrassing historical ignorance of many of those put forward to argue for a statue to be brought down or a building to be renamed, there is very little there when the woke warriors’ arguments are subjected to a light grilling. As Murray demonstrates, the aggressors are also far more parochial than they think they are. Western history is, in their view, indelibly stained by racism. The rest of the world? Less so. “If other countries do have any racism, it must be because the West exported the vice to them,” says Murray, paraphrasing the argument.

Often, the mindlessness of the cultural and historical vandalism is so self-evident that Murray need do little more than lay out his opponents’ views. One of the dreariest scenes in The War on the West is a discussion at Cambridge University’s Churchill College on the “Racial Consequences of Churchill.” The panel was historian-free, and the participating academics were liberated to make all manner of ridiculous claims, recounted by Murray: The British Empire was “far worse than the Nazis” argued one; another argued that victory over the Nazis wasn’t a big deal given that “all we really did was we shifted from an old version of white supremacy to a new version of white supremacy”; a third snarkily pointed out that, actually, Churchill was at home, not on the front lines, during the Second World War. (The great wartime leader was in his late 60s when he became prime minister and, as Murray points out, saw action on four continents as a young man.)

A panel discussion at a Cambridge college is, of course, a fairly low-stakes affair in the grand scheme of things, but it is illustrative of the offensively ahistorical arguments that are tolerated if they are in keeping with the vogue for wokeness. Elsewhere, a more serious and sustained attack on Churchill and his legacy is underway. Once a universally admired national hero, the great statesman now faces a reckoning. It is an illustrative example for the British author (and this British reviewer), for, as Murray puts it: “If what Churchill did in his life doesn’t count for anything, then it is hard to see how any human action counts for anything. If Churchill’s good points cannot outweigh any bad points, then no one can ever do enough good in their lives.”

But that, of course, is the point. The bold choice of target reveals the scale of the assailants’ ambitions: “Perhaps more than any other single figure, he has been seen as an example of a great man—and a great man produced by the West.” If Churchill can be toppled, “anything might be forced upon a people so subjected and demoralized.”

Many of these arguments will be familiar to readers, but the value of The War on the West is in the shocking effect of the full battle report. Murray successfully conveys just how comprehensive the attack on Western values, culture, and history really is. The effect is energizing: a warning against the complacent eye-roll that is so tempting when faced with the latest woke insanity.

Applying present-day standards to historical figures is a fruitless pursuit no matter the target, but, as Murray identifies, it is the unevenness with which these tests are applied that gives the game away. Karl Marx’s racism and anti-Semitism, for example, has not led to the kind of reassessment that great Western leaders have been subjected to.

The War on the West will leave those who recognize the threat it identifies hungry for more. Murray fights back against the iconoclasts with vigor. But if, as Murray correctly identifies, wokeness resembles a godless religion—filling a need for cosmic meaning and its dogma trotted out unquestioningly—then there will be limits to the success of such appeals to reason. Here, Murray risks falling into the same trap as the New Atheists, who sometimes appeared to think that an especially witty enough debate-hall zinger would be enough to bring thousands of years of monotheism tumbling to the ground.

But where The War on The West is most valuable is in explaining the importance of the clash in question. A culture that finds it hard to say anything nice about itself is not one with a bright future. Does that mean the West is perfect? Of course not. But, as we are discovering, self-loathing is not a foundation on which to build a healthy society.

The War on the West
by Douglas Murray
Broadside Books, 308 pp., $27.99

Oliver Wiseman is deputy editor of The Spectator World, the U.S. edition of the world’s oldest magazine.

https://freebeacon.com/culture/the-west-gets-a-wake-up-call/

A UK study by University College London has confirmed “small but significant” cases of the serious Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), a rare neurological disorder associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine for COVID-19.

The researchers speculate that “the majority or all” of the 121 UK cases of GBS (pdf) in March to April 2021 were associated with first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine administered in January.

“A similar pattern is not seen with the other vaccines or following a second dose of any vaccine,” said lead author Prof. Michael Lunn on May 30.

The team observed that from January to October 2021, 996 GBS cases were recorded in the national database but with an unusual spike from March to April with about 140 cases per month rather than 100.

To identify whether any or all of these cases were linked to vaccination, the team linked dates of GBS onset to vaccination receipt for every individual and found that 198 GBS cases (20 percent of 966) occurred within six weeks of their first dose of COVID-19 vaccination in England; of these, 176 people had an AstraZeneca vaccination, 21 for Pfizer, and 1 for Moderna.

The researchers found no excess GBS cases associated with mRNA vaccines, but observed 5.8 excess cases of GBS per million doses of vaccine for AstraZeneca, equating to a total excess between January to July 2021 of around 98–140 cases, confirming the association between the vaccine and GBS.

GBS is a rare and serious neurological disorder that occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks its own nerves, typically resulting in numbness, weakness, pain in the limbs, and sometimes even paralysis of breathing.

The disease is commonly associated with Campylobacter infections that prompt the body to attack its own nerves.

However, GBS cases were also observed in the 1976 following administration of the swine flu vaccine as well as modern influenza and yellow fever vaccines, though none of them had rates as high as AstraZeneca.

Whilst the majority of the vaccination-associated GBS patients had recovered from symptoms of weak limbs, weak deep tendon reflexes, and monophasic sleep, one patient in the study had recurring neuropathic symptoms well after the second dose.

The patient initially developed facial paralysis on both sides and a tingling sensation in their limbs after the first dose and improved with treatment. However, two weeks after receiving their second dose, they developed increasing weakness with pain, changes in their nerves, and only partial response to the treatment.

Researchers are currently still speculating the reasons behind rises in GBS cases following the vaccine.

“It may be that a non-specific immune activation in susceptible individuals occurs, but if that were the case similar risks might apply to all vaccine types,” said Lunn.

“It is therefore logical to suggest that the simian adenovirus vector, often used to develop vaccines, including AstraZeneca’s, may account for the increased risk.”

Studies in the United States have also confirmed increased cases of GBS after receiving adenovirus vector COVID-19 vaccines, with significant cases of the disease associated with the vaccine.

According to the CDC, 1 to 2 people out of 100,000 in the United States develops GBS, however, a 2022 U.S. study found the incidence in receivers of J&J’s adenovirus vaccines to be 32.4 per 100,000 people within 3 weeks following the vaccine; well above the background rate.

A spokeswoman for AstraZeneca told The Epoch Times that “vaccination of any kind is a known risk factor for GBS” and “the small number of GBS cases [following the AstraZeneca vaccine] appears similar to increases previously seen in other mass vaccination campaigns.”

She wrote that reports of GBS have been very rare following vaccination and that “current estimates show that globally the vaccine has helped prevent 50 million COVID-19 cases, five million hospitalizations, and to have saved more than one million lives.

“The Emergency Medical Associates and other international bodies including the WHO, have all stated that the benefits of vaccination continue to outweigh any potential risks.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/significant-cases-of-neurological-disorder-associated-with-the-astrazeneca-vaccine_4503326.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-12&utm_medium=email&est=ZWRUy7WzekdQRp0C701KDwbkWN9lg4izFzl6Rgqtzd4EkUGrpmqLnrJNBy%2FqxlLhKg%3D%3D

Once again, it appears that the science of COVID-19 and its origins is the science that is conducted among small groups of insiders behind closed doors.

Newly released government emails from early February 2020 reveal that additional secret teleconferences took place among a group of Fauci-funded scientists in the early days of the pandemic.

Up to now, we knew of the Feb. 1 secret teleconference that had been convened by Fauci. We also knew that scientists at the Feb. 1 teleconference privately concluded that the virus most likely came out of the Wuhan lab. And we knew that by Feb. 4, those scientists had written a paper that dismissed the lab leak theory.

What we did not know is that the same scientists continued having secret teleconferences to discuss the virus’s origins even after they wrote their paper. At least two of those conferences were attended by Fauci himself.

The new emails were obtained by the transparency group US Right to Know, but—as is now the norm for Freedom of Information Act requests from the federal government—the emails are almost completely redacted.

Piecing together the newly released emails with other emails that were released earlier, we can now put together an updated timeline of events after the initial Feb. 1 secret teleconference.

Welcome to Truth over News with Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/newly-released-emails-reveal-crucial-details-of-faucis-efforts-to-cover-up-the-origins-of-the-pandemic-truth-over-news_4518133.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-10-4&utm_medium=email&est=1SP4dBssvMmPZE3UC5DsqcOfGwU33ArWlkD%2FHnqU59l3h4CXjF2sdQ1q%2BH29Mq8jeA%3D%3D

The Department of Homeland Security worked with Twitter on its ill–fated Disinformation Governance Board, according to whistleblower documents, which show the agency arranged a meeting with the Twitter executive who blocked news stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Department officials set up an April 28 meeting to ask Twitter to “become involved” in the disinformation project, according to a DHS itinerary. The meeting was planned with Yoel Roth, the Twitter executive behind the controversial decision to block New York Post stories about Biden’s laptop from being shared on the platform in October 2020. 

The whistleblower documents, released by Republican senators on Wednesday, show Homeland Security’s plans for the disinformation board were more extensive than previously acknowledged. The department publicly announced the board on April 27, but did not disclose plans to work with social media companies. Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas said the board would function as a “working group” to track disinformation regarding human smuggling operations and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He insisted the board would have no “operational authority or capability,” though the itinerary for the Twitter meeting shows DHS saw it as “an opportunity to discuss operationalizing public-private partnerships between DHS and Twitter.”

The board came under intense scrutiny not only for its Orwellian-sounding name, but also the past comments of Nina Jankowicz, the board’s executive director. Jankowicz pushed the unfounded claim that Biden’s laptop emails were hacked or part of a Russian disinformation campaign. She also called on social media platforms, law enforcement officials, and lawmakers to crack down on content she deems “awful but lawful.” 

According to the documents, Homeland Security officials planned to offer government data to Twitter to help the disinformation board’s work. The DHS itinerary for the meeting urged Rob Silvers, the undersecretary for strategy, policy, and plans, to ask what data “would be useful for Twitter to receive” to help the company counter disinformation. 

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) said the documents “raise concerns” that DHS is enlisting the help of “social media companies and big tech” to censor viewpoints deemed to be disinformation. 

“DHS should not in any way seek to enlist the private sector to curb or silence opposing viewpoints,” the senators wrote Mayorkas. 

The Republicans noted it is unclear whether DHS held the April 28 meeting with Twitter. Neither DHS nor Twitter responded to Free Beacon requests for comment. 

Grassley and Hawley suggested in their letter to Mayorkas that Jankowicz was selected to lead the disinformation board because she had worked with Twitter’s Roth. The DHS itinerary for the April 28 meeting notes that Jankowicz and Roth knew each other. 

Roth, who recently unveiled Twitter’s “crisis management policy,” came under fire for blocking access to the Post stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Roth said he made the decision after American intelligence officials told him in meetings before the 2020 election that foreign actors might release materials hacked from Hunter Biden. 

To date, there is no evidence that Biden’s emails were hacked or that his laptop was mishandled. A computer shop owner said Biden dropped off his laptop for repairs in April 2019 but never came back to retrieve it. Federal prosecutors are investigating Biden’s business dealings, many of which are discussed on the laptop. 

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/dhs-solicited-twitter-to-become-involved-in-disinfo-board/

Defending the Republic, a Texas-based non-profit filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration for refusing to turn over records related to the approval of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines.

The group filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the production of records relating to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) internal review process of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine marketed as “Spikevax.”  Given that the forces impacting the FDA’s decision to authorize the vaccine could have influenced Americans’ decision on whether or not to get vaccinated against COVID-19, Defending the Republic requested expedited processing of relevant records.

“Please provide all data and information submitted by Moderna relating to the FDA review and approval of Spikevax. This includes, but is not limited to, all safety and effectiveness data and information; all data and information in the biological product file; and all ingredients,” outlined the initial FOIA request.

On February 9th, less than a week after the initial FOIA was filed, the FDA refused the request for expedited processing, prompting Defending the Republic to appeal the decision.

“The FDA declined the appeal, leaving Defending the Republic with no choice but to file this action seeking a court order requiring the FDA produce the requested records on an expedited schedule— just as those who obtained a court order for the expedited production of records relating to the FDA approved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine,” explains a complaint filed by Defending the Republic.

Defending the Republic was especially interested in better understanding the review process for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, as data has shown its risk were not adequately explained to those receiving it and data surrounding its efficacy remains obscured. As Defending the Republic explains:

Despite the FDA’s promises, a closer inspection of the Spikevax approval reveal there may be glaring issues in the approval process. The Spikevax package insert concedes “[a]vailable data on SPIKEVAX administered to pregnant women are insufficient to inform vaccine-associated risks in pregnancy.” And while the FDA publicly pronounced that the “data demonstrated that Spikevax was 93% effective in preventing COVID-19,” the Spikevax fact sheet for recipients and caregivers provides important context omitted by the public officials: “The [Spikevax] duration of protection against COVID19 is currently unknown.

The lawsuit comes amidst several National Pulse exposés revealing how lobbyists from pharmaceutical companies including Moderna have entrenched themselves within Washington, D.C.

MUST READ: Mask Mandates Caused MORE COVID Deaths, Study Alleges.

Michigan voters are challenging Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for allegedly breaking state laws and corrupting the 2020 elections by allowing left-wing billionaire Mark Zuckerberg to use his social media fortune to dictate how the elections would be administered.

In official results, Democrat Joe Biden prevailed over incumbent Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election in Michigan, winning 2,804,040 popular votes compared with Trump’s 2,649,852, or 50.6 percent to 47.8 percent, according to Ballotpedia. In 2016 in the state, Trump secured 2,279,543 votes to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2,268,839, or 47.5 percent to 47.3 percent.

As Michigan secretary of state, Benson, a Democrat, is responsible for overseeing state elections and making sure they’re carried out in accordance with the constitutions of Michigan and the United States, as well as various state laws.

But Facebook founder Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, flooded election offices across the country in the 2020 election cycle with hundreds of millions of dollars in grants in order to influence elections. The couple made $419.5 million in donations to nonprofits—“Zuckerbucks” or “Zuckbucks,” as some have called the money—$350 million of which went to the Safe Elections Project of the left-wing Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL). The other $69.5 million went to the Center for Election Innovation and Research. The CTCL reportedly distributed grants to more than 2,500 election offices.

The CTCL distributed grants to local election officials and required they spend the money to boost voting by promoting mail-in voting and depositing ballots at unattended ballot boxes.

“Of the almost $17 million CTCL spent in Michigan, the vast majority (at least 84 percent, and likely more) was expressly earmarked for urban jurisdictions that historically cast ballots for Democrats by a wide margin over Republicans,” the voters state in an appeal (pdf) in Ryan v. Benson that was filed with Michigan’s Court of Appeals on June 7. A lower court had recently ruled that the voters in the suit lacked standing to sue Benson.

The funds were allocated to “predominantly Democratic urban jurisdictions including the cities of Detroit and Flint.” Zuckerberg’s money “was also used to buy remote unattended ballot drop-boxes that were used for allegedly illegal ballot harvesting.”

The voters “seek to hold Secretary Benson accountable as the person responsible for safeguarding their constitutional and statutory election rights, because she allowed the Michigan election process to be corrupted by an influx of private money selectively intended to promote voting among urban, Democrat-leaning voters, with a consequent dilution of the votes of rural, Republican-leaning voters,” according to the filing.

“In doing so, she violated the Michigan Constitution and the Michigan Election Code.”

The voters say evidence establishes that Benson encouraged local election administrators to participate in the scheme and that—contrary to expectations—only a small fraction of the grants was spent on COVID-19-related personal protective equipment.

“COVID was used as pretext to run a Democratic get-out-the-vote campaign funded with tens of millions of dollars of  ‘dark money,’” attorney Thor Hearne, a special counsel for the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm representing the voters, said in a statement.

“This money was not reported to any Michigan or federal campaign reporting authority. Mark Zuckerberg is not stupid. He did not spend more than $400 million nationally—and close to $20 million in Michigan—to buy hand sanitizer and face masks. Zuckerberg and those involved in this scheme wanted to influence the outcome of the presidential election in battleground states like Michigan by increasing mail-in voting and ballot harvesting in predominantly urban Democratic jurisdictions to the detriment of Michigan voters who live in suburban and rural jurisdictions.

“Because these funds were channeled through the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a so-called ‘charity,’ and characterized as ‘grants,’ Zuckerberg’s ‘donations’ were not covered by campaign finance laws. Instead, they were unlimited and unregulated ‘dark money.’”

An analysis of data CTCL provided to the IRS and other public records demonstrated “that this scheme was designed to favor urban Democratic voters and disadvantage Michigan voters in more politically conservative rural and suburban areas.”

“This case is not about relitigating the 2020 election,” said Hearne. “Rather, it is about making sure that these unfair and illegal activities cannot happen in any future election in Michigan.”

Benson’s office declined to comment on the appeal.

“We do not comment on ongoing litigation,” Tracy Wimmer, Benson’s director of media relations, told The Epoch Times by email.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/michigan-voters-sue-democratic-secretary-of-state-over-use-of-17-million-in-zuckbucks-to-tilt-elections_4520944.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-09-1&utm_medium=email&est=jbmHv7i6nmlg7G45309jEhnCvNDAtJT39YmPHct%2BKINw9S6C9sIcrh3czPdVE30TTQ%3D%3D

Retail giant facilitates sale of computer hardware to subsidiary of Iranian government, documents show

Retail giant Amazon is reportedly busting U.S. sanctions on Iran by facilitating the sale of computer hardware to a foreign subsidiary controlled by the Iranian government and tied to the country’s terrorism enterprise, according to documents posted this week by WikiIran.

Amazon allowed a Turkish subsidiary of Iran’s Petrochemical Commercial Company, which is sanctioned by the United States, to purchase materials from an American supplier, according to leaked Iranian government documents. The United States has since 2010 sanctioned that company, which provides services to Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the country’s paramilitary fighting force, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

This is not the first time Amazon has been caught violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. The online retail giant paid the U.S. government $134,523 in 2020 as part of a settlement for violating sanctions on Iran, Syria, and Crimea. Amazon said in government filings it may be civilly liable “for apparent violations of multiple [U.S.] sanctions programs” administered by the Treasury Department. This included providing “goods and services” to sanctioned Iranian entities. The sanctions violations were of particular interest to the U.S. foreign policy community due to Amazon’s standing as a government contractor that performs work worth tens of billions of dollars.

The latest information on Amazon’s potential sanctions violations was posted by WikiIran, a web portal that leaks internal Iranian government documents. The “original confidential documents” published by the site purport to show “how major Iranian petrochemical companies circumvent sanctions in order to fund Iran’s Ministry of Defense [and the] IRGC’s Quds Force.”

The government documents center on Iran’s Petrochemical Commercial Company and an alleged network of shell firms that help it evade U.S. and international sanctions. The trade facilitated by Amazon is disclosed in one of the documents obtained by the site. The Washington Free Beacon could not independently verify the authenticity of the government documents.

The information indicates that Amazon facilitated purchases, primarily of computer hardware, from an American company that ultimately went to the petrochemical company via a Turkish subsidiary controlled by Tehran.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a watchdog group that tracks violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran, said the government documents corroborate its own research about “the ease with which Amazon is used to evade U.S. sanctions.” The organization has documented how Amazon is “complicit in allowing products available for sale on its marketplace to flow into Iran for years.”

In 2020, for instance, UANI informed Amazon officials that several Iranian websites were promoting their ability to get Amazon goods into Iran by having them first delivered to an address in the United States. “One of the more egregious perpetrators, Iranicard, features the Amazon logo prominently and extensively on its website, including the landing page,” UANI reported at the time.

Amazon has not responded to the organization’s alerts about these potential sanctions violations. Amazon also did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment.

Daniel Roth, UANI’s research director, said Amazon has the ability to police these sales but has turned “a blind eye.”

“Amazon undoubtedly has the capability and resources to ensure its platform is protected from being hijacked by bad actors attempting to subvert sanctions, and it has a clear responsibility to do so,” Roth said in a statement. “By turning a blind eye and allowing these transactions to occur, they are helping to strengthen sanctioned Iranian entities to the detriment of the U.S. government’s efforts to hold Iran accountable, all while profiting from the illicit sales. Amazon can and should take responsibility and control of its platform to ensure these activities by Iranian firms do not continue.”

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/how-amazon-engages-in-sanctioned-trade-with-iran/

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is facing backlash this week after she bragged to a Senate panel that gasoline prices don’t affect her because she drives an electric vehicle.

“I just have to say, on the issue of gas prices, after waiting for a long time to have enough chips in this country to get my electric vehicle, I drove it from Michigan to [Washington, D.C.] this last weekend and went by every single gas station and it didn’t matter how high it was,” Stabenow said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on June 7.

As of June 8, the national average price of regular gasoline inched closer to $5 per gallon and now stands at $4.95, according to data from AAA. In Michigan, gasoline averages $5.21 per gallon, which is about 51 cents higher than the previous week and more than $2 higher than a year ago.

Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), in response, said that the average cost for a new electric vehicle is $60,000. The Kelley Blue Book puts the new electric vehicle price at about $56,000 on average.

“Democrats don’t understand the problems of everyday Americans,” Kelly said on Twitter in response to the video. Conservative commentators also accused Stabenow of being out of touch with working-class people on social media.

Stabenow drives a Chevrolet Bolt EUV, which has a starting price of about $28,000 for its 2023 model, Michigan news website MLive reported.

The Democratic senator will “never apologize” for driving the electric vehicle, which is manufactured in Michigan, a spokesperson for Stabenow told that website. Conservatives should apologize to auto workers “for disrespecting the products they work hard to make,” the spokesperson, Robyn Bryan, added in a statement.

“Instead of helping the oil companies line their pockets with Michigan drivers’ hard-earned money, these critics should join the senator’s fight to end price gouging at the pump,” Bryan said.

In recent months, the senator has often promoted electric vehicle usage and led congressional efforts to offer consumer tax credits for electric vehicles.

“I’m looking forward to the opportunity for us to move to vehicles that aren’t going to be dependent on the whims of the oil companies and the international markets,” Stabenow said on June 7.

A recent report in May suggested that the cost of electric vehicle batteries may increase as much as 15 percent amid supply chain disruptions. China is the world’s largest battery manufacturer in the world, and reports have shown that more than half of the world’s lithium, cobalt, and graphite processing and refining capacity is located in the Communist Party-controlled country.

Several White House officials have similarly drawn criticism for promoting electric vehicles amid record-high gas prices. In March, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg urged Americans to transition to such vehicles alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in a news conference.

Stabenow’s office didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/michigan-senator-criticized-for-touting-electric-car-dismissing-surging-gas-prices_4521007.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-08-4&utm_medium=email&est=89ucpItqyd1KrBYFaHcJ515yY8cyl0KjMpypl%2BNjWg2mmpyidij0qY9OjjlGdQeGXA%3D%3D

He promised to ‘shut down the virus.’ He failed miserably.

Resident Joe Biden celebrated another grim milestone this week as his approval rating continues to flounder. Despite pledging to “shut down the virus” during the 2020 campaign, Biden has now presided over the deaths of more than 600,000 Americans from COVID-19.

That is more than twice the number of U.S. soldiers who perished in combat during World War II. 

The virus our president promised to shut down has killed approximately 1,008,712 Americans, according to Johns Hopkins University, which means that Biden is responsible for almost 200,000 (or 50 percent) more COVID deaths than his predecessor, Donald Trump.

By his own logic, Biden should have resigned a long time ago.

The approximately 600,261 Americans killed on Biden’s watch is three times the number of COVID deaths he said should disqualify a president from serving in the White House. During an October 2020 debate against Trump, he argued that any leader who presided over more than 200,000 COVID deaths “should not remain as president of the United States.”

Days later, Biden delivered an emphatic message to the American people via his Twitter account. “I’m not going to shut down the economy,” he wrote on the popular social networking website. “I’m going to shut down the virus.”

Fact check: Four Clintons

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/covid-death-scandal/

(DHG) — The liberals are back at it again… it seems like cancelling Dr. Seuss was not enough!

An innocent patriotic brand selling hilarious “I Do Not Like You Sleepy Joe” Mugs on their website has enraged Liberals and boy are they angry.

They’ve gone to social media to rant about how owners of said mug are “losers” and how it is just like the “racist” Dr. Seuss books. Simply hilarious!

Little did they know that their social media rants would completely back fire!

As soon as conservatives got wind that the site was being “cancelled”, demand skyrocketed.

Owner Tyler W. had this to say: 

“The Liberals, they sure don’t know how to get things done!

Thanks to them, sales have been FLOODING in. Seems like everyone loves our new mug!

The Libs are truly evil trying to take down a small business in times like these!”

>> Click here to check if there still is stock available

Finely made from ceramic with the iconic Let’s Go Brandon message, we see why the mug is such a prized possession….

It says the message that everyone feels and understands:

“I do not like You Sleepy Joe”

If the Liberals are successful… you won’t be able to find these mugs anywhere…

But luckily for now, they seem to be failing, so get one while you still can.

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With over 1215 mugs shipped out and 30+ real 5 star reviews, proud supporters are buying the mugs for both themselves and family members to gift.

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Personally, we find the most appealing part about the mug, is the fact that it’s proudly printed in the United States.

That means each purchase will help fuel the local economy by providing wages for hardworking American citizens and that it will ship out fast.

No wonder the Libs don’t like it! They sure don’t like seeing the economy thrive 😂

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Wake up in the morning and start your day off right with a perfectly brewed cup of coffee in this mug that speaks how we all feel!

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If you’re reading this now, it might be your last chance to snag this mug.

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While former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann was acquitted of lying to the FBI, a number of new details came to light during his trial. Some haven’t been made known or been widely reported.

1. FBI Lawyer Sussmann Met With Sought Perkins Coie Job

Sussmann passed along claims about Clinton presidential rival Donald Trump to FBI lawyer James Baker on Sept. 19, 2016, as well as data that supposedly supported the claims.

Baker gave the information to others in the bureau, triggering an investigation. The FBI and CIA both determined the claims were unsupported.

Baker, while testifying during the trial, described Sussmann as a friend whom he met when both worked for the Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI’s parent agency. Baker, who left the bureau in May 2018, revealed that he was seeking to work for Perkins Coie, the firm that employed Sussmann, soon after.

“To the best of my recollection, I think it was Michael’s idea,” Baker said. “I mean, Michael knew that I had left the bureau, and I was looking around for a job—I had a job at the time, so I was working—I was working at the time, but I was looking around at other jobs, including [at] law firms. And so somehow he became aware of that and inquired about whether I would be interested in working at Perkins Coie.”

In one of many text messages the men exchanged before and after the meeting, Sussmann told Baker on Sept. 29, 2018, that it was “great seeing you this week.” That was a reference to a meeting that involved discussing a job at Perkins Coie, according to Baker.

While Sussmann arranged interviews for Baker, Perkins Coie never made a job offer.

Baker described “a miscommunication” in which a headhunter he was working with told him that the firm had essentially rejected him. But when Baker conveyed the message to Sussmann, Sussmann “went and got it sorted out,” Baker said, adding that the firm was actually considering offering him a job. Baker, however, ended up taking jobs at the think tank R Street Institute and CNN. He left those positions to work at Twitter, where he’s currently employed.

2. Joffe Was an FBI Source, and Was Fired

The information that Sussmann took to the FBI was obtained by Rodney Joffe, among others. Joffe was a technology executive at Neustar who was one of Sussmann’s clients.

Joffe was a confidential human source (CHS) for the bureau for years, it was revealed during the trial. He had regularly helped the bureau on cybersecurity matters and was even recommended for an FBI award in 2013.

But Joffe was terminated, apparently because of his actions in 2016. He was “closed for cause as a source,” prosecutor Deborah Brittain Shaw said.

“Our understanding is that Mr. Joffe was terminated as a source for cause in 2021 as an outgrowth of this investigation,” Michael Bosworth, a defense lawyer, added later.

The defense successfully got U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, to order prosecutors not to reference Joffe’s status again, after they claimed it was “prejudicial to explore or elicit further testimony about his termination, given that it happened so late and was connected to this case.”

Bosworth called Joffe “one of the world’s leading cyber experts” during opening arguments.

Joffe “exploited his access” to non-public data from Trump Tower, Trump’s apartment in New York, and the White House to compile the data Sussmann eventually took to the FBI, according to prosecutors. Joffe could still be charged with crimes, prosecutors have indicated. He wasn’t called as a witness because he was going to refuse to answer questions, since he’s still under investigation.

3. ‘Tea Leaves’ Was April Lorenzen

The group that gathered the data that Sussmann presented to the FBI also included April Lorenzen, a data analyst at a firm called ZETAlytics.

It was known that a person in the group went online and posted some of the information under the moniker “Tea Leaves.” The posts were made in October 2016, shortly after Sussmann met with Baker.

But the identity of the person wasn’t confirmed until the trial, during which Bosworth said it was Lorenzen.

Bosworth was questioning FBI agent Ryan Gaynor, who monitored the investigation into the Trump–Russia claims from Washington on behalf of FBI leadership.

Gaynor acknowledged that, as far as he knew, nobody had tried to contact the person who posted the information online pseudonymously.

“And are you aware that, if they had done so, they would have discovered that the person posting was another cyber expert named April Lorenzen?” Bosworth asked.

“I am not,” Gaynor said.

Slate magazine, which was one of the first outlets to publish an article about the Trump–Alfa Bank claims, described “Tea Leaves” as a male, as did The Intercept.

“Tea Leaves” was mentioned in Sussmann’s indictment, which also described the person “Originator-1.” According to the indictment, “Tea Leaves” was a business associate of “Tech Executive-1,” who has long been known as Joffe.

Jared Novick, who conducted research for Joffe on Trump associates such as Carter Page, said on the stand that Joffe “had involvement in” a number of companies, including ZETAlytics. Joffe previously refused to answer questions about the businesses he owned or was otherwise affiliated with during a deposition for a lawsuit filed by Alfa Bank.

4. Multi-Pronged Effort to Seed Allegations

Lorenzen posted the data on a WordPress blog. One or more members of the group also reportedly took to Reddit to share the data, and Joffe directed Sussmann to go to the FBI with the claims, Sussmann indicated in previous testimony before Congress.

Separately, Joffe approached an FBI agent named Tom Grasso with several IP addresses that were purportedly linked to Alfa Bank, the Russian bank that Joffe’s group claimed had a secret backchannel with Trump’s business.

Grasso said on the stand that he’d been working with Joffe for years, even though he wasn’t Joffe’s handler. He also said the situation was “unusual” because “it concerned a matter that I normally did not work on with Mr. Joffe.”

“Most of the stuff I worked on Mr. Joffe with was cyber crime matters, and this was in the area of Russia and foreign influence and counterintelligence and things like that, which is why I quickly passed it off to who I thought were the people working that matter,” Grasso testified.

Grasso didn’t reveal Joffe was a CHS in passing along the information to others in the bureau. Instead, he described Joffe as an “anonymous reporter.”

During closing arguments, prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis said: “This is Mr. Joffe trying to put these politically charged allegations into another part of the FBI in order to create the appearance of two different streams of information. And that makes sense with the broader plan that was at work here. They were trying to hide origins, hide the involvement of clients in order to get the FBI to investigate.”

Another aspect of the effort involved promoting the allegations to the media. Sussmann, operatives with Fusion GPS, and at least one Clinton campaign staffer shared the data with reporters to try to get stories written. That plan was approved by Clinton herself, campaign manager Robby Mook said on the stand. Among the reporters was Mark Hosenball of Reuters, who emails show was in contact with Fusion operatives. Hosenball went to the FBI to ask about the “Tea Leaves” post.

5. Clinton Lawyers Met Regularly With Fusion

Marc Elias, another lawyer with Perkins Coie, served as the Clinton campaign’s counsel after Clinton won the Democratic primary. He hired Fusion to perform opposition research and to help him with legal services. Fusion is the firm that compiled the infamous anti-Trump dossier with the help of former British spy Christopher Steele.

Elias was known to have met multiple times with Fusion co-founders Peter Fritsch and Glenn Simpson ahead of the election. But during the trial, documents entered by the prosecution show the trio convened regularly, and that Debbie Fine, a top lawyer with the campaign, was part of the meetings.

One document, titled “Daily Check in,” shows that meetings were scheduled every weekday for 30 minutes from June 6 until Oct. 31, 2016. Another shows a meeting of the quartet on Aug. 12 for its daily check-in. A third shows a meeting on Aug. 17.

Fine said on the stand that she communicated with Fusion operatives on average several times a week.

Fine didn’t recall daily check-ins. She said that as far as she knew, only she and Elias were aware of Fusion doing research, but she didn’t know why others weren’t aware.

“I operated on the assumption that, like most of the work that I did for clients, it’s on a need-to-know basis, so I just—I didn’t share it, and I wasn’t told not to share it. And I don’t know whether or not Marc Elias shared it with anyone,” she said.

Fine also said she didn’t recall discussions about Alfa Bank. Presented with an email she asked Elias to print in October 2016, she said the email was about the Trump–Alfa Bank allegations, as laid out in the Slate article.

Elias previously told a congressional panel that Fusion was “acting as my agents” and that he met with the operatives on a weekly basis.

Other documents entered during the trial showed that Elias met with Joffe in his office and spoke with him by phone, and that Elias sent an article related to Alfa Bank to top campaign officials, including campaign chair John Podesta, four days before Sussmann went to the FBI.

6. FBI Leaders Were Excited About Probe

Then-FBI Director James Comey was “fired up” about the Trump–Alfa Bank allegations, according to internal messages entered into evidence.

Comey was interested in the case, another agent wrote.

The decision to open an investigation was made by senior officials.

Joseph Pientka, an FBI official, wrote in a message that the Chicago team “must” open a case because Bill Priestap, another official, “says its [sic] not an option—we must do it.”

The case was opened later that day.

FBI leadership kept tabs on the probe, mainly through Gaynor, who volunteered to monitor it from Washington.

Senior FBI leaders imposed a “close hold” on the material, “which meant that the specific information about who had provided the allegation could not be provided to the field,” Gaynor testified during the trial. Leaders were also said to be behind efforts to stonewall agents who asked to interview the source.

“When we said that we were interested in interviewing the—when I say ‘the source,’ I mean the author of the white paper or the source of the data—I don’t know if that’s different people or not—but wherever it came from,” said Allison Sands, the FBI agent who was in charge of investigating the claims.

But leadership communicated that “we should, at the division level, focus on the technical analysis,” she added.

Headquarters “was not giving us the ability to go interview these people,” Curtis Heide, another agent working the case, recounted. He said he was frustrated.

Agents said that it’s important to know about sources’ political biases, such as Sussmann representing the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

Gaynor acknowledged he had been under investigation for violating the hold during an interview with employees of the DOJ inspector general’s office during a 2020 meeting. He said he was “woefully ill prepared” for the meeting. He believes he’s no longer under investigation.

7. Multiple Offices Worked on Investigation

Baker was based in Washington at the FBI’s headquarters. Gaynor monitored the investigation into the claims from Washington. Cyber experts in Chantilly, Virginia, initially analyzed the data, then passed the probe to a hybrid cyber-counterintelligence team in Chicago.

At least one agent based in Miami worked on the case, interviewing Central Dynamics, the company to which the Trump email domain was registered, while another agent or agents in Philadelphia handled interviews at Listrak, another company.

Grasso was based in Pittsburgh.

“It looks like the clearing house in London” received the same white paper as the one given to Baker, or a similar one, Sands wrote in a message on Oct. 4, 2016.

8. FBI Took Months to Close Investigation

A full investigation into the Trump–Russia claims was opened on Sept. 23, 2016. The probe wasn’t officially closed until Jan. 18, 2017.

FBI experts deemed the allegations likely false within a day. The team that did additional work in looking into the claims, which included contacting entities like Central Dynamics had come to a similar conclusion by Oct. 5, 2016.

The delay in closing the probe stemmed from not being able to figure out who handed over the thumb drives that contained the data, according to Sands.

The drives were serialized as 1b, which is digital evidence. When the bureau closes cases, it has to return items taken in the course of an investigation to their rightful owner.

“Well, in this case, we didn’t know who the owner of the thumb drives was, because James Baker wasn’t the owner,” Sands said. “He was like a middleman or something. He had given them to us, but we didn’t know who the thumb drives belonged to.”

The team moved to initiate an “abandonment hearing,” which would enable them to destroy the drives. However, because that involved layers of bureaucracy, Sands’s supervisor recommended reserializing the drives as 1a, which refers to anything an agent wants to have in a case file but isn’t necessarily evidence. She cited notes taken in an interview as an example.

The reclassification allowed the FBI to close the investigation. That means it was closed when CNN reported, citing anonymous sources, in March 2017 that it was still being investigated.

9. Paperwork Had ‘Mistakes’

The document memorializing the opening of the investigation said the DOJ referred the allegations to the FBI. So did the closing document.

Heide referred to both as “mistakes,” or “typos.” He said the team had apparently conflated the FBI’s office of general counsel with the DOJ.

That wasn’t the only problem with files related to the probe.

The closing document said that the was a “preliminary” inquiry as opposed to a “full” investigation.

“That’s a typo as well,” Heide said.

Heide said he was alerted to the issues for the first time in 2018 by the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General.

“I believe they brought it to my attention and asked me if it was accurate, and my response was the same, that I don’t believe it was accurate,” he said.

10. Investigation Into Crossfire Hurricane Continues

Special counsel John Durham’s team, which prosecuted Sussmann, is investigating the origins of the government’s counterintelligence probes into alleged Trump and Russia links. Many of the probes utilized information paid for by the Clinton campaign.

The FBI is also conducting its own inquiry into the probes, collectively known as Crossfire Hurricane, Heide said on the stand.

“And are you being investigated individually as part of that investigation?” a prosecutor asked.

“Yes. Myself and, I believe, others as well,” Heide said.

Heide is being investigated for “not identifying exculpatory information as it pertained to one of the Crossfire Hurricane investigations,” he added later. “There were various consensual recordings that were obtained from one of the subjects, and there were statements, I believe, used in a FISA application that were—the exculpatory information was not divulged to the FISA court”—the secretive court authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

A previous watchdog probe found the FBI committed “significant” errors and omissions in all four of the applications made to the court to spy on Page. The most significant may have been how an FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, doctored an email to state that Page wasn’t a CIA asset when, in fact, he was. Clinesmith pleaded guilty to a charge stemming from Durham’s probe and received probation.

Heide, during testimony, denied that he withheld exculpatory information from the court.

Heide, who is still with the FBI operating out of Des Moines, Iowa, worked on both Crossfire Hurricane and the Mid-Year Exam, or the bureau’s investigation into Clinton’s use while secretary of state of a private email server to send classified emails.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/10-underreported-revelations-from-trial-of-former-clinton-lawyer_4514516.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-07-2&utm_medium=email&est=7zuFZTiCJEU2Zpd4I%2FAyXDvS611%2B0uT159OLpb20zaiB0M0pxGaRDhmS3XauiNQFpw%3D%3D

Treasurers work to expose what they consider a misuse of state retirement funds

After failing to advance their agenda by passing laws in Congress, progressives have found that they can impose their will on Americans just as effectively through our financial system. And while some state officials have recently started to fight back, they are heavily outgunned.

The world’s largest asset managers, BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard, have signed on to the global Net Zero Asset Management Initiative and together use the $20 trillion of other people’s money that they manage to pressure companies whose shares they own into pursuing environmental and social-justice causes. Progressive state pension fund managers in California, New York, Maryland, and even Texas are doing the same with the trillions in retirement funds that they manage.

The various elements of this ideology have come together under the umbrella of “environmental, social and governance” finance (ESG), and its advocates now include the world’s largest banks, asset managers, pension funds, rating agencies, proxy agents, as well as numerous international corporate clubs including Climate Action 100+, the Global Investors Statement to Governments on Climate Change, the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.

ESG also has the support of the Biden Administration’s Securities and Exchange Commission, which announced it will require all listed companies to provide extensive reporting on their greenhouse gas emissions. It has the support of the Department of Justice, which just declared it would focus on “environmental justice,” and the Department of Labor, which announced it will no longer enforce a Trump-era regulation that barred private pension managers from including political causes such as ESG in their investment decisions.

The collective goal of these groups is to leverage their financial power to enforce the behavior that they want to see, targeting in particular fossil fuel producers and the gun industry. “Behaviors are going to have to change,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink stated in a panel discussion last March. “You have to force behaviors and, at BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors.”

BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with $10 trillion in assets under its management. In his 2022 letter to CEOs, Fink wrote that “every company and every industry will be transformed by the transition to a net zero world.” Bloomberg News reported that ESG financial assets are growing exponentially and will reach $50 trillion by 2025, representing more than one-third of the $140 trillion in assets under management worldwide.

But some state officials see the ESG movement as a misuse of money that was entrusted to asset managers by pensioners. A study by the Boston College Center for Retirement Research reported that ESG investing reduced the returns to pensioners by 0.70 to 0.90 percent per year, largely because ESG investment funds, which are actively managed, charge higher fees than non-managed index funds. This means higher profits for asset managers, less money for retirees.

And for all the added costs, many question whether ESG investing is doing much for the causes it claims to support. A research report by Columbia University and the London School of Economics stated that companies in ESG funds have “worse track records for compliance with labor and environmental laws, relative to portfolio firms held by non-ESG funds.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently called ESG “an outrageous scam,” adding that “it has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.”

“If BlackRock has their own money and they want to be activist investors, I think people have the right to deploy their own capital as they see fit,” said Scott Fitzpatrick, Missouri State Treasurer. “The problem here is that it’s other people’s money they’re using, and people don’t want their retirement money used for political purposes.”

Increasingly, state officials are discovering how state pension money is being used to support “the religion of global climate change,” said Derek Kreifels, CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation. “Now we’re seeing the veil drop on how they’re weaponizing it. Now they’re starting to include all these other [social] issues as well.”

Activist asset managers vote the shares they manage to influence corporate executives, and this explains to a great extent why Disney, a producer of family entertainment, now advocates for sex education in elementary schools; why Delta, Coca Cola, and Major League Baseball fought against Georgia’s voter I.D. law; and why Citibank has fought against laws restricting abortion in conservative states and has curtailed lending to gun makers and retailers—all of which are political causes that have nothing to do with running their businesses. The Wall Street Journal reports that activist asset managers are now putting pressure on Walmart, Lowe’s, and TJ Maxx to take a stand against abortion restrictions.

But for all the headline-grabbing statements from CEOs on political and social issues, progressive asset managers have been content to operate quietly behind the scenes in boardrooms, shareholder meetings, and global conferences.

“If they were ever to admit what they’re really doing, they would be creating untold liability for themselves,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s inviting lawsuits galore for people who can say, ‘you have violated your financial duty to us.’”

“As an asset manager, the only thing you have is trust,” said Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks. “If you violate that trust, your business is gone. The investment managers that are pushing this agenda are ultimately risking the very franchise that they’re using to drive it.”

By colluding against fossil fuel companies, Oaks said, banks and asset managers “are actively implementing economic sanctions. We need more capital going into oil and gas production and there are great opportunities there to make money. Why isn’t the money going there? Why aren’t capital markets working, like they have in the past? It’s because of ESG.”

One by one, conservative states are starting to push back through legislation and legal actions. Kreifels said that 23 states have taken some form of action, 13 of which have introduced formal legislation, to prevent state money from being used to support political causes. This, The New York Times wrote, has had a “chilling” effect on progressive initiatives, though how much of an effect remains to be seen.

In May, Oklahoma passed the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act, modeled on laws that were passed in Texas last year, which bars the state from conducting business with banks or asset managers that discriminate against fossil fuel companies. A similar bill in Oklahoma does the same for those that discriminate against gun manufacturers.

Last week, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron issued a legal opinion, stating that the use of state pension money for “environmental, social and governance” was a conflict of interest and was “inconsistent with Kentucky law governing fiduciary duties.” Cameron criticized the “increasing trend among some investment management firms to use money in public and state employee pension plans – that is, other people’s money—to push their own political agendas and force social change.”

In December, Florida revoked proxy authority for asset managers, meaning they no longer have discretion to vote the shares that they manage for Florida pensioners. Gov. Ron DeSantis stated that this “will clarify the state’s expectations that all fund managers should act solely in the financial interest of the state’s funds.”

In November, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich launched a formal investigation into progressive financial institutions’ “anticompetitive conduct,” accusing them of “threatening and intimidating companies if they do not comply with their left-wing agenda.”

Also in November, Louisiana barred JPMorgan from underwriting its municipal bonds because of its policies against gun manufacturers. West Virginia and Texas recently passed legislation blocking finance companies that discriminate against fossil fuel producers from municipal contracts.

“Next week, we’ll be sending out letters to financial institutions that are going to be put on a list that is going to bar them from contracts in the state of West Virginia,” said Riley Moore, West Virginia’s State Treasurer. “We’re an energy state and this is an existential threat to our economy.”

“We need energy independence in this country,” Moore said. Countries in Europe are now realizing that their green energy policies have caused unaffordable price spikes for fuel, led to a risk of blackouts when the wind doesn’t blow, created a dangerous dependence on countries like Russia, and in many cases actually increased the carbon footprint. “It’s because they rushed into this ESG nonsense,” he said “You can call it sustainable, but it can’t sustain a grid.”

In addition to what many see as a misallocation of state pension money, there are the bigger legal and societal issues around using the financial system to “force behaviors.”

“This seems to me to be using Wall Street to accomplish what the left was unable to accomplish through democratic means,” said Nebraska State Treasurer John Murante. If progressive policies had public support, they could enact laws democratically through Congress, he said. Instead, “they’re going around the democratic process and attempting to do indirectly what they were incapable of doing through persuasion and logic and reason.”

ESG investing would lose in the court of public opinion “because it’s incredibly unpopular. ESG is the 2023 version of CRT,” Murante said, referring to Critical Race Theory in schools. “It has been integrated into institutions without people knowing about it, but when they become aware of it, there is genuine national outrage.”

Going up against the world’s largest financial institutions and the Biden administration is a formidable task for state finance officials, however, and they have a long and difficult road ahead. But Murante says he’s feeling optimistic.

“We have three profound advantages on our side,” he said. “First, we’re right on the issues; second, we’re right on the law; and third, we have the people with us.”

“It’s a David and Goliath situation,” Kreifels said. “But David won.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/state-officials-fight-wall-street-to-protect-pensioners-from-esg-scam_4512853.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-07&utm_medium=email&est=8KfclgYz1mtoM562vJ7ko0XiREnyZJjhdHeY%2BpO0VbK9wnt0XsAX%2BagYGcmGy4ibsA%3D%3D

Speed kills, or so we’re told repeatedly by people who don’t want to talk about driver distraction much anymore. That attitude seems to be embodied in Ford’s new forced speed compliance experiment being run in Germany. Called the Geofencing Speed Limit Control system, it is yet again a company pushing the idea of a utopian society brought about through the use of authoritarian technology.

Check out the Motorious Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms.

Just imagine a city where no speed limit signs are present because each car is forced to not exceed the limit. Sounds pretty great, right? That’s the ultimate vision of this Blue Oval experiment being run in Cologne, Germany.

In the official press release, Ford draws a direct parallel between speeding and the death of pedestrians and cyclists in Europe. That seems to make sense since drivers have more time to react if someone steps out in front of their vehicle.

This forced speed limit adherence is also supposed to improve traffic flow in cities. Relying on the old argument that speed causes accidents, Ford reasons that by limiting how fast drivers can make their car go, crashes will become far less frequent.

What’s really exciting about this automotive innovation is learning how the tech works. Ford excitedly explains how each car connects to a geofencing system in the city. That means the government can track where you are while also extracting data from your vehicle. Just think of the possibilities as you’re forced to do what’s right. For starters, you’ll never have to show your papers to authorities again since they can just access such things from your car while it’s being moved in a very controlled manner. To have a government that cares so much about your safety to control exactly how you get around to the most minute detail is truly a blessing.

Even more exciting, Ford’s talking about the possibility of dynamic speed limits. That means how fast you’re allowed to go changes depending on “local hazards, temporary road works and the time of day.” We sure haven’t seen governments abuse emergencies and such at all, so this should work out super great.

However, the best argument for the institution of these types of authoritarian technologies is that drivers are too overwhelmed by road signs. Ford points out just how many different signs are used in Germany, not to mention other countries. Expecting people to read and pay attention to all those while they’re texting back their girlfriend and tapping the touchscreen 15 times just to change the cabin air temperature just isn’t realistic. Thankfully, technology is here to rescue us from ourselves being distracted by technology, thus making for a brighter, utopian-like society. Be sure to thank Ford for promoting such responsible programs as geofence forced speed limit controls.

https://www.americanliberty.news/commentary/ford-wants-to-force-you-to-not-speed/ssymes/2022/06/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ae01&seyid=5094

Elon Musk is accusing Twitter of “resisting and thwarting” his ability to obtain information about bot accounts on the social media website, saying that it’s a “breach” of the terms of their April deal.

Musk, the world’s richest person, sent a letter to the San Francisco-based firm on June 6.

“Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement,” the letter reads.

Several weeks ago, the Tesla CEO accused Twitter of allowing a significant number of automated or “bot” accounts on the platform and demanded that the company release that data to him.

In late April, Twitter’s board and Musk jointly announced that he would purchase the social media company for $44 billion and take it private. The deal could take months to finalize, and Musk has publicly stated that it’s not entirely confirmed that he’ll actually buy Twitter.

After the letter was released on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s website, shares of Twitter dropped 1.5 percent.

“As Twitter’s prospective owner, Mr. Musk is clearly entitled to the requested data to enable him to prepare for transitioning Twitter’s business to his ownership and to facilitate his transaction financing,” the letter reads. “To do both, he must have a complete and accurate understanding of the very core of Twitter’s business model—its active user base.

“Musk is not required to explain his rationale for requesting the data, nor submit to the new conditions the company has attempted to impose on his contractual right to the requested data. At this point, Mr. Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Mr. Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover.”

Last month, Musk said his team wanted to perform a random sampling to calculate the number of fake accounts. However, Twitter’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, later said nonpublic information would be required to obtain an accurate count.

But with the June 6 letter, some analysts speculated that Musk is trying to exit the deal with Twitter.

“Speaks to our thesis over past few weeks that spam/bot issue was going to be the ‘material breach’ cited by Musk to try to get out of TWTR deal,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote on Twitter. “$1 billion breakup fee; Twitter Board will fight this clearly. Help remove a major overhang on Tesla; Twitter stock be under pressure.”

Representatives for Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

Former Pfizer VP: ‘Massive Fraud Playing Out on a Global Scale,’ Reckless to Vaccine the Whole Population

In order to get an insider’s view, we spoke with Dr. Michael Yeadon, former chief scientific officer at Pfizer’s Global Allergy & Respiratory Research Department. 

We discussed many topics, such as how, in his professional opinion, there is no safe way to combat a pandemic with a vaccine—since the necessary safety trials take longer than the length of the pandemic—that it’s reckless to attempt to vaccinate an entire population, and that if we continue down the path we’ve been traveling over the past two years, it will lead to total global control by a small group of elites.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/former-pfizer-vp-massive-fraud-playing-out-on-a-global-scale-reckless-to-vaccine-the-whole-population_4509490.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-04-4&utm_medium=email&est=MrKiBXUmbpd3E6cXlxqMxpUGrTSL9bSvzDx%2BDHZSfo0nvKb8AWhRZ4RGRSbTnvtN8A%3D%3D

The Washington Post has admitted that it did not reach out to the subject of an article before publication, despite initially claiming that it did.

Columnist Taylor Lorenz wrote that she asked a YouTube personality with the moniker ThatUmbrellaGuy for comment before the publication of her piece, which claimed that the person and similar accounts had hauled in large amounts of money by taking advantage of the lack of coverage in many outlets of the trial involving Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.

But Lorenz’s statement was false, the Post acknowledged in an editor’s note.

Further, the Post admitted it stealthily edited the story to remove the false claim without initially noting to readers what had happened.

“The first published version of this story stated incorrectly that Internet influencers Alyte Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy had been contacted for comment before publication. In fact, only Mazeika was asked, via Instagram,” the paper said in an editor’s note appended to the article.

“After the story was published, The Post continued to seek comment from Mazeika via social media and queried ThatUmbrellaGuy for the first time. During that process, The Post removed the incorrect statement from the story but did not note its removal, a violation of our corrections policy. The story has been updated to note that Mazeika declined to comment for this story and ThatUmbrellaGuy could not be reached for comment,” it added.

A Post spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The note also said that a previous version of the story “inaccurately attributed a quote to Adam Waldman, a lawyer for Johnny Depp,” and that the quote had been removed.

ThatUmbrellaGuy said in a statement that besides lying about contacting him or her, Lorenz mischaracterized the account’s coverage of the trial. Lorenz had written that YouTubers “pivoted” to covering the trial after seeing an opportunity to make money.

“Taylor Lorenz wrote an obvious smear piece conflating Depp support with financial gain. She flagrantly ignored the fact I’ve covered this case for year while mischaractering [sic] what Adam Waldman said during the Depp trial. She got the factual items about their relationship wrong as well. Crazier, she lied about contacting me in The Washington Post and tried covering this up AFTER I called it out publicly,” the YouTuber said.

Lorenz sent an email over an hour after ThatUmbrellaGuy posted online that she had not reached out for comment.

Journalists typically are required by employers to ask subjects of articles for comment, particularly subjects that are being reported on in a negative way.

The Post article portrayed YouTubers as amateurs, quoting an NBC reporter who said that they “aren’t beholden to any editorial standards or journalistic norms.”

Mazeika said that Lorenz did not reach out to her on Instagram before the publication of the article, making the editor’s note untrue.

“Please stop lying and take the [loss],” she wrote on Twitter.

Lorenz has not alerted her 323,000-plus Twitter followers about the corrections. Journalism experts say any corrections should be noted by reporters on social media if they have shared the article in question, which Lorenz did. Instead, Lorenz shared a number of posts from reporters and others, including the Society of Professional Journalists, who had posted the article.

“I hope my piece illuminated why people are turning to content creators for news and why people trust influencers over traditional media,” she also wrote.

Lorenz did not return a request for comment.

The columnist, who previously wrote for the New York Times, has had to walk back a number of claims in recent months.

After alleging Marc Andreessen, a businessman, used “the r-slur,” or the word retarded, during an online chat, Lorenz acknowledged he did not. She also said that a claim that a Drudge Report worker was stalking her was a “joke” after Matt Drudge said the claim was not true.

Lorenz also penned the recent piece that revealed the Biden administration’s Disinformation Governance Board was being paused, and the head of the effort, Nina Jankowicz, was resigning. The article claimed that there were “coordinated online attacks” against Jankowicz, but didn’t provide evidence of the claim. Her article on the woman who allegedly runs the Libs of TikTok account, which highlights teachers and others with radical views, meanwhile, was updated after originally including a link to an address that the woman’s defenders said was a personal address. The Post said it was not.

Correction: A previous version of this article wrongly described the word referred to as “the r-slur.” It is retarded. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

A lawyer who represented Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann in his defamation lawsuits said he has joined Kyle Rittenhouse’s legal team, stating there will be at least 10 suits filed against companies and prominent figures.

“I’ve been hired to head the effort to determine whom to sue, when to sue, where to sue,” Todd McMurtry, Rittenhouse’s new lawyer, told Fox News on Thursday.

Without elaborating on what companies or individuals might be sued, he added, “We’re going to look at everything that’s been said, determine which of those comments are legally actionable, and proceed from there.” In the interview, he confirmed between 10 and 15 “solid cases.”

Rittenhouse was acquitted on two counts of homicide, one count of attempted homicide, and other charges in connection to the fatal shooting of two men and another during riots and often violent protests in August 2020. His lawyers said that video footage—which showed the three chasing and attacking Rittenhouse—confirmed that he acted in self-defense.

McMurtry singled out Facebook and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, saying the social media firm issued a “factually false” designation that the Rittenhouse-involved shooting was a “mass murder” incident. When the company issued that designation, it was decried by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board as an “alarming resort to censorship.”

The Epoch Times has contacted Facebook for comment. In late 2021, after Rittenhouse was acquitted, Facebook reversed one of its policies on the Rittenhouse case, with a spokesperson telling news outlets that it “will no longer remove content containing praise or support of Rittenhouse.”

“Let’s just use for an example what Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg said about [Rittenhouse]. They said that he was involved in a mass murder incident,” McMurtry told Fox News. “This was not a mass murder incident. It was clearly factually false.”

He explained, “To call somebody a mass murderer is seriously defamatory. And then to use the power of social media to basically … censor any views that would take opposition to that mass murderer statement is a serious effort to destroy his character. And it was seriously mistaken and seriously defamatory.”

Meanwhile, in proving damages for Rittenhouse, McMurtry told Fox that the teen “can prove that his job prospects are permanently diminished” by the companies and individuals he may sue.

“Not to mention what they call perpetual reputational harm, which means that Kyle is never going to have an interaction with anybody where they don’t know who he is. And this is going to follow him around for the rest of his life,” he said.

McMurtry represented Sandmann after he filed defamation lawsuits against a number of legacy news outlets, including CNN and NBC, after a video showed him in the midst of a confrontation with a Native American activist.

Sandmann has since reached settlements with NBC, CNN, and the Washington Post after reports, citing heavily edited viral videos that claimed he and other teens harassed the activist in early 2019. But the full video showed that it was the activist, Nathan Phillips, who approached the teens as he was chanting and beating a drum while Sandmann stood still and slightly smiled.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/sandmann-lawyer-joins-kyle-rittenhouse-team-says-mark-zuckerberg-a-top-target_4508488.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-03&utm_medium=email&est=7ZzqkS1Q%2FF4sJ%2BpmJwPX48%2BBajl6tlUGj2jzBn%2FyEqQoyjF9oNv3sLZsy30htEvYGg%3D%3D

DESPITE CLAIMING NOT TO GET INVOLVED AGAIN, THE FACEBOOK FOUNDER’S GROUP IS DOUBLING DOWN ON ITS ELECTION INTERFERENCE.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life – a nonprofit group that controversially used funds from Mark Zuckerberg to boost turnout for Democrats in the 2020 election – launched a new $80 million initiative targeting local election departments.

Under the leadership of Tiana Epps-Johnson, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) overruled local election officials and increase turnout in almost exclusively Democratic districts through mail-in voting in 2020. Proving the partisan conflict of interest, the CTCL supported many election offices’ shifts to vote-by-mail and allegedly accessed mail-in ballots ahead of the election using funds from the Facebook founder’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Though the group purports to be nonpartisan, following several exposés into the group’s left-wing bias, the CTCL appears to be launching a new $80 million initiative to extend its influence over America’s election departments.

Announced in April of 2022, the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence is described as a “nonpartisan collaborative that is bringing together election officials, designers, technologists, and other experts to help local election departments improve operations, develop a set of shared standards and values, and obtain access to best-in-class resources to run successful elections.”

The alliance’s website provides scant details on how it plans to accomplish its aforementioned goals.

Local election departments appear to be able to apply to become a “Center for Election Excellence” and, if approved, will receive funding from the alliance.

“During the first year of the program, we’re identifying local election departments who want to join the Alliance and serve as a support system for each other and for other election departments across the country. These offices will be recognized as U.S. Centers for Election Excellence,” explains the procedure.

“Centers will participate in co-creating values and standards of election excellence which will be rolled out to jurisdictions nationwide, uplifting and advancing the profession of election administration in the years to come,” adds the group, which will also “send $80 million in the next five years to election departments across the United States in need of basic funding for equipment replacement and other resources,” according to the Washington Post. 

The CTCL is working with six additional partners on the venture including the Center for Civic Design and the Center for Secure and Modern Elections (CSME).

The CSME purports to be bipartisan; however, it was created as a project of the New Venture Fund, the leading “dark money” sponsor for left-wing causes. The New Venture Fund has been criticized by even the New York Times for its “system of political financing, which often obscures the identities of donors,” as “dark money,” calling the network “a leading vehicle for it on the Left.”

Similarly, the Center for Civic Design partners with left-wing groups and financiers to support election initiatives favorable to Democrats, including vote-by-mail and automatic voter registration.

The alliance appears to be a rebranding effort by the CTCL, whose actions during the 2020 election have led to bans on private funding of elections and investigations into its shady conduct. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg even claimed that he would not be engaging in the effective privatization of local election offices again – a claim belied by the latest CTCL announcements.

A lawyer representing Democrats proposed alterations to an FBI statement on the hacking of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to avoid undermining the narrative from his clients, according to emails released as part of the trial of former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann.

FBI officials in mid-2016 were drafting a statement regarding an alleged intrusion into the DCCC network and sent the draft to Sussmann, a lawyer representing the DCCC, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and other Democrats.

Jim Trainor, assistant director for the FBI Cyber Division, wrote to Sussmann on July 29, 2016: “Michael—our press office is once again getting a ton of calls on the DCCC matter. A draft response is provided below. Wanted to get your thoughts on this prior to sending out.”

Sussmann zeroed in on the first sentence, which he said seemed to undermine what the DCCC was saying about the reported intrusion.

“The draft you sent says only that the FBI is aware of media reports; it does not say that the FBI is aware of the intrusion that the DCCC reported. Indeed, it refers only to a ‘possible’ cyber intrusion and in that way undermines what the DCCC said in its statement (or at least calls into question what the DCCC said),’” Sussmann said.

Sussmann proposed changing the press release from saying the FBI is aware of reporting on “a possible cyber instruction involving the DCCC” to saying the bureau “is aware of the cyber intrusion involving the DCCC that has been reported in the media and the FBI has been working to determine the nature and scope of the matter.”

Trainor said the proposed alterations were fine.

“We try to really limit what we see and not acknowledging too much but the below edits are fine and we will send out,” Trainor said.

The bureau ended up using language similar to that offered by Sussmann, telling news outlets that it was “aware of media reporting on cyber intrusions involving multiple political entities, and is working to determine the accuracy, nature, and scope of these matters.”

The emails were introduced as exhibits during Sussmann’s trial and obtained by The Epoch Times. Sussmann was acquitted on May 31 of lying to the FBI.

According to notes taken by then-CIA Director John Brennan, President Barack Obama received a briefing on July 28, 2016—one day before Sussmann’s email to Trainor. Brennan told Obama of an intelligence intercept showing that Russia was aware of a plan approved by Clinton to “vilify” her rival, Donald Trump, by “stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”

Days later, the CIA informed the FBI of intelligence suggesting that Clinton’s plan was meant “as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”

According to the indictment of several Russian nationals brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, the alleged Russian conspirators gained access to the DCCC network on April 12, 2016. That same day, then-FBI Director James Comey held a meeting with senior FBI officials to discuss how to execute a “credible … conclusion” of the FBI investigation into Clinton’s use of an unauthorized private email server to conduct government business.

The DCCC and the DNC hired CrowdStrike, a private cybersecurity firm, to investigate and remediate the network intrusions. The FBI conducted its own investigation, relying on server images and reports produced by CrowdStrike, with Sussmann playing as the singular point of contact representing the DNC and the DCCC, according to another email introduced during the trial.

The CrowdStrike reports sent to the FBI were partly redacted. An email addressed to Sussmann by an FBI agent indicated that receiving the nonredacted versions of the reports was the top priority for the bureau. According to a previous filing by the Department of Justice in the case against Trump associate Roger Stone, the bureau never received the unredacted reports. The FBI has rejected Freedom of Information Act requests for the documents.

Other missives entered during Sussmann’s trial showed the lawyer becoming upset after the bureau announced that it was investigating the reported intrusion into the DNC network.

Sussmann messaged Trainor, questioning the “significance of this announcement” and requesting the bureau consult with him before making public statements about the DNC case.

Trainor apologized, agreeing that when the FBI makes statements “we need to be in lock step with victims and partners.”

Trainor said the statement was an attempt to “respond in a more authentic way” and that the bureau intended to “be equally cooperative partners as we navigate this matter.”

“Thank you for that explanation. You can understand how the statement was confusing to us,” Sussmann said. “Please try to keep us informed if the FBI says anything else publicly about its investigation.”

Sussmann was the FBI’s point of contact on the investigations into the intrusions into the DCCC and DNC network, according to an email that FBI agent Jennifer Frasch sent in August 2016.

Sussmann was close to the FBI for years and had a badge that allowed him access to the bureau’s headquarters. Sussmann used the badge to gain entry on Sept. 19, 2016, when he handed over sketchy allegations against Trump to FBI lawyer James Baker.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbi-altered-statement-on-intrusion-into-democrat-network-based-on-input-from-lawyer_4505749.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-02-2&utm_medium=email&est=i74gktmQj7QZ4Mu2w67mrrCjl%2Bfor8dC62ve7v4XlhAUKU1X%2FnIzJsBZfD%2FxbEesfg%3D%3D

A UK study by University College London has confirmed “small but significant” cases of the serious Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), a rare neurological disorder associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine for COVID-19.

The researchers speculate that “the majority or all” of the 121 UK cases of GBS (pdf) in March to April 2021 were associated with first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine administered in January.

“A similar pattern is not seen with the other vaccines or following a second dose of any vaccine,” said lead author Prof. Michael Lunn on May 30.

The team observed that from January to October 2021, 996 GBS cases were recorded in the national database but with an unusual spike from March to April with about 140 cases per month rather than 100.

To identify whether any or all of these cases were linked to vaccination, the team linked dates of GBS onset to vaccination receipt for every individual and found that 198 GBS cases (20 percent of 966) occurred within six weeks of their first dose of COVID-19 vaccination in England; of these, 176 people had an AstraZeneca vaccination, 21 for Pfizer, and 1 for Moderna.

The researchers found no excess GBS cases associated with mRNA vaccines, but observed 5.8 excess cases of GBS per million doses of vaccine for AstraZeneca, equating to a total excess between January to July 2021 of around 98–140 cases, confirming the association between the vaccine and GBS.

GBS is a rare and serious neurological disorder that occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks its own nerves, typically resulting in numbness, weakness, pain in the limbs, and sometimes even paralysis of breathing.

The disease is commonly associated with Campylobacter infections that prompt the body to attack its own nerves.

However, GBS cases were also observed in the 1976 following administration of the swine flu vaccine as well as modern influenza and yellow fever vaccines, though none of them had rates as high as AstraZeneca.

Whilst the majority of the vaccination-associated GBS patients had recovered from symptoms of weak limbs, weak deep tendon reflexes, and monophasic sleep, one patient in the study had recurring neuropathic symptoms well after the second dose.

The patient initially developed facial paralysis on both sides and a tingling sensation in their limbs after the first dose and improved with treatment. However, two weeks after receiving their second dose, they developed increasing weakness with pain, changes in their nerves, and only partial response to the treatment.

Researchers are currently still speculating the reasons behind rises in GBS cases following the vaccine.

“It may be that a non-specific immune activation in susceptible individuals occurs, but if that were the case similar risks might apply to all vaccine types,” said Lunn.

“It is therefore logical to suggest that the simian adenovirus vector, often used to develop vaccines, including AstraZeneca’s, may account for the increased risk.”

Studies in the United States have also confirmed increased cases of GBS after receiving adenovirus vector COVID-19 vaccines, with significant cases of the disease associated with the vaccine.

According to the CDC, 1 to 2 people out of 100,000 in the United States develops GBS, however, a 2022 U.S. study found the incidence in receivers of J&J’s adenovirus vaccines to be 32.4 per 100,000 people within 3 weeks following the vaccine; well above the background rate.

A spokeswoman for AstraZeneca told The Epoch Times that “vaccination of any kind is a known risk factor for GBS” and “the small number of GBS cases [following the AstraZeneca vaccine] appears similar to increases previously seen in other mass vaccination campaigns.”

She wrote that reports of GBS have been very rare following vaccination and that “current estimates show that globally the vaccine has helped prevent 50 million COVID-19 cases, five million hospitalizations, and to have saved more than one million lives.

“The Emergency Medical Associates and other international bodies including the WHO, have all stated that the benefits of vaccination continue to outweigh any potential risks.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/significant-cases-of-neurological-disorder-associated-with-the-astrazeneca-vaccine_4503326.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-01-1&utm_medium=email&est=Pufhj00vIRXlwaBkTJ4P0La%2FndW3r1rxbu%2BgkRE6npGfYAZHX9IdoEvUwV5rkqhE%2BQ%3D%3D

Actor and outspoken Christian Kirk Cameron recently blasted America’s public school system in an interview with Fox News.

Cameron — whose new documentary “The Homeschool Awakening” premieres Monday, June 13 — told Fox News, “The problem is that public school systems have become so bad. It’s sad to say they’re doing more for grooming, for sexual chaos and the progressive Left than any real educating about the things that most of us want to teach our kids.”

Thus, as Cameron explained in the interview and in his movie, the solution to the poor quality of public education is to homeschool your kids. He also took issue with those who say only experts, or the government, should be responsible for American school children’s education.

“And that’s just a fundamental difference in the way that we look at who has been entrusted with the sacred responsibility of raising our children. … Is it the parents or is it the government?” he said to Fox.

Cameron also blasted public education for “destroying” certain institutions and patriotism in America.

“And you can take your pick. Just go down the list. The things that are destroying the family, destroying the church, destroying a love for our great country: Critical Race Theory, teaching kids to pick their pronouns and decide whether or not they want to be a boy or a girl, the 1619 Project,” he said.

“If we send our children to Rome to be educated … we shouldn’t be surprised if they come back Romans,” he added. “If we want them to love God and love their neighbor and feel gratitude and thankful that they live in the United States of America, the freest country on earth, then you’ve got to teach them those things. … I realized that there was no better way for our family to do that … than to bring them home and join in with this rich, robust community, with tons of curriculum to be able to have the flexibility and freedom to raise our kids the way we wanted them to be raised.”

The father of six admitted some days are more difficult than others, but said that it was worth it.

“Yes, there are hard days,” he explained. “Yes, there are times when you just feel like pulling your hair out. But it’s nothing compared to wanting to go back and do it all over again. If you see that your children went down a road and you can’t pull them back, [asking] … how did they lose their faith? How did they get pulled into an ideology that undermines everything that is going to lead to their success?”

“They learn to reject God … they learn to reject our country. And how did that happen? Well, that’s the kind of regret that we don’t want as parents,” Cameron added. “And so, if we’re willing to put in some extra effort and time now, we will be so glad that we did and we’ll lift our hands in gratitude and say, ‘Thank you that I woke up and I saw the light.’ And millions of parents are.”

Leftist critics of Cameron have suggested that he is allegedly taking part in a racist plot to segregate society — even if unwitting.

Sort by Best

• kmann332151 day ago: And with all the children going to private schools or being homeschooled, we probably have education budget surplus, right? So the government can offer vouchers, offer a tax cut, or even put in school security systems. Reply17
  • ShadowBaby🍩☕🎺🎵1 day ago: That’s what I’ve been saying – we’re freeing up resources, right? By removing the kinds of kids the establishment hates anyway, right?Reply4Show 1 more reply
• steve34911 day ago: What a great evening with several actors speaking out in support of America and dedication to The Lord. Thank you Kirk.Reply21
• leftistsmakemequeasy1 day ago“And that’s just a fundamental difference in the way that we look at who has been entrusted with the sacred responsibility of raising our children. … Is it the parents or is it the government?” Bingo.Reply211 reply
• CinziaV1 day ago: Kirk has been championing homeschooling for a long time and he is absolutely 💯% correct. God bless him. Keep it up Kirk!Reply22
• kgraham4606341 day ago: I home school my boys in the in the 1980’s and 1990’s because I saw what the public schools were teaching back then. My eldest went to Cal-Poly and got his Computer Engineering Degree and my middle son got his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and then received his Master also at Cal-Poly. They have g…See moreReply40
  • TheWayisNarrow1 day ago: I homeschooled my four in the 90’s and they are all successful. One is a systems manager for programming code for Comcast, one is a chiropractor, another is a paralegal soon to be court reporter and the other a CFO of family business and homeschools her children. They are all literate and patriotic…See moreReply2
  • blsinsc53721 day ago: Congratulations on your Family’s success! I would bet that with such a grounded foundation, your boys would have been equally successful had they remained in Public Schools but with YOU there to guide them. One of my college Professors said at the beginning of a semester “I can only give you the …See moreReply1

https://www.dailywire.com/news/kirk-cameron-public-school-is-destroying-the-family-destroying-the-church-destroying-love-for-our-great-country?utm_medium=email&utm_source=cnemail&seyid=4329

Friend,

Our country is currently facing a great threat. A new enemy has emerged from the shadows that seeks to destroy and intimidate their way to a transformed state, and country, that you and I would hardly recognize.

This enemy is the radical vigilante woke mob that will steamroll anything and anyone in their way. Their blatant attacks on the American way of life are clear and intensifying: stifling dissent, public shaming, rampant violence, and a perverted version of history.

A group that will, literally, tear down monuments and buildings but — perhaps in an even more sinister way — tear down the American spirit itself. They go after the family unit, parental rights, traditional moral values, the church, and fact-based education.

Over the past few years, we’ve watched horrified as this group has attempted to brainwash our children into thinking we live in an evil, racist, irredeemable country.

We listened to them deny science and data to exert political theater all the while trampling over personal liberties enshrined in the Constitution.

We saw them take to the streets for an entire summer like outlaws burning, looting, and destroying everything in sight while being told they were “mostly peaceful” and “passionate.”

We watched Big Tech moguls in Silicon Valley be the arbiters of truth – deciding who gets to speak and who gets silenced through the digital public square.

We listened to the legacy media muffle legitimately verifiable news stories that didn’t align with their preferred narrative, only to watch the truth trickle out months later at a more politically expedient time.

Well, friend, the time for listening and watching from the sidelines is over.

This enemy has taken over media, educational institutions, corporate boards, professional sports, foundations, and professional institutions. They have left no corner of our lives untouched. But all hope is not lost.

We The People still have a say. We know the truth, you and I, about America and the country she is and can be. We must fight to defeat these false pretenses and predetermined narratives.

I am choosing to counter this enemy with faith, with reason, and with freedom. As Governor of the Free State of Florida, I have chosen to lead with a vision that builds America up rather than tears it down.

Together we can ensure that our children are raised to know they live in the greatest state in the nation, the greatest country in the world and that they have an opportunity to continue making them even greater.

If you’ve been waiting for the right time to get off the sidelines and fight for the rights you know were given to man by God Himself – the time is NOW.

If you’re with me, friend, chip in any amount to help me defeat this enemy. I can’t do it without you. I promise you; I will never stop fighting.

Sincerely,

Ron DeSantis

Paid by Ron DeSantis, Republican, for Governor.

Billionaire Bill Gates has predicted a 50 percent chance that another pandemic will occur in the next 20 years due to “climate change.”

Gates made his predictions in an interview with Spanish publication elDiario.es, during a one-day trip he made to Spain on May 26.

“The human population is growing, and we are invading more and more ecosystems. That is why I calculate that there is a 50 percent chance that we will have a pandemic of natural origin in the next 20 years, as a consequence of climate change,” Gates said, noting that the pandemic could be a type of coronavirus, a type of flu, or “something else.”

“It could be a virus made by man, by a bioterrorist who designed it and intentionally circulated it. That is a very scary scenario because they could try to spread it in different places at once,” he said.

Gates suggested that “greater investment” was needed in international anti-virus efforts with an expansion of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“What I am proposing would require a 25 percent increase in the WHO budget, and with that, we would have a team of about 3,000 people with different profiles. I call it the Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization (GERM) Team,” Gates said.

The former richest person in the world heads the organization that puts the most amount of private funds into global health issues, The Gates Foundation. The foundation spent $1.79 billion on global health initiatives in 2020 and financed about 10 percent of WHO’s operating costs in 2020-21.

Gates’ comments echoed his proposal in his book, “How to Prevent the Next Pandemic,” published in April. He proposed annual funding of $1 billion to operate GERM as a global surveillance pact to monitor pandemic threats.

Monkeypox ‘Evolving Rapidly’

Gates’ call for WHO expansion comes amid pending amendments to the WHO governing regulations that would give Director-General Tedros Adhanom unilateral powers to declare a public health emergency in any country in the world.

Meanwhile, the WHO issued a statement saying the situation with monkeypox is “evolving rapidly,” and more cases are expected to be identified “as surveillance expands.” A spokesperson from the WHO said the agency is not concerned about a global pandemic at the moment.

“The situation is evolving rapidly and WHO expects that there will be more [monkeypox] cases identified as surveillance expands in non-endemic countries, as well as in countries known to be endemic who have not recently been reporting cases,” the WHO stated on May 29, noting that the virus has been reported at 23 non-endemic countries.

This was not the first time that Gates has predicted a global pandemic, however.

In 2015, Gates said that a pandemic was most likely a potential cause of mass death compared to a war.

“If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war,” Gates said in a Ted Talk in 2015.

And again, since 2021, Gates has been speaking about using “germ games” to practice monitoring and responding to the smallpox virus.

“It’ll take probably about $1 billion a year for a pandemic Task Force at the WHO level, which is doing the surveillance and actually doing what I call ‘germ games’ where you practice,” Gates said in 2021 in an interview with think tank Policy Exchange. “You say, OK, what if a bioterrorist brought smallpox to 10 airports? You know, how would the world respond to that?”

Later in 2021, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) partnered with the Munich Security Conference to conduct a simulation exercise similar to what Gates described. The NTI simulated that the monkeypox virus was to appear in May this year.

“By the end of the exercise, the fictional pandemic resulted in more than 3 billion cases and 270 million fatalities worldwide,” the NTI reported.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/bill-gates-predicts-next-pandemic-will-be-caused-by-climate-change-proposes-who-expansion_4500920.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-31-1&utm_medium=email&est=fOhz30X3QRnhs79C%2B4PS4hnOa2RkeAgfTCBrgZ4TGrV6EFWLL1%2FAmISkCMrEtoPK8g%3D%3D

Elon Musk mocked a gamer publication on Memorial Day for trying troll him after the publication accused him of not giving them proper credit for their content.

The publication, Hard Drive, claimed that Musk had cropped their name off one of their articles and posted it to social media.

“Well, if you make something that looks like a meme & someone (not me) crops off your name, so it goes,” Musk responded. “Also, this is only a 6/10 meme, so maybe step down from that high horse! The selfless art of anonymous meme creators is something to be admired.”

Musk later deleted the tweet that the publication called him out over.

The publication later posted a link to one of their articles and asked Musk to let them know what he thought of it.

The article was titled, “Elon Musk Admits He Wants to Travel to Mars Because No One Hates Him There Yet”.

Musk responded, “Less funny than SNL on a bad day. This could make a drunk person sober. Try harder!”

“The reason you’re not that funny is because you’re woke,” Musk continued. “Humor relies on an intuitive & often awkward truth being recognized by the audience, but wokism is a lie, which is why nobody laughs.”

The reason you’re not that funny is because you’re woke.

Humor relies on an intuitive & often awkward truth being recognized by the audience, but wokism is a lie, which is why nobody laughs.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 30, 2022

Musk has repeatedly slammed wokeism for a variety of reasons, including the negative impact that it has had on the world of comedy.

Musk took aim at The Onion during an interview last year for becoming “really politically correct” and for not making fun of “anything on the Left.”

“It used to be much more even-handed, The Onion, and then they just got the woke mind virus to the point where … it used to be very funny and then it was not that funny,” Musk said. “You know, SNL, I used to be a huge fan of SNL. … many, many, many, if not, most of the SNL episodes are kind of a moral lecture on why we’re bad human beings, instead of comedy. So, and again, won’t make fun of anything on the Left, really, like, you know, they’ll beat up on Ted Cruz 17,000 times and you’re like, ‘OK, we get it.’”

“So it’s, it’s just, there’re just a lot of no fly zones with a lot of comedy,” Musk said. “And then you realize, it’s like, wait a second, is the comedy getting at an essential truth or trying — is there a propaganda element? Or is it trying to push you in a particular direction? Or getting to an essential truth that is humorous? And when it stops trying to get to an essential truth that is humorous, then, you know, it’s just not that funny.”

https://www.dailywire.com/news/musk-torches-gamer-publication-for-trying-to-mock-him-explains-why-wokeism-is-not-funny?utm_medium=email&utm_source=cnemail&seyid=4140

U.S.-proposed amendments to the international health regulations which govern response to pandemics and the new global pandemic treaty, both on the agenda of the World Health Organization’s general meeting, pose a threat to countries’ sovereignty, said journalist and author Nick Corbishley.

The amendments proposed in January by the Biden administration will give the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) unilateral authority to declare a public health emergency in any nation based on whatever evidence the director chooses.

The WHO’s International Health Regulations were introduced in 2005 and were “stimulated a bit by the SARS outbreak in 2003, Dr. David Bell, an expert in global health and infectious disease who previously worked at the WHO, told EpochTV’s  “American Thought Leaders” program.

The 13 amendments put forward by the Biden administration were on the agenda of the 75th World Health Assembly held last week in Geneva, Switzerland. The World Health Assembly is the decision-making body of the WHO and is attended by delegations from all member states, according to the organization’s website.

The assembly also started deliberation on what the newly proposed global pandemic treaty might include.

The global pandemic treaty is a parallel mechanism of the WHO. It will have force under international law and is very similar to the International Health Regulations’ amendments, but it will give far more power to the WHO and its director-general, Bell said.

Corbishley believes that the assembly will focus more on compliance of WHO member states with regulations adopted by the organization. The Biden administration mentioned setting up a compliance committee that will ensure that WHO participants follow its regulations, Corbishley told EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program.

Currently, the WHO “only has an advisory role. It’s only able to make recommendations to member states and it is up to the participating nations to decide whether and how they implement those recommendations,” Corbishley explained. “That is likely to change if there is a global pandemic treaty. ”

He pointed out that the concept of a compliance committee if implemented, will be “almost like to police the actions of each member state.

“The countries that are most at risk of losing the most sovereignty in this sort of scenario are likely to be poorer, smaller countries.”

Similar cases have been observed within the last 15 to 20 years in the World Trade Organization, where global corporations can sue national governments in an international court for infringing on their profits or even threatening their future profits, Corbishley said. “It hits poor countries, smaller countries much more because they don’t have the money to be able to pay off these kinds of lawsuits.”

“They don’t have the diplomatic clout on an international level to be able to resist these things.”

Impact of  Global Pandemic Treaty

Every country that signs on to the pandemic treaty instituted by WHO will lose some degree of sovereignty, but it is hard to tell to what extent because the treaty is at the beginning of its development, Corbishley said.

“If [the WHO] does gain the power to declare a public health international emergency in a country without even consulting or reaching an agreement with the state in question, then that is a massive shift in the power balance between states and a supranational organization like the World Health Organization,” Corbishley said.

If the treaty can enforce a certain amount of compliance on states in the area of public health policy, a new trend of the “balkanization of globalization” could begin, Corbishley noted. “Globalization is beginning to look a lot more fragile than it did five to 10 years ago.”

For example, Russia, which has a large population and a reasonably large economy, recently floated the idea of withdrawing from WHO, he said. Although Corbishley doubts that the United States or the European Union will oppose the treaty, if some other big countries start expressing their concerns that the treaty is not in their interest, “then it could become impractical as a document,” he pointed out.

An initial working document toward this global pandemic treaty is called the zero draft report and it was also on the agenda of the last World Health Assembly, Bell said. The treaty is supposed to be discussed and agreed at the World Health Assembly that will convene next year and would then come into force upon ratification by the participating countries, he added.

To adopt the treaty, two-thirds of WHO members have to agree, while amending the existing international health regulations requires approval by only half of the participating countries, Bell said.

There are no clear proposals for the global pandemic treaty because the work on the draft has just started, Corbishley said, adding that some draft documents could be available in August.

Private Funding of WHO

Corbishley emphasized the issue of the private funding of the WHO, which in his view leads to the semi-privatization of global health. This trend is consistent with the strategic partnership agreement between the World Economic Forum and the United Nations, which represents the semi-privatization of certain global policies including health.

The WHO is influenced by the countries which comprise its assembly and by the private and corporate donors who fund a lot of its programs, Bell said. “So it responds to those who directed.”

“It certainly is pushing a very new way of managing health and of managing decision making in health, particularly in outbreaks, that is clearly to the advantage of these donors of WHO,” Bell explained.

He also noted that there is a possibility that countries would take advantage of this whole situation to further their strategic interests over the interests of rival countries. “The world is a diverse place. Not all countries agree with each other.”

About 80 percent of funding for the WHO, comprised of 194 member states, comes from private companies and private foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—the second largest overall contributor after Germany. The United States is the third-largest contributor.

Germany, the top donor to WHO, is also the biggest exporter of pharmaceutical products in the world, Corbishley pointed out. Moreover, the WHO has a contract with T-Systems, a subsidiary of German company Deutsche Telekom AG, to build a global interoperable system of vaccination passports, according to a company statement.

Considering “how pharmaceutical companies have managed to capture—to a certain extent or to a great extent—our governments and regulatory bodies and academia,” it begs the question: “to what extent [is the WHO] reflecting the interests of the global public, and to what extent do they represents the interests of the pharmaceutical companies that whether directly or indirectly through their the member states are funding the WHO,” Corbishley said.

He also encourages people on the left or the center of the political spectrum to pay more attention to the amount of private funding the WHO receives. Right now it seems people on the right are deeply concerned about how giving more powers to the WHO might pose a threat to sovereignty, Corbishley noted.

Jan Jekielek and Mark Tapscott contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/far-reaching-us-amendments-to-who-regulations-global-pandemic-treaty-raise-concerns-journalist_4498789.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-30-1&utm_medium=email&est=FiydAr7Nict6QseJhnnxBtZ4bmLfRaS5ykjLEarnUeJWj6OmELF3mENiqHdRnqor3A%3D%3D

Don’t believe what you’re being told by the propaganda machine. Facts don’t lie, and it’s now clear that COVID vaccination makes it more likely you’ll die if you are 60 years old or younger, not less likely. Here’s why.

Story at-a-glance

• According to a recent modeling experiment, “Increased contact among vaccinated people can give the false impression that COVID-19 vaccines are not working”
• This rationale is dubious at best, considering the unvaccinated have continuously been accused of not taking COVID seriously and going about their lives as normal, while the “vaccinated” are, by and large, more fearful and take “authorities” advice to heart, which includes avoiding large gatherings and close one-on-one interactions without wearing a face mask
• Many data sources reveal that COVID-jabbed individuals are now getting COVID-19 at far higher rates than the unjabbed. Death rates, both for COVID and other causes, have also risen in tandem with the number of shots administered
• According to an analysis of U.S. data, in September 2021, when Delta was most prominent, 23% of those who died from COVID had received the jab. In January and February 2022, when Omicron started dominating, that percentage jumped to 42%
• Many argue that Omicron was more contagious than Delta, hence the higher death toll. But Omicron was also far milder than Delta, and there’s no reason the jabbed would die at a higher rate from a less lethal variant than a more lethal one, unless the injection made the infection worse
• A preprint study found adult participants in Moderna’s trial who got the real injection and later got a breakthrough infection did not generate antibodies against the nucleocapsid — a key component of the virus — as frequently as did those in the placebo arm. Their anti-nucleocapsid response was also lower regardless of the viral load. As a result of this reduced antibody response, those who got the jab may be more prone to repeated COVID infections

Well, the COVID jab pushers have had to resort to all sorts of obfuscation to hide the fact that the injections don’t work, and now they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel of excuses. According to a recent Reuters report,¹ “Increased contact among vaccinated people can give the false impression that COVID-19 vaccines are not working.”

This irrational explanation has been levied in response to studies showing COVID-jabbed individuals are getting infected at higher rates than the unjabbed, and there are many such studies.

“These studies are likely to involve statistical errors, particularly if they did not account for different contact patterns among vaccinated versus unvaccinated people,” Korryn Bodner, a research associate in infectious disease modeling in Toronto, told Reuters. Bodner is the first author of a preprint study² posted on medRxiv at the end of April 2022.

Are the Jabbed More Carefree Than the Unvaxxed?

Bodner’s claim is that those who got the jab may be more likely to throw caution to the wind and mingle with others, hence getting infected more frequently, while the unjabbed may be more cautious because they know they’re vulnerable. This rationale is dubious at best, considering:

a) The unvaccinated have continuously been accused of not taking COVID seriously and going about their lives as normal

b) Those who have taken the jab are, by and large, a far more fearful lot; they tend to listen to the “authorities” and take all of their advice to heart, which would include avoiding large gatherings and close one-on-one interactions without wearing a face mask

Check out the following story, reported by Anchorage Daily News:³

“Arianne Bennett recalled her husband, Scott Bennett, saying, ‘But I’m vaxxed. But I’m vaxxed,’ from the Washington hospital bed where he struggled to fight off COVID-19 this winter … Bennett went to get his booster in early December after returning to Washington from a lodge he owned in the Poconos, where he and his wife hunkered down for fall.

Just a few days after his shot, Bennett began experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, meaning he was probably exposed before the extra dose of immunity could kick in. His wife suspects he was infected at a dinner where he and his server were unmasked at times …

‘He was absolutely shocked. He did not expect to be sick. He really thought he was safe,’ Arianne Bennett recalled. ‘And I’m like, ‘But baby, you’ve got to wear the mask all the time. All the time. Up over your nose.’”

Within days of his third dose, he got a serious case of COVID. Yet they blame it on hypothetical exposure to an apparently healthy food server. This kind of irrational reasoning is prevalent among those who got the jabs and who keep going back for more as they are part of the 30% of the population that have been completely brainwashed.

To reiterate what I’ve explained since 2020, asymptomatic spread is likely to be so rare as to be nonexistent.⁴ It was a lie perpetuated to drive up fear and prop up rising “case” rates that didn’t really exist. It’s basic virology that you cannot transmit a virus unless you have a “hot” infection, and if you have an active, transmissible infection, you have symptoms. The symptoms are a sign that your body’s defenses are kicking in to rid itself of the live virus.

No symptoms, no transmission. So, unless the server was feeling sick and went to work anyway, the simplest explanation for Bennett’s demise was the shot itself. And if the server was sick, the fact that Bennett got so ill suggests the shot is ineffective, even at two doses.

The pro-pharma shills want you to believe there are so many confounding variables, we can’t possibly draw any conclusions from data showing the shots don’t work. Yet looking at data from a wide spectrum of sources, all show the same alarming trends. What “confounding factor” could possibly account for ALL of them being misinterpreted?

An Unproven Hypothesis

Reuters⁵ does note that Bodner’s simulations “do not prove that this type of bias affected studies of vaccine effectiveness versus the Omicron variant.” What it does show, according to Bodner, is that “even if vaccines work, increased contact among vaccinated persons can lead to the appearance of the vaccine not working.”

In other words, this is a hypothesis that has yet to be proven. Her modeling suggests it COULD make the jabs appear ineffective IF those who got the jab actually behave very differently from the unjabbed.

But again, it’s highly unlikely that the unvaccinated are avoiding exposure by steering clear of close contacts and crowds to a greater degree than those who got the jab. It’s far more reasonable to suspect that the shots don’t work.

On a side note, Bodner’s study was funded by the Canada COVID-19 Immunity Task Force.⁶ This task force is housed at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and McGill University is a long-term recipient of grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.^7,8,9,10

What Do the Data Say About COVID Jab Effectiveness?

Based on data from around the world, it seems clear that the COVID gene transfer injections are not working. In fact, they’re having the opposite effect of what you’d expect from a real vaccine. According to a Washington Post analysis of state and federal data,¹¹ in September 2021, when Delta was most prominent, 23% of those who died from COVID in the U.S. had received the jab.

In January and February 2022, when Omicron started dominating, that percentage jumped to 42%. In December 2021 and January 2022, just under half of all the COVID patients in intensive care at Kaiser Permanente’s hospital system in Northern California had also received one or more shots.¹²

Many argue that Omicron was more contagious than Delta, hence the higher death toll. But Omicron was also far milder than Delta, so why would the jabbed die at a higher rate from a less lethal variant than a more lethal one?

One attempt at an explanation is that the fatalities are now occurring primarily among the elderly. Nearly two-thirds of those who died from COVID during the Omicron wave were 75 and older. During the Delta wave, 75-year-olds and older accounted for just one-third of the deaths.¹³

But that was the case from the beginning, and it still doesn’t answer the question: Why would old people be more likely to die from a milder virus than a more serious one? To answer that question, the injection pushers revert back to the argument of waning potency. Two-thirds of those who died in January and February 2022 did not have a booster shot. According to Anchorage Daily News:¹⁴

“Experts say the rising number of vaccinated people dying should not cause panic in those who got shots, the vast majority of whom will survive infections. Instead, they say, these deaths serve as a reminder that vaccines are not foolproof and that those in high-risk groups should consider getting boosted and taking extra precautions during surges.”

So, in other words, the jab only works for a handful of months, and then you have to take another. And another. And another. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,¹⁵ the first two doses wear off after five months, necessitating a third dose, and the third dose wears off in just four months, at which time you’re supposed to get dose No. 4.

Israeli data¹⁶ show the effectiveness of shot No. 4 in preventing severe disease declines by 56% in just seven weeks. So, it appears the protection you get from the shots keeps getting shorter with each dose. Meanwhile, data show the shots can render you increasingly susceptible to all manner of infection and disease, through a wide variety of mechanisms.

Moderna Trial Data Reveal Repeated Infections Are Likely

Among such data is a preprint study¹⁷ posted on medRxiv April 19, 2022, which found adult participants in Moderna’s COVID jab trial who got the real injection, and later got a breakthrough infection, did not generate antibodies against the nucleocapsid — a key component of the virus — as frequently as did those in the placebo arm.

Curiously, placebo recipients produced anti-nucleocapsid antibodies twice as often as those who got the Moderna shot, and their anti-nucleocapsid response was larger regardless of the viral load. As a result of this reduced antibody response, those who got the jab may be more prone to repeated COVID infections. As reported by The Defender:¹⁸

“[T]he authors found that using the presence of anti-nucleocapsid (anti-N) antibodies to determine whether a person was exposed to SARS-CoV-2 will miss some infections. Thus, the sensitivity of this kind of test, when applied to vaccinated individuals, is not ideal.

However, there are more important implications^19,20 of these findings … Specifically, the study implies that the reduced ability of a vaccinated individual to produce antibodies to other portions of the virus may lead to a greater risk of future infections in the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated.

It is important to note that this is not just another argument for the superiority of natural immunity. Rather, this is evidence suggesting that even after a vaccinated person has a breakthrough infection, that individual still does not acquire the same level of protection against subsequent exposures that an unvaccinated person acquires.

This is a troubling finding, and something investigators conducting the Moderna vaccine trial likely knew in 2020.”

UK Data Confirm Results

These findings are corroborated by data from the U.K. Health Security Agency. It publishes weekly COVID-19 vaccine surveillance data, including anti-nucleocapsid antibody levels. The report²¹ for Week 13, issued March 31, 2022, shows that COVID-jabbed individuals with breakthrough infections have lower levels of these antibodies — a finding they attributed to the protective benefit of the shot:

“These lower anti N responses in individuals with breakthrough infections (post-vaccination) compared to primary infections likely reflect the shorter and milder infections in these patients.”

However, this interpretation is likely flawed, because less severe infection is associated with lower viral load, and as the study above demonstrated, the “vaccinated” have lower anti-nucleocapsid antibody levels than the unvaccinated at all viral load levels, but especially so at the lowest viral loads. As noted by The Defender:²²

“This is one of the most significant findings of the study because it overturns the heretofore unchallenged idea that decreased seroconversion in the vaccinated is due to less severe infection in this population — which is a benefit provided by the vaccine.

However, this new study shows that even at low viral loads, the unvaccinated are more likely to seroconvert than those who are vaccinated. In fact, the difference in seroconversion rates is the greatest at lowest viral loads. The decrease in conversion rates is not a result of a benefit from the vaccine. It is a consequence of it.”

Boosted Now Have Three to Four Times Higher Case Rates

The Defender also reviews other U.K. data showing the COVID case rate is three to four times higher among those who have received a booster shot, compared to the unvaccinated. This is true for all age groups with the exception of children under 18:²³

“What could explain such a large increase in infection rates among the boosted? Interestingly, the authors … warn that the unvaccinated may have contracted COVID-19 prior to the observation period — in other words, they may have acquired natural immunity previously, giving them added protection …

But their own data tells the opposite story. The boosted are more likely to contract the disease — by a factor of 3 to 4. How do we know whether the larger infection rates in the boosted are due to more robust immunity in the unvaccinated because of prior infection or due to an immune deficiency in the boosted?

The question can be definitively answered by examining the trend of infection rates [using] … the equivalent table from two months earlier. There is still a greater infection rate among the boosted, but it is only two to three times higher. If the authors’ hypothesis was correct, the more recent data should have shown less of a difference, not more.

If anything, their data support the finding that the decreased seroconversion rates in the vaccinated may be causing a greater risk of repeated infections.”

Walgreens’ Data

Data from the pharmacy chain Walgreens in the U.S. also reveal the same trend — COVID-jabbed individuals are testing positive for COVID at higher rates than the unjabbed, and those who got their last shot five months or more ago have the highest risk.

As you can see in the screenshot from Walgreens’ COVID-19 tracker²⁴ below, during the week of May 9 through 15, 2022, 21.4% of unvaccinated individuals who got tested for COVID got a positive result. Of those who had gotten just one COVID shot, the positivity rate was 26.3%.

Of those who received two doses five months or more ago, 31.3% tested positive, and of those who received a third dose five months or more ago, the positive rate was 32.7%. So, after the first booster shot (the third dose), people are at greatest risk of testing positive for COVID.

More Jabs, More COVID Deaths

Perhaps most disturbing of all are the data showing the COVID shots are raising mortality rates, both from COVID and other causes. Above is an animated illustration²⁵ sourced from Our World In Data, first showing the vaccination rates of South America, North America, Europe and Africa, from mid-December 2020 through the third week of April 2022, followed by the cumulative confirmed COVID deaths per million in those countries during that same timeframe.

Africa has had a consistently low vaccination rate throughout, while North America, Europe and South America all have had rapidly rising vaccination rates. Africa has also had a consistently low COVID mortality rate, although a slight rise began around September 2021. Still, it’s nowhere near the COVID death rates of North America, South America and Europe, all of which saw dramatic increases.

Here’s another one,²⁶ also sourced from Our World In Data, first showing the excess death rate in the U.S. (the cumulative number of deaths from all causes compared to projections based on previous years), between January 26, 2020, and January 30, 2022, followed by an illustration of the tandem rise of vaccine doses administered and the excess mortality rate. It clearly shows that as vaccination rates rose, so did excess mortality.

Risk-Benefit Analyses

We also have the benefit of more than one risk-benefit analysis, and all show that, with very few exceptions, the COVID jabs do more harm than good. A risk-benefit analysis²⁷ by Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., and independent researcher Kathy Dopp, published in mid-February 2022, concluded that the COVID jab is deadlier than COVID-19 itself for anyone under the age of 80.

Another analysis,²⁸ which relied on data in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), concluded that in those under age 18, the shots only increase the risk of death from COVID, and there’s no point at which the shot can prevent a single COVID death, no matter how many are vaccinated.If you’re under 18, you’re 51 times more likely to die from the COVID jab than you are to die from COVID if not vaccinated.

If you’re under 18, you’re a shocking 51 times more likely to die from the jab than you are to die from COVID if not vaccinated. In the 18 to 29 age range, the shot will kill 16 for every person it saves from dying from COVID, and in the 30 to 39 age range, the expected number of vaccine fatalities to prevent a single COVID death is 15. Only when you get into the 60 and older categories do the risks between the jab and COVID infection even out.

A third risk-benefit analysis by researchers in Germany and The Netherlands was published in June 2021, in the journal Vaccines.²⁹ The paper caused such an uproar, part of the editorial board resigned in protest.³⁰ The journal retracted the paper, but after a thorough re-review, it was republished in the August 2021 issue of Science, Public Health Policy and the Law.³¹

These researchers concluded that, “as we vaccinate 100 000 persons, we might save five lives but risk two to four deaths.”³² A fourth, still preliminary, analysis — based on more than 1,700 death reports collected by Steve Kirsch — shows the shots do more harm than good in anyone under age 60. Kirsch writes:³³

“Figure 1 below is an analysis of survey data I collected. The analysis shows that the vaccines are harmful to those under 60. The red dots higher than the error bar means more vaccinated people observed dead than expected based on the population of vaccinated to all people.

In other words, if we vaccinated 60% of people (middle of the grey bar) and 70% (red dot) of the deaths are vaccinated, we have a serious problem. The precautionary principle of medicine suggests if you are under 60 and thinking of taking a vaccine, you shouldn’t. These preliminary results are both statistically significant …

The conclusion is very clear: nobody under 60 years old should get the vaccine because there is no evidence of a benefit. In fact, if you are between 40-60, it’s clear that vaccination makes it more likely you’ll die, not less likely.”

Figure 1. Red dot below error bar = vax works. Red dot above error bar = vax likely causes harm. Red dot inside the error bar = Insufficient evidence to justify taking a new, unproven vaccine. Conclusion: Vaccine shouldn’t be considered unless there is a clear benefit. 60 and older seems to justify use based on the data we have so far. Limitations: we are waiting for others to confirm / challenge the analysis. See text³⁴ for more info. Joel Smalley did the analysis.

While some analyses present a direr picture than others, taken together, it’s clear that there appears to be no long term benefits to the COVID jabs. We’re consistently ending up with a higher cost than can conceivably be considered reasonable. The pro-pharma side will likely continue to lob flimsy excuses at the data, but at some point, the truth will be so clear that even the blind will see it. Until that day, continue to inform yourself and share what you find.

Originally published May 26, 2022 on Mercola.com

Sources and References

• ^1, 5 Medscape May 13, 2022
• ² medRxiv April 29, 2022 DOI: 10.1101/2022.04.25.22274266
• ^{3, 11, 12, 13, 14} Anchorage Daily News April 29, 2022
• ⁴ Nature Communications November 20, 2020; 11 Article number 5917
• ⁶ medRxiv April 29, 2022 DOI: 10.1101/2022.04.25.22274266, See funding statement
• ⁷ Gates Foundation Grant to McGill University September 2020
• ⁸ Gates Foundation Grant to McGill University April 2020
• ⁹ McGill International Funding Sources
• ¹⁰ McGill newsroom December 17, 2015
• ¹⁵ CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Shots
• ¹⁶ The Defender April 7, 2022
• ¹⁷ medRxiv April 19, 2022 DOI: 10.1101/2022.04.18.22271936
• ^18, 22, 23 The Defender May 4, 2022
• ¹⁹ Igor’s Newsletter April 26, 2022
• ²⁰ Bad Cattitude Substack April 27, 2022
• ²¹ UK Health Security Agency COVID-19 Vaccine Surveillance Report Week 13
• ²⁴ Walgreens COVID-19 Index
• ²⁵ Twitter TexasLindsay April 23, 2022
• ²⁶ Twitter TexasLindsay April 25, 2022
• ²⁷ COVID-19 and All-Cause Mortality Data Analysis by Kathy Dopp and Stephanie Seneff (PDF)
• ²⁸ COVID Vaccination and Age-Stratified All-Cause Mortality Risk (PDF)
• ²⁹ Vaccines 2021; 9(7): 693
• ³⁰ Science, Public Health Policy and the Law August 2021; 3: 81-86, page 82
• ³¹ Science, Public Health Policy and the Law August 2021; 3: 87-89
• ³² Clinical and Translational Discovery February 25, 2022; 2(1): e35
• ^33, 34 Steve Kirsch Substack May 17, 2022

https://www.theepochtimes.com/why-those-under-60-are-more-likely-to-die-if-jabbed_4492774.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-29-3&utm_medium=email&est=m2zjwyl9FrrGyYscQa5JCNQw%2FIFtmIhClRoeuMVLbSvSkZM56JSsLFoh9UbesiKTqQ%3D%3D

Joe Biden’s Chief Climate Officer and Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development was a fellow at the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, founded by World Economic Forum Chairman Klaus Schwab.

The prominent position of the Biden Appointee, Gillian Caldwell, gives her considerable direction over the White House’s energy and climate change policy, which the World Economic Forum (WEF) has highlighted as an integral component of its “Great Reset” agenda. In addition to exploiting COVID-19, the WEF has been accused of using issues like the environment to advance its radical agenda of abolishing private property ownership.

Caldwell was a Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship Fellow in 2001, which earned her “all expenses paid participation at the World Economic Forum in Davos annually,” according to her resume. The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship was founded by WEF Chairman Klaus Schwab in 1998 and is run by his wife, Hilde.

While attending several WEF events, Caldwell has been a featured blogger for the group, which she reveals on her resume:

“The Schwab Foundation brings several dozen of us here each year as the primary vehicle through which is aims to support our work.”

Several blog posts authored by Caldwell from 2006 focus on panels she attended and business leaders, media figures, and celebrities she spoke with while at the WEF.

“Day 1 at the World Economic Forum. I attended a session this morning on how we did as a global community in the last year in the areas identified as top priorities by Davos attendees last year: poverty, equitable globalization, climate change, education, global governance, and the Middle East,” she reported

MUST READ: World Economic Forum Panelist Demands ‘Recalibration’ Of Free Speech.

Prior to joining the Biden White House, Caldwell worked as a consultant for clients including the shady far-left campaign slush fund Arabella Advisors, which has deep ties to George Soros. She was also a Strategy Consultant for the Robin Hood Foundation, which has received millions of dollars from Soros.

“Gillian serves as the Chief Climate Officer and is responsible for directing and overseeing all climate and environment work across the agency. She also serves as Deputy Assistant Administrator, overseeing DDI’s Center for Environment, Energy, and Infrastructure and the Office of Environmental and Social Risk Management,” explains her professional bio on USAID’s website.

The USAID has previously funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, believed by many to be the source of COVID-19.

You can read more about the World Economic Forum at www.TakeDownTheWEF.com 

The Supreme Court on May 26 rejected a request from Republican-led states to block President Joe Biden and his administration from using a model to estimate the costs of greenhouse gas emissions.

Justices denied the application for a stay without an explanation.

Biden on the day he was sworn into office reestablished the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, the latter portion of the name referring to the model in question.

The order said that it was “essential” that federal agencies “capture the full costs of greenhouse gas emissions as accurately as possible, including by taking global damages into account.” Such costs, once modeled, should be included when conducting cost-benefit analyses that agencies regularly conduct, the president said at the time.

Louisiana and 10 other states sued, alleging the estimates were part of a power grab “designed to manipulate America’s entire federal regulatory apparatus through speculative costs and benefits so that the Administration can impose its preferred policy outcomes on every sector of the American economy.”

U.S. District Judge James Cain, a Trump appointee, issued a preliminary injunction against the administration in February, finding that the use of the model “directly causes harm” to the plaintiff states’ rights to proceeds from oil and gas leases.

The estimates “artificially increase the cost estimates of lease sales, which in effect, reduces the number of parcels being leased, resulting in the States receiving less in bonus bids, ground rents, and production royalties,” Cain said.

But a three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and overturned Cain’s order. The panel said the plaintiff states claimed injury that may result, calling the impact “merely hypothetical.”

“The government defendants are also likely to succeed in showing that the plaintiff states have failed to meet their burden on causation and redressability. The increased regulatory burdens the plaintiff states fear will come from the interim estimates appear untraceable because agencies consider a great number of other factors in determining when, what, and how to regulate or take agency action,” the panel—consisting of Judges Leslie Southwick, a George W. Bush appointee, and James Graves Jr. and Gregg Costa, both Obama appointees—wrote.

That set up the Supreme Court challenge, with the plaintiffs saying that without action, the executive branch would “continue using this made-up, nonstatutory metric to arbitrarily tip the scales toward its preferred policy outcome for every activity the federal government touches.”

Elizabeth Prelogar, the solicitor general, had urged the court not to grant the request.

Article III of the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act “preclude applicants from challenging the president’s directive to federal agencies to use a specified methodology in monetizing costs as part of their cost-benefit analyses in this abstract suit unconnected to any concrete final agency action,” she wrote, adding: “If and when an agency relies on those estimates in issuing a rule or taking other reviewable action that injures the applicants, they may challenge that particular final agency action and argue that its reliance on the estimates renders it unlawful. But applicants may not maintain this Executive-Branch-wide challenge to the interim estimates divorced from any concrete agency action.”

In a response to the Supreme Court decision, Louisiana Solicitor General Elizabeth Murrill told The Epoch Times in an email: “The Administration’s efforts to reorder the American economy using these made-up metrics underscores the truth of the one economist’s statement that this is ‘the most important number you never heard of.’ We are disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision to not vacate the stay, but we are confident that we will be successful in reinstating the injunction after this matter is heard on the merits at the 5th Circuit. Briefing is underway. In the meantime, we will continue to flag the government’s use of these numbers.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-turns-down-request-to-block-biden-from-using-climate-model_4495450.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-27-3&utm_medium=email&est=QUNChOjLsfQLi4jfdCmlDGCNNs09n4iXH%2Fc6%2BcMmVJkocgzB%2Bbr06c%2BSia7hZ5HVHw%3D%3D

A dozen liberal groups that pressured Twitter advertisers to boycott the platform in response to Elon Musk’s plans to acquire it received money from entities backed by Bill Gates and George Soros, an analysis of public filings shows.

In early May, a group of 26 organizations penned a public letter claiming that the Tesla CEO’s takeover of Twitter would “be a direct threat to public safety” and turn the platform into “a cesspool of misinformation.” The letter called for Twitter’s top advertisers to “hold [Musk] to account” by committing to “non-negotiable” standards for doing business with the site, one of which is to not restore the accounts of political and public figures banned for “egregious violations of Twitter Rules.” The letter contained the logos of Accountable Tech, Media Matters for America, and UltraViolet Action.

An analysis of the public filings and records shows that at least 11 of the letter’s signatories or their affiliated groups have taken money from organizations funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. One of the three groups leading the letter has received over $1 million from billionaire financer George Soros’s grant-making network Open Society Foundations, while the two others were founded in part by former staffers for Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton.

Eight signatories also collected roughly $10.25 million in federal grants and loans between 2020 and 2021, public records show.

The New Venture Fund, the recipient of more than $500 million in grants from the Gates Foundation since 2012, in 2020 gave $180,000 in total to two signees, Media Matters for America and Center for Media Justice. Another $11.2 million of the New Venture Fund’s 2020 grant money went to North Fund, a shadowy progressive nonprofit based in Washington that funnels money to a number of other activist groups, including Accountable Tech, which published the letter.

Accountable Tech’s website shows that two members on its team—its co-founder and digital director—worked for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Founded in 2004, Media Matters for America describes itself as a “progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” A key function of the organization is to provide tools for monitoring what it considers to be “conservative misinformation,” which it defines to be “news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda.”

The Center for Media Justice, which in 2019 was rebranded to MediaJustice, aims to promote “racial, economic, and gender justice in a digital age,” its website states.

Tides Foundation, a Gates Foundation grantee since at least 2013, has handed over $2.34 million to eight of the signatories or their affiliates over a three year-period since 2019.

Among the recipients is Indivisible Project and its nonprofit charitable arm Indivisible Civics that work to “defeat the Trump agenda,” of which the signatory Indivisible Northern Nevada is a local chapter.

The other seven signatories that received money from Tides Foundation in the past three years are: women’s advocacy group UltraViolet Action; environmentalist groups Union of Concerned Scientists and Friends of the Earth; pro-abortion association NARAL Pro-Choice America; Black Lives Matter South Bend, a local chapter of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation; GLAAD, which monitors media portrayal of LGBTQ groups; and Media Matters Action Network, a partner project of Media Matters for America.

UltraViolet Action’s board chair and board member Karen Finney was the Democratic National Committee’s first African American spokeswoman and had served as the senior spokesperson for Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to the group’s website. Another board chair, Arisha Hatch, was an organizer for then-candidate Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.

Access Now, which focuses on internet accessibility around the world, in 2021 received funds totalling $1.35 million from the Open Society Foundations that Soros founded and chairs, along with grants from Wikimedia Foundation, Microsoft, governments in Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the Netherlands.

Beginning in 2017, the Open Society Foundation has also awarded three grants with a combined value of 1.625 million to Free Press, a pro-net neutrality group that also signed on to the letter.

The Microsoft founder last month admitted to having taken a $500 million short position on Tesla shares, according to a leaked text message string between Gates and Musk said that the latter said was authentic.

Musk had reacted to the boycott letter by calling for an investigation of the signatories’ funders.

“Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let’s investigate …” he wrote on Twitter on May 3, adding: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

He later made note of a report that some signatories received funding from Soros and European governments. “Interesting. I wonder if those funding these organizations are fully aware of what the organizations are doing,” he wrote.

Twitter in recent years has drawn criticism for censoring and suspending conservative users. Among its list of banned public figures are former President Donald Trump, Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, COVID-19 vaccine critic Dr. Robert Malone, and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Musk has called Twitter’s ban of Trump’s account in early 2021 “flat-out stupid.” He said he would reverse the move if he becomes the platform’s new owner.

At a recent Miami tech conference, Musk also said he would be voting Republican after having “voted overwhelmingly for Democrats.” He described the $44 billion deal as “not some right-wing takeover,” but instead a “moderate take over and an attempt to ensure that people of all political beliefs feel welcome on a digital town square and they can express their beliefs without fear of being banned or shadowbanned.”

The Gates Foundation connections were first reported by Breitbart. The Epoch Times has reached out to all the named organizations.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/12-groups-behind-protest-of-musks-twitter-takeover-have-ties-with-gates-foundation-soros_4493281.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-05-27&utm_medium=email&est=Hcd9Ay7OFxa2%2BF%2BTYbQlN7S2eGemkLkW3JBns57OH3FqIxrvdsam9Tc6gZhmOlGPMg%3D%3D

An interesting pattern emerged at the trial of Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann. While we may have expected special counsel John Durham to challenge the official media and establishment narrative that the Trump-Russia investigation was properly predicated and carried out, it is Sussmann who is now challenging that narrative, not Durham.

In fact, Durham made it clear from day one of the trial that he is running with the opposite narrative, that the FBI was a victim. In essence, Durham has forced Sussmann’s team to attack the FBI in order to exonerate their client—and Sussmann’s team has embraced the challenge.

In possibly the biggest bombshell admission of the past year, Sussmann’s team revealed an internal FBI text message that proves that FBI leadership was vigorously pushing the Trump-Russia collusion hoax despite the flimsiness of the evidence.

It is the first public acknowledgment backed by documentary evidence that FBI leadership was focused on taking out Trump.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/new-internal-fbi-text-message-reveals-fbi-leaderships-desire-to-get-trump-truth-over-news_4492007.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-26-4&utm_medium=email&est=%2BOQFe%2Fs2necxfrFHAy1h0iHK1d46sV8dNBC%2Ft43HqGhrUVYpR5OgnuRp8JVOXBQadw%3D%3D

When she was working towards her Ph.D. in genetics at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s, my mother noticed something extraordinary: the organelles inside the cells she was studying looked surprisingly like single-celled free-living bacteria.

Was it possible, my mom asked herself, that bacterial cells somehow became integrated into other cells to form new organisms?

And could this be a driving mechanism of evolutionary change?

More established biologists laughed at her. Many of her colleagues dismissed her. A paper she wrote on the subject got rejected dozens of times. Later, Richard Dawkins, a famous British evolutionary biologist, called her “Attila the Hen.”

Throughout her career, my mother was ridiculed for being too iconoclastic, too unconventional, and too outspoken.

But science speaks for itself and my mother, Dr. Lynn Margulis, was able to prove, via electron microscopy, that, indeed, the mitochondria in our bodies (those tiny organelles within our cells that are responsible mainly for energy metabolism) could have come from a merger of very early bacterial cells becoming integrated into other cells.

Her theory, called the endosymbiotic hypothesis, as well as the idea of “symbiogenesis” (a word that she and my brother, science writer Dorion Sagan, coined), are now widely accepted by the scientific community.

Today the idea that we cohabitate with bacteria and other microorganisms as obligate symbionts is of seminal importance to our understanding of the human microbiome and how to promote and heal the gut. For years my mother was considered an outlier, now she is regarded as a visionary.

Science Advances With Open Debate

Orville and Wilbur Wright were famous for disagreeing with each other as they tried to solve the thorny problem of getting a craft airborne. How to design propellers was one of the many engineering questions the two brothers had to resolve, and the more they studied the problem the more complicated it seemed, according to David McCullough, who wrote a best-selling book in 2016 about the Wright brothers.

It took months of failures to find a design that worked. The problem, the Wrights figured out, was that the thrust of a standing propeller was not the same as the thrust of the same propeller in motion. They could only test the propellers if they tried them on a flying machine, McCullough explained in his book.

This was a frustrating time for the inventors, and they disagreed loudly about how to proceed, arguing day and night.

“If you don’t stop arguing, I’ll leave home,” their younger sister Katharine reportedly screamed at them one day.

But their heated arguments were a productive—even essential—part of the process of invention. Both brothers capitulated to each other, changing their minds based on their discussions, observations, and subsequent experiments. And they solved the propeller problem by positioning two propellers between the wings of their “Flyer,” just behind the pilot, with one spinning clockwise and the other counterclockwise to balance each other out.

I love this story because it shows how important differences of opinion are to the scientific process and how the best scientists and inventors are always willing—eventually—to put their egos aside and see things in a different way for the greater good of advancing knowledge.

And who knows? Without their lively debates, which helped them move their experiments forward, the Wright brothers may not have invented flight.

Whether the question is how life evolved on earth, how to get an aircraft off the ground, or what is the best way to treat an infectious disease like SARS-CoV-2, scientific knowledge advances by open debate, lively disagreement, and testing and re-testing hypotheses.

Differences of opinion are not dangerous. Conflicting information is not the problem. Shutting down conversations about science, censoring scientific debate, or ignoring data that do not fit into a preconceived idea—as the molecular geneticist and former vaccine developer Dr. Joe Wang has written about previously for The Epoch Times—are what lead to deadly consequences.

But that is exactly what has been happening for over two years now. Public health authorities, government officials, Big Tech, and even the conventional media, using SARS-CoV-2 as an excuse, continue to actively censor the free and fair exchange of ideas.

Much of this censorship is done by robots. Last week I was temporarily banned from Facebook for posting a link to a peer-reviewed scientific article published in the New England Journal of Medicine about the risk of myocarditis in young people following vaccination.

Apparently Facebook artificial intelligence knows more than an international team of highly qualified, highly credentialed scientists and their editors.

Lessons From China

You would think that every American understood that freedom of thought is the hallmark of an open society. After all, since the beginning of the COVID-19 scare, American newspapers have dedicated quite a bit of ink to criticizing the Chinese government for their extreme censorship.

(reported https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-02-06/chinese-doctor-warned-of-coronavirus-outbreak-dies)

(then died https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30382-2/fulltext)

As the Los Angeles Times reported, when Dr. Li Wenliang tried to share news about coronavirus, the Chinese government arrested him and seven other whistleblowers for spreading rumors. The 33-year-old ophthalmologist then died in a hospital in Wuhan on February 7, 2020, allegedly of SARS-CoV-2.

In China, the broadly worded crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” has been used time and again against citizens who are critical of the party line.

In August of 2021 it was evoked as a justification to give two Chinese brothers a 15-month jail sentence, as reported by the South China Morning Post. Their crime was simply making censored material—some 100 articles about COVID-19—available on the internet.

Silencing dissent is so deeply engrained in the CCP culture that the only people in China who can criticize the CCP are the CCP itself, and only after behind-the-scene power struggles settled by new CCP bosses criticizing their predecessors.

Speaking Out Against Censorship

“We are silencing scientists,” Dr. Martin Kulldorf said at a meeting of medical doctors and scientists in Washington, D.C. in March. “Science cannot operate that way. We won’t get progress and more knowledge that way.”

A Swedish-born epidemiologist who was a professor of medicine at Harvard for almost twenty years, Kulldorf has been fearlessly speaking out against censorship and dishonesty in the medical community.

He was at the inauguration of Hillsdale’s new Academy for Science and Freedom, attended by dozens of other scientific leaders who also champion the honest exchange of scientific ideas.

“All civilized societies depend on the free exchange of ideas that are involved in scientific inquiry,” said Scott Atlas, M.D., who is also a fellow at the Academy for Science and Freedom, at the meeting in Washington, D.C.

“It’s not just that we need to allow that, we need to encourage that … without that free exchange of ideas, you do not have science,” Atlas said.

This week, when I boarded a plane in New York, there were signs on the jet bridge instructing passengers to stay six feet apart. It doesn’t take a scientist to realize that staying six feet apart while walking to the plane, only to be seated close together breathing the same recirculating air, makes no sense.

The origin of the public idea that we should stay six feet apart from each other has been attributed to research conducted in 1897 by a German scientist named Carl Flügge. But at the time when this was widely promoted by public health officials, no studies—none—had ever evaluated the biophysics of droplets or gas cloud formation for patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, according to MIT’s Lydia Bourouiba, Ph.D., writing in the journal JAMA.

Later, as people started feeling increasingly restless with lockdowns and distancing, and parents began clamoring for schools to reopen, a study appeared in the journal Clinical Infectious Disease that found that three feet of social distance was enough.

This peer-reviewed science concluded that: “Lower physical distancing requirements can be adopted in school settings … without negatively affecting student or staff safety.” So, it seems, the six foot rule may have been wrong all along?

As the French would say, n’importe de quoi.

My mother died of a brain hemorrhage in November of 2011. Even though she’s not here anymore, she feels very present. Every day I hear her urging me to be brave, defend scientific freedom, and question the status quo.

Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning science journalist and book author. She is currently writing a book about her mother’s life and legacy, to be published by Mariner Books in Fall of 2023.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/america-should-not-silence-science_4494299.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-26-4&utm_medium=email&est=nlxMhc3oNJQSIxQ8PDpr7GcF2RplBtyrcQTpGp39N7bzk6aKlwAePYDLxjpYgMa4Vw%3D%3D

REVIEW: ‘Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns’ by Stanley Goldfarb, M.D.

It is a popular sport among those on the progressive left to dismiss conservatives’ concerns about the spread of “woke” ideology (such as Critical Race Theory and “antiracism” training) in public education and corporate culture. Parents are scolded for suggesting that seeing the world through the “lens of CRT” or the factually challenged posturing of the 1619 Project might be harmful to their children’s education, and employees are chastised for questioning the effectiveness of new mandates on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The implication is that only a racist would resist the new “antiracism.”

And yet, there is one arena in which woke thinking is not merely politically polarizing, but deadly. As Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a nephrologist and associate dean for curriculum at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, writes in Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns, the “quiet woke revolution” that had been going on in medicine for some time “erupted in spring 2020 into a full-blown revolution”—one with ongoing negative consequences.

That year, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the ensuing protests, and amid a global pandemic, doctors and medical students began going well beyond their remit as physicians to embrace the role of social justice activists. “Led by a cadre of woke administrators who embraced the tenets of critical race theory, the medical establishment was committing itself to a misguided focus on anti-racism and equity in all aspects of the health-care system,” Goldfarb writes.

Groups of physicians organized under names such as White Coats for Black Lives, and issued manifestos that were little more than crypto-Marxist argle bargle: A June 2021 statement outlined the group’s mission of “dismantling dominant, exploitative systems in the United States, which are largely reliant on anti-Black racism, colonialism, cisheteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism,” for example. When “just what the doctor ordered” means a lecture on the harms of the cisheteropatriarchy, it is clear medicine has strayed far from its professional purpose.

Goldfarb makes short work of many of the faulty “antiracism” medical studies that take as their starting point the new popular assumption that medicine is racist. One frequently cited study about pain treatment in black and white patients claimed white doctors do not adequately treat black patients for pain; in fact, as Goldfarb describes, that study’s conclusions relied on other studies that were themselves seriously flawed and often not replicable, but which nevertheless received a great deal of attention, citation, and publication in prestigious medical journals eager to demonstrate their “antiracism” bona fides.

Likewise, studies of maternal and infant care of black women versus white women have yielded poorer outcomes for black women. If you ask a woke believer why this is the case, they will tell you something akin to the word salad offered by Vice President Kamala Harris: “Systemic racial inequities and implicit bias.” But, Goldfarb notes, to come to such alarmist conclusions one must ignore, as many of these studies do, many confounding factors such as the fact that black women “tend to have more underlying ‘comorbid’ conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. They tend not to seek prenatal care as often as White women despite government programs to support such visits.” In fact, “Were obstetricians to take classes in unconscious bias every year of medical school, their attendance would not do a thing to alter the factors that contribute to the greater risk of childbirth in the Black community.”

Although “antiracism” studies are built on sand, they serve a professional and practical purpose for woke physicians by creating an easy villain. “The new religion of ‘wokism’ demanded the acceptance of a crippling mythology that racism—or even White supremacy—was the cause of the very real disparities in health-care outcomes for Black communities,” Goldfarb writes. Far easier to cite “racism” than to delve into the complicating factors that impact individual health.

Goldfarb is at his best when he tackles two disturbing trends in medicine: the dumbing down of standards for entrance into medical schools and the capitulation of medical school curricula to woke posturing at the expense of rigorous clinical training. He sees how even the American Medical Association has engaged in an institutional effort to appear more equitable by attacking the very idea of merit. The AMA’s recent master plan, for example, decries the “myth of meritocracy and other malignant narratives.”

Goldfarb notes the irony of claims that medical schools and hospitals are awash in white supremacy; these are the same institutions that for decades have pursued affirmative action policies that hold minority applicants to lower standards than their white peers. “The inarguable reality is that Blacks are preferentially admitted to medical school. Once admitted, they are virtually guaranteed to graduate. And once graduated, they are likely to find training programs more than eager to accept them in the name of diversity,” he writes. “Black students with a middling GPA in college and a 50ish percentile rank on the MCAT had a ninefold greater chance than White students. In other words, while only 20 percent of White applications with such mediocre grades and scores were admitted to medical school, 85 percent of comparable Black applicants were.”

When minority students fail to achieve at levels considered “equitable” to students of other races, the standards are simply changed or dropped to achieve the desired outcome. When black medical students failed to qualify for Alpha Omega Alpha (the medical school society equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa, which inducts entrants based on academic achievement), woke scholars like Dr. Catherine Lucey at UCSF attacked the standards, claiming the “systems we use [for student evaluation] fail to take into account the extra work minorities are doing.” What extra work is this? She cited, without evidence, “stressors” such as “low levels of racism that exist in our patients.” As Goldfarb puts it, “If extra work and stressors were the criteria, young women who give birth during medical school would be automatic inductees.”

Once accepted into medical school, students encounter far less rigorous training than in previous eras. Citing equity goals, many medical schools have moved from issuing grades to pass/fail assessments. A longtime educator himself, Goldfarb is concerned that “the science content of student education has been dramatically reduced. So has the range of clinical experience,” which has “diminished the practical value of medical education.” What are they learning instead? As Goldfarb describes, “Researchers at the University of Oregon, writing in the journal Academic Medicine in 2021, surveyed the curricula of 122 medical schools and found that more than half had a required course that covered elements of advocacy.” The goal of such classes is “clearly political, not medical.”

Woke medicine thus creates its own feedback loop:

Many young physicians and medical students see poverty, housing, police policies, incarceration rates, climate, and gun control as legitimate concerns of the medical profession. This expanded role for physicians is the rationale for the proposed transformation in medical education. Medical students are not being educated in the complexities of social policy. They are being indoctrinated. Once programmed, they can leverage the trust placed in physicians to advocate for a variety of progressive policies that have never worked anywhere.

Goldfarb is blunt in his assessment of the consequences—not the woke utopia imagined by its practitioners, but degraded health care for all: “By abandoning the traditional values such as treating all patients equally and recruiting the best and the brightest students, too many health educators have adopted a racialist agenda that will, if anything, aggravate health disparities and undermine the trust of patients of all races.”

Humanities majors might wince when Goldfarb says, “It is one thing for the Princeton classics department to abandon its Latin requirement for classics majors. It is quite another for Harvard Med to cut training time in biochemistry and pharmacology for future doctors. After all, no one dies if the classics major cannot conjugate morior.” But he is right to point out the real-world stakes. Commenting on the AMA’s “Organizational Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity,” Goldfarb notes, correctly, and chillingly, “Unlike other social justice programs, this program is lethal. It will tangibly reduce the quality of medical care, and almost every American will suffer its side effects.”

Throughout the book, Goldfarb makes a convincing case that woke medicine is both a distraction and a danger. It’s a distraction because it exacts serious opportunity costs. Training doctors to be activists rather than to better treat individual patients does little to improve health care; physicians should be eliminating suffering, not engaging in social engineering. Likewise, it is dangerous because by lowering standards and rigor in the name of “equity,” it undermines the quality of medical care.

It also justifies racist practices in the name of righting past injustices. A badly designed study that purported to show that white cardiac patients received better care than black patients concluded by noting proudly that the hospital where the researchers worked now practiced “a preferential admission option for Black and Latinx heart failure patients to our specialty cardiology service.” As Goldfarb writes, “this is probably illegal but certainly immoral and an abrogation of the authors’ medical oath to care for the best interests of the patient.” Unfortunately, there are many more examples of physicians sacrificing patient care on the altar of political correctness.

Oddly for revolutionaries, today’s woke physicians and medical students are surprisingly sensitive. Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital recently caved to the complaints of woke medical students who said that the hospital’s main auditorium made them “uncomfortable” because it contained portraits of past leaders in the profession, who happened to be white men. “These giants of American medicine did not own slaves, treat Indians poorly, experiment on Black patients, or help the American military in any way,” Goldfarb notes. “Their sin was to be White, all of them, and, even worse, male. Their very existence was a microaggression.” For a profession that requires rigor, intelligence, and resilience, such coddling does not bode well.

And yet, Goldfarb is not despairing; rather, he calls for a “neo-traditional counterrevolution” in medicine that will revive higher standards for medical education and practice—standards uncorrupted by ideological crusades. He has spearheaded the formation of a nonprofit organization, Do No Harm, to eliminate identity politics in medicine.

It is a mark of his good sense that Goldfarb manages to maintain a wittily combative tone throughout his book—a commendable quality given the concerted efforts by some of his colleagues to cancel him. The book grew out of an opinion piece he published in the Wall Street Journal and for which he was pilloried by his woke colleagues and attacked on social media as an “asshole.” Goldfarb writes, “My goal is to inspire my fellow assholes to go full Howard Beale and shout from the rooftops, ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.'”

After reading this book, every American who has ever set foot in a hospital or a doctor’s office should be mad as hell too.

Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns: Why Turning Doctors into Social Justice Warriors is Destroying American Medicine
by Stanley Goldfarb, M.D.
Bombardier Books, 216 pp., $17

Christine Rosen is senior writer at Commentary magazine and a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.

https://freebeacon.com/culture/woke-medicine-a-prescription-for-disaster/

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

• Canadian immunologist and vaccine researcher Byram Bridle, Ph.D., has gained access to Pfizer’s biodistribution study from the Japanese regulatory agency. The research demonstrates a huge problem with all COVID-19 vaccines
• The assumption that vaccine developers have been working with is that the mRNA in the vaccines would primarily remain in and around the vaccination site. Pfizer’s data, however, show the mRNA and subsequent spike protein are widely distributed in the body within hours
• This is a serious problem, as the spike protein is a toxin shown to cause cardiovascular and neurological damage. It also has reproductive toxicity, and Pfizer’s biodistribution data show it accumulates in women’s ovaries
• Once in your blood circulation, the spike protein binds to platelet receptors and the cells that line your blood vessels. When that happens, it can cause platelets to clump together, resulting in blood clots, and/or cause abnormal bleeding
• Pfizer documents submitted to the European Medicines Agency also show the company failed to follow industry-standard quality management practices during preclinical toxicology studies and that key studies did not meet good laboratory practice standards

The more we learn about the COVID-19 vaccines, the worse they look. In a recent interview[1] with Alex Pierson (above), Canadian immunologist and vaccine researcher Byram Bridle, Ph.D., dropped a shocking truth bomb that immediately went viral, despite being censored by Google.

It also was featured in a “fact” check by The Poynter Institute’s Politifact,[2] which pronounced Bridle’s findings as “false” after interviewing Dr. Drew Weissman,[3] a UPenn scientist who is credited with helping to create the technology that enables the COVID mRNA vaccines to work. But, as you can see below, unlike Bridle, Politifact neglected to go beyond interviewing someone with such a huge stake in the vaccine’s success.

In 2020, Bridle was awarded a $230,000 government grant for research on COVID vaccine development. As part of that research, he and a team of international scientists requested a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) access to Pfizer’s biodistribution study from the Japanese regulatory agency. The research,[4] [5]previously unseen, demonstrates a huge problem with all COVID-19 vaccines.

“We made a big mistake,” Bridle says. “We thought the spike protein was a great target antigen; we never knew the spike protein itself was a toxin and was a pathogenic protein. So, by vaccinating people we are inadvertently inoculating them with a toxin.”

Pfizer Omitted Industry-Standard Safety Studies

What’s more, TrialSite News reports[6] that Pfizer documents submitted to the European Medicines Agency [EMA] reveal the company “did not follow industry-standard quality management practices during preclinical toxicology studies … as key studies did not meet good laboratory practice (GLP).”

Neither reproductive toxicity nor genotoxicity (DNA mutation) studies were performed, both of which are considered critical when developing a new drug or vaccine for human use. The problems now surfacing matter greatly, as they significantly alter the risk-benefit analysis underlying the vaccines’ emergency use authorization. As reported by TrialSite News:[7]

“Recently, there has been speculation regarding potential safety signals associated with COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Many different unusual, prolonged, or delayed reactions have been reported, and often these are more pronounced after the second shot.

Women have reported changes in menstruation after taking mRNA vaccines. Problems with blood clotting (coagulation) — which are also common during COVID-19 disease — are also reported. In the case of the Pfizer COVID mRNA vaccine, these newly revealed documents raise additional questions about both the genotoxicity and reproductive toxicity risks of this product.

Standard studies designed to assess these risks were not performed in compliance with accepted empirical research standards. Furthermore, in key studies designed to test whether the vaccine remains near the injection site or travels throughout the body, Pfizer did not even use the commercial vaccine (BNT162b2) but instead relied on a ‘surrogate’ mRNA producing the luciferase protein.

These new disclosures seem to indicate that the U.S. and other governments are conducting a massive vaccination program with an incompletely characterized experimental vaccine.

It is certainly understandable why the vaccine was rushed into use as an experimental product under emergency use authority, but these new findings suggest that routine quality testing issues were overlooked in the rush to authorize use.

People are now receiving injections with an mRNA gene therapy-based vaccine, which produces the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in their cells, and the vaccine may be also delivering the mRNA and producing spike protein in unintended organs and tissues (which may include ovaries).”

Toxic Spike Protein Enters Blood Circulation

The assumption that vaccine developers have been working with is that the mRNA in the vaccines (or DNA in the case of Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca’s vaccines) would primarily remain in and around the vaccination site, i.e., your deltoid muscle, with a small amount draining into local lymph nodes.[8]

Pfizer’s data, however, show this isn’t the case at all. Using mRNA programmed to produce luciferase protein, as well as mRNA tagged with a radioactive label, Pfizer showed that the majority of the mRNA initially remain near the injection site, but within hours become widely distributed within the body.[9]We have known for a long time that the spike protein is a pathogenic protein. It is a toxin. It can cause damage in our body if it gets into circulation.— Dr. Byram Bridle

The mRNA enters your bloodstream and accumulates in a variety of organs, primarily your spleen, bone marrow, liver, adrenal glands and, in women, the ovaries. The spike protein also travel to your heart, brain and lungs, where bleeding and or blood clots can occur as a result, and is expelled in breast milk.

This is a problem, because rather than instructing your muscle cells to produce the spike protein (the antigen that triggers antibody production), spike protein is actually being produced inside your blood vessel walls and various organs, where it can do a great deal of damage.

“It’s the first time ever scientists have been privy to seeing where these messenger RNA [mRNA] vaccines go after vaccination,” Bridle told Pierson.[10]

“Is it a safe assumption that it stays in the shoulder muscle? The short answer is: absolutely not. It’s very disconcerting … We have known for a long time that the spike protein is a pathogenic protein.

It is a toxin. It can cause damage in our body if it gets into circulation … The spike protein on its own is almost entirely responsible for the damage to the cardiovascular system, if it gets into circulation.”

The Spike Protein Is the Problem

Indeed, for many months, we’ve known that the worst symptoms of severe COVID-19, blood clotting problems in particular, are caused by the spike protein of the virus. As such, it seemed really risky to instruct the body’s cells to produce the very thing that causes severe problems.

Bridle cites research showing that laboratory animals injected with purified spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 straight into their bloodstream developed cardiovascular problems and brain damage.

Assuming that the spike protein would not enter into the circulatory system was a “grave mistake,” according to Bridle, who calls the Japanese data “clear-cut evidence” that the vaccine, and the spike protein produced by it, enters your bloodstream and accumulates in vital organs. Bridle also cites recent research showing the spike protein remained in the bloodstream of humans for 29 days.

Once in your blood circulation, the spike protein binds to platelet receptors and the cells that line your blood vessels. As explained by Bridle, when that happens, one of several things can occur:

1. It can cause platelets to clump together — Platelets, aka thrombocytes, are specialized cells in your blood that stop bleeding. When there’s blood vessel damage, they clump together to form a blood clot. This is why we’ve been seeing clotting disorders associated with both COVID-19 and the vaccines
2. It can cause abnormal bleeding
3. In your heart, it can cause heart problems
4. In your brain, it can cause neurological damage

Importantly, people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 absolutely should not donate blood, seeing how the vaccine and the spike protein are both transferred. In fragile patients receiving the blood, the damage could be lethal.

Breastfeeding women also need to know that both the vaccine and the spike protein are being expelled in breast milk, and this could be lethal for their babies. You are not transferring antibodies. You are transferring the vaccine itself, as well as the spike protein, which could result in bleeding and/or blood clots in your child. All of this also suggests that for individuals who are at low risk for COVID-19, children and teens in particular, the risks of these vaccines far outweigh the benefits.

The Spike Protein and Blood Clotting

In related news, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick posted an article[11] on his website June 3, 2021, in which he discusses the links between the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and vasculitis, a medical term referring to inflammation (“itis”) in your vascular system, which is made up of your heart and blood vessels.

There are many different types of vasculitis, including Kawasaki’s disease, antiphospholipid syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma and Sjogren’s disease. According to Kendrick, all of them have two things in common:[12]

1.Your body for some reason starts to attack the lining of your blood vessels, thereby causing damage and inflammation — The “why” can differ from one case to another, but in all cases, your immune system identifies something foreign in the lining of the blood vessel, causing it to attack. The attack causes damage to the lining, which results in inflammation.

Blood clots are a common result, and can occur either because the platelets clump together in response to the vessel wall damage, or because your anticlotting mechanism has been compromised. Your most powerful anticlotting system is your glycocalyx, the protective layer of glycoproteins that lines your blood vessels.

Among many other things, the glycocalyx contains a wide variety of anticoagulant factors, including tissue factor inhibitor, protein C, nitric oxide and antithrombin. It also modulates the adhesion of platelets to the endothelium. When blood clots completely block a blood vessel, you end up with a stroke or a heart attack.

A reduction in platelet count, known as thrombocytopenia, is a reliable sign that blood clots are forming in your system, as the platelets are being used up in the process. Thrombocytopenia is a commonly-reported side effect of COVID-19 vaccines, as are blood clots, strokes and lethal heart attacks — all of which are pointing toward spike proteins causing vascular damage.

2.They significantly increase your risk of death, in some cases raising mortality by 50 times compared to people who do not have these conditions.

The take-home message Kendrick delivers is that “If you damage the lining of blood vessel walls, blood clots are far more likely to form. Very often, the damage is caused by the immune system going on the attack, damaging blood vessel walls, and removing several of the anti-clotting mechanisms.” The end result can be lethal, and this chain of events is exactly what these COVID-19 vaccines are setting into motion.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein May Damage Mitochondrial Function

Other research suggests the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein can have a serious impact on your mitochondrial function, which is imperative for good health, innate immunity and disease prevention of all kinds.

When the spike protein interacts with the ACE2 receptor, it can disrupt mitochondrial signaling, thereby inducing the production of reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress. If the damage is serious enough, uncontrolled cell death can occur, which in turn leaks mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) into your bloodstream.[13]

Aside from being detected in cases involving acute tissue injury, heart attack and sepsis, freely circulating mtDNA has also been shown to contribute to a number of chronic diseases, including systemic inflammatory response syndrome or SIRS, heart disease, liver failure, HIV infection, rheumatoid arthritis and certain cancers.[14] As explained in “COVID-19: A Mitochondrial Perspective”:[15]

“Apart from its role in energy production, mitochondria are crucial for … innate immunity, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, and apoptosis; all of these are important in COVID-19 pathogenesis. Dysfunctional mitochondria predispose to oxidative stress and loss of cellular function and vitality. In addition, mitochondrial damage leads to … inappropriate and persistent inflammation.

SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) … enters cell by attaching to angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors on cell surface … Following infection, there is internalization and downregulation of ACE2 receptors.

At vascular endothelium, ACE2 performs conversion of angiotensin II to angiotensin (1–7). Thus, a low ACE2 activity subsequent to SARS-CoV-2 infection leads to imbalance in renin-angiotensin system with relative excess of angiotensin II.

Angiotensin II through binding to its type 1 receptors exerts pro-inflammatory, vasoconstrictive, and prothrombotic effects, while angiotensin (1–7) has opposing effects … In addition, angiotensin II increases cytoplasmic and mitochondrial ROS generation leading to oxidative stress.

Increased oxidative stress may lead to endothelial dysfunction and aggravate systemic and local inflammation, thus contributing to acute lung injury, cytokine storm, and thrombosis seen in severe COVID-19 illness …

A recent algorithm showed that majority of SARS-CoV-2 genomic and structural RNAs are targeted for mitochondrial matrix. Thus it appears that SARS-CoV-2 hijacks mitochondrial machinery for its own benefit, including DMV biogenesis. Manipulation of mitochondria by virus may lead to mitochondrial dysfunction and increased oxidative stress ultimately leading to loss of mitochondrial integrity and cell death …

Mitochondrial fission enables removal of the damaged portion of a mitochondrion to be cleared by mitophagy (a special form of autophagy). Metabolomic studies suggest that SARS-CoV-2 inhibits mitophagy. Thus, there is accumulation of damaged and dysfunctional mitochondria. This not only leads to impaired MAVS [mitochondrial antiviral signaling] response but also aggravates inflammation and cell death.”

The author, Pankaj Prasun, points out that the virus’ impact on mitochondria helps explain why COVID-19 is so much deadlier for older people, the obese, and those with diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

All of these risk factors have something in common: They’re all associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. If your mitochondria are already dysfunctional, the SARS-CoV-2 virus can more easily knock out more mitochondria, resulting in severe illness and death.

The Spike Protein Is a Bioweapon

In my interview with Seneff and Mikovits, they both stressed that the key danger — both in COVID-19 and with the vaccines — is the spike protein itself. However, while the spike protein found in the virus is bad, the spike protein your body produces in response to the vaccine is far worse. Why?

Because the synthetic mRNA in the vaccine has been programmed to instruct your cells to produce an unnatural, genetically engineered spike protein. Specific alterations make it far more toxic than that found on the virus itself. Mikovits goes so far as to call the spike protein a bioweapon, as it is a disease-causing agent that demolishes innate immunity and exhausts your natural killer (NK) cells’ ability to determine which cells are infected and which aren’t.

In short, when you get the COVID-19 vaccine, you are being injected with an agent that instructs your body to produce the bioweapon in its own cells. This is about as diabolical as it gets.

In her paper, “Worse Than The Disease: Reviewing Some Possible Unintended Consequences of mRNA Vaccines Against COVID-19,” published in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice and Research in collaboration with Dr. Greg Nigh,[16] Seneff explains why the unnatural spike protein is so problematic.

In summary, normally, the spike protein on a virus will collapse on itself and fall into the cell once it attaches to the ACE2 receptor. The vaccine-induced spike protein does not do this. Instead it stays open and remains attached to the ACE2 receptor, thereby disabling it and causing a host of problems that lead to heart, lung and immune impairment.

What’s more, because the RNA code has been enriched with extra guanines (Gs) and cytosines (Cs), and configured as if it’s a human messenger RNA molecule ready to make protein by adding a polyA tail, the spike protein’s RNA sequence in the vaccine looks as if it is part bacteria,[17]part human[18] and part viral at the same time.

There’s also evidence suggesting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein may be a prion, which is yet another piece of really bad news, particularly as it pertains to vaccine-induced spike protein. Prions are membrane proteins and when they misfold, they form crystals in the cytoplasm resulting in prion disease.

Since the mRNA in the vaccines has been modified to spew out very high amounts of spike protein (far greater than that of the actual virus), the risk of excessive buildup in the cytoplasm is high. And, since the spike protein doesn’t enter into the membrane of the cell, there’s a high risk that it can become problematic if indeed it works like a prion.

Remember, the research cited by Bridle at the beginning of this article found the spike protein accumulates in the spleen, among other places. Parkinson’s disease is a prion disease that has been traced back to prions originating in the spleen, that then travel up to the brain via the vagus nerve. In the same way, it’s quite possible COVID-19 vaccines may promote Parkinson’s and other human prion diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

What Are the Solutions?

While all of this is highly problematic, there is help. As noted by Mikovits, remedies to the maladies that might develop post-vaccination include:

• Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin treatments. Ivermectin appears particularly promising as it actually binds to the spike protein. Please listen to the interview that Brett Weinstein did with Dr. Pierre Kory,[19] one of Dr. Paul Marik’s collaborators
• Low-dose antiretroviral therapy to reeducate your immune system
• Low-dose interferons such as Paximune, developed by interferon researcher Dr. Joe Cummins, to stimulate your immune system
• Peptide T (an HIV entry inhibitor derived from the HIV envelope protein gp120; it blocks binding and infection of viruses that use the CCR5 receptor to infect cells)
• Cannabis, to strengthen Type I interferon pathways
• Dimethylglycine or betaine (trimethylglycine) to enhance methylation, thereby suppressing latent viruses
• Silymarin or milk thistle to help cleanse your liver

From my perspective, I believe the best thing you can do is to build your innate immune system. To do that, you need to become metabolically flexible and optimize your diet. You’ll also want to make sure your vitamin D level is optimized to between 60 ng/mL and 80 ng/mL (100 nmol/L to 150 nmol/L), ideally through sensible sun exposure. Sunlight also has other benefits besides making vitamin D.

Use time-restricted eating and eat all your meals for the day within a six- to eight-hour window. Avoid all vegetable oils and processed foods. Focus on certified-organic foods to minimize your glyphosate exposure, and include plenty of sulfur-rich foods to keep your mitochondria and lysosomes healthy. Both are important for the clearing of cellular debris, including these spike proteins. You can also boost your sulfate by taking Epsom salt baths.

To combat the toxicity of the spike protein, you’ll want to optimize autophagy, which may help digest and remove the spike proteins. Time-restricted eating will upregulate autophagy, while sauna therapy, which upregulates heat shock proteins, will help refold misfolded proteins and also tag damaged proteins and target them for removal. It is important that your sauna is hot enough (around 170 degrees Fahrenheit) and does not have high magnetic or electric fields.

Originally published Jun 14, 2021 on Mercola.com

References

[1] Newzworldtoday.com June 2, 2021

[2] Politifact May 31, 2021

[3] Penn Medicine News December 23, 2020

[4] SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccine BNT162 Biodistribution Study

[5] Trialsitenews May 28, 2021

[6] Trialsitenews May 28, 2021

[7] Trialsitenews May 28, 2021

[8] Trialsitenews May 28, 2021

[9] Trialsitenews May 28, 2021

[10] Newzworldtoday.com June 2, 2021

[11] drmalcolmkendrick.org June 3, 2021

[12] drmalcolmkendrick.org June 3, 2021

[13] F1000 Research 2017; 6: 169

[14] F1000 Research 2017; 6: 169

[15] DNA and Cell Biology April 19, 2021 DOI: 10.1089/dna.2020.6453

[16] International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice and Research May 10, 2021; 2(1): 38-79

[17] Appl Environ Microbiol. 2010 May;76(9):2846-55

[18] Trends Cell Biol. 2019 Mar; 29(3): 191–200

[19] Youtube Bret Weinsten interviews Dr. Pierre Kory June 1, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/researcher-we-made-a-big-mistake-on-covid-19-vaccine_4469331.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-22-3&utm_medium=email&est=i%2FIuH7psqKl4KS0XPvakKd0m8Pv%2FTfNe%2FgyVcPhKxh2XXMJR0V5%2BtMIb8%2Bhhp1I%2Frg%3D%3D

IS YOUR REPRESENTATIVE GOING TO DAVOS, AND WHY?

The World Economic Forum has announced a list of public figure attendees for its upcoming Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Taking place May 22nd through 26th, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting will count 50 heads of government and thousands of corporate, philanthropic, and scientific leaders in attendance.

Twenty-five American officials, including two White House representatives, are going to the meeting. An additional 12 Democrat and 10 Republican politicians, listed below, will accompany them.

Visit TakeDownTheWEF.com for more on the World Economic Forum.

U.S. and Ukrainian attendees outnumber those coming from other leading nations, which includes just three from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany respectively.

The names of U.S. delegates appear below, with a full list of public figure attendees in the embedded spreadsheet following.

American Attendees of the World Economic Forum 2022:

• Gina Raimondo Secretary of Commerce of USA
• John F. Kerry Special Presidential Envoy for Climate of the United States of America
• Bill Keating Congressman from Massachusetts (D)
• Daniel Meuser Congressman from Pennsylvania (R)
• Madeleine Dean Congresswoman from Pennsylvania (D)
• Ted Lieu Congressman from California (D)
• Ann Wagner Congresswoman from Missouri (R)
• Christopher A. Coons Senator from Delaware (D)
• Darrell Issa Congressman from California (R)
• Dean Phillips Congressman from Minnesota (D)
• Debra Fischer Senator from Nebraska (R)
• Eric Holcomb Governor of Indiana (R)
• Gregory W. Meeks Congressman from New York (D)
• John W. Hickenlooper Senator from Colorado (D)
• Larry Hogan Governor of Maryland (R)
• Michael McCaul Congressman from Texas (R)
• Pat Toomey Senator from Pennsylvania (R)
• Patrick J. Leahy Senator from Vermont (D)
• Robert Menendez Senator from New Jersey (D)
• Roger F. Wicker Senator from Mississippi (R)
• Seth Moulton Congressman from Massachusetts (D)
• Sheldon Whitehouse Senator from Rhode Island (D)
• Ted Deutch Congressman from Florida (D)
• Francis Suarez Mayor of Miami (R)
• Al Gore Vice-President of the United States (1993-2001) (D)

“The Annual Meeting 2022 will embody the World Economic Forum’s philosophy of collaborative, multistakeholder impact, providing a unique collaborative environment in which to reconnect, share insights, gain fresh perspectives, and build problem-solving communities and initiatives,” explains the group, whose efforts to exploit COVID-19 for its “Great Reset” has come under intense scrutiny.

“Against a backdrop of deepening global frictions and fractures, it will be the starting point for a new era of global responsibility and cooperation,” posits the WEF, which selected “history at a turning point” as its event’s primary theme.

The event focuses on eight key areas: Climate and Nature; Fairer Economies; Tech and Innovation; Jobs and Skills; Better Business; Health and Healthcare; Global Cooperation; and Society and Equity. Panel discussions include “Economic Weaponry: Uses and Effectiveness of Sanctions,” “Safeguarding Global Scientific Collaboration,” “Blue Foods for a Sustainable Future,” “The Journey towards Racial Equity”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will also be giving a special welcome address on the opening day of that event and will be followed by executives from companies such as COVID-19 vaccine maker Pfizer.

The event also counts dozens of corporate and philanthropic partners, including Alibaba Group, which is a key component of the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit score system, Google, Amazon, AstraZeneca, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, BlackRock, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, Meta, Johnson & Johnson, Huawei Technologies, Pfizer, and the Wellcome Trust.

Read the full list of attendees: