Today in History for August 3rd
Highlights of this day in history: Christopher Columbus sets sail; Europe slides further into World War I; A Cold War case heats up Capitol Hill; Air traffic controllers in the U.S. go on strike; NBA founded; Singer Tony Bennett born.
WORLD NEWS
The United Nations has declared war on conspiracy theories, describing the rise of conspiracy thinking as “worrying and dangerous”, and providing the public with a toolkit to “prebunk” and “debunk” anybody who dares to suggest that world governments are anything but completely honest, upstanding and transparent.
The UN also warns that George Soros, the Rothschilds and the State of Isreal must not be linked to any “alleged conspiracies.”
UNESCO has teamed up with Twitter, the European Commission and the World Juhuish Congress to launch the campaign dubbed #ThinkBeforeSharing: Stop the spread of conspiracy theories.
The UN wants you to know that events are NOT “secretly manipulated behind the scenes by powerful forces with negative intent” and if you encounter anybody who thinks the global elite are conspiring to consolidate power and dictate global events, you must take action.
UNESCO also provide advice for anyone who encounters a real live conspiracy theorist in the flesh. According to the UN agency, you must not under any circumstances be lured into an argument with the conspiracy theorist. “Any argument may be taken as proof that you are part of the conspiracy and reinforce that belief” and the conspiracy theorist will probably “argue hard to defend their beliefs.“
Instead you must show “empathy“, avoid “ridiculing them“, and if you are a journalist you must “report” them to social media and “contact your local/national press council or press ombudsman.”
[…]
en.unesco.org/themes/gced/thinkbeforesharing
United Nations: The World Is “One Miscalculation Away From Nuclear Annihilation”
The United Nations said that the world is teetering on the precipice of nuclear war, and all it will take is “one miscalculation” on even a small scale. The world is at the greatest risk of “nuclear annihilation” since the Cold War according to the UN.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned: “Today, humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” Guterres said on Monday at the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in New York. He urged the world’s nations to “put humanity on a new path toward a world free of nuclear weapons.”
The UN chief claimed that conflicts around the globe, human rights violations (which the existence of government itself is a human rights violation), the climate crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic “have put our world under greater stress than it has faced in our lifetimes.” Risks of nuclear warfare are at the highest level since the height of the Cold War, he added according to a report by RT.
“Humanity is in danger of forgetting the lessons forged in the terrifying fires of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Guterres said. “Geopolitical tensions are reaching new heights. Competition is trumping cooperation and collaboration. Mistrust has replaced dialogue, and disunity has replaced disarmament.”
The NPT should be strengthened to “make it fit for the worrying world around us,” the secretary-general said, citing the Russia-Ukraine conflict and tensions in the Middle East and on the Korean Peninsula. “Almost 13,000 nuclear weapons are now being held in arsenals around the world. All this at a time when the risks of proliferation are growing and guardrails to prevent escalation are weakening.”
The US, the only country ever to have deployed a nuclear bomb in war, reportedly spent $44.2 billion on such weaponry in 2021, exceeding the $38.2 billion spent by the eight other nuclear-armed nations combined. China ranked second in nuclear spending, at $11.7 billion, while Russia was number three at $8.6 billion.
“For more than 50 years, the NPT has made our world safer and more prosperous, and the treaty is never more important than in times of crisis,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday. “The United States stands ready to work with all our partners to ensure a safer world for everyone.” –RT
This could be just fear-mongering but there is speculation that recent events could lead to a nuclear attack. New York City is even warning its population to be prepared for radiation fallout. The city also suggested packing “to go” bags with items such as toys more recently.
Biden paid Taliban more than $1 billion over last year
Corrupt and repressive regime in Afghanistan taking U.S. tax money
In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s report that he ordered a military drone strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan, a report has emerged that Biden has paid, over the last year, about $1 billion to the Taliban.
That would be the extremist Islamist organization that took over Afghanistan when Biden last year abruptly pulled American soldiers out.
Biden left behind hundreds of Americans, thousands of America-supporting nationals who likely would be targeted by assassination squads for their work, as well as some $80 billion in American war machinery.
Now a report from Foreign Desk News explains that Biden has been sending, and plans to send more, money to the Taliban.
A columnist also pointed out that it is unlikely that an https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GgaJWcbwwal-Qaida operative could have set up shop and be working in Kabul without the Taliban knowing that.
The report said American foreign aid might be going to the “wrong places,” including Afghanistan.
Hohmann: Saudi Arabia Slouching Toward Technocracy
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has a new pet project he’d like you to know about, and maybe even invest in.
It’s a “city of the future” that has been tried with limited success in Communist China, as well as in cities within the nations of Canada, South Korea, Spain, and Singapore.
Welcome to “The Line.”
It’s a so-called “smart city” built on a 100 mile “line” capable of housing 9 million people.
On the project website, the Crown Prince touts The Line, also called Neom, as a place where there will be:
“No roads, cars or emissions, it will run on 100% renewable energy and 95% of land will be preserved for nature. People’s health and wellbeing will be prioritized over transportation and infrastructure, unlike traditional cities.”
All travel will take place in this city via high-speed rail, with an end-to-end transit of 20 minutes. And if you wish to travel outside of that parameter? I guess you’re out of luck. Maybe it will work out for you if you know someone important and your social credit score is within the acceptable range. If your score is too low, you won’t even be allowed on the government-provided mass transit and you’re condemned to a life within the four walls of your home.
>>Check out the 3-minute video describing the Saudi royal highness’s idea of the perfect city, a virtual utopia in the making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GgaJWcbww&feature=emb_title
Chinese Economy Nosedive Continues, Sinking Oil Prices
A poll conducted by the Caixin news service on Monday found China’s economy foundering as the second half of 2022 began, with slower manufacturing activity, higher unemployment, and a depressed real estate market.
China’s weakening economy reduced its demand for oil, combining with downbeat manufacturing data from other countries to bring oil prices down by four percent.
Other economic surveys found the Chinese real estate market slipping by 33 percent after an 89-percent surge from the end of lockdowns in June, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growing by only 0.4 percent in the second quarter, and consumers nervous despite a modest 3.1 percent post-lockdown gain in retail spending.
Consumer spending may be stagnant because weak factory output and highly-publicized layoffs leave many Chinese workers worried about their jobs. Some are taking advantage of a real estate bubble to sell their homes for cash, making up for incomes lost due to downsizing and layoffs.
Analysts compared the current situation unfavorably to China’s recovery from a market collapse and banking scandals in 2015 because consumer spending kept growing in 2015, while it has become stagnant today. Also, today’s real estate industry has wide-ranging and much-discussed problems that could prevent it from rescuing the remainder of the consumer economy.
When China’s troubled real estate giant, the China Evergrande Group, did not deliver its promised $300 billion restructuring plan over the weekend, analysts told CNBC the loss of confidence in real estate may create a “negative feedback loop” that drags down the rest of the Chinese economy.
Globalist Cabal Promotes Diet of Bugs — and Cannibalism
The World Economic Forum envisions a food system that doesn’t include animal foods or require a large land footprint. In fact, for several years now, the WEF has promoted the idea that we should get used to eating bugs and drinking reclaimed sewage. Both are now being rolled out
In a July 2022 article, The New York Times took the WEF’s dystopian projections to a whole new level, announcing that the time to consider cannibalism is now upon us
Interpretation: The WEF and its allies are manufacturing food shortages, which in some areas may progress into actual famine, and they want you to know that when that time comes, it’s OK for you to eat your neighbor
In addition to a recent rash of books and TV shows that glorify cannibalism, there’s lab-grown human steak “art,” and vegan meat designed to taste like human flesh. In 2019, a Swedish professor also argued for cannibalism as a more sustainable alternative to eating bugs
Much of the supposed “inspiration” behind the promotion of unnatural diets is said to come from a desire to save the planet. While that’s admirable, it’s important to realize that the “green” agenda — as it is currently promoted — is nothing but a scare tactic to bring people to the point of accepting living conditions that would otherwise be unacceptable, such as eating a diet of bugs, drinking reclaimed sewage water and even, apparently, cannibalism
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Kansas voters rejected an amendment that would have weakened the right to abortion under the state Constitution, a major defeat for anti-abortion activists in the post-Roe era.
Several Trump-Backed Candidates Win Their Primaries With Others Too Close To Call
Several Trump-backed candidates came out ahead in Tuesday’s primaries, with some races notching wins for the former president as he publicly eyes a 2024 run.
One of the most notable wins for Trump came in Michigan, where his endorsed candidate John Gibbs defeated Republican Rep. Peter Meijer, who voted to impeach Trump in 2020. Gibbs previously worked under Trump as the acting assistant secretary in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and backs the former president’s unfounded claims that the election was stolen.
An email recently sent from New York City’s Human Resources Administration (HRA) to all names on its distribution list, and obtained by The Epoch Times, urged all staff who can work overtime to do so, to deal with a “drastic influx of asylum seekers” in Manhattan and the outer boroughs.
The internal request came about a week after the city’s Mayor Eric Adams described the growing stream of illegal aliens coming into the Big Apple as a “real burden on New Yorkers,” adding that the city already had “an overburdened shelter system.”
Dated July 28, the email stated: “Dear DSS/HRA Leadership and Staff, In recent weeks, we have seen a drastic influx of asylum seekers coming to our shelter intake sites. As a result, DHS is standing up several emergency shelters to ensure we have the capacity for these individuals.”
The Department of Social Services (DSS) is charged with administering public assistance programs in the city, and is composed of the HRA and the Department of Homeless Services (DHS).
The email showed urgent internal efforts by social services agencies to grapple with the surge in illegal aliens arriving in New York City amid an ongoing border crisis that is vexing the Biden administration.
It continues with a plea for staff of the agency to commit to working overtime in order to help deal with the massive influx. “While we implement a longer term solution, there is a critical immediate need for Agency staff members to volunteer to work overtime to help manage these sites. Eligible employees who volunteer for this opportunity may earn cash overtime in accordance with contractual guidelines,” it stated.
“If you have availability to assist outside of your regularly scheduled hours, please speak with your supervisor to confirm and then enter your information via the link below. Participation is subject to final approval by Agency senior staff,” the email continued.
On July 29, the day after the email, the HSA and DSS declared an emergency, noting in a letter (pdf) to Comptroller Brad Lander and the city’s top lawyer Sylvia Hinds-Radix that as of July 28, some 4,000 asylum seekers had entered New York’s shelter system in the past three months, driving up the DHS census by roughly 10 percent.
Mass Shootings in US Are Rare, Despite Increased Attention
News Analysis
Mass shootings are extremely rare in America. But you wouldn’t know that if you listened to politicians and much of the media. Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a recent Senate hearing on gun control that there had been 309 mass shootings in America so far this year. CNN reported that “U.S. mass shootings are on pace to match last year—the worst ever.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said on the floor that there were 13 mass shootings across the country in just one weekend. Major media outlets like The New York Times, NBC News, and ABC News all reported on the—allegedly—“hundreds” of mass shootings this year.
All of this sounds like a national crisis and terrifying to the public, but fewer than 100 people a year are killed in mass shootings in America. While the horrific murder of young children in their school in Uvalde and the innocent people killed in a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park are terrible tragedies, those events do not mean people are at a high risk of being mass shooting victims.
The way in which politicians who want more gun control bills deliberately scare people about mass shootings is by citing a made-up definition and using statistics from an unofficial database called the Gun Violence Archive.
“Obviously, they are trying to broaden the definition to get as large a number as they can to scare the public,” said Alan M. Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, said in an interview. “But the public cares more about stopping these incidents before they happen. The way to prevent them is not to take away people’s Second Amendment rights, but to make sure those people don’t get the guns to start with—and that is where we are failing.”
Voters to Decide If Los Angeles Supervisors Can Remove Sheriff
The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors voted Aug. 2 without discussion to pass an ordinance that will be on the November ballot that will allow the board to remove a publicly elected county sheriff from office.
The measure passed in a 4–1 vote, with Supervisor Kathryn Barger dissenting.
“Giving the Board of Supervisors the authority to remove an elected Sheriff unequivocally takes away power from the public,” Barger said in a statement. “It’s a move that has the potential to disenfranchise voters.”
She added the measure overlooks the recall process for elected officials who fail to uphold their duties.
If passed in the general election, it would allow the board to remove a county sheriff “for cause” by a four-fifths vote.
The “cause” is defined in the measure as a “violation of law related to a Sheriff’s duties, flagrant or repeated neglect of duties, misappropriation of funds, willful falsification of documents, or obstructing an investigation.”
The measure comes as the board has clashed several times with Sheriff Alex Villanueva over his law enforcement tactics and not requiring his deputies to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The board also imposed a hiring freeze in February on his department while voting to terminate unvaccinated county employees, including sheriff’s deputies.
Villanueva refused to attend the county’s Civilian Oversight Committee meetings over lawsuits alleging deputy gangs and excessive use of force under his leadership and accused the board of threatening public safety by defunding his department.
In a letter to the board last month, Villanueva said the motion is an effort to sabotage his election campaign and “a recipe for public corruption, particularly when ‘cause’ remains so broad and undefined.”
The motion was modeled after San Bernardino County’s 2002 ordinance that gave its Board of Supervisors the power to remove not only its sheriff but all other elected officials in the county government for cause by a four-fifths vote.
At the previous board meeting, supervisors who supported the motion said it is not targeting the current Sheriff Alex Villanueva in a political attempt but is a way to hold a county sheriff accountable for his or her actions.
“The voters deserve an opportunity to decide whether this is the right way to enhance the accountability of the Sheriff and protect the lives and liberties of County residents,” Board of Supervisors Chair Holly Mitchell said in a July 12 statement.
Villanueva will go head-to-head with former Long Beach police Chief Robert Luna, who has been endorsed by all county supervisors, in the General Election.
26 Republican Senators Sign Statement Supporting Pelosi’s Taiwan Visit
Twenty-six Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), signed a joint statement on Aug. 2 announcing support for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan and reaffirming that the trip did not change the United States policies regarding China and Taiwan.
Sens Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Ark.) led the effort to sign the document, following Pelosi’s arrival in Taipei Tuesday.
“We support Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan,” the statement said.
“For decades, members of the United States Congress, including previous Speakers of the House, have traveled to Taiwan. This travel is consistent with the United States’ One China policy to which we are committed. We are also committed now, more than ever, to all elements of the Taiwan Relations Act.”
Pelosi’s much-anticipated trip to Taiwan has been months in the making. In recent weeks, however, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership began to issue increasingly bellicose and erratic threats about the trip, falsely claiming that it would be a violation of Chinese sovereignty.
CCP leader Xi Jinping warned President Joe Biden last week that the trip was “playing with fire,” and some in China’s state-owned media issued calls to shoot down Pelosi’s plane.
The White House maintains that there is nothing out of the ordinary about the Speaker’s trip, and noted repeatedly that Congressional delegations visit Taiwan without incident with some frequency.
“The Speaker has the right to visit Taiwan and the Speaker of the House has visited Taiwan before, without incident,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Aug. 1. “As have many members of Congress, including this year.”
“Put simply, there is no reason for Beijing to turn a simple visit, consistent with long-standing U.S. policy into some sort of crisis or conflict, or to use it to increase aggressive military activity in or around the Taiwan Strait.”
Likewise, the Republican statement issued Tuesday underscores that there is no change to the United States’s longstanding policies and norms of behavior regarding China and Taiwan.
On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said that the state will continue sending buses of migrants to northern cities “until the Biden administration does its job to enforce the laws concerning the border.” And said that Texas is “looking at other cities to send them to.”
Abbott said, “[W]e have more buses headed their way as we speak right now. But, Sean, this just shows the hypocrisy of these liberal leaders up in the northeast who think, well, that border crisis created by Joe Biden, that’s fine as long as it’s Texas that has to deal with it, but as soon as they have to deal with the real consequences of Biden’s border…crisis, they’re up in arms calling for the National Guard, as you point out, dealing with just a tiny fraction of what we have to deal with every single day. We’re going to keep sending those buses up there until they fully understand and most importantly, Sean, until the Biden administration does its job to enforce the laws concerning the border.”
Justice Dept. suing Idaho over abortion access
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Tuesday arguing that Idaho’s near-total abortion ban violates federal law — the Biden administration’s first legal action to protect abortion access since the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in late June.
In making the announcement at DOJ’s headquarters, Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters that Idaho’s ban violates a federal law that requires medical providers to offer emergency medical treatment.
Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), every hospital in the U.S. that receives Medicare funds must provide “necessary stabilizing treatment to patients who arrive at their emergency departments while experiencing a medical emergency,” the 17-page complaint reads. In some circumstances, the necessary medical treatment is an abortion.
“This may be the case, for example, when a woman is undergoing a miscarriage that threatens septic infection or hemorrhage, or is suffering from severe preeclampsia,” Garland said.
Nancy Pelosi Says US Cannot Stand By as China ‘Proceeds to Threaten Taiwan’
The arrival of the US House speaker to Taiwan was condemned by Beijing as a “huge political provocation” and a direct violation of the “One-China” principle. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has released scathing statements on her official website and in an op-ed for the Washington Post upon arrival in Taiwan, accusing China of threatening the self-ruled island “and democracy itself”. She stressed that the US can’t “stand by” and let this happen.
The US lawmaker claimed that her trip to Taiwan comes at a time “when the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy”. She added that her visit forms part of Washington’s “commitment to democracy” and reaffirmed that Taiwan and other democracies in the world “must be respected”.
Senators Tom Cotton, Tommy Tuberville Move to Ban China from Buying U.S. Land
Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) have introduced a plan that would ban China and China-linked firms from buying land in the United States.
The legislation, titled the “Securing America’s Land from Foreign Interference Act,” would prohibit members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from buying land in the U.S. just as Chinese investors bought up $6.1 billion of homes and land across America last year. Cotton said in a statement:
Chinese investments in American farmland put our food security at risk and provide opportunities for Chinese espionage against our military bases and critical infrastructure. Instead of allowing these purchases, the U.S. government must bar the Communist Party from purchasing our land.
Tuberville, likewise, said the U.S. “cannot continue giving our top adversary a foot in the door to purchase land in the United States and undermine our national security.”
The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) figure reveals that Chinese investors’ holdings of U.S. farmland skyrocketed from 13,720 acres in 2010 to 352,140 acres in 2020. Foreign investors now hold interest in more than 37 million acres of U.S. farmland — a region larger than the state of Iowa.
Senate passes long-sought bill to help veterans affected by burn pits
The Senate voted Tuesday night to pass a long-sought bipartisan legislation to expand health care benefits for millions of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits during their military service, sending the bill to President Joe Biden to sign into law. The final vote was 86-11.
Passage of the bill marks the end of a lengthy fight to get the legislation through Congress, as veterans and their advocates had been demonstrating on Capitol Hill for days. Many veterans were allowed into the Senate gallery to watch the final vote on Tuesday evening.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced after reaching the deal with Republicans who had blocked the bill from advancing last week while they sought to add cost-controlling amendment votes to the package.
“I have some good news, the minority leader and I have come to an agreement to vote on the PACT Act this evening,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “I’m very optimistic that this bill will pass so our veterans across America can breathe a sigh of relief.”
The bill, called the Honoring our PACT Act, was approved by the House of Representatives in July.
The bill widely expands health care resources and benefits to those exposed to burn pits and could provide coverage for up to 3.5 million toxic-exposed veterans. It adds conditions related to burn pit and toxic exposure, including hypertension, to the Department of Veterans Affair’s list of illnesses that have been incurred or exacerbated during military service.
Chicago Health System to Pay Workers $10 Million in Settlement over Vaccine Mandate
The first settlement in the nation has been reached in a lawsuit filed by medical staff regarding an Illinois university system’s coronavirus vaccine mandate.
The Center Square reported Friday:
Chicago-based NorthShore University HealthSystem has agreed to pay more than 500 current and former health-care workers a total of $10,337,500 as part of the terms of the settlement. It’s also changing its policy to accommodate religious exemption requests and rehiring former employees who were fired or forced to resign whose exemption requests were denied.
Represented by the nonprofit religious freedom organization Liberty Counsel, NorthShore employees sued, alleging they were discriminated against because they were denied religious exemptions from the company’s vaccine mandate. The settlement was filed Friday in the federal Northern District Court of Illinois.
In a press release, Liberty Counsel said the settlement must receive approval from the federal District Court.
The group added that employees who were denied religious exemptions would be notified about the settlement and given the chance to comment, object, ask to opt-out, or submit a claim form for payment from its fund.
Jan. 6 rioter gets 7 years, longest prison sentence yet by far
A Jan. 6 rioter who brought a gun to the Capitol and vowed to personally drag House Speaker Nancy Pelosi out of it has been sentenced to seven years in prison. That’s by far the longest penalty handed down so far to anyone who took part in the attack.
Authorities Get Played in Gun ‘Buyback’ Program — Buying Piles of 3D-Printed Parts for $150 Each
In the study of economics, the definition of the term “incentive” is cut and dry and can be defined as any motivation for a person to take a certain action. Incentives drive everything from how much a person must be paid to show up for a job to a rise in the price of goods deterring certain people from buying said goods.
Because the state is largely economically illiterate and does not have to play by the rules of the market which are driven by these incentives, they will often times create negative or distorted incentives. One glaring example of a negative incentive is when the state removes all liability from a pharmaceutical company — thereby removing the incentive for the pharmaceutical company to prioritize safety when creating a product.
When incentives have unintended or undesirable effects, contrary to the intentions of its designers, this is known as a “perverse incentive.” Perhaps the most popular example of a perverse incentive is called the “cobra effect.”
Economist Horst Siebert coined the effect based on an occurrence during Britain’s occupation of India. The British government wanted to reduce the number of cobra snakes in Delhi and offered their subjects a bounty for every dead cobra they brought in. At first, large numbers of the snakes were brought in but as numbers dwindled, enterprising individuals began breeding cobras for the income.
When the state became aware of citizens breeding snakes it ended the incentive for breeders to have them, which in turn led to the opposite effect of the original incentive. Instead of reducing the population, when breeders freed their now-worthless snakes, the cobra population increased in Delhi.
We are now watching a similar situation unfold in the West as governments implement “gun buyback” programs.
Over the weekend, city and county officials in Houston, Texas held a widely publicized gun buyback — touted as a way to reduce violent crime.
Folks who turned in their guns received gift cards worth anywhere from $50 to $200, depending on the type of firearm. Photos from the event showed that many of the weapons were old and broken firearms, likely only turned in to receive a gift card.
While this was bad enough, the “cobra effect” unfolded in a massive way when someone dropped off a box of 62 “handguns” in exchange for $150 gift cards for each one. This person made close to $10,000 for the box of “handguns.”
There was only one problem, however, and it was that these “handguns” were actually 3D-printed uppers, lowers, and outdated “liberator” guns from 2013. In essence, this person started their own cobra farm and sold the state farmed cobras.
Authorities — without even realizing it — had created their own perverse incentive and attracted 3D-printed guns and parts from all over the country. They also spent $100,000 of taxpayer dollars to pay folks for broken shotguns, non-functioning rifles, and rusted out pistols.
There are likely 3D printer “cobra farms” across the country now running 24 hours a day, printing similar “ghost guns” to cash in on the state’s perverse incentive.
On top of the 3D-printer debacle, there is also another perverse incentive with this gun buyback as well. Because the guns were bought back with no questions asked — entirely anonymously — a perverse incentive for theft was also created. Being that you can’t pawn a stolen gun, all you needed to do was steal your neighbor’s pistol to get a $200 gift card from the state — no questions asked.
It’s reasons like these that have criminological experts speaking out about the sheer waste of taxpayer money associated with the buyback programs. Not only do gun buybacks create perverse incentives, but there have been studies showing that buyback programs can actually increase crime.
Buying a gun in New York to Require Social Media Account Access and Character References
The New York Senate has just approved a bill, Senate Bill S51001, requiring those who buy a gun to provide all their social media accounts and references attesting to their “good moral character.”
The Assembly passed the bill Friday night, and soon after, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed it into law.
“This, to me is the embodiment of what it means to be an American. In honor of our Fourth of July weekend, I look forward to signing the legislation as soon as it’s finished,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a press conference following the vote.
The bill will also basically ban you from carrying your firearm almost anywhere in New York, including all businesses, unless they explicitly post signage indicating you are allowed to carry in their store.
Weapons will also be barred from places of worship, public transit, sports arenas, parks, libraries, government buildings, playgrounds, entertainment venues, protests, and businesses that serve alcohol, among other venues.
The new law will also require background checks for ammunition purchases with information on the buyer’s “date, name, age, occupation and residence” entered into a state database, according to the legislation.
The unconstitutional bill comes after the Supreme Court already ruled that a New York State gun-control law restricting the ability to carry handguns outside of the home was unconstitutional.
BLM Funds Used to Buy $40K Dog
Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King’s Grassroots Law PAC paid $40,000 of its coffered donations to buy a new dog for the King family.
According to The Washington Free Beacon and campaign finance disclosures, Grassroots Law invoiced California-based Potrero Performance Dogs in February for a $30,650 payment. In December, the organization issued a $10,000 payment.
But in February, King wrote in a now unavailable Facebook post that he would be welcoming a “new member of the King family,” an award-winning mastiff bred by Potrero called Marz.
While no allegations of wrongdoing have been brought against Grassroots Law, purchasing a new dog for apparent private use raises concern.
“This luxury dog expense may not be illegal for a PAC, but it shows little respect for King’s donors,” Scott Walter, the president of Capital Research Center, said.
On Tuesday, King, whose PAC is a proponent of the “defund the police movement,” wrote in an Instagram post that he needed the dog to protect his home because “New York City won’t even allow me to have a gun” and “New Jersey doesn’t have stand your ground laws and hardly allows you to even own guns.”
“I need you to know this so that you understand why our family not only needs a guard dog at home, but 24/7 security wherever we go,” King added. “White supremacists and people who’ve meant my family harm have now shown up to our last three homes. Multiple times.”
Paul Pelosi, the multimillionaire husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, allegedly had a drug in his system, addressed officers with slurred speech, and tried to hand them a police courtesy card during his May arrest on DUI charges, according to court documents.
Pelosi’s 2021 Porsche and the other driver’s 2014 Jeep sustained “major collision damage” in a crash around 10:17 p.m. on May 28, and responding officers found Pelosi in his driver’s seat in his damaged car near the intersection of California Route 29 and Oakville Cross Road.
Pelosi allegedly handed officers his driver’s license and an “11-99 Foundation” card when they asked for his ID, according to the documents. The 11-99 Foundation is a California Highway Patrol charity that supports officers and provides scholarships for their children.
Catherine Austin Fitts: We Are At War With The Deep State
Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), Publisher of The Solari Report and former Assistant Secretary of Housing (Bush 41 Admin.), says we are at war with the Deep State globalists that want nothing short of total control over all of mankind. Central bankers want a financial system that is a lawless criminal control syndicate where it’s legal for them to do whatever they want. It is simply a choice between tyranny and sovereignty, freedom or slavery. We start with the foundational building block of tyranny, the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that global bankers want to install in the financial system. CAF says, “It’s not a currency. That’s what you need to understand. What we are talking about is a control system that is going to be implemented in a global coup d’état, and we are in the middle of a global coup d’état. That’s what is happening right now. Essentially, if you look at the central bankers, the BIS (Bank of International Settlements) and all the central bankers are trying to create a system where they are completely free of the laws of nation states and governments. In other words, they are inserting sovereign immunity from all laws and literally trying to create a civilization under the law where they are free to do whatever they want, including, as we know—genocide.”
CAF says to fight back against CBDC is to use cash. Fitts says, “If you go to Solari.com, you will see something that says, “Cash Every Day.” Click the big red cap that says, “Make Cash Great Again.” If you click on that, you will get three videos. There are two videos I really want your audience to watch. One is a 56 second video of the BIS general manger Augustin Carstens in October 2020 explaining with CBDC they will have central control and enforce them centrally. It’s the only time in my life that I saw a central banker be 100% honest. The second video says “Financial Rebellion,” click it and you’ll get three minutes of a presentation by Richard Werner. He is certainly the top scholar in the world on central banking. . . . Richard explains that one of the top central bankers in Europe told him they are planning on chipping all of us.”
CAF says central bankers will ignore the U.S. Constitution, steal all of our assets like cash and gold but especially the land. CAF contends they won’t be able to do this unless they take our guns and extinguish the Second Amendment. CAF also talks about what she thinks will happen after the first of this year when it comes to inflation or deflation.
CAF says, “We are at war and we need a war strategy. . . . The ‘Great Reset’ will turn into the ‘Great Resist.”
CAF contends the good news is people are waking up and this evil criminal system can be stopped. CAF says, “Saint Paul said in Timothy, ‘Just stand and watch the divine go to work.’ They can’t do this. Did you see what just happened in Ireland? They tried to go all digital, and they had so many people cancel their accounts, they had to walk it back. . . . One thing the Bible makes clear is it will at times look hopeless, but it won’t be. That’s why you have to stand.”
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
BP sees biggest profit in 14 years as energy bills soar
BP has reported its biggest quarterly profit for 14 years after oil and gas prices soared.
The energy giant saw underlying profits hit $8.45bn (£6.9bn) between April and June – more than triple the amount it made in the same period last year.
It comes as typical household energy bills have been forecast to hit more than £3,600 a year this winter.
The bumper profits have prompted calls for the government to tax firms further to help families with rising bills.
BP’s profits were the second highest for the second quarter in the firm’s history.
It follows a host of profit announcements from other firms including Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies and British Gas owner Centrica, which have been reaping the benefits of higher gas and oil prices.
Embryos can be listed as dependents on tax returns, Georgia rules
Taxpayers in the state will be able to claim tax exemption for ‘any unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat’
Dems Want $80B For 87K New IRS Agents
President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats have decided to react to inflation and recession with a new version of BBB that raises taxes and spending. This is how we got into this problem in the first place.
This makes no economic sense.
It does make a great deal of political sense.
Start with the spending explosion for the Internal Revenue Service that Biden demanded from the start. That is $80 billion to deploy 87,000 new IRS agents. Enough to fill every seat in Nationals Park twice. Enough to fill the Roman Colosseum 1.7 times.That’s more new IRS agents than the entire combined personnel of all U.S. aircraft carriers.
The bill also gives taxpayer money to the IRS to buy new cars, and more money for IRS “office rent.”
The official IRS watchdog — the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration — reports that the IRS already has more cars than it needs. And that the IRS cannot show that its employees are limiting their use of those cars to official business.
Dems’ using ‘misleading message’ to sell tax hikes
Despite the massive explosion in inflation the Biden administration’s policies already have triggered – 9.1% for consumers in the latest assessment – Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin now are proposing to spend hundreds of billions more.
And Fox News bluntly charges they are using “misleading messaging” to sell the massive tax-and-spend plan.
“A deal reached last week by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., after months of party in-fighting is being billed as the ‘Inflation Reduction Act,’ but studies suggest it will have little impact on reducing inflation while bringing tax hikes to middle- and working-class Americans,” the analysis explained.
The misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” is just a smaller version of Biden’s Build Back Better plan, which more commonly is known as Build Back Broker.
Democrats call on IRS to review right-wing group’s ‘church’ status
Congressional House Democrats are asking the IRS to review the tax-exempt status of a prominent conservative advocacy group recently reclassified as a church, arguing the organization may be exploiting the designation to avoid scrutiny.
Forty Democratic lawmakers, led by U.S. Reps. Suzan DelBene (Wash.) and Jared Huffman (Calif.), outlined their concerns about the Family Research Council in a letter sent to the head of the IRS and the secretary of the Treasury on Monday. According to a recent report from ProPublica, the FRC successfully applied to be reclassified as a “group of churches” in 2020.
Lawmakers say that while the FRC often appeals to faith and advocates for a “biblical worldview,” the status change “strains credulity” because the group operates primarily as “a political advocacy organization.”
“They do not hold religious services, do not have a congregation or affiliated congregations, and do not possess many of the other attributes of churches listed by the IRS,” the letter reads. “FRC is one example of an alarming pattern in the last decade — right-wing advocacy groups self-identifying as ‘churches’ and applying for and receiving church status.”
Without Fiscal Responsibility, US Headed for a Worse Economic Crisis: Economic Policy Expert
With raging inflation and the Democrat-led Congress gathering enough Senate support to pass billions more in spending, Joel Griffith, a research fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, told NTD TV that if the United States does not rein in its irresponsible fiscal actions, the nation is headed for a worse economic crisis.
Griffith said that raising taxes on the wealthy will not get the federal government out of the financial hole it’s dug for itself over the past few decades, particularly the spending that’s occurred in the last two years.
“The only way to pay for all this would be to print the money, to borrow the money, or to raise taxes on the middle class. There’s no easy way out of this,” Griffith said during the interview. “And politicians don’t have an appetite to correct the problem. So, there’s going to be a crisis if we do not correct our ways. It’s just a matter of time.”
By technical definition, the United States already has entered a recession, but the Biden administration continues to deny the facts.
“Everybody loves the goodies, and now we’re suffering the consequences. And it’s so important for people to realize that the economic misery that we’re feeling right now is directly related to the mistakes that were made in the past two years, with shutdowns, with spending, and with printing,” said Griffith.
The U.S. government’s debt now amounts to more than $30 trillion, which calculates to $100,000 per person, and with current interest rates, it’s an additional $1,000 in debt, per person, being added each year, said Griffith.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Corbett: Technocracy Is Insane, Anti-Human And It WILL Fail
There’s no shortage of black pills for those in the conspiracy reality community to swallow. In fact, it’s difficult to avoid swallowing a mouthful of them every time you scroll through the news feeds. Just look at these stories from the past few days:
And
And
And get a load of this one:
You get the point. It’s almost impossible to browse the news anymore without giving up all hope for the future of humanity. We’re all going to be fed into the maw of the technocratic slave system and have our fingers broken by our new chess-playing robot overlords and there’s nothing we can do about it.
After all, when you ask an AI image generation bot to predict what the last selfie a human ever takes will look like you get this:
I guess we better just abandon all hope now, right?
Not so fast.
Here’s a great big white pill for you: the technocratic system of tyranny is going to fail. This is not wishful thinking; it’s a cold statement of fact. Technocracy, in all its facets—from the UN’s 2030 Agenda to the brain chips and AI godheads of the transhumanists to the CBDC social credit surveillance state—is anti-human. It goes against nature itself. It cannot work in the long run, and it is destined to fail.
Now, this doesn’t mean that it’s a cake walk from here on out. It doesn’t mean we can just go back to sleep and wake up in a gumdrop house on lollipop lane.
But it does mean that we can and will make it through these trying times. And the quicker that we wake up and realize the power to change the world for the better is in our hands—not in the hands of the would-be world controllers—the sooner this nightmare will end.
Dr. Zuck Knows All: Lawsuits Claim Facebook Violated Patient Privacy with Health Data Tracking Tool
Two class-action lawsuits were recently filed against Facebook (now known as Meta) over allegations that the company and major U.S. hospitals violated medical privacy laws with a tracking tool that collected patient data such as allergies and doctor appointments directly to Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
The Verge reports that two class-action lawsuits are alleging that Facebook and major U.S. hospitals violated medical privacy laws with a tracking tool that sends health information directly to Mark Zuckerberg’s platform without patient approval.
The lawsuits were filed in the Northern District of California in June and July and focused on Facebook’s Pixel tracking tool. The tool is installed on websites to track analytics on Facebook and Instagram ads. The pixel collects information about how people interact with websites and input information.
In early June, an investigation by the Markup found that 33 of the top 100 hospitals in the United States use the Facebook Pixel on their websites. The investigation found that the pixel tracking tool was installed on the password-protected patient portals of seven hospitals.
The Markup further found that the tool was sending information about patient health conditions, doctor appointments, and medication allergies to Facebook. In one lawsuit, a patient alleges that her medical information was sent to Facebook by the tool on the University of California San Francisco and Dignity Health patient portals. The patient was then served advertisements targeted to her heart and knee conditions.
The other lawsuit comes from a patient at the MedStar Health System in Baltimore, Maryland, and alleges that at least 664 healthcare providers sent medical data to Facebook using the Pixel tool.
The medical privacy law HIPAA requires healthcare organizations to receive patient consent to share personally identifiable health information with outside groups. Facebook states that it requires groups using the Pixel tool to have the right to share data before sending it to Facebook and that sensitive health data is filtered out.
HEALTH
Monkeypox State Of Emergency Declared In California
The entire state of California is now under a “state of emergency” following Gavin Newsome’s order. The reason the declaration was made is clear: to bolster California’s monkeypox vaccination efforts as the virus spreads nationwide.
Previously, the city of San Francisco declared a state of emergency for the same reason. Even though the numbers of infected people are minimal, the ruling class insists on getting another vaccine into as many people as they can.
The declaration comes as more than 5,800 probable or confirmed cases of monkeypox have been reported in the United States, including nearly 800 in California. Currently, there are 39.35 million people living in the state of California. We are, once again, seeing a massive overreaction by the ruling class and an instance on continued fear-mongering so more people willingly take more shots for something they probably won’t get unless they are male and have sex with other men.
Much to CNN‘s chagrin, the World Health Organization has declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, but the Biden administration has not issued a nationwide public health emergency declaration. California is now the third state, following New York and Illinois, and the largest U.S. state to issue a statewide declaration related to the disease.
The declaration allows emergency medical services personnel throughout California to administer FDA-approved monkeypox vaccines, expanding the pool of people able to inoculate residents against the virus even as a vaccine shortage persists. –CNN
But there’s not a vaccine shortage for monkeypox, no matter how the mainstream media tries to spin it. Only 800 have even been infected (in close contact with lesions and bodily fluids of those who already are infected) in the entire state. California has received more than 61,000 vaccine doses so far and distributed more than 25,000, according to the governor’s news release. Los Angeles County has received its own vaccine allocation and state officials said California will make additional allocations in the coming weeks.
Basic math says there are no vaccine shortages, but a fear-mongering attempt to panic the masses into getting even more shots.
“We’ll continue to work with the federal government to secure more vaccines, raise awareness about reducing risk, and stand with the LGBTQ community-fighting stigmatization,” the California governor said.
In mid-July, California’s health department requested 600,000 to 800,000 additional monkeypox vaccine doses to help expand eligibility to both confirmed and probable exposures, as well as to high-risk individuals.
Once again, this is all coming back to the shots. Keep watching, however. This could boil over at any time. To most of us, it’s obvious by now that this is anything but a health emergency. Yet once enough figure it out, don’t expect the rulers to hang up the narrative. They’ll likely make it worse and expand it to continue to try to convince people they need more injections.
Two Heart Medications Linked to Increased Hot Weather Heart Attack Risk
The current blistering heat wave that is crippling the country may be even more dangerous for people taking certain medications. A new study found that that among people who suffered non-fatal heart attacks associated with hot weather, a large portion were taking beta-blockers and aspirin.
“Patients taking these two medications have higher risk,” said Kai Chen, first author of the study and an assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health. “During heat waves, they should really take precautions.” According to a news release by the Yale School of Public Health, those precautions include staying in an air-conditioned room or visiting a public cooling center.
The study, which appeared online in Nature Cardiovascular Research, followed 2,494 cases in Augsburg, Germany that involved non-fatal heart attacks during hot weather months from 2001 to 2014. Researchers had previously determined that exposure to heat or cold made heart attacks more likely, but in this study, they looked at the patients’ medications to determine possible causes.
Are We Heading Toward a Tsunami of Antimicrobial Resistance?
Health authorities and the World Economic Forum predict that millions of people will be dying from superbugs every year by 2050
According to the WEF, antimicrobial resistance is a “looming health catastrophe that could be more deadly than COVID-19”
They are calling for a new “subscription model” as a solution and a “political intervention to reconstruct the market and make the development, production of and marketing antibiotics profitable again”
While there is no reason to believe the WEF on anything, antimicrobial resistance is on the rise due to overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, antibiotics into water supply, overuse of antibacterial household products, and weakened immunity due to stress and toxins
Superbug infections are particularly alarming in hospital settings
Top 11 Reasons to Start Using Frankincense Oil
Essential oils carry biologically active volatile compounds in a highly-concentrated form that can provide therapeutic benefits in very small amounts
Frankincense essential oil — commonly referred to as the King of Oils — is made from the resin of either the Boswellia sacra or Boswellia carterii tree
Frankincense essential oil is pale yellow-green with a woody, earthy and spicy aroma. Traditionally used in many religious holy rites, it is also commonly used as an ingredient in perfumes and skin care products
Substances found in frankincense essential oil have been scientifically shown to speed wound healing, reduce inflammation and stress, boost immune function, improve oral and uterine health, treat respiratory issues and digestive disorders, promote sleep and fight cancer
Several studies have demonstrated that alpha-pinene, a bioactive ingredient in frankincense oil, induces cell death in cancer cells, including malignant melanoma cells, breast cancer and pancreatic cancer cells
Food and beverage company Lyons Magnus voluntarily recalled 53 of its products on Friday due to possible microbial contamination concerns.
Some of the product brand names in the recall include Oatly Oat-Milk Barista Edition, various Premier Protein carton shakes, Stumptown cold brew coffee cartons, Aloha plant-based protein cartons, Kate Farms Pediatric Standard vanilla, various Imperial drink cartons, and multiple other products.
The products were voluntarily recalled due to possible contamination from Cronobacter sakazakii, which, if contracted, include symptoms of illness such as fever, vomiting, and urinary tract infection, according to Lyons Magnus in a statement released through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“Preliminary root cause analysis shows that the products did not meet commercial sterility specifications,” the statement said.
The press release notes that infections related to Conobacter sakazakii are rare but that vulnerable and immunocompromised people are more susceptible to infection.
It was also noted that none of the recalled products are intended for infants, but that contraction of a Cronobacter infection puts them at a high risk of developing serious health complications, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Rural California town nearly wiped out by wildfire
A wildfire tore through the town of Klamath River, CA near the Oregon border, population 200, destroying most of the homes and businesses in the community.
Are Latest Water Shortage Claims for Real?
Now, we are told that our entire country is on the brink of a serious water shortage. On the surface, this is incomprehensible. We have not experienced an unprecedented drought. During the Dust Bowl era, the state impacted the most didn’t run out of water.
Worldwide, we are told by the usual suspects that there is a “global water crisis.” The Washington Post’s alarming headline warns “Reservoirs are Drying up in the Western U.S.” Water levels in the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, Nev. are supposedly dangerously low.
Officials are telling the public that the American West is experiencing the “the most severe megadrought in 1,200 years.” Really—1,200 years? Lake Mead provides water to some 25 million people, yet the United States Bureau of Reclamation inexplicably began holding back a huge amount of water in Lake Powell, instead of releasing it into Lake Mead. Their explanation, such as it was, made no sense and “climate change” was, of course, cited as the ultimate culprit.
“We’re knocking on the door of judgment day—judgment day being when we don’t have any water to give anybody,” explained Bryan Hill, who runs the public power utility in Page, Arizona. The so-called “megadrought,” which wasn’t widely mentioned until last year, purportedly began in 2000, and Smithsonian magazine ominously informs us that it “will likely persist until at least 2030.”
Authorities are referencing the usual fear porn, and sprinkling in enough confusing scientific jargon to confuse the easily duped public. Gene Shawcroft, Utah’s commissioner on the Upper Colorado River Commission, tells us: “We know we have a lot of work to do. We have all got to change our minds on how we deal with water.”
What does “change our minds” about water mean, exactly? Is the “new normal” going to mean consuming less water, rationing it out Third World-style? Nothing is more essential to human survival than drinking water.
There were hints that this was coming. In 2017, the World Resources Institute published a list of “Seven Reasons We’re Facing a Global Water Crisis.” Reason number one, to no one’s surprise is, “We’re Changing the Climate, Making Dry Areas Drier and Precipitation More Variable and Extreme.” Ah, “climate change.”
The second reason revolves around a subject dear to the hearts of our dark, eugenicist overlords: “More People + More Money = More Demand.” They actually do list two reasons relating to our laughable, collapsing infrastructure. Don’t expect any upgrades anytime soon. It’s only been 60 years. UNICEF, long in the forefront of left-wing globalist causes, was one of the first to warn about “water scarcity.”
Some people began questioning the notion of a “water shortage” more than a decade ago. In 2008, Forbes published an article titled “The Water Shortage Myth.” The same year, Live Science noted, “Our planet is not running out of water, nor is it losing water. There’s about 360 quintillion gallons of water on the planet, and it’s not going anywhere. … Earth’s hydrologic cycle is a closed system, and the process is as old as time: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, and so on.”
Citing its own “science” against itself, they went on to state, “In fact, there is probably more liquid water on Earth than there was just a few decades ago, due in part to global warming and melting polar ice caps.” But as Live Science explained, “No, there is plenty of water. The problem is that the vast majority of Earth’s water is contained in the oceans as saltwater, and must be desalinated before it can be used for drinking or farming.” If only we had invented desalination plants…in 1881.
We can expect this “crisis” to be merged into the “climate change” mantra, which virtually never mentions the environment or preserving ecology. Instead, the public will be blamed for their hot showers, excessive flushing of toilets, and wasted water bottles. As always, “climate change” is about lowering the standard of living for the majority of the people. The only thing that has truly changed in recent years is the obvious geoengineering of our weather. Rain patterns haven’t altered since the beginning of recorded history.
As activist Deborah Tavares declared, “No water shortage. … We are living on a planet of water. … The goals of the world’s controllers are to privatize the world’s water supply. This is an attempt to take down the world’s water supply and privatize it and meter it so that you can be turned off if you overuse.”
FEMA Warning: Power Grid Could Take 10 Years to Repair After Major Solar Storm
According to recently declassified FEMA documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request, our power grid is not set up to be able to handle a solar storm known as a “Carrington Event,” and if hit with one, repairs to bring the grid back online and fully operational could take anywhere from 4-10 years.
The problem is not new to emergency management officials; we have covered the possibility of a Carrington Event wiping out our power grid for over a decade.
Our nation’s power grid is a hodgepodge of antiquated equipment and technology, with a large portion of our grid still relying on the 1960s and 70s technology. With administration after administration failing to do anything to secure our country’s power systems, our electrical infrastructure has become a patchwork of interconnected power generation plants, transmission facilities, distribution facilities, and over 400,000 miles of electric transmission lines — some of which dates back to the 1880s.
The U.S. Department of Energy says that 70% of U.S. transmission lines are more than 30 years old and the average age of large power transformers, which handle 90% of U.S. electricity flow, is more than 45 years. As a result, outages between 2015 and 2020 averaged 9,656 annually, more than double the average of 4,609 during the previous six-year period.
Authorities investigate after mysterious sinkhole appears in Chile
Chilean authorities are investigating a mysterious sinkhole that appeared over the weekend in a mining area in the north of the country.
Drone footage shows a huge hole on land operated on by Canada’s Lundin Mining.
Chile’s National Service of Geology and Mining, Sernageomin, has sent specialist personnel to the area, which is about about 413 miles (665km) north of the capital, Santiago.
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
Winter Gardening Tips: Best Winter Crops
When we think of eating homegrown food during the cold season, we often think of staples such as potatoes squirreled away in the root cellar, or of vegetables such as winter squash stashed in a cool, dry place. But many gardeners are discovering the joys of harvesting fresh produce all winter long, which allows for feasts of cold-hardy crops that are just-picked and just right for the time of year. According to Jodi Lew-Smith of High Mowing Seeds in Wolcott, Vt., the seed-buying season used to be January, February and March. “Now there’s also a surge in June, July, August and into September for fall-planted crops,” she says. Eating from the garden is just too pleasant to give up simply because the temperature — and the snow — may have fallen.
I don’t mean growing tomatoes in January. Fruiting crops no doubt need long, sunny days and warm conditions to complete their delicious arc of softening, deepening in color and perfectly ripening. Winter fare is about leaves, stems and roots, which mature more and more slowly as the weather cools and the days shorten. Better still, winter vegetables sweeten with the cold. If you’ve ever tasted a winter-pulled carrot or winter-cut spinach, you’re familiar with the treasures winter gardening can bring.
With my husband, Eliot Coleman, I run Four Season Farm in Harborside, Maine, where winter production is a key part of our business. Over the past two decades, we’ve built, trialed and collected data on many hoop house designs and crop-protection methods. We’ve also tested many crops — and multiple varieties of those crops — to discover what grows best in winter.
Climate Considerations
So, should a winter gardener grow different crops depending on her climate? Not necessarily. Winter has always been a good season for a wide array of crops in the southern states, and in the northern tier of the United States, you can grow the same crops if you use a winter-protection device to broaden your garden’s productive season. This might be a cold frame, a simple greenhouse, the quick-hoop system, or just a layer or two of floating row cover, often called Reemay. All of these season-extension devices capture some of the earth’s natural warmth, especially at night, and block the chilling, drying effect of wind.
At any latitude in the United States, there’s enough daylight to grow a wide range of winter crops. A recent MOTHER EARTH NEWS survey on winter gardening turned up a surprising number of cold-season gardeners in places where weather would present a challenge, such as Ontario and Wisconsin, as well as many in unsurprising locales, such as Texas and Southern California, where an outdoor garden can keep on truckin’ with a simple shift of the planting scheme (see Real-World Gardening Tips for tons of advice from our survey-takers). While in the Northeast we think of the year’s “second spring” starting around August, warmer southern areas can shift that date by a couple of months to around October, when fall temperatures will still be high enough to achieve germination and allow plants to reach maturity.
Winter growing has taken off in the commercial sphere, too, which helps farmers with short growing seasons make a living year-round. But home gardeners have an advantage: They don’t have to produce uniform, cosmetically perfect vegetables on any set schedule for a competitive market. In short, home gardeners can better roll with winter’s punches than large-scale producers can. Home-scale winter growers can experiment with the timing of their crops, sowing new ones whenever a space, no matter how small, becomes vacant. They can try lots of varieties until they find the ones that grow best — and taste best — for them. The seven well-tested crops and varieties illustrated here are some of my absolute, tried-and-true favorites.
Leafing Out
When you’re choosing winter crops and their varieties, you’re obviously looking for cold-tolerance, but the plant’s growth habit and schedule should also influence your selection. Spinach, for example, is a hardy winter annual, which means that it germinates in fall, grows during late fall and winter, and then goes to seed in spring. Because it continually puts out new leaves, you can pick it all winter. Cold-hardy Brussels sprouts and broccoli, on the other hand, stop producing after a certain point (although their leaves are a tasty bonus you shouldn’t miss). Here are some of the best leafy winter crops to try.
Spinach. This crop wins my personal gold medal in the winter leaf-crop category. Sown in late summer, it survives our coastal Maine winter in an unheated greenhouse, under just a layer of row cover. The increasing day length in spring is the major factor in spinach bolting (going to seed).
Lettuce. Although not as frost-tolerant as spinach, lettuce does prefer cool weather and is a great fall and spring crop, even in the coldest climates. Leaf lettuce is hardier than full-head types, especially at “baby leaf” size (closely planted and cut at 3 inches tall), and works great as a crop that can be cut multiple times
Arugula. Increasingly popular as a cut-and-come-again crop, arugula’s friendly bite adds pizazz to meals on cold days, without the flea beetles, bolting, or harsher flavor that come with growing it in summer.
Asian greens. At Four Season Farm, we did a trial of every Asian green we could find — mostly brassicas — planted under row covers in a 50-foot, unheated greenhouse. The hardiest was tatsoi, which forms large heads of small, dark green, spoon-shaped, mild-flavored leaves — firm enough for a stir-fry but soft enough for a salad. Tatsoi survives winter by hun kering down, flat on the ground, like a round, green rug. As you harvest the outer leaves, new ones will grow in the center
Chard. Great in any season and more heat-tolerant than lettuce, chard will occasionally survive winter with no protection in my Maine garden, dying back to the ground and regrowing in spring.
Kale. Of the European kales (Brassica oleracea), ‘Winterbor’ is exceptionally vigorous and more cold-resistant
Mâche. Too delicate to ship and scarce in farmers markets, mâche is the gardener’s reward. A winter annual, it will just sit where it’s planted after sowing until the coolness of fall coaxes it out of the ground. It is among the hardiest of winter greens, but it’s maddeningly slow to grow, with tiny heads best cut whole, at 3 inches across, and no regrowth.
Claytonia. This delightful little plant is an unsung hero of winter gardening. A North American native also known as “miner’s lettuce,” it nourished prospectors during the California gold rush days. The nickel-sized, round, succulent leaves are mild in salads but too fragile for cooking
Parsley. The hardiest of herbs, parsley slows its growth in winter but will sometimes survive without protection — even in Zone 5 — yielding lush, bushy greens in spring before it goes to seed.
Rooting for Flavor
Even if you grow root crops for storage, you can treat many of them as fresh-harvested winter crops, too. In areas with minimal freezing, you can leave most of your root crops in the ground and simply dig them up as needed. Potatoes aside, this is true even for moderate freezes. (See Outdoor Root Cellars for more on storing crops right in the garden during winter.)
Carrots. I’ve seen carrots survive in Vermont under nothing but a good snow cover, though you shouldn’t depend on that. In coastal Maine, they are foolproof inside a cold frame packed with loose straw or hay, or in an unheated greenhouse beneath a layer of row cover. We make multiple sowings from late July to mid-August, but readers in warmer climates report planting as late as November. (You can plant beets on this same schedule, but they’re not as cold-hardy.)
Turnips. My favorite for winter is ‘Hakurei,’ a white, round Japanese variety. I get sweet, tender roots great for eating raw, and tasty tops if the temperature is kept above freezing.
Leeks. Add rich, oniony flavors to your winter salads and soups by including some leeks in your mix of winter crops. This is likely the most universally grown winter crop in European households.
Radish. This fine crop needs protection from frost but loves cool weather
Leilani Lutali, who last year was denied kidney transplant surgery because she refused to get the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine, finally got the critical operation she needed to save her life.
Lutali, 57, from Colorado, made headlines last year when the UCHealth system refused to approve her kidney transplant surgery until she got vaccinated. Lutali, a born-again Christian with stage five kidney disease that puts her at risk of dying without a new kidney, said that the requirement unfairly pitted her health needs against her religious beliefs. (Related: Hospitals discriminating against unvaccinated organ transplant candidates.)
“As a Christian, I can’t support anything that has to do with abortion of babies, and the sanctity of life for me is precious,” she said at the time.
UCHealth claimed that the vaccine mandate is necessary because it lowers the risk of contracting the coronavirus as well as being hospitalized and dying from it. The hospital further claimed that transplant patients who contract COVID-19 have a mortality rate that is 20 percent higher than vaccinated transplant patients.
Del Bigtree, during an episode of his show, “The Highwire,” noted that the COVID-19 vaccines are actually what is getting in the way of people getting the proper medical care that they need.
“Those that need heart transplants, liver transplants and kidney transplants, the hospital system will deny transplants to the unvaccinated in almost all situations,” he commented.
Bigtree further noted that Lutali had already found a willing kidney donor for her who was also unvaccinated, Jaimee Fougner, a woman she met at a Bible study group who had the same blood type as her.
Despite finding a willing donor who did not mind her vaccination status, UCHealth still refused to accommodate Lutali’s pressing medical needs.
“They were ready to go, but then the hospital said, ‘No, I’m sorry, you’re going to die because you won’t get a vaccine for what we’re calling a deadly virus,’” said Bigtree. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Lutali and Fougner were given accommodation by a surgeon in Dallas who was willing to consider their case. This opportunity went nowhere though as the surgeon claimed Fougner’s left kidney had a few vessels that disqualified her from being a donor.
The two sought a second opinion because they both believed that Fougner’s kidneys were perfectly healthy. This is why they attempted to apply for accommodation at the nearby Baylor University Medical Center’s kidney transplant surgery center, the Twice Blessed House.
Baylor’s medical providers accepted the duo and quickly enrolled them into their system and scheduled the transplant surgery. Their status as unvaccinated individuals never became an issue.
“UCHealth gave me a death sentence,” said Lutali. “Baylor gave me a chance [at life].”
Just days following the surgery, Lutali’s kidney function immediately skyrocketed from five percent to around 73 percent. The doctors that operated on Lutali and Fougner commented that the latter’s kidney was an “overachieving” marvel.
“Without faith in Christ, we would not be sitting here today. We were either going to listen to men or listen to God, and we chose the path of God,” said Leilani. She and Fougner have now committed themselves to battling religious and medical discrimination against Christians.
Nathan Day was up early Thursday morning helping his son get ready for work when he received a message from a neighbor asking him to save her grandchildren from the rising floodwaters.
Day, a former coal miner who lives in Hindman, Knott County, said he was unaware of what was happening in the region until he received the message saying the children needed help getting out of their house.
“I didn’t know what they was talking about, then I went outside,” Day told CNN. “You heard a lot of people screaming and begging for anyone to help.”
That day, Eastern Kentucky saw flooding that officials have called unprecedented, with entire houses and bridges swept away and communities isolated because of flooded roads. At least 35 people have died in the flooding, and many who survived lost everything they had. Hundreds of people are still missing.
Day and his wife, Krystal, had no boat, so they waded through the water to help save the five children and two mothers who were stuck on the roof of their home.
“At 3 o’clock in the morning, I was in that water with my wife. I put a child under each arm and one around my neck and took them back to my house. The oldest child was holding a small dog,” Day said.
After Day and his wife rescued the children and the two women, he set his sights on rescuing his former high school English teacher, Ella Prater, and his second grade teacher, Irma Gayheart, who both lived nearby.
“I just kept pacing back and forth because I saw the water rising and I knew my two former teachers were probably trapped in their houses,” Day said. “It was heartbreaking.”
He then enlisted the help of three other neighbors to help check on his teachers, who both live alone, according to Day.
When they saw Prater, Day said they held her “by both side of her arms and never looked back. We said, ‘We have to go.'”
It took Gayheart a few minutes to answer the door, but when she did, she told him she was okay, but had been sitting on her kitchen counter top watching the water rise.
“I wasn’t going to leave her there because she’s a special lady to me. You could tell by looking at her face that she was drained,” Day said. “She spent the night on the kitchen counter top and the water was up by the counter top.”
With the help of his neighbors, Day was able to reunite both teachers with their families, who were waiting for any updates about their whereabouts.
“These are two of the most special women you’ll meet in your life, and when they show you love, they show you true love. They truly care about everyone that’s around them and that stuck with me my whole life,” Day said when explaining why he risked his life to rescue his teachers.
The ordeal has been emotionally draining, but he’s glad the children and former teachers are safe,
Country Music Star Chris Stapleton Helps With Eastern Kentucky Flood Relief Effort
Country music star and Kentucky native Chris Stapleton was recently seen helping out with the flood relief efforts that have devastated the eastern portion of the state.
Images circulating on social media showed Stapleton assisting with the recovery effort by purchasing supplies for flood victims at a Walmart in Prestonburg.
ICYMI
Legendary Dodgers Sportscaster Vin Scully Dead at 94
Major League Baseball (MLB) lost a titan on Tuesday with the announcement that legendary Los Angeles Dodgers sportscaster Vin Scully had died at the age of 94.
“He was the voice of the Dodgers, and so much more. He was their conscience, their poet laureate, capturing their beauty and chronicling their glory from Jackie Robinson to Sandy Koufax, Kirk Gibs to Clayton Kershaw,” the Dodgers said in the announcement Tuesday night. “Vin Scully was the heart of the Dodgers and in so many ways, the heartbeat of all of Los Angeles.”
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