WORLD NEWS
WNBA star Brittney Griner sentenced to nine years in Russian prison
Brittney Griner has been convicted of drug possession and smuggling and sentenced to nine years in prison by a Russian judge. The unusually quick verdict came amid tightening tensions between Moscow and Washington and could lead to a high-stakes prisoner exchange.
Zelensky accuses Amnesty International of supporting terrorism
Amnesty has stuck by its report that Ukrainian forces endangered civilians
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has accused
Amnesty International of siding with “terrorists” after the organization condemned the Ukrainian military for placing weapons in civilian areas in violation of humanitarian law.
“Today we saw a report by Amnesty International, which unfortunately tries to amnesty the terrorist state and shift responsibility from the aggressor to the victim,” Zelensky said in a video address on Thursday evening.
“If someone makes a report that puts the aggressor and the victim on the same level, this cannot be tolerated,” he said, repeating three times that “Ukraine is a victim,” and adding that “anyone who doubts this is an accomplice of Russia – a terrorist country – and a terrorist themselves and a participant in the killings.”’
The report in question was published earlier on Thursday, and detailed 22 cases of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from schools and five examples of troops using hospitals as bases. Amnesty said that it was “not aware” that Ukraine tried to evacuate civilians before occupying these non-military locations.
US government may be complicit in emergence of Covid – Russian MoD
Moscow is assessing the possibility that a Washington DC agency played a part in the creation of Covid-19
Russia’s Defense Ministry says it’s investigating the possible role of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the creation of the Covid-19 virus.
In a press briefing on Thursday, the head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, claimed that US-backed bio-laboratories in Ukraine had been conducting questionable research and clinical tests on Ukrainian citizens, and that “over 16,000 biological samples, including blood and serum samples, were exported from the territory of Ukraine to US and European countries.”
He went on to explain that a statement from Jason Crow, a member of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, who warned Americans that their DNA samples could be used to create targeted biological weapons, caused Russia’s Defense Ministry to “take a fresh look” at the origins of the Covid pandemic.
“Taking into account the interest of the US administration in the study of narrowly targeted biological agents, such statements force us to take a fresh look at the causes of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the role of US military biologists in the emergence and spread of the Covid-19 pathogen,” Kirillov said.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Biden administration declares the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency
The Biden administration on Thursday declared monkeypox a public health emergency, with cases on the rise across the US.
The announcement came during a briefing with the Department of Health and Human Services
Jury finds Alex Jones caused $4 million in damages to two Sandy Hook parents
Alex Jones will have to pay the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim a little more than $4 million in compensatory damages, a jury decided Thursday,
A separate, shorter trial during which punitive damages will be discussed is now expected. Punitive damages are awarded when the court finds the defendant’s behavior to be especially offensive.
A lawyer for Infowars host Alex Jones called an opposing lawyer a liar and raised his middle finger after a courtroom discussion last week in a defamation damages trial over false claims by Jones about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
Lawyer F. Andino Reynal apologized Thursday for his actions the day before, which happened outside the presence of Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County, Texas.
Insider, KXAN, the NewsTimes and Law360 have coverage.
Reynal flipped the bird after a heated courtroom discussion before the judge outside the presence of jurors. Reynal wanted to introduce new video evidence, but opposing lawyer Mark Bankston opposed the idea because there wasn’t enough time to review it all. Reynal complained that videos that Blankston had shown jurors were “cherry-picked” and jurors had to see longer videos.
Bankston is on the legal team representing Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of a 6-year-old child killed in the 2012 mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. They claim that Jones defamed them and caused emotional distress when he called the Sandy Hook shooting a “giant hoax.” Gamble had entered a default judgment against Jones in September 2021 for failing to turn over requested information. The trial that began last week is to determine damages.
According to the NewsTimes, Reynal became “visibly frustrated” during the July 27 courtroom discussion, saying his opponents had already agreed that the videos could be introduced. Bankston countered that he never agreed to introduce the evidence. Reynal said the plaintiffs’ lawyers were “dishonest.”
Gamble said that, for now, she would assume that Reynal had been having a bad day. She added, however, that Reynal should review attorney ethics rules on courtroom decorum. She also told the lawyers to review the videos to decide what is admissible and said the matter would be discussed the next morning.
The discussion continued after Gamble left the room.
“During the conversation,” the NewsTimes reports. “Reynal got close to Bankston’s face and called him a ‘liar’ several times, before raising his middle finger at Bankston.” Another lawyer intervened, suggesting that the matter be discussed in a phone call after the lawyers could calm down.
Reynal was contrite Thursday morning, according to the Insider.
“I apologize for yesterday’s outburst,” he told Gamble. “It wasn’t appropriate.”
Reynal also said he had apologized in an email to the plaintiffs’ legal team.
Gamble had some advice for the lawyers.
“Next time anyone wants to have an argument, you need to take it outside,” she said.
Reynal has experience as a former federal prosecutor and as a lawyer for Baker Botts, according to information on his website noted by Law360.
Updated: A lawyer for the parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, confronted Infowars host Alex Jones on Wednesday with information from texts said to be mistakenly sent by Jones’ lawyers.
Lawyer Mark Bankston revealed the blunder while Jones was on the stand in a trial to establish defamation and emotional-distress damages for the broadcaster’s false claims that the 2012 mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax.
The Washington Post, the New York Times, NBC News and Law360 are among the publications with coverage of the trial revelation in Travis County, Texas.
Law360 and the New York Times have Bankston’s comment.
“Mr. Jones,” Bankston said, “did you know that 12 days ago, your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cellphone with every text message you’ve sent for the past two years, and when informed, did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way, and as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession and that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have text messages about Sandy Hook.”
“This is your Perry Mason moment,” Jones responded, referring to the old TV show in which defense lawyer Perry Mason won cases after last-minute revelations.
Jones maintained that “I’m not a tech guy” to explain why he previously testified that he was unable to provide the plaintiffs with text messages about Sandy Hook.
The texts could also be of interest to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, according to the New York Times. The newspaper reports that Jones is being scrutinized in connection with planning events around the attack. Bankston is asking the judge’s permission to give the texts to the committee, the New York Times reports in a later story.
Bankston also highlighted text messages showing that Infowars made around $100,000 to $200,000 per day. One day, Bankston said, Infowars made about $800,000. That contradicted Jones’s claims about income, Bankston alleged. Infowars has filed for bankruptcy, as have other Jones business ventures.
Bankston also confronted Jones with broadcast segments in which he disparaged the judge, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County, Texas. Jones said Gamble came from child protective services, which has been exposed for “working with pedophiles.” He also showed a photograph of the judge engulfed in flames.
Bankston represents parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis in the lawsuit. Gamble had entered a default judgment against Jones in September 2021 for failing to turn over requested information.
Jones’ lawyer, F. Andino Reynal, previously got media attention for flipping the bird at Bankston during a heated discussion after Gamble left the bench.
On Thursday, Reynal filed an emergency motion to protect the cellphone information and requested a mistrial, report Law.com, the Austin American-Statesman and the Independent in a story printed by Yahoo News.
Reynal argued that he had complied with a Texas “snapback” law that allows lawyers to claw back evidence sent by mistake to legal opponents. Reynal said he had sent Bankston an email to “please disregard the link” to cellphone files when Bankston informed him of the possible error.
Bankston countered that the “please disregard” response created no legal duty on his part. He said Reynal had to identify the privileged material.
Gamble denied the mistrial motion, but she allowed Reynal to review the cellphone information and mark the items that he wants to keep confidential.
Later on Thursday, the jury awarded Heslin and Lewis $4.1 million in compensatory damages, report Reuters and the New York Times. Jurors were expected to hear evidence on punitive damages Friday.
Gov’t Forced to Ban 3D-Printed Guns from Buybacks After Activist Makes Thousands to Prove
In February of this year, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced “One Safe Houston” — a $53 million federally funded initiative aimed at decreasing crime across Houston. Mayor Turner says $1 million from the initiative will be used for gun buyback events.
Over the weekend, the city held their first buyback and authorities touted it as a success, boasting that they spent close to $100,000 to take guns off the street. A couple of days after the buyback, however, and photos of the “guns” began making rounds on the internet, and the gun buyback program became the brunt of multiple internet memes.
An anonymous activist in Houston heard about the gun buyback program and 3D-printed dozens of guns and gun parts. The city paid the activist thousands of dollars for these “handguns” that were actually 3D-printed uppers, lowers, and outdated “liberator” guns from 2013.
“You’ll always have people who will try and take advantage of the programs,” said Turner. “I was there when that person brought in those guns. The reason we went ahead and did that was we had not said we weren’t going to.”
“We’re going to exclude those next time around,” he said.
As we reported, 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.
Since the story went viral, the activist has come forward to explain why he brought dozens of 3D printed parts to the buyback — and he makes a valid point.
“The goal was not personal profit, but to send [Houston leaders] a message about spending $1 million tax dollars on something that has no evidence of any effect on crime…” the anonymous activist told FOX26, adding that the 3D guns only cost about $3 to make.
And he is largely correct which is why criminological experts began 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.
The National Bureau of Economic Research published a working paper in May exploring the relationship with crime and buybacks and they actually found an increase in incidents of firearm-related crime during the first two months after a buyback.
The working paper also found no evidence the programs reduce suicides or homicides where a firearm was involved.
“These results call into question the efficacy of city gun buyback programs in their current form,” the authors wrote in the abstract. Indeed.
FBI cites 2nd Amendment emblem as indicator of ‘Militia Violent Extremists’
Feds charge 4 officers in fatal Breonna Taylor raid
The U.S. Justice Department has charged four Louisville police officers involved in the deadly Breonna Taylor raid with civil rights violations
Cotton Warns China Buying Farmland in U.S. ‘Is a National Security Threat’
Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) sounded off on his legislation that would ban China and China-linked firms from buying land in the United States.
Cotton warned that China purchasing farmland in the United States was a “national security threat” that “surrenders the massive strategic advantage we have here in America.”
Ashli Babbitt, Betsy Ross Flag, and Liberty Tree Tied to Violent Extremism in Leaked FBI Bulletin
A leaked FBI internal bulletin on domestic terrorism lists U.S. Capitol shooting victim Ashli Babbitt as someone considered a “martyr” by militia violent extremists (MVE) and the Second Amendment as how militias “justify their existence” because of a reference to a “well-regulated Militia” and the right to bear arms.
The “Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide” was leaked to Project Veritas, which released images of the bulletin on its website and social media on Aug. 2. It includes such common images as the Gadsden flag, the Betsy Ross flag, and the Liberty Tree.
The document includes terms and symbols that are very familiar in conservative, law enforcement, and military circles. In the introduction, the FBI stressed that simply using the terms or symbols is not evidence of wrongdoing.
“The use or sharing of these symbols alone should not independently be considered evidence of MVE presence or affiliation, or serve as an indicator of illegal activity, as many individuals use these symbols for their original historic meaning or other non-violent purposes,” the bulletin reads.
Many on the right, however, are likely to see the bulletin as further evidence of federal government acrimony for conservatives in the wake of Jan. 6 unrest at the Capitol.
“Widespread use of symbols and quotes from American history, especially the Revolutionary War, exists within MVE networks,” the bulletin says. “Historic and contemporary military themes are common for MVE symbols.”
The document is marked “unclassified/law enforcement sensitive” and “for internal use only.”
Illegal Alien Charged After Captive 12-Year-Old Girl Escapes House, 2 Decomposing Bodies Found
An illegal alien has been charged with first-degree kidnapping, three counts of capital murder, and two counts of abuse of a corpse, after a gruesome discovery in rural Alabama on Aug. 1.
José Paulino Pasceul-Reyes, 37, who had previously been deported, is accused of murdering Sandra Vasquez Ceja, and her son, who was under the age of 14, as well as kidnapping Ceja’s 12-year-old daughter in Tallapoosa County, Alabama.
The complaint alleges that Reyes killed Ceja by smothering her with a pillow and her son “by bludgeoning him with his hands or feet” on or about July 24. Reyes is also accused of cutting both bodies into “small pieces at the joints in order to hide evidence.”
Reyes then allegedly tied Ceja’s 12-year-old daughter to the bedposts for about a week, plying her with alcohol to keep her in a drugged state, and abusing her. The girl eventually chewed through her restraints and escaped from the house.
A passerby called 911 after seeing the girl wandering down a road early on Aug.1.
“The information she provided us was that she had been bound and held at the residence that’s located near where she was at,” Tallapoosa Sheriff Jimmy Abbett told The Epoch Times.
“As we proceeded through it, a warrant was issued for [Reyes] on that offense—the kidnapping in the first degree—and then as our investigation continued, we determined that there were two decomposed bodies in the residence.”
Abbett said the bodies are still with forensics for formal identification and cause of death.
He said Reyes and Ceja were a couple and had moved into the residence in February.
Abbett said the young girl is now in state custody and “she’s protected and, and she is being provided all the needs.”
He’s calling her a hero. “What she had to endure and also provide us enough information where we could actually arrest this individual,” he said.
She’s doing as well as can be expected, he said. “No life-threatening injuries but you know, you got the anguish and the mental part she’s got to deal with.”
The sheriff said he hasn’t had border-related issues in his county prior to this. Tallapoosa has a population of about 41,000.
“This is really our first one. We’ve had some minor stuff, traffic stuff and things of this nature, but not to the magnitude of this,” he said.
Trans Sanctuary State Legislation Heads to Assembly Floor Despite Resistance
A bill that would make California a sanctuary state for transgender youth and their parents fleeing states where laws prohibit “gender-affirming health care” for minors continues to move through the Legislature despite strong criticism from opponents.
Senate Bill (SB) 107 passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Aug. 3 with a 11 to 4 vote along party lines. It now moves to the Assembly floor.
A San Francisco Bay-Area mother, whose daughter once believed she was transgender but changed her mind, told the committee she’ll never forgive herself for allowing the girl to take puberty blockers.
“At the insistence of the medical community, we regrettably placed our 12-year-old gender-confused daughter on puberty blockers. We were not told of long-term effects,” said the mom, who goes by the pseudonym Kiley Chang for fear of retaliation.
In written testimony read during the committee meeting, Chang said she left the Democratic Party because of gender ideology.
EXCLUSIVE: Inside the Human Smuggling Logistics of a Mexican Cartel
Three stash house operators, a raft guide, two walking guides, a bush hiking guide, a taxi driver, and at least three other drivers were coordinated to smuggle Martin Lazaro Bieya from Reynosa, Mexico, to Houston—his first major city after running the gauntlet through U.S. Border Patrol and law enforcement.
His final goal was Detroit, where he said an uncle had a job lined up for him.
Bieya’s trip was cut short in Goliad County, some 200 miles north of the border and 150 miles shy of Houston, after the vehicle in which he was being smuggled crashed into a culvert as the driver attempted to flee local law enforcement.
He initially fled the scene, but was picked up by the sheriff that evening after walking to a road to look for water and food.
The Epoch Times spoke with 17-year-old Bieya through a translator on June 23 as he sat in the Goliad jail.
Bieya said he’s from Veracruz in eastern Mexico, where his family owns a small ranch, but he “can’t make enough money there.”
He says that in late May, he made the decision to come to the United States and called his uncle in Detroit.
“He told me he would get me to the United States,” Bieya said.
A couple of weeks later, Bieya and his father took a bus to Reynosa, a major city separated from McAllen, Texas, by the Rio Grande, which marks the international border.
In central Reynosa, the duo waited at a restaurant. They provided to the uncle their GPS location and what they were wearing, and a taxi soon arrived to take them to a stash house.
At the house, Bieya’s father bid him goodbye and got back in the taxi to return to Veracruz.
Inside the house, which Bieya said was good-looking, “not a trashy house,” four other Mexicans waited to be smuggled across the border. These weren’t the illegal crossers who turn themselves into Border Patrol for asylum, but rather, the “gotaways”—the tens of thousands who evade capture every month because they’re unlikely to qualify for any type of legal entry.
A Mexican man in his mid-20s was running the house, Bieya said. He said that he didn’t have to pay anything for food, accommodation, or transport at any stage, but suspects that his uncle paid about $7,000 to have him smuggled to Detroit.
“He said he paid a lot of money, but he never told me how much he paid,” he said.
Bieya said he spent the night in the house, and around noon the next day, the five migrants were transported by car to “the end of a long road,” after which he estimates they walked about three miles to the bank of the Rio Grande.
There, they crossed the river in an inflatable raft and disembarked into the United States.
Two Mexican Americans appeared and escorted them further from the river.
“They knew what they were doing. They were just there to pick us up,” Bieya said. The group walked until nightfall, then stopped for a while before resuming at about 1 a.m. They arrived at a stash house in McAllen, Texas, in the early morning, he said.
Three other illegal immigrants were already at the stash house, bringing their group to eight.
Several hours later, the group was transported to a second stash house in McAllen, where they waited until evening before squeezing into a Ford pickup truck. By now, there were 14 people to transport, including two Honduran nationals and one female.
“There were seven of us” jammed into the truck bed under a sheet of plywood to hide them, he said. “It was tight.”
“After about an hour on the road, the truck stopped and they told us to get out.”
Bieya said he didn’t know where they were, but the timing fits with where smugglers drop off illegal immigrants so they can walk through the brush to skirt the Border Patrol highway checkpoint near Falfurrias, Texas.
It’s one of the deadliest paths for illegal immigrants, where many die from heat-related issues. Guides, or “coyotes,” leave sick or injured people to fend for themselves.
The original two coyotes were still with Bieya’s group, and at this point, a third was present to lead them in their ensuing seven-night trek.
“We walked from 4 in the afternoon until 5 in the morning,” Bieya said. At the time, the temperature in South Texas was hitting the high-90s to 100s during the day, while the night cooled to the mid-70s.
The group carried 1-gallon jugs for water, and when they ran dry, they’d find a livestock trough to refill. They ate only once a day.
“We all talked about what we would do if we made it safe into the United States,” he said. “I wanted to work for a couple of years and hopefully get citizenship.”
Helicopters with spotlights passed over several times, and they had to scurry into the brush to hide. He said he also saw drones three times during the trek. Two rattlesnakes met their demise during the trip.
After seven nights, Bieya said the group arrived at a paved road and waited for the pickup vehicle to arrive. Within an hour, a Chevy Tahoe SUV stopped, and they all crammed in. The next stop was supposed to be Houston, but in Goliad County, Sheriff Roy Boyd spotted them and attempted to pull the vehicle over.
The driver tried to escape, but lost control and crashed into a culvert. All of the occupants, including Bieya, fled into the brush. But he was the last one to exit the vehicle and never saw the main group again. He said members of the group had told him they planned to go to New York, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Houston.
“I didn’t know what to do because I was so hungry, so thirsty,” he said. Later that evening, he said he decided to turn himself in.
Bieya found some workers near a road and asked them for water.
“They gave me two bottles of water and a beef taco,” he said. Not long afterward, the sheriff was passing by, saw him on the side of the road, and apprehended him.
Eight other members of the group were later apprehended in a nearby county. They were turned over to Border Patrol and taken back to Mexico, but Boyd has issued warrants for their arrests, should they reappear. The warrants include felony charges for engaging in organized crime, as well as several misdemeanors, including evading arrest, Boyd said.
‘Effective Immediately’ Do Not Wipe Phone Data: Pentagon Instructs All Personnel
The Pentagon has issued a memo asking personnel not to delete data on their phones, calling it a “solemn responsibility and legal obligation” of all federal employees, both military and civilian.
In accordance with the Department of Defense (DoD) Instructions 5015.02 and 8170.01, personnel must retain text messages that are qualified as records as per the Federal Records Act, the Aug. 3 memo issued by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said. All mobile device service providers in the DoD are now required to capture and save data on “DoD-provisioned mobile devices” once users turn them on. This order is “effective immediately.”
“Under the Federal Records Act, a record is recorded information that is made or received in connection with the transaction of public business that is preserved or appropriate for preservation by an agency,” the memo stated.
“This information provides evidence of government organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other official activities, or is of value to the Department.”
The DoD Chief Information Officer (CIO) is working with the Secretaries of the Military Departments and other Component heads to ensure that the guidance is implemented in the Pentagon.
The memo also instructed the DoD General Counsel and the DoD CIO to assess the defense department’s policies and procedures ensuring compliance with the Federal Records Act. They are tasked with reporting back to Hicks with any recommendations within 30 days.
In an Aug. 4 statement, DoD acting Press Secretary Todd Breasseale said that the memo was issued following media reports that DoD did not retain phone data of former senior officials upon their departure from the department.
This includes records that may be tied to the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. “The department will be transparent with Congress and the public on records retrieval and stewardship,” he added.
Hungarian Prime Minister Warns the West Against a Communist Takeover
Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, told hundreds of conservatives in Texas on Thursday that his country defeated communism—and now America must do the same.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Orban told the crowd that America is fighting for its life against progressives and globalists, which are communists.
“Don’t be afraid to call your enemies by their name,” he said. “They hate me and slander me and my country, as they hate you and slander you and the America you stand for.”
Orban said the Democrats in the United States were not fond of him and wanted Hungary to move away from being a Christian nationalist state.
“They did not want me to be here, and they made every effort to drive a wedge between us,” he said.
Orban has been criticized as a right-wing Christian nationalist. His anti-immigration stance drew condemnation from the United States and the international community recently after he said Hungarians did not want to become “peoples of mixed race.”
Orban later clarified that the issue isn’t as much about race as it is about culture. While not mentioning the controversy directly, he noted that a Christian politician “cannot be racist.”
Sinema Reaches Deal With Democrats Over ‘Inflation Reduction’ Bill
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) has reached a deal with Democrats over a multi-pronged spending package that lawmakers say would reform the tax code, lower the federal deficit, lower health care costs, and invest in energy and climate change programs.
The spending package appeared to be a revised, alternate version to the Build Back Better (BBB) bill, which would fulfill a major agenda of President Joe Biden.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) previously announced on July 27 that he had reached a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on energy, taxes, and health care to advance the bill, which is dubbed the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.”
Sinema, who previously held out on the deal, said in an announcement on Thursday she would support moving forward with the measure and begin debate on the bill.
“We have agreed to remove the carried interest tax provision, protect advanced manufacturing, and boost our clean energy economy in the Senate’s budget reconciliation legislation,” Sinema said. “Subject to the Parliamentarian’s review, I’ll move forward.”
Sinema was referring to a provision that would have closed the so-called carried interest loophole and generate an estimated $14 billion in new revenue over the next 10 years. The loophole is said to help wealthy private equity and hedge fund managers pay less taxes.
She was also separately referring to an agreement to protect manufacturing from the impact of a proposed 15 percent corporate minimum tax, which opponents say would jeopardize economic growth.
“Following this effort, I look forward to working with [Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.)] to enact carried interest tax reforms, protecting investments in America’s economy and encouraging continued growth while closing the most egregious loopholes that some abuse to avoid paying taxes,” the Arizona senator said, referring to tax concerns that affect hedge funds.
Schumer said in a statement on Thursday that the agreement “preserves the major components” of the original bill, which includes “reducing prescription drug costs, fighting climate change, closing tax loopholes exploited by big corporations and the wealthy, and reducing the deficit by $300 billion.”
“I am pleased to report that we have reached an agreement on the Inflation Reduction Act that I believe will receive the support of the entire Senate Democratic conference,” he also said. “I have had many productive discussions with members of our conference over the past three days and we have addressed a number of important issues they have raised.”
Schumer said the final version of the bill will be introduced on Saturday.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
California Truckers Impacted by New Law Warn ‘Prices Are Going to Go Through the Roof’
Michael Clifford works for a trucking company in Utah but spends much of his time making deliveries in California.
As a non-resident company employee, Clifford said he’s not happy with California’s new labor law—Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5)—that was passed and signed into law in 2019 and went into effect last month after a failed legal challenge.
The new law requires independent truck owner-operators—some 70,000 strong throughout the Golden State—be classified as employees, with few exemptions.
“The owner-operators run on a tight profit margin. Everybody thinks they make a lot of money, but they don’t,” said Clifford while standing in line at a transportation logistics company near the Port of Long Beach on July 26.
The way the new law is written, he said, AB 5 likely will do more harm than good to the state’s trucking industry in the future.
For starters, it will create “all kinds of problems in the supply chain, the food supply chain,” amidst a nationwide shortage of truck drivers, Clifford told The Epoch Times.
“What we do here will affect the food supply in another country. It’s very connected,” Clifford said.
On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge on whether AB 5 violates the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 regarding truck owner-operators.
The court’s refusal to review the case removed a legal hurdle allowing the law to move forward in California, sparking protests across the state. The California Trucking Association likened the situation to pouring gasoline on a fire.
“In addition to the direct impact on California’s 70,000 owner-operators—who have seven days to cease long-standing businesses—the impact of taking tens of thousands of truck drivers off the road will have devastating repercussions on an already fragile supply chain, increasing costs and worsening runaway inflation,” the associate added.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
The Culling Of Humanity Is Set To Accelerate; Doctors And Politicians Remain Silent
It’s been a while since I’ve reported on the shocking numbers in the government’s VAERS reporting system and some of the heartbreaking stories contained there, such as the recent death of a 9-year-old California girl two weeks after she was jabbed.
The girl received one dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s injection. She had no preexisting conditions and was not hospitalized.
She experienced two to three days of “stomach ache, sore throat and chest pain; two weeks after receiving the vaccination,” the database states.
VAERS data from December 14, 2020, to July 22, 2022, shows 12,232 adverse events in 5- to 11-year-olds, including 313 “serious” cases and nine deaths.
The database also lists 24 cases of heart inflammation, 47 cases of blood clotting disorders, and 101 reports of seizures in the same age group.
Readers of this website know that VAERS doesn’t begin to tell the whole story. The deaths and disabling injuries listed there only represent 1 percent of the actual numbers due to the propensity of doctors to not report most of the devastation they see being caused by their partners in Big Pharma.
Taken together from nations around the world, these deaths by injection will add up to a genocide of untold magnitude, a mass culling that fulfills the purposes of a Malthusian clan of globalist elites.
How can this be happening, you ask. And who are these “elites?”
Many of these so-called elites are also Luciferian but plenty of others are just plain greedy. Still others remain silent and go along out of self-preservation. They don’t want to risk being canceled and jeopardize their comfortable lifestyles.
Thanks to consolidation in the healthcare industry, most doctors today are just employees. They work for a paycheck. That means they’re easily controlled.
And what about the politicians? Won’t the Republicans change this when they take over in January?
That’s unlikely.
The genocide we see playing out in real time is so evil that I find it difficult to comprehend how anyone in politics is able to talk about any other issue.
I typed “died days after receiving jab Pfizer Moderna” into my search engine and I turned up pages of articles about people dying, usually days or weeks after they had been jabbed.
Soaring inflation, as painful as it is, represents nothing compared to the pain and confusion so many must be feeling when their mother, father, spouse, sibling, friend, or their 9-year-old son or daughter dies “suddenly” and “unexpectedly” days or weeks or months after being jabbed. They’re healthy one day, gone the next.
And yet, it’s the forbidden subject. No politician, no matter how conservative or liberal, really wants to talk about it.
Their silence plays into the hands of the globalists who are behind this dark depopulation scheme.
Remember what Jesus said about these evildoers:
“It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”
They hate children because they hate humanity. And most of all they hate the Creator of humanity.
Historically, these elites always hated humanity, but they had to put up with us because they needed us to operate their factories, fight their wars, clean their mansions, harvest their food, make sure the trains run on time.
With the advances in gene editing, artificial intelligence and computer algorithms, they now have robots who can do all of the above tasks, often better and more reliably than we human beings. The crops that used to be picked in the fields can now be grown in a laboratory through CRISPR gene editing.
Watch the video below to get an idea how far the advancements in robotics have come in just the last 10 years. Also keep in mind this video is from one company, Boston Dynamics. There are hundreds of companies working on robotics and while Boston Dynamics claims it will not partner with anyone wishing to use its robots for military purposes, many other companies are focused on exactly that application.
>> Evolution of Boston Dynamic’s Robots [1992-2022]
Military Creates Its Own Metaverse, Seeks Digital Twin Of Earth
A digital twin is a digital representation of a real-world entity or system. The civilian metaverse will not require exact representation of the real world, but the military will. Thus, battles can be fought in the military metaverse with total precision and acclimation. Ultimately, the military is seeking a complete digital twin of the entire planet. — Technocracy News & Trends Editor Patrick Wood
By: Anusuya Datta via GeoSpacialWorld
For years, different military programs have worked to combine, “models, simulations, people and real equipment into a common representation of the world.” The US Army has established the STE Cross-Functional Team to develop a “common synthetic environment” for simulations and training.
Pete Morrison, CCO at BISim, believes this military innovation is a microcosm for what could become of the metaverse. “A military metaverse will focus on training, experimentation, and mission rehearsal. The fundamental difference to other commercial metaverses will be that it aims to deliver a high-fidelity digital twin of the real world,” he says.
BISim, or Bohemia Interactive Simulations, has been focused on the ‘under the hood’ of developing the military metaverse, helping different technologies on separate terrain data interact more seamlessly. The company is involved with both the US Army STE and UK MOD SSE, converting its military simulations to run on new scalability architectures. It also provides its flagship products, VBS4 and VBS Blue IG, for trainee interaction within the military metaverses.
Further, BISim’s Mantle Enterprise Terrain Management platform allows developers to import, manage, combine, procedurally enhance and stream high fidelity, geo-specific terrain into military or enterprise metaverses. This new terrain technology is already commercially available and will address some of the roadblocks to the military metaverse by helping move procedural generation onto the cloud.
We caught up with Morrison about how traditionally the military has been using the modelling and simulations as a representation of real life, what is military metaverse and how different it is from a commercial metaverse.
The military uses many different types of simulations, covering land, sea, air and space. Flight simulators, tank simulators, forward air control simulators and many others have been built over the years to provide training in a safe and repeatable manner. It has been possible to integrate these simulators for combined arms training for decades. For example, we may connect a flight simulator with a forward air control simulator so that the ground and air operators can practice working together. While these types of integrations have become commonplace, they have major limitations. For example, it is difficult to represent a dense urban environment in a simulation. Representing more than a few thousand people and vehicle entities is expensive and time-consuming. Additionally, each simulation uses its own format for terrain data, making it challenging to build perfectly correlated terrain. While an integrated federation can certainly work, the military metaverse will deliver greater scale with greater efficiency. This is why the U.S. Army is investing so heavily in programs like STE.
Simulations in STE will run as scalable services on cloud architecture, and they will automatically use all available resources to support the simulation of millions of entities. A central terrain server will host a 1:1 digital twin of Earth, which will stream terrain data to connected simulations as needed. The user interface for building training content will be web-based and use web-native rendering engines like Cesium. STE will replace all legacy U.S. Army simulation programs, meaning that in the future, any U.S. Army simulation will be able to connect to this military metaverse for combined arms or joint training.
HEALTH
The need for medical patients to have their own advocates has become critical in light of increasing reports from family members who believe their loved ones died in the hospital because of the COVID-19 treatment protocols prescribed by doctors.
To assist in breaking up what Priscilla Romans called “an unhealthy co-dependency” between patients and the health care system, Romans launched Graith Care, a patient advocacy business that takes the ultimate authority out of the hands of the “white coats” and returns it back to the patient.
“People have believed the hospitals are going to take care of them, only to find that this isn’t always the case,” Romans told The Epoch Times.
Many hospitals mechanically adhere to treatment protocols outlined in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), but with the help of patient advocates, patients and their families can override these one-size-fits-all treatment plans.
It’s a solution to a problem long overdue, Romans said.
Romans is launching Graith Care at a time when many health care professionals are leaving a medical system that they say was broken long before COVID-19 brought its corruption to the surface.
The tipping point has caused some doctors and nurses, including Romans, to find alternatives outside of the system.
‘It Was Worse Than I Thought’
As a nurse who later worked in the health insurance industry, Romans said she’s seen the many faces of the medical industrial complex
Medical Mistake Claims Life of American Hero
In 2012, Neil Armstrong, aged 82, underwent heart surgery at Mercy Health Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. He died two weeks later. His two sons insisted his death was caused by medical error
An anonymous source leaked documents to the press showing the hospital paid the Armstrong family a $6 million malpractice settlement. The sender hoped bringing the information to light might help save lives
When nurses removed the wires for Armstrong’s temporary pacemaker, he began to bleed. Armstrong was brought into the catheterization lab for evaluation rather than straight to the operating room — a nonstandard decision that cost him his life
Armstrong’s case is a perfect example of the indiscriminate nature of lethal medical errors; 19% of elderly patients are injured by medical care in the U.S., and those injured have nearly double the death rate compared to those who receive proper treatment
July 20, 2019, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. In a riveting three-part documentary series, PBS explores the space race that led to American astronauts becoming the first men to set foot on the moon
Why Resistance Training Preserves Your Cardiovascular Health
As you age, it’s more important to maintain your muscle mass and strength, which is directly related to blood flow resistance and heart health. Data show aerobic activity does not improve blood flow and vascular conductance, but resistance training does
Strength is a strong predictor of survival, even after accounting for confounding factors, and it is a reliable predictor of functional independence, cognitive decline and all-cause mortality. One measure of strength is walking speed, which also correlates with brain health and survival
After 43 years of aerobic exercise, which for me was long distance running, I began learning how to improve my fitness by ditching running and starting resistance training. One of the factors I credit for the vast changes to my fitness is using blood flow restriction training
Food choices and fasting are two other pillars that have made a big difference in my fitness. The “magic” happens when you combine time-restricted eating, a cyclical ketogenic diet and exercising while fasting
COVID RELATED NEWS
9-Year-Old Dies Two Weeks After Taking COVID-19 Vaccine: VAERS
The most recent VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) data shows that a 9-year-old died in California two weeks after getting one dose of a Pfizer-BioNTech jab.
The female child had no listed preexisting conditions and was not hospitalized.
She experienced 2-3 days of “stomach ache, sore throat and chest pain; two weeks after receiving the vaccination,” the database states.
United States VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to July 22, 2022, show that there were 12,232 adverse events in 5- to 11-year-olds, including 313 “serious” cases and 9 deaths.
In addition, the database lists 24 cases of heart inflammation, 47 cases of blood clotting disorders, and 101 reports of seizures in the same age group.
The case was first reported on by The Defender.
According to OpenVAERS, “VAERS is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System put in place in 1990. It is a voluntary reporting system that has been estimated to account for only 1% of vaccine injuries.”
The VAERS system is designed to send safety warnings on vaccines, but its reports are unverified and “cannot be interpreted as evidence of a causal association between a vaccine and an adverse event,” according to its disclaimer.
Why Are COVID Patients Treated With an HIV Pill?
July 25, 2022, Chinese officials granted conditional approval to Azvudine, an HIV drug, to be used as a COVID treatment
Use of the HIV drug has reignited interest in early evidence suggesting SARS-CoV-2 is a bioweapon augmented with parts of the HIV virus
In late January 2020, Indian researchers published a paper claiming segments of the viral RNA appeared more closely related to HIV than other coronaviruses. The researchers even said SARS-CoV-2 responded to HIV medications
The Indian paper was quickly retracted, but not before catching the attention of the late Luc Montagnier, a world-renowned virologist who won the Nobel prize for his discovery of HIV. Montagnier insisted the Indian researchers were correct in their assessment, and had been forced to retract the paper “after enormous pressure”
Several scenarios are now converging to create the suspicion that getting an HIV vaccine to market may be a goal behind COVID. The COVID jab is causing AIDS-like immunodepression, which helps create the perception that we have an urgent need for an HIV vaccine
PET NEWS
Heartbreaking Photo of Dog Found Tied to Fire Hydrant With Note Goes Viral, Leads to Adoption
Enduring financial hardship, lately, some pet owners have had to make hard choices to surrender their furry friends.
A photo of a nearly 6-year-old dog left leashed to a fire hydrant went viral on Facebook. She was left with a backpack full of treats and her favorite toys and a note from her former owners, who could not care for the poor pooch any longer.
That photo was posted online by the Wisconsin Humane Society after a local neighbor saw the abandoned dog at the corner of East Walnut Street and South Clay Street in Green Bay and waited with her for an hour to see if her owners would return.
But they didn’t.
The resident then brought her to the Humane Society, and the dog, who, according to the note, was named “Baby Girl,” was temporarily taken into their care.
The contents of the note, the Humane Society explained in the Facebook post, revealed why the owner had to give Baby Girl up. The caption read:
We are so sorry you had to part with your best friend. It’s evident just how much you loved her and we can see you did your best while struggling with your own medical complications and challenges of life. We see your love in the bag you carefully packed with all of her favorite things. We see your love in the way you secured her leash so she wouldn’t get hit by a car. We see your love in the way you placed her in the middle of a neighborhood where she’d be quickly found. We see your love in how happy and healthy Baby Girl looks. And we see your love in the note you left, pleading for someone to help her when you no longer could.
They added, “We wish you all the best and hope that if you see this, you can rest a little easier knowing your Baby Girl has a bright future ahead ”
News of the heartbreaking abandonment was reported by local media, and thanks to all the publicity, after the stray dog’s mandatory hold, new potential adoptive owners had arrived before the Humane Society opened.
As of May 12, they posted some good news in an update: “She has officially found a new home!” Meanwhile, an “outpouring of kindness for her previous owner” had filled their hearts “to the brim.” They had made contact with them and “passed along supportive resources that have been offered to her from this generous community,” they wrote.
The Humane Society noted that taking care of Baby Girl’s diabetes mellitus (dog diabetes) and medical costs could be expensive, but that she is a “wonderful goofball with a heart of gold.”
They also reminded the public that they will never turn away an animal in need, and pet owners can surrender their animals anonymously.
“We regularly work to make sure that surrender fees are not a barrier to those needing to rehome their pet, and although we request a surrender appointment be made in advance, we do take in emergency surrenders if necessary. It’s important to us that the community knows we are a supportive, welcoming resource for those in need,” the Humane Society stated.
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