WORLD NEWS
Record number of migrants cross Channel to reach UK
Almost 1,300 migrants crossed the English Channel in small boats on Monday, setting a new record for crossings in a single day.
The Ministry of Defence said 1,295 migrants made the crossing in 27 boats, topping the previous high of 1,185 last November.
It is the highest daily total since current records began in 2018.
So far this month 6,168 people have made the crossing in small boats, compared to 3,683 in July.
More than 22,560 people have journeyed across the English Channel so far this year, At the equivalent point in 2021, the cumulative total was just under 12,500.
China’s Endless COVID Hysteria Is A Dark Social Engineering Experiment
There are many people that will say that Americans “rolled over” in the face of covid restrictions and vaccine pressures despite extensive evidence that neither of these things had any effect on stopping or stalling the pandemic. But the notion of American pacifism is simply not true. If it were then the US would be looking a lot more like China right now.
Growing opposition to meaningless covid lockdowns and the vaccine passports was a mainstay in the US that made government enforcement impossible. Joe Biden’s attempt to introduce federal vax passport rules for businesses failed miserably, red states defied the lockdowns within a few months of the start of the pandemic and the states that kept restrictions in place had HIGHER rates of infection while their economies sank. When it became clear to the establishment that millions of Americans were not going to comply, they had to back off.
Even blue states and cities have been forced to acknowledge that the farce is over; Los Angeles County tried to reintroduce mask mandates recently and the measure collapsed in failure as many municipalities said they planned to ignore any new ordnance. Covid’s median Infection Fatality Rate of 0.23% was not enough of a threat to convince the public to abandon their constitutional rights.
Without the millions of courageous people that refused to comply our country might look very different today. The CCP has faced little public opposition over their draconian covid rules, and when they do, they don’t worry much because the population is completely disarmed. This has resulted in a veritable nightmare world for the citizenry. In fact, it almost seems like an experiment to find out how much psychological torture and oppression human beings are willing to endure.
Mandate cheerleaders boasted endlessly about how China effectively stopped the spread and was ready to reopen while the western world floundered because we refused to submit and accept medical tyranny “for the greater good.” Now these same people are silent as China goes though an array of outbreaks and lockdowns that cycle perpetually. In the meantime, most of the west has reopened and some places (like dozens of conservative states) have been open well over two years. Remember when leftists and foreign governments said we would be dying off in the streets and ruing our decision to follow the science rather than the hysteria? Yeah, the great cleansing of conservatives they were hoping for never happened.
Joe Biden Quietly Gives Mozambique $41 Million
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said on Sunday it received $41 million in funding from the U.S. government for emergency aid in Mozambique.
The WFP also said the United States is buying 150,000 metric tons of grain from Ukraine for shipment to African countries facing drought and starvation.
“Thanks to the recent contributions from the United States, the WFP will be able once more to offer a complete basket of foodstuffs, from October to December, which will avert a humanitarian crisis,” said Pierre Lucas, deputy director of the WFP in Mozambique.
Lucas said another $43.5 million would be needed by March to provide necessary emergency assistance to conflict-displaced persons in Mozambique.
“Without additional new funds, we shall run out of money in the first quarter of 2023, precisely at the start of the period of shortages, when the food reserves become exhausted,” he warned.
Mozambique has been ravaged by an exceptionally vicious Islamist insurgency linked to the Islamic State. The most intense fighting swirled around the gas-rich coastal province of Cabo Delgado, effectively controlled by the insurgents in spring 2021.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Gun Maker Smith & Wesson Lambasts Leftist Politicians, Media for Promoting ‘Culture of Lawlessness’
Smith & Wesson firearm president and CEO Mark Smith lashed out at leftist politicians for creating America’s “culture of lawlessness” while they blame gun makers for violent crime.
In an open letter on Twitter, Smith accused “politicians and their lobbying partners in the media” of efforts to disparage and undermine his company and other firearm makers.
“Some have had the audacity to suggest that after they have vilified, undermined, and defunded law enforcement for years; supported prosecutors who refuse to hold criminals accountable for their actions; overseen the decay of our country’s mental health infrastructure; and generally promoted a culture of lawlessness—Smith & Wesson and other firearm manufacturers are somehow responsible for the crime wave that has predictably resulted from these destructive policies,” Smith said.
“But they are the ones to blame for the surge in violence and lawlessness, and they seek to avoid responsibility for the crisis of violence they have created by attempting to shift the blame to Smith & Wesson, other firearm manufacturers, and law-abiding gun owners.”
Report: Documents Show Biden White House Involvement in Trump Criminal Probe
President Joe Biden’s White House was intimately involved in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) criminal probe into former President Donald Trump, according to government documents reviewed by Just The News.
Several correspondences between Trump’s attorneys and members of the Biden administration revealed that the federal government appeared poised to waive Trump’s claims of executive privilege over documents that Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago until earlier this year.
As Just The News reported:
The memos show then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump’s Florida home.
By May, Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor’s claims to executive privilege, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.
A May 10 letter from acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall to Trump’s legal team confirmed the White House’s involvement in the DOJ probe against Trump.
“On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes,” Wall wrote.
The letter continued:
The Counsel to the President has informed me that, in light of the particular circumstances presented here, President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, regarding whether or not I should uphold the former President’s purported “protective assertion of executive privilege.”…I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s “protective” claim of privilege.
These documents reviewed by Just The News are the strongest pieces of evidence showing the Biden White House’s involvement in the DOJ probe, although the White House previously claimed to have “no advanced knowledge” of the recent FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.
“Does ANYBODY really believe that the White House didn’t know about this?” Trump posted on Truth Social. “WITCH HUNT!”
Ray Epps Sr. was so concerned about major violence or terrorism in Washington on Jan. 6 that he showed his son and a friend how to use a tourniquet in case of a bomb explosion or other disaster, according to FBI records obtained by The Epoch Times.
During an interview with two FBI agents in Utah, Epps’s son—James Ray Epps Jr., 38—said the sobering talk from his father came as the trio was preparing to head to the Ellipse to hear President Donald Trump speak on Jan. 6, 2021.
“‘There’s gonna be a lot of people there. And there’s going to be people that want to hurt people,’” Epps Jr. quoted his father saying. “‘If there’s people that want to hurt people, there’s going to be people that get hurt.
“‘If there’s something that happens, you guys need to know that you need to help each other,’ and he grabs the gauze and he’s, you know, he’s a military man and he pulled out the tourniquets and says, ‘I want to show you guys how to use this if something happens, you got to help other people.’”
Epps Jr. recounted that conversation in a 40-minute FBI interview on April 13, 2021, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by The Epoch Times.
The recording is part of a collection of Epps-related material obtained by the newspaper, including FBI interview summaries, FBI audio recordings, transcripts, videos, and photographs.
Epps Sr., 61, has been at the center of a storm of controversy and speculation since June 2021, when Revolver News profiled him as a provocateur who encouraged people to go into the Capitol.
He was never arrested or charged.
His photo was originally No. 16 on the FBI Jan. 6 most-wanted page but was later scrubbed from the site without explanation.
Records obtained by The Epoch Times showed Epps Sr. believed there would be a bomb attack on a side street of Washington on Jan. 6, which prompted him to bring a first-aid kit when he traveled to the city from Arizona.
Over 6,000 Have Participated in Election Integrity Trainings so Far: Tea Party Patriots’ Co-founder
The Tea Party Patriots, led by co-founder Jenny Beth Martin, after the 2020 presidential election began election improvement efforts and coordinated with other organizations to implement training programs to ensure a higher level of election integrity throughout the United States.
The goal of their training, which has had over 6,000 participants, is to “have citizens exercising their legal rights under their state law to make sure that there is a check and balance on the election system,” Martin told Epoch TV’s “Facts Matter” during a recent interview.
Their efforts are focused on Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—the states that had the most problems counting ballots during the 2020 elections. Certain counties in these states had questionable election processes during the presidential election and revealed gaps in election integrity.
Billionaires Spend $3 Million Against Trump-Endorsed Kelly Tshibaka, Lisa Murkowski’s Opponent
Billionaires from the L.I.S.A. super PAC have donated nearly $3 million against Trump-endorsed Alaskan Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka, the opponent of establishment and pro-impeachment incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
L.I.S.A, which reportedly stands for “Leadership in a Strong Alaska,” only backs one candidate, Murkowski. The main PAC contributors are hedge fund managers Ken Griffin, John Arnold, and Louis Bacon, who, respectively, contributed $1.5 million, $500,000, and $50,000. “James and Kathryn Murdoch, the politically moderate heirs to the Murdoch media empire, have each given $250,000,” Forbes reported:
Billionaires from big Alaska industries have also pitched in. Michael S. Smith, who donated $200,000, and Jeffrey Hildebrand, who contributed $75,000, both made their fortunes in oil. Micky Arison, who along with his wife donated $25,000 total, runs Carnival Cruise Line.
In total, Murkowski’s campaign had $5.3 million in the bank at the end of July. The campaign funds do not include PAC money. Tshibaka’s campaign has $800,000.
Murkowski, who has been in office for 21 years, only finished a few points ahead of Tshibaka in last week’s Alaskan Republican primary. Both Murkowski and her opponent qualified in the primary to advance to the general election on November 8.
Sources: GSA Packed Boxes of Documents Trump Brought to Mar-a-Lago, Not Trump Political Staffers
Sources close to former President Donald Trump have confirmed to Breitbart News that the General Services Administration (GSA) packed the boxes of documents he took with him to Mar-a-Lago, not political staffers.
Shortly after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago this month, reportedly to reclaim documents Donald Trump had taken from the White House in January 2021, journalist David Martosko announced that a source close to the former president confirmed the documents were boxed by government staffers in the GSA, not Trump’s own staffers.
“A person very close to Donald Trump tells me it’s indeed true what’s being bandied about Twitter — that the @USGSA, not Trump or anyone working for him in the White House, packed the boxes that the FBI took in Monday’s raid. If that’s true, it scrambles the omelet a bit,” Martosko announced.
NYC Homeless Shelters Packed with 4.9K Border Crossers: ‘Situation is Dire’
New York City’s packed homeless shelter system is now housing about 4,900 border crossers, most of whom have arrived on migrant buses sent to the sanctuary city from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott (R).
For months, Abbott has sent buses filled with border crossers to New York City, which prides itself as the nation’s largest sanctuary jurisdiction for illegal aliens.
Newly released data, published by the New York Times, reveals the extent to which President Joe Biden’s expansive Catch and Release operation at the United States-Mexico border is attracting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.
New York City’s homeless shelters, for instance, are now housing about 4,900 border crossers — most of whom have arrived on Abbott’s migrant buses. Officials told the Times that the daily arrival of thousands of border crossers is the main driver of the city’s ballooning sheltered homeless population, which stands at about 51,000.
“The situation is dire,” according to the Times.
EXCLUSIVE: New Report Raises Serious Concerns Over Integrity of Florida Elections
Findings revealed in a recent report raise serious concerns regarding Florida’s level of election integrity.
According to the “Pre-Election Observation Report” released by Floridians for Election Transparency (FFET) and obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times, there are numerous flaws, inconsistencies, and violations of Florida election laws that raise serious concerns about the election system.
FFET contacted the supervisors of elections in 28 of the state’s 67 counties for the study, and 18 agreed to participate. Ten others declined to comment.
FFET is a committee under Florida for America First, which is backed by Gen. Michael Flynn’s organization, The America Project, founded by Flynn, his brother Joe Flynn, and Patrick Byrne, founder and former CEO of Overstock.com.
Michael Thompson presented the report at a press conference in Naples, Florida, on Aug. 15.
With 30 “winner take all” electoral votes, Florida is now third in the electoral vote ranking, behind California (55 votes) and Texas (38 votes), and a recent surge in Republican voter registrations have made this swing state even more consequential in the upcoming 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential cycle.
Despite Florida’s successful adoption of election integrity legislation and Gov. Ron DeSantis’s establishment of the nation’s first Office of Election Crimes and Security, FFET pointed out in its report that “public faith in the integrity and fairness of elections has decreased significantly in recent years.”
Jared Kushner Addresses FBI Raid on Trump Home for First Time
Former White House adviser Jared Kushner gave his first interview following the FBI raid targeting the home of his father-in-law, former President Donald Trump, on Sunday night.
“President Trump is a fighter, he’s always been a fighter,” Kushner, the husband of the former president’s daughter Ivanka, told Fox News on Sunday evening. Trump “drives his enemies so crazy, they always over-pursue him and make mistakes in trying to get him, and that’s basically what happened here,” he added.
“But what’s happening now is the same thing being done by the same people in the same way,” Kushner said, “they’re leaking to the same sources, they’re manufacturing fabulous claims that then get debunked shortly thereafter.”
Kushner said: “It is giving a lot of people who want to believe in the fairness of the judicial system and our democracy a lot of pause and concern.”
While Trump’s critics accuse him of breaking rules and norms, Kusher said that “what we’re seeing here and what we’ve seen constantly over time is that they do that exact thing. They break all the norms in order to try to get Trump.”
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
The White House is considering a plan to forgive $10,000 in student debt for borrowers who make less than $125,000, according to reporting by CNN.
The Biden administration has promised to make a decision on student loan forgiveness by the end of August, when monthly loan payments are scheduled to resume after being paused for over two years as part of a pandemic-era relief policy.
It still remains uncertain how the administration will proceed, if at all, with loan cancellation.
An extension of the payment pause is also on the table, and federal student loan servicers have been instructed to hold off on sending out payment reminders to borrowers. Resuming the payments without preparing borrowers more could cause delinquency rates to spike, experts have warned.
The country’s outstanding student loan debt balance exceeds $1.7 trillion, with 40 million Americans in debt for their education. Before the pandemic, when the economy was in one of its healthiest periods, some 10 million borrowers were still behind on their payments.
More Bad News for Netflix: Outlook Bearish, May Underperform S&P 500 for Rest of Year, Says Analyst
There’s more bad news on the horizon for Netflix.
Shares of Netflix fell more than 6 percent in trading Monday after an analyst downgraded shares of the left-wing, streaming entertainment company, saying the stock could underperform the S&P 500 for the remainder of the year.
CFRA analyst Kenneth Leon advised his clients to sell their Netflix shares, noting the stock has climbed about 40 percent since its July lows, and is thus unlikely to rise much higher. He also noted that Netflix’s new ad-supported tier won’t roll out until next year.
Netflix is hoping commercials will provide the course correction the company needs when the new service rolls out in early 2023. But as Breitbart News reported, the Biden recession is causing a significant slowdown in ad spending that is already hurting other streamers, including Roku and YouTube.
Poll: ‘Suffering’ at Record High in Joe Biden’s America
Americans are “suffering” at a record-high rate under President Joe Biden — more than double the record-low rate experienced under former President Trump in mid-2020, a Gallup poll revealed Monday.
The percentage of Americans “who evaluate their lives poorly enough to be considered ‘suffering’” hit 5.6 percent in July, which is the highest since Gallup began polling on the issue in 2008. That rate is “higher than all prior estimates in the COVID-era” and is significantly higher than the record low of 2.4 percent achieved under Trump.
Gallup News concluded that economic conditions and 40-year high inflation is a “major contributing factor to these worsening scores,” as Democrats continue spending billions in taxpayer funds to grow the IRS and fight “climate change.”
Florida’s Unemployment Rate Drops to Historic Low of 2.7 Percent
Florida’s July unemployment rate dropped to a historic 2.7 percent while the “state’s job creation skyrocketed,” Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office announced on Aug. 19.
The office reported that “this level has only been reached three times” since 1976 when the state began recording unemployment data.
“Florida’s statewide unemployment rate has been lower than the national rate for 20 consecutive months and has declined or held steady for 24 consecutive months; indicating that Florida’s economy is secure and resilient,” it said in a statement.
While the national labor force shrank for the second consecutive month, DeSantis said Floridians are “continuing to enter the workplace and businesses are continuing to create jobs.”
He said that private-sector employment increased by 70,000 during July.
“July’s job numbers represent one of the largest month’s job gains over the past generation, and Florida continues to outpace the nation in labor force growth.”
The chief economist for the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity Adrienne Johnson said in a statement that the state’s private-sector job growth was “historic.”
Johnston attributed the jump to Florida reopening earlier than other states after the pandemic.
“We see strong consumer demand continuing, even today,” Johnston said in an Aug. 19 conference call with reporters. “As that continues to grow, we are going to see strength in our employment.”
While the state has rebounded, Johnson said it has had a shift in the types of jobs.
“While we’ve gone back to levels that are commensurate with where we were back in 2019 and … early 2020, we’re seeing a little bit of a shift in which industries are growing the most,” Johnston said.
“And most of that is in industries that tend to have higher wages. So, for example, we’re seeing strong growth in financial activities, and professional and business services.”
She added Florida has outpaced the nation in terms of manufacturing.
In February 2020 the jobless rate was 2.7 percent, which represented 282,000 people from a workforce of 10.66 million. By May 2020 1.4 million Floridians filed for unemployment and pushed the jobless rate to 13.9 percent.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, current job openings in Florida stand at 588,000, up 12,000 from a year ago.
“This is less than the rate of increase in total employment, which means that the share of jobs that are vacant has now declined over the year,” Johnston continued. “This is an indication that staffing shortages may be starting to ease.”
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Twitter’s former head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko has accused his former employer of cybersecurity negligence in an explosive whistleblower complaint first obtained by CNN and The Washington Post.
Zatko, a well-known hacker, was recruited by Twitter to head up the company’s security division in late-2020, months after a very public breach saw hackers hijack the Twitter accounts of some of the world’s most famous people, including Joe Biden and Elon Musk. He was let go from the company less than two years later.
Though his time at Twitter was brief, Zatko says he witnessed “egregious deficiencies, negligence, willful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy,” according to his whistleblower complaint dated July 6, which was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department. He told the Washington Post that his public whistleblowing comes after his attempts to flag the security lapses with Twitter’s board were ignored.
Zatko alleges in the complaint, reviewed by TechCrunch, that Twitter lacked basic security controls. He said thousands of employee laptops contained complete copies of Twitter’s source code and that about one-third of those devices blocked automatic security fixes, had system firewalls turned off, and had remote desktop access enabled for non-approved purposes. Zatko also accused the company of failing to actively monitor what employees were doing on their computers. As a result, “employees were repeatedly found to be intentionally installing spyware on their work computers at the request of external organizations,” the complaint said.
Zatko also alleges that about 5,000 full-time employees had broad access to the company’s internal software and that access was not closely monitored, giving them the ability to tap into sensitive data and alter how the service worked.
During his time at the company, Zatko said he came across a number of vulnerabilities “waiting to be discovered.” He says he discovered that half of the company’s 500,000 datacenter servers run on outdated software that do not support basic security features, such as encryption for stored data, or no longer received regular security updates from their vendors, This meant that Twitter suffered from an “anomalously high rate” of security incidents, Zatko said, and “reasonably feared Twitter could suffer an Equifax-level hack,” referring to the 2017 credit agency breach that resulted in the theft of close to 150 million Americans’ personal information.
The complaint alleges that the company had approximately one security incident each week serious enough that Twitter was required to report it to government agencies.
“In 2020 alone, Twitter had more than 40 security incidents, 70% of which were access control-related,” the complaint reads. “These included 20 incidents defined as breaches; all but two of which were access control related.”
Technocracy’s War On The Essential Elements Of Life
The three most important elements that support life are oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. All are plentiful and all work together along with energy from the sun. All of these are under massive attack around the world.
Carbon dioxide is declared to be a pollutant and schemes are devised to bury it in the ground. The war is on carbon, but note that CO2 contains twice as many oxygen molecules as carbon. Without CO2, plants cannot grow, nor can they replenish oxygen necessary to breathe.
Nitrogen is the most plenteous gas in the atmosphere, but it too is declared to be a pollutant. Without nitrogen, agriculture comes to a screeching halt, potentially creating famines of epic magnitude. Yet, global warming death-cultists are trying to take away nitrogen fertilizers from farms and ranches all over the world.
The global warming death cult blames humans for all these problems that must be “corrected”. If their policies were carried to the extreme, earth would end up as a frozen ice ball whizzing around a dead sun.
This death cult is the prime driver of global depopulation ideology, not only for humans, but CO2-breathing animals as well. More CO2 is exhaled from humans than all other sources combined on earth. Reducing human population would also reduce animal populations as well as vegetation. The perfect solution, right?
The war on humanity and civilization is real, tangible and incredibly destructive. The war is being prosecuted by the evil twins of Technocracy and Transhumanism and it must be stopped before they can execute their final solution.
Trump’s Truth Social App Enjoys 550% Increase in Downloads Following FBI Raid of Mar-a-Lago
Former President Donald Trump and his Trump Media & Technology Group reportedly enjoyed a 550 percent increase in downloads of the Truth Social app in the week following the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.
The Daily Mail reports that former President Donald Trump’s social media app Truth Social saw a huge 550 percent increase in downloads in the week following the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this month. Data AI reported that the Truth Social platform has been downloaded approximately 3 million times since its launch.
The app topped the Apple App Store charts in April after a number of technical difficulties with the platform had been resolved. However, despite the major increase in downloads, the app is still dwarfed by social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
On Truth Social, President Trump boasts 3.9 million followers, far less than the 80 million followers he used to have on Twitter. Truth Social saw approximately 2 million downloads in the first two weeks after its launch on February 21, 2022, but due to technical issues including a long wait time to access the site, the app’s download rate quickly fell off. Downloads increased in late April when users on waiting lists to access the app were approved to join the platform.
Unprecedented Images of Jupiter Released by James Webb Telescope
The world’s newest and biggest space telescope is showing Jupiter as never before, auroras and all.
Scientists released the shots Monday of the solar system’s biggest planet.
The James Webb Space Telescope took the photos in July, capturing unprecedented views of Jupiter’s northern and southern lights, and swirling polar haze. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a storm big enough to swallow Earth, stands out brightly alongside countless smaller storms.
One wide-field picture is particularly dramatic, showing the faint rings around the planet, as well as two tiny moons against a glittering background of galaxies.
“We’ve never seen Jupiter like this. It’s all quite incredible,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, of the University of California, Berkeley, who helped lead the observations.
“We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest,” she added in a statement.
The infrared images were artificially colored in blue, white, green, yellow, and orange, according to the U.S.–French research team, to make the features stand out.
NASA and the European Space Agency’s $10 billion successor to the Hubble Space Telescope rocketed away at the end of last year and has been observing the cosmos in the infrared since summer. Scientists hope to behold the dawn of the universe with Webb, peering all the way back to when the first stars and galaxies were forming 13.7 billion years ago.
The observatory is positioned 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth.
SURVEILLANCE STATE
American Professor Designed Dystopian Surveillance System for China
A star University of Maryland (UMD) professor built a machine-learning software “useful for surveillance” as part of a six-figure research grant from Chinese tech giant Alibaba, raising concerns that an American public university directly contributed to China’s surveillance state.
Alibaba provided $125,000 in funding to a research team led by Dinesh Manocha, a professor of computer science at UMD College Park, to develop an urban surveillance software that can “classify the personality of each pedestrian and identify other biometric features,” according to research grant documents obtained via public records request.
“These capabilities will be used to predict the behavior of each pedestrian and are useful for surveillance,” the document read.
Alibaba’s surveillance products gained notoriety in 2020, when researchers found that one of its products, Cloud Shield, could recognize and classify the faces of Uyghur people. Human rights group believe these high-tech surveillance tools play a major role in the ongoing Uyghur genocide in Xinjiang.
“The bottom line is that Alibaba financed U.S. academic research that was tailor-made for China’s surveillance state,” Ryan Fedasiuk, an associate fellow at the Center for New American Security, said in an email to The Daily Beast.
Manocha is a decorated scholar in the AI and robotics field who has earned awards and accolades from Google, IBM, and many others. His star status brings rewards: Maryland taxpayers paid $355,000 in salaries to the professor in 2021, according to government watchdog Open the Books. The U.S. military also provides lavish funding for the professor’s research, signing a $68 million agreement with Manocha’s lab to research military applications of AI technologies.
But Maryland taxpayers and the U.S. military are not the only ones funding Manocha’s research. In January 2018, the University of Maryland and Alibaba signed an 18-month research contract funding Manocha’s research team.
In the grant document obtained by The Daily Beast, Manocha’s team pledged to “work closely with Alibaba researchers” to develop an urban surveillance software that can identify pedestrians based on their unique gait signatures. The algorithm would then use the gait signatures to classify pedestrians as “aggressive,” “shy,” “impulsive,” and other personalities.
The grant required UMD researchers to test the algorithm on videos provided by Alibaba and present their findings in person at Alibaba labs in China. The scholars also had to provide the C++ codebase for the software and the raw dataset as deliverables to Alibaba.
The software’s “clear implication is to proactively predict demonstrations and protests so that they might be quelled,” Fedasiuk told The Daily Beast. “Given what we know now about China’s architecture of repression in Xinjiang and other regions, it is clear Dr. Manocha should not have pitched this project, and administrators at UMD should not have signed off on it.”
HEALTH
The Latest Updates on the Fight Against Dental Amalgam
Consumers for Dental Choice is a small non-governmental organization campaigning for mercury-free dentistry in the U.S. and worldwide. Our goal is to, first, end amalgam for vulnerable people and, second, to end the use of amalgam in the entire world
Dental amalgam is approximately 50% mercury, which is such a dangerous neurotoxin, brain poison and nephrotoxin that it is the only subject of an entire international environmental treaty
The Children’s Amendment to the amalgam reduction requirement of the Minamata Convention on Mercury in 2022 sets a new floor for the world. If we can end amalgam for children, we can end it for all of us
If you have choices, you need to go to a dentist who’s mercury-free. If you can’t persuade that dentist to stop giving amalgam to everyone, don’t give them your hard-earned dollars
Dr. Mercola will match every dollar you donate to Consumers for Dental Choice until Saturday night August 27, 2022 (up to $150,000). Here is your chance to help send dental amalgam to the hazardous waste bins of history!
How to Use the Top 10 Medicinal Plants and Herbs
Before the advent of drugs, plant remedies were the go-to medicines, and they can serve you just as well today as in the past; I review the use and benefits of 10 important herbs and medicinal plants, many of which you can grow yourself
Aloe vera can soothe skin conditions such as burns, rashes, cuts and scrapes, and more serious skin conditions such as psoriasis; lemongrass has been used traditionally to treat stomach aches, high blood pressure, common cold, convulsions, pain and vomiting
Dandelion leaf tea has diuretic, mild laxative and digestive aid properties, while tea made from dandelion roots has detoxifying properties, and can help relieve liver, gallbladder and prostate problems
Chamomile tea offers valuable support for DNA repair, and is known to promote relaxation, relieve stress, ease inflammation and more; sage also has calming effects and can ease digestive problems, strengthen immunity and fight inflammation
Echinacea has a long history of use for various infections, and has immune boosting effects; ashwagandha is a powerful adaptogen that helps your body manage and adapt to stress by balancing your immune system, metabolism and hormonal systems
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Oil Expert Warns Energy Prices Will Surge this Winter
Appearing Monday on the Fox Business Network, Lipow Oil Associates President Andy Lipow warned that natural gas prices will jump this winter.
A transcript is as follows:
CHERYL CASONE: We are seeing gas prices going down and the Biden administration is taking credit. Let’s remind everybody it’s mid-August and this is when gas prices always start to go down.
ANDY LIPOW: I think that the only really substantive action that the Biden administration took was the release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, and I think that contributed about 15 to 20 cents a gallon of the gasoline price decline. Now I expect, as we go into the winter, especially the latter half of September, we could see additional relief at the pump of another 15 cents a gallon as refiners begin making that winter blend and that cheaper gasoline cost is passed through to the consumer. When we look at utilities going forward this winter, especially with the soaring price of natural gas, which has doubled since this time last year, the consumer is going to be paying far more for natural gas this upcoming winter heating season. That’s also going to filter into higher electricity costs as 39 percent of our electricity is generated from natural gas.
Climate Crusader Steven Spielberg’s Private Jet Burns $116K in Fuel in Just Two Months
Veteran director Steven Spielberg’s private jet has reportedly burned upwards of $116,000 in jet fuel since June. This is despite the confirmed member of the Hollywood elites delivering past warnings to the peasantry of a looming climate catastrophe.
COVID RELATED NEWS
‘Imagine the compliance’: Pfizer CEO praises ‘ingestible pills’ with microchip
The fights still are going on today: Court wars over some governmental, corporate or educational demand that someone else taken the COVID-19 shots.
The toll from the side effects created by the experimental shots may never be fully known, even as those experts who demanded America’s population be subject to their doubtful medical agenda be punished for failing to comply.
But now there’s a new level of control being discussed: ingestible medications with microchips embedded that would send a signal to authorities – but only after you have taken your medicine.
“Imagine the compliance,” noted Albert Bourla, the CEO of
Pfizer, which had revenue in the billions from the COVID shots.
The new revelation was cited in a report in Summit News, where writer Paul Joseph Watson cited a discussion on the World Economic Forum site.
Monday, during an appearance on FNC’s “Hannity,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) predicted outgoing National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci would be spending a lot of time in front of congressional committees in the near future.
Kennedy told host Sean Hannity that unless Fauci was going to a foreign country, he should expect to be subpoenaed by a Republican-led chamber of Congress.
Republican Lawmakers to Fauci: ‘We Are Coming for You Whether You Retire or Not’
Following White House Chief Medical Adviser and Director of the NIAID Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent announcement that he will step down from his government positions in December, Republican lawmakers insisted the nation’s top epidemiologist would still be subject to investigations into his questionable role in the COVID pandemic and the country’s response in combating it.
GOP officials took to Twitter Monday to hold the 81-year-old Fauci — who is currently the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden —accountable for his failed leadership.
Pro-Vax Bully Implicated in Virus Engineering Program
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, has repeatedly dismissed the idea of a lab accident or deliberate spread, calling it “an outlandish conspiracy theory”
He’s also a fierce critic of the ongoing Congressional probe into gain-of-function research, decrying it as a “threat to American biomedical science”
As it turns out, Hotez has funded risky gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the now-infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology
Hotez’s conflicts of interest are particularly pertinent as he’s on The Lancet COVID-19 Commission, where he co-chairs the COVID-19 Vaccines and Therapeutics task force
Hotez has a long history of public vitriol, insulting and threatening parents of vaccine-injured children and anyone who doesn’t buy the official one-size-fits-all vaccine narrative. Anyone who disagrees with him is “antiscience” and, in his mind at least, guilty of a “hate crime” and should be punished with cyberwarfare
CANCEL CULTURE
Facebook and Instagram Ban Children’s Health Defense Amid Legal Challenges Over Censorship
The non-profit Children’s Health Defense (CHD) has been booted off Facebook and Instagram for 30 days for allegedly violating the company’s community standards on “misinformation” about COVID-19.
“Facebook is acting here as a surrogate for the Federal government’s crusade to silence all criticism of draconian government policies. Our constitutional framers recognized this peril of government censorship,” wrote CDH founder, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a public statement.
“We don’t need the First Amendment to protect popular or government-approved speech. They incorporated the First Amendment specifically to protect free expression of dissenting opinions.
“They understood that a government that can silence its critics has license for every atrocity.”
Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
On Aug. 17, Meta notified the CHD that it had suspended its webpage for 30 days. The page had hundreds of thousands of followers.
“This is because Children’s Health Defense goes against our Community Standards on misinformation that could cause physical harm,” the notice read.
“We encourage free expression but don’t allow false information about COVID-19 that could contribute to physical harm.”
“Your page has been unpublished.”
In August 2020, the CHD filed a lawsuit against Meta, accusing the Big Tech company of censorship.
In the 150-page lawsuit, the CHD said a judicial remedy is “urgently required” to redress the damage to the organization, including the “abridgement of its fundamental rights caused by Facebook and its Chairman Mark Zuckerberg’s aggressive and illegal efforts, embarked upon in response to state pressure and in conjunction with state actors, to censor and suppress CHD’s posting of material critical of those very state actors and voicing alternative views concerning the safety and efficacy of vaccines.”
The CHD appealed against a judge’s ruling in favor of Meta and produced U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documents the agency shared with Facebook.
“These documents, provided to Facebook on a regular basis, contained what the CDC considered misinformation,” according to the CHD.
Titled “COVID Vaccine Misinformation: Hot Topics,” the documents asked tech giants to “be on the lookout for various topics the CDC considers to be misinformation, including COVID-19 vaccine shedding, VAERS reports, spike protein data, and more.”
The CHD argues that its de-platforming by Meta came days after the CDC issued new and less restrictive COVID-19 guidelines while admitting it had made mistakes responding to the pandemic.
“Within hours of the CHD de-platforming, CDC director Dr Rochelle Walensky shared her plans for overhauling how the agency works while admitting to a flawed response to COVID-19 and pandemic missteps,” the CHD said in a statement.
“Censorship is not only unconstitutional, [but] it’s un-American,” said Roger Teich, CHD lawyer for the Meta lawsuit.
Fauci: January 6 Deniers’ ‘Distortion of Reality’ Impeding Proper Public Health Response
Outgoing National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that people on the right who were distorting reality to believe that the January 6 Capitol riot didn’t happen were also creating an environment where proper public health responses to pandemics are being impeded.
Maddow said, “There have been a lot of theories and conspiracy theories and accusations and more or less wild claims about the origins of COVID in particular. It seems like that’s when people on the political right really started getting their claws into you and targeting you personally during this pandemic.”
She asked, “Does it feel a little different? There is a weird, obsessive, violent, ongoing demonization of you by the right that is hinged on COVID. I just have to ask from your perspective if that kind of attention, this criticism feels qualitatively different to you than previous criticism?”
Fauci said, “It’s phenomenally, 100% different. It’s apples and elephants difference.”
He continued, “What we’re dealing with now is just a distortion of reality. I mean conspiracy theories which don’t make any sense at all, pushing back on sound public health measures, you know, making it look like trying to save lives is encroaching on people’s freedom. That’s a big difference from the AIDS activists, who really had a good foundation for their objections.”
PET NEWS
Dogs can cry when owners come home, study suggests
Dogs can cry tears of joy when they are reunited with their owners, a small study has found.
Canines may be genuinely thrilled when they see their human companions after a long period of absence, Japanese researchers have said.
The tears are believed to deepen the bond between dogs and their owners.
The study, based on the behaviour of 22 dogs, looked at the reactions of dogs who were reunited with their owners and with other people they knew.
To test their theory, academics at Azabu University and Jichi Medical University placed strips of paper under the eyes of the dogs during normal interaction with their owners and a minute before they were reunited with them after five-to-seven hours of separation.
They discovered when the dogs saw their owners, it was the only time they shed tears. There was not the same level of increased tear production when the dogs were reunited with the people they were familiar with, but were not their owners.
ICYMI
Report: Ford to Cut About 3K Jobs amid Transition to Electric Vehicles
Ford Motor Company will lay off approximately 3,000 workers to cut costs while transitioning to electric vehicles, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
The company’s internal email to employees said it would begin notifying the affected salaried and agency workers in the next few days, according to the newspaper which reviewed the email.
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