World News
How a suspected Chinese spy gained access to California politics
Axios – A suspected Chinese intelligence operative developed extensive ties with local and national politicians, including a U.S. congressman, in what U.S. officials believe was a political intelligence operation run by China’s main civilian spy agency between 2011 and 2015, Axios found in a yearlong investigation.
Why it matters: The alleged operation offers a rare window into how Beijing has tried to gain access to and influence U.S. political circles.
While this suspected operative’s activities appear to have ended during the Obama administration, concerns about Beijing’s influence operations have spanned President Trump’s time in office and will continue to be a core focus for U.S. counterintelligence during the Biden administration.
The woman at the center of the operation, a Chinese national named Fang Fang or Christine Fang, targeted up-and-coming local politicians in the Bay Area and across the country who had the potential to make it big on the national stage.
Through campaign fundraising, extensive networking, personal charisma, and romantic or sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors, Fang was able to gain proximity to political power, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials and one former elected official.
Even though U.S. officials do not believe Fang received or passed on classified information, the case “was a big deal, because there were some really, really sensitive people that were caught up” in the intelligence network, a current senior U.S. intelligence official said.
Private but unclassified information about government officials — such as their habits, preferences, schedules, social networks, and even rumors about them — is a form of political intelligence. Collecting such information is a key part of what foreign intelligence agencies do.
First person receives Covid-19 vaccine in UK
BBC – A UK grandmother has become the first person in the world to be given the Pfizer Covid-19 jab as part of a mass vaccination programme.
Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week, said it was the “best early birthday present”.
She was given the injection at 06:31 GMT – the first of 800,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that will be dispensed in the coming weeks.
Up to four million more are expected by the end of the month.
Hubs in the UK will vaccinate over-80s and some health and care staff – the programme aims to protect the most vulnerable and return life to normal.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has dubbed Tuesday V-day, said this simple act of vaccination was “a tribute to scientific endeavour and human ingenuity and to the hard work of so many people.
“Today marks the start of the fightback against our common enemy, the coronavirus,” he said.
Brexit: Boris Johnson warns securing deal is ‘looking very, very difficult’
Guardian – Boris Johnson has warned that securing a deal at an imminent Brexit summit in Brussels will be “very difficult” but backed “the power of sweet reason to get this thing over the line”.
The prime minister, who agreed during a phone call on Monday to meet the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, in the Belgian capital, said he wanted an agreement.
“You’ve got to be optimistic, you’ve got to believe there’s the power of sweet reason to get this thing over the line,” Johnson said. “But I’ve got to tell you it’s looking very, very difficult at the moment.
“We’ll do our level best, but I would just say to everybody – be in good cheer, there are great options ahead for our country on any view. But the key thing is, on 1 January, whatever happens there’s going to be change and people need to get ready for that change.”
German Lawyers Initiate Class-Action Coronavirus Litigation
Mercola – The German Corona Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, founded July 10, 2020, is leading an international effort to hold accountable those responsible for using fraudulent testing to engineer the appearance of a dangerous pandemic to implement economically devastating lockdowns.
Pandemic measures have caused tremendous harm, killing more people than the virus itself by restricting routine medical care to people with acute and chronic health conditions that have nothing to do with COVID-19.
While the governments of many nations have the same separation of power as the U.S., where you have separate legislative, judiciary and executive branches, we are now finding that this separation has been breached and nearly destroyed in most places.
We now have plenty of data showing the lethality of SARS-CoV-2 is on par with the common flu and that the absolute risk of death is equivalent to the risk of dying in a car accident.
The flaws of PCR testing have been capitalized upon to incite fear in order to benefit an agenda developed by private corporations, which include not only Big Tech companies, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, but also the World Health Organization, the United Nations and the World Economic Forum.
U.S. News, Politics & Government
Biden Health Sec. Pick Supports At Birth Abortion, Has Radical Anti-Pro Life Agenda
Infowars – Senator Rand Paul sounded a warning Monday about Joe Biden’s pick for The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services supporting late term and even at birth or after birth abortions.
Speaking about California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who has been tapped up for the role by Biden, Paul said “I’m concerned about the reports that say that he’s been a champion for late-term abortion and at the time of birth abortion, and that’s outside the norm.”
“Even pro-choice people a lot of times will say they believe in some restrictions, but to believe in sort of complete, unlimited abortion until the time of birth or after, I think is something that’s a very radical position,” the Senator added.
“I would hate to have him in charge of trying to dispense government monies towards that kind of policy,” Paul urged.
“So, we’ll look long and hard and I’ll try to keep an open mind, but my first impression of what I’m hearing about him is that he may be way outside the mainstream of what anybody in Kentucky would think is right,” Paul emphasised, referring to his state.
Minnesota resident’s Christmas light display shamed for ‘harmful impact’ to community in anonymous letter
The letter asks the resident to ‘respect the dignity of all people.’
Fox – “The idea of twinkling, colorful lights are a reminder of divisions that continue to run through our society, a reminder of systemic biases against our neighbors who don’t celebrate Christmas or who can’t afford to put up lights of their own,” the letter, shared by Crime Watch Minneapolis, reads. “We must do work of educating ourselves about the harmful impact an outward facing display like yours can have.”
The letter then challenges the resident to “respect the dignity of all people, while striving to learn from differences, ideas, and opinions of our neighbors.”
“We must come together collectively and challenge these institutional inequities,” the letter concludes. “St. Anthony is a community welcoming of all people and we must demand better for ourselves.”
The letter has received pushback on social media, with former Baltimore Ravens quarterback Derek Anderson replying “Saw this coming a long time ago. “If I can’t have it nobody can” or “ if they have it we all deserve it” that’s not life.”
Another user pointed out the irony that the letter writer is “doing exactly what they accuse the homeowner of doing- not being accepting of others.”
“I would redouble my lights,” they added, echoing similar calls from other Twitter users.
he letter comes with just over two weeks to go before the Christmas holiday.
Texas Sues Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin at Supreme Court over Election Rules
Breitbart – The State of Texas filed a lawsuit directly with the U.S. Supreme Court shortly before midnight on Monday challenging the election procedures in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on the grounds that they violate the Constitution.
Texas argues that these states violated the Electors Clause of the Constitution because they made changes to voting rules and procedures through the courts or through executive actions, but not through the state legislatures. Additionally, Texas argues that there were differences in voting rules and procedures in different counties within the states, violating the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Finally, Texas argues that there were “voting irregularities” in these states as a result of the above.
Texas is asking the Supreme Court to order the states to allow their legislatures to appoint their electors. The lawsuit says:
Certain officials in the Defendant States presented the pandemic as the justification for ignoring state laws regarding absentee and mail-in voting. The Defendant States flooded their citizenry with tens of millions of ballot applications and ballots in derogation of statutory controls as to how they are lawfully received, evaluated, and counted. Whether well intentioned or not, these unconstitutional acts had the same uniform effect—they made the 2020 election less secure in the Defendant States. Those changes are inconsistent with relevant state laws and were made by non-legislative entities, without any consent by the state legislatures. The acts of these officials thus directly violated the Constitution.
…
This case presents a question of law: Did the Defendant States violate the Electors Clause by taking non-legislative actions to change the election rules that would govern the appointment of presidential electors? These non-legislative changes to the Defendant States’ election laws facilitated the casting and counting of ballots in violation of state law, which, in turn, violated the Electors Clause of Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution. By these unlawful acts, the Defendant States have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but their actions have also debased the votes of citizens in Plaintiff State and other States that remained loyal to the Constitution.
Texas approached the Supreme Court directly because Article III provides that it is the court of first impression on subjects where it has original jurisdiction, such as disputes between two or more states.
Documents follow:
TX v State Motion 2020-12-07 FINAL by Breitbart News on Scribd
FNC’s Carlson: Russia Hoax Was a Diversion — America’s Elite Working on Behalf of China
Breitbart – On Monday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson explained how throughout the 1990s and well into the 2000s, America’s political elite were working on behalf of China.
He citing Di Dongsheng, a Beijing university professor, who outlined how President Donald Trump was an impediment to Chinese interests in the United States.
The USA Is Run By Gaslighting Lunatics
Infowars – Their methods include a form of gaslighting fueled by their own unrelenting arrogance.It doesn’t matter if the fact that the sun will come up tomorrow is the most important topic of the day, the left and its intensely unpopular media monstrosity will sow the seeds of doubt until even that truth is disintegrated.
Former CIA Director John Brennan, who would have been thrown under the jail 50 years ago. Calmly presents his unbelievable claim that there was no spying on the Trump campaign. Meanwhile mountains of evidence sit ignored by the mainstream media.
NY sends mask squad to enforce COVID-19 rules in lax counties
NY Post – The state Health Department has put out an urgent appeal for staffers to go to Rockland and Orange counties to perform COVID-19 community outreach and enforce mask and social distancing safety protocols amid fears of a second wave of the virus.
“The DOH is responsible for community outreach and enforcement of Executive Orders and regulations related to the use of face-coverings/masks and social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” the department said in a Monday email to employees in its office of health insurance programs.
“Staff is needed for immediate URGENT deployment to Orange and Rockland counties to assist with this critical public health and community enforcement effort,” the recruitment pitch to staffers in the agency’s office of health insurance programs obtained by the Post said.
The request asked staffers to volunteer for shifts in Orange and Rockland that run from Saturday, Dec. 5 through Friday, Dec. 11 and consequent weeks through New Year’s Day.
Trump asks Pennsylvania House speaker for help overturning election results
Stamford Advocate – President Donald Trump called the speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives twice during the past week to make an extraordinary request for help reversing his loss in the state, reflecting a broadening pressure campaign by the president and his allies to try to subvert the 2020 election result.
The calls, confirmed by House Speaker Bryan Cutler’s office, make Pennsylvania the third state where Trump has directly attempted to overturn a result since he lost the election to President-elect Joe Biden. He previously reached out to Republicans in Michigan, and on Saturday he pressured Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in a call to try to replace that state’s electors.
The president’s outreach to Pennsylvania’s Republican House leader came after his campaign and its allies decisively lost numerous legal challenges in the state in state and federal court. Trump has continued to press his baseless claims of widespread voting irregularities publicly and privately.
“The president said, ‘I’m hearing about all these issues in Philadelphia, and these issues with your law,’ ” said Cutler spokesman Michael Straub, describing the House speaker’s two conversations with Trump. ” ‘What can we do to fix it?’ “
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the calls to Cutler, and a Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Cutler told the president that the legislature had no power to overturn the state’s chosen slate of electors, Straub said.
But late last week, the House speaker was among about 60 Republican state lawmakers who sent a letter to Pennsylvania’s congressional representatives urging them to object to the state’s electoral slate on Jan. 6, when Congress formally accepts the results.
Although such a move is highly unlikely to gain traction, at least one Pennsylvania Republican, Rep. Scott Perry, said in an interview Monday that he will heed the request and dispute the state’s electors.
The embrace of Trump’s false claims by many Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers shows how the president’s baseless attacks on the integrity of the election have gained traction with his supporters. Protesters chanting “Stop the Steal,” some with firearms, demonstrated over the weekend at the homes of Cutler in Pennsylvania and the Democratic secretary of state in Michigan.
Economy & Business
Restaurant Closings Top 110,000 With Industry in ‘Free Fall’
MSN – More than 110,000 restaurants have closed permanently or long-term across the country as the industry grapples with the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. And more pain is ahead, with a potential shutdown of indoor dining in New York City just as the temperatures drop.
The nationwide tally — representing one in six U.S. eateries — is among the findings of a survey released Monday by the National Restaurant Association. The figure was up from about 100,000 shutdowns in a September survey. The Washington-based trade group shared the latest results with Congressional leaders in an attempt to secure financial support for a sector rocked by rising costs and falling sales.
“The restaurant industry simply cannot wait for relief any longer,” Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs at the association, said in a letter to Congress. “What these findings make clear is that more than 500,000 restaurants of every business type — franchise, chain and independent — are in an economic free fall.”
As people continue to stay and eat at home and new indoor dining bans emerge across the country, restaurateurs have struggled to keep up sales, with many of the hardest-hit areas in states such as New York and Illinois. Almost 90% of full-service restaurants in the survey reported declines, with revenue falling 36% on average.
Expenses are also climbing amid the pandemic, with 59% of operators saying their total labor costs as a percentage of sales are higher than they were pre-pandemic.
The industry has pleaded for aid, with many pinning their hopes on the Restaurants Act, which would establish a $120 billion fund to help restaurants, as well as a second draw of the Paycheck Protection Program.
In the meantime, the sector faces dire prospects. Thirty-seven percent of operators say it is unlikely their restaurant will still be in business six months from now if there are no additional government relief packages, according to the survey. More than one in three operators are considering temporarily closing until conditions improve.”
Bitcoin Suddenly Primed For A Surprise $400 Million Shock
Forbes – Bitcoin has been hovering just under its all-time highs for a few weeks now, leaving investors guessing if or when it will break the psychological $20,000 per bitcoin barrier.
The bitcoin price has soared this year partly due to companies including business-intelligence firm MicroStrategy MSTR –10.8% and payments giant Square SQ –1.4% adding bitcoin to their corporate treasuries.
Now, the Nasdaq NDAQ 0.0%-listed MicroStrategy has said it’s going to almost double its bitcoin investment, announcing plans to sell up to $400 million of convertible bonds to buy more bitcoin.The bitcoin and cryptocurrency community was set alight by MicroStrategy’s shock $425 million bitcoin purchase this summer with the company’s chief executive Michael Saylor embarking on a blistering bitcoin-touting tour.
Energy & Environment
Water Quality, Flooding Mean Low Grade for Major Watershed
A group developed to help improve management of the Mississippi River Watershed has issued it a disappointing report card, and says urgent action and billions of dollars are required to address flooding and water quality concerns in the nation’s largest rivers.
America’s Watershed Initiative on Tuesday released its 2020 report for the Mississippi River and its more than 250 tributaries. The 2020 C- grade is only a slight improvement on the D+ grade the group issued for the watershed in its first report, in 2015.
The watershed, which encompasses two-fifths of the continental U.S. and 31 states, remains threatened by increasingly frequent and extreme flooding as well as aging infrastructure and pollution, the report said.
Kimberly Lutz, the initiative’s executive director, said the watershed faces “pressing challenges.”
“As the United States looks to recover and rebuild our economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, the health and resilience of this critical natural resource —through investments in infrastructure, research, education and flood and water management — must be part of the solution,” Lutz said in a news release.
The report characterized water quality in the system as “very poor” due to increasing sediments and nutrients. It gave a D grade for water quality, flood control and risk reduction. Other factors assessed include ecosystem health, the economy and recreation.
To protect the water system, the initiative called for $2 billion in annual funding through government and private sources to address issues such as river navigation, flood management and the ecosystem. It also urged greater collaboration among river interests and improvements in information gathering and public education.
Report Card Committee Chairman Larry Weber said the challenges faced along the rivers demand urgent action, including “smart investments in scientific information to improve decision-making and coordinated on-the-ground implementation.”
Science & Technology
All-Remote Learning Is Failing Many Students All Across The Country: ‘These Children Are Struggling’
Students in about 40 percent of school districts across the country haven’t seen the inside of a classroom in more than eight months – and their grades tell a sad story.
New academic performance numbers suggest the disruption to in-person education is taking a heavy toll on many students.
Earlishia Oats is a single mom of four children in East Tampa, Florida. She chose all-remote learning to protect the health of her oldest son, who suffers from epilepsy. “When he gets sick, it’s a whole other level,” she said.
But her 15-year-old daughter, who has never had a failing grade in the past, is now struggling. “She made a D the last time on AP World History,” Oats said, “and she was freaking out. That has never happened before.”
Correspondent Meg Oliver asked, “How is that affecting you?”
“It is stressing me out as well, because my daughter has never struggled,” Oats said. “And to have her feel like she’s being defeated is a problem.”
It’s a problem happening to students around the country.
In Houston, one of the largest school districts in the nation, the number of students with failing grades is exploding. During the fall of this year, 42 percent of students received one or more Fs in the first grading period, which was 100 percent virtual. Last year, only 26 percent fell into that category.
Christina Quintero has two children in Houston’s school district. “These children are struggling to read, struggling to do math,” she said.
Quintero said her first-grade daughter feels defeated.
Oliver asked, “Is she getting down on herself?”
“Oh, she’s very critical,” Quintero said. “Very critical in her academic, because she just wants to do better, and she wants to be able to show that to her teacher and be proud of herself.”
Gardening, Farming & Homesteading
Oregon Farmers Face Dual Struggles With Pandemic, Wildfires
USNEWS – EMT and volunteer firefighter Jan Hupp went to bed in the early hours of a recent morning after putting out a small fire in Drake Crossing, about 30 miles east of Salem. He thought the fire was “nothing major.”
It wasn’t until his son, a professional firefighter in the nearby town of Molalla, called to tell Hupp that he was in an area under a Level 3 “Go!” evacuation order that he knew he had to get out immediately. “We got everybody into town and when I came back, about halfway up, there was this wall of smoke,” Hupp says. “It was like night and day.”
By 8 a.m., the darkness resembled midnight.
“When it finally got light enough that we could see, the smoke was still everywhere,” Hupp says. “If you looked left and right there was nothing but the orange glow of the fire. And you don’t know, is it a mile away? Is it five miles away? We just started doing what we could in the department to make sure everyone was out of the district. Everyone knew that there is no fighting a fire like this; it’s all defensive.”
Using excavators and bulldozers to create fire lines in the ground contained the fires.
“That fire screamed down, and then it stopped just a mile before our district,” Hupp says.
With the threat of fires weakening, Hupp’s farm returned to work last Monday with farm workers equipped with KN95 masks as the smoke persists.
The Oregon fires have burned upward of 1 million acres, posing a threat to farming and agriculture, which is among the state’s top-three economic sectors, alongside manufacturing and tourism. It is the second blow to a region already fighting the coronavirus pandemic. State Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis was 30 miles from Drake Crossing on the morning Hupp fought the fire.
Health
Asymptomatic People Do Not Spread COVID-19
Mercola – A vast majority of those testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic. They simply aren’t sick. The PCR test is merely picking up inactive (noninfectious) viral particles.
In one study, which looked at pregnant women admitted for delivery, 87.5% of the women who tested positive for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 had no symptoms.
A study looking at PCR test data from nearly 10 million residents in Wuhan city found that not a single one of those who had been in close contact with an asymptomatic individual tested positive.
Of the 34,424 residents with a history of COVID-19, 107 individuals tested positive a second time, but none were symptomatic and none were infectious.
When asymptomatic patients were tested for antibodies, they discovered that 190 of the 300, or 63.3%, had actually had a “hot” or productive infection resulting in the production of antibodies. Still, none of their contacts had been infected.
Rand Paul: No Scientific Evidence ‘Tyrannical’ Lockdowns Work
Infowars – Senator Rand Paul spoke out Monday against the policy of lockdowns and restrictions, declaring that there is no evidence they are having any impact on the spread of coronavirus, and that those who say they do are not paying attention.
“We ought to at least still use logic to try to figure out how we stop this …,” Paul said in an appearance on Fox News, adding “I don’t see any evidence that crowd control, hand washing, standing six feet apart, all of these things they tell you to do — closing down the restaurants, closing down the schools — there’s no real evidence that they are changing the trajectory of the disease.”
“If you look at the incidence of COVID, it’s going up … exponentially despite all the mandates. So those who say there is science [behind the restrictions] just aren’t paying attention to it,” Paul continued.
Paul, who last week slammed lockdown zealot Dr. Anthony Fauci for doing a complete 180 on schools being closed, urged that “keeping all our kids home isn’t changing the course of this disease.”
“They’ve studied this in four different country-wide studies. They’ve studied the incidence of the disease, they’ve studied the transference of the disease, and they’ve found that closing schools doesn’t work. Even the socialist [New York City Mayor Bill] de Blasio is now opening schools,” the Senator emphasised.
Paul has been calling for schools to be open since the Summer, consistently pointing out that there is no science behind the closures.
Feds passed up chance to lock in more Pfizer vaccine doses
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration opted last summer not to lock in a chance to buy millions of additional doses of one of the leading coronavirus vaccine contenders, a decision that could delay the delivery of a second batch of doses until manufacturer Pfizer fulfills other international contracts.
The revelation, confirmed Monday by people familiar with the matter, came a day before President Donald Trump aimed to take credit for the speedy development of forthcoming coronavirus vaccines at a White House summit Tuesday.
Pfizer’s vaccine is expected to be endorsed by a panel of Food and Drug Administration advisers as soon as this week, with delivery of 100 million doses — enough for 50 million Americans — expected in coming months.
Under its contract with Pfizer, the Trump administration committed to buy an initial 100 million doses, with an option to purchase as many as five times more.
This summer, the White House opted not to lock in an additional 100 million doses for delivery in the second quarter of 2021, according to people who spoke about the matter on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Days ahead of the vaccine’s expected approval, the administration is reversing course, but it is not clear that Pfizer, which has since made commitments to other countries, will be able to meet the latest request on the same timeline.
The Pfizer vaccine is one of two on track for emergency FDA authorization this month, the other coming from drugmaker Moderna.
The Trump administration insisted late Monday that between those two vaccines and others in the pipeline, the U.S. will be able to accommodate any American who wants to be vaccinated by the end of the second quarter of 2021.
The administration’s decision not to lock in additional Pfizer purchases last summer was first reported by The New York Times. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told NBC the administration is “continuing to work across manufacturers to expand the availability of releasable, of FDA-approved vaccine as quickly as possible. … We do still have that option for an additional 500 million doses.”
Seeking to tamp down public skepticism over the vaccine and secure a key component of Trump’s legacy, Tuesday’s summit will highlight the administration’s plans to distribute and administer the vaccine. But officials from President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, which will oversee the bulk of the largest vaccination program in the nation’s history once he takes office Jan. 20, were not invited.
The “Operation Warp Speed” summit will feature Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and a host of government experts, state leaders and business executives, as the White House looks to explain that the vaccine is safe and lay out the administration’s plans to bring it to the American people.
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