WORLD NEWS
Video: Farmers join Freedom Convoy and breach police barricade!
Incredible! Farmers are joining the convoy and helping to make a stand at the Alberta/Montana border crossing. UNITY!!
Truckers From “Convoy to DC 2022”: “America Is Next”
The New American – Following the lead of their Canadian freedom-loving colleagues, American truckers are planning to form a nationwide chain of semi-trucks and other vehicles in protest of COVID-19 authoritarian policies. The news comes as the reportedly 50,000-strong group of Canadian long-haul truck drivers — dubbed the “Freedom Convoy” — made its way across the country to Ottawa this past Saturday to protest against the vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 government measures. A large number of truckers from the United States has been joining the convoy along the way.
A rapidly growing Facebook group called “Convoy to DC 2022” is now calling upon all truckers to join forces against the government overreach in the Land of the Free.
“We are part of many large groups who believe in our founding fathers. We believe everyone has a voice. We support our freedom. Help us spread the word about this group and together we all can make it a better place. God Bless America,” the group states.
Brian Von D, the administrator of “Convoy to DC 2022” announced over the weekend that “America is next.”
In a Facebook video posted on January 27, he said that the American convoy will start in California and will head to Washington, D.C.
“We’re done with the mandates, we’re done with the government telling us what to do, we will continue, and we will follow just like the rest of the world on these trucker protests, and they will be 100 percent legal, they will abide by the law,” Brian said.
He added that if a trucker violates the laws and convoy’s rules, he or she would be “kicked out of the convoy.” That, however, has never happened so far in the Canadian “Freedom Convoy,” and “everybody was amazing,” Brian noted.
“America, it’s your turn,” Brian continued, “It’s your turn to step up and show what you’re made of.”
Saying that the vaccines have proven to be neither safe nor effective, Brian implied, “It is all about control.” He continued by stating that the pushback against that power grab depends on all people who value freedom.
“The government overreach is coming to an end, and this is how we do it,” he said.
Here’s the latest from north of the border … Facebook has banned the trucker convoy, so it went to Gab, here’s the link: https://gab.com/truckerconvoy2022
The Post (Canadian online rag) is reporting that Ottawa’s police chief is suggesting military intervention to break up the protests, but the military reports they plan no such thing. The people want to see Trudeau and he’d rather hide and taunt them on camera.
Ottawa Police Threatens to Call In Military to Stop Trucker Protest
Breitbart – Ottawa’s police chief said the capital may request aid from the armed forces to stop the ongoing anti-mandatory vaccine Freedom Convoy trucker protest, but the Defence Ministry responded saying they had no plans to get involved in the situation.
Police Chief Peter Sloly gave a briefing on Wednesday stating that the ongoing trucker protests, which began on Saturday, have become more than just an issue for Ottawa authorities.
Biden reveals ISIS leader was ‘removed’ in recent US op in Syria
RT – President says US forces took out Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in Syria
President Joe Biden has revealed on Thursday that a US counterterrorism operation in northwestern Syria successfully took Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi “off the battlefield.” Reports also suggest that a dozen civilians were killed.
“Last night at my direction, U.S. military forces in the northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our Allies,” read a statement from Biden. “Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi – the leader of ISIS.”
Biden also noted that all the Americans involved in the operation returned safely. The president’s statement came several hours after the Pentagon confirmed the raid, which targeted a house in the village of Atmeh in Syria’s Idlib province, near the border with Turkey. Locals told AP that the operation involved
Civilians reported dead after US conducts counterterrorism raid in Syria
CNN – US Special Forces killed ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in a counterterrorism mission in northwest Syria Wednesday evening, President Joe Biden announced Thursday morning.
It was the biggest US raid in the country since the 2019 operation that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Sources on the ground reported multiple fatalities. At least 13 people were killed in clashes that took place during and after the raid — including six children and four women — according to the Syrian civil defense group, the White Helmets. There were no US casualties, according to the Pentagon. Multiple administration officials told CNN that a bomb exploded by the target of the operation resulted in the civilian casualties, citing early assessments of the operation.
Putin offers insight into Russia-China ties
RT – Russian President Vladimir Putin heralded a “new era” of strategic partnership with China, in both trade and global relations, in an article for Chinese state news agency Xinhua, published ahead of his visit to Beijing for the Winter Olympics.
Russian-Chinese relations of “comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation” have become “a model of efficiency, responsibility, and aspiration for the future,” Putin wrote on Thursday, describing the two countries as “close neighbors bound by centuries-old traditions of friendship and trust.”
Relations between Moscow and Beijing are based on “equality, consideration of one another’s interests, freedom from political and ideological circumstances, as well as from the vestiges of the past,” he added, citing the 2001 Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.
Quoting a Chinese saying that goes: ‘make your whole year’s plan in the spring’, Putin noted the symbolism of meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping during the Spring Festival, a celebration of the Lunar New Year.
Ukraine invasion no longer ‘imminent’ – White House
The US is no longer using the word because it created an unintended message, says Jen Psaki
RT – The US government is no longer using the word ‘imminent’ in its narrative around the alleged Russian ‘invasion’ of Ukraine, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters, on Wednesday, explaining that it was sending an unintended message.
“I used it once. I think others have used that once, and we stopped using it because I think it sent a message that we weren’t intending to send, which was that we knew that President Putin had made a decision,” Psaki said at a press briefing.
“I would say the vast majority of times I’ve talked about it, I’ve said he could invade ‘at any time,’” she added.
Psaki’s remarks come after the US envoy to the UN backtracked from the use of ‘imminent’ in an interview with NPR aired on Tuesday.
“No, I would not say that we are arguing that it’s imminent,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the broadcaster.
The official transcript of Psaki’s January 25 briefing says otherwise, however. Asked whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine – which the US media and intelligence agencies have claimed since late October would happen any day now – was still “imminent,” here’s what Psaki had to say.
“When we said it was imminent, it remains imminent,” she told one reporter.
“Well, ‘imminent’ has a pretty intense meaning. Doesn’t it?” she said in answer to the very next question.
“And it’s still the belief that it’s imminent?” was the followup, to which Psaki replied, “Correct.”
UK Government Unveils ‘Levelling Up’ Plan Amid Leadership Crisis
Epoch Times – The UK government on Wednesday unveiled its blueprint to “level up” underdeveloped parts of the country, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson battles to retain confidence in his premiership.
A new white paper sets out a 10-year plan including shifting powers to England’s local authorities, improving physical and digital connectivity, increasing homeownership, tackling crime, and boosting education, training, and investment across the country.
It comes as Johnson faces the prospect of a vote of no-confidence after senior civil servant Sue Gray found “failures of leadership and judgment” by parts of Number 10 and the Cabinet Office in her inquiry into alleged lockdown-breaching parties in Downing Street.
Johnson adopted the “levelling up” slogan as shorthand for tackling regional inequalities, particularly between former industrial areas and London and the southeast, in the 2019 election which saw the Tories make huge gains in Labour’s previously impregnable “red wall” heartlands.
The blueprint, unveiled by levelling up minister Michael Gove, set out 12 missions to be achieved by 2030 that will be enshrined in law in a flagship Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, the government said.
By 2030, every part of England will be offered the choice of a “London-style” devolution deal in what the government said is “the largest devolution of power from Whitehall to local leaders across England in modern times.”
Other goals include narrowing the economic and “healthy life expectancy gap” between areas, developing a “globally competitive city” in each area, enhancing research and development investment outside the greater southeast, achieving 5G coverage for the majority of the population, improving the quality of rental homes, eliminating illiteracy and innumeracy among primary school leavers, increasing high-quality skills training, and boosting people’s satisfaction with their town centres and engagement in their local culture and communities.
Johnson said it has been the “defining mission of this government” to “break the link between geography and destiny” and equalize opportunities across the country, while Gove said the agenda is about “ending this historic injustice and calling time on the postcode lottery.”
Poisoned cocaine kills at least 20
A further 74 were seriously injured after taking the adulterated substance in Buenos Aires
RT – More than 20 people are understood to have died and a further 74 hospitalized on Wednesday evening after taking what is believed to have been tainted cocaine in Buenos Aires province, Argentina.
In an update early on Thursday morning, the province’s health ministry confirmed the number of victims, adding that 18 of those in hospital were requiring mechanical respiration.
Authorities in the Argentine capital said that the drugs were sold in “Puerta 8” – a poor neighborhood in the northern Buenos Aires suburb of San Martin – but that experts were still analyzing the substance to determine whether it caused the deaths. Another theory is that the cocaine was “cut” with another illegal drug.
A dozen people had been arrested in connection with the deaths, the police said.
Officials have suggested that the drugs had been spiked intentionally as part of an ongoing feud between gangs.
Dozens killed by fallen power cable
24 women and two men were fatally electrocuted after the line snapped over a city market
RT – The collapse of a high-voltage power cable onto a market in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, resulted in 26 deaths and two serious injuries on Wednesday.
DRC Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde announced the tragedy in a statement, revealing that the victims had been fatally electrocuted after the power cable snapped due to bad weather and fell on a market and housing below.
“I share the immense pain of the families. My thoughts are also with all the injured,” the prime minister said.
The fallen cable killed 24 women and two men, while another two people were seriously injured. The “bad weather” responsible for the tragedy was reportedly lightning, which struck the cable.
Government ministers visited the scene of the accident in an expression of solidarity, and government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya revealed that the authorities had begun the relocation of the affected market.
British energy bills about to skyrocket
RT – People may have to pay twice as much for gas and electricity after the regulator lifts the cap on energy bills
The UK’s Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) is lifting the price cap for domestic energy bills by 54%, the regulator said in a press release on Thursday.
“The energy price cap will increase from 1 April for approximately 22 million customers. Those on default tariffs paying by direct debit will see an increase of £693 from £1,277 to £1,971 ($2,670) per year,” the press release reads.
The energy price cap sets a maximum amount energy suppliers can charge customers for the gas and electricity they use. According to Ofgem, the cap “stops energy companies from making excessive profits, ensuring customers pay no more than a fair price for their energy.”
Ofgem sets the cap every six months based on the underlying costs to supply energy, with the previous rise in October hiking energy bills by 12% to an all-time high of £1,277 ($1,731) a year for around 15 million households.
Ofgem says the latest cap hike is made in response to a “record rise in global gas prices over the last 6 months, with wholesale prices quadrupling in the last year” and resulting in closures of dozens of utilities.
Czech Court Abolishes Vaccine Passports For Restaurants and Hotels
Breitbart – The Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic has ordered the abolition of vaccine passports for restaurants, hotels, and other venues, arguing that the measure is tantamount to vaccination coercion, and therefore not legal.
The court has given the Czech government seven days to reply to the ruling, which would remove all vaccine passport requirements from the country’s restaurants, bars, clubs and hotels once that period expires.
U.S. NEWS, POLITIC & GOVERNMENT
Injecting Beagle Puppies With Cocaine: Investigation Discloses More NIH Animal Experimentation
White Coat Waste Project obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act
Epoch Times – Injecting beagle puppies with cocaine is the latest in a series of taxpayer-funded experiments on animals disclosed by the nonprofit watchdog group White Coat Waste Project (WCW).
WCW obtained the documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), disclosing that the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), which itself is a part of NIH, spent $2.3 million in taxpayer funds to keep dogs infused with an “experimental compound” of drugs that included cocaine.
According to Amanda Nieves in her article for the WCW, experiments that ran from September 2020 to September 2021 and March 2020 to March 2021 were filmed to observe for adverse reactions.
The experiments were contracted to SRI International, Nieves said, which WCW has reported in 2021 as the institute that was de-barking beagles by cutting their vocal cords so that the dogs couldn’t bark, howl, or cry during an experiment.
Also in 2021, WCW exposed NIAID’s experiments on beagles that involved having sandflies eat the dogs alive, as well as experiments that involved force-feeding 44 beagle puppies an experimental drug before killing and dissecting them.
Thousands Evacuated as Fears Grow Blazing Fertilizer Plant May Explode
Epoch Times – The city of Winston-Salem is working to evacuate 6,500 people as fears grow a smoldering fertilizer plant might explode near thousands of homes.
Fire trucks patrolled the mandatory evacuation area early Tuesday, blowing their horns and loudspeakers blasting a warning for people to evacuate as quickly as possible.
The mass exodus is due to a potentially explosive fire at the Weaver Fertilizer Co. in north Winston-Salem.
Just under 2,500 homes are within a mile of the plant, which stores tons of explosive materials as part of its products, the city said in a tweet.
Residents being are told to plan on being out of their homes for at least 48 hours, and roadblocks have been established around the area. A “reverse 911 call” went out at 6 a.m. Tuesday, to reach those who hadn’t yet left their homes.
The Education Building at the community’s fairgrounds has been opened as an emergency shelter, officials said.
“Don’t wait for something to happen. Something has happened. Now is the time to get out,” Winston-Salem Fire Chief Trey Mayo wrote in a tweet just after midnight.
City officials are also warning people in the city as a whole to “avoid strenuous activities outdoors” due to the toxic air. People with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and respiratory illnesses were advised to stay indoors.
The smoke plume—which smells like “spent fireworks”—was expected to drift southwest Tuesday, to downtown Winston-Salem and Wake Forest University.
“Air quality will be poor,” officials said in a Facebook post.
Former US Navy Captain Pleads Guilty to Accepting Nearly $68,000 in Bribes
Epoch TImes – A former U.S. Navy captain on Wednesday pleaded guilty to bribery for accepting nearly $68,000 from a foreign defense contractor.
Donald Hornbeck, 61, admitted in San Diego federal court to receiving at least $67,830 in bribes in extravagant dinners, hotels, parties, and prostitutes from foreign defense contractor Leonard Francis, while he directed the operations of combatant ships in the Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific.
According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he accepted the bribes in exchange for breaching his official duty to the U.S. Navy. He also acknowledged that he shared confidential Navy information with Francis.
Hornbeck is one of 34 Navy officials and defense contractors, including Francis, accused of a fraud and bribery scheme that among other things provided Glenn Defense Marine Asia with classified ship schedules, allowing them to beat competitors and overcharge for services.
Twenty-nine defendants have pleaded guilty. All have admitted collectively to accepting millions of dollars in luxury travel and accommodation, meals, lavish gifts, or services of prostitutes, among other things, from Francis in exchange for helping its Singapore-based company Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA) win and maintain contracts and overbill the Navy by over $35 million.
“While scores of Navy officials were partying with Leonard Francis, a massive breach of national security was in full swing,” U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said in a statement. “Today another participant has admitted that he lost his way, allowing greed to replace honor and duty as the driving force in his life.”
“Mr. Hornbeck abdicated the standards, responsibilities, and ideals required of a senior U.S. Navy officer over a multi-year period solely to enrich himself and others by willfully facilitating a corrupt Navy contractor’s years’ long fraud against the U.S. Government,” Kelly P. Mayo, the director of the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, said in a statement.
NCIS Director Omar Lopez said Hornbeck “betrayed his oath to the Navy.”
Hornbeck “deserves to be held fully accountable for his criminal actions to accept lavish gifts from Mr. Francis in exchange for influencing ship schedules in favor of ports that Mr. Francis preferred and otherwise prioritizing the business interests of GDMA and Mr. Francis over those of the Navy,” he said in a statement.
Hornbeck, of Greenfield, Indiana, is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 8. He could face up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Schools Embrace BLM ‘Week of Action,’ Teach Students to ‘Disrupt Western Nuclear Family Dynamics’
Epoch TImes – Schools across the nation are using this week to indoctrinate students with progressive activism using a curriculum promoted by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, a parent group has warned.
During the “Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action,” which began on Jan. 31, public school districts from Boston to Seattle are teaching lessons that correspond to core BLM values, such as “Diversity and Globalism,” and “Trans-Affirming,” “Queer Affirming,” and “Collective Value.”
The lessons are based on 13 “Black Lives Matter Guiding Principles,” including a call for “Black Villages,” which is “the disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics and a return to the ‘collective village’ that takes care of each other,” and a commitment to “dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk.”
“Everybody has the right to choose their own gender by listening to their own heart and mind. Everyone gets to choose if they are a girl or a boy or both or neither or something else, and no one else gets to choose for them,” reads a teaching guide on how to use “age-appropriate language” to introduce the BLM principles to children as young as those in kindergarten.
At least a dozen school districts are participating in the Week of Action, according to Parents Defending Education (PDE), an organization known for documenting incidents of injecting social justice advocacy into classrooms.
One of the districts embracing the BLM agenda is Denver Public Schools. PDE noted that Denver’s Centennial Elementary School, which “shared their excitement” about this year’s Week of Action, not long ago stirred up controversy because of a “families of color playground night” event that many saw as racial segregation.
Meanwhile, in Boston, the Boston Teachers Union sent out a newsletter celebrating the Week of Action. The newsletter includes a link to the aforementioned teaching guide “to help educators facilitate critical conversations connecting the media they’ve engaged with to the movement.”
“The ‘Black Lives Matter at School’ material often carries the official branding of the Black Lives Matter organization, which has been riddled with controversy over alleged misappropriation of funds and the purchase of multimillion-dollar homes by its founder,” PDE said in the release.
According to the website for BLM at School, the movement started in Seattle in 2016, when thousands of educators, along with hundreds of families and students, came to school wearing BLM shirts. The BLM at School curriculum has since been endorsed by a number of organizations and individuals, including the American Civil Liberties Union, National Education Association, and Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi, whose works on “anti-racism” are widely hailed by proponents of critical race theory (CRT).
An outgrowth of Marxism, CRT interprets society through a Marxist dichotomy between “oppressor” and “oppressed,” but replaces the class categories with racial groups. Proponents of CRT see deeply embedded racism in all aspects of American society, and demand “anti-racist” policies such as race-based redistribution of wealth and power along the perceived lines of “racial inequity.”
Black Lives Matter Suspends Fundraising After California AG Warns of Missing Reports
Breitbart – The official Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization suspended online fundraising on Wednesday after being warned by the California Attorney General that it faced revocation of its charitable status after failing to file required annual reports.
The finances of the organization have been under close scrutiny since last year, when co-founder (and trained Marxist) Patrisse Khan-Cullors was reported to have bought four homes. She resigned, but concerns lingered about $60 million in donations that BLM collected by the end of 2020 but for which no one in particular at the organization seemed accountable.
California’s Attorney General, Rob Bonta, was one of the most radical members of the state legislature when he was appointed in 2021 to replace Xavier Becerra, who left to take up the post of Secretary for Health and Human Services. Therefore the fact that he is cracking down on BLM’s finances suggests the problems are of a deeply serious nature.
The Washington Examiner reported Wednesday:
Black Lives Matter shut down all of its online fundraising streams late Wednesday afternoon, just days after California threatened to hold the charity’s leaders personally liable over its lack of financial transparency.
The move comes less than a week after a Washington Examiner investigation found that BLM has had no known leader in charge of its $60 million bankroll since its co-founder resigned in May. California and Washington recently ordered BLM to cease all fundraising activities in their blue states due to the failure of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the legal entity that represents the national BLM movement, to report information about its finances in 2020, the year it raised tens of millions amid the racial protests and riots that followed George Floyd’s killing.
…
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita previously said BLM’s refusal to answer basic questions about its finances and operations fits a common and disturbing pattern.
“It appears that the house of cards may be falling, and this happens eventually with nearly every scam, scheme, or illegal enterprise,” Rokita, a Republican, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “I see patterns that scams kind of universally take: failure to provide board members, failure to provide even executive directors, failure to make your filings available. It all leads to suspicion.”
The organization is also failing to comply with regulations in seven other states, the Examiner reported.
South Dakota Legislature Passes Ban on Boys Competing in Girls’ Sports
Epoch Times – Athletes in primary schools and colleges in South Dakota will have to compete in sports with peers of their own gender if Gov. Kristi Noem signs legislation that lawmakers in both state chambers have passed.
South Dakota’s House of Representatives, in a 50–17 vote on Tuesday, approved the bill, Senate Bill 46.
No Democrats voted for the bill and 10 Republicans voted against it.
The state’s upper chamber passed the legislation in January with a 26–7 vote.
The bill says that any sports teams at schools must be based on the biological sex at birth of the participating athletes. If a team is designated a girls team, for instance, biological boys will not be allowed to participate.
It was introduced at the request of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican.
“This is about fairness,” Noem said during a recent appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” “This is about making sure that our girls have a chance to be successful and to compete, to win scholarships, potentially go on to play professional sports beyond that. We want them to have the opportunity to do that.
“Title IX fought for that years and years ago and I’ve been doing this for years, which started, man, almost five years ago now in the sport of rodeo, where we protected girls’ events,” she added. “So now I’m bringing a bill to the legislature that will be the strongest bill in the nation in protecting fairness in girls’ sports, and I’m hopeful that my legislators will support it.”
A spokesman for Noem confirmed in an email to The Epoch Times that the governor will be signing the legislation.
Washington Orders Restaurant That Defied Mask, Vaccine Mandates to Close
Epoch Times – Washington health authorities on Tuesday ordered a restaurant that openly defied the city’s mask and COVID-19 vaccine mandates to close.
A notice from the D.C. Health Department’s Division of Food was posted on a window at The Big Board, citing violations of District of Columbia food code regulations.
The closure is in effect “until further notice.”
The department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A report from an inspection done on Jan. 19 says multiple violations were found, including a lack of soap and towels at a handwashing sink in the kitchen and mold in a refrigerator under a counter.
The same establishment was alerted on Jan. 28 that its liquor license was suspended, a spokesperson for the city’s Alcohol Beverage Regulation Administration confirmed in an email.
The District of Columbia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board said the restaurant’s refusal to adhere to orders from Mayor Muriel Bowser to make sure all customers over 5 have received a COVID-19 vaccine and that customers wear masks in certain situations led to the suspension.
“Until the mayor change[s] her mind on the orders, I am not going to change mine,” owner Eric Flannery told an inspector, according to a report reviewed by The Epoch Times.
Bowser, asked about Big Board during a recent press conference, said “I’d like the business to comply, and we don’t want to shut anybody down.”
Texas Arrests Illegal Aliens for Trespassing—Democrats Urge DOJ to Shut It Down
Epoch TImes – A group of 50 Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives is urging the departments of Justice and Homeland Security to investigate Operation Lone Star, a border security initiative launched by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in March 2021.
“Operation Lone Star uses state criminal law to target Black and Latino migrants for punishment,” the Democrats’ Jan. 26 letter to the federal agencies alleges.
The politicians want the federal government to use “all tools at your disposal to ensure the end of this policy.”
In June 2021, as part of Operation Lone Star (OLS), Abbott authorized Texas Department of Public Safety troops to arrest and charge illegal immigrants with trespassing if they were found to be on state or private land without consent.
The OLS budget funded jail space for alleged illegal immigrant trespassers, defense counsel, and prosecution resources. The governor also sent more law enforcement officers to beleaguered border regions to assist in the arrest of trespassers and smugglers who were transporting illegal aliens.
Since July last year, 2,681 illegal alien trespassers have been arrested, and the number of participating counties has increased from two to six, with more preparing to join.
Kinney County, which is prosecuting the vast majority of cases, has made a total of 2,609 arrests as of Jan. 28, according to county attorney Brent Smith.
Of those, 1,257 have bonded out of jail, and 264 have made pleas of no contest or guilty and have been released with time served. About five have pleaded not guilty and want to go to trial, Smith said.
The illegal aliens arrested on ranches in Kinney County aren’t turning themselves over to Border Patrol and seeking asylum, Smith said.
Ethics Watchdog Calls for FEC Investigation into Democrat Rep. Marie Newman
Breitbart – An ethics watchdog organization asked the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to investigate Democrat Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) for allegedly using campaign funds to bribe a possible primary opponent.
The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a nonprofit organization founded by former President Donald Trump’s once Acting Attorney General Matthew Whittaker, filed a previous ethics complaint in May that prompted the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate Newman’s alleged bribery.
MSNBC’s Wallace: Liz Cheney Saying ‘F the Laws’ — We Are Holding ‘Buffoon’ Trump Accountable
Breitbart – MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace said Wednesday on “Deadline” that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) is using the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol to say “F the law,” we are going to hold “dangerous buffoon” former President Donald Trump accountable.
Wallace said, “I think the asymmetry of Trump has always been his greatest asset. You know, a campaign is set up to fact check someone. In the Republican primaries in 2015, the Jeb Bush campaign was ready to say, aha, but you weren’t for that tax policy, and Trump just went, you big fat — what did he call him? You know tired Jeb Bush, lying Ted Cruz.”
She continued, “People bring pistols, and he brings a bazooka. So he’s also shot people, opponents in the political arena, out of the sky with, as you said, a more monstrous attack, a bigger sort of arsenal that would not just defeat the enemy in front of him but overpower everything else. I think what’s so uncomfortable is that institutions, news organizations, grapple with whether to call what he was saying lies. So while we’re trying to figure it out if it is a misstatement, a mistruth, doublespeak, or inconsistent, he’s just lying his way to seal up his base to not believe anybody but him.”
She added, “He has now conditions his base to not believe in elections. Elections now do not matter. That’s where Liz Cheney seems to be drawing the line and bringing out an equally large arsenal by being the first person to say he’s going to get away with nothing, not potential violations of the Presidential Records Act, not potential witness tampering, not potential efforts to overthrow an election. She’s going for the whole package of sins which no one has ever done. People have said, ‘Oh, he’s obstructed justice, but we have got laws on the books at DOJ that says we can’t indict.’ Liz Cheney is saying F the laws we are going to hold this buffoon, this dangerous buffoon accountable once and for all.”
Professor under investigation for defending sex with children
RT – A New York university is investigating one of its professors after he appeared to defend sex between adults and extremely young children in a series of videos which went viral online.
Stephen Kershnar, a philosophy professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia (SUNY Fredonia), received heavy backlash this week after clips of him were published on social media.
“Imagine that an adult male wants to have sex with a 12-year-old girl. Imagine that she’s a willing participant,” said Kershnar. “It’s a very standard, very widely held view that there’s something deeply wrong about this, and it’s wrong independent of it being criminalized. It’s not obvious to me that it is in fact wrong.”
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Facebook’s parent’s value crashing down 20%
Activist Post – Facebook parent company Meta is on pace to lose roughly $200 billion in market value as shares plummeted early Thursday.
The company’s shares dropped as much as 23% in pre-market trading which, if the losses hold, would lose Meta roughly $200 billion in market value.
CNN President Jeff Zucker Resigns
Epoch Times – CNN President Jeff Zucker abruptly resigned on Feb. 2 in the fallout from an investigation into former anchor Chris Cuomo.
Zucker, also the chairman of WarnerMedia’s news and sports division, told employees that he was asked about a consensual relationship with a close colleague as part of the probe into Cuomo’s time at CNN.
“I was required to disclose it when it began but I didn’t. I was wrong,” Zucker wrote in a memorandum. “As a result, I am resigning today.”
WarnerMedia, CNN’s parent company, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zucker joined CNN on Jan. 28, 2013. He was married to Caryn Zucker until 2018, according to Page Six.
Allison Gollust, CNN’s chief marketing officer, is the woman with whom Zucker has a relationship.
Discovery announces new name of WarnerMedia merger: Warner Bros. Discovery
The Verge – Discovery is merging with WarnerMedia, and it’s now announced a new name for the combined company: Warner Bros. Discovery. According to The Wall Street Journal, the name was first revealed during a staff meeting today.
The merger was announced last month. AT&T said it would spin off WarnerMedia — the entertainment giant containing Warner Bros., HBO, DC Comics, and CNN, among many others — and that Discovery would take over the new company. But they didn’t have a new name prepared on the day the deal was announced.
Discovery CEO David Zaslav will be in charge of the merged group. WarnerMedia is by far the bigger company, though, with around three times the 2020 revenue and a roster of iconic characters and properties. Discovery brings to the table a huge archive of reality TV shows and a growing news and sports business in Europe.
“We believe it will be the best and most exciting place in the world to tell big, important and impactful stories across any genre – and across any platform: film, television and streaming,” Zaslav said in a statement today. The combined company is borrowing a line from the Warner Bros. classic The Maltese Falcon for its slogan, “The stuff that dreams are made of.”
AT&T and Discovery expect the merger to wrap up in mid-2022, assuming it clears regulatory hurdles. AT&T shareholders will own 71 percent of the new company, so it’s really more like WarnerMedia is being freed from AT&T and picking up Discovery along the way.
COVID RELATED NEWS
EXCLUSIVE: Donald Trump: ‘We Have to End the Mandates’
Epoch Times – Mandates related to COVID-19 are wrong and should be rescinded, former President Donald Trump told The Epoch Times in an exclusive interview.
“We have to end the mandates,” Trump told former top aide Kash Patel on The Epoch Times’ “Kash’s Corner.” The interview will premiere at 8 p.m. Eastern on Feb. 7 on EpochTV.com.
“They have to be ended and they shouldn’t have started,” Trump added.
Trump was president when SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, emerged in China in late 2019. Under Trump, the federal government did not impose vaccine or mask mandates, but some states and counties required masks, including California.
Under President Joe Biden many jurisdictions began requiring COVID-19 vaccines to dine out, go to concerts, and even work. Biden ordered the military, federal contractors, agencies in his administration, health care workers, and all Americans who work at companies with 100 or more employees to get vaccinated.
All of the mandates have been challenged and some blocked by courts, though mask mandates have largely survived legal challenges.
Trump told The Epoch Times that Biden, who campaigned on a promise to “defeat the virus,” has done “such a horrible job” in managing the pandemic.
The Genocidal Ramifications of the Criminal COVID Conspiracy
Mercola – House Oversight Committee Republicans recently released the contents of emails sent between Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and his boss, then-National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins in 2020
The emails show Fauci and Collins rapidly agreed to suppress the theory that SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab. While questions of intentions remain, it seems this decision was made for political reasons
Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust in London, who also helped promote the narrative that the lab leak theory was nothing more than a wild conspiracy theory, has publicly stressed that he feared then-president Trump might use evidence of a lab leak to start a war against China
Grant applications from the EcoHealth Alliance to the NIAID reveal the U.S. was funding the very research that could have resulted in this novel virus. Some of that research was even conducted in the lab in Wuhan, China
It appears the scientific establishment will cover for China, no matter what the cost, out of fear of being defunded and/or losing scientific credibility and standing. The willingness of U.S. authorities to cover up the origin of SARS-CoV-2 means that countries can now assault us with bioweapons indefinitely, with full impunity
FDA Issues Warning on 2 Recalled COVID-19 Tests
Epoch Times – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about two COVID-19 tests made by Empowered Diagnostics because the tests aren’t approved by the FDA, even though the tests’ labels indicate that they are.
Empowered Diagnostics makes the CovClear COVID-19 Rapid Antigen and ImmunoPass COVID-19 Neutralizing Antibody Rapid tests.
Both tests have been recalled by Empowered Diagnostics, the FDA said in an announcement in late January. The recall is listed as a Class 1 recall, which the FDA’s website describes as the most serious type.
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning people to stop using the Empowered Diagnostics CovClear COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test and ImmunoPass COVID-19 Neutralizing Antibody Rapid Test,” the agency’s statement said. “These tests were distributed with labeling indicating they are authorized by the FDA, but neither test has been authorized, cleared, or approved by the FDA for distribution or use in the United States.”
Dr. Ryan Cole: Alarming Cancer Trend Suggests COVID-19 Vaccines Alter Natural Immune Response
Epoch TImes – We’re seeing an alteration of the innate immune response,” says pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole, founder of Cole Diagnostics.
In recent months, Cole said he started seeing a number of disturbing trends under the microscope: the appearance of a childhood disease in adults and an uptick in rare cancers. Other doctors have echoed his observations, he says, but rigorous studies are not being conducted.
“You cannot find that for which you do not look,” he says.
We also take a look at what factors impact how an individual fares with COVID-19. America has a vitamin D crisis, which is essential to a functioning immune system, Cole says. “This is a public health message that is so critical, because so goes your vitamin D level, so goes your overall ability to fight off not just COVID, but any virus in any viral season.”
US Army to Start Discharging Unvaccinated Soldiers
The U.S. Army announced on Feb. 2 that it will immediately start discharging, or “separating,” soldiers who have refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Under a directive (pdf) issued by the Army, the order applies to regular soldiers, active-duty Army reservists, and Army cadets unless they have an exemption or a pending exemption.
“Army readiness depends on soldiers who are prepared to train, deploy, fight and win our nation’s wars,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in a statement. “Unvaccinated soldiers present risk to the force and jeopardize readiness.”
Wormuth added that the service “will begin involuntary separation proceedings for Soldiers who refuse the vaccine order and are not pending a final decision on an exemption.”
Army soldiers who are discharged because they’ve refused the COVID-19 vaccine won’t be eligible for involuntary separation pay. They also might be “subject to recoupment of any unearned special or incentive pay,” the Army stated.
Other branches of the U.S. armed forces have begun to remove those who have chosen not to obtain a COVID-19 vaccine.
“The Army has not yet involuntarily separated any Soldiers solely for refusing the lawful order to receive the COVID-19 vaccine,” the statement continued. “As of Jan. 26, Army commanders have relieved a total of six regular Army leaders, including two battalion commanders, and issued 3,073 general officer written reprimands to Soldiers for refusing the vaccination order.”
Officers and warrant officers who have refused the vaccine have until March to get it, according to the directive.
Soldiers who are eligible to retire before July 1 are “permitted to retire” via an “expedited process” rather than be kicked out of the Army, the directive stated. They have to submit retirement requests by March or within 14 days of their exemption denial.
“All soldiers, including those in an entry-level status, who are refusing to become vaccinated will be issued either an Honorable or General (under honorable conditions)” discharge, the Army order added, although it stated that troops with “additional misconduct” might not receive an honorable discharge.
Pfizer Board Member: Time to Consider Dumping School COVID-19 Mask Mandates
Epoch Times – Former Food and Drug Administration Director Scott Gottlieb suggested that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should revise its COVID-19 mask recommendation for schools.
“We’re going to probably have to tolerate, and probably should, a higher level of baseline spread at the point at which we consider withdrawing some of this mitigation,” Gottlieb, who is currently a Pfizer board member, told CNBC on Wednesday. Pfizer recently indicated that it is seeking an emergency use authorization from the FDA to give its COVID-19 vaccine to children as young as 6 months of age.
Gottlieb added that if the federal government holds out and waits “for 10 cases per 100,000 per day in most communities, we’re probably going to be waiting until the summer” then “we’re going to lose the opportunity this spring to try to return some sense of normalcy in the schools.”
The current CDC guidance, he added, is “a pretty high threshold in the age of Omicron,” noting that a study carried out before the Omicron wave suggested that 90 percent of Americans have COVID-19 antibodies through a prior infection, vaccination, or both.
Attorneys Report Spike in Calls for Help From Families of Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19
Epoch Times – Attorneys around the country report an alarming uptick in calls for help from families of patients hospitalized with COVID-19.
Some say they’ve talked to family members who were arrested after trying to visit a loved one or to speak with a doctor after communications with the hospital were cut off.
Attorneys told The Epoch Times about a wide variety of instances of what they call abuse, including hospitals preventing visits from family, failing to provide nutrition and fluids, and coercing patients to agree to treatments they’d already refused multiple times—such as being placed on a ventilator.
Gainesville, Florida, attorney Jeff Childers has been so alarmed by the cases he’s seen, he posted a tutorial online with tips on how to navigate the legalities surrounding hospitalization with COVID-19.
Childers warns that he’s not a doctor and that he’s not offering medical advice.
When his office gets calls from concerned family members, the patient in question is already on a ventilator and the family is desperately concerned about treatment.
“In many cases, the hospitals have refused to release the patient, citing their unstable condition, meaning that at some point it can become impossible to get off the COVID express,” Childers wrote in his blog.
“The most common complaints we get include that patients are being pressured to accept Remdesivir, have been given Remdesivir even though they objected to it, or the hospital will not administer alternative widely-used treatments even though the patient is in critical condition where side effects are less risky than imminent death.
“I have personally seen hospitals spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers to keep patients in their facility.”
Infection, Hospitalization Gap Narrows Between Unvaccinated and Vaccinated: Study
Epoch Times – The protection from vaccines against the virus that causes COVID-19 dropped following the emergence of the Omicron virus variant, but held up better against hospitalization, according to a new study.
While the Delta variant was still dominant in the United States, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations among unvaccinated people were 3.8 times and 12.9 times, respectively, those among vaccinated people without a booster, researchers in California found.
The gap between unvaccinated and vaccinated people who received a booster was even wider, with unvaccinated people experiencing infections 12.3 times and hospitalizations 83 times the rate of the metrics in the vaccinated and boosted group.
However, the gap narrowed significantly after Omicron, a variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, displaced Delta as the dominant strain in the country. The CCP virus causes COVID-19 and is also known as SARS-CoV-2.
Following that development, COVID-19 case incidence among the unvaccinated was just 2 times higher than the vaccinated, while hospitalization incidence was 5.3 times higher. Compared to boosted persons, unvaccinated had 3.6 times higher case rates and 23 times higher hospitalization rates.
The study, published as a Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, examined a cross-section of residents in Los Angeles County age 18 or higher who tested positive for COVID-19 between Nov. 7, 2021, and Jan. 8.
“It seems as though some people were more susceptible, even if they had been vaccinated, with Omicron than they had been with Delta, and even more so than with the previous variants,” Dr. Sharon Balter, the director of the Acute Communicable Disease Control Program at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and one of the study authors, told The Epoch Times.
“Although you can still get COVID even if you’re vaccinated, as we had hoped, the vaccines are still good for protecting against severe disease. And, in particular, I think there have been some questions about boosting and whether it was necessary, and I think it sort of emphasizes the importance” of that, Balter added.
Dr. Peter Gulick, an infectious disease expert at Michigan State University, agreed.
“The booster really does help with controlling Omicron,” he told The Epoch Times after reviewing the study.
Are You Suffering From Bell’s Palsy?
Mercola – Bell’s palsy is a neurological disorder of the seventh cranial nerve that causes unilateral facial paralysis; thus far 13,137 cases of Bell’s palsy have been recorded in VAERS following the COVID shot
Factors that increase the risk for the condition are high blood pressure, diabetes, pregnancy, obesity and upper respiratory health conditions. The general incidence has been measured between 30 and 39.9 per 100,000 depending on the population and geography
The incidence of Bell’s palsy in people who have been vaccinated varies. For example, one study showed the incidence with CoronaVac used in Hong Kong was 66.9 per 100,000 and a shot equivalent to the Pfizer vaccine yielded 42.8 per 100,000 person years
There are several factors suggesting the incidence may not be fully noted in VAERS for several years. These include underreporting, the delay in posting reports, and the potential that Bell’s palsy can develop more than one year after an incident
Research suggests there may be seasonal variations in the diagnosis. Consider adding complementary treatments to speed recovery, including acupuncture and herbal medications
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Scientists Warn Wireless Radiation, 5G May Endanger Animals
Dolphins, Deer, Birds, Bees, and Even Microbes Among Wildlife Showing Effects
Epoch Times – Researchers have published a three-part, 150-page review of how wildlife could be suffering harms from the non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF) produced by wireless infrastructure, raising questions about the environmental safety of wireless technology as 5G begins to blanket the United States.
“We’ve known for a while now, through a number of scientific studies, that cellular radiation is harmful to wildlife as well as people,” said epidemiologist Devra Davis.
Davis is founder of Environmental Health Trust, an organization that has drawn attention to the possible risks of 5G, wi-fi, and similar infrastructure for human health as well as wildlife.
Environmental Health Trust did not produce the new review, which included researchers from the University of Washington and Johns Hopkins University. A spokesperson for the organization told The Epoch Times via email that it drew attention to it in a recent filing with the FCC.
“We have more than enough research to trigger new regulatory action to protect wildlife. The FCC should have done a full review of the environmental impact of 5G network deployment before streamlining hundreds of thousands of 5G cell towers across the nation,” said the spokesperson.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the FCC for comment.
In August 2021, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Environmental Health Trust in its petition against the FCC. The court found the FCC had not done enough to address evidence linking radiofrequency radiation to negative health impacts unrelated to cancer, even at levels below the FCC’s existing exposure limits.
The court also noted that the FCC did not adequately respond to the Department of the Interior when it raised the issue of environmental harms—specifically, the effect of EMF from communication towers on migratory birds.
In recent weeks, airlines warned that the nationwide rollout of 5G by AT&T and Verizon could interfere with flights, particularly the Boeing 777. The concerns prompted those wireless companies to hold off on launching 5G near airports.
Part one of the review examined how environmental EMF has radically increased over recent decades.
Part two looked at some of the many organisms impacted by EMF, with the authors noting that “effects have been observed in mammals such as bats, cervids, cetaceans, and pinnipeds among others, and on birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles, microbes and many species of flora.”
Part three focuses on EMF exposure limits, and the prospect of new regulation.
CNN – A triple whammy of sleet, snow and ice has bombarded more than 2,000 miles in the eastern US — and many are now stuck in the storm with no electricity.
More than 100 million people in 25 states stretching from the Mexican to Canadian borders were under winter weather alerts Thursday, CNN meteorologist Monica Garrett said.
As of about 9:15 a.m. ET, at least 130,000 customers had lost power, according to Poweroutage.us, with more than 70,000 outages reported in Texas. More than 25,000 homes and businesses were without electricity in Arkansas.
1,500 Flights Canceled as Governors Declare States of Emergency
Epoch Times – Well over 1,000 U.S. flights were canceled on Wednesday as a significant winter storm crosses the country, bringing ice and snow, as several states declared an emergency to prepare for the weather system.
Flight tracker FlightAware.com shows that about 1,489 flights into or out of the United States were canceled as of Wednesday morning—a number that is sure to rise as the storm continues to move east. Another 118 were delayed, the site shows.
SouthWest led the nation in cancelations on Wednesday with at least 402, according to FlightAware. American Airlines saw 164 cancellations, Spring Airlines reported 116, and United Airlines has 81, the website shows. Outside the United States, China Eastern reported 335 cancelations.
About 21 percent of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport flights were canceled, with 196 as of Wednesday morning, and the St. Louis International Airport saw 78 percent of its flights scrapped, with 150, according to FlightAware. Twenty-nine percent of Kansas City’s International Airport flights were also canceled.
“Around the country, we’re planning to operate a limited or reduced schedule from some cities in the path of the storm but will make adjustments to the schedule as needed,” Southwest spokesman Dan Landson told The Associated Press.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service say that “a large-scale and massive winter storm will impact the Central, Eastern and Southern U.S. over the next 2 to 3 days.”
GOOD NEWS
Video: A Message of Hope and Science – Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D.
Phone Scammers Call 73-Year-Old Grandma Asking for $8,000—But She Turns Tables, Catches the Crooks
Epoch TImes – A clever grandma from Long Island has turned the tables on a telephone scammer who tried to dupe her out of $8,000 in cash.
The 73-year-old from Seaford—who only gave her first name, Jean—on Jan. 20 got a call from a man claiming to be her grandson, saying he’d been arrested for drunk driving and needed to be bailed out of jail.
Jean, a former 911 dispatcher, knew that her grandson could not drive and immediately suspected a hustle. “I knew he was a real scammer,” she told CBS2. “I just knew he wasn’t going to scam me.”
Shortly afterward, she received a call from a different man claiming to be her grandson’s lawyer, asking for $8,000.
Keeping her wits about her, Jean lured in the would-be swindler and foiled their plot with a stratagem of her own.
“I told him I had the money in the house and I figured he’s not going to fall for that,” she told the station. “Well, he fell for that—hook, line, and sinker.”
Having already called the police, Jean had only to wait for the unsuspecting crook to show up at her door—which he did, pretending to be her grandson’s bail bondsman.
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