WORLD NEWS
GoFundMe FREEZES Canadian ‘Freedom Convoy’ Campaign
Infowars – GoFundMe has frozen the campaign of the Canadian trucker convoy after it raised over $10 million Canadian dollars following demands from Ottawa city officials for funding to be ‘cut off’ to the protesters.
As reported by the Daily Mail, the page for the convoy now states “This fundraiser is currently paused and under review to ensure it complies with our terms of service and applicable laws and regulations.”
“Our team is working 24/7 and doing all we can to protect both organizers and donors. Thank you for your patience,” the page also reads at time of writing.
As Fox News notes, despite being labelled a “fringe movement” by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the campaign for the truckers raised more money in the past fortnight than the amount raised by Canada’s major political parties in the whole of the last quarter.
GoFundMe told directed reporters to a blog post explaining its position.
The post states “Recent events in Ottawa, Canada, have generated widespread discussion about the Freedom Convoy 2022 fundraiser on GoFundMe. We wanted to provide clarity around the actions that our global Trust & Safety and Customer Care teams take every day, just as they have with the Freedom Convoy fundraiser.”
It adds “As the activity surrounding the protest evolves, we have been monitoring the fundraiser to ensure the funds are going to the intended recipients and that the fundraiser remains within our Terms of Service. Our monitoring includes maintaining close communication with the organizer as well as collaborating with local law enforcement.”
“This process takes time and may slow down the withdrawal process. If the fundraiser does violate our Terms of Service or does not directly benefit the intended beneficiary, we will remove it from the platform,” the post concludes.
GoFundMe Makes Controversial Move as Fundraising Campaign for Truckers Reaches Nearly US$8 Million
Epoch Times – A fundraising campaign for truckers in the Freedom Convoy 2022 has been Frozen by GoFundMe after it raised over CA$10 million (US$7.96 million.)
“This fundraiser is currently paused and under review to ensure it complies with our terms of service and applicable laws and regulations,” reads a message placed at the top of the fundraising page.
The campaign was launched by two people who identified themselves as Tamara Lich and B.J. Dichter.
The review by GoFundMe appears to be focused on several areas: the identity of the fundraisers, use of the raised funds, and if the fundraising “reflects or promotes behavior in support of violence.”
GoFundMe said the fundraising campaign didn’t violate their Terms of Service in the perspective of promoting violence at the time of creation.
However, they’re trying to ensure the funds will be used as intended.
“As the activity surrounding the protest evolves, we have been monitoring the fundraiser to ensure the funds are going to the intended recipients and that the fundraiser remains within our Terms of Service,” GoFundMe said in a statement.
The fundraising platform is also collecting information from the organizer regarding the use of the funds.
Infowars – A veteran Associated Press writer named Matt Lee had State Department spokesman Ned Price flustered on Thursday after he pressed the government mouthpiece on alleged evidence of Russian plans to stage a false-flag against Ukraine.
During the press briefing, Price claimed Moscow could be seeking to engage in a “false-flag operation in order to initiate military activity,” in Ukraine.
Next, the government spokesperson said a Russian “propaganda video” caused the U.S. government concern.
This video allegedly includes, “graphic scenes, false explosions and corpses,” “crisis actors pretending to be mourners” and “images of destroyed locations or military equipment” on the ground in Ukraine.
After this announcement, AP writer Matt Lee asked Price to elaborate on what actions Russia might take.
Price referred back to the supposed propaganda video the American government has viewed, and claimed Russia positioned operatives in Ukraine a few weeks ago with hopes to conduct a false-flag.
Lee said, “That’s an action you say they have taken, but you have shown no evidence to confirm that.”
U.S. NEWS, POLITIC & GOVERNMENT
‘She Was Begging and Pleading’: Jan. 6 Protester Recalls Witnessing Rosanne Boyland Die
Epoch Times – “It was hell itself.”
Philip Anderson doesn’t like to talk about that part of Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol. It’s just too painful, even with family and friends.
“It’s so terrifying to even bring it up. I don’t have to remember that until my very last day, until I die,” the 26-year-old told The Epoch Times. “It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Anderson was at the bottom of a pile of people caused by a stampede out of the West Terrace tunnel when police unleashed gas on the crowd of protesters.
Right next to him lay Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Ga. They were crushed by the weight of a heap 4-5 people deep. It created an indescribable squeeze. The pain was made worse by a lack of oxygen.
“You have to just lay still. You’re just air-swapping with the people that are on the ground with you,” Anderson said. “If you move even a little bit, bones are going to break in your leg, bones are going to break in your arm. I’m thinking, ‘I have to stay still and hope that my head’s not going to get smashed.’”
4 Things to Know About Dark Money Interests Behind Biden’s Supreme Court Choice
The Daily Signal – Before becoming a White House official helping President Joe Biden pick his first Supreme Court nominee, Paige Herwig was a founding member of a legal group—bankrolled by a liberal political consulting firm—that drafted a list of possible justices for the Biden campaign.
Herwig’s presence on the White House legal team is just one example of the role Arabella Advisors, a for-profit company, plays in Biden’s pending high court nomination.
Arabella finances a host of liberal nonprofits. These include the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which founded the group Demand Justice to thwart President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees and give Biden a list to work from in choosing his.
Arabella-financed organizations, as well as others that don’t disclose donors, often are called “dark money” groups by critics.
The Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal group dedicated to “a fair and impartial judiciary,” recently launched a $2.5 million ad campaign asserting that Biden would pick “an Arabella judge” for the Supreme Court as part of a “huge payback” to Arabella Advisors for promoting Democrats.
? JCN launches a $2.5M campaign calling out the liberal dark money network led by Arabella Advisors that helped get Joe Biden elected, pressured Justice Breyer to retire, and is now seeking to replace him with a rubber stamp for their unpopular and far-left political agenda. ? pic.twitter.com/En4ZpqqOR6
— JCN (@judicialnetwork) February 2, 2022
A spokesman for Arabella Advisors said the Judicial Crisis Network’s ad is “false” and “mischaracterizes” the consulting firm and its philanthropy.
Here’s what to know about Arabella Advisors’ ties to Biden’s pending Supreme Court nomination to fill the seat that will be vacated by Justice Stephen Breyer.
- Arabella in White House
Before becoming White House senior counsel and part of the inner circle in helping Biden pick his first nominee to the Supreme Court, Herwig was part of the founding team at Demand Justice.
Herwig was Demand Justice’s deputy chief counsel in 2018. She left to work for Facebook until going to the White House as senior counsel and advising Biden on judicial appointments.
The White House announced last week that Biden had tapped a team to lead the search for a Supreme Court nominee who would face confirmation by a Senate split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats (including two independents).
Besides Herwig, that team includes Vice President Kamala Harris, White House chief of staff Ron Klain, White House counsel Dana Remus, White House senior adviser Cedric Richmond, and Louisa Terrell, director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs.
In another connection, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was a communications consultant for Demand Justice and on the advisory board of Supreme Court Voter, a project of Demand Justice.
- Demanding That Breyer Quit
While still possible, Demand Justice sought to capitalize early in a Biden presidency with a narrow Democrat Senate majority by trying to push Breyer to retire from the high court before Republicans regained control of the White House and Senate.
Demand Justice ran an ad campaign and hired a billboard truck to drive around the Supreme Court to circulate a message calling on Breyer to retire.
The message on the truck read: “Breyer, retire. It’s time for a Black woman Supreme Court justice. There’s no time to waste.”
The group’s supporters on Twitter credited it with successfully pushing Breyer to retire, which he announced Jan. 27.
That’s actually not likely the case, said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network.
“Justice Breyer understands the political cycle. He was a staffer for Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Severino told The Daily Signal. “This bullying probably caused him to delay his retirement.”
- Who’s on Supreme Court ‘Shortlist?’
Demand Justice’s so-called shortlist for Biden’s Supreme Court nominees actually includes 43 names. Of those, 14 appear to meet the president’s two chief qualifications: that the nominee be both a woman and black.
As a presidential candidate, Biden promised to appoint the first black woman to the high court.
The Demand Justice list includes Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom Biden appointed last year to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Three Senate Republicans joined all Senate Democrats to confirm Jackson, who is widely reported as the top contender for Breyer’s Supreme Court seat.
California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger is also on the Demand Justice list, and the White House reportedly is considering her for the spot as well.
Someone not on the list is U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs in South Carolina, whose nomination is being pushed by both House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Biden staffed up his administration with names from Demand Justice’s Supreme Court list, including Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, and Assistant Education Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon.
The Demand Justice list also includes activists and law professors such as Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center; Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; and Christina Swarns, executive director of the Innocence Project.
Spokespersons for the White House and Demand Justice did not respond to The Daily Signal’s inquiries before publication of this report.
- Demand Justice Spins Off
Demand Justice began in 2018 as a project of the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit public policy advocacy group established by Arabella Advisors.
However, in May 2021, Demand Justice registered in Washington, D.C., as its own 501(c)(4) nonprofit, spinning off from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, according to Capital Research Center, an investigative think tank.
“Demand Justice has been a front group for Arabella Advisors, the center of dark money groups,” the Judicial Crisis Network’s Severino said.
Arabella Advisors entities, she said, “spent over $1 billion advancing Democratic candidates, more money than the Democratic National Committee.”
Demand Justice spent $5 million to oppose Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018 and another $10 million to oppose his 2020 nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Both were confirmed by the Senate despite strong partisan campaigns against them.
“Demand Justice’s judicial agenda “will promote the hardest-left-possible candidates off of the Demand Justice list,” Severino said.
Arabella Advisors contends that the Judicial Crisis Network’s ad campaign is misleading.
“The claims in this advertisement are false, and they deliberately mischaracterize the work of Arabella Advisors and several of our clients,” Arabella spokesman Steve Sampson told The Daily Signal in an email.
“Arabella Advisors is a consulting business that supports philanthropy,” Sampson wrote. “Our clients include a variety of nonprofit organizations that hire Arabella for shared administrative services. Arabella Advisors is not the source of funding for any of these organizations, and we do not exert control over the spending decisions of our clients.”
Sampson confirmed that Demand Justice no longer is a fiscally sponsored project of the Sixteen Thirty Fund.
The spinoff suggests that Arabella Advisors is becoming a liability, said Hayden Ludwig, senior investigative researcher at Capital Research Center.
“It is rare that Arabella-sponsored groups spin off. You wonder if so much attention is becoming an embarrassment or liability,” Ludwig told The Daily Signal.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Epoch Times – President Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order on Friday aimed at bolstering project labor agreements (PLAs) used for federal construction projects costing more than $35 million.
Biden will travel to a local ironworkers union in Maryland to sign the order which the White House says will “improve timeliness, lower costs and increase quality in federal construction projects.”
The order could affect $262 billion in federal construction contracting and improve job quality for nearly 200,000 workers, the White House said late on Thursday.
Specifically, it will require PLAs to be put in place on federal construction projects above $35 million but will only apply to provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that are direct federal procurement, meaning projects funded by grants to non-federal agencies are excluded.
Once signed, it will go into effect immediately.
Project labor agreements are collective bargaining agreements between building trade unions and contractors and have been used for generations.
They set wages, employment conditions, and dispute resolution on specific projects, affectively governing the terms and conditions of employment for all craft workers.
Biden’s order was praised by some contractors, including Daniel Hogan, chief executive of the Association of Union Constructors which represents 1,800 contractor companies, who told Reuters it “streamlines the negotiation process and gives employers access to a highly skilled pool of craftworkers.”
But Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), a national U.S. trade association representing the non-union construction industry blasted Biden’s executive order, saying that it “encourages the use of controversial project labor agreement mandates on federal construction projects that are funded by taxpayers.”
ABC said the order will also serve to further worsen the current nationwide labor shortage and reduce opportunities for skilled workers.
“President Biden’s new policy will not help America ‘Build Back Better;’ instead, it will exacerbate the construction industry’s skilled workforce shortage, needlessly increase construction costs and reduce opportunities for local contractors and skilled tradespeople,” said Ben Brubeck, ABC vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs.
“This anti-competitive and costly executive order rewards well-connected special interests at the expense of hardworking taxpayers and small businesses who benefit from fair and open competition on taxpayer-funded construction projects.”
Opinion: These 2 numbers sum up why the housing market won’t get back to normal for a long time
Market Watch – We’re in a housing market where we have record high demand and record low supply. If you want to know why prices are 20% higher than they were a year ago this is the simplest explanation.
But there’s more going on here.
Simonsen was recently on the Odd Lots podcast with Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal where he explained how many homeowners are doubling up on their real-estate investments:
It’s like a doubling up. The homeowner goes to buy the next home, move up or move down. And because mortgages are so cheap, it’s a really good time to keep the first one as a rental unit. And so each year I go to buy a next one and I keep my first one. And so that’s one big phenomenon. And all of a sudden I’m a real-estate investor. And at the same time, institutional money’s been cheap. There’s a lot of news about the big private-equity funds buying up homes, but it’s actually the individuals who are driving most of it. So in the last decade we’ve taken 8 million homes out of the resale cycle and moved them into the investment rental part of the pool. And that’s, you know, 9% of all the single-family homes.
I know everyone wants to complain about BlackRock buying all of the homes in this country, but 90% of residential rental units are owned by individuals in the United States.
And this number is growing because of an abundance of home equity, the strength of consumer balance sheets and the prevailing low mortgage rates.
-Low mortgage rates have made monthly payments as affordable as they’ve ever been
-Home equity has skyrocketed from rising housing prices
-Plus look at the credit-worthiness of homebuyers these days
The people buying homes today have excellent credit scores. This wasn’t the case in the subprime boom of the early-to-mid aughts when the majority of buyers came from people with low credit scores.
Just imagine you’ve owned your home for five years or more. By now you’ve certainly refinanced at least two to three times and likely have a borrowing rate of 3% or less. You’re also sitting on some nice equity through a combination of principal payments and rising prices.
It sure doesn’t seem like housing prices are going to stop rising any time soon and rents are also on the rise, so it makes sense people are choosing to hold onto their original property even after buying something new. They can simply charge enough rent to cover the mortgage, insurance and taxes and still come out ahead by slowly paying down a cheap mortgage and seeing their house go up in value.
If I had to guess it’s going to be years until we see anything approaching a “normal” housing market. We simply didn’t build enough homes following the last housing crash to meet the demand coming from millennials reaching their household formation years.
COVID RELATED NEWS
Fauci Says He’s Mystified by Lagging Vaccine Booster Rates
Epoch Times – White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci said he is confused as to why booster rates are lagging and said he doesn’t “have an easy explanation” for the phenomenon.
When asked by a reporter on Wednesday about why fully vaccinated individuals aren’t getting as many boosters, Fauci noted that “about half” of all eligible Americans have received booster doses so far. Fauci made the remarks alongside COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients at a White House briefing.
“Why would people who had enough understanding of the risk to go ahead and get the primary series—why we don’t have more getting the booster,” Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, said in response. “I don’t have an easy explanation for that.”
Fauci said that he believes that federal health data suggests that it is “stunningly obvious” that vaccinated people should get a booster dose.
“So, the only thing that we can do is to continue to come out with the data and to make sure the American public appreciates why it is so important for optimal protection to get boosted,” he said.
Fauci’s comments come as several recent studies have shown that natural immunity, or the immunity achieved by prior COVID-19 infection, provides effective and lasting protection. One preprint study published in Italy in late January suggested that natural immunity lasts about 18 months.
“At 18 months, 97 percent participants tested positive for anti-NCP, hinting towards the persistence of infection-induced immunity even for the vaccinated individuals,” researchers wrote in a study posted to the Medrxiv website, referring to nucleocapsid, a type of protein within the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, otherwise known as SARS-CoV-2.
Meanwhile, other studies have suggested that the Omicron variant may spread more quickly among fully vaccinated populations. In early January, Danish researchers, in a survey of some 12,000 households, found that unvaccinated people are as susceptible as those who are vaccinated.
Iowa Governor Announces End to COVID-19 Emergency Declaration
Epoch Times – Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Thursday said she will end her state’s COVID-19 emergency declaration and will shut down vaccination and case count websites.
“We cannot continue to suspend duly enacted laws and treat COVID-19 as a public health emergency indefinitely,” Reynolds, a Republican, said in a statement. “After two years, it’s no longer feasible or necessary. The flu and other infectious illnesses are part of our everyday lives, and coronavirus can be managed similarly.”
The governor signed the final extension of Iowa’s public emergency and will allow it to end on the night of Feb. 15, according to her proclamation (pdf). It was first signed in March 2020 during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the emergency declaration ends, two websites—coronavirus.iowa.gov and vaccinate.iowa.gov—will also “be decommissioned” on Feb. 16. Information that was stored on those websites, however, will be accessible online and via other state and federal agencies, her office said.
“While our COVID-19 reporting will look different, Iowans should rest assured that the state health department will continue to review and analyze COVID-19 and other public health data daily, just as we always have,” Iowa Health Director Kelly Garcia said in a statement.
Garcia told local media that Iowa residents who are seeking data on COVID-19 in their states will be referred to federal websites.
About half of all U.S. states have already discontinued their public health emergency proclamations, Reynolds’ office said. Several more state proclamations are scheduled to expire in February if they’re not renewed.
“More than half of the states have ratcheted this down,” she told reporters of COVID-19 reporting. The governor for months has said that the general public will have to live with COVID-19 as a regular part of life.
In May 2021, Reynolds told reporters: “There’s no reason for us to continue to fear COVID-19 any longer … We know how to manage it.”
According to her office, the Test Iowa at Home program will continue but may also change in the future.
“As testing supply increases and more options for self-testing becoming available, the state will reassess the need for the program,” the release stated.
The Iowa Democratic Party on Thursday criticized Reynolds’ decision to end the emergency.
“Just because Kim Reynolds wants the pandemic to be over, doesn’t mean it’s over for Iowans,” state Democrats said in a statement. “Our doctors, nurses, and caregivers are already stretched thin, and this irresponsible decision will make a bad situation much worse.”
COVID-19 is the illness caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
Fired Pharmaceutical Workers Explain Why They Didn’t Get COVID-19 Shots
Epoch Times – A major pharmaceutical company this week fired many employees who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Syneos Health is a global pharmaceutical outsourcing company with some 28,000 employees in more than 110 countries. It contracts with bigger pharmaceutical companies including COVID-19 vaccine maker Johnson & Johnson/Janssen.
While J & J employs pharmaceutical representatives, it also contracts with Syneos Health to provide additional pharmaceutical representatives. Each Syneos representative is paired with one from J&J and they work together, selling drugs to doctors and other health care providers.
“It’s the same exact job, same exact customers, same exact expense reporting. Everything is the same, we’re just employed through different employers. And yet we’re being forced to be vaccinated and they’re not. We’re being told it’s because we can’t do our job, yet my Janssen counterpart can be unvaccinated, have an exemption, and still do the same exact job,” one sales representative told The Epoch Times.
Two recently fired Syneos pharmaceutical representatives spoke with The Epoch Times on the condition of confidentiality as they finalize their employment benefits and search for new work.
They said J & J is granting permanent medical and religious exemptions for their employees, allowing them to keep their jobs, but Syneos exemptions were temporary and their time to comply is up.
Employees who applied for exemptions from the shots got a “good news/bad news” letter from Syneos on Dec. 9. The good news: the company was granting a temporary exemption. The bad news: The exemption ended on Jan. 31, along with their jobs. Until then, employees were not allowed to enter any U.S. Syneos building.
Florida employees got a different letter, granting them a temporary exemption from the vaccine. The letter allows them to enter Syneos buildings in Florida, but company buildings outside the state are off-limits. Their exemptions will be re-evaluated in 30 days, the letter said. Those in Florida are protected by a state law making it more complicated for companies to mandate COVID-19 shots.
Syneos did not respond to a request for comment in this story and did not provide the number of affected employees in this global company. Former employees said the mass firing was company-wide.
Pharmaceutical Workers Say No
Syneos pharmaceutical sales representatives, many with science or health backgrounds, attend a two-month pharmaceutical school when hired. Here, they are taught the science behind the drugs they sell. They were not selling COVID vaccines, but they have a working knowledge of pharmaceuticals.
“A lot of us were questioning the shots because they didn’t go through the proper safety and efficacy studies that are traditionally required for all medications. And being in the medical industry, part of our job is discussing safety and efficacy about our products and our competitors’ products with doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners. For there not to be safety and efficacy data with these COVID shots, many of us wanted to wait,” one former Syneos employee said.
These employees didn’t view the shots as “bad.” They just wanted more data before making a decision. Many people took the shots without questioning it.
“The government said do this; it is in your best interest and you can go back to normal,” a former employee said. “As time has gone on, we’ve seen, obviously, these are not actual vaccines that inoculate you and give you immunity. And there are a lot of reports of—and people that we know personally—who have been injured from these shots, so there’s a good percentage of us that never got them. As data continued to come in, we were not going to get them.”
Some already had COVID-19 and trust their immune systems, some had religious objections.
“God gave us an immune system and has already proven that our natural immune system works, so there’s no reason to take an experimental medication,” a former employee said.
The other former employee says it’s a matter of not living in fear.
“I know that COVID has taken people’s lives just like the flu has, and pneumonia, and other viruses. But I’m not going to inject myself with something that has no long-term data. I’m not comfortable being an experiment for these pharmaceutical companies, and COVID has such a high percentage of survival rate that there’s no need for me to.
“So many people just live in fear, and they are living through what the media is telling them, and it’s just unfortunate that more people don’t actually do some research. The survival rate is so high and I’m so healthy, that I just don’t have a reason to be afraid.”
Some Democrat-Run Cities Aim to End Vaccine and Mask Mandates
Epoch Times – Several Democrat-run cities are looking to end COVID-19 vaccine mandates and mask requirements amid growing opposition to pandemic-related rules.
For example, Chicago’s leadership has signaled that the city’s COVID-19 vaccine passport and mandate may expire as cases have fallen significantly in recent days. Data shows that cases in Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, have dropped by more than 70 percent in the past two weeks.
Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady told reporters on Tuesday that Chicago may lift its vaccine passport requirements for restaurants and bars due to a drop in cases and hospitalizations.
“We’re not going to keep the vaccination requirement just because we like it. We’re keeping it because the risk remains higher at this point,” Arwady said, according to the Sun-Times. “I am feeling confident that it will be able to come off relatively soon, and if we keep seeing a 50% drop week over week, that could be quite soon.”
And in Denver, Colorado, the mayor suggested that the city may allow vaccine passports and indoor mask mandates to expire by the end of this week.
In a Twitter post, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock wrote Monday that “following extensive discussions with our regional partners, as well as current public health [advice] and the downward trajectory of cases, positivity and hospitalizations, the [City of Denver] will not be extending our public health order.”
“Beginning Friday,” the Democrat mayor continued, “people will no longer be required, under a public health order, to wear a mask or show proof of vaccination for entry into a business” in Denver.
Officials in Philadelphia, which has a passport program in effect, have signaled that an end to the mandates is coming.
“If things continue the way they are, we could start to see things getting back to some semblance of normal,” Dr. Chery Bettigole, the city’s health commissioner, told reporters on Wednesday. “If you think about where we are with this particular wave and case rates right now, we’re probably several months away from a place where we will have the kind of safety to drop all the current restrictions.”
It comes as COVID-19 cases have fallen in Denver by nearly 60 percent over the previous two weeks, and they are down even more over the past month, according to tracking data.
Adverse Reaction Report – A new study published on Tuesday, January 25, 2022, in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), revealed that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination triggered the development of myocarditis and pericarditis. It is most common among adolescent males and young men.
The study was based on the data from VAERS on reported cases of myocarditis that occurred after receiving the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine between December 2020 and August 2021 in 192,405,448 individuals older than 12 years of age in the US. As of September 30, 2021, the data was processed by VAERS.
Myocarditis and pericarditis were the major findings after vaccination.
According to the research, VAERS received 1,991 reports of myocarditis (391 of which also included pericarditis) after receiving at least one dose of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine, and 684 reports of pericarditis without the presence of myocarditis.
Epoch Times – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized federal public health officials for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that not enough supporting scientific evidence and data have been provided to the public to warrant the various mandates.
“You just have one public official who’s never been elected … no scientific citation for any of these mandates, simply telling Americans: ‘do what you’re told,’” Kennedy told NTD at the “Defeat the Mandates” rally in Washington on Jan. 23. It’s “all designed to instill fear and confusion in Americans, and it’s just a catastrophic exercise in bad government and manipulation,” Kennedy added.
Kennedy said that this lack of scientific integrity has created chaos and doubt in the public, which cannot tell if mandates are based on facts or meant to scare people into compliance.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Director Rochelle Walensky admitted in August 2021 that the vaccines prevent severe illness but do not stop transmission of the virus.
“Our vaccines are working exceptionally well,” Walensky told CNN. “They continue to work well for Delta, with regard to severe illness and death—they prevent it. But what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.”
Kennedy, along with thousands of others who attended the Defeat the Mandates Rally, wants to see an end to mandates on vaccines. Many who are already vaccinated say forcing people to vaccinate is unamerican.
“What’s happening in our country is the cruelty of the mandates, the irrationality of the mandates, a violation of all of our traditional values in this country, and ultimately our humanity. And the irrationality of it all, what good is that doing to anybody? It’s punitive. And it’s very, very sad for America,” Kennedy said of the policies that prevented an unvaccinated man from getting a heart transplant.
Another criticism Kennedy had was that natural immunity has been completely overlooked by the Biden administration in the rush to require vaccines.
“The natural exposure to infection is more protective over time. Now, that doesn’t mean that vaccines are always worthless, what it means is that you have to carefully assess the risk from disease and risk from the vaccine, and you have to make a cost-benefit analysis. And that is really the basis of the problem here. There was never any scientific citation. There was never any democratic process,” said Kennedy.
Dr. Scott Atlas, a former White House COVID-19 Task Force adviser during the Trump administration, also criticized officials for not recognizing natural immunity after the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decide to uphold the health care worker vaccine mandate on Jan. 13.
“Our continued denial of superior protection in recovered individuals, with or without vaccination, compared to vaccinated individuals who’ve never had the infection,” he said. “The denial of that is simply unprecedented in modern history, proven fact and decades of fundamental immunology are somehow denied.”
Atlas told The Epoch Times that the ruling is “another serious denial of scientific fact” specifically mentioning the denial of natural immunity in health care worker vaccine mandates.
Sweet Wormwood Again Shows Effectiveness Against COVID-19
Mercola – Sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua) is a traditional plant-based medicine with antiparasitic, antiviral and anticancer properties. Studies show it’s also an effective remedy in the treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19
In April 2020, China added three Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) formulas to its standard of care for COVID-19, including one containing sweet wormwood, called Jinhua Qinggan
In one COVID-specific study, Jinhua Qinggan granules were found to significantly alleviate fever, cough, fatigue, sputum, anxiety and need for hospitalization. Most recently, a Pakistani trial found the TCM remedy was 82.6% effective when used in COVID-positive patients treated at home for mild to moderate infection
In February 2022, Saudi Arabian researchers published a paper detailing how one of its main components, artemisinin, and its derivatives inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection by binding to an enzyme the virus uses to multiply within the cell and disarm the host’s immune defenses
Artemisia annua is also bioactive against other viruses, including cytomegalovirus, hepatitis B and C, and members of the herpes family, including herpes virus type 1 and Epstein-Barr
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Vaccinators Won’t Stop Vaccinating
Mercola – At a virtual meeting held the first day of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Davos Agenda 2022, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel and colleagues, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, detailed their plans for “vaccine mania” to persist indefinitely
Moderna is actively working with “Fauci’s team” to create a new shot for fall 2022; Moderna is also developing an Omicron-specific jab that they hope to release as early as March 2022
Moderna is planning to combine multiple shots, such as a COVID-19 shot, a flu shot and a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) shot, into one injection — coming in 2023 — to help avoid “compliance issues”
An agreement between Pfizer and BioNTech to develop the first mRNA shingles vaccine was reached in January 2022
Additional shots are in development to target HIV, zika virus, Nipah virus, cancer, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus, influenza (mRNA) and more
FDA Document on Moderna Vaccine Approval Removed From Agency’s Website
Epoch TImes – A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) document explaining why the agency approved Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine was removed from the agency’s website overnight.
The Summary Basis for Regulatory Action offered more details about how regulators reached the approval decision, and included references to an unpublished analysis that found the rates of post-vaccination heart inflammation were higher than any U.S. agency had found before.
After The Epoch Times reviewed the document and sent questions about it to FDA spokespersons, it disappeared from the agency’s website.
“We are aware of the issue and hope to have the document reposted as soon as possible,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email on Feb. 3.
Reached by phone and asked for more details about the issue, the spokesperson said: “I reached out to the website people. I don’t really have any more information to tell you.”
The Epoch Times has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for the document and several unpublished analyses referenced in it, including the FDA meta-analysis.
Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center, a nonprofit that advocates for informed consent, told The Epoch Times in an email that “the public has the right to review the evidence FDA is using to license new mRNA vaccines as safe and effective.”
“Lack of transparency only fosters distrust in government agencies charged with protecting the public health. FDA should immediately release all information related to the incidence of myocarditis and other serious adverse events following mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations, whether that information has been provided to the agency by vaccine manufacturers or discovered through in-house analyses of additional data collected by federal officials,” she wrote.
The FDA meta-analysis examined data of four health care claims databases and estimated that, among males aged 18 to 25, the rate of myocarditis following Moderna’s primary series was 148 per million males vaccinated.
That figure is higher than other government estimates, including a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis of reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The analysis found about 10.7 cases per million males aged 18 to 24 who got Moderna’s first shot and 56 cases per million among those who received Moderna’s second shot.
Myocarditis is one type of heart inflammation that people who receive vaccines built on messenger RNA (mRNA) have experienced at higher-than-expected rates. It also occurs among people who contract the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.
Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Severe, Deadly COVID-19: Study
Epoch Times – People who are vitamin D deficient are 14 times more likely to have severe COVID-19 and to die from the disease, according to research from scientists in Israel.
—> Power Mall Product of Interest: Optivida Vitamin D (from whole button mushrooms)
GOOD NEWS
‘What If the Influencers We Really Need Are Families?’: Mom Opts to Homeschool Amid Pandemic
‘Family is God’s idea. God’s design. Families are the glue that holds society together.’
Epoch Times – The choice was easy. Although it would probably lead to mud-clad children with bugs in their pockets and a wildly different way of living, JerriAnn and her husband, Matthew “Matt” G. Webb, were sure of their decision. It was August 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, and they had decided to homeschool their two children. Saddle up, boots on.
JerriAnn, 38, founder of a Christian nonprofit organization called Light Breaks Through, and Matt, 44, president of Genesis Timber, are passionate about helping people live with “purpose and hope” and advocating for the family unit. This was another opportunity to do just that.
“We believe decisions worth doing will always require sacrifice and investment,” said JerriAnn, who believes that healthy families are the true influencers who can rescue our society from spiraling further down on the endless road to moral depravity.
“The most attractive thing on the planet is a healthy family,” she said. “Families are the glue that holds society together. When families are fractured, society crumbles.
“There is much confusion today about identity and family as society calls good evil and evil good. I believe learning happens best at home. Homeschooling allows the parent to establish a foundation of identity based on biblical truth. Parents then raise strong children who in turn raise even stronger children.”
‘Home As the Center of Great Learning’
Finding it hard to accept the narrowing freedom and escalating social-distancing norms, even in the schools, the Webbs decided to homeschool their kids; they were ready to take some risks, so that their children could too. They wanted their children to test limits, run with abandon, laugh, and play untethered—and without the weighty ballast of fear.
“I tried to reconcile watching them run with freedom and abandonment through our yard fully alive to sitting inside a plexiglass bubble with a cloth strapped across their face in a socially constructed illusion of safeness,” JerriAnn said.
“Children need the freedom to test limits and laugh and play. Matt and I strongly felt our decision to homeschool was a fight to protect their childhood.”
So, they re-harnessed their priorities, rerouted their schedules, and retooled their library. Then, with the backing of close family, they dove headfirst into the fray. Coming up for air months after their dive, JerriAnn couldn’t be more determined and enthusiastic about their decision.
“Homeschooling has changed our family for the better in every way,” she said. “Academically, our children excelled in every subject. Emotionally, they are at rest as we strive to create a culture of peace and joy in our home.”
A day of school at the Webb household generally starts around 9 a.m. and ends around 3 p.m. It includes prayer and Bible study, mathematics, recess, language arts, reading, science, history, music, and the occasional chess game. Not only that, but the family is spending glorious time together: exploring nature, gardening, cooking meals, reading on the couch, trying extracurricular activities, and playing outside—a lot.
The schedule, however, is not the only thing that has been improved.
JerriAnn is watching as her daughter, Jael, 9, and son, Garrison, 7, flourish in every subject of their academics. She said her daughter, in only third grade, read 68 chapter books in one school year. JerriAnn is looking on as her children’s imaginations blossom and their ingenuity unfold.
The kids say that they love seeing their parents so much while homeschooling, and there is no doubt they like their teacher.
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