Sweden to launch ‘exceptional’ measures amid 300% rise in electricity price
RT – The government plans to pay residents’ power bills
The Swedish government will allocate some $670 million to compensate households for skyrocketing electricity prices, Finance Minister Mikkel Damberg said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“This is an exceptional measure in an exceptional situation, it is unusual to go in with support when prices fluctuate in markets,” Damberg stated in an interview with broadcaster SVT.
The electricity bill for an average apartment in the most populous southern regions of Sweden jumped by 266% in December, Sputnik reported, citing the country’s energy market regulator.
“We hadn’t expected these price levels and now they are hitting very hard,” Damberg stated, adding that the government will allocate “an enormous amount of money” to compensate for people’s increased spending.
Sweden plans to spend some SEK 6 billion (roughly $670 million) to help the households most affected by the rise in prices.
Quebec Government Becomes World’s 1st To Impose Steep “Health Tax” For Unvaxxed Citizens
ZeroHedge – It seems that throughout the pandemic the English-speaking countries of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have been in competition to see which respective government can impose the most restrictive, liberty-suffocating Covid measures on its population – all ironically in the name of “health” and “public safety”. Anyone with friends or family in major cities of Canada, for example, might be used to picking up the phone and hearing stories of Canadians having to sneak out of their homes in the dead of night just to visit in-laws or grandparents under cover of darkness, on fear of getting ticketed by authorities for a lockdown violation. And recall, as another example among a seeming myriad of absurdities, that New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern less than two months ago actually addressed whether citizens were allowed to use the restroom in the homes of friends or neighbors.
As we’ve said over and over, just when you think Covid-lunacy has reached its peak… enter a new insane policy cooked up by a neurotic and despotic government somewhere, typically in the West. And of course the latest is out of Canada: “The Canadian province of Quebec will charge a health tax to residents who are not vaccinated against Covid-19,” BBC reports.
Ostensibly this is health authorities’ “response” to the soaring case numbers, which of course begs the question: why is highly-vaxxed Canada seeing record Covid-related deaths and a bump in confirmed infections in the first place? Apparently the answer is that when the vaccine is in doubt, double-down: More vaccines, more regulations, take away more freedoms.
The Brave New World/1984/Animal Farm/Hunger Games [insert any dystopian book title here] “health tax” will be the first of its kind in the nation, or we might add anywhere in the world – given authorities vow the monetary penalty will be steep and “significant” – and of course Quebec officials are positively boasting about this fact: “On Tuesday, the premier announced that it would be the first in the nation to financially penalize the unvaccinated.” They are calling it a “health contribution” tax.
But the BBC follows by stating another fact: “Only about 12.8% of Quebec residents are not vaccinated, but they make up nearly a third of all hospital cases,” and more: “According to federal data, just over 85% of Quebec residents had received at least one vaccine dose by 1 January.”
Put another way, about two-thirds of all hospital cases in Quebec are individuals who have been vaccinated. Ah yes, time to target the unvaxxed…
BREAKING: Biden Administration Making Lists of Religious Vaccine Objectors
Daily Signal – A tiny administrative agency in the District of Columbia announced a new policy Tuesday that will likely serve as a model for a whole-of-government push to assemble lists of Americans who object on religious grounds to a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia—a federal independent entity that assists officers in the District of Columbia courts in formulating release recommendations and providing supervision and services to defendants awaiting trial—announced a new records system that will store the names and “personal religious information” of all employees who make “religious accommodation requests for religious exception from the federally mandated vaccination requirement.”
The announcement does not explain why the agency needs to create this list except to say that it will “assist the Agency in the collecting, storing, dissemination, and disposal of employee religious exemption request information collected and maintained by the Agency.” In other words, the list will help the agency make a list.
The announcement also does not say what the agency will do with this information after it has decided an employee’s religious accommodation request.
And neither does the announcement explain why the Biden administration chose to test this policy in an agency with a majority-black staff, who are both more religious and less vaccinated than other groups. So much for the president’s commitment to “racial equity.”
We’re starting to suspect that President Joe Biden is not keeping his promise to have the most transparent administration in history.
What’s really going on with this announcement at this tiny agency? Likely, the Biden administration is using it to stealth test a policy it intends to roll out across the whole government.
US aviation authority raises 5G risks days ahead of launch
Notices published by the FAA have outlined the impact the wireless network technology can have on sensitive aircraft electronic deviceshe
RT – US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has revealed it’s in talks with aircraft manufacturers, airlines, and wireless service providers to reduce the impact of the new technology ahead of its planned launch on January 19.
In notices to air missions (NOTAMs) published on Thursday, it stated that “aircraft with untested altimeters, or that need retrofitting or replacement, will be unable to perform low-visibility landings where 5G is deployed.”
More than 300 NOTAMs were released at 1:00 ET (6:00 GMT) around major airports and locations where aircraft are likely to be in operation, such as hospitals with medical air-transport facilities.
The FAA has previously suggested the 5G network could impact sensitive aircraft equipment, including altimeters, but Thursday saw the agency provide specific details outlining its concerns.
As part of its examination of the wireless technology, the agency was provided with additional transmitter location data it says allowed it to establish the impact it could have on aircraft and their ability to operate.
Approaches at major airports where 5G has been deployed are thought to be impacted, although the FAA believes some GPS-guided approaches will still be possible at certain transport hubs.
Addressing the situation, the FAA said it was still “working to determine which radar altimeters will be reliable and accurate with 5G C-Band deployed,” adding that it expected “to provide updates soon about the estimated percentage of commercial aircraft” that would be affected.
Earlier this year, wireless service providers AT&T and Verizon Communications agreed to implement buffer zones around 50 airports in a bid to reduce the risk of potential interference, and to delay deployment for two weeks to allow the aviation authorities to adopt safety measures.
Scientists: Cannabis Can Prevent COVID-19 Infection
Acids extracted from cannabis plants blocked COVID-19 infection in human cells in lab tests, a new peer-reviewed study shows.
Vice – That one friend who insists weed has health benefits for everything under the sun could actually be on to something when it comes to one very important disease: COVID-19.
A new study has identified cannabis compounds as a therapeutic agent to prevent coronavirus infections by blocking the virus from entering human cells. According to the study’s authors, widespread use of these compounds from pot plants and a vaccination regime could help to fight the virus’s spread and the disease it causes in people who get infected.
“With widespread use of cannabinoids, resistant variants could still arise, but the combination of vaccination and CBDA/CBGA treatment should create a more challenging environment with which SARS-CoV-2 must contend, reducing the likelihood of escape,” the study’s authors write. The authors helpfully include a very clear diagram of this process:
As detailed in a new study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Natural Products by researchers from Oregon State University and Oregon Health & Sciences University, the scientists were looking for a biological compound that could bind with the spike protein of the SARS-COV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. Using a technique called affinity-selection mass spectrometry (used to quickly assess a large volume of compounds) on cannabis, the researchers honed in on three compounds: cannabigerolic acid, or CBG-A; tetrahydrocannabinolic acid, or THC-A; and cannabidiolic acid, or CBD-A. Sadly, since THC-A is a controlled substance, they couldn’t get enough of the stuff to assess its effects and focused on the others.
Melatonin Significantly Reduces COVID-19 Mortality
Mercola – While most well-known as a natural sleep regulator, melatonin also has many other important functions. It boosts immune function, helps recharge glutathione and may improve treatment of certain bacterial diseases; it has anticonvulsant and antiexcitotoxic properties, and is a potent antioxidant with the rare ability to enter your mitochondria
In viral infections, melatonin lowers the overreaction of the host cells to the pathogen, thereby raising the host’s tolerance to the virus. This gives the host time to develop the adaptive immune response and eradicate the invading pathogen
Melatonin attenuates several pathological features of COVID-19, including excessive oxidative stress and inflammation, exaggerated immune response resulting in a cytokine storm, acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome
An October 2021 study found melatonin significantly lowered mortality when given to severely infected COVID patients. In the standard care only group, 13 of the 76 patients died (17.1%), compared to just one of the 82 patients (1.2%) who received melatonin in addition to standard care — a reduction in mortality of 93%
During the second week of infection, a time when severely infected patients can take a drastic turn for the worse, the melatonin group fared much better than the standard care only group, with only two patients developing sepsis, compared to eight in the standard care only group
Military Documents About Gain of Function Contradict Fauci Testimony Under Oath
Project Veritas – Military documents state that EcoHealth Alliance approached DARPA in March 2018 seeking funding to conduct gain of function research of bat borne coronaviruses. The proposal, named Project Defuse, was rejected by DARPA over safety concerns and the notion that it violates the gain of function research moratorium.
The main report regarding the EcoHealth Alliance proposal leaked on the internet a couple of months ago, it has remained unverified until now. Project Veritas has obtained a separate report to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense, written by U.S. Marine Corp Major, Joseph Murphy, a former DARPA Fellow.
“The proposal does not mention or assess potential risks of Gain of Function (GoF) research,” a direct quote from the DARPA rejection letter.
Project Veritas reached out to DARPA for comment regarding the hidden documents and spoke with the Chief of Communications, Jared Adams, who said, “It doesn’t sound normal to me,” when asked about the way the documents were buried.
EXCLUSIVE: Nationwide Surge In Deaths Among People Aged 18-49: A State by State Overview
Epoch Times – Deaths among people aged 18 to 49 increased more than 40 percent in the 12 months ending October 2021 compared to the same period in 2018–2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis of death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by The Epoch Times.
The agency doesn’t yet have full 2021 numbers, as death certificate data trickles in with a lag of one to eight weeks or more.
The increase was notable across the country and in no state was COVID reported in more than 60 percent of the excess deaths. Some states experienced much steeper hikes than others.
Nevada was the worst with a 65 percent prime-age mortality surge of which only 36 percent was attributed to COVID. Texas was second with a 61 percent jump of which 58 percent was attributed to COVID. Arizona and Tennessee recorded 57 percent increases with 37 percent and 33 percent attributed to COVID respectively. Not far behind was California at 55 percent and 42 percent attributed to COVID as well as New Mexico (52 percent, 33 percent), Florida (51 percent, 48 percent), and Louisiana (51 percent, 32 percent).
Fully Vaccinated Australians In Hospital For COVID-19 Surpass Unvaccinated
Epoch Times – For the first time, New South Wales (NSW) has seen more fully vaccinated patients hospitalised with COVID-19 compared to the number of unvaccinated patients as the Omicron outbreak continues to edge toward its peak.
Data published by the NSW government’s COVID-19 Critical Intelligence Unit has revealed that as of Jan. 9, 68.9 percent of COVID-19 patients aged 12 and over in hospitals had two doses of the vaccine, with 28.8 percent unvaccinated.
The number of double-dose vaccinated patients in intensive care units (ICUs) also surpassed those of the unvaccinated, with 50.3 percent of the vaccinated presenting to ICU with COVID-19, more than the 49.1 percent who are unvaccinated.
However, based on the data presented, unvaccinated individuals appear to be six times more likely to be hospitalised and nearly 13 times more likely to be sent to ICU than those who are fully vaccinated.
This is considering that the number of unvaccinated patients appears to be over-represented in the figures—7.3 percent of the NSW population aged 12 and over at the time were unvaccinated, but they made up half of the COVID-19 ICU patients in the NSW Health system. At present Australia does not permit alternative treatment approaches utilised and available in other countries, such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
Fauci’s Financial Disclosures Available, but Not Right Away
Epoch Times – Dr. Anthony Fauci’s financial disclosures are available to the public, but they’re not immediately accessible.
Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, was questioned over the disclosures during a Senate hearing in Washington this week.
After noting Fauci is the highest-paid employee in the federal government, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) wondered if the doctor would be willing “to submit to Congress and the public a financial disclosure that includes your past and current investments?”
“I don’t understand why you’re asking me that question. My financial disclosure is public knowledge and has been for the last 37 years or so,” responded Fauci, who has been in his position since 1984.
Marshall said his office had not been able to locate Fauci’s disclosures and wondered where they were. He said there was “an air of appearance of some shenanigans” because Fauci learns of some issues before the general public, though he doesn’t think anything untoward has happened.
“All you have to do is ask for it,” Fauci said.
An NIAID spokesperson confirmed to The Epoch Times in an email that Fauci submits disclosures but added that they’re only sent to people who fill out a specific form (pdf) requesting them.
The agency did not answer when asked how long it would take for the disclosures to be sent to somebody who filled out and submitted the form, or why the disclosures aren’t readily available.
The Epoch Times has sent requests for Fauci’s most recent disclosures.
Fauci’s disclosure for 2019 was obtained previously and published by Liz Whyte, a reporter with the Center for Public Integrity. His disclosures for the last two years have not appeared to have been made public.
A Marshall aide contended in an email to The Epoch Times that the barrier to accessing the documents means they’re not as available to the public as Fauci portrayed.
It’s unclear how long it takes for the disclosures to be sent to those who file a form and when they are sent they’re heavily redacted, the aide noted.
“Dr. Fauci’s sworn testimony does not match up with the facts,” she said. Marshall “definitely feels these should be on an easily accessible website,” she also said.
Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of openthebooks.com, agreed.
“As transparency advocates, we called on NIH to immediately post online Dr. Fauci’s financial and conflict documents—without redactions,” he said in an op-ed.
Repeat COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Shots Trigger Regulator Warning About Immune-System Risks
Epoch TImes – The EU’s drug regulator has expressed doubts about whether a second booster dose of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines would be a sustainable long-term approach.
“There is an emergency discussion around the possibility of giving a second booster dose with the same vaccine currently in use. Data has not yet been generated to support this approach,” Marco Cavaleri, the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) head of vaccines strategy, told a media briefing.
He added later, “We would like to see this data before we can make any recommendation, but at the same time we are rather concerned about a strategy that [involves] repeated vaccinations within a short term.”
An additional vaccine booster shot “could be considered as part of a contingency plan,” but “repeated vaccinations within short intervals will not represent a sustainable long term strategy,” according to Cavaleri.
Concerns Over Immune Response
When asked to expand on his statements, Cavaleri said that for a hypothetical approach of giving vaccine booster shots frequently, such as every four months, “we will end up potentially having problems with immune response and immune response may end up not being as good as we would like it to be, so we should be careful in not overloading the immune system with repeated immunization.”
He also noted that continuous administration of boosters can also lead to fatigue in the population.
“It will be much better to start thinking about an administration of boosters that is more spaced in time,” Cavaleri said.
The EMA is in conversation with vaccine developers in case there’s a need to update the current vaccines, according to Cavaleri. But he said any change “would have to be coordinated globally.”
Left Explodes at Marsha Blackburn for Exposing Biden Judicial Nominee’s Criminal Record
Breitbart – Leftists and several in the establishment media exploded at Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) for exposing President Joe Biden’s judicial nominee’s criminal history.
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Blackburn highlighted recent reports that revealed Andre B. Mathis, Biden’s nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, has a criminal record that includes a “laundry list” of citations and multiple failures to appear in court.
“In Tennessee we expect our judges to respect the law, not disregard it,” Blackburn said. “If Mr. Mathis thought he was above the law before, imagine how he’ll conduct himself if he’s confirmed as a federal judge.”
Democrats attempted to paint Blackburn’s criticism of Mathis as a racist attack on a black man.
Former NAACP President Cornell William Brooks told CNN, “It was extraordinarily painful to watch as an American and as an African American.”
McCarthy: ‘I Have Concluded to Not Participate’ with Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 Committee
Breitbart – House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced on Wednesday that he has “concluded to not participate” with Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) January 6 Select Committee.
McCarthy cited Pelosi’s “unprecedented action of rejecting the Republican members” he named to serve on the committee as one of the reasons for his decision.
The GOP leader said in a press release:
This committee is not conducting a legitimate investigation as Speaker Pelosi took the unprecedented action of rejecting the Republican members I named to serve on the committee. It is not serving any legislative purpose. The committee’s only objective is to attempt to damage its political opponents – acting like the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee one day and the DOJ the next.
The committee has demanded testimony from staffers who applied for First Amendment permits. It has subpoenaed the call records of private citizens and their financial records from banks while demanding secrecy not supported by law. It has lied about the contents of documents it has received. It has held individuals in contempt of Congress for exercising their Constitutional right to avail themselves of judicial proceedings. And now it wants to interview me about public statements that have been shared with the world, and private conversations not remotely related to the violence that unfolded at the Capitol. I have nothing else to add.
As a representative and the leader of the minority party, it is with neither regret nor satisfaction that I have concluded to not participate with this select committee’s abuse of power that stains this institution today and will harm it going forward.
McCarthy’s decision not to participate in the committee’s investigation comes on the same day the committee sent McCarthy a letter requesting he testify about his conversations with President Trump in the days before and after January 6.
Breitbart – Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) cast doubt on the possibility of supporting Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for Republican Senate Leader again.
In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Graham declared that any future Republican congressional leader must “have a working relationship with President Donald Trump.”
“He’s the most consequential Republican since Ronald Reagan. It’s his nomination if he wants it, and I think he’ll get reelected in 2024,” Graham said of former President Donald Trump.
Graham then emphasized that his support of McConnell would be conditioned on his “working relationship” with Trump:
I like Sen. McConnell. He worked well with President Trump to get a bunch of judges, including three supreme court justices on the bench. They got the tax cuts passed working together. But here’s the question: can Sen. McConnell effectively work with the leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump?
I’m not gonna vote for anybody that can’t have a working relationship with President Trump, to be a team, to come up with an America First agenda, to show the difference between us and liberal Democrats, prosecute the case for Trump policies.
And I’m not gonna vote for anybody for leader of the Senate as a Republican unless they can prove to me that they can advocate an America First agenda and have a working relationship with President Trump because if you can’t do that, you will fail.
Graham is not the only Republican that has concerns about McConnell’s effectiveness as a Republican leader.
Graham is joined by Republican Senate candidates Kelly Tshibaka and Eric Greitens, who openly campaign on replacing McConnell as Senate leader.
Sen. Rounds pushes GOP to get ‘louder’ on Trump’s false claims
AOL – U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota has been telling people for the last year that the 2020 election was fair, but this week he did something few other Republicans have dared — tell a national audience that.
Now he wishes more Republicans would join him.
Rounds, who is in his second Senate term, has been telling local newspapers, radio shows and Rotary clubs in South Dakota that he checked out the allegations of election fraud made by former President Donald Trump and, while there were some “irregularities,” they all came up empty of anything that could counter the truth that Trump lost. So, when ABC News’ “This Week” asked the senator to appear on its Sunday show to discuss the Jan. 6, 2020, attack on the Capitol, Rounds said his decision was simple: “Well, of course I will.”
But the backlash from speaking was swift. Rounds said he wasn’t looking to pick a fight with Trump, but that’s exactly what happened. The former president called Rounds a “jerk” in a statement. Rounds stood by what he said, and argued there are many more Republicans like him — and they need to speak up.
“If we want to keep the trust and gain the trust of more individuals that are wondering, we have to probably say it a little bit louder and in more places that many of us normally either aren’t invited to talk or have chosen not to get into the fray,” Rounds told The Associated Press in an interview this week.
Rounds got backup after Trump’s attack from several high-profile Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow South Dakotan Sen. John Thune, who has had his own run-ins with Trump. But with the GOP still largely in the former president’s grip, it’s not clear whether Rounds’ defiance represents a slip in that grasp or whether he’s a lonely voice in the party.
The Daily Signal – This week, the incoming New York City Mayor Eric Adams—the supposed rational corrective to uber-radical outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio—announced that he would allow legislation to proceed allowing local voting for 800,000 noncitizens.
The same week, the Legislature in California took up a bill that would establish single-payer health care in the state, paying for the increase in costs by essentially doubling taxes.
Americans have been fleeing the most liberal states in mass numbers. Those numbers are about to increase even more.
Between July 2020 and July 2021, approximately 352,198 residents of New York state embarked for warmer climes. Over that same period, the District of Columbia lost 2.9% of its population. California lost 367,299 people via net domestic migration. Illinois, another failing blue state, saw a net domestic out-migration of 122,460 people.
Where did all these blue state refugees go? To red states, of course. Texas picked up 170,307 Americans migrating from other areas. Florida picked up 220,890 people. Arizona picked up 93,026. Idaho had the fastest annual population increase in the nation.
The only region of the country to gain population was the South, which now holds 38.3% of the total population of the country—and which picked up 657,682 Americans migrating from different areas. The Northeast is now the least populous region in the United States, and saw a net population decrease of 365,795 residents. All net increase in population in the West was due to births and international migration, not domestic moves.
It’s not just individuals—it’s companies. Facebook’s parent company, Meta, just signed the largest-ever lease in downtown Austin for floors 34 through 66 of the tallest tower in the city. Elon Musk has relocated his company headquarters to Texas. My own Daily Wire relocated in 2020 from California to Nashville, Tennessee.
In other words, red state governance is a magnet; blue state governance is a disaster. Yet blue states cannot change course. They cannot simply jettison their adherence to failed ideas like single-payer health care or voting for illegal immigrants. To do so would be to acknowledge error. And so instead, they are banking on unearned moral superiority—virtue signaling—to fill the gap where good governance should be.
Thus, red states are grandma-killing hellholes (where blue state legislators vacation); red states are brutal suppressors of voting rights (where Stacey Abrams wants to run for governor again); red states are filled with vicious dog-eat-dog trickle-down capitalists (who must be taxed to pay for national spending programs).
None of this is bound to convince Americans to vote Democrat. It’s not designed to do so.
Democrats have banked on a consistent electoral strategy since former President Barack Obama’s 2012 victory—the strategy of driving out a base comprised of minority voters and college-educated women. But that strategy is collapsing—as Ruy Teixeira, once the nation’s leading proponent of that strategy, admitted in November, “If Hispanic voting trends continue to move steadily against the Democrats, the pro-Democratic effect of nonwhite population growth will be blunted, if not cancelled out entirely, and that very influential Democratic theory of the case falls apart.”
It’s falling apart in real time. But Democrats can’t pull out of the tailspin. They’re too invested in the lie that their programs are popular to notice how many Americans are calling up U-Haul.
BREAKING: US Court Rules Child Sex Assault Case Can Proceed Against UK’s Prince Andrew
Disgraced British royal now faces testimony or settlement in US lawsuit
RT – A Manhattan court has given the go-ahead for Virginia Giuffre’s sexual assault case against the UK’s Prince Andrew. The prince’s lawyers had tried to have the case dismissed due to a settlement between Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein.
US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled on Wednesday that Giuffre’s civil case against Andrew can move ahead to trial.
Giuffre claims that deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his recently-convicted girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked her to the Duke of York for sex on three separate occasions when she was 17 years old.
Earlier this month the prince’s legal team pressed Kaplan to dismiss the case, after it emerged that Epstein paid Giuffre $500,000 in a 2009 settlement, in which she agreed not to sue anyone linked to the convicted pedophile who could be a “potential defendant.”
Kaplan, however, sided with Giuffre’s lawyers, who argued that the agreement was only signed for Epstein’s benefit, not that of a “third party” like Andrew. As such, the prince’s motion to dismiss was “denied in all respects.”
Andrew denies the allegations, and has insisted that he doesn’t recall ever even meeting Giuffre. The royal maintained his denial even after being shown a photograph of himself and Giuffre together in London during a BBC interview in 2019. More recently he has accused Giuffre of seeking a “payday” from the case.
The trial now moves into what may be a lengthy phase of discovery and deposition, should the two parties fail to reach a settlement. During this phase, other members of the British royal family may be summoned to testify.
Democrats Now Demanding Proof of ID to Walk the Streets of Nation’s Capitol — But NOT to Vote
Gateway Pundit – The Democrats are going to ram through their “Right to Cheat” voting bill today.
The new law will legalize midnight drop boxes, criminal ballot harvesting and No Voter ID laws.
It will be the end of the great American experiment.
After they allegedly “won” the most votes ever with their uninspiring basement candidate Joe Biden they somehow feel the need to legalize cheating in elections.
Seems a bit odd.
So after today, Democrats will demand ID cards and vaccine passports to walk the streets of Washington DC. But Voter ID will be done away with.
Joe Biden Erects Concrete Security Wall Around White House — But Leaves US Border Wide Open
Gateway Pundit- The Biden administration built a concrete security wall around the White House this week. It is not clear yet why they believe the construction of the concrete wall is necessary.
Meanwhile, the US Border is completely wide open. Illegal immigrants are flooding into the country at record levels.
And here we thought walls don’t work.
These people are nothing but hypocrites
The Federal Reserve Keeps Buying Mortgages
MISES – Runaway house price inflation continues to characterize the U.S. market. House prices across the country rose 15.8% on average in October 2021 from the year before. U.S. house prices are far over their 2006 Bubble peak, and remain over the Bubble peak even after adjustment for consumer price inflation. They will keep on rising at the annual rate of 14–16% for the rest of 2021, according to the AEI Housing Center.
Unbelievably, in this situation the Federal Reserve keeps on buying mortgages. It buys a lot of them and continues to be the price-setting marginal buyer or Big Bid in the mortgage market, expanding its mortgage portfolio with one hand, and printing money with the other. It should have stopped before now, but the purchases, financed by newly created fiat money, or monetization, go on. They proceed at the rate of tens of billions of dollars a month, stoking the house price inflation, making it harder and harder for new families to afford a house. A recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece was entitled “How the Fed Rigs the Bond Market”—it rigs the mortgage market, too.
The balance sheet of the Federal Reserve has grown to a size that would have amazed previous generations of Federal Reserve governors and economists. Although we have become somewhat accustomed to it, so fast do perceptions adjust, it would also have surprised readers of Housing Finance International of five years ago, and readers of 15 years ago would probably have judged the current reality simply impossible. Over time, we keep discovering how feeble are our judgments of what is possible or impossible.
The total assets of the Federal Reserve reached $8.7 trillion in November 2021. This is just about double the $4.5 trillion of November 2016, five years before—and we thought it was really big then. Today’s Federal Reserve assets are ten times what they were in November 2006, 15 years ago, when they were $861 billion, and none were mortgages.
The Federal Reserve now owns on its balance sheet $2.6 trillion in mortgages. That means about 24% of all outstanding residential mortgages in this whole big country reside in the central bank, which has thereby earned the remarkable status of becoming by far the largest savings and loan institution in the world. Like the historical U.S. savings and loans associations, the Federal Reserve owns very long-term mortgages, with their interest rates fixed for 15 to 30 years, and neither marks its investments to market in its financial statements nor hedges its substantial interest rate risk. It accounts for its mortgages at par value, not what it paid for them, and separately reports $338 billion of unamortized premiums (net of discounts) on securities—presumably a significant proportion of this is premiums paid on mortgages and thus additional investment in them.
This $2.6 trillion in mortgages is 48% more than the Federal Reserve’s $1.76 trillion of five years ago, and of course, infinitely greater than the zero of 2006. Remember that from the founding of the Federal Reserve until then, the number of mortgages it owned had always been zero. That was what was normal. Whether moving into directly subsidizing mortgages and inflating the price of houses be considered progress or deterioration, or perhaps first the former and then the latter, it was certainly a big change. It was an emergency action in both the financial crisis of 2007–09 and the financial panic of 2020. Should a giant Federal Reserve mortgage portfolio be permanent or temporary? If temporary, how long should it go on?
Florida Family Fighting for Ivermectin: Appeals Court Expedites Case
Epoch Times – Florida’s First District Court of Appeal has expedited the process to decide a lawsuit filed by the family of a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator at a Jacksonville hospital.
Attorneys for Mayo Clinic Florida have until 10 a.m. Jan. 13 to respond to the appeal filed by the family of 70-year-old Daniel Pisano.
Then the family’s attorneys will have until Jan. 14 to file additional arguments. At that time, a three-panel judge could be appointed to decide the case.
Mayo Clinic has said Pisano, who has been on a ventilator 22 days, has a slim chance of survival.
But an outside doctor, who is not affiliated with Mayo Clinic, testified in an emergency hearing Dec. 30 that there’s still a good chance to save him—although there’s no time to delay, the physician said.
Florida’s First District Court of Appeal has expedited the process to decide a lawsuit filed by the family of a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator at a Jacksonville hospital.
Attorneys for Mayo Clinic Florida have until 10 a.m. Jan. 13 to respond to the appeal filed by the family of 70-year-old Daniel Pisano.
Then the family’s attorneys will have until Jan. 14 to file additional arguments. At that time, a three-panel judge could be appointed to decide the case.
Mayo Clinic has said Pisano, who has been on a ventilator 22 days, has a slim chance of survival.
But an outside doctor, who is not affiliated with Mayo Clinic, testified in an emergency hearing Dec. 30 that there’s still a good chance to save him—although there’s no time to delay, the physician said.
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