We’re one step closer to self-farming farms
Vox – The most exciting gadget of the year isn’t a TV that displays NFTs or a foldable tablet computer or anything related to the metaverse. It’s an autonomous tractor.
More specifically, it’s the self-driving John Deere 8R tractor that can plow fields, avoid obstacles, and plant crops with minimal human intervention. It looks a lot like any other John Deere tractor — it’s green and yellow — but there are six pairs of stereo cameras that use artificial intelligence to scan the surroundings and maneuver accordingly. The farmer doesn’t need to be anywhere near the machine to operate it, either, as there’s a smartphone app that controls everything. The tractor goes on sale later this year, just in time for an extra special robotic harvest season.
“In my view, it’s a big deal,” Santosh Pitla, associate professor of advanced machinery systems at the University of Nebraska, told Recode. John Deere’s equipment accounts for more than half of all farm machinery sold in the United States, and even the simple fact that it’s putting an autonomous tractor on the market will change the way farming works. “That’s big news,” Pitla said, “and it’s good news.”
This is clearly a big deal for John Deere, but it also represents a huge step forward for the precision agriculture movement as a whole. Simply put, precision agriculture is a concept that utilizes computers, data gathering, and satellite imagery to build a strategy for maximizing the output of a farm. Autonomous farming equipment like soil sensors, specialized drones, and self-driving tractors are key to a future where we can produce more crops with less effort and less environmental impact. But exactly who’s in charge of that future and who benefits from it is still to be determined.
There’s reason to believe that farmers who own thousands of acres will be first in line to buy John Deere’s new self-driving tractors. With models ranging from 230 to 410 horsepower, the John Deere 8R tractors are big machines designed for big farms. And while the company hasn’t said how much its new autonomous tractor will cost, existing, non-autonomous models in the 8R line can cost over $600,000. John Deere says it will sell the automation system as a kit that can be installed on its other tractor models. The company also says it’s looking into offering a subscription plan, but didn’t specify how much it would cost.
Liars, Propagandists and The Great Reset
Mercola – In January 2022, House Oversight Committee Republicans released National Institutes of Health emails that show Drs. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins led the effort to bury the lab leak theory, even though the consensus in early February 2020 was that the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan lab
Fauci and Collins appear to have participated in the creation of a Nature Medicine article that denied the possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan, arguing instead for a natural origin of the virus
The Nature Medicine article is a glaring example of propaganda being promoted as science, and of science in turn being used for political aims
Behavioral scientist Simon Ruda, cofounder of the British Behavioral Insights Team, unofficially known as the “Nudge Unit,” confirms that the British government has been using propaganda tactics to scare the public into complying with COVID rules
Using behavioral science to manipulate people to achieve political goals is fundamentally anti-democratic
Ireland to End Most CCP Virus Restrictions, Including COVID Passport
Epoch Times – Almost all CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus restrictions in Ireland will end on Saturday, including domestic COVID-19 Certificates, curfews, social distancing, and capacity limits.
Addressing the nation following the recommendation to lift the restrictions from the National Public Health Emergency Team, Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin declared it’s time for the Irish to “be ourselves again.”
This makes Ireland the second country following England to remove mandatory vaccine passports after they were implemented.
But the mask mandate, self-isolation rules, and protective measures in schools will remain, and Martin “strongly encourage[d]” people to get themselves and their children vaccinated.
After a Cabinet meeting on Friday afternoon, Martin said the Coalition government agreed to lift most of the restrictions the next day.
“Humans are social beings and we Irish are more social than most. As we look forward to this spring, we need to see each other again. We need to see each other smile. We need to sing again,” he said.
“As we navigate this new phase of COVID, it is time to be ourselves again.”
The Taoiseach said people’s trust in the government is a “precious and powerful,” yet “fragile” thing that requires “confidence that the government will do what is needed in an emergency,” as well as knowing “their government will not impose restrictions on their personal freedoms for any longer than is necessary.”
From 6 a.m. on Saturday, COVID certificates, which are currently required as proof of vaccination or recovery to access indoor hospitality venues, cinemas, theatres, gyms, and leisure centres, will be scrapped.
Biden’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Federal Workers Blocked Nationwide
Epoch Times – President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal employees was blocked on Friday by a federal judge.
Biden does not have the authority to impose such a mandate, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote in a 20-page ruling obtained by The Epoch Times.
Federal law says the president “may prescribe regulations for the conduct of employees in the executive branch,” and government lawyers argued that the act of becoming vaccinated is “plainly ‘conduct.’” The judge, though, sided with plaintiffs, who asserted the conduct cited must be “workplace conduct” for him or her to regulate it.
“So, is submitting to a COVID-19 vaccine, particularly when required as a condition of one’s employment, workplace conduct? The answer to this question became a lot clearer after the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this month,” Brown said, referring to the Supreme Court’s recent finding that the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private businesses appeared to fall outside of its powers as conferred by Congress.
“The Supreme Court has expressly held that a COVID-19 vaccine mandate is not an employment regulation. And that means the President was without statutory authority to issue the federal worker mandate,” he added.
He said that without entering a preliminary injunction, or blocking the order for now, federal workers who have not gotten vaccinated or been approved for an exemption face suspension or termination or other negative consequences.
The covered agencies include the Department of Defense, the Transportation Department, and the CIA.
Dr. Peter McCullough: Vaccines Failed in Stopping COVID-19 and Mandates Have to Be Dropped
Epoch Times – The COVID-19 vaccines have largely failed in stopping the transmission of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, especially for the most recent Omicron variant, so the vaccine mandate should be thrown away, according to Dr. Peter McCullough.
“The vaccines themselves have basically now become obsolete as the virus has continued to mutate,” McCullough told NTD’s “Capitol Report” in an interview broadcast on Wednesday. “So at this point of time, the vaccine mandates have to be dropped across the board.”
McCullough said some recent studies have shown the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines dropped significantly with the new variants.
“There’s a paper by Young-Xu in JAMA, the prior Delta strain that was only about 20 percent covered by the vaccines. Vaccines were very ineffective against Delta,” McCullough said.
Epoch Times – Most of the men who attacked the Speaker’s Lobby doors at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, have not been identified or arrested, and the family of Ashli Babbitt wants to question them about the events that led up to her shooting death.
Of the dozens of people who congregated before the double doors leading from the hallway into the Speaker’s Lobby that day, only two have been arrested by the FBI. The Babbitt family has identified at least six others who could have valuable information on what took place before and after U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd shot and killed Babbitt.
Aaron Babbitt said identifying these men is an important part of his investigation into his wife’s killing. He said the authorities are not interested in pursuing it.
“To look into these people would go against what they’re trying to do, which is to just forget about Ashli and just look the other way,” Aaron Babbitt told The Epoch Times. “‘Pay no attention to what’s going on over there.’ So they don’t want these people. They probably don’t want to find them. Whether they are government actors or informants or whatever, they don’t want to really find those people.”
Tayler Hansen, the video journalist who documented the shooting, said the most active rioters from the hallway are still unknowns.
“The good majority of the people who haven’t been named are the ones being the most violent,” Hansen told The Epoch Times. “Inciting the window breaking and actually causing everything that took place in that room. The only one who has been named that actively took part was Zachary Alam.”
Alam was arrested by federal agents on Jan. 30, 2021, and later indicted for his well-documented role in attacking the Speaker’s Lobby doors. Alam portrayed himself that day as being a member of the Proud Boys, but comments he made to Hansen earlier that day don’t indicate a patriotic disposition.
Maxwell Defense Files Motion for New Trial Over Sex Trafficking Charges
Epoch TImes – Ghislaine Maxwell’s defense team filed a motion in federal court on Jan. 19 requesting a new trial for the British socialite.
On Dec. 29 Maxwell was found guilty of five out of six sex-trafficking charges on behalf of the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Accompanying exhibits for the new trial request are under seal.
At the center of the motion is Juror No. 50, who had recently stated publicly he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and made this known to his fellow jurors during deliberations.
The prosecution had previously requested there be an inquiry into the juror and the defense had previously requested a new trial.
On Jan. 5, Judge Alison Nathan set a briefing schedule with Jan. 19 as the date the defense could officially file a motion for a new trial. The prosecution could respond on Feb. 2 and the defense could reply to that on Feb. 9.
The prosecution informed Nathan on Jan. 10 that if there’s no new trial it will drop its two outstanding perjury charges against Maxwell.
Juror No. 50 is represented by Todd Spodek, of Spodek Law Group in Manhattan.
Spodek submitted a motion to intervene, making Juror No. 50 an active party in the case, and requested to be provided with Juror No. 50’s questionnaire.
It’s believed that there was a question for potential jurors regarding any past history of sexual abuse, and if a potential juror had experienced any, would it have an influence on his or her verdict.
Juror No. 50 has publicly stated he went through the questionnaire very quickly and doesn’t recall what he wrote.
Regarding the two perjury charges, the prosecution requested that Nathan “exclude time” under the Speedy Trial Act, from Jan. 19 through April 1, essentially providing more time for both parties to research and brief post-trial motions.
The Speedy Trial Act has a maximum number of days designated for specific elements of a case to be completed. Excluding time is stopping the clock for a predetermined period.
On Jan. 14 Nathan scheduled Maxwell’s sentencing for June 28.
British Medical Journal Demands Immediate Release of All COVID-19 Vaccine, Treatment Data
Epoch Times – The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has demanded the full and immediate release of all data related to COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, saying it is in the public’s interest to do so.
BMJ, a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal published by the trade union the British Medical Association, called for the release of the data in an editorial published on Wednesday.
“Today, despite the global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, the anonymized participant-level data underlying the trials for these new products remain inaccessible to doctors, researchers, and the public—and are likely to remain that way for years to come,” BMJ said. “This is morally indefensible for all trials, but especially for those involving major public health interventions.”
BMJ also accused pharmaceutical companies of “reaping vast profits without adequate independent scrutiny of their scientific claims,” pointing to Pfizer, whose COVID vaccine trial was “funded by the company and designed, run, analyzed, and authored by Pfizer employees.”
New York-headquartered Pfizer still holds that trial data and has indicated that it won’t begin considering requests for such data until May 2025—24 months after the primary study completion date of May 15, 2023, which is listed on ClinicalTrials.gov.
US Regulators Clear Remdesivir for COVID-19 Outpatient Use
Epoch TImes -Some nonhospitalized patients seeking treatment for COVID-19 can now use the antiviral remdesivir after U.S. drug regulators on Jan. 21 expanded approval of the drug.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the expansion was supported by a study run by Gilead Sciences, which developed remdesivir, showing the drug cut the risk of hospitalization by 87 percent among people who tested positive for COVID-19.
No other research was cited by the FDA.
The study was done before the Omicron variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus became dominant in the United States, although the National Institutes of Health-convened COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel said recently (pdf) the drug “is expected to be active against the Omicron” strain.
The panel recommended remdesivir be made an option for nonhospitalized patients alongside the already-available monoclonal antibody treatment sotrovimab from GlaxoSmithKline.
Monoclonal antibodies require a one-time intravenous infusion, versus IV administration across three straight days for remdesivir.
Dr. David Boulware, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Minnesota who studies COVID-19 treatments, said in a social media post that the Gilead study was small—562 people were enrolled, about half of whom received a placebo—and that a follow-up randomized controlled study would likely find a lower effectiveness against hospitalization.
Remdesivir also didn’t reduce the viral load in patients, unlike COVID-19 pills from Pfizer and Merck, two other treatment options, he noted.
Israel, One of Most Vaccinated Countries in the World, Sets New COVID-19 Case Record
Epoch TImes – The Israeli Ministry of Health announced this week that more than 72,000 people tested positive for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, the largest rise in infections since the start of the pandemic.
Total active cases in the country rose to nearly 400,000 people, of whom 533 are currently hospitalized in critical condition, according to a Jan. 19 statement posted by the country’s health ministry.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned this month that CCP virus cases are expected to increase rapidly amid the spread of the Omicron variant, as he presented government data that indicates two to four million Israelis are predicted to be infected with COVID-19 during the current outbreak.
“Information presented at a cabinet meeting indicates that in Israel, overall 2–4 million citizens will be infected in the current wave,” Bennett’s statement reads.
Marxist Revolution in the Making in America, Expert Warns
Epoch TImes – There is a phenomenon being observed in America today, “an attempt at changing reality” to foster a new Marxist revolution, said Mike Gonzalez, an author of two books on this topic.
According to Marxist thought, “reality is just put together by our conceptual framework,“ Gonzalez told EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program.
“So what we see with Black Lives Matter, what we see with the 1619 Project … is to replace the American narrative, to replace the idea of America from: all men are created equal, we’re all free … with this idea that we’re an awful country, that our history is hideous, that our system is racist itself—that the system must be changed.”
Most people believe that reality cannot be changed because they believe in an ultimate and fundamental truth, in natural law, or in God, but Marxists do not believe in any of that, Gonzalez said.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) used the death of George Floyd as an excuse to change society, Gonzalez explained, “to dismantle the organizing principle of society”—in the words of BLM co-founder Alicia Garza.
Arizona Governor Sues Biden Administration Over Attempt to Wrest Back Federal Funds
Epoch Times – Arizona’s governor on Friday sued President Joe Biden’s administration, asserting its attempt to take back federal money from certain states was not authorized by Congress.
The U.S. Treasury Department recently threatened to wrest the funds from Arizona because state officials have made distribution of the money contingent on not requiring masks.
Failure to change the rules may result in the Treasury moving to recoup the funds and withhold future funds, an official said in a letter to Ducey’s office last week.
But Congress, which authorized the funding with the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (pdf), gave states “broad latitude to choose whether and how to” use the money “to respond to and address the negative impact” of COVID-19, Ducey’s 24-page lawsuit says.
The creation of two grant programs to distribute the money follows the text of the act, the governor asserts.
The programs address “the long-term, negative economic impacts on disadvantaged communities from school closures and overbearing mask mandates” and “empower parents and students to exercise their freedom to make informed decisions regarding their health and educational needs,” the suit states.
The Treasury earlier this month issued a final rule (pdf) for the $350 billion in funds that barred states and other recipients of the money from imposing terms or conditions “that undermine efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
No such requirement was included in the act, though it did say the treasury secretary could “issue such regulations as may be necessary or appropriate to carry out” the law.
‘Unseemly’: NPR Refuses to Correct Story After Supreme Court Deems It False
Epoch Times – National Public Radio (NPR) is refusing to correct a story that was challenged by a trio of Supreme Court justices, triggering a flood of criticism.
Citing anonymous sources, reporter Nina Totenberg said Chief Justice John Roberts “asked the other justices to mask up,” or wear masks, because Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed concerns for her safety amid the recent surge in COVID-19 cases.
Totenberg said that because Justice Neil Gorsuch refused the request—Gorsuch has not worn a mask on the bench recently—Sotomayor began attending oral arguments from her chambers.
In rare public statements a day later, all three justices responded to the report.
Sotomayor and Gorsuch said Sotomayor did not ask Gorsuch to wear a mask, adding that “while we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends.”
Even worse for NPR, which is partially funded by taxpayer money, Roberts said separately that “I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other Justice to wear a mask on the bench.”
Despite the direct challenges to the story, NPR has not issued a correction.
“The chief justice issued a statement saying he ‘did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other justice to wear a mask on the bench.” The NPR report said the chief justice’s ask to the justices had come ‘in some form.’ NPR stands by its reporting,” Totenberg wrote in a follow-up story.
Ask and request are synonyms that mean essentially the same thing.
The only change to the initial piece was hyperlinking to the new one.
An NPR spokesman told The Epoch Times via email that the outlet “continues to stand by Nina Totenberg’s reporting.”
Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor at DePauw University, said that the decision not to correct the story means NPR is calling the justices liars, “which, frankly, comes off as unseemly.”
“The justices have made a public statement and, if NPR wants to dispute it, they need to do more to provide context and even identify their source. The general public knows NPR is a largely agenda-driven news outlet, and they will lose in a credibility contest with Supreme Court justices,” he added.
Virginia Asks Court to Toss Lawsuit Challenging Ban of School Mask Mandates
Epoch TImes – Virginia’s new attorney general has asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit brought against Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order banning school mask mandates.
Attorney General Jason Miyares, who, like Youngkin, is a Republican, told the Virginia Supreme Court that the parents who sued lack standing and didn’t adequately state their case.
“The Court should dismiss the petition for three independent reasons,” Miyares said in a filing (pdf).
“First, petitioners lack standing because they have failed to identify any cognizable injury of any kind, or to explain how any such injury is particularized to them. Second, the petition seeks relief that is unavailable in this Court’s original jurisdiction, as neither mandamus nor prohibition is a substitute for the injunctive relief petitioners seek from this Court. Finally, even if the petitioners had standing and their petition were procedurally proper, this Court should reject their claim on the merits because they have failed to identify a ‘clear right … to the relief sought.’”
The parents cited a state law, which took effect last year, that ordered school districts to offer in-person learning.
The law states: “For the purposes of this act, each school board shall (i) adopt, implement, and, when appropriate, update specific parameters for the provision of in-person instruction and (ii) provide such in-person instruction in a manner in which it adheres, to the maximum extent practicable, to any currently applicable mitigation strategies for early childhood care and education programs and elementary and secondary schools to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 that have been provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC].”
The suit states that because the federal agency currently recommends universal masking in schools, Youngkin’s order, which enables parents to decide whether their children wear masks or not, is “in direct conflict” with the law.
Miyares disagreed, telling the court that the measure directs schools to follow CDC guidelines.
“Neither it nor these guidelines impose a ‘mask mandate,’” he said.
“And even if the CDC issued something other than recommendations, Senate Bill 1303 would not require rigid adherence to every CDC promulgation; instead, the bill explicitly provides that in-person instruction should be provided in a manner which adheres ‘to the maximum extent practicable, to any currently applicable mitigation strategies’ provided by the CDC for childcare and education programs.”
Miyares said the request to the court was aimed at protecting “the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing, care, and education of their children,” adding, “Governor Youngkin had every power to issue the executive order and with our filing, we again affirm that parents matter.”
More Than 300 Twitter Accounts Suspended for Promoting Philippines’ Presidential Front Runner
Epoch TImes – Twitter on Friday suspended over 300 accounts linked to Philippines presidential election candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s support network, following an investigative report by local media alleging that Marcos-related accounts and hashtags were dominating the platform.
Veteran politician Marcos, 64, popularly known as “Bongbong,” is the son of the late dictator overthrown in a 1986 “people power” revolution. The former senator has reportedly emerged as the lead candidate ahead of the May vote.
Rappler claimed in its report that Marcos supporters attempted to dominate Twitter by creating accounts and hashtags that were “pushing pro-Marcos propaganda and attacking his critics.” Some of the hashtags became trending within hours, it said.
Twitter said that it reviewed the accounts and hashtags mentioned in Rappler’s report and found that over 300 accounts were in violation of its policies against spam and platform manipulation.
The majority of these accounts had been removed before the report came out as part of its routine actions, Twitter said, adding that its investigations are still ongoing.
“We remain vigilant about identifying and eliminating suspected information campaigns targeting election conversations,” a Twitter spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Twitter clarified that sharing political content or rallying people to do so via hashtags is not against its policies, unless the accounts involved were inauthentic, automated, or paid for. But it saw “no clear evidence” of that in this case.
“We are committed to working with all relevant governments, including [the Philippine Commission on Elections], and civil society stakeholders as well as domain specialists and subject matter experts tackling the complex challenges to free and open elections,” the spokesperson added.
Video: SHOCKING!!! Dr. Zelenko “The COVID-19 Vaccines Cause AIDS!” + Exposing “The Great Reset” Agenda
Video: David Martin: Prosecuting Those Behind COVID Mass Murder • December 2021
Former ICE Head: Throngs of Illegal Immigrants Allowed in US for Political Power
Epoch Times – Despite a historically high number of people coming across the United States border in 2021, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had a historically low number of arrests and removals.
“That’s on purpose,” according to Thomas Homan, former acting director of ICE under President Donald Trump. Homan worked under six presidents but says this one is different.
“President Biden is the first president in the history of this nation who came into office and intentionally unsecured the border,” he said during a conversation on Jan. 20 in Pennsylvania, about the local effects of unchecked immigration beyond border towns.
The event, attended by about eight Pennsylvania county sheriffs and some state and local lawmakers, was hosted by Berks County Sheriff Eric Weaknecht, the Patriot Caucus, and Berks County Patriots, a well-established Republican club that typically draws several hundred people to its monthly meetings. Homan also spoke at a meeting of the Berks County Patriots later that night.
“Under President Trump, immigration was down 83 percent. We were at a 40 year low for immigration,” Homan said.
He called Trump the greatest president he ever worked for, and said accusations that his border policies were inhumane are absurd because encouraging immigrants to enter the U.S. illegally leads to ugly human rights crimes.
Homan said 31 percent of the women who make the journey to the United States are sexually assaulted, while children die and criminal cartels make billions of dollars.
“When illegal immigration is down by 83 percent, how many women aren’t being raped? How many pounds of fentanyl are not coming across the border?” he said.
Yet the Biden administration has taken steps that attract more people to enter illegally, and at the same time, “decapitated ICE,” by ending the Remain in Mexico plan and weakening enforcement.
“Being in the country illegally is no longer enough of a reason to be arrested and deported. They have to be convicted of an aggravated felony,” Homan said. “If you’re an MS-13 gang member and you get arrested in New York City today for raping an 8-year-old child, if you’re able to post bond, ICE can’t touch you. Even though you are illegally in the United States, even though you’ve been arrested for raping a child, even though you may have a final order from immigration saying you must leave the country, ICE can’t touch you.”
What is the motivation for lax immigration enforcement?
“They want these people to stay,” Homan said. “Why? Biden overturned Trump’s objection to counting illegal immigrants in the census. Millions of new people will be counted in the next census in sanctuary cities, which will result in more seats in the House for the Democrats, which leaves your electoral college in their perpetual power. There’s no other reason. … This is about political power in the future.”
Even if the border wall were completed, we would still have immigration, Homan said. The wall was never expected to fully stop illegal immigration. It was to slow it and to encourage more legal entrance.
California Bill Would Let Children Get COVID-19 Jab Without Parental Approval
Epoch TImes – California Democrat lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow children to be administered with COVID-19 vaccines without parental consent.
Senate Bill 866, also known as the Teens Choose Vaccines Act, has been introduced by state Senators Scott Wiener and Richard Pan, who intended to add a new section to the California Family Code.
“A minor 12 years of age or older may consent to a vaccine that is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration and meets the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ACIP) without the consent of the parent or guardian of the minor,” read the proposal.
The bill doesn’t mention COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, but refers to human papillomavirus (HPV) and hepatitis B vaccines instead.
However, Wiener said COVID-19 vaccination for children is an apparent goal of the bill.
“With the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread availability of highly effective and safe vaccines to treat serious COVID-19 illness, it’s more important than ever that young adults be able to access vaccines,” he said in a statement.
Current California law requires parental consent for children ages 12 to 17 to be vaccinated unless the vaccine specifically targets a sexually transmitted disease.
Besides Wiener and Pan, the bill has eight coauthors, including seven assembly members and one senator.
It’s unclear how widely the bill was received in the state legislature, controlled by the Democratic Party in both the upper and lower house in The Golden State.
California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon refused to comment on the bill, saying the bill hasn’t yet reached the Assembly floor.
How COVID Shots Suppress Your Immune System
Mercola – In a non-peer-reviewed research paper just this week published, Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., describes a mechanism of the COVID shots that results in the suppression of your innate immune system. It does this by inhibiting the type-1 interferon pathway
The COVID jab can cause neurons in your brain to produce toxic spike protein, or take up circulating spike protein, and the neurons try to eliminate the spike protein by transmitting them through exosomes. The exosomes are picked up by microglia, immune cells in your brain, which activate an inflammatory response, which can contribute to degenerative brain disorders
Two microRNAs, miR-148a and miR-590, are central in this process. These microRNAs — excreted in the exosomes along with the spike protein — significantly disrupt the type-1 interferon response in any cell, including immune cells
On average, there are twice as many reports of cancer following the COVID shots compared to all other vaccines combined over the last 31 years
The fact that the signal is that strong is even more remarkable when you consider that most people don’t think the COVID shot could be a variable in their cancer emergence, so they never report it
How to Win the War Against Tyranny
Mercola – Make Americans Free Again, led by Pam Popper, is fighting to preserve American freedoms and has a proven strategy that ensures we can win
They are launching strategic legal challenges across the U.S. Rather than arguing the unconstitutionality of mandates, they challenge the legal basis of the emergency declaration that allowed the mandates to be rolled out in the first place
They also teach Americans everywhere how to start and build their own local parallel societies where members take care of each other and work toward the same goal
The short-, medium- and long-term goals of Make Americans Free Again are to free Americans from government tyranny, address all medical mandates and, ultimately, design and launch a superior medical system
Even if you don’t start your own freedom group, consider making a donation to Make Americans Free Again’s legal fund
The Emergency Must Be Ended, Now
Epoch Times – Commentary
The time has come to terminate the pandemic state of emergency. It’s time to end the controls, the closures, the restrictions, the plexiglass, the stickers, the exhortations, the panic-mongering, the distancing announcements, the ubiquitous commercials, the forced masking, the vaccine mandates.
We don’t mean that the virus is gone—Omicron is still spreading wildly, and the virus may circulate forever. But with a normal focus on protecting the vulnerable, we can treat the virus as a medical rather than a social matter and manage it in ordinary ways. A declared emergency needs continuous justification, and that’s now lacking.
Over the last six weeks in the United States, the Delta variant strain—the most recent aggressive version of the infection—has according to the CDC been declining in both the proportion of infections (60 percent on Dec. 18 to 0.5 percent on Jan. 15) and the number of daily infected people (95,000 to 2,100). During the next two weeks, Delta will decline to the point that it essentially disappears like the strains before it.
Omicron is mild enough that most people, even many high-risk people, can adequately cope with the infection. Omicron infection is no more severe than seasonal flu, and generally less so. A large portion of the vulnerable population in the developed world is already vaccinated and protected against severe disease. We have learned much about the utility of inexpensive supplements like Vitamin D to reduce disease risk, and there’s a host of good therapeutics available to prevent hospitalization and death should a vulnerable patient become infected. And for younger people, the risk of severe disease—already low before Omicron—is minuscule.
Even in places with strict lockdown measures, there are hundreds of thousands of newly registered Omicron cases daily and countless unregistered positives from home testing. Measures like mandatory masking and distancing have had negligible or at most small effects on transmission. Large-scale population quarantines only delay the inevitable. Vaccination and boosters have not halted Omicron disease spread; heavily vaccinated nations like Israel and Australia have more daily cases per capita than any place on earth at the moment. This wave will run its course despite all of the emergency measures.
Until Omicron, recovery from COVID provided substantial protection against subsequent infection. While the Omicron variant can reinfect patients recovered from infection by previous strains, such reinfection tends to produce mild disease. Future variants, whether evolved from Omicron or not, are unlikely to evade the immunity provided by Omicron infection for a long while. With the universal spread of Omicron worldwide, new strains will likely have more difficulty finding a hospitable environment because of the protection provided to the population by Omicron’s widespread natural immunity.
It’s true that—despite emergency measures—hospitalization counts and COVID-associated mortality have risen. Since mortality tends to trail symptomatic infection by about 3–4 weeks, we’re still seeing the Delta strain’s remaining effects and the waning of vaccine immunity against serious outcomes at 6–8 months after vaccination. These cases should decline over time as Delta finally says goodbye. It’s too late to alter their course with lockdowns (if that were ever possible).
Given that Omicron, with its mild infection, is running its course to the end, there’s no justification for maintaining emergency status. The lockdowns, personnel firings, and shortages and school disruptions have done at least as much damage to the population’s health and welfare as the virus.
The state of emergency isn’t justified now, and it can’t be justified by fears of a hypothetical recurrence of some more severe infection at some unknown point in the future. If such a severe new variant were to occur—and it seems unlikely from Omicron—then that would be the time to discuss a declaration of emergency.
Americans have sacrificed enough of their human rights and of their livelihoods for two years in the service of protecting the general public health. Omicron is circulating but it’s not an emergency. The emergency is over. The current emergency declaration must be canceled. It’s time.
Husband Dies in Texas Hospital After Legal Fight to Get Him Transferred
Epoch Times – Anne Quiner’s husband Scott died in an undisclosed Texas hospital on Jan. 22 after Anne sought legal counsel to have him transferred out of Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, where doctors planned to take Scott off life support.
“We got him too late in the process,” Quiner’s lawyer, Marjorie Holsten, told The Epoch Times. “We should have gotten him sooner. He was malnourished, dehydrated, and 30 pounds underweight.”
Holsten said that doctors in Texas reported that they were shocked by Scott’s depleted condition when he finally arrived.
Doctors at Mercy Hospital told Quiner they were taking Scott off his ventilator because they believed he would not recover due to what they said were his “destroyed lungs from COVID pneumonia,” and that their attempts at decreasing sedation only caused him pain.
“Anne is devastated,” Holsten said.
California School District Faces Legal Action Over LGBTQ+ Activist Teachers
Epoch Times – A mother of a student has taken legal action against a school district in Salinas, Calif., over policies she claims allowed two teachers at Buena Vista Middle School to secretly brainwash her teenage daughter into identifying as bisexual, and later as transgender.
Jessica Konen blasted members of the Spreckels Union School District (SUSD) at a board meeting in mid-December, claiming the teachers, who ran a LGBTQ+ club during lunch-hour, “coached” her then sixth-grade daughter to change her gender identity and use a masculine name and pronouns at school.
Her daughter has since switched schools, returned to using her feminine birth name and gender, and seems to be happier, according to her mother—and no longer showing signs of gender dysphoria.
Harmeet Dhillon, CEO of the Center for American Liberty, which is representing Konen and her daughter, told The Epoch Times on Jan. 19 the case is important to protect parental rights.
“It’s terrible what happened to this family,” Dhillon said.
“Supreme Court precedent has made clear that parents have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, and their right is denied to them when schools keep secrets from parents, especially on matters as foundational as a child’s identity, name [and] pronouns,” she said.
“That’s what happened to our clients. This is a violation of the clients’ civil rights—the parent and the child. Every parent has a right to know what’s going on at school.”
Dhillon accused SUSD and Buena Vista Middle School of adopting a “parental secrecy policy,” to keep parents in the dark about certain information regarding students’ gender expression and identity.
The case, Konen v. Spreckels Union School District, was filed on Jan. 19.
Poll: One-Third of Americans Say They Haven’t Gotten a COVID-19 Vaccine
Epoch TImes – About one-third of Americans said they hadn’t received a COVID-19 vaccination, according to a new poll from the Economist/YouGov survey that was recently released.
The poll asked (pdf) respondents to indicate whether they had received a vaccine for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19, and about 31 percent said they had not.
Of that figure, about 61 percent said they don’t ever plan to get any of the COVID-19 vaccines. Another 20 percent said they “might” get a vaccine in the future, the poll found.
Forty percent of independents, 36 percent of Republicans, and 14 percent of Democrats said they hadn’t received a vaccine dose, the survey found. Eight percent of people who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 hadn’t received a vaccine dose, and 43 percent who voted for former President Donald Trump hadn’t.
The survey, which was carried out between Jan. 15 and Jan. 18, polled roughly 1,500 U.S. citizens and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
The survey comes after the Supreme Court wrote in a 6–3 majority opinion on Jan. 13 that the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) likely doesn’t have the authority to issue a vaccine-or-test mandate, which was slated to apply to businesses with 100 or more employees.
“The Act empowers the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures. Confirming the point, the Act’s provisions typically speak to hazards that employees face at work. And no provision of the Act addresses public health more generally, which falls outside of OSHA’s sphere of expertise,” the opinion reads.
Some companies have opted to keep the vaccine mandate despite the Supreme Court ruling. But some companies, including Starbucks, dropped the requirements.
On Jan. 21, President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for all federal workers was blocked by a federal judge, who ruled that the federal government doesn’t have the authority to impose the rule. Unlike the OSHA rule, federal workers don’t have the ability to opt out of the vaccine mandate by submitting to weekly testing.
“So, is submitting to a COVID-19 vaccine, particularly when required as a condition of one’s employment, workplace conduct? The answer to this question became a lot clearer after the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this month,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote in his opinion.
The federal government appealed the ruling shortly after it was handed down.
America’s Secret Government Crisis
CATO Institute – America’s founding generation believed that an informed citizenry was vital to the survival of the Republic. Writing to theologian and philosopher Richard Price on January 8, 1789, Thomas Jefferson observed with satisfaction how his countrymen had come to largely embrace the new constitutional form of government just recently adopted.
“A sense of this necessity, and a submission to it,” Jefferson told Price, “is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.”
But what if that same government takes deliberate, calculated steps to try to ensure that the public is not well informed about the government’s own actions, especially those carried out under a legal cloak of secrecy?
Over 200 years after Jefferson’s missive to Price, the United States now has a sprawling national security bureaucracy that has created tens of millions of classified documents. In 2017 alone (the last year for which figures are available), federal employees created some 50 million classified records. Estimated cost to you, the taxpayer? Around $18 billion.
What’s worse is that many of the classified records created since World War I (when the U.S. government classification system essentially began) – tens of millions of pages – remain classified to this day, out of the reach of the public, historians, journalists and others interested in understanding the totality of America’s history. Here are some examples, based on just the last six years of my own research at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and from using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Jefferson’s vision of an informed citizenry holding its government accountable will only be realized when government secrecy becomes the exception, not the rule.
Liars, Propagandists and The Great Reset
Mercola – In January 2022, House Oversight Committee Republicans released National Institutes of Health emails that show Drs. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins led the effort to bury the lab leak theory, even though the consensus in early February 2020 was that the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan lab
Fauci and Collins appear to have participated in the creation of a Nature Medicine article that denied the possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan, arguing instead for a natural origin of the virus
The Nature Medicine article is a glaring example of propaganda being promoted as science, and of science in turn being used for political aims
Behavioral scientist Simon Ruda, cofounder of the British Behavioral Insights Team, unofficially known as the “Nudge Unit,” confirms that the British government has been using propaganda tactics to scare the public into complying with COVID rules
Using behavioral science to manipulate people to achieve political goals is fundamentally anti-democratic
Fact-Checkers Are Used to Confuse the Public: Sharyl Attkisson
Epoch Times – Five-time Emmy award-winning journalist Sharyl Attkisson said she has seen an increased effort to manipulate the public to appreciate censorship and disapprove of journalism. One of the strategies that has been employed is the use of third-party fact-checkers, she said.
“Nearly every mode of information has been co-opted, if it can be co-opted by some group, [and] fact-checkers are no different,” Attkisson told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.”
“Either they’ve been co-opted, in many instances, or created for the purpose of distributing narratives and propaganda,” said Attkisson. “This is all part of a very well-funded, well-organized landscape that dictates and slants the information they want us to have.”
Attkisson said she first started to notice news being controlled in the early 2000s when the media company she was working for was actively trying to suppress certain stories.
“The pushback came to be more about keeping a story from airing or keeping a study from being reported on the news, not just giving the other side, not just making sure it was accurately reported,” she said of pharmaceutical company stories she was covering at the time.
In 2016 Attkisson heard former President Barack Obama say news needed to be curated, after which mainstream media outlets started to consistently use the term fake news to describe mostly conservative news stories that they deemed untrue.
“And I remember thinking that was such a strange thing to say, because there was no big movement among the public, that people needed to have their information curated, that someone needed to step in and tell us what to think, curate what was online. But … after that, if you look at the media, day after day, there were headlines about fake news and curation of what should and shouldn’t be reported.”
Attkisson was referring to Obama’s comment at the White House Frontiers Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in October 2016.
“It’s relevant to our democracy, citizenship. We’re going to have to rebuild, within this wild, wild west of information flow, some sort of curating function that people agree to,” Obama said.
Because Attkisson was curious about this idea of curating news, she researched the topic of misinformation, which led her to a non-profit called First Draft, which was funded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
“And if you looked at the nonprofit’s website when they said fake news, they meant entirely conservative-base fake news and their viewpoint; there was no liberal version of fake news. And then within a matter of weeks, President Obama gives the speech, the media takes off and runs with it.”
Attkisson said the fake news phrase was actually started by the left but was effectively turned on its head by former President Donald Trump and now most people think he coined the phrase.
“But it’s actually well documented as an invention of political activists on the left during the time period I described,” Attkisson said.
For her book “Smear” she interviewed people who work to spread misinformation and propaganda with the goal of confusing the public. “And they explained to me that, if they do nothing more than confuse the information landscape, maybe you don’t totally buy what they say, but they’ve done enough to make you not sure of anything.”
‘Defeat the Mandates’: Thousands Protest in Washington Against Vaccine Requirements
Epoch Times – Thousands of people turned out in Washington to march in protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates on Jan. 23—one of the largest U.S. events and protests held against the mandates since the start of the pandemic.
Starting at 12:30 p.m. local time, thousands of people marched around the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, with many holding signs decrying COVID-19 regulations, vaccine passports, and mandates. Some criticized the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates.
In recent weeks, U.S. COVID-19 cases have skyrocketed in areas that have high vaccination rates, once again casting a shadow on the effectiveness of the shots, and a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study suggested that natural immunity is superior to vaccines against the Delta variant. Federal officials frequently say that vaccines protect against severe disease and hospitalization.
Former NBA star Kwame Brown, who has frequently criticized vaccine mandates on social media, told The Epoch Times that he attended because “I think we got to get back to compassion for our fellow man and woman.”
“People are being put out of work” over mandates, he said on Jan. 23 in Washington. “People are not being able to go over to their friends and family’s house. … I think everybody should have a right to choose whether they want to do it … and that’s what America is supposed to be about.”
Cruise Ship With Hundreds of People on Board Diverts to Bahamas After US Issues Arrest Warrant
Epoch TImes – A Miami judge issued a warrant that gives officials the ability to seize the Crystal Symphony ship if it enters U.S. waters. Passengers and crew on board told news outlets that the cruise ship diverted to the Bahamas instead of returning to South Florida.
Xivi Medina, a vendor aboard the Crystal Symphony, told NBC Miami that there are no passengers on board now. The only people on board are crew members and vendors.
“The company is going to take care of getting all the crewmembers back home,” said Medina. “Obviously they’re [going to] do it little by little, but the company is buying the tickets to get each of the crewmembers back to their respective countries.”
Elio Pace, a singer performing on the Crystal Symphony, also wrote that the ship was diverted.
“Would you believe me if I told you that yesterday, Friday, (the night of my second show) after all arrangements had been set for flights, car hire, etc by all disembarking passengers and crew, we were notified by the captain that the ship was no longer sailing to Miami and was instead diverting to Bimini in the Bahamas where we would arrive tomorrow, Sunday, and disembark from there?” he wrote on Instagram.
A passenger wrote on Twitter to travel agent Mundy Cruising: “Can you help me change my flight to Heathrow from Miami as we are stuck on Crystal Symphony which has changed route and is now heading for Bahamas instead of Miami.”
In a court complaint, Peninsula Petroleum claimed that Crystal Cruises owes the firm $4.6 million dollars in unpaid fuel bills, including $1 million from the Crystal Symphony alone, according to Local10.
According to court documents, “Peninsula has not been paid for the maritime necessities provided to the vessel, and therefore proceeds to arrest it.” A Miami-based judge issued a warrant saying officials can seize the ship, NBC Miami reported.Stephen Simms, the lead attorney representing Peninsula Petroleum Far East, told Bloomberg that U.S. marshals and a court-appointed custodian are ready to seize the ship if it comes into port in Florida. Crystal Cruises’ parent firm, Genting Hong Kong, filed for provisional liquidation last Wednesday, according to the news outlet.
The Crystal Symphony cruise left Miami on Jan. 8 for a 21-day through the Bahamas. It was supposed to return to Florida on Jan. 29, media reports say.
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