WORLD NEWS
The Warning Signs Make Monkeypox the New SARS-CoV-2
My mom used to always say, “practice makes perfect.” Despite complaining, my siblings and I learned that doing something repeatedly develops judgment, skills, knowledge, good instincts, and a much better final product. Our products improved when we learned to evaluate our mistakes and not repeat them. So, let’s consider how we are doing two and a half years after the advent of COVID.
A New Disease Outbreak
Pride month has been declared for June in the United States, and Pride is celebrated in many parts of the world, in parades and great gatherings, and parties in the US, Europe, and other locations. Hundreds of thousands are celebrating.1
Unfortunately, there is an outbreak of monkeypox that has specifically been infecting Pride participants–“men who have sex with men,” –as the legacy media put it. The outbreak was first reported in May when a single case was detected in the UK.2
Scientists are now reporting that this outbreak of monkeypox is mutating at an unprecedented, accelerated rate compared to other outbreaks and is the “largest monkeypox virus (MPXV) outbreak described so far in non-endemic countries.3 Ever. As of June 23rd, more than 3,417 identified cases were reported across fifty-eight countries on multiple continents.4
Is Monkeypox a PHEIC (pronounced FAKE) Yet?
The World Health Organization (WHO) just called a meeting to determine if the monkeypox outbreak should be classified as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.5 The emergency status “known as PHEIC — pronounced ‘fake’ — applies to an extraordinary event that carries a public health risk via the international spread of a disease, and one that potentially requires a coordinated response.”6 The last time WHO called a meeting to consider classifying a disease as a PHEIC was in January of 2020, when they evaluated the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. WHO declined to label the COVID-19 disease a PHEIC, changing their mind just a week later.
And I am sorry, but seriously…. the pronunciation of the emergency status label that was applied to SARS-CoV-2 and now considered for monkeypox is pronounced FAKE??? You can’t make this stuff up…and I didn’t.
The timing of this monkeypox outbreak is especially unfortunate because the enormous numbers of group gatherings to celebrate Pride month bring together “men who have sex with men” in exuberant celebrations, and human nature often takes its course.
Monkeypox is spread by skin-to-skin contact, especially of an intimate nature. WHO reports that the “monkeypox virus is transmitted from one person to another by close contact with lesions, body fluids, respiratory droplets, and contaminated materials such as bedding. The incubation period of monkeypox is usually from 6 to 13 days but can range from 5 to 21 days.”7
Despite the mass gatherings planned around the world to celebrate Pride month, the CDC, NIH, and other public health officials refuse to clearly and broadly state that there should be no intimate contact of any kind between those at risk for this disease or infected during this outbreak.8 Gay and bisexual men need to protect themselves and each other for a few weeks, so they do not get sick. Our friend and colleague, Paul Alexander, Ph.D., has very plainly called out these public officials for their dereliction of duty in failing to warn affected communities clearly about how they can protect themselves and each other.9
In November 2021, a report was issued by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which, along with the Munich Security Conference, held a tabletop exercise to consider responses to a fictional monkeypox outbreak that was posited to occur in May 2022.10
Stretching credulity, fiction has now been replaced by fact as the world experiences a genuine explosion of the monkeypox disease starting on the exact assigned date. Could this exact prediction be one more big coincidence?
Dutch Farmers Protest Climate Mandates That would Cut Livestock by 30 Percent
Dutch farmers are continuing their demonstrations against a government climate policy that officials expect to end many farmers’ livelihoods, with organizers on Telegram planning July 4 protests they say will “flatten” the whole of the Netherlands.
The message calls on concerned farmers and citizens to organize their own regional actions with the goal of closing all “distribution centers for food supplies and all major polluters” until “the government changes its plans.”
One viral call for a July 4 protest came from a large truckers’ Telegram group, suggesting that some truckers in the Netherlands may find themselves in solidarity with the nation’s agriculturalists.
The farmers, who plan to protest at many of the nation’s airports, specifically mentioned Schiphol and Eindhoven. NLTimes.nl has reported that spokespersons for both airports say they are monitoring the situation but have little information at present.
The Epoch Times reached out to both airports for comment but did not receive a response by press time.
In 2021, the Netherlands’ coalition government proposed slashing livestock numbers in the country by 30 percent to meet nitrogen emissions targets.
The country has already implemented stringent restrictions on new construction with the aim of curbing nitrogen emissions.
Rabobank has argued that those new hurdles have slowed down homebuilding in the Netherlands, intensifying a housing shortage in the densely populated coastal nation.
On June 10, the government issued a national and area-specific plan for curbing nitrogen emissions. Those emissions are heavily driven by ammonia from livestock manure.
Some parts of the country would have to slash those emissions by 70 or even 95 percent.
It openly acknowledged that “there is not a future for all [Dutch] farmers within [this] approach,” as reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Service.
“The Minister of Nature and Nitrogen Policy expects about a third of the 50,000 Dutch farms to ‘disappear’ by 2030,” the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade reported in a June 23 Market Insight Report.
The Netherlands is the world’s fifth-largest exporter of food, exceeded only by the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and China, according to World Bank statistics.
The Dutch government offers a multibillion-dollar buyout arrangement for farmers.
Christianne van der Wal, minister of nature and nitrogen policy, has left open the possibility that the government will expropriate land from farmers who do not comply, as reported by NOS Nieuws.
The proposals and resultant protests come amid worldwide fertilizer and food shortages.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Following Landmark Second Amendment Decision, SCOTUS Overturns Appeals Court Decisions in 4 States
The Supreme Court followed up its June 23 landmark ruling that for the first time recognized a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, by issuing a series of rulings June 30 reversing federal appeals court decisions that upheld gun restrictions in California, New Jersey, Maryland, and Hawaii.
Courts will find it difficult to uphold the firearms laws in question after the high court’s June 30 and June 23 rulings.
In unsigned orders, all four cases were remanded June 30 to lower courts “for further consideration in light of” the Supreme Court’s June 23 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that 6–3 ruling, the high court invalidated New York state’s tough concealed-carry gun permitting system.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The Supreme Court has been strengthening Second Amendment protections in recent years. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court held the amendment protects “the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” and in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), that this right “is fully applicable to the States.”
It makes no sense to recognize Americans’ right to defend themselves in their homes while denying them the ability to defend themselves outside their homes, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote June 23 in the court’s majority opinion.
“After all, the Second Amendment guarantees an ‘individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,’ and confrontation can surely take place outside the home. … Many Americans hazard greater danger outside the home than in it,” Thomas wrote.
In the new orders, the Supreme Court summarily disposed of the four pending cases, simultaneously granting appellants’ petitions seeking review while skipping over the oral argument phase. Some lawyers call this process GVR, standing for grant, vacate, and remand.
In the Maryland case, Bianchi v. Frosh, court file 21-902, a coalition of 25 states led by Arizona challenged Maryland’s Firearms Safety Act of 2013. The statute, which was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in September 2021, required pistol purchasers to seek a license, complete safety training, and be fingerprinted. Maryland bans popular weapons such as the AR-15 and similar rifles and limits magazine capacity to 10 rounds.
Litigation over abortion bans begins at state level; judges block laws in 5 states
Updated: Supporters of abortion rights are taking their battle to state courts after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday.
Some supporters argue that state constitutions protect the right to abortion, the Associated Press reports. Some argue that abortion restrictions are unclear. Some argue that lawmakers in 13 states who passed anti-abortion trigger laws—which were to take effect if Roe is struck down—can’t bind current lawmakers. Some argue that conditions have not been met for trigger laws to take effect.
Judges in Utah and Louisiana temporarily blocked abortion bans Monday, according to the AP, the New York Times and Reuters. A Texas state court on Tuesday blocked an abortion ban enacted before Roe, according to a statement by the American Civil Liberties Union. On Thursday, judges temporarily blocked Florida’s 15-week abortion ban and Kentucky’s conflicting abortion restrictions, according to the Washington Post and a press release.
“It’s all about the states from here on out,” said Jessie Hill, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, in an interview with the New York Times. “We can fantasize about federal solutions to this issue or nationwide settlements of the abortion question, but I think that after Dobbs [v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization], I don’t see a lot of possibilities at the federal level.”
According to the New York Times, reproductive-rights supporters “are coalescing around a strategy of asking courts for temporary injunctions that at the very least can allow abortions to proceed in the short term.”
Lawsuit already filed include:
• In Louisiana, an abortion clinic and other plaintiffs argue that it’s unclear which of the state’s trigger laws are in effect and what conduct is banned. Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Robin Giarrusso granted a temporary restraining order in the case until a July 8 hearing on the TRO. The plaintiffs are represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Boies Schiller Flexner and local counsel Ellie Schilling. (The AP, Reuters, Law.com, Giarrusso’s order, Boies Schiller Flexner press release)
• Planned Parenthood Association of Utah filed a lawsuit claiming that the state’s trigger law violates the state constitution. Third District Judge Andrew Stone issued a temporary restraining order Monday that blocks the law for 14 days. Planned Parenthood Association of Utah is represented by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Zimmerman Booher and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah. (The AP, the Washington Post, Planned Parenthood press releases here and here, the lawsuit)
• In South Carolina, U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis allowed a blocked South Carolina abortion law to take effect. The law bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. (The AP, South Carolina attorney general press release, the Lewis’ June 27 order)
• A lawsuit filed on behalf of Kentucky abortion clinics and a health care provider seeks to block a full abortion ban passed in 2019 and a six-week ban previously blocked by a federal court. The suit claims that the Kentucky Constitution protects the right to abortion. A Jefferson Circuit Court judge temporarily blocked both laws Thursday. (ACLU press releases here and here, the lawsuit, the judge’s June 30 restraining order)
• In Florida, a lawsuit alleges that a law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy violates the state constitution. The suit was filed on behalf of abortion providers and health centers by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Florida, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Jenner & Block. A second lawsuit filed by a Jewish synagogue, Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor, makes a religious liberty argument. Judge John C. Cooper of Leon County, Florida, issued a temporary injunction Thursday. (The AP, Planned Parenthood press release, the Planned Parenthood lawsuit, the New York Times, the Washington Post)
• A lawsuit filed on behalf of abortion providers in Texas seeks to block an abortion ban passed before Roe. A judge temporarily blocked the ban Tuesday, which means that abortions up to six weeks of pregnancy are currently allowed in the state. The suit was filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Morrison & Foerster and Hayward. (ACLU press release, Reuters, the June 27 lawsuit)
• A lawsuit filed on behalf of abortion providers in Idaho contends that the state’s trigger law banning abortion violates Idahoans’ right to privacy and equal protection under the Idaho Constitution. (Planned Parenthood press release, the June 27 lawsuit)
• An abortion provider in Mississippi filed a lawsuit claiming that the state constitution protects a right to abortion. In support of the argument, the lawsuit cites a 1998 Mississippi Supreme Court decision, Pro-Choice Mississippi v. Fordice. (The Mississippi Free Press, WAPT, the June 27 lawsuit)
• The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and the Center for Reproductive Rights filed an emergency motion in an existing lawsuit over the state’s 15-week ban on abortion. The motion seeks to block a provision requiring the state to interpret laws to confer the rights of people on unborn children. (The AP)
• A lawsuit filed in Michigan before the Dobbs ruling alleged that a 1931 abortion ban violates the state constitution. A judge agreed with the argument in May. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she is also filing suit to block the law. (The AP, NPR)
• The Iowa Supreme Court ruled June 17 that the state constitution doesn’t protect a right to abortion. The court ruled in a challenge to a state law requiring a 24-hour wait before an abortion. (CNN)
Texas Sheriff Drives 4 Illegal Aliens to International Bridge, Deports Them
Kinney County sheriff’s deputies responded to a suspected smuggling vehicle on a county road early in the morning on June 29. During the ensuing pursuit, the fleeing driver lost control of the vehicle and flipped it.
The driver, a Mexican national wearing a cartel-related medallion, was taken into custody and is facing at least seven felony charges, according to Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe.
Of the five passengers, all illegal immigrants, one female was taken to the hospital in Del Rio for non-life threatening injuries, while the remaining four declined medical treatment.
Coe said Border Patrol told him they could take the four uninjured illegal aliens into custody for processing only if they had been checked medically first.
“Well they had declined any type of medical help,” Coe told The Epoch Times. “So I can’t let them walk the streets. I can’t say, ‘Hey, go, be free.’ Because I still have to protect the Constitution and protect the people in the county.”
Coe said he loaded the three males and one female into his truck and drove to Eagle Pass, about an hour away, and dropped them off at the port of entry between the United States and Mexico.
In response to a question by The Epoch Times about the sheriff’s move, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the sheriffs in Texas play a “vital role” up and down the border.
“I applaud all of our sheriffs for having to respond in unprecedented conditions. And that’s causing all of us to use unprecedented action,” Abbott said during a press conference in Eagle Pass on June 29.
“And so whether it’s doing what that sheriff in Kinney County is doing, or what we’re doing, such as turning back more than 20,000 people, we all have our own tools and strategies that we use to either turn back or to return people across the border.”
Coe said he agrees with Abbott that local law enforcement shouldn’t have to be tying up so many resources on the border issue.
“But to let them go, undocumented, unaccounted for, just go because of a policy—I couldn’t do it. It’s going to be the exception rather than the rule. But at the same time, if Border Patrol won’t take a group for whatever reason, I don’t have a choice.”
He said he’s not sure if there will be any legal ramifications—”We’ll see what happens.”
Kinney County deputies have arrested 66 smugglers so far in June as the county remains a thoroughfare from the U.S.–Mexico border to San Antonio.
New York Judge Lifts Contempt Order Against Trump in Civil Investigation
Former President Donald Trump has been cleared of contempt of court, a New York judge ruled on June 29.
New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump in contempt in April for not responding to a subpoena issued by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who began investigating the Trump Organization in 2019.
On June 29, Engoron purged the contempt order after reviewing additional documents submitted by Trump’s legal team. Additionally, Engoron said the $110,000 fine that Trump paid as part of the contempt finding will continue to be held in an escrow account, while the former president appeals the initial contempt order.
Trump was ordered to pay a fine of $10,000 per day in April, which added up to $110,000 by early May. The fine stopped accruing in early May following Engoron’s order.
Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said in a statement that the original contempt ruling was “unwarranted.”
“Although we are pleased that the court has lifted the contempt finding, we maintain that it was wholly unwarranted and improper in the first place. We will push ahead with our appeal to secure justice for our client.”
In January, James said her office found “significant” new evidence showing that the Trump Organization had “used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits.” The Trump Organization manages hotels, resorts, golf courses, and other real estate properties.
However, Habba has previously said that James “has weaponized her office through this political witch hunt” and her actions are “a threat to our democracy.”
James, a Democrat, has been the state’s attorney general since 2018, when she defeated Keith Wofford, a Republican, in the general election. James was a candidate for the 2022 gubernatorial race in New York before suspending her campaign in December 2021.
Meanwhile, Trump said in a statement in April that James should allocate resources of her office to fight crimes in New York, rather than investigating his company.
“With the horrible Subway Shootings and Violent Crime in New York being at an all-time high, where people are afraid to walk the streets, the racist and highly partisan Attorney General of New York State, failed Gubernatorial candidate Letitia James, should focus her efforts on saving the State of New York and ending its reputation as a Crime Capital of the World, instead of spending millions of dollars and utilizing a large portion of her office in going after Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization (for many years!), who have probably done more for New York than virtually any other person or group, including employing many wonderful people and paying millions and millions of dollars in taxes,” Trump said.
“This never-ending Witch Hunt must stop. We don’t need racist political hacks going after good, hardworking people for highly partisan political gain. The people of our Country see right through it all, and won’t take this Radical Left ‘sickness’ anymore. Make New York Great Again!”
Trump and his two oldest children, Donald Trump Jr.. and Ivanka Trump, are scheduled to testify in James’s investigation beginning on July 15. New York’s Court of Appeal rejected Trump’s appeal to halt depositions in the investigation earlier this month.
Biden: Drivers Must Pay More for Gas ‘As Long as It Takes’ to End Russia War
President Joe Biden on Thursday said that American motorists should expect to pay elevated prices for gasoline until the Russia–Ukraine war is over.
In a press conference following the NATO summit in Madrid, Biden was questioned about how long people should pay higher gas prices.
“How long is it fair to expect American drivers and drivers around the world to pay a premium for this war?” a New York Times reporter asked Biden.
“As long as it takes,” Biden said in response, “so that Russia cannot in fact defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine.”
“This is a critical, critical position for the world,” he added, again blaming the elevated gas prices on the Russia–Ukraine conflict.
Biden and his fellow Democrats have claimed Russia is to blame for the high prices, although they have rarely mentioned U.S. sanctions targeting Moscow or his well-documented policy efforts to restrict oil and gas production inside the United States. Gas prices started rising soon after Biden took office in January 2021, and they continued on that path well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022.
“The reason why gas prices are up is because of Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia,” Biden also stated. “The reason the food crisis exists is because of Russia.”
US Supreme Court Tosses 3 Rulings Against Abortion Laws
Two cases regarding lower court rulings on abortion bans and a third abortion-related case were thrown out of the Supreme Court on Thursday in light of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
Federal appeals courts in Arizona and Arkansas had made rulings that invalidated abortion bans in those states. A third case in Indiana involved parental notification of abortions performed on minors, Reuters reported.
Those lower court decisions were based on Roe, which was decided 1973, and a companion precedent known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which was decided in 1992.
After the June 24 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe, the three cases will now return to lower courts to be reconsidered.
In Arkansas, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit blocked measures passed by lawmakers to ban abortions performed because of fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome. This decision was made in Rutledge v. Little Rock Family Planning Services.
A federal appeals court in Arizona made a similar decision to block a ban on abortions due to fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome.
Speaking to LifeNews, Denise Harle, the senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, praised the decision.
“Every human life is worthy of protection; Arkansas’ laws protect both unborn children and women. And now that the Supreme Court has returned policy decisions of this sort to the states, we trust that the 8th Circuit will conclude that Arkansas’ laws protecting unborn children, the health of pregnant mothers, and the integrity of the medical profession are legitimate,” she said.
The third case thrown out of the Supreme Court relates to a law in Indiana that required the parents of minors seeking abortions to be notified.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit will now have to reevaluate its decision in Box vs. Planned Parenthood of Indiana.
In 1973, the Roe decision largely made abortions legal nationwide and the 1992 companion ruling held that states can’t impose significant restrictions on abortions before a fetus becomes viable for life outside the womb.
Both of those rulings were overturned on June 24 when the Supreme Court, powered by its conservative majority, upheld a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy and overturned Roe.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Atlanta Fed Predicts Negative Second-Quarter Growth, Indicating Recession Has Begun
The U.S. economy is expected to contract in the second quarter, the latest estimate from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta shows.
The economy is expected to fall to a negative 1 percent annual rate in the April-to-June period, according to the Atlanta Fed Bank’s GDPNow model. That’s down from an 0.3 percent projection from earlier this week.
The regional central bank cited the latest economic data from the U.S. government. Second-quarter real personal consumption expenditures fell to 1.7 percent, down from 2.7 percent. Real gross private domestic investment growth tumbled to minus 13.2 percent, down from minus 8.1 percent.
“The nowcast of the contribution of the change in real net exports to second-quarter GDP growth increased from [minus] 0.11 percentage points to 0.35 percentage points,” the Atlanta Fed stated.
The next GDPNow update will be released on July 1. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
The update comes one day after the final first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) reading was revised lower to an annual rate of minus 1.6 percent, the first quarterly drop since 2020. GDP fell as consumer spending growth was adjusted lower to 1.8 percent, while private inventories tumbled by 0.3 percent. Imports surged at a better-than-expected rate of 18.9 percent, fixed investment growth held steady at 7.4 percent, and housing investment stayed at a tepid pace of 0.4 percent.
‘High Inflation … Can Become Destructive,’ JP Morgan Exec Warns
JP Morgan Asset Management’s chief investment officer Bob Michele warned Thursday that the U.S. is headed for a recession.
Michele started his Wall Street journey in the early 1980s stagflation period, but he said that 2022 is the most challenging year of his career thus far, according to Bloomberg. While Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell continues to try and engineer a “soft-landing” for our current inflation crisis, Michele is less optimistic.
A recession is looking more likely than Powell’s soft landing, Michele told the outlet. “This current period is no doubt the most challenging in my career,” Michele said in the interview. “You are stuck with a lot of liquidity in the system and rates that look ridiculously low relative to the levels of growth and inflation that we are seeing and where employment is.
Bloomberg argued that Michele’s pessimism is built from the historical collapse of stocks and bonds around the world, coupled with $8 trillion lost from the S&P 500 alone. “We had gone through recessions, deep and shallow, and we recovered. What we are learning is that high inflation expectations when they are entrenched can become destructive,” Michele continued.
Michele reinforced his point that “the central banks now have to scramble to try to get that out of system while trying to engineer a soft landing. Stagflation and recession look more likely to us than soft-landing.” The impact of inflation and recession have forced Americans into cutting back on eating out and going to the grocery store as food prices soar.
How Corporations Are Using Environment Concerns to Scam You
ESG, or environmental, social and governance, funds are supposed to be those focused on companies with strong environmental ethics and responsibility
Further investigation reveals rampant greenwashing has occurred, and many ESG-labeled funds are far from “sustainable”
The SEC is investigating Goldman Sachs overs its ESG funds, including whether the bank’s management of ESG funds differs from what it has disclosed to investors
In May 2022, electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla was removed from the S&P 500 ESG Index, despite its focus on creating environmentally conscious vehicles
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk tweeted in response that ESG is a scam, considering Exxon Mobil is still listed in the S&P 500 ESG Index top 10
Cryptocurrency in the Shadow of the Infrastructure Act: An Update
It’s been over six months since the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed with its cryptocurrency reporting provisions intact. If left unamended, those provisions will require exchanges, miners, and software developers to report the name and address of each “customer” as well as any business engaged in a transaction of $10,000 or more in cryptocurrency to report the customer’s name, address, taxpayer identification number, amount paid, date, and nature of the transaction. Worse yet, it’s only six months until the reporting requirements will start to go in effect.
Much has happened in 2022 thus far, so it is understandable that the issue lost the spotlight. Soaring inflation, Canada’s mass freeze on bank accounts, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the like have all been well deserving of our attention. Yet in the last week, both a pair of senators and Coin Center brought the reporting provisions back into focus.
First up, Senators Cynthia Lummis (R‑WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D‑NY) introduced legislation to create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies where much of the focus is on designating regulatory authority. In his analysis of the bill, Cato’s Jack Solowey wrote, “The question that the Lummis‐Gillibrand bill seeks to answer is less ‘whether’ it is the SEC or the CFTC that has a role to play in crypto regulation so much as ‘when’ each agency does.” However, the bill also included language from Representatives Patrick McHenry (R‑NC) and Tim Ryan’s (D‑OH) bill that seeks to redefine the broker definition (section 6045) and repeal the reporting requirement (section 6050I) that were enacted in the Infrastructure Act. While a full repeal of both sections is the most desirable route, the balance struck in the McHenry‐Ryan proposal appears to be the most politically‐feasible option right now.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) have turned out to have more problems than internal combustion engines (ICE), according to a new study by data analysis and advisory firm J.D. Power.
While ICE vehicles averaged 175 problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), this jumped to 239 among PHEVs and 240 among BEVs, a June 28 press release of the J.D. Power 2022 U.S. Initial Quality Study stated. Lower scores represented higher-quality vehicles.
The BEV assessment does not include Tesla models. Tesla PP100 data are shown separately from the BEV average since “the predominance of Tesla vehicles could obscure the performance of the legacy automakers that have recently introduced BEVs,” J.D. Power stated.
Tesla models, which were included in the industry calculation for the first time, averaged 226 problems per 100 vehicles.
Overall, there was an 11 percent increase in problems per 100 vehicles, with the industry average hitting 180 PP100. Vehicle problems reached a record high in the 36-year history of the study. J.D. Power blamed disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, including personnel dislocations, record-high vehicle prices, and supply chain issues.
“In general, initial quality has shown steady improvement throughout the history of this study, so the decline this year is disappointing—yet understandable,” said David Amodeo, director of global automotive at J.D. Power, according to the press release.
“Automakers continue to launch vehicles that are more and more technologically complex in an era in which there have been many shortages of critical components to support them.”
HEALTH
Why the War on Salt Is Dangerous
Evidence shows having the correct potassium to sodium balance influences your risk for hypertension and heart disease to a far greater extent than high sodium alone, and the Western diet tends to be lacking in potassium
It’s generally recommended that you consume five times more potassium than sodium, but most Americans eat twice as much sodium as potassium
When lowering salt in processed foods, many manufacturers added monosodium glutamate (MSG) instead — a flavor enhancer associated with obesity, headaches, thyroid, liver, kidney and intestinal damage, and much more
Tough day at work? Unsure about the future and what will happen? These survivalist traits will help you keep your calm AND could save your life
The skills you’ve acquired and gear in your pack are often the difference in making it through a life and death situation. But you first need the mental fortitude to survive. Without the drive to survive—and a strong mindset—no piece of gear will save you. The most important tool to bring along is mental toughness. Having a survivalist mentality (the will to live no matter how difficult the adversity) is multi-faceted. There are hidden hazards abound, but also remedies that can help us recover our advantages and get home safe to our families.
1. Tenacity
Whether you call it intestinal fortitude, tenacity, or grit, this facet of your survival mindset is all about endurance. Can you hang in there even when your hope has failed?
2. Adaptability
Adaptability is one of the crown jewels of the survival mindset. To be adaptable, you must be able to change along with changing events, situations, and environments. It’s all about flexibility and trying new options. If you get lost in the woods one afternoon, you may not make it home to your own bed. An adaptable person will assess the situation and realize that their bed isn’t an option, so they’ll have to find a new place to sleep. Since there’s no water faucet in the wild, they’ll find a new source of water. There’s no fridge either, so they’ll find a new source of food. These substitutions may not be as good as they would like, but they’ll be good enough for now. An adaptable survivor can embrace change while recognizing the things that are worth continuing and the things that need to be abandoned.
3. Work ethic
Your work ethic plays a major role in your survival mindset. Survival is hard work—that’s why we don’t choose to do it as a “day job” anymore. When thrust into an emergency that requires hard toil, lazy people are naturally going to suffer. Thankfully, your work ethic can be built up over time (if you survive your initial bout of laziness), and you’ll be wiser for the wear and tear. Experience is a hard but effective teacher, showing us the value of working harder next time. To build a strong work ethic, you’ll have to learn to stick with a job until it gets done.
4. Creativity
Humans make stuff. We make fire, metal, airplanes, and iPhones—and sometimes we even make our own problems. This innate creativity usually benefits us, enabling us to devise ingenious solutions to our problems (in daily life and in emergencies).
5. Positivity
Just because everyone cites a positive mental attitude as a beneficial survival trait doesn’t mean you should discount it. In fact, you should pay even closer attention to the topic. I like to explain positivity to my classes as a lens that you look through. It’s a little like “beer goggles,” except that it doesn’t make everyone a “perfect 10” on the attractiveness scale. Instead, it allows you to see the brighter side of a situation. This is a hard skill to master, but it’s worth the work. Your attitude is vital to keep up morale. And this upbeat attitude isn’t just handy when you’re lost in the wilds: you can use it every day.
6. Acceptance
When you’re in a tough situation, you may just have to accept it. It’s only natural to resist and deny an ugly revelation or a frightening scenario, but this knee-jerk reaction to fight reality is a mistake. Acceptance doesn’t mean that we like the circumstances around us or want them to continue. Instead, it means that we recognize their reality and understand that we can’t change them right now.
7. Humor
I’m not talking about clowns and slapstick comedy. I’m talking about the other kind of humor—dark and bitter. It may surprise you, but humor does play a role in human psychology and survival. Sometimes called “gallows humor,” this grim sense of comedy was used by our ancestors as both a weapon and a shield. And it’s still used today. Most of our soldiers, police, firefighters, and EMTs know this type of humor very well. It helps them push through the bad days. No, not everything is a joke, but there is some value in identifying irony where you can.
8. Bravery
How do we explain bravery? It’s not a lack of fear. Instead, it’s more like a conquest of fear. Fear and bravery are not opposites—in fact, they coexist. When a situation isn’t dangerous or frightening, there’s no need for bravery and no condition for it to exist. We have to be afraid before we can be brave.
9. Motivation
What motivates a person to stay alive when everything has gone wrong? Many survival stories speak of the survivor’s devotion to their religion, or to a higher power that motivated them and gave them hope. Other survivors have told of their intense desire to get back to family, friends, and loved ones. What would motivate you to stay alive in a survival emergency? It’s different for every person.
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
How To Grow A Victory Garden: What Goes In A Victory Garden
Victory gardens were widely planted in the United States, U.K., Canada, and Australia during World War I, and again when World War II broke out a few years later. The gardens, used along with rationing cards and stamps, helped to prevent food shortages and freed up commercial crops to feed soldiers. Planting a Victory Garden also boosted morale by providing a way for folks at home to do their part in the war effort.
Victory Gardens Today Also known as war gardens or food gardens for defense, Victory Gardens were grown in nearly every spare patch of land in private gardens, public lands, parks, playgrounds, and churchyards. Even window boxes and front-step containers became useful Victory Gardens.
Victory Gardens today are still important in countless ways. They stretch the food budget, provide healthy exercise, produce chemical-free fruits and vegetables, help the environment, and allow a way for people to be self-sufficient, often with enough produce left over to share or donate. Wondering about Victory Garden design and what to plant? Read on and learn how to start a Victory Garden. How to Start a Victory Garden Don’t worry too much about Victory Garden design; you can start a Victory Garden in a small backyard patch or a raised garden. If you’re short on space, consider a container Victory Garden, ask around about community gardens in your neighborhood, or start your own community Victory Garden.
If you’re new to gardening, it’s wise to start small; you can always expand your Victory Garden next year. You may want to join a gardening group in your area or grab a couple of books at your local library. Most local cooperative extensions offer classes or helpful brochures and booklets about planting, watering, fertilizing, and coping with troublesome pests and disease in your area. For most vegetables and fruits, you’ll need a spot where the soil drains well and doesn’t remain soggy. Most vegetables need at least a few hours of sunlight per day, and some, like tomatoes, need all-day warmth and bright sunlight. Knowing your growing zone will help you determine what to grow. Before you plant, dig in a generous amount of compost or well-rotted manure. What Grows in a Victory Garden? Original Victory Gardeners were encouraged to plant crops that were easy to grow, and that advice still holds true today. A Victory Garden may include: Beets Beans Cabbage Kohlrabi Peas Kale Turnips Lettuce Spinach Garlic Swiss chard Parsnips Carrots Onions Herbs
You can also grow fruit such as strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. If you don’t mind waiting, most fruit trees are ready to harvest in three or four years.
Rabbits produce manure that is arguably the BEST for the gardeners’ purposes. It is ready for use with absolutely no composting: no building bins, no heavy work turning the piles, no trucking in loads of manure from animals who may be heavily medicated. Just park an old wheelbarrow under the cage if you like, wheel to the garden, and dump. If you want to water houseplants or tender seedlings, make a manure tea using a quart or more of rabbit droppings soaked in five gallons of water. Let it sit for a day or two, stir a few times, then strain the tea into your watering can to avoid clogging!with the fine fibers. You can dump the fibrous remainder around your berry bushes or other shrubs as mulch.
When the whole of the manure is mixed into soil for growing vegetables, its combination of available nutrients and well broken-down fiber mulch gives incredible results. I’ve gardened in large plastic pots using intensive polyculture methods (basically a major plant and a few smaller ones), and have produced lots of food more reliably than most family gardeners in gopher and deer country like California.
So what’s the cost? Well, wherever you live, there are probably discarded “pet” rabbits at local animal shelters, many of which may be nearly impossible to handle. These animals could be rescued from “euthanasia” and allowed to finish their lives in a cool shady corner of a garden or in- a cage hanging from the north side of an outbuilding, or maybe inside an old horse stall or garage if the winters are harsh. Rabbits die from heat and wind, rarely just from cold temperatures. Choose the large rabbits, as the tiny ones cannot live outside even in milder climates. With some used cages and less than $25 in watering equipment, rabbit manure can be produced right in your own garden.
What does this splendid organic manure cost? Rabbit pellets sell for about $9 per 50-pound bag. Growing your own fodder will be cheaper. You can cut costs by feeding the rabbits organic waste from tree prunings and vegetables, but you must first learn which plants are okay for general use, which for a small portion of diet, and which are deadly, like swiss chard and other oxalic acid plants.
And there would be double satisfaction: at first, saving some small animal lives that would otherwise be wasted. Then later, the great joy of raising top-notch vegetables and fruits, and using less water too!
Meat Production
Rabbits are the most economical, labor efficient, and practical way to produce protein. This protein production also has some terrific by-products. I’ve always been very interested in feeding the hungry”it was my motivation from the beginning. It was why I started out as a vegan, and how I’ve become a rabbit raiser. I nearly cried for relief when I did my own conversion rates and realized that with rabbits as clean and resilient as they are, that is, needing no antibiotics, and as well as the manure works, that THIS was the way we could feed everyone a nonchemical diet without chemical “fertilizers,” especially in remote areas where nothing grows but brush, and the soil is dry and depleted. I can grow veggies in almost any soil using rabbit manure, and it holds moisture about as well as those little “water pellet” granules made of cross-linked polyacrylamides, which look like jello.
Rabbit, chicken, and turkey all have similar protein percentages by weight, with beef, lamb, and pork being from 49% less. Rabbit meat has nearly one gram more protein per ounce than chicken, and nearly one gram less fat. It has 15 calories less per pound, and here’s the important one for lots of people: the cholesterol is much lower, even than chicken white meat. AH other meats range from 220-259 mg/lOOg, while rabbit has 164 mg/lOOg. Also noteworthy, rabbit is the richest source of zinc except for oysters, which are bottom feeders, difficult to farm, and very slow growers.
COVID RELATED NEWS
Did ‘Catastrophic Accident’ Start COVID-19?
According to a “senior European politician,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confided to him in private that he believes COVID-19 was the result of a catastrophic accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China
In late 2020, the WHO established a scientific advisory group to investigate the origin of SARS-CoV-2. This highly compromised group concluded there was nothing to the lab leak theory and that it would no longer be investigated
After sharp criticism, the WHO agreed to set up another investigative committee. The Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) released its first preliminary report June 9, 2022
According to SAGO, the lab leak theory is unlikely and it too insists the “strongest evidence” points to zoonotic spillover. This despite the fact that none of the three basic pieces of data that would support zoonotic origin have been identified
HERV-K102 — a human replication-competent endogenous retrovirus that protects against viruses — is a crucial defense mechanism against severe COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 has several mechanisms for targeting HERV-K102, and this strongly supports the lab-leak hypothesis
The selection of these traits could not have occurred in animals, as only humans have HERV-K102. The only way to give a bat-related coronavirus the ability to inhibit HERV-K102 would be by passaging the virus through humanized mice, and we know that’s been done
40,000 unvaccinated National Guard members set to be fired!
As the deadline came Thursday for members of the National Guard to receive a COVID-19 vaccine or be expelled, a Republican senator introduced legislation to counter the Army’s move.
The bill sponsored by Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn would ban federal funds from being used to implement the requirement, which effects up to 40,000 unvaccinated National Guard members.
CANCEL CULTURE
Cancel Culture is Canceling itself – Commentary By Kathleen Marquardt|
We are definitely living in interesting times. I’d have preferred the 1770s, but I’m here now. For decades we at American Policy Center have been arousing people to see what is actually going on in the world rather than being duped by the globalists’ propaganda arms, the MSM and the education system. Many people are opening their eyes, but that fact has been hidden by the press. Now, the Globalists, with their Cancel Culture, are opening more eyes than imaginable thanks to their hubris. They began to believe their propaganda – gotta love it! – and thought they had ‘turned’ enough of us into gullible fools or useful idiots.
They, the Globalists, are telling us meat, milk, tuna fish (and anything else natural, except centipedes) are killing us. So, we need to eat bugs to be healthy. Uh huh. I laughed. Even many deeply duped Leftists are gagging on that. How many cockroaches does it take to supply one gram of protein? And will they expect us to eat termites? Probably, because that would be one thing that would help reduce our carbon footprints – termites are more destructive to ozone than cow farts! Bon Apetit, Leftists. I will stick with red meat; I like to have a functioning brain.
Seriously, though, those wishing to take control of the world will help us bring themselves down like all previous wannabe masters of the universe. Yes, they have seduced a sizable portion of the population, but it is not as sizable as they would have us believe. The Globalists have studied, plotted, planned, and tested their hypotheses ad nauseum, but just like Communism, they cannot factor in, let alone control, all the variables needed. Maybe they expect to metamorphose themselves into God via Transhumanism. Good luck!
That doesn’t mean we aren’t in for, probably, the most horrendous times this Earth has ever seen. Noah and Lot were witnesses to cataclysmic events but, because the world now has billions of people, and because the Globalists are ‘all in’ for “whatever it takes”, we will be subject to a truly dystopian world.
While WW I was the “war to end all wars” but didn’t put off a worse war for much more than 20 years, we have been living in WWIII for decades. We didn’t notice because very few guns and no tanks or rockets have been used – yet. This is a war using the asymmetrical weapons of dumbing down, brainwashing, programing, psychological warfare, gaslighting, promoting fear and paranoia, fake pandemics, weaponized “medications”, destroying small businesses through shut-downs, allowing rioting by paid radicals, plus cancelling our culture and replacing it with fake and corrupting values, attitudes, and beliefs. Oh, and there are many, many more weapons being used against us. Obviously, the Globalists figure if we are aware of and fight off 500 of them, one of the other 9,000 should get us, amongst which are:
ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing which, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, means:
ESG practices can include but are not limited to, strategies that select companies based on their stated commitment to one or more ESG factors —for example, companies with policies aimed at minimizing their negative impact on the environment or companies that focus on governance principles and transparency. ESG practices may also entail screening out companies in certain sectors or that, in the view of the fund manager, have shown poor performance with regard to management of ESG risks and opportunities. Furthermore, some fund managers may focus on companies that they view as having room for improvement on ESG matters, with a view to helping those companies improve through actively engaging with the companies.[1]
In simple English, that means if your company doesn’t toe the Marxist, Agenda 21/2030, Sustainable, anti-freedom line, you will be cancelled (or just ignored, shunned, and ridiculed until you learn to follow Big Brother or fail).
This, now, is combined with modern monetary theory (MMT), which only a person educated in our institutes of higher learning now can possibly comprehend. MMT contends that government can create more money – without any backing – just because it needs the money to support the federal spending on ESG issues (along with providing billions for war materials to Ukraine) and and and. Through these weapons, the Globalists are making our money worthless in order to continue wiping out the Middle Class. The COVID lockdowns made major inroads on that goal; this is to finish us off.
Add technocracy to the cache of arms, and they now have a mega-weapon in economics. While technocracy, like MMT and ESG, is made out of whole economic cloth, it, too, is an “invented and unnatural form of economics that expresses itself as totalitarianism and requires social engineering to work. Technocrats in the past defined technocracy as the science of social engineering; controlling the populace is crucial for the system to function.”[2]
Their plan is to not only change governance, but to physically change us humans, to “computerize” us. Then they can not only know everything we do when we do it, they can design us to do what they want us to do – even to die if we are useless eaters (or considered such by the global elite like Gates, Schwab, and their useful idiots – too many to list (starting with Fauci).
And don’t overlook PSYOPs, designed by the military for psychological warfare. Who knew they would use it on their own people (snark)?
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