WORLD NEWS
Maher al-Agal, one of the terror group’s top four commanders, was killed in an air strike in Syria
The US killed Maher al-Agal, leader of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist group in Syria, in a drone strike on Tuesday that also targeted one of his deputies. Al-Agal was one of the group’s top four leaders, officials say.
Al-Agal’s death was announced on Tuesday by the Pentagon’s Central Command (CENTCOM), the military command covering the Middle East. CENTCOM said that the strike took place outside Jindayris in northwest Syria, an area currently under the control of Turkish-backed forces.
A deputy of al-Agal was also targeted in the strike, and was seriously injured, according to a CENTCOM statement.
“The removal of these ISIS leaders will disrupt the terrorist organization’s ability to further plot and carry out attacks,” CENTCOM spokesman Col. Joe Buccino said. “ISIS continues to represent a threat to the US and partners in the region.”
The US has carried out a number of strikes and raids on senior IS personnel in northwestern Syria in recent months. An alleged top leader of the group was detained by US forces in a raid last month, while overall IS commander Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi killed himself with a suicide vest during a raid by US special forces in the area in February.
US, Japan agree to cooperate on economic fallout of Ukraine war
The top economic officials of the United States and Japan have pledged to work together to tackle rising food and energy prices while reiterating their condemnation of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki on Tuesday said the war had increased exchange rate volatility, posing risks to economic and financial stability.
Dutch Farmers Are Rebelling Against Great Reset, Says Politician
Dutch farmers are fighting the globalist Great Reset through their protests against aggressive new government climate policies, according to Dutch politician Thierry Baudet.
“The real point here is the Great Reset, mass migration, [and] transnational governance. And that’s why the people have to become atomized—they have to lose their connection with the land. And that’s why they’re hitting the farmers,” he said.
Baudet, a member of the Dutch House of Representatives and leader of the political party Forum for Democracy, made the remark during a July 8 interview with Roman Balmakov, host of EpochTV’s “Facts Matter.”
The interview can be viewed on EpochTV as part of a new video, “Farmer Rebels.” More footage from the Netherlands will be released over the next few days.
On a July 5 episode of EpochTV’s “Crossroads with Joshua Philipp,” Philipp also covered the Dutch farmer protests.
“This is not just a Netherlands thing—this is an all of Europe thing as well,” he said, noting that protests have spread across the continent, partly in connection with similar policies from the European Commission.
Baudet also spoke to The Epoch Times on July 5.
In that interview, Baudet said the government’s policy reflects pressure from the European Union (EU) due to the country’s involvement in the EU’s Natura 2000 network.
“How is it possible that in an age where everybody’s talking about the possibility of food shortages, of insecure supply chains, the Dutch government is pursuing this policy which will lead to even more dependence on international supply chains and, thus, uncertainty for the Dutch people?” Baudet asked on July 8.
“The answer is the people governing this country are following the script written by the EU, to realize what they call a Great Reset. They want to make us more dependent on international supply chains. They want to weaken Dutch sovereignty and autonomy.”
Baudet and other Dutch politicians, including Dutch House of Representatives member Geert Wilders, have argued that the government is trying to acquire farmland cheaply in order to build more housing for migrants.
China and Russia Want to Replace US Dollar With BRICS Currencies
News Analysis
BRICS members call for cross-border payment in BRICS currencies to challenge the U.S. dollar.
The BRICS—an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—held a summit on June 23. The meeting, chaired by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, was part of a lengthy series of BRICS cooperation events, which began on June 6 with the second finance ministers and central bank governors meeting and ended with the second meeting of the committee of senior energy officials on June 28.
In his opening remarks, Xi stated, “We should also expand BRICS cooperation on cross-border payment and credit rating to facilitate trade, investment, and financing among our countries.”
He went on to reaffirm the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) commitment to working together with the BRICS nations to achieve the CCP dream of the Global Development Initiative (GDI).
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi presented the GDI to the United Nations in April 2022 as a CCP-led global development initiative. It was welcomed by the U.N. and has received messages of support from 100 nations. The Group of Friends of the GNI was established on the U.N. platform. So far, more than 50 countries have joined. Ostensibly, utilizing a China-led, non-dollar payment system would help facilitate the development the CCP is calling for.
The XIV BRICS Summit Beijing Declaration issued on June 23, which establishes the goals for the coming year, includes continued collaboration on “the BRICS Payments Task Force (BPTF) as a platform for exchanging experience and knowledge, and welcomes the central banks’ further cooperation on the payments track.”
Both Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin called for payment alternatives to decrease the U.S. dollar’s dominance in international trade and to reduce U.S. control of the SWIFT system.
According to the Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times, bankers and economists in BRICS countries have recommended that the bloc “expand national currency settlements and lending to counter the US’ weaponization of the dollar.”
The Russian news agency TASS reported on June 22 that in Putin’s address at the BRICS forum, he called for developing an international reserve currency based on a basket of currencies.
Sergey Storchak, chief banker of Russian bank VEB.RF, told Global Times on June 21, “The BRICS and other interested nations need to talk about setting up their own independent global financial system – whether it would be based on the Chinese currency or they will agree on something different.” VERB.RF is one of the sanctioned entities that has been excluded from the U.S. SWIFT international payment system.
Xi, Putin, and the bankers from VEB.RF have three basic complaints regarding currency. They resent the dominance of the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. They do not want the dollar to be the currency of international settlement. And they are threatened by the necessity to transact international payments through the U.S. SWIFT system, which depends on U.S. banks.
The reason why countries use the U.S. dollar in the international settlement is because commodities such as oil are priced in dollars, and because the dollar is a stable currency that is readily convertible everywhere in the world. None of the BRICS currencies are considered fully convertible. The Chinese yuan is a reserve drawing rights (SDR) currency of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), officially making it an international currency, but even the yuan has limited convertibility.
Central banks around the world hold U.S. dollars as a major part of their foreign currency reserves not only due to the stability and convertibility of the dollar, but also because of its usefulness in settling international trade. The South African rand, the Brazilian real, the Indian rupee, and the Russian ruble are all relatively weak currencies; therefore, other countries do not wish to hold these as reserves.
If international settlement agreements could be reached among BRICS countries, the BRICS currencies would only be useful in trade with the originating nation. In other words, while South Africa and India may agree to settle trade in rupees, it is unlikely that other nations would accept rupees in trade with South Africa. Furthermore, several of the BRICS countries carry a large amount of foreign debt, which must be serviced in U.S. dollars, not rupees.
New Dystopian Law Would Give All UK Social Media Users a “Truth Score”
In another manifestation of the onerous ‘social credit score’ system, an amendment to a bill in the UK would mandate all social media users be given a ‘truth score’ that pre-determines the accuracy of their posts.
The amendment has been proposed to be added to the already odious ‘Online Safety Bill’, which would censor “legal but harmful” content, and was introduced by Conservative Party lawmaker John Penrose.
“Like something out of dystopian fiction, Penrose, the MP for Weston-super-Mare, has proposed that the government forces online platforms to maintain a score of how truthful a person is, determined by their past statements,” writes Dan Frieth.
The amendment states that any users who have “produced user-generated content,” published news or merely posted “comments” or “reviews” should be ranked by the platform in question, with a score given denoting their “historic factual accuracy.”
The rules would apply to anyone who receives a certain threshold of online views, with that figure to be determined by the UK communications regulator OFCOM.
The user’s posts would then be “displayed in a way which allows any user easily to reach an informed view of the likely factual accuracy of the content at the same time as they encounter it.”
In other words, the new law would empower far-left social media platforms, under threat of government fines, to apply ‘misinformation’ scores to the profiles of right-leaning users, with the potential that such negative labels would then impact algorithmic performance.
This would basically represent a dramatic expansion of ‘misinformation’ labels and partisan ‘fact checks’ that are already applied to individual posts, extending them to people.
Meanwhile, in a related story, group of senior Conservatives, including Lord Frost, have warned that the Online Safety Bill will lead to brazen censorship of political opinions.
“The ratcheting effect on our civil liberties is already happening in real time,” states a letter addressed to Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries. “The Labour Party has expressed its intention to expand the regulatory framework to include ‘health-related misinformation and disinformation’.”
“This could lead to the state designating social media companies as the arbiter of truth online and presents serious problems for freedom of speech,” the letter warns.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
New York City Releases First “Nuclear Attack” PSA Since 1960s
New York City’s Emergency Management Department has released a PSA instructing residents what to do in the event of a nuclear attack, the first of its kind since the 1960s.
“So there’s been a nuclear attack,” states the female presenter in the opening scene of the video. “Don’t ask me how or why, just know that the Big One has hit.”
She then outlines a number of “important steps” for New Yorkers to take, including getting inside a building and showering off any radioactive dust.
The video also encourages people to sign up for alerts to be sent to their cellphones.
Deputy EMD commissioner Christina Farrell told the radio station 1010 WINS, “I don’t know if there’s ever a great time to put out a nuclear preparedness PSA, but it is very important, and we want New Yorkers to be prepared—so no time like the present.”
“We know that this material is very serious and can be scary, frankly, but it is very important,” she added. “There is no specific threat at this time.”
Although talking heads in Russia have occasionally made reckless threats to nuke America, the prospect of it actually happening is incredibly small compared to what it was in the 1960s, when the last such video was released during the height of the Cuban missile crisis.
More hardened cynics would suggest that the PSA is just another effort to prolong the hysteria surrounding Russia in a bid to sustain support for funneling weapons into Ukraine at taxpayer expense, despite the fact that Russia now appears to be winning as it takes vast swathes of territory.
Other respondents ridiculed the advice offered in the video, suggesting that closing windows will do little to help anyone in a 15-megaton thermonuclear blast zone.
Elon Musk Reacts to Trump’s Criticism, Shares Take on a Trump–DeSantis 2024 Run
Elon Musk has taken to Twitter after former U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the Tesla CEO at a rally over the weekend.
Trump called Musk “another bull [expletive] artist,” saying that Musk had once told him privately he had won Musk’s vote in 2016, which would conflict with Musk’s public statement in mid-June about having just voted Republican for the first time in the midterm primaries.
“You know what he said the other day? ‘Oh, I’ve never voted for a Republican,’” Trump said to a full house at the Alaska Airlines Center on Saturday. “I said, ‘I didn’t know that.’ He told me he voted for me. So he’s another bull [expletive] artist.”
Trump made the comments as a side note while talking about Musk’s recent decision to not acquire Twitter.
“I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset,” Musk wrote on Monday night in response to a video of Trump’s comments. “[Democrats] should also call off the attack—don’t make it so that Trump’s only way to survive is to regain the Presidency.”
Trump–DeSantis Ticket
On the same night, Musk shared his thoughts about a potential Trump–DeSantis ticket in 2024.
“Trump would be 82 at end of term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America,” Musk wrote in another post, replying to a suggestion from another Twitter user about a potential Trump-DeSantis run in 2024 and two terms of DeSantis presidency in 2028 and 2032.
But on a potential DeSantis 2024 run, Musk echoed his earlier comments that he would lean towards supporting the Florida governor.
“If DeSantis runs against Biden in 2024, then DeSantis will easily win—he doesn’t even need to campaign.” the billionaire said.
Musk’s Monday comments continue a series of high-profile political statements the billionaire has made in 2022, which included describing the Democratic Party as the party of “division & hate” and identifying himself as a part of a “massive red wave in 2022” by revealing his vote for Republican candidate Mayra Flores (R-Texas).
Trump: ‘I Think I Would Win’
While Trump has not explicitly announced his intention to run for commander-in-chief in 2024, he has teased it enough for spectators—including Musk—to consider it a serious prospect.
“I ran twice, I won twice … And now with the approval of the great people of Alaska, we may have to do it again,” Trump said over the weekend in Alaska, claiming that he received “many millions more votes” in 2020 than he did in 2016 when he defeated Hillary Clinton.
When asked about how well he would perform against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a presidential race, the former president was confident.
“I don’t know if Ron is running, and I don’t ask him. It’s his prerogative … I think I would win.” Trump told The New Yorker in June. He told Newsmax later in the month that he would not rule out DeSantis as a running mate while saying that he “was very responsible for [DeSantis’s] success.”
Meanwhile, Republican figures have been positive that Trump’s political influence in the GOP is nothing close to insignificant.
“I don’t delude myself into thinking I have a big swath of the Republican Party,” Trump critic Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told Politico in May about his thoughts on Trump. “It’s hard to imagine anything that would derail his support.”
“So if he wants to become the nominee in [2024], I think he’s very likely to achieve that,” Romney said.
Play It Again, Sam: Los Angeles County Slaps Children With Mask Mandate
People in the city and county of Los Angeles, California have suffered under some the more extreme coronavirus crackdown measures in America. And, one of those authoritarian measures — the county’s mask mandate — may be about to make a comeback under county policy to automatically reimpose the mandate if the coronavirus “community transmission” in the county is determined to have risen to what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers “high” and stay at that level for two weeks. Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer is advising that the mask mandate will return before the end of this month if the current trend of increasing “cases” continues.
Insanity upon insanity. Tyranny on autopilot. The coronavirus circulating today is different than what was circulating when Los Angeles County previously mandated mask wearing. Yet, the county has put the reimposing of the same supposedly responsive policy on autopilot. Further, masks, while causing known health detriments, have not been shown to provide net protection against the spread of any coronavirus.
The county might as well mandate each person in the county carry a rabbit’s foot in his pocket to ward off infection. Most importantly, mask mandates impinge on liberty and exceed proper governmental bounds. Nonetheless, if a number on the county’s CDC-inspired chart crosses an arbitrary level and stays there or higher for two weeks, the county is set to reimpose a draconian mask mandate.
A previous Los Angeles County government imposed mask mandate ended in March when “community transmission” dropped below the “high” level. Fortunately for people in the county, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva had declared in July of last year that the county sheriff’s department would decline to enforce the mandate.
Of course, you can count on politicians on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to be displeased by such refusal to enforce the mandate. For reasons surely including his refusal to enforce the county government’s previous mask mandate, Villanueva now finds himself in jeopardy of being fired by county board members. Next week, the county board is considering placing on the same November election ballot on which Villanueva is a candidate for reelection a measure designed to give the county board the means to remove an elected county sheriff from office.
‘Do not transition your kids’: Ex-trans teenager warns against gender interventions
A 17-year-old girl who is now de-transitioning from being a boy is warning against allowing children to change genders, saying, “No child should have to experience what I have.”
Chloe Cole, from Central Valley in California, spoke in support of a Florida rule blocking Medicaid funds from covering transgender medical procedures during a hearing with healthcare officials in Tallahassee on Friday.
When asked what her advice would be to parents, Cole said, “Do not transition your kids.”
At 14, Cole began going by the name of Leo and taking puberty blockers, along with testosterone injections that were given by her mother. She is unsure if she will be able to have children as a result.
“I was unknowingly physically cutting off my true self from my body, irreversibly and painfully,” Cole said, noting that she will not be able to breastfeed children after having a double mastectomy. “That realization, actually, was one of the biggest things that led to me realizing that this was not the path that I should have taken.”
Cole said she also could be at risk of having certain types of cancer as a result of the invasive procedures.
Along with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo urged the Florida Board of Medicine in June to stop providing transition care for children and adolescents, a request he said was based on “a lack of conclusive evidence and the high risk for long-term, irreversible harms from these treatments.”
Ladapo issued a series of guidelines in April deterring gender transition procedures for children and adolescents.
When asked on Twitter how people can help those who are de-transitioning, Cole said, “The best all of us can do is continue to speak out. Especially to local, state, and federal government. That’s how we will beat this.”
The teenager told the New York Post that she was first exposed to transgender activism on social media at the age of 11.
Court Denies Loudoun County Schools’ Effort to Shut Down Rape Coverup Investigation
The special grand jury was initiated by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) following a day-one executive order from Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R).
The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that the first sexual assault took place at Stone Bridge High School on May 28, 2021, and that the second took place at Broad Run High School on October 6, 2021.
The 15-year-old boy was convicted of both assaults and sentenced to complete a “residential program in a locked-down facility.”
This conviction only came after the county’s Soros-funded, far-left prosecutor Buta Biberaj allowed the release of the male student to attend Broad Run, as Breitbart News reported.
In its attempt to shut down the investigation, the school board argued that it was unconstitutional for the governor to direct the attorney general to open an investigation.
“LCPS also believes the investigation violates our locally elected School Board’s constitutional authority to govern,” school officials said. “For these reasons, LCPS has filed a complaint for a temporary injunction to limit the scope of the Attorney General’s investigation.”
Biden Says He’s ‘Determined’ to Renew ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban
President Joe Biden on Monday said he wants to implement a new ban on “assault weapons” as he touted the Safer Communities Act at the White House.
“We’re living in a country awash in weapons of war,” Biden said, apparently referring to AR-15-style rifles. “What is the rationale for these weapons outside war zones?”
“Assault weapons need to be banned,” Biden added as he signed the measure into law. “They were banned. I led the fight in 1994. And then under pressure from the [National Rifle Association] and the gun manufacturers and others, that ban was lifted in 2004.”
Suicides accounted for about 54 percent of all gun-related deaths in the United States in 2020, while 43 percent were murdered, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The other 3 percent were classified as gun-related deaths involving law enforcement, unintentional, or had undetermined circumstances.
In 2020, handguns were involved in 59 percent of all gun-involved murders, according to the FBI. Only 3 percent involved rifles, which includes firearms that are sometimes called “assault weapons,” and shotguns were involved in 1 percent of gun-related homicides. The other 36 percent involved other guns that were classified as “type not stated,” the data show.
New England Pregnancy Clinic Becomes Latest Victim of Jane’s Revenge
A Massachusetts pregnancy clinic was vandalized on the early morning of July 7 by two people affiliated with Jane’s Revenge, a violent pro-abortion extremist group.
The Worcester clinic shared a surveillance video of the attack with The Epoch Times showing two people dressed in black and their faces covered approaching the clinic. One of the people spray-painted the clinic’s front steps with the words “Jane’s Revenge.” The other person then pulled out a hammer and used it to damage the clinic’s door and windows.
Jane’s Revenge has taken credit for vandalizing and firebombing pro-life organizations, churches, and other pregnancy clinics. The group surfaced shortly after the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion, which suggested the nation’s top court may be prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade. This seminal opinion largely legalized abortion nationwide.
Radical Climate Group Deflates Bay Area SUV Tires, Tells Drivers to Use Public Transportation
A left-wing group wrote that its members are now deflating the tires of vehicles in the name of combatting “climate change” around the San Francisco Bay Area, according to social media posts.
“ATTENTION – Your gas guzzler kills. We have deflated one or more of your tires. You’ll be angry, but don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s your car,” said a leaflet that was left behind on some targeted vehicles’ windshields, according to social media postings. The left-wing group “Tyre Extinguishers” appeared to claim responsibility.
“We did this because driving around urban areas in your massive vehicle has huge consequences for others,” the leaflet added, without elaborating on what those consequences are. “We’re taking actions into our own hands because our governments and politicians will not.”
Owners are also advised in the note they will have “no difficulty getting around without your gas guzzler, with walking, cycling, or public transport,” although it appears that the leaflet’s authors don’t have a clear understanding of public transportation in the United States as many areas lack bus, train, taxi, and metro service.
Incidents occurred in Vacaville, California, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Confidence in US Media, Government, Justice System Collapsing: Poll
Americans’ confidence in major U.S. institutions—including government and the media—is in a state of collapse, falling to an average of just 27 percent across all categories, according to the latest national poll released by Gallup.
Only the military and small business still enjoy the confidence of a majority of Americans.
Although public belief in institutions has been weak for most of the past 15 years, the 27 percent average for all categories is the lowest recorded by Gallup.
The company began measuring confidence in institutions in 1973 and has done so each year since 1993.
The survey’s figures came after Gallup delivered sobering news on June 22. The company said confidence in the overall direction of the country fell to 13 percent that month, down 3 percentage points from May and down 9 points since March, when the figure was 24 percent.
It also reported at that time that despite ongoing economic malaise, President Joe Biden’s job approval rating held steady at 41 percent between May and June.
Gallup’s finding on the issue was called into question by Civiqs’s daily tracking survey of registered voters, which found Biden’s approval rating has sunk to a new record low of just 30 percent, the New York Post reported on July 9.
Only in two states—the Democratic strongholds of Vermont and Hawaii—are the president’s supporters more numerous than his detractors, the Civiqs poll showed.
Gallup also reported on June 29 that, although 96 percent of U.S. adults expressed pride in varying degrees about being American, a record low of 38 percent considered themselves “extremely proud” to be American, the lowest figure for that description since the company began tracking the issue in 2001.
Another 27 percent of Americans said they were “very proud,” while 22 percent said they were “moderately proud,” and 9 percent described themselves as “only a little proud.”
Four percent said they were “not at all” proud to be American.
Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III is challenging the House Jan. 6 Select Committee to let him testify on a live broadcast so he can pit the truth as he sees it against the committee’s “pack of lies.”
“Public televised testimony, that’s the only condition,” Rhodes said.
“If I were given a chance to give an opening statement, I’m writing up what I would give them,” Rhodes told The Epoch Times on July 10. “If they decline to accept my offer, I’m going to go ahead and publish my opening statement.”
Rhodes said he does not expect the committee to accept his offer because his appearance would be a free-wheeling discussion, not a scripted presentation.
“They should jump at the opportunity, but they won’t because they don’t want that,” he said. “What they want is what you’ve seen, which is just a scripted, controlled, pre-screened show trial. They’re only going to put people in front of the public that they know are going to say what they want them to say.”
“I want to push back,” Rhodes said. “I want to cut back against this false narrative. They don’t want the truth. That’s why they won’t let me just get up there, unscreened, uncoached, and just answer[ing] questions because they don’t want the truth out.
“If they were concerned with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, they would welcome the opportunity to talk to me because I pled the Fifth on everything from election time on back in February. I answered no questions about anything after election night.”
House Homeland Security Chairman Asks Supporters to Join His TikTok
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, recently urged his supporters to follow his TikTok, the popular Chinese video-sharing app that has drawn national security concerns.
“Follow my new account on TikTok. (benniegthompson),” Thompson wrote on Twitter on July 1.
At the time of writing, the Democratic lawmaker had 63 followers on his newly created TikTok account, but he had not posted any videos.
Currently, Thompson also chairs the Jan. 6 Select Committee. The longtime lawmaker is seeking reelection this year in Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, facing Republican challenger Brian Flowers.
In March, Thompson supported a bill (H.R.6837) to ban TikTok on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) devices, which the House Homeland Security Committee approved. The legislation was introduced a month earlier by Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) with the goal of stopping the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from spying on Americans using TikTok.
“In today’s world, we cannot risk compromising important homeland security information to our foreign adversaries,” Guest wrote in a statement accompanying the introduction of his bill.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could embolden the CCP’s own expansionary goals,” Guest continued. “In such a scenario, a security breach would be catastrophic to a U.S. response, which is why we must move to ban on DHS devices the use of apps that obtain data on their users and could make that information available to our adversaries.”
“This is a common-sense step to close a potential tool of the CCP to spy on the U.S,” Guest concluded. The Mississippi lawmaker from the 3rd Congressional District also sits on the House Homeland Security Committee.
If enacted, DHS employees would need to remove TikTok from any of the department’s devices in 60 days, according to the bill (pdf).
In China, the Chinese national intelligence law, which went into effect in 1997, compels individuals and organizations to collaborate on national intelligence matters. Moreover, the communist regime can exert control over private firms through embedded Party cells.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning TikTok. However, President Joe Biden revoked the order in July 2021 and directed the Commerce Department to evaluate the app’s national security risk.
Most recently, Brendan Carr, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner, wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, calling on the two executives to remove TikTok from their app stores.
Egregious Licensing Rule Holds Working Mothers Back in Tennessee
Occupational licensing continues to get in the way of workplace flexibility for parents, especially mothers. Tennessee’s licensing requirement for would‐be lawyers is an example of how occupational licensing holds parents back.
Under state law, Tennessee requires lawyers who wish to practice in the state to have worked full time as a lawyer for five of the last seven years in another state, or else sit for the bar exam. This means that lawyers with part‐time work experience must either take time off to prepare and sit for another exam or else they are prohibited from practicing law in the state.
This rule may seem innocuous, but the requirement effectively makes it harder for lawyers with part‐time hours to practice in Tennessee. Preparing and sitting for the bar exam is not an insignificant requirement: law students routinely spend months preparing for the exam and even take out loans to cover the thousands of dollars in forgone income, bar prep courses, exam fees, travel, and lodging necessary to successfully complete it.
The rule hits working mothers especially hard: of the 21.4 million voluntary part‐time workers in 2016, 67 percent were women. Among these women, the most common reason for part‐time work was family or personal obligations. Notably, most part‐time lawyers are women, specifically mothers with children, according to LexisNexis.
Tennessee’s licensing rule holds some of these women back and contributes to the fear that many women have that they will be penalized for going part time or taking leave from work while their children are young. This is truly unfortunate and, in Tennessee’s case, ensures that the legal profession misses out on legal talent.
Lisa Blatt, described as a “legendary high court litigator” with “an unmatched win record” and one of the most successful lawyers today, relates the following story about how part‐time work made her career possible in Reflections of a Lady Lawyer:
“…I was ready to quit practicing law entirely to spend more time at home. I also was mentally exhausted. Paul [my boss] suggested that, instead of quitting, I take a leave of absence. And he said something I will never forget: he told me I was good at my job. I took Paul up on his offer, took a half‐year off, and returned to the office six months later, still on a part‐time basis. Paul’s flexibility and understanding of the challenges facing working mothers saved my career. For the last eighteen years, I have remained part‐time.”
If, in an alternate universe, Ms. Blatt had moved to Tennessee, she would be subjected to additional scrutiny or else disqualified from practicing law, and the legal profession would have lost out on a great talent. This would be highly unfortunate and avoidable; the American Bar Association and most other states do not require full‐time work in order to be admitted to practice law.
Fortunately, the Network of enlightened Women (NeW) has filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Tennessee to try to get this regrettable licensing rule changed (details here). With any luck, the admission by motion rule requiring full‐time work will be changed, and this will allow for greater flexibility for mothers, parents, and any other lawyer that chooses to work part time in the years to come.
Massachusetts Supreme Court Rejects GOP Challenge, Green-Lights Mail-In Voting
The highest court in Massachusetts threw out a challenge on July 11 to absentee voting rules brought by state Republicans, a move that allows voters to submit mail-in ballots in the September primary election without having to provide an excuse.
A brief unsigned order indicates the court will release a “full opinion explaining the court’s reasoning” in “due course.”
Republicans had argued that the state’s VOTES Act, which Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, signed into law last month, was unconstitutional because the measure needed to be approved by voters. The party also argued that making no-excuse voting-by-mail and early voting permanent in the state was a bad idea because the policies increase the likelihood of fraud.
After the measure, which made temporary relaxations of voting rules enacted at the height of the pandemic permanent, was signed, state officials reportedly began getting ready to mail out more than 4.7 million ballot applications to voters for the upcoming primary.
GOP attorney Michael Walsh told the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court last week that the Massachusetts Legislature went out-of-bounds when it made early voting and voting-by-mail the new normal in the state, The Eagle-Tribune reported at the time.
Walsh referenced a 1917 amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution that said voters should only be allowed to cast mail or absentee ballots if they are disabled, away from home on Election Day, or possess religious objections to voting in person.
“Therefore, we assert that any kind of absentee or mail-in voting must comply [with constitutional articles] or else they are on their face outside of the authority of the Legislature,” the lawyer told the court.
Two plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Jim Lyons, who is chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, and Rayla Campbell, the party’s candidate for secretary of state, said they would promptly ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling in the hope that the federal judiciary would “provide relief to prevent a constitutional travesty,” according to MassLive.
But liberal groups praised the new ruling.
“Today’s decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court means that voters will be able to rely on the provisions of the VOTES Act in the upcoming elections,” Geoff Foster, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, said according to the Associated Press.
“This is a big win for voting rights in Massachusetts,” he added.
Secretary of State William Galvin, a Democrat, said after the ruling that the state will begin printing ballot applications at once.
“The presses are now rolling. We want to get the ballots done, and therefore the presses are rolling to put out the applications,” Galvin reportedly said at a presser on Beacon Hill.
“We’ve queued up everything we need to do. We expect the presses to be rolling beginning today. It’s a huge mailing. It’s in excess of 4 million pieces. We’ve been in contact with the Postal Service. We know they have their own issues. They’ve been very candid with us as to the challenges that they confront.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland attend a hearing Tuesday on abortion to explain why he refuses to enforce laws protecting Supreme Court justices from intimidation and to outline plans for protecting the justices in the future.
Cruz sent a letter Thursday about Garland to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold the hearing titled “A Post-Roe America: The Legal Consequences of the Dobbs Decision.”
Cruz is a member of the Judiciary Committee. As majority whip, Durbin is the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate besides leading the committee.
“Attorney General Garland was quick to condemn parents who attended school board meetings to protest radical policies pushed by some board members,” Cruz writes in the letter to Durbin. “Yet he has shown little urgency to protect Supreme Court justices despite calls from the Supreme Court marshal and multiple governors to do so.”
Cruz cited instances of harassment, intimidation, and threats made against Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, after someone leaked a draft majority opinion May 2 in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and again after the high court offically released its June 24 decision in Dobbs overruling its 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.
The Texas Republican expressed disappointment that Garland refused to prohibit the pro-abortion protests outside justices’ homes and mitigate any future violence:
Article III of the Constitution guarantees judicial independence by granting judges life tenure and salary protection so they are not influenced by anything but the law and facts in the case before them. Unfortunately, despite clear evidence that federal law was violated by mobs of protesters at the justices’ homes, the head of the Department of Justice, and chief law enforcement officer of the United States, flatly refused to enforce federal law.
Cruz’s letter points out that Garland refused to act even after the assassination attempt against Kavanaugh at his home in suburban Maryland and ongoing protests outside the conservative justices’ residences:
In response to these threats, Attorney General Garland merely stated, ‘The Justice Department will not tolerate violence or threats of violence against judges or any other public servants at work, home, or any other location.’ Attorney General Garland’s refusal to act, however, calls into question the sincerity of this statement.
Protests and intimidation of justices at their private residences have persisted, causing the marshal of the Supreme Court to request July 1 that Maryland and Virginia officials enforce their own state laws prohibiting protests outside the justices’ homes and prevent further violence through an increased law enforcement presence.
‘Mountain Retreat for the Liberal Elite’ Holds Invitation-Only Summit on ESG
The Aspen Institute is holding an invitation-only event, the “Aspen ESG Summit,” at a time when rising energy prices, novel climate mandates, and growing global instability have made environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) a subject of controversy.
Speakers on the three-day summit’s agenda include Securities and Exchange Commissioner Allison Herren Lee, who recently voted for sweeping new climate disclosure requirements for public companies.
Headquartered in the upscale mountain resort town of Aspen, Colorado, the Aspen Institute aims to “turn ideas into action and impact for individuals and society,” according to its mission statement.
In 2020 alone, the Aspen Institute received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, BlackRock, the Crown family, the Ford Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Bloomberg Family Foundation, among other billionaires and billionaire-founded non-profits.
It also received at least a million or more dollars from the U.S. Department of State and Walmart, respectively.
The Aspen Institute describes itself as values-based but non-partisan. It does not fund political candidates or parties.
“We do not engage in electoral politics or any activity that would require registration under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, and do not engage staff or contractors as ‘lobbyists’ as defined by the Act,” it states on its website.
Some sources have characterized the organization as left-leaning. In 2019, The Economist described it as “the mountain retreat for the liberal elite.”
Data from Open Secrets show that individuals employed by or closely connected with the Aspen Institute have donated overwhelmingly to Democrats in recent election cycles.
During the 2022 cycle, for example, 98.26 percent of the money that those individuals donated to federal candidates went to Democrats. During the 2018 cycle, all of their money went to Democrats.
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has also taken aim at the Aspen Institute. In his current Twitter bio, he sarcastically calls himself a “frequent visitor to the Aspen Inst.”
In an April monologue, Carlson alluded to its influence when criticizing former President Barack Obama’s Stanford University speech on disinformation.
“So me and my friends at the Aspen Institute need to be in complete control of every word uttered, or else it’s not democracy,” he opined.
Team Aspen Rules on What’s ‘Valuable’ for Democracy
ESG was recently slammed by Elon Musk, who described it as a “scam” after the S&P Global Index removed his pioneering electric car company, Tesla Motors, from its ESG Index.
In addition, the treasurers of many energy-producing states in the United States believe they have been unfairly penalized by new ESG ratings.
Representatives of the United States’ largest banks and other companies are also slated to talk at the Aspen Institute’s summit, which lasts from July 11 until July 14.
Those speakers include individuals affiliated with Citi, Microsoft, Starbucks, Putnam Investments, Prudential, GE, and Danone.
One “dialogue stream” at the event is titled, “(How) Should ESG Leaders Support Democracy?”
“Threats to democracy have upended business as usual domestically and abroad. Why should ESG leaders care? Are ESG leaders playing a role in operationalizing the pro-democracy commitments their firms have made—or how might they, while still doing their day job?” the agenda states.
In a 2021 set of “Predictions for Business and Society in 2022,” the Aspen Institute’s Judy Samuelson gave praise to employees who, “in the wake of January 6th” were the ones to connect their “company’s PAC [political action committee] to support of elected officials engaged in anti-democratic behavior.”
“As we move toward midterms, concern for our democracy will only grow—and businesses, particularly those that are active in the pay-to-[play] system that dominates our political system—will again be under the microscope of employees,” she wrote at the time.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
#boycottamazon – Amazon Prime Days are July 12 – 13
Action Item: Please share this information far and wide and attach #boycottamazon
Amazon’s annual Prime Day sales event is slated for Tuesday and Wednesday and millions of shoppers will certainly flock to the site looking for deals. Instead of jumping onto the Prime Day bandwagon and shipping your dollars to Amazon, consider buying local. Such a radical act would be a boon to local businesses and would, in the process, strengthen the local communities in which we live.
—> The Power Mall will be offering 10% off site-wide on July 12 -13th. No code necessary, discount will apply at checkout.
5 Ways Amazon Hurts Small Businesses
Amazon—it’s one of the biggest corporations in the world, raking in tens of billions of dollars annually, even while earning the ire of the masses for its treatment of employees, effects on the planet, monopolistic practices, and more.
Another pitfall of the giant conglomerate is how it dwarfs and harms small businesses.
Below are five ways small businesses are suffering under the domination of Amazon:
- Amazon Thrives, While Small Businesses Die
At the height of the pandemic—most of 2020—Amazon thrived. People following stay-at-home orders used internet retail and delivery to supply their homes, from groceries to sourdough starter kits and Pelotons. Last year, Amazon stock was up 77% from 2019, all while small, local, and brick-and-mortar businesses were forced to close.
According to Yelp’s 2020 Local Economic Impact Report, nearly 180,000 businesses closed in March, some only temporarily, while for others it was a permanent closure.
As the year went on, more and more businesses began reopening—sometimes multiple times. Yet from March to August 2020, the number of permanent business closures jumped from 36,718 to nearly 100,000.
All the while, Amazon continued and remains thriving. While it cannot be blamed for the economic impacts of people following health and safety guidelines, many small businesses have online stores yet were completely overshadowed by online retail giants.
- Copycatting
Last year, the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee released a report claiming it had evidence of Amazon using data from third-party sellers to identify the most popular products, and then create its own versions and sell them. This is known as copycatting and in worst case scenarios, it can put a small business out of business when consumers flock to mass-produced, and often cheaper, versions of products.
“We have heard so many heartbreaking stories of small businesses who sunk significant time and resources into building a business and selling on Amazon, only to have Amazon poach their best-selling items and drive them out of business,” subcommittee chairman David Cicilline said.
Amazon has repeatedly denied this practice, while third-party sellers and former Amazon employees offered testimonials to the contrary.
The Wall Street Journal also published an extensive and in-depth investigative report into Amazon and found evidence of copycatting.
“We have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private-label business,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in Washington, before adding: “”I can’t guarantee you that that policy has never been violated.”
- Forced Reliance
The close relationship between Amazon and third-party sellers, often small businesses, is what allows for the possibility of copycatting. So why don’t small businesses stop selling on Amazon?
Amazon is a juggernaut, which can help small businesses potentially achieve more sales, exposure, and engagement.
According to Amazon Vice President of Small Business Nicholas Denissen, this is the goal: “We want to see small businesses across the country thriving like never before. We are committed to helping them harness the power of online sales, reach new customers, and provide fantastic selection, value and convenience.”
If small businesses want this potential growth, however, they are forced to rely on Amazon, undermining their agency as an independent business. It places small businesses in between a rock and a hard place, forcing them to choose between the massive consumer audience of Amazon and the risk of falling prey to a monopoly. And that risk is a real one.
Last year, Amazon kicked a small business off its site and seized the inventory, but in November, the merchant won its legal battle, earning one of the biggest acknowledgements of Amazon’s mistreatment of small businesses.
- Playing Monopoly
In Lendio’s 2018 American Dream Survey, two-thirds of 2,000 surveyed small businesses said they view Amazon as a threat to their bottom line and a negative influence on growth.
Small businesses responded in the survey that they had less concerns about money and brand growth and retention, and more concerns about going up against a monopolistic beast like Amazon.
Earlier this year, the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law found Amazon “has monopoly power over many small- and medium-sized businesses.”
Voters and legislators alike have expressed support for breaking up Amazon in order to give back power and equity to small businesses.
When Amazon retains 50-70% of the online marketplace, it then acts as a gatekeeper and autocrat of the online retail space, able to oppress—or even obliterate—small business competitors.
- Fixed Pricing
Amazon can use its monopolistic power and influence in numerous ways, from the aforementioned copycatting to fixing prices.
In May 2021, attorney general of Washington, D.C., Karl Racine, filed a lawsuit against Amazon for this exact practice.
The lawsuit alleges Amazon is engaging in monopoly practices by blocking small businesses as third-party vendors on the site from offering lower prices and better terms of service.
According to the lawsuit, such practices “impose an artificially high price floor across the online retail marketplace and allow Amazon to build and maintain monopoly power in violation of the District of Columbia’s Antitrust Act.”
The negative consequences of monopoly practices include suppressing consumer choice, healthy and fair market competition, and innovation.
Demands for Amazon’s breakup, more regulations of giant conglomerates, and better treatment of employees is a win for everyone across the board.
You can get started in divesting from Amazon right now by shopping directly with small businesses, including www.thepowermall.com
*** The Power Mall refuses to set up a storefront on Amazon.
If you hear about products on our show, please think about how purchasing them on Amazon, instead of from The Power Mall, hurts our small business and others.
Many people hear about a product on our show and directly go to Amazon to purchase the product because “It’s cheaper and I can get free shipping”.
Just a note on how we price our products: The Power Mall does NOT set their own prices. We use the manufacturer’s suggested retail prices that are mandated by most manufacturers. A lot of sellers on Amazon sign the same contract that we do saying they will not sell below MSRP but they do it anyway. Most sellers can afford to set their prices lower because it’s about quantity, not quality to them. We take pride in our customer service and have a person available to chat with everyday.
Our shipping prices come directly from USPS and are determined by your package weight and your location. We try to run specials on products as much as we can to help our customers but we cannot compete with Amazon pricing or shipping.
Also remember that each purchase that is made through The Power Mall goes directly back into the show to provide you with the educational resources to live a happier, healthy lifestyle.
Stop buying so much from Amazon. Support your local businesses instead
Amazon’s annual Prime Day sales event is slated for Tuesday and Wednesday and millions of shoppers will certainly flock to the site looking for deals. This year, the company is attempting to promote small business as a means to coax even more Americans to shop on its site. But Amazon doesn’t need your patronage, the small business down the street does.
Amazon has steadily gobbled up market share even as small businesses around the country have struggled to survive the Covid-19 pandemic. Amazon’s stock is up 77% over last year and it has already hired 175,000 people during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, according to Yelp, as of August 31, 163,735 US businesses have been forced to close, and some estimate that 60% will not reopen. The loss of a small business is never merely economic; it is a loss for the community. A thriving local community is inseparable from a thriving local economy.
It is also about the health of a local community and its small businesses, which help cultivate these three things:
- Keeping money within the community
Shopping at a locally owned small business helps money remain in a local community. When money leaves the community — as when a person shops at Amazon, for instance — the consumer enjoys a short-term benefit, but the community does not.
On the other hand, when citizens patronize locally owned small businesses, it incentivizes the creation of local jobs and encourages the creation of more local businesses.
- Making people better citizens
Small businesses provide opportunities for the ownership of property. When people own property, they develop the habit of thinking about the future and treat local issues with sober attention.
When those without property are surrounded by examples of small, local business owners, they can be inspired to become owners themselves and engage with the community in a similarly attentive way. Large-scale chains and other businesses reduce such opportunities for ownership.
- Cultivating trust
Small businesses help cultivate trust between citizens, while large chains and e-commerce tend to foster anonymity. Trust between citizens is a vital part of a healthy community and is built through reciprocal relationships that are fostered in places like local businesses, where individuals encounter each other and exchange goods and services. In regular face-to-face interactions, trust is built, and trust helps to nurture neighborliness.=
How Amazon Crushes Small Business
Much has been written over the past year about how Amazon treats its warehouse workers and other employees and its attempts to prevent their unionization. But the mistreatment of Amazon’s labor force is far from the only negative effect of having once-thriving mom-and-pop shops gobbled up by or placed at the mercy of a faceless e-commerce leviathan. Amazon’s ascent means that more and more Americans are losing their commercial autonomy, the right to dictate and introduce innovations into the terms of their own transactions and business relations, and, ultimately, their ability to control their financial—and, therefore, personal—destinies.
Biggest Reason Why People Aren’t Buying Electric Cars Revealed in New Survey
A survey discovered that charging logistics is the primary reason why Americans aren’t buying electric vehicles.
Consumer Reports, which said it surveyed around 8,000 Americans, found that 61 percent said they wouldn’t seek to own an electric vehicle because of charging logistics while 55 percent cited the number of miles a vehicle can go per charge. Another 52 percent said that the costs of buying and maintaining an electric vehicle are cost-prohibitive.
Another 46 percent of the respondents stated they have not heard of any financial incentives available for owners of electric vehicles.
“We found that 14 percent of American drivers say they would ‘definitely’ buy or lease an electric-only vehicle if they were to buy a vehicle today,” said Consumer Reports. “That’s up markedly from the 4 percent who said the same in a 2020 nationally representative survey from CR of 3,392 licensed U.S. drivers.”
According to recent figures from Kelly Blue Book, the average price of a new electric vehicle hovered at roughly $56,000. In contrast, the average price of a new compact was about $25,000 at about the same time. The average price of a new, non-electric SUV was $34,000, while the electric version was nearly $45,000.
Meanwhile, a recent report from data analysis and advisory firm J.D. Power, however, found that electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids may have more problems than internal combustion engines.
While internal combustion engine vehicles averaged 175 problems per 100 vehicles, this jumped to 239 among plug-in hybrids and 240 among electric vehicles, a June 28 press release of the J.D. Power 2022 U.S. Initial Quality Study stated. Lower scores represented higher-quality vehicles.
Tesla models, which were included in the industry calculation for the first time, averaged 226 problems per 100 vehicles, according to the report.
“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,” David Amodeo, director of global automotive at J.D. Power, according to the press release.
Amid elevated gas prices, White House officials have continued to suggest that Americans buy an electric car as Republicans have faulted the Biden administration’s policies for the spike in prices.
In mid-June, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm suggested that Americans can deal with $5 per gallon of gasoline by ditching an internal combustion engine in favor of an electric one.
“If you filled up your EV [electric vehicle] and you filled up your gas tank with gasoline, you would save $60 per fill-up by going electric rather than using gasoline, but it’s a very compelling case,” she said in a clip circulated by Republicans on social media on June 14. “But again, we want to bring down the price at the point of purchase.”
Heathrow tells airlines to stop selling summer tickets
Heathrow Airport has told airlines to stop selling summer tickets, as the UK’s biggest airport struggles to cope with the rebound in air travel.
The airport is limiting the number of passengers who can depart each day over the peak summer months to 100,000, 4,000 fewer than currently scheduled.
The cap on passenger numbers will be in place from now until 11 September.
Thousands of UK travellers have been affected by disruption in recent weeks, including last-minute cancellations.
Airports and airlines, which cut jobs during Covid lockdowns, have struggled to recruit staff as demand for holidays has returned. The UK is about to enter the key summer holiday season as schools begin to break up.
Consumer group Which? urged Heathrow to clarify which flights would be cancelled as a result of the latest announcement.
“While this cap may ease the unacceptable chaos passengers are facing at the UK’s biggest airport, thousands of people will now be worrying about whether their flight or holiday plans are about to fall apart,” said Guy Hobbs, acting editor of Which? Travel.
“Heathrow must work with airlines to quickly provide clarity on which flights are being cut, and airlines need to be upfront with those passengers affected about their right to be rebooked at the earliest opportunity, including on services from other airlines.”
Ministers told carriers to review their plans after chaos in May, blamed on a shortage of airline and airport staff.
Charging and range concerns continue to hold back electric vehicle sales
A new survey shows the industry has yet to overcome those two road blocks
The idea of owning an electric vehicle (EV) is highly appealing to many people, especially during this period of near record-high gasoline prices. But the logistics of owning and operating a car that runs on electricity are causing hesitation, according to a new survey.
Consumer Reports surveyed around 8,000 Americans and found that about half of the respondents were unaware that federal and state tax incentives would pay for part of the cost of the vehicle. But even that was not sufficient to overcome several perceived challenges.
Only 14% of consumers said they would “definitely” choose an EV if they were purchasing a new car today. Still, that’s considerably higher than the 4% who said the same thing in 2020 when gas prices were considerably lower.
The survey found that consumers’ biggest concerns involve charging the vehicles and the range that the cars can be driven between charges.
While a gas tank can be filled in five to 10 minutes, fully charging an EV battery can take much longer depending on the charging infrastructure. Using a “Supercharger” system, such as the only one designed by Tesla, can take 30 minutes to an hour.
Home affordability hits lowest level since 2006
Experts are divided on what that means for the housing market
Many Americans who could afford a home purchase a year ago no longer can. The average home price has surged over the last 12 months, with the average mortgage rate nearly doubling since January.
In its latest report, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) put home affordability at its lowest level since 2006, the peak year of the housing bubble. The organization said its housing affordability index fell to 102.5 in May, the lowest since it hit 100.5 in July 2006. The affordability index incorporates median existing-home prices, median family incomes, and average mortgage rates.
With fewer people able to afford homes, what will that do to the housing market? Will sales fall and pull down record-high prices at the same time? ConsumerAffairs asked a number of industry experts to weigh in on those questions, and as you’ll see, there is no clear consensus
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
WEF Declares That The Color Of Democracy Is… Green?
- Climate change and the decline of democracy are two global crises that have come to a head in recent years.
- Transitioning to green energy is key to both tackling climate change and creating sustainable economies.
- Collective action on a green transition is thereby not only good for the climate but also vital for protecting democracy.
Two global crises have come to a head – climate change and the decline of democracy.
If global warming is to be kept below 1.5 oC, the world must act now to reduce carbon emissions. Achieving this objective requires substantially lowering fossil fuel use through a clean energy transition.
For the past 15 years, democracy has been in decline worldwide. To protect and promote freedom, leading democracies must strengthen their economies and safeguard liberty.
These two aims are not mutually exclusive but complementary. Reducing reliance on fossil fuels and transitioning to low-carbon alternatives also make democratic economies more sustainable. Major democracies should work together to achieve these two goals.
HEALTH
Why the War on Salt Is Dangerous
Do you still believe the myth that salt is bad for your blood pressure? If you examine the evidence, you’ll quickly see that your risk for hypertension and heart disease is far more dependent on your ratio of this other mineral, and not sodium. And if you eat the standard American foods, your ratio is likely to be one-tenth of what’s ideal.
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- 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
The theory that salt is bad for you and contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease is an idea that has become more or less cemented as dogma. Alas, the war on salt has had a number of drawbacks and unintended consequences. For starters, 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.
Moreover, when lowering salt in processed foods, many manufacturers took to adding monosodium glutamate (MSG) instead — a flavor enhancer associated with a number of health problems, including obesity, headaches, fatigue and depression. Due to its ability to overexcite neurons, MSG may even raise your risk for neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS).
War on Salt Is Misguided
In 2010, New York City launched the National Salt Reduction Initiative, a salt-reduction plan aimed at lowering salt in processed foods and restaurant meals by 25% in the next four years. Two years later, Dr. Sean Lucan of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine wrote an article published online in the American Journal of Public Health, saying:[1]
“We cannot extrapolate that lowering sodium consumption would reduce cardiovascular risk or premature death. Despite assertions to the contrary, we do not know that reducing mean population sodium intake would decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease or save lives.”
At the time, Lucan told the New York Post:[2]
“We can’t just swallow this as fact — there’s actually debate about this. My concern is that they’re focusing on a single ingredient that the food industry is going to have to replace with something — and what they replace it with might be more damaging.”
Lucan also noted that the relationship between sodium and blood pressure is inconsistent and from a clinical standpoint, insubstantial. Moreover, he stressed that some studies actually show a low-salt diet can worsen cardiovascular disease and raise rather than lower the risk for early death among patients at high risk of heart disease. In addition, lowering salt intake could also decrease insulin sensitivity and have an adverse effect on blood lipids. Correctly, Lucan noted that “Refined carbohydrates are a greater enemy.”
Whitening Strips or Soda? Which Is Worse for Your Teeth?
Research finds teeth whitening products containing hydrogen peroxide damage the proteins in your teeth, while inexpensive baking soda is safe and effective against bacteria-causing periodontal disease, and in removing plaque and whitening teeth
Your teeth are damaged by sweetened beverages, leading to dental decay. Poor oral health increases your risk of Type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease
In addition to oral care, baking soda is effective at relieving itching from insect bites, as an invigorating foot soak and enhancing sports performance
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
A few years ago, it would have been hard to imagine an activist hedge fund gaining three board seats at America’s largest oil and gas company. A fledgling fund called Engine No. 1 with just 0.02 percent ownership in ExxonMobil, voted out three board members at the oil giant in 2021, scoring a victory for the climate change movement.
The fund had backing from “big three” institutional investment firms BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street.
Exxon wasn’t the only target of shareholder activism. The world’s largest oil producers, such as Shell, Chevron, and BP, have all faced shareholder revolts from activist investors who urged them to address climate change.
However, actions of these investors have crippled the U.S. oil and gas production, contributing to the current energy crisis, according to Vivek Ramaswamy and Anson Frericks, co-founders of Strive, an Ohio-based asset management firm.
Launched in May, Strive says it wants to replace the voices of large investment firms in the American economy with those of everyday citizens.
The founders claim that large fund managers breach their fiduciary duties by placing too much emphasis on climate change and “stakeholder capitalism” rather than higher returns.
Among Strive’s notable backers are billionaire in
COVID RELATED NEWS
US Gives Pfizer $3.2 Billion for Ineffective COVID Vax
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that it, in partnership with the Department of Defense, agreed to purchase another 105 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot — for $3.2 billion
The contract is intended to supply shots for a coming fall injection campaign and includes options to purchase up to 300 million doses
The decision came after a June 28 meeting of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), which recommended that an Omicron-specific component be included in COVID-19 booster shots in the U.S.
Pfizer stands to profit significantly from the contract and has forecast that its COVID-19 shot sales will reach $32 billion in 2022
VRBPAC voted 19-2 in favor of recommending booster shots that are Omicron-specific, even though panel members expressed uncertainty and guesswork surrounding the booster rollout
FDA Grants Full Approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine for 12- to 15-Year-Olds
Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents aged between 12 and 15 years has been granted full approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the companies announced on Friday.
The vaccine will be sold under the brand name Comirnaty and is the first and only COVID-19 vaccine to be granted FDA approval for children aged 12 and older, having been available under an emergency use authorization since May 2021 for the 12–15 age group.
To date, more than 9 million Americans aged between 12 to 15 have completed a primary series of the shot.
It will now be sold under the same brand name for adolescents as well.
Comirnaty was previously FDA approved for individuals 16 years and older in August 2021. At the time, acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said that the public can be “very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product.”
The FDA said on Sunday that the approval of the vaccine for 12 to 15-year-olds came following a “rigorous analysis and evaluation of the safety and effectiveness data” conducted by the federal agency.
German biotech firm BioNTech and U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said the approval is based on data from a Phase 3 clinical trial of 2,260 participants 12 through 15 years of age.
Emails Confirm Why CDC Changed Definitions of Vaccine, Vaccinated
Newly obtained emails confirm that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed its definition for both “vaccine” and “vaccinated” because people were pointing out that definitions didn’t seem to apply to the COVID-19 vaccines.
“The definition of vaccine we have posted is problematic and people are using it to claim the COVID-19 vaccine is not a vaccine based on our own definition,” Alycia Downs, a CDC official, wrote in an email on Aug. 25, 2021, to a colleague.
The definition is located on a page titled Immunization Basics.
“Vaccine” was defined since at least 2011 by the CDC as a product that triggers immunity, while “vaccination” was described as an injection that prevents a disease, according to archived versions of the page. However, a flood of inquiries on the definitions was triggered by the fact that the COVID-19 vaccines have been increasingly ineffective against infection by the virus that causes COVID-19, the emails show.
“Our question is how is the CDC and the rest of the world allowed to call the shot a vaccination when it doesn’t even meet your own definition,” one person wrote to the CDC.
Right-wing covid-19 pandemic deniers are using your ‘vaccine’ definition to argue that mRNA vaccines are not vaccines,” another said.
The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are both built on messenger RNA technology. They are two of the three COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States.
Downs and colleagues Allison Michelle Fisher, Cynthia Jorgensen, Valerie Morelli, and Andrew (no last name given) worked on changing the definitions for “vaccine” and “vaccination,” according to the emails.
New Study: Unvaccinated Wrongly Maligned
A large-scale international study of those unvaccinated against COVID-19 finds a pattern of discrimination—and a relatively low hospitalization rate.
While the study’s findings are limited by the nature of the selection process, in which unvaccinated people opted in to participate, the new study suggests that those who declined the vaccine may not be the burden to the health care system many have claimed them to be. The study is now available as a preprint (which means it hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed). It was uploaded to ResearchGate earlier this month.
The findings hold significant importance to policymakers. According to Our World in Data, 60 percent of the world is fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The 40 percent who aren’t vaccinated against the virus have been frequently blamed for the duration and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, even as vaccination rates reached up to 90 percent in many jurisdictions.
With government agencies, news media, and social media algorithms ignoring or misrepresenting the contending science around COVID-19, the unvaccinated have faced often intense pressure to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
“What the survey aimed to do is gather insights about health outcomes, choices, and discrimination experienced by the marginalized subpopulation of people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures who have elected to exercise their right of refusal of COVID-19 injections,” the study authors said.
In many places in the United States, those who declined the COVID-19 vaccines have been discriminated against, stigmatized, and marginalized from society. Nurses and health care workers were fired, Air Force cadets were denied commissions, and family members found themselves ostracized within some of their most intimate and important relationships.
The vilification of the unvaccinated has come with the censorship of both science and personal experience. Many doctors, nurses, scientists, and other health care professionals who speak out about the safety and necessity of these vaccines have been threatened with the loss of their medical licenses, deleted from social media, canceled from events with their peers, and fired from their jobs.
How Masks Make You Sick Instead of Protecting You
Using CDC data, no significant differences were found in COVID-19 case growth between states with or without mask mandates, during periods of low or high transmission
The widespread use of masks did not reduce COVID-19 transmission in Europe, and a moderate positive correlation was found between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe
An update to a CDC study on school mask mandates, using nearly six times more data, found no significant relationship between mask mandates in U.S. schools and COVID-19 case rates
In Kansas, counties with a mask mandate had significantly higher COVID-19 case fatality rates than counties without a mask mandate
One way masks cause harm may be the “Foegen effect” — the idea that deep re-inhalation of droplets and virions caught on facemasks might make COVID-19 infection more likely or more severe
COVID-19 Lockdowns Damaged Speech and Mental Development of Children, Say Teachers
COVID-19 restrictions have damaged children developmentally in ways that might be irreparable, teachers say.
From early childhood to high school, children rely on facial expressions, social interaction, conversation with new people, and friendships to develop mentally.
Children denied social interaction don’t grow mentally in the same way. When governments closed in-person schooling for months, cracked down on activities like play dates, and ordered families to stay home it plunged children into painful isolation.
Now, teachers across America say the lockdown generation lags behind those raised in normal years. Older children have fewer friends and slower minds, while some of the youngest don’t feel the urge to make friends at all.
“One of the biggest differences is the number of kids who have no language,” said Rachel Garcia, a bilingual speech linguist pathologist clinical fellow at Ensemble Therapy Services. She works with children aged 1 to 3 in Palm Desert, California.
CANCEL CULTURE
ESG: The Big Lie Of Woke Capitalism
Apparently, the “woke left” in America is a big fan of free market capitalism and investing. At least, that’s what Slate’s Andrew Petillon would have us all believe in his recent article, “The Republican War on ‘Woke Capitalism’ Is Really Just a War on Capitalism.”
That is nothing more—and nothing less—than a well-constructed lie.
Woke Capitalism and ESG
Some definitions of terms are in order.
According to The Economist, “woke capitalism” involves public campaigns that appeal to millennials, who typically hold more socially liberal views and are arguably less informed on what free market capitalism is than prior generations.
So-called “woke capitalism” is also sometimes referred to as “ESG investing,” which itself has various meanings. The acronym ESG stands for “environmental, social, and governance.” It’s a vague categorization or standard applied to companies and investors to determine how, for lack of a better word, “woke” they may or may not be.
Domestically, ESG is a metric for woke capitalism. Some of the main concepts surrounding ESG are climate change, sustainability, green technology, social justice causes such as workers’ rights, working conditions, changing social norms, exploitation of minorities, and so forth. There is also the aspect of governmental oversight or promotion of those causes. A company or investor’s ESG ranking may be the determining factor for investment or even boycotts.
The Fascism of Stakeholder Capitalism
Woke capitalism embraces the idea of “stakeholder capitalism.” Stakeholder capitalism, which is what the Business Roundtable and the World Economic Forum (WEF) call for, demands that companies toe the ESG line, not necessarily to private shareholders, but to the often unelected and their woke socialist standards. The latter include equality of outcomes, hiring decisions, diversity requirements, income equality, and more. Shareholders like you and I are not part of the plan.
Obviously, ESG has both red and green leftist political and ideological preferences that marry business with government policymakers, not merely business and shareholder interests. That, by the way, is fascism.
The Woke Capitalism Lie
Internationally, ESG identifies and ranks companies and investors that either do business with countries considered politically incorrect, lack ESG values, or both. A negative ESG rating could also result in negative publicity, divesture, or boycotts by Wall Street and Main Street investors.
According to Petillon, ESG or woke capitalism is somehow directly related to and is an aspect of free market capitalism. In fact, from its inception as a metric, the use of ESG factors in the financial analysis was deemed to be complementary to a company’s fiduciary responsibilities to investors and shareholders.
And are ESG criteria really part of the fiduciary responsibilities that a public company has to its shareholders? In some cases, sure. For example, some investors don’t want to invest in companies that make alcohol, tobacco, or firearms. Those investors are free not to invest in those companies.
Imposing leftist criteria on a company whose responsibilities are to its shareholders doesn’t sound like free market capitalism. Instead, it is mandated behavior by the unelected. There are laws that all companies must follow, of course, but those vary by state and federal jurisdictions. ESG is separate from both—or at least, they used to be.
But to those on the left, ESG or woke capitalism is also virtuous capitalism because they believe that companies ought to behave, invest, and produce what the woke mob determines is correct. Those companies that don’t comply must be punished and, if possible, driven out of business. As the ESG trend and political influence progress, it exercises more control—behavioral and political—over all companies, public and private. That’s the end goal for woke capitalism.
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