WORLD NEWS
How To Destabilize A Nation With Food And Energy Shortages
While the culture wars and inflation preoccupy you, several countries worldwide face food insecurity and destabilization thanks to the bright ideas of our global elites. Sri Lanka is in the news this week as the government appears to be toppling, but the nation is not the first to fall as a result of actions taken by our irresponsible betters.
To fight the Sun Monster, nations entirely on board with the global climate agenda are encouraging the use of natural fertilizers. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa banned all chemical fertilizers last year. By December 2021, there were widespread concerns about food shortages in his country. Now, Rajapaksa is the former president of Sri Lanka, and throngs of hungry Sri Lankans are rummaging through his kitchen cabinets and using his bathroom. He fled to the Maldives.
A similar trajectory occurred in Ghana, a country rich in new oil and gas discoveries at the beginning of the 2000s — discoveries so big that in 2015, the World Bank approved its largest ever guarantee for the country’s energy sector. The plan was to develop natural gas production and power plants, mainly to benefit investor firms from Italy and the Netherlands “in partnership” with Ghana’s National Petroleum Corporation. And we wonder why African nations hate the West.
Like Sri Lanka, Ghana’s Agricultural Minister began encouraging the use of organic fertilizers in 2021 to address climate change and shortages caused by the pandemic. Ghana has experienced regular blackouts since last year, despite investments in its natural resources. Tucker Carlson reported Tuesday that, according to observers, Ghana is also suffering severe food shortages and hunger. In June, hundreds of protestors clashed with police in the capital of Accra, protesting fuel price hikes, a tax on electronic payments, and spiraling inflation. Once the hunger sets in, count on the angry crowds getting as large as those in Sri Lanka. When people get hungry, things go sideways fast.
Problems are not confined to the third world. As the government tells the Netherlands’ farmers and cattle ranchers to reduce nitrogen and ammonia use by 50%, they can at least roll into town or block the border riding a tractor. It all seems absurd, since nitrogen is a critical ingredient in any fertilizer, including organic ones. Plants require it for photosynthesis. There is also no better fertilizer for home use than milorganite, also known as pelletized chicken poop. It is high in ammonia and about as organic as you can get.
No one ever squares the circle about how to balance the need for manure with the desire to end meat production at the WEF. It is just one way you can tell the climate cabal is not made up of serious people. They are ideologues. The Netherlands is the world’s second-largest net exporter of food, so it won’t just be the Dutch people going hungry when their agricultural sector collapses from stupidity.
As Tucker Carlson noted in his monologue, we don’t have to wonder how the green revolution the UN and the World Economic Forum (WEF) are pushing will work out. We already know. Yet, here is resident genius and USAID Administrator Samantha Power in May. She is opining about the fertilizer shortage as an opportunity to move to “natural solutions” like the ones being tried in Sri Lanka, Ghana, and the Netherlands. And she wants Americans to pay for it.
Someone should ask her how to grow a tomato. Or a field of wheat. She probably knows enough about food production to access her groceries from Whole Foods through an app. But global elites like her think their status qualifies them to weigh in on global food production. It seems to be going great so far.
Carlson also explained there is a significant correlation between a country’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) score and pending societal collapse due to hunger and power shortages. According to the data he provided, the Environmental Impact scores for Ghana, Sri Lanka, and the Netherlands are 97.7%, 98.1%, and 98.7%. “So the poorer you get, the more human suffering there is, the higher your ESG score,” he noted. As climate activist Michael Shellenberger warned, the apocalyptic climate movement pushes pro-scarcity and anti-human policies. Recent events seem to underscore his view.
Other countries are traveling the same path. According to Carlson, in 2015, South Africa pledged to switch to renewables. Now seven years later, with a score of 91%, the country is experiencing rolling blackouts. France’s transition is not going well either. After the country achieved an ESG score of 92.6% after making clean energy commitments in 2012, protests began in 2018. You may recall how difficult it was to get information about the Yellow Vest Protests that persisted for months. At the G7 in June, President Macron begged President Biden to drill more oil on a hot mic.
The rest of Europe is sliding into crisis as well. The UK, with a score of 92.7%, is warning as many as 6 million residents may face power cuts this summer. Germany is rationing hot water. The war in Russia is undoubtedly hastening the problems in Europe. However, decades of feckless “not in my backyard” energy policy created a reliance on Russian oil through the back door, setting the stage for the energy crisis. People will almost certainly freeze to death in Europe this winter if something doesn’t change quickly.
EU may cut financial aid to Ukraine
The EU has reportedly held up the promised funds due to concerns over its own economy
The funds promised to Ukraine by the EU have been delayed due to concerns over the bloc’s own economic troubles and infighting in Brussels,
Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the discussions.
Back in March, the European Commission proposed a €9 billion ($9 billion) loan to Ukraine that would be backed by the guarantees of EU members’ governments. However, so far the bloc has managed to agree only on a first tranche worth €1 billion, which was unveiled on Tuesday.
According to Bloomberg, the hang up is because Germany tried to convince the EU to provide non-refundable grants through the International Monetary Fund rather than loans to Kiev.
A German official was quoted as saying that Berlin does not want to bear the brunt of guaranteeing Ukrainian loans and has asked other members to chip in more.
Separately, a €1.5 billion loan by the European Investment Bank was said to have been blocked within the EU because more guarantees are needed to secure the sum.
France told to turn off the lights
President Macron has called on the nation to brace for a Russian gas cutoff by saving energy
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called on the government and citizens to prepare for a total halt of Russian natural gas supplies, restricting energy use whenever possible.
“We should prepare ourselves for the scenario where we have to go without all Russian gas,” he said, speaking in a televised interview to mark Bastille Day. “The summer, early autumn will be very hard,” the French president warned, referring to the skyrocketing energy costs.
He instructed the government to prepare a “sobriety plan” to conserve energy, which would start with turning off public lights at night when they aren’t useful.
France will keep looking to diversify gas sources, Macron said, calling for a faster shift toward offshore windfarms and more European cross-border energy cooperation to weather the current crisis.
Electric Police Cars ‘Running Out of Juice’ on Way to Rural Emergencies
A British police force that has embraced the use of electric vehicles says they have operational limits when a charging station is nowhere in sight.
The revelation came from Gloucestershire Police and Crime Commissioner Chris Nelson, according to the Daily Mail.
The issue comes into play the most often when officers are in rural areas, he said.
Nelson said that his department, which has electric vehicles making up a greater share of its fleet than any other department, sometimes is faced with situations in which an officer has to change vehicles before reaching the location where an emergency is taking place.
In a recent discussion with a local politician, Nelson walked the line of noting that the vehicles have shortcomings, while not rejecting the “go green” mantra.
“We’ve all got to go towards electric vehicles moving forwards,” he said, adding, “The design options available for electric vehicles for operational uses are not perhaps as advanced as I would like them to be.”
“So, let’s put it like this, I’m cautious about going any further down that road at this stage,” he said.
Nelson noted that the real-world demands an officer puts on a car can tax its capacity.
“I’d like to see more operational choice so that, for instance, if an officer is out in a rural area on a road traffic accident and his lights are on, his radio is on, his heater is on, I wouldn’t want him to run out of power for all of those different facilities, simply because he or she is in an electric car,” he said.
He said reports have come to him of electric vehicles “running out of puff and then having to get another vehicle.”
“I’ve heard lots of problems with officers driving around in electric vehicles having problems trying to find recharging facilities,” he said.
He suggested police work and the green agenda may not always be compatible.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Record US defense spending approved
Lawmakers want to increase the annual military budget to $840 billion
The US House of Representatives has authorized $840 billion in defense spending in 2023, boosting President Joe Biden’s proposed record military budget by $37 billion.
The annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which sets military expenditure, was passed on Thursday by a vote of 329-101.
The bill offers $1 billion in aid to Ukraine, including a program to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-15, F-16 and other US aircraft. The Ukrainians should familiarize themselves with US-made planes “while the administration continues to consider sending such equipment,” said a statement on Congressman Adam Kinzinger’s website last month.
The bill also bans the supply of the F-16s to Turkey unless the US president guarantees to Congress that Ankara has not “violated the sovereignty of Greece, including through territorial overflights” for 120 days prior to the transfer.
House Democrats Moving on ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban: Targets at Least 45 Specific AR-15 Rifles
The House Judiciary Committee will be moving on an “assault weapons” ban bill that targets at least 45 specific AR-15 rifles and approximately 30 specific AK-47s.
The legislation Rep. David Cicilline’s (D-R.I.) assault weapons bill, H.R. 1808.
Ivana Trump Dies, Family Confirms
Former President Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana Trump—the mother of his three eldest children—died on Thursday. She was 73.
“Our mother was an incredible woman—a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend,” the Trump family said in a statement about her death.
“Ivana Trump was a survivor. She fled from communism and embraced this country,” they continued. Ivana Trump was born in the former Czechoslovakia, a Warsaw Pact country that was controlled by the Soviet Union until its dissolution in the early 1990s.
She was the mother to Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump. Donald Trump has two other children—Barron and Tiffany Trump.
Ivana Trump “taught her children about grit and toughness, compassion and determination,” the Trump family added. “She will be dearly missed by her mother, her three children, and ten grandchildren.”
On Truth Social, the former commander-in-chief praised Ivana as a “wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman who led a great and inspirational life … rest in peace, Ivana!”
“I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,” former President Trump also wrote.
Trump Family Responds After Ivana Trump’s Death Is Confirmed
Friends and family members issued responses on Thursday following the death of Ivana Trump, former President Donald Trump’s first wife.
“I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,” the former president wrote on Truth Social Thursday. “She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life.”
Trump continued to say: “Her pride and joy were her three children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. She was so proud of them, as we were all so proud of her. Rest In Peace, Ivana!”
The Czech-born businesswoman and former model had several roles in the Trump Organization and other business ventures, including serving as the former vice president of interior design. Her work is included in the Trump Plaza Hotel, the Grand Hyatt Hotel, and the Trump Tower.
“Our mother was an incredible woman—a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend,” her three children said in a statement.
“Ivana Trump was a survivor. She fled from communism and embraced this country. She taught her children about grit and toughness, compassion and determination,” the family also said. “She will be dearly missed by her mother, her three children, and ten grandchildren.”
Ivana Trump, born Ivana Marie Zelnickova, worked as a model in the 1970s before she married Donald Trump in 1977 before she gave birth to three children: Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump. The pair’s marriage was the focus of intense media coverage before their divorce in 1992.
“No matter how busy I was, I had breakfast with my children every day. I sat with them at dinner every night and helped them with their homework (I loved algebra) before going out in a Versace gown to a rubber-chicken charity event,” Ivana Trump wrote in her book, “Raising Trump.” “The kids and I celebrated, traveled, and grieved together. Our bond was, and is, our most valuable possession.”
In 2016 after her former husband launched his presidential bid, Ivana Trump said, “He is my best supporter.”
“I think he would be a great president,” she told news outlets at the time.
Officials told New York City-area channel ABC7 that authorities responded to a cardiac arrest call at a residence on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Her death is not considered suspicious.
Trump Says He’s Made Up His Mind About 2024, But Unsure About Timing of Announcement
Former President Donald Trump said he has made his decision about whether to run in 2024.
In an interview with the New York Magazine published on July 14, the 45th president disclosed that he has already made up his mind on that issue, but the “big decision” is the timing of the announcement.
“Well, in my own mind, I’ve already made that decision, so nothing factors in anymore. In my own mind, I’ve already made that decision,” he told the outlet.
“I would say my big decision will be whether I go before or after,” Trump said, indicating that he is undecided on whether to announce before or after the 2022 midterm elections.
He said there were “certain assets” in announcing the decision before the midterms.
“Let people know. I think a lot of people would not even run [for 2024] if I did that because, if you look at the polls, they don’t even register. Most of these people. And I think that you would actually have a backlash against them if they ran. People want me to run,” Trump said.
“I feel very confident that, if I decide to run, I’ll win,” he added.
Trump’s comments come as the latest in a series of hints to the public about a 2024 run, despite not having officially announced his decision.
“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 in a July 9 rally in Alaska, noting that he received “many millions more votes” in 2020 than he did in 2016 when he defeated Hillary Clinton. The former president has maintained that substantial electoral fraud and irregularities had invalidated the result of the 2020 presidential election.
Despite concerns among GOP observers about what would happen if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also entered the race for 2024, a July poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College shows Trump to be nearly doubling DeSantis in terms of support among Republican respondents.
Results from a Morning Consult/Politico survey conducted in late June also reflected the same sentiment among GOP voters, where 53 percent of the respondents said they would vote for Trump if the 2024 Republican primaries were to be held “today” and 22 percent said of DeSantis.
Trump has previously dismissed concerns about the possible threat posed by a DeSantis run.
“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.
The former president has more than 200 endorsements in the 2022 midterms, and has shown a generally strong track record with a more than 90 percent success rate so far.
Meanwhile, Republican figures have noted that Trump’s influence in the GOP is far from waning.
“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 the former president, adding, “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.
John Durham Requests 30 Subpoenas in Trial Against Steele Dossier Source
Special counsel John Durham asked a federal court to send out 30 subpoenas for testimony in the pending trial against research analyst Igor Danchenko, who was the alleged main source for the discredited “Steele dossier” that targeted former President Donald Trump.
In a June 13 filing, Durham’s team said, “It is respectfully requested that the Clerk of said Court issue subpoenas as indicated below for appearance of said Court in Alexandria, Virginia … to testify on behalf of the United States” on Oct. 11.
The judge in the case is U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2008.
Danchenko, who has pleaded not guilty, is charged with lying to the FBI. Durham alleges that he made five false statements to the FBI in connection to information he provided to former UK spy Christopher Steele, who was hired by an opposition research company on behalf of a law firm working for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
According to Durham’s indictment, Danchenko’s alleged fabrications “were material to the FBI because … the FBI’s investigation of the Trump Campaign relied” on the dossier to obtain secretive warrants to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
“The FBI ultimately devoted substantial resources attempting to investigate and corroborate the allegations contained in” the dossier, including whether Danchenko’s sub-sources were reliable, the indictment states. The dossier and information provided by Danchenko “played a role in the FBI’s investigative decisions and in sworn representations that the FBI made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court throughout the relevant time period,” according to last year’s complaint.
Texas Sues Biden Administration Over Ordering Hospitals to Perform Abortions
Texas on July 14 sued the federal government over a recent document that says abortions must be performed even if the procedures are not allowed by state laws.
The guidance amounts to an abortion mandate and is illegal because it violates multiple laws, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said.
The guidance (pdf) was promulgated on July 11 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
It tells state survey agency directors that under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a doctor at an emergency department who is presented with a pregnant woman who has an emergency medical condition “must” perform an abortion if the abortion is a necessary “stabilizing treatment.”
The abortion must be done even in states where the law “prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life and health of the pregnant person,” the guidance says. “That state law is preempted.”
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, on the same day, told health care providers across the nation that “stabilizing treatment” could include abortion, “irrespective of any state laws or mandates that apply to specific procedures.” He said in the letter (pdf) that per the emergency labor act, the physician “must provide” an abortion in certain cases.
Texas officials see the situation differently.
US Military Can’t Fulfill National Defense Strategy Because of Force Cuts: Experts
The U.S. military isn’t able to fully realize the demands of the National Defense Strategy because of years of force cuts and a failure to modernize its arsenal, according to experts.
“There’s a huge gap between what the national defense strategy requires that the Navy, the Air Force, the Army, and the Marine Corps [provide] and what they can actually provide today,” said Mark Gunzinger, director of future concepts and capability assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “That’s the product of three decades worth of force cuts and delayed modernization.”
To make up for that fact and to prepare for a possible conflict with China, the United States may need to consider increasing its use of cheaper, unmanned systems in an effort to augment its more expensive assets, Gunzinger said. Particularly so, given that U.S. officials have warned that China’s communist regime could launch an invasion of Taiwan by 2027.
“How do you make up that gap and in the time frame we’re talking about?” he said. “A big part of the answer in unmanned systems.”
Many US Systems Not Mission Capable
Gunzinger delivered the remarks during a July 12 roundtable on the issue of U.S. air and naval forces development hosted by the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.
The group of experts discussed how unmanned systems could boost the survivability and warfighting capacity of U.S. military units in the Pacific, even as the military contends with sluggish readiness levels.
One such sign of dwindling military readiness discussed is a decade-long decrease in mission-capable systems, a trend most pronounced in the Navy and Marine Corps, which would be responsible for most of the fighting in the event of a conflict with China.
In perhaps the most jarring example of decreasing readiness, roughly 50 percent of the military’s F-18 Super Hornet fighter jets were considered to not be mission capable, according to Diana Maurer, director of defense capabilities and management at the Government Accountability Office.
“When half of your aircraft are not able to get up in the air to perform a single mission, that really blunts the ability to carry out some of the operations that the Navy and others would like to perform,” she said. “That’s a concern.”
Maurer said there were similar concerns with a number of vessels typically used to launch such aircraft and that the backlog and delays for routine maintenance on naval vessels were negatively affecting the military in profound ways.
To that end, she said the various service branches would need to do more to overcome “institutional bias” and integrate with one another in order to be capable of seizing the advantage in a Pacific conflict.
“They’re going to have to work together in a much more integrated, much more seamless way to make that possible,” Maurer said.
US Forces Not Ready for China Conflict
Overall, the United States would need to do much to regain the high ground against China in the Pacific, according to Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
“The main challenge we’re facing is the missile threat posed by China,” Clark said. “Fundamentally, China has the ability to reach out thousands of miles away from its coast and threaten carrier strike groups … with a large number of precision strike weapons.”
As such, he said, U.S. forces would likely need to operate in a highly constrained environment, 1,000 to 1,500 nautical miles away from the Chinese coastline in order to be effective. Even then, however, it would face its biggest challenge in Chinese aircraft with large salvos of cruise missiles and bombs.
DEA Agents Seize Record 1 Million Fentanyl-Laced Pills in California
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced the record-breaking seizure of one million fake pills laced with fentanyl in Inglewood, California, on Thursday.
DEA agents executed a federal search warrant on July 5, which resulted in the seizure of one million fentanyl pills. The fentanyl-laced pills were linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. Agents executed the search warrant after investigating the drug trafficking organization since May.
The recent bust is the largest amount of fentanyl pills DEA agents have seized in California thus far. The fake fentanyl pills were reportedly worth $15 to $20 million.
The fentanyl-laced pills would come into the country through the southern border and stay in southern California until “house managers” could distribute the pills to drug dealers in other areas.
Mexican cartels “are mass-producing illicit fentanyl and fake pills pressed with fentanyl in filthy, clandestine, unregulated labs,” according to the DEA. As a result, more than 107,000 Americans died due to drug overdoses last year, according to CDC data.
Demand for Monkeypox Vaccine Rises as Biden Admin Fails to Supply
The demand for the monkeypox vaccine has steadily increased throughout the United States as the Biden administration has failed to keep up the supply.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says that the “number of monkeypox vaccine doses distributed across the United States has more than tripled since last week,” according to CNN, but the supply continues to fall short of the demand.
Though not a sexually transmitted disease, spreading only through skin-to-skin contact, the virus has thus far predominantly affected gay men in urban areas like New York City and Washington, D.C., with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimating that “more than 1.5 million men who have sex with men are eligible for the monkeypox vaccine.”
As many as 132,000 doses of the two-dose Jynneos vaccine have been distributed across the nation – not nearly enough to meet the current demand.
Dr. David Holland, chief clinical officer of the Fulton County, Georgia, Board of Health, told CNN that his office received an “allotment of 200 vaccines, and the appointments for that went in about an hour and a half.”
Washington, D.C., has received the most vaccines, followed by New York. The CDC said it will allocate vaccines based on the “number of cases and the population at risk in a specific area.”
Democrats from New York City Mayor Eric Adams to California State Senator Scott Wiener have publicly asked the Biden administration to step up efforts to meet the demand for vaccines.
“While we appreciate the approximately 7,000 vaccine doses that have been sent to New York City thus far, and the approximately 14,500 doses we expect to receive by the end of the week, we urgently need far more to slow the spread and protect at-risk populations,” Eric Adams wrote to the administration.
In the midst of politically polarizing rulings on abortion, gun rights and religion, the U.S. Supreme Court closed out its 2021-22 term with a handful of disparate rulings that served to further shield federal officials and police against lawsuits arising out of their misconduct, incompetence and brutality, undermine longstanding remedies for Miranda violations, and allow a death row inmate to seek death by a firing squad as an alternative form of execution.
“The Supreme Court has spoken: there will be no consequences for cops who brutalize the citizenry and no justice for the victims of police brutality,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “These rulings are a chilling reminder that in the American police state, ‘we the people’ are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to ‘serve and protect.’”
In a 6-3 decision in Egbert v. Boule, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the ability of individuals to sue federal officials for misconduct when it ruled that a bed-and-breakfast owner who was roughed up by a Border Patrol agent could not sue the officer for warrantlessly intruding on his property and violating his Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force and then retaliating against the owner after he filed a grievance with the agent’s supervisors. In Cope v. Cogdill, the Supreme Court let stand a Fifth Circuit ruling that granted qualified immunity to a jailhouse officer who watched a suicidal pretrial detainee strangle himself without intervening or calling for help despite having been specifically trained to deal with such medical emergencies. Likewise, in Ramirez v. Guadarrama, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling granting qualified immunity from a claim of excessive force to police officers who fired their tasers at a suicidal man who had doused himself in gasoline, causing the man to burst into flames in front of his wife and son, despite knowing from their training and the warning of another officer that discharging their tasers would ignite the gasoline.
In a 6-3 ruling in Vega v. Tekoh, the Supreme Court addressed the consequences of police failing to give Miranda warnings by informing suspects that they have a right against self-incrimination when in custody: namely, that they have a right to remain silent, to have an attorney present, and that anything they say and do can and will be used against them in a court of law. Although the Supreme Court stopped short of overturning its 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, the conservative majority declared that individuals cannot hold police accountable in a civil suit for failing to give Miranda warnings. Finally, in a 5-4 opinion in Nance v. Ward, the Supreme Court ruled that death row inmates can seek alternative methods of execution, such as by firing squad, as part of their Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment in lawsuits brought pursuant to Title 42, Section 1983 of the United States Code.
Catherine E. Stetson, Dana A. Raphael, and Allison M. Wuertz of Hogan Lovells US LLP helped The Rutherford Institute to advance the arguments in the Nance v. Ward amicus brief.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
Pure evil and no excuse: Democrats block bill increasing penalties for child sex traffickers
Still think the Democrats haven’t gone full-blown radical? Think again.
In an unbelievable vote by the House Judiciary Committee this week, committee Democrats unanimously voted against an effort to increase penalties for child sex traffickers, according to a piece in Becker News.
At one time, you might think such a measure would enjoy unanimous, bipartisan support. Not in 2022, where matters such as the color of grass being green and the sky being blue is a matter of intense political debate.
During debate on the matter, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) posed the following:
“A question about this amendment first,” Buck said. “I want to thank Mr. Roy [Rep. Chip Roy, R-TX] for this commonsense amendment that deals with the overall issue, as opposed trying to piecemeal this out. And I suspect we won’t deal with the overall issue if we continue to piecemeal this out.
“But Mr. Roy, can you think of any circumstance in which an individual induces, coerces, controls a child and forced that child into the sex trade, where that individual, that defendant, that criminal doesn’t deserve 15 years in prison?” Buck asked.
“I cannot, no,” Roy responded. “I can appreciate the question from the gentleman. He is, too, a former prosecutor who prosecuted for a lot longer than I did. And I appreciate his recognition of that truth.
“I mean, as a father of two, as a former prosecutor, it defies all belief, all common sense that you would say that someone who traffics a child in the sex industry—actually puts a child into that environment for that child to be sexually abused—that that individual should not have a minimum sentence of 15 years,” he continued.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
VIDEO: CASKET SALESMAN BLOWS WHISTLE: CHILD CASKETS BEING ORDERED IN BULK, NEVER SEEN IN BUSINESS BEFORE (Stew Peters) https://www.bitchute.com/video/X33Tm5JV9o2r/
Elon Musk’s stated reason for abandoning his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter is “a model of hypocrisy,” according to the social media company’s lawsuit seeking to enforce the agreement.
The lawsuit, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery on Tuesday, says Musk likely wants out of the deal because the value of his stake in Tesla has declined more than $100 billion from its November 2021 peak. But Musk has instead cited Twitter’s failure to provide sufficient information about fake or spam accounts—even though he initially said he was buying Twitter to defeat “the spam bots,” the suit says.
Musk says he can abandon the deal if Twitter misrepresentations on spam accounts created a “material adverse effect,” Reuters reports.
But that argument is likely to face skepticism in Delaware courts, which have only once ruled in favor of an MAE claim, experts told Reuters.
Ann Lipton, associate dean for faculty research at Tulane Law School, told Reuters that Musk’s claim faces a high bar. “If it goes to court, Musk has the burden to prove more likely than not, that the spam account numbers not only were false, but they were so false that it will have significant effect on Twitter’s earnings going forward,” Lipton said.
Musk’s tweets have shown he was aware of spam accounts before he closed the deal, Boston College Law School professor Brian J.M. Quinn told the New York Times. Musk’s lawyers “are going to be very unhappy with the fact that he tweets,” Quinn said. “All the tweets that they can find, they are using against him.”
The suit says Musk had waived due diligence, another factor in the company’s favor, experts told the Washington Post.
Southwest Airlines, Union, Ordered to Pay $5.3 Million to Pro-Life Former Flight AttendantA federal jury in Texas ordered Southwest Airlines and its union on July 14 to pay a former flight attendant who opposes abortion more than $5.3 million after she was fired for sending pro-life messages to her union’s president.
The jury determined that the airline and Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) Local 556 violated Charlene Carter’s rights as an employee to speak out against the union. The airline was ordered to pay Carter $4.15 million for back pay and pain and suffering. The union was ordered to pay Carter a separate $1.15 million, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, which represented Carter in court, was elated at the verdict.
“It’s a good day for courage and it’s a good day for individual freedom and liberty. It’s exciting. It’s been a five-year odyssey for Charlene, and for our legal team,” Mix told The Epoch Times in an interview.
Carter’s story goes back to 1996 when, as a Southwest employee, she joined TWU Local 556. A pro-life Christian, she resigned from the union in 2013 upon learning her union dues were being spent to promote social causes that violated her conscience and religious beliefs.
Despite exiting the union, Carter was still forced to pay fees in lieu of union dues as a condition of her employment. State-level right-to-work laws don’t exempt her from forced fees because airline and railway employees fall under the federal Railway Labor Act (RLA), which allows union officials to have a worker fired for refusing to pay union dues or fees. Despite this, the RLA protects the rights of employees to remain nonmembers of the union, to criticize the union and its leadership, and to advocate for changing its leadership.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Goldman Sachs Teams Up with Google’s ‘Director of Regime Change’ to Influence Global Politics
Goldman Sachs has hired Jared Cohen, a former Google executive nicknamed the “director of regime change” by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, for a new project that will use technology to advance the notoriously powerful investment bank’s policy goals around the world. Cohen was also a senior official in Hillary Clinton’s state department who will now manage “shifts in the geopolitical landscape” for the financial giant.
Cohen, who is also a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, will join Goldman Sachs at its most senior level — as a partner and member of the bank’s management committee, as well as president of global affairs. He will also lead a new department called the Office of Applied Innovation, which will harness “shifts in the geopolitical landscape” and “rapidly evolving technology” to advance the goals of the global finance behemoth.
From the State Department to Google and now to Goldman — Cohen’s career spans the most powerful companies and institutions in the world. Throughout it all, he has had a relentless focus on finding new ways to influence the course of political events, both domestically and in foreign countries.
Cohen joined the U.S. State Department after graduating college, working under George Bush appointee Condoleezza Rice. He was one of the few Bush appointees kept on by Hillary Clinton, and was given a key role in seeking the cooperation of U.S. tech executives to influence countries that were targets of U.S. regime change operations, including Russia, Syria, and Iran.
At Google, Cohen was the head of a project called Jigsaw, an AI censorship system purportedly aimed at “counter-radicalization,” but was later deployed around the internet to police a wide range of online conversations, and interfere in elections.Google executives discussed using Jigsaw to target the political right in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2016 victory. As revealed by footage leaked to Breitbart News, executives discussed Jigsaw — which at that point, had been presented to the public as a means of combating Islamic terror movements — as a potential tool to fight the “extremism” of the global populist movement.
A few months after that companywide meeting, Google announced the deployment of Jigsaw to guarantee “election security” around the world, by countering “online interference” — terms that would become well known in conservative media as fig-leaves for tech companies’ own election meddling.
HEALTH
Vitamin D Could Help Protect Women Against and Even Reverse Ovarian Cancer
Researchers believe vitamin D could be key in preventing ovarian cancer, one of the most lethal, as they found it stopped a key transformation in the metastasis of the cancer.
Furthermore, vitamin D actively reversed a process by which ovarian cancer turns the host’s defenses against them, suggesting it could also be key as part of a treatment plan for early stage diagnosis.
Ovarian cancer often undergoes a process called peritoneal metastasis, whereby its cells detach from their primary site in the ovary and travel to a secondary site such as the peritoneal wall or diaphragm.
The peritoneum defends itself a barrier consisting of mesothelial cells, which prevent the adhesion of cancer cells and limit their spread. However, ovarian cancer gets around this defense by transforming the protective mesothelial cells into cancer-associated mesothelial cells. This creates an environment that helps metastasis, assisting the spread of cancer around the body.
For this reason, ovarian cancer has been dubbed ‘a silent killer’ as it often causes few distinct symptoms until it is advanced. Nine-in-ten women with an early-stage diagnosis survive. If it’s picked up late just one-in-ten live more than five years.
Now researchers from Nagoya University School of Medicine, led by Dr. Masato Yoshihara found that vitamin D not only counteracted this process but also reverted the cancer-associated mesothelial cells to their original state. This process strengthened the barrier effect of mesothelial cells and reduced further spread of the cancer.
“We showed the potential of vitamin D for normalizing cancer-associated mesothelial cells, which is the first study of this kind,” said Dr. Kazuhisa Kitami, the first author of the study.
“This study’s most interesting point is that in situations where early detection of ovarian cancer is still extremely difficult, we showed that the peritoneal environment can be restored to its normal state where it prevents the adhesion and growth of cancer cells.”
The sunshine vitamin accomplishes this by interrupting the pathway for a tumor growth-factor protein called TGF-B1 to produce changes in gene expression that specialize in the process of peritoneal metastasis mentioned earlier.
It’s another reason why women should seriously consider a vitamin D supplement of between 2,000-4,000 IUs unless they spend time outside for work. Some estimations put 42% of Americans at deficiency for vitamin D, though deficiency depends on what a given researcher decides to use as the minimum level, and that’s often not agreed upon.
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19 Water-Rich Foods That Help You Stay Hydrated
Proper hydration is extremely important for your health.
In fact, not drinking enough water can lead to dehydration, which can cause fatigue, headaches, skin problems, muscle cramps, low blood pressure and a rapid heart rate.
What’s more, prolonged dehydration can lead to serious complications like organ failure.
Experts generally recommend drinking several glasses of water per day to meet your hydration needs.
But while drinking water is very important, you can also get it from foods. There are many healthy foods that can contribute a large amount of water to your diet.
This article discussed 19 water-rich foods that will help you stay hydrated.
- Watermelon
Water content: 92%
- Strawberries
Water content: 91%
- Cantaloupe
Water content: 90%
- Peaches
Water content: 89%
- Oranges
Water content: 88%
- Skim Milk
Water content: 91%
- Cucumber
Water content: 95%
- Lettuce
Water content: 96%
- Broths and Soups
Water content: 92%
- Zucchini
Water content: 94%
- Celery
Water content: 95%
- Plain Yogurt
Water content: 88%
- Tomatoes
Water content: 94%
- Bell Peppers
Water content: 92%
- Cauliflower
Water content: 92%
- Cabbage
Water content: 92%
- Grapefruit
Water content: 88%
- Coconut Water
Water content: 95%
- Cottage Cheese
Water content: 80%
The Bottom Line
Staying hydrated is extremely important for your overall health.
Health experts often recommend drinking several glasses of water per day to meet your hydration needs, but the water content of foods is often overlooked.
While drinking water is important, you can consume a significant amount of water by including a variety of water-rich fruits, vegetables and dairy products in your diet.
This is why most people don’t necessarily have to drink a lot of water.
As long as you’re eating plenty of water-rich foods and drinking water when you feel thirsty, you won’t have a problem staying hydrated.
Rates of obesity are skyrocketing around the globe, bringing with them associated health problems like infertility, liver failure and knee osteoarthritis leading to an increase in knee replacement surgery
Obesity is associated with an increased risk of undergoing knee replacement surgery
Women in the most severe obese category (class 3) were more likely to have knee replacement surgery at a younger age — 7.2 years earlier than normal weight women
Close to 90% of people who undergo primary knee replacement in Australia are overweight or obese
Children and adolescents who were overweight or obese tended to have smaller testicles compared to their normal weight peers; maintaining a healthy body weight in childhood could help prevent male infertility later in life
Ultraprocessed foods high in fructose and “vegetable” oils are driving up rates of obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
The Great Statin Debate — Why Cholesterol Is Misunderstood
In 2019 the health editor for the Daily Mail published an article touting the merits of statin cholesterol-lowering drugs and eschewing the “deadly propaganda of the statin deniers;” in July 2022 critics of the new 2021 guidelines published an article in JAMA, saying the guidelines needed to be lowered so more people could be eligible for statins
Experts in the field continue to speak out against statins in an attempt to clear the widespread myths about cholesterol and your health
The most concerning risk factors for cardiovascular disease are actually insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes and the chronic inflammation associated with these conditions
A recent analysis revealed people who had ever used statins had a 38% higher risk of Type 2 diabetes, with the risk being higher in those with impaired glucose homeostasis and those who were overweight or obese
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Should I install solar panels?
You should install solar panels if you’re looking for a way to save on energy expenses in the long run. While upfront installation costs can be high, the cost-benefit is clear: Installing solar panels on your home is financially and environmentally responsible. Using solar power will lower your electricity bills and earn you tax incentives. Solar panels are also great investments because they add value to your house and are exempt from property taxes.
Fix The Texas Electrical Grid By Ditching Those Who Created The Problem – The Feds
With Texans being asked to conserve electricity during the extreme heat, it is important to remember that the ultimate blame for this situation is our continued relationship with the federal government.
Nobody has forgotten the power outages of this winter, when 4.4 million Texans had no power in their homes in the middle of an unprecedented Arctic storm. Here we are now dealing with power issues related to a run of overly hot days.
This winter, the problem was a shortfall of supply, a consequence of Texas’ reliance on windmills which, on the night of February 15th, were generating power at 2% capacity due to frozen turbines—ironic, since we are told they are necessary to fight global warming.
This summer, the problem is exceptional demand due to long runs of widespread 100-degree heat throughout the state. How could this happen in the most energy-rich State in the Union? The answer boils down to record-breaking power demand combined with a severely diminished power supply.
Market-distorting federal subsidies are responsible for Texas’ reliance on unreliable wind, which now accounts for one-fifth of power generation in the State. The reliance on wind power has caused a corresponding decline of natural gas power, which now accounts for only 47% of power generation in Texas, despite the great abundance of cheap natural gas in the Permian. Wind-generated power receives substantial federal aid in two broad categories: Production Tax Credits (PTCs) and direct expenditures. PTCs are tax credits allocated to each Megawatt-hour (MWh) produced; and wind gets double the PTC compared to what other renewable sources get. From 2010 to 2019, federal tax credits for wind amounted to $21.76 billion, while direct expenditures amounted to $14.05 billion. During this same period, total federal subsidies for wind translated to $18.86 per MWh produced. Compare this figure to the average market value of wind-generated energy sold on the ERCOT grid in 2018: $18.00 per MWh. This means that more federal money is given to wind companies than the market value of the power they are producing!
Wind power is a waste that lines the pockets of crony capitalists and virtue-signaling politicians at the expense of taxpayers. Apart from being unviable in the absence of government support, the environmental credentials of wind are terrible. In 2013, when wind capacity was half of what it is now, biologist K. Shaw Smallwood estimated that windmills kill around 570,000 birds, including 83,000 raptors, each year in the U.S. By extrapolation, windmills are now killing about 166,000 raptors per year, including bald eagles. Strangely, the Fish and Wildlife Service refuses to enforce the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act on windmill owners.
Despite the problems with wind, the U.S. government will continue to throw taxpayers’ money at it. Over the course of the next decade, federal wind subsidies are expected to total $33.75 billion. As long as federal wind subsidies in Texas continue, unreliable wind will continue to out-compete reliable fossil fuels and force them out of the power-generating business.
When the permitting process for power plants is controlled by the EPA, when there are limits on how much power can be generated by natural gas, when nuclear power is fundamentally off the table due to regulatory hurdles, Texas will continue to struggle to match its energy supply and demand.
When Texas is a free and independent nation, it will be able to make its own energy policies without federal interference. Without the massive subsidies that wind power relies on, it will not be competitive and will go out of business. The only forms of power generation in Texas will be those that can compete in the free market, without artificial government support. The vital oil and natural gas industries will boom like never before once freed from federal persecution. In an independent Texas, Texans will always have power—especially when they need it the most.
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
How to Secure Your Water Supply for Emergencies
Even more important than stocking up on nonperishable foods is to make sure you have a supply of potable water. Many are so used to having running tap water on demand, they forget that source can vanish overnight
If you live in a house, collecting rainwater is an excellent long-term solution
A gravity-fed drip irrigation system using elevated rain barrels is also ideal for gardeners, as rainwater benefits your plants in ways that tap water cannot. Importantly, it pulls down nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the air, which encourage plant growth and soil health
Basic guidance for keeping the water in your rain barrels clean include installing filters to remove debris, treating the water with bleach or beneficial anaerobic microbes once a month, and maintaining proper pH with baking soda or vinegar
Basic water purification and disinfection guidelines to make less-than-ideal water sources safe to drink are also reviewed
COVID RELATED NEWS
The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), an international globalist organization funded by Bill Gates, is already talking about the “next pandemic.”
Now that the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) has been beaten to death, GAVI is presenting 11 new potential virus candidates that could become the next plandemic once Gates and his cronies give the green light for release. These viruses include:
- Rift Valley fever, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has classified as a category A bioterrorism agent due to its potential to cause large-scale damage to agricultural economies, as well as social disruption
- Hantavirus, which has a long incubation period and apparently spreads quickly
- Another coronavirus, since the first one worked so well at shutting down the global economy and killing off millions
- Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), a disease carried by Hyalomma marginatum ticks that is in persistent circulation, and in which the risk of spillover from animals to humans remains high
- Lassa fever, which rarely shows symptoms and has a long incubation time, allowing for easy spread internationally
- Marburg, which spreads from human to human through bodily fluids, much like Ebola. Incubation for Marburg can take up to three weeks and it has a high death rate, so this one is a top pick for Gates
- Yellow fever, which could spread from Africa or South America to Asia or the Western Pacific via international travel
- H5N1 and H7N9 influenza, two forms of the Spanish Flu that have already circulated in the past, and that could see a resurgence out of nowhere
- Chikungunya, which has also already been a pandemic but not in the Northern Hemisphere. Gates and friends could make it happen, though, since Chikungunya already spilled out of Kenya into islands across the Indian Ocean and Asia, resulting in more than one million “cases” of the disease
- Ebola, which is constantly mutating and is already on the minds of people from earlier outbreaks that were widely reported in the Western media
- Nipah virus, a disease so deadly that many governments already classify it as a bioterrorism threat
Bill Gates wants the next plandemic to be much worse than the first one
GAVI has ties to many groups with which you are probably already familiar, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and The World Bank.
Many globalist-run countries are also tied to the group, as well as pharmaceutical companies, research agencies, and “civil society” organizations.
Gates seems to already be gearing up with these various entities to create a “global alert system” and “pandemic fire squad” for the next plandemic. It is just a matter of picking which disease to release for maximum impact.
“When it comes to preventing pandemics, scientific tools alone aren’t enough,” Gates is quoted as saying. “We also need new capabilities, including a global alert system and infectious disease first responders, or what I like to call a pandemic fire squad.”
Gates has also made it clear that the next plandemic will be much worse than the first one, which is why he says that governments everywhere need to “contribute billions to tackle future pathogens and increase vaccine supplies.”
We are already seeing the globalists raise a ruckus about monkeypox, but that one may not be the one they ultimately choose for their next plandemic. Time will tell.
Study: Feds pushing of Paxlovid could accelerate COVID mutations
Biden’s FDA circumventing doctors to prescribe ineffective drug
The Pfizer drug that caused a rebound of symptoms when quadruple-vaccinated Dr. Anthony Fauci contracted COVID-19 could help accelerate mutations in SARS-CoV-2 following the FDA’s expansion of emergency use authorization, according to a preprint study.
Virology researchers at Austria’s Medical University of Innsbruck found in an analysis of the Pfizer trial little difference in the number of hospitalizations or deaths between placebo and Paxlovid recipients, Just the News reported.
Johns Hopkins medical professor Marty Makary said the study clearly showed that Paxlovid “overuse in low-risk people can breed resistance and spawn new virus mutations,” calling it “risky business.”
The FDA, nevertheless, has authorized state-licensed pharmacists to circumvent doctors by directly prescribing it.
Philadelphia cardiologist Dr. Anish Koka wrote in his newsletter this week that seven months after its approval, “Apparently, someone in government decided that there wasn’t enough Paxlovid being prescribed.”
The physician said he has “struggled with quite a few Paxlovid requests recently,” mostly from “young vaccinated patients.” The patients, he said, feel pressured to take the treatment, and they “just want some reassurance from a professional that it’s OK to not take a drug.”
Technocracy: A Digital Slave System Where No Dissent Is Allowed
“We must make lying wrong again,” writes UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Our Common Agenda. He wants to create a “global code of conduct” that promotes the integrity of public information and wants to improve people’s experiences of public institutions and basic services and create “inclusive” exercises that include citizen views and their “ideas about the future”. This work also includes a reformed international tax system and a common structure for financial integrity to address illegal financial flows. All in all, this means that we are approaching Orwell’s 1984 by leaps and bounds by establishing a form of “Ministry of Truth” under the UN mandate and control. Deviants from the correct doctrine also risk being denied access to financial services.
Through the Internet, people have been able to share information with each other in a way that was not possible before. According to the UN, this has not been entirely a good thing. People risk sharing “incorrect” information. It is therefore considered central to address what they term “infodemics” (the spreading of “dangerous” global rumors) and “false information”. Large-scale misinformation and undermining of “scientifically established facts” are seen as extremely serious problems.
For example, objectivity is considered to lead the public in the wrong direction. As described in Our Common Agenda:
The goal of giving equal balance to competing points of view can come at the expense of impartiality and evidence, distorting the public debate. The ability to cause large-scale disinformation and undermine scientifically established facts is an existential risk to humanity.
This problem is something that is specifically related to the management of COVID-19.
…public distrust of governments and government distrust of publics made it harder to maintain consensus behind public health restrictions on COVID-19
This area, together with climate change, is of course central to the UN and its allies. The World Economic Forum (a UN Agenda 2030 partner since 2019) described the problem of “infodemics” in relation to pandemics as early as in its first Global Risks Report from 2006. The same report also called for a top-down monitoring of global risks using satellites.
The problem was also raised in WEF’s latest Global Risks Report from 2022. This paints a serious threat to science, which means:
Censure, denial and/or scepticism towards scientific evidence and the scientific community at a global scale, resulting in a regression or stalling of progress on climate action, human health and/or technological innovation.
They therefore call for a common and “empirically” backed consensus on facts and science so that the citizens of the world have access to the “correct” and verified information. It is simply put UNs (IPCCs, WMOs and WHOs) and WEFs “scientific” truths that should prevail.
The fact that this procedure and ideas of “scientific consensus” are directly incompatible with the scientific method does not concern these actors because they still know what is best for us. Instead, there is a call for a form of “Ministry of Truth” that can evaluate and classify the information. This work will also be performed by their own well-drilled change agents.
According to Guterres, the United Nations has a key role and will strengthen its work based on role models such as IPCC, WMO’s Scientific Advisory Panel and the UN’s own Verified initiative. This indicates that a new medieval darkness for free opinion and free research is imminent.
Guterres also proposes regulations on social media, strengthened information legislation and that science and expertise should have a stronger voice by, for example, assigning science commissions a role in decision-making.
Canadian Court Rules it Was Legal To Deny Unvaccinated Person Organ Transplant
A judge in the Canadian province of Alberta has ruled that a woman did not have her rights violated when she was denied an organ transplant due to not being vaccinated against the Wuhan coronavirus.
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Belzil ruled that Edmonton, Alberta woman Annette Lewis had not had her fundamental character of Rights and Freedoms rights violated by being denied an organ transplant over her vaccination status.
According to Justice Belzil, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has no bearing on the treatment decisions of doctors for organ transplants, despite the transplant being diagnosed by medical professionals as the only way for Ms Lewis to survive a progressive disease she suffers from, broadcaster CBC reports.
Doctors diagnosed Lewish with her disease in 2018 and in 2020 urged her to receive various vaccinations, which she agreed to, however, she did not agree to receive the Wuhan coronavirus vaccine and was told without the vaccine she would not receive her potentially life-saving transplant.
“Taking this vaccine offends my conscience,” Lewis said an a sworn affidavit and added, “I ought to have the choice about what goes into my body and a life-saving treatment cannot be denied to me because I chose not to take an experimental treatment for a condition — COVID-19 — which I do not have and which I may never have.”
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