WORLD NEWS
UK breaches 40C for first time as heatwave batters Europe
A fierce heatwave left western Europe sweltering on Tuesday, fuelling ferocious wildfires and stretching emergency services, as it swept north and pushed temperatures in Britain over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time.
After the UK’s warmest night on record, the Met Office said 40.2C had been provisionally recorded by lunchtime at Heathrow Airport, in west London, taking the country into uncharted territory.
Neom: Saudi Arabia To Build The World’s Largest Smart City In History
Neom, the Saudi crown prince’s urban megaproject, is supposed to have a ski resort, swim lanes for commuters, and “smart” everything. It’s going great—for the consultants.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
DOJ Shielding Records on Hunter Biden, Durham Probes: Lawsuit
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is withholding records related to high-profile investigations, including the probe into President Joe Biden’s son, according to a new lawsuit.
Protect the Public’s Trust, a watchdog group, is seeking records seeking ethics waivers and determinations on allowing potentially conflicted employees to work on cases, but has been stymied.
The group submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) records request on June 1, 2021, but didn’t receive a response for more than a year, according to the suit.
After inquiring about the status of the request on June 10, the watchdog received an acknowledgment that had been sent to the wrong email address. But the records still haven’t been sent, nor have key determinations about which records will be provided, which violates federal law.
Based on the DOJ’s recent email, “it appears that the Department has no intention of responding to Plaintiff’s request anytime soon,” Protect the Public’s Trust said in the filing in federal court in Washington. “Given these facts, it appears that absent litigation the Department has not and does not intend to meet its statutory obligations to provide the requested records.”
The documents would help shed light on potential conflicts of interest, including whether Joe Biden-appointee Nicholas McQuaid, a top DOJ official, is at all involved with the investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, according to the watchdog.
McQuaid’s former colleague is representing Hunter Biden, who has said that he’s under investigation for tax-related issues. Documents obtained by The Epoch Times indicate that the probe touches on Hunter Biden’s business dealings with China.
Discontented Moderates to Hand Big Win to Republicans
Moderate Democrats will play a key role in the coming midterm election and very likely handle the U.S. House to the Republicans, analysts said.
The main reason for the rebelling moderates is President Joe Biden’s policies.
“This [moderate voting] base is becoming increasingly disenchanted with what seems to be the ongoing failures of the Biden administration on major party platforms such as rising inflation, gas prices, and a pretty weak economy,” Jamie Wright, a political pundit at The Wright Law Firm, told The Epoch Times.
Josh Wilson, a political consultant and ex-aide to former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, shared the view that the state of the economy under Biden is a significant factor in the shift.
Besides this, Wilson also pointed out that the historical pattern of midterm elections for the party of the president will also contribute.
“Simply based on U.S. electoral history, where the president’s political party tends to suffer major losses during the first midterm of the presidential term, it is highly likely that Republicans will see major gains in the House of Representatives,” he said.
Fauci Reveals Exactly When He’s Leaving the Federal Government
White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci revealed that after about five decades in the federal government, he’s planning on leaving his position by the end of President Joe Biden’s current term.
“We’re in a pattern now. If somebody says, ‘You’ll leave when we don’t have COVID anymore,’ then I will be 105. I think we’re going to be living with this,” Fauci, 81, told Politico in an interview published on July 18 that he plans to retire by the end of Biden’s current term, which ends in January 2025.
Fauci has been the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he became a household name as the face of the federal government’s response, often generating criticism from Republicans and conservatives about his generally dire predictions about the pandemic.
Of his relationship with former President Donald Trump, Fauci said that “we developed an interesting relationship … two guys from New York, different in their opinions and their ideology, but still, two guys who grew up in the same environments of this city. I think that we are related to each other in that regard.”
And if Republicans win back either the House or Senate in 2022, Fauci noted that he will likely be investigated by GOP lawmakers. But he claimed that regarding those investigations, “I don’t make that a consideration in my career decision.”
In the Politico interview, Fauci continued to defend his public recommendations, including school closures, mask-wearing, vaccination regimes, and lockdowns.
“My telling somebody that it’s important to follow fundamental good public health practices … what are you going to investigate about that?” he asked.
Democrat Beto O’Rourke Pushes Progressive Platform
Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke told fellow party members on Friday that his coffers are full, giving his campaign a much-needed boost against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
O’Rourke, the keynote speaker at the Texas Democratic Convention in Dallas, said he raised $27.6 million from late February to June 30, much to the delight of delegates.
“Greg Abbott is chaos; he is corruption; he is cruelty, and he is incompetence,” O’Rourke said during the convention.
The convention, which began July 14 in Dallas, will allow delegates across Texas to vote on the party’s platform and elect party leadership. Democratic leaders at the convention focused on their plans of winning more state and national seats by running on progressive ideas. Democrats are also working to keep Latinos in South Texas voting blue.
While O’Rourke’s fund-raising efforts broke a record, Abbott has nearly matched him by hauling in $24.9 million over the same period, according to his campaign.
Abbot had $45.7 million cash on hand as of June 30, while the O’Rourke campaign did not disclose their figure.
O’Rourke opposed what he called “voter suppression legislation” supported by his opponent. He endorsed a policy platform for open borders, pushed expansion of government health care, and championed gun control, abortion rights, and transgender rights for children.
His position on gun control made him the darling of liberals in 2019 during his presidential bid. At the time, O’Rourke said: “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
Nancy Pelosi Responds After Husband’s Recent Stock Purchases
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office responded to criticism about her husband’s purchase of semiconductor stocks ahead of Congress’s vote targeting the industry.
“The Speaker does not own any stocks. As you can see from the required disclosures, with which the Speaker fully cooperates, these transactions are marked ‘SP’ for Spouse. The Speaker has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions,” Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill, told news outlets on Monday.
Hammill added that there are “at least three proposals introduced in the House” regarding whether Pelosi supports proposals to bar trading by members of Congress. “The Speaker has asked the Committee on House Administration to review these proposals,” he said.
“To be clear, insider trading is already a serious federal criminal and civil violation and the Speaker strongly supports robust enforcement of the relevant statutes by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission,” Hammill also said, according to Fox News. “The Speaker led the House in passing the bipartisan Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act, which would subject federal judges to similar disclosure requirements as those in the STOCK Act. President Biden signed this bill into law in May. ”
A disclosure that was filed by Pelosi’s office showed Paul Pelosi, her husband, exercised 200 call options, or 20,000 shares, of semiconductor company Nvidia at a strike price of $100 with an expiration of June 17. The purchase was worth between $1 million and $5 million.
At the same time, Paul Pelosi sold portions of his Apple and Visa holdings, according to the speaker’s disclosure, as the move to purchase Nvidia stock raised questions about whether he had insider knowledge about the legislation.
“It certainly raises the specter that Paul Pelosi could have access to some insider legislative information,” Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist, told the Daily Caller about the recent filing. “This is the reason why there is a stock trading app that exclusively monitors Paul’s trading activity and then its followers do likewise.”
Indiana Attorney General Responds After Abortion Doctor Issues Cease-and-Desist Letter
The office of Indiana’s attorney general says he didn’t defame the Indianapolis doctor who performed an abortion for a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim in June.
“No false or misleading statements have been made,” a spokesperson for Attorney General Todd Rokita, a Republican, told The Epoch Times via email.
Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist with the Indiana University School of Medicine, carried out the abortion on June 30, according to records obtained by The Epoch Times. She reported it to state health authorities within three days, as state law requires, although it remains unclear if she followed other mandatory reporting requirements by notifying the Indiana Department of Child Services.
Prior to the records being released, Rokita had said that he was investigating Bernard for potential failure to report.
“The failure to do so constitutes a crime in Indiana, and her behavior could also affect her licensure. Additionally, if a HIPAA violation did occur, that may affect next steps as well. I will not relent in the pursuit of the truth,” Rokita said in an earlier statement.
HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is a federal law that prohibits the disclosure of some details about patients.
Indiana University said a review concluded that Bernard didn’t violate any laws, and the doctor’s lawyer subsequently sent a cease-and-desist letter to Rokita.
“Please immediately cease and desist making any false or misleading statements about Dr. Bernard,” Kathleen DeLaney, the lawyer, told the attorney general.
She said that Rokita’s initial comments made during a Fox News appearance “cast Dr. Bernard in a false light and allege misconduct in her profession,” and criticized the statements made after the record release that the investigation into the doctor was still ongoing.
The statements “have the potential to incite harassment or violence from the public which could prevent Dr. Bernard, an Indiana licensed physician, from providing care to her patents [sic] safely,” DeLaney wrote.
Rokita’s spokesperson said that the letter, like any correspondence, “will be reviewed if and when it arrives.”
Chinese Corn Mill Near US Air Force Base May Have ‘National Security Implications’: Senators
A trio of U.S. senators is requesting a security review of a farmland purchase by a Chinese agribusiness with a founder who has links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), raising concerns about the property’s proximity to a U.S. military installation.
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) are asking the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)—an interagency group that screens foreign investments for security risks—to review the Fufeng Group’s purchase of 370 acres of farmland near the Grand Forks Air Force Base for potential “national security implications.”
“This property is approximately 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base, which has led to concern that Fufeng operations could provide cover for PRC [the People’s Republic of China] surveillance or interference with the missions located at that installation, given Fufeng Group’s reported ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” the senators wrote in a July 14 letter addressed to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen.
“PRC investments in the United States demand scrutiny. We therefore urge you, through CFIUS, to determine whether this project has national security implications and inform us when such a review is completed.”
Fufeng is a manufacturer of bio-fermented, corn-derived products, which are used in end products ranging from animal feed to pharmaceuticals. A Hong Kong-listed company, the group has multiple subsidiaries around the world, but most of its production facilities can be found in northeast China.
Fufeng’s chairman, Li Xuechun, was a provincial-level representative in China’s rubber-stamp legislature system—the People’s Congress—in 2008 and 2013 in northeastern Shandong Province and has been a CCP member since 1985, according to Chinese media reports.
Li was awarded the “model worker” award and an “outstanding” award for entrepreneurs by Shandong provincial authorities in 2003. According to geopolitical analyst Ross Kennedy, the awards revealed Li to have embodied “the synthesis of economic and political goals of the Shandong region and the CCP.”
Considering Fufeng’s connections to an adversarial regime and the sensitive nature of the U.S. military installation, Cramer says the corn mill’s location is too close for comfort.
“There’s one very specific concern that has a lot of people focused on it, and that is that it’s in fairly close proximity to the Grand Forks Air Force Base. The Grand Forks Air Force Base is a very important ISR mission,” he told NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times, referring to the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities at the base.
Cramer also noted that the Chinese regime is “very strategic” about the acquisitions of overseas assets, demonstrating a “willingness to use economic enticement to gain access to very important assets, whether it’s a port in Sri Lanka or an airport in Uganda.”
“China has been a predatory investor for a long time,” he said.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) agrees with his Republican colleagues.
“The Senate Intelligence Committee has been loudly sounding the alarm about the counterintelligence threat posed by the PRC,” Warner told CNBC. “We should be seriously concerned about Chinese investment in locations close to sensitive sites, such as military bases around the U.S.”
According to a May report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an influential congressional advisory body, the Air Force facility “houses some of the United States’ top intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.”
The commission found the mill’s location “particularly convenient for monitoring air traffic flows in and out of the base, among other security-related concerns.”
Police Say Accused Indiana Mall Shooter Waited in Bathroom for 1 Hour Before Opening Fire
Authorities said the 20-year-old shooter who opened fire in an Indiana mall on July 17 waited inside a bathroom for an hour before fatally shooting three people and injuring two others before an armed bystander shot and killed him.
Greenwood Police Department Chief Jim Ison said during a July 18 press conference that the shooter was in the Greenwood Park Mall bathroom for one hour and two minutes before he entered the food court area and fired shots.
He said investigators believe that Jonathan Douglas Sapirman, 20, spent that time preparing and possibly assembling a disassembled rifle that he had brought in his backpack. He ended up firing 24 rounds within two minutes.
The deceased victims were identified as Pedro Pineda, 56; his wife, Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37; and Victor Gomez, 30, by the Johnson County Coroner’s Office, according to Ison.
Sapirman was identified as the shooter by Ison and the Johnson County Coroner’s Office. He identified the good Samaritan as Elisjsha Dicken, 22, who was said to be shopping with his girlfriend and “lawfully carrying” a handgun in the mall.
“Many more people would’ve died last night if not for a responsible armed citizen that took action very quickly, within the first two minutes of this shooting,” Ison said.
Dicken’s “actions were nothing short of heroic,” according to Ison, who noted that Dicken was armed with a 9-millimeter pistol.
“He engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun, was very proficient in that, very tactically sound,” Ison said. “And as he moved to close in on the suspect, he was also motioning for people to exit behind him.”
How the Left Hopes to Seize Control of Local Election Offices
Two big money liberal operations, ready to spend $80 million each, are trying to determine who controls elections and how in the years ahead.
“The overall objective of the political left is to change the way you conduct overall elections,” Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, which advocates clean elections, told The Daily Signal.
One of the two liberal groups, Run for Something, is a political action committee founded by a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer. In the spring, Run for Something established its Clerk Work project with the goal of electing clerks, election supervisors, registrars, recorders, and other local officials charged with running elections.
The PAC says it will promote thousands of election administrators in the years ahead. But for 2022, it reports endorsing 11 candidates competing in races in California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Local election clerks generally are empowered to interpret and enforce state election regulations. They often have discretion on matters such as whether to count absentee ballots that come in after Election Day, how strictly to enforce voter ID or signature-matching requirements, and how closely poll watchers may monitor the ballot counting on Election Day.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, county-level election officials are elected in 22 states. In 10 states, elected officials appoint members to a local board of elections. Another 18 states divide election administration duties between two or more offices.
In any case, donating to specific candidates to oversee elections could directly or indirectly affect who holds these positions.
Some practices of local election administrators also could be guided by another $80 million effort by the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, a coalition of mostly left-leaning organizations financed in part by Big Tech executives to train local officials in running elections.
Snead and other critics say they see parallels between Run for Something and efforts to elect liberal prosecutors financed by liberal hedge fund manager George Soros. They also see strong similarities between the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s election administration grants in the 2020 election cycle.
“What we shouldn’t lose track of is they are playing the long game,” Snead said. “They are going to look for every possible way to impact elections, and they can make substantial changes in the long run through this kind of program that they wouldn’t have been able to make in 2020.”
The Alliance for Election Excellence is not formally aligned with Run for Something’s Clerk Work project. However, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (created by Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan) has donated to Run for Something.
“I would not be surprised if someone gets elected with the support of Run for Something and then immediately plugs themselves into the [Alliance for Election Excellence], because there are those natural synergies,” Snead said.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
China holdings of U.S. debt fall below
China’s holdings of U.S. debt have fallen below $1 trillion for the first time in 12 years amid rising interest rates that have made Treasurys potentially less attractive.
Continuing a trend that began early in 2021, China’s portfolio of U.S. government debt in May dropped to $980.8 billion, according to Treasury Department data released Monday. That’s a decline of nearly $23 billion from April and down nearly $100 billion, or 9%, from the year-earlier month.
It also marked the first time since May 2010 that China’s holdings fell below the $1 trillion mark. Japan is now the leading holder of U.S. debt with $1.2 trillion.
The debt decline comes as the U.S. Federal Reserve has been raising rates to stop inflation running at its fastest rate since 1981. When rates rise on bonds, prices drop, meaning a capital loss for investors who sell the bonds ahead of maturity.
The decline in China’s share also has been attributed to Beijing working to diversify its foreign debt portfolio.
The reporting period came before the Fed hiked benchmark overnight borrowing rates by 0.75 percentage point in June; there is another increase of the same size likely next week.
U.S. consumer prices accelerated in June as gasoline and food costs remained elevated, resulting in the largest annual increase in inflation in 40-1/2 years and cementing the case for the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates by 75 basis points later this month.
The consumer price index increased 1.3% last month after advancing 1.0% in May, the Labor Department said on Wednesday.
This brings the June year-over-year inflation figure to 9.1% — the highest since November 1981 and another 40-year high.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI would rise 1.1%. Consumer prices are surging, driven by snarled global supply chains and massive fiscal stimulus from governments early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ongoing war in Ukraine, which has caused a spike in global food and fuel prices, has worsened the situation.
U.S. gasoline prices hit record highs in June, averaging above $5 per gallon, according to data from motorist advocacy group AAA. They have since declined from last month’s peak and were averaging $4.631 per gallon on Wednesday, which could ease some of the pressure on consumers.
The inflation data followed stronger-than-expected job growth in June. The economy created 372,000 jobs last month, the government reported last Friday, with a broader measure of unemployment falling to a record low.
Labor market tightness is also underscored by the fact that there were nearly two jobs for every unemployed person at the end of May. The Fed wants to cool demand in the economy to bring inflation down to its 2% target.
Financial markets overwhelmingly expect the U.S. central bank to raise its policy rate by another three-quarters of a percentage point at its July 26-27 meeting. It has hiked its overnight interest rate by 150 basis points since March.
EXCLUSIVE: Hospital Faces Staff Shortages Due to COVID-19 Infections, Despite Vaccine Mandate
The first hospital in America to mandate a COVID-19 vaccine for all employees is now facing a staffing shortage from infections.
Houston’s Methodist Hospital has hundreds of employees out of work because they tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. At the same hospital in 2021, 153 staff members who refused to get vaccinated quit or were fired. Now Methodist leadership is trying to avert a crisis.
“What is worrisome is the climbing number of our employees who cannot work because they are home sick with COVID-19. Almost 400 employees tested positive last week,” Dr. Robert Phillips, the executive vice president and chief physician executive of Houston Methodist, wrote in an internal email on July 12 obtained by The Epoch Times.
“While most of these employees are getting COVID-19 from the community, it is vital that we don’t face a situation where too many employees are out sick and we find ourselves with a staffing shortage,” he added.
Houston Methodist, with a workforce of around 28,000, was the first hospital system in the country to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for all of its employees. It also was the first system in the nation to mandate the vaccine for its private health care providers who are credentialed members of its medical staff. The hospital later required all its employees to get a vaccine booster by March 1.
Most employees got vaccinated and stayed, but the system is having trouble with staffing as the vaccines prove increasingly worse at protecting against infection as new variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, emerge.
“The spike in cases is happening all over the country and is likely attributed to the highly contagious and more vaccine-resistant omicron subvariant,” Phillips wrote. “BA.5 is now the most infectious variant so far and is thought to be four times more vaccine evasive than the last dominant variant.”
Global Supply Chain Crisis Could Worsen in 2022: Survey
The global supply chain crisis continues to wreak havoc on the international marketplace, affecting everything from food products to computers to washing machines.
This year, the international supply chain has faced a plethora of challenges, including China’s renewed COVID-19 lockdowns, the military conflict in Eastern Europe, and skyrocketing energy prices. With disruptions and uncertainty seeping into every facet of the worldwide supply chain, most companies expect current conditions to continue or even worsen by the end of 2022, a new report shows.
According to a study by QIMA, a global quality control and compliance service provider, nearly two-thirds of global businesses with international supply chains see these disruptions remaining unchanged or worsening by the year’s end.
That number rises to 81 percent for U.S. firms and 80 percent for European organizations.
Companies are experiencing a broad array of issues. The top three challenges, the survey finds, are sustaining production and shipping schedules, forecasting demand and managing inventory, and securing enough manufacturing capacity.
Central Bank Digital Currencies and Freedom Are Incompatible
\In a recent interview, former International Monetary Fund (IMF) official Eswar Prasad discussed his new book, The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance. Naturally, Prasad talked about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
Prasad, now a professor of trade policy and economics at Cornell University, gave a blunt assessment of how CBDCs will affect monetary policy:
One should recognize that the CBDC creates new opportunity for monetary policy. If we all had CBDC accounts instead of cash, in principle it might be possible to implement negative interest rates simply by shrinking balances in CBDC accounts. It will become a lot easier to undertake helicopter drops of money. If everybody had a CBDC account you could easily increase the balance in those accounts.
Prasad’s “helicopter drops of money” informed the article title, but the flip side of CBDC helicopter money is the real attention getter. It’s right there in plain sight: shrinking balances in CBDC accounts to implement negative interest rates.
In other words, central banks will take money out of people’s accounts to conduct monetary policy.
It is possible, of course, that a mere threat would suffice. If, for example, the Fed believes demand is lacking and people should spend more, the mere threat of taking people’s money away might be enough to get them to spend it. But that’s not really a free society.
The truth is CBDCs are government’s attempt to protect its privileged position and exert more control over people’s money.
At its core, this brave new world of monetary policy equates to the government saying that your money isn’t really your money. Your property rights are subservient to the “public good” and the supposed necessity of “managing the national economy.”
Prasad doesn’t really discuss this fundamental issue. He focuses, instead, on how the CBDC helicopter drops might impact the central bank’s independence. He warns that:
There is a risk because helicopter money on one level really is fiscal policy and if the central bank starts being seen as the agent of the government in terms of implementing fiscal policy, that poses risks to the central bank’s independence which ultimately might not be great.
Of course, he is right about this risk and about helicopter money being fiscal policy. But central banks are fiscal agents of the government. The Fed, for instance, supports the market for U.S. Treasury securities and now holds approximately 27 percent of outstanding federal debt held by the public (up from 21 percent in May 2020).
The blending of fiscal and monetary policy is a concern regardless of CBDCs and helicopter money. It is an inherent structural issue for all central banks.
Yet, few economists ever discuss this issue in any substantive way, and even fewer central bankers tackle the issue as it relates to CBDCs. The central banker that favors private solutions to payments system problems over CBDCs is even rarer.
Financial Giants Reject West Virginia’s Claims That They’re Boycotting Fossil Fuels
Six financial institutions that West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore contacted over their alleged boycotting of the fossil fuel industry have replied, denying the accusations while laying the groundwork for what could be a protracted legal battle.
The Epoch Times obtained the letters through a West Virginia Freedom of Information Act request.
Moore sent letters to BlackRock, JP Morgan Chase, U.S. Bancorp, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley on June 10.
That was in line with a new West Virginia law that limits the state’s ability to do business with financial institutions believed to be boycotting energy companies with ties to coal, oil, or natural gas production.
The companies had to respond to the letters within 30 days of receiving them to avoid being placed on a list of restricted financial institutions, which would have been published 45 days after Moore’s office sent them.
The West Virginia State Treasurer’s Office still intends to publish a list of restricted financial institutions.
Coal, natural gas, and oil are important sources of revenue for the Appalachian state, including through what are known as severance taxes.
In Fiscal Year 2022, the state collected almost $800 million in such taxes, well above the nearly $300 million collected during the previous fiscal year.
In addition to providing direct tax revenue, the fossil fuel industry is a significant driver of the state’s overall prosperity.
A West Virginia University research report found that coal power and coal mining were collectively responsible for roughly $13.9 billion in economic activity in West Virginia during 2019.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
The Folly Of Scientism As Pseudoscientific Theories Masquerade As Science
When I decided on a scientific career, one of the things that appealed to me about science was the modesty of its practitioners. The typical scientist seemed to be a person who knew one small corner of the natural world and knew it very well, better than most other human beings living and better even than most who had ever lived. But outside of their circumscribed areas of expertise, scientists would hesitate to express an authoritative opinion. This attitude was attractive precisely because it stood in sharp contrast to the arrogance of the philosophers of the positivist tradition, who claimed for science and its practitioners a broad authority with which many practicing scientists themselves were uncomfortable.
The temptation to overreach, however, seems increasingly indulged today in discussions about science. Both in the work of professional philosophers and in popular writings by natural scientists, it is frequently claimed that natural science does or soon will constitute the entire domain of truth. And this attitude is becoming more widespread among scientists themselves. All too many of my contemporaries in science have accepted without question the hype that suggests that an advanced degree in some area of natural science confers the ability to pontificate wisely on any and all subjects.
Of course, from the very beginning of the modern scientific enterprise, there have been scientists and philosophers who have been so impressed with the ability of the natural sciences to advance knowledge that they have asserted that these sciences are the only valid way of seeking knowledge in any field. A forthright expression of this viewpoint has been made by the chemist Peter Atkins, who in his 1995 essay “Science as Truth” asserts the “universal competence” of science. This position has been called scientism — a term that was originally intended to be pejorative but has been claimed as a badge of honor by some of its most vocal proponents. In their 2007 book Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized, for example, philosophers James Ladyman, Don Ross, and David Spurrett go so far as to entitle a chapter “In Defense of Scientism.”
Modern science is often described as having emerged from philosophy; many of the early modern scientists were engaged in what they called “natural philosophy.” Later, philosophy came to be seen as an activity distinct from but integral to natural science, with each addressing separate but complementary questions — supporting, correcting, and supplying knowledge to one another. But the status of philosophy has fallen quite a bit in recent times. Central to scientism is the grabbing of nearly the entire territory of what were once considered questions that properly belong to philosophy. Scientism takes science to be not only better than philosophy at answering such questions, but the only means of answering them. For most of those who dabble in scientism, this shift is unacknowledged, and may not even be recognized. But for others, it is explicit. Atkins, for example, is scathing in his dismissal of the entire field: “I consider it to be a defensible proposition that no philosopher has helped to elucidate nature; philosophy is but the refinement of hindrance.”
Is scientism defensible? Is it really true that natural science provides a satisfying and reasonably complete account of everything we see, experience, and seek to understand — of every phenomenon in the universe? And is it true that science is more capable, even singularly capable, of answering the questions that once were addressed by philosophy? This subject is too large to tackle all at once. But by looking briefly at the modern understandings of science and philosophy on which scientism rests, and examining a few case studies of the attempt to supplant philosophy entirely with science, we might get a sense of how the reach of scientism exceeds its grasp.
If philosophy is regarded as a legitimate and necessary discipline, then one might think that a certain degree of philosophical training would be very useful to a scientist. Scientists ought to be able to recognize how often philosophical issues arise in their work — that is, issues that cannot be resolved by arguments that make recourse solely to inference and empirical observation. In most cases, these issues arise because practicing scientists, like all people, are prone to philosophical errors. To take an obvious example, scientists can be prone to errors of elementary logic, and these can often go undetected by the peer review process and have a major impact on the literature — for instance, confusing correlation and causation, or confusing implication with a biconditional. Philosophy can provide a way of understanding and correcting such errors. It addresses a largely distinct set of questions that natural science alone cannot answer, but that must be answered for natural science to be properly conducted.
These questions include how we define and understand science itself. One group of theories of science — the set that best supports a clear distinction between science and philosophy, and a necessary role for each — can broadly be classified as “essentialist.” These theories attempt to identify the essential traits that distinguish science from other human activities, or differentiate true science from nonscientific and pseudoscientific forms of inquiry. Among the most influential and compelling of these is Karl Popper’s criterion of falsifiability outlined in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959).
HEALTH
Big Pharma Wants to Put an End to Vitamins and Supplements
One of the latest attempts to thwart your ability to access nutritional supplements comes in the form of draft legislation that would require premarket approval for dietary supplements. In short, it would require supplements — which are food — to undergo the same approval process as drugs
In the past, the drug industry and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has tried to ban certain supplements, including vitamin B6 and N-acetylcysteine (NAC), by reclassifying them as new drugs
Another strategy the drug industry has been using to gain a monopoly over the supplement industry is to buy up supplement brands. Just 14 mega corporations — many of them drug companies — now own more than 100 of the most popular supplement brands on the market
This monopoly over the supplement industry gives drug companies enormous regulatory influence, and that’s a way by which they could eliminate independent supplement makers who can’t afford to put their products through the drug approval process. Indeed, it seems that’s what the Durbin-Braun premarket approval proposal is trying to accomplish
Take action to protect widespread access to dietary supplements. Contact your Senators and urge them to oppose the Dietary Supplement Listing Act of 2022, and its inclusion in the FDA Safety Landmark Advancements Act
The Gut’s Role in Parkinson’s Disease
Intestinal hyperpermeability may trigger alpha-synuclein protein aggregation around enteric nerves, resulting in gastrointestinal symptoms long before the neurological symptoms of Parkinson’s disease appears
Increased expression of alpha-synuclein proteins inhibits the release of neurotransmitters, but at normal levels the proteins accelerate the release of these molecules if they are already occurring
When autophagy is dysfunctional, alpha-synuclein proteins may travel along the vagus nerve from the brain to the gut. Activating autophagy may successfully treat neurodegenerative diseases, cleaning out old cells and encouraging the growth of healthy cells
Consider reducing gut permeability by eliminating sugar, eating a cyclical ketogenic diet and providing your beneficial bacteria with plenty of healthy fiber; activate autophagy through water fasting or intermittent fasting for at least 16 hours, which can also support your immune system and boost brain derived neurotrophic factor
—> Power Mall Products of Interest: Latero-Flora Probiotic & Living Streams Multi-Blend Liquid Probiotic
SURVEILLANCE STATE
Does Facebook Have Your Medical Records?
Facebook’s Meta Pixel was found on 33 hospital websites, sending Facebook information linked to an IP address, which identifies individual computers and may be traceable back to an individual or household
The pixel tracks what doctors are searched for and health-related search terms added to search boxes or selected from dropdown menus
The Meta Pixel was found in patient portals from seven health systems; data being collected included names of medications being taken, descriptions of allergic reactions and upcoming doctors’ appointments
More than 26 million patient admissions and outpatient visits have been shared by the 33 hospitals using Meta Pixels, and that’s likely conservative
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Markey: We Want Biden to Ban Further Drilling on Public Lands, Declare Climate Emergency
On Monday’s broadcast of NBC’s “MTP Now,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said that Democrats want the Biden administration, “and they’re saying they’re going to do that, to use executive action to deal with the climate crisis, to use, potentially, the Defense Production Act, stopping any additional drilling on public lands in our country.” Markey also stated that he would like the administration to “declare a climate emergency” while also still pushing for a reconciliation bill on climate that can pass Congress with only Democratic votes.
Markey stated, “We have to pass prescription drugs. We have to pass the healthcare subsidies. We have to get that done. But we shouldn’t walk away from climate. We want the White House, and they’re saying they’re going to do that, to use executive action to deal with the climate crisis, to use, potentially, the Defense Production Act, stopping any additional drilling on public lands in our country. I would actually declare a climate emergency. But to also not give up on the congressional process because this other reconciliation bill still sits there as a vehicle, that, with a Democrat-only solution, we could put it on the president’s desk.”
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
The Ultimate Guide to Raising Quail
Quail are becoming increasingly popular amongst poultry enthusiasts due to their compact size and the delicious products produced by this small bird. Even though the quail is considered a game bird, raising quail quickly becomes another staple for homesteaders.
COVID RELATED NEWS
The Never Ending Medical Emergency
Senator Rand Paul has accused Dr. Fauci and the White House (which is captured by the HHS Administrative State) of “emotionalism and sensationalism” leading up to the renewal of the determination of a continuing medical emergency attributable to COVID-19 disease and SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Is this medical emergency justified, or does it reflect yet more mis- dis- and mal-information from the HHS Administrative state acting in coordination with corporate media to propagate Fearporn to justify the continuing suspension of medical ethics, normal regulatory process, censorship, and war profiteering by the medical-pharmaceutical industrial complex?
“After White House adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra issued warnings about a new COVID-19 subvariant, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said they are not providing key facts about the latest strain.
“How come the flu vaccine changes every year and they’re not willing to change this vaccine?” Paul told Fox News on Tuesday. “Now, you might have me with an argument. I’ll listen to you if you tell me, ‘We’ve got a new vaccine that actually has something to do with the current virus,’” he said.
It came after Fauci, who has given hundreds of media interviews since the start of the pandemic, told CNN this week that the Omicron subvariant BA.5 is concerning due to its high transmissibility. People infected in the first COVID-19 waves “really don’t have a lot of good protection” against the latest subvariant, Fauci also said at a White House briefing several days ago.
But Paul, himself a doctor, told Fox that Omicron “was about 90 percent less likely to put you in the hospital than the first variant,” saying that Americans should “discount” what both Fauci and Becerra are saying about the latest subvariant.
“So if no one’s telling you any information, how can you make any judgment other than the emotionalism and the sensationalism of the government?” he asked.”
EXCLUSIVE: CDC Shielding Names of Employees Working on Vaccine Safety
A top U.S. health agency is refusing to identify which employees are working on vaccine safety teams, drawing criticism from watchdog groups.
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a database to which people file reports of adverse events following vaccination. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) manages the database with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Epoch Times sought the names of employees on three CDC teams charged with analyzing data from VAERS, including a team that looks at data pertaining to post-vaccination heart inflammation. The CDC denied the request in full.
A federal law called the Freedom of Information Act requires agencies to comply with information requests, but establishes exemptions that agencies can cite in withholding requested information. Roger Andoh, a CDC FOIA officer, cited an exemption that protects “personnel and medical files and similar files” if the disclosure of the files “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
“The information that has been withheld under Exemption 6 consists of employee names. We have determined that the individual(s) to whom this information pertains has a substantial privacy interest in withholding it,” Andoh wrote to The Epoch Times.
CANCEL CULTURE
Worksheet at Boston High School Suggests Assassinations as Legitimate Form of Resisting ‘Oppression’
At Charlestown High School in the city of Boston, certain teachers instructing students learning English who recently arrived in the United States may be indoctrinating these children to incite violence as a form of resistance to their alleged oppressors, according to experts.
The “classroom files” of three of the school’s teachers in the Sheltered English Immersion program are currently available for download on the Boston Teachers Union (BTU) website. These teachers teach Humanities to ninth- and tenth-grade students who have recently arrived in the country from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and China, the website states.
One part of the curriculum profiled on the website involves “notes and assignments around oppression, resistance, and narrative structure.”
“It includes detailed note-taking sheets and powerpoints on institutional, interpersonal, and internalized oppression,” the BTU website states. “Students are invited to critically examine when certain forms of resistance might be appropriate.”
A worksheet titled “Forms of Resistance” is included as an example of what’s taught in the course.
The first page of the worksheet identifies three types of oppression as “Instituional [sic],” “Interpresonal [sic],” and “Internalized,” and then lists examples of each. One example of oppression at the institutional level was identified as, “Trump builds a wall on the border so it is harder for Latinos to enter the US.” At the interpersonal level, an example was, “A husband tells his wife she must stay home to cook and clean.” An example of oppression at the internalized level included, “An Asian girl hates her eyes, she thinks she is ugly so she gets surgery to change them.”
Students were next asked to “list different forms of resistance for each level of oppression.”
The following pages of the worksheet with the heading “Forms of Resistance Notes” contained 11 rows identifying 11 types of resistance that could be employed to end certain forms of oppression. The column on the far left contains pictures identifying each type of resistance and students are made to name the type of resistance in the next column. Next, students are meant to fill in the blanks in the column that provides the “explanation” for each form of resistance. In the last section, students are to choose which of the three levels of oppression—institutional, interpersonal, or internalized—that the type of resistance was “most effective at ending.”
Alongside peaceful protest methods such as boycotts, sit-ins, and petitions, the worksheet also contains three images are appear to portray violent forms of revolt: riots, shown by masked protestors wearing all black throwing projectiles including what appears to be a flare; fights, depicted by a cartoon image of two people brawling; and political assassinations, shown by an image of President Richard Nixon as a target of crosshairs.
PET NEWS
When Do Cats Purr?
The lion’s share of purring indeed happens when cats are engaging in good social interactions and are happy. One of the most common times people report their cats purring is when they are petting the cat — often when the cat is in their lap. The cat is relaxed, enjoying the grooming and attention while spending time with their person. Often a mama cat and her kitten will both purr while the young one is nursing, which is also a time when contentment reigns.
It’s often true that your cat is purring because they are completely content — cats do purr when they’re happy. They also purr at other times, which is why it’s important not to assume that purring equals contentment. There are cats who purr when exploring an unfamiliar area and cats who purr when they’re eating. Purring can be triggered by traumatic movements, by injury, or by hunger. There are cats who purr when they are greeting a friend and cats who purr when they are about to be fed.
Purring is very individual in nature — some cats purr a lot, while others almost never do. Some cats begin to purr when they are less than a week old, though many cats don’t show this behavior until they are much older. In cats who are just one or more weeks old, purrs may serve as an information beacon that allows their mom to locate them. Such vocalizations are called contact calls.
Purring makes cats feel better. It’s a way for cats to soothe themselves, which explains why cats sometimes purr in stressful situations. Purring may release endorphins that reduce pain when healing. The frequency range of purring is 25-150 Hz with strong fundamental frequencies at exactly 25 Hz and 50 Hz, two frequencies known to be effective at stimulating bone growth and healing. The bass in a lot of music is around 50 Hz; for people, sounds at these pitches are often felt as much as they are heard.
GOOD NEWS
After 2 Years Homeschooling Using High School Curriculum, Boy, 13, Graduates College With 3.78 GPA
After two years of homeschooling using high school curriculum, 13-year-old Elliott Tanner graduated college with a bachelor’s degree and a 3.78 GPA. Now, he’s a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota with ambitions to become a professor.
“It doesn’t really faze us that he is young, because this is just our life,” Elliott’s mom, 45-year-old Michelle Tanner, told The Epoch Times. “He has put in his time, and has proved himself to everyone that he is capable of being successful in college.”
Michelle, who lives with her family in St. Louis, always knew her son had big academic ambitions.
Elliott, who is the only child of his parents, loved being read to as a baby and taught himself to read at 2 years old, without any formal instruction. He started writing a year later, and became interested in math, moving quickly past basic sums into 3- and 4-digit addition, multiplication, and division.
The teen officially started homeschooling at the age of 6, after Spanish immersion in kindergarten. His parents provided him with “a ton of books,” mentors and tutors, and even industry tours to cater to his burgeoning love of math, physics, chemistry, and computer coding.
He finished high-school algebra and geometry at 7, took trigonometry at 8, and enrolled at college three weeks after his ninth birthday for calculus classes and beyond, earning an associate’s degree in mathematics at the tender age of 11 during the pandemic.
“He didn’t have a typical graduation ceremony, it was online,” Michelle lamented. “It was bittersweet; we were incredibly proud of him, but wished he could have celebrated by walking across the stage.”
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