Today’s News: July 22, 2021

Rand Paul says he will ask DOJ for ‘criminal referral’ over Fauci testimony

Sen. Rand Paul accuses Dr. Fauci of ‘lying about whether or not he funded gain-of-function research’

Fox – Sen. Rand Paul said he will send a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a criminal investigation of Dr. Anthony Fauci. 

“I will be sending a letter to Department of Justice asking for a criminal referral because he has lied to Congress. We have scientists that were lined up by the dozens to say that the research he was funding was gain-of-function,” the Kentucky Republican told Sean Hannity of Fauci on Tuesday evening’s “Hannity” program.  

“He’s doing this because he has a self interest to cover his tracks and to cover his connection to Wuhan lab,” Paul continued. 

Paul’s interview comes after he and Fauci had another heated exchange during a Senate hearing Tuesday when the two traded accusations of “lying” over gain-of-function research at a Wuhan lab floated as the origin of the coronavirus.

The NIH and NIAID have said they supported grants to research viruses in bats but never funded gain-of-function research of coronaviruses and transmissibility for humans.   

“Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11, where you claimed that the NIH never funded gains-of-function research in Wuhan?” Paul asked the NIAID director at one point in the hearing. The comment came after he cited a paper on research about bat coronaviruses, and quoting Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, that the “research matches, indeed epitomizes the definition of gain-of-function research.”

“I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement,” Fauci responded. 

“You do not know what you are talking about quite frankly and I want to say that officially,” Fauci added. 

Paul argued Fauci was “dancing around” the definition of gain-of-function research because he’s “trying to obscure responsibility for 4 million people dying around the world from a pandemic.”

Paul added in his interview with Hannity that Fauci doesn’t deserve all the “blame” for the pandemic, saying “there’s still some conjecture as to whether or not it came from the lab.”

“But he’s lying about whether or not he funded gain-of-function research, and yes, he should be punished.”

Impacts of the Covid-19 Lockdown on World Trade: Global Shipping Crisis Far Worse than Imagined

Global Research – Over the past decades world ocean trade has expanded almost exponentially as major manufacturing outsourcing from USA and European corporations has blossomed under the advent of economic globalization. The result has been that Asia, most especially China, has become the essential manufacturing source for everything from iPhones to antibiotics and everything in-between. The creation of the World Trade Organization to impose new rules on the trade has been a key driver. It has also made global supply chains for delivering goods more fragile than ever in history. The rise in cost of ocean container shipping indicates the growing crisis. Compounding the growing crisis are enormous labor shortages owing to global COVID measures.

When what was termed by WHO as a novel coronavirus, first appearing in Wuhan, was declared by the WHO as a global pandemic in March 2020, the impact on world trade was immediate and huge as countries locked down their economies, something unprecedented in peacetime. Orders for products from China and other Asian producers were frozen by Western buyers. Container ships were cancelled everywhere in 2020. Then as US and EU governments released trillions of dollars in unprecedented stimulus, demand for containers from Asia to the West in relative terms exploded, compared with supply, as people began using stimulus, especially in the US to buy online, most of which was “made in China.”

That has had a serious disruptive impact on what was once a minor cost—ocean container shipping. Modern container ports, especially those in China, are state-of-the-art, computer automated operations loading thousands of containers daily via automated cranes. At destination ports such as Long Beach or Hamburg the containers are then off-loaded to trucks or train and brought to their destination cities before being returned to the port for return shipping. It is this intricate supply chain that is now in crisis.

In 2019 before the pandemic crisis, the cost of shipping a 40-foot-long container from China to Europe by sea cost between USD 800-2,500. For the bulk of products such as textiles, pharmaceuticals or smart phones, ocean containers were clearly the best low-cost option for Asia-Europe trade despite rail possibilities. For Asia-North America trade it was almost the only option, as air was a costly alternative. Today with a corona-linked 50% reduction in air travel, container ships are virtually the only long-distance option.

Now port-to-port spot rates, for example from Shanghai, China’s largest container port, to Los Angeles, have exploded from around $1,500 per 40-foot container just before the WHO Pandemic in early 2020, to $4,000 in September 2020, and to $9,631 in the week ended July 8, 2021, according to Drewry Supply Chain Advisors. This is an increase of over 600% from early 2020, pre-pandemic. And this is just one source of the global inflation we now see erupting.

This is not the worst. According to Drewry, “We have heard reports of $15,000 from China to the West Coast and are aware that carriers are charging additional premiums on top to prioritize the loading of a late booking ahead of normal FAK [Freight All Kinds] rate cargoes.” From $1,500 to $15,000 in two years is a rise of tenfold. And rates from Shanghai to Rotterdam have also skyrocketed from below $2,000 in early 2020, to over $12,000 in July, or 600%.

To cite one product that experienced panic buying at the start of the Pandemic, China is the world leader in exports of toilet paper with 11% of global supply. A 600% rise in ocean freight cost makes it inevitable that the price of something as ordinary as toilet paper is slated to rise significantly or become in short supply in key places globally. When such pressures are coming all across the product line, ocean container rates become a significant driver of general inflation.

Wildfires are getting so big they’re sending smoke from Russia to the US

CNN – Yakutsk in Russian Siberia is known as the world’s coldest city. In a place where even an exposed nose during the winter months can cause biting pain, people are accustomed to taking precautions against freezing temperatures, including spending extra time in the morning to dress in many layers.

But now the city is blanketed in haze as nearby wildfires tear through forests that have been parched by weeks of heatwaves. The fires are so big, and the winds strong, smoke is traveling as far away as Alaska.

In the US, the Bootleg wildfire in Oregon has grown into a monstrous complex with its own weather, sending the dense smoke some 3,000 miles across one end of the continent to the other. New York City on Wednesday woke up to an intense red sunrise, the smell of wildfires and a thick brown haze.

Firefighters in both countries, as well as British Columbia in Canada, are fighting a near-impossible battle to smother the infernos with water bombs and hoses, and preventing their spread by digging firebreaks.

The smoke in the republic of Yukutia in Siberia was so thick on Tuesday that reconnaissance pilot Svyatoslav Kolesov couldn’t do his job. There was no way he could fly his plane in such poor visibility.

Kolesov is a senior air observation post pilot in the far eastern Russian region of Yakutia. This part of Siberia is prone to wildfires, with large parts of the region covered in forests. But Kolesov told CNN the blazes are different this year.

PG&E Will Bury 10000 Miles of Power Lines So They Don’t Spark Wildfires

NPR – Pacific Gas & Electric plans to bury 10,000 miles of its power lines in an effort to prevent its fraying grid from sparking wildfires when electrical equipment collides with millions of trees and other vegetation across drought-stricken California.

The daunting project announced Wednesday aims to bury about 10% of PG&E’s distribution and transmission lines at a projected cost of $15 billion to as much as $30 billion, based on how much the process currently costs. The utility believes it will find ways to keep the final bill at the lower end of those estimates. Most of the costs will likely be shouldered by PG&E customers, whose electricity rates are already among the highest in the U.S.

Covid: China rejects WHO plan for second phase of virus origin probe

BBC – China has rejected the next stage of a World Health Organization (WHO) plan to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

The WHO wants to audit laboratories in the area the virus was first identified.

But Zeng Yixin, deputy health minister, said this showed “disrespect for common sense and arrogance toward science”.

WHO experts said it was very unlikely the virus escaped from a Chinese lab, but the theory has endured.

Investigators were able to visit Wuhan – the city where the virus was first detected in December 2019 – in January this year.

But earlier this month WHO head Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus outlined the terms of the inquiry’s next phase. This included looking at certain science research institutions.

He has now called on China to be more co-operative about the early stages of the outbreak.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Mr Zeng said he was extremely surprised by the WHO proposal because it focused on alleged violations of China’s laboratory protocols.

He said it was “impossible” for China to accept the terms, adding that the country had submitted its own origins-tracing recommendations.

“We hope the WHO would seriously review the considerations and suggestions made by Chinese experts and truly treat the origin tracing of the Covid-19 virus as a scientific matter, and get rid of political interference,” Reuters quoted Mr Zeng as saying.

Yuan Zhiming, director of the National Biosafety Laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, also appeared at the press conference. He said the virus was of natural origin and maintained no virus leak or staff infections had occurred at the facility since it opened in 2018.

More than four million people have died worldwide since the start of the pandemic and the WHO has faced growing international pressure to further investigate the origins of the virus.

Pegasus spyware seller: Blame our customers not us for hacking

BBC – The maker of powerful spy software allegedly used to hack the phones of innocent people says blaming the company is like “criticising a car manufacturer when a drunk driver crashes”.

NSO Group is facing international criticism, after reporters obtained a list of alleged potential targets for spyware, including activists, politicians and journalists.

Investigations have begun as the list, of 50,000 phone numbers, contained a small number of hacked phones.

Pegasus infects iPhones and Android devices, allowing operators to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones and cameras.

The Israeli company says its software is intended for use against criminals and terrorists and made available to only military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies from countries with good human-rights records.

But a consortium of news organisations, led by French media outlet Forbidden Stories, has published dozens of stories based around the list, including allegations French President Emmanuel Macron’s number was on it and may have been targeted.

NSO Group said it had been told the list had been hacked from its Cyprus servers

But a company spokesman told BBC News: “Firstly, we don’t have servers in Cyprus.

“And secondly, we don’t have any data of our customers in our possession.

“And more than that, the customers are not related to each other, as each customer is separate.

“So there should not be a list like this at all anywhere.”

And the number of potential targets did not reflect the way Pegasus worked.

“It’s an insane number,” the spokesman said.

“Our customers have an average of 100 targets a year.

“Since the beginning of the company, we didn’t have 50,000 targets total.”

Italian Populist Leader Salvini Claims Vaccine Not Necessary for Those Under 40

Breitbart – League leader Matteo Salvini has criticised the idea of vaccine passports and said he did not feel younger people needed to be vaccinated against the Wuhan coronavirus, contradicting the official advice given by the Italian government and the World Health Organisation.

The populist Italian senator stated that it was important that those over the age of 60 get the jab and those 40 to 59 could choose to have it, but under-40s were of less urgent concern for vaccination.

He also commented on the idea of a vaccine passport, known as a “Green Pass”, saying it would be unfair to launch them now as it is taking Italy so long to vaccinate people, many would be disadvantaged, newspaper Il Giornale reports.

“If we want the Green Pass for everyone, at the moment, it would take until the end of October, blowing up the [summer] season and the holidays. That would be devastating. And useless,” Salvini said.

The League leader claimed that in some cases, such as attending concerts of stadiums with thousands of others, a Green Pass — which proves immunity, vaccination status, or a negative test result — may be needed but rejected the idea for taking trains or going to a restaurant.

In a move echoing China’s social credit system, the Italian state-run railway company Trenitalia has considered forcing people to present a Green Pass aboard high-speed trains so it can return capacity to 100 per cent as it is currently limited to 50 per cent.

“We can secure parents and grandparents without punishing grandchildren and children,” Salvini continued and claimed that 85 per cent of coronavirus deaths in Italy had been people over 70. For those under 60, the mortality rate is less than one per cent, he asserted.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, the deaths between 10 and 29 years have been 85 — that is to say, 0.1 per cent,” he said.

Salvini’s comments are opposed to Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who called on people under the age of 50 to get vaccinated last month noting, “These are the people who get ill, get seriously ill and need to be vaccinated.”

Bitcoin climbs as Elon Musk says Tesla ‘likely’ to accept it again

BBC – Bitcoin has jumped past $30,000 as Elon Musk said Tesla is “most likely” to start accepting it as payment again.

The electric carmaker said in May that it would no longer accept the cryptocurrency for purchases.

It had cited concerns over the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining which uses huge amounts of electricity.

That move came less than two months after the company began accepting the world’s biggest digital currency as payment.

“Most likely the answer is that Tesla would resume accepting Bitcoin,” Mr Musk said during the B Word cryptocurrency conference.

He also said that he had been investigating fossil fuel usage in Bitcoin mining: “I wanted a little bit more due diligence to confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage is most likely at or above 50%, and that there is a trend towards increasing that number, and if so Tesla would resume accepting Bitcoin.”

A Capitol rioter gets 8 months for felony. What about the others?

CS Monitor – In the first punishment for a felony in response to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Paul Hodgkins received a sentence of eight months in prison. The sentencing may set a standard for future cases, analysts say. 

Acrane operator from Florida who breached the United States Senate chamber carrying a Trump campaign flag was sentenced Monday to eight months behind bars, the first punishment handed down for a felony charge in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and one that could help determine the severity of other sentences in hundreds of pending cases.

POLL: Majority Of Voters Want Antifa And BLM Investigated More Than January 6th

Gateway Pundit – Since the moment Democrats took power in January of this year, they have painted what happened at the Capitol as a supposed “insurrection.”

They have painted Trump supporters and other conservatives as terrorists. The FBI has spent countless hours and resources rounding up people who were involved. Nancy Pelosi is even forming a new commission in Congress to further investigate.

Despite all of this, a majority of voters would prefer an investigation of the Antifa and BLM rioters who destroyed American cities for months in 2020.

Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) Is Being Sued for Secretly Permitting Internet Access on Election Machines

Gateway Pundit – In a strange series of events, the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) is being sued for updating its policy and allowing voting machines to include Internet access.  These policy changes were discussed in private with voting machine companies and silently passed by the EAC without required public debate.

Cyberpunk 20**? Researchers warn of ‘bleak’ future with companies owning private thoughts & world divided between cyborg and human

RT – Scientists at Imperial College London have warned of a “bleak panorama” relating to the commercial use of brain-computer interfaces. If left unregulated, they say, the tech could lead to companies harvesting our deepest thoughts.

Several Big Tech companies, including Facebook and Microsoft, and technology investors like Elon Musk have funded projects exploring the use of brain-computer interface (BCI) devices to map out neural links. US government agencies are also studying the tech’s applications.

In a new study published in the APL Bioengineering journal, researchers from the university reviewed the state of BCI research. They raised red flags about the potential commercial exploitation of our innermost thoughts and feelings and warned of a world divided along the lines of access to BCI tech.

Study co-author Roberto Portillo-Lara described the possibility of corporate entities accessing BCI readings as “particularly worrisome” since “neural data is often considered to be the most intimate and private information that could be associated with any given user.”

UK govt steps in to ensure abortion services in Northern Ireland are fully implemented by end of March 2022

RT – Westminster has directed the Northern Irish authorities to implement full abortion services by the end of next March, after the region failed to do so despite a 2019 referendum that decriminalised the termination of pregnancy.

On Thursday, the UK Secretary for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, issued a formal direction to Stormont’s Department of Health, calling on it to implement full abortion services for women no later than by the end of March 2022. Lewis had said he had “no choice” but to use special measures to start the process of improving the standard and accessibility of abortion services in Northern Ireland.

Abortion was decriminalised in the region in October 2019, following a referendum on the issue, with termination becoming legal in March 2020. Despite the changes in law, Lewis noted that women were still unable to access abortions safely in the country, over a year and a half later, however.

The secretary of state said it was his “legal and moral obligation” to ensure that access to abortion services was as straightforward and accessible as elsewhere in the UK.

“At the heart of this matter are the women and girls in Northern Ireland, who have been, and continue to be, denied the same reproductive rights as women in the rest of the UK.”

Lewis used special powers on Thursday to issue the direction Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2021. The statutory instrument was passed to ensure the Northern Irish government complies with the law.

New study calls on wildlife bodies to rectify harm caused by ‘damaging, racist and bigoted’ bird names

RT – A new study by researchers based in the UK and US has called on wildlife bodies to do more in recognizing the “offensive or ignorant” names of some birds, many of which are deemed inappropriate due to their colonial-era naming.

In a recent paper, Robert Driver of East Carolina University and Alexander Bond of the UK’s Natural History Museum, note that many bird names were chosen in the 18th and 19th centuries and reflect the dominant European perspective on science of the time. 

The study argues that many of these names are no longer appropriate in the modern world, even adding that some are harmful and offensive in that they are “damaging, racist or bigoted.”

Driver and Bond state that many of the names used today were in fact coined by European settlers and conquerors and consequently saw indigenous names thrown out.

The authors argue that the continued use of some names that are deemed problematic hampers the development of their discipline into a “more diverse and inclusive” one. 

While the study notes previous examples of ‘positive’ name changes, it also cites problematic names which are yet to be changed, including the Inca Dove, which although not racist, is “arguably the most ignorantly named bird in North America.” The bird’s migratory path does not take it through lands previously settled by the Incas.

Some of the most common birds in North America, including vultures, flycatchers and robins, all retain European names despite being indigenous to the Americas and not sharing ancestral lineage with their European namesakes, the authors write.

Their paper also notes that the Sora is the only bird in North America which retains a standardized common name from “presumably a North American Indigenous language” – but the exact source of the name has been lost.

While not wanting to be too “prescriptive,” the authors do make several suggestions for tackling the aforementioned challenges. 

First, “bodies deciding on English common names must accept that the use of some common names is damaging, racist or bigoted, even if they do not find it personally inappropriate,” they write. Then they must work with groups affected by the inappropriate names to “rectify the harm” and work towards a “mutually agreed solution.” 

Grocery Prices Could Rise 10 to 14 Percent By October, Grocery Chain CEO Warns

Foundation for Economic Education – American families are already struggling amid mounting price inflation that’s eating away at their budgets, with higher costs for housing, vehicles, and more. Yet a top CEO is warning that the growing inflation problem facing Americans could get much worse in the coming months.

The latest June data already show price inflation at a 13-year high, with prices having risen 5.4 percent year-over-year. Proponents of the big-government policies driving much of this increase insist the uptick in prices is only temporary. But billionaire and grocery chain CEO John Catsimatidis just predicted that overall price inflation, for consumer goods generally, will hit a 6 percent annualized rate by October.

In an interview with Fox Business, the CEO warned that his industry is seeing skyrocketing costs on the supply chain side, and that businesses will have to raise prices for consumers as a result.

“Food prices are getting higher, and we expect even more increases by October,” Catsimatidis said. “You have to pass [those extra costs] on [to consumers] or you’re not doing your duty to God, your country, your employees, and your company.”

While we can’t know for certain, Catsimatidis said rising costs could mean an astounding 10 to 14 percent specific increase in grocery prices by October. That’s truly a shocking amount. But this warning offers more than insight into the grocery industry. It’s a painful reminder of how price inflation hurts everyday Americans.

Wireless Radiation Exposure for Children Should be Hundreds of Times Lower than Current Federal Limits: Study

Global Research – A peer-reviewed study by the Environmental Working Group recommends stringent health-based exposure standards for both children and adults for radiofrequency radiation emitted from wireless devices. EWG’s children’s guideline is the first of its kind and fills a gap left by federal regulators.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Health, relies on the methodology developed by the Environmental Protection Agency to assess human health risks arising from toxic chemical exposures. EWG scientists have applied the same methods to radiofrequency radiation from wireless devices, including cellphones and tablets.

EWG recommends the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, adjust its woefully outdated health standards for wireless radiation, last revised a quarter-century ago, well before wireless devices became ubiquitous, heavily used appliances synonymous with modern life. The recommendation draws on data from a landmark 2018 study from the National Toxicology Program, or NTP, one of the largest long-term studies on the health effects of radiofrequency radiation exposure.

EWG’s new guidelines, the first developed in the U.S. to focus on children’s health, recommend that children’s exposure overall be 200 to 400 times lower than the whole-body exposure limit set by the FCC in 1996.

The EWG recommended limit for so-called whole-body Specific Absorption Rate, or SAR, for children is 0.2 to 0.4 milliwatts per kilogram, or mW/kg. For adults, EWG recommends a whole-body SAR limit of 2 to 4 mW/kg, which is 20 to 40 times lower than the federal limit.

The FCC has not set a separate standard for children. Its standards for radiofrequency radiation set a maximum SAR of 0.08 watts per kilogram, or W/kg, for whole-body exposure and an SAR for localized spatial peak – the highest exposure level for a specific part of the body, such as the brain – of 1.6 W/kg for the general population.

The NTP studies examined the health effects of 2G and 3G wireless radiation and found there is “clear evidence” of a link between exposure to radiofrequency radiation and heart tumors in laboratory animals. Similar results were reported by a team of Italian scientists from the Ramazzini Institute.

Cellphone radiation was classified a “possible carcinogen” in 2011 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, a conclusion based on human epidemiological studies that found an increased risk of glioma, a malignant brain cancer, associated with cellphone use.

EWG scientists say that more research is needed on the health impacts of the latest generation of communication technologies, such as 5G. In the meantime, EWG’s recommendation for strict, lower exposure limits for all radiofrequency sources, especially for children.

Clock Ticking For Supplements

Alliance for Natural Health – The FDA could be preparing to unleash an anti-supplement policy as early as next year that could eliminate tens of thousands of products from the market—in the middle of a pandemic. Action Alert!

Recently, the FDA announced that, by the end of June 2022, it plans to release drafts or final versions of a number of policies, and among them is the “new dietary ingredient” (NDI) guidance (“new supplement” guidance, in plain English). It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most dangerous threat to supplements we’ve seen in decades. We must continue to vehemently oppose the guidance as currently written and demand that substantial changes are made before the final version is released. It is especially dangerous given that we are in a pandemic situation that is constantly evolving, with scientists warning of viral variants that evade vaccine-induced immunity.

Here is some brief background. Under the Dietary Health and Supplement Education Act (DSHEA), any dietary supplement introduced to the market in the US after 1994 is considered “new” (an NDI) and the manufacturer must notify the FDA at least seventy-five days in advance of marketing the product. In implementing this policy, however, the FDA has turned a simple notification procedure into a de facto pre-approval process akin to that which is required of pharmaceutical drugs.

The FDA’s policy is nothing less than a massive broadside aimed at crippling the supplement industry. How do we know this? An economic analysis estimated that the guidance would result in:

• tens of thousands of products disappearing from store shelves; 
• an industry-wide cost of between $2 billion and $165 billion in animal and human product safety studies to comply with the FDA’s NDI notification protocols; and
• the loss of between 55,270 and 104,475 jobs in the supplement industry.

If the FDA sticks to its timeline of June 2022, the release of the final guidance could seriously hinder our ability to stay healthy, naturally, during this pandemic. And using supplements to shore up our immune system against COVID is even more important as scientists learn more about the ability of multiple COVID variants to adapt and “escape” the immunity conferred by current vaccines and even natural infection. As noted in Science, “Such ‘immune escapes’ could mean more people who have had COVID-19 remain susceptible to reinfection, and that proven vaccines may, at some point, need an update.”

Action Alert! Write to Congress and the FDA to urge drastic changes to the NDI guidance to protect supplement access. Please send your message immediately.

Take Action Here: https://secure3.convio.net/aahf/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3863