WORLD NEWS
CCP Intelligence Recruits US Federal Reserve Economists, Congressional Investigators Reveal
Chinese intelligence has a systematic and well-funded campaign that successfully recruits U.S. Federal Reserve System economists and others to provide sensitive financial information and data in exchange for money and other benefits, according to Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).
“This investigation makes clear that China’s malign efforts at influence and information theft are not limited to science and technology fields. American economic and monetary policy is also being targeted by the Chinese government,” Portman, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC), said in a statement in conjunction with the release of a new report by congressional investigators.
The investigative report Portman made public on July 26 was prepared by the Republican staff of the Senate panel. The document updates a report on Chinese subversion in the United States released in 2019, when Portman was the committee’s chairman.
“As our investigation reveals, the Chinese government is using every tool at its disposal to infiltrate and steal valuable information,” Portman said. “We cannot let the American taxpayer continue to unwittingly fund China’s military and economic rise, which is why our report makes strong recommendations to enhance and protect our Federal Reserve.
Canada, Ireland Issue Emission Restrictions for Farmers, Similar to Netherlands
Canada and Ireland are rolling out policies to force their farmers to cut carbon emissions to a point that the farmers say would affect food production. Despite the potential negative consequences, the policies would seem to only achieve minute results for the “decarbonization” agenda.
Some Canadian provincial officials recently criticized their federal government for setting a goal of cutting emissions from synthetic fertilizer use by 30 percent by 2030 without first consulting the provinces “on what is achievable or attainable.”
“Provinces pushed the federal government to discuss this important topic, but were disappointed to learn that the target is already set,” Saskatchewan and Alberta ministers of agriculture said in a July 22 statement.
“This has been the most expensive crop anyone has put in, following a very difficult year on the prairies,” Alberta Minister of Agriculture Nate Horner said in the release.
“The world is looking for Canada to increase production and be a solution to global food shortages. The Federal government needs to display that they understand this.”
Slashing fertilizer use by 20 percent could cost Canadian farmers more than $48 billion in lost sales due to lower yields by 2030, according to a 2021 study commissioned by Fertilizer Canada, an industry group (pdf).
Synthetic fertilizer use is responsible for less than 2 percent of Canada’s carbon emissions, according to Canadian government data. Canada, in turn, is responsible for about 1.4 percent of global emissions.
COVID-19 Restrictions Likely Led to Resurgence of Rare Hepatitis Among Children: Study
A virus not known to normally cause disease, coupled with lowered immunity in children due to lockdowns, may have led to a hepatitis outbreak, researchers have found.
UK researchers believe they have identified the cause of acute liver problems that have been affecting young children around the world.
mRNA Shots Are Causing Major Fertility Problems With Both Men And Women
The first COVID shots rolled out in December 2020, and it didn’t take long before doctors and scientists started warning of possible reproductive effects, as the jab may cross-react with syncytin and reproductive genes in sperm, ova and placenta in ways that might impair reproduction
> According to one recent investigation, 42% of women with regular menstrual cycles said they bled more heavily than usual after vaccination; 39% of those on gender-affirming hormone treatments reported breakthrough bleeding, as did 71% of women on long-acting contraceptives and 66% of postmenopausal women
> Other recent research has found the Pfizer COVID jab impairs semen concentration and motile count in men for about three months
> Miscarriages, fetal deaths and stillbirths have also risen after the rollout of the COVID shots. In November 2021, Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), delivered 13 stillborn babies in a 24-hour period, and all of the mothers had received the COVID jab
> Many countries are now reporting sudden declines in live birth rates, including Germany, the U.K., Taiwan, Hungary and Sweden. In the five countries with the highest COVID jab uptake, fertility has dropped by an average of 15.2%, whereas the five countries with the lowest COVID jab uptake have seen an average decline of just 4.66%
NATO Is a Luxury Good the United States Doesn’t Need
For decades, the most widely held belief in the Washington foreign‐policy establishment has been that NATO is tremendously valuable to the United States. As former U.S. diplomat William Burns wrote in his memoir, even the expansion of the alliance “stayed on autopilot as a matter of U.S. policy, long after its fundamental assumptions should have been reassessed. Commitments originally meant to reflect interests morphed into interests themselves.” Being a NATO skeptic in Washington is like being a middle‐aged white guy at a Bad Bunny concert. On both counts, take it from me: You feel out of place.
As Burns suggests, one thing that happens with unexamined consensus is that arguments in its favor fail to be sharpened by contact with their opponents. Kathleen J. McInnis has thankfully stepped into the breach, offering Foreign Policy readers an argument that Americans still need NATO.
Her essay argues forcefully that NATO is the taproot of the “enormous economic prosperity and freedom” that Americans enjoy. Not only prosperity and freedom, though: Providing security for Europeans “allows the United States to set the international security agenda,” enhances U.S. credibility in Asia, helped facilitate Washington’s post‑9/11 wars, helps handle “anti‐piracy missions off the Horn of Africa … China, climate change, and advanced disruptive technologies” in addition to “disinformation operations, pandemic response, migration, and terrorism.”
Four dead in 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit northern Philippines, impact felt in Manila
At least four people have died and 60 others were injured in a powerful earthquake that struck the northern Philippines on Wednesday, the interior minister has said.
A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the Philippines on Wednesday, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
The quake struck in northern Luzon, the country’s most populous island, at 8:43 a.m. local time (8:43 p.m. ET), according to USGS. The agency originally designated the quake 7.1-magnitude, before downgrading it to 7.0.
Its epicenter was about 13 kilometers (8 miles) southeast of the small town of Dolores, Abra province, with a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), according to USGS.
Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. said in a government news conference that two deaths were recorded each in Abra and Benguet.
He also said that 58 landslides have been reported, and 218 towns in 15 provinces were affected by the earthquake. Three bridges were destroyed in Abra.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Trump Authorized National Guard for Jan. 6 but Congress, DC Didn’t Request Its Use, Former Aide Says
A claim by the vice chair of the House Jan. 6 Select Committee that President Donald Trump didn’t order the use of National Guard troops in the District of Columbia on Jan. 6, 2021, is true because that would have been a violation of the law, former Pentagon chief of staff Kash Patel says.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) told Fox News’ Bret Baier that Trump “never issued any order to deploy the National Guard to protect the Capitol.”
Patel said that Trump authorized up to 20,000 National Guard troops for use in D.C. or elsewhere on Jan. 6, 2021, but the use of those troops was later rejected by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the U.S. Capitol Police.
Under the law, the president can’t order the deployment of the military for use inside the United States, Patel said. At the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, unrest, Patel was chief of staff for Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller.
“She knows the truth—45 [Trump] authorized the National Guard days before Jan. 6, and Pelosi and Bowser rejected it,” Patel told The Epoch Times. “Cheney knows it’s unconstitutional for any president to ever order the military to deploy domestically. He may only authorize their use, then there must be a request.
A Washington resident was sentenced on July 26 to more than five years in prison, matching the longest term of imprisonment so far among hundreds of Capitol breach prosecutions.
Mark Ponder, 56, said he “got caught up” in the chaos that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021, and “didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“I wasn’t thinking that day,” Ponder told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, asking her for mercy before she sentenced him to five years and three months in prison.
Chutkan, an Obama appointee, said Ponder was “leading the charge” against police officers trying to hold off the crowd that disrupted Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
“This is not ‘caught up,’ Mr. Ponder,” she said. “He was intent on attacking and injuring police officers. This was not a protest.”
Chutkan has consistently taken a hard line in punishing Capitol rioters. She has handed down terms of imprisonment to all 13 defendants who have come before her, matching or exceeding the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation in every case, according to a review of court records.
Ponder’s sentence of 63 months was three months longer than that requested by prosecutors and the same length as Chutkan gave Robert Palmer, a Florida man who also pleaded guilty to assaulting police at the Capitol.
None of the more than 200 other Jan. 6 defendants who have been sentenced so far have received a longer prison sentence than Ponder or Palmer.
FBI Wrongly Labeled ‘Derogatory Information’ on Hunter Biden as Disinformation: Whistleblowers
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) alleged on July 25 that there were “systemic and existential problems” within the Justice Department and the FBI, after “highly credible” whistleblowers informed his office that officials from the bureau labeled evidence against Hunter Biden as disinformation.
“The allegations provided to my office appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation,” Grassley wrote in a letter (pdf) to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Grassley, the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the “volume and consistency” of the whistleblowers’ allegations “substantiate their credibility.”
Retired Army Brigadier General Aims to Unseat Democratic Senator in New Hampshire Race
As more voters across the country turn toward the Republican Party, retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc is closing the margin of an expected Democratic victory in the New Hampshire Senate race.
In the 2020 Republican Senate primary, Bolduc carried almost 60,000 votes as the runner-up. According to a poll taken in April, only one point separated incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Bolduc, one of 11 candidates for the Republican primary scheduled for Sept. 13.
Bolduc says he’s very concerned about the future of the United States.
“Currently, there is a plan for top-down governance and the abandonment of America’s values and principles,” he told The Epoch Times, describing it as a plan to “undermine” the United States.
Bolduc said “America is weak” at the moment, and there are a variety of issues it must continue to confront if the nation ever wants to recover its strength. These include, but aren’t limited to, abortion, gun control, the southern border, and the economy.
House Lawmakers to Receive $10,000 Security Stipend Amid Increasing Threats of Violence
House lawmakers will be offered up to $10,000 to strengthen their home security amid increasing threats of violence against lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
The stipend, announced by House Sergeant-at-Arms William Walker, would offer to cover up to $10,000 worth of expenses for upgrading home security systems, cameras and video recorders, locks, and motion sensors at the homes of lawmakers.
In addition to the stipend, Walker announced that the program, set to begin on Aug. 15, would furnish up to $150 per month to helping lawmakers pay fees and maintain the new equipment.
“The Sergeant at Arms (SAA) will assume the cost of and oversee certain future residential security upgrades, maintenance, and monthly monitoring fees. This program will strengthen the security of Members of the House of Representatives and their families,” Walker wrote in a letter to lawmakers announcing the stipend.
As reported earlier by We Love Trump a Chinese company recently paid $2.6 million for 300 acres of farmland in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
The parcel of land’s location near a US Air Force base that houses sensitive drone technology has lawmakers on Capitol Hill worried about potential espionage by Beijing.
The Chinese firm Fufeng Group recently purchased 300 acres of farmland in North Dakota just down the road from a US Air Force base that houses sensitive drone technology near Grand Forks.
The farmland is just a 20-minute drive to the Grand Forks Air Force Base.
The Fufeng Group also purchased a corn mill near Grand Forks. Local citizens are rightly concerned with this new project in their backyard.
And what is more disturbing is the FBI and local police visited a top opponent to the corn mill project and threatened her for speaking out about the local purchases by the Chinese Communist regime.
Now a new report by CNN reveals China has placed Huawei equipment atop cell towers on purchased farm land near US military bases in the Midwest capable of disrupting service and capturing signals.
CNN reported this in a exclusive on Sunday morning.
Since at least 2017, federal officials have investigated Chinese land purchases near critical infrastructure, shut down a high-profile regional consulate believed by the US government to be a hotbed of Chinese spies and stonewalled what they saw as clear efforts to plant listening devices near sensitive military and government facilities.
Among the most alarming things the FBI uncovered pertains to Chinese-made Huawei equipment atop cell towers near US military bases in the rural Midwest. According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the FBI determined the equipment was capable of capturing and disrupting highly restricted Defense Department communications, including those used by US Strategic Command, which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons.
While broad concerns about Huawei equipment near US military installations have been well known, the existence of this investigation and its findings have never been reported. Its origins stretch back to at least the Obama administration. It was described to CNN by more than a dozen sources, including current and former national security officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
F.E. Warren Air Force Base, a strategic missile base, is located in Cheyenne, Wyoming, an area near a host of cell towers using Huawei equipment. – From F.E. Warren Air Force Base/Facebook
It’s unclear if the intelligence community determined whether any data was actually intercepted and sent back to Beijing from these towers. Sources familiar with the issue say that from a technical standpoint, it’s incredibly difficult to prove a given package of data was stolen and sent overseas.
The Chinese government strongly denies any efforts to spy on the US. Huawei in a statement to CNN also denied that its equipment is capable of operating in any communications spectrum allocated to the Defense Department.
For the record… Tony Podesta works or worked with Huawei.
Pence’s Former National Security Adviser Endorses Trump
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, said he would back former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2024 matchup with his former boss.
“Sometimes, you have to pick the lane you’re gonna run with,” Kellogg told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday when asked about a possible contest between Trump and Pence. “I’ve always been a Trump guy.”
Of the relationship between Trump and Pence, “We tried to bring him in tight,” Kellogg said in reference to Pence. “It’s not because we haven’t reached out to him.” Pence advisers “like Marc Short,” Kellogg added in the interview, “have pulled away from the Trump team,” referring to the former vice president’s chief of staff.
Neither Pence nor Trump have declared their candidacies for president. While Trump has strongly suggested that he might run again, there is growing speculation about a Pence 2024 candidacy as he continues to deliver speeches, including one to a conference of young conservatives in Washington on Tuesday.
“If I was putting money in Las Vegas down on the table as to whether he is going to run or not, I think he is running,” Kellogg said of Trump, “but I don’t know.” The retired general said he spoke with the former president several weeks ago.
Buzz About Buttigieg as 2024 Candidate Overlooks His Far-Left Agenda, Analysts Say
News Analysis
Amid renewed concerns over President Joe Biden’s health and mounting speculation that he may not end up as the Democrats’ nominee for the White House in 2024, attention increasingly focuses on other potential candidates within a highly diverse and fragmented field.
Pete Buttigieg, who ran for president in 2020 and currently serves as Biden’s secretary of transportation, has become the subject of considerable buzz, but expert opinion on Buttigieg’s prospects as a 2024 presidential candidate is decidedly mixed. Some analysts praise the potential candidate’s intelligence and political skill, while others argue that he would not be able to compete successfully with even more prominent names in the Democrat field. Still other commentators say that Buttigieg is far from the centrist politician many take him to be and that his radical streak may alienate moderate voters under the intensive, constant scrutiny that Buttigieg will go through if he officially enters the 2024 primary field.
Exclusive — Sen. Ted Cruz on Hispanics Shifting to GOP: ‘Democrats Are Openly Racist’
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview here this past weekend at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit (SAS) that “openly racist” commentary from Democrats like a blogger paid by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) and even from even first lady Jill Biden are exacerbating a shift among Hispanic voters already underway from the Democrats to the Republicans.
During the interview, Cruz referenced how Jill Biden called Hispanics “breakfast tacos” in a recent speech in San Antonio and how Gonzalez—the vulnerable Democrat congressman in a South Texas district primed to flip to the GOP for the first time in over a century—paid a blogger who called Rep. Mayra Flores (R-TX) “Miss Frijoles,” among other racist attacks.
Maybe it was the death threat delivered by a fellow law-enforcement officer while he stood shackled in belly chains.
Perhaps it was being described as a “terrorist” by a federal judge who will preside over his trial.
It could have been being released on bail by a U.S. magistrate judge in Tennessee, only to be ordered held until trial by a U.S. district judge in Washington D.C.
Former sheriff’s deputy Ronald Colton McAbee, 28, of Tennessee, has faced a difficult road since being indicted for alleged criminal actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Arguably the most trying situation for McAbee was being denied bail for nearly a year based on video evidence that his attorney now says exonerates him.
“What makes the government’s case weak is the fact that the videos actually exonerate Mr. McAbee of the very allegations made against him, and Mr. McAbee is motivated to appear for trial, take the stand and narrate those videos for [the] jury,” wrote attorney William Shipley in a May 2022 motion to have his client released from jail.
McAbee, a former sheriff’s deputy in Tennessee and Georgia with more than seven years of law-enforcement experience as a deputy and correctional officer, was charged by federal prosecutors with seven alleged crimes.
Charges included assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer, two counts of civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and committing an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.
McAbee was outside the Lower West Terrace tunnel during some of the worst violence on January 6. Several times he tried to render lifesaving aid to a dying Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia. His interactions with Metropolitan Police Department officers resulted in most of the charges and served as justification for a D.C. judge to jail him until trial.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Ron DeSantis: Chinese Purchases of U.S. Real Estate Are a ‘Huge Problem’
China’s purchases of American homes and land are a “huge problem,” Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in an interview.
Ron DeSantis made the remark after the news surfaced in a National Association of Realtors (NAR) report that China is the biggest investor in the United States real estate market, gobbling up $6.1 billion worth of homes and land last year.
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Tuesday slammed the Biden administration for trying to change the definition of “recession” as it appears the United States could enter a recession this year.
Johnson told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” that the White House could “try to redefine what a recession is, but that’s not going to change the reality.”
“They can try to redefine what a recession is, but that’s not going to change the reality,” Johnson asserted. “It’s not going to make record gasoline prices go away or quite honestly 9.1% inflation go away. As Milton Freeman always said — inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, and you take a look at the recession, you take a look at record gasoline prices, 40-year high inflation — these are self-inflicted wounds caused by their policy. And the first step in solving any problem is admitting you have one.”
“This administration is in a state of denial,” he added. “President Biden, his enablers are as detached from reality as they are from the truth. But the truth of the matter is the very people that they purport to represent — the seniors on a fixed income, people on the lower end of the income spectrum, they are the ones most suffering from what is a tax on everybody.”
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Eric Schmidt: AI Is As Powerful As Nukes
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt compared AI to nuclear weapons and called for a deterrence regime similar to the mutually-assured destruction that keeps the world’s most powerful countries from destroying each other.
Schmidt talked about the dangers of AI at the Aspen Security Forum at a panel on national security and artificial intelligence on July 22. While fielding a question about the value of morality in tech, Schmidt explained that he, himself, had been naive about the power of information in the early days of Google. He then called for tech to be better in line with the ethics and morals of the people it serves and made a bizarre comparison between AI and nuclear weapons.
Schmidt imagined a near future where China and the U.S. needed to cement a treaty around AI. “In the 50s and 60s, we eventually worked out a world where there was a ‘no surprise’ rule about nuclear tests and eventually they were banned,” Schmidt said. “It’s an example of a balance of trust, or lack of trust, it’s a ‘no surprises’ rule. I’m very concerned that the U.S. view of China as corrupt or Communist or whatever, and the Chinese view of America as failing…will allow people to say ‘Oh my god, they’re up to something,’ and then begin some kind of conundrum. Begin some kind of thing where, because you’re arming or getting ready, you then trigger the other side. We don’t have anyone working on that and yet AI is that powerful.”
AI and machine learning is an impressive and frequently misunderstood technology. It is, largely, not as smart as people think it is. It can churn out masterpiece-level artwork, beat humans at Starcraft II, and make rudimentary phone calls for users. Attempts to get it to do more complicated tasks, however, like drive a car through a major city, haven’t been going so well.
Schmidt imagined a near future where both China and the U.S. would have security concerns that force a kind of deterrence treaty between them around AI. He speaks of the 1950s and ’60s when diplomacy crafted a series of controls around the most deadly weapons on the planet. But for the world to get to a place where it instituted the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, SALT II, and other landmark pieces of legislation, it took decades of nuclear explosions and, critically, the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The two Japanese cities America destroyed at the end of World War II killed tens of thousands of people and proved to the world the everlasting horror of nuclear weapons. The governments of Russia and China then rushed to acquire the weapons. The way we live with the possibility these weapons will be used is through something called mutual assured destruction (MAD), a theory of deterrence that ensures if one country launches a nuke, it’s possible that every other country will too. We don’t use the most destructive weapon on the planet because of the possibility that doing so will destroy, at the very least, civilization around the globe.
Despite Schmidt’s colorful comments, we don’t want or need MAD for AI. For one, AI hasn’t proved itself anywhere near as destructive as nuclear weapons. But people in positions of power fear this new technology and, typically, for all the wrong reasons. People have even suggested giving control of nuclear weapons over to AI, theorizing they’d be better arbiters of their use than humans.
DNA Can Be Engineered To Kill Individuals, Families Or Entire Ethnicities
A member of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee warned that bio-weapons are being made that use a target’s DNA to only kill that person.
Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday, US Rep Jason Crow of Colorado warned Americans to not be so cavalier about sharing their DNA with private companies due to the coming of the new type of weapon.
‘You can actually take someone’s DNA, take, you know, their medical profile and you can target a biological weapon that will kill that person or take them off the battlefield or make them inoperable,’ Crow said.
The congressman said the development of the weapons is worrisome given the popularity of DNA testing services, where people willingly share their genetic mapping with businesses to gain insight on their genealogy and health.
‘You can’t have a discussion about this without talking about privacy and the protection of commercial data because expectations of privacy have degraded over the last 20 years,’ the Democratic lawmaker said.
‘Young folks actually have very little expectation of privacy, that’s what the polling and the data show.”
Crow, a former Army Ranger who served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, continued: ‘People will very rapidly spit into a cup and send it to 23andMe and get really interesting data about their background.’
23andMe has repeatedly stated that it does not sell off customers’ private information, but the DNA company is one of many that has provided information to police upon request
‘And guess what? Their DNA is now owned by a private company. It can be sold off with very little intellectual property protection or privacy protection and we don’t have legal and regulatory regimes to deal with that.’
‘We have to have an open and public discussion about… what the protection of healthcare information, DNA information, and your data look like because that data is actually going to be procured and collected by our adversaries for the development of these systems.’
HEALTH
Elitists’ Goal: Wipe Out Good Food
The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy’s Food Compass, unveiled in late 2021, is another Great Reset tool designed to discourage consumption of animal foods by falsely rating them as unhealthy, and encouraging consumption of ultraprocessed foods by giving them high nutritional ratings
Food Compass rates Frosted Mini Wheats as three times healthier than ground beef, with a score of 87 out of 100, compared to 26 for ground beef
Food Compass also gives high scores to fries, Lucky Charms, Honey Nut Cheerios, chocolate covered almonds and almond M&Ms, while rating whole egg fried in butter, cheddar cheese and ground beef as foods that should be avoided. Based on this tool, you’ll be healthier if you replace whole egg, cheddar cheese and ground beef with candy
Studies have repeatedly shown that diets high in processed foods lead to poor health and depression, and the more processed your diet is, the greater your risk of obesity and chronic diseases that shave years, if not decades, off your life span
Health, food security, independence and freedom are what the global elitists, led by the World Economic Forum, intend to destroy so that they can then roll out a new food system based entirely on patented, processed imitation foods, including lab-grown and plant- or fungi-based “meats” and “clean, green” protein alternatives such as cricket meal and mealworms
Forever Chemicals Linked to High Blood Pressure in Some Women
Research published June 13, 2022, showed women with the highest concentration of PFAS chemicals had a 71% increased risk of developing high blood pressure. Coincidentally, two days later the EPA announced four planned water advisories to reduce levels of PFAS in the water supply
The EPA advises capping the levels of two chemicals in the PFAS class of chemicals: PFOA to more than 17,000 times lower than what it is currently and PFOS to 3,500 times lower. The announcement stunned scientists; the Environmental Working Group vice president said it would affect at least 1,943 public utilities
The government is releasing more than $12 billion in grants and loans to help communities pay for the new infrastructure needed to protect citizens, but one expert thinks the move may not have gone far enough as agencies are not addressing the source of the pollution
The strategies you use to reduce your exposure to PFAS chemicals can help vote these products out of the marketplace. These include opting out of treatment on clothing, carpet and furniture, avoiding fast food and carry-out containers, eating old-fashioned stovetop non-GMO popcorn instead of microwave popcorn and filtering your water supply
Novavax Injections Includes Insect, Baculovirus Proteins Plus DNA
You see, the vaccine’s spike protein is grown by genetically engineering baculoviruses to produce spike, and then infecting insect cells with the baculovirus to turn the whole thing into a spike protein factory.
At the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting that I live-blogged last week, it was revealed that the Novavax vaccine was being rolled out because it could be marketed as a “more traditional” vaccine, since it was not made from mRNA. Novavax was to be directed to the unvaccinated, although only 10% of the unvaccinated, it was anticipated, would accept it. The fact that no fetal cells were used in its development was claimed to be a marketing plus.
But NOTHING about this vaccine is traditional.
First, the Novavax company does not own a manufacturing plant, so the vaccine being distributed in the US is made at the Serum Institute of India.
Second, the adjuvant, Matrix-M (a nonspecific, potent immune stimulant) has never been used before. It is made from the Quillaja saponaria tree. There is another adjuvant that is only used in one (highly reactogenic) US vaccine, Shingrix, which is an extract from this tree. This GSK adjuvant, named ASO1B, contains QS-21, a single extract in the Shingrix vaccine.
The problem is that we don’t know what extracts from the tree are included in Matrix-M. The information is proprietary! The Matrix-M adjuvant uses two unspecified “fractions” from the Q. saponaria tree, and there exist no data on its safety. (Matrix-M does not contain QS-21, although the company sometimes implies it does, to distract from its novelty.). These two fractions, combined with phospholipids and cholesterol, form the 40 nanometer particles of Matrix M.
Quitting Smoking Starts in the Brain
Mindfulness training (MT) reduces activity in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) area of the brain; in smokers, the PCC is activated in response to smoking cues
People who used a mindfulness app had a reduction in self-reported daily cigarette consumption by an average of 11 cigarettes per day, compared to nine cigarettes per day for those using a standard quitting-smoking app
There was an association between the number of modules completed in the mindfulness app and the number of cigarettes given up per day
In those for whom the app worked best, there was a significant reduction in brain activity in the PCC in response to smoking-related images
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
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
How to Secure Your Water Supply for Emergencies
Amid food inflation and shortages perhaps 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 that they forget that source can vanish overnight.
City water is typically pumped into a tall water tower. It’s then distributed from the tower into your house by gravity. However, during a power outage, no new water can be pumped into the tower if the municipality runs out of fuel to run its backup generators.
That means the only water available for the area is what’s in the tower. If the power failure continues for an extended period of time, the tank will be emptied and taps will run dry.
Apartment dwellers are even more vulnerable to power outages, as the water may be shut off immediately upon a power outage. This is because the water is pumped up into the apartments from the basement, and without electricity, that pump won’t work unless there’s a backup generator.
Even then, the water will only flow for as long as the generator has fuel. People with well water are in the same situation. Most well pumps are powered by electricity, and when there’s a power outage, you’ll need a generator. If you have a well, it’s imperative that you not only have a backup generator but a secondary pump or even two in case your primary pump fails.
If you live in a hurricane-prone area, you’re probably used to the annual ritual of stocking up on bottled water. However, you can only store so many bottles, and if deliveries to your local grocery store are interrupted for a period of time—which at this point is a very real possibility—you’ll eventually run out.
So with all those limitations and the prospect of rising energy costs, rolling blackouts, or perhaps even longer-term power outages, how can you make sure you’ll have enough water to drink, cook, maintain hygiene, and water your garden with?
Rain Barrel Solution for Homes
The solution I’ll focus on in this article involves installing one or more rain barrels. This won’t work if you live in an apartment, but if you have a home, it’s an excellent long-term solution. BlueBarrel founder Jesse Savou explains how to set up a gravity-fed drip irrigation system for your garden using several rain barrels in a YouTube video.
The BlueBarrel rainwater catchment system includes a series of rain barrels set on top of a couple of cinder blocks to achieve a three-foot elevation. The barrels are connected with PVC pipe, and the barrel on one end is connected to a drip irrigation hose with a timer. The pipe is equipped with a fine-mesh filter to prevent debris from clogging the emitters.
The timer Savou uses is solar operated, so no electricity is required. It will also work with AA batteries if you don’t have a lot of sunlight. The two types of driplines they sell with their kits are both nonpressurized and work by gravity alone.
“You don’t want to use regular drip equipment or compensator lines,” Savou said, “because you won’t get good output.”
If you don’t have a garden—and despite looming food shortages don’t want to start one—this water can save you if you lose your tap water. A system like this can provide a lot of peace of mind, as the water will be replenished indefinitely without you having to do any work.
The only thing that will threaten your water supply is a persistent drought. That said, you do have to take precautions to keep the water in your barrels clean, which I’ll review shortly.
This isn’t the system I use. Since I have a full acre of land to grow food on I need loads more water, so I have a 5,000-gallon cistern that collects rainwater from the gutters on my roof. This serves to augment my irrigation system but is also a large emergency source of water.
COVID RELATED NEWS
Former CDC Director Fires Back at Fauci’s ‘Natural’ Claim
Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield rejected White House adviser Anthony Fauci’s claims that it’s more likely COVID-19 originated naturally.
In a recent interview, Fauci said he has an “open mind” but still believes that the virus occurred naturally after previously dismissing the theory that it emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in late 2019. “It looks very much like this was a natural occurrence, but you keep an open mind,” Fauci said.
When asked about Fauci’s recent comments on Monday, Redfield told Fox News that he still suspects COVID-19 emerged “from the laboratory” and “had to be educated in the laboratory to gain the efficient human-to-human transmission capability that it has.”
“There’s very little evidence, if you really want to be critical, to support” the natural emergence theory, he said. The former Trump administration official then compared COVID-19 to prior coronaviruses such as Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that emerged about 10 years ago, saying that neither virus had the same transmission capacity as COVID-19.
“So it’s really exceptional that this virus is one of the most infectious viruses for man. And I still argue that’s because it was educated how to infect human tissue,” Redfield told Fox News.
Cruise Line Drops COVID-19 Testing Requirement After CDC Changes Rule
A Miami-based cruise operator dropped its pre-boarding COVID-19 testing requirement days after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rescinded a key virus reporting program.
Azamara, the cruise line, said that it removed the testing mandate except in areas where “it is still required in accordance with country regulations,” according to a statement. Guests will have to provide a negative COVID-19 test before getting on board, the company said.
“Azamara recommends that all guests departing from any port get tested at their leisure prior to travel to ensure a comfortable and enjoyable travel experience, but those results will not be required to board an Azamara vessel,” the company said in a statement.
The company, however, will require people to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination prior to getting on board.
“The easing of our testing policy marks a step in the right direction towards a return to normalcy for the travel and cruising industry,” said Azamara chief Carol Cabezas in a statement. “Cruising is one of the safest ways to travel, and our existing health and safety protocols onboard will ensure peace of mind for our guests and crew as we move forward.”
Rule Change
On July 18, the CDC removed its COVID-19 reporting system for cruise ships, which was hailed by cruise industry groups. Cruise lines and industry officials have said virus mandates have negatively impacted the industry over the past two years.
“CDC has worked closely with the cruise industry, state, territorial, and local health authorities, and federal and seaport partners to provide a safer and healthier environment for cruise passengers and crew,” the federal health agency’s website now says. “Cruise ships have access to guidance and tools to manage their own COVID-19 mitigation programs.”
On July 21, the agency provided updated guidance for cruise operators to follow and said companies will need to report COVID-19 deaths.
“Cruise ship operators should carefully consider and incorporate these recommendations in developing their own health and safety protocols. Plans should include triggers for a graduated approach to outbreak management in response to increasing case counts or other public health concerns,” the CDC said.
Contingency plans should also address quarantines, testing, a mechanism to notify health officials, food delivery to quarantined individuals, and daily monitoring on cruise lines, according to the CDC.
Pandemic Treachery: The Intelligence Agent Who Shut Down America
In 1948, the US House of Representatives received a tip from a man named Whittaker Chambers that several federal officials had been working for the communists. One of these officials was more than happy to appear before Congress to clear his name—a leading State Department and United Nations representative named Alger Hiss.
The rakish Hiss was the exemplary American statesman: Polite, pedigreed, well-spoken, and a Harvard man to boot. During the 1945 United Nations conference, the Chinese delegation had proposed the creation of a new international health organization. After the Chinese failed to get a resolution passed, Hiss recommended establishing the organization by declaration, and the World Health Organization was born.
In Congress, Hiss coolly denied the allegations and denounced his deadbeat accuser for the libelous claims. The House came away newly reassured that the State Department was in excellent hands.
Senator Asks CDC to Clear Up Conflicting Statements on Vaccine Safety Research
A U.S. senator is asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to clear up conflicting statements on whether a specific method of COVID-19 vaccine safety research is being conducted.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked CDC Director Rochelle Walensky for details after The Epoch Times reported that Dr. John Su, a CDC doctor, claimed that the CDC has been performing Proportional Reporting Ratio analyses on data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System since February 2021.
That conflicted with the CDC telling the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense that it not only did not conduct the analyses but that the method “is outside of th[e] agency’s purview.”
“CDC’s assertion and Dr. Su’s statement cannot both be true,” Johnson told Walensky in a new letter, released on July 26 and dated July 25.
“The American people deserve the truth and you have not been providing it. That is why I, together with millions of Americans, have completely lost faith in the CDC and other federal health agencies. It is time to start regaining their confidence and your agency’s integrity by coming clean, being transparent, and telling the truth,” Johnson wrote.
He asked for Walensky to immediately respond to a letter he sent before requesting information on the CDC’s vaccine safety research. He also requested she confirm whether Dr. Su’s statement is true and if it is, why the CDC claimed it had not conducted the analyses.
And if Dr. Su’s statement is accurate, Johnson wants all of the Proportional Reporting Ratio analyses that the CDC has performed since February 2021.
Finally, Johnson asked for Dr. Su to be made available for an interview with his office concerning the data examinations.
CANCEL CULTURE
‘Leave It to Beaver’ Star Tony Dow Still Alive After Wife Mistakenly Believed He Died
The statement announcing that actor Tony Dow, forever immortalized as Wally Cleaver on Leave It to Beaver, had died has been retracted after his wife mistakenly believed he had passed.
On Tuesday, a statement put out on Dow’s verified Facebook account stated that he had died after being placed on hospice care in his battle with cancer. Dow’s management team later retracted that statement after being given false information from the actor’s wife.
“This morning Tony’s wife Lauren, who was very distraught, had notified us that Tony had passed and asked that we notify all his fans,” the update post said. “As we are sure you can understand, this has been a very trying time for her.”
“We have since received a call from Tony’s daughter-in-law saying that while Tony is not doing well, he has not yet passed. Tony’s son Christopher and his daughter-in-law Melissa have also been by his side comforting him, and we will keep you posted on any future updates,” it continued.
Though Dow has not passed away and is still receiving hospice care at home, his son Christopher Dow told the media that Tony is “in his last hours,” according to Deadline.
PET NEWS
RESCUE DOGS: WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER REHOMING A DOG
Do you want to give an animal a loving home? Here are just some of the many great reasons why you should consider rescuing a dog from a shelter instead of buying from a breeder…
Saving a life:
The number one reason for rescuing a dog instead of buying from a breeder is you will save a dog’s life. Animal euthanasia levels in many shelters is on the increase as they just aren’t finding as many people wanting to rescue a dog as they are receiving abandoned dogs. Currently, there are thousands of dogs scheduled for euthanasia – it just doesn’t make sense to go to a breeder and buy a dog when there are so many dogs that need your help!
Making room for new shelter dogs:
At the present moment, there are around 27 million dogs in shelters, which means every dog rescued makes a difference. If you rescue a dog instead of buy, you are opening up space and resources for another dog to enter the shelter off the streets.
Your dog could already be trained:
There are many older dogs who find themselves in shelters. If you don’t have the time to train a puppy, you can go to a shelter and find yourself a nicely house trained older dog who is just as adorable! They are fully grown, so there will be no surprises as to what they’ll look like when they’re older as there might be with younger puppies. What you see is what you get.
Great quality dog:
Dog abandonment levels are currently very high around the holiday season as people adopt dogs as Christmas gifts, only to realise later on what adopting a dog actually means. There are many ridiculous reasons dogs are abandoned such as, “he was too loving and needed too much attention” and “he wags his tail too much”. Often people will have the misconception that if a dog has been abandoned there must be something wrong with Fido, but usually it’s because the owner wasn’t ready for such a commitment. There are millions of loving and perfect rescue dogs waiting to be adopted right now in shelters, abandoned for such silly reasons.
Unconditional love:
You’ll give yourself and a – possibly – timid, unloved animal all the happiness in the world just by welcoming him or her into your home and giving them a family and safe environment to live in. Plus, you’ll have a ready-made friend for life who will love you back tenfold!
Close to our heart:
Camilla, the daughter of one of our founders Denise Elphick, rescued Cavachon Lulu who had been originally bought as a present but was unwanted. Camilla has nothing but wonderful things to say about her experience and always urges others to adopt instead of shop.
If you are considering rescuing a dog we recommend you go through Dogs Trust, an amazing organisation who will guide you through the entire process of rescuing a dog. They give you a full detailed description of dogs who are up for adoption, adding what kind of home the dog would fit into best, age, breed, and temperament. If you are rescuing a feisty puppy, they require you to enroll in their puppy training classes in order to make sure the puppy has the best training possible before entering your home.
GOOD NEWS
Mom Homeschools Son After Public School Brands Him ‘Handicapped’; Now She Runs Her Own School
A mother whose son was deemed “mentally handicapped” for not thriving under a rigid public school curriculum took matters into her own hands. She decided to homeschool him, and after finding a method that helped her son become his best self, she opened her own school to help others.
Ohio-born Barbara Rivera, 58, has lived in Miami for the past 40 years. She has three sons and one daughter, whom she raised alone: Damon, now 37, Morgan, 35, Adam, 32, and Michael, 31. She unofficially adopted a fifth child, Thor, when a friend received a devastating medical diagnosis and requested Barbara to take her son in.
‘School Changed Him’
In 1991, Barbara’s eldest, Damon, who was fluent in English and Spanish, was excited to start first grade.
“However, just two weeks into the school year, his teacher told me, ‘Damon is mentally handicapped, cannot read, and will require medication to learn,’” Barbara told The Epoch Times. “I was told that he confused the letters ‘b, d, p, and q’ and the numbers ‘6 and 9.’
“I was told this confusion of letters and numbers was a sign of a learning/mental disability. I disagreed. I argued that the said numbers and letters look similar and my son was only on his second week of school. The ‘diagnosis’ seemed unfair and illogical,” she added.
But Barbara had faith in her son’s ability, believing that with practice, he would eventually get it, and thus was not concerned. However, his teacher pressed for a medical evaluation.
“I let her know that if anyone so much as spoke to my son without my consent, I’d sue,” said Barbara. “I was not having Damon evaluated, ever! I was not putting Damon on mind-altering medication, ever!”
Damon, according to his mother, was honest, well-behaved, and one of the calmest children she had ever known. He wanted to grow up to be a policeman and play basketball for the NBA, which Barbara supported wholeheartedly.
Barbara felt the claim that her son was handicapped was “a slap in the face to parents of children who actually are disabled,” as he was gifted with speech, sight, and hearing abilities.
Barbara began looking closely at Damon’s public school learning materials. She was shocked to discover that his “phonics” reading pack was not based on actual phonics at all.
“My son was expected to read stories and write answers to questions before he mastered the alphabet and the individual sounds each letter or letter combination represented,” she explained.
She noticed that in his first month of school, Damon’s first-grade homework was a three-hour nightly chore. Instead of playing with his siblings, Damon “sat blank-faced at the table,” staring at work he couldn’t do. Barbara began returning Damon’s assignments to his teacher, unfinished. She’d write: “Damon cannot read this so I had him work on alphabet sounds, or we did a round of flash cards.”
“I was shocked that the only solution offered to me for Damon was an evaluation and medication,” she said. “Tutoring, flash cards, or making letters in Playdoh were not even mentioned. The teacher, principal, and school system firmly believed that my bilingual, well-behaved son was unreachable and unteachable.”
This had a huge impact on Damon.
“[He] learned one thing in first grade: he ‘learned’ he was stupid,” she lamented. “His love for coloring disappeared, as, if he colored out of line, even slightly, he would give up. His love of wearing a cape and zipping around the house disappeared.
“Once, I asked him to bring me the diaper bag for his baby brother, and he responded, ‘I hope I don’t mess this up.’ School changed him.”
Barbara believes she inherited a drive to survive from her Pilgrim ancestor John Howland, “the man who fell off the Mayflower and, by the grace of God, caught a rope and climbed back on.” One of five siblings, her father was an artist, another trait that she inherited.
More Stories
Today’s News: April 26, 2024
Today’s News: April 25, 2024
Today’s News: April 24, 2024