Today's News: March 10, 2021

World News

France hid impact of French Polynesia nuclear tests, report says

Almost ‘entire population’ of the territory infected by tests carried out from 1966 to 1996, investigation claims.

Al Jazeera – France has concealed the levels of radioactivity that French Polynesia was exposed to during French nuclear tests in the Pacific from 1966 to 1996, during which almost the “entire population” of the overseas territory was exposed, according to a report.

Online investigation site Disclose said on Tuesday that it had analysed some 2,000 pages of French military documents declassified in 2013 by the defence ministry concerning nuclear tests on the archipelago.

Disclose said it worked for more than two years alongside British modelling and documentation firm Interprt as well as the science and global security programme of the University of Princeton in the US.

It said the investigation was able to reassess the thyroid exposure to radioactive doses of the inhabitants of the Gambier Islands, Tureia and Tahiti during the six nuclear tests considered to be the most contaminating in the history of French tests in the Pacific.

Disclosure said its interpretation of existing data resulted in estimates “between two and 10 times higher” than those by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in 2006.

For example, when analysing a 1966 aerial nuclear test called Aldebaran on the Mururoa Atoll, CEA scientists assumed the inhabitants “only drank riverwater but not rainwater”.

However, many inhabitants of this archipelago drank rainwater, according to Disclose’s investigation.

For the Centaur test carried out in July 1974, “according to our calculations, based on a scientific reassessment of the doses received, approximately 110,000 people were infected, almost the entire Polynesian population at the time,” it said.

Using modelling of toxic clouds to back up the findings, Disclose said it also showed how “French authorities have concealed the true impact of nuclear testing on the health of Polynesians for more than 50 years”.

It added that examination of the data also showed that CEA estimates of radioactive soil deposits were under-estimated by more than 40 percent.

This CEA study served as the reference for the Compensation Committee for Victims of Nuclear Tests (CIVEN) for studying the files of victims of nuclear tests.

Up until now only 63 Polynesian civilians, excluding soldiers and contractors, have received compensation, according to the investigative media.

China building offensive, aggressive military, top US Pacific commander says

CNN – China is assembling an increasingly offensive military and expanding its regional footprint, as Beijing steps up efforts to supplant American military power in Asia, a top US commander warned Congress on Tuesday.

“I cannot for the life of me understand some of the capabilities that they’re putting in the field unless it is an aggressive posture,” Adm. Philip Davidson, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command, said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“I see them developing systems, capabilities and a posture that would indicate that they’re interested in aggression,” Davidson said.

Davidson, who in the hearing defended budget requests for billions of dollars of new weaponry in the Pacific, said the increased investment was necessary to deter Chinese military ambition in the region.

Describing China as “the greatest long-term strategic threat to security in the 21st century” Davidson said Beijing has been carrying out increasingly threatening moves, citing Chinese military activity around Taiwan, along its disputed border with India and even around US islands in the Pacific.

“I’m worried that they’re accelerating their ambitions … to supplant the United States and our leadership role in the rules-based international order, which they’ve long said that they want to do that by 2050. I’m worried about them moving that target closer,” Davidson said.

China is adamant its military is defensive.

“The development of China’s national defense aims to meet its rightful security needs and contribute to the growth of the world’s peaceful forces,” the country’s 2019 defense white paper said. “China will never threaten any other country or seek any sphere of influence.”

U.S. News, Politics & Government

Biden’s eyes ‘are now dead’: Bannon says President Kamala is imminent

WND – Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon believes America should prepare for a transition to a President Harris.

Bannon was speaking with the author of the book “Biden Unauthorized,” Mike McCormick, on his “War Room” video podcast, reported Conservative Brief.

Bannon pointed to a photo of Biden on the cover of McCormick’s book that was taken some years ago, showing a glint in the eyes of the longtime senator and former vice president.

His “eyes are now dead,” Bannon said of Biden, noting Harris has a much greater role than previous vice presidents, including meeting with foreign leaders.

“Kamala Harris is printed up in playbooks, always there for these meetings,” Bannon said. “Pence was never that. That’s not the role of the vice president.”

Former Secret Service member Dan Bongino, in a recent interview with Sean Hannity, said he was “hearing from people close to the situation that Biden’s cognitive decline is rapidly worsening and is becoming increasingly difficult to mask.”

“The Democrats are going to have to make a decision soon,” he said.

Democrats already have moved in Congress to restrict Biden’s authority to launch a nuclear strike as well as presidential war powers.

Arkansas Passes Near-Total Abortion Ban As Lawmakers Push For Supreme Court Case

NPR – Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Tuesday signed into law one of the country’s most restrictive abortion bans, a measure supporters hope will force the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its 1973 decision sanctioning the procedure.

Under Senate Bill 6, abortion would only be allowed in cases where it’s necessary to save the life or preserve the health of the fetus or mother. The law does not allow any exceptions in situations of rape or incest — a line that anti-abortion rights activists and lawmakers have supported in the past.

Performing or attempting to perform an abortion is considered an unclassified felony under the measure. Anyone convicted under the law could face a fine up to $100,000 or face a prison sentence.

The measure’s supporters expect the law to be challenged by abortion rights activists. It’s future is uncertain, as similar attempts to restrict access to abortion services in Ohio, Georgia, and Alabama in the last two years have failed after federal courts struck down local laws.

But that’s no matter, according to Hutchinson. He said Tuesday the goal of the legislation is to bring the fight over abortion to the Supreme Court.

Economy & Business

With pandemic relief bill, Democrats expand the welfare state

CS Monitor – As President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan speeds toward final passage this week, Democrats are hailing the bill as one of the most sweeping pieces of progressive legislation in decades – one that they say will lift millions of Americans, particularly children, out of poverty, and could herald a deeper and more long-term shift in public attitudes toward government assistance.

The bill allocates $92 billion – or about 5% of the overall price tag – toward public health initiatives, including testing, tracing, and vaccination, as the Monitor detailed last week. Nearly half of the bill’s cost goes toward the third and largest round of stimulus payments to date, as well as expanding many existing government benefits – including the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit, Medicaid coverage, and other subsidized health insurance. For an average family of four making less than $150,000 annually, that could amount to more than $10,000 in tax-free benefits, some of which will be paid out monthly. Lower-income families could receive double that.

“It’s one of the most important and transformational bills to come out of the Congress in the last quarter century,” says Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus. He says he looks forward to supporting the bill, which “meets the moment that we’re in right now.”

Some are characterizing the legislation as the largest expansion of government welfare benefits since Lyndon B. Johnson or even Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Although its key steps would need to be renewed in order to endure, the bill arguably moves the country closer to a form of universal basic income. That’s a concept that gained attention in the 2020 primaries, when Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang promoted it as the most effective way to help struggling Americans, circumventing government inefficiency by allowing individuals to solve their needs in the best way they see fit, which in turn would funnel money back into the economy.

“It is unequivocally a landmark legislation in the sense of putting the biggest dent in U.S. poverty rates and child poverty in particular, really probably since the Great Society and maybe even since the New Deal era,” says Samuel Hammond, director of poverty and welfare policy at the Niskanen Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C. In particular, he highlights the expanded child tax credit. “It’s really hard to overstate the anti-poverty impact of just that one piece in particular.”

House passes ‘Protect the Right to Organize Act,’ 225-206, sends bill to Senate – NBC News

NBC – With no major labor reform since the 1930s, Democrats are seizing on the opportunity to strengthen workers’ rights — including their ability to unionize.

The House voted 225-206 Tuesday to pass the Protect the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, the most pro-worker labor reform in decades, according to the bill’s sponsors. It faces an uphill battle in the 50/50 split Senate; President Joe Biden has said labor reform is one of his administration’s top priorities.

As a presidential candidate, Biden stressed that he would be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.” Last week, while Amazon workers gathered in Alabama to vote to unionize, Biden called it “a vitally important choice.”

“As America grapples with the deadly pandemic, the economic crisis and the reckoning on race — what it reveals is the deep disparities that still exist in our country,” Biden said on Twitter. “I urge Congress to send [the PRO Act] to my desk so we can summon a new wave of worker power and create an economy that works for everyone.”

The PRO Act would strengthen workers’ rights to strike for better wages and working conditions, strengthen safeguards to ensure that workers can hold fair union elections and allow the National Labor Relations Board to fine bosses who violate workers’ rights.

The House passed a version of the bill last year, but it was dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate. This time, Republicans are all but certain to filibuster the legislation, which many major business groups oppose. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it would “destabilize America’s workplaces and impose a long list of dangerous changes to labor law.”

The legislation marks an effort to strengthen labor unions in the wake of eroding membership.

Bitcoin rally extends into fifth day as major players voice support for cryptocurrency

RT – The world’s top digital asset, bitcoin, continued to rally on Wednesday, pushing above $56,000. The surge comes as major pullback in US government-bond yields sparks demand for risky assets like cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin was trading at $56,166 at 2:46pm GMT, marking a day-by-day gain of more than three percent, according to CoinDesk.

The cryptocurrency climbed for the fifth straight day on Wednesday, hitting a record high over the past month as support keeps on building among major financial institutions and corporate giants.

Venezuela Issues Million Bolivar Bill Worth 50 Cents As Hyperinflation Rages

ZeroHedge – Venezuela’s currency has lost 99.999% of its value during the six years of hyperinflation, forcing the country to issue larger banknotes. On Friday, the nation’s central bank announced new plans to unveil the highest valued banknote of one million bolivars.

The Central Bank of Venezuela tweeted Friday that “three new banknotes will be incorporated into the current Monetary Cone, as part of the expansion of the current family of monetary species.” As early as this week, it will introduce banknotes worth 200,000, 500,000, and one million bolivars. For those wondering how much one million bolivars is worth in terms of US dollars, well, it’s around 50 cents.

When the central bank revealed the new bills, Director and Partner at Ecoanalitica, economist Asdrubal Oliveros, said the banknote is good for nothing more than public transport – one of the few services reliant on the paper bolivar.

For example, here is Bloomberg’s Cafe Con Leche Index – which tracks the price of a cup of coffee served piping hot at a cafe in eastern Caracas… it now costs 2.7975 million bollivars (up 3000% from a year ago)…

During hyperinflation, the country has imported greater and greater amounts of paper to issue more banknotes. Venezuela imported 71 tons of paper from Italian money printer Fedrigioni (majority-owned by US Private Equity giant Bain Capital) to print new bolivars in late 2020.

The need for ever-larger bills and constant devaluations in Venezuela is a direct result of an ever-weakening currency, and interannual inflation was running at 2,665% as of January.

“These new bills will complement and optimize the current denominations, to meet the requirements of the national economy,” the central bank said in a statement.

As the Venezuelan currency rapidly depreciates, Venezuela’s government is preparing to move to a fully digital economy – whatever that means for the country which a couple years ago adopted some weird cryptocurrency as the de facto Petro currency of the state to… perplexing consequences, as hyperinflation in this South American socialist paradise (coming soon to every socialist paradise nears you) continues to rage on.

We’ve seen hyperinflation episodes in Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The real question as the US dives deeper into MMT, or Magic Money Theory, will that one day result in a worthless dollar and soaring inflation?

Energy & Environment

Delingpole: Now Corona Masks Are Polluting Beaches and Coral Reefs. Will They be Banned?

Breitbart – A BBC film crew has recorded heartbreaking footage of a once-beautiful coral reef in the Philippines choked with floating PPE equipment and discarded surgical masks.

Clearly this is a serious and growing problem.

According to the BBC report:

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is washing up on coral reefs close to the Philippine capital, Manila. According to an estimate by the Asian Development Bank, during the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak, the city could have been generating up to 280 tonnes of extra medical waste per day.

Environmental groups are warning that the plastic inside face masks is breaking down and being consumed by marine wildlife. They’re urging the Philippine government to improve its handling of medical waste, to prevent further pollution of the seas.

Perhaps one day, we will hear whispery-voiced, gorilla-hugging Malthusian Sir David Attenborough talking wistfully about this threat to the marine environment on one of his politicised nature documentaries…

…but I’m not holding my breath.

That’s because I can’t help noticing a distinct correlation between eco-fascism and mask-fascism. That is, those individuals and institutions — such as the BBC — which have been pushing for the most draconian responses to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic (masks, lockdowns, quarantines, etc) also happen to those which have been pushing hardest for an extreme environmentalist agenda.

Attenborough’s 2017 Blue Planet II series successfully generated much public hysteria about the plastic crisis facing the world’s oceans. The then UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove pronounced himself ‘haunted’ by shocking footage, including a dead whale allegedly killed by plastic. The documentary prompted a global moral panic about the use of plastic.

In May 2019, surfing the wave of that Attenborough-generated anti-plastics moral panic, Gove pushed forward frivolous, virtue-signalling legislation banning plastic drinking straws, plastic drinks stirrers and plastic-stemmed cotton buds.

I’d love to see Gove’s environmental conscience being similarly stirred by that horrifying mask-pollution footage from the Philippines. A ban on masks — all masks — forever. What a blessed relief that would be

Science & Technology

TikTok implementing features to ‘promote kindness’, will tell users to ‘reconsider posting’ mean comments

RT – Popular short-video platform TikTok has unveiled a series of new features it says have been designed to encourage positivity on the platform and crack down on abusive comments.

The company announced in a blog post on Wednesday that it would be implementing more comment controls on the app, which is hugely popular with teens, as well as a feature that would ask users to “reconsider” if they are about to post a negative comment.

Claiming its goal is to “encourage” users to treat others with respect and “promote kindness,” TikTok said the new feature will ask people “to reconsider posting a comment that may be inappropriate or unkind” and allow them the opportunity to edit their comment before making it public.

Health

US to purchase 100 million more Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses

CNN – President Joe Biden will announce Wednesday that he is directing the US Department of Health and Human Services to purchase an additional 100 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, a White House official confirms to CNN.

The administration and the pharmaceutical giant still need to negotiate when these 100 million doses will be available, another person familiar with the matter told CNN. This source predicts it will likely happen later this year as Johnson & Johnson works to ramp up production.

The New York Times first reported the expected announcement.

The White House told governors Tuesday to expect fewer than 400,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine next week, far below what they initially expected would be available.

Biden will make the announcement during a meeting this afternoon with Johnson & Johnson and Merck, which is helping to manufacture the Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine under a deal brokered by the White House.

Alaska makes Covid vaccinations available to anyone 16 or older

It is the first state in the country to drop eligibility requirements, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said.

NBC – Alaska has become the first state to drop eligibility requirements for Covid-19 vaccines and allow anyone 16 or older who lives or works in the state to get a vaccine, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said Tuesday.

Dr. Anne Zink, the state’s chief medical officer, said officials were seeing open vaccine appointments and wanted to act to allow as many people who want a vaccine to get one. More appointments will be added as vaccine is moved around the state and additional doses come in, she said.

“This does feel like a gigantic milestone in so many ways to get to the point where we can offer protection for anyone who wants it in the state,” Zink said during a news conference with Dunleavy.

Action Item: Act Now America: Ask Key Congressmen To Formally Investigate the CDC’s Conduct During COVID-19

Your voice matters; stand with us to demand transparency.

Call to Action

There is nothing more important to effective public health policy than having accurate and verifiable data.

It appears, however, that the CDC irreparably compromised COVID-19 data quality during a time of public crisis by 1) abruptly implementing new procedures for capturing COVID-19 mortality data via a March 24, 2020 document from the CDC’s National Vital Statistics System, thereby significantly altering death certificate reporting and 2) adopting the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists’ April 15, 2020 position paper for defining what constitutes a COVID case — without implementing safeguards to ensure that single individuals would not be counted multiple times, thus altering case counts and subsequent data.

More than 15,000 hours of investigative research shows that these practices have significantly affected COVID-19 data aggregation and interpretation. Moreover, the CDC’s actions appear to be in violation of three federal laws: the Administrative Procedures Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, and the Information Quality Act — laws that were specifically put into place to protect the welfare of the millions of Americans whose affairs are regulated by federal government agencies.

Death Certificates – Now and Then

From 2003 to March of 2020, pre-existing/comorbid conditions were reported in Part I, not Part II, of death certificates. This can impact statistical aggregation, according to certified death-reporting clerks that were interviewed. The sudden change in death recording protocols is significant in that it not only altered data, but it was made without official notification in the Federal Register to initiate federal oversight and allow for mandatory public comment.

Compromised Data Is Far More Than Numbers; It Affects Each and Every American

The CDC’s apparent failure to follow established laws comes with great costs to society. Had the CDC not changed course and compromised COVID-19 data, our state of emergency conditions and responses would have likely been vastly different — with considerably fewer negative consequences to the American public.

Over the past year, countless loved ones have been forced to die all alone, inflicting significant trauma on them and their family members. Pregnant women have been forced to birth all alone and subjected to other CDC policies that are not evidence-based. Businesses that individuals spent their lifetime’s building have been forced to close. Children have been unable to attend school. Adults and children have been separated from their peers and their systems of support. Some individuals have been unable to get needed medical assistance; others are stuck at home with their abusers.

In short, the COVID-19 crisis has caused unprecedented upheaval across the globe, fueling an increase in poverty, food insecurity, financial insecurity, depression, mental illness, suicides, child abuse, domestic violence, substance and alcohol abuse, and more.

It’s Time To Take Back Public Health and Reclaim Our Lives

With your help, Stand for Health Freedom wants to make sure that such grim occurrences in history never happen again. Recently, we sent letters requesting a formal hearing and investigation into the CDC’s conduct during COVID-19 to the leadership of key congressional committee members in the Senate and House. Now we need you to do the same.

Taking action is easy. With the click of a button, you can let our federal officials know that the CDC’s actions are unacceptable; there’s no room for compromising accuracy and transparency in data, especially in a time of crisis when the population is vulnerable to government overreach and abuse of power. Your participation in this request is significant. Please click below to take action now.

Act now to hold the CDC accountable for its actions, which have affected countless lives.

With just one click, you can send a pre-drafted, customizable email to key congressional committee members urging them to investigate the CDC’s conduct during COVID-19. The email recipients are in leadership or are friendly members of the House or Senate committee that is charged with the responsibility of CDC oversight.

Take action here: https://standforhealthfreedom.com/action/investigate-the-cdc/