WORLD NEWS
Afghanistan Watchdog Reports Widespread Organ Harvesting Amid Famine
As the U.S. government diverts military equipment and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, the famine in Afghanistan has become so dire that some people are engaging in organ harvesting and human trafficking to survive, according to the latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The number of people in need of humanitarian assistance increased to 24.4 million this year from 18.4 million a year ago, the April 30 SIGAR report stated.
The United Nations declared a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan last December. The SIGAR report concurred, adding that the crisis is worsening.
“NGOs have reported some families resorting to selling kidneys or other organs, and even selling their children to survive,” SIGAR said. “Media reports indicate that organ sales have become particularly widespread in Afghanistan, with the price of a human kidney dropping by over half due to high supply since the Taliban seized power.”
The SIGAR report attributed some of the increase in starvation to a historically severe drought.
“The onset of spring traditionally brings relief from food shortages; however, with Afghanistan in the grips of the worst drought in three decades, below-average winter precipitation means the spring harvest is unlikely to improve food security for vulnerable families,” the report said.
SIGAR also partly attributed the war in Ukraine to the worsening crisis in Afghanistan.
“The spillover effects of the war in Ukraine threaten to worsen the crisis in Afghanistan, as food and fuel prices surge and supply chains falter,” the report said. “These disruptions drove a 9-percent increase in the price of fuel in the second week of March alone.”
Additionally, the report said that some humanitarian assistance is being sent to Ukraine instead of Afghanistan.
China’s Technocracy In Full Bloom: Packs Of Drones Hunting Humans
The faux cover for advanced drones that can fly and hunt in packs is that they will be used in rescue operations. However, there is no technology in China that has not ultimately been used for warfare or suppression of their own citizens. These drones can be easily fitted with explosives or other weapons capable of disabling and/or killing their target. ⁃ TN Editor
Terrifying footage has emerged showing Chinese super drones hunting down humans in packs, sparking fears they could soon be primed to kill.
The breakthrough achievement has prompted concerns that they could put to sinister use.
A team from Zhejiang University in China released incredible footage of 10 lightweight drones filmed moving swiftly between trunks, uneven ground, weeds and tangled branches.
The impressive bit of hardware runs off an algorithm and charts surroundings in real-time meaning it can readjust its flight path in an instant, according to The Telegraph.
According to experts, these high-tech drones update every few milliseconds which means they can avoid colliding with other objects and can quickly regroup with others to flight with super efficiency.
And because they don’t need GPS signal, they can be easily deployed in areas with poor satellite coverage.
Experts say the tech will make surveying remote wildlife or hunting for survivors in disaster zones much easier.
But in a chilling turn of events, the crew at Zhejiang University also trialled the drones on a man making his way through a cluster of trees.
The bots were also to keep focus even when the man hid behind objects to shield himself from the cameras.
Addressing the breakthrough in the journal Science Robotics, researchers said: “The swarms’ capability of navigation and coordination in these films has attracted and inspired numerous researchers. Here, we take a step forward to such a future.”
Dr Jonathan Aitken from Sheffield University hailed the development, telling New Scientist it was an “excellent achievement”.
“To achieve a quality map, built from a distributed collection of robots, of the detail demonstrated is an excellent piece of engineering.
“To couple this with the additional successful navigation and avoidance of obstacles, and critically other members of the swarm, is an excellent achievement.”
It’s not the first time China’s tech developments have been a cause for concern.
Last year, Beijing unveiled a terrifying new war machine that can unleash swarms of “suicide” drones at troops and tanks.
A clip showed dozens of the deadly devices being launched from a weapons system mounted to the back of a truck and also being dropped from helicopters.
The China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology’s video showed 48 attack weapons being launched with compressed air before using an electric propeller to fly towards and then overwhelm their targets.
Each carries highly-explosive charges designed to rip through tanks and annihilate armoured vehicles.
Explosion at Luxury Havana Hotel Kills 22, Injures Dozens
A powerful explosion apparently caused by a natural gas leak killed at least 22 people, including a child, and injured dozens Friday when it blew away outer walls from a luxury hotel in the heart of Cuba’s capital.
No tourists were staying at Havana’s 96-room Hotel Saratoga because it was undergoing renovations, Havana Gov. Reinaldo García Zapata told the Communist Party newspaper Granma.
“It’s not a bomb or an attack. It is a tragic accident,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who visited the site, said in a tweet.
Dr. Julio Guerra Izquierdo, chief of hospital services at the Ministry of Health, told reporters that at least 74 people had been injured. Among them were 14 children, according to a tweet from Díaz-Canel’s office.
Díaz-Canel said families in buildings near the hotel affected by the explosion had been transferred to safer locations.
Cuban state TV reported the explosion was caused by a truck that had been supplying natural gas to the hotel, but did not provide details on how the gas ignited. A white tanker truck was seen being removed from the site as rescue workers hosed it down with water.
The blast sent smoke billowing into the air around the hotel with people on the street staring in awe, one saying “Oh my God,” and cars honking their horns as they sped away from the scene, video showed.
Cuba’s national health minister, José Ángel Portal, told The Associated Press the number of injured could rise as the search continues for people who may be trapped in the rubble of the 19th century structure in the Old Havana neighborhood of the city.
“We are still looking for a large group of people who may be under the rubble,” Lt. Col. Noel Silva of the Fire Department said.
Sinn Fein hails ‘new era’ with historic victory in Northern Ireland election
The Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, which seeks unification with Ireland, hailed a “new era” Saturday for Northern Ireland as it captured the largest number of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time in a historic win.
With almost all votes counted from Thursday’s local U.K. election, Sinn Fein secured 27 of the Assembly’s 90 seats. The Democratic Unionist Party, which has dominated Northern Ireland’s legislature for two decades, captured 24 seats. The victory means Sinn Fein is entitled to the post of first minister in Belfast for the first time since Northern Ireland was founded as a Protestant-majority state in 1921.
The centrist Alliance Party, which doesn’t identify as either nationalist or unionist, saw huge surge in support and was set to become the other big winner in the vote, claiming 17 seats.
US, G-7 Partners Impose New Sanctions on Moscow Ahead of Russia’s Victory Day
The United States, the European Union, and Group of Seven (G-7) allies on May 8 agreed to impose fresh sanctions against Russia, including penalizing state-controlled media, barring Western management consulting services in Russia, and tightening export controls.
The sanctions came a day before Russia’s Victory Day, which celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II.
On May 8, U.S. President Joe Biden participated in a virtual conference with G-7 leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to the White House. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the United States make up the G-7.
The leaders released a statement at the conclusion of their meeting pledging their support for Ukraine and imposing fresh sanctions on Russia.
“The G-7 and Ukraine stand united in this difficult time and in their quest to ensure Ukraine’s democratic, prosperous future. We remain united in our resolve that President Putin must not win his war against Ukraine,” the statement reads.
The following is a list of sanctions on Russia announced at the meeting:
- Sanctions on Russian TV Stations
- Banning Consulting and Audit Services
- Sanctions on Russian Oil
- Additional Export Controls
- Sanctions on Elites
‘Unprecedented’ Bird Flu Epidemic Ripping Through Canada
Canadian poultry farmers are facing fear and stress as a highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 avian influenza is currently circulating in both wild and domestic flocks across North America.
According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency poultry and egg producers in Canada have lost more than 1.7 million birds to avian influenza since late 2021. That tally includes both birds that have died of the virus and birds that have been euthanized.’
David Hyink, an Alberta chicken farmer, checks his barns each day with a sense of trepidation. He knows if the disease were to turn up on his property, it would mean the loss of his entire flock.
Avian influenza has a high mortality rate, and those birds at outbreak sites that don’t die from the disease are humanely euthanized to prevent the spread of the virus.
“While we haven’t had it on our farm, and I hope we don’t, it just appears it could be anybody,” Hyink said. ”It could be us next, the farm next to us, you just don’t know.”
Alberta is Canada’s hardest hit province with 900,000 birds dead and 23 farms affected. Ontario is the second hardest hit with 23 affected farms and 425,000 birds dead.
Outbreaks of the virus have turned up now in every province except Prince Edward Island. Across the country, farmers are being encouraged to keep birds indoors, restrict visitors and ramp up biosecurity measures to help halt the spread.
The virus can be spread between birds through direct contact, but it also spreads easily from wild bird droppings and can be carried into commercial flocks on the feet of workers or on equipment.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Radical Abortion Activists Gather Outside Supreme Court Justices’ Homes
A group of radical pro-abortion activists gathered outside the homes of multiple U.S. Supreme Court Justices on Saturday to protest the Court’s expected decision to repeal Roe v. Wade.
According to a draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito leaked to the media on Monday, the Court is poised to overturn the landmark abortion rights case.
Protesters have taken drastic measures, like blocking church entrances and now showing up on the doorsteps of Supreme Court Justices’ homes.
Protesters marched in front of Chief Justice John Roberts’ home and reportedly chanted, “Keep abortion safe and legal.” Other chants included, “Pro-life is a lie, you don’t care if people die.”
Protesters also drew images of hangers in chalk on the street in front of Roberts’ home.
Enough Fraudulent Votes Identified to Change 2020 Election Outcome: Dinesh D’Souza
Analysis of cell phone records performed by an election intelligence group shows that thousands of fraudulent ballots were deposited in mail-in drop boxes during the 2020 election, an amount sufficient to change the outcome of the election, said Dinesh D’Souza, director and writer of the documentary “2000 Mules.”
Many people, including D’Souza, were baffled by numerous anomalies occurring in the 2020 election especially by the sudden stopping of the vote count on the election night followed by a remarkable turnaround the next morning, the filmmaker said.
He was reluctant however to accept any supposition of fraud thinking that “an anomaly is an unlikely event.” He pondered that “Trump could have won the bellwether counties and somehow still lost the election. He could have gained with working-class voters and Hispanics, but maybe he lost more suburban voters.
“There are scenarios in which I could see that it’s possible that Trump lost. It wasn’t obvious to me that Trump won,” D’Souza said on EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program.
>> Related: In Less Than 12 Hours, “2000 Mules” Grosses More Than One Million Dollars on Locals and Rumble
> D’Souza Film Takes Proof of 2020 Election Fraud to Mass Audience – A capacity crowd of about 200 people filled a theater in Macomb County, Michigan, to view D’Souza’s documentary motion picture “2000 Mules.”
The film can be viewed online starting on May 7.
Michigan Police Seize Voting Machine During Investigation Into Possible Election Breaches
Police officers in Michigan took custody of a voting machine as the state expands its investigation into what it’s described as possible unauthorized access to election equipment.
Michigan State Police and officials with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office seized an Irving Township voting tabulator on April 29, township supervisor Jamie Knight told The Epoch Times in an email.
The seizure was done pursuant to a search warrant, she said.
“The Township intends to fully cooperate with law enforcement, and the Township attorneys have been in contact with the Michigan State Police regarding this matter. The Township has no further comment at this time,” Knight added.
An investigation was launched earlier this year at the request of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who said her office received reports that an unnamed third party “was allowed to access vote tabulator components and technology in Roscommon County.”
“Michigan law is clear about the security threats that emerge when anyone gains unauthorized access to our election machines or technology, and I will have no tolerance for those who seek to illegally tamper with our voting equipment,” Benson, a Democrat, said at the time.
Michigan State Police Lieutenant Derrick Carroll confirmed that the probe has expanded beyond Roscommon County, which declined to comment.
“As we found out more information we’ve expanded our area to see if any other places were compromised,” Carroll told Reuters. “We have gone to other regions.”
Carroll told The Epoch Times in an email that the probe has expanded but declined to share any details.
Hispanic Voters Are Losing Faith in the Democratic Party: Poll
The support of Hispanic voters at the midterms later this year could prove to be “extremely instrumental” in turning the tide of liberal policies of the current administration, a conservative Hispanic group says.
According to a Quinnipiac University poll published in April, only 26 percent of Hispanic survey participants approved of President Joe Biden’s job performance. This marks the lowest approval rating of any demographic group.
The Epoch Times spoke to Santiago Avila, national vice chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly (RNHA), who offered a number of reasons why support among Hispanic voters is plummeting.
While Hispanics have historically registered as Democrats, Avila said their values are generally conservative. “[Many Hispanics] grow up being told that Republicans are for the rich and Democrats are for the poor.” What they should understand, he said, is that “Democrats are more liberal, and Republicans are more conservative.”
Having spoken to many different left-leaning Hispanics, Avila said, “they are really beginning to feel like the Democratic party has become too extreme to the point where it’s starting to scare some of them.” Many are beginning to turn away from the Democratic party because “they’re getting vibes of a communist Cuba and socialist Venezuela here in America. “
As a result, Avila said Hispanics are going to be “extremely instrumental” in the upcoming midterm elections. “They are starting to come to the realization that their conservative values are in opposition to what the media has been trying to feed them in favor of Biden and the Democrats.”
RNHA’s National Chairman Ronnie Lucero agreed, pointing to the liberal policies of the current administration as a problem. More often than not, “a lot of changes in policies are reflected against the values of the Hispanic community,” he said.
Lucero said progressive leaders push for abortion and the abolishment of the Second Amendment, for example. “The Hispanic community is very pro-life and does not want a power grab [that restricts the lawful possession of firearms],” he said. “These are issues Hispanics want to speak up, stand up, and be vocal about when it comes time to vote.”
FBI Trying to Fire Agents Who Attended Jan. 6 Rally: Whistleblowers
House Republican lawmakers say that whistleblowers have come forward to allege that the FBI is trying to terminate bureau employees who were present at a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.
“The employees did not enter the United States Capitol and have not been charged with any crime,” but are allegedly still being fired, the House Judiciary GOP wrote in a Twitter post on May 6, citing unnamed whistleblowers at the bureau.
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Republicans confirmed reports that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s Office is considering investigating whether the FBI revoked the security clearances of agents who attended the rally last year. Republicans in previous letters had argued that revoking their security passes essentially forces them out of a job because clearance is needed to work at the FBI.
“FBI employees do not give up their rights to engage in political speech activity,” reads the May 6 letter, which was signed by House Judiciary Committee ranking GOP member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “We have serious concerns that the FBI appears to be retaliating against employees for engaging in political speech disfavored by FBI leadership.”
An example cited in the letter was an employee who had worked for the FBI for more than a decade and had previously served in the U.S. military for 20 years. While on leave, this unnamed employee and others attended public events in Washington, and they didn’t enter the Capitol building, nor have they been charged with any crime, according to the whistleblowers.
With the latest actions that are allegedly being taken against those employees, Republicans believe that it creates “the appearance that the FBI may be retaliating” against them, the letter reads.
80 ‘Suspicious Actors’ and ‘Material Witnesses’ Under Scrutiny by Jan. 6 Defense Attorneys
Court filing suggests entrapment operation run against the Oath Keepers by highly coordinated group
Defense attorneys are seeking to identify and investigate 80 suspicious actors and material witnesses, some of whom allegedly ran an entrapment operation against the Oath Keepers on January 6, 2021, and committed crimes including the removal of security fencing, breaching police lines, attacking officers, and inciting crowds to storm into the Capitol.
In a motion (pdf) and supplement (pdf) filed after 11 p.m. on May 5 in federal court in Washington, attorney Brad Geyer listed 80 people, some of whom he said could be government agents or provocateurs. The people are seen on video operating in a coordinated fashion across the Capitol grounds on January 6, the attorney alleged.
Geyer’s suggestion of an entrapment scheme will resonate with dozens of January 6 defense attorneys, coming shortly after two men were acquitted of an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). There was a hung jury on charges against two other defendants. The jury in that case was allowed to consider FBI entrapment as a defense.
Geyer, who represents Oath Keepers defendant Kenneth Harrelson, is seeking a court order from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta compelling federal prosecutors to help identify the individuals and disclose whether they were working for law enforcement or any government agency on January 6. Geyer wrote that the information is exculpatory, which compels the government to produce it. Other Oath Keepers defendants are expected to join in the motion.
The May 5 filing comes on the heels of an April 12 Oath Keepers motion that alleged at least 20 “assets” from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were embedded in the crowds on January 6.
An Indiana man who was sentenced to four years of incarceration and three years of supervised release for a drug charge from 2017 insists the “judge took into account” his presence in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, to punish him “two times.”
In February 2021, 33-year-old Kash Kelly of Hammond, Indiana, was sentenced for conspiracy with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana when he was a Latin King gang member in Chicago. The gang was founded there in the mid-20th century and has become a major drug trafficking organization, according to the Department of Justice.
According to the January 2017 complaint against the Latin Kings, charges against nearly 40 other gang members included arson, racketeering, and murder. Kelly was charged only with drug conspiracy and was allowed to go home on pretrial release. But he’s currently being held at the Central Detention Facility in Washington pending his trial for misdemeanor charges from Jan. 6, along with several other Jan. 6 defendants.
While Kelly was on pretrial release in 2021, he traveled to Washington to protest against the certification of the 2020 election. As a condition of his pretrial release, Kelly was allowed to travel throughout the country as long as prosecutors approved the trip and knew where Kelly was going and how long he would be there, according to court documents. While Kelly said he received permission from his attorney to go to the Capitol for the protest, federal investigators claim they gave no such permission and that Kelly misled them by saying he would be going to Texas, not Washington.
According to the criminal complaint filed in the United States District Court on Jan. 15, 2021, Kelly has been charged with two misdemeanor offenses related to his presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6: Knowingly entering a restricted area and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Kelly said police invited him in, and several videos from the Capitol security cameras show protesters walking in calmly with police ushering them forward.
According to Kelly, the severity of his current sentence had more to do with the judge’s prejudice regarding the Jan. 6 protest in 2021 than the 2017 conspiracy drug charge. Statements made by the judge and prosecuting attorney during the course of Kelly’s sentencing hearing, and other court documents, appear to support his claim.
Elon Musk’s Mother Criticizes NYT Article on Son’s ‘White Privilege’ Growing Up in South Africa
Maye Musk, the mother of Elon Musk, criticized a recent New York Times article targeting her son after it claimed that Musk grew up detached from apartheid-era atrocities in South Africa.
Published Thursday, the NY Times alleged that Musk had “white privilege,” grew up in South Africa’s white communities, and was sheltered from the segregation and propaganda that was pushed by South Africa’s government at that time. It came about a week after Musk, who has described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” and Twitter announced that he would purchase the social media company for $44 billion.
The article included interviews with Musk’s old classmates, including one named Melanie Cheary who claimed that “we were really clueless as white South African teenagers. Really clueless.”
His mother, a former model, criticized the paper for suggesting Musk, who left South Africa when he was 17, could have done something about the apartheid-era government’s policies. The apartheid government lasted between 1948 and 1990.
“In South Africa, if you publicly opposed apartheid, you went to jail. In Russia, if you publicly oppose the war, you go to jail. @nytimes, are you going to blame children for decisions made by governments?” she wrote.
Musk, Twitter Sued by Florida Pension Fund Seeking to Delay $44 Billion Takeover
A Florida pension fund has sued Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter Inc. in a bid to halt the self-avowed “free speech absolutist” from finalizing his $44 billion takeover bid of the social media platform.
In the proposed class-action lawsuit, brought by the Orlando Police Pension Fund and filed in Delaware Chancery Court, the plaintiffs claim that Musk cannot legally finalize his takeover until at least 2025 unless holders of two-thirds of shares not owned by him sign off on the deal.
The complaint claims that Delaware law prohibits a quick takeover because Musk has agreements with other big Twitter shareholders to support the buyout, including Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and Musk’s financial adviser Morgan Stanley. Dorsey owns 2.4 percent of Twitter shares while Morgan Stanley owns around 8.8 percent.
When Musk took a 9 percent stake in Twitter, he became an “interested stockholder” and his takeover bid requires the delay, the lawsuit claims.
Besides Musk, the lawsuit also names the Twitter board as defendants.
Texas Group Successfully Blocks ‘Harmful’ School Sex-Ed Program Used in 35 States
A Texas group is celebrating a win in their fight to block what they consider “harmful” sex education lessons in some Corpus Christi schools.
But it’s a bittersweet victory, say parents with the Nueces County chapter of County Citizens Defending Freedom.
That’s because a local nonprofit receives $412,208 annually through a two-year federal grant to persuade school districts throughout five South Texas counties to adopt the Making Proud Choices! (MPC) curriculum.
That U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grant program aims to spread that curriculum, and others like it, throughout the country. The stated goal is to cut down on teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
Yet an international watchdog group says the real goal is motivated by a global movement by the “sexual left” to sexualize children and change what’s accepted as normal sexual behavior by targeting the young in the United States and around the world.
Schools here and in many other countries already have adopted curricula that further those goals, often without the knowledge of parents, said Sharon Slater of Family Watch International. The 23-year-old nonprofit has “consultative status” with the United Nations and educates world leaders and diplomats about policies affecting families.
DeSantis Signs Historic $1.2 Billion Tax Relief Package That Benefits Families
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a $1.2 billion tax relief bill on May 6 to help Floridians—especially families with children—fight what he called “Biden-flation headwinds.”
“This is actually the largest tax relief in the history of the state of Florida,” DeSantis said in Ocala, dwarfed by a wall of disposable diapers and surrounded by families with small children. “The tax relief you’re going to see is breaks for really critical needs like gas, diapers, disaster supplies, tools for skilled trades, and recreational activities. Families are going to be able to save for things that really matter for them.”
He said that even though wages have gone up by 8 percent, the cost of goods has gone up 8.5 percent. He believes, however, the percentage is closer to 10 percent on things that are necessary for “daily lives” like fuel, groceries, and utilities.
“That’s where we find ourselves having to fight,” he told the crowd. “I think really this is a federally induced inflationary spiral.”
Because Florida does not have a state income tax, the governor said they had to figure out ways for tax relief.
Signing HB 7071 —which covers a wide array of tax holidays—will “make an impact to help mitigate the harm that’s been caused by this inflationary spiral,” he said.
Breggin: The Global Kidnapping of American Medicine Turns Hospitals into Killing Fields
It is imperative for Americans to recognize that global Technocracy is the clear and present danger to all of society, and to force policy makers to reject all technocrat policies across the board. The pandemic assault is only the first wave of attacks in a larger coup to launch the Great Reset by 2030. The clock is ticking. ⁃ TN Editor
The terror campaigns, the bullying, the arbitrary and ever-changing orders coming from the World Health Organization and our federal and state administrations have resulted in the destruction of the world-class system of American medical care.
In the U.S., in March 2020, we were told that we needed to lock down for two weeks to protect our hospitals from being swamped with sick and dying covid-19 patients. We were also told assertively that the new pandemic could cause up to 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. alone. That model was flawed at the outset. Author Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College London was known for his earlier “sensational death estimates from mad cow disease, bird flu, and swine flu.” Three strikes, and he should have been out. Instead of striking him out, his flawed model provided much of the justification for establishing and enforcing the draconian lockdown rules.
Since then, citizens have been betrayed again and again by the public health system, representatives of medicine and public health in the U.S., including Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, directors of the CDC, NIH, and executives with the Department of Health and Human Services. We have learned of multiple betrayals and manipulations of data by international medical journals, universities, medical centers, and public health officials. The pandemic prevention and treatments were ordered by the World Health Organization, a specialized agency chartered by the United Nations to protect global health and coordinate international health issues, including epidemics or pandemics.
If medical professionals had held the line, had upheld their ethics and the Hippocratic Oath, had demanded rational treatments for their patients, and had stood up to bullying by their administrators and state public health officials, the local health care quality would have been preserved, and the cold, heartless quality of assembly line medical “care” would have been rejected.
In America, with all its patient rights protections, there are crisis cases of very ill patients admitted in life-threatening distress to hospitals around the country whose families request medical interventions for covid-19 symptoms. Hospitals have refused family requests and personal physician demands for the best available treatments.
There are instances where hospitals are placing patients on Do Not Resuscitate orders, despite the family and patient refusing them. Some cases have been won in court, and patients have been saved from near-death by the treatments the courts ordered hospitals to deliver. Other patients had died when nothing moved the hospital to change its course of action.
“It’s therapeutic nihilism to say that doctors can do nothing,” Dr. Paul Marik said. “Supportive care is no care at all.” Dr. Marik, sixty-three, is the endowed professor at the Eastern Virginia Medical School and a world-renowned clinician-researcher. He has been described as “America’s most published critical care doctor [who] made some of the greatest breakthroughs of the pandemic, saving countless lives globally.”
Clarence Thomas Delivers a Message to Roe v. Wade Leaker
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday defended judicial independence, arguing that government institutions mustn’t allow themselves to be strong-armed into delivering outcomes that people demand, according to news outlets.
Thomas made the remarks at a May 6 judicial conference in Atlanta, where he was asked by a moderator to discuss the biggest threats to judicial independence, according to Law360.
In his response, Thomas decried what he described as an erosion of respect for the high court and made an apparent reference to protests that erupted after the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion suggesting the court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, with major implications for access to abortion.
He said that as a society, “we are becoming addicted to wanting particular outcomes, not living with the outcomes we don’t like,” according to Reuters.
“We can’t be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want. The events from earlier this week are a symptom of that,” he added.
Illegal Aliens in Massachussets Close to Getting Driver’s Licenses
A bill that would put driver’s licenses in the wallets of illegal immigrants has been approved by the Massachusetts Senate.
The 32 to 8 vote that propelled the bill is enough to override a veto by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who has rejected several similar measures in the past. Baker has expressed worry that fake documents will be used to obtain driver’s licenses in Massachusetts.
Echoing that concern, Republicans who voted against the legislation on Tuesday called it an unfair reward for people living in the country illegally.
Republican Sen. Bruce Tarr said he was against the measure because there are no real means of verifying the true identity of the illegal aliens applying for a license.
“If the documents presented for identification purposes are not in English, then they have to have a certified translation, but the bill doesn’t mention who does the translation,” Tarr said at the Senate hearing on Thursday
The approval of driver’s licenses for illegal aliens is historic even for a liberal state like Massachusetts.
For 15 years, immigration advocates unsuccessfully pushed Massachusetts to issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Last year, the illegal immigrants themselves have held large, bold protests demanding driver’s licenses.
At a protest outside of the state capital in Boston, Yamila Ruiz, a native and legal resident of Argentina, spoke about the trauma she experienced when she was 12 watching her father being arrested for driving without a valid U.S. license.
“We had to live through the agonizing fear he was going to be deported and that we would never see him again,” said Ruiz.
There are an estimated 200,000 illegal aliens living in Massachusetts.
PR Giant Zeno Denies Urging High-Profile Clients to ‘Stay Silent’ on Roe v. Wade Leak
Multinational PR firm Zeno, whose blue-chip clients include brands like Coca-Cola and Starbucks, has responded to reports that it was advising clients to stay neutral on the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that suggests Roe v. Wade is on track to be overturned.
Jason Morley, Senior Vice President of Zeno Group, shared a statement with The Epoch Times on behalf of Zeno, which indicated that the PR firm’s guidance to staff and clients “has been misconstrued by some as telling clients to stay silent.”
“This is simply not true, and does not accurately represent our point of view,” said the statement provided by Morley.
Trump Backs Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania Rally
Former President Donald Trump expressed support for Republican Senate Candidate Mehmet Oz during a rally in Pennsylvania, insisting that the GOP member is someone who believes in the ideals of MAGA.
“Dr. Oz has led an enormously successful career on television, and now he’s running to save our country, just like I do,” Trump said in his speech on May 6. “Dr. Oz is a man who truly believes in Make America Great Again or the MAGA movement.”
The celebrity doctor is due to compete in the Republican primary in less than two weeks. At the rally, Trump also highlighted his recent endorsement success, with the May 3 Republican primary seeing all 22 of his endorsed candidates in Indiana and Ohio win their races.
Despite Trump’s endorsement, Oz was continually booed by the crowd. Not only did rally attendees boo as his ads played on the screen, but they also expressed disapproval before he took the stage and when other speakers mentioned Oz’s name. The rally staff upped the music as Oz came out on stage in an attempt to drown out the crowd.
Carrie Hamley, a small business owner from Greensburg, told HuffPost reporter Daniel Marans that the reason she is not supporting Oz is because he is not a Pennsylvanian or conservative and not someone who would “represent us well.”
According to a recent poll by Franklin & Marshall, 41 percent of Republican voters viewed Oz unfavorably, with just 29 percent seeing him in a positive light. Oz’s primary opponent, former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick, had better support from a faction of voters who support Trump, with 28 percent saying that they support him as opposed to 19 percent favoring Oz.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is raising questions about Oz’s potential ties with the Turkish government. Oz is a citizen of both America and Turkey. At a press briefing on Friday, Pompeo noted that Oz had voted in a Turkish presidential election but not an American election.
“Maybe it’s all innocent, maybe it’s all straight up, but we and the people of Pennsylvania and [all] Americans … need to understand the scope and depth of his relationship with the Turkish government,” stated Pompeo, who is supporting McCormick in the election.
During the Pennsylvania rally, Trump took aim at McCormick, pointing out that the former CEO had commented about his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
“David came out very strongly against me on numerous occasions. This was before he was going to run all of a sudden, he said, ‘Boy, I like this guy a lot.’ Including with respect to the disinformation spread about January 6, total disinformation,” Trump said.
“So I don’t know David well, and he may be a nice guy, but he’s not MAGA. He’s not MAGA. He’s more Toomey than he is MAGA,” he added, referring to Pennsylvanian Republican Senator Pat Toomey who had voted to convict the former president during his second impeachment.
Trump also pointed out that McCormick has worked with a company that “managed money for communist China.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene Won’t Be Barred From Holding Office, Georgia Official Rules
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is qualified to be a candidate for U.S. Congress and will remain on the ballot for the upcoming election, Georgia’s top election official said on May 6.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, entered his decision hours after state Judge Charles Beaudrot said challengers to Greene’s candidacy failed to prove Greene violated the Constitution.
“In this case, challengers assert that Representative Greene’s political statements and actions disqualify her from office,” Raffensperger said. “That is rightfully a question for the voters of Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. Therefore, Administrative Law Judge Charles R. Beaudrot’s Initial Decision, Findings of Fact, and Conclusion of Law are hereby AFFIRMED.”
The case was filed by a group led by left-wing activists, which argued that Greene helped facilitate the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
“Specifically, the evidence shows that she either helped to plan the attack on January 6, or alternatively helped to plan the pre-attack demonstration and/or march on the Capitol with knowledge that it was substantially likely to lead to the attack, and otherwise voluntarily aided the insurrection,” Free Speech For People, the group, said in filing the case.
But Beaudrot said the group offered “no persuasive evidence” backing their claims, adding that there is also no evidence that Greene—a member of Congress in the Capitol already when it was breached—participated in the breach.
“Challengers make a valiant effort to support inferences that Rep. Greene was an insurrectionist, but the evidence is lacking, and the court is not persuaded,” the ruling stated.
In his 2-page decision, Raffensperger said Greene is qualified to be a candidate for office.
The decision came just weeks before voters head to the polls to cast votes in the primaries, with the general election scheduled for November.
Mickey Gilley, Who Helped Inspire ‘Urban Cowboy,’ Dies at 86
Country star Mickey Gilley, whose namesake Texas honky-tonk inspired the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy” and a nationwide wave of Western-themed nightspots, has died. He was 86.
Gilley died Saturday in Branson, Missouri, where he helped run the Mickey Gilley Grand Shanghai Theatre. He had been performing as recently as last month, but was in failing health over the past week.
“He passed peacefully with his family and close friends by his side,” according a statement from Mickey Gilley Associates.
Biden Confirms Jen Psaki Leaving White House, Names Replacement
Psaki rumored to be joining MSNBC
White House press secretary Jen Psaki is departing the Biden administration soon, President Joe Biden said on May 5.
Psaki will leave the White House on May 13, Biden said in a statement.
The president said Karine Jean-Pierre, currently the White House principal deputy press secretary, is replacing Psaki.
“Karine not only brings the experience, talent, and integrity needed for this difficult job, but she will continue to lead the way in communicating about the work of the Biden–Harris Administration on behalf of the American people,” Biden said.
He also said that Psaki “has set the standard for returning decency, respect, and decorum to the White House briefing room” and thanked her for “raising the bar, communicating directly and truthfully to the American people, and keeping her sense of humor while doing so.”
Psaki said on Twitter that she was grateful to Biden and First Lady Jill Biden for tapping her as the White House press secretary and praised Jean-Pierre as a “remarkable woman.”
Jean-Pierre said the opportunity is “a true honor” and that she looks forward to serving the administration and the American people.
Florida Immigration Lawsuit v. Biden Can Go Forward, Judge Says
A federal judge ruled on May 4 that a lawsuit filed by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody over “catch and release” of undocumented immigrants can move forward, rejecting the Biden administration’s motion to dismiss it.
U.S. District Judge Ken Wetherell denied the motion filed by the U.S. Department of Justice to dismiss Moody’s case that was filed last year.
The lawsuit alleged that the Biden administration had violated immigration laws through policies that have led to people being released from detention after crossing the U.S. border with Mexico. Also, it alleged that the releases affect Florida because of the negative impacts on education, health care and criminal justice services.
The Justice Department attorneys contended that the Biden administration has a “non-detention” policy.
However, Wetherell, formerly a state appeals court judge, ruled that the lawsuit should continue to move forward.
In the 37-page decision, the judge made blistering remarks about the Biden administration’s policies.
McConnell: Nationwide Ban on Abortion ‘Possible’
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that a nationwide ban on abortion is a possibility if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, as was suggested after a draft opinion that signaled the high court would rule against the landmark 1973 decision.
“If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies—not only at the state level but at the federal level—certainly could legislate in that area,” the Kentucky Republican said in a recent interview.
“And if this were the final decision, that was the point that it should be resolved one way or another in the legislative process. So yeah, it’s possible,” McConnell told USA Today Saturday when asked if a nationwide abortion ban is worthy of debate.
His remark comes days after a draft opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico suggesting that Roe v. Wade, which argued that a woman has a constitutional right to obtain an abortion, would be overturned sometime this year. Alito argued that the court’s arguments in coming up with the Roe v. Wade decision were flawed, and he stressed that states should decide on whether to restrict abortions.
Following the draft leak, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said he called an investigation to determine how the document was leaked to the press, later telling a conference of judges and lawyers that such a move was “absolutely appalling.” Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas both suggested that they believe the leak was an attempt to pressure the Supreme Court to render a decision in a certain way and said the institution will not be coerced.
Many of McConnell’s colleagues, meanwhile, have criticized the unprecedented leak itself. Democrats and left-wing activists have called on their supporters to vote for politicians who will support abortion laws, while protesters and agitators were seen outside the Washington, D.C.-area homes of several of the justices on Saturday and Sunday.
Speaking to USA Today, McConnell said Republicans’ position on abortion is clear.
“With regard to the abortion issue, I think it’s pretty clear where Senate Republicans stand,” McConnell told the news outlet. “And if and when the court makes a final decision, I expect everybody will be more definitive. But I don’t think it’s much secret where Senate Republicans stand on that issue.”
On May 3, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced he would force a vote to codify Roe v. Wade, although it’s nearly guaranteed to fall short of the 60 votes needed to advance in the upper chamber.
“A vote on this legislation is not an abstract exercise. This is as urgent and real as it gets. We’ll vote to protect a women’s right to choose,” Schumer said in a likely preview of Democrats’ rhetoric ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
Arizona Parents Sue School District Over Alleged Dossier on Dissenting Views
Three Arizona parents have filed a lawsuit claiming an education board member for the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) kept a dossier on them to silence criticism of district policies regarding COVID-19 and other subjects.
Amanda Wray, Kimberly Stafford, and Edmond Richard claim former board president Jann-Michael Greenburg violated their constitutional rights of free speech by keeping their personal information on Google Drive and disseminating the information when deemed politically appropriate.
His father, Mark Greenburg, and his wife, Dagmar Greenburg, allegedly “conspired” to violate their constitutional rights of free speech and defamed the plaintiffs on social media, according to the 36-page lawsuit.
The civil complaint, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court on May 5, names multiple other school district officials as defendants.
“The goal of [the] defendants’ conspiracy was clear: to silence and punish dissenting voices and frighten away other potential speakers who might dare to express an opposing point of view,” the lawsuit alleges.
The suit alleges that the defendants amassed “reams” of public and private information about the parents, including their jobs, businesses, finances, medical and family histories, housing situation, and children.
“They videotaped, photographed, and recorded the plaintiffs and their children. They used fake names and accounts to stalk plaintiffs’ social media activities and publicly berate them using false and grossly contorted information from their expansive dossier,” the suit adds.
The suit alleges that in August of 2020, the plaintiffs and other district parents formed a private Facebook group called Scottsdale Unified—CAN (Community Advocacy Network), with Wray as the group administrator.
“The Facebook group initially began as a way for concerned parents to discuss issues related to SUSD’s COVID-19 policies, but later expanded its focus to include general matters of concern such as curriculum, school budgetary priorities, and student safety,” the suit states.
According to the lawsuit, the Greenburgs, with school district collaboration, began to collect information about people they regarded as political enemies, also stored on Google Drive.
Hunter Biden Reeked of Alcohol When Trying to Get Laptops Fixed in 2019: Book Excerpt
The Apple computer repair man who got his hands on Hunter Biden’s laptop filled with compromising emails about his alleged corrupt foreign business deals has revealed how he and the president’s son met.
John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of a now-shuttered computer repair store in Delaware, wrote that Hunter Biden walked into his shop slightly drunk on April 12, 2019, according to a book excerpt the New York Post obtained and published on May 6. The excerpt is taken from Issac’s upcoming book “American Injustice: My Battle to Expose the Truth.”
Isaac wrote that Hunter Biden walked into his store carrying three MacBook Pros 10 minutes before closing. He added that he didn’t recognize who his customer was at first.
“He was about my height, six feet tall, but a little heavier,” Isaac wrote. “Alcohol fumes preceded him. He slid the three laptops onto the bar counter as he fumbled for a seat.”
Isaac recalled seeing a Beau Biden Foundation sticker on one of the laptops. It was only when he asked for Hunter Biden’s name to enter into the store management system did he realize who his customer was.
“I need the data recovered off these, but they all have liquid damage and won’t turn on,” Isaac recalled what Hunter Biden told him.
WATCH: Rich Strike Wins Kentucky Derby, Then Tries to Bite Another Horse
Winning the Kentucky Derby as an 80-1 underdog is fantastic. On Saturday, Rich Strike showed he knows how to do that.
Now, winning with grace, that’s something he needs to learn.
Moments after completing one of the most improbable wins in the history of horse racing or sports in general, Rich Strike immediately tried to bite another horse.
Rich Strike’s aggression earned him a punch in the jaw from the other horse’s rider.
If horses could talk, it would be fascinating to find out why Rich Strike decided to try and eat another horse after winning the race of all races. In all likelihood, he was probably thinking: “I just won the Kentucky Derby. I’ll bite whoever I want.”
Signature Problems May Invalidate Nominating Petitions in Michigan
A ring of paid, out-of-state, petition circulators has helped throw Michigan’s 2022 primary nominating process into disarray.
Thousands of defective signatures on nominating petitions collected by a group of circulators hired by several campaigns may result in the disqualification of two Republican candidates for governor.
An error involving a petition heading may remove another GOP candidate for governor from the 10-candidate field.
It is legal and common practice for candidates and ballot proposal advocates to hire professional circulators to help their campaigns get the requisite number of valid signatures to appear on the ballot.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Total Eclipse of the Super Moon to Grace the Heavens Mid-May, 2022—Here’s What You Need to Know
This month’s full moon will be what’s called a “super moon”—a full moon appearing its largest, at its closest to the Earth—the first of just a handful in 2022, which on May 15–16 will coincide with another celestial event: a total lunar eclipse.
One of four super moons this year, May’s has been dubbed the “Flower Moon,” its seasonal significance being spring and the blooming of flowers. Super moons happen when our lunar sphere reaches its shortest distance from the Earth along its elliptical orbit—a position called its “perigee.”
Super moons can appear nearly 7 percent larger than average-sized moons and up to 14 percent larger than “micro moons” (when they find themselves at their furthest distance from Earth).
AI Research Is A Dumpster Fire And Google’s Holding The Matches
Google invented Surveillance Capitalism and yet most of the world doesn’t have a clue what that is or means. It is the use of machine “intelligence” to transform the collective into a resource that can be sold for huge profits. This is not benevolent to humanity, but rather destructive to individualism as well as all democratic systems of governance. ⁃ TN Editor
Scientific endeavor is no match for corporate greed.
The world of AI research is in shambles. From the academics prioritizing easy-to-monetize schemes over breaking novel ground, to the Silicon Valley elite using the threat of job loss to encourage corporate-friendly hypotheses, the system is a broken mess.
And Google deserves a lion’s share of the blame.
How it started
There were approximately 85,000 research papers published globally on the subject of AI/ML in the year 2000. Fast-forward to 2021 and there were nearly twice as many published in the US alone.
To say there’s been an explosion in the field would be a massive understatement. This influx of researchers and new ideas has led to deep learning becoming one of the world’s most important technologies.
Between 2014 and 2021 big tech all but abandoned its “web first” and “mobile first” principles to adopt “AI first” strategies.
Now, in 2022, AI developers and researchers are in higher demand (and command more salary) than nearly any other jobs in tech outside of the C-suite.
But this sort of unfettered growth also has a dark side. In the scramble to meet the market demand for deep learning-based products and services, the field’s become as cutthroat and fickle as professional sports.
In the past few years, we’ve seen the the “GANfather,” Ian Goodfellow, jump ship from Google to Apple, Timnit Gebru and others get fired from Google for dissenting opinions on the efficacy of research, and a virtual torrent of dubious AI papers manage to somehow clear peer-review.
The flood of talent that arrived in the wake of the deep learning explosion also brought a mudslide of bad research, fraud, and corporate greed along with it.
How it’s going
Google, more than any other company, bears responsibility for the modern AI paradigm. That means we need to give big G full marks for bringing natural language processing and image recognition to the masses.
It also means we can credit Google with creating the researcher-eat-researcher environment that has some college students and their big-tech-partnered professors treating research papers as little more than bait for venture capitalists and corporate headhunters.
At the top, Google’s shown its willingness to hire the world’s most talented researchers. And it’s also demonstrated numerous times that it’ll fire them in a heartbeat if they don’t toe the company line.
The company made headlines around the globe after firing Timnit Gebru, a researcher it’d hired to help lead its AI ethics division, in December of 2020. Just a few months later it fired another member of the team, Margaret Mitchell.
Google maintains that the researchers’ work wasn’t up to spec, but both women and numerous supporters claim the firings only occurred after they brought up ethical concerns over research the company’s AI boss, Jeff Dean, had signed off on.
It’s now barely over a year later and history is repeating itself. Google fired another world-renowned AI researcher, Satrajit Chatterjee, after he led a team of scientists in challenging another paper Dean had signed off.
The mudslide effect
At the top, this means the competition for high-paying jobs is fierce. And the hunt for the next talented researcher or developer begins earlier than ever.
Students working towards advanced degrees in the fields of machine learning and AI, who eventually want to work outside of academia, are expected to author or co-author research papers that demonstrate their talent.
Unfortunately, the pipeline from academia to big tech or the VC-led startup world is littered with crappy papers written by students whose entire bent is writing algorithms that can be monetized.
Twitter employees reading the tea leaves as they try to discern the future in an Elon Musk-owned company received some bad news last week.
Musk recently prepared a presentation for investors, known as a pitch deck, that outlines some of the moves he’s planning for the social media giant, according to The New York Times.
The deck includes Musk’s plans to expand the company, which in the long run will expand its workforce.
Elon Musk Puts Twitter Employees on Alert
More than a week after it was announced Elon Musk would purchase Twitter, the world’s richest person issued a notice to Twitter employees about what they can expect.
Among several other expectations, Musk said that he values a positive work ethic. He was responding to his previous Twitter post about the direction he wants to see Twitter take after he assumes ownership of it.
“Work ethic expectations would be extreme, but much less than I demand of myself,” Musk said on Twitter over the weekend.
Groups Funded by George Soros, Unions, European Governments Irked by Twitter Takeover
Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has become the target of left-wing organizations following his announcement of plans to buy out Twitter in order to foster free speech on the platform.
Tesla’s CEO on May 3 called for an investigation into the groups that have urged businesses in a letter to boycott Twitter if Musk reverses the social media company’s content moderation practices, a week after he reached a deal to acquire the platform.
“Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let’s investigate …” Musk wrote on Twitter on May 3. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
Musk’s response came after CNN reported on the letter (pdf) signed by more than two dozen left-wing organizations.
“Interesting. I wonder if those funding these organizations are fully aware of what the organizations are doing,” Musk wrote the next day in response to a Daily Mail article.
The article, which was shared by Musk, revealed that “George Soros, Clinton and Obama staffers, and European governments are behind anti-Musk campaign” that urged big corporations to boycott Twitter after Musk’s acquisition.
HEALTH
The Triumph of Natural Immunity
A new CDC study shows that around 75% of American children – and nearly 60% of adults – have already had covid. That means that they have strong natural immunity that protects them from covid infections as they get older. Despite this, the CDC, the FDA and other government agencies are pushing all of them to get vaccinated.
Why?
One important role of public health agencies during a pandemic is to conduct seroprevalence studies to determine how many people have developed antibodies to the disease from having been infected. That way we understand how the disease has spread and how it varies geographically and among different age groups. Spain did such a large, randomized survey early during the pandemic while Sweden did a series of smaller randomized surveys at regular intervals.
In the United States, this important task was left to individual scientists, but they only had resources to conduct small surveys in a limited area such as the Santa Clara County Study. The CDC has now finally got its act together with a national survey. The results are illuminating.
In April 2020, the Santa Clara study showed that 3% of its population had been infected. In February 2022, the CDC study shows that at least 58% percent of Americans have had covid, as evidenced by their anti-nucleocapsid antibodies, which are produced due to infections but not the vaccines. The numbers vary by age.
As Levels of This Widespread Toxin Soar, so Does Disease
Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been studying glyphosate for years and has become hooked on determining what makes this ubiquitous chemical so toxic
One of the ways glyphosate may be harmful is via disruption of glycine homeostasis; glycine is a very common amino acid your body uses to make proteins
Glyphosate also inhibits the shikimate pathway, which is involved in the synthesis of the essential aromatic amino acids phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan
Glyphosate also causes sulfate deficiency and impairs the heme pathway
Eating organic, consuming organic, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, eating garlic and cruciferous vegetables, and glycine supplementation (or consuming organic bone broth) can help protect you from glyphosate toxicity
The Most Common and Worst Way to Treat Arthritis
Steroids can be administered either orally, topically through a cream or ointment, or by injection. Steroids work by inhibiting the production of inflammatory chemicals, thereby reducing symptoms associated with inflammation
Three of the most common side effects, even from short term use, are osteoporosis (reduced bone density), cataracts and an increased risk of diabetes. However, more serious effects such as life-threatening sepsis have also been reported
In one 2019 study, 8% of patients with osteoarthritis of the hip or knees who received one to three steroid injections ended up worse. Adverse effects were observed in 10% of those with OA in the hip and in 4% of those with OA in the knees
In another study, intra-articular corticosteroid injections more than doubled the cartilage volume loss compared to placebo (−0.21 millimeters versus −0.10 mm), while having no impact on knee pain at their two-year follow-up
When using steroids for an extended period of time, abruptly stopping the drug can trigger adverse and potentially even lethal effects, depending on how long you’ve been taking the medication
Safer Alternatives
In specific instances, your medical treatment may necessitate the use of steroids. However, I believe steroids are prescribed far too frequently for conditions that may be addressed with other, much safer options.
In many cases, you may prevent the use of steroids by incorporating lifestyle strategies that naturally reduce inflammation in your body. So, before you resort to steroids, consider implementing a few of the following suggestions first, to see if you can achieve relief:
Curcumin — Curcumin is one of the ingredients in the spice turmeric and microactive technology helps improve absorption. Curcumin helps to balance excitatory and inhibitory cytokines (substances secreted by your immune system that have an effect on other cells).
>> Purchase CurcuminX4000 With Fenugreek HERE
Eliminate foods that promote inflammation — Foods that significantly contribute to the inflammatory response in your body include virtually all processed foods, sugars, gluten, processed seed (vegetable) oils (trans fats) and alcohol. Lectins can also cause problems if you’re sensitive to them. Seed oils are likely the worst offender for most and need to be highest on the priority list for removing.
Eat foods that reduce inflammation — To reduce chronic inflammation, it’s important to address your overall diet. Foods that help reduce inflammation are typically high in antioxidants and healthy fats. Examples include green tea, vegetables, bone broth, avocado and coconut oil.
Stay well-hydrated — When dehydrated, your cells are not able to function optimally and have a more difficult time eliminating toxins, so be sure to stay well-hydrated. As a general rule, drink to quench your thirst. A helpful guide to gauge your hydration is to look at the color of your urine. Urine that is a light, straw yellow color is typically a sign of being fully hydrated.
Exercise and keep active every day — Exercise helps lower stress and improves the quality of your sleep, both of which will lower your levels of inflammation. Exercise also improves your heart and lung function, flexibility and range of motion.
Optimize your weight — If you are overweight, consider pairing exercise with a healthy diet to bring some relief to your joints. A 2013 study40 revealed overweight and obese adults with knee OA who followed an intensive diet and exercise program experienced less pain and better function than those who pursued just diet or exercise alone.
Practice stress reduction — Science demonstrates that stress increases the inflammatory response in your body. Meditation, yoga, exercise and deep breathing are all ways to help reduce stress.
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
US and World Gripped by Fertilizer Crisis
Fertilizer shortages should be used to hasten environmental transitions, official says
“Fertilizer shortages are real now.”
Uttered by USAID’s Samantha Power in a May 1 ABC interview with former Democratic advisor George Stephanopoulos, the words briefly drowned out the din of the news cycle.
They were not unexpected to some.
Power, who served as U.N. ambassador under Obama, mentioned fertilizer shortages after weeks of hints from the Biden administration.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki repeatedly alluded to challenges obtaining fertilizer in recent press briefings. So did President Joe Biden himself in a joint statement with EU President Ursula von der Leyen.
“We are deeply concerned by how Putin’s war in Ukraine has caused major disruptions to international food and agriculture supply chains, and the threat it poses to global food security. We recognize that many countries around the world have relied on imported food staples and fertilizer inputs from Ukraine and Russia, with Putin’s aggression disrupting that trade,” the leaders stated.
How to Prepare for Food Shortages, Hard Times on a Shoestring Budget: Preppers’ Advice
Most people don’t bother to prepare for uncertain times until it’s too late. It’s the “ant and the grasshopper” parable written on a human scale.
“The problem is that while fear is a great motivator, it isn’t conducive to smart decisions,” said Diane Vukovic at Primalsurvivor.com, an online personal preparedness website.
“No matter how terrified you are about a certain event happening, you still need to go about prepping in a calm, logical way,” Vukovic told The Epoch Times.
Once considered a fringe “conspiracy theory,” the idea of preparedness has gone mainstream as global events unfold. Many online “preppers” have said that only a small percentage of Americans prepare for potential food shortages and civil unrest.
However, the concern among would-be preppers on a limited income is the cost of preparing in an inflationary environment.
The good news is that prepping is still relatively inexpensive to do, Vukovic said.
“Chances are you don’t need an expensive gas mask, bulletproof vest, or other hyped-up survival gear. You’ll see that most preparedness supplies are very cheap,” Vukovic said.
Rule number one is don’t buy out of fear or panic.
“I suggest writing a list of the most likely disasters for your area. For most people in the United States these will be earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and power outages. Then, make a list of what items you would need to be prepared for these disasters,” she said.
COVID RELATED NEWS
FDA: Americans Should Treat COVID-19 Like the Flu
Several top Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials, including Commissioner Robert Califf, admitted that Americans will now have to accept COVID-19 as another respiratory virus, comparing it to influenza.
Califf, Principal Deputy Commissioner Janet Woodcock, and top vaccine official Dr. Peter Marks wrote for the Journal of the American Medical Association that COVID-19 will be around for the foreseeable future while suggesting that it will require yearly vaccines targeting the most threatening variations of the virus.
“Widespread vaccine- and infection-induced immunity, combined with the availability of effective therapeutics, could blunt the effects of future outbreaks,” the officials said, referring to another name for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. “Nonetheless, it is time to accept that the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is the new normal.”
The virus “will likely circulate globally for the foreseeable future, taking its place alongside other common respiratory viruses such as influenza. And it likely will require similar annual consideration for vaccine composition updates in consultation with the [FDA],” they continued.
CDC Investigating ‘Highly Vaccinated’ Carnival Cruise Ship
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it is investigating a COVID-19 outbreak on a Carnival Cruise ship after the company reported cases on board in recent days.
A CDC-operated cruise line monitor dashboard says the Carnival Spirit meets the threshold for a CDC investigation based on the number of COVID-19 cases. The agency confirmed it has “started an investigation,” adding that the “ship remains under observation.”
The Carnival Spirit departed Miami on April 17 before arriving in Seattle last week, according to a statement from the cruise operator to The Epoch Times last week. The CDC currently labels the vessel, which reportedly can hold about 3,000 people, as “highly vaccinated” as well as “orange,” indicating that 0.3 percent of total passengers and crew have tested positive for the virus.
The CDC has not responded to a request for comment from The Epoch Times, but a spokesperson for the agency told CNN that the Carnival Spirit is one of 62 ships that were labeled as orange.
A spokesperson for Carnival also said that everyone on board the Spirit, including guests and crew members, is fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Carnival’s website also stipulates that everyone who enters the ship has to be vaccinated.
“Our health and safety protocols exceed CDC guidelines and were closely followed including vaccination requirements and pre-cruise testing of all guests. Our crew are also vaccinated and wear masks,” Carnival said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
“Our protocols are designed to flex up as needed and additional measures were implemented during the voyage,” the spokesperson added. “In addition, all guests who were scheduled to continue on with the ship’s next cruise to Alaska were tested and any guests and their traveling companions who tested positive were disembarked.”
Two passengers on the Carnival Spirit told news outlets that they believe Carnival didn’t handle the outbreak well.
Are Recombinant Covid Vaccines Causing These Deaths?
After people started receiving vaccinations for Covid-19, many side effects have gradually emerged, such as blood clots, myocarditis, and in more serious cases, deaths. In cases of death after vaccination, people usually hear experts say that the causes of death “have not been confirmed to be vaccine-related.”
However, the first “confirmed vaccine-related death” recently appeared in Taiwan, resulting in the highest-ever compensation of NT$6 million (approximately $210,000).
How can we determine whether symptoms or deaths after vaccination are related to the vaccines? In addition, the vaccines seem to have been effective at preventing severe illness for some, but have they also opened the Pandora’s Box, thus bringing negative effects?
AZ Vaccine Has Caused Rare Blood Clots
The loss of life is heartbreaking, so it is necessary to investigate the cause of death. However, the association between vaccines and deaths is a very sensitive and complex issue that involves many aspects. Therefore, prior to determining the association, it is important to identify the characteristics of people who become ill after vaccination.
In the case of the AZ (AstraZeneca) vaccine, for example, two medical studies conducted in Germany and Norway respectively were published in the New England Journal of Medicine on April 9, 2021. The German study reported that 11 patients had developed rare, abnormal clinical manifestations of thrombosis after receiving their first dose of AZ vaccine, and six among them passed away. In the Norwegian study, five patients had developed thrombosis after the first dose, with three of them eventually passing away.
In one case of death reported by the German study, after receiving the first dose of the AZ vaccine, a 49-year-old previously healthy medical professional experienced fatigue, myalgia and headaches in the following several days. From day five onward, he had chills, fevers, nausea and abdominal pain. And on day 10, he became hospitalized, and his blood platelet count dropped to 1/6 of the lower limit of the normal count, and his blood became hypercoagulable. A CT scan revealed multiple thromboses in his veins and arteries, including a pulmonary embolism and thrombosis in cerebral veins, the infrarenal aorta and two iliac arteries. In the end, he died after an unsuccessful treatment.
In the Norwegian study, three deaths were reported. The patients were all females aged 37 to 54, and they all became hospitalized seven to 10 days after vaccination. Their platelets dropped to 1/5 to 1/7 of the lower limit of the normal count, and their blood vessels showed significant hypercoagulability, as well as cerebral vein thrombosis.
Whistleblower Exposes 3 Big Issues in Pfizer’s COVID Vaccine Clinical Trials
On Nov. 2, 2021 British Medical Journal (BMJ) published an article that revealed three big issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial based on interview with a whistleblower.
The whistle blower, Brook Jackson, was a regional director of one of Pfizer’s vaccine trial companies, Ventavia Research Group in Texas.
Beginning the fall of 2020, there were 153 institutes, including Ventavia, that assisted Pfizer’s vaccine clinical trial. Per Ventavia’s website, the company is the largest private clinical research company in Texas. Jackson found out the management of the clinical trial in the company was not organized. She reported this to the administrative level of the company, but received no response from the company. Then she reported this to the FDA.
However, after she emailed the FDA, she was fired that same afternoon. Jackson said this was the first time she was fired from her job in her 20-year career.
Finally, she contacted the international well-known journal–BMJ. She exposed 3 major issues she observed in Ventavia for Pfizer’s vaccine clinical trial.
- Falsifying the data
- Early unblinding of the trial, affecting the accuracy of the results
- Very slow to respond to adverse events, and not paying attention to the safety of participants
California Bill Allowing Minors to Receive Vaccines Without Parent Consent Advances
California is one step closer to allowing minors to receive any vaccine without parental consent following a 7–0 vote in the state Senate Judiciary Committee on May 5.
“Teens should be able to protect their own health with vaccines—whether against COVID, flu, measles, or polio—even if their parents refuse or can’t take them to get the shot,” Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) wrote on Twitter following the hearing.
Wiener authored Senate Bill (SB) 866, which would allow minors 12 years and older to sidestep parental consent and receive a vaccine that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The legislation is intended to be a resource to minors whose parents are busy and unable to take them to receive a vaccine due to lack of paid time off, or even “medical neglect,” according to the bill analysis.
“The current consent rules serve as a significant barrier to teen health in California, in situations where parents and children hold conflicting views about vaccines,” wrote the National Youth Law Center—a nonprofit based in Oakland that advocates for youth in policymaking—according to the bill analysis.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Families 4 Freedom California wrote in opposition to the bill, claiming it would “infringe” upon the “sacred” relationship between a child and their parents.
“Teens lack the necessary maturity to make sound medical decisions and are generally more vulnerable to coercion than adults,” the organization wrote, according to the bill analysis. “If parents are not aware that their child has recently received a vaccine, their ability to properly monitor that child for any side effects is hampered and may cause a delay in timely treatment.”
The bill survives several other COVID-19 bills that were paused by their authors, including SB 871 by Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) which would have required all K–12 students to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Pan pulled the bill on April 14 claiming that the COVID-19 vaccination rates are “insufficient” among children as parents struggle to find the time and transportation to get their children vaccinated.
SB 866 is expected to be heard in more committees at a later date.
CANCEL CULTURE
Biden Administration Creates ‘Ministry of Truth’
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has quietly set up a Disinformation Governance Board to oversee what information is and isn’t “truthful”
Heading up this new “Ministry of Truth” is Nina Jankowicz, a “Russian disinformation expert” who in her spare time sings show tunes about disinformation and erotic Harry Potter songs on TikTok
Jankowicz is herself known for spreading disinformation. She called the Hunter Biden laptop story a “fairytale” and “Russian disinformation,” and she’s openly opposed to free speech and anti-censorship efforts
In her book, “How to Lose the Information War,” Jankowicz criticized Poland’s efforts to eliminate censorship of conservatives on social networks, and called for the U.S. government to regulate and conduct oversight of people who disagree with the Democratic party on Twitter
Every dictatorship and autocracy has had a ministry of truth, a department of propaganda, and Biden has now joined them. May 1, 2022, GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert introduced a bill to immediately defund and terminate the Disinformation Governance Board
>> Watch: Tucker: This the point where we have to draw the line – Fox News host gives take on the ‘Ministry of Truth’ leader on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Conservatives Should ‘Use Power’ in Fighting Woke Companies and Big Tech Censorship: Legal Expert
In the case of big tech, the time for ‘outmoded’ libertarian bromides on government non-intervention has passed, says the legal expert
American conservatives should use institutional authority to punish companies, including Big Tech corporations, that go “too woke” and control “every major cultural institution in America,” said a legal expert during a panel discussion on Thursday.
“There is literally one institution, broadly speaking, that liberal progressives do not monolithically, unilaterally control. It is the government,” said Josh Hammer, Newsweek’s opinion editor and counsel for the Internet Accountability Project, during a panel discussion held by the Heritage Foundation on May 5.
In countering Big Tech’s expansive control, conservatives should “use power” against “woke” companies, similar to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s moves over Disney, Hammer said in response to a question about whether state action reining in Big Tech should be concerning to conservatives and libertarians alike.
“The broader semantic point at the level of political principle here is one of sovereignty,” Hammer said during the discussion. “Are we going to write the rules for our own town square, our own public square, to control our own destiny? Or are we going to outsource these decisions to these politically monolithic leftist hacks out in Silicon Valley?”
ICYMI NEWS
3 Americans Found Dead at Bahamas Resort After ‘Health Emergency’
Three Americans were found dead at a Bahamas resort on Friday, local authorities announced.
Police were alerted around 9:00 a.m. local time that a male body was found in one of the villas on the island of Exuma. A local doctor later determined the male was dead.
An examination of the body found no signs of trauma, local authorities stated.
The police also found another male and one female, both unresponsive, in a second villa. The male was found slumped against a wall in a bathroom and the female was on the bed of a bedroom. The local doctor ruled that both were dead.
All three victims are Caucasian.
The victims found in the second villa seemed to be experiencing some health issues before the event, according to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
“Our initial investigation revealed that the couple found in the second villa complained of illness the previous evening. They attended the local medical facility and on completion of receiving treatment, they returned to their lodging,” read the police statement.
The police are waiting for autopsy reports to determine the exact cause of death.
The identities of the victims are unknown to the public for now.
Another American, a female, was airlifted to a local hospital.
US Breaks Silence After Americans Mysteriously Found Dead at Bahamas Resort
The U.S. State Department said it is “closely monitoring” an incident in which three American citizens were found dead at a resort in the Bahamas over the weekend.
Bahamas Acting Prime Minister Chester Cooper announced that two men and one woman were discovered dead at Sandals Emerald Bay resort on May 6. Another woman was hospitalized, he said.
Late on Saturday, a spokesperson for the State Department told several news outlets that the agency can confirm the deaths of three U.S. citizens in the country.
“We can confirm the death of three U.S. citizens in the Bahamas. We are closely monitoring local authorities’ investigation into the cause of death. We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance. Out of respect for the privacy of the families, we have nothing further to add at this time,” the spokesperson said.
One of the three Americans was identified by a family member as Vincent Chiarella of Birmingham, Alabama.
Austin Chiarella told WVTM-13 that his parents, Vincent and Donnis Chiarella, were guests at the Sandals Emerald Bay resort on Great Exuma when his father was found dead. His mother was injured, he said, adding that his family is trying to find more information about the incident.
The couple was celebrating their wedding anniversary at the resort, he told ABC News separately. His mother, he said, had woken up to discover that “she couldn’t move” and that her husband “was laying on the floor.”
“Her legs and arms [were] swollen and she couldn’t move and she screamed to get someone to come in the door,” Austin said.
But Donnis Chiarella said she had fallen sick on Thursday but “thought she was alright” after the woman was released from a clinic, he told ABC.
The other victims have not yet been identified.
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