WORLD NEWS
Sky turns blood red in China, some point to Bible prophecy
The sky turned a bloody shade of red in China on Saturday, sparking panic among some residents, and now some are pointing to Bible prophecies about the end times and return of Jesus to Earth.
“Panic could be heard in the voices of the residents as they recorded the discolored horizon, stirring apocalyptic fears,” Britain’s Daily Mail reported. “The crimson sky was most prominent by the port, prompting worries that a fire had got out of control.”
“I have never seen anything like this before. It really amazes me that the sky can even turn red,” one resident of Chinese port-city of Zhoushan, which neighbors Shanghai, told the Global Times.
Shanghai moves to impose tightest restrictions yet
Shanghai officials will over the next few days further restrict access to food and hospitals in some parts of the city, the most severe phase of its extended lockdown yet.
Commercial food deliveries are not allowed and access to hospitals for all but emergencies must first be approved.
Neighbours of Covid-19 cases and others living close by are also being forced into government quarantine facilities.
Shanghai is now in its seventh week of city-wide restrictions.
Confirmed cases have fallen significantly from their peak, but authorities have not yet been able to hit the target of what they call “societal zero”, where no cases are reported outside of quarantine facilities.
Despite the tougher measures, Shanghai officials insist that people living in half the city’s districts are now free to leave their homes and walk around.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Guilty Verdict in First Illegal Alien Trespass Trial in Texas
The first jury trial under Texas’s Operation Lone Star border program wrapped up in Kinney County, Texas, on May 9.
The defendant, Honduran native Lester Hidalgo Aguilar, was found guilty of criminal trespass on a local ranch and sentenced to the maximum jail time of one year. The judge declined to apply an accompanying fine, which could have been up to $4,000, but said Aguilar should pay court costs ($290).
Aguilar’s trial was a litmus test for the Operation Lone Star arrests, which began around July last year as Gov. Greg Abbott directed state troopers to arrest trespassers on state or private land.
Until now, almost all defendants have pleaded guilty or no contest to trespass or other misdemeanor charges, and have reached a plea deal of time served and no fine.
Federal Judge Dismisses Reedy Creek Lawsuit Against DeSantis
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over the dissolution of the Walt Disney Company’s Reedy Creek Improvement District, a 25,000-acre self-governing area in the state’s Orange and Osceola counties.
The lawsuit was filed by William Sanchez last week on behalf of three Orange and Osceola County residents. Sanchez is a Miami lawyer and Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate.
The plaintiffs named in the lawsuit—Michael and Edward Foronda, of Kissimmee, and Vivian Gorsky of Orange County—said the dissolution of Reedy Creek violated a state law called the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
And added the legal action also breached a contractual obligation with Reedy Creek’s bondholders and Disney’s First Amendment rights.
DeSantis was listed as a defendant, along with Secretary of State Laurel Lee and Jim Zingale, executive director of the Florida Department of Revenue.
U.S. District Court Judge Cecilia Altonaga, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in her order that the suit was dismissed for several reasons, including the “federal court’s lack of standing over state issues” and because the “law does not go into effect until July 2023.”
Altonaga wrote that the three plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, “do not plausibly allege they have suffered any concrete injury as a result of the alleged violation of Disney’s First Amendment rights, and nothing in the complaint shows plaintiffs have a close relationship with Disney.”
She continued, “The new law does not apply to them, they do not allege direct harm as a result of the challenged law, and they do not plausibly allege any credible threat of direct harm in the future.”
Dorsey Agrees With Musk on Trump’s Twitter Ban
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said he backs Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s plan to reinstate former President Donald Trump’s account on the platform, calling the move to ban Trump a “business decision” and a “failure.”
Musk suggested on Tuesday he would overturn Trump’s suspension from Twitter if his takeover bid for the social media platform ends in success.
Twitter banned Trump from the platform following the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, claiming his posts violated a glorification of violence policy.
Speaking at a Future of the Car event hosted by the Financial Times on May 10, Musk addressed Trump’s Twitter ban, saying he thinks “it was a morally bad decision to be clear and foolish in the extreme.”
Dorsey backed Musk’s remarks, saying in a series of posts on Twitter that the decision to permanently suspend Trump from the platform was a mistake.
“I do agree. There are exceptions (CSE, illegal behaviour, spam or network manipulation, etc), but generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don’t work, which I wrote about here after the event (and called for a resilient social media protocol),” Dorsey said in a post responding to a user who said Musk believes Dorsey agrees with him that “there shouldn’t be permanent bans on individual Twitter users.”
Dorsey said in a follow-up post that banning Trump was a misguided “business decision.”
“It was a business decision, it shouldn’t have been. and we should always revisit our decisions and evolve as necessary. I stated in that thread and still believe that permanent bans of individuals are directionally wrong,” Dorsey wrote in the post.
Musk has offered to buy Twitter for around $43 billion, saying he wants to actualize the company’s “extraordinary potential” to become a true platform for free speech.
3 Highly Censored Words That Can Get You Arrested in Communist China—Here’s Why
Truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance (or in Chinese, zhen 真 shan 善 ren 忍), sound like the ideal principles for the world to follow, but in communist China, uttering those three words together stands to have you arrested.
The ancient meditation and self-improvement system of Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) is a meditation practice based on the traditional values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, which every conscientious person can easily relate to. The peaceful practice, rooted in the Buddhist tradition, was relatively unknown to the rest of the world until 1999, when the persecution of Falun Gong was instigated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Currently, it is practiced freely in over 80 countries.
According to Falun Gong’s official website, people who practice this “deeply rewarding spiritual path” often experience “dramatic health benefits as well as newfound energy, mental clarity, and stress relief.” “Its teachings encourage learners to let go of unhealthy attachments as they strive to attune their lives to the underlying qualities of the universe: Truth, Compassion, and Forbearance,” the website states.
However, in the past two decades, due to the persecution and the Chinese police’s relentless hunt for arresting more Falun Gong practitioners, the practice’s main tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance have become highly sensitive and censored words.
Elon Musk Says He’ll Lift Trump’s Twitter Ban After Deal Closes
Elon Musk on Tuesday suggested he would lift Twitter’s ban on former President Donald Trump after closing a deal to purchase Twitter and take it private.
Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said it was a mistake for Twitter to suspend the former president’s account in early 2021.
When asked point-blank virtually during a Future of the Car event hosted by the Financial Times allowing Trump back on the social media platform, Musk described Trump’s ban as morally wrong and “flat-out stupid.”
“So I guess the answer is … I would reverse the perma-ban” on Trump’s account, Musk said, cautioning that he “[doesn’t] own Twitter yet.”
“Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts,” added Musk, estimated to be the world’s richest person with a net worth of more than $260 billion. “I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake … It alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” he said.
Permanent suspensions, he argued, undermine trust in Twitter: “If there are tweets that are wrong and bad, those should be either deleted or made invisible, and a suspension—a temporary suspension—is appropriate, but not a permanent ban.”
Video of Oath Keepers Rescuing 16 Police Officers Deflates Jan. 6 Sedition Narrative, Attorneys Say
A video widely circulated in 2021 that showed a Capitol Police lieutenant asking members of the Oath Keepers for rescue help at the U.S. Capitol blows a hole in the seditious conspiracy charges brought against the group by federal prosecutors, two defense attorneys say.
In the video, Lt. Tarik Khalid Johnson asks a group of men to help him get more than a dozen trapped Capitol Police officers out of the Capitol and through a tightly packed crowd of protesters on the building’s east steps.
It was widely reported in January 2021 that Johnson wore a red Make America Great Again cap on Jan. 6 as a ruse to “trick” supporters of President Donald J. Trump into helping him rescue fellow officers from the Capitol. He was later suspended for wearing the MAGA cap. Johnson is a registered Democrat, according to online records.
The men who answered the call to help were members of the Oath Keepers, a nationwide group of current and former military, law enforcement, and first responders who have been targeted by federal prosecutors for allegedly conspiring to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Postal Service Investigating After Mail-In Ballots Found Discarded on Hollywood Sidewalk
The U.S. Postal Service and Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office said they are investigating an incident where a woman allegedly found a box containing 104 unopened mail-in ballots on a sidewalk over the weekend in Hollywood.
“Our office was notified over the weekend of a mail tray found containing approximately 104 unopened, outbound Vote by Mail ballots and additional mail pieces,” the LA County Registrar’s Office told local media outlets in a statement on Monday evening. “Thanks to the cooperation of the person who found the ballots, we were able to quickly respond and coordinate the secure pickup of the ballots.”
The office said that “early signs” suggest that the incident was “mail theft” and wasn’t “a directed attempt at disrupting the election.”
The county’s primary election is set for June 7.
New ballots were reissued to impacted voters, according to the statement. The office is also now cooperating with the U.S. Postal Service and law enforcement to investigate the matter
Also in its statement, the office said that “security protocols such as signature verification are in place to protect against any misuse or wrongdoing” in dealing with mail-in ballots.
BLM Co-Founder Admits to Throwing 2 Parties at Multi-Million-Dollar Mansion
Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Patrisse Cullors has admitted that she used the group’s multi-million-dollar mansion in Los Angeles for two personal parties in 2021, just a month after suggesting that she had never used the property for personal gain.
Cullors, a self-described “trained Marxist,” told The Associated Press on May 9 that she hosted a small party at the mansion in January 2021, to celebrate the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. She added that about 15 people participated in the party, including members from the Los Angeles chapter of BLM.
At the time, Cullors said she was “seeking refugee” at the mansion because there were “threats against her life.”
The second party at the mansion was held in March 2021, Cullors said, a private birthday celebration for her son.
According to AP, BLM said it had billed Cullors a “rental fee” for using the mansion for her son’s birthday party, and Cullors said she intended to make the payment.
“I look back at that and think, that probably wasn’t the best idea,” Cullors said about her two parties at the mansion.
In April, Cullors denied she had ever lived in the mansion or taken advantage of the property for personal reasons, after New York Magazine revealed that the group bought the property for $5.8 million in October 2020. The 6,500-square-foot estate was purchased with money that had been donated to Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, just two weeks after BLM received $66.5 million from its fiscal sponsor.
EXCLUSIVE: Army Officer Convicted for Disobeying COVID-19 Rules Speaks Out
The Army officer who was found guilty of disobeying COVID-19 rules says he tried to communicate concerns regarding COVID-19 vaccines but was instead court-martialed.
“I will always take responsibility for my words and actions,” First Lt. Mark Bashaw, formerly the commander of the Army Public Health Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“I have a Duty and an Oath. I take those very serious[ly]. I also have core values in the Army which I also try to emulate: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage,” he added.
Bashaw was convicted for not working remotely and reporting to his office without presenting a negative COVID-19 test, in addition to not wearing a mask indoors as required.
Following the conviction, Judge Robert Cohen, who was overseeing the case, declined to hand down a punishment.
Bashaw says he tried to raise concerns regarding COVID-19 vaccines and tests, as well as masks.
A whistleblower declaration dated March 3 that he submitted to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who has investigated COVID-19 products, says that Bashaw, as part of his duties as a preventive medicine officer, began researching the products.
He became concerned after reviewing reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which shows some vaccine recipients have experienced side effects.
U.S. health authorities say the vaccines are safe and effective, though they have acknowledged serious side effects.
New Colorado Law Takes Aim At Catalytic Converter Thieves
The Colorado Legislature has passed a bill seeking to address an alarming increase in catalytic converter thefts.
On May 4, the state House gave final approval to Senate Bill 9, which targets so-called motor vehicle “chop shops” dealing in stolen parts and commodity metals.
The law requires anyone who acquires five or more vehicles for spare parts within a year to report within five days to the national vehicle title information system.
The bill includes vehicles acquired for “dismantling, wrecking, shredding, compacting, crushing, or otherwise destroying vehicles for reclaimable parts or scrap metals, including catalytic converters.”
According to the Colorado Theft Prevention Authority, thefts of catalytic converters that contain valuable commodity metals such as platinum rose 5,000 percent from 2019 to 2021.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau (N.I.C.B.) reports that catalytic converter thefts have increased significantly in the United States since the start of the global pandemic in March 2020.
Missing Alabama Prison Guard Dead, Escaped Inmate in Custody After 10-Day Nationwide Manhunt
An Alabama corrections officer, Vicky White, is dead, and her partner, a capital murder suspect, Casey White, has been captured and is in custody after a 10-day manhunt, according to reports.
The pair were captured late on Monday in Indiana, Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton told a press conference. He said he didn’t know why they were in Indiana.
The two, who fled law enforcement, are not family but are in a romantic relationship, officials suggested last week. They have been on the run since April 29, sparking a nationwide manhunt, after Vicky White, former Assistant Director of Corrections of the Lauderdale County Detention Center in Florence, Alabama, claimed she was taking Casey White for a mental evaluation.
Casey White, 38, surrendered himself without incident and was returned to custody, while Vicky White, 56, was found injured, Singleton said.
According to multiple reports, Indiana authorities said Vicky White was taken to the hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. She died shortly after 7 p.m. on Monday at Evansville Deaconess Midtown Hospital, Vanderburgh County Coroner Steven W. Lockyear confirmed.
The Vanderburgh County Coroner’s Office concluded on Tuesday that Vicky White died by suicide.
Honest Opinion of Recent GOP Primaries by Devvy Kidd
First let me open with the fact I’ve been registered No Party since 1996; I’ve never voted for any candidate from the Democrat/Communist Party USA. I voted for the first time at age 18, I will be 73 next month. I’ve been in the trenches full time nearly 24/7 for the past 30 years.
I’ve analyzed more elections than I can count as well as hammering on vote fraud since 1993. Like so many millions of Americans I’ve read countless books, watched videos and have been active at both the state and federal level. Worked to get candidates elected, voted for Trump twice.
Now we have an individual in the WH who has passed into the first stages of Alzheimer’s as Cheater China Joe Biden can no longer even recognize members of his own family, has no idea who cabinet members are; mentally, his brain is gone. The wreckage his illegitimate administration has caused since January 2021 is unprecedented in American history (aside from white supremacist Abraham Lincoln who damn near destroyed the Union) and it’s going to get a lot worse.
Of course, Republicans see this as a golden opportunity to “take back power” of the House and Senate. With a majority in both chambers of Congress they’re going to save the country! You know: Protect our values, more money in your pocket, reduce the size of government, protect your rights! Support the Constitution even though 95%of them have no idea what it says.
Sadly, the same can be said for GOP governors, mayors and members of your state legislatures. This is why an Article 5 Convention of States must never take place. (Our Texas governor, Greg Abbott pushed it through the legislature.) The GOP is infested with RINO’s (Romney, Murkowski, Chaney, Collins, Rep. Kinzinger; the list is two miles long when you include the dirty ones in the U.S. House) who play in the right sandbox. That’s how they allegedly keep getting reelected.
Casey DeSantis Makes First Campaign Appearance Since Being Cancer Free
Fla.–Florida’s first lady Casey DeSantis joined her husband, Gov. Ron DeSantis, on the campaign trail on May 9, in her first public appearance since being declared cancer-free.
The couple made their appearance at a “DeSantis Day” campaign event held at The Villages in Sumter County.
“Governor, I don’t know if this sounds very first lady-like, but damn it feels good to be here,” she told her husband and the crowd of supporters after appearing on stage. “Let me say this, no matter what you’re going through in life, no matter how hard things seem like they are, no matter how hard it feels like you have to pick yourself off the ground, or you feel like your back is against the wall, fight! Fight like hell!”
Last October, the governor announced that his wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer. He maintained throughout her five months of treatments that she was a “fighter” and she would “not give up.” At a press event in March, he announced that his wife was “cancer-free” and at the end of April, he said she had taken her last chemo treatment.
Former Florida Democratic Consultant Accused of Defrauding COVID-19 Relief Program
A political consultant who has worked on Democratic South Florida political campaigns allegedly lied on an application for COVID-19 payroll relief, federal prosecutors said on May 9.
The government charged Omar Smith, 42, of Royal Palm Beach, with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud in connection with a Paycheck Protection Program loan (PPP).
Prosecutors sat Smith received more than $200,000 in PPP money, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
According to state records, Smith’s business A Star For I was filed as a for-profit corporation in January 2012. Its current status is listed as inactive.
A federal court document filed on May 9 shows in June 2020, Smith had applied for a $212,500 loan intended for A Star for I that says he employed 30 people with a payroll of $85,000.
Prosecutors say that Smith had no employees and no payroll expenses.
A co-conspirator, according to prosecutors, prepared the loan application and subsequently submitted it online.
Smith agreed to pay the co-conspirator 20 percent of the loan amount for helping him apply for the loan, all according to court documents.
Smith received the loan on June 2, 2020, and transferred $42,500 a few days later to the co-conspirator, the court document says.
The co-conspirator is alleged to have prepared an IRS Form 941 for the first quarter of 2019, and “falsely wrote” that Smith’s company paid $255,000 in wages for that quarter and listed taxes withheld and submitted it online as part of the PPP application.
Action Alert: NY Mandatory Statewide Adult Vaccination Database is Proposed
New Yorkers, Albany wants your papers.
Health freedom advocates have been warning for years that this was coming and here we are. Having successfully stripped the rights of its students when it comes to vaccination choice, New York is coming for the adults. Senate Bill S75A, introduced by State Sen. Brad Hoylman, is described as “an act to amend the public health law, in relation to adult immunization reporting requirements.”
The predatory bill has been lying in wait for years but quietly passed in both Health Committees last session as COVID fears were peaking. It would require physicians and health care practitioners to record every dose of a vaccination given to an adult in a New York State database.
The current amended version of the bill literally removes “the consent of the vaccinee,” and instead makes a provision that “no report shall be made…if the person to whom the vaccine is administered, or a person authorized to consent to health care for the person, objects to the person who administered the vaccine, prior to the making of the report.”
In other words, S75A would require healthcare providers to register every shot provided to people 19 and over in the state database UNLESS a patient explicitly refuses. However, the physician is under no obligation to identify that option. This is lack of consent by design.
A vaccine database is the first step in establishing mandates for adults and would further enable vaccine passports and systems of segregation based on vaccination status. With a system like this in place, noncompliant adults will be easily tracked and potentially targeted. The database is also a critical step in helping the global vaccine industry rein in its next target market, adults, now that infant and childhood markets are saturated.
Immigration advocates have also raised concerns that a vaccine database could be used to identify and locate illegal immigrants for enforcement action. This is likely why none of the non-white members of the Assembly Health Committee voted for the bill.
In response, supporters of S75A quickly proposed additional legislation, S6541(Rivera)/A7326(Gottfried), to placate opponents of the bill. But while its sponsors claim the new legislation addresses concerns that a database might be misused to target illegal immigrants, S6541/A7326 does not contain language that would prevent the Department of Health from providing information from the database to federal immigration authorities. Furthermore, a state law would not stop federal agencies from securing state data to enforce federal immigration laws. Essentially, this bill was designed to make opponents feel more comfortable voting for an unnecessary and oppressive piece of legislation that still violates the medical privacy of New Yorkers and will ultimately target the unvaccinated.
If passed, S75A/A279A will be a harbinger of adult mandates to come.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Buttigieg on Inflation: We Have ‘Issues’ ‘Associated with’ Unemployment Rates Due to Stimulus
On Tuesday’s “CNN Tonight,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg responded to a question on whether the spending in the American Rescue Plan is partially to blame for inflation by stating that “we have a lot of the issues that are associated with those very low unemployment rates” as a result of the American Rescue Plan.
Host Don Lemon asked, “President Biden is blaming the pandemic and Putin’s war for inflation. But what about that $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan? The San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank concluded last year, Secretary, that the stimulus contributed to inflation. Shouldn’t at least part of the blame be placed on that?”
Buttigieg responded, “Look, at that time, the country was facing the continued risk of economic collapse, action had to be taken to bring back the economy, to make sure that Americans had more money in their pockets, that jobs that would have been lost, perhaps forever, were saved. Now, it is true, right now, we have a lot of the issues that are associated with those very low unemployment rates. Right now, we have fewer people on unemployment than we’ve had, I think, since 1970. And when that happens, that does create pressures in labor markets. But if you consider the alternative, the possibility that we could have seen the kind of economic collapse that was a very real risk before the American Rescue Plan, there’s no question that that was the right thing to do. It has saved countless jobs, likely millions and millions of jobs, and it’s one of the reasons why the job creation record of this president in his first year is one that is the most swift creation of jobs in American history.”
Lemon followed up, “But did it contribute to inflation as economists say?”
Buttigieg answered, “Look, I think that historians and economists will be debating the early 2020s and what happened for many years and decades. But right now, we’re still living in that moment. Right now, what we’ve got to do is focus on the tools that are in our hands that will actually help right now.”
Housing Bubble 2.0? Correction Fears Intensify as Price, Median Income Gap Widens
The U.S. economy is currently experiencing the hottest real estate market on record, the latest Realtor.com housing data show.
According to the April report from Realtor.com, the median listing price advanced 14.2 percent year-over-year to $425,000. Housing experts suggest that the typically busy spring buying season will be notably competitive.
“Despite moderating demand, the U.S. median home price hit yet another all-time high and accelerated over the March annual growth pace in April,” the real estate listings website said in a statement.
The most recent S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index data show a sizzling real estate market, too.
In February, home prices nationwide surged nearly 20 percent year-over-year, with the Sun Belt cities seeing the highest gains. The last time the U.S. real estate market recorded such exceptional growth was during the 2008 housing crisis.
But there is another trend that has caught the eye of economists: the home-price-to-median-household-income ratio. This figure climbed to an all-time high of 7.72 in January. The previous record high was 7.03 in November 2005.
Palm Oil Will Soon Be Banned by Top Producer
Indonesia, the world leader in palm oil production, announced in April 2022 that it would be banning exports of the tropical oil
Indonesia’s palm oil export ban is intended to help bring down domestic palm oil prices and secure food availability in the country
The retail price of cooking oil in Indonesia is an average of $1.84 per liter, which represents an increase of more than 40% in 2022
Palm oil is the most widely used “vegetable,” or seed, oil in the world, but although it’s often lumped into the category of vegetable oils, it stands apart from others in that it’s composed of 50% saturated fats
Consuming palm oil in ultraprocessed foods will not do your health any favors, but when used as a cooking oil, palm oil is preferable to seed oils like soybean and sunflower because of its lower percentage of linoleic acid
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Despite increasing worldwide opposition to facial recognition technology, significant risks associated with its use, and lawsuits companies – including Clearview AI – continued to create it and promote its use until recently.
From The Verge:
Clearview AI agrees to permanent ban on selling facial recognition to private companies
Under the terms of a new ACLU settlement
By Adi Robertson@thedextriarchy
Facial recognition surveillance company Clearview AI has agreed to permanently ban most private companies from using its service under a court settlement. The agreement, filed in Illinois court today, would settle a 2020 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that alleged the company had built its business on facial recognition data taken without user consent. The agreement formalizes measures Clearview had already taken and shields the company from further ACLU suits under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
HEALTH
New Bill Threatens Jail Time for Supplement Companies
Senator Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) bill that threatens tens of thousands of products has officially been introduced. We need all hands on deck to oppose it. Action Alert!
Sen. Dick Durbin has launched his supplement attack by introducing his “Dietary Supplement Listing Act of 2022” with Senator Mike Braun (R-IN). This bill threatens your ability to access the supplements you rely on to stay healthy. We need to send a strong message to Congress that this is bad for consumers, bad for health, and bad for the economy.
The bill threatens fines and jailtime for companies that do not comply. If a company does not submit the proper information, in the correct form, by the proper date, the supplement is considered misbranded. For the first offense, violators can be imprisoned for one year and fined $1,000 dollars; for the second offense, violators can be imprisoned for three years and fined $10,000. Given the safety record of supplements that will be detailed below, the punishments here hardly seem to fit the crime.
This bill creates a lose-lose situation for consumers and supplement companies: if companies don’t comply, they face fines and jail time; if they do comply, companies are orchestrating their own demise by giving the FDA the list it needs to sweep the market of as many as 41,000 supplements that do not comply with the agency’s overreaching (and incomplete) “new supplement” guidance. Supplement companies lose, the economy suffers, and consumers lose access to critical health products.
It’s bad, but it may not even be the biggest threat to your supplements right now. Separately, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, is independently moving forward with plans to attach a similar mandatory product registration provision for supplements to the reauthorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act that must pass by the end of September. Durbin’s policy, then, has twice the chance of success because it is moving forward on two distinct paths.
Why are more supplement regulations such a priority for these federal authorities? Supplements are overwhelmingly safe. According to the FDA, in 2021, the agency received 2,400 adverse event reports related to dietary supplements. To put this in context, according to the FDA’s adverse event database, in 2021 the FDA received a total of 2,333,453 adverse event reports. That means that dietary supplements make up 0.1% of the adverse event reports to the FDA. National reports consistently show zero deaths from dietary supplements; according to the FDA’s database, in 2021 alone drugs killed 187,750 Americans.
That supplements are the products getting federal attention speaks to the power of the drug industry lobby and the willingness of elected officials and FDA officials to do their bidding. We cannot let these forces succeed in undermining our ability to stay healthy, naturally.
Protect Supplements in Rhode Island
A bill being considered by the Rhode Island legislature that would limit your access to dietary supplements. SB 2613 makes dietary supplements only available by request and not directly accessible by customers. To get the supplements you need to maintain health, you’ll need to ask a clerk to get them for you and potentially show ID to prove you’re over 18. This Draconian policy cannot be allowed to move forward.
The stated purpose of this bill, and other similar bills across the country, is to prevent abuse of weight-loss supplements. That is a noble goal, but this overreaching bill limits access to ALL dietary supplements, not just those for weight loss. Restricting access to supplements by placing them behind a counter or in a locked case will negatively affect public health. Hidden from a customer’s view, some people may never become aware of a product that would perfectly suit their health needs—or be too intimidated to ask for it.
Further, the bill requires retailers to post a notice saying dietary supplements can lead to death and other serious injuries. This is a sensationalist claim; supplements are overwhelmingly safe. Are the bill’s sponsors aware of the real dangers to consumers from OTC drugs like acetaminophen, which is responsible for 56,000 emergency room visits, 26,000 hospitalizations, and more than 450 deaths from liver failure every single year? Why isn’t there legislation calling for these medicines to be out of reach to consumers with warnings that they may cause death?
Write to the legislature and tell them to oppose this terrible bill!
25 States Now Report Mysterious Hepatitis Cases in Children
Health officials in Hawaii confirmed they are investigating a case of acute hepatitis in a child, coming after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated there are more than 100 cases among children across the United States.
It’s now the 25th state to report a case of at least one case of unexplained hepatitis among children in recent days. The state’s Department of Health said Monday that the child, who is under the age of 10, was hospitalized with abdominal pain and fever in Maui in late April.
The child “was hospitalized for several days with abdominal pain and fever at the end of April. An extensive medical investigation was performed … At this time, no cause has been determined,” the agency told local media. It’s not clear if the child is still hospitalized.
The health department is now working with the CDC to identify the cause of the hepatitis case.
This Killed a Whale and It’s Lurking Inside Your Body
Plastic pollution is one of the greatest challenges we face, as the world produces more than 381 million tons of plastic annually, while an estimated 8 million pieces make its way into the ocean each day
An investigation explored food packaging as one of the greatest sources of global plastic pollution
Two of Canada’s largest supermarkets are big plastic polluters, as they source products from suppliers that overuse plastic in food packaging; neither grocer has any major plans to reduce plastic pollution
The investigation shows how difficult it is to buy plastic-free when shopping at major grocers; however, one U.K. grocery went plastic-free in 10 weeks, and their profits increased
Western nations are shipping their plastic waste to be recycled in poorer countries with fewer environmental regulations on how it’s processed and disposed of
Plastic pollution is one of the greatest challenges we face, as the world produces more than 381 million tons of plastic annually, while an estimated 8 million pieces make its way into the ocean each day
An investigation explored food packaging as one of the greatest sources of global plastic pollution
Two of Canada’s largest supermarkets are big plastic polluters, as they source products from suppliers that overuse plastic in food packaging; neither grocer has any major plans to reduce plastic pollution
The investigation shows how difficult it is to buy plastic-free when shopping at major grocers; however, one U.K. grocery went plastic-free in 10 weeks, and their profits increased
Western nations are shipping their plastic waste to be recycled in poorer countries with fewer environmental regulations on how it’s processed and disposed of
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Power Grid Operators Warn Of Potential Electricity Shortages Amid Transition To Clean Energy
There will never, ever be enough windmills and solar panels to energize a modern society. Technocracy’s war on coal, oil and gas is total lunacy but is designed to shrink and control economic activity. Get ready for shortages, rolling blackouts and grid interruptions. ⁃ TN Editor
Power-grid operators across the US warn that power-generating capacity struggles to keep up with demand, a worrying sign ahead of summer where heatwaves could lead to rolling blackouts.
The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, operating in 15 states across the US Central region, said last month that capacity shortages this summer due to soaring summer demand might result in outages. Last Friday, California Independent System Operator, or California ISO, outlined energy shortfalls this summer because of heat and wildfires. Texas over the weekend saw triple-digit temperatures in some portions of the state, though grid stability was maintained despite several power plants being offline for maintenance.
WSJ explains grid instability and increased risk of power shortages this summer comes as fossil fuel power plants are “being retired more quickly than they can be replaced by renewable energy and battery storage.” Power grids are racing to retire conventional power plants fueled by natural gas, coal, and diesel to green forms of energy, such as solar power and wind. There’s also the retirement of aging nuclear power plants.
Things are not working as planned in the green economy as power grids are becoming unstable by the retirement of fossil fuel power plants with unstable renewables. The transition isn’t as smooth as climate change modelers once suggested as grid stability worsens, and millions of Americans could be subjected to blackouts this summer as cooling demand soars during heatwaves as grids won’t have enough power to meet demand.
WSJ’s author reveals their blinkered bias or ignorance about alternative energy by stating the following “wind and solar farms – which are among the cheapest forms of power generation.” Alternative energy would be expensive if it weren’t for the government’s tax credits, grants, and other incentives. Plus, these are unreliable sources of energy because when the wind doesn’t blow, and the sun doesn’t shine, power isn’t produced, and there needs to be storage for electricity. However, the technology for widescale battery storage isn’t feasible right now.
The accelerated path of retiring fossil fuel power plants could generate even more problems for power grids at a time when “energy and batteries has become an especially difficult proposition amid supply-chain challenges and inflation,” WSJ points out.
The move to replace what’s working, and a power source that can generate 24/7, unless there is a fuel shortage, has doomed grids across the US during the green transition. Explaining more is Brad Jones, interim chief executive of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid, who said:
“Every market around the world is trying to deal with the same issue … We’re all trying to find ways to utilize as much of our renewable resources as possible…and at the same time make sure that we have enough dispatchable generation to manage reliability.”
Last Friday, a sobering reality from the California Energy Commission, Public Utilities Commission, California ISO, and Governor Gavin Newsom was that the state would have power supply gaps that could leave millions of people without power during peak hours. This imbalance in the grid is due to the lack of power generation and could last several years.
Mark Rothleder, chief operating officer of California ISO, said, “We need to make sure that we have sufficient new resources in place and operational before we let some of these retirements … Otherwise, we are putting ourselves potentially at risk of having insufficient capacity.”
It’s become clear that the aggressive green energy push has jeopardized power grids across the US, and during heatwaves this summer, rolling blackouts could be seen as some grids may not have enough supply to meet demand.
EV Chaos: 25% Of San Francisco’s EV Charging Stations Don’t Work
The EV industry is going to hit a brick wall as energy prices soar amidst shortages of energy and disrepair of charging stations. EV charging stations are headed toward the fate of many windmill farms, where as many as 75 percent of the giant towers are stationary. Remember that Technocrat Elon Musk is largely responsible for inventing the EV industry with Tesla. ⁃ TN Editor
California’s bold move toward an EV revolution and eliminating the sale of gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035 have hit a snag in the liberal utopian city of San Francisco.
A recent report by David Rempel of the University of California at Berkeley found a quarter of all EV charging stations in the Bay Area were out of order, suggesting current infrastructure isn’t ready for the giant leap toward an electrified world.
Here’s a section of the study describing the poor infrastructure for EVs across the Bay Area:
In order to achieve a rapid transition to electric vehicle driving, a highly reliable and easy to use charging infrastructure is critical to building confidence as consumers shift from using familiar gas vehicles to unfamiliar electric vehicles … This study evaluated the functionality of the charging system for 657 EVSE (electric vehicle service equipment) CCS connectors (combined charging system) on all 181 open, public DCFC (direct current fast chargers) charging stations in the Greater Bay Area. An EVSE was evaluated as functional if it charged an EV for 2 minutes or was charging an EV at the time the station was evaluated. Overall, 72.5% of the 657 EVSEs were functional. The cable was too short to reach the EV inlet for 4.9% of the EVSEs. Causes of 22.7% of EVSEs that were non-functioning were unresponsive or unavailable screens, payment system failures, charge initiation failures, network failures, or broken connectors.
The study notes that the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area region (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma) were included. It excluded private EV charging stations in paid parking lots, private workplaces, or business sites with restricted access hours. Also, all Tesla Superchargers were excluded since those stations weren’t accessible to all EVs.
California is the largest auto market in the US and the 10th largest globally. Its aggressive transition to EVs, all in the name of climate change, is hitting road bumps as infrastructure support cracks in at leader one major metro area, and the state’s power grid is unreliable as fossil fuel power plants have been retired too quickly in the transition to unsustainable solar and wind power generations. This has caused a jump in electricity rates for customers who use Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Southern California Edison Co., and San Diego Gas & Electric. Rates are so expensive that charging some EVs in certain parts of the state is almost as much as filling up a vehicle at the gas station.
The incentives for owning an EV in California are diminishing, from faulty infrastructure in San Francisco to extremely high electricity rates in some parts of the state. Not exactly what is needed to instill confidence in increasing EV ownership.
COVID RELATED NEWS
COVID Pills Cause Deadly Relapses and Supercharge Mutations
So far, all of the drugs developed against COVID-19 have been disastrous in one way or another. Remdesivir, which to this day is the primary COVID drug approved for use in U.S. hospitals, routinely causes severe organ damage and, often, death
Despite that, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved remdesivir for in-hospital and outpatient use in children as young as 1 month old
Another COVID drug, Paxlovid, will in some cases cause the infection to rebound when the medication is withdrawn
Molnupiravir (sold under the brand name Lagevrio) also has serious safety concerns. Not only might it contribute to cancer and birth defects, it may also supercharge the rate at which the virus mutates inside the patient, resulting in newer and more resistant variants
The fact that U.S. health authorities have focused on these drugs to the exclusion of all others, including older drugs with high rates of effectiveness and superior safety profiles, sends a very disturbing message. They’ve basically become extensions of the drug industry, protecting the drug industry’s interests at the cost of public health
Fauci’s Royalties And The $350 Million Royalty Payment Stream HIDDEN By NIH
The NIH files patents on its “discoveries” enabled by taxpayer salaries. The patents are licensed by Big Pharma, turned into huge revenue streams from which royalties are paid back to the NIH and its “inventors”. This is a Technocrat scam of epic proportions, if not an outright criminal syndicate. ⁃ TN EditorLast year, the National Institutes of Health – Anthony Fauci’s employer – doled out $30 billion in government grants to roughly 56,000 recipients. That largess of taxpayer money buys a lot of favor and clout within the scientific, research, and healthcare industries.
However, in our breaking investigation, we found hundreds of millions of dollars in payments also flow the other way. These are royalty payments from third-party payers (think pharmaceutical companies) back to the NIH and individual NIH scientists.
We estimate that between fiscal years 2010 and 2020, more than $350 million in royalties were paid by third-parties to the agency and NIH scientists – who are credited as co-inventors.
Because those payments enrich the agency and its scientists, each and every royalty payment could be a potential conflict of interest and needs disclosure.
Recently, our organization at OpenTheBooks.com forced NIH to disclose over 22,100 royalty payments totaling nearly $134 million paid to the agency and nearly 1,700 NIH scientists. These payments occurred during the most recently available period (September 2009 – September 2014).
The production is the result of our federal lawsuit vs. NIH. The agency admits to holding 3,000 pages of line-by-line royalties since 2009. So far, they’ve produced only 1,200 pages. The next 1,800 pages of production will cover the period 2015-2020.
However, what NIH has produced to date gives us insight into the undisclosed royalty largess. For example, only 900 scientists were estimated to be receiving royalties, so now we know the universe is much larger.
Since the NIH documents are heavily redacted, we can only see how many payments each scientist received, and, separately, the aggregate dollars per NIH agency. This is a gatekeeping at odds with the spirit and perhaps the letter of open-records laws.
We found agency leadership and top scientists at NIH receiving royalty payments. Well-known scientists receiving payments during the period included:
- Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the highest-paid federal bureaucrat, received 23 royalty payments. (Fauci’s 2021 taxpayer-funded salary: $456,028).
- Francis Collins, NIH director from 2009-2021, received 14 payments. (Collins’ 2021 taxpayer-funded salary: $203,500)
- Clifford Lane, Fauci’s deputy at NIAID, received 8 payments. (Lane’s 2021 taxpayer-funded salary: $325,287)
In the above examples, although we know the number of payments to each scientist, we still don’t know how much money was paid – because the dollar figure was deleted (redacted) from the disclosures.
The White House has warned that it does not have enough money to buy next-generation Covid vaccines for all Americans ahead of a possible fall infection wave.
If Congress fails to pass additional funding, the U.S. will have to limit the updated Covid shots to individuals at the highest risk of severe disease, a senior administration official said.
Pfizer and Moderna are developing shots that target the mutations of the omicron variant to boost protection against infection.
CANCEL CULTURE
Elon Musk: Twitter Obviously Has ‘Strong’ Left-Wing Bias
Telsa CEO Elon Musk, who is currently attempting a takeover of Twitter, again expressed concerns about the platform’s left-wing political bias—in response to a complaint the company isn’t doing enough to quash threats of violence coming from pro-abortion users.
A political commentator, Mike Cernovich, flagged a post from a Rewire News Group journalist who posted a call for violence against pro-life groups, suggesting that Musk take action if or when he takes over Twitter.
“Here you go @elonmusk, when Twitter employees invariably lie to you about enforcement policy, maybe they can explain why a verified account is allowed to incite terrorism without any care in the world about being banned,” Cernovich wrote at Musk.
And Musk replied that “Twitter [obviously] has a strong left wing bias.”
“Like I said, my preference is to hew close to the laws of countries in which Twitter operates,” he continued. “If the citizens want something banned, then pass a law to do so, otherwise it should be allowed.”
The journalist for Rewire, Caroline Reilly, appeared to suggest more violence after a pro-life group’s office was firebombed in Wisconsin over the weekend, coming in response to a Supreme Court draft opinion having been leaked last week suggesting the high court would overturn Roe v. Wade. The individual who attacked the office also included a pro-abortion comment in reference to the Supreme Court decision.
“More of this. May these people never know a moment of peace or safety until they rot in the ground,” she wrote in a since-deleted Twitter post on Sunday, responding to a New York Times post about the Winsconsin incident. The Epoch Times has contacted Rewire News Group for comment.
It’s not clear whether Twitter took action against Reilly.
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