Today's News: October 19, 2021

Senate Dems to propose narrowing scope of IRS reporting rule amid backlash

The Hill – Senate Democrats on Tuesday are expected to roll out an IRS enforcement proposal that is narrower in scope than a version unveiled earlier this year by the Biden administration, following criticism from Republicans and banking groups.

The Biden administration had proposed requiring financial institutions to report more information about bank accounts to the IRS, in cases where the accounts had more than $600 in withdrawals and deposits in a year. Senate Democrats are planning to increase that threshold to $10,000 and exempt wage income, a Democratic aide told The Hill.

Democratic lawmakers and the White House had been discussing these changes to the administration’s initial proposal for several weeks, but Senate Democrats are slated to more formally outline them on Tuesday.

The new development on the IRS proposal comes after banks and GOP lawmakers have focused intensely on attacking the idea. Critics argue that the proposal would amount to an invasion of privacy.

Democrats say the proposal would help the IRS go after wealthy Americans who are not paying the taxes they owe. Administration officials and Democratic lawmakers have also noted that the proposal would not require the IRS to receive information about specific transactions, only the total amounts of money that came in and came out of an account in a year.

Biden admin threatening to make Navy SEALs resisting the vax mandate repay their training cost

American Thinker – I can think of few better ways to ensure that fewer qualified people will apply to join the nation’s most elite fighting unit than the policy just announced by the U.S. Navy’s COVID Consolidated Disposition Authority. It has issued a directive that, as Hank Berrien reports, threatens “removing them from special warfare, reducing their salaries, and forcing them to repay training.”

Since training a SEAL is very expensive, this amounts to financial ruin for the heroes who undergo incredibly harsh training and who offer their lives to protect us.

President Trump’s interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, a former SEAL, appropriately criticized the plan on Facebook:

Our Nation’s best don’t sign up to be a Navy SEAL to cash in on our training years later. We give a blood oath to fight for freedom and defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. In doing so, we bear a burden of emotional, psychological, physical, and family stress of constant deployments and low pay because we love our Country. Shame Mr. President for not recognizing the service and sacrifice and further insulting SEALs by making this about money.

Trump says he wouldn’t need COVID vaccine mandate: ‘I would convince people’

NY Post – Former President Donald Trump says he would not mandate COVID-19 vaccines if he were still in office because he’d “sell it” to people to take voluntarily.

President Biden last month announced that most federal workers must get vaccinated or face losing their jobs and that companies with 100 or more employees must require shots or regular testing — drawing pushback from critics who accused him of overreach.

“I wouldn’t say to anybody, ‘You have to.’ But I would sell it. Look, I’m very proud of what we did with the vaccines,” Trump told political news host Bill O’Reilly in an interview that will air at 8 p.m. Monday on The First TV.

“It was supposed to take five years and they said it wasn’t going to work. I did three vaccines in less than nine months and they do work, they work really well.”

Trump added: “I would convince people, take it. I don’t want to push it … When I was president, there was no talk about mandates or anything. Everybody wanted the vaccine. Now a lot of people don’t want it.”

Trump’s administration spearheaded the development of coronavirus vaccines through Operation Warp Speed, which poured billions into vaccine development and purchases.

Biden To Meet With Pope Days Before Pitching 15% Minimum Global Tax And Climate Plan To World Leaders

ZeroHedge – President Biden will be taking his global taxation and climate change ideas to the Pope, hours before the G20 summit in Rome later this month.

Before seeking the approval of world leaders on his plans for both, Biden may be looking to seek approval from one other major “world leader” about a global minimum tax of 15% and plans to reduce greenhouse gasses, according to Reuters.

Biden’s meeting with the pope comes at a time when the church has “sought to admonish” Biden for his stance on abortion. Biden will be accompanied by his wife, the report says.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said: “They will discuss working together on efforts grounded in respect for fundamental human dignity, including ending the COVID-19 pandemic, tackling the climate crisis, and caring for the poor.”

Rock Star Travis Tritt Refuses to Play Venues with Vaccine Requirement: ‘Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is’

Breitbart – Veteran country music star Travis Tritt announced he will not play venues that require proof of coronavirus vaccination or a negative test.

In a statement posted to his official website, Tritt said he will be putting his money where his mouth is, emphasizing that any venue or promoter pushing extreme coronavirus protocols on his “fans will not be tolerated”:

I’m putting my money where my mouth is and announcing that any venue or promoter mandating masks, requiring vaccinations, or pushing COVID testing protocols on my fans will not be tolerated. Any show I have booked that discriminates against concert-goers by requiring proof of vaccination, a COVID test, or a mask is being canceled immediately.

Tritt further expressed his full support for people opposing mask and vaccine mandates around the country, pledging to “stand up for the freedoms that generations of Americans have enjoyed for their entire lifetimes”:

Many people are taking a firm stand against these mandates around the country, and I wholeheartedly support that cause. I have been extremely vocal against mandates since the beginning. This is a sacrifice that I’m willing to make to stand up for the freedoms that generations of Americans have enjoyed for their entire lifetimes. There are plenty of promoters and venues around the country that appreciate fans and the freedom of choice in this great country, and those are the promoters and venues that I will be supporting.

Rep. Mike Gallagher Warns: We Will Lose ‘New Cold War’ with China Following Hypersonic Missile Test

Breitbart – Following reports that China conducted a nuclear-capable low-orbit hypersonic missile test in August, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) warned that the U.S. could lose the “New Cold War” against Beijing, and he is demanding to “aggressively decouple anything associated with the military-civilian fusion” in a statement released Sunday.

According to the statement, the recent test, which reportedly caught U.S. intelligence officials off guard, “should serve as a call to action” lest the U.S. “lose the New Cold War” against China.

“If we stick to our current complacent course—or place our hopes in bankrupt buzzwords like ‘integrated deterrence’—we will lose the New Cold War with Communist China within the decade,” it begins.

Facebook developing new ‘Ego4D’ AI that can see, hear, remember whatever you do

Inside Paper – According to BBC, a long-term artificial intelligence (AI) research project led by Facebook could aid in answering the age-old question, “Where did I put that thing?.”

Facebook is working on a new artificial intelligence (AI)-based system that can analyse your lives through first-person videos, recording what they see, do, and hear to assist you with daily tasks.

Imagine your AR device showing you exactly how to hold the sticks during a drum lesson, guiding you through a recipe, locating your misplaced keys, or recalling memories as holograms that come to life in front of you.

Facebook AI has announced ‘Ego4D,’ a long-term project aimed at solving research challenges in ‘egocentric perception’ (the perception of direction or position of oneself based on visual information).

“We brought together a consortium of 13 universities and labs across nine countries, who collected more than 2,200 hours of first-person video in the wild, featuring over 700 participants going about their daily lives,” the social network said in a statement.

This significantly expands the scale of egocentric data publicly available to the research community by an order of magnitude, with more than 20x the hours of footage of any other data set.

“Next-generation AI systems will need to learn from an entirely different kind of data — videos that show the world from the center of the action, rather than the sidelines,” said Kristen Grauman, lead research scientist at Facebook.

All 3 FDA-Authorized COVID-19 Vaccine Companies Employ Former FDA Commissioners

Health Impact News – Have an experimental drug that needs rapid authorization from the FDA in order to be sold to the masses? Looking to siphon billions of dollars from the U.S. taxpayer for your newfound pharmaceutical product?

In today’s America, you can buy yourself a former FDA commissioner, and use the public-sector private-sector revolving door system of corruption to impose your will on the American public, and make a windfall for your executives and shareholders in the process.

That appears to be the exact strategy utilized by Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and the company that founded Moderna, which have rostered a series of former top ranking government officials into top positions in their respective organizations.

NYC Judge Prevents Father From Visiting His Daughter Unless He Takes the COVID Vaccine

Summit News – A judge in New York City has blocked a father’s right to see his three-year-old daughter unless he agrees to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

Yes, really.

In early September, Evan Schein, an attorney acting on behalf of the mother in the couple’s divorce case (the family has not been named), raised concerns about the father’s vaccination status, leading high profile judge Judge Matthew Cooper to suspend his visitation rights until he received the jab.

According to Cooper, the father needs to submit to the shot because it has become a prerequisite “to participate meaningfully in everyday society.”

“The dangers of voluntarily remaining unvaccinated during access with a child while the COVID-19 virus remains a threat to children’s health and safety cannot be understated,” said the judge.

“Unfortunately, and to my mind, incomprehensibly, a sizable minority, seizing upon misinformation, conspiracy theories, and muddled notions of ‘individual liberty,’ have refused all entreaties to be vaccinated,” he added.

The father’s only other option is to pay for expensive PCR tests every week in addition to taking a biweekly antigen test within 24 hours of his every other weekend visits.

The ruling was praised by the mother’s attorney, who called it “an incredibly important one that highlights the extraordinary times we are living in and reinforces that a child’s best interests are paramount.”

Health Secretary to Force Fluoridated Water on Entire Country

Mercola – U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced he would be adding fluoride to the water supply, a move that was supported by the chief medical officers of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

In response three British scientists sent a public letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, cautioning “This is not a good time for the British government to mislead the public on the dangers posed by the practice of water fluoridation.”

England’s chief medical officer dismissed the concerns, calling them “exaggerated and unevidenced.” However, there are 70 human and 60 animal studies demonstrating an association between fluoride ingestion and a reduction in learning or memory.

Evidence also suggests fluoride is associated with ADHD and disrupted sleep patterns and is an endocrine disruptor. U.K. citizens may sign a petition for Parliament to consider it for debate. While reverse osmosis filtration can help, the most effective solution is to stop water fluoridation

EPA Has New Plan to Reduce Exposure From PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’

Newsmax – A new plan to limit pollution from so-called “forever chemicals” will include restricting their release into the environment and speeding cleanup of contaminated sites, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday.

The chemicals, called PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), are used in products ranging from cookware to carpets to firefighting foam. They’re increasingly showing up in public drinking water systems, private wells and foods, and are associated with serious health problems such as cancer and reduced birth weight.

“For far too long, families across America — especially those in underserved communities — have suffered from PFAS in their water, their air, or in the land their children play on,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in an agency news release. “This comprehensive, national PFAS strategy will deliver protections to people who are hurting, by advancing bold and concrete actions that address the full life cycle of these chemicals. Let there be no doubt that EPA is listening, we have your back, and we are laser-focused on protecting people from pollution and holding polluters accountable.”