Month: December 2022

Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Republican Congressman-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) is being investigated by prosecutors after he said he had embellished his professional biography during his campaign to represent the state’s 3rd Congressional District.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly, a Republican who took office at the start of 2022, said in a statement on Dec. 29: “The numerous fabrications and inconsistencies associated with Congressman-Elect Santos are nothing short of stunning.

“The residents of Nassau County and other parts of the third district must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress. No one is above the law and if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it.”

Representatives for Santos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Dec. 26, in an interview with the New York Post and New York-based radio station WABC, Santos said he had fabricated parts of his education and work experience, in what he called “resume embellishments.”

Santos had falsely claimed on his biography posted on the National Republican Congressional Committee that he had obtained “degrees in finance and economics” at Baruch College and New York University, and had worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

The revelations came about after a report from The New York Times on Dec. 19 called into question what Santos had claimed about his heritage, education, and work history.

The rep.-elect said he still plans to assume office in January. He is scheduled to be sworn in on Jan. 3, when the U.S. House of Representatives reconvenes.

“I want to make sure that if I disappointed anyone by resume embellishments, I’m sorry,” he told WABC on Dec. 26. “And I will deliver to you on everything I campaigned on because it’s still the same guy, still the same message, still the same priorities.”

Santos faced other allegations such as that he had falsely said he was Jewish. Santos on Dec. 26 told the New York Post he had “never claimed to be Jewish.”

Previously, he referred to himself as “a proud American Jew,” reported The Associated Press, and described himself as a “non-observant Jew,” reported the Jewish Insider. He separately had said on Twitter that he is a “conservative Roman Catholic.”

In remarks to the Jewish Insider in early November, Santos said: “Whether my mother’s Jewish background beliefs, which are mine, or my father’s Roman Catholic beliefs, which are also mine, are represented or not, I want to represent everyone else that practices every other religion to make sure everybody feels like they have a partner in me.”

Read more here…

What’s Happening? pic.twitter.com/leEqTSyFvV

— David Morgan (@silverguru22) November 30, 2022

 

When the science no longer supports the establishment narrative, the science no longer matters.  This is the lesson we have learned time and time again over the course of the past few years when it comes to covid mandates and vaccine cultism.  Americans in particular have been whipped with incessant claims since 2020 that the “science is settled” when it comes to mask restrictions, lockdowns, mRNA technology, etc.  Yet, as time passes, every “conspiracy theory” asserted by the anti-mandate crowd turns out to be true.

This, however, is not stopping the covid cult (made up mostly of political leftists) from blindly marching forward as they cling to the sweet taste of ultimate power they experienced from 2020 – 2021.  They just can’t let it go.  The pandemic world is their ideal world, and they continue to reveal their addiction in a steady outcry for ongoing restrictions.  

The New Yorker has recently joined the trend for perpetual medical tyranny with an article titled ‘The Case For Wearing Masks Forever’ in which they promote the concept of a new politicized version of the CDC, called the People’s CDC, which ignores the actual science and enables the irrational fears of covid obsessives. 

The People’s CDC is made up of academics, doctors, activists, and artists who believe that the government has left them to fend for themselves against Covid-19.  They believe the CDC’s data and guidelines have been distorted by powerful forces with vested interests in keeping people at work and keeping anxieties about the pandemic down.

This is a fascinating juxtaposition of previous narratives.  Two years ago, anti-mandate movements argued the exact opposite – That data and guidelines had been distorted by powerful forces vested in keeping the public afraid and under control.  As it turns out, the anti-mandate crowd was right about everything.  The public was being lied to about the effectiveness of the masks, the effectiveness of the lockdowns and the effectiveness of the vaccines.  Establishment institutions have been forced by the wider dissemination of scientific data to admit this reality. 

And now, leftists are livid. They feel betrayed by the very government agencies that once fed their craving for fear. 

The People’s CDC admits they don’t really know what their larger goal is, only that they are seeking to provide an “alternative source of information”, one that essentially reinforces their ideological assumptions.  It should be noted that when conservatives and liberty activists tried to share scientific information that was contrary to the establishment narrative, it was these same leftists that cried for censorship and called anti-mandate groups “dangerous”.  

The difference between the two groups is stark, though.  On the conservative side, the goal was clear and concise – Stop the draconian mandates because they are politically motivated and are not based on legitimate science. The goal was to separate politics from science.   On the leftist side the broad motivation is to inject activism into science; to make science as political as possible.  This is a truly dangerous and destructive endeavor.

The group suggests that ongoing mask mandates are essential to dealing with the spread of covid.  Members even claim that opposition to masks is predominantly among white people, and that anti-masking is rooted in “white supremacy” and eugenics.  Many minorities are also anti-mask, and the fact that The New Yorker would even entertain such drivel highlights the downfall of mainstream journalism.

The People’s CDC notes that they take issue with the way that the real CDC emphasizes individual choices over collective action.  This was not the case a year ago and it really still isn’t the case today.  What they are likely more upset about is that the CDC gave up on collective enforcement because such measures failed to pass scientific scrutiny and the scrutiny of the public.

The official median Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of covid continues to sit at a mere 0.23%.  Meaning, on average over 99.7% of the population is not at risk of dying from the virus.  This is a number which every establishment institution seeks to avoid mentioning because it lays bare the insanity behind covid fear mongering.  

The CDC has openly admitted that masking is not very effective, noting that the cloth masks which were widely required in public establishments across the country do little or nothing to prevent the transmission of covid.  At best they acted as a placebo, at worst they represented as symbol of submission to collectivist authority.  While N95 masks are purported to be more effective, recent studies show that the N95 offers no more protection than cloth masks.

States in which masking was widely enforced did not see any significant reduction in infection rates or death rates over states that had no mask mandates.  In fact, the rates are almost identical.  

This is the kind of information The New Yorker and the People’s CDC never mention.  That’s what happens when science is tainted by activism – The quest for truth becomes an annoyance rather than the primary mission. 

What the covid debate really amounts to is a conflict between those that support individual liberty vs those that do not.  Those that think society should be group focused and think that individual choice is a threat vs those that see the group as an abstraction exploited to take away people’s freedoms.  Collectivists see the covid mandates as a vehicle to further their cause.  They don’t care if the science contradicts their aims because the point is ultimately not public health and safety, the point is to elevate the ideology of the group over the individual.  This is why anti-mandate champions often refer to people like those in the “People’s CDC” as cultists; they desire ideological alignment to the detriment of all other concerns, including reality.   

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Rep. Brian Seitz (R-Branson) will enter his third session when the Missouri General Assembly convenes in Springfield on Jan. 4 and, for the third time, he is sponsoring a bill that would require state lawmakers to scrutinize and, potentially disregard, some presidential executive orders.

Under his proposed House Bill 174, the Missouri House must review all presidential executive orders not affirmed by a Congressional vote to determine if “they are, in fact, Constitutional,” Seitz told The Epoch Times.

If the Missouri House has questions about the constitutionality of a presidential executive order, the bill requires it be referred to the state’s attorney general to determine if it “restricts a person’s constitutional rights.”

“I’m a firm believer in states’ rights, and am very concerned about losing our authority [as a legislature] to federal overreach,” Seitz said.

That purview would apply to any presidential executive order that relates to “regulation of business activities or personal behaviors during a pandemic or other public health emergency,” natural resources, the agricultural industry, land use, “the financial sector through the imposition of environmental, social, or governance [ESG] standards, and “the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

“There are three branches of the government—not one,” Seitz said, stressing if adopted, the measure “would cover executive orders from presidents of either party.”

But make no mistake: The bill—along with Senate companions filed by Sen. Rick Brattin (R-Harrisonville)—is hardly bipartisan in genesis.

Since Democrat Joe Biden was sworn in as president in January 2021, similar bills have been introduced in at least nine other Republican-controlled state legislatures: Alabama, Utah, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Iowa, and South Carolina.

The Oklahoma and Tennessee bills advanced through committees to chamber votes in 2021 but ultimately were not adopted.

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) senior director for Homeland Security, International Relations, and Federalism Karla Jones said the bills are in response to “federal overreach that infringes on state sovereignty.”

Washington-based ALEC is usually the generator of conservative policy guides and model bills that state lawmakers carry into sessions.

But in reference to presidential executive orders, the council adopted its model policy regarding presidential executive orders in December 2021 in response to bills submitted by state lawmakers in six states during that year’s sessions.

“We just saw [the bills] proliferating because executive orders were becoming such a problem,” Jones told The Epoch Times. “There was a lot of alarm among state lawmakers who care about federalism and worry about federal overreach.”

During his first six months in office, “Biden was on track to issue more executive orders than FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt],” she said. “He has since leveled off considerably and is now pretty equal with President Donald Trump, who also issued more executive orders than we thought was prudent.”

According to Ballotpedia, as of Dec. 22, Biden had signed 105 executive orders. During his four years in office, Trump issued 220. FDR signed more than 3,500 in his 12 years in office.

Jones said it is easy to disparage a president’s use of executive authority, but it’s often exerted by default.

“Congress doesn’t have the political will to do the hard work, so many presidents rely on executive orders,” she said. “George Washington had, like, one. Single-digit executive orders,” during a presidency “was typical for the first 50 years of our history.”

ALEC’s policy fine-tunes the 2021 versions of the bills. Rather than tie them to specific issues, such as gun owners’ rights, the policy is a guide for bills “that could be used in any state” across a range of issues, Jones said, including by Democrat-controlled legislatures.

“Blue state may care about federal overreach in other areas.”

Seitz’s proposed HB 174 is similar to Iowa’s HF 815, filed in 2021 by Rep. John Wills, (R-Spirit Lake), which would have required Iowa to disregard, or not enforce, any presidential executive order related to a public health emergency, firearms, land-use, or regulation of natural resources, the agricultural industry, and the financial sector, that “restricts a person’s rights.”

HF 815 would also have accorded the Iowa Legislative Council authority to review the constitutionality of presidential executive orders and refer its conclusions to the state’s attorney general or governor’s office.

Oklahoma Rep. Jay Steagall (R-Yukon), sponsored a 2021 resolution that claimed the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment allows states to claim sovereignty when it comes to discarding presidential executive orders.

Neither was adopted.

Read more here…

It was just hours ago that we wrote about how restaurant staffing was returning to pre-pandemic levels and, in what we’re sure is totally not a coincidence, it also appears that laid off tech workers are having no trouble finding new jobs. 

According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, the job market apparently hasn’t softened enough just yet: tech workers are finding jobs “shortly after beginning their search” despite the tightening job market.

The 10.3 million job openings across the economy still “far exceeds” the number of unemployed Americans, the report noted.

Ergo, 79% of workers who were laid off or terminated found new work within three months, the report says. About 40% of workers found new jobs less than a month after being terminated or laid off from the tech jobs, according to data from ZipRecruiter.

Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told the Journal: “Despite the widespread layoffs, hiring freezes, and cost-cutting taking place in tech, many tech workers are finding reemployment remarkably quickly. They’re still the most sought-after workers with the most in-demand skills.” 

The report noted that a smaller share of workers in tech are spending long periods of time searching for new opportunities:

About 5% of laid off tech workers who found jobs from April to October had spent more than six months hunting for work, down from 26% of those hired between August 2021 and February 2022, ZipRecruiter said.

One 23 year old former videographer, who was fired and then able to land a new job within two months, told WSJ: ““When I was applying, to be honest, I didn’t feel very confident because there was such an influx of competition with a lot of people also being laid off.”

But he was able to land a social media manager job at a software startup under 3 months from being laid off. “I was surprised at how quickly I was able to secure an offer for a job,” he said of the new opportunity. 

Ryan Sutton, district president at Robert Half, a global recruitment firm added: “We’ve definitely seen a slowdown in hiring, but the reason why is that the job creation level was beyond record highs because of the slingshot effect of the pandemic. From August 2020 to May 2022, it wasn’t red-hot. It was lava-hot.”

He said the “usual” occurrence of laid off tech workers contacting his company for placement hasn’t happened. “We have not seen it yet—we haven’t seen more candidates coming to market. Our recruiters are having to hunt and hustle just as much as they had to in the last couple of years,” he concluded.  

And it appears the bounce back for laid off workers isn’t just limited to tech. Workers in other industries, such as transportation and delivery, were also able to find new jobs easily, the Journal concluded. You can read their full report here. 

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times,

If the world can learn one thing from the COVID chaos in China, it is that “locking down does not work,” said healthcare policy adviser Dr. Scott Atlas.

“We don’t even know really the extent of the harms to their population that they inflicted by locking down but we know anecdotally that there were massive harms to people—they couldn’t get food, they couldn’t get their own medications, people were imposing a completely uncivilized, almost animalistic way,” Atlas, a previous White House special coronavirus adviser and contributor to The Epoch Times, said in an interview.

For almost three years, China’s ruling regime has imposed a severe zero-COVID strategy, using strict lockdowns, centralized quarantines, mass testing, and omnipresent surveillance to contain the virus’s spread, leading to many residents being deprived of basic living needs, and some even dying from a lack of care.

“This is a massive human rights violation,” Atlas said.

“All of their policies imposed on their public,” he said, referring to China’s communist party (CCP), “is an example of one of the most extraordinary violations of human rights that we have seen in modern history.”

‘Flies in the Face of Common Sense’

The policy reversal that came without a transition plan accompanied an exponential surge of cases that was quickly overwhelming the country’s health system.

World Health Organization emergencies director Mike Ryan noted during a global health briefing on Dec. 14 that this wave of COVID-19 now seen in China is not due to the lifting of COVID restrictions, as it started long before any easing of the zero-COVID policy.

“I think that it’s very important to recognize that,” he said, adding,

“The disease was spreading intensively because I believe the control measures in themselves were not stopping the disease, and I believe that the Chinese authorities have decided strategically that that for them is not the best option anymore.”

Contrasting the few death cases the authorities have reported—11 since the easing of COVID curbs earlier this month—was mounting anecdotal evidence suggesting that the virus is fast spreading in Chinese cities and fatalities are rising. Hospitals and funeral homes have been filling up, with backlogs of bodies awaiting cremation.

The Chinese numbers, Atlas said, are “absurd” to think of.

“This just completely flies in the face of common sense,” he said.

“No one should believe the counting method that is reported by China,” he added, noting that to “save face and justify their reckless harmful lockdowns,” the regime would “necessarily have to say they had fewer deaths.”

COVID-19 patients on gurneys at Tianjin First Center Hospital in Tianjin, China, on Dec. 28, 2022. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

“I don’t know how anyone would think that they have transparency on how they’re counting.”

The lack of data from China has been so concerning that it has driven the United States to impose a new travel curb mandating COVID tests for travelers from China.

Lockdown Success ‘Fantasy’

That the regime has been “lying about the numbers” from the beginning, Atlas said, poses a troubling question.

In January 2020, after suppressing whistleblower doctors and journalists trying to sound warning about the emerging virus, China became the world’s first country to shut down cities in response to COVID-19 spiraling out of control. As the virus spread, the lockdown method that Beijing insisted was effective was then quickly copied by other countries around the world, such as the United States.

Atlas, an early lockdown critic, has previously enumerated the toll that such policies inflict on the public, from learning loss and mental health damage to a rise in substance abuse.

“There was this false belief that somehow China had ‘beaten the virus.’ This was a completely absurd lie—a fantasy.”

Health workers wait for people to scan a health code to test for the COVID-19 coronavirus in the Jing’an district in Shanghai, China, on Dec. 22, 2022. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

It was a lie that Atlas believes policymakers “blind to science” bought without question.

“It’s one thing that it’s a society like China [that] imposes the draconian policies on its on its public, because that’s what totalitarian societies do,” he said. “But it’s another thing—it’s extraordinary that governments of supposedly ‘free societies’ would attempt to impose these sorts of policies on the public—and even more sad is the acquiescence of people to such policies.”

“It’s a horrible indictment of American leadership to emulate a totalitarian society like China.”

Separate from the fact that locking down can’t get rid of a virus, Atlas sees two things that the world hasn’t grasped about the CCP’s “inhumane policies”: “the true failure of their policies and the massive harms on their own people.”

“The worst thing for China, or any totalitarian society, is to have people start realizing that the government policies are failures,” he said. “Because the only reason that the totalitarian societies exist is they have power.”

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Police and National Guard members are going door-to-door Wednesday to check on some Buffalo residents following a major winter storm that left dozens of people dead in recent days, officials said Wednesday.

Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz confirmed the development on Wednesday morning in a news conference. National Guard members and police will be deployed to neighborhoods that lost power during the storm.

Poloncarz also warned more dead could be found during the door-to-door checks. “We are fearful that there are people who are not doing well, or who may have perished,” he said.

“If your neighborhood lost power, you’re going to see a member of the National Guard starting now for the next 48 hours, who is going to knock on your door, ‘Is everybody OK? Was there any issues? Is anyone sick,’” Poloncarz added.

Officials said more than 30 people so far have been reported to have died because of the blizzard that raged Friday and Saturday in western New York, an area prone to powerful winter storms. The historic Blizzard of 1977 killed as many as 29.

A driving ban remained in effect for Buffalo, Poloncarz said Wednesday. The National Guard and state police are enforcing the measure, he said.

“The National Guard is NOT ticketing, they are assisting with traffic issues and people violating the driving ban in the City of Buffalo while crews are still working to clear roads,” he wrote on Twitter Wednesday, adding that the ban on driving will likely remain for the rest of Wednesday.

The county executive added that “no EMS call will go unanswered” and that “911 has been up and running and EMS crews are focused on life-saving missions. There may be delays, but they are out responding to calls.”

At least one death in Erie County was connected to an EMS delay, he told CNN on Tuesday. “Our emergency responders could not get to the person because of the snow,” Poloncarz added. “They were blocked, and by the time they got there it was too late.”

Only a trace of snow might fall on Buffalo and Western New York off the Great Lakes on Wednesday as temperatures will hit 40 degrees Fahrenheit, said Josh Weiss, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

“Most of the snow has ended, fortunately. They need a break,” Weiss said. “In Buffalo, there’s no forecast below zero into next week,” he said. “By the weekend it’ll be in the 50s.”

Weiss said that a warming trend has also begun for the eastern third of the United States and will extend past the new Year with temperatures remaining largely above freezing. Melting snow presents a risk of flooding and about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch of rain is expected in Western New York on Friday and Saturday.

“We’re expecting a rapid melt, and regional flooding on creeks. Creeks will top out,” Poloncarz said Wednesday.

Other Details

Giant snow-blowing machines were deployed to help clear several major highways clogged with towering drifts.

Hundreds of electric company linemen were out restoring power, and Poloncarz posted on Twitter that some 4,500 customers remained without electricity on Tuesday, as crews cleared downed trees with chain saws.

For residents essentially trapped in their homes for two days, the easing of the storm brought a realization of how much snow fell during white-out conditions that had limited their view.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called it an “epic, once-in-a-lifetime” weather disaster, the worst blizzard to hit the Buffalo area in 45 years.

Authored by Scottie Barnes via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An Oregon gun-control measure that many predict will wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court remains in limbo.

In a Dec 23 hearing, Circuit Court Judge Robert Raschio said he would rule by Jan. 3 whether to lift a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the Oregon Ballot Measure 114 requirement that a background check be completed before a firearm can be sold or transferred.

Earlier this month, Raschio issued a TRO on the measure’s permit-to-purchase provision and its ban on magazines that carry 10 or more rounds. Those TROs are still in place.

Passed in November with just 50.7 percent of the vote, Ballot Measure 114 was initially scheduled to take effect Dec. 8 but, starting on Dec. 6, faced a flurry of lawsuits.

In a Harney County suit filed on Dec. 6 by Gun Owners of America (GOA), the Gun Owners Federation, Cliff Asmussen, and Joseph Arnold, Raschio issued a TRO just three hours after Federal Court Judge Karin J. Immergut had denied such relief to plaintiffs in one of four related cases.

In his ruling, Raschio said the law violated the Oregon state constitution’s right to bear arms and that Oregonians would be “unable to lawfully purchase a firearm or bear a magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition in the State of Oregon.”

The Oregon Department of Justice immediately filed a petition asking the Oregon Supreme Court to vacate the lower court’s decision.

“We strongly disagree with the decision of the Harney County Circuit Court,” Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum wrote to the court. “Our mandamus petition to the Oregon Supreme Court gives our highest state court the opportunity to weigh in now and reverse the Harney County judge’s ruling.”

The state Supreme Court refused to intervene.

State Unprepared to Issue Permits

On Dec. 13, Raschio heard arguments on the permit-to-purchase provision, which the state acknowledged was not ready to go. The state had declared that it needed until approximately Feb. 8 to implement that system.

Lifting the order before the permitting system is ready would cause “irreparable harm to the constitutional right to bear arms,” he said. The judge continued the TRO for this provision. When the state notifies him in writing that it is prepared to roll out the new permitting program, he will schedule a hearing.

The court then considered the ban on magazines that hold 10 rounds or more. The state argued that such firearms were not in “common use” when the Second Amendment was ratified. So, they are not protected.

The state’s expert, Brian DeLay, associate professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley, testified that high-capacity firearms were an “experimental technology” and not commercially available when the Oregon Constitution was ratified.

Experts for the plaintiffs testified that high-capacity firearms have existed since the 16th century.

Lewis and Clark Carried High Capacity Firearm

Isaac Botkin, the technical and education director at manufacturing company T-Rex Arms for more than a decade, described a long history of firearms capable of holding more than 10 rounds, the most famous being one carried by the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It was in 1804-06 that Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Lt. William Clark led the expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase and the Pacific Northwest.

“Meriwether Lewis carried a firearm that had the capability of 20 or 22 rounds that was quite effective,” he said.

The state’s attorney argued that Botkin shouldn’t be allowed to make any “historical conclusions” on the history of guns, claiming that he is not an expert. The judge disagreed and allowed Botkin to continue.

Plaintiff’s Attorney Tony Aiello Jr. argued that magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are standard for guns manufactured today. He said those guns are “essentially the same firearm, just modified by design and function,” as some of the nation’s earliest guns.

Raschio asked whether magazine restrictions would “reasonably promote public safety by restraining a constitutional right to bear arms” as claimed in the ballot measure. Aiello argued that it would not, claiming that the ban would deny law-abiding Oregonians the ability to defend themselves while criminals continue to ignore the law.

Background Check Provision Scrutinized

Convinced that the ban would violate Oregonians’ rights under the state constitution, Raschio also extended the TRO on the magazine restriction.

“Based upon the preliminary evidence, the result of BM 114 would be a near absolute prohibition on handguns and many other firearms with their magazines,” Raschio wrote.

The Dec. 23 hearing focused primarily on the measure’s requirement that a background check is completed before a firearm can be sold or transferred.

Oregon special Attorney General Harry B. Wilson argued that the completed background-check requirement would save lives, is constitutional, and wasn’t explicitly challenged by the plaintiffs.

A licensed firearms dealer can legally deliver a purchased gun after three business days if the required federal background check is not complete—what gun control advocates call the “Charleston Loophole.” Measure 114 would end that by giving the state more time to complete background checks.

Measure Offers No Guarantee of Expediency

“Although a significant percentage of background checks are completed automatically within minutes, many require additional time,” Wilson wrote to the court. “As a result, in some instances, individuals with felony criminal histories can obtain a firearm because the transferer can deliver the firearm after three days and before the background check is complete.”

Read more here…

Russia’s state-controlled United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) announced a new batch of Sukhoi Su-57 fifth-generation fighters had been delivered to the Russian Aerospace Forces, according to EurAsian Times. 

“A new batch of fifth-generation Su-57 fighter jets has been delivered under a major contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense. This aircraft is the future of Russian military aviation, embodies advanced technologies and design solutions. It has super maneuverability, is barely noticeable, can destroy air and ground targets, detect the enemy from long distances and operate in network-centric warfare,” Sergey Chemezov, CEO of Rostec, the Russian state-owned technology company, said in a statement. 

UAC didn’t elaborate on how many Su-57 were delivered in the latest batch. Still, some on Twitter who posted images of the jets speculated at least four. 

The United Aircraft Corporation announced that KnAAZ delivered another batch of Su-57 fighters to the Russian Air Force. The video appears to show four fighters. https://t.co/gKQs7gCojP pic.twitter.com/FLairgoyHK

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) December 28, 2022

A new serial batch of SU-57 felons has been delivered to the Russian aerospace forces. pic.twitter.com/fsrrJHItiS

— ayden (@squatsons) December 28, 2022

In May, two Su-57s were delivered to Russian Aerospace Forces. It’s believed 6 to 15 Su-57s are already operational. Over the next five years, Russia plans for 76 Su-57 fighters. 

Russia’s first stealth-capable fighter plane will eventually replace fourth-generation MiG-29 and Su-27 aircraft though production is very slow. Perhaps the tweet explains why… 

This comparison of the Su-57 production line versus the F-35 production line really sums up the most important difference between these aircraft.
One is the most technologically advanced fighter in the world. The other is practically artisanal. pic.twitter.com/pGAYJauVUj

— Alex Hollings (@AlexHollings52) October 1, 2022

For all the times Moscow touts its new weapon systems, these fifth-generation fighters have been widely absent from Ukrainian airspace since the invasion. 

Authored by Jamie Joseph via The Epoch Times,

A Democratic lawmaker in California introduced a bill Dec. 19 to decriminalize the personal use of plant-based psychedelic drugs—such as magic mushrooms, mescaline, and psilocybin—outside of school grounds for people 21 and up.

“Criminalizing drug use and possession accomplish absolutely nothing other than to fill up our prisons with people who are addicted,” said Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) outside of the state Capitol Dec. 19.

“We need to treat drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal one.”

Wiener, the author of Senate Bill (SB) 58, said that psychedelics—a type of hallucinogenic drug—“have huge promise” when it comes to helping those suffering from mental health issues such as opioid addiction, depression, anxiety, and PTSD.

Sen. Scott Wiener speaks in front of the California State Senate on Aug. 31, 2022. (Screenshot via California State Senate)

SB 58 will also allow the cultivation, transfer, or transportation of fungi or other plant-based materials that can serve as ingredients for these drugs, according to its text.

The bill may be heard on or after Jan. 16, 2023.

These drugs affect how people see, hear, taste, smell, or feel, and can radically affect the user’s mood and thought, sometimes resulting in psychosis, according to existing academic studies.

One veteran, Michael Young, said at the press conference he came home to the United States with severe PTSD after 10 years of counter-terrorism missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Psychedelics help heal the unseen scars from my years of service in the war on terror,” he said.

“This sacred medicine showed me how to put myself back together again.”

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, hallucinogens “can cause users to see images, hear sounds, and feel sensations that seem real but do not exist.” The effects of ingesting psychedelics generally begin within 20 to 90 minutes and can last up to 12 hours in some cases or as short as 15 minutes in others, according to the institute.

Magic Mushrooms sit in a fridge in London, England, on July 18, 2005. (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

SB 58 is a comparably moderate version of a previous bill Wiener proposed but failed to pass in 2021, which would have legalized not only plant-based but synthetic psychedelics, such as MDMAs, LSD, and ketamine.

Although it is rare for someone to die from an LSD overdose, “severe injury and death has occurred as an indirect result of using LSD, in that accidents, self-mutilation, and suicide have occurred … when people are largely unaware of what they are doing,” according to the American Addiction Centers.

The Heroic Hearts Project—a co-sponsor of SB 519 of 2021 and psychedelic advocacy group for veterans struggling with PTSD—said “psychedelic treatment options provided these veterans with a level of relief and healing that many had come to believe was no longer possible.”

Several law enforcement groups opposed the 2021 bill, including the California College and University Police Chiefs Association, California District Attorneys Association, California Narcotic Officers’ Association, California Police Chiefs Association, California State Sheriffs’ Association, California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, and Peace Officers’ Research Association of California, among other organizations.

The Peace Officers’ Research Association of California “believes many of the penalties related to controlled substances work as a deterrent or a reason for individuals to get the treatment they need to turn their lives around,” according to a statement of opposition submitted to the state Assembly Health Committee in July 2021.

“Furthermore, [the association] believes this bill will cause an increase in the selling and personal use of drugs, which will lead to greater crime and arrests in our communities,” the statement read.

Under the CURES Act, signed into law in 2016 to expand medical innovations, many hallucinogenic substances—including LSD, DMT, mescaline, and psilocybin—are classified as Schedule 1 substances, meaning they pose a high risk of abuse and are not accepted for medical use.

In September, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a motion calling for law enforcement to deprioritize investigations and arrests of adults found in possession of psychedelics. This was a month after an Oakland church using magic mushrooms as its form of communion was raided by police.