Month: March 2023

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The top U.S. public health agency identified hundreds of safety signals for the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines months earlier than previously known, according to files obtained by The Epoch Times.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found more than 700 signals that the vaccines could cause adverse events—including acute heart failure and death—in May 2022, the files show.

The CDC detected many of the same signals in July 2022, The Epoch Times previously reported. The new files show that the first time the CDC calculated a proportional reporting ratio (PRR) on vaccine injury reports, signals were identified.

The analysis went over reports lodged between Dec. 14, 2020, and May 6, 2022.

The CDC initially claimed that it didn’t run the PRR, a data mining method, on the injury reports made to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The CDC later claimed that it started the method in February 2021, shortly after the vaccines were rolled out. Both of those claims were false, the CDC ultimately said, adding that it didn’t start until March 2022.

When the first analyses were done that month, CDC employees identified more than 200 signals for Pfizer’s shot and 93 signals for Moderna’s vaccine, the files show. Those analyses compare the events lodged after receiving one vaccine with events lodged after receiving another, or several others.

The Epoch Times obtained the files through Freedom of Information Act requests.

The strongest analysis involves comparing the reports lodged after vaccination with the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines with the reports lodged after vaccination with all non-COVID-19 vaccines. The analysis is contained in files labeled “Table 5.”

According to the files provided by the CDC, the agency didn’t start that analysis until May 2022.

“The program staff advises that ‘Table 5 was only created from May 6, 2022, to July 31, 2022,‘” a CDC Freedom of Information Act processer told The Epoch Times via email.

The CDC didn’t respond to a request for more information.

“Federal health agencies have ignored the flashing alarms of their own safety surveillance systems since early 2021. They have ignored my oversight letters and lied about what analyses they have performed. It is well past time for the American public to be told the truth,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told The Epoch Times via email.

Operating Procedures

The CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) co-manage the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which accepts reports from anybody but is primarily used by health care workers. Reports to the system are analyzed and verified by health officials and contractors.

In operating procedure documents, the agencies said that officials would monitor the system to identify “potential new safety concerns for COVID-19 vaccines.” The FDA would perform one type of analysis, called Empirical Bayesian data mining, while the CDC would perform PRR data mining.

Read more here…

By Russell Clark, author of the Capital Flows and Asset Markets substack,

Japanese demographics is often cited in the secular stagnation story, and particularly by bond bulls.

The UN’s Population Division has a forecast for Japanese population to fall below 80m by the end of the century.

I think it is unlikely that Japanese population falls that far, but first of all you need to understand how unusual Japan is demographically. Japan only has a land mass 50% greater than the UK. In arable land terms, the UK has 50% more than Japan, reflecting the far more mountainous terrain in Japan. 120 years ago, Japan and the UK had similar sized populations, but then Japanese population grew rapidly, while the UK stagnated. If you ever visit Japan, you will notice on train trips between cities that ever single bit of flat land is used. This really gives the impression that Japanese overpopulated their island, and now need to see their population fall.

I can get Japanese population and birth statistics back to 1900, and assuming relatively low (to none) immigration, work out births and deaths by year. A few surprising features is how Japanese births peaked soon after WWII. While there was another rise in the 1970s, it was very low compared to number births before WWII. Intriguingly, 1947 and 1972 show negative deaths. This is reflecting the repatriation of 6 million Japanese citizens from former colonies in Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria, and the return of Okinawa respectively. So after the trauma of World War II, mainland Japanese population actually grew at the end of World War II due to repatriation.

For comparison, the UK saw peak births, in 1901. If there is a demographic crisis, its has been brewing for a very long time. The rise in the UK population is mainly due to net migration. Both Japan and UK saw a countertrend rise in the 1960s and 1970s, which I think was due to pro-labour policies – but I will leave that aside for the moment.

The first part of my argument for a change in birth rates is that changes in technology means that women can have children later. In this area, Japan is a leader. In the last available data I have, 6% of all Japanese births, which is far higher than any other large country.

For me ART births take away age as a constraint on fertility rates. Technology means that women well into their 40s and even 50s can now have children if they want and can afford it. And here we see another positive trend in Japanese fertility rates. Working mothers are having more children are having more children than non-working mothers, after being the minority for years.

Another possible pro-labor shift that could reverse fertility trends is the work-from-home shift. I speak from personal experience that working from home is far more conducive to raising children than office based working. I also know that childcare in Japan is both expensive, and culturally women were expected to quit work to have children, as the above chart shows (at least until relatively recently). As we have seen with recent government actions on green energy, once a crisis is declared, governments can quickly accelerate trends. At some point, fertility rates in Japan will be declared a “real crisis”, and policies of free IVF, and free childcare will transform fertility rates. I very much doubt Japanese population will fall below 100 million people.

Russia’s military has test-fired what its defense ministry (MoD) is describing as a supersonic missile, launching it into the Sea of Japan on Tuesday.

The MoD confirmed in a Telegram announcement that its ships of the Pacific Fleet successfully fired two “Moskit cruise missiles at a mock enemy sea target” – hitting the mock warship from a distance of about 62 miles. Crucially the Moskit is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

According to details in the AP, “The Moskit, whose NATO reporting name is the SS-N-22 Sunburn, is a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile that has conventional and nuclear warhead capacity.”

“The Soviet-built cruise missile is capable of flying at three times the speed of sound and has a range of up to 250 kilometers (155 miles),” the report adds. “Supersonic” is a designation below “hypersonic” – given the latter denotes speeds of at least five times the speed of sound.

Japan’s foreign ministry said it doesn’t intend to protest the missile launch given it occurred near coastal Russia, but a statement still stressed, “On the whole, Japan is concerned about Russia’s increasing military activities around the Japanese coasts and watching them with great interest.”

According to Axios in reference to the newly disclosed test launch:

“The announcement comes one week after two Russian strategic bomber planes capable of carrying nuclear weapons flew over the Sea of Japan for over seven hours while the Japanese prime minister was visiting Ukraine.”

Concerning recent rising tensions between Russian and Japan over disputed islands between the two countries, AP reviews further that “In September, Japan protested multinational military exercises on the Russian-held Kuril Islands — some of which are claimed by Japan — and expressed concern about Russian and Chinese warships conducting shooting drills in the Sea of Japan.” And in addition, “Russia also tested submarine-launched missiles in the Sea of Japan last year.”

Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

One of Britain’s leading climate ‘experts’, Professor Kevin Anderson, has provided a valuable insight into the increasingly bizarre demands that surround the promotion of the collectivist Net Zero political project.

Writing in the Conversation, he argues for Net Zero within 12 years, complete with a refit of U.K. housing stock, a withdrawal of all combustion engine cars in favour of expanded public transport, electrification of industry, the roll out of ‘zero-carbon’ energy, and the banning of all fossil fuel production. To achieve his aims, Anderson suggests mobilisation on the scale of the post-war European reconstruction Marshall Plan. Others might suggest his crackpot schemes will leave the country facing a similar scale of destruction, ruin and poverty to that caused by the Luftwaffe.

Anderson is currently a Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester and he has plenty of form when it comes to extremist claims and calls for widespread rationing. As early as 2010, he was calling on politicians to consider a rationing system “similar to the one introduced during the last time of crisis in the 1930s and 40s”. He also suggested a limit on electricity “so people are forced to turn the heating down”, and a limit on goods that require a lot of energy to manufacture.

On a practical level, Anderson’s latest calls for radical societal restructuring under the guise of a ‘climate emergency’ are plainly ridiculous. Retrofitting Britain’s well-ventilated housing and industrial stock along with installing heat pumps would cost around £3 trillion, according to a paper published last year by the technology professor Michael Kelly – equivalent, it should be noted, to Britain’s annual GDP. That, of course, is before we’ve factored in the cost of Anderson’s other plans such as retrofitting the entire industrial and transport infrastructure, all within the next 12 years. In its more sane moments, even Extinction Rebellion might be proud of such an ambitious plan.

The Conversation is obligatory reading for those aiming to keep fully up to speed with the latest climate, Net Zero and woke fantasies. It purports to be an independent source of news analysis, written by academic experts working with professional journalists. To the mainstream media, it offers “media-ready” experts and “free” content. It is funded by academic institutions and receives money from a number of billionaire Foundations. Media partners include Reuters, PA Media, Reach (owner of the Mirror, Express, Daily Star and multiple local U.K. newspapers) and Apple News.

Collectivist economic solutions alongside the ubiquitous woke dogma are increasingly dominating debate around climate change.

Net Zero is becoming the dividing line in the age-old battle between Right and Left, Free markets and Socialism, Cavaliers and Roundheads. In the U.S. the issue is rapidly becoming yet another fight between the Republicans and the Democrats. Similar trends are likely in the U.K. and Europe as Net Zero starts wreaking economic and social havoc.

The Conversation is to the fore on climate wokery. In 2020, two UCL geography professors Mark Maslin and Simon Lewis argued in its pages that colonisation marked the beginning of the Anthropocene (a political renaming of the current Holocene epoch), and racism and the climate emergency shared common causes. In his recent article, Kevin Anderson argues that “given deep inequalities”, the rapid reduction of material consumption and the deployment of a zero-carbon infrastructure “is only possible by re-allocating society’s productive capacity away from enabling the private luxury of a few and towards wider public ownership”.

Last week the Daily Caller castigated the IPCC summary report of its work over the last five years as a “woke dumpster fire masquerading as science”. Any scientific credibility the new UN report might have had is called into question by its “extensive use of ‘woke’ buzzwords”, it said. Variations of the words ‘equity’ and ‘inequality’ are said to appear 31 times in the 36-page document. Variations of ‘inclusive’ and ‘inclusion’ appear 17 times. Apparently, the document mentions ‘colonialism’ and repeatedly refers to climate and ‘social justice’ for ‘marginalised’ groups.

The Daily Caller quotes a section of the report that states:

“redistributive policies… that shield the poor and vulnerable, social safety nets, equity, inclusion and just transitions, at all scales can enable deeper societal ambitions and resolve trade-offs with sustainable development goals”.

The publication notes that if you think ‘equity’ is a fundamental pillar of scientific knowledge, then this is the report for you.

”But if you’re like most people and don’t think far-left political priorities have a place in scientific documents meant to advise policymakers, this should alarm you,” it concludes.

Substack is initiating a crowdsourcing funding round, allowing writers to invest as little as $100 in the company. On Tuesday morning, the startup emailed writers about the investment opportunity. The development comes amidst a freeze in venture capital funding markets, which followed the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. 

“Today, we’re starting a process that will let writers and readers invest in Substack and own a piece of the company. We are serious about building Substack with writers and readers and this community round is one way to concretize that ideal,” the email said. 

Substack is using the crowdfunding service Wefunder to raise $2 million. Around noon on Tuesday, nearly $800k had been raised. 

Investment terms of the money raise stated:

“This is an extension of Substack’s Series B which originally had a $585M pre-money valuation and $650M post-money valuation.” 

The email went on and on about “Own a piece of Substack” and “Help build a new economic engine for culture” to make it “amazing for tomorrow.” 

It seems that Substack has encountered funding challenges in the VC space. Before SVB’s collapse, funding markets were already tightening due to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive move to increase interest rates to combat decades-high inflation. Earlier this year, the company reduced its workforce by 14% and cut expenses to adapt to mounting macroeconomic headwinds.

We told readers last weekend that funding pipelines for startups have ground to a halt. As a result, we pointed out that large investment banks, such as Goldman, are now stepping into the arena to fund some cash-strapped startups at deep valuation discounts. 

Authored by Tara MacIsaac via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Changes are coming to Canada’s lobbying rules, and a coalition of citizen groups says they will “legalize bribery by allowing for favour-trading between lobbyists and politicians.” The House ethics committee has approved a proposed revision of the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct by and large, only making a few recommendations for changes.

“It’s shameful that the Liberal, Conservative and Bloc MPs on the Ethics Committee have decided … to support changes that will gut key ethical lobbying rules,” said Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, in a release on March 27. Democracy Watch is joined by 26 citizen groups and more than 30 lawyers and professors in opposition to the changes proposed by Commissioner of Lobbying Nancy Bélanger.

They criticise the sponsored travel junkets allowed by the rules. They say the proposed new rules will also allow people to do important campaign work for a politician, then lobby that same politician shortly thereafter. They say the sense of obligation gives that lobbyist an unfair advantage.

Cooling Off Period

Bélanger has said that she seeks to change the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct because it needs to be clarified to make it more enforceable. For example, the current code says there should be a cooling off period between “political activity” in support of a politician and then lobbying that politician. It doesn’t say how long, only a “specified period.”

“There is no definition of political activity, or what is meant by a specified period,” Manon Dion, a spokesperson for the Office of the Commissioner, told The Epoch Times via email. Bélanger’s new code seeks to define political activity and set specific time periods.

A set of guidelines published by her office does this, but the guidelines aren’t codified in law. Those guidelines currently say the cooling off period for certain high-level political activities should be “a period equivalent to a full election cycle,” or four years.

Conacher criticises Bélanger for taking a step back, making the cooling off period only one or two years in her revised version of the code.

“Somebody helps you get elected, raises a whole bunch of money for you—when do you ever stop owing them? You owe them forever. It’s just ridiculous to say that it magically disappears after one to two years,” Conacher said in an interview with The Epoch Times in February when the ethics committee began hearing testimony from stakeholders on the issue.

The ethics committee, in their March 20 letter of approval to Bélanger, did not recommend lengthening the cooling off period.

The letter noted Democracy Watch’s concern that under Bélanger’s revised code someone could, in theory, fundraise huge amounts of money for a public official and lobby that official at the same time. That’s because fundraising itself isn’t prohibited, only “full-time” or “nearly full-time” political work.

The committee suggested updating the definition of “political work” to include any significant fundraising.

In a March 3 letter to the committee, Bélanger noted that rule 7 in her code prevents this. “[Rule 7] expressly applies to circumstances outside the scope of the other rules of the Code and prevents registered lobbyists from lobbying officials who could reasonably be seen to have a sense of obligation toward them,” she said.

The commissioner was hesitant to impose a longer cooling off period, Dion said, because of concern that limiting people’s political activity too much would be in violation of Charter rights.

Charter Rights

“The updated rule was carefully crafted to achieve its objective of restricting lobbying where a sense of obligation could reasonably be seen to exist and to provide the greatest clarity for lobbyists, all while complying with the Charter,” Dion said.

Lawyers who have joined Democracy Watch’s coalition against the code changes contest this claim. The claim is based on a legal opinion given to the commissioner’s office by one law firm. The office has declined to share details related to that opinion, “in light of the importance of client-solicitor privilege,” Dion said.

A March 6 letter signed by 11 lawyers and 21 law and political science professors says the Supreme Court of Canada allows for reasonable limits on Charter rights to protect government integrity.

“It is an entirely reasonable limit to prohibit a person who does anything significant to help a politician or political party from lobbying the politician, party leader and top party officials for 4 years. That prohibition ensures that lobbyists don’t lobby people they have helped—which helps ensure ethical lobbying and protects the integrity of government and policy-making,” the letter said.

Gifts and Hospitality

Another point of contention in the revised code is a limit on how much lobbyists can spend on gifts and hospitality for public officials.

Bélanger proposed a limit of $80 per year. She had originally said $30 per year, but raised it after lobbying groups opposed it during the public comment period.

Lobbying groups continued to oppose this limit in their testimony to the ethics committee in February, saying it is difficult to tell how much an official consumes at a banquet, for example, and to keep track of the worth for each person.

The ethics committee suggested changing the limit to $200. It suggested adding language to allow for certain types of gifts beyond the limit, “such as sponsored travel or gifts of reasonable value given as expressions of cultural tradition.” It gave moccasins as an example of a cultural gift that might cost more than the $80 limit.

“The Committee agrees that sponsored travel, where it serves a legitimate purpose, should be exempted from the application of the low-value limit and the annual limit,” it wrote.

Democracy Watch said in its March 27 release, “The Committee wants a loophole so lobbyists can continue to give ‘sponsored travel’ junket trips to MPs and their family members and associates.”

The group said it has 20,000 signatures on a voter petition to stop the changes and it will file a lawsuit challenging the changes if they go through.

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

A recent survey of taxpayers shows a large number of Americans anticipated a tax refund that is either the same size or larger than last year’s.

The survey, released by tax-preparing software firm TaxAct this month, showed that only about 30 percent of Americans anticipated “receiving less of a refund on their 2022 returns” despite recent warnings from the Internal Revenue Service and other tax experts. Another 24 percent said in the survey that they “don’t know what to expect.”

The smaller refunds come as many Americans are saving less and are increasingly expressing worry about decades-high inflation, according to a TaxAct release. Tax experts have said that federal government pandemic programs as well as tax credits have ended for many.

“Refunds are predicted to go down 11 percent from last year,” Curtis Campbell, president and CEO of TaxAct, stated in a press release. “And it’s important for people to be prepared to receive less or even owe money this tax season.”

Citing recent changes to the tax code, he noted that “we can expect to see lower tax refunds across the board this season being there was no stimulus relief this past year and other tax advantages, like the Child Tax Credit, reverted back to their lesser 2019 values.”

“There is a lot of economic uncertainty right now, and for the majority of customers we serve, their tax refund is their biggest paycheck of the year,” Campbell added. “U.S. citizens are saving less money, and therefore, relying on their refunds to help make ends meet.”

Data released by the IRS earlier this month show that tax refunds are 11 percent smaller, on average, than the same time a year ago. Still, the IRS has sent out more tax refunds this year than last year, while a greater number of processed returns triggered a refund so far with less than a month to go before the April 18 tax-filing deadline.

The average tax refund amounted to $3,028 as of Mar. 3, down from $3,401 during the same time period in 2022. So far, the IRS has sent out 42 million refunds this year, compared with some 38 million that were sent during the same time period last year.

Read more here…

Independent journalist Matt Taibbi – of recent “Twitter Files” fame – has exposed the fact that civil liberties are no longer popular among Democrats. Taibbi appeared on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” to reiterate his perspective that the modern Democratic Party no longer represents the values of the everyday American. 

“About all of this — Matt, how do you feel about all of this? I know before you started discovering this bad behavior, you identified as a Democrat, and now you’ve got all of your friends, quote-unquote, in the media attacking you for exposing this,” Bartiromo asked.

“Yeah, it’s funny, I mean, I was raised in a traditional ACLU liberal, I believed in free speech all my life. That was one of the things, frankly, that attracted me to the Democratic Party when I was a kid, the idea that we were the party that believed in letting everybody have a say, and we’ll just make a better argument, and that’s how the system works,” Taibbi said.

He continued, “Apparently, something very dramatic has changed in politics in America, and there’s been a shift. There’s no question about it anymore, that now the parties have had a complete reversal on how they read these issues.”

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi: “There’s no question about it anymore that now the parties have had a complete reversal on how they view these issues.” pic.twitter.com/2zxpspYTmO

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 26, 2023

Taibbi leads a team of journalists, including Michael Shellenberger, who have been given access to Twitter Files, revealing a startling network of government agencies, think tanks, and Twitter personnel coordinating efforts to attack the First Amendment. 

What we’ve learned from the Twitter Files is the ever-expanding coalition of groups working with the government and social media to target and censor Americans, including government-funded organizations.

Twitter files are chilling in the details and show how Democrats have weaponized government and colluded with corporations to wage war on the First Amendment. 

The modern Democratic Party is not the same one that your parents or grandparents were members of in the past. It’s obsessed with starting World War 3 in Ukraine, eroding the First Amendment, dismantling the Second Amendment, and normalizing ‘woke’ culture.

What caused such a significant shift in the party in just a few short years?

And what kind of blowback will Taibbi get for telling these truths?