Tag: finance

Via The Epoch Times,

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss spoke Monday at The Heritage Foundation about how the United States and the United Kingdom are facing very challenging forces in the global left, not just in terms of their extremist activists, but also in the power they hold in our institutions.

She warned that conservatives must create a stronger infrastructure to take on the left—which is well-funded, activist, and has many friends in high places—by recruiting more conservative activists and candidates who can fight in the trenches in the ideological war that we now face.

Excerpts from her remarks are below.

Why am I launching “Ten Years to Save the West” in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom? Well, I like to think of the United States of America as Britain’s greatest invention, albeit a slightly inadvertent invention. And if you look at our history, from Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights to the American Constitution, we have developed and perfected representative democracy.

And if you look at what is going on in our societies, first of all, the Brexit vote back in 2016 and then the election of President Donald Trump later that year, you can see the same desires of our people for change and the same desires for those conservative values and that sovereignty.

And if you look at the battle for conservatism now and the frequency with which we get new prime ministers in the United Kingdom and the frequency with which you get new speakers of the House here in the United States, we can see again that there is a battle for the heart and soul of conservatism on both sides of the Atlantic. And I think that battle is very important. Because, let’s be honest, we have not been winning against the global left.

If you look at the history since the turn of the millennium, the left have had the upper hand. And it’s not the old-fashioned left who used to argue about the means of production and economic inequality. It’s the new left who have insidious ideas that challenge our very way of life.

Whether it’s about climate extremism that doesn’t believe in economic growth, whether it’s about challenging the very idea of a man and a woman and biological sex, whether it’s about the human rights culture that’s been bedded into so much of our society that makes us unable to deal with illegal immigration—those new ideas have been promulgated by the global left and they have been successful in infiltrating quite a large proportion of society and a large part of our institutions.

Let’s just look at the state of economics. I am a supply-sider. I know that it works. We saw it work under [U.S. President Ronald] Reagan and [UK Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher, and yet we’ve seen the domination of Keynesian economics in recent years, bloated size of government, huge debts in both of our countries.

On the immigration and human rights culture, look at what is going on now on American university campuses where it is not safe anymore to be Jewish, or the streets of London where a Jewish man could not cross the road during yet another appalling protest, or the fact that we can’t seem to deport illegal immigrants either from your southern border or the small boats that are crossing the channel.

Or take wokery, another bad neo-Marxist idea developed from [Michel] Foucault and all those crazy post-modernists in the 1960s, the idea that biological sex is not a reality.

We now have President [Joe] Biden introducing regulations around Title IX, which means that girls could see biological boys in their changing rooms, in their locker rooms, in their school restrooms and not be able to do anything about it. And if they complain about it, they could be the ones guilty of harassment. How on earth can that be happening in our society?

Or the climate extremists who aren’t satisfied with just stopping coal-fired power stations here in America, [liquefied natural gas] terminals being built, fracking in the United Kingdom, but want to go further. Whether it’s imposing electric vehicles or air-source heat pumps or extra taxes on the public. Meanwhile, our adversaries in China are busy building coal-fired power stations every week.

I see that as unilateral economic disarmament in the middle of what is a various, serious threat to the West.

So how has it ended up that after the turn of the millennium, despite the fact that we have many conservative intellectuals and politicians, why have our institutions, why has so much of our public discourse shifted to the left?

Well, first of all, too many conservatives have not been making the argument. Now, I call them conservatives in name only, CINOs. I know in America you call them RINOs. But these conservatives in name only, rather than taking on those ludicrous ideas, instead have tried to appease and meet them halfway.

Why have they done this? Well, first of all, they don’t want to look mean. They don’t want to look like they’re against human rights. They don’t want to look like they’re against the environment. They don’t want to be mean to transgender people. They’ve allowed those arguments to affect their views on what is right and wrong. But it’s also more cynical than that.

If you want to get a good job after politics, if you want to get into the corporate boardroom, there are a group of acceptable views and opinions that you should hold. And most of them are on that list. If you want to be popular and get invited to a lot of dinner parties in Washington, D.C., or London, there are reviews on that list that you should hold. And people have chosen dinner parties over principle.

But the other thing I think we’ve missed on the conservative side of the argument, and I put my hands up to this, is the rising power of the administrative state. The fact that power—which previously lay in the hands of democratically elected politicians, like them or not they can be voted out of office—is now in the hands of so-called independent bodies, whether it’s central banks, whether it’s government agencies, or whether it’s the civil service themselves.

And what we’re seeing in bureaucracy in the United Kingdom, and I think here in the United States as well, is a growing activist class of civil servants who have views on transgender ideology or climate or human rights, which they are keen to promote in their roles.

I saw this firsthand and one of the key points the book is about is my battles that I had with that institutional mindset. And there’s a phrase that we use in Britain called “consent and evade.” Quite often the officials will be very polite on the request, but it will take a very long time to do if it’s something like helping deport illegal immigrants or sort out the Rwanda scheme. If it’s something that they like, like dealing with climate change, that will be expedited.

And I think it’s very difficult for people who haven’t worked in government to understand just how cumbersome and how treacle-like it has become. And I don’t know if that’s a product of the modern era, if it’s a product of the online society, but it is very, very difficult now to deliver conservative policies.

Now, I did many jobs in many different government departments. I was in the justice department, the environment department, the education department, the treasury, I was in trade, I was in the foreign office, and I faced battles against activist lawyers, against environmentalists, against left-wing educationalists.

But what I thought when I ran to be prime minister in 2022 is I thought I had the opportunity to change things because that was surely the apex of power. I hadn’t been able to change it as environment secretary or trade secretary, but as prime minister, surely that was the opportunity for me to be able to really change things.

Now, there’s a bit of a spoiler alert about the book. It didn’t quite work out. I ended up being the shortest-serving British prime minister as a result of trying to take on these forces. And the particular thing that I tried to take them on was the whole issue of our economy.

*   *   *

I come today with a warning to the United States of America. I fear the same forces will be coming for President Donald Trump if he wins the election this November. There is a huge resistance to pro-growth supply-side policies that will deliver economic dynamism and help reduce debt.

What the international institutions and the economic establishment want to see is they want to see higher taxes, higher spending, and more big government, and more regulation. They do not want to see that challenged. And we’ve already heard noises from the Congressional Budget Office and elements of the United States market about the financial stability situation.

So, what have I learned from my experience? What have I learned from my time in office? I have learned that we are facing really quite challenging forces of the global left, not just in terms of their virulent activists making extremist documents, but also the power they hold in our institutions. And that leads me to believe that what conservatives need is what I describe as a bigger bazooka.

Now, what do I mean by a bigger bazooka? Well, first of all, I mean that we need really strong conservative political infrastructure to be able to take on the left. They are well-funded, they are activists, they have many friends in high places. And we need strength and depth in our political operation.

That’s why I’m working on a new political movement in the UK called Popular Conservatism, which is about bringing in more activists, more candidates, more potential legislators, more operators who can actually fight in the trenches against the left in the ideological warfare that we now face.

The second thing we need to do is we need to dismantle the administrative state. And there are lots of people I speak to who say, “It’s just because you ministers aren’t tough enough. If only you were a bit bolder in taking on things, if only you had a bit more political will, you would be able to deliver.”

Those people are not right. Until we actually change the system, we are not going to be able to deliver conservative policy such as the depths of resistance in our institutions and our bureaucracy that we do have to change things first.

And what does that mean? Well, you’re ahead of us in the United States in that the president gets to appoint 3,000 people into the government positions. In Britain it’s only 100 people. And those 100 people are relatively junior. They’re not in charge of departments. So, I believe we need to change that in Britain. We need to properly appoint senior figures in our bureaucracy.

We also need to deal with the proliferation of unaccountable bureaucratic bodies. They have to go. There has to be a real bonfire of the quangos.

But even here in the United States, policies like Schedule F are going to be very, very important in order to be able to deliver a conservative agenda. And the project that Heritage is sponsoring, Project 2025, is another vital part of building that institutional infrastructure that can actually deliver conservative policies. Having seen what I’ve seen on both sides of the Atlantic, I think both of those things are vital in order for conservative policies to deliver.

But we can’t just deal with the administrative state at a national level because what we’ve also got is the global administrative state. We have the United Nations, the World Health Organization, we have the [Conference of the Parties] process.

And one of the things I tried to do was stop Britain hosting COP in Glasgow. I failed. But I want to see us in the future abandon that process. The best people to make decisions are people that are democratically elected in sovereign nations. It is not people sitting on international bodies who are divorced from the concerns of the public.

The final thing conservatives need to do is end appeasement. And by ending appeasement, I’m talking about the appeasement of woke Orwellianism at home as well as the appeasement of totalitarianism abroad. We have to do both of those things because both of those things are threatening our way of life.

Totalitarian regimes like China, Russia, and Iran have to be stood up to, the only thing they understand is strength. And now the military aid budget has been passed through Congress. There needs to be more clarity about how Russia can be defeated and how China and Iran will also be taken on. And in order to achieve that, we are going to need a change in personnel at the White House.

Now, I worked in Cabinet whilst Donald Trump was president and while President Biden was president. And I can assure you, the world felt safer when Donald Trump was in office. 2024 is going to be a vital year, and it’s the reason that I wanted to bring my book out now. Because getting a conservative back in the White House is critical to taking on the global left. And I hate to think what life would be like with another four years of appeasement of the woke left in the United States, as well as continued weakness on the international stage.

But my final message is that winning in 2025 or winning in 2024 and going into government in 2025 is not enough. It’s not enough just to win. It’s not enough just to have those conservative policies. That there will be huge resistance from the administrative state and from a left in politics that has never been more extremist or more virulent.

And that is why it will need all the resources of the American conservative movement, think tanks like Heritage, and hopefully your allies in the United Kingdom to succeed. But you must succeed because the free world needs you.

Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.

Via EurasiaNet.org,

• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reanimated US and EU interest in Central Asia.

• China has eclipsed Russia as the region’s largest trade partner.

• Central Asian trade is diversifying away from Russia and towards the West.

The Great Game is playing out once again in Central Asia, but it is getting a new name and adopting a different set of rules. Economics, not politics, is defining the terms of the current superpower competition for regional influence, according to a report prepared by a Kazakh research institute. 

There is a key difference governing the global rivalries in Central Asia in the 19th and 21st centuries: these days, regional states, not outsiders, wield the more influence over potential outcomes, according to the report, titled Pursuing Multi-Vectorism Through Business Diplomacy: The Path for Central Asia. The report was published by the Talap Center for Applied Research. 

“The region, previously the theater of the Great Game in the confrontation of superpowers, is now trying to become an opportunity zone,” the report states.

Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine in 2022, and the imposition of Western sanctions to punish Russian aggression, changed Central Asia’s geopolitical dynamics by reanimating US and European Union interest in the region. By extension, Russia’s actions encouraged the diversification of trade and investment, changing East-West trade patterns connecting China and Europe. Sanctions have diminished the utility of the Northern Corridor via the trans-Siberian railway, while providing impetus for the growth of the Middle Corridor via Central Asia.

These changes have shifted Central Asia’s center of geo-economic gravity. China has eclipsed Russia as the region’s largest trade partner, while the overall trend is toward diversification of trade partners. The West’s share of Central Asian trade under the present dynamic is set to keep rising.

“The trade and investment dynamics in the region show a significant shift of diversification with non-traditional markets of Europe, North America, South Asia, and the Middle East since 2022,” the Talap report notes.

“This has become possible due to a traditional, multi-vector policy for the region, which, under the stress of escalating conflicts, was transformed into a policy of emphatic non-alignment – a firm rejection of any involvement in the conflict.”

The report notes that the contacts between the European Union and Central Asian states have “have gained a special dynamism” since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.

It also notes that public opinion in the region indicates that a majority of regional residents do not want to get dragged into the confrontation between the West and Russia, which is supported by China. 

The prevailing circumstances have forced Central Asian states to “balance a genuine interest in developing their ties with the Western world while being surrounded by Iran, Afghanistan, China, and Russia, countries with which the West has strained and even tense relations,” the report says.

Maximizing economic multi-vectorism will require some work by Central Asian governments to enhance the predictability of the regional business climate. Vaguely defined trade rules and property rights, along with the unreliability of regional judicial systems, remain big impediments to Western investment. The lack of mechanisms to enforce contracts or resolve corporate disputes also constitutes an investment barrier. In addition to bolstering the independence of the judicial system, the Talap report recommends reforms to regional tax codes to foster more “equitable” business environments. 

“The investment climate in Central Asia reflects a difficult balance between the determination of governments to take advantage of growing interest in the region and the inertia of institutional barriers,” the report states.

“To take advantage of these opportunities, the countries of the region have to address existing institutional and regulatory barriers for both domestic and international companies and investors, strengthen the rule of law, enforce fair and open competition, implement business friendly tax regulations, and align trade, customs and logistical standards.”

A flotilla of ships packed with a thousand activists, human rights observers and more than 5,500 tons of food and medical supplies is ready to sail from Istanbul to for Gaza. To do so, they’ll need the Turkish government to let them leave the port, and then run the risk of being subjected to a deadly Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) attack — as their predecessors were in an infamous 2010 incident.  

“The Freedom Flotilla has the support of millions around the world who are outraged at the failure of our governments to protect the Palestinians people from Israel’s genocidal actions, including the deliberate starvation of over two million people,” said the organizing coalition’s Zohar Chamberlain-Regev. 

The group has three ships ready to go: one packed with food and medical supplies, and two ships for passengers who hail from 40 different countries. The cargo ship also has eight ambulances and a fire truck aboard — a grim reminder of the IDF’s Nov 3 bombing of an ambulance convoy next to Al-Shifa hospital that killed 15 and wounded dozens. 

CodePink’s Medea Benjamin is among those hoping to set sail, but says she’s worries about diplomatic interference. “The Turkish government might cave to pressure from Israel, the United States and Germany, and prevent the boats from even leaving Istanbul,” she wrote on Tuesday. 

“We expect that Turkey will not be bought off and we will indeed sail,” Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Huwaida Arraf optimistically said at a press conference hosted on one of the ships. “Anything less than this is collaborating with the illegal siege on Gaza, and we don’t think that is what the Turkish government will do.”

While the IDF has said little, an Israeli news outlet reported that the Israeli military has already started “security preparations” for commandeering the flotilla. In an infamous 2010 incident, the IDF killed 10 activists aboard a Freedom Flotilla Coalition vessel, the Mavi Marmara. 

With that precedent in mind, organizers have been giving volunteers “non-violence training” and educating them on what the Israeli forces may use on them — such as tear gas and concussion grenades. 

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition was founded in 2010 to circumvent economically-devastating travel and trade restrictions imposed by the State of Israel on the 25-mile-long Gaza strip. Long before the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of southern Israel, the Zionist state has blocked the people of Gaza from having an airport or even a seaport.  

From the first days of Israel’s post-Oct. 7 attack on Gaza, Israel made clear its intentions to cause widespread devastation in the strip. “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told reporters on Oct. 9. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

On Tuesday, US Special Envoy for Humanitarian Issues David Satterfield belatedly acknowledged that the risk of famine in Gaza is “very high.” This comes long after a various news outlets and humanitarian organizations have reported on increasingly desperate measures Gaza residents have resorted to, including boiling weeds and eating animal food. Acute malnutrition among young children is soaring, and UNICEF says the entire population is in increasing peril:

“The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) projected that 1.1 million people face catastrophic levels of hunger (IPC Phase 5) and are at risk of famine in the Gaza Strip, the highest number of people ever recorded in this category by the IPC system.”

On Wednesday, President Biden signed off on a controversial foreign aid package that included another $26 billion for Israel. In his State of the Union address, Biden announced that the Pentagon would create a floating port off the Gaza coast to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid. Some six weeks later, construction hasn’t even started, but a spokesman on Tuesday said it should begin “in the coming weeks.” 

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

I have several times reported the same…

Nixon was removed because he was making arms limitation agreements with the Soviets and opening to China.

This was normalizing the enemy that the military/security complex needed for its budget and power.

It was for the same reason that President Kennedy was assassinated by the military/security complex.

The growing suspicion about Kennedy’s assassination meant that the military/security complex could not risk a second violent assassination, so Nixon was politically assassinated.

The same strategy was applied to Trump.

When Trump said he intended to normalize relations with Russia, he presented himself as the same threat to the military-security complex as Kennedy and Nixon.

That is what Russiagate was about, and what documentsgate, Jan 6 Insurrection, and two failed impeachments are all about.

When Russiagate and the impeachments failed, they decided to steal the election.

When Trump’s support survived all of this, they decided on the indictments.

In the least, the indictments will keep Trump off the campaign circuit and use up his resources in legal fees.

It is the determination and ability of the military/security complex to protect its budget and power that makes peace impossible and wars our way of life…

Watch Tucker Carlson discuss this below (with key quotes via @CollinRugg):

“Richard Nixon was taken out by the FBI and CIA, and with the help of Bob Woodward.”

“[Woodward] was that guy. And who is his main source for Watergate? Oh, the number two guy at the FBI. Oh, so you have the naval intelligence officer working with the FBI official to destroy the president. Okay. So that’s a deep state coup.”

“Richard Nixon was elected by more votes than any president in American history in the 1972 election.”

“The most popular president in his reelection campaign, and two years later, he’s gone, undone by a naval intel officer, the number two guy at the FBI and a bunch of CIA employees.”

“You tell me what that is. Those are the facts. Those are not disputed facts.”

NEW: Tucker Carlson explains how the FBI and CIA conducted a coup to take out President Richard Nixon with help from journalist Bob Woodward.

“Richard Nixon was taken out by the FBI and CIA, and with the help of Bob Woodward.”

“[Woodward] was that guy. And who is his main… pic.twitter.com/K8Yt9zy9Qk

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 20, 2024

Tennessee’s GOP-controlled Statehouse on Thursday approved approval criminalizing adults who help minors receive gender-affirming care without parental consent, clearing the way for the first-in-the-nation proposal to be sent to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk for his signature.

As the AP reports, the bill mirrors almost the same language from a so-called anti-abortion trafficking proposal Tennessee Republican lawmakers approved just a day prior. In that version, supporters are hoping to stop adults from helping young people obtain abortions without permission from their parents or guardians.

Supporters of Lee, a Republican, are certain he will sign them into law. Lee eagerly approved a sweeping abortion ban and a ban on gender-affirming care for children. He has also never issued a veto during his time as governor.

While the Republican supermajority touted the proposed statutes as necessary to protect parental rights, critics – most of whom likely have purple hair and some oh whom occasionally enjoy child porn in a secret folder on their computer – warned about the possible broad application (as in what, the minor child’s parents will know what their child is up to?). Violations could range from talking to an adolescent about a website on where to find care to helping that young person travel to another state with looser restrictions on gender-affirming care services.

“This is a parent’s rights bill, nothing more, nothing less,” Republican Rep. Bryan Richey, the bill’s sponsor, said during House debate earlier this week. “At the end of the day, parents should have final say what medical procedures their children are receiving, and nobody else.”

The Human Rights Campaign says Tennessee has enacted more anti-LGBTQ+ laws more than any other state since 2015, identifying more than 20 bills that advanced out of the Legislature over the past few months.

That included sending Gov. Lee a bill banning the spending of state money on hormone therapy or sex reassignment procedures for prisoners — though it would not apply to state inmates currently receiving hormone therapy — and requiring public school employees to report transgender students to their parents, as if requiring parents to know that their child – having undergone years of criminal brainwashing and propaganda as even Bill Mahr now admits – has mental problem is some kind of crime.

It turns out for pedophiles in Hollywood, “It’s A Small World After All.” pic.twitter.com/4qUtOhXZYL

— Bill Maher (@billmaher) April 20, 2024

Tennessee Republicans previously also passed a measure that would let LGBTQ+ foster children be placed with families that hold anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs. Lee signed it into law this month.

“Tennessee lawmakers are on the verge of enacting more than twice as many anti-LGBTQ+ laws as any other state, a staggering assault on their own constituents,” Cathryn Oakley, senior director of legal policy at the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement.

To date, no state has placed restrictions on helping young people receive gender-affirming care, despite the recent push among more than 20 Republican-led states — including Tennessee — to ban such care for most minors.

Instead some Democratic-led states have been pushing to shield health care providers if they provide services that are banned in a patient’s home state. Most recently Maine’s Democratic governor signed a bill Wednesday protecting providers of abortion and gender-affirming care from legal action brought by other states.

The proposal has created a disagreement between Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey and attorneys general in several other states, including Tennessee. The other states have warned of legal action over the law; Frey dismissed such threats as “meritless.”

Authored by Joe Wang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A new study on harms resulting from the COVID vaccine was published on April 8 in the U.S.-based peer-reviewed medical science journal Cureus. It represents the largest study to date on adverse effects of the COVID vaccine, and the results are shocking, to put it mildly.

In the study, titled “Increased Age-Adjusted Cancer Mortality After the Third mRNA-Lipid Nanoparticle Vaccine Dose During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan,” five Japanese scientists used an entire dataset of the country’s 123 million population (Japan has the highest vaccination rate in the world) to study excess cancer mortalities coinciding with mass COVID vaccination.

The authors also provide a sound explanation as to why these deaths occurred after the mRNA injection.

As a former vaccine researcher, I read the Cureus article with great interest. My fellow Epoch Times columnist, Megan Redshaw, has written an excellent article on this study. Here, I would like to highlight some points that I think are worth reiterating.

Excess Deaths Following the Third Shot

The study shows there were 1,568,961 total deaths in Japan in 2022. About 1,453,162 deaths were expected based on statistical predictions using pre-pandemic information, which means there were 115,799 excess deaths in 2022.

The 115,799 “age-adjusted excess number of deaths” in 2022 occurred after two-thirds of the Japanese population had received the third dose of COVID vaccine.

Based on Japan’s Ministry of Health data, I calculated that there were 39,060 COVID deaths reported in 2022. So, the majority of Japan’s excess deaths in 2022 were not caused by COVID infection, but rather are strongly associated with the vaccination.

Harm Done by the Vaccine, Not the Virus

The study shows that in 2020, after COVID-19 began to spread in Japan but before vaccination was available, the age-adjusted number of deaths was 28,000 fewer than what was predicted. And in 2021, as the virus continued and there was limited COVID-19 vaccination (it started in February), there were 25,000 more deaths than what was predicted.

Based on the number of excess deaths in 2022, the Japanese scientists concluded: “Statistically significant increases in age-adjusted mortality rates of all cancer and some specific types of cancer, namely, ovarian cancer, leukemia, prostate, lip/oral/pharyngeal, pancreatic, and breast cancers, were observed in 2022 after two-thirds of the Japanese population had received the third or later dose of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-LNP vaccine.”

“These particularly marked increases in mortality rates of these ERα-sensitive cancers may be attributable to several mechanisms of the mRNA-LNP vaccination rather than COVID-19 infection itself or reduced cancer care due to the lockdown,” the authors wrote.

In plain English, this study revealed the mRNA COVID jab is likely the cause of the extra deaths that occurred in Japan.

6 Types of Cancer Had Significant Excess Deaths

The study presented the numbers for all-cause death, but also looked into the details of deaths caused by cancer. It found that of the 20 types of cancer, six of them—ovarian, leukemia, prostate, lip/oral/pharyngeal, pancreatic, and breast cancer—had statistically significant excess mortalities in 2021 and increased further in 2022.

The significant increase in mortalities for the six specific cancer types cannot be blamed on a shortage of health-care services during the pandemic. Reduced cancer screening and health care due to lockdowns should increase deaths for all cancers. However, such an increase was not observed in other types of cancers in Japan in 2022.

So what is so special about the six specific cancer types? They are all known as estrogen receptor alpha (ERα)-sensitive cancers.

The scientists explained why these cancers not only occurred after vaccination, but also killed people in a short period of time after they received the shot.

Cancer After the Jab: A Scientific Explanation

I worked as a research scientist at Sanofi Pasteur, one of the world’s largest vaccine companies, for more than 10 years. As the person who spearheaded Sanofi’s SARS-CoV-1 vaccine development in 2003, I personally found the hypothesis presented by the Japanese scientists very reasonable.

Please bear with me on the scientific terms, because they are important in understanding the possible roles the mRNA vaccine may have played in cancer development.

ERs (estrogen receptors) are a group of proteins found inside cells. They are receptors that can be activated by the sex hormone estrogen. ERα is one of the two classes of ERs, an important regulator in the body’s reproductive system.

Research published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances in November 2022 screened 9,000 human proteins to see which protein binds better with the spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2, and found the S protein specifically binds to ERα. The binding “upregulates the transcriptional activity of ERα.”

In other words, the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 (from infection or vaccination), when introduced into the human body, binds to ERα and functions as a nuclear receptor coregulator, interfering with the cell’s normal function and leading to malfunction of the cells and organs.

This may explain why death caused by the six types of ERα-sensitive cancers increased in 2022 in Japan after two-thirds of the population received the third dose of the mRNA vaccine.

The vaccine carries the S gene of SARS-CoV-2, hijacking the host cells to produce S proteins. The S proteins produce inside the cell, then bind to ERα, disrupting the cell’s normal function and leading to cancer development.

Cancer is a disease in which some of the body’s cells grow uncontrollably and spread to other parts of the body.

For any healthy person, some cells die, some age, and some become cancerous. All this happens without the person knowing it because the body’s immune system is constantly working to deal with such problems. However, if the immune system is compromised, illness then develops, including cancer.

Plenty of evidence has started to emerge showing that the COVID-19 vaccine has the potential to severely interfere with the human body’s immune system. This new Japanese study provides further evidence of the extent of this phenomenon.

Vaccination and Suppression of Cancer Immunosurveillance

It has been shown the mRNA vaccine not only has the potential to cause cancer, it may also weaken the immune systems’ ability to recognize and repress cancerous tumours.

In a study published last October, Konstantin Fohse and colleagues reported vaccination with BNT162b2 modulated innate immune responses, resulting in a weakened cancer immunosurveillance.

The damage caused by COVID vaccines would have been less if the vaccination wasn’t as widespread, and the dosage of the vaccines were not as high due to boosters.

The Japanese scientists found that for each Pfizer-BioNTech dose, there are about 13 trillion SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-LNP molecules. For Moderna, the number is 40 trillion. Since the average human body has about 37.2 trillion cells, one COVID-19 mRNA-LNP dose would have enough molecules to spread into each and every human cell.

As I wrote previously, contrary to what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s claim that “after the body produces an immune response, it discards all of the vaccine ingredients” because uridines in normal RNA are now replaced with pseudo-uridines in this COVID-19 mRNA-LNP, we know the modified RNA now lives in the body for months and can even find its way into babies through breast milk.

The Japanese study was written before October 2023 using information from 2022 and earlier. As COVID vaccination continues in many countries, it is scary to think how many people may die or develop cancer if the 2022 trend continues.

Uncertain Future

As authorities across the world still claim that the COVID-19 vaccine is “safe and effective” and continue pushing vaccination, it is uncertain what the future holds.

This is because the COVID-19 mRNA-LNP molecules already in the bodies of hundreds of millions of people will remain there and continue producing the S protein, interfering with the immune system and causing cancer and other diseases.

Studies like the one by the Japanese scientists should have been undertaken in countries such as the United States, Canada, and the UK and published in top medical journals without censorship so that we can learn from mistakes and prevent the mistakes from happening again. Unfortunately, that has not happened.

However, hopefully more and more scientists and researchers will be brave enough to point out the very obvious: that the COVID-19 vaccine is not safe.

It is worth noting that the Cureus medical journal was recently acquired by the Springer Nature Group in December 2022. The group also owns renowned scientific publications such as Nature and Nature Medicine.

COVID vaccine injury has been a taboo subject for scientists and medical journals. Many people were cancelled when they tried to defy the censorship. It is refreshing to see Springer Nature publish the Japanese study.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

The US Air Force’s hot pursuit of drone wingmen, known as collaborative combat aircraft, flying alongside piloted stealth fighter jets such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, is a major effort to modernize its fleet and advance defensive and offensive capabilities in a world erupting into chaos.  

On Wednesday, the USAF announced that Palmer Luckey’s defense tech startup Anduril and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems were selected to build and test wingmen drones for the next phase of the CCA program. This means the pool of competitors has shrunk from five to two, eliminating Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. We don’t think the military is ready for 737 Max drones. 

“The companies not selected to build these production representative CCA vehicles, and execute the flight test program, will continue to be part of the broader industry partner vendor pool consisting of more than 20 companies to compete for future efforts, including future production contracts,” the service wrote in a press release. 

USAF wants to deploy more than 1,000 wingmen drones that can carry out a wide range of missions, including electronic warfare, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and dogfighting. 

Commenting on the announcement, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said the CCA started “just over two years ago” as part of his “Operational Imperatives, to pursue collaborative combat aircraft.”

“The progress we’ve made is a testament to the invaluable collaboration with industry, whose investment alongside the Air Force has propelled this initiative forward. It’s truly encouraging to witness the rapid execution of this program,” Kendall said.

General Atomics has pitched the Air Force on its autonomous collaborative drone known as “Gambit.” 

While Anduril has submitted a high-performance autonomous air vehicle called “Fury.”

“There is no time to waste on business as usual,” Anduril chief executive Brian Schimpf said in a release, adding, “With the CCA program, Sec. Kendall and the Air Force have embraced a fast-moving, forward-looking approach to field autonomous systems at speed and scale. … Anduril is proud to pave the way for other non-traditional defense companies to compete and deliver on large-scale programs.”

We’ve been saying for years that the next major conflict will be fought with hypersonic weapons and drones. And that’s precisely the technology being used in Ukraine. 

Luckey’s startup, Anduril, aims to cement America’s lead in the military technology race, as the bloated military-industrial complex risks blowing the lead. 

“We need a new breed of defense technology companies to reboot the arsenal of democracy,” Anduril states on its website.

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

Hertz raised the number of electric vehicles it plans to sell this year as it is cutting its EV fleet to reduce losses that have weighed on the car rental giant’s earnings.

In the first quarter, Hertz upsized its EV disposition plan by 10,000 vehicles, for a total of 30,000 EVs intended for sale in 2024. Most of these EVs will be Teslas.

The company incurred a $195 million charge to vehicle depreciation to write down the EVs held for sale which were remaining in inventory at quarter-end to fair value and recognize the disposition losses on EVs sold in the period, Hertz said in a statement on Thursday

Vehicle depreciation in the first quarter of 2024 increased by $588 million, or $339 on a per unit basis. Of the $339 per unit increase, $119 was related to EVs held for sale, the company said. [if !supportLineBreakNewLine] [endif]

Hertz reported a much larger loss for the first quarter than analysts had forecast. Adjusted net loss stood at $392 million, or $1.28 loss per diluted share.

This compares with an analyst consensus estimate of a loss of $0.45 per share.

Following the earnings release on Thursday, Hertz’s stock crashed by 21% on the NASDAQ but ended off the lows, still down 19%…

Hertz was an early mover in buying EVs to rent to customers, but it and other car rental companies have recently started to sell the EVs they had previously purchased due to weaker customer demand for EV rentals. 

Hertz, unlike other rental firms, has a more risky approach because it fully owns all the EVs it has bought and is losing money if the resale value slumps.

As it did.

Earlier this year, Hertz said in a regulatory filing to the SEC it is selling roughly one-third of its electric vehicle fleet, highlighting the risk of its first-mover strategy when it comes to EVs.

President Biden has granted clemency to five crack dealers, ordering their early release for dealing the drug in recognition of Second Chance Month.

Yes, this guy…

In honor of the new government crack pipe program, here’s Joe & Hunter on crack pic.twitter.com/VWCBw9svai

— obedient worker (@lmazzeiphotos) February 9, 2022

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has made zero progress on a campaign promise to release “everyone” in prison for marijuana offenses, the NY Post reports.

“America is a Nation founded on the promise of second chances. During Second Chance Month, we reaffirm our commitment to rehabilitation and reentry for people returning to their communities post incarceration,” whoever writes Biden’s statements said on Wednesday.

“We also recommit to building a criminal justice system that lives up to those ideals and ensures that everyone receives equal justice under law. That is why today I am announcing steps I am taking to make this promise a reality.”

Biden, who wrote or cosponsored some of the nation’s harshest federal drug laws in the 1980s and ’90s, said that he chose to issue commutations to the five crack offenders because they would have been given more lenient sentences today — continuing a long-running effort dating to the Obama administration to identify and retroactively reduce such sentences.

It’s unclear why Biden chose to free none of the estimated 2,700 federal marijuana-dealing inmates, as he promised to do at a Democratic primary debate in 2019. -NY Post

Biden has defended his broken promise to free all marijuana offenses, citing his 2022 mass pardon for people convicted of simple marijuana possession (none of whom were actually in prison), counts. Cannabis advocates call bullshit, however, saying that they understood “everyone” to mean incarcerated dealers as well.

Biden also pardoned 11 people who have already completed their prison sentences, allowing them to vote and own guns again.

“I am using my clemency power to pardon 11 individuals and commute the sentences of 5 individuals who were convicted of non-violent drug offenses,” said Biden’s writer. “Many of these individuals received disproportionately longer sentences than they would have under current law, policy, and practice. The pardon recipients have demonstrated their commitment to improving their lives and positively transforming their communities. The commutation recipients have shown that they are deserving of forgiveness and the chance at building a brighter future for themselves beyond prison walls.”

Authored by Stephen Moore and Adam Brandon via RealClear Politics,

President Joe Biden came into office promising to repeal President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – a law that turbocharged American job growth and U.S. national competitiveness. In the first two years of the Biden administration, there was a chance that the president could have succeeded in undermining the law.

Yet, today, as Biden finishes his term, the Trump tax cuts are not only still standing but may be strengthened.

That is, if Senate Republicans seize the opportunity before them.

In January, the House overwhelmingly passed the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act (H.R. 7024), a major new tax relief package that builds on the successes of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Its relief targets the engines of American productivity including full deductibility for Research and Development costs, full and immediate expensing, as well as interest deductibility and restoration of deductibility of depreciation and amortization costs.

Passing this bill enhances American competitiveness with China, boosts job creation, increases wages for workers, and promotes new investment and innovation.

As Jay Timmons, CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers put it, “Remember the 2017 tax reforms? They were rocket fuel for our industry. We kept our promises to raise wages, hire workers, and invest in our communities. We would not be outpacing other countries without them.”  

But it also does something else: The bill extends important cost recovery provisions of the 2017 Republican tax cuts signed by President Trump, an essential step in achieving full permanency of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Without congressional action, President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts expire at the end of 2025.

While Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo and some colleagues have raised objections about provisions of the bill that would expand the Child Tax Credit, Crapo and other GOP senators need to keep sight of the significance of this measure in a larger fight.

Passing the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act would vastly improve Republicans’ bargaining position going into the fight over the future of the Trump tax cuts.

And right now, advocates for job growth and competitiveness must be prepared for this fight.

At a March 12 hearing on the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) declared, “This set of policies isn’t going to be on the table in 2025 if this bill stalls out.” It’s understandable for Republicans to dismiss this as empty talk, given that the GOP faces a highly favorable Senate map in this year’s elections.

But, in politics, nothing is certain. Remember the “red wave” that wasn’t? Even if Republicans retake the Senate, Wyden and allies could follow through on their threat if Democrats retain the White House or take back the House.

Conservative Republicans have every reason to support the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act. The bill would be financed by repealing the employee retention tax credit, a COVID-era program that has been rife with fraud. Over 40 conservative and free-market organizations have urged lawmakers to pass the pro-growth legislation. Other organizations and leaders from across the conservative movement have strongly backed the bill. At the same time, far-left Democrats including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) have railed against the legislation.

If GOP senators want to save their signature economic success of the past decade, they must get to yes on this tax reform.

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and is the author of “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring America.”