Tag: finance

In recent weeks, Israeli media has become a factory for stories that cut against the ‘official’ ‘scientific’ narrative about the COVID-19 vaccines. Most visibly, Israel has made a deal with Pfizer to start doling out “booster” shots for the most vulnerable Israelis, despite the FDA’s insistence that there’s “no evidence” that a booster shot is necessary.

Now, the Israeli Health Ministry has discovered that the number of patients who had been infected prior to becoming infected again during the latest Delta-driven wave of the pandemic were less likely to be reinfected than patients who have only been vaccinated. The finding directly contradicts research spouted by American experts like Dr. Fauci, along with Pfizer and Moderna, who have previously insisted that  the antibodies created by their jabs are more powerful than antibodies produced by natural infection (which is one reason even the previously infected have been asked to get vaccinated).

According to Israel National News, more than 7.7K new cases of the virus have been detected during the most recent wave (beginning back in May). However, just 72 of the confirmed cases were reported in people who were known to have been previously infected – that is, less than 1% of the new cases.

Roughly 40% of new cases – involving more than 3K patients – were infected despite being fully vaccinated.

By this count, Israelis who had been vaccinated were 6.72x more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with more than 3K of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave. The disparity has confounded Health Ministry experts, with some saying the data proves the higher level of immunity provided by natural infection versus vaccination. However, others remain unconvinced.

Israel’s Health Ministry previously estimated that the efficacy of Pfizer’s COVID jab was only 64% against the Delta variant, which helped prompt Pfizer and its partner BioNTech to develop a new jab designed to protect against variants including Delta and Beta (the variant first discovered in South Africa).

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A group seeking to ensure that elections are run fairly said this week that an in-depth analysis of mail-in ballot images it obtained through a court order shows that the hand-count audit in Fulton County, Georgia, last year “was riddled with massive errors and provable fraud.”

The analysis turned up at least 36 batches of mail-in ballots, containing 4,255 votes, that were added redundantly to the audit results, Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA), charged. Nearly 3,400 were for Democrat Joe Biden.

The team examining the ballots also found seven audit tally sheets (pdf) they believe were falsified to contain fabricated vote totals. In one example, the group said, a batch containing 59 ballot images for Biden and 42 for former President Donald Trump was reported as 100 for Biden and 0 for Trump.

The analysis revealed that 923 (60 percent) of the 1,539 mail-in ballot batch files contained votes that were incorrectly reported in the county’s official 2020 election result compared to the audit totals, according to VoterGA.

“We believe that there is massive audit errors,” Garland Favorito, founder of the group, told a press conference in Georgia on July 13.

The group received the images as part of a court case after it petitioned in late 2020 to get clearance to inspect all mail-in ballots cast in the county in the 2020 election, alleging that fraud took place. The petition cited witnesses to the alleged fraud, including Favorito and other poll watchers and workers.

Henry County Judge Brian Amero, who is overseeing the case, ordered in March that scanned ballot images be made available to the petitioners. Amero late last month let part of the election lawsuit proceed.

Asked about the new claims, a Fulton County spokeswoman told The Epoch Times via email:

“This is related to a matter that is the subject of pending litigation. Therefore we do not wish to respond.”

A spokesman for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, referred comment to Fulton County.

Favorito said elected officials have known about the discrepancies “for a long, long time,” and he accused them of having “covered it up.”

Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who is challenging Raffensperger in the Republican secretary of state primary, in a video called on him to resign.

“In Fulton County, there is now undeniable proof of voter irregularity if not outright voter fraud,” he said, pointing to the evidence presented by VoterGA.

Raffensperger has claimed that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, which saw Biden beat Trump in Georgia by less than 12,000 votes out of over 4.9 million cast.

Trump said in a statement on July 14:

“The news coming out of Georgia is beyond incredible. The hand recount in Fulton County was a total fraud! They stuffed the ballot box—and got caught. We will lose our Country if this is allowed to stand.”

Biden, in remarks delivered on July 13, noted that election results were recounted three times in Georgia.

“It’s clear. For those who challenge the results and question the integrity of the election: No other election has ever been held under such scrutiny and such high standards,” he said.

Sen. Chuck Schumer is taking a quick break from whipping up support along his moderate flank for the Dems’ $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” package to draft legislation on Wednesday to help decriminalize marijuana at the federal level in an attempt to raise more tax revenue to offset the trillions of dollars of additional spending the Democrats are planning over the next decade.

While the revenues raised from taxing marijuana likely would only amount to a drop in the bucket, Schumer, Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Ron Wyden have unveiled draft legislation calling for federal decriminalization.

Marijuana is already effectively legal now across much of the US after New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and a handful of other states recently embraced legalization.

The bill, called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act (where it remains a “Schedule 1” and impose a federal tax on marijuana products).

According to Axios, revenue from marijuana taxes would be used to fund “grant programs for communities most impacted by marijuana prosecutions”. It would also transfer regulation of marijuana to the FDA from the DEA. The bill still faces “steep” odds in the Senate, where moderate Dems remain wary of ending federal prohibition.

States would mostly be allowed to set their own laws and taxes regarding cannabis sale and consumption. It would also require federal districts to expunge all nonviolent marijuana-related arrests and convictions within one year.

Speaking from the Senate Floor Wednesday, Schumer declared the legislation a major step forward.

“For decades, young men and women – disproportionately young Black and Hispanic men and women, have been arrested and jailed for even carrying a small amount of marijuana in their pocket.”

“This is monumental,” he added. “At long last, we are taking steps in the Senate to right the wrongs of the failed war on drugs.”

At one point, the bill’s backers said that the higher prices created by taxes would “disincentivize” young people from buying the increasingly potent marijuana available both at legal dispensaries and on the street. As for trying to construe legalizing (and price-inflating) marijuana as a kind of deterrent against abuse by teenagers, well…we imagine readers can reason through that on their own.

The timing of the announcement isn’t much of a surprise. Earlier this week, the CEO and chairman of Tilray, a major publicly traded pot stock, said during an interview with CNBC that he expected Congress to move ahead with full legalization within the next two years. He pointed to surveys purporting to show more than 90%+ public support for marijuana.

And as the Democrats have demonstrated with their spending ambitions, they need to raise revenue from wherever they can get it.

In what appears to be the latest major public embarrassment for the FBI, an internal DoJ watchdog revealed on Wednesday in a long-anticipated report on the bureau’s handling – or rather, mishandling – of one of the most sprawling abuse cases in American sports history: the investigation, arrest and imprisonment of Larry Nassar, the former doctor for the American national gymnastics team.

The Inspector General’s report detailed multiple failings of the FBI’s investigation’s response to the gymnasts’ complaints, which were first brought to the attention of the Indianapolis field office on July 28, 2015.

For more than a year, the FBI did “almost nothing” in response to the allegations, while Nassar continued to work and abuse women and young girls. According to the report, after the reports were made, agents in Indianapolis were unsure whether the allegations represented a “possible federal crime.” This, despite the fact that by then USA Gymnastics had already completed its own investigation, and the organization’s then-President Stephen Penny was the one who initially reported the findings to the FBI.

Nassar

Still, it took months for the bureau to open its own investigation.

During the 14 months that followed the initial report, Nassar abused another 40 girls and women. In 2016, USA Gymnastics made a report to the FBI bureau in LA, fearing that the officials in Indianapolis weren’t treating the allegations with “the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required.” When this, too, was ignored, Nassar managed to find new employment at Michigan State University after being allowed to “quietly retire” from USA Gymnastics. Top officials from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee said nothing to Nassar’s new employer.

The bureau’s conduct was “inexcusable and a discredit” to America’s premier law-enforcement agency, the report concluded.

Here’s a rundown of the specific findings courtesy of a DoJ press release:

• Officials in the Indianapolis Field Office violated numerous FBI policies in handling the Nassar allegations. Specifically, officials in the Indianapolis Field Office.
• Failed to formally document a July 28, 2015 meeting with USA Gymnastics during which the FBI first received the allegations against Nassar.
• Failed to properly handle and document receipt and review of relevant evidence, i.e., a thumb drive provided by USA Gymnastics President Stephen D. Penny.
• Failed to document until February 2017 an interview of a gymnast that was conducted on September 2, 2015, during which the gymnast alleged sexual assault by Nassar; and
• Failed to transfer the Nassar allegations to the FBI Lansing Resident Agency, where venue most likely would have existed for potential federal crimes.
• In addition, the OIG identified shortcomings in the FBI’s policies, including its policy regarding notification of local law enforcement agencies in child exploitation cases, that should be further assessed to ensure that the FBI can more effectively handle these types of matters.

The report also reveals that many false statements were made by Indianapolis FBI agents to internal FBI investigators, including the special agent in charge of the office, Jay Abbott, and an unnamed supervisory special agent. Apparently, Abbott appeared more interested in discussing a potential job opportunity with Penny than the investigation.

In response, the FBI said in a statement: “We accept in full the OIG’s recommendation and take especially seriously the findings that certain FBI employees did not respond to allegations of sexual abuse adequately and with the utmost urgency in 2015 and 2016.” The FBI also said the supervisory special agent is no longer a supervisor, and that after learning of the inspector general’s findings, “the FBI took immediate action to ensure the individual is not working on FBI matters.”

The details of the report threaten to overshadow the Summer Olympics, which are set to begin next week. The present iteration of the US women’s gymnastics team, which includes Simon Biles, who has identified herself as a victim of Nassar’s abuse.

An internal DoJ investigation was launched back in 2018 amid the outrage that followed revelations about Nassar’s abuse, which blossomed into a national scandal. He was arrested in November 2016, and pleased guilty to state and federal charges tied to sex abuse and child pornography.

Ultimately, the FBI’s LA office did the legwork, including interviewing female athletes who had been abused.

A handful of senators including Connecticut’s Dick Blumenthal and Kansas Republican Jerry Moran were personally briefed on the report’s contents by DoJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz on the report Wednesday afternoon.

Nassar has been accused and convicted – he will spend the rest of his life in a federal prison – of repeatedly assaulting at least 265 young women and girls under the auspices of providing “medical treatment.”

California has walked back a rule banning unmasked students and teachers from school campuses this fall. While a state mandate requiring masks will remain in effect, the Newsom administration will leave enforcement in the hands of local districts when it comes to those who refuse to mask up.

“Update: California’s school guidance will be clarified regarding masking enforcement, recognizing local schools’ experience in keeping students and educators safe while ensuring schools fully reopen for in-person instruction,” the California Department of Public Health tweeted on Tuesday.

UPDATE: California’s school guidance will be clarified regarding masking enforcement, recognizing local schools’ experience in keeping students and educators safe while ensuring schools fully reopen for in-person instruction.

— CA Public Health (@CAPublicHealth) July 13, 2021

This comes after the department’s initial July 12 update stated that “Schools must exclude students from campus if they are not exempt from wearing a face covering under California Dept. of Public Health guidelines and refuse to wear one provided by the school.”

Yet, despite the update leaving enforcement in the hands of local officials, the state’s mandate still breaks with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which on Friday said that students and faculty who are fully vaccinated no longer need to wear masks in school.

“Masks should be worn indoors by all individuals (age 2 and older) who are not fully vaccinated,
 reads the CDC’s announcement. “Consistent and correct mask use by people who are not fully vaccinated is especially important indoors and in crowded settings, when physical distancing cannot be maintained,” (via Just The News).

School officials are said to be preparing specific guidelines in response, according to the Epoch Times.

“We’re committed to full-time, in-person instruction when the new semester begins,” said Long Beach Unified School District spoeksperson, Chris Eftychiou. “We appreciate that the newest guidance supports our commitment to in-person learning. As we approach the Aug. 31 start of the new school year, we’ll continue monitoring masking guidance in partnership with Long Beach Health and Human Services before establishing more specific protocols.”

More via the Epoch Times:

Last week, Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state’s Health and Human Services secretary, said masks would remain a requirement for campuses statewide—despite federal guidance stating that fully vaccinated teachers and students don’t need to wear face coverings in school buildings.

The Los Angeles Unified School District did not immediately comment on the statements from the CDPH, but the district recently approved a contract amendment with the United Teachers Los Angeles union that also requires mask-wearing.

When the LAUSD begins its fall semester Aug. 16—offering in-person instruction for all students—masks will be required for “all students, staff and visitors” over age two at district sites and on buses, according to current rules.

The LAUSD’s current practices also include instruction and reinforcement of proper hygiene, with hand-washing breaks built into daily schedules. The district will also maintain physical distancing, with the
“standard goal” of six feet.

Under the CDPH’s latest mask guidance, masks are optional outdoors for all in K-12 school settings. Students are required to mask indoors, with exemptions per CDPH face mask guidance. Adults in K-12 school settings are required to mask when sharing indoor spaces with students.

People exempted from wearing a face covering due to a medical condition must wear a non-restrictive alternative, such as a face shield with a drape on the bottom edge, as long as their condition permits it.

Schools must develop and implement local protocols to provide a face covering to students who inadvertently fail to bring a face covering to school to prevent unnecessary exclusions.

Consistent with guidance from the 2020-21 school year, schools must develop and implement local protocols to enforce the mask requirements.

Additionally, under the CDPH guidance, schools should offer alternative educational opportunities for students who are excluded from campus because they will not wear a face covering. Public schools should be aware of the requirements in AB 130 to offer independent study programs for the 2021-22 school year.

In limited situations where a face covering cannot be used for pedagogical or developmental reasons, such as communicating or assisting young children or those with special needs, a face shield with a drape can be used instead of a face covering while in the classroom as long as the wearer maintains physical distance from others. Staff must return to wearing a face covering outside of the classroom.

Guidance by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is billed only as a set of recommendations designed to “supplement—not replace” local rules and regulations.

It recommends multiple layers of infection prevention, such as encouraging vaccinations, social distancing of at least three feet between students along with mask-wearing by students and staff who are not vaccinated.

“We applaud the CDC’s commitment to ensuring that schools are fully, safely opened for in-person instruction,” Ghaly said last week. “Masking is a simple and effective intervention that does not interfere with offering full in-person instruction. At the outset of the new year, students should be able to walk into school without worrying about whether they will feel different or singled out for being vaccinated or unvaccinated—treating all kids the same will support a calm and supportive school environment.”

Darius Dale, founder of 42 Macro, joins the Daily Briefing to share with Real Vision’s Ash Bennington and Jack Farley his evolving views on inflation and economic strength. He breaks down today’s beat on the producer price index, putting it within the context of Fed Chair Powell’s testimony to Congress today, and he explains why the inflationary surge may about to roll over. Bennington and Farley also examine the drop in share prices of Bank of America and Citigroup despite the fact that they beat analysts’ expectations for earnings by a wide margin.

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

The United States has decided to temporarily waive sanctions on Iranian oil funds abroad but without returning Tehran’s access to its bank accounts in Japan and South Korea.

“Allowing these funds to be used to repay exporters in these jurisdictions will make those entities whole with respect to the goods and services they exported to Iran, address a recurring irritant in important bilateral relationships, and decrease Iran’s foreign reserves,” the waiver, which the Department of State presented to Congress, said, as quoted by Iran’s Mehr news agency.

This means the government in Tehran will be unable to withdraw the funds but can use them to pay accounts outstanding to South Korean and Japanese exporters. In fact, the money cannot be transferred to Iran at all, the State Department said.

“The secretary of state previously signed a waiver to allow funds held in restricted Iranian accounts in Japan and Korea to be used to pay back Japanese and Korean companies that exported non-sanctioned items to Iran,” a State Department spokesperson said as quoted by Mehr.

“These repayment transactions can sometimes be time-consuming, and the secretary extended the waivers for another 90 days.”

The sanction talks between the U.S. and Iran have stalled lately as the government in Iran changed, with the new president known as a hardliner unlike his predecessor Hassan Rouhani who was hailed as a reformer when he came into power.

According to various reports citing participants in the negotiations, most of the work on the negotiations is done but what remains is the tricky part.

Last month, an Iranian official said that the U.S had agreed to lift sanctions on the country’s oil industry, but the U.S. was quick to deny the report, saying “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”

The talks have currently been suspended with zero clarity on when they will resume.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been hospitalized for an unusual reason on Wednesday: chronic hiccups. Reuters is reporting that the leader who had a Trump-like rapid populist rise to power in 2018 is being kept under observation “to identify the cause of chronic hiccups, the president’s office said, in the latest health scare for the far-right leader who was stabbed in the gut on the campaign trail in 2018.”

He’s staying at a military hospital in Brasilia, during or after which he’ll likely be under scrutiny and examination by doctors for between 24 and 48 hours. He’s been observed hiccupping for well over a week – something he himself in recent days began expressing concern about when press interviews got awkward due to the persistent problem. 

“I’ve been hiccupping for a week, maybe I can’t express myself well in this life,” Bolsonaro remarked during a live broadcast last Thursday, local media reported. 

By Tuesday night, he said they were continuing, noting that it seemed like a health crisis: “Guys, I’m speechless, folks. If I start talking a lot, the hiccup crisis returns. The hiccups are already back,” he told supporters. 

Brazilian media outlet Globo described he was initially admitted for “unspecified medical testing” due to mysterious abdominal pains in the early morning hours of Wednesday, believed to be possibly related to the out of control hiccupping. Globo cited a press release from the president’s office, which said in part:

On medical advice, the president will be under observation for a period of 24 to 48 hours, not necessarily in the hospital. He’s feeling good and doing well.

And Bloomberg noted, “Bolsonaro’s office confirmed his entire agenda was canceled, including his visit to the Supreme Court where he would meet with top Justice Luiz Fux, Lower House Speaker Arthur Lira and Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco.”

Brazilian President hospitalized

▪️Jair Bolsonaro felt severe abdominal pain and was taken to hospital for tests.
▪️The president had been suffering for more than ten days with hiccups and had an intestinal obstruction pic.twitter.com/dVTJAKqCvo

— EHA News (@eha_news) July 14, 2021

His presidency has been plagued by health issues, often leading to speculation about how dire a particularl situation is, especially when he and much of his staff got coronavirus last year, but he consistently seems to bounce back. 

On the campaign trail he was actually stabbed, his intestines injured, in 2018 – for which he underwent major surgery to save his life. However, he recovered surprisingly quickly and made a rapid return to making public appearances. The crazed attacker had said he was “on a mission from God.” It’s unclear if the current intestinal issues are related to the prior surgery due to the knife attack – a likely possibility.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

In the wake of anti-government demonstrations in Cuba, many US officials are calling for Washington to intervene. The mayor of Miami has gone as far to suggest that the US should consider bombing Cuba.

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Mayor Francis Suarez argued in favor of US military intervention and listed examples of previous US wars that involved airstrikes. When asked if he is suggesting that the US bomb Cuba, Suarez said, “What I’m suggesting is that option is one that has to be explored and cannot be just simply discarded as an option that is not on the table.”

“And there’s a variety of ways the military can do it. But that’s something that needs to be discussed and needs to be looked as a potential option in addition to a variety of other options that can be discussed,” he added.

The mayor’s full comments included actually invoking the operation which took out Osama bin Laden:

What should be being contemplated right now is a coalition of potential military action in Cuba similar to what has happened in both administrations in both Republican and Democrat administrations. And Republican–with Bush in Panama, they deposed Noriega. And that country had peaceful democracy for decades. And you had interventions by a Democratic president taking out Osama bin laden in Pakistan. It’s a sovereign country where they took out a terrorist and saved probably thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives. And president Clinton in Kosovo intervening in a humanitarian issue with air strikes.

In a separate interview with Fox Business News on Tuesday, Suarez again argued for US military invention. “The US has intervened in Latin America in numerous occasions and has been very successful,” he said.

Echoing the Cold War, Suarez said Cuba is a threat to the US because it is “exporting communism throughout the hemisphere.”

“Air strikes in Cuba” are now being floated on The News tv channel pic.twitter.com/IMjn4N3WoO

— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) July 13, 2021

Luckily, it doesn’t appear that the Biden administration has any plans to invade or bomb Cuba. The State Department said Tuesday that it is looking at ways to “support” the Cuban people but is downplaying the impact of the decades-old US embargo on Cuba.

An environmentalist group made up of the Center for American Progress, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the League of Conservation Voters and “dozens of others” is seeking an additional $2.1 trillion in infrastructure spending after “feeling burned” by the lack of climate change measure in President Biden’s infrastructure deal.

Because, you know, noble causes and all…

The group is now asking comrade Bernie Sanders to “include that much spending on climate measures in a package being assembled by Democrats”, according to a new report by BNN Bloomberg. A written request was given to Sanders that asks for $225 billion for clean-energy tax credits, $250 billion for a clean-energy standard and $100 billion in consumer incentives for clean vehicles.

The bill also asks for “billions more” for water infrastructure, nuclear energy, electric buses and – we swear we’re not making this up – “efficient electric appliances.”

The push represents what is likely going to be decades-long pressure on Democratic administrations to help fulfill Biden’s promises to eliminate carbon emissions from the electric grid by 2035 and the rest of the economy by 2050.

The group likely targeted Sanders to push for their requests for a reason:

Sanders previously had outlined a $6 trillion proposal covering Biden’s agenda as well as an expansion of Medicare, additional climate change items, immigration reform and a permanent extension of the child-care tax credit. But that measure is expected to shrink as agreement is sought from moderates in the caucus to pass both the budget resolution and a follow-up reconciliation bill, which requires 50 votes for passage along with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote.

The groups’ demands are “unlikely to be realized in full,” BNN wrote.

Recall, we noted that in a late-night announcement Tuesday, Chuck Schumer said the Budget Committee had reached an agreement to allot $3.5 trillion for a spending package that would complete President Biden’s infrastructure plan.

“The Budget Committee has come to an agreement,” Sen. Schumer told reporters Tuesday night following a closed-door meeting with Democratic lawmakers.

The deal adds to the $600 billion package of infrastructure measures that Biden has struck with Republicans.

“You add that to that the $600 billion in a bipartisan plan and you get to $4.1 trillion, which is very, very close to what President Biden has asked us for,” Schumer said. “Every major program that President Biden has asked us for is funded in a robust way.”

The package will include such “infrastructure” priorities like expanding Medicare, addressing climate change, expanding childcare (after the administration just approved a new $300 handout for couples with children)  and education. The Democrats have famously deemed all this “human infrastructure”, which Republicans have vowed to reject.