Half A Million Illegals Crossed Since Harris Named Border “Czar”

Half A Million Illegals Crossed Since Harris Named Border “Czar”

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures, around 500,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border since Kamala Harris was named border ‘czar’.

The Washington Free Beacon reported the findings, noting that only three months has passed since Harris took on the responsibility, and that the half a million figure is just those that have been apprehended.

The CBP says around 180,000 immigrants are being caught per month. In April agents arrested 178,854 illegal immigrants, the highest monthly figure for 21 years. That figure was then surpassed in May as agents apprehended 180,034 illegals.

By the time June’s figures are reported in the coming days, the combined number is expected to be over half a million, more than the entire population of Miami, Florida or Cleveland, Ohio.

Harris only bothered to visit the border when President Trump announced he was making a trip. Even then Harris visited El Paso, some 1000 miles away from where the crisis is taking place.

Previous to this, Harris lied and claimed she had been to the border, telling NBC’s Lester Holt “This whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”

When Holt pushed back and said she had not, Harris snapped “I—and I haven’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t—I don’t understand the point that you’re making,” then again laughed maniacally:

On Tuesday, Republican Senator Ron Johnson argued that Harris’ trip to El Paso was designed to distract the media and keep them away from the real crisis hit areas of the border.

“They took her to a point in the border where she wouldn’t see the crisis and so the press wouldn’t report on the crisis,” Johnson said.

The Senator added, “You just simply can’t understand what this administration is doing. We literally are apprehending now about 6,000 people per day. That’s I mean, that’s a large caravan every day being processed, some of them being returned, others are being dispersed. But this crisis is not going away. It’s just under everybody’s radar because the press isn’t covering it.”

Watch:

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Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/30/2021 – 19:40

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Kamala Harris Staffers Are Leaking — And Her Office Is A ‘Dysfunctional’ Mess

Kamala Harris Staffers Are Leaking — And Her Office Is A ‘Dysfunctional’ Mess

Vice President Kamala Harris’ office is a toxic, ‘abusive’ environment where “people are thrown under the bus from the very top,’ according to 22 current and former staffers, administration officials and associates of Harris and President Biden.

In a Politico exposé reminiscent of a Feb. 2019 New York Times in which over fifty current and former staffers decried her dysfunctional campaign (h/t @mattdizwhitlock), Harris and her Chief of Staff, Tina Flournoy, are slammed for running an office with “low morale, porous lines of communication and diminished trust among aides and senior officials.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, Chief of Staff Tina Flournoy

It all starts at the top,” said one administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity (as they all did).

“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” said another person with direct knowledge of Harris’ office. “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like shit.”

As Politico notes, “The dysfunction in the VP’s ranks threatens to complicate the White House’s carefully crafted image as a place staffed by a close-knit group of professionals working in concert to advance the president’s agenda. It’s pronounced enough that members of the president’s own team have taken notice and are concerned about the way Harris’ staffers are treated.”

Harris spokeswoman Symone Sanders – a racist who mocked a white Trump supporter after he was beaten by a group of black men – and was passed over for Biden’s press secretary, pushed back against the nearly two-dozen accounts of dysfunction, saying Flournoy has an “open door policy,” and that “Black women like me would not have the opportunity to work in politics without Tina.”

Symone Sanders

Sanders called the anonymous sources “cowards.”

“We are not making rainbows and bunnies all day. What I hear is that people have hard jobs and I’m like ‘welcome to the club,'” Sanders continued. “We have created a culture where people, if there is anything anyone would like to raise, there are avenues for them to do so. Whoever has something they would like to raise, they should raise it directly.”

Harris and Flournoy’s defenders are pulling the race card – saying that “Black women in particular—are subjected to standards that men often don’t have to clear. A tough and demanding office environment may be seen as a virtue for one and a sign of disorder and lack of leadership acumen for another.”

Staffers looking for an exit.

According to the report, some of Harris’ aides are looking for other employment opportunities, while others have left already. In recent days, two top advance staffers, Karly Satkowiak and Gabrielle DeFranceschi, left the ‘dysfunctional’ office. And while Harris’ team said the departures were ‘long-planned’, two people familiar with the departures call bullshit.

For DeFranceschi, the deputy director of advance, the departure came down to a “difference in opinion on how things should run,” according to another person familiar with the matter, who said that Harris’ office is run “very different” from the Obama operation, where DeFranceschi previously worked. “If you have an opinion about how things should run and it’s not listened to, that can be frustrating.”

DeFranceschi did not respond to a request for comment.

A third Harris aide who worked on her digital team, Rajan Kaur, left the staff after opting not to relocate to Washington from Brooklyn.

Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to the president, defended Flournoy as well as the decision to keep news of the border trip contained among a small group of people, saying Harris’ office didn’t want it to leak or “turn it into a spectacle.”

It was closely held and there may be people whose feelings were a little hurt on her staff that they weren’t brought into the discussion,” Dunn said. “But any suggestion that it was mishandled or kept a secret from people who needed to know about the arrangements or needed to know about it is absolutely not true.”

Asked if she was aware of the complaints about the VP’s office, Dunn replied that it was “not anywhere near what you are describing.” -Politico

Flournoy, a veteran of the Clinton White House and Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, is part of an ‘informal group of Black women who’ve worked together for decades in Democratic politics, which includes Donna Brazile, Minyon Moore, Leah Daughtry and Yolanda Caraway,’ according to the report.

“Look, [Tina’s] strong, she’s intelligent, she’s driven, and she expects strong, intelligent, driven people around her,” said Daughtry, adding “But some people may find strong, driven, smart people intimidating, but I think that’s more projection than reality because that’s just not Tina’s intent or style. And nothing in her experience would lead you to think that she’s an intimidating person.”

So the staffers are the problem? Hilarious.

Politico paints a different picture – having developed a reputation for being Kamala’s gatekeeper, often refusing to delegate while second-guessing others in Harris’ office.

Apparently, she did the same thing as Bill Clinton’s post-presidential chief of staff.

“People who Clinton knew for decades all of a sudden couldn’t get through to him because Tina choked off contact,” one of the people said. “Because Clinton didn’t use email,” just his blackberry, “she was able to keep many FOBs [friends of Bill] out.”

Morale is “rough,” and in many ways ‘similar to the failed presidential campaign and her Senate office,’ according to a former Senate aide who speaks with Harris’ staffers.

Read the rest of the report here.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/30/2021 – 19:20

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Majority Of Voters Reject Teaching Children That America Is “Structurally Racist”: Harvard Poll

Majority Of Voters Reject Teaching Children That America Is “Structurally Racist”: Harvard Poll

Authored by GQ Pan via The Epoch Times,

About two-thirds of Americans believe that children should not be taught in school the claim that the United States is a “structurally racist” nation dominated by white supremacy, a new poll revealed.

The findings were published last week as part of an online survey (pdf) conducted by the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll between June 15 and 17, among 2,006 registered voters. The survey asked participants whether they “believe that kids in elementary school should be taught that America is structurally racist and is dominated by white supremacy.”

In response, 61 percent of participants answered children “should not be taught this,” while the remaining 39 percent said children “should be taught that America is structurally racist.”

When it came to another question regarding the teaching of the First Amendment in schools, an overwhelming 81 percent of participants said elementary school students should learn about the First Amendment and the importance of free speech, compared to 19 percent who said they should not.

The results of the survey echoed those of an online poll conducted by Economist and YouGov poll between June 13 and 15, among 1,500 adult U.S. citizens. Participants were asked if they had “a good idea of what critical race theory (CRT) is,” to which 54 percent responded “yes,” 23 percent said “no,” and 23 percent said they are “not sure.”

Those who said they knew about CRT were then asked whether they have a “favorable or unfavorable” opinion of it. Of these participants, 58 percent said they at least have a “somewhat unfavorable” view of CRT, while 38 percent say they are in favor of the Marxism-rooted ideology, which deems the foundations of the American system to be inherently and irredeemably racist.

The idea that racism remains deeply embedded in America has been popularized over the past years by left-wing activists, politicians, media publications, and the New York Times’s 1619 Project.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning project consists of a collection of essays that argue, among many other controversial claims, that the primary reason for the American Revolution was to preserve slavery and that slavery was the source of American economic growth in the 19th century.

A K-12 curriculum based on the 1619 Project, developed by Pulitzer Center, has made its way into many public school districts across the nation, including Chicago, Illinois; Buffalo, New York; and Newark, New Jersey.

A new rule proposed in April by the Education Department also prioritizes funding U.S. history and civics programs that incorporate the 1619 Project and the works of prominent CRT advocate Ibram X. Kendi.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/30/2021 – 19:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hq9PF4 Tyler Durden

Four Cali Residents Convicted Of Using $1.8 Million In PPP Funds For Luxury Homes, Gold Coins And Jewelry

Four Cali Residents Convicted Of Using $1.8 Million In PPP Funds For Luxury Homes, Gold Coins And Jewelry

While hundreds of billions of dollars in PPP money has (and will continue to go) unchecked as a result of arguably the government’s most wasteful and poorly planned cash grab for citizens, the dragnet has managed to pull in a couple of offenders. 

The latest of which were four California residents that were convicted by a Federal Jury on June 25 for “scheming to submit fraudulent loan applications seeking millions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) COVID-19 relief funds,” according to a DOJ press release.

Richard Ayvazyan, his wife Marietta Terabelian and brother Artur Ayvazyan, all based out of Encino, were each found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, 11 counts of wire fraud, eight counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, the release says. Additionally, Vahe Dadyan of Glendale was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, six counts of wire fraud, three counts of bank fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and one count of money laundering.

As a result they must forfeit “bank accounts, jewelry, watches, gold coins, three residential properties, and approximately $450,000 in cash”.

The evidence at the trial showed that the defendants used fake, stolen or synthetic identities to submit fraudulent applications. After obtaining more than $1.8 million in relief funds, the group used the cash as “down payments on luxury homes in Tarzana, Glendale, and Palm Desert” and for “gold coins, diamonds, jewelry, luxury watches, fine imported furnishings, designer handbags, clothing, and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle”.

As part of changing their identities, the group “submitted false and fictitious documents to lenders and the Small Business Administration (SBA), including fake identity documents, tax documents, and payroll records.”

The charges were being brought by the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, whose job is to “marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud.” 

If this example is any indication, the Fraud Enforcement Task Force should have enough work ahead of them to be busy for the next several decades. The full DOJ release can be found here.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/30/2021 – 18:40

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Censorship Kills

Censorship Kills

Authored by Barry Brownstein via The American Institute for Economic Research,

Whenever I write an essay critical of expert opinion on Covid, I immediately receive indignant replies. Some assume I must be a bleach-drinking supporter of President Trump. Others label me a dangerous libertarian since, in their view, I challenge the “best” source of expert opinion.

Among my critics are well-meaning people who see no alternative but to follow the policy prescriptions of their favored experts. They do not see they are on the path of illiberal, anti-science, authoritarian thinking that is endangering the well-being of so many people today.

Karl Popper helps us understand why an “authoritarian attitude to the problem of human knowledge” hinders scientific progress. His essay “On the So-Called Sources of Knowledge” appears in his collection In Search of a Better World.  

Popper explains, “The question of the sources of our knowledge, like so many authoritarian questions, is a question about origin. It asks for the origin of our knowledge, in the belief that knowledge may be legitimate itself by its pedigree.”

Popper explains how the mistaken belief that knowledge has a pedigree leads us to seek the “‘best’ or the ‘wisest’” to be our political rulers. We make the mistake of assuming there are ultimate authorities best suited to rule because of the knowledge they possess. Popper explains that there are no such ultimate authorities, and “uncertainty clings to all assertions.”

Popper argues that instead of focusing on who should rule, our focus should be on “How can we organize our political institutions so that bad or incompetent rulers can do the minimum amount of damage?”

Since “ideal and infallible source of the knowledge” is as impossible as “ideal and infallible rulers,” Popper proposed a better question: “Is there a way of detecting and eliminating error?”

Dr. Fauci claims that to criticize him is to criticize science. Popper would challenge this authoritarian assertion since “pure, untainted and certain sources do not exist.”  

To detect error, Popper advises a mindset of inquiry that criticizes “the theories and conjectures of others.” Importantly, Popper suggests training ourselves to criticize “our own theories and speculative attempts to solve problems.”

Of course, human beings don’t do very well criticizing themselves. Popper says that in a free society that will not be an issue because “there will be others who will do it for us.”

What happens when we don’t criticize our theories? What happens when others are prohibited from criticizing our theories? Without critical inquiry, errors compound since “there are no ultimate sources of knowledge.”

Humility to acknowledge our ignorance motivates inquiry. Popper writes, 

“The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must be necessarily infinite.” 

Authentic scientific inquiry is impossible when criticism is prohibited.

Covid Censorship

Evolutionary biologist Brett Weinstein is a modern-day Popper. Weinstein first came to prominence in 2017 when he was a professor at Evergreen State College in Washington State. A progressive supporter of Bernie Sanders, Weinstein became an early victim of the cancel culture when he refused to support a campus event requiring white people to stay off-campus. Evergreen State’s college president, George Bridges, declined to protect Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying, then a biology professor at Evergreen, from a campus mob. 

Run out of Evergreen State, Weinstein and Heying now produce the YouTube podcast DarkHorse and depend, in part, on advertising revenue for their livelihood. As the audience of DarkHorse has grown they have become independent media stars.

Today, Big Tech is after Weinstein and Heying. Prominent free-speech advocate Matt Taibbi writes, “Weinstein is on the verge of becoming one of the more prominent casualties to a censorship movement that it’s hard not to see as part of a wider Evergreening of America.” 

Why are Weinstein and Heying so dangerous to the orthodoxy? Throughout the Covid crisis, they have considered alternative views. They were among the first to consider the hypothesis that the virus was manufactured. They have considered Ivermectin treatments. Now they are considering the evidence that Covid vaccines are more dangerous than political authorities, the media, and their anointed experts are portraying. Importantly, they have not hesitated to question the integrity of officials such as Dr. Facui.  

Consider Weinstein’s Popperian assertion that “a movement opposes science when it doesn’t want assertions tested, challenges arithmetic when its claims don’t add up, ridicules ‘merit’ when it wants to triumph by other means, seeks to censor when it fears discussion.” 

Weinstein adds, “Those who coddle such demands sow the seeds of our undoing.” Censorship means risking our economies and our lives. 

To reject scientific inquiry, Weinstein argues, “is effectively an invitation to a dark age, which means an age where progress comes to a halt… We must at all costs prevent this shift in our mindset.”

Recently YouTube removed a DarkHorse podcast panel discussion featuring Dr. Robert Malone. The podcast is now viewable at Odysee, which runs on LBRY, a blockchain file-sharing decentralized platform.  

Malone is the creator of the mRNA technology used in Covid vaccines. Malone warns that the spike proteins may be responsible for various unpredictable side effects, including blood clots and myocarditis. The latter being especially prevalent in children and young adults for whom the risk from Covid is very low. Exhibiting Popperian humility, the panelists allowed their conjectures might not be entirely accurate. Malone and Weinstein have earned this right, not to be obeyed, but to present their ideas without censorship. 

If there is evidence that the spike protein mechanism was not fully understood, to believe in science would mean that you examine the warnings of eminent physicians and scientists. 

One doesn’t have to deny the benefits of the vaccine—and Weinstein does argue the vaccine has saved lives—to realize that the costs and benefits of any medical intervention can only be assessed accurately with uncensored information. Appearing on Tucker Carlson, Malone said of the vaccines’ risks: “We don’t have the information we need to make a reasonable decision.” Malone put it this way:

“One of my concerns is the government is not being transparent with us. I’m of the opinion that people have the right to decide whether to accept vaccines or not, especially since these are experimental vaccines. This is a fundamental right having to do with clinical research ethics.”

Dr. Joseph Ladapo and Dr. Harvey Risch are medical professors at UCLA and Yale. They too are concerned that vaccine side effects are not being fully explored. Evidence points to risks of “low platelets (thrombocytopenia); noninfectious myocarditis, or heart inflammation, especially for those under 30; deep-vein thrombosis; and death.” This failure to examine risk is being fueled by a strategy of ridiculing those who question the Covid orthodoxy. They write, 

One remarkable aspect of the Covid-19 pandemic has been how often unpopular scientific ideas, from the lab-leak theory to the efficacy of masks, were initially dismissed, even ridiculed, only to resurface later in mainstream thinking. Differences of opinion have sometimes been rooted in disagreement over the underlying science. But the more common motivation has been political.

Another reversal in thinking may be imminent. Some scientists have raised concerns that the safety risks of Covid-19 vaccines have been underestimated. But the politics of vaccination has relegated their concerns to the outskirts of scientific thinking—for now.

Ladapo and Risch warn that “political partisanship and science” don’t mix:

Public-health authorities are making a mistake and risking the public’s trust by not being forthcoming about the possibility of harm from certain vaccine side effects. There will be lasting consequences from mingling political partisanship and science during the management of a public-health crisis.

The results of such partisanship have been deadly even for groups of people supposedly receiving the most benefit from vaccines. Lapado and Risch point to the rare honesty of a report issued by the Norwegian Medicines Agency having “reviewed case files for the first 100 reported deaths of nursing-home residents who received the Pfizer vaccine.” The vaccine’s impact was not salutatory: “The agency concluded that the vaccine ‘likely’ contributed to the deaths of 10 of these residents through side effects such as fever and diarrhea, and ‘possibly’ contributed to the deaths of an additional 26.”

The CDC has acknowledged the reality of vaccine-induced myocarditis. The acknowledgment has come with a statement that the CDC believes the vaccine’s benefits exceed the costs. The FDA has issued a myocarditis warning label.

For some the CDC is the gold standard for medical guidance; for others, their guidance is dangerously flawed. Dr. Vinay Prasad, professor of epidemiology at the University of California wrote about the latest CDC guidance, “The current CDC guidelines are so poor they would recommend a 15-year old boy who recovered from documented covid19 and who got pericarditis from dose 1 go on to get dose 2.” He adds, “Can we pause a minute to contemplate how staggeringly negligent that is?” Dr. Prasad is clear, “Covid vaccines for children should not get emergency use authorization.” 

Faced with censorship in the marketplace of ideas, and faced with cronyism driving public policy, how can a parent weigh the costs and benefits of the vaccine for their child?

Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford write, “The idea that everyone must be vaccinated against COVID-19 is as misguided as the anti-vax idea that no one should. The former is more dangerous for public health.”

Kulldorff and Bhattacharya are particularly concerned about “intense [vaccination] pressure on young adults and children. They write: “Under such uncertainty [about side effects from vaccines], vaccine mandates are unethical. University presidents or business leaders should not mandate a medical intervention that could have dire consequences for the health of even a few of the people in their charge.”

Kulldorff’s and Bhattacharya’s conclusion are like those of Lapado and Risch:

Universities used to be bastions of enlightenment. Now many of them ignore basic benefit-risk analyses, a staple of the toolbox of scientists; they deny immunity from natural infection; they abandon the global international perspective for narrow nationalism; and they replace trust with coercion and authoritarianism. Mandating the COVID-19 vaccine thus threatens not only public health but also the future of science.

Weinstein, Heying, Lapado, Risch, Malone, Prasad and many more disagree with a blanket endorsement for Covid vaccinations. 

In the absence of vaccine mandates issued by colleges and schools, those who disagree with the CDC would be free to do so. The CDC/FDA position is akin to issuing a warning label on cigarettes and then mandating smoking. 

Dr. Francis Christian is a clinical professor of general surgery at the University of Saskatchewan. A self-described “very pro-vaccine physician,” he was fired for issuing a statement urging parents to exercise “informed consent” about Covid vaccines. Christian writes:

The person by whom the drug, vaccine, treatment or intervention is administered must always make the patient fully aware of the risks of the medical intervention, the benefits of the intervention and if any alternatives exist to the intervention. This should apply particularly to a new vaccine that has never before been tried in humans.

He adds, “I have not met a single vaccinated child or parent who has been adequately informed and who then understands the risks of this vaccine or its benefits.”

Dr. Christian points to alternatives. From the outset of this pandemic, Fauci, Bill Gates, and others told us that life could not get back to normal until we achieved herd immunity via vaccinations. For the FDA to issue an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for Covid vaccines, there must be “no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.” 

Manufacturers of Covid vaccines are indemnified from liability, and the government has made sure they are also protected against competition. It seems to be a law of cronyism that crony greed is maximal and concern for others is minimal.

Consider Ivermectin, a generic drug with a long history of safety. Weinstein and others argue Ivermectin is not only an effective treatment but a potential prophylactic against Covid. Weinstein, Heying, and their guests have advocated for further study of IvermectinMatt Taibbi recently documented how the consideration and use of Ivermectin has become a political issue. 

Big Tech routinely censors reports of vaccine harm and alternatives to vaccines. Censorship is the product of an illiberal, anti-science, authoritarian mindset. Censorship kills because decision-making is distorted. 

Consider the knowledge of the disinfecting properties of soap and water. In a world where that knowledge was censored in favor of antibiotic treatment for all wounds, people would die needlessly, and antibiotics would be overused. 

Our Responsibility

Popper interprets Kant’s principle of autonomy as the “realization that we must never accept the command of an authority, however exalted, as the basis of ethics. For whenever we are faced with the command of an authority, it is always up to us to judge, critically, whether it is morally permissible to obey.” 

Popper allows, “The authority may have the power to enforce its commands, and we may be powerless to resist.” 

Today we are not yet powerless to resist the censors. We can acknowledge our ignorance and engage in inquiry. We can still seek out and find alternative views and consider disconcerting evidence. We can resist the urge to self-censor and instead share what we are observing and learning. We can reject authority as the basis for our personal ethics. Popper writes, “If it is physically possible for us to choose our conduct then we cannot escape the ultimate responsibility.” 

Lex Fridman is a research scientist at MIT and the host of a popular podcast. Recently he had Weinstein on his show to talk about censorship. Fridman said this: “Science is the striving of the human mind to understand and solve the problems of the world, but as an institution, it is susceptible to flaws of human nature, to fear, to greed, power, and ego.” To reduce uncertainty about the best solutions to Covid, Fridman argues, “No voices should have been silenced, no ideas left off the table. Open data, open science, open scientific communication, and debate is the way, not censorship.”

Censors claim the moral high road; they assure us they are coercing others for our own good. Fridman dismantles their authoritarian hubris: “There are a lot of ideas out there that are bad, wrong, dangerous. But the moment we have the hubris to say we know which ideas those are is the moment we lose our ability to find the truth, to find solutions.” The conversation he had with Weinstein is larger than Weinstein’s ideas. Fridman warns that at stake is “the very freedom to talk, to think, to share ideas.” Fridman believes, “This freedom is our only hope.”

Censorship distorts decision-making and destroys hope. For some, Covid is a matter of life or death. Censorship challenges our ability to make responsible health choices for ourselves and those in our care.

In 1644 John Milton wrote, “He who destroys a good book, kills reason itself.” Today, acknowledge the destructive consequences of censorship. Speak out now or we risk allowing Big Tech’s algorithms and community guidelines to continue to destroy reason, hinder science, and undermine hope for humanity.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/30/2021 – 18:20

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3AczGJk Tyler Durden

Half Of Australia’s Population Locked Down As Delta Hysteria Worsens

Half Of Australia’s Population Locked Down As Delta Hysteria Worsens

Nowhere is the paranoia and overreaction to the (imaginary) threat posed by COVID’s “Delta” variant more intense than in Australia, where tiny clusters of mostly mild COVID cases (most of which have reportedly been identified as instances of the Delta variant) have prompted another wave of lockdowns, involving not just Sydney (the island nation’s most populous city), but six other cities encompassing half of the Australian population (more than 12MM people).

The cities now under lockdown include: Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Darwin, Townsville and the Gold Coast. And on Wednesday, the outback town of Alice Springs also entered a snap lockdown after cases emerged in South Australia.

Australian authorities now fear the Delta variant could now spread to nearby Aboriginal communities which are already vulnerable due to low vaccination rates. State leaders across the nation said they were “facing a pressure cooker situation” as more cases were discovered, triggering new lockdowns.

With only 5% of the population is fully vaccinated, many have urged the government to accelerate its vaccine rollout.

But messaging around the country’s main vaccine, the AstraZeneca jab, has been contradictory. Already, PM Scott Morrison has moved to expand access, announcing Monday that anyone under 40 who wants the AstraZeneca jab could have it after talking to their general practitioner. His message was swiftly rejected by the Australian Medical Association’s president, who said it took him by surprise and went against expert advice. The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization recommends AstraZeneca only for patients in their 60s and older (because of the rare, but still deadly, cerebral blood clots seen in some patients with low blood-platelet counts).

Health officials have been alarmed by the fact that the Delta variant has been found in five of eight states and territories just 2 weeks after it was first isolated in Sydney.

As WSJ explained in a lengthy story tracing the spread of “Delta” across Australia, the outbreak began at a shopping mall in Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Australian authorities even claimed to have caught the “transmission” of the variant on tape.

After the first cases were confirmed, Sydney was quickly locked down for the first time in a year. Still, the outbreak is “small” by global standards. If it weren’t for all the “alarm” about the Delta variant, there likely wouldn’t be a lockdown.

Australia has kept its COVID numbers enviably low by imposing tight restrictions on who is allowed to travel to the country. Except for certain emergency exceptions, almost no foreigners have been allowed in since the start of the outbreak. But countries can’t keep everybody out forever. The lockdowns have become another political black eye for conservative PM Scott Morrison. As we reported yesterday, many Australians are growing increasingly frustrated with what they see as an overreaction. Unfortunately, when everybody looks back at this a year from now, will they be even more furious when the realize how badly public health authorities overreacted?

Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/30/2021 – 18:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2UUDoap Tyler Durden

Daily Briefing: The Ideological Trade: Value, Oil, and Inflation

Daily Briefing: The Ideological Trade: Value, Oil, and Inflation

Real Vision’s Jack Farley welcomes Samuel Burke, managing editor, and Jared Dillian of The Daily Dirtnap to the Daily Briefing to discuss U.S. treasury yields, commodity prices, and delta variant concerns. Dillian explains his investment framework amidst growing fears of the delta variant in the U.S. The trio covers decreasing treasury yields and their effect on the inflation trade. Further, they examine the nuances of the commodity market as lumber prices move lower and oil prices remain resilient.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/30/2021 – 14:23

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3xbyy6N Tyler Durden

Democrats’ Revive “Destination” Fundraisers Despite Concerns About Delta Variant

Democrats’ Revive “Destination” Fundraisers Despite Concerns About Delta Variant

With the spread of the Delta COVID-19 variant tripping alarms across the US, Democratic politicians, who have mostly urged caution with the reopening of the economy, are once again organizing “destination” fundraisers during weekends in July and August as they race against the GOP to raise as much money as possible before the 2022 midterms.

According to Axios, Democrats opted not to hold fundraisers outside Washington during the pandemic, which is why so many members are apparently looking forward to their weekends mingling with donors in the sunshine, despite the alleged threat posed by the Delta variant.

Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger plans to host a late August beach weekend in Ocean City, where he once worked as a summer lifeguard. “People can bring their families, and it’s very nice and it’s only three hours away,” he said. “You don’t have to travel to California or other places.”

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will host a weekend event in Sonoma Calif., right in the middle of the state’s wine country, after the first week in August.

During the same weekend as Sinema’s event, Sen. Jack Reed has invited donors up to Newport, famed for its gilded-age waterfront mansions, for a separate fundraiser.

Democrats from the conservative ‘Blue Dog Caucus’ will host an event at Greenbrier resort in West Virginia between July 9 and July 11.

The bottom line: Democrats need to catch up to the GOP who have been more active on the fundraising front during the pandemic. Corporate donors and lobbyists are all getting the memo, along with their invitations: it’s time to pay up.

As Axios explains, most of these fundraisers cost between $2.5K and $5K per lobbyist, who transfer the money from their corporation’s PACs to the campaign committee for a specific lawmaker or his or her own political action committee.

Dems also try to recruit other lawmakers to join them at their events to increase the pull for lobbyists (allowing them to kill two birds with one stone).

Bottom line: As they prepare for a busy summer of fundraising, Democrats are showing that they’re not afraid of Delta…but you definitely should be (especially if you haven’t been vaccinated).

Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/30/2021 – 17:20

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TlUZaN Tyler Durden

Watch: House Subcommittee Hears Chinese Military Ran Wuhan Lab; Experts Warn It’s “Highly Likely” COVID-19 Leaked

Watch: House Subcommittee Hears Chinese Military Ran Wuhan Lab; Experts Warn It’s “Highly Likely” COVID-19 Leaked

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Republicans in the House held a hearing Tuesday to discuss origins of the coronavirus pandemic and heard from experts that it is ‘highly likely’ the virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that the Chinese military was involved in running the lab much earlier than previously thought.

The hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis went ahead without any Democrat involvement, and no appearance from either NIH director Dr. Francis Collins and NIAID director Anthony Fauci, who both declined to attend.

As Minority Whip Steve Scalise noted last week, Democrats have not held any hearings and without subpoenas it is near impossible to get health officials to turn up to any Republican led hearing.

During the hearing, Scalise declared “We have asked that question for more than a year and requested that the House majority hold hearings to investigate the origins of COVID. Perplexingly, Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [(D-Calif.)] has refused to allow a single hearing — calling it a ‘diversion.’”

“As the American people will hear today from our expert witnesses, this is far from a diversion,” Scalise asserted.

During the hearing, which lasted three hours, Dr. Brett Giroir, who served as Assistant Secretary for Health in President Trump’s HHS, stated “This is a worldwide pandemic in which millions of people have died. It may have been the result of a lab-leak — and we think highly likely it is.”

When questioned on ‘gain of function’ research at the Wuhan lab, Giroir said “it’s unbelievable to me that coronavirus work wouldn’t even get into the process.”

“If you look at the abstract from the latest grant that was done to EcoHealth, it talks about using protein sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments. This is all gain-of-function. How this could not get into the P3 process is unbelievable,” Giroir continued, referencing the P3CO oversight board that decides on U.S. funding of the research.

Also appearing at the hearing were Dr. Steven Quay, founder of Atossa Therapeutics, and Richard Muller, a physics professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

The two recently authored a study that concluded “COVID-19 has a genetic footprint that has never been observed in a natural coronavirus.”

“A natural zoonosis has two processes,” Quay said, adding “It jumps into humans but it can’t do very well… but then it’s building up its repertoire, it’s learning how to infect humans. And then finally, and this takes a year to 18 months. So here, it was human-to-human from the get-go.”

“That simply indicated gain-of-function,” Muller explained, noting “The fact that it was human from the get-go implies gain-of-function. There’s no way that we know that could happen [naturally].”

The scientists also all noted that more within the scientific community didn’t speak out earlier because they feared being ostracised or labeled racist.

“Physicians who were on the task force, or who were around the task force, were under tremendous pressure from their scientific colleagues to not even show up with the president on stage,” said Giroir, referencing Trump’s repeated use of the phrase ‘China virus’.

“There was such bias against the president, that even thinking that you were helping the president, you were excommunicated from the scientific community,” Giroir added.

Former State Department investigator Dr. David Asher also appeared at the hearing and noted that there is a possibility that the virus was part of a Chinese bioweapons program.

“They were working on a program related to synthetic biology and gain-of-function using serial passage revolutionary technology approaches quite publicly,” said Asher.

“Of course they were working on dual-use research of concerns, it’s called DURC. And the DURC, in this case, if it gets out of a lab and it’s not contained promptly, could result in a weapons-like release,” Asher added.

He continued, “Whether they deliberately did it, I have very little sense they did. But were they deliberately working on developing the capability to use advanced pathogen genetic capabilities for war in a way that no one has seen ever employed? Yeah they were. Of course they are.”

Representative Michael McCaul (R-Tx), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Head of the China Task Force, also announced that he has received intelligence indicating the Chinese Military may have taken over the Wuhan lab earlier than had previously been reported.

“New testimony now received by my committee reveals the Chinese military potentially took over this lab, not in January 2020 as was reported, but earlier in 2019,” McCaul said.

“The Chinese military were actually in the facility at the time of 2017. That signals the CCP was worried about something at the lab before the world even knew what COVID-19 was. Why else would they put the Chinese military in charge?” McCaul questioned.

The State Department Fact Sheet, released in January, previously noted that secret military research was being conducted at the lab, noting “Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.”

McCaul proclaimed that “I believe it’s time to completely dismiss the wet market as a source of the outbreak,” adding “I would say this is a diversion by the CCP, and all roads point to the lab.”

he continued, “In a city five times larger than the City of Houston, the first signs of a new illness were all clustered around the old WIV facility — the Level 2 facility. Then on September 12, 2019, the WIV suddenly took their virus database offline. You have to ask the question: “Why? Why did they take this offline?” Removing the database would prevent hospitals in the city from comparing samples from sick patients to the lab’s library of viruses. If the CCP was attempting to cover up a leak of coronaviruses being studied at the WIV, this would remove the ability to link COVID-19 back to the WIV.”

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Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/30/2021 – 17:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hsTcsG Tyler Durden

Broadway Hit Hamilton Could Get Up to $50 Million Federal Bailout


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When it comes to wasteful COVID-19 spending, it might seem like there aren’t many things the federal government hasn’t done.

But just you wait.

Broadway mega-hit Hamilton will receive at least $30 million and possibly as much as $50 million in federal bailout funds, The New York Times reported Wednesday, despite its status as one of the most successful and profitable musicals in American history. The funds are being delivered through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program, a $15 billion portion of the $900 billion COVID relief bill passed by Congress last December. Each production affected by the pandemic is allowed to apply for up to $10 million from the program, but Hamilton will get several times that total because the Broadway production and each of four touring shows are separately eligible, according to the Times.

Indeed, it must be nice to have Washington on your side.

Jeffrey Seller, Hamilton’s lead producer, tells the Times that none of the bailout money is going to the show’s producers or investors and that it won’t be paid out in royalties to artists like Lin-Manuel Miranda. Instead, the money will be used to “remount those shuttered productions” and pay off bills that accumulated during the show’s pandemic-induced hiatus.

Don’t buy this argument. Money is fungible and every dollar that taxpayers contribute to “remount those shuttered productions” is a dollar that the show’s investors and producers won’t have to spend or borrow to do the same. Let’s be very clear about this: Hamilton was absolutely going to return to the stage whether the federal government kicked in $50 million or nothing at all.

Worse, every dollar spent bailing out mega-hit Broadway shows is a dollar that can’t be spent to help get smaller productions and theaters that don’t have access to private credit and investments on the scale that Hamilton surely does. If there is any role for the government to play in helping entertainment businesses get back on their feet after the financial impact of the pandemic, that’s where the focus should be. How many community theaters could be saved with that same $50 million being showered on Hamilton?

That’s the problem with almost all government bail-out schemes. You gotta be in the room where it happens—metaphorically, at least. Successful businesses will always have an advantage over those who lack the lobbyists, name recognition, or culture cachet required to cash in.

On the other hand, the federal government’s firehose of COVID relief spending—$5.9 trillion and counting—means it is easier than ever to get bailed out. So far, the government has responded to the pandemic by sending money to people who earn six-figure paychecks, paying fully vaccinated people not to work even though there are millions of available jobs, bailing out state governments that are running huge surpluses, and using the pandemic as cover for a massive bailout of union-run pension funds, among other things.

Like with Hamilton, there doesn’t seem to be any consideration of when or how much government aid is necessary. We’ve pumped so much money into the system—nearly all of it borrowed and added to the country’s long-term debt problems—and it has to go somewhere.

Did a bunch of fake celebrities whose only claim to fame is being former contestants on The Bachelor need the federal government to dump as much as $20,000 apiece into their bank accounts? Nope, but they got the cash anyway, according to data gathered by ProPublica and reported in a variety of media outlets.

The likelihood that those funds are critical to preserving the American economy from the scourge of COVID-19 is less than the chance of someone finding true love on a trashy reality television show—or the odds that the curtain would come down on Hamilton without millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded aid.

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