Month: August 2021

Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

The more CDC director Rochelle Walensky talks, the worse she sounds.

Along with her well noted controversial statements about returning to mask-wearing and a nationally mandated COVID vaccine, the latter of which she walked back to some extent, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director threw out other nutty statements that are worth noting — if for nothing else, then the fact that Joe Biden says he defers to her and her continuously mistaken bureaucrats at CDC.

Breitbart News reported that a question about illegal border-crossers spreading COVID, from Fox News’s Bret Baier, triggered this exchange:

Baier said, “But do you know the surge, how the surge of illegal immigrants with COVID is affecting the overall rate, you know, it sounds like the percentages down there on the border are astronomical?”

Walensky said, “Yeah, you know, I would say that the percentages in the southern part of this country are really quite high. I don’t necessarily think we can attribute all of that to what’s going on at the southern border. I think what we really need to do is spend our time getting our communities vaccinated to getting our individuals vaccinated to prevent disease from transmitting in our communities.”

Basically, she was attempting to brush off the obvious problem of unvetted illegal aliens coming into the U.S. and spreading COVID throughout the country.  With the U.S. paying for their tickets, either by airplane or bus, to their choice of destinations, it’s pretty obvious that a disease vector, courtesy of the Biden administration, is in place.  During the Trump administration, that avenue of spread was shut down firmly through Title 42, throwing illegal migrants back on COVID concerns, based on protecting the country.

These days, there’s nonsense like this going on:

Baier said, “One woman wrote in, My in-laws live in Austria, they cannot come here to see their six-month-old baby because of the EU travel band even as migrants come across the southern border from other countries with more COVID and worse vaccine performance and they are allowed in. Is that a problem, Dr. Walensky?

Walensky said, “We’re working, um, at the CDC to provide technical assistance for all areas of travel as well as to provide technical assistance at the southern border. So as people come in, we are keeping migrants, as well as those communities, as safe as possible with the technical assistance and infection prevention guidelines from the CDC.”

There are also tweets like these being passed around:

Fully vaccinated Canadians can’t come to America. American citizens in Mexico can’t come back unless they are tested. But 1,400,000 illegals 50,000 from around the world not the Americas in June are allowed in.

— James Jay Carafano (@JJCarafano) July 30, 2021

[Note: That latter number is likely far higher.]

The contradictions are pretty amazing here.

What’s more, Walensky’s claim to be ready to send “guidelines” is something she’s been talking about for months, but somehow has never gotten around to doing.  Here she was back in February, according to ABC News, promising all those migrant guidelines:

The CDC, in a three-paragraph order signed by its director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, on Feb. 11, exempted unaccompanied children from being expelled to Mexico until “a forthcoming public health reassessment,” which has yet to be published.

Here’s what’s happened since, from NBC News three days ago:

WASHINGTON — Two more whistleblowers have come forward to allege that children were mistreated by contractors and senior federal employee managers at a Department Health and Human Services migrant shelter in Fort Bliss, Texas, earlier this year, and also say HHS told them to downplay hundreds of Covid infections among children held at the facility.

“Covid was widespread among children and eventually spread to many employees. Hundreds of children contracted Covid in the overcrowded conditions. Adequate masks were not consistently provided to children, nor was their use consistently enforced,” the whistleblowers, Arthur Pearlstein and Lauren Reinhold, said in a federal whistleblower complaint filed Wednesday[.]

But at the end of their service, they said, federal detailees were regularly given written instructions from HHS public affairs that told them, “when asked, to make everything sound positive about the Fort Bliss experience and to play down anything negative.”

And she’s still brushing off that child migrants (many of whom reportedly catch COVID in U.S. detention centers before being dispersed through the U.S.) are spreading COVID?  And she’s still working on her “guidelines”?  Perhaps it’s because she’s making so many television appearances that she can’t get around to doing her actual $188,063-salaried job.  Or perhaps she takes Kamala Harris as her role model, hoping to best her on the border-laziness front.

In addition, Walensky hasn’t done anything about Title 42, which the Biden administration says it’s awaiting word from her on as a million migrants stream in:

The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the future of Title 42. A White House official said the lifting of Title 42 had never been planned.

“That decision will rest with the CDC and that public health process — as of right now there is no change in policy in Title 42, nor a timeline to preview or announce when it’s no longer needed,” the official said.

That’s the current in-place guideline to throw back illegal migrants on COVID grounds.  Joe Biden said he was going to lift it but then said it was up to Dr. Walensky to make that decision.  Rather than affirmatively advise that it should stay in place based on all the migrant COVID-spreading, she’s actually said nothing, and Biden, being Biden, is supposedly leaving it in place but not enforcing it, based on the kinds of statistics around open borders and migrant COVID-spreading that we are seeing now.  Words, and rules, no longer have meaning to Biden, and she’s letting this go on and on as COVID spreads through the U.S.

As if that weren’t bad enough, she’s back to nonsense about everyone masking up, and all she needs is two weeks to “stop the spread.”

Heard that one before?  How stupid does she think the public is?

As the New York Post notes in its fierce editorial, it’s time to get this person off the air.  (Glenn Reynolds, writing at the Post, has a good one saying similar, too.)  She’s got a bizarre speaking style, at times with strange, inappropriate giggles, and she’s constantly spewing disinformation, or shifting information, all of which blow apart her tattered credibility.  Medical professionals are nothing without credibility, and Walensky is proving herself to be a colossal zero.

What if Americans become too obese and lazy that they had robots play video games for them one day? 

University of Maryland researchers have 3D printed a soft robotic hand capable of playing Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The soft robotic hand is flexible and powered by air rather than electricity. 

The breakthrough in soft robotics is led by University of Maryland assistant professor of mechanical engineering Ryan D. Sochol and his team, who 3D print a fully functional soft robotic hand with “integrated fluidic circuits” that allowed it to be programmed and play NES. 

“Previously, each finger of a soft robotic hand would typically need its own control line, which can limit portability and usefulness,” said co-first author Joshua Hubbard. “But by 3D printing the soft robotic hand with our integrated fluidic transistors, it can play Nintendo based on just one pressure input.”

During a session of Super Mario Bros., various types of air pressure control each of the robot’s fingers. For example, the first finger is controlled by low pressure, and the second finger is controlled by medium pressure, and so forth. In total, three fingers can control the NES remote and are programmed to beat the first level of the game in under 90 seconds. 

Sochol and his team aren’t satisfied with using soft robotics technology for just video games. They’re exploring ways to use this technology in the biomedical field. 

Watch the robot play the first level of the game and win. 

Authored by Vanessa Serna via The Epoch Times,

Faced with contentious changes within the public school sector—including the introduction of ethnic studies in some districts—some California parents are searching for alternative options.

“I don’t want my daughter exposed to any type of sex education at any grade level, and I don’t want her introduced to any type of critical race theory at any grade level,” Denise Ramirez told The Epoch Times.

Ramirez is a mother of three children, with two enrolled in the Tustin Unified School District and another recently enrolled in private school.

With concerns mounting over critical race theory (CRT) being taught in classrooms—coupled with mask mandates for public schools leading into the coming curricular year—Ramirez began to seek other options for her children.

She enrolled her daughter at a private Christian school to attend kindergarten. The facility remained open during the pandemic, and did not require kindergarteners to wear masks.

Ramirez said she wants her daughter to have an education that doesn’t involve sex education and critical race theory. She said her boys were exposed to a “comprehensive sex education” in Grade 7.

“What we want for her education to look like is that she can go in person, and there won’t be any interruption,” she said.

Increasing Private School Enrollments 

At Aliso Christian Academy, principal Kaelyn Peterson said she is witnessing an increase in enrollments.

Before enrolling families into the school, Peterson provides them with a tour of the facility. Based on information she’s gleaned on the tours she’s led, parents are reaching for more in-person instruction as they see it more suitable for their kids, she said.

She also said that more conservative families are searching for alternative education options as different ideas and agendas that go against beliefs are being “pushed down” into the public education spectrum.

“The majority of them say is they want their kids in-person and they also want them in an environment where they feel like what’s being taught to them aligns with their values,” Peterson said.

The school took safety precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic, but remained open.

As some families turn toward private schools, others decide to stay put and wait for their children to finish out their public education.

Jon Schank, whose son is an incoming high school senior at Tustin Unified School District (TUSD), said that he disagrees with the decisions being made in public schools but doesn’t intend to move his son.

“I do not like the direction of education…the introduction of ethnic studies,” he told The Epoch Times.

“I think the school board does not act in the best interest of the students.”

Google published several changes to its Google Play Store policy on Wednesday, including banning “sugar dating” apps. 

The policy change in question reads, “We’re updating the inappropriate content policy to institute new restrictions on sexual content, specifically prohibiting compensated sexual relationships (i.e. sugar dating).”

Those who aren’t familiar with “sugar dating” involve older, wealthier individuals dating young partners and showering them in gifts or money, often in exchange for sexual favors. 

Play’s policies already forbid apps that promote “services that may be interpreted as providing sexual acts in exchange for compensation.” The updated policy change kicks in on Sept. 1. 

A search shows plenty of sugar daddy-style apps on Play, including “Sugar Daddy Dating,” “Elite Millionaire Singles,” and “SeekingArrangement.”

There was no mention of which apps would be banned, but there are workarounds such as manually entering the website on an Android web browser or sideloading the dating app. 

So much for some millennials who traded sexual favors to older partners to pay off their student debt. 

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

California’s biggest public sector union has come out in opposition to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order requiring state workers to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or undergo regular testing.

Richard Louis Brown, president of SEIU Local 1000, which represents some 96,000 employees of the State of California, on Wednesday shared a letter from the union to the California Department of Human Resources (CalHR) objecting to Newsom’s vaccine mandate.

“The new policy constitutes a unilateral change in violation of the obligation to give notice and the opportunity to meet and confer prior to implementation,” reads the letter, signed by SEIU Local 1000 chief counsel Anne Giese.

Giese called on CalHR and the State of California to “cease and desist enforcing this requirement or imposing an immediate deadline” until the union has had the chance to meet and confer.

The move came in response to the Democrat governor’s order, issued on Monday, requiring all of California’s state employees, some 246,000 people, to get vaccinated starting Aug. 2 or be subjected to weekly COVID-19 testing.

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

In announcing the vaccine mandate, Newsom pointed to the spread of the Delta variant of the CCP virus, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists as a “variant of concern” and considers to be more transmissible and potentially more resistant to vaccines.

“We are now dealing with a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and it’s going to take renewed efforts to protect Californians from the dangerous Delta variant,” Newsom said in a statement.

“As the state’s largest employer, we are leading by example and requiring all state and health care workers to show proof of vaccination or be tested regularly.”

So far, opposition by SEIU Local 1000 marks the only union objection to Newsom’s order.

On Friday, Newsom’s office shared statements in support of his order issued by a number of local leaders and associations.

“Newsom’s new vaccine policy is a reasonable compromise that we can get behind,” said Glen Stailey, president of the Correctional Peace Officers Association.

“It provides for regular testing at work for those who have chosen not to get vaccinated—this will prevent the spread of the virus among correctional officers and incarcerated individuals alike.”

Denise Duncan, president of the United Nurses Association of California said in a statement that, “COVID-19 transmissions are high, we’re in a fourth surge, and we know that unvaccinated people are suffering the most. This is a forward-thinking order from Governor Newsom which will save lives by protecting patients and caregivers both.”

Federal, state, and local government officials have pushed vaccinations harder as cases linked to the Delta variant have risen.

Just under half of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Vaccine mandates have become a hot-button issue, with advocates welcoming them as a measure to help stem the spread of the CCP virus and protect vulnerable populations, while opponents object on a range of grounds, including concerns about side effects, that the COVID-19 vaccines are currently under emergency use authorization, and that mandates infringe on personal liberties.

For the second time in months, the US Air Force has unsuccessfully tested a prototype hypersonic weapon. 

The Air Force’s AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW, separated from the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber during an air-launch test on July 28 when the rocket motors failed to ignite. This test follows the first unsuccessful flight test in April. 

Testing was conducted over Point Mugu Sea Range in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California. The Air Force explains what went wrong this time:

The missile cleanly separated from the aircraft and successfully demonstrated the full release sequence, including GPS acquisition, umbilical disconnect and power transfer from the aircraft to the missile. The missile also demonstrated fin operation and de-confliction maneuvers which ensures a safe operation for the aircrew.

Following the safe separation maneuvers, the rocket motor did not ignite. The ARRW team continues to progress through the rapid prototyping effort with a steadfast commitment to the well-being of Airmen and equipment, striking a balance between prudent risk and rapid advancement of the program. 

The test failure is a significant blow for the US locked in a hypersonic weapons race against China and Russia. Hypersonic weapons, like the ARRW, can travel at Mach 5, or about 3,836 mph. The missiles are designed to travel at super-fast speeds and penetrate the world’s most advanced air defense shields.

The push for hypersonic weapons occurred under the Trump administration where America was reasserting its military dominance across the world. 

Here’s our recent coverage on the ARRW program: 

• National (In)Security: The Hypersonic Road To Hell
• Lockheed Martin Awarded Second Contract Worth $480mn For Hypersonic Missile Weapons
• Watch: Lockheed Martin Successfully Flies Its Newest Hypersonic Missile On B-52 Bomber
• Air Force Eyes Hypersonic Weapons For B1 Bomber
• USAF Prepares For Imminent Hypersonic Missile Test
• USAF Hypersonic Missile Fails To Launch In Highly-Anticipated Test

The US is attempting to field the ARRW in the early 2020s, but the latest setbacks could delay fielding the super-fast new weapons. 

Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,

To understand the Fed’s culpability for the inflationary disaster afflicting the American economy, it is necessary to start with the Big Lie that underlies all of its destructive machinations: the claim that market capitalism gravitates toward cyclical instability, recession and chronic shortfall from its potential Full Employment path.

From this presumption, there flows an alleged requirement for continuous central bank “stimulus.” Deft action by the central banking arm of the state is purportedly needed to compensate for the inherent prosperity-retarding imperfections of the free market.

If Fed policy has actually been reducing cyclical instability and pushing the $21 trillion US economy ever closer to its Full Employment potential, then productivity growth should be rising over time commensurate with the Fed’s more aggressive deployment of its “stimulus” policies.

In this context, it should be noted that productivity growth is a purer measure of monetary policy impact than total real GDP growth. That’s because the latter is in part driven by long-run demographics and the annual growth of the labor supply.

Productivity growth has exhibited an indisputable decline over the past 72 years, even as Fed policy has become dramatically and chronically more “stimulative.” For purposes of analysis, we have divided the 1947–2019 period, when productivity growth averaged 2.14% per annum for the entire period, into three sub-periods which roughly track the progressive ratcheting up of central bank stimulus policy.

During the first of these periods, the Fed was still tied to the Bretton Woods gold exchange standard and had modest room for stimulus, while during the second period it was just getting its money-printing sea legs and discovering how far it could actually go with a pure fiat dollar.

And the final stage commenced with the financial crisis of 2008, when the Fed embarked upon stimulus unbound. In this stage the balance sheet erupted from $0.9 trillion to $7.9 trillion during the 13 years after the pre-crisis peak.

Needless to say, Fed stimulus policy and US productivity growth are inversely correlated, and dramatically so.

Nonfarm Labor Productivity Growth per Annum decreased with each stage:

• Gold-anchored dollar era, 1947–1970: 71% per annum;

• Initial fiat dollar era, 1970–2007: 03% per annum;

• Unhinged fiat dollar era, 2007–2019:37% per annum;

You just plain can’t argue with the above statistical riff. Nor can the Fed heads and their apologists claim that long-term productivity growth is not an appropriate measure of their policy efficacy.

The Fed is peddling a growth and economic performance narrative that is wholly unwarranted.

Annual Nonfarm Labor Productivity Growth, 1947–2020

It’s the Great Lie that obfuscates the fact that it’s really in the anti-prosperity, pro-inflation money-pumping business.

Common sense and casual observation tell you that the Fed got steadily more aggressive in its stimulus policies during the unfolding of the three periods shown above.

The following illustrates the point well:

Fed Balance Sheet Growth/ Per Annum Money GDP Growth = Stimulus Ratio

• Gold anchored dollar era, 1947–1970: 6.6% GDP growth, 2.4% Fed balance sheet growth = 36% Stimulus Ratio;

• Initial fiat dollar era, 1970–2007: 7.3% GDP growth, 6.7% Fed balance sheet growth = 92% Stimulus Ratio;

• Unhinged fiat dollar era, 2007–2019: 3.1% GDP growth, 12.3% Fed balance sheet growth = 400% Stimulus Ratio

The above omits the 2020 data owing to the massive disruption of both the GDP numbers and the monetary statistics caused by the COVID-Lockdowns and the radical fiscal and monetary experiments implemented to counter them. In fact, the Fed’s balance sheet soared skyward by $3 trillion, even as money GDP fell backward resulting in a 13-year trend that was even more over the top:

• Unhinged fiat dollar era, 2007–2020: 2.9% GDP growth, 17.1% Fed balance sheet growth = 590% Stimulus Ratio.

At the end of the day, the only real policy “tool” the Fed possesses is its printing press. Namely, it cannot really move interest rates lower, implement QE, ease financial conditions on Wall Street or accommodate better economic performance on Main Street (to use its preferred nomenclature) except by expanding its balance sheet.

Accordingly, the ratio of Fed balance sheet growth to money (nominal) GDP growth is a close quantitative proxy for its level of “stimulus.” And on that measure, the results are the opposite of the deteriorating productivity trend shown for the three periods above.

Stimulus has gone parabolic.

How did productivity grow by 2.71% per annum over 1947–1970 — double the 2007–2019 rate — when the Fed’s balance sheet grew by a mere 2.4% per annum or just 38% of the growth rate of nominal GDP?

The truth is, we are dealing with narrative, not facts or analytics.

The Fed’s absurd money-pumping is so convenient for both Wall Street speculators and money-movers and Washington’s debt-addicted politicians that no one questions the narrative. No one points out that the emperor of improved economic growth and performance is buck naked.

*  *  *

The Fed has already pumped enormous distortions into the economy and inflated an “everything bubble.” The next round of money printing is likely to bring the situation to a breaking point. If you want to navigate the complicated economic and political situation that is unfolding, then you need to see this newly released video from Doug Casey and his team. In it, Doug reveals what you need to know, and how these dangerous times could impact your wealth. Click here to watch it now.