Month: August 2023

The ex-husband of First Lady Jill Biden has broken his silence to speak out against the “Biden crime family” for “targeting” he and Donald Trump.

Bill Stevenson, who was married to Jill Biden between 1970 and 1975, told Newsmax last week that the president’s brother, Frankie Biden, tried to intimidate him during his divorce with Jill, and claimed the family threatened him with repercussions.

“Frankie Biden of the Biden crime family comes up to me and he goes, “Give her the house or you’re going to have serious problems,”” Stevenson said. “I looked at Frankie and I said, “Are you threatening me?” and needless to say, about two months later, my brother and I were indicted for that tax charge for $8,200.”

When asked to clarify whether he thinks Joe Biden was behind the tax charge, Stevenson told host Greg Kelly: “I not only think it, but I know it,” adding that he “could not believe the power of Joe Biden and the Department of Justice. I couldn’t believe it.”

Kelly also noted the parallels between Stevenson’s case and Hunter Biden’s ongoing tax troubles – noting that Hunter was hit with just two misdemeanor counts for $2.2 million in unpaid taxes, while Stevenson and his brother were slapped with two felonies for just over $8,000 in unpaid taxes.

“It’s hard to believe what they’re doing to President Trump right now, and that’s why I came to you,” said Stevenson, 75. “He is doing the exact same thing.”

“I was on the wrong side of them, and they have literally come after me for 35 years in a row. One little thing after another,” he continued. “I can’t let them do this to a president that I love and respect. I can’t let them do this to our country.”

“This is the only reason I’ve come forward. It’s like I said, nothing about the divorce, no bitterness, but Jimmy, Frankie, and President Biden are very dangerous, and it’s tragic. I can’t let them do what they did to me to President Trump. I can’t do it,” he added.

Authored by Sally Fallon Morell via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In February of last year, the International Journal of General Medicine published a study that was easy to miss, as no major media publication reported on “Total Meat Intake is Associated with Life Expectancy: A Cross-Sectional Data Analysis of 175 Contemporary Populations,” by Wenpeng You and his team of researchers.

For years we have heard that the secret to a long life is to cut back on meat consumption and increase our intake of carbs—advice that is enshrined in the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. But that’s not what these researchers found.

You and his team analyzed data from 175 countries and territories—in other words, almost the whole world—and used various statistical methods to “explore and compare the correlations between newborn life expectancy … life expectancy at five years of life … and intakes of meat, and carbohydrate crops, respectively. The established risk factors to life expectancy—caloric intake, urbanization, obesity and education levels—were included as the potential confounders.”

The researchers found that worldwide, meat intake was associated with a longer life. “This relationship remained significant when influences of caloric intake, urbanization, obesity, education and carbohydrate crops were statistically controlled.” By contrast, consumption of carbohydrates had a weak but negative correlation with life expectancy.

Blue Zones and Meat Consumption

You may be wondering about the “blue zone” areas of the world—those with a high percentage of centenarians. According to Dan Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones, Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest,” the key to a long life is to minimize meat consumption and eat plenty of vegetables.

Don’t the long-lived people living in the blue zones eat a mostly plant-based diet?

Well, actually, no. For example, in Sardinia, Mr. Buettner’s first noted blue zone, meat consumption is higher among the long-lived peasants living in the mountains than those living in the valleys, according to a 2015 study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Say the authors:

“The identification of a hot spot of exceptional longevity, the Longevity Blue Zone (LBZ), in the mountain population of Sardinia has aroused considerable interest toward its traditional food as one of the potential causal factors … Up to a short time ago, the LBZ population depended mostly upon livestock rearing, and consumption of animal-derived foods was relatively higher than in the rest of the island.” [emphasis added]

For Okinawa, his second listed blue zone, Mr. Buettner insists that “Older Okinawans have eaten a plant-based diet most of their lives. Their meals of stir-fried vegetables, sweet potatoes and tofu are high in nutrients and low in calories.” However, that’s not what researchers found in a 1992 study comparing the diets of mainland Japanese and those living on the island of Okinawa.

They found that the proportion of the diet from protein and fats—mainly pork and pork fat, but also fish—was higher in Okinawa. Another fact: the Okinawans love Spam—consuming more than one can per person per week—for a total of just over seven million cans of canned pork annually. Spam is the kind of “fatty, processed meat” that Buettner warns against.

Moving on to the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica—an area teaming with cattle, goats, and pigs—folks there also love their lard. A 2013 study of the region found that the older Nicoyans ate more fish, more meat, and more saturated fat (from lard) than inhabitants of other regions in Costa Rica. They are also fond of a stew based on organ meats called “sustancia.”

In the blue zone of Ikaria, Greece, Buettner describes the diet as plant-based with a “low intake of saturated fats from meat and dairy.” Yet the islanders consume lots of goat and sheep dairy products, which are very high in saturated fat—and as is the custom throughout Greece—they frequently consume fatty lamb.

As for the Loma Linda, California, Seventh Day Adventists—Buettner’s fifth and final blue zone—it’s not clear that there are many centenarians in the population, but studies on these Adventists indicate that the men live 7.3 years longer and the women live 4.4 years longer compared to other Californians. However, very few Adventists (about 4 percent) follow a vegan diet, and as a group, they avoid alcohol, drugs, caffeine, and junk food—compared with Californians as a whole—who tend to consume alcohol, sodas, junk food, coffee, and drugs.

Which world population has the longest lifespan? The answer is surprising: bustling, crowded, polluted Hong Kong! According to United Nations data, the life expectancy in Hong Kong is 82.38 years for men and 88.17 years for women. Another surprise: Inhabitants of Hong Kong have the highest consumption of meat and dairy foods in the world, at 500 grams (over one pound) of meat and 281 grams (almost ten ounces) of dairy products per day.

Yet Another Media-Ignored Study on the Benefits of Meat

I am reminded of an important study, described in The Guardian, carried out almost twenty years ago—also ignored by the media—which showed just how important meat is for growing children.

Read more here…

We recently penned an article titled “Airline Stocks Encounter Turbulence as Alaska Air Indicates Waning Demand,” followed by “Air Travel Bubble Might Be In A Stall.” Now, several US airline carriers are warning about a deceleration in domestic air travel demand. 

JetBlue Airways Corp. is the latest to slash its full-year profit forecast over signs of sliding US travel demand: 

“We are updating our full-year earnings outlook to reflect near-term headwinds related to the termination of the NEA, a challenging operating environment in the northeast and a greater than expected shift of pent-up Covid demand to long-haul international markets which is pressuring demand for domestic travel during the peak summer travel period,” President/COO Joanna Geraghty wrote in a statement. 

“The guidance is extremely disappointing,” Helane Becker, a TD Cowen analyst, told clients. 

Becker continued, “The current revenue environment where domestic fares are trending lower is driving the big reduction in earnings expectations.”

JetBlue said it would earn less due to sliding demand in the third quarter than analysts expected. It joins Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines, who warned last week about waning demand. 

According to tech firm Bloomberg Second Measure, which tracked credit and debit card transactions made with airline carriers, such as Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and JetBlue, card data for the second quarter showed a decline across all carriers tracked for the first time since Covid. 

This might be an early sign that ‘revenge travel’ has passed the peak, and consumers are reducing travel, like other discretionary purchases, including electronics, apparel, and restaurants, as financial conditions tighten. 

In a separate note, Bloomberg believes airlines risk a hard landing after the summer travel surge: “Jam-packed airports, elevated ticket prices and cheery commentary from corporate executives all pointed to strong demand for air travel this summer, helping airline stocks stage a torrid rally heading into the second-quarter earnings. But the road ahead now is starting to look bumpy now.”

Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Fifty-four elected officials in New York City have sent a letter to President Joe Biden to address the influx of illegal immigrants in the city, asking him to declare a federal state of emergency so that the illegal immigrants can legally work in the country.

“We are elected officials from New York City requesting your help. Our City is experiencing an unprecedented migrant influx, with a surge of asylum seekers arriving here in numbers never seen before in history. Our City is at a breaking point,” wrote New York City Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar.

“We take pride in New York being a beacon of hope for immigrants, but the influx of migrants is so great that the City is running out of resources. New York City is being forced to reduce services for its people.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been holding cross-country town halls for the past many weeks, while presenting himself as a “man of the people”—as these events are giving ordinary Canadians a rare chance to ask him unvetted questions. But apparently you’d better ask the “right” questions, or else he’ll blow up and attack you personally as the questioner. A new clip has surfaced of a recent exchange centered on a very legitimate question from an audience member about Ukraine, and Canada’s refusal to push for peace. 

Prominent Canadian political commentator Stephen McIntyre presented the town hall video on Twitter, while providing the following context to the back-and-forth between audience member “Michael” and PM Trudeau: 

Someone asks why Canada hasn’t put forward a peace proposal to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, even if Trudeau disagreed with the question, his knee jerk reaction is to say “Am going to call you out” and says the individual has been swayed by Russian propaganda and disinformation. Chilling and Orwellian.

Town hall audience member Michael asks PMJT an earnest question about the war in Ukraine.

In response, Trudeau accuses him of proliferating “Russian propaganda and disinformation.” pic.twitter.com/SGdug2hgzP

— The Amazing Zoltan (@AmazingZoltan) August 1, 2023

Of course, Michael the audience member didn’t so much as “pick sides” or express some kind of admiration for the Russian side or Putin. Instead, he merely asked about the prospect for peace, and why Trudeau’s government wasn’t doing more to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table. 

Michael began his question with, “Canada is traditionally known for advocating for peace, I know we’re a member of NATO, but I know we don’t have a nuclear weapon.” The above clip is edited (see fuller clip below), but Michael at one point explained that the conflict has become a full-blown “proxy war”, posing immense danger for uncontrollable escalation.

And then he posed to Trudeau: “Why has your government failed to draft a peace proposal to end this war in Ukraine?” The audience member explained that Canada should be exhausting all diplomatic channels instead of escalating while following Washington’s policies of escalation.

The prime minister immediately took a condescending tone and posture: “Am going to call you out!” he told Michael. Included in his essentially ‘non-response’ to the actual question, Trudeau called the audience member “totally wrong” before charging that his words and perspective were all coming from “Russian propaganda and disinformation”. 

Here’s the fuller clip of the exchange…

Here is the full and mostly complete clip for additional context. Michael does in fact – and accurately – use the term proxy war. “Proxy war” is defined as “a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved.” pic.twitter.com/fNiH3ObvQR

— The Amazing Zoltan (@AmazingZoltan) August 1, 2023

What more can be said of this truly downright Orwellian silencing of speech and legitimate questioning of top decision-makers… 

Authored by Amy Denny via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Researchers have identified a microbial signature for autism spectrum disorder, a critical finding that offers clarity about how the gut microbiome influences this neurological syndrome.

The data-driven study published by 43 researchers challenges the idea that autism is a primarily genetic condition and suggests that environmental factors may be behind the sharp rise in the debilitating condition.

The trillions of microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms) that populate the gut microbiome are the basis of that microbial signature. Other research has found that having more microbes and greater diversity is associated with health and lower disease risk. Among other tasks, gut bacteria metabolize fiber and create metabolites that facilitate digestion, brain functions, and more.

The study involved reanalyzing 25 previously published datasets to find autism-specific metabolic pathways that could be linked to particular gut microbes. Originated at the Simons Foundation’s Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), the meta-analysis was published on June 26 in Nature Neuroscience and aligns with a recent long-term study of microbiome-focused treatment on 18 people with autism who exhibited improvement in both gut and brain symptoms.

“It provides further evidence that the microbiome is altered in autism and that it relates to alterations in biochemistry and that those alterations can affect GI [gastrointestinal] and neurological functioning,” James Adams, professor at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes, told The Epoch Times. He’s been studying the gut–autism link for 20 years and is co-author of the study of 18 people highlighted in the new research.

The Growing Shadow of Autism

No single cause has been found for autism spectrum disorder, which is a heterogeneous condition displaying genetic, physiological, and behavioral patterns. It’s usually diagnosed in childhood and now affects 1 in 36 children, up from 1 in 44 just two years ago.

The obstacles to studying autism include difficulty testing children who have severe cases and difficulty observing signs and symptoms in subjects. The fact that it’s a neurological condition makes it more difficult to study.

Combined with the vastness of the microbiome, that has made it difficult and controversial to quantify the role gastrointestinal problems play in autism. One goal of the study was to forge consensus on this relationship, Jamie Morton, one of the study’s corresponding authors and an independent consultant, told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Morton said researchers were surprised at the connections observed when they applied an algorithm to the data. They put autistic and neurotypical controls side by side to look for such traits as gene expression, immune system response, and diet.

“What was startling was how strong the signal was. After running our analysis, you could just see it pop off from the raw data,” Mr. Morton said. “We hadn’t seen this kind of clear overlap between gut microbial and human metabolic pathways in autism before.”

A “pathway” is a biochemical process of linked reactions whereby one molecule is processed into another, or compounds are changed in a series of processes to deliver a certain substance to a certain place in the body. For example, you may eat a certain vitamin or compound that gets digested into other molecules that get changed into other molecules through cellular processes until they eventually reach your brain as a specific neurotransmitter.

Researchers said the new information paves the way for precise treatment-focused research on manipulation of the microbiome. The ability to use stool analysis to see how patients respond to specific interventions over time can shape future studies and, ultimately, clinical care.

“What’s significant about this work is not only the identification of major signatures, but also the computational analysis that identified the need for future studies to include longitudinal, carefully designed measurements and controls to enable robust interpretation,” Kelsey Martin, executive vice president of SFARI and the Simons Foundation Neuroscience Collaborations, said in a SFARI statement.

Study Specifics

The meta-analysis compared 600 pairs of children; each pair consisted of a child with autism and a neurotypical control of the same age and sex. Each pair was analyzed and compared using novel computational methodologies so the researchers could identify microbes with differing abundances between the two groups.

There were 95 metabolic pathways differentially expressed in the brains of autistic subjects that had corresponding microbial pathways. “Pathways related to amino acid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism and lipid metabolism were disproportionately represented among the overlapping pathways,” the study reads.

Functionally, those pathways were confirmed with microbial species in the genera of Prevotella, Bifidobacterium, Desulfovibrio, and Bacteroides. And they are associated with brain gene expression changes, restrictive dietary patterns, and pro-inflammatory cytokine profiles.

The study’s inclusion of the 2019 long-term fecal microbiota transplant study led by Mr. Adams and Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown makes the evidence more robust.

“Another set of eyes looked at this, from a different lens, and they validated our findings,” Ms. Krajmalnik-Brown said of the meta-analysis in the statement.

The Adams and Krajmalnik-Brown study was also published in Nature and noted lower overall microbial diversity and reduced Prevotella copri and Bifidobacterium in children with autism.

The original study treated 18 children with a microbial transfer therapy that included two weeks of treatment with the powerful antibiotic vancomycin, a bowel cleanse, one initial high dose and 10 weeks of daily low doses of microbial transfers along with a low-dose stomach-acid suppressant.

Essentially, subjects had their gut microbiome cleared out and received a new one from a transplant of healthy donor stool. The results included an 80-percent reduction in GI symptoms and a slow, steady improvement in autism symptoms. The two-year follow-up of the same cohort showed that children in the severe range of autism had significantly decreased symptoms and that beneficial bacteria remained high.

Validation

The meta-analysis provides large-scale confirmation of a theory that many clinicians and researchers have had for years based on studies and observational evidence.

“They’re adding credibility to gut treatment with autistic kids. We’ve been treating autistic kids for decades on the gut, and we’ve had a lot of mainstream criticism for it,” Dr. Armen Nikogosian, a medical and functional doctor who specializes in autism care, told The Epoch Times. “That being said, we certainly haven’t figured it all out, but we knew there was a clear connection between the gut and the brain of the autistic child.

Authored by Stefan Gleason via Headline USA,

Last week, the Federal Reserve launched a new payment processing system dubbed “FedNow.”

Officials say FedNow will allow individuals and businesses to initiate instant funds transfers between banks. Critics warn that FedNow could be a prelude to central bank digital currency (CBDC) that threatens financial privacy and freedom.

Fund transfers between banks made through FedNow will settle directly in accounts at the central bank. Once Fed accounts become widely adopted and used for payments, critics fear it’s only one additional step to convert the “dollars” used in transactions into “FedCoin”—a proposed digital token to be issued directly by the central bank.

To be sure, similar arguments could be used to justify a CBDC as have been made with FedNow, e.g., it will improve the speed, efficiency and reliability of payments.

However, the FedNow system is really just a major upgrade to the highly deficient ACH payment system that has limped along for decades, with its very slow clearing time, lack of fraud prevention and other problems.

Concerns about FedNow appear to be overblown, and FedNow should not be conflated with totalitarian CBDC schemes. Here is what Emile Phaneuf of the American Institute for Economic Research writes on the risks of CBDCs:

Risks CBDCs present include the loss of settlement finality that comes with physical cash (as abandoning cash accompanies the push for CBDCs), loss of financial privacy, easy seizure of assets, loss of the ability to resolve problems at a local level with a commercial bank (as it would be doubtful that a central bank would come to be known for its customer service) …

…outright prohibition on spending or purchase limits with certain merchants or on certain products, and (perhaps most importantly) the paradigm shift from money as an exercise of economic freedom to one of social engineering by central banks and their respective governments.

The latter could manifest itself in various ways, including (to name just a few) negative interest rates (essentially a confiscation of one’s savings), the expiry of one’s money (with a date determined by the issuing central bank or its government) — or even discouraging the consumption of products like gasoline, plane tickets or red meat in order to enforce a climate agenda.

The weaponization of the monetary system for social-engineering purposes has been in the works for decades. The abandonment of hard currency, backed by physical gold and silver, gave politicians and central bankers the power to manipulate the supply and value of the currency for their own ends.

Under a fiat currency regime, central planners arbitrarily try to determine how much inflation (i.e., currency depreciation) to inflict on the economy.

Under the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate, central bankers are supposed to ensure “price stability.” Instead, they openly flout that mandate, redefining “stable prices” as annual price inflation of 2%. Of course, the Fed is failing even to deliver on that objective by allowing inflation to run much hotter than 2%!

Those who wish to preserve their purchasing power over time while protecting their financial privacy should beware of central bankers’ new campaign to promote digital Fed accounts.

Hard money (gold and silver) held outside the banking system remains the soundest alternative to fiat currency in all its manifestations.

Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange, the company recently named “Best Overall Online Precious Metals Dealer” by Investopedia. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader, investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC and in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, and Seeking Alpha.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday that his country would attend talks on Ukraine that are set to be held in Saudi Arabia this weekend only if Russia is invited.

“If there’s acceptance from both Ukraine and Russia to look for solutions to achieve peace, we’ll participate,” Lopez Obrador said, according to Reuters. “We don’t want the Russia-Ukraine war to continue, it’s very irrational … The only thing that benefits from it is the war industry.”

While being billed as peace talks, Russia has not been invited to the summit in Saudi Arabia. Nations that are not aligned with the US and NATO on the war have been invited, including India, Brazil, and China, but it’s not clear at this point which countries will attend.

Ukraine and its Western backers intend to use the summit to try and convince non-aligned nations to adopt Kyiv’s demands for peace, which include a full Russian withdrawal from all territory that’s been captured, a non-starter for negotiations with Moscow.

Ukraine is also demanding Russia cede Crimea, which has been controlled by Moscow since 2014 and is populated by people who are happy they are part of the Russian Federation.

For their part, Russia insists any future peace deal must recognize the territory it has annexed in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhzhia, demonstrating how far apart the two sides are. Russia said that it would monitor the talks in Saudi Arabia this weekend.

“Undoubtedly, Russia will keep an eye on this meeting. We’d have to fully understand what goals are being set and what the organizers actually plan to talk about. We have repeatedly said that any attempts to somehow contribute to a peaceful settlement deserve a positive assessment,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

President AMLO says Mexico will only participate in Saudi Arabia’s Ukraine peace summit if Russia is also present pic.twitter.com/NhSOZTQzqg

— COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality) July 31, 2023

Peskov added that a peace deal with the Ukrainian government at this time was “impossible” as long as Ukraine is “used exclusively as a tool in the collective West’s war against Russia.”

JPMorgan Chase facilitated over $1.1 million in payments from Jeffrey Epstein to “girls or women,” despite having fired the convicted sex offender as a client, an attorney representing the US Virgin Islands told a judge on Monday.

Many of the girls had Eastern European surnames, according to a filing by attorney Linda Singer to Manhattan federal judge Jed Rakoff.

Over $320,000 of the payments were made to “numerous individuals for whom JPMorgan had no previously identified payments,” Singer wrote, accusing the bank of failing to disclose the payments until after the end of discovery – the period in which parties in a lawsuit exchange evidence.

Singer has since asked Rakoff to impose monetary damages on the bank for failing to provide the information during discovery, and order the bank to turn over “all financial records for any newly disclosed girls or women to whom Epstein made payments,” CNBC reports.

The Virgin Islands in its suit alleges that JPMorgan facilitated and financially benefited from sex trafficking by Epstein of young women during the years when he was a client.

Epstein maintained a residence on a private island in the American territory where he sexually abused scores of women, and during that time kept tens of millions of dollars on deposit at JPMorgan.

JPMorgan says it cut ties to Epstein in 2013. But Monday’s court filing challenges the bank’s timeline. -CNBC

According to a spokeswoman for the bank, Patricia Wexler, “There is no proof this is accurate.”

The USVI claims that documents recently turned over by JPMorgan contains new, previously unseen information that had been sought by the DA. It was assembled internally by the bank in October 2019, over three months after Epstein was arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.

“There is no legitimate reason for JPMorgan failing to identify payments to girls or women the bank itself identified as being related to Epstein — and potential evidence of Epstein’s sex trafficking venture — years before receiving the USVI’s discovery requests,” reads the filing, adding that a spreadsheet prepared by JPMorgan listing the dates and beneficiaries of more than 9,000 transactions payable to Epstein-related individuals between 2005 and 2019, “had a combined value of over $2.4 billion.”

“Many of the entries reflected accounts and payments, numbering in the thousands and totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars in value, of which USVI had no prior knowledge or information from JPMorgan’s responses and productions during the fact discovery period,” wrote Singer.

JPMorgan has argued that the information wasn’t provided earlier “because it was not in a custodial production and/or did not relate to individuals specifically identified by the USVI as related to Epstein.”

Singer, however, says that “The USVI has repeatedly made clear that its discovery requests are not limited to individuals it specifically identified as being related to Epstein.”

“The USVI specifically identified the individuals it knew were related to Epstein to make its discovery requests clearer — not relieve JPMorgan of its duty to produce known relevant documents,” reads the filing.

What’s more, Singer says JPMorgan may not have disclosed everything, and has asked Judge Rakoff to force the bank to produce all documents and information concerning its 2019 review of Epstein matters, including “all financial records for any newly disclosed girls or women to whom Epstein made payments.”