Information Is Power
Good, solid information is the best resource that the public can use. Primary sources when possible and good discussions and studies when informative.
Is it AI | Elon Musk and Donald Trump Danceathon | Video: 36 Seconds
Haters will say this is AI 🕺🕺 pic.twitter.com/vqWVxiYXeD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2024
The Undeniable Hate Of The Left | Elon Musk | X | Video: 59 Seconds
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2024
Dershowitz: FBI’s Raid of Giuliani ‘Unconstitutional’
The FBI’s recent raid on an apartment owned by Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump, violated the Constitution, according to constitutional expert Alan Dershowitz.
“This was just a misuse of the search and seizure power. Initially, it was turned down; now it was approved, both by a judge and by the attorney general of the United States, so it wasn’t lawless action, but I believe that they acted inconsistently with both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution and that there should be remedies for it,” Dershowitz said on Newsmax on Saturday.
“It should be done through subpoena, and that is the constitutional route to getting evidence,” he added.
A search warrant being executed points to officials believing the subject would destroy evidence if the search was not carried out. But the lawyer knew that he was being investigated for months, so there’s no basis for a search unless a subpoena was obtained, Dershowitz argued.
“The 4th Amendment demands a subpoena in these situations, not a search warrant. What they did in this case was unconstitutional,” he said.
Michael Collins, Apollo 11 Astronaut, Remembered By NASA | Video: 1 Minute 44 Seconds
Michael Collins was part of an extraordinary team of astronauts when most Americans were still looking forward filled with hope and optimism instead of looking back filled with hate and loathing. Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first men to land on the moon, a monumental achievement in human history. He was born October 31, 1930 and passed away on April 28, 2021.
The Things We Don’t Know | “Buzz Aldrin Took Holy Communion on the Moon. NASA Kept it Quiet”
When Apollo 11‘s Eagle lunar module landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had to do something hard: Wait. They were scheduled to open the door of their lunar lander and step onto the unknown surface of a completely different world. But for now, their mission ordered them to take a pause before the big event.
And so Aldrin spent his time doing something unexpected, something no man had ever attempted before. Alone and overwhelmed by anticipation, he took part in the first Christian sacrament ever performed on the moon—a rite of Christian communion.
Aldrin’s lunar communion has since become shrouded in mystery and confusion, but the rite itself was relatively simple.The astronaut was also an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church, and before he headed into space in 1969, he got special permission to take bread and wine with him to space and give himself communion.
Men had already prayed in space, but Aldrin was about to go one step further—literally and figuratively. Part of his mission was not just to land on the moon, but to walk on it. To prepare, he took communion after the Eagle lunar module landed on the moon’s Sea of Tranquility during an hours-long downtime period designed to let the astronauts recover from their space flight and prepare for their moon walk.
The communion bag and chalice used by Buzz Aldrin during his lunar communion. (Credit: David Frohman, President of Peachstate Historical Consulting, Inc.)
How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously
On May 9, 2001, Steven M. Greer took the lectern at the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C., in pursuit of the truth about unidentified flying objects. Greer, an emergency-room physician in Virginia and an outspoken ufologist, believed that the government had long withheld from the American people its familiarity with alien visitations. He had founded the Disclosure Project in 1993 in an attempt to penetrate the sanctums of conspiracy. Greer’s reckoning that day featured some twenty speakers. He provided, in support of his claims, a four-hundred-and-ninety-two-page dossier called the “Disclosure Project Briefing Document.” For public officials too busy to absorb such a vast tract of suppressed knowledge, Greer had prepared a ninety-five-page “Executive Summary of the Disclosure Project Briefing Document.” After some throat-clearing, the “Executive Summary” began with “A Brief Summary,” which included a series of bullet points outlining what amounted to the greatest secret in human history.
Over several decades, according to Greer, untold numbers of alien craft had been observed in our planet’s airspace; they were able to reach extreme velocities with no visible means of lift or propulsion, and to perform stunning maneuvers at g-forces that would turn a human pilot to soup. Some of these extraterrestrial spaceships had been “downed, retrieved and studied since at least the 1940s and possibly as early as the 1930s.” Efforts to reverse engineer such extraordinary machines had led to “significant technological breakthroughs in energy generation.” These operations had mostly been classified as “cosmic top secret,” a tier of clearance “thirty-eight levels” above that typically granted to the Commander-in-Chief. Why, Greer asked, had such transformative technologies been hidden for so long? This was obvious. The “social, economic and geo-political order of the world” was at stake.
Why Is the Left Allowed to Be ‘Transphobic’ and Racist?
Source: Joshua Roberts/Pool via AP
Last week, I asked why there was no uproar from LGBTQ activists when Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner was “misgendered” and mocked by the left after announcing that he would run for governor of California. (In reality, some of the mocking came from LGBTQ activists, who painted Jenner as a fame-hungry reality TV star.) And where was the uproar when Bill Maher questioned the “born that way” dogma, stating, “Wasn’t always sure about the man-woman thing, but low capital gains taxes — born that way.”
To be sure, there were some scattered voices of protest, but not a fraction of what would have happened had the mockery been pointed towards someone like Richard “Rachel” Levine, President Biden’s appointee as assistant secretary for Health and Human Services.
But all that pales in comparison to some of the attacks on Sen. Tim Scott after he responded forcefully to Biden’s address to Congress on Wednesday night.
As Mollie Hemingway tweeted in response to the Twitter-supported “Uncle Tim” tweet, “Twitter is choosing to trend a racist attack from the left on Sen. Tim Scott, the black Republican senator from South Carolina.”
Could Your Body Render Future COVID Vaccines Useless?
Get vaccinated. It’s the latest COVID-19 propaganda message appearing everywhere from TV commercials to social media feeds, and it’s being pushed by celebrities and government officials alike. Yet, a sizeable population of Americans aren’t ready to roll up their sleeve just yet.
A January 2021 poll found 31% were taking a “wait and see” approach to see how the vaccine — or more aptly, gene therapy — is working while 7% said they would get the COVID-19 vaccine only if it became required for work, school or other activities, and 13% said they would “definitely not get it.”1
A cautionary approach is warranted, as none of the COVID-19 vaccines currently on the market are actually licensed. They only have emergency use authorization — which, incidentally, also forbids them from being mandated, although this is being widely and conveniently ignored — as trials are still ongoing.
The fact is, there’s a lot that’s unknown about these products, including their ultimate effects on your immune response. Increasingly, scientists are asking whether a phenomenon known as original antigenic sin (OAS), or imprinting, may render next-generation COVID vaccines useless.2
What Is Original Antigenic Sin, or Imprinting?
The term “original antigenic sin” was first used by Thomas Francis in 1960, who determined that hemagglutination inhibition assay titers — which are used to determine the antibody response to a viral infection — were highest against strains of seasonal influenza to which different age cohorts had first been exposed.3
In other words, the first influenza virus that you’re exposed to affects the way your lifelong immunity to that virus plays out.4 Later infections with virus strains similar to the first one will boost your antibody response against the original strain, and it’s not only influenza that this applies to. Imprinting is also known to occur in children with multiple dengue virus infections, for instance.5
In some cases, imprinting can be beneficial, but it can also be problematic. One study found that birth-year cohorts that had a first influenza exposure to seasonal H3 subtype viruses were less susceptible to avian influenza H7N9 virus later in life, while those exposed to H1 or H2 subtype viruses in childhood were less susceptible to avian H5N1-bearing viruses when they were older.6
“Using data from all known human cases of these viruses, we show that an individual’s first IAV [influenza A virus] infection confers lifelong protection against severe disease from novel hemagglutinin (HA) subtypes in the same phylogenetic group,” the researchers explained.7 Imprinting has been suggested as one reason why flu vaccines are often ineffective.
Scott Hensley, an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, explained to STAT News, “We’ve all been trained on different influenza viruses. If you vaccinate 100 people, guess what? They’re all going to respond differently. We think a large part of that is that we all have a different immunological imprint.”8 He referred to a flu vaccine from 2017, when experts suggested a new H1N1 strain should be added. STAT News reported:9
“The one they had been using seemed to work fine for most people. But it wasn’t working well for a slice of the population — adults between the ages of about 30 and late middle age.
Hensley and his lab discovered that the vaccine target was making people who had their first flu exposures between 1977 and 1985 create antibodies to a version of H1N1 that was circulating back then — their imprinting virus. The decades-old H1N1 strains were too different from the 2009 version for the vaccine to work well in these people.”
The same thing could be happening with COVID-19.
Imprinting Could Mean Next COVID-19 Vaccines Won’t Work
While imprinting can enhance your protection against future infections if you’re exposed to antigenically related strains, if you’re exposed to a distantly related strain, it may increase susceptibility to infection. According to researchers in The Journal of Immunology:10
“OAS-like responses were also problematic during the 2013–2014 influenza season, when H1N1 viruses acquired a mutation in an HA [hemagglutinin] epitope that was the primary target of the Ab [antibody] response mounted by middle-aged individuals.
The cohort generated a focused Ab response against this epitope during early life exposure to seasonal H1N1 viruses that circulated in the 1970s. As reported by the Hensley laboratory, this epitope was conserved in the original 2009 H1N1 pandemic strain.
However, the drifted H1N1 strain that emerged in 2013-2014 contained a mutation in this region of HA that resulted in poor Ab binding and subsequently unusually high mortality for middle-aged individuals.”
In the case of COVID-19, it’s possible that the immune system reaction triggered by the vaccine will act as the original imprint, leaving subsequent COVID-19 vaccines — updated to target emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2 — ineffective.11
Michael Worobey, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, who conducted research on imprinting with influenza,12 told STAT News, “I do think it’s something that we need to be thinking about. We might actually see lower efficacy five years from now, if people are still locked into recalling the response to the first [SARS-2] antigen that they saw.”13
The Time Has Come for Cannabis Equity
As cannabis legalization enters its newest phase with social equity dominating the conversation, Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law hosted an advocate and regulator-packed panel to map out a path to Social Equity 2.0.
The Tri-State was well represented on the panel. Incoming New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission chair Dianna Houenou spoke to how the issue had been embedded from the start in her new state agency. Minority Cannabis Business Association President Jason Ortiz spoke about the current effort in Connecticut to put equity front and center in the conversation.
The pair were joined by Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker’s senior advisor for cannabis control, Toi Hutchinson, and former Massachusetts Cannabis Commission member Shaleen Title. Both have championed the issue in their respective states over the years. Politico’s Natalie Fertig led the conversation.
Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine returns next week and more Maryland doctors will offer vaccines
Maryland vaccination sites will again offer the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine after a pause so experts could reaffirm that it is safe to use, and the state will also make vaccines more generally available in doctors’ offices.
The Maryland Department of Health said Friday that it will resume allocation of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to various sites next week, the first week since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined that a blood-clotting condition was extremely rare in women.
“The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is one of our most important tools in the ongoing fight to prevent hospitalizations and deaths associated with COVID-19,” Dr. Jinlene Chan, the state deputy secretary for public health services, said in a statement. “By resuming allocations of this safe and effective vaccine in Maryland, we continue to bolster our ability to stay ahead of new cases and emerging variants.”
The vaccine has been less widely used than others but is considered crucial to local and national vaccination efforts because it requires only one dose and doesn’t need to be stored in deep freezers. The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses and must be kept ultra cold until used.
100 Days from America First to America Last: GM Joins Ford and Moves Automotive Plant to Mexico to Escape Biden Taxes
Joe Biden tells off workers at an automotive plant in Michigan in 2020.
In March, just two months after President Trump left office Ford announced plans to move a major manufacturing plant to Mexico.
America Last: Ford Announces Plans to Move Plant to Mexico 2 Months After Biden Enters Office
On Thursday, the day after Biden promised electric vehicles would be made in America, GM moved its $1 billion electric vehicle plant to Mexico.
Breitbart.com reported:
Less than one day after President Biden proclaimed American workers would build the electric vehicles necessary to bring us into the zero admissions future, General Motors said it plans to invest more than $1 billion in Mexico to produce electric vehicles.
The automaker said Thursday it would make a $1 billion investment in its Ramos Arizpe production facility. The plant will begin producing at least one electric vehicle beginning in 2023, the company said.
The company did not disclose which vehicles would be produced at the plant or where they would be sold. But the plant currently produces parts and vehicles, including the Chevrolet Equinox and Chevrolet Blazer, that are sold in the U.S. and globally.
It’s Been 6 Months Since CNN Gave Zoom Masturbator Jeffrey Toobin ‘Time Off’ To Deal With a ‘Personal Issue’
You’ve gotta hand it to Jeffrey Toobin. The CNN legal analyst was promptly fired by the New Yorker after masturbating on a Zoom call in October 2020 and traumatizing his colleagues for the rest of their lives. Toobin, however, managed to persuade CNN not to fire him over his public display of self-affection. The left-wing news network merely granted his request for “some time off while he deals with a personal issue.”
That was more than six months ago, which is a long time to be dealing with a personal issue, even one you’ve simply made up after getting caught masturbating on a Zoom call, or “tweaking the lede,” as they say in the news business. Reports suggest Toobin will “probably” return to CNN at some point, but the network’s top legal analyst was conspicuously absent during the coverage of Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.
CNN did not respond to a request for comment about Toobin’s situation. It remains unclear why the news network did not handle the situation the same way as the New Yorker, which launched an investigation and took appropriate action in an effort to foster “an environment where everyone feels respected and upholds our standards of conduct.”
A New York Times profile published in January confirmed that Toobin was still employed as CNN’s chief legal analyst and hinted at a possible return. CNN president Jeff Zucker is reportedly a big fan of Toobin but is leaving the network at the end of the year.
In the meantime, Toobin continues to lurk on Twitter, posting occasionally to mourn the death of someone he knew. Several weeks after the masturbation scandal, he claimed that his account had been “hacked,” which is what the disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) claimed after accidentally tweeting a photo of his crotch. Thankfully, no such photos of Toobin have surfaced.
Toobin popped out again in January and perhaps inadvertently telegraphed his impending return to the airwaves. “Many thanks. I’ll be back,” he wrote in a tweet that was promptly deleted.
DNC Panelist Calls For The Destruction Of Capitalism
In the DNC Caucus and Council Meeting Youth Council, a panelist called for the destruction of capitalism.
Let’s Call BLM What It Is – Marxist
The Department of Defense (DOD) is devoting significant time and resources to briefing its employees on the dangers of “extremism” and teaching them how to ‘inform on’ coworkers they regard as threats. The briefing slides, for the sessions that are underway, give multiple examples of groups that qualify as “extremist” and include symbols used by many of the groups. Prominent for its absence is any reference of any kind to Black Lives Matter (BLM). That organization apparently – in the eyes of the federal government – poses no threat whatsoever and neither membership in it or even the display of symbols associated with the organization are of any concern.
How is that possible?
After a year of digital hearings, Minnesota federal courts moving back to in-person operation
After a year of mostly virtual operation, Minnesota’s federal courts are moving back into the real world.
Criminal and civil trials will resume in the state’s U.S. District courtrooms beginning Monday, a sign that the COVID-19 pandemic’s grip on the justice system is loosening.
On March 13, 2020, Chief Judge John Tunheim issued an order suspending in-person trials, grand jury proceedings and attorney swearing-in ceremonies, an unprecedented move in Minnesota’s federal courts system, in response to early reports of infections in the state.
Tunheim has followed with several orders in the months since, at one point easing restrictions to allow for trials to return but keeping most court appearances to video apps like Zoom.
Ashli Babbitt; Chip Crunch; Inside 60 Minutes at CBS
Four months after the Capitol riots, one verdict is in… there was only one homicide that day: that of an unarmed protester Ashli Babbitt. But that police shooting has been shrouded in secrecy. Some say the officer’s use of deadly force was justified. Others say it was not. Prosecutors have announced they aren’t going to charge the U.S. Capitol Police lieutenant involved. But an attorney for Babbitt’s husband is planning to file a civil lawsuit. […]
COVID-19 surges in Oregon, sickening younger adults and forcing a return to restrictions
For months, Susannah Sbragia waited her turn for a COVID-19 vaccination while Oregon’s teachers, older adults and others with higher priority got theirs.
The 55-year-old city finance director was meticulous about wearing a mask and washing her hands during the pandemic. She worked at home and stayed fit with daily walks and YouTube dance lessons with her husband.
But a week before her appointment for an April 22 shot, she felt exhausted and began aching all over. A test confirmed COVID-19. She gasped for breath during an ambulance ride to Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital, a 25-bed medical center in a onetime logging and lumber mill town 80 miles south of Portland.
Sbragia became one of hundreds of patients hospitalized in a COVID-19 surge that has struck Oregon, alarming officials, who have slammed the state’s opening measures into reverse. Doctors say that patients they’re seeing are younger, sicker and often without underlying medical conditions, suggesting that potent variants could be partly to blame.
EXCLUSIVE: FBI Raids Alaska Spa Seeking Pelosi’s Laptop | Podcast: 48 Minutes 53 Seconds
Raheem Kassam is joined by Paul and Marilyn Hueper after their home was raided by the FBI on Wednesday, April 28th. The FBI claimed they were looking for Pelosi’s laptop…
‘We Are Killing Our Own People’ Says BLM Supporter Accused of Murder
33-year-old Zimele ‘Prince’ Dube, 40-year-old Simon Emmons, and a 19-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons are accused of murdering 35-year-old Ebrima ‘Brim’ Cham by stabbing him 11 times in his own home in Hounslow, West London, according to a Court News report.
Emmons and the 19-year-old are also accused of involvement in the killing of 53-year-old William ‘Blaise’ Algar and dismembering him after he accused the teen of being responsible for his cat going missing. Mr Algar’s arms and legs were buried at Hounslow Heath after being taken from the flat in a taxi, but his severed head and torso remained at the premises where they were found wrapped in a bedsheet by the authorities. . .
A Black Lives Matter support accused of a “ferocious and frenzied” knife murder has told a court that “we are killing our own people as well, so it’s sad.”
Louisville Police Can’t Replace Veteran Cops Who Quit After Department Embraced Leftist Policies
The Louisville, Kentucky, police union says that the department is currently in “dire straits” in terms of employment after 200 officers quit their positions in 2020 and 2021 amid leftist calls to defund the police.
Following the officer-involved shooting that led to the death of Breonna Taylor, nearly 190 police officers quit their jobs in 2020, reported Daily Wire. The Louisville police union says that they are now in “dire straits,” failing to replace the officers amid the department’s embrace of leftist policies.
The shooting incident resulted in protests as no officers were charged for Taylor’s death. In response, the city has placed a ban on “no-knock warrants,” which prevent officers from entering a residence without announcing themselves, even if they had obtained a warrant.
The Louisville Police Department is now having trouble finding replacement officers as anti-police leftists continue their calls to “Defund the Police” according to the police union. “Nearly 190 cops left the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) in 2020 and 43 have stepped away from the Kentucky city’s agency so far in 2021, either choosing to retire or resign altogether, as law enforcement officials struggle to recruit new members to make up for a deficit in manpower,” reported Fox News. “I would say that we’re in dire straits,” said a union spokesperson.
Chinese money-laundering rings in Chicago, New York cleaning Mexican drug cartel cash
They’ve used complex schemes to disguise millions in drug proceeds, making them seem to be legitimate transactions, according to law enforcement sources and court files.
A Chinese money-launderer was about to pick up Mexican drug-cartel cash in Chicago, federal authorities say, when his plans suddenly changed.
They say the suspected launderer got a call from a man he thought was a Mexican money courier who told him they needed to change their meeting place because he’d spotted a cop.
“You Asian, I’m Mexican — not a good look,” the courier said in the 2017 phone call, court records show.
So they picked a different address to meet. They described their cars to each other. And when they met on the Southwest Side, they had a way to identify each other, authorities say: The money-launderer handed the courier a $1 bill. The men had agreed earlier that the serial number on the bill — G5915410C — would confirm the Chinese man’s identity. Authorities say that’s common in the world of drug-trafficking.
They say the courier then turned over a Menards shopping bag stuffed with nearly $200,000 in cash to Huazhi Han, who later was charged with money-laundering.
But the courier was no courier. He was an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
DEA agents arrested Han and say they found a gun in his van.
They also searched the Riverside home where he was living and seized about $1.2 million they found hidden in the ceiling there, according to court documents.
Han’s now awaiting trial on money-laundering charges in Chicago.
He was part of a network of Chinese nationals who were using complex financial schemes to launder Mexican cartel cash, federal authorities say. Such schemes have disguised tens of millions of dollars of drug proceeds into what are supposed to look like legitimate business transactions, according to law-enforcement sources and court documents.
It’s party time again! 6,000 clubbers in Liverpool return to dancefloor for pilot post-lockdown rave
It’s party time again! 6,000 clubbers in Liverpool return to dancefloor for Britain’s first post-lockdown rave (but doors open at 2pm and pre-drinks are replaced by Covid tests).
- Thousands of revellers are returning to the dancefloor at the UK’s first post-lockdown ‘nightclub’ rave today
- But there will be tent of scientists outside the venue monitoring their behaviour at the two-day mini festival
- Ravers had to take a lateral flow test 24 hours before the event and show negative result to release e-tickets
- The trial events are designed to advance the reopening roadmap’s plan to scrap social distancing on June 21