migration
Major League Baseball bends to bullies, endorses lies about Georgia voting law
It’s beyond ridiculous that Major League Baseball has caved to partisan politics and media hysteria by moving this year’s All-Star Game, plus the draft, out of Atlanta over Georgia’s new election law. Pressured by Democratic politicians and Twitter mobs, MLB is endorsing the overwrought and fundamentally false agitprop campaign. Democrats from President Joe Biden on…
South Carolina Democrat Introduces Bill Banning Minors from Gender-Reassignment Surgery
The debate over whether minors should be allowed life-altering gender reassignment surgery is, for whatever reason, contentious and partisan. The people in opposition tend to be Republican. Sen. Rand Paul had a well-publicized dust-up over the issue with Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine. The Republican-led Alabama Senate is putting forth a bill they say is to protect kids. In South Carolina, there is a similar bill being introduced banning minors from this life-altering surgery. Only it’s being introduced by a Democrat.
Democrat State Rep. Cezar McKnight has introduced the South Carolina Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act. From the bill:
No person shall engage in, counsel, make a referral for, or cause any of the following practices to be performed upon a minor if the practice is performed for the purpose of attempting to alter the appearance of or affirm the minor’s perception of the minor’s gender or sex, if that perception is inconsistent with the minor’s sex as defined in this chapter.
If signed into law, not only would the bill make it illegal for minors to receive the treatment, but violating the law would be a felony with up to twenty years in prison. Rep. McKnight had this to say to the Associated Press:
Black Democrats tend to be more conservative than white progressives. I would not have ever put this bill forward if I didn’t think the people in my district wouldn’t be receptive, and they are. Pastors, young parents, older parents, they all tell me the same thing: If you want to do this, wait until you’re 18.
Where this legislation and legislation like it go from here will be interesting to watch. Rep. McKnight shows that there is bipartisan support for such legislation. Opposition so far comes entirely from the partisan far left. If more states start to take up this debate and activists on both sides organize for or against it, I can’t imagine any resolution without the Supreme Court chiming in. Nationally, the American people will have their first opportunity to have their voice heard with the 2022 midterm elections.
RAND PAUL: Biden’s Assistant Health Secretary is LYING To You! | Louder With Crowder
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Sen Paul blasts libs for ‘implying that people of certain races are not able to comply with rules’
Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE CHECK OUT WeThePeople.store for best SWAG! Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican, believes that the […]
Continue reading Sen Paul blasts libs for ‘implying that people of certain races are not able to comply with rules’ …
Our Species Is Enduring Largest Uncontrolled Experiment Ever, We Shouldn’t Ignore Vanden Bossche’s Warning
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Defender is committed to providing a space for scientific debate. This is an opinion piece by Rob Verkerk, Ph.D., on concerns raised by Geert Vanden Bossche, Ph.D. about immune escape and mass vaccination during a pandemic. This article follows Verkerk’s recent interview and previous analysis of the ongoing debate (this piece + this piece) sparked by Vanden Bossche.
It was a week ago that we released my interview with Geert Vanden Bossche on our brand new Speaking Naturally channel. It’s caused something of a stir in some circles. Mainly among those of us who don’t see vaccines as a panacea or at least the sole exit strategy to exit lockdowns, social distancing and other elements of the surrealism that have swept the world since the genome of a virus causing pneumonia-like symptoms in China was sequenced last January.
The silence from those who are overseeing or administering the global mass vaccination program has been deafening.
Some of the scientific concerns around Geert Vanden Bossche’s arguments appear to be the result of linguistic interpretations. Others challenge Geert’s speculative concerns linked to immune escape through the application of selection pressure from vaccines that could create ever more vaccine resistant, and potentially dangerous, virus variants.
For the uninitiated, “immune escape” is a term used to describe when the host (in this case humans) is no longer able to recognize and counter (eliminate or sterilize) a pathogen (in this case, a relevant variant or mutant of SARS-CoV-2).
“Selection pressure,” on the other hand, is a term used to describe the process (gene-environment interactions) that helps an organism or pathogen to evolve in ways that make it better adapted (i.e., more able to survive and propagate) to its changing environment. Antibiotic (antimicrobial) resistance is a good example of selection pressure caused by overuse of antibiotic drugs, which has selected for more and more bacterial strains that can detoxify or tolerate commonly used antibiotic drugs.
Let’s be reasonable, not polarized
I’m not an immunologist, virologist or an epidemiologist. But I do have three science degrees in ecology with a Ph.D. and postdoctoral research (Imperial College London) in the area of multitrophic interactions in agroecosystems. I’ve therefore been long fascinated by interactions between hosts, herbivores, carnivores and pathogens. I’ve also been looking closely at the science around COVID-19 since the outset and have been a critic of health authority and government handling of it from the outset (see ANH-Intl covid zone).
I’m writing this update on the Vanden Bossche controversy because I’m concerned it has the potential to unnecessarily divide people who share many common views and values, while differing in others. Alongside generating mutant variants of SARS-CoV-2, one of the haunting consequences of lockdowns has been their ability to polarize communities. I believe passionately that we need to be more tolerant of those with whom we share significant areas of our respective COVID-19 Venn diagrams.
Don’t expect that you’ll find unanimous agreement with many people given the amount of scientific uncertainty that abounds on so many of the scientific, medical, social, political and economic issues surrounding COVID-19 and the way it’s been and is being handled. We must have forums to be able to discuss scientific matters and we must be ever careful to not destroy the reputation of individuals who potentially can be important catalysts for change.
The host-pathogen tango
The reality is that — as ever — the relationship between a pathogen and its host is not a simple one. It is not only highly complex, it is also dynamic. It’s a tango that involves both players who don’t like dancing to the same music. While lockdowns might increase the time it takes to achieve herd immunity, the mainstream scientific view accepted by governments with little evidential basis has been that lockdowns will also reduce opportunities for transmission chains being established. Lockdowns, curfews, social isolation and the like were meant to be temporary stand-ins until vaccines were ready.
There are two fundamental problems with this approach. First, people don’t stop transmitting viruses among each other even in lockdowns and more opportunities for mutation are created, including among the most vulnerable people that allow for the greatest level of viral replication.
This explains the generation of at least 16 mutant lineages in South Africa. Secondly now that the vaccines have come, they don’t stop transmission of all SARS-CoV-2 strains, especially those that are resistant to antigen-specific antibodies that they are designed to induce.
More than that, if you apply a very strong selection pressure because you have a highly infectious virus that has lots of opportunities to express its inborn error code (mutations) — or you vaccinate millions or even billions of people with a highly specific antigen constructed around the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, you are inducing massive selection pressure — like never before in human history. That is one of Geert Vanden Bossche’s concerns, one he has a right to have and express.
We also know (e.g., Ho et al 2021) that the UK variant B.1.1.7 that originated in the UK and B.1.351 from South Africa have extensive mutations in the main (receptor-binding domain, RBD) region of the spike protein that binds to the ACE2 receptors in human tissues. Not only that, neutralizing antibodies that have been created in response to exposure to wild virus or the vaccines (developed to match the original Wuhan strain) don’t neutralize the virus effectively.
Vanden Bossche’s red flags
The story continues to evolve and unfold because the relationship between the virus and its host does as well. What we’re now beginning to see is the same mutations in the spike protein cropping up in different parts of the world. For example, the UK variant (B.1.1.7), the Brazilian variant (P1/B.1.1.28) and the South African variant (B.1.351) all share common mutations such as E484K and N5011Y. These were Geert’s red flags.
It suggests that different virus strains have found the same way of outsmarting the highly specific vaccine and in the process, these new virus strains are becoming more transmissible including among younger people. That creates ever greater opportunities for mutation. The show goes on. And potentially never stops. Especially if you keep interspersing your strategy with lockdowns and related measures.
But don’t trust me on this — I’m just an ecologist. Some of the most thorough work in this area is being conducted by Paul Bieniasz’s group at the Rockefeller University, the same university with which Knut Wittkowski (see our separate interview) was associated for many years. The group has shown clearly that new mutant variants such as E484K and Q493R are resistant to antibodies produced by the original Wuhan strain on which the existing clutch of vaccines were based.
OK — so Bieniasz’s group has gone down the road of developing engineered monoclonal antibodies as a solution to get around the problem of immune escape both from wild infection or antigen-specific vaccines. In fact, they’re moving forward with trials for commercialization of monoclonal antibody therapies that could be delivered as injection.
Find out more about the research of Bieniasz around 37 minutes into the following video:
And so…?
What our species is currently enduring is the largest uncontrolled experiment ever conducted. Not only are highly-specific vaccines being applied in a manner that is considerably different from any previous vaccines, the frontrunner Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are also most definitely experimental (phase 3 trials results are incomplete), and they rely on lipid encapsulation delivery systems that have never been used at any significant scale to get synthetic codes into our muscle cells.
We also have no good idea of how effectively our T cells will be corralled into our armory of immune defense. Or how vaccine-induced immunity compares with naturally-acquired immunity (let’s not forget the SARS and MERS epidemics never had the same opportunity for mutation).
Geert Vanden Bossche has rung an alarm bell — that many, it seems, don’t want to hear. To ignore the wider concern he expresses around the selection pressure that will create immune escape and antibody resistant strains would be foolhardy — and would be inconsistent with the known science.
Originally published by Alliance for Natural Health International.
The post Our Species Is Enduring Largest Uncontrolled Experiment Ever, We Shouldn’t Ignore Vanden Bossche’s Warning appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.
Democrat Leaders Welcome MLB All-Star Game to Their States: Georgia Election Law Saga
After Major League Baseball decided to move out the All-Star game out from Georgia as a response to the state’s newly passed election integrity law, several political leaders, all Democrats so far, are welcoming the game to their states. The Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon wrote Friday on Twitter that his state would welcome the All-star Game. “Hey, MLB, we in Minnesota would welcome the All-star Game! Bonus: We have pro-voter election laws, and the #1 voter turnout in the nation,” Simon wrote. Recently, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law election reforms that would require photo ID for absentee voting, mandatory dropbox security, and mandatory early voting dates, among other measures. According to The Denver Post, a spokesperson for Colorado Governor Jared Polis said that he would welcome the All-Star game to their local field. “The governor knows that Colorado is the best home for the All-Star Game, especially because Colorado also …
Georgia governor on growing backlash to election reform law: ‘We are not backing down’
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday said state Republican leaders are not buckling under the growing pressure from activists and corporations opposed to the state’s recent election reform law.
“I can tell you, we are not backing down,” Kemp told Tucker Carlson on Fox News when asked about the controversy.
Is Dominion Voting Systems The Only Platform In The History Of Technology To Be Beyond Hacking As Dominion CEO Claimed Under Oath During Election 2020 Testimony? | Mike Lindell’s Second Television Special In Response | Video: 55 Minutes 39 Seconds
Is it any wonder that privately developers snicker at the notion that any platform is impervious to hacking (the latest fracas being Facebook), but everyday Americans are starting to scratch their heads looking at the real world and thinking, “Wait. The largest institutions in the world, from banks, credit agencies, governments and tech companies themselves are breached, but it’s impossible and even unthinkable, therefore it must never even be contemplated out loud, for Dominion Voting Systems to be compromised? Why would anyone in technology claim such a thing and then seemingly sue anyone that questions the premise?”
Mike Lindell has been sued by Dominion Voting Systems. He has responded by saying he’s not backing down and that he has his beliefs based on his own and other’s observations and sworn testimonies and as such has the right to express them as any American would, right or wrong.
“So this was the clue that told me that they were using population to control registration. . . (in Colorado they made a mistake using 2010 census data) the blue line is the population and the black line are the registrations. Oh, wait a minute, the registrations goes above the blue line.” ~ Dr. Douglas Frank | Scientific Proof
Scientific Proof | Video: 55 Minutes 39 Seconds
Will Joe Biden walk back these comments after son Hunter admits laptop ‘could’ be his?
During last year’s presidential campaign, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden said information gleaned from the laptop, which was first reported by the New York Post that included Hunter Biden allegedly introducing foreign energy executives to his father, was a Russian disinformation campaign. […]
Continue reading Will Joe Biden walk back these comments after son Hunter admits laptop ‘could’ be his? …
Hunter Biden was ‘smoking crack every 15 minutes,’ his memoir ‘Beautiful Things’ reveals
His candid chronicle of his drug- and alcohol-fueled binges and relationship with Beau’s widow, Hallie Biden, are sure to shock — but don’t let all the tabloid fodder fool you.
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, has seen his fair share of ugly things. His alcohol and drug addiction sent him spiraling for years and led him to cook his own crack cocaine. But he’s seen a lot of beautiful things, too — namely the love he shares with his father and brother Beau Biden, who died of glioblastoma in 2015.
Biden wrote about all of it in in his new memoir, “Beautiful Things” (Gallery Books, 255 pp.), out April 6. His candid chronicle of his drug- and alcohol-fueled binges and relationship with Beau’s widow, Hallie Biden, are sure to shock — but don’t let all the tabloid fodder fool you. Biden has found love again with new wife Melissa, whom he credits for getting him back on the winding path to sobriety.
“Where’s Hunter?” was a rallying cry from former President Donald Trump to try and smear Joe Biden. “I’m not going anywhere,” Biden writes. “I’m not a curio or sideshow to a moment in history, as all the cartoonish attacks try to paint me.”
Yes, the book touches on Trump and Biden’s Ukraine business, but more compelling are the vulnerable, human details of Biden’s personal life. Here’s what we learned about Biden by reading his devastating memoir.
Hunter talks trauma, addiction: ‘Why I feel the way I do’
Biden has been through more than most would dare to imagine. He and Beau were in the 1972 car accident that killed his baby sister and mother. It’s a moment that defined not only Joe, but his sons too. Biden doesn’t think he ever fully came to terms with the violence of it.
“I don’t see that tragic moment as necessarily resulting in behaviors that lent themselves to addiction,” he writes. “But I do have a better understanding of why I feel the way I do sometimes.”
He took his first drink – a glass of champagne the night his father was reelected to the Senate in 1978 – when he was 8 years old. He drank more when he was 14, even though he knew he shouldn’t be doing it. He went to Mass with a hangover and threw up outside during the service.
His drinking followed him into adulthood (he attended Georgetown University and later Yale Law School). After his third daughter, Maisy, was born in 2000 to then-wife Kathleen, he started to drink more heavily after work at his law firm. He ultimately went to rehab in Antigua and remained sober – for a time.
‘I would not have survived’
In November 2010, Biden relapsed and had three Bloody Marys on a plane; when his father joined Obama’s campaign ticket in 2008, he had to upend his career because of his lobbying work (i.e., it would be a conflict of interest). He “had huge expenses and no savings, and now I had to bust my (expletive) to build another career from scratch.”
After Beau’s death, everything Biden did “for the next four years, resulted in me stumbling, then sliding, then racing downhill.” As his marriage to Kathleen fell apart, he returned to rehab and tried to stay on the straight and narrow. His drinking, however, only worsened. “I was drowning myself in alcohol,” he says.
With the encouragement of his father, he again went to get clean. “Left on my own, I’m certain I would not have survived,” he writes.
By Memorial Day 2016, however, someone offered Biden cocaine. He took it.
This led to his buying crack cocaine in Washington from Rhea – a homeless, middle-aged woman he met while he was at Georgetown. Rhea is a pseudonym, Biden writes.
“I spent a couple of thousand dollars on crack in those first two weeks, with Rhea serving as my conduit,” he writes. She even moved into his apartment and stayed there for approximately five months. When he’s strong enough, he says he hopes to see her again and help “get her in a position where she wants to be saved.”
‘I was smoking crack every 15 minutes’
In the spring of 2018, he used his “superpower – finding crack anytime, anywhere” – in Los Angeles. At one point, a dealer pointed a gun at his head before he realized Biden was looking for drugs.
He later learned how to cook drugs and spent a lot of time with thieves, addicts and con artists. “I never slept. There was no clock. Day bled into night and night into day,” he writes.
The situation grew out of control. “I was smoking crack every 15 minutes,” he writes.
Biden returned to the East Coast in the fall of 2018, again wanting to get better, though that didn’t happen.
Eventually, his family tried to stage an intervention. “I don’t know what else to do,” Joe Biden told him. “I’m so scared. Tell me what to do.” His son replied: “Not (expletive) this.”
It wasn’t until he met now-wife Melissa Cohen in Los Angeles – whom he married after only a week of knowing – that he got sober again. They told each other they loved each other on their first date; she had the same eyes as Beau, he writes. She championed his sobriety and dumped out his crack.
Hunter’s relationship with Hallie doomed from the start: ‘A failure of epic proportions’
Hallie and Biden connected — romantically — in the wake of Beau’s death, between their grief and Biden’s addiction. His then-wife Kathleen discovered texts between them on an old iPad. “That gave her the gift of justification: I was the sicko sleeping with my brother’s wife,” he writes.
But once they tried living together full-time, it didn’t work.
“It was a giant miscalculation on both our parts, errors in judgment born of a uniquely tragic time,” he writes. And later, when they tried to rekindle their romance after he got sober (again) in January 2018, it didn’t work. “It felt like a failure of epic proportions,” he writes.
The title ‘Beautiful Things’ comes from Beau
Beau’s mantra to his brother during his illness was “beautiful things.” He wanted them to “dedicate our lives to appreciating and cultivating the world’s boundless beauty” – referencing relationships, places and moments.
“It was our code for a renewed outlook on life,” he writes. Shortly before Beau died, Biden promised him he would stay strong and sober. Beau had gone with him to his first AA meetings, found him his first sponsor and taken him to rehab plenty of times.
“I had no idea then how many dead-end detours I’d take before I could finally keep those promises,” he writes.
Still, “Beautiful Things” serves as a fitting title, considering the book closes with a letter to Beau.
“I’ve survived, buddy,” the letter reads. “I know you were with me through it all.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse or addiction, you can call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline at 800-662-HELP (4357) any time of day or night.
Read more at usatoday.com
GOP Senators Demand Intelligence Records on Hunter Biden’s Dealings with Chinese Energy Conglomerate
by Chuck Ross
Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson called on the Biden administration Wednesday to turn over intelligence records regarding Hunter Biden’s work with a Chinese energy company with suspected ties to the Chinese military.
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, Grassley and Johnson said that it is “imperative” for Congress to understand the relationship between the Biden family and CEFC China Energy, the now-defunct energy conglomerate.
CEFC China Energy paid Biden approximately $6 million from August 2017 to September 2018 for consulting and legal services, according to a report that Grassley and Johnson released last year.
The Republicans said in the report that banking regulators flagged some of the wire payments from CEFC to Biden for “potential criminal financial activity.” Grassley and Johnson also noted that CEFC’s founder, Ye Jianming, was an official in the mid-2000s for a front group of the Chinese Communist Party.
Biden met multiple times with Jianming, including at Jianming’s home in New York.
CEFC also paid $1 million to Biden to represent Patrick Ho, a former Hong Kong official who operated a think tank funded by the Chinese energy firm.
Ho was indicted in November 2017, and later convicted on charges that he offered bribes in 2014 to two leaders of African countries for oil drilling contracts on behalf of CEFC China Energy.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that the Justice Department obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Ho based on suspicions that he was acting as a foreign agent of China.
Grassley and Johnson called on the administration to produce “all intelligence records,” including information derived from the FISAs against Ho, by April 14.
Hunter Biden was first introduced to CEFC officials in 2015. In October 2015, a consultant working on behalf of the firm emailed Biden hoping to discuss investing up to $100 million in an asset management firm with links to Biden, according to records obtained by the DCNF.
In May 2017, Biden and a group of partners formed a consulting company that planned to scout out investment projects for CEFC China Energy in the U.S., South America and Europe.
Tony Bobulinski, one of the original partners, has said that Biden cut him out of the deal and formed a side partnership with CEFC in August 2017.
It is unclear what, if anything, Joe Biden knew about his son’s arrangement with CEFC.
In another email obtained by the DCNF, dated Sept. 21, 2017, Biden referred to his father and Gongwen Dong, a CEFC employee in the U.S., as “office mates.”
“The sharing of office space with Chinese nationals and entities linked to the communist regime and its military demands additional explanation,” Grassley and Johnson wrote.
Biden has acknowledged that he is the target of a federal investigation that started in 2018. He said in a statement on Dec. 9, 2020, that the probe centered on his taxes. CNN has reported that federal prosecutors have looked into Biden’s dealings in China and Ukraine.
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Chuck Ross is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
The post GOP Senators Demand Intelligence Records on Hunter Biden’s Dealings with Chinese Energy Conglomerate appeared first on The Georgia Star News.