World News
UK issues warning about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine
NY Post – People with “significant” allergic reactions are being warned not to get Pfizer’s new coronavirus vaccine — after two people needed treatment after being jabbed on the day it was launched in the UK.The unidentified duo — both staff in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) — needed treatment for a “anaphylactoid reaction” Tuesday as they were among the first in the world to get the shot.The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) immediately issued precautionary advice against vaccinating anyone with a history of “significant” allergic reactions to medicines, food or vaccines.“Two people with a history of significant allergic reactions responded adversely yesterday,” said professor Stephen Powis, the national medical director for the NHS in England, saying that “both are recovering well.”“The MHRA have advised on a precautionary basis that people with a significant history of allergic reactions do not receive this vaccination,” he said, insisting it the advice was “common with new vaccines.”The head of the regulatory agency, Dr. June Raine, noted the adverse responses to the vaccine while reporting to a Parliamentary committee Wednesday.“We know from the very extensive clinical trials that this wasn’t a feature,” she said.
“But If we need to strengthen our advice, now that we have had this experience with the vulnerable populations, the groups who have been selected as a priority, we get that advice to the field immediately.”
Canada Becomes Second Country to Approve Pfizer Anti-COVID Vaccine
Sputnik – The UK has already started a mass vaccination programme with US-German inoculations,
Canadian medical watchdog Health Canada has approved the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, becoming the second country to do so after the UK.The North American country moved to greenlight the jab under a new interim order system that allows for accelerated approval akin to the US Food and Drug Administration’s speedy emergency use authorisations.
Britain kickstarted its mass vaccination programme called “V-Day” across the country on Tuesday, following similar emergency approval issued by the country’s health authorities last week.
The shots will first be given to high-priority groups, with around 800,000 doses of the US-German vaccine expected to be delivered to the UK in the coming days.
As for an expected approval back home, the brainchild of the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech is expected to get approval from the US Food and Drug Administration as soon as this week.
Covid used as pretext to curtail civil rights around the world, finds report
MSN – The state of civil liberties around the world is bleak, according to a new study which found that 87% of the global population were living in nations deemed “closed”, “repressed” or “obstructed”. The figure is a 4% increase on last year’s, as civil rights were found to have deteriorated in almost every country in the world during Covid-19. A number of governments have used the pandemic as an excuse to curtail rights such as free speech, peaceful assembly and freedom of association, according to Civicus Monitor, an alliance of civil society groups which assessed 196 countries.By using methods such as detention of protesters, excessive use of force, censorship, attacks on journalists, and harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders, many governments have used Covid-19 to “introduce or implement additional restrictions on civic freedoms”, the report said.
The group categorised fundamental freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression as either “closed”, “repressed”, “obstructed”, “narrowed” or “open”, based on a methodology which combines several data sources.
More than a quarter live in the worst rated countries – “closed” – where state and non-state actors routinely imprison, injure and kill people for attempting to exercise their rights. China, Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan are among the countries in this category.
“The use of detention as the main tactic to restrict protests only shows the hypocrisy of governments using Covid-19 as a pretence to crack down on protests, [as] the virus is more likely to spread in confined spaces like prisons,” said Civicus Monitor’s research lead Marianna Belalba Barreto.
“Our research reflects a deepening civic space crisis across the globe and highlights how governments are using the pandemic as an excuse to further curtail rights, including by passing legislation to criminalise speech.”
Of the 196 countries assessed for the study, just two – the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan – improved their rating, moving from “closed” to “repressed”. Eleven countries were downgraded, among them the US, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Iraq, the Philippines and Slovenia. Overall, the report says, the outlook for people’s civil liberties is bleak.
North Korea says South may ‘pay dearly’ for doubting its claim to be Covid-free
MSN – Kim Jong-un’s influential sister has launched a stinging verbal attack on South Korea’s foreign minister for questioning North Korean claims that the country does not have a single case of Covid-19.Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader’s younger sister, described the comments by Kang Kyung-wha as “reckless” and accused her of seeking to damage already strained ties between Pyongyang and Seoul.
Kang said last weekend that it was hard to believe the North’s insistence that it was free of the coronavirus a year after the outbreak began.
It is impossible to verify North Korea’s claims, but experts have said it is highly unlikely that the country has escaped the virus, despite tightening its borders and banning international air travel in late January.
Kim Yo-jong said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency on Wednesday: “It can be seen from the reckless remarks made by [Kang] without any consideration of the consequences that she is too eager to further chill the frozen relations between North and South Korea.” Kim, a senior official in the ruling Workers’ party whom some describe as the regime’s de facto second-in-command, added: “Her real intention is very clear. We will never forget her words and she might have to pay dearly for it.”
Kang told a forum in Bahrain on Saturday that the pandemic had “made North Korea more North Korea – that is, more closed, very top-down decision-making process where there is very little debate on their measures in dealing with Covid-19”.
She added: “They still say they do not have any cases, which is hard to believe. So, all signs are the regime is very intensely focused on controlling the disease that they say they do not have.”
Thieves Loot Russia’s Top Secret Doomsday Plane
Bloomberg – Police in Russia’s southern Rostov region have opened an investigation into the theft of equipment from a top-secret plane intended for use as an airborne command center in the event of nuclear war. The investigation was ordered after equipment worth more than 1 million rubles ($13,600) was stolen from the Il-80 aircraft at a base in Taganrog, local police said in a statement Wednesday.
4 people charged with criminal damage for toppling Edward Colston statue in Bristol during BLM protests
RT – The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service has announced four people will face charges of criminal damage after they tore down a statue of a historical figure linked with the slave trade during Black Lives Matter protests in the summer.
The four are due to appear at Bristol Magistrates’ Court on January 25, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
“The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against all four are now active and that they have the right to a fair trial,” a spokesman said, warning against reporting or commentary which could “in any way prejudice these proceedings.”
The bronze state commemorating the 17th century merchant Edward Colston, who was closely associated with the slave trade, was pulled down during a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest on June 7.
U.S. News, Politics & Government
Republicans plot their first and last Trump rebellion
The annual defense policy bill is where GOP lawmakers draw the line.
Politico – Sen. Jim Inhofe is among Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters. But with Inhofe and legions of other Republicans preparing to defy the president on a major defense bill, Trump decided to make one last push.
In a 30-minute phone call Monday night, Trump told Inhofe (R-Okla.) that he still planned to veto the National Defense Authorization Act because it doesn’t bend to his whims — targeting social media companies and maintaining bases named for Confederate soldiers. The Senate Armed Services chair said he explained to Trump the importance of the bill. It delivers pay raises to U.S. troops and is intended to strengthen the national defense.
Perhaps most important, Inhofe is forging ahead without the president: “We have a difference on this,” he said Tuesday.
Trump’s grip over his party has never been seriously challenged in the Congress, despite four years of hand-wringing over his erratic foreign policy, hard-line tariff regime and scattershot approach to legislation. Trump hasn’t had a single veto overridden, with Republicans loath to directly confront such a wildly popular figure among the GOP base, though they have tanked some of his nominees and tried to influence him behind the scenes.
But now at the ebb of his power and in the waning days of his presidency, Trump has met his match in defense hawks and the annual defense bill. It has passed 59 years in a row, and even loyal Trump supporters are looking past his Twitter attacks and plotting a rebellion against a president who often seeks vengeance against those who break with him. And they’re acting like it’s no big deal.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) argued that Congress needs to save Trump from himself.
“I just don’t want him to be the president who, after 59 [NDAAs], vetoes one,” Cramer said in an interview. “And given his legacy of supporting the military and rebuilding the military and what he’s done to position ourselves, I would just hate for that to end after 59 in a row.”
Supreme Court won’t hear Trump allies’ challenge to Pennsylvania vote
USA Today – The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to stop Pennsylvania from finalizing President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state despite allegations from allies of President Donald Trump that the expansion of mail-in voting was illegal .
The action by the nation’s highest court, which includes three justices named by Trump, came as states across the country are locking in the results that will lead to next week’s Electoral College vote. It represented the latest in a string of stinging judicial opinions that have left the president defeated both politically and legally.
By their one-sentence denial, the justices left intact a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which said the challenge to a state law passed in 2019 came far too late. New Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett appeared to have participated in the case; no dissents or recusals were noted.
Joe Biden Faces Blowback on DoD Pick: ‘Possibly Worst of All Options’
Breitbart – Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of defense on Tuesday, retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin III, was met with strong criticism, largely from Democrats, with some expressing unwillingness to confirm him.
Much of the concern revolved around having a recently retired general — requiring a special congressional waiver — lead the department of defense, which is traditionally led by a civilian.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said that she will oppose granting a waiver to Austin.
“I have great respect for Gen. Austin. His career has been exemplary, and I look forward to meeting him and talking to him more, but I opposed a waiver for Gen. [James] Mattis, and I will oppose a waiver for Gen. Austin,” Warren told reporters.
In addition, other Senate Democrats, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), also signaled that they will oppose giving Austin a waiver to serve as Biden’s Pentagon chief.
“Given Gen. Austin would need a waiver from Congress, it’s important Gen. Austin & the Biden Admin. explain why he should be granted an exception,” wrote Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI).
Despite expressing “deep respect” for Austin, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) — who spent multiple tours in the Middle East as a CIA analyst, stated that “choosing another recently retired general to serve in a role designed for a civilian just feels off.
“I’ll need to understand what he and the Biden Administration plan to do to address these concerns before I can vote for his waiver,” she added.
Michael Flynn: There’s an ‘Anti-American’ Sentiment in the DoJ, FBI, Intel Community
Breitbart – Wednesday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” former National Security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn argued there was an “anti-American sense” within some agencies within the federal government.
Partial transcript as follows:
FLYNN: First of all, we all know that this was an effort to get Flynn to get Trump, and that’s been very — made very clear. One particular senior FBI agent who has now put into an affidavit, which is a good word to use right now, and that statement that he made was outrageous.
The other things that, you know — the 2016 campaign, 2016 transition, and then into the White House. This entire effort — when people say hey, Mike, I’m sorry for what happened to you, what I tell people is don’t feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for this president, feel sorry for the presidency of this country, and be outraged at what they tried to do to this country.
And that’s really what this was about. This was about going after a president who won an election and they — by all rights, they figured oh, no way is he going to win.
So imagine if these people that went after the president — or after President Trump and his presidency in our country — imagine if they had allowed him to just say, “Hey, let’s see what this can do.” We’d probably be double or triple in every category of economy, our military, everything. And look at what President Trump has been able to do despite the kind of assault that he’s been under.
And we’re still facing that right now in this current election. We have an element in our country, some of which is in the institutions of our government — the Department of Justice and certainly, the FBI and other elements like the intelligence community that just basically are — I mean, I think most Americans would agree or many Americans would agree that there’s an anti-American sense inside of some of these institutions. And they just do not want to see our country thrive in the way that I think Donald Trump has been able to do that despite the assault on him and his ability to lead this country.
Medical license of Oregon doctor revoked for questioning COVID-19, face mask efficacy
The Blaze – An Oregon medical doctor who allegedly dismissed the coronavirus as the “common cold” and blasphemed face masks by questioning their efficacy has now had his medical license revoked.
On Dec. 3, the Oregon Medical Board issued an emergency suspension to revoke Dr. Steven LaTulippe’s medical license.
According to NBC News, the Oregon Medical Board took action after LaTulippe appeared at a “Stop the Steal” rally on Nov. 7 in Salem, Oregon, during which he dismissed the seriousness of COVID-19.
“I want you to know that I never shut down during the entire COVID season, from the time it was declared till now,” LaTulippe said at the rally. “I hate to tell you this — it might scare you — but I and my staff, none of us once wore a mask in my clinic. And how many problems did we have in our clinic from that? Zero. Absolutely none.”
“We have been utterly duped. And I want you to know that this is insanity and the purpose was only to shut down the American people,” he continued. “Take off the mask of shame. It is a mask that is just to design to control and to shut you down.”
Meanwhile, LaTulippe also stands accused of telling patients that face masks do not prevent COVID-19 transmission.
However, according to NBC News, LaTulippe has required patients with COVID-19 or those exhibiting symptoms of the virus to wear face masks.
“I’m very interested in sound medical practice, and I’m interested in good science,” he said. “And when science and medicine become perverted with corrupt politics, then I’m up for a fight, and that’s what made me go to that rally and say what I said.”
The suspension of LaTulippe’s license will remain “in effect until otherwise ordered,” according to the Oregon Medical Board.
Swalwell suggests Trump is behind blockbuster Axios report
Swalwell was previously outspoken with claims about the Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 election
Fox – Rep. Eric Swalwell suggested Tuesday that President Trump was behind Axios’ bombshell report revealing that he was one of several politicians who was entangled with someone suspected to be a Chinese spy.
Axios reported on Monday that a Chinese national named Fang Fang or Christine Fang targeted up-and-coming local politicians, including Swalwell, D-Calif.
Fang reportedly took part in fundraising for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign although she did not make donations nor was there evidence of illegal contributions.
According to Axios, investigators became so alarmed by Fang’s behavior and activities that they alerted Swalwell in 2015 to their concerns, and gave him a “defensive briefing.” Swalwell then cut off all ties with Fang and has not been accused of any wrongdoing, according to an official who spoke to the outlet.
Swalwell, who was one of the most outspoken lawmakers who pushed the Russia collusion narrative since Trump took office, is now hinting that the president was behind Axios’ explosive reporting during an interview with Politico.
“I’ve been a critic of the president. I’ve spoken out against him. I was on both committees that worked to impeach him. The timing feels like that should be looked at,” Swalwell said on Tuesday.
Swalwell revealed that Axios first approached him about his ties to Fang in July 2019, which was also when he ended his short-lived presidential campaign. But the Democratic lawmaker seemed to suggest that intelligence officials involved in Axios’ reporting were trying to “weaponize” his cooperation with authorities.
“What it appears though that this person — as the story reports — was unsuccessful in whatever they were trying to do. But if intelligence officials are trying to weaponize someone’s cooperation, they are essentially seeking to do what this person was not able to do, which is to try and discredit someone,” Swalwell told Politico.
According to Politico, Swalwell “refused to discuss his relationship with Fang” after Axios reported that she had sexual relations with at least two other politicians.
He did, however, express confidence that he will maintain his seat on the House Intelligence Commitee.
The Communist Party’s ceaseless effort to subvert our leadership class is working more effectively than anyone
Fox – The defining characteristic of the American ruling class is narcissism. The people in charge talk almost exclusively about themselves, about their limitless neuroses, their so-called privilege, their guilt about that privilege, their “identity.” No matter what they’re saying, it’s always all about them.
America’s frame of reference has shrunk to the point where we can only see ourselves, and the rest of the world knows that — especially China. China’s leaders aren’t frivolous and stupid like our leaders are. They don’t care what pronouns you use. They don’t hire people because of the way they look. They have a very specific goal: To knock the U.S. from our perch.
To accelerate this, the Chinese Communist Party has engaged in a ceaseless effort to subvert our leadership class, and that has worked more effectively than anyone imagined.
On Tuesday, a story broke in Axios, no one’s idea of a right-wing news outlet. But to their great credit, a pair of Axios reporters doggedly spent the last year investigating what turned out to be an amazing story.
A Chinese intelligence agent called Fang Fang — or, as she renamed herself when she came to this country, Christine Fang — became a force within the California Democratic Party. Along the way, she began a relationship with Eric Swalwell, now a member of the House Intelligence Committee and privy to this country’s most closely held secrets.
Fang’s relationship with Swalwell begin in 2012. Like so many Chinese spies, she used college as her cover. She enrolled as a student at a university in the Bay Area and joined a number of left-wing identity politics organizations on campus. From there, she began raising money for Democratic candidates.
U.S. intelligence officials believe that Fang had a sexual relationship with Eric Swalwell. When “Tucker Carlson Tonight” asked Swalwell’s office about that Tuesday, his staff replied by saying they couldn’t comment because such information might be “classified.” They did not elaborate or explain what they meant by that.
When Fang met Swalwell, he was a little-known city councilman in Dublin, Calif., but he had grand political aspirations. Fang became his regular companion. She was photographed with Swalwell at political events several times and became a financial bundler for his campaigns.
Fang apparently pulled in large amounts of money from a variety of sources to help Swalwell get elected to Congress. It’s not entirely clear from where all of that money came. We do know that Fang helped Swalwell secure the support of his district’s Asian-American community, which political analysts have cited as a critical factor in his win in 2012.
Economy & Business
Video: ANOTHER Travel Company Exec. Says Vaccine Passports Are Coming
Infowars – The president of travel company Acendas, Brent Blake, told Fox 4 News that “Traveler safety, to me, is top-of-the-line for everybody. And in order to do that, there’s going to be some requirements to be able to travel.” Blake said that he believes that “until the government comes up with a standardised process, it’s going to be a little bit of a wild west show.” “Right now it’s just all over the board,” Blake noted, adding that “makes it difficult if you’re a traveler to say ‘Hey I want to book something three months from now or six months from now, will it still be open and accessible to us, and maybe our family going on vacation?’ Blake continued, “My recommendation is; get the vaccination because that’s going to help you be able to get into those foreign countries with minimal hassle. And number two; be ready to change your plans.”
3 Reasons Why This Pot Stock Crushed The Market In 2020
Nasdaq – GrowGeneration (NASDAQ: GRWG) stock has been on fire for much of 2020. If you bought $1,000 worth of shares at the beginning of the year, that investment would have almost $7,000 as of Dec. 8, far outperforming the S&P 500’s 14% return during the same period.
That makes it the best performing marijuana stock of the year, despite the fact that the company does not even come into contact with marijuana plants. Instead, GrowGeneration performs the boring (yet highly lucrative) job of supplying pot growers and gardeners with the necessary equipment they need to make money. Today, let’s look at three reasons why GrowGeneration stock made investors so rich in 2020 and why its momentum is likely to continue into next year.
During its third quarter of 2020, GrowGeneration, which runs the nation’s largest chain of specialty hydroponic and organic garden centers, grew its sales by a stunning 153% year over year to $55 million. At the same time, it increased its earnings per share by 133% to $0.07. The company has less than $1 million in long-term debt, compared to more than $56 million in cash and investments. By 2021, GrowGeneration expects to generate up to $300 million in revenue and $36 million in operating income less non-cash expenses (EBITDA). That’s a significant increase over the $190 million in sales and $20 million in adjusted EBITDA it expects to bring in this year.
There’s more good news in the form of business expansion. Last month, GrowGeneration announced the acquisition of its second-largest competitor, The GrowBiz, for $26 million in cash and stock. The GrowBiz generates close to $50 million per year in revenue. This deal would expand GrowGeneration’s store count to 36 across 10 states. The acquisition looks especially well-timed in light of the recent U.S. election, after which the effects of a Green Wave sweeping the country became even clearer.
Tenants, Landlords Face Imminent Crisis as Pandemic Lifelines Expire
ZeroHedge- January is going to be a mess. America’s small-time landlords, along with their tenants, are in trouble as safety nets are set to expire. Tenants haven’t paid rent in months, with a looming eviction moratorium expiring at the end of December. According to Reuters, the lack of rental income for landlords has also been troublesome, with many skipping mortgage payments, potentially resulting in a firesale of properties in the year ahead.
For 12 million Americans and their families – this Christmas will be their worst – as the extended unemployment benefits that have kept many of them afloat are set to expire later this month. Then on New Year’s Day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s eviction moratorium expires, which could result in a massive wave of evictions in the first half of 2021.
At the moment, $70 billion in unpaid back rent and utilities are set to come due, according to a new report via Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi.
Last month, Maryland utility companies began to terminate customers with overdue bills, many of which were unable to pay because of job loss due to the coronavirus downturn.
New research from the Aspen Institute warns 40 million people could be threatened with eviction over the coming months as the real economic crisis is only beginning.
According to Stacey Johnson-Cosby, president of the Kansas City Regional Housing Alliance, landlords are also in deep turmoil. She said more than 40% of the landlords surveyed in her coalition said they will have to sell their units because of the lack of rental income.
“They are sheltering our citizens free of charge, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Johnson-Cosby. “This is their retirement income.”
She said small landlords are frightened to speak out about non-paying tenants because social justice warriors and their “Cancel Rent” groups have attacked landlords.
“What they don’t realize is that if they run us out and we fail, it will be private equity and Wall Street firms that buy up all our properties, just like they did with houses after the last foreclosure crash.”
Reuters interviewed Clarence Hamer, who may have to sell his house in the coming months because his “downstairs tenant owes him nearly $50,000.” He owns a duplex in Brownsville, Brooklyn – and without those rental payments, Hamer has been unable to pay his mortgage.
“I don’t have any corporate backing or any other type of insurance,” said Hamer, a 46-year-old landlord who works for the city of New York. “All I have is my home, and it seems apparent that I’m going to lose it.”
Hamer is not alone – millions of Americans are headed for a “dark winter” as they could be evicted or lose their homes in the coming months as government safety nets are set to expire.
Energy & Environment
Trump administration rejects massive Alaska mining project
Politico – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the Pebble Mine in Alaska on Wednesday, effectively killing plans to build the massive copper and gold project that opponents had warned could wipe out the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.
The decision from the Trump administration, which had reversed course several times on the issue, comes just weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Biden has said he opposed the project.
The company seeking the permit for the mine had recently filed a plan to mitigate the ecological damage from the Bristol Bay project, which POLITICO reported in late August was not expected to satisfy the Army Corps of Engineers.
In a statement, the Army Corps said it had determined the mining company’s plan to deal with the huge amounts of rock and other fill material that would be displaced by the mine “does not comply with Clean Water Act guidelines and [ACE] concluded that the proposed project is contrary to the public interest. This action is based on all available facts and complies with existing laws and regulations. It reflects a regulatory process that is fair, flexible and balanced.”
In a statement, John Shively, CEO of Pebble Limited Partnership, the U.S. subsidiary of Canadian mining company Northern Dynasty Minerals, said it was “dismayed” by the government’s decision and vowed to appeal it.
“Since the beginning of the federal review, our team has worked closely with the USACE staff to understand their requirements for responsibly developing the project including changing the transportation corridor and re-vamping the approach to wetlands mitigation,” Shively said in a statement. “It is very disconcerting to see political influence in this process at the eleventh hour.”
The mining project divided Republicans and Alaska politicians normally in favor of expanding domestic mineral production. President Donald Trump faced a public pressure campaign from Republicans, including mega-donor Andy Sabin, Bass Pro Shops CEO Johnny Morris, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson and the his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to block the project
Science & Technology
Former Israeli space security chief says extraterrestrials exist, and Trump knows about it
NBC – A former Israeli space security chief has sent eyebrows shooting heavenward by saying that earthlings have been in contact with extraterrestrials from a “galactic federation.”
“The Unidentified Flying Objects have asked not to publish that they are here, humanity is not ready yet,” Haim Eshed, former head of Israel’s Defense Ministry’s space directorate, told Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper. The interview in Hebrew ran on Friday, and gained traction after parts were published in English by the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
A respected professor and retired general, Eshed said the aliens were equally curious about humanity and were seeking to understand “the fabric of the universe.” Eshed said cooperation agreements had been signed between species, including an “underground base in the depths of Mars” where there are American astronauts and alien representatives.
“There is an agreement between the U.S. government and the aliens. They signed a contract with us to do experiments here,” he said.Eshed added that President Donald Trump was aware of the extraterrestrials’ existence and had been “on the verge of revealing” information but was asked not to in order to prevent “mass hysteria.””They have been waiting until today for humanity to develop and reach a stage where we will understand, in general, what space and spaceships are,” Eshed said, referring to the galactic federation.The White House and Israeli officials did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment. Sue Gough, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, declined to comment.A spokesperson for NASA said one of the agency’s key goals was the search for life in the universe but that it had yet to find signs of extraterrestrial life.
Black holes can grow ‘hair’ when spinning fast enough in dramatic extension of Einstein’s theory of gravity
RT – An international team of scientists has found that black holes can grow hair-like structures if they spin fast enough, providing fresh insights at the fringe of our understanding of the universe.
In a new study, researchers used numerical simulations which indicated that black holes can spontaneously erupt what has been described as a hair (otherwise known as a scalar field), once they reach a certain spin speed.
This new insight into the behavior of fast-spinning black holes or neutron stars would come as an extension to Einstein’s theory of gravity.
“While previous studies have already provided examples of ‘hairy’ black hole solutions, we have shown for the first time, thanks to numerical simulations, that black holes can spontaneously grow the simplest form of permanent hair (a scalar field) once they start spinning fast enough,” says Alexandru Dima, astrophysicist at SISSA and INFN and first author of the paper.
Health
CDC shows COVID-19 Has High Survival Rate
Wink News – A CDC update Wednesday says individuals are more likely to survive the coronavirus after contracting it. The health agency says if you have the virus between the ages of 0 to 70, you have a 99% survival rate. And if you’re over 70, the survival rate is nearly 95%.
While this CDC update is a relief for many, doctors are extremely worried, and an NCH Healthcare System doctor hopes you still take precautions.
“My first thoughts are, ‘This is what I thought all along,’” said Pam Pischner, the owner of Grouper and Chips.Pischner says she’s glad the CDC released the percentages.
“It will make people not so fearful,” Pischner said. “Get over the fear.” Gov. Ron DeSantis also tweeted about the update, saying people in the age groups of 0 to 19 have a 99.997% chance of survival if they contract COVID-19, the age group of 20 to 49 a 99.98% chance, 50 to 69 years old 99.5% and 70 years old and above a 94.6% chance. “Obviously people can tell you there are people who need to be careful with any sort of disease,” said William Wehunt. “Other than that, let’s live our lives and open up.” While some think only certain people should take precautions, doctors say everyone needs to keep their guard up. “I am absolutely terrified we’re going to become too lax with precautions,” said Dr. Benjamin Abo with NCH. Abo says the numbers are promising, but it’s not the time to be careless.
“While I’m happy about some of the numbers, and I’m happy we are going in a certain direction, it doesn’t mean we can let our guard down,” Abo said. “Otherwise, we will be right back to where we started.”
COVID-19 Vaccine May Not Work on Nursing Home Patients
Newsmax – The Centers for DiCOVID-19 Vaccine May Not Work on Nursing Home Patientssease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted on Tuesday that healthcare workers and nursing home residents should be the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccines once they are approved.
Pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer have applied to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization for their vaccines, so distribution may begin within weeks.
But according to the Los Angeles Times, although the 3 million Americans who live in long-term healthcare facilities have been given first dibs, some experts say that the giving the vaccine to the frail and elderly may be dangerous. Historically, this aging population doesn’t respond well to the flu vaccine, for example, and the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine may be more than they can handle.
Nursing homes have already been in the spotlight for their poor track record during the coronavirus pandemic. More than 100,000 residents and employees of nursing homes and long-term care facilities have died, accounting for about 40% of the total death toll in the United States, according to November statistics. It’s the massive mortality rate that most likely drove nursing home residents to the head of the class in vaccine priority, said Dr. Helen Talbot, of the department of health policy at Vanderbilt University. She was one of the 14 of the CDC ACIP members, and the only one who voted against prioritizing long-term care residents.
Renowned scientist warns that coronavirus vaccine is “downright dangerous”
NaturalNews – A world-renowned microbiologist warned that the upcoming vaccine against the Wuhan coronavirus is “downright dangerous” and will send people to their doom. Thai-German microbiologist Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi made the warning during an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Dec. 2. Bhakdi also criticized social distancing and mask-wearing mandates in his appearance at The Ingraham Angle news program.
The health expert dubbed National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci’s claim that 75 percent of Americans would need to be vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity as “utter nonsense.” The NIAID director made the remarks during a live appearance on The Story with Martha McCallum. Bhakdi commented: “Someone who says this has not the slightest inkling of the basics of immunology.”
Bhakdi said Fauci’s remarks were “very, very surprising” for someone of the same standing as the NIAID director, and expressed readiness to “defy him anywhere in the world at any time.”
When Ingraham asked about social distancing and masks, the microbiologist said these measures have been displaced by his research and added that social distancing and mask-wearing mandates were “not backed up by science.” Ingraham further probed why these methods are being pushed, which led to Bhakdi saying that these measures were “absolutely nonsense” and exhorting viewers to “sit down and think about this … read about this and then make up your own mind, [and] think for yourself and come to your own conclusions.”
In response to Ingraham’s final question whether the COVID-19 vaccine is unnecessary, Bhakdi warned: “I think it’s downright dangerous. And I warn you, if you go along these lines, you are going to your doom.”
The mass coronavirus vaccination efforts follow the U.S. listing the largest number of COVID-19 cases worldwide. Data from Johns Hopkins University states that the U.S. currently has a 14.7 million COVID-19 caseload, with 5.6 million recoveries and 282,345 deaths.
Reducing your intake of sugary drinks by 1 serving a day may lower diabetes risk by at least 10%
NaturalNews – Researchers from the U.S. and China suggest that drinking a serving of water, coffee or tea in place of a sugary beverage may lower Type 2 diabetes risk by up to 10 percent.
In a paper published in the Diabetes Journal, they further revealed that swapping sodas and 100 percent fruit juices for diet sodas and artificially sweetened drinks did not seem to lessen diabetes risk.
These findings underscore the importance of decreasing sugar intake by replacing sugary drinks with healthier alternatives, according to lead author Jean-Philippe Drouin-Chartier, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Healthier drinks for lower diabetes risk
Sugary drinks, or beverages sweetened with added sugars, such as brown sugar, corn sweetener and corn syrup, are one of the leading sources of added sugars in the American diet. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6 in 10 youths and 5 in 10 adults from 2011 to 2014 consume a sugary drink on a given day.
Frequent intake is widely associated with diseases and disorders like heart disease, obesity and Type 2 diabetes. For that reason, experts recommend cutting back on sugary drinks for a healthy weight and diet. As the present also shows, doing so could further lower diabetes risk.
The researchers examined more than 20 years’ worth of data from over 192,000 adult men and women who participated in three long-term studies, the Health Professionals’ Follow-up Study, Nurses’ Health Study and Nurses’ Health Study II.
They measured long-term changes in the participants’ sugary drink consumption based on their responses in food frequency questionnaires administered every four years.
After adjusting for variables such as body mass index, lifestyle habits and other dietary changes, the team found that replacing one daily serving of a sugary drink with water, coffee or tea was associated with a two to 10 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Meanwhile, increasing one’s total intake of sugary drinks by more than four ounces a day over a four-year period was associated with a 16 percent higher diabetes risk in the next four years. Meanwhile, increasing the intake of artificially sweetened beverages, which contain low-calorie sugar substitutes such as aspartame and sucralose, was associated with an 18 percent higher diabetes risk.
But the researchers noted that the latter finding should be interpreted with caution as the participants who were already at high risk of diabetes could have had switched from sugary beverages to diet drinks. In addition, they’re more likely to be screened for diabetes, so they’re diagnosed more rapidly.
Nonetheless, these findings collectively reinforce current recommendations to replace sugary drinks with non-caloric beverages free of artificial sweeteners, according to senior author Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“Although fruit juices contain some nutrients, their consumption should be moderated,” Hu added. (Related: The Dangers of Sugar and the Importance of Healthy Sugar Substitutes.)
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Texas Case Breaks Election Wide Open, Turns Tide to Trump’s Favor
Infowars – The lawsuit filed by Texas against several swing states over voting fraud is perhaps the strongest case yet because Texas is arguing that these states changed their elections laws without their state legislatures. In other words, this is a constitutional issue that’s not even relying on election fraud evidence; Texas is simply arguing that its votes were devalued by swing states that violated their own election laws without input from lawmakers, which violates the Constitution. “By the shared enterprise of the entire nation electing the President and Vice President, equal protection violations in one State can and do adversely affect and diminish the weight of votes cast in States that lawfully abide by the election structure set forth in the Constitution,” the lawsuit states. “[Texas] is therefore harmed by this unconstitutional conduct in violation of the Equal Protection or Due Process Clauses.”Basically, Texas says it adhered to its more stringent election laws to comply with the Constitution and federal election laws, in contrast to the swing states.Each of [the swing states] acted in a common pattern,” the lawsuit continues. “State officials, sometimes through pending litigation (e.g., settling ‘friendly’ suits) and sometimes unilaterally by executive fiat, announced new rules for the conduct of the 2020 election that were inconsistent with existing state statutes defining what constitutes a lawful vote.”
This gave the swing states an unconstitutional advantage in the presidential election, Texas alleges.“Certain officials in the [swing states] presented the pandemic as the justification for ignoring state laws regarding absentee and mail-in voting,” the lawsuit states. “The [swing states] flooded their citizenry with tens of millions of ballot applications and ballots in derogation of statutory controls as to how they are lawfully received, evaluated, and counted.”“Whether well intentioned or not, these unconstitutional acts had the same uniform effect—they made the 2020 election less secure in the [swing states]
The Texas Lawsuit Is On The Docket – The Supreme Court Will Determine The Fate Of The 2020 Election
Michael Snyder – Very few of the lawsuits that Trump’s legal team has filed since Election Day have really worried the left, but when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court on Monday night they immediately began freaking out. The reason why they are so alarmed is because they understand that this suit has the potential to flip the election. The suit alleges that the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin conducted their elections in ways that violated the U.S. Constitution, and if the Supreme Court agrees that would almost certainly mean that the Supreme Court would force the state legislatures of those states “to appoint a new set of presidential electors in a manner that does not violate the Electors Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment”.
At this hour, we are being told that Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and South Dakota have all joined the suit that Paxton has filed. The U.S. Constitution gives the Supreme Court original jurisdiction over controversies between states, and so this is why this case did not need to be filed in a lower court first. But the Supreme Court is not obligated to hear any particular case, and many on the left initially thought that the Court would never actually agree to hear it.Well, it was put on the docket just 12 hours after it was filed, and so it will be heard. And on Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court ordered the defending states to file their answers by Thursday at 3 PM eastern time. So this is really happening?
The Supreme Court will determine the fate of the 2020 election after all.
In his complaint, Paxton argued that voters in his state were affected by the unconstitutional voting procedures in the other states because in “the shared enterprise of the entire nation electing the president and vice president, equal protection violations in one state can and do adversely affect and diminish the weight of votes cast in states that lawfully abide by the election structure set forth in the Constitution.”
US Supreme Court Orders 4 States to Reply to Texas Election Lawsuit By 10 December
Sputnik – According to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, four states willfully exploited the coronavirus pandemic “to justify ignoring federal and state election laws”, as they were trying to alter the outcome of the presidential elections.
The US Supreme Court has ordered the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to respond by Thursday to a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who seeks to ban the four states from participating in the Electoral College after they certified Joe Biden’s victory, according to a court document.
“Response to the motion for leave to file a bill of complaint and to the motion for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order or, alternatively, for stay and administrative stay requested, due Thursday, December 10, by 3 pm”, the document from the court issued late on Tuesday said.
The lawsuit filed on Tuesday argues that state officials usurped the authority of their state legislatures when they enacted election laws to allow for mail-in voting. The laws created a system in which voters were treated differently, with more favourable circumstances allocated to local governments under Democratic control, according to the filing.
The officials in Texas also argue that the “appearance of voting irregularities” in the four states is consistent with the “unconstitutional relaxation of ballot-integrity protections” in the election laws of those states.
US President Donald Trump has been insisting that widespread voter fraud took place since the 3 November vote. Trump refuses to concede and continues to dispute the validity of the vote in courts, accusing his rivals of massive election fraud in key battleground states. He noted, however, that he will “certainly” leave the White House if the Electoral College certifies Biden as the president-elect on 14 December.
Earlier on Tuesday, the US Supreme Court rejected another lawsuit filed by Republican Congressman Mike Kelly seeking to nullify the certification of results in Pennsylvania over expanded mail-in voting.
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