March 29, 2024

The Power Hour

Knowledge is Power

Today's News: June 03, 2019

World News
Russia Withdraws Key Defense Advisers in Venezuela
Newsmax – Russia has pulled its key defense advisers from Venezuela amid U.S. pressure on the failing regime of President Nicolás Maduro, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Rostec, a Russian defense contractor that has trained Venezuelan troops, has cut its staff from about 1,000 several years ago to “just a few dozen,” a source told the Journal.
“They believe the fight is being lost,” the source told the paper.
Perhaps equally important, Venezuela has reportedly struggled to pay for the contractor, which has also been hit by sanctions from other defense contracts worldwide.
“Since the Venezuelans aren’t paying, why should Rostec stay there and foot the bill on its own,” the source told the Journal.
Losing Russia’s support would deal a large blow to Maduro as he tries to hold off the burgeoning regime of Juan Guaidó, whom the United States has recognized as Venezuela’s duly elected leader.
Arabs riot as Jews are allowed to enter Temple Mount on Jerusalem Day
J Post – Following the report that Jews will be allowed to enter the Temple Mount for Jerusalem Day, riots broke out on the Temple Mount on Sunday, according to the Police Spokesperson’s Unit.
The commander of the Jerusalem district, Maj.-Gen. Doron Yedid, ordered the police to enter the Temple Mount and take care of the rioters.
Pompeo airs frank Mideast peace plan views in leak
AFP – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is worried the Trump administration’s soon-to-be-released Middle East peace plan will be considered “unworkable,” and might not gain traction, US media reported on Sunday.
Pompeo’s remarks to a private meeting of Jewish leaders, first reported by The Washington Post, show that even the plan’s own backers expect the latest United States blueprint for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be met with deep skepticism.
The economic components of the proposal are to be unveiled at a conference in Bahrain on June 25-26.
“It may be rejected. Could be in the end, folks will say, ‘It’s not particularly original, it doesn’t particularly work for me,’ that is, ‘It’s got two good things and nine bad things, I’m out,'” the Post reported, citing an audio recording of the meeting it had obtained.
When asked about the recording in an interview in Switzerland Monday with the Sinclair Broadcast Group, Pompeo did not deny its authenticity.
He acknowledged that, given the “important relationship” the US has with Israel, “I could see how someone might be concerned that a plan that this administration put forward might —- without knowing the true facts of what is contained in the plan —- they might perceive that it was going to be fundamentally one-sided.”
But, he stressed, “it is just simply not true. I think there will be things in this plan that lots of people like.”
Kushner: Palestinians not yet capable of governing themselves
Al Jazeera – White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner has said that the Palestinians deserve “self-determination,” but stopped short of backing Palestinian statehood, expressing uncertainty over their ability to govern themselves.
Kushner, who is President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, made the comments in a television interview with the Axios on HBO programmes, broadcast on Sunday.
Asked whether he believed the Palestinians were capable of governing themselves without Israeli interference, Kushner said: “That’s one that we’ll have to see. The hope is that they, over time, will become capable of governing”.
The Palestinians, he said, “need to have a fair judicial system … freedom of press, freedom of expression, tolerance for all religions” before the Palestinian areas can become “investable”.
U.S. News, Politics & Government
Virginia Beach Gunman Said He Was Quitting, Then Went on a Shooting Rampage
NYT – The resignation email arrived in the morning, and the gunfire started in the afternoon.
DeWayne Craddock, an engineer who had worked for the City of Virginia Beach for about 15 years, notified his superiors on Friday that he intended to quit.
Then at around 4 p.m., he embarked on a rampage in Building No. 2 of the Virginia Beach Municipal Center, turning its offices and corridors into a battleground. When it was over, 12 people lay dead and Mr. Craddock was fatally wounded.
State Department to launch new human rights panel stressing ‘natural law’
Politico – The Trump administration plans to launch a new panel to offer “fresh thinking” on international human rights and “natural law,” a move some activists fear is aimed at narrowing protections for women and members of the LGBT community.
The new body, to be called the Commission on Unalienable Rights, will advise Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to a notice the State Department quietly published Thursday on the Federal Register.
“The Commission will provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights,” states the notice, which is dated May 22.
Several human rights activists said Thursday that they were surprised by the move and trying to learn details. Some privately said they worry that talk of the “nation’s founding principles” and “natural law” are coded signals of plans to focus less on protecting women and LGBT people.
The word “natural” in such context is often interpreted to mean “God-given,” a phrasing that is less common in modern human rights literature but which could signal a religious component, experts said.
Activists and former U.S. officials noted that the Trump administration’s record on human rights so far is spotty at best.
Obama trashes US gun laws in Brazil, claims Americans out buying up machine guns without ‘any regulation’
The Blaze – Former president Barack Obama was abroad, speaking at a tech conference in Brazil this week when he told the audience that America basically has no laws or regulations on selling weapons, including what he called “machine guns.”
The moment was captured and put on YouTube, where it has since been removed by the user. But not before it was shared on Twitter and Facebook. (Watch below.)
“Some of you may be aware, our gun laws in the United States don’t make much sense,” said Obama. “Anybody can buy any weapon any time, without–” he had to pause as the foreign audience applauded him criticizing the United States. He then continued saying “You know, without much, if any regulation, they can buy it over the Internet, they can buy machine guns.”
Obama was speaking the context of his speaking with parents after their children were murdered in the horrific Sandy Hook school shooting. He was expressing his pain and dismay at not being able to tell parents that the laws would change to prevent the easy purchase of machine guns.
However, the Sandy Hook shooter actually was prevented from purchasing a weapon, by our laws and regulations in this country. In fact, that evil murderer had to steal a weapon to commit his heinous acts. Stole them from his own mother, whom he murdered first. As Hot Air’s Allahpundit put it “I don’t know what sort of regulation Obama has in mind to prevent that scenario apart from a total ban and mass confiscation.”
As Allahundit also pointed out, Obama was pitching America’s lawlessness in a country that has a notoriously high murder rate, about six times that of the United States.
Of course weapons are regulated in the United States and many laws, both state and federal, govern their purchase, sale, use, manufacture, and more. The many intricate debates over gun laws that happen within our borders may not translate well in countries that have their own systems; it does not mean they do not exist.
But Obama obviously wasn’t going for facts. He was just indulging one of American liberalism’s favorite pastimes: criticizing America to an audience abroad.
Flashback…Venezuelans Now Regret Giving Up Their Guns – This is What Happens to a Disarmed Populace
The Truth About Guns (Dec 16 2018) – In 2012, Venezuela’s dictator-for-life President Hugo Chavez had his rubber stamp legislature pass the Control of Arms, Munitions and Disarmament Law. The public generally supported it at the time. The law stripped law-abiding Venezuelans of every firearm and round of ammunition they could legally own.
As the country and its citizens have increasingly benefitted from the wonders of Bolivarian socialism, it appears that the public now regrets their support for total civilian disarmament.
“Guns would have served as a vital pillar to remaining a free people, or at least able to put up a fight,” Javier Vanegas, 28, a Venezuelan teacher of English now exiled in Ecuador, told Fox News. “The government security forces, at the beginning of this debacle, knew they had no real opposition to their force. Once things were this bad, it was a clear declaration of war against an unarmed population.”
If only the citizens of Venezuela had the right to keep and bear arms as a check against government tyranny.
Once again, another nation demonstrates what can and frequently does happen to a disarmed populace. The despotism pushed by the authoritarian ruling class can proceed full force, with no realistic threat of opposition from the people they subjugate.
As the corruption, theft, graft, and fleecing of the treasury and the people continues. The public now is reduced to literally picking through trash for food as millions flee the country.
State Department to launch new human rights panel stressing ‘natural law’
Politico – The Trump administration plans to launch a new panel to offer “fresh thinking” on international human rights and “natural law,” a move some activists fear is aimed at narrowing protections for women and members of the LGBT community.
The new body, to be called the Commission on Unalienable Rights, will advise Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to a notice the State Department quietly published Thursday on the Federal Register.
“The Commission will provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights,” states the notice, which is dated May 22.
Several human rights activists said Thursday that they were surprised by the move and trying to learn details. Some privately said they worry that talk of the “nation’s founding principles” and “natural law” are coded signals of plans to focus less on protecting women and LGBT people.
The word “natural” in such context is often interpreted to mean “God-given,” a phrasing that is less common in modern human rights literature but which could signal a religious component, experts said.
Activists and former U.S. officials noted that the Trump administration’s record on human rights so far is spotty at best.
Cutting welfare to illegal aliens would pay for Trump’s wall   
NY Post – Mexico won’t have to pay for the wall, after all. US taxpayers won’t have to pick up the tab, either. The controversial barrier, rather, will cover its own cost just by closing the border to illegal immigrants who tend to go on the federal dole.
That’s the finding of recent immigration studies showing the $18 billion wall President Trump plans to build along the southern border will pay for itself by curbing the importation of not only crime and drugs, but poverty.
“The wall could pay for itself even if it only modestly reduced illegal crossings and drug smuggling,” Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Post.
Federal data shows that a wall would work. A two-story corrugated metal fence in El Paso, Texas, first erected under the Bush administration has already curtailed illegal border crossings there by more than 89 percent over the five-year period during which it was built.
Absent a wall, the Homeland Security Department forecasts an additional 1.7 million illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border over the next decade.
If a wall stopped just 200,000 of those future crossings, Camarota says, it would pay for itself in fiscal savings from welfare, public education, refundable tax credits and other benefits currently given to low-income, illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
Orwellian Future: Facial Recognition & Mass Surveillance Is Coming To U.S. Schools
SHFTPlan – We are staring our Orwellian future right in the face.  Beginning in New York, facial recognition is coming to schools in the United States and it’ll be switched on for testing next week.
The dystopian future George Orwell warned about in his accidental historical predictions book, 1984, has arrived. According to an article by Engadget, the Lockport City School District in New York will start testing a facial and object recognition system called “Aegis” on June 3rd. According to BuzzFeed News, that will make it the first in the U.S. to pilot a facial recognition mass surveillance system on its students and faculty.
BuzzFeed News got its hands on a copy of a letter distributed to the students’ parents, and it describes Aegis as “an early warning system” that can notify officials of threats.  But that’s the propagandized version of what the system is in reality: it’s a mass surveillance tool being sold to the public as “safety” as with any human rights infringement. The system, created by Canadian company SN Technologies, can apparently keep track of certain individuals in school grounds.
Schools have long been indoctrination centers and it doesn’t look like that trend will be reversed anytime soon, in fact, it’s being amplified. The system can identify students and staff who’ve been suspended, but it’s unclear if Lockport will use it to monitor those who’ve been suspended over non-violent offenses. Aegis claims that it will delete all footage after 60 days and it won’t record the movements of students, staff, and visitors that aren’t in the list of individuals to monitor. That said, the system will have to analyze everyone’s faces to identify people it will have to “keep an eye on.”  So in truth, this system monitors everyone and is mass surveillance packed up to sound like security.
There are, fortunately, some other people out there who understand just how invasive and this human rights trampling system has become. Stefanie Coyle, an education counsel for the New York Civil Liberties Union, told BuzzFeed News that the organization asked the New York State Education Department to block the project. After all, San Francisco banned the technology, and it’s a city filled with tech companies that understand it best. “Why in the world would we want this to come to New York,” she added, “and in a place where there are children?”
Taylor Swift Slams Donald Trump for Hypocrisy in LGBTQ Policies
Law & Crime – June 1 kicks off Pride Month, a 30-day celebration to honor LGBTQ people and history, and to commemmorate the 1969 Stonewall riots. Just after midnight Saturday morning, Taylor Swift tweeted and instagrammed a copy of a letter she sent to Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn), along with a link to a petition for the Equality Act, and a message encouraging others to contact their senators.
In Swift’s letter, she slammed President Donald Trump’s public declarations that his administration supports equal treatment, while opposing the Equality Act for interfering with “parental or conscience rights.”  “No,” Swift wrote, “One cannot take the position that one supports a community, while condemning it in the next breath.” She continued to make the point that supporting LGBTQ right is not just right in a moral sense,  but also reflects the values of the majority of both Tennesseans and Americans.
Public reaction to Swift’s tweet was swift and strong; within a few hours, #lettertomysenator was trending on Twitter, and praise came rolling in for the singer’s activism.
Veteran News
Kansas City Refuses To Let Veterans Stay Homeless, Builds Them Their Own Town For Free
The Veterans Site – After two years of planning, a group of homeless veterans in Kansas City, Missouri will finally have a place to call home. The Veterans Community Project built 13 tiny homes, consisting of four family units and nine single units, all fully functional. Not only will these veterans have a place to call home, they will also have access to classes on how to manage finances, cook, stay healthy, and overcome substance abuse.
Members of the Veterans Community Project believe that without these homes, many veterans would end up in jail or still be homeless. They plan to continue on the progress made here by adding 19 more homes during phase two of the project. There are also plans to build a community center for the residents.
During an emotional ribbon-cutting ceremony, the Veterans Community Project received the City Council’s final blessing: the power was turned on in the newly designed homes.
“One of the vets was sitting out there last week, watching the houses get built and was in tears,” Mark Solomon previously told FOX4. “Literally just crying about the fact that he was going to be moving into one of these houses. That’s real. That’s what makes this all worth it and yeah, it’s a ton of time and a ton of effort, but we’re gonna be able to help these people.”
Economy & Business
Trade-war contagion puts markets on alert for fresh risk selloff
BNN Bloomberg – Investors may be about to get further confirmation that they have misread how deep and lasting the global trade war could be.
After last week’s selloff in risk assets, the stand-off between the world’s two largest economies deepened at the weekend as Beijing blamed the U.S. for the latest breakdown in talks. Traders were also left digesting a move by the Chinese toward blacklisting FedEx Corp., a threat by President Donald Trump to slap tariffs on all Mexican goods and a decision to end an arrangement that lets India export almost 2,000 products to the U.S. tax free.
“Investors are generally of the view that the trade dispute could drag on for longer, but they appear to be overlooking its potential impact on the global macro outlook,” Chetan Ahya, the New York-based head of economics at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note distributed Sunday. “If trade tensions continue to escalate, the global cycle will be at risk. We could end up in a recession in three quarters.”
As the outlook on trade deteriorated, U.S. Treasury yields registered their biggest five-day decline since 2014, reflecting growing speculation an economic downturn will prompt the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by year-end. The S&P 500 Index posted its worst week of 2019.
Flashback….26 bankers already sentenced to a combined 74 years in prison
Iceland Mag (Oct 14 2015)  – In two separate rulings last week, the Supreme Court of Iceland and the Reykjavík District Court sentenced three top managers of Landsbankinn and two top managers of Kaupþing, along with one prominent investor, to prison for crimes committed in the lead-up to the financial collapse of 2008. With these rulings the number of bankers and financiers who have been sentenced to prison for crimes relating to the financial collapse has reached 26, and a combined prison time of 74 years.
Read more: Bankers Behind Bars: A guided walking tour through the collapse of Iceland’s banking system in 2008
Science & Technology
Did The Government Just Test The Internet Kill Switch?
ZeroHedge – “‘I felt a great disturbance in the farce, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”
At 3pmET, it appears that Google Cloud (affecting Gmail, YouTube, SnapChat, Instagram, and Facebook among others) mysteriously (and almost unprecedently) went offline.
Google Cloud Status Dashboard
This page provides status information on the services that are part of Google Cloud Platform. Check back here to view the current status of the services listed below. If you are experiencing an issue not listed here, please contact Support. Learn more about what’s posted on the dashboard in this FAQ. For additional information on these services, please visit cloud.google.com.
Google Compute Engine Incident #19003 We are experiencing a multi-region issue with Google Compute Engine
Incident began at 2019-06-02 12:25 (all times are US/Pacific).
Jun 02, 20 12:25 We are investigating an issue with Google Compute Engine. We will provide more information by Sunday, 2019-06-02 12:45 US/Pacific.
One Google insider explains (via YCombinator):
I work on Google Cloud (but disclaimer, I’m on vacation and so not much use to you!).
We’re having what appears to be a serious networking outage. It’s disrupting everything, including unfortunately the tooling we usually use to communicate across the company about outages.
There are backup plans, of course, but I wanted to at least come here to say: you’re not crazy, nothing is lost (to those concerns downthread), but there is serious packet loss at the least. You’ll have to wait for someone actually involved in the incident to say more.
The internet is having a very bad day…
Science Says Silence Is Much More Important To Our Brains Than We Think
Life Hack – In 2011, the Finnish Tourist Board ran a campaign that used silence as a marketing ‘product’. They sought to entice people to visit Finland and experience the beauty of this silent land. They released a series of photographs of single figures in the nature and used the slogan “Silence, Please”. A tag line was added by Simon Anholt, an international country branding consultant, “No talking, but action.”
Eva Kiviranta the manager of the social media for VisitFinland.com said: “We decided, instead of saying that it’s really empty and really quiet and nobody is talking about anything here, let’s embrace it and make it a good thing”.
Finland may be on to something very big. You could be seeing the very beginnings of using silence as a selling point as silence may be becoming more and more attractive. As the world around becomes increasingly loud and cluttered you may find yourself seeking out the reprieve that silent places and silence have to offer. This may be a wise move as studies are showing that silence is much more important to your brains than you might think.
A 2013 study on mice published in the journal Brain, Structure and Function used differed types of noise and silence and monitored the effect the sound and silence had on the brains of the mice. The silence was intended to be the control in the study but what they found was surprising. The scientists discovered that when the mice were exposed to two hours of silence per day they developed new cells in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a region of the brain associated with memory, emotion and learning.
The growth of new cells in the brain does not necessarily translate to tangible health benefits. However, in this instance, researcher Imke Kirste says that the cells appeared to become functioning neurons.
“We saw that silence is really helping the new generated cells to differentiate into neurons, and integrate into the system.”
In this sense silence can quite literally grow your brain.
A 2001 study defined a “default mode” of brain function that showed that even when the brain was “resting” it was perpetually active internalizing and evaluating information.
Google Should Be Afraid. Very Afraid.
Bloomberg – A new round of antitrust questions can’t go well for the company. The culture has turned against tech since Google skated free in 2013.
This is the moment the U.S. technology superpowers surely knew was coming: The U.S. government is preparing to crawl all over Google to figure out whether it is an abusive monopolist. Google parent company Alphabet Inc. and the other tech giants should be quaking in their fleece vests.
Bloomberg News and other news organizations reported late Friday that the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to open an investigation into Google’s compliance with antitrust laws. If it goes forward, an investigation will no doubt be broad, lengthy, messy, and impossible for Google and its investors to predict.
Baseball Size Hail, Tornadoes Possible In SE Wyoming Sunday
KGAB – The Cheyenne Office of the National Weather Service is warning about the possibility of very large hail, flash flooding and possibly a few tornadoes in southeast Wyoming and the Nebraska Panhandles on Sunday afternoon.
The agency posted this statement of its website on Sunday:
Chances for severe thunderstorms this afternoon have been expanded to cover the entire Nebraska Panhandle, up into Niobrara County (Lusk, Manville, Lance Creek and Redbird) this afternoon and early evening. Very large hail, up to baseball size are possible by mid-afternoon. Storms expected to initially form along the Laramie Range and move into the I-25 Corridor in southeast Wyoming around 2-3 PM. They then are expected to move east into the Nebraska Panhandle after 4-5PM. While hail is the primary hazard, folks in the highlighted area may see very heavy rainfall, leading to flash flooding as well as a few tornadoes. Everyone needs to keep an eye on the sky today. Have a way to receive any future warnings with you through the day. Have a safety plan in place should severe storms threaten, and place your vehicles under shelter. Stay tuned to later updates.
Health
Most of 12 confirmed cases of mumps in Alachua County involve UF students
News 4 Jax – University, Health Department urge people to get MMR vaccine, take precautions.
welve confirmed cases of mumps in Alachua County have the University of Florida and the Alachua County Health Department asking people to take proper precautions.
A Health Department spokesman said all of the cases reported are college students, many of them UF students, who may have shared such items as water bottles or utensils. All the people who contracted mumps in Alachua County were vaccinated, according to the spokesman, who said mumps is much less severe in people who are vaccinated.
Heron said she was diagnosed with mumps, which she thinks she contracted while on the UF campus.
According to the Health Department, Alachua County sees localized outbreaks such as this about every two to five years. Although the 12 confirmed cases this year is higher than the yearly baseline number of zero to two cases, the Health Department spokesman said this has not spread anywhere close to the way a virus, such as the flu, does and that most of the cases involve people who have been in close contact with one another.
The Health Department said 41 states have recently reported an increase in mumps cases, citing more people going without vaccinations as one of the reasons.
Dr. Mobeen Rathore, chief of Infectious Diseases with UF Health, said the only true way to prevent the virus is the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella.
“There’s just a lot of misinformation about what the vaccines do in terms of side effects, which are mostly bogus,” Rathore said. “I think it’s important that you get your child immunized at the right time. Rhere is a reason we immunize children for measles, mumps and rubella.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children receive the first dose of the vaccine at 12 to 15 months of age and the second dose at 4 to 6 years old. According to the CDC, the vaccine is 88% effective.
Heron encourages people to get vaccinated because she doesn’t want this to happen to anyone else, saying that, not only was mumps painful, but it can lead to other health issues in the future.
“For over a week, it was extremely painful. My face just really hurt — my neck and cheek and hair area,” she said. “At one point, I couldn’t even touch my ear, my ear hurt so bad.”
Vaccination Without Parental Knowledge Kills 14-year-old-girl
The Fed Up Democrat – Another Healthy Young Girl Gone After Gardasil
June 2, 2019 — Canada already has a law allowing children to be vaccinated without parental knowledge or consent, and that law has killed at least one young healthy girl. Her name was Annabel Morin. She was vaccinated in school and 16 days later had a severe adverse reaction but no one connected it to the vaccination. Her mother had no clue her daughter had been recently vaccinated. After she recovered and returned to school – despite the fact that Annabel told her school about her emergency room visit – the school vaccinated her again failing to connect the adverse reaction to the dangerous Gardasil vaccine. She died 15 days after her second dose of Gardasil. Her mother Linda had no knowledge when the vaccinations were given, which is perfectly legal in Canada. Read more about this at the following links:
http://www.offtheradar.co.nz/index.php/vaccines/201-gardasil-and-linda-morin-fighting-the-silence
ttps://sanevax.org/gone-after-gardasil-annabelle-canada/
Flashback…Senator Paid $400,000 By Pharma Pushes Mandatory Vaccine Law
Vaxxter (May 30 2017) – When President Trump was elected, President, it was based on promises to “drain the swamp.” While there is heated debate existing over the matter as to whether or not the President has begun such process, or whether he used the famous campaign rhetoric to get elected, hardly any of us can argue that the issue is real. The “swamp,” as it is termed, is also a place where dirty politicians are paid off by pharmaceutical companies, allowing pharma to buy votes and laws.
As is the case with New York state sendator, Kemp Hannon. Hannon took over $400, 00 from pharmaceutical companies. He also has pushed for a menengitis vaccine law that would make the vaccine mandatory for 7th to 12 graders.
Via New York Daily News:
Sen. Kemp Hannon (R-Nassau County) in 2014 invested in 14 companies that would fall under his committee’s purview.
By comparison, Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) did not report owning any stock in health-related companies.
In addition to his investments, Hannon over the past four years also received more than $420,000 from pharmaceutical and other medical interests, records show.
Hannon’s office had no comment. On the part of his 2014 state financial disclosure form dealing with investments, he wrote that sales and purchases were ‘at sole discretion of the broker.’
School Nurses Can Now Give Kids Medical Marijuana in Colorado
Vice – The federal government and human Keebler elf Jeff Sessions may still consider weed a Schedule I drug that’s “only slightly less awful” than heroin, but there’s a huge amount of research to prove otherwise. Medical marijuana has been effective in the treatment of everything from Alzheimer’s to chronic pain to seizures, and it’s even showing promise for people living with HIV. Colorado has been pushing to destigmatize weed since it legalized recreational marijuana back in 2012, and now, the state has taken another massive step toward embracing cannabis’s medical benefits—by allowing children to take medical marijuana at school.
Last week, Colorado governor John Hickenlooper signed a law that will now allow school nurses to administer medical marijuana to students, the Denver Post reports. But that doesn’t mean that kindergarteners are going to start ripping bowls in the nurse’s office, though. The law only applies to cannabis oil and other “non-smokeable” marijuana like CBD oil, and requires that students have a medical marijuana card and written permission from their parents and school principal.
Basically, the law just gives nurses the ability to treat medical weed like they would any other prescription medication. It also specifies that students cannot carry their medical marijuana on the school bus or around with them on school grounds, and nurses have to store the medication in a locked container, presumably to keep it from winding up in the wrong kid’s hands.
Flashback...Over a million children under the age of six are currently on psychiatric drugs in America
Natural News ( August 27 2017) – Psychiatric drug use is on the rise in the U.S., with one out of every six Americans now taking some type of medication in this category. This is highly concerning given the scary side effects and poor effectiveness of many of these drugs, but there is one particularly disturbing aspect of this trend that seems to get glossed over, and that is the extraordinary number of children who are taking such drugs.
Mental health watchdog group Citizens Commission on Human Rights is drawing attention to the concerning fact that more than a million kids younger than six in our nation are currently taking psychiatric drugs.
While around half of these children are four to five years old, an incredible 274,804 of them are younger than a year old. That’s right: babies are being given psychiatric drugs. The number rises for toddlers aged two to three, with 370,778 kids in this category taking psychiatric drugs overall.
Data from IMS Health shows that the situation only gets worse as kids get older, with 4,130,340 kids aged 6 to 12 taking some type of psychiatric drug.
Big Pharma Stands To Lose $18.5 Billion If All 50 States Legalize Medical Marijuana
Daily Health Post – Pharmaceutical companies are one of the biggest influences in the US economy and, subsequently, in US law.
It is no secret that Big Pharma has lobbied against medical (and recreational) marijuana legalization as they stand to lose a substantial amount of money.
States that have already legalized medical cannabis are already seeing the effects: prescription drug usage has decreased by an average of 11 percent.
The National Academies of Science keeps track of the conditions most effectively treated with medical marijuana , and nearly all of them have high-profit prescription counterparts.
Among the conditions are glaucoma, chronic pain, nerve disorders/pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, sleep disorders, and nausea/vomiting associated with chemotherapy.
Big Pharma is an incredibly powerful and lucrative industry. While $18.5 billion in losses over a three year period may seem enormous, “medical cannabis would be a drop in the bucket when it comes to impacting the total pharmaceutical industry”, according to Giadha Aguirre De Carcer, founder and CEO of New Frontier Data.
Using hand sanitizer causes you to absorb 10,000% more emasculation chemicals that feminize men
Natural News – Hand sanitizer causes the skin to absorb 100 times more of the hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA), according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Missouri and published in the journal PLOS ONE.
BPA exposure came from handling receipts printed on thermal paper, the kind typically issued by cash registers.
“Our research found that large amounts of BPA can be transferred to your hands and then to the food you hold and eat as well as be absorbed through your skin,” lead author Frederick vom Saal said.
Research had previously shown that hand sanitizers cause the skin to absorb higher levels of chemicals, but this had not previously been demonstrated with BPA.
Levels high enough to cause disease
Much attention has focused in recent years on the dangers of BPA, which in addition to receipts is also found in clear, hard plastics and in the linings of food and beverage cans.
“BPA exhibits hormone-like properties and has been proven to cause reproductive defects in fetuses, infants, children and adults as well as cancer, metabolic and immune problems in rodents,” vom Saal said. “BPA from thermal papers will be absorbed into your blood rapidly; at those levels, many diseases such as diabetes and disorders such as obesity increase as well.”
BPA has also been linked to heart disease and infertility.
In the new study, participants were told to handle receipt paper for various lengths of time. Some of the participants used hand sanitizer before handling the paper, and some ate French fries by hand after touching the paper. BPA levels in the participants’ blood, skin and urine were measured before and after each intervention.
The researchers found that handling receipt paper for 45 seconds caused BPA levels on the skin to rise to 581 µg; 40 percent of this occurred in just the first 2 seconds. After about 4 minutes, skin levels had fallen by 27 percent, probably as the chemical was absorbed into the body.
Ninety minutes after handling receipts, the average participant had blood and urine levels of 20 mg BPA/g creatinine, levels that have been previously associated with increased risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. The levels seen are also considered high enough to increase the risk of developmental abnormalities in children.
Participants who had previously used hand sanitizer had blood and urine levels 100 times higher than those who had not used the chemicals. BPA levels increased more in women than in men, although the reason for this is unknown.
Good News
Flashback…Homeschool Family Sends Seven Kids to College — All by Age 12!
The New American (June 16 2014) – A family from Alabama is inspiring the nation with its amazing homeschool success story. In fact, Kip and Mona Lisa Harding, from Montgomery, have been so successful in educating their 10 children at home that seven have gone on to college — by the age of 12!
It all began when the Harding’s oldest child, Hannah, was in third grade, enrolled in public school. A friend suggested that the couple try homeschooling their daughter, something they conceded wasn’t even on their radar. But they ended up giving it a try and soon decided that they could do a better job educating their children than the local school district could. Recalling Hannah’s early public-school experience, Kip noted that “there was a lot of homework in the evenings, and we just decided to pull her out. It was a scary time at first, but we started and it was working out great and we just never looked back.”
Mona Lisa Harding told NBC’s Today show that at first she and Kip didn’t have a firm plan. “It just kind of happened. We started homeschooling, and it was very efficient. Kids have to be educated, and as they accelerated, we had to find another option because they outdid me very young.”
Additionally, the Hardings have three more children, “all of whom are homeschooled but too young for college, even by the family’s standards,” reported BusinessInsider.com. “Mariannah (8) and Lorennah (6) both say they want to be pediatricians, while Thunder (4) already has his sites set on lifeguarding.”
The Hardings point out that, like most other kids, their children aren’t geniuses. They simply found a method of teaching them that brought out the best and encouraged learning. Kip told KSL.com that their homeschool philosophy is simple: “One [public school] teacher has 30 students on average. We can do better than that. Kids get left behind in a classroom…. This is where homeschooling really takes off because these kids are getting extra attention.”
While the Hardings insist that they are not trying to denigrate public schools, they point out that there are some fundamental problems with the government model. “Teaching is a hard job and teachers still have a place,” Kip said. “But government money comes with strings attached…. We’re just relying on God and He keeps coming through and it’s working out well. Truly, we’re just average.”
Encouraging parents who are considering educating their children at home, Kip emphasized that successful homeschooling goes beyond merely creating a positive learning atmosphere. “Love those kids,” he encouraged parents. “Be around them as much as you can. Be that influence for your kids…. People just really need to take charge of their kids and love them to death.”

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