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How Foundations’ Investments in Drug Companies Influence COVID Research

Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation stand to profit handsomely from their investments in drug companies researching solutions for the pandemic. Some say that raises critical questions around conflicts of interest, transparency and accountability.

An increasingly clear feature of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the public health response is being driven not only by governments and multilateral institutions, such as the World Health Organisation, but also by a welter of public-private partnerships involving drug companies and private foundations.

One leading voice to emerge is the Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s top funders of health research, whose sprawling charitable activities in the pandemic include co-leading a WHO programme to support new COVID-19 therapeutics. The Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator project hopes to raise billions of dollars and deliver hundreds of millions of treatment courses in the year ahead, including dexamethasone and a number of monoclonal antibodies.

At the same time, The BMJ finds, Wellcome itself holds investments in companies producing these same treatments. Financial disclosures from late 2020 show that Wellcome has a £275m (€318m; $389m) stake in Novartis, which manufactures dexamethasone and is investigating additional therapeutics. And Roche, in which Wellcome holds a £252m stake, is helping to manufacture monoclonal antibodies with Regeneron. Both Roche and Novartis report having had conversations with WHO’s ACT Accelerator about their therapeutic drugs.

Wellcome’s financial interests have been published on the trust’s website and through financial regulatory filings but do not seem to have been disclosed as financial conflicts of interest in the context of Wellcome’s work on COVID-19, even as they show that the trust is positioned to potentially gain from the pandemic financially.

Revelations of the Wellcome Trust’s financial conflicts of interest follow news reports that another charity, the Gates Foundation, is also positioned to potentially benefit financially from its leading role in the pandemic response. An investigation by the Nation revealed that Gates had more than $250m (£179m; €206m) invested in companies working on COVID-19 and cited civil society groups expressing alarm with the outsize influence the billionaire charity wields in the pandemic response, which they see as elevating the role of the drug industry.

Yet charities such as Gates and Wellcome — and even drug companies — have generally been praised in the news media during the pandemic for their efforts to solve the public health crisis, with relatively little attention paid to their financial interests and with few checks and balances put on their work.

“What the pandemic is doing is buffing the reputation of organisations like Gates and Wellcome and the drug companies, when I don’t think they really deserve that buffing up,” says Joel Lexchin, professor emeritus of York University’s school of health policy and management in Toronto. “I think they’re acting the way they always have, which is, from the drug companies’ point of view, looking after their own financial interests, and from the point of view of the foundations is pursuing their own privately developed objectives without being responsible to anybody but their own boards of directors.”

Conflict of interest?

Mohga Kamal-Yanni, a policy adviser to UNAIDS and other organisations who recently co-wrote a paper citing problems with the Gates Foundation’s influence in the pandemic, says that Wellcome’s investments raise critical questions around transparency and accountability.

“In COVID, these two words have such a huge meaning because we need to know that decisions are being made based on evidence and science,” she tells The BMJ. “Do we know which companies they are talking to? How they make the decisions about funding a particular company — or this product or that one?”

The Wellcome Trust disputes that its investments compromise — or conflict with — its independence. “We are not aware of any situation in our relations with . . . the ACT Accelerator in which a conflict has arisen as a result of our investment portfolio, or in which it would have been necessary for Wellcome representatives to recuse themselves,” a spokesperson said, declining to comment on its investments in Novartis or Roche. “We would never make decisions or advise others about the pandemic response for a reason other than public health.”

Wellcome’s supporters describe the deep well of biomedical expertise the charity brings to the pandemic, prominently from its director, Jeremy Farrar, a famed infectious disease researcher who is credited with playing leading roles in previous outbreaks of Ebola and avian influenza.

Kenny Baillie, a research group leader in the department of genetics and genomics at the University of Edinburgh who has received research funding from Wellcome, says that the charity also deserves credit as a “beacon of probity and good governance.”

He explains, “I certainly can speak to my personal experience interacting with the science side, and there’s been no attempt to influence me or any other researcher I know from doing the best science to benefit humanity.” Yet it is still not clear what governance structures are in place to guarantee that Wellcome’s vast endowment does not influence its agenda setting role through WHO or its other work in the pandemic.

Unitaid, which co-leads the WHO ACT Accelerator project, says that it has a “clear mutual understanding” with Wellcome “that relevant institutional interests will be transparently disclosed.” But, Unitaid told The BMJ last December, “We have not received any declaration of conflict of interest.”

Marc Rodwin, professor of law at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, says that institutions with financial conflicts of interest can still make valuable contributions to the pandemic response but should not be in a position of influence or decision making.

“I’d go back further than just saying they should recuse themselves from particular decisions. Why are they being chosen in the first place to be in these positions [of authority]?” he asks. “I like the concept of epidemiological risk factor here — it’s just introducing a level of risk that is unnecessary. When there’s a lot of money going around, you don’t want to have those kinds of financial conflicts that can sway those decisions.”

Read the full article here.

Utah woman, 39, dies 4 days after 2nd dose of COVID-19 vaccine; autopsy ordered

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — During a KUTV investigation into COVID-19 vaccine side effects and where to report them, we found four reported deaths, filed by Utah families and their caregivers to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Reporting System.

One case stood out, a 39-year-old single mom from Ogden who died four days after her second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Her family, who is now waiting on an autopsy, held a celebration of life for her this past weekend.

Kassidi Kurill by all accounts was healthy, happy and “had more energy” than just about anyone else around her. Her family told 2News she had no known health problems or pre-existing conditions.

Kassidi Kurill’s Story

I didn’t really cry when my dad died, I cry a lot for her.

Alfred Hawley, a retired Hill Air Force Base fighter pilot, is a military man who has known risk and loss his entire life. He’s taken it all in stride, until now.

An hour before his daughter’s celebration of life this past Saturday, he sat down to talk about his baby girl, the one who always wore makeup to cover up the freckles he loved so much.

With tears in his eyes, Alfred said “I’m at a state in my life where I’m ok with that (emotion)” as he wiped a tear from his cheek; not the first and not the last.

“She was the one who promised to take care of me” he said.

The death of his youngest daughter came out of nowhere in a year where this family has already suffered unimaginable grief with three funerals before Kassidi in the past 370 days.

Four days after Kassidi’s second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, she was gone. Dead before most of her family could say their goodbyes.

“She came in early and said her heart was racing and she felt like she need to get to the emergency room.” Alfred woke up that Thursday morning to his daughter asking for help.

Kassidi and her 9-year-old daughter Emilia lived with her parents. They’d been one family under the same roof since Emilia was born. Mom and Dad, grandma and grandpa always close by when they were needed.

Alfred, now retired, spent a lot of time with his girls. Kassidi, he says, “got sick right away, soreness at the shot location then started getting sick then started complaining that she was drinking lots of fluids but couldn’t pee and then felt a little better the next day.”

It was her second shot; the first came with a sore arm but no real side effects or issues. Kassidi was the first in the family to get the vaccine. She was a surgical tech for several local plastic surgeons, and the vaccine was a part of the job. She stepped up to get the shot, her family says, without hesitation.

She was absolutely fine with getting it, in fact she told all of us- it’s fine you guys should all get it.

Kassidi’s older sister Kristin, often confused as her twin, lives in Arizona. The distance didn’t matter much, they visited often and talked on the phone every day.

The day her sister got the second COVID-19 shot was a normal one from their conversations throughout the day. “They had gone shopping, she was fine then started feeling not so great that evening.”

Kristin said they were not worried about Kassidi because “everyone from her work had flu like symptoms -so we thought that was normal.” The kind of thing you had to sweat out for a couple days.

Kassidi got the second shot on Monday, Feb. 1. While she was in bed all day Tuesday and Wednesday, it wasn’t until Thursday morning she knew something was wrong. She woke up early, got ready and asked her dad to driver her to the local ER, where they arrived by 7 a.m.

As soon as they walked in the door, Kassidi was throwing up. Minutes later, questions were raised about what was making her so sick.

Kassidi with her daughter.

Her dad recalls doctors asking question after question, “Is there any explanation?”

He answered saying, “She just had the shot, they did a blood test and immediately came back and said she was very-very sick, and her liver was not functioning.”

Kristin, still in Arizona, knew her sister had gone to the hospital but the speed of what was happening was “so unexpected.” She was thinking Kassidi would get an IV with fluids and be back home in an hour.

Alfred, who was at the ER with his daughter knew they were not going home any time soon.

“It was a total shock and I was even afraid to tell my wife” he recalled. It was a call he did not want to make.

Kassidi was flown to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, a trauma center where they had the ability to do transplants if needed. Her liver was failing and a transplant, doctors believed, was her best option at survival.

That’s when Kristin got the call her sister was being transferred. She jumped on the first flight to Utah, but when she landed, she was not allowed in the hospital because of COVID-19 protocols. She waited with Kassidi’s daughter Emilia, hoping for a miracle.

Both of Kassidi’s parents volunteered to donate a portion of their liver, they knew if they were not a match, they could be part of a trade where someone else who was a match could help their daughter.

They never got the chance to offer the lifesaving gift. Doctors at Intermountain were doing everything they could to get Kassidi stable, but nothing seemed to work. Alfred said his daughter’s liver, kidney and heart shut down.

Alfred, who was with his daughter when she passed, said it didn’t make any sense.

She was healthy – happy and active. The greatest mom you ever saw in your life and then she was so sick that in less than 12 hours intubated and on life support

She passed, he said, 30 hours after they arrived in the emergency room.

An autopsy was recommended by doctors at Intermountain and the family agreed. Kurill’s body was moved to the Utah State Medical Examiner in Taylorsville where a full autopsy was performed.

The State Medical Examiner’s office cannot comment on the case because of privacy laws but spoke to KUTV about when an autopsy would provide answers to a family reporting a death post vaccine.

Dr. Erik Christensen, Utah’s chief Medical Examiner, said proving vaccine injury as a cause of death almost never happens.

“Did the vaccine cause this? I think that would be very hard to demonstrate in autopsy,” he said.

Erik can think of only one instance where you would see a vaccine as the cause of death on an official autopsy report and that would be in an immediate case of Anaphylaxis. One where a person received the vaccine and died almost instantaneously.

“Short of that” he said, “it would be difficult for us to definitively say this is the vaccine.”

A more likely result, would be a lack of answers or an “incomplete autopsy.”

The autopsy, he said, can provide answers to a family when no disease or red flags or found. As Erik explained, “that we don’t see a competing cause of death.” That lack of answers may help them understand if the vaccine was a possible cause.

An autopsy could also identify a cause of death the family was unaware of where doctors find undiagnosed pneumonia, cancer or an unknown heart condition. Erik said there are many people, even young people, walking around with major health issues they simply don’t know about.

Kassidi, according to her family, had no known medical conditions. Her past medical records will likely be used in her death investigation that could take as long as three months depending on what initial reports and toxicology reports show.

Kassidi’s family is hopeful they will have answers, but know the reality that they may never know for sure what claimed their daughter and sisters life.

Kristin said when she looks back, Kassidi “was fine the day she got the shot and then everything changed.”

Her father agrees, saying Kassidi was “healthy and good- then she took the shot.” He points to “Occom’s Razor where the simplest answer is mostly likely correct.”

Until he gets other data, Alfred “must believe there was something with the shot.”

Kassidi’s death will leave a major void; her 9-year-old daughter will continue living with her grandparents. Her father, a civil servant and member of the National Guard, travels for work and has served several tours overseas.

Her family has set up a Memorial Account in Kassidi Kurill’s name:

You can donate at America First Credit Union

  • PO Box 9199, Ogden Ut 84409
  • Routing # AFCU 324377516
  • Account #9119439

A GoFundMe has also been set up for Emelia.

Emilia, or “Millie” as her family calls her, was the one who wanted her mom’s story told. She’s been forced to grow up a lot in the four weeks since her mother’s passing.

She’s watched her grandpa decide to get his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Millie was begging me not to” Alfred said. It wasn’t an easy decision. He’d had his first shot not long after his daughter.

“There’s always risk” he said.

You can’t make that go away, we take risk everyday all day long. You just have to decide -does it make sense?

For him “as a 69-year-old diabetic it made sense to take the second shot and get 95% immunity.” After a long pause, he said that “if you are young maybe it doesn’t make sense.” Ultimately “you will have to make your own decision.”

In Utah, Kassidi is just one of four reported vaccine deaths. Three other reported deaths are in Utahns all in their 80s. With information available it does not appear autopsies were ordered in their cases.

Deaths in Utahns Who’ve Tak… by Alyssa Roberts

Deaths in Utahns Who’ve Tak… by Alyssa Roberts

Erik notes vaccine deaths are possible and do happen.

“Just about every vaccine or anything you do treat someone, when you inject something has a potential for a negative outcome. I’m sure VAERS can verify other vaccines have led to death.” The deaths he said are “vanishingly rare compared to the lives they save.”

Currently 1,637 families or caregivers have reported deaths they believe could be related to the vaccine to VAERS. The CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.

The Centers for Disease Control currently says there are no deaths attributed to COVID-19 vaccines.

“Over 92 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through March 8, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 1,637 reports of death (0.0018%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. CDC and FDA physicians review each case report of death as soon as notified and CDC requests medical records to further assess reports. A review of available clinical information including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records revealed no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths. CDC and FDA will continue to investigate reports of adverse events, including deaths, reported to VAERS.,” CDC reported on its website.

KUTV will follow up with the family when the autopsy report has been completed. In the state of Utah, those reports are not public and can only be viewed when the family chooses to share that information. The Medical Examiner, because of HIPPA, could not say whether the autopsy would be automatically forwarded to the CDC and the FDA.

Putin’s Former Chief of Staff Calls Trump a Champion against New World Order

The American Thinker reports:

Sergey Ivanov, Vladimir Putin’s former chief of staff, currently on the Russian Federation Security Council, has weighed in on the “historical scale of the personality and achievements of President Donald Trump” in an op-ed for Eurasia Daily.  I have changed not a word of what he has to say.  In his national ideology, Putin warns repeatedly of the dangers from the “Transnationalists” (Proekt Rossiya [Project Russia], EKSMO Press, 2014).  The Russians are joined by the British with their Brexit and the French with their Front National led by populist Marine Le Pen.  Populism actually straddles the Atlantic, and Donald Trump is regarded as its hero.  

Sergei Borisovich Ivanov is a Russian senior official and politician who is the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on the Issues of Environmental Activities, Environment and Transport since 12 August 2016. Wikipedia

As Ivanov observes, if Joe Biden, the American Deep State, and the world global elites have called Donald Trump the “worst president in U.S. history,” well, it is because they know best who is the worst — for them.

In contrast, those on the Russian side of the world itself correctly see Donald Trump as perhaps the best president in the history of the United States, a “modern George Washington.”  As Ivanov explains, if the first president of America fought to lay the foundation of the nation and state, the beginning of American freedom, then Trump fought, still fights to preserve the legacy of the founding fathers, to defend freedom, so that in the end, he will not come to be the last truly elected president of the United States.  He, like Washington, is of the flesh of his people, 100% American, a classic self-made man, a living embodiment of the American dream.  Trump is a successful entrepreneur, a man of action, and a man of his word.  He built up America all his life and became its true national leader.

To Ivanov, not only the American, but also the world history of these past centuries hardly holds another example of a politician, having no actual “party machine” at his disposal, who was likewise able to become the head of state and receive such phenomenal support from the people.  It is significant that even amid the intimidation of the pandemic, used by the globalists to disrupt Trump’s promising triumphant election campaign and prevent the consolidation of the American nation around its leader, many thousands of people gathered to meet with the president.  What other world leaders over the past half-century can boast of at least something similar?  Yet all of “progressive” humanity has taken up arms against Trump.  The entire communist “Internationale,” from leftist extremists to Chinese comrades and ending with Pope Francis, fought an undeclared war to destroy the American leader for all four years of his presidency.  After all, without control over the U.S., the globalists cannot successfully build their own New World Order.

Together with Joe Biden, they celebrate not only BLM, Antifa, and their “curators” like Soros and Pelosi, not only Merkel and Macron, but also anti-democratic regimes around the world, from China and North Korea to Venezuela and Cuba.  In the United States itself, immediately after Trump came to the White House, Deep State functionaries from both parties provided unprecedented opposition to all of his endeavors.  Like the real American hero he is, Trump took up the fight and virtually single-handedly confronted the global monster devouring the American state.  He won this confrontation, perhaps the last “western” of American history.  Fighting the “bad guys” from the Deep State, he tore off their mask, the mask of “Freedom, Democracy, and Concern for the Welfare of the People,” under which the self-proclaimed world elite have done their business.  Having torn it away, Trump presented not only the U.S., but also the world with factual proof of the existence of the Deep State, this symbiosis of socialists, liberals, “democrats” of all stripes, and anarcho-“greens,” and forced the globalists to reveal their real goals.  Now everyone is aware that the construction of Paradise on Earth is by no means included in their goals.  Rather, one can see that the architects of the New World Order are pushing humanity in the direction opposite to Paradise.

Something else cannot but amaze Ivanov: why destroy a prosperous country?  What did Trump do wrong?  In the shortest possible time, he accomplished phenomenal economic successes: millions of new jobs, rapid growth in incomes.  The percentage of working wealthy people among Hispanics and black Americans has grown significantly.  The number of abortions has dropped significantly.  Illegal immigration has been limited.  Trump achieved phenomenal, tangible successes in the international arena, without a single war — on the contrary, the consolidation of peace in the Middle East.  All this, against this background, this incessant, evil hiss: “the worst president,” constant hysterics of “Dem riffraff,” of all colors of the rainbow, from that old, Italian witch-b—– to the well fed clown-celebrities and athlete-morons.

Comparison of these facts naturally leads to the question, why did President Trump not please the Deep State?  Is it because he is not a minority, but just a successful white man?  Today, for the leader of a “democratic” country, this is a minus, but there is no particular crime in this, either.  Or is it a crime to ensure rapid economic growth, to strengthen state institutions, to protect constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens, the traditional family, morality, and religion?  The Deep State should be interested in the power and prosperity of the United States.  Surely its functionaries cannot cut the branch on which they sit with their own hands, deliberately destroy the country in which the ruling class is constituted…

Since at least the middle of the 19th century, liberals, socialists, and other “friends of the people” have been preaching that the economy plays a leading role in the life of society.  This “truth” has become a mantra for the entire “enlightened” public.  Yet what did we see in Trump’s case?  It turns out that the global elites that preach “economy” are in fact much more concerned about ideology — in particular, the protection of LGBT “rights.”

What exactly does it mean to “promote” homosexuality?  This is not just an abstract “destruction of the traditional family.”  In fact, this is the propaganda of childlessness.  That is, they push the human race toward its gradual extinction, toward self-destruction.  How can the Deep State fail to understand this?  Why did they inspire and pay for the BLM movement, the pogroms and desecrations of churches, the mortal terror against the forces of law and order?  To strengthen American statehood?  Perhaps other priorities of the global elites, like feminism, the fight against racism, the green economy, in combination with the promotion of homosexuality, will contribute to the growth of the well-being of the American and other peoples?

Another historically significant consequence of Trump’s victory in the collision with the Deep State, the American vanguard of the global elites, is that the “secret” has been revealed.  The longstanding “conspiracy theory” regarding globalists intent on taking over the world has been clearly confirmed and ceased to be a theory; it is now objective knowledge.  It has successfully passed the experimental test and is no longer a hypothesis, but an observable fact.  Those who wish can call it a “conspiracy” — or, to be politically correct, “a non-public agreement of the elites concluded to achieve goals that are difficult to formulate publicly.”

Whether the globalists manage to build their “New Order” and put an end to history, whether President Trump turns out to be its last hero, the future will show.  But even today, thanks to his historic victory, everyone who has eyes can see who is leading and who is serving.  

Ivanov ends his op-ed this way: “See and fight for your future.”

Lynn Corum is a translator of Russian who studies developments in the Russian press that affect America’s national interests.  She has been researching and writing on Putin’s stated plans since 2009, and is a world expert on Project Russia, the Kremlin’s published state ideology.

State Passes Election Law Overhaul, New Voter ID Rules, Limits on Absentee Mail-In Voting

The Georgia state Senate approved legislation Monday to strengthen the state’s voter ID laws while putting limits on who may receive an absentee ballot.

The bill, Senate Bill 241, passed the chamber in a party-line 29-20 vote, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The legislation is moving to the House where it is expected to pass before heading to the desk of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who has not signaled whether he intends to sign the legislation.

Under the new bill, the state would ban so-called no-excuse absentee voting, limiting the number of people who can apply for absentee ballots to those over 65 years of age, those who have a physical disability, and those who are out of town. The new bill would also require voters to present a driver’s license or some other form of identification before receiving their absentee ballot.

Republicans backed the bill arguing that new election protections were needed after Georgia’s November election sparked national scrutiny of the state’s voting practices and multiple ballot recounts. GOP lawmakers argued that a more secure voting process is needed to restore the public’s trust in the state’s elections.

Democrats have charged that the bill is a Republican attempt to suppress voting after the party lost two January runoff elections for U.S. Senate seats. Former state representative and failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams likened the legislation to “Jim Crow” segregation laws. She also accused the GOP of expressly trying to suppress black voters.

Read the full article here.

Texas Legislator Introduces Bill Allowing Death Penalty for Women Who Have Abortions

A lawmaker in Texas on Tuesday introduced a bill that would enable prosecutors to seek the death penalty for women who get abortions.

HB 3326 would abolish abortion in Texas, state Rep. Bryan Slaton, a Republican, wrote in a social media statement.

“The bill will end the discriminatory practice of terminating the life of innocent children, and will guarantee the equal protection of the laws to all Texans, no matter how small,” he added.

The bill is formally known as the Abolition of Abortion through Equal Protection for All Unborn Children Act.

It states that Texas is a free and independent state and that “the sanctity of innocent human life created in the image of God … should be equally protected from fertilization to natural death.”

From the time of conception, an unborn child “is entitled to the same rights, powers, and privileges as are secured or granted by the laws of this state to any other human person,” the bill continues. It would “rescind all licenses to kill unborn children by repealing discriminatory provisions.”

Part of the legislation would direct the state attorney general to use the existing criminal code against people who perform or get abortions, including laws against criminal homicide. In Texas, homicide can be punished by the death penalty.

Abortion is the termination of an unborn child or a fetus. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, over 55,000 abortions were performed in Texas in 2018, the last year for which figures were available.

“It is time for Texas to protect the natural right to life for the tiniest and most innocent Texans, and this bill does just that,” Slaton said in a statement. “It’s time Republicans make it clear that we actually think abortion is murder. Unborn children are dying at a faster rate in Texas than COVID patients, but Texas isn’t taking the abortion crisis seriously.”

Similar legislation was filed in the last legislative term by state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, but it died in the Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee.

Republicans in Texas control both legislative chambers as well as the governor’s mansion.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick last month listed two abortion-related bills in his legislative priorities.

Senate Bill 8, or the Heart Bill, would restrict abortion after a heartbeat is detected in an unborn baby.

Senate Bill 9, or the “Abortion Ban Trigger,” would ban abortions if the Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade.

The bills were among those that reflect “the principles and values of the Texas conservative majority,” Patrick said in a statement.

The priorities received criticism from Planned Parenthood, one of the largest abortion providers in the nation.

“Lt. Gov. Patrick wants to ban abortion at six weeks—before most people even know they are pregnant. Planned Parenthood will never stop fighting to protect patients and their access to reproductive health care, including abortion. Just when we think state leaders can’t go any lower, Dan Patrick throws out this list—nothing more than a political stunt and a weak attempt to save face with his base,” said Dyana Limon-Mercado, executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, in a statement.

Follow Zachary on Twitter: @zackstieber

Mainstream press writing three times fewer stories about Biden than Trump

Mainstream media web traffic slumped by 20 percent after President Trump left office, with the press writing three times fewer stories about Biden than they did about Trump in the same month after he took office in 2017.

According to analytics firm SimilarWeb, there was at least a one fifth decline in traffic in February compared to the previous month.

Politics consumption also dropped by 28 per cent as people lost interest in the presidency after Biden’s inauguration.

“There were three times as many stories written about about Trump in February of 2017 than about Biden last month, according to data from NewsWhip,” reports Axios.

“Biden was discussed on cable news for an estimated 1,836 minutes last month, according to the Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer. In February of Trump’s first year, he commanded an estimated 4,669 minutes on cable news.”

The media is seemingly uninterested in the fact that Biden hasn’t given a single major press conference or any form of public address since taking office.

Nor are they that bothered about the fact that Kamala Harris appears to be pulling the strings behind the scenes while Biden is trotted out for the odd limited appearance during which he stumbles through his sentences.

“What some mainstream media take away from this is that people are now used to the “drama” from politics that was present during the Trump presidency,” writes Didi Rankovic

” However, much of that drama, producing polarization and divisions, may have actually come from the media themselves, rather than politics per se; after all, the current sharp dip in traffic shows they had incentive to keep whipping up that drama for financial reasons, beyond any preferred politics and ideologies.”

Rand Paul Urges Vaccinated People to Ignore ‘Government Scolds’ and ‘Live Free’

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky on Tuesday urged fully vaccinated people to ignore new public health directives and to “live free” from virus mitigation measures.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines for vaccinated people on Monday. Those guidelines curiously advise people who are immune to the coronavirus to continue wearing masks in some situations.

Paul, who is a doctor with a practice in Bowling Green, Kentucky, shared a CNN article about the CDC guidelines on Twitter.

“Rather than listening to government scolds, look to the science of immunology: and once you’re 2 weeks out from the vaccine, or have recovered from the actual infection, trash your mask and live free again,” tweeted Paul.

Paul was one of the first lawmakers to contract the coronavirus last year when he tested positive in March. After a quick recovery, he volunteered at a Kentucky hospital and has made headlines since on several occasions for refusing to wear a mask.

“I have immunity. I’ve already had the virus, so I can’t get it again and I can’t give it to anybody,” Paul told reporters in Washington last May, NBC News reported. “I can’t get it again, nor can I transmit. So of all the people you’ll meet here, I’m about the only safe person in Washington.”

Paul a week later challenged Dr. Anthony Fauci at a Senate committee hearing on re-opening the economy in which he appeared without a mask.

“I think we ought to have a little bit of humility in our belief that we know what’s best for the economy. And as much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you’re the end-all. I don’t think you’re the one person that gets to make a decision,” Paul said.

Paul has since been critical of public health mandates over their potential to erode individual liberties. He has found himself targeted numerous times since he recovered over not wearing a mask in public.

Despite conventional wisdom surrounding vaccines and illnesses, the CDC is not advising people who are fully vaccinated to return to their normal lives.

In directives released this week, which Paul was referring to, the agency advised vaccinated people to wear a mask and social distance when around unvaccinated people who are considered at risk. Those who are fully vaccinated are also asked to refrain from traveling and to wear masks when shopping or engaging in other activities while in congregant settings.

“Until more is known and vaccination coverage increases, some prevention measures will continue to be necessary for all people, regardless of vaccination status,” the CDC stated. “However, the benefits of reducing social isolation and relaxing some measures such as quarantine requirements may outweigh the residual risk of fully vaccinated people becoming ill with COVID-19 or transmitting SARS-CoV-2 to others.”

The agency does state that small groups of fully vaccinated people can gather without masks.

People are considered to be fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose.

UPDATE: Pastor James Coates Jailed for COVID-19 Calls Into Church’s Sunday Service

Canadian Pastor James Coates called into GraceLife Church’s indoor Sunday worship service from inside the Edmonton Remand Centre correctional facility.

Associate Pastor Jacob Spenst, who ran the service Sunday in Coates’ absence, said the jailed pastor was joining them via phone but Coates didn’t speak.

This past Sunday marked the third straight worship service Pastor Coates has missed due to being locked up for disregarding pandemic-related health orders, and he will remain in the correction facility until his May trial. Sunday’s indoor service marked the sixth time GraceLife Church violated their closure order for not adhering to capacity restrictions and ignoring social distancing mandates.

Authorities were on site during Sunday’s worship service that had congregants singing without masks but Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Cpl. Curtis Peters said he was unaware of any needed enforcement that resulted from Sunday’s service.

A Canadian pastor has spent the last two weeks in jail for ignoring pandemic-related health orders. Parkland County’s GraceLife Church’s Pastor James Coates turned himself over to the authorities after holding an in-person worship service on February 14, 2021, despite a closure order for violating COVID-19 health orders.

A ruling on Friday from Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Peter Michalyshyn will keep him in jail until his May 3, 2021 trial which is scheduled to run through May 5, 2021.

His lawyer said Pastor Coates’ “obedience is to his Lord, is to his God. And normally, obeying Jesus and obeying the government go right in hand…but the government’s forcing him into a position where he has to choose between disobeying God and obeying government, or obeying God and disobeying government.”

Justice Peter Michalyshyn dismissed Pastor Coates’ appeal and said that the pastor remained unrepentant and plans to continue violating public health orders. “The law that Mr. Coates clearly intends not to be bound by remains valid and enforceable against him.” The justice continued to say, ” Mr. Coates’ strongly held religious beliefs and convictions do not overcome those valid and enforceable laws.”

Justice Michalyshyn said Pastor Coates “drives home even more clearly and personally the depth of his conviction not be bound by the law.” The justice explained that Coates’ clear intent is to not adhere to public health orders because Coates said he could not abide by the conditions of his release if he was granted bail.

Coates’ lawyer John Carplay said, “Pastor Coates is a peaceful Christian minister. He should never have been required to violate his conscience and effectively stop pastoring his church as a condition to be released. Charter freedoms do not disappear because the government declares regular church services to be outlawed while allowing hundreds of people to fill their local Walmarts.”

Although GraceLife Church’s pastor is in jail, the church has continued holding weekend services despite Alberta Health Services’ close watch for violations. It was reported by authorities that the indoor worship services are beyond ordered capacity, yet it is unknown if any further fines have been issued.

People gathered outside of the courthouse on Thursday with banners reading #freejamescoates.

Similar to California’s Grace Community Church’s Pastor John MacArthur, Pastor Coates addressed the area’s COVID-19 restrictions during sermons telling his congregants that “governments exist as instruments of God and there should be unfettered freedom of worship.”

Biden Champions Transgender Movement, While Trump Had Reservations

News Analysis

President Joe Biden differs sharply from his predecessor when it comes to how the federal government should treat Americans who identify as transgender.

Biden is a progressive leveler. He embraces the transgender ideology unreservedly, demanding that society accept and normalize transgender people, whereas former President Donald Trump was more restrained, respecting the right of transgender people to exist without rearranging society to accommodate them or supporting the radical socially transformative goals of the left-wing transgender movement.

Trump banned some transgender individuals from military service; Biden welcomes them. Trump opposed letting transgender persons use school bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity; Biden does not. Trump opposed expanding civil-rights protections for transgender people in employment; Biden favors expanding such protections, not just in employment, but also in other realms. Biden supports sex-change operations for 8-year-olds; Trump did not. Biden has nominated the first transgender person for a post requiring U.S. Senate confirmation. Trump sought to protect religious freedom against possible claims made on behalf of newly recognized gender rights.

Legal Changes

Biden’s quest for radical egalitarianism is aided by a changing legal environment.

He signed Executive Order 13988, “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation,” which builds on last year’s 6-3 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. That decision read transgender people into the Civil Rights Act of 1964, holding they are protected from employment discrimination even though the statute doesn’t mention gender specifically. Biden ordered several agencies to review policies on gender identity and report back with recommendations for potential action.

That court ruling was a defeat for the Trump administration. During oral arguments, then-Solicitor General Noel Francisco said about the consolidated case, which also dealt with sexual orientation, “Sex means whether you’re male or female, not whether you’re gay or straight.”

This landmark judicial foray into the culturally contentious realm of sex versus sex roles brought an expanded meaning to the phrase “on the basis of sex” that appears in the Civil Rights Act.

Decision author Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the ruling dealt with employment alone and did not apply to “sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes,” all of which are regulated under another law that was not at issue in the court case, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972.

But Biden’s sweeping order declares: “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. …All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.”

The ACLU celebrated the executive order, writing that it was “a salve after four years of relentless attacks by the Trump administration on LGBTQ people in all aspects of life.”

“This administration is prepared to vigorously defend and enforce the legal protections that LGBTQ people enjoy under federal law,” the ACLU wrote.

At the 2016 Republican nominating convention, Trump presented himself as a defender of LGBTQ rights, saying, “As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” The ideology referenced was Islamism, which does not tolerate the LGBTQ movement.

The Biden order applies the court’s reasoning in Bostock on gender identity to laws that already forbid sex discrimination: the Education Amendments Act of 1972, Fair Housing Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act. This means, among other things, that any schools, including public high schools, that accept federal funding have to allow biological boys who self-identify as girls onto girls’ sports teams or be penalized.

Sports

If such a policy were widely enforced girls’ and women’s sports would be in jeopardy, Olympic track-and-field coach Linda Blade told the Wall Street Journal.

“Finished. Done,” Blade said. “The leadership skills, all the benefits society gets from letting girls have their protected category so that competition can be fair, all the advances of women’s rights—that’s going to be diminished.”

Pro-transgender policies hurt women, said James Shupe, who after serving as an icon of transgender activism denounced the movement and the idea that one can change one’s sex as a fraud. Shupe was the first individual in Oregon to receive legal recognition for his “non-binary” sex designation, only to ask after his epiphany to have the status rescinded and his “male” sex restored on his birth certificate.

“Females bear the brunt of the suffering in all of it and President Biden and the Democrats don’t care, all for the sake of politics,” he told The Epoch Times in an e-mail interview.

“Even worse, a lot of females are perpetuating harm against other women and girls while believing they’re doing the right thing to support these transgender policies because they think it’s the right thing to do because they’ve been led to believe that.”

“And it’s sad,” Shupe added. “If only everyone would spend more time learning about the sordid history of gender identity. If they did, they wouldn’t be so quick to celebrate having men like me in their female bathrooms.”

Military

Biden changed military policy on transgender people, accomplishing change with the stroke of a pen.

In Executive Order 14004, Biden revoked Trump’s rule that prevented some transgender individuals from serving in the armed forces.

Stating that “an inclusive military strengthens our national security,” Biden said it was his “conviction as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces that gender identity should not be a bar to military service.”

Biden took a shot at Trump, writing that “the previous administration chose to alter” an Obama-era policy “to bar transgender persons, in almost all circumstances, from joining the Armed Forces and from being able to take steps to transition gender while serving.”

Instead of “relying on the comprehensive study by a nonpartisan federally funded research center, the previous administration relied on a review that resulted in a policy that set unnecessary barriers to military service.”

Shupe said, “President Trump really had a fairer and more balanced policy concerning the gender dysphoria ban,” which was “often and unfairly called the ‘transgender ban’ for effect by media outlets and to garner public support, but in reality it was a ban on gender dysphoria: a serious mental illness, something I’m all too familiar with because I suffered from it while I served and still do.”

Trump’s policy allowed gender-dysphoric individuals to serve “if you remain mentally fit, can abstain from hormones and surgeries, and can serve in your birth sex” without embracing “a false reality” such as changing your sex on your personal identification, Shupe said.

“What you dressed up as or who you slept with off-duty was your business.”

Children

Biden endorsed sex-change operations for 8-year-olds during an October 2020 townhall meeting. Trump never endorsed such a radical position.

Peter Sprigg of Family Research Council Action said at the time Biden was “wrong to encourage gender transitions for 8-year-old children. The implementation of invasive physiological gender transition procedures … upon minors raises grave concerns.”

Biden has nominated Dr. Rachel Levine, until recently Pennsylvania’s health secretary, to be Assistant Secretary of Health, the first transgender individual to be nominated for a Senate-confirmed position.

Levine favors administering puberty-blocking drugs to children under the age of 18 if they identify as the opposite sex and reportedly is open to surgical sex-reassignment being performed on such children without parental consent.

Equality Act

Critics fear the Biden-backed proposed “Equality Act,” which they characterize as a radical assault on constitutionally protected religious freedoms, and that passed the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 25, will be used to force the transgender ideology on society.

His comments have not reassured critics.

“Full equality has been denied to LGBTQ+ Americans and their families for far too long,” Biden said Feb. 19 on the introduction of the Equality Act.

Despite extraordinary progress by that community, “discrimination is still rampant in many areas of our society,” Biden said. “The Equality Act provides long overdue federal civil rights protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, locking in critical safeguards in our housing, education, public services, and lending systems — and codifying the courage and resilience of the LGBTQ+ movement into enduring law.”

Former President Trump slammed the proposed Equality Act during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Feb. 28, saying its requirement that men who identify as women be allowed to participate in women’s sports would destroy female athletic competition.

“Young girls and women are incensed that they are now being forced to compete against those who are biological males,” Trump said. “It’s not good for women, it’s not good for women’s sports, which worked so long and so hard to get where they are.”

“The records that stood for years, even decades, are now being smashed with ease,” he said. “If this is not changed women’s sports as we know it will die.” For years in weightlifting, “every ounce is like a big deal for many years,” Trump said. “All of a sudden somebody comes along and beats it by 100 pounds.”

Religious Freedom

The Trump administration took a stand against the principles articulated in the Bostock decision days before it was handed down.

In an effort to protect religious freedoms, in June 2020 Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized a rule that followed federal court rulings finding the Obama administration overreached when it issued a rule prohibiting discrimination in health care and health insurance on the basis of patients’ “internal sense of gender.”

The rule dealt with Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which made it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of “race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in certain health programs and activities.”

Biden is widely expected to reverse the rule.

Several Democratic state attorneys general sued Trump’s HHS to block the rule in a legal action filed July 20, 2020, claiming it “arbitrarily and unlawfully strips health care rights statutorily guaranteed by Section 1557 from transgender people, women and other individuals seeking reproductive health care or with pregnancy-related conditions, LEP [i.e., limited English proficiency] individuals, individuals with disabilities, and other individuals experiencing discrimination.”

HHS asked federal district Judge Alvin Hellerstein of New York to stay the proceedings to give the department time to review the case in light of Biden’s executive actions. The litigants consented and the lawsuit will be held in abeyance until May 14.

Gas Price Surge Fueled by Supply Squeeze, But Biden Policies Could Drive Them Higher: Experts

While experts say the current gas price spike is mostly driven by demand recovering faster than the winter storm-squeezed supply, others warn “hostile” White House policies are likely to drive them even higher in the long term.

The average price per gallon in the United States as of Tuesday morning was $2.82, up 34 cents from a month ago, according to Gas Buddy, with experts widely believing consumers should brace for more pain at the pump.

“The national gas price average will likely hit $3 by Memorial Day and stay around that price for the majority of the summer,” Jay R. Young, Chief Executive Officer at King Operating Corporation, a Dallas-based oil and gas operator, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

Young explained the rising gas price story as resurgent demand combined with squeezed supply.

“Gasoline demand rose to the highest level last week since the pandemic began as cases are dropping and more Americans are getting out more and filling up,” Young said.

Federal data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show gas prices have mostly risen steadily since they bottomed out in early May 2020, around the peak of the lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. The reopening that followed into the summer months roughly tracked with rising prices at the pump, which tapered off and even dropped slightly into the fall as a second wave drove case counts higher.

Epoch Times Photo
Gas prices from 1995 to the present. (U.S. Energy Information Administration)

But with the vaccine rollout underway and continued reopening, demand continues to expand.

“US gasoline demand rose 4.3 [percent] on Sunday vs the prior Sunday, or 18.4 [percent] above the rolling four week average for Sunday,” wrote Patrick De Haan, a Gas Buddy analyst, in a tweet Monday.

At the same time, production can’t keep up.

“On the supply side, the number of active oil rigs in the U.S. is standing nearly 50 percent lower than this time one year ago,” Young said, arguing that the most direct impact on the current price hike is coming from February’s winter storm that took 26 refineries offline in the United States.

Further squeezing supply is the fact that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Thursday agreed not to increase the level of oil production through April, with the exception of Russia and Kazakhstan. Last April, OPEC agreed to cut 10 million barrels per day of oil production in a bid to stave off an oil price collapse in the face of the pandemic-driven demand drop-off.

“Demand is recovering much faster than oil production level, which is why oil prices continue to increase rapidly,” Young said.

“Depending on which side of oil you’re on, you either hate it or love it,” Young added, commenting on the OPEC decision not to raise production. “Investors are happy, but come summertime at the pump, consumers should be prepared to pay extra premiums.”

oilstorage
Storage tanks at the Marathon Petroleum Corp. refinery in Detroit, on April 21, 2020. (Paul Sancya/AP Photo)

Oil prices hit above $65 per barrel intraday Tuesday, the highest in a year.

“In the long term, we could see prices between $70-80 per barrel by 3Q this year,” Young predicted.

But some, like former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister, worry that President Joe Biden’s policies may drive prices even higher.

Hofmeister confirmed in an interview on Fox Business on Thursday that the supply squeeze was having the most direct, short-term impact on gas prices.

“But there’s something else that’s going on that’s more subtle,” he said, namely that “the industry, the producers, are practicing serious capital discipline and they’re not roaring back to produce more oil. And also, they’re getting squeezed by the administration,” he said.

“So the ban on leasing—the prohibition on new leases from the Biden administration—that’s going to create a psychology in the industry of, ‘There’s going to be less available,’ and the psychology drives the pricing as well,” he argued.

“As long as we see this hostile administration, we’re going to have a problem with prices,” Hofmeister added.

De Haan said in a tweet Thursday that Biden’s policies—which include canceling the Keystone XL pipeline project and imposing a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal land and waters—were not having an impact on prices in the near term, but posed an increased risk in the longer term.

“Unlike state owned oil companies, Biden has no say to cut or raise production, it’s purely market based,” he wrote. “Also, pipelines don’t produce oil, and there is plenty of capacity. And last, no oil company is looking for new leases, so that’s not an impact either. Will be down road.”

Crude oil futures, a predictor of future prices, show a slow but steady drop from the April 2021 price of $64.34 per barrel through $62.25 in September, down to $58.72 in April 2022, suggesting that after a gas price peak in spring, consumers will see gradual relief.

Follow Tom on Twitter: @OZImekTOM

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