Two SPACs run by the same CEO in charge of the company that’s bringing former President Donald Trump’s media company public are seeing their warrants soar 100%+ in early trading Monday, rising sharply for a second straight session.
Warrants tied to Benessere Capital Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:BENE)(NASDAQ:BENEU)(NASDAQ:BENEW)(NASDAQ:BENER) and Yunhong International (NASDAQ:ZGYH)(NASDAQ:ZGYHU)(NASDAQ:ZGYHW)(NASDAQ:ZGYHR) were up more than 100% shortly after Monday’s opening bell. They’re presumably rising on expectations that the SPACs will reach similar well-received merger deals.
The two firms’ units, rights and underlying stock shares are also rising, albeit not as dramatically.
Both SPACs are run by Patrick Orlando, the same CEO of Digital World Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:DWAC). That’s the special purpose acquisition company that agreed last week to take Trump Media & Technology Group at a $1.7B valuation.
DWAC shot up more than 1,600% intraday last week following the merger news. The stock was adding another roughly 17% at last check in pre-market trading Monday.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Millions in taxpayer dollars are allegedly used for disturbing monkey experiments funded by the NIH.
The National Institutes of Health is allegedly spending $16 million in taxpayer money on horrifying experiments where doctors “cripple monkeys with toxic brain injections.”
A disturbing report from the White Coat Waste Project has exposed cruel and inhumane monkey experiments funded by the National Institutes of Health.
According to the report, “WCW has filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) after uncovering cost disclosure violations by all seven National Primate Research Centers (NPRCs), the nation’s largest taxpayer-funded monkey labs imprisoning a combined 22,000 primates and receiving more than $100 million annually.”
Some of the experiments done by the NIH-funded NPRC’s involve:
Turning monkeys into “binge-drinker” alcoholics (Oregon NPRC);
Surgically-inducing heart attacks in monkeys (Washington NPRC);
Exposing monkeys to biological weapons (Tulane NPRC);
Intentionally threatening monkeys to cause fear and anxiety (California NPRC);
Drilling into monkeys’ skulls and injecting them with the ADHD-drug Ritalin (Wisconsin NPRC); and
Drilling to monkeys’ skulls and injected toxins to destroy their brains and cripple their limbs (Yerkes NPRC)
The organization unearthed a video from Emory University’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center, detailing how monkeys are locked alone in small cages where they have holes drilled into their skulls. After the holes are drilled, doctors reportedly screw in metal head restraining devices, implant electrodes and inject toxins into the monkey’s brains.
The toxic brain injections reportedly “destroy monkey’s brains and cause them to lose control of their limbs, mouths, and other body parts.”
“The tests cripple the monkeys’ limbs and cause tremors,” the video states. “Is this how you want your money spent?”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, is currently under fire over the revelation that his NIH division was partially funding inhumane and brutal experiments involving beagles in North Africa. As National File reported yesterday, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), headed by Fauci, gave part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia “to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive.”
A nonprofit organization called White Coat Waste Project is claiming that the NIAID is “infecting dozens of beagles with disease-causing parasites to test an experimental drug on them.”
The organization is also claiming that some of the 44 beagle puppies used in the Tunisian lab had their vocal cords cut out, allegedly so that “scientists could work without incessant barking.”
On Friday, an unnamed Facebook whistleblower argued that the social networking giant routinely turned a blind eye to hate speech and misinformation on the platform over fears it would hinder the company’s growth.
Facebook employees have repeatedly tried to suppress right-wing news outlets despite warnings it could cause a “political backlash”, according to TheWall Street Journal (WSJ).
The newspaper reported on Sunday that the crackdown focused on Breitbart amid protests following the death of African American man George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020.
The WSJ claimed that in June 2020, a Facebook employee posted a message on the company’s racial-justice chat board: “Get Breitbart out of News Tab”, a feature that aggregates and promotes articles from various publishers, picked by the platform.
The message reportedly included screenshots of headlines published on Breitbart’s website at the time, including “Minneapolis Mayhem: Riots in Masks”, “Massive Looting, Buildings in Flames, Bonfires!”, and “BLM [Black Lives Matter] Protesters Pummel Police Cars on 101″.
The newspaper cited the employee as saying that the headlines were “emblematic of a concerted effort at Breitbart and similarly hyperpartisan sources (none of which belong in News Tab) to paint Black Americans and Black-led movements in a very negative way”.
On the other hand, a Facebook researcher warned in the same chat that any steps to remove Breitbart from the News Tab might lead to a situation where “at best, it would be a very difficult policy discussion”.
The WSJ report came as Facebook VP of Global Affairs Nick Clegg warned employees that they may need to brace “for more bad headlines in the coming days”.
He suggested that upcoming coverage in the US mainstream media would likely “contain mischaracterizations of our [Facebook’s] research, our motives, and where our priorities lie”.
The warning followed a new Facebook whistleblower testifying before Congress that the company had consistently ignored hate speech, misinformation, and illicit behavior on the platform in an effort to maximize profits.
The whistleblower, whose named was not released, asserted that company communications official Tucker Bounds dismissed hate speech as a “flash in the pan”, adding that although “some legislators will get pissy”, Facebook is “printing money in the basement”.
Earlier this month, another Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, claimed in congressional testimony that even though the firm was in the know that the platform had inflicted harm on the mental health of teenagers, it didn’t do much to prevent content promoting “hate and division”.
Haugen added that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg should be held accountable because “he holds more than 55 percent of all the voting shares for Facebook”.
The social network insisted Haugen’s accusations “don’t make sense”, with Zuckerberg stressing the company cares “deeply” about users’ safety-related issues.
Joe Biden has achieved at least one groundbreaking result – though likely not the sort that he had in mind – as polling indicates that he has lost the most ground in voter approval of any new US president in more than 75 years.
With only 42% of voters approving of Biden’s job performance in October, his average rating in the third quarter of his presidency was 44.7%, down from 56% during his first three months in the White House, a new Gallup poll showed. His rating decline of 11.3 percentage points from the honeymoon period to the nine-month mark is the biggest drop since fellow Democrat Harry Truman was trying to fill the shoes of his deceased predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt, in 1945.
No other president since then has come close to Biden’s historic collapse in the eyes of voters. Biden’s former boss, then-President Barack Obama, suffered a decline of 10.1 percentage points by the third quarter of his first term, but even then, nearly 53% of Gallup survey respondents still approved of his performance.
By comparison, former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton saw their ratings drop by 4.4 and 6.8 points, respectively. In contrast, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush came out strong in their first nine months on the job, posting approval gains of 12 and 13.1 points, respectively. Even Jimmy Carter, whose one term was so unpopular that Republican Ronald Reagan won 91% of electoral votes in the 1980 election, saw his approval rating fall only 8.9 points from the first quarter to the third quarter of his presidency.
Biden’s approval ratings began to slide in July and continued to plummet throughout the summer amid the chaotic and deadly US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a border crisis, and surging Covid-19 infections. Just since June, his approval rating in Gallup’s polls has plunged from 56% to 42%.
Like Trump, Biden is one of the most polarizing presidents in US history. While 92% of Democrat respondents told Gallup that they approve of Biden’s job performance, only 4% of Republicans agreed. The 88-point gap is one of the largest in more than eight decades of Gallup polling, exceeded only by the 92-point divide on approval of Trump just before the 2020 election.
The voters in the middle, Independents, have soured on Biden. Just 34% approved of the president’s performance in the latest Gallup poll, down 27 points since February and 21 points since June.
(Gallup poll) support for Biden has fallen 21 points among independents since June pic.twitter.com/vFDBHYzgC1
Many observers on social media were astonished that Biden’s overall approval rating could still be above 40% or that 92% of Democrats could be happy with his performance.
(Gallup poll) support for Biden has fallen 21 points among independents since June pic.twitter.com/vFDBHYzgC1
How news-aware and socially adjusted is your average Democrat? Self-proclaimed Dems polled by Gallup still approve of what Biden (Obama's Biden Team) is doing by 92-6. Talk about clinical dysphoria!😯🙄➡️💩
In fact, other surveys have shown his approval ratings falling lower. A Grinnell College poll released last week pegged voter approval of the president at 37%, while Quinnipiac University earlier this month said 38% of voters approve of Biden’s performance.
J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., which conducted the Grinnell poll, said Independent voters favored Biden by a 54%-41% margin in the 2020 election. If the vote were held again today, Trump would win the Independent vote by a 45%-28% margin. “It’s a massive shift in a demographic that helped carry Biden to victory,” Selzer said.
The Grinnell poll also showed that 52% of Americans believe that the US democratic system of government is under “major threat.” Again, voters were polarized, with 71% of Republicans and only 35% of Democrats saying that democracy faces a major threat.
While a Grinnell professor, Danielle Lussier, tried to dismiss the concerns as a product of Republicans perceiving a crisis because of “baseless” election-fraud allegations, well over 40% of Independents agreed that the threat is severe. In fact, more than 80% of Independents said American democracy is under either major or minor threat, versus less than 20% who said they saw no cause for concern.
An annual census by the Vatican news agency, Fides, shows that the number of Catholics has increased in Africa, the Americas and Asia but gone down in Europe.
The list of Catholic Church Statistics, released Thursday, reveals that the number of Catholics grew by more than 15 million from 2018 to 2019. However, in Europe, the number of Catholics decreased by 292,000. The release of the statistics came ahead of World Mission Day, which took place Sunday.
As of Dec. 31, 2019, the world population was approximately 7.6 billion with an increase of 81.4 million compared to the previous year. The population grew on every continent, including Europe, the census notes.
Catholics in the world numbered 1.3 billion with an overall increase of 15.4 million, as of Dec. 31, 2019, compared to the previous year. A video presentation of the statistics notes that Catholics accounted for 17.7% of the world population in 2019.
In Africa, the number of Catholics increased by 8.3 million, by 5.3 million in America, by 1.9 million in Asia and by 118,000 in Oceania. Catholics comprised 19.4% of the population in Africa, 63.8% of the population in America, 3.3% of the population in Asia and 26.3% of the population in Oceania.
As the number of Catholics increased worldwide, the total number of bishops in the world decreased by 13 to 5,364, according to the census. The report also shows that the number of priests worldwide increased, mainly in Africa and Asia, by 271 to 414,336.
The census put the number of lay missionaries in the world at 410,440, with an overall increase of 34,252.
“In the field of education, the Catholic Church runs 72,667 kindergartens with 7,532,992 pupils; 98,925 primary schools with 35,188,771 pupils; 49,552 secondary schools with 19,370,763 pupils. The Church also cares 2,395,540 high school pupils and 3,833,012 university students,” the census says. “Charity and healthcare centres run in the world by the Church include: 5,245 hospitals, most of them in Africa (1,418) and in America (1,362).”
Other charities overseen by the Church include “532 Care Homes for people with Leprosy, mainly in Asia (269) and Africa (201); 15,429 Homes for the elderly, or the chronically ill or people with a disability, mainly in Europe (8,031) and in America (3,642); 9,374 orphanages, mainly in Asia (3,233) and in Europe (2,247); 10,723 creches, mainly in Asia (2,973) and in America (2,957); 12,308 marriage counseling centres, mainly in Europe (5,504) and America (4,289); 3,198 social rehabilitation centres and 33,840 other kinds of institutes.”
Archbishop Giovanni Pietro Dal Toso, president of the Pontifical Mission Societies, responded to the statistics, concluding that “de-Christianization is evident.” “I think it will be necessary to implement courses for Christian formation,” he remarked, according to Premier Christian News.
In a statement issued in honor of World Missions Day, Pope Francis asserted that “The call to mission is not a thing of the past.” He stressed the need for “hearts capable of experiencing vocation as a true love story that urges them to go forth to the peripheries of our world as messengers and agents of compassion.”
This portends poorly for the future of election integrity. It also proves a significant bellwether for our country heading into the 2022 midterm elections.
Virginia’s gubernatorial race is seen as a national bellwether. With the most recent polls showing Republican Glenn Youngkin, a former underdog, tied with his Democrat rival Terry McAuliffe, the outcome of the Nov. 2, 2021 election seems sure to rest on the smallest of margins.
The more important trend for Americans to consider, however, lies not in the tight election, nor even in the party affiliation of the eventual victor, but on efforts by local election officials to violate state law to profit their preferred candidate.
A lawsuit filed last Wednesday in the Circuit Court of Fairfax County, Virginia against the county registrar and three members of the Fairfax County Electoral Board exposed election officials’ ongoing disregard for state election law. In the plaintiffs’ concise 10-page complaint, the Virginia Institute for Public Policy (VIPP), a public-policy organization dedicated to election integrity, alleged the “Defendants are accepting and approving applications for absentee and mail-in ballots that do not include information required by Virginia law, namely, the last four digits of the applicant’s Social Security number.”
Mail-In Ballots Without Voter Authentication
Attaching to the complaint a sworn affidavit, the VIPP noted that “as of October 14, 2021, Defendants have accepted and approved approximately and at least 339 absentee and mail-in ballot applications that do not include the required portion of the Social Security numbers.” The complaint further alleged that the county officials continue to approve applications for mail-in and absentee ballots that lack the legally required final four Social Security digits.
The affiant, Christine Brim, identified as a voter of Fairfax County, also stated under oath that Stephen Hunt, the chairman of the Fairfax County Electoral Board, had confirmed in an email that the county’s general registrar “had instituted a procedure to approve absentee ballot applications on which the applicant has not provided the last four digits of his or her Social Security number.”
Once the applications are approved, the county will mail ballots to the unauthenticated voters for the November election. Doing so, the VIPP explains in the lawsuit, violates the Virginia constitution and Virginia statutes.
Specifically, Virginia’s election code provides that applications for absentee ballots “shall contain . . . the applicant’s printed and the last four digits of the applicant’s social security number.” By violating that clear statutory mandate, according to the lawsuit, the defendants also violate the Anti-Suspension Clause of the Virginia Constitution, which provides “that all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised.”
In other words, Virginia’s Constitution provides that Fairfax County election officials cannot suspend the state legislature’s requirement that absentee and mail-in ballot applications contain the final four digits of the voter’s Social Security number.
Courts Likely to Agree, But That Won’t Stop This
Given the clarity of the law, it is difficult to hypothesize a legal theory allowing the defendants to prevail. So the likely outcome later this week, when the circuit court is expected to hear the case, will be an injunction barring the defendants from accepting applications missing the final four digits of the Social Security numbers.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation, the non-profit organization that represents the VIPP in its challenge to the Fairfax County policy, succeeded in a similar challenge in 2020. In that case, Reed v. Virginia Dept. of Elections, local electoral board member Thomas Reed challenged instructions issued by Virginia State Board of Elections directing the counting of absentee ballots received up to three days after Election Day, even if they lacked a legible postmark.
In that case, a state court enjoined the counting of such ballots without a postmark because Virginia law expressly provided that such ballots could only be counted if they were “postmarked on or before the date of the election.”
While it seems likely that a court will soon stop Fairfax County’s disregard for Virginia election law, that election officials made this move in the first place portends poorly for the future of election integrity. This, not the gubernatorial outcome in Virginia, is what proves the more significant bellwether for our country heading into the 2022 midterm elections.
Democrats Are Willing to Break the Law to Win
The local motivations and the potential impact of the events on the ground in Fairfax County also make the scenario a perfect case study for those concerned about election integrity: It illustrates the modus operandi of those willing to ignore the rule of law for their preferred candidates, as well as the challenges such disregard for election law pose and the consequences to our country both large and small.
First, that Fairfax County officials would disregard a clear legislative command that applications contain the final four digits of voters’ Social Security number shows that clarity of the law and mandates established by state lawmakers don’t matter to those with ulterior motives. Second, given that there is no burden to voters in writing in four digits—numbers readily known by the applicants—establishes that those ignoring the law aren’t motivated by a genuine concern that voters lack the ability to comply with the law. Third, given that Fairfax County election officials ignored a legislative requirement directly designed to prevent voter fraud proves their complete lack of concern about election integrity.
The location of Fairfax County as the backdrop for this violation of election law also follows the pattern of election officials in strongly Democrat locales disregarding legal requirements. Fairfax County is Virginia’s most populous county, boasting more than 1 million residents, which surpasses by two-fold the second most populated county, Prince William County. With voters in Fairfax County breaking nearly 70-30 for both President Joe Biden and Democrat Sen. Mark Warner during the 2020 election, this county alone could cost Youngkin the governorship.
In fact, even if later this week a judge enjoins the county from continuing to approve applications lacking the requisite Social Security digits, some of those votes have already been cast. A court concerned that voters may wrongly believe they have already legally voted is unlikely to order those ballots tossed.
Could that number of votes change the outcome of the governorship? Maybe. But even if not, what about the local elections and questions on the ballot, such as the public school bond question, which asks voters to approve the borrowing of up to $360 million to fund projects for the Fairfax County public school system? Those issues matter too.
The Chaos of 2020 Will Not Stop There
What doesn’t matter to these election officials, however, is voter fraud, because Fairfax County officials didn’t stop with their disregard of the Social Security verification requirement. Instead, in mid-October, the County Board of Supervisors voted, 9-1, with the single dissent from the sole Republican on the board, to ask Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam to allow the county to waive the witness signature requirement for absentee ballots. Northam, who waived the requirement during the 2020 election, has apparently not yet responded to the request.
What Fairfax County wanted, then, was for absentee and mail-in ballot applications to have no voter authentication through a Social Security number, and then the votes to be accepted without any verification that the person who signed a ballot was the actual voter. Both of these are legal requirements the Virginia legislature established to ensure against voter fraud.
This year only local concerns may be at stake, but in 2022 what Virginia does matters to the country. With its 11 representatives up for re-election next year and a closely divided U.S. House, one race, decided by a handful of voters, could decide whether Democrats retain control.
Further, as 2020 established, it is not just the Democrat-controlled Fairfax County that will follow this plan, but every blue county across America, resulting in illegal votes in 2022 potentially determining control of both the House and the Senate, and two years later the White House.
The left knows this, which is why the Democrat-controlled Congress and executive are pushing so hard to federalize election laws via H.R. 1, the so-called For The People Act, that would gut popularly supported election-integrity measures, such as voter-ID laws. So desperate are Democrats to ensure that states cannot institute reasonable measures to protect against voter fraud that, all the way up to Biden, the left cartoons itself by calling these laws “Jim Crow 2.0.”
What conservatives fail to recognize, however, is that Democrats don’t need H.R. 1 to trump state election laws: All they need are election officials on the ground with the will and the power to ignore controlling statutes. 2020 established that fact and Virginia shows Donald Trump wasn’t the reason for this lawlessness—he was just the excuse.
And as Virginia goes, so goes the nation.
Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Cleveland served nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk to a federal appellate judge and is a former full-time faculty member and adjunct instructor at the college of business at the University of Notre Dame. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
