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US Troops Secretly in Taiwan Training Military

Small units of Taiwan’s military ground forces have been trained by a U.S. special operations unit and a contingent of Marines, who have been secretly operating in that country, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Some two dozen members of U.S. special-operations and support troops have been conducting the training in an effort to strengthen Taiwan’s defenses in light of concerns about potential aggression by China.

Officials tell the paper that American forces have been conducting the training for at least a year.

White House and Pentagon officials would not comment on the U.S. deployment.

China’s Foreign Ministry urged the U.S. to cease military aid to Taiwan.

“China will take all necessary steps to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it said in a statement.

President Joe Biden announced Tuesday he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to abide by the Taiwan agreement and reduce tensions in the region following provocative moves by the Chinese.

“I’ve spoken with Xi about Taiwan,” Biden told reporters, The Hill reported. We agree we will abide by the Taiwan agreement. That’s where we are, and I made it clear that I don’t think he should be doing anything other than abiding by the agreement.”

Known as the “Taiwan Relations Act,” the 1979 law passed by Congress allows the island nation off the Chinese mainland to govern itself separately from the communist Chinese regime and maintain a trade relationship with the U.S. without being officially recognized as a separate country.

But recently, China has made some provocative moves against Taiwan, amassing troops on the shore facing the island and intruding into Taiwan’s airspace.

The Journal noted that U.S. officials have expressed concerns over nearly 150 flights by Chinese military aircraft near Taiwan in the past week.

Matt Pottinger, a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who served as a deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration said, “Taiwan badly neglected its national defense for the first 15 years or so of this century, buying too much expensive equipment that will get destroyed in the first hours of a conflict, and too little in the way of cheaper but lethal systems — antiship missiles, smart sea mines and well-trained reserve and auxiliary forces — that could seriously complicate Beijing’s war plans.”

Taiwan’s defense minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng, said China would be able to mount a full-scale attack on his nation with minimal losses by 2025.

Trust in US media drops near record low with only 36% of Americans expressing confidence in reporting

A new Gallup poll shows that Americans’ trust in mass media outlets has tumbled to the second-lowest level on record, and the relatively few US adults who think they’re seeing truth in news reports are predominantly Democrats.

Just 36% of American adults expressed some level of trust in mass media in a survey done last month, down from 40% last year and historic highs around 70% in the 1970s, Gallup said on Thursday. In fact, only 7% of respondents said they have “a great deal” of trust in newspaper, television and radio news reporting, while 29% have “a fair amount” of trust.

The all-time low of 32% was set in 2016, when Donald Trump blasted the political press as “slime” and “lying, disgusting people” on his way to defeating Hillary Clinton in that year’s contentious presidential election.

Trump’s presidency and his disputed election loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 appears to have widened the political divide in media perceptions. While 68% of Democrats polled by Gallup said they trust the media, just 31% of Independents and 11% of Republicans still believe in the Fourth Estate.

The media-trust gap between Democrats and Republicans has widened from 23 percentage points in 2015, at 55-32, to 57 points in 2021, Gallup’s polling shows. At the start of the century, that gap was just six points, at 53-47.

Democrat voters perhaps liked what they saw from the media’s treatment of Trump during his presidency and its coverage of the 2020 election, as their trust level shot up to as high as 76% in 2018 from 51% in 2016. It has remained around 70% for the past five years.

For example, mainstream outlets joined Big Tech in suppressing October 2020 reports on the Biden family’s overseas influence-peddling. Revelations from a laptop that Biden’s son, Hunter, allegedly left at a Delaware repair shop were portrayed as ‘Russian disinformation’.Nearly a year later, with the Democrat safely installed as president, a reporter from one of the outlets that promoted the Russian-disinformation theory, Politico, revealed that he had independently confirmed several of the most damaging emails from the laptop.

And when a January 6 protest over claims of election fraud at the US Capitol escalated into a riot, CNN and other mainstream outlets joined Democrat politicians in touting the event as a deadly and racially motivated “insurrection.” The only person killed during the riot was a Trump supporter who was shot by police, while four others, including one officer, died of natural causes.

While coverage of the Trump era apparently pleased Democrats and alienated many Republicans, Independents are taking an increasingly skeptical view of the media. Trust in the media among Independents has dropped from 42% in 2018 to 31% in 2021, Gallup’s figures showed.

Coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic also may have diminished public trust in the media. A hidden-camera investigation by Project Veritas in April purported to show CNN technical director Charlie Chester saying that the network hyped fears of the virus to boost ratings.

“Covid? Gangbusters with ratings, right? Which is why we constantly have the death toll on the side,” Chester was shown saying in the Project Veritas video.

Gallup’s findings are in line with those of the Pew Research Center, which said in August that Democrats were more than twice as likely as Republicans to say they had at least some trust in information from national news organizations. That gap went from 13 percentage points in 2016, at 83-70, to 43 points this year, at 78-35.

Reaction to Gallup’s latest poll was similarly divided. Greg Scott, a staffer for the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, said the results showed that it’s a “good time for some introspection, journos.”

At the other end of the spectrum, a left-wing Twitter user interpreted the poll as a reflection of Democrats rejecting “Trump- and GOP-enabling lies” and Republicans distrusting the media “every time the press tells the truth.”

Covid pill makers accused of selling drug to US at 40 times what it costs to make despite govt funding

Merck produces a five-day course at $17.74, but US will pay the company $700 for it.

The company producing an experimental antiviral pill for Covid-19 treatment is accused of selling the drug to the US at 40 times the cost of its production, found a report.

Molnupiravir, manufactured by pharmaceutical company Merck, has entered into a contract with the US government to supply 1.7 million courses at a price of $700 per course. However, an analysis of drug pricing by Harvard School of Public Health and King’s College Hospital in London found that it takes about $17.74 to produce a five-day course.

The pill, hailed as a breakthrough in the treatment of coronavirus, was originally developed to treat influenza using government funds. The antiviral drug could halve the chances of dying or being hospitalised for those most at risk of contracting severe Covid-19.

The medicine is designed to introduce error in the genetic code of the virus itself and is the first oral antiviral medication for Covid-19.

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a body under the Department of Defence, invested in a “broad-spectrum antiviral, leading to the discovery of molnupiravir through collaborative research” with Merck, Emory University, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and National Institute of Health.

The government originally provided Emory University with $29mn in grants between 2013 to 2020, reported Axios. But the federal government declined to put more money into the drug until there was more data. In May 2020, Merck bought the exclusive rights to sell and manufacture the drug worldwide.

Despite the government’s investment, the company plans to seek emergency use authorisation in the US in the coming weeks, will reap the profits alongside Ridgeback and could earn as much as $7bn by the end of this year, reported Quartz.

While critics have argued that the prices should be subsidised due to the funding from the government exchequers, in an interview with CNBC, Ridgeback co-founder Wendy Holman defended using a commercial distribution partner. Ms Holman said the company originally approached the government but “never got (that) funding” to help manufacture the drug before they turned to Merck.

Merck has not issued any comment on the matter.

Luis Gil Abinader, senior researcher at NGO Knowledge Ecology International, told the Intercept that the company was trying to “reshape the narrative” about the development of the drug.

“What they want to do, apparently, is to shape the narrative about who paid for the development of this drug in order to avoid demands from the public to make it available at reasonable prices,” he said.

Merck had earlier said that it will “implement a tiered pricing approach based on World Bank data that recognizes countries’ relative ability to finance their health response to the pandemic.”

It has already entered into licensing agreements with at least eight companies in India including Aurobindo Pharma, Cipla, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Hetero Labs, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Torrent Pharmaceuticals and Viatris. This would allow each company to make and sell the drug in India and 100 other low and middle-income countries.

Trudeau heckled online for using elongated ‘2SLGBTQQIA+ people’ acronym

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau inspired online confusion and mockery after stating the latest iteration of an elongated LGBT moniker that some say sounded like an encryption password, commemorating “2SLGBTQQIA+ people.”

“People across the country are lighting candles to honour Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people who are missing or have been murdered,” Trudeau posted on Facebook and Twitter. “We must continue to work together, raise awareness, and advocate to end this ongoing national tragedy,” he said with the hashtag “Sisters In Spirit.”

Many prominent users on Twitter did not fully understand the acronym the prime minister was referring to, prompting some to joke that “Headbutting the keyboard is now a sexuality,” British rapper ZUBY tweeted in response.

Evolutionary behavioral scientist Gad Saad, a professor at Concordia University in Canada, told Trudeau he should take the acronym a step further, asking , “What about the F##^*#>€PKSDFNNM+¥*+? Their lived experiences matter too. Please be more inclusive.”

“Is that the actual acronym now or did his cat walk across the keyboard?” conservative commentator Matt Walsh also tweeted .

Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Carolyn Bennett provided additional context regarding the acronym used by Trudeau, noting the Sisters In Spirit vigil. The “2S” at the beginning of the line appears to be a prioritization of Indigenous people, from whom the “Two-spirit” sexual identity derives.

“I urge all Canadians to take time today to honour the Indigenous women, girls and Two Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual (2SLGBTQQIA+) people who are missing or have been murdered,” Bennett said in a statement on Monday. “We offer support to the families and communities who bear the grief of their loss and to the survivors whose lives have been forever changed.”

Trudeau has been apologetic to Canada‘s Indigenous population in recent months following the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the site of a former Catholic Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.

Biden’s ex-Border Patrol chief confirms Biden is paying millions a day ‘to not’ build the border wall

While speaking with Fox News this week, President Joe Biden’s former Border Patrol chief, Rodney Scott, confirmed that under Biden’s leadership, U.S. taxpayers are paying millions of dollars each day “to not” build a wall along its border with Mexico.

What did he say?

Scott told host Bret Baier that at one point, the U.S. was paying $5 million a day to contractors despite the fact that wall construction had been canceled. 

“Many of those projects today are just still on hold, so we’re paying contractors. For a while, it was almost $5 million a day between [Department of Defense] and [Department of Homeland Security] to not build the border wall,” he said.

“That money is just trickling away to contractors for not doing work each day,” he added.

Scott also noted that in places where former President Donald Trump had ordered wall construction all that is left are “stacks and stacks of border wall panels,” “hundreds of miles of fiber optic cabling,” and “hundreds of cameras” that are just “sitting there.”

What else?

Scott’s claims matched the findings of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Government Operations and Border Management report released in July.

In the report, the committee revealed that the Biden administration has spent roughly $2 billion — or $3 million per day — on costs associated with canceling wall construction inaugurated under Trump.

Contractors, instead of getting to work building the wall, are now paid primarily to guard construction materials.

“By the end of the Trump Administration, $10 billion had been transferred to U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) accounts for border wall construction and related projects. As of June 2021, the Biden Administration has wasted roughly 20 percent ($2 billion) of that $10 billion on suspension and termination costs related to border wall contracts,” the report stated.

“The Biden Administration is paying contractors at least $3 million per day to guard steel, concrete, and other materials in the desert,” the report went on to explain. “This waste of taxpayer resources threatens military readiness and national security.”

Anything else?

Scott, who described himself as nonpartisan, agreed that Biden’s approach to border security was endangering the country. 

He said he was there during all of the transition briefings and made clear to the new administration that rolling back Trump’s immigration enforcement policies would cause disaster at the border. But no one listened.

“We made it very clear that if we dropped all of the initiatives that have been put in place over the last several years that we would get an influx of mass migration that we would not be able to control,” he said. “It was very clear there are people involved in this process that have been involved before, and they’re choosing not to take simple, commonsense steps to secure the border.” 

Scott served in Border Patrol for nearly 30 years before stepping down in June. He was replaced by Raul L. Ortiz in August.

Seattle City Council votes to decriminalize psychedelics

The Seattle City Council unanimously approved a resolution Monday to decriminalize psilocybin and a number of other psychedelic substances.

The measure will make it so that Seattle’s police will consider it among its lowest priorities to arrest anyone for the use of entheogens, drugs similar to psilocybin that are often used for spiritual purposes, according to the council’s virtual meeting. Psilocybin, a mind-altering drug also referred to as “shrooms,” is categorized by the federal government as a Schedule 1 drug, the most restrictive group, according to Bloomberg. 

“These nonaddictive natural substances have real potential in clinical and therapeutic settings to make a really significant difference in people’s lives,” council member Andrew Lewis said before the vote. “This resolution really sets the stage as the first significant action in the state of Washington to move this policy forward.” 

Lewis’s office said in a statement that entheogens have been shown to have a positive impact on people struggling with depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. 

Seattle joins a number of cities in the U.S. that have decriminalized psilocybin, including Denver, Washington, D.C., and Ann Arbor. Oregon became the first state last year to legalize the drug for therapeutic use. 

Lewis told Bloomberg in a phone interview before the vote that the council’s “overall goal is to follow the lead of Oregon.” 

“There’s a huge demonstrated potential for these substances to provide cutting-edge treatments for substance abuse, recovery from brain injuries and other issues,” Lewis told the news outlet. “I want to make sure we’re following the science in our policies around regulating these substances.” 

The move from the Seattle City Council comes as psilocybin and similar substances have been gaining momentum among researchers as alternative methods of treating mental health issues.  

‘Squad’ Member Rashida Tlaib Admits Masks Are Political Theater, ‘Just Wearing It’ For Cameras

Masks for thee but not for me

Far-left Representative and member of AOC’s so-called ‘squad’, Rashida Tlaib was caught on camera admitting that she only wears a mask for political reasons. It marks just the latest time Tlaib has been caught violating her own COVID orders, a trend among many Democrats.

Holding an event in Detroit with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge, Tlaib made the mask remark when speaking to a supporter who was initially unmasked himself before quickly throwing one on when he thought that Tlaib was upset with him for not wearing one.

“Oh, no, oh, not you!” Tlaib said to the man. “No, no, no!” she reassured him. “I’m just wearing it because I’ve got a Republican tracker here!”

Since the beginning of COVID-19, Tlaib and her fellow Democrats have been caught numerous times violating the masking requirements they’ve attempted to force onto the American people. Earlier this year, Tlaib herself was caught on a viral video dancing maskless at an Islamic wedding in Dearborn, Michigan. The area, at the time, was designated an “orange zone” by the CDC, meaning attendees were considered to be at “substantial” risk for contracting COVID-19.

Despite her maskless dance moves, Tlaib has enthusiastically backed continued nationwide COVID-19 restrictions and mask mandates for the American people, as well as Michigan Governor Gretchen Witmer’s highly controversial response to COVID, which has been considered one of the most authoritarian in the United States.

Almost immediately before she was caught dancing maskless in a large and close crowd, Tlaib had taken to Twitter in an attempt to blast Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who is an actual medical doctor, on the issue of Kentucky COVID cases. Tlaib accused Paul of “throwing a tantrum” for not supporting draconian lockdowns and mask mandates, and claimed that his support for civil liberties was causing mass death from COVID-19.

Will Moms Now Be Listed on FBI’s Most Wanted List?

It is hard to believe moms have now become the target of the U.S. government, but in our rapidly declining culture, every day seems to bring a new crazy. As the president of Moms for America we hear from moms all over the country who are angry and frustrated with the unrelenting authoritarian march endangering our children and completely disregarding our fundamental rights as parents. 

As more and more moms show up to school board meetings protesting mask mandates, graphic sexual content labeled as curriculum, and critical race theory which teaches our children to hate their country, hate their neighbor and hate themselves, school board representatives have become increasingly uneasy. They expected this “defiance” to be short lived. They assumed we’d show up say our piece and then just go back to our lives acquiescing to the new rules, because historically, that’s what we’ve done.  But they seriously underestimated a mother protecting her young. Moms of all ages, races, ethnicities, and incomes flooded school board meetings in every state.  Instead of going away, we grew in numbers. School board members became increasingly annoyed and agitated by all these parents interfering with their meetings.  Enter: The National School Boards Association (NSBA).

Most people never even knew such an organization existed until September 29th when they sent a letter to President Biden stating “America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat,” citing “extremist hate organizations showing up at school board meetings.”

I assume that would include Moms for America and Moms for Liberty since moms from our organizations are showing up in large numbers at school board meetings across America.

Now that we’ve become aware NSBA is a part of the ongoing threat to our parental rights, it is wise and prudent to understand who they are and what they do.

NSBA is in lockstep with teacher unions and operate much like the unions do. They charge exorbitant dues, lobby for union agendas, and they have an organization in each state. They also host events like their upcoming Equity Symposium (to make sure school board members drink the proverbial Kool-Aid) and a national conference where they make sure school board members are properly trained to tow the union line.  Each state organization holds similar events and conferences. The school district pays for them to go, as well as their membership fees to their state’s school boards association.

The whole thing — from teachers unions to superintendents to the state and national school boards associations — is an incestuous web of deceit claiming to do everything “for the children” and doing exactly the opposite.

Kelly Kohls is a mom who served on a school board in Ohio and saw firsthand how NSBA operates.  “It was clear from the beginning,” stated Kohls, “that NSBA was not about supporting school board members but indoctrinating them in the union-driven agenda.”

School board members are taught to be part of the team, present a united front, always vote for more money, and do whatever the superintendent says. As school board meetings have gone viral (thanks to those extremist moms) you’ll notice a series of regurgitated talking points like, ‘this is a meeting held in public, it is not a public meeting,’ in an effort to silence and shut out anyone who doesn’t agree with their radical, irresponsible, and downright looney agendas.

As it turns out, it’s all a money game.

Dues to NSBA and the state organizations are determined by the number of students in the district, which makes sense. However, they are also determined based on the amount of money spent per pupil.  The more money a district spends per student, the more money NSBA has in their coffers. The entire objective is to get schools to spend more money per student so they can make more money in dues.

“Teachers union reps, superintendents and the school board association leadership are all on the same team,” states Kohls. “The unions seed the audience with people who praise their bad decisions and berate rogue board members who disagree with those decisions.”

Kelly was so disgusted by the deceptive practices and intimidation campaigns of the Ohio School Boards Association, she founded Ohio School Boards Leadership Coalition (OSBLC) to counter it.  OSBA’s dues were $1,500. While Kelly’s OSBLC dues were only $500.  When school board members decided to join OSBLC they were told the school district would only cover the dues for OSBA and they would have to pay their own dues if they joined any other organization.

There is a clear pattern here. NSBA will not tolerate opposition. That was made abundantly clear in their letter to the federal government asking for “interagency task forces, executive authority,and other extraordinary measures” to squash these moms who dare to show up in defense of their children.

Moms are fed up with mandates, pronoun penalties, sexually explicit content, and racist, sexist content being thrust our kids.  We want real science, true history, and a classical education that teaches kids to read, write, calculate, and be good citizens. If that makes us radical, then so be it. From Cottage Meetings to Parents Strike to rallies and lawsuits, Moms for America will continue to unite with other organizations and support moms in their efforts to bring truth, freedom, and commonsense back to our schools.  We will continue to show up at school board meetings and in the coming elections, we’ll be sitting in a lot of those seats.

Colorado Hospital Refuses Kidney Transplant to Woman Over COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal

A hospital in Colorado rejected a woman for a kidney transplant after she refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine, officials have confirmed.

Leilani Lutali received a letter on Sept. 28 informing her that the transplant team at the University of Colorado Hospital decided to designate her inactive on the waiting list for transplants.

“You will be inactivated on the list for non-compliance by not receiving the COVID vaccine,” the letter states.

If Lutali continues to refuse to get a vaccine, “you will be removed from the kidney transplant list,” it added.

Neither Lutali nor her designated donor, Jaimee Fougner, have received a COVID-19 vaccine. Fougner has not for religious reasons, while Lutali believes there is not enough known about the vaccines, they told KCNC-TV.

According to Lutali, hospital officials previously said vaccination was not required to get a transplant.

“Here I am, willing to be a direct donor to her. It does not affect any other patient on the transplant list,” said Fougner. “How can I sit here and allow them to murder my friend when I’ve got a perfectly good kidney and can save her life?”

The hospital did not respond to a request for comment. It told news outlets in a statement that there are many requirements in place at transplant centers, such as requiring patients to avoid alcohol.

“In almost all situations, transplant recipients and living donors at UCHealth are now required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in addition to meeting other health requirements and receiving additional vaccinations. Some U.S. transplant centers already have this requirement in place, and others are making this change in policy now,” the hospital said.

State Rep. Tim Geitner, a Republican who first drew awareness to the situation, said in a Facebook Live video that he spoke with Lutali and that she has tested positive for antibodies against the virus that causes COVID-19, but the hospital refuses to make an exception.

“That’s demonstrated through documentation. And still UCHealth is refusing to render this type of care, this type of life saving care, this isn’t even just just typical care, this is life saving care. And that’s incredibly frustrating, incredibly sad, incredibly disgusting, that UCHealth would make this type of a decision and impact an individual in such a dramatic and profound way,” he told followers.

According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit that manages the U.S. organ transplantation system, such policies are not unique, but are not mandated for transplant facilities.

“Each transplant hospital makes its own decisions about listing candidates according to the hospital’s best clinical judgment, including whether or not any specific vaccination is part of their eligibility criteria. If you have questions about listing criteria at your transplant hospital, we encourage you to contact the hospital directly,” the network says on its website.

At least one other hospital reportedly rejected prospective transplant recipients over a refusal to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Sam Allen was told earlier this year by University of Washington Medicine that his heart transplant surgery couldn’t be completed unless he got vaccinated.

“The cardiologist called me and we had a discussion, and he informed me that, ‘well, you’re going to have to get a vaccination to get a transplant.’ And I said: ‘well that’s news to me. And nobody’s ever told me that before.’ And he says, ‘yeah, that’s our policy,’” Allen told KTTH radio.

The university says on its website that people must be fully vaccinated before undergoing a solid organ transplant “unless you have a specific medical exception that prevents you from getting the vaccine.”

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