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Ron DeSantis’ Mic Drop on Politicians Forcing You to Wear Masks

OPEC tells a weak, incompetent US president to drop dead

Last week, we were wondering: What could be more pathetic than the sight of President Joe Biden begging OPEC to increase oil production, just to make up for the U.S. and Canadian oil production that he had gone out of his way to impede from the moment he took office?

Believe it or not, that was not a hypothetical question. There is, in fact, something even more pathetic than Biden’s desperate request for a foreign oil cartel to spare him motorists’ anger and a political backlash.

That would be the oil producers’ response to Biden, which roughly translates to “drop dead.”

At the very moment Biden’s administration was being convulsed by its humiliating strategic failure in Afghanistan, the international oil cartel and the adjacent producers known as “OPEC-plus” added insult to injury with their defiant answer. As Reuters reported it, the major oil producers (including Russia) let word slip that they “believe oil markets do not need more oil than they already plan to release in the coming months.”

On the day Biden was elected, Brent crude oil was under $40 per barrel. Today, it is nearly $75 per barrel. Likewise, average gasoline prices are currently 48% higher than they were the day Biden squeaked out his narrow, no-coattails win over former President Donald Trump.

Biden’s request of OPEC, as we noted previously, evinced a belief that environmentalists in the United States are easily fooled — that he can placate them by restricting domestic production while simultaneously calling for more imported oil that releases exactly the same amount of carbon dioxide when burnt.

But the oil-producing nations’ response to Biden is also evidence of how much respect and diplomatic prestige he has cost the U.S. in the last week.

Biden’s gross bungling in Afghanistan, followed by his appalling attempt on national television Monday to blame everyone but himself, points to a president who has apparently lost touch with reality.

Why should oil-producing countries fear or respect a president who reassured the public that he had everything under control, only to turn around and, through sheer incompetence and lack of basic planning, strand more than 10,000 U.S. citizens behind enemy lines in Afghanistan?

In many ways, Trump set a low bar for presidential conduct. His intemperate social media presence was a constant source of irritation for many people, both during his 2016 presidential campaign and his four years in office.

But it has taken the feckless Biden administration just seven months to make Trump seem like a steady leader who, for all his faults, at least had a clue about how to advance American interests.

Perhaps Democrats will remain in denial about just how weak Biden has become, but the reality has not been lost on OPEC.

FTC accuses Facebook of “buy or bury” scheme in new antitrust complaint

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday took a second shot at alleging Facebook is an illegal monopoly in a new complaint that accuses the social media company of buying up potential competitors or thwarting their access to the platform.

Why it matters: The FTC, now led by Big Tech critic Lina Khan, is trying to save its case against Facebook after a judge dismissed its first attempt.

Driving the news: The FTC filed an amended complaint in a D.C. federal court arguing Facebook illegally acquired competitors WhatsApp and Instagram, and that Facebook “lured” app developers to its platform and “buried” them when they became competitive threats.

  • In June, Judge James Boasberg dismissed the agency’s first complaint, noting that it lacked specifics on the metrics or methods used in defining and calculating Facebook’s market share, but allowed the agency to try again.
  • The FTC said in a press release that its new complaint bolsters its arguments with new detailed statistics on Facebook’s market share and new evidence showing Facebook has the power to control prices or exclude competition.

Details: In its complaint, the FTC argues companies like TikTok, Twitter and YouTube are not real substitutes for Facebook in the “personal social networking” market because those services are not used to interact with friends and family.

  • The FTC notes that Snapchat is the next-largest provider of personal social networking services in the U.S. after Facebook, but its user base and engagement level are only a “fraction of the size” of those of Facebook and Instagram.
  • The agency argues that Facebook has maintained a dominant share of the market since 2011, and uses metrics including time spent, daily active users and monthly active users as evidence.
  • For example, the FTC says Facebook’s share of the time spent by users of apps providing social networking services has exceeded 80% since 2012.

What they’re saying: “Facebook lacked the business acumen and technical talent to survive the transition to mobile,” said Holly Vedova, FTC Bureau of Competition acting director.

  • “After failing to compete with new innovators, Facebook illegally bought or buried them when their popularity became an existential threat. This conduct is no less anticompetitive than if Facebook had bribed emerging app competitors not to compete.”

The other side: Facebook called the lawsuit “meritless” in a statement.

  • “There was no valid claim that Facebook was a monopolist — and that has not changed,” a Facebook spokesperson said. “Our acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were reviewed and cleared many years ago, and our platform policies were lawful.
  • “The FTC’s claims are an effort to rewrite antitrust laws and upend settled expectations of merger review, declaring to the business community that no sale is ever final.”

The intrigue: Facebook called on Khan to recuse herself from the case, given her previous work on antitrust issues for the House Judiciary Committee and her public criticism of the company.

  • The FTC says the Office of General Counsel reviewed the Facebook petition and Office of the Secretary dismissed it, noting that the case will be prosecuted before a federal judge

Flashback: The FTC filed the case in the waning days of the Trump administration, with then-Chairman Joe Simons, a Republican, joining with the agency’s two Democrats to bring the complaint over the objections of the two Republican commissioners.

  • The Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate antitrust subcommittees urged Khan to continue enforcement efforts against Facebook for potential antitrust violations in a letter following the judge’s dismissal of the complaint.

Go deeper: Read the complaint

CDC Studies Show Vaccine Protection Wanes Over Time, Less Effective Against Delta Variant

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wednesday released three studies on the effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. A UK study released Tuesday showed people with “breakthrough” infections carry as much virus as the unvaccinated.

New COVID vaccine data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms COVID vaccine effectiveness against infection has decreased over time, and is less effective in combating the Delta variant.

“The data we will publish today and next week demonstrate the vaccine effectiveness against SARS CoV-2 infection is waning,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a press briefing. “And even though our vaccines are currently working well to prevent hospitalizations, we are seeing concerning evidence of waning vaccine effectiveness over time, and against the Delta variant.”

The CDC released three new studies focusing on the vaccines’ effectiveness in light of the Delta variant.

One study assessed Pfizer and Moderna’s effectiveness over time against infections among nursing home residents, and found it dropped from 75% pre-Delta to 53% when Delta became dominant. The study didn’t differentiate between asymptomatic, symptomatic and severe infections.

Another study used data from 21 hospitals to estimate the effectiveness of Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines against hospitalization over time. Among 1,129 patients who received two doses of a mRNA vaccine, vaccine effectiveness was 86% 2 to12 weeks after vaccination and 84% at 13 to 24 weeks.

The third study, using New York state data, found all three vaccines’ effectiveness against infection dropped from 92% in early May to 80% at the end of July, but the effectiveness against hospitalization remained relatively stable.

Data from the three reports in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, helped convince the Biden administration to recommend booster shots to people eight months after receiving their second dose, despite no completed late-stage clinical trials assessing the safety, efficacy and immunogenicity of a third dose.

Under Biden’s plan announced Wednesday, boosters will start being administered Sept. 20 — pending authorization of a third dose from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the CDC’s advisory committee.

Health experts said the CDC data should make the case that it’s more important to get initial doses to the unvaccinated, and boosters to immunocompromised people and nursing home residents, rather than to the entire population.

“I mostly care about hospitalizations, I don’t care about infections because this is not what we’re using vaccines for. We’re not trying to stop infections, and there’s no evidence that a third booster will stop infections,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Nuzzo said people need to remember vaccines aren’t force fields. “They don’t prevent infections,” she said. “They train your immune system to respond quickly to infections and hopefully limit the number of cells that get infected. They work to limit infections to prevent severe disease, hopefully to keep people out of the hospital.”

Celine Gounder, an infectious disease doctor at Bellevue Hospital Center and former adviser on COVID to the Biden campaign, said, “It makes sense to give an extra dose of vaccine to vaccinated nursing home residents, but what will have an even bigger impact on protecting those nursing home residents is to vaccinate their caregivers.”

President Biden announced Wednesday he is ordering the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to require nursing homes to have vaccinated staff, or lose federal Medicare and Medicaid funding.

The new vaccination requirement comes after the Biden administration announced July 30 that federal government, civilian federal employees and contractors would be required to show proof of vaccination against COVID or submit to regular COVID testing, wear masks and socially distance.

Fully vaccinated people with ‘breakthrough’ infections carry as much virus as the unvaccinated

A British public health study released Aug. 16, indicates vaccinated people with “breakthrough” infections could pose a significant infection risk to those who have not been vaccinated, CBS News reported.

A study by University of Oxford scientists found people who contract the COVID Delta variant after being fully vaccinated carry a similar amount of the virus as those who catch the disease and have not been vaccinated.

The study also found protection was greatest in those vaccinated who already had natural immunity through previous infection.

The study evaluated effectiveness of Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna COVID vaccines in a large community-based survey of randomly selected households across the UK.

Based on more than 3 million nose and throat swabs, Oxford University researchers found that 90 days after a second shot of the Pfizer or Astrazeneca vaccine, efficacy in preventing infections had slipped to 75% and 61% respectively.

Those results were down from 85% and 68%, respectively, seen two weeks after a second dose, with the decline in efficacy more pronounced among those 35 years and older.

The study also showed that after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, effectiveness was at least as great as protection afforded by natural infection — with greater initial effectiveness against new PCR-positives but faster declines in protection against high viral burden and symptomatic infection.

Researchers said there was no evidence effectiveness varied by dosing interval, but protection was higher among those vaccinated who already had natural immunity.

“With Delta, infections occurring following two vaccinations had similar peak viral burden to those in unvaccinated individuals,” the study concluded.

Viral “burden,” or viral load, refers to how much SARS-CoV-2 virus infected people carry and thus “shed,” or release into the environment around them, where it can potentially infect others.

The survey, which has yet to be peer-reviewed before publication in a scientific journal, underscores concerns by scientists that the Delta variant can infect fully vaccinated people at a greater rate than previous variants, and that the vaccinated could more easily transmit it, Reuters reported.

Oxford’s lead researcher, Dr. Sarah Walker, told The Telegraph the study shows two doses of the Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccines are still protective. “You are still less likely to get infected — but if you do, you will have similar levels of virus as someone who hasn’t been vaccinated at all,” Walker said.

The data used for the study do not show how likely it is that a fully vaccinated person with the Delta variant can pass on the infection to another individual, compared to an unvaccinated individual with the virus.

But the high viral loads found in the study are a strong indicator that the risks of transmission from both vaccinated and unvaccinated people with the Delta variant could be similar, CBS reported.

Despite the study’s results, the message from Walker and Oxford team was clear: Vaccination remains the best way to protect against infection and serious illness or hospitalization with COVID, including the Delta variant.

The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust — funded by a $29.1 billion investment portfolio — which  partners with the World Health Organization, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and World Economic Forum, and has direct public equity holdings in Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Johnson & Johnson.

Here’s How Revival Will Happen, According To Someone Who Actually Witnessed It

For all the talk of an impending revival in these troubled times, Larry Tomczak, cultural analyst and Intercessors for America board member, offered his views on what has to be done if people really want to see one. Tomczak has firsthand knowledge of previous revivals.

In his commentary post on WND, Tomczak reports that a new video, which is reported to be going viral on the internet, shows Mario Murillo calling people to Christ during a tent meeting in California.

“I had the distinct honor of witnessing this same kind of phenomenal event two to three times weekly for 60 months during the Pensacola Revival!” he claimed. “As scores came from across the world we shared that it was a repentance-based move of God stemming from three non-negotiables: Humility. Hunger. Holiness.”

He recalled Steve Hill, the tireless preacher who spoke weekly, exclaiming, “It’s time to get the sin out of your life!”

Dr. Michael Brown also headed the school of ministry during the revival, where Tomczak said he had the honor of “teaching practical theology” to thousands of students.

As to how the revival got started, Tomczak explained that it happened by confronting everyone with the fundamental truths of the Bible, particularly those concerning sin and repentance.

He said that they would tell people to ” Repent, totally trust Jesus and His finished work, and obey Him as Lord for an ‘abundant life’ (John 10:10) rooted in happy holiness.”

That’s the starting point. Then they talked about what the book of Acts says about “purity” being the “magnet” for attracting the Holy Spirit.

The outcome? Tomczak said that “it resulted in regular healings, dramatic miracles, angelic intervention and widespread evangelistic impact on entire cities. We regularly took inventory to reset our lives to please rather than grieve Him, which brought more of His manifest presence and power.”

He went on to say that this amazing transformational event can happen again, and that God can definitely accomplish it on a larger scale in today’s age.

“In a time of spiritual dryness, COVID “pestilence” and forces descending upon America like locusts to devour our heritage, God is calling us to clean house and earnestly seek Him for the only thing that can rescue us from destruction as a nation, another Great Awakening!” he proclaimed.

The struggle for holiness

 Because purity and holiness are essential for the release of the Holy Spirit’s power, Tomczak said that this is battled on “two fronts: actions and attitudes.”

Theft, murder, abortion, fraud, sexual immorality, gluttony, and other external expressions of sin are examples of sinful actions.

Sinful attitudes, such as hatred and pride, on the other hand, may be unseen yet are just as lethal.

Hence, Tomczak advises self-evaluation in every choice and action by applying biblical principles and by depending on the Holy Spirit’s guidance. He also offered a checklist to help any believer who wants to live a holy life before God.

He concluded his commentary with a somber challenge:

“If you realize the urgency of the hour and that without another great awakening America is doomed, let’s get serious and ‘get the sin out of our lives!'” he emphasized. “Take inventory and then take your place in what can be one of the greatest interventions of God in history!”

Taliban ‘Carrying Out Door-to-Door Manhunt’: Intelligence Group

The Taliban terrorist group is carrying out a highly organized door-to-door manhunt for people on their wanted list, according to the head of a nonprofit providing intelligence to the United Nations.

“They have lists of individuals and even within the very first hours of moving into Kabul they began a search of former government employees—especially in intelligence services and the special forces units,” Christian Nellemann, head of the Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses, told the BBC Thursday.

The RHIPTO Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses is a nonprofit that undertakes analytical, assessment, training, and other forms of support for the U.N.

Nellemann said the Taliban have a “more advanced intelligence system” when moving into all major Afghan cities, including the capital of Kabul.

That not only could lead to mass executions, but also a mass reveal of the intelligence networks that the West has provided Afghanistan.

“So this could undermine severely a number of our Western intelligence services,” Nellemann added.

In a statement released Thursday, the G7 Foreign Ministers meeting also said it’s “deeply concerned by reports of violent reprisals in parts of Afghanistan.”

The alleged move is contrary to recent statements of the Taliban. The group announced “complete amnesty” to Afghans on Tuesday.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with full dignity and honesty has announced a complete amnesty for all Afghanistan, especially those who were with the opposition or supported the occupiers for years and recently,” Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban’s cultural commission, stated on Afghan state television.

Later that day at the Taliban’s first official press conference, spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid reassured the safety of Afghans—including those who worked with the United States and allied forces.

Epoch Times Photo
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid (L) gestures as he speaks during the first press conference in Kabul on Aug. 17, 2021 following the Taliban stunning takeover of Afghanistan. (Hoshang Hashimi/AFP via Getty Images)

“We will pardon all those who became masters against jihad, and this special pardon is because we do not want war again, and to let war be repeated and the elements of the war remain,” Mujahid said.

“We are assuring the safety of all those who have worked with the United States and allied forces, whether as interpreters or any other field that they worked with them,” Mujahid added.

In Thursday’s press briefing, State Department spokesman Ned Price acknowledged he had seen a similar report.

“We know that at least one NGO—I’ve seen a report that at least one NGO has put together with this. I’m just not in a position to confirm those details,” Price said. “Every time we see a detail like this, we take it extraordinarily seriously and we do everything we can to follow up on it.”

Most Afghan fighters would likely not be able to get special immigrant visas, but “there are other pathways to safety,” Price added, without providing details.

About 2,000 people were flown out of the U.S.-held airport in Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, U.S. military officials told reporters on Thursday in Washington.

Among them, there are nearly 300 Americans. Most of the non-American passengers are Afghans who have been granted special immigrant visas and are en route to military bases in the United States, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

Video Shows Angry French Shoppers Being Blocked From Entering Supermarket Because They Don’t Have COVID Passports

A video out of France shows irate shoppers being blocked from entering a supermarket by police because they don’t have COVID passports.

The footage shows people with shopping carts being blocked from entering the grocery store by security guards.

The guards then begin pushing one woman away as the confrontation becomes more heated.

A number of police officers then begin manhandling the frustrated shoppers, presumably not too concerned in that moment about social distancing.

The angry shoppers don’t appear to be anti-lockdown protesters because almost all of them are wearing face masks.

“The entire world has had it with this insane bullshit,” responded one Twitter user.

“Now they’re denying people access to food in France – if they don’t take an unapproved FDA vaccine for a virus with a 99.7% survival rate.”

Although France’s COVID passport law mandates proof of vaccination to enter larger shopping malls, those with a surface area of less than 20,000 square meters are supposed to be exempt.

Under the the draconian law, people in France who enter a bar or restaurant without a COVID pass face 6 months in jail, while business owners who fail to check their status face a 1 year prison sentence and a €45,000 fine.

As we highlighted earlier this week, anecdotal evidence suggests many businesses aren’t checking for COVID passports, perhaps spooked at images that showed many bars and restaurants to be almost empty after the scheme began.

Although police made a visible show of patrolling establishments to check people’s medical papers on the first day that the program began, this appears to have abated.

However, people who can’t show proof of having taken the jab are still banned from using inter-city public transport.

President Emmanuel Macron ludicrously defended vaccine passports last week by claiming they protected people’s freedom, which is like arguing that locking people up is for their own safety.

Taliban Official Announces Group Will Rule Afghanistan with Sharia Law and ‘No Democratic System’

Sharia Law is triumphant in Afghanistan and democracy is dead.

Although leaders of the Taliban are making up some pieces of how they will govern the conquered country as they go along, those are the foundational principles, according to Reuters.

“There will be no democratic system at all because it does not have any base in our country,” senior Taliban leader Waheedullah Hashimi told the outlet.

“We will not discuss what type of political system should we apply in Afghanistan because it is clear. It is Sharia Law and that is it.”

Sharia Law is a strict code of behavior supported by some Muslims.

Taliban officials have tried to present a softer side to the world in the aftermath of their victory.

“We assure the international community that there will be no discrimination against women, but, of course, within the frameworks we have,” spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.

Since taking power, the Taliban has tried to put a gloss on its image to the extent where one CNN reporter characterized a group of Taliban fighters as seemingly “friendly.”

“The entire world now recognizes that the Taliban are the real rulers of the country,” said Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad, a member of the organization’s media team, according to The New York Times. “I am still astonished that people are afraid of Taliban.”

A spokesman for the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, Rupert Colville, expressed skepticism about what the words actually mean.

“Such promises will need to be honored, and for the time being — again understandably, given past history — these declarations have been greeted with some skepticism,” he told The Associated Press. “There have been many hard-won advances in human rights over the past two decades. The rights of all Afghans must be defended.”

For example, Fox News reported Thursday that the Taliban “killed a woman in Takhar province after she went out in public without a burqa.”

According to Aliya Kazimy, 27, of Mazar-i-Sharif, women who went shopping alone were told they had to go home and return with men as chaperones.

“I am from the generation that had a lot of opportunities after the fall of the Taliban 20 years ago,” she told the Times.

“I was able to achieve my goals of studying, and for a year I’ve been a university professor, and now my future is dark and uncertain. All these years of working hard and dreaming were for nothing. And the little girls who are just starting out, what future awaits them?” she said.

Hashimi indicated to Reuters that Afghanistan would likely be run by a ruling council, while the group’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, would keep overall control.

When the Taliban previously ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, it had a council making day-to-day decisions, according to the Post.

Woke Inc. Is Coming For Our Babies: How Children’s Brands Are Pushing Critical Race Theory

Hasboro, Disney, PBS, and Dr. Seuss are all embracing Critical Race Theory

Toy giant Hasbro is the most recent household name to use their millions to push Critical Race Theory and the progressive agenda. Last month, Project Veritas reported a whistleblower from the company that outlined a disturbing game plan to bring the controversial and racest teaching to children as young as Kindergarten and preschool, with the help of their toys.

Package engineer David Johnson told Project Veritas President James O’Keefe during an interview “They want to introduce children into racial bias at an early age before they’re really able to understand what race and racism is.” In pursuit of their goal, Hasbro has contracted with Conscious Kids, an education, research, and policy organization that programs tiny tots on how to “disrupt racism.”

Conscious Kids Co-Founder Katie Ishizuk can be seen in a leaked video telling Hasbro employees: “at three to six months, babies are beginning to notice and already express preference by race,” and that “[Babies] as young as two are already using race to reason about people’s behaviors.” Ishizuk claimed that daycares and playgrounds are full of racist behaviors, evidenced by how tykes choose or exclude playmates.

While Hasbro isn’t the first company to impact the way our kids think, they might be the most persistent. A few months ago, the toy company was at the center of a controversy when it attempted to rebrand “Mr. Potato Head” by stripping him of his “Mr.” status. After a massive public outcry, the company decided not to reinvent the beloved toy.

Mr. Potato Head notwithstanding, the threat of woke culture surrounding children is still genuine, however. Parents who hope to bring their children the same experiences they enjoyed as a child are forced to either comply with the progressive “woke” programming coming at them from every side or to avoid many major children’s entertainment companies altogether.

A few short months after the death of George Floyd, PBS’s Sesame Street and The Cat in the Hat both released tools to help tiny tykes tackle white privilege. PBS’ Focusing on Young Learners included “Tools for Anti-Racist Teaching,” featuring Dr. Aisha White, who is also the founder of P.R.I.D.E. (which stands for Positive Racial Identity Development In Early Education). White teaches parents that kids are never too young to focus on the race of their playmates.

“Yeah, I think the first thing we need to do is to acknowledge and understand the inhumanity that has been netted out towards people of color in this country because that helps us to see why the inhumanities still exist,” White said.

Sesame Street also put out an anti-racist guide for White parents to guide them on parenting race-conscious kids. At the same time, PBS’ cartoon Arthur teaches “anti-racism” in an episode honoring the late Rep. John Lewis. Penguin Books has also created an anti-racist portal as a companion to their anti-racist baby book, written by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, which turned out to be a best-seller.

Not to be outdone, Disney came in strong when they gave a drag makeover to one of their Muppet Babies in a show targeting children as young as 3-years-old. Also strange was a Cinderella storyline that shows a beloved character who left a shoe behind at a ball and later transformed from Gonzo into “Gonzorella” saying he didn’t tell the other Muppets who he was because they “expected [him] to look a certain way.”

Anyone who thought they would be able to keep away from indoctrination by avoiding entertainment should think again. One of the countries largest online preschools, The Waterford Upstart program, has incorporated anti-racist training for parents that mirrors Hasbro’s CRT program. The program serves 90K students in 28 states like North Dakota, Utah, rural Montanna and Wyoming, Idiana, North Carolina and claims to get children ready for school by starting in Kindergarten.

“Kids are going to learn letters, sounds, rhyming. They learn how to trace letters because that’s so important, and then they learn how to put sounds together to make words and that builds into reading words and reading sentences,” said Rich Stowell, Vice President, Program participation Waterford.org.

However, the program now has a harsh racist undertone stating in their parent guide about race that “as young as 6 months can notice race-based differences, and they can internalize racial bias by the age of 2,” claiming to lean on the work of the American Academy of Pediatrics for the data. However, the quote in Waterford’s report appears to have come from a blog post on the AAP’s website written by activist doctors who have previously made it clear they want a plan that would make teaching children to see race a priority.

Waterford Institute also tackles gender bias, saying in their How to Encourage Gender Equity in the classroom guide: “did you know that children as young as four years old already express discriminatory beliefs based on gender?”

Parents’ unfortunate reality is that kids’ toys and entertainment follow the culture at a measured pace, reflecting what they believe are the concepts parents want their kids to learn. Today, we have transitioned from teaching numbers, letters, and shapes to exploring race, transgenderism, and perceived bias.

Hasbro and executives around the nation have sat in board rooms and considered making progressivism a staple in children’s lives a safe bet to take. It’s up to parents to let them know, just like they did with Mr. Potato Head, that pushing progressivism on pre-k and Kindergarten kids is neither safe nor responsible. This is just one battle in the war for the culture, but if we lose it, and by it our kids’ minds, we may well lose all the others.

Advanced Weapons Developer D.A.R.P.A. Invested $25M in Moderna’s mRNA Vax in 2013

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded the gene-based vaccine developer $25.3 million “to research and develop its messenger RNA therapeutics” nearly 8 years ago.

QUICK FACTS:
  • An October 2013 press release from Moderna, Inc.—the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine developer—reveals that the pharmaceutical and biotech company was granted over $25 million from DARPA.
  • DARPA is a military weapons technology research and development agency for the United States Department of Defense (DOD).
  • In 2019, just months before the Covid-19 outbreak, a project DARPA had funded at Moderna demonstrated in a Phase 1 clinical trial that RNA could deliver an antibody to humans and provide protection against the mosquito-borne virus chikungunya, according to The Washington Post.
WHAT THE PRESS RELEASE SAID:
  • “Moderna Therapeutics, the company pioneering messenger RNA therapeutics™, a revolutionary new treatment modality to enable the in vivo production of therapeutic proteins, announced today that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded the company up to $25 million to research and develop its messenger RNA therapeutics™ platform as a rapid and reliable way to make antibody-producing drugs to protect against a wide range of known and unknown emerging infectious diseases and engineered biological threats,” the news release stated.
  • Moderna noted its company’s ability “to speed the development and manufacture” the vaccine.
  • “We are honored to be chosen by DARPA for this important grant, which will greatly accelerate our efforts to develop antibody messenger RNA therapeutics™ to combat a wide range of infectious diseases,” said president and founding CEO of Moderna Stéphane Bancel.
  • Bancel said he looked “forward to further expanding the development of our platform into this critically important new therapeutic area.”
WHAT THE $25 MILLION WAS FOR:
  • $24.6 million would support research “for up to 5 years,” notes the release.
  • This research would “advance promising antibody-producing drug candidates” for “preclinical testing and human clinical trials.”
  • Moderna also received a $0.7 million “seedling” grant from DARPA in March to begin work on the project, according to the release.
WHAT IS DARPA?:
  • DARPA was launched in 1958 by president Dwight Eisenhower in response to the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite.
  • DARPA spends about $3.5 billion a year, focusing “on the Nation’s military Services” in order “to create new strategic opportunities and novel tactical options,” according to DARPA’s website.
  • DARPA’s best-known investments include research on the first global satellite-navigation system (known as Transit), stealth aircraft, and the Internet’s precursor, ARPANET, according to Nature.
  • The agency has a “reputation for taking on riskier ideas and having a higher tolerance for failure than conventional funding agencies,” Nature adds.
  • World leaders characterize agencies like DARPA as “high-risk.”
BACKGROUND:
  • In April 2021, DNA Script—a bio-engineering company on human DNA—announced its new partnership with Moderna and its being awarded $5 million from DARPA.
  • DNA Script will help DARPA “to develop a prototype for rapid mobile manufacturing of vaccines and therapeutics as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Nucleic Acids On-Demand World-Wide (NOW) Program,” according to their press release.
  • DARPA also awarded Pfizer Inc.—another Covid-19 mRNA vaccine developer—a $7.7 million research contract in December 2013.
  • In January of 2015, Moderna announced its partnership with AstraZeneca—yet another Covid-19 vaccine developer—along with its raising $450 million in new funding, according to another press release. “Together with partners AstraZeneca, Alexion, and DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), Moderna is in active development of 45 preclinical programs in oncology, cardiovascular disease, rare diseases, and infectious diseases,” read the statement.

Jon Fleetwood is Managing Editor for American Faith.

Military-Industrial Complex, Big Media Owned by Same Companies
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