There isn’t much Republicans and Democrats in Washington agree on these days, but getting to the bottom of how the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic started is receiving bipartisan support.
Earlier this week, an amendment introduced by Republican Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to ban the funding of dangerous gain-of-function research passed the Senate.
“We don’t know whether the pandemic started in a lab in Wuhan or evolved naturally,” Paul said in a statement. “While many still deny funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan, experts believe otherwise. The passage of my amendment ensures that this never happens in the future. No taxpayer money should have ever been used to fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan, and now we permanently have put it to a stop.”
On Wednesday night, the Senate voted to push President Biden to declassify information about the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
By unanimous consent, the Senate just passed a bill requiring the Biden administration, and specifically the Director of National Intelligence, to declassify intelligence related to the origins of COVID19, introduced by Senator's Hawley (R-MO) and Braun (R-IN) – per @kellyfphares
President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives was stumped during his confirmation hearing when he was asked to define an “assault weapon.”
“I got 35 seconds left, define it for me, would you please, sir. What’s an assault weapon?” Sen. John Kennedy asked ATF nominee David Chipman on Wednesday.
“There’s no way I could define an assault weapon,” Chipman said.
“I’ll give you one definition that ATF currently uses” Chipman continued, as Kennedy interjected that he wanted Chipman’s personal definition.
“I’m done, Mr. Chairman. I don’t think I’m gonna get an answer,” Kennedy concluded.
.@SenJohnKennedy gave ATF nominee David Chipman multiple opportunities to define 'assault weapons.'
"You're going to be running this agency and you don't have a definition of assault weapons?! …
A new poll has further affirmed Republicans want President Trump to run for the White House again in 2024. The Quinnipiac survey of adults, released Wednesday, found 66 percent of GOP respondents want the 4th president to run again.
The poll also notably found 85 percent of Republicans want candidates who mostly agree with Trump on key issues. This comes as Trump seeks to promote ‘America First’ candidates in the midterms while aiming to oust House GOP lawmakers who sided with Democrats in the second impeachment.
85% of Republicans want candidates to agree with #DonaldTrump; Americans support early cut to federal jobless benefit https://t.co/n5WnjEksPs
— Quinnipiac University Poll (@QuinnipiacPoll) May 26, 2021
Facebook announced on May 26 that posts pushing the hypothesis that COVID-19 is man-made will no longer be banned on the platform.
“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made from our apps,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.
“We’re continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge,” the spokesperson added.
The social media company in February stated in a blog post that it would take down posts that contained what it called false information about COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, including that COVID-19 is man-made, and that vaccines could be dangerous.
Facebook said at the time that it would remove accounts, pages, and groups that share the claims repeatedly.
The change in policy comes after infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted that he’s now “not convinced” that COVID-19 developed naturally, and called for a deeper investigation into its origins.
Early reports about an outbreak of the CCP virus first appeared in China’s central city of Wuhan in late 2019, when a cluster of cases was reported by state-controlled media to be linked to a local wet market. More than a year later, the origins of the virus remain unknown, although the possibility that the virus leaked from a laboratory at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is now receiving wider recognition.
Republican California gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner contradicted a previous claim that biological boys should not be permitted to compete in girls’ sports. Jenner said on Fox News Wednesday that boys who identified as girls at “a very young age” ought to be able to do so.
“I’m not running as a trans activist, I’m running as a California citizen that has lived there for 48 years,” said Jenner. “What I would do as governor is I would put together a commission. Trans women compete in the Olympics, they compete in the NCAA, but when it gets down to the high school level, there’s no guide rules, there’s no rules and regulations how they can.”
“And trans women who are truly trans, who at a very young age, you know, started proper medical treatment, they’ve grown up as girls — of course, they should be able to compete in girls’ sports,” Jenner said. “But yeah, some guy who hasn’t done any therapy, hasn’t done anything, there has to be a review board. And I would be the first governor to put together a review board to review each case,” Jenner added. “Such a small issue. It’s like a nonissue that’s out there. And I would be surprised if there’s 30 trans athletes in the entire state.”
The images show the result of a collaboration between Kellogg Company and LGBT lobby group Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), with $3 from every purchase going to the organization.
“Together With Pride cereal marks the latest chapter in a years long partnership with GLAAD and is the evolution of the much-loved All Together cereal, which previously was only available online,” said Doug VanDeVelde, General Manager of Kellogg U.S. Cereal Category. “Our delicious new recipe features berry-flavored, rainbow hearts dusted with edible glitter. We can’t wait for fans to try our latest limited run.”
Kelloggs added that the marketing ploy was part of their “commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion” while GLAAD President & CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said the partnership “will create opportunities for homes and families to have conversations about the importance of acceptance, compassion and understanding, especially when it comes to LGBTQ+ youth.”
Some responded to the news by joking that now even cereals were turning the frogs gay.
— Alex Jones was right (@AlexJonesWs) May 24, 2021
Skittles is also “giving up” its rainbow colors for pride month, turning the candy gray and donating money to GLAAD. Apparently, the LGBT movement now owns the rainbow itself. Maybe their next target will be the electromagnetic spectrum, which is rumored to be ambivalent about Drag Queen Story Time and therefore “problematic.”
Big Tech and media Democrat allies effectively aided a rigged election by silencing stories on Hunter Biden and election fraud, President Donald Trump told Newsmax on Tuesday night in an exclusive interview.
“That’s when you first saw silence,” Trump told Steve Cortes on Tuesday’s “Cortes & Pellegrino” of social media’s blocking of the New York Post’s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop. “They silenced a newspaper. It’s the oldest newspaper in our country, I believe, and it’s a big one, but they silenced a newspaper in our country because they were talking about Hunter Biden.
“The other thing that they don’t want to talk about – when you hear this whole culture of keeping things quiet, let’s not talk about – is the election fraud.”
Not only did the media rebuke attempts to investigate election fraud after the November election, the media is remaining quiet on the ongoing election audits in Arizona and more states, Trump lamented.
“What they’re doing in Arizona, what they’re doing in New Hampshire, what they’re doing in Arizona, in Georgia now is so incredible,” Trump said, referring to a stream of audits being conducted on the 2020 ballots that began in Arizona and has since extended to other battleground states. “It’s so incredible, and nobody wants to talk about [it].”
Trump hailed the Arizona Republican senators as “great American patriots” for the courage to push for the forensic audit of Arizona’s Maricopa County 2.1 million ballots.
“I give a lot of credit to the Republican senators from the state of Arizona because they took this,” Trump said, pointing a critical finger at Arizona GOP Gov. Doug Ducey and Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp for having “done nothing.”
But legislatures in battleground states should be applauded for seeking transparency on the 2020 presidential election, Trump added.
“What they have done is incredible,” he said. “They have to be admired. They’re great American patriots, the Republican senators from Arizona and now other senators, state senators and others are looking at it, because they say, ‘the same thing happened to us.'”
Trump predicted the audits will show what he has been saying all along about election fraud.
The day after Mother’s Day, iconic actor, producer, martial artist, and Christian Chuck Norris shared a letter written by the mother of former president Ronald “Dutch” Reagan. In it, Nelle Reagan described her son’s faith in God, which Norris believes contrasts sharply with that exemplified by President Joe Biden.
“Friends, he does love God and he never forgets to thank Him for all his many blessings,” wrote Nelle Reagan in a letter to the family of her former pastor. Her son, Ronald, had just signed a seven-year movie contract with Warner Brothers, and when people expressed concern about his decision to go to such a “wicked place as Hollywood,” Nelle said, “I feel I can trust him anywhere, he has never lost his high ideals of life.”
Chuck Norris on Ronald Reagan
Chuck Norris called Ronald Reagan “my favorite president who also became my friend” and attributes Reagan’s success throughout his career to “the bedrock faith exemplified by his mother.”
In her letter, Nelle Reagan mentioned something she had heard from Pete MacArthur, the man who gave Reagan his first break by auditioning him at Iowa radio station WOC. After Reagan had received the news about his movie contract, MacArthur said, “We missed him from the office and sent one of the fellows to look for him. He soon came back saying he had discovered Dutch in one of the smaller studio rooms on his knees, praying. He didn’t let Dutch know that he saw him; and when he told all of us there in the office, we cried like babies.”
Chuck Norris explained that it was watching a news report about President Joe Biden’s recent proclamation for the National Day of Prayer (NDOP) that got him thinking about Reagan. Biden became the first president not to mention God in his NDOP proclamation. Norris’s mother, who was watching the news with her son, said that a president failing to mention God would never have happened “in the old days of America when I was growing up.”
New internal docs leaked to Project Veritas show how Facebook is secretly censoring COVID vaccine information that goes against its ideology, even if the facts are true.
Investigative journalist James O’Keefe from Project Veritas on Monday released a bombshell video of two Facebook insiders blowing the whistle on the tech giant’s effort to secretly censor — on a global scale — COVID vaccine questions and concerns.
According to new leaked documents, the social media giant uses algorithms to target users who disseminate messaging that runs counter to the company’s political ideology and vaccine narrative — even if the comments are factually accurate.
An internal memo obtained by Project Veritas explained “Vaccine Hesitancy Comment Demotion.” O’Keefe told Sean Hannity on Monday that Facebook initiated a “beta” test for the algorithm that classifies some users under two incremental tiers of what they dub “vaccine hesitancy” or a “VH Score,” and does so without the user’s knowledge.
The stated goal of the new feature is to “drastically reduce user exposure” to “VH” comments, O’Keefe’s team reported, and decrease “other engagement of VH comments including create, likes, reports [and] replies.”
“Based on that VH score, we will demote or leave the comment alone depending on the content within the comment,” an anonymous whistleblower said.
The insider, who is described by O’Keefe as a “data center technician” for Facebook, revealed the tech giant was running the “test” on 1.5% of its 3.8 billion users with the focus on the comments sections on “authoritative health pages.”
“They’re trying to control this content before it even makes it onto your page, before you even see it,” the insider told O’Keefe.
Another leaked document addressed “Borderline Vaccine Framework,” which classifies content with another expressed “goal” to “identify and tier the categories of non-violating content that could discourage vaccination in certain contexts, thereby contributing to vaccine hesitancy or refusal.” The framework states: “We have tiered these by potential harm and how much context is required in order to evaluate harm.”
The ratings are divided into two tiers: “Alarmism & Criticism” and “Indirect Vaccine Discouragement,” which includes celebrating vaccine refusal and “shocking stories” that may deter others from getting vaccinated even if events or facts are potentially or actually true.
The algorithm flags key terms in comments to determine whether or not it can remain in place, but allows human “raters” to make a ruling if the algorithm cannot do so itself.
“What’s remarkable about these private documents that Facebook has not wanted you to see until tonight is that ‘Tier 2’ [violation] says even if the facts are true that you will be targeted and demoted — your comments will be targeted and demoted,” O’Keefe said.
The first whistleblower told O’Keefe that Facebook, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, wants to “build a community where everyone complies — not where people can have an open discourse and dialogue about the most personal and private and intimate decisions.”
“The narrative [is] get the vaccine, the vaccine is good for you, everyone should get it. If you don’t, you will be singled out as an enemy of society.”
The Hollywood studio, MGM, indicated its readiness to be acquired in December 2020, rolling out a price tag of around $5 billion at the time.
Amazon has announced the purchase of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) movie studio for $8.45 billion, the company’s second-largest acquisition since it bought Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion.
Announcing a merger agreement with MGM on Tuesday, Mike Hopkins, senior VP of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, underscored that “the real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of [intellectual property] in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team”.
He added that “it’s very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality storytelling”.
Hopkins recalled that MGM productions have collectively won more than 180 Oscars and 100 Emmys.
Amazon declined to elaborate on when the MGM acquisition will be closed, given that the deal is subject to regulatory approvals and other usual closing conditions.
