The defense ministers of Syria, Turkey, and Russia held talks in Moscow on Wednesday in a sign of thawing relations between Ankara and Damascus. The conversation between Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and his Syrian counterpart, Ali Mahmoud Abbas, is believed to be the first meeting of the two nation’s defense ministers since 2011.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the talks, which included Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, focused on “solutions to the Syria crisis, the refugee issue, and joint efforts to battle extremist groups on Syrian territory.”
Turkey severed diplomatic relations with Damascus back in 2012 and backed the failed regime change effort against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by supporting anti-government fighters.
But now that it’s clear that Assad isn’t going anywhere and Turkey has been focusing on Kurdish militants in northeast Syria, Ankara has been signaling it wants a rapprochement with Damascus. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu revealed earlier this year that he briefly met with his Syrian counterpart in October 2021, the first known high-level meeting between the two governments since 2011.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that during Wednesday’s meeting, the ministers “noted the constructive nature of the dialogue held in this format and the need to continue it in the interests of further stabilizing the situation.” The Turkish Defense Ministry described the talks as having a “constructive atmosphere.”
In November, Turkey launched major airstrikes against the US-backed Kurdish-led SDF in northeast Syria over allegations the group was involved in a bombing in Istanbul, which the SDF denies. Turkey has been asking the US and Russia to convince the SDF to withdraw from towns near the Turkish border.
Unhappy with the US efforts to curtail Turkey’s offensive, the SDF has also requested Russia to broker talks with the Syrian government.
Meeting in Moscow: Turkey and Syria defense chiefs hold rare talks
The Turkish ministry said “joint efforts to combat all terrorist organisations in Syria were discussed” as Ankara threatens new assault on Kurdish militants.https://t.co/pDWYTKYxdS
One possible solution would be for Syrian government troops to deploy to the border areas to act as a buffer between the Kurdish forces and Turkey, but that is unlikely to happen as long as the US occupies eastern Syria.
And then those are tongue-in-cheek moments such as the letters that suggested there were extraterrestrials from Cassiopeia.
“We do have a variety of people asking things like that,” Schindler says.
But, UFO researchers say some cases defy explanation and include eyewitness reports from credible sources—from military people to commercial pilots.
These sightings have taken the debate over UFOs to a new and sober level—to such an extent that the government formed an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) in August 2020 to study the topic in detail.
In its unclassified report, “Preliminary Assessment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” dated June 25, 2021, the task force concluded that the subject of UAPs is worth further study and research funding.
However, the report would not acknowledge an extraterrestrial origin.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena “pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security,” the report to congressional intelligence officials warned.
While available reporting on UAPs is “largely inconclusive,” the report said sightings fall into five categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. Government or industry development programs, foreign adversary systems, and “other.”
The report added that a few UAPs demonstrate advanced technology, though most reports “probably lack a single explanation.”
In October 2022, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the formation of an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Study with 16 members versed in the subject.
“Exploring the unknown in space and the atmosphere is at the heart of who we are [and] the language of scientists is data,” according to a NASA fact sheet.
The independent study group will examine UAP data over the next nine months and report on its findings around mid-2023.
NASA asserted it is “going in with an open mind, and we expect to find that explanations will apply to some events and different explanations will apply to others.”
“We will not underestimate what the natural world contains [and] there is a lot to learn.”
NASA press secretary Katherine Rohloff said the study aims to identify data from the civilian government, commercial, and other sources that can shed light on UAPs.
Using that data, the space agency will recommend a “roadmap” for future UAP analysis.
In July 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced the establishment of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office to examine and assess potential aerial threats near military installations.
The DoD said UAPs include anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged, and “trans-medium objects.”
“Put simply, UAPs are objects that, when encountered, cannot be immediately identified and may exhibit anomalous behavior,” said DoD press operations spokeswoman Sue Gough.
Gough cautioned that the lack of attribution “does not necessarily indicate the significance of each sighting or a threat to national security.”
“Anomalous behavior means that DoD operators or sensors cannot make immediate sense of collected data, actions, or activities,” Gough told The Epoch Times in an email.
Gough said that by combining data collection with rigorous science, “any object we encounter can likely be isolated, characterized, identified, and, if necessary, mitigated.”
The DoD’s position is to collect as much data and see where it leads.
Gough added, “We will not rush to conclusions in our analysis. In many cases, observed phenomena are classified as ‘unidentified’ simply because sensors [could not] collect enough information to make a positive attribution.”
Since the purported crash of a UFO took place in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1948, the idea of visitors from other planets has captured the public’s imagination like no other.
There have been thousands of reports of UFOs over the years since, ranging from direct sightings of strange lights and actual craft to alien abductions.
Incidents such as these sparked a series of investigations by the U.S. Air Force, beginning with Project Sign in 1947, Project Grudge in 1948, and Project Blue Book from 1952 to 1969.
The studies looked at more than 12,000 reported sightings in total, concluding UFOs were not a national security threat or of extraterrestrial origin.
People who study UFOs are known as “ufologists.” And many ufologists, like documentary filmmaker Ron James of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), believe ample proof exists that UFOs are here and not of this world.
More importantly, the government knows this.
“When we say government, we’re not talking about guys at the Pentagon,” said James, MUFON’s director of public relations.
“We’re talking about programs buried for years away from the institutional memory of the armed forces in pseudo-government, private ventures that are accountable to nobody and impossible to penetrate with the FOIA [Freedom Of Information Act].”
James’s latest project, “Accidental Truths,” seeks to address the government’s “new narrative” of UFOs and the key people involved in concealing their existence.
The 90-minute film’s release is due in early 2023.
James said MUFON amassed a growing database of 120,000 UFO sightings and encounters since the group’s founding in 1969, receiving hundreds more cases each month.
He said at least 97 percent of cases MUFON receives and investigates have a natural explanation, like the weather, satellites, or aircraft.
The other 3 percent can’t easily be explained and requires further study.
“When you talk about the field [of UFO research], you don’t cover it in one umbrella,” James told The Epoch Times. “Many of these avenues are conjecture, testimony, little documented evidence—which is fine.
“Things that are science fiction today are science fact tomorrow.”
More than 70 years after the Roswell incident, James said we know “something is going on.”
“We don’t know exactly [but] we have a pretty good idea.”
While Roswell catalyzed interest in UFOs, references to strange flying objects appear in texts going back to biblical times, James said.
“This topic has been at the forefront of our culture and the general population since the 40s. Since the Roswell thing took off.”
In December 2017, the New York Times published an article exposing what it said was a secret Pentagon program to investigate UFOs beginning in 2007.
Former U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) reportedly obtained funding for the program.
However, James said government investigations into UFOs amount to little more than a “dog and pony show.”
“That’s how it’s been from the beginning. The acronyms [for the studies] are adding up,” James said.
Through “compartmentalization” of various government entities, “it gives them the ability to say we don’t know anything about [UFOs], even though it’s a real thing,” James said.
“By compartmentalization—and by what we call ‘stovepiping’—they’re able to sequester information. And then they have plausible deniability.”
James believes there is a power struggle within certain levels of government between those who wish to cover up the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs and those who want to expose it.
He said the government acknowledging the reality of alien technology and energy sources would be Earth-shaking.
“It would destroy every paradigm, every power structure, every means of control that keeps the planet in check. It’s all about energy. Whoever controls the energy controls the entire planet,” James said.
Despite official denials of non-terrestrial UFOs, sightings of strange objects continue to this day.
The National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), a national clearinghouse of information on unidentified aerial sightings, has logged more than 150,000 reports over 47 years of operation. The center in December posted 1,255 new UFO sightings on its website.
On Nov. 7, NUFORC received a report from multiple airline pilots describing a “dramatic display” of lights over the midwestern United States the night before.
“Moreover, several other flight crews allegedly reported the same event over their backchannel, so-called ‘guard,’ radio frequency, and discussed the event extensively over an estimated 20-25 minutes,” according to NUFORC’s website.
James said the UFO debate is far from over yet he doesn’t believe the new investigations will reveal anything significant.
“It’s not going to reveal anything we don’t already know. If [the government] can drag it out for another 50 years, they’ll do it,” James said.
“At some point, they will have to acknowledge the existence of non-human intelligence. Where it goes after that depends on what that relationship is about.”
One organization focused on the search for advanced extraterrestrial civilizations through radio signals is SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
SETI began as a government program in 1960. However, questions over its scientific value led Congress to terminate it in the 1970s, though SETI researchers reorganized privately in the 1990s.
SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak said there has been no shortage of UFO reports since he joined the organization.
“I get a phone call almost every day from someone having difficulty with aliens in their personal lives,” Shostak said. “It’s not a new phenomenon for me.”
Shostak agreed that public fascination with UFOs remains high while conspiracies of government cover-ups abound.
“The fundamental fact is that ever since the 1960s, poll after poll has shown that one-third of the American populace believes that the aliens are buzzing the skies. Many call me up,” Shostak told The Epoch Times.
Shostak said every time a new UFO study group enters the media cycle, it only stirs hope “that something new will happen,” and Americans “love a conspiracy.” But the evidence regarding alien visitation is doubtful. Otherwise, we’d see them in our everyday lives.
“Maybe the aliens have lost interest or have been repelled by the fast food,” he joked. “If the aliens were visiting—if there were good evidence of that—you’d have thousands of scientists looking into this.”
“They’d be beavering away at this every day,” Shostak told The Epoch Times. “What could be more important than the idea extraterrestrials have decided to come to Earth for—whatever reason? And they’re not doing that. That means [scientists] are not convinced.”
The late American astronomer Percival Lowell, founder of the Lowell Observatory in 1894, stands out among 20th-century scientists who believed in life on other planets.
Schindler said Lowell, from a wealthy Boston family, built the observatory housing its 24-inch refractor telescope to prove the existence of aqueducts, or “canals,” made by intelligent beings on Mars.
Lowell was not “one of these wacky guys with all these crazy ideas,” Schindler said. “He was well-educated and went to Harvard because he was a Lowell.”
“He started [the observatory] because he wanted to prove there was life on Mars.”
Lowell would also study the field of planetary formation and how the solar system might have evolved, theorizing the existence of a ninth planet—Planet X.
Lowell died in 1915, though his research would inspire other astronomers to carry on, leading to the discovery of Pluto on Feb. 8, 1930.
“It’s interesting he wanted to prove there was intelligent life on Mars and didn’t—wanted to discover a planet and didn’t. He probably went to his grave unfulfilled in some ways because he didn’t do that one big thing,” Schindler said.
Timepiece aficionados are leaving their Rolex, Patek, Audemars Piguet, and other expensive watches at home as they attempt to stay under criminals’ radar while in public. From Los Angeles to Manhattan to London to Paris, violent high-end watch robberies are rising.
“I outright stopped wearing it [stainless steel Rolex Submariner] on the subway.
“I don’t want to draw attention to myself in that way” amid the spate of subway crimes, New York City resident Troy Barmore told NYTimes in August.
While watch theft statistics are limited in major metro areas, authorities across the US and Europe have warned about a wave of criminals targeting affluent people for their timepieces.
Bloomberg reported London’s Metropolitan Police Service recorded a staggering 60% jump in knife-point robberies. In Paris, an entire police task force has been assigned to investigate luxury watch theft.
“This is a top priority for us, and we have already made a number of arrests.
“No one should have to go about their day in fear of thieves,” said London Detective Chief Superintendent Owain Richards.
Police data in London shows 667 Rolex watches were stolen from people between January and September, up from 60 over the same period last year. The average value of watches stolen in the English capital exceeded 10,000 pounds this summer.
Watch owners insure their timepieces, but that’s the least of their worries because they could become victims of a violent robbery. Some who sport these watches have taken them off and placed them in winder boxes.
And back to the US, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said 206 thefts involving at least one watch valued at $5,000 or more occurred between Jan. 1 through mid-November. That’s a 30% increase over the same period last year.
Organized crime gangs have been mainly on the prowl, scoping out wealthy folks, either at their homes or in public, waiting to pounce and steal expensive jewelry. These thefts are also happening at home.
“We are definitely seeing examples of robberies and thefts of luxury watches taking place across North America,” Tannie Ng, a senior underwriter for luxury collections at Chubb Ltd., said in an interview.
With that in mind, it’s safer to wear less expensive and or no jewelry at all. And for those who want to wear fancy jewelry despite the risks, well, wearing body armor and or legally concealing a weapon could be your best shot at survival as the western world plummets into a crime-infested liberal utopia.
Prior to its upcoming conference in Davos next month, the World Economic Forum (WEF) appears to have joined the cancel campaign against Twitter, taking to recommending Chinese state-controlled social media apps to “follow along” with Davos Man into the future.
Twitter is noticeably absent from the entities listed on the organization’s “How to follow Davos 2023” social media pamphlet, and that appears to be no accident.
To stay up to speed with all that is happening within the invite-only doors of the ruling class confab, the WEF recommends following along through a handful of social media sites. They include the U.S.-based narrative-compliant Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, along with the Chinese social media apps TikTok WeChat, and Weibo. Twitter, which has freed itself from the grasp of the WEF-endorsed censorship-compliant social apps, is no longer included.
Through its founder Klaus Schwab and partner organizations, the WEF has a very cozy relationship with the Chinese government. Davos recently revealed that their China office now has 40 full time staffers. Moreover, every year in Beijing, the WEF hosts its “Annual Meeting of the New Champions,” which facilitates partnerships between international businesses and the Chinese Community Party. In 2018, the CCP awarded Klaus Schwab with its China Reform Friendship Medal, a medal for non-Chinese people who do the CCP’s bidding overseas.
Davos 2023 will feature Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, on stage. First reported by The Dossier, he will appear at an event titled “Tackling Harm in The Digital Era.”
In case you missed it, The Dossier has obtained an early, partial list of both events and confirmed speakers for Davos 2023. On the agenda for the 2023 conference includes event titles such as Why We Need Battery Passports, Leading The Charge Through Earth’s New Normal, A Living Wage For All, Enabling An Equitable Transition, and Beyond The Rainbow: Advancing LGBTQ+ Rights, among others.
The Bird App has faced a ferocious cancel campaign following its change of management. Elon Musk’s pledge to turn Twitter into a free speech platform has met major resistance from the institutional corporate and governmental ruling class. Several WEF partners, such as BlackRock, have joined the attacks against Twitter, boycotting the platform in protest of its “content moderation” policies. It should come as no surprise that the ruling class’s favorite narrative and ideas shop for technocratic tyranny has come after Twitter, given that the latter app is now serving as the one major global social media platform for open debate and dialogue.
China abruptly reversed the zero-Covid regime that isolated the world’s second-largest economy for nearly three years. High-frequency data shows highway congestion is rising, which could indicate a surge in crude demand in 2023.
BloombergNEF published a note that found China’s road congestion index rebounded from the previous week. The index includes highway congestion from 15 major cities, which jumped by 58.2% versus a week earlier. And what this means is that mobility is increasing across China despite the resurgence of Covid-19 infections.
China’s exit from zero-Covid (more on what the reopening means for the economy and markets) could indicate crude consumption for the country might begin to tick up in the first quarter of 2023 and accelerate in the back half of the year if the reopening process is smooth.
Since 2020, strict lockdowns and quarantines have impeded mobility by road inside China. For the first ten months of this year, passengers traveling by road were down 82% versus the same period in 2019. As restrictions ease, travel demand will increase and eventually rebound as urban and long-distance highway travel resumes. This would boost oil consumption.
“China’s total consumption is set to rise by 1.0 million b/d or more by the end of 2023 as travel restrictions unwind and manufacturing recovers,” Reuters noted. As we explained last month, China has already increased oil imports for reopening.
The problem with China reopening is there might not be enough spare crude production capacity to satisfy demand by the second half of 2023. Crude supply remains constrained by OPEC+ output limits, sanctions on Russia, and a lack of US crude production, so if there’s no global recession next year, the likelihood of renewed upward pressure on crude could take hold.
… and maybe former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s bullish outlook for $150 Brent is something to note.
1. Oil price will rise to $150 a barrel, and gas price will top $5.000 per 1.000 cubic meters
2. The UK will rejoin the EU
3. The EU will collapse after the UK’s return; Euro will drop out of use as the former EU currency
Republican Congressman-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) is being investigated by prosecutors after he said he had embellished his professional biography during his campaign to represent the state’s 3rd Congressional District.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly, a Republican who took office at the start of 2022, said in a statement on Dec. 29: “The numerous fabrications and inconsistencies associated with Congressman-Elect Santos are nothing short of stunning.
“The residents of Nassau County and other parts of the third district must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress. No one is above the law and if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it.”
Representatives for Santos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Dec. 26, in an interview with the New York Post and New York-based radio station WABC, Santos said he had fabricated parts of his education and work experience, in what he called “resume embellishments.”
Santos had falsely claimed on his biography posted on the National Republican Congressional Committee that he had obtained “degrees in finance and economics” at Baruch College and New York University, and had worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
The revelations came about after a report from The New York Times on Dec. 19 called into question what Santos had claimed about his heritage, education, and work history.
The rep.-elect said he still plans to assume office in January. He is scheduled to be sworn in on Jan. 3, when the U.S. House of Representatives reconvenes.
“I want to make sure that if I disappointed anyone by resume embellishments, I’m sorry,” he told WABC on Dec. 26. “And I will deliver to you on everything I campaigned on because it’s still the same guy, still the same message, still the same priorities.”
Santos faced other allegations such as that he had falsely said he was Jewish. Santos on Dec. 26 told the New York Post he had “never claimed to be Jewish.”
Previously, he referred to himself as “a proud American Jew,” reported The Associated Press, and described himself as a “non-observant Jew,” reported the Jewish Insider. He separately had said on Twitter that he is a “conservative Roman Catholic.”
In remarks to the Jewish Insider in early November, Santos said: “Whether my mother’s Jewish background beliefs, which are mine, or my father’s Roman Catholic beliefs, which are also mine, are represented or not, I want to represent everyone else that practices every other religion to make sure everybody feels like they have a partner in me.”
Laid Off Tech Workers Are Having No Trouble Finding New Jobs
It was just hours ago that we wrote about how restaurant staffing was returning to pre-pandemic levels and, in what we’re sure is totally not a coincidence, it also appears that laid off tech workers are having no trouble finding new jobs.
According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, the job market apparently hasn’t softened enough just yet: tech workers are finding jobs “shortly after beginning their search” despite the tightening job market.
The 10.3 million job openings across the economy still “far exceeds” the number of unemployed Americans, the report noted.
Ergo, 79% of workers who were laid off or terminated found new work within three months, the report says. About 40% of workers found new jobs less than a month after being terminated or laid off from the tech jobs, according to data from ZipRecruiter.
Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told the Journal: “Despite the widespread layoffs, hiring freezes, and cost-cutting taking place in tech, many tech workers are finding reemployment remarkably quickly. They’re still the most sought-after workers with the most in-demand skills.”
The report noted that a smaller share of workers in tech are spending long periods of time searching for new opportunities:
About 5% of laid off tech workers who found jobs from April to October had spent more than six months hunting for work, down from 26% of those hired between August 2021 and February 2022, ZipRecruiter said.
One 23 year old former videographer, who was fired and then able to land a new job within two months, told WSJ: ““When I was applying, to be honest, I didn’t feel very confident because there was such an influx of competition with a lot of people also being laid off.”
But he was able to land a social media manager job at a software startup under 3 months from being laid off. “I was surprised at how quickly I was able to secure an offer for a job,” he said of the new opportunity.
Ryan Sutton, district president at Robert Half, a global recruitment firm added: “We’ve definitely seen a slowdown in hiring, but the reason why is that the job creation level was beyond record highs because of the slingshot effect of the pandemic. From August 2020 to May 2022, it wasn’t red-hot. It was lava-hot.”
He said the “usual” occurrence of laid off tech workers contacting his company for placement hasn’t happened. “We have not seen it yet—we haven’t seen more candidates coming to market. Our recruiters are having to hunt and hustle just as much as they had to in the last couple of years,” he concluded.
And it appears the bounce back for laid off workers isn’t just limited to tech. Workers in other industries, such as transportation and delivery, were also able to find new jobs easily, the Journal concluded. You can read their full report here.
If the world can learn one thing from the COVID chaos in China, it is that “locking down does not work,” said healthcare policy adviser Dr. Scott Atlas.
“We don’t even know really the extent of the harms to their population that they inflicted by locking down but we know anecdotally that there were massive harms to people—they couldn’t get food, they couldn’t get their own medications, people were imposing a completely uncivilized, almost animalistic way,” Atlas, a previous White House special coronavirus adviser and contributor to The Epoch Times, said in an interview.
For almost three years, China’s ruling regime has imposed a severe zero-COVID strategy, using strict lockdowns, centralized quarantines, mass testing, and omnipresent surveillance to contain the virus’s spread, leading to many residents being deprived of basic living needs, and some even dying from a lack of care.
“This is a massive human rights violation,” Atlas said.
“All of their policies imposed on their public,” he said, referring to China’s communist party (CCP), “is an example of one of the most extraordinary violations of human rights that we have seen in modern history.”
World Health Organization emergencies director Mike Ryan noted during a global health briefing on Dec. 14 that this wave of COVID-19 now seen in China is not due to the lifting of COVID restrictions, as it started long before any easing of the zero-COVID policy.
“I think that it’s very important to recognize that,” he said, adding,
“The disease was spreading intensively because I believe the control measures in themselves were not stopping the disease, and I believe that the Chinese authorities have decided strategically that that for them is not the best option anymore.”
Contrasting the few death cases the authorities have reported—11 since the easing of COVID curbs earlier this month—was mounting anecdotal evidence suggesting that the virus is fast spreading in Chinese cities and fatalities are rising. Hospitals and funeral homes have been filling up, with backlogs of bodies awaiting cremation.
The Chinese numbers, Atlas said, are “absurd” to think of.
“This just completely flies in the face of common sense,” he said.
“No one should believe the counting method that is reported by China,” he added, noting that to “save face and justify their reckless harmful lockdowns,” the regime would “necessarily have to say they had fewer deaths.”
COVID-19 patients on gurneys at Tianjin First Center Hospital in Tianjin, China, on Dec. 28, 2022. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)
“I don’t know how anyone would think that they have transparency on how they’re counting.”
The lack of data from China has been so concerning that it has driven the United States to impose a new travel curb mandating COVID tests for travelers from China.
Lockdown Success ‘Fantasy’
That the regime has been “lying about the numbers” from the beginning, Atlas said, poses a troubling question.
In January 2020, after suppressing whistleblower doctors and journalists trying to sound warning about the emerging virus, China became the world’s first country to shut down cities in response to COVID-19 spiraling out of control. As the virus spread, the lockdown method that Beijing insisted was effective was then quickly copied by other countries around the world, such as the United States.
Atlas, an early lockdown critic, has previously enumerated the toll that such policies inflict on the public, from learning loss and mental health damage to a rise in substance abuse.
“There was this false belief that somehow China had ‘beaten the virus.’ This was a completely absurd lie—a fantasy.”
Health workers wait for people to scan a health code to test for the COVID-19 coronavirus in the Jing’an district in Shanghai, China, on Dec. 22, 2022. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
It was a lie that Atlas believes policymakers “blind to science” bought without question.
“It’s one thing that it’s a society like China [that] imposes the draconian policies on its on its public, because that’s what totalitarian societies do,” he said. “But it’s another thing—it’s extraordinary that governments of supposedly ‘free societies’ would attempt to impose these sorts of policies on the public—and even more sad is the acquiescence of people to such policies.”
“It’s a horrible indictment of American leadership to emulate a totalitarian society like China.”
Separate from the fact that locking down can’t get rid of a virus, Atlas sees two things that the world hasn’t grasped about the CCP’s “inhumane policies”: “the true failure of their policies and the massive harms on their own people.”
“The worst thing for China, or any totalitarian society, is to have people start realizing that the government policies are failures,” he said. “Because the only reason that the totalitarian societies exist is they have power.”
Police and National Guard members are going door-to-door Wednesday to check on some Buffalo residents following a major winter storm that left dozens of people dead in recent days, officials said Wednesday.
Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz confirmed the development on Wednesday morning in a news conference. National Guard members and police will be deployed to neighborhoods that lost power during the storm.
Poloncarz also warned more dead could be found during the door-to-door checks. “We are fearful that there are people who are not doing well, or who may have perished,” he said.
“If your neighborhood lost power, you’re going to see a member of the National Guard starting now for the next 48 hours, who is going to knock on your door, ‘Is everybody OK? Was there any issues? Is anyone sick,’” Poloncarz added.
Officials said more than 30 people so far have been reported to have died because of the blizzard that raged Friday and Saturday in western New York, an area prone to powerful winter storms. The historic Blizzard of 1977 killed as many as 29.
A driving ban remained in effect for Buffalo, Poloncarz said Wednesday. The National Guard and state police are enforcing the measure, he said.
“The National Guard is NOT ticketing, they are assisting with traffic issues and people violating the driving ban in the City of Buffalo while crews are still working to clear roads,” he wrote on Twitter Wednesday, adding that the ban on driving will likely remain for the rest of Wednesday.
The county executive added that “no EMS call will go unanswered” and that “911 has been up and running and EMS crews are focused on life-saving missions. There may be delays, but they are out responding to calls.”
At least one death in Erie County was connected to an EMS delay, he told CNN on Tuesday. “Our emergency responders could not get to the person because of the snow,” Poloncarz added. “They were blocked, and by the time they got there it was too late.”
Only a trace of snow might fall on Buffalo and Western New York off the Great Lakes on Wednesday as temperatures will hit 40 degrees Fahrenheit, said Josh Weiss, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
“Most of the snow has ended, fortunately. They need a break,” Weiss said. “In Buffalo, there’s no forecast below zero into next week,” he said. “By the weekend it’ll be in the 50s.”
Weiss said that a warming trend has also begun for the eastern third of the United States and will extend past the new Year with temperatures remaining largely above freezing. Melting snow presents a risk of flooding and about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch of rain is expected in Western New York on Friday and Saturday.
“We’re expecting a rapid melt, and regional flooding on creeks. Creeks will top out,” Poloncarz said Wednesday.
Other Details
Giant snow-blowing machines were deployed to help clear several major highways clogged with towering drifts.
Hundreds of electric company linemen were out restoring power, and Poloncarz posted on Twitter that some 4,500 customers remained without electricity on Tuesday, as crews cleared downed trees with chain saws.
For residents essentially trapped in their homes for two days, the easing of the storm brought a realization of how much snow fell during white-out conditions that had limited their view.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called it an “epic, once-in-a-lifetime” weather disaster, the worst blizzard to hit the Buffalo area in 45 years.
In a Dec 23 hearing, Circuit Court Judge Robert Raschio said he would rule by Jan. 3 whether to lift a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the Oregon Ballot Measure 114 requirement that a background check be completed before a firearm can be sold or transferred.
Earlier this month, Raschio issued a TRO on the measure’s permit-to-purchase provision and its ban on magazines that carry 10 or more rounds. Those TROs are still in place.
Passed in November with just 50.7 percent of the vote, Ballot Measure 114 was initially scheduled to take effect Dec. 8 but, starting on Dec. 6, faced a flurry of lawsuits.
In a Harney County suit filed on Dec. 6 by Gun Owners of America (GOA), the Gun Owners Federation, Cliff Asmussen, and Joseph Arnold, Raschio issued a TRO just three hours after Federal Court Judge Karin J. Immergut had denied such relief to plaintiffs in one of four related cases.
In his ruling, Raschio said the law violated the Oregon state constitution’s right to bear arms and that Oregonians would be “unable to lawfully purchase a firearm or bear a magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition in the State of Oregon.”
The Oregon Department of Justice immediately filed a petition asking the Oregon Supreme Court to vacate the lower court’s decision.
“We strongly disagree with the decision of the Harney County Circuit Court,” Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum wrote to the court. “Our mandamus petition to the Oregon Supreme Court gives our highest state court the opportunity to weigh in now and reverse the Harney County judge’s ruling.”
The state Supreme Court refused to intervene.
State Unprepared to Issue Permits
On Dec. 13, Raschio heard arguments on the permit-to-purchase provision, which the state acknowledged was not ready to go. The state had declared that it needed until approximately Feb. 8 to implement that system.
Lifting the order before the permitting system is ready would cause “irreparable harm to the constitutional right to bear arms,” he said. The judge continued the TRO for this provision. When the state notifies him in writing that it is prepared to roll out the new permitting program, he will schedule a hearing.
The court then considered the ban on magazines that hold 10 rounds or more. The state argued that such firearms were not in “common use” when the Second Amendment was ratified. So, they are not protected.
The state’s expert, Brian DeLay, associate professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley, testified that high-capacity firearms were an “experimental technology” and not commercially available when the Oregon Constitution was ratified.
Experts for the plaintiffs testified that high-capacity firearms have existed since the 16th century.
Lewis and Clark Carried High Capacity Firearm
Isaac Botkin, the technical and education director at manufacturing company T-Rex Arms for more than a decade, described a long history of firearms capable of holding more than 10 rounds, the most famous being one carried by the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It was in 1804-06 that Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Lt. William Clark led the expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase and the Pacific Northwest.
“Meriwether Lewis carried a firearm that had the capability of 20 or 22 rounds that was quite effective,” he said.
The state’s attorney argued that Botkin shouldn’t be allowed to make any “historical conclusions” on the history of guns, claiming that he is not an expert. The judge disagreed and allowed Botkin to continue.
Plaintiff’s Attorney Tony Aiello Jr. argued that magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are standard for guns manufactured today. He said those guns are “essentially the same firearm, just modified by design and function,” as some of the nation’s earliest guns.
Raschio asked whether magazine restrictions would “reasonably promote public safety by restraining a constitutional right to bear arms” as claimed in the ballot measure. Aiello argued that it would not, claiming that the ban would deny law-abiding Oregonians the ability to defend themselves while criminals continue to ignore the law.
Background Check Provision Scrutinized
Convinced that the ban would violate Oregonians’ rights under the state constitution, Raschio also extended the TRO on the magazine restriction.
“Based upon the preliminary evidence, the result of BM 114 would be a near absolute prohibition on handguns and many other firearms with their magazines,” Raschio wrote.
The Dec. 23 hearing focused primarily on the measure’s requirement that a background check is completed before a firearm can be sold or transferred.
Oregon special Attorney General Harry B. Wilson argued that the completed background-check requirement would save lives, is constitutional, and wasn’t explicitly challenged by the plaintiffs.
A licensed firearms dealer can legally deliver a purchased gun after three business days if the required federal background check is not complete—what gun control advocates call the “Charleston Loophole.” Measure 114 would end that by giving the state more time to complete background checks.
Measure Offers No Guarantee of Expediency
“Although a significant percentage of background checks are completed automatically within minutes, many require additional time,” Wilson wrote to the court. “As a result, in some instances, individuals with felony criminal histories can obtain a firearm because the transferer can deliver the firearm after three days and before the background check is complete.”
