Authored by John Murawski via RealClear Wire,

As the Biden administration and governments worldwide make massive commitments to rapidly decarbonize the global economy, the persistent effort to silence climate change skeptics is intensifying – and the critics keep pushing back. 

This summer the International Monetary Fund summarily canceled a presentation by John Clauser, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who publicly disavows the existence of a climate “crisis.” The head of the nonprofit with which Clauser is affiliated, the CO2 Coalition, has said he and other members have been delisted from LinkedIn for their dissident views.  

Meanwhile, a top academic journal retracted published research doubting a climate emergency after negative coverage in legacy media. The move was decried by another prominent climate dissenter, Roger Pielke Jr., as “one of the most egregious failures of scientific publishing that I have seen” – criticism muffled because the academic says he has been blocked on Twitter (now X) by reporters on the climate beat. 

The climate dissenters are pressing their case as President Biden, United Nations officials, and climate action advocates in media and academia argue that the “settled science” demands a wholesale societal transformation. That means halving U.S. carbon emissions by 2035 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050 to stave off the “existential threat” of human-induced climate change. 

In response last month, more than 1,600 scientists, among them two Nobel physics laureates, Clauser and Ivar Giaever of Norway, signed a declaration stating that there is no climate emergency, and that climate advocacy has devolved into mass hysteria. The skeptics say the radical transformation of entire societies is marching forth without a full debate, based on dubious scientific claims amplified by knee-jerk journalism.  

Many of these climate skeptics reject the optimistic scenarios of economic prosperity promised by advocates of a net-zero world order. They say the global emissions-reduction targets are not achievable on such an accelerated timetable without lowering living standards and unleashing worldwide political unrest.  

“What advocates of climate action are trying to do is scare the bejesus out of the public so they’ll think we need to [act] fast,” said Steven Koonin, author of “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.”  

“You have to balance the certainties and uncertainties of the changing climate – the risks and hazards – against many other factors,” he adds. 

These dissenters don’t all agree on all scientific questions and do not speak in a single voice. Clauser, for example, is a self-styled “climate denialist” who believes climate is regulated by clouds, while Pielke, a political scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and Bjørn Lomborg, the former director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute, acknowledge humans are affecting the climate but say there is sufficient time to adapt. The dissenters do, however, agree that the public and government officials are getting a one-sided, apocalyptic account that stokes fear, politicizes science, misuses climate modeling, and shuts down debate.  

They also say it is a troubling sign for scientific integrity that they are systematically sidelined and diminished by government funding agencies, foundation grant-makers, academic journals, and much of the media. Delving into their claims, RealClearInvestigations reviewed a sampling of their books, articles, and podcast interviews. This loose coalition of writers and thinkers acknowledges that the climate is warming, but they typically ascribe as much, if not more, influence to natural cycles and climate variability than to human activities, such as burning fossil fuel.  

Among their arguments:  

• There is no climate crisis or existential threat as expressed in catastrophic predictions by activists in the media and academia. As global temperatures gradually increase, human societies will need to make adjustments in the coming century, just as societies have adapted to earlier climate changes. By and large, humans cannot control the climate, which Pielke describes as “the fanciful idea that emissions are a disaster control knob.” 

• Global temperatures are increasing incrementally, and have been for centuries, but the degree of human influence is uncertain or negligible. Climate skeptics themselves don’t agree on how much humans are contributing to global warming by burning fossil fuels, and how much is caused by natural variability from El Niño and other cycles that can take centuries to play out. “The real question is not whether the globe has warmed recently,” writes Koonin, “but rather to what extent this warming is being caused by humans.” 

• Rapidly replacing fossil fuels with renewables and electricity by mid-century would be economically risky and may have a negligible effect on global warming. Some say mitigation decrees – such as phasing out the combustion engine and banning gas stoves – are not likely to prevent climate change because humans play a minor role in global climate trends. Others say mitigation is necessary but won’t happen without capable replacement technologies. It’s unrealistic, they say, to force societies to rely on intermittent energy from wind and solar, or wager the future on technologies that are still in experimental stages.   

• The global political push to kill the fossil fuel industry to get to “net zero” and “carbon neutrality” by 2050, as advocated by the United Nations and the Biden administration, will erase millions of jobs and raise energy costs, leading to a prolonged economic depression and political instability. The result would be that developing regions will pay the highest price, while the biggest polluters (China and India) and hostile nations (like Russia and Iran) will simply ignore the net-zero mandate. This could be a case where the cure could be worse than the disease.  

• Despite the common refrain in the media, there is no evidence that a gradually warming planet is affecting the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, storms, droughts, rainfall, or other weather events. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has expressed low confidence such weather events can be linked to human activities. Still, “it is a fertile field for cherry pickers,” notes Pielke.  

• Extreme weather events, such as wildfires and flooding, are not claiming more human lives than previously. The human death toll is largely caused by cold weather, which accounts for eight times as many deaths as hot weather, and overall weather-related mortality has fallen by about 99% in the past century. “People are safer from climate-related disasters than ever before,” statistician and author Bjørn Lomborg has said. 

• Climate science has been hijacked and politicized by activists, creating a culture of self-censorship that’s enforced by a code of silence that Koonin likens to the Mafia’s omerta. In her 2023 book, “Climate Uncertainty and Risk,” climatologist Judith Curry asks: “How many skeptical papers were not published by activist editorial boards? How many published papers have buried results in order to avoid highlighting findings that conflict with preferred narratives? I am aware of anecdotal examples of each of these actions, but the total number is unknowable.” 

• Slogans such as “follow the science” and “scientific consensus” are misleading and disingenuous. There is no consensus on many key questions, such as the urgency to cease and desist burning fossil fuels, or the accuracy of computer modeling predictions of future global temperatures. The apparent consensus of imminent disaster is manufactured through peer pressure, intimidation, and research funding priorities, based on the conviction that “noble lies,” “consensus entrepreneurship,” and “stealth advocacy” are necessary to save humanity from itself. “One day PhD dissertations will be written about our current moment of apocalyptic panic,” Pielke predicts.  

• The warming of the planet is a complicated phenomenon that will cause some disruptions but will also bring benefits, particularly in agricultural yields and increased vegetation. Some climate skeptics, including the CO2 Coalition, say CO2 is not a pollutant – it is “plant food.”  

Curry, the former Chair of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, expresses a common theme among the climate refuseniks: that they are the sane, rational voices in a maelstrom of quasi-religious mania.  

“In the 1500s, they used to drown witches in Europe because they blamed them for bad weather. You had the pagan people trying to appease the gods with sacrifices,” Curry said. “What we’re doing now is like a pseudoscientific version of that, and it’s no more effective than those other strategies.’ 

The climate change establishment occasionally concedes some of these points. No less an authority than the newly appointed head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has urged the climate community to cool its jets: “If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, then that paralyzes people and prevents them from taking the necessary steps to get a grip on climate change,” Jim Skea recently said to German media. “The world won’t end if it warms by more than 1.5 degrees [centigrade]. It will however be a more dangerous world.”  

In testimony before the Senate Budget Committee in June, Pielke said human-caused climate change is real and “poses significant risks to society and the environment.” But the science does not paint a dystopian, catastrophic scenario of imminent doom, he added.  

“Today, there is general agreement that our current media environment and political discourse are rife with misinformation,” Pielke testified. “If there is just one sentence that you take from my testimony today it is this: You are being misinformed.” 

Still, the overwhelming impression conveyed is one of impending disaster, with the menace of global warming rhetorically upgraded in July by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to “global boiling.” Climate scientists announced in July that the planet is the hottest it’s been in 120,000 years, an old claim that gets recycled every few years. Meanwhile, three vice-chairs of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of mass starvation, extinction, and disasters, saying that if the temperature rises 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels, “children under 12 will experience a fourfold increase in natural disasters in their lifetime, and up to 14% of all species assessed will likely face a very high risk of extinction.”  

Many of these predictions are based on computer models and computer simulations that Pielke, Koonin, Curry, and others have decried as totally implausible. Koonin’s book suggests that some computer models may be “cooking the books” to achieve desired outcomes, while Pielke has decried faulty scenarios as “one of the most significant failures of scientific integrity in the twenty-first  century thus far.” Curry writes in her book that the primary inadequacy of climate models is their limited ability to predict the kinds of natural climate fluctuations that cause ice ages and warming periods, and play out over decades, centuries, or even millennia.  

Another critique is the use of computer models to correlate extreme weather events to multi-decade climate trends in an attempt to show that the weather was caused by climate, a branch of climate science called climate attribution studies. This type of research is used to bolster claims that the frequency and intensity of heat waves, floods, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events could not have happened without climate change. An example is research recently cited by the BBC in an article warning that if the global temperature rises another 0.9 centigrade, crippling heat waves that were once exceedingly rare will bake the world every two-to-five years.  

One question looms: Does a warming climate contribute to heat records and heat waves, such as those that were widely reported in July as the hottest month on record and taken as overwhelming proof that humans are overheating the planet? The United States experienced extreme heat waves in the 1930s, and the recent spikes are not without precedent, climate dissenters say. Pielke, however,  concedes that IPCC data signal that increases in heat extremes and heat waves are virtually certain, but he argues that the societal impacts will be manageable.  

Koonin and Curry say that the global heat spikes in July were likely caused by a multiplicity of factors, including an underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic explosion last year that increased upper atmosphere water vapor by about 10%, a relevant fact because water vapor acts as a greenhouse gas. Another factor is the warming effect of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, which has shifted to an active phase recently.  

Koonin says that greenhouse gas emissions are a gradual trend on which weather anomalies play out, and while it’s tempting to confuse weather with climate, it would be a mistake to blame July’s heat waves on human influence.  

“The anomaly is about as large as we’ve ever seen, but not unprecedented,” Koonin explained on a podcast. “Now, what the real question is, why did it spike so much? Nothing to do with CO2 – CO2 is … the base on which this phenomenon occurs.” 

Climate dissent comes with the occupational hazard of being tarred as a propagandist and stooge for “Big Oil.” Pielke was one of seven academics investigated by a U.S. Congressman in 2015 for allegedly failing to report funding from fossil fuel interests (He was cleared). A New York Times review of Lomborg’s 2020 book, “False Alarm,” described it as “mind pollution.” 

Climate advocates see climate skepticism as so dangerous that Ben Santer, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, publicly cut ties with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory two years ago after the federal research facility invited Koonin to discuss his skeptical book, “Unsettled.” Santer, a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, said allowing Koonin’s views to go unchallenged undermined the credibility and integrity of climate science research. For similar reasons, the IMF postponed Clauser’s July presentation so that it could be rescheduled as a debate.  

Another critique: scientists arbitrarily forcing the facts to fit a prescribed catastrophic narrative, often by ignoring plausible alternative explanations and relevant factors. That’s what climate scientist Patrick Brown said he had to do to get published in the prestigious journal Nature, by attributing wildfires to climate change and ignoring other factors, like poor forest management and the startling fact that over 80% of wildfires are ignited by humans. Brown publicly confessed to this sleight-of-hand in a recent article in The Free Press.  

“This type of framing, with the influence of climate change unrealistically considered in isolation, is the norm for high-profile research papers,” Brown wrote. “When I had previously attempted to deviate from the formula, my papers were rejected out of hand by the editors of distinguished journals, and I had to settle for less prestigious outlets.” 

These frustrations serve as a reminder that the world has entered what the United Nations and climate advocates call the make-or-break decade that will decide how much the Earth’s temperature will rise above pre-industrial levels. This decisive phase is “unfolding now and will intensify during the next several years,” according to Rice University researchers. “Accordingly, what happens between now and the late 2020s, in all likelihood, will fundamentally determine the failure or success of an accelerated energy transition.” 

In response to this call for global action, political leaders in Europe and North America are vowing to reengineer their societies to run on wind, solar, and hydrogen. In this country, California is among a dozen states that have moved to ban the sale of new gasoline-engine cars in 2035, while states like Virginia and North Carolina have committed to carbon-free power girds by mid-century.  

In the most detailed net-zero roadmap to date, the International Energy Agency in 2021 identified more than 400 milestones that would have to be met to achieve a net-zero planet by mid-century, including the immediate cessation of oil and gas exploration and drilling, and mandated austerity measures such as reducing highway speed limits, limiting temperature settings in private homes, and eating less meat.  

In the IEA’s net zero scenario, global energy use will decline by 8% through energy efficiency even as the world’s population adds 2 billion people and the economy grows a whopping 40%. In this scenario, all the nations of the world – including China, India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia – would have to commit to a net-zero future, generating 14 million jobs to create a new energy infrastructure. Nearly half the slated emissions reductions will have to come from experimental technologies currently in demonstration or prototype stages, such as hydrogen, bioenergy, carbon capture, and modular nuclear reactors. Reading this bracing outlook, one could almost overlook the IEA’s caveat that relying on solar and wind for nearly 70% of electricity generation would cause retail electricity prices to increase by 50% on average and destroy 5 million jobs, of which “many are well paid, meaning structural changes can cause shocks for communities with impacts that persist over time.”  

A critique of the IEA’s scenario issued this year by the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a think tank that specializes in oil, gas, and petroleum products, warned of “massive supply shocks” if oil supplies are artificially suppressed to meet arbitrary net zero targets. The report further stated that “if the world stays committed to net zero regardless of high costs – the recession will turn into an extended depression and ultimately impose radical negative changes upon modern civilization.” (Disclosure: The report was commissioned by the RealClearFoundation, the nonprofit parent of RealClearInvestigations.) 

Already, societies have fallen behind their emissions reduction targets, and it’s widely understood that fast-tracking net zero is an unattainable goal. Transforming existing energy infrastructures within several decades would require installing the equivalent of the world’s largest solar farm every day, according to the International Energy Agency. Carbon-free energy accounts for only 18% of total global consumption, and fossil fuels are still increasing, according to a recent analysis. The IEA reported this year that investments in oil exploration and drilling have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, while global coal demand reached an all-time high last year. Globally nations are spending more on clean energy than on fossil fuels, but fossil fuels are still vital to economic growth; for instance, the IEA noted that 40 gigawatts of new coal plants were approved in 2022, the highest figure since 2016, almost all of them in China.  

“We live in this world of exaggerated promises and delusional pop science,” Vaclav Smil, the University of Manitoba environmental scientist and policy analyst, told The New York Times last year. “People don’t appreciate the magnitude of the task and are setting up artificial deadlines which are unrealistic.” 

A government push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by cutting back on livestock farming has led to public protests in the Netherlands, a conflict over resources that Time magazine predicts will spread elsewhere: “This may be just the beginning of much wider global unrest over agriculture. Scientists say dealing with climate change will require not just gradual reform, but a rapid, wholesale transformation of the global food system.”  

Climate dissidents say what happened in the Netherlands is a foretaste of the political backlash that is inevitable when net-zero policies start becoming implemented and people have to travel across state lines to buy a gasoline-powered car.  

“The urgency is the stupidest part of the whole thing – that we need to act now with all these made-up targets,” Curry said. “The transition risk is far greater than any conceivable climate or weather risk.” 

To Koonin, these challenges indicate that the catastrophic climate narrative will collapse when put to the test of practicality and politics. The more sensible route, he said, is a slow-and-steady approach.  

“There’s going to be a deep examination of science and the cost-benefit issues,” he said. “We will eventually do the right thing, but it’s going to take a decade or so.” 

John Murawski reports on the intersection of culture and ideas for RealClearInvestigations. He previously covered artificial intelligence for the Wall Street Journal and spent 15 years as a reporter for the News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) writing about health care, energy and business. At RealClear, Murawski reports on how esoteric academic theories on race and gender have been shaping many areas of public life, from K-12 school curricula to workplace policies to the practice of medicine.

Google is ubiquitous in the daily lives of billions of people around the world, with leading positions in online search, maps, and other services.

In fact, as Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu notes, Google’s dominance is so far-reaching, it has led the U.S. Justice Department to launch a civil antitrust lawsuit for what it believes are examples of anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct.

This graphic, which uses data from Similarweb, shows the scale of Google’s lead over major search engine competitors like Bing and Yahoo.

Global Search Engine Market Share

The data we used to create this graphic is provided in the table below. It is global search engine market share as of June 2023, across all platforms (desktop, mobile, and tablet).

Note that this analysis does not include China, where Google and other American tech firms are currently banned, or Russia, where Google has ceased operations.

The largest player included in “Other” is South Korea’s Naver (0.48% global market share), which is similar to Google in that it offers a plethora of online services like search, video, and mobile payments.

Google Prepares for its U.S. Lawsuit

In January 2023, the U.S. Justice Department announced a civil antitrust lawsuit against Google for monopolizing digital advertising technologies.

“Today’s complaint alleges that Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful conduct to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies”

– MERRICK B. GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL

The Justice Department originally made several antitrust arguments. Potential actions that were deemed red flags include setting Google as a default mobile browser on Android phones, designing search results to disadvantage competitors, and the company’s ongoing partnership with Apple for its Safari browser. That said, some of the less substantial claims have since been dismissed by Judge Amit Mehta.

Google’s court case will begin in mid-September, marking the biggest tech monopoly trial since United States v. Microsoft Corp in 2001. Google is expected to argue that it simply offers a superior product.

Can Bing Challenge Google on Home Turf?

To answer this question, let’s look at U.S. market share over the past 12 months ending June 2023.

From this chart we can see that Bing maintains a slightly higher 5.5% U.S. market share (versus 3.2% globally).

The biggest takeaway from this chart, though, is that Bing does not appear to have gained any traction in 2023, even after releasing its latest AI-powered version in February.

The new Bing is the result of Microsoft’s $10 billion investment into OpenAI at the beginning of 2023, which allows the tech giant to incorporate the immensely popular GPT-4 into its various products and services.

Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

Earlier this year, the Biden Administration announced its intent to move the United States “as close to Universal Background Checks as possible without additional legislation.”

After much speculation on how far-reaching the rule would be, it has finally arrived, and it’s worse than expected.

In its current form, the universal background check rule could subject those who sell even a single firearm to dealer requirements, including a background check.

ICYMI📢

We hate to say we told you so, but it’s official.

The Justice Department announced a new rule to amend ATF regulations and expand the definition of a firearms dealer to include those who sell even a single firearm. 🤯 https://t.co/HIpxe0xYv6

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) September 5, 2023

While it is worth noting that none of this would be possible without the Republican-backed gun control known as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. There’s still something that gun owners can do to combat this rule.

Under the Administrative Procedures Act, when agencies like ATF make rules, they must first submit the rule for public comment on the Federal Register.

During this period, citizens can give their thoughts on the rule and describe their unique situations as to how it will affect them.

If enough comments are negative, the agency will pull the rule and not proceed. Gun Owners of America has experienced massive success in defeating the ATF through this method. Most significantly, in 2015, we defeated the Obama administration’s attempt to ban M855 “green tip” ammunition during the notice and comment period.

The first attempt at a pistol brace ruling during the Trump Administration was also defeated through the notice and comment period. ATF retracted the rule and “acknowledged there were legitimate uses for the devices,” a statement that encapsulates the hypocritical nature of the agency itself.

And even if the rule goes through and becomes the law of the land, we’re not out of options, but your comments are still extremely important to the next steps.

First, we lobby Congress to bring the rule under the Congressional Review Act. Gun Owners of America did this for Biden’s pistol brace rule with H.J. Res 44. The House of Representatives passed a resolution that condemned the ATF rulemaking. Even though the resolution had no chance of being signed by Joe Biden, it still showed that ATF had acted against Congress’s intent, sending a powerful message to the courts.

To get members of Congress to vote yes on this resolution, all we had to do was point to the massive number of comments left on the rule by their constituents.

Your comments matter in our lawsuits. If we can’t get Congress to act, we can always take the ATF to court, something we’re preparing to do right now over this rule. In our lawsuit, we will undoubtedly use the comments of GOA members to show how the rule adversely affects such a large portion of our membership along with the general population.

🚨BREAKING🚨

The @ATFHQ sent notice of a new rule to essentially create backdoor Universal Registration Checks to require a background check where any “profit” is made.

We will share details after we’ve reviewed the rule & our attorneys will be preparing a lawsuit.

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 31, 2023

We have seen ATF rules where thousands of pro-gun commenters will point out a problem or flaw in the ATF’s reasoning, forcing the agency to attempt a rewrite in order to try and fix the problem, only to find that the ATF has violated the Administrative Procedures Act because they made significant changes without issuing a second round of comments. This is a violation of law that can bring down the entire gun control rule. 

Sadly, there is an attitude among some gun owners who don’t think their voice matters – and that gives the ATF precisely what they want.  

In fact, the worst thing you can do as someone who’s pro-gun is take a backseat to events like this because it’s a “waste of time.”  

The ATF and the anti-gun lobby want you NOT to be politically active! It’s a key part of their strategy. If voters can be persuaded that noncompliance is the only way to combat a tyrannical government and that there’s no use fighting for your rights within the system, the government can then legislate your rights away as they please and simply play the waiting game to catch those practicing noncompliance.

This is why it’s not just important for you to get involved politically, but for you to get your fellow gun owners to do the same. 

Erich Pratt, Senior Vice President for Gun Owners of America, said:

 “It’s been said time and again: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ The anti-gun Left would love nothing more than for gun owners to think their activism accomplishes nothing. But that’s a horrid lie. Our activism has … does … and will continue to make a difference. We dare not keep silent, or we will have only ourselves to blame when our freedoms are taken from us.”

Unfortunately, the reality is that your rights are under attack from very well-funded organizations that currently have a large amount of influence over the United States government. As gun owners, we can’t be complacent in saying, “I’ll sit this one out.”  

So please leave a comment on the Federal Register.

Help us fight back against the Biden Administration and the Billionaire-funded anti-gun lobby.

*   *   * 

We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

In a quest to be more “inclusive,” a Canadian school board in Mississauga, Ontario has decided to purge its library of all books published before the year 2008.

Erindale Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario, ‘burned’ roughly 50% of its library book, including Harry Potter and the Hunger Games series, as part of a new “equity-based book weeding” implemented by the Peel District School Board earlier this year, according to the CBC.

The board insists it was following a wider directive from the Minister of Education to make learning resources more inclusive and reflective of the community.

Yes, a library with empty shelves sounds very inclusive…

Also purged were classics  like “The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank” and iconic children’s books like “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”

When asked WTF, the school board has been notably evasive, refusing to address whether books are being removed solely based on their publication date. Their statement, which claims books are removed if they are “damaged, inaccurate, or not checked out often,” doesn’t check out whatsoever.

10th-grade student of Japanese descent Reina Takata worries that significant portions of her heritage could vanish with this book purge.

“Authors who wrote about Japanese internment camps are going to be erased,” she warned.

Official backpedaling

Given the mounting backlash, Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce finally weighed in, condemning the practice as “offensive, illogical, and counterintuitive.” He has since ordered the board to cease the book removals immediately.

The larger issue here is the increasing trend of over-correction in the name of “wokeness,” often leading to the vanishing of history, culture, and nuanced discourse. At what point does the push for equity turn into a frenzy of historical whitewashing? Erindale Secondary School may have given us the answer: when you arbitrarily remove 50% of your library in the name of inclusivity, you’re probably doing it wrong.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

I recently wrote a column about five facts that justified the start of an impeachment inquiry.

While I have stressed that I do not believe that there is currently sufficient evidence for an actual impeachment, I am mystified by the claim that there is not ample evidence to warrant an inquiry into possible impeachable offenses.

Notably, CNN just reactivated its fact-checking team for a review of the basis for the inquiry. In so doing, the network made an iron-clad argument in support of the decision by Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

CNN presented this claim:

Claim: Biden family and associates got $20 million through shell companies

“Bank records show that nearly $20 million in payments were directed to the Biden family members and associates through various shell companies,” McCarthy said.

Facts First: This is true about Joe Biden’s family and associates, but there is no public evidence to date that the president personally received any money.

That is a fair fact check but it is also the very reason that Speaker McCarthy initiated the inquiry.

We do not know where this money went, why it was sent through this labyrinth of accounts, or what it was intended to buy. That is why this is an impeachment inquiry.

The media and a number of Democrats recently admitted, belatedly, that Hunter Biden was involved in a corrupt influence peddling operation. This was made clear by Hunter associate Devon Archer who said that they were selling the “Biden brand” and that brand was Joe Biden. Clearly, these corrupt foreign figures in China, Ukraine, and Russia (including some who were charged with corruption in their own countries) thought that they were getting something other than Hunter for their money. After all, one of these figures reportedly referred to Hunter as dumber than his dog. However, pundits and politicians now insist that it was merely the “illusion” of access.  In other words, these notoriously corrupt figures were chumps fleeced by Hunter and Biden associates.

However, how do we know it was an “illusion”?  You have a trusted FBI informant relaying the claim of a Ukrainian that he gave Biden a “bribe,” but was told not to pay him directly. As I previously discussed, only a moron would pay Joe Biden directly for such influence or access.

CNN repeatedly returns to this fact in each of the checked claims. Again, that is precisely why we have an inquiry. Bribery is a stated basis for impeachment in the Constitution. Even CNN accepts that, if Biden received such benefits, it would be a serious offense.

It is also worth noting, as I have raised previously, that the requirement of an envelope filled with money or a deposit slip into the checking account of Joe and Jill Biden is a bit ridiculous as a condition. If millions went to Biden children and grandchildren, it is still a benefit for the President.

Joe Biden is currently worth more than $8 million. At his age, he will never spend the wealth that he has. Most people in his position are focused on ways to leave financial legacies for their family and minimize estate and death taxes. It is absurd to suggest that millions going to Joe Biden’s family would not constitute a benefit to him.

Finally, the inquiry is looking into whether some of these funds did make their way into Joe Biden’s accounts.  There are indications that both Hunter and Joe received money out of some of these accounts and used shared credit cards. For example, there are indications that Hunter used his Dad’s credit card to pay for prostitutes.

That again is precisely the point of the impeachment inquiry. The House will now have to demand the personal bank and financial records of both Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. Thus far, the House Committees have been focused on following the money through bank transfers.

That is why the CNN fact check is a full-throated call for an impeachment inquiry. The nexus between this massive amount of money and President Biden is precisely what the House will now try to establish.

With the US military in the midst of a recruitment crisis, the Navy has decided to reverse course on its Digital Recruiting Program which featured an enlisted drag queen.

Four months ago, the Daily Caller noted that the Navy had brought on active-duty drag queen, Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelly, who goes by the stage name “Harpy Daniels” and identifies as non-binary. The goal was to make Kelley a “Navy Digital Ambassador” in a pilot program which ran from October 2022 to March 2023, and was “designed to explore the digital environment to reach a wide range of potential candidates.”

Putin must tremble in fear when he beholds the US Navy’s new ‘digital ambassador’ whose role is to get more recruits. Presenting the fabulous Harpy Daniels aka Joshua Kelly. 🤡 pic.twitter.com/FwNCzSrlsW

— David Vance (@DVATW) May 3, 2023

In a Tuesday letter to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) from Navy under secretary Erik Raven, the service confirmed that the Digital Ambassador Pilot program “will not be continued.”

“The Navy learned lessons from the pilot program that will inform our digital engagement and outreach going forward,” wrote Raven. “Our digital outreach efforts will maintain the important distinction between Sailors’ official activities and their personal lives.”

Tuberville — who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee — previously sent a letter to Admiral Michael M. Gilday, the chief of Naval Operations, in May, demanding to know the identities of the officers tasked with funding and promoting drag queen shows aboard naval vessels. The letter was sent the same day the Alabama senator and his Republican colleagues submitted a separate communique to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro on the branch’s embrace of Daniels and whether Navy leadership is encouraging its “digital ambassadors” and public affairs personnel to use TikTok — which the Pentagon banned its members from using on government-issued devices — “on their personal devices” in order to skirt the agency’s prohibition. -The Federalist

Recruitment fail

As the Epoch Times notes, the Navy expects to fall short of its annual recruiting goal by around 7,000 sailors when the fiscal year ends this month.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday, acting Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti announced that the service is on track to miss its fiscal year 2023 goal—ending Sept. 30—to bring in 37,700 active duty enlisted sailors. The service also aimed to recruit 2,528 active duty officers, 8,200 reserve enlisted sailors, and 1,940 reserve officers.

Adm. Franchetti’s latest recruiting projection is worse than the 6,000-recruit miss she predicted in April, but not the worst outcome Navy officials have considered this year.

“We started out the year thinking we’d be about 13,000 short,” Adm. Franchetti told Senators on Thursday.

“We’re going to be about 7,000 short. We’re doing better month by month than we were last year.”

NTD News reached out to the Navy for additional comment about its recruiting efforts this year but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.

The Navy brought out several new measures to drive recruiting this year, including raising the maximum enlistment bonus to $75,000 and raising the maximum enlistment age to 41 years old.

The U.S. Space Force—which is organized under the purview of the Department of the Air Force—did manage to overshoot its recruiting quote for the 2023 fiscal year.

Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

COVID-19 and long COVID may be linked to impaired sensory neurons, a recent study Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study finds.

Sensory neurons are responsible for smell, taste, touch, pain, and changes in temperature. Damage to them may lead to impaired senses.

Surprisingly, the study found that infected neurons released viral proteins like the spike protein and nucleocapsid proteins rather than the virus releasing them.

Not all neurons were infected. All lab-made neurons were exposed to the Wuhan, delta, and omicron strains, but only up to 30 percent of the neurons were infected, with the omicron variant having the lowest infection rate.

Sensory Symptoms in Long COVID and Vaccine Injuries

Some doctors have suspected that the sensory problems, such as lost or impaired smell, taste, and hearing, and muscle pains, numbness, burning, and electrical shock sensations, seen in long COVID and vaccine-injured patients are due to the spike proteins on the COVID-19 virus’ surface. The mRNA and adenovirus vaccines similarly instruct the body to produce spike proteins.

The MIT study shows what “our clinical gut instinct” tells us is the cause of symptoms, neurologist Dr. Diane Counce told The Epoch Times.

Other factors may also be at play.

A common driver is inflammation. Inflammation occurs as immune cells clear out viruses and their proteins. Yet a constant state of inflammation is not viable for normal neural function, and neurons can become hyperreactive and damaged.

Some patients may also develop mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS). In MCAS, patients become highly sensitive to any change in the environment. The histamine released in such a scenario irritates the nerves, causing neuropathic pain and itching. Swelling and mucus production due to this allergic response can also impair the senses if sensory neurons are near the site of histamine release.

Another increasingly recognized driver is microclotting.

“The nerves form a webbing around the blood vessels … If you have clotting, then you’re not feeding the nerves correctly,” Dr. Counce said, adding that this could cause something close to “infarcts in the nerves.”

Sensory problems from microclotting often manifest alongside other symptoms, including chest pain, palpitations, and shortness of breath.

These mechanisms can be affected simultaneously and overlap; therefore, several different therapeutics must often be prescribed to manage all the different systems, said internal medicine physician Dr. Keith Berkowitz.

Treatments That Clear Spike Proteins

Ivermectin

Ivermectin is a first-line therapy in both treating COVID-19 infections and chronic long COVID and vaccine injuries.

The drug has a high affinity to the COVID-19 virus, including its spike protein, and can immobilize the proteins for immune clearance.

Dr. Berkowitz has found ivermectin to be very helpful in clearing acute COVID-19 infection, which also alleviates the infection’s loss of taste and smell.

N-Acetylcysteine (NAC)

N-acetylcysteine (NAC) has been shown to impair and break down spike protein. Augmented NAC may be particularly potent in its effects.

Nurse practitioner Scott Marsland at the Leading Edge Clinic told The Epoch Times that long COVID and vaccine-injured patients may experience flare-ups of symptoms, and treatment with augmented NAC has been particularly helpful in controlling these.

Nattokinase

Nattokinase is an enzyme derived from natto made from fermented soybeans. Japanese studies have shown that it can break down spike proteins in cell culture.

Apart from that, nattokinase also has robust anti-clotting capabilities. Therefore, the supplement can aid in the breakdown of blood clots that obstruct the sensory nerves from receiving adequate oxygen and nutrients.

Some of Mr. Marsland’s patients have reported improvements in their senses of smell and taste after taking a high dose of nattokinase twice daily.

Treatments That Reduce Inflammation

Intravenous Fluid Therapy

“When you have a virus, what do they first do in the hospital when you go in? Hydrate them,” Dr. Berkowitz told The Epoch Times.

He has observed that around 80 percent of his long-COVID and vaccine-injured patients would be more responsive to treatment after a few hydration sessions.

Dr. Counce explained that patients who need intravenous fluid therapy likely have small fiber neuropathy, which can affect sensory neurons.

Low-Dose Naltrexone

In managing long-COVID- and vaccine-related injuries, Dr. Counce and pulmonary critical care specialist Dr. Pierre Kory have found the drug effective in treating neuropathies. Since the drug can reduce inflammation in neurons, doctors think it may have promise in treating smell-, taste-, and other related sensory problems.

Treatments That Inhibit Neural Overactivity

Dr. Berkowitz has observed that some patients’ nervous systems appear hyperreactive.

These patients are insomniac, anxious, have gastrointestinal problems, and often have neuropathic symptoms like pain and experience electric shock-like feelings. Some patients are also unresponsive to various long-COVID and vaccine-injury treatments like low-dose naltrexone.

Dr. Berkowitz found hydration therapy and gabapentin helpful treatments in these cases.

Gabapentin

Gabapentin helps soothe the nervous system by mimicking gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which works as an inhibitor in neurons.

GABA slows and blocks nervous activity, creating a calming effect. Since the gut is a major producer of GABA, patients with gut problems may benefit from gabapentin.

Dr. Counce has observed that patients with severe neuropathic pain also tend to respond well to it.

Stellate Ganglion Block

Stellate ganglion blocks, an invasive operation that involves an anesthetic injection into the autonomic nerves, can reset hyperactive nerves, reduce stress, and return smell and taste to affected patients.

A study published in May examined the effect of stellate ganglion block on 195 long-COVID patients at a pain clinic and found that 87.4 percent reported an improved sense of smell after receiving the injection.

Treatments That Repair Neurological Damage

Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)

Dr. Counce has found that patients tend to respond well to therapies that improve brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein related to neural growth and survival.

The mushroom lion’s mane boosts BDNF. In an animal study, rats had their sciatic nerves cut, making them unable to walk. After being supplemented with lion’s mane mushrooms, they could walk again.

Rhodiola rosea, a type of herbal medicine, can also increase BDNF levels.

NAC and resveratrol, commonly recommended supplements for long COVID and vaccine injury, also carry BDNF properties.

Treatments That Prevent Clotting

Curcumin

Curcumin is a phytonutrient derived from the ginger plant turmeric. Studies show that curcumin has potent anti-inflammatory and anti-clotting effects. Therefore, many doctors have added curcumin to their treatment regimen, judging it to be helpful in breaking down blood clots.

The phytonutrient can also cross the blood-brain barrier to alleviate neuroinflammation. Research has shown it to help reduce neuropathic pain; other reports suggest it may also help treat loss of smell and taste in COVID.

Bromelain

Bromelain is an enzyme derived from pineapples. Since bromelain can digest gelatin, jelly companies advise against adding fresh pineapples to their mixtures to prevent the jelly from “setting.”

In the body, bromelain can break down fibrin, a component of blood clots, and is known to prevent coagulation and platelet aggregation, all of which may help to break down blood clots. Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough recommends bromelain as part of his spike protein detox protocol (pdf).

Triple Therapy

Combining anticoagulants may create a more substantial synergistic effect than using one anticoagulant alone.

Professors Resia Pretorius and Douglas Kell have found the triple combination therapy of anticoagulants—clopidogrel and aspirin, anti-platelet apixaban, and proton pump inhibitor (PPI)—to be successful in treating blood clots.

Researchers placed a group of 24 long-COVID patients on this regimen for a month, and all patients experienced a significant improvement in symptoms, including muscle pain.

In March, the same researchers published a second preprint (pdf) on 91 patients, most of whom experienced a resolution of symptoms. The authors emphasized that “such a regime must only be followed under expert medical supervision in view of the risk of bleeding.”

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In the midst of a months-long boycott against Bud Light, some experts have forecast that the Anheuser-Busch owned brand will soon lose coveted retail shelf space as sales continue to slide.

Millions of jobs across the Western world are at risk due to artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs cautioned its clients that AI could affect up to 300 million jobs in the coming years. Recent news about IBM implementing a hiring freeze due to automation, along with similar actions by other corporations, has sparked the ‘fear of becoming obsolete’ (FOBO) among the younger workforce participants, according to a new poll. 

Gallup revealed a surge in respondents expressing FOBO, driven by the expansion of AI, over the last year. 

Twenty-two percent now say they worry that technology will make their job obsolete, up seven percentage points from the prior reading in 2021. The figure had previously varied between 13% and 17%, with little upward movement in the trend.

FOBO is occurring with “college-educated workers, among whom the percentage worried has jumped from 8% to 20,” Gallup said. At the same time, survey data showed those without college degrees could care less about AI taking their jobs. Most of the FOBO is occurring with younger respondents. 

The number one worry respondents had was AI and other technological advancements harming their job benefits. About a third said they were worried about reduced benefits, and almost a quarter worried about decreasing wages. 

The wake-up call for workers has been the release of ChatGPT last November. “It is no longer only about robots standing in for humans in warehouses and on assembly lines but has expanded to online programs conducting sophisticated language-based work, including writing computer code,” Gallup said. 

According to Goldman’s Jan Hatzius, “using data on occupational tasks in both the US and Europe, we find that roughly two-thirds of current jobs are exposed to some degree of AI automation, and that generative AI could substitute up to one-fourth of current work. Extrapolating our estimates globally suggests that generative AI could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation” as up to “two-thirds of occupations could be partially automated by AI.”

Reports like Goldman’s have been echoed by other investing desks and Wall Street professionals. These reports have sparked a wave of FOBO across the Western world. 

For more insight into the rapidly evolving job landscape, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Sabrina Lam – using data from MSCI – has ranked the industries where AI-driven automation will displace the most workers. 

This is a big problem for all those college students accumulating insurmountable student debt for degrees that may be proven worthless. 

Authored by Gwendolyn Kull via The Brownstone Institute,

What do burkas, tichels, yarmulkes, hijabs, kapps, fezzes, dukus, and surgical masks all have in common?

Religious cultures mandate or strongly encourage these head coverings to comply with dogma. Although most of these are rooted in ethnic and religious traditions of any denomination to reflect humility before G-d and modesty before man, surgical masks have become the morality trend of the Western world for those who fear The Science before they fear any god. 

As absurd as that last sentence may sound, the People of the United States are under siege – a war that is targeting our greatest claim to fame, our pride and joy: our freedom. Our Forefathers determined at the inception of this nation that all men have the inviolate right to life and liberty. Recognizing some freedoms that are indelible to the identity of a human are especially at risk of infringement, the Founders drafted the Bill of Rights to expressly protect freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to peaceably assemble, and freedom to petition the government among other activities.

Yet over the last three years, our government has encroached on these unalienable freedoms in the name of public health and following The Science. The few government officials and bureaucrats sitting in D.C. and Georgia imposed their beliefs on what makes the public healthy on the masses, without regard for dissenting opinions or contrary beliefs. Such factional tyranny is exactly the breach of social contract the Framers aimed to prevent.

After initially telling the country that masks would not work against this virus, Anthony Fauci fell in step, ordering persons be masked and directing both government and non-government actors alike to hold their fellow citizens accountable for failing to mask. A futile exercise in the name of “public health” given research predating the pandemic had already put to bed the idea that masking could prevent respiratory infections. Even following the Cochrane Review’s pandemic masking study showing little-to-no efficacy at masks preventing infection, the Biden administration still tells the People we should be masking.

Beyond inefficacy, recent studies are also researching possible adverse consequences from constant mask-wearing, now termed “Mask-Induced Exhaustion Syndrome.” The illness bears many of the same symptoms as “long covid,” begging the question: are the health risks of long-term masking worth the miniscule efficacy? I digress. Masking mandates began to die down when the CDC lost a legal battle where the court only addressed the agency’s statutory authority to impose such a mandate. The question of whether such mandates are constitutional at all was never reached. Despite the open question in the courts, I firmly believe mask mandates do not pass constitutional muster.

Recalling my extreme parallel of religious head coverings to surgical masks, compare this scenario: one day, the bureaucrats in Washington decide that for public health and decency, everyone must wear a burka. The land would cry, “Foul!” Non-muslim citizens would lose their minds that Sharia law was being imposed on them in violation of their First Amendment right to be free from the establishment of religion! Only the worshippers of the public health fascists would gladly adorn the dress as a testament to their true belief that the burka would save them from illness. I ask you, how is our current masking guidelines any different? Because masking is not a teaching from an institutionalized religion? Is trusting The Science not a form of having faith?

In truth, our courts have held time and time again that government actors cannot infringe on our clothing under both freedom-tenants of religion and speech. Our Constitution contracts our appointed government to respect and defend our human right to liberty, which includes our ability to express ourselves and beliefs through our clothing and appearances. After all, our appearance is all a part of our individual identities. Covering one’s face, one’s physical identity, must be a choice and not a requirement.

Moreover, our individual identities are not just linked to our physical attributes. Nay, our speech is also core to our humanity and identities. Speech is the expression of one’s soul, subjective based upon the speaker’s own perceptions and experiences. How I speak and what I say is part of how others (and I) recognize me as who I am!

Like any painting serves as a window into the artist’s being, so is speech into a person’s mind, heart, and soul. It is as complex as the human body that produces such words and sounds: the speaker’s larynx, vocal chords, pharynx, palate, tongue, teeth, cheeks, lips, and nose are all coordinating in harmony to make what we think in our minds come out of our mouths. Speech is as unique to each individual as a person’s fingerprints or DNA. Muffling a person’s voice, covering the delicate facets producing speech, hiding non-verbal facial cues, and restricting air flow via masks is not natural.

Masking inhibits self-expression. Even prior to physical masking, virtue-signalers touted policing one’s own speech as being “politically correct.” Policing and masking speech is toxic to both individuals and humankind. It evokes the same hesitancy as does domestic abuse–the feeling of “walking on eggshells” for fear your words will trigger and bring you harm. It further causes an identity crisis–a dissociation within oneself, wherein the mind is policing the heart and soul for fear of offending any listener (or observer). Both perpetuate the victimhood complex where one believes she cannot live without fear because others will not do “what they are supposed to do.” 

It is true that internal perceptions expressed outwardly are not always correct or palatable. Such is the beauty of allowing one to convey his opinions and beliefs in his own words: the listener can understand the person with whom she is speaking and take the opportunity to debate and educate, correct her own misunderstanding, or completely discredit the speaker of value within her own mind. Speech is not just about speaking, but about hearing and deciding what one believes to be true. Speech of our own and listening to others’ speech helps us understand and develop our own identities.

It is not that constant expletives and hyperboles should become the norm of self-expression through speech. No, language itself is so vastly malleable that it can be morphed to rise to any situation–to connect with one’s listeners. For instance, there are different ages of communication. You would not use the same words with a child as you would with adults, unless your intention is to be misunderstood or completely unintelligible like the unseen adult characters of Charlie Brown. To be understood by your listeners, you must change your speech to be appropriate for the venue and target audience.

How is any of this relevant to the topic of mask mandates eroding freedom? Requiring people to cover the face and bodily member responsible for speaking and being heard and understood is inhumane. It strips children of their ability to learn how to speak, how to use their body to produce sounds and words and sentences, and how to connect those words to facial expressions to add context for listeners. It socially distances people from each other, deteriorating the human connection that allows us to communicate and understand each other.

There is no replacement for that connection. As I discussed in a prior article, humans are a social species. Although we are capable as individuals, we fail to thrive when deprived of interacting with others. During lockdowns, people yearned to visit family, go out to restaurants, to resume “normalcy.” Zoom meetings, video calls, and text messages were not enough to curb the cravings for human connection. 

Masking is just another degree of separation from one another. Although it is less obvious than the isolation of quarantines, it is just another lonely reminder that we are not free. Not free to be ourselves, not free to connect, not free from fear, not free to breathe, not free to decide for ourselves what is in our own best interest. Even President Biden joked during a recent press conference that, “they keep telling me… I got to keep wearing [a mask], but don’t tell them I didn’t have it on when I walked in,” defiantly waving his surgical mask away from his face.

Who are “they” to decide what is in any individual’s best interest? Are we children and “they” our parents? Do we lack the mental capacity to think for ourselves? Are we not developed and educated enough to decide what is healthy and what is not? Are our God-given immune systems so defective that we can no longer survive colds? I find it a hard blue pill to swallow that humanity has survived on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years for a coronavirus variant to suddenly confound our natural biological defenses.

Who are “they” at all? “They” are not our duly-elected legislators who oathed to uphold and defend our Constitution and who are the only branch of government who the People gave authority to create laws. In fact, Senator JD Vance (R-OH) is now fighting this usurpation of legislative authority by “them.” On September 7, 2023, he brought to the Senate floor the “Freedom to Breathe” Act, which would prohibit mask mandates. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) objected to the call for unanimous consent, arguing that this legislation would infringe on the health powers of the states.

An interesting and seemingly Constitution-based argument by Senator Markey, but it presupposes masking mandates on the public are a health-related decision at all, which is not supported by scientific evidence, and that such mandates are not otherwise constitutionally prohibited. 

Though the People granted health powers to the states, those powers are still limited by the People’s ultimate right to life and liberty, including the free exercise of religion without a state-sanctioned religion (The Science) and free speech without intrusions on the speech-producing orifice or physical identity of the speaker. 

Masking restrictions are not a “health power” the state governments are permitted to enforce.

Masking mandates are not a public health measure the federal government is permitted to sanction.

Both impede life and liberty guaranteed to the People by being human and safeguarded by the People through enforcing our Constitution. As such, the People will not comply.