Authored by Christy Prais via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

While many general practitioners shuttered their doors in early 2020 amid spreading lockdowns, leaving those with COVID-19 to seek treatments at emergency rooms, Dr. David Brownstein, a family physician, and medical director of the Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and his colleagues, remained steadfast in their commitment and oath as doctors—to keep their doors open and do what they did best—treat sick patients.

“I said to my staff, patients are going to be scared and if they get sick, they’re going to need a place to go—we’re going to be there for them and help them out,” said Dr. Brownstein in a recent interview on Discovering True Health, a YouTube channel and podcast dedicated to health and wellness.

“We’ve been treating viral infections and other flu-like infections using a holistic approach for close to 30 years, and we’re pretty damn good at what we do,” he noted.

Early Days of the Pandemic

It was the beginning of March when COVID-19 hit Michigan. Intent on protecting his staff and their healthy patients, Dr. Brownstein and his team bundled up and set up an outdoor COVID-19 treatment assembly line—despite snow on the ground and temperatures frequently below 30 degrees. IVs hanging from standing poles flapped in the frigid wind as Dr. Brownstein and his staff treated patients in their cars.

As the weeks went by Dr. Brownstein recounts, “There were some days when cars were 10 deep in the parking lot and we were working until nine or ten at night using flashlights on our phones to see the veins for IVs.”

What stood out to Dr. Brownstein was the respiratory issues he was witnessing. “These people couldn’t breathe. I’ve heard the lungs of many patients with respiratory viruses but this was a different sound, the air was there, but the air was not being utilized,” he said.

Because Dr. Brownstein had been employing a nutritional and oxidative protocol for treating a variety of viral illnesses during flu seasons for over three decades he felt that although SARS-CoV-2 was a new virus, it was still part of the coronavirus family. 

Dr. Brownstein felt that since up to one-third of all flu-like infections come from the coronavirus family, his protocol had a good chance of being successful. “For nearly 30 years, we have had good success treating viral illnesses, why should this be any different?” Dr. Brownstein asked.

Every year between 12,000 to 52,000 Americans die during flu season from influenza. “None of my partners or myself could recall any of our patients dying from the flu over the last 30 years, and none of us can recall the last time we had a patient hospitalized from the flu,” said Dr. Brownstein.

“Think about it—let’s say 25,000 Americans die every year due to flu-like illnesses. Multiply that by 30 years and that is a lot of patients dying. I think we haven’t seen our patients dying because of the support we were providing to their immune systems,” he said.

One of the treatments Dr. Brownstein used for those with respiratory issues was a dilute solution of hydrogen peroxide and iodine—administered via nebulizer—every hour until they felt better.

 “We’ve used this treatment for nearly three decades for lung problems. And the consistent theme I heard from people was after the second dose of that nebulizer solution they could breathe, and they felt like they were moving forward towards recovery,” said Dr. Brownstein.

Dr. Brownstein would call his COVID-19 patients daily until they were no longer at risk from the virus, and as treatments continued, reports were coming in that patients with even severe respiratory issues were feeling better.

Dr. Brownstein outlined his treatments in a peer-reviewed study titled, “A Novel Approach to Treating COVID-19 Using Nutritional and Oxidative Therapies,” published in Science, Public Health Policy & the Law in July 2020.

His study reported his treatment of 107 patients at the time diagnosed with COVID-19. Three were hospitalized (3 percent) with two of the three hospitalized before instituting his treatment protocol and only one requiring hospitalization after beginning his treatment protocol. There were no deaths.

Based on the case fatality rate at that time, two to 10 deaths as well as at least eight hospitalizations would have been expected

Authored by Andrew Bostom via The Brownstone Institute,

One of the consistent mercies of the SARS-CoV-2 “covid-19 pandemic,” even at its most virulent initial stages, has been the paucity of serious disease in children generally, and healthy children, universally. Covid-19 always was and remains a very highly age– and comorbid risk-stratified disease that targets the extremely frail elderly—especially those in congregate care—and the otherwise middle-aged to elderly with multiple (for example, ≥ 6!), severe, chronic comorbidities.

For the vast preponderance of the world’s population, and workforce, i.e., the ~94 percent under age 70-years-old, we now know that the most aggressive early variants, such as the Wuhan, Alpha, and Delta strains, conferred a very modest infection fatality ratio (IFR; covid-19 deaths/total covid-19 infections) of 0.1 percent, or 1 per 1,000 infections. This seasonal influenza-like IFR for those < 70, overall, dropped precipitously further in the pediatric age range (0-19-years-old) to 0.0003 percent, or 1 in 333,333. Such unalarming IFRs among those < 70, especially children, for the early SARS-CoV-2 variants, have been reduced by at least 3-fold more (so 0.1 percent/3; 0.0003 percent/3!) since the advent of the Omicron wave in early 2022, and its perhaps even milder related subvariants, that are continuing to emerge through the present. 

During 3+ years, including the period when the most virulent early SARS-CoV-2 strains were predominant, through the Omicron wave, and till now, not a single pediatric death due to covid-19, has been recorded in Rhode Island. This contrasts starkly with the three HINI influenza (swine flu) pediatric pneumonia deaths that accrued in a single flu season, during the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic, mirroring recent national US pediatric influenza death trends. Comparative US pediatric influenza vs. SARS-CoV-2 mortality data since 2009, underscore how both pandemic, and bad seasonal influenza outbreaks—with which we cope, appositely, minus hysteria—pose a greater mortality risk to children, than SARS-CoV-2. 

We have also learned that SARS-CoV-2 transmission, like influenza transmission, is driven by persons with symptomatic infections. Both SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing studies, and an elegant experimental design tracking viral emissions from deliberately infected healthy subjects, just published in the Lancet, have reaffirmed this observation. Moreover, regardless of mode of transmission, it is also established that children did not “drive” the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Complementing these irrefragable SARS-CoV-2 mortality and transmission data, a century of uniform public health evidence, bolstered over the past four decades by randomized, controlled trial findings, demonstrates that community masking (with N95 masks, as well) does not prevent respiratory virus infections (influenza, SARS-CoV-2, RSV, and others) in adults, or children. 

Blithely ignoring each of these four fundamental, evidence-based considerations, on August 24, 2023, just prior to the reopening of Rhode Island public schools after summer recess, the Rhode Island Department of Health’s (RIDOH) Center for Covid-19 Epidemiology (CCE), distributed a memorandum (original pdf here; archived here) to public “School and District Leaders,” with the following cover email from CCE “team leader,” Julia Brida:

From: Brida, Julia (RIDOH-Contractor) <Julia.Brida.CTR@health.ri.gov>
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2023 1:51 PM
Cc: COVID19Questions, RIDOH <RIDOH.COVID19Questions@health.ri.gov>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Center for COVID-19 Epidemiology- Back to School Memo
Importance: High

Good Afternoon,  

We hope you have had a great summer! Ahead of the 2023-24 school year, the Rhode Island Department of Health Center for COVID-19 Epidemiology (CCE) wanted to share a memo to provide key updates and information regarding COVID-19. This includes: 

• COVID-19 key recommendations 

• Clinical guidance 

• Tracking COVID-19 in Rhode Island  

• COVID-19 operational updates 

• Testing resources  

• Outbreak reporting and support  

Center for COVID-19 Epidemiology, Education Team 
Julia Brida
Senior PM | HCH Enterprises  
Education Policy & Engagement Team Lead | Center for COVID-19 Epidemiology (CCE)
Division of Emergency Preparedness & Infectious Disease (EPID) 
Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH)

The memo itself urged students and staff to: “[G]et tested when you have COVID-19 symptoms;” “If exposed to someone with COVID-19, monitor symptoms; test after day 5; and wear a mask through day 10;” and

“If you have COVID-19, isolate at home for 5 days and wear a mask through day 10.” A so-called “Covid-19 Operational Update” section of the memo declared, “Testing remains an important tool to detect infection and prevent COVID-19 spread.”

Glaringly absent from the memo (archived here) was any unambiguous statement that these recommendations were not compulsory for students (and their parents), staff, or administration, and non-compliance with them would not preclude an individual’s school attendance, limit their school activities, or affect school district funding.

This current sorry situation, vis-à-vis “covid public health policy” for schools, continues the unbroken thread of Lysenkoist mismanagement which knits together Rhode Island’s response since children returned, gingerly, in part, to “in-class learning” during September, 2020. 

RIDOH and the rest of Rhode Island’s “covid brain trust” have always enacted uncritically the policies hectored at the public by national covid leadership figures, such as former “Covid-19 Response Coordinator,” Dr. Deborah Birx. Dr. Birx was fêted at the University of Rhode Island in the fall of 2020, where she aggressively pushed mass, unselective covid testing because, “her main concern is (was) asymptomatic spread.” This misbegotten testing policy and the false construct of asymptomatic spread, were of course both rubber-stamped by RIDOH and its then generalissima, Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott. Dr. Scott, as proof of her overzealous endorsement of the factitious mass testing/asymptomatic spread paradigm, had RIDOH issue an “early warning” asymptomatic press release, and a subsequent release crowing about the state’s completion of its “millionth covid-19 test.”

Nearly a year later, despite the well-established futility of community masking, generalissima Scott angrily remonstrated, “Masks work,” in response to a query by independent journalist, Pat Ford. Ford’s preamble to his question raised the issue of potential harms of masking to children, which Scott ignored. 

RIDOH Covid-19 Medical Director (later RIDOH Acting Director), Dr. James McDonald lied under oath in Rhode Island Superior Court claiming three RI children had died “as a result of covid-19.” Still under oath, about a week afterward, Dr. McDonald was allowed to “correct” this act of perjury, and only then did he acknowledge indeed there had not been any primary cause of pediatric covid-19 deaths in Rhode Island. McDonald also conceded, candidly, during this latter testimony, that a 16-year-old male admitted to a Rhode Island Emergency Department with an ultimately fatal gunshot wound to the head, who as part of his admission testing, coincidentally “tested positive” for covid-19, would be designated a “covid-19 death,” by RIDOH recording methods, since “it meets the definition of the CDC.”

At a subsequent deposition, as Acting RIDOH Director, Dr. McDonald was questioned about a comprehensive Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal review—a journal that he claimed to be familiar with as a pediatrician—entitled, “The Role of Children and Young People in the Transmission of SARS-CoV-2.” The review concluded, 

“[T]here is no convincing evidence to date, 2 years into the pandemic, that children are key drivers of the pandemic.” 

McDonald while acknowledging he had not read the review nevertheless, defiantly, if (tragi-)comically proclaimed, “I don’t agree with that assessment.” The good Dr. McDonald predictably could not supply any published data to support his dogmatic contention. 

Last December (2022) RIDOH’s Dr. Philip Chan helped gin up hysteria over a Rhode Island so-called “tripledemic,” the alleged confluence of covid-19, influenza, and RSV infections, affecting children, in particular. Dr. Chan’s claim proved to be contrived. Hard data showed minimal primary pediatric covid-19 admissions, a significant fall outbreak of RSV, accompanied by RSV hospital admissions, and to a much lesser extent, pediatric influenza infections, and influenza hospital admissions, driving total pediatric respiratory viral hospitalizations. 

Once again, a tocsin of potential looming calamity is already being sounded, now, for another so-called tripledemic this fall by the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Mandy Cohen. Sadly, if inevitably soon, such overwrought “tripledemic” messages, with a repeat inappropriate focus on pediatric covid-19, are almost certain to be echoed by Rhode Island’s disingenuous local RIDOH public health brain trust. 

RIDOH’s newly minted “back to school” covid policy recommendations will have no ameliorative impact, especially in light of covid’s near nonexistent threat to children. But their socioeconomic effects might continue to wreak unnecessary havoc on our communities, albeit not as extreme as lockdowns. How do we Rhode Islanders extricate ourselves from this hysterical, anti-scientific “covid school policy” morass? There are general, evidence-based templates we can cite.

In Sweden, open primary schools with teachers providing face-to-face education, and no masking throughout the covid-19 pandemic, were associated with “No learning loss during the pandemic” vs. closed schools, “distance learning,” and mask mandates, in the US, yielding “historic learning setbacks for America’s children,” including Rhode Island schoolchildren. Furthermore, there were no covid-19 deaths among Swedish schoolchildren during the most virulent spring 2020 covid-19 wave, while teachers as a profession had similar or even lower serious covid-19 morbidity, vs. all other Swedish workers.

Dr. Tom Jefferson is an internationally recognized evidence-based medicine research scholar whose ongoing pooled analyses of community masking for the potential prevention of respiratory viral infections extend back almost two decades. Responding to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent incoherent, vacuous “critique” of Dr. Jefferson’s 2023 Cochrane Review reestablishing the lack of randomized, controlled trial evidence supporting community masking, Jefferson noted,

“So, Fauci is saying that masks work for individuals but not at a population level? That simply doesn’t make sense. And he says there are ‘other studies’…but what studies?  He doesn’t name them so I cannot interpret his remarks without knowing what he is referring to. It might be that Fauci is relying on trash studies. Many of them are observational, some are cross-sectional, and some actually use modelling. That is not strong evidence. Once we excluded such low-quality studies from the review, we concluded there was no evidence that masks reduced transmission.”

We can also restate the evidence that mass asymptomatic testing, since SARS-CoV2 transmission is driven by symptomatic persons, are conjoined fool’s errands, made worse still if these practices are attached to punitive school policies. 

Finally, concerned Rhode Island parents must demand, unequivocally, that RIDOH issue an immediate clarifying memo to “School and District Leaders.”

This memo must state plainly that none of RIDOH’s covid-19 policy recommendations are mandatory, and failure to implement or comply with them will not result in any children or staff being barred from school, or school activities, nor will such failure jeopardize any school or district funding. 

Ukraine’s Present Volodymyr Zelensky is again expected to pay homage to the hands that feed him, as Bloomberg is reporting that another trip to the White House is imminent. 

“President Joe Biden will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House next week, according to a person familiar with the plans,” the fresh Thursday report indicates.

The Ukrainian leader’s first official visit to Washington had occurred in December 2022, and also had marked his first known trip outside his war-ravaged country since Russia invaded.

But things have changed since he gave that “Christmas season” address in Congress, where then House speaker Pelosi treated him like a rockstar as she and VP Kamala Harris excitedly waived the Ukrainian flag around, hugging Zelensky in the process. Not only is the much-anticipated counteroffensive not going well, or even failing, but his personal ‘star status’ is waning too.

Bloomberg notes the new context, namely that Republicans are less likely to sign off on massive new aid packages in the federal budget: 

For the US president, it also coincides with an upcoming showdown over federal funding. Biden has asked Congress to provide $24 billion for the Ukraine war and related costs, but conservatives in the House are threatening to shut down the US government if they consider any funding bill a “blank check” for Ukraine.

Current funding for government operations runs through Sept. 20. Next week’s meeting was first reported by Reuters.

And a fresh photo op with Zelensky is perhaps what Biden thinks he needs for a boost in domestic approval ratings, given not only is the mainstream media turning on him…

CNN is now listing out all of President Joe Biden’s lies as the New York Post and Washington Post are also ramping up their criticism of Biden.

Weird how they all changed their tune at the same time.

Here are the lies CNN now wants to talk about:

1. Witnessing a bridge… pic.twitter.com/xP1yWxoRbR

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 14, 2023

…but he’s also newly focused his campaign going into 2024 on being the “tough” commander-in-chief who “protects” democracy around the world:

“He entered Ukraine under the cover of night. And in the morning, Joe Biden walked shoulder to shoulder with our allies in the war-torn streets,” the narrator of a new one-minute Biden campaign ad begins.

“Standing up for democracy in a place where a tyrant is waging war to take it away.”

On the Ukrainian side, Zelensky could be coming also to bolster support and enthusiasm among GOP hawks and conservative supporters in order to get their fellow Republicans in line. Kiev has also expressed increased impatience and frustration of late when it comes to F-16 delivery timeline, and related to getting more advanced US weapons like long-range missiles.

There’s currently talk within the administration of Ukraine getting approval for the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which has a max range of 190 miles. Certainly Zelensky is going to press for this and more. Will Biden make this the focus of a “big” announcement when he greets Zelensky in the White House next week? 

Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

Threads, Meta’s recent competitor to Twitter, is facing harsh criticism for blocking search results for terms related to the pandemic, including vaccines.

The new text platform, which is linked to Instagram, rolled out its new search function last week, a major step towards giving it more parity with X, formerly known as Twitter.

After Threads’ July release, Meta has been rolling out several much needed updates in recent weeks, including a requested desktop version and user search functionality.

However, within 24 hours of the recent update, the social media giant was hit with controversy, as the new search function proved useless for those wanting to look for posts related to the COVID-19, reported The Washington Post.

Threads Users Shocked to Find Search Results Blocked

Many users were upset when their search on Threads for content related to “COVID” and “vaccines” was met with a blank screen and a pop-up redirecting them to the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Zuck treats users like children. He gets to decide what they will see and talk about. This is reason alone enough to reject Threads and embrace X,” said Michael Robertson, a tech CEO, in a post on X.

Meta confirmed its search policy restrictions in a press statement, saying that the text platform is blocking users from searching for words that could bring up “sensitive” posts, for now.

“The search functionality temporarily doesn’t provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content,” it said.

“People will be able to search for keywords such as ‘COVID’ in future updates once we are confident in the quality of the results.”

Meta acknowledged that Threads was intentionally blocking other terms but declined to provide a list of them.

A search by The Washington Post discovered that the words “sex,” “nude,” “gore,” “porn,” “coronavirus,” “vaccines,” and “vaccination” were also among blocked terms.

Health Experts Decry Censorship

Public health experts and workers also were critical of the company’s decision, telling The Post that its timing was poor, especially amid reports of a recent virus uptick.

“Censorship doesn’t work. Misinfo still gets circulated by code names & other platforms. Tech companies should invest in real solutions like moderation/education,” Lucky Tran, director of science communication at Columbia University, said in a post on X.

Mr. Tran previously told The Post that the decision to censor searches about COVID will make it harder for public health experts and people who work in public health to get out important info to the public about how they can protect themselves.

Hospitalizations in the United States rose nearly 16 percent last week, and have been rising steadily since July, but less than for the same week a year ago, according to the CDC.

CDC statistics show that deaths from the virus are less than a quarter of what they were during the same period in 2022.

The agency said cases of the virus are likely to continue into the winter.

Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Director Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABC’s “This Week” over the weekend that given the current level of immunity in the population, “the chances of this being an overwhelming rush of cases and hospitalizations is probably low.”

Meanwhile, the FDA approved another round of COVID boosters on Sept. 11 that are expected be available in the coming days.

New Meta Platform Sees Decrease in Users Since Launch

Meta’s decision to block certain search terms illustrates its desire to avoid encouraging any topics that could be deemed “hard news” on its platform.

“Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads—they have on Instagram as well to some extent—but we’re not going to do anything to encourage those verticals,” Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s chief who was instrumental in the launch of Threads, wrote this summer.

However, Twitter’s ability to share real-time news and information was crucial to its rise to prominance and remains one of its core features.

A 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center showed that about 4 in 10 Americans said that social media was an important source for news about the COVID-19 vaccine and virus.

Ever since Threads launched over the summer in an effort to take advantage of some users’ disappointment with X after its take over by Elon Musk, the platform has since failed to maintain its momentum.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg boasted after the launch that he was able to get 100 million new sign-ups within five days of it going live.

“Threads reached 100 million sign ups over the weekend. That’s mostly organic demand and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet. Can’t believe it’s only been 5 days!,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in a post at the time.

Time spent on the app service has since fallen by 85 percent last month, according to tech blog Similarweb.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Meta for comment.

North Korean state media announced Thursday that Russia’s President Putin has accepted a formal invitation from Kim Jong Un to pay a state visit to Pyongyang. 

Kim hailed the “historic meeting and talks” with Putin on Wednesday, and he’s expected to be in Russia for further travel to to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where he’ll visit an aircraft plant. Putin is said to have “gratefully” received Kim’s invitation to visit his country.

⚡️Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were given a tour of the key facilities of the Vostochny Cosmodrome today pic.twitter.com/Sn8m8AbPeC

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) September 13, 2023

The two leaders have exchanged gifts, as Putin presented Kim with a Russian-made rifle “of the highest quality,” – while in return Putin received a North Korean rifle. Interestingly Putin also presented his North Korean counterpart with a glove from a space suit, after the two toured a space development center in the far east.

Seoul meanwhile says it is ultra-alarmed at the prospect of military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.

“We express our deep concern and regret that despite repeated warnings from the international community, North Korea and Russia discussed military cooperation issues, including satellite development, during their summit,” said Lim Soo-suk, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, as cited in AP.

“Any science and technology cooperation that contributes to nuclear weapons and missile development, including satellite systems that involve ballistic missile technologies, runs against U.N. Security Council resolutions,” he told reporters.

At the White House, NSC spokesman John Kirby issued a threat of sanctions, warning against North Korean weaponry and ammo for the Ukraine war:

“No nation on the planet, nobody, should be helping Mr. Putin kill innocent Ukrainians,” Kirby said. If the countries decide to move forward with an arms deal, the U.S. will take measure of the arrangement and “deal with it appropriately,” he said.

As for a potential upcoming Putin trip to North Korea, no timeline was given, but it certainly suggests that the West’s worst fears are indeed coming to fruition – namely a deeper Russia-DPRK relationship based on military ties and weapons deals. 

NEW: A newly-released propaganda book shows rare photos of gifts from across the world to the North Korean leadership.

A hunting rifle from Putin and an NBA basketball signed by Michael Jordan are among the many unique items gifted to the Kim family.https://t.co/KONo3g22Dc pic.twitter.com/04VcYVOnBd

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) January 31, 2023

However, if such a deal goes through, the Kremlin would face the diplomatic and trade wrath of South Korea, something it might not want to risk at this point at a moment Russia continues enduring sanctions from the West and efforts (thus far largely failing) to isolate it on the world stage.

Authored by Michael Chamberlain via RealClear Wire,

If President Biden is serious about finding a renewable energy source, he should look down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA’s door revolves fast enough to power the nation for decades, with the rate of spin exceeded only by the attempts to provide cover over possible ethics missteps.

Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) has developed an extensive file of probable ethics violations by senior EPA officials. Many of these violations appear to occur because the EPA has ignored or sidestepped rules governing “the revolving door” between government and the private sector, though they certainly don’t stop there. As our Ethics Waiver Report demonstrated, the Biden Administration has perfected the practice of recruiting appointees from the universe of aligned environmental activist groups, state agencies, and universities. The inevitable conflicts of interest are buried under a blizzard of ethics waivers and then, after putting in enough time to learn the federal ropes, some go back to more lucrative and senior positions outside.

For example, Casey Katims joined EPA from Washington State where he worked for Governor Jay Inslee, who helped create the U.S. Climate Alliance (USCA). As EPA’s deputy associate administrator for intergovernmental relations, Katims kept extremely close relations with USCA and eventually left EPA to join it as executive director.

Melissa Hoffer departed the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office to become acting General Counsel at EPA, where she was given a waiver to participate in 37 pending matters involving Massachusetts. When she left the EPA, she ignored her obligation to timely advise the ethics office of negotiations to rejoin Massachusetts government as its first-ever “Climate Czar.” That failure is likely a violation of the Stock Act (a criminal statute) – inexcusable for a senior lawyer with Hoffer’s experience and responsibilities. It was made worse by the career agency ethics official, Justina Fugh, designated to enforce the rules. Sadly, this is far from the only incident in which Ms. Fugh appears to have played a central role in moving the goalposts to thwart violations from landing on senior officials.

Many EPA appointments came from powerful, well-funded environmental special interest groups. Alejandra Nunez joined EPA from the Sierra Club. Tomás Carbonell was at the Environmental Defense Fund. Dimple Chaudhary worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council. All three were attorneys for organizations that constantly have business before the EPA, and as of January 2021 were party to dozens of pending lawsuits with the agency. Thus, perhaps unsurprisingly, attorney Marianne Engelman-Lado, who’d been at Vermont Law School, Yale, and Earthjustice, was granted a waiver to engage with a former client because the “overlap of recusals” threatened her office’s ability to function.

Then there’s Joseph Goffman, the principal deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), who is currently performing the delegated duties of the assistant administrator and the subject of three PPT ethics complaints. Goffman, formerly with Harvard University, looked to the same career ethics official who sought to bail out Ms. Hoffer to “unring the [ethics] bell” of an admitted ethics violation. PPT discovered that at least five Harvard-affiliated individuals who reached out to Goffman were later hired at EPA, including in career positions, and that emails between him and his former employer in just his first few months at the agency totaled over 100 pages! Add in his apparent failure to timely divest from dozens of investments that created financial conflicts of interest and Goffman is a front-runner for favorite client at the EPA’s ethics office.

Our concerns extend beyond communicating with and giving preferential treatment to former employers. EPA leadership, with the creative assistance of career ethics officials like Ms. Fugh, have also brushed aside emoluments clause concerns (senior EPA science official Christopher Frey’s ties to a Chinese university) and traditional outside solicitation restrictions (Georgetown Law Board of Advisors and senior EPA lawyer Susannah Weaver) when it meant allowing their appointees to maintain their private sector relationships. While congressional oversight has occasionally made a difference – Mr. Goffman remains unconfirmed and Mr. Frey was eventually forced to resign his Chinese university post – Administrator Regan and his subordinates seem undeterred from signing off on these decisions.

Career officials also appear to have gotten in on the action. For instance, a pending consent decree concerning one of the largest Superfund cleanups in history (nearly $2 billion!) rests largely on the work of a former EPA employee, David Batson, who since leaving the agency in 2015 has gone on to land contracts with both the Department of Justice and the EPA to work on the same Superfund cleanup he actively worked on while at EPA. This is a big no-no, according to federal ethics laws.

The near farcical reasoning for so many ethics waivers, “oops” violations, outside employment approvals, and discarded post-employment restrictions demonstrates a culture unmoored from ethical norms. While the undivided support from an ethics office along the way has provided plausible deniability, the reality is that it has only served to deepen the rot that has nearly destroyed the public’s trust in its government.

Michael Chamberlain is the Director of Protect the Public’s Trust. 

Authored by Yves Smith via NakedCapitalism.com,

In a key bit of synchronicity, two events took place in close succession that show that the Biden plan to run for 2024 is on the ropes.

The first was that the White House counsel’s office sent letters to major press outlets pressuring effectively directing them to treat the impeachment inquiry as a lie. Mind you, this media meddling comes after the Biden Administration lost its fight against a preliminary injunction, both at the trail court and appeals court level, against its campaign to influence social media platforms not to publish what it deemed to be “misinformation”. If you read Matt Taibbi’s Twitter files revelations, that campaign was light touch compared to this letter.

But the fact that it was Democratic Party fixture CNN that was first to public about the Biden Administration narrative control campaign was a sign that a weakened and desperate Administration had overplayed its hand. We’ll return to the letter later in the post because there are other ways in which it was extremely irregular.

But the big bombshell is the David Ignatius oped in the Washington Post telling Biden not to run again and even going so far as to tell Harris to step aside too. Tellingly, the article was not paywalled:

The significance is not that Ignatiius sticks the shiv in as nicely as possible, spending paragraphs signaling his regret at having to recommend against Biden 2024 despite Ignatius’ view that Biden “has been a successful and effective president.” It’s due to Igantius’ status as whisperer in chief for the surveillance-intelligence industrial complex. Remember, for instance, that Anthony Blinken gave an interview to Ignatius in January in which Blinken effectively committed the US to an open-ended war in Ukraine.

This Fox segment (yes, I know Fox) which ran there as Jesse Watters: Biden has done his job according to the Democrats, does a good job of describing the CIA’s relationship to the US press and Ignatius in particular:

And if you think Waters is peddling fevered right wing swamp ideas, think again:

Ignatius is long known as Langley’s mouthpiece so this is more like an official declaration than mere opinion https://t.co/MUNvBsjyZL

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) September 13, 2023

The fact that Ignatius then delivered the same message on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, as to the most loyal of Democratic Party loyalists, means there’s no mistaking that it’s now open season on Joe Biden.

“Is Biden the person who can stop Trump, or somebody like Trump, who gets the Republican nomination? He’s got a look in the mirror and make that decision.”

— @IgnatiusPost on the critical decision Biden faces running for a second term https://t.co/ONpKEalkdF

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) September 13, 2023

I do see a fair number of tweets pushing back against Ignatius…not getting much in the way of retweets. Single digits to at most triple digits. Underwhelming.

As we indicated at the top, the Biden Administration sent a letter to major press organizations that had a cornered look about it. The fact that CNN decided to turn its receipt of the letter into a reported story was a signal that the press is not about to be pushed around this way, even though the text of the article feigns an intent to comply. From White House sends letter to news execs urging outlets to ‘ramp up’ scrutiny of GOP’s Biden impeachment inquiry ‘based on lies’:

The White House sent a letter to top US news executives on Wednesday, urging them to intensify their scrutiny of House Republicans after Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite having found no evidence of a crime.

“It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies,” Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office, wrote in the letter, which was first obtained by CNN.

The letter, which said an impeachment inquiry with no supporting evidence should “set off alarm bells for news organizations,” was sent to executives helming the nation’s largest news organizations, including CNN, The New York Times, Fox News, the Associated Press, CBS News, and others, a White House official familiar with the matter said….

One can take issue with the “no evidence of a crime” which apparently hinges on the supposed lack of a connection between Hunter Biden enrichment and Biden pere use of influence. Among other things, we have the IRS whistleblowers plus fired Ukraine prosector who had Burisma in his corruption investigation crosshairs, Viktor Shokin, who in recent interviews fingered Biden. The White House is trying to depict this as a dead letter, but the absence of (past) evidence is not evidence of absence. Remember that one of the reasons for elevating the visibility of the Congressional investigation by turning it into an impeachment inquiry is that the Administration has refused to comply with many information requests.

Nevertheless, CNN puts the first of the next two paragraphs in its own voice:

While news organizations have published innumerable fact checks on the matter, they have also often failed to robustly call out the mis- and disinformation peddled by Republicans in their coverage, frustrating officials in the Biden White House who believe that the news media should be doing more to dispel lies that saturate the public discourse.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks during a media availability to announce support for an impeachment

In its letter Wednesday, the White House asked news organizations to be more clear-eyed in their coverage of the impeachment inquiry, and not to fall prey to the traps of false equivalency in reporting.

After uncritically repeating Biden Administration howlers, from declaring that the vaccines would prevent you from getting and transmitting Covid to the continuing pretense that Ukraine can prevail against Russia, one can hardly depict the mainstream media as having been hard on the White House, or even unfair by omission.

One might also surmise that this letter went out to major press organs because the preliminary injunction over the Administration muscling social media outlets over alleged “misinformation” means it can’t try to influence their fact checking right now.

Jonathan Turley called out the White House letter, and in particular, the role of the adviser to the White House counsel, who sent the letter, in Marching Orders: White House Letter Tells Media To “Ramp Up Their Scrutiny” In Response to Impeachment Inquiry:

I have previously written how the level of advocacy and bias has created a danger of a de facto state media in the United States. It is possible to have such a system by consent rather than coercion. Given that long concern, a letter drafted by the Biden White House Legal Counsel’s Office was striking in a call for major media to “ramp up their scrutiny” of House Republicans “for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.”…

First, as I have previously noted, the White House is now actively involved in pushing narratives and denying factual allegations linked to the Biden corruption scandal. That could create Nixonian-type allegations of the abuse of office in the use of federal employees to counter impeachment efforts.

Second, the letter was drafted by Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office. So White House lawyers are now enlisting the media in a counter media campaign against impeachment?…

Third, the letter calls for the media to actively support the White House account.

Turley quotes the White House letter as demonizing the opposition press as purveyors of falsehoods,2 and points out the obvious:

The letter has an uncomfortable feeling of marching orders to the media. This is a media that followed the lead of Biden associates in spreading the false story that the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation.

This is the media that refused to acknowledge the authenticity of the laptop until only recently — long after the presidential election.

Turley also stresses at the close (with details earlier in his piece):

The letter is an alarming erosion of separation of the White House Counsel’s office from the Biden defense team. It also confirms an active and aggressive role of White House officials in swatting down allegations against the President. While the staff obviously is not expected to be neutral on impeachment, there is a careful line that past White House counsels have walked between fulfilling their duties to the office as opposed to the officeholder.

The high-handed tone of the White House letter to the press shows the Biden Administration is dug in. Expect even more belligerence.

*  *  *

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With the ECB effectively ending its hiking cycle, and the Fed said to pause in September (and unlikely to hike in November) thereby also ending its tightening, Chins is way ahead of both central banks and continues to ease ahead of the coming global recession.

The PBOC announced today (September 14th) it would cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 25bp for a second time this year in a bid to bolster the country’s sinking economy. The weighted average RRR for most banks will be 7.4% after the cut, the lowest in more than 15 years, a move which will release a fresh 500BN yuan in liquidity.  The reduction, which takes place from Friday, is to help maintain reasonably ample liquidity, the PBOC said in the statement.

“The economy continues to recover and its internal driver keeps strengthening,” the central bank said.

Analysts had expected the central bank to take additional steps to ease policy, including through adjusting the RRR. The PBOC last lowered the RRR by 25 basis points for most banks in March. In August, the PBOC stepped up policy support with a surprise cut to the rate on its one-year loans (medium-term lending facility or MLF) the second reduction this year. Most economists expect the PBOC to keep the rate unchanged on Friday.

A reduction in the ratio frees up cheap long-term cash for banks, allowing them to extend more loans to businesses and consumers.

The government set a fairly conservative economic growth target of around 5% for this year, which economists expect Beijing will meet.

The decision is in line with growing consensus that the PBOC would cut RRR to meet high liquidity demand before the end of September; and the central bank is hardly done: Goldman continues to expect further policy easing, including another 25bp RRR cut and 10bp policy interest rate cut in Q4, additional RMB500bn local government special bond issuance quota to be utilized in Q4 this year, and further property policy easing such as relaxation of home purchase restrictions and downpayment ratio cuts in large cities.

Courtesy of Goldman, here are the main points:

1. This 25bp RRR cut can release around RMB 500bn liquidity in the interbank market. After this cut, the weighted average of RRR would be 7.4%. Similar to their recent communications, PBOC claimed the authority would “maintain liquidity at a reasonably adequate level and credit growth at a reasonable pace to facilitate both quantity and quality improvement of the economy”.

2. Goldman sees a few reasons behind this RRR cut:

• 1) higher liquidity demand partially due to the large volume of government bond issuance. Interbank rates drifted higher in recent weeks on strong government bond issuance in recent weeks. There remains around RMB 660bn local government special bonds to be issued in September. Injecting liquidity through RRR cut would help suppress interbank interest rates amid high liquidity demand, and ensure low funding cost for banks.
• 2) RRR cut is a high-profile monetary policy easing tool. This move can help boost sentiment following a series of policy easing announced over the past two weeks. While August credit data beat expectations and credit extension likely remained fast in the first two weeks of September, policymakers may want to step up easing efforts amid uncertainties around the property market and the still dampened sentiment towards the growth outlook.
• 3) The recent more aggressive policy reactions to RMB depreciation (such as the very negative countercyclical factors, tightened capital controls according to media reports) paved the way for additional monetary policy easing.

3. There will be RMB 400bn MLF maturing on September 15th  and the PBOC will roll over the maturing amount in full like they did in March. To facilitate economic growth and improve confidence, the central bank will pursue further policy easing, including another 25bp RRR cut and 10bp policy interest rate cut in Q4, additional RMB500bn local government special bond issuance quota to be utilized in Q4 this year, and further property policy easing such as relaxation of home purchase restrictions and cuts to downpayment ratios in large cities.

Exhibit 1: There will be RMB 400bn MLF maturing on September 15th

Exhibit 2: PBOC will cut RRR to meet high liquidity demand

Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

The federal government charted a surprising budget surplus in August…

…but don’t be fooled. The feds didn’t miraculously fix their deficit problem.

The Biden administration continued to spend money at an unsustainable pace last month.

The surplus was merely a function of the reversal of student loan forgiveness.

Officially, the US government recorded an $89.26 billion surplus deficit in August, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

But if you factor out the $333.65 billion student loan forgiveness reversal, there was a $244.39 billion budget shortfall. That was a 56.8% increase over the August 2022 deficit.

The reversal of student loan forgiveness, funds added to the spending ledger in September 2022, was necessitated when the Supreme Court ruled the forgiveness scheme unconstitutional.

With one month left to go, the deficit for fiscal 2023 now stands at $1.52 trillion.

To put the deficit in perspective, prior to the pandemic, the US government had only run deficits over $1 trillion four times — all in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Trump almost hit the $1 trillion mark in 2019 and was on pace to run a trillion-dollar deficit prior to the pandemic. The economic catastrophe caused by the government’s response to COVID-19 gave policymakers an excuse to spend with no questions asked. Now the Biden administration has settled into the new status quo – running  ’08 financial crisis-like deficits every single year.

Declining tax receipts continue to plague the Treasury. The government recorded $283.13 billion in receipts in August. That was a 6.78% decrease from August 2022.

The continues a generally downward trend in government receipts. Revenue is down 10% year-on-year.

The federal government enjoyed a revenue windfall in fiscal 2022. According to a Tax Foundation analysis of Congressional Budget Office data, federal tax collections were up 21%. Tax collections also came in at a multi-decade high of 19.6% as a share of GDP. But CBO analysts warned it won’t last. And government tax revenue will decline even faster as the economy spins into a recession.

The bigger problem is on the spending side of the ledger.

The Biden administration blew through another $527.53 billion in July (excluding the credit for the student loan adjustment). That was a 0.8% increase over August 2022 spending.

Now, you might be thinking that with the spending cuts in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, Congress fixed this problem. But we live in an upside-down world where spending cuts mean spending keeps going up.

In other words, the spending cuts will not put a dent in current spending levels. That means we can expect these massive deficits to continue month after month.

And the Biden administration already wants more money. Last month, the president asked Congress to appropriate $40 billion in additional spending, including $24 billion for Ukraine and other international needs, $4 billion related to border security, and $12 billion for disaster relief.

Keep in mind that the feds now have a credit card with no limit.

The fundamental issue wasn’t that the US government couldn’t borrow enough money. The fundamental problem was, and still is, that the US government spends too much money. Despite the pretend spending cuts, the debt ceiling deal didn’t address that problem. Even with the new plan in place, spending will go up. And it’s already historically high. That means big budget deficits will continue and the national debt will mount.

The national debt grew by $1.3 trillion in just three months, and it now stands just a hair under $33 trillion. It will likely eclipse that level this month.

Meanwhile, according to the National Debt Clock, the debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 122%. Despite the lack of concern in the mainstream, debt has consequences. More government debt means less economic growth. Studies have shown that a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 90% retards economic growth by about 30%. This throws cold water on the conventional “spend now, worry about the debt later” mantra, along with the frequent claim that “we can grow ourselves out of the debt” now popular on both sides of the aisle in DC.

To put the debt into perspective, every American citizen would have to write a check for $98,110 in order to pay off the national debt.

This is an unsustainable trajectory, especially in a high-interest rate environment.

With CPI still running hot, the Federal Reserve will likely raise rates at least one more time this year.

Meanwhile, the federal government has paid well over half a trillion dollars ($630 billion) on interest payments alone in fiscal 2023. In July, interest on the debt exceeded the amount spent on national defense. In August, defense spending was slightly higher, but Uncle Sam is well on the way to spending more on interest payments than any line item other than Social Security and Medicare. (You can read a more in-depth analysis of the national debt HERE.)

The rising interest on the national debt along with excessive government spending are two reasons the Federal Reserve can’t win the inflation fight.

In a recent interview, Peter Schiff pointed out that government spending and massive budget deficits are two reasons we have inflation to begin with.

All of that government spending is being financed by deficits and that’s really the source of the inflation. And it has been the source of the inflation for many, many years because the Fed has been monetizing all the government debt by creating money. That’s what’s been putting all the upward pressure on prices. So, it’s the government that’s responsible for the inflation. As long as the Biden administration keeps spending money that it doesn’t have, inflation is going to get worse.”

Ukraine is not the only country currently outraged at Elon Musk, as Taiwan has added itself to the list aggrieved countries due to his ‘politically incorrect’ speech. Musk this week addressed the “All-in Summit” held in Los Angeles.

Speaking to the conference remotely, Musk at one point used language suggesting Taiwan is still “part of China”. In the wide-ranging remarks, the billionaire owner of X, Tesla, SpaceX and other companies began that particular section of the talk by saying he possesses a “pretty good understanding, at least as an outsider, of China.”

And that’s when he issued the ‘controversial remarks’ as follows: “From their standpoint, you know, maybe it’s analogous to like Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China mostly because … the U.S. Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification by force,” he said.

Naturally this didn’t sit well with Taipei (or some Hawaiians for that matter). Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu hit back at Musk in Thursday comments, saying on X:

“Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the [People’s Republic of China] & certainly not for sale!” Wu posted on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs account.

The Taiwanese foreign minister added that he hopes Musk can also ask the Chinese Communist Party to allow its people to use X — which the Tesla CEO purchased in October 2022. 

The Taiwan top diplomat was highlighting Beijing’s vast censorship laws and monitoring of citizens’ social media activity, especially when it comes to US-based platforms.

Watch the segment where Musk weighed into the Taiwan independence issue…

Without doubt, it’s been a very busy week for Musk and full of both online outrage and disinformation, and public protest from sovereign countries, especially Ukraine. 

On the Ukraine Starlink issue, and allegations of him switching off access during an attempted Ukrainian operation targeting the Crimea region, he issued important clarification… 

Much appreciated, Walter.

The onus is meaningfully different if I refused to act upon a request from Ukraine vs. made a deliberate change to Starlink to thwart Ukraine.

At no point did I or anyone at SpaceX promise coverage over Crimea.

Moreover, our terms of service clearly… https://t.co/jmNtScM5LY

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 9, 2023

But of course, we doubt his detractors will pay much attention to the nuance and record getting set straight.

As for the Taiwan comments, it clearly wasn’t some kind of systematic explanation of his own beliefs regarding geopolitics, but instead more of an observation in passing, for which he was offering an analogy, and such are always limited. He even included the key caveat “From their standpoint” [meaning China’s, not his] before going on to say… “you know, maybe it’s analogous to like Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China.”

But like with the pro-Zelensky crowd, Musk’s detractors see in his brief Taiwan remarks “evidence” of secret sympathies for China (or insert Russia). However, it’s also long been clear he just wants to do fair business within the world’s second largest economy.