Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClear Wire,

More than three years after the U.S. stopped sending taxpayer dollars to fund coronavirus experiments on bats in China, 27 Chinese laboratories – including some run by the Chinese Communist Party – are still eligible for U.S. government funding for research on animals, according to a new review of Congressional Research Service data provided to Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.

The ongoing debate over COVID’s origins, including U.S. intelligence agencies’ belief that the virus likely or could have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has spurred far more Washington scrutiny of U.S. funding of various research programs in China and Russia. Over the last year, Congress has broadened the effort, working to limit or altogether end U.S. financial support for research projects in all countries regarded as foreign adversaries.

In late May, an analysis by Ernst and the watchdog group Open the Books found that the American research institutes had sent Chinese and Russian entities at least $1.3 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars over five years for various programs, including several at the Wuhan lab, as well as experiments forcing cats to run on treadmills in Russia and a gender-equality New Yorker cartoon exhibition in Beijing.

The CRS data showed that $490 million in U.S. grants and contracts were paid to Chinese entities, while another $780 million went to Russian entities. Before Ernst’s efforts, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the U.S. sent just $48 million to Chinese entities over the five-year period examined, from 2017 to 2021.

Another outside group, the White Coat Waste Project, which seeks to end government-funded animal experiments and first exposed the U.S. financing of the coronavirus research in Wuhan, has since reviewed all the U.S.-funded research programs over that five-year period.

A White Coat Waste review of the CRS data, released to RealClearPolitics this week, found that the University of Illinois spent $123,552 of a $1.6 million NIH grant on a Kremlin-linked project at a Russian fur farm that killed foxes, and that the University of Southern California channeled $576,453 of a $1.9 million NIH grant to China’s Peking University for deadly experiments on mice.

It also showed that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Seattle-based Allen Institute sent $993,000 of a $64.7 million NIH grant to Wuhan’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology for a deadly experiment on baby mice. In addition, Emory University shipped $515,418 of a $38.6 million Health and Human Services contract to the CCP-linked Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, which houses one of China’s dangerous high-containment bio-agent labs.

The experiments at Harbin involved dangerous avian flu viruses collected from China’s wet markets being forced into mice and guinea pigs and efforts to supercharge viruses to make them more transmissible.

Ernst believes the $1.3 billion she uncovered is likely the floor, not the ceiling, for what she describes as “pointless projects” in China and Russia because federal agencies do not follow the trail of tax dollars overseas. To ensure Congress knows where all its funding ends up, Ernst has introduced a bill requiring all U.S. funding for organizations in China and Russia to be tracked to its final destination and disclosed. Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the China Select Committee, has authored a House version of the measure.

“Among many other troubling taxpayer-funded programs, I’ve got receipts showing how Americans unwittingly funded experiments on foxes at a Russian government fur farm, the Kremlin’s cat-on-a-treadmill experiments, the Wuhan lab that likely sparked the pandemic, and another CCP-run bioagent lab that collected dangerous bird flu viruses from filthy wet markets and engineered them to be more contagious,” Ernst told RCP in a statement. “Our taxpayer dollars should not be funding foreign adversaries, and I’m working to cut this wasteful and reckless spending overseas.”

Last month, the Biden administration’s National Institute of Health also disqualified the Wuhan Institute of Virology – the Chinese state-controlled lab some have blamed for leaking coronavirus and sparking the pandemic – from receiving more U.S. government funds.

President Trump’s NIH, back in April 2020, took the first step and cut off funding for coronavirus experiments on bats at the Wuhan lab. The NIH announced the decision just days after the White Coat Waste exposed the U.S. financial support for the research. Congress followed up by cutting State Department and Defense Department funds to the lab and worked to dramatically restrict U.S. spending for animal experiments in China and Russia, as well as in other foreign adversaries.

The final version of legislation that Biden signed into law narrowed the language from a prohibition on nearly all animal experiments in China, Russia, and other adversarial nations to barring dangerous pathogen experiments in these countries, allowing other U.S.-financed experiments to continue. But a new effort in the House would prevent the U.S. taxpayer dollars from flowing to any research lab in China, Russia, and other foreign adversaries.

“I’m proud to have led successful efforts in recent years to completely cut taxpayer funding for the Wuhan lab that likely caused COVID and all Russian labs that torture cats and other animals,” said Rep. Lisa McClain, a Michigan Republican who has authored a bill that would impose a full ban. “Tax dollars should never be sent to dangerous and unaccountable labs in adversarial nations like Russia and China that threaten our national security.”

On Thursday, the House Defense Appropriations panel passed a bill including language that would cut funding for all animal experiments or other virus-related projects in China, including those involving the Wuhan lab funder EcoHealth Alliance. Republican lawmakers and others have accused EcoHealth of conducting risky gain-of-function research with NIH funding, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The NIH, which denies that the funds went to gain-of-function research, and the U.S. Agency for International Development have doled out tens of millions to EcoHealth in recent years.

Rep. Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who worked to advance the language in the House defense spending bill, said it’s past time to defund these projects because U.S. foreign adversaries, particularly China, have proven they cannot be trusted with U.S. taxpayer dollars to conduct laboratory research and experiments.

“Cutting American funding to research labs in adversarial nations that pose a threat to our national security should never be a partisan issue,” he told RCP. “I’d like to thank my colleagues who have recognized the importance of this effort.”

After Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year, support for defunding Russia-based research programs gained strong bipartisan backing in Washington. Barring U.S.-funded research in China also has garnered far more converts as tensions have continued to flare between Washington and Beijing over China’s lack of transparency about COVID’s origin, new fears over Chinese spying, aggression against Taiwan, and its genocide against the Uyghurs and many other egregious human rights violations. 

“Defunding these labs is a no-brainer,” Rep. Don Davis, a North Carolina Democrat helping to lead the House effort, told RCP, stressing the need to protect national security and the animals.

Despite the strong sentiments from Republicans and Democrats, 27 Chinese labs are still listed as eligible for funding in an online NIH database. Several of these labs have strong links to the CCP, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, which are run by the CCP’s State Council of China. Others with strong CCP ties include Fudan University, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Southern Medical University, and Zhenjiang University.

The language providing a full ban on sending U.S. dollars to foreign adversary entities must still pass the full House and Senate, where it was narrowed last year.

Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud Light is set to reveal a new marketing campaign about the basics: beer. And that’s what the brewer should’ve done all along, but its Harvard-educated ‘woke’ marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid thought it would be a great idea to use a clownish, male-to-female trans-TikTok star to promote the beer that sparked ten weeks of boycotts (still ongoing).

“We recognize that over the last two months, the discussion surrounding our company and Bud Light has moved away from beer and this has impacted our consumers, our business partners, and our employees,” Anheuser-Busch InBev North America CEO Brendan Whitworth wrote in a statement that was published in a filing Thursday. 

Whitworth announced several important actions. One includes “providing financial assistance to our independent wholesalers,” he said. Many distributors have been stuck holding the bag of unwanted Bud Light products as a nationwide boycott worsens into summer. 

Another action, which begins next week, will be a new ad campaign that “reinforces” Bud Light “is easy to drink and easy to enjoy,” the CEO said. Limited details about the new ad campaign to stoke demand were given, but we’re guessing Bud Light will focus just on beer rather than promoting woke gender identity. 

To all our valued consumers, we hear you. Our summer advertising launches next week and you can look forward to Bud Light reinforcing what you’ve always loved about our brand – that it’s easy to drink and easy to enjoy.

There was no mention by Whitworth of the disastrous ad campaign with transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney that sparked the boycott and has since led to ten weeks of crashing sales while beer drinkers gravitate to Modelo. 

One Anheuser-Busch distributor told The Wall Street Journal this week, “Our year is screwed” because of slumping sales and since they don’t carry Modelo. 

Betting on a new ad campaign to stop the bleeding is a gamble. Dave Williams, vice president of consumer insights and analytics at Bump Williams, told USA Today this week that Bud Light faces further declines and Modelo will continue to take market share nationwide. 

Bud Light has an uphill battle to regain its customer base after abandoning them for a clownish trans-TikTok star. The damage seems irreversible as many beer drinkers have realized the light beer is ‘piss water masquerading as beer.’ 

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Scientists have created synthetic human embryos from stem cells without using eggs or sperm in a development that raises challenging moral and legal questions.

Synthetic embryos, also known as embryo models, are not equal to actual human embryos. Instead, they look similar to the early stages of human development and show no signs of the beginnings of a brain or a beating heart. However, it contains cells that typically end up forming the placenta, yolk sac, and the embryo. The development of synthetic human embryos was revealed at the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Boston on Wednesday by professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz from the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology.

The research has not been peer-reviewed and is yet to be published, Zernicka-Goetz said at the event.

“I just wish to stress that they are not human embryos,” Zernicka-Goetz said to CNN. “They are embryo models, but they are very exciting because they are very looking similar to human embryos and very important path towards discovery of why so many pregnancies fail, as the majority of the pregnancies fail around the time of the development at which we build these embryo-like structures.”

The synthetic human embryos were grown from single human embryonic stem cells that were made to develop into three distinct tissue layers. At present, the synthetic model embryos are restricted to test tubes.

According to Zernicka-Goetz, her research is not aimed at creating life but at preventing the loss of life. She and her team had earlier created model embryos from mouse stem cells that had shown the initial states of a brain and heart.

The development has raised concerns about its implications. “Synthetic human embryos created. This falls outside the boundary of current ethical and moral consideration and legality,” Peter Dain, an activist with the U.K.’s Reform Party, said in a June 15 post on Twitter.

“Many human developments, with AI being another, are now overtaking the ability of society to respond and assimilate,” he added.

Moral, Legal Implications

When it comes to human embryo research, most nations follow the 14-day rule, which limits an embryo created through the fertilization of an egg to be grown only for 14 days.

However, synthetic embryos like those developed by Zernicka-Goetz and her team using stem cells are not legally embryos and thus not bound by these same rules, which raises questions about their legality.

“On the one hand, models of human embryos made of stem cells might offer an ethical and more readily available alternative to the use of IVF-derived [in-vitro fertilization] human embryos,” Prof James Briscoe, from the Francis Crick Institute, said in an interview with BBC.

“On the other hand, the closer stem-cell-derived models of human embryos mirror human embryos, the more important it is to have clear regulations and guidelines for how they are used.”

He stressed the need to proceed “cautiously, carefully and transparently” in the field so as to avoid any “chilling effect” among the public.

Some people are already raising questions about the spiritual nature of these synthetic embryos. “Let’s get metaphysical: Where does its soul and spirit come from?” Derek P. Gilbert, an author and host at SkyWatchTV, said in a June 15 tweet.

From Synthetic Embryos to Grown Animals

While experiments with synthetic embryos are ongoing, the question of whether they can grow up into living creatures still remains.

Synthetic embryos of mice that Zernicka-Goetz and her team earlier created were implanted into female mice wombs but failed to develop into grown creatures.

Similarly, researchers from China have experimented with implanting synthetic embryos created from monkey cells into the wombs of female monkeys. This, too, had failed.

In an interview with MIT Technology Review in April, Jianping Fu, a bioengineer at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, admitted that things might change quite soon.

“Given how rapidly the field has been moving over the last few years … I’ve become more and more concerned about how close we are to generating a complete human embryo model with the potential to develop into a viable human embryo or fetus. This is not some far-fetched, remote possibility,” he said.

Numerous displays of corporate fealty to woke activism have met with disaster this Pride month, as a vast portion of the American populace takes action to boycott the LGBT ideological movement due to their insistence on the targeting of young children for indoctrination.  Apparently refusing to learn any lessons from the mistakes of institutions like Bud Light and Target, the LA Dodgers decided to double down on their decision to honor the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” with a community hero award on Friday night at Dodgers Stadium.  

The anti-Christian activists claim to engage in charity services to the LGBT community, but their efforts seem to primarily revolve around making a mockery of Christian symbolism while in nun drag, as well as participating in standard sexualized drag shows.  The group has also been involved in drag queen story time events involving young children. 

It should be noted that Joe Biden’s ex-nuclear official, Sam Brinton, the same trans activist that was famously arrested for stealing women’s luggage at airports, was also a leader of the Washington DC chapter of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from 2016 to 2018.

After videos of various bizarre Drag Nun performances circulated online, public resistance to the awards ceremony increased.  Local LA news affiliates depicted the event as a success with a crowd of supporters in attendance, yet the receipts say otherwise.  The Drag Nuns received their award an hour before the first pitch and were met with an embarrassingly empty stadium.

Meanwhile, thousands of Christian and conservative protesters gathered outside the building to show their opposition as extra law enforcement officers were deployed to secure the grounds. 

Recent boycotts and protests represent a widespread push-back against pervasive far left social engineering.  These boycotts along with the numerous state laws being passed to protect minors from propaganda in schools as well as gender based surgeries have caused an uproar within the establishment media and among Democrats.  They argue that these actions represent “economic terrorism” and the “spread of anti-LGBT hate” even though there are many people within the gay community that are also in defiance of the agenda.

What this really proves is that the woke movement is a paper tiger with limited reach and fringe numbers.  And, with each successful boycott against a specific company or institution, it becomes more and more obvious that opposition to the political left is far greater than the media and government is willing to admit.      

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Solutions abound, we just have to look for them in the right places.

Despite my reputation as a doom-and-gloomer, all of my work is about solutions. The first step in identifying realistic solutions is to dispense with the distracting clutter of fantasies, a process that is dismissed as doom-and-gloom. But if we latch onto fantasies as solutions, we can’t proceed to real-world solutions.

For four generations (80 years), we’ve become accustomed to seeking solutions from the federal government. This reliance on large-scale solutions began with the federal responses to the Great Depression and then gathered steam in World War II and the Cold War. By the 1960s, federal programs, policies and spending were the go-to solutions for every problem.

The federal government tends to be reactive. This is the nature of government, which is naturally dominated by elites and entrenched interests whose goal is to maintain their share of wealth and power by keeping the status quo in its current configuration. Any fundamental change that threatens powerful interests is naturally shelved.

The net result is the federal government only instituted environmental-protection regulations after American rivers caught fire. It takes a tremendous level of national pain to overcome the resistance of entrenched powers in the central state.

The other reason why federal policies are the go-to solutions is the money: no other entity can borrow or print money on such a vast, sustained scale. And since the Federal Reserve / federal government can fund spending without any visible sacrifices being imposed–additional spending is cost-free other than increases in the interest due on the higher debt–then everyone turns to the federal funding-spigot as a solution to any and all problems.

Thus it’s to be expected that the majority of proposed solutions center on top-down, centralized-state policies. If only we had sound money, a fair tax system, more regulations against fraud, etc.

The problem in pursuing solutions at the top level of centralization is the competition to control the levers of federal power is intense: every concentration of wealth and power is pouring money and effort into influencing federal policies, and watering down or blocking any policy changes that might diminish their share of the wealth-power pie.

The net result is the legislative “sausage-making” process in which hundreds of pages of legislation must first be approved before we know what’s in the hundreds of pages of new laws / regulations. But the competition and process enables us to predict the general content: every entrenched interest affected by the legislation has inserted subsidies, tax breaks, exceptions, etc. to protect their share of the federal money-trough.

The federalist structure of the Constitution grants significant governmental powers to each state, and state governments grant significant governmental powers to counties and cities. Unlike the federal government, state, county and city governments cannot print money, and their ability to borrow via municipal bonds eventually faces limits due to credit ratings and the interest due on previously issued bonds.

This means local governments must make trade-offs and sacrifices to fund new initiatives. This incentivizes more practical problem-solving processes.

As a general rule, all solutions must be implemented at the local level, and so this is where the rubber meets the road in solutions. Cities and counties have to deal with the realities of their locale, funding, populace, etc. on a granular level, and so practical solutions become more attractive than ideological-driven policies.

This structure enables competition between states, counties and cities for capital and talent. Each proposed solution pursued on the local level is more or less successful, and capital and talent will over time be drawn to locales that manage practical, successful solutions to real-world problems. Those locales whose solutions fail to solve real-world problems while eating up tax revenues will lose capital and talent.

This feedback isn’t perfect, of course. Places viewed as favorable to capital and talent will grow too fast, overwhelming infrastructure and reduce the qualities that attracted new residents in the first place.

But the systemic influence of open competition eventually encourages practical, affordable, flexible solutions and discourages costly attempts at solutions which fail to solve problems.

Citizens with little voice at the federal level have much more of a say on the local level. It’s possible to gain access to local government decision-making entities and get a fair hearing. Solutions have to fit local constraints, and this encourages experimentation. Costly, cumbersome proposals are simply off the table. Creative, low-cost, low-bureaucracy solutions are more likely to get a hearing.

Then there’s a vast range of personal / household solutions. If the situation is fundamentally unfavorable, then moving to a more favorable locale is one potential solution. Shifting to a more sustainable, flexible, favorable livelihood and lifestyle is also a possibility. So is reducing dependency on long supply chains and situations that can only burn us out.

All of my 18 books are efforts to delineate problems and describe the outlines of possible solutions. The most recent three are: Global Crisis, National Renewal, Self-Reliance in the 21st Century and When You Can’t Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal.

Solutions abound, we just have to look for them in the right places.

*  *  *

My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

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Just a few weeks before Independence Day, President Joe Biden dumbfounded an audience in Connecticut and observers everywhere when he closed a speech on Friday by declaring, “God save the queen, man.” Next, as with seemingly every conclusion of a Biden public appearance, the 80-year-old president appeared confused about where he should go next, pointing to and fro and seeking guidance from someone off-stage. 

“God save the queen” is an expression of British patriotism. Perhaps the next edition of Biden’s presidential daily briefing should include a refresher on the fact that Americans declared independence from British royals almost 247 years ago. Briefers might also remind him that, with Queen Elizabeth’s death nine months ago, the expression has toggled to “God save the king.” 

While followers of the Lyndon LaRouche movement will see Biden’s bizarre use of the statement as proof that British royals really do control the world’s governments, most others will rightly view it as another indicator of his declining mental health. 

The US president was speaking at a gun control event in Connecticut when he ended his speech with ‘God save the Queen, man’.

More videos 👉https://t.co/ysedGvYg96 pic.twitter.com/s95OVKV0Ko

— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 16, 2023

Todd Gillman, the Washington Bureau Chief for the Dallas Morning News, who covered the event as a pool reporter, was as baffled as the rest of us, telling his fellow journalists: 

“Those watching online heard the final utterance of president Biden at the gun summit — god save the queen man — several of you have asked me why he might have said that — I have no idea “Other poolers likewise have no idea.” 

Though Gillman was perplexed, and though this appears to be a damning sign of Biden’s mental struggles, the incident is nowhere to be found in Gillman’s own reporting on the speech to a gun violence summit hosted by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). Biden renewed his call to “ban AR-15 rifles and high-capacity magazines…They’re not only a weapon of war, they’re the single biggest driver of profit [for gunmakers]. Profit, profit, profit.”

Believe it or not, “God save the queen” wasn’t even the nuttiest thing Biden said in Connecticut. Bragging about his administration’s attack on stabilizing braces for firearms, Biden said, “Put a pistol on a brace and it turns into a gun...makes it [so] you can have a…higher-caliber bullet coming out of that gun.” 

According to Biden putting a pistol in a brace makes it a higher caliber gun! Why do they keep letting this buffoon speak?pic.twitter.com/xuejevsBqf

— Chaos Memer (@Chaos_Memer) June 16, 2023

Biden’s inexplicable rhetorical curtsy to the UK monarchy and his preposterous gibberish about firearm braces come shortly after his speech at the US Air Force Academy was overshadowed by a serious fall on stage. 

BREAKING: Biden takes a big fall on stage just now at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation pic.twitter.com/GxkMbpyoNo

— Jake Schneider (@jacobkschneider) June 1, 2023

At an April White House event for staffers’ children, Biden couldn’t remember the last foreign country he’d visited — even though that trip came just 13 days earlier. Adding to the dark comedy, it was a child who bailed Biden out, shouting “Ireland!” Biden responded, “How’d you know that?!” 

Joe Biden is asked by a kid the last country he visited and he can’t remember. He was in Ireland last week, which he didn’t remember until a kid told him. Good lord: pic.twitter.com/xpnklgA6sP

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 27, 2023

Also in April, a photographer caught Biden with a cheat sheet not only telling him which reporter to call on at a press conference with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, but also giving him the reporter’s full question in advance.  

Remember when the intelligence agency controlled politicians and media were pushing the 25th amendment for Trump even though there was zero evidence for it? Now we have this senile clown demoralizing our country and not one peep about the 25th Amendment.
pic.twitter.com/wVwFjnVa1v

— Glockford Files (@GlockfordFiles) June 16, 2023

Ratified in 1967, the 25th Amendment provides a mechanism for the removal of a president who’s deemed unable to perform his presidential duties. Here’s the key passage: 

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Of course, we’re in no rush to see the vacuous Kamala Harris installed as president. America doesn’t want that either. Her reputation is so poor that a liberal group has just announced it will spend “tens of millions” to bolster her ratings — an extraordinary development that springs from the knowledge that 2024 voters are going to be intensely focused on the fact that Harris is a heartbeat away being chief executive — and that the already-failing Biden would be 86-years-old at the end of a second term.

If nothing else, this latest Biden folly should motivate the Democratic Party to reconsider its decision to rig the 2024 nomination by foregoing debates — despite the fact that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr is garnering 16% support in Democrat polls just two months after announcing his candidacy, and despite 41% of Americans telling CNN pollsters that a second Biden term would be “a disaster.”  

By Paige Twenter of Becker Hospital News

Amid a shortage of amoxicillin and penicillin — the two main antibiotics for strep infections, which rose in early 2023 — Pfizer said it has “limited supply and [an] impending stock out situation” for some of its penicillin prefilled syringe products. 

The product, penicillin G benzathine, is used to treat syphilis and went into shortage in April. Pfizer originally expected resupply in September. 

Now, the drugmaker said it expects all of its Bicillin L-A (penicillin G benzathine injectable suspension) pediatric (600,000 units/mL) prefilled syringes will be unavailable in mid-2023, and all Bicillin C-R (penicillin G benzathine and penicillin G procaine injectable suspension) solutions will “deplete” in the third quarter of 2023.

“These presentations will not be available until further notice,” according to a Pfizer document filed by the FDA.

Pfizer said it is prioritizing Bicillin L-A 1.2 million units/2 mL and 2.4 million units/4 mL (600,000 units/mL) prefilled syringes as the other solutions face high demand, an increase in syphilis cases and “competitive shortages,” which might be referring to the monthslong amoxicillin shortage.

Some social media influencers and college graduates defy financial logic and sign leases for New York City apartments at record-high prices. Some of these kids who don’t have access to the “bank of mom and dad” are finding side hustles or draining their savings to afford the high cost of living expenses. 

Bloomberg spoke with 21-year-old Macy Hung, who lives in a penthouse apartment overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge. Hung has four roommates, works ten hours a day, has several side hustles, and spends some of her savings to maintain her dream of living in NYC. Her financial struggles are absent on her TikTok page, which promotes nothing but luxury. 

“I knew things were expensive in Manhattan, but it’s my dream to live in the city… If you’re not making six figures, it’s hard to get by,” said Hung. 

According to appraiser Miller Samuel and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate, renters in Manhattan spend upwards of $4,395 per month in May. This is a record high, while wage gains aren’t keeping pace with shelter inflation. 

Real estate website StreetEasy said renters today need about $135,000 in average income to afford the most basic apartment in NYC. The rule of thumb for renters is to spend less than 30% of their income on shelter costs. As for Hung, that’s why she has four roommates. 

The latest CPI data showed inflation continues to outpace wage gains for the 26th straight month (out of 28 months of Biden’s term)… For young renters, having roommates has become the norm to divvy up the shelter costs. 

Lisette Nieves, president of the Fund for the City of New York, warned: “We’re in a once-in-a-generation housing crisis.”

Many influencers who don’t have credit lines with the ‘bank of mom and dad’ are embracing a ‘do whatever it takes’ altitude to live in the city and capture those TikTok-worthy moments. However, you won’t ever see their struggles in their videos — just a life of fake luxury. 

Another influencer on TikTok, 22, Piper Phillips, said her priorities this year were to maintain living at a prime location in the city while documenting her life on social media. She admitted she has trouble affording $20 cocktails and $90 diners with her friends, who all have high-paying banking jobs. 

Besides TikTok, she works in marketing and has multiple side hustles to maintain what appears to be a lifestyle of luxury on social media. 

“I worked so hard to get here, I didn’t want to compromise on the life I wanted to live,” said Phillips. She explained, “The cost of living here is an investment in myself. It sounds crazy to justify $25 cocktails, but being here opens doors for my career. That’s worth the costs.” 

What this all suggests is that universities and colleges are failing to teach basic financial literacy to the younger generation, who blow all their money on maintaining some fake luxurious lifestyle on social media while, in real life, they struggle to make ends meet. 

Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

MELLETTE, S.D.—On their way to attend their niece’s wedding in July 2021, fourth-generation farmer Ed Fischbach of Mellette, South Dakota, and his wife made a quick stop to check the mailbox.

His wife reached inside, pulling out a handful of letters. Within the small pile was an envelope from a company she had never heard of—Summit Carbon Solutions.

She opened the letter and began reading it.

“Dear landowner,” the letter began innocently enough. But as she continued reading, her jaw nearly dropped.

“Listen to this,” she told her husband.

The Iowa-based company described plans to build a massive carbon capture pipeline across five midwestern states in the letter.

The 1,400-mile pipeline would transport carbon dioxide under high pressure, produced by ethanol and biofuel refineries, for burial in North Dakota. The goal would be to reduce the region’s carbon footprint to protect the environment.

The Fischbachs then learned that the pipeline would travel through some of the most productive areas of the 1,400-acre property that has been in their family for decades.

“The proposed pipeline route for the project is depicted on the enclosed map,” the letter continued, “and public records indicate that you are the record taxpayer of all or certain portions of the property.”

The notice further advised that Summit Carbon, through its consultant, TRC Companies, would perform preliminary surveys in the weeks ahead.

But first, the company needed permission to go on the property. Ed Fischbach said he never filled out or returned the enclosed approval form.

Instead, he made phone calls and soon realized other landowners in Spink County had received the same letter, including his nephew Brad, who raises beef cattle for a living.

“Who is this outfit? Nobody heard about it,” Fischbach said. “I decided I’m not going to stand for this. Somebody had to do something about it. I took the lead.”

In August 2021, Fischbach called a meeting at the local community center, expecting a dozen people to attend.

Without advertising, 74 landowners turned out. None of them supported the project in South Dakota, he said.

“I said to myself. I’m onto something here. This is real. We have to pursue this,” Fischbach told The Epoch Times.

Opposition Builds

Fischbach said that soon afterward, Summit Carbon held a catered public meeting to unveil the project.

About 300 people showed up for the event, Fischbach recalled. Summit officials spoke and held a slide show on the project’s economic and environmental benefits.

There were questions asked and answered, as well as comments from the public. Fischbach said he was the first to take the microphone.

“My first question to them was, ‘Would you commit today not to use eminent domain on those of us that don’t want your project?‘”

After repeated attempts, Summit Carbon officials would not answer “yes” or “no”, Fischbach said.

Finally, a company official said, “No, I cannot do that,” he said.

“It just set off a chain reaction. Nobody wanted this thing. They ended the meeting,” said Fischbach, leader of the South Dakota Easement Team opposed to the company’s attempts to acquire right-of-way easements by eminent domain to build the pipeline.

Since the July 2021 letter, Summit Carbon has filed more than 81 eminent domain lawsuits in 10 South Dakota counties against farmers who refuse to voluntarily sign easement agreements with the company.

“They’re trying to intimidate people,” Fischbach said. “They’re doing this with no permit. That’s what’s upsetting.”

“We have a trespass law in this state. It doesn’t mean anything because they’re out surveying people. The company has armed security guards on your property to keep you away from the surveyors. We’ve got pictures of them. They’re bringing this in without authorization.”

Summit Carbon is suing one McPherson County couple to take, acquire, or appropriate property to allow a temporary or permanent easement, “which has been authorized by statute for public use,” according to the petition.

The couple had 30 days to respond to the petition or face a jury to “ascertain the just compensation for the property proposed to be taken or damaged.”

In a statement to Forum News Service, Jesse Harris, the director of public affairs for Summit Carbon, said the lawsuits are the next step when “negotiating in good faith” fails to produce results.

“We look forward to continuing to work with regulators, policymakers, landowners, and more to advance this critical investment in our economy,” Harris told the news service.

South Dakota Rep. Karla Lems, a Republican, said the pipeline project takes advantage of legal loopholes in the state’s eminent domain law (SDL 49-7-11) which states, “Any pipeline companies owning a pipeline which is a common carrier as defined by 49-7-11 may exercise the right of eminent domain in acquiring right-of-way as prescribed by statute.”

Summit Carbon filed a project permit with South Dakota’s Public Utilities Commission, which will decide in September whether to allow the pipeline to move forward or not. Four other states considering the pipeline include Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and North Dakota.

Summit Carbon Responds

Summit Carbon spokeswoman Courtney Ryan countered claims of widespread opposition to the pipeline, citing an “overwhelming majority” of landowners along the proposed route that have signed easement agreements to support and advance the project.

“To date, 2,800 landowners have signed 4,520 easement agreements accounting for 1,410 miles of our proposed pipeline route and 135,000 acres of our proposed sequestration site,” Ryan told The Epoch Times. 

“For an easy comparison, the Dakota Access pipeline [the most recent major pipeline project in the Midwest] is 1,172 total miles. In other words, the number of easement agreements we’ve already secured exceeds the mileage of that project.”

Ryan said the “short answer” is that CO2 has been utilized for years as a commodity and Summit Carbon Solutions is a common carrier. 

Approximately 230 million metric tons of CO2 are used every year with fertilizer serving as the largest consumer, she said. 

“Other uses include other commercial and industrial applications, which include food and beverage production, metal fabrication, cooling, fire suppression, and stimulating plant growth in greenhouses. Emerging uses include construction materials, industrial gas and fluids, fuel, polymers, chemicals, and more.

“In every South Dakota county where our project is located, the company will invest $45 million on average to help generate economic growth. In those same counties, Summit will pay an average of $650,000 in new property taxes,” Ryan said.

Ryan added there are 3.3 million miles of pipeline in operation in the United States, including 12,000 in South Dakota alone. 

The Summit Carbon system includes carbon capture, transportation, and storage, utilizing long-standing technology that is “safe, reliable, and proven to be safe for landowners and community,” Ryan said.

In addition, the company will maintain an operations center round the clock in Ames, South Dakota, that will monitor for leaks and any changes in the system.

Carrot Versus Armed Guards?

In the meantime, Lems said the company appears to have the right to conduct land surveys on private property within the proposed construction area with 30 days’ notice.

However, she said in many cases, those surveys have been “invasive” and, in some instances, accompanied by armed guards.

“They say they’re using the carrot—we’re going to give you so much for your land,” Lems told The Epoch Times. “On the other hand, they’re holding a gun, saying if you don’t do this, we will take your property.”

Lems was the lead sponsor of House Bill 1133 which sought to define a “commodity for the purpose of qualifying as a common carrier.”

“A common carrier is a person or a commercial enterprise that transports passengers or goods for a fee and establishes that their service is open to the general public,” according to LII, a nonprofit legal publishing group based at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York.

“A private carrier, on the other hand, is a person or a commercial enterprise that only agrees in particular circumstances to transport passengers or good. Private carriers differ from common carriers because they don’t establish that their service is open to the general public.”

HB1133 held that “a company transporting carbon dioxide, by pipeline, is not a common carrier.”

“We need to redefine commodity,” Lems said. “This is not even a permitted project in our state. And yet they can come in and by the power of eminent domain serve condemnation on these people.”

The bill passed in the House but died in a Senate committee. Similar measures in North Dakota and Iowa also failed, she said.

“It looks to me like a boondoggle,” Lems said. “It just looks to us like the skids have been greased. Everything is lined up for several years.

“You can slice and dice laws so they fit your project. You get the right people on board to push it through. Again, follow the money.”

Read more here…

The next iteration in the world of electric vehicles is getting closer…at least, if Toyota’s claims are accurate.

The legacy automaker is now claiming it has “found a technological breakthrough that will allow it to bring solid state batteries to market as early as 2027,” according to PC Mag.

Chief Technology Officer Hiroki Nakajima said this week: “We found quality material. We’ll keep up with the rest of the world and definitely put it to practical use.”

As Samsung notes, a solid state battery “has higher energy density than a Li-ion battery that uses liquid electrolyte solution. It doesn’t have a risk of explosion or fire, so there is no need to have components for safety, thus saving more space. Then we have more space to put more active materials which increase battery capacity in the battery.”

The report notes that the next key is going to be mass production, stating that the batteries will hit the market in 2027 or 2028, giving its vehicles 745 miles of range to start.

Then the plans move to a 932 mile range and a less-than-10 minute charging time. For a quick comparison, the article notes that right now the Tesla Model Y has a “maximum 330-mile range and 15-minute charging via Tesla Supercharger”. 

Toyota is just one of many automakers looking to commercialize the technology and the technology is still years away. In the interim, Toyota is using a new, low-cost “bipolar” lithium iron phosphate that the company says can result in a 20% increase in range and 40% reduction in cost.

But still, all roads eventually lead to solid state. And for Toyota, PC Mag predicts that once the technology is perfected, the brand will relaunch with Lexus its flagship electric vehicle brand.