Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

Anarchy, American-Style

The Left runs Oceania, and we work for their various bureaus…

The 1960s revolution was both anarchic and nihilist. But it was waged against—not from—the establishment. Hippies and the Left either attacked institutions or, in Timothy Leary fashion, chose to “turn on, tune in, drop out” from them.

The current revolution is much different—and far more dangerous—for at least three reasons.

The Establishment Is the Revolution

The current Left has no intention of “dropping out.” Why would it? 

It now controls the very institutions of America that it once mocked and attacked—corporate boardrooms, Wall Street, state and local prosecuting attorneys, most big-city governments, the media, the Pentagon, network and most of cable news, professional sports, Hollywood, music, television, K-12 education, and academia. 

In other words, the greatest levers of influence and power—money, education, entertainment, government, the news, and popular culture—are in the hands of the Left. They have transformed legitimate debate over gay marriage into a hate crime. Transgenderism went from a modern manifestation of ancient transvestism or gender dysphoria to a veritable litmus test of whether one was good or evil.

Students have no need to jam administrators’ offices because the latter, themselves, are as radical as the protestors and often lead them on in a top-down fashion. Had they not long ago demonstrated they were perfectly willing to subvert meritocracy, free expression, and equality under the law, they would not be occupying their present positions.

Apple, Google, Facebook, and other tech companies are not 1980s and 1990s “alternative” media geeks and hipsters creating neat gadgets for the people. They are not Steve Jobs and his pugnacious Apple battling the evil Microsoft or IBM, or the Macintosh commercial of 1984 depicting a maverick throwing a hammer into Big Brother’s screen. They are the Orwellian screen.

The current generation of techies is effectively Stalinist. Big Tech now colludes with the FBI, the Democratic Party, and the bureaucratic state to suppress free expression, warp balloting, and serve as contractors of government surveillance. Currently, the most totalitarian people in America are likely to wear flip flops, have a nose ring or pink hair, and disguise their fascism with ’60s-retread costumes.

There are no “armies of the night” marching on the Pentagon. Would-be demonstrators see no need, since radical identity politics, and gay, woke, and transgendered agendas are fast-tracked by the Department of Defense. 

There are no protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau or the “La Migra” anymore by advocates of illegal immigration, because the Left owns the border. And it has utterly destroyed it. There is no border, no border enforcement, and no meaningful immigration law. As many as 6 million illegal entries during the first two years of the Biden Administration are proof enough of that. 

There are no cutting-edge Lenny Bruces or Mort Sahls fighting state censorship because entertainers accept that 1) there are no impediments to vulgarity or pornographic expression, but 2) no comic or commentator dares to take on the diversity, equity, and inclusion woke industry because he assumes he would be crushed, and his career ruined. 

Question the woke status quo, and one is not canonized in Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone as a fighter against the “uptight establishment” or “the man” as in the past, but now demonized as a racist purveyor of “hate speech” and enemy of the people.

The Left does not despise the FBI. It lauds it. And the bureau is no longer consumed with tracking down violent criminals and terrorists. Instead, it has become an enemy of parents worried about school indoctrination, or a retrieval service for lost first-family classified papers, laptops and diaries, or a Washington, D.C., cadre knee-deep in big money politics. 

FBI agents are praised on left–wing media—given they have been activist conspirators who sought to destroy conservative candidates, deleted subpoenaed data, lied to federal investigators or committees while under oath, colluded with Russian oligarchs, doctored court evidence, and paid foreign nationals to compile campaign dirt on American citizens.

There are no longer calls for a “three strikes” solution to violent crime as in the past, or talk of adopting the successful, time-tried “broken windows” theories of law enforcement, because there is no enforcement to modulate. The debate is no longer over enforcing the law, because de facto there is no law.

The new legal establishment has replaced the old by simply nuking centuries of jurisprudence. Violent repeat criminal offenders injure and maim innocents in the morning and are released by noon to prey again—themselves baffled that the state is even crazier than they are.

Note in the 2020-2021 riots, almost no one temporarily arrested was tried, despite $2 billion in damages, upwards of 40 violent deaths, the 1,500 injured law enforcement officers, and the torching of a courthouse, police precinct, and historic Washington, D.C., church. Instead, they were lauded by a mayor as participants in a “summer of love.” Seattle and Washington simply ceded city property to the violent protestors as if they occupied it by right of their superior morality.

The summation of the entire sordid summer was the CNN chyron assuring America that the protests on their screens were “mostly peaceful” as flames shot up to the sky in the background. In the 1960s, rioters forced social welfare concessions—or else!—on the establishment. Today the establishment welcomes urban unrest as an excuse to implement agendas that in normal times would be unpalatable.

In sum, we are living in anarchy, as institutions themselves have become nihilistic and weapons of the revolution. The Left, in viral fashion, took over the DNA of America’s institutions, and used them to help destroy their creators.

If we are bewildered why Harvard law-graduate prosecutors let out violent criminals just hours after their arrests; or why hyper-rich, pampered athletes who live in near-apartheid enclaves  insult the flag, ignore the National Anthem, and sloganeer woke platitudes, it is because they were taught to undermine the status quo by fundamentally becoming it. 

In our present anarchy, $7 a dozen eggs are affordable. Unaffordable gas prices become merely necessary “transitions” to fossil fuels. A “secure” border means there is none. Natural gas must be banned because it supposedly causes asthma. Tens of thousands of homeless defecate, urinate, inject, and fornicate in the increasingly vacant downtowns of Los Angeles and San Francisco, as the Golden Bear state, California, discusses reintroducing Grizzly bears. 

Cars and yards are evil, elevators, high-rises, and buses sacred. There are 81 genders (and counting), with even more names for them. “Racist” is our exclamation point, fillip, a mere add-on emphatic. Everything from SAT tests to obesity to working out is racist. When little is racist, then everything must become racist.

Batter someone to a pulp and you are out of jail in six hours; claim an election was suspicious and you can be in there for six months or more. Proven merit is a pejorative. Grades are deemed useless by those who could never earn As. Boilerplate equity oaths are the best guide to hiring, retention, and admission. The ACLU or the Anti-Defamation League exist only to spot the incorrect kind of censorship and the wrong kind of antisemitism.

Macintosh Becomes MacBeth

The second contribution to the present anarchy is big tech, which speeds up the revolution and spreads it broadly. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was predicated not just on the Sovietization of the state, but the electronically ubiquitous and near instantaneous means by which the apparat ensures its dominance. One of the strangest things about the Left is that it no longer warns of 1984 but emulates it.

How the Left became synonymous with the Internet, social media, mobile phones, pads, and laptops is a long story. But let it be said the Left, and not conservatives, have mastered them all. It has manipulated high tech to change the way we vote, access information, communicate, consume the news, buy, and sell, and express ourselves. In sum, they run Oceania and we work for their various bureaus.

Our tech complex has combined the ethos of the 19th-century monopoly with the Chinese Communist system of mass ideological manipulation. The result is that the old Twitter or Facebook mob can ruin a career in a nanosecond. Google can manipulate the order of search results to render you a clueless Winston Smith bewildered by the alternate “reality” that pops up on your computer screen. 

Wikipedia is pseudo-official falsification. Trotskization relied on scissors and paste; cancel culture can end you by a split-second use of the delete button—and erase you to 7 billion on the planet.

Big Money, Big Woke 

Globalization hollowed out the red-state interior and enriched the blue bicoastal elite. Wealth in mining, farming, construction, manufacturing, and assembly became dwarfed by riches of investment, high tech, social media, law, insurance, and real estate. The former were the up-by-the boot straps conservatives, the latter one day rich and the next moment through hype, investment, and venture capital, richer than anyone in the history of civilization.

The wealthiest ZIP codes and congressional districts are blue, not red. Most of the Fortune 400 billionaires are left-wing. So, there is no ’60s-style talk about the evils of corporations and the supposedly idle rich, none of the old conspiracy theories about Anaconda Copper, ITT, or the Rockefellers. 

The corporations are the Left and in service to it. Disney, American Airlines, and Nike are revolutionary icons, always ready to divest, cancel, fire, hire, and propagandize in service to woke commissars. That they are terrified by tiny bullies who have no constituencies is true, but then a Robespierre, Lenin, and Mao had initially no broad support either—at least before each mastered the use of terror and fright.

In our anarchy, “dark money” like Mark Zuckerberg’s $419 million cash infusion into the 2020 balloting processes is now suddenly good, given it is almost all leftwing. Democrats outraise Republicans in campaign contributions by anywhere from three- to five-to-one. Bundling is noble.

Netflix can buy the brand name of the Obamas for $100 million; George Soros can spend his pocket change of $40 million to elect district attorneys to destroy the law and empower criminals. Jimmy Carter used to be the poor-man idol of the old Democratic Party. Today, there is hardly a Democratic president, ex-president, or presidential candidate who is not a multi-multimillionaire—most by leveraging their heightened political profile.

What anarchy we live in when the richest among us are the most radical and wish to destroy for all others what they enjoy. 

John Kerry lectures us on climate change from his private jet. Your leaf blower, not his Gulfstream GIV-SP, is the global threat. Al Gore screams about the evils of carbon emissions—after pocketing $100 million by selling his failed and worthless cable station to smoky and sooty Qatar, fronting for the antisemitic Al Jazeera. 

The Clintons feel the pain of the poor all the way to their $100 million fortune from shakedown lectures, Wall Street, “consulting,” and “foundation” contributions. Van Jones, CNN expert, the object of Valerie Jarrett’s oohing and awing, famous for his “whitelash” exegeses, and recipient of a $100 million Bezos award, now lectures us that the five rogue black policemen in Memphis, who beat to death a black suspect, are still proof of white racism that accounts for blacks belittling the lives of blacks. 

In our present anarchy, we take seriously the lectures on microaggressions from the Duchess of Montecito. The Obamas weigh in on the dangers of climate change and rising seas from their seaside, multimillion-dollar Martha’s Vineyard estate, or Hawaii beachfront mansion that apparently has an invisible climate-change barrier on its beach. Kamala Harris is our border czar who assures us it is “secure,” defined by 5 million illegal entries since she took office.

Nancy Pelosi works for the “children” and, after a life in politics, that selflessness ends up worth $100 million from her husband’s insider real estate deals and stock tips. It is almost as if socialist Bernie Sanders owned three homes, or anti-capitalist Elizabeth Warren was once a house flipper.

So, the current revolution is anarchy, utter confusion, pure chaos. 

Every time one turns on a computer, there will be someone or something somewhere ideologically warping its use. Your vote means nothing when California cannot account for 10 million automatically, computer-guided mailed-out ballots. That state is still in a drought, defined by releasing most of the water to the ocean that the wettest winter in memory produced. 

Stanford students talk revolution, Antifa, and Black Lives Matter, and want to forbid the use of “American.” But from the look of their parking lots, they cannot decide whether Lexus, BMW, or Mercedes should be the most preferred campus car. Oprah and Whoopi suffer terribly from white supremacy. Jussie the foot soldier heroically took on one MAGA thug for each of his foot kicks.  

“Don’t take off your mask” at a California McDonald’s means the man who ordered that edict is maskless at the French Laundry. “Don’t get your hair done during the lockdown” means the architect of that fiat sneaks around her salon, which she has all to herself.

The common denominator to the anarchy? The hardcore Left is your FBI, CIA, and Justice Department all in one. It is Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is our era’s J. P. Morgan. 

No wonder we are confused by the establishment anarchists and the anarchy they produce.

China is done with Covid Zero and wants the world to know it.

Two weeks after Beijing’s amazing goalseek-o-tron reported blowout economic data, including beats across the board in retail sales, GDP, industrial production and fixed investment, moments ago the National Bureau of Statistics (which in recent years has been competing with the US BLS who can come up with the most outrageously manipulated “data”), reported that in January (which is still not over but who cares) manufacturing PMI roared back (just barely) into expansion, printing 50.1 from a contractionary 47.0 in December and matching estimates, on resumption of production and ongoing recovery in demand (in the manufacturing PMI survey, both the output sub-index and the new orders sub-index rose by more than 5 points). Even more remarkable, the non-manufacturing PMI exploded to 54.4 in January from 41.6 in December, smashing expectations of a 52.0 print and showing improvements in both the construction and services sectors.

Putting the non-Mfg PMI move in context, this was the second biggest increase on record, trailing only the March 2020 post-covid record when China shock-therapied its economy into kickstarting with the help of trillions in new debt.

Some additional commentary courtesy of Goldman:

The China NBS purchasing managers’ indexes (PMIs) survey suggested manufacturing activity increased in January on resumption of production and ongoing recovery in demand. The NBS manufacturing PMI headline index rose significantly to 50.1 in January from 47.0 in December. The improvements are broad-based among all five major sub-indexes: the output sub-index rose to 49.8 from 44.6, the new orders sub-index increased to 50.9 from 43.9 and the employment sub-index rebounded to 47.7 from 44.8.

What is of biggest interest here may be the suppliers’ delivery times sub-index, which rose notably to 47.6 in January from 40.1 in December, implying faster supplier deliveries as NBS indicated that the labor shortage issues (due to large number of workers falling sick in December during the Covid “exit wave”) were eased. NBS commented that the improvement of manufacturing activity was mainly linked to acceleration in both demand and production and the LNY holiday impacted the production to some degree. The sharp improvement in supplier delivery times will serve to further alleviate any residual inflationary bottlenecks, a legacy of China’s lockdown days, as traffic to the US – inasmuch as anyone ordered inventory amid this reverse bullwhip period – arrives faster than expected.

On the trade-related sub-indexes, the new export order sub-index increased to 46.1 in January (vs. 44.2 in December) but remained below 50, pointing to still weak external demand. The import sub-index rose to 46.7 in January (vs.43.7 in December). The raw material inventories sub-index rose to 49.6 from 47.1, and the finished goods inventories sub-index rose to 47.2 from 46.6.

By enterprise size, the PMIs of large/medium/small enterprises increased to 52.3/48.6/47.2 in January (vs. 48.3/46.4/44.7 in December). Price indicators in the NBS manufacturing survey suggest inflationary pressure for producer and consumer diverged in January. The input cost sub-index increased to 52.2 (vs. 51.6 in December) while the output prices sub-index declined slightly to 48.7 (vs. 49.0 in December).

The official non-manufacturing PMI (comprised of the services and construction sectors) soared to 54.4 in January (vs. 41.6 in December), thanks to a sharp acceleration in both construction and services sectors. The services PMI rebounded sharply to 54.0 (vs. 39.4 in December). According to the survey, the PMIs of transport service industries such as postal, airline and road transport services were above 60 in January. Meanwhile, the PMIs of close-contact service industries such as retail sales, hotel and catering services rose more than 24 points from December. That said, NBS indicated that the PMIs of property related sectors were still below 50. The construction PMI rose in January to 56.4 (vs.54.4 in December). NBS noted that the expansionary pace of the construction sector (presumably infrastructure-related) remained fast.

Looking at the market’s response, Bloomberg’s Mark Cranfield writes that “the CSI 300 index is ending January slightly below recent highs but its upward momentum is set to extend into February, looking past a report of the US considering cutting off Huawei from suppliers… which won’t be much of a surprise to traders, especially after the US agreed with the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of some advanced chipmaking machinery to China.”

That said, while the China PMI data is encouraging for equity bulls, notably the 54.4 print for services, and adds to the positive impulse from high frequency data over the Lunar New Year break, it took won’t be much of a surprise following the mid-January data dump which beat expectations in every category. However, the pristine data – fake as it may be – will certainly encourage continued foreign inflows into China’s stock market, which in January exceeded the whole of 2022!

Bottom line, while the CSI 300 – which recently tipped into a bull market – may need a little bit longer to consolidate after the steep advance this month, BBG concludes that “the outlook for the rest of the first quarter is bright.”

Authored by Bill Scher via RealClear Wire,

A lot of Republicans are reportedly interested in running for president, yet no one besides Donald Trump has been brave enough to start running. According to Politico, the hesitation is mainly because everyone wants “someone else” to be the “early Trump foil.” An adviser to a potential candidate has even shopped the idea of “multiple candidates announcing around the same time.” One anonymous Republican told Politico, “I think they think a group launch … provides them protection from Trump.”

Every one of these candidates should be embarrassed. At the risk of being cliché, if these wannabe presidents can’t stand up to Donald Trump, how can you expect them to stand up to – well, insert your preferred boogeyman here.

By the first day of February 2019, Democrats Cory Booker, Julian Castro, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Marriane Williamson, and Andrew Yang had either formally announced their 2020 bids or formed exploratory committees. In January 2015, Republicans Jeb Bush and Scott Walker established political action committees that were precursors to their campaign launches, and Mike Huckabee quit his Fox News show in preparation for his bid.

Granted, none of those people won their primaries; after all, most presidential candidates lose. But if someone starts with minimal national support and mostly regional name recognition – and that describes most of the potential Republican presidential field – every day not in the race is a lost day. Precisely because the battle is decidedly uphill, second-tier candidates should be eager to get in the race and create opportunities for themselves so they can climb into the first tier (which in the 2020 Democratic primary, Warren was able to do, even though she was unable to stay there for long.)

I’ll cut some slack for the sitting governors who might run – including Greg Abbott, Brian Kemp, Kristi Noem, Chris Sununu, and Glenn Youngkin – and even Ron DeSantis, who may be in a position to choose his timing. They may want to notch some wins in their 2023 legislative sessions and avoid any humiliating defeats before hitting the campaign trail later in the spring or summer.

Members of Congress believed considering a run are Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, both of whom have run before, and probably Tim Scott. So what are they waiting for? With House and Senate control divided between the two parties, little legislation of significance is expected to pass. In other words, they are not bogged down with heavy responsibilities at the moment.

Everyone else supposedly in the mix – John Bolton, Liz Cheney, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Larry Hogan, Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pence, and Mike Pompeo – is a “former” officeholder with plenty of free time, and no time to lose.

Scattered throughout the Politico story are weird rationalizations for the proto-candidates’ collective fear. “Trump’s best when he’s got an opponent, so don’t give him one,” said one anonymous operative. How does this plan work? Trump doesn’t do his best without an opponent, so he withdraws, and then all the other candidates announce? “As soon as someone pops their head up,” said Abbott adviser Dave Carney, “Trump will be whacking on them.” So? That’s a great way for second-tier candidates to get into the first-tier, by getting into a public scrap with the frontrunner and proving their mettle.

No Republican seems to have learned any lessons from the 2016 primary. You can’t beat Trump unless you take the fight to Trump, forcefully and consistently – and early. The 2016 field can at least plead they were caught off-guard by Trump’s willingness to savage fellow Republicans, and his ability to do so without being penalized by Republican voters. Today, there are no excuses. Everyone knows who they are up against, and they have had years to formulate a strategy to deal with him. Will it be hard? Of course. But so is being president of the United States.

At a November address to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Christie said, “It is time to stop being afraid of any one person. It is time to stand up for the principles and the beliefs that we have founded this party on and this country on.” He’s right. Let’s see if he, or anyone else, can live up to those words.

It was a turbulent year for the markets in 2022, with geopolitical conflict, rising prices, and the labor market playing key roles. Which stories captured investors’ attention the most? 

As Visual Capitalist’s Jenna Ross notes, this infographic from New York Life Investments outlines the top Google searches related to investing in 2022, and offers a closer look at some of the trends.

Top Google Searches: Year in Review

We picked some of the top economic and investing stories that saw peak search interest in the U.S. each month, according to Google Trends.

Data based on exact searches in the U.S. from December 26, 2021 to December 18, 2022.

Let’s look at each quarter in more detail, to see how these top Google searches were related to activity in the economy and investors’ portfolios.

Q1 2022

The start of the year was marked by U.S. workers quitting their jobs in record numbers, and the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war. For instance, the price of crude oil skyrocketed after the war caused supply uncertainties. Early March’s peak of $125 per barrel was a 13-year high.

While crude oil lost nearly all its gains by year-end, the energy sector in general performed well. In fact, the S&P 500 Energy Index gained 57% over the year compared to the S&P 500’s 19% loss.

Q2 2022

The second quarter of 2022 saw abnormal house price growth, renewed interest in value investing, and a bitcoin crash. In particular, value investing performed much better than growth investing over the course of the year.

Value stocks have typically outperformed during periods of rising rates, and 2022 was no exception.

Q3 2022

The third quarter was defined by worries about a recession and inflation, along with interest in the rising U.S. dollar. In fact, the U.S. dollar gained against nearly every major currency.

Higher interest rates made the U.S. dollar more attractive to investors, since it meant they would get a higher return on their fixed income investments.

Q4 2022

The end of the year was dominated by OPEC cutting oil production, high layoffs in the tech sector, and curiosity about the future of interest rates. The Federal Reserve’s December 2022 economic projections offer clues about the trajectory of the policy rate.

The Federal Reserve expects interest rates to peak in 2023, with rates to remain elevated above pre-pandemic levels for the foreseeable future.

The Top Google Searches to Come

After a year of volatility across asset classes, economic uncertainty remains. Which themes will become investors’ top Google searches in 2023?

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

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said that he believes a prediction made by four-star Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan that the United States will go to war with China in 2025 is correct.

A memo issued by the general, according to NBC News, said that “I hope I am wrong .. my gut tells me we will fight in 2025″ about the potential conflict. He added that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be looking closely at Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election that might prompt leader Xi Jinping to escalate military aggression against the region.

“Xi secured his third term [as CCP general secretary] and set his war council in October 2022. Taiwan’s presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a reason,” Minihan wrote. The 2024 U.S. presidential elections would also create a “distracted America” that could benefit the Chinese regime, he said.

“Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025,” the general reportedly said. Copies of his memo circulated online over the weekend, and The Epoch Times has contacted the Air Force for comment.

On Sunday, McCaul, the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News that he believes the general’s prediction is accurate. “I hope he’s wrong,” McCaul told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think he’s right though, unfortunately.”

McCaul said that the CCP wants to take control over Taiwan, which he suggested could take place via influencing the island nation’s elections early next year. Adding further, he claimed that the current administration is “projecting weakness” that will create an avenue for the CCP to take military action.

“But if they don’t win in that one they are going to look at a military invasion, in my judgment,” he said. “We have to be prepared for this.”

However, a top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee disagreed with both McCaul and Minihan’s assessment about a potential war with China in the near term.

“I want to be completely clear. It’s not only not inevitable, it’s highly unlikely,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told Fox News on Sunday, noting that “anything is possible” and that “generals should be cautious.”

Response

Writing in response to the memo, retired U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, wrote on Twitter that he doesn’t believe a war with China will happen soon.

“The job of the military is always to be ready to fight, but in my view, odds of a war with China are decreasing not increasing at the moment. The reason? President Xi is watching the Russian debacle in Ukraine and will likely be more cautious as a result,” he wrote.

A spokesperson for the Air Mobility Command, which Minihan commands, told news outlets on Jan. 27 that the memo about a war with China is real.

“This is an authentic internal memo from General Minihan addressed to his subordinate command teams. His order builds on last year’s foundational efforts by Air Mobility Command to ready the Mobility Air Forces for future conflict, should deterrence fail,” the spokesperson said.

Read more here…

Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Michigan judge will soon decide if 73-year-old Ross Barranco can be denied a donated kidney because he won’t take the COVID-19 vaccine.

“I just don’t see the logic of it,” stated Barranco in an interview with The Epoch Times. “Everybody knows an organ transplant procedure requires the nearly complete suppression of a recipient’s immune system so the body won’t reject it.

“Then why do I need to be immunized against COVID before the operation?”

When asked if he thought the vaccine would make any difference in his prognosis, he replied, “Yeah, the vax can kill me.

“To qualify for a transplant both of my kidneys have to be functioning at 20 percent or less. What if the vax destroys the remaining function before the operation? If it does, I’m done.

“The jab does absolutely nothing beneficial for a transplant patient,” he said.

Given the current COVID-19 testing capability, it remains unclear why transplant patients cannot be tested for COVID-19 before the operation. A negative result could then green-light the procedure.

It is also unclear why, given the data showing numerous fully vaccinated people have come down with COVID-19 multiple times, the shot is still being regarded by some hospitals as an immunization.

Barranco’s legal team made reference to a 2021 survey of 200 transplant centers across the country.

Of the 140 that responded to the survey, only half required transplant candidates to take a COVID-19 vaccine regimen.

“The vax can hardly be deemed medically necessary if half of the responding transplant centers are not requiring it,” said Deborah Catalono of the Liberty Counsel, a researcher tracking hospital transplant policies and a lawyer familiar with many similar cases to that of Barranco and Shier.

The Liberty Counsel is a non-profit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to upholding religious liberty and Christian values.

Medical questions and safety concerns aside, Barranco, a Roman Catholic, actually refused the vaccine on religious grounds.

He said his faith and conscience do not permit him to receive a shot that he is convinced was developed using body parts obtained from aborted babies and has fetal tissue in its ingredients.

Vax-up or Else

On Feb. 1, 2022, Barranco received what he perceived as an “ultimatum” from the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor.

“There’s an active list and a holding list for patients awaiting a transplant. At the time, I was on the holding list.

“That’s when the hospital gave me three months to get three COVID shots, or they would throw me off the list entirely,” said Barranco.

“I refused, and they threw me off. That’s when I contacted an attorney.”

Mary Clare Fischer, a public relations representative with the University of Michigan Health Transplant Center in Ann Arbor, outlined the hospital’s position in an email to The Epoch Times.

“[Our] policy aims to protect transplant recipients from complications of COVID-19 infection, which has had devastating effects in our patient population.

“Immunocompromised solid organ transplant recipients have among the highest risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19 infection.

“At present, all of the nearly 1,000 adult patients active on our waiting list are vaccinated against COVID-19 infection.

“As is true of all of our Transplant Center policies and processes, this policy is a critical step in partnering with our patients to maximize the safety of our transplant recipients and provide them the best opportunity to regain their health and quality of life through the gift of transplantation,” she said.

Fischer stated that the transplant center is one of a “significant number” of American hospitals that require the COVID-19 vaccination for adult heart, lung, liver, pancreas, and kidney transplant patients on their active lists.

The University of Michigan Hospital policy exempts critically ill patients who may not have time to complete the three-phase vaccine protocol, as well as patients with prior vaccine allergies.

Why Not Katie?

Katie Shier, Barranco’s co-plaintiff in the case, is an unvaccinated 35-year-old mother of five who is a candidate for a heart transplant.

She is being kept alive by a ventricular assist device that has developed an infection, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney, David Peters of the Pacific Justice Institute.

The Pacific Justice Institute is a non-profit legal defense organization specializing in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights, and other civil liberties.

The Institute is representing Shier and Barannco free of charge.

Shier, a Roman Catholic, objects to taking the COVID-19 vaccination on religious grounds.

On June 29, 2021, Shier was granted placement on the transplant waiting list.

U of M Hospital’s subsequently adopted mandatory vaccination policy now precludes her from undergoing the heart transplant necessary to save her life.

Peters told The Epoch Times that, due to the low functioning of Shier’s heart, at any time she could slip into “imminent or immediate danger and be rushed to the hospital” and maybe qualify for a transplant under the hospital’s vaccination exemption for the critically ill.

“Sadly, it looks like that is something the court will have to order. We have emergency motions ready to go,” said Peters.

Shier told The Epoch Times in a phone interview on Jan. 27, 2023, “I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had much time to think about my situation.

“It is in God’s hands. All I want to do is do God’s will. After much prayer, the Lord led me not to give in, but to file the lawsuit.

“I’m fighting for three things.

“The doctors said I have an infection that can only be cured by a heart transplant.

“I believe it’s wrong to require someone to take a dangerous vaccine, so I want to see an end to the mandates.

“And, most importantly, I do not want to take any vaccine or medication that has been tainted by abortion.

“Two of the major pharmaceutical companies making the vaccine developed it from the HEK-293 fetal cell line.

“Some vaccines are known to have fetal tissue in them, and some tests are being conducted on still-living fetuses without anesthesia,” she alleged.

“I’m fighting for a person’s right to refuse any vaccine that is associated with abortion,” she added.

Peters told The Epoch Times that some people misconstrue the case as a medical malpractice suit against U of M Hospital.

“It is not about malpractice. It is about due process rights.

“Both Ross and Katie regard UMH as one of the best hospitals in the world.

“For that reason, Katie won’t go elsewhere. She wants her new heart to come from UMH.”

Barranco told The Epoch Times that he checked out another transplant center, but he prefers UMH.

A ‘Rollercoaster’ Ordeal

Barranco, a petroleum geological engineer for 46 six years, has battled high blood pressure and diabetes for decades—the things he says caused his kidney dysfunction.

In September 2020, he was told to start investigating the various types of dialysis.

“I began talking to U of M in 2021.

“Eventually, they called me in for an in-person exam. They found both of my kidneys were not working right.

“The doctors do not want to remove a partially functioning kidney while it is still contributing, so the plan was to add a third kidney.

“Soon, I was approved to be on their holding list,” Barranco said.

His hopes for relief plummeted when a blood test revealed he had contracted an autoimmune disease that attacked his lungs and kidneys.

His transplant was sidetracked, and Barranco was placed on chemotherapy.

The chemo worked, and he recovered.

“That happened before I could begin dialysis.

“My plan always has been to skip dialysis if I could, because when it fails, as it eventually always does, that’s the end of the line,” he said.

After his recovery, Barranco’s hopes soared again when U of M Hospital officially put him on its active list.

Concern for Others

When his kidneys amazingly began to improve in response to some lifestyle changes, Barranco requested that the hospital drop him back down to the holding list, “so others more in immediate need of a transplant could take my place on the active list,” he said.

He also insisted, against the hospital’s recommendation, that he wait for a cadaver donor rather than a living donor.

“I figured a living donor would be reduced to one good kidney. He or she could possibly die on the operating table or die from post-op complications. It is a risky operation.

“Or, what if later in life the living donor developed high blood pressure or diabetes with only one kidney?

“There I’d be, doing just fine, but the person that helped me would be suffering. What about him or her?” said Barranco.

Barranco told The Epoch Times his goal is to have no more COVID-19 vaccine mandates, “so that future patients won’t have to go through what I have gone through.”

Political or Medical?

President Joe Biden issued an order through the Occupational Health and Safety Administration in November 2021 that would eventually result in the denial of organ transplants to unvaccinated patients like Barranco and Shier.

The federal order mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for health care workers and those professionally associated with them was narrowly permitted to stand by the United States Supreme Court in late January 2022.

Just prior to that decision, on Jan. 13, 2022, the High Court struck down the Biden-ordered Occupational Safety and Health Administration Emergency Temporary Standard mandating that private employers with more than 100 employees require that their workers receive the COVID-19 vaccines.

It was that February that Barranco received notice from U of M Hospital that he had three months to get all three shots or be completely disqualified for a kidney transplant.

“We jumped through all their hoops, and the hospital changed the rules in the middle of the game. They threw us off the active list.

“For people like Katie Shier and me, the message was clear—get vaccinated or die,” said Barranco.

Read more here…

So far this year, winter has been very mild. Millions of Americans are scratching their heads, asking ‘where is the snow’? 

Last week, New York City was slated for snow but received rain instead. This led the metro area to break a half-century-old record of the longest period without accumulating snow. 

But not all areas of the Lower 48 are missing out on winter—more than a dozen mountainous ski resort areas tracked by Bank of America recorded above-average snowfall. 

BofA analyst Shaun Kelley wrote in a note to clients Monday that 16 Vail Resorts they track have snowfall that is +30% year-over-year for this time of year and 51% over a two-year average. 

“Snowfall is healthy across the board, led by Tahoe, Park City, and Colorado. Tahoe and Park City have already surpassed their full-season long-term historical snowfall average, and there are still 2+ months left in the season,” Kelley wrote. 

He pointed out that even in the Northeast, where resorts have lacked snowfall, Vermont resorts received much-needed 2 feet of powder last week, while Hunter Mountain received a foot. Whistler was the only resort that has so far recorded below-trend snowfall. 

This season’s snowfall for Vail resorts is well above last season’s and the long-term average. 

The good news for ski resorts is winter is roaring back in early February. 

“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are forecasted across the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest through early this week,” the Climate Prediction Center said. Colder weather is great news for Vail Resorts. 

Authored by John Ransom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Department of Justice and the FBI may have little room to move in their handling of the Biden classified documents case, according to experts and GOP figures, who were skeptical of the agencies’ ability to recapture the confidence of a sizeable segment of the population who had lost trust in them. 

With the appointment of special counsel Robert Hur to investigate the revelations that Biden kept classified documents in various locations including his Delaware home, the spotlight has also turned brighter on the treatment of former president Donald Trump by the U.S. government’s justice apparatus over Trump’s possession of classified documents, the experts said.

“The American people have lost trust in Joe Biden’s corrupt DOJ and FBI after witnessing these agencies fully weaponized against Joe Biden’s number one political enemy by raiding Donald Trump’s house, but continue to cover up for the Biden Crime family,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, told The Epoch Times.

The alleged cover-up Stefanik was referring to is the yearslong investigations into Hunter Biden by the DOJ that have reportedly yielded “voluminous evidence,” but produced neither indictments nor dismissals by the federal agency.

As such, it will be difficult for the DOJ to credibly prosecute Trump while exonerating Biden for similar actions, yet prosecuting both Biden and Trump would be terrible and painful for the country, the expert said. 

On the other hand, finding both men innocent of an actual crime would deal a big blow to the DOJ and the FBI, tending to suggest that the treatment of Trump was just a political stunt by overly-partisan federal law enforcement agencies, they said.

And each of the experts couldn’t conceive of investigations that would find Biden guilty of a crime, yet Trump innocent.

Justice ‘Boxed In’

“I think the framing of the [justice] establishment being boxed in is right,” Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, told The Epoch Times.

“The reason that [U.S. Attorney General Merrick] Garland appointed a special prosecutor so quickly, was because it was readily apparent that given that he called for one with Trump, he had to with Biden,” added Shapiro.

In November, Garland appointed former career Justice Department prosecutor and former chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, Jack Smith, as special counsel in the investigation surrounding Trump’s handling of classified documents.

Shapiro said that while the outcomes of the two cases won’t be exactly similar, he doubts it will result in a conviction for either Trump or Biden. 

“Whatever that outcome is, it’s not going to be both of them sitting in the federal penitentiary,” said Shapiro.

“I don’t know if Biden is going to pardon Trump and then self-pardon? We had that debate over the self-pardoning power two years ago. Is that going to be a thing again? Or is there going to be some sort of slap on the wrist for both of them and fine of several tens of thousands of dollars? I don’t know. But I do think that the cases are going to run in parallel,” he added. 

A Lose-Lose Situation

But even the appointment of a special prosecutor meant to quell distrust in the case of Biden raises more questions now than it does settle doubt about the fairmindedness of the DOJ, according to Paul Kamenar, chief counsel of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a conservative watchdog group.

“While it appears that Special Counsel Robert Hur has the necessary credentials to be appointed by Merrick Garland, NLPC is seeking documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on the vetting process that was used to ensure his impartiality,” Kamenar told The Epoch Times. 

The FOIA request from NLPC asked the DOJ to provide a release of all documents relating to the vetting of Robert Hur prior to the announcement of his appointment including any information regarding any conflicts of interest that Hur may have had in the case.

Under the federal Code of Regulation, NLPC requested the documents be produced in 10 days as a “matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions about the government’s integrity that affect public confidence.”

Former congressman Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) told The Epoch Times that as a former prosecutor, he thinks that the only way for people to really evaluate potential bias by either a Trump or Biden prosecutor is to look at their work product once the investigations are complete, which means waiting both lengthy investigations to finish.

“Equal justice for all means that no matter your wealth, social status, or political power, the Department of Justice should treat every suspect and defendant the same,” said Brooks.

“I pray the Department of Justice will do that in this matter. Evaluate the evidence and turn a blind eye to the politics,” he added.

The waiting game for the work to be completed is likely to exact a toll on the DOJ and FBI.

Read more here…

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com,

Oil and gas operators in Texas should be prepared for severe winter weather this week, the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) said on Sunday, as snow and ice conditions are expected in parts of the biggest U.S. oil-producing state, including in parts of the Permian basin.

The RRC advised all operators under its jurisdiction in areas of potential impact to heed all watches, warnings, and orders issued by local emergency officials, and secure all personnel, equipment, and facilities to prevent injury or damage. Operators were also advised to monitor and prepare operations for potential impacts, as safety permits.  

Severe winter weather with low temperatures could lead to freeze-offs of oil- and gas-producing equipment and frozen pipeline valves and other infrastructure.

Winter Weather Advisories and Winter Storm Watches are in effect across parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas for winter weather and hazardous travel starting Monday, the National Weather Service said on Sunday.

The Midland chapter of the NWS said that a Winter Weather Advisory is in effect on Monday morning for the eastern Permian Basin, where a light glaze of ice is expected. On Tuesday and Wednesday, A Winter Storm Watch is in effect for the eastern Permian Basin for potential ice accumulations up to 0.25″.

Early on Monday, freezing drizzle continued to spread across the Permian Basin, with visibility lowered in Hobbs and Midland/Odessa.

The previous severe winter event occurred just before Christmas when Winter Storm Elliott exposed the vulnerability of the energy system as natural gas and power supplies were strained, wells froze off, and utilities vastly underestimated the power demand during the huge storm.

Back then, Texas managed to avoid rolling blackouts, but power providers in other states implemented planned interruptions to manage the surge in power demand during the storm. While the Texas power grid managed to avoid catastrophic failures during the storm, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) underestimated the surge in power demand.  

From Politico to Vice to various news agencies, mainstream media is busy echoing the conspiracy theories and wild speculations of some Western officials – with the latest being based on allegations by Finland’s foreign minister…

“Finland’s foreign minister hinted that Russia may have been involved in last week’s Koran-burning protest that threatens to derail Sweden’s accession to NATO,” Bloomberg writes.

FM Pekka Haavisto said over the weekend that the episode “raises the question of whether some third party is seeking to stir the pot — for example Russia — or some other party opposing the NATO membership and looking to provoke to achieve that. This is unforgivable.”

Here’s what Politico also wrote on Saturday: “Unfortunately, various activists in Sweden, some Kremlin linked, then decided to exploit this highly fraught situation, and by aggravating Erdoğan and Turkey, they’ve now helped turn the country’s NATO accession from virtually guaranteed to one that’s now in serious jeopardy — and other countries should learn from this mess.”

Turkey has suspended all high-level talks with Sweden related to its NATO application, and more recently suggested that Finland could be accepted alone, without its Scandinavian partner.

President Erdogan and his top officials expressed outrage that the Quran-burning activist Rasmus Paludan, who is leader of Danish far-right political party Hard Line, has had police protection during what are at this point multiple Quran-burning demonstrations over the past week-and-a-half.

Finland has still voiced that it wants to stick by Sweden in their joint NATO bids, and hopes to receive approval to join the military alliance by July, according to Monday statements. Turkey has remained the big veto standing in the way.

One key and obvious problem in presenting Paludan’s latest Quran-burnings as part of some high level Kremlin sponsored plot to derail Sweden’s NATO bid is that he’s been well-known going back years as holding highly controversial, anti-Islam demonstrations featuring Koran-burnings.

This has actually happened in multiple northern European countries, to the point that some have imposed temporary bans on his entering their borders. In past decades, similar incidents have provoked fury and media attention in the United States as well, for example in the case of Florida pastor Terry Jones. This hugely controversial phenomenon, part of some fringe far-right movements, hardly needs ‘Russian influence’ for it to be a thing.