Days ago Facebook, which is now Meta, announced it is welcoming Ukraine’s Azov Regiment to its platform. Azov had up until recently, and throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine, been on Meta’s of “dangerous organizations” list. 

It was on this banned list because the militia’s members regularly display Nazi symbols and signs on their uniforms and as part of the their media content. But now, pro-Azov content can be freely posted, and the group can create its own official accounts on Facebook and Instagram for the first time.

The Washington Post recently detailed that the change “will allow members of the Azov Regiment to create accounts on Facebook and Instagram and post content without fear of it being removed unless it breaks the company’s content rules.” Additionally, “The move will also enable other users to explicitly praise and support the group’s work.”

The company headed by Mark Zuckerberg still sought to emphasize that “Hate speech, hate symbols, calls for violence and any other content which violates our Community Standards are still banned, and we will remove this content if we find it.”

Ukrainian officials have especially since the summer lobbied hard for Facebook/Meta’s Oversight Board to loosen up its restrictions on Azov, saying it was ‘unfair’ and that it’s keeping Ukrainian media organizations from sharing accurate information about the war in real-time.

Exclusive: Meta told the Kyiv Independent that the U.S. tech giant, owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, no longer designates Azov Regiment as a “dangerous organization.”

Meta to allow publishing content about the Azov Regiment and its members. https://t.co/lU5CD9Zo1C

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) January 19, 2023

Facebook’s changing approach started about a year ago, when it began allowing some pro-Azov posts in instances where they were fighting the Russian invasion, as The Intercept reported in Feb. 2022:

According to internal policy materials reviewed by The Intercept, Facebook will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.” Internally published examples of speech that Facebook now deems acceptable include “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard”; “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours”; and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis.”

The materials stipulate that Azov still can’t use Facebook platforms for recruiting purposes or for publishing its own statements and that the regiment’s uniforms and banners will remain as banned hate symbol imagery, even while Azov soldiers may fight wearing and displaying them. In a tacit acknowledgement of the group’s ideology, the memo provides two examples of posts that would not be allowed under the new policy: “Goebbels, the Fuhrer and Azov, all are great models for national sacrifices and heroism” and “Well done Azov for protecting Ukraine and it’s white nationalist heritage.”

Azov’s formal Facebook ban goes back to 2019, when the US social media giant acknowledged it as a hate group.

An example of the type of imagery that’s long filled Azov social media channels in general…

Oops… from Bellingcat in 2020:

Now that Azov is fully free to create accounts and post on Facebook, one wonders what changed? After all, there are still endless examples of Azov members sporting neo-Nazi imagery, as well as ongoing public displays of support for historic Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClear Wire,

Strokes commonly strike the old.

The average age for the devastating condition – in which blood supply to a part of the brain is blocked or when a blood vessel in the brain bursts – is around 71.4 years in men and 76.9 years in women.

Millennials, however, are starting to bring those averages down.

Now ranging in age from 27 to 42, Millennials are suffering strokes at higher rates than their forebears did at the same age, reversing a 40-year decline in stroke deaths.

Between 2003 and 2012, there was a 32% spike in strokes among 18- to 34-year-old women and a 15% increase for men in the same age range, according to CDC researchers.

When Scientific American further parsed the data, they found that the hike was mostly centered in the West and Midwest, where stroke rates among young people rose 70% and 34%, respectively, with particularly sharp increases in urban areas. Now, about one in ten people who has a stroke in the U.S. is under the age of 45.

Younger stroke victims

There are many potential explanations for this disconcerting trend. Rising stress, falling physical activity levels, and fewer doctor visits among Millennials could all play a role. One narrative rises to the forefront, however. As cigarette use in the U.S. declined from an alarming high of around 45% in the 1950s to just 12.5% in 2020, all Americans collectively reaped the benefit of less smoke in public places, which manifested in reduced rates of lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke. But since the 1970s, the public health benefits from reduced smoking are being eroded by rising obesity and its related health complications.

Childhood obesity is particularly noxious in regard to early stroke, and Millennials were the first generation to truly be affected by this alarming trend. The rate of childhood obesity more than tripled from 5% in 1978 to 18.5% in 2016, leaving many more children burdened by associated conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, which can lead to a stroke.

There is good news. Thanks to improved medical care, stroke fatality rates have fallen significantly between 1975 and 2019, about 65% for hemorrhagic stroke (caused by a burst blood vessel) and 80% for ischemic stroke (caused by a blood vessel blockage). And with greater brain plasticity, young people are more apt to recover. Still, strokes can leave Millennials with lasting complications, such as occasional seizures, incontinence, cognitive impairment, hindered speech, and diminished muscle control, not to mention a sharply elevated risk of a future stroke.

Increased stroke isn’t the only health issue that Millennials are contending with. The rates of many cancers, especially those tied to poor diet, are rising for people under age 50.

Diet and exercise

The best solution to reverse the rise in early stroke is for Millennials and future generations to eat right and exercise, especially from a young age. Schools and parents have a vital role to play here.

Obesity’s grasp can be hard to break if it takes hold at a tender age, but if healthy lifestyle practices are instilled early, it’s likely they will remain second nature.

This article was originally published on Big Think.

As expected Turkey on Tuesday announced it has indefinitely postponed any future rounds of talks with Sweden and Finland regarding their NATO membership bids. 

A major meeting was expected to take place in Brussels in February, but this has been dramatically canceled, Turkish state broadcaster TRT reported based on diplomatic sources. 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was supposed to attend the talks, and when it was planned the two countries were widely perceived as very close to their NATO accession being approved.

President Erdogan himself on Monday lashed out at Sweden in particular, blasting Swedish authorities for allowing a far-right activist to burn a Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm over the weekend. 

Erdogan stated bluntly that Sweden should no longer expect support from Turkey to join NATO given it allows “terrorists” in its midst. Turkey has also expressed deep dissatisfaction at both Nordic countries’ failure to crack down on Kurdish groups banned by the Turkish state.

Amid continuing Turkish anger, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto has said a diplomatic “time-out” is now needed in order to reassess. 

At the same time, Finland has suggested it could seek NATO membership without Sweden, after the two earlier indicated a joint membership bid process.

Authored by Anne Zhang and Lynn Xu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Chip sales in China have tumbled at a whopping rate, as productivity in the semiconductor-related sector has contracted dramatically, indicating that the country’s manufacturing industry is shrinking, according to the latest industrial report.

The Washington-based Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) released data on Jan. 9 indicating that compared to the same period in 2021, China’s chip sales plummeted by 21.1 percent in November of 2022. Meanwhile, in the United States, chip sales rose by 5.2 percent; sales in Europe increased by 4.5 percent year-on-year; and sales in Japan went up by 1.2 percent.

China’s Industrial Recession Buffets Global Data

According to SIA statistics, in 2021, China alone made up $192.3 billion, or 34.6 percent, of $555.9 billion in global semiconductor industry sales, ranking first in the world.

As the world’s largest chip market, the Chinese market’s sharp decline has dragged down the yield of the global industry, with November 2022 seeing global semiconductor industry sales slide to $45.5 billion. That is 2.9 percent less than the previous month and 9.2 percent less than the same period of the previous year, respectively.

“Global semiconductor sales decreased in November [2022], largely due to market cyclicality and macroeconomic headwinds,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO of SIA.

The SIA represents most U.S. semiconductor companies and nearly two-thirds of non-U.S. semiconductor companies.

Chip Imports Decline

China’s chip imports have faced a serious decline since last October when the United States imposed sanctions on Chinese semiconductor companies.

Chinese customs data showed that China imported 40.5 billion integrated circuits in November 2022, a 25.3 percent drop from 54.22 billion units in November 2021.

Last October, the United States issued a semiconductor and equipment export control order against the Chinese Communist regime. The new ban restricts exports to China of logic chips below 14/16 nanometres, DRAM memory chips below 18 nanometres, and NAND flash memory chips above 128 layers, as well as related manufacturing equipment.

The move could be a heavy blow to a wide range of manufacturing areas, including automobiles, mobile communications equipment, and computers.

Industry Output Declines

In November 2022, China’s output of microcomputer equipment plunged by 27.9 percent; and mobile communication handheld devices dropped 13 percent, including a 19.8 percent decline in the production of smartphones from the same period last year, according to data released by China’s Statistical Bureau.

In addition, the manufacturing of railroads, ships, aerospace, and other transportation equipment, computer, communication, and electronic equipment, and general equipment manufacturing declined 0.9–2.9 percent year-over-year.

Manufacturing Prospects Fall to Record Low

A Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) reading below 50 indicates a contraction in manufacturing and service sectors, according to industrial statistics methods. This gloomy data was seen for most of last year in China.

China’s Bureau of Statistics published a report on Dec. 31 saying that China’s PMI remained under 50 for most of last year, with the exception of January, February, June, and September, which were slightly higher than 50. In the fourth quarter of last year, China’s PMI fell sharply for three consecutive months, with its December PMI hitting a record low of 47.

Read more here…

Nuclear power generation is an integral part of the electrical grid landscape, and it’s a critical pillar in decarbonizing the energy sector to achieve net-zero greenhouse gases. 

The evolution of nuclear power generation from traditional, giant, light-water reactors to advanced light-water small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) could be a reality by the end of the decade. 

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently certified a design for NuScale Power’s SMR. The certification allows utilities to use the design when applying for licenses to build a nuclear power plant. The rule becomes effective next month. 

“The rule takes effects February 21, 2023 and equips the nation with a new clean power source to help drive down emissions across the country,” NRC wrote in a statement. 

This is the first design for an SMR to be certified in the US. The other six designs are for large traditional reactors. 

“The design is an advanced light-water SMR with each power module capable of generating 50 megawatts of emissions-free electricity,” NRC continued. 

President Biden has prioritized advancing nuclear technologies to power the grid of tomorrow. His administration has also announced funding to extend the lifespans of nuclear power plants nationwide. 

Recall we have stated if President Biden wants to obtain a carbon-free future, his ability to do so will be through the expansion of nuclear power generation, not unreliable solar and wind energy that fluctuates with the weather. 

NuScale’s small design, about a third of the size of a traditional reactor, allows it to be built almost anywhere. 

There’s even a floating version of the reactor built on a barge that can be towed to grids that need to expand power capacity quickly. 

The DOE and NuScale will build a demonstration power plant with SMRs in 2025, with the first power module operating by 2029. 

What’s become very evident is the US’ thirst for boosting nuclear capacity by adding SMRs to the grid to realize a carbon-free future. To do this, the US will also need to kick its reliance on nuclear fuel from Russia, indicating a need to increase domestic mining supply chains and enrichment facilities.

Over the past year, we have repeatedly said that the endgame for this particular episode in central bank stupidity will be when the Fed is dragged, kicking and screaming, into hiking the US inflation target (read this, this and this).

At some point Fed will concede it has no control over supply. That’s when we will start getting leaks of raising the inflation target

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 21, 2022

And while it will take at least a few more years before the Fed admits defeat – should it pause and/or pivot it will take far shorter – one place where a central bank inflation target increase is imminent, is Brazil.

To be sure, Brazil is a bit of a basket case, having had its share of close encounters with terminal socialism, most recently in October when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) defeated Bolsonaro to became president for a second time (and a first-ever third term) while promising all the irresistible delights of socialism, if not communism. And like every self-respecting socialist, Lula quickly figured out that what he needs first and foremost, is control over the central bank.

The problem, as everyone knows, is that giving access of a country’s money printer to a true-blue socialist is sovereign suicide, and in Brazil It took decades of cajoling and lobbying by the financial community to finally shield the central bank from political meddling.

So when President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, just three weeks into office, questioned the need for an autonomous central bank during a national TV interview last week, it didn’t go over well in markets… even if nobody was really surprised. Swap rates surged and the currency tanked following his remarks. Cabinet members entered the field and managed to halt the plunge that day, but the episode left many investors increasingly alarmed about a Lula presidency they are finding to be vastly different than the one that oversaw an economic boom back in the first decade of the new the century.

As Bloomberg notes, as part of his socialist overhaul, Lula has packed his economic team with “left-wing loyalists, lambasted fiscal rules and now, with his thinly veiled attack on central bank autonomy, taken a posture that raises doubts about the government’s commitment to quelling consumer prices increases in a country with a long history of nasty inflation outbreaks.” Which is ironic since so much of the US establishment was openly rooting for a grand ole socialist time under Lula and was so very happy when Bolsonaro lost by the narrowest of margins.

And like every socialist (or despotic tyrant for that matter) who promises the sun, moon and stars… if only he had access to an infinite supply of (soon to be devalued cash), Lula quickly grasped that what he needs is to strip the central bank of its independence. As such, his saber-rattling is born in large part out of frustration, investors say, with the growing clash between their fiscal policy – aimed at boosting a sputtering economy – and the central bank’s high interest-rate policy –  designed to bring inflation back down to target.

But what if one goes for the classical Faustian bargain: let’s make life a little bit easier for everyone if we all agree on just a little more inflation? Well, that’s precisely what Lula is doing.

Last Wednesday, in a wide-ranging interview with Globo TV, Lula downplayed the importance of an independent central bank, and addressed the country’s soon-to-be-raised inflation target.

Taking a page right out of Erdogan’s playbook (as a reminder, in Turkey the central bank has lost all of its autonomy in recent years as Turkey’s dictator appointed close friends and allies to run it under fear of immediate termination if they refuse to follow orders), Lula said that “there was a lot of discussion in this country to have an independent central bank, believing that it would be better,” (during Lula’s initial two terms in office, the bank’s chief, Henrique Meirelles, said the president had given him de-facto autonomy to set monetary policy). Lula then said that “it’s silly to think that an independent central bank governor is going to do more than when the president appointed him.”

Which, of course, is precisely what he would say when considering his bigger goal, which is – drumroll – raising the Brazilian inflation target. As Bloomberg noted, during the interview, Lula defended moves to raise the country’s inflation target and said that he would be forced to tighten economic conditions to reach the target and questioned why not set higher than the current 3% goal established for 2024, mentioning 4.5% as a possibility.

And since every radical monetary overhaul needs a social crisis, the CIA Brazil conveniently had just that a few days prior. The president said in the interview that he views the storming of the presidential palace, the congress and the Supreme Court building on Jan. 8 to have been “the beginning of a coup” and that the rioters were acting “according to the order and guidance that Bolsonaro gave for a long time.”

“His decision to keep quiet after losing the election, weeks and weeks of not saying anything; his decision not to hand the sash to me, to leave for Miami as if he were running away in fear of something; and his silence even after what happened here, gave me the impression that he knew everything that was happening, that he had a lot to do with what was happening,” Lula said.

Ah yes, implementing revolutionary monetary policy overhaul at a time when a group of people (without military support) storms the local center of power, and the former president is constantly used by the media and the deep state as an endless propaganda distraction from what matters… it’s almost as if we’ve seen that particular play before.

So what happens next? Well, since there is nobody that can prevent Lula from achieving what he wants (see Turkey) it’s only a matter of time before Brazil becomes the first quasi-modern central bank to raise its inflation target during this particular monetary cycle.

The soon-to-be-toothless central bank chief Roberto Campos Neto himself addressed concerns about Lula’s intervention several times, saying such moves could “reduce the power” of monetary policy and reinforcing that policy makers “won’t hesitate” to raise interest rates if needed.

Meanwhile, as foreign investors watch the Brazilian socialist tragicomedy unwind in real time terrified of what the outcome for the country’s inflation will be, they have been avoiding local assets. Vista Capital had flagged an attack on the central bank’s autonomy as a “relevant risk” being underestimated by markets in a note at the end of last year, but the topic became ubiquitous following the interview, with money managers now expecting the administration to force a change in Brazil’s inflation goals. The government is expected to set 2026’s target in June, and will almost certainly revise the current goal of 3% for 2024 and 2025 to 4.5% as Lula hinted.

“Lula’s decision to publicly state twice that the inflation target should be higher did not go unnoticed, and may further reinforce increasing inflation expectations over longer periods” in the central bank’s weekly survey, JPMorgan economist Cassiana Fernandez wrote in a note as Bloomberg reported. Sure enough, analysts in the survey have raised estimates for 2023 inflation six weeks in a row, and also see consumer prices rising above target through 2025.

Campos Neto seemed to mostly shrug off Lula’s remarks, acknowledging interest rates were currently high while also reiterating the bank will continue to act independently — something that’s helped curb volatility in markets, he said late last week, at least until Lula makes it very clear that he is in control of the central bank. As such, locals are watching for what they say is the first true test to the bank’s autonomy: the appointment of a replacement for Bruno Serra, who’s expected to step down as monetary policy director in February.

Campos Neto plans to suggest a name for the post, with Banco Santander’s Sandro Sobral gaining momentum among the possibilities, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked for anonymity discussing private information. But ultimately it’s up to the president to name Serra’s replacement, and it will most likely not be the most qualified candidate but instead some crony of Lula’s.

What happens next? Look to Argentina for clues. As for all those in the US deep state and assorted hanger-on billionaires who backed Lula over Bolsonaro, they are following events in Brazil most closely, knowing well that once the inevitable economic crash pans out – as it does every time a socialist is in charge – it will be only a matter of time before they can buy up Brazil’s vast riches at pennies on the real.

China is rapidly becoming the world’s most dominant force in liquefied natural gas, with Chinese buyers accounting for 40% of recent long-term LNG contracts among global players, according to Nikkei Asia.

Take Chinese energy giant Sinopec Group, which reached a 27-year agreement with state-owned QatarEnergy late last year to buy 4 million tonnes of LNG annually. The imports are due to begin around 2026. As a key client, China is also negotiating to invest in a massive Qatari project to expand LNG output.

At the same time, a private-sector Chinese energy company, ENN Group, signed a contract last year with Texas-based Energy Transfer to buy 2.7 million tonnes of LNG annually for 20 years. ENN increased its purchasing agreement with NextDecade, also headquartered in Texas, to 2 million tonnes a year for 20 years as well. In addition, NextDecade has agreed to supply 1 million tonnes of LNG yearly to China Gas Holdings, whose principal shareholder is an investment vehicle controlled by the city of Beijing. Imports are to start in the latter 2020s.

Over 2021 and 2022, China closed long-term LNG purchasing contracts worth nearly 50 million tonnes a year, European research firm Rystad Energy reports. In this not so covert attempt to corner the LNG market, China has tripled the scale of purchases through long-term contracts in just two years, up from the annual volume of roughly 16 million tonnes from 2015 through 2020.

In 2020 and 2021, spot transactions accounted for 40%-50% of China’s natural gas imports, well above the estimated 30% for Japan. But China appears to have changed strategy to fit long-term demand. Long-term contracts offer more stability in supplies compared with spot contracts.

In 2021, China surpassed Japan as the world’s top LNG importer. But last year, imports apparently dropped 18% to around 65 million tonnes on the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet China’s demand for natural gas in 2030 is projected to be over 50% higher than in 2021.

Amid global efforts to reduce carbon emissions, many countries have converged on natural gas as a relatively clean bridge fuel. The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan predicts annual worldwide LNG demand will reach 488 million tonnes in 2030, up about 40% from 2020. But global supply is on track to fall short of demand by 7.6 million tonnes a month in 2025.

The China contingent are addressing the risk of being cut off from the LNG supply chain at a time when U.S. and allies work to create China-free supply chains for semiconductors. Long-term contracts are seen as a hedge against such disruptions.

Ironically, the US is already China’s biggest LNG supplier based on long-term contracts. The same US that aggressively ramping up alternative semiconductor supply chains that bypass Beijing and which has cracked down on Chinese reverse engineering of US technology. And while Beijing imposed a 25% tariff on American-made LNG in 2019 during the trade war, it then started issuing waivers on the duties in 2020, and since 2021, Chinese and U.S. companies have signed a series of massive LNG deals.

China now imports about 90 million tonnes of LNG through long-term contracts, with the U.S. responsible for around 25 million. Australia ranks next at roughly 17 million tonnes, while the Middle East supplies 14 million and Russia contributes about 6 million.

Despite being extensively reliant on US long-term deal, Beijing intends to avoid dependence on American LNG, and China “is ready to expand cooperation with Qatar in natural gas and other traditional energy sectors,” President Xi Jinping said during a December meeting with Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh.

Additionally, Beijing is carefully diversifying suppliers in the name of energy security. Beyond tanker-borne LNG, China also brings in natural gas via pipelines. China covers just over half of its natural gas demand through domestic output, and the rest comes from Russia and Turkmenistan. The natural gas supplies are supplemented by LNG from the U.S. and other sources.

“It’s best not to rely on any one country for 30%-40% of our needs,” said an executive at a large Chinese oil company, a lesson which Europe learned the very hard way.

As China emerges as a dominant LNG buyer, the role of Japanese purchasers has diminished.

In 2021 and 2022, Japanese companies agreed to less than 10 million tonnes of LNG per annum in long-term contracts. Utilities are wary of large LNG contracts due to uncertainties about future demand amid the decarbonization movement, Japan’s shrinking population and the restart of nuclear plants.

Japanese LNG importer JERA, a joint venture between utilities Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings and Chubu Electric Power, decided at the end of 2021 not to renew a 25-year contract with Qatar to buy 5 million tonnes of LNG annually. China’s Sinopec was quick to step in and has emerged as Qatar’s replacement buyer.

Before LNG developers start production at new projects, they sign long-term contracts with importers to secure income and take in financing from lenders. Japanese power and gas companies once took leading roles for projects in Southeast Asia and Australia, but now Chinese players are looking to fill that function.

Rep. George Santos (R-NY) may have engaged in a ‘Bidenesque‘ series of lies about his bona fides to get elected, but he might actually find himself in hot water over more serious revelations over campaign finance violations – a much more serious class of misconduct which could result in expulsion from Congress, civil penalties and criminal prosecution.

The questions center around the hundreds of thousands of dollars Santos has loaned his campaigns from personal accounts; his sharp increase in reported wealth; an outside group that was raising funds on behalf of his campaign, without being registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC); and a host of expenses submitted by his campaign for $199.99 — one cent less than the figure requiring receipts. -The Hill

“We certainly are talking about potential FEC investigations and DOJ investigations,” said Robert Maguire, head of research for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Santos, who now sits on a pair of committees, has already had calls to resign from his own party.

In addition to reported investigations into his finances, Santos also faces several ethics complaints.

Santos’s personal wealth spiked between his 2020 and 2022 campaigns – which coincided with the creation of the Devolder Organization, LLC – as well as at least $705,000 in what he originally said were personal loans to his 2022 campaign.

On Tuesday, however, Santos admitted that a $500,000 loan he gave to his campaign, did not in fact come from personal funds. Now, as the Daily Beast reports, the question is where did the money come from?

However, while the new amended filing told us where the funds did not come from, it also raised a new question—where did the money come from?

While both the old and new campaign filings claim that the loans came “from the candidate,” the campaign’s most recent amended filing had ticked the box for “personal funds of the candidate”; on the new amended filing today, that box is unchecked.

Another amended filing on Tuesday disclosed that a $125,000 “loan from the candidate” in late October also did not come from his “personal funds,” but like the $500,000 question, did not say where the money came from, when the loan was due, or what entity, if any, backed the money. -Daily Beast

In 2022, Santos reported a $750,000 salary from Devolder, and had between $1 and $5 million in his savings account, while holding between $100,001 and $250,000 in a checking account. He also owns an apartment in Rio de Janeiro with a value between $500,001 and $1 million.

Devolder, founded in May 2021 according to documents filed with the Florida secretary of state, previously claimed to have managed $80 million in assets – a claim which has been removed. According to a Dun & Bradstreet estimate from July, 2022, the company’s revenue was just $43,688. Santos told WABC and the Daily Beast that he pulled money from his company as his salary, and used it to fund his c ampaign.

Then in December, he told Semafor that the Devolder Organization was in the “capital introduction” business – similar to LinkBridge, his previous employer.

“What I will do is I will go look out there within my Rolodex and be like: ‘Hey, are you looking for a plane?’ ‘Are you looking for a boat?’ I just put that feeler out there,” he said, adding that he would then connect people to wealthy investors and institutions – landing “a couple of million-dollar contracts” in the first six months.

“If you’re looking at a $20 million yacht, my referral fee there can be anywhere between $200,000 and $400,000,” he told Semafor.

Santos has confirmed little else about the specifics of how his company made money, though some public reports have identified a few clients. 

Santos told the Daily Beast in December that the Devolder Organization contracted with Acrisure, the parent company of The Whitmore Group insurance brokerage. The Whitmore Group’s CEO, James Metzger, is a major GOP donor and also contributed to Santos’s campaign. 

The Devolder company was one of several organizations authorized to manage and control Red Strategies USA — separate from Redstone Strategies — according to documents reported in a Campaign Legal Center FEC complaint against Santos. FEC reports show just one political committee paying Red Strategies USA: Tina Forte for Congress, the Republican candidate who challenged Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). It is unclear how much, if any, of the $110,320 paid from the Forte campaign ultimately went to Devolder. -The Hill

In a recent interview on the “War Room” podcast, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) asked Santos where his campaign funds originated from.

“I’ll tell you what. It didn’t come from China, Ukraine, or Burisma, how about that?” Santos replied.

Columbia law professor Richard Briffault said that Santos’ loans may be the most consequential factor in Santos’ future from a criminal justice standpoint, if they are found to constitute “an illegal means of disguising illegal contributions.”

“If it turns out that that was a device for donors to funnel money to the campaign, that itself is illegal — Santos would be a ‘straw donor’ falsely claiming he provided the money when it really came from someone else,” Briffault told The Hill on Friday.

If Santos ‘knowingly’ exceeded the legal limit of $2,900 per donor in any one election cycle – especially if the donors were found to be corporations or foreign entities, “we are talking about a felony,” Briffault added.

What if Santos resigns? A special election, which could cost the GOP a seat.

Six weeks ago the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded a $3 million grant to EcoHealth Alliance, the New York-based nonprofit which was used to funnel millions of US taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where they collaborated to make bat coronaviruses more transmissible to humans via gain-of-function genetic manipulation.

The grant was awarded as part of a DoD program related to countering weapons of mass destruction, as noted by Just the News and Rutgers professor Richard H. Ebright.

EcoHealth Alliance currently has federal contracts and grants from USAID, DoD-DTRA, DoD-USU, DHS, NIAID, and NSF.

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) January 21, 2023

This latest grant from the DoD is officially meant for “reducing the threat of viral spillover from wildlife in the Philippines.”

In 2014, the Obama administration temporarily suspended federal funding for gain-of-function research into manipulating bat COVID to be more transmissible to humans. Four months prior to that decision, the NIH effectively shifted this research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to EcoHealth, headed by Peter Daszak.

Notably, the WIV “had openly participated in gain-of-function research in partnership with U.S. universities and institutions” for years under the leadership of Dr. Shi ‘Batwoman’ Zhengli, according to the Washington Post‘s Josh Rogin.

Yet, after Sars-CoV-2 broke out in the same town where Daszak was manipulating Bat Covid, The Lancet published a screed by Daszak (signed by over two-dozen scientists), which insisted the virus could have only come from a natural spillover event, likely from a wet market, and that the scientists “stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.” The Lancet only later noted Daszak’s conflicts of interest.

Meanwhile, as we noted late last year, a Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions interim report from October 27, 2022 titled “An Analysis of the Origins of the COVID19 Pandemic” concluded that the origins of Covid were more likely based in a lab as part of a “research related incident” and not zoonotic.

The report was the result of a “bipartisan Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee oversight effort into the origins of SARS-CoV-2”. It provides a lengthy analysis that reviews “publicly available, open-source information to examine the two prevailing theories of origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus”.

Among other conclusions, the report notes: “Substantial evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic was the result of a research-related incident associated with a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” the report states.

In a section titled “Problems with the Natural Zoonotic Hypothesis”, the report says:

“Based on precedent and genomics, the most likely scenario for a zoonotic origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is that SARS-CoV-2 crossed over the species barrier from an intermediate host to humans. However, the available evidence is also consistent, perhaps more so, with a direct bat-to-human spillover. Both scenarios remain plausible and, in the absence of additional information, should be considered equally valid hypotheses.”

“However, nearly three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, critical evidence that would prove that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and resulting COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a natural zoonotic spillover is missing.”

“Such gaps include the failure to identify the original host reservoir, the failure to identify a candidate intermediate host species, and the lack of serological or epidemiological evidence showing transmission from animals to humans, among others outlined in this report,” the report states.

“As a result of these evidentiary gaps, it is hard to treat the natural zoonotic spillover theory as the presumptive origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Then, in the report’s conclusion, it states:

“Based on the analysis of the publicly available information, it appears reasonable to conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident. New information, made publicly available and independently verifiable, could change this assessment. However, the hypothesis of a natural zoonotic origin no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt, or the presumption of accuracy.”

The report was signed off on by Richard Burr, United States Senator and Ranking Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

California lawmakers appear intent on making the Eagles song Hotel California a reality … at least when it comes to taxes for those who try to flee the state. At the Hotel California, “you can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!”

With soaring costs and a massive $24 billion deficit, the state is also facing an exodus of people leaving the state.

The solution?

Convert the state into a tax Venus flytrap: not only impose a wealth tax on those caught in the state but tax those who try to leave.

The new bill introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Alex Lee would impose an extra annual 1.5% tax on those with a “worldwide net worth” above $1 billion, starting as early as January 2024.

The law has a cynical bait-and-switch provision. The billionaire tax is just meant for the initial packaging and passage. It can therefore be sold as a “billionaire’s tax.” However, in two years, the threshold drops to a worldwide net worth exceeding $50 million. While billionaires would stay at 1.5%, those in the lower tax bracket would be hit by a 1% added rate on worldwide assets.

It also includes the taxation on those who left the state . . . many due to the high taxes. California already has the highest tax burden in the nation. It relies on its top 1% of taxpayers for roughly half of its individual income tax revenue, but continually treats those taxpayers like game in a canned hunt. The result, not surprisingly, is that they are leaving for states like Texas and Florida.

The new tax would arrange for payments to California’s Franchise Tax Board for years after a departure for those assets which are not easily converted into cash.

I have previously written how the wealth tax pushed by Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren are unconstitutional under the federal Constitution.

States are not subject to the same limit. Not surprisingly, the highest taxing states are pursuing the most wealthy . . . who are leaving in droves. That includes Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York and Washington.

What is most striking under the proposed law is that it will not only spur more wealthy couples to leave the state but discourage any from moving into the state. Even if this ill-considered law does not pass, who wants to risk going to a state that is actively pursuing new ways to tax you even if you ever decide to leave? With many in the top one percent getting out of the state, the tax demand on the most wealthy is only likely to increase with the dwindling numbers in the top tax brackets. No one wants to be the last buffalo on the plains for the California tax collectors.

Under the existing exit tax, businesses and individuals must pay a one-time tax to leave based on the value of the business or individual’s assets, including property, stocks, and other investments. For those who have earned more than $30 million, you can continue to pay for years after fleeing the state. The current exit tax is 0.4% of an individuals’ net worth over $30,000,000 in a tax year, including assets located outside of California other than real estate.

Taxing wealth is no easy matter so the proposal seeks $660 million per year for administrative costs.

California is also considering constitutional amendments and referendums to increase taxes for the most wealthy.

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
“Relax, ” said the night man
“We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave”