Wassily Kandinsky Moscow Red Square 1916
NBC: Do you remember your last meeting with Biden?
Putin: Well, I don’t recall our exact conversation, but I’m sure he has a good memory.
🇮🇳 Delhi
Have you seen an improvement like this in any other large, densely populated city?
Differences in a month, from May 12 to June 13, 2021
COVID beds from 82% to 8%
COVID Oxygen beds from 85% to 8%
COVID ICU beds from 99% to 16%
Ivermectin was included at the end of April pic.twitter.com/ZAA395YJKR
— J Chamie (@jjchamie) June 13, 2021
“With all three vaccines your immune system is only exposed to S RBD, therefore S is the only target available for an immune response. However, during natural infection your body is exposed to the entire virus, which includes the other 4 proteins coded in the SARS-CoV-2 genome.”
• COVID-19 Natural Immunity vs Vaccine Immunity (CureHub)
The work presented here, in combination with other reports about immune protection in recovered individuals, provides justification for including natural immunity in COVID-19 herd immunity stats. It is important to remember the immune system is complex and has redundant and overlapping mechanisms. Antibody production against both the SARS-CoV-2 N and S proteins is just one example. The vaccines are indeed very effective, but so too is the human immune system. It would therefore be anti-science, and anti-data, to ignore the role that recovery from COVID-19 plays in protecting against reinfection and ongoing viral spread. Especially when deleterious decisions are being made in order to mitigate COVID-19 risk.
[..] COVID-19 vaccines are effective and induce a strong immune response. Cure-Hub’s own data shows high neutralizing antibody levels after vaccination, especially after the second mRNA dose. In fact, two doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines can push antibody production higher than natural infection. However, this does not mean vaccine induced immunity is superior to natural immunity. Below we provide evidence that recovery from natural infection generates a more diverse immune response. There are 5 proteins encoded in the viral genome: Nucleocapsid (N), Spike (S), Hemagglutinin esterase (He), Membrane (M) and Envelope (E). The most important protein is S, which the virus uses to enter human cells. By blocking S, SARS-CoV-2 cannot bind to the human ACE2 receptor and cannot cause an infection.
Due to S protein’s critical role in COVID-19 infection, it is the target for Pfizer, Moderna and J&J COVID-19 vaccines. Specifically, those vaccines are designed against the S protein receptor binding domain (RBD), which is the part that interacts with human ACE2. After vaccination your body produces antibodies that bind to S RBD. As a result you are protected from infection because the virus is neutralized before viral replication occurs. People who recover from a natural infection are also protected, because they too produce antibodies against S RBD. In fact, that is the immune system’s dominant target after infection. The key difference between the Pfizer, Moderna and J&J vaccines, and natural immunity, is the immune system’s starting material. With all three vaccines your immune system is only exposed to S RBD, therefore S is the only target available for an immune response. However, during natural infection your body is exposed to the entire virus, which includes the other 4 proteins coded in the SARS-CoV-2 genome.
Oh well, at least it’s reached Reuters now, even if they’re not sharp.
• CDC: Heart Inflammation In Young Men Higher Than Expected After mRNA Jabs (R.)
A higher-than-expected number of young men have experienced heart inflammation after their second dose of the mRNA COVID-19 shots from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, according to data from two vaccine safety monitoring systems, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday. The CDC and other health regulators have been investigating heart inflammation cases after Israel’s Health Ministry reported that it had found a likely link to the condition in young men who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. read more The agency said it is still assessing the risk from the condition and has not yet concluded that there was a causal relationship between the vaccines and cases of myocarditis or pericarditis.
While some patients required hospitalization, most have fully recovered from their symptoms, the CDC said. More than half of the cases reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) after people had received their second dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines were in people between the ages of 12 and 24, the CDC said. Those age groups accounted for less than 9% of doses administered. “We clearly have an imbalance there,” Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, deputy director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, said in a presentation to an advisory committee to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration meeting on Thursday. The overwhelming majority of the cases have occurred within a week of vaccination, Shimabukuro said.
There were 283 observed cases of heart inflammation after the second vaccine dose in those aged 16 to 24 in the VAERS data. That compares with expectations of 10-to-102 cases for that age range based on U.S. population background incidence rates, the CDC said. Shimabukuro said there was a predominance of males in younger age groups among the reported heart inflammation cases. The median age of patients who experienced the inflammation after a second vaccine dose was 24, according to the VAERS data. Just under 80% of the cases were in men.
“College students aren’t guinea pigs.”
WSJ, so behind a paywall, which I don’t do, but this much is free. And it’s important that the WSJ writes on it.
• University Vaccine Mandates Violate Medical Ethics (WSJ)
Some 450 U.S. colleges and universities—including our institutions—have announced policies mandating that all students be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 before the fall semester, with some requiring vaccination now for the summer term. Schools have for decades required vaccination against infectious diseases, but these mandates are unprecedented—and unethical. Never before have colleges insisted that students or employees receive an experimental vaccine as a condition of attendance or employment.
Even soldiers, whose rights are constrained when they join the service, aren’t being compelled to take a Covid vaccine. In a case involving a vaccine against anthrax, a federal district judge held in 2004 that “the United States cannot demand that members of the armed forces also serve as guinea pigs for experimental drugs” absent informed consent or a presidential waiver of service members’ legal protections. The following year the judge held that an emergency-use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration was insufficient to meet the legal test.
The FDA has issued such authorizations for three Covid vaccines, but it hasn’t fully approved any of them. Students at Notre Dame (for example) resume classes on Aug. 23, and freshmen arrive on campus Aug. 18. The Pfizer vaccine—first in line for approval—requires three weeks before the booster shot, so it would have to be approved by July 28 for students to meet the school’s deadline without making themselves experimental subjects. Pfizer applied to the FDA May 7 for “priority review,” a process that usually takes six months.
Universities might counter that—as with elementary schools requiring pediatric vaccinations—immunization is for students’ own good. But children can be at significant medical risks from the illnesses that we vaccinate them against, particularly when community vaccination rates are low. Not so with Covid. For those under 30, the risks of serious morbidity and mortality are close to zero. By contrast, early indications from passive surveillance systems (which call for follow-up investigation) and a June 10 review by the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee indicated an excess risk for heart inflammation, especially in men 30 and younger.
“I believe it is time for him to hang up his crown and restore our democracy. In California, we don’t grow bananas, so there’s no need for a banana republic.”
• California Removes Most Restrictions But Newsom Keeps Emergency Powers (JTN)
Even though Californians will be able to fill stadiums, concert venues, bars and restaurants, Gov. Gavin Newsom says the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t over. Newsom signed orders rescinding mask mandates, business restrictions and the tiered reopening phases that ebbed and flowed with infection and hospitalization rates, beginning Tuesday. “California is turning the page on this pandemic, thanks to swift action by the state and the work of Californians who followed public health guidelines and got vaccinated to protect themselves and their communities,” Newsom said earlier this month. The state’s “Beyond the Blueprint” doesn’t include Newsom relinquishing his emergency powers, which were bestowed to him by a declaration signed in March 2020 and repeatedly renewed since. “The emergency remains in effect after June 15,” Newsom said at a news conference.
“We’re still in a state of emergency. This disease has not been extinguished. It’s not managed. It’s not taking the summer months off.” What that means is that Newsom keeps his hand on the levers of government restrictions, including business closures and mask mandates, even though the consistent decline in infections and hospitalizations are at lows not seen since the beginning of the pandemic. It also opened Newsom, a Democrat facing a recall election, to criticism from Republicans who have labeled his restrictions as heavy-handed. “If Newsom believes the state is safe enough to reopen, then it’s safe for people to be able to make decisions for themselves without his arbitrary and capricious rules,” Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, said in a June 4 statement. “I believe it is time for him to hang up his crown and restore our democracy. In California, we don’t grow bananas, so there’s no need for a banana republic.”
That’s the same WHO that lied about everything including bats in cages in Wuhan.
• Coronavirus Outpacing Vaccine Effort, Says WHO (G.)
The World Health Organization has warned that Covid-19 is moving faster than the vaccines, and said the vow by G7 countries to share a billion doses with poorer nations was simply not enough. “This is a big help, but we need more, and we need them faster. Right now, the virus is moving faster than the global distribution of vaccines,” World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists. “More than 10,000 people are dying every day … these communities need vaccines, and they need them now, not next year.” Global health leaders also warned the pledge was too little, too late, with more than 11bn shots needed. Faced with outrage over disparities in jab access, the Group of Seven industrialised powers pledged during a weekend summit in Britain to take their total dose donations to more than a billion, up from 130m promised in February.
While people in many wealthy nations have some sense of normalcy thanks to their vaccination rates, the shots remain scarce in poorer parts of the world. In terms of doses administered, the imbalance between the G7 and low-income countries, as defined by the World Bank, is 73 to one. Many of the donated G7 doses will be filtered through Covax, a global body charged with ensuring equitable vaccine distribution. Run by the WHO, the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), it has so far shipped more than 87m vaccine doses to 131 countries – far fewer than anticipated. The WHO wants at least 70% of the world’s population vaccinated by the next G7 meeting in Germany next year. “To do that, we need 11bn doses. The G7 and G20 can make this happen,” said Tedros.
“..new footage has revealed that live bats were kept in cages inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology – despite claims from the WHO that such a possibility was a “conspiracy”..”
• Live Bats In Cages Kept In Wuhan Institute of Virology (News.au)
As G7 countries increase calls for a “phase two” investigation into the origins of Covid-19, new footage has revealed that live bats were kept in cages inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology – despite claims from the World Health Organisation (WHO) that such a possibility was a “conspiracy”. The infamous lab is at the centre of a theory – first spruiked by the likes of Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo – that Covid-19 wasn’t, as many scientists believe, transmitted from bats to people via an unknown intermediary, but was instead leaked, intentionally or not, from the institute. A joint WHO/China investigation into the origins of the disease first worked to dispel this line of thinking, calling the chance of a laboratory leak “extremely unlikely” and the idea that bats were held at the institute “an error”.
“No BATS were sent to Wuhan lab for genetic analysis of viruses collected in the field. That’s not how this science works. We collect bat samples, send them to the lab. We RELEASE bats where we catch them,” a member of the WHO team, zoologist Dr Peter Daszak, wrote in a December tweet. “This is a widely circulated conspiracy theory. This piece describes work I’m the lead on and labs I’ve collaborated with for 15 years,” he wrote in another. “They DO NOT have live or dead bats in them. There is no evidence anywhere that this happened. It’s an error I hope will be corrected.” But an official May 2017 video from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, obtained by Sky News, shows bats held in a cage at the institute four years ago and a scientist feeding a worm to one of the creatures.
Earlier this month, Dr Daszak appeared to walk back his earlier denials, writing on Twitter that the WHO team had not asked the institute if they housed bats. “We didn’t ask them if they had bats. I wouldn’t be surprised if, like many other virology labs, they were trying to set up a bat colony,” he wrote. “I know it’s happening in labs here and in other countries. You’re right, labs in US & around (the) world are trying to keep bats to test viral immune responses etc. “None are successfully doing this at scale like lab mice & animals are always screened virus-free before expts, (sic) so even if WIV were trying this, it’s prob irrelevant for origins.”
Well, look who’s here…
• Zuckerberg Group Funnels 6 Figures To Wuhan Lab Partner (NP)
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative – the funding group behind much of the unlawful election changes of 2020 – gave nearly half a million dollars to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The university counts Wuhan lab collaborator and gain-of-function proponent Dr. Ralph Baric as a lead researcher. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Professor – who has also attended conferences at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and is described by the lab’s “bat woman” as her “longtime collaborator” – received the grant from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic group in July 2020.
“The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) recently awarded a $433,000 grant to UNC for laboratory equipment that will accelerate research to address the COVID-19 pandemic,” a press release notes. “This grant represents a new collaboration between the West Coast philanthropic organization CZI and UNC in search of a global solution to the pandemic,” a summary adds before detailing how the grant was used: “The grant covers the purchase of a “liquid handler” — a robotic arm that can pipette fluids much more quickly and accurately than humans can — and supporting instruments, including another robot that detects active virus particles in samples and a machine to sequence RNA. Together, these tools increase the rate of testing compounds by 20-fold.”
The grant allegedly helped produce a study – currently awaiting peer review – entitled SARS-CoV-2 infectious virus, viral RNA in nasopharyngeal swabs, and serostatus of symptomatic COVID-19 outpatients in the United States. “Here, we provide a comprehensive analysis of demographic, immunologic, virologic, and clinical disease factors associated with infectious virus isolation and levels of viral RNA in nasopharyngeal swab samples in the largest study of symptomatic outpatient adults with COVID-19 to date,” the summary notes.
A slide from a Baric presentation on the matter also listed support from Gilead Sciences, the National Institutes for Health, and Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Dr. Fauci recently attempted to cover-up his relationship with Zuckerberg by telling MSNBC host Chuck Todd he had “no idea” what Senator Marsha Blackburn was getting at when discussing the pair’s leaked e-mails.
Running circles around Biden and his entire admin. Prepare for crazy media angles.
• Vladimir Putin: ‘Don’t Be Mad At The Mirror If You’re Ugly’ (AP)
Vladimir Putin has accused the US of ‘persecuting political opinions’ for arresting the MAGA mob at the Capitol siege, ahead of his summit with Joe Biden on Wednesday. The Russian president was asked about his jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an interview filmed in Moscow last week before his meeting with Biden in Switzerland. And he replied by hitting back at the US, equating the arrest of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol with his treatment of Navalny. He said: ‘We have a saying: ‘Don’t be mad at the mirror if you are ugly,'” he said. “It has nothing to do with you personally. But if somebody blames us for something, what I say is, why don’t you look at yourselves? You will see yourselves in the mirror, not us.’
‘You are presenting it as dissent and intolerance toward dissent in Russia. We view it completely differently,’ he told US broadcaster NBC News. He then pointed at the January 6 MAGA raid on the Capitol, saying: ‘Do you know that 450 individuals were arrested after entering the Congress? … They came there with political demands.’ Putin also reiterated denials that the Kremlin was behind last year’s poisoning of Navalny with a nerve agent that nearly killed him. ‘We don’t have this kind of habit, of assassinating anybody,’ Putin claimed. ‘Did you order the assassination of the woman who walked into the Congress and who was shot and killed by a policeman?’ Putin said, referring to Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb through a window that led to the House floor.
Putin also sharply dismissed allegations that Russia is carrying out cyberattacks against the United States as baseless. ‘Where is the evidence? Where is proof? It´s becoming farcical,’ Putin said. ‘We have been accused of all kinds of things – election interference, cyberattacks and so on and so forth – and not once, not once, not one time, did they bother to produce any kind of evidence or proof, just unfounded accusations.’ In April, the United States announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and new sanctions connected to the so-called SolarWinds cyberattack in which several U.S. government branches experienced data breaches. U.S. officials blamed the Russian foreign intelligence service.
In May, Microsoft officials said the foreign intelligence service appeared to be linked to an attack on a company providing services to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Putin also laughed off Joe Biden’s claim he’s a ‘killer’ – heaping praise on Donald Trump before branding his successor a career politician. He was asked by the NBC interviewer Keir Simmons, ‘Mr President, are you a killer?’ Putin avoided directly answering, instead replying: ‘Over my tenure, I’ve gotten used to attacks from all kinds of angles and from all kinds of areas under all kinds of pretext and reasons and of different calibre and fierceness, and none of it surprises me.’ ‘So as far as harsh rhetoric I think this is an overall expression of US culture. Of course in Hollywood, there are some underlying deep things in Hollywood – macho, which can be treated as cinematic art. But that’s part of US political culture, it’s considered normal. By the way, not here, it is not considered normal here.’
“That’s how wars and that’s how a nuclear catastrophe beyond a healthy mind’s powers of comprehension can occur. Sleepwalking into Armaggedon.”
• Putin: US Destroyers In Baltic, Black Seas a Missile Threat to Russia (Rozoff)
In comments that got past editors in the Western news media, President Vladimir Putin in a recent Russian television interview accused the West of abusing what were good relations at the time (1999-2004) to expand NATO up to Russia’s borders. And in doing so, he specified, violated verbal pledges made by American officials to then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, adding that the latter is alive and in good health and can confirm what he was told. In a candid assessment of the matter, Putin added, “I do not want to use harsh words, but they simply spat upon our interests and that’s that.” Lengthy excerpts of his comments were published on the English-language site of the government news agency TASS on June 9.
The most significant, and most alarming, aspect of the interview is the Russian president’s warning of Ukraine joining NATO, which contrary to what he acknowledged is a dismissal of that prospect by many experts in Russia and in the West he takes seriously, especially in regard to its membership providing the U.S. and NATO with new missile sites. Without naming them he mentioned that Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) missile defense (so-called) interceptors in Romania and Poland could strike Moscow in 15 minutes if a warhead was added to them; which, although the West denies its intent to do so, could be easily done. Russia has not been invited to inspect the missiles, for example. Paraphrasing the head of state, the TASS report disclosed the above threat is eminently practicable “because the missile defense launch systems stationed there can be used to carry out strikes as well.”
Installing SM-3s in Ukraine, Putin warned, would reduce the time needed to strike Moscow to 7-10 minutes. “Is it a red line for us or not?” he asked. He also drew the inevitable comparison with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when he estimated Soviet missiles on that island nation could have hit Washington in 15 minutes, adding another parallel: “To lower this flight time to 7-10 minutes, we should station our missiles on Canada’s southern border or Mexico’s northern border. Is it a red line for the US or not?” Though perfectly transparent and accurate in all regards, his comments have been ignored and, if brought to people’s attention, would be dismissed. That’s how wars and that’s how a nuclear catastrophe beyond a healthy mind’s powers of comprehension can occur. Sleepwalking into Armaggedon.
“..an “imminent radiological threat”, but “..environmental readings of the plant and the surrounding area are reported normal.”
• Chinese Nuclear Plant Warns Of ‘Imminent Radiological Threat’ After Leak (Hill)
An operator of a Chinese nuclear plant has warned U.S. officials of an “imminent radiological threat” after a leak at the plant, multiple news outlets reported on Monday. In a letter obtained by CNN, the French operator of the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant, Framatome, told U.S. officials that Chinese authorities had raised radiation limits outside of the plants to avoid a potential shutdown. U.S. officials told Framatome that they don’t deem the current situation to yet be at a crisis level, according to CNN, but the National Security Council has already held meetings on this situation. Framatome issued a statement on Monday saying that they will support a resolution to the ongoing crisis at the plant.
“Our team is working with relevant experts to assess the situation and propose solutions to address any potential issue.” The owner of Framatome, Électricité de France, also issued a statement saying that they were informed of the rise of “certain rare gases,” even suggesting a board meeting to present data on the crisis The report comes as the U.S. joined other countries in the Group of Seven summit in the United Kingdom over the weekend, with China being one of the main focal points of the summit. The Taishan Nuclear Power Plant released a statement on their website on Sunday adding that the environmental readings of the plant and the surrounding area are reported normal.
Well, look who’s here…
Is that why reports on the leak are so soft?
• Hunter Biden Invested Millions In Owner of Nuclear Plant Experiencing Leak (NP)
A nuclear power plant believed to be experiencing a leak posing an “imminent radiological threat” is run by China General Nuclear Power Corporation: a state-owned firm that has enjoyed millions of dollars in investment from President Joe Biden’s son Hunter. Problems at the facility were exposed via a CNN report, which revealed that the plant’s French partner reached out to the White House for assistance: The warning included an accusation that the Chinese safety authority was raising the acceptable limits for radiation detection outside the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong province in order to avoid having to shut it down, according to a letter from the French company to the US Department of Energy obtained by CNN.
Despite the alarming notification from Framatome, the French company, the Biden administration believes the facility is not yet at a “crisis level,” one of the sources said. The Biden team’s lack of concern comes as the primary operator of the China-based plant – China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) – counts millions in investment from Hunter Biden. BHR Partners – the private equity firm where Hunter Biden served as a director since 2013 – was a $10 million cornerstone investor in CGN’s initial public offering. Occurring in 2014, the IPO was the second largest of the entire year, valued at over $3 billion. The company, which Hunter Biden reportedly retains a sizable stake in, still lists GCN as part of its portfolio on its website.
Jim also has a good take on the vaccines etc. (he reads TAE), but this is even more poignant:
“..you can see the horizon on the “Joe Biden” administration, with sunset probably due this fall. How it will play-out is anybody’s guess. Mine is that, one way or another, some military caretaker administration may have to interrupt the 232-year-long cavalcade of governance led by legitimately-elected presidents.”
• The Three-way Squeeze (Kunstler)
For now, many places are supposedly caught up in the exuberant reopening of daily life activities: restaurants, travel-and-leisure businesses, big league sports. Sounds good, maybe, but the frothy feeling is belied by the still-boarded-up shopfronts and the expanding homeless campgrounds of the big cities and by the noises made by big corporations laying off thousands of employees. One narrative says that many service jobs go begging because too many people still receive government handouts that add up to more than such jobs pay. And some businesses, such as restaurants, say they are offering much higher wages than they used to in a desperate effort to keep operating.
Okay… but consider how long you can run a restaurant paying dishwashers $25-an-hour, for example, especially considering how much of the population is too broke now to eat in restaurants that charge a third-again as much for dinner as they did before Covid-19. What you’re actually looking at is a broken business model for much of the service industry. Sometime this summer, that pretty big problem will be acknowledged, and the nation will see that we are not in a recovery at all, but rather a permanent contraction that will be labeled “a depression.”
Actually, it will not be a “depression,” either, exactly, which implies a cyclical dip, even a big one, because the cycle itself is broken — and to understand that, you must delve into the nature of the long emergency: the energy resource and capital scarcity quandary facing techno-industrial societies. The direct implication of this broken cycle will be even more social distress, which is being aggravated by the racial provocations ginned up by the Woke “Joe Biden” regime, and which will blow up in its face if there is another summer of riots, burning, and looting.
So, to conclude this unusually long edition of the CFN blog, you can see the horizon on the “Joe Biden” administration, with sunset probably due this fall. How it will play-out is anybody’s guess. Mine is that, one way or another, some military caretaker administration may have to interrupt the 232-year-long cavalcade of governance led by legitimately-elected presidents. Perhaps we’ll run a re-do of the last election. Or maybe we’re in for a new phase of the American project, a more uncertain and less appetizing one, featuring dictators and despots. Or maybe we’ll get through this very dangerous defile of history and land in a much lower-key but more coherent disposition of things recognizably American. Stay tuned for developments.
“President Biden owes Reality gratitude because Reality’s actions directly contributed to the fact that the 2020 elections were the most secure presidential elections in American history..”
• Reality Winner Released From Prison For ‘Exemplary Behavior’ (RT)
Reality Winner, the former US intelligence specialist who was imprisoned in 2018 for leaking classified National Security Agency information to media outlet the Intercept, has been released from prison on good behavior.
Winner’s attorney Alison Grinter Allen announced her release on Monday, revealing that, though Winner is “still in custody in the residential re-entry process,” her family and friends are “relieved and hopeful.” “Reality and her family have asked for privacy during the transition process as they work to heal the trauma of incarceration and build back the years lost,” Allen said, adding that Winner’s “release is not a product of the pardon or compassionate release process, but rather the time earned from exemplary behavior while incarcerated.” The attorney said her client was prohibited from making public statements or appearances and thus could not comment on the matter.
Winner was sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 for leaking an NSA intelligence report to the Intercept that claimed Russian hackers had attempted to interfere with the US elections. The Intercept came under heavy fire at the time and was accused of improperly handling Winner’s confidentiality, which critics claim led to her arrest. Last week, Winner’s sister Brittany called on President Joe Biden to pardon the former intelligence specialist, arguing that Biden was only president “because of Reality Winner’s actions.” “President Biden owes Reality gratitude because Reality’s actions directly contributed to the fact that the 2020 elections were the most secure presidential elections in American history,” she said. “Mr. Biden is president because of Reality Winner’s actions and, therefore, he should pardon her.”
Onion squared.
• Babylon Bee Forces New York Times To Retract Calling Them ‘Misinformation’ (RT)
The Babylon Bee is in fact a satirical site and not a “far-right misinformation” one that “feuded” with Facebook and fact-checkers, The New York Times has finally conceded after being threatened with a defamation lawsuit. “This is huge. The NY Times was using misinformation to smear us as being a source of it,” Bee CEO Seth Dillon tweeted on Monday, calling it “malicious” behavior. “We pushed back hard and won. Thanks to everyone who voiced and offered their support. We don’t have to take this nonsense lying down. Remember that,” Dillon added. An article about Facebook censorship of irony in March, authored by the Times’ tech reporter Mike ‘Rat King’ Isaac, described the Bee as a “far-right misinformation site” that sometimes trafficked in fake news disguised as satire to avoid censorship from Big Tech.
It was the only example offered, too. After the initial complaint from Dillon, the Times edited the article to say that the Bee, “a right-leaning satirical site, has feuded with Facebook and the fact-checking site Snopes over whether the site published misinformation or satire.” That, too, was wrong. The update is every bit as damaging (and false) as the original,” Dillon tweeted at the time, and explained that Snopes has actually retracted their insinuation about the Bee’s motives, and even created a whole new label for satire. Snopes has also discontinued their fact-checking partnership with Facebook, in early 2019. A correction dated June 10 – of which the Times notified the Bee on Friday – now says the earlier version of the article “imprecisely” referred to the “right-leaning satirical website,” and that Facebook and Snopes have since dropped the claims the Bee ever trafficked in misinformation.
Misinformation?!
• In Honor Of Pride Month, Biden Will Also Sniff Men’s Hair (BBee)
In a televised address this week, President Biden voiced support for the LGBTQ community and promised to honor them with a commitment to not only sniff women’s hair, but also men’s hair. “Look– I’ve been sniffing the hair of women and girls for many decades,” said Biden. “It’s time for me to recognize the accomplishments of the LGBT folks. I’m maybe gonna get in trouble for this, but if you’re a man, I just may sniff your hair. That’s because I’m not homophobic. I ain’t afraid to sniff a dude! Come on, man!” Biden was then quickly led off the podium by his wife before he could say any more.
“Every gender! I’ll sniff ’em all!” Biden yelled, protesting as he was dragged out of sight of the crowd. According to sources, no gay men have taken up Biden on his offer to sniff their hair. However, hundreds of straight male journalists have lined up outside the White House clapping and cheering, hoping for their chance to be sniffed by the President. Brian Stelter went to bed crying, as he had no hair for President Biden to sniff.
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Map of North America in 1702
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