Cut to the News
Cut through the clutter to today's top news
February 3, 2022
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Welcome to today's top news.
Leading the News . . .
The workers are uniting against government mandates and the left now calls it fascism . . . What began as a GoFundMe campaign for Canadian truckers who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 mandates for cross-border travel turned into a massive “Freedom Convoy” that drove across Canada and
into the capital, Ottawa. Left-wing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed the truckers as a “small fringe” with “unacceptable views.” This is how Trudeau addressed the protest: “I have attended protests and rallies in the past, when I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues,” Trudeau said. “Black Lives Matter is an example of that. But I have also chosen not to go anywhere near protests that have expressed hateful
rhetoric, violence towards fellow citizens, and a disrespect, not just of science, but of the front-line health workers, and quite frankly, the 90% of truckers who have been doing the right thing to put food on our tables.”
Let’s break this down. Canada’s prime minister supports protests he agrees with. How brave! Are we really to believe that the Black Lives Matter protests didn’t include “hateful rhetoric” and violence? They certainly didn’t practice social distancing or universal mask use when that was demanded by the capital “S,” science.
Unlike those “mostly peaceful” protests that ended up in many cases burning down large sections of cities, no arrests or police incidents have occurred so far as a result of the Freedom Convoy. Daily Signal
EXCLUSIVE: Kevin McCarthy Plots An Investigation Avalanche If GOP Retakes House . . . Biden’s DOJ, Department of Education and COVID policies are prime targets for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy should Republicans retake the House in the midterms this November, according to a sprawling list of priorities his office sent exclusively to the Daily Caller.
“We have already sent preservation notices and document requests and will be ready on day one to use the various tools at our disposal to get the answers Americans are demanding,” a McCarthy spokesperson told the Daily Caller. McCarthy’s office cited “politically motivated actions by the DOJ” and the Department of Education’s “collusion with the school board association to target parents as domestic terrorists” as oversight priorities. The entirety of President Joe Biden’s covid response is
also on the table. McCarthy plans to pursue answers on the origins of covid, failures in the Biden’s testing regime and continuing school closures, and the refusal of Biden health officials to accept natural immunity in its guidance. Daily Caller
White House orders release of Pence records to Jan. 6 committee . . . The Biden administration has ordered the National Archives to turn over records from former Vice President Mike Pence despite objections from former President Trump. A Tuesday letter from White House counsel Dana Remus directed the agency to begin releasing the documents to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. “Many of the
records as to which the former President has made a claim of privilege in this set of documents, however, were communications concerning the former Vice President’s responsibilities as President of the Senate in certifying the vote of presidential electors on January 6, 2021,” Remus wrote. Although vice presidential records do qualify for some public records exemptions that restrict access, “they are not subject to claims of the presidential communications privilege,” she wrote. The Hill
Graham warms up to Biden over Supreme Court pick . . . Wasn’t Graham just a couple of years ago warming up to Donald Trump? And before the John McCain? Now, he is getting behind one of President Biden’s potential choices for the Supreme Court, because she’s from his state of South Carolina. It’s one thing to reluctantly support someone because maybe you think as a matter of principle the president should be allowed to select Court
picks, however questionable that approach is. It’s another to go all-in for one of Biden’s liberal candidates and try to cast it as some kind of populism. According to Politico: Lindsey Graham was at the garbage dump this weekend when he got some unsolicited input on his favored Supreme Court nominee: Judge Michelle Childs of the U.S. District Court for South Carolina. “Three guys in pick-up trucks came up to me and said she ‘seems like a nice lady. I’m tired of this Harvard-Yale
stuff.’ The great equalizer is the garbage dump because everybody’s got to throw out garbage,” Graham said in an interview Tuesday. “I was just struck by what they thought.” White House Dossier
As Joe Biden Arrives, Here's How New York City's Pandemic Gun Crime Exploded . . . President Joe Biden will arrive in New York City today and meet with Mayor Eric Adams to address the rising gun crime rate across the city. The meeting was announced last week, shortly after a second New York police officer died as the result of a fatal shooting after responding to a 911 call in Harlem. Gun crime in the Big Apple has been on the rise
since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2022 has gotten off to a worryingly similar start. In January, The New York Daily News reported there had been a total of 1,562 recorded shootings in 2021, 30 more than in 2020. Murders also continued to rise over the last year, with NYPD statistics revealing 488 recorded cases in 2021, up from the 462 reported in the previous year. Newsweek
EXCLUSIVE: Donald Trump: ‘We Have to End the Mandates’ . . . “We have to end the mandates,” Trump told former top aide Kash Patel on The Epoch Times’ “Kash’s Corner.” The interview will premiere at 8 p.m. Eastern on Feb. 7 on EpochTV.com.
“They have to be ended and they shouldn’t have started,” Trump added. Trump was president when SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, emerged in China in late 2019. Under Trump, the federal government did not impose vaccine or mask mandates, but some states and counties required masks, including California. Under President Joe Biden many jurisdictions began requiring COVID-19 vaccines to dine out, go to concerts, and even work. Biden ordered the military, federal contractors, agencies
in his administration, health care workers, and all Americans who work at companies with 100 or more employees to get vaccinated. All of the mandates have been challenged and some blocked by courts, though mask mandates have largely survived legal challenges. Epoch Times
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Some Havana Syndrome Cases Likely Caused by Electromagnetic Waves, Panel Finds . . . Some incidents of the debilitating medical condition known as Havana Syndrome are most likely caused by directed energy or acoustic devices and can’t be explained by other factors, a panel of U.S. intelligence analysts and outside experts reported on Wednesday. The signs and symptoms of suspected Havana Syndrome are “genuine and
compelling,” the executive summary of the panel’s report states.
“Pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radio-frequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics” of the reported symptoms,” it says, while adding that “information gaps exist.” The new report differs—at least in tone and emphasis—from an interim CIA report released two weeks ago that deemed it unlikely that Havana Syndrome was the result of a sustained campaign of attacks on U.S. personnel by a foreign adversary such as Russia. That report angered victims of
the syndrome, who welcomed the conclusions Wednesday by the expert panel. Wall Street Journal
So glad the analysts stood up to the management and got their analytic line pushed through on this one. The previous "interim" report -- which threw the HS victims under the bus by assessing HS was not caused by a foreign adversary, incl. Russia -- was leaked to WashPo deliberately. CIA management has direct access to a couple of key "journalists" in the WashPo and NYT whom they use to spray disinformation to confuse the American people. This pretty much amounts to the
employment of psych ops within the US homeland, which is against the law.
Biden Seeks to End 'Forever Wars,' But Still Has Over 30,000 Troops in Middle East One Year On . . . President Joe Biden has sought to bring an end to the era of so-called "forever wars" in which the United States has been mired over the past two decades. And while the exit of U.S. troops from a 20-year war in Afghanistan marked a major step toward reining in these conflicts, more than 30,000 troops remain active in the tense Middle East and
its periphery. This figure marks the lowest on record for the one-year mark of any U.S. president this century.
But the full scope of the U.S. military presence here remains difficult to ascertain, frustrating analysts who seek to understand the course of Biden's stated desire to depart from the focus of his predecessors on open-ended conflicts in the region.
The troop figure was provided to Newsweek by a spokesperson for Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees U.S. military operations across an area of responsibility (AOR) spanning the entirety of the Middle East, with the exception of Turkey, and includes Egypt in North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan in South Asia and the nearby Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. "Currently there are more than 30,000 troops deployed across the
CENTCOM AOR," CENTCOM told Newsweek. Newsweek
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The IOC's Rot Runs Deep. It Needs to be Reformed from Top to Bottom . . .Our earliest memory of the Olympics was the 1980 Winter Games held in Lake Placid, N.Y. In perhaps the greatest upset in the history of team sports, the Miracle on Ice, a ragtag group of American collegiate athletes defeated the Soviet Union national hockey team. A wave of patriotic pride and joy swept our country. At its best, the Olympics can
provide a platform for mutual cultural understanding, respect for our differences, a bridge for further dialogue, or as the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) charter states, "to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity." Newsweek
Afghan Opium Production Skyrockets Under Taliban . . . Afghanistan's opium production skyrocketed in 2021, potentially providing the Taliban government a source of revenue between $1.8 billion and $2.7 billion, according to a new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The war-torn nation's illegal opiate production in 2021 ranked as the third-highest recorded since the United Nations began reporting it in 1994. It comprised between 9 and 14 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product and exceeded the value of all of the country’s officially recorded legal exports in 2020. Washington Free Beaco
Putin, Xi Will Put Partnership Against U.S. on Display at Olympics . . . When Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping hold a summit alongside the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, on display will be a flourishing partnership that is already complicating U.S. foreign policy and influence around the world. Mr. Putin is going to Beijing at a time of high tension with the West over Russia’s military buildup near
Ukraine and his demands that the U.S. and its allies retreat from Eastern Europe. China, while calling for diplomacy, has offered backing for Moscow, urging the U.S. and Europe to address Russia’s security concerns and stop using military alliances to threaten others. For Messrs. Putin and Xi, Friday will be their first in-person summit in two years after the Chinese leader stopped seeing foreign dignitaries because of the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Putin will be the most prominent foreign
leader at the Olympics after the U.S. and several allies declined to send high-level officials to protest China’s human-rights abuses. Wall Street Journal
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Special: US-Russia Showdown
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Biden OKs more troops to Eastern Europe as replies to Russia leak . . . President Biden on Wednesday signed off on sending additional troops to reinforce NATO allies in Eastern Europe amid a mounting crisis with Russia over Ukraine and security policy across the continent. The troops could begin deploying within days, U.S. officials said. About 2,000 U.S. military personnel will be sent to forward locations in
Poland, and 1,000 troops posted in Germany will move to Romania. Another 8,500 troops are on “high alert” for possible deployment to the region in the days to come. Mr. Biden defended the moves as Washington and NATO frantically rushed to prevent a Russian incursion into Ukraine and the prospect of a shooting war in the heart of Europe three decades after the end of the Cold War. The president said the increased deployment is “totally consistent” with what he has told Russian President
Vladimir Putin during the stare-down over Ukraine. “As long as he’s acting aggressively, we are going to make sure we reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we’re there and Article 5 is a sacred obligation,” Mr. Biden told reporters, citing the military alliance’s mutual defense pledge. Washington
Times
Why Ukraine Matters to the U.S. . . . A Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday that some 1,000 American troops based in Germany will soon shift to Romania and about 2,000 will leave the U.S. for Poland and Germany. “These are not permanent moves,” a Pentagon spokesman stressed Wednesday. “These forces are not going to fight in Ukraine.” The move has aroused fears of a U.S. war with Russia, but the goal here is deterrence to prevent a war. A
show of conventional force—combined with the threat of sanctions—is intended to reassure front-line NATO allies and avoid a broader conflict with Russia. This is necessary given that Vladimir Putin wants control over far more than Ukraine. On this score it’s worth addressing the arguments by Sen. Josh Hawley, who is typical of some on the right who want the U.S. to appease Mr. Putin. In a Feb. 1 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Republican calls on the White House to withdraw
support for Ukraine’s accession to NATO. There are reasonable disagreements about the merits of Kyiv joining the alliance—which wouldn’t happen for years anyway—but now would be an especially bad time to rule it out. Wall Street Journal
Why does Karl Rove want to send our sons to war? . . . Opinion. ByMarjorie Taylor Greene . . . Karl Rove is, once again, beating the war drums. He is ready to send 18-year-olds like my son to fight nuclear Russia over Ukraine’s border so that he and the other neocons can talk like tough guys on TV. On Jan. 28, Karl Rove shared an article on his Twitter page written by Noah Rothman attacking American populists who are opposed to
sending our troops to war with Russia. My view is that Mr. Rove despises “America First.” He loves war and the global economy that all these wars prop up. And my direct response to that: Screw Karl Rove. The fact that he wants to send 18-year-old Americans like my son to fight nuclear Russia over Ukraine’s border — again, so he can talk like a tough guy on TV — makes me sick. He can put on the uniform and go fight the Russians himself. Mr. Rove is part of the consultant class
that is never held responsible for the failed product of their decisions. It is only the American people who suffer the consequences. Washington Times
Potential Russia, Ukraine war could impact oil prices for decades, analyst warns . . . Price Futures Group senior analyst Phil Flynn warned on Wednesday that a potential war between Russia and Ukraine could impact oil prices for decades. The energy market analyst made the argument on "Mornings with Maria" on Wednesday as U.S. oil has been hovering just below $90 per barrel and Brent crude, the global benchmark, oil is even higher.
Flynn noted that the market is eyeing unrest in Ukraine as Russian forces inch closer. "This could be a major event that we will feel not just for weeks, but perhaps for decades," Flynn told host Maria Bartiromo. "A war between Ukraine and Russia is going to have ramifications across Europe and across the world and part of the reason is the energy policies in Europe have left them more dependent on Russia for supply so Russia really controls energy in that part of the
world." "So if they get into a protracted war, they decide to cut off supplies to Europe, Europe is going to have a very difficult time replacing those supplies," he went on to warn. Fox Business
Putin, Facing Sanction Threats, Has Been Saving for This Day . . . Vladimir V. Putin’s posture toward the West through the recent Ukraine crisis seems unusually defiant, even for him. But there may be more behind his confidence than military power or empty bravado. Over the past several years, Mr. Putin, Russia’s president, has restructured his country’s economy for the specific purpose of withstanding Western financial
pressure. Russia has drastically reduced its use of dollars, and therefore Washington’s leverage. It has stockpiled enormous currency reserves, and trimmed its budgets, to keep its economy and government services going even under isolation. It has reoriented trade and sought to replace Western imports. Russian economic officials “are pretty proud, and have good reasons to be, for the work they have done to make the Russian economy more immune to sanctions,” said Alexander Gabuev, a
senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center. This transformation, among the most dramatic examples of what is known as “sanctions-proofing” worldwide, comes less than eight years after Western sanctions over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 mired Russia in economic and political upheaval. New York Times
Durham Filing Rebuts Inspector General Horowitz’s Claims on Missing Cellphones, Hints at Growing Rift . . . A supplemental court filing by special counsel John Durham confirms previous reporting that Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz concealed crucial information from Durham in connection with two separate investigations—the ongoing prosecution of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann and the criminal
leak investigation of former FBI General Counsel James Baker. The Jan. 28 filing by Durham updated the court on precisely when Durham first learned of two cellphones that had been used by Baker while he was with the FBI. The existence of these phones was first mentioned in a Jan. 25 filing, in which Durham claimed that the Inspector General’s Office (OIG) had failed to disclose its possession of two FBI cellphones belonging to Baker. Following the Jan. 25 filing, Horowitz’s office
apparently told Durham that the existence of one of the cellphones may have been mentioned on a conference call that took place four years ago. Epoch Times
Russia crisis exacerbates US political divisions . . . The White House forcefully criticized a GOP senator on Wednesday for language it said parroted Russian talking points, as fault lines between President Biden and his staunchest GOP critics deepened on the Russia-Ukraine crisis. White House press secretary Jen Psaki ripped Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who is widely seen as a possible presidential candidate, for suggesting in a letter to
Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the U.S. drop support for Ukraine’s eventual admission into NATO. Psaki suggested doing so amounted to appeasement of Russia, which has massed troops on Ukraine’s border, triggering an international crisis. The Pentagon on Wednesday sent troops to Europe amid rising fears about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Hill
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When will the pandemic be over? It’s complicated, scientists say . . . Don’t expect President Biden or the World Health Organization to tell you when the COVID-19 pandemic is over. They’re not sure themselves. While European nations and U.S. governors declare an end to the COVID-19 emergency and lift restrictions, the WHO says the pandemic is “nowhere near finished” and there is no formal mechanism for declaring the
beginning or end of one. The ambiguity leaves a fragmented and uncertain route to an endemic phase, in which a virus is generally present and managed like other diseases. “There is no formal declaration of moving from a pandemic to endemic phase that I am aware of,” said Dr. Timothy Brewer, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Fielding School of Public Health. “For example, the human immunodeficiency virus pandemic has been going on for 40 years.
HIV is endemic in some populations but has never been declared as such. Nor are there metrics that I am aware of.”
NIH experiment injected beagle puppies with cocaine in search of addiction treatment, documents show . . . The National Institutes of Health has tested an experimental treatment for cocaine addicts by injecting the drug into beagle puppies. The “coke hounds” were revealed by the White Coat Waste Project, which discovered details of the $2 million taxpayer-funded experiment lurking in documents disclosed under an open-records request that
the group filed. Six-month-old beagle puppies were outfitted with jackets that injected them with drugs, along with an experimental drug that was fed to them. The dogs were “dosed with cocaine again and again and again for months,” the Waste Project said in its write-up of the experiment. Researchers filmed the dogs to try to spot any signs of adverse reactions between the drugs. They also operated on the dogs to have a “telemetry unit” implanted to monitor their vital signs. The
dogs were either euthanized or “recycled” for other experiments at the end of the cocaine tests, the Waste Project said. Washington Times
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Low Jobless Claims Reflect High Demand For Labor, Economists Say . . . New filings for unemployment benefits are again expected to decline after rising slightly in mid-January as demand for workers remains elevated and a surge in Covid-19 cases from the Omicron variant eases. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect the Labor Department to report that initial jobless claims dropped to 245,000 in the week
ended Jan. 29, from 260,000 the prior week. Jobless claims reached pre-pandemic lows in November after surging to more than 6 million at the onset of the pandemic in early 2020. Claims fell to their lowest level since 1969 in December as businesses held onto more workers in the face of a persistent labor shortage. The Labor Department will release weekly claims figures on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists say low totals for jobless claims are an indication that the demand for
labor remains strong. Economists in The Wall Street Journal survey expect employers added 150,000 jobs in January, though several also expect that payrolls fell last month. That would represent a sharp drop from the 537,000 monthly average job growth last year. Wall Street Journal
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Alexander Vindman sues Trump Jr. and Giuliani, alleging retaliation over first Trump impeachment proceedings . . . Alexander Vindman, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and former White House national security aide, is suing several allies of former president Donald Trump, alleging that they intimidated and retaliated against him while he was a key witness during Trump’s first impeachment. According to the 73-page
complaint, Vindman’s lawsuit “seeks long-overdue accountability for unlawful actions knowingly undertaken by close associates and allies” of Trump, alleging that they “engaged in an intentional, concerted campaign of unlawful intimidation and retaliation against [Vindman] to prevent him from and then punish him for testifying truthfully before Congress during impeachment proceedings against President Trump.” Those named as defendants in Vindman’s lawsuit include Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s
eldest son; former Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani; former White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino; and former White House deputy communications director Julia Hahn. Washington Post
I want to know who is funding this? Alexandra Chalupa and her Uki pals?
Constitutional carry gun bill clears first hurdle in Georgia . . . Legislation cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines. A bill to allow Georgians to carry handguns without obtaining a license or permit has received initial approval from the Senate. Senate Bill 319 – the Georgia Constitutional Carry Act of 2021 – cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines. Twenty-two states already give residents the
liberty. Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, who presented the bill Tuesday to the committee, said states that have removed the restriction experienced a drop in crime. Georgians can purchase a firearm without a license, but a license is required to carry a weapon openly in Georgia. Just the
News
Jeff Zucker and Allison Gollust ‘lied’ for years about ‘open secret’ affair . . . Ousted CNN boss Jeff Zucker’s affair with his colleague Allison Gollust was the “worst-kept secret in TV” but they conspired to keep it out of the media for years with a web of lies, sources told the Post. Rumors have circulated for years that CNN’s two most senior executives, who made the decision to fire anchor Chris Cuomo, have been having an affair,
which played a part in ending both their marriages. Multiple sources claim CNN president Zucker and Gollust, the network’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, have been involved in a secret romance for more than 10 years, even as they lived in the same Manhattan building on consecutive floors with their former spouses. And as the pair took vacations together, went apartment hunting and went into each other’s hotel rooms for alleged “meetings,” Gollust has spent years
lying about their affair, blasting reporters on numerous occasions for being “sexist” by suggesting she was sleeping with her boss. The affair between Zucker and Gollust — who have worked together for 25 years — stretches back to when they both worked at NBC, according to multiple sources. TV insiders call them “the odd couple” because Gollust towers over Zucker. New York Post
Texas Energy Grid Shows Signs of Buckling as Major Storm Approaches . . . The Texas energy grid has shown signs of faltering just as a "very substantial" arctic cold front is set to hit the Lone Star State as early as Friday morning. The grid, managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), failed during snowstorms that hit the state in February 2021. The failure knocked out power for 4.5 million homes and businesses for
days and contributed to the deaths of over 240 Texans. ERCOT's dashboard showing grid conditions was down on Wednesday evening, according to a tweet by Jeremy Rogalski, an investigative reporter for the news station KHOU-TV. ERCOT's webpage showing hourly resource outage data was also down, he reported. Newsweek
Pier pressure? Dutch city to dismantle historic bridge to accommodate Jeff Bezos’ new yacht . . . A Dutch city has agreed to spend weeks taking down a historic bridge so Jeff Bezos’ new gigantic superyacht can reach the open seas this summer. The Amazon founder’s 417-foot-long three-masted ship is currently under construction in The Netherlands, but the pleasure boat will be too tall to pass under Rotterdam’s landmark Koningshaven Bridge,
which has a 130 foot clearance, according to The NL Times, which cited Dutch-language outlet Rijnmond. As a work-around, the mega-billionaire and the boatmaker Oceano reportedly asked Rotterdam officials to temporarily dismantle the iconic bridge, and pledged to reimburse the city for expenses. New York
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