(FREE) PAINE IN THE MORNING: 9 things you need to know this Thursday – May 5, 2022

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CDC Used Location Data From Millions Of Phones To See If Americans Obeyed COVID Orders – Documents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the agency tracked location data from at least 20 million phones to monitor compliance with COVID-19 policies, according to a new report revealed on Tuesday.

A Freedom of Information Act request from CYBER — a cybersecurity podcast hosted by Vice’s Motherboard — revealed that the CDC “bought access to location data harvested from tens of millions of phones in the United States” to perform “analysis of compliance with curfews, track patterns of people visiting K-12 schools, and specifically monitor the effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation,” according to Vice. – READ MORE

EU Wants to Create a Pan-Continental Medical Super-Database – The European Union is aiming to set up a medical super-database containing the medical information of citizens from across the multinational bloc.

EU officials look set to start their newest experiment with big data, with those within the new bloc promising to create a pan-European medical super-database containing the private health information of people from all across the union’s 27 member states. – READ MORE

Big Brother: Government Planned ‘Dystopian Surveillance System’ to Fight COVID – A “dystopian surveillance system” consisting of CCTV, phone, and transaction monitoring was planned by Ireland’s government in the hopes of combatting COVID, an upcoming book will claim.

Ireland’s Europhile government along with a major international consulting firm planned out what a report has called a “dystopian surveillance system” consisting of CCTV, phone, and financial transaction monitoring in the hopes of combatting the Chinese Coronavirus, an upcoming book will claim. – READ MORE

Bidenflation: Trade Deficit Soars Over $100 Billion For The First Time Ever – The U.S. trade deficit rose an astonishing 22 percent in March to $109.8 billion as prices of oil and imported products rose due to soaring inflation, according to data released Friday by the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The trade gap for February was revised up to $89.8 billion, making it the previous record high. January’s figure was $89.23, which was then a record high. – READ MORE

Biden’s scheme to shift student debt to taxpayers – As the midterm elections fast approach, Democrats have lost a key demographic they relied on in 2020: college-educated men. The biggest defections from the Democratic Party since the last election have been by this group, amid an overall decline since inauguration of 19 points in support of Biden by those under age 35.

The Democrats’ playbook for attracting voters is to toss them some handouts. So it is no coincidence that, six months before Election Day, Biden is working on a plan to give potential supporters upwards of $500 billion. – READ MORE

Left-Wing ‘Fact Check’ Says Bill Gates ‘Reportedly’ Owns More Farmland In U.S. Than Any Other Individual – Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates reportedly owns more farmland in the U.S. than any other individual, according to Left-wing fact-checking site Snopes.

Snopes last week rated a claim that Gates owns “the majority of U.S. farmland” as “false,” but admitted that the tech billionaire “does own a lot of farmland.” – READ MORE

How China’s TikTok Rakes in Cash for Cartels – Law enforcement officials across the southern border blame the Chinese app TikTok for facilitating cartel violence and drug smuggling, as well as luring young Americans into working for them with seductive videos.

“Cartels are trying to get workers. They’re trying to recruit people to help them out. [They] show lots of money, they show lots of drinking, partying, and everything else,” Commander Jorge Esparza of the Brooks County Sheriff Department told the Washington Free Beacon during a recent trip to the border. “The way I look at it is, if social media companies are getting mad at somebody for making a comment about race or sexuality or something, I think they should be held more accountable” for what cartels are posting. – READ MORE

At US hospitals, a drug mix-up is just a few keystrokes away – More than four years ago, Tennessee nurse RaDonda Vaught typed two letters into a hospital’s computerized medication cabinet, selected the wrong drug from the search results, and gave a patient a fatal dose.

Vaught was prosecuted this year in an extremely rare criminal trial for a medical mistake, but the drug mix-up at the center of her case is anything but rare. Computerized cabinets have become nearly ubiquitous in modern health care, and the technological vulnerability that made Vaught’s error possible persists in many U.S. hospitals. – READ MORE

The State Took Her Home Because She Missed $900 in Property Taxes – Did you know that in some states, if you miss one tax payment, local politicians will take your home, sell it, and keep all the profits?

Really.

Tawanda Hall was behind on her taxes. She was on a payment plan but had missed $900. She didn’t expect Southfield, Michigan, to take her entire house because of that. It was worth $286,000 more than what she owed. – READ MORE