(FREE) PAINE IN THE MORNING: What you need to know this Thursday – December 8, 2022

Here’s what you need to know today, Thursday – December 8, 2022.

There is also a full, ad-free video podcast of this broadcast available to Paine.TV members HERE.

Learn more about joining our community HERE.

Harsh news for thousands of U.S. troops booted for refusing COVID vax – Thousands of troops already discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine won’t return to service after Congress’ last-minute defense bill sought to overturn the Pentagon’s mandate.

The Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have separated at least 8,400 active duty and reserve troops for spurning the Department of Defense’s (DOD) August 2021 requirement that all servicemembers receive the COVID-19 vaccine, according to information the DOD provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. While the compromise legislation released late Tuesday directs the Pentagon to rescind the mandate, it stops short of requiring the military to restore discharged troops to their prior positions or provide reparations. – READ MORE

CDC used this secret backchannel with Twitter to control the COVID narrative –Twitter set up a portal for government officials and “stakeholders” to submit posts that allegedly contained COVID-19 misinformation for Twitter to review, according to documents released by America First Legal (AFL) on Tuesday.

Twitter officials used the portal to track online posts for review, and invited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials to enroll, according to documents AFL obtained through its litigation against the CDC. Twitter’s Todd O’Boyle enrolled the CDC’s Carol Crawford in the portal in May 2021 after she sent an email labeled “COVID Misinformation” with links to several Twitter posts who wrote about microchips and “vaccine shedding.” O’Boyle described the channel as “the best way to get a spreadsheet like this reviewed.” – READ MORE

The Journalist-Run, Intelligence-Linked Operation That Warped British Pandemic Policy – Presented as an independent voice for “unbiased” scientific advice, iSAGE provided a channel for media spinmeisters, spies and psy-op specialists to influence Britain’s pandemic policy without accountability. Leaked internal emails show members fretting over its unethical methods.

Throughout Britain’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, a lobbying group known as the Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (iSAGE) served as a key driving force behind the government’s most draconian lockdown policies. – READ MORE

Drug Shortages? Ham-Handed Pandemic Interventions Deserve Much of the Blame – In just one day last week, my wife, a pediatrician, fielded multiple calls from pharmacies about prescriptions they couldn’t fill because the drugs aren’t available, and a hospital memo warning that children’s ibuprofen and acetaminophen will be in short supply for months to come.

One problem is demand: kids isolated by pandemic-related school closures didn’t exercise their immune systems, which are now surrendering to infections that require treatment. Another problem is supply, with lockdowns and energy costs disrupting the flow of pharmaceuticals. – READ MORE

Walmart CEO Warns Retail Thefts Will Lead To Price Hikes, Store Closures –Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the massive wave of retail thefts at company stores will lead to higher prices or closed stores if the problem persists.

“Theft is an issue. It’s higher than what it has historically been,” McMillon told Squawk Box’s hosts.

“We’ve got safety measures, security measures that we’ve put in place by store location. I think local law enforcement being staffed and being a good partner is part of that equation, and that’s normally how we approach it,” he continued. – READ MORE

WaPo Concerned Discovery’s Shark Week ‘Overrepresents’ White Men, Vilifies Sharks by Focusing on ‘Attacks’ – A Washington Post essay published Monday cited researchers who accused Discovery’s annual “Shark Week” of “overwhelmingly” featuring white men — many with the name “Mike” — as experts, “while emphasizing negative messages about sharks” instead of using more “positive language.”

The article by staff writer Daniel Wu, titled “‘Shark Week’ lacks diversity, overrepresents men named Mike, scientists say,” begins by describing biology professor Lisa Whitenack, who “loved sharks” as a child but “rarely saw any women she could look up to” when watching shark programming on television. – READ MORE

Real ID Enforcement Has Been Pushed Back. Again. – The Real ID Act was passed in 2005. 17 years later, the law has yet to go into effect. On Monday, government officials announced that enforcement would be delayed another two years.

What’s taking so long? Rollout of the law, which would require travelers flying domestically in the United States to show a security-enhanced photo ID, has been plagued by confusion and state-level noncompliance. Despite years of warnings that enforcement was coming soon, it seems increasingly clear that Real IDs are far from actually becoming required at U.S. airports and federal buildings. – READ MORE

Geofencing Warrants Are a Threat to Privacy – The House committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021, is nearly finished with its work, and a jury convicted a key figure in the attack on the Capitol of seditious conspiracy this week. Nearly 900 other criminal prosecutions of alleged rioters remain underway, and one case has shed troubling new light on how the FBI investigated these defendants.

The suspect’s name is David Rhine, and what makes his case unique, per Wired and Emptywheel, is his lawyer is the first to present a potentially successful challenge to the geofencing warrant the FBI used to place some defendants inside the Capitol building during the attack. – READ MORE

Against Backdrop Of War, Rolling Blackouts, & Internet Outages, Ukraine Is Trying To Digitize Everything – “The Government needs to become as flexible and mobile as an IT company, to automate all functions and services,… reduce 60% of officials, introduce large-scale privatization and outsourcing of government functions”: Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation

Ukraine may be suffering a rising wave of rolling power blackouts and internet outages as the proxy war between Russia and NATO intensifies, but that doesn’t seem to have crimped the Zelensky government’s ambitions to transform the country into a digital wonderland. In the past week alone, Ukraine’s central bank unveiled plans for a digital E-hryvnia and Kiev signed a digital trade agreement (yep, they do exist) with the United Kingdom. – READ MORE