(FREE) PAINE IN THE MORNING: What you need to know this Wednesday – February 1, 2023
Here’s what you need to know today, Wednesday – February 1, 2023.
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Biden To End COVID-19 Emergency Declarations On May 11, Also Ends Title 42 Policy At Border – The Biden administration has informed Congress it plans to end national COVID-19 emergency declarations on May 11.
The move would shift the U.S. government’s response for managing COVID-19 back to the normal authorities given to federal agencies, with the virus to be considered as endemic. – READ MORE
COVID Made Us Sick, But Government Responses Crippled Our Liberty – If you think that panicky and opportunistic pandemic policies have sucked freedom out of people’s lives over the past few years, you’re right! While the world’s political leaders have long been tightening the screws on their suffering populations, COVID-19 gave too many of them an excuse to accelerate the process. According to the latest edition of the Human Freedom Index, published by America’s Cato Institute and Canada’s Fraser Institute, that makes life worse for almost everybody.
“In the year 2020, 94 percent of the world’s population saw a fall in its freedom compared to the year before,” Cato’s Ian Vásquez, one of the authors of the index, wrote last week. “The annual Human Freedom Index, released today by the Cato Institute and the Fraser Institute, documents how the Covid‐19 pandemic was a catastrophe for human freedom.” – READ MORE
Institutionalized: Corporate Media Still Endorses CCP’s ‘Zero COVID’ Policy, COVID Slaves Concur – After uncommon widescale protests in the Middle Kingdom last year, the Chinese Communist Party has abandoned its “Zero COVID” policy (for now). But the corporate media faithful in the West are sticking to the lockdown script.
The Guardian laments the loss of Zero COVID in what is apparently supposed to be a straight news piece titled ‘“It was all for nothing’: Chinese count cost of Xi’s snap decision to let Covid rip.” The article features the experiences of a 19-year-old Shanghai student, Sunny – READ MORE
West Point Reinstates Travel Ban on Unvaxxed Cadets AFTER Military Mandate Repealed – The U.S. military COVID-19 vaccine mandate has been lifted and Congress is considering legislation to compensate service members fired for vaccination status, but West Point refuses to acknowledge it. The U.S. Military Academy actually reinstated its travel ban on unvaccinated cadets after the military mandate was lifted, according to military attorney R. Davis Younts and Just the News. At this point, West Point is just playing power games.
The military has still not begun to treat unvaccinated service members equally, however. ”Despite the lifting of the vaccine mandate, unvaccinated military members are still facing repercussions, including denial of benefits, ineligibility for promotion and/or deployment, and potentially diminished employment prospects for those already discharged,” Just the News said. West Point’s reinstatement of restrictions after the vaccine mandate’s strike-down is particularly direct and open coercion. – READ MORE
Whoops! Lockdown-Loving Minister Admits Closing Schools Over COVID Likely Was a Mistake – Closing schools and daycare facilities for extended periods over COVID-19 was likely a mistake, a lockdown-loving health minister has admitted.
Karl Lauterbach, Germany’s pro-lockdown health minister, has reportedly admitted that long-term school closures in the country over COVID-19 was likely the wrong move on his part, multiple outlets in the country have reported. – READ MORE
Suddenly Domestic Terrorism Charges Are a Problem Now That Atlanta Is Using Them Against Antifa – If you’ve missed the news out of Atlanta recently, over the past few months, Antifa-aligned activists have occupied the site of a former prison farm where the city plans on building a public training facility.
Authorities have arrested over a dozen of these Antifa goons and charged them with domestic terrorism. The group — largely from out of town and overloaded with young white people from privileged backgrounds — has camped out on the land under the pretense that it’s some sort of forest that needs protection. – READ MORE
Warning Signs Indicate a Great Depression May Be Coming – Joe Biden was quick to pat himself on the back after the latest numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed that the U.S. economy grew by 2.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022 and 2.1% for the entire year.
“Last quarter, our economy grew at a 2.9% annual pace – solid growth, even as we continue to bring inflation down,” Biden tweeted. “Our economic plan worked. And it still is.” – READ MORE
Fuel Costs Of Electric Vehicles Overtake Gas-Powered Cars: Study – The cost to fuel electric vehicles in the United States is higher than gas-powered cars for the first time in 18 months, a consulting company said.
“In Q4 2022, typical mid-priced ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) car drivers paid about $11.29 to fuel their vehicles for 100 miles of driving. That cost was around $0.31 cheaper than the amount paid by mid-priced EV drivers charging mostly at home, and over $3 less than the cost borne by comparable EV drivers charging commercially,” Anderson Economic Group (AEG) said in an analysis. – READ MORE
Biden Says US Will Compete With China on Strategic Minerals. He Just Kneecapped Our Ability To Do So. – The Biden administration issued a 20-year mining ban in a Minnesota area that contains much of America’s strategic minerals, a move that critics say kneecaps the administration’s ability to curb China’s dominant control over those minerals.
Biden’s secretary of the interior Deb Haaland on Thursday signed a two-decade moratorium on mining in northern Minnesota’s Superior National Forest. The area contains a mineral deposit that is home to 95 percent of the nation’s nickel reserves and 88 percent of its cobalt, according to Twin Metals Minnesota, a company that was permitted to mine in the area until the Biden administration canceled its permits in January. Both of those minerals are crucial to the green energy supply chain, which China dominates. Nickel, for example, is used in electric vehicle batteries, while cobalt is needed for wind turbines. – READ MORE
Wind Turbines Are Burning, Collapsing in Green Energy Setback – No one’s been killed or injured — yet — but a rash of wind turbine failures is jarring a key cornerstone of the green energy movement, according to a new Bloomberg report.
The unwelcome trend of malfunctions — which includes both breakdowns and total structural collapses — is being witnessed in the United States and Europe alike. As this rare 2008 video of a collapse indicates, the phenomenon isn’t brand new, but insiders say the frequency is spiking. – READ MORE
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