GOP: China Has Infiltrated US Higher Education To Impede Coronavirus Research

Congressional Republicans are accusing China of attempting to hinder US coronavirus research by infiltrating US universities and spreading communist propaganda.

Reuters reports that ranking GOP members across seven House committees have delivered a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that warns Beijing is indoctrinating American students.

The letter was signed by Congressman Jim Jordan, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight committee, as well as by members on the Homeland Security, Science, Armed Services, Education and Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees.

The letter requests that DeVos provide more information pertaining to the allegations against China, including all documents related to schools that have accepted funds from China, as well as details of any investigations into colleges and education officials who may have accepted “gifts” from the communist state.

“We write to seek a better understanding of the Department’s efforts to address unreported foreign direct investment into the U.S. higher education system,” the letter reads.

“We have been concerned about the potential for the Chinese government to use its strategic investments to turn American college campuses into indoctrination platforms for American students,” the congressmen further write.

“China has strategically invested in U.S. academia to attempt to steal confidential information and technology from U.S. companies, and even the U.S. government,” the lawmakers state in the letter, pointing to a 2018 report from the Hoover Institution identifying upwards of 110 Confucius Institutes operating on American colleges to facilitate China’s espionage and theft of intellectual property.

They add that “Besides China peddling money for influence in U.S. institutions of higher education (IHE), China is restricting any research regarding the origins of COVID-19 that does not comport with CCP propaganda.”

These actions “bring into question whether U.S. [institutes of higher education] receiving federal taxpayer dollars should be allowed to accept funds from China, the CCP, or other affiliated organizations,” the letter concludes.

Commenting on the letter, Rep. Jim Jordan said “We cannot allow a dangerous communist regime to buy access to our institutions of higher education, plain and simple.”

“The Chinese Communist Party’s cover-up of the early outbreak of the coronavirus immeasurably worsened this disease’s impact on the United States and the world.” Jordan urged, adding that “We owe it to the American people to hold China accountable and to prevent them from doing further harm to our country.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/gop-china-has-infiltrated-us-higher-education-impede-coronavirus-research

US Judge Strikes Down New York Democratic Primary Cancellation as Unconstitutional

The federal judge's Tuesday decision restores the Democratic primary in New York, which is slated for June 23.

According to court documents uploaded by Courthouse News' Adam Klasfeld, the decision was handed down after tech entrepreneur and former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang filed a lawsuit against New York election officials.

US District Judge Analisa Torres said in her 30-page opinion that while the government argued that the cancellation was part of an effort to help stop the spread of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus, "the Court is not convinced that canceling the presidential primary would meaningfully advance that interest."

She noted that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's executive orders allowed "every voter statewide to request an absentee ballot."

"Even if not every voter can vote by mail — because they fail to request or do not receive an absentee ballot, because they need assistance voting, or because they are ineligible to cast an ordinary ballot but may cast a ballot with an affidavit, there is no doubt that many voters will avail themselves of the opportunity to do so," Torres added.

“[T]he removal of presidential contenders from the primary ballot not only deprived those candidates of the chance to garner votes for the Democratic Party’s nomination, but also deprived their pledged delegates of the opportunity to run for a position where they could influence the party platform, vote on party governance issues, pressure the eventual nominee on matters of personnel or policy, and react to unexpected developments at the Convention,” Torres wrote.

“And it deprived Democratic voters of the opportunity to elect delegates who could push their point of view in that forum.”

The decision means that candidates who earlier dropped out of the race, including Bernie Sanders, will be restored to the New York primary ballot.

While former US Vice President Joe Biden is the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in the upcoming presidential election, and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has suspended his campaign, Bernie 2020 Senior Adviser Jeff Weaver argued on April 27 that "every state should have the right to express their preference."

"No one asked New York to cancel the election. The DNC [Democratic National Committee] didn't request it. The Biden campaign didn't request it. And our campaign communicated that we wanted to remain on the ballot," he added.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) supported the statement, expressing that her home state was establishing a dangerous precedent with the primary's cancellation.

The collection of additional delegates by Sanders would mean the senator could better advocate for his policies to be included in the overarching party platform at the Democratic convention in the summer.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202005051079208501-us-judge-strikes-down-new-york-democratic-primary-cancellation-as-unconstitutional/

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6882736-NY-Democratic-Primary.html

Facebook says it dismantles disinformation network tied to Iran's state media

Covert network made up of some 500 fake social media accounts posed as independent media sites; cybersecurity experts suspect Russian disinformation tactics

Iran's state broadcaster has used hundreds of fake social media accounts to covertly spread pro-Iranian messaging online since at least 2011, targeting voters in countries including Britain and the United States, Facebook said on Tuesday.

In a monthly report of accounts suspended for so-called "coordinated inauthentic behavior", Facebook said it had removed eight networks in recent weeks, including one with links to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Corporation (IRIB).

Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy, said the IRIB network had "substantial connections" to previously identified Iranian disinformation campaigns, but it was too early to say whether it was directly responsible for those operations.

The state-owned IRIB, which has its head appointed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Iranian officials have previously dismissed allegations of running coordinated disinformation campaigns as "ridiculous".

The Islamic Republic has emerged as one of the most persistent players in online influence operations, as Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet's Google have had to grapple with state-backed groups using social media to further their geopolitical agendas and spread disinformation.

A Reuters investigation in 2018 found that one Tehran-based operation had used more than 70 websites masquerading as local news outlets to covertly disseminate Iranian state propaganda in more than 15 countries, at one point tricking the then Pakistani defense minister into issuing a nuclear threat against Israel.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/BJcv6GyqU

Where to begin……..

Is Big Pharma behind the great war on hydroxychloroquine?

When President Trump brought up hydroxychloroquine as a promising potential treatment for COVID-19, a huge upsurge of negative political publicity followed from it. It was strange stuff, because up until then, the treatment, which had been safely used to treat malaria, lupus, and arthritis, had been seeing promising results for COVID-19, too. Yet the condemnations from all sides poured for weeks. It wasn't just the political establishment blasting it; it seemed to be the medical establishment, too. That raises questions as to whether financial interests might be involved here.

It started with the press engaging in its customary contrarianism against Trump when he called the treatment "promising." The logic was simple: If Trump liked it, then it had to be bad.

How's this for a slanted headline and report from NPR, which ran on April 10?

COVID-19 Patients Given Unproven Drug In Texas Nursing Home In 'Disconcerting' Move

Last night, the real story was obtained by Fox News host Laura Ingraham, and it's quite a different picture. It isn't out on YouTube yet, so I will describe it:

A Galveston-area doctor, Dr. Robin Armstrong, who was in charge of a nursing home, found himself in the middle of the worst health care nightmare anyone can imagine: a COVID-19 outbreak, on a home full of elderly people, and he was in charge. Odds were big they were going to die. We already know what the coronavirus did to a nursing home in Washington State, and we have subsequently learned what inserting COVID-19 patients into unwilling nursing homes in New York City did to those populations. Coronavirus + Nursing Home = Death Sentence. That was what he was looking at. In desperation, the Texas doctor decided to treat his threatened patients with hydroxychloroquine in a last-ditch effort to save them…and he called it right. Unlike those other places, his patients got well. His informed judgment saved the lives of a building full of nursing home patients, and he reported no bad side-effects such as heart problems brought on by the treatment. He would have been justified to take such risks because his treatment was triage, and the alternative was the death sentence. But there wasn't even that. His patients lived, they regained their fragile health, and there were no stacked bodies or chaotic medical scenes in his part of Texas on his watch.

That's frankly a story of heroism, and the brilliant medical man should be celebrated for the huge number of lives he saved.

Instead, all he got were trashy stories with scare headlines like NPR's, painting him as some kind of evildoer. Bad medicine, unproven treatment, everybody get scared.

No good deed goes unpunished.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/is_big_pharma_behind_the_great_war_on_hydroxychloroquine.html

Pre-crime: Twitter will warn users about their 'HARMFUL' language, BEFORE they tweet

Twitter will now notify some users whenever they’re about to post a reply using “harmful” language. On a platform that’s already been pilloried for enforcing its rules haphazardly, the plan will surely offend potential offenders.

According to the social media giant, users on iOS who hit ‘send’ on a reply – be it a reasoned argument or a tirade of abuse – will receive a notification if Twitter determines their message “uses language that could be harmful.”

The experiment began on Tuesday, and will run for several weeks.

Explaining the decision, Twitter took a motherly tone. “When things get heated, you may say things you don't mean,” the firm said in a tweet on Tuesday. “To let you rethink a reply, we’re running a limited experiment on iOS with a prompt that gives you the option to revise your reply before it’s published if it uses language that could be harmful.

Twitter will not provide a list of what it considers “language that could be harmful.” However, a peek at the company’s hateful conduct policy reveals a long list of potential no-nos. Twitter forbids abuse targeted at “women, people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual individuals, marginalized and historically underrepresented communities.” This abuse can include anything from the direct threat of violence, down to “inciting fear,” and further down to “slurs, tropes or other content.”

The direct threat of violence is a federal crime under section 18 of the US Code. However, Twitter’s enforcement of its policy on “slurs and tropes,” for instance, has been enforced arbitrarily in the past, and the company has been heavily criticized for this.

Conservatives in the US have raged at Twitter for seemingly targeting the right, and just last year the company was sued for $250 million for allegedly ‘shadow banning’ right-wingers.

https://www.rt.com/news/487860-twitter-warns-offensive-replies/

SOS - Save Our Souls! The real scamdemic battlefront is between Christ and his crucifiers.

"To defeat them we have to do the opposite of their tactics – promote beauty and love.

We have to promote things that truly mean a lot to us and shine our light while we can.

And if we set an intention to do this, I know that God will help us."

98% of our DNA is the same as Chimpanzees.

The remaining 2% that comes from God makes us human. It enables us to discern good and evil. The real war: mind (controlled by them) versus spirit.

We are under occult attack. The real purpose of the scamdemic is to make us less human. We must take the war to its true spiritual battlefront and be more human, true to the voice of God within. God speaks to the heart, the devil (the msm) controls the mind.

Texas sheriff sends SWAT team with guns drawn to arrest armed lockdown protestors

Ector County Sheriff Mike Griffis says, 'If you don't like what's going on, run for governor.'

A Texas sheriff sent his department's SWAT team with guns drawn to break up a rally in support of a bar owner who reopened her business in violation of Gov. Greg Abbott's (R) coronavirus lockdown on Monday.

The protestors say they did nothing wrong and argue they were simply practicing their First and Second Amendment Rights, while the sheriff says the demonstrators exhibited "a show of force" in their demonstration. Eight people were arrested—six of them for unlawfully carrying a weapon on a premises licensed to sell alcohol.

What are the details?

Gabrielle Ellison owns Big Daddy Zane's bar in West Odessa. She announced she would be reopening her doors in violation of the state's COVID-19 lockdown, because she cannot support her family. She told KPEJ-TV, "The possibility of losing my license—heartbreaking. But they've already taken my income."

Ellison says she even called the Ector County Sheriff's Department ahead of time to let them know there would be a peaceful protest at the bar when she reopened Monday. Ellison maintains she was told there wouldn't be any trouble as long people were not seen carrying firearms on the property.

So Ellison made sure the demonstration took place in an area behind the bar, which she says is her private property. It was met with and shut down by force.

Ector County Sheriff Mike Griffis sent in his department's SWAT team with guns drawn. The deputies arrested eight people, including Ellison.

Six of the demonstrators were arrested on felony charges of unlawfully carrying a weapon on a licensed premises, and Sheriff Griffis says more charges could be filed.

The protest was organized by a group called Open Texas, which seeks to provide support and defend the rights of small business owners to reopen and support themselves. Phillip Archibald, who is part of Open Texas, told KWES-TV, "We're here to inspire the American people to stand up. Every single one of my buddies just got arrested for doing nothing wrong. All of our rifles were slinged."

During a news conference following the incident, Griffis said he wants the state reopened, too, but his department was simply enforcing the executive order imposed by Gov. Abbott. "If you don't like what's going on, run for governor," the sheriff said. "Give us something to work with here."

Griffis noted that he had not shut down another protest held at a gym across town where people were also armed, pointing out that the demonstration was not held on a property where alcohol was sold. He said of the rally at Big Daddy Zane's, "This was not a protest of their Second Amendment rights. It was a show of force to ensure that this lady could violate the governor's order."

https://youtu.be/iA9nLeePLYQ

https://www.theblaze.com/news/texas-sheriff-sends-swat-team-with-guns-drawn-to-arrest-armed-lockdown-protestors

Green New Deal, Healthcare for Illegals: Soros-Funded Groups Push Dems to Use Virus to Achieve Progressive Wish List

A coalition of progressive groups, many funded by billionaire George Soros, is sponsoring a “People’s Bailout” community organizing outfit nudging Congress to use the next stimulus package during the coronavirus crisis to enact reforms that would fundamentally transform American society by achieving longtime progressive aims.

In the spirit of the repurposed progressive anthem of never letting a crisis go to waste, the suddenly created People’s Bailout group is demanding that the next stimulus package adhere to “five principles” the group says are endorsed by “nearly 1,000 organizations, unions, and community leaders, and nearly 100 members of Congress.”

Those “principals” encompass such far-left wish list items as government healthcare for illegal immigrants, required $15 per hour minimum wage, enhanced union collective bargaining and government regulation of the board of directors of private companies to ensure “worker representation.”

Also within the “five principles” list are “direct sizable cash payments to every person” and the use of stimulus legislation to push what would amount to a massive “green” new deal.

The “green” section calls for public funds to (below are direct quotes):

expand wind and solar power

build clean and affordable public transit

weatherize our buildings

manufacture more clean energy goods

expand public services that support climate resilience,

[reduce] climate emissions and toxic pollution.

Using progressive key words, the group exclaims that a “people’s bailout should be rooted in justice” and “we demand the bailout provide a just recovery.”

The group is pushing the #PeoplesBailout hashtag and has gone so far as to provide activists with wording to use in social media posts directed at lawmakers. The group’s website also provides exact scripting for people to read when calling their lawmakers to demand the “five principles” be incorporated in stimulus legislation.

The People’s Bailout held an online May Day rally and now wants activists to get further involved by displaying banners and forming car caravans.

The website promotes a “helpful slideshow and handout on key tactics to use” to push promote the transformative agenda.

The “helpful slideshow” and “tactics” linked on the site are from the Ruckus Society, which specializes in the disruption tactic of so-called direct action.

Ruckus provided training and resources to the Occupy movement. It’s been funded by the Soros-financed Tides Foundation.

Ruckus leaders infamously helped to spark the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle that turned violent.

The Occupy-Ruckus link is instructive. Besides Ruckus, Occupy was also backed by groups like MoveOn.org and the Working Families Party.

The Soros-funded MoveOn.org and the Working Families Party are two of 13 listed “sponsors” of the People’s Bailout group.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one People’s Bailout sponsor is the Sunrise Movement which helped craft the socialist utopian Green New Deal blueprint introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Sunrise was in part inspired by the activism of Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and the radical immigration group United We Dream.

Another sponsor is the Indivisible Project, which has partnered with Organizing for Action, the activist group that morphed from Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. Breitbart News extensively reported that Indivisible leaders are openly associated with groups financed by Soros.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/05/green-new-deal-healthcare-for-illegals-soros-funded-groups-push-dems-to-use-virus-to-achieve-progressive-wish-list/

X Æ A-12 Musk - Yes, That's the Name of Grimes and Elon Musk's Newborn Baby

Elon Musk and Grimes had their newborn baby on Monday the 4th, the unofficial Star Wars Day (May the Fourth Be With You!), and shared the news via social media, sparking waves of excitement and warm congratulations from netizens.

Netizens craved to know the newborn baby's name and have gotten possibly more than they anticipated. The Tesla billionaire revealed the name in his Twitter account - X Æ A-12 - leaving people pondering how to pronounce it, memeing around and wondering if that is the actual name.

The baby boy was born on 4 May, which caused many to that the name would be somehow connected with Star Wars, as this day is unofficially celebrated by the saga's fans.

https://sputniknews.com/viral/202005061079209062-xa-12-musk-yes-thats-the-name-of-grimes-and-elon-musks-newborn-baby/