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Facebook's 'independent fact checkers' relied on a letter spearheaded by a major financial backer of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to 'debunk' articles exploring the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a leak from the lab, it has emerged. For nearly a year, Facebook censored articles exploring the lab leak theory, labeling them 'false information' and punishing news publishers by limiting their reach on the platform, before the social media giant sheepishly reversed course last month. Facebook relies on third-party fact-checkers to 'debunk' false claims, and in the case of the lab leak theory, a February article from Facebook...

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Mattie Parker declared victory Saturday as the next mayor of Fort Worth, Texas, keeping it one of America's biggest cities with a GOP mayor. The 37-year-old Parker was in a runoff with Deborah Peoples, a former Democratic county chairwoman who would have been the city’s first Black mayor. Peoples conceded defeat as Parker had more than 53% of the vote with ballots still being counted

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A trove of recently released emails to and from top government epidemiologist Anthony Fauci is sparking fierce backlash against him from some Republicans, particularly among those who are harshly critical of his comments on mask-wearing, the potential that the coronavirus leaked from a lab the U.S. gave money to, and more. The emails were obtained first by BuzzFeed via a Freedom of Information Act request. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has been among Fauci's harshest critics for months, led reaction Tuesday morning "It seems like he was very troubled early on that there was gain of function. He's like ‘What,...

Compare and contrast. A British family, who have saved all year for a holiday after long months of house arrest and general dreariness, have to interrupt their break in Portugal to go home, on the stern orders of the Government in London. Before them lie hours of bureaucracy, unpleasant and ruinously expensive nasal swabs, long forms to fill in, shuffling queues, more nasal swabs, more queues, and then days of being snooped on at home. You'll know that I think this is ridiculous and useless. But even if you disagree with me, you must see that it is profoundly unfair,...

Former President Donald Trump said the Republican Party will take back Congress and the White House "sooner than you think." He was speaking in a video for the National Republican Senatorial Committee that was shared online Friday. "We're going to take back the Senate, take back the House, we're going to take back the White House, and sooner than you think. It's going to be really something special," Trump said in the video.

Apparently the republicans in Georgia are not very happy with Governor Brian Kemp for blocking audits into transparent election fraud within the state. During his introduction to the delegates at the GOP convention yesterday the Georgia governor was greeted by jeers and boos from the crowd. It should be noted Brian Kemp is in charge of the voter integrity initiative within the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA), and recently requested that Mike Lindell be blocked from attending the conference in Tennessee. (video of booing at the link)

Republican Javier Villalobos flips this seat from Blue to Red in an 85% Hispanic city. Continuing the Republican trend in the RGV of Texas started by Trump

The Pope’s Horizontal Church Reports that he may restrict the old liturgy fit with it.Before leaving office in 2013, Pope Benedict XVI mused about the dangers of a horizontal church, one that is more preoccupied with this life than the next one. He decried the “hermeneutic of politics” that had lowered the vision of churchmen and convinced them “that the pre-conciliar Church was finished.” He might as well have been describing his successor. The relentless focus of Pope Francis on temporal politics and contempt for tradition conform to that view perfectly. His pontificate has resembled a U-turn, taking the Church...

The attack took place in the landlocked nation of Burkina Faso, where the government said the perpetrators also burned homes and the market in the village of Solhan, in the country’s eastern Yagha province... Attacks by jihadists linked to al Qaeda and an ISIS affiliated group called the Islamic State in West Africa’s Sahel region have displaced tens of thousands of people in recent months. In the past two years, more than 1.14 million people have lost homes and livelihoods in the poor country, which is also hosting some 20,000 refugees from neighboring Mali who are seeking safety from jihadist...

BUDAPEST–Thousands of Hungarians, some of them holding banners declaring “Treason,” protested on Saturday against a Chinese university’s plans to open a campus in Budapest. Liberal opponents of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban accuse him of cozying up to China, and fear the campus could undercut the quality of higher education and help Beijing increase its influence in Hungary and the European Union. “I do not agree with our country’s strengthening feudal relationship with China,” Patrik, a 22-year-old student who declined to give his full name, said at the protest in the Hungarian capital. He said funds should be used “to...

President Joe Biden took Thursday off to celebrate first lady Jill Biden's 70th birthday at their vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The Bidens planned for a "quiet" day together in the beach town without family and friends, Michael LaRosa, the first lady's spokesperson said, according to the Associated Press. The first lady was already at the beach house when Biden arrived on Wednesday night, per the AP. The first couple started their morning in "sunny and warm" 66-degree weather and spent part of the afternoon biking along the Gordons Pond Trail at Cape Henlopen State Park surrounded by Secret...

A dispute over whether a New York Times writer should get tenure at the University of North Carolina would seem to be of little national importance. On one side is Nikole Hannah-Jones...creator of the Times’ 1619 Project. She won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for an extended essay, but some of her claims were debunked by historians and her push for rewriting American history is cited as a reason why she should not get tenure. Her chief critic is Walter E. Hussman Jr... As an evangelist for impartial, fair journalism, he is the polar opposite of Hannah-Jones and says he wishes...

It appears that Chinese President Xi Jinping feels the chill.Did it finally dawn on him that other countries got a little ruffled after China unleashed a pandemic on the world and then lied about it? They also got a little touchy when China sent an aircraft carrier task group and warplanes to simulate a siege on their mutual ally, Taiwan, in April and then forced an overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system. Perhaps they’re also upset about the human rights abuses against the Uyghurs and, of course, the theft of their valuable intellectual property.And about a thousand other reasons.Chinese state...

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is pleading with parents to vaccinate their teenagers against the coronavirus. It comes as a new report from the federal health agency found that COVID-19-related hospitalizations in U.S. children between ages 12 and 17 rose by 116 percent in April. At the time, vaccines were not approved for youngsters under age 16, with Pfizer-BioNTech getting the official nod from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on May 10. The report found one out of three kids who were hospitalized required admission to intensive care units (ICUs) and nearly...

[Catholic Caucus] Important Op-Ed by Fr Pio Pace: "Restricting Summorum Pontificum: What the Pope Said, the Credible Information, and the Risk of a War within the Church." Rorate Note: It has been a while since that great connoisseur of the deepest secrets of ecclesiastical life in Rome, Father Pio Pace, last sent us a report.The repeated discreet reports on the draft of a papal document restricting the application of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (the document by Benedict XVI that recognized the impossibility of the abrogation of the Traditional Roman Liturgy) prompted him to write to us again on...

Day 446 Of The Dictatorship Of COVID-19, Day 446 Of America And The World Held Hostage The Australian Police State-Chicommunism Down Under The scene Today in Melbourne Australia's second largest city as small business owners protested the fourth lockdown of the state of Victoria... Don't even get started with a protest you will not be allowed to do so its Communist China Down Under. US Travel Bans For All Cops In Victoria Australia not to mention the government of that state. That's on my platform for next POTUS which should be Trump IMHO. He's the only Wild Card in the...

Mike Pompeo: Dr. Fauci 'saw everything I saw' Video Mike Pompeo: Dr. Fauci 'saw everything I saw' Former secretary of state questions why Dr. Fauci has given the Chinese Communist Party the 'benefit of the doubt' on 'Hannity' House Republican Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy became the latest and highest-ranking elected Republican Saturday to call for Dr. Anthony Fauci to depart his role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "The American people don’t have trust in Dr. Fauci," McCarthy told the Breitbart News Saturday radio show. "Let’s find a person we can trust. Take politics aside,...

It is no wonder that Yale doesn’t want to risk having any independent members on its Board of Trustees. There are still quite a few sane alumni, and if they got to vote for a candidate of their choice, you never know what might happen.This observation is prompted by the fact that on April 6, Yale’s School of Medicine sponsored a talk by a psychiatrist–God help us!–named Aruna Khilanani, on the topic “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” Bari Weiss has audio of the event and a transcript of an interview of Dr. Khilanani by a self-described liberal.Dr. Khilanani...

Regeneron announced on Friday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is allowing a lower dose of its CCP virus treatment for injection.The approval comes as an update to the FDA’s emergency use authorization (EUA) for the company’s antibody cocktail to treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. The treatment has been available under the EUA since last November for those recently diagnosed with COVID-19.The FDA had in November authorized a 2,400 mg dose of the antibody cocktail REGEN-COV—a combination of the monoclonal antibodies casirivimab and imdevimab—to be administered as a single dose directly injected...