Charles Bukowski on democracy and tyranny…
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Walmart on hook over claims of heavy metals in spices
A federal judge advanced claims that some products in Walmart’s Great Value line of spices may contain toxic heavy metals, and that the retail giant failed to warn customers of those metals and potential health risks.
Plaintiffs Susan Gagetta and Traice Gomez say in a class action filed this past June that Walmart failed to tell customers that certain herbs and spices in its Great Value line including basil, chili powder, ground cumin and organic paprika and ginger, may contain lead, arsenic and cadmium. Both plaintiffs are Walmart customers living in California.
They cited a November 2021 report “Your Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead” from Consumer Reports, which analyzed 126 individual products from national and private-label brands, including Walmart’s Great Value, and determined a third of the tested products had high enough levels of arsenic, lead, and cadmium combined, on average, “to pose a health concern for children and adults when regularly consumed in typical serving sizes.”
Heavy metals in foods can cause cancer and serious, possibly irreversible damage to brain development along with other serious health issues. Exposure to lead may cause anemia, weakness and kidney and brain damage, which affect almost every organ and system and accumulates in the body over time. Arsenic can cause bladder, lung, liver and skin cancer, as well as strokes and diabetes.
Kamala Harris Demands COVID Tests for Anyone Over 2 Years Old for the Senate Swearing-In Photo Op
Kamala Harris is demanding that everyone who wants to take a photo with her at Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony for the new Congress must show proof of a negative COVID test done within 24 hours, according to Breitbart News.
The United States Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Protocol Office emailed all Senate offices on Thursday to inform them of Kamala’s office’s policy of requiring COVID tests before photo ops with her.
“The Vice President’s office has requested that we send their standard COVID-19 protocol information to offices participating in the reenactment opportunity in the Old Senate Chamber. Please see their suggested process below,” the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Protocol Office said in the email obtained by Breitbart News.
“We look forward to welcoming all Senators and their families for the reenactment opportunity on January 3rd,” it added.
Fauci Has A Gigantic Wall Filled With Portraits Of Himself In His Home Office
It seems that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s outgoing top medical adviser and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is a little embarrassed that The New York Times saw his gigantic wall filled with portraits of himself in his home office.
The career bureaucrat doesn’t want his critics to see that as more evidence that he is some sort of narcissist.
Fauci, whose last day in public service was on December 30, recently sat down with the Times for an interview. As pointed out by The Washington Examiner’s Jerry Dunleavy, the opening line of the article in question read, “The walls in Dr. Anthony S. Fauci’s home office are adorned with portraits of him, drawn and painted by some of his many fans.”
The author of the Times article observed that “Dr. Fauci seemed a little uncomfortable with people knowing about the pictures.”
“He said that previously, when they were captured on camera, the ‘far right’ attacked him as an ‘egomaniac,’” Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote. “If someone goes to the trouble of sending him a portrait of himself, he said, he would ‘feel like I’m disrespecting them’ if he discarded it.”
Yet Fauci should know that there are plenty of other reasons that Americans would view him as a self-obsessed individual — and it’s not just the “far Right.”
Millionaire pharma exec Gigi Jordan — who killed 8-year-old son — found dead inside NYC home in possible suicide
Gigi Jordan, the millionaire pharmaceutical executive convicted of manslaughter in the death of her 8-year-old son, was found dead inside her Brooklyn home in what cops are investigating as a possible suicide, The Post has learned.
Her body was found around 12:30 a.m. Friday at her apartment in in Stuyvesant Heights, according to sources — just hours after US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued an order that was expected to send Jordan, 62, back to prison.
The cause of death has yet to be determined, but sources said a note was found at the scene.
It marks what may be the final chapter in a long tale full of bizarre twists and turns.
Jordan was accused of force-feeding her autistic son, Jude Mirra, a lethal dose of pills in February 2010 inside a luxury
suite at the Peninsula Hotel.
During a strange six-week trial, Jordan’s defense lawyers argued she killed the boy while in a state of extreme emotional disturbance, fearing he was about to be murdered by her ex-husband.
A Manhattan jury acquitted her of the top murder count, but found Jordan guilty of manslaughter in 2014.
‘Mind Dominance’: The CCP’s Disinformation War on US Social Media
Clusters of new social media profiles emerge and interact with long-dormant accounts, seemingly exchanging viewpoints from across the American political spectrum.
Some sport American flags for profile pictures; others have images of beautiful women. Almost all are anonymous, though some impersonate real people.
In tweets and posts and messages they spread their views. Some stridently defend a woman’s right to have an abortion, others the right to life. Some defend the second amendment, others vehemently champion Black Lives Matter. Some claim that the United States is descending into a leftist tyranny. Still more say it’s headed toward fascism.
Above all, they post memes disparaging the United States’ political parties and governmental institutions. Here one finds a meme of President Joe Biden with a caption excoriating the Build Back Better slogan. Here one finds a meme of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) insinuating that the lawmaker has financial ties with Putin’s Russia.
It would be easy to conclude that these clusters of accounts are a perfect representation of the political polarization that has seized the United States in recent years. But it would be wrong.
Drugmakers to raise prices of 350 drugs at start of 2023
Drugmakers are set to raise the prices of 350 drugs at the beginning of 2023.
Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Bristol Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca PLC, and Sanofi SA are among several drugmakers set to raise prices, according to healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors, Reuters reported. The price hikes are in response to a number of factors, mainly inflation, supply problems, and the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which will allow Medicare, the national government’s health insurance program for seniors and people with certain disabilities, to negotiate several drug prices directly starting in 2026.
Drug manufacturers usually try to avoid major price increases, as it draws the ire of the government and the public. Nevertheless, an associate firm of 3 Axis Advisors found that drugmakers raised the prices of 1,400 different drugs in 2022. Pharmaceutical companies now usually try to introduce new drugs at a high price, so further price increases won’t be needed.
“Drug makers have to take a harder look at calibrating those launch prices out of the gate … so they don’t box themselves into the point where in the future, they can’t price increase their way back into profitability,” President Antonio Ciaccia of 3 Axis Advisors told Reuters.
Suspect Behind NYPD New Year’s Eve Attack Was on FBI Radar – Trevor Bickford a Recent Convert to Islam
A rookie NYPD officer was stabbed in the head Saturday night near Times Square amid New Year’s Eve celebrations.
A second NYPD officer was struck with a pipe or a blunt object.
The suspect was shot by police and taken into custody.
The police officer was rushed to a nearby hospital and is expected to recover.
According to the New York Post, the injured police officer was a rookie on his first day on the job.
The suspect, 19-year-old Trevor Bickford of Wells, Maine, was shot in the shoulder and taken to a nearby hospital.
According to FOX News Trevor Bickford was on the FBI radar and recently converted to Islam.
A high-level police source also tells Fox News Digital that Bickford was being watched by the FBI’s counterterrorism task force in the weeks leading up to Saturday’s attack. The source also said Bickford recently converted to Islam and a tipster claimed he had expressed interest in going to Afghanistan.
The first cop, a rookie on his first night of policing, was slashed in the head, prompting another nearby officer to shoot Bickford. That officer was also struck, but he was not seriously injured. The first officer, identified by authorities only as Paul, is expected to recover.
Nancy’s golden goodbye: Outgoing House speaker Pelosi raises maximum wage for staff in lower house of Congress by $38,000 to $212,000
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decreed that Congress will once again raise its stiff salary cap for staffers – this time, to an eyewatering $212,100.
Pelosi – whose second stint as House Speaker began in 2019 – announced the change Friday, in what very well could be her last acts before being replaced in the now-Republican-dominated chamber.
It also serves as the third time the 82-year-old San Francisco official raised the maximum salary for House staff – to $199,300 last year and again in May to $203,700 to maintain parity with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
That said, the raise – which pertains to staffers in the lower chamber – now puts the new top-possible salary for aides at $38,000 more than what Senate staffers make themselves.
In a statement, Pelosi, who is unlikely to continue her term as speaker come Sunday now that Republicans have regained control over the House, revealed the change for the New Year, and detailed her reasoning behind the substantial hike.
U.S. Accidentally Proves It Could Not Have Spotted the Virus in China in November 2019
In a recent article I asked why U.S. intelligence officials were following the coronavirus outbreak in China in November 2019 when there is no evidence anyone in China was aware of or concerned about the virus at that point. I noted that no evidence had been produced to explain how they spotted it and why they were concerned. Combined with a lack of cooperation with investigations into Covid origins and multiple signs of a cover-up, this unexplained early awareness of the virus is not just mysterious but suspicious.
Since publishing that piece I have been reminded about a report from Harvard University produced in June 2020 (apparently with intelligence community involvement) that appeared alongside a companion news report for ABC News and showed satellite images from Wuhan in the autumn of 2019 along with some data analysis, indicating increased hospital activity and other possible signals of disease outbreak.
The clear implication of the Harvard study is that these are the data (or some of them) that the intelligence community relied on in November 2019 to identify the outbreak and raise the alarm. The news report states the study used “techniques similar to those employed by intelligence agencies” and was “similar to work done by analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency”. The Pentagon’s Chief Spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, told ABC News he had “nothing to add” to the Harvard study, implying endorsement.
It’s therefore worth asking whether the data in the study can account for the U.S. intelligence community’s early awareness and alarm. Let’s take a look.
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