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For Mark Kelly, Attending Forum Hosted by CCP Was the Beginning of Lucrative Relationship with China

The Chinese government invited then-astronaut Mark Kelly, now an Arizona Democratic Senate candidate, to an all-expenses-paid retreat at a countryside resort in 2003. He left China five days later not only with a future spouse, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D., Ariz.), but also with lucrative regime business contacts.

Kelly attended the annual Young Leaders Forum, a five-day junket cohosted by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, which is “under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.” The conference allowed Kelly an opportunity to mingle with high-profile Communist Party officials and rising stars in Chinese society. Attendees included Cui Tiankai, now Chinese ambassador to the United States; Fang Xinghai, former director of the CCP’s top committee on the economy; and Zhou Mingwei, the party’s former top foreign propaganda honcho.

China analyst Gordon G. Chang said that party connections—such as those Kelly fostered—are “absolutely essential” for securing Chinese business deals.

“The Communist Party tries to control everything, whether it’s a state enterprise or a private company,” he said. “And so it’s extremely important to have Communist Party contacts [to do business].”

Kelly has also had extensive ties with China since becoming a civilian. World View Enterprise, an aerospace company he cofounded and in which he still holds investments, received funding from Chinese tech giant Tencent, which censors the internet for Beijing. As the Washington Free Beacon reported, he also held a financial stake in a Colorado company that courted investments from a Chinese state-funded tech enterprise.

He now has assets worth up to $27 million, according to his financial disclosure.

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Out of the Blue: UFOs and the Freedom of Information Act

The existence of UFOs may seem like the exclusive domain of science fiction, but as Representative John Moss of California laid the groundwork for legislation that eventually became the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1966, he didn’t discriminate in his pursuit to open as much government information as possible to the public.

During the 1950s and 1960s, as the House held hearings and debated the scope of Moss’s legislation, the Special Government Information Subcommittee and the Foreign Operations and Government Subcommittee (FOGI) of the Committee on Government Operations, both of which were chaired by Moss, addressed a deceptively simple problem. Every year the federal government produced vast amounts of information. But of that mountain of data, the subcommittee needed to know what the government could (or should) release, as well as what federal officials should (or had) to restrict.

A sample page from Project Blue Book depicting an alleged UFO sighting.The subcommittees fielded thousands of requests from the public, newspapers, and other Members of Congress on every imaginable topic, from Amelia Earhart to ballistic missiles to frozen foods. Of the organizations that contacted the FOGI Subcommittee, two stand out: Flying Saucers International and the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. Surprising? Yes, but consider this: In the decade before FOIA became law, the United States and the Soviet Union spent an immense amount of money developing programs to send defense technology and eventually people into outer space. By mid-century, whatever existed beyond Earth’s atmosphere actually seemed within reach, and the idea—the very possibility—that “unidentified flying objects” were zooming around the galaxy captured the public imagination. Many people who believed in UFOs were also convinced the Air Force knew about them too, and that the military had kept their existence secret. Anxious Americans considered this a major problem: What if the Russians somehow got access to extraterrestrial technology and used it against the United States? And didn’t defense personnel need confirmation that UFOs existed and the training to distinguish them from planes and missiles so that accidental war with the Soviet Union might be prevented?

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Gov. Newsom signs law allowing transgender inmates to be placed in prison by their gender identity, officers required to use preferred pronouns

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a new law on Saturday allowing transgender inmates to be placed in prisons based on their gender identity.

Previously, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation housed men and women in separate correctional facilities, and transgender inmates were housed based on their biological sex. The new California law will allow transgender inmates to be housed based on their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.

The Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act notes that officers must privately ask inmates during the intake process on how they identify as. Transgender, nonbinary, or intersex inmates can request to be placed in a facility that houses either men or women based on how they identify as.

The law says the CDCR cannot deny requests for the preferred prison based solely on the inmates’ anatomy, sexual orientation, or “a factor present” among other inmates at the facility, the law states.

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New CDC Estimates: Fatality Rate For COVID-19 Drops Again And May Surprise You

What’s are the real chances of dying if you are infected with COVID-19? You’ll probably be surprised how low they are according to new numbers from the Center for Disease Control. We’ll state those numbers simply for those of you who aren’t crazy about math.

The CDC’s new estimate, for the first time, is broken down by age groups. Here is what the CDC calls its “current best estimate” of chances of dying from the virus if you get infected:

1 out of 34,000 for ages 0 to 19;

1 out of 5,000 for ages 20 to 49;

1 out of 200 for ages 50 to 69; and

1 out of 20 for ages 70 and up.

Here’s another way to look at the same numbers. If you get infected, your chances of surviving are as follows:

Age Group                                           Probability of Survival

0-19:                                                    99.997%
20-49:                                                  99.98%
50-69:                                                  99.5%
70+:                                                     94.6%

The CDC’s numbers are actually published as what’s called the “Infection Fatality Ratio” or IFR. The relevant portion of their chart is reproduced below. We’ve just stated their numbers a different way and rounded a bit. IFR includes, as those who were “infected,” those who got the virus but never got sick or displayed symptoms.

The CDC’s “best estimate” may be off and it offered other scenarios, also shown in the chart below. They are all very low, however, as you can see. For those age 20-49, for example, even under the worse case scenario, the IFR is only .0003. That means your chances of dying even if you got infected would be 1 out of 3,333.

Estimates of COVID’s lethality have been dropping regularly. In March, when most of the nation went into lockdown, Dr. Anthony Fauci estimated the mortality rate at about 2% and the World Health Organization pegged it at about 3.4%. Both are far higher than the current CDC estimate.

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