Also, just over a week ago President Biden told us that if we got the vaccine we would not get Covid. Then a few days later his own CDC released data from a Massachusetts study showing that 78 percent of the people who caught Covid were fully vaccinated. Is it any wonder Americans have lost all faith in “the science” as it pours forth from the politicized “scientists” in charge of US public health institutions?
Just this week, Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that the US is increasing – not ending – its airstrikes on Afghanistan. The US would be pulling regular military troops out of the country (though likely keeping CIA, Special Forces, and mercenaries on the ground), but it would continue to bomb Afghanistan using “over the horizon” facilities from the Persian Gulf.
Aug 2 – For libertarians – and even many non-libertarians – it’s not shocking to discover that a US Administration lies and deceives the electorate. For government on all levels, lying to the American people is as American as apple pie. Sometimes the liars are held to account for their deception, but most often they are not.
Watching these early months of the Biden Administration it’s hard not to think that lying, deceiving, and manipulation is rising to a whole new level.
Take “ending the endless war” in Afghanistan. President Biden was cheered for achieving what even Donald Trump could not deliver: an end to the pointless 20 year – and several trillion dollar – war in Afghanistan. By the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we were told, the war would be over.
The only people furious about this decision were the bombmakers at Raytheon and the rest of the military-industrial complex and the laptop warriors in the Beltway think tanks. It turns out, they really didn’t need to worry.
The US is not finally leaving the Afghan people alone to run their country as they see fit. Just this week, Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that the US is increasing – not ending – its airstrikes on Afghanistan. The US would be pulling regular military troops out of the country (though likely keeping CIA, Special Forces, and mercenaries on the ground), but it would continue to bomb Afghanistan using “over the horizon” facilities from the Persian Gulf.
I’m sure that makes Afghan victims of US bombs feel much better.
Then last week Biden announced an “end of the US combat mission” in Iraq by the end of the year. While we’ve heard that line before, still it seemed like good news. However, as usual, the devil was in the details. While the “mission” was over, the US troops would remain in-country in an “advisory role.” This is despite the fact that the Iraqi Parliament formally requested last year that US troops leave the country.
Biden has bombed anti-ISIS militias supported by the Iraqi government twice this year (so far).
The 900 US troops illegally occupying Syrian territory would also remain in-country, the Biden Administration announced last week.
Also, just over a week ago President Biden told us that if we got the vaccine we would not get Covid. Then a few days later his own CDC released data from a Massachusetts study showing that 78 percent of the people who caught Covid were fully vaccinated. Is it any wonder Americans have lost all faith in “the science” as it pours forth from the politicized “scientists” in charge of US public health institutions?
The US mainstream media has morphed into a de-facto arm of the Biden Administration, however, covering up for all of these lies and word-games and holding precisely no one in government accountable. So much for a free media acting as a check on government power.
In fact, any “enemy” country overseas with such a subservient press would be targeted for a State Department color revolution.
Governments lie. We understand that. It is the nature of politics and power. In the absence of independent institutions to hold government accountable, however, such lies become indistinguishable from facts, and soon “freedom” itself becomes slavery, as Orwell wrote. Let’s hope more of America wakes up soon.
Great episode! Longer than usual as all the weekend CDC/Fauci flip flops and inconsistencies are discussed.Mask free Sweden-no deaths in the past month. Tests can’t tell regular Covid from variant.
During a status hearing Friday afternoon for Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, an Army reservist arrested on January 15 for his involvement in the January 6 protest in Washington, D.C., an assistant U.S. attorney admitted the government will not meet its discovery obligations for all Capitol defendants until early 2022.
Kathyrn Fifield, the lead attorney representing the Justice Department, informed Judge Trevor McFadden that the “incalculable” volume of video collected by the government related to the Capitol breach investigation will prevent defendants and their lawyers from accessing the full body of evidence against them for several more months. “No system exists to wrap its arms around [all this evidence],” Fifield told McFadden. This includes at least 14,000 hours of surveillance video plus thousands of hours of body-worn camera footage from law enforcement.
Fifield resisted setting a 2021 trial date for Hale; McFadden and Jonathan Crisp, Hale’s court-appointed attorney, told the government last month that unless a plea arrangement was agreed upon, a trial would be set for later this year because Hale already has been incarcerated for more than six months. “If we do set a trial date, the government cannot meet discovery obligations until early 2022. That’s a conservative estimate,” Fifield said.
Despite arresting more than 550 people since January 6, the government still has no platform for posting, sharing, and transferring digital evidence. “Due to the extraordinary nature of the January 6, 2021 Capitol Attack, the government anticipates that a large volume of materials may contain information relevant to this prosecution,” Fifield wrote in a July 14 filing. “These materials may include, but are not limited to, surveillance video, statements of similarly situated defendants, forensic searches of electronic devices and social media accounts of similarly situated defendants, and citizen tips. The government is working to develop a system that will facilitate access to these materials.”
At one point, the Justice Department was sharing digital evidence on Blu Ray discs.
Earlier this month, the department signed a multi-million dollar contract with Deloitte to create a “massive database” of evidence. But that process will take several weeks if not months. “The still-incomplete database has sharply slowed down efforts by prosecutors and defense attorneys to hammer out plea deals for dozens, of not hundreds, of alleged rioters,” Politicoreported on July 9. “Several defendants have sought quick resolution of their cases only to be told by prosecutors that they must wait until the database is established.”
Despite the lack of evidence against him, Hale has been behind bars since January. He is not charged with any violent crimes but the Justice Department repeatedly—and successfully—has sought his pre-trial detention. (McFadden denied Hale’s release in March.)
An informant wore a wire to record a conversation with Hale about a “civil war” and military investigators interrogated nearly four dozen of Hale’s co-workers about his alleged “white supremacist” views. (My column explaining the case here.)
Hale was transported to at least five different prisons before arriving in early February at the D.C. jail specifically used to detain January 6 defendants. More than three dozen January 6 detainees are incarcerated at the D.C. Correctional Treatment Facility awaiting trial or plea offers.
On July 7, the D.C. Circuit Court denied Hale’s appeal seeking release.
McFadden scolded the government for its backwards process. “You would not arrest [someone] then gather evidence later. That’s not how this works.” When Fifield said full discovery is in the best interest of the defendant, McFadden shot back: “Freedom also is important to the defendant.” The Trump-appointed judge raised concerns over Sixth Amendment violations. “This does not feel what the Constitution [and] the Speedy Trial Act envisions.”
Despite the government’s confession that it is not prepared to make its case against Hale, McFadden set a trial date of November 9, 2021. (He did not release Hale, who has no criminal record, from prison.)
“No January Sixer should be made to suffer in a jail cell while the DOJ continues to delay discovery simply because it can,” one defense attorney told me by text this afternoon. “This is unprecedented, unreasonable, unconstitutional, and wrong.”
About Julie Kelly
Julie Kelly is a political commentator and senior contributor to American Greatness. She is the author of Disloyal Opposition: How the NeverTrump Right Tried―And Failed―To Take Down the President. Her past work can be found at The Federalist and National Review. She also has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and Genetic Literacy Project. She is the co-host of ‘Happy Hour podcast with Julie and Liz.’ She is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University and lives in suburban Chicago with her husband and two daughters.
That conflict is no accident. That ideological battle over the insignificant is just what the doctor ordered for the interests of high finance. Or as J. P. Morgan put it,
“By dividing the people, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.”
Myths about the importance of convenience, of connectivity and of globalization were swallowed by the entire population. Critical topics like the scientific method, the control of the means of production and the decision-making process in government, and in other institutions, were forgotten.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
Slowly, against their will, and against their natural inclination to watch football and eat pizza, Americans are awaking to the reality of a totalitarian system with its tentacles wrapped around every aspect of their existence. Sadly, the true nature of this tyranny still eludes the understanding of most citizens, in part because the process by which America was transformed utterly has been slow, in part because the commercial media points us away from the true causes of this slippage and pins all blame on easily identifiable bad guys.
Those seeped in the progressive political tradition sensed a radical loss of justice and transparency under the George W. Bush administration, a trend that only accelerated under the Trump administration—with a perceived reprieve under Obama and the possibility of a positive turn under Biden.
Those marinated in the juices of conservative politics observed an end of freedom and the spread of fake “leftist,” ideology that oppresses the citizen under Clinton and Obama.
Both interpretive communities refer to the same social and political trends, to the war on freedom that renders us up as sacrificial lambs to the cruel gods of global capital. The rhetoric employed by the two groups is so radically different, however, and the histories of the United States that they embrace are so divergent, that they are lost in intense ideological conflicts even as they describe the same creeping totalitarianism.
That conflict is no accident. That ideological battle over the insignificant is just what the doctor ordered for the interests of high finance. Or as J. P. Morgan put it,
“By dividing the people, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.”
The super-rich already had their consultants come up with detailed studies on how to divide up citizens by religion, by ethnic identity, by cultural signifiers, and by class so that they are incapable of unity even in the face of the complete takeover of the economy, the media, education and the political process.
“Progressives” refer to the supporters of Trump in rural areas as “stupid” and fundamentalist Christians refer to the followers of the Democratic Party as “evil.”
This profound misunderstanding is probably reinforced by numerous classified operations in which individuals promoting divisive left-wing, or right-wing, positions are encouraged, and paid, to do so as render those who should have common cause as foes.
There is another reason why we have such a difficult time understanding the transformation of our society. The nature of this totalitarianism runs against the assumptions we were taught by movies, novels, and news reports. Our minds are cluttered with archetypes for dictatorship and evil that are at odds with the reality.
The greatest crime of Hollywood was convincing us that evil takes the form of a monster with fangs and claws, of an evil leader with a sinister smile. Corrupt journalists extend this fiction to the public sphere, explaining how evil is embodied in foreign leaders like Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, or Vladimir Putin, or in domestic ill-doers like Hillary Clinton (for the right) or Donald Trump (for the left).
As a result, we are unable to detect, or to understand, the takeover of our society that has taken place.
Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.
Despite the raging debate over the impact of man-made climate change, left-leaning politicians, lobbyists, and most significantly, billionaires, have declared it settled science, using the issue as a means of gaining control over the energy arena.
Notably, the Rockefellers bankrolled the Columbia Journalism School’s Energy and Environmental Reporting Fellowship Project’s demonization of the oil company.3 However, both Schneiderman’s investigation and Columbia Journalism School’s publications were years in the making.
First published in December 2016, this article is of relevance to an understanding of the ongoing debate on Climate Change as well the Green New Deal, largely controlled by the financial establishment. The Rockefellers also play a key role in World Economic Forum’s Great Reset Proposal.
***
“Beginning in the 1980s, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund became leading advocates of the global warming agenda. … In their Sustainable Development Program Review, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund boasts of being one of the first major global warming activists, citing its strong advocacy for both the 1988 formation of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the 1992 establishment of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.” (excerpt from Report)
The following text is the Executive Summary of a full length report by The Energy & Environmental Legal Institute published in 2016.
This informative report is brought to the attention of Global Research readers. The CRG does not necessarily endorse the title nor the contents of this report.
What is important, however, is to acknowledge the role of the Rockefeller family –which historically was the architect of “Big Oil”– in supporting the Climate Change debate as well as the funding of scientists, environmentalists and NGOs involved in grassroots activism against “Big Oil” and the fossil fuel industry.
Debate on the world’s climate is of crucial importance. But who controls that debate?
There is an obvious contradictory relationship: Whereas “Big Oil” is the target of Global Warming activism, “Big Oil” through the Rockefeller Family and Rockefeller Brothers Trusts generously finance the Worldwide climate protest movement. Ask yourself Why?
Michel Chossudovsky, November 24, 2019, March 6, 2021
The Rockefellers are arguably the wealthiest and most powerful family in the history of the United States. For more than 100 years, they have shaped and directed America’s economic, financial, political, and public policy while simultaneously amassing one of the largest family empires in the modern era.
Most Americans hold the billionaire philanthropists in high esteem, associating the Rockefeller name with “oil” and “capitalism.” In reality, the Rockefellers are intent on controlling nearly every major institution in America, using philanthropy as a means of increasing their influence on the world stage under the guise of advancing various social causes. Their avid opposition to the very fossil fuel industry that made John D. Rockefeller America’s first billionaire shows that the Rockefellers are not political ideologues. Instead, they are mere opportunists who support political agendas convenient to enhancing their leverage in the global arena.
Through the Rockefellers’ web of family foundations, universities, and institutions, as well as huge grants to other charities, they have gained unprecedented influence in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, energy, and the environment. Their highly complex integration of hedge funds, interlocking boards positions, and non-profit organizations has steered public policy on these issues and provided them with foreknowledge of emerging markets and access to the developing worlds’ natural resources.
Since the beginning of their philanthropic endeavors, the Rockefellers have used social causes to amass influence in policy areas of their choosing. Since the 1980s, their cause of choice has been the climate change agenda (originally called global warming). Their crusade to collapse the fossil fuel industry in favor of renewable energy in well-documented, from their involvement in major global climate treaties and organizations – the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1992 to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol – to spending hundreds of millions to advance the renewable energy industry. Through their Sustainable Development Program, the Rockefellers continue to promote their self-serving “clean energy” policies throughout both the federal government and general public.
As the most prolific benefactors of the climate activist movement, the Rockefellers’ impact on the energy industry sees no bounds, as the family’s objectives permeate throughout federal and state energy policy, as well as international social engineering globalist compacts such as Agenda 21. With the immeasurable influence that accompanies mass wealth and power, the Rockefeller empire has proven an effective puppeteer of advancing its main objective: the destruction of the fossil fuel industry to increase its clout over the energy sector.
On November 5, 2015, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (image on the right) launched an unprecedented investigation into ExxonMobil to determine if the company had defrauded investors by not disclosing the risks that climate change could have on its business.1 This occurred only weeks after the Columbia Journalism School’s (CJS) Energy and Environment Reporting Fellowship accused Exxon of misleading the public through its Los Angeles Times article, “How Exxon went from leader to skeptic on climate change.”2
Despite the raging debate over the impact of man-made climate change, left-leaning politicians, lobbyists, and most significantly, billionaires, have declared it settled science, using the issue as a means of gaining control over the energy arena. Research shows that Eric Schneiderman’s legal investigation, as well as Columbia Journalism’s negative portrayal of ExxonMobil were neither objective nor independent. In fact, substantial evidence leads to the premise that both Columbia Journalism School’s accusations against ExxonMobil and Eric Schneiderman’s legal investigation into the oil giant were not only financed, but orchestrated by the Rockefeller family.
Notably, the Rockefellers bankrolled the Columbia Journalism School’s Energy and Environmental Reporting Fellowship Project’s demonization of the oil company.3 However, both Schneiderman’s investigation and Columbia Journalism School’s publications were years in the making.
The Rockefeller Family Fund hosted and led two closed door meetings with prominent climate activists – one in 2012 and one in January 2016. Uncovered emails show that the main issue at both gatherings was how to best take down the fossil fuel industry.4 Aside from key leaders of the Rockefellers’ many foundations, both summits included the major players in the climate movement such as: Matt Pawa (attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law), Sharon Eubanks (director of the Department of Justice’s tobacco litigation effort in the 1990’s and known anti Exxon activist), representatives of Greenpeace, and Carroll Moffit of the Climate Accountability Institute.5 During both summits, Eric Schneiderman was considered the possible catalyst to spearhead the legal investigation, while ExxonMobil was repeatedly mentioned as the possible target.
Schneiderman’s fervent outspokenness against “climate deniers,” and public call to enact policies conducive to increasing renewable energy use made him a perfect and willing candidate.6 When announcing his crusade against Exxon, Schneiderman cited studies from the Rockefeller funded outlets Inside Climate News and Columbia Journalism School’s Exxon reports.7 Revealingly, numerous members of the Rockefeller family had long urged Schneiderman to investigate the oil company.
However, as evidenced in the Rockefeller-hosted La Jolla 2012 meeting report, the family and climate activists needed a well-known, respected, and objectively perceived media outlet to push the public narrative. Although not disclosed in the summit’s documentation, it appears they found one in the Columbia Journalism School. While arguably the most prestigious journalism school in the country, the Columbia Journalism School is not only a beneficiary of millions in Rockefeller donations, it is composed, almost entirely, of professors closely affiliated with the green movement.
In 2013, a year after the plan was crafted, climate alarmist and author of a well-known book condemning ExxonMobil, Steve Coll, was appointed Dean of the Columbia Journalism School.
Not surprisingly, Coll spearheaded the school’s Energy and Environmental Reporting Fellowship’s project that smeared Exxon. Coll is closely tied to the Rockefellers, as he previously chaired the climate change proponent New America Foundation, which received significant funding from the family. These revelations suggest that the Rockefellers used their influence over both the Columbia Journalism School and Steve Coll to put Coll in place as Dean, providing him the platform to do what he had done voluntarily and enthusiastically once before: publically and thoroughly castigate ExxonMobil.
Along with Coll, as a bastion of climate activists, the Columbia Journalism School was likely an eager participant in the plot to smear Exxon. At least seven CJS professors are directly connected to green activist billionaire George Soros, receiving either awards or significant amounts of money from the socialist philanthropist. Moreover, several CJS alumni board members are prominent climate change advocates, including Scott Dodd, and Thomas Watkins.
This report proposes that the assault on ExxonMobil was neither the idea of Eric Schneiderman, nor the Columbia Journalism School. Instead, the Rockefellers, with the help of other billionaires and prominent climate activists, carefully orchestrated both the legal and media investigations into ExxonMobil in an effort to achieve their goal of collapsing the fossil fuel industry to gain control over the energy sector.
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Notes
1 Chris Mooney, “New York is investigating Exxon Mobil for allegedly misleading the public about climate change,” The Washington Post, Nov. 5, 2015, Accessed April 16, 2016.
2 Katie Jennings, Dino Grandoni and Susanne Rust, “How Exxon Went from leader to skeptic on climate change,”Los Angeles Times, Oct. 23, 2015, Accessed April 16, 2016.
3 Susanne Rust, “The Energy and Environment Reporting Fellowship,” Columbia Journalism School website,Columbia Journalism School, Accessed April 16, 2016.
4 Alana Goodman, “Memo Shows Secret Coordination Effort Against ExxonMobil by Climate Activists, Rockefeller Fund,” The Washington Free Beacon, April 14, 2016, Accessed April 28, 2016.
5 Katie Brown, “Wait Till You See These Secret Memos Laying Out Activists’ Plans to Target Exxon,” Energy InDepth, April 15, 2016, Accessed April 29, 2016.
6 “Schneiderman Delivers Speech on #Climate2014: “It’s Time for Action on Climate Change,” YouTube, Sep. 22,2014, Accessed April 20 2016.
7 Jon Entine, “How the Columbia Journalism School Smeared Exxon,” New York Post, March 1, 2016, Accessed April 21, 2016.
Today the names of Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, George Soros, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg are the powerful globalist billionaire oligarchs which come to mind when using power elite analysis to study global governance and technocratic tyranny of the planet’s people and resources
There are those in academia and the elite news media who characterize anyone who raises the impending spectre of a coming “New World Order” as a “conspiracy theorist.” Such “researchers” who attempt to document plans for the implementation of an authoritarian world government with far-reaching political and financial control are simply delusional and suffer from status anxiety, psychological projection, fusion paranoia, conspiracism, or producerism. Since court historian Richard Hofstadter‘s Ur-text in the field, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays, was published in 1965 (following the Goldwater presidential campaign debacle), a thriving sub-genre of debunking screeds have appeared in the academic and popular press attacking these alleged “conspiracy theorists.”
This has been exceedingly disingenuous and deceptive. During this same period we saw the emergence at universities coast-to-coast of what has been labeled “World Order Studies.” For over twenty five years I have had a copy of Peace and World Order Studies: A Curriculum Guide, published in 1978. It is 476 pages in length, and is a collection of introductory essays, course outlines or syllabi from university faculty across the nation (along with a bibliography of books and periodicals) for teaching global studies leading to the implementation of a New World Order. It was published by The Institute for World Order, and contains the following acknowledgement:
Very special thanks are due, also, to the Rockefeller Foundation without whose generous support neither this curriculum guide nor its forthcoming companion manual (Global Interdependence and Human Survival: An Introduction to World Order Studies) would have been possible.
Kinda let the old cat outta the bag, didn’t it David?
“The Associated Press previously reported that SolarWinds hackers gained access to email accounts of then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and members of the department’s cybersecurity staff, whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries.”
Homeland Security cybersecurity gets hacked. Like all the other inept government agencies that fail-watch their budgets get increased.
I am betting the proof that is so elusive shows the real hacker is a small Mediterranean country.
WASHINGTON – The Russian hackers behind the massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign broke into the email accounts of some of the most prominent federal prosecutors’ offices around the country last year, the Justice Department said.
The department said 80% of Microsoft email accounts used by employees in the four U.S. attorney offices in New York were breached. All told, the Justice Department said 27 U.S. attorney offices had at least one employee’s email account compromised during the hacking campaign.
The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that it believes the accounts were compromised from May 7 to Dec. 27, 2020. Such a timeframe is notable because the SolarWinds campaign, which infiltrated dozens of private- sector companies and think tanks as well as at least nine U.S. government agencies, was first discovered and publicized in mid-December.
Jennifer Rodgers, a lecturer at Columbia Law School, said office emails frequently contained all sorts of sensitive information, including case strategy discussions and names of confidential informants, when she was a federal prosecutor in New York.
“I don’t remember ever having someone bring me a document instead of emailing it to me because of security concerns,” she said, noting exceptions for classified materials.
The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts confirmed in January that it was also breached, giving the SolarWinds hackers another entry point to steal confidential information like trade secrets, espionage targets, whistleblower reports and arrest warrants.
The list of affected offices include several large and high-profile ones like those in Los Angeles, Miami, Washington and the Eastern District of Virginia.
The Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, where large numbers of staff were hit, handle some of the most prominent prosecutions in the country.
“New York is the financial center of the world and those districts are particularly well known for investigating and prosecuting white-collar crimes and other cases, including investigating people close to the former president,” said Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham Law School and a former prosecutor in the Southern District.
The department said all victims had been notified and it is working to mitigate “operational, security and privacy risks” caused by the hack. The Justice Department said in January that it had no indication that any classified systems were affected.
The Justice Department did not provide additional detail about what kind of information was taken and what impact such a hack may have on ongoing cases. Members of Congress have expressed frustration with the Biden administration for not sharing more information about the impact of the SolarWinds campaign.
The Associated Press previously reported that SolarWinds hackers gained access to email accounts of then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and members of the department’s cybersecurity staff, whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries.
Russian hackers behind a massive cyberespionage campaign broke into email accounts of prominent federal prosecutors’ offices around the country last year, the Department of Justice said Friday. PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP
The science is settled but the expiration date isn’t. Don’t worry because the FDA knows more about expiration dates than the chemical plant that makes it. Feeling safer?
“The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday sent a letter to shot maker Johnson & Johnson declaring that the doses remain safe and effective for at least six months when properly stored.”
Hundreds of thousands of COVID- 19 vaccine doses were saved from the trash after U.S. regulators extended their expiration date for a second time, part of a nationwide effort to salvage expiring shots to battle the nation’s summer surge in infections.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday sent a letter to shot maker Johnson & Johnson declaring that the doses remain safe and effective for at least six months when properly stored. The FDA’s move gives the shots an extra six weeks as public officials press more Americans to get inoculated.
Similar efforts are happening in multiple states as public health officials try to ensure that soon-to-expire shots are put into arms before they must be discarded.
The surge in infections is largely due to the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, which has
See VACCINES, Page 7A
The FDA sent a letter to shot maker Johnson & Johnson declaring that the doses remain safe and effective for at least six months. AP FILE
Continued from Page 1A
spread rapidly, particularly among unvaccinated people. Inoculation rates have climbed only slightly after a steep fall from their April peak.
“It’s a critically important time. We have children headed back to school in just a few weeks’ time,” said Juliann Van Liew, director of the public health department in Wyandotte County, Kansas.
Federal health officials have shipped an additional 8 million doses of the J&J shot to states that have not yet been used, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccinetracking website. The company did not share expiration dates.
States also report that many Pfizer and Moderna doses are approaching expiration, which is set at six months from the manufacturing date. In Louisiana, about 100,000 Pfizer doses are set to expire in about a week.
Governors are pleading with the public to get vaccinated, and some are offering cash incentives such as $100 payments in New Mexico and New York City, among other places.
Some states set up marketplaces for shot providers or dedicated staff to redistributing about-to-expire vaccines to places that need them. Such efforts are underway in New Jersey, Washington and Wisconsin.
In Iowa and North Dakota, officials say they send vaccines approaching expiration to locations where they are most likely to be used.
“We have a lot of interest from the public in receiving J&J, so if we find doses that may go unused, we will transfer them to providers in need,” said Molly Howell, North Dakota’s immunization director.
Lacy Fehrenbach, deputy director for COVID-19 response for the Washington state Department of Health, said officials want the doses used as efficiently as possible.
“Otherwise, we’re working with our providers to move them around, or, of course, the federal government to get them to other places that need it,” she said.
The J&J vaccine was eagerly anticipated because it involves just one shot and has easy refrigeration requirements, but use of the vaccine has been hurt by several rare side effects.
This month, U.S. health regulators added a warning about links to a potentially dangerous neurological reaction. That followed a break in its use in April after the shot was linked to a rare blood clot disorder. Government health advisers said the benefits of the shot still outweigh the risks.
Also in April, a Baltimore vaccine factory was shut down by the FDA due to contamination problems, forcing the company to trash the equivalent of tens of millions of doses being made under contract for Johnson & Johnson.
Pfizer and Moderna have already supplied more than enough doses to vaccinate all eligible Americans. More than 150 million Americans have been fully vaccinated with the companies’ two-dose shots. By comparison, just 13 million, or 9%, have been vaccinated with the J&J shot.
Nearly 164 million people have been vaccinated, according to the CDC, just over 49% of the U.S. population.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a harrowing testimony before the January 6th Committee, Capitol Police Officer Lenny Burbo revealed his paralyzing fear as MAGA terrorist insurrectionist racists stormed the Capitol.
“I stood there, paralyzed by fear as I held the door open so people could enter,” said Burbo. “As boomer after boomer entered the facility in an orderly line and began to take selfies, I saw my life flash before my eyes. I literally thought I was going to die.”
When asked why he had politely held the door open for everyone to enter the building unimpeded, he replied that he feared for his life and that one of the larger rioters had come up to him and said “step aside cupcake” in an intimidating voice.
“I knew my only option was to step aside or be drawn and quartered by a throng of evil bad people who voted for Trump and are also racist,” he said as tears welled up in his eyes.
Officer Burbo has been awarded a medal of bravery since even though he opened the door for rioters, he really didn’t want to do it, and his heart was in the right place.
The FBI has issued a warrant for the man who called Officer Burbo a “cupcake” and is asking anyone with information to call Nancy Pelosi’s office immediately.
