US Approves Delivery Drones Over Populated Areas
By VOA News
December 28, 2020
In the not-so-distant future, America's evening skies could be filled with the buzzing sounds of delivery drones.
On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved the use of delivery drones over populated areas at night. Many see the move as the next step to widespread adoption of drone deliveries.
“The new rules make way for the further integration of drones into our airspace by addressing safety and security concerns,” FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said in a statement. “They get us closer to the day when we will more routinely see drone operations such as the delivery of packages.”
Delivery companies like UPS and Amazon have been investing in the technology for years. Both companies have seen surging profits during the coronavirus pandemic as more Americans turn to home delivery for many items, including groceries.
Alphabet’s Wing is also investing in drone technology.
The FAA said the new regulations provide “an essential building block toward safely allowing more complex” drone operations.
According to the new FAA rules, drones of more than a certain weight must have remote identification capabilities and be equipped with anti-collision lights. The FAA also said the drones cannot have any exposed rotating parts that could potentially injure a person.
In some cases, the drones can be operated above moving vehicles “depending on the level of risk.”
The new rules will become effective 60 days after they are published in the Federal Register next month.
Despite the new regulations, Bloomberg reports it will still be years before delivery drones are widely used.
https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-approves-delivery-drones-over-populated-areas
The Real Scandal of the Spending Bill
Written by ron paul
Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
December 28, 2020
Last week Congress passed a massive coronavirus relief and omnibus spending bill. President Trump threatened to veto the bill, saying he wants an increase in the amount for “stimulus” checks authorized by the bill from 600 dollars to 2,000 dollars. The checks are designed to help those harmed by the lockdowns. President Trump also demanded a cut in some of the wasteful spending contained in the bill, such as the ten million dollars for gender programs in Pakistan.
At the 11th hour, however, President Trump signed the bill.
President Trump’s veto threat came after many people complained that a 600 dollars one-time payment was insufficient, and that the payment could be higher if Congress cut spending on militarism, foreign aid, and corporate handouts.
The text of the 5,593-page bill was made available hours before the votes in the House and Senate. Representatives and senators were told the bill had to pass immediately or else government would shut down around Christmas. This does not excuse voting for the bill. Congress should have refused to vote for this bill until members had time to read it. Those who voted “yes” should not get away with claiming the bill needed to be passed before members could read it.
While it is understandable that many are outraged over the way this bill was rushed through, the real outrage is that the rushed passage of omnibus bills has become a yearly Christmas tradition on Capitol Hill. These spending bills are always full of outrageous special interest giveaways. This practice denies the average member of Congress a meaningful role in carrying out one of Congress’ two most significant constitutional duties — funding the government. Congress long ago abandoned its other main constitutional responsibility — declaring war.
Whether 600 dollars or 2,000 dollars, a one-time stimulus payment is hardly adequate compensation for the suffering the government lockdowns have inflicted on the American people. Stimulus checks will not reopen closed small businesses or stop increases in domestic violence and substance abuse. A government check will not restore educational and development opportunities denied to children stuck at home struggling with “virtual education.” A one-time check will not compensate workers for the health problems developed due to having to wear a mask for eight hours a day. The only just solution is to end the lockdowns, and never again allow overblown fears to justify shutting down the economy.
Funding the government via massive omnibus bills drafted in secret and rushed into law concentrates power in the hands of a select few representatives and senators. It also gives the president excessive influence over the appropriations process. This is exactly the opposite of what the Framers intended when they gave Congress power over government spending.
This situation is the inevitable result of a government that tries to maintain the fiction that republican institutions are compatible with a welfare-warfare leviathan. Congress will continue to indulge this delusion until the system collapses. This collapse will likely be brought on by a collapse in the dollar’s value.
The combination of the high-profile coronavirus bill with this year’s omnibus spending bill has brought new attention to Congress’ practice of funding the government via massive, unread appropriations bills. Hopefully, the anger people are expressing, instead of just disappearing once people receive their checks, will strengthen the movement to return to free markets and limited constitutional government. Liberty is a far better option than descent into economic chaos and totalitarianism.
Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/december/28/the-real-scandal-of-the-spending-bill/
Biden, Harris, Trump Staging Georgia Senate Runoff Rallies
By Ken Bredemeier
VOA News
December 30, 2020
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and outgoing President Donald Trump are all planning to campaign in the southern state of Georgia in the final two days ahead of next Tuesday's crucial Senate runoff elections.
Harris is staging a rally Sunday in the Atlantic coastal city of Savannah for the Democratic contenders, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Baptist minister, who is opposing incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, and Jon Ossoff, a television documentary producer who is running against Republican Senator David Perdue.
Biden and Trump both have announced rallies for Monday, the day before the Tuesday in-person voting.
Biden will rally with the two Democrats in Georgia's biggest city, Atlanta, while Trump is stumping for Loeffler and Perdue farther north in Whitfield County at the Dalton Regional Airport. Vice President Mike Pence has previously campaigned in the state for the two Republicans, as have two of Trump's adult children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump…….
For more, read: https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-politics/biden-harris-trump-staging-georgia-senate-runoff-rallies
The Death Toll from Drugs in America
By Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival, Inc.
December 30, 2020
Clueless FBI agents and other law enforcement personnel are scrambling to understand the motives of the Nashville suicide bomber. But a friend says he “loved smoking weed,” as records do show an arrest for marijuana possession. Other descriptions include hippie and long-haired flower child. This is all we need to know about the bomber, Anthony Quinn Warner, who couldn’t think straight and probably suffered from brain damage as a result of heavy drug use. This is America’s future.
In response to a pandemic, unemployment, small business bankruptcies, and suffering in general, Democrats passed a marijuana legalization bill. Marijuana is their “Soma” for our Brave New World under the “Great Reset.”
Soma was the drug that kept people silent and compliant as they became slaves to the World State in the Aldous Huxley novel. Marijuana and other drugs can not only sedate the population but alter the minds of many suffering from the problems of isolation and depression, sparking more suicides, even violence.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that over 81,000 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in the 12 months ending in May 2020, the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period. Most, of course, can be blamed on Chinese-supplied Fentanyl, but marijuana is also playing a role in drug deaths.
I say “other drugs” because Oregon just decriminalized cocaine, meth, and LSD by passing a measured backed by money from billionaires George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg.
It seems that many of America’s billionaires, who have increased their wealth dramatically during the pandemic, want to get America hooked on mind-altering drugs.
In a major victory for the “progressives,” the House Dems voted for the pot industry (228-164) even before Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought up the new China virus “relief” bill that passed both Houses. That demonstrates their priorities.
Our friends to the north, who have been living under the legal marijuana regime of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau since 2018, have known about the disturbing evidence that birth defects have been associated with marijuana use by pregnant women. Marijuana, warned the Canadian Marijuana Victims Alliance, could be the new Thalidomide, the drug marketed in the 1950s and the early 1960s in Europe and Canada as a sleeping pill for pregnant women but which caused thousands of children to be born with missing thumbs, underdeveloped limbs, eye and ear defects, and congenital heart disease.
Anti-drug activist Pamela McColl notes that the Canadian government still officially warns that marijuana should not be used if you are pregnant, are planning to get pregnant, or are breast-feeding, or are a man who wishes to start a family. This is because of the link between THC, the main psychoactive component of marijuana, and birth defects. McColl appeared on my ASI TV show to discuss this threat to young people eager for children.
America has a Food and Drug Administration for a reason. It doesn’t always do its job, and sometimes acts too quickly in approving drugs.
Birth Defects
One excellent FDA reviewer by the name of Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey refused to authorize thalidomide for the U.S. market because she doubted the drug's safety. She resisted the corporate pressure to market the drug for pregnant women in the U.S. and received the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service from President John F. Kennedy in 1962
Today, in regard to marijuana, the FDA “strongly advises” against the use of cannabidiol (CBD), tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and marijuana in any form during pregnancy or while breastfeeding.
Nevertheless, marijuana is flooding the U.S. for “medicinal” and “recreational” purposes. Why? As noted in a new lawsuit against New Jersey officials filed by attorney David G. Evans, it is money, greed, and tax revenue for government. The issue is implementation of State Public Question # 1 that attempts to legalize “cannabis.”
Attorney General Bill Barr, who didn’t detect voting fraud during the election and suppressed news of investigations of Hunter Biden during the campaign, has failed to enforce federal marijuana laws. He was a disgrace and bears some of the blame for allowing this poison to spread across America.
Meanwhile, more cases like that of Andy Zorn will take place. The son of Sally Schindel, he developed a marijuana addiction to the point of having a psychotic break with reality leading to suicide, after leaving a note proclaiming, “Marijuana killed my soul + ruined my brain.” She tells the terrible story in an ASI TV program.
Creating one public health crisis on top of another is of no consequence to the profiteers making money on a bipartisan basis. The Big Pot business guarantees more obedient slaves who will vote to keep the goodies (or marijuana gummies) coming, and result in more financial donations from the slave masters marketing marijuana to the kids and then turning over blood money to the politicians.
Nancy Pelosi’s son Paul was once involved in the pot industry. Former Republican House Speaker John Boehner works for the pot business Acreage Holdings. Matthew Whitaker, who served as the country's top cop for three months after Jeff Sessions resigned from the Department of Justice, works for a CBD firm named Alternate Health Company.
On the Canadian side, Brian Mulroney, the eighteenth Prime Minister of Canada from 1984 to 1993 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 and 1993, is on the board of Acreage.
The company declares, “We deeply believe in the transformational power that cannabis can have to heal and change the world and aim to help it achieve its full potential in helping people to lead better lives.” This is dangerous New Age gibberish.
Meanwhile, Newsmax, supposedly the new “conservative” alternative to Fox, has sent out a “breaking news” alert, with advice on “Using Edible Marijuana Responsibly” from Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Mike Roizen, MDs. The message tells us, “Martha Stewart is now selling gourmet, hemp-derived CBD edibles.” She says, “I can pop 20 of them and just feel OK. But some of my friends do two and feel high. I don't know why.”
Sounds like a bet worth taking, right? Richard Kirk is the Denver man who ate a marijuana gummy, went nuts, and murdered his wife.
The China virus attacks the lungs, in the same way pot does. But pot also attacks the brain, creating more mental illness.
Our already over-stretched health care professionals will just have to spend some of their time trying to calm down stoners going through psychotic episodes linked to pot. They will then want guaranteed national health care to take care of their physical and psychiatric problems.
In terms of COVID-19, pot enables people stuck at home or waiting in lines for free food to get stoned and think about other things. It’s the perfect “cure.” Perhaps smoking dope will replace going to church. Plus, cities get tax revenue from the weed sales. This helps explain why pot shops were allowed to stay open during the lockdowns while churches were closed. Churches don’t pay taxes.
As George Soros, the godfather of drug legalization, undoubtedly realized, pot is the perfect commodity, guaranteed to keep those customers coming back for more, in higher and higher doses. Until, of course, they’re dead.
The money angle is a very important one, not only for the politicians but for the marijuana “industry” itself.
Getting America Hooked for Profit
CNBC and its anchors and analysts are heavily promoting the pot business, even while they shed crocodile tears over hospitals filling up with China virus patients.
CNBC interviewed the CEO of an outfit called “Weed Maps,” which is supposed to be a guide to score pot and “find medical and recreational marijuana dispensaries, brands, deliveries, deals & doctors near you.” These days you don’t have to meet a dirty street dealer in a dark alley. You can buy dope from a “respectable” businessman with a doctor’s “prescription.”
Billions are being made at the expense of public health. These people are shameless in their pursuit of profit and are counting on the Harris/Biden Administration to follow through with legalization of marijuana (and perhaps other drugs) nationally. CNBC’s Jim Cramer regularly promotes pot stocks and predicts legalization under Biden/Harris.
Kamala Harris loves marijuana and Joe Biden knows a lot about it, too. His daughter was busted for weed and his son Hunter experienced harder drugs like cocaine, forcing him out of the military after he was caught snorting.
Reporter Alana Goodman reported, “In 2017 divorce papers, Hunter Biden's then-wife Kathleen stated he spent ‘extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations).’ The same year, it emerged that Hunter Biden was in a relationship with his late brother Beau's widow, Hallie. Hunter Biden separated from Kathleen five months after Beau's death from brain cancer at age 46 in May 2015.”
People like Carla Lowe of Americans Against Legalizing Marijuana are hoping to spark a new parent movement to combat the threat.
But don’t look for any marijuana victim stories on CNBC. The truth will cut into the profits of the pot stock pushers like Cramer.
*Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org
Email: Kincaid@comcast.net
http://www.usasurvival.org/blog/the-death-toll-from-drugs-in-america
2020: The Year We Lost Our Common Sense, Courage and Civil Liberties
By Robert Bridge
Strategic Culture Foundation
December 28, 2020
Once it became clear to the Western elite that their subjects would readily accept draconian anti-Covid measures, it encouraged them to usher in a code-red lifestyle where there will be no ‘return to normal’ in the foreseeable future and, possibly, never.
If nothing else, nobody can say we were not warned about the madness that would descend upon leap year 2020, making it one of the worst 366 days ever recorded on the Gregorian calendar.
On October 18, 2019, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, together with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted the incredibly visionary Event 201, an exercise that simulated the outbreak of a pandemic “transmitted from bats to people that eventually becomes…transmissible from person to person.”
The simulation proved to be so uncannily similar to the real thing that started just three months later – from imagining a dramatic drop in air travel and business, to breaks in the global supply chain – that Johns Hopkins eventually felt compelled to release a statement saying their exercise was not intended to be a prophecy of future events.
“To be clear, the Center for Health Security and partners did not make a prediction during our tabletop exercise,” the statement read, in what just might be the creepiest caveat ever. “For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction… We are not now predicting that the nCoV-2019 outbreak will kill 65 million people.”……
© 2010 - 2020 | Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.org.
The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.
For more, read: https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/12/28/2020-the-year-we-lost-our-common-sense-courage-and-civil-liberties/
