There’s a Giant, Mysterious Gap in the Omicron Variant’s Family Tree

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. . .So how did omicron rack up so many mutations on its spike proteins, without any intermediate steps of evolution through other variants? Scientists have theories about how that happened, though none are comforting.

First, note that mutations are, to some degree, expected of a virus. As the novel coronavirus began to lose battle after battle to human immune systems and due to human ingenuity (vaccines), the “survivor” viruses tended to be the ones that mutated to effectively ward off human efforts at immunity. Those survivors then pass those traits to the offspring viruses it creates through replication. Thanks to genetic technology, researchers have been able to study those mutant strains and learn about SARS-CoV-2’s “family tree,” so to speak — that is, the relationship between all the variants that stemmed from one another.

Here’s where it gets weird. There is a big gap in the omicron variant’s timeline.

Sequence characteristics in any virus’ genome can be matched in databases with other strains so experts can deduce their origins. Scientists trace these family trees to learn more about a virus’ lineage, and in the hope that this information will help them defeat it. Yet the most recent identifiable sequences on the omicron variant’s genome originate from over a year ago, all the way back to the middle of 2020. This means that scientists cannot link it to currently circulating strains. Yet they know for sure that this strain is very different from the original SARS-CoV-2 strain that brought the world to its knees at the beginning of 2020. . .

One hypothesis is that it developed in an immunocompromised COVID-19 patient. While there is no direct evidence that this happened, scientists do know that viruses can become stronger in the body of a person with a weak immune system, because they circulate for longer — continuing to mutate as they evade the patients’ weakened immune system. A virus that circulates for months in the body of an immunocompromised patient might be able to develop superior survival skills by developing defenses against human antibodies. (Read more from “There’s a Giant, Mysterious Gap in the Omicron Variant’s Family Tree” HERE)

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Pelosi’s Partisan Jan. 6 Commission May Be Headed to Court, as Defendants

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It’s looking more and more likely the members of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s partisan committee assigned to “investigate” the Jan. 6 events at the U.S. Capitol, where dozens, or a few hundred, entered the building and vandalized parts, will be going to court.

As defendants.

Three more individuals, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, broadcaster Alex Jones, and U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., all have begun their own court action, or protest, denying the committee’s authority.

They join a long list of others who already have sued, charging the committee is trying to abrogate the Constitution’s First Amendment with its demands, and isn’t even legitimate because it fails to meet the requirements of the authorizing resolution.

The committee, which is partisan because Pelosi refused to seat the GOP members selected by the minority party and instead recruited two anti-Trump GOP members, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Kinzinger of Illinois, has issued vast and broad demands for statements, evidence, phone records, testimony and much, much more. (Read more from “Pelosi’s Partisan Jan. 6 Commission May Be Headed to Court, as Defendants” HERE)

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CNN Medical Analyst Admits: Non-Surgical Masks Are ‘Facial Decorations’

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CNN medical analyst Leana Wen said Monday on “Newsroom” that cloth masks are “little more than facial decorations” in preventing the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus. . .

Wen said, “I do not think that Mayor de Blasio should be canceling the New York City event because it requires proof of vaccination and it is outdoors. We should be keeping the events that are safe and also the events that are fun for people, too. We can’t be canceling everything, especially if we’re going to be living with COVID for the foreseeable future. I would you say if you choose to go, make sure you’re vaccinated and boosted and wearing a mask. Even though it is outdoors, there are a lot of people packed around you wear a three-ply surgical mask. Don’t wear a cloth mask. Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations. There’s no place for them in light of Omicron.” (Read more from “CNN Medical Analyst Admits: Non-Surgical Masks Are ‘Facial Decorations’” HERE)

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Joe Coughs Through Speech as WH Declares Him ‘Asymptomatic’

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President Joe Biden coughed throughout his speech on coronavirus, even after White House staff claimed he was asymptomatic after coming into contact with a person who later tested positive for the coronavirus.

The president spoke in a hoarse voice and coughed repeatedly as he spoke about the omicron variant of the coronavirus, urging Americans to get vaccinated.

Biden did not wear a mask while speaking, and walked away from the podium without putting his mask back on, even after asking all Americans to wear masks indoors.

But White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the president did not have coronavirus after coming into contact with a mid-level staffer on Air Force One who tested positive for the virus two days later.

“He’s asymptomatic. I spent several hours with him this morning and he is feeling great,” she said, prior to the president’s speech at the White House. (Read more from “Joe Coughs Through Speech as WH Declares Him ‘Asymptomatic’” HERE)

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Chris Cuomo’s CNN Producer Tried to Pay Off Sex Crimes Witness: Feds

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Fired CNN producer John Griffin tried to “deceive, delete, and spend his way out of being held accountable” for his alleged sex crimes against a minor, new court documents allege.

Griffin, 44, was indicted this month by a federal grand jury in Vermont for attempting to “induce minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity,” and allegedly bragged about luring girls as young as 7 to his home for “sexual subservience” training.

The former producer who boasted about working “shoulder to shoulder” with Chris Cuomo was fired by CNN following his arrest and is facing up to 10 years in prison for each of the three counts he is facing in charges involving a 9-year-old girl.

In a motion to keep him in jail until his trial, US Attorney Nikolas P. Kerest said Griffin’s detention is crucial to community safety. He is “a wealthy man who is desperate to avoid facing justice” with a history of mental illness, substance abuse and alleged sexual assault of minor, Kerest said, who cited Jeffrey Epstein court docs in the motion. (Read more from “Chris Cuomo’s CNN Producer Tried to Pay Off Sex Crimes Witness: Feds” HERE)

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Chicago Mayor Who Pushed $80M Defund of Cops Now Pleads for Feds to Save City

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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot — who last year proposed cutting $80 million from her city’s police budget — publicly pleaded with the feds on Monday to bolster the ranks of her city’s cops amid a surge in shootings and homicides.

Lightfoot called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to send agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to the Windy City for a six-month crackdown on illegal guns.

“We cannot continue to endure the level of violence that we are now experiencing,” Lightfoot said during a 40-minute speech. . .

The desperation move made Lightfoot — who’s said she opposes the “defund the police” movement — the second big-city Democratic mayor in days to announce dramatic steps to restore law and order as crime spirals out of control.

On Dec. 14, progressive San Francisco Mayor London Breed — who last year pledged to shift $120 million from the city’s law-enforcement budget to social spending — reversed course during a speech in which she vowed to end “the reign of criminals who are destroying our city.” (Read more from “Chicago Mayor Who Pushed $80M Defund of Cops Now Pleads for Feds to Save City” HERE)

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Democrats Prepare to Dump Joe Biden Now That He’s Served His Purpose; Pelosi’s Majority Crumbles: Three Democrats Announce Retirement Within 24 Hours

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By The Federalist. When The New York Times begins publishing op-eds saying Joe Biden should not run again, and that he should announce it soon, then the gig is officially up. Biden is a lame duck. Perhaps someone should tell him.

Columnist Bret Stephens is right to note that the president would be 86 years old at the time of the next election cycle, and that he now “seems … uneven. Often cogent, but sometimes alarmingly incoherent.” More simply, Joe is old and tottering—and he’s unpopular to a startling degree.

As Stephens notes, even passage of a multi-trillion-dollar “infrastructure” spending bill didn’t boost his numbers much. He suggests the president liberate his party by freeing new (and younger) candidates to begin exploring a path to the presidency.

Sure, the question of Joe’s future “need(s) to be discussed candidly, not just whispered constantly.” At the same time, can we also ask the other obvious question candidly?

Why did the media cover for an elderly septuagenarian with clear age-related issues, thrusting him into a job he was never truly capable of holding—and subjecting the nation to a dangerous period without a strong leader? It’s fine to have a mea culpa moment, and truth delivered late is better than truth denied forever, but as the nation stumbles along with a puppet president there should be some accountability. (Read more from “Democrats Prepare to Dump Joe Biden Now That He’s Served His Purpose” HERE)

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Pelosi’s Majority Crumbles: Three Democrats Announce Retirement Within 24 Hours

By Breitbart. Three vulnerable Democrats announced they would not be seeking reelection to the House of Representatives within 24 hours of each other, bringing the total of House Democrats not seeking reelection to 23.

Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ), Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), and Chairwoman of the House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing immigration issues, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), announced they would not run for reelection within 24 hours of each other.

Sires became the twenty-first Democrat to bow out when he confirmed to the New Jersey Globe he would not seek reelection. He is expected to make an official announcement before the end of the year. While Sires is in a solidly blue district, the announcement came as the state’s Legislative Redistricting Commission has been considering new maps to approve. However, his open seat would reportedly not affect the outcome.

During his time in Congress, he has been a close confidant to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., now that he is the president, voting with Pelosi 100 percent of the time in the current Congress to help pass partisan agenda items.

Murphy became the twenty-second Democrat to fold when she told Politico, “It’s been a real honor for me to serve in Congress, but it does come at a personal sacrifice. My time away has been hard on my family and my kids and on me.” While the proposed redistricting map is waiting to be approved by the Florida legislature, it would essentially delete her congressional seat. (Read more from “Pelosi’s Majority Crumbles: Three Democrats Announce Retirement Within 24 Hours” HERE)

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Switching Sides: Harris Reveals She Doesn’t See Eye to Eye With Biden Regarding Key Issue

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Vice President Kamala Harris refused to blame the unvaccinated for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a noticeably different stance than has been taken by President Biden.

“I don’t think this is a moment to talk about fault,” Harris said during an interview with CBS when pressed on the matter. “It is no one’s fault that this virus hit our shores or hit the world. … It is more about individual power and responsibility and the decisions that everyone has the choice to make.”

Biden has taken a less forgiving stance toward unvaccinated Americans.

“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Biden said in a September address to the nation. “And it’s caused by the fact that despite America having an unprecedented and successful vaccination program, despite the fact that for almost five months free vaccines have been available in 80,000 different locations, we still have nearly 80 million Americans who have failed to get the shot.”

While Harris may not be willing to blame the unvaccinated for the continued spread of the virus, she did make clear that the best thing people can do to protect themselves is to get their vaccine or a booster. (Read more from “Switching Sides: Harris Reveals She Doesn’t See Eye to Eye With Biden Regarding Key Issue” HERE)

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Amazon Deleted Reviews of Chinese President’s Book on Government’s Orders: Report

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Didn’t like Chinese President Xi Jinping’s book? Keep your mouth shut.

That’s what China told Amazon, according to a new report, when the country pushed the bookseller to delete all comments and reviews related to “The Governance of China,” a compendium of Xi’s speeches and writings.

Amazon complied. It’s another example of a US company bending to Chinese pressure in order to keep doing business in the huge and growing economy.

The government edict was delivered two years ago, according to the Reuters report citing two people familiar with the matter, but had never before been disclosed.

Now, on Amazon sites accessed within China, there are no reviews or star ratings for the book. (Read more from “Amazon Deleted Reviews of Chinese President’s Book on Government’s Orders: Report” HERE)

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Likes, Shares and Posts Now Prohibited in Pentagon’s New Anti-Extremism Policy

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Membership in extremist groups is still not prohibited by the Defense Department, but an updated instruction released Monday seeks to prohibit pretty much everything that one might do in association with an extremist group.

The project of defining extremism for the purpose of punishing those who engage it is like “threading a very fine needle, when we’re engaging in prohibiting conduct that may be protected by the First Amendment,” a defense official told reporters Monday, as the Countering Extremism Working group released its final report.

“We wanted to push forward with the same standard that we had in our previous iterations of this policy, which is that active participation,” an official said. “So it was really important to us that we preserve First Amendment rights to the extent that we could, and that we focus on an individual’s actions, regardless of whether they did that on their own or as part of an organization.”

Instead, the new policy expands the previous definition of prohibited activity, for the first time explicitly including online interactions that might promote terrorism or the overthrow of the U.S. government, as well as attending rallies, fundraising or organizing in support of those ideologies.

In practice, online activity could already be prosecuted by the services. In 2019, the Army began investigating Maj. Jeff Poole, an Army Reserve infantry officer at Fort Benning, Georgia, with a prolific Reddit presence advocating for violent anti-government and anti-military insurrection. (Read more from “Likes, Shares and Posts Now Prohibited in Pentagon’s New Anti-Extremism Policy” HERE)

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