In congressional testimony Wednesday, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel unabashedly defended the company's plans to raise the US list price of its COVID-19 vaccines by more than 400 percent—despite creating the vaccine in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, receiving $1.7 billion in federal grant money for clinical development, and making roughly $36 billion from worldwide sales.

Bancel appeared this morning before the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has long railed at the pharmaceutical price gouging in the US and pushed for policy reforms. After thanking Bancel for agreeing to testify, Sanders didn't pull any punches. He accused Moderna of "profiteering" and sharing in the "unprecedented level of corporate greed" seen in the pharmaceutical industry generally.

Sanders contrasted a recent survey finding that 37 percent of Americans can't afford their prescription drugs to the billions of dollars in profits reaped by drug companies. He noted several times that Bancel became a billionaire overnight amid the pandemic. Bancel is now estimated to be worth over $4 billion, Sanders added.

A new report is shining light on how when he was Vice President, the office of the “big guy” Joe Biden tried to censor a story about Hunter Biden. 

According to Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar:

The office of then-Vice President Joe Biden tried to quash a Bloomberg News story about Hunter Biden at the younger Biden's firm's request, according to 2015 emails published Wednesday.

On Dec. 8, 2015, The New York Times ran an article saying the "credibility of the vice president’s anticorruption message may have been undermined" by Hunter’s serving on the board of Burisma Holdings with its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.

Later that day, Eric Schwerin, who was president of Hunter’s now-defunct investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners at the time, asked the vice president’s then-communications director, Kate Bedingfield, whether there was any "follow up" by other news outlets on the Times article.

Bedingfield, who stepped down last month as White House communications director, responded to Schwerin within minutes, saying a Bloomberg reporter had asked about it but was "doing everything she can to not use it."

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is being accused of hiding hundreds of pages of exculpatory evidence from the New York grand jury.

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett on "Hannity" on Tuesday night accused Bragg of the prosecutorial misconduct and furthermore called for the disbarment of the attorneys involved in the travesty of justice.

On Wednesday evening, the Arizona Supreme Court issued its ruling in regards to 2022 Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s case on the irregularities during the midterm election leading to the court calling for a trial court to reexamine if Maricopa County properly followed signature verification procedures during the election.

Lake brought the case following her defeat in November to former Arizona Secretary of State and current Governor Katie Hobbs (D-AZ). Hobbs, who at the time oversaw the election process as secretary of state, won the governorship with 50.3 percent of the vote, 1,287,890 votes, while Lake secured 49.7 percent of the vote, 1,270,774 votes, according to Politico.

At the time, there were multiple election irregularities on Election Day leading to Lake’s team claiming that voters were disenfranchised. Reportedly, according to Just the News, over 60 percent of the voting centers in Maricopa County were affected on November 8th.

The grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump for his alleged involvement in a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election was told not to show up on Wednesday. However; it has been reported that they are set to reconvene on Thursday.

The news comes amid reports that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is "having trouble" convincing members of the grand jury to hear the case.

According to the Daily Mail, "After hearing evidence on Monday, jurors were told they were not needed on Wednesday, according to two sources familiar with the matter. However, a court official told DailyMail.com that they will sit again at noon on Thursday, when prosecutors 'may present one more witness'."

A source familiar with the matter suggested Bragg and his team "are having trouble convincing the jury to swallow the case," calling it "a weak case [that] has caused divisions in the DA's office."

Others have argued that the decision to delay the meeting with the jury was made to give Bragg time to reconsider his strategy.

Acombative Boris Johnson fought for his political career on Wednesday, as the former British prime minister said "hand on heart" he did not lie to parliament over COVID-19 lockdown parties at a hearing with lawmakers.

Parliament's Committee of Privileges is investigating whether Johnson, who was ousted from Downing Street in September, intentionally or recklessly misled the House of Commons in a series of statements, where he said no rules were broken in the gatherings.

If the committee finds Johnson deliberately misled lawmakers, then he could be suspended. Any suspension longer than 10 days could prompt an election to remove him from his parliamentary seat and end his political career.

The former leader, who considered an audacious bid for a second stint as prime minister last year, launched a lengthy defence at the hearing, saying statements he made to parliament had been done in good faith.

The veteran head of the union that represents court officers in New York has warned that he will hold Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg personally responsible if anyone gets hurt in protests surrounding Donald Trump's possible arrest.

In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com on Wednesday, Dennis Quirk blamed Bragg for creating a 'zoo' like atmosphere around the ex-president's case.

‘I will personally hold him responsible if anybody is injured as a result of this circus atmosphere that he’s created,’ Quirk, president of the New York State Court Officers Association, said.

The Manhattan grand jury expected to consider criminal charges against former President Donald Trump did not meet on Wednesday, triggering speculation that prosecutors have hit problems in building their case.

After hearing evidence on Monday, jurors were told they were not needed on Wednesday, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

However, a court official told DailyMail.com that they will sit again at noon on Thursday, when prosecutors 'may present one more witness.' 

In Florida, Trump left his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach to spend time at his golf club. He was spotted returning in his motorcade, wearing a white polo shirt. 

It suggests it is is business as usual for Trump, who locals say generally plays golf every day from Wednesday through Sunday. 

Not only is most official news media BS, so is most official history.

Some people are aware that Standard Oil, General Motors, Ford, IBM, Wall Street and the Bush-Prescott family were great friends of the Nazis before the war. (Standard Oil and the Bush-Prescotts continued to trade with them throughout the war.)

What is less well known is the logistics that made it possible for the Nazis to track, arrest, guard, transport, manage the camps and execute millions of Europeans of all nationalities and religions during the war.

Contrary to popular myth, it was not Nazi storm troopers who did the dirty work.

The reality is even more chilling – and instructive.

Silicon Valley Bank dished out $219 million worth of loans to officers, directors and principal shareholders in the months before it collapsed.

The money was handed it out in the final quarter of 2022 and was three times higher than the amount borrowed by insiders in the three months before, marking a two-decade record high.

It comes as the San Francisco Federal Reserve boss Mary Daly has felt the wrath of both Democrats and Republicans for her failure to act on signs of weakness at the bank, which caved on March 10.

Silicon Valley Bank dished out $219 million worth of loans to officers, directors and principal shareholders in the months before it collapsed.

The money was handed it out in the final quarter of 2022 and was three times higher than the amount borrowed by insiders in the three months before, marking a two-decade record high.

It comes as the San Francisco Federal Reserve boss Mary Daly has felt the wrath of both Democrats and Republicans for her failure to act on signs of weakness at the bank, which caved on March 10.

A key ingredient commonly found in kitchens could face a shortage in the coming months as global biofuel consumption surges due to climate change initiatives. 

As reported by Bloomberg, Western nations are increasingly adopting plant-based energy sources, such as soybean or canola oils, or even animal fats, in a move to reduce carbon emissions by transitioning away from fossil fuels. This shift has presented a profitable opportunity for vegetable and palm oil producers to redirect some cooking oil supplies toward the transportation sector rather than their traditional use in food production. 

Hot demand for biofuels combined with the war in Ukraine disrupting ag flows and extreme weather in Argentina curbing vegetable oil supplies and other top producers reeling from declining production could push vegetable oil production into a deficit in the second half of the year, according to Thomas Mielke, executive director of Hamburg-based Oil World.

The cascade of defaulted regional US banks is blowing out the circulating inventory of distressed debt which expanded by about $65.9 billion last week as US insolvency courts saw six new, large bankruptcy filings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The heap of dollar-denominated corporate bonds and loans in the Americas trading at distressed levels rose to $295.4 billion in the week ended Friday, a 28.7% increase from $229.5 billion a week earlier, Bloomberg-compiled data show.

At least one person was injured after a rare tornado hit a city just southeast of Los Angeles Wednesday, local officials said.

The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado “briefly touched down” in an industrial park and warehouse district in the city of Montebello and rated the tornado an EF-1 with estimated peak winds of 110 mph – the strongest tornado to hit the Los Angeles area since 1983.

The “intense microcell” damaged at least 17 buildings, 11 so severely the fire department deemed them too dangerous to use, according to Michael Chee, a city public information officer.

“There was flying debris and everything!!!!” tweeted one person who shared a video of the storm. The video zooms in on a mass of dark gray clouds consuming the sky and tapering down toward land.

The reported injury is considered minor, Chee said at a news conference.

During a discussion on the potential Trump indictment, an MSNBC panel claimed that Trump supporters, and anyone else for that matter, are “dangerous” for criticising George Soros.

Perpetual race baiting grifter Joy Reid turned to former CIA officer Tracy Walder, and said “The fact that they keep throwing George Soros’ name, we’ve talked a lot in our show meetings, is it definitely feels like a dog whistle that is dangerous.”

Walder replied, “It absolutely feels like a dog whistle that’s dangerous.”

She continued, “Look, most of these groups, the Oath Keepers, Boogaloo Boys, Proud Boys, they all subscribe to what you are all referring to as the great replacement theory.”

“This is why we see these spikes in racism and anti-semitism,” and “they are ascribing to this belief and it’s stoking this division,” Walder added. 

She then suggested that “Trump has for multiple years now called for a civil war.”

In a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, the podcast's namesake expressed strong support for independent journalists, praising their ability to uncover the truth behind the "vested interests of companies and corporations."

"If it was not for independent journalism, we would be in a pickle, we would be in a really bad state because a lot of people got duped by the … pharmaceutical industry, the medical industry, the military-industrial complex."

Rogan noted that the internet had enabled these journalists to “thrive” in a world dominated by mainstream media outlets that are “so corrupt” and “obviously indebted to the companies that pay for their advertising. If it wasn’t for them, we would be f*cked and it’s one of the beautiful things about the internet today. The internet today allows people like that to thrive, because these mainstream corporations are so corrupt. They’re so obviously indebted to the companies that pay for their advertising."

Webmaster addition: I blush! :)

It is easy to be distracted right now by the bread and circus politics that have dominated the news headlines lately, but don’t be distracted.

Don’t be fooled, not even a little.

We’re being subjected to the oldest con game in the books, the magician’s sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.

This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.

What characterizes American government today is not so much dysfunctional politics as it is ruthlessly contrived governance carried out behind the entertaining, distracting and disingenuous curtain of political theater. And what political theater it is, diabolically Shakespearean at times, full of sound and fury, yet in the end, signifying nothing.

We are being ruled by a government of scoundrels, spies, thugs, thieves, gangsters, ruffians, rapists, extortionists, bounty hunters, battle-ready warriors and cold-blooded killers who communicate using a language of force and oppression.

The U.S. government now poses the greatest threat to our freedoms.

Tanzania has confirmed eight cases of Marburg, a high-death viral hemorrhagic fever with symptoms broadly similar to those of Ebola, in its first-ever outbreak, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO said in a late Tuesday statement that the confirmation by Tanzania’s national public laboratory followed the death of five people in the northwest Kagera region who developed symptoms, which include fever, vomiting, bleeding and renal failure.

The US Army has officially opened its first permanent military garrison on NATO’s "eastern flank" in a ceremony on Tuesday. 

Stretching from the Baltics to the Black Sea, the eastern portion of the North Atlantic bloc is made up of eight nations – all former members of the USSR or Warsaw Pact. The US Army’s V Corps will now have a lasting presence at Camp Kosciuszko in Poland.