NEW YOR K | DC EDITION
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In the News
NEWS
The vast majority of the na-
tion’s small businesses haven’t
required their employees to get
COVID-19 vaccines or tests to
return to work, a government
survey shows. ...A5
Sen. Susan Collins says
that she will support Biden’s
nominee for interior secre-
tary, making Collins the first
Republican senator to back
the candidacy. ... A8
Sen. Marsha Blackburn is
urging Biden to ensure that
the World Health Organiza-
tion chooses investigators
who are free from conflicts
of interest. ... A9
Parler has dropped its law-
suit against Amazon for push-
ing it offline following the Jan.
6 Capitol breach and former
President Donald Trump’s
Twitter ban. ... A6
More than 100 illegal im-
migrants released into Texas
by U.S. Customs and Border
Protection have tested posi-
tive for the CCP virus, officials
say. ... A7
The Senate has ruled that
the $140 million earmark in
the House bill for extending
San Francisco’s Bay Area
Rapid Transit subway system
into Silicon Valley must be
removed, Sen. Pat Toomey
says. ... A6
Chicago Mayor Lori Light-
foot says that the city’s bars
and restaurants can boost
capacity to 50 percent and
stay open longer. ... A4
The House Oversight and
Reform Committee has re-
issued its subpoena seeking
to gain access to Trump’s fi-
nancial records, a court filing
says. ... A8
New York City Mayor Bill
de Blasio says that Gov. An-
drew Cuomo should resign if
an independent investigation
confirms recent allegations
made against him. ... A5
There will be no announce-
ment this week on the nomi-
nee to head the Office of Man-
agement and Budget, White
House press secretary Jen
Psaki says. ... A2
BUSINESS
Twenty-two state gover-
nors are speaking out in oppo-
sition to Biden’s new criteria
for allocating CCP virus relief
funds. ... A18
Environmentalists who call
global warming an “existen-
tial threat” took a big hit as
the midsection of the United
States suffered record winter
weather in February, economist
Stephen Moore writes. ...A19
OPINION
Salena Zito: As an Industry
Faces Destruction, It Grows a
Voting Coalition... A13
Lawrence Solomon: Is the
US Becoming Less Free Than
Russia?... A14
Arthur Milikh: Freedom of
Speech Versus Identity Poli-
tics... A16
FEATURES
Learn the traditional tech-
niques and ingredients for ri-
s
e sotto, a comforting northern
Italian classic, then make the
s
dish your own. ... B1
One of the most enduring
myths of red wine is that the
older it gets, the better it is.
... B8
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Published in New York,
Washington, Houston, Chicago,
Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
| T H U R S D A Y, M A R C H 4 , 2 0 21
RELIEF BILL
Criticism Mounts Over White
House’s COVID-19 Rescue Plan
Americans have more than $3.9 trillion in savings, thanks mainly
to government stimulus benefits that haven’t been spent yet
BY EMEL AKAN
W
ASHINGTON—A
substantial increase
in personal savings
and better-than-
expected tax revenues in many
states have weakened the case for
President Joe Biden’s sweeping $1.9
trillion economic relief bill, which
is now before the Senate.
While Biden continues to defend
his “American Rescue Plan” to fight
Demonstrators hold placards urging Indian citizens to remove Chinese apps in
New Delhi, India, on June 30, 2020.
INDIA
India’s Ban of Chinese Apps Needs
Support: Expert
BY VENUS UPADHAYAYA
News Analysis
NEW DELHI—Just as there is a
physical world, there’s a virtual
world. Gamers and app develop-
ers call it the meta-sphere, and it
daily engages billions of real-
time people.
Predominantly controlled by
Chinese entities, the meta-sphere
gives the Chinese regime infor-
mation that’s needed to control
behavior, as well as a platform for
JUDICIARY
Washington’s
Supreme Court
Decriminalizes
Drug Possession
BY MATTHEW VADUM
Washington’s Supreme Court struck
down a strict liability drug law in
the state that had made possession
of a controlled substance a felony
even if the person didn’t know they
had the drug in their possession.
Continued on A3
Accuracy The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 as an independent newspaper with the goal to restore accuracy and
integrity in media. We have received numerous awards for our reporting, including from the Society of Professional
& Integrity Journalists, the Society for News Design, and the New York Press Association.
Truth & Tradition
President Joe Biden attends a virtual meeting with House Democrats from
the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington on March 3, 2021.
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck
Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks during a
weekly news conference at the U.S. Cap-
itol in Washington on March 2, 2021.
PRAKASH SINGH/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
censorship and propaganda.
India banned Chinese mobile
applications because, according
to James Lee, a former hedge fund
manager who has two decades
of experience investing in the
gaming industry in the United
States and Hong Kong, these apps
were feeding into the metadata
of the Chinese regime’s artificial
intelligence system. In June 2020,
India’s Ministry of Electronics
and Information Technology
Continued on A10
Drug Overdose Deaths at Record
High: Reports
BY CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON
Drug overdose deaths
spiked during the first few
months of the 2020 pandem-
ic-related lockdowns, accord-
ing to provisional data from Fentanyl-
the Centers for Disease Con- laced pills. over the same period in the
trol and Prevention (CDC).
More than 83,500 people died even higher.
from an overdose in the 12-month Continued on A2
VOL . X V I I I
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
the pandemic, a growing number
of critics question the size of the
proposed spending.
During lockdowns last year, many
Americans saved more money than
usual since most stores and restau-
rants were closed. According to a
new report by the U.S. Bureau of
Economic Analysis, personal in-
come soared by 10 percent in Janu-
ary, thanks mainly to government
stimulus benefits.
Continued on A2
IMMIGRATION
Rep. Herrell
Questions Mayorkas
on Immigrants
Entering US
Without Medical,
Crime Checks
Letter to DHS head
says new immigration
policies present ‘clear and
present danger’ to New
Mexico residents
BY MARK TAPSCOTT
Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.) wants
answers from the new Secretary of
Homeland Security about reports
that undocumented immigrants
are coming into the United States
without CCP virus testing or ade-
quate criminal or national security
background checks.
Herrell told the recently con-
firmed Alejandro Mayorkas in a
March 2 letter made available to
The Epoch Times that border poli-
cies he and President Joe Biden
have recently adopted represent “a
clear and present danger” to resi-
dents of her district.
Continued on A6
ILLEGAL DRUGS
period ending July 2020—
an average of 228 deaths
per day.
It’s the highest number
of overdose deaths ever re-
corded, and the final num-
ber, which is up 24 percent
year prior, is expected to be
| N O . 2 , 910 $1.
CONGRESS
House
Democrats
Moving to Pass
Sweeping ‘For
the People’ Act
BY MARK TAPSCOTT
A landmark bill was headed for al-
most-certain passage late on March
3 by the House of Representatives
to federalize and make permanent
many of the election reforms ad-
opted in 2020 by a handful of states
during the CCP virus pandemic.
Everything is at stake.
We must win this race,
this fight for this bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
The election reforms, including
radically expanded mail-in, early,
and absentee voting, as well as
automatic, online, and same-day
voter registration with minimal
verification, were followed by wide-
spread allegations of voter fraud in
seven states that marred the 2020
presidential contest between then-
President Donald Trump and for-
mer Vice President Joe Biden, who
was ultimately declared the winner.
In addition, the measure—the For
the People Act of 2021—requires
states that have not already done
so to establish independent com-
missions for congressional redis-
tricting; restructures the Federal
Election Commission (FEC) as a
partisan-majority rule campaign
regulatory agency; and creates ex-
tensive new restrictions on freedom
of speech during campaigns.
The bill further establishes mil-
lions of dollars in new campaign
Continued on A3
REUTERS/OCTAVIO JONES
Former President Donald Trump speaks
at the Conservative Political Action Con-
ference in Orlando on Feb. 28, 2021.
TRUMP
Democratic,
Republican
Strategists
Welcome Trump
2024 Campaign
BY MARK TAPSCOTT
Former President Donald Trump’s
potential return to the ballot in
2024 is a prospect that makes
Democratic and Republican cam-
paign strategists interviewed by
The Epoch Times happy, but for
profoundly different reasons.
“If Trump runs in 2024, it definite-
ly adds a jolt to the race. The Conser-
vative Political Action Conference
Continued on A7
US–CHINA
BLINKEN
HIGHLIGHTS CHINA
CHALLENGE
“[The Chinese
regime]
the biggest
geopolitical
test of the
21st century,”
Secretary of State
ate
Antony Blinken said.
Read more on A9
A2 | NATION
Criticism Mounts
Over Biden’s
Rescue Plan
CONTINUED FROM A1
The personal saving rate surged
to 20.5 percent of disposable per-
sonal income in January, up from
13.4 percent in December. Amer-
icans now have more than $3.9
trillion in savings compared to
$1.4 trillion in February last year
before the start of the pandemic
restrictions.
“If the next round of $1,400 checks
goes out in April, it will undoubted-
ly boost personal income by a new
record amount to another record
high,” Ed Yardeni, a veteran Wall
Street strategist and president of
Yardeni Research, wrote in a note
to clients.
The surge in savings suggests
that “much of the month’s stimu-
lus hasn’t been spent yet,” he said.
State and local revenues, which
are normally vulnerable to eco-
nomic downturns, have also been
resilient despite the pandemic,
studies showed.
A JPMorgan survey found that
states collected nearly as much
revenue in 2020 as they did in 2019,
based on tax receipts data from 47
states. Some states even saw unex-
pected budget surpluses due to fed-
eral aid and a rise in tax revenues.
“As currently drafted, the Ameri-
can Rescue Plan fails the test,” the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce said
in a statement on March 2, push-
ing for a smaller, more targeted
rescue plan.
White House Says No
Announcement on Neera Tanden
Replacement This Week
BOWEN XIAO
There will be no announcement
this week on who the future nomi-
nee to head the Office of Manage-
ment and Budget (OMB) might be,
according to White House press
secretary Jen Psaki.
“Given Neera Tanden withdrew
her nomination just last night ...
you should not expect any an-
nouncements on a future nomi-
nee this week,” Psaki told reporters
during a March 3 briefing.
Psaki said the withdrawal was a
decision made by Tanden herself,
not the White House. Tanden is the
first nominee who has failed to be
confirmed into Biden’s Cabinet.
“She certainly saw that the path
to her own confirmation was nar-
rowed and did not look like there
Drug Overdose Deaths at Record High, Mexican Cartels Stronger Than Ever: DEA
CONTINUED FROM A1
The CDC issued an emergency
health advisory on Dec. 17, 2020,
alerting public health workers to
the acceleration of overdose fatal-
ities in lockstep with widespread
shutdowns.
“This represents a worsening of
the drug overdose epidemic in the
United States,” the CDC stated.
An analysis by the Well Being
Trust in May 2020 estimates a
possible 75,000 additional “deaths
of despair,” including suicide as
well as drug and alcohol abuse
over the next several years, due
to the shutdown measures.
Illicit fentanyl is chiefly respon-
sible for fueling the continuing
opioid crisis, according to a
March 2 report from the Drug En-
forcement Administration (DEA).
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid
that’s 50 to 100 times more potent
than heroin, highly addictive, and
deadly. Buyers may be unaware
that the drugs they buy contain
illicit fentanyl, of which a 2 mg
dose can be fatal.
“Since the introduction of the
American Rescue Plan, we have
learned that personal savings have
grown substantially with Ameri-
cans saving almost $3 trillion since
the pandemic began, and the ma-
jority of states have not suffered a
significant loss in tax revenue, and
some have more revenue than pre-
pandemic,” the statement read.
“These facts are not a reason for
inaction, but they are a reason to
target aid where it is needed.”
The U.S. House of Representatives
approved Biden’s $1.9 trillion stim-
ulus bill this past weekend, with
no Republican support and two
Democrats voting against it.
The Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has prom-
ised to move the bill as quickly as
possible through the Senate. Mod-
erate Democrats have pushed for
more targeted stimulus payments,
prompting some changes to the
House version of the bill.
Senate Democrats, for example,
consider giving $1,400 checks to
fewer Americans by lowering the
income cap. They also plan to re-
move the language to raise the fed-
eral minimum wage to $15 an hour
after the Senate parliamentarian
ruled last week that the provision
couldn’t be part of a budget recon-
ciliation bill.
To pass the bill, Vice President
Kamala Harris may have to cast
a tie-breaking vote in the Senate,
which is split 50–50 between the
was a path forward,” Psaki said.
“I’m not going to get into the de-
tails of who was or wasn’t against
her ... it was a recognition that
Neera Tanden made.”
According to The Associated
Press, the apparent frontrunner
on Capitol Hill to replace Tanden
is Shalanda Young, a former staff
director for the House Appropria-
tions Committee. Young appears
to have bipartisan support, and
House Democratic leaders on
March 3 announced their sup-
port for her.
In a March 2 statement, Presi-
dent Joe Biden said he accepted
Tanden’s request to withdraw her
name, noting that he still wanted
her to give her a position in his ad-
ministration. Biden didn’t indicate
what that future position for Tan-
Fentanyl is produced in “foreign
clandestine laboratories” and
trafficked into the United States
in powder and pill form, the DEA
report states.
The big killer is counterfeit pills,
known as “Mexican oxys,” which
contain fentanyl and are made
to look like blue Oxycodone pre-
scription pain pills. Mexican car-
tels are manufacturing the pills
using precursor chemicals sup-
plied by China, according to the
DEA. Chinese money-laundering
networks also provide the cartels
with a way to clean their cash.
“The majority of heroin and
fentanyl available in the Unit-
ed States is smuggled overland
across the [southern border],” the
report states. Fentanyl is also be-
ing ordered online and shipped
directly from China through in-
ternational mail and commercial
parcel services.
“China-sourced fentanyl typi-
cally is smuggled in small vol-
umes and generally tested over
90 percent pure,” the DEA report
states.
two parties. Democrats must re-
main united if Biden’s rescue plan
is to get across the finish line.
‘Partisan Spending Bill’
Critics argue that a large stimulus
plan is likely to cause a boom that
overheats the economy, which
might result in higher inflation.
Democratic economist Larry
Summers in a recent op-ed criti-
cized Biden’s “very large” relief
plan, saying that it might threat-
en future inflation and financial
stability.
The Democrats’ plan also in-
cludes the $400-per-week en-
hanced unemployment insur-
ance benefit, which is generous
enough to discourage people
from going back to work, accord-
ing to Summers.
The White House and Demo-
cratic leaders aim to pass the relief
package before current unemploy-
ment benefits expire on March 14.
“For almost a full year now,
new unemployment claims
have exceeded the pre-pandem-
ic all-time high,” White House
ANNA MONEYMAKER-POOL/GETTY IMAGES
Neera Tanden, then-nominee for
director of the Office of Management
and Budget, testifies at her confir-
mation hearing before the Senate
Budget Committee at the U.S. Capi-
tol in Washington on Feb. 10, 2021.
den would be.
“I have accepted Neera Tanden’s
request to withdraw her name
from nomination for Director of
the Office of Management and
Budget,” Biden said. “I have the
utmost respect for her record of
accomplishment, her experience
and her counsel, and I look for-
ward to having her serve in a role
While controlled prescription
drugs have decreased in volume
on the black market, they remain
a major source of addiction and
death. About 80 percent of heroin
users began their addiction with
prescription painkillers, and pre-
scription opioids were involved in
nearly 15,000 U.S. deaths in 2018,
averaging 41 each day, according
to the CDC.
“Hydrocodone products such as
Vicodin or Lortab represent the
most commonly misused sub-
type of prescription pain reliev-
ers overall at 2 percent of the total
U.S. population,” the DEA stated.
Methamphetamines
Mexican cartels have also created
methamphetamine super labs
capable of producing tons of the
drug within days.
“Drug poisoning deaths involv-
ing methamphetamine continue
to rise as methamphetamine
purity and potency remain high
while prices remain relatively
low,” according to the DEA.
As with other drugs, the cartels
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
SAMUEL CORUM/GETTY IMAGES
press secretary Jen Psaki said at
a March 1 press briefing, defend-
ing the president’s plan.
“And the economic data shows
a K-shaped recovery with mil-
lions of workers at risk of being left
behind. That’s why it’s absolutely
critical Congress act, and we cer-
tainly hope they do that as quickly
as possible.”
Republicans have opposed the
plan, calling it a “partisan spending
bill” filled with progressive agenda
items. They argue that less than 9
percent of the spending bill actu-
ally goes toward fighting the pan-
demic, and with less than 1 percent
being dedicated to vaccinations.
“You see, they had to leave room
for all the completely unrelated
left-wing pet priorities, like send-
ing $350 billion to bail out long
mismanaged state and local gov-
ernments,” Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on
March 2 on the Senate floor.
He also criticized, among other
things, the expansion of Obam-
acare insurance subsidies that
would “disproportionately benefit
in my Administration. She will
bring valuable perspective and
insight to our work.”
The OMB manages a $4 trillion
federal budget.
Last week, two Senate commit-
tees delayed confirmation votes for
Tanden, signaling that party lead-
ers believe there wasn’t enough
support for the nominee. Commit-
tee votes are required to advance
a nominee to the Senate floor to
face approval by all 100 senators.
With the Senate split 50-50, Vice
President Kamala Harris could
have cast a tie-breaking vote in
Tanden’s favor. But that wasn’t
an option after moderate Sen.
Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he
wouldn’t vote to approve Tanden.
Manchin’s defection had sent
the White House and Tanden
scrambling to find one Republi-
can backer. But they ultimately
came up empty-handed, even
after a last-minute meeting with
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
on March 1.
Some Republicans have said
they won’t back Tanden, noting her
control the “wholesale metham-
phetamine distribution, while
both Mexican and domestic
criminal groups typically control
retail distribution in the United
States.”
Cocaine
Cocaine trafficking remains
steady and deaths involving co-
caine have increased every year
since 2013, according to the DEA.
Colombian-origin cocaine dom-
inates the market in the United
States, and Mexican cartels con-
trol the wholesale distribution.
“Local U.S. criminal groups
and street gangs facilitate mid-
and retail-level distribution,” the
DEA report states. “Moreover, the
production and distribution of
crack cocaine is mainly handled
by local U.S. criminal groups and
street gangs.”
Florida is a main transit loca-
tion for cocaine trafficking, with
California, Pennsylvania, and
Puerto Rico all experiencing large
amounts of cocaine seizures by
law enforcement.
Senate Minority
Leader Mitch
McConnell
(R-Ky.) holds
a press
conference
following the
Senate GOP
policy luncheon,
on Capitol Hill in
Washington on
March 2, 2021.
wealthier people.”
The relief bill makes Afford-
able Care Act subsidies available
to the affluent by removing the
income cap, which is four times
the federal poverty line ($51,520
for an individual and $106,000 for
a family of four).
“House Democrats’  COVID
legislation  would, for this year
and next, eliminate the cap on
subsidy eligibility, and lower the
specified premium percentages,
such that households qualifying
for exchange subsidies would
spend no more than 8.5 percent
of income on premiums for bench-
mark coverage,” Chris Jacobs, a
health policy expert and CEO of
Juniper Research Group, said in
a recent op-ed.
This change “would come at a
major cost to taxpayers, subsidiz-
ing coverage for households earn-
ing hundreds of thousands of dol-
lars,” Jacobs said.
According to estimates, the pro-
vision could provide a $3,000 sub-
sidy to a couple earning $200,000
this year.
numerous incendiary statements
that had insulted conservatives,
including sitting lawmakers. She
has called Sen. Tom Cotton (R-
Ark.) a “fraud” and alleged that
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was
beholden to Russia. In addition,
she wrote in an essay that opposi-
tion to abortion became “success-
ful as a political cudgel, helping
isolate extreme anti-choice advo-
cates from the mainstream.”
“That one seems to have crossed
a different line for me,” Sen. James
Lankford (R-Okla.) told Tanden
during her recent confirmation
hearing.
Tanden apologized for her past
statements and defended deleting
hundreds of tweets. “I think the
last several years have been very
polarizing, and I apologize for my
language that has contributed to
that.”
Tanden is the leader of the cen-
ter-left think tank the Center for
American Progress.
 Zachary Stieber and Reuters
contributed to this report. 
Marijuana
The illicit marijuana market is
turning to more domestic prod-
uct as more states have legalized
recreational cultivation and use.
But, the DEA says, Mexico pro-
vides the most foreign marijuana.
“Domestic use of marijuana
remains high and is likely to in-
crease as state legalization con-
tinues and perception of risk by
potential users continues to de-
crease,” the DEA report states.
“The high availability of high-
potency marijuana, marijuana
concentrate products, and trendy
paraphernalia will likely continue
to entice potential users.”
Marijuana concentrates are
more prolific, especially among
young people, who often ingest
them via electronic cigarettes
and vaping devices; they’re also
available in edible products. Il-
licit concentrates, often distilled
using butane, can contain more
than 90 percent delta-9-tetrahy-
drocannabinol (THC), the psy-
choactive ingredient in mari-
juana.
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
House Democrats Moving to Pass
Sweeping ‘For the People’ Act
CONTINUED FROM A1
funding sourced from corpo-
rations, requires disclosure of
donors to religious and nonprofit
advocacy groups, and enables
incumbent congressmen and
their challengers to receive a
salary from campaign funds.
During a news conference on
the U.S. Capitol steps earlier in
the day, Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) com-
pared the floor debate on H.R. 1
to the bitterly cold Valley Forge
winter encampment in 1776 by
the American Revolutionary
troops, which many historians
consider the low point of the war
of independence.
“Everything is at stake. We
must win this race, this fight for
this bill, because at the same
time we are gathering here to
honor our democracy, over 200
bills are being put together to
suppress the vote,” Pelosi said.
She was referring to efforts in
multiple state legislatures since
November 2020 to tighten up
voter registration, ballot count-
ing and security, and election-
day procedures. Democrats typi-
cally condemn such proposals
as efforts to make it more diffi-
cult for minority voters to cast
ballots, while Republicans argue
the measures are needed to pre-
vent voter fraud.
The comprehensive scope of
the bill prompted House Rules
Committee ranking minority
member Tom Cole (R-Okla.) to
remark during the debate: “This
is a bill that’s about preserving
the present Democratic major-
ity. It is a bill by the majority, for
the majority, and is intended to
entrench the majority in power
for years to come.”
And House Administration
Committee ranking minority
member Rep. Rodney Davis (R-
Ill.), who managed opposition
presentations during the floor
debate, focused on the provision
that diverts funds paid by corpo-
rations on a multitude of federal
Washington’s Supreme Court Decriminalizes Drug Possession
CONTINUED FROM A1
This unexpected judicially or-
dered decriminalization of drugs
in Washington has state lawmak-
ers in Olympia scrambling to put
together some kind of legislative
fix, which could take the form of
a recriminalization or a legisla-
tively ordered formal decriminal-
ization of drug possession. Those
accused of drug possession under
the state law are being released
from jails across the state and ar-
rest warrants are being rescinded.
The Feb. 25 decision in State
of Washington v. Blake by the
Supreme Court of the State of
Washington is also forcing lo-
cal authorities to drop charges
pending against drug defendants
across the state.
The 5–4 ruling stems from
charges against Shannon Blake
of Spokane, who challenged the
law after being convicted in 2016
of possession of a controlled sub-
stance, a felony that could lead to
a sentence of prison time and a
$10,000 fine.
A small bag of methamphet-
amine was reportedly found in
the coin pocket of Blake’s jeans.
She claimed a friend had bought
the jeans secondhand and that
she was unaware of the pres-
ence of the drugs. A trial court
determined Blake “had not met
her burden to prove that her pos-
session was unwitting,” and con-
victed her.
Blake filed an appeal, but the
Court of Appeals held that the
law didn’t require the state to
prove intent on the part of the
defendant.
“Washington’s strict liability
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks on the For The People Act of 2021 on the steps of the U.S. Cap-
itol in Washington on March 3, 2021.
fines to campaign donations for
congressmen.
“The Democrats’ number
one priority is a bill that funds
their own campaigns. H.R. 1
would launder corporate dol-
lars through the Treasury and
use those dollars to publicly
fund congressional campaigns.
Based on the 2020 fundraising
numbers, that creates access to
more than $7 million in public
funds to bolster my colleagues’
campaign coffers by providing
a 6-to-1 funding match to small
donations,” Davis said.
“I know when I speak with my
constituents back home, estab-
lishing a program that helps
me acquire more money for my
campaign is not what they think
the federal government should
be working on.”
The House spent most of
March 2 and into March 3
debating 56 amendments ap-
proved by the Democratic lead-
ership for floor consideration.
The Temple of Justice, where the Washington Supreme Court meets, in
Olympia, Wash., in this file photo.
drug possession statute ... makes
possession of a controlled sub-
stance a felony punishable by
up to five years in prison, plus a
hefty fine; leads to deprivation
of numerous other rights and
opportunities; and does all this
without proof that the defendant
even knew they possessed the
substance,” Justice Sheryl Gordon
McCloud wrote for the majority.
“This case presents an issue of
first impression for this court:
Does this strict liability drug
possession statute with these
substantial penalties for such in-
nocent, passive conduct exceed
the legislature’s police power?”
McCloud wrote.
Washington was the only U.S.
state that didn’t require pros-
ecutors to prove intent under its
felony drug possession law, which
runs afoul of both the state and
federal constitutions, she wrote.
“The due process clauses of the
state and federal constitutions,
Only 7 of the 56 were introduced
by Republicans.
One of the amendments was
introduced by Rep. Ayanna
Pressley (D-Mass.) and would
have mandated that 16- and
17-year-olds be allowed to regis-
ter and vote in federal elections.
The Pressley amendment was
defeated, while all but a handful
of the other amendments were
approved.
The huge H.R. 1 measure was
rushed through the House
by Pelosi and House Majority
Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) with
minimal committee hearings or
markups.
The bill’s supporters out-
side of Congress were drawn
mainly from progressive non-
profit advocacy groups, Demo-
cratic campaign activists, labor
unions, environmentalists, and
Silicon Valley corporations.
Opponents of the measure
outside of Congress included
the National Disability Rights
CACOPHONY VIA WIKIPEDIA/CC BY-SA 3.0
along with controlling decisions
of this court and the United States
Supreme Court, compel us to con-
clude that the answer is yes—this
exceeds the State’s police power.”
The absence of mens rea, or
criminal intent, in the statute isn’t
necessarily a problem, the justice
wrote, because “the legislature
can still create strict liability
crimes in certain circumstances
... to protect the public from the
harms that have come with mod-
ern life by putting the burden of
care on those in the best position
to avoid those harms,” but the
“government cannot criminal-
ize essentially innocent conduct.”
This rule “against criminaliz-
ing essentially innocent conduct,
does not have such exceptions,
and it applies with special force
to passive conduct—or noncon-
duct—that is unaccompanied by
intent, knowledge, or mens rea.”
Not convinced by the majority’s
reasoning, Justice Charles John-
ERIC BARADAT/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Network, which worried about
the increased use of paper bal-
lots; a coalition of 130 nonprof-
its that oppose being forced to
disclose the names of donors; 16
secretaries of states and other
state election administration
officials; and nine former FEC
commissioners.
A nearly identical bill passed
the House in 2019 but went no-
where in the then-Republican-
controlled Senate. This time
around, passage in the Senate
remains uncertain, as the up-
per chamber is split evenly be-
tween the two parties, leaving
Vice President Kamala Harris to
break ties.
But if Republicans filibuster
the proposal, as seems likely,
Senate rules require 60 votes to
“invoke cloture,” which limits
debate to 30 hours and then re-
quires a vote on final passage.
Contact Mark Tapscott at
Mark.Tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
son wrote a dissenting opinion
that three other members of the
court joined.
“The legislative power to enact
strict liability crimes remains
consistent and undiminished,”
he wrote.
“Our continued recognition of
this legislative power applies with
special force in this case given the
length of time that the crime of
possession of a controlled sub-
stance has been upheld as a strict
liability crime. The constitutional
analysis in the majority’s decision
is not convincing enough to out-
weigh those considerations.”
King County Prosecuting Attor-
ney Dan Satterberg told local me-
dia that he’s looking into whether
the decision could be retroactively
applied, and called upon the state
legislature to fix the statute.
Conservative officeholders in
the state expressed alarm at the
court ruling.
“Hundreds and hundreds, if
not thousands and thousands,
of violent offenders–murderers,
rapists, child molesters–will now
be released onto our streets earli-
er,” King County Councilmember
Reagan Dunn, formerly a federal
prosecutor, said in a statement.
“In my review of the case as a
former prosecutor, this ruling
is retroactive because the law is
described by the Supreme Court
as unconstitutional,” Dunn said.
“This ruling will impact cases
involving violent offenders, who
will need to be re-sentenced be-
cause felony drug convictions
now cannot count toward their
offender score. Therefore, they
will very likely receive a lower
sentence.”
NATION | A3
CHRIS DELMAS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
A selection of Goya food products in
a Los Angeles supermarket on July
11, 2020.
Trump Says
‘Buy Goya Foods’
After New Calls
for Boycott
IVAN PENTCHOUKOV
Former President Donald Trump
encouraged Americans to buy
Goya Foods products after the
company faced new calls for a
boycott over remarks made by
its chief executive at the Con-
servative Political Action Con-
ference (CPAC) in Florida over
the weekend.
Goya Foods CEO Robert Un-
anue described Trump as “the
actual president of the United
States,” sparking a new wave of
calls on social media to cancel
the brand.
Unanue described
Trump as ‘the
actual president of
the United States.’
“This man is great—real cour-
age. Buy Goya Foods. Thank you,
Robert,” Trump wrote in mark-
er over a printout of an article
about the boycott calls.
Trump’s spokesman, Jason
Miller, shared a photo of Trump’s
note on Twitter.
When he appeared briefly
on stage as a featured guest at
the Reagan Dinner at CPAC on
Feb. 27, Unanue received one of
the most enthusiastic reactions
from the attendees.
“It’s just an honor to be here.
But my biggest honor today is go-
ing to be that I think we’re going
to be on the same stage as, in my
opinion, the real, legitimate, and
the still actual president of the
United States, Donald J. Trump,”
Unanue said.
He added jokingly: “Sorry
Twitter, I’ve already been can-
celed. You can’t do it again. No
way.”
Trump had expressed his
support for Goya Foods when
the company faced calls for
a boycott in July 2020. At the
time, the president’s daughter,
Ivanka Trump, also showed her
support by sharing a photo of
herself holding a can of Goya’s
black beans and tweeting the
company’s slogan, “If it’s Goya,
it has to be good.”
“Goya Foods is doing GREAT.
The Radical Left smear machine
backfired, people are buying like
crazy!” Trump wrote on Twitter
on July 15, 2020.
Unanue prompted that boy-
cott over remarks he made at
the White House, where he had
appeared with Trump for the
creation of an advisory panel
on spurring Hispanic prosperity.
“We’re all truly blessed at the
same time to have a leader like
President Trump who is a build-
er, and that’s what my grandfa-
ther did,” said Unanue, the third
generation of his family to run
the business.
In December 2020, Unanue
jokingly named Rep. Alexandra
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) as Goya’s
employee of the month after her
call for a boycott resulted in a
10-fold sales spike.
Goya’s board of directors cen-
sured Unanue earlier this year
for his comments about the 2020
election. The board wanted to re-
move Unanue, but was stymied
only by the regulations of the
family-owned business; it end-
ed up prohibiting Unanue from
speaking to the media about the
company’s politics without per-
mission from the board.
A4 | NATION
NRCC Chair Defends Ads Labeling
Democrats as Socialists
IVAN PENTCHOUKOV
The chairman of the National Re-
publican Congressional Commit-
tee on March 3 defended political
ads aired during the 2020 cam-
paign that labeled Democrats in
swing districts as socialists.
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told
Politico Live that the ads were
honest because the Democrats
they targeted failed to stand up to
the socialist agenda being pushed
by the burgeoning progressive
wing of the Democratic party.
“We’re going to be very honest.
When your conference is heading
down the direction of this radical
socialist left agenda—which we’re
seeing again happen—and you’re
not standing up to fight it and
you’re not standing up to speak
up and wrestle to take back my
grandfather’s Democratic party
we love so much, you’re going to
own it. You’re going to own the en-
tire agenda,” Emmer told Politico
Live. “And that’s honest.”
Emmer argued that the socialist
caucus of the Democratic Party is
far larger than the self-identified
group of democratic socialists
knows as “The Squad,” the most
prominent member of which is
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
(D-N.Y.). Emmer noted that more
than 100 House Democrats co-
sponsored the Green New Deal
resolution introduced by Ocasio-
Cortez during the last Congress
and nearly half of House Demo-
FBI’s Wray Commits to Improving Flow of Information to Lawmakers
TOM OZIMEK
FBI Director Christopher Wray
has committed to improving
the flow of information from the
agency to lawmakers after being
pressed on the issue during a Sen-
ate hearing on March 2.
Speaking at the Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing, Sen. Sheldon
Whitehouse (D-R.I.) accused the
FBI of stonewalling information
requests, expressing concern
that, over the past four years, the
agency hadn’t answered the ma-
jority of lawmakers’ questions in
hearings involving FBI witnesses.
“There were nine hearings in this
committee in which the FBI was a
witness, and in seven of them, the
committee got exactly zero ques-
tions for the record. Seven. Zero
questions. Can you explain that?”
the Rhode Island senator said.
“I cannot,” Wray replied,
prompting Whitehouse to press
him on the matter.
“Are you going to do any better
with the questions that we’re get-
ting right now?” Whitehouse said.
“You’ve been asked questions for
the record. Are they going to go
into the same, whatever-it-was
hole where questions for the re-
cord go to die at the FBI?”
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Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) arrives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 3, 2019.
crats signed onto the Medicare
for All bill, which is the signature
policy of self-described demo-
cratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sand-
ers (I-Vt.).
“You need to stand up. You need
to speak up. And you need to be
very bold and very loud about
fighting these radical leftist poli-
cies,” Emmer said. “Otherwise,
we’re going to make sure that the
voters are very clear that Republi-
cans stand for the individual, that
FBI headquarters in Washington on June 30, 2018.
Wray said the process of an-
swering for-the-record questions
requires the FBI to go through “an
elaborate interagency process”
and that the agency is “required
to comply with the interagency
process to provide our responses
to questions for the record.”
Dissatisfied with Wray’s re-
sponse, Whitehouse complained
that the FBI didn’t “seem to go
through any interagency process”
in response to some questions
from Republicans about the in-
vestigation into the origins of the
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Republicans stand for people’s
right to self determine, to be the
best they can possibly be with-
out government telling them what
that is, versus this new socialist
agenda that the Democrats are
literally embracing and pushing
from the other side of the aisle.
“Those that are opposed to that
aren’t being given a voice or don’t
have a home. They should con-
sider joining us.”
Republicans didn’t lose a single
CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
FBI’s probe into Russian interfer-
ence into the 2016 election, which
later morphed into former special
counsel Robert Mueller’s inves-
tigation into an alleged criminal
conspiracy between Russian
operatives and members of the
Trump campaign.
Mueller’s probe, which former
President Donald Trump de-
nounced as a “witch hunt,” found
insufficient evidence of any col-
lusion.
“When it’s a question that’s
suddenly of interest to one party
— CHRISTINE CART WRIGHT
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THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
SAMIRA BOUAOU/THE EPOCH TIMES
incumbent race during the 2020
election, gained 14 seats, and fell
just five seats short of regaining
the majority in the House. Demo-
cratic Congressional Campaign
Committee Chairman Rep. Sean
Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) said last
week that the left’s losses were due
to the Republicans using unfair
caricatures that portrayed Demo-
crats as socialist and as support-
ers of the movement to defund
the police.
and to President Trump, there
seems to be a little side road that
gets built around the traffic jam
and stuff just flies right through,”
he said. “So please don’t tell me
about interagency process, when
I’ve been sitting in this commit-
tee, watching FBI information get
straight to this committee, with-
out interagency process.”
Whitehouse then asked Wray
whether he thinks “Congress
deserves responses to questions
from executive agencies as part
of our oversight responsibility.”
“Yes, absolutely,” the FBI direc-
tor replied, adding that he had
added staff to “significantly”
reduce the backlog of requests
and the “turnaround time” for
responding to them.
“Senator, I commit to working
with you to try and see how we
can improve our responsiveness
and to getting you more of the in-
formation you need,” Wray said,
although he insisted that his re-
sponsiveness to the committee or
Congress overall was “absolutely”
not affected by partisanship.
“I will commit to you that I will
do what I can to improve the pro-
cess. I am frustrated as you are,
and obviously we need to get bet-
ter,” he said.
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Chicago Eases
COVID-19
Restrictions,
Boosts Restaurant
Capacity to 50
Percent
TOM OZIMEK
Chicago’s restaurants and bars
can boost indoor capacity to 50
percent and stay open longer, in
the city’s latest move to ease CO-
VID-19 restrictions in response
to what Mayor Lori Lightfoot said
was continued adherence to public
health guidelines.
“We are further easing COVID-19
regulations on Chicago business-
es,” Lightfoot said at a press confer-
ence. “Effective immediately, in-
door capacity at bars, restaurants,
and other businesses can increase
to the lesser of 50 percent, or 50
people per space,” she said, adding
that bars and restaurants will now
be able to stay open until 1 a.m.
Lightfoot also said alcohol sales
can now continue until 11 p.m., up
from the current cutoff of 9 p.m.,
and indoor fitness class size can
increase to 20 people.
“This progress can be attrib-
uted to the sustained effort that
we have been seeing across all of
our reopening metrics because
people are still adhering to the
public health guidance. It makes
all the difference in the world,” the
mayor said.
Chicago has reached—and sus-
tained for two weeks—at least the
“Moderate-Risk” level in four key
metrics: COVID-19 cases per day,
test positivity rates, emergency
department visits, and intensive
care unit bed occupancy.
“As part of the established road-
map for a cautious and careful
reopening, other regulations will
remain in place for the time be-
ing, including the capacity limit
of no more than 50 people within
any one space at bars, restaurants,
events and other venues,” Light-
foot’s office said in a statement.
“I am thrilled that we have
reached 50 [percent] capacity, but
I again call on all of our businesses
and residents to double down on
what works. We must remain dili-
gent as we continue to move for-
ward cautiously and responsibly,”
she said in a statement.
Sam Toia, president of the Illinois
Restaurant Association, hailed the
move in remarks to the Chicago
Tribune, calling it “another step
in the right direction.”
He said he hopes the city will fur-
ther raise the occupancy cap for
private gatherings to 150 people as
more events—such as weddings—
take place in the spring.
Toia also told the outlet that he
has lobbied for restaurant workers
to be moved up the vaccine prior-
ity list, calling them “crucial com-
ponents of the food supply chain
and an integral part of the state’s
infrastructure.”
Department of Public Health
Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady
told the Chicago Tribune that the
city is currently not considering re-
vising its vaccine eligibility criteria
for restaurant employees.
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
NYC Mayor Says
Cuomo Should
Resign If Allegations
Are Proven True
BOWEN XIAO
New York City Mayor Bill de Bla-
sio said the state’s Gov. Andrew
Cuomo should resign from his
post if an independent investi-
gation confirms some of the re-
cent allegations made against
him, including the nursing home
scandal and sexual harassment
claims.
State Attorney General Letitia
James confirmed in a statement
on March 1 that they are moving
forward with an “independent
investigation into allegations of
sexual harassment claims,” that
were made against the governor.
The findings of the review will be
disclosed in a public report.
De Blasio said Cuomo should
“of course” resign if any of the re-
cent claims are proven correct,
during an interview with CNN’s
Jake Tapper.
“I don’t see how anyone can
function as a governor and have
the trust of the people and the
respect of the people, if they pur-
posefully covered up the deaths
of thousands of our seniors, our
elders, family members, beloved
family members who are gone,”
de Blasio said on March. 1.
“If you cover that up, or if you
did things for reasons that had to
do with politics or contributions,
and if you’ve sexually harassed
young women in your employ-
ment, these are disqualifying re-
alities. How could anyone look
Members of the National Guard patrol the streets in Washington on Jan. 19, 2021.
Pentagon Says Domestic
Extremists Pose Serious
Threat to US Military
ISABEL VAN BRUGEN
Domestic extremists pose a seri-
ous threat to the U.S. military by
seeking to add service members
to their ranks, and joining the
armed forces to boost their com-
bat skills, according to a report
from the Pentagon.
“Military members are highly
prized by these groups as they
bring legitimacy to their causes
and enhance their ability to carry
out attacks,” the Defense Depart-
ment report, compiled last year at
Congress’s request and published
on March 2, warns.
“In addition to potential vio-
lence, white supremacy and white
nationalism pose a threat to the
good order and discipline within
the military.”
The report didn’t elaborate on
how many white supremacists
are current or former military
members, or whether the threat
is currently growing, but offered
a number of examples of service
members with extremist affilia-
tions, and said the issue has be-
come a growing concern in recent
years.
This week, the FBI classified the
Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol
the people in the face after that?”
he said. “If these allegations, if
these charges are proven, there’s
just no way he can govern.”
There are increasing bipartisan
calls for Cuomo to resign or be
impeached.
On March 2, six New York Dem-
ocrats issued a letter calling for
Cuomo’s impeachment over his
handling of the state’s CCP (Chi-
nese Communist Party) virus re-
sponse and the mounting sexual
harassment allegations against
him. Cuomo, 63, has been ac-
cused of harassment by three
women, two of whom are former
aides. He has also been under fire
for withholding COVID-19 death
data from state lawmakers and
the public.
As the fallout continued to
grow, New York’s state legislature
announced on March 2 that it
had reached a deal to repeal
the governor’s emergency pow-
ers. State Senate Majority Leader
Andrea Stewart-Cousins and
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie,
both Democrats, made the an-
nouncement but didn’t specify
when a vote will be held.
Some members of the New York
Congress are also now consid-
ering running against Cuomo
in 2022 amid the growing scru-
tiny.  Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.)
and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) both
indicated that they will consider
a run against Cuomo, with Zeld-
in moving forward by making a
SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
building as domestic terrorism.
In the weeks that followed the in-
cident, more than than two dozen
people with military links were
charged, including an Army Na-
tional Guardsman from Virginia,
a Navy officer, and a retired Air
Force lieutenant colonel.
According to the Military Times,
officials estimate that one in five
of those charged in the aftermath
of the breach were either current
or former service members.
“Despite a low number of cases
in absolute terms, individuals
with extremist affiliations and
military experience are a concern
to U.S. national security because
of their proven ability to execute
high-impact events,” the report
states.
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin on
Feb. 5 directed all commanders
and supervisors at every level of
the military to conduct a one-
day “stand down” by early April
to hold “needed discussions” on
extremism in the ranks.
“We will not tolerate actions
that go against the fundamental
principles of the oath we share,
including actions associated with
extremist or dissident ideologies,”
he wrote in a memo at the time.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (L) and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio speak during a press conference on COVID-
19 in New York on Mar. 2, 2020.
statement on Twitter about his
intention.
Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Gra-
ham (R-S.C.) defended Cuomo’s
right to due process, saying he
believes all sexual assault al-
legations should be treated the
same, whether they are directed
toward Democrats or Republi-
cans. Graham cited the treat-
ment of conservative Supreme
Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh
by Senate Democrats during his
confirmation hearing.
“We had days and weeks of
hearings, we had another FBI
investigation, we took it seri-
ously. And what should you do
as Democrats regarding Cuomo?
Do exactly what Republicans did,
call for an independent investiga-
tion, take it seriously,” Graham
told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
New York state health officials
underreported COVID-19-related
“The events on Jan. 6, which
were extreme in and of them-
selves, in which there were mem-
bers, sadly, of the active duty
force, participating and espous-
ing these radical beliefs, and I
think that, I know that, the events
of Jan. 6 served as a wake-up call
for this department,” Pentagon
spokesperson John Kirby said
last month. “It certainly served
as such for the secretary.”
Last month, the Department of
Homeland Security announced
almost $2 billion in state and lo-
cal preparedness grants, with at
least $77 million allocated to di-
rectly combat domestic violent
extremism.
The department said that it had,
for the first time, marked domes-
tic terrorism as a “national prior-
ity area” for preparedness grants.
Homeland Security chief Ale-
jandro Mayorkas said in a state-
ment that the most significant
terrorist threats now come from
“small groups of individuals who
commit acts of violence motivat-
ed by domestic extremist ideo-
logical beliefs.”
Mayorkas described the Jan. 6
breach as a “brutal example of our
suffering.”
Five people died on Jan. 6—
one protester who was shot by a
Capitol police officer inside the
building, three others due to
medical conditions on U.S. Capi-
tol grounds, and a Capitol Police
officer, who died in the hospital a
day after protecting lawmakers at
the U.S. Capitol.
ALEX BRANDON/AP PHOTO
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin
during a media briefing at the Penta-
gon in Arlington County, Va., on Feb.
19, 2021.
nursing home deaths by as much
as 50 percent in some places, ac-
cording to a report released by
Attorney General Letitia James.
The  76-page report  released
Jan. 28 follows an investigation
by James’s office into claims of
neglect of patients and other
conduct that allegedly led to the
deaths of nursing home residents
and employees.
Not long after that report, a
top aide to Cuomo apologized
to  Democratic lawmakers for
withholding data on virus
deaths in nursing homes in an
effort to  avoid scrutiny from
federal prosecutors. The admis-
sion of the alleged coverup was
made by Secretary to the Gov-
ernor Melissa DeRosa during a
video conference call with state
Democratic leaders on Feb. 11,
according to an audio recording
obtained by the New York Post.
Most Small
Businesses
Not Requiring
COVID-19 Tests,
Vaccines for
Employees
TOM OZIMEK
A vast majority of the nation’s
small businesses haven’t required
their employees to get COVID-19
vaccines or be tested to return to
work, although there were signifi-
cant differences across sectors, a
government survey shows.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s Small
Business Pulse Survey, released
last week and based on data col-
lected from some 25,000 respon-
dents from Feb. 15–21, sought to
measure the effects on small busi-
nesses of changing operating con-
ditions because of the COVID-19
outbreak.
Besides questions on how over-
all business has been affected by
the pandemic, the survey also
asked whether the business re-
quired its workers to test negative
for COVID-19 and whether em-
ployees were required to provide
proof of vaccination before physi-
cally coming to work.
Nationwide, 70.1 percent of busi-
nesses said they don’t require a
negative test, while 10 percent said
they do, and 19.9 percent replied
“not applicable, this business did
not have employees physically
coming to work in the last week.”
Regarding proof of vaccina-
tion, 78.4 percent of businesses
said they don’t require it, while 2.2
percent said they do, and 19.4 per-
cent replied “not applicable, this
business did not have employees
physically coming to work in the
last week.”
Granular data showed signifi-
cant differences across sectors,
however, both in testing and vac-
cination.
Health care was by far the larg-
est sector requiring a vaccine,
with 4.9 percent of its respondents
checking that box, followed by ac-
commodation and food services
NATION | A5
ANGELA WEISS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Cuomo’s office has denied the
allegations of the first two women
who came forward. In a state-
ment on Feb. 28, he acknowl-
edged that some of his interac-
tions with women “may have
been insensitive or too person-
al.” The statement maintained
that Cuomo has “never inappro-
priately touched anybody” and
said his office would cooperate
with an investigation.
The governor has stopped short
of a full apology over his role in
the nursing home scandal while
acknowledging that because
they failed to answer questions
from the public, the state created
a void “filled with skepticism,
and cynicism, and conspiracy
theories which furthered the
confusion.”
Jack Phillips and Isabel van Brugen
contributed to this report.
(2.4 percent), and construction
(2.3 percent).
Also leading the field in testing
requirements was the health care
sector (15.5 percent), followed by
construction (11.7 percent), and
manufacturing (11.3 percent).
The results of the survey come
as the U.S. vaccination drive is
picking up speed and a third vac-
cine is on the way.
As COVID-19 vaccine shipments
to states are ramping up, nearly 20
percent of the nation’s adults have
received at least one dose and 10
percent have been fully inoculat-
ed, according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC).
Johnson & Johnson’s newly au-
thorized one-shot vaccine has
started shipping, with nearly 4
million doses dispatched over the
weekend. The company expects
to deliver about 16 million more
doses by the end of March and a
total of 100 million by the end of
June.
At the same time, states eager
to reopen for business are eas-
ing restrictions. Massachusetts
on March 1 made it much easier
to grab dinner and a show, while
Iowa’s governor recently lifted
mask requirements and limits
on the number of people allowed
in bars and restaurants. The two
biggest metropolitan areas in
Missouri—St. Louis and Kansas
City—are relaxing some mea-
sures, and Chicago’s mayor an-
nounced that indoor restaurants
and bars could start operating at
increased capacity.
Concerned about easing restric-
tions, the head of the CDC, Dr.
Rochelle Walensky, on March 1
warned state officials and ordi-
nary Americans not to let down
their guard, saying she is “really
worried about reports that more
states are rolling back the exact
public health measures that we
have recommended.”
“I remain deeply concerned
about a potential shift in the tra-
jectory of the pandemic,” she said.
“We stand to completely lose the
hard-earned ground that we have
gained.”
The Associated Press
contributed to this report.
A6 | NATION
HOLLIE ADAMS/GETTY IMAGES
Parler Drops
Lawsuit Against
Amazon for
Pushing It Offline
Following
Capitol Riots
JACK PHILLIPS
Social media website Parler has
dropped its lawsuit against Ama-
zon for pushing it offline follow-
ing the Jan. 6 Capitol breach and
the banning of former President
Donald Trump on Twitter.
Parler, which is favored by con-
servatives, was offline for more
than a month before the website
came back online in February.
According to court documents
filed on March 2, Parler dropped
its case that alleged Amazon
Web Services violated antitrust
laws and made a politically mo-
tivated decision to suspend its
services. It also claimed that Am-
azon dropped Parler to benefit
Twitter, which also uses Amazon
Web Services.
In January, a judge rejected
Parler’s suit demanding that
Amazon restore services to its
platform.
Amazon, in response to Par-
ler’s lawsuit, said the platform
allegedly ignored warnings to ef-
fectively moderate posts that al-
legedly called for violence. Parler
said there is no evidence that it
failed to moderate such content,
while some observers noted that
Twitter allows certain users to
post threatening messages and
doxx other users, while failing
to take the appropriate action.
In a court filing, Parler’s law-
yers argued that an Amazon
Web Services representative
appeared to be only concerned
about whether Trump would
join Parler after he was banned
from Twitter, Facebook, and
other platforms in early January.
They cited alleged text messages
between the representative and
former Parler CEO John Matze,
who was terminated from his
employment at the company
last month.
Parler later tapped Mark Meck-
ler as the firm’s CEO.
Meckler told The Epoch Times
last month—after Parler restored
its website—that Twitter and
Facebook view Parler as a threat
to their businesses, while assert-
ing that there were considerably
more posts about Jan. 6 violence
on Facebook, Instagram, and
Twitter than Parler.
“If you look at the actual num-
bers,” there was “barely a blip
on Parler,” Meckler said. “It was
Facebook. It was YouTube, it was
Twitter. That’s where the bad ac-
tivity was taking place, for the
most part.”
In the wake of the riot, a Forbes
report refuted claims from Face-
book COO Sheryl Sandberg
and others that Parler was used
heavily during the U.S. Capitol
breach. The Forbes article cited
data from the Program on Ex-
tremism at the George Wash-
ington University, finding that
charging documents related
to the Capitol breach mention
Facebook 73 times, YouTube is
mentioned 24 times, Facebook-
owned Instagram is mentioned
20 times, and Parler is men-
tioned eight times.
“I think this was a political
hit. And I actually think it was
a business hit,” Meckler said.
“They were trying to stifle free
speech, I think they don’t like
the idea that people can go
online and say whatever they
want to say, as long as it’s le-
gal. ... They’re opposed to that
philosophy. The second is ... a
business threat. Our model is
entirely different than the other
social media platforms.”
New Mexico’s Herrell Wants Answers
From Mayorkas on Immigrants Entering
US Without Medical, Crime Checks
CONTINUED FROM A1
“According to numerous me-
dia reports, the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) is re-
leasing thousands of aliens into
the United States without CO-
VID-19 tests where Title 42 has
been abrogated for what appear
to be political reasons,” Herrell
told Mayorkas in her letter.
Title 42 is a regulation issued
under former President Donald
Trump in 2020 that directed DHS
agents to return to their country
of origin all illegal immigrants
stopped at the U.S. border who are
suspected of being health risks,
either because they tried to evade
screening measures or were sub-
ject back home to quarantining.
Herrell cited a statement by
Brandon Judd, president of the
National Border Patrol Council,
saying that U.S. Border Patrol
agents no longer test illegal aliens
released by the agency.
Herrell told The Epoch Times
in a March 2 interview that she’s
especially concerned about the
resumption of “catch-and-re-
lease” because “we are seeing
now where criminal aliens are
starting to come into America.
We know from previous informa-
tion that, once they come into the
country, there is no guarantee
that they will show up for their
court hearing.”
“In fact, in some cases when
they have a tracking device, an
ankle monitor, they just cut those
off, then they’ve gone into the na-
tion and there is no way to locate
them.”
Herrell said the resumption of
catch-and-release in the absence
of effective health screening is es-
pecially damaging to residents in
her district because New Mexico
“has just been ravaged by COVID.”
“We’ve been in lockdown for
over nine months, our schools
are not open, we have an incred-
ible high rate now of teen suicide,
we’ve had an incredible number
Pelosi’s $140 Million Silicon Valley Subway Earmark Nixed by
Senate Parliamentarian
MARK TAPSCOTT
Big trouble appears to be brew-
ing in the U.S. Senate over the $1.9
trillion “American Rescue Plan”
for CCP virus relief approved by
House Democrats on Feb. 27.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), the Sen-
ate Banking Committee’s ranking
Republican, said on March 3 the
Senate parliamentarian ruled
that the $140 million earmark in
the House bill for extending San
Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Tran-
sit (BART) subway system into
Silicon Valley must be removed.
“Expanding Silicon Valley’s
subway has nothing to do with
COVID-19 relief and should not
have been included in the House
bill,” Toomey said in a statement.
“While I am pleased that the
Senate Parliamentarian agreed
with us that this earmark is im-
permissible, this bill remains a
partisan, liberal grab bag mas-
querading as a COVID relief bill.
“Congress’ priority should be
supporting the vaccine rollout
process, facilitating the safe re-
opening of small businesses, and
getting kids back in the class-
room—all of which are essential
if we are to restore our economy
to pre-pandemic levels.”
The BART earmark is the second
major feature of the House bill
ruled out by the Senate parliamen-
tarian. Previously, the provision of
the bill providing for a nationwide
increase of the minimum wage to
$15 an hour was tossed.
The problem for Democrats is
two-fold: First, less than 10 per-
cent of the funds covered by the
A family of Central American asylum seekers arrives to a bus station after being dropped off by U.S. Border Patrol
agents in Brownsville, Texas, on Feb. 25, 2021.
of people with coronavirus and
other illnesses sadly being alone
in hospitals or in senior living fa-
cilities, we’ve had many people
who were not able to do basic
medical preventative procedures
because of COVID, and we’ve had
over 300 companies shut their
doors for good,” Herrell told The
Epoch Times.
Herrell, who was reelected in
November 2020 to the seat she
had lost in the 2018 election, told
Mayorkas that his department
now appears to be “relying on
local non-governmental orga-
nizations (NGOs) to test aliens
and quarantine them. This is
unacceptable as an alien, once
released, has no obligation to
remain in the care of an NGO or
submit to a COVID-19 test.”
“This says nothing of places
where NGOs are unable to pro-
vide such testing. This creates a
clear and present danger to our
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks during a press confer-
ence at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 2, 2021.
$1.9 trillion bill is for vaccines and
vaccine distribution, according to
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.
Va.). The bill does include $400
billion in $1,400 relief checks, but
most of the rest will go toward a
laundry list of government agen-
cies and projects having nothing
to do with battling the disease that
originated in Wuhan, China.
Among such spending are $350
billion to bail out high-tax, high-
spending state governments such
as New York and California, $86
billion to rescue dozens of finan-
cially ailing union pension pro-
grams, and $1.5 million for the
Seaway International Bridge—in
upstate New York—favored by
Senate Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Second, congressional Demo-
crats opted to bring the bill for-
ward under the arcane budget
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
border communities and national
security,” she said.
Herrell also questioned May-
orkas about a recent meeting in
which federal officials admitted
they are releasing immigrants into
the United States without screen-
ing for national security alerts.
“Additionally, I remain con-
cerned that during a Feb. 16, 2021,
DHS and Department of State staff
call on the Biden administra-
tion’s decision to allow reentry of
those removed under the Migrant
Protection Protocols (MPP), the
administration admitted aliens
are being admitted to the United
States without security and crimi-
nal background checks that are
comprehensive and current in the
country of origin and countries of
transit,” Herrell wrote.
“This is a critical safeguard as
background checks in the United
States would likely not expose a
criminal record of an illegal alien
WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
reconciliation process, which
imposes strict limits on what
kind of spending is appropriate.
The trade-off was the process only
requires a simple Senate major-
ity for passage, whereas the usual
Senate procedure is subject to
filibusters that require 60 votes
to break.
That decision put Senate Parlia-
mentarian Elizabeth McDonough
in the position to determine
whether specific provisions of
proposed legislation satisfy the
reconciliation requirements.
The $140 million earmark that
was championed in the House
by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca-
lif.)—in whose district much of the
funds would be spent—was first
discovered in February by mem-
bers of Toomey’s committee staff.
The project has been in the
planning stages for years with-
JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES
that has never entered the coun-
try before.
“The State Department admit-
ted on the call with staff that they
did not conduct any type of back-
ground checks on aliens in MPP.
While DHS indicated they run
a suite of background checks in
their databases within the United
States, they also stated they do
minimal checks outside the coun-
try and shared they do not have
access to many nations’ criminal
background check systems.”
Much of the background infor-
mation and data that is available
from many foreign nations are in
analog formats and subject to cor-
ruption, misrepresentation, and
other problems that make such
systems all but useless, she wrote.
DHS did not respond to a request
for comment.
Contact Mark Tapscott at
Mark.Tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
out reaching a ground-breaking.
Estimates of the ultimate cost of
the project are close to $7 billion,
with completion planned in 2030.
One of the biggest boring ma-
chines in the world is required for
much of the tunneling involved
in the project around the Santa
Clara area, which is phase two of
the BART program. Santa Clara is
home to numerous Big Tech firms
and employees.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told the
Senate on March 3 that earmarks
such as Pelosi’s “subway to no-
where” and Schumer’s “bridge to
nowhere” show that “Democrats
are back to their old spending
games.”
“Most of the 1.9 trillion dollars
within the Democrats’ ‘COVID’
package has absolutely nothing to
do with COVID,” Ernst said.
“Unlike the previous five pan-
demic relief bills that were ap-
proved with overwhelming bi-
partisan support, Democrats have
shown no interest in working with
Republicans and are instead fast-
tracking this highly partisan bill
through Congress.
“The bulk of this budget-bust-
ing bill is devoted to fulfilling a
wish list of long-time liberal pri-
orities, including—billion-dollar
bailouts, progressive program
expansions, and pricey partisan
pet projects.”
House Democrats also approved
last week a return of earmarks,
which had been banned since
2011.
Contact Mark Tapscott at
Mark.Tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
Democratic,
GOP Strategists
Welcome Trump
2024 Campaign
CONTINUED FROM A1
(CPAC) polling shows he is still the
most powerful figure in the GOP,
albeit with shrinking support,” said
Washington-based Democratic
strategist Kevin Chavous.
“Democrats do not and should not
fear Donald Trump, mainly because
he lost the popular vote convincing-
ly in both 2016 and 2020. For every
die-hard Trump supporter, there are
nearly two ‘resisters’ who will vote
for anyone but Trump.”
During Trump’s presidency,
Chavous said, “an anti-Trump move-
ment ... ultimately overshadowed
and surpassed the MAGA [Make
America Great Again] movement.”
“A 2024 Trump run will almost cer-
tainly result in Democrats retaining
the White House,” he said.
Christy Setzer, a former national
campaign spokesperson for former
Vice President Al Gore and commu-
nications chief for the AFL-CIO, said
the prospect of another Trump cam-
paign in 2024 will help Democrats
retain their current congressional
majorities.
“It’s a good thing, to an extent. For
Democrats, 2022 represents an ex-
istential threat for democracy. If we
don’t keep the House and Senate,
there’s a very real fear that Republi-
cans use redistricting and voter sup-
pression laws to keep Democrats a
permanent minority party,” Setzer
told The Epoch Times.
“That means Dems must keep the
108 Illegal Immigrants Released by Border Patrol
in Texas Tested Positive for COVID-19: Officials
JACK PHILLIPS
More than 100 illegal immigrants
released into Texas since late Jan-
uary by U.S. Border Patrol agents
have tested positive for the CCP
virus, which causes COVID-19,
officials said.
Felipe Romero, a spokesperson for
Brownsville, Texas, told Fox News
that 108 migrants tested positive for
the CCP virus since Jan. 25—when
rapid testing began. That represents
about 6.3 percent of the total un-
documented migrants who were
rapid-tested at Brownsville’s bus
station, the official said.
Officials at the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), the
agency that oversees the Border
Patrol, didn’t immediately respond
to a request by The Epoch Times for
comment.
Romero told Fox that the city
doesn’t have the authority to halt
migrants who test positive for the
virus from traveling anywhere else
in the United States, although of-
ficials have advised them to quar-
antine and follow federal health
guidelines.
“The City of Brownsville continues
to follow all guidelines provided by
the CDC and [Department of State
Health Services] for COVID-19. The
migrants who test positive at the B-
Metro facility are advised of quar-
antine procedures and are asked
to socially distance,” Romero also
told Noticias Telemundo Investiga.
“There are several NGOs provid-
ing resources to a positive case,”
he said to the outlet. “For example,
organizations help with quaran-
tine either in a shelter or at a hotel.
Since the City started testing the
migrants on January 25, there has
been 6.3 percent of positive cases.
The Cameron County positivity
rate is 13.8 percent.”
Several illegal immigrants told
Noticias Telemundo Investiga that
they tested positive for the CCP
virus after taking a rapid test in
Brownsville, which is located near
the U.S.-Mexico border.
base engaged and motivated, and
the specter of Trump always is good
for that, as are genuine policy wins,
like the COVID relief bill.” Setzer is
the founder and president of New
Heights Communications in the na-
tion’s capital.
Democrats control the House of
Representatives by only 10 votes and
the Senate is split 50-50 between the
two parties, with Vice President Ka-
mala Harris holding the tie-break-
ing vote. The party that controls the
White House often loses seats in the
first congressional elections after
winning the presidency.
But Robin Biro, who was a 2008 re-
gional campaign director for Presi-
dent Barack Obama, told The Epoch
Times that he hopes Trump declines
a third White House run.
“My peers on the left are in lock-
step agreement that it is a huge boon
for us if former President Trump
were to run again in 2024, because
he never got above 50 percent pop-
ularity during his four years and
would likely lose again,” Biro said.
“But to me, I think him running
again is a bad thing for my party and
for our country. His CPAC speech
was riddled with untruths, which
will be believed by many as gospel
truth, not the least of which is him
telling the ‘big lie,’ that he won the
2020 election.”
Trump, according to the Atlanta-
based Biro, “will say and do any-
thing to get the revenge that he seeks
and to win.”
A nurse gives a rapid COVID-19 test to a Honduran immigrant after she and her
family were released by U.S. immigration authorities at a bus station in Browns-
ville, Texas, on Feb. 24, 2021.
About 6.3 percent
of the total undocu-
mented migrants
who were rapid-
tested for COVID-19
at Brownsville’s
bus station
tested positive.
“We were tested for COVID and
they separated about eight of us
because we were positive,” Mir-
iam Izaguirre, of Honduras, told
Noticias Telemundo Investiga on
March 2. “We are waiting right
now.” She was waiting to catch a
bus to Houston.
Some illegal immigrants who told
the network they had tested posi-
tive said they are planning to go to
New Jersey, Maryland, and North
Carolina.
Eva Orellana, 29, told the outlet
that she’s planning to go to North
Carolina.
“On the way, we were wearing a
mask all the time, gel, washing our
hands,” she said. “Really, I don’t feel
anything.”
Former President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference, held at the Hyatt Regency
hotel in Orlando on Feb. 28, 2021.
The Conserva-
tive Political
Action Confer-
ence polling
shows he is still
the most pow-
erful figure in
the GOP.
Kevin Chavous,
Democratic strategist
JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas),
whose congressional district lies
partially on the border, told Fox
News this week that the surge of
migrants along the border may turn
into a full-fledged crisis.
“It is not a crisis yet, but it will be-
come a crisis,” Cuellar warned. “The
numbers have been increasing, and
as your report just said a few min-
utes ago, the numbers are just in-
creasing every day. The number of
unaccompanied kids, the number
of families who are coming in are
just increasing every day.
“In my district, just a couple of
days ago: 166 people. And it goes
on, and just different numbers are
going up. So, it’s not a crisis yet, but
it’s going to get there very soon.”
The Democrat noted that his con-
cern isn’t just about the increase in
migrants—but also the virus.
“You add COVID-19 on top of that.
You add a lot of the border commu-
nities are not getting the vaccines
fast enough. The fact they aren’t
letting Mexican legal visa holders
come across, but they’re letting un-
documented people in, that does
cause a concern to me and a lot
of my border community leaders
down there,” he said.
“I learned to never count the man
out and not to underestimate him,
so no, I don’t think it’s good for us if
he runs in 2024. In fact, it’s almost
giving me a PTSD response,” he said.
By contrast, Republican strategists
interviewed by The Epoch Times
mostly see reinforcement for their
party in a 2024 Trump effort, as
Brian Darling explained.
“The fact that President Trump
left the door open to another run
is good, because it will keep the re-
cord numbers who voted for Trump
in 2020 engaged towards the 2022
midterms and 2024,” said Darling,
former senior counsel to Sen. Rand
Paul (R-Ky.) and president of Liberty
Government Affairs.
Darling expects his party to retake
congressional majorities in 2022 “as
a referendum on the extreme poli-
cies of the Biden Administration,
ranging from the so-called Equality
South Carolina Senate Votes to Add
Firing Squad to Execution Methods
ISABEL VAN BRUGEN
The South Carolina Senate vot-
ed on March 2 in favor of a mea-
sure that added firing squads as
an alternative execution method
for the state’s death-row inmates.
A bipartisan group of lawmak-
ers voted 32–11 to give the bill a
second reading. The measure,
which would allow the state to
restart executions after nearly
a decade, states that the firing
squad method may be used
only if the state can’t execute
condemned inmates by way of
lethal injection.
Currently, South Carolina isn’t
able to place inmates on death
row as its supply of lethal in-
jection drugs has expired, and
it hasn’t been able to purchase
more due to a shortage nation-
wide. The state’s last execution
was in May 2011.
At present, condemned in-
mates are able to choose between
the electric chair and lethal
injection, and since the drugs
aren’t available, many have cho-
sen the lethal injection method
as the state is then unable to force
inmates to be executed by means
of electrocution.
The Senate bill keeps lethal in-
jection if the state has the drugs,
but requires prison officials to
use the electric chair if it does
not. An inmate could choose a
firing squad if they prefer.
The state has been unable to
purchase lethal injection drugs
for about five years, as drug man-
ufacturers seek to limit how their
products are used. As a result,
two scheduled executions so far
have been pushed back.
“For several years, as most of
you know, South Carolina has
not been able to carry out ex-
ecutions,” state Sen. Greg Hem-
bree, a co-sponsor of the bill,
told the Senate floor, The State
reported. “Families are waiting.
Victims are waiting. ... The state
is waiting.”
The House is considering a sim-
NATION | A7
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
Act to the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan
for Democratic priorities.”
Richard Manning, president of
Americans for Limited Government,
agreed, saying that “it is important
that President Trump defend his
incredibly strong legacy,” and not-
ing that “the potential of a Trump
presidency is a political necessity to
pull together the opposition to the
insanity being pushed by Biden,
Pelosi, Schumer and their Big Tech
brownshirts.”
Another GOP strategist who asked
not to be identified, however, was
anything but encouraged by a
Trump 2024 campaign.
“If Trump runs and wins the nomi-
nation in 2024, it will show that the
Republican Party has made the shift
to a populist party, rather than a
party that embraces conservative
ideals or small government,” the
strategist said.
Currently, South
Carolina isn’t able
to place inmates
on death row as
its supply of lethal
injection drugs has
expired.
ilar bill without the firing squad
option, but it could also consider
the Senate version after a proce-
dural vote finalizes the bill later
this week.
To date, there are 37 inmates on
death row in the state.
Late last year, the Department
of Justice (DOJ) amended its pro-
tocols to allow executions to be
carried out by alternatives that
include electrocution, firing
squad, and poison gas.
Effective Dec. 24, 2020, the lat-
est rule allows authorities to al-
low death sentences to be carried
out by lethal injection or use “any
other manner prescribed by the
law of the state in which the sen-
tence was imposed,” with some
states permitting methods such
as inhaling nitrogen gas or death
by firing squad.
Former President Donald
Trump repeatedly expressed
support for capital punishment
and restarted the practice at the
federal level last year after a 17-
year hiatus. Trump argued that
executions serve as an effective
deterrent and an appropriate
punishment for some crimes,
including mass shootings and
the killings of police officers.
President Joe Biden, mean-
while, is the first sitting U.S. presi-
dent to openly oppose the death
penalty and has discussed poten-
tially instructing the DOJ to stop
scheduling new executions, ac-
cording to The Associated Press.
Tom Ozimek and
The Associated Press
contributed to this report.
A8 | NATION
House Committee
Reissues Subpoena
for Trump’s
Financial Records
JANITA KAN
The House Oversight and Reform
Committee reissued its subpoena
seeking to gain access to President
Donald Trump’s financial records,
according to a court filing.
The subpoena re-
news a request to
Trump’s account-
ing firm Mazars
USA to hand over
eight years of fi-
nancial records.
The subpoena renews a request
to Trump’s accounting firm Ma-
zars USA to hand over eight years
of financial records involving the
former president and his busi-
ness as part of a probe into alle-
gations about Trump’s financial
statements.
Trump went to the federal court
to challenge the original sub-
poena to block its enforcement
shortly after it was issued in April
2019. That subpoena expired in
January when new lawmakers
took office.
Attorneys for each party in the
case informed the judge on March
2 that the subpoena had been reis-
Biden: States Should Vaccinate Teachers
Against COVID-19 by End of March
ZACHARY STIEBER
President Joe Biden called for
states on March 2 to prioritize
getting teachers at least one
shot of a COVID-19 vaccine by
the end of the month, even as he
acknowledged that schools can
be reopened without educators
and child care workers getting
a vaccine.
“Let me be clear: We can re-
open schools if the right steps are
taken, even before employees are
vaccinated. But time and again,
we’ve heard from educators and
parents that they have anxieties
about that,” Biden said in remarks
from the White House.
“So as yet another move to help
accelerate the safe reopening of
our schools, let’s treat in-person
learning like an essential service
that it is. And that means getting
essential workers who provide
that service—educators, school
staff, child care workers—get
them vaccinated immediately.
They’re essential workers.”
Teachers’ unions across the
country have pushed for officials
to make COVID-19 vaccines avail-
able to teachers before making
them return to classrooms for in-
person learning, even as studies
indicate and officials say vacci-
nations aren’t required to safely
reopen schools.
COVID-19 is the disease caused
by the CCP (Chinese Commu-
nist Party) virus, also known
as SARS-CoV-2.
According to the White House,
more than 30 states have taken
steps to prioritize teachers and
other educators for vaccination.
Biden urged others to do the same.
“My challenge to all states, ter-
ritories, and the District of Co-
lumbia is this: We want every
educator, school staff member,
and child care worker to receive
at least one shot by the end of
the month of March,” he said,
adding that his administration
would use its federal pharmacy
program to prioritize vaccinating
pre-K through 12th-grade work-
ers, as well as others who spend
sued by the new Oversight panel
to Mazars on Feb. 25. They also
submitted a schedule on how the
parties would proceed with the
case while asking the court to set
a date for a hearing.
While the subpoena shows a re-
turn deadline of noon on March
11, the lawyers said the Oversight
panel “agrees to voluntarily stay
the return date of the subpoena
pending this Court’s resolution
of the subpoena’s enforceability.”
Lawyers for Trump and Mazars
didn’t immediately respond to a
request by The Epoch Times for
comment on the renewed sub-
poena.
Oversight Committee Chair-
woman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.)
said in a memo on Feb. 23 that
the committee during the 117th
Congress will continue targeting
Trump for its investigation into
alleged presidential conflicts of
interest, saying that his financial
documents are crucial to “verify
key facts and tailor legislative re-
forms to be as effective and effi-
cient as possible.”
“Donald Trump’s unprecedent-
ed actions as President—includ-
ing his refusal to divest from his
‘complex and opaque financial
holdings’—have laid bare several
apparent weaknesses and gaps in
the laws and regulations govern-
ing presidential financial disclo-
A Los Angeles Unified School District teacher receives the Moderna COVID-
19 vaccine in Inglewood, Calif., on March 1, 2021.
Let’s treat in-per-
son learning like
an essential ser-
vice that it is.
President Joe Biden
time with children for their jobs.
The request is another sign of
how much sway unions have
with Biden, whose administra-
tion consulted them before issu-
ing school reopening guidelines
last month, which critics said set
unrealistic standards for resum-
ing in-person teaching.
Former President Donald
Trump told a crowd in Florida over
the weekend that schools should
be fully open by now.
“The only reason that most
parents do not have that choice
is because Joe Biden has sold out
America’s children to the teacher’s
unions,” he said.
Randi Weingarten, president
of the American Federation of
Teachers, a national teachers
union, praised Biden for the an-
nouncement.
“What a tremendous relief to
have a president who is meeting
this moment of crisis. Vaccina-
tions are a key ingredient to re-
opening schools safely, and this
is the administration taking the
Then-President Donald Trump at Greenbrier Valley Airport in Greenbrier County, W.Va., on Feb. 1, 2018.
sure, conflicts of interest, and
emoluments,” Maloney wrote.
Trump has repeatedly called
the investigations seeking his fi-
nancial records a continuation
of a political “witch hunt,” while
his lawyers and former Solici-
tor General Noel Francisco have
raised questions in court about
whether there are any legitimate
legislative purposes for issuing
the subpoenas. Instead, the law-
yers said the House sought the
records to harass the president,
“expose personal matters, and
conduct law enforcement activi-
ties beyond its authority.”
The case relating to the Over-
sight committee subpoena went
through months of litigation
before it arrived at the Supreme
Court in 2020. It was combined
with a separate case in which
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
steps to ramp up vaccinations for
educators, which is great news for
everyone who wants in-school
learning,” she said in a statement.
Nearly 45 percent of K–12 stu-
dents in the United States have
returned to in-person, five-day-
a-week classes as of Feb. 28, ac-
cording to Burbio, a research
group. Another 27.8 percent are
attending in-person schooling
on some days.
The CDC’s advisory panel rec-
ommended that states prioritize
first vaccinating health care and
long-term care facility personnel,
followed by people 75 or older and
front-line essential workers, de-
fined as essential workers “likely
at highest risk for work-related ex-
posure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus
that causes COVID-19, because
their work-related duties must be
performed on-site and involve be-
ing in close proximity (<6 feet) to
the public or to coworkers.”
The third set of groups recom-
mended for prioritization were
people 65 to 74, people 16 to 64
with high-risk medical condi-
tions, and essential workers not
included in the previous phases.
The recommendations are non-
binding but were widely followed
across many states, except for
some that chose to elevate the
elderly because that population
is especially vulnerable to CO-
VID-19.
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
Trump was challenging a differ-
ent subpoena issued by the Fi-
nancial Services and Intelligence
committees seeking financial re-
cords from two of his banks.
In both cases, the district courts
denied his requests to block the
subpoenas, and the decisions
were upheld on appeal. Trump
then asked the Supreme Court to
review the cases.
The high court in July 2020 sent
the pair of cases back to lower
courts for another review because
those courts hadn’t taken into ac-
count the “special concerns re-
garding the separation of powers.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, who
wrote the majority opinion, said
the lower courts should “perform
a careful analysis that takes ade-
quate account of the separation of
powers principles at stake, includ-
Collins Says She’ll Vote to Confirm
Haaland as Interior Secretary
TOM OZIMEK
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)
said on March 3 she will support
President Joe Biden’s nominee for
Interior secretary, New Mexico
Rep. Deb Haaland, making Col-
lins the first Republican senator
to back her candidacy.
“Haaland promised to be bi-
partisan in her new role at the
Department of the Interior, and
I look forward to working with
her,” Collins said in a statement.
The announcement makes
Haaland’s confirmation nearly
certain after last week’s endorse-
ment by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.
Va.), who last month irritated his
Democrat colleagues by declar-
ing that he would oppose Biden’s
choice for budget director, Neera
Tanden, who has subsequently
withdrawn from consideration.
While Collins said that she and
Haaland “certainly have differing
views on some issues,” she touted
Haaland’s support in the House
for a conservation bill Collins co-
sponsored, the Great American
Outdoors Act, which authorizes
nearly $3 billion on conservation
projects, as well as the mainte-
nance of public lands, including
national parks.
The Republican senator also
praised Haaland’s support for is-
sues of concern to her constitu-
ents in Maine, “as well as her
deep knowledge of tribal issues,
which has earned her the support
of tribes across the country.”
Haaland’s confirmation would
make her the first Native Ameri-
can Cabinet secretary.
Declarations of support from
Collins and Manchin are key for
Haaland in the 50-50 split Senate,
providing some breathing room
if any Democrats were to cast an
opposing vote.
The Department of the Interior
oversees the nation’s public lands
and waters and leads relations
with nearly 600 federally recog-
nized tribes.  Under Biden, the
department’s priorities are to “ad-
dress the four intersecting chal-
lenges of COVID-19, economic
recovery, racial equity, and cli-
SAMIRA BOUAOU/THE EPOCH TIMES
ing both the significant legisla-
tive interests of Congress and the
‘unique position’ of the President.”
The analysis should include
considering whether the assert-
ed legislative purpose justifies
the need for the president’s in-
formation, whether the scope of
the subpoena is limited enough
so that it would still support the
legislative objective, and look-
ing at the evidence Congress has
provided to “establish that a sub-
poena advances a valid legislative
purpose,” Roberts said.
In a separate case, Manhattan
District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
last week obtained Trump’s tax
returns after the Supreme Court
ruled that it wouldn’t block the re-
lease of the documents to Vance’s
office. Vance had sought the docu-
ments as part of a criminal probe.
TOM BRENNER/POOL VIA AP
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) listens
during a Senate hearing on Capitol
Hill in Washington on Feb. 24, 2021.
mate change,” with acceleration
of renewable energy development
on public lands and waters one of
the implementation objectives.
Haaland is on the record as op-
posing fracking and the Keystone
XL oil pipeline, leading some Re-
publicans to come out against her
candidacy, with Sen. John Bar-
rasso (R-Wy.) among them.
Barrasso, who is the top GOP
senator on energy matters, has
denounced Biden’s moratorium
on oil and gas leases on federal
land and waters, arguing that it
would cost thousands of jobs.
During Haaland’s confirma-
tion hearings before the Senate
Energy and Natural Resources
committee, Barrasso said he was
“troubled by many of Representa-
tive Haaland’s views,” which he
characterized as “radical.”
“We shouldn’t undermine
our energy production and we
shouldn’t hurt our own econ-
omy,” he said. “Representative
Haaland’s positions are squarely
at odds with the mission of the
Department of [the] Interior.”
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said
he was “deeply concerned” by
Haaland’s support for the Green
New Deal and the pause on new
oil and gas leases, as well as her
opposition to Keystone XL.
Biden, in one of his first moves
after taking office, revoked the
permit for the pipeline, which
former President Donald Trump
had revived after it stalled under
the Obama administration.
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
Blinken Sees US-China Relationship as ‘Biggest
Geopolitical Test of the 21st Century’
CATHY HE
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
on March 3 listed managing the
United States’ relationship with the
Chinese regime as a top priority of
the Biden administration, describ-
ing it as “the biggest geopolitical
test of the 21st century.”
Blinken, in his first speech out-
lining the Biden administration’s
foreign policy strategy, said the
challenge posed by the Chinese re-
gime is different from those posed
by other countries such as Russia
and North Korea.
Our relationship
with China will be
competitive when
it should be, collab-
orative when it can
be, and adversarial
when it must be.
Secretary of State
Antony Blinken
“China is the only country with
the economic, diplomatic, mili-
tary, and technological power to
seriously challenge the stable and
open international system—all the
rules, values, and relationships
that make the world work the way
we want it to,” he said in a speech
at the State Department.
Among the administration’s top
priorities listed by Blinken, U.S.–
China relations was the only one
that was specifically directed to-
ward another country.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washing-
ton on Oct. 22, 2019.
Senator Calls on Biden
to Ensure WHO’s
COVID-19 Probe Is Free
From Conflicts of Interest
FRANK FANG
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
is urging President Joe Biden to
make sure that the World Health
Organization (WHO) chooses
investigators who are free from
conflicts of interest when study-
ing the origins of the CCP virus.
“I respectfully request you
use your leadership to ensure
the ongoing investigation of the
COVID-19 pandemic origin be
free from conflict of interest,”
Blackburn stated in a letter dated
March 1.
“Concerns have been raised
regarding the manner in which
World Health Organization in-
vestigators were chosen to study
the outbreak. ... WHO should not
include researchers with conflicts
of interest or with a lack of expe-
rience in forensic investigation.”
The WHO team—which con-
sisted of 17 Chinese experts
and 17 foreign experts from 10
countries—recently conducted
a fact-finding mission in central
China’s Wuhan city, to investi-
gate the origins of the CCP (Chi-
nese Communist Party) virus.
“Our relationship with China
will be competitive when it should
be, collaborative when it can be,
and adversarial when it must be,”
Blinken said. “The common de-
nominator is the need to engage
China from a position of strength.”
The Biden administration is cur-
rently reviewing the full suite of
Trump-era policies aimed at coun-
tering a range of threats posed by
the Chinese regime and has yet
to announce any specific policy
actions. While confronting the
China challenge enjoys bipartisan
support, the Biden administration
faces heavy pressure from Repub-
licans to continue policies that are
tough on China.
The Chinese regime, meanwhile,
has demanded the Biden admin-
istration undo Trump’s hardline
China policies, and not “interfere”
in what the regime calls “red line”
issues, such as its human rights
abuses against Uyghur Muslims in
Xinjiang, the crackdown in Hong
Kong, and military aggression to-
ward Taiwan. The Trump admin-
istration in January designated
the Chinese regime’s atrocities in
Xinjiang a genocide.
Blinken said the United States
would work with allies to confront
the regime in Beijing, an approach
the administration has described
as a point of difference from the
Trump administration.
“It requires engaging in diplo-
macy, and in international orga-
nizations, because where we pull
back, China has filled in,” he said.
Former Trump officials, howev-
er, have rejected the characteriza-
tion that the administration acted
too unilaterally, saying it did build
CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
The team conducted fieldwork
for two weeks in Wuhan before
presenting their preliminary
findings at a virtual press con-
ference on Feb. 9.
Their initial findings have been
questioned given that some
members of the team, including
Peter Daszak and Marion Koop-
mans, have ties to the Chinese
regime. Daszak is a U.S.–UK dual
national who heads EcoHealth
Alliance, a New York-based non-
profit that works in pandemic
prevention, while Koopmans is
a Dutch virologist.
For example, Daszak said in a
conference sponsored by China’s
state-run media CGTN in 2018
that his organization received
“federal funding from China.”
“We owe this to the over 500,000
Americans who have died from
this disease, to their families, and
to future Americans who face
possible pandemics,” Blackburn
said.
Blackburn isn’t the first to raise
concerns about conflict of inter-
est issues.
Michael Weinstein, president of
the Los Angeles-based nonprofit
Chinese paramilitary police officers march outside the Great Hall of the People, after the ceremony commemorating the
70th anniversary of China’s entry into the 1950–1953 Korean War, in Beijing on Oct. 23, 2020.
alliances to push back against
Chinese threats, but also wasn’t
afraid to go it alone when it suited
U.S. interests. They said the United
States’ withdrawal from interna-
tional bodies including the World
Health Organization and the UN
Human Rights Council was due to
systemic failings that were beyond
reform, despite U.S. attempts.
Both of those moves have been
reversed by the Biden administra-
tion.
Blinken said the administration’s
approach also “requires standing
AIDS Healthcare Foundation
(AHF), stated that Daszak “has a
clear-cut conflict of interest” and
that he shouldn’t be on the WHO
team, according to a statement
issued on Feb. 10.
AHF Chief of Global Advocacy
and Policy Terri Ford called for a
“truly independent body” to look
into the origins of the CCP virus,
saying that both the WHO and
China “have a vested interest in
an outcome to the investigation
that casts them in a favorable
light,” according to the statement.
“It is profoundly sad and dis-
appointing that this investiga-
tion has turned into a media
performance shaped by the
Chinese authorities toward po-
litical ends—namely to escape
any blame and embarrassment
related to the COVID-19 outbreak
while still offering a veneer of
cooperation and transparency,”
Ford said.
At one point during the inves-
tigation in Wuhan, WHO experts
visited an exhibition filled with
content that praised the CCP’s
leadership in controlling the
spread of the virus.
On Feb. 11, Rep. Mark Green (R-
Tenn.) took to Twitter to criticize
the WHO investigation.
“What did this ‘investigation’
produce? Chinese propaganda,”
he wrote. “Why is the WHO still
carrying water for Beijing?!”
The WHO hasn’t released its
final report on its findings in
Wuhan. On Feb. 12, WHO Di-
rector-General Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus said “all hypotheses
remain open and require further
study” with regard to the origin
of the virus.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
The World Health Organization logo
at its headquarters in Geneva on
March 9, 2020.
up for our values when human
rights are abused in Xinjiang or
when democracy is trampled in
Hong Kong.”
“Because if we don’t, China will
act with even greater impunity,”
he said.
Blinken highlighted out-compet-
ing China by “investing in Ameri-
can workers, companies, and in-
sisting on a level playing field.”
Without specifically mentioning
China, he also said the administra-
tion would “use every tool to stop
countries from stealing our intel-
China’s ‘Richest
Village’ in
Financial Crisis
ALEX WU
Huaxi Village in Jiangsu Province,
once touted by the Chinese regime
as “China’s richest village,” is in
financial trouble, a situation that
reveals the corruption among the
elites, experts say.
Huaxi Group, a company that’s
collectively owned by the village
and its residents, and has many
sub-companies and listed affili-
ates, has a debt load of 40 billion
yuan (about $6.17 billion), leading
some Chinese media to claim that
it’s bankrupt.
On Feb. 25, a video that showed
a large number of residents wait-
ing in several lines in the village
square to withdraw their money
from Huaxi Group went viral.
Some residents told Chinese me-
dia that since Feb. 24, the dividend
of Huaxi Group’s shareholding has
suddenly dropped to 0.5 percent
from 30 percent. Because the 30
percent dividend had lasted for
several years, many villagers in-
vested.
According to mainland Chinese
media portal Sina, Huaxi Village’s
Communist Party Committee said
that the company had sufficient
funds. However, that didn’t ease
shareholders’ concerns and many
continued to withdraw money.
Some said that they were lucky to
be able to get back their principal,
as they were afraid of not receiving
any money back.
Following the rollout of its “re-
form and opening up” policy in
1978, the  Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) promoted Huaxi Vil-
lage as an example of its “collective
economy” model under the cam-
paign of “building a new socialist
countryside.” Huaxi was dubbed
as “China’s richest village” and
“the first village in the world.”
Mainland Chinese media re-
ported that the A shares of Huaxi
Group were listed on the Shen-
zhen stock market in 1999. Huaxi
Group became China’s first listed
company that was named after
CHINA | A9
NOEL CELIS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
lectual property or manipulating
their currencies to get an unfair
advantage.”
The Trump administration at-
tempted to force the Chinese re-
gime to reform a spate of unfair
trade practices through the U.S.–
China trade war, which resulted in
the phase one trade deal signed in
January of 2020. While the Chinese
regime so far has fallen short of its
purchase commitments under the
agreement, the Biden administra-
tion hasn’t signaled how it would
deal with the trade pact.
and owned by a village and was
hailed as “the first rural stock in
China” by state-run media.
However, among the enterprises
of Huaxi Village, except the listed
companies, many large and me-
dium-sized firms have become
state-owned, and the shares of
Huaxi Village have fallen.
Huaxi Group’s capital flow has
been strained for a long time, Chi-
nese media reports say. The com-
pany had a loss for the first time in
2020, losing 390 million to 435 mil-
lion yuan (about $60 million to $67
million), Chinese news portal Sina
reported, citing a performance re-
port released on Jan. 26.
“Huaxi Village’s enterprises are
claimed to be collectively owned
by the village, but they are actu-
ally controlled by the Wu fam-
ily—they are the head of Huaxi’s
Communist Party Committee. The
son inherits the father’s position
and business, and the grandson
succeeds,” Beijing-based scholar
Rong Jian wrote on Twitter.
“The miracle of Huaxi Village,
to put it bluntly, is that it totally
relies on loans from the govern-
ment and currently has nearly 40
billion yuan (around $6.17 billion)
in debts. However, it only has 7 bil-
lion yuan (around $1.08 billion) in
funds. How could they pay off the
debt? It’s a huge irony that these
private family businesses under
the banner of ‘collective economy’
have been long-established by the
government as a model of collec-
tive economy.”
Rong pointed out that this is a
typical example of crony capital-
ism under communism.
“This kind of enterprise will col-
lapse sooner or later. It is now ac-
quired by the State-owned Assets
Supervision and Administration
Commission of China, using state
money to fill the holes hollowed
out by them. It can be regarded as
a safe landing [for them],” he said.
Cai Xia, an outspoken critic of
the CCP and a former professor
at Beijing’s Central Party School,
wrote in Feb. 28 tweet: “Huaxi Vil-
lage is essentially an epitome of
communist China. Do the former
and current members of the Polit-
buro of the CCP dare to take the
lead in disclosing the properties
and wealth of their families?”
 A10 | WORLD
India’s Ban of Chinese Apps Merits
International Support: Expert
CONTINUED FROM A1
said the apps were “prejudicial
to sovereignty and integrity of
India, defense of India, security
of state, and public order.”
However, a ban by a single
country isn’t sufficient because the
meta-sphere is fed by investments
that the Chinese regime is raising
from the Western world, Lee told
The Epoch Times in a phone call.
The world needs to wake to the
overwhelming Chinese pervasive-
ness of the meta sphere.
“In this meta-sphere, there are
about 2.6 billion people on it, real
people from around the world
that spend on average one hour or
more in that space, every single
day,” Lee said.
“The problem with the meta-
sphere is that in that world, first
of all, the game developers are
like gods, they are omnipotent.
They create the physics, the social
rules, the societies, the economics,
everything within that world. And
once again, you have 2.6 billion
people, most of them are kids, as
well as young people,” said Lee. He
said that based on his research of
three years ago, 70 percent of this
meta-sphere is controlled by the
Chinese.
“And I would believe that number
has only gone up since, particu-
larly because of COVID, everybody
stayed at home. And the Chinese
games are the best,” he said.
Virtual reality (VR) in the gam-
ing market is expected to grow at a
compound annual growth rate of
32.75 percent over the forecast pe-
riod (2021–2026), according to a re-
port by Research and Markets. The
industry regulator expects that
China’s VR market may grow to
$7.9 billion by 2021.
“Due to the rising adoption of VR
technology in the country, China
is expected to account for a promi-
nent share in the region [Asia-Pa-
cific]. Also, the Chinese market for
VR is expected to increase due to
increased policy support from the
government, as well as rolling out
of technologies, such as 5G, in the
country,” the report says.
Lee said there’s a reason China
is so “strong and good” in the VR
industry, and it’s linked to China’s
one-child policy, which created a
“humongous gender imbalance”
of millions more men than women
in China.
“And that gender imbalance
started to go into effect around
2015, where these kids are, now
they’ve grown up, now they have
to get married, they have to find
their partner for life,” Lee said.
He said that throughout history,
such gender imbalance that can’t
be pacified by imports has led to
social unrest and sometimes war.
“So China was very brilliant in
the sense that, years ago, they
started developing the game
industry as well as social media, as
well as, quite poorly, livestream-
ing, which is what started TikTok,”
he said.
The Chinese companies had state
support and were extremely suc-
cessful, said Lee. Business models
work with early investment, he
said, and the primary consumers
in China were not-so-educated,
single men in the countryside.
“There’s a lot of precedents be-
fore TikTok. It’s called livestream-
ing, it’s just pretty girls doing noth-
NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Visitors walk past a stand with AI security cameras at the China
International Exhibition Center in Beijing on Oct. 24, 2018.
Visitors play computer games at a stall during the India Gaming Show South 2018 expo at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre in Bengaluru, India,
on Jan. 19, 2018.
Once China con-
trols the metada-
ta as well as the
channels them-
selves, they are
able to tweak the
human psyche.
James Lee, former hedge
fund manager
Indian Minister of Law
and Justice Ravi Shankar
Prasad in New Delhi
on Feb. 25, 2021.
PRAKASH SINGH/
AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
ing, doing their normal daily lives,
and then they collect money for it.
And a lot of very successful profit-
able companies in China carry
this out,” he said. Without this, he
believes the social pressure inside
China would have been very great.
The Chinese had so much experi-
ence in livestreaming, social me-
dia, and gaming that they started
to export it to the rest of the world.
“All three, in my research, were
originally designed to pacify the
population. But later, it became
an offensive, an offensive tool of
the CCP against the international
liberal order,” Lee said.
How This Battlefront Works
A lot of these games, apps, and so-
cial media sites are the backbone
of a massive data collection opera-
tion that a number of hackers have
exposed in the past.
“Particularly TikTok,” according
to Taiwan-based Lee.
“Those are games and apps that
have been actually collecting a lot
of metadata of citizens around the
world, and then they feed it into
the Chinese Communist Party’s
AI machine. And we all know AI
is mostly constrained by the data,
the more data you have, the stron-
ger the AI is,” he said, noting the
grave implications for any coun-
try’s national security.
Artificial Intelligence systems
often can know a population better
than the population itself, Lee says.
“A simple example would be that
commercial social media actually
would know if you are homosexual
or not before you even know it;
there’s a lot of examples of it. Social
media will know you’re pregnant
before your family even knows;
social media is able to predict what
you want before you even know it,”
he said.
“Once China controls the meta-
data as well as the channels them-
selves, they are able to tweak the
human psyche, or just what people
are thinking about, via cyberwar.”
He said that while the issues of
national security linked to Chi-
nese apps and AI have been ad-
dressed often in the past few years,
there are two other aspects that
deserve more attention.
“The second point is actually the
front of censorship. So this is also
an area where it’s quite obvious
now that these China-affiliated
games as well as social media,
TikTok, whatnot, are actively
censoring things that are not of
their liking,” said Lee, whose team
predicted the fall of Hong Kong
three years ago based on macro-
economic analysis.
Lee’s team conducted various
tests two years ago about how the
Chinese censor the meta sphere.
“You can put in Tibet, you can
put in the Hong Kong protests, you
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
A young man walks past an ad for social media company TikTok in Berlin on Sept.
21, 2020.
can put in Taiwan independence,
you can put in a more recently,
things related to, for example,
virus and they will get censored
or simply they just won’t show up
in this meta sphere of 2.6 billion
people. So that’s censoring. So
that’s a defense mechanism,” said
Lee.
The third aspect of this battle-
front according to Lee is the “of-
fense mechanism” of these games
that China uses to push its own
propaganda.
“For example, we have seen
games where the Chinese nine-
dash line shows up. The nine-dash
line in the South China Sea is a
territorial claim that has been
ruled as illegal. But China’s still
pushing for that,” Lee said. “China
is also in these games pushing that
the Chinese-related characters are
stronger than normal and through
them, they represent the side of
justice.”
This has been done by Hol-
lywood as well, and China has
copied that, he said, but politically,
things play out differently in China
and the United States.
“The difference is the U.S. is on
the side of democracy. And China
is on the side of authoritarian rule.
So that’s the difference in—we can
only imagine the type of brain-
washing that it can do to kids as
well as young people around the
world,” he said.
India’s App Ban
Lee says it’s important for the
world to understand how this
meta-sphere battlefront works
and why other countries must join
India: “The reason is quite simple,
it’s economics.
“If only India bans it, it doesn’t do
anything really. But every incre-
mental country that joins this ban,
the impact will increase exponen-
tially. It’s not actually one to one,
it’s actually one to two to four to
eight,” said Lee, who adds that the
Chinese companies are raising
money from the “Western world,
the democracies, the European
stock market, the American stock
market, etc.”
In its independent investiga-
MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES
tion, The Epoch Times found the
Indian app ban to be leaky in cer-
tain cases. For example, children
are still able to access the Chi-
nese-made game PUBG in India
through virtual private networks
and can download the Korean or
the Taipei versions of the game
even amid the ban.
When the Chinese companies
raise a lot of money from the
Western world, the meta-sphere
battlefront becomes linked to the
currency war, Lee said.
“China is in a grave shortage of
U.S. dollars right now. But then
they are also able to graze a lot of
U.S. dollars from Western investors
who are not aware of the national
security implications of giving
money to China,” he said.
Wall Street loves Chinese com-
panies because they’re extremely
profitable, and they grow very fast,
he said.
“But if you have more and more
countries joining these bans, not
only the incremental metadata is
cut off, and the propaganda and
the censorship become less effec-
tive. But there’s actually the third
layer to this; the companies will
not be able to raise U.S. dollars
anymore, because investors then
will realize that they will be invest-
ing in that app, in a company that
is facing political risk globally, and
they are also not growing because
their markets are getting tough,”
said Lee.
He says the best way for democ-
racies to fight back is to make sure
these companies have zero growth
or actually negative growth.
“They will actually die out and
we don’t have to worry about this
metadata leak or the propaganda
anymore. But on the other hand,
if it’s only India doing it, it doesn’t
hurt them as much,” said Lee.
“It needs to be a synchronized
action, and you can see that from
the stock market actions, a lot of
these Chinese companies, tech
companies, gaming companies
are making all-time highs. They
don’t care because they’re still
growing like wildfire. And TikTok
is still one of the most-downloaded
apps around the world.”
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
Disproportionality
in UK Police ‘Stop
and Search’ Not
Racist Says Former
Senior Detective
MARY CLARK
The disproportionate number of
young black males being stopped
by UK police under its stop and
search power isn’t due to officers
being racist, a former senior detec-
tive said on March 1.
Instead, he said, they’re being
stopped in higher numbers than
other ethnicities because they’re
more frequently involved in street
robberies, “county lines” drug
dealing, gang violence, and knife
crime, including murder, where
the victims are themselves usually
black people.
“It’s a sad fact, unfortunately,
that young black men are involved
in gang-related activity—so if we
look at the gang matrix in London,
89 percent of people on that matrix
are black and ethnic minorities,”
Mike Neville, former detective
chief inspector of the Metropoli-
tan Police, told The Epoch Times.
“The police can’t help that—the
police can try to be fair, but if a
certain group or race or religion
... commits a certain type of crime,
then [the police] have got to deal
with it,” he said.
Neville’s remarks come follow-
ing a review of stop and search
published last week by Her Maj-
esty’s Inspectorate of Constabu-
lary and Fire and Rescue Services
(HMICFRS) titled “Dispropor-
tionate use of police powers: A
spotlight on stop and search and
UK Raises Corporation Tax After Public Spending Soars During Pandemic
ALEXANDER ZHANG
Britain’s Conservative govern-
ment said March 3 that it will
raise taxes for businesses in a bid
to improve public finances, which
have been hit hard during the CCP
virus pandemic.
Delivering the annual budget in
the House of Commons, Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak
announced that corporation tax
will be raised to 25 percent from 19
percent starting in 2023, by which
time he predicted the economy
should be past the COVID-19 crisis.
Sunak said earlier this week that
the use of force.”
The HMICFRS report states
that ethnic minorities were more
than four times more likely to be
stopped under stop and search
than white people, and almost
nine times more likely in the case
of black people.
It called for the police to explain
why.
“Forces must do more to ensure
they identify disproportionality,
understand the reasons for it, take
action to reduce it where required,
and explain those reasons and ac-
tions to the public,” it stated.
“Without a proper explanation,
members of the public may see the
disproportionate use of powers as
a sign of discrimination, and so
police legitimacy may be under-
mined.”
Ignoring Crime Statistics
Neville, however, criticized the re-
view, saying it ignores the crime
statistics that may explain the dis-
proportionality.
“Black people are 3 percent of
the population,” Neville said, “but
they are 21 percent of the suspects
convicted of murder. That’s seven
times higher than it should be.”
He said the factors underlying
this ethnic disparity in offending,
including housing and education,
are largely beyond the control of
the police, who “simply have to
deal with the murder” in front of
them, regardless of the race of vic-
Britain’s public finances are under
“enormous strains” as a result of
huge government borrowing dur-
ing the pandemic.
The extra funding required for
government schemes to support
businesses hit by lockdown mea-
sures, combined with reduced tax
revenues and a fall in the gross
domestic product (GDP), have all
helped push Britain’s public sector
net debt to a new high.
“Our economy has shrunk by
10 percent—the largest fall in
over 300 years. Our borrowing is
the highest it has been outside of
wartime,” Sunak told Parliament
LET’S
REJECT COMMUNISM
TOGETHER TAKE ACTION TODAY
Sign the Petition
to Reject the CCP
RejectCCP.com
Police officers stop and search people on the final day of the Notting Hill Carnival in London on Aug. 27, 2018.
tim or perpetrator.
Citing findings by Trevor Phil-
lips, former head of the Equality
and Human Rights Commission,
in his 2020 program, “Things We
Won’t Say About Race That Are
True,” Neville said that different
ethnicities do commit different
crimes.
“We can’t keep putting our head
in the sand about this,” he said.
He called for a fairer, more re-
alistic examination of how the
police stop and search power is
being used.
“Let’s see both sides of the argu-
ment, let’s be fair,” he said. “Yes,
if people are being stopped and
searched unfairly, that’s not right,
but let’s look at the crime patterns.”
The HMICFRS report stated that
“over 35 years on from the intro-
duction of stop and search legis-
lation, no force fully understands
the impact of the use of these
powers. Disproportionality per-
sists and no force can satisfactorily
explain why.”
on March 3.
“It’s going to take this country—
and the whole world—a long time
to recover from this extraordinary
economic situation. But we will re-
cover,” he said.
Sunak said the government “will
continue doing whatever it takes
to support the British people and
businesses through this moment
of crisis.”
The Coronavirus Job Reten-
tion Scheme, which is commonly
known as the “furlough scheme”
and pays 80 percent of the wages
to workers who can’t work due to
the CCP (Chinese Communist
TRUTH and TRADITION
Help Spread Subscribe to
the Word The Epoch Times
It stated that the reasons given
by police weren’t supported by suf-
ficient evidence.
Political Posturing
Neville criticized past posturing
over stop and search by politicians
from both sides of the political
spectrum.
“It’s a scandal really that people
virtue signal—try to score political
points,” he said.
“And we see the results—liter-
ally that is more dead young black
men. It’s awful, it’s a waste of life,
and it’s shameful.”
“What do people prefer, particu-
larly young black men?” he asked.
“Do they prefer the police’s
hands occasionally in their pock-
ets or do they prefer a knife in their
belly?”
According to the latest Home Of-
fice data, more than 60 percent of
stop and searches are for suspicion
of drug possession, followed by 16
percent for suspicion of carrying
an offensive weapon. Almost half
Party) virus lockdown measures,
was given a five-month extension
until September.
Sunak also pledged more help
for the self-employed, the con-
tinuation of an emergency in-
crease in welfare payments, and
an extension of a VAT cut for the
hospitality sector.
But he made clear the continued
expansion of government spend-
ing has consequences.
“Once we are on the way to re-
covery, we will need to begin fixing
the public finances—and I want to
be honest today about our plans to
do that,” he told lawmakers.
WORLD | A11
JACK TAYLOR/GETTY IMAGES
of all stop and searches for the year
ending March 2020 occurred in
London.
Amanda Pearson, stop and
search lead and deputy assistant
commissioner of the National
Police Chiefs’ Council, told The
Epoch Times in a statement that
“stop and search is a valuable po-
licing tool.”
She said the power had enabled
the removal of weapons from the
streets as well as the disruption of
drug markets.
It has also helped “identify young
people in need of safeguarding
and diversion away from crime,”
she said.
“We hold the power of stop and
search on behalf of the public, so
it is vital our communities have
confidence in the way it is used
and that officers have the confi-
dence to use it effectively and ap-
propriately.”
The HMICFRS didn’t immedi-
ately respond to a request by The
Epoch Times for comment.
But he stressed that, even af-
ter the increase in corporation
tax, the UK’s tax rate will remain
competitive.
“Even after this change, the
United Kingdom will still have the
lowest corporation tax rate in the
G7—lower than the United States,
Canada, Italy, Japan, Germany,
and France,” he said.
The tax raise will not apply to
smaller businesses with profits of
50,000 pounds ($69,765) or less,
which will continue to be taxed
at 19 percent.
Reuters contributed to this report.
A12 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021

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Mining operations at Corsa Coal’s Acosta Deep Mine in Friedens, Penn., on June 8, 2017.
As an Industry Faces Destruction,
It Grows a Voting Coalition
SALENA ZITO
FRIEDENS, Pa.—Imagine
if you had a job. A good
job, one that required
skill and critical think-
ing and had a broad
impact in the community
where you lived. A job you
didn’t just show up to do.
It was a job you were good at, and
because of it, you were able to provide
a roof over your family’s head, put your
children through college or help pay for
their wedding, and once a year, it gave
you the ability to carve out a week or two
to take the family on vacation.
Now, imagine that job becomes the
center of political debate, one far re-
moved from the Laurel Mountains,
where this town sits. Within two de-
cades, your profession goes from being
championed by the Democratic Party
and labor officials to one that they want
to destroy.
John Fisher and Harvey Charles were
standing outside of the Acosta Mine me-
chanic station here in Somerset County.
Both still had traces of coal dust on their
hands and faces. Both had just finished
their shifts and were cleaning up them-
selves and their equipment. Fisher works
in the mine; Charles transports the coal.
Fisher has been doing this job since
1989, when he returned home after serv-
ing four years in the U.S. Marine Corps.
The 52-year-old says he travels 67 miles
one way every day from his home in
Cherry Tree in Clearfield County to do
his job at the mine.
He describes his day, which begins not
with walking into the mine, but crawling.
“I get here, what? 4:30 a.m. Make sure
everything’s running. Then, I go under-
ground and fix what’s broken. All over,
in the pots, in the slop, in the bad roof,
in the good roof.” He explains all the
vulnerabilities that exist in a mine that
require monitoring and daily repairs.
Here, metallurgical coal gets mined. It’s
used exclusively for the steel production
that supports the construction of bridg-
es, roads, highways, homes, factories,
distribution centers, churches, and other
businesses supporting the country’s
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021 • A13
infrastructure and economy.
Fisher explains the core business here
is producing and selling metallurgical
coal to domestic and international steel
and coke (a porous fuel) producers: “It’s
a good living. I like what I do, or I would
not be doing it.”
So does Charles, who says he’s been in
the industry since 1987.
“Right out of high school, I followed in
the footsteps of my father and grandfather.
“I used to be the maintenance foreman.
Now I’m just a truck mechanic,” he said
of his job to make sure all of the massive
dump trucks used to haul the coal out of
the hollow are in working order.
They acknowledge their industry is in
the center of a political storm and their
fate does not rely on how many improve-
ments the industry does to make it clean.
“Politicians and the press need a good
guy and a bad guy to either win a race or
tell a story. We used to be the good guys
that everyone stood up for,” Fisher says
and then shrugs.
“Now, we are the bad guys.”
Pick up the daily newspaper and you
will find mining will get blamed for ev-
erything from the growth of the deer tick
population to last year’s mild winter (this
winter hasn’t been mild).
Several things bother Fisher and
Charles regarding how others look upon
those in the mining industry. One is the
stereotype of anyone in their business
as either anti-intellectual or anti-clean
environment. The former they consider
insulting, the latter ridiculous.
“Not only do we drink the water and
breathe the air here, but we also hunt,
fish, and swim here. We are the first peo-
ple who want whatever we do here to be
safe,” Fisher said. It is a common refrain
from energy workers across the country.
The other thing that gets under their
skin is when politicians flippantly sug-
gest they can quickly get another job.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
recently said people who lost their job
to climate justice might find a climate-
conscious job.
And President Joe Biden suggested coal
miners should just learn to code. Last
year in New Hampshire, in the middle
of a brag of how former President Barack
Obama had placed him in charge of
judging what the jobs of the future would
be, he said, “Anybody who can go down
3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn
to program as well.”
It’s still astounding to witness the con-
tempt and disdain politicians and the
press have toward the lives and liveli-
hoods of people who aren’t like them,
people who don’t live in their ZIP codes
or attend the same universities they did.
People who work with their hands don’t
start a conversation by asking you where
you work. It’s rare to find anyone here
who would say your profession is irre-
deemable and that you need to do some-
thing they find worthy. Traditionally,
when a job or an industry has a problem,
they work on fixing it or correcting it
rather than destroying it.
People often asked after the 2020 elec-
tion what will happen with the Trump
voters (Fisher and Charles voted for him
twice). The thing is this complex con-
servative populist coalition existed long
before it helped catapult Donald Trump
to the presidency in 2016.
His win was, in part, the result of a
culture that became detached from the
people they served in various institu-
tions, whether it was the government, the
entertainment industry, or the college
campus. Many people ultimately reject-
ed all of them.
But if you never understood that, if you
always thought it was about Trump, you
JUSTIN MERRIMAN/GETTY IMAGES
SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
Coal miners
re-inforce an
air shaft at
the Mathies
coal mine in
Finleyville,
Penn., on Aug.
26, 2001.
never understood who they were and
why they vote the way they do.
And you never understood how some-
one who lives in the suburbs of Arizona
or Kenosha, Wisconsin, or Miami could
have anything in common with someone
who works the mines in Appalachia. And
you didn’t understand that because you
didn’t care to, because you hoped for its
destruction.
There will be two endings to this story.
The first is industries such as coal or
shale, or the creation of pipelines, will
continue to get attacked and dismantled,
costing people their jobs. As Fisher said,
politicians and the press always need a
bad guy.
And the other ending is this coalition
will grow—despite the press incorrectly
believing one person caused it and hav-
ing the audacity to think they have the
power to dismantle it.
Salena Zito has held a long, successful
career as a national political reporter.
Since 1992, she has interviewed every
U.S. president and vice president, as
well as top leaders in Washington, D.C.,
including secretaries of state, speakers
of the House, and U.S. Central Com-
mand generals. Her passion, though, is
interviewing thousands of people across
the country. She reaches the Everyman
and Everywoman through the lost art of
shoe-leather journalism, having traveled
along the back roads of 49 states.
A14 | OPINION
Is the US Becoming
Less Free Than Russia?
LAWRENCE SOLOMON
Russia gets bad press,
deservedly so. Corrup-
tion is rampant, jour-
nalists and other critics
of President Vladimir
Putin have met untimely
ends, mass political protests
are met with batons, the LGBTQ com-
munity suffers restrictions of a kind that
ended decades ago in most Western
countries, and religions seen as disloyal
to the nation—a radical Muslim offshoot
and Jehovah’s Witnesses are examples—
aren’t tolerated.
Yet, by some measures—some more
personal than political—Russia today
affords its citizens more rights, more
respect, and more accountability than
the United States, Canada, and other
Western countries, where fundamental
freedoms can no longer be taken for
granted.
The decline of U.S. freedom is clearest
since COVID-19, where under the “guise
of a real medical pandemic, [the United
States is] really moving into a coup situa-
tion, a police state situation,” states Nao-
mi Wolf, a former adviser to President
Bill Clinton who has been warning of the
rise of tyranny in America since her 2007
bestseller, “The End of America.”
The “state has now crushed businesses,
kept us from gathering in free assembly
to worship as the First Amendment pro-
vides, is invading our bodies ... [and is]
restricting movement.”
In contrast, Russia ended its nation-
wide six-week shutdown in May 2020,
with bars and restaurants reopening
with social distancing measures, and has
refused to countenance a second nation-
DILBERT
PEANUTS
RED AND ROVER
GRAND AVENUE
MUTT & JEFF
wide lockdown. When regional or local
lockdowns subsequently occurred, they
tended to be short-lived or targeted, such
as lockdowns of those 65 years of age
and older, forcing bars and restaurants
to close at 11 p.m., or requiring tempera-
ture checks before admitting patrons
to Moscow’s theater and concert halls.
Churches were often defiant.
Pointing to the Russian constitution’s
guarantee of separation between church
and state, many if not most remained
open for Easter. The tyranny that the
United States and other Western coun-
tries embraced via COVID-19 was short-
lived and relatively tepid in Russia.
Unless the trend reverses,
Americans could do worse
than Russia-level liberties.
After COVID-19 concerns end, the
U.S. cancel culture will remain, threat-
ening the livelihoods of millions of
employees in universities, arts organi-
zations, major corporations, and gov-
ernments who dare dissent from the
orthodoxy. Even heroes such as George
Washington and Abraham Lincoln
are being canceled for not being pure
enough, or being too white and male. In
effect, large pluralities of American soci-
ety who combined represent the major-
ity of Americans are subject to discipline
for being allegedly racist, xenophobic,
sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or
otherwise suspect.
In Russia, the West’s cancel culture
phenomenon and the political correct-
ness that fuels it, doesn’t exist, so much
COMICS
SPUTNIK/ALEXEI DRUZHININ/KREMLIN VIA REUTERS
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a
meeting of the Presidium of the State Council,
via a video conference call in Sochi, Russia, on
Sept. 28, 2020.
so that an opinion article in the liberal
Moscow Times, a critic of Putin and
the Kremlin, bemoans the insensi-
tive talk that’s rife throughout Russia,
including by politicians: “In any other
country with a modicum of political cor-
rectness, fellow lawmakers and public
opinion would have forced these politi-
cians to resign. Some countries would
have charged them under hate-speech
or extremism laws.”
Russians aren’t only free to be po-
litically incorrect, they also don’t feel
disenfranchised from their political
leadership. Unlike the millions of Ameri-
cans who doubt that President Joe Biden
garnered more votes than Donald Trump
in the presidential election, few Russians,
even among political enemies, dis-
pute Putin’s electoral victory. As shown
by the internationally respected Levada
polling company, Putin has been consis-
tently popular with approval numbers
that far exceed those of Biden or Trump
before him.
Russians much more approve of their
federal legislators than Americans do of
their congressional leaders, and Rus-
sians also endorse their many governors.
Contrary to the spin from the anti-Putin,
anti-Russia Western media, Alexei
Navalny, a political opponent of Putin’s
who was poisoned and then jailed, may
be lionized by many in the West, but his
GARFIELD
GINGER MEGGS
BIG NATE
DRABBLE
FRANK AND ERNEST
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
approval rating is only 19 percent, and
he’s “most trusted” by only 4 percent of
Russians, compared to 32 percent who
most trust Putin.
Only 17 percent of Russians are con-
fident that Navalny’s inflammatory
film—“Palace for Putin: History of the
World’s Biggest Bribe,” which claims
he owns a $1.5 billion palace—isn’t an
unfair slander.
Although Russia is a multinational
state with close to 200 ethnic minorities,
many of them represented in ethnically
based national republics and autono-
mous regions, Russia has avoided the
deep divisions and identity politics seen
in the United States. If anything, the eth-
nic minorities tend to be even more sup-
portive of Putin than ethnic Russians,
despite Putin’s “Russia First” platform, or
perhaps because of it.
With the possible exception of Chech-
nya, where Muslim extremists have
waged war against the federal govern-
ment, the ethnic minorities tend to be
patriotic Russians.
Religious minorities also tend to be
freer in Russia than in many Western
countries, where they are subject to
intolerance or worse. Anti-Semitism has
been rising in the United States, Canada,
the UK, and France, leading many Jews
to emigrate to Israel or other countries
perceived to be safe. Jews don’t leave
Russia for fear of attacks—Putin and the
Russian establishment are vigilant in
making Russia’s Jews feel welcome, lead-
ing many Jews who emigrated to Israel
from the former Soviet Union to return
to Russia.
Russians don’t aspire to be woke
Americans and Americans don’t aspire
to live under Russian-style strong-man
rule. But unless the trend reverses,
Americans could do worse than Russia-
level liberties.
“We’re turning into a version of a to-
talitarian state before everyone’s eyes,”
Wolf fears.
Lawrence Solomon is a columnist,
author, and executive director of the
Toronto-based Consumer Policy Institute.
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
SPECIAL SERIES: HOW THE SPECTER OF COMMUNISM IS RULING OUR WORLD
Chapter Fourteen:
Popular Culture—A Decadent Indulgence
The Epoch Times here serializes
an adaptation from the Chinese
of “How the Specter of Communism
Is Ruling Our World,” a new book
by the editorial team of the “Nine
Commentaries on the Communist
Party.”
3. Pop Culture and Social
Chaos (cont.)
b. Drug Abuse
Drug abuse has become a global
issue over the last several decades.
In the early stages, the root of large-
scale drug abuse in the West was
the counterculture. In their cam-
paign against bourgeois morality,
hippies sought to deconstruct and
undermine all tradition and to erect
their own beliefs, moral standards,
and lifestyle. LSD and psilocybin
mushroom trips counted as spiritual
explorations; amphetamines and
cocaine were used as uppers; and
heroin and barbiturates were used
as downers, all to remove the us-
ers from the world and take them to
another state.
Many young members of the move-
ment had a keen interest in Eastern
philosophy and spiritual cultivation.
Psychedelics became their shortcut
for gaining “insight” without having
to endure the challenges of cultivat-
ing the mind and the physical pain
of meditation. Simply taking a tab
of acid would deliver a pseudo-spir-
itual experience, though it did not
connect them to anything real. Such
drugs simply put their bodies in the
control of demonic elements not at
all related to true, orthodox cultiva-
tion practices. These experiences led
many with true spiritual aspirations
down a crooked path. Many pop
singers and rock stars have died in
their twenties and thirties, often due
to drug overdoses.
Destructive drugs like
fentanyl are flooding
American streets at a
terrifying pace, killing many
more people than other
opioids. The trafficking of
fentanyl from China has been
widely reported.
In the contemporary United States,
the longest and sorriest war has
been the war on drugs. For decades,
the country’s law enforcement has
been dedicated to arresting and
monitoring thousands of drug traf-
fickers. Government officials have
issued repeat warnings against il-
legal drug use, yet from 2000 to 2018,
at least 300,000 Americans died of
opioid overdoses. On Oct. 26, 2017,
President Donald Trump declared
the opioid crisis a public health
emergency and outlined ways to
combat the problem. [10]
According to a 2017 report by the
National Institute on Drug Abuse for
Teens, marijuana use among students
is rampant: 45 percent of twelfth-
graders said they had used marijuana
at least once, and 37.1 percent had
used it in the past year; 71 percent did
not believe that frequent use of mari-
juana was very harmful. [11]
Taking ecstasy and smoking mari-
juana have become commonplace
among young people, while newer
Montgomery and stronger drugs, including fen-
County Sher- tanyl, continue to emerge. Fentanyl
iff’s deputies and is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times
emergency per- more potent than heroin and 100
sonnel respond
times stronger than morphine. It is
to a suspected
drug overdose in so deadly that it has been called a
chemical weapon; two milligrams
a gas station car-
can be fatal. [12] Yet such destructive
park in the Harri-
son Township of drugs are flooding American streets
Dayton, Ohio, on at a terrifying pace, killing many
Nov. 1, 2019. more people than other opioids,
simply because it’s so easy to over-
dose on them.
According to the National Insti-
tute on Drug Abuse, among the
approximately 67,000 deaths from
drug overdoses in 2018, about 31,000
were due to fentanyl and its analogs.
[13] The trafficking of fentanyl from
China has been widely reported.
In 2018, authorities performing a
routine inspection at the Port of
Philadelphia discovered and seized
110 pounds of fentanyl in a shipment
of iron oxide from China. The street
value of the drugs discovered was
$1.7 million. [14]
In China, drug abuse is also
spreading like a cancer through
society. The production and abuse of
drugs, especially synthetic drugs, is
rampant, and internet drug sales are
out of control. According to a 2015
report by the China National Nar-
cotic Control Commission (CNNCC),
the number of drug users in China
exceeded 14 million. The real num-
ber is probably higher since drug us-
ers increasingly include white-collar
workers, entertainers, and public
servants. [15] A 2017 report by the
CNNCC showed that China’s narcot-
ics departments had cracked 140,000
drug cases, destroyed 5,534 drug-
trafficking groups, arrested 169,000
trafficking suspects, seized 89.2 tons
of drugs, and carried out 870,000
raids, which uncovered 340,000 new
drug users. [16]
c. Pornography and Prostitution
Strip club danc- Of all the forms of revolution called
ers, workers, and for by communists, the most com-
supporters march plete is probably the sexual revolu-
to protest police tion. If the seizure of political power
raids that cited
marks a revolution against the
and closed sev- external components of society, then
eral strip clubs on sexual liberation is the communist
Bourbon Street in revolution instigated internally.
New Orleans on
Freud’s pansexualism, a theory
Feb. 1, 2018.
that regards all desire and interests
as originating from the sex instinct,
EMILY KASK/AFP
VIA GETTY IMAGES provided the theoretical basis for
sexual liberation, while the emer-
gence of oral contraceptives began to
separate sex from reproduction. The
sexual revolution struck at traditional
morality and brought about and pro-
moted radical feminism, abortion,
premarital sex, and the gay move-
ment. Sexual liberation established
the distorted idea that participating
in recreational sex and the sex trade
are basic human rights. It destroyed
traditional sexual ethics and re-
straints, and allowed sex to become a
form of entertainment. It turned hu-
mans into mere sex tools and opened
the floodgates for pornography to
infiltrate and sabotage society.
In the 1950s, Playboy magazine
CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
played an exceptionally significant
role in assisting in sexual indulgence
as it made a business out of pornog-
raphy. While the slogan “make love,
not war” was in the air during the
anti-war era, the sexually explicit
film “Blue Movie” became the first of
its kind to be released widely in the-
aters in the United States. A fifteen-
year-long era (1969–1984) of “porno
chic,” accompanied by rock ‘n’ roll
and the overall rejection of tradition,
emerged in the West.
Sexual liberation destroyed
traditional sexual ethics
and restraints, and allowed
sex to become a form of
entertainment. It turned
humans into mere sex tools
and opened the floodgates for
pornography to infiltrate and
sabotage society.
In the 1970s, pornographic films
were generally available only in
seedy adult movie theaters. By the
early 1980s, the availability of VHS
brought pornography into millions
of households, while the spread of
the internet in the late 1990s, and
later the smartphone era, brought
pornography on demand. World-
wide, the pornography industry
was worth $97 billion annually as of
2015, and in the United States alone,
$10 billion to $12 billion. [17]
Notes
10. White House, “Ending America’s Opioid
Crisis,” accessed April 29, 2020.
11. U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse
for Teens, “Drug Facts: Marijuana,” revised
December 2019.
12. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration,
“2019 National Drug Threat Assessment,”
December 2019.
13. National Institute on Drug Abuse,
“Overdose Death Rates,” revised March
2020.
14. Amanda Hoover, “110 Pounds of
Fentanyl Seized at Port in Shipment from
China,” New Jersey Advance Media, July
2, 2018.
15. “Zhongguo dupin baogao: quanguo
xidu renshu yu 1400 wan” 中国毒品报
告：全国吸毒人数逾1400万 [“China
Drug Report: More than 14 million drug
users nationwide”], BBC Chinese, June 24,
2015.
16. Zhang Yang 张洋, “Quanguo pohuo
dupin xingshi anjian 14 wan qi” 全国破获
毒品刑事案件14万起 [“140,000 Drug
Criminal Cases Cracked Across China”] in
“2017 nian Zhongguo dupin xingshi baogao
2017” 年中国毒品形势报告 [“China’s
Drug Situation Report 2017”], People’s
Daily, June 26, 2018.
17. “Things Are Looking Up in America’s
Porn Industry,” NBC News, Jan. 20, 2015.
See next edition for the next installment.
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OPINION | A15
Stephen Gregory, Publisher
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A16 | OPINION
Engraved portraits of the signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The signers understood the importance of free speech.
Freedom of ARTHUR MILIKH
Much evidence suggests that
freedom of speech may be
banned in the coming years
Speech Versus under the guise of regulating
“hate speech.” Many on the
left who demand and welcome
this development do not foresee
Identity Politics the broad consequences of their actions.
Nor do many defenders of free speech
sufficiently examine the left’s reasons for
banning it.
Just in the past few years, U.S. sena-
tors proposed to outlaw words they
The Book You’ve Been deem offensive; New York City at-
tempted to fine residents $250,000 if they
Waiting for... say “illegal alien”; Big Tech companies
continue to ban certain kinds of speech
from their platforms; deeply embedded
regulatory and judicial precedents, orig-
inating in civil rights laws and the sexual
liberation movement, have expanded
their reach into the private sphere,
permitting bureaucrats and activists to
NOW regulate speech; and denunciations of
individuals and institutions who speak
BIGGER SIZE, contrary to identity-politics dogma are
EASIER TO READ commonplace.
FORMAT These aren’t isolated instances of
far-left overreach. Rather, as an earlier
generation’s liberalism is subsumed into
identity politics, free speech, in conflict
with identity politics’ central claims, be-
comes its first and most important target
of attack.
To understand the political and moral
consequences of losing freedom of
speech, we should examine its original
“Extremely well “The Truth, as horrifying as it is, purposes, of which there are three: polit-
ical liberty, freedom of the mind, and the
researched and true.” shall set us free. This should be formation of republican habits of charac-
on this country’s academia’s ter. For Benjamin Franklin, these pur-
poses were related: “Without Freedom
list of required reading.”
HOW THE
of Thought, there can be no such Thing
as Wisdom; and no such Thing as public
Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.”
SPECTER OF COMMUNISM
Political liberty isn’t possible without
freedom of speech. On the one hand,
arguments about the common good
IS RULING OUR WORLD
and public policies must be presented
to citizens if they are to rule them-
selves—and to do this, citizens must be
free to discuss “the Propriety of Pub-
lic Measures and political opinions,”
The specter of communism did not as Franklin says. On the other hand,
disappear with the disintegration of the
Communist Party in Eastern Europe
ORDER NOW!
EpochShop.com
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
KEAN COLLECTION/ARCHIVE PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
free speech is also a necessary tool for
exposing and keeping in check “narrow
thoughts and narrow men.”
Among other things, this means that
free speech can compel the obedience,
not to say the virtue, of public officials
and oligarchs to the public interest. As
the Continental Congress declared,
through free speech “oppressive [public]
officers are shamed or intimidated, into
more honourable and just modes of con-
ducting affairs.”
Restriction of free speech in
America will cause a decline
in these moral and mental
prerequisites to self-rule.
Second, freedom of speech is needed
for freedom of the mind. As the Conti-
nental Congress noted, “the advance-
ment of truth, science, morality, and arts
in general” depend upon freedom of the
press and speech. In this regard, freedom
of speech is connected to the highest
pursuit of man—the search for the truth
in philosophy, science, or religion. But in
intellectual matters, just as in the politi-
cal sphere, freedom of speech contains a
defensive element: it prevents the ascent
of ideologies hostile to liberty, to which
free societies are always vulnerable.
Thomas Jefferson, for exam-
ple, writes in “Notes on the State of Vir-
ginia” that “reason and free inquiry are
the only effectual agents against error”
brought on through religious or ideologi-
cal fanaticism. Reason can publicly test
the truth of all claims and thus prevents
the onset of intellectual despotism.
Third, freedom of speech plays a cen-
tral role in forming the habits of charac-
ter necessary for republican government.
Through it, citizens develop the habit of
speaking and thinking freely about all
matters of public concern, and in doing
so, they are trained in forming sound
judgment. As such, citizens become less
drawn in by romantic, revolutionary,
and impossible undertakings, tenden-
cies democracies are especially given
to. Moreover, and perhaps most impor-
tantly, freedom of speech cultivates in
JOSH EDELSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
A woman stomps
on a free speech
sign after a con-
servative com-
mentator spoke
to a crowd of
supporters on the
University of Cal-
ifornia–Berkeley
campus on Sept.
24, 2017.
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021 OPINION | A17
JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES

For example, any serious political

A Trump supporter and an anti-Trump protester bump elbows in Detroit on Nov. 5, 2020.
citizens the mental habit of persuading
fellow citizens through reason.
This habit, correspondingly, cultivates
an openness to being persuaded by rea-
son. The opposite of persuasion is force.
Persuading one’s fellow citizens rather
than compelling them becomes the
primary mode of political interaction.
As such, the strong, natural passions of
pride and anger are moderated by the
demand to speak rationally, to persuade
others, and to defend one’s views.
Such habits of mind took generations
to form in a single people but can eas-
ily be lost. A cursory look at the various
peoples of the world plainly shows how
rare these habits are. Restriction of free
speech in America will cause a decline in
these moral and mental prerequisites to
self-rule. The loss of the capacity to think
for oneself and form rational judgments
about the common good and human
merit will give rise to the rule of anger,
resentment, and force.
Despite these serious political and
moral justifications, we still may ask:
why is freedom of speech a natural
right? The answer: since human beings
are individuals, belonging to them-
selves, their mental faculties belong to
them, too, and their speech, as a product
of their faculties, also belongs to them.
In other words, no one has a right to
another’s mind. As James Madison ex-
plains, man has “an equal property
in the free use of his faculties.” This is
closely related to Madison’s observa-
tion that “a man’s conscience ... is more
sacred than his castle,” the violation of
which is coequal to breaching the social
contract.
Today, identity politics threatens to
undermine political liberty and to undo
these habits of mind and character by
demanding bans on so-called “hate
speech.” Identity politics is a winner-
take-all ideology, pitting the victim-
ized or marginalized—who demand
liberation, celebration, and equal self-
respect—against the so-called oppressor
group, which, in the American context,
is defined explicitly as whites. The op-
pressor identity must be condemned,
punished, and silenced. There is no place
in this view for civic accommodation or
reconciliation.
stop such speech because they are not
supposed to. They allow and encourage
extremists and ideologues to monopolize
public conversation with their hatred
and calumnies.
Nor do “hate speech” laws prevent
violence against marginalized groups,
an often-cited justification for their
existence. In fact, while the UK has
criminalized anti-Semitic “hate speech,”
violent anti-Semitic hate crimes are 13
times more likely to occur there than in
the United States, which doesn’t crimi-
nalize “hate speech.” France also crimi-
nalizes anti-Semitic speech, yet violent
anti-Semitic hate crimes are four times
more likely to occur in France than in the
United States.
What kinds of speech, then, are forbid-
den to the oppressor group? First, need-
less to say, are group epithets—but these
are merely the public examples used to
persuade the decent-minded. Most im-
portant to speech-criminalization advo-
cates is silencing all criticisms—regard-
less of how rational or well-meaning—of
marginalized groups which they deem
harmful to their self-respect.
Perhaps most astonishingly, speech
prohibitions would extend even to facts
that may call into question the self-
respect of the marginalized. As leading
speech-criminalization advocates Rich-
ard Delgado and Gene Stefancic write,
speaking about the statistically docu-
mented disparities in educational pre-
paredness of affirmative action recipi-
ents is deplorable “hate speech.” Factual,
provable claims such as these are labeled
“hate speech” in multiple other areas if
they are regarded as threatening to the
self-respect of the marginalized.
One sees this conflict underway, for
example, between medical doctors and
transgender activists.
The very purpose of ‘hate
speech’ regulation is one-
sided: The marginalized are
permitted to speak freely,
while the so-called oppressor
group must be silenced.
Banning ‘hate
speech’ requires
nothing short of
a revolution that
marks the end not
only of freedom of
mind but also of
what remains of
political self-rule
in America.
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debates about immigration—legal or il-
legal—supposedly harms the self-respect
of marginalized immigrants. The only le-
gitimate discussion, therefore, becomes
how to increase immigration. Defenses
of the traditional family, in turn, harm
the self-respect of feminists and the LG-
BTQ community. Discussion of crimi-
nality harms the self-respect of groups
who commit crimes at higher rates.
As the sphere of permissible political
speech narrows to the point of irrel-
evance, even seemingly neutral topics
like welfare become off-limits. As some
academics write: “race-neutral [political]
campaign themes” like welfare policy
“carry demonstrably racially loaded
undertones.” Almost nothing is left to the
sphere of political deliberation—even tax
policy likely harms some marginalized
group. Self-rule is fundamentally under-
mined.
Most Americans do not yet understand
how far this powerful movement has al-
ready advanced. Only 53 percent of col-
lege students—a bare majority—still
support freedom of speech today. This is
truly alarming. Judicial and regulatory
precedents for limiting speech are al-
ready on the books, and they can and
likely will be used to restrict even pri-
vate speech. These legal standards will
be exploited in the coming years by ac-
tivists, the administrative state, and Big
Tech companies, whose platforms have
become an essential venue for public
deliberation, will continue to implement
bans following a similar logic.
The conflict between identity politics
and republican self-government will
become more pronounced in the com-
ing years. Unlike most policy disputes,
freedom of speech is a civilizational
principle: only it can preserve republican
self-government, and only it can cool
the fanatical hatreds and false theories
underlying identity politics.
But Americans shouldn’t count on the
courts to save them. We need a new and
courageous political class that under-
stands what is at stake if free speech and
republican self-rule are to survive.
From RealClearWire.
Arthur Milikh is the executive director
of the Claremont Institute’s Center for
the American Way of Life.
TheEpochTimes.com
Log in to your account at TheEpochTimes.com
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the top right-hand corner of the page
Welcome, John

“Hate speech,” it must be noted, has

little to do with racial epithets or Ho-
locaust denial. Rather, according to its
most influential definers, it is speech that
harms the self-respect of the so-called
marginalized. Indeed, the very purpose
of “hate speech” regulation is one-sided:
The marginalized are permitted to speak
freely, while the so-called oppressor
group must be silenced.
On this logic, Malcolm X’s expres-
sion “white devil” is as tolerable as it is
to say today that the “greatest terrorist
threat in this country is white men.” As
leading speech-criminalization advocate
Mari Matsuda writes, society must toler-
ate speech “that comes from an experi-
ence of oppression.”
In fact, the hateful speech of the mar-
ginalized shouldn’t merely be tolerated
but also encouraged when directed
against the oppressor group. If, as iden-
tity-politics advocates insist, the libera-
tion of marginalized groups depends on
disrupting or undermining the power
On this logic, broader factual disputes Click on the sidebar option for
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tice” by banning “hate speech.” Thus, the
oppressor group’s culture and opinion
of itself must be reshaped so that posi- Welcome, John!
tive depictions in films, advertisements,
newspapers, or academic scholarship—
whether true or not—of marginalized
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and identity of the oppressor, then “hate
speech” toward the oppressor is coura-
geous, heroic—and necessary.
An “angry, hateful poem by a person
from a historically subjugated group”
should be interpreted as “a victim’s
struggle for self-identity in response to
racism,” writes Matsuda.
Not surprisingly, in Europe and
Canada, where “hate speech” is already
criminalized, the public square is filled
with speech that freely maligns Chris-
tianity, heterosexuality, and legacy
populations. “Hate speech” laws do not
pression and subjugation of women; or
that gender is merely a social construct,
freely chosen by individuals; or that the
United States is founded fundamentally
on white supremacy, as The New York
Times’s 1619 Project asserts.
Banning “hate speech” requires noth-
ing short of a revolution that marks the
end not only of freedom of mind but also
of what remains of political self-rule in
America. It requires the removal from
legitimate political deliberation of all es-
sential political questions that may harm
the self-respect of the marginalized.
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A18 | BUSINESS & ECONOMY THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021

Why Full Expensing of R&D Should

Remain in the Tax Code
ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES

ANDREW WILFORD

Commentary

Ask 1,000 random

people what the 2017
tax reform law did, and
probably none of them
would tell you about full
expensing of business investments—
instead, they’d likely cite individual or
corporate income tax reductions.
And yet, the ability to immediately de-
duct investment expenses was one of the
most important pro-growth provisions
in the entirety of the Tax Cuts and Jobs
Act (TCJA). Now, though, it’s in danger
of being phased out, unless Congress
passes legislation sponsored by Rep.
John Larson (R-Conn.) and other House
Republicans to extend it.
Economists and tax experts have long
recognized the importance of incentiv-
izing investment by allowing businesses
to recoup some of the value of their
investments through the tax code. Yet,
rather than allowing businesses to de-
duct the value of their investments im-
mediately (known as “full expensing”),
they were required to navigate complex
amortization schedules that could ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES

spread the timetable for recovering the
value of an asset up to 50 years.
Not only was this system of asset depre-
ciation a compliance nightmare, it also
reduced the value of the tax deduction
for businesses. Businesses value cash on
hand more than cash down the road, as
cash on hand can be used for other pro-
ductive purposes now rather than later.
While requiring businesses to recoup
the tax benefit over the course of many
years in no way increases federal rev-
enue over the long term, it does reduce
the benefit to those businesses. A 2012
report by the Tax Foundation’s Scott
Greenberg found that a system of asset
depreciation reduced the value of in-
vestments for businesses by just un-
der 17 percent on average, compared to a
system of full expensing.
In recognition of this, the TCJA sought
to transition to full expensing for capi-
tal investments, allowing businesses to
bypass the system of asset depreciation
entirely. Instead, they could immediate-
ly deduct the full value of capital invest-
ments the year they were made.
There was a catch, though—unfortu-
nately, full expensing has the bad luck
of looking costly under a 10-year budget
window. The budget impact of all legisla-
tive proposals are “scored” by official
government budget scorekeepers over a
10-year period, and this is generally the
window at which Congress considers the
impact that legislation will have on the
budget.
As a result, the expensing provision
was scheduled to expire in 2022 in order
to make the 10-year budget math fit with
Congress’s complicated budget recon-
The U.S. Capitol in ciliation rules. This included research
Washington on and development costs, which had been
Jan. 20, 2018. subject to expensing since the 1950s.
The thing is, full expensing reduces
federal tax revenue by next to nothing
in practice. Businesses receive the same
tax benefit over the long run—the sole
Businesses difference is whether they receive it
value cash on simply over one year, or in a complicated
manner over as many as 50y.
hand more than But looking at a 10-year budget win-
cash down the dow, any asset depreciation that would
road, as cash normally take place over more than
10 years appears to “cost” the federal
on hand can be government revenue, since part of the
used for other tax benefit would have accrued to busi-
productive nesses outside the 10-year window. As a
result, instituting full expensing for just
purposes now five years between 2018 and 2022 was es-
rather than later. timated to “cost” the federal government
just under $120 billion in revenue.
In order to comply with budget recon-
ciliation limitations on budget impact,
Congress chose to phase out full expens-
ing between 2023 and 2027, hoping to A coffee shop
extend it later before that happened. Full manager rings
expensing of R&D costs were scheduled up a drink
to end in 2022. That made full expens- order, in Las
ing’s “price tag” on the final TCJA a far Vegas’s Boca
more manageable $86.3 billion. Park Fashion
Village on
That helped with making the TCJA’s May 9, 2020.
budget math work, but reverting to
asset depreciation makes no sense at
all from a policy perspective. It’s more
complicated, it reduces the incentive for
businesses to invest (which is crucial to
raising wages), and it increases federal
revenue only in the short term.
The impact is even more severe for
R&D investments, which businesses
have been able to fully expense for
decades, even prior to the passage of
the TCJA. Allowing R&D investments
to be subjected to the system of asset
depreciation would not just be undoing
a good policy fix (like with other capital
investments), it would subject this kind
of investment to an inferior system for
essentially the first time.
Given the importance of research and
development investments to economic
growth, Congress must consider how to
make full expensing of R&D costs per-
manent rather than allowing it to expire
next year. At a time when the economy
is trying to recover from a recession,
Congress cannot afford to disincentiv-
ize investment. It especially can’t afford
to do so simply because of a quirk in the
budget scoring process.
From RealClearWire.
Andrew Wilford is a policy analyst
with the National Taxpayers Union
Foundation.

APU GOMES/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

population of the states. Democrats in the House and Senate

22 Governors Oppose CCP Virus
Stimulus Bill Over Allocation of Funds
SAMUEL ALLEGRI
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and 21 other
state governors are speaking out in op-
position to President Joe Biden’s new cri-
teria for allocating CCP virus relief funds.
Their main objection is that the bill di-
rects funds to be distributed according to
unemployment numbers, instead of the
A woman researches
Social Security services
after losing her job, in Los
Angeles on April 1, 2020.
A joint statement released on Feb. 27
reads: “Unlike all previous federal fund-
ing packages, the new stimulus proposal
allocates aid based on a state’s unem-
ployed population rather than its actual
population, which punishes states that
took a measured approach to the pan-
demic and entered the crisis with healthy
state budgets and strong economies.
“A state’s ability to keep businesses open
and people employed should not be a pe-
nalizing factor when distributing funds. If
Congress is going to provide aid to states,
it should be on an equitable population
basis.”
In addition, Reynolds protested on Twit-
ter about how the larger portions of mon-
ey would be directed to states “who chose
aggressive shutdowns and mismanaged
their state budgets.”
The bill, which was approved by the
House on Feb. 27 in a 219–212 vote, includ-
ed a potential increase in the minimum
wage, which has been widely criticized by
Republicans. However, the Senate parlia-
mentarian, who oversees the chamber’s
processes, ruled that Democrats can’t in-
clude the $15 per hour minimum wage
proposal in the COVID-19 economic relief
package.
Some Senate Democrats suggested
moving forward on the relief bill without
the increase.
have sought to fast-track Biden’s $1.9 tril-
lion stimulus package without Republi-
can support by approving a resolution to
start a process that would allow the bill
to be approved in the Senate with a sim-
ple majority vote instead of the 60 votes
needed to advance most legislation in the
chamber.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Sen-
ate Democrat, believes that the $15 mini-
mum wage proposal won’t be included in
the Senate version.
“If it takes 60 votes or a supermajority of
some kind, it’s very difficult, obviously,”
Durbin told reporters on March 1.
Durbin also said it’s very unlikely that
the parliamentarian can be overruled.
“I would recommend that we look for
another thing. I support increasing the
minimum wage,” he said.
All Democratic senators would have to
vote in favor of the bill in order for it to
pass. However, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.
Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have
expressed objections to including a boost
to the federal minimum wage in the bill.
The Congressional Budget Office  re-
leased a report projecting that an esti-
mated million people would be “lifted”
out of poverty with an increase in the
minimum wage, but the report also found
that the change could result in the loss of
1.4 million jobs.
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
(Left) Pedestrians walk along a snow-covered street in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 15, 2021. Winter storm Uri brought historic cold weather to Texas. (Right) Students participate in a global walkout for cli-
mate change in downtown Los Angeles on March 15, 2019.
Climate Change Alarmism
Takes Another Big Hit
STEPHEN MOORE
Commentary
Throughout the midsec-
tion of the United States
in February, record
frigid temperatures were
inconvenient for those
politicians who call global warming an
“existential threat.”
Global warming is already here, we
are told. However, it didn’t feel like it if
you lived in Bismarck, North Dakota,
where temperatures fell to decades-low
numbers, or in Chicago, Oklahoma
City, Dallas, or Houston. San Antonio
had snow for the first time in recent
memory.
The environmental apocalyptics
say this doesn’t prove anything about
what’s happening with the planet’s cli-
mate. And you know what? They are 100
percent correct.
But last summer, when hundreds
of thousands of acres burned in Cali-
fornia, that event was prima-facie
evidence of global warming, and if you
challenged that premise, you faced
ridicule as a “denier.”
About 10 years ago, when Barack
Warren’s Wealth Tax Is Trojan Horse for Socialism
CHRIS TALGO
Commentary
Like most socialists,
Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) is enamored
with class warfare and
wealth redistribution. Her
political career has been predicated on
vilifying productive Americans while
nurturing a sense of victimhood among
the unproductive.
Although Warren’s socialist streak
probably prevented her from becoming
her party’s 2020 presidential nominee,
she’s not backing down. In fact, she’s
doubling down.
On March 1, Warren reintroduced
her Ultra-Millionaire Tax, which would
impose a “2% annual tax on the net worth
of households and trusts between $50
million and $1 billion” and a “1% annual
surtax (3% tax overall) on the net worth of
households and trusts above $1 billion.”
According to Warren, “This is a wealth
tax that has been needed for a long time.
We need it to produce more revenue, to
create more opportunity in America.”
This is deceitful.
First, governments don’t need more
revenue. In FY 2020, revenue to the fed-
eral, state, and local governments totaled
$7 trillion. The federal government alone
collected $3.4 trillion in revenue. How
much more revenue could government
possibly need? In Warren’s mind, more.
Second, since when does the federal
government create opportunity? Short
answer: Never. That’s part and parcel
of the private sector. Unless, of course,
you’re a socialist.
In Warren’s eyes, the government’s
MONTINIQUE MONROE/GETTY IMAGES
Obama was president, his scientists
put out a silly report on climate change,
showing that the Great Lakes’ ice
coverage had fallen to its lowest level
in several decades. It was evidence
of a warming planet. But the year
after the report came out, we had a
frigid winter in the Midwest, and the
ice cover was abnormally high. This
year, we are again experiencing high
ice levels on the Great Lakes with the
polar vortex.
Whoops. Again, this proves nothing,
but the environmentalists made the
point in the first place. OK, what’s the
following argument?
One of the climate change move-
ment’s ironies is that it talks obsessively
about science and the “scientific con-
sensus.” Still, collectively, the adherents
suffer from one of the most common
scientific reasoning flaws: confirma-
tion bias. This happens when you point
to anything supporting a hypothesis
as evidence and discount anything
contradicting the theory as an outlier.
Ice melting means global warming. Ice
forming is a natural, expected winter
occurrence.
Here is a classic example from The New
York Times, which tries to ridicule any-
Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) holds a news
conference to announce
a proposal to tax the net
worth of America’s wealth-
iest individuals, in Wash-
ington on March 1, 2021.
One can’t help
but wonder if
Warren’s wealth
tax is also intended
to instill fear and
acquiescence.
one who would point to the cold weather
as a contradiction to the global apoca-
lypse narrative: “Those who deny climate
science love to declare that there’s no
such thing as climate change whenever
the weather turns cold.”
Wrong. The left declares that there is
climate change anytime the weather
turns warm or there are forest fires such
as those last summer.
One of the climate change
movement’s ironies is that it
talks obsessively about science
and the ‘scientific consensus.’
Here’s another non sequitur from the
big green movement, also reported by
The New York Times: “In the United
States, we’re seeing longer wildfire sea-
sons because of hotter, drier conditions,
and our hurricanes are becoming more
destructive in several ways, includ-
ing flooding and storm surge. ... We’ve
always had floods, fires and storms, but
climate change adds oomph to many
weather events.”
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
modus operandi isn’t to create a level
playing field in which there’s equal op-
portunity for all. Rather, the government
should determine equal outcomes.
And to ensure that the government has
the capacity to achieve equal outcomes,
Warren wants to empower everyone’s
least-favorite government department:
The Internal Revenue Service.
To do this, Warren’s bill includes:
H “A $100 billion investment to rebuild
and strengthen the IRS, ensuring the
agency has the resources to hire and
train additional personnel, modernize
IT systems, and implement the new
asset valuation, reporting, and en-
forcement requirements for the Ultra-
Millionaire Tax”
H “A 30% minimum audit rate for taxpay-
ers subject to the Ultra-Millionaire Tax”
H “A 40% ‘exit tax’ on the net worth above
$50 million of any U.S. citizen who
renounces their citizenship in order to
escape paying their fair share in taxes”
Judging by the pernicious penalties for
those who would rather leave the United
States than be subject to an unconstitution-
al, un-American wealth tax, one can’t help
but wonder if Warren’s wealth tax is also
BUSINESS & ECONOMY | A19
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Is there more “oomph” from severe
weather events now than in the past?
Generally, no. The historical evidence
shows 1) there are no more severe
events than there were 50 years ago or
100 years ago (the period for which we
have reliable data) and 2) the percent-
age of people in the world who die from
extreme weather events, such as mon-
soons, forest fires, high temperatures,
frigid winters, hurricanes, and torna-
does, has been consistently falling for at
least a century and is lower today than
any time in human history.
There are many reasons for this. First,
we have better warning systems for
severe weather events. Second, we are
better prepared with superior building
codes and more weather-resistant mate-
rials. And third, technology and human
know-how make us better prepared to
deal with the “fires next time.” We learn
and we adapt from the vicissitudes of
Mother Nature.
It explains why, even though storms
may be getting more destructive and we
hear constant warnings of rising sea lev-
els, people are paying higher prices than
ever before for beachfront properties in
states such as Florida, South Carolina,
Virginia, and California.
It may sound, to borrow a word from
The New York Times, “counterintuitive,”
but these are the rock-solid facts.
Stephen Moore is an economics journal-
ist, author, and columnist. The latest of
many books he co-authored is “Trumpo-
nomics: Inside the America First Plan to
Revive Our Economy.” Currently, Moore
is also the chief economist for the Institute
for Economic Freedom and Opportunity.
intended to instill fear and acquiescence.
In reality, Warren’s wealth tax is the
next logical step in the road to socialism.
The United States already has a progres-
sive income tax. According to the most
recent available tax data, “The top 1
percent paid a greater share of individual
income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bot-
tom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent).”
The United States also incorporates
wealth redistribution on a massive scale.
From free health care to free groceries to
free housing, the federal government is
well on its way to becoming the ultra-
nanny state of Warren’s dreams.
In the second quarter of 2020, federal
government transfer payments reached
an all-time high of $4.8 trillion. During
the COVID-19 pandemic, social benefits
have exploded. Warren and others be-
lieve this is a good thing. It’s not.
Warren would like you to believe the
wealthy don’t pay their fair share and that
those on the lower rungs of the economic
ladder have little shot at achieving the
American dream. Neither of those is true.
The United States has been the land of
opportunity since its founding. However,
this isn’t destined to remain the case.
As Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is
a fragile thing and it’s never more than
one generation away from extinction. It
is not ours by way of inheritance; it must
be fought for and defended constantly by
each generation, for it comes only once to
a people.”
Warren’s odious wealth tax, if imple-
mented, would undermine Americans’
freedom while putting the United States
further down the dark road to socialism.
Chris Talgo is an editor at The Heartland
Institute.
A20 | THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021

‘You and I have

a rendezvous with destiny.’ – Ronald Reagan

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TRUTH AND TRADITION

WEEKNIGHT COOKING WINE

A Stew That Satisfies, The Red Wine Myth

No Meat Necessary One of the most enduring myths of
red wine is that the older it gets, the better it is.
Make a double batch of this fragrant curried chickpea
stew to keep in the freezer.

See B2 See B8

GOOD EATS|RECIPES|DRINKS THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021 B1

FOOD

Making
the Perfect
Risotto This
seafood risotto
is striking in both
Understand the key color and flavor
thanks to squid
ingredients and ink.

techniques of this
essential northern
Italian dish, then
make the recipe
your own
GIULIA SCARPALEGGIA

R
isotto is one of
the most clas-
sic, comfort-
ing, and rec-
ognizable
recipes of the Italian cu-
linary tradition. It finds its
home in Italy’s northern re-
gions, such as Piedmont, Lombardy,
and Veneto, traditionally dedicated to
growing rice.
Risotto is one of those dishes that is usu-
ally considered part of a Sunday meal, a
rich and celebratory food. Though it is
simple, it requires care and attention in
the making.
It is worth learning the basics, getting
to know the ingredients and techniques
behind a risotto made by the book. Then,
you’ll be able to improvise with seasonal
ingredients and make the recipe your own.

Risotto is one of those

dishes that is usually
considered part of a Sunday
meal, a rich and celebratory
food. Though it is simple, it
requires care and attention
in the making.
3 Important Moments
The universally recognized characteristic
of risotto is the step of coddling it on the
stove. To make a risotto, you have to stand
by the stove, gradually adding stock to the
rice and constantly stirring, to coax it into
the perfect creamy texture. It is time-con-
suming, a labor of love, but worth every
single minute.

Continued on B4

Call for Food Writers

Are you an experienced food writer? We’re looking to commission
stories about unique, time-honored food traditions and recipes from
FOOD
across the country—and around the world. If interested, send your
pitch, author bio, and 2 to 3 writing samples to food@epochtimes.com S!
E FOR U
W RIT
B2 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021

KRISTIN TEIG/TNS

This One
SHEELA PRAKASH This ultimate is a fancy-pants version of the classic, you still
garlic pasta probably already have everything you need

I
f you find yourself doubling the amount uses garlic two to make it: dried pasta, olive oil, red pepper
of garlic in every recipe you make, do ways: roasted flakes, grated Parm, and, of course, an entire

Is for the
yourself a favor and make this pasta until cara- head of garlic. With the exception of the time
ASAP. With its one-two punch of garlic, it melized and it takes to roast the garlic (which can be done
jammy for a
has earned its “Ultimate Garlic Pasta” title. a day in advance), it’s quick and easy to make.
luscious sauce,
You start by roasting a whole head of garlic and sliced I love using toothsome bucatini here, which
until the cloves are caramelized and jammy, and fried for a you may or may not be able to find. But if all

Garlic
which lends a sweet, concentrated flavor to
the luscious olive oil sauce. Next, slice up a
few more cloves and fry until golden. The
slim, crispy garlic chips add bold, pungent
flavor to each and every twirl. The finished
crispy topping. you’ve got is spaghetti or linguine, don’t let
that delay you. The pasta isn’t the point here.
This time, it’s all about the garlic.
Sheela Prakash is the senior contributing

Lovers
dish is rich and super savory, and surpris- food editor at TheKitchn.com, a nation-
ingly easy to make. ally known blog for people who love food
At its heart, this is aglio e olio, the tradi- and home cooking. Submit any comments
tional pasta dish from Southern Italy. The or questions to editorial@thekitchn.com.
name translates to “garlic and oil,” which Copyright 2021 Apartment Therapy. Dis-
speaks to its simplicity. And even though this tributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

THE ULTIMATE GARLIC PASTA

SERVES 4 TO 6
1 medium head plus 4 cloves garlic, divided
4 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon olive oil, divided
Kosher salt
1/3 cup loosely packed fresh parsley leaves
1 pound dried bucatini pasta
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving
Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the
oven to 400 degrees F.
Peel off and discard the excess papery skins from 1
medium head of the garlic, then slice a thin layer off
the top to expose the cloves. Place cut-side up on a
piece of aluminum foil. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon of the
olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt. Wrap
the garlic completely in the foil.
Roast until the garlic is tender and caramelized, 45 to
50 minutes. Meanwhile, thinly slice the remaining 4
garlic cloves. Coarsely chop 1/3 cup loosely packed
fresh parsley leaves.
About 20 minutes before the garlic is ready, bring
a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add 1 pound
dried bucatini pasta and cook 1 minute less than
al dente, about 8 minutes or according to package
instructions. Reserve 2 cups of the cooking water.
Drain the pasta and set it aside.
When the garlic is ready, remove from the oven,
unwrap, and set aside until the garlic is cool enough
to handle, about 5 minutes. Squeeze the roasted
garlic cloves out of their skins into a small bowl.
Pour 3 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large skillet,
then arrange the sliced garlic in a single layer in
the oil. Turn the heat to medium. Cook, stirring
frequently, until the garlic is golden-brown and
crisp, about 5 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to
transfer the garlic chips to a paper towel-lined
plate to drain and sprinkle with kosher salt.
Add the roasted garlic cloves and 1/4 teaspoon
red pepper flakes to the oil in the skillet. Cook,
breaking the cloves up with a wooden spoon, until
fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes.
Add the reserved pasta water and bring to a
vigorous simmer over medium-high heat. Simmer
until the liquid is reduced by half, about 5 minutes.
Add the bucatini and toss continuously until
the sauce thickens and coats the pasta, 1 to 2
minutes.
Remove from the heat. Add the remaining 1
tablespoon olive oil and parsley and toss to
combine. Taste and season with kosher salt as
needed. Serve immediately, topping each serving
with lots of grated Parmesan cheese and a
sprinkle of garlic chips.
RECIPE NOTES
The garlic can be roasted up to one day ahead. Let
cool, then refrigerate the whole head still wrapped
in its aluminum foil. Squeeze out the roasted
cloves into a bowl before using.
Leftovers can be refrigerated in an airtight
container up to four days.
Spaghetti or linguine can be used in
place of the bucatini.

A Stew That CURRIED CHICKPEA STEW

Satisfies, No Active Time: 30 minutes

1/2 medium head cauliflower, broken into bite-size
becomes dry). Add cauliflower; cover and cook, stirring

Meat Necessary
Total Time: 55 minutes occasionally, until barely tender-crisp, 5 to 10 minutes
florets (3 cups)
SERVES 8 more.
2 (15-ounce) cans low-sodium chickpeas, rinsed
1 10-ounce package prewashed spinach or other Stir in chickpeas, tomatoes, half-and-half, and coconut
sturdy greens 2 (14-ounce) cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes,
JOYCE HENDLEY milk. Bring to just below boiling. Reduce heat to low and
drained
3 tablespoons water, divided simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes.
1/2 cup fat-free half-and-half Stir in the reserved spinach (or greens) and heat through.
Who says a meatless meal isn’t filling? 1 1/2 tablespoons canola oil
Packed with fiber-rich vegetables and 1/3 cup light coconut milk Transfer half of the mixture (about 5 cups) to a 1 1/2-
1 large onion, chopped
chickpeas, this fragrant stew satisfies. quart freezer container; label and freeze for up to one
piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
1 2-inch pie Place spinach (or other greens) in a microwave-safe dish;
If you like, kick-up the spice by adding month. Serve the remaining half at once, or refrigerate for
add 1 tablespoon water and cover. Microwave on high,
more jalapeño pepper. small
1/2 sma
smal jalapeño pepper, seeded and
all ja up to three days.
stirring occasionally, until just wilted, 1 to 2 minutes.
This double-batch recipe ma
makes
akes finelyy cchopped
Transfer to a colander to drain. When cool enough to To cook from frozen: Thaw overnight in the refrigerator,
one meal for tonight and one
ne tto cloves
love garlic, minced
3 cl handle, squeeze out any excess water. Coarsely chop and then microwave on high until heated through, 4 to 5
freeze for up to a month.
1 tab
tablespoon curry powder set aside. minutes. You can also reheat the stew in a saucepan until
3 me
medium carrots, peeled and bubbling; add a little water, if needed, to prevent sticking.
EatingWell is a magazinene Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet with high sides
and website devoted to thinly
thin sliced or a Dutch oven. Add onion and cook, stirring, until Recipe nutrition per serving: 248 Calories, Total
healthy eating as a way of translucent, about 8 minutes. Add ginger, jalapeño, Fat: 6 g, Saturated Fat: 1 g, Cholesterol: 0 mg,
life. Online at EatingWell.
l. Packed with fiber-rich veg- garlic, and curry powder; cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Carbohydrates: 38 g, Fiber: 10 g, Total Sugars: 6 g,
com. Copyright 2021 Eat- etables and chickpeas, this Add carrots and 2 tablespoons water; cover and cook, Protein: 11 g, Sodium: 309 mg, Potassium: 587 mg,
ing Well, Inc. Distributed byy fragrant stew satisfies. stirring occasionally, until the carrots have softened, Iron: 3 mg, Folate: 144 mcg, Calcium: 137 mg, Vitamin
Tribune Content Agency, LLC. C. CARSON DOWNING/TNS about 10 minutes (add more water if the mixture A: 7766 IU, Vitamin C: 50 mg.
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
The Fastest Way to Get
Your Doughnut Fix
KELLI FOSTER
It’s hard to deny the satisfaction of fresh-
ly made doughnuts, be it fluffy yeasted
doughnuts or rich and cakey doughnuts.
But in my opinion, the very best home-
made doughnuts don’t start with pull-
ing out the stand mixer or heating oil
for deep-frying. Instead, they start with
a box of puff pastry.
Unlike other doughnuts, puff pastry
doughnuts bake up extra-tall, with ir-
resistible layers of buttery, flaky dough.
The dough is barely sweetened, which
leaves plenty of room for a blanket of
glaze over the top. And best of all, you’ll
be rewarded with both doughnut rings
and doughnut holes in just 30 minutes.
Don’t Forget the Glaze
Puff pastry doughnuts are best when
finished off with a thin layer of glaze,
and our recipe includes instructions for
a simple one made with powdered sugar
and milk.
Make it your own by adding a couple
drops of food coloring, or even a tiny bit
of flavored extract (about 1/8 teaspoon
will do), such as vanilla, lemon, or al-
mond. Chocolate, of course, is also al-
ways a good option.
Kelli Foster is the food editor for plan
and prep content at TheKitchn.com, a
nationally known blog for people who
love food and home cooking. Submit
any comments or questions to edito-
rial@thekitchn.com. Copyright 2021
Apartment Therapy. Distributed by
Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
30-MINUTE PUFF PASTRY DOUGHNUTS
MAKES 8 TO 10
1 (17-ounce) box frozen puff pastry (2 sheets),
thawed according to package directions
All-purpose flour, for dusting
2 cups peanut or vegetable oil, for frying
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
Food coloring (optional)
Thaw frozen puff pastry sheets according to
package directions. Unfold on a lightly floured
A Rustic Classic Gets a Revamp
AMERICA’S TEST KITCHEN
The modern-day Italian American ver-
sion of cacciatore typically contains
bone-in chicken pieces in a garlicky,
wine-enhanced tomato sauce studded
with onions, peppers, and mushrooms.
For a fresh revamp, we decided to use
bone-in pork chops that had just enough
fat to work well when braised. The bone
adds flavor, and using bone-in chops
honors the spirit and tradition of the dish.
For 25 years, confident cooks in the
know have relied on America’s Test
Kitchen for rigorously tested recipes
developed by professional test cooks and
vetted by 60,000 at-home recipe testers.
See more online at AmericasTestKitchen.
com/TCA. Copyright 2021 America’s
Test Kitchen. Distributed by Tribune
Content Agency, LLC.
PORK CACCIATORE
SERVES 4
4 (8- to 10-ounce) bone-in pork loin chops,
3/4 to 1 inch thick, trimmed
2 1/2 teaspoons table salt, divided
2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
8 ounces cremini mushrooms, trimmed and
quartered
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and
chopped
1 onion, chopped (1 cup)
6 garlic cloves, sliced thin
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
Puff pastry doughnuts bake up extra-tall, with irresistible layers of buttery, flaky dough.
surface. With a rolling pin, gently roll each sheet to
just over 12 inches long. Use a doughnut cutter or
3-inch cookie cutter to punch out circles, then cut
a hole in the center of each using a 1-inch cookie
cutter if needed. (You’ll get 4 doughnuts per sheet).
Gather and re-roll the scraps to make 2 additional
doughnuts, if desired.
Place the doughnuts and doughnut holes on a plate
or baking sheet and refrigerate. Meanwhile, heat
the oil.
Heat peanut or vegetable oil in a Dutch oven or
heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat to 375
This dish is best served with a good-size chunk of crusty bread to sop up the garlicky
tomato sauce.
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups canned crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Pat chops dry with paper towels. Sprinkle with 2
teaspoons salt and pepper. Place flour in a shallow
dish. Working with 1 chop at a time, dredge in flour,
shaking off excess; transfer chops to a baking sheet.
Heat oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high
heat until just smoking. Add chops and cook until
browned, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Let excess oil drip
from chops, then return chops to the baking sheet.
Add mushrooms, pepper, onion, garlic, rosemary
sprigs, pepper flakes, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon
salt to the oil left in the skillet. Cook until vegetables
are just softened, about 5 minutes, stirring
JOE LINGEMAN/TNS
degrees F. Working in batches, add the doughnut
rings to the pot. Cook until the bottoms are lightly
browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Flip and cook until the
second side is browned, about 2 minutes more.
Transfer the donuts with a slotted spoon to a paper
towel-lined plate. Fry the doughnut holes, flipping
halfway through, about 2 minutes total. Let cool
completely.
Whisk together powdered sugar and milk in a wide
bowl until smooth. Tint with food coloring if desired.
Dip one side of the doughnuts into the glaze; place
glaze-side up on a wire rack. Let sit until the glaze
sets, about 10 minutes.
ELLE SIMONE
occasionally.
Stir in wine and cook until nearly evaporated, 3 to
5 minutes. Add tomatoes and bring to a simmer.
Reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes.
Nestle chops into sauce and cook until chops
register 140 degrees F, about 10 minutes, flipping
halfway through cooking.
Transfer chops to a platter. Discard rosemary
sprigs, then spoon sauce over chops. Sprinkle with
parsley and serve.
RECIPE NOTES
White mushrooms can be substituted for the
cremini.
One 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes will yield
more than enough for this recipe.
Serve with crusty bread, if desired.
B3
A New Way
to Love Bran
Muffins
DIANE ROSSEN WORTHINGTON
Do you love bran muffins with your morn-
ing coffee or tea? It’s often my go-to break-
fast on the go. So, it was a total delight to
discover that bran muffin batter could also
be baked in a loaf pan.
The loaf was as moist as
could be and lasted four
days. It was as good as the
first day it was baked.
My friend had been telling me about this
recipe she had culled from a number of oth-
er recipes. The first time I tried it, I added
too much water and it was what I call a hap-
py accident. The loaf was as moist as could
be and lasted four days. It was as good as
the first day it was baked. Who knew water
could add that pleasant texture?
This reinterpreted breakfast favorite looks
as enticing as a tea loaf. When I prepare
this, I like to measure out everything in
advance so I can put this together quickly.
Make sure to toast the wheat bran so it adds
an extra depth of flavor. I have tried it with
dark or golden raisins, and both work well.
The pureed raisins are a sweet addition, so
less brown sugar is needed.
Always checking to see if my tasters
agreed, I dropped slices off to a few of my
muffin-loving pals. The resounding re-
sponse was: “When can I have the recipe?”
The good news is that this is seriously
simple to prepare. For me, it is now a
weekly request by my husband. He likes
it for breakfast, and an afternoon snack
with coffee or tea and even for a sweet after
dinner. Hope you enjoy this.
Diane Rossen Worthington is an author-
ity on new American cooking. She is the
author of 18 cookbooks, including “Seri-
ously Simple Parties,” and a James Beard
Award-winning radio show host. You
can contact her at SeriouslySimple.com.
Copyright 2021 Diane Rossen Worthing-
ton. Distributed by Tribune Content
Agency, LLC.
BRAN MUFFIN LOAF
MAKES ONE 9-BY-5-INCH LOAF
2 cups wheat bran
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups dark raisins
2 cups water
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 egg white
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a
nonstick 9-by-5-inch loaf pan. Reserve.
Sprinkle the wheat bran onto a parchment paper-lined
sheet pan evenly and bake for about 7 minutes or until
it begins to lightly brown and smells fragrant. Stir a
couple of times to evenly brown it. Cool and reserve.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into
a bowl. Reserve.
Meanwhile, combine 1 cup raisins and 1/2 cup of
water in a glass measuring cup and microwave for 3
minutes. Let cool slightly.
Place softened raisins in a food processor and puree.
To the raisin mixture add the remaining 1 1/2 cups
water, buttermilk, sugar, oil, egg, and egg white and
process until just blended.
Add reserved toasted wheat bran and flour mixture to
the food processor and process until well blended. Add
the 1/2 cup raisins and pulse just to combine, making
sure not to break up the raisins.
Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for
about 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
from the center of the loaf.
MASLOVA VALENTINA/SHUTTERSTOCK
This reinterpreted breakfast favorite looks
as enticing as a tea loaf.
B4 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021

Making the Perfect Risotto ALL PHOTOS BY GIULIA SCARPALEGGIA

Understand the key

ingredients and
techniques of this
essential northern
Italian dish, then
make the recipe
your own
Continued from B1

But there are three more key moments

in the making of a classic risotto that you
should understand:

Tostare
To begin a risotto, you usually start with
aromatics, such as onions, or in more
modern renditions, scallions, for a sub-
tler taste. Finely mince them and sau-
tée in butter, or olive oil, depending on
where you are in Italy (northern versus
central and southern, respectively), or
your liking.
When the onions are golden, stir in the
uncooked rice to toast it—or tostare, in
Italian. Toasting the rice is important
because it seals the grain, ensuring that it
releases the right amount of starch when
it cooks, which will give the risotto its
creamy texture.
Let the rice toast over medium-low
heat, continuously stirring with a wood-
en spoon, until it is translucent, almost
pearly. If you listen carefully, you will
hear the rice crackling, almost imper-
ceptibly, when it’s ready.

Toasting the rice is

important because
it seals the grain,
ensuring that it releases
the right amount of
starch when it cooks,
which will give the
risotto its creamy
texture.

Another trick is to put a few grains in

your hand and squeeze tight. If they are
too hot to handle, the rice is appropri-
ately toasted, and you can move on to the
following step, sfumare.

Sfumare
After you have toasted the rice, you
usually add half a cup of wine. Sfumare
refers to the process of adding the wine
and reducing it.
Traditionally, red wine was used.
In Piedmont, for example, one of the
northern Italian regions where risotto
culture was born, cooks would add local
wines such as dolcetto, nebbiolo, Barolo,
or Barbaresco, resulting in a rich, deeply
flavored risotto. Later, to adapt to chang-
ing tastes, dry whites became the wine
of choice for risotto, to give it a more
delicate flavor.
In more recent years, it’s also become
fashionable to use champagne, or Italy’s
local sparkling wine, spumante. The car-
bonation helps give the risotto a soft and
creamy texture, even without the final
step of stirring in the butter.
Not everyone agrees on the necessity
of adding wine to make a perfect risotto.
Still, I think it adds an interesting aro-
matic component and helps cut through
the richness, reducing the feeling of fat
on your tongue.
Mantecare
This is the final step in the making of
risotto, when you remove the pot from
the heat and add butter, and often
some grated Parmigiano Reggiano
or Grana Padano. The Italian word
mantecare comes from the Spanish
word mantequilla, butter, and it means
to cream the risotto with butter and
cheese, giving it its characteristic vel-
vety texture.
Along with butter and Parmigiano Reg-
giano, you can add your favorite cheese,
something to complement the other
ingredients in the risotto, without overdo-
ing it: crescenza, stracchino, robiola, or
even creamy goat cheese, gorgonzola, or
mascarpone.
2 Essential Ingredients
Fat
Nowadays, rice is usually toasted in but-
ter to make risotto. This is common in
the North of Italy, where risotto is from.
In other parts of Italy, such as in Tuscany,
famed for its olive groves, you’ll more
likely find extra-virgin olive oil as the
cooking fat of choice.
In the past, rice could also be toasted in
lard, with the addition of bone marrow,
a traditional ingredient still used in the
classic risotto alla Milanese, a saffron
risotto from Milan, typically served
alongside braised veal shanks.
Rice
Several Italian varieties of rice are suit-
able for making risotto. They all typically
have round, plump grains with absor-
bent qualities, so that they soak up the
flavor of the fat, stock, and other ingredi-
ents while cooking.
Arborio is the most common rice in
Italy, and the easiest to find in North
America. It has very large grains that
hold up well to cooking.
Carnaroli is considered the king of
Italian rice. It has a higher starch con-
tent than arborio, and a good balance
between its ability to absorb fat and its
ability to release starch during cooking,
both key qualities for making a creamy,
flavorful risotto.
In the end, Vialone nano, a variety from Italy’s
each family northeastern Veneto region, is appreci-
ated for its versatility, though an espe-
has its own cially excellent choice to make risotto
with vegetables. Roma, with its large,
preference, full-bodied grains, is perfect for all
often choosing types of risotto.
These are some of the most common
their rice based varieties, but in the end, each family has
on what is its own preference, often choosing their
rice based on what is local to them, or
local to them, most true to their culinary tradition.
or most true to 3 Recipes to Try
their culinary You can put into practice what you
learned about risotto with the follow-
tradition. ing three recipes. There’s a basic recipe
for a risotto with vegetables that you
can customize with what is in season,
a show-stopping seafood risotto that
is unbelievably simple to make, and a
barley risotto, orzotto, for a twist on the
classic recipe.
Giulia Scarpaleggia is a Tuscan born and
bred food writer, food photographer, and
author of five cookbooks, including “From
the Markets of Tuscany.” She is currently
working on her sixth cookbook. Find her
online at her blog, JulsKitchen.com
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021
RADICCHIO RISOTTO
Use this recipe as a blueprint for any vegetable-based
risotto. The best way to preserve the freshness of the
vegetables is to cook them separately and add them
halfway through the cooking of the risotto.
For hardier vegetables such as radicchio, mushrooms,
artichokes, or asparagus, briefly sauté them, just
enough to wilt or soften them, and then add them to
the risotto.
For something like butternut squash, you can either
cube the squash and sauté it, or bake the halved
squash and scoop the roasted pulp directly into the
risotto, for a creamy and comforting result. The same
can be done with tomatoes: Roast them, blend them
into a creamy sauce, and stir it into the risotto.
Tender vegetables, such as zucchini, zucchini
blossoms, or even fresh fava beans and peas, can be
added raw into the risotto in the last 10 minutes of
cooking.
Add fresh herbs for freshness (pair mint with zucchini
or asparagus, thyme with mushrooms); nuts and
seeds for crunch (toasted hazelnuts or pumpkin seeds
are perfect with squash); or charcuterie for richness
(try thin strips of golden brown pancetta, or bits of
crumbled sausage).
Do not overdo it, though: Choose just one vegetable,
and finish the risotto with butter and some cheese that
complements the vegetable of your choice.
SERVES 4
FOR THE RADICCHIO
1 large head radicchio (about 10 ounces)
1 shallot, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
RISOTTO AL NERO (SQUID INK RISOTTO)
This seafood risotto is striking in appearance: pitch
black thanks to squid ink, which also lends a distinctive
briny flavor. The use of squid ink is common throughout
the Mediterranean, from Venice to the coast of Tuscany
to Spain, with its traditional arroz negro.
In Italy, we commonly don’t associate fish with
cheese—with a few significant exceptions—and it
isn’t common to find cheese in a seafood risotto. But
here, I’m breaking the rules: I’ve found that a generous
knob of butter and a bit of grated Parmigiano Reggiano
add richness, umami, and a delicate acidic note to the
risotto, making it impossible to stop eating.
I learned this trick from Samin Nosrat, whose recipe for
clam spaghetti calls for butter and grated Parmigiano
Reggiano. I replicated her recipe exactly and found it
the best spaghetti with clam sauce I had ever tasted.
SERVES 4
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Dried red chile pepper flakes, to taste
13 ounces squid, cleaned and cut into small
pieces
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 1/2 cup (10 1/2 ounces) arborio
or carnaroli rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 cups hot fish stock, or slightly salted hot water
ORZOTTO AI FUNGHI (MUSHROOM BARLEY RISOTTO)
Although rice is the grain of choice for risotto, you can
also find recipes that use farro or barley, called orzo in
Italian (not to be confused with orzo pasta).
Orzotto, made with pearl barley, is common in Trentino
Alto Adige, a region in the North of Italy. It’s especially
creamy, while at the same time preserving the unique
chewy texture and nutty taste of the grain. It’s
therefore perfect for earthy, rustic add-ins, such as
mushrooms, roasted squash, or radicchio.
When you’re making an orzotto, follow the same steps
as in a classic risotto: Sauté the aromatics, toast the
barley, pour in the wine, slowly cook it with hot stock,
and finish it with butter and cheese.
SERVES 4
2 ounces dried porcini mushrooms
1/3 cup butter, divided
1 cup pearl barley
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 cups hot mushroom stock, or slightly salted hot
water
2/3 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano
Fine sea salt
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
Two hours before making the risotto, collect the dried
porcini mushrooms in a bowl and cover them with hot
water. Soak for about two hours.
Add half of the butter into a pan, followed by the minced
onion and 1/2 teaspoon salt (the salt will help you cook
down the onion without burning it). Sauté the onion in
B5
FOR THE RISOTTO
1/3 cup butter, divided
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 cup (10 1/2 ounces) arborio or carnaroli rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 cups hot meat or vegetable stock
2/3 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 1/2 ounces pancetta, cut into thin strips
Fine sea salt
First, prepare the radicchio: Rinse the leaves and
cut them into strips. Transfer to a large pan with the
olive oil and shallot. Cook over medium heat for 5 to 8
minutes, until wilted. Set aside.
Now prepare the risotto: Add half of the butter into a
pan, followed by the minced onion and 1/2 teaspoon
salt (the salt will help you cook down the onion without
burning it). Sauté the onion in the butter over low
heat until it becomes translucent and soft; just a few
minutes will be enough.
Add the rice and use a wooden spoon to stir it into the
sautéed onion. Turn the heat to medium-low and let Radicchio makes a perfect winter risotto, but you can swap in any seasonal vegetable of your choice.
the rice toast, constantly stirring, until it is translucent,
in the stock. Halfway through the cooking, when you browned. Set aside.
almost pearly. Again, a few minutes will be enough.
have used about half of the stock, add the sautéed
Pour the white wine over the rice and cook, stirring with When you have finished pouring in the stock—or
the wooden spoon, until all of it has cooked off or been radicchio, and stir thoroughly to incorporate it. This maybe you’ll have just a tiny bit left—and the rice
absorbed by the rice. whole process will take about 15 minutes. Remember is cooked but still al dente, remove the risotto from
to taste the risotto every now and then, as you might the heat. Add the remaining butter and the grated
Now, pour in the hot stock in four separate additions, not need all of the stock. The rice is ready when it feels Parmigiano Reggiano, and stir well. Taste it one last
stirring very often and waiting for each addition to be
soft, but still with a hard soul inside, slightly al dente. time to see if it still needs a little salt.
completely absorbed or evaporated before adding
While the rice is cooking, quickly sautée the pancetta
the next. Doing this, the risotto will become creamier Top the risotto with the pancetta and serve
thanks to the starch released by the rice as it is cooked strips in a hot pan for a few minutes, until nicely immediately.
1 1/2 teaspoons squid ink (two 4-gram packets)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons grated Parmigiano Reggiano
Fine sea salt
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
Pour the olive oil into a saucepan, and add the smashed
garlic cloves and chile pepper flakes to taste. Cook over
medium heat until the garlic is fragrant.
Add the squid and cook over medium heat until it is soft
and has absorbed all the liquid it releases. If the squid isn’t
soft yet, add more water and continue cooking as needed.
Add the rice and use a wooden spoon to stir it into the
squid. Turn the heat to medium-low and let the rice
toast, constantly stirring, until it is translucent, almost
pearly. A few minutes will be enough.
Pour the white wine over the rice and cook, stirring with
the wooden spoon, until all of it has cooked off or been
absorbed by the rice.
Now, pour in the hot stock in four separate additions,
Squid ink gives this risotto a striking color and distinctive briny flavor.
stirring very often and waiting for each addition to be
completely absorbed or evaporated before adding
the next. Doing this, the risotto will become creamier
then, as you might not need all of the stock. The rice is still al dente, remove the risotto from the heat. Add the
thanks to the starch released by the rice as it is cooked
ready when it feels soft, but still with a hard soul inside, butter and the grated Parmigiano Reggiano, and stir well.
in the stock. Halfway through the cooking, when you
slightly al dente. Taste it one last time to see if it still needs a little salt.
have used about half of the stock, add the squid ink and
stir to dissolve it. This whole process will take about 15 When you have finished pouring in the stock—or maybe Top the risotto with the finely chopped parsley and
minutes. Remember to taste the risotto every now and you’ll have just a tiny bit left—and the rice is cooked but serve immediately.
the butter over low heat until it becomes translucent
and soft; just a few minutes will be enough.
Squeeze the porcini mushrooms to remove all the
water, chop them, and add them to the onion. Cook for
a few minutes.
Add the barley and use a wooden spoon to stir it into
the sautéed onion and mushrooms. Turn the heat
to medium-low and let the barley toast, constantly
stirring; a few minutes will be enough.
Pour the white wine over the barley and cook, stirring
with the wooden spoon, until all of it has cooked off or
been absorbed by the barley.
Now, pour in the hot stock in four separate additions,
stirring very often and waiting for each addition to be
completely absorbed or evaporated before adding the
next. This whole process will take about 30 minutes.
Remember to taste the orzotto every now and then, as
you might not need all of the stock. The orzotto is ready
when the barley feels soft, but still with a hard soul
inside, slightly al dente.
When you have finished pouring in the stock—or maybe
you’ll have just a tiny bit left—and the barley is cooked
but still al dente, remove the orzotto from the heat.
Add the remaining butter and the grated Parmigiano
Reggiano, and stir well. Taste it one last time to see if it
still needs a little salt.
Top the orzotto with the finely chopped parsley and
serve immediately.
Orzotto, made with pearl barley, is especially
creamy, while at the same time preserving
the unique chewy texture and nutty taste of
the grain.
B6 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021

CROSSWORD CONSTRUCTED BY TOM HOUSTON

EPOCH TIMES STAFF 4. “Do ___ others as...”
5. Bryzoan corals, e.g.
6. Piece of work?
4NUMBERS CONSTRUCTED BY C. CHANG
AT 4NUMS.COM DAILY BRIDGE CLUB
Good technique
Use the four numbers in the corners, and
the operands (+, - X, and ÷) to build an BY FRANK STEWART, TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY

7. Galileo’s birthplace equation to get the solution in the middle.

There may be more than one “unique” so- ©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
8. Anxious lution but, there may also be “equivalent”
9. Leveling-off point solutions. For example: 6 + (7 X 3) +1 = 28 Unlucky Louie’s youngest daughter had
and 1+ (7 X 3) + 6 = 28 started kindergarten.
10. Ability to hit a target “I asked her what she learned on the
11. “You betcha” first day,” Louie told me. “She said, ‘Not
much, I guess. We have to go back again
12. Anagram for satur- tomorrow.’”
nalia Part of proficiency at bridge is learning
the many techniques of play. Against
13. Solitaire unit today’s 3NT, West leads the seven of
14. Insurance seller spades: three, nine, king. South expects that
West has the A-J, so South must set up
15. Swamplike nine tricks without letting East gain the lead.
20. Grand
25. Walk in water FINESSE
The actual South knew about “avoidance”
28. Move it technique, so he finessed in diamonds
30. Jerk through East: South led a heart to dummy
Hard 1 - 1 Solution and returned a diamond to his jack.
33. Nifty The finesse won, but when South took the
34. Roster abbr. ace next, West threw a heart. South could
win only eight tricks — three diamonds,
36. “Chicago” lyricist three hearts, a club and a spade — before
Fred East got in.
37. Blasé South should lead dummy’s ten of
diamonds at Trick Three, planning to let it
38. Some mites ride. If East’s queen covers, South takes
40. Going speedily the ace, returns a heart to dummy and
leads a second diamond to his eight.
41. Predating recorded
events DAILY QUESTION
You hold: {63 KQJ K10532
42. Charged yA6 4. You open one diamond, and your
43. A kin on Mom’s side partner responds one heart. What do you
Hard 2 - 1 Solution say?
45. “Great work” ANSWER: No call is ideal, but you
Across 44. Philosopher William 69. Paroxysm 51. Related must do something; your partner is an
1. Look over of ___ 72. Day ___ 53. Film part unpassed hand, and his response in a new
46. Put 74. 007, for one suit is forcing. To bid 1NT with worthless
7. Yellow fruit 56. Often-repeated abbr. spades or rebid the mangy diamonds is
13. Truck’s passenger 47. “Madame Butterfly” 75. First-rate (with top) 57. “The War of the unattractive. Raise to two hearts. If your
area attire 78. Small part hand looks suitable, be willing to raise a
Worlds” base major-suit response with decent three-
16. First act 48. “A Beautiful Mind” 79. A dash of this, a smid-
director Howard geon of that,... 59. Add spice to card support.
17. Taking the place (of) North dealer
18. In times past 49. Curry’s cooling ac- 81. Ashley Judd’s mom 62. “Or ___!” Neither side vulnerable
19. “Forever” stickers? companiment 83. Wordsworth work 63. Like many family-
21. Gas station Abbr. 50. Inebriated 84. Out of the ordinary owned companies
22. Dialect 52. “Ben-Hur” setting 88. “Lean on a garden 64. Downturn
23. After 54. Poetic preposition ___” (T.S. Eliot) 68. A way with words? Easy 1 - 2 Solutions
24. Nashville sound 55. “Columbia, the ___ of 89. Encouraging sign for 69. Clean pots
26. Beatty of “Deliver- the Ocean” (old patriotic investors 70. Man with a mission
ance” song) 90. Stan Lynde comic 71. Set right
27. Fish on many a 58. Auto racing mod. strip 73. Smart ___
sashimi platter (Abbr) 91. Embarrassed 76. Spin doctor’s concern
29. Concurrence 60. A superbly-pitched 92. Big wet ones
77. American worker
31. Threadbare game 93. Anti-ship missile
32. Attract 61. Straightened out 80. Exasperates
35. Onward 65. “___ Capades” Down 82. Camera setting
37. Ruination (“South Park” episode) 1. Stop by 85. Abbr. on a tachometer
39. Alternative to dining 66. Simoleons 2. Lyric poem 86. LAX abbr.
on crow 67. Talking points? 3. University jobs 87. Bass, for one Easy 2 - 2 Solutions

WORDSEARCH CONSTRUCTED BY TOM HOUSTON

EPOCH TIMES STAFF SUPER KAKURO CONSTRUCTED
BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

Help with Today’s Crossword Puzzle? Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The goal is to fill the blank squares associated with a clue (called a “run”) with the numbers
1-9 so that the numbers add up to the corresponding clues. Like Sudoku, digits in a run cannot repeat. When the grid is filled, the puzzle is complete.

ACARI DAISES MAGNUM PRETER-

AGENT ENATE OPUS NATURAL
AHEAD ENTICE NAOMI RAITA
ALECK EPODE NEPOTIC RATTY
AMEND EXOCET NO-HIT SCOUR
ANTSY HYING OPENER SEA MAT
ARENA IDIOM PADRE SEASON
AUSTRALIAN IMAGE PAPAYA SMACKS
BOGGY IN LIEU PERUSE SPASM
BORED IONIC PILOT SYNTAX
CAMEO LATIGO PLATEAU TWANG
CARAT LUCRE POP IN UPTICK

SOLUTIONS
CROSSWORD SUPER KAKURO
4 NUMBERS
HARD 1

HARD 2

EASY 1

EASY 2
 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021 B7

SUDOKU CONSTRUCTED
BY KANNAN SANKARAN SUPERSUDOKU CONSTRUCTED
BY KANNAN SANKARAN

Fill in the boxes using numbers between 1 and 9 so that each column, each Fill in the boxes using numbers from 0 to 9 and letters from A to F so that each column, each row, and
row, and each 3x3 square contain all nine numbers only once. each 4x4 square contain all ten numbers and six letters only once.
Hard

Easy FEEDBACK@EPOCHTIMES.COM

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OUR PUZZLE PAGE IN RESPONSE TO
PUZZLER’S FEEDBACK. LET US KNOW
WHAT YOU THINK!
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CRYPTIC QUOTE

EPOCH DOKU CONSTRUCTED

BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

KAKURO CONSTRUCTED
BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF JUMBLE BY DAVID L. HOYT
& JEFF KNUREK

Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The goal THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME
is to fill the blank squares associated with a clue (called a “run”) with the numbers By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek
1-9 so that the numbers add up to the corresponding clues. Like Sudoku, digits Unscramble these Jumbles,
Get the free JUST JUMBLEDSS‡)ROORZXVRQ7ZLWWHU@PlayJumble

in a run cannot repeat. When the grid is filled, the puzzle is complete. one letter to each square,
to form four ordinary words.
Easy PUDEN
EPOCH ESCAPE MAZE
GURHO

DHNIED

GDOAAP
Now arrange the circled letters
©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC to form the surprise answer, as
All Rights Reserved. suggested by the above cartoon.

THE

WORK SPACE

SOLUTIONS
SUPERSUDOKU SUDOKU: EASY JUMBLE EASY KAKURO
HAD THE UPPER HAND No pain no gain
arm wrestling match —
smaller, the winner of the
Even though he was
Answers:
PAGODA
HIDDEN
ROUGH
UPEND
Jumbles:
SUDOKU: HARD EPOCH DOKU

CRYPTIC QUOTE
- Edmund Burke
antagonist is our helper.
and sharpens our skill. Our
strengthens our nerves
He that wrestles with us
B8 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021

WINE

The Red Wine Myth

Most wine lovers know that certain
wines age nicely for decades, but most
red wines are best within a few years of
their vintage, if not immediately.

DAN BERGER

O
ne of the most enduring myths of
red wine is that the older it gets,
the better it is.
Where this erroneous line
comes from is buried in history, but it’s
likely no true wine lover came up with it.
Most wine lovers know that certain wines The best trait for any
age nicely for decades, but most red wines
are best within a few years of their vintage, wine, red or white, is
if not immediately. balance. If a wine tastes
Besides, aging wine is a task that amateurs
shouldn’t try without understanding the good when it’s young,
details of the game.
My guess is that non-wine lovers, hearing what’s the harm in
praise being heaped on bottles of 20-year- opening it sooner?
old red Bordeaux, assume that all older red
wine is better than the young stuff. In fact,
I believe that wines that might be better
with age also may be enjoyed while young.
Just decant the wine for an hour and watch
it improve.
A lot of red wines are rated by so-called
experts on a scale of weight and power. The
heavier the wine, the better it is, they tell
us. And thus the implication that it will age
for decades. Such assumptions have more
exceptions than you’d believe. IEVGENII MEYER/SHUTTERSTOCK

Often, wines that are powerful when re-

leased can improve with a little time in the
bottle. But there is no guarantee they’ll age
well for long periods.
A century ago, the main reason French
and Italian red wines were aged was that
they weren’t drinkable when young. Many
of these wines were coarse and unbal-
anced. People found that by holding them
for a while, some of the bad stuff dissipated;
roughness would diminish.
Today’s red wines are better in that re-
spect. Most young, fruity wines that are
awkward and astringent when young im-
prove with a few additional years in the
bottle, but some may simply get old and
tired. Once the vibrancy of youth flees, a
wine can be unappealing.
Before wine quality improved, around
the 1970s, many bad wines were made. In
the bad old days of Bordeaux, many vin-
tages (notably in the 1930s and early 1940s)
were terrible. Rain before harvest produced
wines that were lackluster when young and
Wine of the Week never improved.
By contrast, great vintages can produce
2019 Guigal Côtes great wines. Red Bordeaux from 1945, 1949,
Du Rhône ($19): 1953, 1959, 1961, and 1970 remain targets
One of the world’s most of collectors.
reliable red wines, this Too many people these days equate con-
blend of grenache, centration (dark color, high alcohol) with
syrah, and other grapes greatness. In fact, some of the most elegant
is faintly rustic with wines are far more appealing to consume
dark berry fruit and a soon after they were made. And such wines
generous midpalate. It can age as well.
is best when decanted This is particularly true with merlot, a
for an hour.
grape variety that is supposed to yield a
more supple, approachable wine than cab-
COURTESY OF E. GUIGAL ernet. My experience with merlots is that
most of them don’t age very long, reaching
a peak at age 5.
The best trait for any wine, red or white,
is balance. If a wine tastes good when it’s
young, what’s the harm in opening it soon-
er? Still, some Americans hold to the belief
that dark, concentrated red wines should
be held until they are nearly senile.
The longest-lived dry red wines being
made today are Barolo (from Northern It-
aly), California petite sirah, cooler-climate
syrah, and some California cabernet sau-
vignons.
Best consumed at 5 to 7 years of age are
Chianti, zinfandel, Cotes du Rhone, pinot
noir, barbera, gamay, grenache, tempra-
nillo, and many others.
Except for certain wines, the best bet is to
open a wine sooner rather than later.
To find out more about Dan Berger and
read features by other Creators Syndicate
writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
Syndicate webpage at Creators.com. Copy-
right 2021 Creators.com