Business
Taxpayers spent $15 million on Fauci’s private security, chauffeur after he left government
From LifeSiteNews
By Matt Lamb
“Our country is $33 trillion in debt. Taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for Dr. Fauci’s security detail, especially when Fauci was one of the highest-paid federal employees in the U.S”
American taxpayers spent at least $15 million on security and a private driver for Dr. Anthony Fauci after he left his government job.
Open the Books obtained “memorandum of understanding” covering January 4, 2023 through September 20, 2024 along with independent journalist Jordan Schachtel.
The government watchdog group said it is seeking information on if the contract is still in force. Fauci retired at the end of 2022.
The highest-paid federal employee, Fauci left the government after decades of work. For almost two years, if not longer, taxpayers spent money so he could have a private driver. This despite the fact that Fauci has an estimated net worth of $11 million and continues to profit off his experience in the government, including writing a book and speaking at events.
The exact specifics of the agreement are new. However, Republicans have previously criticized the special arrangement, after it came to light last year that Fauci continued to receive perks despite ostensibly retiring.
“When I discovered that Dr. Fauci still had a taxpayer-funded driver and personal guards after he stepped down, I felt that it was another example of Washington bureaucrats putting themselves above the American people,” Congressman Dale Strong said last year. He introduced legislation to end the special agreement.
“Our country is $33 trillion in debt. Taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for Dr. Fauci’s security detail, especially when Fauci was one of the highest-paid federal employees in the U.S,” Strong said.
The special deal comes after Fauci botched the handling of COVID-19, including by downplaying concerns it leaked from a lab in China. He also made misleading statements about the National Institutes of Health and its connection to a controversial lab in Wuhan, China.
He also made incorrect, and incredibly damaging, statements to the American public about the need for widespread lockdowns and other social restrictions and claimed that the COVID shots were both “safe” and “effective” against the spread of the virus. Faced with criticism, Fauci claimed that the attacks on him were really assaults on “science.”
As Open the Books reminds readers:
But his detractors recall a government official who led the fight to implement years-long draconian restrictions upon the American people, which devastated the fabric of U.S. society, greatly harmed the economy and caused all kinds of additional negative repercussions – including widespread learning loss among America’s youth. Fauci was never shy to advocate for lockdowns, social distancing, school closures, business closures, mask mandates, and vaccine passports from his powerful federal perch during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senator Rand Paul, a frequent critic of Fauci, criticized Fauci’s taxpayer-funded arrangement.
“No more $ for the guy who funded dangerous research in Wuhan.,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Open the Books spokesman Christopher Neefus said the NIH has a “pattern of obfuscation when it comes to the NIH’s financial arrangements.”
“Whether it’s Dr. Fauci’s contract and full compensation, or the NIH’s multibillion-dollar royalty complex, we’ve been working for years to get full transparency,” Neefus told National Review.
Fauci’s support for the shot included going door-to-door with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to browbeat residents into taking the jabs.
A PBS profile showed Bowser, who broke her own forced masking rules, going door-to-door with a crowd of people inquiring about their personal choices concerning shots.
“They need a push, a push, and a drag,” Mayor Bowser says in one clip, to Fauci’s approval, as LifeSiteNews previously reported.
Fauci, who retired at the end of December 2022, can be seen on the documentary criticizing Republican states and the people in those states in particular who declined to take the abortion-tainted jab.
“[Red states] are going to keep the outbreak smoldering in the country [because they won’t get jabbed],” he tells Bowser, who is part of the canvassing crowd. The video is from June 2021. “It’s so crazy. They’re not doing it because they say they don’t want to. They’re Republicans. They don’t like being told what to do. We need to break that.”
Business
Our energy policies have made us more vulnerable to Trump’s tariffs
From the Fraser Institute
By Elmira Aliakbari and Jason Clemens
As Donald Trump, who will be sworn in as president on Monday, threatens to impose tariffs on Canadian exports including oil and natural gas, the calls from some Canadian politicians and analysts for greater energy trade diversification grow louder. However, these calls highlight a hard truth—Canada has repeatedly foregone opportunities to reduce our dependence on the United States by cancelling already approved pipelines and failing to approve new pipeline and LNG projects that could have increased our access to global markets.
The U.S. is not just Canada’s largest energy customer—it’s nearly our only customer. In 2023, 97 per cent of crude oil exports and virtually all natural gas exports were sent south of the border. This dependence on the U.S. for exports leaves Canadian producers and the Canadian economy exposed to policy shifts in Washington and even state capitals.
Consider Energy East, a pipeline proposed by TransCanada (now TC Energy) to transport oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries and export terminals in Atlantic Canada. The pipeline would have reduced Atlantic Canada’s reliance on imported oil and opened export markets for Canadian oil to Europe.
However, in 2017 the Trudeau government introduced new criteria for evaluating and approving major pipeline projects, and for the first time assessments included not only the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from constructing the pipeline but also emissions from producing and using the oil it would transport. Later that year, TransCanada suspended its application for the project, effectively cancelling it. The CEO of TransCanada blamed “changed circumstances” but many observers recognized it was a combination of the new regulations and opposition from Quebec, particularly the City of Montreal. Consequently, the refineries in Atlantic Canada continue to rely on imported oil.
A year earlier in 2016, the Trudeau government cancelled the already-approved Northern Gateway pipeline, which would have connected Alberta oil production with the west coast and created significant export opportunities to Asian markets.
Canada is even more dependent on the U.S. for natural gas exports than oil exports. In 2023, Canada exported approximately 84 billion cubic metres of natural gas—all to the U.S.—via 39 pipelines, again leaving producers in Canada vulnerable to U.S. policy changes.
Meanwhile, Canada currently has no operational infrastructure for exporting liquified natural gas (LNG). While LNG Canada, the country’s first LNG export terminal, is expected to become operational this year in British Columbia, it’s long overdue.
Indeed, several energy companies have cancelled or delayed high-profile LNG projects in Canada due largely to onerous regulations that make approvals uncertain or even unlikely, including the $36 billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project in 2017, the $9 billion Énergie Saguenay LNG project in 2020, Kitimat LNG in 2021 and East Coast Canada LNG in 2023.
This all adds up to a missed opportunity, as global demand for LNG increases. If governments in Canada allowed or even facilitated more development of LNG facilities, Canadian companies could supply high-demand regions such as Asia and Europe. Indeed, during Europe’s 2022 energy crisis, Germany and several other countries turned to Canada for reliable LNG supply, but the Trudeau government rejected the requests.
The contrast with the U.S. is stark. Since 2011, 18 LNG export facilities have been proposed in Canada but only one—LNG Canada Phase 1—is nearing completion, more than 12 years after it was announced. Meanwhile, as of January 2025, the U.S. has built eight LNG export terminals and approved 20 more, securing its position as a global LNG leader.
Years of inaction and regulatory roadblocks have left Canadian energy producers overly dependent on a single trading partner and vulnerable to shifting U.S. policies. The looming threat of tariffs should be a wake-up call. To secure its energy future, Canada must address the regulatory barriers that have long hindered progress and prioritize the development of infrastructure to connect our energy resources to global markets.
Business
FDA bans commonly used food dye
FDA Finally Bans Cancer-Linked Red No. 3 Food Dye
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Wednesday that it is banning the use of Red No. 3, a synthetic dye responsible for the vibrant cherry red color in foods and beverages, citing its association with cancer in animal studies:
The dye is still used in thousands of foods, including candy, cereals, cherries in fruit cocktails and strawberry-flavored milkshakes, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food safety advocacy group that petitioned the agency in 2022 to end its use.
Food manufacturers will have until Jan. 15, 2027 to reformulate their products. Companies that make ingested drugs, such as dietary supplements, will get an additional year.
This ban was LONG overdue. Unfortunately, the other synthetic food dyes that have also been linked to serious deleterious health effects still remain on the market. A few months ago, I summarized the harm linked to synthetic food dyes — outdated FDA standards expose Americans to toxic food dyes linked to cancer, neurobehavioral issues, and other health risks, demanding urgent regulatory action:
Synthetic Food Dyes: A Half-Century of Harm |
||||||
|
||||||
by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
|
||||||
|
Batada et al found that nearly half (43.2%) of grocery store products contained artificial food colorings (AFCs), with Red 40 (29.8%), Blue 1 (24.2%), Yellow 5 (20.5%), and Yellow 6 (19.5%) being the most common. Candies (96.3%), fruit-flavored snacks (94%), and drink mixes/powders (89.7%) had the highest prevalence of AFCs, while produce contained none.
Oliveira et al summarized the deleterious health effects linked to synthetic food colorings in children: neurobehavioral disorders, allergic reactions, carcinogenic and mutagenic potential, gastrointestinal and respiratory issues, toxicity, developmental and growth delays, and behavioral changes.
Sultana et al illustrated the specific health hazards associated with particular synthetic food dyes:
Miller et al conducted a systematic review of the potential neurobehavioral impacts (activity and attention) of food dye consumption. They included 27 clinical trials of children exposed to synthetic food dyes and found that 16 of 25 challenge studies (64%) demonstrated evidence of a positive association, with 13 studies (52%) reporting statistically significant findings. The authors concluded, “Current evidence from studies in humans, largely from controlled exposure studies in children, supports a relationship between food dye exposure and adverse behavioral outcomes in children, both with and without pre-existing behavioral disorders.” They also noted that:
“Animal toxicology studies were used by FDA as the basis for regulatory risk assessments of food dyes [25]. All current dye registrations were made between 1969 and 1986 based on studies performed 35 to 50 years ago. These studies were not designed to assess neurobehavioral endpoints. Dye registration was accompanied by derivation of an “acceptable daily intake” (ADI) based on these studies. FDA ADIs have not been updated since original dye registration, although there have been several reviews of specific effects since then, the latest in 2011.”
Synthetic food dyes, widely prevalent in U.S. products and lacking nutritional value, rely on outdated FDA approvals despite evidence of widespread toxicity, carcinogenicity, and adverse neurobehavioral effects, strongly warranting urgent regulatory action to protect public health.
While the FDA has finally made a decision that will benefit public health, they are still allowing the dangerous COVID-19 genetic injections to be administered to all individuals aged 6 months and older despite far exceeding criteria for a Class I recall. The immediate removal of unsafe and ineffective gene therapy injections should be the first priority before anything other product bans.
Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
Please consider following the McCullough Foundation and Nicolas Hulscher on X (formerly Twitter) for further content.
-
Addictions11 hours ago
Nanaimo syringe stabbing reignites calls for involuntary care
-
Dan McTeague1 day ago
Mark Carney would be bad for Canada
-
Business1 day ago
ESG Is Collapsing And Net Zero Is Going With It
-
Censorship Industrial Complex1 day ago
Mark Zuckerberg Tells Joe Rogan That Biden Admin Would ‘Scream’ And ‘Curse’ At Meta Employees To Censor ‘True’ Content
-
Business12 hours ago
FDA bans commonly used food dye
-
Alberta13 hours ago
Electronic monitoring of repeat offenders begins
-
Brownstone Institute2 days ago
It’s Time to Retire ‘Misinformation’
-
Carbon Tax14 hours ago
Taxpayers Federation calling on BC Government to scrap failed Carbon Tax