CHILD PNEUMONIA OUTBREAK IN CHINA RAISES ALARM IN US
A rising number of Chinese children have been infected with a mysterious pneumonia illness, and Republican lawmakers said there are reasons the United States should be concerned.
The pneumonia is causing a large number of Chinese children to become ill, overwhelming China’s healthcare system. Chinese authorities have attributed the surge in patients to a respiratory disease called mycoplasma pneumonia, among several other common pathogens such as flu virus spreading in the season.
The most common symptoms that patients have shown so far include fever, a runny nose, and coughs; in some cases, people vomit and have diarrhea. Some children’s lungs would show up as white in X-rays in what’s been dubbed “white lung syndrome,” indicating an excessive fluid accumulation.
The case surge is causing schools to suspend classes. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Some Chinese pediatric facilities have reported receiving up to 10,000 patients each day in recent weeks.
Chinese authorities have told the World Health Organization there are no unusual or novel pathogens behind the outbreak. But Republican lawmakers said they can’t trust the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on transparency.
“You can’t rely on them. They didn’t tell us the truth. During COVID. They held back on what was happening probably for weeks, if not months, which resulted in a worldwide pandemic,” Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.), a physician, told The Epoch Times’ sister media NTD.
Several others expressed similar concerns.
“China’s the number one purveyor of lies and deceit. Luckily, they’ve clearly been unable to cover this up thus far,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) told NTD.
Several Republican senators have written to President Joe Biden calling for a travel ban on China “until we know more about the dangers posed by this new illness.”
“We should not wait for the WHO to take action given its track record of slavish deference to the CCP. We must take the necessary steps to protect the health of Americans, and our economy,” they wrote.
The Biden administration said it’s observing the situation.
Asked if the State Department supports a travel ban, spokesperson Matthew Miller said they will “continue to monitor this situation closely and provide important updates should the situation change.”
“At this point the CDC has said publicly it does not have any evidence that it’s a novel pathogen,” he told The Epoch Times.
Some Republican lawmakers, however, have asked the CDC to step up its oversight of the situation in China, saying it cannot simply rely on Chinese data uncritically.
“The American people should not have to rely on the unaccountable and untrustworthy WHO to communicate information about Chinese public health threats,” Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Brett Guthrie (R-Va.), and Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) wrote in a letter to the CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen last week.
“Further, we cannot allow the CCP to block the CDC from accessing the information it needs to protect Americans and assist in appropriate public health response efforts.”
—Eva Fu
HONEY, IT’S TIME FOR ANOTHER GOP DEBATE
The latest two-hour GOP presidential debate starts at 8 p.m. ET on Dec. 6 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
This one is number four in a series that started in August in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the same downtown sports arena that will host the Republican National Convention next summer.
Not that you have to ask, but no, former President Donald J. Trump will not appear.
He won’t even put up any counter-programming to the debate, which will be broadcast on a subscription TV network, NewsNation.
While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie challenge each other’s records, Trump will be at a Florida fundraiser. He won’t even send surrogates to talk with the press at the debate’s “spin room.”
Political experts predict an unimportant night in Alabama.
“I doubt the debate in Tuscaloosa changes much of the direction of Haley or DeSantis for Iowa in terms of public opinion or support,” David Schultz, a distinguished professor at Hamline University known for his election expertise, told The Epoch Times.
While many Americans won’t bother to watch a Trump-less debate, it’s still worth pausing to consider the most important dynamics at play. After all, multiple criminal indictments and other headwinds for the former president make the upcoming election truly unprecedented in American history.
While the polls heavily favor President Trump, it’s far from impossible that one of the contenders in Tuscaloosa makes it to the finish line under very unique circumstances.
Watch out for how well the three moderators handle the candidates.
This time around, they will include Eliana Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication. Megyn Kelly of SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly Show and NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas will join Johnson on stage.
“This one is all conservative journalists,” Schroeder pointed out.
Like the other debates, it doesn’t take a genius to predict Haley and Ramaswamy will clash over foreign policy once again. While Ramaswamy may again characterize his opponent as an interventionist “neocon,” Haley can be expected to describe the Millennial businessman, now fading in the polls, as an anti-Israel isolationist.
Indeed, events in the Middle East and Ukraine make it likely that foreign policy will remain a significant theme.
Look for Christie to seek to distinguish himself—and look for others to raise questions about how Christie qualified for the latest debate under Republican National Committee (RNC) polling rules.
If this is the last debate where he makes an appearance, it may be a final opportunity for him to take on Trump.
As the two strongest candidates in Tuscaloosa, DeSantis and Haley will both likely be targets.
Serious shakeups at Never Back Down, a Super PAC backing DeSantis’s presidential run, may fuel attacks on the Florida governor.
Meanwhile, Haley’s rivals will likely further their accusations that she is a tool of big-money donors and defense contractors.
An endorsement of Haley from Americans for Prosperity, the billionaire Koch network, could come up. The organization’s grassroots operation director has claimed he was fired for criticizing the move on X (in one post, he wrote that “my children deserve better than to be drafted into some war overseas.”)
Finally, there’s a simple central question at the heart of the debates: why you and not Trump?
Judge their answers, or lack thereof, for yourself.
—Nathan Worcester
CONGRESS SEEKS REFORM OF SPYING AUTHORITY
Now that they’ve pushed off government funding fights until next year, Congress is turning its attention to another must-pass priority: reauthorizing a controversial spying authority set to expire this year.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is a later addition to a 1978 bill which was originally designed to curb abuses of American spying powers against American citizens.
Added to the bill in 2008, Section 702 gives the U.S. intelligence community (IC) the power to target “non-U.S. persons who are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information.”
However, this power can grant an expanding circle of possible searches to the IC, which can use the same power against American citizens who had any interaction with targeted foreigners.
The broad use of this power was among the state secrets revealed by Edward Snowden in 2014.
Without reauthorization, the authority is set to expire in a matter of days on Dec. 31.
Though the power was narrowly reauthorized by Congress in 2018 for five years, its future as of late has been uncertain due to a string of high-profile abuses of Section 702 authorities.
The most prominent of these came with Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s controversial probe into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. As part of that operation, which was later criticized by Special Counsel John Durham’s report on the probe, Trump associate Carter Page was spied on by state actors.
But this isn’t the only abuse that the FBI and others in the IC have been forced to cover recently.
One of the biggest points of concern came in 2021 when it was revealed that the agency had used the foreign intelligence tool 3.3 million times against American citizens without a warrant or court approval.
In April, a court opinion revealed that the FBI had made 278,000 additional improper queries of American citizens, including Jan. 6 suspects and Black Lives Matter protesters.
In one case, the authority was used to spy on a sitting member of Congress. In another, IC officials made illegal queries into 20,000 political campaign donors
The FBI has previously acknowledged that its employees have violated rules governing usage of the database and has insisted that reforms instituted in 2022 will prevent future violations.
Amid this history of improper usage, a few lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have called for abolishing Section 702 authority altogether.
Lawmakers from both the left and right agree on one thing, however: reform of Section 702 will be necessary for any extension of the authority.
But not everyone agrees on what those reforms should look like.
A few reforms are relatively non-controversial, including limits on the number of FBI personnel who can make a query and reforms to the Section 702 watchdog FISA court.
But another proposal that would require warrants for all queries of U.S. persons is more controversial.
One wing in the House, led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) is seeking these wide-reaching reforms. Their bill, set for committee markup today will include the above proposals, as well as a requirement that law enforcement receive a warrant for all U.S. person searches. The bill, sponsored by Biggs, would include a three-year sunset rather than a five-year sunset.
Another faction, including Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee like Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio), are less enthusiastic about the proposed warrant requirement.
During a Dec. 5 hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray likewise asked Congress not to require intelligence agencies to get a warrant, which he said would kneecap the FBI’s ability to respond to threats.
According to reports, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has dropped an earlier plan to include a short-term extension of Section 702 in the annual defense bill.
As of now, it’s unclear which avenue Congress will take, but this decision will need to be made before congressmen can go home for the holidays.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- President Joe Biden will participate in a virtual meeting with G7 leaders and later speak at the White House Tribal Nations Summit.
- The Senate will hold a procedural vote to advance a $110 billion funding package for Ukraine, Israel, and the border. With opposition from Republicans demanding tougher border measures in exchange for Ukraine funding, the cloture vote looks set to fail.
- Four GOP candidates take the debate stage in Alabama at 8 p.m. ET as Trump holds a fundraiser in Florida.
BOOKMARKS
The Senate on Tuesday cleared the promotions of hundreds of military officers after Sen. Tommy Tuberville dropped most of his holds in protest against a Pentagon policy funding abortion travel for service members. The hold remains in place for four-star general nominees.Reuters reports on a bombshell analysis from two American law professors. Market activity ahead of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks suggests some traders may have known what was coming beforehand.
Here at home, anti-Israel protests are taking on a very familiar and unsettling ideological dimension. The Epoch Times’ Darlene Sanchez McCormick delves into the links between Marxism and at least some opponents of the Middle Eastern state.
“It’s just pure, unadulterated Marx,” the Heritage Foundation’s Mike Gonzalez told The Epoch Times.
The Epoch Times’ Stephen Katte informs readers about the arrest of a former U.S. ambassador. He’s alleged to have been a Cuban spy for many decades.
Headline USA reports that China will not take back tens of thousands of migrants streaming across the United States’ southern border.
The Epoch Times’ Matthew Vadum takes us deep into the significance of “Moore v. United States,” a Supreme Court case that could have major ramifications for federal taxing authority over unrealized capital gains.
Reporting on oral arguments in the case, CBS News suggested the court’s justices may be signaling their intentions to rule narrowly on the case
