Gingrich: The Key 'Lessons In Liberty'

 by Newt Gingrich via RealClearPolicy,

Historic leaders often share something important in common. They are not born great. Their greatness is a result of a lifetime of difficulty and consequential choices.

As Jeremy S. Adams discussed in his book, “Lessons in Liberty,” this is especially true for remarkable Americans. In the book, Adams details the inspiring lives of extraordinary Americans and what we can learn from them today.

George Washington, for example, struggled his entire life to keep his temper under control. This lifelong effort made him a model for discipline and restraint. Clara Barton nursed her badly injured brother back to health when she was only 11 years old. This harrowing experience later equipped her with the skills and bravery to serve as a nurse in the Civil War. U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye was a 17-year-old Japanese American who lived in Hawaii when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The sneak attack angered him so much he joined the U.S. Army to fight in World War II.  Despite discrimination and hardship from the U.S. government, Inouye became a highly decorated soldier and longtime U.S. Senator.

I spoke with Adams about his book on a recent episode of Newt’s World. He is a serious scholar and educator. He teaches social studies and political science to highschoolers and students at the University of California at Bakersfield. He was the Daughters of the American Revolution 2014 California Teacher of the Year and a finalist for the Carlston Family Foundation Outstanding Teachers of America Award.

We talked about the personal wisdom of Washington, Barton, Inouye, and other extraordinary Americans. Adams said in his book that Americans need to “honor what is honorable, praise what is praiseworthy, and most of all, emulate which is highest and best, so we can take advantage of the miracle of human freedom.” While no historic figure is perfect, their fallibility makes them so worthy of our study.

Unfortunately, many young students in America are not learning about our great historical figures. Forty percent of Gen-Z members characterize the founding fathers as villains. Fifty percent of high schoolers say that their lives have little to no meaning, and only 52 percent of Americans would be willing to fight to defend the country.

Something disturbing is happening in classrooms across our country. Our nation’s young people are being influenced by viewpoints, values, and behaviors of people who hate America and the principles on which it was founded. As President Ronald Reagan said, “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Each generation has a duty to renew and protect America and its values.

As we discussed on the podcast, America is also bigger than a singular party. It is bigger than any ideology. We are more than just Republicans or Democrats. We were more than federalists or anti-federalists. We are all Americans. The 10 men and women Adams discussed in his book were from different time periods and backgrounds. Some were liberal and some were conservative. But they all worked to make America great.

Importantly, none of them were personally born great. Their greatness was a choice. That is the key lesson of liberty.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/gingrich-key-lessons-liberty

Calliditas Launch of Phase 3 clinical trial with Nefecon in Japan

  Calliditas Therapeutics AB(NASDAQ: CALT) (STO: CALTX) ("Calliditas") today announces that its partner Viatris Pharmaceutical Japan G.K. ("Viatris") has initiated a phase III clinical trial in Japan with Nefecon, named VR-205 in the Japanese market, in Japanese patients with IgA nephropathy (IgAN).

The clinical trial is a bridging study requiring a limited number of Japanese patients to participate in a study similar in design to that of the global NefIgArd trial. IgA nephropathy is a designated retractable disease in Japan, with an estimated 33,000 patients in Japan^* assumed to be suffering from this disease and with limited treatment options for IgAN patients in this country.

Calliditas Therapeutics announces license agreement with Viatris to register and commercialize specialty therapy for IgA nephropathy in Japan - Calliditas Therapeutics AB

https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/launch-of-phase-3-clinical-trial-with-nefecon-in-japan/

Roche to Halt Lung Cancer Trial After Results Miss Goals

 Roche Holding said it plans to halt a mid- and late-stage clinical study for a combination of drugs to treat lung cancer after it failed to meet the trial's primary efficacy goals.

The Swiss pharmaceutical company said Thursday that its investigational tiragolumab drug in combination with its cancer immunotherapy Tecentriq and chemotherapy didn't meet the trial's objectives of progression-free survival and overall survival at its first interim analysis. Tiragolumab is thought to act as an amplifier of the body's immune response to cancer with other cancer drugs, it added.

The drug combination showed reduced efficacy compared to the comparator arm, Roche said. The trial compared tiragolumab, Tecentriq and chemotherapy against Merck's Keytruda and chemotherapy.

"These results are disappointing as it was our hope that this combination might yield improved outcomes for people living with metastatic non-squamous lung cancer," Roche Chief Medical Officer and Head of Global Product Development Levi Garraway said.

Safety data were consistent with previous studies, the company said.

https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/20240704724/roche-to-halt-lung-cancer-trial-after-results-miss-goals

Fauci says he has ‘no doubt’ Biden is capable of continuing as president

 Former White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a new interview he has “no doubt” President Biden is mentally capable of serving as president, amid growing concern among Democrats about the president’s standing as the party’s presumptive nominee.

“In my interactions with him, I have no doubt,” Fauci said about Biden, when asked on the CBS News podcast “The Takeout” with Major Garrett if he has any concerns about the president’s “vigor and mental capability” to continue in office.

“And I can only speak in my own interactions with him,” Fauci added in the interview released Wednesday.

Fauci — who, for nearly four decades, served as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — cautioned against drawing any medical conclusions just based on one event.

Asked if he saw anything “medically alarm[ing]” in Biden’s debate performance last week, Fauci responded, “You know, I can’t say. I think it would be inappropriate to say that, Major, because when you’re just looking at someone on a one-shot basis, you just don’t know what could happen.”

“Did he have a bad cold, you know? Did he take an antihistamine to make him, you know, groggy, or what have you? We don’t know what went on,” Fauci continued. “And I think it would be unfair and inappropriate to try and diagnose something from just a 90-minute clip.”

Fauci, who retired at the end of Biden’s second year in office, described the president as sharp and inquisitive in their interactions. When asked if Biden’s debate performance “at all” resembled what he saw in his interactions with the president, Fauci said, “No, I mean, obviously not.”

“I don’t want to comment about what happened that night, but you know, to me, it just looked like a bad night,” Fauci said, “because my interaction with him was what I described in the book and what happened even subsequent to what I described in the book, after I got out.”

He called Biden “very probing in his questions, very analytical, very calm about things,” and said during briefings, Biden always asked “very relevant questions.”

Fauci continued, “So my interactions with him, I have to say, have been very, very positive, in every way.”

The interview comes amid questions about whether Biden should stay at the top of the ticket after his difficult debate last week. Two Democrats have already called on Biden to step aside as others have expressed concern about former President Trump’s ability to defeat Biden in November.

Biden and his team have repeatedly stressed that the president is up for another four years in office, brushing off last week’s debate as a poor performance by the commander in chief.

“He knows how to do the job, not because he says it, because his record proves it. Because for three and a half years, almost four years, the president’s record has been unprecedented, delivering for the American people,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4754808-fauci-no-doubt-biden-capable-as-president/

Chinese Money-Laundering Network Fueling America's Fentanyl Crisis

 It's worth noting that 100,000 Americans die in drug-related deaths per year, the vast majority from pills cooked with fentanyl, an opioid analog 50 times more potent than heroin. Every six months, the US drug death catastrophe eclipses the Vietnam War.

Fueling the fentanyl epidemic across the US are Chinese money launderers helping international drug traffickers, like Mexican cartels. Capital flight from China is not a new phenomenon, but in recent years, the scale of these transfers, washed through the drug trade, has become very alarming.

Paul Murphy from the Financial Times has provided the most straightforward explanation yet of the new Chinese money laundering network fueling America's fentanyl crisis: 

First, understand that Chinese nationals are barred from transferring more than $50,000 out of China each year. And yet, as you are surely aware, there are many many Chinese nationals living very comfortable lives in the west, as students perhaps, or tourists, or simply not working.

Now understand that Mexican drug cartels are harvesting untold billions of dollars, in cash, selling drugs in North America — and that the pill of the moment is fentanyl, which kills about 70,000 people a year in the US.

The chemicals to make fentanyl come from China. These are shipped to Mexico by otherwise legit Chinese chemical manufacturers.

In Mexico, the cartels turn the chemicals into pills and smuggle these north across the border, where they are sold for cash — dollar bills that then need to be cleaned.

Murphy continued:

Meanwhile, in New York for instance, there will be a Chinese student attending an educational establishment, where the fees will be circa $66,000 a year, books and extras another $10,000, food and lodging costs of maybe $5,000 a month, or a lot more.

The $50,000 Chinese transfer cap doesn't cover these things, so she will go on WeChat and broadcast a message to her network of friends saying: "I need dollars in New York to meet my outgoings. Can anyone help?"

In due course, someone associated with what is a very efficient Chinese underground banking system will get in touch and tell the student to meet a courier at a preordained time and place, typically a park in Brooklyn. There, the student will be handed a bundle of cash.

Back in China, the parents of the student will then be asked to transfer the same amount of money (plus commission) to an account that will eventually make its way to the chemical company that produced the precursor ingredients for fentanyl, settling the outstanding bill for the Mexican drug cartel.

Murphy explained, "Drug addicts in the US are facilitating the Western education of Chinese youth, as well as helping to fund the lifestyles of other Chinese nations living outside China." 

He provided a flow chart showing how the complex laundering system works. 

Source: FT 

In a separate report last week, FT's Joe Miller and James Kynge published an in-depth analysis of the Chinese-Mexican laundering network in a report titled "The new money laundering network fuelling the fentanyl crisis."

The report sheds light on the less understood part of the money laundering operation — the demand for dollars from wealthy Chinese individuals. While capital flight from China is not new, the methods have become increasingly creative, involving chemical companies that, in turn, have fueled America's opioid epidemic.

"The levels of capital flight in the past three years have been quite alarming," one senior Chinese official told FT, adding, "Some wealthy private entrepreneurs are losing confidence in China's future. They feel unsafe, so they find ways to get their money out."

Brad Setser, a former US Treasury official and an expert on global capital flows at the Council on Foreign Relations, estimated that capital flight from China is running at an annualized rate of about $516 billion as of 1Q24. This figure was even higher in the 3Q22, reaching almost $738 billion. 

"The whole system of drug trafficking is being sustained by a network of clandestine [Chinese] money brokers," said Giovanni Melillo, the chief prosecutor for Italy's National Anti-Mafia and Terrorism Directorate. His office has been coordinating laundering probes across Italy this past year.  

Previous cases of money laundering in the US involving Chinese nationals have raised serious questions about how much Beijing knows about these dark laundering networks. For instance, a recent Wall Street Journal report revealed that Chinese crime groups and drug traffickers used the Toronto-Dominion Bank to launder money from US fentanyl sales. 

In mid-April, the House Select Committee on China revealed that the Chinese Communist Party used tax rebates to subsidize the manufacturing and exporting of fentanyl chemicals to overseas customers. 

The biggest mystery here is why the Biden administration hasn't taken a tougher stance on China while America's fentanyl epidemic kills as many citizens each year as two Vietnam Wars.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/dark-chinese-laundering-network-fueling-americas-fentanyl-crisis

Democratic governors vow to stand with Biden after shaky debate performance

 The Democratic governors of New York, Minnesota and Maryland on Wednesday said they would support President Joe Biden's reelection bid after a candid discussion with him about his weak performance in last week's debate.

"The president has always had our backs. We're going to have his back as well," Maryland Governor Wes Moore told reporters after a meeting with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House that included 24 Democratic governors and the mayor of Washington, D.C., some joining online.

Moore said the governors were frank in relaying negative feedback from constituents about Biden's poor performance during the debate with Republican rival Donald Trump. He said there was clearly work to do before the Nov. 5 election, but Biden had made it clear he would stay in the race.

"The president ... he's our nominee. The president is our party leader," Moore said. There has been growing talk among Democrats in recent days that 81-year-old Biden should drop out of the race.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she felt confident after the meeting and all the governors pledged their support to Biden. The president is "in it to win it," she said.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, said Biden's debate performance on Thursday was bad but he felt Biden was fit for office.

"Obviously we, like many Americans, are a little worried. We're worried because the threat of a Trump presidency is not theoretical," Walz said, adding that the previous Trump presidency was marked by "chaos, destruction."

Nearly a dozen of the state leaders attended the meeting in person, but only three spoke with reporters afterwards.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who participated in person, posted his reaction on social platform X: "I heard three words from the President tonight -- he’s all in. And so am I."

Biden's campaign said the president reiterated his determination "to defeat the existential threat of Donald Trump at the ballot box in November" and discussed the importance of electing Democrats up and down the ballot.

"All participants reiterated their shared commitment to do everything possible to make sure President Biden and Vice President Harris beat Donald Trump in November," it said

https://www.yahoo.com/news/democratic-governors-express-confidence-biden-001200524.html

Biden rejects growing pressure to abandon his campaign, vows to stay 'to the end'

 A defiant President Joe Biden vowed Wednesday to keep running for reelection, rejecting growing pressure from Democrats to withdraw after a disastrous debate performance raised questions about his readiness to keep campaigning, much less win in November.

But increasingly ominous signs were mounting for the president. Two Democratic lawmakers have called on Biden to exit the race while a leading ally publicly suggested how the party might choose someone else. And senior aides said they believed he might only have a matter of days to show he was up to the challenge before anxiety in the party boils over.

“Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running … no one’s pushing me out," Biden said on a call with staffers from his reelection campaign. "I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.”

In his private conversations, Biden was focused on efforts to course correct from his rocky debate and on the threat that, in his view, former President Donald Trump poses to the country, as he scoured for feedback on what went wrong last Thursday in Atlanta and took responsibility for his performance.

“We had a direct, open, clear-eyed conversation about the debate, his thoughts on what happened and why it wasn't his best evening or best debate,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who spoke with Biden on Tuesday, said in an interview with the Associated Press. “He wanted advice. He was asking earnestly for input and comment on what he should do to restore confidence and support, and what's the best path forward.”

Coons, the president's closest ally on Capitol Hill, said Biden clearly understood the urgency, the difficulty and the importance of the election, as the senator advised that the president do more unscripted, open-ended events to restore confidence in his candidacy. The two also spoke about Biden's schedule and its impact on his political efforts, particularly as he balances that task with critical governing tasks such as the NATO summit in Washington next week.

Biden's efforts to pull multiple levers to salvage his faltering reelection include his impromptu appearance with campaign aides, private conversations with senior lawmakers, a weekend blitz of travel and a network television interview. But he was confronting serious indications that support for him was rapidly eroding on Capitol Hill and among other allies.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., told The New York Times that though he backs Biden as long as he is a candidate, this “is an opportunity to look elsewhere” and what Biden "needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.”

Senior advisers say they believe the 81-year-old Biden may have mere days to mount a convincing display of his fitness for office before his party’s panic over his debate performance and anger about his response boils over, according to two people with knowledge who insisted on anonymity to more freely discuss strategy. The president accepts the urgency of the task — having reviewed the polling and mountains of media coverage — but he is convinced he can do that in the coming days and insistent that he will not step out of the race, they said.

Biden met for more than hour at the White House on Wednesday night, in person and virtually, with more than 20 Democratic governors who afterward described the conversation as “candid” but said they were standing behind Biden despite being concerned about a Trump victory in November.

“The president is our nominee. The president is our party leader,” said Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland. He added that, in the meeting, Biden “was very clear that he’s in this to win."

Despite such reassuring sentiments, a major Democratic donor, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, also called on the president to exit the race, saying, “Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous.” The statement was first reported by The New York Times.

And all that followed Rep. Jim Clyburn, a longtime Biden friend and confidant, saying he'd back a “mini-primary” in the run-up to the Democratic National Convention next month if Biden were to leave the race. The South Carolina Democrat floated an idea that appeared to be laying the groundwork for alternative choices by delegates during the Democrats’ planned virtual roll call that is scheduled before the more formal party convention set to begin Aug. 19 in Chicago.

On CNN, Clyburn said Vice President Kamala Harris, governors and others could join the competition: “It would be fair to everybody.”

Clyburn, a senior lawmaker who is a former member of his party's House leadership team, said he has not personally seen the president act as he did on the debate stage last week and called it “concerning.”

And even as other Democratic allies have remained quiet since Thursday’s debate, there is a growing private frustration about the Biden campaign’s response to his disastrous debate performance at a crucial moment in the campaign — particularly in Biden waiting several days to do direct damage control with senior members of his own party.

One Democratic aide said the lacking response has been worse than the debate performance itself, saying lawmakers who support Biden want to see him directly combatting the concerns about his stamina in front of reporters and voters. The aide was granted anonymity to candidly discuss interparty dynamics.

Most Democratic lawmakers are taking a wait-and-see approach with Biden, though, holding out for a better idea of how the situation plays out through new polling and Biden’s scheduled ABC News interview, according to Democratic lawmakers who requested anonymity to speak bluntly about the president.

When Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who called on Biden to leave the race this week, shopped around his move for support from other Democratic lawmakers, he had no takers and eventually issued a statement on his own, according to a person familiar with the effort granted anonymity to discuss it.

But there was also a sense that the waiting period will soon expire if Biden does not step up his outreach to Capitol Hill or prove otherwise that he’s up to the job.

Some suggested Harris was emerging as the favorite to replace Biden if he were to withdraw, although those involved in private discussions acknowledge that Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan remain viable alternatives. But for some insiders, Harris is viewed as the best prospect to quickly unify the party and avoid a messy and divisive convention fight.

Even as pressure around Biden mounted, he and Harris made a surprise appearance on an all-staff reelection campaign call and offered a pep talk. They stressed how important it was to beat Trump, the presumptive nominee, in November and returned to Biden’s previous post-debate vow that when he gets knocked down, he gets up again.

“Just as we beat Donald Trump in 2020, we’re going to beat him again in 2024,” said Biden, who told participants that he would not be dragged out of the race. Harris added: “We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead. We will fight, and we will win.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked during her briefing with reporters whether Biden would consider stepping down. “Absolutely not,” she said.

“I cannot lay out something that would change the president’s mind," Jean-Pierre said about Biden continuing to seek a second term.

Still, Democrats are unsatisfied with the explanations of Biden’s debate performance, from both White House staff and the president himself. And there is a deeper frustration among some in the party who feel that Biden should have handled questions about his stumbling debate performance much sooner and that he has put them in a difficult position by staying in the race.

The Leadership Now Project, a group of business executives, academics and thought leaders, said in a letter that the “threat of a second Trump term” is great enough that Biden should “pass the torch of this year’s presidential nomination to the next generation of highly capable Democrats.”

Trump’s campaign issued a statement noting that “every Democrat” now calling on the president “to quit was once a supporter of Biden.”

Trump had a slight lead over Biden in two polls of voters conducted after last week's debate. One poll, conducted by SSRS for CNN, found that three-quarters of voters — including more than half of Democratic voters — said the party has a better chance of winning the presidency in November with a candidate other than Biden.

About 7 in 10 voters, and 45% of Democrats, said Biden’s physical and mental ability is a reason to vote against him, according to the CNN/SSRS poll.

And about 6 in 10 voters, including about one-quarter of Democrats, said reelecting Biden would be a risky choice for the country rather than a safe one, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll. That poll found that Democrats were split on whether Biden should remain the nominee.

Biden campaign pollster Molly Murphy said "today’s polling doesn’t fundamentally change the course of the race."

In a further effort to boost morale, Biden chief of staff Jeff Zients urged White House aides during an all-staff meeting to tune out the “noise” and focus on the task of governing.

Biden himself began making personal outreach on his own, speaking privately with senior Democratic lawmakers such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Coons and Clyburn.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/top-white-house-aide-urges-164515485.html