Tech titan Larry Ellison teases AI-powered surveillance state that will keep you on your 'best behavior'



Oracle chairman and chief technology officer Larry Ellison, the world's second-richest man, recently revealed how his company could furnish authorities with the technological means to better surveil the populace and socially engineer those involuntarily living their lives on camera.

"Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on," Ellison said last week at the database and cloud computing company's financial analyst meeting. "It's AI that's looking at the cameras."

After discussing broadening and implementing surveillance systems in the health and education sectors, Ellison raised the matter of law enforcement applications and police body cameras.

'Truth is we don't really turn it off.'

"We completely redesigned body cameras," said the billionaire. "The camera's always on. You don't turn it on and off."

Whether an officer is having lunch with friends or in the lavatory, Oracle will never shut its eyes.

Ellison noted, for example, that if a police officer wants a moment of relative privacy so that he can go to the washroom, he must notify Oracle.

"We'll turn it off. Truth is, we don't really turn it off. What we do is we record it so no one can see it," said Ellison. "No one can get into that recording without a court order. You get the privacy you requested ... but if you get a court order, we will judge — I want to look at that, this so-called bathroom break."

"We transmit the video back to headquarters," continued the Oracle CTO, "and AI is constantly monitoring the video."

If AI spots behavior it has been trained to regard as suspicious, then it will flag it and issue an alert to the relevant authorities.

By constructing what is effectively a high-tech panopticon, Ellison indicated that police officers and citizens alike would be more inclined to behave as convention and law dictated they should "because we're constantly recording — watching and recording — everything that's going on."

Ellison indicated that this system of digital eyes on cars, drones, and humans amounts to "supervision."

The tech magnate framed these applications as benign — as ways to curb police brutality. However, Oracle has recently given cause to suspect that there is potential for abuse.

In July, Oracle agreed to pay $115 million to settle a lawsuit in which the company was accused of running roughshod over people's privacy by collecting their data and selling it to third parties, reported Reuters.

According to the plaintiffs, Oracle created unauthorized "digital dossiers" for hundreds of millions of people, which were then allegedly sold to marketers and other organizations.

Critics responding online to Ellison's remarks also expressed concerns over how such applications will all but guarantee a communist Chinese-style surveillance state in the West — something that's already under way in the U.K., one of the most surveilled countries on the planet.

'There isn't much not being watched by somebody.'

The U.K.'s former Home Office biometrics and surveillance commissioner Fraser Sampson told the Guardian before ending his term last year that AI was supercharging Britain's public-private "omni-surveillance" society.

"There was a lawyer back in 2010 who used the expression 'omni-surveillance,' and I think, yes, we are in that. There isn't much not being watched by somebody. The thing is, almost all of it's been watched by people on private devices. And they now share it, whether they want them to or not, with everybody, the police, the state, the foreign government, anybody," said Sampson.

"When all that needed a human to edit it, it wasn't an issue because no one was going to live long enough to get through 10 minutes. But now you can do it with AI editing. All of a sudden you can tap that ocean," added the watchdog.

The U.K. has ostensibly taken a turn for the worse under the current Labor government, which is working to greatly expand the use of live facial recognition technology.

While some have taken to keyboards to bemoan the growth of the Western surveillance state, so-called Blade Runner activists have, in recent years, taken to chopping down public and private cameras, including low-emission cameras.

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Bill Gates pushes for digital IDs to tackle 'misinformation' and curb free speech



Bill Gates has evidenced, both directly and through his foundation, an intense desire to shape public health, the news landscape, education policy, AI, insect populations, American farmland, the energy sector, foreign policy, and the earth itself. He recently hinted that he would also like to see free speech and engagements online shaped to his liking.

CNET asked Gates about what to do about "misinformation" — a topic explored in his forthcoming Netflix docuseries and some of his blog posts. The billionaire answered that there will be "systems and behaviors" in place to expose content originators.

The online environment Gates appears to be describing is some sort of digital ID-based panopticon.

Gates suggested that the "boundary between ... crazy but free speech versus misleading people in a dangerous way or inciting them is a very tough boundary."

"You know, I think every country's struggling to find that boundary," said Gates. "The U.S. is a tough one because, you know, we have the notion of the First Amendment. So what are the exceptions? You know, like yelling 'fire' in a theater."

The billionaire has previously hinted at the kinds of speech he finds troubling.

For instance, in a January 2021 MSNBC interview, Gates took issue with content encouraging "people not to trust the advice on masks or taking the vaccine."

When fear-mongering about potential "openness" on Twitter following its acquisition by Elon Musk, Gates intimated the suggestions that "vaccines kill people" and that "Bill Gates is tracking people" were similarly beyond the pale.

Gates, evidently interested in exceptions to constitutionally protected speech, complained to CNET that people can engage in what others might deem "misinformation" under the cover of anonymity online.

"I do think over time, you know with things like deep-fakes, most of the time you're online, you're going to want to be in an environment where the people are truly identified," continued Gates. "That is they're connected to a real-world identity that you trust instead of people just saying whatever they want."

The online environment Gates appears to be describing is some sort of digital ID-based panopticon.

Gates has backed various efforts to tether people to digital identities.

Gates' foundation has, for instance, been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a program called the United Nations Development Program-led 50-in-5 Campaign, which features a strong focus on digital ID.

The UNDP said in a November 2023 release, "This ambitious, country-led campaign heralds a new chapter in the global momentum around digital public infrastructure (DPI) — an underlying network of components such as digital payments, ID, and data exchange systems, which is a critical accelerator of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)."

Return previously reported that the Gates-backed Gavi, also known as the Vaccine Alliance, Mastercard, and NGOs in the fintech space have been trialing a digital vaccine passport in Africa called the Wellness Pass.

This vaccine passport, characterized as a useful way to track patients in "underserved communities" across "multiple touchpoints," is part of a grouping of consumer-facing Mastercard products aimed ostensibly at bringing people into a cashless digital ID system that both automates compliance with prescribed pharmaceutical regimens and fosters dependency on at least one ideologically captive non-governmental entity.

Extra to funding research into biocompatible near-infrared quantum dots indicating vaccination status, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backed the World Health Organization's 2021 "Digital Documentation of COVID-19 Certificates: Vaccination Status" guidance, which discussed the deployment of a vaccine passport "solution to address the immediate needs of the pandemic but also to build digital health infrastructure that can be a foundation for digital vaccination certificates beyond COVID-19."

Whereas there remain ways online by which people can interact anonymously — including whistleblowers and persons whose employment situations might otherwise preclude them from freely expressing their views publicly — largely free from government or private clampdowns, Gates fantasized in his CNET interview about "systems and behaviors that we're more aware of. Okay, who says that? Who created this?"

According to CNBC, Gates is "sensitive" to concerns that restricting information online could adversely impact the right to free speech. Nevertheless, he still wants new rules established, though he did not spell out what those would entail.

However, he has, in recent years, given an idea of where he thinks the government crackdown should start.

Gates told Wired in 2020 that the government should now permit messages hidden with encryption on programs like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

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5 Major Takeaways From Supreme Court Vindication Of NRA’s Speech Rights

The court’s analysis proves significant because currently pending before the Supreme Court is another important First Amendment case: Murthy v. Missouri.

Commentary: A workers' conservatism against the neoliberals' idols



America, like the rest of the Western world, is sick.

To fight an illness with any hope of success, it is necessary to first identify what ails you. This is as true of nations as it is of men. Just as true: different diagnoses will necessitate different therapies, and an incorrect diagnosis could prove both costly and deadly.

Sohrab Ahmari, the founding editor of Compact, indicates in his new book, "Tyranny, Inc.," that the right's past diagnoses have largely neglected the extent to which the private sector has originated some of the top cancers now eating away at the body politic.

This neglect has partly been a consequence of Cold War-era fusionism, whereby traditional conservatives and libertarians joined forces with the intention of countering the red menace abroad and the pinkos at home.

The libertarian outlook, largely shaped by Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and others, predominated in this timely alliance. Consequently, the right tended over time to worship hyper-individualism and the unregulated market above all else.

Gruesome facts drawn from over two centuries of statist nightmares, particularly from the other side of the Iron Curtain, made easy work of defending this idolatry, even among those Abrahamic conservatives whose past religious reservations about modernism, liberalism, and unbridled capitalism might otherwise have given them pause.

With idols come taboos and sacrifices.

In keeping with the libertarian outlook, any effort to temper individual ambition or regulate the market, even in the plain interest of the common good or at the behest of the public, was denounced as totalizing or authoritarian or collectivist or a revival of the spirit of this or that blood-soused leftist ideology from the last century. Pro-labor sentiments were likewise characterized as mileage down the road to serfdom.

Now, well over a saeculum into this idol worship, it has become glaringly clear that the devil-takes-the-hindmost attitude implicit in the neoliberal worldview has been in many ways ruinous for all but the ultra-elite. The center did not hold, and things have fallen apart.

Recent diagnoses point to this neoliberal state of play and the corresponding Randian state of mind as contributing causes of America's sickness.

Rusty Reno, the editor of First Things, has suggested that the postwar consensus that sought an open society, championed by libertarians and progressive liberals alike, effectively targeted the strong loves that bound us together and ordered society with a common or higher good in mind.

The liberal regime conflated the "dark gods" that brought about the totalitarianisms of the early 20th century with these and other "strong gods" (e.g., faith, family, tradition, and flag) necessary for a stable society, ultimately throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

According to Reno, neoliberalism, the "economic and cultural regime of deregulation and disenchantment," seeks to "weaken and eventually dissolve the strong elements of traditional society that impede the free flow of commerce … as well as identity and desire."

As a consequence of the neoliberals' success, many Americans have been rendered not just "unmoored, adrift, and abandoned," but powerless and increasingly susceptible to exercises of raw power by the technocratic openers and other powers that be, both private and public.

The populism that has been gaining steam over the past decade has in large part been a response to this state of things — an effort to usher in a return of the "strong gods."

Patrick Deneen, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame, appears certain that we have crossed the Rubicon; that the liberal regime comprising cultural deregulators (progressive liberals) and economic deregulators (classical liberals) is in its death throes; and that regime change is coming.

When recently discussing how the new order might ensure a balance of power that operates in the interest of the common good, Deneen wrote, "The answer is not the elimination of the elite (as Marx once envisioned), but its replacement with a better set of elites. ... Most needful is an alignment of the elite and the people, not the domination of one by the other."

In "Tyranny, Inc.," Sohrab Ahmari similarly denounces neoliberalism as a contributing cause of America's current malady and further stresses the importance of correcting asymmetries of power adversely affecting ordinary people. However, whereas Deneen figures widespread asymmetries could be corrected by regime change resulting in a better elite, Ahmari is betting on solidarity, regulation, and re-politicization.

Ahmari explains in the book how corporate leaders and their technocratic associates have faithfully made good on the promise of neoliberalism, depriving citizens of power, prioritizing uncommon wealth over the common good, reducing souls to cents on the dollar, and altogether sickening the body politic as much if not more than does the government whose functions the private sector continues to appropriate and/or compromise.

He summarized how this came about thusly: "The classically liberal state was mostly indifferent to private tyranny. The social democratic state sought to curb it by empowering workers and other weak market actors, winning their consent to the system in the bargain and thus stabilizing market and society. The neoliberal state, however, actively abets private tyranny."

"It does this by turning state and law into instruments for promoting market values everywhere," continued Ahmari, "and by rendering the power asymmetries generated by the market immune to political or legal challenge."

Ahmari underscored that this systematic process of depoliticization forecloses "the very possibility of ordinary people using political power and workplace pressure to get a fairer shake out of the economy."

What is needed, according to Ahmari, is the restoration of workers' countervailing power, "the indispensable lever for improving the lot of the asset-less and for stabilizing economics otherwise prone to turbulence and speculative chaos."

Stabilized economics and an empowered worker may greatly help in addressing our underlying societal illness, not only paving the way for a virtuous body politic but also for stable, bigger families, stronger communities, and a center that can weather whatever comes next.

To this end, Ahmari recommends more and stronger unionization efforts in most sectors and a "left-right consensus in favor of tackling the coercion inherent to the market."

Ahmari's pro-labor proposals may appear too pink for some and discomfiting for others on the right who saw fit to discard Christian social teaching during the fusionist decades. Nevertheless, his critique of the private sector and defense of workers — which appear to have already resonated with Republicans like Sens. Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley — are nevertheless worth considering, especially now that the dissolution of the Cold War fusion has freed traditional conservatives to once again differentiate themselves from the moribund liberal regime and to call out the coercive and "compensatory power of an asset-rich few."

If common good or working-class conservatism is to become something more than simply a politically expedient rhetorical ploy for the right to attract disaffected lefties, then it will be worthwhile knowing where we stand in the days to come when traditional values and "the free flow of commerce" conflict, not just when woke capital is involved, but across the board.

Whatever the outcome of that soul-searching, the resulting self-knowledge will likely help shape the political binary that emerges from the corpse of the liberal regime.

The service of Mammon and self has contributed much to the sickness of the West. Greater solidarity in the service of God, a bolstering of the working class, and a purposeful tempering of the powers that be, private and public alike, may contribute to its convalescence.

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British agency criticized after telling millions of citizens not to heat their homes at night to reduce emissions



British bureaucrats, much like those in the United States and other Western countries, appear keen on further compromising citizens' quality of life in hopes of arresting ever-changing weather patterns, which some alarmists continue to fearfully and dogmatically refer to as "climate change."

While many so-called "green" initiatives aimed at sweeping the proverbial waves back into the sea have gone relatively unchallenged in recent years, the U.K. appears to have gone too far with one of its agency's latest recommendations.

The U.K.'s Climate Change Committee, an independent statutory body established under the 2008 Climate Change Act and tasked with hectoring the nation over emissions targets, has urged millions of families not to heat their homes at night, reported the Telegraph.

In its "Sixth Carbon Budget" paper advising Parliament on the "volume of greenhouse gases the UK can emit during the period 2033-2037," the CCC, which sets legally binding limits, implored households with electric-powered heating systems, including heat pumps, to shut off their radiators in the evening.

"There is significant potential to deliver emissions savings, just by changing the way we use our homes," said the report. "It is possible to pre-heat ahead of peak times. This enables access to cheaper tariffs which reflect the reduced costs associated with producing power off-peak and reducing requirements for network reinforcement to manage peak loads."

The Telegraph reported that the CCC has further insisted that, as of 2033, all newly built homes should be constructed to accommodate pre-heating.

A spokesman for the CCC stressed that "[s]mart heating of homes like this also makes the best possible use of the grid and supports greater use of cheap renewable generation."

What to some might come off as coercive social engineering, the CCC simply calls "behaviour change."

Similar proposals, which in practice look like wartime rationing, have been advanced and executed in Gov. Gavin Newsom's California. However, in the case of California, the Independent System Operator had to call upon consumers to ration power because the state's shift to renewable energy has left it with an unstable power grid and sporadic blackouts.

While advertised as a way to save households money, the proposal that Britons "pre-heat" their homes earlier in the day then watch their breaths at night has been met with significant criticism, not the least because Chris Stark, the agency's climate czar, uses a gas boiler, meaning he might get to enjoy the warmth the CCC otherwise seeks to deny his countrymen.

Homes with gas heating appear to be exempt from the CCC's recommendation, but the U.K. has plans to ban those alternatives in the coming years — meaning everyone, including Stark, might soon feel the evening chill.

Andrew Montford, the director of Net Zero Watch — a group that monitors the government's extremist climate polices — told the Telegraph, "The grid is already creaking, and daft ideas like this show just how much worse it will become. ... It's clear that renewables are a disaster in the making. We now need political leaders with the courage to admit it."

British lawmaker Craig Mackinlay, the chair of the parliamentary Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said, "This latest advice to freeze ourselves on cold evenings merely shows the truth that the dream of plentiful and cheap renewable energy is a sham. ... I came into politics to improve all aspects of my constituents' lives, not make them colder and poorer."

The push to limit emissions and freeze out Westerners is predicated largely upon a sense that the world is confronted with an climate "emergency."

Despite the repeated suggestion that the science is settled, an international coalition of thousands of scientists, including a handful of Nobel laureates, just penned a declaration stressing, "There is no climate emergency."

Dr. John F. Clauser, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Dr. Ivar Giaever, a Norwegian-American engineer who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973, have joined over 1,600 other scientists and professionals in stressing the following points:

  • "Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming";
  • "Warming is far slower than predicted";
  • "Climate policy relies on inadequate models";
  • "CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. ... More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the earth";
  • "Global warming has not increased natural disasters"; and
  • "Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities."

The declaration further states that "[c]limate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. In particular, scientists should emphasize that their modeling output is not the result of magic: computer models are human-made. What comes out is fully dependent on what theoreticians and programmers have put in: hypotheses, assumptions, relationships, parameterizations, stability constraints, etc. Unfortunately, in mainstream climate science most of this input is undeclared."

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Study: 60 Percent Of Women Who Aborted Babies Say They Were Pressured IntoIt

Democrats have only added fuel to the fire by targeting pro-life pregnancy centers firebombed by far-left extremists.

Sen. Ron Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. take on the 'COVID Cartel' in Jason Whitlock's new 'Fearless' special



Jason Whitlock addressed the fallout of the vaccine mandate Tuesday in his special entitled, "The 'COVID Cartel' & the Price for Freedom | We Won't Comply."

In addition to considering some of the social, medical, spiritual, and legal consequences of the coercive and destructive measures that were recently brought to bear against the American people in the name of public health, Whitlock — joined by BlazeTV icon Steve Deace, host of "The Steve Deace Show" — discussed the weaponization of the corresponding biomedical state and the vaccination regime it has produced.

They spoke to: Green Bay Packers Hall-of-Famer Ken Ruettgers; Dr. Joel Wallskog, a vaccine-injured board-certified orthopedic surgeon; former Navy SEAL Stephen Kaplan; former ESPN producer Beth Faber; former NBA referee Ken Mauer; Nick Rolovich, former head coach of WSU football; and former MLB player Chris Singleton.

These guests shared a multitude of penetrating insights over the course of the three-hour-plus special.

Whitlock and Deace also spoke to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., founder and chairman for Children's Health Defense, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), who both detailed the systemic virus that has survived the pandemic along with the patriot cure.

Kennedy on the sleep-marching mob

Kennedy discussed the censorship regime and those purported liberal thinkers and institutions that got swept up into it during the pandemic, often at the expense of dissenters, critical thought, and free speech. He also bemoaned America's swift and uncritical descent into medical authoritarianism in what he reckoned has amounted to a nationwide Milgram experiment.

The Milgram experiment was conducted in the 1960s by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram to test people's willingness to obey orders from an authority figure — a study Kennedy suggested proved fruitful as a takeaway for the CIA when it came time to overthrow governments across the globe.

The vast majority of participants in the experiment dutifully obeyed the seeming authority figure, thereby agreeing to electrocute a stranger, despite knowing it was morally wrong.

"We've got Anthony Fauci in his white lab coat telling people, 'It's okay to get rid of jury trials,' which they did. ... 'It's okay to suppress free speech.' We all know better than that. 'It's okay to close every church in our country for a year.' We know you can't do that. There's no pandemic exception in the United States Constitution," said Kennedy, noting that the Founders knew all about pandemics, having experienced two during the Revolutionary War.

Kennedy underscored that the good news gleaned from the Milgram experiment is that "33% of the people that Milgram recruited got up and walked out. The people [that Whitlock had on his special] are part of that 33%. There's Republicans in that 33%. There's Democrats in that 33%. And that's where the realignment is."

"I don't hold it against people ... who have been subjected to this propaganda psyop. ... And they're doing what they're told and they're trying to do the right thing — to obey the trusted authorities. And they're terrified and fear incapacitates you. So I don't blame them," said Kennedy. "Our job is ... to fight for them until they can wake up and start fighting for themselves."

Johnson on the predations of the pharmaceutical-industrial complex

In addition to railing against lockdowns early in the pandemic, Johnson has consistently amplified the voices of Americans adversely impacted by the vaccines. He previously hosted a forum for those with vaccine injuries after receiving a call from another one of Whitlock's panelists, Ken Ruettgers, whose wife suffered a neurological injury post-vaccination.

"There is an enormous and pervasive state of denial in this country," said Johnson. "People don't want to admit that they're wrong."

According to Johnson, those who are wrong but who have not come around to admitting as much are: "the federal health agencies that shut down our economy, unlike Sweden; people that not only ignored early treatment but sabotaged it with almost a maniacal focus solely on vaccines, vaccines, vaccines; the people that pushed these vaccines even though their own safety systems were screaming at them, 'Maybe slow down, maybe exercise some caution here'; [and those who] forced it on individuals, mandated it."

"Nobody wants to admit that something they recommended might have killed somebody or permanently disabled them ... or created these neurological problems or creating all these sports injuries. The bottom line is that we have a large segment of the population — I would say more than a majority — [who] are just simply in a state of denial," added the senator.

With that sustained denial is an apparent commitment to emergency measures and questionable health protocols.

A December I&I/TIPP Poll revealed that 56% of Democrats still reckon masking kids under the age of 5 is a good idea, even though the science is clear that children are at relatively low risk of serious harm from the virus.

As recently as last January, the supermajority of Democrats polled supported vaccine mandates, with 59% of Democratic voters favoring the confinement and isolation of the unvaccinated.

Extra to the members of the general public still captive to pandemic fears, Johnson suggested that medical establishment figures and the state institutions with whom they've coordinated "have so mishandled this pandemic in general ... they can't afford to be proven wrong. They can't afford to be exposed."

Johnson told Whitlock, "You're going to see a real movement by the COVID cartel to blame ... long COVID. They'll do everything possible to make sure that the vaccines aren't to blame."

When pressed on who or what helms the "COVID Cartel" or the "pharmaceutical industrial complex" — which Johnson suggested shared similarities with the military-industrial complex once referenced in President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address — the senator said, "The corrupting influence of big pharma."

"We probably should never have allowed them to advertise because that allowed them to capture the entire mainstream media and the social media giants," said Johnson, adding that the regulatory agencies are now similarly captive to big pharma.

While claiming pharmaceutical monoliths have wielded enormous influence over American society and politics during the pandemic, Johnson noted the Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum, which he would previously have dismissed as nefarious forces, may similarly have had a hand in advancing a cure "that's worse than the disease."

Watch the entire special here:

FEARLESS Special: The ‘COVID Cartel’ & the Price for Freedom | We Won’t Comply | Ep 359 youtu.be

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Health experts want more vaccinations and more masking, less attention paid to sick travelers from China



American officials have imposed entry restrictions on travelers from China, Hong Kong, and Macau, to ensure they aren't carrying variants of COVID-19 into the U.S.

However, some so-called health experts have once again suggested that rather than having American officials ensure diseases aren't being brought over from China, they should instead subject citizens to greater scrutiny and medical domination.

Rules for thee, but not for Xi

With another winter comes another flu season. The average weekly hospital admissions for the general population are 5,600, approximately 74% lower than the worst of last winter's Omicron surge, according to The Hill.

Notwithstanding a dramatic improvement over last year, so-called health experts — accustomed to seeing the masses dutifully wearing masks and getting vaccinated — think the attention newly assigned to travelers from China at U.S. ports of entry is misplaced.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced that travelers from China, Hong Kong, and Macau would be required to test negative for COVID-19 before being admitted to the United States.

The Hill reported that instead of such travel prohibitions, public health experts believe the best way forward is with mitigation efforts such as masking and vaccination, the efficacy of which has been hotly contested.

Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told The Hill, "If I saw any public health utility in [travel restrictions], I would strongly support it. I don’t see any public health utility."

Osterholm suggested, "We should probably look at ourselves first. Any country ought to be testing people from the United States," adding that there was no evidence the new COVID-19 variant is in China.

"We shouldn’t put all of our eggs in the basket of thinking that it’s only going to come from China. I think that’d be a terrible mistake," said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

British health adviser Sir Andrew Pollard suggested that the Chinese have "not had the extra immunity from having waves of COVID so it's very difficult at this moment to tell whether a variant emerging in China is likely to have any impact here in the U.K." or elsewhere.

Despite his intimation that natural immunity is beneficial, the conclusions Pollard instead reached in conversation with BBC Radio 4's "Today" program were that travel restrictions have "already been shown not to work very well" and that the viruses borne by Chinese travelers are likely "best adapted to spread in a Chinese population."

Anthony Fauci, who opposed a travel ban on China in January 2020, reiterated in his final White House appearance what he figured the best way forward for Americans is: not restrictions on potentially infected foreign nationals, but for Americans to get boosted.

Fauci did, however, concede that "if you want to let nature take its course, we're ultimately going to get there."

This is not the first wave of health experts and government officials to criticize or downplay the need for travel restrictions.

Opposition to travel restrictions at the outset

TheBlaze previously reported that President Joe Biden claimed at the outset of the pandemic that targeting Chinese travelers specifically to prevent spreading COVID-19 was "xenophobic fear-mongering."

Biden had also said, "Banning all travel from Europe or any other part of the world may slow it but as we’ve seen will not stop it. And travel restrictions based on favoritism and politics, rather than risk, will be counterproductive."

Biden was not alone in his aversion to keeping infected travelers out of the United States.

The "No Ban Act," introduced by Democratic Rep. Judy Chu (Calif.) and co-sponsored by 219 House Democrats, was designed to limit the executive branch's ability to prevent infected travelers from entering the country.

World Health Organization director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus condemned Trump's proposed travel ban targeting China, saying, "There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade."

In a Jan. 4, 2020, executive board session, Tedros said, "Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit."

Concerning travel restrictions at the outset of the pandemic, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill epidemiology professor Lisa Gralinski said, "Are we having a reasoned response that's justified by the data? Are we also protecting our population from, in this case, a virus that we still know fairly little about? ... We don't have a lot of great data saying that these measures are very effective."

Not again

China has been stricken with a wave of coronavirus cases since early December.

The Washington Post reported that Chinese hospitals are overwhelmed, dumping patients along hallways.

On Dec. 21, the Shanghai Neuromedical Center posted a WeChat article suggesting that 7 million residents in the city had been infected and that roughly 12 million would ultimately be infected.

Notwithstanding this surge of infections, China has dropped its containment measures.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told WABC 770 AM, "Fifty percent of their population traveling. There is no reason we should allow the Chinese to do this again, to send Chinese-infected persons around the world knowingly infecting people all across the globe."

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping will "infect millions more," Pompeo suggested, since Chinese residents will now be able to jet across the globe.

"Xi got away with this once," said Pompeo. "I regret he wasn't held accountable."

While so-called experts are doubling down, it appears as though Biden may have learned from his mistake.

Columbia Law Professor Explains Why Public Schools Are Tearing America Apart

Legal scholar Philip Hamburger explains why public schools will remain a fierce battleground until lawmakers make them release their grip on America's kids.

A Handful Of NBA Players Have Become The Voice Of Reason In The COVID Vaccine Debate

The fact that 24-year-old Jonathan Isaac can speak more cogently about COVID and freedom of conscience than the entire corporate press is an astonishing development.