MHRA exceptional authorisation of Innova for asymptomatic individuals was issued on 22nd Dec.

This is a LIMITED approval, and the details of how and why it is LIMITED are important. It does not cover all current uses of INNOVA by

Details here have been provided by the @MHRAgovuk by email. If any fact is incorrect here @DHSCgovuk @MHRAgovuk please let me know and I will change – it is a bit complicated and rather unusual.

2/8

First, approved test is called the “NHS Test and Trace COVID-19 Self-Test kit” - the LFT test in it is the INNOVA test.

Second, the test manufacturer is stated as “Department of Health and Social Care”, and not Innova.

This determines who has the duty of care and safety.

3/8

MHRA confirmed details of the limited approval by email (their emphasis):

“ONLY allows for the test to be used to “find” positive cases.

MHRA HAVE NOT approved the test for use in a ‘test to enable’ scenario.”

4/8

MHRA continue:

“as stated on our webpage, people should not act on a negative result and should continue to follow their local guidelines.”

“Any other use of the kit is outside of MHRA’s remit and at the manufacturer’s own risk.”

5/8

American democracy has suffered attacks over the past decade.

It’s time for change.

The #ForThePeopleAct (#HR1) would enact some of the greatest improvements our democracy has seen in decades. What's in the bill? Here are some of the highlights:

#HR1 will protect access to the fundamental right to vote. It would ensure voters can always register on Election Day and are not wrongfully purged from voter rolls. The bill would also expand the right to vote by mail to every eligible voter.

#HR1 will end partisan gerrymandering & ensure #FairMaps for all. H.R.1 requires the establishment of an independent redistricting commission (IRC) in each state, a reform essential to restoring confidence that every vote matters. Learn more about IRCs:

#HR1 will help ensure transparency in our elections and in digital political advertising. Voters have a right to know which wealthy special interests are spending big money to secretly influence our vote and our government. 4/ #StopSecretSpending

Multiple sections of #HR1 will strengthen protections against foreign influence in our elections, by extending the foreign national spending ban to ballot referenda, improving donor disclosure laws & updating digital transparency requirements. 5/ #GovernmentByUS

Welcome back to Fresno County Board of Supervisors: 2021 version! Today's meeting will only consist of Oath of Office for re-elected Supervisors Steve Brandau, Sal Quintero and Nathan Magsig as well as designation of Officers. #fresno @uSparkValley Video

Supervisors are moving to 10 AM start time rather than the previous 9 AM. Pre-Covid the parking was tough to find even at 9 AM . I imagine 10 AM will be even harder for the public to engage (if) and when we can meet in person again.

Meeting begins. Sal Quintero is on phone. Rest are present in person. Brandau has Rev. Jim Franklin give invocation. Administering of the Oath of Office to Supervisors Steve Brandau, Sal Quintero, and Nathan
Magsig

Brandau comes down first along with "these old people" (He gets a playful whack from an old lady I assume a relative). Rev. Franklin gives Oath to Brandau.

Quintero is having his administered by Sheriff Mims in an office somewhere. @LincolnSeward Nathan Magisg is having his administered by County Clerk Bernice Seidel.

The Pennsylvania State Senate begins its new legislative session of the people's business with.....

An argument about masks and whether or not Senators on the floor should be required to wear them.

#WTAE

They're taking a vote now to require senators on the floor to wear masks for today's session.

They DID NOT call on Jim Brewster for this roll call.

Some

OK.

Democratic Senator Steve Santarsiero from Bucks County has requested a delay in swearing in Senators pending resolution of the judicial challenge to Brewster's win.

Critical of Ziccarelli's "specious" actions, and says she didn't go through proper procedure in courts.

"This happens not in a vacuum, it happens in the context of some very serious threats to our democracy today," Santarsiero said.

Brings up tomorrow's certification challenges expected in DC despite Joe Biden being elected and certified as the winner of Presidential election.

"They are not intending to seat Senator Brewster despite the fact that the people of the 45th district have spoken."

"This is the most serious issue that has come before us" in his time in the senate, Santarsiero said.

"All because one candidate is displeased with having lost."

News Safety Update 2#: Let's talk about Situational Awareness! SA is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about what is happening. More simply, it's knowing what is going on around you. @RTDNA @NPPA @rcfp @pressfreedom #tvnewsers

The concept of Situational Awareness isn’t something for spies or secret agents. Applying it to real world conditions is actually rather simple. Situational Awareness is keeping your head on a swivel, looking around to observe what’s going on, who’s there, what they are doing.

What is going on around you that might cause you trouble? If based on your observations and predictions, you feel unsafe, then Situational Awareness means you're able to make adjustments to what you are doing, like changing your body language, behavior or location, to be safe.

Cooper's Color Codes are a great way to remember levels of Situational Awareness. You want to be in condition Yellow when you're on location, in your vehicle, out in the field and even in the newsroom.

Condition White: Unaware and unprepared. If something dangerous occurs in this condition you will be caught off guard and not ready to rapidly react to escape harm.

Hello, friend. It is the last day of the year & I have a few words for you. You had a good year & I am proud of you. You adjusted your entire life to get through a plague & pandemic & you did so w/little to no help from our Government. You switched gears, started new jobs, began

new projects & new home businesses. Some of you became homeschool teachers, & others became primary caregivers. You learned to bake, cook, clean, shop online, & manage your way through Zoom. You did so much & because we were all "In it", no one really was available to shout your

praises. Well, I am. You are awesome. You stayed being a good friend, even when you told your friends you would not gather. You constantly told friends & relatives to wear a mask, social distance, wash hands, don't gather - even when they no longer wanted to hear that message.

And you know what? You worked part-time to help elect your primary candidate & then most of us had to switch to supporting a different person but you rallied for the good of.. all of us, & you phone banked, texted, attended zooms, & gave money to get Biden/Harris elected. I know

you also struggled w/loneliness, grieved deaths, broke up, argued, became depressed, missed sleep, stopped exercising, & retreated from.. life. That is okay. You are okay. As my Teenlet said in all your youthful wisdom: Daddy, these are the days we will be talking about forever

Anti-deportation campaigners need to get real smart real quick. Patel is now considering deporting people with 6 month convictions. That’s petty theft, cannabis, minor offences like fraud.

In the context of #BlackLivesMatter and #windrush - the government response is to make it easier to deport people whose rights are being violated.

We need to work on this together - we cannot let this take place without a fight. Anyone who works on migrants rights, criminal justice reform, decriminalisation and a fair legal system needs to stand against this.

This is a two tier criminal justice system. Double punishment for people who live here, work here, have family here. One mistake punished twice. A lifetime in the UK overlooked because you smoked a joint or stole a purse. Rehabilitation no longer a consideration.

Patel is doing this a direct response to both successful campaigning and as a response to an incoherent strategy from activists so far. They know it will piss us off, they know they can do it. But the public can stop this if we make the right arguments.

I strongly suspect it is going to be shocking how many people working on the inside of our government and law enforcement were aware of, and helped, the insurrection on Wednesday.

From Congress to the White House to law enforcement and military - this was coordinated and funded.

I am sure the FBI is doing a deep dive into anyone and everyone and I think it is going to be shown that they were trying to kill as many people as possible, leaving Trump as a Designated Survivor who has to remain in office.

It is worse than anyone thought. I am sure.

I am almost positive that there were paramilitary and hired mercenaries blended in with the group who had the floorplans in advance, had tactical teams ready to go.

Hello, zip tie guy? These guys were ready to take hostage and murder on live tv.

We must find out who funded them. Who coordinated. Who sent them Capitol plans.

We must get electronic records, phone records, etc for White House staff that are known to symapthize (Scavino, Miller, Meadows, Kushner, Trump Jr).

There is a "there" there.

We also need to get electronic records from various Congress members AND their staff who may have been assisting from the inside. Too many to list, but there are A LOT.

These folks were too calm. They didn't seem worried about their personal safety. They knew they were fine.

My latest @PRAEyesRight- A deep dive into Nick Fuentes and his America First/groyper movement, the most prominent & mobilized white nationalist formation at the Capitol insurrection, a Gen Z group determined to capture the future of post-Trump

Nick & the groypers have been out in force at nationwide 'Stop the Steal' protests in the long leadup to Jan 6, championing the ‘American people’ against 'globalist elites', promising to ‘smash the GOP’ & build a true American nationalist movement

Nick is careful to speak in a language many can hear. His image-conscious ‘groyper’ movement looks like clean-cut Gen Z White kids- campus Republican types in polo shirts & MAGA hats- concealing the hard-edged white nationalist core of their beliefs.

What they don’t say at these rallies is for them, 'America First' means white dominance. They want to end immigration to preserve a white demographic majority for future generations in America. A small non-white minority can remain, as long as white birthrates stay up.

Like many before him Nick takes great pains to say he's not a white nationalist but it's all there. “Why can’t we wake up and acknowledge,” he said in summer 2020, as the Black Lives Matter uprising grew across the country, “that we as a people- white people- are under attack?”

Even those casually following immigration are likely aware of the active role Trump's attorneys general played.

This participation entailed unprecedented use of "referral & review"... a power with a problematic & twisted journey beyond Trump...

More in my report out today⬇️

Referral & review dates back to a time when the immigration bureaucracy was housed within the Justice Department.

The power helped the attorney general to manage this system - knitting adjudications, rulemaking, & other decisions into one coherent immigration policy framework.

That's not to say it wasn't without its issues!

Allowing the attorney general—the country’s chief law enforcement officer—to intercede in individual immigration cases has raised questions about the true independence of the immigration adjudication system.

Plus, the attorney general can issue referral & reviews without transparency or briefings, which has negative implications for the legal and policy soundness of the decisions and their acceptance.

But then! 2003 happens.

Under the government restructuring following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, most of the immigration system was moved out of the Justice Department.

The attorney general was left with the immigration court system and...referral & review.

House NOW debating the rules for 117th Congress, offered by Rules Cmte Chair Jim McGovern (D-MA).

McGovern: "The package honors all gender identities by changing pronouns in House written rules so they gender neutral. We made this change for the sake of inclusion,not exclusion..I heard the Minority Leader say this rules package was canceling Mother's Day. Are you kidding me?"

McGovern on rules package :"It makes permanent the requirement all bills that come before Rules Cmte get a hearing & mark-up 1st. It preserves the Motion to Recommit while making reforms so it can no longer be used to highjack the legislative process for political gamesmanship."

McGovern on continuing House proxy voting: "We are also continuing temporary rules changes that have ensured we completed the people’s work as safely as possible during the coronavirus pandemic."

McGovern on rules package:"It breaks new ground through transformative ethics reforms. It removes floor privileges from former Mbrs convicted of crimes related to their House service or their election. This will ensure we can do our work here w/o undue influence of lawbreakers."

MAJOR FAILURE OF COVID RELATED SERVICES AT UK BORDERS

Nearly 2 million passengers entered UK June to September 2020.

Launched by the Home Secretary, run by 2 private firms, the Isolation Assurance Service only made contact with 3.5% (66,800) to ensure they were isolating🤦‍♀️

2/ The Government’s half-hearted, privatised approach to critical COVID-related services also extending to virus control at Britain’s borders by the IAS appears to have failed to ensure self-isolation by international travellers.
Source: Private 👁 4-17 Dec 2020

3/ When launching the IAS in June, Home Secretary Priti Patel said Public Health England (PHE) would “undertake checks and ensure that people understand and are following the rules”....

4/ .... Later announcements revealed that the IAS would “attempt to contact randomly sampled arriving passengers to ensure that they are self-isolating”.

5/Sitel, the US call centre firm that shares the poorly performing contact tracing contract with Serco 🤦‍♀️, makes these calls

PHE wouldn’t say how much Sitel’s work is worth, & Govt hasn’t published details of the contract

Sitel already gets £310m for its contact tracing work😱

Rep. Austin Scott kicks off Pence rally by noting that Obama and Clinton get less than 100,000 absentee votes in Georgia, while Biden got many more.

"Something's not right with that. Now, he may end up getting sworn in as president..."

There are shouts of "no!" from the crowd.

But Scott ads that Biden is "less scary to me" if Perdue holds his Senate seat.

Rep. Drew Ferguson says that the Democratic agenda is straight of out "Communist China," citing "defund the police" (not part of the actual agenda) etc.

"How many of you think that sending children to colleges for indoctrination right now is a good idea?" he asks.

A guy in crowd yells "DEMON RATS" and Ferguson repeats the phrase from behind the lectern.

The pastor here points out that the vote to defund Planned Parenthood depended on former Sen. Johnny Isakson, so Rs can't lose this seat. I point this out bc there's a lot of unrealistic scary stuff in these speeches but this one is legit!

Papers reporting that Neil Ferguson only resigned from Sage after it was revealed he broke lockdown rules to meet his married lover - as minutes now show he stayed on NERVTAG

At the time, the government was clear he had quit *all* government advisory roles, including NERVTAG

In my front ups to Ferguson and the government on May 5, I asked whether he will be resigning from Sage and NERVTAG

Ferguson's apology, received hours later, said Sage. But the government said NERVTAG too

The delay in publishing minutes raise serious gvt transparency questions

Here is the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman in the lobby call on May 6:

Asked if Ferguson will remain on NERVTAG he said:

'NERVTAG is part of Sage, so the answer is no, Professor Ferguson will no longer attend, participate or contribute to SAGE meetings'

PM spokesman 6 May contd:

Q: So that includes all sub-committees? He’s not advising the government in any way?

'Not that I’m aware of, no'

The spokesman went on to say there are other scientists at Imperial, on Ferguson's team, who could contribute to the government so it did not lose access to its research

Now minutes published 7 months later show Ferguson personally has continued to attend NERVTAG

The NYSBA strongly condemned the violent uprising that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, orchestrated by individuals bent on subverting the will of the voters by disrupting the certification of the 2020 presidential election

Thankfully, Congress overcame this assault and fulfilled its constitutional responsibility in certifying the Biden-Harris victory. However, we must address the root cause of this abhorrent incident, the blame for which lies first and foremost with President Donald Trump.

But the president did not act alone.

Hours before the angry mob stormed the Capitol walls, Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, addressed a crowd of thousands at the White House, reiterating baseless claims of widespread election fraud in the presidential election and the Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs.

“If we're wrong, we will be made fools of, but if we're right a lot of them will go to jail,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Let's have trial by combat.”

.@SteveSisolak, you state you support schools reopening.

Well, educators do also. We support schools reopening SAFELY!

Here is how you, our Governor, can support us in CCSD. 1/9

1️⃣ Ensure that there are enough vaccines for teaches to receive two doses in the preferred timeframe.
2️⃣ Encourage Superintendent Jara to make this a priority, as well as send out a statement to district employees of his plan to ensure we will not open schools until all 2/9