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Texas AG Starts Investigation Into Vaccine-Related Financial Incentives Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Jan. 21 said he’s investigating incentives related to vaccinating children. Paxton’s office said in a statement that the probe will cover pediatricians, insurers, vaccine companies, and other entities “engaged in deceptive or unlawful conduct by failing to disclose financial incentives connected to their administration of childhood vaccines.” It noted that some pediatricians kick out families that refuse to adhere to a vaccine schedule and that doctors can receive bonuses for vaccinating. An Epoch Times investigation found that insurers have offered bonuses as high as $400 per child as an incentive to vaccinate patients. Paxton is issuing civil investigative demands for information to companies, including UnitedHealthcare and Pfizer. “I will ensure that Big Pharma and Big Insurance don’t bribe medical providers to pressure parents to jab their kids with vaccines they feel aren’t safe or necessary,” Paxton said in a statement. He said that Texans “deserve to have full faith in the recommendations of their medical providers—particularly when it involves the health of their children” and that “any provider or entity whose medical guidance is fueled by financial incentives from an insurance company, Big Pharma, or otherwise will be exposed.” Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for more information. UnitedHealthcare had said in a document, which was taken down after The Epoch Times’ story was published, that doctors were eligible for bonuses for patients who received vaccines against tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, and human papillomavirus. The Epoch Times reached out to UnitedHealthcare and Pfizer for comment, but they did not respond by publication time. Studies have found that vaccinations can be profitable, including a 2020 paper. Some doctors have said in surveys that they can lose money on vaccines due to certain factors, such as low reimbursements. The American Academy of Pediatrics, which partners with vaccine manufacturers, has said that pediatricians do not profit from vaccines and are motivated to vaccinate because, the group says, vaccines are safe and effective. Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that opposes vaccine mandates, said that the group was “very excited” about Paxton’s investigation. Children’s Health Defense this week sued the American Academy of Pediatrics, accusing the organization of violating federal law by promoting the vaccine schedule as proven safe. The academy did not respond to a request for comment. In its complaint, Children’s Health Defense mentioned how insurers offer bonuses for pediatricians whose patients receive certain vaccines, and pointed to a 2024 report from the academy that stated that “under value-based care models, pediatricians may receive a significant part of their payments based on performance metrics, one of which is completion of childhood and adolescent immunizations.” Paxton’s previous investigations have included a probe into Pfizer for allegedly misrepresenting the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine and toothpaste manufacturers for promoting the use of too much toothpaste. His case against Pfizer was dismissed in 2024. The toothpaste probe led to companies agreeing to redesign boxes for toothpaste containing fluoride. Tyler Durden Thu, 01/22/2026 - 18:25

Trump Rages As Jack Smith Accidentally Exposed The Partisan Scam Behind The Jan 6 Probe Jack Smith’s testimony before Congress did more than expose weaknesses in his own case against President Trump. It also laid bare just how partisan the entire January 6th investigation had become—and how willing Democrats were to elevate sensational claims they knew could never survive real scrutiny. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan zeroed in on one of the January 6th Committee’s most infamous moments: the prime-time hearing on June 28, 2022, built almost entirely around the committee’s star witness, Cassidy Hutchinson. Jordan reminded Smith that Hutchinson was “their star witness” in what he described as a “staged and choreographed hearing” produced by a former ABC News president. She was the only witness that night, and her testimony delivered a Hollywood-ready storyline. Among Hutchinson’s claims was the outlandish assertion that President Trump “lunged across the back seat, grabbed the steering wheel, tried to drive the car to the Capitol.” Jordan pressed Smith directly. “I just want to know, you think she was lying?” Smith’s response immediately deflated the J6 committee’s narrative. “My recollection of her testimony about that is that it was secondhand,” Smith said, explaining that she “said she’d heard that from somebody.” Jordan then walked Smith through the basic facts the January 6th Committee chose to ignore. Tony Ornato, the White House deputy chief of staff for operations, denied the incident ever happened. So did Bobby Engel, the Secret Service agent who was actually in the car when Hutchinson claimed the incident occurred. Both men said they first heard the story when Hutchinson told it on national television. Jordan asked the obvious question: “Did you ever confirm her testimony about this particular incident?” Smith danced around it before conceding the truth. After Jordan cut him off and demanded a clear answer, Smith admitted, “We interviewed … another firsthand witness, uh, who was in the car, uh, who did not confirm, uh, that that had happened.” That admission alone undercut one of the January 6th Committee’s most viral claims. It also raised a larger issue about prosecutorial judgment. Jordan reminded Smith of his own sworn deposition testimony, where Smith had acknowledged serious credibility problems with Hutchinson. Smith had told the committee at the time, “My recollection with Ms. Hutchinson was a number of the things that she gave evidence on were secondhand… hearsay.” Jordan went further, quoting Smith’s own words about how a competent defense attorney would handle Hutchinson. Smith had said, “If I were a defense attorney and Ms. Hutchinson were a witness, the first thing I would do is seek to preclude her testimony because it was hearsay.” Smith confirmed that statement under oath. “Yes, that’s correct, sir.” The exchange became even more revealing when Jordan asked whether Smith still planned to put Hutchinson on the witness stand at trial. Smith refused to rule it out, saying only that prosecutors had “a large choice of witnesses.” Jordan then cited reporting from Washington Post journalists Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis, whose book detailed internal doubts within Smith’s own team. According to the book, “Jack Smith had wondered whether some of Hutchinson’s claims might be relied upon at trial.” It continued, “Ultimately, however, Trump administration officials uniformly fiercely disputed her accounts under oath. Prosecutors on your team told Smith they wouldn’t want to use Hutchinson as a witness in court, and Smith agreed.” In short, Democrats built a prime-time spectacle around Hutchinson and cited her hundreds of times, while Smith admitted her claims were hearsay, unverified by firsthand witnesses, and too unreliable for his own prosecutors to use at trial. 🚨Jim Jordan confronts Jack Smith about Cassidy Hutchinson’s repeatedly discredited testimony about Trump on Jan. 6: "You didn’t rule…

Demographics Deployed For Political Control Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times, People are talking ever more about the possibility of civil war in the United States. The scenes on the streets do not look good, to be sure. That said, we are nowhere near this point and certainly don’t have to be. The trigger for the unfolding of events speaks to a tactic of control that unleashes resistance (and counterresistence) like no other. If this issue is resolved in peace and within the rule of law, normalcy can be restored. Let’s review some of the deeper history. At the height of the Roman Empire, when conquering ever more territory was regarded as regime triumph, a strategy for control emerged that would long persist into the modern age. The military would urge Romanization of the conquered provinces. The aristocracy would flood provinces and towns, bringing language and technology and administrative leadership. Roman citizens, often veterans of these wars, were settled with land grants and created loyal Roman outposts. Many modern European cities trace origins to these settlements. The tactic assured regional loyalty, lessened local resistance, and helped blunt the efficacy of independence movements. The Spanish Empire took a similar approach in the Americas. Massive settler migration from Iberia led to the demographic replacement of indigenous populations. Spanish was imposed as the dominant language. Indigenous tongues were suppressed. Localized religions mutated to match priorities of the imperial faith. So it was in the Soviet Union. After the archives opened following the fall of communism, scholars found proof of what they had long suspected. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians were directed to migrate to the Baltic states following the 1940 annexation. The priorities were the same as the above examples: spread the Russian language, intermarry, and build and administer infrastructure. This weakened national identities and secured Russian holdings. All of these are examples of what is called settler colonialism. It’s a tactic, often a brutal one because it touches the lives, languages, educations, and religion of everyone. It can often be pitiless toward the settled traditions that are being displaced. The USA was born as an experiment in the same way via the British Empire. The English Court and its industrial partners had every intention of using the colonies for the empire’s own purposes, restricting trade and taxing its residents. It did not go so well. After 150 years of experience with freedom in the colonies, Americans developed a sense of independent identity that led to a war of independence that the colonies won. It is true that the United States began as a nation of immigrants and has always been a welcoming country. The early Founding documents left the issue of citizenship to the states because people were citizens of their states. Following a horrible Civil War, the federal government took charge of determining citizenship, alongside a peculiar model of earning the right to vote. All people born within its borders were automatically granted citizenship rights. Immigration became a source of controversy in the late 19th century with floods of new asylum seekers from Russia, Italy, Ireland, and elsewhere, thus taxing infrastructure and giving rise to ethnic and religious tensions. The immigration acts of 1921 and 1924 sought to settle those problems with a strong legal preference for European migration. Forty years later, this prioritization was deemed discriminatory. The immigration act of 1965 reversed priorities and opened up the country to a wider range of newly arriving residents to become citizens. Even with this change, the subject of immigration was regarded as a manageable domestic policy dispute, with people on all sides favoring this or that. The debates concerned economics, religion, and the issue of acculturation. What was not in question was the idea of using demographics for purposes…

Reparations Are A Welfare Scheme And Would Have No Effect On Racial Wealth Gaps Authored by William L. Anderson via the Mises Institute, Since the 1960s, when racial turmoil exploded in the United States, there have been reparations demands, with groups representing black Americans calling for massive wealth transfers from whites and other economically successful ethnic groups to account for black chattel slavery in the US and the policies of Jim Crow. For example, during their heyday in the 1960s, the Black Panthers in 1966 called for a number of measures, including reparations, to bring about what they saw as justice. They included: We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the White American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living. We believe that this racist government has robbed us, and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. Nearly a half-century later, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote “The Case for Reparations” for The Atlantic in which he chronicled more than a century of racial discrimination for American blacks, looking at the life of one man, Clyde Ross, who spent his early years in Mississippi, where lynchings were common and there was little legal protection for blacks: When Clyde Ross was still a child, Mississippi authorities claimed his father owed $3,000 in back taxes. The elder Ross could not read. He did not have a lawyer. He did not know anyone at the local courthouse. He could not expect the police to be impartial. Effectively, the Ross family had no way to contest the claim and no protection under the law. The authorities seized the land. They seized the buggy. They took the cows, hogs, and mules. And so for the upkeep of separate but equal, the entire Ross family was reduced to sharecropping. This was hardly unusual. In 2001, the Associated Press published a three-part investigation into the theft of black-owned land stretching back to the antebellum period. The series documented some 406 victims and 24,000 acres of land valued at tens of millions of dollars. The land was taken through means ranging from legal chicanery to terrorism. “Some of the land taken from black families has become a country club in Virginia,” the AP reported, as well as “oil fields in Mississippi” and “a baseball spring training facility in Florida.” When Ross moved to Chicago, he and his family had to deal with “redlining” and other discriminatory practices that made home ownership more difficult for blacks than whites. Coates writes: In Chicago and across the country, whites looking to achieve the American dream could rely on a legitimate credit system backed by the government. Blacks were herded into the sights of unscrupulous lenders who took them for money and for sport. “It was like people who like to go out and shoot lions in Africa. It was the same thrill,” a housing attorney told the historian Beryl Satter in her 2009 book, Family Properties. “The thrill of the chase and the kill.” Interestingly, Coates does not present any specific plans or programs. Instead, he chronicles the examples of racial discrimination—which are many—and then says the logical outcome should be reparations in one form or another: Broach the topic of reparations today and a barrage of questions inevitably follows: Who will be paid? How much will they be paid? Who will pay? But if the practicalities, not the justice, of reparations are the true sticking point, there has for some time been the beginnings of a solution. For…

2026 Looks Better For US Automakers Than Suppliers; Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank is looking at U.S. autos heading into the new year with a growing sense of separation between winners and laggards. In a new 2026 outlook note, Edison Yu and his team argue that while global auto demand remains uneven and suppliers face a tougher volume backdrop, U.S. automakers are entering the year with clearer earnings momentum, helped by better mix, lower EV losses, and a renewed ability to lean into their most profitable internal-combustion vehicles. At a high level, the bank is cautious on global production growth despite more optimistic industry forecasts. Deutsche Bank sees downside risks tied mainly to China, where changes to government trade-in subsidies are expected to hit lower-priced vehicles hardest. While North America and Europe may improve modestly, the team does not believe those regions can fully offset a potential slowdown in China. As a result, suppliers are likely to guide conservatively for 2026, particularly in the first half of the year, even though fourth-quarter results should generally meet or exceed expectations. In contrast, the setup for U.S. automakers looks more favorable. Deutsche Bank expects both GM and Ford to deliver solid fourth-quarter results and to grow EBIT by roughly $1–2 billion year over year in 2026. The key driver is not higher unit volumes, but a shift in mix. With regulatory pressure easing, automakers no longer need to restrict production of high-margin trucks and SUVs to meet fleet-wide emissions targets. That flexibility allows them to stock dealerships with more profitable trims, improving margins even if overall sales volumes remain flat or modestly lower. The pullback from aggressive EV expansion is another important theme. Both Ford and GM have taken multi-billion-dollar write-downs tied to EV programs and battery investments. Deutsche Bank views these moves as painful but necessary resets that reduce future losses, depreciation, and overhead. By clearing out what the bank refers to as “stranded assets,” both companies enter 2026 with a cleaner cost base and a much easier earnings comparison year over year. For EV-focused companies, the conversation shifts away from near-term vehicle volumes and toward technology execution. Deutsche Bank expects muted underlying volume growth for Tesla and Rivian, with investor attention increasingly centered on autonomy, software, and what the team describes as “physical AI.” For Tesla, that means proving real-world progress in unsupervised full self-driving and robotaxi deployment before earning additional valuation credit. For Rivian, 2026 is framed as a critical year, with the R2 launch needing to demonstrate not just scale, but improving competitiveness in autonomy. Suppliers face a more complicated picture. China stands out as the biggest wildcard, as revised subsidy rules disproportionately impact lower-priced vehicles and are expected to drive a year-over-year decline in passenger vehicle wholesales. While many global suppliers skew toward higher-end vehicles, which may help mix, Deutsche Bank still expects a net negative volume impact. BorgWarner is singled out as particularly exposed given its historical reliance on China for growth. Another emerging risk is memory chips. The surge in AI data center demand has pulled wafer capacity away from automotive-grade DRAM, sending prices sharply higher. Deutsche Bank has not yet fully baked a DRAM-driven production hit into its forecasts, but flags it as a meaningful downside risk, especially for suppliers without strong inventory buffers or pricing protections. Some companies, like Aptiv, appear better insulated, while others may feel indirect pressure if vehicle production slows. Stepping back, Deutsche Bank’s overarching message is that 2026 is shaping up to be less about selling more cars and more about selling the right ones, at the right margins, with tighter cost control. Automakers, particularly in…