Chairman of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission ‘pretty convinced’ pandemic’s origin from ‘US lab biotechnology,’ suggests governments aren’t investigating because even more ‘dangerous research underway right now’
The chairman of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission has come forward to say that he is “pretty convinced” that the pandemic’s origin is from “U.S. lab biotechnology.” He also warns that even more dangerous research is happening right now – which could be why governments don’t seem to be interested in investigating the origins of COVID-19.
Jeffrey Sachs is the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, the president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, winner of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, a best-selling author, and a Chairman of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission.
In November 2020, Sachs assembled a task force for the prestigious medical journal to determine the origins of COVID-19. He hand-selected Dr. Peter Daszak – the president of EcoHealth Alliance – to be the chairman of the task force. However, Daszak recused himself from the investigation in June 2021, following accusations of a conflict of interest.
Daszak had deep ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars of National Institutes of Health funding to the Chinese lab. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Daszak has vehemently argued that COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease that jumped from animals to humans. Furthermore, he vociferously argued that suggesting that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak is a baseless conspiracy theory.
By September 2021, the task force organized by the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission was disbanded because of EcoHealth’s conflict-of-interest issues.
Sachs said at the time, “I just didn’t want a task force that was so clearly involved with one of the main issues of this whole search for the origins, which was EcoHealth Alliance.”
Last week, Sachs told Current Affairs that he appointed Daszak to the task force dedicated to discovering the origins of COVID-19 because he said to himself, “Well, here’s a guy who is so connected, he would know.”
Sachs added, “And then I realized he was not telling me the truth. And it took me some months, but the more I saw it, the more I resented it.”
Sachs revealed that he disbanded the task force because other members were “part of this thing.”
He noted that the NIH had been hiding documents from the public – which were later revealed by a Freedom of Information Act request. Emails exposed by a FOIA request revealed that officials with the NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases were concerned that EcoHealth could be conducting gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan lab.
Sachs noted that Daszak should have informed him that EcoHealth Alliance was “manipulating the viruses.”
Sachs said that he requested a research proposal from Daszak, but the EcoHealth head allegedly balked, “No, my lawyer says I can’t give it to you.”
A video went viral last month featuring Sachs proclaiming that “after two years of intensive work,” he is “pretty convinced” that COVID-19 originated from “U.S. lab biotechnology, not out of nature.”
“So it’s a blunder in my view of biotech, not an accident of a natural spillover,” he said. “We don’t know for sure, I should be absolutely clear.”
Sachs noted, “But there’s enough evidence that it should be looked into. And it’s not being investigated, not in the United States, not anywhere.
“And I think for real reasons that they don’t want to look underneath the rug.”
In the interview with Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson, Sachs suggested that scientists were “creating a narrative” of COVID’s origins early in the pandemic by collectively claiming that COVID-19 naturally originated from the Wuhan wet market without definitive evidence.
Sachs asked, “Did we find an animal? No. Do we have an explanation of where that furin cleavage site came in? No. We don’t have an explanation of the timing, which doesn’t quite look right.”
He accused health officials and the media of pulling a “kind of misdirection” since February 2020.
Sachs believes the laboratory hypothesis is “very plausible.”
“The alternative that is the right one to look at is part of a very extensive research program that was underway from 2015 onward, funded by the NIH, by Tony Fauci, in particular NIAID, and it was to examine the spillover potential of SARS-like viruses,” Sachs told Robinson.
Sachs suggested that COVID-19 may have come from gain-of-function research, “There was a lot of research underway in the United States and China on taking SARS-like viruses, manipulating them in the laboratory, and creating potentially far more dangerous viruses.”
Governments could be saying, “Don’t poke your nose into that.”
“We know that at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the scientists there had been trained by American scientists to use advanced bioengineering methodologies,” Sachs explained. “And in particular, we have scientists in North Carolina, Texas, and so forth who do this kind of research, believe in it, argue for it, and say that they don’t want any regulations on it and so on. And they were in close contact with Wuhan Institute of Virology, and they were part of a joint research group that was stitched together by something called EcoHealth Alliance.”
Sachs described EcoHealth Alliance as a “vehicle for funding from the U.S. government, especially from the National Institutes of Health, and especially from Tony Fauci’s unit, the NIAID.”
Sachs said Dr. Anthony Fauci and the NIH “haven’t shown us anything” about possible research at the Wuhan lab.
“So you saw a narrative being created,” he continued. “And the scientists are not acting like scientists. Because when you’re acting like a scientist, you’re pursuing alternative hypotheses.”
Robinson asked Sachs why governments aren’t vigorously investigating the origins of a disease that has killed more than 6.4 million people in less than three years.
Sachs responded, “There are at least two reasons why they might be doing what they’re doing. One is, as you say, the implications are huge. Imagine if this came out of a lab. And we have, by some estimates, about 18 million dead worldwide from this. That’s not the official count. But that’s the estimated excess mortality from COVID. Well, the implications of that—the ethical, the moral, the geopolitical—everything is enormous.”
The chairman of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission added, “But there’s a second matter that is really important, too. One thing that is rather clear to me is that there is so much dangerous research underway right now under the umbrella of biodefense or other things that we don’t know about, that is not being properly controlled.”
He suggested that governments could be saying, “Don’t poke your nose into that.”
On Saturday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said, “The fact that virtually no one in Washington DC wants to investigate the origins of COVID-19 should tell you all you need to know about the origins of COVID-19.”
Hmm. Guess all those “conspiracy theory nuts” weren’t so nuts after all.
Pennsylvania mother Beth Ann Rosica told “Fox and Friends” that she believes parents are “fed up” with inflation and gas prices.
Note: This story has been reported by multiple outlets. including: NY POST, Fox News, Western Journal, MSN, bixpacreview, and others. She has been active in West Chester, PA as a current school board member and previous Mayoral candidate. Previous news accounts describe her as a Libertarian.
A Pennsylvania woman registered as a Democrat for 34 years is making a party switch, citing many of the objections that are fueling middle-class voters to turn against the party.
Beth Ann Rosica broke down her transformation in a Thursday Fox News interview.
“As a former Democrat for 34 years prior to the pandemic, I too thought that the Democratic Party was really focused on the people that they pretend to support,” the Pennsylvania mother told “Fox & Friends” host Carley Shimkus.
“What I saw through the pandemic was that the Democratic Party basically abandoned all of those people.”
Rosica cited the Democratic Party’s mismanagement of the economy and sky-high inflation. The mother also cited big government’s failure to meet the educational needs of students, closing schools during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think the economy is huge, and I also think a lot of the school issues for parents across the state of Pennsylvania, it’s just been horrific watching what’s happened to our kids academically, socially, emotionally.”
“What I saw through the pandemic was that the Democratic Party basically abandoned all of those people,” Rosica explained.
“And so that was why I left the party, or as I like to say, the party really left me, and I think that a lot more people are really starting to see that.”
The Democratic Party has endured institutional decline in Pennsylvania and other Rust Belt states.
More than 8,000 registered Democrats in six western Pennsylvania counties have changed their party affiliation this year alone, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, while fewer than a third as many ex-Republicans have signed up as Democrats in the same counties.
Democrats have lost even more voters on a statewide basis, with 38,000 ex-Democrats joining the GOP.
In 2016, Donald Trump became the first Republican candidate to win the Keystone State since George H.W. Bush’s 1988 victory.
Republicans eye victories in Rust Belt states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan as key to potential “red waves” in 2022 and 2024.
The Democratic Party has historically painted itself as affiliated with the American middle class, but now longtime residents of Rust Belt states are questioning whether the party has abandoned that constituency in favor of large corporations and left-leaning billionaires on the coasts. [The answer to that is obvious — TPR]
Pennsylvania is slated to host hotly contested U.S. Senate and gubernatorial elections in November.
Republican Surgeon and television personality Mehmet Oz will face Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, and Army veteran Doug Mastriano will face the state’s Democratic Attorney General, Josh Shapiro.
Pennsylvania has been one of the most stubbornly purple states in the union for the better part of a century: Since the close of World War II, Republican governors have served 10 terms in office in the state; Democrats have also held that office for 10 terms
Crew members from a Seattle-based fishing boat that experienced an explosive outbreak of the novel coronavirus have serendipitously provided what could be the first direct evidence that antibodies can protect people from reinfection.
Blood samples collected before the vessel sailed in May showed that three of the 122 people aboard had robust levels of neutralizing antibodies — the type that block the virus from entering human cells — indicating they had been previously infected and recovered. All three were spared during the shipboard outbreak, which quickly spread to more than 85% of the crew.
“It’s a strong indication that the presence of neutralizing antibodies is associated with protection from the virus,” said Dr. Alex Greninger, assistant director of the UW Medicine Clinical Virology Laboratory and co-author of a report posted on the preprint server MedRxiv that has not yet been peer-reviewed. “It’s hopeful news.”
However, it’s not really surprising, Greninger added. Researchers are generally confident that prior infection will provide some level of immunity. But what constitutes a protective immune response and how long immunity lasts is still unknown and of vital importance to the race for vaccines and other treatments.
Early vaccine trials, including one in Seattle, have induced strong antibody responses in volunteers. But the only direct evidence so far that neutralizing antibodies can protect against infection has come from monkeys and other laboratory animals.
It wouldn’t be ethical to deliberately expose humans to the virus — even people who have recovered from infection. But in this case, researchers from the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center were able to analyze results from a natural experiment that played out in the close quarters and isolation of a vessel at sea.
“While this is a small study, it offers a remarkable, real-life, human experiment,” Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, wrote in a commentary on the report. “Who knew immunology research on fishing boats could be so informative?”
The report does not identify the vessel, but Greninger confirmed it is the factory trawler FV American Dynasty, which was fishing for hake off the Washington coast when the outbreak struck. A statement from American Seafoods, which owns the ship and several others, says the company has partnered with the UW on its testing program and shares the data.
“We hope that their study will be beneficial to the broader scientific community in learning more about COVID-19,” said Valentina Zackrone, chief human resources officer at American Seafoods.
Mark Slifka, an immunologist and vaccine developer at Oregon Health & Science University who was not involved in the work, described it as “very, very interesting.”
The keys were the pre-departure blood testing of nearly the entire crew
The keys were the pre-departure blood testing of nearly the entire crew, and the stunning rate of infection — which means it’s unlikely that the three crew members with neutralizing antibodies were simply not exposed to the virus during the outbreak, Slifka said.
As part of ongoing efforts to protect fishing fleets, 120 of the 122 crew members were tested both for active infection, via nasal swabs, and previous exposure, via antibody blood testing, in the two days before the ship left port.
None of the nasal swabs was positive. But 18 days into its voyage, the ship returned to shore after a crew member became sick and needed hospitalization. Monitoring over the next 50 days showed that 104 crew members had been infected.
After learning of the outbreak, Greninger and his colleagues reexamined the results from the earlier blood tests and conducted additional tests on leftover specimens. Before departing, six crew members tested positive for antibodies that bind to the capsule of the novel coronavirus, but only three of those also had neutralizing antibodies.
While none of the crew members with neutralizing antibodies reported symptoms or became infected, the other three all got the virus — suggesting their initial results might have been false positives, Greninger said.
That adds to growing concern about the accuracy of many antibody tests and their ability to indicate immunity, Slifka pointed out.
Statistical analysis suggests it’s highly unlikely to be a random coincidence that all three people with neutralizing antibodies escaped infection. But the study doesn’t offer an explanation for the 15 other crew members who also apparently never became infected. It’s possible their jobs or actions on the boat shielded them from exposure, Greninger said.
Genomic analysis of virus from 39 crew members suggests that all the strains are closely related, but it doesn’t prove they all originated from a single infection, Greninger said.
The analysis doesn’t rule out the possibility that people can catch COVID-19 more than once, Slifka said, though it strongly suggests those who develop neutralizing antibodies may be protected. But the number of cases is too small to draw sweeping conclusions, he added.
Not the first insight to come from studying ships
This isn’t the first insight about the novel coronavirus to come from studying ships. Analysis of the outbreak early in the pandemic on the Diamond Princess cruise ship helped establish the importance of asymptomatic people in spreading the virus. Federal researchers who examined sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, where nearly 1,000 people were infected, documented a robust, neutralizing antibody response in more than half of those tested.
One of the largest counties in Arizona parted ways with its elections director after the office failed to print enough ballots for voters in its Tuesday primary.
Pinal County’s government announced Thursday that David Frisk was no longer employed after “recent issues” with the primary election.
It’s not clear whether Frisk was fired or resigned. However, County Supervisor Jeffrey McClure said in a Wednesday news conference that the county would be “taking action” in response to the debacle, according to Arizona KVOA.
County officials are explaining the ballot shortage as a human error, having underestimated the turnout in the primary election.
The shortage disproportionately impacted registered independents who wanted to vote in the Republican primary at a polling place. County officials didn’t anticipate the turnout of independents who wanted to vote in the contest.
“Quite frankly, we underestimated, that’s what happened,” said county attorney Kent Volkmer.
“There were more people that showed up than we thought were going to show up.”
Volkmer admitted that some Pinal County voters were unable to vote at a polling place due to a lack of ballots.
It was the second big mistake for the Pinal elections office in a month. In early July, the county mailed 60,000 misprinted early ballots to voters.
Thursday’s announcement said Pinal County Recorder Virginia Ross would be filling the role of elections director, resigning from her position as an elected county official to do so.
McClure, the chairman of Pinal County’s Board of Supervisors, expressed his remorse for the county’s mismanaged election in the news release announcing Frisk’s replacement.
“As a Board, we are deeply embarrassed and frustrated by the mistakes that have been made in this primary election, and as such, we are taking immediate steps to ensure the November election runs smoothly, as elections in Pinal County have historically done prior to this primary,” said McClure.
The county officials rejected claims that the ballot shortage was intentionally manufactured, describing the situation as a mistake.
[Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and senate candidate Blake Masters triumphed in Arizona’s Republican primary.]
The Biden administration has declared monkeypox a public health emergency as cases of the disease continue to spread in the U.S., according to various news reports that said the announcement came during a briefing with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
As of August 3, there were a total of 6,617 confirmed monkeypox cases in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A CDC map of the outbreak showed that at least one case had been detected in all U.S. states apart from Montana and Wyoming as of Wednesday.
“We are prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus, and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters, according to NPR.
As the U.S. continues to contend with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, though data shows that COVID cases are significantly lower now than they were during the Omicron-driven surge in late 2021 and early 2022, many details on what monkeypox is, its symptoms and how it spreads may remain unclear.
According to the CDC, it is a rare disease resulting from infection with the monkeypox virus, which is part of the same family of viruses as the one that causes smallpox. The symptoms of monkeypox—which can include fever, headache, exhaustion and a rash—are similar to those of smallpox, but monkeypox is milder and rarely fatal, the CDC said.
‘Winter of Death’ 2.0? Dr. Fauci Just Threatened 70% of Americans
Dr. Anthony Fauci has once again sounded the warning bell over COVID-19, saying in an interview on Tuesday that those who are not up to date on vaccines will “get into trouble” this fall and winter.
“If they don’t get vaccinated or they don’t get boosted, they’re going to get into trouble,” Fauci told Los Angeles radio station KNX-AM.
A large part of the U.S. population is not up to date on the COVID-19 vaccines.
The Kaiser Family Foundation found that as of July 21, 227.8 million Americans either had not received a primary series of shots or had not gotten a booster dose. That is about 70 percent of the population.
“In each state, at least half the population is not up to date on COVID-19 vaccines. In Alabama, North Carolina, and Virginia, over 80% of people are not yet up to date on COVID-19 vaccines,” KFF noted.
The number of Americans who have received the second booster shot is even lower.
The CDC recommends that people over the age of 50 receive the second booster. Only 19,935,913 members of that demographic — about 31 percent — have done so.
In the Tuesday radio interview, Fauci called the overall vaccination and booster rates “quite discouraging.”
“If you want to get your arms around — metaphorically, as it were — the outbreak, you want to get as many people in our community — and by community I mean our nation and the world — vaccinated and boosted so you don’t give this virus such ample opportunity to freely circulate,” Fauci said.
He insisted that the only way to get the virus under control and to keep it from continually mutating is to get everyone vaccinated.
Fauci called getting vaccinated and boosted a “communal responsibility.”
“People say, ‘Well, the risk to me is low, so why get it?’ It is about you as an individual, but it’s also about the communal responsibility to get this outbreak under control.”
Ella Kietlinska and Joshua Philipp for EPOCH TIMES August 2, 2022
A study out of the United Kingdom has shown that health care workers who received multiple COVID-19 vaccine boosters after initially being infected with the original virus strain from Wuhan are more prone to chronic reinfection from the Omicron variant.
This may help explain why the people who have received several COVID-19 vaccine boosters are increasingly the ones who end up in the hospital with severe COVID-19 symptoms, sometimes resulting in death, said scientist and physician Dr. Robert Malone.
In a July 21 interview for EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program, Malone, an inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, said this phenomenon is the result of a process called “immune imprinting,” whereby initial exposure to a virus strain may prevent the body from producing enough neutralizing antibodies against a newer strain.
He added that this process is reinforced by multiple inoculations.
“Allovertheworld, weareseeingthesedatasetsthatshowthat,unfortunately,thepeoplethataredyingandbeinghospitalizedareoverwhelminglythehighlyvaccinated,” he said. “Itisnotthosethathavenaturalimmunity.”
Vaccines Based on Old Strains
The COVID-19 vaccines currently in circulation are based on the Wuhan strain of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, which causes the illness now identified as COVID-19.
A number of strains have emerged and become dominant since the Wuhan strain was prevalent, including the currently dominant Omicron variant.
The problem is that COVID-19 vaccines use only one of the components of the whole virus, which is a spike protein, so the immune system of a person who received an mRNA vaccine becomes trained to respond to only that component, Malone explained.
“Ifthatantigenhaschangedslightly, if that virus has changed slightly, [the immune system] still reacts as if it’s the old one,” he said.
The COVID-19 vaccines are based on the spike protein of the original virus identified in Wuhan. That strain of the virus no longer exists and is not circulating in the population anymore, Malone said.
If a vaccine based on a now-defunct viral strain is repeatedly administered, it trains the immune system to focus more and more on the antigen delivered through the vaccine and to disregard anything else that’s slightly different, Malone explained, calling this phenomenon immune imprinting.
“The literature on immune imprinting is bombproof,” Malone said. “Paper after paper after paper now, in the top peer-reviewed journals from the top laboratories all across the world, are documenting it.”
The phenomenon has long been known in the field of vaccinology, said Malone, but the topic is verboten, and people who work in the field prefer not to discuss it, he said.
Vaccine Immunity Versus Natural Immunity
A registered nurse cares for COVID-19 patients in an intensive care unit at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., on Jan. 21, 2021. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Health care workers in the UK—many of whom were infected with the Wuhan variant of the virus and also received three or four COVID-19 vaccine doses—have been developing chronic repeated infections from the Omicron variant, Malone said, citing a paper published in the academic journal Science.
Another paper published in Nature shows that the evolution of the virus is not coming from the general population, but rather from immunocompromised people who have received multiple vaccine doses, Malone said, and about 30 percent of the highly vaccinated population are having repeated infections.
This is contrary to the promoted narrative that the unvaccinated are putting the wider population at risk, Malone noted.
Natural immunity from a COVID-19 infection lasts for at least 14 months, including immunity against the Omicron strains, Malone said, citing a scientific paper from Qatar which has not yet been peer reviewed (pdf).
The paradox is that most of the countries with emerging economies and low vaccination rates also have the lowest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world.
Vaccine-induced immunity, however, lasts only a couple of months, he added.
When someone gets infected with the original virus, that person will generate an immune response that includes “all kinds of proteins from the virus,” provided he or she hasn’t experienced too much immune imprinting, Malone explained.
“The problem with these monovalent vaccines, or the single-antigen vaccines, is they’re driving all your immune response against one thing as opposed to the whole virus. So all the virus has to do is genetically, through evolution, tweak a few knobs to escape that,” he said. “And that is exactly what’s happened with Omicron.”
The paradox is that most of the countries with emerging economies and low vaccination rates also have the lowest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world, Malone said.
“It’s likely that we’re going to continue to see this trend,” he said.
According to Our World in Data, only 1.4 percent of Haiti’s population has been vaccinated, and the country has recorded 838 COVID-19 deaths, a rate of 73 deaths per 1 million people.
In South Africa, where 32 percent of the population is vaccinated, there have been nearly 102,000 deaths, a rate of 1,717 deaths per 1 million people.
In the UK, 75 percent of the population is vaccinated, and more than 184,000 people have died, which is a rate of 2,736 deaths per 1 million.
And in the United States, 67 percent of the population is vaccinated, and 1.03 million people have died from the virus, a rate of 3,058 deaths per 1 million people.
Other Problems with Vaccines
A health care worker prepares to administer a monkeypox vaccine at the Pride Center in Wilton Manors, Fla., on July 12, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Malone pointed out a problem with the current mRNA vaccines.
When a vaccine is injected into a patient’s arm, the RNA from the vaccine, which is a modified RNA, is supposed to last for only a couple of hours, but a study from Stanford University shows that “the RNA sticks around for at least 60 days,” Malone said.
However, the government only accounts for vaccine reactions and illnesses that are recorded on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) within the first couple of weeks after vaccination, even though the drug is still in the body two months later, Malone said.
“The RNA from the vaccine produces more spike protein than the natural infection does,” he said. “Now that makes sense about why we see more adverse events with the vaccines than we see with the infection itself, because spike is a toxin.”
VAERS was established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration to collect and analyze data about the adverse effects of vaccination.
The system relies on individuals to send in reports and is not intended to determine if a reported health problem was caused by a vaccine, but it is “especially useful for detecting unusual or unexpected patterns of adverse event reporting that might indicate a possible safety problem with a vaccine,” according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Malone, president and co-founder of the International Alliance of Physicians and Medical Scientists, said over 17,000 doctors and scientists have signed a declaration stating unequivocally that genetic vaccines need to be withdrawn.
“These genetic vaccines are not working,” he said.
Meiling Lee and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
Epoch TV has the complete interview with Dr. Malone. Unable to provide a link at the time of this writing.
Caroline Schermerhorn Astor ruled New York City in the Gilded Age. / Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain (Caroline Schermerhorn Astor); ShutterWorx/Getty Images (gilded background)
From a German immigrant who arrived in America with nothing to a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, the Astor family’s story is one of hard work, ruthless business tactics, snobbery, and savvy investment in real estate. For more than a century, they were the richest family in America, and their shrewd marriages linked them to some of the most politically powerful families. Here are 11 facts about this fascinating family.
1. The Astor fortune was partly founded on drug smuggling.
John Jacob Astor I. / Oscar White/GettyImages
The wealth of the Astor family originated in fur trading, guided by the intelligent but ruthless business tactics of their American founder, John Jacob Astor I. Having tried his hand at being a butcher like his father and an instrument maker like his brother, John I emigrated to America in 1783. He used the voyage to learn about the fur trade.
Always on the look out for a new opportunity, he began trading with China in around 1800, but the Chinese were resistant to Western goods—so in 1816, Astor became involved in the lucrative opium smuggling trade.
Opium was first banned in China in 1729 in an attempt to halt a growing epidemic of users, but 115 metric tons were still being imported into the country in 1798. With the Indian supply of the drug monopolized by the British, Astor made deals to buy huge quantities from Turkish suppliers, which he smuggled in via small vessels and large bribes. During his involvement between 1816 and 1825, the amount of opium being smuggled into China continued to rise; by 1839, 2500 metric tons entered the country from India alone.
Astor made millions from a trade the future U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt described as “fair, honorable, and legitimate.” He used the money to buy tea, porcelain, and silks, which he imported into America at a huge profit. Astor used that fortune to invest in New York real estate, and by the time of his death in 1848, he was America’s first ever millionaire.
2. John Jacob Astor I’s wife was so good at the business, she reportedly charged her husband $500 an hour.
John married Sarah Cox Todd in 1785. She was the daughter of his landlady—and had a $300 dowry, plus connections to sea captains, merchants, shop owners, and ship owners. Her dowry allowed them to open their first shop selling musical instruments, which gradually gave them the opportunity to invest in furs.
Astor called his wife “the best business partner any man ever had.” He would always credit Sarah’s part in his success, not just in the connections that she brought or the financial independence that her dowry allowed him, but also in her business acumen. Sarah’s knowledge of furs grew until she had turned herself into a leading expert in quality pelts; when John was away, she ran their New York business.
She was shrewd, thrifty, and intelligent, involved in both day-to-day decisions and plans for how they would expand their enterprises. Sarah encouraged John to invest in real estate, the foundation of their multi-million dollar fortune.
By the end of her life they were so successful that John reputedly paid her $500 an hour for her work, which she invested in religious causes.
3. Caroline Schermerhorn Astor ran America’s social hierarchy, known as the “four hundred.”
In the New York of the 1880s and 1890s, if you wanted to be accepted into society, it was not enough just to be wealthy. Anyone could have money in the fast moving and socially mobile America of the Gilded Age—what was important was to have the right sort of money.
Although America did not have a class system in the same way as much of Europe, the families who were descended from New York’s original settlers and had inherited their money considered themselves the aristocracy of American society. Those making their fortunes from new industries like the railroad were upstarts who, although sometimes even richer than the old money crowd, would never quite fit in.
At the forefront of these old families were the Astors. Now 100 years on from the self-made John Jacob Astor I, they believed that as old money, they had a superior role in New York society. Caroline Schermerhorn was descended from the Dutch immigrants who had settled Manhattan in the 17th century—and she had even considered the Astors beneath her own pedigree when she married John I’s grandson, William Backhouse Astor II, in 1853.
Caroline put herself at the forefront of fashionable society, establishing a hierarchy of people who met her standards of etiquette, behavior, and breeding that became known as The Four Hundred. Legend has it that the number was arrived at simply because it was the capacity of the Astor’s ballroom, but, whatever the reason, membership was essential for anyone who wanted to be someone in New York. Budding social climbers would engineer ways to get Mrs. Astor’s approval. But, as the Vanderbilts and others discovered, her approval was not easy to get—and her word was always final.
4. The family was torn apart by a feud about who would be called Mrs Astor.
John Jacob Astor I’s second son, William Backhouse Astor Sr., inherited his fortune; he in turn passed it to his two sons, John III and William Backhouse Jr. But if he thought the two sides of the family would live in harmony, his plan was thwarted by a disagreement over who would be known as Mrs. Astor.
John III and William Jr.’s wives were known by their husband’s names—Mrs. John Charlotte Astor and Mrs. William Caroline “Lina” Astor. When Charlotte died in 1877, Lina let it be known that she was now to be addressed as simply Mrs. Astor.
The Astors believed in elder sons taking precedence, and Charlotte’s son, William Waldorf Astor, took enormous exception to the fact that this seemingly innocuous act threatened the superiority of his line. It was also an insult to his own wife, Mary, who he considered the senior woman of the family.
John III died three years later, and William Waldorf became the head of the family. Using his new position, he tried to persuade his Aunt Lina to relinquish the use of the title, but with her position in society to maintain, she refused. She continued to be known as the Mrs. Astor.
Although William Waldorf was forced to concede, he had his revenge and the incident created a feud between the two branches of the family that would last years: The brothers, John III and William II, had lived in neighboring houses on 5th Avenue, but after John’s death, his son demolished their house in 1893 and built the 13-story Waldorf Hotel on the site, right next to Aunt Lina.
She spent the next three years living next to a building site. The humiliation of her prestigious residential area becoming a bustling tourist destination was more than she could bear, and she was finally persuaded to move. But her humiliation wasn’t quite over—her new home was farther up 5th Avenue, surrounded by the new money families.
In true Astor fashion, her son, John Jacob Astor IV, used the episode to make more money. Following his cousin’s example, he demolished the family house and built a 16-story hotel called the Astoria in 1897. That same year, the family merged the two hotels in a new business venture: The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The original structure was demolished in 1929 and replaced by the Empire State Building.
5. William Waldorf Astor moved the senior branch of the family to Britain.
William Waldorf Astor. / Hulton Archive/GettyImages
The difficulties with his aunt would have an unexpected outcome for William Waldorf Astor. Not only did it lead him into the hotel business, but it also resulted in his emigration to Britain.
Although he was born in New York, William Waldorf was raised in Italy and Germany, where he developed a passion for the European lifestyle. He returned to America and studied law, but after a short period involved in politics—where he unsuccessfully ran for Congress—he returned to Europe in 1882 for three years as the U.S. Minister to Italy.
On his father’s death in February 1890, he reportedly inherited $100 million, and, disillusioned with his failure in politics, upset by the war with his aunt and her son, and ridiculed by the U.S. press, William Waldorf declared that America was “no longer a fit place for a gentleman to live” and moved his family and business operations to Britain.
He retained his interest in politics, giving generously to the Conservative Party. Despite his hatred of the American press, he bought several UK publications, including The Observer newspaper. In 1899 he became a British citizen, and in 1917 he was raised to the British peerage when George V created him the 1st Viscount Astor of Hever.
6. The Astors once owned Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn.
Hever Castle in Kent was built in 1270, but its most famous residents were the Boleyn family, who had owned it between 1462 and 1540. It was Anne Boleyn’s childhood home and, after returning from France in 1522, she frequently stayed at the castle with her parents, enticing Henry VIII to visit on several occasions during their courtship. Later, Henry’s fourth—and unwanted— wife, Anne of Cleves, lived there, leasing the manor for an annual rent of £9, 13 shillings, and 3.5 pence.
By the time William Waldorf purchased Hever in July 1903, the house had passed through several families and was almost derelict, with all traces of its Tudor gardens gone. But, as a history buff—who had written several historical novels—with a passion for art and architecture derived from his time spent in Italy, he immediately recognized its potential.
The series of renovations William undertook were sensitively done, preserving the original structure while installing modern luxury. Part of his vision included building a new wing in the style of a Tudor village, and he redesigned the 125-acre gardens to incorporate a 38-acre lake, an Italian loggia, a rose garden, a Tudor garden, and a woodland. Under Astor ownership, Hever Castle was saved. People can still visit the historic site today.
7. Nancy Astor was the first woman to take a seat as a Member of Parliament.
Nancy Astor. / Keystone Features/GettyImages
Nancy Witcher Langhorne was born into an impoverished Virginian family in 1879, but by the time she was 18 her father had made his fortune and she was sent to New York, where she met her first husband, Robert Gould Shaw II. The marriage ended in divorce in 1903, and, at the persuasion of her father, she sailed to Britain at the end of 1904 with her son and sister, Phyllis. Her arrival in London put her in the company of several American-born women who had become the wives of British peers, including Pauline Astor, whose brother, Waldorf Astor, Nancy married on April 19, 1906.
Waldorf was the eldest son of William Waldorf, Viscount Astor. The Viscount gifted them the family home, Cliveden Estate, which they turned into the center of political and literary thought. Like his father before him, Waldorf had an inclination for a career in politics and, with Nancy’s support, he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Plymouth Sutton in 1910. On his father’s death in 1919, he inherited the title of 2nd Viscount Astor and was promoted to the House of Lords, leaving his seat in the House of Commons vacant.
Nancy seized the opportunity the 1918 Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act gave her and ran as the Unionist Party (now Conservative Party) candidate to replace her husband as Plymouth Sutton’s MP. Her victory on November 15, 1919, meant that the first ever female MP to take her seat in the House of Commons was a member of the Astor family. She remained an MP until 1945.
8. John Jacob Astor IV died on RMS Titanic while returning from his honeymoon.
John Jacob Astor IV was the son of the Mrs. Astor, Caroline, and cousin of the 1st Viscount Astor. For much of his early life, he tinkered as an inventor and wrote novels—while still managing to increase the family fortune through real estate, particularly the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
In 1910, the 47-year-old millionaire caused a scandal when, five months after his divorce, he began courting the 18-year-old debutant Madeleine Force. The two married on September 10, 1911. The couple then set off on honeymoon, traveling from New York to Bermuda to Egypt and then on to Europe. When Madeline became pregnant during the trip, the couple decided to go home. They boarded the RMS Titanic at Cherbourg, France, on April 10, 1912.
No amount of wealth could save them from the horrific events that unfolded on the night of April 12, 1912, when the liner struck an iceberg and began to sink. Madeline, her maid, and her nurse were all given a place on lifeboat 4, but John was told that he and his valet would have to wait until all the ladies were off the ship before they could be evacuated. Reports claimed that John then helped two women—Ida Hippach and her 17-year-old daughter Jean—into the boat before telling his wife, “You are in good hands and I will meet you in the morning.”
John’s corpse was one of only 333 bodies recovered from the sea. He was brought back to New York and buried in Manhattan, and the gold watch he was found with was given to his oldest son and heir, Vincent, who wore it for the rest of his life. Madeleine gave birth to a healthy son on August 14, 1912, christened John Jacob Astor VI (although he is sometimes incorrectly called John V), who immediately inherited a $3 million trust. Madeleine received his house and a $5 million trust fund, though she lost both after remarrying, as John’s will stipulated that she must forfeit the fortune unless she remained single.
9. John Jacob Astor V won an Olympic gold medal for Great Britain.
After his father, William Waldorf, moved to Britain with his family, John V was raised as an English gentleman. He attended Eton College and Oxford University and excelled at sports, including racquets, a game said to have originated in prisons before becoming popular in the alleys of London. By the early 20th century it had become a game for gentlemen, played in some of the most exclusive schools and clubs where specially built courts could be found.
The 1908 Olympics in London featured a number of sports that are no longer found in the modern games, including running deer shooting, tug-of-war, and Jeu de Paume. Racquets was also included, though only Britain fielded a team; Astor was a member in both singles and doubles. He and his partner, Vane Pennell, played only twice—on April 30 and then May 1—to beat their fellow Brits and win the doubles gold medal. Astor then won a bronze in the singles tournament despite only playing one match.
Astor continued his love of the game and that of its sister-sport, Squash Racquets. In 1922, he followed his sister-in-law, Nancy, into politics as MP for Dover, and, despite losing a leg during World War I, he competed in and won the parliamentary squash racquets championship in 1926 and 1927.
10. The Astors count presidents and monarchs as their relatives.
Marriage in 19th-century New York became a slightly socially incestuous affair. Wealthy and politically ambitious families intermarried to the point that by the end of the 19th century, it was possible to claim kinship with almost everyone else. In 1981, Brooke Astor recalled, “My husband, Vincent, used to say that one of the reasons for the various Astors success was that they always married above themselves! It became a family tradition he said, as later on they married with the Schermerhorns and Willings and Beekmans.”
In politics, the Astors had close ties with the Roosevelt family. In 1844, William Backhouse I’s daughter, Laura, married Franklin Delano, the great-uncle of future President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The family connection continued when, in 1878, Helen Schermerhorn Astor, daughter of The Mrs. Astor, married James Roosevelt, becoming Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sister-in-law. And lastly, Helen’s daughter (also Helen), married Theodore Robinson, the nephew of Theodore Roosevelt.
The English branch of the Astor family, meanwhile, found itself mixing with the aristocracy to the extent that they can count members of the British royal family as their relatives. In 1929, Rachel Spender-Clay, granddaughter of William Waldorf, 1st Viscount Astor, married David Bowes-Lyon, the brother of Elizabeth, Duchess of York and the future Queen Consort of George VI. The Astor family could now claim kinship with monarchy—not only was Rachel the sister-in-law of George VI, but her son, Sir Simon Bowes-Lyon, is Elizabeth II’s first cousin.
11. A party given by the Astors helped bring down the UK Conservative government.
William Waldorf Astor II, 3rd Viscount Astor / J. Wilds/GettyImages
Nancy Astor’s son, William Waldorf Astor II, continued the family’s interest in politics by becoming an MP himself. Although he was forced to quit the role in 1952 when he became the 3rd Viscount, he continued to mix in political and social circles at his home on the Cliveden Estate.
In July 1961, William was hosting a party that included John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, at the same time his friend and osteopath, Steven Ward, was throwing a party elsewhere on the estate. When the two groups mingled at the swimming pool, Profumo met Christine Keeler, a model and friend of Ward’s. The affair that ensued was brief and over by the end of 1961. But unfortunately for Profumo, Keeler was also the girlfriend of another of Ward’s guests, a Soviet Union naval attaché named Yevgeny Ivanov.
By 1963, the affair was becoming public, and whispers were circulating that the three were involved in a spying ring. Profumo made a statement to the House of Commons claiming that “there was no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintanceship with Miss Keeler,” but by June he was forced to admit the affair and that he had lied to Parliament. While no evidence was ever found that he had passed secrets to Ivanov via Keeler, he resigned his ministerial position.
The Conservative government, under the Prime Minister Harold McMillian, was seriously damaged by the scandal and, unable to recover, they lost the subsequent general election. William was accused of having an affair with one of the other models, Mandy Rice-Davies, and although there was no evidence that he orchestrated the meeting between Profumo and Keeler, he was investigated by the police. His standing was irreversibly damaged and he became a social pariah. When he died of a heart attack in 1966, the Astor family left Cliveden, never to return.
US Postal Service Makes Announcement on Mail-In Ballots Ahead of Midterm Elections
JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) confirmed it has created a division that will oversee mail-in ballots in future elections.
Adrienne Marshall, executive director of the newly created Election and Government Mail Services, said that it will oversee “election mail strike teams” in local communities to deal with possible problems.
“We are fully committed to the secure and timely delivery of the nation’s election mail,” she told media outlets on July 27.
Several months ago, the Biden administration requested $5 billion to support the USPS’s mail-in voting operations over the next 10 years.
“This proposal expands on the essential public services that the Postal Service provides to the American people and will also help to relieve budget strain on local election offices across the country,” the administration wrote in March.
It also includes policies to make “official ballot materials free to mail and reducing the cost of other election-related mail for jurisdictions and voters” while “enhancing the Postal Service’s ability to securely and expeditiously deliver and receive mail in underserved areas,” the White House said at the time.
The USPS claimed it delivered 97.9 percent of ballots from voters to election officials within three days, and 99.89 percent of ballots were delivered within seven days, during the 2020 election.
The Postal Service is sending guidance letters to election officials in each state and territory this week. So far, nearly 40 million ballots have been mailed to and from voters during primary elections.
Reliability and Fraud
Former President Donald Trump and some Republicans have said that mail-in ballots invite fraud and are unreliable. Numerous lawsuits were filed in the wake of the 2020 election over the ballots, drop boxes, and related policies, while some GOP-controlled legislatures have tightened rules around absentee voting since then.
Jimmy Carter 2005: “vote-buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail.”
In 2005, former Democrat President Jimmy Carter and former White House chief of staff James Baker released a report (pdf) that found mail-in and “absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud” while adding that “vote-buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail.”
Carter Center 2020: The Carter Center urges federal and state governments to expand access to vote-by-mail…”
But years later, Carter in May 2020—months before the election—released a statement that called on states to expand mail-in voting due to COVID-19.
“To address this threat,” the statement said, “The Carter Center urges federal and state governments to expand access to vote-by-mail options and to provide adequate funding as quickly as possible to allow for the additional planning, preparation, equipment, and public messaging that will be required.”
Earlier this year, USPS officials confirmed they were investigating two separate incidents where mail-in ballots were found in Southern California. A woman allegedly found a box of ballots on a sidewalk in Hollywood in May, while a man in San Diego found ballots discarded near an interstate.
The USPS has not responded to a request for comment from Epoch Times.
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