The President's Daily Brief - PDB Afternoon Bulletin | November 17th, 2023: CCP Biolabs in America & TikTok Love for Bin Laden

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:     A Congressional report has found that the owner of an illegally run biolab discovered in California has strong ties to China's CCP, and that an investigation of the facility was hamstrung by CDC officials.    Disturbing videos went viral this week on the social media app TikTok that centered around praise for an antisemitic letter written by Osama Bin Laden in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.    Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin.     Email: [e-mail].  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's Friday, November 17th. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. A congressional report has found that the owner of an illegally run bio lab discovered in a rural California community has ties to the communist Chinese government and that an investigation of the facility was inexplicably hamstrung by federal health officials. We'll also discuss shocking TikTok videos that went viral this week promoting and print raising an anti-Semitic letter written by Osama bin Laden in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. But first, our afternoon spotlight.

We're beginning to learn more about an illegally run biolab that was found operating in Reedley, California in December of last year. A new report released Wednesday by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party revealed that the owner of this mysterious bio lab has strong links to officials within the Chinese government. Ja Bezhu, a Chinese national and a wanted fugitive from Canada, was arrested on October 19th for manufacturing and distributing misbranded medical devices in violation of FDA regulations. Now, ostensibly, the lab was used to manufacture test kits for COVID-19, pregnancy, and HIV, but it appears to have also been used to conduct experiments on an unknown number of deadly pathogens. Zhu reportedly had a long history of working for companies tied to the CCP before coming to America

and received more than a million dollars in payments from CCP-backed banks in the years he was engaged in these criminal schemes. Now, the lab was first discovered when Jesselin Harper, a local code enforcement officer in Reedley, California, sent notice of a code violation after finding a garden hose sticking out of a hole in the building. Upon inspecting the facility, Harper discovered a disturbing scene. After being led inside by Chinese workers at the facility, she discovered thousands of vials of biological substances, some with labels in Mandarin. She also found medical-grade freezers and containment units with large glass doors, expensive laboratory equipment, and roughly 1,000 genetically modified lab mice. Now, the House report said that these mice were, quote, bred to simulate the human immune system. for the purpose of laboratory experimentation.

Okay. Local law enforcement reached out to the FBI and CDC, you would think that's a logical move, who engaged with community officials but declined to investigate the facility any further. A subsequent search by officials found blood, tissue, and other bodily fluid samples, containers with biohazard markings, and a range of chemical agents. Now, for months, local officials were largely ignored by the CDC, and FBI, even having CDC officials hang up on them. Congressman Jim Costa, who represents the community, eventually stepped in and managed to get CDC officials to take the situation a little more

seriously and send employees to investigate. So CDC officials, they found vials that were labeled as containing a variety of infectious diseases, including HIV, tuberculosis, the deadliest known strain of malaria, and COVID-19. Bizarrely, the CDC refused to take care of the disease. to test the contents of the marked and unmarked vials, even after local officials offered to foot the bill. Now, this is a critical point, as the House report says that without testing results, local officials would be court-ordered to destroy all the samples. Even more disturbingly, the CDC issued a report claiming the facility had not violated the law, and that officials found no evidence of select agents or toxins. The CDC's refusal to test ultimately forced local officials

to destroy the samples, along with laboratory equipment and more than 400 gallons of medical and biological waste. As if this story wasn't disturbing enough, local officials discovered a freezer of sealed bags labeled Ebola during the disposal process. The House report said that because of the actions of the CDC, it is impossible for them to, quote, fully assess the potential risks that this specific facility posed, end quote. So, I'll say it again. Washington, D.C. is where investigations go to die. Now, not to sound cynical, but I'm about to,

any time you hear about a congressional investigation starting up, just assume that the end result will be little transparency, no real clear findings, and no consequences. Okay, coming up after the break, we discussed disturbing videos that went viral on the social media app TikTok this week that centered around praise for an anti-Semitic letter written by Osama bin Laden in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. I'll be right back.

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the most egregious and disgusting. Videos, praising the words of Osama bin Laden, went viral across TikTok this week, garnering more than 10 million views. The videos focused on a document written by Osama bin Laden called Letter to America. Oh, isn't that nice? Published a year after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. You'll recall, of course, that killed nearly 3,000 people. In his bloviating, bin Laden defends the deadly,

terrorist attack on America by creating a narrative steeped in anti-Semitic bile. The terrorists said Americans had become servants to Jews, who he claimed controlled the U.S. economy and media. He also alleged the U.S. was complicit in the destruction of Palestinian homes and other crimes against Muslims in the Middle East. Now, shockingly, somehow, these words struck a chord, it appears, with many young TikTok users who said it awakened them to the truth. They began to sharing videos with disturbing captions like, quote, when you read Osama bin Laden's letter to America and you realize you've been lied to your entire life, end quote. Another video liked nearly 100,000 times by fellow TikTok users said it made them realize, quote, everything we learned

about the Middle East, 9-11, and terrorism was a lie. End quote, good God. The lesson, another user apparently took away from the bin Laden letter was that America is a quote, on the entire world." Now, after posting that TikTok, the user then blended up a smoothie, went to the gym, showered, put on some fresh emo drip, and joined up with bals for a cool, righteous night of protesting. By Thursday morning, videos containing the hashtag letter to America, had garnered nearly 15 million views, and by Thursday afternoon, TikTok stepped in and took aggressive actions

to block the content. A spokesman for the company said that the videos clearly violated. our rule on supporting any form of terrorism. So, how did this happen? Well, data from Google shows interest in the letter started increasing late last week. Videos began to spread on social media sites like TikTok, and by Wednesday a 2002 Guardian article containing the full letter became the second most viewed page on its site.

When alarmed journalists began sharing the trend on apps like X, interest in the TikTok videos exploded. The Guardian subsequently removed, the 2002 article from their site, sparking conspiracy theories that the information was being suppressed, which led to even greater interest from TikTok users. As we discussed last week on the PDP, TikTok has received intense criticism since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Media reports show that TikTok's algorithm seems to amplify pro-Palestinian perspectives. In the aftermath of the 7 October brutal attacks by Hamas, TikTok content endorsing Palestine has

far and away outpaced content that supports Israel and user engagement. Now, while some of this could be chalked up to the fact that TikTok users skew younger demographically, it also raises questions about the Chinese-owned company's ties to the Chinese Communist Party, you think, who are always eager to sway American public opinion through propaganda campaigns. The controversy over the app, along with concerns regarding its potential use as a surveillance tool for the CCP has sparked renewed calls in Washington to ban TikTok outright in America. Now, regular listeners to the PDB will recall that just recently we highlighted a massive disinformation

program termed spammiflage, also referred to as Dragon Bridge, operated by the Chinese regime's intel and public security apparatus to amplify messages on social media that support the regime's interests and objectives. So, whether it's Chinese, operation, or Russia's well-documented social media manipulation abilities, or a combination of Hamas's political wing and their overlords the Iranian regime, you can count on the fact that one or more of them were pushing, amplifying, and encouraging this bin Laden TikTok crap. The fact that the U.S. has a surprising number of young people stupid enough to somehow suggest that bin Laden actually had a point that 9-11 was either justified or the fault of the U.S.,

Well, that's the fault of the American education system, and also points to a problem and everything from parenting to a political system, where both parties criticize each other relentlessly, denigrate government institutions, and certainly on the progressive side, talk about the failings of America incessantly. So it's understandable to criticize the moronic, mostly young folks who parroted other moronic, mostly young folks in posting their bin Laden TikToks, then congratulating themselves on the number of clicks and likes they got. But those are our kids, and we created the environment where they're too stupid to know better, and we allow social media, particularly the Chinese

regime's TikTok, to mold and shape what our kids see and think about every day. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Friday, 17 November. If you have any questions or comments, reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. I'm Mike Bix. I'll be back on Monday. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.