HUMAN MICROCHIPPING TAKES CENTER STAGE.

HUMAN MICROCHIPPING TAKES CENTER STAGE.

City of Mississauga Thrilled with $200 Million Investment to Expand Resilience Biotechnologies Inc.’s Vaccine Manufacturing in Mississauga-Business and innovation | May 19, 2021

Yesterday, the Government of Canada announced a $200 million investment in Resilience Biotechnologies Inc., a Mississauga-based biomanufacturing facility, to help expand made-in-Canada vaccine solutions. With this investment, the Mississauga facility is expected to manufacture approximately 112 to 640 million doses of mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) vaccines per year.“Investing in vaccine manufacturing is more important now than ever and I’m thankful that the federal government chose to invest in a Mississauga-based facility,” says Mayor Bonnie Crombie. “This investment is evidence that Mississauga is a leading national science hub that supports business development and growth. Through our relationships with biomanufacturing companies, like Resilience Biotechnologies Inc., we can continue to support growth and expansion in this sector.”As part of this investment, Resilience Biotechnologies Inc. will expand their existing facility by adding 35,000 sq. ft. of space to create more capacity to manufacture vaccines and other biologics. This investment supports a larger, $400 million project that aims to develop Canada’s emergency preparedness for future pandemics.“We are proud that Mississauga’s life sciences sector is making great contributions to Canada’s biomanufacturing capabilities that will support our national life sciences priorities for decades to come,” said Harold Dremin, Acting Director, Economic Development Office. “It’s exciting to know that a Mississauga-based company is the first in Canada to have both the capacity and capability to use leading-edge mRNA technologies to produce vaccines, and has the potential to develop future therapeutics for other diseases and chronic illnesses.”Mississauga has the second-largest life sciences sector in Canada by employment, with more than 470 companies employing more than 25,000 people.

BACKGROUND

About Resilience Biotechnologies Inc.
Resilience Biotechnologies Inc. is located in Mississauga. It specializes in the development and manufacturing of clinical and commercial drugs, like vaccines. With this investment, Resilience Biotechnologies Inc. hopes to create and maintain 500 full-time jobs in Canada and create 50 co-op positions.

About Life Sciences in Mississauga
Mississauga is a connected ecosystem that cultivates and nurtures commercialization of life sciences innovations: a proven destination where diverse companies and exceptional talent grow, succeed and prosper. To learn more about advancements in Mississauga’s life sciences sector, visit thefutureisunlimited.ca/industries/life-sciences/.

Media Contact:City of Mississauga Media Relations-media@mississauga.ca-905-615-3200, ext. 5232-TTY: 905-896-5151

MARK OF THE BEAST (engraved microchip in your hand or forehead)

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

REVELATION 16:1-2
1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.

I KNOW THIS MARK WILL BE A MICROCHIP IMPLANT UNDER THE SKIN. LETS LOOK UP WHAT THE WORD MARK SAYS IN REVELATION 13:16-18, 14:9,11, 15:2, 16:2, 19:20, 20:4-ALL THESE VERSES FROM THE BOOK OF REVELATION SPEAK OF THIS DICTATORS MARK. NOW LETS SEE WHAT IT MEANS FROM STRONGS EXAUSTIVE CONCORDANCE OF THE BIBLE. UNDER MARK PAGE 684.MARK UNDER MARK. THE OLD TESTAMENT IS UNDER HEBREW AND THE NEW TESTAMENT IS UNDER GREEK. SO WHEN WE LOOK UNDER REVELATION 13:16-17 WE SEE IT IS UNDER GREEK, SO WE GO TO GREEK IN THE BACK SECTION AND GO TO 5480 TO SEE WHAT IT SAYS THIS MARK WOULD BE. SO LETS GET TO IT.MARK IN STRONGS GREEK 5480 XAPAYUA CHARAGMA, KHAR-AG-MAH: FROM THE SAME AS 5482: A SCRATCH OR ETCHING, I.E STAMP (AS A BADGE OF SERVITUDE), OR SCULPTURED FIGURE-(STATUE):-GRAVEN, MARK FROM 5482 XAPAE CHARAX, KHAR-AX; FROM XAPAOOW CHARASSO (TO SHARPEN TO A POINT; AKIN TO 1125 THROUGH THE IDEA OF SCRATCHING); A STAKE, I.E (BYIMPL.) A PALISADE OR RAMPART (MILITARY MOUND FOR CIRCUMVALLATION IN A SIEGE): - TRENCH FROM 1125 YPAPOE GRAPHO, GRAF-0; A PRIM. VERB; TO "GRAVE", ESPEC. TO WRITE; FIG. TO DESCRIBE:-DESCRIBE, WRITE (-ING, -TEN).

THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT IN YOUR RIGHT HAND OR FOREHEAD.

LEVETICUS 19.28
Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.

Human microchip implants take center stage-by Zhanna L. Malekos Smith, Opinion Contributor - 01/23/23 7:30 AM ET

The novelty of replacing one’s “home key” with a microchip implant is gaining worldwide interest, but there’s another more compelling story under the surface. Why is this technology — an integrated circuit the size of a grain of rice — reviled by some and celebrated by self-proclaimed human cyborgs? Arguably, William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” offers the most elegant explanation: “Nothing is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.” However, it would be prudent to tell Prince Hamlet that not all microchip implants are designed alike, and understanding the technological design enables one to better evaluate the competing viewpoints. Today, more than 50,000 people have elected to have a subdermal chip surgically inserted between the thumb and index finger, serve as their new swipe key, or credit card. In Germany, for example, more than 2,000 Germans have opted to receive these implants; one man even used it to store a link to his last will and testament. As chip storage capacity increases, perhaps users could even link to the complete works of Shakespeare.Chip implants are just one of the many types of emerging technologies in the Internet of Things (IoT) — an expanding digital cosmos of wirelessly connected internet-enabled devices. Some technologists are worried, however, that hackers targeting IoT vulnerabilities in sensors and network architecture also may try to hack chip implants. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips are identifying transponders that typically carry a unique identification number and can be tagged with user data such as health records, social media profiles, and financial information.RFID chips are passive transponders, which means the digital reader must be positioned a few inches away from the user’s microchipped hand to communicate. In contrast, near field communication (NFC) chips use electromagnetic radio fields to wirelessly communicate to digital readers in close proximity, much like smartphones and contactless credit cards. A benefit of NFC over RFID is international use, reasons Biohax: “With the power of existing infrastructure and the wide variety of services and products already supporting the NFC standard globally, one huge benefit of ours is that we overlap virtually any private or public sector already using NFC or mobile tech.”According to a 2021 United Kingdom-based consumer survey by Propeller Insights on digital payment trends in Europe, 51 percent of the approximately 2,000 respondents said they would consider getting a chip implant to pay for services. This technology is especially popular in Sweden as a substitute for paying with cash. “Only 1 in 4 people living in Sweden use cash at least once a week,” writes NPR. More than 4,000 Swedes have replaced keycards for chip implants to use for gym access, e-tickets on railway travel, and to store emergency contact information.The technology also may offer increased mobility for people with physically limiting health conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and motor neurone disease, according to BioTeq, a UK-based tech firm. For example, “a wheelchair-mobile person can approach a door and the reader will unlock the door, avoiding the need for keys that the person may not be able to use for themselves.” BioTeq is also exploring providing microchip services for those who are visually impaired to create “trigger audible or touch-sensory signals” in the home. Despite these benefits, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists avers that the main challenges to chip implants are security, safety and privacy.A general security concern with NFC technology is that it could allow third parties to eavesdrop on device communication, corrupt data, or wage interception attacks, warns NFC.org.  Interception attacks are when someone intercepts the data transmitted between two NFC devices and then alters the data as it’s being relayed. Like any device, these personal chips have security vulnerabilities and potentially could be hacked, even if embedded underneath the skin.With regard to health safety concerns, a 2020 study with the American Society for Surgery of the Hand indicated that RFID chip implants may carry potential health risks such as adverse tissue reaction and incompatibility with some magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology. Several social scientists also are apprehensive about the risks to privacy and human rights if the body becomes a type of “human barcode.” According to microbiologist Ben Libberton at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, chip implants can reveal sensitive personal information about your health and even “data about your whereabouts, how often you’re working, how long you’re working, if you’re taking toilet breaks and things like that.” Interestingly, the first person to implant a microchip in himself was professor Kevin Warwick of Reading University in 1998; he wanted to determine whether his computer could wirelessly track his movements at work.To date, at least 10 state legislatures in the United States have passed statutes to ban employers from requiring employees to receive human microchip implants. The most recent state was Indiana, which prohibited employers from requiring employees to be chipped as a condition of employment and discriminating against job applicants who refuse the implant. Nevada’s legislation is the most restrictive — although not a total ban, as proposed in 2017, Nevada Assembly Bill 226 prohibits an officer or employee of Nevada from “establishing a program that authorizes a person to voluntarily elect to undergo the implantation of such a microchip or permanent identification marker.”As the impact and influence of chip implants increases in the United States, it will raise complex questions for state legislatures and courts to consider, such as third-party liability for cybersecurity, data ownership rights, and Americans’ rights under the Fourth Amendment and the protection of sensitive digital data under the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Carpenter v. United States.Microchips offer alluring benefits of convenience and mobility, but they carry potential cybersecurity, privacy and health risks. The onus cannot be on the law alone, however, to protect consumers. Instead, it is a shared responsibility among consumers to understand their data rights as part of digital literacy, and among technologists to promote cybersecurity-informed engineering at each phase of product development. Further, lawmakers must be mindful of the delicate balance between protecting the flame of technological innovation and advancement, while guarding against misapplication and abuse. As technology historian Melvin Kranzberg noted, “Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral.”Zhanna L. Malekos Smith is a nonresident adjunct fellow with the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington and an assistant professor in the Department of Systems Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where she also is a Cyber Law and Policy Fellow with the Army Cyber Institute and affiliate faculty with the Modern War Institute. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and not those of CSIS, the U.S. government or Department of Defense.

Storing medical information below the skin’s surface-Specialized invisible dye, delivered along with a vaccine, could enable “on-patient” storage of vaccination history to save lives in regions where paper or digital records aren’t available.Anne Trafton | MIT News Office-December 18, 2019

A key challenge for vaccination campaigns in some developing regions is that there is little infrastructure for storing medical records, so there’s often no easy way to determine who needs a particular vaccine or booster shot. MIT engineers have developed a way to store information about a patient’s vaccine history under the skin, using an invisible quantum dot dye that is delivered, along with a vaccine, by a microneedle patch.Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify that this research was developed to help avoid preventable deaths in parts of the world where paper or digital systems for storing patients’ vaccination records aren’t available. Many vaccines require multiple doses spaced out at certain intervals; without accurate records, people may not receive all of the necessary doses. The method is still in an experimental stage and is not being used for any current vaccinations, including Covid-19 vaccines.Every year, a lack of vaccination leads to about 1.5 million preventable deaths, primarily in developing nations. One factor that makes vaccination campaigns in those nations more difficult is that there is little infrastructure for storing medical records, so there’s often no easy way to determine who needs a particular vaccine.MIT researchers have now developed a novel way to record a patient’s vaccination history: storing the data in a pattern of dye, invisible to the naked eye, that is delivered under the skin at the same time as the vaccine.“In areas where paper vaccination cards are often lost or do not exist at all, and electronic databases are unheard of, this technology could enable the rapid and anonymous detection of patient vaccination history to ensure that every child is vaccinated,” says Kevin McHugh, a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice University.The researchers showed that their new dye, which consists of nanocrystals called quantum dots, can remain for at least five years under the skin, where it emits near-infrared light that can be detected by a specially equipped smartphone.McHugh and former visiting scientist Lihong Jing are the lead authors of the study, which appears today in Science Translational Medicine. Ana Jaklenec, a research scientist at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, are the senior authors of the paper.An invisible record-Several years ago, the MIT team set out to devise a method for recording vaccination information in a way that doesn’t require a centralized database or other infrastructure. Many vaccines, such as the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), require multiple doses spaced out at certain intervals; without accurate records, children may not receive all of the necessary doses.“In order to be protected against most pathogens, one needs multiple vaccinations,” Jaklenec says. “In some areas in the developing world, it can be very challenging to do this, as there is a lack of data about who has been vaccinated and whether they need additional shots or not.”To create an “on-patient,” decentralized medical record, the researchers developed a new type of copper-based quantum dots, which emit light in the near-infrared spectrum. The dots are only about 4 nanometers in diameter, but they are encapsulated in biocompatible microparticles that form spheres about 20 microns in diameter. This encapsulation allows the dye to remain in place, under the skin, after being injected.The researchers designed their dye to be delivered by a microneedle patch rather than a traditional syringe and needle. Such patches are now being developed to deliver vaccines for measles, rubella, and other diseases, and the researchers showed that their dye could be easily incorporated into these patches.The microneedles used in this study are made from a mixture of dissolvable sugar and a polymer called PVA, as well as the quantum-dot dye and the vaccine. When the patch is applied to the skin, the microneedles, which are 1.5 millimeters long, partially dissolve, releasing their payload within about two minutes.By selectively loading microparticles into microneedles, the patches deliver a pattern in the skin that is invisible to the naked eye but can be scanned with a smartphone that has the infrared filter removed. The patch can be customized to imprint different patterns that correspond to the type of vaccine delivered.“It’s possible someday that this ‘invisible’ approach could create new possibilities for data storage, biosensing, and vaccine applications that could improve how medical care is provided, particularly in the developing world,” Langer says.Effective immunization-Tests using human cadaver skin showed that the quantum-dot patterns could be detected by smartphone cameras after up to five years of simulated sun exposure.The researchers also tested this vaccination strategy in rats, using microneedle patches that delivered the quantum dots along with a polio vaccine. They found that those rats generated an immune response similar to the response of rats that received a traditional injected polio vaccine.“This study confirmed that incorporating the vaccine with the dye in the microneedle patches did not affect the efficacy of the vaccine or our ability to detect the dye,” Jaklenec says.The researchers now plan to survey health care workers in developing nations in Africa to get input on the best way to implement this type of vaccination record keeping. They are also working on expanding the amount of data that can be encoded in a single pattern, allowing them to include information such as the date of vaccine administration and the lot number of the vaccine batch.The researchers believe the quantum dots are safe to use in this way because they are encapsulated in a biocompatible polymer, but they plan to do further safety studies before testing them in patients.
“Storage, access, and control of medical records is an important topic with many possible approaches,” says Mark Prausnitz, chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Georgia Tech, who was not involved in the research. “This study presents a novel approach where the medical record is stored and controlled by the patient within the patient’s skin in a minimally invasive and elegant way.”The research was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Koch Institute Support (core) Grant from the National Cancer Institute. Other authors of the paper include Sean Severt, Mache Cruz, Morteza Sarmadi, Hapuarachchige Surangi Jayawardena, Collin Perkinson, Fridrik Larusson, Sviatlana Rose, Stephanie Tomasic, Tyler Graf, Stephany Tzeng, James Sugarman, Daniel Vlasic, Matthew Peters, Nels Peterson, Lowell Wood, Wen Tang, Jihyeon Yeom, Joe Collins, Philip Welkhoff, Ari Karchin, Megan Tse, Mingyuan Gao, and Moungi Bawendi.

How ‘killer robots’ can help us learn from mistakes made in AI policies-by Michael Depp, Opinion Contributor - 01/25/23 7:30 AM ET

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott answers questions during a news conference on May 21, 2019, regarding allowing police to use potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations. Civil rights advocates are critical of the militarization of police.The use of lethal robots for law enforcement has turned from a science fiction concept to news snippets, thanks to recent high-profile debates in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., as well as their actual use in Dallas. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 to grant police the ability to use ground-based robots for lethal force when “when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and officers cannot subdue the threat after using alternative force options or other de-escalation tactics.” Following immediate public outcry, the board reversed course a week later and unanimously voted to ban the lethal use of robots. Oakland underwent a less public but similar process, and in January the Dallas Police Department used a robot to end a standoff. All of these events illustrate major pitfalls with the way that police currently use or plan to use lethal robots. Processes are rushed or nonexistent, conducted haphazardly, do not involve the public or civil society, and fail to create adequate oversight. These problems must be fixed in future processes that authorize artificial intelligence (AI) use in order to avoid controversy, collateral damage and even international destabilization.The chief sin that a process can commit is to move too quickly. Decisions about how to use AI systems require careful deliberation and informed discussion, especially with something as high-stakes as the use of lethal force. A counter example here is the Department of Defense (DOD) Directive 3000.09, which covers the development and deployment of lethal autonomous systems. Because it lacks clarity for new technology and terminology, this decade-old policy is in the process of a lengthy, but deliberate, update. For San Francisco and Oakland, the impetus for speed was California’s requiring an audit of military equipment, but San Francisco’s debate was too far along to get started and Oakland’s was done in an entirely impromptu fashion.This was reinforced by the fact that the police in both cities already had robots (albeit, not armed in San Francisco) in their inventories; if the use of robots was not approved, they argued, the equipment would have to be divested, creating an “authorize it or lose it” mentality. Procurement should be covered by the policy on autonomous systems, not an afterthought to avoid loss. In a functional process, procurement should follow authorization, not vice versa.Simply slowing down and avoiding sunk costs alone is not enough, however; the process itself must be improved. In the case of San Francisco, debate involved only the board of supervisors and the police department (who had a hand in drafting the authorization under discussion). Oakland’s process started as the council discussed robots alongside staples of police equipment such as stun grenades. When considering the deployment of AI, it is important to solicit the viewpoint of civil society representatives, whose expertise on technology policy, law, human rights and artificial intelligence generally, could prove invaluable to producing nuanced policies. Additionally, and especially for law enforcement issues, the public needs to have more involvement in these processes; otherwise, the public will be forced to turn to protests to make its voice heard. In contrast, consider the robust public discussion among citizens, civil society, and companies over law enforcement use of facial recognition software or California’s Bot Bill. The ideal process fosters such discussion.Finally, it is critical to consider oversight mechanisms at the start. San Francisco neatly sidestepped this with a nebulous mandate. All four of the requirements to use force that the board approved require additional guidance. Without specific definitions for “risk of loss of life,” “imminent,” “alternative force options” and “de-escalation tactics,” and no other figures of authority there to challenge a police interpretation of them, these are largely toothless stipulations. But San Francisco did more than Oakland, which did not outline even cursory oversight mechanisms for the police and relied solely on the standard police authorization to use lethal force. These cases indicate that there should be a separate body to carry out oversight, with clear guidelines about when and how to deploy autonomous systems.With the media in decline, will a memorial to fallen journalists help restore trust? How to pay all of the Treasury’s bills without raising the debt limit-As AI systems continue to improve, debates are required about how and where government bodies deploy them. Each organization should have its own processes: the Department of Defense will have stakeholders and systems different from local law enforcement. But some practices should be constant. Processes need to be deliberate and not rushed; appealing to the sunk cost fallacy should be avoided; other stakeholders need to be consulted early and often; and oversight needs to be built in from the beginning. Without taking these steps, it will continue to be difficult to build trust with the public and the international community that AI can be deployed responsibly. While recent events may have sparked a public outcry over the dangers of “killer robots,” we should not lose sight of the danger that poor processes create when deploying AI systems.Michael Depp is a research associate at the Center for a New American Security, where he focuses on artificial intelligence safety and stability. Follow him on Twitter @michaeljaydepp.

Senate GOP pours cold water on idea of impeaching Biden-by Alexander Bolton - 01/25/23 6:00 AM ET

Senate Republicans are pouring cold water on the idea that President Biden’s classified documents controversy rises to the level of an impeachable offense, heading off House conservatives looking for revenge after former President Trump’s two trials.Even before Tuesday’s revelation that about a dozen classified documents had been found at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home, GOP senators were cool to the idea of impeachment. “I don’t think you want to get into where it’s a tit for tat, every two years or four years you’re dealing with impeachment proceedings in the House and Senate,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) told The Hill. “There has to be a really good reason, obviously, the constitutional reasons and grounds for that. So we’ll see where it goes.” Asked whether Biden’s possession of classified documents has the potential to rise to the level of an impeachable offense, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to the Senate GOP leadership team, gave a simple answer: “No.” Many Republicans thought the Democrats’ first impeachment of Trump over delaying military aide to Ukraine was a partisan overreach. But that means they are also wary of doing the same thing now that their party has the House majority.It’s just one of several tension points emerging between Republicans in the two chambers.  Senate Republicans have mostly ignored chatter in the House about impeaching Biden’s secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, or wiping out the tax code and replacing it with a 23 percent to 30 percent national sales tax. Some Republicans think talk of impeaching Biden will grow in the House, even though GOP senators warn that it’s a bad idea. House Republicans introduced more than a dozen impeachment resolutions against Biden in the last Congress, and the GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee has already initiated an investigation of Biden’s handling of classified documents, which could lay the ground for future impeachment proceedings.  Trump has also come under criticism for a separate classified documents controversy, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in an interview with Fox Business argued that Biden’s handling of classified documents was more egregious because the former Republican president at least secured the classified information he held with padlocks.“That’s much different than what we’re finding now with President Biden, and I think it is severely going to cause him a great deal of trouble in the future as we get more of the truth,” McCarthy told Fox host Larry Kudlow. A few Senate Republicans entertain the idea that the classified documents found at Biden’s Delaware home and former Washington, D.C., office would lead to a Senate impeachment trial. “This actually might be an impeachable offense. If there’s a high crime and misdemeanor standard, which there is, this is the closest thing to one in recent years,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). “If the special counsel comes up with anything, realizing [Biden’s] a sitting president, I suppose they could draft up what would become articles of impeachment, depending on what they find.” Cramer said “I personally hate impeachments” but thinks the standard has changed since House Democrats impeached Trump in 2019 after he held up aid to Ukraine to use as leverage to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden’s family’s business dealings in the country.  Only one Republican senator, Mitt Romney (Utah), voted to convict on an article of impeachment during Trump’s 2020 Senate trial.Cramer said “Democrats created an impeachment cycle and we may be in that cycle,” calling Trump’s first impeachment “far-fetched and silly.”  He said House Republicans now need to decide whether they want to keep the impeachment bar as low as they believe Democrats set it in 2019 or whether to elevate it to cover only the most serious crimes.The documents found at Pence’s home would further muddy any attempt to argue that Biden’s possession of classified documents meets the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors. Romney on Tuesday said it will be hard for House Republicans to credibly push an article of impeachment against Biden for keeping classified documents at his Delaware home after Pence admitted the same transgression. “I can’t imagine that’s where it’s going to head with so many people in the same arena,” he said.Some key Senate Republicans, such as Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (Fla.), are already on record downplaying Trump’s possession of classified documents at his Florida home as a “storage” issue.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday dismissed a question about whether Biden’s possession of classified documents could rise to the level of an impeachable offense. “I don’t have an answer to that hypothetical. I do think that the Justice Department seems to be willing to treat everybody the same and to try to retrieve the documents, and obviously it’s not a great idea to take classified documents away from the archives. We’ll see how they continue to handle it,” he said.   Republican senators say it should be up to Robert Hur, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, to decide whether Biden should be charged with a crime, not House Republicans, who filed more than a dozen articles of impeachment against Biden in the last Congress.  “It could be a criminal offense,” Cornyn said. “That’s what the special counsel is for. Mishandling classified materials is very serious.”Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith in November to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation of Trump’s handling of classified documents and whether he unlawfully interfered with the 2021 transfer of presidential power.  Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, blasted some Democrats for “hypocrisy” by trying to minimize Biden’s culpability after hammering Trump for months after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in August to retrieve classified documents.  “The thing that’s made this such a story is the hypocrisy, [Democrats] attacking Trump,” he said. “Nobody should take classified materials outside of a secure facility, period.”   Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said fellow Republicans should “be careful” about “knee-jerking to impeachment.”“I think the country will fatigue of that,” he said, pointing out that recent impeachment proceedings against former Presidents Clinton and Trump “have not ended up with any real result.”  “If you start doing it on everything, I think it would be bad politically and for the mechanics of government working,” he said.Democrats picked up five House seats in the 1998 midterm elections as the Republican majority was in the midst of gearing up to impeach Clinton, marking a rare instance when the president’s party picked up House seats in the middle of a second term.Republicans picked up 14 House seats in the 2020 election after Democrats impeached Trump at the end of 2019.