CRT is treason, and teacher’s unions are enemies of the state because they are pushing it and should be tried for treason. It only serves to weaken our country. [US Patriot]
To allow schools to be free of Critical Race Theory (CRT) parents must break the unions, parental rights activists say.
This school year, Moms for Liberty leaders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich have mounted a nationwide campaign to end union control of schools.
“Let’s start the new school year right—by ending the reign of the powerful teachers’ unions who care more about pushing woke ideology and rewriting forms to say ‘birthing parent’ instead of ‘mom’ or ‘dad,’ than they do about improving reading scores or closing the growing learning gaps in our country,” the group’s press release reads.
Teachers have pushed CRT into the classroom at a time when many students are failing to learn how to read, said Justice.
Tina Descovich, cofounder of Moms for Liberty, a pro-parental rights organization. (Courtesy of Moms for Liberty)
According to nationwide surveys, only about a third of 4th Grade students read proficiently at a 4th Grade reading level in 2019.
At the same time, reports of teachers giving children political instruction in CRT, transgenderism, and other left-wing ideologies have increased greatly.
This push comes from teachers’ unions, said Descovich.
Teachers’ unions like the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have long been bastions of Democratic political power, she said.
Rather than ensuring teachers get good pay while giving children a good education, they have focused on making education ideological, said Justice.
“What we’ve seen over the past 40 years in education in America is a real shift away from giving children practicable skills to making them into social justice warriors,” she said.
Moms for Liberty encourages teachers to leave these unions to stop their promotion of left-wing education, Descovich said.
“It’s vital that teachers understand there [are] options out there, they do not have to be a member of the union,” she said.
For many parents, COVID-19 led to new discoveries about schools, Descovich said. During the pandemic, parents got to see the lessons their kids received. Often, they didn’t like what they saw.
“I think they’ve been shocked to see gender ideology being pushed in the classrooms, the division between race, the Critical Race Theory,” she said.
While the pandemic was a time for parents to learn, now is a time for them to act, Moms for Liberty leaders said.
“The start of the 2022-2023 school year is a perfect time to end the woke union bosses’ death grip on innovation, excellence, and freedom in public education,” the Moms for Liberty press release reads.
Union Busting
Moms for Liberty has a two-part strategy to break union power, according to its press release.
It will encourage teachers to leave unions in states where they can do so, and it will inform parents about school performance.
As unions like the NEA have spread across America, they have allied with school system administrators to protect a bloated bureaucracy, said Justice.
“We see more and more money being spent on public schools,” she said. “And yet, the teachers aren’t being compensated better.”
Although the Supreme Court has ruled that it’s illegal to force teachers to pay union dues if they don’t want to, sometimes unions do so anyway.
In many states, even non-union members have to pay unions for their role in collective bargaining. In other states, social pressure to remain in a union plays a major role, said Descovich.
“The unions will say, ‘If you get in trouble, if somebody accuses you of something, the only person that’s going to be there for you with us,” she said.
Money from union dues gives unions immense political power. The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers gave $29 million combined to Democrats and other liberal groups.
The unions also play a major role in encouraging a left-wing curriculum, Justice said.
Tiffany Justice, cofounder of Moms for Liberty, a pro-parental rights organization. (Courtesy of Moms for Liberty)
“The unions have become the foot soldiers for the Left in America, the very most progressive fringe Left,” she said.
Justice said she strongly believes American teachers are already breaking from the unions.
“I think that the education curtain has been pulled back, and all of America now recognizes that the union bargains for the people at the table, not for the teachers on the ground,” she said.
Parents can also pressure schools to change their curriculum, said Descovich. But often, schools have pushed back against parents.
In union strongholds, some Moms for Liberty supporters have lost their jobs due to union member harassment of their employers, she said.
One mother got the FBI called on her. It has been a struggle to get school boards to listen to parents.
“It’s been about as nasty as you can imagine where there are union strongholds,” said Descovich.
Moms for Liberty has more than 200 nationwide chapters, Descovich said. Despite these setbacks, many chapters have met with success in placing parental rights advocates on school boards.
“The unions need to understand that teachers in schools, their primary duty is to educate children,” said Justice.
With a looming recall election swirling around the culture wars in a small Colorado town, authorities confirmed their arrest of a recall leader on false complaint charges.
The Woodland Park Police Department confirmed in a press release late last week their arrest of Samantha Peck, one of the leaders of a recall campaign aimed at the Woodland Park School Board.
Peck is charged with a misdemeanor charge of false reporting of an emergency to police and a felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant.
Police say that on July 24, the police department received an emergency call from a person identifying herself as Ms Peck.
David Lane, a Denver lawyer representing Samantha Peck, says he’s investigating if her civil rights were violated when she was charged by Woodland Park police. (Courtesy of David Lane)
The caller said that someone she knew to be the wife of the school board’s vice president appeared to be drunk and getting into a car in a Safeway supermarket parking lot, preparing to drive away with a small child.
Officers responding six minutes later found the driver sober and without a child in the car, police said in the press release.
Peck, who was arrested on Aug. 2, is free on a $3000 bond.
Having retained Denver civil rights lawyer David Lane, Peck appears to stand by her story.
Lane, a Berkeley Law graduate who worked with the ACLU and Amnesty International in the past said, “we are investigating whether this is or is not a civil rights violation.”
“There are two conflicting versions of what happened,” Lane said. The police department’s version is one, but the other is that Peck “was seriously reporting someone who appeared to be impaired.”
“Ultimately, what we want to do is talk to witnesses and consult body cameras and go from there,” Lane said.
Peck reinforced civil rights analogies in a Facebook post, comparing herself to Martin Luther King and including photos of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela behind bars, and Rosa Parks being fingerprinted.
Lane abruptly excused himself from a telephone call, citing a meeting with a judge, before he could be asked how civil rights relate to the Peck case, who in her Facebook photos appears to be white.
Peck is the administrator for the Concerned Parents of Teller County Facebook page, one of the recall’s main online outlets.
Woodland Park police had declined earlier in the week to confirm Peck’s arrest or discuss the matter with The Epoch Times.
David Illingworth is vice president of the Woodland Park RE-2 School District. The police department did not name his wife.
Illingworth was elected to the school board of the small town outside Colorado Springs in November, part of a conservative wave winning four of five school board seats in an election amplifying local schools’ rapidly declining enrolment, and parental dissatisfaction over educational practices.
The new board began rapidly addressing the issues.
They started certification of a charter school the old board had blocked, raised teacher pay, forced out the school superintendent, and ensured notification of parents in advance if their children were to be taught sensitive or age-inappropriate material.
A recall campaign began almost immediately, formally launching a petition drive in early June with 60 days to gather enough signatures to justify a recall election against three board members, including Illingworth, David Rusterholtz, and Suzanne Patterson.
By the deadline, the opponents narrowly met the required threshold of signatures for Illingworth and Patterson but failed for Rusterholtz.
The signatures still need to be certified by the state.
The fourth conservative board member elected last year had already resigned after coming under severe personal attack at board meetings.
A Colorado columnist decried the recall campaign’s apparent use of a tactic called “swatting” coming out of the video game world.
To take out a rival, a player falsely reports him to the police for something severe enough to justify sending a SWAT team.
“The innocent victim finds himself surrounded by police officers with guns drawn. It wastes officers’ time and resources and puts the victim, and the officers, in danger,” wrote Krista Kafer of The Denver Post.
“When an irresponsible teen whose prefrontal cortex is still developing engages in this kind of delinquent behavior, some consideration should be made for his lack of maturity.
“When middle-aged women do it to harass political opponents, no such consideration should be made. Throw the book at them. They aren’t just harming their victims, but democracy itself.”
Kafer cited another case of it in the Denver suburbs, where the partner of a former police chief anonymously reported a city councilwoman for child abuse.
The councilwoman, who was exonerated, had been critical of the police chief, who later resigned. The partner was charged with making a false complaint.
Efforts to reach Erin O’Connell, another leader of the recall movement, were unsuccessful, as were attempts to contact the Colorado Education Association, parent of the Woodland Park Education Association.
Opponents of the recall maintain the parents’ group supporting it is fronting for union activists
Unqualified diversity hire Xavier Becerra is really bad at his job
Glad to see someone else use the “Affirmative Inaction” phrase [US Patriot]
Joe Biden still hasn’t fired Xavier Becerra, the unqualified health and human services secretary whose failed leadership has exacerbated the administration’s botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the ongoing monkeypox outbreak.
Alas, Becerra probably won’t be fired for the same reason he was hired. Because of his race and the so-called diversity he brings to the administration.
The White House has been fed up with Becerra’s job performance for months and has “openly mused” about replacing him, according to a Washington Post report published in January. Health experts inside and outside the administration complained about his “low profile” and “passive” approach to complex problems. “He hasn’t shown up,” one COVID-19 analyst told the Post. “[He’s been] like a ghost.”
Nevertheless, administration officials were “loath” to give Becerra the axe because doing so “would likely draw the ire of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other grass-roots groups that pressed Biden to appoint more Latinos to his Cabinet.”
New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns recounted this racially charged pressure campaign in their recently published book, This Will Not Pass. Biden’s search for a health secretary, they wrote, was a “fraught” process characterized by “hurt feelings and [racial] grievance.”
While attempting to assemble “the most diverse cabinet in history,” Biden’s team “panicked” in response to criticism from Hispanic lawmakers who wanted more Hispanics nominated for cabinet-level positions. They “scrambled” to offer Becerra the job—a “hasty choice” explicitly intended to “calm the situation.”
So much for Biden’s campaign pledge to “follow the science” and “shut down” COVID-19 by putting the experts back in charge of the government’s pandemic response. Becerra, a former congressman, was woefully unqualified for the position of health secretary. His most relevant experience involved a lawsuit he filed as California attorney general to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide birth control to employees. More than 620,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 on his watch.
Some Democrats complained about the “harried selection process” and viewed Becerra as a “baffling” nominee. They were ignored. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) was especially annoyed because she “had worked closely with Becerra in the House and viewed him as untrustworthy.” Meanwhile, Biden chief of staff Ron Klain grew “weary” of the Democratic coalition’s insistence on “treating the cabinet as an identity-politics Rubik’s Cube.”
Becerra’s inability to helm the nation’s health department was glaringly obvious in January, when the Post reported on White House “frustrations” with his leadership. In recent months, the federal government’s response to monkeypox has further vindicated Becerra’s critics who contend the health secretary has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.
The New York Times on Wednesday published a damning report on Becerra’s botched handling of the monkeypox outbreak, which has been hobbled by a vaccine shortage “caused in part” by his department’s failure “to ask that bulk stocks of the vaccine it already owned be bottled for distribution.” The release of the vaccine doses was also delayed because the Food and Drug Administration, under Becerra’s purview, took months to inspect and approve the Danish factory producing the vaccine.
Lawrence Gostin, a renowned public health expert from Georgetown Law who has consulted with the White House on monkeypox, said the government’s response to the outbreak has been “deeply frustrating.” Federal health agencies have been “kind of asleep at the wheel on this,” and continue to struggle with “the same kinds of bureaucratic delays and forgetfulness and dropping the ball that we did during the COVID pandemic,” he told the Times.
The article includes a familiar critique of Becerra’s leadership. Detractors fault his “hands-off approach to an increasingly serious situation,” but weren’t willing to speak on the record. Biden is reportedly “upset” by the vaccine shortage and “stung by criticism that a lack of foresight and management has left gay men—the prime risk group for monkeypox—unprotected.”
Josh Barro, a pro-Biden journalist, observed that the Times article “really makes Xavier Becerra sound incompetent and out to lunch. How did he get the HHS Secretary job anyway? He doesn’t have relevant qualifications.”
Quincy Institute scholar Jessica Lee has lambasted the administration’s rhetoric toward China, arguing it fuels anti-Asian hate crimes
The State Department is tapping a China apologist who has blamed the Biden administration’s rhetoric toward the Communist country for a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and called for “a cooperative relationship” with North Korea, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Jessica Lee, a scholar at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an isolationist think-tank bankrolled by George Soros and Charles Koch, is joining the administration as senior adviser for legislative affairs at the State Department, two sources familiar with the matter told the Washington Free Beacon on Monday. Lee sent an email to her Quincy Institute colleagues Sunday advising them of the move.
Lee has been one of the most strident critics of what she called the Biden administration’s “anti-China” foreign policy, advocating for closer ties with the CCP and arguing that “over-the-top” warnings about China’s malign activities—including widespread hack attacks and domestic spying incidents—increase the likelihood of war with the country.
“The continual naming and blaming of China as a bad actor on seemingly every front, as the source of all of America’s problems, cultivates real fear and insecurity among Americans,” Lee said in a May 2021 video. “And it directly fuels violence against Americans of Asian descent. From physical attacks to outright murder, evidence of violent racism fueled by our anti-China policy is alarming.”
Lee’s move from the Quincy Institute to the State Department is a sign the American foreign policy community’s most dovish voices are making inroads with the Biden administration. She is one of several Quincy Institute members to join the administration, including Rachel Esplin Odell, a State Department employee who has claimed “the military threat posed by China to U.S. interests is limited in nature.”
The move comes at a precarious time for the organization, which has seen two top staff members resign over its calls for a speedy resolution to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its opposition to the Biden administration’s support for the Ukrainian resistance. In addition to China and Russia, the think tank is also home to several scholars who are calling for a more accomodationist posture toward Iran.
Lee has been one of the most prominent pro-China voices working at the Quincy Institute. In a May 2021 video posted online, Lee claimed that “a hostile relationship with China will make Americans less safe.” She also bemoaned the potential to lose “cultural and student exchanges” with China, but did not mention that the CCP uses these programs to infiltrate U.S. institutions and spy on them.
The “most troubling” result of America’s “anti-China” foreign policy, according to Lee, is the rise in racist violence. “There is a clear link between the militaristic foreign policy that we’re seeing today and the rise of anti-Asian discrimination and hate crimes,” the Quincy Institute wrote in an introduction to Lee’s video.
Lee’s rumored hire comes at a pivotal point in the U.S.-China relationship and against the backdrop of the White House’s softening stance toward China. While Joe Biden has said in the past that the United States would defend Taiwan if it is invaded by China—comments that administration officials walked back—Biden recently warned Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi against visiting the contested island during her trip to Asia this week.
Lee also has advocated for the United States to end the Korean War and develop a “cooperative relationship” with the country’s dictator, Kim Jong-un.
“Over the long-term, Washington should also be open to the possibility of not just normalization of relations but to a cooperative relationship with Pyongyang as part of closing the chapter of the Korean War and stemming the growing arms race between the two Koreas,” Lee wrote in a July 2022 analysis for the Quincy Institute.
Lee said that North Korea’s nuclear missile testing “makes sense” and that “over-emphasizing the nuclear threat fosters deterrence-centric solutions.”
Lee, who will liaise with Congress as part of her role at the State Department, publicly griped in 2021 that Capitol Hill staffers are unable to comprehend North Korea policy issues.
“I saw firsthand the inherent challenges of getting 545 Hill offices to play a constructive role in [North Korea] related matters,” she tweeted. There is a “lack of expertise, high staff turnover, and lack of sustained attention to Asia, just to name a few.”
The State Department would not comment on personnel matters.
Update 3:57 p.m.: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that Sasha Baker, a senior official at the Pentagon, was a former Quincy Institute official.
President Donald Trump denounced resident Joe Biden over his handling of the inflationary wave hammering American households, telling rally-goers in Arizona that the true rate of inflation is far higher than the official rate of 9.1 percent.
Trump made the remarks at a July 22 rally in Prescott Valley, where he was stumping on behalf of former TV anchor Kari Lake in her bid to become Arizona’s next governor for the upcoming GOP primary election.
During his speech, Trump touted his own record on the economy, including high job creation and low inflation.
President Donald Trump gestures at a rally in Prescott Valley, Ariz., on July 22, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
‘The Worst Inflation’
Trump told rally-goers that under his tenure, “We had the greatest economy in the history of the world with no inflation,” and added that “Biden created the worst inflation in 47 years.”
February 2017, the first full month of Trump in office, saw the headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation gauge at 2.8 percent in annual terms. While the CPI measure fluctuated during his tenure, the highest it ever reached was 2.9 percent in July 2018, while in his final month in office, January 2021, inflation clocked in at 1.4 percent.
Inflation has climbed steadily under Biden, soaring 9.1 percent year-over-year in June 2022, a figure not seen in more than 40 years.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on July 24 that inflation in the United States has “probably” peaked, while acknowledging that factors “out of our control,” such as another war or pandemic, could once again cause price growth to accelerate.
Resident Joe Biden waves as he walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on July 20, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
‘War on American Energy’
While Trump didn’t go into detail as to the Biden policies that he thinks have sent inflation soaring, he did single out what he called “Biden’s war on American energy.”
Soaring energy prices have been one of the key contributing factors to inflation, accounting for around half of the headline inflation figure, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Since taking office, Biden has signed a number of executive orders targeting the oil industry, such as revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit, freezing new oil and gas drilling leases on federal lands and waters, and ending fossil fuel subsidies by certain agencies.
The price of gasoline is currently around double what it was when Biden took office, with the president variously blaming a lack of refining capacity, global supply shortfalls set against a sharp post-pandemic rebound in demand, the war in Ukraine, and corporate greed.
In a bid to lower gasoline prices, Biden has ordered the release of crude reserves from the national strategic reserve, called on U.S. refineries to boost output, and pushed OPEC to pump more oil.
In his speech in Arizona, Trump criticized Biden for “begging” other countries to pump more crude oil instead of trying to ramp up domestic oil production.
“We are a nation that is begging Venezuela and Saudi Arabia and many other countries for oil,” Trump said.
“Yet we have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country in the world. We are a nation that is consumed by the radical left’s Green New Deal, yet everyone knows that the Green New Deal will lead to our destruction.
“Just two years ago, we were energy-independent. We were even energy-dominant. The United States is now a beggar for energy.”
President Donald Trump attends a rally in support of Arizona GOP candidates, in Prescott Valley, Ariz., on July 22, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Inflation ‘Much, Much Higher’
Trump also alleged that the true inflation figure is far higher than is being officially reported.
“We’re at 9.1 percent, but the actual number is much, much higher than that,” Trump said, without citing where he received his data. “And it’s going higher and higher all the time. It’s costing families nearly $6,000 a year, bigger than any tax increase ever proposed.”
While the former president didn’t provide his own estimate for the true rate of inflation, an alternative CPI inflation gauge developed by economist John Williams, calculated according to the same methodology used by the U.S. government in the 1980s, puts the figure at 17.3 percent, a 75-year high.
Trump also said he believes that the country is facing a “much bigger problem than recession,” telling rally-goers that Americans now face a combination of high inflation and slow growth, known as stagflation, and that they should brace for a full-blown depression.
“Where we’re going now could be a very bad place,” he said.
“Not recession. Recession’s a nice word. We’re going to have a much bigger problem than recession. We’ll have a depression.”
Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore’s high-profile progressive prosecutor who was indicted on federal charges, has been defeated in her bid for reelection as the city’s state’s attorney in the Democratic Party primary.
Ivan Bates, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, won with 30,486 votes or about 40 percent; Thiru Vignarajah, 31 percent; and Mosby, 29 percent, according to results released by the Maryland State Board of Elections.
Bates criticized Mosby, a two-term incumbent, on the campaign trail over what he called the mismanagement and incompetence of her office. He often said that he ran to make Baltimore safer.
“I am humble, grateful, and excited that Baltimore decided it was time for a change, and the voters have placed their trust and belief in me,” Bates wrote to his supporters in an email announcing his victory on July 23.
“The job of helping build a safer Baltimore is a tremendous challenge. I am ready to lead—and to work with collaborators of all stripes to help make that a reality.”
During Mosby’s two terms, homicides in Baltimore rose steadily, averaging 333 every year between 2015 and 2021. This year’s numbers are on track to surpass those of 2021, according to Baltimore Police Department data.
During Mosby’s predecessor Gregg Bernstein’s final term, the city had a yearly average of 215 murders.
To fight crime, Bates proposes a five-point prosecution plan (pdf), including putting more resources into prosecuting illegal gun possessors, users, and traffickers, according to his campaign website.
He ran against Mosby in the 2018 primary and lost.
City state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby (C) departs the courthouse in Baltimore on June 23, 2016. (Bryan Woolston/Reuters)
Mosby wrote in a social media post to her supporters on July 23: “I am grateful to my family and my colleagues in the State’s Attorney’s office for their commitment to our city and all their hard work on behalf of the citizens of Baltimore. We have so much to be proud of and I am forever indebted to so many for their love, support, and partnership over these past eight years.”
She ran her reelection campaign on her record of reducing the population behind bars, holding police officers accountable for their actions, and reviewing convictions for potential exoneration.
A former city prosecutor and wife of a Baltimore councilman, Mosby unseated incumbent Bernstein in 2014 after a robust grassroots campaign.
Months after she took office, she grabbed national headlines by prosecuting six police officers over the death of Freddie Gray. However, all charges, including murder and manslaughter, were later dropped.
Mosby also fired a slew of veteran prosecutors upon taking office, including a 20-year veteran in the middle of an armed robbery trial against a violent repeat offender. She instead hired young, inexperienced lawyers to fill the posts.
Many veterans resigned, including Roya Hanna, who now works as a defense attorney.
In a previous interview, Hanna told The Epoch Times that while working as a defense attorney, she saw the quality of prosecution plummet under Mosby, from plea offers to trial performance.
“These prosecutors are young, and they don’t know what they don’t know. There is such a high turnover that they don’t have many old guards around to seek guidance from,” Hanna told The Epoch Times.
Hanna is running as an independent in the race and will face Bates in the general election. Baltimore is heavily Democratic, and there is no Republican candidate in the race.
At the height of the pandemic, Mosby also stopped prosecuting nine categories of nonviolent, low-level crimes, including drug possession, prostitution, and trespassing. She later made the policy permanent.
In January, Mosby was indicted on federal charges of perjury and making false mortgage applications. She allegedly made false applications to withdraw retirement money to purchase a vacation home in Florida. Mosby has pleaded not guilty on all charges.
In a February status report, federal prosecutors said they anticipated the trial to take place in days.
However, U.S. District Judge Lydia Griggsby later agreed to Mosby’s request to postpone the trial date until after the Democratic primary. The trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 19.
White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci conceded Wednesday morning that COVID-19 vaccines don’t protect “overly well” against the virus.
Speaking during a Fox News interview, Fauci told host Neil Cavuto that “one of the things that’s clear from the data [is] that … vaccines—because of the high degree of transmissibility of this virus—don’t protect overly well, as it were, against infection.”
But Fauci said later that the vaccines “protect quite well against severe disease leading to hospitalization and death” before he made note of his recent COVID-19 diagnosis.
“At my age, being vaccinated and boosted, even though it didn’t protect me against infection, I feel confident that it made a major role in protecting me from progressing to severe disease,” said Fauci, who is 81 and has worked in various capacities in the federal government since the late 1960s. He’s also headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since the Reagan administration.
Fauci then said it’s because of the vaccination that it is “very likely why I had a relatively mild course.”
Natural Immunity
The official’s comments come just days after a bombshell study revealed that natural immunity, or the immunity conferred via a previous COVID-19 infection, provides superior protection against the virus when compared with vaccines.
Researchers in Qatar said that individuals who survived a COVID-19 infection and weren’t vaccinated had very high protection against severe or fatal disease.
“Effectiveness of primary infection against severe, critical, or fatal COVID-19 reinfection was 97.3 percent … irrespective of the variant of primary infection or reinfection, and with no evidence for waning. Similar results were found in sub-group analyses for those ≥50 years of age,” Dr. Laith Abu-Raddad of Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar wrote.
But the researchers noted that both natural and artificial immunity conferred via vaccines waned over time. People who were previously infected with COVID-19 and were not vaccinated had half the risks of reinfection as compared to those that were vaccinated with two doses but not infected.
During an interview with the Washington Post this week, Fauci suggested that Americans aged 5 to 50 should be allowed to get a second booster shot.
The federal government, he argued, “need[s] to allow people who are under 50 to get their second booster shot, since it may have been months since many of them got their first booster.”
“If I got my third shot [in 2021], it is very likely the immunity is waning,” Fauci proclaimed.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Friday introduced a bill in the House to bar the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from acquiring ammunition.
The bill (pdf), known as the “Disarm the IRS Act,” stipulates that the IRS is “prohibited from acquiring ammunition” and “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) are co-sponsors of the measure, according to his office.
It came after Gaetz, in interviews with Fox News and other outlets, expressed concern after he discovered that the IRS purchased more than $700,000 in ammunition in recent days. The congressman suggested that it’s part of a broader White House plan to disarm Americans.
“Here’s the Biden plan: Disarm Americans, open the border, empty the prisons–but rest assured, they’ll still collect your taxes, and they need $725,000 worth of ammunition, apparently, to get the job done,” he told Fox News last week.
The bill, he said, would put a “total moratorium on the IRS buying ammo. When we used to talk about the IRS being weaponized, we were talking about political discrimination, not actual weapons for the IRS.”
“Undeniably, part of the strategy is that with one hand, the Biden regime is doing everything they can to suppress access to ammunition for regular Americans, while with the other hand, they are scooping up all the ammo that they can possibly find,” Gaetz alleged.
5 Million Rounds
According to a report released by the Government Accountability Office in 2018, the IRS has been stockpiling ammunition and weapons for years. As of 2018, the agency had 4,487 firearms and 5,062,006 rounds of ammunition in its inventory, the report said.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) walks in a courtroom in Atlanta, Ga., on April 22, 2022. (John Bazemore/Pool/Getty Images)
A 2018 report from Forbes noted that the IRS buys guns and ammunition for its Criminal Investigation Division. Agents in that division are the only employees in the IRS that carry firearms, according to its website.
But in an interview last month with Breitbart, Gaetz said he’s heard concerns that it’s part of a larger trend to “have any entity in the federal government buy up ammo to reduce the amount of ammunition that is in supply, while at the same time, making it harder to produce ammo.”
“You cannot fully exercise the complement of your Second Amendment rights if you are unable to acquire ammunition in your own country because your government has reduced the production of that ammunition, and then on the other hand, tried to soak up the supply,” the congressman added.
Republicans in June expressed concerns over a report suggesting the Biden administration would block private ammunition companies from using the federally owned ammo factory in Missouri, potentially creating a “backdoor” ban on AR-15-style rifles. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of the GOP leadership, later confirmed that the White House will keep the Lake City factory running.
The IRS and Treasury Department have not responded to requests for comment.
The House on June 9 voted to pass a bill put forward by Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), the latest in a series of gun control bills put forward by Democrats in the lower chamber.
The bill passed in a 224–202 vote.
Only one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), voted against it.
Five Republicans—Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), and Fred Upton (R-Mich)—defected from their party in support of the bill. Of the five, only Fitzpatrick is seeking reelection this year.
Red flag laws, already enacted by many states across the country, have long been controversial.
Generally, these types of laws allow someone to bring a claim to an emergency court hearing alleging that another person is mentally unwell and is a danger to themselves or others. If the court accepts the claim, the person targeted can be “flagged” and prevented from buying firearms and can have any firearms in their possession seized by police.
Proponents of this type of law say it’s a necessary way to ensure that potentially dangerous people don’t possess firearms.
In a June 9 tweet, President Joe Biden called for the passage of the bill.
Referencing mass shootings in Fort Hood, Texas, and Parkland, Florida, Biden wrote, “Red flag laws could have stopped both shooters.”
Critics say that these laws deny gun owners their Second Amendment rights without due process.
“Red-flag gun confiscation laws destroy due process rights & the #2A,” wrote Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in a tweet. “I’m voting NO.”
On the House floor, Greene expanded on her criticism of the bill.
“We don’t agree on much these days here in Congress,” Greene said. “But I know there’s one thing we all agree on: We all agree that we really like guns.
“See, we are the special privileged elites. We are the ones in this chamber being protected by guns while the American people don’t have men and women with guns outside their homes [protecting them].
“The same Congress that’s voting to send just millions and millions of dollars worth of guns to Ukraine so that they can defend themselves is the same Congress that’s working as hard as possible to take away Second Amendment rights from Americans.”
The bill will now head to the Senate, where it’s all but doomed to fail.
On June 8, after a day of fierce debate, the House voted to pass the “Protecting Our Kids” Act, a package of gun control bills with little chance of success in the Senate.
The final vote on the bill in the Democrat-majority chamber was preceded by a series of motions to retain various sections of the legislation; each section was ultimately retained, and the House voted 223–204 to pass the legislation to the Senate. Five Republicans voted for the bill and two Democrats voted against it.
The bills were split into several pieces and confirmed in bipartisan votes; the legislation included various previously introduced gun control bills.
The first of these would ban the sale of “any semi-automatic centerfire rifle or semi-automatic centerfire shotgun that has, or has the capacity to accept, an ammunition feeding device with a capacity exceeding 5 rounds” to citizens below the age of 21. Currently, anyone aged 18 years and over can buy such a weapon.
The House voted 228–199 to retain the title; 10 Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the measure; two Democrats voted against their party in electing to strike down the measure.
The legislation would also codify the Department of Justice’s controversial ban on bump stocks, a weapon modification that increases the fire rate of a semi-automatic firearm.
The House voted 233–194 to retain that title, including 13 Republican votes. No Democrats voted against it.
In addition, the bill would make it a federal crime to possess weapons that critics have pejoratively labeled “ghost guns”—a term usually describing homemade or 3D-printed weapons without a serial number.
The House voted 220–205 to retain the title, including three Republican votes in favor and two Democrat votes against the title.
Another title of the bill that bans high-capacity magazines was passed 220–207, with four Republicans voting for the measure and four Democrats voting against it.
In the Senate, negotiations continue between Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who are working to reach a compromise acceptable to at least 60 members of the upper chamber.
Cornyn has indicated that negotiators will need at least another week to reach any such agreement, and the Senate has paid little attention to the goings-on in the House as they work to hammer out a compromise.
A retired judge was shot and killed at his home in Wisconsin on Friday in what has been described by officials as a “targeted” attack against the judicial system.
John Roemer, a former circuit judge in Juneau County, is believed to be the victim of the murder that happened in New Lisbon at around 6:30 a.m. on June 3, according to reports. The 68-year-old man was found in a residence that a neighbor and public records said belonged to a retired county judge.
A second person, identified as a 56-year-old male and the alleged suspect, was discovered in the basement of the home with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said during a news conference on Friday, also noting that a firearm was recovered from the scene.
Upon recovering the man, law enforcement started life-saving measures and the individual has been transported to a medical facility in critical condition.
Kaul, who refused to name the victim or the suspect, said the shooter had selected targets who were “part of the judicial system” and had other planned victims. The attorney general did not identify them.
“This incident appears to be a targeted act … and the suspect appears to have had other targets as well. It appears to be related to the judicial system,” Kaul said.
“At this point, we are not aware of any evidence indicating that there is any active danger to other individuals. Those who may have been other targets have been notified,” he said, adding that if the investigation finds additional threats against other individuals, authorities will notify those people.
Kaul stressed that officials are currently “limited in what information we can provide,” citing the ongoing investigation.
The judge’s death was also confirmed in a statement by State Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), who represents Juneau County, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
The Juneau County Sheriff’s Office received a call that two shots were fired at a home in New Lisbon at approximately 6:30 a.m. on Friday, according to the Division of Criminal Investigation. The caller had fled the home where the gunman had entered and made the call from another nearby home.
Donna Voss, a neighbor, told The Associated Press that local police instructed her to stay in her home Friday morning. She said she heard law enforcement on a loudspeaker telling the man to surrender and leave the home.
Kaul said during Friday’s press briefing that law enforcement officers stationed outside the home tried to negotiate with the gunman, but after they failed to make contact, a special tactic and response team entered the residence and found the homeowner dead and another man in the basement.
For Voss, the shooting came as a shock in a usually quiet neighborhood where houses sit alongside farmland and wooded lots, about 80 miles northwest of Madison.
“It’s unbelievable and really freaky,” she told The Associated Press.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin are moving their states in opposite directions.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin are moving their states in opposite directions.
Gov. Youngkin is focused on lowering the cost of living and improving Virginia’s appeal as a place to do business. Boeing’s recent announcement that it is moving from Illinois to Virginia is an example of his efforts. Youngkin’s aggressive pro-jobs push led CNBC to call Virginia the No. 1 state in the country for business.
As Youngkin said when announcing Boeing was coming to Virginia, “From day one, our goal has been to make Virginia the best place to live, work, and raise a family.” Youngkin appears to be meeting this goal.
By contrast, Gov. Wolf has been making Pennsylvania more expensive to live in and less attractive to businesses seeking to invest and create jobs.
Wolf’s most recent attack on the Pennsylvania standard of living was an executive order to have the state join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). This Big Government Socialist left-wing regulatory regime is designed to reduce greenhouse gases – no matter what it costs the average citizen in higher prices and fewer jobs.
The RGGI is a coalition of northeastern states that have joined in an economic suicide pact to make their economies less competitive, less desirable for job creation, and a lot more expensive for the people who still live there. New York alone has lost more than 1 million residents in the last decade as they move to lower cost, job-friendly states.
This is the kind of anti-citizen, anti-consumer, anti-jobs psychology which is driving people out of the Northeast and toward Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and other less expensive and more practical states.
Gov. Youngkin rescued Virginia from going down the job-killing, price-increasing northeastern model. He is orienting Virginia firmly to the Sunbelt job creation, consumer-friendly, lower cost model.
The cost of Gov. Wolf’s anti-fossil fuel initiative will be particularly expensive in Pennsylvania, which is the home of the Marcellus Shale (an enormous source for natural gas that has an estimated 400-year supply). In fact, Pennsylvania is the third largest producer of power in America. So, Gov. Wolf’s executive order directly attacks one of his own state’s greatest assets.
Furthermore, according to “Scientific American,” natural gas has largely replaced coal power in the state and “generated 52 percent of Pennsylvania’s power in 2020.” This shift from coal to natural gas has meant a dramatic reduction in carbon loading of the atmosphere, but instead of accelerating Pennsylvania’s production of natural gas Gov. Wolf is punishing it. In the process, he’s also punishing Pennsylvanians who must pay their energy bills.
According to Sens. Gene Yaw (R-23) and John Yudichak (I-14), “the Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) projects the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) could nearly quadruple new electricity costs for consumers.”
The Wolf executive order will be a major issue in the fall campaign for governor. The Republican nominee, State Sen. Doug Mastriano, like virtually all the Pennsylvania Republican legislators, is deeply opposed to raising costs for Pennsylvanians and would repeal the Wolf executive order if elected.
The Democrat nominee for governor, current State Atty. Gen. Josh Shapiro, has been wavering on the executive order. His office approved the Wolf executive order but explained that it was only a technical approval of the language’s legality – not a policy agreement. (What a tremendous show of political courage.)
Shapiro is going to have a real dilemma. The more that average Pennsylvanians hear about the cost-increasing and job-killing nature of Wolf’s executive order, the more they are going to oppose it. However, the left wing of the Democrat Party is deeply committed to regulating greenhouse gas – no matter the cost in jobs and prices.
Mastriano will clearly have an easier time following the Youngkin example toward lower costs and more jobs.
The left’s push for more gun control omit the many cases that go against their narrative, such as instances where guns were used to neutralize shooters, according to Erich Pratt, the senior vice president of Gun Owners of America (GOA), a gun rights advocacy organization that represents more than 2 million Americans.
“The left is all about pushing gun control. It’s absolutely disgusting what they’re doing. They’re pushing gun control, they’re fundraising off of this within hours of the shooting,” Pratt told NTD’s Capitol Report, referring to the May 24 shooting that killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
“And really, it’s despicable because it becomes clear they only care about certain deaths,” he said.
Politicians and activists pushing for gun control neglect to talk about cities that already have the policies they want to implement for the entire nation, he said.
“For example, more than 40 people have been shot and killed in Chicago this month. In the last 30 days, in Baltimore, there had been 20 people shot and killed. But the left is not talking about that. They’re not fundraising off of Chicago or Baltimore because they already have very strict gun control,” Pratt noted.
“Those cities don’t serve their cause—[they] have red-flag, gun confiscation orders, they have universal background registration checks, they have so-called assault weapons bans, they have everything that the left is trying to push on us, and yet they have murders out the wazoo in those two cities that they can’t control it.
“And what that tells us, obviously, is that gun control is not the answer,” he said.
Pratt noted examples of past deadly attacks that did not involve guns, and said that blaming a certain instrument for mass attacks is “short-sighted because no law that bans a certain object is going to stop an evil-determined heart from killing.”
“What’s amazing, and this is one of the things that the anti-gun left does, is they only talk about certain uses of a firearm, which fit their narrative when they’re used in a bad way. But then they won’t talk about firearms when they’re actually used to stop mass shootings,” Pratt said.
Pratt noted how, on May 25, the day after the mass shooting in Uvalde, a woman with a concealed carry permit in West Virginia shot and killed a man who had started firing an AR-style rifle into a crowd of people at a birthday-graduation party.
He accused the left-wing media of generating opposition to people’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms “by only selectively talking about certain stories,” and neglecting stories that show how guns may be used to avert more deaths.
“A lot of times where there has been a lot of killing … they are brought to an end by a good guy with a gun,” he said.
Pratt shared the story of Stephen Willeford, who is currently GOA’s spokesperson. As an armed citizen, Willeford in November 2017 stopped a shooter at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, from potentially killing more people.
“Sadly, everyone at that church in Sutherland Springs did not have a gun on that day except for the bad guy,” Pratt said. “But when Steven Willeford, who lived down the street heard the shooting, he ran out of his house barefoot with his AR-15 [and] called the guy out of the church. That guy came out and Steven mortally wounded him.”
“I mean, the guy got in his car, drove off but eventually took his own life because he was wounded so bad,” he continued. “The FBI cited that case and many other cases as examples where armed citizens use guns to stop attempted mass murders.”
Pratt argued against the concept of gun-free zones, saying they only serve to be places where shooters seek to go. The Uvalde shooting was an example of that, he noted.
“It’s really important to point out that in most cases, these killers will try to seek out a location where it’s a gun-free zone. You know, 81 percent of police agree that teachers and staff should be armed, and with good reason because no school has ever had a mass shooting where there were armed teachers and staff,” he said.
“But tragically, that wasn’t the case at the Texas School. Police were reportedly not quick to rush in. And this Texas school didn’t take part in the program that allows teachers to be armed, so it was a gun-free zone.
“And again, that’s what killers often choose to target. And why would 94 percent of mass shooters target gun-free zones? Because they don’t want bullets being fired back at them.
“That’s why they don’t target police stations or gun shows because killers love gun control. And sadly, that’s what enabled this killer in Texas.”
The protection afforded against the Omicron coronavirus variant fades quickly after a second and third dose of Pfizer–BioNtech’s COVID-19 vaccine, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the JAMA Network.
A Danish study published in the JAMA Network on May 13 found that there was a rapid decline in Omicron-specific serum neutralizing antibodies only a few weeks after the administration of the second and third doses of the vaccine.
The study evaluated 128 adults who were vaccinated, and of that number, 73 people received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and 55 people received three doses between January 2021 and October 2021 or were previously infected before February 2021, and then vaccinated.
“Our study found a rapid decline in Omicron-specific serum neutralizing antibody titers only a few weeks after the second and third doses,” an abstract of the study reads. “The observed decrease in population neutralizing antibody titers corresponds to the decrease in vaccine efficacy against polymerase chain reaction–confirmed Omicron infection in Denmark and symptomatic Omicron infection in the United Kingdom.”
The antibody levels, which are associated with protection against future infections, dropped within a few weeks of getting the vaccine doses. They were also much lower than the antibodies specific to the Delta and original COVID-19 strains, according to the study.
The proportion of Omicron-specific antibodies fell to 53 percent between the eighth and tenth week from 76 percent four weeks after the second dose. At weeks 12 to 14, these levels dropped even more to only 19 percent, according to the study.
Those antibodies increased with a third dose, increasing 21-fold three weeks after the dose before dropping to eightfold at week four. But with the third dose, antibody levels dropped as early as three weeks, falling 5.4-fold between the third and eighth week, the researchers said.
They concluded that it may be needed to provide additional booster doses to combat the Omicron variant, which emerged last fall, primarily among older individuals.
However, a study from Israeli researchers published in early April in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a fourth dose, or a second booster, of the Pfizer vaccine, doesn’t offer strong protection.
“Overall, these analyses provided evidence for the effectiveness of a fourth vaccine dose against severe illness caused by the omicron variant, as compared with a third dose administered more than 4 months earlier,” the study’s authors wrote at the time, after analyzing data from the Israeli Ministry of Health. “For confirmed infection, a fourth dose appeared to provide only short-term protection and a modest absolute benefit.”
Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein says people should be prepared for an economic recession amid elevated inflation and record-high gas prices.
Blankfein, who led the investment banking firm between 2006 and 2018, said Americans should brace for a dim economic future, he told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” in an interview on May 15. He now holds the title of senior chairman.
“It’s definitely a risk,” he said. “If I were running a big company, I would be very prepared for it. If I was a consumer, I’d be prepared for it, but it’s not baked in the cake.”
Some of the poorest Americans will feel the worst effects of inflation, he said, adding that a recession is “a very, very high risk factor.”
“It’s going to be hard for people to have savings,” Blankfein said. “But [if] they already have savings they’re not going to necessarily increase it quickly because of inflation. But they’re starting in a much better place than we were then.”
According to data provided by automotive service AAA, the average price for a gallon of regular gas nationwide stands at around $4.47, with prices hitting nearly $6 per gallon on average in California. At the same time, parents have expressed concern about baby formula shortages as consumer prices rose by about 8.3 percent in April as compared with a year ago.
“How comfortable are we now to rely on those supply chains that are not within the borders of the United States and we can’t control?” Blankfein said. “Do we feel good about getting all our semiconductors from Taiwan, which is again, an object of China,” he added, apparently referring to the Chinese regime’s threats against the self-governed country in recent months.
“But I think the Fed has very powerful tools. It’s hard to finely tune them, and it’s hard to see the effects of them quickly enough to alter it, but I think they’re responding well. It’s definitely a risk.”
Last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged that increasing interest rates will “include some pain,” but added that a far worse outcome would be for prices to continue spiking.
In March, the Fed approved a quarter-percentage-point rate increase. But some analysts say they are concerned that policymakers have fallen too far behind to curb price increases without the sort of sharp rate hikes that might trigger a recession.
The Lenin Scholar is slated for a confirmation hearing Thursday
President Joe Biden’s nominee to regulate banks stole hundreds of dollars of merchandise from a discount retail store, according to a police report revealed Wednesday.
Saule Omarova, whom Biden tapped to serve as Comptroller of the Currency, was arrested after she was caught stuffing $214 worth of clothes, shoes, cologne, and belts in her purse at a T.J. Maxx in Madison, Wis., in May 1995. Omarova was 28 years old at the time and studying for her doctorate at the University of Wisconsin.
Omarova is slated to appear before the Senate Banking Committee for her confirmation hearing Thursday. If confirmed, Omarova will oversee regulation of the country’s banking system. The police report, published by the American Accountability Foundation, could get her into further hot water with Senate Republicans who say she supports radical economic policies.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, has pressed Omarova to turn over a copy of a thesis she wrote on Karl Marx while studying at Moscow State University in the late 1980s. Omarova, who attended the school on a Lenin scholarship, scrubbed her résumé of a reference to the Marx thesis at some point over the last few years.
Omarova, a professor at the Cornell Law School, has said she wants to “end banking as we know it” by requiring bank deposits to be held with the Federal Reserve, rather than private banks. Omarova has also proposed the creation of a federal agency, the National Investment Authority, that would fulfill the goals of the Green New Deal by investing in infrastructure projects. Omarova said one goal of the National Investment Authority would be for oil and gas companies to go “bankrupt” in order to fight climate change.
Omarova will likely need unanimous Democratic support in order to be confirmed, but some moderates have expressed concern about her views. Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said he has not decided whether he will vote to confirm Omarova. Sens. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) are reportedly on the fence about her nomination.
The White House downplayed the theft allegations against Omarova in a statement to Fox News prior to the release of the police report. A White House spokesperson said Omarova has been “fully transparent” about the incident by disclosing it to the Senate Banking Committee, and that her arrest was the result “of a misunderstanding and confusing situation.”
The police report contradicts that claim. According to the report, Omarova “admitted to have stolen the items,” which consisted of four pairs of shoes, two bottles of cologne, two belts, and a pair of socks.
A recent training session for ballot reviewers in Seattle, Washington, provides the perfect illustration why Democrats should never be allowed to set the nationwide voting standards.
Post Millennial reporter Katie Daviscourt shared video of an official with King County Elections discussing a mail-in voting envelope that was missing a ballot from the Nov. 2 election.
Instead, there was a candidate statement page taken out of the voter guide for the defeated Seattle mayoral candidate Lorena Gonzalez with an “L” or checkmark with a “+” sign written at the bottom.
“If there had been no handwriting at all, we would have just called this superfluous materials and we wouldn’t bring it before the board,” the official said.
But given the markings, the election official brought it before the voter board for review.
She further noted if the “voter” had circled Gonzalez’s name on the page, then there would not even be a question. The vote would count, because intent is clear.
WOW! During a review board, officials in Seattle admit that if someone were to write a candidates name on a napkin their vote would be counted.pic.twitter.com/EXHjuxtmGJ
“So, even if someone took a napkin and wrote the office, the race, and their selection, that would be enough?” the official was asked.
She replied, “That would be enough and we would count that as a vote.”
With the Seattle mayor’s post being officially nonpartisan, the race featured Gonzalez, the progressive president of the Seattle City Council, versus Bruce Harrell, a former City Council president.
Harrell won with a crushing 61.9 percent of the vote to 37.8 percent for Gonzalez, according to Ballotpedia.
As The New York Times noted in an April 2020 report, Democratic-dominated Washington state is one of only five states in the country where elections are conducted entirely by mail. (The state also offers same-day voter registration up to Election Day, according to the secretary of state’s office website.)
So, the standards for counting a mail-in voter matter there even more than most places. And as the video shows, those standards are so low as to be non-existent.
The bottom line is Democrats do not care about voter fraud.
In the name of preventing “voter suppression,” they will count any kind of vote.
That is why it is vital that House Resolution 1, the “For the People Act,” or any variation close to it, must never become law.
Do you think a ballot should be required to vote?
The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, stated at the Election Integrity Virtual Conference at Regent University in the spring, “H.R. 1 is the worst bill I’ve ever seen and the most dangerous bill I have ever seen when it comes to elections.”
The legislation, which passed the House in March with no Republican support, would overturn voter ID laws, which are present in 34 states.
Other changes included in the bill would require states to allow same-day voter registration, ballot harvesting and automatic voter registration.
Automatic voter registration would mean large numbers of the millions of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. would be registered to vote if they have any interaction with a government agency, such as obtaining a driver’s license or attending a state university.
What the nation needs after all the uncertainly and questions surrounding the November 2020 elections is more confidence in the process, not less.
Believe it or not, people do cheat, and the easier you make it to cheat, the more cheating you’ll get.
Requiring voters to actually use a ballot is a pretty baseline rule. At least the number of ballots mailed and to whom they were sent can be tracked.
With a napkin or any other piece of paper, this is not true and should never be counted.
A group of Virginia parents say they have secured enough signatures on petitions to remove the school board chair they say has endangered their children and placed woke politics ahead of education.
Fight for Schools filed the recall documents in Loudoun County Circuit Court on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.
The filing said board President Brenda Sheridan broke open meetings laws by using closed Facebook groups as a way to discuss school business without the public being aware. Sheridan is also accused of violating the First Amendment rights of parents by limiting public comment at meetings.
The board chair is also accused of mishandling a sexual assault case in the schools in which a student who was accused of a sexual assault was shunted from one school to another, where he has been accused of another sexual assault.
“Today, we just filed 1200 signatures to remove the chairwoman of Loudoun County School Board, Brenda Sheridan,” Fight for Schools Executive Director Ian Prior told Fox News. “We decided that for the chairwoman and the vice-chairwoman, the buck stops with them, that we were going to draft new petitions … We were able to finish those off in 13 days.”
The group says it also has petitions to remove Board Vice-Chair Atoosa Reaser and board members Ian Serotkin and Denise Corbo, all with more than enough signatures to meet the legal requirement to trigger a recall. In Virginia, elected officials can be recalled if a petition to remove them receives a number of signatures equal to 10 percent of the votes cast in the previous election, Fox reported.
Have school boards become rubber stamps for liberals?
The intent to recall all of the board members was expressed during a public comment period at Tuesday’s board meeting.
“By the way, Denise, Brenda, Ian, Atoosa, we are well over 100% of required signatures for the petitions,” Megan Jenkins said, according to Fox News. “So I’m not going to encourage any of you to resign because when you are recalled and removed from office, it will be much more satisfying. See you in court.”
“I have the privilege of telling you that we are finished collecting signatures for your removal,” parent Jessica Mendez said during the meeting.
“I used to think that there was no point in speaking at these meetings,” Mendez said. “There was no point in trying to have a voice because you never seem to listen, anyway. But I had it all wrong. It wasn’t you who needed to hear our voices. It was all those parents, grandparents and neighbors listening at home, horrified at your actions or inactions. They were the ones who needed to hear us, and they were the ones who sign petitions, see you in court.”
“For six months, Fight for Schools has been out collecting signatures in the heat, the cold, the rain and even hail,” Prior said on Monday. “To get 20,000 signatures during that time is a testament to the dedication of our volunteers and an engaged community that wants to see a change on its school board.”
“We are looking forward to the next steps and replacing school board members that are political servants with non-partisan public servants who will put the focus back on excellence in education,” he said.
Sheridan issued a statement in reply.
“My election was a mandate from those who came to the polls — three times — to choose me as their representative. Tuesday’s filing is the result of a fraction of those citizens signing a petition, whether they voted or not,” she said, according to the Post.
But Prior said change is necessary.
“From violating open meetings law to ignoring the school board’s code of conduct to neglecting to keep our children safe, all for her activist causes, Sheridan has been nothing short of a disaster,” Prior said, the Post reported.
“Let this serve as a message to the rest of the board and Superintendent Ziegler,” he said. “We’re still here, and we’re not going anywhere.”
Procedurally, if recall cases go to trial, a judge or a jury rules on the removal of a board member. The board then gets 45 days to appoint an interim replacement and 15 days to schedule a special election, according to Fox.
In addition to issues over student safety, parents have objected to the district embracing Critical Race Theory, as explained Tuesday night by parent Erin Dunbar, who accused the board of using tax dollars to teach “critical theory of the Marxist philosophy,” Fox reported.
“You have activist teachers using to indoctrinate their kids who are at the mercy of their authority,” she said. “That is child abuse. And you have no right to brainwash children into believing that their skin color determines their purpose.”
COLORADO SPRINGS — They admitted it. Now they think they can get away with it.
Three weeks ago, I reported to you on the appalling case of sixth grade student Rylee M., who was pressured by teachers at Chinook Trail Middle School to seal her mask to her face with thick blue painter’s tape. Another schoolmate came forward to describe how those teachers would patrol their classrooms for violators while twirling the tape rolls around their wrists.
Skeptics accused the children of manufacturing the story and of voluntarily putting the tape on themselves. Others, including the Colorado Springs Police Department school resource officer stationed at Chinook Trail, baselessly dismissed the incident as a prank committed by a teacher in “jest.” Gaslighters in the school district and their supporters misleadingly denied that teachers applied the tape directly to victims’ faces — something Rylee and her mom never alleged. By mischaracterizing the actual allegations, public school propagandists deflected attention from the brazen abuse of authority exercised by educators who issued de facto ultimatums that children comply with their directive to use the tape handed to them. Or else.
On Monday, after the district’s three-week-long internal investigation, Chinook Trail Middle School principal Tom Andrew confirmed in a meeting with Rylee’s mom, Stephanie M., that teachers had indeed “directed students to affix a mask to their face with tape” — a cruel measure that only sadists, not sane public health advocates, could embrace. Moreover, the unfazed principal blandly acknowledged, “Yes,” the “students thought they were compelled to follow through” on the teachers’ “requests” (to choke themselves off).
“In short,” the principal told Rylee’s mom in his sing-song scripted voice, “district policy and procedures were broken,” “trust and respect” were “broken,” and “poor decisions” were made. Now, the principal told Stephanie M., it’s time “to move this forward” after “admitting our mistake” and “trust” the administration. The abusers will remain in the classroom with vulnerable 11- and 12-year-olds; any disciplinary measures will be kept “confidential”; and brave Rylee, who has been harassed over the incident, will now be enrolled in online school to keep her safe from the mask bondage bullies.
“It was never our intent,” the anonymous group of “Team 642” tape torturers wrote in a crappy little note to parents handed out Monday night at a meeting closed to the public, “to cause anxiety, fear, confusion, or physical or emotional harm.” Never mind that these petty tyrants wrought all of the above and will be shielded from any transparent punishment. “We look forward to returning to normal and continuing along this learning journey with your family,” the teachers (none of whom have reached out to Rylee or her mom directly) cheerily chirped.
Elitist privilege means always pretending to say you’re sorry without ever suffering consequences for wrongdoing.
Darcy Schoening, parent advocate and town of Monument Board of Trustees member, agrees. She believes “the teachers responsible for this behavior should be fired. Their names should be released. Parents have the right to know WHO is abusing their kids. Protecting the teachers’ identities and disciplinary actions is a slap in the face to parents.”
“It’s sickening to me,” Stephanie lamented as the principal echoed the educrats’ desire to get back out of the public spotlight and “resume normalcy.” She’s not going to let it drop. “I am not going to be quiet,” the work-at-home mom of three young daughters told KVOR-AM 740 radio talk show host Richard Randall this week. “Plenty of parents are willing to step up for their kids.” No doubt about it. The Election Day revolt against K-12 control freaks just demonstrated that parents across the country from Loudoun County, Virginia, to El Paso County, Colorado, to Los Angeles County, California, will not let COVID-era abnormalities hijack their children’s health and freedom.
With Justice Department goons and local cops treating parents protesting at school board meetings like criminals, we know we can’t rely on law enforcement to side with sovereignty-defenders over the State. Remember: Stephanie M. immediately contacted the Colorado Springs Police Department to report the abuse as soon as her daughter told her what happened. They blew her off. Instead, according to creepy public record files I obtained last week, at least three members of the CSPD’s Metropolitan Vice, Narcotics and Intelligence Division/Strategic Information Center passed around my Twitter and Gab posts about Rylee’s case to several CSPD command staff and other individuals whose names were redacted. A CSPD “Intelligence Unit” detective made note of my “2 million (yes, million) Twitter followers” (so what?), and a sergeant falsely claimed I was aware of protest plans at the school (I heard no such information until after administrators shut down the school on Oct. 25 amid an international maelstrom of public scrutiny and press coverage).
It’s getting impossible to “back the blue” when they stand down as antifa and Black Lives Matter attack you for defending law and order, kneel before the altar of George Floyd, enforce junk-science-based COVID-19 tyranny lining the pockets of Big Pharma and Big Government, and spy on you for standing up for parents fighting educational malpractice. Teach your children well.
Rev. Brian Hawkins doesn’t try to hide his troubled past. He believes in learning from mistakes, and he admits he’s made a few.
An ex-felon who spent 10 years in state prison for a series of low-level crimes, Hawkins eventually turned to faith. He is now a married Christian pastor and a devoted family man who cares deeply about his children’s education. Last year, he was elected to the city council in San Jacinto, Calif., and he’s running for Congress in 2022.
Hawkins, 43, believes in truth, forgiveness, and redemption, which are some of the many reasons he rejects critical race theory (CRT).
“I’m teaching my children how to respect people, how to care for all people. We’re teaching our children to not think of themselves more highly than anyone else, to have work ethic and positive attitude and mindset,” he said.
“I’m exposing my children to the history of America without them hating the history of America.”
Hands-on History
Last fall, Hawkins, his wife, Terri, and their children drove cross-country to Washington, D.C., where he stood in front of the slave auction block at Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“Had I not been able to see that stone, I wouldn’t have been able to tell my children that part of history,” said Hawkins.
“I said, ‘Listen, we’re looking at this through a museum, but 150 to 200 years ago, there were actual slaves—blacks or African Americans—who actually stood on this. But we’re not standing on this block anymore,” Hawkins said.
“So, my daughter looks at me and says, ‘Dad, we’ve come a long way.’ That moved me,” he said. “When you remove history, you don’t get to tell history. You don’t get to explain history.”
The family journeyed to Jamestown, Virginia to see where the first slaves were brought to America, to Washington, and to New York to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island to learn about immigrants who fled other countries to come to America for a better life.
“We wanted our children to learn history, not to hate people or not to look down on people for the color of their skin, or to blame the past or that someone else is responsible for your future. You charter your own destiny,” Hawkins said.
“We’re Christian and we’re raising out children in a Christian home, and so it’s alarming that my children have been subjected to so much hate and anger. … Those are the things that really bothered me in 2020.”
The anger that filled the streets and “really the atmosphere” during the summer of 2020 affected his children, he said, but as parents he and Terri were able to help them find their way through the crisis.
“I noticed that it put my kids in a different mindset from what we really wanted to teach them,” he said.
“I want to show them what life really is. I don’t have to teach my kids that we’re in 1963, 1854, or 1921, or different periods of time in history that are ridden with atrocities. I can teach my kids where we are right now.”
A Tale of ‘Equity’
With California’s Reparations Task Force talking about ways to close the wealth gap between black and white Americans, Hawkins, who is a descendant of slaves, likes to tells a different story about equity and incentives from the perspective of his nine-year old daughter, Naariah.
“She really looks up to me,” he said. “When I ran for council, she ran for school council, and she won last year. She was excited.”
Naariah Hawkins displays a poster she made for school. (Courtesy Brian Hawkins)
Not long after Hawkins announced he would run for Congress, the fourth-grader decided to run for the Eagle Elite Student Leadership Team at her school the San Jacinto Unified School District (SJUSD).
To qualify, students must campaign for the position. They were required to create an advertising poster board, take it to school, and talk to other students about why they were running for Eagle Elite and why they wanted to be a leader.
“So, my daughter over the weekend makes this beautiful board. She uses Stephen Covey’s [book] because she goes to a school where they use a curriculum from Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” Hawkins said.
She was one of three students to vie for Eagle Elite but the only one to make the poster.
“Nobody else did it,” Hawkins said.
Theoretically, because her opponents hadn’t followed the rules, they should have been disqualified, but they weren’t, he said.
Naariah campaigned on the issue, asking her schoolmates to vote for her because, unlike her opponents, she had followed the rules. But then her teacher announced all three students had won.
And, even though the teacher later whispered to Naariah she had earned the most votes, Hawkins said Naariah was disappointed.
The message of equity, social passes, and trophies for all is sending children the wrong message, that they don’t have to try to win, he said.
“It discouraged my daughter because she put forth all the effort to win only to turn around and find out that her efforts were meaningless because they were all winners,” Hawkins said.
Troubled Times
When Naariah came home from school with a teacher-recommended reading list that included a children’s book about Black Lives Matter (BLM), Hawkins decided it was time to get more involved in her education.
The book, “A Good Kind of Trouble,” essentially encourages young kids to get involved in the BLM movement, he said.
(Courtesy Brian Hawkins)
Hawkins ordered the book so he and Naariah could read it together.
The book’s main character, Shay, is allergic to trouble. Her sister Hana is involved in Black Lives Matter and after attending a protest, Shay decides some rules are worth breaking and wears an armband to school in support of the BLM movement.
“Tensions are high over the trial of a police officer who shot an unarmed Black man. When the officer is set free, and Shay goes with her family to a silent protest, she starts to see that some trouble is worth making,” is how Publishers Weekly describes the book by debut author Lisa Moore Ramée on its anti-racist children’s and young adults reading list.
But the lesson Naariah learned wasn’t the same. After reading the book, she told her dad she would never join BLM and that “it wasn’t for her,” Hawkins said.
Amazon describes the book as a “funny and big-hearted debut middle grade novel about friendship, family, and standing up for what’s right,” but Hawkins doesn’t buy the assumption BLM is fighting for a just cause.
To advance its own opportunistic and Marxist agenda, BLM has reopened old wounds to portray a false sense of history that ignores the fact slaves were freed more than 150 years ago, he said.
“They want to make it seem like it never happened so you can keep people in that mindset as though it’s still happening,” Hawkins said.
Ethnic Studies
During the summer, Hawkins attended several different school board and regional government meetings to protest CRT being taught in California classrooms under the guise of ethnic studies.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Oct. 8 making ethnic studies a statewide requirement for high school graduation starting in the 2029–30 school year. State Assembly Bill 101 also requires junior high schools to offer at least a one-semester course in ethnic studies by the 2025–26 school year.
(Courtesy Brian Hawkins)
Newsom signed the bill in the wake of the National School Board Association (NSBA) comparing angry parents protesting ethnic studies at school board meetings in recent months to a form of “domestic terrorism.” The NSBA later apologized for the remark.
The mainstream media has “hijacked” the conversation on CRT and pushed it to “uncomfortable levels” for many parents and students, he said.
At a Desert Sands Unified School District (DSUSD) board meeting in Riverside County, Hawkins urged the board of trustees to abandon the ethnic studies program which he sees as divisive and destructive. He asked trustees to level with parents about the intent of the curriculum and admit that it’s connected to CRT.
Many school board members, principals and teachers who claim CRT isn’t part of the ethnic studies program “have never studied critical race theory to qualify that,” Hawkins told the board at a July meeting.
“One of the principals said that it’s not intended to teach critical race theory, so I want to enlighten you, because eventually parents are going to come to understand that ethnic studies is the result of critical race theory.”
Hawkins cited Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leading scholar of CRT and professor at UCLA Law School and Columbia Law School. Crenshaw is best known for developing the theory of “intersectionality,” a term she coined in a 1989 paper, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.”
“So, to suggest that ethnic studies is not critical race theory, well, that’s far from the truth because right in your own curriculum is the word intersectionality,” he said. “To sit up here and play parents as though they’re not intelligent is going to be the worst mistake that you can ever make.”
Rather than ranking students on their level of “privilege” and portraying people of color as “the oppressed” and white people as their “oppressors,” schools should be teaching about children about freedom and equal opportunity, not pushing for guaranteed outcomes in the form of equity, Hawkins said.
(Courtesy Brian Hawkins)
“I’m teaching my children not to be angry at white people, not to be mad at history, but to understand it,” he told the board.
In the words on one principal, he said, it could “mess up a lot of students if the wrong person teaches ethnics studies.
“That’s a concern for me. The only people that are qualified to teach this class are totally biased. And, if you don’t think … black folks are prejudiced towards white people, you’re fooling yourself,” Hawkins said.
“There’s anger out there and society is feeding into that narrative. I grew up in the inner city, I know what it’s like,” he said. “I know the conversation that they’re having at barbecues and salons. Some of them won’t be honest enough to tell you, but they have been waiting. … There are some folks that are really ready for anarchy in this country.”
Hawkins said “it hurt” to see protesters burning the American flag on the Fourth of July. He celebrates Independence Day and Juneteenth because he believes “there’s a space in all of this for everybody to be equally respected.”
Hawkins told the board said he’s talked to Riverside County Sherriff Chad Bianco to “be a bridge” between law enforcement and the community.
“That’s something that I love calling myself—a bridge—because that’s what we need in society,” he said.
Hawkins warned if nothing is done to promote unity rather than the divisive rhetoric of CRT in California classrooms, eventually the blame will fall on the shoulders of school boards who refused to stand with the parents.
“It’s only going to get worse. And guess what? Some politicians are banking on this. Racism is a huge hustle,” he said.
If a new study coming out of Japan is to be believed, many countries across the world may need to change their strategies for combatting COVID-19.
A team of researchers from Harvard University in Massachusetts, Gakushuin University in Tokyo and Shizuoka University in Shizuoka compared Japanese municipalities that closed down their school systems in spring of 2020 to those that did not, according to study published in Nature Medicine.
The team of researchers conducted the study by examining 847 municipalities in Tokyo and Osaka.
As it turns out, the shutdown of schools did not prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus during the first wave of the pandemic, their study found.
In fact, the number of COVID cases per 100,000 people between the two groups of municipalities remained exactly the same, regardless of whether or not schools were shut down.
“We do not find any evidence that school closures in Japan reduced the spread of COVID-19,” one of the study’s authors wrote.
“Our null results suggest that policies on school closures should be re-examined given the potential negative consequences for children and parents.”
“School closures reduce children’s learning opportunities, negatively affect their physical and mental development and make it difficult for their parents to leave for work in the daytime,” co-researcher Dr Kentaro Fukumoto said, according to the Daily Mail UK.
“The central government should carefully consider whether to ask schools to close in the future.”
Should school shutdowns still be used to combat COVID?
This news may come as a shock to many public health experts around the world.
This includes those in the U.S., many of whom have repeatedly called for school shutdowns since the COVID pandemic began.
The Center for Disease Control even went as far as to create a guide for “considerations for school closures” as a method for stemming the spread of COVID.
While the plan did advise against closing schools “early in the spread of a disease,” it did maintain that “waiting to enact school closures until at the correct time in the epidemic” would prove helpful in slowing COVID-19’s spread.
NIAID Director Anthony Fauci has also supported the closure of schools in the past.
In July of 2020, Fauci said that “It’s been shown that children from 10 to 19 can transmit the virus to adults as well as adults can,” according to CNBC.
While acknowledging that keeping students at home can create “negative consequences,” Fauci further said that schools should nevertheless close down at certain times.
“When you get to the real hot zones, I think you’re going to have to take a really good look and examine the advisability or not,” Fauci said.
“What likely would happen is that you would have parents that don’t want to send their children to school or you’re going to have teachers that not going to want to be there.”
NIH to host seminar on vaccine mandates on Dec. 1, official says
A top infectious disease doctor has raised alarm about COVID-19 vaccine mandates despite top federal officials recommending them for businesses, schools, and other institutions.
Dr. Matthew Memoli, who runs a clinical studies unit within the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci—is scheduled to argue against COVID-19 vaccine mandates during a Dec. 1 seminar hosted by the agency, according to David Wendler, a senior NIH bioethicist who is planning the seminar.
“There’s a lot of debate within the NIH about whether [a vaccine mandate] is appropriate,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s an important, hot topic.”
Memoli had told Fauci in a July 30 email that he believes “the way we are using the vaccines is wrong,” adding that mandated vaccines are “extraordinarily problematic,” according to the WSJ.
In comments to the paper, Memoli said that he supports COVID-19 vaccination in high-risk groups including obese people and the elderly. However, widespread vaccinations for people who have a low risk of death or severe illness from COVID-19 could hamper the U.S. population’s ability to develop more robust protection against the virus via previous infections, he said.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study released last month suggested that those who had a previous COVID-19 infection saw a five times higher chance of testing positive than those who were fully vaccinated and never had COVID-19.
Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, who previously conducted a study that suggested people with natural immunity are at low risk of reinfection, told The Epoch Times that the CDC’s research was observational and said that “randomized controlled clinical trials are the gold standard of medical evidence.”
Memoli also told the paper that he has sought an exemption from the federal vaccine mandate on religious grounds, saying he is willing to risk his job and medical license for the right not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
Regarding the discussion, Memoli said that “part of my career is to share my expert opinions, right or wrong … I mean, if they all end up saying I’m wrong, that’s fine. I want to have the discussion.”
The NIH seminar comes as a federal appeals court temporarily blocked President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate targeting private businesses with 100 or more employees. About two-dozen states have filed lawsuits against the rule, arguing the federal government lacks the authority to implement it.
The NIH has not responded to a request for comment on the email. When contacted by The Epoch Times, an NIH official said Memoli would decline to comment.
The Epoch Times has also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain Memoli’s email.
President Joe Biden’s administration is sending notices to tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who were released into the U.S. interior without being given a date to appear in court, the government confirmed to The Epoch Times.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “is mailing charging documents to place noncitizens in removal proceedings who have been paroled or released under prosecutorial discretion by Customs and Border Protection,” an ICE spokesman told The Epoch Times in an email.
The illegal immigrants, numbering about 78,000, will receive packets of documents, including documents directing them to report to the ICE office closest to where they’re living, and that they will be processed for possible deportation.
Agents will log biometric information, take photographs, and inform them of future check-in requirements and court dates.
“Action will be taken against those that do not appear consistent with the law and department priorities. By mailing out these charging documents, ICE is initiating removal proceedings in a timely way,” the spokesperson stated.
Chad Wolf, former head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said the move showed the Biden administration had been dysfunctional in its handling of immigration enforcement.
“Since this admin could not effectively manage the border, DHS must now expend considerable resources to track down illegal immigrants,” he wrote on Twitter.
The U.S. immigration system, already burdened by a backlog of more than 1.4 million cases, has seen unprecedented illegal border crossings since Biden entered office in January.
The previous fiscal year record of illegal immigrant apprehensions was broken in September, and a new yearly record is all but certain to be set.
Normally, when illegal immigrants are apprehended by Border Patrol and they wish to claim credible fear of returning to their home country, or the first step in the asylum process, an asylum officer will conduct a credible fear screening.
Illegal immigrants who pass the screening are released into the U.S. interior and given one year to formally apply for asylum—which a significant number fail to do.
Under the crushing volume of illegal entries this year, however, the Biden administration has released hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants without official documents, giving them a notice to report to a local ICE office within 60 days.
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, wrote on Twitter that it would be interesting to see how many of the notices to appear are returned to the government, not to mention how many illegal immigrants actually show up in court.
Those who don’t comply with the notices face deportation, but can appeal. However, with a bogged down court system, she said, deportation is unlikely to happen quickly, if at all.
Amy Fischer, advocacy director at Amnesty International USA, told CBS, which first reported the mass mailings, that she was concerned immigrants may not receive the notices from Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
“We know that when people are entering, they give CBP an address and it’s typically an address of where they know somebody in the United States. But that doesn’t mean that it is where they will reside,” she said. “We also know that CBP has a long history of writing down inaccurate information.”
ICE has declined to say how many people were given the lower-level notices to report, and a Freedom of Information Act request for the data hasn’t yet been returned.
“Obviously, the better practice would be to have individuals be noticed to appear as opposed to noticed to report,” Chris Magnus, Biden’s nominee to head CBP, told a Senate panel last month.
Magnus, who said he wasn’t sure about the legal basis for issuing notices to report, blamed a dearth of asylum officers and immigration judges, and a “broken” immigration system on the change in policy.
Magnus also refused to say the situation at the border constitutes a crisis, a move that drew scorn from Republican lawmakers.
Human smugglers transported more than 100 illegal immigrants by ferry into Roma, Texas, Monday night in an incident captured in exclusive video showing coordination with National Guard members.
The video, posted by Breitbart Texas on Tuesday, revealed numerous migrants crossing from Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas, into Roma after being smuggled into the U.S.
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Smugglers Coordinate with National Guard to Ferry Migrants into South Texas https://t.co/haxhw48DIx
“The smugglers openly communicate with the soldiers and Border Patrol agents, coordinating where to beach the raft so children can easily climb the riverbank,” Breitbart Texas reported.
The report comes just days after the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security issued a memorandum on Oct. 29 announcing its plans to end the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols.
“After carefully considering the arguments, evidence, and perspectives presented by those who support re-implementation of MPP, those who support terminating the program, and those who have argued for continuing MPP in a modified form, I have determined that MPP should be terminated,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas wrote.
“In reaching this conclusion, I recognize that MPP likely contributed to reduced migratory flows. But it did so by imposing substantial and unjustifiable human costs on the individuals who were exposed to harm while waiting in Mexico,” Mayorkas added.
The Biden administration also soon re-implemented the Obama-era “catch and release” policy.
Former President Donald Trump released a statement in June blasting the Biden administration’s efforts to end his “Remain in Mexico” policy.
“Remain in Mexico, also known as MPP (Migrant Protection Protocols), was not only a historic foreign policy triumph but one of the most successful border security programs anyone has ever put into effect anywhere,” Trump said.
“Along with our Central America Safe Third agreements, asylum reforms, and expedited removal procedures we drove border numbers to record lows and we ENDED the horrendous practice known as Catch-and-Release,” he said.
“No American President had ever done more to defend the border and safeguard the whole immigration system.”
The same law used by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) as the basis for a sweeping intelligence program has also been interpreted to be highly restrictive on postal policing activities—raising questions among some critics about the legitimacy of USPS surveillance power.
When Postal Police Officers Association president Frank Albergo first read a leaked U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) memo about monitoring conservative anti-lockdown protestors, something in the fine print caught his eye.
Written at the bottom of the March bulletin, postal officials claim power to surveil and disseminate information about the right-wing protests under 18 U.S. Code 3061—a statute with which Albergo is familiar.
As a labor representative for some 500 postal police officers, Albergo has fought with the USPS over the meaning of U.S.C. 3061. Last summer, Postal Service authorities said 3061 largely confines postal police officers to USPS property—restricting them from patrolling the streets to protect letter carriers, blue collection boxes, and mail vehicles.
Albergo and his union think the USPS is restricting officers as a collective bargaining tactic to drive down their pay—by treating them as security guards rather than full police. But putting that dispute aside, Albergo said he’s puzzled at what he sees as a contradiction.
“So, according to the Postal Service, the law allows the Inspection Service to surveil Americans’ social media accounts while at the same time, the law doesn’t allow a uniformed police force to protect the mail and employees while away from postal premises,” Albergo told The Epoch Times. “Only in the topsy-turvy world of the Postal Service could this make sense.”
Privacy advocates also have concerns about what the USPS calls the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP)—the existence of which was first revealed in April by Yahoo News. The USPS faces lawsuits from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Judicial Watch, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and the James Madison Project over iCOP.
EFF senior staff attorney Aaron Mackey said he has similar questions about where the USPS derives its surveillance authority. While disclaiming that he’s not an expert in Postal Service law, Mackey said he found it “odd” that the iCOP bulletin relied on U.S.C. 3061 as the basis for the program.
“As I read the statute, it provides limited powers for postal service law enforcement to investigate crimes, seek search warrants, and make arrests, but the scope of those powers is limited to the functioning of the postal service, its property, and related laws that protect mail,” he said.
“It’s hard to square the sprawling iCOP surveillance program with the specific, limited law enforcement powers Congress created in section 3061,” he told The Epoch Times. “That’s partly why our FOIA lawsuit seeking records about iCOP has asked for documents that show the legal basis for the iCOP program.”
The USPIS—the law enforcement wing of the USPS—did not reply to questions about where it derives its authority for iCOP. USPS media contacts also did not respond.
Postal Service officials have previously defended iCOP as a legal open-source intelligence operation designed to protect its employees.
Albergo was blunter in his assessment of whether U.S.C. 3061 authorizes iCOP.
“Absolutely nothing in 3061 could be construed as allowing such broad law enforcement jurisdiction,” he said, accusing USPIS of wanting to be a “quasi-NSA.”
Albergo also criticized the wisdom of the USPIS devoting resources to surveillance ops at the expense of having officers on the streets.
Multiple reports suggest that the Postal Service has been dealing with a drastic upswing in theft, fraud, and violent crime.
In September 2020, NBC News published a story reporting a 600-percent increase in mail theft reports over the prior three years, from about 25,000 in 2017 to roughly 177,000 through August 2020. A May 2021 USPS Inspector General report further found a 161-percent increase in mail theft complaints from March 2020 to February 2021.
And last month, Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale announced that the USPIS responded to more than 7,000 reports of violent crimes against postal employees over the last year, including threats, assaults, and homicides.
“With the explosion in postal-related street crime, what exactly is the USPIS doing to stop it other than spending huge sums of money on surveillance?” Albergo asked. “The USPIS would rather investigate crime after it happens rather than stopping it.”
Albergo continues to fight for his officers to be back on the streets.
The Postal Police Officers Association initially sued over the matter in September 2020, after Deputy Chief Inspector (DCI) David Bowers issued a memorandum stating that U.S.C. 3061 confines postal police officers to USPS property—what’s now referred to as the Bowers Memo.
The Postal Police Officers Association sought an injunction on the policy confining officers until its grievance could be settled in arbitration. A U.S. district judge tossed the postal union’s lawsuit in Nov. 2020, declining to put a halt to the USPS policy.
The parties continue to dispute the matter in arbitration.
One of the subtlest and most perfidious paths through which the cabal of elitist activists, industrial and commercial interests, and national and international politicians and bureaucrats are trying to “reset” capitalism to prioritize “woke” social justice and green priorities is through the co-opting and takeover of global capital markets: banks, insurance, and stock and bond trading and investment.
Big financial institutions such as Bank of America and Mastercard, investment managers such as BlackRock and Vanguard, and hundreds of corporations are going all-in to push environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics.
These powerful institutions would have ESG metrics replace capitalization, revenue, profits, and profit margins as the new way of evaluating businesses. Under ESG, returns on investment and returns to stockholders and owners are not as important as a company’s embrace of left-wing causes. These causes include how “green” a company is, having the “right” ratio of minorities on its board, avoiding involvement in politically disfavored industries (such as gun manufacturing and fossil fuel production), and other woke leftist considerations.
Companies are given a score or rating to determine how well they align with ESG goals, and banks will use these scores to make lending and other commercial decisions. Portfolio managers will use them to determine investment recommendations and propose initiatives and board choices to be offered at annual meetings.
Hundreds of the world’s largest corporations, including financial institutions, have already implemented ESG systems and reporting metrics within their companies. What’s more, investor groups worth trillions of dollars have pledged to prioritize these companies over those that refuse to participate.
For instance, BlackRock and other investment fund managers are pushing board memberships for green and gender activists and pushing initiatives to force the companies, in which they control large chunks of stock, to adopt policies that undermine their business model. For instance, they’re pushing Exxon and Chevron to get out of fossil fuel development, the very raison d’etre for the two companies’ existence.
In doing so, these companies are using the stocks placed in their management hands to promote the social goals supported by their executives, rather than to promote the income and retirement goals of the individuals and public and private pension funds of the stock’s ultimate owners. Rather than aiming at maximizing profits and increases in stock value to benefit individual stock owners or provide employees a secure, comfortable retirement, the companies are placing social equity and environmental justice goals at the center of their “investment” strategies.
This is dangerous for stock and bond owners, since research consistently shows funds guided primarily by ESG goals produce lower returns and are far riskier than investment portfolios guided by profits and generation of wealth for their investor/owners.
In addition, working with the United Nations, big banks formed the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) developed in April 2021. The NZBA is composed of 94 large banks from 39 countries (and growing) that have pledged to “transition all operational and attributable GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions from our lending and investment portfolios to align with pathways to net-zero by mid-century, or sooner, including CO2 emissions reaching net-zero at the latest by 2050.” (emphasis mine)
In practice, this means banks are planning to force businesses, investors, and hard-working Americans to adopt policies in line with banks’ climate change agenda, regardless of whether they agree with the banks’ goals or whether those goals are good for the people’s and companies’ economic well-being.
The Trump administration tried to tap the brakes on efforts by corporations and federal agencies to impose social justice and environmental requirements. Trump policies included ensuring ERISA plans (pension plans operating under the Pension Reform Act of 1974) regulated by the Department of Labor be managed with a sole and unwavering focus on providing for the retirement security of American workers. Also, under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency proposed a rule to prohibit banks with more than $100 billion in assets from denying services such as lending and payment processing to businesses based on political considerations such as the type of industry they are in or whether they have adopted ESG codes, as opposed to normal business considerations, such as a company’s earnings, business prospects, assets, profit and loss statements, capitalization, and credit history.
President Joe Biden is actively rolling these rules back. Biden’s executive order on climate-related financial risks “mandates that Labor Secretary Marty Walsh submit a report to the director of the National Economic Council and the White House national climate advisor within 180 days that identifies actions taken by the agency ‘to protect life savings and pensions of U.S. workers and families from climate-related financial risk,’ and required the same of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which administers the Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees,” 401K Specialist reports.
In addition, at Biden’s direction, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has created a 22-member Climate and ESG Task Force to enforce the administration’s social justice and climate change goals. Simultaneously, the SEC issued a call for public comments on a rule to require publicly traded corporations, investment management firms, and mutual funds under its regulatory purview to disclose the climate-change-related risks and opportunities they might face.
To be forewarned and informed is to be forearmed.
Become an active voter, bank account owner, and investor. It’s no exaggeration to say the fate of Americans’ investments and pensions, whether people will be able to retire comfortably at a reasonable age, and whether markets will be used to build wealth or to push people in directions elites deem politically correct will be decided in the next two elections (federal, state, and local), in courtrooms, and during proxy battles at annual board meetings in the next few years.
A Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates was pulled over Monday evening just hours before Tuesday’s election after police said a woman in his car was taking campaign signs that did not belong to him.
Del. Chris Hurst, who represents Virginia’s 12th District, was stopped by officers in Radford, WSLS-TV reported. Deputies witnessed the alleged sign-nabbing near a voting precinct.
Hurst was driving on a suspended license, Radford City Sheriff Mark Armentrout said. He was not arrested, but was given a notice that his license was not active.
The Democrat said he was unaware his license was suspended but has not offered an explanation for the report that someone in his car was stealing campaign signs.
Hurst’s Republican challenger, Jason Ballard, shared an article about Hurst’s run-in with police on Tuesday morning and asked voters to consider it when they head to the polls.
“This isn’t how your representative should act. Vote today for new leadership in the House of Delegates!” Ballard wrote on Facebook.
“I am deeply disappointed that Chris Hurst has decided to end his campaign in such a reckless way,” Ballard said in a statement.
“His latest misstep is yet another reason why he doesn’t deserve another term as Delegate. I, on the other hand, will remain laser focused on the issues that matter most to the people of the 12th District. I will always strive to set a good and positive example for my children and the fine people of the New River Valley.”
Hurst was previously a news anchor at WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, but decided to run for office following the high-profile murder of his girlfriend in 2015.
WDBJ reporter Alison Parker and her cameraman Adam Ward were both shot and killed during a live interview by a man described as a disgruntled former coworker.
Vester Lee Flanagan II shot Parker, Ward and a woman being interviewed before posting video of the murders online, NBC News reported. Flanagan later killed himself.
Hurst announced after the murder that he and Parker had been in a relationship.
At a press conference Monday afternoon, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) called on the House to stop playing “political games” and to move ahead with a floor vote on the Senate-passed $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
Since August, progressives in the House have held the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF) hostage in an attempt to compel votes for the reconciliation bill. These progressives have warned that they will not vote for the moderate-preferred infrastructure bill without passage of a budget that progressives find acceptable.
Specifically, these progressives have sought to use the threat to compel Manchin and his colleague Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who were key elements in bipartisan negotiations over the BIF.
But Manchin warned progressives that they would not achieve that result by continuing to hold the bill hostage. Manchin said that he will need more time to go over the new budget deal before agreeing to vote for it, pushing Democrats even further off schedule in passing both bills.
“In all my years of public service, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Manchin fumed. He noted that even after two visits to the U.S. Capitol by President Joe Biden asking House Democrats to support the BIF, there is “still no action.”
“This is not how the U.S. Congress should operate or, in my view, has operated in the past,” Manchin argued.
“The political games have to stop,” he demanded. “It is time to vote on the BIF bill, up or down.”
“I’ve worked in good faith over the past three months with President Biden, Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, and my colleagues on the reconciliation bill, and I will continue to do so,” he allowed. But, he warned, “Holding this bill hostage is not going to work in getting my support for the reconciliation bill.”
He criticized progressives for their all-or-nothing attitude, saying “While I’ve worked hard to find a compromise, it’s obvious that compromise is not enough for a lot of my colleagues in Congress. It’s all or nothing. And their position doesn’t seem to change unless we agree to everything.”
“Enough is enough. It’s time our elected leaders in Washington, all of us, stop playing games with the needs of the American people [by] holding the infrastructure bill hostage,” Manchin demanded.
Manchin Still Concerned By Some Aspects of Budget, Needs More Time
In a blow to Democrats who hoped that they were moving toward the end of months of political drama, Manchin said also that he will need more time before committing to vote for the budget bill.
He explained that he continues to have concerns, including the effects that the bill could have on social programs, national debt, and inflation.
“I will not support a bill that is this consequential without thoroughly understanding the impact it will have on our national debt, our economy, and most importantly all of our American people,” said Manchin. “We must allow time for complete transparency and analysis on the impact of changes to our tax code, energy, and climate policies to ensure that our country is well-positioned to remain the superpower of the world.”
The senator went further, explaining what he hopes to see from the bill and questioning its “true cost.”
Manchin explained that he hopes for a final reconciliation bill that is “fiscally responsible [and] fixes the flaws of the 2017 Trump tax bill that I thought was weighted far too [much] for the high-end earners.”
Manchin also accused his party of hiding the price of the bill. The “so-called $1.75 trillion” reconciliation bill is full of “shell games” and “budget gimmicks that make the real cost of the [bill] estimated to be nearly twice that amount,” Manchin argued. “This is a recipe for economic crisis. None of us should ever misrepresent to the American people what the real cost of legislation is.”
“To be clear, I will not support the reconciliation bill without knowing how the bill will impact our debt and our economy and our country. We won’t know that until we work through the text.”
Until that time comes, Manchin urged the House to move ahead with the infrastructure bill, noting the bill’s rarely-seen bipartisan passage through the Senate. He emphasized again: “Holding that bill hostage is not going to work to get my support [for] what you want.”
Manchin said that he is open to supporting a bill that “helps our country move forward” but is equally open to voting against a bill that “hurts our country.”
“Let’s work together … on getting a sensible reconciliation package that really strengthens our nation, makes us better, and leads the world,” concluded Manchin.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Wednesday signed an executive order she says will “protect” state employees against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate by allowing them to easily obtain medical and religious exemptions.
“South Dakota is fighting back against the heavy hand of @JoeBiden & his Administration,” the Republican governor announced on Twitter. “Today I signed an Executive Order to protect state employees, & those w/ federal contracts who are being forced to get vaccinated against their wishes. The order protects medical & religious exemptions for these workers.”
“Additionally, I am working w/ legislators on addressing other areas. I have always said the decision to get vaccinated should be a personal choice-not a mandate from Joe Biden, Fauci or your boss,” she added.You May Also Like
Noem said the move was necessary to ensure that employees aren’t forced to get COVID-19 vaccinations under Biden’s initiative, which covers not only people directly paid by federal contracts but also anyone who works to support them.
State lawmakers have said South Dakotans are being denied medical and religious exemptions from feds and have called for a special session to stop it.
Noem spokesman Jordan Overturf said Noem’s exemptions are “explicit and offer a clear path” for state workers to opt-out of the shots.
In a press release from Noem’s office, the governor said that employees who wish to receive a medical exemption from the vaccine mandate need a note from a doctor stating that the COVID-19 vaccination is too risky for health reasons.
Workers who wish to be exempted for religious reasons must fill out a form from the Bureau of Human Resources that states that they “dissent and object to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds, which includes moral, ethical, and philosophical beliefs or principles.”
“Due to established precedent, this Executive Order does not apply to service members with the South Dakota National Guard who must meet federal readiness responsibilities for deployment,” the release adds.
It also states that Noem will work during next year’s legislative session with South Dakota lawmakers to make these “protections” for state employees permanent, and “to extend similar health and religious liberty protections” to employees of private businesses who adopted mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies.
The governor earlier criticized proposals by Republican lawmakers to ban vaccine mandates as “not conservative” because they’re telling businesses what to do and how to treat their employees. This order, spokesman Overturf said, is about upholding rights already included in the Constitution.
“She has repeatedly said private businesses should offer medical and religious exemptions for COVID vaccine mandates,” Overturf said.
Noem earlier said on Twitter that the state will “l stand up to defend freedom,” referring to the president’s vaccine mandates.
“@JoeBiden see you in court,” she wrote in September, later adding that her legal team is prepared to stand up to the Biden administration’s mandates.
The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.
The White House is engaged in talks to allocate more than $1 billion for illegal immigrants who were separated from their families during the Trump administration, which could result in some people who broke the law receiving as much as $450,000 per person, according to a stunning report.
Not every affected migrant family would receive the large payout, per the report, which cited people close to discussions surrounding the payments.
“Most of the families that crossed the border illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. included one parent and one child,” the Journal reported. “Many families would likely get smaller payouts, depending on their circumstances.”
The Journal also reported that during a conference call discussion about the proposed payouts, a DHS lawyer complained that non-citizens who entered the country illegally could be paid more than American victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
“Other people said senior departmental officials were in alignment on the amount and disputed the 9/11 comparison, given that the U.S. government hadn’t been responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,” the Journal reported.
A number of prominent conservative lawmakers slammed the Biden administration over the report that some illegal immigrants would receive reparation payments amid the ongoing border crisis.
Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona was among them. Biggs called the reported payout “unfathomable.”
Check out my statement regarding reports that the Biden administration intends to offer certain illegal aliens up to $450,000 each, potentially costing taxpayers more than $1 billion. pic.twitter.com/98ZMWus4Zp
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas also slammed the reported proposal.
“It’s unthinkable to pay a burglar who broke into your home for the ‘psychological trauma’ they endured during the crime. Yet the Biden admin wants to reward migrants who illegally entered our country with up to $450,000 each for just that reason. Insanity,” he tweeted.
It’s unthinkable to pay a burglar who broke into your home for the ‘psychological trauma’ they endured during the crime. Yet the Biden admin wants to reward migrants who illegally entered our country with up to $450,000 each for just that reason. Insanity. https://t.co/XNTFs9KkLo
I can’t BELIEVE Biden wants to pay illegals who were allegedly “separated at the border” $450,000. We’re REWARDING people who’ve BROKEN THE LAW. They shouldn’t be rewarded – they should be DEPORTED! This is INSANE!! https://t.co/veL16eAyGB
Each migrant family included in the proposed settlement could stand to receive nearly $1 million. An estimated 940 families have initiated lawsuits relating to separations between 2017 and 2018 during former President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy.
The Hill reported many of the lawsuits were initiated by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU in January issued a statement on the issue days before President Joe Biden was inaugurated.
Does the Biden administration think money grows on trees?
“The barbaric family separation practice was immoral and illegal. At a minimum, Justice Department lawyers should have known the latter. This new report shows just how far the Trump administration was willing to go to destroy these families. Just when you think the Trump administration can’t sink any lower, it does,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said.
“The Biden-Harris administration will inherit the legacy of family separation, and we don’t doubt that more horrific details will continue to emerge. We need them to act with urgency — every day without action makes it harder to find and reunite families,” Gelernt added.
Gelernt concluded that migrant families which were separated after illegally crossing into the U.S. were owed “citizenship” and “resources.”
Settlement negotiations between the federal government and migrant families are ongoing, but might be resolved in November, per the Journal. With a record-breaking number of illegal migrants now crossing into the country monthly, it isn’t likely that news of the report will act as a deterrent for those who intend to take advantage of the Biden administration’s negligent and chaotic approach to enforcing immigration law.
The message from the Biden White House amid a year of immigration crises, if the report is accurate, seems to be that breaking the law can pay — as long as you’re not an American citizen.
Dr. Francis Collins appeared to acknowledge this week that the U.S. agency he heads funded gain-of-function experiments in Wuhan, China, which runs counter to claims he and a subordinate made earlier this year.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the agency Collins directs, revealed last week that money it gave to EcoHealth Alliance supported risky experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China that some experts said met the definition of gain-of-function.
The term gain-of-function generally refers to research that increases a biological agent’s pathogenicity or transmissibility. Until last week, the NIH defined it as research that modifies an agent “so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent.”
Both Collins and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), claimed earlier this year that the NIH didn’t fund gain-of-function research in China.
“Neither NIH nor NIAID have ever approved any grant that would have supported ‘gain-of-function’ research on coronaviruses,” Collins said in May, though he stipulated that he was only referring to gain-of-function experiments that would have increased the viruses’ “transmissibility or lethality for humans.”
Fauci didn’t include that stipulation when testifying to Congress that month.
“The NIH and NIAID categorically has not funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he said on May 11.
Collins was pressed on the statements during an appearance on CNN this week.
EcoHealth “did some things they should have told us about, but they did not do the kind of gain-of-function research that requires special, high-level oversight,” he said.
NIH was asked if it wanted to clarify his remarks, which appear to undercut Fauci’s previous comments.
Renate Myles, a spokeswoman for Collins, told The Epoch Times in an email that gain-of-function research “is done all the time.”
“For example, cancer immunotherapy, where a cancer patient is provided new cells that have been genetically or pharmacologically enhanced to ‘gain’ the function needed to attack the cancer. Most ‘gain of function’ research studies do not raise significant biosafety and biosecurity risks. So saying something is ‘gain of function’ alone doesn’t really mean anything,” Myles wrote.
Like Collins, Myles focused on the Department of Health and Human Services framework that defines research requiring special oversight. That research must be “reasonably anticipated to create, transfer or use potential pandemic pathogens resulting from the enhancement of a pathogen’s transmissibility and/or virulence in humans.”
Jonathan Latham, executive director of The Bioscience Research Project, said the NIH is obfuscating the issue.
“When people discuss gain-of-function research they are never talking about cancer. They are talking about actual or potential human pathogens,” Latham wrote in an email.
The P4 laboratory building at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is shown in Wuhan, China, on May 13, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
“Francis Collins is obfuscating too, but in a different way. In Wuhan, research funded by NIH studied live MERS virus, an actual human pandemic pathogen, and live SARS-like coronaviruses from bats. These SARS coronaviruses were ones that the researchers believed to be potential pandemic pathogens. If Francis Collins thinks that such research does not require special oversight I do not know what research he thinks does require special oversight,” he wrote.
“In all, it seems that NIH is calculatedly deploying two working definitions of gain-of-function research that it is switching at will. One is so broad as to be meaningless and the other is so narrow as to encompass little or no actual research.”
Lawrence Tabak, the principal deputy director at the NIH, told lawmakers last week that the agency determined the research in question didn’t require enhanced oversight. He also claimed the viruses studied in China couldn’t have been the source of the COVID-19 pandemic, even though information on most of the viruses sampled in Wuhan in recent years hasn’t been shared with the public.
“It is molecularly impossible to derive SARS-CoV-2 from any of the strains described in the EcoHealth documents available to the public so far. But the question is what other work was being done,” Alina Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, wrote on Twitter.
The NIH produced the documents after receiving inquiries from lawmakers on multiple panels, including Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
“In my assessment, Dr. Collins appears to be invoking the letter of the law on gain of function but clearly evading the spirit of the law. That’s why it is so important to determine exactly what NIH was supporting in Wuhan,” Griffith told The Epoch Times via email. “I have asked for lots of information from NIH, but the agency has not provided most of it. Dr. Collins’ comments show why we need more details—to make sure the letter of the law does not allow the spirit of the law to be violated.”
“We now know for certain that Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins have been misleading the American people for months,” Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a recent statement. “The documents released show that NIH was in fact funding gain-of-function research in China through EcoHealth Alliance. It is also clear there are significant failures at the NIH to properly oversee grant funding.”
EcoHealth officials didn’t immediately respond to requests from The Epoch Times for comment.
An admission by the National Institutes of Health that it funded what amounted to gain-of-function research in China undercuts assertions from Dr. Anthony Fauci and others that the federally funded agency did no such thing, according to one expert.
Such research is controversial because it allows virus that exists in nature to be manipulated in a lab to make it stronger — even more deadly. The research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was funded by the NIH, has taken on new importance in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Collins and Fauci lied to Congress, lied to the press, and lied to the public. Knowingly, willfully and brazenly,” said Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, according to the Washington Examiner. The “Collins” referred to is NIH Director Francis Collins.
After over a year of denials from the agency’s leadership, NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak admitted last week that the agency funded gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses in China.
Tabak said that its grantee, EcoHealth Alliance, notified the NIH in August that it conducted the gain-of-function experiments with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China between June 2018 and May 2019. Tabak said EcoHealth failed to immediately notify the agency that they created lab-generated chimeric coronaviruses that exhibited a greater than one log, or ten times increase, in growth.
NIH leaders have tried to say that just because the outcome took place does not mean the NIH funded gain-of-function research.
Bur Ebright called the letter a “bombshell” because it “corrects the untruthful assertions” by Collins and Fauci, the Washington Examiner reported.
Has Dr. Anthony Fauci lied to Americans all along?
Ebright said there is more to this than an unexpected outcome.
“By failing to forward the proposal for the required HHS-level risk-benefit assessment, and then by funding the proposal without the required HHS-level risk-benefit assessment, officials at the NIH violated federal policies that were put in place to protect U.S. national security and U.S. public health … and put at risk U.S. national security and U.S. public health,” Ebright said.
“The NIH spokesperson — or preferably the NIH officials who funded the proposal without the required HHS-level risk-benefit assessment — need to explain how this violation of federal policy occurred and what steps are being taken to ensure that similar violations of federal policy do not occur in the future,” he continued.
Ebright said it was “incontrovertibly correct” that the work conducted by EcoHealth for NIH “show that EcoHealth and its Wuhan partner constructed novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses — artificial, lab-generated viruses that do not have counterparts circulating in nature — that exhibited 10,000 times enhanced viral load and two to four times enhanced pathogenicity in infection studies in mice engineered to display human receptors on their cells (‘humanized mice’).”
That means renewing the grant funding for the research required reviews it was never given.
“Therefore is correct that the proposal for the second 5-year grant term, which proposed to construct more such novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses — included research reasonably anticipated — indeed highly likely — to create, transfer or use potential pandemic pathogens resulting from the enhancement of a pathogen’s transmissibility and/or virulence in humans — and, therefore, it is correct that the proposal for the second 5-year grant term required HHS-level risk-benefit assessment under the HHS P3CO Framework,” he said.
HHS Deputy admits Fauci’s NIH funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan but says it was “an unexpected result.” If the experiment combines unknown viruses and tests their ability to infect and damage humanized cells, of course the result is ‘unknown’ before the experiment.
Ebright said efforts to downplay the research funded by NIH as only having infected animals are an exercise in misdirection.
“They have no shame. In essence, they are claiming that, because the NIH did not fund infection studies with lab-generated viruses and human subjects — Uyghur detainees? Falun Gong dissidents? — the NIH did not fund gain of function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement subject to the federal policies,” he stated.
I’m fuming mad over this woman who I call “Stalin in a Skirt.”
I’m Laura Loomer, an investigative journalist who has exposed and confronted everyone from Ilhan Omar to Hillary Clinton.
Nikki Fried is running for Governor of Florida against Ron DeSantis – and if she wins, she’ll be vying for the White House in no time.
And that is terrifying!
Let me just SHOW you why:
This is just foul behavior by an elected official. Fried is currently Commissioner of Agriculture in Florida.
Now, for some reason the Ag Commissioner in Florida is in charge of issuing concealed carry permits. The elected position is supposed to be NON-PARTISAN for this very reason – to prevent political targeting of citizens.
As Nikki proudly said in her tweet, she is pre-emptively stripping the 2nd Amendment Rights of Florida citizens who have yet to be prosecuted, and in some cases, they haven’t even been charged with a crime!
She is revoking the permits of people who merely “participated” in the January 6th protests in Washington!
Simply attending a Trump rally is now grounds to get you stripped of your concealed carry permit if you’re a conservative in America!
We’ve seen this before:
In the 1930’s, when coal workers in Appalachia revolted against their employers for horrendous treatment, politicians created the National Firearms Act, which levied at $200 tax stamp on automatic weapons – that only the coal companies could afford. Politicians used “mob violence” to scare the public into accepting the gun control laws.
In 1967, California lawmakers passed laws against the open carry of firearms after they were scared out of their wits by Black Panthers who protested with their guns on the steps of the State Capitol.
In 2005, New Orleans law enforcement worked with the ATF to seize the firearms of Hurricane victims and allowed them to rust in shipping containers for years!
But there is only one time in our history that comes close to what Nikki Fried is doing.
And it was done in 1775 by British Lord Dunmore who was so terrified of “insurrection” that he seized the gunpowder of Virginia colonists.
One of those colonists was one of our Founding Fathers, Patrick Henry – and he wasn’t having it. Henry peacefully marched on Williamsburg to retrieve the gunpowder and Lord Dunmore fled in fear.
If that scenario were to happen today, Nikki Fried would have Patrick Henry arrested and tried for Domestic Terrorism!
And that’s exactly what Nikki is doing – but for political gain and to win the praise (and campaign contributions) from Leftists around the nation.
Let’s see what Nikki Fried has hiding in her closet. Let’s expose her hypocrisy and corruption.
And let’s (peacefully) put the fear of God into any other politicians who try to mimic her actions of attacking conservatives.
Support my work today with a donation of $17.76 or more and let’s show the public who Nikki Fried REALLY is!
The North Carolina House of Representatives gave final approval to a bill that proposes to restore checks and balances on Gov. Roy Cooper’s executive powers during an extended emergency.
The Emergency Powers Accountability Act (EPAA), or House Bill 264, would require Cooper to get “concurrence of the Council of State” before “exercising certain authorities.”
The Council of State consists of bipartisan senior executive offices such as the Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Agriculture Commissioner, and the Secretary of State.
The bill would create a definition for the concurrence of the Council of State under the EPAA, which would clarify how Cooper proceeds in seeking concurrence before acting.
According to Republican House Speaker Tim Moore, North Carolina has remained in a perpetual state of emergency for 589 days “with no end in sight.”
Cooper declared a state of emergency in response to the pandemic in March 2020, a decision that heralded a year of lockdowns throughout the state and country.
“During the pandemic, our governor ignored his statutory duty to seek the concurrence of the bipartisan Council of State before declaring a state of emergency,” Moore said in a press release. “The need for checks and balances is arguably most crucial during a statewide emergency. No one individual should have the ability to exercise unilateral power during such an emergency.”
Republican Rep. Keith Kidwell, one of the bill’s sponsors, said the bill will address the “endless duration of power” that Cooper “has been granted” during a “self-declared and boundless state of emergency.”
Republican House Majority Leader John Bell, another sponsor of the bill, criticized what he said was a lack of oversight that allowed Cooper to declare and extend the state of emergency without input from the Council or the General Assembly.
“No one person, regardless of party, should have the unilateral authority to shut down the state for an indefinite amount of time,” Bell said. “This legislation is not about politics or what the governor has or has not done. It is about clarifying the law to restore checks and balances.”
ESPN reporter Allison Williams announced in an emotion-packed video that she will leave the network rather than compromise her principles and be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Williams, a college sports reporter for the network, wrote in a Twitter post that is trying to have a second child and that being vaccinated was “not in my best interest.”
She said in an Instagram video posted on Friday her “request for accommodation” was denied and that as of this coming week, she would part ways with the Disney-owned network.
In her video, she thanked the many people who offered support.
Alison Williams is sticking to her principles and resigning from #ESPN
“I am also so morally and ethically not aligned with this.”
Additionally, Williams said she wasn’t going to “put a paycheck over principle.”
“Belief is a word I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, because in addition to the medical apprehensions regarding my desire to have another child in regards to receiving this injection, I am also so morally and ethically not aligned with this. And I’ve had to really dig deep and analyze my values and my morals, and ultimately I need to put them first,” she said.
“And the irony in all this is that a lot of these same values and principles that I hold dear are what made me a really good employee, what helped with the success that I’m able to have in my career,” she said.
Since then, however, the company line has hardened.
“Their values have clearly changed,” she said, later adding, “I had hoped they would respect that mine did not.”
“Ultimately, I cannot put a paycheck over principle,” she said. “I will not sacrifice something that I believe and hold so strongly to maintain a career.”
She noted that many people in other walks of life are standing up for their principles, and said that making a stand is important.
And that those acquiescing to the mandates now — or even applauding them — might come to regret it.
“If this is the direction we take our country, there will come a time when the government or corporations mandate you to get something that does not align with your values,” she said.
We can fight Covid and defend freedom simultaneously.
“I don’t know what the future holds … I’m trying to wrap my head around the thought that the largest game I’ve worked in my career, the national championship game, might be the last game I work. But I’m going to focus on what I have to be thankful for,” she said.
“I’m going to hold on to my faith. I’m going to pray that things get better, and that I can see you on the television set in some capacity, in some stadium, covering some game soon. Until then, God bless, and I’m going to go hug my baby.”
Last month, ESPN commentator Sage Steele, who bowed to the mandate, spoke out against it.
“I respect everyone’s decision, I really do, but to mandate it is, um, sick,” Steele said. “And it’s scary to me in many ways. But I have a job, a job that I love, and frankly, a job that I need, but again, I love it. I’m not surprised it got to this point, especially with Disney, a global company … but it was actually emotional.”
Retired Michigan schoolteacher Ilona Rugg has slammed the state’s public schools, accusing them of “following an exceedingly inhumane program [that] scares children by teaching that their accomplishments are vicious relics of white supremacy.”
Rugg made her comments to a state Senate committee considering a measure to ban teaching critical race theory (CRT) in Michigan schools.
“The public school system is indoctrinating and shaming our children and teachers. Critical race theory pits minority children against whites. It drives a wedge between parent and child,” said Rugg, who strongly supports banning CRT.
“Students are indoctrinated to hate their country, hate their gender, hate their parents. We have to stop allowing all of this madness to occur in our public schools. I support the bill.”
A Democrat on the committee, Sen. Erika Geiss, responded: “We have just listened to the most bigoted rhetoric I ever heard in my professional life.”
Geiss challenged several pro-ban witnesses at the hearing to produce evidence “that CRT is being taught anywhere in the country.”
Rugg responded, “Even though schools will tell you they are not teaching CRT, they will lie or call it something else.”
Her love for children drew long-time educator Ilona Rugg back into the classroom. Brighton, Mich. Oct. 11, 2021. (Steven Kovac/The Epoch Times)
State Sen. Jim Runestad, a Republican, told his committee colleagues that he had visited more than 100 schools and found ample evidence that the precepts of CRT were being taught.
Dr. Pamela Pugh, vice president of the Michigan State Board of Education, urged senators to oppose the bill.
“I call on you to embrace critical race theory,” she said.
Pugh said the “self-induced amnesia” that the legislation promotes will “suppress truth.”
“To promote the comfort of some while ignoring the discomfort of others is an act of violence,” she said.
Geiss declined to be interviewed by The Epoch Times.
Pugh didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
Senate Bill 460, sponsored by state Sen. Lana Theis, a Republican, would dock a school district 5 percent of its state aid if it allows the teaching that any race is inherently superior or inferior to any other race, that the United States is a fundamentally racist country, that the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution are fundamentally racist documents, that an individual’s moral character or worth is determined by his race, or that an individual is inherently racist by virtue of his race.
Rugg is no stranger to conflicts with authorities over her principles. She clashed with her school’s administration by refusing to call students by their preferred personal pronouns.
“I teach English. It [a preferred pronoun] is ungrammatical and confusing,” she told The Epoch Times. “These are children. I’m going to call them by their God-given gender.”
Rugg said that after the murder of George Floyd, the faculty at her school organized a Black Lives Matter protest.
“I made a sign which read ‘All Lives Matter.’ That idea was rejected, and I got a talking to,” she said. “I got talked to a lot over the course of my career.”
One of the conflicts Rugg had with the school administration was over her displaying in her classroom a poster that read “In God We Trust,” a picture of an American bald eagle, a poster saying “In Every Day Give Thanks and Praise,” and a picture of then-President Donald Trump.
“Over several years, one lone parent complained,” Rugg said. “Said it was disruptive to the learning environment. I got a talking to, but the stuff stayed up.”
After retiring, Rugg has appeared at dozens of meetings to share her experiences and a portfolio of materials that she says expose the situation in some Michigan schools.
“I inform parents that the public schools are doing a disservice to them,” Rugg said. “Children are not being taught moral values, or about our God-given rights as Americans. The public needs to know how their tax dollars are being spent.
“How did it get this bad? We let it happen. We gave up our kids to government institutions. Too many parents and teachers are afraid to speak up.
“I’ve been bullied. Falsely accused of things. I’ve been watched like a hawk.
The Virginia governor’s race may be developing into an argument with a clear choice that has real implications for campaigns across the country in 2022.
Last Tuesday night’s debate clarified the dramatic gap between Republican Glenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe. It is clear Youngkin stands with parents who care about their children’s education, and McAuliffe stands with the union bosses who want total control of our lives.
During the debate, McAuliffe made what may be an election-collapsing mistake. He spoke honestly about the degree to which he would exclude parents from their children’s educations.
Consider this exchange:
Republican Youngkin: “I believe parents should be in charge of their kids’ education.”
Democrat McAuliffe: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
“[McAuliffe] believes that government and politicians know better for our children than parents. He wants to exclude parents from being involved in educating our children …. Virginia parents have been standing up for the rights of their kids for the last 20 months, fighting against school boards who have been trying to impose all kinds of things on them. They’ve been asking for schools to be open, and what you saw last night was … [McAuliffe] doesn’t care what they think. He wants to dictate what they learn, he wants to teach our children how to think, and he wants to excuse parents from all of it.”
The simple fact is that former Gov. McAuliffe is dependent on union bosses to fund his campaign and provide workers for the turnout effort. McAuliffe has received $525,000 from the National Education Association and $425,000 from the American Federation of Teachers. That $950,000 from union bosses goes a long way to explaining McAuliffe’s contempt for parents.
You can better understand McAuliffe’s willingness to get rid of Virginia’s Right to Work Law when you learn that the Service Employee International Union has given his campaign $689,167. McAuliffe’s conversion to Big Government Socialism and radical policies has also earned him $1.75 million from Independence USA PAC (Mike Bloomberg’s PAC) and $250,000 from George Soros personally. This is only the end of September, so McAuliffe’s anti-parent, pro-Union position will likely earn his campaign even more money in October as it desperately tries to grab the governorship.
However, McAuliffe’s open contempt for parents and subservience to the unions may cost him the election. After all, there was recently a rally of more than 1,000 people in Loudoun County, Virginia, who were angry about leftwing radicalism being taught in their schools. Parents of students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, Virginia, are outraged because school officials are “purging” students of Asian descent to meet woke quotas. In fact, citizens across the country from every background are upset that leftwing radicalism is taking hold in schools while standards are being lowered—or even abolished in the case of Oregon.
Virginians have historically been proud of their education system and have valued their children and grandchildren getting good educations. They see the unions undermining this tradition and crippling their children’s futures.
When McAuliffe crystallized the gap between parents and union bosses in the debate Tuesday, it may have been the key moment of the campaign. If Youngkin pushes the issue relentlessly for the next month, McAuliffe may be permanently branded as a union boss-controlled Big Government Socialist candidate—and therefore unacceptable to most Virginians.
This kind of decisive defining moment is not new for Democrats. Consider the following examples:
In 1972, Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. George McGovern announced he was “1,000 percent behind” his vice presidential nominee Sen. Tom Eagleton (who had admitted after accepting the nomination that he had been given electric shock treatments for depression). A week later he dumped Eagleton. He lost in a landslide.
In 1984, Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale proudly announced in his acceptance speech that he would raise our taxes. His support collapsed, and he never recovered. President Ronald Reagan cheerfully contrasted his tax cuts with Mondale’s tax increases. The result was a landslide.
In 2004, Sen. John Kerry was filmed windsurfing in Nantucket in a fancy outfit. This convinced swing voters across the country he really was an elitist who was out-of-touch with normal Americans. A few weeks later he lost.
In 2016, Secretary Hillary Clinton attacked most Republican voters as “deplorables,” thereby firing up the base of Donald Trump’s voters. A month later in a shocking upset she lost.
McAuliffe’s declaration that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” may join this list of campaign-dooming mistakes.
If McAuliffe loses, it will be a real warning to Democrats across the country that Big Government Socialist values and woke policies may not be sustainable—even with massive union and billionaire funding.
Last Tuesday night, the Virginia governor’s race took on a whole new importance as a national bellwether.
America’s image went down in flames due to President Joe Biden’s actions to abandon Afghanistan, according to the ambassador of the former Afghan regime.
Adela Raz, who is still in Washington as a representative of a government that no longer exists, spoke with Axios in an interview that was released Sunday.
She said that the hope in Afghanistan was that Biden would impose stronger conditions on the Taliban to protect women.
“It was very well accepted to me and to a lot of others that the U.S. troops will withdraw,” she said.
“But, there had to be conditions on Taliban that they commit to the achievements that the Afghan society has made,” she continued.
“Did you get the sense that President Biden cared about the fate of Afghan women?’” she was asked.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “He said the U.S. could not be the police of the world to protect women in any other country.”
She said that although many Afghans expected great things from Biden, she was less enthused.
“I said, ‘we should not buy into this la-la land,’” she noted.
During her interview, she was asked whether she trusts the United States.
“No,” she replied. “Sorry. I trust and believe the people. I mean I’ve lost trust in the U.S. policies, and I think probably government policies, including my own leadership.”
Asked if Afghans will ever trust a U.S. president, she indicated that Biden inflicted lasting damage.
Asked whether she still considered the U.S. to be the leader of the free world, she indicated there had been a fall from grace.
“If you talk about democracy — I probably will question it and laugh at it,” she said. “You were engaged in building one in Afghanistan, and the people believed in it. They fought for it.”
In further comments to Axios, she said she feels guilty that she led other women to embrace the future as leaders.
“One of them was a young woman that was assassinated. She was a human rights advocate,” Raz said.
She noted that she is now in diplomatic limbo because the Biden administration will not meet with her.
“By meeting me formally, probably they will legitimize the position, and that probably will upset the Taliban,” she said.
She said although the Taliban has reached out to her, she will not represent them or communicate with them.
WASHINGTON—The Biden administration will announce on Monday its “new strategy” on trade relations with China, which will include extending tariff exclusion on certain Chinese goods, according to senior administration officials.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, in a speech at a Washington think tank on Monday, is planning to reveal the China trade policy of the Biden administration. Her announcement will focus on the bilateral trade agreement and the tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese imports imposed by the previous administration.
“First, our objective is not to escalate trade tensions with China or double down on the previous administration’s flawed strategy,” a senior administration official told reporters on Sunday during a conference call ahead of the announcement.
As part of the new trade strategy, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) will revisit the phase one trade agreement signed between the United States and China in January last year and ask Beijing to follow through on the commitments it has made.
The phase one trade deal signed during the Trump administration requires China to buy $200 billion worth of additional U.S. goods and services during the two-year period of 2020 and 2021. Analysis of Chinese trade data by the Peterson Institute for International Economics showed that China has met about 58 percent of its purchase commitments in 2020 and 69 percent through Aug. 2021.
According to the Biden administration, results from the agreement are mixed, with the agriculture sector benefiting the most from the agreement. Beijing has met about 92 percent of its import target in agriculture but has fallen short in meeting its commitments in manufactured goods and energy.
After a comprehensive review, the administration plans to use the enforcement mechanism under the agreement to ensure that China meets those commitments.
“Second, we will start a targeted tariff exclusion process. We will also keep open the potential for additional exclusion processes in the future,” the official said.
President Joe Biden has maintained the tariffs on nearly $360 billion worth of Chinese goods enacted by the previous administration.
But Biden officials believe that the previous administration’s tariff campaign didn’t address China’s unfair trade practices and instead, hurt select sectors of the economy.
While it’s unclear which goods or sectors will benefit from the tariff exclusion process, the administration says it will “align existing tariffs” with its priorities, which is to protect American workers and producers.
“We will see how China responds to what Ambassador Tai will detail tomorrow, and we will adjust accordingly,” the official said. “But we do not want to take any options off the table or preemptively box ourselves into a set course of action.”
The administration also said it recognized the fact that “China simply may not change” and that “we have to have a strategy that deals with China as it is, rather than as we might wish it to be.”
The Trump administration previously indicated that tariffs on Chinese goods were justified to address Beijing’s unfair trade policies, including intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, and massive government subsidies for its companies.
During the signing of the phase one agreement, then-President Donald Trump said he would retain tariffs on Chinese goods as leverage for the next round of talks.
The Biden administration says it doesn’t plan to pursue a second phase agreement with Beijing.
“We’ll focus on phase one engagement,” the senior administration official said. “We will raise concerns on industrial policies, but we are not seeking a phase two negotiation.”
Biden has repeatedly indicated that his strategy will be tackling China “from a position of strength” by investing domestically and building close ties with allies as a way to address China’s unfair practices.
Ambassador Tai is expected to engage with her Chinese counterparts “soon” to discuss progress made in the trade deal and China’s industrial policies.
Companies and trade associations have been pushing hard against tariffs imposed on Chinese goods. More than 6,000 U.S firms—including Ford, Tesla, and Home Depot—filed lawsuits in the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking to upend these tariffs.
Companies have also sent a letter to Biden asking him to settle the litigation. They stated that the levies “are not tough on China” but “are tough on U.S. companies, U.S. workers, and consumers who have paid these tariffs as a tax out of their own pockets.”
Disgraced R&B artist faces life in prison for federal sex crimes
Rep. Danny Davis (D., Ill.) said on Tuesday that disgraced R&B artist R. Kelly, who faces 10 years to life in prison for federal sex crimes, deserves a “second chance” after serving his prison sentence.
“I think he’ll be welcomed back into Chicago as a person who can be redeemed,” Davis told TMZ. “I’m a big believer in what is called second chances.” Kelly was convicted on nine counts of federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges for recruiting women and underage girls for sex.
A Democratic primary challenger to Davis, Kina Collins, accused Davis of “undermining the broader fight for justice” by advocating for Kelly. She called the Illinois Democrat’s words “thoughtless, distasteful, and incredibly disappointing for a man charged with representing thousands of black women and girls in our district.”
Davis later clarified his comments to the Hill and said “Kelly has been accused of criminal acts, gone through a court of law, been convicted, and must serve whatever time the court decides.”
Davis has faced criticism for praising controversial figures before. In 2018, a pro-Israel group reconsidered its endorsement of Davis after the congressman said anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was an “outstanding human being.”
The congressman also urged Kelly to “find peace with his Maker and peace with himself” in prison and to “reconcile with the universe for the acts that he may have committed.”
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order on Tuesday to protect Floridians from the “dangerous” impact of the Biden border crisis.
Executive Order 21-223 prohibits all Florida agencies from “facilitating illegal immigration into Florida, unless otherwise required by federal or state law, and require the collection of information from state officials on the scope and costs of illegal immigration in Florida.”
Live Now: Governor DeSantis is in Lee County to sign the Biden Border Crisis Executive Order.https://t.co/SBVH0clNJ6
“Since President Biden took office – which has been less than one year – the Border Patrol has released nearly a quarter million illegal aliens into the United States,” DeSantis said in a statement.
“This executive order makes it clear that Florida resources will not be used to prop up the failed open border agenda enacted by this administration.”
The order also appointed Larry Keefe, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, as public safety czar to ensure the actions in the executive order are implemented.
“Attorney General Ashley Moody has also filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration challenging its policy of catching and releasing the staggering number of illegal aliens apprehended at the border into the United States,” DeSantis said.
The state attorney general addressed the need for the executive order due to the Biden administration’s “brazen disregard” for immigration laws.
“The Biden Administration’s brazen disregard for federal immigration law is jeopardizing the safety and security of our state and nation, all while costing Florida taxpayers,” Moody said in the statement.
“Biden’s lax border policy is an open invitation to dangerous criminals, human traffickers and drugs traffickers to enter the United States — creating a crisis at the Southern Border like we have never seen.”
Keefe noted the state of Florida has often been impacted more directly during times of increased illegal immigration.
“As a former U.S. Attorney, I saw illegal aliens that would get deported and come back, and then get deported and come back in an endless cycle,” Keefe said in the statement.
“The states, including Florida, bear the brunt of this cycle. Over the coming weeks and months, our state agencies will be addressing the impacts illegal immigration has had on our state. I want to thank Governor DeSantis for appointing me to lead these efforts.”
In July, DeSantis visited the southern border of Texas where Florida law enforcement assisted with the apprehension of over 2,800 undocumented immigrants in 23 days and over 100 criminal arrests, according to a news release.
“They’ve made over 2,000 apprehensions, over 100 felony arrests, and they say that almost 70 percent of everybody that they have interdicted said their ultimate destination was the state of Florida,” the governor said at a media briefing, Fox News reported.
“If you think that having a wide-open border 1,000 miles, however far it was, away doesn’t affect here, you’re wrong.”
Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is still funding EcoHealth Alliance, which has also taken six-figure Paycheck Protection Program loans.
A new study authored by several scientists from EcoHealth Alliance – the controversial organization collaborating on bat coronavirus research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology – including Peter Daszak is funded by Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Both Daszak and Fauci have lied about the type of research occurring at the Chinese Communist Party-run lab, as a host of Fauci’s emails obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal the facility was carrying out “gain-of-function” research and deleted articles reveal the lab worked with live bats despite Daszak stating otherwise.
Daszak, who failed to disclose his extensive ties to the Wuhan lab and the Chinese Communist Party, was also recused from the Lancet medical journal’s COVID-19 commission.
Despite this, Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is still funding EcoHealth Alliance, which has also taken massive, six-figure Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans.
The study, which is currently in preprint, counts six EcoHealth Alliance researchers as authors in addition to Lin-Fa Wang, who is also a longtime collaborator of the Wuhan lab and has been listed as an author on several Fauci-funded studies focusing on bat coronaviruses.
The study’s abstract posits that COVID-19 “likely” has a bat origin, summarizing its conclusion that bat SARS-related coronavirus infection happens “more frequent than previously recognized”:
Emerging diseases caused by coronaviruses of likely bat origin (e.g. SARS, MERS, SADS and COVID-19) have disrupted global health and economies for two decades. Evidence suggests that some bat SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs) could infect people directly, and that their spillover is more frequent than previously recognized. Each zoonotic spillover of a novel virus represents an opportunity for evolutionary adaptation and further spread; therefore, quantifying the extent of this “hidden” spillover may help target prevention programs.
“An average of 400,000 such infections occur each year, most going unrecognized because they cause mild or no symptoms and aren’t easily transmitted between people,” the study adds.
One of the key reasons I left the Democratic Party years ago was the atrocious way they treated black people.
I’m not just talking about “Jim Crow” or LBJ’s well-known patriarchal and racist use of the “n-word” to celebrate blacks voting Democratic forever in gratitude for his ultimately useless early “virtue signaling” called the “War on Poverty.”
(Notice any difference between South Central then and now?)
Since then, it’s only gotten worse. Democrats calling Republicans “racist,” as they do on a ritual basis, is literally one of the more nauseating examples of projection in human history.
But before I go into the egregious details of today’s malfeasances, it should be noted that Larry Elder—the estimable black conservative talk show host who makes videos for The Epoch Times—is in a near-tie with Arnold Schwarzenegger for the percentage of votes garnered in the California gubernatorial recall election. Schwarzenegger got 48.5 percent and Elder, so far, 47 percent. And they’re still counting. (In both instances, they were competing against dozens of candidates.)
Readers will—excuse the redundancy—recall that one made two votes in that election, the first deciding whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom and the second for whom to replace him if recalled.
Elder won the latter in a landslide. But just who were the people (along with the predictable corruption) who blocked his way from the governor’s office by voting to preserve Newsom?
I submit that many of them were what we used to call “limousine liberals” and might today be called “Tesla-crats.” They are the rich, often mega-rich, almost always white, people who drive by the myriad horrific homeless encampments of California, trying not to look, as they head for the next trendy restaurant or their magnificent home.
And what is the largest group on a percentage basis in those homeless encampments? Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that it’s blacks.
How can we not have contempt for the hypocritical (to say the least) “Tesla-crats”? But they’re only the plutocratic tip of the Democratic war on blacks we’re watching at this very moment.
Let’s start with the border.
At the moment, there is a crisis of crises at a place called Del Rio, Texas. The left-leaning New York Times is reporting:
“The U.S. Border Patrol said that more than 9,000 migrants, mostly from Haiti, were being held in a temporary staging area under the Del Rio International Bridge as agents worked as quickly as they could to process them.
“The temporary camp has grown with staggering speed in recent days, from just a few hundred people earlier in the week. The authorities and city officials said they expected thousands more to cross the ankle-deep river between Mexico and Del Rio in coming days.”
How many of these people will ultimately enter our country we don’t know. Probably a lot. (It’s reported the numbers under the bridge have swelled to 12,000 now.) How many carry COVID? Again, we don’t know, but probably a lot. What we do know is that since they are, mostly, Haitian, they will likely end up in black communities, bringing their infections with them.
Where is there already the most COVID-19 on a percentage basis? Black communities.
War on blacks?
Okay, consider the next—if anything more horrible because more deliberate—example.
In their alacrity to punish Southern red states, our federal government is restricting the monoclonal antibody treatments given those states. Who suffers the most from this? Who may well die from this?
Again, the black community—where these treatments are most needed. Joel Pollak puts it succinctly over on Breitbart.com:
“President Joe Biden’s decision to cut deliveries of monoclonal antibodies to southeastern states, in what critics have called a politically-motivated effort to punish Republican states, could end up sentencing black people to death from coronavirus.”
Is this sadism or stupidity on the part of our president? An argument can be made for both.
Thankfully, Larry Elder is far from alone in standing up for the rights of his people.
Notable lately is rapper Nicki Minaj who has courageously stood up for the truth on Twitter by casting justifiable aspersions—or should I say “throwing shade”—on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Naturally she got a lot of pushback from the usual crowd who don’t know what pathetic conformists they are.
Someone named “hasanabi” wrote after the rapper appeared on Tucker Carlson, “You know he’s a white nationalist right?”
Minaj responded: “Right. I can’t speak to, agree with, even look at someone from a particular political party. [People] aren’t human any more… If another party [than the Democrat Party] tells u to look out for that bus, stand there & get hit.”
Claire and Al Dwoskin scored top appointments after donating $50K to campaign
During his first stint as Virginia governor, Terry McAuliffe (D.) named the founders of one of the country’s leading anti-vaccine organizations to two coveted administration positions after they contributed more than $50,000 to his political campaign.
McAuliffe in 2014 appointed Claire Dwoskin and Al Dwoskin, a since-divorced Democratic power couple, to serve on the George Mason University Board of Visitors and the Governor’s Advisory Council on Revenue Estimates, respectively. Claire Dwoskin a year earlier had formed the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute, an anti-vaccine organization that has pushed the baseless theory that some vaccines are linked to autism in children. The organization was funded by the Dwoskin family charity.
A number of Democratic politicians who now accuse Republicans of opposing vaccines have themselves cozied up to prominent anti-vaccine activists. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) reportedly expressed concerns about government-mandated vaccines during a 2019 meeting with Robert Kennedy Jr., one of the most influential vaccine opponents in the country.
Vaccines have become a focal point of the Virginia governor’s race, with McAuliffe accusing his challenger, Republican Glenn Youngkin, of opposing the coronavirus vaccine. Youngkin has publicly urged Virginians to get the vaccine. Virginia’s first gubernatorial debate is Thursday.
The Dwoskins have donated heavily to McAuliffe and other Democrats over the years. A former finance vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee, Claire Dwoskin gave $16,000 to McAuliffe’s campaign in 2013, according to campaign finance records. Al Dwoskin, a real estate developer, has contributed more than $180,000 to McAuliffe’s campaigns and a pro-McAuliffe political action committee. He has given $17,500 to McAuliffe’s campaign so far this year.
The Dwoskins’ views on vaccines were publicly known before McAuliffe tapped Claire for the George Mason post. Days before McAuliffe announced the appointment, the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute tweeted that “Children who receive vaccines containing aluminum may be at a higher risk for developing #autism.” In 2010, Dwoskin called vaccines a “holocaust of poison” that harmed children.
Through the institute, the Dwoskins funded numerous anti-vaccine projects, including the propaganda film The Greater Good. The group has also touted the work of Joseph Mercola, one of the most prominent vaccine skeptics in the country.
McAuliffe cited Claire Dwoskin’s affiliation with the institute in a statement announcing her appointment to the George Mason post.
Dwoskin touted the McAuliffe appointment on her personal blog, saying the position would allow her to provide George Mason with “guidance” on academic research. She wrote that her duties on the Board of Visitors would include setting tuition rates, approving the school’s budget, and appointing a president for the university.
The Dwoskins have supported numerous other progressive organizations that have accused Republicans of opposing vaccines. The Dwoskin family charity gave $64,000 each to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Media Matters for America in 2019, according to tax filings. Al Dwoskin is currently on the board of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, alongside former senator Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) and failed 2016 presidential candidate Evan McMullin.
Al Dwoskin distanced himself from the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute after he and Claire began divorce proceedings in 2018. He told the Daily Beast he regretted involvement in the anti-vax movement.
Neither the McAuliffe campaign nor the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute responded to requests for comment.
World Bank leaders, including then-Chief Executive Kristalina Georgieva who is now the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), applied “undue pressure” on staff to boost China’s standing in the bank’s “Doing Business 2018,” according to an investigation related on Sept. 16.
The report (pdf), prepared by outside law firm WilmerHale at the request of the World Bank’s ethics committee, implicates Georgieva and then-World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, and casts a spotlight on China’s influence at the institution.
China’s ranking in the 2018 report, released in October 2017, should have been seven places lower, at 85th rather than remaining at 78th, the lender said in a review released in December 2020.
The report found the country’s boosting appeared to be “the product of two distinct types of pressure applied by bank leadership on the Doing Business team.”
It said Georgieva and a key adviser had pressured staff to “make specific changes to China’s data points” and boost its ranking at a time when the bank was seeking China’s support for a big capital increase.
World Bank employees also received “direct and indirect pressure” from senior staff in Kim’s office to change the report’s methodology to boost China’s score, likely under Kim’s direction, the report also said.
Georgieva said she disagreed “fundamentally with the findings and interpretations” of the report and had briefed the IMF’s executive board. Two years ago, Georgieva left the World Bank and became head of the IMF.
In response to the findings, the World Bank has decided to abandon the “Doing Business” series entirely, according to a statement released Thursday. The lender said the report “raised ethical matters, including the conduct of former Board officials as well as current and/or former Bank staff.”
The U.S. Treasury Department, which manages the dominant U.S. shareholdings in the IMF and the World Bank, said it was analyzing what it called the “serious findings.”
“Our primary responsibility is to uphold the integrity of international financial institutions,” Treasury spokeswoman Alexandra LaManna told Reuters.
Findings
The report said that the push to boost China’s score came at a time when Bank management was “consumed with sensitive negotiations” over a major capital increase, and when Chinese officials approached senior World Bank officials over concerns about the country’s score.
Georgieva told WilmerHale investigators that “multilateralism was at stake, and the Bank was in ‘very deep trouble’ if the campaign missed its goals,” the report said.
The World Bank in 2018 announced a $13 billion-paid in capital increase that boosted China’s shareholding stake to 6.01 percent from 4.68 percent.
In 2017, Chinese officials repeatedly told Kim and other senior World Bank officials that the 2017 Doing Business report failed to reflect China’s reforms, according to the report. The “Doing Business” report ranks countries based on their regulatory and legal environments, ease of business startups, financing, infrastructure, and other business climate measures.
One month before the report’s release, Chinese officials intensified their campaign, the report noted. In a dinner between Georgieva and a Chinese official on Oct. 14, 2017, he emphasized CEO Georgieva’s role as the “responsible person” at the Bank to “ensure” China’s reforms were acknowledged in the report, WilmerHale said.
When the draft 2018 report showed China dropping eight places to 85, senior staff from Kim’s office convened a meeting with the Doing Business leadership to discuss methodological changes to boost China’s ranking, including incorporating data from Taiwan and Hong Kong into the mainland’s score, the WilmerHale report said. That approach, however, was later scrapped for political reasons.
Georgieva later became personally involved, and in an Oct. 18, 2017 meeting said she was now overseeing the issue. During this meeting, she chastised the Bank’s then-China director for “mismanaging the Bank’s relationship with China and failing to appreciate the importance of the Doing Business report to the country,” the report said.
Georgieva asked a “Mr. Djankov” to guide the Doing Business report to final publication, and he worked with the unit to “identify changes to China’s data that would raise the country’s score,” the WilmerHale findings showed.
Staffers ultimately found three data points that could be changed to upgrade China’s score, the report said.
After Georgieva was informed of the changes, she thanked a staff member for doing his “bit for multilateralism,” the report found. She also visited the home of a Doing Business manager to pick up a hard copy of the report that reflected China’s new ranking, thanking the manager for helping to “resolve the problem” with China, WilherHale said.
The report said that staff on the Doing Business team knew the data changes were inappropriate but “felt that they could not challenge an order from the Bank’s president or CEO without risking their jobs.”
Dr. Mohammad Faghihi used laundered money, violated U.S. sanctions
Federal authorities this week arrested and charged a University of Miami professor who allegedly procured medical research equipment with laundered money and smuggled it into Iran.
Dr. Mohammad Faghihi, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Miami in Florida, was charged Tuesday in a Miami federal court with conspiracy to commit money laundering, unlawful export to Iran, and making false statements. Exporting scientific research devices to Iran without permission of the Treasury Department violates U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Faghihi was born and educated in Iran. He entered the United States lawfully in 2005 and was affiliated with the university from 2013 to 2020. The university did not respond to the Washington Free Beacon’s request for comment by press time.
According to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday, a small business Faghihi operated with his wife and sister obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars in wire service payments from companies in China, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates between 2016 and 2020. Those payments allegedly financed the purchase of genetic sequencing equipment from companies in the United States.
Export of such equipment to Iran without a license is illegal. Faghihi’s exports were not authorized, and authorities allege he took pains to conceal them.
Prosecutors said the wire transfers had no clear purpose, and many came around the time Faghihi procured the equipment.
“Those third-country international wires [are] indicative of money laundering designed to conceal that payment originated in Iran,” federal authorities wrote in the complaint.
WhatsApp messages recovered by investigators show Faghihi communicating with multiple parties throughout 2017 about the sequencing devices. In one May 2017 message, he told an unnamed professor with an Iranian phone number that he had procured two sequencing devices in the United States and installed them at a lab at Shiraz University, a major research institution in southwest Iran.
IP addresses for the machines confirmed they were in Shiraz from 2017 until at least June 2021.
Apart from the alleged sanctions violations, Faghihi was charged with fraudulently obtaining research grants from the National Institutes of Health. As a recipient of NIH grants, Faghihi was required to disclose the wire service payments he received, but he failed to do so.
Travel records indicate that Faghihi visited Iran on a regular basis, sometimes staying as long as four months. Such extended travel outside the United States required agency approval, which he did not seek.
The University of Miami Health System maintained a page about Faghihi’s research, where he was identified as an assistant professor in the university’s Miller School of Medicine. His research interests included “neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple sclerosis and Fragile X syndrome,” according to the portal. The page has since been removed from the university’s website, but the Free Beacon was able to review it via an Internet archive.
The extent of Faghihi’s connection to the Iranian regime is unclear. Shiraz University is government-run, but its research and academic programs have many civilian applications. One WhatsApp message revealed one of Faghihi’s associates was a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. But the message is five years old and is the only reference to the Revolutionary Guard that appears in Tuesday’s complaint.
Faghihi is also charged with making several false statements to federal authorities. Faghihi’s wife and sister also faced federal criminal charges related to the professor’s activities.
The case is U.S. v. Faghihi in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Police arrested Rep. Jewell Jones on drunk driving charges in April
A Michigan Democratic state representative snuck a handcuff key into jail after police arrested him for violating his bond, according to a county sheriff’s office.
Police discovered the key on Rep. Jewell Jones, whom a court released on bond in April after he was arrested on drunk driving charges, according to Livingston County sheriff Michael J. Murphy. The sheriff’s office says Jones has repeatedly violated his bond, which a judge revoked in a Tuesday hearing. The Democratic lawmaker now faces two additional felony charges—attempting to escape police custody and smuggling a weapon into a jail.
In a statement Wednesday, Murphy said Jones is “an embarrassment to all elected officials” who “thinks somehow the laws do not apply to him.”
The 26-year-old representative, who became the youngest person elected to the state legislature in 2016, was arrested on drunk driving charges in April. During the traffic stop, Jones resisted arrest, and law enforcement pepper-sprayed and tased the government official, according to a police report. The lawmaker also threatened to report the officers to Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer, saying, “It’s not going to be good for you” and “I run y’all budget.”
Jones’s arrest is only the latest controversy for the Michigan lawmaker. Earlier this year, Jones spent more than $200 in campaign funds at a strip club, according to a July financial disclosure.
Inflation expectations among American consumers rose to an eight-year high in August, according to a new survey from the New York Federal Reserve.
Both the short-term and medium-term inflation expectations in August rose to their highest levels in the history of the series, which dates back to 2013, according to the Sept. 13 survey.
Consumers’ expectations for what inflation will be at the one-year horizon increased from a median 4.9 percent in July to 5.2 percent in August. Americans aged 60 and over reported the highest anticipated rise in prices over the short term, with a median prediction of inflation of 6.0 percent, while the under-40s reported the lowest, at 4.5 percent. Broken down by income, people who earn between $50,000 and $100,000 reported the highest one-year ahead median expected inflation rate of 5.5 percent, while those earning over $100,000 reported the lowest, at 4.9 percent.
Consumers’ expectations for what inflation will be at the three-year horizon increased from a median 3.7 percent in July to 4.0 percent in August. The highest anticipated rise in the three-year ahead rate of inflation was expressed by Americans aged 60 and over, with a median prediction of 4.9 percent. The under-40s reported the lowest, at 3.0 percent. Broken down by income, people who earn between $50,000 and $100,000 reported the highest three-year ahead median expected inflation rate of 4.2 percent, while those earning over $100,000 reported the lowest, at 3.5 percent.
The New York Fed’s survey of consumer expectations, which is based on a rotating panel of 1,300 households, can be a helpful gauge for Fed officials as they weigh the inflation outlook and mull related policy moves. Policymakers at the Fed have been discussing how and when to begin pulling back on the extraordinary support measures provided during the COVID-19 pandemic, with some officials expressing concern that recent inflationary pressures may last longer than anticipated.
Last year, the Fed cut its benchmark overnight interest rate to near zero and began buying $120 billion in Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities each month to bolster the economy. While rate hikes are not yet on the table, Fed officials are mulling when to start paring asset buys, with anticipation building ahead of the Sept. 21–22 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s monetary policy decision-making body, for a possible announcement on a tapering timeline.
The Federal Reserve Board Building on Constitution Avenue in Washington on March 27, 2019. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
The consumer inflation expectations survey also comes ahead of the much-anticipated release on Sept. 14 of the Labor Department’s consumer price index (CPI), which will show the extent of upward price pressures in August. Last month’s data showed that consumer prices rose again in July, although at their slowest monthly pace since February, with the CPI jumping 0.5 percent in July from June, after the previous monthly increase of 0.9 percent. Over-the-year consumer price inflation stood at 5.4 percent in July, matching the June figure, which was the highest 12-month spike since 2008.
Global stocks and the dollar held steady on Tuesday morning ahead of the CPI release, which will be closely watched by investors looking for clues as to the Fed’s tapering plans.
Last week, the Labor Department reported that producer prices rose at their highest annual pace on record in August and slightly above expectations, reinforcing broader concerns about rising prices as higher production costs tend to trickle down to consumers. For the 12 months ending in August, the final demand producer price index (PPI) jumped by 8.3 percent, the highest number in the history of the series, which dates back to 2010, the Labor Department said in a Sept. 10 release. On a month-over-month basis, the final demand PPI rose 0.7 percent in August, lower than the 1.0 percent recorded in June and July, suggesting the peak in producer price inflation may have passed.
Actress and activist Rose McGowan has accused California Governor Gavin Newsom’s wife of trying to convince her not to go public with the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse story. She will detail the allegations on Sunday.
Newsom’s chief rival, Republican Party candidate Larry Elder, said he and McGowan will hold a press conference on Sunday afternoon, during which McGowan will detail how
“Gavin Newsom’s wife, Jennifer, attempted to bribe and silence her from speaking out about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuses.”
“The time for radical change is now,” the actress wrote on Twitter after the announcement.
The event is scheduled to take place two days before the recall election, in which Elder hopes to unseat Newsom, who has been governing California since 2019.
McGowan, who has harshly criticized both Republican and Democrat figures in the past, first made allegations about Newsom’s wife in an interview with political commentator and talk show host Dave Rubin earlier this week.
She claimed Jennifer Siebel Newsom wanted to set up a meeting with her and later called her on behalf of Weinstein’s lawyer, David Boies, attempting to convince McGowan not to go public with sexual abuse accusations against Weinstein.
According to McGowan, the call occurred in 2017, six months before The New York Times ran a story in which dozens of women, including McGowan, accused Weinstein of rape and sexual assault. The accusations spearheaded the #MeToo movement and led to a criminal investigation of Weinstein. The once-powerful Hollywood mogul was ultimately sentenced to 23 years in jail last year.
“Remember when you @JenSiebelNewsom asked me on behalf of Weinstein’s gross lawyer ‘What it would take to make me happy?’ Gavin Newsom’s wife has some explaining to do,” McGowan tweeted after the interview with Rubin. She called on Californians to vote for Elder instead of Newsom.
The actress posted screenshots of what she said were emails sent by Siebel Newsom. According to the screenshots, the governor’s wife supposedly acknowledged that one of her extended family members works at the same law firm as Boies, but called the accusations of her being in cahoots with Boies “crazy.”
“I want us to heal as a culture and so I asked Rose ‘what if anything Boies could do for her that would help her to heal’ and then I thought I would present that to my brother in law to take to Boies,” the email purportedly sent by Siebel Newsom read.
The email also seemed to suggest McGowan’s allegations against Siebel Newsom stemmed from “unresolved trauma,” and Siebel Newsom was made into “the scapegoat.”
In a statement to Newsweek, a spokesperson for Siebel Newsom dismissed the allegations as a “complete fabrication.”
Opponents have criticized Newsom for imposing a harsh lockdown last year when the state was first hit by Covid-19. The governor was later forced to apologize for attending a packed birthday party at a luxury restaurant in November at a time when he and his administration were asking Californians to refrain from family gatherings on Thanksgiving.
Update: See further legal analysis from an attorney at the bottom of the story.
The Food and Drug Administration’s “full authorization” for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for Covid-19 was announced with a fair amount of hooplah and fanfare. The President of the United States announced the monumental development and touted it as rationale for the vaccine mandates to commence in the private sector, throughout the government, and in the U.S. military.
President Joe Biden was on the spot Monday morning with a quick reaction to the FDA’s “full authorization” of the Covid-19 vaccines.
The FDA has officially approved the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. While all three COVID vaccines have met FDA’s strict standards for emergency use, this FDA approval should give added confidence that this vaccine is safe and effective.
“The FDA has officially approved the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine,” Biden said. “While all three COVID vaccines have met FDA’s strict standards for emergency use, this FDA approval should give added confidence that this vaccine is safe and effective. If you’re not vaccinated yet, now is the time.”
Biden’s announcement followed upon the widespread media coverage that the Pfizer-BioNTech had “full” approval for the use of the vaccine in the United States.
“The Food and Drug Administration granted Pfizer and BioNTech full U.S. approval of their Covid-19 vaccine – becoming the first in the U.S. to win the coveted designation and giving even more businesses, schools and universities greater confidence to adopt vaccine mandates,” CNBC reported.
“Up until now, the mRNA vaccine was on the U.S. market under an Emergency Use Authorization, which was granted by the FDA in December. Since then, more than 204 million of the Pfizer shots have been administered, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” the report added.
The Pentagon on Wednesday finally issued its order that U.S. troops get the vaccine — or else.
There is it: The Pentagon orders all active duty troops to be vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine. pic.twitter.com/CW9VnNy9od
“To defend this Nation, we need a healthy and ready force,” the Defense Department memo said. “After careful consultation with military experts and military leadership, and with the support of the President, I have determined that mandatory vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is ncessary to protect the force and defend the American people.”
But a closer examination of the “full authorization” documents has some Americans feeling deceived. There is the matter that Pfizer-BioNTech still appears to be afforded the legal protections that accompany Emergency Use Authorization, all while it purportedly has “full” FDA approval. How did the pharmaceutical company manage such a commercial ‘coup’?
Upon a more critical look at the documents, it now very much seems to be the case that the company, along with the indispensable aid of a complicit media and the Biden administration, has engaged in a classic bait-and-switch.
Before proceeding, examine the technical language used in the awkwardly phrased release. The new label for the ‘fully authorized’ vaccine is called ‘Comirnarty.’
“On December 11, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for emergency use of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 Vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 for individuals 16 years of age and older pursuant to Section 564 of the Act,” the FDA stated in a letter to the Global Senior Director of Pfizer Ms. Elaine Harkins. “FDA reissued the letter of authorization on: December 23, 2020, February 25, 2021, May 10, 2021, June 25, 2021, and August 12, 2021.”
“On August 23, 2021, FDA approved the biologics license application (BLA) submitted by BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH for COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) for active immunization to prevent COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 in individuals 16 years of age and older.”
PhD. biochemistry and molecular biology student Kathleen Lee picked up on the change in language and decided to press further.Advertisements
I called the Pfizer BioNtech number 1-800-666-7248. The recording clearly states that it has not been approved by the FDA. Pfizer BNT162B2 is still under EUA. This clears up that messy FDA authorization between Comirnaty and Pfizer BioNtech
“I called the Pfizer BioNtech number 1-800-666-7248,” she said. “The recording clearly states that it has not been approved by the FDA. Pfizer BNT162B2 is still under EUA. This clears up that messy FDA authorization between Comirnaty and Pfizer BioNtech.”
Overlooking the odd choice for an area code, I decided to call and confirmed this is still the case. But it could just be an old recording. Lee continued to express her analysis of the apparent discrepancy.
It’s deceitful. If the vial says Comirnaty- It’s FDA approved. It the vial says Pfizer BioNtech- it’s under EUA and they’re not subject to liability. There’s millions of doses to get rid of first
“It’s deceitful,” Lee claimed. “If the vial says Comirnaty- It’s FDA approved. It the vial says Pfizer BioNtech- it’s under EUA and they’re not subject to liability. There’s millions of doses to get rid of first.”
Yet if the next batch of vaccines being dispensed were being produced under the Cominarty label, then that would appear to reconcile the issue.
Except that isn’t the case. Buried deep within the footnotes of the Pfizer-BioNTech documents is one footnote that puts into rather jolting perspective that the currently labeled vaccines are still under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).
“Although COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) is approved to prevent COVID-19 in individuals 16 years of age and older, there is not sufficient approved vaccine available for distribution to this population in its entirety at the time of reissuance of this EUA. Additionally, there are no products that are approved to prevent COVID-19 in individuals age 12 through 15, or that are approved to provide an additional dose to the immunocompromised population described in this EUA.”
The profound implications of this admission was mentioned by notable vaccine critic Alex Berenson, formerly of the New York Times and a best-selling author on the subject.
2/ Or is this another reason @us_fda is going out of its way to say Comirnaty is not available?
“although COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) is approved… there is not sufficient approved vaccine available for distribution to this population.”https://t.co/XrqIORQZVt
“So now that Come-Here-Naughty is approved (ish), the [Moderna] and [Johnson & Johnson] lose their Emergency Use Authorizations, right?” Berenson asked. “Because there’s an approved alternative and you can’t have an EUA when there are ‘adequate, approved, and available alternatives’.”
“Or is this another reason [the FDA] is going out of its way to say Comirnaty is not available?” Berenson continued. “[A]lthough COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) is approved… there is not sufficient approved vaccine available for distribution to this population.”
Attorney Robert Barnes got to the heart of the matter in a post on Wednesday night:
There is no *available* FDA approved licensed vaccine. Here’s what is happening. If FDA approved & licensed COVID19 vaccine, it would have to revoke the EUA vaccines & subject the vaccine maker to more liability risk. So it only approved a future vaccine that isn’t “available”.
“There is no *available* FDA approved licensed vaccine,” Barnes said. “Here’s what is happening. If FDA approved & licensed COVID19 vaccine, it would have to revoke the EUA vaccines & subject the vaccine maker to more liability risk. So it only approved a future vaccine that isn’t ‘available’.”
When a user questioned his analysis with the extremely persuasive point “full stop,” Barnes countered with an indisputable point.
Did you fail to read the part of the FDA letter where it said the licensed vaccine isn’t “available” yet? How is there ANY EUA vaccines when the law does not allow them if there is a licensed vaccine available?
“Did you fail to read the part of the FDA letter where it said the licensed vaccine isn’t ‘available’ yet?” Barnes asked. “How is there ANY EUA vaccines when the law does not allow them if there is a licensed vaccine available?”Advertisements
Dr. Robert Malone, who is described as the inventor of the mRNA and RNA as a drug, appeared on Steve Bannon’s war room on Monday and also delved into the Pfizer-BioNTech/Cominarty controversy.
“So, the little trick that they’ve done here is they have issued two separate letters… The Pfizer vaccine, which is what is currently available… is still under [EUA]… Once again, the mainstream media has lied to you.” — Dr. Robert Malonehttps://t.co/boQuU11XQz
“So, the little trick that they’ve done here is they have issued two separate letters… The Pfizer vaccine, which is what is currently available… is still under Emergency Use Authorization,” Dr. Malone said. “Once again, the mainstream media has lied to you.”
The entire vaccine rollout has broken the public trust — from the lies about “15 days to stop the spread” to the lie that the COVID vaccine prevents transmission and thereby protects “the public” — the pharmaceutical companies, as well as the Biden administration and its bureaucratic arms, no longer get the benefit of the doubt.
If the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is being treated as a ‘fully authorized’ vaccine, then it should no longer be afforded the protections offered by EUA.
There is one way the American people can find out for sure: Let the lawsuits begin.
The State Department refused to grant official approval for private evacuation flights from Afghanistan to land in third countries, even though the department conceded that official authorization would likely be needed for planes to land in those nations, an email reviewed by Fox News shows.
Furthermore, the State Department explicitly stated that charter flights, even those containing American citizens, would not be allowed to land at Defense Department (DOD) airbases. U.S. officials have pointed to possible security threats from landing charter planes at military bases, saying that they lack the resources on the ground to fully verify flight manifests.
Eric Montalvo, who organized a series of private flights evacuating those stranded in Afghanistan, shared that email and others with Fox News after his evacuation efforts were repeatedly hampered by the federal bureaucracy.
A Sept. 1 email that a State Department official sent to Montalvo underscores the extent to which private evacuation efforts have run into bureaucratic roadblocks.
“No independent charters are allowed to land at [Al Udeid Air Base], the military airbase you mentioned in your communication with Samantha Power. In fact, no charters are allowed to land at an [sic] DoD base and most if not all countries in the Middle Eastern region, with the exception of perhaps Saudi Arabia will allow charters to land,” the official wrote.
“You need to find another destination country, and it can’t be the U.S. either.”
The official noted that though some third countries “may require” official approval from the State Department before accepting the private charter flights, the department “will not provide” that approval.
“Once you have had discussions with the host/destination country and reached an agreement, they may require some indication from the USG that we ‘approve’ of this charter flight. DOS will not provide an approval, but we will provide a ‘no objection’ to the destination country government via the U.S. Embassy in that country.”
Before you read the article, please see the long term climate history graph below for a more realistic, long-term view of climate history.
An important new study in “Climate Dynamics” has criticized a key methodology that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses to attribute climate change to greenhouse gases, raising questions about the validity of research that relied on it and prompting a response from one of the scientists who developed the technique.
The new study’s author, economist Ross McKitrick, told The Epoch Times in an exclusive interview that he thinks his results have weakened the IPCC’s case that greenhouse gases cause climate change.
The methodology, known as “optimal fingerprinting,” has been used to link greenhouse gases to everything from temperature to forest fires, precipitation, and snow cover.
McKitrick compared optimal fingerprinting to the way law enforcement officers use fingerprinting to identify criminals.
“[They] take this big smudge of data and say, ‘Yeah, the fingerprints of greenhouse gas are on it,’” he said.
McKitrick said the optimal fingerprinting research he criticized, 1999’s paper in Climate Dynamics “Checking for model consistency in optimal fingerprinting,” is a “cornerstone of the field of attribution”—the branch of climate science focused on identifying the causes of climate change.
But according to McKitrick, the authors of that paper, Myles Allen and Simon Tett, made errors in the steps needed to validate their strategy.
“When you do a statistical analysis, it’s not enough just to crunch some numbers and publish the result and say, ‘This is what the data tell us.’ You then have to apply some tests to your modeling technique to see if it’s valid for the kind of data you’re using,” he said.
“They claimed that their model passes all the relevant tests—but there are a couple of problems with that claim,” he continued. “The first is they stated the conditions wrong—they left most of the relevant conditions out that you’re supposed to test—and then they proposed a methodology for testing that is completely uninformative. It’s not actually connected to any standard testing method.”
Their framework, McKitrick said, also assumes that a major chunk of climate change has to be attributable to greenhouse gases—so using it to prove that greenhouse gases lead to climate change is meaningless.
“You’re dependent on climate model data to construct the test—and the climate model already embeds the assumptions about the role of greenhouse gases,” said McKitrick. “You can’t relax that assumption.”
McKitrick, who explained his results in more technical detail at JudithCurry.com, said the IPCC’s attribution of climate change to greenhouse gases is largely based on the 1999 paper or closely related research with the same problems.
Myles Allen, one of the two coauthors of the 1999 paper that McKitrick has challenged, responded to McKitrick’s paper in an email to The Epoch Times.
“Fully addressing the issues raised by this paper might have made some difference to conclusions regarding human influence on climate when the signal was still quite weak 20 years ago,” said Allen.
According to Allen, however, the signal is now much stronger whether one uses his 1999 technique or the simpler method employed at globalwarmingindex.org. He also said that newer methods, including one in his own 2003 paper, have superseded the method from 1999.
“To be a little light-hearted, it feels a bit like someone suggesting we should all stop driving because a new issue has been identified with the Model-T Ford,” Allen said.
“Even if it were true that [Allen’s method] is no longer used and people have moved on to other methods, [given] its historical prominence it would still be necessary as a scientific matter for Simon and Myles either to concede their paper contains errors or rebut the specific criticisms,” said McKitrick in an emailed response to Allen’s argument.
“And the reality is the climate profession hasn’t moved on,” McKitrick said. “The IPCC still discusses the Optimal Fingerprinting method in the AR6 and relies on many papers that use it.”
While Allen argued that his later 2003 paper superseded his 1999 paper, McKitrick responded that the 2003 paper, along with other more recent methods that Allen identified, “has all the same problems” as the 1999 paper.
McKitrick also argued that the method at globalwarmingindex.org may have the same issues as Allen’s 1999 paper, in large part because both studies cite a 1997 study from Klaus Hasselman that, in McKitrick’s words, “[proposed] the same [method].”
“Thus by Myles’ [Allen’s] own examples AT99 is still central to the attribution literature,” said McKitrick.
Allen argued that McKitrick’s criticism of his use of a climate model is misguided, as his 1999 method may actually be “overly conservative” in attributing climate change to human influence.
According to Allen, standard climate models may yield results in which the amount of statistical “noise,” and thus uncertainty, is overstated.
This rebuttal, said McKitrick, “does not address the core problem I point out,” which has to do with testing for errors in their fingerprinting calculations.
Allen and McKitrick also sparred over a specific statistical test in the 1999 paper, with Allen saying McKitrick had greatly overstated its importance and McKitrick countering that it is the only such test researchers have used in this context.
Attribution researcher Aurélien Ribes, whose papers were among those Allen claimed had superseded the 1999 research, declined to comment on the paper in detail in an email to The Epoch Times, though he said he had looked at an earlier version of it.
“I do not expect a very large impact in terms of attribution results,” said Ribes, a climate change researcher at France’s National Centre for Meteorological Research.
He said that some of his own research was not dependent on fingerprinting. He also claimed that certain attribution findings, such as on global mean temperature, are “very robust.”
But another expert, Richard Tol, believes much of McKitrick’s criticism is on the mark.
“McKitrick is right,” said Tol, a professor of economics at the University of Sussex and a professor of the economics of climate change at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in an email to The Epoch Times.
Tol explained that Allen and Tett’s attempt to address a widespread statistical issue had “made things worse, not better.”
“To top it all off, many people have since used the method proposed by Allen & Tett,” he added.
“The implications are unclear,” Tol continued. “Many of the papers that use the fingerprinting method to detect the impact of climate change are simply wrong,”
“That does not mean that climate change is not real or that its effects cannot be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions. It means that many of the papers that made such claims will have to be redone.”
When I was at the Orange County Register writing unsigned editorials, from 1987 to 2016, we made sure always to oppose every local tax increase—including “bonds,” which I called “delayed tax increases,” because that’s where the money eventually comes from. Local and state governments can’t print their own money, unlike the federal government.
Although we sometimes lost, especially with school bonds, we usually defeated the increased levies. Even when we lost, every local government knew it would face the gauntlet of several editorials, and likely signed columns, blasting them for assaulting the taxpayers.
By contrast, the Los Angeles Times backed almost every tax increase put before it. The result is Orange County has lower taxes and is much more livable than Los Angeles.
That’s confirmed by a new study (pdf) by the California Tax Foundation, titled “Local Tax Trends in California: A Survey of Ballot Measure Elections from 2010-2010.” It found over that decade such taxes increased by $8.82 billion a year statewide. Voters rejected just $3.17 billion in tax increases.
On the positive side, Proposition 13 saved taxpayers $2.4 billion a year. The 1978 tax limitation measure requires two-thirds voter approval for taxes earmarked for special purposes. But if only a majority vote had been required, taxes would have gone up that higher amount.
I gleaned several key things from this study. Here’s some of my analysis that goes beyond their data.
Although the study does not break down the 58 counties, it does so for seven regions. The Southern California region includes Orange County and the two areas most like it: San Diego County and the Inland Empire. These areas are largely urban but more conservative and Republican than the rest of the state’s populous areas.
Hotel Tax
Consider the voter approval of hotel taxes, also called the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT). These are popular because the locals “don’t pay for them,” only visitors who don’t live and vote there—except tourists and convention groups sure do consider price. A higher TOT means fewer people not only occupying hotel rooms, but fewer patronizing local restaurants, tourist attractions, and stores.
Here’s the tally of the seven regions for 2010-2020, from lowest passage rate to highest:
It’s a textbook in social illusions. Los Angeles and the Bay Area, with passage rates above 80 percent, are plagued with increasing homelessness and crime. They “solve” the problem with higher taxes to pay for more social programs, which don’t work. But the taxes make living there harder.
Meanwhile the Central Valley and Southern California, with passage rates around the 50 percent rate, are doing much better.
Utility Users Taxes
Another tax localities love to impose is Utility Users Taxes (UUT). Hey, it’s just a user fee. You don’t want the infrastructure to collapse so you miss the latest Netflix binge, do you?
Here’s the breakdown, from lowest passage rate to highest:
Aside from the anomaly of Northern California passing all its UUT increases, the numbers show more reluctance when a tax boost hits voters’ own pocketbooks directly. Yet the general pattern holds, with Southern California and the Central Valley more reluctant to jack up taxes than Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
Conclusion: Will It Continue?
Next year brings another election cycle. Taxes and bonds again will clog ballots. But will these high passage rates continue?
They may not. Especially after COVID-19 slammed family and business budgets, Californians seem more skeptical of taxes, and of government in general. The word also is getting out that, as Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association puts it, nowadays all tax increases go to the bloated pensions of retired government workers—that is, to those no longer performing actual services for the public.
With kids back in the classroom, school districts soon will have accurate numbers on how many kids now are being homeschooled. EdSource reported in July, “During the height of the pandemic, almost 35,000 California families filed an affidavit with the state to open a private home school,” more than double those of the previous year.
Public schools will have difficulty advancing tax increases if attendance numbers are down. And it’ll also be hard to convince homeschooling families to back tax increases for services they won’t even see.
The most logical response is: “Cui bono?”—”Who benefits?”—from the decision.
If some policy benefits your country most, you should, within moral bounds, pursue it.
If your enemies benefit most, you should avoid it.
I’d be curious to learn what answer proponents of America leaving Afghanistan—conservative or liberal—would give to the question, “Cui bono?”
I can say that until this moment, I have not read or heard a single cogent argument from proponents of American withdrawal as to how exactly it benefits America.
“Twenty years is too long,” or its variant, “we have to end these endless wars,” the most commonly offered argument for withdrawal, has nothing to do with benefiting America.
It is an emotional sentiment, not a rational argument.
The withdrawal has already cost us in a single day more service members’ lives than we lost on any one day in Afghanistan since June 2014, seven years ago.
The number of American servicemen killed in Afghanistan per year from 2015 to 2020 is respectively 22, 9, 14, 14, 21, and 11. No one can seriously argue that we are leaving Afghanistan because of high American casualties.
So, while America doesn’t benefit at all from leaving Afghanistan, it does get hurt.
The damage to the reputation of America—as an ally and as a strong country—is not easily overstated.
The damage done to NATO, whose members President Joe Biden didn’t bother to consult, is greater than any damage former President Donald Trump—whom the left-wing mainstream media constantly attacked for damaging NATO—was alleged to have done.
On the other hand, “Cui bono?” has some very clear answers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, every Islamic terror group in the world and every other anti-American regime and movement.
In the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro compiled a list of recent Western weakness in the face of tyrants and the commensurate strengthening of those tyrants:
“The West’s abandonment of Hong Kong in the face of Chinese aggression last year.
“The West’s continuing desire for a rapprochement with the Iranian mullahcracy.
“The West’s routine appeasement of Russia.
“All speak to the unwillingness of the West—and the West’s leader, the United States—to stand up for allies anywhere on earth.
“Afghanistan is simply the latest, and by far the most stunning, example of abandonment of an American ally …
“China’s Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, chortled, ‘From what happened in Afghanistan, those in Taiwan should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defense will collapse in hours and U.S. military won’t come to help. As a result (Taiwan) will quickly surrender.’
“Indeed, given the window presented by the Biden administration, it would be somewhat of a surprise if China didn’t attempt some sort of action against Taiwan in the next few years …
“Foreign policy abhors vacuums, and the United States has now created one. That means that erstwhile American allies will begin to play footsie with countries like Russia and China, believing that American commitments mean little. They have reason for such suspicions, obviously.”
The effects on Americans’ perceptions of the military constitute another terrible price paid by leaving Afghanistan. More and more Americans see the military as more concerned with fighting white supremacy in America and transphobia in the military than with fighting for the supremacy of freedom on earth. This is new. And it will have a devastating effect on both America and the military. One obvious consequence: Who will want to enlist in a woke military? (Perhaps that’s the goal.)
It seems that every generation has to relearn the basic laws of life, such as this one: There are many bad people and many bad countries in the world, and only a fear of good countries prevents them from conquering other countries.
There is less fear of good countries in the world today than at any time since World War II. And that is especially so because the good countries are preoccupied with their own alleged evils rather than with the world’s real evils.
