Did you know that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spends public money to warn of attacks by hordes of zombies? Really. The program is designed to make some demographic groups more receptive to CDC propaganda—or rather, “messaging.”

But spending our tax dollars on zombie posters, a zombie novel, and zombie history are among the lesser problems at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Both of these federal agencies are overgrown, unnecessary, arrogant, infused with leftist politics, and unconstitutional. And both should be abolished.

Recent Revelations: Fauci and Walensky

This past week, Americans were stunned to learn that a long-standing charge was actually true: The NIH funded coronavirus “gain of function” research at the Wuhan lab in communist China. This revelation directly contradicted repeated reassurances by NIH official Anthony Fauci that such funding didn’t happen.

Apart from the issue of misinforming the public (although that’s serious enough), why would a federal agency spend nearly $600,000 in taxpayer money to make a virus more dangerous? Why would it fund anything in communist China—except, perhaps, resistance to that country’s tyrannical government?

Earlier this year, CDC Director Rochelle Paula Walensky issued a decree rewriting every residential landlord-tenant lease in the country. This was outside her statutory authority and in defiance of both the Constitution and the Supreme Court (pdf).

Legal issues aside, consider the sheer hubris: There’s nothing in Walensky’s background to suggest she has any expertise on landlord-tenant law or management. What made her think she knows anything about the subject? What drove her to impose her will on millions of other people?

Fortunately, the Supreme Court promptly voided her order (pdf).

The Constitutional Issue

Every federal elected office holder promises to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. Outside of the capital district and the federal territories, that Constitution assigns no powers to the central government over civilian health care. Further, the Constitution limits the permissible size of the capital district to 10 miles square, so as to prevent federal institutions from metastasizing into state territory and unduly influencing state policy.

The great Chief Justice John Marshall—an advocate of a strong federal government—summarized the Constitution’s position on health care in his famous decision in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824): Reserved exclusively for the states, he wrote, are “health laws of every description”.

Nevertheless, enabled by rogue Supreme Court rulings issued in panic circumstances during the Great Depression, Congress continues to fund both the CDC and the NIH.

Bureaucracy Run Wild

Over the years, these two agencies have grown into massive bureaucracies. The CDC has nearly 11,000 employees and recently enjoyed a budget of $11.1 billion. That budget is now almost certainly higher. Rather than being located in the capital district, the CDC occupies a campus in Atlanta, Georgia. Except for a museum on the grounds, that campus is closed to the public.

The NIH is not located in the capital district, either. It occupies a lavish main campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The campus is a federal enclave, which means that although it’s within a state, it’s under direct federal control. It’s large enough to house several fitness centers and its own fire department. According to its official directory, the NIH contains 27 separate institutes and centers and a National Library of Medicine. It has 20,000 employees, and in 2020 enjoyed a budget of $42 billion.

The publicity and—for lack of a better word—conceit surrounding these two entities might make you think they’re the only health agencies in the country. Wikipedia, for example, describes the CDC as “the national public health agency of the United States.” This makes it sound as if the United States didn’t have 50 state public health departments and thousands of local public health departments.

Similarly, the NIH Clinical Center identifies itself as “America’s research hospital”—as if America didn’t contain hundreds of other research hospitals funded by state and local governments and by private philanthropy. In addition, the United States has 4,000 degree-granting institutions of higher learning, many of which are involved in health care research, and the pharmaceutical companies also operate a huge health care research sector.

Constitutional issues aside, therefore, an objective observer must ask why, at a time when the federal government is essentially bankrupt, are the feds duplicating state, local, and private efforts? After all, with modern telecommunications, research can be coordinated among different entities nationwide. Moreover, to the extent the CDC and NIH are not duplicating other efforts, why is Congress allowing federal agencies to crowd out programs that might otherwise flourish?

Politicization: Critical Race Theory and Other Leftist Notions

But duplication and waste are not the biggest dangers posed by federal involvement in health care. The biggest danger is politicization. When politics infiltrate science, science becomes corrupted and its application inefficient. Corrupted and inefficient medical science can lead to the death of millions who might have been saved and prolong the misery of millions who might have been cured.

One long-standing example of politicization is the CDC’s efforts to become involved in the issue of gun violence. Traditionally, this is an issue for law enforcement and criminologists rather than for public health agencies. The CDC’s intrusion into the area is a classic example of “mission creep.”

The reason for this mission creep is politics. The CDC started meddling with the “gun violence” issue during the administration of President Bill Clinton. A major agenda item for Clinton was more regulation of owners and users of firearms. The CDC apparently was to supply the supposedly neutral “science” to promote that agenda. Congress had to enact legislation to stop it.

Now Joe Biden is president and he also wants draconian control of firearms. So CDC Director Walensky has announced that she wants to renew CDC gun-violence research.

Another example of politicized mission creep is how the NIH and the CDC have become invested in the left’s poisonous racial politics—including “structural racism” (translation: “You’re a racist even if you’re not”) and the misnamed critical race “theory.”

Like gun control, race relations are outside the traditional scope of public health agencies. Walensky, however, claims that “racism is a serious threat to the public’s health.” So the CDC now spends your tax dollars on both a “Health Equity Matters newsletter” and an “Office of Minority Health and Health Equity (OMHHE).”

The latter office recently named a certain Chandra Ford as “the Health Equity Champion for Spring 2021.” The reason was that Ford and another person “originated … the Public Health Critical Race Praxis, which is a framework for applying Critical Race Theory empirically.”

Just as the CDC is on the lookout for zombies, the NIH is deeply into racial witch hunting. The agency has assigned nearly 100 highly paid witch-hunters to its UNITE program with the assignment of exorcizing “structural racism.” The NIH website virtue-signals by affirming that “ending structural racism in biomedical research starts now.”

The CDC and NIH are also attuned to the wider “woke” cause. The CDC’s celebration of Ford, for example, was a “two-fer” because she also works on LGBTQ issues. The NIH (like the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services generally), grants federal funding—that’s our money—to writers committed to the leftist agenda. Recent “funding opportunities” include “New investigators to promote workforce diversity in genomics, bioinformatics, or bioengineering and biomedical imaging research” and “Understanding and addressing the impact of structural racism and discrimination on minority health and health disparities.”

All of these are easily accessible examples of CDC and NIH politicization. My long experience in government taught me that for every easily accessible example, there are many hidden ones. Only whistleblowers can reveal the full extent of the rot within.

A Message to Republicans: Abolish Both Agencies

How can we clean up this mess?

It’s not by writing a letter to the president. It’s by insisting that the next time Republicans control Congress they permanently defund the CDC and NIH, thereby eradicating them root and branch.

Radical? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely. History tells us why:

Conservatives and “progressives” have one thing in common: Conservatives use their own money to fund their political activities, and “progressives” use the same source—conservatives’ money—to fund theirs. Without constant forced subsidies from hardworking taxpayers (overwhelmingly conservative and moderate), the far left would be an insignificant force in this country.

When Democrats obtain majorities in Congress and the state legislatures, they use public money to create and fund social programs that become (1) mechanisms for social control and (2) bases for leftist political activity. When Republicans regain legislative control, they may trim the programs and reform them. But those changes don’t last long, because when Democrats recover their majority, they expand funding, lift restrictions, and render the programs even larger and more powerful than they were before.

If the Republican Party wants to continue as a viable force, it must fully defund these programs and the agencies that administer them. This will eliminate their lobbying power and make it harder for subsequent Democratic majorities to re-create them.

Permanent defunding is, I recognize, a difficult task. Once accomplished, however, the agency and its lobbyists have vanished, its abuses are over, and a reliable Democrat base has vanished. This is because for all their talk about “public service,” once the money has dried up, bureaucrats don’t hang around. As the late California state senator and humorist H.L. (“Bill”) Richardson often remarked, “I never knew a bureaucrat who worked for nothing.”

What will happen to the CDC and NIH staff once the funding has stopped? Some will retire on their government pensions. Some will get jobs in state and local health agencies, where their potential to inflict damage is more limited and they may actually do some good.

But most will switch to the private sector where they no longer have incentives to be nuisances, and will become productive and useful members of society.

Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor and historian, is senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at Colorado’s Independence Institute. He is the author of “The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant” (3rd ed., 2015). He comes from a medical family and, unlike CDC director Walensky, has an extensive background in landlord tenant issues.

State lawmakers, unlike their federal counterparts, don’t rake in the big bucks.

In two states, they make six-figure salaries — but those states, according to Ballotpedia, are California and New York, where legislators take home $114,877 and $110,000 a year, respectively. And sure, that’ll get you a studio apartment in California, but what about utilities?

In Maryland, the number is roughly half that: $50,330 a year. Thus, many lawmakers not only come from the private sector but stay there after they get elected, particularly if they have high-paying jobs — like, say, being a doctor.

I get that. However, if Maryland state Del. Terri Hill cares about her constituents as much as she cares about her patients, perhaps she should have neither gig.

According to The Associated Press, Hill, a Democrat, was fined $15,000 and hit with a reprimand by the Maryland Board of Physicians for participating in two separate virtual legislative meetings, including a voting session, while she was in the operating room.

As McAuliffe Craters in Polls, His Grown Daughter Is Caught Flipping Off Youngkin’s Campaign Signs

Like many states, Maryland’s legislative committee meetings were held via videoconferencing software this year because of COVID-19 protocols. On two occasions, Hill — a board-certified plastic surgeon — left patients on the operating table while she dealt with legislative business.

Earlier this month, Hill signed a consent order which found her guilty of “unprofessional conduct in the practice of medicine.”

The first report of Hill’s, um, multitasking came in a March 23 article in the Baltimore Sun. During a February committee meeting of the House Environment and Transportation Committee, she stepped away from a patient to present a bill via Zoom.

During a March 12 meeting of the Maryland House of Delegates Health and Government Operations Committee, which lasted about an hour, Hill’s feed “showed multiple gowned and masked figures moving about, with sets of operating room lights visible on the screen,” the Sun reported. The hearings were being broadcast on both YouTube and the General Assembly’s website as they happened.

Should there be heavier repercussions for Hill’s poor judgment?

“She was positioned under the surgical lights, focused downward, and would occasionally shift, reach for surgical instruments, or adjust the lights,” the report read, adding Hill and her staff “occasionally moved surgical equipment and blood-stained towels so that they were briefly visible on the video feed.”

According to The Hill, the doctor acknowledged to the board her participation wasn’t required in either of the sessions.

Hill, whose district covers areas of Baltimore and Howard counties, insisted this was entirely safe when the Sun first reported on it.

“Had there been any safety or privacy concerns, then I wouldn’t have done it,” Hill told the Sun in March, although she declined to say what the surgeries being performed at the time were.

“I’m a little surprised that this is becoming a big deal because there are no privacy issues. There are no attention-to-duty issues and there’s no dereliction-of-duty issues,” she said.

Major Police Union Implements New Strategy to Defy Big Brother’s Vaccine Mandate

“So, the only issue is people’s perception of what could or could not or must or must not have been going on.”

The perception of the people on the Maryland Board of Physicians — which I trust to be a bit more educated in the matter — begged to differ.

During an April disciplinary panel hearing, she said that both patients “gave permission” for her to attend the hearings, according to the AP. However, in both cases, the surgery was major, in one case there was no record of consent and in the other, she asked for consent only minutes before surgery started.

“In its findings of fact published on its website, the board cited records that show Hill performed major abdominal surgery on one of the patients in February — and that the patient’s preoperative consent forms do not document consent or notice about Hill participating in a legislative committee during surgery,” the AP reported. “The patient did not recall being asked about participating in a legislative committee meeting by videoconference, according to the board’s report.”

Hill would tell the board’s staff during a May interview that she may have just informed the patient of the possibility she’d have to “take a call” during the procedure and, when asked about the fact the patient couldn’t recall the conversation, said “there was a lot going on, getting the patient to the hospital, getting them to the OR. I’m sure she was nervous.”

“Patient 1 also said that it was a little discomforting that attention was taken away from her during the surgery,” the board’s report read.

The March case involved major abdominal and back surgery. Again, the preoperative forms have no mention of Hill stepping away from legislative meetings. This time, the AP reported, “the patient reported to the board’s disciplinary panel that Hill told her about the committee meeting 10 minutes before surgery started and that she consented to Hill’s participation.”

Furthermore, the fact Hill was presenting legislation from the operating room was noted by committee chairman Del. Kumar Barve during the Feb. 12 incident, given Hill was wearing surgical gear at the time.

“Before we start the timer, are you at work? What’s going on here?” Barve asked.

“I’m at work, yes,” Hill said. “You’re at work, I’m at work.”

“All right, cool,” Barve said. “Go for it.”

The Maryland Board of Physicians was less cool, as indicated by the consent order.

“In a statement Friday night, Hill said she has worked hard to fulfill her professional obligations to both her patients and her constituents during the pandemic — a balance that has been challenging at times,” the AP reported.

“I accept the Board’s decision that I could have done better,” Hill said via text message.

It’s worth noting that while there has been an uptick in demand for plastic surgery in 2021, according to an April media release by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, Hill didn’t have to take on more patients than she could handle. It’s also worth noting that, given the fact legislative sessions were virtual in 2021, that meant it was easier than ever for her to attend.

Hill apparently lacks the necessary bandwidth to give her patients and her constituents the attention they need to solve their issues, in other words. Ordinarily, this would mean she’d be the perfect Democratic politician, but the job doesn’t pay as well as plastic surgery.

On one hand, I’m tempted to say perhaps she should leave not caring about the people who elected her to the experts and focus on medicine, instead. On the other hand, though, patients undergoing surgery expect competence and results, something we’ve given up on when it comes to our legislators.

If Hill is the kind of doctor to step away from the operating table to attend committee hearings, maybe politics really is her calling, after all.

Attorneys, medical doctors, and family members of COVID-19 victims have described and offered recordings of what the Truth for Health Foundation calls “horrific hospital violations of human rights,” including denial of intravenous fluids to patients, denial of access to patients by families, attorneys, and others, and imposition of remdesivir on patients despite risks of kidney and liver damage from that drug and the availability of possibly safer alternatives, such as ivermectin.

“Prisoners in America’s jails do have more rights right now than COVID patients in America’s hospitals—it’s unheard of,” Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, the president and chief executive of the foundation, said at an Oct. 27 press conference that she moderated. According to its website, the mission of the physician-founded charity foundation is “to provide truthful, balanced, medically sound, research-based information and cutting-edge updates on prevention and treatment of common medical conditions, including COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, that affect health, quality of life, and longevity.”

“‘I’m doing my job’ has never been a defense to crimes against humanity,” said Ali Shultz, legal director for America’s Frontline Doctors, whose mother-in-law died of COVID-19 and whose father-in-law allegedly suffered severe harm as a COVID-19 patient at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

Shultz said that despite her medical power of attorney, she was prevented from learning basic information about the status of her father-in-law, Chuck, while he was in the hospital.

“I tried everything,” Shultz said. “I wrote every letter possible. I sent every email possible to advocate for them. I was literally carried out in handcuffs under color of law. I was assaulted under color of law. I was deprived access to their health records, I was deprived access to them, and I was lied to. But that’s absolutely nothing compared to what happened to Chuck.”

Shultz said that the Mayo Clinic kept Chuck from any hydration or nourishment over six days, “except one bag of D5 [dextrose 5 percent] water.”

She also stated that the clinic secretly experimented on Chuck with the repurposed rheumatoid arthritis drug baricitinib. They also secluded him for over three weeks more than the Arizona Department of Public Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend, according to Shultz.

Shultz played a recording of someone who identified himself as a hospital administrator; this recording and others by Shultz were legal, as Arizona is a one-party consent state for recordings. The administrator stated that the choice to deprive Chuck of food and water was the standard of care in metropolitan Phoenix, due to concerns about the aspiration of objects into his lungs.

“Yes, of course, we don’t want him to aspirate, but maybe he could get some IV hydration—something at all—or, I don’t know, just an assessment?” Shultz asked in the recording.

In another recording, an unidentified hospital employee stated, “As far as visitation in our hospital, we are not going to allow you to visit him in our hospital as long as he is here.”

A third recording referred to meetings among hospital executives that concluded patients who test positive for COVID-19 wouldn’t be permitted to receive visitors.

“So, they’re meeting and they’re all deciding on this together. So, either this is becoming the standard of care, or this is the same modus operandi, which actually criminally makes it easier to prove,” Shultz commented after playing the recording.

She urged listeners to prevent COVID-19 patients from being secluded.

“Get in there—it is in the Patient Bill of Rights,” Shultz said. “Just because they’re using the word ‘isolation’ doesn’t mean it makes it any better what they’re doing.”

“When an American is isolated from others, what is this considered? Unlawful imprisonment—torture.”

Holding up a document she identified as a police report on the Mayo Clinic, which she said included felony charges of vulnerable adult abuse, Shultz stressed that prosecutors have considerable discretion to decide whether doctors should be charged.

She also highlighted a template for a private criminal complaint individuals can file online with their state’s attorney general, which she said can be accessed through the Truth for Health Foundation’s website.

Other speakers at the press conference included Dr. Bryan Ardis, who highlighted what he described as the hazards of remdesivir, as well as an unprecedented climate of fear and retribution for medical doctors who dissent from the enforced consensus on its use.

“Now they are punishing those who want to practice medicine and they are continuing to reward and allow doctors to maintain their licenses to practice in hospitals if they just follow the mandated protocol,” he said.

Ardis pointed out that a randomized, controlled trial of remdesivir and other therapies for Ebola, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and touted by Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical adviser to the president, actually showed the dangers of remdesivir, as the scientists stopped administering it during the study because it was leading to a mortality rate above 50 percent—higher than any of the other drugs they tested.

He also stated that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is “bribing hospitals” to choose remdesivir with a 20 percent bonus. CMS’s website does, in fact, refer to a “20% add-on payment” for claims coding for COVID-19 and for treatment by remdesivir or several other drugs.

In a pre-recorded interview with Vliet, another speaker, identified only as Mary Ann, spoke about her Marine Corps veteran father’s deterioration and death at a Bozeman, Montana, hospital. She said she was prevented from being with her father and holding his hand as he died, allowed only to view him from behind glass as he convulsed in his bed, a mask concealing his face.

“There’s something about when you’re able to be with your loved one and talk to them and hold their hand, there’s something extremely powerful in that—and there’s a reason they don’t want us in the hospital,” said Mary Ann. “They want us apart from each other.”

Thomas Renz, legal counsel for the foundation, shared what he called “the most shocking statistic I have seen probably since this has started”: in Texas, 84.8 percent of people who were mechanically ventilated for 96 consecutive hours died.

The Epoch Times could not independently verify this statistic before press time.

“It’s a death sentence,” said Renz.

Vliet concluded the press conference by recommending patients seek early treatment rather than waiting for symptoms to worsen. She also urged patients to think strategically and plan ahead if they do end up going into a hospital.

“You have the right to refuse treatment, you have the right to request treatment, you have the right to have an advocate when you are in the hospital. When those rights are denied, your civil rights, human rights, and constitutional rights are being overridden—and you will need an advocate,” she added.

The Mayo Clinic did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Shultz’s allegations. In addition, CMS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Ardis’s claim that it is bribing hospitals to choose remdesivir.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/recordings-reveal-lockstep-covid-19-protocols-patient-isolation-by-hospitals_4073286.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The Supreme Court decided Oct. 29 to hear two cases that the Biden administration did not want the court to hear—one, aimed at reviving a rule that screens out potentially government-dependent immigrants, and another that could roll back the reach of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The court decisions came as migrants continue to stream illegally across the increasingly porous southern border and the Biden administration develops a strategy for dealing with the scientifically contentious phenomenon of manmade global warming. The decisions also came as the court prepares to hear high-profile cases in coming days dealing with a Texas law strictly regulating abortions and a New York law that strictly regulates gun use.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear Arizona v. San Francisco, court file 20-1775, which concerns the so-called public charge rule.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, was pleased the high court will hear the case.

“When other federal officials won’t defend the law, I will,” Brnovich said in a statement. “The Public Charge Rule is a commonsense policy based on a real inconvenient truth. Overrunning our welfare programs right now would be like pulling back the last safety net for Americans who need it most.”

In the case, the Republican attorneys general of Arizona and 12 other states asked the high court to be allowed to defend in court a Trump-era rule designed to screen out would-be immigrants unable to support themselves. Enforcing the immigrant self-sufficiency rule could save states billions of dollars each year.

A federal appeals court struck down the public charge rule and the Biden administration refused to defend it in court. Separately, President Joe Biden also rescinded the rule. Among the respondents in the case are the U.S. government and the states of California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.

Arizona and the 12 other states accused the governments on the other side of colluding to prevent this important case from being heard by the nation’s highest court.

“Without any prior warning, the existing parties sprung an unprecedented, coordinated, and multi-court gambit,” Arizona and other states said in their petition (pdf).

“Through it, they attempted to execute simultaneous, strategic surrenders in all pending appeals involving the Rule. That included the Second Circuit appeal that this Court had already agreed to hear, as well as the pending petitions for writs of certiorari in this case and the Seventh Circuit case.”

Over vehement opposition, the Trump administration breathed new life into the rule, which had fallen into disuse. Although critics say the extensively litigated pro-taxpayer rule is xenophobic and discriminates against poor aliens, the public-charge principle, the idea that immigrants should have to prove they can survive without becoming wards of the government, has been part of the American experience for centuries.

The Supreme Court also decided to hear West Virginia v. EPA, court file 20-1530, which it consolidated with three other appeals.

Energy-producing states and coal companies accuse the EPA of a power grab, claiming it exceeded its authority to limit carbon emissions, which environmentalists allege contribute to climate change. A ruling last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit gave back to the EPA some of the authority the Trump administration took away from it.

According to petitioners, the appeals court “held that a rarely used, ancillary provision of the Clean Air Act grants an agency unbridled power—functionally ‘no limits’—to decide whether and how to decarbonize almost any sector of the economy,” the petition states (pdf).

Five years ago the EPA “claimed to find similar powers in the same provision—authority to reshape the nation’s utility power sector by mandating standards impossible for coal and natural gas power plants to meet without limiting operations, shutting down, or subsidizing investment in alternate electricity generation that EPA preferred.”

The Supreme Court “took the extraordinary step of staying EPA’s ‘Clean Power Plan’ rule even before the lower court finished its review, strongly signaling that EPA (and by extension the court below) were wrong.”

The agency repealed the rule in 2019 but the appeals court “insisted that EPA had more statutory power than the agency had originally claimed,” and gave it “new and wildly expansive authority.”

The agency now “can set standards on a regional or even national level, forcing dramatic changes in how and where electricity is produced, as well as transforming any other sector of the economy where stationary sources emit greenhouse gases. Power to regulate factories, hospitals, hotels, and even homes would have tremendous costs and consequences for all Americans.”

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, welcomed the decision to hear the case.

“This is a tremendous victory for West Virginia and our nation,” Morrisey said in a statement. The decision “indicates a significant portion of the court realizes the seriousness of this case and shares our concern that the D.C. Circuit granted EPA too much authority.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-defies-biden-administration-accepts-immigration-epa-cases_4077101.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

New York State pension fund revealed Thursday that it’d be pulling out $111 million in equity investments from Unilever, the conglomerate parent of Ben & Jerry’s following the ice cream maker’s decision to boycott sales in certain regions of Israel.

“Our review of the activities of the company, and its subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s, found they engaged in BDS activities,” Thomas DiNapoli, the manager of New York’s $268 billion retirement fund, said in a statement to the New York Post.

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement that claims Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. Supporters of Israel have termed the movement as anti-Semitic and a politically-motivated strategic threat.

According to Ben & Jerry’s, if they remain, it will be “inconsistent with our values for our product to be present within an internationally recognized illegal occupation.” The company will remain in the country “through a different business arrangement,” and reiterated that their values are “neither anti-Israel nor antisemitic.”

Back in 2016, the New York Common Retirement Fund adopted the policy that stated there will be repercussions for companies engaged in BDS activities which puts the fund’s Israeli investments at risk. Owing to this, Liz Gordon, DiNapoli’s director of corporate governance, wrote a letter to Unilever CEO Alan Jope in July expressing “trouble and concern” over Ben & Jerry’s stance.

“If the company fails to respond or fails to demonstrate that it has not engaged in BDS activities, the Fund’s investment in Unilever will be subject to a detailed review and staff recommendation, which may include investment restrictions, in accordance with the Fund’s BDS policy,” the letter said.

On Aug. 4, Jope replied that Unilever had no say in the “social mission” of the brands it represents and that the company had a long-standing commitment to doing business in Israel. “We employ nearly 2,000 people in the country across our four factories and head office, and we have invested approximately $250 million in the Israeli market over the last decade,” Jope said in a letter to Gordon.

New York now becomes the fourth state to sanction Unilever, following Arizona, New Jersey, and Florida. New Jersey began divesting $182 million in September in Unilever stock, bonds, and other securities. Thirty-five states in the country have laws regarding anti-Israel boycotts.

“Congratulations and thanks to the State of New York for responding to our request and withdrawing $111 million from its investments in Ben & Jerry’s due to the boycott of Israel,” Yair Lapid Israeli Foreign Minister wrote on Twitter. “We will continue to fight BDS and anti-Semitism everywhere and without hesitation,” he said.

In a recent Axios interview of Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, activist co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s, Alexi McCammond asked them about their reasoning to boycott regions based on their liberal ideals.

“I don’t know,” Ben Cohen said to McCammond when she asked why the company still sells in Georgia when they were proponents of progressive voting rights. “It’s an interesting question. I don’t know what that would accomplish. We’re working on those issues, of voting rights. … I think you ask a really good question. And I think I’d have to sit down and think about it for a bit.”

When pressed on Texas’ anti-abortion laws, Cohen replied, “By that reasoning, we should not sell any ice cream anywhere. I’ve got issues with what’s being done in almost every state and country.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/new-york-fund-divests-111-million-after-ben-jerrys-boycott-in-israel_4078027.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Loudoun County’s sheriff rejected a request by the school district’s superintendent to dramatically ramp up the law enforcement presence at a pair of school board meetings in August, newly released emails show.

Scott Ziegler, the superintendent for the Virginia county, asked the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) for three deputies to be inside the administration building for the Aug. 10 and Aug. 11 meetings, the emails show. He also requested a “K-9 explosive sweep,” a five-person “Quick Reaction Force,” undercover deputies, and another team “stood up and on standby at nearby location.”

Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman rejected the request, according to one of the emails.You May Also Like

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Chapman informed district officials that there would be no uniformed officers inside the building where the meetings were taking place nor would there be a law enforcement presence on campus.

Officers would be “in the area” in case they needed to quickly respond to a call, he said, according to a report on a discussion between district officials and the sheriff’s office conveyed to Ziegler in one of the emails.

Chapman said he was motivated not to approve the requests because the school board made a number of decisions without consulting the sheriff’s office, including deciding to limit public comment for a previous June 22 meeting and hiring a security firm with a metal detector.

“LCSO has been made to appear as the muscle for school board and work at the school board’s direction,” Kevin Lewis, a district official, told Ziegler in the call summary. The sheriff also said he believed citizens should have a right to address the board and that the board was being dismissive of people with whom they disagreed.

The documents were obtained by the Fight for Schools PAC and published by Fox News.

An LCSO spokesman confirmed to The Epoch Times that the conversation took place.

“The concerns raised by Sheriff Chapman was regarding the request for extensive resources and security measures that were not deemed necessary based on intelligence gathering for that meeting,” he said in an email.

He also said that the sheriff’s office does and continues to provide security for the school board meetings.

“For safety and security reasons, we cannot share law enforcement sensitive operational plans in regards to public meetings but we can assure residents that we allocate the appropriate level of resources based on the nature of the public meetings and the intelligence developed prior to each meeting,” he said.

The school district did not respond to a request for comment.

The northern Virginia county has become the epicenter for tension between parents and school board members seen across the nation in recent months.

Members have been vocally challenged in recent meetings on proposed policies like one that would let children who identify as a sex different than the one they are born with use various bathrooms. That policy was eventually approved, even though most parents who publicly testified opposed it.

Ziegler claimed in the June meeting that the district had no record of assaults happening in bathrooms, which was factually untrue, according to an email recently disclosed by district officials. He has said he misunderstood the question and is defying calls to resign.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/loudoun-county-sheriff-rejected-superintendents-request-for-explosive-sweep-quick-reaction-force-at-board-meeting_4077191.html

A remark made by a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) adviser is “the most dangerous statement I’ve ever heard in medicine,” the only active practicing physician in Congress said in a new interview.

Dr. Eric Rubin, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, and an associate physician specializing in infectious disease at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, sits on the administration’s vaccine advisory panel.

Before the panel voted this week to advise the FDA to authorize Pfizer’s COVID-19 jab for kids 5 to 11, Rubin said, in part: “We’re never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it. That’s just the way it goes. That’s how we found out about rare complications of other vaccines, like the rotavirus vaccine.”You May Also Like

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“That is literally the most dangerous statement I’ve ever heard in medicine,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.), a doctor, said on NTD’s “Capitol Report.”

“How’s that going to sit with the average mom, the average parent that cares about their child? That they want their child experimented on?” he added.

Rubin’s remarks were clipped by various people and widely circulated on social media, with some users saying it showed that the vaccine should not be given to children.

Asked about the criticism, Rubin told The Epoch Times in an email: “The clinical trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in children showed no adverse events. All data to date indicate that it is safe. It will prevent the hospitalization of children with severe disease, as it does with adults. The vaccine works, and saves lives.”

The claim the trial showed no adverse events is false, as the FDA did discover 13 cases of lymph node swelling. However, none of the trial participants experienced heart inflammation (myocarditis or pericarditis)—a serious side effect that has been seen at higher than expected rates among youth, particularly males.

The panel pondered the potential benefits and risks of giving young children the vaccine but ultimately decided the benefits outweighed the risks. The FDA accepted the recommendation on Friday.

Rubin said after the vote that surveillance systems would be crucial in learning “how safe” the Pfizer jab is for children.

“We decided to go for it with a lot of heavy conscience. But I’m hoping that this is the start of learning more about it,” he said.

Murphy and Rubin did agree on one point, that COVID-19 vaccines should not be mandated for young children at this point due to the lack of safety data. Several other FDA advisers also said this week they are opposed to mandating the vaccine for young kids at this time.

Murphy, speaking to NTD, noted a key difference between COVID-19 and diseases that children routinely receive vaccines for early in their life.

“The vaccines that we have for children are measles, mumps, rubella, those things that we give kids, we have to have them before they go to school. And I agree with that, that’s fine. But the problem is, those are childhood diseases. COVID is not a childhood disease. It can affect children, but its lethality rate is infinitesimal compared to what it is in adults,” said Murphy, who practices at the Vidant Medical Center, a 1,000-bed level 1 trauma center.

“I just don’t understand why it’s being pushed on kids so much,” he added, predicting a federal mandate for kids soon just to go to school. “We don’t mandate that kids get the flu vaccine to go to school. We don’t mandate that kids have the HPV vaccine. So I just don’t understand the biology and the virology for this.”

An alleged member of the far-left Antifa network has been charged with robbery in an attack on Andy Ngo, a reporter who regularly covers the extremist movement.

Court documents show that John Colin Hacker was indicted on Oct. 21 by a grand jury on one count of third-degree robbery for an incident that took place on May 7, 2019, in Multnomah County, Oregon.

Video footage recorded by Ngo showed a man who appeared to be Hacker stealing his phone at a 24 Hour Fitness.

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According to the grand jury, Hacker “did unlawfully and knowingly, while in the course of committing and attempting to commit theft, and with the intent of preventing and overcoming resistance to defendant’s taking of property and retention of property immediately after the taking, use and threaten the immediate use of physical force upon Andy Ngo.”

“I hope last week’s indictment of Mr Hacker signals a change in the prosecutor’s office in Portland,” Ngo said in a statement. “For years, too many violent extremists falsely claiming to be fighting for ‘racial justice’ have gotten away with campaigns of terror and violence against journalists and citizens.”

“Two years later, this is finally a step in the right direction for the rule of law in Portland, where Antifa has been operating with impunity,” Harmeet Dhillo, a lawyer representing Ngo who is also CEO of the Center for American Liberty.

“There is still a long road ahead for the justice that Andy Ngo deserves. Andy has endured years of harassment, serious threats on his life, and the inability to live in his hometown at the hands of these domestic terrorists. This is a good start, but we’re hoping to see more of these actions,” she said.

Hacker did not have a lawyer listed on the court docket. According to Ngo’s law firm, an active arrest warrant was issued for Hacker’s arrest and he has not turned himself in.

Antifa is a far-left, anarcho-communist network whose members have repeatedly committed violent acts in recent years across the United States. They are most active in the Pacific Northwest.

The video from the gym appeared to show a man assaulting Ngo, who said the male also dumped liquid on him.

Ngo, currently with The Post Millennial, is a journalist known for infiltrating Antifa in disguises and being attacked by members on multiple occasions. He recently penned a book about the group.

“The entire agenda and project of the Antifa ideology, that is, anarchists and communists, is to destroy the United States and to destroy its system. So when they say burn it down, burn the system down, they really do mean that. That system is the rule of law, its systems of governance, elected representatives—all of that. They want to get of rid of all that,” Ngo told The Epoch Times earlier this year.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/alleged-antifa-member-charged-with-robbery-in-attack-on-reporter-andy-ngo_4077336.html

President Joe Biden’s administration is withholding information about Afghanistan, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko said during a speech on Friday.

As an example, Sopko said, the Department of Defense (DoD) withheld information on the performance of Afghan security forces, including unit strength, training deficiencies, and casualty data, or, “in essence, nearly all the information you needed to know to determine whether the Afghan security forces were a real fighting force or a house of cards waiting to fall.”

“In light of recent events, it is not surprising that the Afghan government, and likely some in DoD, wanted to keep that information under lock and key,” he added.

Sopko said he was forced to relegate the information into classified appendices of a recent report his office released detailing flaws in the United States’ 20-year war in Afghanistan.

“This information almost certainly would have benefited Congress and the public in assessing whether progress was being made in Afghanistan and, more importantly, whether we should have ended our efforts there earlier,” he said.

“DoD is well aware of the Special Investigator for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s recent report. Its assertions that DoD deliberately withheld information on the Afghan Security Forces lacks context as the department took significant effort to ensure that the availability of data on Afghan forces was treated similarly to how DOD would manage such data on U.S. forces,” Major. Rob Lodewick, a Pentagon spokesman, told The Epoch Times in an email.

The Pentagon maintains that the Afghan government wanted to classify the data and that it recommended against it but “abided by the decision of the original classification authority.” Overall, the department says it has cooperated with SIGAR since the office was created by Congress.

The State Department, meanwhile, wrote to Sopko shortly after U.S.-backed Afghan forces were routed by the Taliban terrorist group as the U.S. moved to fully withdraw from the country.

“Shortly after the fall of Kabul, the State Department wrote to me and other oversight agencies requesting to ‘temporarily suspend access’ to all ‘audit, inspection, and financial audit … reports’ on our website because the Department was afraid that information included in those reports could put Afghan allies at risk,” Sopko said.

While the watchdog believes Afghans at risk should be protected, the State Department was never able to describe any specific threats nor could they explain how removing the reports “could possibly protect anyone since many were years old and already extensively disseminated worldwide.”

Sopko complied reluctantly with the request but became more puzzled when the agency reached out asking for redacting roughly 2,400 items in the reports, including the name of former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. A review found all but four requests “without merit.”

“In my opinion, the full picture of what happened in August—and all the warning signs that could have predicted the outcome—will only be revealed if the information that the Departments of Defense and State have already restricted from public release is made available,” said Sopko.

The speech was delivered to a conference in Arlington, Virginia.

A State Department spokesperson said in an email that the agency has worked to address challenges SIGAR identified in its report and recognizes the importance of the watchdog’s work.

“Due to safety and security concerns regarding our ongoing evacuation efforts, we requested some reports be temporarily removed to redact identifying information from public records and protect the identities of Afghans and Afghan partner organizations. SIGAR has the authority to restore the reports when it deems appropriate,” the spokesperson said.

“To protect the identities of Afghans and Afghan implementing partner organizations, the Department of State has worked to remove identifying information from multiple public records.  The identifying information are the only details intended to be shielded.  Because of the volume of information, some entities temporarily removed reports or full datasets,” they added.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-administration-withholding-key-information-about-afghanistan-watchdog_4077418.html

An election watchdog group is asking for an investigation into Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe over what it says are serious campaign finance violations.

The Washington Free Beacon reported that the National Legal and Policy Center has asked the Federal Election Commission to “promptly” look into whether McAuliffe violated federal law when he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a US. subsidiary of a foreign-owned company.

The Democrat in July reportedly received $350,000 from a New Jersey company called LycaTel, a subsidiary of an international corporation based in the U.K.

LycaTel is owned by a Sri Lankan and British national named Allirajah Subaskaran.

“Terry McAuliffe has a history of accepting foreign contributions. The FEC must fully investigate these serious charges that he accepted $350,000 in illegal foreign contributions for his current campaign,” NLPC lawyer Paul Kamenar said.

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While a U.S.-based subsidiary can donate money to candidates, concerns arise when an international parent company could benefit from the election of a particular candidate.

“This is effectively a really easy way to launder foreign money into the U.S. political process and to avoid the FEC prohibition on foreign nationals making contributions in U.S. elections,” said Ben Freeman, director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy.

LycaTel’s July donation was its first to any campaign in Virginia, according to the Free Beacon.

The company also reportedly hired a lobbyist named Robert Thompson to work for it on “telecom issues” and “business expansion” in the U.S.

Thompson was previously a lobbyist for the Sri Lankan government, meaning he officially went to bat for Subaskaran’s home country. Thompson is registered as a foreign agent.

The Free Beacon reported that LycaTel was the subject of a money-laundering probe related to business practices in France.

The NLPC filed an official complaint accusing McAuliffe of accepting two donations from the company totaling $350,000. The complaint characterized LycaTel as a “shell company.”

It also claimed that in 2016, the FBI launched an investigation into a $120,000 donation McAuliffe received from a Chinese businessman with ties to the Chinese government.

McAuliffe’s campaign has not publicly responded to the complaint.

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The former Virginia governor will face Republican Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday in a race that has flipped in recent weeks.

McAuliffe led Youngkin 51 to 46 percent just two weeks ago, according to a Fox News. This week, a new poll showed Youngkin had taken an 8-point lead. The poll was conducted from Sunday to Wednesday among 1,212 likely Virginia voters with a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.

The tight race might also signal some political headwinds for Democrats before the 2022 midterm elections.

President Joe Biden won the state by ten points in 2020. He was in Virginia this week campaigning for the embattled McAuliffe.

On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris stumped for McAuliffe in Norfolk, The Hill reported.

Does your child have issues with gender dysphoria? Are they identifying as a different gender at school and asking teachers to use their preferred pronouns? Do you think this is something you, as their mother or father, should have some control over?

Check your parental privilege, say school administrators in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

In a letter to parents on Oct. 22, the Oshkosh Area School District — saying it was “committed to doing what is best for students and fostering a safe, supportive and inclusive learning environment for all” as well as “partnering with families to support the unique needs of every student” — announced it would no longer ask for parental consent if their child changed their gender pronouns or name in the classroom environment.

“The District recently changed a section of administrative guideline 2260E that required parental consent in order for district staff to use a student’s preferred name or gender pronouns if they differed from the student’s biological sex assigned at birth,” read the letter from Matthew Kaemmerer, the district’s director of pupil services.

“District staff members are no longer required to seek parental consent prior to honoring student requests to be called by their preferred name and/or pronouns.”

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“While we understand that there are varying perspectives related to gender identity, we know that in order to put students first we must acknowledge and support each student’s unique needs,” the letter continued.

“In making this change our goal is to empower students to advocate for themselves, while ensuring that our classrooms and schools are places where all students are able to be their true selves. It is our hope that by providing students with the support they need at school they will be able to have those same conversations at home and with those around them if they haven’t already.”

Three days earlier, Kaemmerer sent a similar letter to district employees regarding the new transgender student policies.

Notice that just went out to all school district employees in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Parents are an afterthought, even for issues as serious as a child changing their gender identity. pic.twitter.com/mPbOc15v2t

— Parents Defending Education (@DefendingEd) October 29, 2021

“That’s something that we’ve reviewed and have found some difficulty with sometimes with staff engaging with students,” OASD superintendent Bryan Davis said, according to WLUK-TV. “We really want to make sure that we’re advocating for our students and with our students.”

Information wasn’t sent to parents until the change was fully implemented — three days after the notice was sent to district employees about the change to the transgender student policy.

“It was sent to the staff and it was not sent to the parents, and I guess I would ask myself, ‘Why would you not inform the parents?’” Oshkosh resident Chad Radtke told WLUK. “That seems like the first thing I would do!”

“It was just another sign that things are going in the wrong direction,” Radtke said. “From my perspective, and it’s hard to see it any other way, almost as if they’re deliberately riling up the parents to see how far they can push things; how many things they can kinda sneak past.”

Oshkosh city councilman Aaron Wojciechowski, however, said not allowing parents prior knowledge or input regarding what their minor children were doing in regard to their gender identity in public schools that their tax dollars pay for was important for the “comfort” and “safety” of their kids.

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“Someone’s identity and their expression is so important to their core values and who they are, and I think this is important because now they have that comfort, that safety that they wouldn’t have otherwise,” Wojciechowski said.

School officials tried to make clear that this didn’t mean they wouldn’t inform parents of their child’s decision to start using different pronouns or changing their gender identity. Not at all, Superintendent Davis told WLUK.

“It’s actually just the opposite of that,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for our kids to feel valued and to open up in conversations and for our staff to be able to validate that, and many students need support in these difficult conversations, being able to engage with their parents and family members.”

Do you support this school district’s decision?

The parents would be told. They just had no say in it anymore, that’s all. See? No big deal! The school would do the right thing and open up conversations with their parents to explain why they shouldn’t have objections anymore.

Erika Sanzi, outreach director for Parents Defending Education, pointed out the hypocrisy of the policy when speaking to the Daily Caller.

“Oshkosh Schools likely require parental consent to give a Tylenol to a student at school. What school officials fail to understand, it seems, is that parental rights do not disappear when parents send their children to school — the very reason the school has authority over the child is because of parental consent,” Sanzi said.

“Concealing information from parents, or worse, deceiving them, is entirely at odds with that delegation of authority.”

Meg Kilgannon of the Family Research Council also noted the acetaminophen paradox.

“Deliberately concealing this information from parents, when those same parents would be consulted over the administration of Tylenol or permission to go on a field trip, is beyond outrageous,” Kilgannon said.

“This one of the many reasons we are seeing sustained pushback at school board meetings across the country.”

And make no mistake: This is is deliberately concealing information from parents. They may or may not eventually be told — the policy was only implemented less than two weeks ago, after all, and we haven’t seen how it will play out — but the assumption is that parental guidance for their child is unwarranted, unnecessary and problematic.

Once the student discloses it to school, the school will be there for “support in these difficult conversations” — and after all, the parents don’t get to have the final say.

These policies are of questionable constitutionality and again raise questions regarding recognizing cases that might constitute rapid-onset gender dysphoria without professional psychological or medical intervention.

More importantly, however, it’s a school board unequivocally saying that parental value judgments about gender identity not only don’t matter, they’re wrong and any decisions regarding them are being taken out of parents’ hands. This is the madness of transgender ideology: The school knows best. It’ll not only teach your kids, it’ll teach you, dear hidebound parent.

Thank heavens they’re around, no?

Just because a Food and Drug Administration panel recommended the COVID-19 vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds, does not mean that it is risk-free. If it was, it wouldn’t have taken eight hours for the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee to deliberate the matter on Tuesday.

The whole meeting revolved around answering two questions: Do the benefits of Pfizer’s vaccine for children outweigh the risks? And what are the risks?

Pfizer announced in September that the vaccine is safe and efficacious for children, but there was a general consensus during the committee meeting that the data was limited. Ultimately, the panel’s decision to recommend the vaccines for children communicates that its members are fine with letting the general public be the next round of test cases to find out more about the possible risks and side effects of the vaccine.

“We’re never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it. That’s just the way it goes,” microbiologist and infectious disease expert Dr. Eric Rubin said in the meeting.

Here is what is known about the COVID vaccine from the clinical trials so far.

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First, it is important to note that the clinical trials for children were not huge. There were 2,268 participants between the ages of 5 and 11 in the trial, according to Pfizer.

This is technically in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s regulations for trial size, which require thousands of volunteers for the third phase. However, due to risks of significant health complications from the vaccine, federal regulators pushed both Pfizer and Moderna to expand their trial sizes over the summer.

A few thousand is not terrible for a clinical study, but with such a push to make the vaccine universal for the population, only 2,000 participants is a pretty small data pool.

Pfizer itself acknowledged that its data was limited. In fact, it did not even include data in its news release to show if the chances of children getting sick were lower.

Should young children be getting the vaccine?

“Gruber said that there were not enough cases of illness to tell,” Stat reported. “That means a decision has to be made on more limited data than regulators might like.”

The number of participants in this trial especially pales in comparison to the previous COVID-19 vaccine trials for adults. WCNC-TV reported in February that Pfizer’s Phase 3 of trials had 40,000 participants, while Moderna’s had 30,000.

With a relatively small clinical study, this means that if the vaccine is given emergency use authorization for children, 5- to 11-year-olds will more or less be joining a trial.

Besides concerns over fairly limited data, there are other risks from the vaccine that must be considered. One of the more serious risks, that still has lots of unresolved questions around it, is myocarditis.

Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle often caused by infection. It can cause a heart to beat irregularly, or even reduce its ability to pump. Sometimes the infection can leave the heart muscle weakened. In very rare cases, it can lead to death.

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This problem can often resolve itself, but since it does affect the heart, it has the potential to become more serious, depending on the individual. Both the COVID-19 infection and vaccines have been linked to the heart complication.

This side effect of the vaccine has been rare, but it has shown up in Pfizer’s clinical trials. It is an especially concerning risk since Sweden, Finland and Denmark thought it problematic enough to pause Moderna, the other mRNA vaccine, due to an increase in myocarditis among youths.

“In the preliminary data … there is a suspicion of an increased risk of heart inflammation, when vaccinated with Moderna,” the Danish Health Authority said in a statement, according to Reuters.

Pfizer did look at the risk of myocarditis in its clinical studies, but determined it will take more time to really see how that potential risk could play out.

“The number of participants in the current clinical development program is too small to detect any potential risks of myocarditis associated with vaccination. Long-term safety of COVID-19 vaccine in participants 5 to <12 years of age will be studied in 5 post-authorization safety studies, including a 5-year follow-up study to evaluate long term sequelae of post-vaccination myocarditis/pericarditis,” Pfizer outlined in its briefing for the FDA committee meeting.

An outside Israeli study did provide more insight on this risk, however. The study, which looked at over 5 million people 16 years old and above that had been at least partially vaccinated, showed that the risk is small. But the demographic most at risk are adolescent males.

“During that time, 283 people had probable or definitive myocarditis, with 142 cases (50.2%) linked to the Pfizer vaccine,” the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported, regarding the study.

So going into the FDA meeting, there were plenty of questions about the risk of heart problems being an adverse side effect of the vaccine.

“There’s not a lot of controversy that the vaccine is causing some myocarditis. The question for the panelists is going to be how to weigh this against preventing Covid-19, which may cause more of the condition, and how severe these cases are,” Matthew Herper wrote for Stat ahead of the meeting.

Sure enough, committee members quickly brought up the heart risks that were linked to Pfizer’s vaccine.

Dr. James Hildreth, the CEO of Meharry Medical College, asked about some scenarios that Pfizer ran in its trials that showed an increase in myocarditis.

“When you did your risk-benefit assessment in your briefing document, there were six scenarios that you considered. It strikes me that scenario three, where you have the incidents from — I think it’s June of 2021, where the cases are low, the hospitalizations from myocarditis actually exceeded hospitalizations from COVID-19,” Hildreth said. “So could you comment on that, because to me, the single most important question is whether the benefits outweigh the risks, and in that scenario, they clearly don’t.”

Dr. William Gruber, Pfizer’s senior vice president for vaccine clinical research and development, answered that the benefits outweigh the risks. So while heart problems might be a risk, the benefits that the vaccine can offer in getting everyone back to normal life are greater.

“[T]he other benefits, and particularly those societal benefits — obviously protecting vulnerable populations, including populations of color, the ability to get the children back into the schoolroom setting …  all of those things, I think have to enter into the equation, regardless of the rate,” Gruber said.

In its FDA committee meeting document, Pfizer reiterated that it considers myocarditis a small risk. But it’s important to note the wording and to keep remembering that since the clinical trials have been sped up, the full effects of the vaccine will have to be further discovered once it’s in the general population of 5- to 11-year-olds. There are still many side effects and responses that Pfizer can only “expect” at this point.

Despite this, the FDA committee did decide in favor of the vaccine, 17 to 0. But it is important to look at the one member who abstained from voting.

Dr. Michael Kurilla, from the National Institutes of Health, was the single abstention. He noted there was a lack of data, but particularly he questioned if vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds was worthy of an application for emergency use.

“I don’t see the need for ‘emergency use’ of this vaccine across the entire age group and would have preferred a more nuanced approach,” Kurilla said.

There is no question that overall children are at much less risk of contracting and getting seriously ill from COVID than adults.

According to data accumulated by the American Academy of Pediatrics, states reported that only between 5.3 percent and 13.6 percent of children tested positive for COVID. Furthermore, children only accounted for 0 to 0.26 percent of all COVID-19 deaths, and 7 states reported no child deaths.

During the FDA committee’s discussion, there seemed to be some consensus that the vaccine should be available to high-risk children, but to make it universal was a bit more controversial.

“This is a really tough one. I do believe children at highest risk do need to be vaccinated, but vaccinating all the children to achieve that seems a bit much to me,” Hildreth said, according to Stat.

With such a low risk of contracting or dying from COVID in children, pushing for emergency use authorization is concerning. There does not seem to be an emergent need for the vaccine in the broad population of 5- to 11-year-olds.

No vaccine is going to be perfect and it’s natural that there will be side effects and that some may even have quite adverse responses (like myocarditis). Trying to push through a vaccine for such young children in the name of emergency should raise questions.

The speed and small data pool of the clinical trials seem to leave more questions than answers about the risks of the vaccine. At best, the data half-answers a lot of questions. Instead of convincing the FDA on grounds of strong, extensive data, Pfizer is essentially saying, “We are pretty sure that the risks aren’t too serious, but we’ll have to really just find out by giving it to the general population.”

Many decisions are going to boil down to choosing the lesser of two evils, but it should not be too much to ask for more extensive data in order to make the soundest decision possible. Most parents don’t want their child to be a guinea pig.

A new study stops short of saying that vaccine mandates are as useful in stopping the spread of COVID-19 as a screen door on a submarine, but it admits that the delta variant hops from person to person with no regard for vaccination status.

The way that the experts whose study was published in the British medical journal The Lancet put it was that “fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts.”

When Bloomberg reported on the study, it cut to the core: “People inoculated against Covid-19 are just as likely to spread the delta variant of the virus to contacts in their household as those who haven’t had shots.”

The study only tracked a tiny sliver of those impacted in the global pandemic but followed 621 people for a year.

The study’s goal was to look at whether vaccination impacted the spread of the disease, not just whether the vaccine could prevent severe illness or death.

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It also sought to look at COVID-19 in the context of households, where exposure is repeated over time — not hospitals, workplaces or schools.

“We found that the secondary attack rate in fully vaccinated household contacts was high at 25%, but this value was lower than that of unvaccinated contacts (38%),” the study’s authors wrote.

They noted that the vaccine did offer greater protection against severe illness among those infected.

The authors added, however, that protection offered by a vaccine dipped quickly.

Are vaccine mandate not actually following the science?

“Risk of infection increased with time in the 2–3 months since the second dose of vaccine,” they wrote.

“The proportion of infected contacts was similar regardless of the index cases’ vaccination status. We observed transmission of the delta variant between fully vaccinated index cases and their fully vaccinated contacts in several households, confirmed by whole-genome sequencing,” they went on.

“Increasing population immunity via booster programmes and vaccination of teenagers will help to increase the currently limited effect of vaccination on transmission, but our analysis suggests that direct protection of individuals at risk of severe outcomes, via vaccination and non-pharmacological interventions, will remain central to containing the burden of disease caused by the delta variant.”

One of the study’s co-leaders noted that the report does not disparage vaccine use but that vaccination status is no bar to the spread of the delta variant.

“Our findings show that vaccination alone is not enough to prevent people from being infected with the delta variant and spreading it in household settings,” Ajit Lalvani of Imperial College London told Bloomberg.

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The study said vaccinations alone will not stop the delta variant.

“Although vaccines remain highly effective at preventing severe disease and deaths from COVID-19, our findings suggest that vaccination is not sufficient to prevent transmission of the delta variant in household settings with prolonged exposures,” the researchers concluded.

“Our findings help to explain how and why the delta variant is being transmitted so effectively in populations with high vaccine coverage.”

The Western Journal has published this article in the interest of shedding light on stories about the COVID-19 vaccine that are largely unreported by the establishment media. In that same spirit, according to the most recent statistics from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, 7,439 deaths have been reported among those who received a vaccine, or 20 out of every 1,000,000. By contrast, 652,480 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported by the CDC, or 16,101 out of every 1,000,000. In addition, it must be noted that VAERS reports can be filed by anyone and are unverified by the CDC. Thus, as the agency notes, “Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem.” The decision of whether to receive a COVID vaccine is a personal one, but it is important to consider context when making that decision. — Ed. note

A lot has been written and said about companies and people relocating from California to Texas, but I wanted to know what it was really like for a CEO who actually made the move.

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit with the leaders of two Fortune 500 companies who did just that and relocated their businesses to North Texas from California.  Jim Lentz, former CEO of Toyota Motor North America, made the move in 2014 and Brian Tyler, CEO of McKesson, made the move in 2019.

Lentz and Tyler joined me in Irving earlier this month to address the Texas Economic Development Corporation’s Fall Investor Meeting. I asked what prompted them to leave California for Texas and what advice they would give CEOs who are curious about their prospects in Texas.

Lentz and Tyler began contemplating their respective moves from California because they wanted to consolidate far-flung operations under one roof. Their companies eventually began looking for the right business and quality of life climates to make the move a good one for their employees personally, while also balancing the financial benefits, as many employees were being priced out of living in California.

If CEOs considering a move to Texas were to contact him about McKesson’s experiences, Tyler said, “I would tell them I regret not doing it a decade earlier.”

Tyler said he understands the inertia that surrounds such a major business decision — even when research shows an obvious benefit to the company.

“[Inertia] is what holds you back for two decades,” Tyler said. “There’s never a good time. If you’re having wild success and everything’s going right, you’re going to ask yourself, ‘Why would I want to. . .make my path harder?’ If your business is going terrible, you’re like, ‘Well, I’ve got enough problems. Why would I want to take this on?’ So there’s never a great time. So what I would say is, you’ve got to do your work, you’ve got to map your strategy, you’ve got to think long-term, and you’ve just got to peel off the Band-Aid and do it.”

Support from Texas elected leaders is key

But both Lentz and Tyler said another aspect of Texas’ business-friendly environment was also compelling — the cooperation of government officials in Texas with business owners.

“I’ve lived in 10 or 12 different places, I’ve run businesses in 10 or 12 different cities, and I’ve never been in a place [like Irving] where I felt like the community and business were so connected in supporting each other,” Tyler said. “Business really cares about the community, and the community really cares about business. . .That’s something I wouldn’t undersell.”

Lentz said Toyota had the same experience coming from California.

“Everybody’s heard how great Texas is as a place to move their business, that whether it’s local or state or federal government officials. . .how responsive they are and how they really want to partner with business,” Lentz said. “If you’re coming from somewhere like California and you hear that, frankly, you’re a little skeptical because that wasn’t necessarily our experience in California.”

The CEOs of other companies “want to really understand [whether] all these things they’re hearing about Texas, is it really true,” he said.

Lentz cited other companies that have also moved to Texas, and their leaders “said the same thing. We just should have done it 10 years earlier. It was the right thing to do,” he said.

In considering the company’s move to Texas, Lentz said Toyota’s priorities were what was best for the company and what was best for its employees.

Texas quality of life is a big draw

Hoping to retain the bulk of its workforce when it moved from California, Toyota took three years to transition to Plano. The company took steps to get employees acclimated to North Texas so that they would feel at home once they moved.

This strategy paid off — 73% of the Toyota workforce remained with the company, and after a year or two in Texas, very few made the decision to return to California, Lentz said.

Texas companies, like others around the world, have struggled with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as workforce shortages and supply chain issues.

But there’s a silver lining to some of these challenges, Lentz and Tyler said. Not only are there shortages in the supply chain but companies are suffering from “demand shock” as well. This is forcing companies to be leaner and more efficient and to gain depth in their suppliers in secondary and tertiary markets.

CEOs are bullish on Texas’s economy

Lentz and Tyler said they see positive momentum that will propel Texas’s economy through the pandemic and its aftermath.

The healthcare industry in Texas is poised to leverage the astonishing advancements in cancer treatment and other aspects of healthcare, Tyler said. Lentz said the automotive industry remains strong in Texas as it takes significant strides in electric vehicle technology.

“Texas is becoming the forefront for [electric vehicle production],” Lentz said. “This is an exciting time that is really going to help the environment.”

Building a skilled workforce is a priority

Texas will need to meet future opportunities by ensuring Texas has a competitive set of economic incentives for relocating and expanding businesses — and by continuing to build a skilled workforce pipeline, the CEOs said.

Tyler said to do that, educational institutions should focus on STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] curriculum, digital literacy and critical thinking skills.

“We don’t need to teach people what to think,” Tyler said. “I need people who can approach a problem in a new, innovative way, who aren’t afraid to take risks, who bring a diverse perspective to the table. This is how we can solve for some of the most pressing issues of our time.”

So, if you are looking at Texas I would strongly encourage you to take Brian Tyler’s advice and “peel off the Band-Aid and do it.”

https://businessintexas.com/blog/ceos-say-they-wish-theyd-made-the-move-to-texas-a-decade-ago/

The New Hampshire School Boards Association (NHSBA) announced Thursday that it has withdrawn from the national organization following the group’s efforts to target parents.

The National School Board Association (NSBA) recently sent a letter to the Biden administration’s Department of Justice that described the actions of parents protesting policies such as critical race theory or COVID-19 rules as the equivalence of “domestic terrorism.”

“This email is to inform you that NHSBA [the New Hampshire School Board Association] has decided to withdraw its membership from the National School Boards Association, effective immediately,” NHSBA Executive Director Barrett Christina wrote. “NSBA’s recent actions have made our continued membership untenable.

The NSBA wrote Sept. 29 (pdf), “America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat.”

The letter added, “As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

Following the NSBA’s letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland sent a memorandum to the Federal Bureau of Investigations to direct investigators to address the “disturbing spike” in harassment involving school board members by parents.

The controversy led lawmakers in Washington to discuss the matter with Garland this week. Republicans on the Judiciary Committee blasted the attorney general after he failed to rescind the letter or apologize regarding the matter.

“Thank God you’re not on the Supreme Court,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told Garland. “You should resign in disgrace.”

The NSBA has since apologized for its letter.

“On behalf of the NSBA, we regret and apologize for the letter. To be clear, the safety of school board members, other public school officials and educators, and students is our top priority, and there remains important work to be done on this issue,” the NSBA wrote last Friday.

“However, there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter. We should have had a better process in place to allow for some consultation on a communication of this significance,” the letter added.

Despite the apology, the damage has already had negative consequences nationwide.

In addition to New Hampshire, state school board associations in Ohio, Missouri, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania have already withdrawn from the NSBA.

Three additional states, Alabama, Florida, and Kentucky, have also announced they are considering a departure from the national organization.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/new-hampshire-school-boards-association-leaves-national-organization-over-parent-controversy_4076004.html?utm_source=News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-10-30-2&mktids=197bd0f40b606ed83674b637f3e6b8c2&est=p712C%2Bt5HdNCPTGox7o3OwoBpXN0rGmvp9cxsrk91vmgG71oQ%2FAFRa6%2F2NbGnguREA%3D%3D

I have a testimony to share with you.

Typically Christians don’t share testimonies like this because they are “afraid of what people will think.” I posit that Christians should instead start caring about what God thinks. We should also never be afraid to discuss the many ways that God works in our lives or makes His presence known to us.

So I’m going to share this testimony and I’d love to hear from you if you have ever experienced anything similar. I’d also encourage you to openly share your testimonies on social media, at work, or with a friend in the hope and prayer of lifting up our Brothers and Sisters and bringing someone new to the Lord.

This past week I have felt the presence of the Holy Spirit overwhelm me to the point of tears, fear, and trembling. It was absolutely surreal and incredible. I can’t even find the words to describe it.

I instantly became distinctly aware of God’s presence, love, grace, and glory. More importantly I became aware of how utterly unworthy I am of it. I remember praying “Lord have mercy on me a sinner” over and over again.This was followed by a flood of peace and joy.

The interesting thing is that this has been happening all week shortly after I spend time in the presence of other Christians. For example on Sunday night after church or after grabbing dinner with Christian friends, etc.

God is working in our lives each and everyday. He is right there with us walking through the fire of the many trials we face as Christians in today’s world. We need to be together. In fellowship. Without masks. In person, not through a livestream.

We are citizens first and foremost of Christ’s Kingdom above all earthy realms. It’s time to start acting like it. We are also exiles in a hostile and foreign world that is in a state of distress. We need to remember that in spite of this Christ our King remains on the throne.

We need to keep the faith my friends. We need to speak openly, boldly, and often about the ways in which God is working in our lives. We must encourage and lift one another up. We must introduce Christ to those around us.

We can’t do any of these things by being silent.

Do not conform to the bogus limitations and cultural taboos that have been fabricated by God’s enemies. Enemies of God don’t get to dictate what Christians can or cannot talk about in public, on the internet, or in casual conversations.

We can, will, and must openly talk about God and share our testimonies to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth, to all nations, and to all people forever and ever amen.

The Real Great Awakening Has Nothing To Do With Politics And Everything To Do With Jesus Christ

I firmly believe that we are witnessing the start of a Fifth Great Awakening, not only in America, but across all of Christendom. A Spiritual awakening of God’s people on a massive and historical scale.

I have been blessed with the great honor of being able to see the work God is doing on a daily basis in the form of the Gab community.

Everyday I see Christians from across the faith, be it Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox believers, sharing their testimonies, discussing God’s Word, buying things from one another, supporting one another, praying for one another, and leading people to Christ. I see the early foundation and fruits of a parallel Christian economy.

Jesus > Every Political “Solution”

Over the past few decades Christians have learned the hard way that we must not put our faith in men, most especially in politicians, or even our own churches and established “Christian” organizations and worldly power structures.

Jesus Christ is the only way out of this mess. Period. It all starts by speaking freely and sharing your faith and testimony as often as you can. It starts in your own heart, then in your family and home, and finally out to the rest of the world.

We must start building from the ground up and meme this Fifth Great Awakening into reality. Presidents and elections won’t and can’t solve the problems in Christendom or in the world writ large. Only Jesus Christ can do that. Christian warriors are rising up to the call and getting to work. We’re building a parallel Christian society and kickstarting the Fifth Great Awakening.

Are you in?

Jesus is King

I don’t know who is reading this, but I want you to know that God loves you and He sent His only son Jesus to die for your sins–and for mine.

He saved us from a life of slavery to sin.

Jesus is the one and only path to the Creator.

Jesus loves you.

I pray that you will follow Him and believe in Him so that you may have everlasting life and experience the true freedom that comes from being redeemed.

To God be the Glory,

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus is King
October 26th, 2021

Lawmakers urge Biden admin to support Palestinian groups designated as terrorist organizations by Israel

A group of House Democrats will propose a resolution urging the Biden administration to condemn Israel and support six Palestinian groups that were designated as terrorist organizations by the Jewish state.

In response to Israel’s terrorist designations, Rep. Betty McCollum (D., Minn.) plans to introduce a resolution celebrating the designated Palestinian groups for the “value and importance” of their “courageous work,” according to Haaretz. The resolution will be cosponsored by several House Democrats, including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.).

Among the groups backed in the Democratic resolution are the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is designated as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union. Also included is the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which had funding cut from it in 2020 after the group’s leadership was arrested for murdering a 17-year-old Israeli.

Rather than condemn the terrorist organizations, the group of House Democrats chose to attack Israel for its “repressive act designed to criminalize and persecute important Palestinian human rights organizations.” The resolution demands that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemn Israel’s “authoritarian and anti-democratic act of repression” and support the six terrorism-tied organizations.

The other Palestinian groups in question are Addameer, Al-Haq, Defense for Children Palestine, and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees.

This isn’t the first time House Democrats like Tlaib have sided with terror-tied organizations. Tlaib has fundraised multiple times this year for Baitulmaal, which pays money to the families of Palestinian terrorists. The leader of Baitulmaal, Mazen Mokhtar, has been accused of raising money for the Taliban and Chechen Mujahideen.

The resolution is also supported by Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.), Cori Bush (D., Mo.), Chuy García (D., Ill.), Marie Newman (D., Ill.), Raúl Grijalva (D., Ariz.), and Andre Carson (D., Ind.). It is unlikely to get support from other lawmakers.

Due to new congressional district lines in Illinois, two of the anti-Israel lawmakers, García and Newman, are now in the same district, meaning they will have to fight it out in a primary to hold onto their seat.

Israel says the evidence used for the terrorist designations is “ironclad.”

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/house-dems-praise-designated-terrorist-groups-for-courageous-work/

‘Young enough to be his granddaughter’

Tom Nichols, a Harvard professor and former Lincoln Project adviser who spends hours on social media proclaiming his moral and intellectual superiority over his fellow Americans, is in hot water after staying up way past his bedtime and announcing his “crush” on a much younger woman.

“I’m probably not going to buy this mattress but I definitely have a crush on this quirky actress,” the moral titan tweeted at 1:40 a.m. He included a screenshot of a television ad for Purple mattresses starring actress Mallory Everton, 32. She is dressed in provocative dirndl for the role, which appears to be based on the “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” fairy tale about a little girl who trespasses in the woods.

Nichols, who is married, will celebrate his 61st birthday on Dec. 7, the date of the infamous Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. He is the author of The Death of Expertise, a lamentation on the fact that “average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing” with people like Tom Nichols.

In an effort to establish his intellectual bona fides, the ex-Lincoln Project guru has tweeted more than 386,300 times since joining the social networking website as @RadioFreeTom in January 2012, which works out to an average of more than 100 tweets per day. That is way too many tweets for an adult man to be posting on a daily basis, a Washington Free Beacon analysis has determined.

Several hours after posting the lascivious tweet, Nichols was called out for his deplorable behavior. “Did you get hacked? If a guy your age said this about your daughter how weird would you feel?” wrote Twitter user @BranMuffin824. Nichols stans immediately rode to the expert’s defense, but their intellectually profound arguments fell on deaf ears.

“Still weird for him to talk about in his 60s. Also, some opinions are fine to have maybe just don’t always share them,” @BranMuffin824 wrote in response to @LucyLyrical, a Nichols apologist. “Especially when you’re the guy that we look to for decency, who is always judging others for indecency. … Pick who you are.”

It was Nichols’s hypocrisy that @BranMuffin824 found particularly galling. “Honestly, if it wasn’t for the way Tom presents himself, I wouldn’t be bothered by it either,” the Twitter user told the apologist.

Nichols cut ties with the Lincoln Project earlier this year after the Democratic super PAC came under fire for enabling the predatory sexual exploits of disgraced cofounder John Weaver. But shortly after the Lincoln Project exonerated itself of any wrongdoing—based on a review conducted by a law firm whose senior partners donated to the group—Nichols appeared as a guest on the Lincoln Project podcast to discuss why some Americans don’t deserve “freedom.”

The Lincoln Project, which raised almost $100 million from liberal billionaires and #Resistance wine moms during the 2020 election cycle, is struggling to maintain its relevance in the absence of former president Donald Trump. The super PAC’s official Twitter account, for example, has lost more than 100,000 followers since January amid reports that the group’s founders are attempting to turn the Lincoln Project into a vehicle for “generational wealth.”

Even George Conway, who cofounded the Lincoln Project in 2019, has called for the organization to be disbanded due to the questionable financial practices of its almost exclusively white male leadership team. The super PAC “should shut down, absent full disclosure of its finances,” George Conway, an uncompensated founding member, Wrote in March. “[T]here’s simply too much money that hasn’t been accounted for, and, I fear, never will be.”

https://freebeacon.com/satire/lincoln-project-creep-alert/

$100 million well spent

In the manner of a terrorist organization accepting responsibility for an atrocious attack on civilians, the Lincoln Project and a Democratic operative claimed credit for a bizarre performance of neo-Nazi cosplay on Friday as the Virginia gubernatorial race enters its final stretch.

Speculation swirled almost immediately after an NBC News reporter on Friday posted a photo of five dispirited young people, dressed in white shirts and khakis, holding tiki torches in front of Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus in Charlottesville, Va. One of the “white supremacists” was an African American.

Their costumes were intended to evoke the “Unite the Right” rally in 2018, when white supremacist groups gathered to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. Despite the pouring rain, the cosplayers did not break character even as curious bystanders snapped photos.

“These men approached @GlennYoungkin’s bus as it pulled up saying what sounded like, ‘We’re all in for Glenn,'” NBC 29 reporter Elizabeth Holmes wrote on Twitter, the popular social networking website. The reporter’s post was subsequently promoted by a campaign staffer for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe. Media experts instantly recognized the situation as “obviously a [Democratic] stunt,” but neither the McAuliffe campaign nor the Virginia Democratic Party would admit to paying hapless youngsters to get drenched in the name of social justice.

The Lincoln Project, a Democratic super PAC whose senior members are widely suspected of enabling the sexually predatory behavior of  disgraced cofounder John Weaver, claimed credit for the amateur stunt after a Vice News reporter identified one of the Democratic operatives holding an unlit tiki torch in the rain.

“Today’s demonstration was our way of reminding Virginians what happened in Charlottesville four years ago, the Republican Party’s embrace of those values, and Glenn Youngkin’s failure to condemn it,” the Lincoln Project wrote in a statement. Democratic operative Lauren Windsor also posted a statement alleging she had worked with the Lincoln Project to “coordinate today’s Youngkin action in Charlottesville.”

Professional media observers were not entirely convinced by the Lincoln Project’s admission of guilt. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lincoln Project simply agreed to take responsibility after the fact as a favor to the McAuliffe campaign,” wrote Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

The Lincoln Project, which raised almost $100 million in the 2020 election cycle, has faced criticism after one of its founding members described his desire to transform the super PAC into a vehicle for “generational wealth,” while others have used the windfall to pay off back taxes, mortgages, and other debts.

Oh, and speaking of skinheads, here’s a photo of the Lincoln Project’s senior leadership:

A majority of American parents are unaware that China, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are among the top financiers of U.S. universities and are worried that foreign cash is influencing what their children are taught in the classroom, according to a recent poll.

Nearly 60 percent of those interviewed in the September poll said they were not aware that the countries are major donors to U.S. universities. The poll was commissioned by the Lawfare Project, a nonprofit advocacy group that tracks campus issues.

Qatar’s presence in the U.S. academic system was concerning to parents when they learned about the small Gulf nation’s deep ties to Iran and terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Taliban. Eighty-four percent of those surveyed said American schools should publicly disclose their ties to Qatar and explain how the money could be coloring the in-class agenda, according to the poll, which surveyed 2,009 adults last month and was provided exclusively to the Washington Free Beacon.

While extensive foreign funding of American universities has raised alarms in Congress and among advocacy groups such as the Lawfare Project, ordinary American parents are not aware of the issue. This is partly because American schools do not publicly disclose their funding and in many cases try to hide their ties to adversarial nations like China. Foreign countries see the U.S. academic system as central to their propaganda efforts, including anti-Israel initiatives. In the case of countries such as China, they seek to steal cutting-edge research. More than 80 percent of those surveyed said Congress should enact legislation requiring schools to publicly account for every foreign donation.

Around 70 percent of those surveyed said they were concerned that foreign donations influence teaching and research priorities. In Qatar’s case, the country has spent billions running propaganda efforts in at least 28 American universities, generating concerns these donations run afoul of U.S. law. With anti-Semitism and anti-Israel attitudes increasing on many American campuses, foreign money has helped foment these movements, including at the University of North Carolina and Duke University—both of which have been embroiled in a long-running controversy over Qatar’s funding of programs critics see as anti-Semitic.

“The public wants full transparency on what Qatar is funding in American schools, and Congress must demand it,” Brooke Goldstein, the Lawfare Project’s executive director, told the Free Beacon. “Parents have a right to know what foreign governments are teaching our children.”

China’s funding for American universities remains the top concern for parents, with 70 percent expressing worry about Beijing’s presence at U.S. schools. Around 65 percent expressed similar concerns about Saudi Arabia, followed closely by Qatar with 57 percent of those surveyed.

More broadly, there was a 50-50 split between those who support foreign funding of schools and those who oppose it altogether.

https://freebeacon.com/campus/most-american-parents-unaware-china-saudi-arabia-qatar-are-major-donors-to-us-universities/

Activists that drive turnout in Republican primary contests are signaling that Laura Loomer is the kind of candidate they want in Florida’s 11th congressional district. 

Just months after announcing her candidacy for congress in Florida’s 11th congressional district, investigative journalist and author Laura Loomer appears to have a lock on key grassroots leaders across the district. Loomer, who recently mounted a primary challenge against career politician Dan Webster, also nearly doubled the incumbent in donations collected last quarter, according to The Floridian Press. 

Laura Loomer Outraises Rep. Webster in 2022 Primary Race

Facebook Twitter With the 2022 midterm elections coming up, fundraising has been the focus of all the candidates running for office.  Now, firebrand Laura Loomer (R-FL), who is once again running for Congress, has out-raised incumbent US Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) ahead of their hotly contested primary. Loomer, who is recognized as one of the … Laura Loomer Outraises Rep. Webster in 2022 Primary RaceThe Floridian

Webster has served in elected office since 1980, making him the quintessential career politician who is more concerned about cocktail parties than his constituents. 

Now, activists in the district, some of whom currently or previously held leadership roles with the Lake County Republican Executive Committee and influential conservative political groups are telling the Central Florida Post that Loomer is their choice in next summer’s August primary election for the GOP nomination in Florida’s 11th district. Considered one of the most conservative districts in the state of Florida, the person who emerges victorious from the primary will head to the nation’s capitol in January of 2023. 

Sue Parent, a board member of the Lake County Voting and Election Integrity Project, which is pushing for a full-scale audit of the 2020 election in Lake County, called Loomer a go-getter who will fight for the needs of the local community. 

“FOR ME, GRASSROOTS MEANS THAT ORDINARY, AVERAGE CITIZENS GET TOGETHER, IN PART, TO IMPROVE THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL NEEDS OF THEIR COMMUNITY. LAURA LOOMER IS A GO-GETTER AND IS WILLING TO STEP UP FOR LAKE COUNTY CITIZENS REGARDLESS OF THEIR PARTY AFFILIATION. SHE IS SEEKING TRUTH IN GOVERNMENT AND I AM ALL FOR THAT,” PARENT EXPLAINED. 

To understand the future, we must look to the past. And Loomer’s track record on accountability in her capacity as a journalist paints a very scary picture for the establishment on both sides in Washington, DC. She birthed a form of guerrilla journalism, where she calls out elected leaders, political candidates and the powers-that-be in real-time, recording the whole thing and streaming to her millions of followers on social media.

Over the years she has confronted former FBI Director James Comey for his many lies and misdeeds. She caught Hillary Clinton at a Costco book signing with some very uncomfortable questions. Both Gavin Newsom and Nancy Pelosi are also on the list. Loomer was even arrested and thrown out of the trial for the wife of the Pulse shooter for highlighting the role radical Islam played in motivating the shooter in carrying out the attacks and his wife in assisting his efforts. 

Often referred to as “the most banned woman in the world”, Loomer is no stranger to deplatforming and censorship, she’s been banned on every major digital platform that most of us consider an integral part of our lives. This lead her to “Loomer” Jack Dorsey during a congressional hearing, where members of the establishment GOP targeted her instead of standing up for free speech and against the tyranny of big tech. 

Tom Vail, the President of the Lake County Patriot Club and Treasurer of the Lake County Republican Executive Committee, pointed to Loomer’s “fighting spirit” as a reason to elect her to congress. 

Last night at the Lake County REC following the Lake County Schools superintendent’s presentation, meeting Laura Loomer spoke out about teachers who are illegally teaching CRT in FL, which is now BANNED in FL! #LauraLoomerForCongress pic.twitter.com/J64iOYcR4O— DataBattlesZ (@DataBattlesZ) October 20, 2021

“I HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING LAURA FOR YEARS AND AM SO IMPRESSED WITH HER ABILITY TO HOLD THE POWERFUL ACCOUNTABLE. BEFORE SHE ANNOUNCED HER CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS, SHE SPOKE TO ONE OF THE LARGEST CROWDS WE’VE EVER GOTTEN. THE FIGHTING SPIRIT SHE HAS MAINTAINED OVER THE YEARS WAS PRESENT THAT DAY AND REMAINS SO. WE NEED THAT KIND OF ENERGY IN WASHINGTON TO PROTECT OUR FOUNDING PRINCIPLES,” SAID VAIL. 

Over the years Loomer has become a fixture across Florida, drawing hundreds of people to hear her speak, hitting nearly every part of the Sunshine State to attend rallies or confronting rotten politicians. During the 2018 campaign and recount efforts in the Ron DeSantis vs. Andrew Gillum race, I remember Loomer traversing the state with me as we relentlessly exposed Andrew Gillum, a months-long effort that Big League Politics said was crucial in stopping Florida from becoming a socialist state. 

Jim Volpe, who served as President Trump’s campaign Chairman for Lake County 2016, was also the Vice President of Villagers for Trump from 2017 to 2019. Volpe helped organize the Trump Day Dinner in October of 2018, which was attended by President Trump. 

“I HAVE 15 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN LAKE AND SUMTER COUNTY POLITICS. OTHER THAN IN MY CAMPAIGN FOR DONALD TRUMP, I HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED THIS LEVEL OF  ENTHUSIASM FOR A CANDIDATE FOR OFFICE IN OUR AREA AS I HAVE FOR LAURA. I VISUALIZE HER POPULARITY GROWING SIMILAR TO WHAT I EXPERIENCED IN 2016 WITH THEN BUSINESSMAN DONALD J. TRUMP,” VOLPE TOLD THE CENTRAL FLORIDA POST. 

Even Michael Levine, who was the Chairman of the Lake County GOP in a pre-Trump era, is pushing for Loomer to defeat incumbent Congressman Daniel Webster in the 2022 primary. Levine thinks Webster is part of the problem in DC and must be removed from office. 

“WE NEED SOMEONE WHO WILL TRULY FIGHT FOR THE CORE AMERICAN VALUES THAT MAKE THIS COUNTRY GREAT. THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND AND WE CANNOT AFFORD TO ALLOW PEOPLE LIKE DAN WEBSTER TO CONTINUE TO WASTE HIS SEAT IN CONGRESS WHILE OUR COUNTRY IS BEING TORN APART FROM WITHIN BY ANTI-AMERICAN FORCES THAT DC-INSIDERS LIKE WEBSTER REFUSE TO STOP. AT THIS POINT, HE IS JUST A PLACEHOLDER FOR HIS FRIENDS IN THE DEMOCRAT PARTY,” CONCLUDED LEVINE, WHO ALSO SAID THAT WEBSTER’S REFUSAL TO RAISE HIS HAND IN RECOGNITION OF THE 2020 ELECTION BEING STOLEN DURING LAKE COUNTY GOP’S RECENT LINCOLN DAY DINNER WAS “OUTRAGEOUS.” 

Dan Webster Balks At 2020 Election Fraud During GOP Dinner

The congressman for Florida’s 11th district, who has held elected office since 1980, refused to acknowledge the widespread voter fraud that allowed the election to be stolen from President Donald J. Trump in 2020.  By Jacob Engels In what is sure to become a flashpoint in Central Florida politics during the August primaries of the 2022 … Dan Webster Balks At 2020 Election Fraud During GOP Dinner

Central Florida Post

With Loomer quickly rounding up a rolodex like this for her campaign and no signs of her campaign slowing down in sight, one has to wonder if Congressman Webster will ever wake up or fight back. 

If his lackluster fundraising performance and increasing reclusiveness are any indications, the answer is a resounding no. And that’s good news for the citizens of Florida’s 11th congressional district. 

#LauraLoomer #LauraLoomerForCongress pic.twitter.com/sTHBq0dbQ0— DataBattlesZ (@DataBattlesZ) October 17, 2021

Love her or hate her, Loomer’s track record proves she has the willingness to put in the work that people should expect from their elected representatives.  

Jacob Engels is an Orlando based journalist whose work has been featured and republished in news outlets around the globe including Politico, Infowars, MSNBC, Orlando Sentinel, New York Times, Daily Mail UK, Associated Press, People Magazine, ABC, Fox News, and Australia’s New Dawn Magazine, LauraLoomer.US, and The Gateway Pundit. 

Mr. Engels focuses on stories that other news outlets neglect or willingly hide to curry favor among the political and special interests in the state of Florida and beyond.

A bill that would introduce party labels into local school board elections is advancing through Tennessee’s state legislature.

House Bill 9072, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Scott Cepicky, would allow political parties to nominate candidates for school board membership and school board candidates to campaign as a nominee or representative of a party.

Under the existing state law, school board elections in Tennessee must be conducted on a nonpartisan basis, meaning that one who seeks a position on a board will not appear on the ballot as a Democrat, Republican, or member of another political party.

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The original version of the bill had sought to make partisan school board elections mandatory, but it was amended so that elections don’t have to be partisan. It passed the Tennessee House on Friday morning in a 52–39 vote.

“If the local parties don’t want to do it, they don’t have to. It’s totally permissive and wouldn’t be mandated across the state,” said Cepicky, reported Chalkbeat Tennessee.

The effort comes as controversies around public school boards, including the teaching of critical race theory and COVID-19 restrictions they put in place, continue to make national headlines. According to Ballotpedia, this year so far has seen at least 84 school board recall efforts against 215 board members, nearly triple from the previous year.

While opponents of the proposal argue that school boards elections should be made less, not more political, supporters say that a partisan ballot helps voters get a better sense of where each candidate stands on key issues.

“Our job is to provide as much transparency in the voter box as we can so that people have an idea of the level of expected performance from the people that they send to represent them,” Cepicky said, reported The Tennessean.

According to a 2020 survey by Education Next, Democrats have more favorable views toward increased school spending, the Common Core standard, and the effect of teachers’ unions on schools, while Republicans support school choice programs and basing part of the teachers’ salaries on how well their students learn.

A more recent survey by Morning Consult highlights the partisan divide on critical race theory. Nearly 80 percent of Republican participants said they view critical race theory negatively, compared with 7 and 46 percent of participants identifying Democrats and Independents, respectively. Republicans are also found to be more likely to describe the ideology with stronger words, such as “a Marxist proposal to indoctrinate children by blaming white people for everything.”

In Florida, a similar bill was proposed in September by state Sen. Joe Gruters, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. It is currently being considered in three state Senate committees.

A courageous fighter for freedom shares her story

On American Thought Leaders, Jan Jekielek spoke with North Korean defector Yeonmi Park, author of “In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom.”

They discussed the North Korean regime’s tactics of oppression, the parallels between her experiences in North Korea and what she now sees in the United States, and the “suicide of Western civilization.”

Mr. Jekielek: Your book is honestly one of the best books I’ve ever read. It can help people understand what it’s like to live under a dictatorship.

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Ms. Park: The first thing my mom taught me was, “Watch out what you say,” like even the birds and mice could hear my whisper. She said, “The most dangerous thing you have in your body is your tongue.” That was the only way that she knew how to protect me. So in a way, in North Korea, even thinking isn’t free. A thought crime is a real thing. So that’s how they oppress you to the point where you don’t even know how to think freely.

Mr. Jekielek: How did living like that change your relationships with people?

Ms. Park: In North Korea, there’s no word for “friends.” We have a word for “comrade,” which means you’re working for the revolution, you share the same goal of the revolution: the glory of the party.

The regime removed a lot of concepts, like love. We didn’t know what love was. I never heard anybody saying love to each other. The only love people are allowed is love for the dear leader.

They also get rid of the concept of human rights. When a baby’s born, they don’t know what human rights is. Somebody teaches them. They go to school to learn about human rights. They need to learn. But the regime gets rid of them, they get rid of them in the dictionary.

That’s how they control your thoughts. Like how George Orwell talks about doublespeak. Who controls the language? Who controls your thoughts? They get rid of liberty, human rights, freedom, friends, even depression.

I don’t know what depression is. I don’t even know what stress is. Because how can you be stressed in a socialist paradise? So they don’t allow that word. You don’t even know what that is. That’s what the ultimate mind control looks like.

Mr. Jekielek: Reading “Animal Farm” gave you a picture of how a communist society emerges and how it works.

Ms. Park: Everything I had believed was a lie. When I reached South Korea and read “Animal Farm,” I understood what had happened to my people and my country.

Mr. Jekielek: Until I read your book, I never realized hunger is a deliberate form of control. How does that work?

Ms. Park: When the Soviets were collapsing, they stopped subsidizing North Korea’s economy. So the regime thought, “OK, as long as we feed the core class that supports the revolution, then we’re good.” That’s how they measure their success.

Mr. Jekielek: Food became your number one fixation, right?

Ms. Park: You eat lunch, but then you worry about dinner. When you find dinner, you say, “OK, I made it through one day, but how am I going to survive tomorrow?” Every single minute of your existence, you’re worrying about finding food.

It’s a very effective tool to control the population. But it’s torture. Being starved is worse than being raped. It’s the worst form of torture you can experience.

Mr. Jekielek: It sent a chill down my spine when you said hunger is worse than rape. Unfortunately, in your book, you describe this as something you’re familiar with.

Ms. Park: Yes.

Mr. Jekielek: You were 13 years old when you escaped to China.

Ms. Park: It was 2007, and we couldn’t find food anymore.

At night I could see lights coming from China. I thought maybe if I go where the lights were, I would find food to eat.

Mr. Jekielek:  You found food, but you also found another form of terror and slavery.

Ms. Park:  At this moment, there are about 300,000 North Koreans hiding in China. Most of them are women, and literally 99 percent of them are being trafficked.

So North Koreans are vulnerable in China. The traffickers know we won’t ask the police for help, because they’re the ones that catch us and send us back. That’s why the traffickers told us, “I can kill you at this very moment. You are less valued than even a pig.”

Mr. Jekielek: And you were able to find your mother in this.

Ms. Park: So at 13, I crossed this frozen river with my mom, and the next thing I know she’s being raped.

Then they said, “If you want to stay in China, you have to be sold as slaves.” So they sold my mom for around $65. They sold me for more than $200 because I was a virgin. That’s very valuable in China.

I wanted to kill myself. I was separated from everybody I knew. I was even more oppressed than in North Korea. Then this trafficker who bought me said that if I became his mistress, he would save my family.

So I thought, “OK, if I sacrifice myself, I can rescue my family,” and became his mistress at age 13. And then he brought my mom and my father to me.

Mr. Jekielek: He kept his word.

Ms. Park: He was a heartless man, raping a 13-year-old. I was a tiny, tiny thing. And he still did that.

But he saved my parents for me. That’s why I couldn’t hate. I fantasized about killing him when he was raping me. Looking back now, I’m grateful.

Mr. Jekielek: And you then found a way to make it to South Korea.

Ms. Park: We met another North Korean defector. She knew some missionaries who said if we studied the Bible and became Christian, they would help us go to South Korea. So they taught me about God and Jesus Christ, and somehow we proved our faith to them.

That’s when they told us, “If you want to escape, you’ll have to cross the Gobi Desert using a compass.”

They gave us the compass and told us to go to the west and north, between those directions. Eventually I followed the North Star, praying that it would lead to freedom. And it did. I’ve seen so many miracles in my life.

Mr. Jekielek: So somewhere along the way, you realized that truth-telling is the best way to help your fellow North Koreans. Where did you get this idea?

Ms. Park: In a time of deceit, telling the truth is the only brave, courageous thing you can do.

Even in America right now, it’s a time of deceit.

I imagined America to be better than this.

When you see America from far away, it’s the land of hope, the home of the brave—a country that stands for justice. It inspired me so much. But coming here, looking inside, I was baffled: How is this possible?

Mr. Jekielek: In an interview with Jordan Peterson, you talked about how disillusioning it was to go to Columbia University. You said zero classes were worthwhile for you. How is that possible?

Ms. Park: I was thirsty for truth and knowledge after North Korea, where I had so much hunger for it.

But at Columbia, they look for hidden oppression everywhere. And in every single class, the conclusion is that the American foundation is bigotry.

It’s all about being politically correct. And this is heartbreaking, seeing the suicide of Western civilization.

At my Columbia campuses, every single person was bitter. They complain how they’re oppressed and so resentful. That’s what I couldn’t understand. This is a generation that’s lost.

Mr. Jekielek: You’ve also started to tell the truth about the Chinese Communist Party. How did this become so important to you?

Ms. Park: Without China, Kim Jong Un can never exist. The only reason the North Korean regime has lasted this long is because of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].

Mr. Jekielek: Where can people watch your YouTube channel?

Ms. Park: They can go to Voice of North Korea. And they can find me at YeonmiParkNK on Twitter and Instagram. I’m also on Facebook.

This interview was edited for brevity and content.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/communist-tyranny-and-the-suicide-of-western-civilization_4070343.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Drones, towers, license plate readers, and other surveillance tools comprise a “digital border wall” that threatens privacy and civil liberties, according to a new report from three immigration advocacy groups.

The Deadly Digital Border Wall report criticizes law enforcement’s surveillance of the U.S.-Mexico border, but the tools described in the report could be—and have been—used against all American residents as the government ramps up programs to counter domestic extremism.

The report—published by Mijente, Just Futures Law, and the Rio Grande Valley No Border Wall Coalition—details two main tools law enforcement uses to track migrations: drones and towers. Additionally, the government uses a wide array of surveillance systems and databases to track all people who cross U.S. borders—illegally or otherwise.

According to the report, there are at least 55 surveillance towers along with Southwest border. These structures are 80 to 140 feet tall and are equipped with day and night cameras and a radar that can identify people six miles away, the report said.

There are also more than 360 remote video surveillance systems—smaller, relocatable surveillance towers—and dozens of mobile surveillance systems. Each mobile system consists of a truck with telescoping poles in the bed that extend up to 35 feet in the air, outfitted with thermal and video cameras and a laser illuminator, the report explained.

Meanwhile, the government is rolling out its newest surveillance tool: an autonomous tower powered by artificial intelligence, which can be used without the direct control of a human operator, the report said.

“The relocatable towers are 33 feet tall and suited to work in remote environments with little maintenance, since they operate off the grid and around the clock, using solar panels for energy,” the report said, adding that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) plans on installing 200 of them by fiscal year 2022.

The growing number of towers is complemented by a fleet of drones along the border in the Southwest. The report said CBP has more than 135 drones, with plans to procure another 460.

“Nearly 600 operators were trained to fly them, and the agency aimed to double that number in 2021 with a training program in West Virginia,” the report said, adding, “Since 2016, CBP has expressed interest in developing drones with facial recognition capabilities.”

While the abovementioned tools are ostensibly designed to track illegal border crossings, the report also details numerous surveillance tools used to track all travelers crossing U.S. borders.

For instance, the report raised concerns about the forthcoming Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology System (HART), which the Department of Homeland Security is implementing to replace a legacy system.

“Hosted by Amazon Web Services, the new system will aggregate, link, and compare facial recognition images, DNA profiles, iris scans, digital fingerprints, and voice prints on unique profiles of hundreds of millions of people,” the report said.

“The planned database will collect this invasive personal data from diverse federal agencies like ICE, CBP, FBI, and the Department of Defense, as well as from local and state law enforcement, and from foreign governments including Mexico, the Northern Triangle countries of Central America, and the Five Eyes alliance.”

Another surveillance tool that has come under scrutiny is the automated license plate reader, which tracks plate numbers, precise dates and times, images, geolocation information, and other data.

“This data can be used to determine the travel patterns of individual drivers,” the report said. “Most importantly, the plate data can be matched with a car’s owner to track their movement, and stored and shared among different law enforcement agencies.”

Along with documenting the methods and tools used by the government, the report also tracks the private contractors that have been profiting off the growing surveillance state.

According to the report, Motorola Solutions has a $54.6 million contract with CBP for license plate reader technology, while ICE is paying Thomson Reuters $22.8 million for similar services through 2026. Israeli military contractor Elbit Systems, meanwhile, has a $239 million contract with CBP for surveillance tower development and maintenance, and General Dynamics has been awarded $153 million through 2023 to expand the system, according to the report.

The most expensive system in the report is the HART biometric database system at an estimated $4.3 billion. Military contractor Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $143 million contract to develop the first increment of this system, the report noted.

According to the report, government and big tech are becoming increasingly intertwined when it comes to border surveillance.

“The digital wall relies on cutting-edge, for-profit surveillance technologies developed by military contractors, big tech companies, and Silicon Valley start-ups,” the report said.

“As border enforcement agencies become increasingly reliant on technology to monitor, detain, and deport immigrants, multi-million-dollar contracts are being signed to develop tools for the region.”

Lest people think that these tools are solely being used to curtail illegal immigration, the report explained that entire populations are being swept up in the surveillance dragnet.

In 2017, for instance, CBP stationed a tower in San Diego to monitor a protest, according to the report. Last year, CBP drones were deployed on Black Lives Matter protestors in at least 12 cities, the report added.

“Border communities feel the impact of this surveillance acutely. The surveillance towers above their towns don’t just monitor the border, they monitor their backyards too. The drones flying overhead are an ever-present eye in the sky, watching people as they walk, bike, and drive in their neighborhoods,” the report said.

A recent lawsuit from the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation further backs the report’s claims, at least when it comes to license plate readers. The lawsuit revealed that one law enforcement department shared such information with more than 600 other agencies.

“Specifically, the sheriff’s office shares and transfers ALPR information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), 18 other federal agencies, and 424 out-of-state law enforcement agencies,” the lawsuit says. “This includes law enforcement agencies located as far afield as Enfield, Connecticut; St. Louis, Missouri; Lafayette, Louisiana; and Newton County, Georgia.”

The report warned that border surveillance is just a taste of what could come for the rest of the country.

“The proliferation of checkpoints is a constant reminder that the entire border region is, in the eyes of DHS, a warzone. Border communities have become a legitimate target for surveillance and enforcement—a taste of what may await the rest of the country as these technologies are rolled out nationwide.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/border-surveillance-tools-could-become-ubiquitous-nationwide-report_4075985.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday ended the “Remain in Mexico” program despite being ordered by a court to move in good faith to restore it.

“I am hereby terminating MPP,” Mayorkas wrote in a memorandum.

The program is formally known as the Migrant Policy Protocols (MPP). Started during the Trump administration, it forced many asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their claims to be heard.You May Also Like

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Mayorkas ended it earlier this year, claiming it had “mixed effectiveness” and “does not adequately or sustainably enhance border management in such a way as to justify the program’s extensive operational burdens and other shortfalls.”

But a federal judge in August found his memo lacked an exploration of the benefits of the program, which were outlined by the very department he heads. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, ordered the memo vacated and the Biden administration “to enforce and implement MPP in good faith until such a time as it has been lawfully rescinded.”

Kacsmaryk’s injunction ruling was upheld by an appeals court and the Supreme Court. Lawyers for the parties are scheduled for oral arguments before an appeals court in the case next week.

In his new memo, Mayorkas continued promoting twin messaging. He said the administration is working in good faith to restore the policy. But he also said he was terminating it.

“The department will continue complying with the Texas injunction requiring good-faith implementation and enforcement of MPP. But the termination of MPP will be implemented as soon as practicable after a final judicial decision to vacate the Texas injunction,” he wrote.

Mayorkas said he reached the conclusion after a fresh review of all the information relating to the program, including court filings, departmental assessments, and news reports.

“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. The Biden-Harris Administration, by contrast, is pursuing a series of policies that disincentivize irregular migration while incentivizing safe, orderly, and humane pathways,” he wrote.

The Biden administration is facing an unprecedented surge in illegal immigration that critics say is fostered by its lax enforcement policies, including the ending of MPP and the curtailment of Title 42, which is used to expel illegal immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stephen Miller, a top immigration adviser during the Trump administration, wrote on Twitter that the administration should be held in contempt of court.

“It’s been almost 3 months since a federal judge ordered Biden to reinstate MPP (which could be done with a single phone call) & not only has Biden never reinstated MPP they’ve instead poured their energy into trying to abolish it,” said.

The memo follows three recent updates.

In late September, the states of Texas and Missouri, which brought the suit that led to Kacsmaryk’s ruling, asked the court to force the administration to reinstate MPP. About a week later, Mayorkas’ department said it planned to scrap MPP even though the Supreme Court upheld Kacsmaryk’s ruling. Finally, the administration said it expected to be in a position to re-implement the program in mid-November, pending cooperation from Mexico.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/dhs-secretary-mayorkas-ends-remain-in-mexico-program-despite-court-order_4076382.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The Orange County School Board in Florida removed a speaker from a board meeting after the man read a sexually explicit passage from a book that was available in local school libraries.

In a video recorded on Oct. 26 by a member of the Orange County chapter of pro-parental rights group Moms for Liberty, a man was ordered to be taken out of the meeting chamber by a police officer after he read from the 2019 graphic novel “Gender Queer: A Memoir.”

“I’m going to read a passage of a book that’s floating around in your schools that has been banned from many other schools,” said Jacob Engels, the speaker who was removed, according to Orange Observer. “As a member of the LGBT community, the fact that this is floating around for children as young as ninth grade is concerning.”

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Engels then read a scene from the book depicting sexual acts before board chairwoman Teresa Jacobs asked him to stop, saying that he was “out of order.”

“If you don’t stop now, we will remove you from the chamber,” Jocob said. She then ordered the man’s removal as he continued to read.

Other community members in the audience can be heard protesting the interruption. “Our kids are reading this,” one man said.

“The language he just read is inappropriate in the forum,” Jocob explained.

“Then why it is appropriate for schools?” asked a woman.

“I understand the contradiction here,” Jocob replied, noting that neither she nor the board were aware of the book. “We will look into it, and I do hope the book is removed. OK? And if not, we’ll be back here having this conversation again, but I can guarantee you, I did not know that book was in the library.”

The school district later confirmed to the Observer that they have taken down all four copies of “Gender Queer” in three of the district’s 22 high schools.

“At this time, the book is not on library shelves and is under review,” the district said in a statement. “If anyone has a concern about materials or books found in our media centers or in our classrooms, Orange County Public Schools has a process in place for parents or guardians to submit a form to the school principal to address a concern.”

The graphic novel, created by California-based cartoonist Maia Kobabe, sparked a controversy earlier this week in Virginia, when conservative advocacy group Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) tried to run a 30-second TV ad containing the same sexual scene that Engels read. Local Virginia TV stations, including ABC, CBS, and NBC, have reportedly refused to air the ad, citing federal law which prohibits airing pornographic images.

“It’s shocking that images, and even some words, that federal law prohibits TV stations to share with adults are the same images being shared with Virginia students with no accountability,” said Victoria Coley, vice president of communications at IWV.

The book was available in schools in several Virginia districts, including in Fairfax, Loudon, and Arlington counties, according to IWV.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/speaker-removed-from-florida-school-board-meeting-after-reading-sex-scene-from-school-library-book_4076041.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The immunity conferred by COVID-19 infection and recovery has by now been shown to be superior to the protection given by COVID-19 vaccines, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) says.

“For people who’ve had the disease and who have naturally acquired immunity, there is no reason to get a vaccine,” Harris, the co-chair of the House Doctors Caucus, said on NTD’s “Capitol Report” this week.Play Video

Dozens of studies have shown strong immunity to reinfection among people who got COVID-19 and recovered.

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

“Our conclusion is that if you were previously infected, you are protected because of the previous infection and you don’t need the vaccine,” Dr. Nabin Shrestha, of the Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Infectious Disease, told The Epoch Times earlier this year.

Shrestha led a team that found employees at the clinic who had natural immunity were unlikely to benefit from vaccination.

“The science is becoming very clear that naturally acquired immunity actually is better than vaccine-acquired immunity,” Harris said.

Many experts agree with the school of thought, though the view is far from universal.

Top public health officials and agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, still urge practically everybody to get a COVID-19 vaccine, even those who recovered from the disease.

“Getting the vaccine is the best way to protect yourself and others around you, especially as the more contagious Delta variant spreads around the country,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the head of the centers, said in August after a study suggested those with natural immunity benefited from vaccination.

The debate was on full display during a recent Food and Drug Administration panel hearing considering whether to advise the agency to give shots to children as young as 5 years old.

Multiple members said data indicates children with prior infection don’t need a vaccine. Another proposal bandied about is giving such children a single shot, as opposed to the two-dose regimen often used for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

Harris says the COVID-19 vaccine mandates that don’t incorporate testing or natural immunity opt-outs have widespread resistance and the consequences of the mandates are severe.

“There are always going to be 15 or 20 percent of Americans who will just resist the government mandate. They just won’t get the vaccine, whether or not they’ve had naturally acquired immunity, and the consequences of taking those people out of the workplace, for instance, is going to be very broad, very widespread, and I think very bad for our economy,” he told NTD.

“If someone doesn’t want to get the vaccine, then just ask them to be tested every few days, make sure that if they’re tested, they quarantine themselves. But vaccine mandate that doesn’t take into account naturally acquired immunity and doesn’t allow an exception, either for religious, medical reasons, or with a test out option, I think in the long run is going to be shown to be more harmful than helpful.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/people-with-natural-immunity-dont-need-to-get-a-covid-19-vaccine-rep-harris_4075791.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The Chicago City Council has approved $35 million dollars to pilot a universal basic income program in one of the largest efforts of its kind in the nation.

The newly approved budget will give $500 each month to 5,000 low-income families under the program promoted by Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

“I am beyond excited to announce the passage of the most progressive and forward-looking budget in our city’s history,” Lightfoot said in a statement.

“As we move away from the pandemic, we must use this opportunity and once-in-a-lifetime funding to address the economic and emotional pain it has wreaked on our communities. This budget, complete with a historic number of investments and policy prescriptions, will meet this moment and help us fulfill our responsibility to uplifting and empowering our residents,” the mayor added.

Local civic leaders hailed the program’s passing as an effort that will “change and save lives.”

“The $500 monthly payments to 5,000 Chicagoans included in this budget will change and save lives,” Richard Wallace, founder and director of Equity and Transformation, said in a statement Thursday.

“A Chicago guaranteed income pilot offers a tangible step toward a more equitable city. It is Lincoln Park saying to West Garfield Park: I see you; I see the high rates of unemployment; I see the income gap; and I am going to do something about it,” he added.

Former Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson added her support last month in the effort leading to the program’s approval.

“As a former Mayor, I know budgets are never easy, and striking the right balance is always the goal. This budget begins that process, with its substantial investments in youth, mental health, community development, arts, and other human service functions,” Freeman said in a statement.

“At the same time this budget acknowledges that city debt and public safety cannot be ignored.  I commend Mayor Lightfoot for the strides in this budget proposal and look forward to a participatory process that addresses challenges like universal basic income, continued small business investment and reimagining public safety,” she added.

But not everyone approves of the new basic income program. Some are concerned the no-strings-attached approach has no method to help people beyond a temporary fix.

Bruce Meyer, the McCormick Foundation Professor at the University of Chicago, told local WTTW-TV earlier this year that the blanket program doesn’t really help long-term.

“It just sends people checks, whereas what you really need given the diversity of problems people face, is a social worker to figure out what people really need, and to get them to job training or to child care or drug treatment or in the end you may say for certain people, just cash is really what they need,” Meyer said.

“If you don’t have someone interacting with individuals, then you don’t get the right things to people,” he added.

Michael Faulkender, who served as an assistant treasury secretary for economic policy during the Trump administration, also told The Washington Post the plan could continue to hurt the city’s job shortage.

“There are still millions of low-skilled jobs out there, and you have small business owners who can’t find workers to join their companies,” said Faulkender, who teaches finance at the University of Maryland. Proposals like the one in Chicago feed the “process of reducing the willingness of people to participate in the workforce,” he said.

Chicago Southwest Side Alderman Raymond Lopez also pushed back against the plan. “Listening to some of the speeches today, I feel like Christmas has come early,” he said, calling the budget “grossly out of balance” in remarks at the budget meeting.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/chicago-passes-budget-with-one-of-nations-largest-universal-basic-income-programs_4074686.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Democrats in Virginia will receive daily updates on election mail processing and delivery, according to an agreement released Thursday.

The Democratic Party of Virginia sued the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) last week, claiming that thousands of absentee ballots were sitting at postal facilities throughout the commonwealth, unprocessed, “for weeks on end.”

“USPS to give daily election mail reports to Virginia Democrats after lawsuit alleging delays,” they alleged, citing data from the Virginia Department of Elections (VDOE).

The party asked a judge to enter a temporary restraining order that would force USPS to deliver all election-related mail within Virginia no later than three days after its entry and nearly immediately process all such mail in Albemarle County and the city of Portsmouth.

USPS officials said the allegations lacked factual and legal merit and said a check of its facilities uncovered no misplaced ballots. Further, they spoke to officials from Albemarle County and Portsmouth and were told there were no issues.

The parties ultimately reached an agreement laid out in a consent order.

USPS agreed to process all election mail within Virginia according to its established procedures, including making sure all mail processing facilities and post offices certify daily they are clear of all election mail scheduled for action on that day.

Beginning Friday, the USPS must also provide a daily report by noon each day confirming a process known as “all clear” was carried out at each facility in Virginia the previous day.

If any facility does not report being “all clear,” USPS must provide details on why and follow up as warranted.

The reports shall continue through Nov. 5, the day of Virginia’s gubernatorial election.

The parties also said they’ll work with the VDOE to try to figure out why the agency’s reports “appear to identify a substantial number of ‘unscanned’ outbound ballots for Portsmouth City and Albemarle County.”

“As stated in the consent order, there is a common interest to ensure that if Virginia voters choose to use the mail to vote, they are able to do so effectively,” a USPS spokeswoman told The Epoch Times via email.

“The United States Postal Service is fully committed to fulfilling our important role in the electoral process as a secure, efficient, and effective way for citizens to participate when policymakers decide to use mail as part of their election system. We are also actively working with election officials and look forward to a successful election in Virginia,” she added.

VDOE and the Democratic Party of Virginia did not respond to requests for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/usps-to-give-daily-election-mail-reports-to-virginia-democrats-after-lawsuit-alleging-delays_4076016.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Government assistance programs and policies are contributing to the decline in employment activity among able-bodied Americans, according to a new study by the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Republicans.

The study, titled, “Reconnecting Americans to the Benefits of Work,” published on Wednesday, seeks to understand why fewer prime-age Americans are part of the nation’s workforce.

While noting that declining wages, technological change, and international trade all play a part in the decline in employment activity among able-bodied Americans, JEC Republicans said that “government programs and policies have likely made work less attractive for these Americans.”

You May Also Like:

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• US Companies Not Rushing to Rehire Workers; Rising Covid-19 Cases Threaten Recovery
• Where Conservatives Fail at Talking With Millennials On the Free Market—Jimmy Sengenberger

The study found that the United States has experienced an unprecedented rise in disconnected prime-age workers over time.

For men, this trend dates back half a century, with their labor force participation rate falling from over 97 percent in 1955 to 89 percent before the pandemic. For women, receding workforce participation began in the last two decades.

The decline in prime-age labor force participation has been mostly voluntary, the study notes, with just 12 percent of inactive, prime-age, able-bodied men stating that they wanted a job or were open to work. Among men who said they are not working due to reasons other than disability, retirement, education, or homemaking, 41 percent personally receive government assistance.

“If more men are genuinely choosing to stay home with the kids, go to school, or retire early, policymakers should not be concerned. However, government policies may be tipping the scales toward inactivity and away from work,” the study notes.

“Policymakers should take note if would-be workers’ inactivity is indeed enabled or encouraged by poorly structured government benefits or made more likely by unnecessary barriers to work,” it adds. “This is likely the case for the 41 percent of primeage men who personally receive government assistance and are inactive for reasons other than disability, retirement, education, or homemaking.”

JEC Republicans also noted that a growing number of Americans were receiving government assistance “despite improving pre-pandemic economic conditions.”

“The share of working-age Americans living in households between the 20th and 50th income percentiles who receive safety net benefits increased from 20 percent to about 30 percent between 1998 and 2014. This growth in safety net benefits likely makes non-work more attractive and has contributed to declining labor force participation,” they wrote.

The study noted a decline in labor force participation and earnings after government assistance programs such as housing assurance, Medicaid, and the introduction of the food stamp program in the 1960s and 1970s.

“More recent evidence following the Great Recession shows how the expansion of safety net benefits undermined the rewards to work, creating employment losses and delayed economic recovery,” the study adds.

The study focuses on multiple government assistance programs in the time period before Congress passed three massive stimulus packages in an effort to support the economy and help Americans through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additional government spending is currently being pushed by the Biden administration, which has said it has secured a new $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act framework for economic and climate change spending that has yet to pass the Senate.

The bill is a revised and reduced version of the $3.5 trillion social spending bill unveiled at the beginning of the year that was blocked by key moderate Democrats who refused to allow such an increase to the national debt.

The new stimulus package has been praised by Democrats such as Sen. Tammy Baldwin, (D-Wis.) for helping working Americans get back on their feet.

But further stimulus support has also been criticized by Republicans including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the ranking member of the JEC Republicans.

“As the number of Americans who receive government assistance has grown, more Americans have voluntarily left their jobs,” Lee said in a statement to Fox News. “Congress’ plan to spend an additional $3.5 trillion to provide households with new subsidies and fewer incentives to work would only make things worse.”

JEC Republicans suggest approaching the current declining employment situation with a three-pronged approach: removing barriers to work such as burdensome regulations, removing financial disincentives to work such as those in social-safety net programs, and bolstering incentives and increasing the attractiveness to work, such as a government-funded wage subsidy to increase workers’ take-home pay.

“Reconnecting inactive workers to the labor force will require careful consideration of poorly-designed federal benefits, wide-ranging regulations that exclude would-be workers from the labor market, and labor laws that restrict employee freedoms to work on their own terms,” the study says.

“Ultimately, work is a means of promoting wellbeing, not an end in itself. Improving connections to work and increasing the attractiveness of work, particularly among those most at risk for idleness or isolation, can significantly improve the economic, social, and mental well-being of disconnected Americans.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/government-assistance-programs-and-policies-contributing-to-employment-decline-among-able-bodied-americans-study_4075743.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

A district court judge in Washington, D.C. issued a temporary injunction Thursday that bars both civilian and military plaintiffs from being fired after they filed a lawsuit against the White House’s vaccine mandate.

District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, issued a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction preventing the plaintiffs from being fired while their religious exemption requests to the COVID-19 vaccine are pending.

“None of the civilian employee plaintiffs will be subject to discipline while his or her request for a religious exception is pending,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in an order, dated Thursday.You May Also Like

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The judge also ruled that “active duty military plaintiffs, whose religious exception requests have been denied, will not be disciplined or separated during the pendency of their appeals,” noting that the federal government has provided “no guarantee of what will happen … if their exemption requests are denied.”

Defendants named in the lawsuit, including all Biden administration executive branch secretaries, have to issue supplemental memos by Friday that say they will not terminate or penalize staff while religious exemptions are being heard, Kollar-Kotelly also ruled.

President Joe Biden and members of his administration were sued by 20 plaintiffs last month over his Sept. 9 executive order requiring vaccines for all federal employees and contractors, reported Fox News.

In their complaint, the plaintiffs wrote that “plaintiffs along with hundreds of thousands of other federal employees and active-duty service members will be terminated, discharged or separated on or before November 22, 2021.”

“The Biden administration has shown an unprecedented, cavalier attitude toward the rule of law and an utter ineptitude at basic constitutional contours,” the plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Yoder told the network after Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling.

Describing this mandate as “dangerous to American liberty,” Yoder said that “our Constitution protects and secures the right to remain free from religious persecution and coercion.”

Similarly, he praised Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling and said that “we are one step closer to putting the Biden administration back in its place by limiting government to its enumerated powers. It’s time citizens and courts said no to tyranny. The Constitution does not need to be rewritten, it needs to be reread.”

Biden’s announcement on vaccine mandates across different sectors of society drew significant criticism, leading to lawsuits from several states over the requirements.

Ahead of the mandate’s deadline, several trade associations—including cargo carriers and truckers groups—issued warnings to the Biden administration that vaccine mandates would snarl supply chain bottlenecks and trigger chaos nationwide.

The Washington court order came as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, announced that his state filed a lawsuit against the White House over its vaccine mandate for federal contractors.

The Epoch Times has contacted the White House press office for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/judge-blocks-biden-admin-from-firing-unvaccinated-employees-with-pending-religious-exemptions_4075959.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Mason became the second city in Ohio to criminalize abortion within city limits after a tense city council vote on Monday evening.

Located 25 miles northeast of Cincinnati, Mason, with a population of about 30,000 people, voted to ban abortions after four out of seven members of the city council supported the ordinance, which goes into effect in 30 days.

Mason now becomes the 41st city in the country and the second one in Ohio to offer “sanctuary for the unborn,” an initiative started by a Texas nonprofit. There are currently no abortion clinics in the city, but supporters of the ordinance say that this will ensure no facilities are set up in Mason.You May Also Like

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There was a split between Republicans who believe in banning abortions and those who don’t, which was unexpected, according to Council member T. J. Honerlaw. Honerlaw, along with Tony Bradburn, Mike Gilb and Mayor Kathy Grossmann voted in favor of the ordinance, while council members Ashley Chance, Diana Nelson, and Josh Styrcula voted for abortion rights.

“I’m here to protect life. For me it’s a fundamental issue. If the foundations be destroyed, what do we have left,” said Vice Mayor Gilb at the meeting. “I’m not just here to decide how bright the street lights should be or where the next roundabout goes. Those things are certainly important issues, but they’re not as fundamental as protecting life.”

“America has a legal system in place to create order in our country. We must follow and abide by that system,” Nelson, who has served on the council for five years, said. “The supreme court has made a ruling on abortion, regardless of one’s opinion on abortion, creating local laws that contradict with federal laws is illegal and unconstitutional.”

There were demonstrators from both ends of the aisle displaying fierce support with banners that read, “Protect the Unborn,” and “Bans Off Our Bodies.” Speakers were allowed to voice their opinions while some constituents shouted to vote out the members who supported the ordinance.

The ordinance makes it illegal for anyone in Mason to “aid or abet” an abortion, including the possession and distribution of abortion-inducing drugs like mifepristone and misoprostol. Violators can be punished with up to 180 days in jail or $1,000 in fines. There are no penalties for someone seeking an abortion.

Exceptions include dangerous, disabling, and life-threatening situations for the mother, and accidental miscarriages.

While Kersha Deibel, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio, said to AP that the Mason ordinance opened up the city to “public ridicule, promised boycotts, and costly litigation,” Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, said that this decision by the city council was a “a stand against the violence of abortion and for the protection of women and babies.”

Other smaller Ohio cities like London in Madison County and Celina in Mercer County are also considering implementing similar measures, and banning abortions within their city limits.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/city-council-votes-to-make-mason-ohio-a-sanctuary-for-the-unborn_4075906.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The only Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory panel member to abstain from a major vote this week that essentially authorized Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children as young as 5 said he did so because of limited safety and efficacy data.

All 17 others voted to advise the administration, or the FDA, to authorize the jab for children between the ages of 5 and 11. The agency already supported doing so and is expected to formalize the authorization soon. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would then decide which children should get the shot.

The vote was preceded by nearly eight hours of discussions and presentations, with multiple members expressing concern about the scant data on how the vaccine will affect the age group.You May Also Like

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• Kids and Vaccines: After FDA’s Emergency Authorization, a Look at the Evidence
• Why COVID Vaccine for Children has Parents, Experts Concerned; How Denmark’s Doing it Better: Feat. Dr. Tracy Høeg

But Dr. Michael Kurilla, an expert on infectious diseases and pathology who directs a division inside the National Institutes of Health, was the only one who didn’t support the recommendation.

Kurilla told The Epoch Times in an email that he opposed the specific, binary wording of the question, which opens up the possibility that any child between 5 and 11 will be able to get the Pfizer vaccine. He was also concerned about the longest follow-up for the clinical trial involving the age group being only three months, data that shows children experience severe cases of COVID-19 much less often than adults, and how a large chunk of them have already had the disease, giving them some level of immunity.

If the authorization goes through as expected, at least some of the age group will be able to get two doses of 10 micrograms each, spaced three weeks apart.

The same dosage interval, with a dosage level three times as high, is currently in place for adults. But adults have seen waning effectiveness, especially against infection, prompting the recent authorization of booster doses.

Because the interval is the same, it can be predicted that the effectiveness will also wane in children, Kurilla said. The lower dosage level, meanwhile, brings into question whether the protection against severe disease and hospitalization will be as strong as in adults.

“Real-world evidence involving adults suggest the 3-week dosing interval is suboptimal in terms of durability and is likely to be similar in children, leading to waning immunity within 4–6 months,” Kurilla said. “Because the Pfizer vaccine offers protection against serious disease even after antibody titers have waned, there is some other basis for immunity, but at the lower dose in children, there is no expectation that those same immune processes will behave similarly to the higher adult dose.”

Low Hospitalization Rate

During the meeting, members heard that among children 5 to 11 in the United States, there have been over 1.9 million infections since the start of the pandemic, but just 0.4 percent, or 8,400 of those cases, have required hospital care. And just 94 of them ended up dying.

They also heard that an estimated 20 percent of the hospitalized children were admitted for a reason besides COVID-19 and that nearly seven out of 10 of the children had existing serious health conditions like heart disease, illustrating just how little risk COVID-19 poses to healthy children.

Further, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 40 percent of children in the age group have already had COVID-19. Recovery from COVID-19 bestows some level of immunity, studies show, with multiple studies indicating the level is actually higher than vaccines provide.

“The benefit here is assumed to be prevention of severe disease, which is what we’re all hoping for,” Kurilla said during the meeting. But among the recovered, he added later, “The question really becomes, does this vaccine offer any benefits to them at all?”

Kurilla signaled he would have voted “yes” if the FDA had proposed opening up access to the vaccine to a subset of the 5–11 group. He also explained why he abstained.

“My abstention was based on the specific question the FDA asked. A ‘no’ vote would have been misconstrued as my opinion about the vaccine,” he told The Epoch Times. “There are high-risk groups within the 5–11 age group that would benefit from the vaccine, suggesting a more tailored approach.”

Others Question Widespread Use

Additional panel members openly questioned whether all young children should get the vaccine.

“I’m torn. On one hand, we know that many mothers and fathers and parents are eager to administer this vaccine to children because they’re so frightened, perhaps overly so, … that they really are anticipating having access to this vaccine in children,” said Dr. Cody Meissner, the director of pediatric infectious disease at Tufts Medical Center.

“On the other hand, I think we saw that approximately 68 percent of the children who are hospitalized with COVID-19 have underlying comorbidities. That means about 32 percent do not. And then if we were to take 40 percent of that group that may have immunity already, we’re getting down to a very small percent of otherwise healthy 6- to 11-year-old children who might derive some benefit,” he added.

But others said they saw the need for the vaccination. The protection it gives would prevent more hospitalizations and ensure schools remain open, some argued.

“We don’t want children to be dying of COVID, even if it is far fewer children than adults, and we don’t want them in the ICU,” said Dr. Amanda Cohn, a CDC official.

Jeannette Lee, a biostatistics professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said she was impressed by the data presented by Pfizer, which relied on an approach called immunobridging. In this case, Pfizer’s trial showed the vaccine triggered antibodies in children. The antibodies were compared to those elicited in older groups, and that was used as proof the vaccine will protect the kids against COVID-19.

Kurilla, though, voiced disapproval with the approach, telling colleagues “it’s being based on an immunogenicity marker that we know wanes.”

He said he hoped for more flexibility in the authorization, including a single dose for some children and no doses for others, based on factors like prior infection.

“There are high-risk individuals and I think they do need to be attended to, that we do need to provide a vaccine for them. But for many others, one dose—or no dose, even, if they’ve had prior COVID infection. I think they may not need anything more,” he said.

Side Effects

Cases of heart inflammation after receipt of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are highest in youth, especially boys in their teens. Based on reports submitted to the federally run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the cases are higher than expected in males aged 12 to 49 after the second Pfizer dose and females 12 to 24 after the second Pfizer dose.

Over half of the children with confirmed myocarditis or pericarditis studied in the Vaccine Safety Datalink surveillance system required hospital care, though no post-vaccination deaths due to the conditions have been confirmed, according to federal authorities.

Pfizer said none of the 5- to 11-year-olds in its trials experienced post-vaccination heart inflammation. Using a third of the amount of that given to older people is, in part, an attempt to curb side effects, though how that will ultimately turn out is unknown.

FDA scientists said they determined the vaccine would prevent more COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths among the age group than vaccine-linked heart inflammation cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. They assumed a vaccine efficacy of 70 percent against COVID-19 cases and an efficacy of 80 percent against hospitalizations linked to the disease. Among young males, “the benefits appear to outweigh the risks,” Hong Yang, an FDA scientist, told members. Among young females, “the benefits clearly outweigh the risks,” she added.

“What will the actual myocarditis rate be in these younger kids?” Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, wondered. That group “may be less susceptible to myocarditis, but right now that’s a speculation,” he added. “We don’t know that for sure.”

Members of the public also expressed concern, arguing the safety data wasn’t sufficient to authorize the vaccine for children so young.

But other members pointed to the trial data, the fact fewer reports have come in for 12- to 15-year-olds than 16- and 17-year-olds, and how, generally, fewer younger children experience heart inflammation versus older ones.

“I am not as concerned about myocarditis in this age group as I am in the older kids,” Dr. Melinda Wharton, another CDC official, said.

Surveillance systems like VAERS will help detect if inflammation becomes an issue in the younger children, members said.

“If the surveillance systems do start seeing severe outcomes and deaths from vaccination, I’m quite confident that those surveillance systems will tell us that we need to pause like we did with the J&J vaccine to really have a good idea of what the effects are vaccinating this age group,” said Dr. Patrick Moore, professor at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

The ‘Yes’ Votes

Ultimately, most members said the benefits and predicted benefits of the vaccine in the 5- to 11-year-olds outweighed the risks and potential risks.

“I think this vaccine will likely be effective in reducing pediatric COVID in this age group and may also help reduce transmission. On the safety end, I’m encouraged by the lower dose, … finding a dose that’s immunogenic and had not too much in terms of reactogenicity,” said Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Eric Rubin, an adjunct professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, said he wanted to give parents the choice to vaccinate their kids, imagining he had a child who was a transplant recipient, though he joined others in saying there are probably some younger children who shouldn’t get the vaccine.

“The question of how broadly to use it, though, I think is a substantial one. And I know it’s not our question, but I—and I know we’re kind of punting that to [the CDC’s advisory panel]—but I do think that it’s a relatively close call,” he said.

Soon after, in a comment that was widely distributed online, he added: “We’re never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it. That’s just the way it goes. That’s how we found out about rare complications of other vaccines, like the rotavirus vaccine.”

Rubin told The Epoch Times in an email, responding to critics: “The clinical trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in children showed no adverse events. All data to date indicate that it is safe. It will prevent the hospitalization of children with severe disease, as it does with adults. The vaccine works, and saves lives.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/fda-adviser-explains-why-he-abstained-from-vote-on-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine-for-young-children_4074913.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Elon Musk issued a warning on Thursday against Democrats’ billionaire tax proposal that levies unrealized capital gains, saying that eventually the government will run out of ultra-wealthy individuals, following which, they will target the majority middle class.

“US national debt is ~$28,900 billion or ~$229k per taxpayer. Even taxing all ‘billionaires’ at 100% would only make a small dent in that number, so obviously the rest must come from the general public. This is basic math. Spending is the real problem. https://usdebtclock.org” @elonmusk tweeted on Oct. 28.

Chiefly authored by Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, the radical 23.8 percent tax rate for long-term capital gains on tradable assets would be targeted at those making a billion dollars or more in annual income or $100 million or more for three consecutive years. This puts around 700 Americans in the bracket whose wealth is mostly concentrated in stocks.You May Also Like

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Existing laws prevent the government from taxing “unrealized” gains or unsold stocks. The new law changes that to include unsold stocks and adds them into the individual’s income that is subject to taxation. The recently proposed changes by the Democrats are mostly to fund their $2 trillion “Build Back Better” campaign.

The billionaire tax proposal is facing stiff opposition from many Democrats as well, including House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal of Massachusetts and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.

“I don’t like it. I don’t like the connotation that we’re targeting different people,” Manchin told reporters. He also praised American billionaires’ contribution to society through investments, job creation, and philanthropy.

The other critical issue facing the proposal is the legality of whether the Constitution gives Congress the right to tax wealth. It is likely there will be legal challenges if the controversial plan is passed. Opponents can argue that unrealized gains cannot be counted as income, and thus, must not be taxed.

According to Musk, “this tax only covers ~10% of the $3.5 trillion spending bill. Where will the other 90% come from? The answer is you.” Musk, with a net worth of almost $284 billion, had recently dethroned Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as the richest man on the planet.

A recent surge in Tesla’s (TSLA) stock price following the mass purchase by Hertz of 100,000 cars made the company part of the trillion-dollar club. Musk owns more than 20 percent of Tesla shares.

As a response to a supportive tweet, Musk said he is better suited at allocating capital than Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, “Who is best at capital allocation — government or entrepreneurs — is indeed what it comes down to. The tricksters will conflate capital allocation with consumption.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/elon-musk-argues-proposed-billionaire-tax-will-eventually-target-average-americans_4075636.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Isn’t it fitting that the homonym for vial is vile? [US Patriot]

The Biden administration has purchased an additional 50 million Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine doses for children to be delivered by the end of April next year, the drugmakers said in a statement on Thursday.

“The U.S. will receive these additional doses to continue to support preparedness for pediatric vaccinations, including securing vaccines for children under 5 years of age, should they receive regulatory authorization,” Pfizer-BioNTech said in a press release.

It comes after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted on Tuesday to recommend its authorization for the vaccine in children aged 5 to 11. Seventeen members of the outside panel voted yes to recommend the authorization, and one abstained.You May Also Like

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If the FDA agrees with the panel’s recommendation the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory panel would subsequently decide who can receive a shot. The companies said they expect to then begin shipping the vaccine immediately, in 10 microgram pediatric doses, as directed by the federal government.

The companies said the latest contract with the Biden administration brings the total number of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine doses secured since the start of the pandemic to 600 million—spanning doses for adults and adolescents, and children.

Separately, the companies said the Biden administration has also purchased an additional 1 billion doses for donation to low- and lower-middle-income countries.

The companies said preliminary clinical trial data on the use of its vaccine in children—aged between 2 to 5 years, and 6 months to 2 years—is expected in the fourth quarter of 2021 or early first quarter of 2022.

If authorized and recommended by the CDC, children between 5 and 11 would be administered two doses of 10 micrograms, three weeks apart.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-administration-purchases-50-million-more-vaccine-doses-for-kids-pfizer-says_4075472.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Does the Biden administration want to foment a civil war, a mass taxpayer rebellion, or are they simply crazy?

Those were the thoughts that flew through my head like the swallows to Capistrano the minute I read the Oct. 28 report in the Wall Street Journal under the headline “U.S. in Talks to Pay Hundreds of Millions to Families Separated at Border.” Needless to say, it is currently their most read article.

“WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is in talks to offer immigrant families that were separated during the Trump administration around $450,000 a person in compensation, according to people familiar with the matter, as several agencies work to resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who say the government subjected them to lasting psychological trauma.

“The U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering payments that could amount to close to $1 million a family, though the final numbers could shift, the people familiar with the matter said.”

$450,000 a person? This when millions of actual taxpaying American citizens are suffering, barely able to make ends meet during the pandemic, and inflation is on a record pace. Not even Anthony Fauci, allegedly the highest paid government official, makes that much, at least in salary.

Psychological trauma? How about causing psychological trauma to a whole country at once? Never in my life have I heard anything so insane.

And I thought nothing could top the Afghanistan debacle.

For once, well twice—the first time was during the Kavanaugh hearings—I found myself in complete agreement with Lindsey Graham who tweeted

I just about fell out of my chair when I read this.

For the sake of our country, I hope this reporting is in error.

This would be an OUTRAGE‼️
https://t.co/pQsZXcVvja

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) October 28, 2021

To put it mildly. Rep. Doug Lamborn pointed out $450,00 was more than the 9/11 victim’s fund—and this new proposal is for people who entered our country completely illegally.

Can you imagine how many more are now making a beeline for our open border after hearing about this incredible largesse.

If you want to get some laughs, or maybe vengeance, take a look at the comments section on the Daily Mail’s coverage of the story that ranges from “I’m a Democrat and this is the dumbest thing I ever heard” to Sen. Tom Cotton tweeting, “It’s unthinkable to pay a burglar who broke into your home for the ‘psychological trauma’ they endured during the crime.”

Well, maybe that’s not funny. In fact, the whole thing isn’t very funny, when you think about it. Biden is actually president of the United States, the supposed leader of the free world. And we’re theoretically stuck with him until 2024.

And now this strange, befuddled individual is in Glasgow pretending to understand climate science. Good luck to those of us who want to have heated homes this winter.

The only one who should be pleased by all this is James Buchanan, previously thought of as the worst president of all time for his role in preserving slavery, who must be sitting up in his grave, smiling in relief.

Of course, what appeared in the WSJ might be some kind of “trial balloon” number meant to be negotiated down to a still ridiculous $300,000 per person/ $600,000 a family, figures that still dwarf the $1200 or so given to our own people at the height of the pandemic.

(That reporters allow themselves to be used for this game by authorities would be no surprise since it is consistent with the behavior of the entire mainstream media in recent years, acting as a slavish adjunct of government. Hence, the phrase “people familiar with the matter,” as used here, has become something of a modern cliché.)

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—a once-honorable (decades ago) organization that at one time actually worked for Americans’ civil liberties but now works to undermine them at every turn—is apparently one of the main sponsors of this proposal.

They should consider changing their name to the American Republic Destruction Union (ARDU) with the slogan “Ben Franklin was right. We can’t keep it!”

Of final note, the New York Times does not have this astounding story on its front page this morning. Has shame finally set in? Or is it just the old game of hiding the bad news?

Whatever it is, this is bad news indeed for Biden and the Democrats as well. They’ve not just jumped the shark, as they used to say in show biz. They’ve jumped a thousand of them. This is not going to sit well with most decent Americans. And we shouldn’t let them forget.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-administration-makes-insane-proposal-of-million-dollar-payouts-to-illegals_4076318.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

WASHINGTON—U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Thursday that President Joe Biden’s social spending and infrastructure packages would change the shape of the U.S. economy for the better and drive inflation down.

Biden on Thursday unveiled a $1.75 trillion economic and climate change plan that he said unified Democrats and which was then was quickly rebuffed by members of his own party.

The proposals represented “something truly historic: a new period of investment in economic growth for all Americans across the country,” Yellen said in a statement.

U.S. inflation accelerated last month, with consumer prices rising 5.4 percent.

“This is really because of the pandemic,” Yellen told CBS News in an interview published separately on Thursday, when asked about higher consumer prices and if inflation would decline next year.

“And as we succeed in the vaccination campaign and other countries do as well and life goes back to normal, I truly believe that this will subside and Americans will see inflation rates much closer to the 2% that we want and they’re accustomed to,” Yellen added.

By Kanishka Singh, Doina Chiacu and Chris Gallagher

https://www.theepochtimes.com/treasury-secretary-says-spending-packages-will-change-us-economy-for-the-better_4075051.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Democrats dressed up as white supremacists in a last ditch attempt to smear Republican Glenn Youngkin.

n what quickly became a political stunt gone wrong, Democratic strategists have been accused on social media of posing as white supremacists while standing next to Virginia Republican Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus.

Social media sleuths were quick to notice that the only people interacting with images promoted by an NBC reporter were Democratic Party political operatives. The photos were retweeted by far-left activist Adam Parkhomenko, as the public began to notice that one of the men posing as a fake Republican white supremacist bore a striking resemblance to Virginia Youth Democrats’ Finance Director, Camden Layton. 

To be clear:

Virginia Democrat operatives dressed up as Neo-Nazis holding tiki-torches today to smear their opponent and attempted to pass it off as actually happening

— Jack Posobiec  (@JackPosobiec) October 29, 2021

Another woman in the same series of photographs was fingered as potentially being Colleen Wachenfeld, who boasts about having flipped Arizona “blue” on her Twitter profile. Wachenfeld quickly changed her LinkedIn handle to “C W” shortly after the photos started to be questioned by users on Twitter. 

In response to tweets alleging that Parkhomenko was part of the “false-flag” attempt to associate moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate Youngkin, Parkhomenko said of user Alec Sears, “As I have said on the record: he made up a lie about me and is spreading that lie around the world. He claims to have receipts that don’t exist because his tweet is based on a lie. Delete your f***ing tweet you a**hole.”

Sears – himself a political consultant – has not deleted the tweet. It is unclear from an extensive search who Parkhomenko spoke to “on the record” as the tweets were only posted by Sears shortly before he responded with this threatening tweet. 

A Word of Warning on That Fox News Virginia Poll: Don’t Be Complacent.

The Democratic Party of Virginia was quick to deny official involvement with “events outside of the Youngkin campaign bus,” attempting to pivot to a discussion about Charlottesville, where a handful of left-leaning Neo Nazis once paraded pretending to be conservatives.

Twitter users continued to flood the thread with information linking the faux-white supremacists to McAuliffe.

On Thursday, a Fox News Poll found Youngkin pulling ahead of McAuliffe among Virginia’s likely voters. McAuliffe received forty-five percent (45 percent) to Youngkin’s fifty-three percent (53 percent).

With a new law on the books, abortions in Texas dropped roughly 50 percent in September, according to a new report.

Research from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project compiled from 19 of Texas’ 24 abortion clinics said that there were 2,164 abortions performed in Texas clinics in September. In September 2020, there were 4,313 abortions performed, the report said.

“The decrease in the number of abortions provided in Texas during the first 30 days that SB8 was in effect was considerably larger than previously documented decreases that followed the implementation of other restrictions, which created widespread disruptions to abortion service delivery in Texas,” the authors of the report concluded.

“This large decline indicates that SB8’s very narrow criteria for providing in-state abortion care have excluded many pregnant people from obtaining abortions at Texas facilities.”

SB 8 is the legal shorthand for the Texas “heartbeat” law that makes it illegal to perform an abortion after a baby’s heartbeat is detected, which is usually around the sixth week of pregnancy.

Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

Although heartbeat laws in other states have been swatted aside by the courts, Texas used an unprecedented enforcement mechanism. Individuals can file suit against anyone who has broken the law and collect $10,000 if they win.

The Supreme Court reviewed the law before it took effect and rejected efforts to prevent it from taking effect on Sept. 1. At that time, the court said its decision was based upon procedural grounds and was not a full-fledged decision on the constitutionality of the Texas law.

The court also has refused to block the law from remaining in effect as the Biden administration joins with abortion supporters in trying to do so. The law faces a challenge before the Supreme Court on Monday.

“S.B. 8 was designed to nullify this court’s precedents and to shield that nullification from judicial review,” the federal government’s argument to the Supreme Court claimed.

Will Texas win when the Supreme Court next rules on this law?

“So far, it has worked: The threat of a flood of S.B. 8 suits has effectively eliminated abortion in Texas at a point before many women even realize they are pregnant, denying a constitutional right the court has recognized for half a century,” the Biden administration argued.

“Yet Texas insists that the court must tolerate the state’s brazen attack on the supremacy of federal law because S.B. 8’s unprecedented structure leaves the federal judiciary powerless to intervene.”

The Biden administration’s effort to block the law is “a striking power-grab with no basis in precedent,” Texas argued in its brief.

“The Constitution does not guarantee pre-enforcement review of state (or federal) laws in federal court,” attorneys for the state wrote. “And there is nothing unprecedented about vindicating constitutional rights as a state-court defendant. To the contrary, that is the normal path by which constitutional issues come to this court.”

Texas said it is not trying to get a pass on the usual system of testing a law only to have its laws treated fairly.

Judge Blocks Biden Administration from Firing Unvaccinated Civilian and Military Employees

“A time will come — and no doubt soon — for the state courts to rule on the constitutionality of SB 8, and this court will, in turn, retain the last word on the correctness of their adjudication of federal law,” Texas wrote. “But the United States does not get a free pass around long-settled federal-courts doctrines because it would prefer to litigate in a federal forum just a bit faster.”

Jonathan F. Mitchell, a lawyer who helped draft the law, said in a friend-of-the-court brief that the federal attempt to block the law has no merit, The New York Times reported.

“The constitutionality of the statute must be determined in the lawsuits between private parties,” he wrote, “not in a pre-emptive lawsuit brought against the sovereign government, which is not ‘enforcing’ the statute but merely allowing its courts to hear lawsuits arising under the disputed statutory enactment.”

In their brief filed to support Texas, 20 Republican-led states noted that a district court ruling that had sided with the Biden administration but was later overturned “threatens to expose every State in the Union to a suit by the federal Executive Branch whenever the U.S. Attorney General deems a state law to violate some constitutional right of someone, somewhere,” according to CNN.

The irony regarding CRT is that is actually white supremacy. If they believed in what they preach, shouldn’t they kill themselves to serve “the greater good?” [US Patriot]

On Friday morning, supposed “white supremacists” clad in white button-down shirts greeted Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s bus with tiki torches. Leftists immediately claimed they were Youngkin supporters showing their true colors.

“To my fellow Virginia residents: please vote against this blatant display of racism, hatred and intolerance,” NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

“Please vote FOR a kind, welcoming, diverse Virginia. Please vote @TerryMcAuliffe for governor. Because #JusticeMatters.”

deleted, but the List comes for all, @glennkirschner2.

✍🏼✍🏼✍🏼 pic.twitter.com/Oq9kmg7YAd

— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) October 29, 2021

Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

But as the morning went on, other Twitter users began to notice the “white supremacists” were not Youngkin supporters at all. Instead, they appeared to be former Democratic staffers in the state of Virginia.

Virginia Young Democrats financial director Camden Layton and Democratic Party of Virginia staffer Colleen Wachenfeld were among the alleged participants in the stunt.

OMG LOL Va Dems did *not* just send a black man to play a ‘white supremacist for Youngkin’ 😬 pic.twitter.com/h0SZujvKX1

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) October 29, 2021

🚨 I am now confident that we have identified the woman in this group of political actors as Colleen Wachenfeld, with @vademocrats. pic.twitter.com/qySknRSUrd

— Alec Sears (@alec_sears) October 29, 2021

BREAKING: Financial director for Young VA Dems has gone private after being exposed for posing as a white supremacist pic.twitter.com/fbCbafIiZf

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) October 29, 2021

Looks like they found the black “white supremacist”

and his account is also locked pic.twitter.com/m8DBH1Z91n

— Ames (@RestingTwitFace) October 29, 2021

Pro-Abortion Biden Says Pope Francis Told Him He Is a ‘Good Catholic’ and to ‘Keep Receiving Communion’

After being exposed, Wachenfield took it upon herself to rebrand, privatize and even scrub some of her social media accounts.

pic.twitter.com/0vERbo4qoR

— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) October 29, 2021

WARNING: The following tweet contains language some readers will find offensive.

Holy sh*t

Colleen Wachenfeld rebranded her Twitter account handle several times after being exposed for posing as a neo-Nazi pic.twitter.com/DhltQl7mhF

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) October 29, 2021

LinkedIn profile has been scrubbed, including “Tracker/researcher at Democratic Party of Virginia” pic.twitter.com/g2z7M8P7yC

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) October 29, 2021

Many Republicans saw the stunt as a last-ditch effort for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, who is falling in the polls ahead of next week’s gubernatorial election. Conservative pundit and strategist Greg Price called the actions “desperate.”

Terry McAuliffe’s campaign was feeling so desperate at their terrible poll numbers that they made a bunch of their staffers dress as white supremacists and condemned them to being memes for the rest of their lives.

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 29, 2021

Later on Friday, The Lincoln Project attempted to take credit for the stunt in a statement. The group claims to be dedicated to “protecting democracy” by fighting against former President Donald Trump and “Trumpism.”

“Today’s demonstration was our way of reminding Virginians what happened in Charlottesville four years ago, the Republican Party’s embrace of those values, and Glenn Youngkin’s failure to condemn it,” the statement said.

“The Youngkin campaign is enraged by our reminder of Charlottesville for one simple reason: Glenn Youngkin wants Virginians to forget that he is Donald Trump’s candidate. We will continue to hold Glenn Youngkin accountable. If he will denounce Trump’s assertion that the Charlottesville rioters possessed ‘very fine’ qualities, we’ll withdraw the tiki torches. Until then, we’ll be back.”

It is unclear whether the Democratic staffers coordinated with The Lincoln Project to perform the stunt. Judging by their social media reactions, the staffers weren’t nearly as proud to take public responsibility for their participation.

There are essentially two main explanations for the event. Either the participants were actually trying to fool people into believing they were Youngkin supporters, or they were trying to politically harm him by dressing up as white supremacists. In both scenarios, their actions are still reprehensible.

Youngkin has a real chance to win the governorship in Virginia next week, and that scares the life out of Democrats both in the state and around the country. If they think gimmicks like this one are going to help change that, they are sorely mistaken.

Don’t let left-wing politicians and establishment news networks gaslight you.

For months on end, such people have been claiming that teaching critical race theory is akin to teaching the true, racist history of our country’s origins.

They claim that any opposition to intellectually inept ideas like “white privilege” and “systemic racism” is merely political fear-mongering.

Well, one Rutgers professor and pro-critical race theory activist showed the left’s true colors on Oct. 21 during an interview with The Root.

“I think that white people are committed to being villains in the aggregate,” educator Brittney Cooper said.

Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

Cooper holds many of the titles typical of elitist leftist academics — she is a professor of women’s and gender studies and Africana studies at Rutgers University, according to the New York Post.

In her view, individuals should be judged by what racial group they happen to fall into. One look at a white person tells Cooper everything she needs to know.

“You know, their thinking is so murky and spiritually bankrupt about power that they … they fear this really existentially letting go of power because they cannot imagine another way to be,” she said of white people, according to the Post.

“The thing I want to say to you is we got to take these motherf***ers out,” Cooper said, before quickly adding that she “doesn’t believe in a project of violence.”

Is critical race theory racist?

In general, racial issues in the country are improving in Cooper’s view, but not for the reasons you might think.

She went on to claim that many white people today are “suffering,” which, to Cooper, is a good thing, because “they kind of deserve it.”

“White people’s birth rates are going down … because they literally cannot afford to put their children, newer generations, into the middle class … It’s super perverse, and also they kind of deserve it,” she said, according to the Post.

The professor believes victory for her racial justice movement is close at hand because kids are starting to truly understand the core tenets of critical race theory.

“Kids actually can grasp critical race theory because the issue that the right has, is that critical race theory is just the proper teaching of American history,” she said.

Top US Company Pushing Vile Racism on Americans: ‘White People, You Are the Problem’

It is puzzling that so many academics like Cooper, fully set on ushering in racial equality in America, have found themselves spouting such vile and disgusting views.

Psychologist Jordan Peterson, in a speech given during one of his many tours around the country, pointed out the fundamental flaw in the thinking of academics like her.

“The idea that there is more differences between groups than there is between individuals is actually the fundamental racist idea,” Peterson said.

He then gave an example of this racist mindset, the exact same kind of thinking that Cooper uses when she looks at white people.

“Let’s say you’re Asian,” Peterson said. “You’re so different from me that there’s no overlap between our groups. And you’re also so different — and there’s so little difference within your group — that, now that I know that you’re not me, you’re not one of mine, I actually know what you’re like.”

“No. Technically that’s incorrect. That’s wrong. That isn’t how you get diversity.”

It was just another suburban school board meeting like the thousands of others that regularly take place around the country.

A typical meeting with the school superintendent and some staff, the board members probably facing the room, perhaps a microphone for comments from the public, and federal agents and a helicopter circling overhead.

Wait — what?

While a lot of attention has been focused on the Loudoun County, Virginia, school district and its cover-up of a girl’s rape, shady things have been going on in neighboring Fairfax County, another upscale suburb of Washington, D.C.

Parents arriving at a Fairfax school board meeting last week were greeted by unmarked federal government vehicles and a helicopter shining a searchlight down on them, according to Stacy Langton, a mother of six who attended the meeting.

Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

Went to @fcpsnews #schoolboardmeeting last night. Heavy #Fed presence. Unmarked fed vehicles, @DHSgov vehicles, even helicopter circling overhead with spotlight on Moms & Dads. All on the night #DOJ Merrick Garland testifies. A little over the top, no?@SebGorka @AsraNomani pic.twitter.com/aUh2QuhaT3

— Stacy Langton (@StacyLangton) October 22, 2021

“This is something that is incredible in America and it’s, you know, ridiculously un-American,” Langton told Fox News.

“Honestly, I have paid a heavy price because of what I said at my school board meeting on Sept. 23 about the pornography and the pedophilia that I found in my son’s high school — at Fairfax High School.”

Langton said she has been harassed since participating in a “very peaceful, uneventful” protest last weekend at the Justice Department headquarters in Washington.

“Since the DOJ protest on Sunday … my family has been receiving daily threats,” she said. “So I have threats against my children by name, I have been followed in my car with my children in my car. … They know where I live, and I don’t know who’s putting somebody up to this, but it’s obviously meant to intimidate me.”

On Oct. 4, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo advising the FBI and U.S. attorneys to be aware of threats against school officials and school board members. He said the Justice Department is “steadfast in its commitment to protect all people in the United States from violence, threats of violence and other forms of  intimidation and harassment.”

Merrick’s memo followed the now infamous letter to President Joe Biden from the National School Boards Association likening parental protests to “domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” The NSBA later rescinded and apologized for the letter.

School Board Endangers Children of Parents Who Speak Out

After being grilled by Republican lawmakers during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Garland reiterated his intention to mobilize federal agents against perceived threats to school boards.

Regarding the alleged threats against her, Langton could only speculate.

“It could be it’s the DOJ, it could be it’s [Terry McAuliffe’s] campaign people because I know this is suddenly all about the election here in the state of Virginia, it could be the school board, it could be the LGBTQ community. I know there are a lot of people who are very unhappy about what I said at the school board meeting.

“I don’t know why people have a problem with what I said because I don’t know who is in favor of pornography in their children’s school. This isn’t a political issue, and even the liberals shouldn’t be happy that there’s porn in the schools.

“So I’m not getting a lot of sleep right now. Nobody’s sleeping in my house because we can’t be sure that we’re safe.”

Langton speaks quite articulately, but one correction might be offered.

Among leftists, everything is political.

Everything.

The Democratic Party routinely discusses the “climate crisis” it claims our country and our world are enduring. Many Democrats go so far as to say we must drastically reduce carbon emissions in order to avoid a “climate apocalypse.”

President Joe Biden has used similar lines of rhetoric. According to CNBC, Biden said last year that climate change was “the number one issue facing humanity.”

“Climate change is the existential threat to humanity,” he said in an October 2020 episode of Pod Save America. “Unchecked, it is going to actually bake this planet. This is not hyperbole. It’s real. And we have a moral obligation.”

Judging by Biden’s own actions on Friday, he does not think that obligation applies to himself.

As he took in the scenery in Rome, Biden was escorted around in a huge motorcade. According to the New York Post, it included 85 vehicles.

Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

Multiple Twitter users noticed the length of the motorcade, and some of them pointed out the hypocrisy of Biden’s actions.

Biden arriving at the Vatican. His motorcade is lonnnnnng. pic.twitter.com/fDzAH2ENsk

— Chico Harlan (@chicoharlan) October 29, 2021

#Decarbonize this https://t.co/W6FfXUHB92

— Souhail Karam (@Massinissa1973) October 29, 2021

America’s Marie Antoinette class is Washington’s elites – and that shows it.

— Matt Maggio (@MaggioMatt) October 29, 2021

To make the optics even worse, Biden is supposed to arrive in Glasgow, Scotland, on Sunday for a global “climate summit,” the Los Angeles Times reported. The outlet noted the summit aims to bring world leaders together to discuss how to “prevent the most catastrophic effects of global warming.”

For a president who goes around preaching to people about how we have a “moral obligation” to address climate change, cruising around in an 85-car motorcade is not a particularly good look.

The Post reported host countries are often responsible for providing protective detail to foreign leaders, so the White House may not have been in charge of the motorcade. Even so, the optics are rather damming for Biden.

Biden Holds Basement Meeting Begging Dems for Help, But Lawmakers Walk Out Baffled

While in Rome, Biden also held a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican. The two reportedly discussed climate change, and Biden claimed the pope reassured him of his status in the Catholic Church.

“We just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion,” Biden said, according to The Associated Press.

Before the trip, Biden unveiled a $1.75 trillion plan for social and environmental spending, the Post reported. It includes $555 billion for “green-energy and anti-pollution spending.”

Should Biden practice what he preaches on climate change?

In introducing the plan, he also repeated the obligation argument, saying we have an “obligation to our children and to our grandchildren” to stop using fossil fuels. The Post noted it’s unclear whether any of the cars in his motorcade were electric, but most of them looked to be gas-powered.

If Biden truly wants to convince Americans to at least decrease their use of fossil fuels, he might want to start by looking straight into the mirror.

Ever since the National School Board Association issued an open letter to President Joe Biden which essentially branded parents who protest mask policies, critical race theory and transgender bathrooms as “domestic terrorists,” it’s become abundantly clear that school boards aren’t particularly thrilled about this new rip-roaring form of American populism coming from concerned parents.

The organization has since had to walk back its inflammatory suggestion, as member groups around the country have been pushing back, but not before the Department of Justice has taken up the cause. It appears that plenty of school boards are still very disgruntled that tax-paying parents want to show up and let them know exactly what they think about infusing COVID tyranny and leftist indoctrination into public school curricula.

One Minnesota school board has gone way, way too far, however.

Alpha News reported this week that residents of Mankato, Minnesota, who might want to point school board members to, say, COVID-19 case rates among children or to read aloud from pornographic novels they’ve found in the school library, will have to state their home address before they participate in the public portion of the meetings.

No, really.

Watch: Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

On Oct. 18, Jodi Sapp, Mankato Area Public Schools board chair, detailed the new rules, which include the disclosure of one’s home address, a ban on addressing board members directly or discussing any issues not on the agenda for the meeting, and — oh yeah — if anyone cheers, claps, or even hollers, by George, she’s shutting the public forum down at once.

“Effective tonight, open forum participants are prohibited from calling out or addressing any individual school board or school district staff member. If this occurs, open forum will be closed,” Sapp stated during the meeting that evening. “Beginning at the Nov. 1 school board meeting, open forum will be limited to those individuals who wish to speak to an item on the board agenda.”

“Crowd noise, or any sort of grandstanding during open forum, including applause, talking, hollering or any outburst will result in open forum being closed,” she also said. “Further, beginning at the Nov. 1 school board meeting, open forum participation will be limited to those individuals who wish to speak to an item on the board agenda.”

As Alpha News noted, this effectively dictates that the public will not be allowed to address any topics the board hasn’t already decided are kosher and that individual members of the board will be shielded from any direct public criticism during board meetings.

Have school boards gone full tyrant?

Perhaps Sapp has observed from afar the fate of Loudoun County board member Beth Barts, who recently stepped down amid efforts to remove her from office over her alleged involvement with a left-wing parents’ group that was compiling lists of local parents who opposed the LGBT and “anti-racism” policies the board was attempting to pass.

Additionally, the Mankato board is now openly requiring that any parents that speak during the public portion of their meetings dox themselves prior to giving comments.

“Each speaker is asked to state his or her name and address for the record. Failure to do so will result in an individual not being allowed to speak,” Sapp stated during the meeting as reported by Fox News.

According to Alpha News, this appeared to be the first time such a policy was put in place. A meeting on Sep. 20 requested no such thing from members of the public.

Disturbingly, as the Minnesota-based outlet reported, one man initially refused to state his home address but finally acquiesced, turning away from the microphone in the hopes that it wouldn’t be captured and broadcast to online viewers of the meeting.

VA Mom: Helicopter Circled Overhead as Parents Arrived at School Board Meeting

However, “Sapp was sure to restate his exact address into her microphone so all could know where he lives,” they noted.

The stringent new requirements for members of the public came after an Oct. 4 meeting during which fewer than 10 people spoke to the board for roughly 25 minutes altogether.

“The majority of this time was used by community members to speak out against the district’s mask mandate and policy on staff vaccination,” Alpha News noted. “Some speakers’ remarks were followed by modest applause, much to the chagrin of Sapp, who appeared uncomfortable in the face of criticism.”

On Oct. 18, Sapp credited these people, whose behavior she derided as “unacceptable,” as being the reason behind the new regulations.

I’m sorry, even if these people had been heckling, shouting, and knocking chairs over during the previous meeting, what sane person thinks that forcing members of the public to disclose their home address is an acceptable means of maintaining decorum during a school board meeting?

This is not only petty and vindictive, it’s highly disturbing. Tax-paying members of the public certainly ought to be able to publicly address the board of the local school district they’re required to support without worrying that some nutjob could easily come and find them and their family while they sleep at night.

How is it remotely sensible or acceptable to risk the safety of every single member of a person’s family, including their own children, because you’re irritated that people don’t like mask policies and vaccine requirements?

Besides, if we’re supposed to believe that parents who hate masking, critical race theory and transgender students are basically domestic terrorists, wouldn’t it put any members of the public who spoke out in support of these policies at serious risk at the hands of these maniacs?

This is exactly the kind of subtle tyranny that’s being implemented across the country, from private employers to the federal government to classrooms and everywhere in between.

Sure, no one is forcing you to take the vaccine, but you’ll lose your job if you don’t. Sure, no one is forcing your child to adopt the ideology of critical race theory, but they’ll be alienated by their peers and told in class they’re a racist if they don’t repent of their whiteness.

Sure, no one is banning you from speaking out against local school board policies, but just go ahead and tell everyone where your kids sleep if you’d like the opportunity to do so.

What’s next? I shudder to imagine.

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Is racism still a major problem in the U.S. today?

As long as companies like AT&T continue to tell their employees “white people, you are the problem,” the answer to that question is a definite yes.

The AT&T Corporation promoted this vile rhetoric as part of a company initiative called “Listen Understand Act,” which teaches far-left principles regarding race and equity.

Prominent CRT critic Christopher F. Rufo spoke to a senior employee at AT&T “who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity” and sifted through the “Listen Understand Act” program documents before publishing a report on the scandal in City Journal.

When the program first launched last year, AT&T CEO John Stankey admitted it was meant as an “obligation to engage on this issue of racial injustice” and push for “systemic reforms in police departments across the country.”

Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

According to Rufo, the program “is based on the core principles of critical race theory, including ‘intersectionality,’ ‘systemic racism,’ ‘white privilege,’ and ‘white fragility.’”

Indeed, many of the figures responsible for these detestable ideas are featured heavily throughout.

According to the source documents obtained by Rufo, the program encourages employees to read books by race hustlers like Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Eric Dyson, all of whom have promoted extremely racist ideas, including the notion that all white people are inherently racist.

The program itself doesn’t hide behind these authors, however. AT&T seems to have no problem telling its white employees how racist they are.

Is CRT racist?

“On the first page of AT&T’s Listen Understand Act internal portal, the company encourages employees to study a resource called ‘White America, if you want to know who’s responsible for racism, look in the mirror,’” Rufo reported.

“The article claims that the United States is a ‘racist society’ and lays out its thesis plainly: ‘White people, you are the problem. Regardless of how much you say you detest racism, you are the sole reason it has flourished for centuries.’”

Furthermore, Rufo’s anonymous source added that managers at the company are required to participate in diversity programs based around such principles and “white employees” are “tacitly expected to confess their complicity in ‘white privilege’ and ‘systemic racism’ lest they be “penalized in their performance reviews.”

Employees must also sign a “loyalty pledge” to “keep pushing for change,” with the program suggesting such actions as “reading more about systemic racism” and “challenging others’ language that is hateful.”

“If you don’t do it,” the senior employee reportedly told City Journal, “you’re [considered] a racist.”

‘We Got to Take These Motherf***ers Out’: Professor Says White People ‘Committed to Being Villains’

There are many names for the left’s new racist framework.

Critical race theory, diversity equity and inclusion, racial equity and social justice, to name a few examples.

All of these terms amount to the same idea — that skin color is essential to one’s identity and that there is no such thing as an individual; everyone is merely a mindless drone representing their race as a whole.

That’s what white supremacists and neo-Nazis believe. It’s what left-wing racial-justice protesters believe.

And now, apparently, it’s what the heads at AT&T believe.

The Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security issued a memorandum Friday 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.

It’s not the first time the Biden administration has announced plans to end the Remain in Mexico policy. An attempt in June was thwarted in federal court.

“The Department of Homeland Security intends to issue in the coming weeks a new memorandum terminating the Migrant Protection Protocols,” DHS said in a September statement.

Watch: Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

“Although the Department issued a June 2021 memorandum that terminated MPP, a Texas district court vacated that prior termination determination and issued an injunction that requires the Department to work in good faith to re-start MPP. The Department has appealed that injunction,” it said.

The Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s effort to end the policy in August as it declined to block an order from a Texas federal judge requiring the policy to be put back in place.

“The applicants have failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious,” the Supreme Court’s order said.

The ruling forced the DHS to make a “good faith” effort to restart the program, despite the administration’s plans to again attempt to rescind it.

Should illegal immigrants be stopped from crossing the border?

“In the meantime, while the court injunction remains in effect, the Department has been working in good faith to re-start MPP in compliance with the order, and it will continue to do so,” the DHS said in a September memo.

“To that end, the Department, working with the Department of State, is engaged in ongoing and high-level diplomatic discussions with Mexico,” it added.

On his first day in office, Biden issued executive orders ending border wall construction and shutting down the Migrant Protection Protocols, prompting the worst migrant crisis in 21 years.

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.

Migrants Complain About the Disorganization and Inhumane Treatment of Biden’s Immigration System

“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.”

Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan blasted the Biden administration for reportedly considering paying up to $450,000 per illegal immigrant separated from a family member during the Trump administration.

Jordan made the remarks during an interview on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” on Friday morning regarding a plan first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

The report said up to $450,000 could be given out per illegal immigrant who was separated from a family member during Donald Trump’s presidency.

“The U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering payments that could amount to close to $1 million a family, though the final numbers could shift, the people familiar with the matter said,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Jordan condemned the idea, saying Democrats are now seeking to pay people to break the law.

“You’re going to pay people half a million dollars who broke the law at the same time the administration is getting ready to raise taxes on the hard-working families of this country,” Jordan told Fox News’ Steve Doocy.

pic.twitter.com/XejoakWruZ

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) October 29, 2021

“It makes absolutely no sense,” the congressman added.

Should the U.S. pay illegal immigrants who were separated from family members?

Jordan warned that once word gets out that illegal immigrants will be paid large sums after entering America, even more people will be encouraged to illegally cross the border.

“Think about this. First, you break the law, you get amnesty with Democrats. Now they’re going to pay you for breaking the law,” he said.

“You think we have a problem in a caravan coming towards the border now and what we’ve seen over the past several months? Wait until the word gets out that you actually get paid for breaking the law to come into our country,” the congressman added.

Jordan said the action was “one of the many stupid policies from this administration.”

Joe Biden:

-Drives up the cost of everything for Americans

-Wants to pay illegal immigrants nearly a half a million dollars

This is beyond lunacy. https://t.co/pl3zp7rybh

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) October 28, 2021

Massive Caravan Doubles to 4,000 Migrants, Including 500 Children, as Group Nears US Border

Later during the interview, the congressman also reminded viewers that for six months in a row, the numbers of Border Patrol encounters with illegal immigrants have increased.

“Remember, every single month for six months in a row, the illegal encounters on the border went up,” Jordan said.

More than 192,000 encounters took place at the southern border in September, according to Customs and Border Protection.

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

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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.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/south-dakota-gov-noem-signs-order-to-protect-state-employees-from-bidens-vaccine-mandate_4075264.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

As the supply chain crisis continues in the United States, one Republican congressman’s car dealership is serving as an important anecdotal example of just how bad things are.

The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a conservative economic group, revealed photos of Texas Republican Rep. Roger Williams’ auto dealership in Weatherford, Texas, before and after the current crisis.

In the first photo from July 2019, under the Trump administration, the Williams Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealership can be seen full of automobiles ready for sale.

The report from the committee then contrasts the image with one from recent days, which shows a seemingly empty lot.

Williams told the group that he normally has 500 to 1,000 cars and trucks on its lots but said that they now have only 14 for sale.

Buried 6 Hours Into FDA Video: Doctor Makes Chilling Admission on Child COVID Vax

He also suggested that because of the supply chain woes, along with the computer chip shortage, people are not able to get good deals on automobiles.

“We don’t sell anything below sticker price today,” he told the committee, which was co-founded by economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, who served as an adviser to former President Donald Trump.

According to Cars.com, there are actually 81 vehicles for sale at the dealership as of Thursday.

The dealership’s website says there is a combined total of 111 new and used cars for sale at the Weatherford location.

Have you experienced shortages or delays?

The Western Journal is awaiting comment from the dealership in order to get an exact number, which would still be significantly below the 500-1,000 figure that Williams considers normal.

This report is only one example of the issues happening across the United States and around the world that are deeply hurting the consumer economy.

Stores throughout the country are running low on merchandise, largely because of the cargo ship backlog in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Inflation was already driving prices higher, but the low supply will cause prices to surge even higher, making for a tough holiday season for millions of Americans.

There are concerns that President Joe Biden’s agenda, including a coronavirus vaccine mandate for federal contractors and his spending plan, will only make the situation worse, according to CNN.

Biden Holds Basement Meeting Begging Dems for Help, But Lawmakers Walk Out Baffled

Raytheon CEO Gregory Hayes said Tuesday on a conference call that the mandate will make matters worse for his company, which is responsible for manufacturing tools for both the private and defense sector.

“We certainly expect that there will be some disruption in both the supply chain and with our customers as a result of this,” he said. “But we’re going to work our way through it.”

Most of the economic problems we’re facing (inflation, supply chains, etc.) are high class problems. We wouldn’t have had them if the unemployment rate was still 10 percent. We would instead have had a much worse problem.

— Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) October 14, 2021

While liberal economists and the Biden administration would like to dismiss the economic concerns of Americans, this is undoubtedly impacting everything from grocers to car dealerships and yes, even the military-industrial complex.

Federal workers who are fighting President Joe Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandate on the grounds of religion have won a round in court.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District of Columbia on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order that protects military and civilian employees from being fired while their requests for religious exemptions to Biden’s vaccine mandate are being heard, according to Fox News.

“None of the civilian employee plaintiffs will be subject to discipline while his or her request for a religious exception is pending,” Kollar-Kotelly ordered.

The judge also ruled that “active duty military plaintiffs, whose religious exception requests have been denied, will not be disciplined or separated during the pendency of their appeals,” according to Fox News.

The court further ordered that Biden and the top administration officials named in the lawsuit file a notice Friday to indicate whether they will agree that no plaintiff will be disciplined or terminated until there is a final ruling on the question of religious exemptions.

Twenty people had sued Biden and his top officials over the executive order that mandated vaccinations for all federal workers, civilian and military alike.

“The Biden administration has shown an unprecedented, cavalier attitude toward the rule of law and an utter ineptitude at basic constitutional contours,” attorney Michael Yoder, who represented those suing the administration, said in a statement.

“This combination is dangerous to American liberty,” Yoder said “Thankfully, our Constitution protects and secures the right to remain free from religious persecution and coercion.”

“With this order, we are one step closer to putting the Biden administration back in its place by limiting government to its enumerated powers. It’s time citizens and courts said no to tyranny. The Constitution does not need to be rewritten, it needs to be reread,” he said.

BREAKING: @Yoder_Esq with a HUGE WIN in Church v. Biden.

(Yes, that’s the actual case caption. For those playing along, 1:21-cv-2815)

This is an amazing development from the DC District Court in the stand for OUR RIGHTS against the unconstitutional vaccine mandates. pic.twitter.com/kWus7XQ4pp

— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) October 28, 2021

The complaint Yoder filed indicated that those filing it, and others, would face termination on Nov. 22.

“Contemporaneous with the commencement of this action Plaintiffs have filed an Application for a Temporary Restraining Order (‘TRO’) and Preliminary Injunction to maintain the status quo of our federal governmental operations and to put an end to this involuntary game of Monty Hall millions of Americans have been compelled to involuntary play,” the complaint said.

“And while the currency of this game is not exclusively money but also the rights to life, liberty, and property, it would be imprudent to not address the magnitude of the economic impact of this case,” it said.

School Board President Urged to Resign After Hot Mic Catches Her Comment About Anti-Vaccine Mandate Parent

The complaint said the stakes were high for those suing and the nation as a whole.

“Absent the injunctive relief Plaintiffs request herein, Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm as their fundamental rights are trampled and they lose their jobs for no reason beyond their sincerely held religious beliefs,” the complaint said.

When religious exemptions are denied and thousands of Americans lose jobs because of their faith in God…

Let me be clear:
— I will sue you RELENTLESSLY

God is more important than money.
— learn that lesson or I’ll teach it to you

— Mike Yoder (@Yoder_Esq) October 9, 2021

“If Defendants are not enjoined from enforcing the Vaccine Mandates, hundreds of thousands of federal workers and military personnel will be forcibly removed from our government and Armed Forces, thrusting our nation into a state more vulnerable than the United States has experienced in a quarter of a millennium,” it said.

The complaint noted that abortion was central to the religious objections offered by those suing the Biden administration.

“Because all three of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines are developed and produced from, tested with, researched on, or otherwise connected with the aborted fetal cell lines HEK-293 and PER.C6, Plaintiffs’ sincerely held religious beliefs compel them to abstain from obtaining or injecting any of these products into their body, regardless of the perceived benefit or rationale,” the complaint said.

House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Democrats’ energy policies, including the proposed natural gas tax, will add to the already rising cost of energy, which will be especially obvious in increased heating costs this winter.

Scalise led a discussion about the “Heat Your Home” tax, or the methane/natural gas tax, and the Clean Electricity Performance plan that Democrats are currently trying to pass in their multi-trillion dollar Reconciliation Bill to highlight what Republicans see as energy policies that hurt the U.S. economy and increase costs.

The gas tax is one way the Democrats seek to pay for the cost of the nearly $2 trillion (as of Wednesday) spending package as well as increasing corporate and individual taxes.

The Louisiana Congressman said most Americans do not know what the bill contains, “and that’s why we are trying to highlight just what is really in the bill,” said Scalise. “When you talk about the Heat Your Home Tax, what we’re specifically talking about is this methane tax, the natural gas tax, as well as the Clean Electricity Performance Plan that is embedded in President Biden’s reconciliation bill that he’s trying to ram through Congress as we speak.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey, natural gas is the primary heating fuel for 48 percent of U.S. homes. Home natural gas bills in the winter are predominately dictated by the retail price of natural gas and the amount of gas a household consumes.

Retail natural gas prices are expected to increase from $10.17 per thousand cubic feet last winter to $12.93 this winter, the highest price since the 2005–06 winter average. The Energy Information Administration said it expects the “largest increase in retail natural gas prices to occur in the Midwest, where prices rise to $11.28, a 45% increase compared with last winter.”

Scalise criticized Biden’s comments at a recent town hall in which the president was unable to point to policies that would lower the cost of energy for Americans.

“Well, Mr. President, if you don’t have an answer for how to lower gas prices, the good news is we do, and in fact, many of the bills that we authored, and some of those authors are here that would actually lower energy prices for families and get us back to producing enough energy for America,” said Scalise

Biden took part in a CNN town hall event last week in which he said that gas prices are up because the United States is not producing enough oil.

“My guess is you’ll start to see gas prices come down as we get by—going into the winter—I mean, excuse me, into next year, in 2022. I don’t see anything that’s going to happen in the meantime that’s going to significantly reduce gas prices,” said Biden.

When asked about gas to heat homes, he pointed to the subsidies from the federal government that are a part of the Democrat’s social programs, implemented in the March spending package.

“But, for example, for natural gas to heat your homes as winter is coming, we put in billions of dollars in what they call “LIHEAP.”  Biden is referring to The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which will be enhanced with the Democrats’ budget reconciliation bill.

Republicans argue that U.S. gas and oil projects should not be halted because they are cleaner for the environment than the energy produced in other countries and U.S. energy production keeps the country independent and competitive while keeping energy prices affordable.

Earlier this year Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in a letter to Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works that halting U.S. fossil fuel projects will create national security issues and cause energy prices to rise.

“Most notably, President Biden issued an Executive Order 13990 on his first day in office to rescind the Presidential permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, costing thousands of jobs and endangering our energy independence and ability to transport energy resources with our Canadian partners.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about rising energy costs.

Other GOP House members said it does not make sense to decrease U.S. gas and oil production, only to get the same fossil fuels from U.S. adversaries.

“The Methane Tax and the Clean Electricity Performance Program are just more examples of ‘death by 1,000 cuts’ in this rush-to-green agenda that they’ve got and the assault on fossil fuels,” said Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio).

“Why would the Biden administration and our colleagues across the aisle decide, ‘Okay, let’s produce less natural gas and oil in America, but Biden calls on OPEC. OPEC, to raise their energy production instead of us,” said Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.). “They closed down the pipeline here, the Keystone pipeline, but yet he approves the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Germany. This makes absolutely no sense and I hope the American people understand what Biden and the Democrats are doing to your pocketbooks.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-policies-will-cause-cost-of-heating-to-spike-republicans-warn_4074656.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The only Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory panel member to abstain from a major vote this week that essentially authorized Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children as young as 5 said he did so because of limited safety and efficacy data.

All 17 others voted to advise the administration, or the FDA, to authorize the jab for children between the ages of 5 and 11. The agency already supported doing so and is expected to formalize the authorization soon. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would then decide which children should get the shot.

The vote was preceded by nearly eight hours of discussions and presentations, with multiple members expressing concern about the scant data on how the vaccine will affect the age group.

But Dr. Michael Kurilla, an expert on infectious diseases and pathology who directs a division inside the National Institutes of Health, was the only one who didn’t support the recommendation.

Kurilla told The Epoch Times in an email that he opposed the specific, binary wording of the question, which opens up the possibility that any child between 5 and 11 will be able to get the Pfizer vaccine. He was also concerned about the longest follow-up for the clinical trial involving the age group being only three months, data that shows children experience severe cases of COVID-19 much less often than adults, and how a large chunk of them have already had the disease, giving them some level of immunity.

If the authorization goes through as expected, at least some of the age group will be able to get two doses of 10 micrograms each, spaced three weeks apart.

The same dosage interval, with a dosage level three times as high, is currently in place for adults. But adults have seen waning effectiveness, especially against infection, prompting the recent authorization of booster doses.

Because the interval is the same, it can be predicted that the effectiveness will also wane in children, Kurilla said. The lower dosage level, meanwhile, brings into question whether the protection against severe disease and hospitalization will be as strong as in adults.

“Real-world evidence involving adults suggest the 3-week dosing interval is suboptimal in terms of durability and is likely to be similar in children, leading to waning immunity within 4–6 months,” Kurilla said. “Because the Pfizer vaccine offers protection against serious disease even after antibody titers have waned, there is some other basis for immunity, but at the lower dose in children, there is no expectation that those same immune processes will behave similarly to the higher adult dose.”

Low Hospitalization Rate

During the meeting, members heard that among children 5 to 11 in the United States, there have been over 1.9 million infections since the start of the pandemic, but just 0.4 percent, or 8,400 of those cases, have required hospital care. And just 94 of them ended up dying.

They also heard that an estimated 20 percent of the hospitalized children were admitted for a reason besides COVID-19 and that nearly seven out of 10 of the children had existing serious health conditions like heart disease, illustrating just how little risk COVID-19 poses to healthy children.

Further, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 40 percent of children in the age group have already had COVID-19. Recovery from COVID-19 bestows some level of immunity, studies show, with multiple studies indicating the level is actually higher than vaccines provide.

“The benefit here is assumed to be prevention of severe disease, which is what we’re all hoping for,” Kurilla said during the meeting. But among the recovered, he added later, “The question really becomes, does this vaccine offer any benefits to them at all?”

Kurilla signaled he would have voted “yes” if the FDA had proposed opening up access to the vaccine to a subset of the 5–11 group. He also explained why he abstained.

“My abstention was based on the specific question the FDA asked. A ‘no’ vote would have been misconstrued as my opinion about the vaccine,” he told The Epoch Times. “There are high-risk groups within the 5–11 age group that would benefit from the vaccine, suggesting a more tailored approach.”

Others Question Widespread Use

Additional panel members openly questioned whether all young children should get the vaccine.

“I’m torn. On one hand, we know that many mothers and fathers and parents are eager to administer this vaccine to children because they’re so frightened, perhaps overly so, … that they really are anticipating having access to this vaccine in children,” said Dr. Cody Meissner, the director of pediatric infectious disease at Tufts Medical Center.

“On the other hand, I think we saw that approximately 68 percent of the children who are hospitalized with COVID-19 have underlying comorbidities. That means about 32 percent do not. And then if we were to take 40 percent of that group that may have immunity already, we’re getting down to a very small percent of otherwise healthy 6- to 11-year-old children who might derive some benefit,” he added.

But others said they saw the need for the vaccination. The protection it gives would prevent more hospitalizations and ensure schools remain open, some argued.

“We don’t want children to be dying of COVID, even if it is far fewer children than adults, and we don’t want them in the ICU,” said Dr. Amanda Cohn, a CDC official.

Jeannette Lee, a biostatistics professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said she was impressed by the data presented by Pfizer, which relied on an approach called immunobridging. In this case, Pfizer’s trial showed the vaccine triggered antibodies in children. The antibodies were compared to those elicited in older groups, and that was used as proof the vaccine will protect the kids against COVID-19.

Kurilla, though, voiced disapproval with the approach, telling colleagues “it’s being based on an immunogenicity marker that we know wanes.”

He said he hoped for more flexibility in the authorization, including a single dose for some children and no doses for others, based on factors like prior infection.

“There are high-risk individuals and I think they do need to be attended to, that we do need to provide a vaccine for them. But for many others, one dose—or no dose, even, if they’ve had prior COVID infection. I think they may not need anything more,” he said.

Side Effects

Cases of heart inflammation after receipt of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are highest in youth, especially boys in their teens. Based on reports submitted to the federally run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the cases are higher than expected in males aged 12 to 49 after the second Pfizer dose and females 12 to 24 after the second Pfizer dose.

Over half of the children with confirmed myocarditis or pericarditis studied in the Vaccine Safety Datalink surveillance system required hospital care, though no post-vaccination deaths due to the conditions have been confirmed, according to federal authorities.

Pfizer said none of the 5- to 11-year-olds in its trials experienced post-vaccination heart inflammation. Using a third of the amount of that given to older people is, in part, an attempt to curb side effects, though how that will ultimately turn out is unknown.

FDA scientists said they determined the vaccine would prevent more COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths among the age group than vaccine-linked heart inflammation cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. They assumed a vaccine efficacy of 70 percent against COVID-19 cases and an efficacy of 80 percent against hospitalizations linked to the disease. Among young males, “the benefits appear to outweigh the risks,” Hong Yang, an FDA scientist, told members. Among young females, “the benefits clearly outweigh the risks,” she added.

“What will the actual myocarditis rate be in these younger kids?” Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, wondered. That group “may be less susceptible to myocarditis, but right now that’s a speculation,” he added. “We don’t know that for sure.”

Members of the public also expressed concern, arguing the safety data wasn’t sufficient to authorize the vaccine for children so young.

But other members pointed to the trial data, the fact fewer reports have come in for 12- to 15-year-olds than 16- and 17-year-olds, and how, generally, fewer younger children experience heart inflammation versus older ones.

“I am not as concerned about myocarditis in this age group as I am in the older kids,” Dr. Melinda Wharton, another CDC official, said.

Surveillance systems like VAERS will help detect if inflammation becomes an issue in the younger children, members said.

“If the surveillance systems do start seeing severe outcomes and deaths from vaccination, I’m quite confident that those surveillance systems will tell us that we need to pause like we did with the J&J vaccine to really have a good idea of what the effects are vaccinating this age group,” said Dr. Patrick Moore, professor at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

The ‘Yes’ Votes

Ultimately, most members said the benefits and predicted benefits of the vaccine in the 5- to 11-year-olds outweighed the risks and potential risks.

“I think this vaccine will likely be effective in reducing pediatric COVID in this age group and may also help reduce transmission. On the safety end, I’m encouraged by the lower dose, … finding a dose that’s immunogenic and had not too much in terms of reactogenicity,” said Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Eric Rubin, an adjunct professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, said he wanted to give parents the choice to vaccinate their kids, imagining he had a child who was a transplant recipient, though he joined others in saying there are probably some younger children who shouldn’t get the vaccine.

“The question of how broadly to use it, though, I think is a substantial one. And I know it’s not our question, but I—and I know we’re kind of punting that to [the CDC’s advisory panel]—but I do think that it’s a relatively close call,” he said.

Soon after, in a comment that was widely distributed online, he added: “We’re never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it. That’s just the way it goes. That’s how we found out about rare complications of other vaccines, like the rotavirus vaccine.”

Rubin told The Epoch Times in an email, responding to critics: “The clinical trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in children showed no adverse events. All data to date indicate that it is safe. It will prevent the hospitalization of children with severe disease, as it does with adults. The vaccine works, and saves lives.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/fda-adviser-explains-why-he-abstained-from-vote-on-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine-for-young-children_4074913.html?utm_source=News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-10-29-1&mktids=6d1ad899bc3ad09f3a4fc669cadaac2a&est=TF7hoVY1keXOb1iMaU6qIvPfcNiy8Ihk5R8vVKJccJdCJMUM7gtV2JpxNiLd1JdpQQ%3D%3D

Representative Paul Gosar accused Biden’s government of maintaining two secret lists that it uses to strip its enemies of their constitutional rights.  These enemies, like activist and congressional candidate Laura Loomer, are those Americans who love God, their country, and freedom.  

Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) released a letter this week he sent to Biden’s corrupt Attorney General Merrick Garland addressing the secret lists he has put in place illegally and unconstitutionally.

Between the No Fly List and the NICS List, there are two secret lists the government uses to strip American citizens of their constitutional rights. But they do so in secret. With no charges. No hearing. No due process. It is a remnant from Soviet Russia and it needs to end. pic.twitter.com/CtvAq1fWxi

— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) October 28, 2021

BREAKING: Wisconsin Elections Commission Holds Emergency Meeting After Racine County Sheriff’s Dept. Accuses WEC of Class I Felony Fraud in Nursing Home Scandal

Here is Gosar’s letter:

page 2

page 3

Activist Laura Loomer released the following statement regarding these secret government lists:

BREAKING: Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has drafted a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Chris Wray inquiring about why they’re illegally red flagging conservatives through the secret FBI NICS database.

Congressman Gosar asked the FBI whether or not they were trying to entrap me when they illegally red flagged me, BANNING me from ever being able to own or possess a firearm, without ever notifying me when they placed me on the NICS database after I confronted former FBI Director James Comey.

I’m pleased to announce I will be working with Congressman Gosar on ANTI-RED FLAG legislation so the FBI & DOJ can no longer politically target Americans & strip them of their Second Amendment Rights!

Thank you Congressman Gosar! I’m proud to have Congressman Gosar’s endorsement in my FL Congressional campaign. #AmericaFirst

Loomer also shared with TGP.

First they ban you on social media. Then the banks ban you. Then you’re banned from owning a gun.

I’m the test case and the original canary in the coal mine for what Big Tech and the Biden regime want to make mainstream for all Consevative Americans.

I’m running for Congress, and when I win I’m going to fight like hell to make sure what has happened to me NEVER happens to you or any other American EVER AGAIN!

#LauraLoomerForCongress

This should never happen in America.  We must end the Biden gang’s assault on America for the sake of our children’s future.

All across America, parents are fighting back against school boards. They are getting more and more outraged that our public schools would defy their concerns and teach their kids a revisionist version of our history. Parents have spoken up, confronting these liberal-controlled school boards.

Biden struck back by having the DOJ brand these parents as criminals. But that hasn’t stopped patriotic parents from fighting for their children’s educations. And in Republican-controlled Texas, they are taking steps to take out one poisonous form of curriculum.

From The Hill:

The chairman of a Texas state House committee tasked with conducting investigations is launching a probe into books that school librarians keep on their shelves in the wake of a measure the legislature passed earlier this year to bar teaching of critical race theory in public schools.

Texas state government is launching investigations to probe the kinds of books available on public school shelves. They are searching for anything that teaches the previously barred “critical race theory” curriculum being pushed by Democrats in our schools.

Texas banned this kind of teaching in the classrooms. But it’s possible that schools found loopholes by putting these books in their libraries. Teachers and liberal librarians could easily encourage kids to read these books on their own, circumventing the law.

Critical race theory has been widely panned by many historians and conservatives. Many believe the ideology twists American history by branding our founding fathers as villains over slavery and other issues. It removes the merits of our leaders and the incredible work they did to found the United States.

Many, including leaders like Ben Carson, fear how this teaching can warp the minds of millions of young people. At least in Texas, their leaders are taking the steps to eliminate this toxic teaching and restoring accurate, honest historical curriculum.

But in many other states, parents have to fight to get their voices heard. Meanwhile, the DOJ and the media branding Americans for simply speaking their mind. The only way CRT will fail is if Americans refuse to back down.

Key Takeaways:

• Texas state legislature is investigating to take CRT books from school libraries.
• The state banned the teaching of “critical race theory” and is ensuring it isn’t in the libraries.
• American parents have fought school boards to remove this teaching from schools.

Source: The Hill

The Delta COVID-19 variant can easily transmit from vaccinated people to their household members, said a recent UK study, although its researchers concluded that vaccinations and boosters are the way forward.

A year-long study from the Imperial College London published in The Lancet on Thursday found that the Delta variant is still highly transmissible within a vaccinated population.

“By carrying out repeated and frequent sampling from contacts of COVID-19 cases, we found that vaccinated people can contract and pass on infection within households, including to vaccinated household members,” Dr. Anika Singanayagam, co-lead author of the study, said in a statement.

The findings, Singanayagam added, provide some insight into why the Delta variant is “continuing to cause high COVID-19 case numbers … even in countries with high vaccination rates.”

An analysis found that the viral load declined most rapidly for those who were vaccinated with the Delta variant compared with those who are unvaccinated, according to the researchers.

But the peak levels of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19, in vaccinated people were similar to levels in unvaccinated people, they found, adding that it might be the reason why the Delta variant can spread despite vaccination.

Because the Delta variant can spread easily among vaccinated people, another researcher involved in the study, Dr. Ajit Lalvani, argued it is necessary for people to get the vaccine or boosters to reduce severe COVID-19 symptoms.

“We found that susceptibility to infection increased already within a few months after the second vaccine dose … so those offered a booster should get it promptly,” Lalvani said.

Their study, which surveyed 621 participants, found that of 205 household contacts of people who had the Delta infection, about 38 percent of household contacts who were not vaccinated tested positive, compared with 25 percent who tested positive among vaccinated household contacts.

Immunity from full vaccination also dropped in as little as three months, their research also found. They didn’t say whether it should inform the UK’s booster policy.

However, amid the push to get large swaths of the population vaccinated, some immunologists and doctors have argued that natural immunity needs more research and should be factored into policy decision-making.

Steve Templeton, an immunologist with Indiana University’s school of medicine, wrote that “the key to ending the pandemic has always been the immune system.”

“The fact that so many have recovered from infection and that robust, durable, and protective immunity in those individuals has been unequivocally proven should be considered a good thing,” he said in an article dated Oct. 22, adding that “there appears to be a drive to cancel the term ‘natural immunity,’ a pretense that the vaccinated need fear the unvaccinated, and an unwillingness to treat the public as adults that can handle nuanced information and make decisions regarding their health.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/vaccinated-people-easily-transmit-covid-19-delta-variant-in-households-uk-study_4074277.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-10-29&mktids=441fb8cdbb840e1bf985645dec549317&est=elLB7xZfBsmzfNIsIK9hxftOKb17gproxTFfru4pnGD4CJPPrtmz332fKavMPNj6dA%3D%3D

Neil Bush – son of former President George H. W. Bush – co-sponsored a forum with a Chinese Communist Party-controlled influence group, repeatedly asserting that it “doesn’t matter where” COVID-19 originated.

Neil Bush, the founder and Chairman of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, co-hosted the online forum “50 Years of US-China Exchange in Retrospect: The Bush Legacy and Beyond” with the Center for China and Globalization (CCG).

The CCG is a key group within the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), a systematic foreign influence operation seeking “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and influence Westerners to “take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies,” according to the U.S. government.

Accordingly, Neil Bush downplayed the importance of the hunt for COVID-19’s origins – which many experts believe to be the Wuhan Institute of Virology – and dismissed the likely possibility that the virus escaped from the Chinese state-run lab.

“Who cares where it originated,” Bush asks before reiterating:

“Whether it originated in a lab or from a bat or from the United States or from wherever – who cares?”

“Throw away the crazy conspiracy theories and just assume there was an origin of some kind – doesn’t matter where it originated,” he later emphasizes.

Despite Neil Bush’s apathy towards unearthing the origins of COVID-19, he confidently debunks the theory that the virus was released intentionally.

“I reject the idea that there was some malicious effort to release a virus that causes a pandemic,” he asserts before adding, “I think that’s a crazy notion that there was some intent from one side or the other to do this on purpose.”

Lancet COVID Origins Investigator Wins $1 Million Chinese Prize For Claiming Virus Developed Naturally

David Firestein, the President and CEO of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations who also participated in the dialogue, affirmed Neil Bush’s stance on COVID-19’s origins while adding “the idea that this was something that was unleashed upon the world with intentionality is ludicrous and just not a serious idea.”

Watch:

Luke Rosiak’s report in The Daily Wire is further evidence that Democrats are pro-corrupt school boards and anti-parents. This should be a clear sign that Virginia needs Glenn Youngkin as governor to protect children.

The report from Luke Rosiak, a highly regarded investigative reporter, in The Daily Wire is quite disturbing. It details a cover-up of alleged sex crimes against a 12-year-old student in Fairfax County. Democrat Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was a senior advisor to a law firm which is actually fighting against the victim. Please share this story as it should have a significant impact on the governor’s race and reinforce how we need to have control over our children’s education system.

-Newt

https://www.gingrich360.com/2021/10/28/newt-gingrich-audio-update-more-evidence-that-mcauliffe-is-against-parents-and-students/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Thursday%20-%20October%2028%20General&utm_content=Thursday%20-%20October%2028%20General+CID_b1c70ed144421cf9b7a5cda24126b31a&utm_source=Newsletter

Americans are aware Big Tech has been censoring, shadow banning, and/or de-platforming people for years.  These social media sites regularly suppress information they don’t like, and outright ban those with views that are antithetical to their ideology.

The argument from the political right and the left is basically that Congress should regulate these entities.  Conservatives say more content should be allowed; Liberals say there should be much less. 

Regardless of any potential congressional regulations, you know Big Tech is shutting down your voice, but what you may not know is that Big Tech may also be shutting down your vote.

In the face of an unprecedented, unforeseen current global pandemic, rogue Secretaries of State, Attorneys General, Governors, State Supreme Courts, Election Boards, and many others, decided to cash in on the left’s well-known, and often-used axiom: “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”  

The US Constitution gives the authority to decide the manner in which states conduct elections to state legislatures, but these elected officials used Coronavirus to push radical rule changes that in many cases violated their own state law.  Simultaneously, Congress passed the Covid Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) – which gave $339.8 billion to state and local governments.  After violating laws and passing more than a trillion dollars in aid, it still wasn’t enough for liberals. CARTOONS | AL GOODWYNVIEW CARTOON

Enter Big Tech.

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife Priscilla Chan poured in nearly $400 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) and the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) under the guise of helping states conduct elections.  CTCL and CEIR, in turn, gave grants to counties under the auspices of taking extraordinary measures to properly handle the election amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Thanks to the Zuckerbergs’ donation, 2,500 election departments across 49 states received ‘Zuckerbucks’. On its face, this seems like an admirable act of charity, administered equally to all states and their people to conduct free and fair elections in the face of a global crisis…until you follow the money.

The Thomas Moore Society and the Amistad Project shed light on this when they released a report in January of 2021 showing Zuckerbucks were in fact politically targeted to only benefit certain voters in certain areas – potentially violating the law in the process. 

The reports found that in Wisconsin, funds provided allowed traditionally liberal strongholds of Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, and Racine to spend $47 per voter to get out the vote, while traditionally conservative areas of the state were only allocated somewhere between four to seven dollars per voter. 

In predominately liberal Delaware County, Pennsylvania, the funds were used to create a high volume of voter drop boxes – one for every four square miles – or one for every 4,000 voters. In the 59 counties carried by President Donald Trump in 2016, there was only one drop box for every 1,100 square miles – or one for every 72,000 voters. 

Perhaps more stark is that three Georgia counties – Cobb, Fulton, and Gwinnett, all historically Democrat voting counties – received more than $15 million in grant money from CTCL.  That accounted for 76 percent of President Joe Biden’s vote margin gain relative to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance. 

There have also been allegations that election officials were literally bought off with Zuckerberg-funded grant money.  Reports have circulated that Michigan Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, had ties to a 501(c)(3) called the Michigan Center for Election Law and Administration (MCELA) which received $12 million from CEIR.  According to the report, the MCELA spent 99 percent of this money with two political consulting firms which only represented left-leaning clients.

Dem Rep Says What He Really Feels About Republican Colleague in Hot Mic Moment

In fact, New York has double the population of Michigan, but received just $5 million – less than half of Michigan’s funding. As conservatives pointed out at the time, if the funds were truly meant ‘to provide nonpartisan, accurate, and official voting information to the public,’ why did more populous but uncompetitive states receive less money?”

Good question. 

The concern over Big Tech’s blatant unequal application of their terms of service is a serious problem – as conservative viewpoints and inconvenient truths continue to be crushed across their platforms.  However, Big Tech’s new found desire to use hundreds of millions of dollars to tip the scales in our elections is unprecedented. 

And you thought Big Tech was only canceling your voice…think again.

Ken Blackwell chairs the Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kenblackwell/2021/10/26/big-tech-is-canceling-your-voice-and-nowyour-vote-n2598033

Various sources on Capitol Hill have confirmed to Big League Politics that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is working aggressively behind the scenes to twist the arms of conservative lawmakers to prevent them from endorsing Laura Loomer for Congress and even rescind their endorsements in certain cases.

McCarthy is focusing on members of the House Freedom Caucus, in particular Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL), to pressure them out of supporting Loomer in her primary challenge against Rep. Dan Webster (R-FL).

“It’s been brought to my attention by sitting members of congress that Kevin McCarthy has been calling meetings with members and pressuring so-called America First representatives to oppose America First candidates and others like me in our election efforts,” Loomer told Big League Politics.

“In my case McCarthy is actually asking representatives to rescind their former endorsements,” she added.

Loomer has emerged as a threat to oust Webster in the primary, capitalizing on his no show during the impeachment vote against President Trump earlier this year. She has out-fundraised the incumbent, as she did during her run in the 21st Congressional District last year. Now that she is running in the more conservative-leaning 11th Congressional District, Loomer’s fundraising prowess and credibility among the rising America First Republican base has the GOP establishment very afraid.

“Along with being paid off by Comcast to turn a blind eye to censorship, and striking a deal with Nancy Pelosi to not support my candidacy in the general, McCarthy is working to sabotage another ‘America First’ candidate in his effort to maintain control within the conference,” Loomer said.$10M Awarded to Former Exec Who Said He Was Fired Because He’s a White MaleKeep Watching

“It should be up to the voters of district 11 to determine who their representative without Kevin’s bully tactics. Perhaps Kevin should be concerned with actually winning Republican seats instead of sabotaging the campaigns of America First Republicans,” she continued.

If he’s unwilling to do that, maybe he should just join the Democrat Party and be honest about his efforts to undermine the Republican Party,” she added, also claiming that Gaetz attempted to cajole her into running for pro-Trump favorite and U.S. Congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini’s open state house seat in attempt to protect Webster.

Big League Politics has reported on Loomer’s activist crusade against Big Tech since her coordinated banishment from the monopoly platforms, which she has not allowed to lower her national profile one iota:

“U.S. Congressional candidate Laura Loomer is promoting a campaign comparing Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to the Taliban for his hostility toward free speech.

Loomer was among the first dissidents to be banned from Twitter by Dorsey in order to suppress her reporting, but she has never missed an opportunity to slam Dorsey for his Big Brother tactics in restricting the free flow of information. This is why she is promoting OPERATION TaliBANNED, which has initiated a brutal flier campaign against Dorsey around Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters.

“For years, I have been raising awareness about Twitter’s alliance with Islamic terrorist organizations  and their willingness to platform enemies of America. This is a concept I have referred to as Silicon Sharia, as Twitter has shown  they have no problem banning millions of Americans for their constitutionally protected speech, including myself and sitting President Donald Trump during our elections, while they happily provide a platform for recruitment and propaganda  for actual terrorists,” Loomer said in a statement.

“OPERATION TaliBANNED was created to highlight this absurdity and how Big tech tyrants like Jack Dorsey continue to wage digital jihad on free speech in America with widespread bans rooted in the false Left-wing notion that conservatives and Trump supporters are the real terrorists. Twenty years ago, Twitter did not exist, but it would have been unfathomable to every American that someday in America, the leader of one of the most powerful tech companies in the world would aid and avert Islamic terrorists in the digital public sphere. Jack Dorsey has made it clear that thanks to people like him, Americans are less safe than they were 20 years ago,” she added.“

Loomer will continue to be a force to be reckoned with as she causes a major headache for the national RINO establishment led by Kevin McCarthy.

Support Big League Politics by making a donation today. You can also donate via PayPal, Venmo or donate crypto. Your support helps us take on the powerful and report the truth that the mainstream media wants to silence. 

Gab is a Christian-owned family-run technology company. Our mission is to build a parallel digital economy and defend free speech online for all people.

Our industry-leading free speech social network has a community of over 20 million people and growing. We invite you to join us here and please kindly tell a family member or friend, as word-of-mouth is our only form of advertising.

Recently hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses, students and employees who have been fired for refusing to be injected with an experimental substance have joined Gab.

Our religious exemption documents have been viewed and shared tens of millions of times across the internet and have been successful for many people.

Our No Vax Mandate Job Board is helping tens of thousands of people find new jobs. It’s also helping businesses who are facing incredibly challenging staffing and hiring conditions in the market.

Gabbers are buying and selling goods and services from one another. They are helping their businesses and families thrive in this time of great trial and uncertainty.

Businesses are using Gab Ads to grow.

Dissident Soaps, a Christian family-run soap company, received so many orders that they were backlogged for weeks and had to move to a bigger office space.

Happy’s Woodworks, a Christian family-run business, told us that they “turn off our ad spend after 30 minutes, so our industrial laser can keep up with orders.”

Malina New York, a natural skincare company founded by the wife of a US Marine, had this to say about Gab:

“[Gab] brought a record number of people to my website (over 800), gave me a record number of daily newsletter subscribers (over 200), and over 20 orders. These numbers may not be big to some, but my company (despite appearances) is really small, and operated by me alone. I really can’t thank you enough. You gave me the exposure I need so badly these days and hope that I can grow this business to support my family.”

The point is that Gab is having a real impact in the lives of real people. It’s more than just a social network, it’s a parallel economy and a community.

Gab gives a voice to the voiceless.

Gab helps people feel less alone in this crazy world and gives them hope of a brighter future for our children and country. These are the people we are building for. This is our mission, actualized.

If there is anything we discovered during our talks with the President’s team earlier this year, and based on his public statements, it’s abundantly clear that his mission is to build a parallel economy and media empire for himself that he fully owns and controls, and that’s wonderful!

We support the President participating in the marketplace and building up a community in the growing balkanized internet landscape. We wish him all the best as we know full well the consequences and many challenges that come with taking on the wicked and fallen people in Silicon Valley.

Gabbers can follow all of President Trump’s statements on his reserved Gab account which has been viewed hundreds of millions of times and is followed by millions of people. Gab has gladly served as the single largest uncensored distribution channel of the President’s voice on the internet since he was banned by Big Tech in January 2021.

The more time that We The People stop spending on Big Tech platforms the faster the balkanized internet will grow and decentralize. That’s always great news for Gab.

What we have seen time and time again is that these new channels act as a gateway to Gab. People join places like Parler en masse, then discover Gab from the people on Parler. They then join Gab and stay, because unlike many other alternatives we have a real mission and a real community of real people who support that mission.

We see other players in the alternative technology space, Trump included, as a market validation of our five year thesis on the balkanization of the internet into communities of shared values.

On Gab our values are simple: we fear God, we cherish and protect our families, and we defend free speech for all people as not only a fundamentally Christian value, but as a basic human right.

Gab is not listed on Wall Street. Nor do we have have any billionaires investing hundreds of millions of dollars into our business. Gab is owned and operated by my family and I, as well as the thousands of Gab users who invested in our business several years ago during our equity crowdfunding campaigns. Our investors are The People.

Gab is the small business owner, the family, and the everyday normal person who is fed up with the existing morally corrupt and rapidly decaying secular, anti-Christ, and degenerate society.

They are tired of placing all of their faith in a rigged political system and in politicians who have consistently overpromised and underdelivered for decades.

So instead, we are placing our faith back where it belongs: in God. We are peacefully taking matters into our own hands to defend our local communities, our families, and our way of life.

We are builders, reformers, and most importantly: men and women of God. We build civilizations. We build roads, bridges, airplanes, space ships, and the internet. We explore the world and the stars. We spread the Gospel to every nation as we are commanded.

God is righteously judging our world, but we must not be tempted by The Enemy’s deception and lies. We are going to sit back and watch as the Establishment machine consumes and destroys itself. While this happens we are going to peacefully build a future for our children.

We are building new channels of communication. New sources of information. New financial infrastructure. New healthcare systems. New economies. New cities. New churches.

We will rebuild it all, just as we’ve done many times before.

We welcome anyone who shares this vision and these values to join our growing community and help us build a parallel Christian society to defend our way of life, our families, and glorify our Savior Jesus Christ.

To God be the Glory,

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus is King
10/21/2021

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.

The Wall Street Journal broke the story Thursday, noting that the Justice Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security are floating the idea of the payouts as a way to settle lawsuits which accuse the federal government of inflicting distress on parents and their children.

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

— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) October 28, 2021

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

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) October 28, 2021

Other GOP lawmakers also weighed in:

Virginia Insider Projects ‘Republican Sweep’ in State’s Heated Governor Race

Biden wants to pay illegal immigrants $450,000 for their hardship while breaking our laws.

For perspective, if a service member is killed in action, their next of kin gets an insurance payment of $400,000.

Let that sink in. https://t.co/J3kuhDhyD5

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) October 28, 2021

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

— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) October 28, 2021

Biden’s going to pay illegal aliens 450,000 a person. America last sucks.https://t.co/eo4ILqiNGs

— Rep. Lauren Boebert (@RepBoebert) October 28, 2021

Joe Biden wants to raise your taxes, but give $450,000 to illegal immigrants. Biden is putting America last. https://t.co/ecAKosOYbq

— Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) October 28, 2021

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.

Subways and metros can be some of the strangest places on our planet. With thousands of different people cramming into cars every day, there is bound to be some chaos. The New York City subway is famous for the strange sights you will see on any given day. It is the perfect place to see human nature on display.

Today, the New York subway hit a new low as a man punched a woman in the face and everyone standing around did nothing to stop him. Instead, the bystanders just stood watching, ignoring or filming it.

A video taken by a bystander began with the man screaming in the woman’s face, “Say it to my face now! Tell me to take a chill pill! Say the word, ‘chill pill.’”

She said “chill pill,” and he responded to her with a sock in the face. He then launched into a tirade, yelling and cursing at her (somewhat nonsensically).

“I’m dealing with my f***ing kids, you understand? Mind your business,” he said.

WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some viewers will find offensive.

Calling the NYPD. pic.twitter.com/McaWb5b8jO [Link to page with video]

— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) October 27, 2021

The bystander who posted the video explained in the post that the man was angry when he got on the train with his kids.

“All she said was he needs a chill pill & his kids repeated it to him and it was just up from there,” the bystander wrote on the post.

The New York Police Department told the New York Post that it is investigating the assault.

While seeing someone socked in the face is shocking and sad, what’s even worse is watching everyone on the train hardly react. No one rushed to help the woman, or restrain the man. General apathy was the reaction.

Apparently, the days of men, or anyone, coming to the aid of an assaulted woman are gone. But this should come as no surprise.

Our culture has neutered men to this point. Feminism has told men that women are strong and capable and they don’t need protection. It would be suppressive and sexist to act like a woman needed help. But this completely misses the point of why men protect women.

Leaked Emails Show Loudoun County School Board Knew About Alleged Rape in Bathroom: Outrage

Men do not protect women because women are weak. Men protect women because they think women are important.

So when a woman gets hit in the face and not a single man helps, it means that they don’t think that woman is important. Every man on that train couldn’t have cared less about that woman. If they cared about her as a person in the slightest, they would have done something.

But this failure of men, this apathy and lack of care, is simply a symptom of a bigger problem: Our culture has devalued human life.

Is good masculinity failing in our society?

Whether it’s through killing a life in the womb, or by refusing to engage with someone who has a different opinion, our culture is actively teaching individuals that it is fine to disrespect human dignity and the importance of human life. This comes from a rise in the belief in individualism.

Individualism preaches that the most important thing in the world is you. Your personal existence is of ultimate importance. But everyone else’s life is second to yours.

So in light of this being our cultural gospel, no one should be surprised that a woman got punched on the subway this week.

Why would anyone go out of their way to help her? Her life does not matter to anyone but her. She is not important, or so our culture has told us.

All over the U.S. people are struggling to get their hands on simple products like cereal, bottled water, liquor, chicken, canned goods, pet food and more. Why? We are in the midst of an expansive supply chain crisis which means that grocery store shelves are being emptied while supplies sit on ships.

California ports are now in crisis mode as ships just sit in ports unable to unload. On Oct. 19, the backlog of cargo ships on the southern coast hit a record high with more than 100 vessels waiting to be unloaded, The Guardian reported. Now the Los Angeles and Long Beach Ports will start fining carriers in hopes the fines will push them to speed up the process.

In such a dire crisis, one would expect the administration to be looking for solutions. Roughly one-third of all U.S. imports come through the two Southern California ports, according to the New York Post, and many vessels are just sitting idle there. This has caused not only a shortage of goods but also inflation. Every day that the Biden administration fails to come up with viable solutions is costing Americans.

But while Biden fails, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is trying to save the American economy by coaxing ships to Florida’s ports.

“We’ve got capacity, and all of our ports can offer these businesses good incentives if they reroute their ships. If you were going to sit off the coast for days on end, you might as well bring it to Florida. We have great logistics on the ground that can get it to market and we are happy to be able to step up because there are empty shelves,” DeSantis said in an Oct. 21 interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Unloading vessels in Florida instead of having them idle off the coast of California would solve multiple problems at once. First, it would save carriers from paying the California port fines. Second, cargo ships would bring jobs.

“It is the job factor, and that is every ship that docks in Jacksonville means more jobs for Jacksonville residents — longshoremen who actually load and unload those ships,” Robert Peek, director of the Jacksonville Port Authority, told WJXT-TV.

Florida is also more than ready and able to handle more cargo ships. Peek said that the Jacksonville port alone is ready to handle up to a 50 percent increase in traffic.

Though redirecting ships from southern California to Florida would require a seven-day journey for each ship, according to WPLG-TV, it would still be better than sitting at the California ports, unable to unload and getting fined for not doing so.

Can Biden solve our supply chain crisis?

It also makes logical sense to unload goods in the southeast since many of the products that land on the west coast would just have to be loaded onto trains and trucks to be moved east anyway.

“Sometimes shippers will ship that cargo into California or the West Coast. Then they will pay to have it moved by rail or maybe by truck all the way to Florida or the Southeastern United States. It makes a lot of sense to ship that directly to Florida seaports and Jacksonville,” Peek said.

Redirecting ships to Florida would benefit all American consumers and the entire economy by solving part of the supply chain crisis that is plaguing everyone. If things do not improve quickly, consumers are going to suffer for a long time to come.

“We haven’t seen something of this magnitude in quite some years. The individual consumer will feel enormous inflation together with not being able to purchase the goods if this persists,” Awi Federgruen, a production and supply chain management expert at Columbia University, told CNBC.

So the solution that Florida is offering is vital. Especially as the country is on the cusp of the busy holiday season when product demand across all sectors will skyrocket.

GOP Rockstar Ron DeSantis Has a Plan to Save Christmas, America’s Supply Chain: Send the Ships to Florida

“We have to make sure that people can go Christmas shopping as normal. We have to make sure that all the necessities are there,” DeSantis said at an Oct. 19 news conference, WPEC-TV reported.

If it were up to the White House alone to solve this problem, we would be in for a rough Christmas season.

The Biden administration has not been helpful in solving this problem. The only solution it has offered is a plan to run operations at Los Angeles and Long Beach 24/7.

But thankfully DeSantis has offered a legitimate and creative solution that will ease the crisis.

As gas prices soar across the country, President Joe Biden attempted to explain the benefits of electric cars. Predictably, his explanation was more confusing than it was helpful.

Biden was giving a speech Thursday describing his two massive spending sprees, also known as the Build Back Better plan and infrastructure bill.

According to a White House transcript, Biden was describing the need to replace buses and cars with electric alternatives like rail and electric cars.

“When you buy an electric vehicle, you can go across America on a single tank of gas, figuratively speaking,” Biden said. “It’s not gas. You plug it in.”

BIDEN: “When you buy an electric vehicle, you can go across America on a single tank of gas figuratively speaking. It’s not gas. You plug it in.” pic.twitter.com/5M8i96GtVD

— X Strategies LLC (@XStrategiesLLC) October 28, 2021

Biden at least admitted his “tank of gas” analogy was figurative, so he apparently understands electric cars do not actually run on gas. That is where his knowledge of electric cars seems to end.

Biden’s suggestion that you can drive across the country in an electric car on the equivalent of one tank of gas is false on multiple levels.

First, electric cars have a shorter range than gas cars. The average electric car can travel 250-350 miles on a single charge, the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies reported. The 350-mile range is comparable to many gas cars, but UC Davis said only higher-end brands like Tesla have that range.

Will you purchase an electric car?

To most logical people, the equivalent of one tank of gas would be a full charge in an electric vehicle. Considering the country is a lot longer than 350 miles, it would be impossible to travel across the country on one charge.

Once the electric car does run out of gas, re-charging it is not nearly as simple as getting a tank of gas.

UC Davis reported in a standard 120V outlet like the ones in a normal home, a fully electric car can take 20 or more hours to charge. Even with a 240V outlet, full charging takes four to eight hours.

Some vehicles are equipped for “fast charging,” meaning they can get an 80 percent charge in about 20 minutes. That is still significantly longer than a typical stop for gas.

This is not to say that no one should buy an electric car, because they certainly have benefits. However, stopping for 20 minutes every 250-350 miles on a road trip is undoubtedly an inconvenience.

The Bizarre Gaffe Biden Had in the Middle of His Speech That Everyone Missed

When Biden says electric cars can go across the country in one figurative tank of gas, his comment is at best misleading and at worst completely ignorant. In reality, electric cars have to stop more often and for longer than gas cars.

It is easy to see why Biden would want to start pushing electric cars. In just the last couple of months, gas prices have skyrocketed at an alarming rate around the country.

According to AAA, the national average for a gallon of gas was $3.399 as of Thursday. That was an increase of more than 20 cents since the previous month, when the average was $3.187.

On Oct. 28, 2020, the average gallon of gas in the United States cost $2.151. In just 365 days, the average price has risen about $1.25 per gallon.

Every time Americans go to the gas pump, price increases remind them of the current state of our country under Biden. He can lie about electric cars all he wants, but he cannot hide what’s happening in the United States.

Whenever a story about voter fraud breaks, the establishment media is nowhere to be found.

When it comes to debunking overzealous, unsubstantiated claims of widespread, coordinated voter fraud that could have altered the results of the 2020 presidential election, they sure have plenty to say.

But when a story reveals the cracks in our voting system, or the vulnerability of unsolicited universal vote-by-mail systems, the media at large becomes dead silent.

This followed on Thursday, when news of voter fraud in Racine County, Wisconsin, went mostly unreported.

Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling revealed, “Election statute was in fact not just broken but shattered by members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission,” WITI-TV reported.

It all began when Schmaling’s office received a complaint from the relative of a recently deceased resident of the Ridgewood Care nursing home facility.

Apparently, despite suffering serious cognitive difficulties, records showed the resident had voted via absentee ballot in the 2020 election.

After an investigation had been conducted, the sheriff’s office found there to be more than one unusual case of voter irregularities occurring at that very same facility.

Is universal mail-in voting secure?

According to WITI, “eight of 42 families of residents at Ridgewood Care Facility said their loved ones didn’t have the cognitive ability to vote and yet did.”

During the Thursday announcement, Schmaling called on Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul to investigate whether other similar potential examples of voter fraud may have happened in the state.

Nursing home residents continue to find themselves at the center of voter fraud controversies and not only in Wisconsin.

On Oct. 11, Trenae Myesha Rainey of Macomb County, Michigan, was charged with crimes related to similar attempts to commit voter fraud.

During her time working at a nursing home, Rainey stole a stack of “roughly two dozen absentee voter applications” meant for using home residents, filled them in herself, forged the residents’ signatures and submitted them illegally.

Poll: 35% of Voters Say 2020 Election Should Be Overturned

It remains unclear if the party responsible in Wisconsin will face justice as Rainey did.

Under the universal mail-in voting system Democrats hope to spread to every state in America, cases like this will likely continue to become more and more common.

Perhaps if the establishment media covered these cases, then maybe more Americans would wake up and realize what a grave threat to our democracy these policies truly are.

A school board president in southern California is facing calls to resign after a hot mic caught her throwing a vulgar insult toward a parent who had expressed concern over vaccine mandates for children.

The incident occurred Tuesday in Orange County at a meeting between parents and members of the Los Alamitos Unified School District Board of Education, KTLA-TV reported.

Marlys Davidson, the board president, and other members of the board listened to questions and statements from parents who expressed their opinions on issues ranging from mask mandates to critical race theory.

As we’ve seen in recent months, some of those questions were passionate. One woman who had identified herself as a concerned parent came up to a podium during the meeting with a message for Davidson.

KTLA reported Lauren Roupoli had asked the board to respect parents by not calling parents “selfish,” and concluded that any assumption that those in attendance to speak up for their children were there for themselves was “rude.”

Roupoli had barely concluded her comments when a microphone caught Davidson sharing a two-word response which she apparently thought could not be heard by the parents in the room.

Would you enroll your child in this school district?

“F*** you,” said a voice reported to be that of Davidson in a brazen display of disrespect amid a broader conversation nationally about school boards and their relationships with their communities. Footage from the meeting cuts before parents or fellow board members are given time to respond to the comment.

WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language which some viewers will find offensive.

Davidson later issued an apology to Roupoli through a statement that was sent to KTLA.

“I am going go personally apologize to the speaker who most certainly deserves to know that when the member of the public address the Board of Education, they must be heard with respect,” Davidson said. “I reaffirm my commitment to serve our community with dignity and integrity, and I hope they will accept my sincere apology.”

The apology felt hollow to Roupoli, however, who said she wants Davidson to step down from the board.

Authorities Declare No Crime Was Committed When Teacher Allegedly Taped Mask to Student’s Face

“After her true colors showed last night, there’s no taking that back,” Roupoli told KTLA.

The meeting was held the same day an expert panel advising the Food and Drug Administration recommended Pfizer’s vaccine for children aged 5 to 11, The New York Times reported.

Every school in California is required to mandate masks for students, faculty and staff. KNTV-TV reported Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom intends to make the shots mandatory for every student in the state.

Good! Bumbling Biden’s Build Back Better budget bill has imploded.

After renegotiation by the Democrats behind closed doors, all that remains is their “Weaker Woker Worsen” program.

It’s still a wasteful trillion-dollar socialist welfare wish list authorizing massive new spending of money we don’t have and levying taxes that will stall the economy amid the new hyperinflation eating away personal savings and threatening household independence.

The Democrats’ reckless budget must be defunded and defeated.

America must get back to work and concentrate on making money rather than just spending it. America’s exceptionalism will reappear when Americans’ work ethic, damaged by Biden’s $1.9 trillion handouts last March, is restored.

Jobs must be filled, shipping and supply line stuff-ups must be unclogged, law and order restored, borders safeguarded once again.

Weaker Woker Worsen Plan Must Not Succeed

In only nine months, the Biden administration has demoralized a great nation. Its most spectacular failure — the dishonorable exit from Afghanistan — has made America weaker and our enemies stronger. Weakness is dangerous: It invites disaster.

Instead of designing “social infrastructure,” the real urgency is to reform defense leadership and restore respect and morale for American forces at home and abroad.

Will the Democrats’ radical agenda be defeated?

Our enemies must be made wary of harming any Americans anywhere ever again.

Regrettably, neither President Biden nor Vice President Harris understands this. In their just-released National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, they boast:

“On the day that we were sworn in together, the Vice President toppled a barrier to women’s participation that had stood for more than 200 years. Our Cabinet and senior staff are the most diverse and genderbalanced in history.”

Just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned, an old madness has taken hold — a U.S. president smiles vacuously and proffers feeble jokes in answer to serious questions; his vice president cackles inanely over grave border violations in the south.

The sovereignty of the United States of America is crumbling while the Biden administration is focused on novelties and distractions, e.g. the Department of Justice initiative to investigate “domestic terrorist” parents who resist woke ideology threatening their children.

Don’t Be Fooled by the ‘Wealth Tax’ – It Will Come for You Too

Right now Biden is preening himself for the leader’s mantle at a gigantic “the end is nigh” alarmism conference in Glasgow. He hopes to launch a lavish spendathon nationally and internationally on Green New Deal fantasies. Supposedly a huge number of U.S. jobs and industries must be sacrificed to avert the apocalypse of climate change, which Biden says is an “existential threat.”

Meanwhile, he studiously ignores real and present dangers — the rise of China with its nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles; and here at home the worsening economic outlook — runaway inflation, growing fuel dependency on unfriendly nations, skyrocketing food prices, empty shelves, rising energy prices.

Dems Want a United States Socialist Republic – A New USSR?

The Dems’ radical revolutionary policies were never honestly explained before the election.

In a constitutional republic, responsible voting takes place only after careful consideration of specified policies presented upfront before Election Day and spelled out and explained honestly by candidates.

Emotional voting — hyped up by social media — turned the 2020 election into a noisily contested popularity poll. The election did not allow voters the opportunity to make a fully informed decision primarily because the alarming extent of the policies being revealed only now in the Build Back Better bill were withheld from the people.

The extreme changes proposed in this bill were never fully publicized, nor were they seriously evaluated before the election. They were never the electoral choice of informed voters. The details, even now, are being decided behind closed doors.

The 2020 election was orchestrated into an election of opposing personalities that distracted voters from examining opposing policies. Personalities, not policies, dominated social media. This diversion from the real issues at stake was set up and executed deftly by an amalgamation of the leftist-dominated media, academia and the entertainment industry.

Big Tech moguls, backing Biden, manipulated the messaging and vetted the messengers allowed to post. There was a steady drumbeat of woke groups threatening riots, arson and looting should the Dems not win.

The election was won by a wafer-thin majority of rattled Democratic and independent voters who mostly voted against Trump personally and not for the Dems’ policies, which remained interred with Biden in his bunker throughout the lead-up to the election.

Dems Presented a Pig-in-a-Poke Election

The Dems’ plan for a radical transformation of the whole nation and their ambitions to halt the natural tides of climate change that have benefited our world for eons would have been too large for voters to take in before the election.

We would not find out what we voted for until after the Dems won. Only then did they draw up their massive 2,465-page bill to transform our constitutional republic into a socialist republic ruled by big government. As Speaker Pelosi said once of another bill, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

But genuine democratic elections are about controversy — about opposing sets of policies. That’s how a true democracy works. Informed, responsible voting is every American’s duty.

Regrettably, the Dems’ radical-left tax-and-spend agenda was not raised in any clear way until after the election. Nor were voters given any real understanding of the Dems’ planned redistribution of not just wealth but of people — some 1.7 million illegal aliens exploiting an open-borders policy.

It was a pig-in-a-poke election. It was a largely superficial choice of president between two flawed men — not a truly democratic choice between substantially different policy initiatives.

Elections must never again be reduced to mere rallying cries and political propaganda that hustle Americans to vote against the incumbent president portrayed as an enemy of the people. The real achievements of the Trump presidency were disparaged.

Slightly more than half of the American voters swallowed the lie that a Biden win would return the nation to a pre-Trump era “stability.”

Indeed, the radical left wing of the Democratic Party secured a coup — an “Animal Farm” revolution:

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

Biden-Harris good, Trump bad.

How Democracies Die

In genuine democracies, those elected to power must be held to their pre-election programs. The American people, perhaps distracted by COVID, should not have been tempted back to the follies exercised of old in the making of kings.

Once crowned, kings were awarded divine rights to implement any and every law they could imagine or desire. Kings weren’t obliged to give their people any prior knowledge of or require any “people’s consent” to their autocratic plans and policies — no matter how radical.

The divine right of kings was the kind of government that the American revolutionaries so bravely fought against and won.

Elections in the democratic republic set up in the U.S. Constitution do not award any party a blank check to introduce trillion-dollar bills to transform the republic into a socialist, big-government, one-party dictatorship.

In a genuine democratic republic, the contestants must bring a plan — an accurate layout of what they will establish, what they will maintain and what they will change, and an honest estimate of how much it will all cost and how it will be funded.

Good old American know-how must prevail once more. Americans’ famous bulldust meters must begin to work again. And the real goodness deep down in the hearts of all decent Americans of all colors, sizes, faiths and family histories must rise up and shine so that God will bless America, to become once again one of the finest countries on earth, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Public schools attempting to indoctrinate children with woke ideologies have been a problem for years. But Broward County, Florida, is reportedly taking things to a whole new level of crudity.

On Wednesday, Broward County school board member Sarah Leonardi tweeted pictures of a field trip she took Wilton Manors Elementary students on. The problem was the destination of the field trip was a gay bar.

“I was SO honored to be invited to chaperone @WiltonManorsES’s field trip to the incredible Rosie’s!” she wrote. “The students and I had a fun walk over and learned a lot about our community!”

I was SO honored to be invited to chaperone @WiltonManorsES’s field trip to the incredible Rosie’s! The students and I had a fun walk over and learned a lot about our community! A huge thank you to @RosiesBnG for hosting this special field trip every year! pic.twitter.com/A3rpMbyUJP

— School Board Member Sarah Leonardi (@bcpsleonardi) October 27, 2021

No Woke Agenda in Court: Rittenhouse Judge Says Rioters Can’t Be Called ‘Victims,’ Approves This List Instead

In one picture, young students in masks can be seen outside the bar with three adults. Another image shows the young children sitting at tables inside the gay bar.

On its online menu, Rosie’s has items such as “Naked Sweaty Lovin’,” “Smack My Cheeks and Make ‘em Rosy Sauce,” “Miley Highclub” and “Beet Your Brains Out.”

Doesn’t that sound like a nice, family-friendly establishment?

Seeing children at a bar like this is disturbing in any capacity, but the fact that it appeared to be a school-sanctioned event was even more grotesque. Many users took to Twitter to express their concern.

A school in @browardschools district took elementary age kids to a gay bar on a field trip today pic.twitter.com/kfRgzPJwSO

— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) October 28, 2021

Sodom and Gomorrah called, they’d like an investigation https://t.co/NDZnarwiGP

— Kenzo Frank The Evangelist (@FrankTheKenzo) October 28, 2021

When are we going say ENOUGH? https://t.co/DFniOSGj8v

— Wanderer (@sharrij) October 28, 2021

Watch: Sen. Hawley Destroys AG Garland in 92 Seconds, Catches Him Red-Handed on Loudoun Rape Case

In her tweet, Leonardi suggested the gay bar field trip was an annual event. One can only hope this exposure will spare future students from such gross mistreatment.

Previous actions from the Broward County school board suggest the body is on the political left. For example, the board voted in August to enforce a universal mask mandate despite a ban on such mandates by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, WPLG-TV reported. (The board later voted to make masks optional at the district’s high schools.)

Unfortunately, sexually charged school events promoting an LGBT agenda are becoming more prominent. On Oct. 15, Burlington High School in Vermont hosted a drag show during halftime at a high school football game.

VT: Burlington’s high school homecoming drag show leaves LGBTQ+ students with mixed emotions.

Principal Lauren McBride waited near the field, her walkie-talkie crackled: “They’re coming out, and they look fabulous.”

Child abuse.

Gender confusion.

At a public school. pic.twitter.com/btqXJBXYf0

— Dalton (@DaltonReport) October 17, 2021

Abuses like this are the reason parents are becoming more involved in their children’s education. They are also the reason why politicians like Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, who said parents should stay out of education, are falling in the polls. Meanwhile, students in China have reached the top of the world charts in reading and math performance.

Parents care about what their children are being taught, and they have every right to do so. If woke educators keep pushing leftist ideas on their students, the effects will almost certainly be felt in future elections.

For over nine months, the establishment media has attempted to use the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion to demonize the Republican Party. This week, Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced his latest effort to fight against the leftist narrative.

According to Newsweek, Carlson revealed a trailer on Wednesday’s episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” for a documentary about “the true story behind 1/6, the war on terror 2.0 and the plot against the people.”

Carlson also posted the trailer to his Twitter account.

November 1 pic.twitter.com/5yCRlkZlzM

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) October 28, 2021

No Woke Agenda in Court: Rittenhouse Judge Says Rioters Can’t Be Called ‘Victims,’ Approves This List Instead

“The domestic war on terror is here,” a man says at the beginning of the trailer. “It’s coming after half of the country.”

Later in the trailer, President Joe Biden is shown characterizing Americans as terrorists.

“Terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today,” he says.

Biden is correct that white supremacy is terrible and should be eradicated. The problem is that for many leftists, “white supremacy” is synonymous with “anything I don’t like.”

“False flags have happened in this country, one of which may have been Jan. 6,” a woman says as the trailer continues.

Will you watch Carlson’s new documentary?

The documentary will premiere on Nov. 1. Newsweek reported that it will be in three parts and will be available on the subscription-based streaming platform Fox Nation.

“We believe that it answers a lot of the remaining questions from that day,” Carlson said. “Our conclusion? The U.S. government has in fact launched a new war on terror. But it’s not against al-Qaida; it’s against American citizens.”

That language is certainly strong and could be jarring to many people. But given what we know about the Jan. 6 incursion, the possibility is at least worth exploring.

For one thing, the FBI reportedly had at least one agent planted in the crowd that day. Video footage of the incident shows a majority of the people inside the Capitol simply standing around. While they may have been guilty of unlawful entry, they were certainly not the violent terrorists the left made them out to be.

Here We Go Again: Dems Want GOP Members Expelled from Congress Over Jan. 6

In August, Reuters reported that the FBI found “scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result.” Nonetheless, the establishment media continued to cover the event as a right-wing scheme to overthrow the government.

If Carlson’s documentary makes these points and attempts to answer questions about FBI involvement and media coverage, that would be completely valid. If it tries to defend violent rioters, that should be condemned.

Of course, the establishment media has already jumped at the opportunity to label Carlson a conspiracy theorist.

“Tucker Carlson’s Most Deranged Moment Yet?” a Rolling Stone headline blared on Wednesday.

“Tucker Carlson’s new documentary baselessly suggests the January 6 riot was a false flag,” Business Insider declared. How can you know the claim is “baseless” if you haven’t watched a minute of the documentary to see what evidence is presented?

The media has already made its determination about the accuracy of Carlson’s documentary before it has even come out. That kind of dishonesty is exactly why Carlson needed to make the documentary in the first place.

Attorney General Merrick Garland was utterly humiliated on Wednesday by Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Garland was grilled over his Oct. 4 memorandum in which he called on the FBI to mobilize against parents who were concerned about what their children were being taught in public schools.

Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who was at the top of his game, told Garland: “Thank God you are not on the Supreme Court.” He then called on Garland to “resign in disgrace.”

Next up was Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley who laced into the attorney general for weaponizing the FBI and the DOJ against parents for political purposes.

No Woke Agenda in Court: Rittenhouse Judge Says Rioters Can’t Be Called ‘Victims,’ Approves This List Instead

“It’s wrong, it is unprecedented to my knowledge in the history of this country, and I call on you to resign.”

Then, it was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’ turn, and by the end of this exchange, I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

Do you believe that Merrick Garland’s son-in-law’s business poses a conflict of interest?

Most of Garland’s activism can be chalked up to being a team player, but he does actually have some skin in the game in the debate over critical race theory being forced into U.S. public school curriculum. His son-in-law, Xan Tanner (not to be confused with Dan Tanna), is the co-founder of Panorama Education, a company that markets critical race theory-based software platforms to school districts throughout the country.

Lest you think Tanner’s company is small potatoes, an article in the “Press” section of the company’s website informs readers that “25 percent of American students are enrolled in a district served by Panorama today.”

TechCrunch reports that the company raised $60 million in new funding to expand the company in September.

Note that one of the “existing backers” is the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Priscilla Chan is Mark Zuckerberg’s wife.

Cruz grilled the attorney general about this glaring conflict of interest. He asked Garland repeatedly whether he had “sought an ethics opinion” on the matter, a question he refused to answer. (A full transcript of the exchange can be viewed on Cruz’ website.)

Watch: Sen. Hawley Destroys AG Garland in 92 Seconds, Catches Him Red-Handed on Loudoun Rape Case

Holding up a copy of Garland’s memo to the FBI, Cruz declared, “This memo was not law. This memo was politics.”

“I’ll tell you what, the NSBA is so embarrassed of this letter, they’ve apologized for it and retracted it, but you don’t apparently have the same willingness to apologize and retract what you did,” Cruz said. “Let me ask you something else. A big part of this letter is that they’re upset about parents not wanting critical race theory taught. Your son-in-law makes a very substantial sum of money from a company involved in the teaching of critical race theory.

“Did you seek and receive a decision from an ethics adviser at the Department of Justice before you carried out an action that would have a predictable financial benefit to your son-in-law?”

In the exchange that ensued, the attorney general refused to answer the question 12 times … yes, 12.

“This memorandum is aimed at violence and threats of violence,” Garland replied.

“I just asked a question. Did you seek an ethics opinion?”

Garland danced around the question each of the 12 times it was asked, in a thoroughly infuriating but all too typical manner.

“[Attorney] General, are you refusing to answer if you sought an ethics opinion?” Cruz pressed.

“I’m telling you that there’s no possible con[flict] … “

“So, you’re saying no. Just answer it directly. You know how to answer a question directly. Did you seek an ethics opinion?”

Finally, Cruz’s time expired. He said, “Let the record reflect the attorney general refuses to answer whether he sought an ethics opinion. And apparently ethics are not a terribly high priority in the Biden Justice Department.”

In addition to establishing that Garland had not sought an ethics opinion regarding his son-in-law’s business interests, Cruz humiliated the attorney general by demonstrating that neither he nor anyone else at the DOJ had bothered to investigate any of the 20 incidents of “intimidation” of school board members by parents before hastily firing off his memo to the FBI.

“Let me ask you something, General Garland. In the letter, which you told the House of Representatives was the basis for this abusive memo targeting parents, how many incidents are cited in that memo?”

“I have to look back through the memo,” Garland replied.

Cruz pressed. “You don’t know. How many of them were violent?”

“Again, the general report … ”

The senator interrupted the attorney general and asked, “How many of them were violent, do you know?”

“I don’t know.”

More back and forth ensued, and Cruz finally summed it up: “Okay. Fifteen of the 20 on the face of it are not violent. They’re not threats of violence. They’re parents who are unhappy. Yet, miraculously, when you write a memo, the opening line of your memo, ‘In recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence.’ You know what? You didn’t look, and nobody on your staff looked. Did you even look up the 20 instances?”

Garland replied, “As I testified, the decision to send a memo is for an assessment … ”

He was immediately cut off. Cruz asked, “Did you look up the 20 instances? Did anyone on your staff look them up?”

“I don’t know the answer. But it’s not all of the memo.”

Cruz took his kill shot. “But of course you don’t, and General, there’s a reason. Look, you started your career as a law clerk to Justice Brennan. You’ve had many law clerks during the year, during your time as a judge. I was a clerk to Chief Justice Rehnquist.”

“I’ll tell you what, if I drafted an opinion for the Chief Justice and walked in, and it said there’s a disturbing pattern of violence, ‘Well, Ted, how do you know that?’ ‘Well, I got an amicus brief here who claims it.’ You would fire a law clerk who did that. You’re the attorney general of the United States. This was not a tweet you sent. This is a memo to the Federal Bureau of Investigations saying, ‘Go investigate parents as domestic terrorists.’”

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by any of this; Garland’s disregard for the Constitution is evident in every move he makes.

The DOJ is no longer committed to enforcing U.S. laws. Rather it exists to advance the Biden administration agenda, and it uses its vast powers to punish political adversaries.

The attorney general’s testimony demonstrated once again that his DOJ has picked up right where the Obama DOJ left off. The politicization of the DOJ is nearly complete.

And that is very frightening indeed.

The event “Defending Freedom in American Education,” held by a non-profit organization in Georgia on Oct. 23, addressed how parents can oppose Critical Race Theory (CRT), eradicate the harmful indoctrination, and preserve American values and principles in schools.

“We are vocal. We are loud. We are tenacious. We must be heard. But we are civil. We respect the rules of society and legitimate authority. We will not stand down. We are the majority—patriotic Americans who believe that a fair and just society can only be achieved when malleable young minds are free from the indoctrination that suppresses their independent thought,” said the organizer, Dr. Elana Fishbein from No Left Turn in Education.

Fishbein founded No Left Turn in Education in the fall of 2020 after her son was taught CRT at his Pennsylvania elementary school.

At the event, Fishbein said the first step is understanding the dangers of CRT and how it has infiltrated our culture through school curriculums, and that the goal of No Left Turn in Education is to empower parents to fight back.

CRT started in the mid-1970s in the writings of various American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman. It was revisited by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 1980s.

CRT claims to study racism in society, and it presents racism as the root problem for a wide variety of social ills. In recent years, it has been endorsed by many in academia as well as U.S. civil-rights thinkers, seeking to examine the intersection of race and legal justice, or as an approach to racial justice.

Dr. Carol Swain, a best-selling author, pointed out that the current goal of leftist educators is to extend CRT into the 5–12 school system, from its well-established perch in U.S. colleges and universities, with the aim of diminishing American pride.

Paul Lott, the founder and president of the National Society for the Advancement of Black Americans told The Epoch Times “that the statistics show there is no discrimination in America.”

“Average white poverty went up in 2018,” he said. “The statistics comparing 1959 to 2018, show white babies were three times more likely to remain poor than black babies in America. … If racism was happening, this would never have happened.”

He also said he believes that this notion of race-based inequity is bred by the Hollywood media pushing these assumptions of fact on young people.

A recent lawsuit, handled by Southeastern Legal Foundation, challenges mandatory student segregation being exercised in Illinois schools. It’s said the white students and non-white students are separated from the same teacher and receive different curriculums.

Kimberly Hermann, general counsel of Southeastern Legal Foundation, advised parents of children who were being forced to accept divisive concepts based on race, to pursue legal help. She also said she believes that history should be taught in school and children should be educated with love, kindness, and caring for each other instead of hating each other.

An NBC News analysis earlier this year found at least 165 local and national groups have arisen, seeking to “disrupt or block lessons based on race and gender.”

A Minnesota school board is facing criticism because of new policies for public comment sessions at its meetings, including requiring that commenters state their home address in order to speak.

The Mankato Area Public School Board updated its open forum guidelines earlier this month, but only sparked controversy recently after video footage of an Oct. 18 meeting was shared on social media. During the meeting, parents and community members were told they must give their full address before they could speak for three minutes.

“I just want to remind everybody this is a business meeting of the school board, it is not a meeting that belongs to the public,” chairwoman Jodi Sapp told the audience before the open forum segment began.

She went on to read out the guidelines, stating that each speaker will be asked to state his or her name and address for the record, and that failure to do so will result in an individual not being allowed to speak.

The new rules also banned “calling out or addressing any individual school board or school district staff member.” If it occurs, the open forum will be closed, and the violator will not be allowed to participate in future open forums.

“Crowd noise, or any sort of grandstanding during open forum, including applause, talking, hollering or any outburst will result in open forum being closed,” Sapp added.

One of the public commenters was a Mankato man who identified himself as John Wicklund. When Sapp asked him to reveal his address, he replied that he “would rather not,” saying that he had suffered from “property damage, eggs, and everything else” by “fun people and their friends.”

After Sapp repeatedly pressed Wicklund for his precise home address, the man turned away from the microphone and gave his address in an attempt to avoid potential harassment. Sapp then restated that address using her microphone so that all could hear where he lives.

Mankato’s new policies were first reported by Minnesota news site Alpha News, which noted that rule was apparently not enforced or did not exist before October, since public forum participants were not asked to “dox themselves” at a Sept. 20 meeting.

The policies caused widespread criticism on social media, with many people questioning whether it is legal for the board to make such requirements, or whether the rules should also apply to board members themselves. The website of the Mankato school board currently doesn’t disclose each member’s home address.

The controversy comes amid a nationwide debate over parents’ role in their children’s upbringing and education. While advocacy groups like Parents Defending Education call for more parental involvement in local school districts’ decision-making process, the National School Board Association requested federal law enforcement to help handle what it described as “angry mobs” of parents who allegedly threaten the safety of teachers and school officials.

The school board did not respond to request for comment on the public forum policies.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/minnesota-school-board-demands-parents-announce-their-addresses-in-order-to-speak-at-meetings_4073972.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Florida this week was tied for the lowest COVID-19 case rate in the United States among states, according to data provided by the state

“Without mandates or lockdowns, COVID-19 cases in Florida have decreased 90 percent since August,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a Wednesday update. “In addition to cases, hospitalizations have plummeted in our state. This has been accomplished by making monoclonal antibody treatments and vaccines widely available throughout our state while protecting Floridians from government overreach.”

Data provided by the Florida Department of Health shows that the state has nine cases per 100,000 people and is tied with Hawaii for being the state with the lowest case rate. U.S. territories such as the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands had lower case rates, it showed.

The United States average is 21 cases per 100,000 people, according to the data, which compiled findings from state and local agencies, the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and others.

Since August, according to a release from DeSantis’s office, COVID-19 cases in school children decreased by about 87 percent while cases in adults between the ages of 18 and 24 decreased by 93 percent.

This year, DeSantis has sought to impose fines on businesses and institutions that impose COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and, among other directives, he’s also moved to bar schools from requiring that students wear masks on the premises.

But the Republican governor’s stance against vaccine mandates and masking has triggered significant criticism from the Biden administration and White House health officials. Over the summer, when COVID-19 cases increased in Florida, DeSantis—and his approach toward the pandemic—frequently drew negative headlines.

Health officials in the state said that Florida now has among the lowest COVID-19 cases in the United States. Data provided by the state on Monday shows the case count has dropped for an eighth consecutive week.

The Sunshine State once approached 17,000 COVID-19 patients hospitalized at one point over the summer. Now, there are fewer than 2,300, according to the Florida Hospital Association.

“We saw a study from the University of Florida that said approximately 80 percent of the population has some type of antibodies now well that’s getting close to herd immunity so that’s exactly where we wanted to get,” Seminole County Emergency Manager Alan Harris told Fox35 earlier this week.

On Thursday, DeSantis and other top state officials filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden, NASA, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, and several within the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Defense over the mandate on federal workers and contractors that was announced by the president last month.

The lawsuit argues that NASA and other agencies “frequently [contract] with Florida, has current contractual relationships with Florida, and is and will continue to seek to impose the Biden administration’s unlawful requirements to Florida.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/florida-now-has-one-of-the-lowest-covid-19-rates-in-the-us-governor_4074004.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

BRACKETTVILLE, Texas—Days after a militia made its presence known in a rural Texas town, the county sheriff said he received a call from a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) official who threatened to pull all its resources from the county.

Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe said that during the call, the official said they “didn’t know who these people were” who were wanting to come help on the border.

“He basically said, ‘I’ll pull all my resources out,’” Coe said.

Coe said he understood the call to mean that all state troopers assigned to the county would be relocated, and other resources including jail space could be made unavailable to Kinney County if militia personnel were operating in the county, even on private ranches.

“I said, ‘They’re not working for me. They’re not deputized. They’re just here on their own accord. And they have that right to be here,’” Coe told The Epoch Times.

Sam Hall, leader of the militia Patriots for America, said the group planned to operate as a deterrent in areas of high traffic.

“As a militia, we can’t detain or arrest people. We can disrupt and frustrate until the county or DPS can get there,” Hall told The Epoch Times.

Border Patrol agents recorded almost 4,000 illegal aliens who evaded capture in the Del Rio Sector in the seven days from Oct. 18, according to provisional Customs and Border Protection numbers provided to The Epoch Times. Most have to pass through Kinney County to get from the border cities of Del Rio and Eagle Pass to San Antonio.

“What we’ve seen is an invasion of this county,” Hall said during a county commissioner’s meeting on Oct. 18. “What we’ve seen is residents that are scared to death right now, and they don’t feel like they have support from the state.”

Coe said he had spoken to Hall and requested to know where they’d be operating, for safety purposes. The sheriff said he understood the concerns DPS might have of a “friendly fire” incident if they don’t know where people are working.

DPS has had a significant impact in Kinney County since the governor’s Operation Lone Star border enforcement effort began in March, especially with the extra state troopers on the roads arresting human smugglers and on the ranches apprehending illegal aliens for trespassing.

DPS didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Possible Kidnapping Charge

It’s not the first time DPS has threatened to pull back.

Rancher Cole Hill figured he was being proactive when he invited four men onto his ranch to help guard the property against trespassers one night in September. He was fed up with the constant illegal alien traffic, damage to his property, and slow (or no) response from overwhelmed law enforcement agencies.

The men ended up detaining a group of seven illegal alien men for DPS to subsequently pick up and charge with trespassing.

The next day, Hill told The Epoch Times, he received a phone call from DPS.

“Almost verbatim it was, ‘Look, you can’t do that. That’s not even legal what you guys did. That’s technically kidnapping. You cannot do anything to impede the travel of any other human being. And if you do so, if you try to detain somebody against their will, that is kidnapping, and you can be charged with kidnap for that,’” he said.

Hill said the DPS officer told him that they will no longer come to his ranch to pick up detained illegal aliens because it would reflect badly on the agency to transport illegal aliens that had been “technically kidnapped.”

Hill’s ranch sits about 35 miles from the U.S.–Mexico border on a main thoroughfare for illegal immigrants who have evaded Border Patrol and are traversing his land on foot to skirt a highway checkpoint. The usual plan is to then be picked up by a smuggler who will drive them to a big city, often San Antonio.

Hill said he’s dealt with illegal aliens traversing his land for years, but only about 25 people a year, on average;  sometimes months would go by with no activity.

Until January.

Since then, he’s had men in full camouflage clothing on his front porch; a group surrounding his house, banging on the walls and peering in the windows; his ranch worker house broken into; and his truck ignition destroyed during a theft attempt.

The damage to his property is also increasing. In the past few months, he’s had his perimeter fence cut seven times, most of the time from top to bottom, and in three cases, an entire section was pulled out.

“Sure, there’s probably some good apples in there as well. But I don’t think the good apples are 35 miles off the river trying to evade every law enforcement they can as aggressively as they are,” Hill said.

He said he’s lost count of the number of confrontations he’s had with groups of five or six men while working alone on his ranch. The idea of having a group of men out on security one night seemed appealing.

“All they were doing was giving me a better night’s sleep,” he said.

He was shocked to get the call from DPS.

Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith said ranchers have been detaining illegal aliens for years for Border Patrol and the sheriff’s office to pick up.

“No one’s ever brought this issue up until now with DPS,” Smith told The Epoch Times.

“Any citizen can arrest someone, or detain them, for breach of peace or a felony committed in their presence. And trespassing has been found to be a breach of peace before.”

Smith said that most of the time when a group of illegal aliens is walking through a ranch, one of them is the guide, or coyote, which constitutes a felony.

“So one of those guys is committing a felony. Can you detain all 10 of them until you find out who that one is? How do you know which one the guide is unless you detain them?” he said.

DPS didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment by The Epoch Times about this incident and about whether the agency has warned other ranchers in Texas that they could be charged with kidnapping.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/border-sheriff-says-state-threatened-to-pull-resources-if-he-didnt-stop-militia_4072144.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

“General Garland, you have weaponized the FBI and the Department of Justice. Your U.S. attorneys are now collecting and cataloging all the ways that they might prosecute parents … because they want to be involved in their children’s education.”

That’s how Sen. Josh Hawley challenged Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday as Garland testified before a Senate committee regarding the Justice Department’s interest in parents protesting against school boards.

“It’s wrong,” Hawley said. “It is unprecedented, to my knowledge, in the history of this country, and I call on you to resign.”

There may be headaches around the country today for the people who repeatedly facepalmed during Garland’s testimony.

Hawley zeroed in on Garland in front of a large photograph of police arresting Scott Smith, the angry father whose daughter was sexually assaulted in a school restroom in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Former CNN Cameraman Exposed as Alleged Congressional Hitman – ‘I’m Coming for Him’

The Republican senator grilled Garland on a letter from the U.S. attorney for Montana that he said called for the prosecution of parents speaking out against school boards.

The letter followed an Oct. 4 memo from Garland calling upon federal law enforcement officials to develop plans to respond to “threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” That memo had come days after the National School Boards Association sent a letter to President Joe Biden comparing school board protesters to domestic terrorists.

“Now, you testified last week before the House that you didn’t know anything about [the Smith] case,” Hawley said.

“I find that extraordinary because the [NSBA] letter that you put so much weight on — the letter that’s now been retracted — it cites this case. … There’s a news article cited in the letter. It’s discussed in the letter, but you testified you just couldn’t remember it.”

Do you think Garland should resign?

Hawley had Garland backed into a corner. Either he hadn’t done his due diligence before signing off on the Oct. 4 memo, or he had lied to Congress about being unaware of the Loudoun County incident.

“Maybe this will refresh your memory,” Hawley continued. “Do you think people like Scott Smith — do you think parents who show up to complain about their children being assaulted ought to be treated like this man right here?” Hawley asked, pointing to the picture of Smith being pinned to the floor by police.

Garland countered by saying that parents who show up at school board meetings are protected by the First Amendment.

“Do you think that they ought to be prosecuted in the different ways that your U.S. attorneys are identifying?” Hawley shot back.

Garland answered, “If what they’re doing is complaining about what the school board is doing — policies, curriculum, anything else that they want to — as long as they’re not committing threats of violence, then they should not be prosecuted, and they can’t be.”

Sen. Hawley Calls for Resignation of Biden’s Secretary of State and Defense

But Hawley said some of his Democratic colleagues at the hearing had repeatedly compared parents protesting at school board meetings to “criminal rioters,” a charge Garland denied.

“Oh, really?” Hawley replied, picking up a piece of paper and apparently reading a quote from it. “‘These people are just like the folks who came here on Jan. 6 and [were involved in] the riot at the Capitol’?”

Garland, perhaps suddenly recalling comments by Democrats, replied, “I don’t think that they were referring to the picture that you’re showing there”

“Well, I certainly would hope not. They were referring to parents who go to school board meetings. Mr. Smith is a parent who went to a school board meeting.

“I’ll leave it at this. General Garland, you have weaponized the FBI and the Department of Justice. Your U.S. attorneys are now collecting and cataloging all the ways that they might prosecute parents like Mr. Smith because they want to be involved in their children’s education and they want to have a say in their elected officials.

“It’s wrong. It is unprecedented, to my knowledge, in the history of this country, and I call on you to resign.”

Despite challenges from Hawley and other Republicans, Garland said Wednesday that he will continue to mobilize federal officials against threats to school boards, according to U.S. News & World Report.

“True threats of violence are not protected by the First Amendment. Those are the things we are worried about here. Those are the only things we are worried about here,” Garland said.

“We are not investigating peaceful protests or parent involvement in school board meetings. There is no precedent for doing that and we would never do that. We are only concerned about violence and threats of violence against school administrators, teachers, staff.”

Of course, violence is increasingly becoming whatever leftists say it is (as in the “silence is violence” line from Black Lives Matter).

Hawley is right — Garland should resign.

And here’s a suggestion: Think about sending the video of Hawley grilling Garland to your representative or senator as a primer on what many of us expect of those representing us in Congress.

Thank you, Sen. Hawley.

RACINE, Wis. – Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling unveiled on Thursday, Oct. 28 the results of an extensive investigation regarding possible election law violations throughout Racine County and Wisconsin. 

“Election statute was in fact not just broken, but shattered by members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission,” said Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling. 

Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling says his office received a complaint from a relative of a nursing home resident who died in October who was suffering severe cognitive difficulties – and yet still voted via absentee ballot in the 2020 election.

The person lived at the Ridgewood Care Facility.

Investigator Sgt. Michael Luell investigated the issue and found that the Ridgewood Care Facility had an unusual surge in voting activity in 2020 – with more than 40 people voting, when normally only roughly ten people did.

Luell then contacted the families and asked if they had any cognitive difficulties. Seven people said they didn’t have the cognitive ability to vote.

This is a developing story.

https://www.fox6now.com/news/wisconsin-election-law-violations-racine-county-sheriff-reveals-findings

“Operation Lone Star,” ordered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, has resulted in 7,744 migrants arrested on criminal charges.

The announcement came from the Texas Military Department (TMD) and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). The figures are as of Oct. 14 and include 1,300 arrests for criminal trespassing and 6,339 arrests for felony charges.

In addition, there were 73,031 migrant apprehensions and referrals and 822 vehicle pursuits.

Abbott earlier this year ordered the National Guard to help local law enforcement with arresting migrants who break state laws amid the border crisis.

“We’re not doing catch and release; we’re doing catch and jail,” Lt. Chris Olivarez of the DPS said in a Fox News interview posted on Twitter by Abbott in September.

In a Tuesday tweet that included a Fox News clip of Texas law enforcement officials arresting migrants hiding in rail cars, Abbott said immigrants who commit crimes, “will be put behind bars not sent to Border Patrol for catch & release. TxDPS, along with the Texas National Guard, have made thousands of arrests this year through #OperationLoneStar.”

Brig. Gen. Monie Ulis, Operation Lone Star commander, said in a statement announcing the arrest figures last week, “The Texas National Guard is surging personnel, equipment, and capabilities to the Texas and Mexico border region in support of Operation Lone Star. As we build our force, we remain ready to detect, block, and apprehend individuals and groups conducting illegal activity.”

The statement noted that in “addition to manpower, TMD also has hundreds of items of tactical equipment assigned to help securing the border, stretching from Del Rio to Brownsville, as well as air assets. Additional pieces of tactical equipment will be brought to the border in the next few weeks to help with the mission.”

Officials also pointed out one recent arrest, in Cameron County by the DPS Strike Team, after a traffic stop where the driver fled on foot. He was later found to be hiding in a garage.

It turned out the man was a deported felon who had 32 packages of cocaine and was transporting four migrants in the vehicle.

“We will remain at the border and focus on the core mission of OLS (Operation Lone Star) as long as is needed,” said DPS Director Steven McCraw. “We are still making numerous arrests and seizing large quantities of drugs and guns, showing our presence there is necessary.”

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/texas-migrants-arrests-abbott/2021/10/28/id/1042356/

President Joe Biden’s top homeland security official on Wednesday ordered immigration officers not to arrest illegal immigrants at a number of places, including food banks and shelters.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas detailed the safe spaces for illegal aliens in a memorandum to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

“Sensitive locations” where officers were barred from detaining people in the country illegally previously constituted of a small number of settings, including churches, hospitals, and schools.

The locations are now being referred to as “protected areas.” Mayorkas added social services establishments like homeless shelters, anywhere disaster or emergency relief is being provided, and places where children gather, including playgrounds, childcare centers, and school bus stops.

“When we conduct an enforcement action—whether it is an arrest, search, service of a subpoena, or other action—we need to consider many factors, including the location in which we are conducting the action and its impact on other people and broader societal interests. For example, if we take an action at an emergency shelter, it is possible that noncitizens, including children, will be hesitant to visit the shelter and receive needed food and water, urgent medical attention, or other humanitarian care,” Mayorkas told officers.

To the extent possible, he added, officers should avoid acting at or near a protected location.

“This principle is fundamental. We can accomplish our enforcement mission without denying or limiting individuals’ access to needed medical care, children access to their schools, the displaced access to food and shelter, people of faith access to their places of worship, and more. Adherence to this principle is one bedrock of our stature as public servants,” he wrote.

Since the president took office in late January, the United States has seen an unprecedented wave of illegal immigration. At the same time, deportations have dropped to record lows.

The widening of protected spaces follows Mayorkas limiting which illegal immigrants officers should pursue and narrowing or outright blocking enforcement actions in or near courthouses and at businesses.

Critics say the actions have curtailed the job of ICE officers.

“The agency still exists, but it has been stripped of all of its functions with regard to the enforcement of immigration laws. Nearly all illegal aliens are already off-limits to enforcement due to a Sep. 30 memo, and as a result of Mayorkas’ ‘expanded and non-exhaustive list of protected areas,’ where ICE agents are permitted to do their work, the secretary has essentially nullified an entire body of constitutionally enacted laws,” Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in a statement.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/biden-administration-expands-list-of-sensitive-places-where-immigration-officers-cannot-make-arrests_4072550.html?utm_source=News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-10-28-1&mktids=60eef43816ce50925f73a5861bd7e169&est=mc%2BzMJZtGk4H%2FtnfPfhXF2QJcrZ47KwHKsOGdao6kPxI5AlrIYpBwjZrF05kRoWtyQ%3D%3D

In a controversial passage in Plato’s “Republic,” Socrates introduced the idea of the “noble lie” (“gennaios pseudos”).

A majestic fiction, he says, could sometimes serve society by persuading uninformed citizens of something good for them.

Ever since, many prevaricators have used the excuse that they lied for the common good.

Take Dr. Anthony Fauci, our point man on the COVID-19 epidemic.

Fauci misled the country about mask-wearing during the pandemic by claiming they were of little use. But he argued that he lied so the public would not make a run on masks, deplete the supply, and thus rob medical professionals of protective equipment.

Fauci also told “noble” lies about the likely percentage of the public needing to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. He kept raising the bar—from 60 percent to 70 percent to 75 percent to 80 percent, to 85 percent.

Apparently, Fauci feared a lower figure, even if accurate, might lull people into complacency about getting inoculated.

Fauci also lied about his own role in routing U.S. aid money to subsidize gain-of-function viral research at the Wuhan virology lab—the likely birthplace of COVID-19.

Either Fauci was hiding his own culpability, or he believed the American people might not be able to fully accept that some of their own health officials were promoting the sort of research that was partially responsible for more than 700,000 American deaths.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has serially lied about the number of undocumented immigrants who have crossed into the United States. He falsely claimed mounted agents were whipping migrants. He fibbed about the purported lack of federal data of apprehensions, detentions, and deportations. His assertion that the border is secure was a joke.

Apparently, Mayorkas believes the public would go ballistic or his own administration would be roundly despised, if he told the bitter truth about the border: by intent, the Biden administration has apparently deliberately left it wide open.

And it will likely allow 2 million undocumented immigrants into the country in the current fiscal year.

Lots of other unelected federal officials lied over the past five years by claiming or implying that harming the Trump administration was in the public interest.

Former FBI directors Andrew McCabe and James Comey likely misled the nation. McCabe admittedly lied that he did not leak FBI information to the media.

James Comey lied under oath on multiple occasions in congressional cross-examinations and claimed he did not know or could not remember basic facts about his own role in promoting the Russian collusion hoax.

Apparently, Comey and McCabe believed that by being less than truthful, they might better emasculate Donald Trump. And that result would be beneficial to America.

Our former intelligence leaders may have been the most brazen liars. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress about the NSA surveillance program, though he denied it.

When caught in the untruth, Clapper reverted to the noble lie that he gave the least untruthful answer, apparently on the pretense that he did not wish to damage the reputation of an important intelligence agency.

Ditto John Brennan, the former head of the CIA. On two occasions he lied under oath about the agency’s monitoring of Senate staffers’ computers and the deaths of civilians caused by U.S. drone assassination missions along the Afghanistan border.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley lied for days about the details of an accidental drone strike that killed innocent women and children in Afghanistan.

Either Milley is now lying when he says he warned Joe Biden about the disasters to come in Afghanistan or Biden is lying when he denies hearing any such advice.

Many of the details of Milley’s conversations with authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa as reported in their recent muckraking book were abjectly denied by Milley.

The list of such lies could be vastly expanded.

IRS functionary Lois Lerner never told the whole untruth about weaponizing the IRS.

Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch spun an implausible yarn that she accidentally bumped into Bill Clinton on a tarmac in Phoenix and never discussed the then-current FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton.

Special counsel Robert Mueller told a whopper under oath, claiming to know almost nothing about the Steele dossier and the misadventures of Fusion GPS. Both were the two catalysts that prompted his entire investigation of “collusion” in the first place.

In some of these cases, when caught and exposed, the liars will hedge by claiming temporary amnesia.

But sometimes they admit they lied but suggest they did so for higher purposes like national security.

In truth, in most cases there was nothing noble at all in their lying. They simply spread untruths to protect their own endangered careers by masking their own wrongdoing or fobbing it onto others.

In other words, “noble lies” are rarely spun for anyone’s interests other than those of the liars themselves.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-ignoble-lie_4073859.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

LOS ANGELES—Three women were charged with grand theft and embezzlement in connection with a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands in public funds intended to aid the homeless.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the charges Oct. 21 for Latoi Pledger, 45, Sareena Stevenson, 44, and Valencia Stevenson, 40, with 56 felonies, including grand theft and embezzlement, as well as a special allegation of aggravated white-collar crime with a loss of over $100,000.

Two of the women worked for People Assisting the Homeless (PATH), a Los Angeles-based organization that received a contract from the LA Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) in 2016 to help house homeless Angelenos.

The criminal complaint alleged that from January to September of 2017, the plaintiffs worked together to steal hundreds of thousands from PATH by submitting false referrals and assistance requests for people who were not homeless.

The women allegedly manipulated the identities “through forged and falsified documents, such as leases and income documents” of their friends, family members, and associates to appear eligible for PATH assistance, according to a press release by Bonta.

“By helping families secure a roof over their heads, tax-payer funded programs like PATH provide Californians in need with an invaluable resource,” Bonta said in a statement. “When these programs are taken advantage of or stolen from, the individuals and families who depend on them are the most harmed. We are grateful to the Los Angeles Police Department for their investigation and continued partnership in this matter.”

A PATH spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the organization is aware of and participating in the ongoing legal proceedings.

“At the time, PATH was a victim of a larger scheme that diverted funding from a LAHSA Program. Once PATH became aware of these occurrences, an internal investigation was conducted. All findings were given to the Los Angeles Police Department and appropriate steps were taken to reimburse funds,” a PATH statement said (pdf). “As an organization dedicated to ending homelessness for individuals, families, and communities, we are appalled that people would take away valuable resources from vulnerable, unhoused people.”

Since then, the statement said, PATH has worked to enhance its audit procedures and its system of checks and balances for spending.

The defendants have been arraigned in Los Angeles County Superior Court. All three women are being held on just over $1 million bail.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/three-women-charged-with-stealing-funds-from-homeless-organization_4072685.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

This week, the Supreme Court will consider whether it will hear a request from 13 states to be allowed to defend in court a rule designed to screen out would-be immigrants unable to support themselves, a regulation that the Biden administration refuses to defend.

The public charge rule, which has been heavily litigated in federal courts, requires applicants hoping to immigrate to the United States to be able to make their own way financially.

The case is Arizona v. City and County of San Francisco, court file 20-1775. The petitioners are the states of Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia.

Among the respondents are the states of California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. San Francisco and Santa Clara, California, are also respondents, along with the federal government.

The Supreme Court justices are scheduled to consider the 13 states’ petition for certiorari, or review, on Oct. 29, after failing to come to a decision three times previously at their judicial conferences in recent weeks.

Over particularly robust left-wing opposition, the Trump administration breathed new life into the rule, which had fallen into disuse. Critics say the pro-taxpayer rule is xenophobic and discriminates against poor aliens.

The public-charge principle, the idea that immigrants should have to prove they can survive without becoming wards of the government, has been part of the American experience for centuries.

Public-charge provisions have been part of U.S. immigration law since at least 1882. One of the earliest known public-charge laws in colonial Massachusetts was enacted in 1645. By the end of the 1600s, many American colonies screened would-be immigrants and required bonds for those believed likely to become public charges.

But the Biden administration, in line with Democrats’ political base, opposes the rule and rescinded it in March.

At the time, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, spoke in favor of the rule.

“All we are trying to do is uphold common sense immigration rules that ensure that folks that come to this country can truly be self-sufficient,” Brnovich told The Hill newspaper.

“This policy ensures our government welfare programs won’t be overrun.”

The Supreme Court has dealt with the issue repeatedly in recent years.

The high court stayed a lower court’s injunction against the rule in January 2020, allowing it to be enforced pending disposition of the government’s appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

Things changed after President Joe Biden took office. On Feb. 2, he issued Executive Order 14012, which directed government officials to review the rule. Days later, the Biden administration announced it would no longer defend the public charge rule.

On Feb. 22, the Supreme Court had agreed to hear the federal government’s appeal of a lower court decision against the rule in the case of U.S. Department of Homeland Security v. New York, court file 20-449, which began when Trump was president.

The Biden administration dropped the appeal that came from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Supreme Court ordered the case dismissed on March 9 after the parties to the legal proceeding signed a joint stipulation to dismiss.

On the same day, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit lifted its stay of a lower court’s decision vacating the public charge rule nationwide, a move that allowed the district court’s invalidation of the rule to take effect.

And the respondents fighting the rule acted.

“Without any prior warning, the existing parties sprung an unprecedented, coordinated, and multi-court gambit,” the petition states.

“Through it, they attempted to execute simultaneous, strategic surrenders in all pending appeals involving the Rule. That included the Second Circuit appeal that this Court had already agreed to hear, as well as the pending petitions for writs of certiorari in this case and the Seventh Circuit case.”

The Republican state attorneys general in the current litigation wish to continue defending the rule.

“The Petitioning States have significant protectable interests in the continuing validity of the Rule and that interest was no longer being represented at all,” the petition states.

It’s estimated that the rule “would save all of the states cumulatively $1.01 billion annually, and the Petitioning States here would save a share of that amount.”

Acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher didn’t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-may-consider-reviving-immigrant-self-sufficiency-rule_4072303.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

A Texas House committee is investigating school library books in the wake of a new law that bans the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in public schools.

State Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican who chairs the House Committee on General Investigating, wrote on Oct. 25 to the Texas Education Agency and a group of unnamed superintendents, notifying them of the inquiry.

In the letter (pdf), Krause said a number of school districts across the state have recently removed books from libraries and classrooms after receiving objections from students, parents, and taxpayers. The letter cites five incidents as examples, which mostly involved concerned parents who complained that certain books are sexually explicit or teach CRT.

“In accordance with the Committee’s jurisdiction and my authority as Chairman, I am initiating an inquiry into Texas school district content,” he said.

Attached to the letter is a 16-page list (pdf) containing more than 840 books, published between 2021 and as early as 1969. It includes titles that are popular among social and racial justice activists, such as “Stamped from the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” and “How to Be An Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander, and books about the Black Lives Matter movement.

Also on the list are books focused on transgender, gender identity, homosexuality, adolescent sexuality, pregnancy and abortion, including those discussing the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade. It also includes “V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore, likely because of the graphic novel’s portrayal of homosexual characters.

Specifically, Krause asked school districts to report on how many copies of each listed book they possess, and how much money was spent on those books.

Krause further asked that school districts identify any other books that cover topics including “human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or HIV or AIDS, sexually explicit images, graphic presentations of sexual behavior that is in violation of the law,” or contain material that might violate the anti-CRT law by conveying that students are inherently racist or sexist or should feel guilt because of their sex or race.

The school districts will have until Nov. 12 to respond to those questions, according to the letter.

The initiative faced almost immediate opposition from Texas’s teachers’ unions. In an Oct. 26 statement, Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina said Krause’s letter “smacks of a witch hunt.”

“This is an obvious attack on diversity and an attempt to score political points at the expense of our children’s education,” Molina said.

Molina was joined by Zeph Capo the president of Texas American Federation of Teachers, who called the move “akin to the Red Scare” and a waste of taxpayer’s dollars.

It is unclear what Krause is planning to do once the school districts provide him with the information. The Epoch Times has reach out to his office for comment and will update this article accordingly.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-house-republican-investigates-school-library-books-about-race-sex_4072228.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

It’s open enrollment season for Medicare. Local TV stations and cable networks are flooded with ads for various insurance supplements. They promise “free” dental care, free transportation to doctors, free drugs, free dentures, and lots of other free stuff. Paid spokespersons speak of “benefits” and “entitlements.” They say subscribers could receive as much as $100 a month back into their Social Security checks. Even the phone number to call to sign up is “absolutely free.” Read the small print and you’ll find that some of the plans vary by region, some by ZIP code. Sometimes there’s a nominal cost, so it’s not actually “free.” Call a “licensed” insurance agent for more details. Licensed by whom? Probably the companies selling the plans.

Some of the ads pay aging celebrities like quarterback Joe Namath, basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and comedian Jimmie Walker to pitch their products.

Notice the use of certain words and how they also are used by politicians to dupe people into believing they are not getting what they “deserve” because “the rich”—those predatory, stingy, and greedy people—are not paying their “fair share” in taxes.

Selective language has long been used by snake oil salesmen and politicians to flim-flam the public. That is why propaganda messages from dictators are effective. President Biden’s falling approval numbers suggest a dwindling number of people believe his claim that taxing billionaires will pay for the trillions he wants to spend. Even the word “infrastructure” is manipulative because only a small percentage of the proposed spending is targeted to repair roads, bridges, and airports. The rest will be spent on other things unrelated to infrastructure and drive us deeper into debt, along with a separate social spending bill to expand “entitlements” that will addict more people to government.

People not only have to read between the lines to find the truth, but also explore different sources of information. If you read only, say, The Washington Post and The New York Times and watch CNN and MSNBC, you will likely believe what comes from their worldview—government is good and here to help you, at least when Democrats are in control. If you read other publications, say, The Washington Times and The Wall Street Journal, watch Fox News and listen to conservative talk radio, you will learn things you didn’t know by consuming only left-of-center media. The media also have the power to ignore certain subjects that would give consumers a more balanced information diet.

The problem is that too many people read and tune into only those sources that reinforce what they already believe. That, too, is a type of propaganda.

In a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal, Daniel C. Oliverio of Buffalo, N.Y., deconstructs the “fair share” lingo with his personal story: “As a self-employed professional in a law partnership, I am one of those high-wage earners. I pay over 45 percent of my income in taxes to New York and the U.S. Treasury. That’s not counting real-estate tax, both sides of Social Security and Medicare taxes, sales tax and lost deductions. I have no trust fund and can’t rely on interest and dividends alone.” Here’s the key part which flies in the face of the envy and entitlement crowd: “I have worked and saved my whole life … I have paid my bills and aggressively funded a retirement. To hear ad nauseam the lie that I am getting away with something at tax time … is frustrating. Now President Biden wants even more on the false premise that people like me aren’t paying enough. Half isn’t enough?”

Once we celebrated and encouraged success. Now we subsidize mediocrity and failure. We are then surprised we are getting more of the latter and less of the former. Do your homework. Don’t be manipulated by the language used by politicians and TV ads promising free stuff.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/free-stuff-isnt-free_4073815.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Rep. Barbara Lee attended the unveiling of a bust of Huey P. Newton

A prominent Democrat over the weekend celebrated Black Panther cofounder and alleged murderer Huey P. Newton.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.) on Sunday attended the unveiling of a bust of Newton, who killed a police officer and allegedly murdered a girl who called him a nickname. The Oakland ceremony marked the 55th anniversary of Newton forming the Black Panther Party. The East Bay Times published photos of Lee with Oakland’s mayor at the event.

Lee, who chairs a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, has called for the removal of statues of other problematic historical figures. She cosponsored legislation to tear down statues of members of the Confederate Army.

Lee was affiliated with the Black Panther Party as a community organizer in Oakland. She convened a congressional forum in May with Newton’s cofounder, Bobby Seale, to discuss the FBI’s initiative in the 1960s and 1970s to infiltrate the black nationalist movement.

Newton’s violence against women would seemingly make him a pariah in today’s Democratic Party, though he remains a hero to many on the Left. He was accused of murdering a 17-year-old girl, Kathleen Smith, after she allegedly called him by his nickname, “Baby.” One former Black Panther, Ericka Huggins, has claimed she was repeatedly raped by Newton, and that he once threatened to “knock your teeth down your throat” after she questioned his handling of finances from a Black Panther-affiliated school.

Huggins attended the forum convened by Lee earlier this year, though Lee did not ask about the allegations against Newton. Huggins herself was charged in 1970 with conspiring to murder a fellow Black Panther believed to be cooperating with police. While Huggins was not convicted, audio records showed that she was involved in the interrogation and torture of the victim before he was murdered.

Lee has touted her support for the Violence Against Women Act, bragging earlier this year that she introduced a bill on the issue when she served in the California state legislature.

Newton, who founded the Black Panthers in 1966, was convicted in 1968 of voluntary manslaughter in the killing of Oakland police officer John Frey. Newton killed Frey during a traffic stop in 1967. He claimed at trial that Frey hurled racial epithets at him. His conviction was overturned in 1970 because of a jury instruction error. Newton was also an ally of Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones, who guided hundreds of followers in a mass suicide in Guyana in 1978.

Newton died in 1989 after he was shot by a member of the Black Guerrilla Family gang. His bust was erected two blocks from the site where he was shot, according to reports.

Lee’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/top-california-democrat-celebrates-black-panther-accused-of-murder/

Over half of Americans believe media censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story constitutes election interference, a new survey finds.

The survey from the Media Research Center found 49 percent of respondents said it was inappropriate for social media sites to suppress an October 2020 New York Post report that showed Hunter promised Ukrainian business partners access to his father. Twitter suspended the Post‘s account following publication and blocked users from sharing the link. Fifty-two percent of respondents said the blackout constituted election interference.

Big tech has come under fire over the past year for censoring posts on hot-button issues. Facebook has regularly removed or suppressed content that suggests COVID-19 escaped from a Chinese lab. The platform also removed posts from a Gold Star mother critical of Biden’s handling of the death of her son. Twitter this month suspended the account of Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) after he referred to a transgender Biden official as a man.

The Media Research Center survey found that the ban on the Hunter Biden story also shaped voters’ perceptions of Joe Biden. Almost 30 percent of respondents said they would have been less likely to vote for Biden if they had been aware of evidence Biden lied about “knowledge of his son Hunter’s overseas business dealings.”

When the story first broke, media outlets labeled it Russian disinformation, even though there was no evidence that Russian agents were behind the story or that the emails had been falsified. The survey found that line has stuck with many voters, with 30 percent still saying the story was Russian disinformation.

Dan Gainor, a vice president at the Media Research Center, said the survey showed “people are finally catching on to how much we’re getting manipulated by big tech.” He framed the survey results as a reflection of widespread concerns about self-rule, asking the Washington Free Beacon, “How can democratically elected countries survive if big tech decides it wants to pick who wins the election?”

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/poll-majority-of-americans-say-big-tech-censorship-of-hunter-laptop-story-interfered-with-election/

Democratic candidates in Virginia are forcibly stopping people from filming their closing message to voters ahead of November elections.

Staffers for Democratic congresswoman Elaine Luria (Va.) and other Democratic candidates say nobody is allowed to film their public campaign speeches. At one campaign event Luria held with Alex Askew (D.), a state lawmaker running for reelection, a political tracker had his camera blocked and was told by a staffer that “we don’t want anyone to be filming,” according to a video obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The man filming the September event, held in a public parking lot in Virginia Beach, was asked to leave the campaign rally.

At a campaign rally this past weekend Luria held for both Askew and Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Hala Ayala, a political tracker was again blocked from filming the remarks. Video reviewed by the Free Beacon shows several staffers using clipboards to block the attendee’s camera and even physically body checking the man to keep him from getting his camera on the event.

“They are running for public office, and you don’t want them recorded?” the tracker asked. He was told those were the “rules” of the event.

Political trackers in recent years have become a fact of life on the campaign trail for Democratic and Republican candidates alike. Luria, however, who has called transparency critical, has gone to great lengths to block filming not only of campaign events but also of her taxpayer-funded constituent town hall events, according to a July report.

Footage taken at the campaign event last weekend shows several Democratic staffers jostling the cameraman, prompting him to ask them to stop touching him.

Luria’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Ayala and Askew, both on the ballot next Tuesday, also did not respond.

Tracker videos are employed by political groups on both sides of the aisle and have caught candidates in damaging and awkward moments.

In 2015, for example, Republican senator Rand Paul (Ky.) attracted negative attention when one of his staffers disgustingly licked the camera held by a tracker employed by liberal super PAC American Bridge 21st Century. At the top of the ticket this year in Virginia, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe has lost his temper at trackers, even calling one “dangerous” because he wasn’t wearing a mask outdoors.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/dem-candidates-in-virginia-ban-cameras-from-public-campaign-events/

Paul Pelosi owns up to $1 million of Tesla call options

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D., Calif.) husband hit pay dirt on Monday as Tesla’s valuation rose to $1 trillion.

The news comes as Pelosi spearheads legislation that doles out tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to the electric vehicle industry, including Tesla, with provisions to build charging stations for cars and incentivize electric car purchases through tax credits.

The financial dealings of Pelosi’s husband, Paul, came under scrutiny earlier this year when he purchased as much as $1 million of Tesla call options, one of the largest transactions of Tesla shares disclosed by a member of Congress. At the time, Republicans charged that the House speaker was cashing in on her power.

Members of Congress and their spouses are legally allowed to buy and sell stock, as long as it is not based on insider information. Members are required to disclose their transactions to the House Committee on Ethics, as Pelosi did with the Tesla transaction on Jan. 21.

Pelosi is spearheading negotiations with the White House as Democrats look to pass Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan and a reconciliation bill that includes the electric car incentives. Tesla, a pioneer in the electric car industry, is poised to see a significant boost from the legislation, according to industry watchers.

Democrats are proposing nearly $120 billion to fund various clean energy projects, and another $34.5 billion dedicated to zero-emission vehicles. The reconciliation bill also proposes $42 billion in tax credits for purchases of electric vehicles, which Democrats hope will incentivize new car buyers to purchase electric vehicles instead of gas-powered cars. The bill offers up to $12,500 in credits for each car. It also calls for tens of billions of dollars in spending to build charging stations for electric cars across the country.

Tesla’s dramatic rise is likely attributable to several factors beyond the Democrats’ spending proposals. Tesla founder Elon Musk recently announced he is moving the company’s headquarters from California to Texas, which has no state income tax. Tesla’s cars have also gained in popularity without federal incentives.

And while Tesla and other clean energy companies stand to gain with environmentally friendly Democrats in power, the company opposes some aspects of the reconciliation proposal, such as an additional credit for the purchase of electric cars made in unionized factories. Musk has publicly opposed unionization efforts.

Pelosi’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/pelosi-pushes-electric-vehicle-subsidies-as-husbands-tesla-stock-soars/

It’s no secret that Joe Biden is trying to create an open border. Over one million migrants flooded the country this year. Not only is Joe not sending them back, but he isn’t even giving them court dates for their cases.

The results are obvious. Drug cartels and smugglers have free rein. America is struggling with crime and a shattered economy. All so that Biden has a new welfare class he can exploit for votes. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is not staying silent.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy discusses the border crisis, Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, and rising inflation

While the media is silent about the true fallout of the border crisis, Kevin McCarthy is speaking out. He blasted Joe Biden’s obvious policies that are keeping the border open. He said Joe is turning all American cities into border cities.

This is due to the news that Biden is shipping migrants from the border to all corners of the country. He is dumping them into countless American communities.

These are total strangers, non-Americans who broke the law to come here. We know nothing about them, but they are down living in your town, many demanding government handouts.

The results are obvious but will be felt for years to come. Unless our government actually starts enforcing our immigration laws, nothing is going to stop more from coming. How long before our border is entirely eroded, our communities destroyed, and our livelihoods washed down the drain?

Perhaps it’s already too late?

Key Takeaways:

• Kevin McCarthy bashed Joe Biden over his open border policy.
• He claimed Biden is making every city a border city.
• This comes as over one million migrants flooded the country.

Congressional Republicans are pushing proposals to exempt millions of American workers who object to President Joe Biden’s mandatory CCP virus vaccination orders and similar decrees by employers, which are prompting widespread protests and costing many workers their jobs.

Biden has ordered all federal military and civilian employees to be vaccinated, as well as those employed by federal contractors and entities receiving federal support, in connection with the government’s many virus recovery programs.

A new federal regulation is also being prepared that will require all private companies with 100 or more employees to make vaccination a condition of employment. The regulation is to be enforced by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Biden’s mandate and similar mandates by other officials are sparking protests around the country. Multiple cities, including Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and New York, have also ordered employees to get vaccinated. In New York earlier this week, thousands of police, firefighters, and other city employees took to the streets to protest.

Civil liberties groups such as Liberty Counsel report being contacted by thousands of federal military and civilian workers, as well as corporate employees, seeking legal assistance in their efforts to be exempted from the mandates on the basis of medical or religious grounds.

The commercial airline industry has also been hit hard by employee protests, including a recent sick-out that delayed thousands of Southwest Airlines flights. Liberty Counsel is also advising U.S. Freedom Flyers, a group of 35,000 transportation industry employees challenging the mandates.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) on Oct. 27 introduced her “Keeping Our COVID-19 Heroes Employed Act” to protect essential workers from being fired as a result of their objection to being vaccinated.

“Our essential workers are true heroes,” Blackburn said in a statement announcing the proposal. “For over 18 months, essential workers showed up to serve and protect their communities. Businesses across the country are desperate for workers, and we are in the midst of a supply chain crisis.

“There are more than 10.4 million open jobs across the country, and now President Biden wants to fire even more workers. Getting vaccinated is a choice that should be made between a patient and their doctor. No one should be forced by Joe Biden to be fired or get jabbed.”

The Tennessee Republican’s bill defines an essential worker as any that were defined as required by a state, tribe, or U.S. territory as “essential during the response to the COVID–19 pandemic.”

Employees who would be covered by the exemption to the mandate include those working for the federal government, state and local governments, private employers receiving federal contracts, and those receiving federal funds under multiple laws approved by Congress and the president in 2020 and 2021 in response to the pandemic.

Co-sponsors for Blackburn’s proposal include Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

“Well before President Biden’s ill-advised and divisive vaccine mandate, I had been hearing from doctors, nurses, first responders, and others facing the life-altering decision of having to choose between losing their job or being coerced into taking a vaccine,” Johnson said in the statement.

“We are already suffering severe worker shortages throughout our economy, especially in health care. Vaccine mandates will increase these shortages and degrade our health care system.”

On the same day Blackburn introduced her proposal, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) submitted a similar bill in the House, the “Options Over Terminations Act,” which creates a vaccine exemption “for any federal employee or contractor who provides proof of COVID–19 antibodies.”

Newhouse said in a statement announcing his bill that he believes “federal employees who have opted not to receive the vaccine because they have natural immunity developed after recovering from the virus do not deserve to be fired.”

“President Biden’s overreaching mandate has severe ramifications for communities across the country, especially for communities like Central Washington who make up a large part of the federal workforce. Instead of forcing our federal workforce to choose between employment and vaccination, my bill provides them with an option—a permissible, science-based exception from President Biden’s recent Executive Order,” he said.

Asked by The Epoch Times if he thinks Biden should revise his order to allow for such exemptions, Newhouse said, “It would be great if Congress didn’t need to constantly legislate on President Biden’s overreaching actions, but unfortunately, that is not the state we find ourselves in today.”

He said Biden’s order is the model for orders similar to that of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee that resulted in the firing or resignation of more than 1,900 state employees.

“Now, in addition to the hundreds of Washington state emergency personnel who are already out of work, threatening the safety of our communities, we also have hundreds of federal workers in Washington state alone who are facing termination,” Newhouse said.

Medical authorities disagree on whether individuals who have recovered from the virus benefit from also being vaccinated.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said in August that “if you have had COVID-19 before, please still get vaccinated.” But a study in Israel made public in August concluded that natural immunity isn’t significantly strengthened by also being vaccinated.

Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.), a licensed pharmacist since 1987, told NTD during a recent interview that “there’s ample scientific studies that show that natural immunity is absolutely one of the best things you could have—and some studies even show that it’s more effective” than being vaccinated.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) introduced the “Let Me Travel America Act” on Oct. 20 that would bar the Biden administration from requiring vaccine passports certifying the bearer has been vaccinated as a condition for interstate travel.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/hill-gopers-push-vaccine-exemptions-as-mandate-protests-mount_4071497.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Canada should take the lead in processing rare earth minerals as its allies seek to spread their supply chains out in order to avoid over-reliance on exports from authoritarian countries like China, said a panel of experts.

While China holds the lion’s share in providing for the global market of critical minerals and rare earths, it does not share the same environmental and labour standards as the western world, noted experts at a virtual panel discussion hosted by Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) on Oct. 22.

“China has the market on 80 percent of the processing of critical minerals and rare earths, so the whole world is beholden to China. Our supply chains are completely beholden to China,” said Maryscott Greenwood, CEO for the Canadian-American Business Council, in a pre-recorded video for the panel. 

Greenwood said Canada has the expertise to mine in an environmentally responsible way, along with the manpower and infrastructure, to process and export critical minerals essential for the defence sector, electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and smartphones. 

“What if Canada became the world headquarters of processing of these critical minerals and rare earths that you can dig up anywhere but what if they’re all sent to Canada to process?” Greenwood said, noting several provinces such as Alberta and Quebec have shown interest in developing processing facilities.  

The panel discussion also featured experts including Dirk Naumann, the president and CEO of Torngat Metals, Heather Exner-Pirot, a MLI fellow who specializes in natural resources, and Dwayne Menezes, the founder and managing director of Polar Research and Policy Initiative. The moderator was Ken Coates, a Munk Senior Fellow at the MLI.

Critical Minerals’ Expanding Role

Naumann said critical minerals are “critical” for two main reasons, with the first being their economic importance.

“Aluminum, titanium, nickel, and definitely potash, are very important for our country and future expansions,” Naumann said. “Future demand in the markets can be supplied out of Canada and continue the wealth creation.”

The second reason is increased demand as Canada and its allies push for a green energy transition. Critical minerals are widely used in the production of batteries needed to power electric vehicles.

“The forecast for rare earth … for the next 10, 15 years, is all the car companies launch electric vehicles. And naturally, the battery, where we need lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and so on, is they will grow in the same way,” Naumann said.

Exner-Pirot said that the demand for critical minerals is expected to increase by at least five-fold in the coming years due to the transition to low-carbon economies. The supply is further weighed down by global supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People haven’t figured out, or haven’t considered, the extent of the mining that we are going to need to get off of fossil fuels, and of course there are also environmental impacts of mining,” Exner-Pirot said.

“These kinds of factors have not been considered at a societal level to accept what is going to need to be the investment to get off of fossil fuels.”

Global demand for critical metals used for battery production will have grown exponentially by 2028, according to a 2020 report (pdf) from the Mining Association of Canada. The report estimates the demand for nickel to increase by over 1,200 percent, cobalt by roughly 260 percent, lithium by 575 percent, and graphite by 530 percent.

Security Concerns

Security concerns stemming from over-dependence on exports from China is another key reason for Canada to direct more attention to the processing of critical minerals, panelists said.

In response to The Epoch Times’ request for comment, Exner-Pirot said that it made sense from a security perspective to decrease dependence on China by developing raw materials and processing capacity in Canada and North America, even if it’s more expensive. 

While energy security in North America has focused on oil and gas independence in the past, as countries shift towards renewable energy sources, security around rare-earth metals “will become much more important,” said Exner-Pirot said in an email.

“From a policy perspective, I think this means being more friendly to the domestic mining sector in terms of incentives and approvals, as well as developing social license for a significant ramp-up in mining activity,” she added.

Menezes highlighted the importance for Canada to collaborate and integrate with allied countries in developing a framework for securing critical mineral supplies.

“When we think about global supply chains the key emphasis must be on how do we integrate different capabilities among allied countries,” Menezes said. 

“Not every stage and supply chain needs to be fulfilled domestically, it may happen to have capability in America that Canada can rely on, and vice versa,” he added.

Menezes said he welcomed further collaboration between the Five Eyes—the intelligence alliance between Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—which needs to “pull together their resources, resource intelligence, technical capabilities [and] project finance.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/canada-should-take-the-lead-in-global-critical-minerals-development-panel_4071100.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Denouncing efforts by the National School Boards Association to demonize parents who demand a say in the education of their children, the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday announced they will investigate potential collusion between the Biden administration and the National School Boards Association.

A rising tide of parental anger has been building across America as schools boards have jammed mask mandates, critical race theory, transgender activism and assorted other far-left extremist indoctrination tactics down the throats of children.

In response to defiant parents refusing to be pushed around any longer, Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this month issued a memo saying that the Justice Department will now intervene on the side of school boards against parents.

#BREAKING: Judiciary Republicans launch new investigation into the National School Boards Association. pic.twitter.com/O4xGUmrNFQ

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) October 27, 2021

No Woke Agenda in Court: Rittenhouse Judge Says Rioters Can’t Be Called ‘Victims,’ Approves This List Instead

Garland’s memo implied that parents who speak up against White House and teachers union-backed policies are a threat to society.

Garland’s policy came in response to a demand from the National School Boards Association that parents learn their place.

“As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” the group wrote in a letter.

The school boards association has since issued an apology for the reference to domestic terrorism, but not the general tenor of its attack on parents.

Is the Biden White House anti-parent?

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee sent a scathing letter to the National School Boards Association on Wednesday announcing the launch of their investigation into the organization’s war on parents in partnership with the White House.

“We are investigating the troubling attempts by the Department of Justice and the White House to use the heavy hand of federal law enforcement to target concerned parents at local school board meetings and chill their protected First Amendment activity,” the letter thundered.

Noting that the group’s letter denouncing parents produced the knee-jerk reaction of Garland’s memo, the letter added that Garland told the House panel that the letter’s wild claims were the basis of his anti-parent memo.

Merrick Garland tells @ChuckGrassley he will not dissolve school board task force even though the National School Boards Association apologized for the “domestic terrorism” letter that seemingly prompted Garland to create the task force

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) October 27, 2021

‘WJ Live’: After Student Walk-Out, Loudoun County Parents Demand School Board Resignation

“The Biden Administration seemingly relied upon the NSBA letter — which it coordinated in advance with the NSBA — as justification to unleash the full weight of the federal law enforcement apparatus upon America’s parents,” the letter read.

“Parents have an undisputed right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, including expressing concerns about the inclusion of controversial curricula in their child’s education,” the House Republicans wrote, noting that the school boards association appears not to recognize that.

“Unsurprisingly, the NSBA’s September 29 letter to President Biden never once mentioned ‘parents’ or parents’ role in their children’s education — although its subsequent apology memorandum purported to value the ‘voices of parents.’ Concerned parents are absolutely not domestic terrorists and, to the extent actual threats exist, local law enforcement — and not the FBI — are the appropriate authorities to address those situations,” the letter read.

“Parents cannot tolerate this collusion between the NSBA and the Biden Administration to construct a justification for invoking federal law enforcement to intimidate and silence parents using their Constitutional rights to advocate for their child’s future.”

The letter called for a release of all the documents from the group and the Biden administration that were germane to its demand that parents be restrained from publicly advocating for their children.

The letter also asked whether, in light of its new-found claim that it values parents, “the NSBA will urge Attorney General Garland to withdraw or rescind his October 4 memorandum.”

The letter was signed by Republican Reps. Jim Jordan, of Ohio; Steve Chabot of Ohio; Louie Gohmert of Texas; Darrell Issa of California; Ken Buck of Colorado; Matt Gaetz of Florida; Mike Johnson of Louisiana; Andy Biggs of Arizona; Tom McClintock of California; Greg Steube of Florida; Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin; Thomas Massie of Kentucky; Chip Roy of Texas; Dan Bishop of North Carolina; Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota; Victoria Spartz of Indiana; Scott L. Fitzgerald of Wisconsin; Cliff Bentz of Oregon and Burgess Owens of Utah.

U.S. Marine veteran James Kilcer, who thwarted an attempted robbery in an Arizona convenience store last week, received an award Tuesday from the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office while wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt.

He was also sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat, apparently in support of former President Donald Trump.

Sheriff Leon Wilmot presented Kilcer with the YCSO Citizen’s Valor Award, “For extraordinary heroism and exceptional courage while voluntarily coming to the aid of another citizen during an incident involving criminal activity at extreme, life threatening, personal risk in an attempt to save or protect human life,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.

“The YCSO Citizen’s Valor Award is the highest award for citizens whose actions warrant recognition.”

Surveillance video of Kilcer stopping the robbery at the Chevron convenience store early in the morning on Oct. 20 went viral.

The now-U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground employee had just purchased some Gatorades and other items and was talking to the clerk when the suspects came in, Kilcer told the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

“I heard the door start opening forcefully and my ‘Spidey senses’ or whatever kind of tingling, and I turn around and saw they were coming in real quick,” he said.

The veteran turned around and his military training kicked in as he sought to disarm the robber.

“I was ready: I saw it coming,” Kilcer said. “The minute my hands closed around it, I never lost contact with the gun. And I pulled him down.”

ZERO FEAR:
When this Yuma, AZ veteran saw some criminals pop in guns high — he didn’t wait for things to potentially go south.

“The Marine Corp taught me not to [mess] around,” he later said.

‘The few, the proud’ for a reason.
More on the story on @ABC15 at 10. pic.twitter.com/fGjKthcXvO

— Zach Crenshaw (@ZachCrenshaw) October 21, 2021

He held the suspect down until law enforcement arrived.

The person arrested was a 14-year-old juvenile who has now been charged with one count of armed robbery and one count of aggravated assault.

Arizona AG Seeks Temporary Restraining Order to Stop Biden’s ‘Unconstitutional’ COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

“Kilcer served as a tactical air operations technician in the Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan during his time in the military. He credits his actions to his Marine Corps basic training and mindset,” DVIDS reported.

“I guess I was just in the right place at the right time,’’ Kilcer said. “I was doing what needed to be done.”

While appearing on Fox News on Friday, the Arizonan also waded into the political when he ended the segment, saying with a smile to host Dana Perino, “And remember, [Jeffrey] Epstein didn’t kill himself.”

The Marine who stopped the corner store robbery in the viral video was just on Fox News.

He ended his interview saying “Epstein didn’t kill himself” haha. pic.twitter.com/NUkZaow09j

— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) October 22, 2021

“OK, got it,” said Perino, who laughed and added, “Very clever.”

Three people at a military base were injected with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in what the military is framing as some sort of accident.

The incident took place at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, but the military is keeping most of the details under wraps.

“Joint Base Lewis-McChord is aware three people were inadvertently administered the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine instead of another vaccine at the Lewis Main Exchange,” said Army Col. Joey Sullinger, I Corps public affairs officer, according to KOMO-TV.

“Positive corrective action has been taken at this vaccination site to prevent such errors from happening again. Army medical professionals are notifying and ensuring the health and welfare of those affected. This incident is under investigation.”

The names of those accidentally injected, what vaccine they were supposed to be given, and how exactly the wrong shots were given were not disclosed.

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The incident was noted by a Twitter account with the name Terminal CWO that claims it offers “Exposés on the dirt that doesn’t get discussed in our ranks.” CWO is an acronym that commonly stands for Chief Warrant Officer. The account’s posts cannot be verified.

JBLM had a flu shot tent set up and injected “a lot” of people with the Covid vaccine “accidentally” according to a reliable source. So now we’re not only incapable of distinguishing between FDA approved and EUA, but apparently we can’t even get the correct drug either.

— Terminalcwo (@terminalcwo) October 26, 2021

The base is currently only giving out the Pfizer vaccine and is also currently offering flu shots, according to the New York Post.

Has the COVID vaccine program been mismanaged?

Joint Base Lewis-McChord is home to the I Corps and 62nd Airlift Wing.

Vaccination errors have cropped up across the nation at a time when pharmacies are giving out COVID-19 shots at the same time as traditional flu shots.

As noted by CNN, mistakes can have serious consequences.

Earlier this month, Joshua and Alexandra Price took their children Sophia, 5, and Lukas, 4, to a Walgreens in Evansville, Indiana, for their annual flu shots.

They said they all were mistakenly injected with the adult version of the COVID-19 vaccine.

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“When they called us and told us that they had made a mistake and had given us the wrong shot, I was just in shock,” Alexandra Price said. “All I could say to them was, ‘What does this mean for my kids?’”

“Lukas started feeling sick before we even got home from Walgreens,” Alexandra Price said.

“He was feeling yucky, lethargic, and already had begun a fever,” Joshua Price said.

This was not a simple post-vaccination illness.

“The children have experienced a number of adverse effects since receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Fever, body aches, cough, headaches, and nausea are among the symptoms the children are experiencing,” according to a statement released by the Prices’ attorney, Dan Tuley.

“The 4- and 5-year-old are also under treatment of a pediatric cardiologist for tachycardia and elevated blood pressure, respectively.”

Alexandra Price said that Lukas has improved but Sophia has not.

“Her blood pressure is in the 98th percentile and she continues to have no energy,” she said.

Joshua Price is also feeling the impact of the mistake.

“It’s been well over a week and I still have high blood pressure and chest pain,” he said.

There are two possible explanations for President Joe Biden’s recent antics.

Either, one, Biden is completely fine with the current economic crisis as it devastates his constituents, or two, he somehow doesn’t even know about it.

Either way, there’s no denying the president has lost touch with the reality of the situation.

On Tuesday, at a campaign event for Virginia gubernatorial candidate and fellow Democrat Terry McAuliffe, Biden demonstrated as much when he said four simple words, claiming that America was “on the right track.”

Prices are up, the supply chain is in crisis, real wages are down, and Biden calls this the “right track”? pic.twitter.com/frUBoEPQtH

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 27, 2021

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“People are buying more things, manufacturing is up, we’re on the move but we’re on the right track,” Biden said.

RNC Research shared a video of Biden’s comments along with some pointed commentary.

Is Biden losing touch with reality?

“Prices are up, the supply chain is in crisis, real wages are down, and Biden calls this the ‘right track’?” RNC Research wrote on Twitter.

Other conservatives on the social media platform also commented on the post, noting the insanity of Biden’s claim given the current economic climate.

This is serious.
He isn’t all there.
Everyone sees it. https://t.co/fRi7p0vJ8E

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) October 27, 2021

“This is serious. He isn’t all there. Everyone sees it,” former Acting Director of the U.S. National Intelligence Richard Grenell wrote.

If this is the “right track” there are millions of Americans who want the heck off this train. https://t.co/ikV5zQnXis

— Aliscia Andrews (@alisciaandrews) October 27, 2021

Poll: 35% of Voters Say 2020 Election Should Be Overturned

“If this is the ‘right track’ there are millions of Americans who want the heck off this train,” Loudoun County activist Aliscia Andrews wrote.

No one in their right mind can possibly argue that the United States is on the right track under Biden’s administration.

Cultural and political differences are dividing us more than ever before. Inflation is destroying the value of each American’s savings. Furthermore, the supply chain crisis continues to barrel out of control, with many left wondering whether or not store shelves will be empty come Christmas season.

We need a leader who acknowledges these problems and has a plan to stop them.

Sadly, it appears that the current U.S. president is not that man.

Is there global cooling?

Economists have made one fact very clear in recent weeks: The Biden administration’s claims that Democrats’ upcoming $3.5 trillion spending bill will come at no cost to everyday Americans is utterly absurd.

Nevertheless, the president himself continues to tout this massive government spending as the solution to the numerous economic problems that have developed under his own leadership.

So, how exactly is President Joe Biden’s bloated “Build Back Better” plan going to save America? What exactly is in this magic bill?

Unsurprisingly, the single largest component of the bill is the climate agenda, which sets aside a whopping $500 billion to $555 billion for “climate change mitigation,” according to a report from Axios.

The $500 billion portion of the plan dwarfs even the Department of Energy’s yearly budget which, in 2020, totaled a mere $31.7 billion, according to the department itself.

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Speaking with Axios, Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii confirmed the bill’s massive size, saying, “This will be, just as a matter of fact, the biggest climate bill in human history. At least half a trillion dollars.”

A source familiar with the climate section of the bill told Axios that the following provisions would be included:

• “New grants and loans to support industrial sector decarbonization, in addition to expanding relevant tax credits to support this goal.”
• “Manufacturing credits to help grow domestic supply chains for solar, offshore, and onshore wind. Some of those credits will be targeted to the auto and energy communities.”
• “Expanding access to rooftop solar and home electrification.”
• “Expanding grants and loans to rural co-ops to boost clean energy and energy efficiency.”
• “Expanding grants and loans in the agriculture sectors to help them shift to clean energy providers with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.”

It’s not exactly clear how any of these provisions will help the average American currently dealing with rising inflation and an escalating supply chain crisis.

Will the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion bill hurt the American people?

In fact, recent reports from across the country regarding an overreliance on green energy suggest this bill may in fact exacerbate those problems.

On Thursday, journalist and author Michael Shellenberger published a series of tweets contending that climate activists (specifically referencing Greta Thunberg) — through pressuring nations to over-invest in “unreliable weather-dependent energy sources” — have created global energy shortages that are “forcing the poor to choose between food & electricity.”

Shellenberger is well known for his criticisms of the left’s climate change agenda. In June of 2020, he published the book “Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All,” in which Shellenberger argues that climate change, while very real, is not quite the existential threat politicians like Joe Biden would have you believe.

Overdependence on unreliable energies isn’t the only reason for energy shortages. Post-pandemic economic recovery resulted in higher energy demand. And too little natural gas stored on-site after a colder-than-expected winter (We are currently in a Grand Solar Minimum, by the way. [US Patriot]) played a role. https://t.co/LNW5XfP069

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) October 21, 2021

Cancel Halloween? Environmentalists Issue Insane 3-Part Pumpkin Warning

But the heavy investment in unreliable renewables made energy supplies more vulnerable to a single commodity’s volatility. Today’s grids mean that high gas prices cause energy price spikes and a return to the dirtiest forms of electricity production, including diesel and coal.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) October 21, 2021

While conceding that “post-pandemic economic recovery” also contributed to a “higher energy demand,” Shellenberger added that “heavy investment in unreliable renewables made energy supplies more vulnerable to a single commodity’s volatility.”

As @jordanbpeterson says, “If you don’t understand somebody’s intentions, consider the consequences of their actions.

The consequences of Greta et al.’s actions are panic, energy shortages, and rising carbon emissions.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) October 21, 2021

“It’s obvious that Greta Thunberg and the Malthusian Axis doesn’t care about climate change. If they did, they wouldn’t be replacing nuclear plants with fossil fuels, and opposing the means for poor nations to adapt to it,” he wrote.

“As [psychologist Jordan Peterson] says, ‘If you don’t understand somebody’s intentions, consider the consequences of their actions.’ The consequences of Greta et al.’s actions are panic, energy shortages, and rising carbon emissions.”

As Democrats continue to move the nation away from reliable energy sources like fossil fuel and nuclear, they will continue to make this problem worse. And, in doing so, they’ll be forcing the American taxpayer to fork over hundreds of billions of dollars.

Few remember today that education in America began with Christianity. The Puritans in Massachusetts passed the Satan Deluder Act in order to establish public schools that could teach their children to read. The Puritans believed that children who could read the Bible would be less vulnerable to the devil.

As is often the case, institutions once established to do good eventually do evil. William F. Buckley, in his breakout work “God and Man at Yale,” documented the decline of Christian values in Yale during the 1950s. Although Yale was a private school founded as a religious college, Buckley noted in great detail how Yale was drifting away from Christianity and toward a position of hostility to religion.

Fueled by a leftist cultural advance, in the 70 years since his book’s publication, the phenomenon Buckley noted has spread into public education. Much of the last half-century in education has been filled with an all-out assault against Christianity and traditional Western and Christian moral values.

Largely, the leftists have won, and Christianity has lost. Traditional values have been largely expunged from the schoolyard.

Voluntary student-led prayer and prayers before commencements and football games have been silenced. School nativities have been dismantled. The Ten Commandments have been obliterated from classroom walls. The use of the phrase “Christmas Break” (literally the “reason for the season”) has been usurped and replaced on academic calendars. Even moments of silence and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance have been assaulted by leftists in education.

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With few surviving vestiges of the Christian undergirding on which our educational system was built, modern leftists have worked to replace Christianity with the golden calf of race.

Critical race theory treats kids not as children of God with equal worth but as oppressors and oppressed. Morality under critical race theory is not determined by a universal set of principles and ethics; rather, it is determined by a combination of identities that bring with them a set of arbitrary entitlements and privileges.

Nothing is eternal or true in CRT; there is only a superficial fixation on skin color. Christianity and critical race theory are mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed. They cannot exist together as moral systems. Now, we must choose what moral system the education of our children will be built upon.

To paraphrase Pascal, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.” Education is no different. The educational system, like the people that form it, has a God-shaped vacuum in its heart. If the vacuum is not filled by God, it will be filled with a false idol like CRT.

Is critical race theory compatible with Christianity?

Some school districts like Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas, have moved overwhelmingly to expel CRT from their curricula, and while this should be applauded, it is not enough. Expelling CRT only expels the woke left’s agenda de jure. CRT will take another form or the woke left will move (it as always does) to another cause.

The only antidote to CRT and to whatever the woke left concocts next is Christianity. Christians, conservatives, classical liberals and those who value the great Christian tradition of the West must work with the same verve and persistence that the proponents of CRT do.

Some inroads have been made to restore Christianity’s status in public education. Several cases that could be used incrementally to restore the status of Christianity in public schools are being considered by the Supreme Court this term.

Texas, this past summer, created avenues for some schoolhouses to display donated signs bearing the national motto, “In God We Trust.”

A top priority of all state legislatures should be the “Biblical studies” bill proposed in Florida recently. Florida’s bill would allow for students to take, as an elective, a course that focuses on the Bible as an influential document in American history, philosophy and government.

Mike Huckabee: Woman Who Survived Maoist China Comments on America in 2021

Without any major court decisions or legislative reforms, even the smallest of school districts should remember they have the power to make an impact.

The effort to expel CRT and return Christian morality to the classroom can begin at the local level. School districts can direct their history courses to focus on the documents with the largest Christian influence and impact on America, including the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address and the “I Have a Dream” speech.

School districts can direct their music, art and English programs to teach the many spirituals sung by slaves on the underground railroad, the tremendous canon of religious renaissance art and the works of Shakespeare, Steinbeck and C.S. Lewis, texts laden with biblical allusions.

Despite the recent Washington Post headline proclaiming, “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They Don’t,” Carroll ISD proves that parents and school districts have the power (and the right) to retake control of their children’s education.

The Washington Post and the proponents of CRT must not forget that we can choose whatever moral system we like for our children.

While students in U.S. public schools are being taught that math is racist, Chinese scientists say they have built two supercomputers that dwarf the capabilities of anything currently available in the West.

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported the Chinese researchers claimed one of the supercomputers is one million times faster than the nearest competitor, Google’s Sycamore.

Further, they have produced a second, even faster one that “uses light photons to achieve never-before seen results.”

“According to the research team, the light-based Jiuzhang 2 can calculate in one millisecond a task that would take the world’s fastest conventional computer 30 trillion years,” the Post said.

“The team’s findings are detailed in two papers published in the peer-reviewed academic journals Physical Review Letters and Science Bulletin.”

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The communist China state-run Global Times reported, “It’s the first time that China has reached quantum advantage in a superconducting quantum computing system.”

Helen Raleigh — an immigration policy fellow with the Centennial Institute in Colorado who was born and raised in communist China — tweeted in response to the Post’s report: “While American public schools are teaching kids that math is racist, Chinese scientists have built 2 quantum computers which can calculate in one millisecond a task that would take the world’s fastest conventional computer 30 trillion years.”

While American public schools are teaching kids that math is racist, Chinese scientists have built 2 quantum computers which can calculate in one millisecond a task that would take the world’s fastest conventional computer 30 trillion years. https://t.co/06LoyVOxj7

— Helen Raleigh (@HRaleighspeaks) October 26, 2021

On the education front, Chinese students outperformed their American counterparts the Program for International Student Assessment in 2018.

Should Americans be concerned about China’s advanced technology achievements?

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development administered the test to 600,000 15-year-olds across 79 countries, assessing reading, math and science skills.

Students from four provinces in China — Beijing, Shanghai and the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang — earned the highest level 4 rating in all three subjects, while America students ranked level 3 in reading and science and level 2 in math.

U.S. students scored lower in math than most European countries, as well as Singapore, Japan and Korea.

Big Think reported, “Socio-economic background did play a role in the test scores, accounting for 12 percent of the variation in reading performance in each country, on average. But the results also showed that the poorest 10 percent of students in China still outperformed the OECD average.”

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While America should be focused on getting back to basics — reading, writing, arithmetic — the emphasis in education of late seems to be on race.

It, of course, is the left’s constant obsession, at the expense of everything else.

The California Department of Education is in the process of revising its K-12 mathematics curriculum framework to promote “equity.”

Williamson Evers — director of the Center on Educational Excellence at the Independent Institute and who served as an assistant secretary of education during the George W. Bush administration — sent up the red flares in a May opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal.

He noted that the framework recommends eight times that teachers draw lessons from the document, “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction,” also published in May.

“This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of ‘white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,’ including a focus on ‘getting the right answer,’ teaching math in a ‘linear fashion,’ requiring students to ‘show their work’ and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter,” according to Evers.

“Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity,” the manual says.

The document also dives directly into the political, encouraging teachers to, “Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist and racist views.”

Would that be the same capitalism that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system conceived by man?

Even China, while it maintains a one party communist political rule, began adopting capitalist principles in the 1980s, leading to its meteoric economic rise.

The Oregon Department of Education is also promoting a course for teachers based on the “Pathway” document.

Watch out! Bad ideas that start out west have a way of drifting east.

Abraham Lincoln made a famous prediction concerning America’s future: “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Certainly promoting critical race thinking, even in mathematics, tears at the fabric of American society.

Our concern should not be focused on China and its apparent development of these supercomputers; it should be on the Leftists in the U.S. and what they are doing to undermine our nation’s future and make us noncompetitive.

America fell behind Soviet Russia briefly in the space race in the late 1950s and early ’60s, then leap-frogged them to the moon.

We can do the same with China and supercomputers or anything else that matters, but only if we stay true to the principle of giving people an equal opportunity to fully exercise their gifts and achieve excellence, instead of lowering expectations for all in the name of achieving equity.

Leftists love to publicly accuse the GOP of attempting to maliciously suppress the vote. They want to impress upon Americans that there are a great number of progressive voters who want to participate in elections, but many of them don’t because they can’t.

Another favorite leftist tactic is to accuse opponents of what they themselves are doing.

According to a 2019 internal study obtained by The New York Post, 20 percent of 3,000 U.S. Facebook users reported that they had been exposed to content that discouraged or interfered with them participating in elections.

So who is the real villain here when it comes to suppressing the vote? Why are they doing it?

Facebook, which regularly suspends or bans conservatives such as President Donald Trump and Candace Owens, is the culprit when it comes to suppressing the vote — not the GOP.

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The study, “User Perspectives on Voter and Census Disenfranchisement,” was revealed to Congress by the legal counsel of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

The study demonstrated that one in three users reported being exposed to false information about elections. There were also posts discouraging people from voting altogether, and some attempted to teach people how to vote in a way that was either unavailable or illegal.

No matter how they were designed, the goal was always to prevent a U.S. citizen from participating in an election.

They also undermined the public’s confidence in the U.S. Census. About 15 percent of users reported being directed to not participate in the Census.

Is Mark Zuckerberg an evil genius?

Why? It might be that Mark Zuckerberg is all about making money. Greater user-engagement means more revenue. To raise engagement, Facebook allows, even encourages, foment. Strife sells.

This means Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t really care if the platform is used to sell people into slavery, sabotage elections or turn populations against each other.

“When we live in an information environment that is full of angry, hateful, polarizing content it erodes our civic trust, it erodes our faith in each other, it erodes our ability to want to care for each other, the version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world,” said Frances Haugen in an interview on 60 Minutes.

Could it be that Facebook, rather than seeking some nefarious political goal, aims to create discontent? Doubt is corrosive because it undermines both faith and reason.

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We live in a highly secular society. Judeo-Christian values are now routinely downplayed in our institutions. In their place, anti-values, such as the racism inherent in Critical Race Theory, are promoted.

Could it be that Zuckerberg is no evil genius but merely an opportunist taking advantage of the situation by stirring-the-pot?

Afterall, what is social media but a massive platform for spreading gossip? Yellow journalism is immoral. Big Tech is unleashing immoral forces across the world.

They must be held accountable for their dirty deeds.

Biden’s promises to get Americans out of Afghanistan are proving to be empty lies. Now, a disabled American citizen from Liberty, Kentucky, is finding this out the hard way.

“Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home,” Biden said back in August, according to NPR.

Abdul Samad and his family are desperately wanting to come home, but they can’t. They are in extreme danger, but due to the incompetence that led the American withdrawal, the Samad family is having to hide and beg the American government to bring them home.

Samad is originally from Afghanistan, but after losing his hands and left eye in a landmine explosion when he was a teenager, he came to the United States. The founders of Galilean Children’s Home took Samad in, and he became a citizen, building a life in Kentucky.

In August, however, Samad, along with his wife, four children, and mother-in-law, went back to Afghanistan to visit a sick relative. Then devastation struck when the American troops suddenly withdrew and left Samad behind. Samad’s wife and children are also American citizens, and his mother-in-law has a green card.

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“I’m really confused because I don’t know what to do because the airport is closed and the border with Pakistan is closed. So I don’t know how to get out,” Samad told Lex18 News.

It’s been nearly two weeks since Samad has heard from the American embassy. He has twice filled out the re-repatriation request form they asked for, but still has no way out. He has kept his family on the move continually, and they are afraid to sleep in the same place.

“I’ve been moving with family members from place to place to stay with them, so people will not notice we are from the United States,” Samad said.

Should we still have troop in Afghanistan?

The government has miserably failed their own citizens and has put them in harm’s way.

“We are in a very helpless situation because we cannot really say much and we cannot do much unless we found a way that we can really get out safely,” Samad said.

Sadly, Samad’s story of helplessness is just one more piece of incriminating evidence against Biden’s absolute failure in Afghanistan.

Thanks to Biden’s hasty decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Samad is now having to hide from the Taliban. Just about two months ago he and his family were peacefully living in Kentucky; now, they are suffering for Biden’s foolishness. It is the height of injustice, and Biden is to blame.

Biden’s ample lip-service to the idea of American safety has done nothing.

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“The United States stands by its commitment that we’ve made to these people,” Biden said, according to NPR.

Then why is Samad stranded?

When people were hanging from plane wings and nearly killing each other to get on the leaving American planes, Biden acted like it was just business as usual.

“There’s no way we would have been able to leave Afghanistan without there being some of what you’re seeing now,” he said, CNBC reported.

Of course withdrawals are messy. But that doesn’t mean it’s simply fine to ignore the pleas of citizens that are trapped. Biden made promises.

But now Samad is hiding helplessly, and his pleas seem to be falling on deaf ears.

Biden should be utterly appalled and sick that he has done this to Samad — and so many other American citizens.