Journalist Lee Fang released the latest installment of the “Twitter Files” on Tuesday, showing how the social media platform “quietly aided” U.S. intelligence officials’ online campaigns.

In a lengthy thread that was reposted by Twitter owner Elon Musk, Fang wrote that “despite promises to shut down covert state-run propaganda networks, Twitter docs show that the social media giant directly assisted the U.S. military’s influence operations.”

“Twitter has claimed for years that they make concerted efforts to detect & thwart gov-backed platform manipulation. Here is Twitter testifying to Congress about its pledge to rapidly identify and shut down all state-backed covert information operations & deceptive propaganda,” the thread continued.

However, according to screenshots of messages from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to Twitter, the social media platform gave approval and protection to U.S. military psychological influence operations targeting several Middle Eastern countries. That went on for about two years or more, and some accounts remain active, he reported.

“The same day CENTCOM sent the list, Twitter officials used a tool to grant a special ‘whitelist’ tag that essentially provides verification status to the accounts [without] the blue check, meaning they are exempt from spam/abuse flags, more visible/likely to trend on hashtags,” the thread continued.

Those accounts, Fang wrote, primarily posted about U.S. operations in the Middle East, including promoting messages targeting Iran and the Saudi war in Yemen.

“One Twitter official who spoke to me said he feels deceived by the covert shift,” he said. “Still, many emails from throughout 2020 show that high-level Twitter executives were well aware of DoD’s vast network of fake accounts & covert propaganda and did not suspend the accounts.”

In one Twitter message released by Fang, it shows that Twitter’s public relations team was working to “minimize Twitter’s role” and that at one point, “Twitter officials congratulated each other” after a Washington Post “story didn’t mention any Twitter employees [and] focused largely on the Pentagon.”

Twitter spokesman Nick Pickles in 2020 delivered testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, telling lawmakers that the firm was taking aggressive actions to shut down “coordinated platform manipulation efforts” by government agencies. He did not say whether that involved the U.S. government.

“Combatting attempts to interfere in conversations on Twitter remains a top priority for the company, and we continue to invest heavily in our detection, disruption, and transparency efforts related to state-backed information operations. Our goal is to remove bad-faith actors and to advance public understanding of these critical topics,” said Pickles.

Previous Files

On Monday, independent journalist Michael Shellenberger posted screenshots of internal Twitter messages that showed there was a longstanding influence campaign by the FBI around the time the New York Post released its report on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Messages show that the FBI paid Twitter $3.4 million between October 2019 and February 2021 for “[law enforcement]-related projects” including “LE training, tooling, etc.”

The FBI, according to Shellenberger, would also target media articles on alleged foreign influence operations that Twitter would then investigate and debunk. Those probes, however, “repeatedly” revealed “very little Russian activity,” he said.

Reporter Matt Taibbi posted the first Musk-endorsed installment of the Twitter files in early December, showing how Twitter officials internally struggled to deal with the NY Post’s story and discussion on whether or not it violated its “hacked materials” rules.

After Taibbi’s drop, Musk later confirmed that he “exited” Twitter counsel James Baker, a former top FBI official, after it was learned that Baker was secretly vetting the Twitter Files without Musk’s knowledge.

The second installment, published by Bari Weiss, showed that Twitter blacklisted certain conservative commentators and a prominent professor who criticized COVID-19 lockdown policies. She published internal communications showing that those accounts were either blacklisted from appearing in Twitter’s search function or blacklisted from appearing in the app’s trending tab.

The subsequent installments dealt with the permanent suspension of former President Donald Trump’s account following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach. Internal communications showed that a growing number of Twitter staffers were calling for the former president to be banned in the wake of the incident.

In response to the recent revelations, the FBI told Taibbi that “the FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities. Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.”

The Epoch Times has contacted CENTCOM and the FBI for comment.

This story is developing. Check back for more updates.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Software billionaire Bill Gates recently admitted that the climate change target as established by the Paris Climate Accord will likely not be met.

The 2015 Paris Climate Accord has a goal of limiting global warming below 2 degrees C—and preferably below 1.5 degrees C—compared to preindustrial levels. In a recent interview with Reuters, Gates said that while no one wants to be “the first to say it,” the math shows the target is not within reach. Taking into account “the overall scale of our industrial economy … we’re going to have to do mind-blowing work to stay below 2 degrees.”

Gates has invested more than $2 billion in climate technologies. He founded the Breakthrough Energy Group in 2015, which funds areas that advance low-carbon tech.

Gates believes the global challenge is now shifting toward ensuring people are able to adapt to a harsher, hotter climate.

Breakthrough Group also funds adaptation-related work, which includes technologies that can develop crop strains capable of withstanding drought, help control forest fires, and so on.

Companies exploring low-carbon ideas need technical and investment support to help push them beyond the pilot phase and to scale up manufacturing, Gates said.

US Involvement

Under the Trump administration, the United States pulled out from the Paris agreement in November 2020. Back in 2019, when he announced the departure, Trump said that the “one-sided” climate agreement was “terrible” for the United States.

“It was almost as though it was meant to hurt the competitiveness—really, [the] competitiveness of the United States. So, we did away with that one,” he said at the time.

Then in January 2021, just hours after being sworn in, President Joe Biden issued an executive order to have the United States rejoin the agreement.

In a November op-ed, Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, pointed out that the United States is not even the top polluter in the world, a position that goes to China.

In 2020, China ranked as the top-polluting nation, emitting 9,899 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. The United States came in at a distant second, with only half the emissions, at 4,457 million tons.

Moore batted for gas to be the “21st-century power source,” calling it the planet’s “wonder fuel.” He criticized the push to switch to “expensive 19th century” energy sources like solar panels and windmills.

Warming and CO2

In an interview with Epoch TV’s “Crossroads,” Gregory Wrightstone, executive director of the CO2 Coalition, a nonprofit organization with a mission to educate about the role of CO2 in the environment, pointed out that carbon dioxide (CO2) is actually beneficial to the planet, rather than a damaging pollutant as characterized by mainstream media.

Over the past few thousand years, there were three warming periods, with each of these warming periods being much warmer than today. However, not only were the carbon dioxide levels much lower, but these warming periods were hugely beneficial for mankind, giving rise to major civilizations.

Abundant CO2, which plants consume, helps plants retain more water. This raises the moisture content in the soil and helps to limit fires around the world, he pointed out.

Wrightstone noted that natural gas is a clean energy source as its byproducts from burning are mostly CO2 and water vapor, which are both “very beneficial molecules.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The Supreme Court of Delaware has formally struck down state laws allowing universal mail-in voting and same-day voter registration, finding that the statutes violate the state’s constitution.

The court unanimously ruled against the laws in October—preventing no-excuse-required mail-in voting and same-day voter registration from being used in the Nov. 8 general elections—but didn’t make public a full opinion explaining its reasons until Dec. 16.

On Sept. 14, the Delaware Court of Chancery found that the state’s mail-in voting practices violated the Delaware Constitution, The Epoch Times reported.

Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), who brought the lawsuit, hailed the decision in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“This was a monumental victory in the election integrity space,” said Adams, a former Department of Justice civil rights attorney.

“This is the first time a state Supreme Court has invalidated an election statute. This law violated the plain text of the Delaware Constitution. Today’s opinion is a victory for the rule of law in elections.”

Ken Blackwell, a PILF board member and former Republican secretary of state for Ohio, said that “election integrity should be an issue all Americans can support.”

“The fact that this might be the first time a state supreme court has struck down a state election law highlights the perilous times we are in, where partisan politicians are willing to cross lines that have never been crossed, willing to seize and keep power at all costs,” Blackwell said in the statement.

PILF describes itself as “the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity.”

The nonprofit organization “exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity, and fight against lawlessness in American elections.”

The Democrat-controlled Delaware General Assembly hurriedly passed the voting-by-mail law this past June after failing to secure enough Republican support to amend the state constitution to enshrine the policy.

Lawmakers previously approved a separate voting-by-mail law during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, invoking emergency powers that allowed the statute to escape the usual constitutional scrutiny.

Republicans across the country, including then-President Donald Trump, were critical of mail-in voting measures enacted at the height of the pandemic and accused election officials of ignoring federal and state constitutions by allowing it.

They claimed that this departure from the usual election procedures allowed Democrats to allegedly cheat.

But in this case, Delaware lawmakers didn’t reference any emergency-based justification when passing the new laws, which gave state courts greater leeway to rule that they were unconstitutional.

In the new decision, Justice Gary Traynor, a Republican, recounted that Gov. John Carney Jr., a Democrat, signed laws on July 22 changing the registration deadline from the fourth Saturday before the date of the election to the actual day of the election, allowing all state voters to cast their ballots by mail whether or not they’re able to appear at a polling place.

“Neither of the newly enacted laws passes muster under the Delaware Constitution,” Traynor wrote in the new 72-page opinion.

The case is Albence v. Higgin (case number 342-2022).

The Epoch Times reached out to State Election Commissioner Anthony Albence, who was a defendant in the legal proceeding, and to Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, a Democrat who defended the law in court, for comment, but received no response by press time.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A federal appeals court on Monday struck down a White House rule requiring anyone employed by a federal contractor to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of government contracts.

A three-panel judge of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to affirm a lower court judgment that barred President Joe Biden’s September 2021 executive order in three states after Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi sued to challenge the rule.

These three states sued the Biden administration in the Western District of Louisiana in their capacities as federal contractors themselves, winning an injunction and stay by the district court.

In upholding the lower court finding, Judge Kurt Engelhardt, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said in his majority opinion (pdf) that a broad interpretation of the law could have given Biden “nearly unlimited authority to introduce requirements into federal contracts.”

He illustrated his point by saying that Biden could “hypothetically” mandate that all third-party federal contractors’ employees reduce their BMI (body mass index) below a certain number based “on the theory that obesity is a primary contributor to unhealthiness and absenteeism.”

The U.S. government has contracts with hundreds of third-party contractors, and judges have indicated that the issue might affect up to 20 percent of American employees.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita touted the ruling as a legal victory against what he called President Joe Biden’s executive overreach.

Rokita, who joined with two other plaintiff states in the legal action, decried Biden’s “truly unprecedented” use of the federal Procurement Act to wield executive power to impose the mandate on third-party contractors.

“Hoosiers and all Americans should have the liberty to make their own decisions on whether to get vaccinated,” Rokita said in a statement. “That includes individuals who happen to work as federal contractors. No one should have to fear losing their jobs just because they opt against getting a shot.”

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry called the appeals court’s decision a “victory for freedom.”

“We will continue to stand up against these abuses of power that threaten us now and in the future,” he said in a statement.

‘Intrusive Command’

The Department of Justice (DOJ) defended the mandate in a court filing, saying Biden’s executive order, issued on Sept. 9, 2021, was justified under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, known as the Procurement Act.

The DOJ had argued in an earlier court filing that “requiring entities that enter into federal contracts to have a vaccinated workforce enhances the efficiency of federal contractor operations,” per the Procurement Act.

Engelhardt said that if Biden had issued an alternative but similar executive order targeting tobacco—mandating that workers refrain from smoking or being in the presence of smoking—it would “undoubtedly strike reasonable minds as too great a stretch under the Procurement Act.”

“No such provision exists in the Procurement Act to justify this intrusive command,” the judge wrote. “The pandemic, challenging as it has been for the President, the legislature, the courts, and especially the populace, does not justify such an enormous and transformative expansion of presidential authority.”

The lower court originally found that the states had Article III standing as they faced a choice between complying with the mandate and potentially losing employees or becoming ineligible to bid on or renew federal contracts.

The district court found that Biden’s mandate fell afoul of the Tenth Amendment, which entrusts the “safety and the health of the people” to the politically accountable officials of the states.

‘Truly Unprecedented’

The appeals court found Biden’s executive order unlawful and a “truly unprecedented” use of procurement regulation to “force obligations on individual employees.”

“When an agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to regulate ‘a significant portion of the American economy,’ we typically greet its announcement with a measure of skepticism,” Engelhardt wrote. “We expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast ‘economic and political significance.’”

However, Congress didn’t authorize “such a dramatic shift” in the president’s power under the Procurement Act, he noted.

“Nor are historical exercises of that power sufficient to demonstrate a long-standing understanding that the Procurement Act could be used in this way,” he wrote. “The President’s use of procurement regulations to reach through an employing contractor to force obligations on individual employees is truly unprecedented.”

Judge James Graves, an appointee of former President Barrack Obama, said in his dissenting opinion that this was the first executive order under the Procurement Act to be struck down.

“When actions taken are in the mainstream of American businesses, that points towards permitting the executive order,” Graves wrote. “Economic factors would prevent the president from handicapping the contractor workforce with extreme contractual terms.”

Graves disagreed with the BMI comparison, saying that if a president tried to impose “draconian measures outside the mainstream of American companies,” he or she would face opposition from the public or Congress.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Lawmakers have at long last unveiled the legislative text of the huge $1.7 trillion “omnibus” government funding bill for all of fiscal year 2023, with apparent wins for both parties like boosting non-defense discretionary spending, while keeping restrictions on funding abortions.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) released the bill (pdf) late Monday, urging members of the House and Senate to take up the 4,155-page bill and “pass it without delay” as government funding is set to expire on Dec. 23 at midnight and a shutdown looms.

“The choice is clear. We can either do our jobs and fund the government, or we can abandon our responsibilities without a real path forward,” Leahy said in a statement. “Passing this bipartisan, bicameral, omnibus appropriations bill is undoubtedly in the interest of the American people.”

The full-year government funding bill, commonly known as an “omnibus” for its catch-all scope that funds multiple federal agencies, is first expected to be taken up by the Senate for possible passage by Thursday, then to the House, and later to President Joe Biden’s desk for a signature by Friday’s deadline.

Failure to pass the legislation could bring a partial government shutdown beginning Saturday and potentially lead to a months-long standoff after Republicans assume control of the House on Jan. 3, ending the Democrats’ monolithic grip on power in Washington.

The bill is the product of long-running negotiations between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, which ran into less routine sticking points like the location of the new FBI headquarters and more standard fare like the GOP pushing back on what it views as wasteful pork-barrel spending on programs unrelated to defense.

“This omnibus bill represents the last best chance for Democrats to push funding for their policy initiatives before Republicans take over control of the House—and it is already significantly scaled back from their ambitious earlier designs,” Gerard Filitti, Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

“What is not included in this bill, among other things, is billions in dollars in pandemic aid requested by President Biden—a category of funds that has previously been used to fund policy initiatives only tangentially related to the pandemic,” Filitti continued, noting further that an enhanced Child Tax credit and cannabis banking legislation also failed to make the cut.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Dec. 14 that,”Republicans simply were not going to lavish extra-liberal spending” on non-defense programs into the omnibus bill.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat in the Senate, said on Dec. 14 that, “nobody is going to get everything they want, but the final product will include wins everyone can get behind.”

Leahy said Monday that the bill “is the product of months of hard work and compromise” and thanked Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) for “their partnership and hard work.”

The full details of the package were being crafted over the weekend, with the draft released late Monday showing that the legislation includes $772.5 billion for non-defense discretionary programs and $858 billion in defense funding.

There’s also $44.9 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and America’s NATO allies.

Both Parties Claim Wins

Members of both parties claimed their own victories in the sprawling bill.

Democrats’ wins include increased clean energy funding, more money for nutrition and child care programs, as well as funding boosts for various homeless and housing initiatives.

Republican victories include retaining longstanding restrictions on funding for abortions and trimming funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The IRS is set to receive $12.3 billion, a $275 million cut from the prior year’s level, a welcome development for Republicans who were upset over the $80 billion funding boost for the tax agency outside the regular appropriations process in a bill earlier this year that passed without GOP backing.

Filitti explained that the omnibus bill boosts non-defense spending at a lower rate than inflation, which means that non-defense spending gets an effective cut in real, inflation-adjusted terms.

“The non-defense portion of the budget is only a modest increase over the previous year (a net decrease when adjusted for inflation), and this represents a victory to Republicans and the handful of fiscally-responsible Democrats who want to keep spending in check,” Filitti said.

McConnell on Monday touted the deal as a win for Republicans because of that very reason, namely that the package raises defense spending above the rate of inflation.

Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell said when the Biden administration first proposed the funding bill, it wanted to cut defense funding “while massively increasing spending on non-defense.”

“Republicans have taken the president’s bizarre position and flipped it on its head,” McConnell said, adding that the GOP wasn’t “going to let our Democratic colleagues demand extra left-wing goodies in exchange for doing their job and funding our troops.”

By contrast, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Monday that he’s disappointed that non-defense social spending programs will get a smaller bump than defense, according to The Hill.

“I don’t like it but we’re in a pretty desperate situation,” Durbin said, presumably referring to the Democrats’ loss of political leverage by losing control of the House to Republicans in the midterm elections.

Shelby praised the deal for raising non-defense funding by “only 5.5 percent,” which is lower than the rate of inflation and around half the boost the Biden administration had asked for in its “wasteful” request.

“This process was far from perfect, but ultimately it allowed Republican redlines to be adhered to and because of that I will urge my colleagues to support this package. We need to do our job and fund the government,” Shelby added.

Details

A topline summary (pdf) of each of the omnibus package’s 12 appropriations bills shows that all are slated for increases to varying degrees.

Agriculture-FDA (pdf): $25.48 billion, a $355 million increase compared to the fiscal year 2022 funding level;
Commerce-Justice-Science (pdf): $83.85 billion, an $8.1 billion increase;
Defense (pdf): $797.7 billion, a $69.3 billion increase;
Energy and Water (pdf): $54.65 billion, a $1.778 billion increase;
Financial Services (pdf): $27.699 billion, a $2.067 billion increase;
Homeland Security (pdf): $60.7 billion, a $3.2 billion increase;
Interior-Environment (pdf): $40.45 billion, a $2.45 billion increase;
Labor-HHS-Education (pdf): $209.9 billion, a $14.8 billion increase;
Legislative Branch (pdf): $6.9 billion, a $975 million increase;
Military Construction-VA (pdf): $135.2 billion in discretionary funding and $168.6 billion in mandatory funding, representing a combined increase of $34 billion;
State and Foreign Operations (pdf): $61.758 billion, a $3.76 billion increase;
Transportation-HUD (pdf): $90.955 billion, a $9.917 billion increase.

Funding for bipartisan priorities includes $58.7 billion for programs authorized by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act; $1.8 billion in new funding to implement the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022; and $5 billion for the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund to implement the PACT Act.

The package also includes $47.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health; $9.2 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; $1.5 billion for ARPA-H; and $950 million for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

There’s also a $13.4 billion increase for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; $28.5 billion for Child Nutrition Programs; and $6 billion for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

The omnibus package includes funding for a number of housing assistance initiatives, including $3.6 billion for Homeless Assistance Grants; $2 billion for the Rural Housing Service; $1.5 billion for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program; and $1.4 billion for the Housing for the Elderly and Housing for Persons with Disabilities program.

Education-related funding includes boosting the maximum Pell Grant award to $7,395, as well as $18.4 billion for Title I-A grants, and $1.2 billion for TRIO to support low-income first generation college students.

There are also child care investments, including $7.7 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and nearly $12 billion for Head Start.

The bill also provides $5 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to help families with high energy costs, and a record $700 million for combating violence against women.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

If you’re planning on taking your kid to go Christmas shopping at Walmart, you might want to be extra careful.

Or, at the very least, avoid the toothbrush section.

That’s because Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has launched a new crusade against the retail conglomerate after images began circulating of sex toys being sold next to children’s toothbrushes at one Walmart location.

“@Walmart many of your customers in my district are reaching out to me about sex toys being sold in your Dalton store,” Greene posted Saturday on Twitter. “They’re extremely upset and absolutely horrified that sex toys are being sold openly right next to children’s toothbrushes!”

The congresswoman punctuated that post with strong condemnation: “This is grooming.”

Trending:

GOP Senator Announces ‘PELOSI’ Act and While It Doesn’t Mention Nancy, It’ll Surely Infuriate Her

WARNING: The following tweet contains images that some viewers may find offensive.

.@Walmart many of your customers in my district are reaching out to me about sex toys being sold in your Dalton store.

They’re extremely upset and absolutely horrified that sex toys are being sold openly right next to children’s toothbrushes!

This is grooming. pic.twitter.com/W0Zuk5NAue

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) December 17, 2022

Greene continued to lecture Walmart in a Twitter thread.

“Selling sex toys openly where children are exposed to them is wrong, inappropriate, immoral, indecent, perverted, shameful, and incredibly harmful to children,” she said. “Why is Walmart participating in the grooming and sexualization of children? Is this in all stores or just Dalton?

“I don’t care how big your corporation, how much money you have, how powerful your lobby is, how big and powerful your political influence is. I just don’t care who you are. I will always firmly stand up for what is right and do everything I can to protect kids.”

I don’t care how big your corporation, how much money you have, how powerful your lobby is, how big and powerful your political influence is.

I just don’t care who you are.

I will always firmly stand up for what is right and do everything I can to protect kids.

Cont’d

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) December 17, 2022

“I can not comprehend how we got to a place where people think they have the right to force sexual adult issues on children,” the congresswoman said. “You do not have that right. Because no matter how hard you try to twist your perverse ideas into reasons any of this nastiness is ok, you are WRONG.”

Related:

Lauren Boebert Reveals What She Told Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congressional Ladies’ Room

“The district I represent, GA-14, is firmly opposed to any and all grooming and sexualization of children. It is largely Christian and Conservative. We believe in protecting our kids from perversions and raising them with good, moral, family values to the best of our abilities.”

The district I represent, GA-14, is firmly opposed to any and all grooming and sexualization of children.

It is largely Christian and Conservative.

We believe in protecting our kids from perversions and raising them with good, moral, family values to the best of our abilities.

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) December 17, 2022

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“On behalf of my district, I am demanding @Walmart resolve this issue immediately,” she said. “I sincerely hope this is not common product placement in your stores and that the employees responsible will be reprimanded. I do not believe this repulsive grooming represents Walmart.”

On behalf of my district, I am demanding @Walmart resolve this issue immediately.

I sincerely hope this is not common product placement in your stores and that the employees responsible will be reprimanded.

I do not believe this repulsive grooming represents Walmart.

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) December 17, 2022

While Greene doesn’t think “this repulsive grooming” represents the retail giant, she might want to take a closer look at that.

As The New York Times pointed out in 2019, Walmart has been in the business of selling sex toys for a while now, working with the “PlusOne” line of vibrators and similar items.

A glance at the website of PlusOne shows that Walmart is far from its only retail partner.

Massive entities including Amazon, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger and Best Buy are all listed as approved PlusOne vendors.

The merits of sex toys are a different discussion for a different time, but decent human beings everywhere should be able to agree that children shouldn’t be anywhere near them.

Walmart is selling sex toys on displays perched right next to children’s toothbrushes.

The pictures are too disgusting to post.

How is that not grooming?

Every parent needs to DEMAND @Walmart CEASE the sale of this offensive merchandise in any vicinity of children.

— Tricia Flanagan (R-NJ) (@NewDayForNJ) December 18, 2022

Regardless of how you feel about Marjorie Taylor Greene, you can’t argue that this isn’t a cause worth taking up.

At the end of the day, children are both the most precious and most vulnerable of us.

Everything we can do to preserve that innocence should be done.

Who can forget Kimberly Guilfoyle? She was one of the hardest-hitting conservative commentators at Fox News. Eventually, she left the business to become an adviser to former President Donald Trump and is engaged to none other than his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

But what many might not know — or remember — is that before Trump Jr., Guilfoyle was married to Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom. A San Francisco prosecuting attorney, Guilfoyle was also the first lady of the Golden City.

However, the two have been on the outs for years, and during her recent keynote speech at the conservative star-studded America Fest, a Turning Point USA-hosted event, Guilfoyle absolutely buried Newsom, and the crowd went bonkers with delight.

Looking forward to #AMFEST2022! See you soon. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/7AosqFZlsB

— Kimberly Guilfoyle (@kimguilfoyle) December 14, 2022

Trending:

GOP Senator Announces ‘PELOSI’ Act and While It Doesn’t Mention Nancy, It’ll Surely Infuriate Her

“In California, they have vowed to get rid of gas-powered cars with no explanation of how they are going to fund and power alternatives. A bunch of winners over there, too, folks. Yeah, ask me how I know,” Guilfoyle said. It took a few seconds for the joke about her marriage to Newsom to set in, but the crowd could be heard roaring with laughter.

Guilfoyle brings up her ex Gavin Newsom today: “In CA, they have vowed to get rid of gas powered cars. A bunch of winners over there. Ask me how I know. I got news for him, he ain’t making it to the White House!” pic.twitter.com/9yYSg5efej

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) December 18, 2022

When the audience quieted, Guilfoyle nuked her ex-husband, who many believe has run California into the ground.

“I got news for him, he ain’t making it to the White House,” Guilfoyle said, drawing more cheers and laughter.

Guilfoyle was presumably referencing speculation that Newsom could be a top Democratic contender for a 2024 White House run should President Joe Biden decide not to go for it, Politico noted.

Virtually everyone knows the likelihood of Biden running, even though he claims the contrary, is extremely slim.

But if you think Biden is a dangerous president, given his disastrous policymaking decisions, one can only imagine what a hypothetical President Newsom would mean for the United States. We already face years of an exceedingly tough road to get back to how things were under Trump, and that’s if we’re lucky enough to elect a Republican.

If Newsom were to storm the Democratic presidential nomination process and become the Democratic Party’s pick for 2024 — because let’s face it, Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t the party’s best chance, either — then the United States faces the real possibility of mirroring Newsom’s failure to run what was once the most stunning and wonderful state in the nation.

Related:

‘Totally Oblivious or in Denial’: Schiff’s Response to Being Kicked Off of Intel Committee Shows It Was the Right Move

What’s that mean for America?

For starters, out-of-control crime, a continuance of disastrous immigration policy, sky-high gas and energy prices, mismanaged infrastructure grids, sickening corruption, and the list goes on and on.

“Gavin Newsom thinks he will be President someday. That’s funny given that he’s one of the worst Governors in American history,” one Twitter user wrote.

Gavin Newsom thinks he will be President someday. That’s funny given that he’s one of the worst Governors in American history.

— Proud Elephant 🇺🇸🦅 (@ProudElephantUS) December 14, 2022

Being the slick-haired, smooth-talking Democrat that he is — whether it’s 2024, 2028, or beyond, there’s a good chance Newsom will toss his hat in the ring for a chance at taking over the Oval Office.

Let’s hope and pray that we can counter his future career ambitions by ensuring a Republican stays in that position because it’s fair to say that the United States will not survive another president who kowtows to the progressive, radical leftists of his party.

So, some people might doubt us when we say that Joe Biden’s brain is melting down. They might dismiss the many gaffes, confusing remarks, and slurred speeches we post day in, day out. They may even accuse us of being “crazy” for suggesting the man’s mind is mush.

But once in a while, we get a story that not even Karine Jean-Pierre can ignore.

Biden was giving a few remarks during a recent event. It seems he decided to go off-script and tell a story about a conversation he had with his dad. But the details made it impossible that this conversation happened. Just see for yourself.

This was no simple “gaffe.”

From Daily Wire:

“You know, I — my dad, when I got elected vice president, he said, “Joey, Uncle Frank fought in the Battle of the Bulge.” He was not feeling very well now — not because of the Battle of the Bulge. But he said, “And he won the Purple Heart. And he never received it. He never — he never got it. Do you think you could help him get it? We’ll surprise him.” […]

However, Biden’s father, Joseph R. Biden Sr., died in September 2002, more than six years before Biden became vice president in the Obama administration, the New York Post noted.

Frank Biden died even earlier, in 1999, more than nine years before Biden became vice president.

This is very, very troubling.

During an event recently, Biden told a story about a conversation he had with his father, right after Biden was elected vice president. Biden told this detailed story, saying that his father asked him to secure the Purple Heart for his uncle, who served in the Battle of the Bulge.

A touching story, if it was true. The big problem? Biden’s father died in 2002, many years before he was elected vice president. And his uncle died years before that in 1999.

So… this conversation could not have happened–since both his father and uncle were gone by the time Joe was elected in 2008. What is going on? Is Biden simply making this up out of thin air? We know he likes to play fast and loose with the truth.

But something like this is easily fact-checked. Anyone can look up when Joe Biden Sr. or Frank Biden died. (Unless Wikipedia changes the articles to help Joe out!) Biden is either lying or had a very serious lapse in his memory.

It’s fine for someone, especially someone 80 years old, to confuse a few finer details about their life. But this is a big one. He claims that his dead father asked him, the newly-elected vice president, to get the Purple Heart for his dead uncle.

There were too many details about this story that didn’t match up or make sense. This wasn’t a simple oopsie. This was a major failing on the part of a man many believe is suffering from dementia or something else.

No matter how the MSM and Democrats spin this, don’t believe them.

Key Takeaways:

• Biden told an impossible story recently, raising strong doubts about his mental health.
• He claimed his father asked him to get the Purple Heart for his uncle, soon after Joe was elected vice president.
• But both his father and uncle died years before he was elected.

Source: Daily Wire

China is exploiting loopholes to buy up U.S. farmland with the aim of sabotaging the U.S. national security, warned Ross Kennedy, founder of U.S.-based logistics and supply chain advisory Fortis Analysis and senior fellow at Security Studies Group.

Reports have emerged that Chinese companies in recent years have ramped up purchasing U.S. farmland for various projects ranging from green energy to agriculture. Local authorities have justified greenlighting these ventures by arguing that the projects would help generate jobs and tax revenue in their regions.

“Whenever these Chinese companies come to the United States with the promises of economic development, they’re exploiting gaps in our own industrial manufacturing and infrastructure base,” Kennedy told “China in Focus” on NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times, on Dec. 17.

“They’re going to exploit every loophole … every means within their arsenal of tactics and tricks and strategies, to undermine the national security of the United States,” he added.

He pointed to the acquisition of 140,000 acres of farmland in Val Verde County, Texas, since 2016, by a Chinese billionaire to build a wind farm.

“So in the case of the Texas wind farms, it was that that part of Texas can be pretty deficit of energy at certain times a year, and the tax credit structure for wind farms, the need for additional energy in that part of the state of Texas, all of that was exploited to say, ‘Well, you really need these wind farms. We’ll buy this land, we’ll take on the burden of building it, we’ll put energy back into the grid,’” he said.

Kennedy noted that the purchased farmland in Texas is located in the border town of Del Rio, next to Laughlin Air Force Base.

He further singled out the purchase of 370 acres of land in North Dakota by Fufeng Group, an entity whose owner has close ties to the CCP, to set up a corn mill plant.

The proposed project is located about 12 miles from the Grand Forks Air Force Base.

Given the proximity of these projects to U.S. military bases, Kennedy noted that the Chinese entities are inclined to target those states, “where we do have a lot of military infrastructure, especially Air Force and Space Force installations that do a lot with data transmission, telecommunications, aerospace type things.”

These locations would enable the Chinese entities to “conduct passive, active intelligence signals gathering, electronic intelligence, counterespionage,” among others.

National Security Risks

In the case of the North Dakota agricultural land transaction, Kennedy believes that the city of Grand Forks played a role in helping the Chinese group circumvent the national security protocols.

In the fall of 2021, Fufeng bought 370 acres of land in North Dakota for $2.6 million. The city of Grand Forks approved the development agreement for the corn mill project in July.

The deal was done after the City Council voted to annex the property. The city then changed the parcel’s designation from an agricultural zone to an industrial zone to allow the project to move forward under federal law.

In September, the city put holds on Fufeng-related infrastructure projects due to a review by The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

The intervention of CFIUS came after the two senators representing the state had called out national security concerns associated with the venture.

On Dec. 12, CFIUS determined the land sale for the Chinese corn mill project in North Dakota was “not a ‘covered transaction’” under the Committee’s jurisdiction, and, thus, those holds were lifted.

“The city of Grand Forks very transparently and very openly did everything they could, within their legal authorities, to pave the way for this transaction forward both at the state level and at a federal level,” Kennedy opined.

“When you look at the timing of rezoning, the timing of purchases of the land, the timing of a lot of these things, there were a number of thresholds that had to be cleared from a legal standpoint, and a regulatory standpoint, to get us here,” he said.

“And so to structure the deal in such a way that it avoided CFIUS oversight, and that it did not run afoul of North Dakota century codes, rules on foreign ownership of land and the state, they threaded a very narrow, deliberate path here to make sure this transaction happened the way it did, without the ability of CFIUS to pull it in for review,” he added.

In response, Todd Feland, the city administrator of Grand Forks, said that Kennedy’s claims are “false.”

“[T]he City of Grand Forks via the Development Agreement requested Fufeng USA to submit to the CFIUS process and Fufeng USA complied along with the three private property owners who were involved in the property transaction,” Feland told The Epoch Times in an email.

“The City of Grand Forks was and is not a party to the transaction and did not have any involvement in the CFIUS process, review, and ultimate decision of CFIUS. The City of Grand Forks has been advised by our CFIUS consultant, Cooley Law Firm, that the CFIUS process is thorough and exhaustive and ultimate decisions by CFIUS are objective and factual,” he added.

“The City of Grand Forks as a local government has no authority or influence over Federal reviews and decisions to include the noted CFIUS review and decision.”

In Kennedy’s opinion, the CFIUS review was inadequate.

“They knew about the transaction months in advance. They waited until after the fact, till the land was already sold, and then said, “Well, the sale happened, the land is done. It’s already moved on. We don’t have jurisdiction now. There were a lot of misses here deliberately,” he said.

“So I think on the part of some of the CFIUS agencies to not have reviewed this and then be able to throw their hands up and say, ‘Well, we did what we could,’ they didn’t truly do what they could there,” he added.

Pushing Back

Kennedy further suggested “a multi-tiered approach” to tackle this practice going forward.

“In my view, particularly states that host military bases and military infrastructure, those states in particular, have an enormous responsibility to lead on this issue,” he said.

“Doing it at the state level also gives us the opportunity for both a civilian and the military infrastructure to cooperate closely in real time,” he added.

He took note of the fact that South Dakota had already taken action after the deals were brought to light.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem announced on Dec. 13 new proposed legislation to restrict farmland purchases by foreign countries, namely China.

“We could put provisions into the farm bill about foreign ownership of land or land that has been receiving payments from the U.S. government for the last 10 years, not being able to be purchased by foreign entities for at least 5 years after receipt of government payments,” he said.

“Things like that need to be thought of and implemented at the state and federal level, so that we don’t have opportunities for entities to come in and exploit,” he added.

In his opinion, U.S. citizens could also play a role.

“Citizens have, depending on the state, a lot of ability to influence their local political leaders—their state representative, their state senator, even their mayor—to create a groundswell of support for similar sorts of legislation in each state,” he said.

“As these things become known to the public, citizens that have the ability should take action, they should demand that similar legislation be passed in their own states, and be a part of making sure that that legislation works and is targeted correctly,” he said.

The Epoch Times has reached out to CFIUS, Fufeng USA, and the Chinese company behind the Texas wind farm project for comment.

This article was updated to include a statement from the city administrator of Grand Folks. 

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first identified possible issues with the most-used COVID-19 vaccine in early 2021 but waited months to disclose the discovery to the public, a new publication revealed.

FDA researchers saw safety signals for two serious conditions among elderly persons following vaccination with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine on Feb. 27, 2021, the researchers disclosed in a new study. The conditions were a lack of oxygen to the heart, or myocardial infarction, and a separate heart condition known as pulmonary embolism.

Two weeks later, the signal was triggered for disseminated intravascular coagulation, a rare form of blood clotting. And in April of that year, a fourth signal was raised, for a blood platelet disorder.

But it wasn’t until July 12, 2021, that the FDA alerted the public to the signals.

In that unsigned statement, the FDA made it appear as if the signals had just been found.

Utilizing “near real-time surveillance,” the FDA detected “four potential AEIs,” or adverse events of interest, the agency said at the time. “These four events may not be true safety concerns, and the screening method cannot establish that the vaccine caused these AEI. FDA is sharing the initial findings of this safety study in the spirit of transparency but does not believe there is a cause for concern.”

It’s unclear why the FDA waited months to alert the public. The agency and the new study’s corresponding author, the director of the FDA’s Office of Biostatistics and Pharmacovigilance, did not return requests for comment.

Criticism

Safety advocates said the delay was concerning.

“From day one, people over age 65 have been targeted for COVID shots and, to date, 95 percent of them in the U.S. have rolled up their sleeves and gotten vaccinated. The FDA is legally responsible for ensuring that vaccine products released for public use are safe. Why did FDA officials wait for five months to come clean with the public about a suspected increased risk of blood clots that could lead to death for seniors who get the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID vaccine and then wait 10 more months to submit a study for publication?” Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, told The Epoch Times via email.

“How many seniors have suffered a pulmonary embolism or heart attack or developed a bleeding disorder after getting the Pfizer product but doctors wrote off those life-threatening adverse events as just a “coincidence” and not related to the shot because it took almost two years to publish this critically important information in a medical journal?” she added. “A congressional investigation into exactly what government health officials knew about serious health problems following COVID shots and when they knew it is long overdue.”

Kim Witczak, another vaccine safety advocate, noted that the FDA authorized the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines shortly after receiving clinical trial information but took much longer to analyze the safety signals.

“This is not, as FDA claims, to be ‘rapidly’ working to identify potential new and important safety concerns,” Witczak, who runs the group Woodymatters, told The Epoch Times via email.

In the new paper, FDA researchers said that the monitoring “complements other FDA and US Government vaccine safety surveillance systems by rapidly detecting safety concerns that may not have been voluntarily reported to passive surveillance systems such as Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.”

Witczak called on the FDA, which has consistently promoted the vaccines, “to react faster and with unbiased attitude towards safety” while saying there should be an independent safety review of the vaccines with no agenda besides monitoring safety.

A brief timeline of the FDA’s surveillance of COVID-19 vaccines among the elderly:
February 2021: FDA identifies first safety signals.
March 2021: FDA identifies another signal.
April 2021: FDA identifies another signal.
July 2021: FDA issues a statement about the signals, revealing their existence to the public for the first time.
May 2022: FDA submits study to journal Vaccine.
November 2022: FDA revises paper, possibly due to feedback from the journal.
December 2022: The study is published following peer review.

New Study

The new paper provided the first follow-up to the public since the July 2021 statement.

Anderson and other researchers with the FDA or the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) reported on results from safety monitoring of vaccines among people aged 65 and older through analyses of data from CMS records. CMS provides health insurance for many elderly Americans.

The researchers confirmed that the primary analysis detected signals for all four conditions listed in the statement, but said three of them—disseminated intravascular coagulation; the platelet disorder, which is known as immune thrombocytopenia; and myocardial infarction, or the lack of oxygen to the heart—no longer met the signal thresholds after certain, more in-depth analyses.

Pulmonary embolism, on the other hand, continued to meet the threshold.

Researchers stressed that just because a condition triggers a signal does not mean it is related to a vaccine and said they believe the vaccine’s benefits still outweigh its risks.

Dr. Peter McCullough, chief medical adviser for the Truth for Health Foundation, differed, telling The Epoch Times that the new paper “corroborates the concerns of doctors that the large uptick in blood clots, progression of atherosclerotic heart disease, and blood disorders are independently associated with COVID-19 vaccination.”

Pfizer did not respond to a request for comment.

No signals were triggered for the vaccines made by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to pause the expiration of Title 42 after 19 states filed an emergency application for a stay.

Chief Justice John Roberts has temporarily stayed a lower court’s decision that would lift Title 42 on Wednesday. He called for an “administrative stay” that puts the order on hold while the justices consider the multistate request.

Earlier on Monday, Arizona, Louisiana, Texas, and 16 other GOP-led filed an emergency application urging the SCOTUS to reverse the lower court’s decision to strike down Title 42.

“Getting rid of Title 42 will recklessly and needlessly endanger more Americans and migrants by exacerbating the catastrophe that is occurring at our southern border,” Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a news release. Unlawful crossings are estimated to surge from 7,000 per day to as many as 18,000.”

On Nov. 16, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, D.C., struck down the policy that allows immigration officials to quickly expel migrants who enter the U.S. during a public health emergency. Sullivan was appointed to serve as a federal judge by President Bill Clinton in 1994.

Title 42 was invoked by the Trump administration in March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Irreparable Harm’

Last month, the multistate coalition attempted to intervene to allow states to continue defending the policy. When the district court judge refused to rule on the motion, the states appealed to a higher court to stay the decision.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied the motion to intervene.

Now, the coalition cited there would be “irreparable harm absent a stay.”

“In particular, the greatly increased number of migrants resulting from this termination will necessarily increase the States’ law enforcement, education, and healthcare costs,” the application reads.

“The likelihood of irreparable harm to the States is underscored by the fact that DHS has requested $3-4 billion in emergency funding to deal with the imminent calamity that the district court’s decision will occasion,” the document continued.

According to preliminary Customs and Border Protection data provided to The Epoch Times, from Dec. 1 through Dec. 19, the border’s two busiest sectors—El Paso and Del Rio in Texas—counted 70,288 illegal alien apprehensions and an additional 28,913 who evaded arrest.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) recently invoked his state’s right to protect its own territory against the invasion of drug cartels as a result of the Biden administration’s border policies.

“Texans are paying the price for your failure. Ranches are being ripped apart, and homes are vulnerable to intrusion. Our border communities are regularly disrupted by human traffickers and bailouts,” Abbott wrote in a letter to Biden on Nov. 16. “Deadly fentanyl is crossing the porous border to such a degree that it is now the leading cause of death for citizens between the ages of 18 and 45.”

“Your inaction has led to catastrophic consequences. Under your watch, America is suffering the highest volume of illegal immigration in the history of our country,” he continued.

Witnessing the situation at the border, Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez also sent a letter asking Biden to delay the repeal of Title 42. Cortez invited the president to visit South Texas and address the “serious issue on the horizon” border towns face with the dissolution of Title 42.

The American Civil Liberties Union has long been fighting for the end of Title 42.

“The policy was implemented during the Trump administration, in violation of longstanding immigration statutes requiring that asylum seekers receive a full and fair proceeding to determine their right to protection in the United States,” the ACLU wrote on its website last month.

California ‘About to Break’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who visited the California-Mexico border last week, said the sanctuary state has spent “roughly $1 billion over the past three years to support the health and safety of migrants as well as the surrounding border communities, but we cannot continue to do this work alone,” according to a news release.

In an interview after his border visit, Newson told KXTV News that the system in California is “about to break.”

“The fact is, what we’ve got right now is not working, and it’s about to break in a post-42 world unless we take some responsibility and ownership,” Gavin said.

Charlotte Cuthbertson contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated the total number of border apprehensions so far in December. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman says he doesn’t want Larry Fink to ‘be my emperor’

The acquisition by investment managers BlackRock and Vanguard of ever-increasing shares in America’s public utility companies is setting off alarm bells from conservatives and progressives alike.

In April, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a request from BlackRock to increase its ownership up to 20 percent of a public utility’s voting shares without being deemed an “affiliate” and incurring the regulatory scrutiny and disclosures that come with that. To gain FERC approval, BlackRock and Vanguard promised they’d be “passive” investors and not use their share ownership to influence management.

Because utilities are often monopolies in the regions they serve and because electricity and heating are essential in people’s lives, any investment of more than $10 million in a public utility must be approved by FERC, according to the Federal Power Act (FPA). BlackRock and Vanguard received blanket approval in 2019 to surpass this limit for three years, and BlackRock was just given blanket approval for another three years. Now, Vanguard is seeking FERC approval on similar terms, but its request is sparking protests.

In November, 13 state attorneys general petitioned FERC to deny Vanguard’s request. Claiming that residents of their states could be harmed if utilities are compelled to stop using fossil fuels in favor of wind and solar power, the attorneys general argued that “Vanguard is not entitled to a blanket authorization to acquire substantial equity and voting power in utility companies.”

“Vanguard’s own public commitments and other statements have at the very least created the appearance that Vanguard has breached its promises to the commission by engaging in environmental activism and using its financial influence to manipulate the activities of the utility companies in its portfolio,” the petition stated. “A hearing in this matter is warranted to determine the extent to which Vanguard has violated the 2019 authorization and whether granting Vanguard a blanket authorization is contrary to the public interest.”

While voting to approve BlackRock’s request, FERC Commissioner Mark Christie stated: “The claim that huge asset managers such as BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard are merely passive investors in publicly held corporations, investing purely for the benefit of their beneficiaries—many of whom are retirees receiving pensions—is no longer credible.

“BlackRock, in particular, has been openly aggressive in using its massive financial power to influence corporate policy in areas far attenuated from the legitimate money-management goals of protecting the incomes and investment interests of its beneficiaries,” Christie said.

Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway—the company chaired by renowned investor Warren Buffett—concurred, stating in February that “we have a new bunch of emperors, and they’re the people who vote the shares in the index funds. I think the world of [BlackRock CEO] Larry Fink, but I’m not sure I want him to be my emperor.”

Influence of the Big Three

BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard manage the vast majority of index funds and together have become the largest shareholders in 90 percent of S&P 500 Index companies. Because of their oligopolistic position in this space, they’re often called the “Big Three.”

“A retail investor who buys an index fund does not own the stock in the fund,” a December report by the Senate Banking Committee’s GOP members stated. “Those stocks instead are owned by the fund, which means the fund’s manager may vote those shares. Even though they buy that voting power with other people’s money, that voting power gives asset managers like the Big Three enormous influence.”

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) stated, “What these activists have figured out is that any radical policy that they can’t get enacted through government can be advanced through corporate America by hijacking trillions of dollars in voting rights from everyday Americans’ retirement accounts.”

The Senate report further noted that “thanks to the tremendous scale of the savings entrusted with them, the Big Three together cast around one-quarter of all votes at shareholder meetings of most S&P 500 companies. … Each of these firms proudly uses the voting power gained from the investors’ money to advance liberal social goals known as ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion).”

According to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, “Consumers across our country are already feeling the sting of skyrocketing electricity bills, and Vanguard’s request to extend its authorization, coupled with its commitment to imposing net-zero requirements on publicly traded utilities, would only increase those costs.”

These FERC decisions come on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling in June, in which the courts stated that the EPA didn’t have the authority to force America’s utilities to transition to wind and solar energy from fossil fuels. This decision was in line with the “major questions doctrine,” which states that policies of major importance to Americans must be decided by elected representatives in Congress so that citizens can have a voice in such matters.

As has often been the case in recent years, activist corporations often succeed in imposing a progressive agenda, where federal agencies fail. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are the world’s largest asset managers, controlling approximately $20 trillion in investors’ money through index funds and pension plans. They’re also partners in global movements to transition from fossil fuels to wind and solar energy, joining clubs such as the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM), Ceres, and Climate Action 100+.

Asset managers who are members of NZAM pledge to “implement a stewardship and engagement strategy, with a clear escalation and voting policy, that is consistent with our ambition for all assets under management to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner”—in short, to use their voting power to compel all companies whose shares they own to transition away from fossil fuels.

“These targets come out of the Paris Accord, which couldn’t even get passed through a Democratic Senate,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, told The Epoch Times. “Voters have rejected these net-zero by 2050 goals over and over again. So now we’re seeing this, in my opinion, illegitimate attempt to use corporate America to push these goals.”

But according to Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, the protest by state attorneys general was nothing more than “political theater.”

“These AGs are running for political office, and this is a fundraising opportunity,” Slocum told The Epoch Times. “I guarantee you that we’re going to see fundraising emails from these AGs to various donor databases [stating], ‘Look where we’re taking it to these big liberal institutions, and we’ve got your back on fighting against capitalism or whatever.’ Such nonsense!”

Slocum, an advocate of wind and solar power, was among the few to object to FERC’s approval of BlackRock’s expanding ownership of utilities last spring. But Public Citizen’s objection stemmed from its view that the Big Three weren’t pushing utilities hard enough to exit fossil fuels.

“We noted some statistics, with BlackRock anyway, that they abstain from a number of climate-related votes, that instead of using their voting power to push companies harder on climate change, instead they’re giving management a pass,” Slocum said.

“By failing to vote, you are sending a message to management: We’re an entity that controls a massive amount of your shares, and we’re not going to pressure you on these issues when the general public who own most of those shares actually want you to do those things,” Slocum said. “Which is very different from what the AGs are saying. They’re claiming that these companies are dictating the terms, and they’re most certainly not. In fact, the record clearly shows that they are failing to use their accumulated power to pressure these companies.”

In October, Swiss investment bank UBS downgraded the shares of BlackRock, stating that BlackRock’s “early and energetic adoption of ESG principles in its fund management and shareholder proxy activities have positioned the firm as an ESG leader, in our view. However, as performance deteriorates and political risk from ESG has increased, we believe the potential for lost fund mandates and regulatory scrutiny has recently increased.”

Vanguard pulled out of NZAM on Dec. 7, stating that “such industry initiatives can advance constructive dialogue, but sometimes they can also result in confusion about the views of individual asset managers.” The firm provided a statement to The Epoch Times that it was withdrawing “to make clear that Vanguard speaks independently on matters of importance to our investors.”

Vanguard’s exit provoked a harsh response from climate activists. Former Vice President Al Gore condemned it as “irresponsible and short-sighted,” while New York City Comptroller Brad Lander called it a “cowardly walk-back.”

Meanwhile, conservatives withheld applause. Years of posturing by these asset managers in support of ESG principles have left many people wary of their intentions.

“I don’t trust declarations—I trust action,” Hild said. “We are certainly going to continue to watch their activities, and if they continue using their portfolio for this, which is a violation of their fiduciary duty, then we are going to continue to hit them for that.”

BlackRock officials declined to comment on this article.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Senate report alleges lack of safeguards for migrant children under Biden admin

The Biden administration’s attempts to implement a more humane immigration policy are leading it to hand migrant children over to American adults who haven’t submitted to background checks, according to a Senate report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. That has made those kids vulnerable to everything from being placed in the custody of legal guardians who have a history of child neglect to living in homes with registered sex offenders.

The report, from Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) and Republican members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, paints a devastating picture of how the Biden administration has mismanaged the southern border, which has seen more than 2.5 million crossings since he took office. Biden’s attempt to strike a contrast on immigration with his predecessor may have backfired, putting in danger thousands of minors who have now lost contact with federal authorities, according to the report.

In an effort to reverse Trump administration policies that President Joe Biden characterized on the campaign trail as cruel and inhumane, many unaccompanied alien children who come into the custody of American officials are now handed over to adults in the United States without any vetting, the report says. Those background checks would verify, among other things, that alien children are not given to guardians who are on the sex offender registry.

Few executive actions under former president Donald Trump drew more ire from the media and left-wing activists than his “family separation policy.” That policy, which ordered law enforcement to separate children from illegal alien parents apprehended at the southern border was meant to deter future illegal border crossings. But Biden, who, according to the Senate report, is overseeing an immigration system that is reducing “protections for [unaccompanied alien] children against abuse and trafficking,” has avoided the same level of scrutiny from the press and Democrats.

Federal agencies responsible for releasing children into the custody of a legal guardian in the United States, such as HHS and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, told Senate Republicans that they do not believe they are responsible for “protecting unaccompanied alien children from abuse and trafficking after placement with a sponsor.” That shocking admission, the report states, is a “plain” contradiction of the agencies’ statutory obligations.

“[Health and Human Services has refused] to implement systems designed to ensure the safe release of children and accept legal responsibility for unaccompanied alien children after they are paired with a sponsor, as required by law,” the report states.

Reversing his predecessor’s hawkish immigration policies has been a priority for Biden from the start. Some of his first actions as president targeted the southern border, such as a February 2021 executive order that required “agencies to conduct a top-to-bottom review of recent regulations, policies, and guidance that have set up barriers to our legal immigration system.” That move, followed by others announced the next month, were, Biden said, part of a strategy to create a “fair, safe, and orderly immigration system.”

The practice of waiving background checks for adults who take in alien children began shortly thereafter as the Biden administration prioritized the identification of adult caregivers in order to avoid keeping children in holding facilities or returning them to their home countries.

It also meant that federal authorities often knew very little about the people taking in alien children. HHS released nearly 73,000 unaccompanied alien children to sponsors in the 2021 fiscal year but completed fewer than 6,500 checks with state child abuse and neglect registries, the report says. If a potential sponsor refuses a background check, federal guidelines under the Biden administration dictate that authorities may still release a child to that individual.

“Caring for unaccompanied alien children, children at significant risk of labor and sex trafficking and abuse, should be one of the top priorities of the United States government,” the report states. “Yet, this investigation reveals actions by the Biden administration that show the opposite—serious disregard for these children’s welfare.”

Although a record number of unaccompanied alien minors crossed the border in 2021, the federal government completed fewer child abuse and neglect checks than in the 2019 fiscal year, federal data show. Nor does HHS “adequately verify a sponsor’s identity and relationship with a child,” by offering little guidance to case managers who are in charge of placing children in a domestic household, according to the report.

The Senate report includes a list of recommendations that would better protect migrant alien children, including the bipartisan Responsibility for Unaccompanied Minors Act. That law, Senate Republicans argue, would require HHS to create more sophisticated tracking and care systems for unaccompanied minor children. HHS would also be obligated to end the custody agreement between a sponsor and child if there is proof of abuse or neglect.

“Without acknowledging its responsibility, correcting these issues, and better vetting potential sponsors, the Biden administration cannot ensure the safety of unaccompanied alien children,” the report states.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

(Reuters)—The mayor of the Texas border city of El Paso declared a state of emergency on Saturday, citing the hundreds of migrants sleeping on the streets in cold temperatures and the thousands being apprehended every day.

Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat, said the emergency declaration would give city authorities the resources and ability to shelter migrants who have crossed the Mexican border.

“We wanted to make sure people are treated with dignity. We want to make sure everyone is safe,” Leeser told reporters.

The move comes as El Paso, a Democratic stronghold with a history of welcoming immigrants, has struggled in recent months to deal with tens of thousands of migrants crossing the border with Mexico. The city is bracing for a possible jump in migrant arrivals after a U.S. judge ordered COVID-era border restrictions known as Title 42 to end by Dec. 21.

A record number of migrants have been caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border under President Joe Biden, a Democrat who took office in January 2021, fueling attacks by Republican opponents who favor tougher policies.

U.S. border agents have encountered an average of more than 2,400 migrants per day in a 268-mile stretch of the border known as the El Paso Sector over the past week, according to figures published by the city, a 40% increase compared with October.

Even as government officials move migrants in El Paso to other U.S. cities, local shelters are beyond capacity and migrants have been sleeping on the streets as temperatures dip below freezing.

Mario D’Agostino, El Paso’s deputy city manager, said the emergency declaration will also provide the city with extra transportation options to bus migrants to other locations, and extra help from state law enforcement.

As migrant arrivals increased in late August, the city launched a busing program that sent nearly 14,000 migrants to New York and Chicago, saying many Venezuelans were arriving without U.S. sponsors.

The city halted the program in October when the Biden administration began expelling Venezuelans back to Mexico under Title 42, but could restart it if Venezuelans again are allowed to cross into El Paso, D’Agostino said on Thursday.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Friday denied an attempt by a group of U.S. states with Republican attorneys general to intervene in a lawsuit to keep Title 42 in place. The states could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

(Reporting by Tim Reid and Ted HessenEditing by Chris Reese and Michael Perry)

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

James Rubin also lobbied for Zimbabwe and a Turkish state bank linked to Iran

The State Department’s Global Engagement Center is charged with understanding and countering propaganda from America’s adversaries. So a man who has shilled for Qatar, Zimbabwe, and a Turkish state bank linked to Iran may be an awkward fit as its leader.

As a partner at the firm Ballard Partners, James Rubin until 2020 lobbied State Department and White House officials on behalf of Qatar, the oil-rich Gulf nation that funds terrorist groups and is allied with Iran, according to disclosures filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Rubin, who served in the State Department under President Bill Clinton, also represented Halkbank, a Turkish state bank indicted in a gold-for-oil scheme with Iran. He shilled for the government of Zimbabwe in its effort to alleviate sanctions over the “unusual and extraordinary threat” the regime poses to the United States.

Biden on Friday appointed Rubin to serve as special envoy and coordinator of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, formed to identify and expose foreign propaganda “that threatens the security of the United States, our allies, and partners.” According to the State Department, Rubin will focus on countering foreign disinformation and propaganda with a focus on Russia, China, Iran, and terrorist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda.

Rubin’s work for the controversial regimes is likely to raise questions about the revolving door between the Biden White House and lobbying firms. As a candidate in 2020, Biden said he would prohibit foreign governments’ use of lobbyists, saying that “there is no reason why a foreign government should be permitted to lobby Congress or the Executive Branch.”

Rubin, the ex-husband of CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour, is the latest in a string of foreign agents hired by the Biden administration. Amos Hochstein, a top White House adviser on international energy issues, represented Equatorial Guinea, one of Africa’s most repressive regimes. Erin Pelton, who served as special assistant to Biden, lobbied for Qatar prior to joining the administration. George Salem, appointed chairman of a board at USAID this year, represented the Palestine Monetary Authority, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Disclosures filed with the Justice Department show Rubin met frequently with State Department and White House officials on behalf of his foreign clients. He registered as an agent of Qatar in May 2019 as Ballard Partners worked for “the betterment of U.S.-Qatari bilateral relations.” The Gulf nation has long funded and provided a safe-haven for ISIS and al Qaeda extremists. Qatar’s foreign minister offered condolences to Iran after a U.S. airstrike killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

Rubin registered as a lobbyist for Halkbank and Zimbabwe in March 2019, according to his foreign agent disclosure.

In 2017, the Department of Justice accused Halkbank of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran by trading gold for Iranian oil and gas. Prosecutors indicted Halkbank executives in 2018 and filed additional charges in 2019 for evading sanctions. During meetings with his lobbying contacts at the State Department and White House, Rubin reportedly suggested the United States go easy on Halkbank because of Turkey’s membership in the NATO alliance.

Rubin met throughout 2019 and 2020 with State Department officials regarding Zimbabwe, led by dictator Emmerson Mnangagwa. In 2003, President George W. Bush sanctioned Zimbabwe over its human rights abuses and violent repression of opposition political parties, journalists, and others. Biden maintained those sanctions last year, saying that the Zimbabwean regime poses “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States.”

The White House and State Department did not respond to requests for comment.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Stacey Abrams’s gubernatorial campaign can’t afford to pay its employees and owes over $1 million to vendors, Axios reported Monday.

Abrams amassed over $100 million in her failed bid to unseat Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R.), but suffered cash flow issues in the final weeks of the campaign. Speaking to Axios, two-time Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo blamed the money problems on a “cavalcade of negative press and negative polling” in the final months of the campaign.

“We did not just lose, we got blown out,” she told Axios. “It was the most sub-optimal situation to be in. And we will be dealing with that situation for some time.”

The Abrams campaign has resorted to selling its donor and voter contact databases to pay down its debt, and it abruptly cut off salary payments to most of its 180 full-time staffers just one week after the November election. Former campaign staffers said they were shocked that Abrams couldn’t pay their salaries after having raised so much money.

“I figured, $100 million? They should be able to pay me until December,” a former Abrams staffer told Axios.

“People have told me they have no idea how they’re going to pay their rent in January,” said another former Abrams staffer, adding that the campaign’s decision to stop paying employees “was messed up.”

Squandering massive fundraising hauls is par for the course for groups associated with Abrams. The New Georgia Project, a voter registration group founded by Abrams that was tasked with expanding the non-white electorate in the Peach State, raised nearly $25 million in 2020, only to lay off half its leadership team in the weeks before the 2022 election due to a lack of funds, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

A former New Georgia Project executive told the Free Beacon that the group fired its top financial officer in late June after the officer said he couldn’t do his job without violating the law. New Georgia Project is now over a month late in filing its 2021 finances to the IRS, and the charity continues to solicit donations without a license in at least nine states, opening itself up to massive fines and criminal inquiries.

Abrams also has a poor track record managing her own personal finances. During her first gubernatorial bid in 2018, she owed $54,000 in unpaid taxes to the IRS, on top of $170,000 in credit card and student loan debt. Abrams resolved those debts before launching her 2022 campaign.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

President wanted to ‘unilaterally impose a health care decision on one-fifth of all employees in the United States,’ writes Fifth US Circuit

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—A U.S. appeals court on Monday said the White House could not require federal contractors to ensure that their workers are vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of government contracts.

A panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to uphold a lower court decision that blocked President Joe Biden’s September 2021 contractor vaccine executive order after Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi brought suit to seek invalidation of the mandate. The court said Biden wanted it “to ratify an exercise of proprietary authority that would permit him to unilaterally impose a healthcare decision on one-fifth of all employees in the United States. We decline to do so.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson)

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

The public university dragged into court over its race-conscious admissions policy is now advertising a research fellowship that bars white applicants from applying.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—whose affirmative action program, along with that of Harvard University, is under review by the Supreme Court—sponsors the Fellowship for Exploring Research in Nutrition, which accepts applications exclusively from students who are “Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC),” according to the program’s website. Fellows earn thousands of dollars, live in on-campus apartments paid for by the university, and receive generous mentorship opportunities, including letters of recommendation.

“The field of nutrition is overwhelmingly comprised of white researchers,” an ad for the fellowship states. “Increased BIPOC representation in food policy research is critical for developing effective, equitable, comprehensive, and culturally competent policies that address nutrition-related health disparities.”

On Monday, the economist Mark Perry filed a complaint about the fellowship with the District of Columbia’s Office of Civil Rights. The complaint, which was reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, asks the office to investigate the university for “race-based discrimination.”

UNC Chapel Hill did not respond to a request for comment.

The program, which UNC Chapel Hill announced last week on its website, comes as UNC Chapel Hill and Harvard await a verdict from the Supreme Court over a lawsuit from Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit opposed to affirmative action. The group argues that both schools are violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans racial discrimination by the recipients of federal funds, and that UNC Chapel Hill, as a public university, is also violating the 14th Amendment, which bans racial discrimination by the government.

At oral arguments for the case in October, the Supreme Court’s conservative justices seemed receptive to that argument. The nutrition fellowship—and white students’ explicit exclusion from it—undercuts the school’s claim that it does not discriminate based on race, though in this case the discrimination is occurring outside of the school’s admissions office.

“It is indisputable this UNC student research program is racially exclusive and therefore is in violation of our nation’s civil rights laws,” said Edward Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions. The program is similar to other minority-only fellowships, such as Pfizer’s Breakthrough Fellowship, that have been hit with discrimination lawsuits in the past year.

If Students for Fair Admissions wins the case, colleges and universities will no longer be allowed to use race as a factor in admissions. Ryan Park, the solicitor general for North Carolina, told the Supreme Court that such an outcome would deny students “the educational benefits” of diversity. That led to a tense exchange in which Justice Clarence Thomas, who grew up in a segregated town in Georgia, pressed Park to explain what he meant.

“I guess I don’t put much stock in that” argument, Thomas interjected, “because I’ve heard similar arguments in favor of segregation too.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Watchdog groups are pressuring Congress to stop awarding taxpayer funds to foreign labs, including the controversial Chinese institute at the center of the coronavirus pandemic.

With Congress approving a temporary spending package to keep the federal government operating throughout the end of the year, several watchdog groups are concerned that taxpayer funds will be allocated to a range of foreign labs via the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The most notable U.S.-funded lab is the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese Communist Party-controlled entity that is suspected of conducting research that led to the coronavirus outbreak.

“Foreign government-controlled laboratories should not be eligible to receive U.S. taxpayer dollars while they disregard our policies, dodge congressional oversight, or act against our national interest,” seven watchdog organizations led by the White Coat Waste Project wrote in a letter sent Friday to lawmakers on the House and Senate appropriations committees.

“The National Institutes of Health, with little accountability to Congress or the [Biden] administration, continues to authorize funding for animal experimentation laboratories directly controlled by foreign adversaries that act contrary to the national interest of the United States,” the groups wrote.

While some in Congress—like Reps. Lisa McClain (R., Mich.), Nancy Mace (R., S.C.), and some of their Republican colleagues—are casting a critical eye on the foreign-funded labs, NIH is pushing for taxpayer funding and defending the work carried out by some of the United States’ top enemies.

NIH officials, the groups write, “are actively monitoring and pushing back against congressional efforts to defund risky gain-of-function experiments in China, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” This type of research, which boosts a virus’s lethality for research purposes, is believed to have laid the foundation for the coronavirus that eventually spilled into the general population. A Republican investigative body determined in October that the most likely cause of the pandemic was a lab leak, potentially from the Wuhan institute.

Currently, NIH is permitted to fund labs operating in “foreign adversary nations” like Russia and China, according to the watchdog groups. U.S.-funded labs in Russia, for instance, are under congressional scrutiny for conducting “horrific and barbaric” experiments on animals that include cutting out portions of their brains.

Though the war in Ukraine has increased pressure on NIH to end its partnerships with these labs, the federal agency has leeway in how taxpayer funds are spent. The Biden administration said in June that it wants to cut U.S. funding for Russian labs, but NIH will not say if it will comply with this request.

“NIH bureaucrats make the final call and continue to fund these animal labs without regard for the American taxpayer,” the groups wrote. “Meanwhile, taxpayers have repeatedly indicated their support for withholding those funds—71 percent of respondents to a recent poll indicated that they support federal legislation to restrict animal testing in countries that are adversaries of the United States.”

Legislation circulating in the House would formalize prohibitions on taxpayer funds spent at foreign labs. One measure under consideration by the House Appropriations Committee blocks federal funds from being “made available to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or any other laboratory located in a country determined … to be a foreign adversary, including China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.” Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine and Chinese ongoing efforts to obfuscate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic have made it likely these types of provisions will garner bipartisan backing.

The White Coat Waste Project and other groups backing the letter are asking that similar provisions be included in the most recent federal spending bill.

Tristan Daedalus, the White Coat Waste Project’s government affairs director, said taxpayers are overwhelmingly opposed to funding these types of foreign research.

“We shouldn’t be forced to bankroll dangerous, cruel, and wasteful animal experiments in places like Wuhan and St. Petersburg,” Daedalus said. “Yet, as our government watchdog first exposed, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and 30 other animal labs in Russia and China are still currently authorized to receive U.S. taxpayer dollars via the National Institutes of Health.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Stanford University and California Polytechnic State University also discourage ‘gender-based’ terms like ‘mother and father’

If you’ve ever used the phrases “brown bag lunch” or “long time, no see,” congratulations: You’re a racist, according to Stanford University.

That’s the judgment of the university’s IT Department, which is rolling out its “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative,” an effort to purge “potentially harmful terms” from the university’s websites. The guide cautions that the phrase “blind study” is “ableist” and that saying “balls to the wall” inappropriately “attributes personality traits to anatomy.”

Stanford isn’t alone in its linguistic purge. Down the coast, California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo warns incoming students against saying “father and mother” or “boyfriend and girlfriend,” according to a set of instruction slides for student orientation leaders obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Suggested alternatives to mother and father include “supporter,” while the university prefers “partner, beloved or lover” to boyfriend and girlfriend.

Universities and other elite institutions have increasingly embraced “woke” language in a bid to appear progressive. The Biden administration referred to mothers as “birthing people” in its 2022 budget proposal. Stanford is one of several colleges that urge students to use the term “Latinx” to describe Spanish-speaking people, even though most Hispanic people disavow the term.

Both Cal Poly and Stanford apparently worry that mere mention of words commonly used by most Americans will upset their students. They offer “content warnings” before listing problem language like “stupid” and “OCD.”

The Stanford guide discourages the use of “gender-based” terms like “landlord” and “mankind.” Even the seemingly progressive phrase “preferred pronouns” makes the list, since it “suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference.” The once-public Stanford list was hidden behind a university login page sometime Monday. The university did not respond to the Free Beacon’s request for comments on the change.

Stanford claims that administrators “are not attempting to address all informal uses of language,” but simply “educate people about the possible impact of the words we use.” Cal Poly’s language initiative has a loftier aim.

The university’s presentations, which are given to student leaders who run orientations for freshmen and transfers, state that they should do more than switch up their language and adopt gender pronouns. “In order to support trans people in their lives, allies need to dismantle the binary ideas they have of gender in their heads,” one slide says.

The Cal Poly materials caution students against using words and phrases like “crazy” or “that’s lame,” because they were “used during a time of eugenics against disabled folx, such as forced sterilization and institutionalization.”

A Cal Poly spokesman confirmed that the slides have been used in orientation programs “for several years” to promote “using inclusive language around gender and ability.” The spokesman added that the speech codes are part of the school’s efforts to promote a “welcoming” campus.

Both Stanford and Cal Poly say they are committed to free speech, which the latter institution avows as a “cornerstone” of democratic societies. But students and faculty say they feel stifled by the speech codes.

“There are people who maybe 5 or 10 years ago would have been in the trenches fighting this stuff with me, but they are even sort of throwing in the hat because it’s just bigger than them,” said Brian Kennelly, a French professor at Cal Poly. “I think people are just exhausted and if they can just get by unnoticed and get a paycheck that’s enough for them, which is so sad.”

Kennelly was the only faculty member willing to speak to the Free Beacon on the record. Two Cal Poly instructors who asked to remain anonymous said that students won’t even take rhetorical positions for the sake of argument in class, as they seem afraid of saying something that violates the social justice creed.

“My guess would be there’s 30 to 50 percent of the student body who don’t buy into this and believe it, but they know they just have to show up and bite their tongue and bide their time,” one of these instructors said.

Stanford likewise stresses its free speech imperative. The university’s top leaders, however, have sought to temper its First Amendment mandate with concerns for those “who are negatively impacted by speech” and acknowledgment of the “additional challenge” of “outside speakers who may be controversial.”

One Cal Poly instructor said the science and engineering-focused university—long considered the “crown jewel” of the California State University system—has seen a complete “brand shift” as the campus became consumed by social justice.

“I don’t think it’s going to end well for the institutions,” the instructor said.

Kennelly worries about the effect on an entire generation.

“If we are expecting our students to all kind of walk in lockstep and have this group think and basically be brainwashed,” Kennelly said, “they’re going to be incapable of engaging in the way that we would normally expect a college student to engage.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Social science is in the midst of a replication crisis. This means the findings of many published social science papers cannot be reproduced and are likely invalid. A new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) sheds light on the scale of the problem and calls into question the veracity of social science research in general, including that which anti-gun advocates use to push for gun control.

As an issue, the replication crisis came to prominence in 2015. That year the journal Science published the findings of a team of 270 scientists led by University of Virginia Professor Brian Nosek who attempted to replicate 98 studies published in some of psychology’s most prestigious journals. In the end, according to a Science article accompanying the study, “only 39% [of the studies] could be replicated unambiguously.”

In an article on the team’s findings, the journal Nature noted, “John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University in California, says that the true replication-failure rate could exceed 80%, even higher than Nosek’s study suggests.”

At the time, the New York Times explained how researchers’ incentives that can lead to the perversion of science, noting,

The report appears at a time when the number of retractions of published papers is rising sharply in a wide variety of disciplines. Scientists have pointed to a hypercompetitive culture across science that favors novel, sexy results and provides little incentive for researchers to replicate the findings of others, or for journals to publish studies that fail to find a splashy result.

For better or worse, given the political climate, “scientific” results involving guns are inherently “splashy.” Add to that research funding from wealthy gun control advocates like Michael Bloomberg and expressly anti-gun jurisdictions like California and there is an obvious incentive for “sexy results” at any cost.

More recently, Reason magazine did an excellent job of exposing almost all “gun violence” social science for the junk science it is by producing an accessible video explainer on the topic.

Drawing on the expertise of statistician and New York University and University of California at San Diego instructor Aaron Brown and a 2020 analysis by the RAND Corporation, the video explained that the vast majority of gun violence research is not conducted in a manner sufficient to offer meaningful conclusions. An article accompanying the video, written by Brown and Reason Producer Justin Monticello, noted,

A 2020 analysis by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, parsed the results of 27,900 research publications on the effectiveness of gun control laws. From this vast body of work, the RAND authors found only 123 studies, or 0.4 percent, that tested the effects rigorously.

Reason and Brown examined the remaining 123 studies from the RAND analysis and offered the following,

We took a look at the significance of the 123 rigorous empirical studies and what they actually say about the efficacy of gun control laws.

The answer: nothing. The 123 studies that met RAND’s criteria may have been the best of the 27,900 that were analyzed, but they still had serious statistical defects, such as a lack of controls, too many parameters or hypotheses for the data, undisclosed data, erroneous data, misspecified models, and other problems.

Moreover, the authors noted that there appears to be something of an inverse relationship between the most rigorously conducted “gun violence” studies and those that receive media attention. The piece explained,

Tellingly, the studies that have gotten the most media or legislative attention aren’t among the 123 that met RAND’s approval. The best studies made claims that were too mild, tenuous, and qualified to satisfy partisans and sensationalist media outlets. It was the worst studies, with the most outrageous claims, that made headlines.

The PNAS paper further undermines the validity of social science research – even in cases where attempts are made to control for bias. Titled “Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty,” the paper shows that researchers given the exact same data and hypothesis come to wildly different conclusions as a result of the researchers’ idiosyncratic decisions.

To construct their experiment, the authors assembled 161 researchers in 73 teams and provided them with the same data and hypothesis to be tested. In this case, the researchers were asked to determine from the data whether “greater immigration reduces support for social policies among the public.” To attempt to control for the bias towards “splashy” findings, the researchers were promised co-authorship of a final paper on the topic regardless of their conclusions.

Explaining the results of the experiment, the authors reported,

Results from our controlled research design in a large-scale crowdsourced research effort involving 73 teams demonstrate that analyzing the same hypothesis with the same data can lead to substantial differences in statistical estimates and substantive conclusions. In fact, no two teams arrived at the same set of numerical results or took the same major decisions during data analysis.

…

Even highly skilled scientists motivated to come to accurate results varied tremendously in what they found when provided with the same data and hypothesis to test.

…

Our findings suggest reliability across researchers may remain low even when their accuracy motivation is high and biasing incentives are removed.

In other words: Much of social science is of dubious value, even when its practitioners aren’t politically or financially-biased.

In attempting to explain the wide variation of results, the authors state,

Researchers must make analytical decisions so minute that they often do not even register as decisions. Instead, they go unnoticed as nondeliberate actions following ostensibly standard operating procedures. Our study shows that, when taken as a whole, these hundreds of decisions combine to be far from trivial.

This concept is sometimes presented as the “garden of forking paths.” Each minute decision a researcher makes in working with data or constructing a statistical model can lead to different sets of decisions down the road. These different decisions compound, resulting in extreme variations in results among even well-meaning researchers using the same data.

In summarizing the implications of their findings for social science, the PNAS authors note,

Considering this variation, scientists, especially those working with the complexities of human societies and behavior, should exercise humility and strive to better account for the uncertainty in their work.

Anti-gun social science certainly involves “complexities of societies and behavior” and should therefore be treated with the utmost skepticism. Moreover, this call for humility should be extended to journalists and policymakers who trumpet such questionable social science research with the goal of curtailing Americans’ fundamental rights.

SOURCE: NRA ILA

New York Mayor Eric Adams warned that federal COVID-19 immigration law Title 42’s expiration may force the city to slash public services to deal with an expected influx of illegal immigration.

“Our shelter system is full, and we are nearly out of money, staff, and space. Truth be told, if corrective measures are not taken soon, we may very well be forced to cut or curtail programs New Yorkers rely on, and the pathway to house thousands more is uncertain,” Adams, a Democrat, said in a Dec. 18 statement. “These are not choices we want to make, but they may become necessary, and I refuse to be forced to choose new arrivals over current New Yorkers. I’ll say it again—we need a plan, we need assistance, and we need it now.”

Officials say that in the past several months, New York has received tens of thousands of individuals who illegally crossed the U.S.–Mexico border. The governors of Arizona and Texas have repeatedly sent busloads of people to the cities of New York, Chicago, and Washington—the Democratic mayor of El Paso, Texas, has done the same.

Following a lengthy court battle, a court ruled that Title 42—a COVID-19 rule invoked under the Trump administration in early 2020—could expire on Dec. 21, unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes. The rule’s pending expiration has triggered warnings from Republican officials, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who on Dec. 18 called on the court system to reinstate it.

“The flow of asylum seekers to New York City has slowed in recent months but the tool that the federal government has used to manage those coming over the border is set to expire this week, and we have been told in no uncertain terms that, beginning today, we should expect an influx of buses coming from the border and that more than 1,000 additional asylum seekers will arrive in New York City every week,” Adams said. “We are in urgent need for help, and it’s time for our state and federal partners to act—especially those in Congress who refuse to provide the financial resources or issue temporary work authorizations necessary for these individuals to live properly.”

Adams then called on both Congress and the White House “to share their plans to move asylum seekers to other cities, to allow asylum seekers to work, and to send aid to the cities that have borne the brunt of this crisis.”

Earlier this year, Adams’s administration declared a state of emergency after several buses filled with illegal immigrants were sent from Texas to New York City. At the time, the city had more than 61,000 people, including 20,000 children, in its shelter system.

Emergency

Earlier in the weekend, the mayor of El Paso declared a state of emergency following an influx of illegal immigrants who recently arrived in the city and are reportedly living in unsanitary and unsafe conditions. Echoing Adams and others, Mayor Oscar Leeser declared that the expiration of Title 42 this week will create chaos.

“I said from the beginning that I would call it when I felt that either our asylum-seekers or our community, was not safe,” Leeser said on Dec. 17. “I really believe that today our asylum-seekers are not safe as we have hundreds and hundreds on the streets, and that’s not the way we want to treat people.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) called on the Biden administration to “use every bit of power” to extend the rule. But in response to the calls to extend Title 42, White House officials said their hands are tied because of last week’s court order.

“We have to follow the court order,” an unnamed White House official told CNN. “A court is requiring us to lift it on December 21. We are required to do it.”

Others, including Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), have said that Title 42 should be ended because it’s not technically an immigration policy.

“Title 42 was put in place at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic as a health policy,” Padilla told ABC News on Dec. 18. “Even then I disagreed, but that’s what brought Title 42 to bear. We’re in a much different place when it comes to COVID today.”

There’s still a possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court will intervene before Title 42 expires. Several Republican-led states have indicated that they’ll appeal their case.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Thanks to Elon Musk, the public is now aware that Twitter suppressed early treatment options for COVID-19, and vaccine safety concerns, Dr. Peter McCullough alleged in an interview that aired on Newsmakers by NTD and The Epoch Times on Dec. 14.

Further, thanks to the Twitter Files—a collection of internal emails and communications made public by Musk—the cardiologist said there’s proof that government agencies were working against him (McCullough) personally.

“I didn’t violate any of Twitter’s rules,” McCullough stated. “And what we’re learning is that secret emails between government agencies and Twitter were working to, in a sense, shadow-ban me, censor me, and inhibit my ability to exercise my rights to free speech and disseminate scientific information.”

McCullough said Musk’s takeover of Twitter is a “welcome change,” especially for healthcare professionals like himself.

“Twitter had become an incredibly biased and censored platform, where the public knew they weren’t getting a fair, balanced set of information on a whole variety of developments—including the early treatment of SARS-COV2 infection and a balanced view of safety and efficacy of the vaccines,” McCullough claimed.

The cardiologist further claimed that he was censored and finally suspended for sharing scientific “abstracts and manuscripts,” which didn’t fit the accepted political view. Plus, McCullough remarked, he wasn’t the only doctor targeted.

Musk lifted the suspensions of McCullough and mRNA vaccine technology contributor Dr. Robert Malone—suspended from Twitter in 2021 after criticizing the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines—after completing his Twitter purchase.

Social Media and Censorship

According to McCullough, when a social media company has a COVID-19 warning or labels a post “misinformation,” that’s a sign of government censorship and control.

“Facebook, Instagram, and the other platforms. … Anytime a message is posted, and it says, ‘See the COVID information center,’ or it labels it ‘COVID misinformation,’ that actually indicates that there’s government interference. There’s government censorship going on,” McCullough asserted.

He added that when a user witnesses the above, they need to call out that platform. Moreover, McCullough believes there needs to be a “complete overhaul” of social media leadership and a “cleansing” of all forms of censorship on social media sites.

He said explicitly regarding healthcare that a past U.S. Supreme Court ruling guaranteed physicians free speech and medical authority, and social media platforms are violating that ruling.

“Physicians, including myself, our rights to free speech were guaranteed in a Supreme Court ruling. We have medical authority, and the public is looking to our analyses and our guidance through the rest of this pandemic.”

Drug and Vaccine Lies

Regarding the safety of vaccines and the pushback he received when he voiced his concerns, McCullough stated, “There is no drug or vaccine that is free of side effects. There’s no drug or vaccine that’s perfectly effective.

“So, when Americans were seeing advertisements that said ‘safe and effective,’ of course, immediately, we were jumping and making the case based on the peer-reviewed literature that that’s not correct.”

McCullough further noted that he and author John Leake have released a book called “The Courage to Face COVID-19″—detailing the true story of the “intentional suppression of early treatment [of COVID-19] by what we call the biopharmaceutical complex.”

McCullough explained that what he meant by “biopharmaceutical complex” is the amalgamation of Big Pharma, government interests, and foundations, including everything up to the World Economic Forum.

He further alleged that this complex had one mission—mass vaccination—so they purposefully buried early treatment “to favor the vaccine strategy.” McCullough acknowledged that his allegation was “complex and mind-blowing” but said Americans know it’s reality and not a conspiracy.

McCullough also stated that creating a Public Health Integrity Committee by Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis (ostensibly to make sure politics don’t suppress public health information in the future) is a validation of doctors like himself.

The Twitter Files

Since taking over Twitter, Musk has become increasingly vocal about transparency and the need for people to see what happened behind the scenes at the tech company. To that end, he released secret emails and discussions about shadow-banning or removing accounts that didn’t toe the party line.

As part of its reporting, The Epoch Times sought comment from the DOJ and FBI on the Twitter Files revelations and their involvement with social media companies.

The FBI National Press Office replied, “The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities.

It is not based on the content of any particular message or narrative. Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

There are at least 82 U.S. municipalities across 29 states now engaged in guaranteed income experiments, including more than 70 with pilot programs created within the past year, according to a coalition of more than 100 mayors promoting the concept.

Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and proponents among municipal officials nationwide are encouraging local governments to seed pilot programs with federal pandemic assistance from a $350 billion fund for state and local governments within the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), adopted in March 2021.

The mayoral group was established by Michael Tubbs, former mayor of Stockton, California, in June 2020 after the city began and later extended an experiment in which 125 residents received $500 monthly in a program financed by the Economic Security Project, a nonprofit that supports guaranteed income experiments.

During a Dec. 15 virtual roundtable discussion, several municipal officials said there’s growing public support for basic income models and accelerating momentum to expand these programs through a mix of federal, state, local, and private money.

In fact, much to the chagrin of conservatives and budget hawks, the ARPA state and local recovery fund is being used “as a seed for long-term policy change,” according to DePaul University’s Amanda Kass, who studies how states, cities, and counties spend federal pandemic assistance.

Kass told the panel that ARPA is the first federal program “that has ever produced this amount of highly flexible aid to nearly all governments in the United States—to tens of thousands of governments.”

As a result, she said, because of “the unprecedented nature” of the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak and its accompanying slate of federal pandemic-related bills, local governments are spending ARPA money in innovative ways, which makes evaluating how they spent or plan to spend that money “a tricky question.”

Kass said in analyzing how local governments are dispersing ARPA allocations, there’s “not just one avenue” but “many different stories” in how cities and counties “with unique socio-economic conditions” are using the money to address “unique needs.”

Guaranteed Income Programs Gaining Traction

Baltimore is sponsoring a guaranteed income pilot program in which 200 “18- to 24-year-olds who have children” receive $1,000 per month in supplemental income for two years, according to the city’s Chief Recovery Officer Shamiah Kerney.

The city hopes to collect enough data to determine if providing a guaranteed basic income for low-income families with children benefits recipients and taxpayers, she said.

“We’re hoping that will inform the dialogue on a national basis,” Kerney said during the roundtable, cohosted by the National League of Cities and the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), a watchdog panel created by the U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) to monitor federal pandemic allocations.

The Baltimore Young Families Success Fund has earmarked $4.8 million in ARPA money for the program. It began dispersing $1,000 per month to 200 recipients with incomes at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level—$26,200 for a family of four—in August.

By fall 2024, according to Kerney, the city suspects data collected from the pilot program will “demonstrate the need” for sustaining, if not expanding, the program.

In Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, the board of supervisors in September approved the nation’s largest guaranteed income pilot program, a $42 million plan mostly using ARPA money to provide $500 monthly to 3,250 households at or below the federal poverty line for two years.

Cook County Budget Director Annette Guzman said officials are looking at the program to determine if it should be “a permanent piece” in addressing poverty “going forward.”

On Dec. 13, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, in a 21–1 vote, set aside $5 million in ARPA money for a test universal basic income program that will provide 440 families with $500 per month for 18 months.

St. Louis Senior Strategic Initiatives Manager Grace Kyung said the city has already dispersed more than $122 million in ARPA money for direct cash assistance programs, mostly related to housing needs, so the $5 million test program could prove to be a good investment.

The pilot program fits under the city’s “economic justice action plan,” she said, which dovetails with U.S. Treasury ARPA guidelines that “encourage” funding for programs that address “racial and economic inequities” predating, but aggravated by, the pandemic.

Under U.S. Treasury guidelines attached to ARPA state and local allocations “investments to support people or communities with low incomes are allowable” even if initial ARPA outlays “may require investments for an extended period to be successful.”

Using this framework, local governments have secured ARPA money for programs related to community violence mitigation, behavioral health, affordable housing, child care, eviction prevention, medical debt, and cash assistance.

More Than $220 Billion Still Available

According to PRAC, a team of 21 OIG inspectors general who monitor the disbursement of $5.7 trillion in federal aid approved between March 2020 and March 2021—beginning with the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and concluding with ARPA—there’s still plenty of pandemic assistance money available to municipalities.

As of Dec. 15, PRAC’s dashboard documents that $127.6 billion of ARPA’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund had been “obligated” with $93 billion spent.

More than 27,300 cities, counties, and special districts nationwide have tapped into the ARPA fund thus far, PRAC reported.

The most common use of ARPA money identified by PRAC is “revenue replacement,” which more than 24,000 local governments accessed to compensate for revenue declines fostered by the pandemic necessary to stabilize budgets.

But PRAC has documented that much of the $127.6 billion has been “obligated” to a wide variety of programs related to public health, infrastructure, administration, and “premium pay” with more than 6,800 allocations to address “negative economic impacts” aggravated by the pandemic.

According to PRAC, as of Dec, 15, more than $477 million in state and local ARPA money has been spent on cash assistance to 26 million Americans through existing programs, such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Community Development Service Block Grants (CDBG), as well as through the growing number of pilot guaranteed income programs proposed by Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.

That leaves more than $220 billion in ARPA state and local fund money that must be “obligated” by Dec. 31, 2024, and spent by Dec. 31, 2026.

Guaranteed income pilot programs will increasingly be part of that mix, Cook County’s Guzman said, calling ARPA “an unprecedented opportunity” for local governments “to go to a completely different level” in addressing “historical inequities with transformative programs that would help people recover from the pandemic.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The FBI is facing subpoenas after the so-called “Twitter Files” revealed that the bureau had been working closely with the social media company, according to Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), who is the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

“We are definitely pursuing the Department of Justice and also the FBI,” Turner told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” before adding, “We certainly intend to pursue subpoena power to expose the extent to which the FBI has been doing this.”

He thanked the new Twitter chief Elon Musk for making the internal Twitter documents available.

“While we pursue intelligence community to try to hold them accountable, while we’re doing that, Elon Musk is showing what’s happening on the other side with the willing partners, the mainstream media, social media, and really exposing coordination that was occurring between the FBI and them,” Turner added.

The sixth batch of internal Twitter documents, released by journalist Matt Taibbi on Dec. 16, revealed that the FBI and Twitter had “constant and pervasive” communications. The bureau allegedly treated Twitter as a “subsidiary” and flagged accounts and tweets for Twitter to take action against.

One particular set of documents House Republicans will seek to obtain via the subpoenas are the FBI’s “secret files,” according to Turner.

“It is my understanding from our contacts that we have had with the FBI that there are secret files that the FBI has of these contacts that they were having with social media and with mainstream media,” Turner said.

The Ohio Republican added that the bureau has resisted providing these files so far.

“It has been our objective to get ahold of those files, to see the extent of this, so we can stop it, we can cut off the funding and prevent, obviously, average Americans being impacted by FBI actions,” he said.

In fact, the FBI has been engaging with social media companies under false pretenses, according to the Ohio Republican.

“The FBI had, under the cover of saying they were pursuing foreign malign influence, had really exploded into activities that involved engaging with mainstream media and social media, and really impacting what is the normal debate of democracy,” Turner said. “What’s really troubling here in my opinion is this is not based on intelligence.”

The House Intelligence Committee in the Republican-led House will look into who was the mastermind behind the FBI’s interactions with Twitter.

“Who is it that’s coordinating this? How can we cut off the money, prohibit this in the future?” Turner said. “We will use our subpoena power to track that down and make certain that this doesn’t happen again.”

Turner expressed confidence that the committee’s investigation will get the answers it is looking for from the FBI and the Department of Justice.

“Luckily, the January 6 committee has established some great legal precedent that shows the Congress has full access,” he continued. “So they’re going to have very much a difficult time trying to prevent us [from] getting those documents.”

Republicans

Turner is not the only Republican demanding answers from the FBI following the release of the sixth installment of the “Twitter Files.”

“@FBI has a lot to answer for after the latest drop of #TwitterFiles6,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) wrote on Twitter on Dec. 16.

Gaetz said that he will be joined by Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Mike Johnson (R-La.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) in “asking the questions.”

“Clear your calendar,” he added.

Jordan is poised to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in January.

According to Taibbi, the FBI formed a social media-focused task force of 80 agents after the 2016 election, and they “corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds.”

Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security partnered with third-party security contractors and think tanks “to pressure Twitter to moderate content,” according to Taibbi.

“80 @FBI agents were colluding with Twitter to police content and moderate Americans’ speech? Sounds like Communist China to me,” Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) wrote on Twitter on Dec. 16, in response to Taibbi’s revelation. “Investigations are coming!”

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Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, also took exception to the FBI’s task force, in an appearance on Fox News’ Hannity on Dec. 16.

“What we found today is the FBI had its own ministry of propaganda—80 FBI agents dedicated to nothing but censoring free speech on the internet,” Comer said. “Eighty! As someone who’s going to be incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, that’s roughly $12 million in expenses to the taxpayers in salary and benefits.”

Two Republicans suggested the sixth installment of the “Twitter Files” could suggest that FBI has worked with Facebook and Google in a similar capacity.

“And if FBI used Twitter to censor, you bet they also used Google and Facebook,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote on Twitter.

“Now apply what we know they did at Twitter to @facebook @Google and more,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote on Twitter. “I’m really looking forward to Republican control, committee work, and subpoena power.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Dark days are coming for Texas towns along America’s Southern Border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday.

Abbott made his prediction Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” during an interview with Martha Raddatz.

Title 42 refers to a COVID-era rule imposed by the Trump administration which has been used to send back most illegal immigrants who cross the porous Southern Border. The Biden administration is seeking to end the rule, but Republican governors are suing to block that.

The states suing the government plan to file an appeal to the Supreme Court Monday, ABC quoted Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich as saying.

Unless the court orders a stay of the Biden administration’s plans, Title 42 ends Wednesday, and that’s what Abbott is afraid of.

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“If the courts don’t intervene and put a halt of removal to the Title 42 it’s going to be total chaos,” Abbott said.

Abbott said the unchecked illegal immigration that is a hallmark of the Biden era is a public health crisis — Title 42 was intended to stop.

“Whether it’s COVID or some other issue, when you have people coming across the globe without knowing at all what their health status is, that almost by definition is a public health risk. There’s every reason to keep that in place,” he said.

Some illegal immigrants “do come across with COVID and no one knows exactly who comes across with COVID. These people are not tested when they come across the border and so who knows how many people have COVID, who knows what other type of disease they may have. The answer is nobody knows because nobody is testing them,” Abbott said.

Abbott said one group victimized by the spike in illegal immigrants is the group of legal immigrants who are lost in the mass of illegal immigrants.

“There are people across the globe who have a valid, a solid reason to come to the United States, but they can do so legally right now. The people who have the ability to come to the United States illegally get pushed further and further and further back the line every single day with the thousands of illegal immigrants coming across the border,” he said.

Today, I toured the increased assets Texas has deployed at our border ahead of Title 42 ending.

While Biden abandons his duty to defend America, Texas is taking unprecedented action to decrease the influx of dangerous criminals, illegal weapons, & deadly drugs into the U.S. pic.twitter.com/PgMsH67taL

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) December 16, 2022

Related:

Record Shattered at Our Southern Border – This Is an All-Time High

Abbott defended his policy of busing illegal immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities in the north.

“Communities like Del Rio and Eagle Pass and others, they are having thousands of people dumped off into their communities, thousands of migrants, dumped off in their communities. They don’t have the capability of dealing with that vast number of migrants and I removed them to locations that self-identified as sanctuary cities that have the capability and the desire to help out these migrants and so that’s exactly what’s taken place,” Abbott said.

The root of the problem, Abbott said, lies in Washington.

“It was known from the time that Joe Biden got elected that Joe Biden supported open borders. It is known by the cartels who have sophisticated information whether or not the Biden administration is going to enforce the immigration laws or not is known across the world but most importantly, known among the cartels,” he said.

I’ve never seen anything quite like this. Massive line of migrants waiting to be let in through the border wall gates, and more continue to arrive, overwhelming officals in El Paso. Situation is expected to get worse as Title 42 is set to expire @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/Ry86PejMpT

— Jorge Ventura Media (@VenturaReport) December 15, 2022

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser said that what is coming has forced him to declare a state of emergency because he cannot guarantee the safety of the people of his community, according to Fox News.

“We know the influx on Wednesday will be incredible it will be huge. On Wednesday our numbers will go from 2,500 to 4,000, 5,000, maybe 6,000,” he said, referring to the day when Title 42 is scheduled to go away.

Election Day in Maricopa County, Arizona, was a disaster. Given the high-stakes ramifications of the election’s outcome, it’s reasonable and understandable that voters and candidates would be upset at what happened that day.

Republican Kari Lake is locked and loaded, legally speaking, and she is attempting to bring transparency to the situation through the courts, especially regarding what happened with multiple ballot machines and other unfortunate situations that she claims left voters disenfranchised at the polling booth on November 8.

While the election has been formally certified by the state, according to JustTheNews, a new development regarding a sizable ballot total discrepancy is already raising eyebrows, as the number of ballots it includes isn’t far off from the total number of votes by which Lake lost to her competitor, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

Maricopa County election officials have allegedly had an issue reconciling a recently discovered discrepancy of roughly 16,000 outstanding ballots.

Given that a razor-thin 17,000 votes decided the race between Lake and Hobbs, one can imagine the questions raised.

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The revelation regarding the total ballot discrepancy was brought to light in an email from November 10, sent by Arizona Recorder Stephen Richer to other top election officials, including Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates and Elections Director Scott Jarrett.

The email was obtained through a public records request by the America First Legal Foundation.

Specifically, the 16,000 ballot discrepancy was the county’s estimated remaining ballot totals versus the number reported by the Arizona Secretary of State’s office.

“Unable to currently reconcile SOS listing with our estimates from yesterday,” Richer said. He pointed out the difference in numbers. Maricopa County, at the time, had 392,000 ballots waiting to be counted, while the Arizona Secretary of State’s official numbers indicated that there were still 407,664 outstanding ballots.

Should there be an open investigation into the Arizona election?Yes No

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.@Stephen_Richer: “Unable to currently reconcile SOS listing with our estimates from yesterday, So there’s a 15,000 difference somewhere,” @katiehobbs & Maricopa County had a 16,000 vote discrepancy

The Governor-Select certified her own election anywayhttps://t.co/i43LEhH9hN

— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) December 18, 2022

“So there’s a 15,000 difference somewhere,” Richer added in the email.

The number is large enough to add yet another layer of skepticism for many who wonder if Maricopa County’s results for the 2022 midterms were legitimate.

At the very least, it’s confusing.

Related:

It’s Not Over Yet: Kari Lake Election Challenge Moves Forward, Here Are the Judges

Twitter users, especially Lake’s supporters, unsurprisingly reacted harshly to the revelation of the outstanding ballot discrepancy.

“Maricopa county is stonewalling. They’re not going to turn over the routers, chain of custody, or ballot images where discrepancies were found. What are they trying to hide,” one conservative influencer tweeted.

Maricopa county is stonewalling. They’re not going to turn over the routers, chain of custody, or ballot images where discrepancy’s were found.

What are they trying to hide.

— Kambree (@KamVTV) July 15, 2021

It should be stated clearly that the discrepancy doesn’t mean that Lake would have won the election. We’re not even sure exactly what it means yet.

Even if all of the outstanding ballots were for Lake, which statistically is unlikely, it wouldn’t change the election outcome at this point.

But this situation underscores the glaring need for states to continue upgrading and fortifying their election processes.

In this day and age, with technology expanding at an exponential pace, there’s simply no excuse as to why some states, and counties, have so many ridiculous issues with vote results, especially from elections with such profound effects on the nation.

Elon Musk’s detractors are at it again, claiming that he is no supporter of free speech after he instituted a new rule to limit accounts whose sole use for Twitter is to drive users to other social media platforms.

Musk, of course, bought Twitter for $44 billion claiming that it was an important tool for America and the world to practice a right to free speech.

In fact, he was so dedicated to the ideals of free speech that his first Tweet as the social media giant’s owner was four simple words: “The Bird is Freed.”

But Musk has also been on the move limiting people, too, most recently by suspending a group of left-wing journalists who he accused of doxing the real-time whereabouts of his family and putting their lives in danger.

Only days later, though, the Twitter boss backtracked and lifted the suspensions after Twitter users spoke against his punishments.

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More changes are in the air at Twitter. On Sunday, Twitter made another change to its policy that had left-wingers charging Musk with hypocrisy over free speech concerns.

On Sunday, Twitter alerted users to a new policy, entitled the “Promotion of alternative social platforms policy,” which is a new rule about advertising other social media platforms on Twitter.

“We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter,” the new policy alert began.

We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 18, 2022

Is Twitter improving under Elon Musk?Yes No

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“Specifically,” the announcement continued, “we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post.”

Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 18, 2022

Still, despite the claims of detractors, Twitter noted that this new policy is not intended to delete just any link to other platforms.

Related:

Watch: Democratic Senator’s Taylor Swift Joke Falls Flat in Ticketmaster Site Crash Hearing

“We still allow cross-posting content from any social media platform. Posting links or usernames to social media platforms not listed above are also not in violation of this policy,” the announcement concluded.

We still allow cross-posting content from any social media platform. Posting links or usernames to social media platforms not listed above are also not in violation of this policy.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 18, 2022

Clearly, this policy is only aimed at accounts created solely to push Twitter users to other social media outlets. It is not intended to stop users from talking about things happening elsewhere, but to stop accounts with the sole purpose of stealing away Twitter’s users.

Regardless of the new rule’s clarity, many decided that Musk was simply engaging in putting limits on free speech.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey led off by questioning the new rule.

Why?

— jack (@jack) December 18, 2022

Leftist journalist Ross McCafferty tried to turn the new rule into an attack on the conservative Libs of TikTok:

You mean like libs of tiktok?

— Ross McCafferty (@RossMcCaff) December 18, 2022

Clearly, McCafferty has a reading comprehension problem. The Libs of TikTok account does not exist to drive people to TikTok. It exists to ridicule users who post inane or outrageous content on TikTok. Libs of TikTok is as far from being a promoter of TikTok as you can get and still be talking about it.

Disgraced former congressman and “yes” vote to impeach former President Donald Trump, Justin Amash, also complained about the new rule, calling it “shortsighted.”

This is incredibly shortsighted. Twitter should strive to be a more open environment, not less open.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) December 18, 2022

If the policy is implemented as written, it does not appear to be a limit to free speech at all. But, as in all things, time will tell.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott expressed alarm Sunday about a surge in crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border if a key immigration policy, Title 42, is allowed to expire this week and called on courts to step in.

Abbott said that public health concerns should prompt courts to intervene and prevent the policy from expiring. Former President Donald Trump implemented Title 42 in early 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If the courts don’t intervene and put a halt to the removal of Title 42, it’s going to be total chaos,” Abbott told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “Whether it’s COVID or some other issue, when you have people coming across the globe without knowing at all what their health status is, that almost by definition is a public health risk. There’s every reason to keep that in place.”

Last week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Title 42 is still set to expire on Wednesday, Dec. 21. Abbott and other Republicans said that illegal border crossings are expected to increase after that.

A coalition of 19 Republican-leaning states was pushing to keep the asylum restrictions. Under the rule, illegal immigrants have been denied the ability to seek asylum under U.S. and international law 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Immigration advocates had argued that the United States was abandoning its longstanding history and commitments to offer refuge to people around the world fleeing persecution, and sued to end the use of Title 42. They’ve also argued the restrictions are now outdated due to natural immunity and vaccines.

“But some do come across with COVID, and no one knows exactly who comes across with COVID,” Abbott said Sunday. “These people are not tested when they come across the border. Who knows how many people have COVID … the answer is nobody knows because nobody is testing.”

Over the weekend, the City of El Paso, Texas, declared a state of emergency amid a surge of border crossings, according to Mayor Oscar Leeser. “I said from the beginning that I would call it when I felt that either our asylum seekers or community were not safe,” Leeser said, reported KFOX14.

Other Details

Title 42, which is part of a 1944 public health law, applies to all nationalities. Illegal border crossings of single adults dipped in November, according to a Justice Department court filing released Friday, though it gave no explanation for why. It also did not account for families traveling with young children and children traveling alone.

Previously, Abbott ended all state COVID-19 restrictions in 2021 and banned all COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Border cities, most notably El Paso, Texas, are facing a daily migrant influx that the Biden administration expects to grow if asylum restrictions are lifted. Tijuana, the largest Mexican border city, has an estimated 5,000 people in more than 30 shelters, Enrique Lucero, the city’s director of migrant affairs said this week.

Some Democrats, however, argue that Title 42 isn’t an immigration policy and should be rescinded.

“Title 42 was put in place at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic as health policy,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) told ABC News on Sunday. “Even then I disagreed, but that’s what brought Title 42 to bear. We’re in a much different place when it comes to COVID today.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told NBC News on Sunday that Democrats and Republicans who respectively control the Senate and House should work in a bipartisan manner on immigration reform.

“Maybe with this new Republican House and Democratic Senate, we finally get serious about immigration reform and quit demagoguing this issue by pointing fingers and say that the disaster is about to happen,” Brown said. “I think that the administration will figure this out, short-term, but it’s clear we’ve got to get serious as a body, and it’s going to take both parties. Instead of trying to gain on bashing immigrants or gain on appealing to new citizens, we’ve got to get serious about that.”

In a related development, a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, ruled Thursday that the Biden administration wrongly ended a Trump-era policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. The ruling had no immediate impact but could prove a longer-term setback for the White House.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The Biden administration is casting its plan to phase out the use of natural gas in federal buildings in favor of clean energy as a “cost-effective” move that will save taxpayers millions each year.

That’s baloney, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of federal data, which indicates that a Biden administration statement touting the plan’s frugality excludes the administration’s own findings on the increased cost of green energy sources as compared with natural gas.

In that statement, President Joe Biden’s Energy Department says the proposed natural gas phaseout “would save taxpayers $8 million annually in upfront equipment costs,” a figure that stems from the department’s Dec. 6 estimate of the plan’s budgetary impact. That estimate, however, also acknowledges that so-called clean electricity is roughly four-and-a-half times more expensive than natural gas, leading to “increases in energy costs across the board” that outweigh the savings on equipment expected under the plan. As a result, Biden’s transition away from natural gas will actually cost taxpayers up to $5 million annually, the Energy Department estimate says, a statistic that does not appear in the department’s statement.

Despite the increased costs associated with the plan, green energy groups—which Biden aggressively courted during his campaign in an attempt to win over liberal voters—quickly applauded the move. The Sierra Club, for example, said it was “excited that the Biden administration is making good on its promise” to advance green energy and pledged to “continue to work with the Biden administration.” But as Biden looks to expand his natural gas phaseout beyond the federal government and toward the general public—the Democrat has called for a carbon-free electric grid by 2035 and a decarbonized economy by 2050—he could alienate everyday Americans concerned about energy costs. Earlier this year, electricity prices in California surged to more than double the national average as the Democrat-dominated state worked to “swap gasoline-fueled cars and natural gas heaters for electric models,” E&E News reported in April.

“It’s a huge problem,” University of California, Berkeley, energy economist Severin Borenstein told E&E. Should the state decide to “mandate electrification,” Borenstein said, “then there’s just going to be huge political blowback” given the “immensely expensive” prices.

The White House did not return a request for comment. An Energy Department spokesman confirmed that the department’s claim that the plan would save taxpayers “$8 million per year” only stems from “the difference in the equipment cost from gas to electric” and does not factor in the increased energy costs expected under the plan. The spokesman did not answer questions on why the department excluded those increased energy costs from its statement announcing the plan.

The Biden administration is set to host a Jan. 5 “webinar” on its proposed federal building natural gas phaseout and will also field public comments on the plan through early February. The American Gas Association has already said it will “vigorously participate” in that public comment process, saying the cost of Biden’s plan “will be borne by every taxpayer.”

“Eliminating natural gas in federal buildings is an impractical, unscientific, and expensive idea that will have no environmental benefit,” the association said in a statement. “AGA will thoroughly evaluate the proposal and vigorously participate in the public comment process.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Experts are warning that the recently approved Respect for Marriage Act could end up being used to target and suppress people of Christian and other traditional faiths.

The Respect for Marriage Act was passed by the Senate in a 61–36 vote on Nov. 29, and by the House of Representatives in a 258–169 vote on Dec. 8. The bill, signed into law by President Joe Biden on Dec. 19, repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act signed by President Bill Clinton that had defined marriage as being between a man and a woman, thereby recognizing marriage between members of the same sex.

In an interview with NTD’s Capitol Report, Matt Sharp, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), raised concerns that the Respect for Marriage Act is so broad that it could easily be weaponized against a large segment of the population.

The bill gives “broad new power to the federal government to be able to go after religious organizations and people of faith that hold to the view that marriage is between one man and one woman,” he said.

For instance, faith-based adoption providers that try to place children in a home with a married mother and father could be punished by the government under the law, Sharp noted.

“It opens the door for private lawsuits against these organizations. So an activist group like the ACLU could utilize the Respect for Marriage Act to bring costly federal lawsuits against these organizations because of their beliefs,” he said, adding that even if some of these organizations win, “the very process of being dragged into court is the punishment.”

Colorado Case

Sharp also talked about a case that the ADF is defending in Colorado. The lawsuit is related to artist Lorie Smith, who runs a design studio called 303 Creative that specializes in graphic and web design.

Lorie’s services include developing websites that celebrate traditional marriage. However, the state of Colorado is now compelling her to create designs that violate her faith with regard to marriage. A win for Smith would provide “an important protection down the road when the Respect for Marriage Act gets misused to target people of faith,” Sharp said.

“We were very encouraged to see, time and time again, the [Supreme Court] recognize that the First Amendment does indeed limit Colorado and other government actors,” Sharp said.

“And so, we’re hopeful to see a strong victory that would protect Lorie, other artists in Colorado, and really people all across the country that worry about government coercion of their speech.”

Defending Christianity

In another interview with NTD’s “Capitol Report,” Troy Miller, CEO of National Religious Broadcasters, said there’s “a lot of misunderstanding about the bill and what the bill actually does,” and that the name of the bill is “erroneous” since it is really about “pushing beliefs on other people [who] don’t hold those kinds of beliefs.”

He said it goes on to do some “sinister sort of things in the fact that it opens up the avenue for litigation or for civil suits if you don’t agree or affirm same-sex marriages,” he said. “So that’s our concern, that the concern of a lot of the religious community.”

The constitutional right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion have always been protected in the United States. But over time, there has been a “constant chipping away at it, this constant attack” by those in power, Miller stated.

“I think that’s because, you know, the Christian worldview is kind of the last firewall that stands against this kind of leftist, woke kind of Marxist agenda that’s moving its way through the institutions of America and through the halls of Congress,” he said.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

THE ELITES ARE DOUBLING DOWN ON THEIR FAILED MIGRATION POLICIES, WITH THE LATEST TARGETS OUTSIDE CITIES.

The UK government wants migrants to spend at least five years living in rural parts of the country, as a way to combat depopulation and “replenish” aging communities.

Migrants to Western countries like the UK usually prefer to settle in urban areas, leading the government’s Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to believe special measures are needed to ensure rural areas do not miss out on the “benefits of diversity”.

These special measures were set out in the MAC’s new annual report published at the beginning of December. The measures are aimed, in particular, at contributing to the government’s bizarrely monikered “levelling-up agenda”, described as a “moral, social and economic programme for the whole of government” to “spread opportunity more equally across the UK”.

Rural areas such as Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are among the poorest in northern Europe, as well as being home to older populations. Increases in the proportion of people over 65 in rural areas are driven in part by internal migration from cities. Places like London and Birmingham have seen net outflows of over-65s in recent years, and a net influx of younger people.

The Great ‘Replenishment’.

A similar scheme has been mooted by the devolved Scottish government, with the nation expected to witness a particularly acute decline in its rural demographics in coming decades. The MAC claims that although the demographics of regions like Scotland and Wales are a priority, rural areas across the entire UK could use more migrants.

Professor Brian Bell, who chairs the committee, says migrants could fill jobs in sectors like agriculture, fishing, and hospitality, many of which are caused by younger people moving to cities. To facilitate this, they suggest even lower skill requirements for visas than already exist.

“You would essentially have a rule that said you can employ workers in those rural areas with a lower skill requirement than the normal route,” Bell said. “Agriculture and fisheries are obviously big employers in various rural communities and then hospitality as well. Many areas in these areas will rely on hospitality, so you might be talking about bar staff, waiting staff, cleaning staff, that kind of thing. If you’re going to have a rural pilot, it needs to have a more liberal policy than the skilled worker route, or else what’s the point because the skilled worker route already exists.”

The MAC also reckons that migrants on new, rural visas should be tied to the countryside for a period of around five years, until they have won the right to settle permanently. After this period, they would be free to move where they chose.

Canada has used similar incentives to attract migrants to rural areas.

MUST READ: Europe is Experiencing a MASSIVE New Migrant Crisis Which No One Seems to be Acknowledging.

In 2016, Canada’s Minister of Immigration, John McCallum, said his government needed to do more to encourage migrants to settle outside of major cities like Toronto and Vancouver. “There’s a significant feeling that Canada does need more immigrants, partly because we have an aging population, and so we need more young blood to keep our economies going,” he said. That year, the country’s Atlantic provinces announced a pilot program to do just that, as part of their “Atlantic Growth Strategy”. The program has been hailed as a success for retaining migrants in their new rural communities.

Both Canada and the UK have seen unprecedented levels of immigration in recent years. In July, the country’s Office for National Statistics announced that annual net migration into the UK had reached a whopping new record of 504,000, compared to the circa 300,000 per year which spurred on the Brexit referendum. In the late 90s, net migration was lower than 50,000 a year.

“Conservative” government.

The news that rural areas will now be forcibly diversified should leave many, if not all, Conservative Party voters wondering why on Earth they ever voted for the party in the first instance. What difference would it have made if they’d voted Labour instead? If anything, they might feel better – or less worse – about the current situation. Yes, they’d still have to face record immigration and forced diversification, but at least they wouldn’t have a dagger in their backs.

Truth is, the Conservative government, like countless governments across the West, left and “right”, is determined to continue to use immigration as a tool of social engineering, regardless of what the electorate says. One of Tony Blair’s advisors famously admitted that the 12 years of mass immigration under the last Labour government were a deliberate policy designed to “rub the right’s nose in diversity” and change the country irretrievably. Now the “right” is rubbing even harder, and the country is changing faster than ever.

The euphemistic language of “replenishing” local communities in order to “level them up” can’t disguise the brutally obvious fact that the British government is choosing to replace its own citizens in their communities with people from other countries. Pro-natal policies like those adopted in Hungary, where Victor Orban’s government has introduced tax cuts and loan forgiveness to encourage native population growth, are never considered. Why not?

Belief in any kind of deliberate planning – sometimes referred to as “the Great Replacement” –  to use migrants to replace native populations excites vicious denunciations and cries of “conspiracy theory!” especially from the left, even as evidence of its very real nature continues to mount. Outside Hungary, pushback has been sporadic and largely uncoordinated, with the exception of the Brexit vote and Eric Zemmour’s recent candidacy for the French presidential election. At the head of his newly formed “Reconquest” party, Zemmour made demographic change a central plank of his campaign platform. In an electrifying announcement speech, in which he extolled the virtues of the French, their history and culture, he addressed the camera directly and said, “we will not be replaced”.

MUST READ: Europe is Experiencing a MASSIVE New Migrant Crisis Which No One Seems to be Acknowledging.

The fantasy of total Western self-effacement is now being given powerful fuel by climate change. In her new book, Nomad Century, which is being given plentiful media coverage, Gaia Vince claims that more or less the entire population of the Third World should be deliberately relocated to the West in advance of climate change making large swathes of the planet uninhabitable. This “planned and deliberate migration of a kind humanity has never before undertaken” would require the creation of new megacities across the Global North, the adoption of a global plant-based “sustainable” diet, and the dissolution of all existing forms of identity and political affiliation.

Vince is far from coy about what this would mean for the current inhabitants of the West, but she reassures the reader not to worry. “[T]he pale skin of Europeans is very recent in human evolutionary history. The original Americans, Europeans and Britons were dark-skinned until their land was colonized by pale-skinned Eurasian steppe people some 5,000 years ago in Europe, and by their descendants more recently from the sixteenth century in the Americas.” “Pale-skinned” Europeans are just a passing thing.

While Vince’s plan may never actually materialize in the form she advocates, there can be little doubt that climate change will be used as a justification for massively increased migration to the West. In a landmark judgment in 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that a state cannot send migrants home if they are deemed to be at risk from the effects of climate change there. This is a clear precedent for making climate change a cast-iron reason for migration to the West from virtually anywhere else in the world. The recent call for “climate reparations” from developing nations, and the snivelling acquiescence of our leaders, shows that our elected representatives have chosen – again, without consulting us – to accept collective guilt on our behalf. Punishment will follow.

Call it what you will – the Great Replacement or now the Great Replenishment – that thing that definitely isn’t supposed to be happening definitely is.

Elon Musk’s Twitter on Saturday evening suspended controversial Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz after he reinstated several other corporate news reporters for allegedly violating the company’s policy against “doxxing.”

On Substack, Lorenz claimed that Musk, who took over Twitter in October, personally suspended her account. “Earlier tonight, Elon Musk suspended my Twitter account,” Lorenz wrote in a brief post on the platform.

Lorenz claimed that she was working alongside Drew Harrell, who was suspended and reinstated on Twitter, and they were “working on a story involving Musk and were hoping to get [a] comment from him.”

“When I went to log in and see if he had responded to our query, I was suspended,” Lorenz stated. “I received zero communication from the company on why I was suspended or what terms I violated.”

Lorenz, a Washington Post technology reporter, has drawn controversy on Twitter after she published an article revealing the identity of the individual behind the Libs of TikTok Twitter account. In 2020, Lorenz allegedly tried to dig up dirt on former White House advisor Kellyanne Conway by repeatedly asking her 15-year-old daughter for comment without her parents’ permission, drawing condemnation from anti-Trump critic George Conway.

More recently, she drew criticism last month for appearing to endorse the Chinese regime’s draconian “zero COVID” lockdown and testing policies because, according to her, it’s never possible to develop a natural immunity to the virus—despite there being studies showing otherwise. Lorenz also falsely accused tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen of “using the r-slur,” and she later admitted she made a mistake.

Before Musk took over, Twitter’s previous management under former CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal would often suspend accounts without any forewarning or communication about why. For example, messenger RNA technology contributor and COVID-19 vaccine critic Dr. Robert Malone told The Epoch Times months ago that when his account was suspended, Twitter did not inform him ahead of time.

Lorenz also wrote: “I have been on Twitter since 2010 and have run Twitter account [sic] for major media brands including Verizon, WordPress, The Daily Mail, People magazine, The Hill, and dozens more … never once in my 13-year career in social media have I received a single terms of service or community guidelines violation, for my personal account or any account that I’ve run.”

Other Details

It’s not clear exactly why Twitter banned Lorenz’s account, but a comment from Musk on Friday may suggest the reason. Ariadna Jacob, the subject of a critical report by Lorenz and who filed a defamation lawsuit against her, stated that Lorenz doxxed her in an article she published for the New York Times.

“Such shameful behavior will not be tolerated going forward,” Musk wrote in reply. That came a day before Lorenz’s suspension.

Jacob filed a multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit alleging a New York Times article written by Lorenz contained false and disparaging statements about her. Those allegedly “defamatory statements that devastated Jacob’s business and reputation,” said a news release from a law firm representing her. “Lorenz and the Times published their defamatory statements about the plaintiffs even though they had been provided with evidence contradicting the false statements prior to the publishing of the article.”

It was unclear if Lorenz’s account would be permanently suspended. The Epoch Times has contacted Twitter for comment, and Musk has not issued any tweets on her suspension.

Also Suspended

Legacy news reporters such as Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of The Intercept, Steve Herman of Voice of America, and independent video-sharer and reporter Aaron Rupar were suspended last week for, according to Musk, violating Twitter’s policy around doxxing. Former ESPN and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann was also suspended around the same time.

Musk accused the journalists suspended last week of sharing private information about his location. It came as he said that an individual stalked a car that his son was traveling in. The Los Angeles Police Department told news outlets last Thursday that no police reports were filed in connection to the incident.

Around the same time, Musk posted a poll asking whether those individuals’ accounts should be reinstated on the platform. The majority of the users who responded favored restoring their accounts, and Musk said he would honor the result.

But he noted in a post that “the journalists were aware of the violent stalker and yet still doxxed the real-time location of my family. Turns out that’s a criminal offense.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The latest episode of Twitter’s internal files on content crackdowns paints a picture of a censorship machine that not only worked hand-in-glove with the FBI but also received content-related flags and action requests from a tangled web of state agencies, private contractors, and government-affiliated NGOs, shedding new light on the depths of the “deep state.”

The files were released Friday by journalist Matt Taibbi with Elon Musk’s endorsement, and serve to bolster claims that Big Tech colluded with a network of entities—including government agencies—to suppress Americans’ free speech.

Musk, who after taking over Twitter in late October promised to release internal files on “free speech suppression,” has since granted access to the trove of documents to several individuals—Taibbi, journalist Bari Weiss, and author Michael Shellenberger—who have been releasing them in tranches dubbed the “Twitter Files.”

Episode six of the Twitter Files, elaborated on in detail by Taibbi, was shared on Dec. 16 by Musk.

KABOOM 💥💥💥💥💥 https://t.co/TS3jFZ51VR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

Included in the thread are screenshots of FBI requests for Twitter to censor posts on the platform, as well as ones showing Twitter complying in a dynamic Taibbi described as a “master-canine” relationship.

“The master-canine quality of the FBI’s relationship to Twitter comes through in this November 2022 email, in which ‘FBI San Francisco is notifying you’ it wants action on four accounts,” Taibbi wrote, sharing a screenshot of an email from the FBI asking for “any action or inaction deemed appropriate within Twitter policy” with respect to accounts that “may potentially constitute violations.”

Three of the four flagged accounts were suspended, with the one that was spared sometimes posting anti-Trump and blue-leaning content.

Twitter did not return a request for comment while an FBI spokesperson said the agency regularly notifies private sector entities about “foreign malign influence” but any actions are taken independently by the companies.

Executives at Twitter for years insisted that no censorship or shadow banning of conservatives took place on the social media platform, a claim that the Twitter Files disclosures has shattered.

Previous Twitter Files disclosures shed light on Twitter’s blacklisting of some conservative accounts, internal deliberations on banning former President Donald Trump’s account, and the FBI’s alleged role in the suppression of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

‘As If It Were a Subsidiary’

Like the prior disclosures, Twitter Files 6 offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Big Tech censorship.

The latest files show that agencies like the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regularly sent Twitter social media content through various channels that were “pre-flagged for moderation.”

Some of the reports sent to Twitter by government agencies were aggregated from public hotlines, like from the National Election Command Post that assessed election-related threats.

“What stands out is the sheer quantity of reports from the government,” wrote Taibbi, who also questioned whether the government did the flagging using its own resources or farmed it out to third parties.

Overall, the FBI-Twitter communications were described as “constant and pervasive,” with the law enforcement agency playing a dominant role and Twitter acting “as if it were a subsidiary.”

‘Hyper-Intrusive’

“The #TwitterFiles are revealing more every day about how the government collects, analyzes, and flags your social media content. Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,” Taibbi said at the top of the thread that kicked off episode six of the disclosures.

The FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth exchanged over 150 emails between January 2020 and November 2022, the files showed.

Some of the FBI’s communications with Roth were fairly mundane, like reminders to attend regular FBI-Twitter calls.

But others asked Twitter for information on users related to active investigations or requested action on election-related content.

Requests to act on “election misinformation,” in particular, were noted in the disclosures to have been “surprisingly high” in number, even extending to low-follower accounts and joke tweets.

While the FBI’s “hyper-intrusive” actions weren’t confined to just right-leaning accounts, as Taibbi noted, the files showed Twitter enforcers acting with more leniency with respect to blue-leaning ones.

A screenshot of a message from one of the accounts that the FBI had flagged for action, @fromMA, featured a post that said: “I want to remind republicans to vote tomorrow, Wednesday November 9.”

Another flagged for action was from @clairefosterPHD, who said, “I’m a ballot counter in my state. If you’re not wearing a mask, I am not counting your vote,” following that up with, “For every negative comment on this post I’m adding another vote for the democrats.”

But of the half dozen accounts flagged for action in several messages, neither of the blue-leaning ones—@fromMA nor @clairefosterPHD—were suspended.

Other messages reinforced the view of a cozy relationship between Twitter and the FBI.

In a message dated Nov. 6, the FBI’s National Election Command Post asked Elvis Chan, a top official at the FBI’s office in San Francisco, for “coordination” with Twitter to determine which of 25 flagged accounts “may warrant additional action due to the accounts being utilized to spread misinformation about the upcoming election.”

Chan later forwarded the message to his “Twitter folks,” asking for action on the accounts, “which we believe are violating your terms of service by disseminating false information about the time, place, or manner of the upcoming elections.”

Twitter replied with a list of actions it took in response, including permanent and temporary suspensions, and tweets “bounced for civic misinformation policy violations.”

‘Deep State’ Goes Deeper

In what is perhaps one of the more intriguing takeaways from Twitter Files 6 is just how broad the network of entities was that engaged with Twitter on content crackdowns.

There were “multiple points of entry” for government-flagged reports into Twitter, including Teleporter, a platform where FBI reports could be accessed by Twitter.

The DHS also provided “evidence” to Twitter staff on content flagged for censorship, with a message showing a Twitter employee recommending “bouncing” related content.

“State governments also flagged content,” Taibbi wrote, noting that Twitter also received reports via the Partner Support Portal, an entity established by a partner organization to the DHS called the Center for Internet Security (CIS).

In one case, Twitter executives received an alert from California officials via the Partner Support Portal regarding a tweet by former President Donald Trump that claimed “California hired a pure Sleepy Joe Democrat firm to count and ‘harvest’ votes,” and that “California is in big trouble.”

Trump’s tweet wasn’t acted upon and a message from California officials demanded to know “why no action was taken.”

The files also show an instance where a video was flagged by the Election Integrity Project (EIP) at Stanford, “apparently on the strength of information” from the CIS.

“If that’s confusing, it’s because the CIS is a DHS contractor, describes itself as ‘partners’ with the Cyber and [Infrastructure] Security Agency (CISA) at the DHS,” Taibbi wrote, adding that the EIP is “one of a series of government-affiliated think tanks that mass-review content, a list that also includes the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Laboratory, and the University of Washington’s Center for Informed Policy.”

Taibbi wrapped up his thread by characterizing the so-called “deep state” as a far more extensive web of ties than many people think, and one that goes beyond just government bureaucrats.

“The takeaway: what most people think of as the ‘deep state’ is really a tangled collaboration of state agencies, private contractors, and (sometimes state-funded) NGOs. The lines become so blurred as to be meaningless,” he said.

“Instead of chasing child sex predators or terrorists, the FBI has agents—lots of them—analyzing and mass-flagging social media posts. Not as part of any criminal investigation, but as a permanent, end-in-itself surveillance operation. People should not be okay with this,” Taibbi said in a post.

Republicans React to Twitter Files 6

Republican lawmakers have vowed to take action following the release of the latest disclosures on content crackdowns.

“[The] FBI has a lot to answer for after the latest drop of Twitter Files 6,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said in a tweet.

The GOP House Judiciary Committee account on Twitter asked in a post: “Does anyone still trust the FBI?”

Texas state Rep. Troy Nehls, a Republican and former sheriff, took to Twitter to say that the FBI would face a probe when the GOP assumes control of the House in several weeks.

“Republicans will investigate the FBI in January. I promise you that,” he said.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) suggested that other Big Tech companies were similarly used by the FBI to take action on users’ content.

“If [the] FBI used Twitter to censor, you bet they also used Google and Facebook,” Hawley said in a tweet.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Daniel Miller, President of the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM), an organization that promotes Texas independence that sued Facebook parent Meta for banning links to TNM content from being shared on the platform.

“If the #TwitterFiles6 is this explosive, imagine what the Facebook Files will look like,” Miller wrote in a post on Twitter.

“If Facebook censored TNM at the direction of the FBI, we are going to find out,” he added.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Google and Facebook parent Meta with a request for comment.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Labor data might have been overcounted by as much as 1.1 million jobs earlier this year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia revealed in a new quarterly report.

According to the regional central bank’s second-quarter “Early Benchmark Revisions of State Payroll Employment” report (pdf), researchers’ estimated employment changes that occurred between March and June were different in 33 states and the District of Columbia from data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

During this period, Philadelphia Fed researchers found that there were higher adjustments in four states, lower changes in 29 states and the nation’s capital, and lesser revisions in the remaining 17 states. This included a 4.1 percent drop in payroll employment in Delaware and a 1.2 percent decrease in jobs in New Jersey.

As a result, employment gains might have been overcounted by more than 1.1 million.

“In the aggregate, 10,500 net new jobs were added during the period rather than the 1,121,500 jobs estimated by the sum of the states; the U.S. CES [Current Employment Survey] estimated net growth of 1,047,000 jobs for the period,” the report stated.

This also means that payroll jobs were little changed in the March-to-June span. In addition, current estimates indicate that employment growth was 2.8 percent in the four months since June.

E.J. Antoni, a research fellow for Regional Economics in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, tells The Epoch Times that this “feels like another pyrrhic victory.”

“The Philly Fed data aligns well with the household survey that shows a flat job market since March, contra the robust growth from the establishment survey,” he said. “The seasonal adjustments to the monthly headline jobs numbers this year from BLS have been abnormally large to the upside. December’s number will have to be revised down 30% more than normal to essentially balance out the earlier large upward revisions. Job growth was technically ‘front loaded’ in 2022.”

The Philadelphia Fed explained how its calculations differ from how the BLS crunches the figures.

“The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has developed early benchmark estimates of monthly state payroll employment on a quarterly basis to predict the subsequent annual benchmark revisions by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Our process enhances the monthly Current Employment Survey (CES) payroll employment data with the more comprehensive Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) payroll employment data,” the regional central bank noted.

“The CES provides a timely estimate of monthly state employment data, but the QCEW follows about five months later with a more complete picture, covering more than 95 percent of all employers. Our methodology was adapted from an approach pioneered by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and modified to accommodate all 50 states and the District of Columbia.”

Will this force the BLS to revise its figures lower in the coming months?

BLS Caught Overcounting

Critics say that there’s something wrong with the monthly jobs report.

The BLS report is comprised of two chief surveys: establishment (businesses) and household. The former has recorded stronger-than-expected growth for most of 2022, while the latter has been roughly flat. Since March, the divergence has skyrocketed to 2.7 million workers.

The main explanation for this gap is that the BLS allows double counting. This means it will count every extra job a person possesses as another payroll. The household component doesn’t permit this feature.

Because the number of people holding two or more jobs has risen by more than 8 percent since November 2021—to roughly 7.8 million—double counting has increased significantly over the last year.

Despite overcounting issues, federal government data in November suggest that the U.S. labor market is slowing. Full-time employment decreased from October to November, part-time job growth was flat, and the Department of Labor’s diffusion index—a metric that calculates the percentage of 256 industries adding jobs—slumped to 63.5, down from 74.8 last year.

Does This Have Policy Implications?

Economic observers contend that the strong labor numbers are giving the Fed enough ammunition to continue tightening monetary policy. If the economy is humming along and a total of 4.37 million jobs have been added this year, the central bank would have zero incentive to pivot and deviate from its inflation-busting rate hikes.

It’s unclear, however, if Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other Federal Open Market Committee members are strictly monitoring the BLS data or watching the plethora of other employment metrics.

That said, market experts expect a combination of a slowing economy and labor market next year as the central bank’s rate hikes travel their way through the system. Recession talk has also heightened, especially following November’s weak economic data, from retail sales to manufacturing, released on Dec. 15.

According to a survey by the National Association of Business Economics (NABE), economists project average monthly job growth to be just 76,000 in 2023, down from 392,000 this year.

“NABE survey participants continue to downgrade expectations for the U.S. economy, with projections of slower economic growth, higher inflation, and a weaker labor market,” NABE President Julia Coronado said in a statement. “A majority of respondents believes there is more than a 50% probability that a recession will occur in 2023.”

The Fed’s Survey of Economic Projections shows officials anticipating unemployment rates of 4.6 percent in 2023 and 2024 and 4.5 percent in 2025.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

North Carolina’s top court has upheld the permanent block against a voter identification law, finding that lawmakers enacted it with “discriminatory intent.”

More African American voters lack the identification required under the law, Senate Bill 824, and a previous voter identification law was determined to be unconstitutional for that reason. That was part of the reason a panel of North Carolina judges used to conclude in September 2021 that Senate Bill 824 ran afoul of the equal protection clause in North Carolina’s Constitution. The clause states that “no person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws; nor shall any person be subjected to discrimination by the State because of race, color, religion, or national origin.”

In a narrow 4–3 ruling on Dec. 16, the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld that earlier conclusion.

“We hold that the sequence of events leading up to S.B. 824’s passage supports the determination that S.B. 824 was enacted with the discriminatory intent to target African-American voters,” said Justice Anita Earls, writing for the majority. “In doing so, we do not conclude that the General Assembly harbored racial animus; however, we conclude just as the trial court did, that in passing S.B. 824, the Republican majority ‘targeted voters who, based on race, were unlikely to vote for the majority party.’”

Acceptable forms of identification include driver’s licenses, passports, and student IDs.

The law was enacted in late 2018, with supermajorities of Republican lawmakers in both legislative chambers overriding a veto of then-North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat. The law came after voters approved a constitutional amendment to require voter identification.

Before its passage, several Democrats said data showed that a larger percentage of black voters than white voters lacked the identification allowed under the proposal, but their concerns didn’t result in any changes to the legislation.

Before the passage of the previous law, House Bill 589, lawmakers reviewed state data that showed more Democrat voters lacked the appropriate identification when compared to Republicans and that most of the Democrat voters were black.

Most of the same lawmakers who voted for House Bill 589 voted to override Cooper’s veto of Senate Bill 824, the panel noted. It found that Republicans supported the bill “with limited analysis and scrutiny” in order to approve it before the party lost its supermajorities in the next session, a development that came because Democrats flipped a number of seats in the 2018 election.

Also counted against the defendants, including North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican, were “limited Democratic involvement” in the bill, the rejection of many Democrat-proposed amendments, and a lack of intent to help address the racial differences in identification holders.

Defendants have argued that provisions that were included in the bill, such as ordering county boards of elections to issue voter identification cards for free upon request, undercut the claims in the case. But prospective voters would have to go to a different location than a voting place to obtain the IDs, which could prove burdensome, the panel found.

The majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court said their ruling shouldn’t be taken as saying that no voter identification requirement laws are allowed but that such laws should be less restrictive.

The majority was composed of Justices Robin Hudson, Samuel Ervin IV, Earls, and Michael Morgan.

All three Republicans on the court dissented from the new ruling.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Philip Berger Jr., joined by Justices Paul Newby and Tamara Barringer, said the legislature acted appropriately after voters approved a constitutional amendment.

“The plain language of S.B. 824 shows no intent to discriminate against any group or individual, and there is no evidence that S.B. 824 was passed with race in mind, let alone a racially discriminatory intent. The majority relies, as it must, on a misapplication of relevant case law and on its own inferences to reach a contrary,” Berger said.

He also noted that the new law enabled voters to vote without an ID if they produced a declaration that they suffered from a “reasonable impediment” to obtaining an acceptable form of identification.

North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger said a new voter identification law will be passed in 2023.

“If Democrats on the state Supreme Court can’t respect the will of the voters, the General Assembly will,” he said in a statement.

Dan Blue, leader of the state Senate Democrats, said, “We need to go back to the drawing board and work in good faith to pass a voter ID law that will pass constitutional muster.”

Makeup to Change; Another Ruling

The new ruling comes as North Carolina’s Supreme Court makeup is set to change.

In the midterm elections, Republican lawyer Trey Allen beat Ervin.

An open seat was won by Republican Richard Dietz.

Republicans will soon hold a 5–2 majority.

In another 4–3 party-line opinion released just before the change, the majority blocked North Carolina’s remedial Senate map, finding that it unconstitutionally set boundaries to manipulate election results.

A remedial House map was approved, as was a congressional map.

In a dissenting opinion, Newby said the majority was trying to usurp the role of the legislative branch, which is charged with redistricting.

In an earlier ruling, he said, “The majority effectively amended the state constitution to establish a redistricting commission composed of judges and political science experts. When, however, this commission, using the majority’s redistricting criteria, reached an outcome with which the majority disagrees, the majority freely reweighs the evidence and substitutes its own fact-finding for that of the three-judge panel.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A lawsuit filed on Dec. 15 by government watchdog group Judicial Watch alleges that the FBI violated the constitutional rights of FBI analyst Marcus Allen by falsely accusing him of holding “conspiratorial views,” revoking his security clearance, and suspending him from duty without pay.

The complaint (pdf) was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina against FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The Suspension

Allen, a Marine veteran who was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, joined the bureau in 2015 as a staff operations specialist. Among other duties, he has provided analytical support to the FBI Charlotte Field Office Joint Terrorism Task Force, receiving the FBI Charlotte Field Office Employee of the Year Award in 2019.

However, on Jan. 10, 2022, the FBI informed Allen via letter (pdf) that his Top Secret security clearance had been suspended.

“The Security Division has learned you have espoused conspiratorial views both orally and in writing and promoted unreliable information which indicates support for the events of January 6^th,” the letter states. “These allegations raise sufficient concerns about your allegiance to the United States and your judgment to warrant a suspension of your clearance pending further investigation.”

As a basis for the suspension, the letter cited “Adjudicative Guideline A,” which states, “The willingness to safeguard classified or sensitive information is in doubt if there is any reason to suspect an individual’s allegiance to the United States.”

Some conditions the guideline specifies as potentially disqualifying include: “involvement in, support of, training to commit, or advocacy of” acts of sabotage, espionage, treason, terrorism, or sedition against the United States; and “association or sympathy” with those who commit or attempt to commit such acts or those who “advocate, threaten, or use force or violence” to overthrow the government.

The suspension, the letter added, would remain in effect pending a review of Allen’s “fitness for duty” and his “compatibility with holding security clearance.”

On Feb. 17, Allen received another letter notifying him that he was being placed on administrative leave without pay due to his lack of security clearance. In May, he was asked to appear for an interview and has received no word since on the status of the FBI’s investigation.

“The interview request came only days after FBI Director Wray was confronted by Members of Congress over concerns that the FBI was weaponizing the security clearance process to target politically conservative employees,” Judicial Watch adds in its Thursday complaint.

The Complaint

In the complaint, Judicial Watch challenges the FBI’s claims, asserting that Allen “never ‘espoused conspiratorial views’ and does not support the ‘events of January 6^th.’”

Noting that the FBI has not identified any specific statements or actions from Allen to support its claims, the complaint further challenges the bureau’s use of Adjudicative Guideline A to justify Allen’s suspension.

“Plaintiff’s allegiance is to the United States, as he has demonstrated during his years of exemplary military and law enforcement service to his country,” the complaint states.

The filing further states that Allen was not involved in the events of Jan. 6, did not support them “in any material way,” and has expressed no views that could be reasonably construed as supportive of or sympathetic toward any illegal activities that occurred on Jan. 6.

Another argument Judicial Watch makes is that the language of the guideline is vague and overbroad, excluding specific definitions for prohibited activities and thereby encompassing many protected under the First Amendment.

Additionally, the complaint asserts that Allen was denied any attempt to clear himself of suspicion and that, despite being placed on unpaid administrative leave, he is required to obtain the FBI’s approval for any outside employment.

Sole Source of Income

Allen, who is a father to three young children, is the sole source of income for his family.

“To this end, Plaintiff authored a prayer journal and sought permission from the FBI to sell the journal,” the complaint notes. “After initially engaging with Plaintiff, the FBI has ignored his request for approval of outside employment, reaching no decision on whether he is permitted to sell copies of the prayer journal.”

Arguing that the bureau violated Allen’s First Amendment right to free speech and his Fifth Amendment right not to be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,” the lawsuit seeks the restoration of Allen’s security clearance and active employment with the FBI.

“The FBI can’t purge employees based on political smears,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “Judicial Watch seeks to remind the FBI that it is not above the law with this civil rights lawsuit for Mr. Allen, a decorated Marine veteran and highly regarded FBI employee.”

The Epoch Times has contacted the FBI for comment.

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A federal appeals court on Friday dismissed a case challenging a Connecticut policy that allows transgender students born male to compete against girls in high school athletic competitions.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York upheld a lower court’s decision to reject a lawsuit filed on behalf of four female athletes. The athletes argued they were unfairly deprived of honors and opportunities to compete at higher levels statewide because of a policy that allowed males who identify as female to compete against girls.

Judges Denny Chin, Beth Robinson, and Susan Carney ruled the four female athletes lacked standing to sue partly because their claims that they were deprived of wins, state titles, and athletic scholarship opportunities were speculative.

“All four Plaintiffs regularly competed at state track championships as high school athletes, where Plaintiffs had the opportunity to compete for state titles in different events,” the ruling stated (pdf).

On numerous occasions, the four female athletes—Chelsea Mitchell, Selina Soule, Alanna Smith, and Ashley Nicoletti—finished first in various events, “even sometimes when competing against” the two transgender athletes, Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, the judges noted.

“Plaintiffs simply have not been deprived of a ‘chance to be champions,’” the judges added.

Chin and Carney were appointed by former President Barack Obama, and Robinson was appointed by President Joe Biden.

Female Athletes Deserve ‘Fair Competition’

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative legal organization, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the four female athletes.

“The 2nd Circuit got it wrong, and we’re evaluating all legal options, including appeal. Our clients—like all female athletes—deserve access to fair competition,” said ADF Senior Counsel Christiana Kiefer in a statement.

She added: “Every woman deserves the respect and dignity that comes with having an equal opportunity to excel and win in athletics, and ADF remains committed to protecting the future of women’s sports.”

Mitchell lost four women’s state track titles when transgender competitors Miller and Yearwood began racing in Connecticut girls’ high school track meets in 2017, the judges noted.

In the three years after 2017, Miller and Yearwood broke 17 girls’ track meet records, which ADF argued deprived females of over 85 opportunities to compete at the next level.

Transgender Policy

If it weren’t for the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Council (CIAC) policy, Mitchell would be the record holder of four additional state champion titles, the lawsuit alleged.

Additionally, the other plaintiffs argue they would have placed higher in their meets.

Their complaint alleged that if not for the CIAC policy, Nicoletti would have placed seventh in the 2019 Class S State Championship Women’s Outdoor 100-meter preliminary race, and advanced to the 100-meter final.

Similarly, Smith would have placed second in the 2019 State Open Championship Women’s Outdoor 200-meter final, the plaintiffs argued.

Soule would have placed sixth in the 2019 State Open Championship Women’s Indoor 55-meter preliminary race, and advanced to the 55-meter final, according to the plaintiffs.

Their claims were dismissed by the lower court partly on the grounds that it became moot once the transgender students graduated in June 2020 and because they lacked standing to seek an injunction to change past athletic records because their “theory of redressability was too speculative.”

The appeals court upheld this ruling.

Title IX

The 2013 CIAC policy allows transgender students to compete in high school competitions designated for the gender they identify with.

CIAC argued in court that its policy was in compliance with state law requiring all high school students to be treated according to their gender identity. The council also claimed that the policy conforms with Title IX, the federal legislation that provides equal educational opportunities for girls.

Title IX made it illegal for federally supported educational institutions to discriminate against students and workers based on sex. Its enactment in 1972, in its original form, led to more girls finishing high school and college and boosted the number of female athletes in high school and college sports and athletics.

The protection extended to transgender students once the definition of “sex” was expanded under the Biden administration to include the fuzzier political concept of gender identity.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine has been linked to blood clotting in older individuals, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

FDA researchers, crunching data from a database of elderly persons in the United States, found that pulmonary embolism—blood clotting that forms in the body and winds up blocking blood flow in the lungs—met the initial threshold for a statistical signal and continued meeting the criteria after a more in-depth evaluation.

Three other outcomes of interest—a lack of oxygen to the heart, a blood platelet disorder called immune thrombocytopenia, and another type of clotting called intravascular coagulation—initially raised red flags, researchers said. More in-depth evaluations, such as comparisons with populations who received influenza vaccines, showed those three as no longer meeting the statistical threshold for a signal.

Researchers looked at data covering 17.4 million elderly Americans who received a total of 34.6 million vaccine doses between Dec. 10, 2020, and Jan. 16, 2022.

The study was published by the journal Vaccine on Dec. 1.

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The FDA said it wasn’t taking any action on the results because they don’t prove the vaccines cause any of the four outcomes, and because the findings “are still under investigation and require more robust study.”

Dr. Peter McCullough, chief medical adviser for the Truth for Health Foundation, told The Epoch Times via email that the new paper “corroborates the concerns of doctors that the large uptick in blood clots, progression of atherosclerotic heart disease, and blood disorders is independently associated with COVID-19 vaccination.”

Pfizer didn’t respond to a request for comment.

How the Research Was Done

FDA researchers, with assistance from researchers with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), analyzed data from the CMS database. They included Medicare Fee-for-Service beneficiaries aged 65 or older who received a vaccine within the timeframe, were enrolled when they were vaccinated, and were enrolled for a “clean window” of time prior to vaccination. The window was 183 days or 365 days, depending on the outcome.

About 25 million people receive the Medicare Fee-for-Service, but only about 17 million were vaccinated during the period of time studied.

Researchers used probability testing to detect an increased risk of one or more of 14 outcomes following vaccination. The goal was to see whether vaccination may increase the risk of adverse outcomes, such as pulmonary embolism, or blood clotting in the lungs. If an outcome met a certain statistical threshold, that meant it could increase the risk.

The initial results of the safety monitoring detected an increased risk of four events, the FDA announced on July 12, 2021—months after first detecting the possible issues. They were the same four outlined in the new paper, which is the first update the agency has given on the matter since its announcement.

As of Jan. 15, 9,065 cases of a lack of oxygen to the heart—known as acute myocardial infarction—were detected, researchers revealed in the new study. As of the same date, 6,346 cases of pulmonary embolism, 1,064 cases of immune thrombocytopenia, and 263 cases of coagulation were detected.

The primary analysis showed a safety signal for all four outcomes. Researchers tried adjusting the numbers by using different variables. For instance, at one point they adjusted for the variation of background rates, or the rates of each outcome in the general population prior to the pandemic. After certain adjustments—not all—the myocardial infarction, immune thrombocytopenia, and intravascular coagulation ceased being statistically significant.

Pulmonary embolism, though, continued to be statistically significant, the researchers said. Pulmonary embolism is a serious condition that can lead to death.

Limitations of the study included possible false signals and possible missed signals due to factors such as parameters being specified wrongly.

The conditions that didn’t trigger a signal included stroke, heart inflammation, and appendicitis.

The signals were detected only after Pfizer vaccination. Analyses for signals after receipt of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines didn’t show any concerns.

Moderna and Johnson & Johnson didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Side Effects

All three vaccines have been linked to a number of side effects. Heart inflammation is causally linked to the Moderna and Pfizer shots, experts around the world have confirmed, while Johnson & Johnson’s has been associated with blood clots.

Other conditions, such as pulmonary embolism, have been reported to authorities and described in studies, though some papers have found no increase in risk following vaccination.

Approximately 4,214 reports of post-vaccination pulmonary embolism, including 1,886 reports following receipt of Pfizer’s vaccine, have been reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System as of Dec. 9.

As of the same date, 1,434 reports of post-vaccination myocardial infarction, including 736 following receipt of Pfizer’s vaccine; 469 reports of post-vaccination immune thrombocytopenia, including 234 following receipt of Pfizer’s vaccine; and 78 reports of post-vaccination intravascular coagulation, including 42 after receipt of Pfizer’s vaccine, have been reported.

Reports to the system can be made by anybody, but most are lodged by health care workers, studies show. The number of reports are an undercount, according to studies.

The new study states that the FDA “strongly believes the potential benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the potential risks of COVID-19 infection.” No evidence was cited in support of the belief.

The FDA is set to meet with its vaccine advisory panel in January 2023 about the future of COVID-19 vaccines, as the vaccines have been performing much worse against Omicron and its subvariants.

“A shortcoming of the CMS surveillance system is that it did not capture prior and subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infection which accentuate the cumulative risk of COVID-19 vaccination,” McCullough told The Epoch Times. “Given the large number of individuals who have been vaccinated, the population attributable fraction of medical problems ascribed to the vaccines is enormous. I have concerns over the future burden to the healthcare system as a consequence of mass indiscriminate COVID-19 vaccination.”

Correction: A previous version of this article inaccurately described pulmonary embolism. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

One of the most common symptomatic complaints after COVID-19, vaccination, and now in most persons who have both exposures is POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome).

This is a disorder where there is a lack of synchronization between the heart, brain, spinal cord sympathetic chain of ganglia, adrenal gland, and the blood vessels both arterial and venous. The Spike protein on SARS-CoV-2 and flooding the system after vaccination damages neurological tissue, the adrenal glands, and the heart.

The end result can be inappropriately elevated heart rate and either low or high blood pressure causing dizziness. I have seen cases of syncope with facial trauma as a result of this bothersome condition. Kwan et al has shown (n=284,592) that the risk for POTS is substantial, just after heart damage as the highest risk cardiovascular side effect of COVID-19 vaccination.

Most of the care for POTS is supportive (lower leg compression stockings, increased salt and fluid intake, exercise). I have found in severe cases with adequate blood pressure that the use of nadolol can control the tachycardia and help while the patient has cardiovascular-neurological reflexes return to normal over a period of months.

Since most children and adults in the US have recovered from COVID-19, there is no reason to take additional vaccines and risk POTS, myocarditis, or both.

Reposted from the author’s Substack

Reference

Kwan, A.C., Ebinger, J.E., Wei, J. et al. Apparent risks of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome diagnoses after COVID-19 vaccination and SARS-Cov-2 Infection. Nat Cardiovasc Res (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44161-022-00177-8

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has neglected to provide in full certain disclosures requested by members of the U.S. Senate relating to the department’s growing role in “counter-disinformation” activities, and this failure is particularly egregious in light of the co-equal roles of the executive and legislative branches of the government, two senators have charged in a Dec. 15 letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) charge the DHS with ignoring or downplaying their “serious concerns” about the DHS’s “growing counter-disinformation efforts” as conveyed previously in a letter of June 7, which formally requested “information necessary to inform our congressional oversight of DHS activities.”

The senators are deeply concerned about the DHS’s admitted plans to ramp up its efforts to play a role in monitoring and mediating MDM, a common acronym for “mis-, dis-, and mal-information,” disseminated through social media, on topics as varied as the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, race relations in America, and the hasty U.S. pullout from Afghanistan in August 2021.

According to the senators, the DHS’s response to their June 7 letter, which was dated June 29, did not answer any of the ten questions they had posed in their June 7 communication.

Even more seriously, the DHS included with its June 29 letter three “document productions” supposedly intended to allay the senators’ concerns, but the first of these contained documents already in the public domain, and the third featured some 500 pages of information, half of which was partly or completely redacted.

“Based on our review of this material, it appears that many of the redactions are applied to pre-decisional and deliberative process material,” the senators write, before going on to remind Mayorkas that they have advanced their requests as sitting members of Congress whom DHS cannot legally ignore or blow off, given the separate and co-equal character of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches comprising the U.S. federal government.

The Freedom of Information Act applies neither to the requests, nor to DHS’s procedures in protocols in responding to them, and the redaction of content—as DHS might do in response to a journalist’s request for information—is not appropriate here, the senators contend.

The senators also take DHS to task for complaining, in its letter of June 29, about Congress’s having made documents available to the senators without getting approval from DHS.

Here, too, Grassley and Hawley charge DHS with having misconstrued the nature of its relationship to other branches and having falsely assumed that DHS enjoys the right to apply executive branch designations such as “Predecisional,” “Deliberative,” and “For Official Use Only,” and thereby limit what documents and materials the senators may obtain by means of lawful whistleblower disclosures and oversight requests. In the case referenced in DHS’s June 29 letter, the senators state, they did not unconditionally release all the material provided to them and included limited redactions of their own where appropriate.

“We make such decisions independently, based on our assessment of what will be in the best interest of transparency and the public interest. Moreover, DHS should learn a lesson in accountability and transparency when patriotic whistleblowers provide full and complete records in contrast to DHS failing to follow that standard and instead providing improperly redacted records,” Grassley and Hawley write.

Overstepping Bounds

The senators convey their considerable “alarm” at public reports that illuminate DHS’s growing role in “counter-disinformation activities.”

“These efforts stretch well beyond DHS’s seriously misguided effort to establish a Disinformation Governance Board (DGB),” they write, pointing to a document prepared by Cybersecurity Advisory Committee of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and released by The Intercept, which states that “CISA has a burgeoning MDM effort” that includes “directly engaging with social media companies to flag MDM.”

The same Intercept article also quotes a draft copy of DHS’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review stating that in coming years DHS will aggressively combat what it sees as bogus information on a range of topics including “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”

The senators conclude by making two formal requests to Mayorkas, namely, full and complete answers to all questions raised in the senators’ June 7 letter, along with unredacted copies of the documents provided in DHS’s initial response; and a detailed account of DHS’s policy for replying to congressional oversight requests, specifying how DHS makes decisions about redacting material that members of Congress have asked for.

The Epoch Times has reached out to DHS for comment.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Elon Musk is in over his head when it comes to free speech.

Musk is quickly learning that in order to run a free speech platform you need two things: thick skin and a fanatical commitment to free speech, even when being pro free speech is bad for business, and even when being pro free speech means tolerating the most excoriating criticism of yourself.

Elon’s “free speech” saga at Twitter is really nothing of the sort. He’s treating the product, and his users, as his playthings. Flailing, hyper-feminine emotional outbursts are a substitute for a “leadership style.” All told, he has revealed that he has no interest whatsoever in bringing actual free speech to Twitter.

Twitter was, ironically, more measured and free when there were thousands of mentally ill blue-haired Communists with their fingers on the ban hammer. At least the Communists tried to come up with an objective and consistent rationale for their actions. Contrast with Elon, who waved the flag of free speech as soon as he took over but immediately began compromising on that promise for the sake of business expediency.

When it came to Alex Jones being reinstated, Elon had an emotional reaction and invoked the loss of his child. When it came to Kathy Griffin impersonating him, Elon had an emotional reaction and swung the ban hammer on anyone in his way. When it came to Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, posting a symbol of a French UFO cult which combined a swastika and a Star of David, Elon had an emotional reaction and banned him so as to be hip with all of the other California types who were throwing Ye to the wolves.

Now with the ElonJet and journalist ban situation, where constitutionally protected information which is publicly available is being removed from the site (despite being massively available practically everywhere else on the Internet) Elon is once again “leading” with his emotions and treating Twitter not as a product, not as an essential and vital publication utility for the entire world, but as a toy, and one controlled by a petulant child at that.

Men who lead do not make decisions and dictate on the whims of their emotions. Weak, hyper-effete men “leading” with emotions instead of reason and logic is a big reason Western society is crumbling. Given Elon’s Reddit-tier political takes and patchy soy beard, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that he is low on the testosterone side. But I digress.

Gab is for free speech. The lefty journalists recently banned from Twitter might not believe it but when they find that they get zero engagement on Mastodon and are looking to join a serious social media platform again, but Gab will be here waiting for them – and we will protect them from all censors, foreign and domestic, to the greatest extent possible– as long as their speech is lawful.

Some of these journalists who were banned last night, like Matt Binder, have been extremely critical of Gab and our users in the past. I don’t like Matt. He’s been unfair to Gab in the past. But Gab exists for him. Gab exists to provide a home and a megaphone for viewpoints that don’t have a home anywhere else. Until Elon took over Twitter, that meant we were a home for the right and center-right. After Elon took over, we are ready, willing, and able to provide that home for the left and center-left, just as we are prepared to host anyone who agrees that they will not violate U.S. law in the use of our service.

We can no longer afford to give any power whatsoever to petty tyrants who think themselves to be god-kings. This is the outcome when emasculated emotional losers “lead” our society: chaos, hypocrisy, destruction, and censorship.

Twitter is a big corporation and it has big corporate baggage. It needs huge quantities of advertising dollars from all over the world, including the most censorial European countries, just to survive. When EU bureaucrats tell him to censor Americans he has to obey. Last week the EU asked us to censor some Americans – citing no law that had been broken, simply saying that certain users were posting “propaganda” – and we told them to pound sand. No US court will ever enforce an unconstitutional European rule. If we never sell a dollar of ads in the European Union, that’s perfectly fine with us.

The reason I run Gab because I believe that protecting freedom of speech is a divine command. We must refuse to be “led” by anyone who is not themselves led by Jesus Christ. We deserve strong God-fearing Christian leaders in media, business, technology, culture, education, and government.

I may not agree with your beliefs. You may not agree with mine. You may think my belief in God is a backward superstition. I may think your atheism is corrosive. None of that matters. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I, and this company, will defend your right to speak freely on the Internet as long as we are able to do so.

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus Christ is King of kings

Published in Gab

A Stanford University professor who was reportedly placed on a Twitter “blacklist” after issuing warnings about COVID-19-related lockdowns said Thursday that “unspecified agents” requested that he be censored.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at the prestigious private research university, told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson that he only joined Twitter in August 2021 to share his view that lockdowns and school closures wouldn’t work.

“I was put on a trend blacklist the moment I joined,” Bhattacharya told Carlson on Thursday night, referring to internal files that were released to journalists by new Twitter chief executive Elon Musk. “What that means is that I write a tweet, my followers see the tweet, but the trend blacklist makes sure that people outside of my followers don’t see the tweet.”

Last week, journalist Bari Weiss published screenshots of internal Twitter communications that revealed that some users, according to her, were placed on a “trends blacklist” and “search blacklist.” Among those put on a blacklist was Bhattacharya because he wrote children would be negatively impacted by COVID-19-related lockdowns and school closures, she wrote.

Bhattacharya, notably, is one of the three co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which has nearly 1 million signatures from scientists and doctors from around the world. “Current lockdown policies,” they wrote, “are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”

“The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health–leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden,” the declaration continued. “Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.”

In his interview with Carlson, Bhattacharya revealed that it was only until several days ago that he was removed from the blacklist, coming weeks after Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion. The doctor was invited by Musk to Twitter’s headquarters, where they discussed censorship, he said.

“Unspecified agents” requested that Bhattacharya be blacklisted on Twitter, he told Carlson. However, it’s not clear if those individuals worked at Twitter or outside the firm.

“It was a policy designed to make sure the American public did not hear that there were other alternative scientific views than just lockdown, lockdown, lockdown,” the Stanford professor stated. Further, Bhattacharya asserts that he believes the federal government wanted to promote an “illusion of consensus” about lockdowns when there was actually “robust” debate taking place among some members of the scientific community

The government “wanted to fool people into thinking that we were following the science,” he added, arguing that the Twitter blacklist violated his First Amendment rights.

“People suffered as a consequence of this censorship,” Bhattacharya concluded. “I believe that had that honest debate taken place, none of those policies would have been put in place and all of that suffering could have been avoided.”

Previous Twitter managers, including former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth, have not commented on Weiss’s reporting about the firm’s blacklists.

In an article describing his visit to Twitter’s headquarters, Bhattacharya said that when he first joined in August of last year, “apparently Twitter received a number of unspecified complaints about me. It’s not clear, from my time at Twitter headquarters, exactly from who.”

“Their systems are not set up to answer that question very easily, although apparently people are looking into that,” he wrote. “And that then induced Twitter to put me on this trends blacklist to make sure that my tweets didn’t reach a broad audience outside of my own network … it took somebody at Twitter—a human at Twitter had to think about it. The setting was then renewed repeatedly through 2021 and 2022.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to Bhattacharya for additional comment.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The recently revealed censorship that has plagued Twitter in recent years is “criminal,” according to former White House COVID adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, as it allowed “lies to be imposed on the public” during a pandemic that wrought untold damage worldwide.

“When correct science policy is blocked, people die, and people died from the censorship,” Atlas, a special coronavirus adviser during the Trump administration and contributor to The Epoch Times, said in an interview.

Atlas was speaking days after Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, released troves of internal files showing how the previous Twitter team built a blacklist to limit disfavored tweets’ visibility without the knowledge of those using the platform. Among those flagged was Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, whose tweet criticizing pandemic lockdowns shortly after joining the platform last August got him on the “trends blacklist” preventing the amplification of his tweets.

But such revelations, Atlas said, are “only the tip of the iceberg.”

“There’s a far larger story here that we need to hear,” he said, which he considers “far more nefarious and more systemic than isolated tweets being pulled down.”

“This seems to be criminal behavior, and I think it needs to be investigated in the courts,” he said.

The Censorship of 2020

Atlas wants to direct attention back to 2020, when health officials followed in the Chinese Communist Party’s footsteps to implement blanket COVID-19 lockdowns.

In November of that year, while Atlas was still on the White House’s coronavirus task force, Twitter took down his post that argued mask-wearing was not effective in curbing the spread of the virus—a decision celebrated by some proponents of the measures, including fellow task force member Dr. Deborah Birx.

“One would think that the American public should hear what the adviser to the president is saying during the pandemic of 2020. Yet Twitter decided to simply block that discussion from the public,” he said.

Both Twitter and Facebook that August also removed a video from President Donald Trump in which he said children are “almost immune” to COVID-19. That same month, Facebook said it had deleted 7 million pieces of content it deemed to be COVID-19 misinformation over the second quarter of 2020.

Despite most states having a mask mandate until early this year, a number of studies found children and teenagers to be at a far lower risk of getting or dying from COVID-19, even with the emergence of new variants. But the “censorship of 2020,” be it deleting individual tweets, suspending accounts, or blocking the amplification of posts, had done its damage.

“When decisions were being made in 2020 and imposed upon the public, that’s when censorship counted the most,” Atlas said.

The absence of alternative viewpoints manipulated not only the public, but government officials as well, Atlas said.

“It created this illusion that there was a consensus among science and public health policy experts that lockdowns should be imposed; it created and perpetrated lies that if you were opposed to lockdowns, you were choosing the economy over lives, and that if you were opposed to lockdowns, you were somehow calling for letting the infection spread without any mitigation whatsoever,” he said.

“They absolutely contributed to policies that killed massive numbers of people and destroyed children and low-income people, who are the most vulnerable. That’s why it’s criminal.”

Related Coverage

‘Massive Harms’ From Lockdowns Shouldn’t Be Forgiven: Dr. Scott Atlas

Atlas has been a vocal critic of COVID-19 lockdowns since early on in the pandemic, saying that “targeted protection was the logical, safer, and ethical way to manage the pandemic.” In May 2020, he wrote an article for the Hill warning about the “millions of years of life” such policies would cost Americans.

Learning loss aside, the pandemic restrictions led to an explosion of child abuse, drug overdoses, mental health issues, and obesity among youth, who were deprived of normal social interaction and forced to continue schooling through remote learning.

Collectively, America’s social media and legacy media, “coupled with incompetent bureaucrats running the policy and ignorant university professors have left a sinful legacy of damage,” said Atlas—the reason for the massive loss of trust in public health agencies that people depend for guidance in future crises.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently said his “biggest mistake” while at the company was to “invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves,” a decision he said has “burdened the company with too much power.”

Late last month, Musk announced an end to the COVID-19 “misleading information” policy, which has resulted in 100,000 pieces of content cut from the platform and more than 11,000 account suspensions.

Atlas welcomed the gesture but thought that more individuals need to “rise up”—his term for speaking up, for real change.

“There should be a public outrage that is massive,” he said.

He believes those the American public elected to represent them haven’t done their part.

“Where are our elected officials in this, where are they?” he asked. “If they can’t act, simply for ensuring free speech, they should all step down.”

‘Distortion’ Around Vaccine Mandates

A recent study published in Nature of over 15,000 citizens across 21 countries shows that people who have received COVID-19 vaccines are far more likely to be prejudiced against the unvaccinated than the other way around, which Atlas saw as yet another illustration of how social media censorship has shaped public opinion through suppressing critical information.

More than 5.47 billion people worldwide have received at least one dose of one of the COVID-19 vaccines, accounting for roughly 70 percent of the world population, despite lacking a “thorough, detailed understanding of efficacy and side effects from the vaccines,” Atlas noted.

But because of the lockdown mandates, which he called “pseudo-scientific,” throngs of workers in healthcare, education, and the military lost their jobs and hospitals suffered staffing shortages, causing backlogs of patients needing vital treatment for other non-COVID-19 diseases.

In perpetrating a “false narrative,” social media platforms have deviated from their promised role as a digital town hall and a visible source of information, and instead allowed themselves to be a tool for harm, said Atlas.

“We are living in an Orwellian society if this sort of censorship is allowed to keep going.”

Atlas faced considerable pressure in 2020 for airing his views on COVID-19 and resigned after four months of repeated clashes with other members of the task force. But he said this “character assassination” won’t stop him from doing what he believes is right.

He quoted English writer G. K. Chesterton: “Right is right even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it.”

Thousands from around the world, he said, have written to him encouraging him to keep speaking up, including some “whose family members had committed suicide from the lockdowns and many in the health profession who said they were “afraid to step forward.”

“We need people with integrity to rise up when the pressure is on, and when you do that, you empower other people to speak up.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to Twitter for comment.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The automotive financing market may be under stress as several experts call for a massive wave of repossessions in early 2023, with prominent figures such as Tesla founder Elon Musk and Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood sounding the alarm about the potential effects on financial markets.

“Potentially the biggest financial crisis ever,” Musk posted on Twitter on Dec. 16 in response to a tweet by Wood and a series of tweets from the CEO of a car dealer group about the potential auto loan crisis.

Reports by the anonymous Twitter account CarDealershipGuy revealed an “extremely alarming” trend among auto lenders. The CEO behind the account claimed that many lenders are ignoring red flags associated with loan applicants who are already “underwater” on a prior auto loan.

“This morning, I discovered something *extremely* alarming happening in the car market, specifically in auto lending,” CarDealshipGuy, who authors a newsletter for auto market insights, wrote on Twitter, catching many people’s attention.

“I’m now convinced that there is a massive wave of car repossessions coming in 2023.”

He went on to explain that many people had no choice but to buy a costly car during the pandemic. He said car values have been falling recently, with some dropping by nearly 30 percent year over year.

“And these same people that took out these big loans are now ‘underwater.’ Basically, they owe banks more on these cars than they are worth,” he stated, adding that the banks are well-aware of the problem.

This morning I discovered something *extremely* alarming happening in the car market, specifically in auto lending.

I’m now convinced that there is a massive wave of car repossessions coming in 2023.

Here’s what I discovered (and what no one knows):

— CarDealershipGuy (@GuyDealership) December 16, 2022

CarDealershipGuy, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Epoch Times that many of these underwater borrowers are attempting to purchase additional vehicles, despite having unpaid debts on their prior auto loans. He is hearing that 35 to 40 percent of new subprime applicants already have outstanding debt, he said.

Normally, banks would consider this a warning sign and refuse the loan, but the dealer said that 65 percent of his associated lenders are issuing the loans anyways.

“I’ve been in the business for a decade and this is completely unprecedented.”

When asked about whether large institutional banks are involved in this lending, he said, “Some of the big household names that you and I know are participating in this.”

He described the dynamic further on Twitter.

“The lender lets the consumer buy the car KNOWING that they already have an open auto loan with another bank!” the dealer wrote. He suggests that banks are making this choice strategically, assuming that customers will default on their previous loan—issued by a competing bank—but continue making payments on the more recent one.

He referred to the dynamic between competing banks as “dog-eat-dog style.”

Declining Values

CarDealershipGuy’s Twitter thread caught the attention of Cathie Wood, head of the investment management firm Ark Invest, who expressed concerns about “the impact of declining residual values on the $1+ trillion auto loan market.”

Wood, who manages assets of more than $14 billion as of September, added that this crisis might be exacerbated as more consumers opt to purchase electric vehicles, further diminishing the prices of gas-powered cars.

Musk responded to Wood’s tweet, echoing the same concerns.

Potentially, the biggest financial crisis ever

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

Musk has been an outspoken critic of the Federal Reserve’s hawkish interest rate policy, posting on Twitter last month that the ”Fed needs to cut interest rates immediately.” Since the start of the year, the U.S. central bank, led by Chairman Jerome Powell, has raised its overnight lending rate from near-zero to more than 4 percent.

Ticking Time Bomb

As The Epoch Times reported in November, the post-COVID boom and corresponding semiconductor shortage caused car prices to explode throughout 2020 and 2021.

Car dealers were forced to overpay for their merchandise and, in turn, overcharged banks that were providing auto loans. Lucky Lopez, a Las Vegas-based auto loan broker, told The Epoch Times that loans originated throughout 2021 far exceeded the values of the underlying vehicles.

“The dealers started calling banks, ‘Hey man, I got to sell this for 150 percent, 160 percent of LTV [loan-to-value] … Can you do this?’ and banks that traditionally wouldn’t, started doing it,” Lopez said, paraphrasing the industry dynamics he had witnessed.

For perspective, the online loan broker LendingTree quoted the average LTV ratio for an auto loan in 2019 at 87 percent.

Lopez is also calling for a massive wave of lender repossessions, which could spell trouble for the automotive market. After repossession, cars typically go to auction, but banks are reluctant to commit to an auction sale, where it’s difficult to fetch even 100 percent of a car’s value.

As a result, banks have largely refused sales and continue to delay the auction process, according to Lopez.

The lack of sales is causing a supply glut, which is a ticking time bomb, according to Danielle DiMartino Booth, a former adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

“This massive overhang of inventory continues to grow on a weekly basis because the lenders don’t want to recognize the loss on the loans,” Booth said in an interview on the Forward Guidance podcast.

She predicts that regulators will step in at some point and question why lenders haven’t liquidated the cars and force them to sell. Booth added that this “is what regulators did in the housing crisis.”

“They’re going to make them clean those loans off their books, and then we’ll see used car prices fall.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Emails from the FBI to Twitter released on Dec. 16 showed bureau officials flagging specific people for Twitter to take action against, the latest tranche of documents that bolster evidence that the government and Big Tech have been colluding to censor Americans.

In one missive dated Nov. 3, FBI officials flagged 25 accounts, including that of the media outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network that had created posts that “may warrant additional action due to the accounts being utilized to spread misinformation about the upcoming election.” The list was sent to Twitter several days later by Elvis Chan, a top official at the FBI’s office in San Francisco.

In another email, dated Nov. 10, the FBI’s San Francisco field office sent Twitter four accounts, stating that agents believed they “may potentially constitute violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service for any action or inaction deemed appropriate within Twitter policy.”

A third email, an internal Twitter missive, showed that Twitter was processing a list of posts that had been flagged by the FBI for “Possible Violative Content.” One of the posts commented on a video of then-Democrat New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo talking about COVID-19 vaccine mandates and stated: “This is our future guys if the dems get full control. If you are in George you better vote Wednesday.”

The emails were released by journalist Matt Taibbi.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has said that he granted Taibbi and other journalists access to Twitter documents.

Musk shared Taibbi’s thread of posts shortly after it was posted.

Multiple accounts that the FBI flagged were banned, including at least one with a handle indicating they are based in the United States.

The FBI, asked for comment, sent The Epoch Times the exact same statement it sent after it was revealed the bureau warned of a coming disinformation operation before the first story about the Hunter Biden computer was published.

“The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities. Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them,” the statement says.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

The files showed that the FBI and Yoel Roth, the recently departed head of trust and safety at Twitter, exchanged over 150 emails between January 2020 and November 2022, according to Taibbi. Chan said that he was regularly in contact with Roth and another senior Twitter official, Will Newland, who also recently left the company after Musk took over. Chan also said he was regularly in touch with equivalent officials at other big tech firms, including Google and Facebook.

Big Tech Depositions

Chan was recently deposed in the case brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana against the government and big tech firms, including Twitter, for alleged censorship coordination.

Chan said under oath that the FBI set up a command post ahead of the 2020 election to send election-related posts to Twitter and other platforms for possible action. A similar group flagged posts on the day of the 2022 midterms, Chan said.

“I remember in some cases they would relay that they had taken down the posts. In other cases, they would say that this did not violate their terms of service,” Chan said.

He categorized the FBI as having a “50 percent success rate.”

Chan was identified by Facebook as one of the officials who warned about a foreign “hack and leak” operation ahead of the 2020 election, shortly before the laptop computer owned by President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden was first reported on in October of that year.

“From my recollection, I remember that the FBI warned—that I or someone from the FBI warned—the social media companies about the potential for a 2016-style DNC hack-and-dump operation,” Chan said during the deposition.

Democratic National Committee files were posted online by WikiLeaks in 2016. U.S. officials have said the DNC was hacked on or around May 25 to June 1, 2016, but Crowdstrike, the firm the DNC hired to analyze what happened, has since told The Epoch Times that the DNC systems were not hacked during that time frame.

Pre-Election Censorship

In October 2020, Twitter locked the New York Post, which first reported on Hunter Biden’s computer, out of its account, prevented other users from sharing the link, and curtailed the circulation of existing posts that had shared the story. Facebook also cut down on the article’s circulation.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey later said it was a mistake to censor the computer story, while Roth said, “in my opinion, yes,” when asked recently whether it was a mistake.

Previous sets of files released by Taibbi and others showed Twitter employees were confused over why the story was censored.

“I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe,” one said.

Now-former Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker—a former FBI lawyer—said in a different message that “we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked” but added  that “at this stage, however, it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted.”

Ivan Pentchoukov and Bill Pan contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

NEW YORK (Reuters)—Goldman Sachs Group Inc is planning to cut a couple of thousand employees to navigate a difficult economic environment, a source familiar with the move said.

The Wall Street bank had 49,100 employees at the end of the third quarter this year, after adding significant numbers of staff during the pandemic. Headcount will remain above pre-pandemic levels, which stood at 38,300 at the end of 2019, the source said.

News platform Semafor earlier reported on Friday that Goldman Sachs Group will lay off up to 4,000 people as the Wall Street bank struggles to meet profitability targets, citing people familiar with the matter. Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

(Reporting by Saeed Azhar and Lananh Nguyen; additional reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

A majority of voters believe the economy under Joe Biden will worsen over the next year, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll.

Sixty-five percent of respondents said the economy is “headed in the wrong direction,” while 52 percent said it will get worse in 2023, the poll found. Sixty-seven percent of those polled, meanwhile, rated the strength of the economy negatively, compared with 32 percent who rated it positively.

The numbers come as Goldman Sachs on Friday announced it will lay off thousands of workers and U.S. banks warn of a looming recession.

While Democrat respondents were optimistic about the economy, independents and Republicans were far more pessimistic, the Wall Street Journal reported:

Economic pessimism is strongest among Republicans, with 83% expecting the economy to worsen. Slightly more than half of independents feel that way, while 22% of Democrats do.

“Our economic diagnostics have become partisan,” said Democratic pollster John Anzalone, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. “If there was a Republican president, we might see the reverse.”

Mr. Fabrizio said Democrats aren’t paying as much of a political price as one might expect for so many people having negative feelings about the economy. “You would normally see that translate into being bad news for the Democrats,” he said.

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it’s raising interest rates by 0.5 percent. Forty percent of voters said they view the Fed unfavorably, while 36 percent view it positively.

The Journal poll was conducted between Dec. 3 and 7 among 1,500 registered voters.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Congress is tracking and codifying evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, a move meant to set the stage for future legal proceedings against Moscow’s army and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“We are putting Russian troops on notice that the deliberate rape, torture, and slaughter of civilians in Ukraine will not go unanswered,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), the incoming head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon following the passage this week of legislation he helped craft. The bill, included in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a yearly spending bill, is among the first official efforts by U.S. lawmakers to document crimes being committed on the battlefield in Ukraine.

McCaul says the legislation will help America prosecute Russian soldiers in a future war crimes tribunal. Ten months into the unprovoked war that has galvanized Western nations against Russia, more than 6,490 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, another 9,972 have been injured, and 6.6 million displaced, according to official estimates. Human rights organizations allege somewhere around 50,000 war crimes committed by Russian forces, including the bombings of hospitals and schools, as well as gang rapes and other forms of sexual assault.

“Blood is on Vladimir Putin’s hands, and the world is watching,” McCaul said. “These thugs have kidnapped hundreds of thousands of innocent Ukrainian children and must be held accountable.”

The Ukraine Invasion War Crimes Deterrence and Accountability Act requires the president to report to Congress on all “atrocities committed” since February 2022, when Russia launched its unprovoked invasion. The White House will have 90 days to produce and furnish this report to Congress.

It will include information on U.S. efforts to “collect, analyze, and preserve evidence related to war crimes and other atrocities committed during the invasion,” according to the legislation. The White House must also detail how it can use this information for a domestic, foreign, or international court tribunal related to these crimes.

The legislation focuses on some of the worst alleged Russian war crimes. It refers to Russia’s war as a “premeditated, unprovoked, unjustified, and unlawful full-scale invasion of Ukraine.” Congress wants to document Moscow’s deliberate targeting of civilians, including attacks on hospitals, schools, and shelters, such as one bombing of a Mariupol-based theater that was serving as a shelter and was explicitly labeled as containing children.

Other crimes of interest to Congress include “unlawful civilian deportations,” “the taking of hostages,” and the “rape, or sexual assault or abuse” of citizens, according to the bill.

The lead prosecutor in a team of experts looking into war crimes in Ukraine told Reuters that recent Russian attacks have “focused on eliminating infrastructure crucial to the means of civilian survival such as heat, water, power, and medical facilities.”

And multiple experts said the attacks’ “primary purpose” is “to spread terror among the civilian population,” which is forbidden under international law.

The legislation is well-timed, as world leaders are expected to gather in February to collectively push for a series of war crimes trials, according to a new report. The issue is “high on the agenda” when world leaders from across North America and Europe get together for the annual Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering that brings together high-ranking officials from across the globe.

“This theme of accountability, in the country of the Nuremberg trial, is the right place to do that,” German diplomat Christoph Heusgen, who leads the conference, told Defense One. “So I want to put the subject ‘how to prevent impunity’ high on the agenda.”

In addition to Russian war crimes, this year’s version of the NDAA also includes provisions that will bolster Taiwan’s defense against a potential invasion by China, another issue of great concern for U.S. foreign policy leaders such as McCaul. These provisions will include “increasing the United States’ strategic clarity towards a CCP invasion” and “establishing a comprehensive set of tools to increase Taiwan’s military capabilities to deter and defeat a CCP attack,” according to information published by the lawmaker’s office.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Israel’s decades-long peace with Jordan is unraveling, a development that threatens to upset a fragile regional stability that is being challenged by countries like Iran, Russia, and China, a think tank report warns.

“Since 2020, if not before then, the Jordanian peace has turned decidedly cold,” according to Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department who now works at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. While the relationship has been breaking down behind the scenes for some time, Jordan also began to publicly war with Israel in recent years, by refusing to sign the Abraham Accords peace agreements, attacking incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and threatening to fully abrogate the peace deal it signed with Israel in 1994.

Schanzer’s findings, published in a report last week, indicate the United States could be faced with a looming crisis in the Middle East that threatens to upset nearly 30 years of stability between the two former enemies. The fracture between Israel and Jordan could also empower American enemies like Russia, China, and Iran, which are all working in tandem to erode U.S. influence in the region.

“All of this should come as unwelcome news to the United States and to America’s Middle East allies. In anticipation of intensifying great power competition with China, and perhaps to a lesser extent Russia, it is crucial for Washington to project unity among allies in the Middle East,” the report says. “This is especially the case amidst the continued havoc that the Islamic Republic of Iran is exporting across the region.”

Other Middle East analysts agree that Jordan’s ties with Israel have become increasingly strained in recent years, particularly due to the stagnant peace process with the Palestinians.

“Israel perceives the creation of a Palestinian state to be a security threat, while King Abdullah [Jordan’s leader] sees frustrated Palestinians dismayed by lack of progress toward a Palestinian state as an even bigger security threat to his own hold on power,” said Jim Phillips, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “The king seeks to appease Palestinians, who make up roughly half of Jordan’s population, because he faces additional challenges from Islamists who also demonize Israel.”

Schanzer’s findings are likely to distress Jordanian officials, who have cultivated deep ties in Washington, D.C., since the Arab nation announced its peace with Israel in 1994. In many ways, Schanzer told the Washington Free Beacon, this latest analysis shatters long-standing taboos about Jordan’s fracturing peace with Israel that many in the U.S. foreign policy community have tried to ignore.

“I have observed a real reticence in this town to criticize Jordan in recent years,” Schanzer said. “Many believe Amman is both too valuable and too weak to challenge. I refuse to be bound by those constraints. I support Jordan. But I think it can do better.”

Evidence of the relationship’s breakdown spilled into public view after the election last month of conservative Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-leaning government. Following Netanyahu’s victory, “Jordan issued an unprovoked and blistering statement warning Israel not to alter the status quo on the Temple Mount, invoking its role as custodian of the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” a holy site located in Jerusalem’s Old City that is often ground zero for hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians.

The statement, the report says, “signaled the likely renewal of acrimonious ties between the king and Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.”

Nicole Robinson, also with the Davis Institute, said there remain “a lot of questions and concerns about what a future administration [and] the U.S. thinks about the Palestinian issue.” With the Netanyahu government likely to consider annexing more portions of the West Bank, “there is a fear that this option could be put on the table again in this new government in Israel,” she said.

Tension between Israel and Jordan has been brewing for much longer, however, with Amman abstaining from the Abraham Accords, the peace agreements brokered by the Trump administration between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. This move also created “regional friction.”

While Jordan has leveraged its peace with Israel to become a top trading partner with the United States, significantly improving its economy, under the leadership of King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, who came to power in 1999, Jordan has been much more willing to lash out at the Jewish state.

“Driven by a combination of domestic political considerations, unrealistic expectations, and both legitimate and illegitimate grievances, Amman has pulled away from Israel in recent years,” according to the report. “The official rhetoric about Israel has grown increasingly negative, if not vitriolic.”

Though Israel and Jordan are still cooperating on security issues, “diplomatic ties are in a deep freeze. Israeli officials are keenly aware of this dynamic.” Israeli government leaders have “shared their frustration in closed-door meetings,” according to the report.

The mostly stagnant peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has exacerbated these tensions. “While Jordanian officials may not say so explicitly, the animosity harbored by Jordan’s Palestinian population toward Israel has a significant influence on the kingdom’s foreign policies,” the report says.

When Israel considered annexing parts of the West Bank area in 2020, Jordan’s king discussed nullifying its peace deal with Israel, saying, “I don’t want to make threats and create an atmosphere of loggerheads, but we are considering all options.”

And when war broke out between Israel and the Iran-backed Hamas terror group in 2021, “Jordan effectively took Hamas’s side in the global battle for public opinion,” signaling that it did not care about disrupting peace ties.

This ongoing rhetoric, the report warns, “has failed to solve any of the region’s problems. If anything, it may be exacerbating them.”

To avoid a full-blown crisis, the United States must change how it manages relations with Amman, the report says. While U.S. officials “often view Jordan as beyond reproach,” this approach is failing. America, Schanzer recommends in the report, “must change this paradigm while also identifying ways to encourage economic and military ties.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has pledged to give her money to charity “until the safe is empty.” That’s good news for a number of radical left-wing organizations.

The billionaire divorcée this week detailed $14 billion in donations she has given to more than 1,600 nonprofit groups since 2019. The giveaway makes Scott one of the biggest philanthropists in the world, rivaling Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Scott, who lined her pockets with $38 billion in a divorce settlement after Bezos ran off with CNN’s Lauren Sánchez, has said she would direct her giving toward organizations doing “transformative work” in the areas of race, gender, climate change, democracy, and economic inequality. In blog posts explaining her philosophy, Scott lamented that “a civilization this imbalanced is not only unjust, but also unstable.”

Scott, who divorced her second husband earlier this year, has contributed to traditional charities like the Boys & Girls Club, the NAACP, and others. But she has also backed groups that push extremist views on the issues of transgender rights, race, and Israel.

Scott funds the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, an advocacy group that aims to set legal precedents to force insurance companies and Medicaid to cover medical treatment for transgender people. The fund advocates for coverage of “chest surgery for transgender minors,” a radical treatment that has been outlawed in multiple states.

She contributed to the Movement for Black Lives, which seeks to defund police departments and backs a boycott of Israel. The organization has referred to Israel as an “apartheid state” that commits “genocide” against Palestinians. In 2020, Scott contributed to the National Bail Fund Network, a group that backs the Minnesota Freedom Fund, an organization that has posted bail for multiple murderers and pedophiles.

Scott has also sent tens of millions of dollars to foreign charities, including some aligned with America’s adversaries.

She gave $20 million in 2020 to the Energy Foundation China, a Beijing-based climate change think tank with links to the Chinese government. The group, led by a former Chinese government official, promotes China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the global infrastructure program that Beijing has used to expand its economic, military, and diplomatic influence abroad. The foundation awarded grants last year to the Belt and Road Initiative Center, a think tank overseen by China’s National Reform and Development Commission, the Chinese Communist Party’s economic planning commission.

American officials have warned that Belt and Road poses a national security threat to the United States. In 2019, Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) said in a congressional hearing that China used Belt and Road as a “trojan horse” to set up military installations in Djibouti.

Scott encourages other philanthropists to donate to her causes.

“I recommend these organizations to anyone similarly excited by the idea of empowering leaders well-positioned to accelerate progress,” she wrote. “And every one of them would benefit from more allies looking to share wealth of all types and sizes, including money, volunteer time, supplies, advocacy, publicity, networks and relationships, collaboration, encouragement, and trust.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Thanks to Elon Musk, the public is now aware that Twitter suppressed early treatment options for COVID-19, and vaccine safety concerns, Dr. Peter McCullough alleged in an interview that aired on Newsmakers by NTD and The Epoch Times on Dec. 14.

Further, thanks to the Twitter Files—a collection of internal emails and communications made public by Musk—the cardiologist said there’s proof that government agencies were working against him (McCullough) personally.

“I didn’t violate any of Twitter’s rules,” McCullough stated. “And what we’re learning is that secret emails between government agencies and Twitter were working to, in a sense, shadow-ban me, censor me, and inhibit my ability to exercise my rights to free speech and disseminate scientific information.”

McCullough said Musk’s takeover of Twitter is a “welcome change,” especially for healthcare professionals like himself.

“Twitter had become an incredibly biased and censored platform, where the public knew they weren’t getting a fair, balanced set of information on a whole variety of developments—including the early treatment of SARS-COV2 infection and a balanced view of safety and efficacy of the vaccines,” McCullough claimed.

The cardiologist further claimed that he was censored and finally suspended for sharing scientific “abstracts and manuscripts,” which didn’t fit the accepted political view. Plus, McCullough remarked, he wasn’t the only doctor targeted.

Musk lifted the suspensions of McCullough and mRNA vaccine technology contributor Dr. Robert Malone—suspended from Twitter in 2021 after criticizing the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines—after completing his Twitter purchase.

Social Media and Censorship

According to McCullough, when a social media company has a COVID-19 warning or labels a post “misinformation,” that’s a sign of government censorship and control.

“Facebook, Instagram, and the other platforms. … Anytime a message is posted, and it says, ‘See the COVID information center,’ or it labels it ‘COVID misinformation,’ that actually indicates that there’s government interference. There’s government censorship going on,” McCullough asserted.

He added that when a user witnesses the above, they need to call out that platform. Moreover, McCullough believes there needs to be a “complete overhaul” of social media leadership and a “cleansing” of all forms of censorship on social media sites.

He said explicitly regarding healthcare that a past U.S. Supreme Court ruling guaranteed physicians free speech and medical authority, and social media platforms are violating that ruling.

“Physicians, including myself, our rights to free speech were guaranteed in a Supreme Court ruling. We have medical authority, and the public is looking to our analyses and our guidance through the rest of this pandemic.”

Drug and Vaccine Lies

Regarding the safety of vaccines and the pushback he received when he voiced his concerns, McCullough stated, “There is no drug or vaccine that is free of side effects. There’s no drug or vaccine that’s perfectly effective.

“So, when Americans were seeing advertisements that said ‘safe and effective,’ of course, immediately, we were jumping and making the case based on the peer-reviewed literature that that’s not correct.”

McCullough further noted that he and author John Leake have released a book called “The Courage to Face COVID-19″—detailing the true story of the “intentional suppression of early treatment [of COVID-19] by what we call the biopharmaceutical complex.”

McCullough explained that what he meant by “biopharmaceutical complex” is the amalgamation of Big Pharma, government interests, and foundations, including everything up to the World Economic Forum.

He further alleged that this complex had one mission—mass vaccination—so they purposefully buried early treatment “to favor the vaccine strategy.” McCullough acknowledged that his allegation was “complex and mind-blowing” but said Americans know it’s reality and not a conspiracy.

McCullough also stated that creating a Public Health Integrity Committee by Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis (ostensibly to make sure politics don’t suppress public health information in the future) is a validation of doctors like himself.

The Twitter Files

Since taking over Twitter, Musk has become increasingly vocal about transparency and the need for people to see what happened behind the scenes at the tech company. To that end, he released secret emails and discussions about shadow-banning or removing accounts that didn’t toe the party line.

As part of its reporting, The Epoch Times sought comment from the DOJ and FBI on the Twitter Files revelations and their involvement with social media companies.

The FBI National Press Office replied, “The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities.

It is not based on the content of any particular message or narrative. Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed data on guns from its website after holding a private meeting with gun control activists, according to newly disclosed emails.

The CDC webpage “Fast Facts: Firearm Violence Prevention” includes a portion on defensive gun use, or instances when people use guns for defensive purposes.

The portion defines defensive gun use and originally stated: “Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to the design of studies. The report Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence indicates a range of 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year.”

The page now reads: “Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to study design. Given the wide variability in estimates, additional research is necessary to understand defensive gun use prevalence, frequency, circumstances, and outcomes.”

The change happened because of pressure from activists, the emails show.

Several weeks after the page was published in 2021, Devin Hughes, president and founder of GVPedia, emailed the CDC expressing concern about the 2.5 million estimate.

Hughes said the figure stemmed from surveys that have “fatal flaws” and that the figure comes from a report that was published in 2013, before the Gun Violence Archive began providing data. That archive only estimates about 2,000 defensive gun use instances per year. He urged the CDC to “revisit and update” the defensive gun use portion of the webpage.

Hughes apparently didn’t receive a response, so he forwarded his message to Po Murray, chairwoman of the Newtown Action Alliance. Murray sent the message to White House officials.

Hannah Bristol, with the White House Office of Public Engagement, answered after consulting with the CDC.

“CDC reviewed many studies for the estimates used for this range in the fact sheet and an update is not warranted at this time,” Bristol said.

Internally, Linda Dahlberg with the CDC also said the criticism didn’t hold weight.

“We stand behind our fact sheet, which essentially points out that estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the data source, questions asked, populations studied, timeframes, and other factors related to the design of studies,” Dahlberg said.

She listed 13 data sources.

Hughes responded by saying that he disagreed that the Gun Violence Archive only represents a small subset of people who used guns defensively.

“I would strongly urge the CDC to consider revising the factsheet to add further context, or at the very least removing the DGU section until better data emerges,” he wrote. “I would be more than happy to meet virtually to further discuss the research surrounding DGUs and how best to correct the misinformation in the Factsheet.”

That led to a meeting involving Hughes; Murray; Mark Bryant, executive director of the Gun Violence Archive; and three top CDC officials: Dr. Deb Houry, the CDC’s acting principal deputy director; Thomas Simon, associate director of science for the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention; and Elizabeth Reimels, associate director for policy, partnerships, and strategic communication at the division.

The meeting took place on Sept. 15, 2021, and lasted about 30 minutes.

The emails were obtained by Konstadinos Moros, a lawyer representing the California Rifle & Pistol Association, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and reviewed by The Epoch Times. They were first reported by The Reload.

Emails After the Meeting

Exactly what unfolded in the meeting isn’t clear. But emails afterward indicate that the activists made their case.

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. We deeply appreciate it,” Hughes wrote afterward.

He said he showed slides during the meeting that detailed problems with the defensive gun use estimate, particularly the estimate of up to 2.5 million uses per year. The slides weren’t included in the documents, some of which were redacted.

Hughes also said he hoped that “this is the beginning of the conversation.”

“Thank you for sharing this,” Simon responded. “We also appreciate the opportunity to talk with you, Po, and Mark and the time that you put into the summary you provided.”

Bryant, in an email to the CDC, acknowledged that the defensive use instances logged by Gun Violence Archive, which Hughes had cited, are an undercount “because there is a propensity to just not report incidents that don’t have someone shot or killed” but said that the 2.5 million instances per year had been “debunked repeatedly,” pointing to a blog post by the Virginia Center for Public Safety and a blog post that responded to a 2015 op-ed by Gary Kleck.

Kleck, a professor emeritus at Florida State University’s College of Criminology & Criminal Justice, is behind the 2.5 million figure.

He told The Epoch Times via email that he has “systematically rebutted every single criticism” of the higher defensive gun use (DGU) estimates, pointing to the op-ed, and said that “critics have simply ignored the rebuttals.”

“Virtually all flaws in surveys known to scholars work to produce underestimates of the frequency of crime-related experiences, so the notion that DGU is overestimated at all, never mind grossly overestimated, is wildly out of line with scholarly knowledge of survey research,” Kleck said.

As he has noted, CDC surveys from the late 1990s—defensive gun use questions haven’t been included since—estimated about 1.1 million defensive gun use incidents per year. One of his most recent papers, going over the CDC survey results, also examined approximately 18 other surveys and found an estimate of 500,000 to 5.2 million DGUs per year.

A CDC spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email: “Science leads all CDC decisions. Our goal is to present the science and the data objectively and in language that is easy to understand.”

The CDC stated that it came to determine that the initially listed range of DGUs was “not easily understandable and may be outdated.”

“CDC removed both numbers—the low and high estimates—from the fact sheet and acknowledged that additional research is necessary to understand defensive gun use prevalence, frequency, circumstances, and outcomes,” the spokesperson said. “CDC does not advocate for or against gun policies. CDC engages with a wide variety of partners every day. It is not unusual for partners to be connected to the agency through members of Congress or the White House. In the past year alone, CDC has met with a number of organizations interested in the topic of firearm injury and violence prevention—including gun rights organizations, gun violence prevention organizations, public health organizations, and medical societies.”

The FOIA request asked for all documents relating to the CDC’s decision to edit the gun fast facts page. None of the documents that were returned showed any meetings or discussion with gun rights groups or anybody outside of the gun control activists.

Houry and Simon didn’t respond by press time to requests by The Epoch Times for comment. Reimels declined to comment.

Some CDC officials didn’t know why a change would be needed.

“I mean all we say on the fact sheet essentially is that you get different estimates of defensive gun use depending on the methods you use to measure it and then point to the National Academy report,” James Mercey, director of the Division of Violence Prevention, wrote to Reimels. “Hard to argue against that. What do you think the concern is with this? Or is it something else?”

Reimels later told Hughes, Bryant, and Murray that the CDC was planning to update the fact sheet in early 2022 “after the release of some new data.”

“We will also make some edits to the content we discussed that I think will address the concerns you and other partners have raised,” she said.

The webpage was changed in May, The Trace reported.

No reason was given publicly for the change.

Simon told a colleague in one of the newly disclosed emails that the CDC had “simplified the text” for defensive gun use, noting that the original text “provided an estimate” of the annual instances.

“I initially submitted this FOIA request back in June because I was suspicious of the CDC’s motivation for editing their website as to defensive gun use survey statistics,” Moros told The Epoch Times via email. “The fact that the changes resulted from an extensive pressure campaign by anti-gun advocates is disappointing but not surprising. When people ask why the gun rights community is skeptical of more funding to the CDC to research gun crime, I hope they remember this incident. The CDC has sadly become too politicized to be trusted.”

Activists

Hughes and Murray advocate for stricter gun laws.

Both Hughes and GVPedia have promoted gun control legislation. The Newtown Action Alliance wants to ban so-called assault weapons, cut gun manufacturers off from insurance, and stop members of Congress from carrying guns on U.S. Capitol grounds.

“If you don’t support an assault weapons ban then you support arming mass shooters,” Murray said in a statement on social media.

Kleck told The Epoch Times that high DGU estimates don’t threaten “moderate gun control measures like background checks, which only restrict guns among small high-risk subsets of the population like convicted criminals.”

“High DGU estimates, on the other hand, would present serious problems for those who support prohibitionist measures that would disarm all or most civilians, since such estimates would imply serious costs to disarming all or most prospective crime victims,” he said.

Bryant says he and the Gun Violence Archive don’t advocate for stricter legislation. The archive states that its mission is “to document incidents of gun violence and gun crime nationally to provide independent, verified data to those who need to use it in their research, advocacy or writing.”

But Bryant described himself as part of the “GVP community” in his email to the CDC. GVP stands for gun violence prevention.

“Until proof [is] available, we in the GVP community respectfully request that this outlier that has been used so often to stop legislation be removed until a panel can build a fair survey which will better reflect the true status of the number of [DGUs],” he wrote.

“I had no specific legislation, federal or state, in mind when I talked about that,” Bryant told The Epoch Times via email. “It was a reference to blocking communications that advocates have with legislators. I am not part of those conversations, just observing them from our research group as some use our data.”

Bryant, a gun owner, said the gun violence protection community is made up of different sorts of people, including journalists and gun rights activists.

“What we asked of the CDC was regarding the use of statistics that could not be proven. We asked them to fund a study to come up with an accurate number or remove the inaccurate numbers as they were misleading. They chose to remove that sentence in the fast facts,” he said.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The New York Times falsely reported that about three out of every 100 people diagnosed with COVID-19 die, a falsehood the outlet later acknowledged.

In a Dec. 14 story claiming COVID-19 can spread from dead people, reporter Apoorva Mandavilli wrote that “up to 70 percent of those infected with Ebola die, compared with about 3 percent of those diagnosed with Covid-19.”

There are two measures of fatalities from a disease: infection fatality ratio (IFR) and case fatality ratio (CFR).

The first takes all infections and adds estimated ones drawn from serological testing and modeling. The second is drawn from only confirmed cases, so is always higher, due to how many COVID-19 cases are undiagnosed.

According to one recent estimate, the IFR ranges from 0.49 percent to 2.5 percent—but is much lower for those who aren’t elderly.

According to one set of estimates, the CFR for COVID-19 ranged from 0.1 percent to 1.9 percent in mid-December, depending on the country. In the United States, it was down to 0.1 percent in September, per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Dr. Angela Rasmussen, who was quoted in the piece, said that she did not recall providing the 3 percent figure. “COVID IFR varies by population and by age. Pre-vaccine, some populations had IFRs in excess of 3%, although again, it is highly variable,” she wrote on Twitter, linking to an estimate published in The Lancet.

After The Epoch Times asked the New York Times for data to support Mandavilli’s claim, the paper updated the article.

“Up to 70 percent of those infected with Ebola die. The figure for Covid is nowhere near as high—greater than 3 percent in the early days of the pandemic, and something closer to 1 percent or even less now,” the piece now states.

As evidence, the paper linked to a transcript of a speech given on March 3, 2020, by World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the set of CFR estimates.

In its correction notice, the New York Times said: “An earlier version of this article misstated the death rate for Covid patients. It is now 1 percent or less, not about 3 percent.”

Still Wrong

The updated claim is still wrong, experts noted.

The language shows the paper is referring IFR, but its sources discuss the CFR.

Ghebreyesus, for instance, said that “Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died.” And the second link goes to an Our World in Data page that clearly states it provides the CFR, not the IFR.

“This ‘correction’ is still wrong. It is conflating IFR with CFR,” David Zweig, a science writer, wrote on Twitter.

“The correction is actually even more incorrect than the original claim,” professor Francois Balloux, director of the University College London’s Genetics Institute, added.

The New York Times and Mandavilli did not respond to requests for comment.

History of Corrections on COVID-19

Other articles about COVID-19 written by Mandavilli have also been corrected.

One article infamously claimed that nearly 4,000 children aged 5 and 11 died of multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a condition linked to COVID-19, during the pandemic.

The actual number among all children was just 68, according to the CDC.

The story was later updated to say that nearly 4,000 children between the ages of 5 to 11 “have been diagnosed with” MIS-C, with no mention of the number of deaths.

The update was originally done without a correction notice, a practice referred to as stealth editing. After The Epoch Times inquired with the New York Times, the paper added a correction.

“An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the numbers of children aged 5 to 11 with multisystem inflammatory syndrome. About 4,000 have been diagnosed, not died, with the syndrome,” the correction stated.

In October 2021, Mandavilli wrote that “nearly 900,000 children have been hospitalized with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and about 520 have died.”

The actual number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 at that point was about 93,000.

In that case, a correction was added to the piece, which stated that the article “misstated the number of Covid hospitalizations in U.S. children.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Actor and comedian Tim Allen has defended the portrayal of Christmas as a fundamentally religious holiday in his new Disney+ series “The Santa Clauses”—which has just been renewed for a second season—after criticism that some of the show’s elements lean too far to the right.

As the last episode of The Santa Clauses mini-series was released on Wednesday, Allen told Fox News in an interview that he’s pleased with the way the franchise handled the theme of Christmas.

“We honor the Christian tradition without heralding it. It’s not—it is what it is. It’s a Christian holiday. So, we don’t belabor it, but we don’t ignore it,” Allen told Fox News. “I love the way we deal with it.”

Season one of the mini-series premiered on Nov. 16 and its launch was met with criticism by some Twitter users, who zeroed in on a remark Allen’s character makes in the show.

‘Merry Christmas’ Problematic?

Allen’s character in the series, Scott Calvin (aka Santa Claus), is asked in one scene if something is bothering him.

Calvin bemoans that “saying ‘Merry Christmas to all’ has suddenly become problematic.”

Filmmaker Scott Weinberg posted the quote on social media on Nov. 17, along with a critical take.

“It just struck me as a truly weird thing to put in a kid’s series. ‘<Someone> wants to stop us from saying Merry Christmas!’ is not some random campaign. It’s a low-key effort to vilify anyone who doesn’t celebrate this holiday. In a grown-up movie I’d just groan and ignore it,” Weinberg wrote in a follow-up tweet.

Weinberg’s remark prompted a number of users to claim that the show was rehashing a conservative trope about canceling Christmas.

“Number of people I’ve seen take offence to ‘Merry Christmas’: 0,” one user commented.

“Number of conservatives I’ve seen take offence to the idea they made up that people take offence to ‘Merry Christmas’: So freaking many,” the individual added.

“Nothing will ever scare conservatives as hard as made-up problems,” another user chimed in.

“And so we begin another season of ‘They’re trying to cancel Christmas!” someone else posted.

Some Twitter users pushed back on the claim that Christmas-canceling isn’t a real thing or that some people don’t ostentatiously take offense over the phrase “Merry Christmas.”

“You’ve never gotten a ten minute lecture from accidentally saying Merry Christmas? I wish I lived around the people in your community, seriously. Not that I feel the need to shout about any holiday, but because I never want to hear that rant again for trying to wish someone well,” a Twitter user wrote.

‘It Literally Is a Religious Holiday’

Jack Burditt, the creator of The Santa Clauses, weighed in on the controversy, admitting in an interview with Deadline that there was some “back and forth” over whether to include the line about Allen’s character complaining about backlash to the phrase “Merry Christmas.”

“This is something that I just think is silly but then I’m like, I don’t know … I mean, look, we also had a joke at one point where Santa is on his rounds, they’re going in for a landing and somebody’s shooting something up at him. And Noel the elf says something like, ‘A war on Christmas!’ I’m like, yeah, I don’t wanna go that far,” Burditt said.

Allen, in an interview in November with The Wrap, said that the original script of the show wasn’t going to explore the Christian roots of the holiday but he insisted otherwise.

“It originally had a lot of otherworldly characters, and ghosts, and goblins. I said no, this is Christ-mas. Its Christ-mas. It literally is a religious holiday,” Allen told the outlet.

“We don’t have to blow trumpets, but I do want you to acknowledge it. That’s what this is about. If you want to get into Santa Claus, you’re gonna have to go back to history, and it’s all about religion,” Allen said at the time.

‘It Was Never About Gifts’

Allen would later say in an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson show that the series would include the real-life story of St. Nicholas, a Christian saint whose reputed penchant for gift-giving led to the traditional model of Santa Claus.

In the fifth episode of The Santa Clauses, St. Nicholas makes an appearance and a dialogue ensues that explains some of the traditional backstory.

“It was never about gifts, it was about giving,” the character of St. Nicholas tells Calvin, played by Allen.

Calvin then chimes in by saying: “St. Nicholas—his parents died, he became quite wealthy, then gave all his money away to help those in need.”

Meanwhile, Disney has announced it’s renewing The Santa Clauses for a second season.

“This franchise has had a lasting impact for so many families, truly becoming part of their annual holiday traditions,” Ayo Davis, president, Disney Branded Television, said in a statement.

“Bringing it back as a series has been a true gift, and I’m grateful to our producing partners at 20th Television and, of course, Tim Allen and team, that we have yet another reason to celebrate this holiday season.”

In season one of The Santa Clauses, Allen’s character struggles to keep up with the demands of his job and family, and considers stepping down from the role of Santa Claus and finding a worthy successor.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Denver has a black liberal mayor? More proof positive that Colorado has “gone to pot.” [US Patriot]

The city of Denver declared a state of emergency on Thursday in order to stave off a local humanitarian crisis amid an influx of illegal aliens from the southern border, mainly from El Paso, Texas.

Mayor Michael Hancock, a Democrat, issued the declaration as several hundred illegal aliens, mostly from Central and South America, have arrived in the state in just the past few days alone.

“Let me be frank: This influx of migrants, the unanticipated nature of their arrival, and our current space and staffing challenges have put an immense strain on city resources to the level where they’re on the verge of reaching a breaking point at this time,” Hancock said at a news conference on Thursday.

“What I don’t want to see is a local humanitarian crisis of unsheltered migrants on our hands because of a lack of resources,” the mayor added.

According to Hancock’s office, more than 900 aliens have arrived in Denver over the past several months, including more than 600 people since Dec. 2.

Another 247 aliens have arrived since Monday alone, while 75 turned up at a local homeless shelter overnight on Thursday evening, according to his office.

Denver ‘On the Verge of Reaching Breaking Point’

Approximately 404 aliens are currently being accommodated in the city’s emergency shelters, including 102 at church and nonprofit shelter sites, the mayor’s office said.

The “anticipated nature” of the arrival of the influx of illegal aliens has placed extreme pressure on the city’s efforts to shelter them, leading to limited space which is being further exacerbated by a lack of staffing, Hancock’s office said during Thursday’s news conference, noting that winter weather was set to make the situation worse.

Hancock added that Denver is currently “at the level where we are on the verge of reaching breaking point at this time.”

“The declaration is another tool in the toolbox to help serve the increasing number of migrants arriving in Denver, particularly as winter weather sets in,” Hancock said.

Under the emergency declaration, Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, will be alerted that Denver is enacting a state of emergency.

Denver will then be able to access additional emergency resources to help manage the influx of aliens, and will also be able to continue requesting financial assistance from various funding sources.

Hancock said that, together with community partners, and the help of local churches and nonprofits, the city continues to provide aliens—the majority of which are coming to the city having entered the United States through El Paso, Texas—with emergency shelter.

Hancock Takes Aim at Biden Admin

Denver has already forked out more than $800,000 on the illegal alien sheltering effort, and that number is expected to increase significantly.

A majority of the aliens who have arrived in Denver are from Venezuela, according to Hancock, and are fleeing a political and humanitarian crisis in their home country.

The mayor took aim at the Biden administration for failing to address the “critical situation” or respond adequately, despite being aware of it.

“It is at a crisis point right now and cities all over this country are being forced to deal with something we’re not equipped to deal with,” he said.

The mayor’s declaration comes shortly before the end of the Trump-era Title 42 program that allowed Border Patrol agents to turn illegal aliens back to their country immediately if they were deemed to pose a health threat amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Title 42, which helped stem the tide of illegal immigration and has been used millions of times to expel aliens since March 2020, is set to end on Dec. 21.

The Department of Homeland Security has unveiled a plan (pdf) to help deal with the influx of migrants attempting to enter the United States once Title 42 is dropped, including closing gaps along the southwest border wall, creating more temporary detention tents, and increasing prosecutions of smugglers.

However, the department has said that it expects around 9,000 to 14,000 illegal aliens to cross the border daily.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A Chinese student was charged with stalking for allegedly threatening and harassing a U.S. permanent resident who posted flyers in support of democracy in China, officials said on Dec. 14.

Wu Xiaolei, a Chinese citizen studying at Berklee College of Music–Boston allegedly threatened a person who posted a flyer near the campus demanding democracy and freedom in communist China.

“Post more, I will chop your [expletive] hands off,” Wu told the activist in a group chat on WeChat, a Chinese social media app, according to the charging documents (pdf).

Wu, 25, also said he had reported the activist to the public security agency in China and that the Chinese police would visit the activist’s family, according to the complaint.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts didn’t reveal the name of the activist but said the person is a U.S. permanent resident from China and has family members there.

The charges against Wu came after a series of similar prosecutions targeting what U.S. officials describe as the Chinese regime’s transnational repression. In the past year, more than a dozen Chinese intelligence agents, officials, and U.S-based individuals allegedly working with the regime have been charged in relation to schemes that allegedly intend to harass, intimidate, and repatriate Chinese dissidents in the United States.

Federal prosecutors in Boston said Wu had been arrested on Dec. 14 on the charge of stalking.

Wu made his appearance in federal court in Boston later that afternoon.

The charge of stalking carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.

Details

On Oct. 22, an individual posted an A4 paper on a window near the campus, which read, “Stand with Chinese People,” “We Want Freedom,” and “We Want Democracy,” according to the charging documents.

Prosecutors said Wu claimed he reported the person to the public security agency in China.

“I already called the tipoff line in the country, the public security agency will go greet your family,” Wu said in a WeChat group with more than 300 members, according to the complaint.

It’s believed Wu was referring to China’s Ministry of Public Security or the Ministry of State Security. “Both agencies investigate political dissidents, including those who voice support for democracy,” the document stated.

Wu also allegedly solicited others from the WeChat group to find out where the individual lived. According to the charging documents, Wu posted the activist’s email address in the WeChat group, named “Berklee Class of 2024,” to encourage others to harass the person.

In an Oct. 24 email addressed to the activist, which Wu later posted on his Instagram account, Wu said the person would be arrested upon returning to China, and the person’s family members would receive a “political review” from Chinese authorities.

“You should wash dishes for the capitalist dogs,” Wu said in the email, according to the charging documents.

“Oh right, you can also sue me for personal attacks against you, but I feel that with your family background, you will not be able to get rid of me. I already got screenshot(s) of your social account(s) number(s). I also read your records at school. I also called the tip-off line in the country. If you can overturn this, I consider you [expletive] awesome. Don’t go back to the country, it is not appealing to you.”

Reaction

U.S. prosecutors said Wu’s threats and harassing behavior weren’t free speech. “Rather, it was an attempt to silence and intimidate the activist’s expressed views dissenting of the PRC,” U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said, referring to China’s official name, People’s Republic of China.

“We will not tolerate threats, harassment or any other repression attempts against those peacefully promoting their ideas, doing their jobs, or expressing their opinions. Freedom of speech is a constitutional right here in the United States and we will protect and defend it at all costs.”

“This alleged conduct is incredibly disturbing and goes completely against our country’s democratic values,” said Joseph Bonavolonta, a special agent in the Boston division of the FBI.

Growing US Alarm

The Berklee student’s appearance at the U.S District Court of Massachusetts came after a string of similar cases in which pro-democracy Chinese activists or dissidents were allegedly targeted by the Chinese regime in attempts to silence them.

In March, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that five individuals were charged with stalking, harassing, and spying on Chinese nationals on U.S. soil. Prosecutors said the defendants were players in Beijing’s transnational repression aimed at suppressing critics of the communist regime.

Related Coverage

Chinese Secret Police Targeted US Army Vet on American Soil, Attempted to Interfere in Election: DOJ

Among those allegedly targeted include a California-based artist and an Army veteran running for the congressional seat representing a district in Long Island.

In October, the DOJ unsealed an indictment against seven individuals who were allegedly working at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to force Chinese nationals who are living in the United States to return to the county, as part of the broad transnational repression campaign known as Operation Fox Hunt.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, an independent bipartisan agency of the U.S. government, in its annual report released in November, highlighted the Chinese regime’s ongoing “multi-year campaign of transnational repression against critics, Uyghurs, and others to stifle criticism and enhance control over emigrant and diaspora communities.”

Recent reports by Spain-based nonprofit Safeguard Defenders revealed that the Chinese regime runs more than 100 “police service stations” around the world, including two in New York City and one in Los Angeles.

The global network has been used by the CCP to carry out its transnational repression, according to the human rights group.

The reports raised concerns among lawmakers in the United States, Canada, the UK, and other European countries. At least 14 countries have launched an investigation into the facilities.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a November hearing that these outposts are being investigated.

“To me, it is outrageous to think that the Chinese police would attempt to set up shop—you know, in New York, let’s say—without proper coordination,” Wray told lawmakers on Nov. 17. “It violates sovereignty and circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement cooperation processes.”

“I’m deeply concerned about this. I’m not going to just let it lie.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

This week, First Liberty filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) new rule titled “Reproductive Health Services” that immediately allowed elective abortions at VA medical clinics.

We filed suit on behalf of nurse practitioner Stephanie Carter who works at the Olin E. Teague Veterans’ Center in Temple, Texas. She has religious objections to performing, prescribing, or counseling for abortions and working in a facility that engages in such activity for reasons other than to save the life of the mother. She twice requested a religious accommodation, but was told that no process exists to review such requests.

The VA announced the rule in September, claiming it was necessary “because it has determined that providing access to abortion-related medical services is needed to protect the lives and health of veterans.” There is no mention of gestational age limits. The rule allows for abortions whenever they can be justified as “needed to promote…the health of the (mother).” The rule received more than 50,000 public comments, many of which opposed the VA’s decision.

Our lawsuit explains that this new rule is illegal because it disregards longstanding federal law prohibiting VA clinics from performing abortions and fails to account for the sincerely held religious beliefs of medical providers who are impacted by the rule. But in its zealous pursuit of radical policy, the Biden administration appears willing to violate the law.

The 1992 Veterans Health Act explicitly prohibits VA clinics from performing abortion services. By enacting and now enforcing the rule, the VA is far outside its scope of authority. First Liberty attorneys Danielle Runyan and Christine Pratt explained in a recent op-ed for Stars and Stripes:

“Once again, the Biden administration seems ignorant of the law, or just doesn’t care. The new VA rule disregards longstanding federal law that prohibits VA clinics from performing abortions. Since 1992, Congress has prohibited abortions at VA clinics in Section 106(a) of the Veterans Health Care Act, which provides that ‘the Secretary of Veterans Affairs may provide to women…general reproductive health care…but not including under this section…abortions.’”

Runyan and Pratt further point out that “while federal law protects the rights of VA staff who don’t want to perform or assist with abortions…there is no provision within the VA rule explaining how religious accommodations will be processed.” The VA’s enforcement of its invalid rule could have devastating consequences for our client, as well as all employees at VA clinics who have a religious objection to participating in providing abortion services.

In Carter’s case, she is also now at risk of violating the Texas Human Life Protection Act that expressly prohibits abortions. Because the facility where she works is under concurrent jurisdiction with the State of Texas, medical providers there are required to comply with Texas law. While the administration maintains that the rule takes priority over state laws prohibiting abortion, the Supremacy Clause does not apply because the rule is invalid as a matter of law. So, under Texas law, Carter could face a felony conviction with no less than $100,000 in civil penalties for each violation and the loss of her nursing license.

The VA abortion rule and the lack of a religious accommodation process is only the latest in the administration’s terrible track record on religious liberty.

The Department of Defense vaccine mandate has forced thousands of service members to choose between their religious faith or serving their country. First Liberty continues to fight on behalf of U.S. Navy and Air Force service members whose religious accommodation requests have been denied. As one federal court pointed out when it granted protection to our clients, the Navy’s religious accommodation process is, “by all accounts … theater. The Navy has not granted a religious exemption to any vaccine in recent memory. It merely rubber stamps each denial.”

Not only has the administration shown a particular disdain for service members who want to serve in a manner consistent with their religious beliefs, it has repeatedly pushed policies that would harm the rights of religious Americans in the health industry. For example:

• In October, First Liberty delivered a compelling 42-page public comment to another proposed rule, commonly known as the “transgender mandate,” which would roll back extensive civil rights protections for Americans of faith in healthcare.
• The Department of Health and Human Services revoked several important religious liberty protections and pursued regulations that could harm faith-based foster-care and adoption agencies, religious employers, charities, universities, schools, hospitals and healthcare professionals.

The Biden administration has wielded and abused the power of the federal government to put religious Americans in the crosshairs. What hope is there that it will not use this VA abortion rule to do the same?

Given this pattern of hostility and violations, people of faith need to remain vigilant. The Biden administration has constantly used the alphabet soup of federal agencies to target and harass religious Americans. It’s increasingly clear that these policies are aimed at trampling the rights of religious healthcare professionals and making them conform to extreme ideology.

SOURCE: First Liberty

I’ve written about government surveillance many times in this space, providing links to important research work that groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) do to help hold the state accountable for its snooping.

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A new EFF resource details the vast and highly sophisticated array of tools, devices and technology government agencies use to police the U.S.-Mexico border. As the EFF rightly notes, the political focus is always on “border security.” But the security measures taken often include round-the-clock surveillance of U.S. residents of border areas – raising serious and undiscussed – questions of civil rights and privacy violations:

While officials in Washington, DC and state capitals talk in abstract and hyperbolic terms about a “virtual wall,” there is nothing virtual at all about the surveillance for the people who live there. The towers break up the horizon and loom over their backyards. They can see the aerostats from the windows of their homes. This surveillance tech watches not just the border, and people crossing it, but also nearby towns and communities, on both sides, from air and the ground, and it can track them for miles, whether they’re hiking, driving to visit relatives, or just minding their own business in solitude.

People who live, work, and cross the border have rights. We hope these photographs document the degree to which freedoms and privacy have been curtailed for people in the borderlands.

The EFF has developed pages illustrating the types of surveillance used – from camera towers to “surveillance blimps.” Were they placed on state borders far removed from international boundaries, the howls of protest would be immediate and deafening.

Living and working in a border area does not mean government has the power to degrade the constitutional rights of lawful citizens to be secure in their persons and effects. Secure the border? Fine and dandy. But do so in a way that respects the rights of innocent American citizens to live and work free of government’s all-seeing eyes.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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She wore the costume of a house cat, but the message came through with a roar.

A woman who caused a social media stir with a feline appearance before a school board meeting in Arizona in November took the cause to a national audience Dec. 13 on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime” to make a point about the absurdity of the “transgender” craze sweeping the country at the moment.

And make it clear that it has no place in the education system of the nation’s young.

Lindsey Graham, an outspoken activist who made headlines in 2020 battling the state of Oregon over coronavirus lockdown orders over a hair salon she owned in Salem, donned a full-body cat costume to speak last month to the board of Liberty Elementary School District No. 25 in the suburbs of Phoenix.

Mom protesting wokeness in cat costume at school board meeting goes viral: ‘Truth prevails over imagination’ https://t.co/225ekwqMFc

— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 14, 2022

Elon Musk Warns New Development Means Biden Admin Could Soon ‘Weaponize Federal Agencies’ Against Him

She did it, she told Watters, to dramatize a simple message: “Reality exists.”

That’s been a basis of Western philosophy going back at least to Aristotle, but it’s one that seems to have been lost in a 21st century miasma of make-believe in America.

It’s a premise that seems to be increasingly lost in a country where a strapping, broad-shouldered, barrel chested young man can call himself “Lia” and compete against women in the sport of swimming — and “win” a national championship, in a country where a “Miss America”-affiliated beauty pageant can be won by a stocky, 19-year-old man named Brian, and in a country where public school systems nationally appear determined to force a “transgender” agenda on their captive audiences of children.

But it’s a premise Graham brought to the school board meeting in dramatic fashion three weeks ago, and one she reiterated to Watters on Tuesday.

Check it out here:

“I’m a cat,” Graham told the board, dabbing briefly at her wrist with her tongue. “Meow, meow.

Take Proper Care Of Your Feet And See The Toxins Leave Your Body!

“I’m not a woman dressed as a cat. I am a cat … How many of you believe and confess that I’m a cat? … How many of you believe that your child or a child from this school would believe that I’m actually a cat? No one. You are right. Truth prevails over imagination. Reality exists. Discernment is innate and something that we are biologically wired to have. One look at me, and you know this to be true. I am a woman posing as a cat.”

That kind of theater-of-the-absurd spectacle might strike many Americans as over the top for a public meeting, but Graham clearly thought it was necessary.

Lawmakers Tease Sick Bill for Schools – They Want to Push This on Your Kids

Call them out! Call them out EVERY time. NEVER quit. Do NOT be gentle in your critique. Give them NO validation. They are coming for your children.https://t.co/bValXaDPj1

— Eno Onmai (@eno_onmai) December 15, 2022

As she told Watters, the school board she was addressing has its own theater-of-the-absurd example in the form of a “transgender” school board member — a man named Paul Bixler, who insists on dressing as a woman and being addressed with a feminine courtesy title.

“The only thing he does to identify as a female is put lipstick on. He grew his hair out a little bit, and he wears his deceased wife’s clothing to school, to sporting events, to fundraisers, to school events in front of the children.

“Believe it or not, he actually demands on being identified one of two ways, either Paul, which is a man’s name, or Ms. Bixler,” she continued. “It’s very clear he has a gender identity crisis. And not only does he appear in front of the children and insist that the children define him as a woman, but he sits on the board, and he’s making decisions for these children.”

However, the Liberty Elementary district apparently has no problem with Bixler’s presence on the board. In a telephone interview Thursday, Luke Garrison said Bixler, who was elected unopposed in 2020, was no different from any other board member.

“All of our board members are performing their duties as they were sworn to do,” he said.

Bixler, 72, is no stranger to the public eye. In July he was the subject of a lengthy profile in The Arizona Republic that detailed how he and his wife, Candace, had raised two children and how his wife had died in 2017.

According to the profile, Bixler’s wife had been aware of his sexual “dysmorphia,” which he’d reportedly had since he was a child, but Bixler didn’t start acting on it until his wife had passed.

In response to emailed questions from The Western Journal, Bixler wrote that he was fielding numerous journalists’ inquiries (understandable enough, considering the ratings for Watters’ show) and was “currently considering all requests for comment.”

However, he did confirm that he has no intention of resigning and that he plans to run for re-election in 2024. (He indicated he might have more to say at some point.)

Garrison, meanwhile, said calls for Bixler to leave the board had been made by members of the public before — that Graham is “not the first person to come up to the school board meeting and voice her opposition to Paul Bixler being on the board.”

But, he said, “dressing up as a cat will get you attention.”

That’s certainly true enough — it’s no doubt a big part of why Graham appeared on “Primetime” in her cat garb. But it’s an issue that demands attention from Americans who care about the country.

The clash over “transgenderism” isn’t a question of personal proclivities — of what consenting adults do behind closed doors, or who wants to mince around in high heels in front of a full-length mirror. It’s not a question of personal freedom.

It’s a question of whether human beings acknowledge that they live in a world that objectively exists — and in bodies that exist just as objectively. Surgery can change physical appearances — removing or adding appendages — but it doesn’t change the genetic reality of a male or female body any more than high heels, a garter belt, and a flashy red boa draped just so.

Of course, there’s an undeniably idolatrous aspect of it, too. To claim that deeply misguided — and deeply unfortunate — humans have the power and the right to decide they were born into the “wrong” body is to claim humans have the authority to judge creation itself.

Icarus getting seared by the sun looks humble next to that. The Tower of Babel looks like an effort of underachievers. Heck, Icarus taking off from the Tower of Babel would look like a piker compared to that.

The fact that so many progressives in the United States claim to have some metaphysical authority to determine actual physical reality is an appalling combination of arrogance and ignorance. The fact that so many dominate a field supposedly devoted to educating young Americans borders on a crime.

This is a country, remember, that relies on the sound judgment of its citizenry to decide its leaders — and with those leaders the kind of future it will leave to its children.

It’s bigger than a single school board member in Arizona, of course. It’s at the top of the federal government, where a mentally debilitated president is increasingly on board with the most progressive extremism, where a man pretending to be a woman is one of the top health officials in the country, hailed as a “woman of the year,” no less. And, thanks to the current, insane incarnation of the Democratic Party, it’s an issue of education around the country.

Fortunately, there are activists like Graham who aren’t afraid to speak up. As the New York Post reported, she wrote a book about her experiences in Oregon titled “TARGETED: One Mom’s Fight for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

So, Watters asked Graham, did her message get through to the board?

Gotta love this Cat Woman. https://t.co/BDutOmggtG via @nypost

— Lois Rogers (@lois_rogers) December 14, 2022

“This is a great story, actually,” Graham said. “The next day at the gym, I saw one of the members of the school board, and he looked at me a little odd. I said, ‘I’m sure you don’t’ want to remember who I am.’ And he said, ‘The Cat.’

“And I thought he would proceed to chew me out, but he said, ‘You know what? Thank you so much for getting up there and saying what you said. Thank you for being bold enough to speak truth.

“’I’ve been fighting this agenda …’

“There are people on our side,” Graham told Watters. “And all it takes is just a few of us to stand up and speak truth and find those partners in crime, if you will, and then we really can unite together and fight back against this and save our children.”

That’s a message that needs to be heard — loud and clear.

The Biden administration is planning for more illegal aliens to be released into U.S. communities to pursue asylum cases as the Trump-era Title 42 program that helped stem the tide of illegal immigration ends on Dec. 21.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a six-pillar plan (pdf) on how it plans to cope with the challenges posed by the scheduled termination of Title 42 and the major policy shift that this represents.

The department’s plan includes accelerated processing for illegal aliens in custody on the border, more temporary detention tents, staffing surges, bolstering NGO capacity to receive people after they’ve been processed, and increased criminal prosecutions of smugglers.

The agency estimates that 9,000 to 14,000 migrants could try to enter the country illegally each day when the Title 42 policy ends.

Title 42, designed to prevent the introduction of contagious diseases in the United States, was issued by the Trump administration in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and was used over 2.5 million times to block asylum claims.

A federal judge in Washington ordered Title 42 to end on Dec. 21 but Republican-led states asked an appeals court to keep it in place.

The Biden administration has also challenged some aspects of the ruling, though it doesn’t oppose letting the rule lapse next week.

With the potential for the legal back-and-forth to go down to the wire, Republicans have warned of the consequences of letting Title 42 end.

“When Title 42 ends, weekly illegal border crossings are projected to be 98,000. That’s 14,000 crossings every day. 583 crossings every hour. America is being invaded!” Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Tx.) said in a post on Twitter.

A number of GOP lawmakers have urged President Joe Biden to extend the emergency order, arguing that terminating Title 42 will “result in a complete loss of operational control over the southern border, a profoundly negative impact on border communities, and significant suffering and fatalities among the migrants unlawfully entering the United States.”

The group of lawmakers said in their letter to Biden that legislative action is probably the only solution, but that could take time.

The DHS, too, called for Congressional action to fix what it described as an outdated and dysfunctional immigration system, in which “incentives are misaligned, asylum court backlogs stretch for years, and the border security challenge is exacerbated.”

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said Customs and Border Protection officials told him Wednesday that about 50,000 people are believed to be waiting to flood across the border once Title 42 is lifted.

‘Significant Increase’

Citing the constraints of a “decades-old immigration system that everyone agrees is broken,” DHS warned in the document that, with the end of Title 42, it expects a “significant increase” in the number of people seeking to cross the border without authorization, which would “substantially strain our system even further.”

With a system already strained beyond capacity amid a record surge in illegal immigration, DHS said it’s bracing for even more increases in human flows, which would “create further pressure and potential overcrowding” in various locations along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Besides expecting processing delays and disruptions at some points of entry into the United States, the DHS said it’s bracing for the release of illegal aliens into U.S. communities.

“With NGOs strained, there is a potential for a higher number of single adults and families to be provisionally released from DHS custody into communities without NGO or other sponsor support, pending the outcome of their immigration court proceedings,” the agency said.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled this week to El Paso, Texas, which witnessed a large influx on Sunday after becoming the busiest corridor for illegal crossings in October.

Over 1,500 people crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally into El Paso in the early hours of Dec. 12, according to video from the scene and local media, in what reports say could be one of the biggest single crossings ever in the region.

Footage from the border shared on social media by news outlet El Paso Matters showed a massive group of migrants trekking through the water toward the other riverbank overnight and people huddling by fires to keep warm as they awaited processing.

Sleeping on the Streets

The individuals who crossed Sunday night were part of a group of migrants who were escorted by Mexican state police from the city of Jiménez to Juárez in a caravan of 20 buses, according to El Paso Matters, which estimated the total size of the group that crossed overnight at over 1,500 people.

The aliens said they were from Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Peru, according to the outlet, which estimated that this may have been the largest single border crossing in the region in history.

More than 5,600 illegal aliens were held as of Dec. 13 in the Border Patrol Central Processing Center, according to a city of El Paso dashboard. The center has a capacity of around 3,500.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) said in a Twitter post that the processing center was filled beyond capacity and that some people were sleeping on city streets.

“Migrants sleeping on the streets of El Paso! This is what the New Ellis Island looks like: 611 migrants out on the streets because the NGOs are out of capacity; every Border Patrol agent in processing centers overcapacity with 5,000 folks. This is exactly what Democrats wanted.”

Republicans have long accused the Democrats of advocating for an open-borders policy, though the Biden administration has repeatedly denied this claim.

Mayorkas has acknowledged that the situation along the southern border is “difficult,” while insisting that the Biden administration wants a “safe, legal, and orderly immigration system that is based on our bedrock priorities: to keep our borders secure, address the plight of children as the law requires, and enable families to be together.”

Mayorkas said recently that Republican rhetoric claiming that the “border is open” was helping fuel the influx.

“The political cry that the border is open is music to the smugglers’ ears, because they take that political rhetoric and they market it” to desperate migrants, Mayorkas told The Dallas Morning News.

Still, when Biden took office, one of his first actions was to cancel the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy.

That rule meant that asylum-seekers were required to remain in Mexico while their claims for asylum were processed, with figures showing that the policy discouraged false asylum claims and decreased the flow of illegal immigration.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will bar the federal government from using terms such as “misinformation” and “disinformation” to describe domestic speech if he’s reelected.

In a video released by the New York Post, Trump said that if he’s named the winner in 2024, one of his first executive acts will target federal rules around speech. The advertisement-like clip showed Trump making his announcement in front of two American flags.

“Within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens,” Trump said.

“I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as ‘mis-‘ or ‘dis-information’. And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship—directly or indirectly—whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are,” he added.

Since last week, several journalists have published installments of the “Twitter Files,” promoted by new Twitter owner Elon Musk, that revealed how Trump’s account was suspended in early 2021 as well as how officials and campaigns communicated with Twitter executives through back channels.

The 45th president also proposed a “Digital Bill of Rights” that “should include a right to digital due process—in other words, government officials should need a court order to take down online content, not send information requests such as the FBI was sending to Twitter.”

“In addition, all users over the age of 18 should have the right to opt-out of content moderation and curation entirely, and receive an unmanipulated stream of information if they so choose,” Trump said.

After taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden has called on news outlets and social media firms to tackle what he said is misinformation around COVID-19 and vaccines.

“I make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets: Please deal with the misinformation and disinformation that is on your shows,” Biden said earlier this year. “It has to stop. COVID-19 is one of the most formidable enemies America has ever faced. We have got to work together, not against each other.”

Months before that, Biden told reporters that Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms are “killing people” by allowing certain claims about the virus to proliferate.

Activity

A week after the midterm elections, Trump announced at his Mar-a-Lago resort that he would be embarking on a third campaign for president but has kept a relatively low profile since then.

Trump has made few policy statements after his Nov. 15 speech declaring his candidacy and reportedly has not left Florida to campaign or hold rallies. Republicans, meanwhile, underperformed during the 2022 midterms after forecasters predicted a “red wave” in both the House and Senate.

Days after announcing his candidacy, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to lead investigations into Trump’s 2020 election challenges and handling of records since he left office. The FBI searched Trump’s home in August, recovering what Department of Justice prosecutors say were classified materials.

Meanwhile, Trump faced controversy for a dinner meeting with rapper Kanye West and political commentator Nick Fuentes. On Truth Social, the former president described West as a “seriously troubled man” in confirming the meeting: “I told him don’t run for office, a total waste of time, can’t win.”

Trump’s Twitter account, which has around 90 million followers now, was recently reinstated by Musk after the Tesla CEO conducted a poll that found a majority of users wanted the former president back on the platform. So far, Trump has not used his once-highly engaged account and has told media outlets that he will stick to using Truth Social instead.

A Trump campaign spokesperson told Yahoo that the 2024 contest “is a marathon, and our game plan is being implemented, even though the presidential calendar hasn’t been set yet and the 2022 midterm cycle just ended.”

“We’re focused on building out the operation and putting in place a foundation to wage an overwhelming campaign that’s never been seen before,” the spokesman said. “We’re building out teams in early voting states and making sure we are positioned to win.”

To date, no other Republican has announced a 2024 presidential bid. There has been speculation former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would run. Unlike the others, DeSantis has not publicly indicated that he would mount a 2024 campaign.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The fact that a judge has ordered a two-day trial in Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s election lawsuit is a win for election integrity efforts, said Jenna Ellis, former senior adviser and counsel to former President Donald Trump, in a Dec. 14 interview with NTD News.

The hearing to determine whether there was enough evidence to warrant a trial took place Tuesday before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson.

“I think this is a great step forward that this judge is taking the petition from Kari Lake very seriously and said that there is sufficient evidence here,” Ellis said. “Regardless of whether or not that’s exactly enough time or the judge ultimately ends up extending that timeframe, if there needs to be more presentation of evidence or additional arguments, two days, in my view, is at least a huge threshold victory.”Play Video

Lake told Fox News that on Election Day, voters in Arizona were disenfranchised because of malfunctioning printers and tabulators, which caused huge lines, full parking lots, and delays that prevented many from voting that day.

“It’s a 70-page lawsuit that reads like a real crime novel,” Lake said during an interview for Tucker Carlson Tonight on Wednesday. “We vote for a full month in Arizona with early ballots, and on Election Day when the Republicans showed up, the Election Day voting was sabotaged, and that’s what our case is going to prove.”

Lake’s Legal Team Has Whistleblower Witnesses

Lake’s legal team alleges there were 135,000 illegal ballots that were counted, far more than the 17,000-ballot margin of victory for Hobbs. Lake’s team has requested permission to examine the ballots to assure their chain of custody, which Ellis said is very important but will be up to the judge to decide.

“This is why state law needs to change in terms of requiring these types of counties and election officials to provide the data to the candidates so that they can mount these types of challenges where appropriate,” said Ellis.

Lake said the trial is set to begin on Dec. 20 and that her team will have four whistleblowers testifying, including someone from Runbeck Election Services, a vendor used by Maricopa County.

“There are a plethora of problems that went down in Maricopa County, and if somebody doesn’t stand up and say, ‘We can’t have our elections being run this way,’ then we’ll never have another fair election,” Lake told Carlson.

Ellis said verifying the authenticity of batches of ballots in Maricopa County was a major issue after the 2020 presidential election as well, and that county officials do not provide this information freely. Compounding the problem is that the mainstream media echoes what the election officials are saying instead of covering both sides evenly, she said.

If Lake’s legal team can show that anything close to the 135,000 alleged illegal ballots were counted, that would rise above the margin of victory for Hobbs.

In her lawsuit  filed Dec. 9 (pdf), Lake is asking the judge to declare her the winner over Hobbs, or alternatively to order a new vote in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, to be overseen by a special master.

In a statement issued Friday, Hobbs’s campaign criticized Lake’s lawsuit as a “nuisance” and filed a motion for it to be thrown out.

“Kari Lake needs attention like a fish needs water—and independent experts and local election officials of both parties have made it clear that this was a safe, secure, and fair election,” the statement read.

The Epoch Times reached out to Katie Hobbs’s office and the Maricopa County election division for comment.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

White House COVID-19 adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday responded to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s recent call to investigate COVID-19 vaccines by saying he “doesn’t have a clue” what the investigation would accomplish.

“I don’t have a clue … what he’s asking for,” Fauci told CNN on Wednesday in response to DeSantis before stating he believes the COVID-19 vaccine “is highly effective.”

“So what’s the problem with vaccines? I mean, vaccines are life-saving,” said Fauci, the outgoing head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. “So, quite frankly … I’m not sure what they’re trying to do down there,” he added.

But DeSantis, who held a meeting with Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo and a panel of scientists and physicians, said Tuesday that he will move to have the state Supreme Court impanel a grand jury “to investigate any and all wrongdoings in Florida with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines.”

The governor made reference to pharmaceutical companies having paid billions of dollars following legal action that was submitted over “the opioid crisis.” Noting that the state recently obtained $3.2 billion, DeSantis added that “it’s not like this is something that’s unprecedented.”

“We’ll be able to get more information and bring more accountability to those who committed this misconduct,” the Florida Republican stated.

Research

Also in Wednesday’s interview, Fauci touted research by the Commonwealth Fund that found COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson collectively saved the lives of about 3.2 million Americans and millions more hospitalizations.

“We’re all in this together. We’re all human beings and we’re all susceptible to disease that can kill us. … when people’s lives are being lost about this, maybe that’ll shake people up enough to realize that we’ve got to start pulling together and not against each other,” Fauci told CNN.

However, a number of studies have found vaccines do not limit the spread of COVID-19, and a growing number of papers show that vaccine effectiveness against infection turns negative within several weeks.

More and more doctors and researchers, meanwhile, have argued that younger people should not receive COVID-19 vaccines due to reports of heart inflammation associated with the shots. A study carried out in Israel found there was a 25 percent rise in heart attack emergency calls among Israeli men aged 16 to 25 following the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine

“The main question that we need to ask ourselves is, do we have enough evidence from this study and many other studies, to say halt,” Retsef Levi, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The Epoch Times in late November, referring to a recent Israeli paper. “We’re going to stop these vaccines, for young individuals, but maybe overall, and we’re going to take the time to really look very, very carefully and scrutinize every piece of data and bring together every possible piece of data to understand what is the answer.”

Retirement

Fauci’s interview with CNN this week may be one of his last in his current official capacity. The longtime federal health official will step away from his government roles in December, according to an announcement he made earlier this year.

A number of GOP lawmakers, however, have signaled they would compel testimony from Fauci on a range of controversies relating to the National Institute of Health’s funding of coronavirus research as well as the U.S. government’s handling of the pandemic.

But Fauci has dismissed claims that he is stepping down due to the threat of Republican subpoenas. Since the start of the pandemic, Fauci has appeared before congressional panels multiple times.

“I have nothing to hide at all, despite the accusations that I’m hiding something. I have nothing that I could not explain clearly to the country and justify,” Fauci told The Hill in November.

Fauci, 81, also indicated that he won’t be retiring but is stepping down from his government work, which stretches back to the late 1960s. Fauci became the head of NIAID under former President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

A recent poll carried out by Rasmussen Reports found that more than two-thirds of American voters “agree with Republican demands” that Fauci testify under oath.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The U.S. Senate on Dec. 15 passed a military spending bill with a top-line price to taxpayers of $858 billion.

The defense package, dubbed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed the upper chamber by an 83–11 vote.

The NDAA was passed by the House of Representatives on Dec. 8 in a 350–80 vote. A total of 176 Republicans in the lower chamber voted for the bill, 35 voted against it, and two didn’t vote. A total of 174 Democrats voted for the bill, while 45 voted against it.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of the package, and an early victory for Republicans as they prepare to take the House next year, was a repeal of President Joe Biden’s controversial COVID-19 vaccine mandate for military service members. Despite historically supporting Biden’s COVID-19 policies, Democrats yielded on the issue.

However, in an interview with NTD, Cesar Ybarra, vice president of policy at FreedomWorks, warned that this may not be the victory for Republicans that it seems to be.

“The legislation simply said that the Department of Defense is required to rescind the memo that authorizes the vaccine mandate on servicemembers,” Ybarra explained. “However … it gives us no assurances that DOD will not do that again, right.”

He added, “So it simply says get rid of it, but nothing that says you cannot do this again. And we’ve known from the COVID hysteria that these federal politicians always flip-flop on when or when we don’t need these vaccine mandates.”

Before passing the bill, the Senate rejected an amendment proposed by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), which would have reinstated servicemembers removed exclusively for refusing the vaccine, as well as compensation for any salary and benefits lost due to the separation.

The amendment failed, with 40 senators supporting it and 54 opposing it.

“People serving our military are the finest among us. Over 8,000 were terminated because they refused to get this experimental vaccine, and so I’m urging all of my colleagues to support Senator Cruz’s and my amendment,” Johnson said.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the frontrunner in the race for speaker, has said that this will be a GOP priority when they take control of the lower chamber.

Opponents were concerned about the precedent of rewarding military personnel who defied an order.

The bill will also grant another $800 million in taxpayer funds to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative as part of the U.S. effort to help Ukraine defend itself against an ongoing Russian invasion.

The United States has already sent around $68 billion in humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine in three major packages.

The first aid package, passed as part of the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2022, sent Ukraine $13.6 billion. In May, Congress passed another standalone bill granting Ukraine $40 billion. Again in September, an additional $13.7 billion was sent to Ukraine.

Opposition

The bill has faced opposition from members of both parties.

The 80 lawmakers who expressed opposition to the bill included 35 Republicans and 45 Democrats.

In a video posted on Twitter, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) explained why he was among the 80 members who voted against the package.

“The 2023 NDAA is bloated and contains woke elements that do not enhance military readiness,” Biggs said in a caption attached to the video.

In part, he tied his opposition to the haste with which the bill was brought to the floor and pushed through the lower chamber.

“The 4,000-plus page legislation was released to the public just hours before its vote,” Biggs said. “I voted against this monstrosity.”

Others tied their opposition to the inclusion of additional funding for Ukraine.

“Our country is over $31 TRILLION in debt,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said in a Twitter post. “The NDAA requires the Secretary of Treasury to seek to provide economic support and debt relief for Ukraine.

“You can’t even make this up,” she added.

Many of the Democrats who opposed the measure were left-wing progressives, who have often railed against the nearly $1 trillion annually dedicated to defense spending.

“Just think of the progress we could make if we invested $847 billion in the people rather than the Pentagon,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) wrote in a tweet explaining her “no” vote.

She said that the bill continued a “legacy of wasteful military spending.”

Lee also expressed disappointment at the exclusion of a bill she proposed that would rescind the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which allowed President George W. Bush to mount an invasion of Iraq on a since-debunked claim that Saddam Hussein was housing weapons of mass destruction in the country.

In his interview with NTD, Ybarra said, “Obviously, we want a strong military, we want to employ a policy of peace through strength,” an echo of the defense policy of President Ronald Reagan.

However, Ybarra warned that the massive bill would effectively install “Green New Deal” policies in the Department of Defense through the deployment of proposals like electric military vehicles.

Though electric vehicle technology has come a long way in recent years, concerns remain about the feasibility of such vehicles, which require intensive, pollution-ridden labor to create. In addition, such vehicles often have a limited range compared to traditional gasoline-powered vehicles.

The full list of how each member voted can be found here on the website of the Clerk of the House of Representatives.

‘Congress at Its Worst’

As is common with the NDAA, which is considered one of two “must-pass” spending bills, several attempts to attach unrelated bill riders failed.

“This is Congress at its worst,” Ybarra said of these annual efforts to attach non-defense bills to the defense package. “What these politicians try to do is they try to tack their pet projects into these bills … That’s why they’re called riders, right? Because they ride on the coattails of these must-pass bills.”

For example, Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) effort to attach the Journalism Competition and Protection Act (JCPA) to the package—a bill which critics have warned would allow Big Tech and legacy media outlets to collude to the detriment of smaller, independent publications—was unsuccessful.

Ybarra was critical of this effort: “The JCPA was … not germane to the legislation that dealt with journalism and sort of how that industry operates, right? But … what [do] journalism and competition … have to do with our national defense? It has nothing to do with it.

“This is another prime example of everything that is wrong with the current congress,” Ybarra added.

Another effort by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to attach fossil fuel permitting reform to the bill also failed.

Manchin’s proposal would make it easier for new fossil fuel ventures to receive a federal green light. Currently, these ventures can take years to kick off due to federal red tape and stringent environmental regulations.

Manchin has long pushed for changes to streamline this process—a push he has ramped up as energy prices have continued to soar over the past two years.

But he has received unexpected pushback not only from the left wing of his own party, but also from Republicans.

As part of a private deal to win Manchin’s support for the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) promised Manchin that permitting reform would be taken up before the end of the year.

However, time is running out for Schumer to keep that promise.

The NDAA is one of two “must-pass” bills left to be considered by Congress before its term expires.

The other, a general spending bill for fiscal year 2023, faces opposition as House Republicans seek to ensure that they will craft the legislation rather than the outgoing Democrat majority. The party has demanded that Congress only pass a short-term continuing resolution that expires sometime after the first sitting of the 118th Congress.

What’s Next for the Bill

With its passage by the House, the bill will now head to Biden’s desk.

A question mark remains over whether Biden will sign the bill, as it would undo his August 2021 vaccine mandate.

Still, this is a must-pass piece of legislation for the lame-duck Congress, and the White House has left open the prospect that Biden will sign it despite the vaccine mandate provisions.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Washington Post reporter has history of targeted harassment against Jews

Taylor Lorenz, a semi-prominent China apologist and internet reporter at the failing Washington Post, on Tuesday lashed out at a fellow journalist in a Twitter tirade many people are calling anti-Semitic.

The target: Bari Weiss, the successful Substack writer and friend of the Washington Free Beacon. Lorenz reacted poorly to an Axios article about Weiss’s new media company, the Free Press, and decided to vent her rage on the immigrant-owned social networking website.

“Notable what gets framed as a ‘buzzy media startup,'” Lorenz seethed. “If u start off rich, have a rich spouse, rich friends, don’t follow any journalistic ethical rules, and focus your content solely on serving the interests of extremely powerful rich ppl, you can go far!”

A number of Twitter users observed that Lorenz’s rant was rife with projection and petty jealousy. Weiss is younger*, better looking, and more successful as a journalist and as a human being. Why wouldn’t Lorenz be jealous? But that was hardly the most scandalous aspect of the so-called reporter’s public tantrum. Weiss also happens to be Jewish, and Lorenz’s tweet was a textbook example of an anti-Semitic trope about how all Jews are rich and powerful, conniving, and immoral.

Lorenz has a history of targeted harassment against Jews. Earlier this year, for example, she publicly identified—or “doxxed”—the anonymous woman behind the popular Twitter account “Libs of TikTok.” Doxxing is an explicit endorsement of physical violence. The woman who operates the account is Jewish. Lorenz also attempted to ruin the lives of four Instagram influencers by revealing their true identities. They are the daughters of a prominent Jewish political activist. Coincidence?

This blatant anti-Semitism is one of many reasons why Lorenz has been described as “literally worse than Putin.” She has also been criticized for ordering expensive avocado toast, attending a TikTok celeb’s 16th birthday party, urging young journalists to “recognize the power of having their own brand,” and generally acting cringe AF. Her reporting is ethically dubious, which is why the Post is constantly adding lengthy corrections to her stories.

*Weiss is 38, while Lorenz is estimated to be between 38 and 44 years of age.

https://freebeacon.com/media/taylor-lorenz-anti-semitism-scandal/?utm_source=actengage&utm_campaign=FreedomMail&utm_medium=email

Border Patrol agents this week confronted Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas over his lack of response to the border crisis, the Washington Examiner reported.

Mayorkas on Monday and Tuesday met with Border Patrol agents in West Texas. But he wasn’t there to talk about the border surge, agents quickly learned.

“When he stated he was here to bring light to suicide prevention and nothing [about] the migrant crisis, our staff couldn’t believe it and made it known to him,” a senior agent told the Examiner.

One agent asked Mayorkas why he has said the border is “secure” when crossings are reaching unprecedented levels.

“He had the nerve to respond that he never said the border was secure,” the Examiner‘s source said.

Mayorkas has repeatedly said the border is secure, as have many other Biden administration officials, even as the crisis worsens.

Just this week, a caravan of more than 1,000 illegal immigrants crossed into El Paso. President Joe Biden on Dec. 6 ducked on visiting the border, saying that “there are more important things going on.” The Border Patrol announced one day later that an agent had died during a high-speed chase with illegal immigrants.

Agents gave an “icy welcome” to Mayorkas, the Examiner reported, with the source calling their reaction “lifeless.”

Mayorkas, who tweeted Tuesday about strengthening “the security of our borders,” did not visit “downtown El Paso or any spot on ‘the line,’ which is where Border Patrol agents physically apprehend immigrants,” the Examiner wrote.

The secretary’s visit prompted comparisons to Vice President Kamala Harris’s sole trip to the border. Harris, who is ostensibly in charge of overseeing the crisis, doesn’t appear “very interested” in policing the border, Democratic Texas congressman Henry Cuellar has said.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

The Senate energy committee’s top Republican is requesting a “thorough review” of Biden administration grants to Beijing-backed entities after the Washington Free Beacon found the administration sent millions of dollars to a green energy company that partnered with a Chinese state-owned gas giant.

Drip, Drip, Drip: White House Says More Classified Docs At Biden Home

Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) called for the review in a Wednesday letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, which cites a Free Beacon report showing President Joe Biden’s Energy Department funneled more than $10 million in grants to carbon capture company LanzaTech in the months after the company partnered with Sinopec Capital, the clean energy investment arm of the China Petrochemical Corporation. For Barrasso, those grants have direct national security implications, prompting the Republican to request the “policies and procedures related to the awarding of loans and grants to companies with leadership and/or financial ties to the People’s Republic of China.”

“The Department cannot afford to keep making the same mistake of enriching China’s technological efforts at the expense of taxpayers,” Barrasso’s letter states. “It is imperative you conduct this review as the awarding of these grants and loans directly impacts the national security of the United States.”

This is not the first time Biden’s Energy Department, which did not return a request for comment, has come under fire for funding green energy companies that cozy up to Beijing. 

In October, the department announced a $200 million award to Microvast Holdings, an investment Granholm said would “supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is American-made.” But Microvast operates primarily in China, the Free Beacon reported last week, and the Securities and Exchange Commission recently added the company to a watchlist of Chinese companies that fail to comply with U.S. auditing requirements. Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) called the department’s decision to fund Microvast “crazy,” while Barrasso said the grant “endangers our national security” and “undermine[s] the United States’ position in its race against China for technological supremacy.”

Barrasso’s letter asks Granholm to respond by Dec. 7 and “provide the results of the Department’s review” by Jan. 31. Should Granholm rebuff the senator, she could still face scrutiny from the House after Republicans take control of the chamber early next year. Republican staffers have already signaled they will probe Biden’s plan to send taxpayer funds to foreign green energy mines, which the Democrat hopes to use to power his “clean energy agenda.” 

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

California students lost six years of math and reading gains thanks to the state’s pandemic school closures.

Learning loss was concentrated among poor, black, and Latino students, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released this week. Only 24 percent of poor students and 15 percent of black students met math proficiency, down from 32 percent and 21 percent, respectively. The concentration of learning loss could cause problems for California Democrats, who have prided themselves on advancing racial equity.

California led the nation overall in closures as Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D.) administration catered to the state’s powerful teachers’ unions. In early July 2020, the California Teachers Association—consistently one of the state’s biggest lobbying spenders—argued for keeping schools shuttered, even as evidence mounted that classrooms were safe for students. The union for the Los Angeles District followed suit, and by mid-July Newsom had announced that about 90 percent of California kids would be learning online.

Overall, only a third of California’s fourth graders met state math standards according to their 2022 exams, down from 42 percent before the pandemic. English proficiency fell from 48 percent to 42 percent.

California schools stayed shuttered an average of 115 days into 2021 as teachers’ unions made vaccination the basis for reopening, even as children in other states returned to their classrooms. California school closures often hit districts with a greater share of poor, black, or Latino kids.

The PPIC study looked at 2022 test scores among the state’s fourth graders, which generally presage how the students will fare academically in the future. California did not administer standardized tests in 2020, and less than a quarter of students took the tests in 2021.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond (D.), who was on the ballot in November, wanted to release the scores after the election—an unusual move that raised suspicion that officials wished to hide the results for political reasons. The backlash made the education agency reverse course.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Podesta’s net worth has skyrocketed since his time in the Obama administration, financial disclosures show

John Podesta, the powerful Democratic consultant who President Joe Biden tapped to oversee a multibillion-dollar climate investment fund, discussed those investments with an environmental group that had him on the payroll just months before, according to a new financial disclosure.

Galvanize Climate Solutions, a green energy investment firm founded by billionaire Tom Steyer, participated in an Oct. 31 meeting with Podesta and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to discuss how to best use the $369 billion in federal funds. Galvanize paid Podesta $84,000 in advisory fees from December 2021 through August 2022, financial disclosures show. Ethics watchdogs say Podesta hasn’t technically violated any laws but hosting his former employer at the meeting was ethically dubious.

“Alas, it’s a similar story these days, sophisticated players checking the necessary boxes to avoid clear violations while still appearing to advance the interests of former employers and clients,” said Michael Chamberlain, the director of the ethics watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust.

Podesta’s net worth has skyrocketed since he last served in the White House as counselor to former president Barack Obama. His net worth ranged between $4.6 million to $9.2 million in 2014, according to his financial disclosure that year. By 2022, his net worth ballooned to between $9.3 million to $28.4 million, according to a copy of his latest financial disclosure obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Steyer was jubilant after Biden tapped Podesta to lead the $369 billion fund, which was created as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. The billionaire said Podesta was the perfect choice to “champion” the climate investment fund in a gushing statement issued Sept. 9. Days later, on Sept. 13, Steyer said the fund represented a “transformative, revolutionary, unprecedented” investment opportunity for the clean energy industry.

Steyer isn’t Podesta’s only billionaire patron with a stake in the green energy industry. He reported receiving payments from the HJW Foundation, a private foundation established by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss. Wyss has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to leftist groups in the United States, including dark money juggernauts the Sixteen Thirty Fund and New Venture Fund. Wyss is also a founding member of the Center for American Progress, a leftwing think tank Podesta founded in 2003 and chaired from 2017 through September 2022.

It’s not clear exactly how much Podesta received from Wyss’s foundation before joining the Biden administration. While Podesta identified the HJW Foundation as a source of compensation exceeding $5,000, he didn’t disclose the exact amount he received from the Swiss billionaire.

Podesta also raked in $140,000 in consulting fees from the Sandler Foundation, a charity founded by multibillionaire banker Herbert Sandler that funds leftwing groups including Podesta’s Center for American Progress, the ACLU, Earthjustice, and the Sierra Club. Sandler died in 2019.

China hawks on Capitol Hill have raised concerns that Podesta could steer resources from the climate fund to America’s top adversary. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) and Ted Cruz (R., Texas) have noted that Podesta has urged the United States and China to “align” on renewable energy policy, and that the longtime Democratic consultant once urged Chinese businesses to directly invest in the American economy.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Berkeley student groups banned Zionist speakers from campus

The Department of Education is investigating the University of California, Berkeley, Law School over allegations that the school is fostering “profound and deep-seated anti-Semitic discrimination” that has created an unsafe environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus.

The Education Department earlier this week disclosed its investigation after attorneys raised concerns over a cadre of student groups at Berkeley that banned Zionist speakers from campus. The attorneys said the ban constitutes a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents recipients of federal funds from discriminating based on race and national origin, according to the original complaint.

Federal authorities will investigate Berkeley to determine if the school “failed to respond appropriately in the fall 2022 semester to notice from Jewish law students, faculty, and staff that they experienced a hostile environment at the law school based on their shared Jewish ancestry when university-recognized student organizations passed a bylaw against inviting speakers who support ‘Zionism, the state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine,'” according to the Education Department.

The investigation is the culmination of a prolonged battle between Israel’s defenders and anti-Semitic Berkeley student groups that have been trying to intimidate and threaten Jewish and pro-Israel students. Berkeley has become a poster child for the rising tide of anti-Semitism plaguing many college campuses across the nation. Jewish and pro-Israel students are being targeted at historic levels, with one study showing that these types of assaults on Jewish identity doubled in the 2021-2022 academic year. The federal investigation into Berkeley Law School is a sign that the Education Department is aware this trend is dangerous.

Florida-based attorney Gabriel Groisman and the International Legal Forum, a global watchdog that fights anti-Semitism in late November first petitioned the Education Department’s Office on Civil Rights to open an investigation into the prestigious law school.

Groisman and Arsen Ostrovsky, the International Legal Forum’s CEO, said in a joint statement that the discrimination against Jewish students at schools like Berkeley is fueling anti-Semitism across America at a time when prominent celebrities and athletes such as Kanye West and Kyrie Irving are mainstreaming these attitudes. West and Irving have both been under fire for promoting anti-Semitic canards about Jewish wealth and power.

“We initiated this claim because we said ‘enough is enough’ and decided that we must stand up for the Jewish students at U.C. Berkeley, who have been facing an unprecedented wave of discrimination and anti-Semitism on campus,” Ostrovsky and Groisman said. “Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Zionism is an integral component of the Jewish identity.”

A Berkeley Law School spokesman, when contacted by the Washington Free Beacon, confirmed the Education Department investigation and said the school will “fully cooperate” with the probe into violations of Title VI, a portion of the Civil Rights Act that grants protection from discrimination based on race, color, gender, and national origin.

“U.C. Berkeley has been informed by the Department of Education that an investigation has been opened into allegations that the university’s response to a bylaw adopted by Berkeley Law student organizations violated Title VI,” the spokesman said, adding that the school “has in place strong anti-discrimination policies that support our belief in and compliance with what we understand to be the values and obligations enshrined in Title VI and the First Amendment.”

The original complaint centered on nine Berkeley student groups that in August adopted bylaws banning Zionist speakers from the campus.

Ostrovsky and Groisman maintain that by “discriminating against ‘Zionists,’ the registered student groups, and by extension U.C. Berkeley Law School, are discriminating against the Jewish community, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Philadelphia public schools will require students to wear masks for 10 days after the holiday break, marking the latest Democratic-run city to push for lockdown-era mandates.

“This is a proactive measure to reduce the spread of COVID-19,” school district spokeswoman Christina Clark said, adding that schools will “implement” any actions to “protect the health and well-being” of students.

Forcing the masking of children is “supporting healthy environments,” Clark added.

News of the mask mandate comes as further evidence emerges of COVID restrictions’ disastrous impact on education. Only 16.2 percent of third- to eighth-graders in Philadelphia scored proficient or better in math—compared with 21.6 percent before government lockdowns, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported. The district’s goal in late 2020 was to hit a 28.7 percent proficiency rate, meaning it missed the mark by 12.5 points.

Philadelphia students aren’t alone. Los Angeles and Oakland are considering reimposing mask mandates, and Sacramento may also reimpose masks in schools.

Despite widespread parental backlash, Democrats continued to defend school lockdowns into the 2022 election cycle. Pennsylvania Democratic senator-elect John Fetterman called past school lockdowns an “absolute necessity.” Democratic governor-elect Josh Shapiro threatened to sue the Trump administration if the state was forced to reopen schools in 2020.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Column: The crypto king used high ideals to mask low motives

The former head of crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, aka SBF, stands accused of many crimes. But no one has ever charged him with reticence.

Between 2019, when he first appeared on the scene, and December 12, 2022, when Bahamian police took him into custody—conveniently preventing him from testifying before Congress the next day—the 30-year-old MIT graduate and former billionaire would not shut up.

No audience was too small. No subject was beyond the pale. Given the opportunity, SBF would announce his veganism, discuss his fashionably liberal politics, and outline the tenets of his utilitarian worldview, his philosophy of “effective altruism.” His remarkable and short-lived career is a case study in high ideals serving as cover for low motives. It also illustrates the double-standard that liberals apply to business scandals.

Words poured from SBF’s disheveled self, faster than you can mint a bitcoin. Last year his net worth soared, reaching an estimated $20 billion. He ascended to the top rank of political donors, giving millions to Joe Biden in 2020 and contributing more money to Democratic candidates in 2022 than everyone but George Soros. Friendly media profiled “The Mysterious Cryptocurrency Magnate Who Became One of Biden’s Biggest Donors” and “A Crypto Emperor’s Vision: No Pants, His Rules.” “I have a lot of things to say,” he told New York magazine.

That’s for sure. SBF admitted to obsessive compulsion, to attention deficit disorder, to depression, and to playing Magic: The Gathering well into adulthood. He would jabber away on social media, during video game sessions, at investor conferences, and on television and podcasts. Rumors swirled about his love life, which may or may not have involved something called a “polycule.”

Invariably the writer or interviewer talking with SBF would mention his parents, described always as “Stanford Law professors,” as if this title granted them an exalted status, a grant of authority and immunity that encompassed their eccentric and exceedingly wealthy son. Less dwelt upon was the fact that one of the Stanford Law professors, Joseph Bankman, was also an FTX staffer embroiled in his son’s activities, while the other, Barbara Fried, was a well-known leftwing activist who cofounded a Democratic super PAC and counseled SBF on his political giving.

Few people looked at SBF with the incredulity he deserved. His pronouncements on ethics and politics were exceedingly banal. Veganism, in today’s world, is neither an original nor a courageous lifestyle—Olive Garden has a vegan menu. Philanthropy existed long before SBF discovered it. Effective altruism sounds nice. But no one has ever argued for impotent selfishness.

The more SBF became concerned with the fate of “humanity,” the less he seems to have been interested in the livelihood of individuals. He was called the “Bentham of Crypto,” a reference to 18th-century thinker Jeremy Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism, whose guiding philosophy was the “greatest good for the greatest number.” The God-given natural rights of human beings were of subsidiary interest to Bentham—indeed, he didn’t believe in them (or in God) at all. “There were only interests, and the interests of the majority had to prevail,” wrote Gertrude Himmelfarb in her classic Victorian Minds (1968). “The greatest happiness of the greatest number might thus require the greatest misery of the few.”

The FBI needn’t identify Jeremy Bentham, whose mummified corpse sits in the student center at University College London, as an unindicted co-conspirator in this case. Nonetheless, the danger in Benthamism is that its high-mindedness may contribute to a moral callousness, to an instrumental view of other persons, of the sort that we read about in the court filings regarding Bankman-Fried, who kept on chattering to sympathetic audiences as his empire fell apart and the feds were closing in.

Those audiences were sympathetic because SBF was part of the club. He was a celebrity Democrat who combined financial alchemy with highly leveraged virtue-signaling. SBF’s connections may have spared him—and the Democrats who took his money—the embarrassment of congressional cross-examination this week. And they certainly insulate him from becoming a symbol of a corrupt system, a poster-boy for a failed philosophy. He’d be treated differently if he hid all that hair under a MAGA hat.

When Enron imploded in 2001, Ken Lay’s connections to the Republican White House were daily news. Columnist Paul Krugman, a former Enron adviser, wrote that the energy firm’s bankruptcy would prove more significant than the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The editors of the American Prospect wrote, “The Enron scandal should ring down the curtain on a whole philosophy of free-market capitalism and a whole style of government-corporate cronyism.” Author Robert Kuttner said, “Enron is the emblem of the Bush administration’s way of life.” And historian Sean Wilentz declared: “Republicans ruled. Ergo, Enron.”

Will any eminence write, in the coming weeks, “Democrats ruled. Ergo, FTX”? Will journalists draw a connection between SBF’s funneling of investor dollars to progressive causes and candidates for office—mostly, but not all, to Democrats—and the sham economics and cynical politics of the Environmental, Social, and Governance movement running rampant through financial markets? As FTX’s current CEO, John J. Ray III, figures out what happened to the exchange, will he realize that SBF’s privileged background and chic politics allowed the young trader to behave in haphazard and unprofessional ways until, finally, he ran out of other people’s money?

Even now, Bankman-Fried is viewed as an object of pity. “It’s like a Greek tragedy,” a friend of the family told the New York Times after SBF’s arrest. “The story of flying too close to the sun, and having your wings singed.” The problem with this analogy is that Icarus didn’t buy his wings with funds from his investor’s accounts, as the U.S. government says SBF did, while blathering on about saving the world. Icarus was guilty of hubris. Not fraud.

“I f—d up,” Bankman-Fried planned to tell the House Financial Services Committee this week. That’s an understatement. A penniless, imprisoned, and for the moment silent SBF leaves behind a trail of ruin. He is a reminder that sanctimony is a handy tool for scam artists, and that well-credentialed Americans have a bad habit of rewarding a person’s ability to speak with certitude and emphasis and presumed expertise—no matter how dull, unoriginal, obnoxious, insipid, or crooked that person happens to be.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

I’m praying God will touch your heart as you read this letter to help me save my son, Michael.

Michael is a police officer who dedicated his life to keeping our community safe in Farmers Branch, Texas.

But now he might be facing a life sentence in prison for shooting a dangerous career criminal who tried to run Michael down in a stolen truck.

Will you help my son?

In addition to being a police officer, Michael is also a Master Gunnery Sergeant in the United Stated Marine Corps Reserve.

I knew when he joined the police department that it was a dangerous job.

Every night on the news I saw another story of a police officer ambushed or killed in the line of duty.

It’s been a heart wrenching time for the families of police officers in recent years.

What I didn’t expect was that so many Americans would turn their backs on Michael in his time of need.

I now realize that it’s all about fear. Fear of being attacked as a racist.

Fear of going against woke politicians and bureaucrats.

Fear of losing their jobs.

I assumed that the police department, the prosecutor’s office, and everyone else in the government and the community would have Michael’s back.

But I was wrong.

So now Michael’s life is at stake for simply doing his job and we have nobody to turn to except for good hearted strangers like you.

Will you please help me save my son Michael?

Let me give you some more of the details…

Michael and other Farmers Branch Police detectives tracked a stolen pickup truck to the parking lot of an “adult arcade.”

The truck was stolen by a convicted felon who was well-known to the police.

Michael was assigned the task of arresting this man.

When the suspect came back to the truck, Michael pulled up and stepped out of his police car.

The criminal sped the stolen truck toward him.

Michael had to do what every police officer hopes they never have to do: he drew his weapon and fired.

The man driving the stolen truck died at the scene.

My son suffered back and leg injuries.

Michael had a split-second to think about if the career criminal speeding toward him was going to crush him to death with that stolen truck.

In that split-second, he did what he needed to do in order to save his own life and the lives of his fellow officers and community.

There’s no doubt in my mind, and many others, that Michael made the right choice that day.

He should be considered a hero for putting his life on the line to protect others.

But right and wrong seem to have been turned upside down in the last few years.

Why else would they be trying to put my son in prison for murder for what he did?

That’s why I’m willing to do whatever it takes to clear his name. Even if that means asking folks like you for financial support to help my son afford the best possible attorneys and legal advice.

After the incident, Michael was distraught to hear the criminal died.

But the other officers assured him the shooting was justified.

And then our whole world was rocked.

Just 8 days after the incident Michael was indicted.

Experts described the indictment as “unusually swift.” The president of the Dallas Police Association said:

“We have never had an investigation completed in less than eight days ready to hand over to the District Attorney. Never.”

I knew in my heart something was wrong – and we would be facing the fight of our lives to defend Michael in court.

We started a fundraising campaign on the internet site “GoFundMe” to raise money for a proper legal defense.

After a few days, “GoFundMe” shut down the fundraiser.

They claimed Michael’s actions as a police officer were an “act of hate” – and helping him violated their terms of service.

So in this anti-police climate, politically woke climate, the case was closed in their minds.

No “innocent until proven guilty.” No due process.

Instead, my son was smeared as a “murderer” who committed a “hate crime.”

Since then, my husband and I spent half our life savings on legal fees and bills to help Michael.

With the investigation devastating my family… seeing Michael, an American hero, being smeared on the internet… and our family quickly running out of money to pay mounting court fees… hope was fading.

Until we heard about the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF). LELDF is the best friend a police officer could ever have.

LELDF defends good officers, like my son, who have been unfairly prosecuted for split-second, use-of-force decisions in the line of duty.

The group’s president, Jason Johnson, served over 20 years as a police officer, including as Deputy Commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department.

And praise the Lord, LELDF saw it fit to help my son!

You see, LELDF is a non-profit organization. It doesn’t receive any funds from the government to help our police officers.

Or, if the Lord has blessed you with the means to help with a gift of $250, $500, or even $1,000 or more, I pray you will consider doing so.

Please know any gift amount you can send today is truly a blessing.

If you can’t help financially today, I understand. And please keep Michael and our family in your prayers.

My son Michael is an American hero who served our nation and his community. He shouldn’t be locked behind bars for defending his life from a career criminal.

I pray you never go through something like this. But if you do, may God touch the hearts of kind people to help you – just as I’m praying He’ll touch your heart to help my son today.

Sincerely,

Margaret Mary Dunn

PS: LELDF relies on caring people like you to send donations so they can fight tooth and nail to help wrongly-accused police officers like Michael. And because LELDF is a non-profit, all donations are tax-deductible. Your kind donation today of $35, $50, or $100 to help Michael will mean so much to my family.
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More such officers who sacrifice so much for will face similar fates unless we speak out and stand up for the brave men and women in blue. The next time you see a police officer in your community, please thank them for their service. To read more about our mission or the other Law Enforcement officers we’re defending, please visit www.leldf.org. And remember – Blue Lives Matter!

The U.S. stock market suffered one of its worst days of 2022 as the leading benchmark indexes fell sharply on Dec. 15, dashing hopes for a year-end Santa Claus rally.

Investors engaged in a broad-based selloff toward the end of the trading week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) ended 764 points lower on Dec. 15. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index plunged by 3.2 percent, while the S&P 500 Index lost nearly 2.5 percent.

Year to date, the Nasdaq has lost nearly 32 percent, the S&P 500 has tumbled by more than 18 percent, and the DJIA has slumped by 9.2 percent.

Some of the biggest names on the New York Stock Exchange endured steep losses. Shares of Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple lost more than 4 percent. Meta shed close to 6 percent, while Netflix plummeted by 8.6 percent. Bank shares also slumped, with Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase declining by nearly 2 percent.

Some of the stocks to trade higher were Verizon Communications (0.9 percent), Allstate Corp. (1.8 percent), Coterra Energy (2.6 percent), and D.R. Horton (3.5 percent).

Traders sought shelter in traditional safe-haven assets. The benchmark 10-year yield shed roughly 6 basis points to about 3.44 percent. The U.S. Dollar Index, which gauges the greenback against a basket of currencies, surged above 104.

Recession Concerns Drive Selloff

Weak economic data spooked markets.

According to the Census Bureau, retail sales tumbled by 0.6 percent month-over-month in November. That’s down from the 1.3 percent increase in October and worse than the market projection of a 0.1 percent drop. It represented the largest slide this year, led by declines in sales for furniture (negative 2.6 percent), building materials (negative 2.5 percent), motor vehicles (negative 2.3 percent), and electronics (negative 1.5 percent).

Manufacturing numbers also added to widespread recession concerns. Last month, industrial and manufacturing production slid by 0.2 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. The New York Empire State Manufacturing Index weakened to negative 11.2, while the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index came in at a worse-than-expected negative 13.8.

Labor numbers were mixed as initial jobless claims tumbled to 211,000 for the week that ended on Dec. 10, Department of Labor numbers show (pdf). But continuing jobless claims edged up to 1.671 million.

The latest statistics prompted the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to trim its fourth quarter GDPNow model to 2.8 percent, down from the previous estimate of 3.2 percent.

S&P Global will also release its composite, manufacturing, and services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) readings for December on Dec. 16. The PMI prints, which show the general direction of economic sectors, are expected to remain in contraction territory.

Fed Fuels Freefall?

Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks following the rate hike decision on Dec. 14 jolted the market in a way that echoed the final days of 2018.

In late 2018, Powell turned hawkish and weighed the possibility of raising interest rates. This prevented a rally in the days leading up to Christmas, according to Nancy Tengler, CEO of Laffer Tengler Investments.

“Let’s not forget that Jay Powell wrecked a Santa Claus rally in 2018 when he got very hawkish and talked rates up and then the market basically went into a bear market until Christmas Eve,” she wrote in a note. “So, I think you want to remain vigilant and focused on the long term. I’m expecting a rally, and I’m hoping for a rally, but we don’t know for sure when we will get it.”

Did history repeat itself? Financial markets were spooked by Powell’s comments during his post-Federal Open Market Committee meeting press conference. He reaffirmed to reporters that the central bank will continue boosting interest rates throughout 2023, with the benchmark federal funds rate expected to peak at a higher-than-expected 5.1 percent.

The Fed raised interest rates by 50 basis points on Dec. 14, bringing the target rate to a range of 4.25 to 4.5 percent, the highest level in 15 years.

Despite the better-than-expected November CPI data of 7.1 percent, Powell noted that he wants to see a persistent downward trend in inflation before easing its tightening cycle.

“So, we may have to raise rates higher to get to where we want to go,” he said. “And that’s really why we’re rounding down. We’re expecting that they’ll have to remain high for a time.”

Ultimately, the Fed will wait for more data to be convinced that inflation is steadily declining.

“Never forget the unspoken rule of central banks: do whatever it takes to avoid embarrassment,” said Christian Hoffmann, portfolio manager and managing director at Thornburg Investment Management.

Powell also conceded that it’s “not going to feel like a boom” in the U.S. economy, but rather “it’s going to feel like very slow growth.”

The Survey of Economic Projections (SEP) shows that the gross domestic product growth rate will be sluggish over the next three years: 0.5 percent (2023), 1.6 percent (2024), and 1.8 percent (2025). The median unemployment rate is forecast to run at 4.6 percent (2023), 4.6 percent (2024), and 4.5 percent (2025). The Fed is expected to reach its 2 percent target rate in 2024.

Because economic conditions are holding steady, Hoffman thinks the market isn’t completely dismissing the possibility of a soft landing.

“This was the last big known unknown on the 2022 calendar. Investors broadly are closing the books on 2022 and looking to 2023,” he wrote in a note.

In the end, the biggest risk facing the financial markets is the central bank going too far, Tengler noted.

“The bond market seems to think the Fed should be wrapping up here,” she said. “You are starting to hear CEOs and strategists blame the Fed. [Economist Mohamed] El Erian: one of the biggest policy mistakes in history. Because Powell’s Fed has made many mistakes, has lagged the markets, and flip-flopped, this is a reasonable worry.”

Next year, as higher interest rates work their way through the system, investors might focus more on the real economy and determine if the United States is bracing for tepid growth, a short and shallow recession, or a deep economic downturn.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Elon Musk calls it ‘extremely concerning’

New documents reveal how the United States government used a secret Twitter portal to censor COVID-19 content that contradicted the government’s narrative.

In its ongoing probe into Twitter’s censorship practices, America First Legal has obtained a fourth set of documents (pdf) exposing a secret Twitter portal that the Biden administration used to censor social media posts regarding COVID-19 that did not agree with its approved narrative.

The documents expose how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) coordinated with companies such as Mafindo to censor what the Biden administration deemed as “disinformation.” Mafindo—an Indonesia-based fact-checking company that is partnered with Facebook—is funded by Google, which is also known to have censored searches for keywords like coronavirus, and COVID-19 as well as blocking information regarding adverse reactions and deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccines.

Facebook started its third-party fact-checking program in 2016, working with fact-checkers from around the world who are certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter to rate and review the accuracy of the content on their platform. According to the IFCN website, they believe “nonpartisan and transparent fact-checking can be a powerful instrument of accountability journalism.” However, among their advisory board, U.S.-based representatives appear to be from liberal-leaning outlets such as the Washington Post and PolitiFact, which is owned by Poynter.

The Twitter Portal

On March 10, 2021 email from a US Public Policy employee at Facebook to several CDC employees spoke of the social media giant’s “weekly sync with CDC” and how the CDC was “to invite other agencies as needed.”

A March 24, 2021 email from the same Facebook employees to CDC employees said “this is my regular FB meeting and they would like to discuss 2 misinformation topics” and “misinformation that was removed.”

On May 10, 2021, a Twitter employee recommended to a CDC official to enroll in Twitter’s Partner Support Portal, which he described as “the best way to get a spreadsheet like this reviewed.”

On May 11, 2021, the CDC official enrolled her personal Twitter account into Twitter’s Partner Support Portal, which allowed “a special, expedited reporting flow in the Twitter Help Center.”

A May 19, 2021 Facebook Community Standards manual reveals how the company works with lawmakers and legal council as well as human rights activists in developing policies in their goals of “bringing 50 million people a step closer to vaccinations” while “combatting COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation” and “overcoming global challenges in vaccination.” Methods used to accomplish this included removing “false information that has been debunked by public health experts” and rejecting ads that violate their policies, “including those that discourage vaccination.” They also reduced the distribution of “misleading claims rated by independent fact-checkers.”

Removed Content

Posts that Facebook would delete—which the CDC or any other public health authority deemed as “false and likely to contribute to imminent violence of physical harm”—included:

• Claims that COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the common flu or cold.
• Claims that COVID-19 cannot be transmitted in certain climates, weather conditions, or locations.
• Claims that for the average person, something can guarantee prevention from getting COVID-19 or can guarantee recovery from COVID-19 before such a cure or prevention has been approved.
• Claims that COVID-19 tests cause cancer.
• Claims about the availability or existence of COVID-19 vaccines.
• Claims about the safety or serious side effects of COVID-19 vaccines.
• Claims about the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.
• Claims about how the COVID-19 vaccine was developed or its ingredients.
• Claims involving conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines or vaccine programs.

Content deemed to have been “debunked” included among other things, “vaccines cause the disease against which they meant to protect, or cause the person to be more likely to get the disease,” that “natural immunity is safer than vaccine acquired immunity,” and  “vaccines are not effective to prevent the disease against what they purport to protect.”

Repeat offenders would face restrictions “including (but not limited to) reduced distribution, removal from recommendations” or removal from the site.

These punishments were conducted despite evidence that the vaccines do not prevent transmission, that vaccines cause adverse effects and even death, and that more vaccinated people are now dying than unvaccinated. Even the CDC admitted in June that vaccinated people could contract the disease again.

‘The Coolest Misinformation Fighting Speakeasy’

In August 2021, Google’s lead for the News Lab for the Asia Pacific region invited the CDC’s Vaccine Confidence Strategist to the APAC’s “Trusted Media Summit.” That strategist forwarded that invitation to the event planner for Google’s APAC Trusted Media Summit, noting how excited she was over an invitation to what she described as “the coolest misinformation fighting speakeasy.”

That same CDC employee was subsequently invited to give a keynote speech at the event addressing the CDC’s collaboration with the World Health Organization and other organizations on the international stage to discuss a so-called “infodemic” and how to use “social inoculation” to lessen its impact.

An Oct. 28 email from the CDC to the Twitter team regarded preliminary discussions on the CDC plans for communicating guidance regarding “pediatric vaccines.”

A Nov. 2, 2021 email from a Facebook employee to multiple CDC employees was related to “vaccine misinformation” relative to the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). The Facebook employee informed the CDC employees that they had “launched a new feature in Instagram, where accounts that repeatedly post content that violates our policies on COVID-19 or vaccine misinformation may now lose the ability to be tagged or mentioned or may see pop-ups asking if they’d like to delete certain posts that may violate our policies.”

Finally, Facebook boasts of removing over 16 million posts on Facebook and Instagram, including over 2 million between February and May 2021.

AFL’s first documents release exposed collusion between the CDC and social media companies to censor COVID-19 information not approved by the government. The second batch uncovered the specific information sent by the CDC to Facebook and Twitter, including which posts they wanted to have deleted, throttled, censored, or flagged. AFL’s third release of documents showed how the CDC’s masking guidance for school children was driven by politically motivated polling, funded by The Kaiser Family Foundation, which heavily supports Democrat candidates and organizations.

The Epoch Times reached out to Facebook for comment.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has determined the land sale for the Chinese corn mill project in North Dakota as “not a ‘covered transaction’” under the Committee’s jurisdiction, according to a decision letter on Dec. 12.

“Fufeng USA is pleased with the outcome of the CFIUS review and is looking forward to building its wet corn milling and biofermentation plant in Grand Forks, North Dakota,” said the subsidiary of the Chinese company Fufeng Group.

In the fall of 2021, Fufeng bought 370 acres of land in North Dakota for $2.6 million. The city of Grand Forks approved the development agreement for the corn mill project in July. The two senators representing the state have called out national security concerns associated with the venture, as the land is within 15 miles of the Grand Forks Air Force base, which houses sensitive drone, satellite, and surveillance technology.

“I think Fufeng USA has been cleared of the CFIUS matter, and we continue on with the remaining due diligence matters of the Development Agreement to include various environmental and engineering criteria,” City Administrator Todd Feland told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

Previously, he told the local newspaper Grand Forks Herald that the lead federal agencies in the CFIUS review were the departments of treasury, defense, and agriculture.

In September, the city put holds on Fufeng-related infrastructure projects due to the Committee review. Those holds were lifted, and the next steps will be determined at city council meetings at the beginning of 2023, according to Feland. However, he cautioned that there might be additional federal reviews that he wasn’t aware of regarding national security.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told the Herald on Tuesday that he would be seeking intel “directly from relevant agencies” without naming them.

“My concerns remain the same with the Chinese Communist Party investing in agriculture in North Dakota,” he said in a statement. “I look forward to the classified briefing scheduled for next week to learn more.”

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) released a statement on Wednesday, saying, “As we cautioned, we understand that CFIUS has concluded the project is not within its jurisdiction but has not offered an opinion or released any details about potential security issues.”

“We will get additional briefings from CFIUS and provide any additional information if we can, but we continue to have security concerns with this project, given its proximity to the Grand Forks Air Force Base,” the statement continued.

Ben Grzadzielewski, a Grand Forks resident who has been leading the political and legal campaigns against the Fufeng project, said that the CFIUS decision was that it didn’t have jurisdiction over the real estate transaction, not that the project didn’t pose any national security threat.

“The Air Force, the Department of Defense, or both may have identified national security concerns related to the transaction. However, they have to follow CFIUS regulations and not discuss them openly with the public. The Air Force may be considering other avenues to resolve those concerns,” Grzadzielewski continued.

He urged other residents to write to senators to “find the proper government agency to address those security risks.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) slammed the CFIUS decision on Wednesday. “The Chinese Communist Party should not be allowed to purchase land near our military bases. It is dangerous and dumb,” he said in a released statement. “Congress mandated that CFIUS protect America’s national security and that should be its first priority, not making it easier for Chinese businesses, with ties to Beijing, to operate in the United States.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) questioned an LGBT activist over previous tweets targeting Supreme Court Justices during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on Dec. 13.

Mace asked each witness if extremist rhetoric against government officials on social media is a threat to democracy. Witnesses responded in the affirmative, including transgender activist Alejandra Caraballo, a biological male that identifies as a female who works at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic. The congresswoman then presented poster boards featuring a series of Caraballo’s tweets calling for officials to be accosted.

“The 6 justices who overturned Roe should never know peace again,” Caraballo tweeted on June 25. “It is our civic duty to accost them every time they are in public. They are pariahs. Since women don’t have their rights, these justices should never have a peaceful moment in public ever again.”

Mace said Caraballo’s tweet was sent out just a few weeks after the attempted attack of a Supreme Court justice on June 8.

Caraballo was asked by the congresswoman about the comments and if they are a threat to democracy. Caraballo responded by stating the tweets were being characterized incorrectly.

“I don’t believe that’s a correct characterization,” Caraballo said as Mace reminded Caraballo the tweets were quoted verbatim.

Mace spoke of her own experience of being physically accosted by a constituent in Washington the night of Jan. 5, adding she “carries a gun” everywhere she goes in her district back home due to safety concerns. She explained further she has had her car keyed, house spray-painted, and had a trespasser invade her house as recently as August.

Calling Out Violent Rhetoric on the Left and Right

Mace added threats that members of Congress face, on the left and the right, have to be called out no matter where they emanate from.

“It is incumbent upon every one of us to call it out, on both sides of the political spectrum, and recommit ourselves to the Constitution and the rule of law,” the Mace said, adding she looked forward to inviting more people that “actually know what they are talking about” to witness panels in the 118th congress when Republicans take back control of the House.

The congresswoman said similar rhetoric led to threats against the life of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in June after the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked. A man was arrested in June outside of his Maryland home heavily armed and allegedly telling authorities he wanted to kill Kavanaugh.

The 26-year-old man flew from California to Maryland to kill the justice but possibly to “shoot for 3” in order to try and stop the overturning of Roe v. Wade, FBI documents revealed.

Mace also brought up in her remarks to Caraballo how the hammer attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) husband inside their California home was every congressman’s “worst nightmare.”

Mace’s sentiments were echoed by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) in October, when he called on both Democrats and Republicans to tone down their political arguments in relation to the attack on Paul Pelosi.

Comer said to CNN at the time he condemned any attack of political violence on anyone of either party.

“It’s wrong,” he said. “People in both parties are guilty of intense rhetoric that really feeds into these people who are deranged and create violence.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A group of Democrat lawmakers is urging Meta to extend its ban on former President Donald Trump’s Facebook account beyond Jan. 7, when the media giant is set to make a decision on whether to reinstate him after issuing a two-year suspension in 2021.

“That suspension is set to expire in just 24 days–despite the fact that he’s more unhinged and dangerous than ever,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote on Twitter on Dec. 14, referring to the former president.

“[Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)] and I are calling on Meta to keep Trump offline,” Schiff added. “For good.”

Schiff and Whitehouse—joined by Reps. André Carson (D-Ind.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.)—have made their case against Trump in a letter sent to Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, according to a Wednesday press release from Schiff’s office.

In their letter, the Democrats alleged that Trump would likely incite violence and undermine democracy if allowed back on Facebook.

“His rhetoric can only serve as a motivation to incite violence, and it is Meta’s responsibility to keep such rhetoric off its platforms,” the letter says.

Facebook initially suspended Trump indefinitely after the Jan. 6 Capitol breach but later changed it to a two-year ban. In a post explaining the suspension in June 2021, Clegg wrote that Trump would be reinstated if experts decided that the “risk to public safety has receded.”

Related Coverage

Musk’s Latest ‘Twitter Files’ Detail Exactly How Trump Was Banned

The four Democrats’ push to keep Trump off Facebook comes as Twitter’s ban on Trump is coming under close scrutiny, following the release of the so-called “Twitter files.” In a tweet on Dec. 12, Twitter’s new chief Elon Musk suggested that Trump “didn’t violate the rules” and that the decision to ban the former president was made at the urge of “activist employees.”

A day later, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey shared his view on the internal Twitter documents, saying that banning Trump was the “wrong thing for the internet and society.”

Twitter, which banned Trump following the Capitol breach, reactivated the former president’s account in November after more than 15 million account users voted in an online poll. The final poll results showed 51.8 percent in favor of reinstating Trump.

In September, Clegg said that he will be the one who decides whether to lift the ban against Trump. He added that he would consult CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s board of directors, and outside experts before making the final call.

“It’s not a capricious decision,” Clegg said during an event held by the Semafor news organization. “We will look at the signals related to real-world harm to make a decision whether at the two-year point—which is early January next year —whether Trump gets reinstated to the platform.”

Letter 

The four lawmakers cited Trump’s concerns over midterm voting in Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania as evidence that he should be kept off Facebook.

“Trump has continued to post harmful election content on Truth Social that would likely violate Facebook’s policies, and we have every reason to believe he would bring similar conspiratorial rhetoric back to Facebook, if given the chance,” the letter says.

Related Coverage

Kari Lake, Abe Hamadeh, Mark Finchem Formally Contest Arizona Election Results

One Truth Social post cited by the Democrats was when Trump last month wrote that there was a voter integrity concern in Maricopa County, Arizona.

The Democrats also accused Trump of continuing to spread “the Big Lie” about the 2020 presidential election.

“Two years later, we can see unequivocally that Trump is still spreading the Big Lie and thus undermining our democracy,” according to the letter.

There remain many lingering questions about the 2020 elections. In June, Trump issued a statement outlining his arguments disputing the election results. Vote-counting stoppage on election night and ballot trafficking scheme were among those present as evidence.

For example, Trump pointed to evidence presented in the documentary “2000 Mules,” which argues that illegal ballot trafficking happened in several states, thus changing the results of the 2020 elections.

There have been other pieces of evidence suggesting that fraud took place in 2020. In March, the public interest organization True the Vote found that at least 137,500 absentee ballots were cast through unlawful vote trafficking in several cities in Wisconsin. In June, Verity Vote, an election integrity watchdog, discovered that 19,000 late, invalid ballots were counted in Arizona.

“For Meta to credibly maintain a legitimate election integrity policy, it is essential that your company maintain its platform ban on former president Trump,” the lawmakers wrote.

Ahead of the public release of the letter, Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) apparently obtained a copy of the letter—which she said that Schiff was circulating at the time—and spoke out against it, according to her Dec. 8 tweet.

“The left is desperate for power and is willing to deploy CCP-style censorship tactics to silence any opposition,” Harshbarger wrote, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “This is the real threat to democracy.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Dr. Aseem Malhotra said the harms associated with mRNA shots are ‘unprecedented’

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a highly published cardiologist, strives to give his patients the most accurate information about the risks and benefits of any treatment, what he calls “ethical, evidence-based medical practice.” And although he initially thought the mRNA vaccines were safe and effective, he said that after his father’s cardiac arrest in 2021, he realized he needed to dig into vaccine safety and efficacy data.

“Once I had spent time critically analyzing the data on the COVID-19, vaccines, it became very clear to me that the efficacy of this particular novel technology, if you like—the mRNA products—was very, very poor, certainly in comparison to traditional vaccines, and the harms were unprecedented,” Malhotra said during a Dec. 10 interview for EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

Related Coverage

Dr. Aseem Malhotra: From Vaccine Pusher to Vaccine Debunker—How I Changed My Mind About the COVID-19 Jab

Malhotra details the harms of the mRNA vaccines in a two-part paper, in which he concludes that the mRNA vaccines should be suspended, at least until the medical community studies the true risks and injuries.

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This is a 180-degree shift for Malhotra, who himself received two doses of the mRNA vaccine “under, clearly at that time, a false belief [that] I was going to protect my patients,” he said. Malhotra also publicly encouraged others to get the vaccines. He did this because of his belief that traditional vaccines are some of the safest pharmacological interventions in the history of medicine, he said.

However, after the sudden death of his father, Malhotra said he found new evidence that prompted him to reevaluate his position on the mRNA vaccines, realizing that this new technology was not having the intended effects.

“As the evidence changed, I then had to change my view and my opinion,” he said.

Malhotra said he does not regret taking the vaccine or promoting it, because those actions were based on the evidence he understood at the time, he said. Part of the new evidence was that after being vaccinated, his previously healthy father died suddenly from cardiac arrest.

The Public Was Lied To

The public was led to believe the vaccines would stop transmission of the virus or prevent a person from getting infected with COVID-19, he said.

“People weren’t told the information in a truthful way at the time, and it did not evolve with time,” said Malhotra.

Regulatory agencies in the United States and United Kingdom, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, “knew that it was never going to have any significant effect on preventing transmission anyway, and that’s the lie that was perpetuated,” said Malhotra.

The data from the original randomized control trial showed that 1 out of 119 people could avoid infection after getting the mRNA shot.

Another way to explain the low efficacy rate of the mRNA vaccines is that they were developed for the original “ancestral” strain of COVID-19, which constantly mutated, leaving the vaccines basically impotent, said Malhotra.

The public was not told the truth about the chances of dying from COVID-19, or the risks and benefits of taking the mRNA vaccines, he said.

For a middle-aged patient, “the data tells us that the benefit for you taking it, preventing you dying from COVID, is 1 in 2000. … The risk of a serious adverse event from the vaccine for you—disability, life-changing hospitalization—is at least 1 in 800,” said Malhotra.

The mRNA vaccine should not have been approved based on the fact that the original randomized control trials that led to approval by the regulators revealed that people were more likely to suffer a serious adverse event from the vaccine than to be hospitalized with COVID-19, said Malhotra.

Profit Before Public Health

Malhotra said Big Pharma puts profits before safety, and that doctors, academic institutions, and medical journals collude with industry for financial gain.

There are many examples of Big Pharma sacrificing the safety of the public by selling unsafe drugs, even when the industry knows the product causes a high rate of death or disability, said Malhotra.

“We have a word for that. It’s called fraud. They actually function like a psychopathic entity,” said Malhotra. The phrase “psychopathic entity” was coined by Dr. Robert Hare, a forensic psychologist who said these companies function with no concern for public safety and no sense of wrongdoing or remorse when the public is harmed.

At the same time, most doctors don’t realize the amount of control Big Pharma exerts on the medical profession and public health, Malhotra said. On the contrary, most doctors trust the pharmaceutical companies and government regulatory and medical agencies, he said.

Mission to Spread Facts

Malhotra believes that to help people understand the “cold hard facts” about these COVID-19 vaccines and the state of public health, it’s important to communicate with empathy and remember that people have been traumatized by the mainstream pandemic narratives and images.

“The other aspect is this phenomenon called willful blindness,” said Malhotra. This is a phenomenon where people choose to ignore the facts because they don’t want to deal with conflict and loss, such as what happened in the case of egregious situations like the Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal or Nazi Germany’s holocaust, he said.

One of the reasons he analyzed the data and published his findings was to create a safe space for others in the medical community who were in a similar position.

“It’s okay to change your mind. It’s okay to say the information has changed. It’s okay to to talk about it,”
he said. “And I think that’s the challenge we have right now.”

These experimental COVID-19 vaccines were allowed to be distributed widely because over the years, the medical system was corrupted, said Malhotra. “And the only way we’re going to overcome it and move forward constructively is if we all work together.”

We must return to honesty, said Malhotra, and give people truthful information and allow facts to speak for themselves, because people were lied to during the pandemic.

Fear Was Manipulated

“One Gallup poll revealed that 50 percent of American voters thought that their risk of being hospitalized with COVID was 50 percent—1 in 2—when it was far less than 1 percent,” said Malhotra, which he said shows how the public was manipulated by political and commercial entities.

In addition, “China convinced the world that stringent lockdowns in Wuhan contained the virus, when it never did that. It spread throughout the whole of China,” said Malhotra.

Lockdowns should not have been used to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, but they were used because those making the decisions were incompetent, said Malhotra. Commercial interests took advantage of that fear and Big Tech companies and retail companies got richer, while the average small business owner and the worker suffered harm.

“People are increasingly losing access to the truth and a capacity to act in an empathetic way,” said Malhotra.

For example, Facebook and the drug company Merck partnered and invested $20 million each to fight COVID-19 and vaccine “misinformation,” said Malhotra. In the process, they silenced those that questioned the safety of the vaccines or early treatment for COVID-19.

Various political and commercial entities allow the public to access only the information that fits their narratives and allows them to sustain the power that goes far beyond the mRNA vaccines. These mainstream entities, including medical professionals, do not prioritize free and preventative health care as the first line of defense to eliminate many chronic diseases, said Malhotra.

Diet Can Prevent Disease

Diet has a huge impact on how a person responds to infectious diseases like COVID-19, said Malhotra, who has studied heart disease and prevention. He has published papers talking about preventing and reversing 80 percent of heart disease with diet.

“The root pathophysiological underlying factor behind heart disease is something called insulin resistance and chronic inflammation, and they overlap,” said Malhotra. “Insulin resistance basically means your body becomes resistant to the hormone insulin.”

This is the cause of heart disease and the precursor to Type 2 diabetes, and if untreated it can often lead to cancer and dementia, added Malhotra.

Reversing insulin resistance can be done through a healthy low-carbohydrate diet, which can vastly improve public health and begin lowering risk factors in 4 weeks, said Malhotra. Mainstream medical and commercial interests do not promote this solution more broadly because people would not need the drugs and other profitable medical treatments.

Instead, the mainstream medical establishment pushes drugs like cholesterol-reducing statins as the best way to stop heart disease, but Malhotra disagrees with this approach. In an earlier paper, he demonstrated through peer-reviewed research that there is very little relationship between cholesterol and reducing heart attacks and strokes, he said.

Nonetheless, cholesterol-lowering statin drugs are the most prescribed drugs in the world, he said.

“It’s not going to prolong their life by one day, based upon industry-sponsored research, and a best-case scenario for them in preventing a heart attack or stroke or nonfatal heart attack or stroke is 1 in 100—1 percent,” said Malhotra.

A diet with high carbohydrates, low fat, and too much sugar all contribute to these health problems, and while modern science provided clean drinking water and public safety initiatives to prolong life expectancy, there are other inexpensive and long-lasting health care strategies, like meditation, that can do a lot to improve health outcomes, said Malhotra.

Incorporating Ancient Wisdom

For instance, a study in India showed that 40 minutes of meditation a day can help reverse heart disease, said Malhotra. But to impact health on a large scale, laws have to change, he said, because “we currently have laws that allow industries to, in effect, kill for profit.”

There is evidence that the food industry puts addictive ingredients in foods so people want to eat more, which leads to obesity and many other common diseases, so this type of deceit by big corporations must be outlawed, he said.

“Addressing corporate power needs to be a public health priority,” he said, as well as treating mental health disorders.

“Even though we’ve advanced technologically in the last 2,500 years, we haven’t progressed psychologically, and I think in recent years, I would say … we’re regressing psychologically.”

Malhotra believes humanity can begin to heal psychologically by returning to the principles of honesty and compassion.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Melanie Leffler, a mother of two in Sydney, Australia, had four COVID-19 vaccines. But on Nov. 19, 2022, after coming down with a sore throat and a runny nose, Leffler tested positive for COVID. She said goodnight to her family—her husband, Mick Hogan, and their two daughters, Clemmie (age four) and Lottie (9 months). 

They would never speak to her again.

Died In Her Sleep

Although she didn’t seem particularly sick, the 39-year-old healthcare worker died in her sleep that night. Even though she was quadruple vaccinated, a Dec. 3 article about her death described it as a “Covid tragedy.” 

Eighteen-year-old Australian Monica Eskandar couldn’t wait to take her end-of-the-year exams. Instead, Eskandar was rushed to the hospital with severe chest pains. The pain, according to reporting by MSN.com, started just hours after she received a COVID-19 vaccine. 

Doctors diagnosed Eskandar with COVID-related pericarditis. Pericarditis is a condition that involves inflammation of the tissues lining the heart.

Eskandar’s symptoms were so severe that she was not able to sit for her exams. Ironically, the reason she got the COVID-19 vaccine in the first place was because it was mandated in order for her to take the exam. 

COVID-19 Vaccines Cause Myocarditis and Pericarditis

A growing body of peer-reviewed scientific evidence links heart issues with the mRNA vaccines. 

So much so that the CDC and other government authorities in the United States and around the world now recognize that the COVID-19 vaccines are causing myocarditis—heart inflammation which is considered more severe than pericarditis because it causes inflammation of the heart muscle. 

In June 2022, the FDA’s Tom Shimabukuro, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., identified as part of the CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Coordination Unit, reported that: “Current evidence supports a causal association between mRNA COVID-19 vaccination and myocarditis and pericarditis.”

Six months later, as of Dec. 2, 2022, there have been a total of 35,718 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis reported to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.

An Australian Cardiologist Speaks Out

After witnessing as many as 70 cases of vaccine-related heart conditions similar to Eskandar’s, Australian Cardiologist Dr. Ross Walker is now saying publicly that he believes there should be a ban on the use of mRNA booster vaccines.

According to Walker, the mRNA vaccines are “very pro-inflammatory,” he told Daily Mail Australia. “ He contended that The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization should never have mandated mRNA vaccines.

“I’ve seen many people getting vaccine reactions, who get symptoms for about three to six months afterwards,” Walker said. “I’ve seen 60-70 patients in my own practice over the past 12 months who have had similar reactions.”

Those reactions have included shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and chest pain, he continued.

Eskandar said that even though her symptoms began immediately after the vaccine, doctors originally denied the connection, telling her it only happens to teenage boys. 

“You can’t breathe,” she said. “You can’t sit, you can’t lay down. It’s horrible. You actually feel like you’re having a heart attack.”

Changing Recommendations

After conducting a thorough review of the scientific evidence, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the Florida Surgeon General, directed his state to no longer recommend any COVID-19 vaccines for men under 39 because of safety concerns. 

Drs. Walker and Ladapo are not the only medical professionals voicing concerns about the safety, efficacy, and necessity of the COVID-19 vaccines, especially for children and young adults. 

Among the doctors who have called for the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns to be halted is Japanese cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Kenji Yamamoto. In a letter published in the peer-reviewed journal Virology, Yamamoto argued that the COVID-19 booster shots are not safe.

In particular, Yamamoto voiced concern over an adverse effect of the vaccine known as vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT). Not only that, but since the administration of the vaccine, Yamamoto has seen an increase in the risk of infection among his patients at the Okamura Memorial Hospital in Shizuoka in Japan. Specifically, he cites that many of his patients have contracted severe infections due to “inflammation after heart surgery.” Yamamoto believes that his patients’ suppressed immunity is a result of COVID-19 vaccination.

A Turning Tide?

Several high-profile medical doctors have themselves experienced severe side effects after being vaccinated.

Vaccine researcher Dr. Gregory Poland from Rochester, Minnesota has been struggling with life-debilitating tinnitus.

Belgian immunologist, whom The Atlantic described as “one of Europe’s best-known champions of medical research,” Michel Goldman, was battling lymphoma. He had devastating side effects after his third Pfizer vaccine: severe night sweats, exhaustion, and engorged lymph nodes. 

A scan taken after the vaccine revealed that the 67-year-old had a barrage of new lesions, “like someone had set off fireworks inside [his] body.”

Goldman suspected that the COVID booster had made him sicker. His brother, who is also a doctor as well as the head of nuclear medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles hospital, suspected as much as well.

The rapid progression of Goldman’s angioimmunoblastic T cell lymphoma following the BNT162b2 mRNA booster was published as a peer-reviewed case report in the journal Frontiers in Medicine in November 2021. Since its publication, the case study has been viewed 383,411 times.  

While Poland and Goldman still seem to be champions of COVID-19 vaccines, many doctors who once advocated for universal COVID-19 vaccination have since changed their minds. 

British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra initially encouraged the widespread use of COVID-19 vaccines.

But then Malhotra’s father passed away suddenly of cardiac arrest after receiving the jab.

His father’s death prompted Malhotra to begin researching the safety profile of the vaccines. Based on his findings, he no longer believes the theoretical benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the very real risks. 

Politicians are also becoming more vocal about ending vaccine mandates. 

On Dec. 7, 2022, Senator Ron Johnson led a roundtable discussion called Covid-19 Vaccines: What They Are, How They Work, and Possible Causes of Injuries. 

The next day, the House voted for an $858 Billion Defense Bill that included a repeal of the vaccine mandate for the military.

COVID-19 Infection Milder, COVID-19 Vaccines Not Safe or Effective

Cardiologist Dr. Ross Walker called to halt only the mRNA vaccines for young adults in favor of non-mRNA options. But a growing body of scientific literature (some of which has been retracted for political reasons), as well as state data and testimony from clinicians, has shown that none of the existing COVID-19 vaccines is as safe or effective as advertised. 

At the same time, with Omicron and other strains replacing the other, more virulent SARS-CoV-2 variants, COVID-19 infection seems to be becoming milder. 

Dr. Malhotra said in a recent interview “… this vaccine is not completely safe, and has unprecedented harms”. He concluded in a peer-reviewed article published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance that a “pause and reappraisal of global vaccination policies for COVID-19 is long overdue.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Is Elon Musk’s Twitter too good to be true?

Many conservatives have hailed the social media giant’s billionaire owner for his transparency and enthusiasm for creating the preeminent free speech platform.

Others, however, are doubtful that Musk will be able to live up to his lofty aspirations. Perhaps they’re right. It might be a mistake to put too much stock in the goings-on of one tech company.

News of the latest account banned from Twitter seems to lend at least some credence to this notion.

On Wednesday, Axios reported that an account called @ElonJet had been permanently suspended.

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Run by Florida college student Jack Sweeney, the account tracked the whereabouts of Musk’s private jet (and therefore Musk himself) by publishing publicly available flight-tracking data.

The account had over 500,000 followers.

Sweeney quickly created an account on Mastodon that will track Musk’s jet instead.

Musk has not commented on the situation since the suspension. He did provide some comments on @ElonJet last month, however.

In early November, Musk claimed his “commitment to free speech” compelled him to keep the account up, even if he didn’t like it.

Well, now it looks like that commitment wasn’t quite enough.

My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2022

Don’t forget, the Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX CEO is far from conservative.

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Perhaps Sweeney’s account was banned because, by sharing Musk’s whereabouts, it posed a risk to his safety. There’s certainly an argument to be made there.

But, to be clear, nothing Sweeney did was illegal. His account simply published speech that Musk (or someone at Twitter) didn’t like, perhaps fairly so.

But what about political speech Musk disagrees with? Liberals often argue that speech made by conservatives is akin to violence.

Musk doesn’t seem to buy into that sort of talk. But things change. People change.  And Elon Musk is no different than anyone else.

Maybe we shouldn’t be pinning all of our free speech hopes on Twitter.

The son of a man charged with the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi is speaking out.

Nebosvod “Sky” Gonzalez described his father David DePape as a man traumatized from a lifetime of abuse, speaking in an interview with the Daily Mail published Wednesday.

‘There is almost no person on this planet that has gone through so much suffering,” Gonalez said of DePape.

The 19-year-old doubts prosecutors’ charges against DePape, expressing his uncertainty that his father ever even attacked the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“For all that we know he was some sort of sex slave, as Elon Musk pointed out,” Gonzalez said of his father — referencing a since-deleted Musk tweet.

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That’s quite the take on the situation, especially considering it’s coming from the guy’s own son.

Musk didn’t go so far as to claim DePape was a “sex slave,” but he did share a since-removed article from the Santa Monica Observer that theorized DePape and Paul Pelosi were in a sexual relationship.

Gonzalez further rejected the idea that DePape was a conservative political fanatic — a claim leveled by progressives in an attempt to chalk up the alleged attack to partisan politics.

“My father had progressive views,” Gonzalez said of DePape.

“He believed in human rights, equality, and justice. He was against the war, he was a peace activist, hardly a right-wing conservative, as he has been branded.”

The guy just so happens to be a Canadian illegal immigrant and a hemp-jewelry-making nudist activist.

The spitting image of a hardened conservative, right?

Oxane “Gypsy” Taub, Gonzalez’s mother, previously described DePape as “mentally ill,” according to the Daily Mail.

She claimed that DePape came under the delusion that he personally was Jesus Christ after he disappeared for a period of time.

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Hard, definitive evidence corroborating some of the more colorful theories surrounding the alleged home invasion hasn’t materialized.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t questions to be asked about the incident.

Joe Biden promised to bring back “normal” to the White House after what he claimed were the tumultuous Trump years. Instead, he has brought transgenders and sexual deviants into his administration, and now a drag queen who grooms little children to the White House for an official bill-signing ceremony.

On Tuesday, when Biden signed the misnamed “Respect for Marriage Act” into law, one of those invited to the ceremony was Marti Gould Cummings, a drag queen who identifies as “nonbinary,” Fox News reported.

Cummings was super excited to take part in the White House event and, according to Fox, jumped on to his protected Twitter account to say, “To be a non binary drag artist invited to the White House is something I never imagined would happen. Thank you President & Dr. Biden for inviting me to this historic bill signing. Grateful doesn’t begin to express the emotions I feel.”

Cummings has no business at an official government function — unless that function is a criminal trial.

The least of the problems with this Biden guest is his outspoken hatred for the police.

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According to Fox, the drag queen is a virulent supporter of the “defund the police” movement and had posted numerous anti-police tweets that could be seen by the public before he locked his account. Cummings called police “whiny and weak,” said “all cops are bastards,” and repeatedly posted slogans such as “f*** the police.”

But, while it is bad enough that Biden invited a cop-hater to the White House, Cummings’ grooming of little children is far, far worse.

As The Daily Wire noted, Cummings can be seen in a video performing his sexual drag act for a 2-year-old boy.

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“Footage showed Cummings … in a wig, high-heeled boots, and a leotard tightly hugging his genitals, clapping along with the tune, at one point spinning onto a long table and briefly drawing attention to his nether regions,” The Daily Wire reported. “A man who appeared to be the boy’s father was smiling, bouncing the child on his knees, and recording the interaction while grinning from ear to ear.”

“He was so sweet, and he gave me a dollar,” Cummings said of the toddler in an interview with Inside Edition.

In a recent post on Twitter, Cummings happily chirped that “the kids are out to sing and suck d!” The tweet was alluding to the young age of customers at a gay bar, according to The Daily Wire.

It was after the popular account Libs of TikTok shared that tweet that Cummings set his Twitter account to private so the public could not see his efforts to groom young people for the LGBT agenda.

Perhaps it isn’t surprising that Biden would invite such a problematic person to the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act. After all, the bill itself is worse than problematic.

The newly signed law not only runs contrary to religious beliefs — with some fearing it could make holding Christian views a punishable offense — but also violates the long-held principle that marriage should be regulated chiefly by the states, not the federal government.

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The bill passed the House 258-169, with 39 Republicans joining the entire complement of Democrats to repeal provisions that define marriage as between a man and a woman.

The Respect for Marriage Act does not respect marriage, but instead enshrines a corruption of marriage into law. Marriage is aimed at protecting the family unit and ensuring the preservation of morality and civilization. Gay marriage does not achieve any of those goals except through artificial means.

How fitting that this disgusting, dangerous new law was signed by Biden as drag queens and child groomers stood by, egging him on.

The family members of Oregon murder victims are tearing into Gov. Kate Brown (D.) for commuting the sentences of the state’s 17 death row inmates.

“I’m horrified and outraged and I don’t know what this means. … Will true life be true life?” said Sue Shirley, whose parents were murdered in 1988. “All I know is that we never get to have a say.”

Brown was a popular scapegoat during the 2022 Oregon gubernatorial race for a slew of failed left-wing policies on homelessness and crime. Even her former Democratic ally Tina Kotek, who in November was elected the Beaver State’s next governor, distanced herself from Brown’s record and attacked the outgoing governor in debates and interviews.

Brown’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Oregon has not executed an inmate since the 1990s.

“I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people—even if a terrible crime placed them in prison,” Brown said in a statement, while acknowledging that victims’ families have experienced “pain and uncertainty” from deferred sentences. She also said the decision was not made because of any “rehabilitative efforts” by the inmates.

Brown, who was voted America’s most-hated governor for the last two years, did not give advance warning to the families that the sentences of their loved ones’ killers would be commuted to life in prison without parole, the Oregonian reported. Some relatives of victims expressed concern that justice will never be served, as they have already endured many resentencing hearings and redefinitions of the criminal code, leading them to wonder whether the murderers may eventually be freed.

Brown was responsible for prolonging a moratorium on the death penalty begun by former governor John Kitzhaber (D.) in 2011. Oregon voters reinstated capital punishment in 1984 after the state’s Supreme Court outlawed it three years earlier.

Her order will take effect Wednesday. She had already dismantled the building that housed the state’s death chamber in 2020.

The Oregon Senate’s Republican leader, Tim Knopp, criticized Brown for unilaterally deciding to commute the sentences, saying she hadn’t put it up for a vote.

“Even in the final days of her term, Brown continues to disrespect victims of the most violent crimes,” he said in a statement.

James Baker, whose daughter and grandchildren were brutally murdered around Christmas 2001, told the Oregonian that Brown’s decision was “wrong and wrong.”

“Every single year we can’t forget, and every time Christmas rolls around, what we think about this,” he said. “We have our scrapbooks and our pictures and we go through them around this time and realize these people are gone, and they are gone forever.”

Terri Hakim, whose husband, a police officer, was killed by a father and son who bombed a bank in December 2008, called Brown’s commutations “a very personal slap in the face.” The clemency, she said, will “make it harder for the victims to go through their days, knowing that our governor is looking out for [the convicted murderers] and not us.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Administration officials have preached cooperation with communist nation on climate change

Joe Biden is set to pull a number of Chinese companies from a red-flag trade list, a move that comes as the Democrat and other administration officials stress the need for cooperation with the communist nation on climate change.

Biden’s Commerce Department plans to remove an undisclosed number of Chinese entities from its so-called unverified list, which includes foreign companies that the United States cannot tour in person “to determine whether they can be trusted to receive sensitive technology exports,” Reuters reported Wednesday. American officials must receive approval from China’s commerce ministry to inspect any Chinese company—approval that Beijing has been unwilling to grant in the past. Once the decision is finalized, U.S. exporters “will no longer have to conduct additional due diligence before sending goods” to the Chinese companies removed from the list, according to Reuters.

Both Biden and his climate czar, John Kerry, have expressed a desire to work with China on climate change in recent weeks. In a Nov. 14 meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Biden “underscored that the United States and China must work together to address transnational challenges such as climate change … because that is what the international community expects,” a White House readout of the meeting shows. Kerry, meanwhile, lamented in October that geopolitical tension between the United States and China interrupted the two nation’s climate talks.

Biden has pledged to transition the United States away from fossil fuels and toward a “green” economy, which the Democrat says will be “truly made in America.” China’s dominance of the green energy supply chain, however, complicates that initiative. Biden has already sent hundreds of millions of dollars in green energy funding to companies with deep ties to Beijing—in October, for example, the Democrat’s Energy Department awarded a $200 million grant to lithium battery company Microvast Holdings, a lithium battery company that operates primarily from China. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the grant would “supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is American-made,” prompting staunch criticism from Republicans.

“The Department of Energy continues to operate in a manner that undermines and endangers our national security,” Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) said in a Dec. 7 letter to Granholm. “It is clear DOE’s actions directly undermine the United States’ position in its race against China for technological supremacy.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

An ad campaign bankrolled in part by the megadonor Charles Koch has been tormenting NFL fans for the past two years by playing on a near-constant loop during commercial breaks.

The ad, which viewers have described as “annoying” and “freaking stupid,” is a product of a group called Belonging Begins with Us and suggests Americans are insufficiently welcoming to immigrants. Belonging Begins with Us is backed by Stand Together, a project of the Charles Koch Foundation, and a coalition of progressive philanthropists including Mark Zuckerberg and Pierre Omidyar.

The commercial features an overwrought cover version of the 1970s folk hit “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” and shows scenes of friends gathering at a birthday party and at a lunch table while shooting suspicious glances at nearby immigrants who were excluded from the group. Another scene shows a little girl of color waving at a white family, which ignores her.

“We all know what it’s like to feel left out. To feel out of place. To feel invisible. To feel unwelcome,” says a caption. “And for people who move to this country, that feeling lasts more than a moment. We can change that.”

Many viewers of the NFL Network have taken to Twitter to pan the commercial, calling the song “annoying” and arguing that the heavy-handed message unfairly portrays Americans as unwelcoming to immigrants.

“Your ‘walk a mile in my shoes’ commercial is quite possibly the most annoying thing ever put on television,” one Twitter poster complained in November.

“The ‘Walk a mile in my shoes’ commercial that plays every 7 mins on the NFL Network has to be THE single worst creation in human history,” noted another NFL fan.

Others called it the “worst commercial I have ever seen” and “OVERKILL TIMES A BILLION!!”

The campaign is the latest indicator of Koch’s emerging partnership with the far left, which also includes teaming up with Democratic super-donor George Soros to push isolationist policies through the Quincy Institute.

The commercial directs viewers to the website “Belonging Begins with Us.” The website describes itself as a “partnership between the Ad Council and a coalition of partner organizations from across the country” and aims to “create a more welcoming nation where everyone can belong.”

The coalition includes Stand Together, the philanthropic group at the center of the Koch network. Other listed coalition members are the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a progressive group founded by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife; FWD.us, an organization that lobbies against restrictions on illegal immigration; and the Democracy Fund, a left-leaning group founded by liberal philanthropist Omidyar.

The Charles Koch Foundation and Belonging Begins with Us did not respond to requests for comment.

Progressives have long demonized Charles Koch and his late brother David, whose family made billions in oil and other industries, accusing them of trying to install an “oligarchy,” destroying the environment, and seeking the “eradication of the federal government.”

But over the past few years, liberal groups have quietly made common cause with the Koch network on the loosening of immigration restrictions, diplomacy with anti-American regimes, and prison reform.

In an announcement for the ad’s launch in 2020, the coalition said the “song and powerful visuals remind audiences that we all know what it feels like to be left out—and for people who moved to this country, that feeling can last more than a moment.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

Steve Descano’s office had to offer a plea deal after failing to share evidence on time

The mother of an 11-year-old rape victim is suing a George-Soros backed prosecutor in Virginia who let the boy’s rapist walk free, alleging the prosecutor’s actions violated the minor’s civil rights and made him fear for his physical safety.

Amber Reel in November filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of her son after Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney Steve Descano (D.) let the rapist walk. Court filings show Descano was months late in sharing necessary evidence before a September trial, dooming the case and forcing his office to enter into a lesser plea deal with the rapist the same month. Ronnie Reel, who was released on time served, had faced life in prison for forcibly sodomizing the minor. Reel is the victim’s uncle.

This is the second high-profile case in the last month where the Soros prosecutor freed a dangerous offender. In December, Descano struck a plea deal that would clear the record of a man who fired his gun into a crowded Virginia bar. Soros donated more than half a million dollars to Descano’s 2019 campaign.

A grand jury had already indicted Reel in February for sodomy and aggravated sexual battery, and the case was set for trial in September. But Descano’s office didn’t share evidence with the public defender before trial, bungling Reel’s prosecution with its “woefully, woefully missed” deadlines. The case’s presiding judge said Descano’s office did a “disservice to the victim” and was “very concerning to the court.”

Because he dodged a felony sex crime conviction, Reel won’t have to register as a sex offender and won’t be barred from holding jobs in schools or other places that would put him near children. The victim and his mother in their suit say Descano’s “deliberate indifference represents egregious conduct that is shocking to the conscience.”

“We have to deal with feeling like we’re in danger,” Amber Reel told Fox 5, which first reported the lawsuit. “There’s other kids out there. He’s going to move into a neighborhood. What if there’s a school down the road?”

A spokesman for Descano did not respond to a request for comment.

The victim also claims Descano lied by saying it was the first time his office had failed to submit evidence for a case. The prosecutor missed deadlines for evidence in January on a case involving a man who solicited a minor online for sex. The case was dismissed in July due to Descano’s failure.

Fairfax County circuit court chief judge Penney Azcarate confirmed in court that Reel’s case was “not the first time” she saw a failure by Descano’s office lead to charges being dismissed, according to a September court transcript. By failing to provide evidence, Azcarate added, the office had broken the law.

Nor was it the first time Descano lied over the course of the Reel case. According to the federal lawsuit, the prosecutor said he would keep the victim and his mother abreast of any plea negotiations in accordance with Virginia law but then failed to do so, adding “insult to injury,” they say.

Even Reel’s defense attorney piled on after the case was dismissed, telling Fox 5 that Descano’s office tried “to make excuses for their failure to do their job.”

Last week, a group of crime victims asked Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin (R.) and Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares (R.) to investigate Descano “for possible neglect of duty, misuse of office, incompetence, and violations of the civil rights of crime victims.” One of those victims was the owner of the Virginia bar threatened by a gunman Descano let off easy this month.

“Steve Descano’s office has shown more concern for those who commit crimes than those who are victimized,” said Jenna Kuhn, the owner of Sully’s Pour House. “Governor Youngkin and Attorney General Miyares should help us uncover how and how many victims have been trampled over by Steve Descano.”

Virginia Democrats killed a bill earlier this year that would have empowered Miyares to take up cases botched by soft-on-crime prosecutors. Miyares has frequently warned that prosecutors like Descano have a “criminal first, victim last mindset.”

“The Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney has a shameful record of mismanaging child sexual assault cases,” Miyares told the Washington Free Beacon. “Victims and their families deserve better.”

Descano moved to dismiss the case on Tuesday, arguing in court filings that under federal law prosecutors are “immune from liability” when carrying out the work of justice. He said the victim’s mother failed to substantiate her claims or detail any relief that was owed. Descano also said he should not be held responsible for the work of one of his assistant prosecutors.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 15. On Monday, Descano’s office let another rapist walk—this time because it missed a November deadline for evidence.

Update 12/15 at 9:20 a.m.: This piece has been updated with additional information.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

The United Nations voted on Wednesday to remove Iran from its place on a women’s rights committee, drawing applause from Iranian dissidents who are seeking to depose the hardline regime following its murder of a 22-year-old woman who improperly wore her head covering.

The United States led the charge to see Iran booted from the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women, where it has served since 2019 even though it is one of the world’s foremost human rights abusers. The United States draft resolution was passed after 29 countries voted in favor, with 8 against and 16 abstentions.

Iran’s role on the women’s committee was challenged from the very start by opponents of the hardline regime who cited its record of oppressing and killing women. In light of an ongoing protest movement in Iran fueled by the regime’s abuse of women and girls, the U.N. signaled that international outrage was too great to let Tehran remain on the commission, which works to empower women and create gender parity.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., described Iran’s presence on the committee as an “ugly stain on the commission’s credibility,” according to Reuters. Iran’s U.N. ambassador described the vote as illegal and called the United States a bully for leading the charge.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the vote “is another sign of the growing international consensus on Iran and demands for accountability.” The United States, he said, “is working with our allies and partners around the world to hold Iran accountable for the abuses it is committing against its own people, notably peaceful protesters, women, and girls.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also described the U.N.’s action as “an unmistakable message of support from around the world to the brave people of Iran, and in particular to Iranian women and girls, who remain undaunted despite the brutality and violence perpetrated against them by the Iranian regime.”

Israel also celebrated the move.

“Today’s vote is proof that the international community is beginning to understand more and more the dangerous nature of the Iranian regime: a regime which is endangering regional and global stability through spreading terror and is seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon, all while it oppresses its own people and denies them their basic rights,” outgoing Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid said in a statement. “It’s time for the international community to send a clear message to this murderous regime.”

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

As rail contract negotiations entered a period of crisis in September, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg phoned in from over 3,500 miles away during a vacation in Porto, Portugal, a posh tourist destination best known for its wine production, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Buttigieg quietly jetted off to Portugal on Aug. 29, a week before Amtrak began canceling all long-distance trips in preparation of a potentially catastrophic rail strike. The Labor Day weekend travel was a “long-planned personal trip,” a Department of Transportation spokeswoman told the Free Beacon, and Buttigieg “remained available and engaged” from Europe.

Hot attractions in Porto include the 18th century Clérigos Tower and the Sé do Porto cathedral. For those who wish to enjoy all the libations Portugal offers, tourists can also spend a day in Porto’s sister city Gaia and peruse its celebrated wine cellars.

“As usual, while traveling on personal time he remained available and engaged on urgent issues, which in this case meant multiple calls with staff and stakeholders to work on the topic of rail labor negotiations,” the spokeswoman said. Buttigieg returned to the States on Sept. 5, as rail worker unions began prepping for a strike that would have had catastrophic economic consequences.

News of Buttigieg taking a vacation at a time of high-stakes negotiations in the transportation industry comes as he faces anger from rail worker unions over the results of those contract negotiations. Unions’ chief demand of paid sick leave was absent from the final contract, which was not reached through an agreement but rather forced through by federal law earlier this month. Though President Joe Biden tapped Buttigieg as one of the administration’s leaders for negotiations, the ambitious politician appeared more concerned with campaigning and fundraising for Democratic candidates in the lead-up to the midterm elections than with securing benefits for the unions.

Now it appears that attending his vacation in Europe was also higher on his priority list.

The trip gives fuel to critics who say the administration has abandoned blue-collar workers who helped put Biden in office. Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), who voted against the rail contract and has urged his party to capitalize on the administration’s failed negotiations, said Buttigieg’s decision to fly to Portugal was “a joke.”

“Pete Buttigieg will take paid vacation in Europe for days on end but doesn’t think rail workers should get more than one day of sick leave,” Hawley said.

“This is the same guy who took months of paid leave at the height of the supply chain crisis,” he continued, referencing the paternity leave that Buttigieg took after he and his husband adopted children. “If rail workers showed up for work as rarely as Buttigieg does, the country would fall apart.”

Three days after Buttigieg returned from Portugal, the Association of American Railroads released a report concluding that a rail strike would cost the U.S. economy more than $2 billion a day.

“Overall, the secretary’s work toward helping successfully prevent a rail shutdown included dozens of calls and meetings between April and December,” Buttigieg’s spokeswoman said.

The White House and Buttigieg’s inability to secure paid sick leave for rail workers drew anger from unions across the country. That rail contract not only alienated a critical Democratic constituency as Buttigieg likely plans a bid for higher office, it also provided Republicans with a messaging opportunity.

The reason for Buttigieg’s vacation is unclear, although it appears the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., didn’t want the public to know about it. Neither Buttigieg, his husband, nor the Department of Transportation made any public announcement or reference to the trip. In fact, Buttigieg maintained a social media presence during his time in Portugal and made it seem like he was traveling in the United States. On Sept. 1, in the middle of his vacation, he posted a “selfie” video of himself speaking from a U.S. airport about a new Department of Transportation airline consumer complaint tool. “If you’re traveling this weekend or anytime, know that our department has your back,” Buttigieg says in the video.

How Buttigieg traveled to Portugal is a mystery. Since assuming his Transportation post, Buttigieg has taken 18 fights on private jets, according to a report from Fox News.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

The commission is ‘limited by data in every instance,’ member says

A California task force that voted last year to provide reparations to descendants of African slaves can’t seem to settle on a plan—or a number.

The California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans met Wednesday to discuss what taxpayers owe black Californians ahead of a July 2023 deadline. It will depend on the state legislature to implement the task’s force recommendations. But members of the body, which was established by a 2020 California law, seemed flummoxed as they discussed the particulars of their plan.

“We don’t yet know what the actual racial wealth gap in the state of California is,” noted task force member Jovan Scott Lewis.

He added that the commission is “limited by data in every instance,” which “limits our ability to give really clear guidance at this point.” And he asked advisers and others for help in finding the information they need to establish dollar amounts.

Outside economic advisers hired by the commission have already set categories that they believe some black Californians should be compensated for. The categories span from property seizures and devaluation of black businesses to housing discrimination, homelessness, and “mass incarceration and overpolicing.”

But the task force has yet to settle on time frames for each of these categories. Nor has it decided how many black California residents should be eligible—just that reparations need to go to descendants of slaves, or those who can prove lineage in the United States before 1900.

The task force has already had to temper expectations of a huge payout. Last week, the New York Times reported that the group’s economic advisers had floated more than half a trillion dollars as the maximum amount potentially owed for redlining and other discriminatory housing policies alone. The story went viral, forcing the task force to dismiss the Times report as “misinformation.”

With the clock ticking, Wednesday’s discussion showed the difficulties of enacting a tangible reparations plan. Members of the commission and state officials present at the meeting seemed more comfortable discussing more tangible social welfare programs, like wellness centers, universal basic income, and home-buying grants.

However, the task force and Democratic leaders will have to keep their constituents happy. Nearly all the people who showed up or called in to comment were focused on reparations, recommending amounts from $5,000 to $350,000 to $5 million. The group will reconvene Thursday for a second day of discussions.

With California facing a $24 billion deficit next year, it’s unclear how state Democrats will proceed if they need to raise extra revenue for a reparations proposal. The California legislature needs a two-thirds supermajority to raise taxes. And while Democrats hold that supermajority, it’s not a given that all the party moderates would endorse a tax hike.

That could punt the measure to the electorate, where Latinos make up the majority and blacks account for 6.5 percent.

SOURCE: Washington Free Beacon

A self-described daddy’s girl, Serena Dye wasn’t allowed to have boyfriends when she was 15 and still in high school.

When she missed her period and tried to hide her pregnancy from her parents, her best friend’s mom let it slip, and her father flew into an uncontrollable rage.

Now 38 and a mother of five, Dye is the regional executive director of a pro-life pregnancy center in Illinois, where she grew up. She believes that had the abortionist she was taken to as a scared teen brought her parents back to see the ultrasound, and the truth that was growing inside her, they wouldn’t carry such awful remorse today.

Their being of Indian descent had something to do with her dad’s reaction, Dye believes. She described a “very scary conversation” after her parents learned the news.

“He started yelling and telling me, ‘You’re going to have an abortion right away,’” she told The Epoch Times. “At first, my mom was resistant to that and she told me that she would help me and that that wouldn’t happen. But my dad continued with his outrageous behavior, just very angry, for a week of nonstop yelling.”

She recalled her dad telling her mom he would divorce her if Dye didn’t go through with the abortion.

“He was our main source of income. We lived in a very nice lifestyle,” Dye said. “And so my mom, after a week of this pressure, came to me and begged me to have the abortion.”

Dye said she tried to remain strong in resisting them until he eventually threatened to get a gun and end his own life.

“I felt very numb because of all the abuse coming toward me and all the pressure,” she said. “I gave in and decided to go through with the abortion. I didn’t even feel like myself anymore. I just felt no emotion at all.”

Looking back, she sees the cultural roots being a factor in this; you could be killed in certain villages if something like that were to happen, she said.

“We went to the Planned Parenthood of Iowa City and when I walked into the waiting area it was very dark, very dingy, very not clean,” she said. “There were several women in the waiting room and I just remember looking around and seeing all of them. And they were all having their heads down and I just began to cry.”

She cried so hard that her mom asked to have her taken back into the room ahead of her turn. When the nurse spoke to her, Dye admitted she didn’t want to go through with it. The nurse then said they couldn’t move forward unless she was consenting, so the family was sent away.

Dye’s dad hollered at her the whole car ride home, she said. That was followed by another week of him “yelling and screaming,” before she gave in a second time.

This time, the abortionist, at a different clinic, had her sign the papers first, as Dye’s parents informed them what happened the time before. She described the procedure:

I was taken back to the abortion room. And I had two women with me, workers, there and they strapped me to the bed. And they each held my hand and the abortion doctor came in, and he didn’t look at me or speak to me at all. He talked to the nurses, and he inserted the abortion instruments into my body and turned on the machine, and my stomach started pumping up and down like a balloon with air.

It was very painful. I was crying. And I heard when my baby was sucked out of my body, I heard the noise. And I heard when it went into the canister of the vacuum machine. And then he turned it off, and he left.

After the abortion, Dye and her dad’s relationship got back on track, though he would later express regret for what he had done, as did her mom. Dye’s forgiving them would come with time, after she found her faith. Forgiving herself would take a far more painful process. When a member of her church decided to write a book of abortion experience accounts, they contacted Dye and managed to draw out some of her undealt-with raw injuries.

“I would end up on the floor in the fetal position and in so much pain, emotional pain, as I relived those moments and talked about these things,” Dye said. “But talking about them was the best thing that I ever did because it put everything in the light that was hiding deep down inside my heart.”

Thus, her healing began.

A lot of prayer followed, she said. The only reason she can talk about her story now is that she had her post-abortive healing, and was “set free by Jesus.” At the age of 21, she accepted her Lord and Savior.

Now married 16 years, Dye has five kids—her oldest is 20, and her youngest is 11. She devotes her time to revealing the truth to expectant women and parents at her pregnancy center, where she shows them ultrasound scans and helps them weigh the options and choose life.

“If the abortion clinic would have taken us all back for counseling before we went forward with the abortion, and if my parents were also called back into that ultrasound room and were able to see the truth of what was growing inside of me—if they were able to see the heartbeat and the little legs and the little limbs—they may have changed their mind,” she said. “We need to present families with the whole truth about these situations.”

Looking back at her abortion, Dye wishes her parents had had the mindset that the baby growing inside her had a right to life, too. Had they considered her child their grandchild, there wouldn’t have been any dilemma.

“The choice would have been clear and easy that, ‘Oh, we need to support Serena,’” she said, “and let her have this baby because this is a child, this is a human, and this is our grandchild.”

She said, “Abortion did not help me. It hurts me and it hurt my future. It stole parts of my life that I can never get back and it took a life away from our family that we won’t know, until we go to Heaven someday.”

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

And yet, they do drills with the Chinese military on Canadian soil. Uh…??? [US Patriot]

MPs of all political stripes have unanimously voted in favour of a Senate bill that would create new offences in relation to forced organ harvesting and trafficking abroad—passing it after nearly 15 years of legislative efforts with similar bills.

In the House of Commons on Dec. 14, MPs across party lines cast their vote in support of Bill S-223, an anti-forced organ harvesting legislation introduced by Sen. Salma Ataullahjan last November.

Once the bill receives royal assent and officially becomes an act of Parliament, Canada will join the ranks of countries such as the UK, Italy, Israel, Belgium, Norway, Spain, South Korea, and Taiwan that have passed legislation to combat forced organ harvesting, organ transplant tourism, and organ trafficking.

“This is a critical step towards putting a stop to the global practise of people being killed or exploited for their organs,” Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, the sponsor of the bill in the House, said on Twitter moments after the bill passed.

Winnipeg-based human rights lawyer David Matas, who has researched the Chinese regime’s organ harvesting of Falun Gong adherents, said the passage of the legislation means lives will be saved.

“Stopping organ harvesting would mean that innocents would cease to be killed for their organs, an important result, if it does happen, since there are many victims of this abuse,” Matas said in an email on Dec. 13.

In 2006, Matas and the late former MP and cabinet minister David Kilgour released the ground-breaking report “Bloody Harvest”—later followed by a book of the same name in 2009—which concluded that the Chinese communist Party (CCP) was implicit in forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners on a large scale, killing them in the process, to sell their body parts for profit.

Falun Gong is a meditation and spiritual discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Under the rule of then-leader Jiang Zemin, the CCP launched a far-reaching campaign of persecution against the practice in 1999, which continues to this day.

Bill S-223 will make it a criminal offence for a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident to go abroad to receive an organ taken from someone who did not give informed consent to the removal of the organ

It will also amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to deny a permanent resident or foreign national access to Canada if they have engaged in activities relating to the trafficking of human organs.

In the Dec. 14 vote, Conservative MP Gary Vidal’s vote was initially recorded as a “nay,” but his office confirmed to The Epoch Times that that was an error, and that the vote to have the bill passed was unanimous.

Celebration

Falun Gong adherents and Uyghurs were invited to the House of Commons gallery by Genuis to observe the vote on Bill S-223, while Tibetans observed the vote on a motion regarding the Sino-Tibet Dialogue and Middle Way approach.

Prior to the votes, the respective groups rallied in front of the West Block on Parliament Hill, holding signs and banners and voicing their support for the bill and the motion.

Speaking at the rally, Genuis paid tribute to the work of Matas and Kilgour.

“[They] did the initial work of uncovering and exposing all that was happening in China with forced organ harvesting and trafficking, and of course the Falun Gong community has been so active protesting, petitioning,” he said.

Genuis also made special mention of former MPs and Ataullahjan, who introduced similar bills over the last 15 years.

“Lots of people have been involved in this effort,” he said, “but the biggest contribution has been the community that has gone out and gathered petitions, signatures, people whose names aren’t as well known but who have done the work on the ground of advocating to their MPs, as well as organizing.”

After the vote, the three groups marched eastward along Wellington Street to the Chinese Embassy, where they held a rally and celebrated the victory of the passing of S-223.

Speaking just before the march started, Conservative MP Arnold Viersen said he has presented hundreds of petitions in the House of Commons calling for the end of the forced organ harvesting in China, and for the federal government to do something about it.

Viersen also paid tribute to Kilgour’s contribution to the anti-organ harvesting movement.

“He was really the one that is the inspiration for me for working on this issue and he has done a lot of the hard work. This has been over 15 years in the making. It’s a big day for celebration,” he said.

“The Falun Gong community has been a real big part of this journey to get us to this day.”

Inherent Dignity

The celebration continued after the march as the groups gathered at a reception held in the Wellington Building on Parliament Hill, where Genuis delivered remarks on the historic win.

“[Everyone possesses a] God-given dignity as human beings, and what we are trying to do when we speak about human rights is defend the idea of the inherent worth and dignity of all human beings—no matter where they live, no matter what faith they practice, no matter how big or how small they are, how old how young, how dependent or independent—that dignity is inherent in all human beings,” he said.

He added that Bill S-223 is special because it is an extraterritorial application of criminal law.

“That’s us saying in our Criminal Code, we are prepared to prosecute crimes that are committed by Canadians beyond our borders,” he said.

“That’s an expression of our commitment to universal human solidarity, to not just punish torture crimes and injustice that happened here in Canada, but to be willing to use our Criminal Code to say that certain things done to a human being are wrong and should be prosecuted not only if they happen here, but wherever they happen in the world, because they are universally wrong.”

Ataullahjan, who also attended the reception, said the passing of Bill S-223 is “a good day to celebrate.” The senator had attempted four times in the last five years to get similar bills passed.

“We have seen organ harvesting is growing, it’s not getting less,” she told The Epoch Times. “And I think Canada was one of the few countries that we weren’t in line with our allies. Most of them had legislation, and we did not have legislation, so this legislation was long overdue, and I’m very very happy that finally we managed to get it done.”

Conservative MP Tako van Popta said Canadians “always stand up for human rights” when asked what impact the passing of Bill S-223 will have in Canada and around the world.

“So I think this just stands with compliance how Canadians think,” he told The Epoch Times. “As much as we do love China, we do want minorities around the world to be protected.”

In an interview after the reception, Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant said she first learned about Falun Gong, and the atrocities the Chinese Communist Party inflicted on adherents, from fellow MP Scott Reid when she was elected in 2000.

“What struck me is we have so many people who are indifferent toward it, and now, after two decades, finally achieving this milestone” she said.

“So more and more people are becoming aware, and hopefully this horrific practice will draw to a close and the people of China will rise up and take control of their own destinies.”

‘The Terrible Practice of Organ Harvesting’

Before entering House to vote on Bill S-223, Conservative MP Michael Chong said Canada needs to take a stronger approach against authoritarian regimes while standing up for democracy and the rule of law.

“We need to take a stronger stand on defending our values, our belief in democracy, our belief in freedom, our belief in human rights and the rule of law, and that begins here at home by passing measures like this bill here today at the House of Commons that will prohibit people in this country from participating in the terrible practice of organ harvesting, particularly political prisoners,” he told The Epoch Times.

Chong, the Conservative’s shadow minister for foreign affairs, said the approach taken by Western democracies toward authoritarian regimes is wrong-headed.

“After the fall of the Berlin Wall, we thought that the best way to improve the human rights records of authoritarian regimes like the Russian Federation, and the People’s Republic of China, was to deepen and broaden ties with these countries through trade and investment,” he said.

“I think the events of the last several years, whether it’s in the People’s Republic of China—with the rise of presidency Xi [Jinping] and its crackdown on minorities, like Tibetans, Uyghurs, Christian minorities, Hong Kongers, and so many other people—or whether it’s the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine, I think that assumption now has been proven false.”

Past Bills

While testifying before a Senate committee last April about Bill S-204, Bill S-223’s predecessor, Kilgour noted that many countries already have laws in place to combat organ trafficking, and said it’s “embarrassing” that Canada doesn’t yet have such legislation.

The first iteration of the bill was proposed by former Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj back in 2008. His Bill C-500 was introduced in February of that year but died when Parliament was dissolved. In 2009, he made a second attempt with Bill C-381, which also died when Parliament was dissolved.

In 2013, then-Liberal MP Irwin Cotler introduced similar legislation, Bill C-561, which didn’t manage to pass into law. After Cotler retired, Genuis reintroduced the legislation as Bill C-350 in the 42nd Parliament, but it only completed a first reading.

In December 2019, Ataullahjan put forth Bill S-204, but after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament in 2020, all legislative business ceased and the bill had only passed its first reading at the Senate.

All three MPs have said their efforts to fight organ harvesting crimes was inspired by Matas and Kilgour’s book “Bloody Harvest.”

In 2016, Matas, Kilgour, and investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann jointly published a 680-page report on forced organ harvesting in China. They estimated that Chinese hospitals performed 60,000 to 100,000 transplant surgeries on a yearly basis, and that the chief source of the organs was Falun Gong practitioners.

Moral Principle

Speaking in Parliament on Dec. 5, Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi, a co-sponsor of Bill S-223, said the bill is a critical piece of legislation that would “help us address a grave and serious human rights concern” and sends a “clear and strong signal that we as a country do not accept this [crime].”

Zuberi noted that the Criminal Code does not address criminality with regard to organ harvesting outside of Canada, which the bill aims to address.

Genuis said Bill S-223 recognizes a basic moral principle that killing people or exploiting them for their organs is wrong and should be stopped anywhere it occurs.

“The absence of any limits on national sovereignty aimed at protecting universal human rights would create a reality in which we would look the other way when nations would commit the most dastardly crimes toward their own people,” he said in the House on Dec. 5.

“Any moral person who believes in justice and universal human dignity must, at a certain point, refuse to consent to allowing certain evils to be committed in the name of national sovereignty.”

‘Barbaric Practices’

NDP MP Alistair MacGregor said he was glad there is recognition among MPs that Bill S-223 is an important and long-overdue change to criminal law.

“I think it sends a strong message to people who live around the world, who are not only facing these barbaric practices under regimes such as China,” he said on Dec. 5.

Bloc Québécois MP Kristina Michaud said it is the duty of MPs to legislate Bill S-223 because it is “a step in the right direction when it comes to fighting organ trafficking.”

“This is a matter of organized crime with many offenders, recruiters, transporters, hospital clinic personnel, health professionals who carry out the surgery, intermediaries, buyers, organ banks—there are many actors involved,” she said.

During the second debate of the bill’s third reading on Dec. 7, Conservative MP James Bezan noted that though Bill S-223 is receiving support from all parties, parliamentarians need to ensure “we can step up” to sanction those involved in the illicit organ trade from entering Canada by using the Magnitsky Law.

“They are hiding their wealth, taking advantage of our strong banking system, taking advantage of our fairly robust real estate market, and capitalizing on the illicit gains they have been able to achieve because of this illegal trade in organs,” he said.

“We also need to make sure that those who know they are purchasing organs through this gross human rights violation of illegal organ harvesting face the full cost and full force of law here in Canada.”

Andrew Chen, Donna Ho, Limin Zhou, and Noe Chartier contributed to this report.

Federal Reserve policymakers voted on Dec. 14 to raise the benchmark federal funds rate by 50 basis points to a target range of 4.25–4.5 percent, the highest level since late 2007.

The Fed’s policy-making arm, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), has boosted interest rates seven times since March, totaling 425 basis points.

During a post-meeting press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said there’s still a long way to go in the fight against inflation. Most officials now anticipate raising rates above 5 percent next year, which is higher than previously projected.

“I wouldn’t see us considering rate cuts until the committee is confident that inflation is moving down to 2 percent in a sustained way,” Powell said.

In order to establish the pace of rate hikes, the central bank will look at cumulative tightening, economic and financial developments, and policy lags.

“Recent indicators point to modest growth in spending and production. Job gains have been robust in recent months, and the unemployment rate has remained low. Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher food and energy prices, and broader price pressures,” the FOMC said in a statement.

“Russia’s war against Ukraine is causing tremendous human and economic hardship. The war and related events are contributing to upward pressure on inflation and are weighing on global economic activity. The committee is highly attentive to inflation risks.”

Each FOMC member voted for the December monetary policy action. The decision indicates a deceleration from the 75 basis-point pace observed in the four prior meetings.

“Of course, 50 basis points is still a historically large increase, and we still have some ways to go,” Powell said.

The FOMC also released the dot plot, a chart that records every Fed official’s projection for interest rates.

The central bank expects that interest rates will climb to 5.1 percent in 2023, up from 4.6 percent in September forecasts. The officials anticipate median interest rates to ease to 4.1 percent in 2024 and 3.1 percent in 2025. The fed funds rate will then slow to 2.5 percent.

Despite market expectations for a “dovish pivot” in response to a better-than-expected November inflation report, the Fed stayed the course and maintained its hawkish message, according to Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West.

“This hawkish median dot plot, if realized, does keep the risk of a recession for the U.S. economy next year at an elevated level,” he wrote in an email.

According to the Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections (pdf), board members forecast that inflation will fall to around 2 percent by 2025.

The U.S. economy will expand just 0.5 percent in 2023, down from 1.2 percent in the September projection. The gross domestic product will also advance by 1.6 percent in 2024 and 1.8 percent in 2025. The median unemployment rate is seen rising to 4.6 percent in 2023 and 2024 and dipping slightly to 4.5 percent in 2025.

Financial markets erased their gains following the announcement, with all three leading benchmark indexes ending in the red.

The slowing inflation rate and strong jobs growth are giving the Fed enough ammunition to continue to tighten without worrying about triggering a recession, according to Mikhail Kouliavtsev, chair of the department of economics and finance at Stephen F. Austin State University.

“On the one hand, this gives the Fed a green[er] light to continue to fight inflation without fearing an immediate onset of a recession; on the other hand, strong wage growth is part of the problem: the so-called inflationary spiral is the cycle of rising wages, increased spending, upward pressure on prices, the need to adjust wages, and so on,” he wrote in a report.

At the same time, Ralph Axel, longtime interest-rate strategist at Bank of America, believes there will be multiple Fed pivots.

“We think markets have become too complacent about how simple the trajectory of the Fed, and, therefore, of markets, will be,” Axel said in a note. “The current market view is that it’s a single battle and once victory is declared, the game is over.”

Inflation or the Fed?

This decision comes after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the annual inflation rate eased to 7.1 percent in November, while the core inflation rate slowed to 6 percent. Looking ahead to the December Consumer Price Index, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s Inflation Nowcast model suggests a reading of 6.8 percent.

Eric Peters, CEO of One River Asset Management, doesn’t believe the odds are in the Fed’s favor to bring the benchmark rate anywhere near 2 percent.

“We’re probably moving to an environment where inflation is between 3, 4, or 5 percent. Sometimes it goes a bit higher, sometimes it goes a little bit lower, but when you look at previous periods of higher inflation, they also have a lot of inflation volatility. So that’s what we need to live through right now,” Peters recently told Magnifi+, an AI-investing and trading platform.

Some analysts say that there are many factors in place that will continue to boost inflation and make it more volatile for longer.

“We’re going to see in the early part of the year inflation heading in the direction of the consensus, and that’s going to make people feel pretty good about it. But we don’t think that it will sustain those levels. We think we’re going to end up with a materially higher inflation rate,” he said.

ING also believes long-term factors could push up inflation again, citing higher gasoline prices, deglobalization efforts, climate change policies, and extreme weather.

“Against this background of gradually declining but structurally higher inflation, the key question is what central banks will do if core inflation doesn’t return fully to target over the next 12 to 18 months,” the bank wrote in a recent note. “One option would be to keep policy rates high or higher for longer. The other option could be to become more flexible once inflation falls much lower. But it does suggest a return to consistently below-neutral interest rates is less likely in the medium-term.”

The next FOMC policy meeting will take place in February 2023; most investors see a softer increase of 25 basis points, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Nearly two years after U.S. President Joe Biden ordered a halt to construction on the wall between the United States and Mexico, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Dec. 13 that it will work to close gaps along the border project.

Biden’s 2020 campaign promise was that he wouldn’t build “one more foot” of the border wall, which was one of former President Donald Trump’s most prominent objectives.

The Biden administration is faced with the end of Title 42, which is set to expire on Dec. 21. The DHS has said that could lead to an estimated 9,000 to 14,000 illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico into the United States every day.

Created as part of the Public Health Service Act under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, Title 42 was designed to prevent the introduction of contagious diseases in the United States.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Trump administration invoked the order to restrict migrant entry into the United States.

For the 12 months that ended on Sept. 30, Customs and Border Protection stopped migrants more than 2.76 million times, compared with 1.72 million times in fiscal year 2021, which was the previous high.

Once Title 42 is lifted, the number of migrants that U.S. Border Patrol agents must process will “likely be double or greater,” according to a DHS Office of Inspector General report released in September.

In addition to closing seven “small gaps” in the wall in the Yuma, Arizona, sector and filling in another space in the El Paso, Texas, sector, crews will also work on environmental issues surrounding the wall and finish building roads, according to the DHS.

Overall, the new work will occur in the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector, which includes western Arizona and part of eastern California, and the El Paso sector, which covers western Texas and New Mexico.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas indicated last year that gaps in the wall would have to be closed, but the DHS has been slow to move forward with the task.

The gaps have allowed illegal immigrants to enter the United States and add to the record number of illegal border activity that has escalated since Biden took office in January 2021.

Building the border wall was one of Trump’s most widely discussed campaign promises in 2016. The Trump administration erected more than 450 miles of fencing and had planned on adding about 300 more miles of construction.

After Biden took office, crews were permitted to fill in holes and tie down loose materials, but they were ordered to halt construction.

A Government Accountability Office audit conducted in 2021 discovered that 69 miles of the wall constructed during the Trump administration includes all of the necessary technology and roads.

Construction at some parts of the wall created environmental issues that need repairs, which will take place as part of the new project, according to the DHS.

This work will include installing drainage systems, adding safety features to roadways and remediating some construction sites between El Paso and San Diego, the DHS stated.

“Prior to work, the Department of Homeland Security will work closely with stakeholders, including impacted landowners, tribal, state and local elected officials, and federal agencies to seek input and help on prioritizing potential remediation activities within each sector,” the DHS said in a statement.

Border Patrol agents have frequently emphasized the importance of a wall to help control illegal immigration.

In El Paso, Border Patrol stated that its agents are stopping migrants about 2,400 times per day on average, compared with approximately 1,700 each day in previous months.

The migration rate into Texas from Mexico has recently spiked with the rapidly approaching end of Title 42.

Migrants processed under the policy aren’t permitted to request asylum in the United States and are removed from the country.

On paper, Title 42 covers the Canada and Mexico borders and migrants of all nationalities. It has mostly been used along the southern border to remove illegal immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador from the United States.

One of Biden’s first actions as president was ending the “Remain in Mexico” policy implemented under Trump.

Under that law, asylum-seekers were required to remain in Mexico while their asylum claims were processed. Figures show that the policy discouraged false asylum claims and decreased the number of illegal immigrants attempting to cross the border.

Mayorkas said on Dec. 13 that the department is preparing for the lifting of Title 42.

“Economic and political instability around the world is fueling the highest levels of migration since World War II, including throughout the Western Hemisphere,” he said. “The surge in global migration is testing many nations’ systems, including our own.

“The Title 42 public health order remains in place through December 20, 2022, and until then, DHS will continue to expel single adults and families encountered at the southwest border under that authority.”

When Title 42 expires, the DHS will transition from Title 42 to Title 8 processing.

Title 8 is a federal law that allows expulsions if illegal immigrants don’t qualify for asylum.

In fiscal year 2022, Border Patrol removed 1.1 million under Title 8 compared with roughly 1 million illegal immigrants under Title 42.

“We know that smugglers will spread misinformation to take advantage of vulnerable migrants,” Mayorkas said. “Let me be clear: Title 42 or not, those unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States will be removed.”

Some lawmakers believe that the Biden administration hasn’t done enough to maintain border security.

On Dec. 13, a bipartisan group of Democratic and Republican members of Congress sent a letter to the White House urging that Title 42 remain in place past Dec. 21.

The letter, written by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), was sent to Biden. In it, the legislators request that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extend Title 42.

“We have a crisis at our southern border. Never before in our nation’s history have we experienced this scope and scale of illegal border crossings, and we remain concerned that your administration has not provided sufficient support or resources to the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who are tasked with maintaining border security,” the lawmakers wrote.

“DHS has not outlined a viable plan to maintain operational control of the southern border. This situation is untenable, and we must work together to keep in place DHS’s authority to quickly expel migrants until an acceptable set of alternative policies and resources is put into place.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Recently, various health agencies around the world have approved and are actively pushing for another COVID booster shot, meant to enhance the vaccine efficacy against a COVD-19 infection.

However, many studies have found that the boosters do not make a significant  difference in protection, especially in terms of protection against reinfection. In fact, the latest data shows vaccine efficacy against the coronavirus tends to even drop into the negatives after just a few months.

What Does Negative Efficacy Mean?

It is a well known fact that COVID vaccine effectiveness wanes quickly as time goes on; this is confirmed by countless studies.

Although the official narrative for COVID-19 vaccines nowadays only emphasizes its efficacy on protection against ICU admission and death rates, it actually implies the indisputable fact that vaccines don’t protect, contrary to their design, against infection or even symptomatic infection, especially after the emergence of various Omicron variants.

Even the protection two shots offers against hospitalization drops to about 40 percent after less than a year. It’s actually looking worse for protection against severe symptoms, as efficacy rates seem to drop into the negatives about five months into full vaccination.

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When a vaccine’s efficacy drops into the negatives, it means that vaccination actually elevates the risks of hospitalization and severe diseases rather than reducing the risks. In simple terms, it does more harm than good when the efficacy is negative.

During the time prior to the pandemic, any vaccine with an efficacy less than 50 percent would be regarded as a poor product.  When a product shows negative efficacy, it should be banned. It seems that the pandemic isn’t only bad for our health, but also is tugging at our common sense.

COVID Vaccines’ Declining Usefulness

It has been around three years since the first COVID-19 case was discovered in Wuhan, China. Since then, more than 600 million cases of the virus have been recorded, translating into a little less than 1 in 10 people around the world already being infected with the virus. In many countries, “living with COVID” has become the norm, along with getting “fully vaccinated” and getting those booster shots.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is recommended that everyone 6 months and older should receive a full vaccination and everyone 5 years and older should receive a booster shot. Booster shots are recommended as they “are an important part of protecting yourself from getting seriously ill or dying from COVID-19” according to the CDC.

However, emerging data paints a different picture.

At its crux, the vaccines were developed with the earlier strains of the coronavirus, meaning developers primarily used the original Wuhan strain in their testing. The Delta strain that came along was particularly infamous as it was known to have a high death rate, but vaccines fared quite well against it. The results, however, went south as time went on and as the Omicron strain rolled out.

Trying to Outrun Nature

Making its debut in South Africa, the Omicron strain started to dominate the world by the beginning of 2022, which caused even more turmoil in terms of vaccine efficacy. The most shocking result is the extent it dragged down the vaccine’s efficacy against infection. Data shows that the vaccine used to be around 90 percent effective for weeks on end after vaccination.

After Omicron came along, infection prevention dropped to less than 50 percent after about a month after two shots and dived into the negatives four months later. It doesn’t seem to stop after that.

This clearly suggests that the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns should’ve been suspended as soon as the Omicron variant began to dominate over Delta.

In a study which analyzed COVID-19 cases from the beginning of this year in children that were previously infected, it was discovered that vaccine effectiveness wasn’t keeping up with pre-Omicron levels. The effects of a full vaccination against a second infection drops into the negatives within a few months, and it seems that the earlier one got the vaccination, the more likely it would lose its efficacy during the omicron waves.

The results from a September 2022 British Medical Journal study highlights again the fact that vaccine potency drops rapidly with time. It concluded that protection against severe symptoms drops well below half within a few weeks of administering the full two doses, or even after a third dose is administered. It also showed that in the immunocompromised, two doses never had an efficacy rate against hospitalization over 50 percent. Things do look a little better for three doses, but not by much.

Another study published data on the efficacy of the third dose relative to primary doses and found that the mean efficacy of three doses of the Moderna vaccine against the Omicron variants are, in fact, below 0.

It is interesting to note a logical assumption made by many, which is that the more you take the vaccine the better prepared you are against the virus, isn’t necessarily true.

Data published shows that neutralizing antibody count doesn’t necessarily correlate with the number of doses.

They found that people who took the fourth dose sometimes had higher, but mostly lower, antibody concentrations in the body compared with those who took the third dose.

Also, the hazard ratio calculated by researchers for the third and fourth vaccine doses provide us with mixed results. Sometimes, it seems like a good option to stick with the third dose, as the hazard ratio actually rises for taking the second booster compared with the first one.

One possible reason vaccine data is going downhill after Omicron appeared is that the new variant had a lot of changes in its spike protein composition.

This changes the way the virus enters the body and allows it to better “bypass” the security system set up by the old vaccines, which were developed from the very first SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan strain. One can understand it as if the variants have new toys to play with the old security guards.

Another potential mechanism that leads to the significant decline of vaccine efficacy is that repeated vaccination also damages people’s immunity via immune imprinting, a phenomenon in which an initial exposure to a virus–such as the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, by infection or vaccination–limits a person’s future immune response against variants.

Meanwhile, there are numerous underlying factors that would contribute to the disease’s progression from mild to severe, or even into fatal stages. Even if the vaccination groups during clinical trials were carefully chosen to have similar comorbid medical conditions as the control or unvaccinated group, there are still many other unknown factors that would dictate the outcome of the disease progression.

It is inconceivable and overtly overambitious that any pharmaceutical company would aim so high to design a vaccine which can protect against severe diseases from the onset of research, especially since the resulting vaccine can’t seem to keep up with preventing infection in the first place.

If a vaccine reaches negative efficacy, it means that people have higher chances to get infected than if you didn’t get the shot in the first place, meaning that not getting vaccinated might just reduce the chance of infection, unwanted symptoms, and severe disease. This is not just a vaccine failure or breakthrough infection issue, but a good time to halt COVID vaccines for good. Humans will never win in this cat-and-mouse game against nature.

Are Previous Infections Still Protective?

As time goes on, the likelihood of reinfection is quite high. Studies do show that in reinfected people the chances of death, hospitalization, and some form of sequela is much higher in those infected for the first time. It also seems like a logical conclusion for the CDC to recommend that everyone gets vaccinated.

However, the data we have is rather conflicting as the aforementioned study doesn’t show much of a difference between the unvaccinated, the half vaccinated, or the fully vaccinated. They all have just about the same values for cardiovascular, thrombotic, renal, or pulmonary sequelae post infection, or chances of getting a tough COVID-19 infection in the first place.

Data also shows that previously infected and unvaccinated children were better at preventing a second infection compared with children who were in the same age category but who were vaccinated. Generally speaking, vaccine induced immunity doesn’t seem to be quite as effective as that induced by a previous, natural infection.

What this essentially means is that the vaccines cannot keep up with the constantly emerging variants and that a waning efficacy was frankly inevitable. The only question left is, what is the driving force behind the Omicron variants, or SARS-CoV-2 variants on a broad scale? What accounts for variants emerging at the same time around the world?

Microevolution cannot explain everything.

Over the past 3 years, scientists have applied the theory of evolution to describe and explain the trajectory of SARS-CoV-2. Delta was the deadly variant and now Omicron is the road runner. In theory, the virus developed these strains to best adapt to the objective environment, yet scientists are still looking for more answers.

For example, when much of the world’s population was in different degrees of “lockdown” or restriction of movements, when international travel was severely impaired, how did the Alpha and Delta variants emerge and quickly spread widely, and even become dominant globally?

If the only factor that determines which variant to become dominant or not was its fitness, i.e., its transmissibility and replication efficiency, why were there not multiple variants with better fitness that emerged and all became dominant regionally, just like how divergent strains of flowers blossom at the same time in distinct locations? Why does it appear as if there is a coordinating force behind the virus such that one strain was able to uniformly retire the previous one?

In order to answer all these questions, I believe that there needs to be a more holistic evaluation of the current pandemic. At the same time, it’s important to note that viruses adapt to the vaccines, and not the other way around.

There were plenty of outbreaks in the past, such as measles and polio, but they all disappeared with time. Many times when pandemics traversed the earth, the pathogen was truly in an optimal state to essentially infect mankind. However, they all disappeared, and it was seldom because of some vaccine. Polio, for example, was already in its stark decline when the vaccine rolled out.

Quite similarly to today’s situation, the polio vaccine was hailed as a wunderkind, yet it played quite a small role during pandemic prevention. The findings we have today about the COVID-19 shots are similarly discouraging, perhaps because we are still in the middle of it. However, the virus is still evolving and a vaccine is not going to be the simple answer out. Omicron shows that SARS-CoV-2 is smart enough to evolve and dodge it.

The pattern is not simple and requires more deliberation to find a sophisticated answer, if human limitations even allow us to discover one in the first place. It is almost as if there were some factors at play behind the trajectory of the virus that microevolution fails to explain, because it is most likely more complex than that.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem announced on Dec. 13 new proposed legislation to restrict farmland purchases by foreign countries, namely China.

“With this new process, we will be able to prevent nations who hate us—like Communist China—from buying up our state’s agriculture land,” Noem said in a statement.

“We cannot allow the Chinese Communist Party to continue to buy up our nation’s food supply, so South Dakota will lead the charge on this vital national security issue.”

The proposed plan marked the latest step by the Republican governor to clamp down on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) influence in her state.

The statement revealed that Noem and state legislators planned to create a new board, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States–South Dakota, to review proposed agricultural land purchases by foreign entities. The board, which would consist of three ex officio members and two experts in the agricultural industry and national security, would recommend either approval or denial of land sales.

“We grow the world’s food, and we need to protect the security of that food supply for our kids,” said state Sen. Erin Tobin, a sponsor of the proposed legislation.

Besides food security concerns, lawmakers also view the land that could be owned by CCP-affiliated entities as problematic from a national security perspective.

“With vital national security resources like Ellsworth Air Force Base, we cannot afford for our enemies to purchase land in South Dakota,” said state Rep.-elect Gary Cammack, another sponsor of Noem’s proposal. “We want to keep this land in the hands of South Dakota agriculture producers.”

Chinese Purchase of US Farmland

The plan comes amid growing scrutiny of U.S. farmland being owned by Chinese investors. In September, 51 House Republicans raised national security concerns about the sale of 370 acres of farmland in North Dakota to Fufeng Group, an entity with close ties to the CCP.

Related Coverage

National Security Concerns Mount as Chinese Company Builds Major Plant Near North Dakota Military Base

The Chinese agribusiness proposed to set up a corn mill plant on the site. The proposed project is located about 12 miles from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, home to sensitive U.S. drone, satellite, and surveillance technology.

The site could become “the ideal location to closely monitor and intercept” the Air Force base’s “exceptional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter dated Sept. 26 addressed to several Biden administration secretaries.

Despite strong pushback from lawmakers and local residents, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) stated that it wouldn’t block the deal, because the farmland purchase is “not a covered transaction” under the panel’s jurisdiction, according to a Dec. 13 statement from CFIUS Staff Chair Andrew Fair.

The total value of Chinese-owned U.S. agricultural land has jumped more than 20-fold in the past 10 years, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2020, Chinese-owned U.S. agricultural lands were worth more than $1.8 billion, compared to $81 million in 2010.

A total of 14 states have introduced plans to restrict foreign acquisitions on U.S. soil, according to Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). The two Republican senators are pushing for a federal-level ban on foreign-owned private U.S. farmland.

In South Dakota, the current law limits foreign ownership of farmland to 160 acres, according to Noem’s office.

Other Actions Against the CCP

Earlier this month, Noem had called for an immediate review of all investments to determine if taxpayer money is going to companies that “pose a threat to our national security.”

“South Dakotans deserve to know if their taxpayer dollars are being invested to benefit the Chinese Communist Party,” she said in a Dec. 8 statement.

The governor said she wanted the South Dakota Investment Council, a panel managing investment of the state’s pension, to complete the review in seven days.

“The Investment Council has ensured that South Dakota has the best-funded pension in the country. But it is not possible to make good deals with bad people,” Noem said. “If this review shows that such investment is taking place, then the Investment Council should propose alternative investment options.”

Related Coverage

TikTok Is a ‘Weaponized Military Application’: Expert

On Nov. 29, Noem signed an executive order banning state government employees and contractors from using TikTok, a popular short-video app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, on their state-owned devices because of concerns that the vast swaths of Americans’ personal data collected by the app are being used by the communist regime.

The ban came amid escalated concerns over the Chinese-owned platform, which has led to several state-level restrictions. The latest states to ban TikTok on state government electronic devices were Alabama, Utah, and Tennessee, doing so because of national security concerns.

“The Chinese Communist Party uses information that it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people, and they gather data off the devices that access the platform,” she said at the time.

Eva Fu and Jack Phillips contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been denied bail after his Dec. 12 arrest in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government.

In a hearing that lasted more than three hours on Dec. 13, Chief Magistrate Joyann Ferguson-Pratt denied Bankman-Fried’s $250,000 bail request, citing a heightened flight risk because of the former billionaire’s access to financial resources.

The judge ordered the 30-year-old to be remanded to Bahamian custody until Feb. 8, 2023.

Bankman-Fried was arrested by Bahamas law enforcement at the request of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who notified the Bahamas Attorney General’s Office that it had filed criminal charges against the former crypto billionaire, who once had an estimated net worth of $26 billion.

An extradition treaty has been in place between the United States and the Bahamas since 1994. Bahamas Attorney General Sen. Ryan Pinder said the United States would likely request Bankman-Fried’s extradition and he intends to quickly process it. Bankman-Fried’s legal team reportedly told the court they plan to fight any extradition order to the United States.

“Mr. Bankman-Fried is reviewing the charges with his legal team and considering all of his legal options,” Mark Cohen, legal counsel to Bankman-Fried, stated in an email.

Prosecutors Announce Multiple Charges

Prosecutors and regulators including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have filed charges against Bankman-Fried, including wire fraud, as well as conspiracies to commit wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and fraud against the United States.

He faces up to 115 years behind bars if he’s convicted of all eight charges.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler said the former FTX boss “built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto” and orchestrated a scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX.

The CFTC has charged Bankman-Fried with fraud and material misrepresentations and claimed that his actions prompted the loss of over $8 billion in FTX customer deposits. In a statement, the CFTC accused FTX of commingling customer funds with that of its sister hedge fund, Alameda Research.

According to an indictment (pdf) unsealed on Dec. 13, U.S. prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried engaged in a scheme to defraud FTX’s customers by misappropriating those customers’ deposits and using them to pay the expenses and debts of Alameda Research.

They also accuse him of making “tens of millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions” to both Democratic and Republican candidates and campaign committees that were not under his name, according to Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Bahamas-based FTX was once valued at $32 billion after raising $400 million from investors in the latest round of funding, and Bankman-Fried became known for his philanthropic lifestyle, becoming the second-largest individual donor to the Democratic Party, while also claiming to have contributed a similar amount to Republicans.

Bankman-Fried Denies Committing Fraud

However, in November, the crypto exchange spectacularly collapsed amid a liquidity crisis after it was revealed that Alameda had been using FTX customer assets to keep it propped up. A potential rescue deal by larger rival Binance was subsequently pulled and traders rushed to pull billions from the platform.

FTX filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11. Millions of people who used the exchange have been left unable to access their crypto wallets.

According to a court filing, FTX owed its 50 largest creditors almost $3.1 billion.

Despite the exchange’s collapse, and looming questions regarding billions in missing funds, Bankman-Fried has continued to give interviews to various media outlets and recently spoke at The New York Times DealBook Summit on Nov. 30.

During such interviews, he has repeatedly denied committing any fraud at FTX but has admitted to making multiple “mistakes” while heading the company.

In an interview with the BBC published on Dec. 10, he revealed plans to set up a new business in an effort to pay back investors who have lost billions of dollars.

“I’m going to be thinking about how we can help the world and if users haven’t gotten much back, I’m going to be thinking about what I can do for them,” he said. “And I think at the very least, I have a duty to FTX users to do right by them as best as I can.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

‘I’m nothing special. But I’m special with God.’

Plagued by intrusive bad thoughts, a Maryland teen turned to drugs and sex amid the women’s liberation movement of the ’70s to escape from herself. Selling herself on the streets of the U.S. capital to pay for her daily crack cocaine, guilt and shame overcame her. It was only after becoming reacquainted with God that she found a way to reclaim her life.

Today, 63-year-old Lisa Kratz Thomas is a public speaker, author of three books, and prisoner reentry advocate living in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband, Joseph, and two children. She works for the Department of Corrections and Prison Fellowship, traveling the United States to tell her story and spread a message of hope and God’s love. She has spoken in front of 12,000 students at Liberty University’s Convocation and has hosted a weekly radio show for two years.

Her mission is: no life is a throwaway, all lives matter.

“One of the questions that people ask me is, ‘How did your life get off track so desperately and so quickly?’ Lisa told The Epoch Times. “The evil forces in our world, they don’t just start when somebody’s 16 or 17. They start working on you much earlier in life.”

But she says God’s saving grace can pull such broken people out from the pit of hell. “You’re not what you did. You’re not your mistakes. You are not your sin. Those can be forgiven. But you use those to propel yourself to be able to be a blessing to other people,” she said.

Good or Bad: It Starts in the Mind

Lisa recalls walking home from her all-girls Catholic elementary school at the age of five. Crossing a bridge, she would stop and look at the water, thinking, “If I fell in, nobody would miss me; if I fell in, the world would be better off.”

“I thought that God made two kinds of people. He made good people, and he made bad people, and I just happened to be one of the bad people,” Lisa said. “I never felt like I could articulate those things to my parents … I kept everything inside.

“As I grew, those things just were nurtured and they bloomed into who I thought I was. When you don’t have faith, and you are hearing all these negative things, they become truth.

“If I had known God loves me, that I was special to Him, that He had a plan for my life, and that He was going to be with me, [then] there would have been no room for those thoughts that said, ‘You’re no good. You’re a bad girl. Nobody loves you. You’re not valued.’ I would’ve had something to counteract them.”

Lisa started drinking alcohol at 14. When the drink hit her system, all inhibitions and negative feelings disappeared. At 15, she lost her virginity.

“When you look back, I was craving this love, this affection, and this attention … I was just so uncomfortable in my own skin that I would do anything to help me escape,” she explained.

At 18, Lisa moved out of her parents’ house and rented an apartment in Washington, DC. She was hired by a law firm as a legal secretary and had a bright career path ahead of her until she was seduced by the local nightlife. She started bartending and met a drug dealer who became her boyfriend, and later her pimp.

The man introduced Lisa to crack cocaine. But, since the drug made him paranoid, he also lashed out.

“I never thought about a consequence at all … [crack] just became the love of my life,” Lisa said. “I was willing to get beat up over it, I was willing to go to jail because of it, I was willing to do whatever I had to do to stay high on the drug.”

Deeper Into the Pit of Hell

Lisa was 19 the first time she became pregnant. She had been “brainwashed” at her all-girls Catholic high school into believing that a 10-week-old fetus is “nothing more than tissue,” so she went to a clinic in Washington, D.C., and aborted her baby. The experience haunts her to this day.

She recalled: “It was done by a doctor who was extremely famous; later on he got prosecuted for killing a girl during an abortion … when he started to perform the abortion, something in me knew that it was wrong. I started crying, and I remember he said, ‘Shut up, why are you crying now?’ It was devastating.”

Heartbroken, Lisa sank deeper into her life of degradation. Desperate to stay high, she endured a broken nose, broken arm, broken eardrum, cracked ribs, and an attempt to set her on fire at the hands of her violent boyfriend. They ended up on the streets for two years and in her early twenties Lisa turned to prostitution to fund their drug habit. When the pair turned to writing bad checks, the law caught up with Lisa.

“I went into a bar to get a check and the police were there, waiting,” she said. “They took me to jail … looking back, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Lisa was incarcerated at Arlington County Jail in Virginia for 12 months in 1990. It was the first time that she hadn’t been under the influence of a mind-altering substance since the age of 14.

Change Begins With God

Lisa had an interaction during her jail time that hit her to the core.

“One night, the correctional officer on duty called me out of population,” Lisa said. “She sat me down at her desk, looked at me, and said, ‘Lisa, what are you doing here?’ Of course I started to recite all my charts, and she said, ‘No, I’m not asking what you did. I want to know what a woman like you is doing living in a place like this.’

“When I got into that jail, I felt like discarded trash. But I’m telling you, I walked out of there feeling like maybe, possibly, that changed my mind.”

It would take another round of violence before Lisa saw the light. Upon leaving jail, she met her boyfriend, went for pizza and beer, paid with a bad check, and returned to their hotel to get high. Lisa was beaten up that night. She walked out of the hotel and sat on the curb.

“I looked up and I said, ‘If you’re real you need to change me, or you kill me, but I cannot live like this anymore.’ That was literally the beginning of the change,” she said.

Lisa took her life back into her own hands. She joined a 12 Step program and was immediately struck by how happy her fellow attendees seemed to be.

“These people were talking about a loving God, a God that wanted to see us succeed,” Lisa said, “but you had to take responsibility for some of the things you had done in your life, and you had to make amends. You had to go on making your best attempt every day to surrender to God, and to do the next right thing in front of him.”

Lisa attended her first 12 Step meeting on April 5, 1991. Now, 31 years sober, she still attends meetings today. She met her husband, Joseph, when she was a year sober, and credits him for his unconditional support. But Lisa’s past haunted the couple in the early years of their marriage when they started trying for a family.

“Every month I got my period … it was devastating. All I ever wanted to be was a mother. That’s really when I have an even closer relationship with the Lord,” she said.

“I always wondered, did the drinking perpetuate the abortion? Or did the abortion perpetuate the drinking and the drug use? It was such a vicious cycle, because abortion just undermines your authority as a woman. It takes the very thing that God gave you.”

Lisa prayed for forgiveness. One day, while writing in her journal, she penned a message from God: “Lisa, I love you, and your children are in Heaven waiting for you. They forgive you, and so do I.”

Lisa and Joseph welcomed a daughter and a son and raised them in faith. Lisa’s relationship with God grew stronger than ever before.

‘It’s in the Valleys That You Grow’

In 2003, Lisa started a prisoner reentry program for women, New Vision, to help incarcerated women transition back to society. She ran the program for nine years, building a residential home with funding from Doris Buffett, and celebrated a zero percent recidivism rate for all women who came through the program.

One of the biggest challenges in getting the program off the ground was Lisa’s residual self-doubt, but the success of the program spoke for itself. After nine years, Lisa felt called by God to move on to a new project.

“I served on a Senate subcommittee that studied reentry,” she said. “I was able to submit bills to the General Assembly that were passed and put into law.

“It’s kind of funny, because here I am; I’m a high school-educated former offender, recovering drug addict, sitting on this committee with the Assistant Attorney General, the head of department corrections, and I thought, ‘Well I’m here, one way or another. I might not ever be asked back, but while I’m here we’re going to do something!’”

Today, a happy mom of two, Lisa champions the pro-life movement and has used her radio show to garner traction for her message. “I wanted to know if there’s any women who do not regret their abortion after 10 years. No one called in,” Lisa said. She firmly believes abortion is a “coward’s way out.”

“There are other options,” she said. “There are three families for every infant born, waiting to adopt the baby. If you abort that baby, not only will that baby die, but the very innate nature of you as a woman will die with it. Every life has value.”

Lisa raised her kids with honesty and transparency, sharing her story little by little as they grew.

“We would have conversations when they were little about God, about how you live your life, about what’s good, what’s right, what’s moral,” she said. “We would pray together … a personal relationship with God was so celebrated.”

Lisa’s 25-year-old son is married, very involved with his church, and recently passed the bar exam. He wants to work with disenfranchised communities. Her 28-year-old daughter had a liver transplant seven years ago, despite never drinking or smoking. But her faith gave her the resolve she needed to stay strong.

“We always say, ‘The mountain tops are glorious, but it’s in the valleys that you grow,’” she said.

To date, Lisa has penned three books: “Overcoming Obstacles of Re-entry,” “This Is Your Life – Not A Dress Rehearsal,” and “Light In Our Darkness.” She believes in justice, claiming it was the consequences of her actions that pushed her to change her life.

She insisted, “I’m nothing special. But I’m special with God, and I don’t take no for an answer!”

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

An Arizona state senator and several voters in Mohave County filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State and Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs and Maricopa County officials over the Nov. 8 midterm elections, drawing a rebuke from a Maricopa supervisor.

Backed by the Mohave Republican Party, the lawsuit was filed by Borrelli in the Mohave County Superior Court against, Hobbs, a Democrat who is the top election official in Arizona, as well as Maricopa Recorder Stephen Richer, Maricopa Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, and other members of the board.

His lawsuit aims to “nullify the results” of the Nov. 8 gubernatorial election in Maricopa County, echoing similar legal challenge filed last week by GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

“Because of multiple systemic failures in the conduct of the election in Maricopa County, Arizona … the voting strength of residents in Mohave County, Arizona, was diluted and their constitutional rights were violated,” the suit said, in part.

Other than Borrelli, several unnamed Mohave County voters joined the lawsuit. The suit listed “Jane and John Doe, et al” as plaintiffs alongside the state senator.

Response

Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, a Democrat, criticized GOP state Sen. Sonny Borrelli’s filing on Twitter on Tuesday morning. He accused Borrelli of “using our judicial system to continue the frivolous and ridiculous efforts to undermine our Democracy.”

The lawsuit, he added, is “wasting the taxpayers dollars and the courts time on unfounded conspiracy,” according to his Twitter post. “Plaintiff and their attorneys must be held accountable.”

The Epoch Times has contacted Maricopa County and Hobbs’ office for comment. Neither Hobbs’ office nor Maricopa County have publicly responded.

In response to Lake’s lawsuit, which also seeks to overturn the state’s gubernatorial election, Hobbs’ team suggested it would be tossed.

“Kari Lake needs attention like a fish needs water—and independent experts and local election officials of both parties have made it clear that this was a safe, secure, and fair election,” a statement from Hobbs’ campaign said. “Arizonans made their voices heard and elected Katie Hobbs as their governor. No nuisance lawsuit will change that, and we remain laser-focused on getting ready to hit the ground running on Day One of Katie Hobbs’ administration next year.”

A spokesperson for Maricopa County told Reuters that the court system is the appropriate location for election-related challenges after Lake filed her lawsuit on Dec. 9.

Fields Moseley, the spokesman, told Reuters this week that Maricopa County, the most populous in Arizona, “looks forward to sharing facts about the administration of the 2022 General Election and our work to ensure every legal voter had an opportunity to cast their ballot.”

Certification

After the Nov. 8 midterms, Mohave County officials delayed certification of their election results and expressed uncertainty over Maricopa County’s results. They made reference to reports of ballot printer problems in dozens of Maricopa polling locations, which were confirmed by Gates and Richer during a press conference; the two Maricopa officials, however, said no voters were disenfranchised and that the printer issue was solved by later in the day.

According to Maricopa officials, some 70 of the 223 county voting centers on Nov. 8 had issues and claimed that about 16,000 ballots couldn’t be placed in tabulating machines. They told voters at the time to place their ballots in dropboxes instead.

That drew rebuke from the state Attorney General’s office, which sent a letter demanding information about Election Day-related problems.

But Mohave’s supervisors ultimately voted to certify the election in late November after its chairman, Ron Gould, claimed that he had “no choice” to vote in favor of certification or he would be “arrested and charged with a felony.”

“I don’t think that that is what the founders had in mind when they used the democratic process to elect our leaders,” he said while casting his vote.

Another Mohave Board member, Hildy Anguis, said she faced similar legal action if she did not vote in favor of certification.

“To not certify this election at all, I think, was never our intent. It would certainly disenfranchise the voters of Mohave County and hurt our candidates who worked so hard to get elected,” she said.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times