Enrollment in U.S. public schools grew by only 77,000 students in the fall of 2021 after dropping by 1.4 million the year before, according to new data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
The figures suggest that the public school system failed to gain back the confidence of the parents who withdrew children en masse in response to pandemic-era lockdowns, masking requirements, and increased dissatisfaction with K–12 education.
Public school enrollment declined by 1.4 million students between fall 2019 and fall 2020, dipping to 49.4 million, a loss of nearly 3 percent, and remains at the lowest point in more than a decade.
The decline could be closer to 2 million, according to a survey by Education Next showing that traditional public school enrollment as a percentage of all school enrollment declined sharply between 2020 and 2022.
Enrollment in traditional public schools fell from 81 percent to 76.5 percent of total enrollment during that period, while enrollment in public charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling grew by a combined 4.5 percent.
Those numbers suggest that nearly 2 million students left traditional public schools for other educational options between 2020 and 2022. The findings are based on the May 2022 survey of a national representative panel of more than 3,600 American adults commissioned by Education Next.
In many cases, the disruption in learning due to COVID-19 policies was the catalyst many parents needed to make the jump away from public schools to charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling.
Based on recent enrollment figures and the comfort many parents express with their decision to opt out of public schools, it appears the missing millions will not return.
Dissatisfaction With Learning
Parental satisfaction with K–12 education plunged between 2019 and 2022, according to Gallup. Prior to the onset of COVID-19, 51 percent of parents said they were either completely or somewhat satisfied with their child’s education. Three years later, that satisfaction level was 42 percent, the lowest in more than 20 years.
A student works on a computer at a Provo, Utah, school on Feb. 10, 2021. (George Frey/Getty Images)
Nearly a quarter of Americans, 23 percent, said they were completely dissatisfied with their child’s education.
Parent interviews conducted by The Epoch Times revealed that distance learning during school lockdowns provided a glimpse into the classroom that made parents question their school’s ability to educate their children.
“For a while, [our kids] were getting homework assigned to them by their teachers … but there was no teaching going on,” said Matt Mohler of Tallahassee, Florida. He moved his children from a state-run public school to a classical charter school in the fall of 2020.
“Once a week, they’d all get together on a classroom call, and that was the extent of what the teachers were doing. We realized that we weren’t getting a lot of effort out of the teachers.”
Maria Nicholas of Whittier, California, who began homeschooling her son in the fall of 2021, said that during the school closures, “the distance learning was eye-opening.” She said she wouldn’t have considered homeschooling if not for the lockdown, but seeing how her middle-school son thrived while at home rather than in the classroom was a factor in her decision.
Shireen Qudosi of Orange County, California, took her autistic son out of public school in October 2020. “There wasn’t even a functioning curriculum in place, which access into the classroom through remote learning confirmed.”
Mask and Vaccine Requirements
In January 2022, 65 percent of public schools tracked by data site Burbio had student masking requirements. Parent and student protests against mandatory masking erupted that month in New York, California, and Massachusetts.
The combination of public school mask policies and state vaccine mandates drove some parents to seek alternatives.
Longtime homeschooler Christine Hamman saw an influx of parents to her homeschool group during the past two years.
“COVID added people who are anti-vax and anti-masking,” she said. “Mostly, parents didn’t want their kids masked for six hours a day.”
Sara Cruz began homeschooling during the current school year after a California law expanded vaccine requirements for schoolchildren.
“When SB 276 was signed, we realized we’d be homeschooling all of our children,” Cruz said.
“I’m on the other end of this spectrum,” Nicholas said. “I’m for it, and I would like more people to have it.”
However, seeing the number of people unmasked and unvaccinated at her school caused concern for her son’s health and became a factor in her choice to withdraw her son.
“I thought they weren’t doing enough to keep the kids safe,” she said.
Parents demonstrate at a Long Island Loud Majority protest against state-mandated masks for schoolchildren on Jan. 26, 2022, at the Suffolk County government offices. (Dave Paone/The Epoch Times)
Other reasons for leaving public schools included concern over what they saw as inappropriate teaching on social issues such as sex, gender, and drug abuse, as well as student safety.
Parents don’t want their children exposed to the “radical indoctrination that the public schools are doing,” J. Allen Weston, executive director of the American Homeschool Association, told The Epoch Times.
“The school had a ‘Say No to Drugs’ campaign, but they were going into detail on what drugs were out there,” Mohler said, speaking of his daughter’s second-grade class.
“If they’re going to learn about that, they’re going to learn about that from me.”
Other parents expressed concern over bullying, the stress created by active-shooter drills, and the availability of sexual content on smartphones carried by other students.
Where They Went
Most parents who opted out of public schools over the past few years chose other educational options for their kids. Homeschooling was the choice for many, though the number of children enrolled is difficult to estimate.
“It is impossible to know the exact numbers because more than half of the states do not require parents to register as homeschoolers,” Weston said. “Or if they are required, then the state does not keep count.”
Weston reported that his organization grew by a factor of 20 over the past three years.
Heather Martinson, founder of homeschool co-op Celebration Education, told The Epoch Times that the Facebook group for homeschoolers in her area tripled to 12,000 members since January 2020.
Public charter schools, which had more than doubled to 3.4 million in the preceding decade, enrolled another 270,000 students between 2019 and 2021, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS).
Students in uniform at Voice Charter School of New York, Corona, Queens, on Sept. 18, 2014. (Petr Svab/Epoch Times)
Private school enrollment grew as well, adding more than 500,000 students in 2020 to reach 11.1 million, according to data site Statista. A study by the Cato Institute shows that more private schools gained enrollment than lost it during 2020–2021.
Some students who left public schools in 2020 entered the workforce. About 2 million students dropped out of high school that year, according to the NCES.
In 2017, the NCES found that 47 percent of high school dropouts were employed. If the percentage remained similar in 2020, that would mean more than 900,000 students left school for work that year.
Other Shifts
Though not reflected in national totals, public school enrollment in large cities has been in decline for up to 20 years in some cases. These losses appear to be driven more by demographic changes than by parents opting out of public schools.
Enrollment in Denver public schools dropped by 3 percent from 2019 to 2021, a change driven in part by low birth rates and a shrinking population, according to education news site Chalkbeat.
New York City’s public school enrollment decreased by some 38,000 students in 2020, but 9,376 of them simply crossed the river to New Jersey, according to news website Gothamist. More than 5,100 students moved from New York to Pennsylvania that year and another 5,600 to Florida.
Also, the population of New York was in decline during that time. The state lost more than 350,000 people to domestic migration between July 2020 and July 2021.
Enrollment in Los Angeles public schools has dropped 42 percent since the early 2000s, according to the online publication EdSource. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told journalists in July 2022 that recent losses are attributable partly to people moving to other states because of political ideology or the desire for lower taxes.
Return Unlikely
Relatively few students who withdrew from public schools in 2020 have returned so far. Public school enrollment rebounded by just 0.2 percent in 2021, including first-time enrollees, and remains at its lowest level since 2010.
Parents who made the choice to withdraw from public school during the past two years are highly satisfied with their choice, according to a report from NAPCS.
Nearly 90 percent of families who changed school types experienced a positive change as a result of the switch, with 57 percent saying their child was happier, according to NAPCS.
Daisley Kramer helps her kindergarten daughter, Meg, with schoolwork at home in San Anselmo, Calif., on March 18, 2020. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Most parents opting for homeschooling appear satisfied as well.
“At first I was upset about being forced to homeschool over medical decisions we were making for our children,” Cruz said.
Yet after observing what she sees as a political agenda being pushed in schools, she’s happy with the decision.
Attendance at the Celebration Education co-op has returned to 2019 levels, Martinson said, but the influx of new students is ongoing.
“Some have gone back to public schools. There’s kind of a different mindset with homeschoolers. Kids who were coming last year were more public-school minded,” Martinson said.
She theorizes that some parents viewed homeschooling as a temporary haven during lockdowns but always intended to return to public school.
Weston thinks most parents who try homeschooling won’t return to public school.
“Parents have come to understand that one to two hours of one-on-one instruction with their children is far more productive than an entire week of classroom instruction, so homeschooling takes far less time, giving the children the opportunity to explore things that they are actually interested in and that make them happy,” Weston said.
The protection provided by a second COVID-19 vaccine booster was worse than that bestowed by an initial booster, with the shielding trending negative after a period of time, according to a new study.
Protection against symptomatic infection was boosted to 64 percent for seven to 30 days after an initial Pfizer or Moderna booster when compared with the protection the person had from a primary series, researchers in France estimated. The measure is known as relative effectiveness.
The relative booster effectiveness against symptomatic infection, however, quickly dropped—reaching 33 percent 90 to 120 days after injection and 8.8 percent 150 to 180 days after infection, the French researchers found.
A second booster increased the shielding to 39 percent but the difference from the first booster turned negative after 120 days, hitting negative 32.6 percent by 210 days.
“Although additional protection with the second booster dose was achieved, it decreased over time reaching levels below 10% at >90 days post vaccine administration,” Cynthia Tamandjou and the other researchers, all with France’s national public health agency, said in their study, which was published as a preprint by medRxiv.
The lower protection from a second dose may stem from immune imprinting, or repeatedly stimulating people’s immune systems with vaccines aimed at the Wuhan virus variant.
While that approach helped protect against that variant, it hasn’t been in circulation since 2020. Omicron and its subvariants gained dominance starting in late 2021, but vaccines, apart from boosters cleared in the fall of 2022, have remained the same.
“Frequent exposure to the same antigen is to the detriment of new neutralizing responses against variant antigens,” the researchers said. They called for human clinical studies to examine the impact of immune imprinting.
The researchers arrived at the results after analyzing COVID-19 tests that were logged via government surveillance systems and conducted on people who reported COVID-19-like symptoms, including people who tested positive and people who tested negative for the disease. Only people who were aged 60 and older and who were tested between March 21, 2022, and Oct. 20, 2022, were included. People were considered vaccinated if they received a booster at least seven days before the test. Researchers ended up with 456,657 cases, and 476,834 controls.
Limitations included possible unmeasured confounding variables or factors that may influence the results, such as being vaccinated, potentially influencing the decision to get tested.
The paper was completed “as part of routine work at Public Health France,” the authors said in the section for funding disclosures. They didn’t report any other funding.
Previous research has shown that the two-dose primary series of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines work considerably worse against Omicron and its subvariants, with protection against infection nearing zero or even turning negative after a period of time. The protection against severe illness is estimated to be better but comes in lower than against earlier strains.
Booster dose protection alsowanes rapidly, researchers have found. One recent study indicated that a second booster provides negligible protection above a first.
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a cell (purple) infected with a variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (pink), isolated from a patient sample. (NIAID via The Epoch Times)
Other Recent Papers
Another recent paper on vaccine effectiveness, from the Netherlands, concluded that the effectiveness of a primary series against infection during the Delta era was 47 percent but dropped after Omicron emerged in late 2021 to negative 36 percent. Protection from a booster was estimated at negative 30 percent.
The researchers, with the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, drew from surveys that were given to people who tested positive for COVID-19 who are participating in a five-year study on vaccine effectiveness.
“During the Omicron period no direct protection against infection was found,” the researchers said.
They said they were unable to estimate the protection from a second booster because most people who weren’t vaccinated were under 60 and most people who received another booster were over 60, “resulting in a faulty comparison.”
The group also estimated what they called effectiveness against infectiousness, or transmission, and found that it was worse during the Omicron era. The effectiveness was estimated at 45 percent for index cases with a primary series and 64 percent for index cases with a first booster. Index cases were defined as a person participating in the study who tested positive first in their household. People with prior infection were excluded.
When taking into account the time since vaccination, the effectiveness of vaccines against infectiousness was strongest in the first three months and dropped to 32 percent for the primary series and 58 percent for a booster after three months.
The study period was from July 23, 2021, to Aug. 7, 2022.
The paper was published on the preprint server medRxiv. Limitations included some of the infections potentially coming from a source other than the index case.
A third paper, also from Dutch researchers and released ahead of peer review, estimated that people with a combination of vaccination and natural immunity had better protection against infection, but that additional vaccine doses didn’t increase shielding.
“This indicates that among populations with high levels of immunity, additional vaccine doses have the potential to reduce risk of any infection only temporarily,” said the researchers, who drew from the same five-year study.
Vaccination Study on the Coronavirus, or VASCO, is funded by the national government.
Pfizer and Moderna didn’t respond to requests for comment on the papers.
Goldman economist Manuel Abecasis stated in a report that available job openings in the United States have declined by a large margin without a boost to the official unemployment rate.
Abecasis says that data from advance layoff notices, which is not reflected in the Labor Department’s layoff rate numbers, suggests more people have lost their jobs over the past few months than is being reflected in official records.
The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) reports that the layoff rate was 0.9 percent as of the last day of November 2022, which corresponds to 1.35 million lost jobs.
However, Abecasis says that based on layoff notices filed under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), the actual layoff rate is 0.2 percentage points higher, which corresponds to around 1.65 million job losses.
He calculated that the actual layoff rate is 1.1 percent rather than 0.9 percent as reported in the government’s November JOLTS report.
Although the 1.1 percent unofficial layoff rate is still substantially low historically, it is significantly high enough for policymakers at the Federal Reserve, including Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, to state that the labor market is “out of balance” and is still too tight to seriously reduce inflation.
These new findings reveal a major discrepancy within the officially reported statistics regarding true U.S. unemployment numbers.
Reviewing the Contradictions in Government Data
“A key question is whether this pattern is now changing. Press reports indicate that layoffs are rising, but they tend to overemphasize the technology sector. The official JOLTS data indicate that the economy-wide layoff rate remains low, but they are released with a lag,” said Abecasis.
The Goldman analyst collected data from advance layoff notices filed under WARN, which requires companies to inform state governments and affected individuals of any plans to lay off 500 or more workers with a 60-day advance notice.
The law also applies to any companies that terminate 50 positions when an employment site is shut down, or if the number of layoffs account for at least one-third of the total workforce.
Abecasis suggested that WARN notices were well below their pre-pandemic levels, between April and August 2022, but had risen closer to the 2019 seasonal norm over the last few months.
WARN notices from December to January, from seven large states—California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio—were used by the Goldman team to create the report because their employment data were the closest to the national average and more timely than the JOLTS report.
Many of the smaller states also tend to be slower in reporting job losses compared to their larger peers.
This was the reason why Abecasis used WARN notice data from those seven states to calculate his 1.1 percent layoff rate for the period.
He further noted that the state WARN notices were more consistent with the latest employment survey data from The Conference Board (pdf), a nonprofit research group.
Philly Fed Holds Similar Analysis as Goldman Researchers
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia also came to a similar conclusion as the Goldman Sachs economist in a Dec. 13th report.
“Our estimates incorporate more comprehensive, accurate job estimates released by the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] as part of its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program to augment the sample data from the BLS’s CES that are issued monthly on a timely basis,” said the Philly Fed.
It found that instead of the 1.1 million new jobs reported by in the second quarter of 2022, the U.S. economy only added a minuscule 10,000 jobs, just as the Fed aggressively began a series of 75 basis-point rate hikes.
“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 estimated net growth of 1,047,000 jobs for the period,” the Philly Fed concluded.
Dr. Quintin Bostic, Content Manager, The Teaching Lab: “It [Teaching Lab] is like a scam lab.”
Dr. Bostic: “My boss [Teaching Lab CEO Sarah Johnson] is a freaking psychopath…She’s running a non-profit but it’s for profit.”
Dr. Bostic: “I said, ‘So, hypothetically these people [Gates Foundation] are funding you to build a program. Once the grant is over, you take the program, and you sell it to people – for money.’ I was like, ‘Is that legal?’ She [Sarah Johnson] was like, ‘It has nothing to do with me.’ She said, ‘The grant ended, we fulfilled the grant.’ And I’m like, ‘But we’re selling a product of the grant.’ She’s like, ‘It’s not my problem.’ And I’m like, ‘Wow.’ She’s like, ‘It’s non-profit work. People do it all the time.’ I’m like, ‘Sarah, is that legal?’”
Dr. Bostic: “I have people on my team who have never taught before but know sales…literally [they say] like, ‘I hate kids.’ I’m like, ‘Don’t say that in front of a partner, just keep it to yourself.’”
[ATLANTA – Jan. 18, 2023] Project Veritas released a second video today exposing Teaching Lab’s questionable activities and objectives.Play
Dr. Quintin Bostic, who works there as a Content Manager, revealed he struggles with his organization’s business practices. He even referred to it as a “scam lab.”
“My boss [Teaching Lab CEO Sarah Johnson] is a freaking psychopath…She’s running a non-profit but it’s for profit,” Dr. Bostic said.
“I said, ‘So, hypothetically these people [Gates Foundation] are funding you to build a program. Once the grant is over, you take the program, and you sell it to people – for money,’” he said.
“I was like, ‘Is that legal?’ She [Teaching Lab CEO Sarah Johnson] was like, ‘It has nothing to do with me.’ She said, ‘The grant ended, we fulfilled the grant.’ And I’m like, ‘But we’re selling a product of the grant,’” he said.
“She’s like, ‘It’s not my problem.’ And I’m like, ‘Wow.’ She’s like, ‘It’s non-profit work. People do it all the time.’ I’m like, ‘Sarah, is that legal?’”
Dr. Bostic stated that several of his colleagues work at Teaching Lab because they care about making money. Teaching experience is not a requirement to get a sales job there for some on Dr. Bostic’s team.
The school children, according to what Dr. Bostic said, are not the priority.
“I have people on my team who have never taught before but know sales…literally [they say] like, ‘I hate kids.’ I’m like, ‘Don’t say that in front of a partner, just keep it to yourself.’”
About Project Veritas
James O’Keefe established Project Veritas in 2010 as a non-profit journalism enterprise to continue his undercover reporting work. Today, Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society and to engage in litigation to: protect, defend and expand human and civil rights secured by law, specifically First Amendment rights including promoting the free exchange of ideas in a digital world; combat and defeat censorship of any ideology; promote truthful reporting; and defend freedom of speech and association issues including the right to anonymity. O’Keefe serves as the CEO and Chairman of the Board so that he can continue to lead and teach his fellow journalists, as well as protect and nurture the Project Veritas culture.
Project Veritas is a registered 501(c)3 organization. Project Veritas does not advocate specific resolutions to the issues raised through its investigations.
The first official act in office from Alabama’s recently elected Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, was to remove the state from a voter registration data-sharing group.
Allen, who was sworn in as the state’s 54th secretary of state on Monday, made the promise to voters to withdraw from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) on the campaign trail last year.
“I made a promise to the people of Alabama that ending our state’s relationship with the ERIC organization would be my first official act as secretary of state,” Allen said in a press release. “I came into the office after being sworn in yesterday and signed the letter to ERIC notifying them that Alabama is no longer a participant in any of their programs. The relationship between Alabama and ERIC is officially over.”
The Organization
ERIC is a partnership between 32 states, including the District of Columbia, that identifies “out-of-date records found by comparing voter registration data between states, to motor vehicle licensing agency data, and to the Social Security Administration master death index list,” according to the nonprofit organization’s website.
ERIC began providing list maintenance data to members in July 2013.
Allen campaigned on a vow to end Alabama’s participation in the voting system that is run by a nongovernment organization based in Washington, D.C, a press release from his office announcing the move stated.
He expressed concern over the private organization having access to the private data of Alabama citizens, including their driver’s license numbers, contact information, and the partial social security numbers of minors.
“Providing the private information of Alabama citizens, including underage minors, to an out-of-state organization is troubling to me and to people that I heard from as I traveled the state for the last 20 months,” Allen said. “That is no longer a concern because the data uploads of that information from Alabama to ERIC is over.”
John Merrill, secretary of state of Alabama, speaks to the media in the Capitol building about the possible recount to determine the winner between Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore and his Democratic opponent Doug Jones in Montgomery, Ala., on Dec. 12, 2017. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Former Secretary of State John Merrill said at the time he reached out to Allen about the decision, according to a Huntsville NBC affiliate.
“I have made overtures to him to try to make sure he’s properly educated about ERIC, what the purpose of the Electronic Registration Information Center is, but unfortunately, he has elected not to have those discussions in detail,” he said.
Merrill said ERIC was used to “protect the integrity of Alabama’s elections” as recently as the midterm elections in 2022.
“This system has been preventing the state from being exposed to voter fraud,” he said, according to the NBC affiliate. “We’ve identified a number of people who have actually committed voter fraud and just last week, we introduced 12 individuals to the attorney general’s office who voted in our state and in another state at the same time.”
Merrill said on Tuesday, according to CBS News, he trusts Allen “has evaluated this situation and is making the decision based on what he believes to be in the best interest of the state of Alabama.”
Other States Withdraw
CBS reported that the issue of participation in ERIC was also raised in Arizona’s secretary of state race, with the Republican candidate saying he would also withdraw.
Louisiana’s secretary of state withdrew the state from ERIC in January 2022 (pdf).
“When Louisiana joined ERIC under my predecessor, we did so under the impression that it would enhance the accuracy of our voter rolls and strengthen Louisiana’s election integrity,” Secretary Kyle Ardoin said. “After reading about these allegations and speaking with election attorneys and experts, I have determined that it may no longer be in Louisiana’s best interests to participate in this organization.”
According to the organization, the states that currently participate in ERIC are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
New York Mayor Eric Adams has called for the appointment of a “national czar” to manage the immigration crisis at the U.S.–Mexico border, seemingly unaware that Vice President Kamala Harris already holds that role.
“I think it should be done through FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency],” he added. “We should treat this the same way we treat any major disaster or major crisis. That should be coordinating with the Border Patrol, coordinating with our cities, our states, to make sure that we as a country absorb this national issue.”
The Democratic mayor recently returned from a weekend tour of the Texan border city of El Paso, which he described on Jan. 17 as a “beautiful city” that’s been “overrun” by the recent surge of illegal immigrants crossing the border.
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, also a Democrat, has declared a state of emergency in the city because of the overwhelming influx of illegal immigrants.
Leeser and Adams have been critical of the Biden administration’s approach to the situation, saying that not enough is being done at the federal level to ease the burden on cities and states.
“Our cities are being undermined,” Adams said on Jan. 15 in El Paso. “And we don’t deserve this. Migrants don’t deserve this and the people who live in the cities don’t deserve this. We expect more from our national leaders to address this issue in a real way.”
Despite his previous assertions that there is “no room” in New York for additional illegal immigrants, Adams said on Jan. 17 that suspending the city’s self-professed sanctuary status as a deterrent is “not on the agenda at all.”
“I think of, as we celebrated the birth of Jesus, he was faced with a ‘no more room,’ but there was a place that was found,” he said. “And that’s what we are doing. We have no more room, but we are still finding spaces and accommodating. And we are going to continue to do that. That is our law, that is our obligation, and that is what’s morally right.”
‘Border Czar’
In March 2021, President Joe Biden appointed Harris as the official “border czar” to lead the administration’s response to the growing crisis at the southern border. Every month since, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has recorded more than 150,000 encounters with noncitizens at the border, and for fiscal year 2022, encounters totaled more than 2.3 million—the highest number on record.
So far, Harris has made only one visit to the southern border as vice president. That trip took place in June 2021—after much public pressure—during which she visited a migrant processing center in Texas.
In October 2022, it was thought that Harris might visit the border again, while in Texas for a political fundraiser, but no such tour occurred.
“I don’t understand why the vice president just won’t take an hour plane ride to the border and just listen, talk to people, just show up and say, ‘Hey, we are here to help.’ Just say, ‘The administration hasn’t abandoned you’ … something!” Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas) said at the time.
Meanwhile, the president just took his first tour of the border on Jan. 8 in El Paso, where he met with border personnel, observed how they conduct their work, and visited the border wall and affected areas of the city.
“They need a lot of resources,” Biden said after surveying the situation. “We’re going to get it for them.”
Days prior to the visit, Biden announced new measures aimed at securing the border and slowing the flow of illegal immigration, including turning away Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans who arrive illegally at the border, and rejecting illegal aliens who don’t seek asylum first in a country they traveled through en route to the United States. At the same time, up to 30,000 people per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela who arrive in the country legally will be allowed to come to the United States for two years and be allowed to work, provided they have a sponsor and pass background checks.
For Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the president’s visit was “$20 billion too late and two years too late,” according to the scathing letter (pdf) hand-delivered by the Republican to Biden upon his arrival.
Last year, in protest of what the governor described as the administration’s lack of leadership at the border, Abbott bused nearly 16,000 illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities around the country, including Washington, where several busloads of illegal immigrants were dropped off near Harris’s residence in September 2022 and on Christmas Eve.
Criticizing Biden in his Jan. 8 letter, Abbott asserted: “Your open-border policies have emboldened the cartels, who grow wealthy by trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings. Texans are paying an especially high price for your failure, sometimes with their very lives, as local leaders from your own party will tell you if given the chance.”
Officials at the White House and Adams’s office in New York didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
A doctor who appeared prominently in the media during the pandemic acknowledged this week the United States is “overcounting” COVID-19 deaths and stressed the need for “transparent reporting” on the real numbers.
Leana Wen, a former Planned Parenthood director who now works for CNN and the Washington Post, told the channel that natural immunity and vaccinations have reduced severe COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.
“Hospitals are still routinely testing everyone who’s getting admitted for COVID,” Wen, also a former director of the Baltimore City Health Department, said in response to a question about whether her statements could be “fodder for conspiracy theorists.”
“We’re seeing many people who are hospitalized with COVID, and I think it’s important to separate out who is being hospitalized because of it,” Wen added. “Because there are a lot of people who are still very concerned about their risk from COVID and we need to give them the most accurate data possible so that they can better gauge their risks. There are people still not resuming indoor dining or going to the gym or socializing. We have to give them the most accurate reporting as possible.”
In a Washington Post opinion piece, Wen noted that current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show that about 400 people are dying from the virus every day. She then asked a question that many others have asked over the past three years: “But are these Americans dying from COVID or with COVID?”
“Two infectious-disease experts I spoke with believe that the number of deaths attributed to COVID is far greater than the actual number of people dying from COVID,” she wrote. “Robin Dretler, an attending physician at Emory Decatur Hospital and the former president of Georgia’s chapter of Infectious Diseases Society of America, estimates that at his hospital, 90 percent of patients diagnosed with COVID are actually in the hospital for some other illness.”
Some patients have several concurrent infections, not just COVID-19.
“People who have very low white blood cell counts from chemotherapy might be admitted because of bacterial pneumonia or foot gangrene,” Dretler was quoted as saying. “They may also have COVID, but COVID is not the main reason why they’re so sick.”
‘With COVID’?
But if those patients die, the doctor said that COVID-19 may get added to their death certificates—meaning, they’re counted as a COVID-19 death. That’s despite COVID-19 not being the primary factor that caused the deaths.
Notably, several Northern California counties in mid-2021 changed how they counted COVID-19 deaths. In one county, the death figure dropped by 22 percent, while in another, 400 fewer deaths were reported following the changes.
A health care worker wheels in a stretcher in the ER at Oakbend Medical Center in Richmond, Texas, on July 15, 2020. (Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images)
Months before that, an article published by the Association of American Medical Colleges noted that counting COVID-19 deaths is “complicated” and provided an example. An elderly man in Atlanta was stricken with advanced cancer in early 2021, later contracting COVID-19 before ultimately passing away.
“Given his already fragile state, his condition quickly took a turn for the worse” and he later died, a doctor said. Despite having advanced cancer, medical officials listed his death as caused by COVID-19.
“While he was very weak and frail from his underlying cancer, his death was undoubtedly accelerated and precipitated by COVID-19,” Dr. Sara Auld told the association.
Following the publication of her Washington Post opinion piece, some conservatives and COVID-19 vaccine skeptics suggested Wen is behind the curve.
“A year ago, this was a conspiracy theory that would get you censored,” wrote prominent vaccine skeptic Robert Kennedy Jr. on Twitter on Monday. And California-based Epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Hoegn wrote Monday that it is “amazing how long it has taken the U.S. to accept this is a problem,” noting that Denmark in 2021 changed how they would distinguish those who died with COVID-19 and those who died from the virus.
“This is not just recently true. It’s been true for three years! We truly do not know how many actually died from COVID, which means that not even the [case fatality rate] is accurate,” wrote Jeffrey Tucker, the head of the Brownstone Institute and a columnist for The Epoch Times, wrote on Twitter.
The Epoch Times first reported on how COVID deaths are counted in April 2020, and in September 2020 on how CDC data showed 94 percent of COVID deaths had contributing health conditions.
New York City officials have agreed to remove 441,083 ineligible voters from its voter rolls after a legal watchdog found the liberal-led government refused to clean up its list of voters as required by federal law.
Judicial Watch, a non-profit public interest law firm, filed the lawsuit after an investigation found that in six years, out of 5.5 million voters, only 22 names had been removed for moving away, dying or otherwise becoming ineligible to vote.
“This historic settlement is a major victory for New York voters who will benefit from cleaner voter rolls and more honest elections. Judicial Watch is pleased that New York City officials quickly moved to remove 441,000 outdated registrations from the rolls. We look forward to working together under this federal lawsuit settlement to ensure New York City maintains cleaner rolls for future elections,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
In its announcement of the settlement, Judicial Watch did not state how many, if any, of the 441,083 ineligible names had cast votes. Judicial Watch brought the suit under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
New York City’s “own recent data concedes that there were only 22 total” removals under this provision “during a six-year period, in a city of over 5.5 million voters. These are ludicrously small numbers of removals given the sizable populations of these counties.” Moreover, the “almost complete failure of Kings, Queens, New York, Bronx, and Richmond Counties, over a period of at least six years, to remove voters” under a key provision of federal law “means that there are untold numbers of New York City registrations for voters who are ineligible to vote at their listed address because they have changed residence or are otherwise ineligible to vote.”
Under the terms of its settlement, New York City has already begun cleaning its voter rolls and will now regularly remove ineligible voters.
Judicial Watch reports:
[The Board of Elections] notified Judicial Watch that, in February 2022, they removed, pursuant to Section 8(d)(1)(B) of the NVRA, 82,802 registrations in Bronx County, 128,093 in Kings County, 145,891 in New York County, 66,010 in Queens County, and 18,287 in Richmond County, for a total of 441,083 registrations.
[The Board of Elections] notified Judicial Watch that going forward they intend to cancel registrations pursuant to Section 8(d)(1)(B) in each odd-numbered year in the months following a federal election.
Specifically, the city also agrees to track in detail report its voter roll maintenance efforts through 2025:
For both 2023 and 2025 … the [Board of Elections] will notify Judicial Watch … on or before March 31, by means of separate excel spreadsheets for Bronx County, Kings County, New York County, Queens County, and Richmond County, of the number of removals, including removals pursuant to … the NVRA, made during the previous two years.
The NVRA requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove” from the rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have died or changed residence. Among other things, the law requires registrations to be cancelled when voters fail to respond to address confirmation notices and then fail to vote in the next two general federal elections. In 2018, the Supreme Court confirmed that such removals are mandatory (Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Inst. (138 S. Ct. 1833, 1841-42 (2018)).
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
The Supreme Court on Jan. 18 turned away an emergency request from firearms dealers to halt a months-old New York law that imposed new restrictions on gun purchases and dealers that the dealers say adversely affected sales and violated their rights.
The ruling comes as challenges to gun laws across the nation have escalated since the high court struck down previous New York rules on guns in June 2022. In the same opinion, the court also held that there’s a constitutional right to carry a gun outside the home for self-defense, leading states such as New York and Illinois to respond by doubling down on firearms restrictions.
The new state law in question, New York’s sweeping Concealed Carry Improvement Act, has been hotly litigated in the federal courts since it was approved by lawmakers in Albany. Some state law enforcement officials previously condemned the law, which took effect on Sept. 1, 2022, saying it would be difficult to enforce and may be unconstitutional. The New York State Sheriffs’ Association said the law was a “thoughtless, reactionary action.”
The Supreme Court rejected the application in Gazzola v. Hochul, court file 22A591, in an unsigned order (pdf) on Jan. 18. No justices dissented from the order.
The dealers said in court papers (pdf) that the new law treats “state licensed dealers in firearms as if they are ‘a highly selective group inherently suspect of criminal activities.’” The dealers said they were “urgently [seeking] a preliminary injunction to keep their doors open, while fighting to restore their civil rights through this lawsuit.”
“Petitioners are risking everything to try to stay in business in support of civil rights under the Second, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and to keep the doors open and the lights on while they pursue this case, but we can’t seem to find a judge in district or circuit court who will back them up,” they said in the brief.
One of the dealers’ complaints was that New York was making what they characterized as an unprecedented demand that all federally licensed firearms dealers and New York state-licensed dealers “surrender their federal firearms compliance records” on pain of “incarceration and license revocation.”
“Until now, no federal, state, or municipal government in this country has attempted to grab the federal firearms compliance records of [a federal firearms dealer],” they said.
The decision came after the Supreme Court similarly declined to block the New York law in an order on Jan. 11 in Antonyuk v. Nigrelli, which was brought by New York residents. Despite turning down the request to stay a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit reinstating the law, Justice Samuel Alito issued a statement, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, suggesting this wasn’t the high court’s final word on the matter.
“The New York law at issue in this application presents novel and serious questions under both the First and the Second Amendments,” Alito wrote (pdf).
The justice encouraged the Second Amendment advocates involved in the lawsuit to continue fighting the law.
“Applicants should not be deterred by today’s order from again seeking relief if the Second Circuit does not, within a reasonable time, provide an explanation for its stay order or expedite consideration of the appeal,” Alito wrote.
Before the Supreme Court acted on Jan. 11, the 2nd Circuit stayed an order by Syracuse-based U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddaby, who blocked sections of the law on Nov. 7, 2022, in a case brought by Gun Owners of America. The law imposed “unprecedented constitutional violations,” Suddaby wrote.
Suddaby enjoined the new requirement that a carry applicant demonstrate “good moral character” and produce the names and contact information of spouses and other adults in the applicant’s home. He blocked the rule forcing applicants to submit social media accounts for review by government officials.
Suddaby also enjoined the restrictions on carrying in public parks, zoos, places of worship, locations where alcohol is served, theaters, banquet halls, conferences, airports and buses, and lawful protests and assemblies, as well as the blanket ban on carrying on private property without the consent of the owner.
New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act was rushed through the state legislature in the summer of 2022 and signed by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul after the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen invalidated the state’s requirement that a carry permit applicant demonstrate a special need for self-defense.
Hochul denounced the high court ruling at the time, calling it “a reckless decision … senselessly sending us backward and putting the safety of our residents in jeopardy.”
The dealers’ attorney of record, Paloma Appolonia Capanna, didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, praised the Supreme Court for its ruling.
“Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to allow our state’s gun safety laws to remain in effect. We all see the heart-wrenching news from communities throughout New York state about the lives that are lost to senseless gun violence,” James said.
“We know that gun safety laws help save lives, and keep our state safer. My office will continue to work tirelessly to stand up for New York’s gun safety laws and we will use every tool at our disposal to protect New Yorkers.”
Microsoft will cut 10,000 jobs in response to decreasing demand after the pandemic, its CEO said in a note to employees Wednesday.
The announcement comes after tens of thousands of job cuts across the technology sector. The layoffs are a response to decreased spending in cloud computing after the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft said: “First, as we saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we’re now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less.”
The same holds true for organizations that are fearing or impacted by recession, according to the note. Palantir Technologies Inc., a software company, said this week that reducing cloud spending was a top-ten priority of its customers.
The 10,000 jobs cut amounts to around 5 percent of Microsoft’s total workforce. The company is cutting far fewer jobs than it had added during the COVID-19 pandemic; it expanded by about 36 percent in the two fiscal years following the start of the pandemic, growing from 163,000 workers at the end of June 2020 to 221,000 in June 2022.
The tech giant will also hire in some areas and focus on artificial intelligence (AI) for its future development plans.
“The next major wave of computing is being born with advances in AI, as we’re turning the world’s most advanced models into a new computing platform,” it said.
The company will spend $1.2 billion for employee severance costs and changing its hardware portfolio.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said, “This is a rip the band-aid off moment to preserve margins and cut costs in a softer macro, a strategy the Street will continue to applaud.”
Other Tech Layoffs
Other tech companies have also been trimming jobs amid concerns about an economic slowdown.
Amazon and business software maker Salesforce earlier this month announced major job cuts as they prune payrolls that rapidly expanded during the pandemic lockdown.
Amazon said that it will be cutting about 18,000 positions. It’s the largest set of layoffs in the Seattle company’s history, although just a fraction of its 1.5 million global workforce.
Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13 percent of its workforce. And Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, has slashed the company’s workforce.
Microsoft said in July last year that a small number of roles had been eliminated, while news site Axios in October reported that the company had laid off under 1,000 employees across several divisions.
The company is also grappling with a slump in the personal computer market after a pandemic boom fizzled out, leaving little demand for its Windows and accompanying software.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
House Republicans on Tuesday introduced legislation to end the COVID-19 public health emergency, coming about three years after it was implemented nationwide.
On Jan. 11, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed that it would again extend the health emergency for another 90 days, according to a declaration issued by HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. The emergency has been renewed about a dozen times since it was implemented under the Trump administration in early 2020.
Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) proposed ending the emergency declaration, again putting more pressure on the Biden administration to rescind the measure. If it passes through Congress, it’s likely President Joe Biden would attempt to veto the bill.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over,” Guthrie wrote on Twitter Tuesday. “It’s long overdue to end the COVID-19 [public health emergency] and for President Biden to relinquish his emergency powers.”
The bill, titled the “Pandemic Is Over Act,” stipulates that HHS “shall terminate on the date of enactment of this Act.” About three months ago, Biden told a “60 Minutes” reporter that he believes “the pandemic is over,” prompting White House officials to scramble to clarify his stance.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over,” Guthrie said in a statement. “Despite President Biden admitting this in September, his administration just authorized the 12th extension of the COVID-19 public health emergency. It is long overdue for President Biden to end the COVID-19 public health emergency and relinquish the emergency powers that he just renewed again.”
The White House, he said, has engaged in a “lack of transparency” over the emergency extensions. “I introduced the Pandemic Is Over Act to prevent any more delays by forcing the Biden administration to finally release and execute a plan that my House Republican colleagues and I have been repeatedly pressing for to unwind the [public health emergency],” the lawmaker said.
The bill may see some success in the Senate, where some Democrats joined Republicans in voting to approve a similar piece of legislation in December to end the federal emergency. Biden said he would veto that bill if it reaches his desk.
“It has now been more than 2 1/2 years since this first-issued proclamation declaring the national emergency concerning declaration and been extended twice by President Biden since the initial declaration, most recently February [2022],” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who sponsored the Senate resolution, said during floor remarks at the time.
Emergency Renewed
On Jan. 11, Becerra issued a declaration saying that “after consultation with public health officials as necessary,” the White House decided the renew the emergency. The emergency primarily impacts the U.S. health care system, providing health insurance coverage protection for millions, giving hospitals more resources, and more telehealth services.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra joins a panel during the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York City on Sept. 19, 2022. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“The COVID-19 Public Health Emergency remains in effect, and as HHS committed to earlier, we will provide a 60-day notice to states before any possible termination or expiration,” a spokesperson for HHS told media outlets. Based on Becerra’s declaration and the spokesperson’s public statements, it is not clear when the emergency will end.
However, unnamed Biden administration officials told Politico and other news outlets last week that they are aiming to end the emergency in the spring of 2023. The Epoch Times could not immediately verify those reports, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
About two-dozen Republican governors, meanwhile, called on the Biden administration to rescind (pdf) the COVID-19 emergency in a December letter. The reason why it should end, they argued, is because the emergency places undue financial strain on states due to its expansion of Medicaid coverage.
The health emergency, the letter said, is “negatively affecting states, primarily by artificially growing our population covered under Medicaid … regardless of whether individuals continue to be eligible under the program.”
“States are required to increase our non-federal match to adequately cover all enrollees,” they said, “and cannot disenroll members from the program unless they do so voluntarily.”
In mid-December, the White House released its “COVID-19 Winter Preparedness Plan” that would make more COVID-19 test kits freely available. Administration officials also again recommended Americans get the vaccine and boosters.
Compared with the past several winters, COVID-19 cases in December 2022 and January 2023 appear to have sharply declined, according to data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of Jan. 11. In mid-January 2022, CDC data showed that there were more than 5 million weekly COVID-19 cases, but for the week of Jan. 11, 2023, only about 414,000 weekly cases have been reported.
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—Production at U.S. factories fell more than expected in December and output in the prior month was weaker than previously thought, indicating that manufacturing was rapidly losing momentum as higher borrowing costs hurt demand for goods.
Manufacturing output dropped 1.3% last month, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday. Data for November was revised lower to show production at factories decreasing 1.1% instead of the previously reported 0.6%. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast factory production would decline 0.3%.
Output fell 0.5% on a year-on-year basis in December. It decreased at a 2.5% annualized rate in the fourth quarter.
Higher interest rates are undercutting demand for goods, which are mostly bought on credit. The dollar’s past appreciation and a softening in global demand are also hurting manufacturing, which accounts for 11.3% of the U.S. economy. In addition, spending is also shifting back to services.
National manufacturing has been shrinking since November, according to data from the Institute for Supply Management. The decline appears to have deepened as a report from the New York Federal Reserve on Tuesday showed manufacturing in New York state plunged in January to levels last seen in May 2020.
The Fed last year raised its policy rate by 425 basis points from near zero to the 4.25%-4.50% range, the highest since late 2007. In December, the U.S. central bank projected at least an additional 75 basis points of increases in borrowing costs by the end of 2023.
Production at auto plants fell 1.0% last month. There were also big declines in the output of machinery and wood products.
Mining output dropped 0.9% after declining 1.2% in November. Utilities production increased 3.8% as a cold snap across the country boosted demand for heating.
That offset some of the weakness in manufacturing and mining, leading to a 0.7% fall in overall industrial production. Industrial output decreased 0.6% in November. It fell at a 1.7% rate in the fourth quarter.
Capacity utilization for the manufacturing sector, a measure of how fully firms are using their resources, fell 1.0 percentage point to 77.5% in December. It is 0.7 percentage point below its long-run average.
Overall capacity use for the industrial sector fell 0.6 percentage point to 78.8%. It is 0.8 percentage point below its 1972-2021 average.
Officials at the U.S. central bank tend to look at capacity use measures for signals of how much “slack” remains in the economy—how far growth has room to run before it becomes inflationary.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)
Why it matters: Democrats across the country, and especially in California, use climate change as an excuse to ban gas cars, leaf blowers, propane heaters, and many other common household items that families will struggle financially to replace. By connecting major weather events such as the recent storms in California to climate change, politicians can convince people that sacrifices to their wallets and lifestyle are worth it.
Context: While Newsom and others are treating the string of storms as unprecedented, California has a long recorded history of extreme droughts, rains, floods, fires, and mudslides. The push to blame climate change for every twist and turn in the weather ignores the state’s history.
The state has seen its fair share of massive storms, flooding, and erosion. In 1972, Albert Hammond sang that while it seems like “it never rains in California,” in reality “it pours, man, it pours.” Any Californian who lived through the 1990s is bound to remember the 1997 El Niño, which stretched into 1998 and was described by the Los Angeles Times as a “relentless string of storms” that overwhelmed flood control channels and washed away roads and railroad tracks. In 1861, a stretch of intense rains that began on Christmas Eve didn’t stop for more than a month, according to Scientific American, and some of the state’s waterways were permanently altered by the epic floods. California’s entire Central Valley was turned into a 300-mile-long and 20-mile-wide sea. For a time after the flood, Sacramento could only be traversed by canoe.
The same is true for droughts. Immediately after the stretch of rain that flooded the state from 1861 to 1862, California was hit by a devastating drought that stretched two years. As the U.S. government has pointed out, California has chronicled major droughts since before climate experts even started experting. A Wikipedia catalogue reveals that the following stretches of “dry years” in California:
• 1841
• 1863–1864
• 1917–1921
• 1922–1926
• 1928–1937
• 1943–1951
• 1959–1962
• 1976–1977
• 1987–1992
• 1999-2004
• 2006–2009
• 2011-2017
• 2018
• 2020-2022
Wikipedia now has a note at the top of its catalogue of droughts warning readers that the page “needs attention from an expert in Climate Change” to address “insufficient documentation of the causes of the droughts.” It is unclear whether climate scientists attribute the 19th-century extreme weather events to climate change.
Snow patterns have also inspired climate change scientists to make gloomy predictions that haven’t turned out as expected. In 2019, as rainstorms pounded the state, the Sierra Mountains saw the fifth-highest snow levels on record—news that most Californians cheered, since agriculture and more than half the population rely on the snowmelt for fresh water.
Just a year later, in the middle of drought, the snowpack dwindled to half its usual levels, driving Discover magazine to warn of a parched future and urge new policies “to rein in emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.” By 2021, the snow levels were above average again, and thanks to the latest spate of storms, the state now has the highest levels recorded for January.
Analysis:
As another California troubadour tells us, “The seasons, they go round and round.” The climate is constantly changing. Climate opportunists tweak their talking points with the weather, wailing about droughts one day, only to turn on a dime and moan about the rain replenishing the parched California reservoirs that once concerned them.
There is no evidence that climate change is to blame for weeks of rainstorms in California, which has long suffered from extreme weather.
Of course, none of this is actually about the weather. Climate change is just a way for Democrats to justify their push for flooding green energy projects with government money while bleeding taxpayers dry. California Democrats in particular use climate change as an excuse for their failure to follow through on pledges to better prepare the state for disasters through effective wildfire mitigation and other measures.
Change comes as Democratic megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried faces charges of money laundering, securities fraud
The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it will eliminate or reduce charges against corporations if they self-report crimes.
The Department of Justice is offering companies “additional incentives” to come forward about wrongdoing so that “companies that do the right thing when learning about possible misconduct” can be rewarded. Corporations can expect repercussions if they do not fully cooperate, the agency said.
“Failing to self-report, failing to fully cooperate, failing to remediate, can lead to dire consequences,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said in the policy announcement.
The change comes as Democratic megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried faces charges including money laundering and securities fraud during his time as CEO of cryptocurrency firm FTX. Bankman-Fried last year visited the White House on multiple occasions, the Washington Free Beaconreported.
The change shows an easing of pressure on big corporations by the Biden administration, which last year levied a tax on stock buybacks and imposed a minimum tax rate of 15 percent on companies making more than $1 billion a year.
Companies must come forward immediately, already have internal accounting systems in place, and engage in “extraordinary” cooperation with the investigation to lessen or avoid punishments.
Polite added that even if fines or jail time are still pursued, cooperating companies can receive 50 to 75 percent off the lowest suggested sentencing guidelines.
“The policy is sending an undeniable message: come forward, cooperate, and remediate,” Polite said.
Companies that fail to come forward may see increased “criminal exposure and monetary penalties,” the department said.
NJ governor refuses to halt wind farm project linked to seven whale deaths since December
What happened?
Seven dead whales have washed up on the New York-New Jersey coastline since December, prompting calls for Gov. Phil Murphy (D., N.J.) to halt development on a number of offshore wind farms in the area. He refused.
“No, I don’t think so,” Murphy said last week when asked if developers should stop pre-construction of wind turbines, which some whale-lovers have blamed for the spate of deaths.
How did they die?
We don’t know. State and federal agencies are investigating the deaths, but pro-whale organizations have expressed concern that pre-construction activity, specifically use of sonar to map the ocean floor, is traumatizing the whales and other marine life in the area.
What they’re saying:
“Stop all of the sonar, stop all of the pre-construction activity offshore right now, until we can determine whether or not that has had any impact or any part of the cause for all these whales washing up,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of the environmentalist group Clean Ocean Action.
Context:
Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, signed an executive order in September boosting the state’s goal for offshore wind production by nearly 50 percent to 11,000 megawatts by 2040. He wants to run for president, but he’ll never win.
Big picture:
Following the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, the Democratic Party declared war on innocent animals that stood in the way of their radical green energy agenda. Obama presided over the brutal murder of millions of majestic birds, including bald and golden eagles. Some were shredded to death by turbine blades, while others were incinerated while flying over massive solar farms that produced rays of reflected light that can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Obama administration routinely granted waivers to renewable energy firms to exempt them from the legal consequences of killing bald eagles and other protected species. Murphy’s refusal to let a few dead whales derail his efforts to turn the New Jersey coastline into a bird graveyard by constructing massive wind farms is in keeping with his party’s antagonistic stance toward the animal kingdom.
Firefighters say Dem-sponsored bill will put the public at risk
Connecticut Democrats are working to lower the physical fitness requirements for female firefighters, saying that less onerous standards will make fire departments “more diverse.”
A law introduced earlier this month in the Connecticut State Assembly would let women skip the Candidate Physical Ability Test, a timed gauntlet used by fire departments across the country. The test, which only 10 to 15 percent of women pass, requires candidates to complete intense physical tasks while wearing a 50 pound vest. It’s designed to simulate the experience of navigating a fire in heavy gear—and to weed out those unable to do so.
The law, introduced by five Democratic lawmakers, would offer women an alternative test based on “revised physical standards,” with the goal of ensuring that “additional female candidates” qualify for firefighter positions, text from the bill states.
But some firefighters, including women, who have climbed the ranks of their departments without workarounds, say the bill will set merit-based hiring ablaze and potentially endanger Connecticut residents. “If you can’t handle a 50 pound vest, you’re not going to be able to rescue a child from a burning building,” said Leah DiNapoli, a retired firefighter in New Haven, Conn.
“A citizen in need of rescue doesn’t care if a firefighter is white, black, Hispanic, male, or female,” said Frank Ricci, a retired firefighter who served as the president of the New Haven firefighters union. “They care that they can do the job. This attempt to socially engineer public safety positions will only serve to endanger the public.”
Unlike in the military, where uniforms and equipment vary by gender, all firefighters wear the same gear, which weighs at least 59 pounds—9 more than the vest used for the physical assessment. That’s not including the weight of ladders, hoses, or other firemen, who must sometimes carry incapacitated colleagues on their shoulders. While a few pieces of protective gear now come tailored for women, most of the essential tools do not.
“They don’t make lighter saws or ladders,” DiNapoli said. “When I was there, they didn’t even make female-sized boots.”
The law, she added, is “absolutely insane. Either you can do the job or you can’t.”
The bill has been referred to the state legislature’s “committee on public safety,” which has not yet scheduled hearings on the law. Neither the bill’s sponsors nor Connecticut governor Ned Lamont responded to requests for comment.
Beyond putting lives at risk, critics say the law will exacerbate the suspicion, common among male firefighters, that women simply aren’t up for the job. Fire departments have always been an “old boys club,” DiNapoli said, and around 91 percent of firefighters are men. In this testosterone-fueled environment, sex-blind tests often serve as a stopgap against stereotypes, providing an objective assurance of physical competence.
“It’s already tough for women in the fire service, because you constantly have to prove your worth,” a retired female firefighter from Chicago said. “How are you going to prove yourself if you don’t take the same test as the men?”
Danny Stratton, a recently retired fire captain from Camden, New Jersey, drew a parallel to affirmative action. “When you lower standards for minorities, people assume they got the job because of the color of their skin,” Stratton said. “Lowering standards for women creates the same kind of stereotypes.”
Such suspicions are especially dangerous in the fire service, where trust and teamwork can mean the difference between life and death. “The guys I’m working with need to know that I can get them out of a bad situation,” DiNapoli said. “If a woman can’t pass the test, men won’t want her on their shift.”
This is not the first culture war between firefighters and government officials in Connecticut, where fire stations have been ground zero for diversity-related feuds. In 2003, the New Haven fire department threw out the results of a written exam after none of the African Americans who took it scored high enough for a promotion. Ricci, the former union president, who would have been promoted based on his results, sued the department, arguing that he and other non-black firefighters had been denied professional opportunities because of their race. The Supreme Court agreed, ruling 5-4 that New Haven had violated anti-discrimination law.
Fire departments have nonetheless faced pressure to axe both written and physical tests—especially when women do poorly on them. In 2011, the Chicago Fire Department was hit with a class action lawsuit over its physical abilities test, which was even more difficult than the Candidate Physical Ability Test used in Connecticut and other states.
The complaint argued that Chicago’s test discriminated against women because so few of them could pass it. The department eventually settled, offering jobs to many of the women who were rejected under the old standard.
“A lot of men ridiculed those women,” recalled the Chicago firefighter, who had passed the original test.
Though some fire service tests have been struck down on disparate impact grounds, the Candidate Physical Ability Test is not one of them. Developed and validated by the International Association of Firefighters, it has survived multiple discrimination lawsuits, mostly from women, and has received the blessing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency that enforces civil rights laws in the workplace.
“The idea of the test was to keep politics out of fire service hiring,” Stratton said. “Now they’re trying to add politics back in.”
Jewish advocates slam sentencing for men charged with beating Jewish man
Two men charged with battering a Jewish man will spend little to no time in jail for their role in the anti-Semitic hate crime, the Manhattan district attorney’s office told the Washington Free Beacon this week.
Manhattan’s top prosecutor, Alvin Bragg (D.), offered Waseem Awawdeh and Faisal Elezzi—two of four men charged with violently beating and pepper-spraying a Jewish man in 2021—reduced sentences as part of the plea deals, which will see Awawdeh spend six months in jail and Elezzi entering an intensive treatment program, according to the district attorney’s office. The four men allegedly participated in a gang attack on Joseph Borgen, who was beaten and called anti-Semitic slurs as he made his way to a pro-Israel demonstration.
The light sentences are generating anger among Jewish advocates who say it is unacceptable for New York City authorities to offer the men plea deals as violence against Jews surges to its highest levels in history. New York City has become a hotbed of anti-Semitic violence, with police reporting 263 separate attacks in 2022, an average of 1 incident every 33 hours, according to the Times of Israel. These numbers mark a sharp increase from 2020 and 2021 and come as anti-Semitic rhetoric bubbles into the mainstream via prominent figures like rapper Kanye West and basketball star Kyrie Irving.
Jewish advocates said Awawdeh’s plea deal of six months in prison is particularly offensive due to a claim that he reportedly made to jailers: “If I could do it again, I would do it again.”
Dov Hikind (D.), a former New York state assemblyman and the founder of Americans Against Anti-Semitism, an advocacy group, said that Bragg “is all about a perversion of justice. He has more pity, more concern for the perpetrators than the victims.”
Hikind, who is Jewish and works to galvanize the community against the rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes, said what is happening in New York City to Jews is “just beyond comprehension.” In November of last year alone, he said, citing figures from the New York Police Department, there were three times as many attacks on Jews as on all other ethnic categories combined.
Hikind’s organization, Americans Against Anti-Semitism, held a public demonstration on Wednesday outside the Brooklyn criminal courthouse to demand justice for Blake Zavadsky, a Jewish man who says that several men called him and his friend “dirty Jews” and punched him for wearing an Israel Defense Forces sweatshirt. On Thursday, a similar demonstration will be held for Borgen, the Jewish man attacked by Awawdeh and his allies.
“All we’re asking for is justice,” Hikind said. “We want [the district attorneys] to care more about victims of crimes than the perpetrators.”
An official in the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Awawdeh was offered a plea deal because he only attacked the victim with a crutch and did not use pepper spray, kick the victim, or punch him, as the other attackers did. No specific reason for Elezzi’s reduced sentence was given.
“Anti-Semitic hate has no place in Manhattan, and the office is requiring felony hate crime pleas and incarceration for three men charged in connection to this despicable attack,” a spokesman for the district attorney’s office told the Free Beacon.
Hikind described this rationale as “pretty sick” and said, “When it comes to Jew-hatred, it’s just treated differently than anything else.”
Canary Mission, an organization that tracks anti-Semitism online, also expressed outrage over the two plea deals.
The six-month sentence for Awawdeh, the organization said, “is completely unacceptable. The claim that he should get a lighter sentence downplays his hate-filled motivations and diminishes the brutality of his actions.”
“Given the rise in violent hate crimes against Jews in [New York City], we would expect an unrepentant and anti-Semitic criminal to be convicted to the highest degree,” Canary Mission told the Free Beacon.
The watchdog group recently published online profiles for the four charged attackers in the Borgen case, including Awawdeh, who has reportedly attended anti-Israel demonstrations in the past.
The other two individuals charged in the Borgen beating—Mohammed Othman and Mahmoud Musa—were not offered plea deals. They must plead to the highest charge and face a minimum of 3-and-a-half years and maximum of 15 years in prison, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Christians and conservatives must recapture the public square ceded to the “woke” culture, says actor and author Kirk Cameron.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Cameron challenged parents who are tired of being silenced by social-justice elites, to host a pro-family, Christian story hour at their local public libraries.
Cameron hopes his push to read wholesome books at libraries that seem to prefer drag queens over faith will spark a movement nationwide to take the country back to its founding principles.
He announced the initiative on Fox New’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” encouraging parents and children to flood libraries with readings on faith-based, patriotic books.
Kirk Cameron quiets the crowd at Placentia Library in California on Jan. 14, 2023. (Photo courtesy of Kirk Cameron PR team)
Cameron is offering a free copy of his new book “As You Grow”—or others from his publisher Brave Books—if people want to read at libraries. He suggested reading the Bible as well.
“If they’re going to steal the hearts and minds of our children, they’ve got to do it over our dead bodies,” said Cameron, who became famous playing the role of Mike Seaver in the 1985-92 sitcom “Growing Pains.”
Cameron, who now stars mostly in Christian films, made headlines in December when he attempted to schedule story-hour readings of “As You Grow.” The book celebrates faith, family, and the Bible.
His requests to schedule the events were denied or ignored by 50 “woke” libraries, many of which had advertised drag queen story hours, he said.
Story-hour programs for children connected to new book releases are an activity that many libraries sponsor for their communities.
Approach to Libraries
So Cameron wrote letters to the directors of the Indianapolis Public Library in Indiana and the Scarsdale Public Library in New York, asking for the same opportunity they’d given drag performers.
He just wanted to use a room in their libraries to read his new book to children and their families.
The two relented after Cameron said publicly he was ready to go to court to fight for his free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution.
Scarsdale Public Library published a statement on Dec. 19, 2022, regarding the Cameron room rental.
“The Scarsdale Public Library would like to address comments received about an upcoming event booked by Brave Publishing.
“The event is not a library-sponsored program, but rather a meeting room rental, that cannot be rejected based upon political or religious content under the First Amendment.
“The Scarsdale Public Library is committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion for all community members. Granting permission to use a room does not constitute an approval or endorsement of any program.”
Flags representing LGBT social movements wave outside the Stonewall Monument in New York on June 7, 2022. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
The California father of six said thousands attended the two library events in a show of support.
Though some disputed the numbers, Cameron said about 2,500 people attended the event at the Indianapolis Library. In Scarsdale, the crowd exceeded the capacity of the rented space. So Cameron did two readings.
In a post on Twitter, Scarsdale said, “Our estimated door count during the event is around 750, not 2500. We’ve had larger events. We turn 150 years old in 2023. And our auditorium, which our guests chose not to rent, holds 300, not 2000.”
Of his troubles in holding reading events Cameron said, “What I’m learning is that these libraries do not represent the values of millions of Americans in the cities.”
New Yorkers thanked him for not passing over the Empire State, he said.
One woman told him that Christian and conservative speakers often skip visiting New York because they think everyone has bought into the “woke” socialist agenda, he said. That’s not the case, she told him.
Cameron said Christians, parents, and patriots are hungry for answers on what they can do to fight back against the social justice movement. He says that trend, followed by many young adults, is based on the tenets of Marxism that deny the existence of God.
Freedom Isn’t Guaranteed
One thing Americans should take to heart is that freedom isn’t guaranteed, Cameron said. Every generation must fight for it, or one day, he added, “we’ll wake up, and we’ll be Venezuela, China, or North Korea.”
But there’s no more powerful force for good than mothers and fathers who fight for the hearts and minds of their children, he said.
“Their Spidey senses have been telling them that something’s very wrong in America, and they just don’t know what to do,” he said.
“And sometimes it’s just something as simple as reading stories to children that sparked a movement.”
Drag performers reading to children have awakened many parents, he said. For decades, people have been too busy working to notice what schools were teaching their children.
Cameron believes parents need to take back their children’s education and refuse to hand them over to the government for eight hours a day to “indoctrinate them and get them to change their pronouns.”
“They care about drag queens coming to sexualize their 2-year-olds,” he said. “And if that’s where the battle lines have to be drawn, then that’s where we need to fight. And people are waking up.”
At the Scarsdale library event, a grandfather spontaneously burst out singing “God Bless America.” About 250 people joined in, Cameron said.
And as people waited outside, because there was no more space in the library, he saw parents pulling out their books and reading to their children in line.
“It was this chorus of voices—they love God, love their family, and love their country,” he said.
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, M.D., who served as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under former Pres. Donald Trump, interacts with a child in November 2022 while signing his book “Red, White and Blue: Our Flag Matters to Me and You.” (Courtesy of the American Cornerstone Institute)
Many who attended the readings thanked Cameron, saying they wanted their children to love God and their country. They told him they unequivocally reject a “Marxist woke agenda,” he said.
History has seen good people rise up in America during times of moral decay, spiritual apathy, and political corruption, Cameron said.
But salt-of-the-earth Christian believers could win back their community, he said.
New Great Awakening
“I believe that we are we are on the verge of another Great Awakening in our country.”
Pastors have started holding their own story hours at their local libraries. In Arkansas, a Jan. 14 article in a local paper described “Pastor Story Hour,” led by Owen Strachan of the Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway at the Faulkner County Library.
Meanwhile, across the hall at the same library, the Faulkner County Coalition for Social Justice offered a “drag-queen story hour.” That event was scheduled after the leader of the pro-LGBT group learned of the church-led event.
Cameron’s publisher, Brave Books, provides tips and resources for people interested in organizing a story hour. The company also offers a pro-American, pro-Christian book series called Freedom Island that is about animals that protect the island from threats, addressing topics such as fake news and border protection.
“We need a young generation of heroes to rise up and protect Freedom Island. And parents can help make that happen by reading them the stories that inspire those virtues, and that fearless faith and that moral character,” he said.
If people want to do something to turn back the communist tide rising in America, they can no longer remain silent inside their homes or churches, Cameron said.
He’s practicing what he preaches, planning to read in Los Angeles, Detroit, Seattle, Portland, Denver, and Chicago. He was originally scheduled to do a book reading in Los Angeles on Jan. 14 but couldn’t meet their requirements in time to book the location.
So instead, he read at the Placentia Library in Orange County, California.
“Take back the public square,” he encourages. “Don’t complain about your community’s culture. Change it!”
THE LABOUR PARTY LEADER IS PLEDGING LAZY “REFORMS” WHICH IN FACT WEAKEN THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT’S TIES TO THE LONG TERM NATIONAL INTEREST.
Like our American cousins, the British public often laments the avaricious, megalomaniacal, and self-interested ways of their political class. We demand more accountability and more gratitude from our politicians. It is irrelevant whether one is of the left or right – both “sides” are broadly dissatisfied with prevailing regime.
Disenfranchisement has been a growing concern for as long as most can remember, and now feels ubiquitous. Despite this, one of the only major constitutional changes we have made in recent decades actually ousted some people from political life who actually had more interest in the longer term successes of the nation. The destruction of our upper chamber – the House of Lords – by way of abolishing the majority of hereditary peers (Lords and Baronesses), has been disastrous for the nation. We have not recovered from this constitutional vandalism of the Blair years, nor may we ever, lest we seek to restore the very point of a bicameral legislature.
The House of Lords.
The imperfection of the House of Lords prior to this was self-evident. Having an entire parliamentary chamber filled with aristocrats or the sons thereof speaks little in favor of representative democracy. The chamber offered unelected persons the opportunity to intervene in the governance and legislative agenda of the nation. It whiffs of a by-gone age, when the landed elite gathered in powdered periwigs to deny ‘commoners’ political representation or rights. But it is untrue to argue, as does Theresa Raphael for Bloomberg, that the House of Lords consists of “Dukes, Earls, or Viscounts, which recall an ancient status system at odds with today’s meritocracy.” The House was once that, but certainly no more. Since Labour introduced the House of Lords Act (1999), more than 650 hereditary peerages were abolished, leaving a mere 91 in situ. What replaced these people was the chaotic mess we now recognize, with hereditary legislators replaced with failed politicians or dodgy, semi-surreptitious, lobbyists or donors for whom there is often no accountability.
This new arrangement has already been so disastrous that just over two decades on, the nation already recognizes that more reform, or even abolition of the House is necessary. Both sides of the so-called political spectrum are deeply unhappy with it. On the one hand, the Right lost respect for the House as a result of its conduct at the height of Brexit. It’s members worked tirelessly to obstruct the result of the referendum, infuriating many of its last defenders. The Left despises the very nature and history of the chamber, preferring a charade of unicameral “democracy” while altogether empowering the unelected administrative state instead of accountable legislators.
To better understand why the hereditary peers’ removal from the House of Lords was a disaster, one must recognize a simple fact about British history: Britain was never like France, where the combination of a Third Estate so arbitrarily oppressed, alongside an aristocracy so hostile to social change demanded violent revolution to create a form of social advancement. Looking into the past through lenses of class warfare and social resentment is an insufficient means of analyzing history before the mid-nineteenth century. As highlighted by G.M. Trevelyan, in his famous History of England, class tensions were certainly not as they are now. He writes:
“[U]nder the first two Georges [between 1715 and 1760], before the coming of great economic change, the wage-earner, both in town and country, scarcely seems to have resented at all his lack of social and political power. The British working man, then called the honest ‘yeoman’ or the ‘jolly ‘prentice’ was quite happy drinking himself drunk to the health of the ‘quality’ at election time. And, even if he had no vote, he could stand cheering or hooting in front of the hustings, while the candidates, possibly a peer’s son, bent low with his hand on his head or rotten egg in his hear, addressing the members as ‘gentlemen,’ and asking for their support as the chief object of his ambition.”
The sight of classes mixing and showing respect to one another, according to Trevelyan, “filled foreign spectators with both admiration and astonishment,” as it probably would today. But this was no coincidence. Indeed, it’s no coincidence that Britain has hitherto avoided any concentrated effort to usurp political power or tear down the government since the Glorious Revolution (1688). The nation avoided this as a result of the adversarial nature of the political system.
Necessary Conflict.
Throughout history there was endless conflict between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Both challenged one another’s prejudices and had to negotiate to a manageable and sensible middle ground. The Lords provided a constitutional brake against democratically elected governments running rampant with aggressive political reforms, with the Commons providing an accelerator to encourage social progression. It was via this conflict that a range of perspectives were heard, and the country was better represented.
Crucially, the hereditary peers were reliant upon nobody for their position. Accordingly, they were existentially bound to act for the nation’s best interests. Unlike today’s House of Lords, where its members are forced to support the party that put them there as a demonstration of endless gratitude, squashing them consistently into the same political paradigms of the Commons, the hereditary peers had the freedom to act independently if they saw it fit. As recognized by Thomas Carlyle, a nation is completely reliant on the sovereignty of its land, and this is especially true with the former landed aristocracy occupying a seat in the Lords. Having received their seat in the Lords by right of birth, the same seat that their great-grandfathers occupied, they had no choice but to act in the interests of the country, for the nation’s interests coincided with theirs. The hereditary peers had little option to be anything but loyal to the nation as their fortunes, pomp, prestige, status, and influence depended on it. However, it also meant they were required to be progressive at times as, to maintain their social status, thus, to avoid social revolution, they couldn’t be as restrictive and arbitrary as other European aristocracies.
An emboldened House of Commons cooperating with a House of Lords filled with a mixture of hereditary peers, clergyman, politicians, businessmen, scientists, and other practitioners is preferable to what we now have. Almost anyone would prefer a nation with some constitutional brakes and hurdles to one where parties can surf a populist wave into office and start radically reforming a system in its interests. The words ‘almost anyone’ is used intentionally, for there is a very curious historical trend in this nation.
Whenever the Left gets into office, it aims to either cripple the influence of, or indeed abolish the House of Lords entirely. It began with Oliver Cromwell abolishing it in 1649 while declaring, “the House of Lords is useless and dangerous to the people of England.” Following his death, the chamber was restored. The aversion felt by countercultural parties and groups has however persisted hitherto, hence current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s recent announcements about formally abolishing our House of Lords.
A “new, reformed upper chamber,” is on its way according to Sir Keir, which he claims is necessary to “restore trust in politics,” albeit by means of further uprooting Britain’s ancient constitution. Sir Keir doesn’t quite recognise how unoriginal this is.
Every countercultural government has either began or continued the process of destruction piecemeal.
The Ultimate Attack on Conservatism.
The Parliament Act of 1911 removed the Lords’ constitutional veto to bills passed by the House of Commons; and, if the Lords sought to strike down legislation, it could only delay promulgation for up to two years. The 1911 Act was the end of a long, slow, road for the aristocracy, beginning with the 1832 Great Reform Act. Since then, the 1949 Parliament Act, introduced by Clement Attlee’s Labour government, reduced the Lords’ ability to delay from two years to a year, rendering any delay a mere aberration rather than a powerful constitutional tool. The spirit of the sixties came and went, carrying the seeds of the cultural revolution, ensuring that anything pre-existing the Second World War was dubbed archaic and uncool. In 1968, Harold Wilson’s Labour government considered splitting the chamber into two-tiers, further fragmenting its power, and creating an easier route of bypass. This never came to pass. In the late 90s, New Labour came to power, and as they did with so much else, destroyed the Lords as a seat of intergenerational stability and turned it into the superfluous and erratic mess it currently is.
The reason why the Left is so hostile to the Lords, and why Sir Keir is desperate to abolish it, is because it will finally create a vacant space that it has desired for centuries; namely, a seat above the democratically elected Commons, possessed with the constitutional authority to strike down undesirable legislation. The House of Lords was always a seat of quiet, collected, conservatism which the Left despised because it didn’t have full administrative control. Thus, it will not just be abolished, with its ancient standing and authority potentially forever lost, but replaced with another chamber; and, similarly to the current, Blairite, Supreme Court, members will be controlled by swearing allegiance to the Equality Act (2010) and background-checked to ensure the removal of any conservative voices from government.
When reform comes, conservatives must be aware of the Left’s intentions: not just now, but also in the past. The House of Lords, as flawed as it was, at least managed to create a constitutional arrangement that ensured the leaders’ collective fates were bound to the state of the nation, which, in turn, ensured more prescient and calculated governance than what we have today. The British people are not wrong that there’s too little public interest in state affairs, but that arose from the lack of acknowledgement of the House of Lords’ and the hereditary peers’ places in the nation’s constitution. And after Sir Keir Starmer is elected, we can look forward to more of what we already have, albeit with more dominance and less opposition: bureaucracy and woke totalitarianism by Senator’s appointed by Starmer himself.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley believes President Joe Biden’s personal attorneys are “likely witnesses in a criminal investigation” following their discovery of multiple caches of classified documents at unsecured locations associated with the president.
The revelation last week that classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president had been discovered at the president’s former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington and his Wilmington, Delaware, residence has engulfed the president in a firestorm that continues to roil the administration.
Discussing the situation in an interview with Fox News, Turley advised that, for the president, the “most serious discovery would be evidence that Biden worked off their documents or removed them from their classification folders.”
“That would not only destroy the ‘inadvertence’ defense but make his public comments potentially deceitful of both the public and investigators,” Turley said on Jan. 16. “While gross mishandling does not require evil intent, unintentional violations are often addressed outside of the criminal justice system. The most serious violations have been prosecuted where material was intentionally removed.”
“Intent can be established not only at the time of the removal but during the storage of the documents,” he added. “If these documents were used or knowingly possessed over the six years, it would qualify as an intentional act to unlawfully possess the material.”
After news broke last week of the first batch of documents found at the Biden Penn Center in early November, Biden responded that he was “surprised” by the documents’ discovery and that he has no knowledge of the information they contain.
As for the lawyers who found the documents, Turley noted that they were not only likely to be witnesses in the investigation but that their involvement could also make things more serious for Biden and his legal team, as “use of private counsel without [security] clearances following the first discovery on Nov. 2 could itself be viewed as reckless and gross mishandling.”
In a Jan. 14 statement, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, noted that the attorneys who have been conducting additional searches for classified information over the last week do not possess active security clearances, which are required for an individual to view classified materials.
In a separate interview on Fox News’ “America Reports,” Turley noted the shocking nature of that fact.
“That means that almost two months later, you were still using uncleared attorneys looking for documents that you know have contained highly classified documents,” he said.
Investigations Underway
On Jan. 12, at the urging of U.S. Attorney John Lausch, who had been probing the matter, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to lead the Justice Department’s investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.
“This appointment underscores for the public the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters and to making decisions indisputably guided only by facts and the law,” Garland said in a statement.
Hur, a Trump appointee, served as U.S. attorney to the District of Maryland from April 2018 to February 2021, when he left the Justice Department to return to private practice.
In addition to the Justice Department’s probe, House Republicans have launched their own investigation into the matter, requesting via a Jan. 12 letter “all classified documents retrieved by Biden aides or lawyers at any location,” as well as lists of all aides and lawyers involved in the documents search, their security clearances, the locations searched, and all documents and communications between the White House and the Justice Department or National Archives regarding the materials found.
In his letter to the White House, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, also stressed that some of the documents had been discovered at Biden’s Wilmington home—the same address that Hunter Biden listed on his driver’s license “as recently as 2018.”
“The Committee is concerned President Biden stored classified documents at the same location his son resided while engaging in international business deals with adversaries of the United States,” Comer wrote.
In a subsequent letter to White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, Comer also requested that Biden release the visitor logs for his Wilmington home, writing: “President Biden’s mishandling of classified materials raises the issue of whether he has jeopardized our national security. Without a list of individuals who have visited his residence, the American people will never know who had access to these highly sensitive documents.”
“Like every President in decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement to media outlets.
The U.S. Secret Service has corroborated that claim, telling The Epoch Times that the agency screens visitors but keeps no records of who those visitors are.
But Turley, in his interview with “America Reports,” said that the absence of those records could prove more damaging than helpful to Biden going forward.
“The House of Representatives has legitimate interest in who was in that house,” Turley noted. “The minute you store classified evidence in your house, there is interest in whether there [were] security violations or the possibility of being compromised. So, they can get that information from another source, and that source would be staff and family. They can start to interview them, and I think courts will support that because courts are not going to buy this argument that this is just one more private domicile on a quiet little street.”
The Epoch Times has contacted the White House and Justice Department for comment.
Provisions revive 2017 battle that united antagonists in defending access to 650 million acres of public land
LAS VEGAS—The rules package adopted Jan. 9 by the U.S. House of Representatives loosens regulations relating to the transfer of federal public lands, eliminating a required estimate of lost revenues and calculation of costs when ceding control to other governmental entities.
The provision is praised by fiscal conservatives, ranchers, lumber companies, the oil/gas industry, and by at least 10 western state legislatures that insist they can more effectively and efficiently manage public lands than the matrix of federal agencies they say are doing a poor job.
Opponents argue that by making the transfer of federal public lands “revenue neutral,” House Republicans have opened the door to a “divest-and-transfer” sell-off of millions of acres for commercial, industrial, and mineral development that are now enjoyed recreationally by millions of Americans.
Friction between federal agencies managing public lands amid pressures exerted by state and local interests is a 175-year-old theme, especially across the West. But if there is consensus on anything, it is universal criticism of domineering, distant bureaucrats dictating disjointed, clumsy public lands-use policies from thousands of miles away.
When it comes to transferring federal public lands to states, however, there is no such consensus, especially among significant conservative constituencies.
The federal government owns and manages approximately 650 million acres across the United States, nearly 28 percent of the nation’s land mass and almost half the surface acreage across 11 contiguous western states. (U.S. Bureau of Land Management)
For instance, “the hook-and-bullet crowd” of hunters, anglers, shooting enthusiasts—a reliably red voting bloc—shares common ground with long-time antagonists in vehemently opposing any divest-and-transfer proposals of federal lands that they say will surely follow the House “revenue-neutral” rule-change.
That schism is certain to surface among the 2,400 exhibitors and 60,000 visitors expected to attend the world’s largest gathering of the shooting sports, hunting, outdoor recreation, and firearm manufacturing industries, the annual Shooting & Hunting Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, which kicks off its four-day run Jan. 17 in Las Vegas.
The enhanced prospect of states assuming management of federal lands under the rule change is also likely to be discussed during a Jan. 18 SHOT Show forum that will feature six GOP governors—Idaho’s Brad Little, Mississippi’s Tate Reeves, Montana’s Greg Gianforte, Nebraska’s Jim Pillen, Oklahoma’s Kevin Stitt, and Wyoming’s Mark Gordon.
Make Conveyance Convenient Again
The federal government owns and manages approximately 650 million acres across the country, nearly 28 percent of the nation’s land mass and almost half the surface acreage across 11 contiguous western states.
More than 95 percent of this land is under the regulatory control of four U.S. agencies—the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service (193 million acres), and the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (244 million acres), Fish & Wildlife Service (89 million acres), and National Park Service (80 million acres).
U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, says “anti-public lands extremists” in the chamber are making it easier to “give away our public lands for nothing in return.” (Bonnie Cash-Pool/Getty Images)
In Section 3 (g) of the 55-page rules package adopted by the new Republican-controlled House on Jan. 9, it states on pages 23-24, the “conveyance of federal land to a state, local government, or tribal entity, shall not be considered as providing new budget authority, decreasing revenues, increasing mandatory spending, or increasing outlays.”
The rules eliminate the requirement that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculate the cost to taxpayers—such as the loss of revenues from mineral extraction, grazing, and logging—of any legislation that would transfer public lands to state, local and tribal entities.
The revision—while unlikely to pass muster in the Senate—can be implemented in amendments or riders attached to ongoing budget resolutions and also be used as a regulatory enabler of bills proposing specific federal land transfers.
Democrats objected to precluding the CBO from calculating the value of federal public lands given away with Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, issuing a series of statements claiming “anti-public lands extremists” among the chamber’s Republicans were making it easier to “cheat American taxpayers and give away our public lands for nothing in return.”
House Republicans dismiss what they say is contrived hysteria. Presumptive House Natural Resources Committee Chair Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) in media comments and statements insists the rule only applies to conveyances to other government entities and will foster land-use legislation that will benefit taxpayers while retaining public access to lands that will remain public, even if no longer under federal control.
Conservationists, including the “hook-and-bullet crowd,” have their doubts. They warn that cash-strapped states and municipalities could conceivably—and legally—sell off lands transferred by the federal government that were previously protected from private development.
And it’s hardly hysteria, they argue. The same provision installed by Republicans Jan. 9 was also adopted in 2017 when the GOP last controlled the House, spurring a slate of controversial “divest-and-transfer” bills” that were quickly withdrawn in the face of heated, vocal opposition from an array of odd bedfellow organizations and advocacy groups, ranging from hunters to the U.S. Humane Society.
The same battle lines appear to be forming six years later with all awaiting the next shoe-drop—bills proposing the transfer of federal lands to the states.
Chimney Rock National Monument in Colorado was granted protections in 2012 under the 1906 Antiquities Act, which House Republicans unsuccessfully tried to weaken in 2017, and appear poised to target again in the coming two years. (Rockhounds_5)
Deja Vu All Over Again
Between 2013-16, more than 44 Republican-sponsored bills to dilute or delete federal regulatory control on public lands, as well as to divest-and-transfer federal lands, were introduced into Congress.
At the 2016 GOP National Convention, the Republican National Committee adopted a platform plank advocating the transfer of federal land to states. Eventual nominee and future President Donald Trump, however, never expressly endorsed the policy.
After the House adopted former Rep. Rob Bishop’s (R-Utah) “budget neutral” provision in its 2017 rules package—the same one re-installed in 2023— 570 million of 650 million federally-administered acres essentially became worthless by regulatory indifference, the mass devaluation a precursor to specific bills proposing land transfers.
All spurred opposition, but none sparked the broadside of across-the-board backlash that former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) induced with his proposed ‘Disposal of Excess Federal Lands Act,’ which called for selling 3.3 million Bureau of Land Management (BLM) acres across 10 states to the highest bidder.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington in this April 29, 2015 photo. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
Chaffetz’s controversial bill fostered #KeepItPublic and #PublicLandsProud campaigns endorsed by organizations and firearms manufacturers that include many GOP voters in their ranks: The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Sportsmen’s Alliance, Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), Outdoor Alliance, National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF)—which sponsors the annual SHOT Show—Back Country Hunters and Anglers—which includes Donald Trump, Jr., among its members—Trout Unlimited, Quail Forever, National Wildlife Foundation, Kimber, Pheasants Forever, National Wild Turkey Federation, Remington, the Wilderness Society, Center for Western Priorities, National Bowhunters Association, and the Sierra Club, the nation’s largest grassroots conservation organization with more than 2 million members.
They maintain states’ public lands administration, by statute, emphasizes resource development because, unlike the federal government, states and municipalities must balance their budgets.
For instance, Wyoming’s Constitution requires state trust lands be managed for “long-term growth in value” and “optimum, sustainable revenue production.” The Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) is statutorily obligated to manage lands in the most “prudent and profitable manner possible.” SITLA cannot consider multiple uses or “the public interest” unless its fiscal obligations to trust beneficiaries are met.
Federal agencies adhere to a multi-use mandate that regards habitat conservation, wildlife stewardship, watershed integrity, historical preservation, and recreational access as equal primacies with oil/gas and mineral extraction, grazing, timber harvesting, and commercial privatization.
Conservationists note even if federal agencies divested control, states would still be required to comply with a complex and expensive matrix of federal environmental laws, endangered species regulations, and inter-state water compacts, assuming financial burdens they do not have the resources to sustain without being forced to sell lands, something they often do.
Federal land transfer proponents argue that state control of public lands would be less costly and more ecologically efficient than how federal agencies must do so under layers of regulations. They argue these bulky bureaucracies also stymie beneficial development with protracted permitting procedures without regard to local needs and concerns.
Supporters say states would be more responsive and better suited to balancing the public interest in protecting endangered species, maintaining watersheds, managing habitat, and ensuring recreational access to public lands while also promoting oil/gas extraction, grazing and timber leases—among other commercial uses—where appropriate to generate jobs and tax revenues.
Among advocacy groups that endorse the overall policy of divesting federal lands if not every bill seeking to do so: The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), American Lands Council (ALC), Americans for Prosperity, the Environmental Policy Alliance, Western Energy Alliance, Center for Organizational Research and Education, and, by resolution, as many as 10 Western state legislatures.
The negative response to his bill seeking to sell 3.3 million acres of BLM land was so sharp, so swift, a chastened Chaffetz withdrew it a week after filing it, posting an Instagram mea culpa wearing hunting gear and assuring, “I’m a proud gunowner, hunter and love our public lands.”
Critics maintain poor federal land management practices contribute to forest fires throughout the West, including this wildfire in Cleveland National Forest in Southern California in March 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
The Case for Federal Divestment
ALEC, the Washington free-market think-tank that frequently drafts model legislation for conservative causes, has crafted a divestment policy based on Utah’s 2012 Land Transfer Act that has been introduced into at least seven western state legislatures demanding control of federal land within their boundaries.
ALEC Federalism and International Relations Task Force Executive Director Karla Jones told The Epoch Times the group “applauds” the rule change and will support bills that “facilitate the conveyance of more federal land, excluding national parks, national monuments, congressionally designated wilderness areas, U.S. military installations and tribal lands, to the states that want that authority.”
Jones said transferring certain types of land now under federal control to states “will ensure that territory is managed by those who have the greatest interest in its preservation and condition and the best understanding of how to care for it.”
There’s plenty of documented evidence refuting claims that federal agencies manage public lands better than states do, she said.
“The states are the optimal environmental and economic stewards of the lands within their borders and recent experience in America’s West underscores this conclusion,” Jones said. “The record-breaking wildfires that decimated New Mexico last spring originated from prescribed burns on federal lands–burns that local officials never would have authorized due to weather and other factors on the ground.
“Hopefully,” she continues, the rule change “will lead to the federal government relinquishing select federal lands under its purview that due to years of mismanagement have become very costly for the federal government to maintain, allowing the states greater access for restoration, recreation and revenue generation.”
Utah-based American Lands Council’s (ALC) “only issue” is “the hopeful transfer of public lands to states,” its Director of Internal Operations Doug Keaton said.
“We’re excited at the prospect that the federal government would even consider disposing of public lands to the states,” Keaton told The Epoch Times. “Land is an asset, but only if it is used for the good of the public, the people.”
To put it bluntly, he said, “The federal government is a terrible landlord. Its management processes are basically [that] 90 percent treat it like a museum, kind of stand back and let Mother Nature do her thing, don’t interfere. That kind of policy has been devastating for the natural environment.”
ALC endorses management that “treats public lands like a garden, as opposed to a museum,” Keaton said. ‘To manage a garden, you harvest what is wrought, you protect what is still growing.”
Allowing forests to accumulate undergrowth is causing catastrophic fires, killing millions of animals and destroying habitats for decades, maintains the Utah-based American Lands Council. (Photo courtesy of American Lands Council)
Federal forest management, he said, has been a disaster. “Our forests are overgrown, fuel for fires, because of lack of management. It’s extremely dangerous and the reason for the catastrophic fires we have seen increasingly. Management of the forests has basically gone away. It’s devastating for the states.”
Keaton said selective timber harvest policies already in place on state-owned lands in most states, which generate revenues for schools, could help improve the health of federally-managed forests.
“Here’s the deal: we have the ability through management processes to keep our forests sound and vibrant forever instead of allowing forests to accumulate undergrowth and causing catastrophic fires, killing millions of animals, not to mention the people—we’ve lost a lot of homes in California—that damage forests for decades,” he said. “We don’t have to go through the extremes of management by crisis. Selective harvest makes it better and better and better.”
Denver-based Western Energy Alliance (WEA), which represents 200 companies involved in oil and gas extraction across the West, doesn’t comment on specific public lands transfer proposals but supports the overall policy.
WEA President Kathleen Sgamma told The Epoch Times such proposals are understandably “of keen interest to states, as federal land managers make decisions to lock away federal lands and they isolate state lands that are supposed to be used for productive purposes that suddenly become inaccessible, such as with a presidential monument designation under the Antiquities Act.”
WEA is among groups that would endorse weakening or repealing the 1906 Antiquities Act to un-list the 29 national monuments created by the Obama Administration and dilute the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Sgamma said the rule-change should appeal to Congressional reps and state lawmakers across the West “trying to help counties in their district and states navigate the negative consequences of poor federal land management decisions.”
Proponents point to financial analyses that, they say, confirm states could manage public lands for economic development as well as environmental conservation and, in doing so, ensure the sustained viability of habitats, wildlife populations and public access.
Among them: ‘Divided Lands: State vs. Federal Land Management in the West’ by the Property and Environmental Research Center (PERC) and a 2014 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, ‘Federal Land Ownership Overview and Data,’ which claims Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, and Idaho recouped $4.89 for each dollar it spent managing its public lands compared to 15 cents for each dollar spent by federal agencies on public lands in those states.
President Donald Trump signs the Great American Outdoors Act at the White House in August 2020, which aims to upgrade federal public lands funding, including for national parks, and to permanently fund The Land and Water Conservation Fund. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The Case Against Federal Divestment
Public lands advocates do not defend federal management practices—they, too, are critical—but they refute divestment proponents’ claims point by point.
States do not have to meet Freedom of Information Act transparency and disclosure requirements imposed on federal agencies, public lands advocates say, meaning the public would not enjoy the input it now has in developing resource management plans for public lands. Under state control, they say, public access to public lands and public participation in public lands management would become … less public.
Opponents say that since state lands must be managed for economic development, states cannot guarantee any federal land they absorb won’t eventually be sold to private interests. In fact, states already do exactly that with public lands.
Utah, for instance, has auctioned off state parks and has established statewide Energy Zones, Timber Agricultural Commodity Zones, and Grazing Agricultural Commodity Zones on state trust lands. This type of system would be extended onto federal lands if transferred into their stewardship.
When Utah’s SITLA sold 391 acres of state trust land in October 2016 to Lyman Family Farms, Inc., for $500,000, the new owners padlocked a gate and posted a “No Trespassing” sign on what had been the only public access to the southeastern part of the 1.3 million acre Bears Ears National Monument.
The Oregon State Legislature in 2017 agreed to sell the state’s oldest forest, the 82,500-acre Elliott State Forest, because its timber revenues had been flagging.
Nevada has almost no state lands left having sold nearly 2.7 million acres by 2016. Idaho has sold 41 percent of its state trust lands and only allows recreation on its remaining 2.4 million acres of trust lands if it doesn’t interfere with revenue-producing activities. In Colorado, only 18 percent of the 2.8 million acres of state lands are open to hunting and fishing.
Once sold, those public lands are forever private, no longer accessible to the public, opponents say.
By making transfers “budget neutral,” the Jan. 9 rule change implies a vast swath of federal public lands have little value, which Outdoor Alliance Communications Director Tania Lown-Hecht in a call-to-action petition appeal called “a maneuver … designed to make it look like giving away or selling public land would cost nothing. In fact, public lands are a large source of government revenue and the foundation of the growing outdoor recreation economy and the well-being of many local communities.”
A U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis 2018 study, the first official measurements of the contribution of outdoor recreation to the U.S. economy, documented that outdoor recreation contributed $412 billion, or 2.2 percent, to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 and supported nearly 4.6 million jobs.
Government Relations Manager Kaden McArthur at Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the Missoula, Montana,-based organization is already warning lawmakers it will oppose any divestment bills.
“BHA strongly opposed this rule change that threatens the integrity of our public estate–lands and waters enjoyed by 70 million hunters and anglers as well as many other outdoor enthusiasts–and we fought to exclude it in the final rules package,” McArthur said.
Denver-based Center for Western Priorities (CWP) maintained surveys show the vast majority of Americans—regardless of political persuasion—want the federal government, not states, to manage public lands.
“These extremist efforts to liquidate and lock up national public lands show that House Republicans are completely out of step with the public on issues affecting the West,” CWP Executive Director Jennifer Rokala told The Epoch Times in an emailed comment. “Westerners want more access to public lands, not less—and they want their public lands protected, not exploited for private profit.”
McArthur said conservationists must maintain “close scrutiny” and be ready to respond when an inevitable divestment bill is proposed.
“Without the need to account for the lost value of our federal lands, the door will be open to misguided legislative proposals that benefit special interests over the American people,” McArthur said.
Lown-Hecht called the rule change “a trial balloon meant to test Americans willingness to see public lands sold off” and said there are several differences between the 2017 House rules package and the one adopted on Jan. 9.
One stipulation in the rule package caps congressional appropriations levels that could cut budgets for federal land management agencies, she noted.
Conservationists say linking public lands leasing to the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Preserve won’t produce more oil or gas, but will lock up lands in drilling leases—while locking out public access—for decades. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
The package also includes a provision to debate a bill—the Strategic Production Response Act—that would compel the government to lease more public lands and waters for energy development.
“This provision would require that all non-emergency drawdowns of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve be accompanied by a plan to increase fossil fuel leasing on federal lands,” Lown-Hecht writes. “At a time when the country needs to be transitioning toward renewable energy and reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, requiring the government to arbitrarily lease off public lands and waters for development is the wrong approach.”
Rokala also called attention to this provision, which ties public land leases to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, installed into the package by House Majority Leader, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).
“Such a plan would not increase oil and gas production in the short term, but could, if implemented, lock up millions more acres of public land for drilling decades down the road,” she said.
Rokala reiterated that these potential actions are unpopular and will draw sharp rebuke. “The majority of Westerners want to see less public land locked up for drilling, not more,” she said. “And they certainly don’t want to see their public lands used as a pawn in a political game seeking to place blame for high gas prices on the federal government.”
If past is prologue, “The passage of these provisions is a harbinger of bad ideas to come,” Lown-Hecht writes. “While it may be difficult for lawmakers to pass any legislation this year, especially unpopular proposals given the likely gridlock in Congress, the inclusion of the provision is a clear sign that lawmakers are looking for license to move ahead with selling off public lands.”
The bugle calls are already being sounded.
“Hunters and anglers successfully beat back efforts to sell or transfer public lands (in 2017) and we are ready to do it again,” Joel Webster, vice president of Western Conservation at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, told The Epoch Times.
“I can’t imagine why lawmakers would want to wage this battle again—and I can’t think of a better issue to mobilize and engage sportsmen and women.”
I agree that it’s artificial, anyway. It takes “programming,” and we’ve seen what programming has done to television and its viewers, so… [US Patriot]
Popular tech news outlet CNET was recently outed for publishing Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated articles about personal finance for months without making any prior public announcement or disclosure to its readers.
Online marketer and Authority Hacker co-founder Gael Breton first made the discovery and posted it to Twitter on Jan. 11, where he said that CNET started its experimentation with AI in early Nov. 2022 with topics such as “What is the Difference Between a Bank and a Credit Union” and “What are NSF Fees and Why Do Banks Charge Them?”
To date, CNET has published about 75 of these “financial explainer” articles using AI, Breton reported in a follow-up analysis he published two days later.
The byline for these articles was “CNET Money Staff,” a wording, according to Futurism.com, “that clearly seems to imply that human writers are its primary authors.”
Only when readers click on the byline do they see that the article was actually AI-generated. A dropdown description reads, “This article was generated using automation technology and thoroughly edited and fact-checked by an editor on our editorial staff,” the outlet reported.
According to Futurism, the news sparked outrage and concern, mostly over the fear that AI-generated journalism could potentially eliminate work for entry-level writers and produce inaccurate information.
“It’s tough already,” one Twitter user said in response to Breton’s post, “because if you are going to consume the news, you either have to find a few sources you trust, or fact check everything. If you are going to add AI written articles into the mix it doesn’t make a difference. You still have to figure out the truth afterwards.”
Another wrote, “This is great, so now soon the low-quality spam by these ‘big, trusted’ sites will reach proportions never before imagined possible. Near-zero cost and near-unlimited scale.”
“I see it as inevitable and editor positions will become more important than entry-level writers,” another wrote, concerned about AI replacing entry-level writers. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.”
Threat to Aspiring Journalists
A writer on Crackberry.com worried that the use of AI would replace the on-the-job experience critical for aspiring journalists. “It was a job like that … that got me into this position today,” the author wrote in a post to the site. “If that first step on the ladder becomes a robot, how is anybody supposed to follow in my footsteps?”
The criticism led to CNET’s editor-in-chief Connie Guglielmo to respond with an explanation on its platform, admitting that starting in Nov. 2022, CNET “decided to do an experiment” to see “if there’s a pragmatic use case for an AI assist on basic explainers around financial services.”
CNET also hoped to determine whether “the tech can help our busy staff of reporters and editors with their job to cover topics from a 360-degree perspective” to “create the most helpful content so our audience can make better decisions.”
Guglielmo went on to say that every article published with “AI assist” is “reviewed, fact-checked and edited by an editor with topical expertise before we hit publish.”
‘Boneheaded Errors’
Futurism, however, found CNET’s AI-written articles rife with what the outlet called “boneheaded errors.” Since the articles were written at a “level so basic that it would only really be of interest to those with extremely low information about personal finance in the first place,” people taking the inaccurate information at face value as good advice from financial experts could lead to poor decision-making.
While AI-generators, the outlet reported, are “legitimately impressive at spitting out glib, true-sounding prose, they have a notoriously difficult time distinguishing fact from fiction.”
Crackberry has the same misgivings about AI-generated journalism. “Can we trust AI tools to know what they’re doing?” the writer asks.
“The most glaring flaw … is that it speaks with unquestioning confidence, even when it’s wrong. There’s not clarity into the inner workings to know how reliable the information it provides truly is … because it’s deriving what it knows by neutrally evaluating … sources on the internet and not using a human brain that can gut check what it’s about to say.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Jan. 17 that he was “surprised” to learn that classified documents had been discovered at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, where President Joe Biden previously had an office.
Blinken served as Biden’s national security adviser when he was vice president and the two have remained close since Biden became president.
He worked as managing director of the Penn Center in 2018 when it officially opened.
“Just as you heard from President Biden about a week ago I was surprised to learn that there were any government records taken to the Penn Biden Center,” Blinken said during a joint press conference with UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly on Tuesday.
“I had no knowledge of it at the time,” Blinken added. “The White House of course has indicated that the administration is cooperating fully with the review that the Justice Department has undertaken, and I of course would cooperate fully with that review myself.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel, Richard Hur, to investigate the handling of classified materials and whether or not any person or entity broke the law.
The White House counsel’s office also stressed on Tuesday that Biden is committed to operating with the Justice Department’s investigation into the classified documents.
“It’s important to really understand the distinction here: President Biden is committed to doing the responsible thing and acting appropriately,” White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams told reporters during a conference call.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to tell reporters during a press briefing whether or not the search for more classified documents has been completed.
Secret Service personnel park vehicles in the driveway leading to U.S. President Joe Biden’s house after classified documents were found there by Biden’s lawyers, in Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 15, 2023. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
White House Sidesteps Questions About Additional Documents
“I’m not going to comment from here,” Jean-Pierre said when questioned on the matter. “When it comes to the Department of Justice, when it comes to legal matters, when it comes to legal issues, we have been very clear that we’re not going to comment. We are not going to politically interfere.”
At an earlier press conference on Jan. 12, Jean-Pierre had told reporters that a search for further potential documents had been completed.
At least three batches of classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president have been discovered so far at the Penn Biden Center in Washington—where Biden used an office from mid-2017 until the start of his 2020 presidential campaign—and at as one of his homes in Wilmington, Delaware.
Along with the DOJ investigation into the documents, Republicans also started their own investigation into the matter.
In a statement on Jan. 10, newly appointed House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said he is requesting information from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the White House Counsel’s Office about Biden’s “failure to return highly classified records from his time as vice president,” adding that he is concerned that “NARA’s inconsistent application of the Presidential Records Act and treatment of classified records held by former President Trump and President Biden raise questions about potential political bias at the agency.”
The Presidential Records Act, which was passed by Congress in 1978, states that any records created or received by the President as part of his or her “constitutional, statutory, or ceremonial duties” belong to the United States government and should be handed over to NARA when they leave office.
On Sunday, Comer called on White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain to release the visitor logs for President Biden’s Wilmington residence, as well as to provide documents and communications regarding all of the properties and locations that have been searched.
Biden admin spokesperson Ian Sams has said no such logs exist.
Those of us who are conservative political activists have wondered: Will our new governor, Sarah Sanders, be the real deal?
After all, a lot of us are Republicans, and disappointment is a way of life for us. All our guys and gals are quick to put out the platitudes, but they often don’t follow up.
Was Sanders’ stellar performance as President’s Trump’s press secretary just a reflection of professional competence?
Does she really believe the strong conservative things she said from the White House press podium on behalf of Trump and later in her campaign for governor?
The Bible on which Sanders placed her hand to take the oath of office Jan. 10 was still warm when she put forth a series of red meat conservative executive orders.
Right after the inauguration last week, Sanders issued an executive order banning critical race theory from Arkansas schools.
Is Joe Biden failing as president?Yes No
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She called for a review of previous executive orders, including jettisoning those related to COVID.
I can sense fellow conservative activists letting out their breath regarding the new governor. And quietly exhaling a “wow!” along with it.
Sanders replaced term-limited Asa Hutchinson whose moderation produced frustration among a growing number of strong conservatives streaming into established and newly-formed Republican county committees in recent years.
The last Southern state to turn red, Arkansas has recently seen the GOP sweeping what are termed the constitutional offices of the state — executive positions of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, land commissioner, state auditor and state treasurer — for the first time since Reconstruction.
Republicans also recently built a supermajority in the legislature, which has resulted in substantial conservative legislation, including enactments causing Arkansas to be recognized as the most pro-life state.
Many of us see a hopeful future at the state level, and recent events in Virginia, South Dakota, Texas and especially Florida may be providing direction toward restoration of government of, by and for the people with less entanglement with the morass that is Washington, D.C.
We in Arkansas hopefully will soon be joining those other states in demonstrating how our republic should operate. And here’s hoping more states will soon be following and, in their own ways, taking leadership.
After all, are we not the United States of America?
Many politicians will try to convince anyone willing to listen that the Capitol incursion on Jan. 6, 2021, was one of the worst days in American history. Chief among them are the seven Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans who sat on the House select committee to investigate the matter.
For one of them, however — former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — the Capitol incursion and subsequent months of investigation don’t seem to be all that bad, especially since a political action committee he launched in 2021 was hawking autographed copies of the now-irrelevant Jan. 6 committee’s final report, Fox News reported Tuesday.
The price? A cool $100.
The report signed by Kinzinger, a NeverTrumper who was one of 10 House Republicans to vote in favor of impeaching former President Donald Trump, appeared to come in book format and was listed for sale on a website belonging to Kinzinger’s PAC, Country First.
Whoever wrote the sales copy for the book held nothing back in the dramatics department.
“On January 6, 2021, the United States came perilously close to losing its democracy. A mob instigated by the president of the United States violently attacked the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., seeking to disrupt the certification of the electors in the presidential election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history,” the autographed report’s description reads.
It continues, “The attack was the culmination of a plot organized and driven by a defeated president, attempting to remain in power through a complex web of deceit, intimidation, and violence. This is the official report of the investigation into the attack — perhaps the most vital congressional investigation in American history — with exhibits, and witness testimony.”
Fox News reported the listing was removed shortly after it reported on the book sale.
Between the signed report and his new gig as a CNN senior political commentator, Kinzinger looks like he’s already enjoying the fruits of the private sector two weeks after leaving Congress.
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Hilariously, when he announced he would not move forward with a re-election campaign in October 2021 — hours after the Illinois legislature approved a redrawn congressional map that ensured he wouldn’t win — Kinzinger released a bold statement concerning his future in politics.
“Let me be clear, my passion for this country has only grown,” he said in a video titled “The Next Chapter.” “My desire to make a difference is bigger than it’s ever been. … I want to make it clear, this isn’t the end of my political future but the beginning.”
It looks more like his passion to pad his bank account is bigger than it’s ever been.
Social media wasn’t kind to the former congressman.
“Adam Kinzinger is selling autographed copies of the January 6th Committee’s Report for $100. The grift is and always has been strong with Adam, but this right here is a new low. I wonder if he includes his pronouns with the autograph for maximum woke points. Just pathetic,” one Twitter user wrote.
Adam Kinzinger is selling autographed copies of the January 6th Committee’s Report for $100.
The grift is and always has been strong with Adam, but this right here is a new low.
I wonder if he includes his pronouns with the autograph for maximum woke points.
Keep in mind that it was only a few weeks ago that Kinzinger publicly trashed Donald Trump Jr. for endorsing a popular line of American-made “We the People” Bibles.
“Oh the irony. The fact that some Christians dont see the problem here is more affirmation that it’s not the GOP that has failed Christians, it’s the church. Good Pastors and Priests rise up and call this out,” he tweeted Jan. 2.
Oh the irony.
The fact that some Christians dont see the problem here is more affirmation that it’s not the GOP that has failed Christians, it’s the church.
An African reporter has turned to his Twitter followers for help as he continues to be ignored by Joe Biden’s press secretary.
Simon Ateba of Today News Africa has been trying to get White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to answer questions about continued Chinese influence on the African continent.
A desperate and frustrated Ateba took to Twitter to make his voice heard on Monday, asking his followers for advice on how to get Jean-Pierre to call on him.
“Hello guys, what should I do for [press secretary] Karine Jean-Pierre to call on me and other overlooked reporters during press briefings to ask the questions you all care about?” Ateba asked.
Hello guys, what should I do for @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre to call on me and other overlooked reporters during press briefings to ask the questions you all care about? Any advice? Kindly write below. Thanks! pic.twitter.com/pNxJw3ffHj
Speaking with Tucker Carlson on his primetime Fox News show on Sunday, Ateba revealed that Jean-Pierre has not called on him in four months.
According to Ateba, Jean-Pierre has promised to meet with him but said that such a meeting will have to wait until next year. In the meantime, questions about Chinese involvement in Africa will presumably remain unanswered by the administration.
Ateba said Jean-Pierre has “no clue what is happening in Africa” and accused her of not taking “serious questions,” only ones that she has prepared for in advance.
Ateba has earned a reputation at White House media briefings for speaking up from the back of the pressroom and asking hard-hitting questions that people in both Africa and elsewhere want answers to.
This has led to some contentious moments between him and White House press secretaries.
Back in May, on the last day of Jen Psaki’s tenure as press secretary, Psaki chastised Ateba after he interrupted her to ask why she had never taken questions from the back of the room.
In November, during Anthony Fauci’s last news conference as White House chief medical adviser, Ateba and Jean-Pierre got into a heated exchange about how she was conducting the session.
After a Daily Caller reporter attempted to ask Fauci about the origins of COVID-19, Jean-Pierre shot down her question. “We have a process here. I’m not calling out on people who yell,” she explained.
This prompted Ateba to yell from the back of the room, loudly asking why the reporter’s question should be ignored.
“She has a valid question! She’s asking about the origin of COVID, and Dr. Fauci’s the best person to answer that question,” the African reporter exclaimed.
“I hear your question, but we’re not doing this the way you want it! … Simon, I’m done!” Jean-Pierre said. “I’m done with you right now! … You’re taking time away from your colleagues.”
Last month, Jean-Pierre abruptly ended a briefing after Ateba criticized her for not taking questions on the U.S.-Africa Summit.
Ateba’s concerns about growing Chinese influence in Africa are not a new development in global politics.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang wrapped up a tour of African nations on Monday, making 2023 the 33rd consecutive year that Chinese diplomats have visited the continent, according to the Global Times.
China has invested heavily in infrastructure projects and trade deals in Africa, becoming a major arms dealer to African militaries. With Russia busy in Ukraine, China has consumed a large part of Russia’s market influence on the continent.
Tom Brady is being accused of a dirty hit after a Monday playoff game in which the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were handily eliminated at Raymond James Stadium in Florida.
The legendary quarterback tripped Dallas Cowboys defensive back Malik Hooker as he returned an apparent fumble in the third quarter.
Seattle electric vehicle users are experiencing yet another problem with EVs, and it is a problem you can bet will spread — in short order — to other big cities.
It seems as if not a week passes where we don’t see another new problem with electric vehicles, but at least this issue isn’t exactly the fault of the still shaky technology. Users in Seattle have discovered public charging stations broken open and missing copper wiring, which had been ripped out by metals thieves.
The issue has been ongoing for months, Media Relations Manager for Seattle City Light Jenn Strang said, according to KOMO-TV.
“Since March of 2022, we have seen an increase of activity where we’ve have had people coming and removing the charging cables from our public charging stations,” Strang told the outlet.
“They are taking the metal, and they are turning it in for monetary gain. Unfortunately, the amount of money they are [getting] is nominal. It’s about ten dollars,” Strang explained.
City officials indicated that eight charging stations have recently been vandalized by thieves.
The repair price is far more than a mere ten dollars, though. Strang said that the cables cost upwards of $2,000 each to replace, and that is on top of the $500 to have a technician install the replacements.
Executive Director of Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound Jim Fuda told the outlet that this is just a new opportunity for metals thieves.
“What’s a charging cable? Anywhere from 6 to 10 to 12 feet. They cut that up in two to six-foot lengths, and haul it out quickly, and strip it, and go sell it to a fence,” Fuda said.
As left-wing states continue to indulge their goal of banning gas-powered cars, cities are now confronting new costly issues like this. And Seattle officials said they are mulling ways to put the brakes on copper thieves. One possible idea is to redesign the charging stations, so that charging cables will only appear out of the charging station when someone triggers them with a cell phone app.
“Instead of via a charging station that someone would [drive] up to, it’s something that’s mounted up to a pole, and then you have to have an app, so by accessing the app the charger comes down,” Strang said of the proposed redesign.
Meanwhile, damaged charging stations remain out of order until city repairmen can get them serviced.
The number of stations hit by metals thieves may seem small, but it is an ongoing problem that will likely spill over to stations across the country that charge these car batteries — which have serious issues of their own.
The number of charging stations is still at a problematic low. Seattle may have less of a problem with that, of course. According to the website PlugShare, there are 471 free charging stations in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue region and a total of 2,975 stations of all types, including pay-per-charge stations. But while deep blue cities, such as Seattle, do have a high number of charging stations to utilize, the country as a whole does not.
According to the U.K. Daily Mail, the U.S. will have to spend more than $35 billion to upgrade its current EV charging infrastructure if the nation is to go to majority EV usage by 2030.
“America would have to install 30 million electronic vehicle charging ports by 2030 if half of drivers switch to EVs by the time California’s ban on gas cars takes effect,” the outlet reported in August.
Of course, EV users could always put in their own charging stations at home, but they will face stiff costs.
Recently Cars.com paid to have six different kinds of home EV charging bases installed in the homes of their employees and found a range of prices and effectiveness. The costs ranged from $1,738 for the cheapest version mounted on the side of an employee’s house to the $4,450 it cost to build a freestanding, curbside station to $6,920 for a line to be run from the house to a detached garage. And that does not take into account the nearly $500 added to your home electric bill each year, as estimated by Business Insider.
EVs have many issues that make them more troublesome than Joe Biden wants you to believe as he constantly pushes electric vehicles on the American public. And now that we have crooks taking advantage of their charging infrastructure, one more problem has been thrown into the mix.
FDA and CDC left out clinical data on bivalent booster
Moderna and regulatory agencies did not present clinical data on bivalent shots at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) committee meetings in June and September 2022, respectively.
Presentations to the FDA and CDC advisory committee excluded data from Moderna’s own clinical study that showed bivalent boosters may be no better at preventing infections than previous booster shots.
The data showed that among people who were never infected, 3.2 percent who took the bivalent booster got infected afterward, while 1.9 percent who took the monovalent booster were later infected.
Advisors to the FDA and CDC expressed concerns of lack of transparency.
Dr. William Schaffner from Vanderbilt University, a nonvoting member of the CDC advisory committee, said that he was disappointed that the data were not presented.
“I think in the interests of transparency, those data should have been presented,” Schaffner said, “though they were very limited, and early data.”
FDA advisor and a professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of California San Diego, Dr. Mark Sawyer, said that he understands people’s concern with the data being excluded, but not all information can be presented.
The committee has limited time, so the information presented must be relevant to the big picture.
“Seeing that data would not have changed my opinion about the outcome,” said Sawyer, “and it would certainly have distracted from the discussion.”
The four advisors for the FDA and CDC who were contacted by The Epoch Times agreed that if the data were presented, it may have prolonged the discussion, but would not have changed the voting outcomes.
Both the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) meeting and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting approved Moderna bivalent boosters.
The excluded data come out of a Moderna study with 772 participants. The study compared bivalent boosters containing mRNA components of the original and the BA.1 Omicron strain against the original Wuhan-strain booster.
The study primarily investigated the safety and immunogenicity of boosters, but also looked into the infection and reactogenicity of the subjects.
Immunogenicity, the focus of the study, is defined as the ability of the vaccine to trigger an immune response. Though the study authors reiterated that the trial does not examine vaccine efficacy, the authors acknowledged that immunogenicity has been used to infer efficacy.
Three days before the FDA VRBPAC meeting on June 28, 2022, Moderna published the study as a preprint, and in September, published the study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Both the preprint and peer-reviewed study included data on immunogenicity, safety, reactogenicity, as well as infection.
Moderna’s spokesman Christopher Ridley also told CNN that the company shared the infection data with the FDA and published the study before the FDA panel meeting.
At the VRBPAC meeting, Moderna president Stephen Hoge made several references to the study’s immunogenicity data, which showed that people who took the bivalent shots had a higher antibody level than those who took the monovalent booster, as an argument for the bivalent booster’s superiority.
Hoge also made references to the same study’s data on safety and reactogenicity, but infection rates were excluded.
The FDA’s documents provided to the committee panel on the same day, also referenced the study’s data on immunogenicity, safety, and reactogenicity, yet the infection data were similarly excluded.
According to CNN, the FDA spokesman explained in an email that the data on infection were not included, as “the FDA received the preprint less than a day prior to the advisory committee meeting,” and “generally the FDA only discusses data at advisory committee meetings that the agency has had the opportunity to substantively review.”
This means that the FDA could review the study’s data on immunogenicity, safety, and reactogenicity, but had no opportunity to examine infection data.
VRBPAC member and professor of microbiology and immunology from the University of Iowa, Dr. Stanley Perlman, said that with the absence of these data, there is always the concern that the public will lose trust in the health care system.
At the end of the meeting, the VRBPAC committee ruled in favor of using the Omicron variant’s mRNA in boosters to produce the bivalent COVID-19 vaccines in a 19-2 motion.
It is worth noting that by the time of the FDA committee meeting, the BA.1 strain of the Omicron variant was no longer dominant.
Though the presentations referenced data on bivalent boosters composed of the BA.1 and Wuhan mRNA components, the boosters that were later FDA-emergency authorized contained BA.4 and BA.5 components rather than BA.1.
None of the presentations on Moderna boosters contained clinical data on participants who were inoculated with BA.4/BA.5 bivalent boosters.
The CDC’s meeting with members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on Sep. 1, 2022, presented by Moderna staff Dr. Jacqueline Miller, also excluded data on infection rates in the presentation (pdf).
Hours into the CDC meeting, voting member of the ACIP Dr. Sybil Cineas asked whether there were any data on breakthrough infections between two experimental groups.
Miller said that between the overall cohort of people who received the bivalent vaccine, the infection rate was 2.5 percent, and for the monovalent group, the rate of 2.4 percent.
However, she failed to mention that for people who never had a previous infection, 3.2 percent of those who took the bivalent vaccine became infected, while 1.9 percent of subjects who took the monovalent developed an infection.
The ACIP members approved Moderna bivalent boosters being made available to people aged 18 and over in a 13-1 vote.
Signage outside of the FDA headquarters in White Oak, Md., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
Limitations of Study
Dr. Cody Meissner, a VRBPAC member and a professor in the division of infectious diseases and international health from Dartmouth Health Children’s, also pointed out that the infection data came out of a non-randomized and non-blinded study.
This introduces the risk of bias into the study, as those assigned to bivalent or monovalent boosters were not based on random chance, and trial administrators would know what booster participants received.
While this possibly discounts the significance of the data on infection rates, it can also affect the validity of the findings on immunogenicity, safety, and reactogenicity.
Biochemist and mRNA platform inventor Dr. Robert Malone raised the point that immunogenicity data that only look at antibody levels are not good surrogate measures for vaccine efficacy.
Antibody levels are also not a good measure of immunity, as antibodies will and should wane with time. The long-term immunity they provide is therefore unknown.
It is also unconfirmed if the antibodies produced are neutralizing antibodies that can block the virus and spike proteins, or if they may actually prevent the immune system from killing and controlling the virus, a scenario known as antibody-dependent enhancement.
Moderna vaccine syringes lay on a table at a COVID-19 vaccine drive-through clinic at Richardson Stadium in Kingston, Ont., Canada, on May 28, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Lars Hagberg)
Increasing Scrutiny of Bivalent Boosters
Bivalent boosters have come under increasing scrutiny for their rapidly declining effectiveness.
A December 2022 preprint study on bivalent vaccines, authored by the Cleveland Clinic, found that the higher the number of previous vaccinations, the greater the risk of contracting COVID-19.
In a letter to the editor (pdf) published in the NEJM, researchers from Columbia University compared antibody serum responses among people who received bivalent boosters, monovalent boosters, and those who were infected.
The authors found that there was no significant difference in neutralizing abilities among these groups when tested against Omicron and other variants.
Dr. Paul Offit, an advisor on the VRBPAC committee who voted against bivalent boosters at the meeting, also published a commentary, saying that young and healthy people shouldn’t get the latest boosters.
“I believe we should stop trying to prevent all symptomatic infections in healthy, young people by boosting them with vaccines containing mRNA from strains that might disappear a few months later,” wrote Offit, also an FDA vaccine panel adviser and professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in the NEJM on Jan. 11, 2023.
In his article, Offit cited two studies suggesting that bivalent boosters, which target the original COVID-19 strain and two Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA. 5, do not “elicit superior immune responses.”
“Why did the strategy for significantly increasing BA.4 and BA.5 neutralizing antibodies using a bivalent vaccine fail?” he asked.
“The most likely explanation is imprinting. The immune systems of people immunized with the bivalent vaccine, all of whom had previously been vaccinated, were primed to respond to the ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2. They therefore probably responded to epitopes shared by BA.4 and BA.5 and the ancestral strain, rather than to new epitopes on BA.4 and BA.5.”
Meissner, likewise, expressed that healthy people younger than 65 years of age may not need bivalent boosters.
“We don’t know … how many or how often boosters are necessary. And could there be consequences from giving multiple vaccine doses that we don’t fully understand at this time?”
A peer-reviewed study published on Jan. 12 in Germany also showed that people who received higher numbers of mRNA vaccines had a higher IgG4 antibody response. The authors did not further discuss what these antibody levels may indicate, but studies have associated IgG4 antibodies with immune tolerance, which is when the body reduces its immune response to fight off an infection.
People who had a previous infection or vaccination with the adenovirus COVID-19 vaccine had zero or low IgG4 antibody responses, respectively.
The Timing of Discovery of Excluded Data Is Dubious: Physicians
Retired clinical trialist and epidemiologist Dr. Andrew Bostom was skeptical of the timing of the discovery of the withheld data.
“Why did it take so long to follow up on these findings?” Bostom asked.
Bostom himself noticed the infection data signals when the study was published in the NEJM on Sep. 16, 2022, and posted his findings on his now-reactivated Twitter account.
Even before the FDA’s announcement of emergency-use authorizations of the bivalent vaccines on Aug. 31, 2022, pharmacies and health centers were already being encouraged to take preorders for the bivalent boosters.
“In many ways, the U.S. government was already committed. They already bought these before they knew the results,” board-certified internist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough said.
McCullough argued that it is far too late to discuss the nuances of withheld data and immunogenicity, with increasing reports of vaccine injury and adverse events.
Meissner and Sawyer said that the VRBPAC committee is following the rapidly emerging research on the boosters and that there would be further discussion of all available data at the meeting on Jan. 26.
The FDA, CDC, and Moderna did not respond to requests for comment.
(Reuters)—Six people including a six-month-old baby cradled in the arms of her 17-year-old mother were shot dead at a home in California’s main agricultural valley on Monday in what authorities called a targeted attack and “horrific massacre.”
Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux linked the killings to the illegal drug trade, saying deputies had conducted a drug-related search warrant at the same home last week.
“We believe this was a message being sent,” Boudreaux told reporters at the scene. “We believe that this was a targeted family.”
Two suspects remained at large, he said.
Authorities responded early on Monday after multiple shots were heard. Some victims were found in the street while others were discovered in the house.
One victim was alive and wounded when authorities arrived but later died at a hospital, Boudreaux said.
The attacks occurred in Goshen, a farm community of 5,400 people about midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The bodies of the infant and 17-year-old mother were located in a ditch outside the home, Boudreaux later told the Los Angeles Times. Both had gunshot wounds to the head.
Several others were shot in the head, including an elderly woman. Two women survived by hiding in a trailer on the property.
“I think it’s specifically connected to the cartel. The level of violence … this was not your run-of-the-mill low-end gang member,” Boudreaux told the newspaper.
“If (they) are specifically shooting everyone in the head, they know what they are doing … (and) they are comfortable with what they are doing.”
The newspaper reported that last week’s search warrant resulted in one arrest and the seizure of guns, marijuana, and methamphetamine.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, Calif.; Editing by Josie Kao and Matthew Lewis)
Republican Larry Hogan is finishing his tenure as Maryland’s governor Wednesday with higher favorability among Democrats than his own party’s voters.
Eighty-one percent of Maryland Democrats approve of the departing governor, compared with just 68 percent of Republicans, according to recent polling from Gonzales Research. Hogan was elected twice in the deep blue state and gained popularity for his ability to work across the aisle with the legislature. His overall approval rating in Maryland is 77 percent, 10 points higher than when the poll first tracked his favorability rating in January 2016.
Hogan will give up the governor’s mansion to Democrat Wes Moore on Wednesday. Moore trounced Republican Dan Cox, who was far more partisan than Hogan, by more than 30 percentage points last November. Cox would frequently attack Hogan on the campaign trail for working with Democrats, and Hogan did not back his campaign.
Hogan is widely believed to be considering a presidential run in 2024. His standing in the polls highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of a presidential run by Hogan—his supporters could point to the results as evidence of the governor’s unique popularity and ability to win two consecutive terms in a state where Republicans don’t compete. His popularity with Democrats, however, will not help him emerge from a Republican primary. Hogan is a regular critic of former president Donald Trump, whose policies remain popular with Republican primary voters.
Hogan has blamed the former president for the Republicans’ lackluster 2022 midterm results, saying voters want “common sense conservatives.”
“I think President Trump is at a low point in his career,” Hogan said in December. “I mean, I think he peaked in November of 2020, and, you know, it was slow to erode some of the base, but now I think he’s at his lowest point ever.”
Hogan’s Democratic favorability rating of 81 percent is identical to Biden’s, according to the poll. African Americans also approve of Hogan in large numbers, with 81 percent saying they approve of the governor’s performance. Hogan’s efforts to “re-fund the police,” particularly in majority-black Baltimore, enjoyed 88 percent support from black Maryland voters, the Washington Free Beaconreported—even as Democrats criticized the effort as “divisive” and “misguided.”
Hogan’s widespread popularity has landed the governor’s name in conversations about the 2024 race. Hogan hinted at a presidential bid when asked in November.
“I’ve been saying since 2020 that we have to get back to a party that appeals to more people that can win in tough places like I’ve done in Maryland,” Hogan told CNN just after the midterm elections. “And I think that lane is much wider now than it was a week ago.”
While Hogan advertises himself as a moderate consensus-builder, recent polling shows a third of Republicans want Trump as the nominee and two-thirds want his policies but a different candidate.
Washington Post says changes to the criminal code will make the nation’s capital ‘more dangerous’
The D.C. Council on Tuesday voted to override Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto of an update to the district’s criminal code which will reduce sentences for carjackings, robberies, and gun-related felonies in the nation’s capital.
The all-Democratic council voted 12-1 against Bowser, who vetoed what she called “a complete overhaul of our criminal code” that would make the district less safe. The revised code shrank some sentence lengths for gun charges to less than five years. Councilmember Trayon White (D.), who has accused Jews of manipulating the weather, cast the only vote siding with the mayor.
In 2021, D.C. had its highest murder rate in more than 18 years, with 226 killings recorded. There has also been a rash of carjackings over the past five years, affecting city council candidates and pro-athletes alike.
Even the liberal Washington Post editorial board warned that the revised code would make the city “more dangerous” in a Sunday editorial.
In a Jan. 4 letter announcing her veto, Bowser noted that convicted violent felons who go on to commit other crimes with guns face a maximum sentence of just 4 years, as opposed to the previous 15 years. Armed robbers no longer face sentence enhancements for felony gun possession. The mayor also urged the council to raise penalties that had been reduced for carjackers and burglars.
Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D.) opposed Bowser’s decision last week arguing the opposite: that the new code is safer as well as “more just, equitable, and clear.” Fellow member Charles Allen (D.) accused the council’s critics of promoting “misinformation” about the code, ABC 7 News reported.
Pinto tried at one point to beef up charges for illegal gun possession through an amendment, but was voted down. “It is not a good message from this council to say we are going to reduce penalties for guns,” she said in November before voting to pass the code without the amendment, according to DCist.
The D.C. chapter of Black Lives Matter slammed Bowser for her veto, calling the move “performative distraction.”
“She cares about spotlights, murals and opportunities to misdirect and misinform,” the group said on Twitter.
The criminal code changes, which the council had unanimously approved in November, will now be sent to Congress for review. If Congress approves the plan in the next 60 days, it will go to President Joe Biden for his signature. The earliest the code could take effect then would be October 2025.
Update 2:57 p.m.: This piece has been updated with additional information.
Fred Kempe did not disclose millions in Emirati funding in gushing article
The Atlantic Council’s chief executive officer, Fred Kempe, this month lavished praise on the “resource-rich, renewables-generating” United Arab Emirates in a Jan. 14 op-ed for CNBC praising the oil-rich Gulf nation’s “utopian” plan to fight climate change.
What he failed to mention were the Middle Eastern monarchy’s sizable donations—which have in some years topped $1 million—to the Atlantic Council. He also omitted the more troubling aspects of the UAE’s governance. The country has a documented record of human rights abuses, according to the State Department, including torture, arbitrary detention, and “undue restrictions on free expression and the press.”
In the piece, Kempe celebrated the United Nations’ decision to hold its annual climate change summit in Abu Dhabi and praised the UAE’s selection of Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, an Emirati government minister and the head of the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, to oversee the global summit. Kempe called Al-Jaber an “ideal choice” to lead the conference, rebuffing climate activists who criticized Al-Jaber’s selection because of his role as head of one of the Gulf region’s largest oil producers.
After the Washington Free Beacon contacted the Atlantic Council for comment, CNBC attached a lengthy editor’s note to the article noting that “the obvious conflict of interest” was “not disclosed” and that the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is a major sponsor of the Atlantic Council’s annual energy conference. The UAE embassy in 2021 gave more than $1 million to the Atlantic Council, while the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation gave between $100,000 and $250,000, according to donor records.
In a statement to the Free Beacon, an Atlantic Council spokesman said the think tank “regret[s] that proper disclosures were not made.”
“That was an oversight. The piece has been updated to clarify the nature of the relationship,” the spokesman said.
The Atlantic Council, which paid Kempe roughly $700,000 in 2019, has promoted the UAE in other ways. In October, the think tank funded a junket for congressional aides to Abu Dhabi to meet with Emirati officials and energy industry executives, the Free Beaconreported. The Atlantic Council has hosted Emirati officials at forums and other events both in Washington, D.C., and Abu Dhabi. Kempe interviewed Al-Jaber at an Atlantic Council event in April 2021.
The think tank has come under scrutiny before over its other foreign entanglements. Burisma Holdings, the Hunter Biden-linked Ukrainian energy firm, contributed $300,000 to the Atlantic Council as part of the company’s attempts to repair its public image in the wake of corruption scandals. Atlantic Council officials accepted the donation even after State Department officials had warned them about Burisma’s corruption. Two of Burisma’s lobbyists, Sally Painter and Karen Tramontano, served on the Atlantic Council’s board of directors at the time.
The Turkish government, a longtime Atlantic Council donor, has pressured the think tank to shape its research and programming in ways favorable to Ankara, sources have told the Free Beacon.
J.B. Pritzker’s gun ban is ‘divisive, unenforceable, and offers dubious efficacy as a crime-fighting tool,’ argues Illinois Gun Rights Alliance
A coalition of Illinois gun-rights groups is launching a legal challenge to Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker’s extensive ban on so-called assault weapons, including AR-15s and certain pistols, arguing that the ban is unconstitutional.
The Illinois Gun Rights Alliance said Tuesday that it has retained lawyers specializing in firearm law to challenge the sweeping legislation, which Pritzker signed into law last week.
“This new law is divisive, unenforceable, and offers dubious efficacy as a crime-fighting tool,” said group spokesman Mandi Sano, adding that the ban is a “dangerous infringement on the rights of the lawful citizen.”
The group’s legal challenge marks just the latest pushback to the “Protect Illinois Communities Act,” which bans the sale and distribution of certain pistols, shotguns, and rifles, as well “high-capacity magazines” and “switches” that can make handguns automatic. At least 85 of the state’s 102 county sheriffs announced they will not enforce the law.
Illinois became the ninth state to outlaw so-called assault weapons. While states such as California and Connecticut have fended off legal challenges to such laws, the bans face an uncertain future after the Supreme Court last year struck down New York’s restrictions on concealed handgun carry.
Gun restrictions must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, noting that contemporary attitudes about guns are not grounds for restricting a constitutional right.
Illinois residents who own the now-banned “weapons of war” must register them with police by Jan. 1, 2024, or face a Class 2 Felony. McHenry County sheriff Robb Tadelman said the ban puts sheriffs “in a bind”—if they enforce the state law, they will break their vow to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
“Neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the state, nor will we be arresting or housing law-abiding individuals that have been arrested solely with non-compliance of this act,” Tadelman said.
Pritzker called the sheriffs’ response “political grandstanding,” saying last week that the law enforcement officials “won’t be in their job” if they don’t enforce the law.
The Democratic governor pointed to record-high crime in Chicago to justify the new gun ban, saying it will reduce gun-related violence. Kourtney Redmond, the Illinois state director of the National African American Gun Association, said Pritzker’s ban is a “danger” to the state’s law-abiding black residents, who will be unable to defend themselves in a “fair fight” with criminals.
“You’re hindering people from being able to defend themselves,” said Redmond, pointing to Pritzker’s ban on rifles that hold more than 10 rounds and pistols that hold more than 15 rounds. “I’m sorry, but the criminal is not running around with 15-round magazines.”
Last year, 496 fatal shooting victims in Chicago were black, adding up to more than 76 percent of gun homicide victims in the city.
Pritzker’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. district court ruled in April 2022 that CDC’s mask mandate for public transportation was unlawful
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The Justice Department on Tuesday asked an appeals court panel to reverse an April 2022 ruling that declared unlawful a government order requiring masks on airplanes, buses, trains, ridesharing services and at airports and other transportation hubs.
A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on the government’s appeal of a ruling by a U.S. district court judge in Florida that found the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lacked legal authority to issue a nationwide travel mask mandate to combat COVID-19.
The CDC issued the sweeping mask mandate in January 2021, days after Joe Biden became president.
A report from U.S. lawmakers in October said the Trump administration in 2020 blocked the CDC from adopting a federal transportation mask mandate.
Much of the arguments in the appeal focus on the CDC’s decision to put in place the requirements immediately rather than give the public a chance to comment on the mandate.
Justice Department lawyer Brian Springer said the CDC could impose mask requirements without giving the public time to comment given the pandemic emergency, arguing it was necessary “to prevent the possible infections and deaths that could result if people didn’t do the simple thing of just putting on a mask while they were traveling.”
Lawyer Brant C. Hadaway representing the five people who had sued to challenge the mandate noted the CDC last year had not sought a stay of the district court’s ruling.
“This is not about an urgent matter of public health,” Hadaway told the court. He argued that had the CDC believed the issue was a “matter of life and death” the agency would have sought a faster ruling.
The European Union earlier this month recommended face masks for passengers flying to its member countries from China, which is experiencing a major COVID-19 outbreak after lifting its zero-COVID policy.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
An Iranian military leader said on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic is strengthening its military infrastructure and will soon oversee the destruction of Israel and the United States.
Brigadier General Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Tehran’s chief terrorism force, said that “very soon” the world “will witness the destruction of the Zionist regime.” Iran, he said, is equipping Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas to wage war against Israel. “The Zionists,” Fadavi said, “are taking actions under the guidance of the United States, but soon the great Satan [the United States] will also be destroyed.”
Fadavi’s remarks come as Iran amplifies its threats to attack Israel and the United States amid a breakdown in diplomatic talks between the hardline regime and Biden administration. Nationwide protests in Iran also have challenged the clerical government’s grip on power, with dissidents taking to the streets to demand regime change. The Iranian government has reacted to the protests with violence, including by killing protest movement leaders. These actions have been punctuated by a more hardline foreign policy stance against Israel and the United States, which Iran sees as fueling the protest movement.
The IRGC, which is responsible for killing hundreds of Americans, is not only supporting Palestinian militant groups, Fadavi said, but also amassing the military might needed for a strike against the United States and Israel.
“What our enemies know about us is little, and they will truly understand when we use our power against them,” Fadavi said in comments carried by Iran’s state-controlled press.
Fadavi also praised Iranian general Qassem Soleimani—who was killed in a 2020 drone strike ordered by then-U.S. president Donald Trump—for his efforts to arm various Palestinian factions.
The IRGC leader’s threats came on the same day his military group conducted large-scale war drills in the Persian Gulf, an area where Iran frequently harasses U.S. military vessels. The IRGC navy reportedly tested “advanced missiles and combat drones,” as well as “high-tech military weapons” and “naval cruise missile systems” during these exercises.
News of funding comes as Biden under fire for classified docs found at think tank
I guess it’s clear who was behind the 2022 PA election cycle, huh? [US Patriot]
Since Joe Biden took office in 2021 anonymous Chinese donors have poured millions of dollars to the university that houses President Joe Biden’s think tank, where at least 10 classified documents were identified.
Since Biden’s inauguration, the University of Pennsylvania has received $51 million in foreign funding, including $14 million from unnamed contributors in China and Hong Kong and $2.4 million from unnamed contributors in Saudi Arabia, according to Department of Education records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The school also received $1 million from a source in the Cayman Islands in June to fund its Penn Wharton China program.
This funding is in addition to the $61 million that the University of Pennsylvania received from Chinese donors between 2017 and 2020, which was reported by the Free Beacon in 2021.
The names of the newer foreign donors are being kept under wraps by the Biden administration’s Department of Education—a departure from prior administrations that would publish this information in an online database. American universities that receive federal grants are required by law to disclose their overseas funders to the government.
The funding details come as Biden’s think tank, the Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has been in the media spotlight following reports that federal investigators found classified documents at the Washington, D.C.-based institute and his Delaware home. The Penn Biden Center, which launched in 2017, served as a home base for Biden’s top national security officials, many of whom were employed by the center before joining the Biden administration. The White House is also facing criticism for a lack of transparency about who had access to Biden’s home and the Penn Biden Center where the classified documents were found.
The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a government watchdog group, said the donor records raise questions about whether any foreign funding has gone into the Penn Biden Center. The University of Pennsylvania told the Free Beacon last week that the think tank hasn’t received any earmarked donations from foreign sources and said it is financed by general university funds.
Tom Anderson, the director of the NLPC’s Government Integrity Project, said the omission of donor names from the Department of Education’s post-2021 records makes it more difficult to track the money sources.
“The Department of Education’s policy of hiding the identities of foreign entities showering our universities with billions of dollars is promoting a toxic brew of dark money and corruption,” Anderson told the Free Beacon.
The department’s database includes the date of the donation and the donor’s country, but not their names. Under previous administrations, the names of the donors were also included. The last time the Department of Education published that information was in October of 2020, a few months before Biden took office.
A Department of Education spokesman declined to provide the Free Beacon with a list of donor names since 2020 and declined to comment on why this information is no longer available in its database. The Free Beacon has submitted a public information request for these records.
In 2020, the Free Beaconreported that the University of Pennsylvania received $3 million from a mysterious Hong Kong shell company called the Nice Famous Corporation Limited, which is owned by a Shanghai businessman with deep ties to Chinese government officials.
Dr. Quintin Bostic, Content Manager, The Teaching Lab: “I would say I’m a good salesman, but I’m also an evil salesman.”
Dr. Bostic: Teaching Critical Race Theory is “still banned in schools” in Georgia.
Dr. Bostic: “If you don’t say the words ‘Critical Race Theory,’ you can technically teach it.”
Dr. Bostic: Framing the curriculum as DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] “is more accepted than, like, anti-racist education or Critical Race Theory.”
Dr. Bostic: “They [Georgia State Government] have no clue [what is in my curriculum] and I’m like, ‘This is great! This is good!’”
Dr. Bostic: “He [Governor Kemp] is, like, such an idiot. Like, his wife does a lot of stuff on education here [in Georgia] … I would get nailed” if Governor Kemp’s wife found all of this out.
Dr. Bostic: “If they come and take my business license…I can keep consulting.”
Dr. Bostic: The goal is “to get the kids to influence their parents to make the [ideological] shift too.”
[ATLANTA – Jan. 17, 2023] Project Veritas released a new video today exposing Dr. Quintin Bostic, a Content Manager who works for Teaching Lab.Play
Teaching Lab bills itself as a “non-profit organization whose mission is to fundamentally shift the paradigm of teacher professional learning for educational equity.”
Part of Dr. Bostic’s job role is to sell teaching curriculums to school districts – and he says that both Cobb County and Fulton County have his curriculum.
In a conversation with a Veritas journalist, Dr. Bostic boasts about his selling skills and tactics.
“I would say I’m a good salesman, but I’m also an evil salesman,” he said.
The “evil salesman” goes on to explain how he secretly sneaks in Critical Race Theory [CRT] ideology into the classroom, including to kindergarteners, by disguising it as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion [DEI]. He does this to avoid being caught violating Georgia State Law.
“If you don’t say the words ‘Critical Race Theory,’ you can technically teach it,” Dr. Bostic said.
“They [Georgia State Government] have no clue [what is in my curriculum] and I’m like, ‘This is great! This is good!’”
Dr. Bostic explains that he “would get nailed” if Governor Kemp’s wife were to find out what he is up to. But he also appears to play down the risks to his career even if the state were to act.
“If they come and take my business license…I can keep consulting,” he said.
About Project Veritas
James O’Keefe established Project Veritas in 2010 as a non-profit journalism enterprise to continue his undercover reporting work. Today, Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society and to engage in litigation to: protect, defend and expand human and civil rights secured by law, specifically First Amendment rights including promoting the free exchange of ideas in a digital world; combat and defeat censorship of any ideology; promote truthful reporting; and defend freedom of speech and association issues including the right to anonymity. O’Keefe serves as the CEO and Chairman of the Board so that he can continue to lead and teach his fellow journalists, as well as protect and nurture the Project Veritas culture.
Project Veritas is a registered 501(c)3 organization. Project Veritas does not advocate specific resolutions to the issues raised through its investigations.
Files reveal how the government pressured the social media giant into censoring a large number of accounts
Documents revealed by Twitter’s new owner, tech billionaire Elon Musk, show the social media company has been intertwined with a government–private censorship apparatus.
Twitter suppressed or removed content on various subjects, including irregularities in the 2020 elections, mail-in voting issues, and various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company was under government pressure to purge such content and its purveyors from the platform, though most of the time it was cooperating with the censorship requests willingly, the documents indicate.
Musk took over Twitter in October, taking the company private. He then fired around half of the staff and much of the upper management, vowing to take Twitter in a new direction. The “#TwitterFiles” releases have been part of his promised focus on transparency for the company.
He allowed several independent journalists to submit search queries that were then used by Twitter staff to search through the company’s internal documents, sometimes under the condition that the resulting stories would be first published on the platform itself.
The two journalists primarily responsible for the releases have been journalists Matt Taibbi, a former contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine, and Bari Weiss, a former editor at both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Both are liberals who have expressed disillusionment with the more extreme currents of progressivism and neoliberalism.
Others involved in the releases have been independent journalists Lee Fang and David Zweig, former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson, and author and environmentalist Michael Shellenberger.
The journalists have only released a fraction of the documents they reviewed. They’ve also redacted the names of employees involved, aside from some high-level executives.
The documents show that the FBI and other state, local, and federal agencies have been scrutinizing the political speech of Americans on a significant scale, and trying to get lawful speech suppressed or removed online. Many conservative and traditionally liberal commentators have deemed that a violation of the First Amendment.
Elon Musk gives interviews as he arrives at the Offshore Northern Seas 2022 meeting in Stavanger, Norway, on Aug. 29, 2022. CARINA JOHANSEN/NTB/AFP via Getty Images
Twitter, a major hub of political speech, has been among the main targets of censorship. Many news stories have broken on Twitter in recent years, and a significant portion of the nation’s political debate takes place on the platform, as it allows an efficient way for direct and public interaction between users, from the most prominent to the least.
Twitter resisted some censorship requests, but there was little sign the company did so as a matter of principle. Rather, executives sometimes couldn’t find a policy they could use as a justification. Prior Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was under pressure from his lieutenants to expand the policies to allow more thorough censorship, the documents show.
“The hypothesis underlying much of what we’ve implemented is that if exposure, e.g., misinformation directly causes harm, we should use remediations that reduce exposure, and limiting the spread/virality of content is a good way to do that (by just reducing prevalence overall),” said Yoel Roth, then Twitter’s head of trust and safety, which governs content policy, in a 2021 internal message published by Weiss.
“We got Jack on board with implementing this for civic integrity in the near term, but we’re going to need to make a more robust case to get this into our repertoire of policy remediations—especially for other policy domains.”
Jack Dorsey, creator, co-founder, and chairman of Twitter and co-founder and CEO of Square, in Miami on June 4, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
In many cases, Twitter leaders de facto allowed the government to silence its critics on the platform.
Many censorship requests came in with an imperious attitude, particularly those from the Biden White House, but also some from the office of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who at the time headed the powerful House Intelligence Committee.
Around November 2020, Schiff’s office sent a list of demands to Twitter, including for the removal of “any and all content” about the committee’s staff and the suspension of “many” accounts, including that of Paul Sperry, a journalist with RealClearInvestigations.
Schiff’s office accused Sperry of harassment and promoting “false QAnon conspiracies.”
Sperry rejected the allegation, asking Schiff to show evidence for his claims, and announced that he was considering legal action.
Schiff’s demands were apparently a response to Sperry’s articles that speculated on the identity of the White House whistleblower that alleged a “quid pro quo” between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Sperry reported, using anonymous sources, that the whistleblower was likely then-CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, who was overheard talking in the White House with Sean Misko, a holdover staffer from the Obama administration. Misko later joined Schiff’s committee.
Morning sunlight strikes the flag flying above the White House in Washington, on March 18, 2015. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Twitter rejected Schiff’s demands, save for reviewing “again” Sperry’s account activity. Sperry’s account was suspended months later. Taibbi said he wasn’t able to find out why.
Under Pressure
The many censorship requests Twitter received via the FBI were phrased as merely bringing information to its attention, leaving it up to the company to decide what to do with them. But Twitter executives clearly felt compelled to accommodate these requests, even in cases where they internally struggled to justify doing so, the documents show.
The government pressure took several forms. The FBI would follow up on its requests, and if they weren’t fulfilled, Twitter had to explain itself to the bureau. If Twitter’s position on an issue differed from the one expected by the government, company executives would be questioned and made aware that the bureau, and even the broader intelligence community, wasn’t happy. That would send the executives into triage mode, rushing to salvage the relationship, which they apparently considered essential.
A seal reading “Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation” is displayed on the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington, on Aug. 9, 2022. (STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Corporate media served as another pressure point. If Twitter wouldn’t do what it was told fast enough, the media would be provided with information portraying Twitter as ignoring some problem of paramount importance, such as possible foreign influence operations on its platform.
One censorship request, for instance, targeted an account allegedly run by Russian intelligence, though Twitter wasn’t given any evidence of it.
“Due to a lack of technical evidence on our end, I’ve generally left it be, waiting for more evidence,” said one Twitter executive, who Taibbi says previously worked for the CIA.
“Our window on that is closing, given that government partners are becoming more aggressive on attribution and reporting on it.”
The internal email suggests that Twitter, despite having no concrete evidence to back it, wouldn’t dare to disobey the request because of the media fallout of the government publicly labeling the account as being run by Russian intelligence.
Congress was perhaps the heaviest sword of Damocles hanging over Twitter’s head. Lawmakers could not only spur negative media coverage, but also tie up the company in hearings and investigations, or even introduce legislation that could hurt Twitter’s bottom line.
The logo of the CIA is seen at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., on Jan. 21, 2017. (Olivier Doulier/Pool/Getty Images)
For instance, just as Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) was pushing Twitter to produce more evidence of Russian influence operations on its platform in 2017, he also teamed up with Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) to propose a bill that would have required extensive disclosures of online political advertising.
In the meantime, Twitter managers were convinced that lawmakers were leaking information that Twitter had provided to them and seeding negative news stories, even as the company was trying to placate them with increasingly stringent actions toward actual and alleged Russia-linked accounts.
Even though the FBI was officially only alerting Twitter to the activities of malign foreign actors, many of the censorship requests were simply lists of accounts with little to no evidence of malign foreign links. At times, Twitter tried to ask for more information, noting that it couldn’t find any evidence on its end, but often it simply complied. It was impossible for Twitter to do its due diligence on each request—there were simply too many, according to Taibbi.
One request revealed by Taibbi claimed that “the attached email accounts” were created “possibly for use in influence operations, social media collection, or social engineering.”
“Without further explanation, Twitter would be forwarded an excel doc,” Taibbi said.
Censorship requests were lopsided against the political right. Some researchers said that the right was much more involved in spreading misinformation, but the documents indicate that the censorship wasn’t so much a matter of a right–left dichotomy, but rather a pro- and anti-establishment one. Even some left-leaning accounts were targeted if they strayed too far from the official government narrative.
Moreover, the right didn’t appear too keen on demanding censorship to begin with. Taibbi couldn’t find a single censorship request from the Trump campaign, Trump White House, or even any Republican, though he was told there were some.
On the other hand, there seemed to be no appetite across the board for targeting misinformation coming from the establishment itself.
An exterior view of “The Mac Shop”, where Hunter Biden allegedly brought his laptop for repair but never picked it up, in Wilmington, Del., on Oct. 21, 2020. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
Hunter Biden’s Laptop
Twitter’s suppression of the 2020 New York Post exposé on Hunter Biden, son of then-candidate Joe Biden, was dissected in the Twitter release in particular detail. Apparently, some Twitter executives, particularly Roth, head of trust and safety, were regularly invited to meetings with the FBI and other intelligence agencies to receive briefings on the online activities of foreign regimes. In the several months prior to the 2020 election, Roth had been conditioned to expect a “hack-and-leak” Russian operation, possibly in October and involving Hunter Biden.
The FBI alleged there was some evidence of a Russian influence operation related to Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine. But the bureau was also aware that Hunter Biden left his laptop with a trove of explosive information in a Delaware computer repair shop and that a copy of it was handed to Trump’s then-lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The FBI picked up the laptop from the repair shop in December 2019 and had Giuliani under surveillance in August 2020, when the repairman gave him the copy. As the FBI knew, the laptop information was neither hacked nor a figment of a Russian plot.
When the Post broke the story, Twitter executives were left with no doubt it was exactly what the FBI had been warning about.
“This feels a lot like a somewhat subtle leak operation,” Roth commented in an internal email, despite acknowledging he had no evidence for such a claim, save for the “questionable origins” of the laptop.
Hunter Biden arrives for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 20, 2021. (Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images)
Roth noted that the story didn’t actually violate any of Twitter’s rules. Nevertheless, it was marked “unsafe” and blocked on the platform under its policy against hacked materials, despite there being no evidence the materials were hacked.
Twitter’s then-Deputy General Counsel James Baker backed the censorship move, saying it was “reasonable” to “assume” the Hunter Biden information had been obtained through hacking.
Baker was the general counsel of the FBI until May 2018. He joined Twitter in June 2020. At the FBI, Baker was closely involved in the Russia investigation scandal, in which the FBI embroiled the Trump campaign and later the Trump administration in exhaustive investigations based on paper-thin and fabricated allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to sway the 2016 election. The allegations were produced by operatives funded by the campaign of Trump’s opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The FBI was in fact aware of no intelligence suggesting a “hack-and-leak” operation ahead of the 2020 election, as testified in November 2022 by Elvis Chan, head of the cyber branch at the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office, which was responsible for communications with Twitter and other tech companies with headquarters in its jurisdiction.
Twitter itself found very little Russian activity ahead of the 2020 election, Shellenberger reported, citing internal communications.
Shadowbanning
Twitter has long denied the practice of shadowbanning—suppressing the reach of an account without informing the user. The denial, however, specifically defined shadowbanning as making the person’s content invisible to others. What people have been complaining about is that Twitter seemingly suppresses how many people see their content, without making it invisible altogether. Internal materials show that Twitter has been doing that a lot, in fact.
One Twitter engineer told Weiss: “We control visibility quite a bit. And we control the amplification of your content quite a bit. And normal people do not know how much we do.”
Among those whose accounts were surreptitiously throttled was Jay Bhattacharya, Stanford University professor of medicine and one of the early critics of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Others included Dan Bongino, a conservative podcaster and former Secret Service agent, and Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, the country’s largest conservative youth group.
COVID-19
Twitter has extensively suppressed information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Anything about the origins of the virus, its treatment, the vaccines developed for it, and public policies to mitigate its spread had to align with the official position of the federal government, as promulgated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Zweig said he “found countless instances of tweets labeled as ‘misleading’ or taken down entirely, sometimes triggering account suspensions, simply because they veered from CDC guidance or differed from establishment views.”
Twitter user @KelleyKga, a self-described fact-checker, criticized a tweet that falsely claimed that COVID-19 was the leading cause of death by disease in children. @KelleyKga pointed out that such a claim would require cherry-picking data, backing that argument with data from the CDC. @KelleyKga’s criticism, however, was labeled as “misleading” and suppressed. On the other hand, the tweet that contained the false claim was not suppressed.
All physician Euzebiusz Jamrozik did was write on Twitter an accurate summary of study results on COVID-19 vaccine side effects. The tweet was labeled “misleading” and suppressed.
Sometimes, it appears, Twitter suppressed the information on its own, but many of the COVID-19-related requests came from the government and even directly from the Biden White House, internal files show.
In one email, White House Digital Director Rob Flaherty accused Twitter of “bending over backwards” to resist one of his censorship requests, calling it “total Calvinball”—a game where rules are made up along the way. The email, which wasn’t part of the Twitter files, came out during an ongoing lawsuit against the Biden administration filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana.
Another White House staffer wanted Twitter to censor a tweet by Robert Kennedy, Jr., a long-time critic of vaccination. The staffer wondered whether Twitter could “get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP.”
“And then if we can keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this same genre that would be great,” he said in the Jan. 23, 2021, email.
The administration wasn’t always trying to get such content removed. People who merely expressed “hesitancy” about the vaccines were supposed to only have their content suppressed from reaching any significant audience, the documents indicate.
The Biden administration had a lot at stake, as the vaccine rollout was one of its first and most high-profile tasks. There were other stakeholders as well.
Joe Biden delivers remarks on the Covid-19 response and the vaccination program at the White House in Washington, on Aug. 23, 2021. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Several censorship requests came from Scott Gottlieb, board member and head of the regulatory and compliance committee at Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant that made the most popular COVID-19 vaccine and raked in tens of billions of dollars on sales of it over the past two years.
Gottlieb sent Twitter at least three requests. One targeted a doctor who argued on the platform that naturally acquired immunity to COVID-19 was superior to vaccination. Twitter suppressed the tweet, even though the doctor was correct.
Another request targeted author Justin Hart, who argued on Twitter against school closures, pointing out that COVID-19 fatalities among children were extremely rare. Gottlieb sent the request shortly before Pfizer received approval for the use of its vaccine on children. Twitter didn’t comply with the request.
Yet another request targeted former NY Times reporter Berenson. Gottlieb claimed that Berenson’s criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of COVID-19 response in the Biden administration, was causing threats of physical violence toward Fauci. Twitter suspended Berenson’s account shortly after.
Gottlieb sent his requests to the same Twitter official who served as a contact person for censorship requests coming from the White House.
The suspended Twitter account of Donald Trump appears on a laptop screen on Jan. 8, 2021. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Trump Deplatforming
Trump was particularly effective on Twitter. His soundbites, honed over decades of dealing with the New York press, played well on the brevity-oriented Twitter, earning the president some 90 million followers and lending him the power to bypass media filters and instantly grab national attention. Trump’s Twitter presidency, however, brewed scorn inside the Beltway, especially among the foreign policy crowd that was used to diplomatic subtlety.
Twitter’s removal of Trump a few days after the Jan. 6, 2021, protest and riot at the U.S. Capitol appears to be one of those instances where Twitter executives acted on their own, breaking the platform’s content policies in suppressing the voice of a sitting American president, internal documents indicate.
Twitter suspended Trump’s account on Jan. 8, 2021, after the president made two posts.
“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” said one of Trump’s tweets.
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th,” read the other.
Twitter moderators and supervisors agreed that the tweets didn’t violate any rules.
“I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement,” wrote one staffer. “It’s pretty clear he’s saying the ‘American Patriots’ are the ones who voted for him and not the terrorists (we can call them that, right?) from Wednesday.”
Higher executives, under pressure from their many anti-Trump employees, wouldn’t accept that conclusion and continued to push for construing Trump’s comments as malicious.
“The biggest question is whether a tweet like the one this morning from Trump, which isn’t a rule violation on its face, is being used as coded incitement to further violence,” Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy, and trust, wrote in an internal message.
Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office before signing an executive order related to regulating social media, in Washington, on May 28, 2020. (Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)
Another Twitter moderation team quickly furnished Gadde’s argument with a narrative. Trump was a “leader of a violent extremist group who is glorifying the group and its recent actions,” the team concluded, according to internal messages.
Undermining the Nunes Memo
In January 2018, then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) submitted his memo detailing FBI surveillance abuses in pursuit of the Trump–Russia investigation. The memo was correct on virtually all points of substance, as later confirmed by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
The memo was dismissed by the corporate media as a “joke,” but gained significant traction on social media nonetheless. Legacy media and several lawmakers then came out claiming the memo was boosted online by accounts linked to Russian influence operations.
However, Twitter found no evidence of Russian influence behind the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Nov. 21, 2019. (Andrew Harrer/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
The claims were all sourced to the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), a group set up in 2017 under the German Marshall Fund, a think tank funded by the American, German, and Swedish governments.
The ASD is closely linked to the U.S. foreign policy and national security establishment. It was headed at the time by Laura Rosenberger, a former Clinton campaign adviser who held various roles at the State Department and the National Security Council. Its advisory council includes former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, former CIA head Michael Morell, and former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) head Mike Chertoff.
Twitter officials were at a loss as to how the ASD came to its conclusions.
“We investigated, found that engagement was overwhelmingly organic and driven by strong VIT [Very Important Tweeters] engagement (including Wikileaks, [Donald Trump Jr.], Rep. Steve King, and others),” Roth wrote in an internal message.
In fact, the “dashboard” ASD used to make its claims had already been reverse-engineered by Twitter—a fact Roth didn’t want to disclose to the media.
Twitter tried debunking the story behind the scenes without giving out such details, but to no avail. Initially, reporters ran with the story without even reaching out to Twitter, Roth wrote.
The initial letter on the matter from Schiff and Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee at the time, also came out before Twitter was given a chance to respond, internal messages say.
Twitter tried to stop Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) from piling on with his own letter, but again failed.
“Blumenthal isn’t always looking for real and nuanced solutions. He wants to get credit for pushing us further. And he may move on only when the press moves on,” commented Carlos Monje, Twitter’s then-public policy director, in an internal message. Formerly a Department of Transportation official, Monje returned to the department under the Biden administration.
In the end, Twitter never publicly challenged the Russia narrative.
The Pentagon is seen from a flight taking off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Nov. 29, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Aiding Pentagon Psyops
In 2017, a Pentagon official asked Twitter to “whitelist” several accounts the Defense Department was using to spread its message in the Middle East. Twitter obliged, giving the accounts similar privileges it was reserving for verified accounts.
Later, however, the Pentagon removed any apparent connections between the accounts and the U.S. government, making them de facto surreptitious. Even though the accounts should have been removed under Twitter’s inauthentic activity policy, the company left them up for several years, independent journalist Fang reported.
Federal ‘Belly Button’ of Investigation
The FBI served as a conduit for other government agencies to pass information to Twitter and ask for favors, according to Taibbi.
In one exchange, FBI cyber head Chan explained that the bureau would funnel to Twitter communications from the U.S. intelligence community (USIC), but other election-related communications would come from the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
“We can give you everything we’re seeing from the FBI and USIC agencies,” Chan said. “CISA will know what’s going on in each state.”
He then asked if Twitter would like to communicate with CISA separately or if it would prefer to “rely on the FBI to be the belly button of the [U.S. government].”
Twitter executives were surprised to learn that the FBI had agents specifically dedicated to searching Twitter and flagging content policy violations.
Since 2017, Twitter has employed at least 15 former FBI agents, further entangling the agency with the platform. The practice is so common that there was an internal discussion group at Twitter for former agents.
The FBI responded to the Twitter files disclosures in a statement that labeled the reporting “misinformation” spread by “conspiracy theorists and others … with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”
Department of Homeland Censorship
The DHS has managed to shoehorn speech policing into its mandate to protect critical infrastructure. In January 2017, shortly before leaving the White House, President Barack Obama designated elections as critical infrastructure. The DHS’s CISA then made it its job not only to protect elections from hackers, but also from misinformation and disinformation.
The US Department of Homeland Security building in Washington, on July 22, 2019. (ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP via Getty Images)
In July 2020, CISA partnered with several private research entities to look for, study, and counter election threats. They called themselves the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and included the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Graphika, a social media analytics firm.
The Atlantic Council acts as a semi-official NATO think tank. It enjoys a tight relationship with the government, particularly the foreign policy and intelligence community. Its roughly 200-strong board of directors includes seven former CIA heads and a plethora of other high-level national security figures.
In practice, the EIP searched social media for anything it deemed a threat to elections, including opinions casting doubt on election results or processes in a “misleading” way. Such content would then be submitted to social media companies for removal or suppression.
EIP leader Alex Stamos said the group was set up to “fill the gap” in countering election disinformation that the government wasn’t authorized to address.
The government isn’t allowed to interfere with the lawful speech of Americans, which is protected under the First Amendment.
In its final report after the 2020 election, the EIP took credit for facilitating the removal or suppression of 22 million pieces of online content and dozens of entire “narratives.”
Generally, the same actors participating in the EIP have also been involved in the suppression of information related to COVID-19 and the 2022 elections.
CISA tried to distance itself from the EIP’s censorship role, saying it never sent the EIP any examples of potential misinformation.
“CISA does not censor speech, period. CISA’s mission is to build resilience to disinformation and foreign malign influence activities that threaten critical infrastructure, including election infrastructure,” a CISA spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.
“We work in a non-partisan manner with state and local election officials to equip the American public with accurate information about the conduct and security of their elections. Online content platform operators, as always, make their own decisions regarding the content on their platforms.”
A CISA official told The Epoch Times that the agency doesn’t send content removal requests to social media.
This assertion seems to clash with other publicly available information.
The DHS-funded Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) encouraged local election officials to inform it about “misinformation” or “disinformation.” The information would then be forwarded to CISA, which would “submit it to the relevant social media platform(s) for review,” an online EI-ISAC document says.
When asked about the discrepancy, the official clarified that CISA was transmitting information identified by state and local election officials as potential election security-related disinformation to social media platforms in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, but not in the 2022 one.
A Shift in Priorities
Mike Benz, a former State Department official who handled the cyber portfolio in the Trump administration, traced the government–private censorship apparatus to the foreign policy regime change infrastructure.
Mike Benz, during an interview on EpochTV’s “Over the Target.” (The Epoch Times)
The growth of social media in the 2000s was perceived by the establishment as positive because it proved invaluable in accelerating insurgencies. The United States has a long history of supporting local opposition to rogue regimes and dictators, and social media allowed such groups to quickly organize mass protests, as demonstrated by the Arab Spring uprisings, Benz argued.
To that end, free expression online was backed by the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
After the 2016 upsets of Brexit and the election of Trump, however, the establishment soured on free speech. Both events were seen as undermining NATO, and both were blamed on foreign influence on social media—specifically Russia. The U.S. and UK governments in particular saw the need to identify and purge Russian influence operations online and set up a government–private apparatus to do so.
Yet, as the Trump–Russia investigation turned out to be a dud, the establishment crowd had to acknowledge that it was primarily domestic forces driving the populist message, Benz noted.
From that point on, the apparatus set up to root out foreign influence appears to have expanded its focus to target domestic speech instead.
The government, however, cannot target lawful domestic speech openly, since the Constitution prohibits government interference with the political speech of Americans. Despite this obstacle, the government found ways to support the domestic censorship ecosystem indirectly, Benz argued.
One method Benz identified is the issuing of grants to academic institutions to research misinformation and develop methods to counter it.
The National Science Foundation, a federal agency that funds nonmedical research, has given nearly $40 million to 42 U.S. universities to counter “disinformation” or “misinformation” since the start of the Biden administration, Benz discovered.
A $3 million grant went to two members of the EIP, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, and the Stanford Internet Observatory.
A $300,000 grant went to George Washington University specifically to counter the “populist” messaging of politicians in the United States and several other countries.
Benz became so perturbed by the encroaching censorship that he founded a group called Foundation for Freedom Online dedicated to restoring freedom of expression on the internet.
And there are signs that public exposure of the censorship machinery has had an effect.
The Biden administration was forced last year to put on hold the DHS’s planned Disinformation Governance Board. Its freshly nominated head, Nina Jankowicz, resigned.
“Right now, the main source of support I ask is, be passionate zealots for this,” Benz said during his interview on EpochTV’s “Over the Target” in December.
“Tell your parents, tell your wife and the kids at the dinner table, tell your friends. If you’re taking rests in between ping pong games, play these YouTube videos for people. All of this starts at the guerilla level.
“This stuff speaks for itself. It will be a cult classic just by virtue of the fact that it exists now. Because once you see this, I’ll guarantee you, you will see this everywhere. This stuff is like a secret decoder ring that will help you slice through the daily news items you see in the censorship space.”
The Twitter files, he said, serve as the “one hole … that is breaking this Titanic ship of censorship.”
Correction: The computer shop that obtained Hunter Biden’s laptop is in Delaware. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
A former CIA officer who signed an open letter attempting to discredit reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 election admitted that most of what was discovered on the laptop is real.
Douglas Wise, a former CIA officer and Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director, signed an open letter in 2020 that the New York Post’s October 2020 report had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” About 50 other former U.S. intelligence officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, signed the document.
Over the past weekend, however, Wise conceded that most of what was found on the infamous laptop was real. Last year, the New York Times and Washington Post published articles making similar admissions.
“All of us figured that a significant portion of that content had to be real to make any Russian disinformation credible,” Wise told The Australian newspaper on Sunday. But Wise told the paper that he doesn’t regret signing the letter and said it is “no surprise” the emails were real.
“The letter said it had the earmarks of Russian deceit and we should consider that as a possibility,” Wise said. “It did not say Hunter Biden was a good guy, it didn’t say what he did was right and it wasn’t exculpatory, it was just a cautionary letter.”
Wise, who has not responded to an Epoch Times request for comment, added that former New York Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani “had just been in Ukraine trying to dig up evidence on the Bidens and he met with a known Russian intelligence official. Russians or even ill-intended conservative elements could have planted stuff in there.”
In the Oct. 19, 2020, letter, the 51 former officials wrote that they “do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.” Making an appeal to authority, they wrote that their “experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”
President Joe Biden (L) waves alongside his son Hunter Biden after attending mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Johns Island, S.C., on Aug. 13, 2022. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
The officials then explained that “such an operation would be consistent with some of the key methods Russia has used in its now multi-year operation to interfere in our democracy—the hacking (via cyber operations) and the dumping of accurate information or the distribution of inaccurate or misinformation.” Others who signed the letter include former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA chief of staff Jeremy Bash.
Background
The letter was heavily referenced by corporate news outlets in the lead-up to the November 2020 election between then-President Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Before their second debate, a former Hunter Biden associate, Tony Bobulinski, told news outlets that materials found on the younger Biden’s laptop were real and corroborated one now-infamous message about Joe Biden being “the big guy” while referencing an alleged payout to Biden in connection to a Chinese energy conglomerate.
Biden, meanwhile, used the letter to deflect criticism about his son’s business dealings during the second debate. Around the same time, Twitter and Facebook also moved to suppress the New York Post’s initial Hunter Biden laptop story, and Twitter locked the paper out of its account for more than two weeks.
Two years after the laptop story was published, a poll found that 79 percent of people who have been following the Hunter Biden reports said that “truthful” media coverage of the story would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election. In September last year, a poll from Rasmussen Reports found that 63 percent of likely American voters believe the Hunter Biden laptop story is important.
Hunter Biden, in an ABC News interview in 2019, said that he engaged in no illegal activity and that his overseas business deals were proper.
“I gave a hook to some very unethical people to act in illegal ways to try to do some harm to my father. That’s where I made the mistake,” the younger Biden said at the time. “So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever.”
Wise’s comments to The Australian come as House GOP lawmakers have signaled investigations into Biden’s family. Last week, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee launched a probe into the Biden family dealings, requesting suspicious activity reports from the Treasury Department regarding the Bidens’ finances.
They also wanted to determine whether Hunter Biden is connected to classified documents that were found, according to White House lawyers, at the president’s office and home in recent weeks.
BREAKING: Colorado court punishes cake artist Jack Phillips for not designing a cake celebrating a gender transition. Donate towards his appeal!
Jack Phillips doesn’t belong in a courtroom. He belongs at the counter of Masterpiece Cakeshop, creating beautiful, one-of-a-kind cakes for his customers.
But for more than eight years now, Jack has been pulled away from his work in order to fight for his freedom to live according to his faith.
Through it all, Jack has endured the spotlight of the national media, lost a huge portion of his business, and had to let several employees go. He’s received hateful phone calls, letters, and even death threats.
After two wins—including one at the U.S. Supreme Court—you would think it would all be over.
But now, Jack is embroiled in a third lawsuit. And, unfortunately, a Colorado trial court has entered an order punishing Jack for living out his faith. The case is now on appeal.
He’s the Colorado cake artist who was at the center of one of 2018’s most-talked-about U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Although Jack won an important victory at the Supreme Court, the State of Colorado didn’t get the message. It targeted him again!
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission set its sights on Jack Phillips, targeting Jack because of his Christian faith. That was clear when it allowed other Colorado cake artists—but not Jack—to decline to create custom cakes that expressed messages that the artists considered objectionable. And it was even clearer when some members of the commission made hostile statements against Jack. One called his religious-liberty defense “a despicable piece of rhetoric” and compared him to perpetrators of the Holocaust.
The hostility toward Jack’s faith was so obvious that the United States Supreme Court rebuked the commission. In a 7-2 decision, the high court condemned Colorado’s “clear and impermissible hostility toward [Jack’s] sincere religious beliefs.” The Colorado government should’ve learned its lesson then. It didn’t.
Less than a month after the Supreme Court decision in 2018, the Colorado government targeted Jack again.
After Jack filed a lawsuit against the state to stop that prosecution, in March 2019, the state of Colorado threw in the towel.
That should have been the end of it. But now, Jack is facing another legal battle. And he once again needs an ally who will stand with him. He needs you.
For over eight years, Jack has suffered. He’s faced threats and government punishment simply because he runs his business according to his faith. In 2012, Jack declined a request to create a wedding cake celebrating a same-sex marriage.
Jack explained that he would be happy to design a cake for the customers for a different event, or sell them anything else in his shop. But he does not create cakes expressing messages or celebrating events that conflict with his deeply held religious beliefs. Still, the couple filed a complaint, and the state of Colorado punished Jack for living in accordance with his faith.
“This latest lawsuit looks like yet another desperate attempt to harass cake artist Jack Phillips. And it stumbles over the one detail that matters most: Jack serves everyone; he just cannot express all messages or celebrate all events through his custom cakes.”—Jim Campbell, Former Senior Counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom
In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court finally gave Jack justice when it handed down its decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Jack won in a 7-2 ruling that upheld his religious freedom.
In its decision, the Supreme Court made clear that the government had been hostile to Jack’s freedom of religion. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that “the Commission’s hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral towards religion.” The Supreme Court decision made it clear that the government must respect and show tolerance for people of faith and their religious beliefs.
But although the highest court in the land ruled to protect Jack’s freedom, he then faced a new threat from the state.
In June 2017, on the very day that the Supreme Court announced its decision to hear Jack’s case, an attorney called Jack’s shop asking for a custom cake. The attorney wanted a cake that would be blue on the outside and pink on the inside in order to reflect and celebrate that attorney’s transition from male to female.
“Colorado just seemed to be looking for opportunities to punish me for my faith.”—Jack Phillips
Although it seemed obvious that Jack was being targeted and set up, his shop treated the lawyer the same way that it would have treated any other customer in that situation. Jack’s shop politely declined to create a custom cake expressing a message that conflicted with his faith.
Jack has never before created a cake like the one this attorney requested. He believes that God creates us male and female. This means our sex is a God-given, biological reality, not something we choose or change.
Once again, Jack acted based on his conscience. He did not turn his back on his beliefs. And he did not give into those who would punish him for living out his faith.
When Jack declined this request, the attorney filed a complaint with the same Colorado agency that prosecuted Jack before. The agency did not take a position on this complaint while the Masterpiece case was pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. But less than one month after the Supreme Court condemned the state’s anti-religious hostility toward Jack in the first case, the state agency made its first finding against Jack in this new case. Obviously not getting the Supreme Court’s message the first time, the state decided to target Jack again.
The Supreme Court made it clear that Colorado can’t treat me worse than other cake artists because of my religious beliefs, said Jack. But I faced a new complaint for declining to create a custom cake that expresses a message I would not communicate for anyone—something Colorado has repeatedly said other cake artists have the freedom to do. Colorado just seemed to be looking for opportunities to punish me for my faith.
Alliance Defending Freedom defended Jack once again. But this time, we didn’t sit back and watch the state sue Jack. We filed a lawsuit against the relevant state officials.
In March 2019, Colorado dismissed its case against Jack! With the end of that lawsuit, Jack thought he could finally go back to focusing on his work.
But that was too good to be true.
Now, the same attorney who filed the second complaint has filed another lawsuit against Jack in state court. This latest lawsuit seeks monetary damages and attorney’s fees from Jack. If successful, it could bring about financial ruin for Jack and his family.
But that shouldn’t happen because Jack serves all people—he just can’t express every message or celebrate every event that’s asked of him.
And he shouldn’t be forced to.
No American should be bullied or banished from the marketplace simply for living and working consistently with their faith. But this new lawsuit threatens to do just that.
Opponents of religious freedom want to strip away our freedom to live and work consistently with our deeply held beliefs. And they’re going to extreme lengths to punish those—like Jack—who are willing to stand for their faith.
Praise God that Jack refused to give up his freedom without a fight. He knows it’s not just his own religious freedom on the line—it’s yours too.
Thankfully, God continues to provide us with the resources we need to fight back. Through God’s blessing and your prayers and support, we are winning case after case across the nation, even at the highest court in the land.
While the media has covered the Masterpiece case extensively, most people don’t know the real man at the center of this story.
Both Jack and his wife Debi were raised in churchgoing families, but neither put much stock in what they learned. They started their own family with zero interest in anything related to faith.
But that all changed one morning as Jack finished a late shift and started driving home.
I just felt like God came into my car and convicted me of my sins, he says, recalling the conversation in his heart. It just took a few seconds. ‘You’re a sinner. You need a Savior. It’s Jesus Christ.’ I said, ‘You’re right. Let me clean up my life.’ He said, ‘You can’t.’ I said, ‘You’re right. I’m Yours.’ So I gave my life to Christ, driving home from work.
Telling Debi wasn’t so simple. Weeks before, she’d torn into a relative who invited them to visit her church. Jack figured if she learned of his conversion, she’d leave him.
But he couldn’t sleep. The voice in his soul kept urging him to tell her. He walked out to the kitchen. I need to tell you something, he said. I became a Christian today. Tears come to his eyes, remembering what came next.
Me, too, she said. Three days ago.
“We don’t want God to be part of our lives on just Sundays. We want Him to be part of our lives every day.”—Jack Phillips
For Jack and Debi, becoming Christians changed everything. So when Jack started his cake shop in 1993, it was not only to provide for his family and his employees, but also to honor God through his work every day.
The very name of Jack’s shop—Masterpiece Cakeshop—not only reflects that Jack designs artistic cakes but also is a constant reminder that he operates his business in service to his ultimate Master—Jesus Christ.
CEO Elon Musk updated his Twitter bio to read: “State-affiliated media” on Jan. 16 after he alluded that it was more of an appropriate label for the social media network.
In response to questions from reporters over the weekend, Musk tweeted, “Technically, Twitter should have that label.”
Musk’s comment follows the release of details made public about Twitter colluding with certain sectors of the U.S. government prior to his buying the platform, which was finalized in October last year
His updated Twitter bio also came after he was asked whether specific media accounts should have a “state-affiliated media” label like China Global Television Network on Twitter.
A photograph shows part of Elon Musk’s Twitter page as seen on Jan. 17, 2023. (The Epoch Times)
This also follows as Musk has been criticizing “corporate journalism” for hypocritically defending the state instead of “the people.”
Twitter’s online help center includes a definition for state-affiliated media.
“State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution,” according to the center.
“Accounts belonging to state-affiliated media entities, their editors-in-chief, and/or their prominent staff may be labeled,” it said.
“State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy.”
Despite the above, Musk said via Twitter, “Kudos to the BBC for self-labelling its state affiliation,” on Jan. 16.
Government and Big Tech Collusion
This has all occurred as Musk has been releasing the “Twitter Files,” which have revealed collusion between U.S. government intelligence agencies, federal law enforcement, and Twitter management, often on behalf of the Democrat party in its attempt to undermine former President Donald Trump and his supporters.
Several government entities were involved in censoring and influencing social media content with the support of Twitter’s staff, according to the files published by journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, who received them from Musk.
The released files mostly involve internal communications among Twitter executives and employees, who were assisting government agencies and key powerful figures in Washington before Musk bought the company.
It was also disclosed that prominent political figures tried to control what was posted on the platform before the change in Twitter’s ownership.
Some of the internal Twitter emails showed that Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign asked the company to remove certain posts involving his son, Hunter.
The Twitter splash page on a digital device in San Diego on April 25, 2022. (Gregory Bull/AP Photo)
On Jan. 13, Taibbi announced an additional file dump, which disclosed that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was attempting to pressure the social media platform to censor critics while he was head of the House Intelligence Committee
As alluded to in its “state-affiliated media” policy, Twitter had an unwritten exemption for U.S. government-funded and controlled media accounts.
According to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Twitter was boosting such pro-government accounts as “authoritative” sources of news while suppressing those accounts deemed hostile by the Biden administration.
‘No Special Treatment’
As an absolute believer in free speech, Musk has said that he totally opposed government intervention in the media.
However, he briefly suspended several reporters at some mainstream publications for releasing information about the whereabouts of his private jet, stating, “No special treatment for corpo journalists anymore,” he said via Twitter.
Since he acquired Twitter last October, Musk has laid off over half of the workforce in his attempt to reform the social media platform.
In late December, he announced that he would step down as Twitter CEO if he could find someone “foolish” enough to take over his job.
Over the past three months, he has changed or added new features to the platform, including the $8 Twitter Blue subscription, which forced users to pay a fee to receive a blue checkmark.
Government institutions and government officials, as well as international organizations, now get a gray checkmark, while businesses use a gold checkmark, which labels it as “an official business account.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his newly acquired social media platform over the weekend to make a series of quips aimed at the global organization, the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland—which features a host of international leaders, central bankers, Wall Street executives, and celebrities—began on Monday and will continue throughout the week.
“I guess there’s value to having a mixed government & commercial forum of some kind. WEF does kinda give me the willies though, but I’m sure everything is fine…” Musk said via Twitter on Sunday evening, responding to a Substack article co-written by independent journalists Michael Shellenberger and Izabella Kaminska.
The WEF has been the subject of considerable scorn and criticism for its 2016 ad campaign, which stated, “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.”
Many took issue with the organization’s attempt to frame a lack of personal ownership and privacy as a positive.
Initially accompanied by a promotional video and several articles, much of the campaign’s content has since been removed from the web. A tweet by the WEF remains up, however.
In their article, Shellenberger and Kaminska called out WEF Managing Director Adrian Monck, who blamed the uproar surrounding the ad on the right-wing message board 4chan.
Monck penned an opinion piece in the Canadian outlet The Globe and Mail last August, calling the backlash a “misinformation campaign that targeted the World Economic Forum.”
“The story of ‘you’ll own nothing and be happy’ is anything but trivial and offers valuable insights into how misinformation is created and why it’s essential not to perpetuate its spread,” Monck wrote, adding that many criticisms were racist and anti-semitic.
Shellenberger and Kamiska, linking to the now-deleted WEF content, refuted Monck’s claims. “What Monck claimed was inaccurate. The phrase ‘Own nothing, be happy,’ hadn’t originated on 4chan; it originated on WEF’s website,” they wrote.
Musk continued to crack jokes about the organization. “There should be a game show: “4Chan or Davos, who said it?” he said via Twitter on Monday afternoon.
Allegiance to ESG
The authors also highlighted the organizations’ lack of transparency and declared commitment to the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) agenda. The WEF is outspoken in its allegiance to the ESG movement.
“Recent events have only increased the business world’s focus on ESG,” reads a statement from the WEF website. “Worker wellness has become a major concern during the COVID-19 pandemic; social justice protests have drawn attention to gaps in diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the impacts of climate change and the importance of environmental sustainability are becoming harder, if not impossible, to ignore.”
Despite founding the world’s largest electric vehicle company, Musk is not a fan of ESG.
“The S in ESG stands for Satanic,” tweeted Musk in response. It is not the billionaire’s first comparison of this nature, he referred to the movement as “the devil” back in November.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk gives interviews as he arrives at the Offshore Northern Seas 2022 (ONS) meeting in Stavanger, Norway, on Aug. 29, 2022. (Carina Johansen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)
Declined WEF Invite
In 2008, WEF listed Musk among its “Young Global Leaders” — which the organization classifies as a “membership” program — though it is unclear whether Musk participated in this arrangement. “I was invited to WEF, but declined,” he said via Twitter in December, responding to allegations that he had a relationship with the international group.
The Twitter CEO also responded to a video, featuring a speech by WEF founder Klaus Schwab, in which Schwab warns that a global cyberattack could disrupt supply chains and make the COVID-19 crisis look like “a small disturbance” in comparison.
The WEF founder warned that such an attack “would bring a complete halt to the power supply, transportation, hospital services, our society as a whole.”
Accompanied by daunting music and provocative imagery, the cinematic clip caught the attention of Musk. “This movie writes itself,” Musk responded with a popcorn emoji.
Schellenberger emphasized that Schwab is more than a figurehead. “Schwab has become, without question, one of the most influential men alive,” tweeted the journalist while promoting his article.
Schwab has been criticized for his book COVID-19: The Great Reset, which advocated for governments around the globe to use the pandemic as an opportunity to “reimagine capitalism.”
The WEF has also been heavily criticized for promoting insects as a potential dietary source. A February article by the organization titled “5 reasons why eating insects could reduce climate change” attempts to dispel commonly held stigmas about eating bugs.
“Before you say ‘yuck,’ hear us out,” the article reads.
I’m typing this out while I’m racked out in the back of my SUV in a Walmart parking lot in a college town, sipping a beer. I was attempting to spend New Year’s Day camping at the homestead, but my fan belt frayed out on the drive and ripped off the top of the dipstick. I assume that the fan belt is a delayed casualty of the sub-zero cold we had a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t know for sure. I do know I’m not going to risk driving home and having the belt completely fall apart.
Life is a war. Sometimes we win our battles, sometimes we don’t. We fight against the world to keep the faith, to hold families together, to pay bills, and to keep vehicles running. Often it seems that the war of a man’s life is simply an unending fight against entropy, Chaos, and decay. Especially if one drives an older vehicle.
Trying to start a homestead is another battle against entropy. God commanded Noah to take dominion over the Earth and commanded Adam in a similar fashion. Taking dominion means imposing order on the chaos, putting things into their proper place. The first acts of the Creation were acts of imposing order. Light was created, then separated from darkness. Sky, Earth, and Water were then separated from each other.
Homesteading is about order, and it’s also about creation. Turning wild grass into gardens, turning hillsides into terraces, turning trees into houses. It’s common to think of nature as being full of life, and it is, but it’s chaotic and unproductive life. It’s the job of the homesteader to rule that land, to impose order, and set boundaries so that life can flourish in a good way.
In ancient times, the word “symbolon”, from which we get “symbol”, referred to a practice by which an agreement was written on pottery and then broken. This was done so that each party had a piece of the “symbol” and the pieces could be rejoined to show that the agreement existed. “Symbols” bring things together to show an agreement and a relationship.
In Orthodoxy, we use ikons as symbols. The ikon represents a saint or event and thus helps to link us to our history, the saints, and to God. We don’t venerate painted wood any more than a soldier saluting his flag is paying respect to colored cloth. An ikon may be imbued by God with His Grace and do something miraculous, such as stream myrrh, but it’s never the wood itself that does it.
The opposing word to “symbolon” is “diabolos”. It means to separate things. It’s where we get the word “devil”, by the way. It’s also pretty much the devil’s MO: He separates us from God, from each other, and from the natural order of things. Adam was evicted from the Garden of Eden and forced to live on cursed earth. Mankind slowly disintegrated from one couple living in harmony with each other, nature, and God to billions of people who ignore each other on the street and occasionally throw fission bombs around.
Of course, the only real antidote to Chaos is to draw close to Christ, and to be of one mind with each other, as Christ and the Father are of one mind. In a monastic setting, the monks choose to be strictly obedient to their Abbot, while married laity are supposed to be strictly obedient to each other. A marriage counselor will speak endlessly about the necessity of good communication, but that’s only a means to the end of one being fully in step with the other.
I’m wrapping this up a week later in a different Walmart. I ended up troubleshooting the fan belt issue to a failing power steering pump. That repair work led to noticing a screw embedded in a tire, so it feels like I’ve come full circle.
Over the last 15 years, I’ve developed a strong foundation of mechanical skills that allows me to handle a lot of vehicular chaos. God has blessed me with some excellent teachers, and a vehicle that’s not really that hard to work on. With practice, experience, and a lot of research, I’m pretty confident in my ability to keep our vehicles running.
If only I’d spent the same amount of effort developing a spiritual foundation. My profession has forced me to develop my mechanical skills, but I never focused on spiritual discipline in the same way. I often feel like I’m, if not spiritually adrift, then only anchored with a fishing line. I mostly rely on the people around me to keep me on the right path, but if they’re not around, my life falls into Chaos really fast.
I can learn just about everything about turning wrenches or building a homestead from the internet. There’s almost certainly a book on whatever I need to know, and there’s probably a walkthrough video on YouTube. So I spend a LOT of time and effort doing just that, and yet all that knowledge wouldn’t help me unless I went out and applied it to my vehicle with my hands. And it is to my shame that the exact same things are true about Orthodoxy. There are thousands of books to read, endless lectures to listen to, and videos to watch. But all that knowledge rattling around in my head won’t matter unless I put in the effort to apply it to my own life.
Liberalism, as Met. Jonah phrased it at last year’s Orthodox MontaNiKa conference, is “anti life.” It has not simply infected the modern world, it created it. The systematic destruction of the family, of the religion-centered social order, of the God-ordained monarchies, all of it led not to an improved order, but more and more Chaos. And in every form, Chaos leads to death.
God isn’t simply pro-life in the Abortion debate, God is pro-Human Life. A full, healthy, Eternal life, lived in full communion with not only God, but each other, and with nature. There are numerous historical saints who lived in communion with the local wildlife, and in some cases, the local wildlife lived peacefully with each other at monasteries.
It’s up to us to return to that life. We’re the ones who have to repent and return to God. And not just in some hippy-dippy (Satanic) “Jesus loves you just the way you are” way, but by taking up our crosses and applying what we know at every opportunity until that Faith truly becomes our foundation. It’s up to us to resist the modern world and all of the chaos that comes with it.
This is our war.
Let’s go win it.
J. Pilgrim is a, mostly, internet anon and actual Homesteader, carving out a future for his family in the woods.
There is one good reason why so many Americans are fleeing blue states to relocate to Florida. The governor, Ron DeSantis. The Republican leader has not only talked the conservative talk. He’s made good on many promises, actually leading like a conservative. He’s helped flip Florida, making it a solidly red state. And recently, he signed a bill banning woke content from Florida schools.
Right on cue, Democrats sued. A judge ruled that the ban cannot be applied to Florida colleges and universities. But the governor appealed, taking the matter to federal court. Now, a federal judge ruled on the matter. And the radical left is having a bad day.
From The Post Millennial:
A federal court has ruled in favor of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, stating that his “Stop WOKE Act,” piece of legislation that outlaws the promotion of critical race theory and other “woke” ideologies on the state’s college campuses is not unconstitutional.
A federal judge struck down an injunction against Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act.” This bill, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, prohibits critical race theory from being taught in public schools and colleges.
Democrats sued, claiming the bill was unconstitutional. And a lower court blocked the portion of the bill that affected college campuses. But the federal court found no violation of law, lifting the injunction.
The bill took aim at content that is typically considered “woke” or supporting far-left political claims. Democrats tried to make the case that it violated the First Amendment, among other claims. But the bill only prohibits false information from being taught in schools. Since most CRT is based on historically inaccurate views of our country’s heritage, it cannot be taught in schools.
The bill also prohibits clearly partisan political ideas from coloring school curricula. Democrats might scoff at that, but schools have never been allowed to push politics onto students. Only in recent years has the radical left become militant in its attempts at brainwashing children into becoming America-hating leftists.
This court ruling is a major victory for patriots. And it should inspire more states to pass similar bills. Conservative states need to take a stand against bad curriculum that exists only to poison students’ minds against their own country. If more states follow DeSantis’s lead, the woke agenda in our schools will shrivel and die.
Key Takeaways:
A federal court ruled in favor of Gov. DeSantis’s “anti-woke” bill.
The bill bans CRT and other woke, political ideas from being taught in schools.
The judge overruled an injunction blocking the bill from affecting colleges.
A man wearing a shirt that said “Jesus Saves” was informed by mall security that he either needed to remove his shirt or leave the Mall of America, according to a video shared on Twitter.
In the video, a man was seen in the Bloomington, Minnesota, mall speaking to a pair of security officers, one of which claimed that the shirt he was wearing counts as “soliciting.”
His shirt’s front read “Jesus Saves,” and the back stated “Jesus Is The Only Way” with a “Coexist” sign that has a line slashed through it.
That’s it. People are rightly furious.
The video linked below shows what appears to be the majority of the exchange between the man, identified as Paul Shoro by the YouTube account Kingdom Bizness, and the guards explaining his “wrongdoing.”
“Jesus is associated with religion, and it’s offending people,” the male security guard in the video told Shoro. “People have been offended.”
He was told to either remove his shirt or leave the mall (he is wearing another shirt underneath it).
Should Shoro be apologized to?Yes No
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Shoro pointed out that he didn’t approach anyone to speak about religion. He just wore a shirt. “I didn’t say anything though. I didn’t speak. I didn’t say anything. I just went to Macy’s,” he said.
Alpha News reported that Shoro was asked on a different day to leave the mall for preaching.
The guards remained stubborn.
“Again, I’m giving you a couple options,” the guard said. “You can take the shirt off and you can go to Macy’s and you can do your shopping. Or you can leave the mall, OK? Those are your only options right now.”
There is a brief cut in the film, and the male security guard has seemingly become exasperated.
“If you want to shop here, you need to take that shirt off,” he said, having significantly raised his voice.
The female guard attempted to help explain their understanding of the situation, but the audio is not clear.
Shoro repeatedly asked what he has actually done wrong. The male security guard eventually spelled it out clearly.
“It is religious soliciting, and there is no soliciting allowed on mall property which is private property… You’re still soliciting. And again, yes, you’re walking wearing that shirt in the form of soliciting, and we’ve had guests come up saying they have been offended by your shirt.”
Yes, it’s a loud shirt. There’s no denying that. But to term it “offensive” and demand its removal is silly. A protest has been planned for Feb. 4, according to a Facebook post by Bloomington Patriots.
Joe Biden made not one but two embarrassing gaffes over the weekend, and while one has already received a lot of attention, the other is arguably worse.
Over the weekend Biden gave a speech at National Action Network in honor of Martin Luther King Day, and as part of the speech, he led the singing of “Happy Birthday” to MLK III’s wife, Arndrea Waters King.
But he completely forgot her name when the time came to sing her name. He didn’t even attempt to mumble it, just making random nonsensical sounds.
Joe Biden just sang Happy Birthday to MLK III’s wife and straight up forgot her name lmfao😂 pic.twitter.com/W2shdTROVl
While this gaffe was arguably very bad, especially during a celebration of MLK’s birthday, the gaffe that he made at a black church in Atlanta the day before may be even worse.
On Sunday, Biden gave a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and quoted the newest Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
But again he forgot how to pronounce her name, saying, “Those of the words of Kejan – , Kejan – , Kentanji Drown Jackson.”
BIDEN: “Those are the words of Kejan— Kejan— Ketanji Drown Jackson, our Supreme Court justice.” pic.twitter.com/Fbhk0pffsY
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Naturally, the fact that Biden was unable to pronounce the name of the justice that he appointed to the Court has provoked a reaction on Twitter.
Everyone in that congregation should be insulted that he doesn’t even know Ketanji Brown Jackson’s name, considering he appointed her!
Clearly, this is really bad. Biden made a huge detail about nominating Jackson to the Supreme Court last year and seemingly had no problem remembering her name then. How did he suddenly forget it now?
We might be able to give her a pass for the Arndrea Waters King gaffe because not many people know who she is, but this is absolutely unacceptable since Jackson is a senior figure in our government.
Biden’s inability to remember the names of senior officials in our country makes the United States look weak. Americans deserve better than this.
As more and more illegally-kept documents turn up in various unsecured places in President Joe Biden’s homes and offices, one cannot help but think of the criticism he gave former President Donald Trump for having classified documents in his possession. This may seem like a one-time occurrence; however, in 1977, he used also the improper possession of documents against others — particularly against then-President Jimmy Carter’s nominee for CIA director.
That event might come back to bite him.
So far, at least three batches of illegally-held documents, dating from when he was former President Barack Obama’s vice president, have turned up in Biden’s Washington, D.C., office, in the garage of his Delaware home and in the home itself.
The latest revelation was announced only days ago when multiple outlets, including Fox News and The New York Times, reported that the president’s attorneys confirmed that a third batch of classified documents had been discovered in Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.
The first batch of classified documents was reportedly “found” Nov. 2 — a week before the fall midterm elections — at Biden’s former office in the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement building in Washington, D.C., but neither the Department of Justice nor the National Archives bothered to mention this incident until January.
Then a second batch was found in Biden’s home in Delaware.
On Jan. 12, the president tried to wave off the questions about the lack of security for the documents saying that the ones found in his garage were “in a locked garage” and not “sitting out in the street.”
.@pdoocy: “Classified materials next to your Corvette? What were you thinking?”
President Biden: “I’m going to get a chance to speak on all of this, god-willing, soon…My Corvette’s in a locked garage, okay? So, it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street…” pic.twitter.com/1gVvJo0dfH
While Biden is quick to dismiss any criticism of his handling of classified and secret documents that he should not even have in his possession, he has been even quicker to use such possession against others.
Naturally, Biden attacked Trump in the aftermath of the unprecedented raid on the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago home last year.
“How that could possibly happen?” Biden said during an interview on “60 Minutes.” He added, “How anyone could be that irresponsible. And I thought, ‘What data was in there that may compromise sources and methods?’”
But his scolding of Trump is far from the first time that Biden has used possession of documents against his political opponents.
Biden also used illegal possession of documents to scuttle Jimmy Carter’s nominee for CIA director in 1977.
As his presidency was gearing up, Carter nominated Ted Sorensen to run the CIA. But, after questions rose over his hand in the coverup of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne from Ted Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick incident, Carter withdrew Sorensen’s name.
But the Kennedy problem wasn’t the only thing that torpedoed Sorensen’s elevation to the CIA’s top post. He was also assailed by Biden and others for the mishandling of classified documents.
During the time Carter had nominated Sorensen to the CIA, the nominee admitted to taking classified documents for a biography he intended to write of his longtime friend John F. Kennedy, The Intercept reported.
One of the outspoken detractors of Sorensen’s handling of documents was none other than then-Sen. Joe Biden.
Biden initially acted as if he was Sorensen’s friend and said he would help him through the confirmation process. But when Republicans honed in on Sorenson’s mishandling of classified material, Biden turned on a dime and used the accusations to knock Sorensen out of contention for the CIA post.
In fact, Biden dug up an affidavit that was never filed in court as a weapon against Sorensen. The former White House counsel later said that Biden’s abrupt shift and his subsequent throwing in with the Republicans to block the nomination was shocking.
“It was like being blindsided by a truck,” Sorensen said, describing the campaign to prevent him from taking the CIA position as the result of “many little dirty streams flow[ing] together to make one large one.”
Biden went farther than just helping Republicans find documents. He even suggested that Sorensen could even be prosecuted under the espionage act.
“Quite honestly, I’m not sure whether or not Mr. Sorensen could be indicted or convicted under the espionage statutes,” Biden said, according to The Intercept. Then he asked “whether Mr. Sorensen intentionally took advantage of the ambiguities in the law or carelessly ignored the law.”
Naturally, after all that, Carter removed Sorensen’s name from contention for the CIA position. Sorensen later blasted Biden and said he should win the “prize for political hypocrisy in a town noted for political hypocrisy.”
In 1977 and 2022 both, Biden was shocked — shocked, I tell you — over the impropriety of documents sitting illegally in the hands of officials. But suddenly he’s not all that worried about it.
Looks like Ted Sorensen may be right right about the hypocrisy award that Joe Biden deserves to win.
President Donald Trump spoke out after the White House said there are no visitor logs for President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, where multiple classified documents were discovered.
“The White House just announced that there are no LOGS or information of any kind on visitors to the Wilmington house and flimsy, unlocked, and unsecured, but now very famous, garage. Maybe they are smarter than we think!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Jan. 16.
“This is one of seemingly many places where HIGHLY CLASSIFIED documents are stored (in a big pile on the damp floor).”
A “small number” of classified materials were discovered on three separate occasions in Biden’s Wilmington house in December and January, in the garage and a room adjacent to it, White House lawyer Richard Sauber said last week.
Another stash of documents, which Sauber also described as a “small number,” was found in early November at the Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania, which once served as Biden’s office. The documents date back to the Obama administration when Biden was the vice president. The total number of documents uncovered from both sites remains unclear.
Sauber has said the documents were “inadvertently placed” at the locations.
The White House spokesman Ian Sams on Monday said that it wasn’t standard practice to keep visitor logs of the president’s personal residence, after Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, demanded the information over the weekend, citing national security concerns.
“Like every president across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” said Ian Sams, spokesperson for the White House counsel, in a statement to the media. “But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them.”
Trump on Monday sought to draw a distinction between Biden’s handling of the files with his case regarding classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago resort, which was subject to an unprecedented FBI raid last August. Agents at the time took about 100 documents marked as classified or top secret and 11,000 others marked as non-classified. Both cases are currently being investigated by separate special counsels. Trump has maintained that he declassified all the materials before he left office.
Unlike Biden’s garage, Trump claimed, “Mar-a-Lago is a highly secured facility, with Security Cameras all over the place, and watched over by staff & our great Secret Service.”
“I have INFO on everyone!” Trump said.
The White House has faced scrutiny for not disclosing the initial discovery of the documents on Nov. 2, with critics saying it was a deliberate attempt to cover up news that would have negatively affected the Democrats during the midterms that took place a few days later. The White House confirmed the initial discovery on Jan. 9, only after the development was first reported by media outlets.
Joe Biden speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Jan. 15, 2023, the eve of the national holiday honoring civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked repeatedly about the monthslong delay, insisted the administration was being transparent and that there’s an “ongoing process that is occuring.”
Biden on Jan. 12 defended storing classified information next to his Corvette while signaling that he was limited on what he could say.
“I’m going to get a chance to speak on all this, God willing, soon,” he told reporters. “And, by the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage. Okay? So, it’s not like they’re sitting out in the street.”
Documents obtained by the House Oversight Committee suggest that the president’s son, Hunter Biden, had used the Wilmington address on his driver’s license as recently as 2018, a concern Comer cited in a letter to White House Counsel Stuart Delery on Friday.
“The Committee is concerned President Biden stored classified documents at the same location his son resided while engaging in international business deals with adversaries of the United States,” Comer wrote.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
The Omicron XBB.1.5 variant of COVID-19 is more likely to infect individuals who have been vaccinated, as well as those with natural immunity, according to New York City health officials.
“Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 now accounts for 73 percent of all sequenced COVID-19 cases in NYC. XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible form of COVID-19 that we know of to date and may be more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or already had COVID-19,” the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wrote on Twitter on Jan. 13.
The department urged New Yorkers to get vaccinated and receive the updated COVID-19 booster shot, stating that doing so “is still the best way to protect yourself from hospitalization and death from COVID-19, including from these new variants.”
However, although there has been a surge in XBB.1.5 cases, the WHO has stated that the variant does not have any mutations known to increase the severity of the virus in individuals.
The XBB.1.5 variant is quickly becoming the dominant subvariant in the United States. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that XBB.1.5 accounted for an estimated 43 percent of COVID-19 cases in the country for the week ending Jan. 14.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month that the subvariant is on the rise in the United States and Europe and has now been identified in more than 25 countries.
The subvariant has now overtaken the BQ.1.1 subvariant, which was first identified in September, and which now accounts for an estimated 28.8 percent of cases in the country, according to CDC data.
XBB.1.5 Unlikely to Increase Severity
Although there has been a surge in XBB.1.5 cases, the WHO has stated that the variant does not have any mutations known to increase the severity of the virus in individuals.
In a risk assessment (pdf) published on Jan. 11, the health body said that XBB.1.5, based on its genetic characteristics and early growth rate estimates, may contribute to a surge in cases around the world but it “does not carry any mutation known to be associated with potential change in severity.”
Barbara Mahon, head of the CDC’s proposed Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, also told CBS News on Jan. 6 that there is no suggestion that XBB.1.5 is more severe than previous strains of Omicron.
The WHO in its risk assessment did, however, note that “the overall confidence in the assessment is low” owing to a lack of data on the subvariant, most of which come from the United States, and said that more data and laboratory testing is needed to know for sure how severe the subvariant is.
The health body also noted that XBB.1.5 is one of the COVID-19 subvariants that is most resistant to antibodies acquired from vaccination or previous infection.
According to the CDC, approximately 666,511,603 vaccine doses have been administered in the United States, of which 268,556,888 people have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 229,359,062 have completed the primary series of vaccinations.
Vaccine Effectiveness Only Lasts 3 Months
Additionally, 15.9 percent of the U.S. population aged 5 and over have received the updated bivalent booster shot.
In an interview with Science News on Jan. 13, infectious diseases specialist Peter Chin-Hong of the University of California, San Francisco, stated that vaccinations are likely to provide just three months of protection against the XBB.1.5 variant of COVID-19.
“The new updated boosters generally work a little better than the old vaccines in terms of overall efficacy and preventing infection. But with these new slippery variants like XBB.1.5 … if you’re looking to prevent infections, even a mild infection, the vaccines are probably going to last maybe three months,” Chin-Hong said.
“But if you’re talking about preventing me from dying or going to the hospital, those vaccines are going to give me a boost of protection for many, many months, probably until next winter for most people. For older people, older than 65, if they’re not boosted today, then it’s a problem,” the infectious diseases specialist added.
In an updated post on Jan. 18, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene stated that XBB.1.5 “may be more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or previously had COVID-19 compared to prior variants.”
“Vaccination is still the best way to protect against hospitalization and death from COVID-19, including from these new variants,” which include BA.5, BA.2.75, BQ.1, BQ1.1, and XBB, as well as XBB.1.5.
Democrat slams Biden admin in trip to border, saying White House must ‘do its job’
LOS ANGELES (Reuters)—The mayor of New York traveled to the Mexican border city of El Paso on Sunday and declared that “there is no room in New York” for busloads of migrants being sent to America’s most populous city.
Eric Adams, a Democrat, was also critical of the administration of Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden, saying “now is the time for the national government to do its job” about the immigrant crisis at America’s southern border.
The visit of a New York mayor to a southern border city about the issue of immigrants is unprecedented.
Busloads of migrants have been shipped north to New York and other cities by Republican-run states. That has exacerbated a housing crisis in New York and a worsening homeless crisis in the city.
Adams’s trip to El Paso comes after he said the migrant influx into New York could cost the city as much as $2 billion, at a time when the city is already facing a major budget shortfall.
In recent months the Republican governors of Florida and Texas have sent thousands of migrants seeking sanctuary in the U.S. to cities run by Democratic politicians, including New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Republican Virginia governor vanquished China-tied Democrat in 2021
Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin (R.) told reporters on Wednesday that he is blocking the construction of an electric car battery plant that would have been “a front for China.”
While the plant was ostensibly owned by the Ford Motor Company, it would have been run by a Chinese company, Contemporary Amperex Technology, which also would have owned “the technology used in building the battery cells,” the Virginia Mercuryreported. Youngkin said Wednesday that he’d halted plans to build the factory.
“We welcome and encourage economic cooperation with international companies,” the governor said, but “‘Made in Virginia’ cannot be a front for the Chinese Communist Party.”
Youngkin in the 2021 gubernatorial race unexpectedly beat Democratic former governor Terry McAuliffe. If McAuliffe had won, he might not have nixed the plant: The Democrat has an almost 30-year relationship with China, notably partnering with a Chinese businessman to found an electric car company that offered visas to Chinese investors.
As late as 2021, news broke that a top McAuliffe fundraiser “solicited Chinese investment in the Washington, D.C., area,” the Washington Free Beaconreported.
Youngkin told reporters that his prior experience as the CEO of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, makes him “uniquely positioned to understand how the Chinese Communist Party works.”
“They have one objective,” the governor said: “global dominance at the expense of the United States.”
Debauched nepo baby contests former lover’s claim that Biden name is ‘synonymous with being well educated, successful, financially acute, and politically powerful’
Hunter Biden, the degenerate First Son who exploited his family name to secure lucrative business arrangements with shady foreign entities, is trying to prevent his 4-year-old love child from enjoying the same social and financial advantages of the Biden family name.
The recovering crackhead is embroiled in a court battle with the child’s mother, Lunden Roberts, to reduce his child-support payments for daughter Navy Joan Roberts, the grandchild whose existence President Joe Biden has repeatedly refused to acknowledge.
Roberts asked an Arkansas judge in December to allow her daughter to take the Biden surname. She argued it would benefit the child because the Biden name is “now synonymous with being well educated, successful, financially acute, and politically powerful.”
Hunter responded earlier this month by urging the judge to deny the request. Allowing his daughter to enjoy the advantages of being a Biden, he argued, would rob her of a “peaceful existence” due to the widespread “disparagement of the Biden name.”
Hunter, who continues to cash in on the Biden name by selling awful paintings to “anonymous” buyers for hundreds of thousands of dollars, wrote in his 2021 memoir (for which he received an advance of up to $2 million) that he has “no recollection of the encounter” that produced the child. Roberts, a former stripper, was “hardly the dating type,” Biden recalled.
The former crackhead challenged his paternity in court until a DNA test determined “with scientific certainty” that he was Navy Joan’s father. The test prompted a confidential settlement that Biden is reportedly trying to amend in order to avoid paying his fair share.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment as to whether President Joe Biden supports his son’s effort to prevent his unacknowledged granddaughter from taking the family name.
Biden’s heartless attitude toward the innocent child suggests he is morally unfit to serve as commander in chief. Even when a deranged former MMA fighter threatened Navy Joan’s life, for example, the president refused to provide secret service protection for his own granddaughter.
America deserves a president who believes all children deserve to be loved.
Students Allied for Freedom and Equality protested a speech by Vice President Kamala Harris, who they say supports ‘genocide’
An anti-Israel student group at the University of Michigan on Thursday marched through campus praising violent attacks in the Jewish state and calling for Israel’s destruction.
Members of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) carried Palestinian flags through the quad while chanting, “Long live the intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a call for the destruction of Israel. The group was protesting Vice President Kamala Harris, who was visiting campus to discuss the Biden administration’s climate policy.
The protest is the latest high-profile anti-Semitic incident on U.S. college campuses. Last week, Jewish students at George Washington University filed a discrimination complaint against their school, alleging it retaliated against them after they reported their professor for anti-Semitism. Instances of anti-Semitic hate have doubled on college campuses in recent years, according to a report from the AMCHA Initiative.
SAFE is an affiliate of Students for Justice in Palestine, a national group known for opposing Jewish speakers at universities and backing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. According to a 2019 report from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, Students for Justice in Palestine has expressed support for convicted terrorists and is the “main driver of Jew-hatred on campus.”
The University of Michigan’s public affairs office, SAFE, and Students for Justice in Palestine did not respond to requests for comment.
Wolverine for Israel, a pro-Israel campus group, slammed the demonstration as “a call to violence against Israelis and the Jewish state.”
In an Instagram post, SAFE denounced Harris’s “support for Israeli apartheid” that “has caused immense ecological destruction.” Protesters at the event chided the vice president, chanting, “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide.”
The group’s condemnation of Harris is odd, considering the vice president’s history of support for anti-Israel protests. In 2021, she praised a college student who accused Israel of “ethnic genocide.”
“Your truth should not be suppressed,” Harris said, nodding as the student criticized U.S. defense funding for Israeli missile systems.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has also accused Israel of “war crimes” and previously served as spokeswoman for MoveOn.org, an anti-Israel group.
A White House official told the Washington Free Beacon that “the Biden-Harris administration will fully and always respect the American people’s First Amendment rights” but that the “United States firmly rejects the BDS movement” and “will be a strong partner in fighting efforts to delegitimize Israel.”
“The United States supports policies that advance Israel’s security and regional integration, support a two-state solution, and lead to equal measures of security, prosperity, and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians,” the official said.
President Joe Biden in December approved $3.8 billion in defense spending for Israel. During their protest, SAFE organizers criticized Biden for providing “unconditional aid” that has “destabilized” the environment in the Middle East and contributed to the “ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in occupied territories.”
“Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel’s crimes,” the group chanted outside the event.
Pro-Palestinian militants killed 27 Israeli citizens in 2022—about half as many as were killed in 2005, during the last year of the Second Intifada. Nearly 1,000 Israeli civilians were killed during the First and Second Intifadas.
SAFE also called out the vice president over her support for marijuana prosecutions that led to “mass incarceration”—only to laugh off her own abuse of the drug during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. The Free Beacon first reported in 2019 that as California’s attorney general, Harris imprisoned more than 1,500 citizens for marijuana-related offenses.
Salma Hamamy, who is listed on the university’s webpage as the primary contact for SAFE, did not respond to a request for comment. She serves on student government for the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and in May 2021 supported a campus-wide resolution to stand in solidarity with Palestinians.
The group issued an open letter the same month calling on the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents to divest from all Israeli-owned companies.
Meeting with Mexican president comes amid record migrant encounters and escalating cartel violence
Joe Biden passed up a chance last week to press his Mexican counterpart about the unprecedented border crisis and escalating cartel violence. Instead, he chose to discuss “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “climate change” initiatives.
One day after Biden’s Jan. 9 sitdown with Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the White House released a list of six “commitments” secured through the meeting. At the top of that list is a pledge to advance “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” with Biden and López Obrador vowing to “promote racial justice,” “expand protections for LGBTQI+ individuals,” and “foster Indigenous-led growth.” Second on the list is a commitment to “tackle the climate crisis” and implement “ambitious cuts to emissions.” National security and immigration, however, ranked much lower—Biden listed those issues last and third to last, respectively.
Biden’s decision to place equity at the forefront of his Mexico meeting came amid an ongoing crisis at the southern border, and one Republican lawmaker told the Washington Free Beacon Biden’s focus on diversity is unserious. Illegal immigration soared to record levels last year, with migrant apprehensions topping 2.3 million, a 37 percent increase from the 1.7 million seen in 2021. The American people, meanwhile, want action on the border: 54 percent of midterm voters identified immigration as a “very important” issue, a November Pew Research Center poll found, compared with just 34 percent and 38 percent who identified racial issues and climate change, respectively. Still, immigration went “largely unaddressed” during Biden’s meeting with López Obrador, Bloombergreported, because the two sides “ran out of time.”
Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), who last week urged Biden to use the Mexico meeting to “take serious steps to secure our border,” called the Democrat’s focus on diversity “ridiculous.” Waltz highlighted the wave of cartel violence seen across Mexico prior to Biden’s visit, violence that the Republican says will only expedite the flow of drugs into the United States as the Mexican Army takes “dozens of casualties per week.”
“Our border is being controlled by the cartels, and the Biden administration clearly doesn’t want to deal with it in a serious way,” Waltz told the Free Beacon. “It’s disappointing and a huge missed opportunity.”
The White House did not return a request for comment.
While Biden did touch on immigration and national security at the bottom of his commitment list, neither section is likely to satisfy border hawks. That’s because Biden’s immigration section, which is titled “Migration and Development,” does not mention border security. Instead, it pledges to “address the root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement” and collaborate with Mexico to “counter xenophobia and discrimination against migrants and refugees.” Biden’s “Regional Security” section, meanwhile, includes a commitment to “integrate a gender perspective” into the United States’ and Mexico’s response to natural disasters, given the “differentiated impact disasters have on women and girls.”
The Biden administration’s focus on diversity while in Mexico went beyond the White House. On Jan. 10, Biden’s State Department issued a “Declaration on the North American Partnership for Equity and Racial Justice,” which saw secretaries of state from the United States, Mexico, and Canada declare their commitment to “affirmatively advance equity and racial justice,” “engage communities with lived experience of racism and discrimination,” and “reflect the diversity of our nations in our federal public services workforce.”
Just five Republicans would need to cross aisle to create nightmare scenario for border hawks
A slim Republican majority and a speaker of the House weakened by concessions made to anti-establishment conservatives could give Democrats an opening to push through immigration reform this year, senior Republican aides and left-wing immigration activists told the Washington Free Beacon.
House Democrats could force a vote on a bill giving citizenship to “dreamers”—illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as children—residency to millions of illegal immigrants, an expansion of work visas for foreigners, and other wish-list items using a parliamentary maneuver called a discharge petition. In other words, House Democrats could make an alliance with just five moderate Republicans and pass the first major piece of immigration reform since 2000.
This would be a nightmare scenario for border hawks and Republicans who campaigned against President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, which they blame for the millions of illegal crossings on the southern border since he took office. Left-wing activists are pushing for such a scenario and see the discharge petition as a way to get a more radical bill than should be possible in a Republican-controlled House. Some border hawks and senior Republican staffers see that outcome as a distinct possibility, citing anger from the Democratic base and a push from business groups.
“It’s totally possible. Current House GOP immigration plans don’t have broad buy-in from the rest of the party right now anyway,” a senior Republican aide told the Free Beacon. “The chances only increase if the Supreme Court rules against Biden on Title 42 and [the DREAMer program].”
Should the House pass an immigration reform bill, Senate Democrats, who hold a majority, could change filibuster rules—or find nine Republicans who support the law as they did with a number of bills since 2021, including the Respect for Marriage Act and the infrastructure law—and send it to Biden’s desk.
House Republicans are divided on how to best tackle immigration reform. Texas Republicans unveiled a framework in December focused on building a border wall and enhancing domestic enforcement. That plan, Republican sources told the Free Beacon, is unlikely to pass.
But passing an amnesty bill through the House would only require a buy-in from five House Republicans. A few dozen moderate Republicans have already signaled openness to working with Democrats on immigration reform by signing on to narrowly tailored amnesty bills in 2021. A discharge petition would allow a bill to move to the floor for a vote after 218 members sign on in favor, bypassing the traditional route where House leadership and the Rules Committee control which legislation comes up for a vote and when.
This scenario played out in 2018, when over a dozen Republican moderates signed on to a discharge petition to override Republican leadership and force votes on immigration, including bills to prevent the deportation of illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.
Then-speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) managed to curb the rebellion by promising a vote on compromise legislation hashed out within the party. That bill failed after it was voted down by half the Republican caucus and every House Democrat. Compromise legislation would be more difficult for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.), who has less control over which bills make it to a floor vote after giving immigration hardliners on the House Freedom Caucus seats on the House Rules Committee, where they can effectively block bills from being considered.
A number of House Republicans have shown openness to working with Democrats on immigration amnesty issues. In 2021, nine Republicans voted in favor of the American Dream and Promise Act and 30 voted for the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, both Democratic-sponsored bills that provided pathways to citizenship for immigrants in the United States illegally. Both bills ultimately died in the Senate.
Immigration activists who spoke with the Free Beacon supported the idea of using a discharge petition to force through immigration reform. Lydia Guzman, who works as the director of advocacy and civic engagement at the left-wing pro-immigration group League of United Latin American Citizens, said her organization plans on pressuring both Republicans and Democrats to reach a deal in the new Congress.
“[A discharge petition] is on our radar, and we’re glad to see that Republicans are looking at immigration reform seriously. I think this is a golden opportunity for them to be leaders on this,” Guzman told the Free Beacon. “We have been pushing and have been advocating for reforms for decades. We can accomplish this.”
If Senate Democrats can’t get enough Republicans on board, they could also modify the filibuster to get the bill past the finish line. One Democrat seen as a key vote to change the procedure, Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.), has said he’d be willing to make it so senators must speak for the length of the filibuster on the floor. Such a change would allow bills to pass with a simple majority after all opposing lawmakers finish their remarks.
Manchin has also said Republicans and Democrats must work together on immigration reform as recently as December. In an interview with CBS, he said “West Virginia needs more workers” and called on the Senate to work on a bill.
Around the same time as those remarks, reports surfaced that some Senate Republicans were working on an immigration deal with Democrats. According to the Washington Post, Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) was working with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) on a bill that would offer a pathway to citizenship for two million “dreamers.”
RJ Hauman, lead lobbyist with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates for restrictions on illegal immigration, said his group is “a bit concerned with the threat of amnesty due to a slim [Republican] majority and a more open floor process.”
But he added that “Democrat extremism on the immigration issue could be a saving grace,” arguing that many Democrats are likely to object to a bill that includes border security provisions supported by Republicans.
“There is zero chance that the entire Democratic caucus would unite behind a discharge petition that contains any border security provisions—even if a mass amnesty is included,” said Hauman. “There are some Republicans like Rep. [Maria] Salazar [of Florida] who relish the idea of amnesty, but even they recognize that border security is the top priority right now.”
Ian Sams, the upward-failing Forrest Gump of political disaster, is handling the White House response
The scandal surrounding Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents looks very bad. By now it’s clear that Sleepy Joe endangered our national security by storing top secret information in a garage where his degenerate crackhead son Hunter could easily access them. Furthermore, the media coverage of the scandal has overlooked a key detail that suggests Biden’s presidency might not survive the year.
Unlike the mainstream media, the Washington Free Beacon is not afraid to report that career Democratic operative Ian Sams, sometimes referred to as “the Forrest Gump of political failure,” is leading the White House communications response to the document scandal. This is terrible news for Biden and the Democratic Party.
Sams, who is best known for modeling the “Grillary Clinton” aprons sold by Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign in 2016, has a history of playing a leading role in Democratic political disasters. In his current role as special assistant to the president and senior adviser and spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, the career operative has been spearheading the administration’s bumbling response to the classified documents scandal.
Most recently, for example, Sams told the Associated Press that Biden did not keep a record of visitors to the Delaware home where batches of classified material were discovered. “Like every President in decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” he said.
Sams previously served as “senior leader” of the Biden administration’s failed response to COVID-19. Despite promising to “shut down the virus,” Biden has presided over more than 690,000 American deaths from COVID-19 since taking office. Critics assailed Sams for his lack of credibility on COVID-19, pointing to a September 2020 tweet in which he argued that vaccines developed under former president Donald Trump could be “unsafe.”
Before that, Sams was the national press secretary for Kamala Harris’s failed presidential campaign, widely viewed as one of the most incompetently run political endeavors in modern history. Harris was a terrible candidate, obviously, but Sams didn’t do her any favors. He was universally mocked for posting one of the dumbest photoshop jobs of all time. He was humiliated after BuzzFeed published his angsty text exchange with editor Ben Smith describing criticism of Harris as “whiteness manifest.” Smith’s response was devastating: “Do you seriously not have real problems? This text makes me think you are totally, totally unready for an actual presidential campaign.”
That wasn’t the only campaign Sams worked on that ended in historic failure. He was a regional communications director for Hillary Clinton in 2016, responsible for the swing states of Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Hillary lost three of those states, including Pennsylvania by a margin of less than 1 percent.
Following that humiliating defeat, Sams worked as communications director for Tom Perriello, the Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia. Perriello lost the primary to Ralph Northam, whose political career was nearly derailed by a racist photo in his medical school yearbook. The Perriello campaign’s inability to locate the scandalous photo during the primary election will be remembered as one of the worst opposition research failures in the history of American politics.
Bottom line: Practically every political endeavor Sams has been a part of has ended in disaster. Biden should be worried. Stay tuned.
ALN-affiliate America News Nation reported on the controversy involving Lützerath:
For more than two years, climate activists have been squatting in the village in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia to oppose its destruction to make way for an enlargement of the Garzweiler coal mine.
On Saturday, Thunberg joined them, addressing a massive crowd in the fields near Lützerath that the German government’s compromise arrangement with the coal mine’s owner was “shameful.”
“The most affected people are clear, the science is clear, we need to keep the carbon in the ground. When governments and corporations are acting like this, are actively destroying the environment, putting countless people at risk, the people step up.” Thunberg said during the march.
According to The Hill, the weekend clashes injured nine activists and more than 70 police officers.
Davos summit doubles down on ESG policies amid shortages, inflation, and rising dissent
The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 53rd annual meeting of political leaders, corporate executives, and activists in Davos, Switzerland, will focus on rededicating its members to a progressive climate and social-justice agenda in the midst of what is described as “unprecedented multiple crises,” founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab said.
“The theme of our meeting … is cooperation in a fragmented world,” Schwab stated. In what the WEF calls the “Year of the Polycrisis,” he declared that “economic, environmental, social, and geopolitical crises are converging and conflating, creating an extremely versatile and uncertain future.”
“We are all stuck in a crisis mindset,” he warned, but reassured attendees that “the annual meeting at Davos shall try to make sure that leaders do not remain trapped in this crisis mindset but develop a longer-term, constructive perspective to shape the future in more sustainable, more inclusive, and more resilient way.”
The summit, which began on Jan. 16, features a record turnout from many of the most powerful government and corporate officials. Some 379 public officials are attending, including 30 heads of state, 56 finance ministers, 19 central bank governors, and 39 heads of global organizations, including the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. About 1,500 executives from 700 companies, including 600 CEOs from the world’s largest corporations, may be attending.
“We have the key players globally,” said Borge Brende, one of several WEF managing directors, “to create collaboration even in this fractured world.” He also noted that the WEF is expecting “a high-level Chinese delegation.”
This year’s agenda includes doubling down on the transition to renewable energy, the codification of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards to make compliance more measurable, “social and green jobs for building inclusive and sustainable economies,” and “diversity equity and inclusion [DEI] lighthouses,” and a global risks report.
“How do we build the inclusive, sustainable, and resilient growth?” asked Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the WEF. “A group of leaders from the public and private sector will be coming together to address exactly that question, designing a framework, and starting to align around that new agenda.”
Zahidi said attendees will also be setting policy regarding the “human capital agenda. Without adequate investments in skilling and in education, none of these opportunities can really play out, nor will we have the kind of societal resilience that is needed to be prepared for future inevitable shocks,” she said. “So we’ll have a meeting of the reskilling revolution champions.”
Regarding the “polycrisis,” the WEF assembled an extensive matrix of threats facing the world. The top five short-term risks were the “cost-of-living crisis, natural disasters and extreme weather, geo-economic confrontation, failure to mitigate climate change, and erosion of social cohesion and societal polarization.” The report noted that, looking farther ahead, “the top four most severe risks over the next 10 years are all environmental.”
Regarding DEI, the report stated that despite $7.5 billion being spent on DEI reeducation programs, which will increase to $15.4 billion by 2026, “the pandemic has caused a generational loss in gender equality, increasing the projected time to reach global parity from 100 to 132 years.”
A photograph shows a general view of the resort of Davos, as the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) opens in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 16, 2023. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
Global Ambitions on the Line
Whereas previous WEF summits faced little outside opposition, this year’s summit may well be taking place in what Schwab called a more “fragmented” world. The fragmentation includes not only the Russia–Ukraine war and rising tensions between the United States and China but also dissent within the countries that have pledged allegiance to the WEF agenda.
What had been a unified, behind-the-scenes consensus in support of the WEF’s ESG agenda has recently been brought to light and challenged, particularly in the United States, where conservative states have pushed back with anti-ESG legislation, boycotts, anti-trust investigations, and lawsuits.
“All these elites come in to the World Economic Forum and basically their vision is they run everything and everybody else is just a serf,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He added that the WEF’s energy and social-justice agenda is “really weakening Western society and Western values. But underlying a lot of that is the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].”
Europe also has been experiencing some friction. In Italy, the conservative Brothers of Italy party swept into power last fall under the leadership of Giorgia Meloni, whose acceptance speech as prime minister was censored by YouTube, allegedly “in error.” Meanwhile, in Sweden, a conservative coalition led by the Moderate Party won a majority in parliament.
Much of the resistance to WEF’s global ambitions stems from the fact that people are now beginning to feel the effects of the ESG agenda. Its concerted effort against fossil fuels has led to shortages and price hikes, which have flowed through to other industries such as agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation, and, ultimately, led to record inflation in grocery stores and at the gas pump.
Inflation was further fueled by trillions in progressive government spending on social programs, stimulus payments, and renewable energy subsidies. This flood of dollars and euros chasing fewer available goods compelled central banks, particularly the U.S. Federal Reserve, to hike interest rates throughout 2022, driving up the cost of debt and threatening to send the world economy into recession.
WEF managing director Mirek Dusek conceded that these issues had put the ESG agenda on the defensive.
“We’ve been deploying a lot of defensive measure in response to some of these cascading crises that have been manifesting themselves in the international system,” Dusek said. “So how do we go on the front foot and really articulate and implement vision-driven, future-oriented business strategies and governmental policies that can help us be more resilient in the future?”
Along these lines, the Davos summit also seeks to reinforce the narrative that these problems are mainly the result of climate change.
“Climate change and ecosystem collapse are the biggest threats to humanity,” WEF managing director Gim Huay Neo stated. Her five areas of focus are “getting to net zero, building a nature-positive economy, regenerating food, water and ocean systems, circular use of resources, and finally addressing waste and pollution.”
ESG Backlash
This past year brought more evidence that the ESG ranks may be faltering. Asset managers BlackRock and State Street, which signed pledges to compel companies whose shares they owned to move toward net-zero emissions, flatly denied in December 2022 at a Texas state senate hearing that they ever used their power as shareholders to influence management toward ESG goals. At the same time, Vanguard, the third of the “Big Three” asset managers, withdrew from its membership in the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative (NZAM).
Facing inquiries and boycotts from other conservative states regarding discrimination against fossil fuel companies, most Wall Street banks also expressed their support for the oil and gas industry and touted the billions they had invested in the industry. And while the United States under the Biden administration has spent heavily on subsidies for wind, solar, and electric cars, and thrown up numerous regulatory hurdles for the fossil fuel industry, the courts have often checked the efforts of the federal bureaucracy to set industrial policy. Most notably, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency stated that only Congress can make laws on such weighty issues.
Nonetheless, Schwab praised the “rising role of the state” in private industry and stated: “The World Economic Forum is, as you know, the international organization for public–private cooperation, and public–private cooperations becomes even more essential today.” But there may be headwinds regarding this cooperation as well.
I guess there’s value to having a mixed government & commercial forum of some kind. WEF does kinda give me the willies though, but I’m sure everything is fine 👀.
Concerns about government and corporations collaborating too closely were heightened by recent revelations that the FBI appears to have colluded with Twitter to censor news reports that could have hurt President Joe Biden’s election campaign. This week’s Davos guest list includes FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, though it is unclear what contribution America’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies will make to what is ostensibly an economic conference.
There are also increasing doubts about expanding the state’s role into industrial policy and directing energy production, following Europe’s narrow escape from energy rationing this winter thanks only to unseasonably warm weather. Nor was the reputation of government experts enhanced by the devastating mismanagement of the COVID-19 epidemic, including lockdowns, censorship, and an attempt to force companies to fire employees who refused the vaccine.
The 2023 agenda is a departure from the 2021 WEF summit, the theme of which was “the Great Reset,” a term that has since fallen out of favor with its authors.
This year, the WEF highlights the need to “restore trust,” but it remains to be seen whether this means strengthening ties among those on the guest list or also includes the trust of the wider public, which appears to have no role or vote in the decisions made at Davos.
“I guess there’s value to having a mixed government and commercial forum of some kind,” billionaire industrialist CEO Elon Musk stated in a tweet regarding the summit. “The WEF does kind of give me the willies though, but I’m sure everything is fine …”
A senior congressional Democrat with a history of bizarre statements and conspiracy theories is claiming numerous classified documents found to illegally be in President Joe Biden’s personal office and home were planted by Republicans in a conspiracy involving former President Donald Trump, even though Biden himself says his staff placed the documents there.
“Alleged classified documents showing up allegedly in the possession of Joseph Biden … I’m suspicious of the timing of it,” Georgia Democrat Congressman Hank Johnson tells Fox News.
That appears to be a reference to former President Donald Trump, who is under criminal investigation for taking classified documents from secure facilities and storing them in his private home.
“I’m also aware of the fact that things can be planted on people … things can be planted in places and then discovered conveniently. That may be what has occurred here,” said Johnson.
That would appear to be a claim the documents were planted in an apparent attempt to discredit Biden as the Trump classified documents investigation nears a possible criminal indictment.
Biden, his staff and his attorneys are not claiming the documents were planted, placing Johnson at odds with the supposed target of his supposed conspiracy theory.
Despite serving in Congress for 16 years, Johnson is best known for such bizarre claims.
During a 2010 House Armed Services Committee meeting about plans to station troops on the island of Guam, Johnson asked Admiral Robert Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, about an unforeseen risk he believed the plan would pose.
“My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,” said Johnson, who did not appear to be joking.
Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod sees President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents as “a huge gift to Trump.”
The classified documents bungle occurred before Biden’s widely anticipated re-election bid announcement, possibly in early February after the State of the Union address. Former President Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race last year.
Axelrod in comments to Reuters said that the latest developments were an “embarrassment” because Biden criticized Trump after the FBI raided his predecessor’s Florida residence for classified government documents last August.
“How that could possibly happen. How one—anyone could be that irresponsible,” Biden said in a “60 Minutes” interview in September.
Two months later and a few days before the midterms, his aids discovered classified documents dating to Biden’s time as vice president in the Obama administration at a Washington think tank he was associated with. Then, in late December, classified materials from his vice presidency were also found at his Delaware residence.
On Jan. 12, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney, as special counsel to investigate Biden’s mishandling of classified documents after five additional pages were found in the garage of his Delaware residence.
On Saturday, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and Fox News contributor, questioned the second discovery in a tweet: “The account shows that, over two months after the first discovery, the Biden team still did not complete a thorough search. It is chilling to think how the President would have proceeded if he didn’t ‘take classified documents seriously.’”
Reuters also reported that an unnamed Democratic communications adviser said the issue would pose questions about Biden’s competence for voters.
Biden’s mishandling of classified documents was not fundamentally different from Trump’s, Paul Kamenar, an attorney for the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), formerly told NTD News. “They both involve mishandling classified information. And sure, there are more documents at Mar-a-Lago. But that’s not a legal distinction,” he said.
He added that Trump had the authority to declassify documents, yet Biden didn’t have the same power as vice president. Hence, Biden couldn’t say that he had declassified those materials found at his home and the think tank, as Trump has.
Some of the government documents that Biden mishandled were classified as top secret or TS/SCI (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information), reported CBS.
National security and intelligence experts previously told The Epoch Times that TS/SCI materials are “extremely sensitive” and “the crown jewel stuff” that could reveal a specific source and method of top secret information. Therefore, any damage could be minor or “earth-shattering.”
Pathological liar. Of course, his party is a direct descendant of the Confederacy and formed the KKK, but with his memory it wouldn’t do much good to tell him. His constituents simply wish to be lied to over and over again as the truth is “more than they can bear” [Doc Holiday via US Patriot]
During a Sunday speech at Martin Luther King Jr.’s Atlanta church, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Joe Biden made a point to emphasize the fact that he attended “the black church” during his high school and college years.
There’s one small problem with the president’s story: members of the church he claims to have gone to don’t remember him.
According to PBS, Biden was invited to speak as part of a celebration of King’s legacy ahead of his birthday Monday.
Biden: “I used to go to 7:30 mass every morning in high school and then in college, before I went to the Black church. Not a joke.” (Not a thing he ever did) pic.twitter.com/1iz2AgPt26
“I used to go to 7:30 mass every morning in high school and then in college before I went to the black church. Not a joke,” Biden said.
The president has made similar claims in the past, including during a 2019 speech for Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH coalition, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
“I got raised in the black church,” Biden said.
“We would go sit in Rev. Herring’s church, sit there before we’d go out, and try to change things when I was a kid in college and in high school.”
The church in question, Union Baptist Church in Wilmington, Delaware, was run by Rev. Otis Herring until his passing in 1996, the Free Beacon reported.
A number of long-time church members have no memory of the young Biden ever attending a Union Baptist Church service.
“No. Not at our building. I think he was probably in Claymont, [Del.,] [or] in Pennsylvania then,” one member told the Free Beacon in 2020.
Another member, Juanita Matthew, who had been attending services at Union Baptist since the ’70s, doesn’t remember Biden either.
That being said, when Biden first became a newly elected senator, he became a friend of the church and Rev. Herring shortly after his first wife and daughter died in a car accident, Matthew told the Free Beacon.
Doubt over Biden’s claims isn’t only coming from conservative sources.
Shaun King, a prominent leader in the politically progressive Black Lives Matter movement, also claims to have interviewed Union Baptist Church members who don’t remember Biden.
According to King, Biden has also made the claim that he attended another black church headed up by the late Reverend Maurice Moyer.
“I spoke to former members of their churches, as well as people close to both families. Neither stories are true,” King reported.
“Joe Biden met both of these men much later in life and only learned about their great work in retrospect.”
But her response to the classified documents controversy currently surrounding President Joe Biden is in a class by itself.
In an appearance Saturday on MSNBC (of course) Omar said Republicans are simply using the revelations of Biden’s cavalier treatment of classified information as a “political game.”
First, Omar declared that she was “glad” a special counsel has been appointed to investigate the Biden documents. (The liberal website Mediaite has the video here.)
“Because any time there is a deviance in regards to security protocols that should be taken serious, it should be investigated,” she said.
Then, Omar went on the offensive — invoking, as Democrats obsessively do with all things, former President Donald Trump.
“What I find interesting is that Republicans who have defended Trump after he literally stole classified documents, refused to turn them over, lied about having them, made up some story about how he declassified them, had to have his house raided in order for those documents to be found, are now only interested in investigating Biden, who has cooperated, whose own staff and former staff have themselves turned these documents in,” she said.
“So you have to understand, right? Republicans aren’t really interested in upholding the law, in following security protocols. What they’re interested in is playing a political game and now only wanting to investigate Biden.”
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The documents that are the subject of Trump’s current dispute with the National Archives and Records Administration (and an unprecedented FBI raid in August) were not “literally stolen” not even by Biden’s woefully ignorant interpretation of the word “literally.”
It’s true, they’re the subject of a disagreement. And Trump could well be on the losing end of that disagreement, but “literally stolen” isn’t even close to being the legal conclusion of the case.
As to Trump making up some story about having declassified the documents? The reality is that Trump held the office of the presidency of the United States, and therefore had the power to declassify anything he chose.
The documents in the Biden case related to the time when Biden was vice president — and had such power only in limited circumstances (see the clarification note at the bottom of this page).
Democrats, Omar implied, are interested only in all that is right and just when it comes to their investigations. Any American who lived through the past five years — even the kind of American who might be found watching MSNBC on a weekend afternoon — knows that’s utterly backward.
From the time of Trump’s unlikely upset of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, Democrats have been devoted entirely to using any trickery, any deception at their disposal in a “political game” against the president-elect, then the president, now the former president.
Remember the FBI was cooking up its sham case against Trump even before the election. In the immediate aftermath of the election, the “Russa collusion” hoax picked up steam with the appointment of a special counsel that ate up taxpayer money and valuable time from the Trump presidency.
From the time Democrats took control of Congress in the 2018 midterms, Trump’s impeachment was a foregone conclusion.
When “Russia collusion” flamed out, it was on to Trump’s phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zalenskyy about an investigation of the Biden family and its obviously suspicious ties to Ukraine. (The fact that every piece of evidence that comes to light about Hunter Biden’s global grifting seems to give Trump’s suspicions more credence just makes Omar’s statements more backward still.)
This is the same political party, remember, whose last candidate for the presidency embodied contempt for the rule of law and, as Omar put it, “deviance to security protocols.”
Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server — the unbelievable situation in which an American secretary of state, the chief diplomat of the nation with all the secrets that implies — was literally (literally) running her office by conducting official correspondence outside of the security net of the American government.
She was not only not punished, she was damn near rewarded with the highest office in the land — an office she would almost certainly have won had the GOP run any candidate besides Trump against her.
And Democrats took her defiance of the law and disregard of national security implications in stride.
Americans who follow the news even casually know that. Even Americans who watch MSNBC know that, which means all Omar’s statement really is doing is bringing more attention to how negligent the powers that be in her own party actually are when it comes to “deviance from security protocol.”
Which puts Omar’s pathetic take on it in a class all its own. Clearly, she thought it was time for a takedown.
And clearly she thought MSNBC was the place for it.
But if she thought was she was doing was a description of how the GOP is working, it’s fair to wonder exactly what country Omar has been living in for the past five years.
Omar herself might not realize it, but as an attack on Republicans and a defense of Democrats, it backfired spectacularly.
CLARIFICATION, Jan. 24, 2023:The original version of this story stated that during his time as vice president, President Joe Biden lacked the authority to declassify documents. In fact, an executive order issued in December 2009 by then-President Barack Obama extended the authority to classify documents to the vice president. The same order gave the vice president the authority to declassify documents if they were classified by the vice president in the first place.
Because the documents involved in the Biden case have not been publicly described, it’s not known whether Biden’s power to declassify their contents would apply.
As the Biden administration and his greenie allies continue to make a headlong push for electric vehicles, the state of Wyoming seems to be going in the exact opposite direction.
Lawmakers in the state are considering a new law that would phase out electric vehicles by 2035, which is a policy that runs completely contrary to states like New York and California which, in obeisance to the green agenda, want to phase out gas-powered cars and boost electric vehicles.
The bill, SJ0004, is being sponsored by state Senators Jim Anderson, Brian Boner, Ed Cooper, Dan Dockstader, and Representatives Donald Burkhart Jr., and Bill Henderson, to “ensure the stability” of its oil and gas industry, according to the Tesla industry news site Teslarati.
The lawmakers say that the state’s proud oil industry has created “countless jobs” and contributed “revenues to the state of Wyoming throughout the state’s history.”
“The proliferation of electric vehicles at the expense of gas-powered vehicles will have deleterious impacts on Wyoming’s communities and will be detrimental to Wyoming’s economy and the ability for the country to efficiently engage in commerce,” the officials said.
The group said that, among their other problems, the lack of an EV charging infrastructure in the state would “make the widespread use of electric vehicles impracticable for the state.”
The lawmakers also say that electric vehicles present an ecological problem because the massive battery packs are “not easily recyclable or disposable” and would force the state to develop new policies and facilities to dispose of the batteries.
As the Biden administration and his greenie allies continue to make a headlong push for electric vehicles, the state of Wyoming seems to be going in the exact opposite direction.
Lawmakers in the state are considering a new law that would phase out electric vehicles by 2035, which is a policy that runs completely contrary to states like New York and California which, in obeisance to the green agenda, want to phase out gas-powered cars and boost electric vehicles.
The bill, SJ0004, is being sponsored by state Senators Jim Anderson, Brian Boner, Ed Cooper, Dan Dockstader, and Representatives Donald Burkhart Jr., and Bill Henderson, to “ensure the stability” of its oil and gas industry, according to the Tesla industry news site Teslarati.
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The lawmakers say that the state’s proud oil industry has created “countless jobs” and contributed “revenues to the state of Wyoming throughout the state’s history.”
“The proliferation of electric vehicles at the expense of gas-powered vehicles will have deleterious impacts on Wyoming’s communities and will be detrimental to Wyoming’s economy and the ability for the country to efficiently engage in commerce,” the officials said.
The group said that, among their other problems, the lack of an EV charging infrastructure in the state would “make the widespread use of electric vehicles impracticable for the state.”
The lawmakers also say that electric vehicles present an ecological problem because the massive battery packs are “not easily recyclable or disposable” and would force the state to develop new policies and facilities to dispose of the batteries.
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“Phasing out the sale of new electric vehicles in Wyoming by 2035 will ensure the stability of Wyoming’s oil and gas industry and will help preserve the country’s critical minerals for vital purposes,” the bill adds.
“In 2021, Wyoming ranked eighth nationally in crude oil production, producing 85.43 million barrels of crude oil. In February 2022, a study by Allied Market Research found that the global EV market will grow in valuation by five times by 2030. In 2020, the EV market size was valued at $163.01 billion. The new study expects that number to reach $823.74 billion by 2030,” Teslarati noted.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is pushing electric vehicles for all they are worth, despite the supply chain issue — especially for those expensive battery packs.
Biden is also attempting to steer tax dollars to mining interests in China and Canada to fuel his obsession with EVs.
Still, while most car makers are all-in on the idea of pushing electric vehicles, at least one industry leader isn’t so sure. Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda recently said that there is a “silent majority” of industry insiders who secretly think that going all-electric is not necessarily the best idea.
“People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority,” Toyoda said in Dec. “That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend so they can’t speak out loudly.”
Wyoming’s debate is also more evidence of how green politics is cleaving America into two camps.
As Biden and the rest of the far left try to push unattainable climate change goals — such as a net zero emissions policy — and lefties such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders vilify opponents of the green agenda, others are pushing back against the radical greens and their demands.
Indeed, Wyoming officials spoke out against the trend of EVs last October when the state government rejected the green agenda and said it had no plans at all to turn its government-owned vehicle fleets towards EVs.
Residents of The Cowboy State seem to agree with their elected officials. As of Dec. 31, there were but a mere 510 electric vehicles in Wyoming, only .04 percent of the registered vehicles in the state, according to Electrek.
Electrek also found that several other states have similarly low numbers of EVs, including North Dakota (220), South Dakota (410), West Virginia (600), Mississippi (780), and Montana (940). Probably unsurprisingly, California leads with a whopping 425,300 registered EVs.
Perhaps the message that Wyoming is sending to the greenies will be heard by lawmakers in other states and a new trend to turn back the march toward electric vehicles will begin in earnest.
The decline of public trust in COVID-19 vaccines significantly impacts vaccination rates against routine childhood diseases. This multiple-part series explores the international research done over the past two decades on the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine—believed to be one of the most effective vaccines developed to date.
Summary of Key Facts
This multiple-part series offers a thorough analysis of concerns raised about HPV vaccination following the global HPV campaign, which commenced in 2006.
In the United States, the HPV vaccine was reported to have a disproportionately higher percentage of adverse events of fainting and blood clots in the veins. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges that fainting can happen following the HPV vaccine, and recommends sitting or lying down to get the shot, then waiting for 15 minutes afterward.
International scientists found that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) logged a substantial increase in reports of premature ovarian failure (POF) from 1.4 per year before 2006 to 22.2 per year after the HPV vaccine approval, yielding a Proportional Reporting Ratio of 46.1.
The HPV vaccine is widely regarded as one of the most effective vaccines developed to date. Nevertheless, safety issues have been raised following its approval, and in response, additional research has been published and litigation has been brought on behalf of those with a vaccine injury.
In this HPV vaccine series, Parts I and II explain how the vaccine works and the evidence suggesting there may be legitimate safety concerns. The remaining parts present questions about real-world vaccine effectiveness and identify specific ingredients which may pose harm.
The information presented here is drawn from peer-reviewed scientific literature from the United States, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, France, and Japan, as well as statistics published by public health agencies in each of these countries. More than 100 hours of research and internal peer review among scientists with experience in infectious diseases, virology, clinical trials, and vaccine epidemiology have been invested in presenting this summary of the evidence.
Large registry-based studies have identified plausible associations between HPV vaccination and autoimmune conditions, including premature ovarian insufficiency or failure (POI/POF), Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS).
While it is easy to be enthusiastic about recent advances in human vaccine technology, we should keep in mind that achieving real and lasting good health is much more than just the absence of a certain virus.
HPV is a small DNA virus infecting human cutaneous epithelial cells in the mucosa and skin. More than 150 strains of the HPV virus have been identified.
HPV infection is so common that the majority of sexually active people will get it at some point in their lives, even if they have only one or very few sexual partners. It can spread through sexual intercourse and oral sex. It can also pass between people through skin-to-skin contact, even by people who have no symptoms.
HPV infection causes genital warts, some of which can turn into cancer. For the most part, however, HPV infection is benign. More than 90 percent of HPV infections cause no clinical symptoms and are self-limited, meaning the virus is cleared by the body via natural immunological defenses.
HPV-Associated Cancers
High-risk HPV types (types 16, 18, and others) can cause cervical cell abnormalities that are precursors to cancers.
Type 16 is associated with approximately 50 percent of cervical cancers worldwide, and types 16 and 18 together are linked to 66 percent of cervical cancers.
An additional five high-risk types, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58, are linked with another 15 percent of cervical cancers and 11 percent of all HPV-associated cancers.
Infection with a high-risk HPV type is associated with a higher chance of the development of cervical cancer but, by itself, HPV infection is not the sole risk factor to cause cancer. There are many other reasons, as discussed in this paper.
Given the prevalence of infection, it is unsurprising that globally, cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women. In 2018, an estimated 570,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer worldwide and more than 300,000 died of the disease. In the United States, nearly 50,000 new HPV-associated cancers occur annually, with women infected at a slightly higher rate than men.
The incidence of cervical cancer can be controlled as a result of the implementation of routine testing and screening, including Pap and DNA tests.
HPV Vaccines
Three HPV vaccines—bivalent HPV vaccine (Cervarix, 2vHPV), quadrivalent HPV vaccine (Gardasil, 4vHPV), and 9-valent HPV vaccine (Gardasil 9, 9vHPV)—have been licensed by the FDA.
The HPV vaccine uses recombinant technology to assemble the shell of the virus—L1 capsid protein. These viral-like particles do not contain the virus genome and are not infectious.
Merck’s original Gardasil vaccine was designed to prevent infections from four strains (types 6, 11, 16, and 18).
On June 8, 2006, after the FDA’s fast-tracked review, Gardasil was approved for use in females ages 9 to 26 for the prevention of cervical, vulvar, and vaginal cancers.
According to the label accompanying the vaccine, the ingredients in Merck’s first Gardasil vaccine were proteins of HPV, amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate, yeast protein, sodium chloride, L-histidine, polysorbate 80, sodium borate, and water for injection.
On Oct. 16, 2009, the FDA approved Gardasil (qHPV) for use in boys ages 9 through 26 for the prevention of genital warts caused by HPV types 6 and 11, but not for cancer.
In 2010, it approved Gardasil for the prevention of anal cancer in males and females ages 9 to 26.
Four years later, the FDA approved an updated vaccine, Merck’s Gardasil 9, for use in girls ages 9 to 26 and boys ages 9 to 15 for the prevention of cervical, vaginal, and anal cancers.
Gardasil 9 contains the same ingredients as Gardasil, but offers protection against nine HPV strains, adding five additional types (HPV types 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58).
The current HPV vaccination schedule recommended by the CDC is two doses for both boys and girls aged 11 or 12. However, it is approved for children as young as 9. The second dose is given 6 to 12 months after the first.
For those aged 15 and above, a three-dose schedule is implemented at one- to two-month and six-month intervals, although antibody-level studies suggest that two doses are sufficient.
The vaccine prompts the body to produce neutralizing antibodies against HPV. Antibody responses appear to peak seven months after the first dose (or one month after the third dose). The vaccine-induced antibody levels appear to be 10 to 100 times higher than those after natural infection.
The high vaccine effectiveness (90 to 98 percent) against the fast-growing, abnormal cells which may cause precancerous lesions in people ages 16 to 26 suggested that the best timing for vaccination was to give it to patients before they became sexually active.
During that time, there were 12,424 reports of adverse events. Of these, 772 (6.2 percent) were serious.
VAERS, short for Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting Systems, is a passive surveillance system, which is subject to multiple limitations, including underreporting, unconfirmed diagnosis, lack of denominator data, and no unbiased comparison groups.
Nevertheless, it is a useful and important tool for detecting postmarket safety issues with vaccines.
A disproportionately high percentage of Gardasil VAERS reports were of syncope (fainting) and venous thromboembolic events (blood clots in the veins) compared with other vaccines. There were 8.2 syncope events per 100,000 HPV doses and 0.2 venous thromboembolic events (VTE) per 100,000 HPV doses reported, respectively.
The Gardasil package insert includes a warning about fainting, fever, dizziness, nausea, and headaches (page 1) and notes at least the following adverse reactions reported during postmarketing surveillance (section 6.2): Guillain-Barré syndrome, transverse myelitis, motor neuron disease, venous thromboembolic events, pancreatitis, and autoimmune disorders.
Australia HPV Vaccines Adverse Events
In 2007, Australia reported an annual adverse drug reaction rate of 7.3/100,000, the highest since 2003, representing an 85 percent increase from 2006.
Per the analysis of the Adverse Drug Reactions System (ADRS) database by the Australian Department of Health and Aging, this increase was “almost entirely due to” reports following the national rollout of the three-dose HPV vaccination program for young females in April 2007; 705 of the 1,538 adverse drug reactions reported that year were from the Gardasil vaccine.
In Australia, the ADR increase in 2007 was almost entirely due to the three-dose HPV vaccination program for females aged 12 to 26 years in April 2007. (Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care)
Moreover, though people may take different vaccines other than HPV, the HPV vaccine was the only suspected vaccine to cause adverse reactions in 96 percent of records. Twenty-nine percent had causality ratings of “certain” or “probable” and 6 percent were defined as “serious.”
In these HPV-induced ADRs, 674 were suspected to be related to HPV vaccines, 203 had causality ratings of “certain” or “probable,” and 43 were defined as “serious.” (Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care)
Japan Withdraws Recommendation, Vaccine Acceptance Plunged
In 2013, the Japanese raised concerns about a variety of widely reported post-vaccination serious adverse events. This led the government to suspend recommending the HPV vaccine for six years. Vaccine acceptance of HPV in Japan plunged significantly after 2013, from 42.9 percent to 14.3 percent., or from 65.4 percent to 3.9 percent.
Researchers around the world also started to investigate HPV safety. A World Health Organization (WHO) position paper (pdf) released on July 14, 2017, concluded that the HPV vaccines were “extremely safe.” The same report estimated approximately 1.7 cases of anaphylaxis per million HPV doses, that no association with GBS was found, and that syncope (fainting) was “established as a common anxiety or stress-related reaction to the injection.”
In the spring of 2022, Japan announced it was relaunching its HPV vaccination drive. Mainstream news outlets reported that for thousands of women, the cost of caution may have led to preventable HPV-induced cancers and an estimated 5,000 to 5,700 deaths.
However, a true risk-benefit analysis would also consider the number of serious adverse events prevented by putting the program on hold. The question remains: Was Japan’s caution warranted, or should their national vaccination program have continued?
Ovarian Insufficiency
Concerns that the vaccine may be negatively affecting fertility have been detailed in the scientific literature.
In 2014, a peer-reviewed case series describing premature ovarian failure (POF) among Australian women following HPV vaccination was published in the Journal of Investigative Medicine. This prompted other researchers to systematically examine the VAERS data to see if there was a connection between POF and Gardasil. Their study found a “potential safety signal” and concluded that “further investigations are warranted.”
VAERS Analysis on Ovarian Failure
Two recent publications based on VAERS reports (first study,second study) found that events with a probable autoimmune background were significantly more frequent after HPV vaccination compared to other vaccinations.
The team of international scientists that did the second study evaluated reports between 1990 and 2018. They found that among the 228,341 POF reports, 0.1 percent was considered to be associated with HPV vaccination with a median age of 15 years and the time to onset was 20.5 days following vaccination. The primary symptoms were amenorrhea (80.4 percent) and premature menopause (15.3 percent).
Most strikingly, the mean number of POF cases increased significantly from 1.4 per year prior to 2006 to 22.2 per year after the HPV vaccine was approved, with a proportional reporting ratio of 46.
The investigators noted that the WHO and CDC declared the HPV vaccine safe regardless of lacking adequate research into safety concerns.
For example, the authors note that in a CDC-sponsored VAERS study, 17 cases of POF were identified but 15 were excluded due to insufficient information to confirm the diagnosis. A separate observational study using the Vaccine Safety Datalink found no increased risk. But this study was too underpowered to detect a signal. In addition, a cross-sectional survey study using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data relied on an inaccurate measurement of POF and self-reported HPV vaccination.
In summary, the researchers detected a strong safety signal even after accounting for a potential upswing in reports due to media coverage after the product launch (they refer to this as “notoriety bias”). Because VAERS is a passive reporting system, the data may be incomplete and are often unconfirmed by physicians. Therefore, this study cannot provide a definitive link between HPV vaccination and POI or POF but does generate a hypothetical link.
The authors of the second study conclude by insisting that “…this signal warrants well-designed and appropriate epidemiological research.” They note that “if the signal is confirmed, the risk is small compared to the lifetime risk of cervical cancer.”
However, the benefit-risk profile on an individual level is not uniform.
Given the health impacts of POI and POF—some of which may be irreversible—and the declining mortality rate for cervical cancer even in the prevaccine era, the risk-benefit profile for HPV vaccination remains unclear.
3 Case Reports on Ovarian Insufficiency
In the 2014 investigation mentioned above, a general practitioner in Australia noticed that three girls developed premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) following HPV4 vaccination. As a result of vaccination, each of the girls (ages 16, 16, and 18) had been prescribed oral contraception to treat menstrual cycle irregularities. Typically, women present with amenorrhea (no periods) or oligomenorrhea (infrequent periods) as the initial symptom of POI.
One girl had irregular periods following three doses of HPV vaccination. She then became amenorrheic and was diagnosed with POI.
Another girl’s periods were “like clockwork” until after the third HPV dose, which she received at age 15. Her first cycle after being vaccinated for the third time started two weeks late, and her next cycle was two months late. The final cycle began nine months later. The patient had no family history of early menopause. She was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure at 16. Lab work found hormone levels consistent with those of postmenopausal women, but her bone mineral density was normal.
The authors of this case series noted that in preclinical studies of HPV4, the five-week-old rats only conceived one litter and the only available toxicology studies appear to be on the male rodent reproductive system. However, only two of three doses were administered prior to mating, and the overall fecundity was 95 percent, slightly lower than the control rats (98 percent) that received no vaccination prior to mating. The dose tolerance recommendations were based on an average weight of 50 kilograms for an adolescent girl but failed to take into account that HPV4 is administered to girls ages 9 to 13 years, who range in weight from 28 to 46 kilograms.
Danish Retrospective Cohort Study Finds No Link
A 2021 study also evaluated POI in a nationwide cohort of nearly 1 million Danish females ages 11 to 34 years. The researchers used Cox proportional hazard regression to detect an increased risk of POI diagnosis by HPV4 vaccination status during the years 2007–2016. The hazard ratio for POI (vaccinated versus unvaccinated) was 0.96.
One limitation was that data on age at menarche (first menstruation) and oral contraceptive use were not available. Girls who had not yet reached menarche would not be at risk for POI, of course.
The authors excluded girls under age 15 in a sensitivity analysis and still found no signal, concluding that no association was found between HPV4 vaccination and POI.
Part II of this series contains evidence from large studies and concerns of increased neurological and autoimmune events after HPV vaccines.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
Rocky Mountain Institute partnered with China to implement ‘economy-wide transformation’ away from oil and gas
The green energy group behind a study cited in Consumer Product Safety commissioner Richard Trumka Jr.’s call to ban gas stoves has partnered with the Chinese government to implement an “economy-wide transformation” away from oil and gas.
Colorado-based nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, which published the December study that attributes 13 percent of U.S. childhood asthma cases to gas-stove use, is hardly staffed by an objective group of scientists.
The organization is demanding “systemic change and economy-wide transformation” to address a climate crisis it says we must go to great lengths to avoid. In 2013, for example, the Rocky Mountain Institute joined forces with China’s National Development and Reform Commission—the government agency tasked with planning the communist nation’s economy—to produce a report that advised China to replace existing appliances and generators with “clean energy technologies.” The commission went on to set climate goals that included energy reduction targets. When local provinces in 2021 failed to meet those targets, the commission pushed them to implement electricity rations, prompting “dimmed traffic lights that cause chaos” and “half-cooked rice in rice cookers.”
The Rocky Mountain Institute is far from the first green energy group to advocate for the banning of gas stoves, which nearly 40 percent of U.S. homes use. But the nonprofit’s newfound influence reflects the Biden administration’s alignment with the left’s loudest climate activists. President Joe Biden has already proposed a natural gas phaseout in federal buildings, which would ban fossil-fuel equipment in new buildings by 2030. Leading green energy groups applauded the move, which will cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually, the Washington Free Beaconreported in December.
Beyond its public mission statement and work with the Chinese government, the Rocky Mountain Institute’s biases are reflected in its gas-stove study, academic leaders told the Free Beacon. The study—which spans just nine paragraphs—was based on a hodgepodge of different data and methodologies spanning various years and countries, ranging from 2019 U.S. Census data to conclusions from a 2018 analysis in Australia.
Structuring a study that way is questionable, according to Yale University professor of medicine Dr. Harvey Risch. Moreover, the conclusions of the institute’s study differs from what the organization is saying publicly.
“This paper does not do any research on possible association between residential natural gas use and risk of childhood asthma,” Risch told the Free Beacon. “It only calculates a percent of childhood asthma that could be attributable to residential natural gas use and risk of childhood asthma.”
That distinction is important, Risch said, particularly when calling for such a dramatic public policy proposal that would change how tens of millions of Americans prepare their food. The study was also ethically dubious, according to Risch, as its authors stated they held no conflicts of interest despite working for climate change activist groups. The Rocky Mountain Institute’s board, for example, is filled with executives at green energy corporations with a financial interest in banning the use of fossil fuels.
Also included among those board members is Wei Ding, the founder and chairman of the Chinese private equity firm Broad River Capital. Ding started the firm after serving as chairman of the China International Capital Corporation (CICC), a partially state-owned investment bank. Former CICC executives include Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s vice president and right-hand man, Wang Qishan, while the corporation’s website highlights its “deep participation in China’s economic reforms and development” and goal to “serve the nation.” The Rocky Mountain Institute also sits on the China Clean Transportation Partnership, a Chinese green energy nonprofit whose founding members include China’s National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Transport.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio), who last week called on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to renounce any potential gas-stove ban, said he is alarmed by the institute’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The natural gas industry, Vance said, “is critical to our national security,” and its demise would be a boost to our adversary.
“Who benefits from all this? Communist China,” Vance told the Free Beacon. “I think it’s time for the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to answer some questions before Congress—under oath.”
In addition to the Rocky Mountain Institute’s green energy biases, the nonprofit’s lead authors on the study hold no formal advanced scientific training or education. Talor Gruenwald, who works as a researcher at the group, holds a master of international affairs. Brady Seals, who heads the institute’s “Carbon-Free Buildings” program, graduated with an MBA from the University of South Dakota.
Those facts didn’t stop multiple outlets from covering the study as a disturbing revelation and call for action. The Washington Post ran at least four stories on the study’s findings, with one alleging that gas-stove use “jump-starts childhood asthma.”
“But as more and more information emerges about the health risks—and as the Biden administration focuses in on electrifying household appliances across the country—the move from gas to electric may be a question not of ‘if,’ but of ‘when,'” one of the Post‘s stories concludes.
Trumka, whom Biden tapped as a top federal regulator in 2021, seemingly confirmed that assessment in a Thursday interview. After Trumka’s initial comment floating a gas-stove ban prompted widespread public backlash—and a walkback from the White House—the Democrat told CNN that any regulatory action on the appliance would be “forward-looking” and only apply to “new products.” “We are not looking to go into anyone’s homes and take away items that are already there,” Trumka said. “We don’t do that.”
Those comments likely disappointed the Rocky Mountain Institute, which did not return a request for comment. On Jan. 4, the group—which has pledged to continue its partnership with the Chinese government—explicitly advocated for the removal of existing gas stoves from private homes. “More than 12 percent of U.S. childhood asthma is preventable,” the group said, “if we remove gas stoves from homes and move towards electric stoves instead.”
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- A towing company got a call about a junk car that someone wanted to be removed. It was about 9:30 Monday morning, the day after Christmas. That is when the driver of the flatbed wrecker pulled up to the address about seven-and-a-half miles northeast of downtown Detroit. The driver got out of his truck and looked for the vehicle owner. The temperature was below freezing, in the mid-teens, and with light winds.
A stranger waved at the tow truck driver and walked up to him. The driver asked if the stranger had a car for sale. The stranger nodded and reached into his pocket. Instead of pulling out a set of keys, the stranger took a handgun out of his pocket. The attacker pointed his gun at the driver and told him to empty his pockets.
The driver faced several problems. One was the attacker, who had a gun already pointed at him. The other problems are the concealed pistol license in his wallet and the handgun in his holster.
Nobody wants to hand another loaded weapon to an armed robber.
The news reports aren’t clear how the driver was able to reach under his coat and present his firearm. Witnesses report that the driver shot between six and eight times. Police reports do not indicate that the attacker was able to fire his gun at all.
Firearms instructor Rick Ector teaches and carries in Detroit. A heavy coat slows down your presentation. It also masks your presentation. Quoting Ector, “Heavy coats are common. Sometimes I carry in my jacket pocket. I assume I’ll have to shoot through the coat. I don’t buy expensive coats.”
The driver stepped back and called 911. So did neighbors in the area who heard the gunfire. It appears that the driver stayed at the scene. The driver spoke to the police when they arrived. He also showed them his identification and his concealed pistol license.
Since there was a report of shots fired, the 911 dispatcher also rolled Emergency Medical Services to the scene. EMS transported the attacker to the hospital in critical condition. The attacker died a few hours later.
News reporters interviewed the neighbors. They recognized the attacker and said he lived in the area. They did not blame the driver for defending himself. To quote one neighbor, “You have to get these crooks off the street one way or another.” The neighbors refused to let the news reporters publish their names.
Several tow truck companies said that some had rules against their drivers going armed. The companies feared being named in a civil suit if the driver had to defend himself. They were more worried about a lawsuit than their equipment being stolen or their drivers being injured.
All of the towing companies that were interviewed said that their drivers have a dangerous job since they went to all parts of the city at all hours of the day and night.
The police did not arrest the driver, and did not include his name in their published reports. The news media did not name the driver either.
This story is one of many that goes underreported by the mainstream media because it shows a positive image of a law-abiding gun owner using that tool to defend their life and family. It is our responsibility at AmmoLand to report these stories to you the reader. While we will continue to report these stories, groups like the Crime Prevention Research Center, led by Dr. John Lott, are fastidious in studying the use of firearms for self-defense. Stay up to date with all news on self-defense by following CPRC and Ammoland.
Read the original article in its entirety at ammoland.com.
THE DEPLOYMENT OF SULPHUR DIOXIDE INTO THE ATMOSPHERE IS ONE OF THE WAYS THE CLIMATE CHANGE LOBBY ARE CONSIDERING MANIPULATING THE WEATHER.
So, releasing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere is supposed to cool things down? I expect just the opposite, so that the “crisis” is heightened. Instead of taking away our rights, why can’t people simply slow down or stop with procreation? The majority are unfit parents anyway [US Patriot]
An American startup firm has admitted to releasing reactive particles into the atmosphere in an attempt to alter the climate. The move has attracted widespread criticism, and marks a potentially dangerous new stage in the intensifying response to Earth’s “climate crisis”.
Just before Christmas 2022, the firm ‘Make Sunsets’ acknowledged it had launched weather balloons containing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. The launches took place in April 2022, in Baja California, Mexico, months before the company was even incorporated.
When quizzed about it, the company’s CEO, Luke Iseman, was unrepentant. “It’s morally wrong, in my opinion, for us not to be doing this”, he said, adding that it’s important “to do this as quickly and safely as we can,” because of the threat of man-made climate change.
Critics, including geoengineers, say Make Sunset’s efforts are dangerous, not only because the field is very much in its infancy, but also because they could have wildly different effects from those intended.
“The current state of science is not good enough… to either reject, or to accept, let alone implement” solar geoengineering, said Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, which seeks to impose restrictions on geoengineering projects. “To go ahead with implementation at this stage is a very bad idea.” .
Other scientists believe this unannounced and unmonitored release of chemicals into the atmosphere could set the science back, disrupting its funding and leading to public calls to restrict research. The move has been compared to other reckless innovations, including the use of CRISPR gene-editing technology by a Chinese scientist on human embryos, without proper evaluation of the safety and ethics of doing so.
READ MORE OF ‘RAW EGG NATIONALISTS’ WORK
Geoengineering.
Geoengineering has been receiving growing attention as a potential “solution” to the “Climate Crisis” in recent years. Last year the corporate global governance outfit the ‘World Economic Forum’ posted a video suggesting climate change could be reversed through the use of “space bubbles” – orbital rafts that would reduce solar radiation reaching Earth – or through spraying aerosols into the upper atmosphere.
The technology has been in consideration for over a decade, with a variety of governmental bodies and organizations, including the US Congress, UK Parliament and the Royal Society expressing interest in research and small-scale trials.
A two-part study released in 2015 by the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine noted that reductions in emissions should take precedence over the use of such technology, whose potential for “large-scale deployment” is still unknown. The report also noted that potential risks and side-effects needed to be investigated. The technology should not be used at “climate-altering scales” until these risks have been properly evaluated, it said.
CEO Luke Iseman said that the first launches were simply tests to confirm it would work; although he also stated no monitoring equipment was included to track whether the sulfur dioxide was released as intended.
The idea of using weather balloons in this manner was mooted in a 2018 white paper, which noted such an approach could be used in a distributed manner by non-governmental actors.
The company already has plans for further launches, with increased payloads of sulfur dioxide, added telemetry, and measuring equipment. Eventually, the aim is to have re-usable balloons and to publish data following each launch.
Iseman also envisages a system of “cooling credits”, whereby a purchase of $10 would buy one gram of sulfur-dioxide particles, an amount he claims could offset the effects of one ton of carbon emissions for a year.
“What I want to do is create as much cooling as quickly as I responsibly can, over the rest of my life, frankly,” Iseman said. Make Sunsets will deploy as much sulfur in 2023 as “we can get customers to pay us” to release, he added.
The company claims to have received around $750,000 in seed capital, with investors purchasing “cooling credits”.
While some have been quick to dismiss the launches as a publicity stunt – especially since they weren’t even properly monitored – others worry about the privatization of such potentially dangerous technology. Fears about allowing corporates to possess the means to alter the climate are well founded, they claim.
In 2012, Russ George, an eccentric entrepreneur, attempted to create a massive artificial algal bloom in the Pacific off British Columbia, by dumping 100 tons of iron sulfate into the water. He wanted to improve salmon numbers and also sequester carbon in the ocean. According to George, the endeavor was a success – the following year saw a record salmon harvest – but instead of praise he faced the ire not just of the government but also of scientists and environmentalists, who leveled similar accusations against him as are now being leveled at Make Sunsets.
Two years before George’s experiment, as talk of the potential for geoengineering first began to grow, political scientist David Victor warned of “[a] lone Greenfinger, self-appointed protector of the planet and working with a small fraction of the Gates bank account, [who] could force a lot of geoengineering on his own.”
Now, it would appear, we have multiple Greenfingers, with the number likely to increase.
By Whose Consent?
The issue of informed consent is a live issue, given the events of the past three years. Once again, decisions of major import are being made on the public’s behalf without knowledge or approval. Although the immediate implications may seem less serious than our liberties being denied during the pandemic, the potential threat to our lives and livelihoods is arguably far worse if geoengineering is allowed to continue unabated. The retort that “nobody consented to your [i.e. our, Western] carbon emissions in the first place” is fatuous. We all obviously consent to that when we consume.
Whether Make Sunsets will face any negative effects for what they’ve done, beyond perhaps a few spooked investors, remains to be seen, but it’s unlikely. Although it was initially claimed that Russ George had broken international law, no action was ever taken against him. International law appears to be poorly equipped to deal with the behavior of “rogue actors” like George and now Make Sunsets. Hopefully, that might change.
The question, though, is if legal barriers would be enough to prevent eco-zealots from imitating Make Sunsets in the case that such simple technology – some weather balloons, a bit of sulfur dioxide – really could be used for distributed weather modification in the manner suggested. The hysterical conviction of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil protestors should not be doubted. Radical environmentalists will surely be paying close attention.
As the climate-change agenda deepens, and alarm grows – or is made to grow – the place of consent in any response diminishes. This is no accident. By framing the issue as one of inevitability, individual decision, and the established decision-making forms of our broader communities up to the level of the nation, suddenly no longer matter. As I noted recently, climate change is now being used as a justification for massively increased migration to the West, migration that would transform it beyond recognition.
In her new book, Nomad Century, WEF-approved author 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.
Even if Gaia Vince’s plan does not come to fruition, it’s clear that climate change will be a tool for intensifying social and political change across the West. Precedents for so-called “climate migration” have already been set in international law, and the West’s moral responsibility for causing climate change, and to atone for it, has already been accepted on the political stage, as witnessed by the response to proposals for “climate reparations” at the latest COP 27 conference.
Given the pace of change, and the determination of our leaders – and now captains of industry – to reshape the world with or without our consent, we need to find ways to make our voices heard, fast. We must realize that it makes no difference to withdraw consent retroactively, especially when what’s done cannot be undone.
About 900 million Chinese are estimated to be infected with COVID-19 in China’s latest outbreak, with nearly 80 percent of them facing severe symptoms, according to a study by Peking University. Meanwhile, Chinese health officials on Jan. 14 acknowledged that about 60,000 COVID-related deaths have occurred in hospitals across the country in the past month, following international pressure for transparency and data.
As of Jan. 11, 64 percent of China’s 1.4 billion population—about 900 million people— had been infected with COVID-19, mainland Chinese media outlet Economic Observer reported on Jan. 13, citing a recent study from a research group led by professor Ma Jingjing at the National School of Development of Peking University.
The report states that the highest infection rates for the current round of the outbreak are in three provinces in western China. Gansu province was highest ranked with about 91 percent of people being infected, followed by Yunnan province with an 84 percent infection rate and Qinghai province at 80 percent.
The model estimates of infection rates in the study were calculated based on search volumes on online platforms for symptoms related to COVID-19 infection, according to Ma. Given the lack of official data, the authors used the number of online searches for symptoms such as “fever” and “cough” as an indication of local infection rates, she said.
A man stands in front of a cordoned-off area, where COVID-19 patients lie on hospital beds in the lobby of the Chongqing No. 5 People’s Hospital in China’s southwestern city of Chongqing on Dec. 23, 2022. (AFP via Getty Images)
The study likely didn’t include many older Chinese, since they aren’t accustomed to searching for information online, China affairs commentator Li Muyang pointed out during his talk show on NTD on Jan. 13. Reinfection rates also aren’t likely captured by the estimates from the study. The actual infection number in China could be higher than 900 million, he said.
The modeling in the report also predicted that the current wave of COVID-19 infections across China reached its peak on Dec. 20, 2022. However, other experts believe that infections may continue to increase as the Lunar New Year holiday approaches.
COVID Wave Yet to Peak
Zeng Guang, former head of China’s Center for Disease Control, said at the “Shenzhou Cell New Crown Recombinant Protein Multivalent Vaccine Research and Development Conference” on Jan. 8 that the COVID wave has just begun to reach its peak in some places and hasn’t yet peaked in rural China, according to mainland Chinese media outlet Caixin. Zeng estimated that the peak of the COVID wave will come sometime between February and March and that the duration of the peak of severe cases will be longer.
Zeng expressed concern about the situation in China’s rural areas, where many Chinese are expected to visit over the New Year holiday. He said there are a large number of elderly, young, sick, and disabled in rural areas and that the medical infrastructure and conditions there are poor.
Zhang Wenhong, China’s top epidemiologist and director of the China Medical Center for Infectious Diseases, said in a lecture this year that the infection rate of this wave is very high.
During the Lunar New Year on Jan. 23, the national infection rate may reach 80 percent, which means that more than 1.1 billion people will be infected, he estimated.
Severe Symptoms
The research group at Peking University surveyed 11,443 COVID-19 patients and 76 percent of them reported that their symptoms were worse than that of the flu.
The report states that most of the infected people interviewed had one or more symptoms of fever, cough and sputum, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat, altered sense of taste and smell, and diarrhea. The most common symptom was a fever, with 82 percent of infected respondents developing the symptom, of which 75 percent had a high fever (38.5 degrees Celsius/101.3 degrees Fahrenheit and above), and 47 percent had a fever lasting for three or more days.
As many as 86 percent of the infected used antipyretic drugs.
Patients lie on beds in a hallway in the emergency department of Zhongshan Hospital amid a COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai on Jan. 3, 2023. (Staff/Reuters)
On Jan. 13, the Peking University report became the most searched item on China’s websites, sparking heated discussions.
“Didn’t the so-called experts say previously that 90 percent of the infected people are asymptomatic?” one netizen posted. “Now come out and explain.”
Another posted, ”I have a fever. My whole body is sore and I feel weak. I was told that I was a mild case.”
A post reads, “The aftereffects of COVID are very serious. I was infected almost a month ago, and I am still weak, and I am out of breath when I move around.”
Major online Chinese news portals such as sina.com soon deleted articles discussing the study.
On Jan. 14, China’s National Health Commission finally released a report outlining 59,938 COVID-related deaths in China’s hospitals from Dec. 8, 2022, to Jan. 12.
The release of the number came following widespread international criticism, including from the World Health Organization, of the Chinese communist regime for underplaying the severity of the outbreak and its lack of transparency.
It immediately became the most searched topic on baidu.com, the Chinese equivalent of Google. Many Chinese are still questioning the accuracy of this official number.
Mourners gather outside the memorial halls for the deceased at a funeral home in Shanghai on Dec. 31, 2022. (Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
One posted on social media, “Hospitals recorded more than 50,000 deaths, but there are many deaths in urban and rural areas that haven’t occurred during hospitalization and are not recorded!”
Another netizen said, “How many deaths are there in rural areas that are not in the hospital? It should be many times the death toll in the hospitals.”
One post reads, “How many died without going to the hospital?”
Feng Chongyi, a China expert and professor at the University of Technology Sydney, told The Epoch Times on Jan. 14 that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is seriously concealing the truth and that the actual COVID-19 death toll may be much more than what the Party has reported.
“Because foreign media reporters went directly to the funeral homes to see the situation and posts flooding social media showing so many dead bodies and so many coffins everywhere, everyone knows that Beijing is lying,” Feng said. “The relationship between the WHO and CCP is also very tense, as the WHO kept asking it to release the real data. The Chinese regime is under pressure. It is now making a slight change, even if it reports tens of thousands more [deaths], it is still far from reality. The actual death toll is likely 10 times, 20 times, or 30 times more than the data it just released.”
He noted that the CCP’s top echelon know very well that many people have died during the latest outbreak, but they dare not admit to their policy failure.
“Even though Xi Jinping’s ‘Zero-COVID’ policy was abandoned, he never came out to say a word about it, nor did he express even the slightest sympathy toward the people for their sickness and death,” Feng said. “He is still praising his achievements [in handling COVID].”
Feng believes that the delay and concealment of the real data in this round of China’s COVID-19 outbreak has shattered the CCP’s credibility.
Ning Haiphong and Luo Ya contributed to this report.
Despite alarm over ‘state-federal tech threat disconnect’ posed by China, few legislatures responding
United States federal agencies and the Pentagon over the last decade have imposed a matrix of restrictions on purchasing technology from companies owned or influenced by China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but few of the nation’s 50 states have taken similar precautions.
In fact, many state governments apparently aren’t aware—or haven’t publicly acknowledged—how potentially vulnerable their electronic infrastructure is to CCP cyberattacks, espionage, and data theft.
According to an October 2021 China Tech Threat report, at least 40 states are now using hardware and software programs purchased from CCP-owned tech companies, such as Lenovo and Lexmark.
Georgetown University’s Center for Security & Emerging Technology (CSET) documents that between 2015-21, at least 1,681 state and local governments purchased technology from CCP-owned or controlled companies that federal agencies and the U.S. military are explicitly prohibited from doing business with.
A March 2022 analysis by Virginia-based cybersecurity firm Mandiant determined the CCP hacked at least six state government computer systems between May 2021 and February 2022 as part of “a dual espionage and cybercrime operation” that exploited “planted bugs” in Chinese-made hardware programs being used by at least 18 U.S. states.
According to Virginia-based cybersecurity company Mandiant, this building on the outskirts of Shanghai, China, is among sites where CCP hackers launch cyberattacks, including at least six successful infiltrations of state government computer systems in the U.S. between May 2021 and February 2022. (AP Photo)
Despite the clanging of alarm bells and ringing of alert whistles from technology and security experts, as noted in a July 2022 Epoch TV documentary, states have been slow to respond to a threat so insidiously ubiquitous, it is hiding in plain sight.
An October 2022 CSET analysis maintains that only five states—Florida, Louisiana, Vermont, Texas, Georgia—have adopted adequate procurement policies prohibiting their state agencies and local governments from purchasing technology and services from “scrutinized nations,” with communist China the primary focus.
With 2023’s legislative sessions kicking off in State Houses nationwide—45 will have convened by Jan. 18—proposed bills addressing the issue had only been filed by lawmakers in four states as of Jan. 11.
“State and local governments must take foreign technology threats seriously even if they do not face the same risks as federal agencies like DOD,” the CSET analysis states. “Even if governments are not targeted directly, the ICTs (information and communication technologies) they deploy might be used to compromise nearby critical infrastructure.”
“State governments really are the weakest link,” American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Federalism and International Relations Task Force Executive Director Karla Jones told The Epoch Times. “The federal government has restrictions in place. It is up to each state to protect its own IT systems.”
Texas, Georgia Laws Provide Blueprints
ALEC and technology security advocates point to two recently adopted bills that provide paths other states can replicate in protecting their electronic systems from the CCP’s intrusions.
The Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act (LIPA), which went into effect in June 2021, prohibits Texas businesses and governments from contracting with entities owned or controlled by individuals and companies from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran relating to “critical infrastructure.”
The 2021 bill was sponsored by then-Rep. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound), who was elected to the state Senate in November.
Parker filed the original legislation after Texas lawmakers became aware that Houston-based company GH America Energy—a subsidiary of China’s Xinjiang Guanghui Industry Investment Group Co. Ltd owned by billionaire and CCP member Sun Guangxin—had purchased 140,000 acres in Val Verde County and planned to build a 15,000-acre wind farm on the property.
A map of the 140,000-acres of agricultural land Chinese billionaire Sun Guangxin acquired in Val Verde County, Texas, and the locations of its three energy generation projects: Blue Hills Wind, Blue Star Solar, and Blue Valley Solar. (Courtesy of the Devils River Conservancy)
The proposed wind farm would feature turbines up to 700 feet tall. Some feared those turbines could be used to eavesdrop on and monitor activities at Laughlin Air Base less than 70 miles away.
“This Chinese billionaire was going to purchase land to build a wind farm in one of the few locations in Texas that doesn’t have a lot of wind,” ALEC task force director Jones said. “The state legislature, when they found out it was being built, had a lot of questions” and subsequently adopted LIPA “as a way to protect Texas.”
The 2021 discussion by Texas lawmakers about how to respond “illustrates how CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] is limited” in application for state and local governments, she said.
CFIUS is a congressional interagency panel that only reviews transactions involving foreign investments and real estate transactions in the United States that potentially pose a national security threat. State IT systems are not part of its purview.
Georgia Rep. Martin Momtahan (R-Dallas), an “IT guy,” sponsored a 2022 bill signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp that technology security advocates praise as model legislation that other states should implement. (Georgia General Assembly)
This gap prompted Georgia Rep. Martin Momtahan (R-Dallas), a former IT contractor, to file a bill in 2022 that prohibits the state from accepting contract bids from “companies owned or operated by China.” The bill was adopted and signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in June 2022.
“He’s an ‘IT guy’ who recognized there were certain backdoors that allowed Chinese companies to record data” in technology they sell, Jones said. “He is the one that actually introduced the first ‘model bill’ on this particular issue.”
While communist-ruled China “has been on the radar” with state lawmakers for some time, few have really grasped how potentially exposed their state’s electronic infrastructure is to CCP intrusion, she said.
ALEC formed a task force to examine the issue and during a presentation last summer, and then-Rep. Parker explained why LIPA and Momtahan’s bill should be adopted by state lawmakers nationwide as soon as possible.
“A lot had been happening in tandem and parallel” with little coordination between states and the federal government, Jones said. “Both came up with legislation to protect states from Chinese influence more or less at the same time. Momtahan and Parker didn’t meet for the first time until this fall when I introduced them.”
Momtahan and Parker did not respond to repeated emails and phone calls from The Epoch Times as of Jan. 13, with legislative aides citing busy schedules during their first week in legislative sessions.
We Need Federal Coordination: Lawmakers
Parker’s LIPA presentation at ALEC’s July 2022 annual meeting in Atlanta prompted the legislative exchange council to develop a model policy mostly based on Rep. Momtahan’s bill that Jones said is necessary to thwart not just the CCP but all potential “strategic adversaries” from exploiting a relatively overlooked “vulnerability in our national security ecosystem.”
You are seeing these bills proliferating largely as a result of Parker’s presentation and Momtahan’s bill, Jones said. “If you are seeing” proposed bills addressing the issue, “they probably would have gotten it after 2022 legislative sessions” unless “they came up with it on their own,” which is what Florida, Louisiana, and Vermont did.
But although bills are still being filed in the early stages of 2023 legislative sessions, legislation that appear based on ALEC’s model policy have only been introduced in four states.
Those bills are Oklahoma Senate Bill 43 sponsored by Sen. Micheal Bergstrom (R-Adair); Mississippi SB 2046—‘The Mississippi National Security in Public Purchasing Act’—introduced by Sen. Angela Burks Hill (R-Picayune); New Hampshire House Bill 86 filed by Rep. Terry Roy (R-Deerfield); and South Carolina HBs 3509 and 3510 introduced by Rep. Steven Wayne Long (R-Boiling Springs) and 21 other co-sponsors.
Roy told The Epoch Times that he filed his HB 86 after receiving an email from ALEC last summer with a link to its model policy.
“I looked into it and saw that at the state level, we have to do something,” he said, noting while many states have prohibited the use of the TikTok by agencies and employees, the potential threat posed by the China-based parent company is nothing compared to the “ubiquitous software and hardware in common use” by New Hampshire state agencies.
“Based on what I have seen across the country, China has insidious and nefarious plans to infiltrate our technology,” Roy said. “This is a lot more dangerous than TikTok.”
Long told The Epoch Times that he and other South Carolina lawmakers filed 2022 bills addressing the technology infiltration threat posed by CCP-affiliated tech companies but “we weren’t able to make much progress.”
Of his 2023 bills, he said, “We’re a little bit later into the game but with better legislation.”
Long said there are two bills because the issue “is two-fold, partially an economic matter and partially a national security matter.”
Like most states competing for job-generating investment by offering “economic development incentives,” lawmakers want to ensure those inducements benefit South Carolinians, he said.
“If we’re going to be using state dollars, we want to support businesses that agree with American values or are headquartered in America or, if not, at least agreeable with U.S. interests,” Long said. “How can we make better use of state dollars so we are supporting our people? Who do we want to be investing in: Chinese-owned companies or American companies? We don’t want to be using taxpayers money to essentially subsidize Chinese companies.”
The bills also address national security. “We cannot be overly reliant on China,” he said, noting that Chinese companies operating under the thumb of the CCP produce a wide swath of products, including prescription medicines, that Americans use every day.
“We cannot allow our economy, our national security, to be overly reliant on China—they are our greatest threat,” Long said, noting that banning the use of technology produced by CCP-affiliated Chinese companies “should not be partisan” policy.
Intel Sharing Needed
Roy agreed but said that while “states are the weakest link” in protecting Americans from CCP-affiliated hackers, state lawmakers who want to shore up protections are getting little assistance from federal agencies under the Biden administration in how to do so.
“This is in the federal government’s bailiwick. I don’t get the intelligence to deal with it,” he said. “As a state legislator, I do not get intelligence updates. We’re not getting intelligence briefings” in State Houses across the country.
It doesn’t help that successive administrations have fudged in stating the obvious to the American public, although “Trump put his thumb on it”—that China under the CCP is not merely a difficult trading partner but an existential threat, Roy said.
“The problem is the federal government needs to tell the people, ‘Look, the Chinese government is an enemy—they are our enemy,’” he said. “People don’t understand that they are our enemy.”
Chinese soldiers work at computers. Cyberattacks from China have continued despite agreements from the CCP to stop. (mil.huanqiu.com)
Long cited similar frustrations, calling for more federal coordination and focus for states. “We are kind of in the early stages of this,” he said of increasing pressure on China. “Now that Trump is no longer in office, nobody on the national level is spearheading the effort.”
Roy was surprised his bill in New Hampshire was among only four 2023 state measures addressing the issue.
“It seems to me this should be a priority. It’s shocking that more states have not done it,” he said. “This is happening while we watch them buying up property in the United States. Nobody seems to be doing anything about it. That is on my radar, too.”
Jones said that acquisition of property, especially of agricultural land, by CCP shell companies will be a topic of an ALEC task force seminar in the coming months. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis raised the issue during a July speech.
“DeSantis, by the way, is awesome,” she said. “Through executive orders and legislation, he is protecting the state of Florida from Chinese influence about as well as he can. In fact, ALEC has adopted some of its model policies from what Florida is already doing.”
Georgia is not recommended to take over Fulton County’s elections, a panel appointed by the State Election Board said.
The panel observed substantial improvements in Fulton County elections and identified several areas for further improvements.
It’s not recommended for the state of Georgia to replace the Fulton County Election Board, the panel concluded.
“Replacing the board would not be helpful and would in fact hinder the ongoing improvements to Fulton County elections,” the Performance Review Board said in a report (pdf) on Friday.
The report was first obtained by Georgia Public Broadcasting.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger gives an update on the state of the election and ballot count during a news conference at the State Capitol in Atlanta, Ga., on Nov. 6, 2020. (Dustin Chambers/Reuters)
Fulton County—where most of Atlanta city is located and one of every ten voters of Georgia lives—is known for election-related issues. After its chaotic primary election in June 2020, the State Election Board was pressed to appoint Seven Hills Strategies, a consulting company, to review the elections in Fulton County.
Besides the hiring of Seven Hills Strategies, the Georgia State Election Board also established a Performance Review Board on Aug. 18, 2021, to conduct a comprehensive review of Fulton County elections after the Peach State passed a sweeping election law SB 202 in March 2021.
SB 202 allows the state election authority to establish a review board per request from certain parties and suspend up to three county-level elections boards for at least nine months.
Three officials were appointed to the Performance Review Board including Stephen Day, member and former chair of the Gwinnett County Board of Elections; Ryan Germany, general counsel for the Office of the Secretary of State; and Rickey Kittle, chair of the Catoosa County Board of Elections.
Findings of the Panel Report
The Performance Review Board said that the three members contributed hundreds of hours to observe the Fulton County elections after the panel was set up.
The Carter Center also contributed around 4,000 people-hours to these efforts.
They observed “significant improvement from the 2020 election” and gave positive reviews about the works of the County Manager’s Office in Fulton County and the elections staff.
Several areas were identified by the panel to improve further.
Poll officials need more training to understand the benefits of checking seals and properly filling out recap sheets. The officials also need more training for related procedures.
Employees of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections process ballots in Atlanta, Ga., on Nov. 4, 2020. (Brandon Bell/Reuters)
The county also needs to ensure that all memory cards with votes are uploaded.
“In the May 2022 Primary Election, just like in the November 2021 Municipal Election, the Secretary of State’s office noticed that Fulton County did not upload all memory cards that contained votes,” reads the panel report. “… it’s something that should not have happened and, at the very least, should have been caught with basic reconciliation checks.”
The panel urged the Fulton County Elections Board to complete the suggested improvements before the 2024 presidential election cycle.
“Georgia will be a competitive state in next year’s elections, so election preparation needs to recognize that Fulton County’s actions … will be heavily scrutinized by political parties, campaigns, candidates, and activist groups,” the panel said.
Former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway wrote Friday that it’s foolish to write off former President Donald Trump’s 2024 chances amid investigations and other legal troubles as well as the rise of other Republicans.
“Shrugging off Mr. Trump’s 2024 candidacy or writing his political obituary is a fool’s errand—he endures persecution and eludes prosecution like no other public figure. That could change, of course, though that cat has nine lives,” Conway, a Fox News contributor, wrote in an opinion article published by The New York Times.
Conway noted that while Trump has advantages over his GOP peers, he also has significant “political baggage.”
A former 2016 campaign adviser to Trump, Conway was likely making reference to investigations into Trump’s handling of records at his Mar-a-Lago resort, the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, and a New York case against the Trump Organization. Trump has maintained that such probes are politically motivated.
“At the same time, it would also be foolish to assume that Mr. Trump’s path to another presidency would be smooth and secure,” she added. “This is not 2016, when he and his team had the hunger, swagger and scrappiness of an insurgent’s campaign and the ‘history be damned’ happy warrior resolve of an underestimated, understaffed, underresourced effort. It’s tough to be new twice.”
Elaborating, Conway wrote that Trump would have to potentially change his strategy for the 2024 election cycle. In 2016, Trump—a political newcomer—often eschewed traditional presidential campaign strategies and used his outsider status to gain a populist following to defeat Democrat rival Hillary Clinton.
Then-President Donald Trump, followed by then-Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway, left, walks into the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
“For Mr. Trump to succeed, it means fewer insults and more insights; a campaign that centers on the future, not the past, and that channels the people’s grievances and not his own; and a reclamation of the forgotten Americans, who ushered him into the White House the first time and who are suffering economically under Mr. Biden,” she argued.
Trump’s presidential campaign is sure to be initially more difficult than his 2020 bid because he will have to face a slate of GOP opponents, according to Conway. The former president became the first Republican to announce a presidential bid on Nov. 15, and no other Republicans have declared their candidacies yet.
Many consider Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to be Trump’s top primary challenge, although the governor has not indicated whether he will seek the presidency in 2024. Some recent opinion polls have shown DeSantis ahead of Trump, but many show that Trump appears to remain the most popular Republican.
Other possible candidates include former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. Several current and former Republican governors like Arkansas’ Asa Hutchinson and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan have said they may run.
Conway also warned that Trump’s 2024 campaign would prove more difficult than 2020 because he will no longer be alone on the debate stage—teasing that future announcements may not be far off.
Trump, Conway wrote, could obtain more support by targeting the current administration’s handling of crime, immigration, and the economy. He could also tout past accomplishments in how he dealt with the economy, national security, and other sectors while president.
“It is true that limiting the name-calling frees up time and space for persuasion and solutions,” she stated. “Still, it may not be possible to have one without the other.”
Conway served as Trump’s campaign manager in 2016, later becoming his top counselor when he was president from 2017 to 2020. Conway is not working on Trump’s current campaign.
Trump has not publicly responded to Conway’s opinion piece.
Finding classified documents in properties linked to Joe Biden poses a concern that “gets beyond the politics,” according to Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.).
Documents dating back to the period when Biden was the vice president have turned up at both the president’s former office at Penn Biden Center in Washington and his Delaware home, including a “small number” in his garage and another page in an adjacent room, according to the White House.
“When you take into account how China is stealing our most sensitive technical information, they’re using it against us, to be this careless with the use of information, to me, disqualifies you, as is whether you are a member of Congress, the Secretary of State or the president of the United States,” Palmer told The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet NTD on Jan. 12.
As a member of Congress, Palmer has to leave his phone outside when entering into the compartment to access classified information, he said.
“I couldn’t take notes. I couldn’t take documents out,” he said, noting that Biden, who wasn’t the president at the time, didn’t have the authority to declassify such information.
The congressman tried to draw a contrast between Biden’s handling of those materials and the case of former President Donald Trump, who is under investigation for possessing materials with classified markings at his Florida home.
“His was in the garage,” he said of the second batch of Biden documents, describing it as a “huge problem.” In the case of Trump, he said, “at least he had it under lock and key, not sitting by his riding lawn mower.”
Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC held at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas on July 9, 2021. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
“I don’t think we need to get into the politics of it,” he continued. “I think this should be a bipartisan issue that we need to lock down and make sure that everyone who has a top-secret classification or higher, handles this information properly.”
Palmer also recounted a 2016 hearing about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information when he served on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“She had a private server in her basement that was not secured. It not only contained classified, top secret, it contains sensitive, compartmentalized information, a security clearance above mine—and I have top secret,” he said. “So there’s a long history here on the Democrat side of mishandling classified information.”
China Connection
When asked what was on his mind when he placed “classified material next to your Corvette,” Biden argued that the “Corvette is in a locked garage” so “it’s not like they’re sitting out in the street.”
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), referring to that conversation on Friday, wondered whether “that’s good enough for national security.”
“It appears that was funded by Chinese nationals who are close to the Communist Chinese government. I think that is the real story behind this,” Tiffany told NTD, referring to the tens of millions of dollars in contracts and gifts that the university has received from China.
The Penn Biden Center has denied having taken money from China and said all of its budgets comes from the university.
“Penn is fully compliant with federal law regarding the reporting of foreign gifts and contracts, as foreign gifts are all properly reported to the U.S. Department of Education,” a center spokesperson previously told The Epoch Times in an email.
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) is seen during a ceremonial swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol in Washington in a file photograph. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Whether there’s any connection with the Chinese regime and the Biden family’s foreign business interests is a question that Tiffany hopes the newly appointed special counsel could find out.
“Is this part of a bigger picture, is this part of the puzzle, and we really need to dig on that. And I’m sure hoping that this special counsel is going to dig deep.”
Both the House Oversight Committee and Judiciary on Friday began probing into the Biden document issue.
Tiffany acknowledged that the issue of classified information could be over-politicized. But the prosecution of Trump has set the precedent.
“We know that documents are over-classified in every administration, and so you wonder sometimes: is it making a lot out of a little?” he said.
“But the only problem for the Biden administration now is they’ve set the rules, they set the rules with President Trump, now they need to live by those rules.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
A state Supreme Court judge in Syracuse, New York, struck down a statewide mandate for medical staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19, ruling that Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state’s health department overstepped their authority.
In a landmark ruling issued on Jan. 13, state Supreme Court Judge Gerard Neri declared the statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for medical staff “null, void, and of no effect.”
Hochul and the state Department of Health exceeded their authority by sidestepping the state legislature in imposing a permanent COVID-19 vaccine mandate for medical professionals, the judge wrote in the order (pdf).
Neri also found that the mandate was “arbitrary and capricious,” citing evidence that COVID-19 vaccines don’t prevent the spread of the virus, undercutting the basis for the mandate.
“In true Orwellian fashion, the Respondents acknowledge then-current COVID-19 shots do not prevent transmission,” Neri wrote, citing a Summary of Assessment of Public Comment that was entered as evidence in the case.
In support of the view that the mandate was capricious, Neri also pointed to the fact that the order, titled Prevention of COVID-19 Transmission by Covered Entities (pdf), used a loose definition for “fully vaccinated,” namely one that was “determined by the Department.”
Neri wrote, “A term which is defined at the whim of an entity, subject to change without a moment’s notice contains all the hallmarks of ‘absurdity’ and is no definition at all.”
The ruling came after a lawsuit was filed by Medical Professionals for Informed Consent, a group of medical professionals who were negatively affected by the vaccine mandate and either lost their jobs or faced the prospect of job loss.
“This is a huge win for New York healthcare workers, who have been deprived of their livelihoods for more than a year,” the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Sujata Gibson, said in a statement.
“This is also a huge win for all New Yorkers, who are facing dangerous and unprecedented healthcare worker shortages throughout New York State.”
In siding with the group, Neri stated that the state is prohibited from mandating vaccinations outside of what’s detailed in public health law.
“The Mandate is beyond the scope of Respondents’ authority and is therefore null, void, and of no effect,” he wrote.
‘Critical Win’ Against Vaccine Mandates
Mary Holland, president of Children’s Health Defense, which financed the lawsuit on behalf of Medical Professionals for Informed Consent and several individual health care workers, hailed the decision.
“We are thrilled by this critical win against a COVID vaccine mandate, correctly finding that any such mandate at this stage, given current knowledge is arbitrary,” Holland said in a statement.
“We hope that this decision will continue the trend towards lifting these dangerous and unwarranted vaccine mandates throughout the country.”
Neither Hochul’s office nor the New York State Department of Health immediately responded to a request for comment and information on whether they plan to appeal.
Vaccinations helped reduce transmission of the early variants of the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, recent studies show that the vaccines are less effective in reducing transmission of later variants although they continue to reduce serious illness, hospitalizations, and death.
Some experts, meanwhile, have called for the messenger RNA shots made by Pfizer and Moderna to be withdrawn until new clinical trials can be run showing that they’re safe and effective.
Dr. Joseph Fraiman, based in Louisiana, became one of the latest to call for a pause in the administration of the vaccines pending new trials. He pointed to data including a reanalysis of the original trials that he and others conducted. They concluded that the vaccinated were at higher risk of severe adverse events.
The fact that the Omicron variant and its subvariants are also less virulent—leading to fewer hospitalizations and deaths—and the waning effectiveness of the vaccines also contributes to the building opposition to vaccinating all or portions of the population until better data is made available.
The U.S. Department of Justice admitted in a recent court filing that it has about 30 gigabytes (GB) worth of data not publicly disclosed by the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol breach.
The Department of Justice disclosed the existence of the 30 GB of previously unreleased data in an ongoing court case to prosecute eight defendants for their alleged involvement in the Capitol breach. The eight defendants had requested to postpone their trial, with a request for more time to review the evidence that the government had recently turned over.
As part of their response to the defense request, the prosecutors said the 30 GB related to the testimonies of approximately 255 witnesses who testified for the now-defunct Jan. 6 committee. Prosecutors noted that the interview transcripts of these 255 witnesses were previously released by the committee, but those transcripts contained redactions, and exhibits to those transcripts had not been previously released.
“Much of that data consists of voluminous records produced to the committee and appended to certain transcripts,” prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors said they had provided the unredacted versions of transcripts from the 255 witnesses but are in the process of reviewing other materials.
“While the government’s review of these materials is ongoing, it has thus far located only about a dozen witnesses who provided information about the individuals and actions at issue in this case and its related cases,” prosecutors said. “The government’s preliminary review of the materials has not revealed much beyond the transcripts of these dozen witnesses that appears relevant to the issues likely to arise in this trial.”
While the prosecution indicated much of the unreleased 30 GB of data won’t be entirely related to the specific case of these eight defendants, it could provide the public with a greater understanding of the totality of the events that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In its filing, the prosecution indicated it wishes to proceed with the trial even while its process of reviewing and handing over potentially relevant evidence is ongoing.
With respect to global discovery, “Defendants are correct that this process is ongoing. To continue this trial until that process is complete, however, would practically amount to an indefinite continuance,” prosecutors wrote.
Data Allegedly Contains Texts From Pence, Ivanka Trump, Others
It is unclear what the unreleased data contains, but according to Politico, some of the data includes text communications between several key figures in President Donald Trump’s administration.
The publication reported that text messages from Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, were among the unreleased records. The Jan. 6 committee had referenced those text messages in their interview with her.
The unreleased information also reportedly contained text messages between then-Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), which the Jan. 6 committee also referenced in one of its hearings.
Other unreleased materials included text messages between committee witness Cassidy Hutchinson and several key figures in the Trump administration. Hutchinson had testified that Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had told her in the days before Jan. 6, 2021, that “things might get real, real bad on January 6.”
Hutchinson also testified that Trump had lunged for the steering wheel as he was being driven away by the U.S. Secret Service after he gave a speech at the Ellipse (an area of President’s Park near the White House) on Jan. 6, 2021.
Following Hutchinson’s testimony about Trump’s alleged scuffle with the Secret Service, a source close to the Secret Service reportedly told NBC’s Peter Alexander that lead Secret Service agent Bobby Engel and the presidential limousine driver were prepared to testify under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.
According to Politico, Engel’s witness transcript was among the 30 GB of materials the Department of Justice has.
Staff members of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) “wrote to Twitter quite often” to seek the suppression and removal of content they disagreed with, according to journalist and “Twitter Files” author Matt Taibbi.
In a Twitter thread posted Jan. 13, Taibbi supplemented previous revelations regarding the former House Intelligence Committee chair’s privileged relationship with Twitter with a few more examples of questionable conduct.
One instance Taibbi cited was an April 2020 email exchange in which Schiff’s staff members contacted Twitter to seek the removal of an unflattering “deepfake” photo—an image that has been digitally manipulated—of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden that had been shared by President Donald Trump.
According to the emails, the Democratic National Committee also sought the image’s removal, but Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, ultimately decided that “any reasonable observer” could discern that the image was fake and “created with humorous intent.”
Rather than accept that decision, Schiff staffer Jeff Lowenstein pushed back, claiming that there was “a slippery slope concern here” and that “the next iteration of this could easily be more malicious and less obvious.”
Ultimately, however, Twitter stood firm in its denial.
The headquarters for the social media company Twitter in San Francisco, on Nov. 11, 2022. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Additional communications show that Twitter employees also refused requests for the removal of “any and all content about Mr. [Sean] Misko and other Committee staff from its service—to include quotes, retweets, and reactions to that content,” as well as the total “suppress[ion of] any and all search results about Mr. Misko and other Committee staff.”
Misko served as a staff member for the House Intelligence Committee under Schiff from July 2019 until September 2022.
But while Twitter rejected those requests, internal documents show that there were plenty of others the platform acted on, often through the “deamplification” of disfavored accounts, like those engaged in “QAnon-related activity.”
According to Taibbi, Schiff’s staffers often complained about such activity when it wasn’t present, and although they praised Twitter’s methods of limiting certain users’ reach, they did raise one concern—that those methods could hinder law enforcement action against users.
“We are curious whether any deamplification measures implemented by Twitter’s enforcement team – which we appreciate greatly – could inadvertently impede the ability of law enforcement to search Twitter for potential threats about Misko and other HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] staff,” one staffer inquired in an email.
Previous Disclosures
The new disclosures from Twitter’s internal files come on the heels of last week’s report that Schiff’s office also pressured Twitter to suspend the account of investigative journalist Paul Sperry, among many others.
The justification Schiff’s office provided was that Sperry had “repeatedly promoted false QAnon conspiracies and harassed [redacted].”
Sperry’s Twitter account was ultimately suspended three months later, in February 2021. It was restored after Elon Musk bought the social media platform last year.
Sperry, reacting to the newly revealed information on Twitter, said: “Explains why Twitter could never give me a reason for my suspension. It was Schiff!”
Sperry, who charged that Schiff used his power to “muscle Twitter into banning a journalist,” has since announced that he is “exploring all legal options, including suing” Schiff for defamation.
Schiff’s name also came up in the 14th Twitter Files installment on Jan. 12, which showed that he and other prominent Democrats knowingly pushed a false narrative in 2018 that “Russian bots” were promoting a report released by then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) that detailed efforts to spy on the Trump campaign.
“At a crucial moment in a years-long furor,” Taibbi wrote on Jan. 12, “Democrats denounced a report about flaws in the Trump-Russia investigation, saying it was boosted by Russian ‘bots’ and ‘trolls.’”
“Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence,” he added, sharing a screenshot of a letter Twitter sent to Schiff and Rep. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that stated as much.
3.Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence:
“We are feeding congressional trolls.” “Not any…significant activity connected to Russia.” “Putting the cart before the horse assuming this is propaganda/bots.” pic.twitter.com/r8O21QacME
The Epoch Times has contacted Schiff’s office for comment.
House to Investigate
The explosive information Twitter has released through such disclosures in the last couple of months has created a firestorm in Washington as evidence that government entities engaged in the illegal censorship of Americans’ speech continues to mount.
Democrats, however, have criticized the new panel’s broad authority to review ongoing criminal investigations.
“This is a violation of separation of powers, and it’s also very dangerous,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) slammed the subcommittee as “nothing more than a deranged ploy by the MAGA extremists who have hijacked the party and want to use taxpayer money to push their far-right conspiracy nonsense.”
Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), however, advocated for the panel on the House floor Tuesday, noting, “This is about the First Amendment.”
“I would hope we could get bipartisan agreement on protecting the First Amendment,” he continued. “The five rights we enjoy as Americans under the First Amendment: Your right to practice your faith, assemble, right to petition the government, freedom of press, freedom of speech. Every single one’s been attacked in the last two years.”
And the most important of those rights, the congressman added, is “your right to talk, because if you can’t talk, you can’t practice your faith. You can’t share your faith. You can’t petition your government. The right to speak is the most important, and that’s what they [the federal government agencies] are going after.”
If you drive through the countryside of Roanoke, Indiana, you will see acres of corn and soybean crops. This is fertile farm country, and this is what you’d might expect. However, if you’re lucky, you will find yourself at Seven Sons Farms, owned by the Hitzfield family, and here you’ll discover something surprising.
At Seven Sons, there are 550 acres of perennial pasture on which 200 head of cattle graze and 14,000 hens wander and peck. The farm’s woodland is foraged by 300 to 400 hogs, and there are also bison and sheep. At Seven Sons, said CEO of distribution Blaine Hitzfield, who is the second son of the seven, “we’re a farm with over 10,000 beating hearts out on the land.”
Seven Sons is committed to raising free-range, grass-fed, non-GMO, antibiotic-free food products, and farming regeneratively to preserve soil nutrient value. “It’s a sacred thing that we do,” said Hitzfield. “Regenerate soil by stopping tillage and chemical use, produce nutrient-dense foods, and make an exchange with the consumer, knowing that we are affecting their future health. We are accountable to that.” The farm supports 35 full-time careers, and it feeds over 10,000 families per year via the farm’s meat subscription service.
Hardship Leads to Epiphany
It was not always this way. The abundance on the farm today is the result of a miracle that has taken place over the last 20 years in the lives of the family, the animals, and the soil. In his high school years, Hitzfield’s father, Lee Hitzfield, developed an interest in farming. He dropped out of college and got to know a local farmer in Roanoke who operated a conventional row crop and confinement hog farm. Hitzfield explained, “My dad worked on that farm for about a year free of charge and learned the business, and he purchased it in the early ’80s. It was just 20 acres and came with 800 to 1,000 acres of leased row crop land.”
Lee and his wife Beth continued to farm conventionally through the 1980s, selling the products to Tyson Foods. “Things were going all right,” said Hitzfield. Lee and Beth were able to make their debt payments, and while “it wasn’t the most profitable business, it was cash-flowing.”
But they faced a problem: Farming 1,200 acres of row crops was barely enough to support Lee’s single full-time income; there was no opportunity for his sons to join him. “That’s the reality for most farms,” explained Hitzfield. “How do you transfer to the next generation if the farm cannot support more than one person at a time?”
The farm has 300 to 400 hogs that roam free among the woodlands. (Courtesy of Seven Sons)
Then, a turning point came. After the birth of her third son in 1993, Beth became devastatingly ill with rheumatoid arthritis. Severe cases of this condition can affect not only the joints but also the vital organs, and Beth’s case was very severe. Hitzfield said, “Her doctor told her that she couldn’t have any more kids and that in five years she might be in a wheelchair.”
Struggling with an unprofitable farm and a serious health crisis, the Hitzfields happened to meet and become friendly with a soil agronomist called Ray Smith who was willing to take them under his wing. “He was the first person my dad had met who understood so much about animal, plant, and soil biology and how the nutrient cycle is tied together,” said Hitzfield. Smith recommended some simple but fundamental dietary changes for Beth—first by consuming high-nutrient plants through drinking vegetable juice. At the time, recalled Hitzfield, “my dad was carrying her back and forth from the bathroom to the bed because she was in too much pain to get up and walk.” Within a few months of following Smith’s advice, they saw drastic improvements in Beth’s health. Later, Beth removed inflammatory foods from her diet and started eating only meat from the farm and locally grown produce.
“That changed their perspective on everything,” said Hitzfield. Experiencing health changes so dramatically, and at the same time learning from a soil agronomist about “how the nutrient density of foods links back directly to the nutrient cycle in the soil,” caused them to shift their farming philosophy. From this time on, Lee and Beth adopted the belief that “as farmers and food producers, the moment we exchange food dollars for food products to the consumer, we as a farm become personally responsible for that person’s health and well-being.” And, said Hitzfield, “this is the foundational belief that drives what we’ve been doing over the last 20 years.”
A New Chapter
In 1995, Lee sold all the livestock and closed the giant mechanized hog barns worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. They sat empty while he continued to make mortgage payments on them. Hitzfield said, “They started to convert some of the land from row crops to perennial pastures because that’s the foundation of a regenerative farming system. You’ve got to stop going out there and tilling the land every year.” So not only were they supporting debt payments on the infrastructure they had abandoned, but they now went further into debt while investing in a new farming system.
The decade from 1995 to 2005 was difficult. “My parents had a vision, they were excited, but none of us had a clue how hard it would get,” Hitzfield said. By 1997, they returned some cattle to the land in a rotational grazing system. Converting row crops to perennial pasture and raising grass-fed beef was not a high-yielding project. It typically takes two years to raise beef this way, Hitzfield explained. “For the family it was a very stressful time. … The farm fell into disrepair, there were bill collectors calling every day, and there wasn’t much money for groceries.”
What brought them out of that tough economic time was changing how they engaged with their consumers. “When we made the transition to regenerative agriculture methods, we learned very quickly that a commodity market rewards quantity, not quality,” said Hitzfield. “It became really evident, around the time that I was starting to get involved on the farm, that if we were going to raise food based on higher nutrient density and long-term plans for soil regeneration, we would have to find a consumer that shared our interest in that quality.”
Pokey, sixth son Bruce Hitzfield’s dog, watches over the farm’s hens. (Courtesy of Seven Sons)
The farm first started with selling eggs in a small, on-farm store. “That was our first step,” said Hitzfield. “Customers would find us online and come out to the farm and purchase eggs in this little self-serve, honor-based farm store. And that was the very beginning.” Today, the farm has grown to support 35 full-time staff on just 550 acres.
The Hitzfield family believes that God created an uncomplicated system. “God didn’t create a pig to live on concrete slabs with a manure pit below its feet, never to see the light of day!” Hitzfield exclaimed. “God created a pig with this incredibly strong snout. Pigs were created to root and forage.” It was a simple epiphany, said Hitzfield. “Animals are out in the landscape where they were designed to be! They’re walking around self-harvesting their own food. Most of it is returned to the land in manure right where they took it. The animals take care of the whole system themselves.” Lee sold the combine, planters, and chemical applicators. “He didn’t need them anymore.”
Now, the farm of Seven Sons lives in a state of bounty. “Our soil today holds three times as much water as it did 20 years ago. We don’t need to fear drought. Our soil has so much biology in it; we’re raising healthier grasses. And so our animals are healthier—we haven’t had a vet on the farm more than once or twice in the last decade,” Hitzfield said. The farm operates on a farm-to-fork model, selling directly to customers, many of whom have subscriptions and place high value on the quality of the products they get from Seven Sons.
A big part of what the Hitzfields do now is educating and supporting other farmers who want to learn about regenerative farming. The fundamental thing, said Hitzfield, is to stop tilling the land year after year: “If they can stop doing that, just that one thing, and find creative ways to introduce livestock onto their farms, within three years they will see improvement.” The Hitzfields know, through their own experience, that “God designed forgiveness within soil biology.”
After being told that having more children was impossible, Lee and Beth now have seven sons, all of whom work full-time on the farm, six daughters-in-law, and 14 grandchildren. The farm abundantly supports the whole family and is growing in community support (over 2,300 people attended their 2022 Farm Festival, a family-friendly outreach event that is held annually) and in partnerships with about 30 other regenerative farms. “It has taken a long time,” said Hitzfield, “but now a lot of farms are seeing some hope. We want to be that lighthouse: This can work, you can pass the farm to the next generation, your soil can improve, and you can make a big difference in the health of the people who consume your products.”
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is going after some of the largest crypto companies, by filing charges against Gemini and Genesis.
The federal government’s legal crackdown on crypto is expanding, as the SEC charged some of the biggest names in the industry of operating illegal lending services on Jan. 12.
The SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have each brought complaints against FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried with the same intent in mind.
Genesis, which was founded by the crypto magnate Barry Silbert, is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group. Gemini is run by the famous billionaire twins, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.
The securities regulator alleged that the crypto exchange, Gemini, and crypto lender, Genesis, caused its customers to suffer major financial losses.
Genesis and Gemini were charged for partnering up to sell unregistered securities through a high-yield financial product called Gemini Earn.
Crypto Giants Accused of Running a Scam
The two crypto firms promised customers an 8 percent return on their investments, after leveraging the popular financial product, to raise billions.
Gemini Earn was supposed to hand out high-interest payments on the crypto deposits—which were as high as 4.29 percent—and allow the partnering firms to then lend out cryptocurrencies to other investors.
However, it was alleged “that Genesis and Gemini offered unregistered securities to the public, bypassing disclosure requirements designed to protect investors,” said SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
“Today’s charges build on previous actions to make clear to the marketplace and the investing public that crypto lending platforms and other intermediaries need to comply with our time-tested securities laws. Doing so best protects investors. It promotes trust in markets. It’s not optional. It’s the law,” Gensler added.
The SEC said that 340,000 Gemini Earn customers faced massive losses of up to $900 million in the scheme.
The federal complaint seeks civil penalties, injunctive relief, and payback “of ill-gotten gains,” against the executives of both companies.
“It’s disappointing that the SEC chose to file an action today as Gemini and other creditors are working hard together to recover funds. This action does nothing to further our efforts and help Earn users get their assets back. Their behavior is totally counterproductive,” said Tyler Winklevoss in a Jan. 12 post on Twitter.
Winklevoss said that Earn was regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services and Gemini had complied with all of the regulations.
He added that the SEC’s charges were “counterproductive,” since both firms were working to recover customer funds.
“We look forward to defending ourselves against this manufactured parking ticket. And we will make sure this doesn’t distract us from the important recovery work we are doing,” added Winklevoss.
The two crypto firms have been feuding over the Earn funds in recent months.
After Genesis froze withdrawals in the wake of FTX implosion in November, Earn customers were left in limbo, causing talks between the Winklevoss twins and Silbert, to angrily break down.
SEC Chief Faces Scrutiny
Meanwhile, the new GOP-led House has said that they have questions for the man in charge of the SEC.
Ironically, Gensler had met with the former CEO of the now-bankrupt FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, months before the crypto exchange’s collapse and who was a prolific fundraiser for Democratic politicians, including President Joe Biden.
“Reports to my office alleged [Gensler] was helping SBF and FTX work on legal loopholes to obtain a regulatory monopoly. We’re looking into this,” wrote Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), a member of the House Financial Service Committee, in a post on Twitter.
FTX Scandal
The FTX scandal has pressed the SEC to lead more crackdowns on the crypto sector, after massive public criticism of the regulator.
Voyager Digital, Celsius, and FTX were all platforms that did various forms of deposit-and-lending operations.
The cryptocurrency sector’s lobbyists and friends in Congress have pushed back hard on the SEC and have been greatly pushing for the smaller Commodity Futures Trading Commission to oversee the industry.
The federal agency has been taking a particular interest in crypto lending, when last year it reached a $100 million settlement, with the now failed crypto lender BlockFi.
Coinbase was blocked in 2021 in its attempt to launch a yield-generating product after the SEC labeled it a security.
“The recent collapse of crypto asset lending programs and the suspension of Genesis’ program underscore the critical need for platforms offering securities to retail investors to comply with the federal securities laws,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
“As we’ve seen time and again, the failure to do so denies investors the basic information they need to make informed investment decisions. Our investigations in this space are very much active and ongoing and we encourage anyone with information about this matter or other possible securities law violations to come forward, including under our Whistleblower Program if applicable,” Grewal said.
In the meantime, the founder of FTX is facing criminal fraud charges by federal prosecutors, while he awaits trial under house arrest at his parents’ Palo Alto home.
Earlier this week, Bankman-Fried posted a defensive narrative on Substack, which he used to explain his actions, but which government authorities and industry experts have already rejected.
He posted, “I didn’t steal funds,” while pointing a finger at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, accusing them of botching FTX’s bankruptcy filings and saying that they should no longer be involved in the company’s business.
A federal court in Oregon on Thursday upheld a Title IX exception that permits religious universities to receive federal funding even if they follow religious beliefs regarding marriage, sexual identity, and gender.
A group of 40 LGBT individuals filed the 2021 lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education to challenge an exception or loophole in Title IX that permits religious colleges to seek exemptions from the civil rights law’s restriction against sex-based discrimination.
Judge Ann Aiken from the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon found that the loophole is “one narrow exception” to Title IX designed by Congress to safeguard institutions controlled by a religious organization and avoid interfering with their convictions that may conflict with the regulations.
“Exempting religiously controlled educational institutions from Title IX—and only to the extent that a particular application of Title IX would not be consistent with a specific tenet of the controlling religious organization—is substantially related to the government’s objective of accommodating religious exercise,” Aiken wrote in her ruling (pdf).
The LGBT group, the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, the plaintiffs in the case, argued that the exemption violated the students’ equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution by treating them differently than other students due to their sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
Failed to Prove Discriminatory Intent
While the group made many claims of mistreatment at religious schools, the judge found that the group failed to prove any discriminatory motivation by Congress in enacting the Title IX exemption in question.
“The Court cannot conclude that Plaintiffs’ assertion that ‘Congress enacted the religious exemption to permit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity,’ is sufficient,” Aiken wrote.
Aiken, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, also rejected their argument that the exemption violated the First Amendment’s restriction on the establishment of religion by Congress, stating that they didn’t prove the federal government, in contrast to schools, advanced religions.
“Plaintiffs provide no developed analysis or facts to shed light on those assertions or explain how Defendants have advanced religion through their own activities and influence,” Aiken wrote.
The U.S. Department of Justice defended the exemption but agreed that it potentially violates Title IX.
The Religious Exemption Accountability Project said they were considering an appeal.
Title IX
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. However, religious institutions can apply for exemptions to comply with their beliefs, even if they conflict with the provisions of Title IX.
Under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance in June 2021 that interpreted sex-based discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity, which are fuzzier concepts.
The Biden administration did this by citing the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which was decided in 2020. In that case, the Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in the workplace and uses similar language to Title IX, also applies to discrimination against gay and transgender workers.
The Education Department, therefore, took the position that the reasoning of the Supreme Court in Bostock should also apply to Title IX, which covers discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funding.
Our men’s group at church is doing a study on the book Lies Men Believe And The Truth That Sets Them Free by Robert Wolgemuth. We were tasked with picking one of the lies to teach and give a testimony on.
To start, I highly recommend the book. It’s a very easy read and you can jump around to the different lies you might be telling yourself right now to learn a lot. I scanned the list of lies and stumbled on lie number twenty-nine “my faith and my work are unrelated.” It sounded a lot like the lie that I was telling myself for many years when I started my first business and began my journey chasing fame and fortune in Silicon Valley. I knew this was the lie I would teach on.
The chapter starts out with the story of Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, who the authors notedly point out is someone we forever think of as a “troll.” I laughed out loud when I read this because I certainly consider myself to be a troll in the context of online discourse. Now of course the context for Zacchaeus is different—troll referring to his height— but the use of the word in this chapter still spoke to me as a confirmation that I had picked the right lie to teach on.
The authors point out that Zacchaeus was a “notorious sinner,” and aren’t we all? This certainly caused people to grumble when Jesus wanted to spend time directly with him. In Luke 19:8 we learn that Zacchaeus was repentant of his sins when he says “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything I restore it fourfold.”
Zacchaeus was demonstrating that he was prepared to follow Christ in every area of his life including with his money and his work. We must be willing to follow his example. Our culture doesn’t care that Jesus is the King of our own precious little hearts in private, but the second we say that Jesus is the King of kings and that all nations belong fully to His authority; suddenly the worldly culture has a big problem with us.
The authors note Matthew 5:14-16, which states “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before there, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
We aren’t called to be Christians on Sunday or only in the privacy of our own homes. We must live for all of Christ, all of our life, in every area of our lives. Including at work. Men often convince themselves of the lie that they need to hide their faith at work in order to advance or prevent someone at work from getting “offended.” This is a big lie. One that I told myself for years.
When I started my first business I was living a double life. I was “Tech Entrepreneur Andrew” during the week and “Christian Andrew” at home and on the weekends. Matthew 6:24 tells us that “No man can serve two masters: for he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
Is this not exactly what we are doing when we tell ourselves this lie? By the grace of God after many years I had finally recognized that I was telling myself this lie and it was time to make a choice. I could go all-in on “Worldly Tech Entrepreneur Andrew” or I could become Christian Tech Entrepreneur Andrew and serve Christ and others with my work. The choice was clear. I was going to start living out my faith and glorifying God in every area of my life, including my work.
What did that look like for me? It meant that I stopped being afraid to share Bible verses online in front of millions of people. It means I no longer fear sharing my spiritual struggles and battles. I no longer had to put on a “business mask” and hide my true thoughts, opinions, and views on controversial-but-important subjects—including faith.
I considered my work not something that was being done to benefit me, but rather something I was doing to glorify God and serve others. That made all the difference. The attacks on both myself personally and on my business increased, but God was faithful. He protected both the business and my family while providing more than I could have possibly imagined.
Rejecting this lie and living out your faith at work is going to look different for everyone, but one of the best ways we can demonstrate God’s love is simply by doing our very best and committing to excellence in our work for the glory of God no matter what that work may be.
The authors used a quote from Martin Luther that I thought hit this point well. “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”
Our society is desperately lacking people who care about their work and go the extra mile to strive for excellence. So much so that when you find someone who does their work well you can’t help but notice them. That’s your opportunity to share the Gospel.
Bad things happen when a society stops building and working for the glory of God and only does the bare minimum—if that—to get collect a paycheck. If you look around in your daily life you’ll find horrible service, child-like mistakes and errors, and foolish workers who are incompetent from blue-collar to white-collar jobs and everywhere in between.
I stumble across total incompetence everywhere in our society daily—including from people, businesses, and “professionals” you’d never expect. As a business owner, I have to be on top of every detail to catch other people’s incompetence. It’s frustrating, but if I don’t do it my business will pay the price for someone else’s lack of care and attention to detail.
As 1 Corinthians 10:31 tells us “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” This is what we must remember to overcome this lie. People will notice when you do your work well with a commitment to excellence for the glory of God.
The Truth of this chapter is: “our faith and our work cannot be compartmentalized; we should faithfully serve Him and others in everything we do.”
Amen to that.
Andrew Torba CEO, Gab.com Jesus Christ is King of kings
Top Democrats are expressing support for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate classified materials found at Joe Biden’s home and former office.
Schumer noted that he also supports special counsel Jack Smith. Hur is probing the records recently found while Smith is investigating records held by former President Donald Trump.
“We now have special prosecutors for both of these situations—very serious people. We should let it play out. We don’t have to push them in any direction, or influence them. Let the special prosecutors do their job,” Schumer said. He was speaking on CNN.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also said he supports the move by Garland, calling Hur “a distinguished prosecutor” who was approved by the Senate during the Trump administration to a U.S. attorney position that he left in 2021.
Durbin said that Garland’s appointment of Hur “assures the American people that this investigation will be done fairly and with integrity.”
Many other Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), have not commented on the appointment.
Jeffries, whose office did not respond to a request for comment, had said that he had “full faith” in Biden.
“I believe that he’s doing everything to take the appropriate steps to determine what happened and how to move forward in a responsible fashion,” Jeffries said during a briefing in Washington before the appointment was made.
Garland appointed Hur on Thursday after classified records were found at one of Biden’s residences as well as the Penn Biden Center in Washington, where Biden worked from after the Obama-Biden administration left office.
Hur will “investigate whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter,” Garland said in prepared remarks from the Department of Justice headquarters.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, asked Thursday whether the White House backs the appointment, declined to say.
“I’m not going to get into the decisions that were made by the Attorney General,” Jean-Pierre said. “I will say this, and you’ve heard me say this many times before: This is a president that believes in the independence of the Justice Department. This is something that he has been saying since the campaign, and you’ve heard me say this over and over, and restoring that independence.”
Republicans have had mixed reactions to the appointment. Some say it was warranted but are concerned about how the Department of Justice (DOJ) will handle the case.
“Following years of politicization by Democrats who have weaponized the Justice Department and given what we now know about the handling of matters pertaining to the Bidens, I have deep concerns about this DOJ legitimately investigating this case without bias,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a statement.
Others pointed to Hur’s past as an assistant to FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee who has been heavily criticized by the GOP since taking the position, and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed former special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump and his campaign.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) was among the members backing both the appointment and Hur.
“I’m glad the Attorney General appointed a special counsel,” he said in a statement.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks in Washington on Jan. 12, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is joined by U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch during a news conference at the Justice Department to announce the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the discovery of classified documents held by President Joe Biden at an office and his home, in Washington on Jan. 12, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Waited to Let Public Know
White House officials have repeatedly defended not being fully transparent, including not disclosing the finding of the records for nearly two months.
The initial tranche was discovered in early November 2022, before the midterm elections, according to the White House.
Those papers were inside the Penn Biden Center.
Other files were found inside a garage and an adjacent area at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, according to White House lawyer Richard Sauber.
Biden told reporters in Washington that files were found in “storage areas and file cabinets in my home and my personal library” before defending how some were inside the garage after a reporter asked, “classified material next to your Corvette—what were you thinking?”
“I’m going to get a chance to speak on all this, God willing, soon, but … my Corvette is in a locked garage. Okay?” Biden said. “So, it’s not like they’re sitting out in the street.”
Jean-Pierre later Thursday refused to say whether Biden would be willing to be interviewed by investigators.
White House officials say they’re confident an investigation will show the documents were “inadvertently misplaced.”
House SpeakerKevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) revealed Thursday that he would be open to the idea of “expunging” one or both of former President Donald Trump’s impeachments.
When asked about the possibility of erasing the impeachments during a Jan. 12 press conference at the Capitol, McCarthy replied that he would “have to look” at the situation, saying, “I understand why members would want to bring that forward.”
“Our first priority is to get our economy back on track, secure our borders, make our streets safe again, give parents the opportunity to have a say in their kids’ education, and actually hold government accountable,” he added. “But I understand why individuals want to do it, and we’d look at it.”
Trump was first impeached by the House in December 2019 over a phone call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was charged with abuse of power for allegedly pressuring Zelenskyy to investigate a political opponent, and with obstruction of Congress, but was ultimately acquitted of those charges by the Senate.
In 2021, Trump was impeached again for alleged “incitement of insurrection” following the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. Again, he was acquitted.
Previous Expungement Attempts
Last year, then-Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) led House Republicans’ attempts to expunge Trump’s impeachment record, introducing a resolution to erase the former president’s 2019 impeachment in March.
“So, what we’re doing with the resolution is just simply saying, ‘Hey, listen, Congress made a mistake,’” Mullin, now a senator, said at the time. “‘We impeached a president under Article One, Section Two, that shouldn’t have ever taken place.’”
In May, Mullin followed up the first bill with a second resolution to expunge Trump’s 2021 impeachment. That bill (pdf), citing 2020 election irregularities and the impeachment’s rushed nature, held that the impeachment process had failed to prove that the former president had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” or engaged in an insurrection.
Although both of Mullin’s resolutions garnered some Republican support, neither was ever considered by the Democrat-controlled House.
A ‘Political Hoax’
Trump, for his part, has maintained that both the impeachments and the Jan. 6 Select Committee’s subsequent criminal referrals were simply partisan attempts to “sideline” him and prevent him from holding elected office again.
“The Fake charges made by the highly partisan Unselect Committee of January 6th have already been submitted, prosecuted, and tried in the form of Impeachment Hoax # 2,” the former president noted on Dec. 19 after the committee referred him to the Justice Department for prosecution.
In February 2020, after his first acquittal by the Senate, Trump was asked by reporters about the potential of a future expungement.
“That’s a very good question,” he said. “Should they expunge the impeachment in the House? They should because it was a hoax. It was a total political hoax.”
At the time, it was McCarthy who floated the idea, vowing to erase the impeachment if the Republican Party regained control of the House and he became speaker.
“I don’t think it should stay on the books,” McCarthy said.
Despite opposition from several Trump-aligned Republicans, McCarthy achieved his goal of becoming speaker of the House—with Trump’s backing—last week.
After a contentious week of intraparty negotiations, McCarthy secured the speakership in the 15th vote, attributing the victory to the former president’s support.
“I do want to especially thank President Trump,” he told reporters on Jan. 7. “I don’t think anybody should doubt his influence. He was with me from the beginning.”
Only two other presidents in U.S. history have been formally impeached by Congress: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Richard Nixon also faced impeachment inquiries, but he resigned before a vote could take place.
Like Trump, neither Johnson nor Clinton was convicted by the Senate.
No president or other elected official has ever had their impeachment expunged, though in 1837, the Senate did expunge a censure of then-President Andrew Jackson over his plans to remove government funds from the Bank of the United States.
The Epoch Times has contacted the offices of former President Donald Trump and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) for comment.
Data indicates Pfizer’s new COVID-19 vaccine could cause a type of stroke in elderly people, two U.S. health agencies said on Jan. 13.
The threshold for a safety signal was met for Pfizer’s bivalent booster in the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a monitoring system run by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The signal was for ischemic stroke, a type of stroke caused by blood clotting.
The signal was triggered for people aged 65 and older, the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a joint statement.
Safety signals are triggered when an adverse event such as stroke happens at a certain rate following vaccination.
Signals suggest a connection between an adverse event and a vaccine but further study must be done to verify a connection.
“All signals require further investigation and confirmation from formal epidemiologic studies,” the CDC and FDA said. “Often these safety systems detect signals that could be due to factors other than the vaccine itself.”
Unlikely a ‘True Clinical Risk’
The agencies did not say when the signal was detected other than saying it happened after the updated shot became available, which was in early September 2022. Neither agency returned a request for comment.
Other systems monitored for vaccine safety, such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, have not shown a signal for ischemic stroke among the elderly or other age groups, according to U.S. authorities.
“Although the totality of the data currently suggests that it is very unlikely that the signal in VSD represents a true clinical risk, we believe it is important to share this information with the public, as we have in the past, when one of our safety monitoring systems detects a signal,” the agencies said.
“CDC and FDA will continue to evaluate additional data from these and other vaccine safety systems. These data and additional analyses will be discussed at the upcoming January 26 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.”
The FDA will meet with the panel, which advises it on vaccines, “to consider whether and how the composition for primary doses of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines should be modified and how and whether the composition and schedule for booster doses should be adjusted moving forward,” according to an earlier release.
Dr. Ramin Farzaneh-Far, a cardiologist, said it was hard to take the CDC’s word given how the agency repeatedly dismissed reported links between myocarditis and COVID-19 vaccines before eventually acknowledging a causal link.
The CDC and FDA should make stroke data public, he wrote on Twitter.
Ischemic stroke, also known as embolic stroke, is caused by a blood clot that “blocks or plugs a blood vessel in the brain,” according to the National Library of Medicine. The blockage typically prevents blood from flowing to the brain and quickly leads to brain cells dying. Other COVID-19 vaccines are believed to have caused ischemic stroke.
“There is no evidence to conclude that ischemic stroke is associated with the use of the companies’ COVID-19 vaccines,” Pfizer told news outlets in a statement. It produces the vaccine with BioNTech, a German company.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the CDC and FDA “must rapidly investigate, in an open and transparent manner, whether or not the vaccine may have contributed to the reported strokes.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on April 23, 2020. (Tami Chappell/AFP via Getty Images)
Recommended Without Clinical Data
Pfizer’s new booster, which targets the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants in addition to the Wuhan strain, was authorized and recommended in late 2022 without any clinical data. Months later, no clinical data has been made available by Pfizer, the CDC, or the FDA.
A recent FDA study identified an increased risk of pulmonary embolism after Pfizer’s original vaccine in the elderly. That condition, a lack of oxygen to the heart, is also caused by blood clotting.
The CDC, meanwhile, flagged hundreds of safety signals for the original Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, according to monitoring results obtained by The Epoch Times. The monitoring was done on reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which authorities describe as “the nation’s early warning system” for vaccines and which is co-run by the CDC and FDA.
Experts said there was a high probability that the vaccines caused some of the adverse events, including hepatic cirrhosis.
Ischemic stroke, labeled ischaemic stroke, was one of the signals that were identified.
Two hundred and seventy-four reports of ischemic stroke after Pfizer vaccination have been reported to the reporting system as of late 2022.
The CDC and FDA have aggressively promoted COVID-19 vaccination during the pandemic, and the stroke signal was not changing that stance.
“CDC continues to recommend that everyone ages 6 months of age and older stay up-to-date with COVID-19 vaccination; this includes individuals who are currently eligible to receive an updated (bivalent) vaccine,” the agency said.
The Vaccine Safety Datalink is a CDC-managed group of 11 sites, including multiple Kaiser Permanente locations, that provide electronic health data such as date of vaccination and hospitalization details.
The stroke signal was not detected for the updated Moderna vaccine, according to the CDC and the FDA.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been confirmed to cause multiple side effects, including myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation.
Calls for Withdrawal
The revelation comes after a growing number of experts call to withdraw the messenger RNA shots made by Pfizer and Moderna.
Dr. Joseph Fraiman, based in Louisiana, became one of the latest to call for a pause in administration until new clinical trials can be run showing the vaccines are safe and effective.
Fraiman pointed to data including a reanalysis of the original trials that he and others conducted. They concluded that the vaccinated were at higher risk of severe adverse events.
The fact that the Omicron variant and its subvariants are also less virulent, leading to fewer hospitalizations and deaths, and the waning effectiveness of the vaccines also contributes to the building opposition to vaccinating all or portions of the population until better data is made available.
Correction: A previous version of this article inaccurately reported on the results from the monitoring of VAERS. Ischemic stroke, labeled ischaemic stroke, was one of the signals identified. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
Latest stance contributes to growing rift between Biden admin, new Israeli government
The Biden administration says it would be “unacceptable” for Israel to end the restriction on Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount and it would oppose any effort to disrupt the “historic status quo” that only allows Muslims to pray at the site. The stance is a blow to diplomatic relations between the United States and the newly installed Israeli government and signals the Biden administration intends to call out the Jewish state on issues other administrations might address behind closed doors.
When asked by the Washington Free Beacon this week if the Biden administration would back changes proposed by conservative Israeli leaders that would allow Jews to pray at the holy site revered by both Muslims and Jews, a State Department spokesman said it is “unacceptable” for Israel to depart from longstanding policies.
“The United States stands firmly for preservation of the historic status quo with respect to the holy sites in Jerusalem,” the spokesman said. “Any unilateral actions that depart from the historic status quo is unacceptable.”
The Biden administration’s tough diplomatic stance is leading to concerns about a growing rift between the United States and Israel. President Joe Biden sparked criticism last year when he did not immediately phone Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congratulate him on his election win, which observers saw as a sign of chilly relations between the world leaders. The Biden administration also launched an FBI investigation into the death of a Palestinian-American journalist, despite Israel and the State Department determining the killing was accidental. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was also dispatched in early December to headline a conference organized by J Street, a leading anti-Israel group working to oppose Netanyahu’s government.
The Biden administration’s willingness to join the international chorus of Israel bashers has sparked outrage among pro-Israel lawmakers in Congress and former U.S. officials who see the United States as distancing itself from the Jewish state.
“Should it really be this difficult for the U.S. government to publicly affirm that Jews have a right to visit the holiest site in their religion?” said Richard Goldberg, a former White House National Security Council official who serves as a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. “Is the policy of the State Department: Freedom of religion for all except Jews?”
The Temple Mount—a religious area in Jerusalem’s Old City—emerged as a flashpoint in U.S.-Israel relations earlier this month when Israeli leader Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the area and suggested Israel could shift policy to allow Jews to pray at the site.
Longstanding policy has allowed both Jews and Muslims to visit the site, but only Muslims are allowed to pray there. This “historic status quo,” as it is known in diplomatic parlance, was enacted to prevent violence from breaking out on the Temple Mount area, frequently a site where Palestinians revolt against the Israeli government. Ben-Gvir, a national security minister in Netanyahu’s conservative government, signaled during his visit that the Temple Mount’s status could change under the Netanyahu administration.
When pressed to expand on its stance, specifically whether Jews have a right to visit and pray on the Temple Mount, the State Department spokesman said, “It is not up to the United States to define the historic status quo. That is a question for the parties.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement that the Biden administration has a “pathological obsession with undermining Israel [and] is endangering the national security of America and our allies.”
“It should not be controversial for a Jew to visit the holiest site in Judaism,” Cruz said.
Jews are permitted to visit the Temple Mount, but prayer is specifically verboten. Ben-Gvir, while visiting the site this month, said, “We don’t give in. We don’t surrender. We don’t blink.” He also told the Wall Street Journal in a recent interview, “Why are Arabs permitted to worship and Jews forbidden? I want equal rights.”
Ben-Gvir’s actions prompted an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council last week, which accused Israel of breaching the longstanding agreement that restricts Jews from praying on the Temple Mount. The Biden administration, which scolded Israel after Ben-Gvir’s visit, said it is ready to reiterate its opposition to any change in the status-quo governing the site.
“If a member of the U.N. Security Council requests a meeting on this issue, we will be ready to reiterate our views to our fellow Security Council members,” the State Department told the Free Beacon.
Israeli officials lambasted the session, claiming that Ben-Gvir’s visit was not part of a bid to stoke tensions with the Arab world.
“Minister Ben-Gvir’s recent visit to the Temple Mount was not an incursion into al-Aqsa or any other fabrication that the Palestinians branded his visit as,” Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan said during last week’s session. “Minister Ben-Gvir’s visit was in line with the status quo, and whoever claims otherwise is only inflaming the situation.”
“Jews,” Erdan added, “are allowed to visit the Temple Mount. Every Jew!”
Robert Hur helped stifle GOP probe into mishandling of Trump-Russia investigation
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday praised Robert Hur, the special counsel he appointed to investigate Joe Biden’s handling of classified records, as an “even-handed” prosecutor with a “long and distinguished career.” But a top Republican who dealt with Hur during his last stint at the Justice Department has a much less glowing opinion.
In 2018, Hur was part of the Justice Department team that worked to stifle a House Republican probe of the agency’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s links to Russia. According to Justice Department emails reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, Hur, who served as principal associate deputy attorney general, helped draft a letter to Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee in January 2018 to block a report—the so-called Nunes memo—that poked holes in the government’s investigation of the Trump campaign.
Hur’s work to shut down the memo, which years later has been largely vindicated, casts doubt on his ability to impartially investigate Biden, according to the memo’s Republican author, former House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes.
“Hur looks like a fixer for the Democrats and the Deep State,” Nunes told the Free Beacon.
Justice Department officials mounted an aggressive campaign to block the release of the Nunes memo, claiming it would have a “damaging impact” on national security. They also dismissed allegations that investigators had abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, saying they were “unaware of any wrongdoing related to the FISA process.” Emails show that Hur proposed edits and other changes to the Justice Department’s letter to House Republicans.
Garland appointed Hur, who now works in private practice, to investigate “the possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records” discovered at Biden’s home in Delaware and at his former think tank office in Washington, D.C. Garland said he was “confident that Mr. Hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner.”
But according to Nunes, it’s hardly clear that the special counsel will maintain neutrality.
“Before Hur even begins as special counsel, Congress should use a subpoena to force him to explain his role in obstructing the House Intelligence Committee’s FISA abuse investigation, targeting our staff and my lawyers, and helping to write an utterly false letter trying to stop the release of the Nunes memo,” said Nunes.
The Nunes memo has largely been vindicated. The four-page report revealed that the FBI failed to verify allegations in the infamous Steele dossier, which falsely alleged that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
The Justice Department and FBI cited the dossier extensively in applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for warrants to spy on a Trump campaign adviser. The Nunes memo also revealed that federal officials failed to disclose that Hillary Clinton’s campaign had funded the dossier, authored by former British spy Christopher Steele.
The Justice Department’s inspector general found that the Justice Department and FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about efforts to verify the dossier as part of its investigation into the Trump campaign. FBI and DOJ officials also omitted evidence that undermined the claim that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
The Justice Department, White House, and Hur did not respond to requests for comment.
To hear the White House tell it, the Biden administration’s green energy agenda is yet another example of Scranton Joe looking out for America’s blue-collar laborers.
Biden promises that funneling hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars to green energy projects will create an economy full of “well paying, union jobs” that will revitalize America’s manufacturing sector and allow U.S. businesses to “compete and win globally.”
It might be a compelling pitch—if only it were true. Instead, the president’s pursuit of an environmental agenda driven by left-wing fringe groups throws American workers under a Chinese electric bus.
Truth be told, China dominates the green energy supply chain. From slave labor-produced solar panels in Xinjiang to lithium battery plants in Sichuan, the road to renewables runs through the Red Dragon. Our colleague Collin Anderson reported this week on a $50 million Biden administration grant to a lithium battery company, ostensibly to ‘ensure our clean energy future is American made.” What do you know, it sources its materials in China.
It’s a tale as old as time. Want to buy a union-built, American electric vehicle, as Biden has encouraged? Good luck finding one that’s made with domestic components. How about solar panels for your home? If the raw materials don’t come from Uyghur concentration camps, they’ll be tough to find. “China’s grip on clean energy,” the Washington Free Beaconreported in February 2021, “means that Biden’s push for a green energy economy will likely benefit the communist nation.”
Fast forward two years and that prediction is playing out in real time: The Biden Energy Department sent $200 million in October to an electric battery company that operates primarily in China. The same company sits on a federal watchlist of foreign entities that fail to comply with U.S. auditing requirements.
The only way Biden can rescue his green economy from China’s clutches is to supercharge the domestic production of raw materials needed for renewables and other industries, something that would infuriate the environmentalist left that is demanding a green future. That’s one of the few promises he made on the campaign trail he would do well to make good on.
Democrat Buta Biberaj faces outcry from party allies over her incompetence
A progressive prosecutor in one of Virginia’s largest counties says her office will no longer prosecute a number of misdemeanors, including reckless driving, petty theft, and hit-and-runs.
Loudoun County commonwealth’s attorney Buta Biberaj (D.) announced on Thursday that starting next week, her office won’t prosecute many low-level offenders, according to a memo obtained by Fox 5.
Biberaj says her office is “inundated” with cases and claims the change will allow her team to focus on more serious crimes. Local leaders aren’t buying it.
“I don’t believe the issue is anything else but her ability to manage her office,” Loudoun County Board of Supervisors chairwoman Phyllis Randall, a Democrat, told Fox 5, adding that she “absolutely will not” support Biberaj’s reelection bid this year. “If she was running unopposed, I wouldn’t support her.”
Board members and the county sheriff’s office said they were blindsided by Biberaj’s announcement.
Biberaj’s office did not respond to a request for comment. The sheriff’s office told the Washington Free Beacon that it was “disappointed” Biberaj hadn’t warned it of the change and “that law enforcement officers will no longer have assistance from a prosecutor in many general district court cases.”
The left-wing prosecutor does not have the best track record on the serious felony charges on which she claims to be focusing. Last year, a series of mistakes led to the release of twomurder suspects within a matter of weeks. One is no longer facing charges; the other had to be hunted down later in Georgia.
The missteps have led former allies like Randall and fellow Democratic supervisor Kristen Umstattd to call for Biberaj’s replacement, saying the commonwealth’s attorney is “misleading the public.” A county judge also kicked Biberaj off a case last year for playing fast and loose with evidence, writing in an order that Biberaj was “deliberately misleading the court and the public” to “sell” a plea deal.
Biberaj is one of three Northern Virginia prosecutors boosted into office by six-figure donations from George Soros. The liberal billionaire contributed nearly $1 million to her 2019 campaign. Along with Arlington County prosecutor Parisa Dehghani-Tafti (D.), Biberaj is facing a primary challenge for her incompetence.
Randall told Fox 5 that she hadn’t heard Biberaj was ending misdemeanor prosecutions until she received “a picture of the memo” that was sent to the board on Thursday. In the memo, Biberaj admits her office has been unable to keep up with evidentiary burdens.
“As you may know, with the increase in the trials in Circuit Court and the introduction of body-worn camera and related recordings in each case, the [Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney] is inundated and left with insufficient time to prosecute every infraction and low-level offense that is charged,” the memo states.
The board chairwoman also said Biberaj has struggled to retain prosecutors in her office, even though the county has increased funding to hire more attorneys.
Pursuant to Biberaj’s memo, her office will not punish trespassing, some drug possession, and failures to appear in court.
Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney Steve Descano (D.), another Soros-backed prosecutor, back in 2020 similarly declined to prosecute many misdemeanors. He is also seeking reelection this fall amid widespread dissatisfaction over his mishandling of dangerous offenders.
California Republicans on Thursday blasted Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) and the state’s Democratic leaders for failing to prepare for massive rainfall while pouring money into efforts to fight climate change.
“Instead of capturing rainfall and harnessing it, we are now underwater,” Assemblyman Juan Alanis (R.) told reporters at a press conference following a series of storms that have killed 19 people, including young children. The Republicans slammed Democrats for neglecting the state’s water infrastructure. They specifically pointed to California’s failure to implement a $7.545 billion water storage project mandated by voters in 2014 on a ballot bond initiative, the completion of which would have alleviated the present flooding and helped with storage for dry seasons. The last dam built in the state was completed in 1980.
Flooding is particularly intense when heavy rains follow a period of intense drought. With more heavy rains on the way, the Republicans questioned why state Democrats—who control all three branches of the state government and hold a supermajority in the legislature—hadn’t done more to prepare.
“We know this cycle occurs with regularity,” said Assemblywoman Diane Dixon (R.), referencing California’s history of cycling between droughts and floods. “Why aren’t we prepared?”
California Democrats have seized on the storm damage to discuss climate change. Newsom said the “whiplash” from drought to rain was “proof that the climate crisis is real.” Rep. Katie Porter (D., Calif.), who has caught flak for announcing her insurgent Senate campaign while her state grapples with natural disaster, said the flooding showed the “urgency of addressing climate change.” Climatologists say it’s too soon to tell whether the storms were caused by climate change or merely another instance of California’s erratic weather patterns.
In the budget proposal he unveiled this week, Newsom cut money to programs that could help with flood mitigation and water conservation. He did, however, propose keeping $20 million to help businesses buy environmentally friendly refrigerants, $2.1 billion for building vehicle charging stations in low-income neighborhoods, and $65 million for the “decarbonization” of food production. Newsom also touted the state’s $738 million investment in flood management and dam safety, although 25 percent of that money has not yet been spent.
The Republicans noted that Democrats in the legislature have worked with them to push flood control and infrastructure projects but that executive leadership and regulatory red tape have stymied progress.
“The governor talks about his big ideas and how California is leading the nation and big ideas,” Dixon said. “This is a simple, big idea that he can execute and implement and short-circuit and get these reservoirs built. It’s not rocket science.”
A spokesman for Newsom did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Former missile defense chiefs slam unprecedented move as national security risk
The Biden administration is planning to break precedent and nominate a civilian to oversee America’s missile defense operations rather than a military official, sources tell the Washington Free Beacon—a move that former agency chiefs say would put U.S. national security at risk.
The current director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, vice admiral Jon Hill, is expected to retire later this year. The Biden administration has privately told lawmakers that it can’t find military leaders interested in the position and plans to nominate a civilian to lead the agency for the first time, congressional sources told the Free Beacon.
Although the Department of Defense hasn’t announced any candidates, congressional aides told the Free Beacon that one name being floated is the MDA’s civilian executive director, Laura DeSimone, who holds the deputy role at the agency. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.
The news follows the Biden administration’s decision to scrap the sea-launched nuclear missile program, defying the advice of senior military officials and raising concerns on Capitol Hill about the administration’s seriousness on missile defense. It also comes amid heightened risks of Russian nuclear attacks, and as President Joe Biden has claimed that the “prospect of Armageddon” is the strongest since the Cuban missile crisis.
The prospect of civilian leadership has raised alarms with defense hawks on Capitol Hill and with former MDA directors, who sent a letter to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on Friday urging lawmakers to reject a non-military nominee and citing “increasing threats to the homeland from a widening array of sophisticated capabilities.” The nominee would require Senate confirmation.
“Any suggestion that the next director could be a civilian leader should be carefully scrutinized and almost certainly rejected,” wrote former MDA directors Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish, Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O’Reilly, Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering, and Vice Adm. James D. Syring.
“Now is not the time to experiment with the leadership of the agency best suited to defend against those threats to the American people, their allies and partners, and the deployed sons and daughters in uniform.”
The MDA, which develops, purchases, and oversees U.S. missile defense systems and coordinates with other defense agencies under the Department of Defense, has a unique authority that requires a military background to carry out effectively, according to the former directors.
“It would have been impossible in our experience for this job to have been effectively executed without a senior military flag officer,” they wrote. “No other defense agency has the same set of acquisition authorities, requirements authorities, and support responsibilities for the defense of the homeland from history’s most dangerous regimes armed with its most dangerous weapons,” they wrote.
Sheriffs across state vow not to enforce law that flaunts ‘Constitution and constitution of Illinois’
Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker (Ill.) on Tuesday signed one of the most extensive weapon bans in the country, outlawing the sale of nearly 170 so-called assault weapons.
The “Protect Illinois Communities Act” bans the sale and distribution of certain pistols, shotguns, and rifles including AR-15s. The law, which passed through the state’s Democratic legislature, also bans “high capacity magazines” and “switches” that can make handguns fully automatic.
Illinoisans can keep weapons that fall under the ban if they already own them but must register the weapons by Jan. 1, 2024—or face a Class 2 Felony for failing to provide authorities the location of their “weapon of war.”
The law has sparked immediate backlash among state law enforcement: More than two dozen sheriffs across the state say they will not enforce the law.
“This bill puts us in a bind on the oath we took as sheriffs to uphold the Constitution and constitution of Illinois,” McHenry County sheriff Robb Tadelman told Chicago’s ABC 7.
Illinois is now the ninth state to ban “assault weapons”—but its new law could soon face legal challenges in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down New York’s restrictions on concealed handgun carry. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, whose majority opinion was authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, also created a new test for Second Amendment cases.
New regulations must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” the Supreme Court ruled. Modern feelings toward gun rights are not grounds for restricting the constitutional guarantee, according to the Court.
The Illinois State Rifle Association and other groups are preparing to sue Illinois. Dan Eldridge, board member at the Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois, which is seeking relief from the courts, said the law is “not going to last.”
“We will win, and when we’re done with this, we’ll have an energized membership base, we’ll have a pretty big war chest and we’ll go after everything else that we can,” Eldridge said.
The Biden administration celebrated the law’s passage: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre this week said Biden “commends the leadership” of Pritzker, who took “bold action to keep weapons of war off America’s streets.”
State Republicans, meanwhile, say the law is unenforceable.
“I don’t think the majority of gun owners are going to register, and I’m not sure who’s going to round them all up,” said state representative C.D. Davidsmeyer.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned the United States is projected to hit its $31.4 trillion debt borrowing limit by next week, according to a letter she sent to congressional leaders on Friday.
In a letter (pdf) to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Yellen wrote that according to projections, the country will hit the debt ceiling by Jan. 19. If that deadline passes without Congressional action to raise the borrowing limit, the Treasury would have to take “certain extraordinary measures” to avoid a default on its obligations.
Measures that could be implemented by the Treasury Department include temporarily redeeming existing and suspending new investments of the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund as well as the Civil Service, Retirement, and Disability Fund. The Department would also suspend investment into the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan, she said.
“Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability,” she wrote in a letter that will trigger discussions and new proposals in Congress on whether to pass a debt limit increase. Some Republican members of Congress have said they would agree to a bill to raise the debt limit to pass additional spending cuts.
Yellen noted that the Treasury cannot estimate how long the extraordinary measures will enable the federal government to pay its obligations but asserted “it is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June.”
As of Wednesday, Treasury data showed that U.S. federal debt stood $78 billion below the limit, with the Treasury operating a cash balance of $346.4 billion. The department on Thursday reported an $85 billion December deficit as revenues eased and outlays grew, particularly for debt interest costs.
“It is therefore critical that Congress act in a timely manner to increase or suspend the debt limit. Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability,” Yellen also wrote to McCarthy. Similar letters were sent to top Senate and House leaders.
What It Means
McCarthy and other top House Republicans have said he would tie actions to address the debt ceiling to spending cuts, although such measures may not pass in the Senate, where Democrats have the majority.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in Washington on Jan. 12, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“If you’re going to ask for an increase in the limit, at some point in time, you’ve got to sit down and say why are we hitting the limit? Why are we maxing out the credit card?” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporters this week.
By mid-year, Washington could have to stop borrowing altogether and rely solely on tax receipts to pay its bills. Because Treasury borrows close to 20 cents for every dollar it spends, Washington at that point would start missing payments owed to lenders, citizens, or both.
Yellen and other policy experts have called on Washington to eliminate the limit because it amounts to a bureaucratic stamp on decisions already made. However, the debt ceiling is supported by Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike and both have used it as leverage when their party doesn’t control the White House, making it unlikely to be eliminated.
“REPUBLICANS CAN GET ALMOST EVERYTHING BACK … BY SIMPLY PLAYING TOUGH IN THE UPCOMING DEBT CEILING NEGOTIATIONS,” former President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this week.
After Yellen’s letter was made public, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the debt limit should be raised without any conditions.
“It should be done in a bipartisan way. And it should be done without conditions. That is important here,” Jean-Pierre said Friday.
Some analysts have proposed that the Treasury can bypass the crisis by minting a multitrillion-dollar platinum coin and putting it in the government’s account, an idea widely viewed as an outlandish gimmick. Others argue the debt ceiling itself violates the U.S. Constitution. If the Biden administration invoked that argument, a legal challenge would follow.
In a 2011 showdown, House Republicans successfully used the debt ceiling to extract sharp limits on discretionary spending from President Barack Obama. Spending caps stayed in place for most of the rest of the decade.
Some investors, meanwhile, have already started preparing for how the debt ceiling battle will play out.
“The debt limit is going to be a problem,” economists at Goldman Sachs said in a report issued on Monday. “Fiscal deadlines will pose a greater risk this year than they have for a decade.”
Joe Biden’s new immigration program includes loopholes that could enable would-be illegal immigrants to bypass expulsion under a public health order called Title 42.
One prong of the program enables immigrants located in Mexico to submit information on a mobile application called CBP One and to schedule appointments at ports of entry, or manned entry points at the U.S.–Mexico border.
Title 42, which the Biden administration has been forced to keep in place, requires the quick expulsion of some illegal immigrants because of COVID-19 fears. It also allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to make exceptions on a case-by-case basis, including for humanitarian reasons.
When announcing the new program, DHS said it would let migrants claim certain “vulnerability criteria” on the CBP One app. The criteria weren’t detailed.
The Epoch Times used the CBP One app after it started accepting applications for appointments and found the criteria include simply being under the age of 21 or over the age of 70.
Other criteria include having a “physical or mental illness,” having a disability, being pregnant, having “no access to safe housing or shelter in Mexico,” and having been “threatened or harmed while in Mexico.”
If an immigrant—or a person with whom they’re traveling—meets one or more of the criteria, they could be allowed into the United States as an exception to Title 42.
Meeting one or more criteria “may make you eligible for an exception” to the public health order, DHS states on the app.
Rodney Scott, a former U.S. Border Patrol chief, told the outlet that the exceptions represent “one more step by the Biden administration to undermine our existing immigration laws and open our borders.”
While DHS says migrants should be prepared to substantiate meeting the criteria when they arrive at a port of entry, Scott suggested it’d be impossible to validate claims of being threatened or not having safe housing in Mexico.
DHS didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The agency said previously that a scheduled appointment “is not a guarantee of exception.” A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer will make a determination as to whether the immigrant meets the criteria. CBP didn’t return an inquiry.
A number of groups were already exempted from Title 42 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including unaccompanied children or youth who illegally enter the United States without a responsible adult. The director of the centers issued Title 42 in 2020 during the Trump administration and later carved out exemptions.
The CBP One app can be used by noncitizens regardless of nationality, as long as they’re in Mexico when they apply. Appointments can be made as early as Jan. 18.
“The CBP One app is an innovative solution we are using to facilitate the safe and orderly arrival of noncitizens who believe they meet certain vulnerability criteria and are requesting a humanitarian exception to the CDC’s Title 42 Order,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a Biden appointee, said in a previous statement.
The main feature of the administration is extending a parole program initially restricted to Venezuelan natives to nationals of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti. Under the program, immigrants who find a sponsor already inside the United States and pass a background check can receive legal status for two years. Up to 30,000 such immigrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, or Haiti will be processed per month, according to the White House.
Already in Operation
The CBP One system has been in operation in Mexico for several months already, with shelters there helping to select migrants for the program and help them obtain the requisite paperwork—often assisted by teams of U.S. legal students, psychologists, activists, and the U.N. International Organization for Migration.
Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, reported on the process from three immigration shelters in Mexico that shepherded migrants through ports of entry into the United States under the program.
Bensman called it “a highly unconventional idea far outside mainstream border management.”
The migrant shelter system in Mexicali, Mexico, sends migrants to Calexico, California. Its current shelter system holds 3,000 migrants and is usually full, so the city is building an expansion to triple its capacity.
The CBP One program is currently operating in San Diego and Calexico in California; Nogales in Arizona; and El Paso, Eagle Pass, Laredo, Hidalgo, and Brownsville in Texas.
“Once the Title 42 order eventually lifts, individuals will be able to use the CBP One application for scheduling an appointment to present themselves for inspection and to initiate a protection claim instead of coming directly to a port of entry to wait,” the DHS said in a statement. “This new feature will significantly reduce wait times and crowds at U.S. ports of entry and allow for safe, orderly, and humane processing.”
Retired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said that the discovery that President Joe Biden kept classified documents from when he was vice president undermines arguments to prosecute former President Donald Trump.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August was raided by FBI agents as prosecutors alleged that he kept classified records there. But this week, Biden’s lawyers said that classified records were found at Biden’s Delaware home and a Washington office that he had used, triggering a Thursday announcement from Attorney General Merrick Garland that he appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter.
“You cannot have two systems of justice unless the claims against Trump passed what I used to call the Clinton-Berger test,” Dershowitz told Just the News on Wednesday, responding to the two incidents. “Now it’s the Clinton-Berger-Biden test. Unless his conduct is so much more egregious and unlawful than what the three Democrats were accused of doing, you can’t have a criminal prosecution of Donald Trump.”
Dershowitz then stated that Biden possessed these documents when he was vice president and, unlike Trump, did not have the authority to declassify. After last year’s FBI raid, Trump and former White House officials have said he declassified a range of materials when he was president.
“We know for example presidents can declassify material when they’re in office, but not after they leave office,” he said. “We know that vice presidents cannot declassify material.”
However, the former law professor and high-powered criminal defense attorney said that neither Trump nor Biden should be prosecuted over these documents.
“There’s not enough for a criminal prosecution of either of them,” Dershowitz told the outlet. “Even if there was some inkling that maybe Trump should be prosecuted for Mar-a-Lago, it’s not going to happen now. Merrick Garland is not going to want to be perceived as somebody who applies the law differently to Democrats and to Republicans.”
Attorney and law professor Alan Dershowitz is seen in Washington on Jan. 29, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
During an exchange with a reporter Thursday, Biden was asked about whether he knew those documents were in his garage. Biden said that he knew they were there.
“So the documents were in a locked garage?” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked him. “Yes, as well as my Corvette,” Biden answered, also telling reporters this week that he is “coopering fully” with the Department of Justice.
White House Responds
This week, the White House has been scrambling to respond to the classified materials revelation, and Thursday was no different. In a news briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre fielded numerous questions about the reports and Garland’s announcement, at times struggling to give cohesive answers.
“We’re trying to do this by the book–as I said yesterday, this was under review by the Department of Justice and the process is as such: when the president’s lawyers realized that the documents existed … they reached out to the archives, they reached out to the Department of Justice—rightfully so, may I say. That is what you’re supposed to do, as lawyers, that’s what they did—and they have fully been cooperating with the Department of Justice,” she told reporters.
Later, Jean-Pierre declined to state if Biden was confident that there are no more classified documents in any other locations.
“I can just refer you to what his team said … this search is complete, he is confident in this process, and I will leave it there,” she said.
Garland Announcement
Earlier Thursday, Garland announced he’s appointing a special counsel to probe the finding of those documents, naming Robert Hur, a former Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Maryland, to lead the investigation.
“The extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter,” Garland said, adding that Hur will investigate whether any person violated the law. “This appointment underscores for the public the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law,” Garland said.
Biden’s lawyers found the first set of documents in a locked closet in the offices of the Biden Penn Center in Washington on Nov. 2, just before the midterm elections, but publicly revealed that development only on Monday.
Biden did not say when the latest documents were found at his home, only that his lawyers’ review of potential storage locations was completed Wednesday night.
“SURROUNDED BY A NEW PHALANX OF STRANGERS, BIDEN COULDN’T HELP BUT WONDER, DO THESE PEOPLE REALLY WANT ME HERE?” CHRIS WHIPPLE WRITES IN HIS NEW BOOK.
A deeply paranoid Joe Biden is said to believe the U.S. Secret Service is loyal to former President Donald J. Trump, according to extracts from a new, pro-Biden book. The President’s distrust of his own, world class protection agency extends to refusing to speak openly around Secret Service agents, as well as claiming they lied about his dog Major biting agents in the early days of his presidency.
The Fight of His Life, by Chris Whipple, explains: “A bigger problem was Biden’s discomfort with his Secret Service detail; some of them were MAGA sympathizers. He didn’t trust them… The Secret Service is full of white ex-cops from the South who tend to be deeply conservative.”
New details from the book, obtained early by Ben Jacobs for Vox, also reveal that Biden tried to oust any and all remnants of Donald J. Trump from the White House upon his arrival:
The distrust of Trump was so profound that Biden tried to remove reminders of the former president’s presence from the White House whenever possible. According to Whipple’s account, this included an effort to remove the Resolute desk, which Biden believed was tainted by Trump’s use of it, from the Oval Office and replace it with the desk used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This fell through, and Roosevelt’s desk remained in Hyde Park, New York.
The Resolute Desk is made from timbers from a British warship, and was gifted to the U.S. by Queen Victoria. Biden wanted Franklin D. Roosevelt’s desk instead, but failed to have it transferred from New York.
Biden unleashed his ire on an upstairs room where Trump had installed a big-screen TV and a golf simulator that allowed him to practice his swing to the virtual backdrop of famous courses.
“‘What a f—king a–hole,’ Biden said, showing the contraption to a guest,” Whipple writes.
“We respect that there will be no shortage of books written about the administration containing a wide variety of claims. We don’t plan to engage in confirmations or denials when it comes to the specifics of those claims,” a White House spokesman told reporters when asked for comment about the President’s paranoia surrounding his predecessor and the Secret Service officers around him.
The newly appointed special counsel to investigate Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents should dig into the University of Pennsylvania’s connections with China and any potential role of Hunter Biden, said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Files with classified markings from the Obama-Biden administration have so far been found in two locations linked to the president—the Penn Biden Center in Washington where he worked from 2017 to 2019, as well as his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
The Biden document case, Gingrich said, will “inevitably” lead back to Hunter Biden and the question of “Chinese communist money.”
The University of Pennsylvania received tens of millions of Chinese funding over the past few years, with one gift valued at $14.5 million coming in May 2018, three months after the Penn Biden Center’s official opening.
While the center has denied ever soliciting or receiving any gifts from China, the university “has never been willing to tell the truth about how many million dollars they’ve gotten from the Chinese Communists,” Gingrich, a contributor to The Epoch Times, said in an interview.
As an honorary professor, Biden received about $910,000 from the University of Pennsylvania and visited the campus at least nine times, according to local media.
“Money is always fungible. They may have replaced one set of money, which went to Biden, with Chinese money. They don’t open their books. They have not allowed anyone to audit it,” the former House speaker said, noting that the University of Pennsylvania’s president, Amy Gutmann, is now the ambassador to Germany.
Media reports citing anonymous sources said that the less than a dozen classified files discovered at the Penn Biden Center contain intelligence memos relating to Ukraine, Iran, and the UK, which Gingrich flagged as suspicious.
During Biden’s time as the vice president, his second son Hunter allegedly pocketed millions from foreign business dealings in countries such as Ukraine and China. In 2021, while promoting a new book, Hunter said his name was like “gold” to a Ukrainian gas firm.
Hunter Biden and his wife Melissa Cohen leave the White House and walk to Marine One on the South Lawn in Washington on Dec. 16, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“The real vulnerability for Joe Biden is what his son represented, and how much money his son took,” Gingrich said, describing Hunter as “basically the bagman for his father.”
A Penn Biden Center spokesperson reiterated that it hasn’t ever received money from China, adding that 100 percent of its budget comes from university funds.
“Penn is fully compliant with federal law regarding the reporting of foreign gifts and contracts, as foreign gifts are all properly reported to the U.S. Department of Education,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
‘Too Big to Hide’?
The first batch of Biden documents was found at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, days before the midterms, and another set surfaced from the garage at Biden’s Delaware residence on Dec. 20, with one additional page turning up in the garage’s adjacent room on Jan. 11, according to the White House and Attorney General Merrick Garland. But the public knew little of their existence until Jan. 9, when the information leaked to the media.
“It doesn’t surprise me just because the whole game has been rigged all along,” Gingrich said about the two-month delay.
“They were not going to announce it before the election, because it would have undermined the Democrats and substantially hurt their ability to survive the election. I think that was pretty straightforward.”
He saw the development as a continuation of late 2020 with the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in the weeks leading up to the presidential election. At the time, more than 50 former senior intelligence officials signed a public letter labeling the story as Russian disinformation, although recently-released “Twitter files” show that FBI agents had made an “organized effort” to “discredit” reports on the issue.
“They suppressed negative information about Biden in 2020, and they came back and did the same thing in 2022,” Gingrich said.
The raid of former President Donald Trump’s Florida resort over Trump’s handling of classified document handling, he said, was a contrast to the treatment of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was cleared of criminal charges over the use of private email servers for official communications. On at least two occasions, Clinton staffers disposed of her old mobile devices by breaking them in half or destroying them with a hammer.
“And somehow it’s not a problem,” said Gingrich. “Here’s a pattern here where if you’re a liberal Democrat, it’s amazing what you can get away with. But this may now get to be too big for them to hide.”
The Fairness Question
The president has been surprised by the finding of the documents, Biden and the White House have said. But to Gingrich, these claims are not convincing.
“I think he lies all the time,” Gingrich said, citing a Republican National Committee compilation of 21 occasions where Biden’s statements turned out to be inaccurate.
“I’m not even sure he knows he’s lying,” he added, saying that Biden “just says whatever he wants to say” without “any factual basis.”
President Joe Biden speaks to reporters in Washington on Jan. 11, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Around the time of the Mar-a-Lago raid last August, reporters asked Biden whether it was appropriate for a president to take classified and top secret materials home, to which he replied that “it depends on the document, and it depends on how secure the room is.”
At a press briefing on Thursday, Biden defended the storage of the classified papers near his Corvette, saying that the “Corvette’s in a locked garage, so it’s not like it’s sitting out on the street.”
Gingrich found this definition “silly.” “Nothing Trump was doing was sitting out on the street,” he said.
Jack Smith, a former Justice Department official, is currently in charge of a pair of criminal investigations into Trump. Besides the classified documents, the probe looks into the alleged interference of the 2020 election outcome. But if the government has a case against Trump, “they have a bigger case against Biden,” Gingrich believes.
“We ought to figure out what the rules are. Whatever rules they apply to Trump, they’ve got to apply to Hillary Clinton. And if they’re not going to do anything to Joe Biden and Hilary Clinton, they’ve got to let Trump alone—You can’t have it both ways,” he said.
“That’s not the rule of law. And that’s not justice.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House and Hunter Biden’s attorney for comment.
This article has been updated to include a statement from the University of Pennsylvania.
Jon Tigges, the Loudoun County father arrested at a heated school board meeting in June 2021, was found not guilty of trespassing. On Jan. 4, a judge at the Loudoun County Circuit Court ruled so, overturning a guilty determination by a lower court.
Tigges was arrested and charged with trespassing for refusing to leave the school board meeting room after the then-superintendent declared the public gathering an unlawful assembly. Around 250 people were due to speak during public comment that day, but the board cut off the session earlier, citing a disruptive crowd.
“It’s completely a free-speech victory,” Tigges told The Epoch Times after his acquittal. “This is a public meeting. You can’t just kick us out when you don’t want to hear what we have to say.”
Then-Superintendent Scott Ziegler later admitted that he didn’t have the authority to declare the assembly unlawful.
“I had no idea it would take 18 months to prove” innocence, Tigges said. “To me, it was just a no-brainer from the get-go.”
Tigges’s attorney Chris Kachouroff summarized the ruling: “The judge acquitted Jon Tigges, finding that he had a good faith belief that he was exercising his First Amendment rights. This alone was enough for the acquittal.
“However, The judge further remarked that the prosecution failed to present any evidence that the ex-Superintendent had the authority to clear members of the public from the meeting room during the recess.”
Tigges’s tweet announcing the not guilty reached over 200,000 views in just a few hours. He interpreted the attention as people taking his acquittal as positive news affirming that the justice system might still work.
But the Virginia man was still wary. “We can deny it all we want, but we are living in a very, very dark world right now,” he said.
A crowd is seen at a Loudoun County School Board meeting in Ashburn, Va., on June 22, 2021. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
‘Crushing Dissent’
To Tigges, his arrest was one indicator out of many showing the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) system’s suppression of free speech.
Ralph Polachek, a Tigges supporter and a business attorney who attended both days of the trial as a spectator, said that Judge Douglas Fleming was “open, kind, and willing to listen” to both sides.
The school board and administrators “were caught red-handed, trying to weaponize their authority against parents who have every right to speak out, inquire, learn about, and control the education of their own children,” Polachek told The Epoch Times.
“Jon only wanted to appear and speak to that. And there was no way from the day they hauled him out into the parking lot in handcuffs that he was going to stand for being called a criminal for doing that,” he added.
The meeting on June 22, 2021, during which Tigges was arrested, occurred during the height of parents’ opposition to the school board’s actions and policies.
Three months earlier, parents who wanted schools to reopen and who opposed critical race theory—a quasi-Marxist framework that views the United States as systemically racist—discovered that they were labeled “anti-racist” by members of a private Facebook group that included a few school board members.
Discussion in the group, which has since closed down, included calls for compiling a target list and doxxing these parents and their children.
Meanwhile, the school board was also on track to pass a controversial policy allowing transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their self-identified gender rather than biological sex.
A campaign called for donations on ActBlue.com—a fundraising platform for Democratic candidates and progressive organizations—to bus supporters to a rally outside the June school board meeting to “stand up against hate and intolerance in our school system.” Eventually, the out-of-town buses didn’t appear, and the only rally outside of the school administration building was that of parents protesting the school board’s policies.
Opponents of the academic doctrine known as critical race theory protest outside of the Loudoun County School Board headquarters in Ashburn, Va., on June 22, 2021. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
At the June 22 meeting, 15 out of the first 20 speakers supported the transgender policy. After that, most of the speakers were against the policy until the then-school board chairwoman Brenda Sheridan moved to cancel public comment during the speech of the 50th speaker.
When public comment commenced, Sheridan asked the audience to refrain from clapping citing policy 2520 (pdf), which doesn’t prohibit applause. When an early speaker addressed the audience, saying, “instead of focusing on the hate that seems to be dripping off the followers of Jesus in their room, in this room, and from their kids in our schools, I want to take the time,” the crowd cut her off with boos and jeers. Sheridan warned the audience to refrain from disrupting the commenter and allowed the speaker to continue.
When former state Sen. Richard Black, the 50th speaker, condemned the school board for having an enemies list and allegedly intimidating and punishing people who objected to their policies, the audience stood up, cheered, and applauded. At this, the school board quickly moved to end public comment.
The school board “shut it down as fast and hard as they [could]. It was obvious what their intent was: let their people speak and then find an excuse to kill it. And that’s what they did,” recalled Tigges.
“And then after that, when people continue[d] to share their redress of grievances as guaranteed under the Constitution, they shut down even a public meeting by calling it ‘unlawful assembly,’” he added.
“These people were intent on crushing dissent.”
In response to these allegations, LCPS’ Communications & Community Engagement Office said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times: “LCPS remains dedicated to helping every student reach their full potential and achieve their dreams while empowering them to make meaningful contributions to the world. We do this by partnering with parents, families, and our community to guide and support as we are all deeply invested in the success of students and their families.
“We welcome parent, family, and community involvement in that process in a productive and organized manner.”
Loudoun County Superintendent Scott Ziegler during a school board meeting in Ashburg, Va., on June 22, 2021. (LCPS/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Ziegler was indicted last month by a special grand jury investigation. The indictment was made public on Dec. 12. Days prior, the school board fired the superintendent without cause. Grand jurors indicted him on three counts, including false publication, according to copies of the indictments obtained by The Epoch Times.
That count stemmed from Ziegler “knowingly” transmitting to media outlets on or about June 22, 2021, a “false and untrue statement.” The statement was not identified in the indictment document.
One false statement, however, is known to the public. At the June 22 meeting, despite being notified a month ago of the occurrence of a sexual assault in a school bathroom, Ziegler said, “To my knowledge, we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms,” adding later that “the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist.” The comment was made in response to parents’ concerns that the transgender policy would lead to an increase in assaults in school bathrooms.
On Jan. 5, Ziegler filed motions to dismiss the criminal indictments, arguing that Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin had no authority to issue the executive order that authorized the Attorney General’s investigation.
Ziegler didn’t testify during Tigges’s appeal. However, he spoke during a September hearing at a lower court, comparing parents’ protests on June 22, 2021, to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, emphasizing that the several hundred parents who organized their own public comment during the recess were a threat to safety.
The Epoch Times has contacted Ziegler’s attorney for comment.
Hundreds rallied to protest against Loudoun County Public Schools adopting the Virginia Department of Education’s 2021 transgender student model policies outside the Loudoun County Public Schools administration building in Ashburn, Va., on Sept. 28, 2021. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)
‘A Dark World’
“Despite this victory, I have serious concerns about where we are as a country. We’ve been subverted by a darkness that is spilling out in rot at all levels and in both political parties,” Tigges said in a series of tweets announcing his acquittal.
Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj, a Democrat, personally prosecuted the trespass case, a move that Kachouroff described as “highly unusual.”
“I’ve been practicing for 22 years. There are two times I can remember a Commonwealth’s Attorney personally prosecuting any case, and both were high-profile murder trials,” Kachouroff told The Epoch Times. “I cannot conceive of a Commonwealth’s attorney ever prosecuting a misdemeanor. They have the power, but that’s like the President screwing in the light bulbs in the White House. Can she do it? Sure, but why?”
Tigges viewed Biberaj as a part of the local progressive machine that targets conservatives like him.
When reached by The Epoch Times, Biberaj’s office did not respond to these allegations. The office said it relies on law enforcement to make charging decisions.
“When charges are filed and referred to the Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney, we assess the evidence and present it to the court. We may be disappointed at the decision, but we respect the decision and thank the court for its time and consideration of this matter,” the office said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.
The lack of support from Loudoun County Sheriff Michael Chapman, a Republican, also disheartened Tigges. To Tigges, the arrest was wrong, and the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) could use more training for deputies to discern the lawfulness of a request.
Kachouroff echoed his client’s sentiment, pointing to a subpoena to Chapman issued during Tigges’s appeal. “Loudoun Sheriff Mike Chapman, who although had sworn an oath to defend the First Amendment, chose to ignore a lawfully issued subpoena to come to court,” the lawyer said.
“He could have taken the opportunity in court to support Jon and to speak out in favor of the First Amendment Rights of Loudoun’s parents. I am sad to say that he chose to remain in his office, silent,” he added.
In response, Chapman wrote in an email to The Epoch Times: “As evidenced by the earlier conviction of John Tigges for trespass, LCSO deputies acted appropriately in making that arrest. I believe in the criminal justice system and respect the decision of the judge.”
Kachouroff disagreed. “Chapman knows the ‘earlier conviction’ was wiped out by the appeal. The appeal is ‘de novo’ or starting from scratch.”
Jon Tigges at Zion Springs, his wedding and bed & breakfast venue, in Hamilton, Va. (Caleb Spencer for The Epoch Times)
‘Responding Faithfully’
Tigges said he wanted to give up many times during the 18-month fight.
But “responding faithfully” was the key to sustaining his perseverance. “Learn to trust the Lord and His providence, and that’s where there was a real peace,” he said. He said that during the recent pandemic, he realized that instead of hoping to change others, he should focus on making his choices right.
“I think the more fundamental issue isn’t about bad people doing bad things; that’s what they’re going to do. So for me, the bigger issue is what a Christian is going to do,” he said.
Tigges added: “I really think that people value their comfort over having convictions. And if they have the convictions, they have a responsibility to live them out. And if they’re not willing to live them out, if they’re going to be silent, want to be liked, and not make any sacrifices, then they shouldn’t be surprised with what they see around them.”
Although it’s not easy, instead of being desperate or angry, people with faith can amazingly find peace and encouragement in a dark world, according to Tigges.
The main reason Tigges was at that school board meeting was to support other members of the community since he doesn’t have a kid in LCPS.
“Our own relationships with our families and our friends are the foundation by which everything else happens. If we have healthy relationships, and we’re investing deeply in our family and our friends, we’re gonna have a healthy community,” he said.
“If you have a healthy community, out of that springs healthy people to engage as an army against evil instead of a handful of people trying to take it on and being ultimately overwhelmed by it.”
Lawmakers, particularly on the Republican side of the aisle, are continuing to voice their opposition to the idea of a ban on gas stoves.
Concerns about a gas stove ban have risen after a recent study linked their use to childhood asthma and after U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. discussed regulating gas stoves in a recent interview with Bloomberg News.
“This is a hidden hazard,” Trumka told Bloomberg. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”
In a Wednesday press statement, the new chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), said this proposed ban is the latest example of President Joe Biden’s “war on American energy.”
“It is not about public safety. It is about telling the American people the federal government knows best and will decide what kind of car they can drive, how they can heat their house, and now how they’re allowed to cook food for their families,” Rodgers said.
U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) speaks at a House Republican news conference on energy policy at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 8, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
In a similar comment to Fox News, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) said, “Consumers should be able to choose how they cook their food, heat their homes and power their cars, and they should be able to do it affordably.”
Gas Stoves Linked to Childhood Asthma
A peer-reviewed research paper that was published last month in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, said about 35 percent of homes in the United States use indoor gas-powered stoves.
The paper said such gas stove use is “associated with an increased risk of current asthma among children” and said about 12.7 percent of current childhood asthma cases in the United States are “attributable to gas stove use.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) organized a Dec. 22 letter to the CPSC, requesting the agency consider a series of new regulations on gas stoves, such as requiring stoves to be sold with range hoods that meet mandatory performance standards, assessing their efficiency of removing the pollutants.
“As you know, the CPSC has broad authority under the Consumer Product Safety Act to regulate consumer products that pose an unreasonable risk of injury,” the letter reads. “We urge the Commission to protect consumers from these harmful emissions. The Commission itself expressed concerns over gas stove emissions in 1985. Since then, evidence for the danger of these emissions has only increased.”
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) speaks during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 13, 2020. (Hilary Swift/The New York Times via AP, Pool)
‘Unrealistic’
Several lawmakers opposed to a ban on gas stoves raised concerns that such measures would eliminate an affordable means of cooking and strain the U.S. energy grid with more demands on electricity with consumers having to switch to electric stoves as an alternative.
“This decision could lead to Americans paying higher electric bills and strain our electric grid even further,” Rep. Daniel Meuser (R-Pa.) told Fox News.
“As the representative of one of the highest natural gas producing regions in the country, I am once again dismayed by these proposals. Natural gas is among the cleanest, safest, most affordable and abundant form of energy in the United States. Discouraging its use by banning gas stoves is a perplexing and misguided policy.”
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) called the idea of banning gas stoves, which are used in millions of American homes, “unrealistic.”
“Gas stoves are affordable, practical and popular. Democrats are simply grasping at straws to push their Green New Deal agenda,” he said.
“Americans who are already suffering under record-high inflation can already barely afford to heat their homes this winter, and now the Biden administration wants them to go out and buy a new stove. It’s out of touch and unrealistic.”
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas at the Hilton Anatole on Aug. 5, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)
While the negative response to Trumka’s comments about banning gas stoves largely came from Republican lawmakers, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has also voiced his opposition to the idea.
“This is a recipe for disaster. The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner,” Manchin said in a Tuesday press statement.
Republican Bill
Concerns about a potential ban on gas stoves have inspired a pair of lawmakers to introduce a bill that would preempt any attempted ban.
On Wednesday, Reps. Bill Huizinga (R-Mich.) and Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) introduced a bill called the “Stop Trying to Obsessively Vilify Energy” (STOVE) Act.
“The last thing Americans need or want is another big government bureaucratic decision telling us which appliance we can have in our home,” Huizenga said.
“The STOVE Act is a common-sense measure that will stop bureaucrats from banning gas stoves or ranges. Americans should have the ability to choose the most affordable and most available way to cook food in their own home. It is absolutely ridiculous how out of control and out of touch the nanny state in Washington has become.”
Regulator Says He’s Not Seeking a Ban
Members of the CPSC have offered some mixed messaging on their plans to regulate gas-powered stoves.
After Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) voiced his opposition to a gas stove ban, Trumka said via Twitter that CPSC “isn’t coming for anyone’s gas stoves” and that regulations would “apply to new products.”
“For Americans who CHOOSE to switch from gas to electric, there is support available – Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act which includes a $840 rebate,” he said.
On Wednesday, CPSC Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric said via Twitter that the regulator has “no proceeding” to impose a ban on gas stoves.
“Research indicates that emissions from gas stoves can be hazardous, and the CPSC is looking for ways to reduce related indoor air quality hazards,” Hoehn-Saric said via Twitter. “But to be clear, I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.”
“CPSC is researching gas emissions in stoves and exploring new ways to address health risks,” Hoehn-Saric added.
“CPSC also is actively engaged in strengthening voluntary safety standards for gas stoves. And later this spring, we will be asking the public to provide us with information about gas stove emissions and potential solutions for reducing any associated risks. This is part of our product safety mission – learning about hazards and working to make products safer.”
During a Wednesday press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “The President does not support banning gas stoves, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves.”
The latest Twitter Files release shows how prominent Democrats had pushed a false Russiagate-related narrative about “Russian bots” promoting a key House Intelligence Committee memo that detailed efforts to spy on the Trump campaign.
The 14th installment of the Twitter Files was released on Jan. 12 by journalist Matt Taibbi, who explained in a series of posts that, at a key moment in the Trump-Russia investigation, Democrats alleged that “Russian bots” were spreading an explosive report from then-Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).
“At a crucial moment in a years-long furor,” Taibbi explained in one of the posts, “Democrats denounced a report about flaws in the Trump-Russia investigation, saying it was boosted by Russian ‘bots’ and ‘trolls.’”
“Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence,” Taibbi continued.
In support of this take, Taibbi shared screenshots of correspondence from Twitter executives to several Congressional Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), confirming that Twitter had “not identified any significant activity connected to Russia with respect to Tweets posting original content to this [#ReleaseTheMemo] hashtag.”
The #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag had spread like wildfire on Twitter, topping its trending list starting on Jan. 18, 2018 and reflecting the widespread call to publicly release a then-classified memo submitted by Nunes, who at the time was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Widely referred to as the Nunes memo (pdf), it was later declassified under then-President Donald Trump’s order on Feb. 2, 2018.
The memo showed how the FBI under the Obama administration used unverified opposition research—the infamous “Steele Dossier” funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee—to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page as part of an investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The claims made in the Nunes memo were confirmed by Justice Department Inspector-General Michael Horowitz in his report, released on Dec. 9, 2019.
Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on Capitol Hill in Washington on Nov. 19, 2019. (Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
Push From Democrats, Media Outlets
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) had introduced the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag on Jan. 18, 2018, and on the following day, joined a group of 65 House Republicans calling for the declassification of the memo. Many of the lawmakers, who collectively represent millions of voters, also sent out the hashtag on Twitter.
Just days later, on Jan. 23, 2018, Democrat lawmakers, including Feinstein and Schiff, wrote an open letter to then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to investigate allegations of “Russian bots and trolls surrounding the #ReleaseTheMemo online campaign.”
The letter from Feinstein and Schiff led Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to himself issue a letter (pdf) later that day that also alleged the hashtag was a part of Russian disinformation campaigns.
“We find it reprehensible that Russian agents have so eagerly manipulated innocent Americans,” he wrote in a letter issued later that day—even though before the letter’s issuance, Twitter’s staff told the senator’s staffers they did not believe Russian bots were behind the hashtag, Taibbi reported.
Multiple legacy outlets also did the same, claiming Russian bots and trolls were behind the effort. All had cited the same source—the Hamilton 68 dashboard, a project with the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), an organization that tracks 600 Twitter accounts it claims are linked to the Russian government or repeat its news.
According to Taibbi, executives inside Twitter at the time complained that “Hamilton 68 seemed to be everyone’s only source, and no one was checking with Twitter” to verify the claims.
The headquarters for the social media company Twitter in San Francisco, on Nov. 11, 2022. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Twitter Internally Disputed ‘Russian Bots’ Claims
Taibbi shared an email from Emily Horne, who was at the time the global policy communications director of Twitter. The email, shared internally on Jan. 23, said that “it is extraordinarily difficult for outside researchers, who do not have access to our full API and internal account signals, to say with any degree of certainty that they believe an account is behaving suspiciously is 1) automated and 2) Russian.”
Yoel Roth, who was Twitter’s trust and safety chief at the time, reportedly told colleagues: “I just reviewed the accounts that posted the first 50 tweets with #releasethememo and … none of them show any signs of affiliation to Russia.”
Taibbi reported that “outside counsel from DC-connected firms like Debevoise and Plimpton” had advised Twitter to respond to lawmakers by using language like: “With respect to particular hashtags, we take seriously any activity that may represent an abuse of our platform.”
According to an email screenshot shared by Taibbi, Twitter was also advised to say something to the effect of: “Our initial assessment indicates that these [hashtag] trends are driven primarily by organic, non-automated activity [if true], but we are continuing to analyze the data and … will inform Congress about what we find.”
“Despite universal internal conviction that there were no Russians in the story, Twitter went on to follow a slavish pattern of not challenging Russia claims on the record,” Taibbi wrote.
Absent any such challenge, “[a]s a result, reporters from the AP to Politico to NBC to Rolling Stone continued to hammer the ‘Russian bots’ theme, despite a total lack of evidence,” he reported.
“Russians weren’t just blamed for #ReleaseTheMemo but #SchumerShutdown, #ParklandShooting, even #GunControlNow—to ‘widen the divide,’ according to the New York Times,” Taibbi added.
Meanwhile, inside Twitter, staffers acknowledged that both the #SchumerShutdown and #ReleaseTheMemo hashtags “appear to be organically trending.”
“NBC, Politico, AP, Times, Business Insider, and other media outlets who played up the ‘Russian bots’ story—even Rolling Stone—all declined to comment for this story,” Taibbi said. He added that staffers of Feinstein, Schiff, and Blumenthal also declined to comment.
Nunes, who has since departed Congress and is now the CEO of Trump’s TruthSocial platform, told Taibbi: “Schiff and the Democrats falsely claimed Russians were behind the Release the Memo hashtag, all my investigative work.”
Nunes added: “By spreading the Russia collusion hoax, they instigated one of the greatest outbreaks of mass delusion in U.S. history.”
Taibbi remarked: “This #ReleaseTheMemo episode is just one of many in the #TwitterFiles. The Russiagate scandal was built on the craven dishonesty of politicians and reporters, who for years ignored the absence of data to fictional scare headlines.”
The Twitter Files disclosures are a series of revelations based on internal company communications provided to journalists by Elon Musk, who took over the platform several months ago and has pledged to reduce censorship and political bias on Twitter.
Correction: A previous version of this article attributed intent to prominent Democrats without evidence. It is unclear whether they had spread the claim that Russian trolls and bots were behind the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag while knowing that the claim was not true. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
An American doctor is joining the calls for the withdrawal of the messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccines, pointing to new research that highlights a connection between the shots and adverse events.
Dr. Joseph Fraiman, a doctor based in Louisiana who also conducts research on COVID-19 and other health issues, says it’s time to halt the administration of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines until new clinical trials prove the benefits from the vaccines outweigh the harms.
The new research, including a reanalysis of the trials for the vaccines, raise concerns about whether the benefits from the vaccines outweigh the harms, according to the doctor.
“I don’t see how anyone couldn’t be certain that the benefits are outweighing the harms on a population level, or even in the high-risk groups. I don’t see the evidence to support that claim,” Fraiman told The Epoch Times. “But I also can’t say that there’s evidence to support that it’s potentially more harmful, but there’s also uncertainty here. … Given that scenario, I believe that people should not be given the [vaccines] outside of a clinical trial, because we need to figure out … if their benefits outweigh harm or if harm outweighs benefits.”
“The only thing that can answer that question is going to be a randomized trial,” he added.
Pfizer and Moderna did not respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which cleared the shots and has never stopped promoting them, did not return an inquiry.
The Data
Fraiman led a study that reanalyzed the original Pfizer and Moderna trials. He and his colleagues concluded in a study published following peer review that the vaccinated were at higher risk of serious adverse events.
That’s one data point. Another is the identification of safety signals, or adverse events, that are potentially caused by the vaccines but require further study. The FDA revealed in December 2022 that the Pfizer vaccine was linked to blood clotting in elderly individuals. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which recommends the vaccines for virtually all Americans, found hundreds of other signals in its research, according to records obtained by The Epoch Times.
Several serious problems that can lead to death have been causally linked, or proven to be caused by the vaccines. They include myocarditis, or heart inflammation.
While U.S. health officials have repeatedly downplayed the severity of myocarditis and a related condition, pericarditis, German researchers who dug into the deaths of 25 people who died suddenly at home after vaccination ruled out every potential cause except for vaccination for five of the people. They reported their results in a study that was published after peer review in late 2022.
“Given alternative causes are unlikely to cause myocarditis within one week of vaccination, this is essentially conclusive evidence that we’re seeing sudden cardiac deaths from the vaccines,” Fraiman said.
Fraiman also noted that excess mortality, or deaths from all causes, have risen during the pandemic—with spikes correlating with the introduction of the vaccines. Vaccines may not have caused the additional deaths, he says, but some researchers, including British professors Norman Fenton and Martin Neil, have examined the data and found a signal that the vaccines were linked to at least some of the excess deaths. U.S. officials say some of the deaths may be from COVID-19.
Initial Thoughts
When the vaccines were first introduced, Fraiman backed giving them to the elderly and others at high risk from COVID-19, or people of all ages with serious underlying health conditions. He says he also did not recommend against vaccination for any ages, though he told younger family members he was not sure if it was a good idea to get a jab.
Fraiman also says the vaccines likely reduced hospitalizations in the first two quarters of 2021, recalling how he did not see a single vaccinated person in his hospital until June of that year.
When he and the other scientists discovered the vaccinated were at higher risk of serious problems, he shifted to a stance of the harms likely outweighing the benefits among healthy people.
With the new evidence of harm, along with Omicron being less dangerous and more likely to evade vaccine immunity, Fraiman questions whether the benefits outweigh the serious harms even among the elderly and otherwise infirm.
“I see the likelihood that the harm could outweigh the benefit in the group who stood to benefit the most from the vaccine,” he said.
Standards Fall
Clinical trial data on the vaccines have been hard to come by, especially trials not run by the vaccine makers themselves, and the standards for the trials have been lowered over time.
The FDA authorized shots for children based on immunobridging, or trial data that found the vaccines triggered a similar antibody response in kids than that in adults. For the new bivalent boosters, created because the original vaccines have been providing much lower levels of protection against Omicron and its subvariants, no clinical data, not even antibody measurements, was provided at all. Months later, that data is still not available to the public.
Some observational studies have estimated the boosters provide subpar protection against infection and solid protection, at least initially, against hospitalization. Randomized, controlled trials are typically considered superior.
Fraiman recommends withdrawing the vaccines and U.S. officials going to the vaccine makers and asking them to demonstrate the benefits outweigh the harms in light of the changed dynamics of the pandemic. The trials should feature investigators looking closely at each COVID-19 hospitalization to distinguish whether they were caused by COVID-19, or the COVID-19 diagnosis was incidental. That distinction is known widely as being hospitalized, or dying, with COVID-19 versus from COVID-19.
The trial would take five or six months, similar to the original ones, Fraiman says.
Other Calls
Some countries, such as Denmark, meanwhile, have stopped offering booster shots to certain segments of the population. A growing number of experts, meanwhile, are calling for the administration of the Moderna and Pfizer shots, which are by far the most administered in the United States, to be halted.
The group includes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a British doctor who turned against the vaccines in 2022 due to the growing evidence of side effects. Malhotra’s citations included the Moderna and Pfizer trials, which showed no reduction in mortality or severe disease, and the research led by Fraiman.
Linda Wastila, director of policy and research of the Peter Lamy Center for Drug Therapy and Aging at the University of Maryland, said she agrees with Fraiman, pointing to the research as well as data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Reports of thousands of post-vaccination deaths have been lodged with the system, in addition to hundreds of thousands of injuries.
“I’m a data scientist, and I’m overwhelmed by the congruence of all these data coming together so rapidly, all painting a horrific picture of vaccine harms that really cannot be ignored,” Wastila told The Epoch Times via email.
Wastila called for the removal of the vaccines from the market immediately, at least until safety signals identified by the CDC and FDA are closely studied.
“In not doing so, FDA and the rest of government agencies pushing these products are not only placing millions at risk for injury or death, they also are successfully encouraging rapid distrust of the institutions that are supposed to protect us,” she said.
There are other experts, such as Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who have recommended against certain populations getting vaccinated, such as healthy young men, because they’re at higher risk of one or more side effects and stand to gain little benefit against a disease that already poses minimal risk to them. Still, other experts continue to back the vaccination of virtually all people, including Dr. Ashish Jha, coordinator of the White House COVID-19 response.
STILL WEAK – Three steps toward a ‘whole of nation’ approach for national security. In October, the Biden administration released its full National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS). The documents outline the overall national security strategy for the United States and for the Department of Defense (DOD). Both strategies note the rise of China and the belligerence of Russia, especially in light of its invasion of Ukraine. The NSS and NDS emphasize the need for the U.S. to secure its supply chain and industrial base, protect its critical infrastructure, empower allies, and strengthen its position in advanced research and technology.
DEFENDING TAIWAN AGAINST CHINA – Japan to OK new US Marine littoral regiment on Okinawa. Japan on Wednesday will formally approve U.S. plans for a new Marine quick-reaction force on Okinawa and unveil plans to deepen military cooperation on Japan’s remote southwest islands near Taiwan, according to U.S. officials.
Australia finalizing new security pact with Papua New Guinea. The leaders of Australia and neighboring Papua New Guinea say they are finalizing a new security treaty – a move seen as a challenge to China’s growing assertiveness in the Pacific region.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 323. Russia appointed Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov as overall commander of forces to take charge of its invasion of Ukraine in the biggest shake-up yet of its military command structure after months of battlefield defeats. The head of the private military firm Wagner Group said his forces had achieved the complete “liberation” of Soledar, killing about 500 pro-Ukraine soldiers.
Putin changes His Ukraine war’s leader, calls for quicker aircraft deals. Russia’s top military officer was put in charge of troops fighting in Ukraine on Wednesday, a move that appears to reflect the Kremlin’s dissatisfaction with the current leadership and flaws in the military’s performance.
Russia on verge of biggest gain in Ukraine since summer. Russian forces have nearly taken full control of Soledar, a small mining town in eastern Ukraine, placing Moscow on the verge of its most significant gain since August.
CHENAULT’S WWII ‘FLYING TIGERS’ GO TO UKRAINE? – A mercenary air force for Ukraine? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. The idea of leasing an air force to Ukraine could solve several current challenges on the issue of military support. And some discussions have reportedly already taken place.
NORTH KOREA THREAT
LONG OVERDUE – TRUMP’S BIG RED BUTTON GOES TO SOUTH KOREA – In a first, South Korea declares nuclear weapons a policy option. President Yoon Suk Yeol said that if North Korea’s nuclear threat grows, his country may build a nuclear arsenal of its own or ask the United States to redeploy in the South.
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY – NATO, MIDDLE EAST, ASIA, AFRICA
US military tanks at Dutch port en route to NATO frontier. A large number of U.S. army tanks and military vehicles began arriving at the Dutch port of Vlissingen on Wednesday, before heading to Poland and Lithuania as part of efforts to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank.
US military donates weapons, and military equipment to Somalia. The United States government presented the Somali National Army with a $9 million donation of military equipment at a ceremony on Sunday, as the country’s military continues to fight against al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda linked group.
Keep US troops in Syria. Four years after a terror attack claimed four U.S. lives, here’s a look at how the American presence remains useful.
Navy frustration building over late weapons, ship deliveries. Exasperation is growing over the U.S Navy’s inability to get missiles and weapons delivered fast enough to keep its own magazines full, let alone offer more assistance to Ukraine or other partners in need, several leaders said at this week’s annual Surface Navy Association conference.
Army fielding 2 Iron Dome batteries at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. “The Army appears to be keeping it accessible should the need arise in the US Indo Pacific region… but there’s a larger question about what really is going to be the future of these Iron Dome batteries,” said Tom Karako, a missile defense expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
WELL-INTENTIONED, BUT DOES ARMY NEED ANOTHER EXTRANEOUS RIBBON? Army may establish new recruiting referral ribbon. The Army is considering establishing a new ribbon that troops would receive for referring applicants to the service, officials confirmed to Army Times.
END of PDB
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
