The FBI has been ordered by a federal judge to stop plundering information from James O’Keefe’s phone following a raid on his home and other properties connected with Project Veritas last weekend.
The raid was a chilling and frightening overreach by law enforcement of protected journalistic work product. O’Keefe has said that his phone offers a window into what other projects he and his staff are working on — projects the Biden Administration may not want him to cover.
The FBI raided O’Keefe’s apartment about 6 a.m. on Saturday with a phalanx of agents taking his electronics and other information, which they claimed would help discover how the journalist came into possession of President Biden’s daughter’s diary.
They claim the diary was stolen. O’Keefe denies that characterization.
The president’s daughter, Ashley Biden’s, diary reportedly contains down, dirty, and disgusting secrets about the Biden family.
Judge Analisa Torres ordered the FBI to stop exploiting information contained in O’Keefe’s phone and to verify that they’d done so by Friday.
BREAKING! The federal court has just ordered the DOJ to STOP extracting data from our client, journalist James O’Keefe’s phone, and ordered a hearing. Counsel for Project Veritas asked the court to do this yesterday! pic.twitter.com/nBrmf4myuj
O’Keefe and Project Veritas have been in negotiations with the Justice Department about the diary and its provenance since last year.
Unless O’Keefe stole that diary, there’s doesn’t appear to be anything different about O’Keefe coming into possession of the document than what happens every day at the New York Times or Washington Post with their leaked documents.
Prior restraint doesn’t even begin to cover how intrusive and frightening this intentional intimidation by law enforcement is on a journalistic enterprise.
The raid is reminiscent of the one conducted by former California Attorney General Kamala Harris into the work product of David Daleiden, who produced a series of explosive videos showing Planned Parenthood buying and selling aborted baby parts.
The way it looks now, this judge’s ruling is a win for journalism, but journalists who don’t like O’Keefe may not see it that way.
NSBA leaders even altered the letter’s text to satisfy the Biden White House
Newly released internal emails reveal that the National School Boards Association coordinated with the White House and the Department of Justice before sending President Biden the notorious letter that compared concerned parents to domestic terrorists. Emails provided to Fox News show that NSBA had coordinated with the White House for weeks beforehand.
Viola Garcia, the NSBA president whom the Department of Education later named to a federal board, sent a memo to NSBA members on Oct. 11 (but dated Oct. 12), providing a timeline of the NSBA’s interaction with the White House ahead of the letter to Biden, which the NSBA sent on Sept. 29.
Five days later, on Oct. 4, the DOJ issued a memo directing law enforcement to investigate threats to school boards. On Oct. 22, the NSBA issued an apology for the letter.
“Concern over the current climate for school board members is also a top priority as disruptions at school board meetings grow and members face growing threats,” Garcia wrote at the time, according to the memo obtained by Parents Defending Education through a Freedom of Information Act request. “NSBA has been actively engaged with the White House, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, Surgeon General, and other federal agencies on pandemic related issues.”
(Oregon School Boards Association)
“In the September 14, 2021 meeting of the [NSBA Organization of State Association Executive Directors] liaison group, they were informed there had been a meeting with White House staff that morning and that NSBA was preparing to send a letter to the President. Subsequently, on September 17, 2021, the interim Executive Director emailed notice to the state association executive directors that indicated a letter requesting federal assistance would be sent.”
“In response to the letter sent by NSBA, on October 4, 2021 the Attorney General announced in a memorandum widely shared throughout the U.S. Department of Justice that he was ordering all U.S. Attorney Offices and local FBI offices to reach out to local and state law enforcement officials to coordinate efforts on this problem within 30 days of the memorandum,” Garcia also noted.
This statement appears to contradict Attorney General Merrick Garland’s testimony to Congress on Oct. 27. When Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked Garland if he had “second thoughts” following NSBA’s apology for the letter, he said that the DOJ memorandum did not rely upon the letter.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., calls out the attorney general for his memo directing the FBI to look into reports of threats against school board members and has harsh words for teachers union leader Randi Weingarten.
“The letter that was subsequently sent does not change the association’s concern of violence or threats of violence. It alters some of the language in the letter … that we did not rely on and is not contained in my own memorandum,” Garland said.
Neither Garland nor the DOJ responded to Fox News’ request for comment by press time.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appears before the House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Oct. 21. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS)
Another email exclusively sent to Fox News revealed that NSBA had discussed the issues with the White House “for weeks” before sending the letter. Garcia and Chip Slaven, an NSBA executive, altered the text of the letter to satisfy the curiosity of White House staff.
“In talks over the last several weeks with White House staff, they requested additional information on some of the specific threats, so the letter also details many of the incidents that have been occurring,” Slaven wrote in a September 29, 2021, email to the NSBA board of directors.
Parents have spoken up at school board meetings around the country, protesting harsh COVID-19 mitigation measures like school closures, and raising their voices against transgender policies, critical race theory, and other issues. The letter warned that these parents pose a violent threat to school boards, even going so far as comparing them to domestic terrorists.
The fallout from the letter has proven particularly severe. Ohio’s, Wisconsin‘s, and the school boards of nine other states have reportedly terminated their relationships with NSBA, and parent’s education rights organizations have grown in prominence since the letter. The letter may have also emboldened concerned parents who supported Republican Glenn Youngkin, who won the Virginia governor’s race earlier this month.
Virginia Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin gestures during a [Loudoun Parents Matter Rally] campaign event in Leesburg, Virginia, on Nov. 1, 2021. (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)
James Bennet, New York Times Editorial Page Editor: “I endeavored to do that, but I failed to do that.”
Bennet: “We did a very poor job.”
Bennet: “I’m the ultimate manager of the department, the decision maker of the department — and I’m ultimately responsible for the journalism that we produce.”
[NEW YORK – Nov. 10, 2021] Project Veritas released a new video today exposing former New York Times editorial page editor, James Bennet, who led the paper’s editorial department from May 2016 until his resignation in June 2020.
The video shows Bennet being deposed under oath in an ongoing lawsuit filed by former Alaska governor, Sarah Palin. She is suing The Times after an editorial published by the paper attempted to tie her Political Action Committee to the shooting of former U.S. Congresswoman, Gabby Giffords.
Palin’s attorney, Shane Vogt, pressed Bennet on how The Times reached its conclusions on his client’s Political Action Committee:
Shane Vogt, Attorney for Sarah Palin: “Do you consider this map (shown above) to be political incitement?”
James Bennet, New York Times Editorial Page Editor:“In the sense I was using the term that day in our editorial? Yeah, I do. I just think it’s using violent imagery. I read those as gun sites, and I just don’t think we should import that kind of language to talk about our political adversaries. I wish politicians wouldn’t do it.”
Vogt: “You see a map there (shown above)?”
Bennet:“I do.”
Vogt:“You consider that to be political incitement?”
Bennet: “Okay. I understand what you’re asking me and the comparison you’re drawing. I don’t — those don’t look like gun sites to me. So, I guess I wouldn’t use the same term?”
Vogt:“What do you consider the symbols on the map in exhibit 217 to be?”
Bennet:“I don’t know what they’re meant to represent. I mean they’re meant to represent — it says targeting strategy, but they don’t look like sites to me.”
Vogt:“Do they look like bullseyes?”
Bennet:“No — now that you say that — yeah, I could see that.”
Vogt:“What are bullseyes used for?”
Bennet: “Targeting. Target practice.”
Vogt:“With weapons?”
Bennet:“Yeah.”
Vogt asked Bennet about the decision-making process inside The New York Times and the context behind publishing this piece:
Vogt:“Do you remember seeing the [Palin] map when it was initially circulated?”
Bennet:“I don’t remember if I did.”
Vogt:“Do you know when that was?”
Bennet:“I believe it was around the time of the — it got a lot of press attention. It is my understanding around the time of the shooting in 2011.”
Vogt:“And what’s that understanding based on?”
Bennet:“I guess the — we did a very poor job, I did, of trying to express the thought that created an inference for readers that there was a causal link between political incitement and the shooting of Gabby Giffords. The point where that happens is where we say the link to political incitement was clear.”
Vogt:“Is ‘incitement’ a strong word?”
Bennet:“I’d say so. Yeah.”
Bennet admitted to Vogt that he ultimately failed as a journalist:
Vogt:“As a journalist, are you taught to consider how the reader may interpret words you use when you’re writing a piece?”
Bennet: “Yes.”
Vogt:“Did you do that when you were writing ‘America’s Lethal Politics’?”
Bennet:“I endeavored to do that, but I failed to do that.”
Vogt:“While you were at The Atlantic up through today during your tenure at The New York Times, have you ever published any pieces that called out the left for using what you just called incendiary rhetoric?”
Bennet: “I don’t remember. I don’t know.”
Vogt also asked Bennet about his family’s political connections to the Democratic Party. Bennet did not seem to remember key details about their ties to Clinton and Obama:
Vogt:“When you were a White House correspondent during the Clinton administration, was your brother Michael working there?”
Bennet:“I don’t remember. I can check on that. He had — I don’t think so. I don’t think so…”
Vogt:“At some point though, he did have a position within the Clinton administration, correct?”
Bennet:“He worked at the Justice Department for a while.”
Vogt:“Did your father also work with the Clinton administration?”
Bennet:“He had been with the Clinton administration. Yes.”
Vogt:“Did your brother Michael have a role with President Obama’s election committee?”
Bennet:“I actually don’t know the answer to that.”
Vogt:[Laughs] “Okay.”
Bennet:“I don’t. He may have.”
Vogt:“But I thought I saw something indicating that he was a co-chair of President Obama’s campaign committee.”
Bennet:“It wouldn’t surprise me if he was, I just don’t know.”
Vogt:“Have you ever written speeches for your brother?”
Bennet:“In his first run for Senate, I edited — I did not write any speeches for him, but I edited and looked over a couple of speeches for him.”
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.
Twitter, Facebook deemed defendant guilty immediately after Wisconsin shooting
And if Kyle was black and the rioters were KKK…? [US Patriot]
Social media platforms rendered a verdict on Kyle Rittenhouse long before he went to trial, suppressing claims that he was innocent and blocking users from searching for details of the case.
Immediately after the anti-police riots that thrust Rittenhouse into the national spotlight, social media companies began to block users who expressed support for the Illinois teen. Twitter suspended the accounts of users who called Rittenhouse innocent, including the defendant’s own lawyer. Facebook said it “designated this shooting as a mass murder and … removed the shooter’s accounts from Facebook and Instagram.” The platform also blocked searches for “Kyle Rittenhouse.”
Social media platforms often intervene to suppress posts expressing a particular stance on controversial issues. Both platforms censored news stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the month before the 2020 election. Facebook blocked a Gold Star mother’s criticism of President Joe Biden and suppressed a song that criticized the president. Twitter and Facebook also suspended users who oppose vaccine mandates.
The fundraising platform GoFundMe also removed a page set up to support Rittenhouse, which the company said violated its ban on fundraisers involving “the legal defense of alleged crimes associated with hate, violence, harassment, bullying, discrimination, terrorism, or intolerance.” GoFundMe supported fundraising for the family of one of Rittenhouse’s assailants, Anthony Huber. The site regularly hosts fundraisers for individuals associated with Black Lives Matter.
When smaller platforms began raising funds for Rittenhouse, hackers breached the donation lists. News outlets doxxed paramedics and police officers who gave small donations to Rittenhouse’s defense.
Twitter is still banning or suspending users for supporting Rittenhouse, even as the trial proceeds. Facebook searches for Rittenhouse’s name turn up no results. Neither platform responded to requests for comment.
Rittenhouse faces six charges, including two counts of homicide, after shooting three men who attacked him during last August’s anti-police riots in Kenosha, Wis. His murder trial began on Nov. 1. His defense hopes that videos that show rioters assaulting Rittenhouse will bolster his self-defense claim.
A Swiss billionaire is bankrolling a leading dark money group lobbying for the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan and green energy jobs initiatives, according to corporation and lobbying records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
Climate Power, one of the main groups pushing for the White House’s climate agenda, has billed itself as a traditional advocacy organization, with an advisory board featuring John Podesta, Stacey Abrams, and former senator Harry Reid. But the group doesn’t actually exist independently—it is owned and operates as a front group under the Fund for a Better Future, a Democratic dark money organization that has received the majority of its funding from Swiss health care mogul Hansjorg Wyss’s foundation since 2016, according to corporation records.
Wyss has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Fund for a Better Future and other progressive dark money groups and has been the subject of controversy since his opaque web of donations was detailed by the New York Times last spring. The connection between the Wyss-funded Fund for a Better Future and Climate Power has not been reported until now.
The link raises questions about foreign influence on the climate debate and the prominence of dark money groups in the Biden administration’s public advocacy campaign for the Build Back Better legislation. While foreign nationals are prohibited from contributing to federal campaigns, lawmakers and watchdogs have raised concerns about foreign donations to nonprofit political advocacy organizations—so-called dark money groups—which could be used as a legal loophole to influence elections.
Americans for Public Trust, a conservative watchdog group, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in May, calling for an investigation into whether some of Wyss’s donations amount to “campaign contributions from a foreign national, running afoul of federal law.”
The group told the Free Beacon that Wyss’s contributions to groups leading the climate legislation lobbying add to concerns about his political funding.
“Hansjörg Wyss has been indirectly funding American politics for years, so the news that his foreign money is tied up in this latest dark money campaign to pass President Biden’s legislative agenda comes as no surprise,” Americans for Public Trust executive director Caitlin Sutherland told the Free Beacon. “Americans for Public Trust has previously filed an FEC complaint against Mr. Wyss calling for an investigation into his political spending, and we look forward to the commission taking action.”
Wyss, a Swiss citizen born in Bern who has declined to clarify his citizenship status in the United States, has become one of the most prolific donors to progressive advocacy groups in recent years. His foundations, the Berger Action Fund and the Wyss Foundation, have poured over $200 million into organizations supporting Democratic policies since 2016, the New York Timesreported in May.
Since last summer, Climate Power has emerged as one of the most active lobbying arms of the Democratic Party’s climate agenda. The group rolled out a $10 million ad blitz in June, aimed at pushing lawmakers to support the Biden administration’s American Jobs Plan and Build Back Better legislation.
Climate Power also hired a lobbying firm, Pioneer Public Affairs, last February to press lawmakers in the House and Senate on “climate provisions of the American Rescue Plan (H.R.1319) and the American Jobs Plan,” according to lobbying disclosure records.
Climate Power is not an independent entity, according to records reviewed by the Free Beacon. The group operates under the ownership of the Fund for a Better Future, according to business records filed in Sacramento, where the fund is based.
The Fund for a Better Future received $44,468,000 from Wyss’s foundations between 2017 and 2020, according to the latest available financial disclosure records. Wyss’s contributions to the Fund for a Better Future make up “the majority of its funding” during this time, the Times reported in May.
Between 2017 and 2018, Wyss’s financial support accounted for 80 percent of the Fund for a Better Future’s total receipts, according to financial disclosure records.
According to Climate Power’s website, the group was founded “by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, League of Conservation Voters, and Sierra Club” and “integrates hard-hitting research, polling, state and national earned media, digital and paid media to influence the national conversation, embolden leaders to take immediate, bold climate action, and expose climate deniers and their oil and gas lobby allies.”
Climate Power launched another front group in August called the “Great American Build” to promote the Biden administration’s Build Back Better agenda. The Great American Build’s website describes it as a “public awareness campaign launched by Climate Power, League of Conservation Voters and their allies to build the momentum necessary to create millions of good clean energy jobs and give our economy the boost it needs.”
Climate Power did not respond to a request for comment. The Wyss Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
President Joe Biden’s appeasement is getting its usual payback.
An Iranian-backed militant group the Biden administration removed from a designated list of foreign terrorist organizations right after assuming power has stormed the shuttered U.S. Embassy in Yemen, making hostages of Yemenis who worked at the facility, The Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday.
And making fools, once again, of the Biden administration and its foreign policy.
BREAKING: Iran-Backed Militants Storm US Embassy in Yemen, Seize Hostages and Equipment — State Dept tells me it is ‘concerned about the breach of the compound,’ demands release of hostages & equipment https://t.co/vA8sQc35mt
According to the Free Beacon, the Houthi rebels, who’ve been fighting a proxy war on Iran’s behalf against the government on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, took over the compound in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Wednesday, leaving it to Biden’s beleaguered State Department to try to negotiate for the release of the employees.
“The United States has been unceasing in its diplomatic efforts to secure their release,” a State Department spokesman said, according to the Free Beacon. “The majority of the detained have been released, but the Houthis continue to detain additional Yemeni employees of the embassy.”
To be clear, the embassy has been closed since 2015, when the Obama administration and the State Department under then-Secretary of State John Kerry decided the situation amid the violence was untenable, as Fox News reported at the time. No Americans are among the Yemeni hostages.
Still, Yemen has remained a simmering cauldron on the world stage, breaking into the news periodically with reports of yet more Houthi savagery, the involvement of the Iranian government in that savagery, or the Democratic congressional effort to end U.S. support for the government fighting to defeat that savagery. (For nearly half a century, or roughly the entirety of Joe Biden’s political career, his party has been on exactly the wrong side when it came to fighting Islamic fascism. That’s probably not a coincidence.)
But there’s no way to safely ignore the role of Iran in the unrest.
Is the possibility of war greater with Joe Biden in the White House than it was with Donald Trump as president?
The world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism, where “Death to America” is practically the national motto, just proved once again that it has zero respect for a Biden administration that has projected nothing but weakness on the international stage since coming to power.
To Americans of a certain age, this all might sound familiar: Abroad, chaos with Iran playing a starring role, the storming of a U.S. embassy; at home, a weak Democrat in the White House and raging inflation, among other problems.
Welcome to the 1970s — an abysmal decade that isn’t looking any better with time.
As a National Review article pointed out, the raid on the embassy comes 10 months after the Biden administration, hoping to curry favor with the Iranian mullahs, overturned a decision made in the final days of the Trump administration to designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization.
At the time, according to ABC News, Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the decision was “a recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen.”
It was also, according to the Free Beacon, “seen as a goodwill gesture” toward the murderous mullahs of Tehran, in hopes of restarting talks on the Iran nuclear deal.
Well, it’s a good bet that Yemen’s “dire humanitarian situation” is no better now than it was back in February. And it’s an obvious conclusion that the “goodwill gesture” toward Tehran has paid off in the usual way such gestures do when dealing with the Islamist dictatorship: more aggression, more provocation, more terrorism.
In short, it’s an utter failure – one more humiliation for the United States to add to the Biden humiliation in Afghanistan, and one more sign that the Biden White House can’t truly be trusted by anyone except the country’s bitterest enemies — and then, only to do exactly the wrong thing.
In Yemen, even now, Yemeni nationals are in the hands of the Islamist terrorist group that, among other things, has staged missile attacks against Saudi Arabia, a country that, whatever its obvious faults, is a U.S. ally in the region.
And it’s one more example of how far the United States’ image has fallen since President Donald Trump left the White House.
Where Trump walked away from the Obama-era nuclear deal because it amounted to a blank check for the mullahs to obtain a nuclear weapon in the future, Team Biden is abasing itself and the country to try to get Iran back to the table.
Where Trump met Iranian provocation and intransigence with strength (see Soleimani, Qassim: Death of), his successor has established a record of weakness that gives confidence to the country’s enemies and anxiety to its friends.
And most importantly, where the Trump administration fostered peace or the potential for peace between Israel and its Arab foes in the region through a series of deals, Biden brings chaos and the potential for ever more war, with the deaths of innocents that inevitably come with it.
It’s appeasement that’s getting its usual payback.
Unfortunately, the country is likely to see a lot more of it in the next three years.
Earlier this year, many California citizens moved to oust Governor Gavin Newsom via recall petition and election. This ultimately ended up falling shy, however, as Newsom easily avoided the recall.
However, now another top progressive leader is on the hot seat in the Golden State. And those seeking to get rid of him already have enough signatures on the recall petition.
If successful, his career could hit a serious roadblock.
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is a progressive prosecutor, and thousands have been trying to remove him from office for much of 2021.
In fact, this is the second recall effort against him: the first didn’t manage to round up enough signatures, but the second is moving along at a much faster pace.
Now, with enough signatures, Boudin will have to face a recall election next year. And though Newsom didn’t fall in his election, it’s very possible that Boudin will have a tougher time hanging onto his spot.
Director of Elections John Arntz announced that the petition to remove Boudin “contains a sufficient number of valid signatures.”
This means the embattled DA will be forced to defend himself come 2022.
From Fox News:
As the first petition to recall Boudin failed to garner enough signatures to trigger a special election, news of a second recall effort against Boudin came in August.
Last month, prior to the certification of the petition, NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit reported ‘more than 83,000 signatures’ had already been submitted to force Boudin into a special election during the statewide primary election on June 7, 2022.
The Department reviewed 4,174 signatures, selected at random from the total 83,484 signatures collected.
This review showed that the petition had more than the minimum of 51,325 valid signatures, so it’s officially successful. This kicks off the second phase, which is a recall election next June.
Boudin has responded with a “Friends of Chesa” group that fights back against the recall.
They’re saying petitioners spent $1.4 million and used “shady tactics” to get the recall on the ballot. Spokesperson Julie Edwards said they’re “confident San Francisco voters will reject this Republican-funded and endorsed effort.”
But Boudin has been under fire for a while, primarily for “his lack of commitment to prosecuting crimes.”
If he falls in the recall election, San Francisco Mayor London Breed will have to find a temporary replacement, until the city elects a new District Attorney in November.
Even if Boudin avoids the recall as Newsom did, this petition is more proof that many California residents aren’t happy with their leadership. And it’s obvious that thousands are pushing back.
This could hint at a seismic shift in the traditionally Democrat-dominated state in the future.
And if that happens, things could look very different come 2024, when the next presidential election begins.
Key Takeaways:
San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin will face a recall election in June 2022.
The recall petition is officially successful, having garnered enough valid signatures (a total of 83,484 were collected).
Boudin has been criticized for not committing to his prosecution of crimes.
A New York City Black Lives Matter group threatened NYC Mayor-elect Eric Adams with “riots” and “bloodshed” if Adams restores the New York City Police Department’s anti-crime units.
The police anti-crime units were disbanded last year in reaction to Black Lives Matter protests and riots and calls to “defund” police departments. Adams, a Democrat, won election after campaigning on a tough-on-crime agenda and pledging to restore the NYPD’s anti-crime units.
Adams met with leaders of New York City’s Black Lives Matter movement at Brooklyn Borough Hall. After the meeting, Hawk Newsome, co-founder of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, and his sister Chivona Newsome, also a co-founder of the group, threatened civil unrest and violence if Adams kept to his campaign pledge.
“If he thinks that they’re going to go back to the old ways of policing, then we are going to take to the streets again. There will be riots, there will be fire and there will be bloodshed because we believe in defending our people,” Newsome told the New York Daily News after the meeting.
“So there is no way that he is going to let some Gestapo come in here and harm our people,” he continued. “We pray for peace but … prepare for the worst.”
His sister added: “We will shut the city down. We will shut down City Hall, and we will give him hell and make it a nightmare.”
During the meeting, Adams “erupted” at Newsome after the BLM leader swore to hold Adams responsible for any future misconduct by the NYPD, according to the Daily News.
“You’re on the ground: Stop the violence in my community. I’m holding you accountable,” Adams said.
“Don’t hold me accountable,” he continued. “Being the mayor, being the borough president, being the state senator — I put my body on the line for my community, so I’m not here for folks to come and say, ‘Eric, we’re gonna hold you accountable.’”
“No, it’s us. We need to do this together,” Adams said.
Last year, Newsome suggested that his group would use violence and chaos to push its policy goals while claiming “self-defense.”
“If this country doesn’t give us what we want then we will burn down the system and replace it,” he said in a June 2020 interview with Fox News. “All right. And I could be speaking figuratively, I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation. Like let’s be very real and observe the history of the 1960s. When black people were rioting we have their highest growth and wealth and property ownership.”
The NYPD eliminated its anti-crime unit earlier that same month, reassigning roughly 600 officers from the units into other posts at the NYPD. At the time, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea defended the decision as a chance to “move forward and change how we police in this city.”
“This is 21st-century policing: intelligence, data, ShotSpotter, video, DNA, and building prosecutable cases,” Shea said. “It continues to be building these cases—cases on a small number of people that unfortunately still terrorize a part of this city. I would consider this in the realm of closing on one of the last chapters on stop, question and frisk.”
For Transgender in a nutshell, see Monty Python’s “Life of Brian,” and look for Eric Idle’s “Stan (AKA Loretta)” character. [US Patriot]
Legendary actor John Cleese has cancelled a talk he was scheduled to give at Cambridge University due to what he called “woke rules” that resulted in another speaker getting blacklisted for doing an impression of Adolf Hitler.
Deadline reported that Cleese’s decision came a week after Cambridge University paper Varsity reported that Union speaker Andrew Graham-Dixon used a German accent to impersonate Hitler, using racial slurs in a videotaped meeting. Graham-Dixon said the act “was meant to be satirical and was not an endorsement of Hitler or anti-Semitism, claiming he had intended to ‘underline the utterly evil nature of Hitler and his regime,’” Deadline reported.
As the outlet noted, Cleese “famously impersonated Hitler while in character as Basil Fawlty in the 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers.”
Cleese confirmed in a tweet that he had canceled his speech at Cambridge.
“I was looking forward to talking to students at the Cambridge Union this Friday, but I hear that someone there has been blacklisted for doing an impersonation of Hitler,” Cleese wrote. “I regret that I did the same on a Monty Python show, so I am blacklisting myself before someone else does.”
“I apologise to anyone at Cambridge who was hoping to talk with me, but perhaps some of you can find a venue where woke rules do not apply,” Cleese added.
Cleese had planned to give the talk with the Channel 4 crew behind his new documentary series “Cancel Me” in attendance. The new series involves Cleese interviewing victims of cancel culture.
Cleese has been an outspoken opponent of cancel culture and those who have apologized when woke mobs came for them. In April, Cleese mocked Hank Azaria for apologizing over his portrayal of Apu on the Simpsons.
“Not wishing to be left behind by Hank Azaria, I would like to apologise on behalf on (sic) Monty Python for all the many sketches we did making fun of white English people,” Cleese tweeted. “We’re sorry for any distress we may have caused.”
The tweet came after Azaria said he left the role of Apu after some people told him they were offended by the character.
“I was speaking at my son’s school, I was talking to the Indian kids there because I wanted to get their input,” Azaria said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “A 17-year-old … he’s never even seen TheSimpsons but knows what Apu means. It’s practically a slur at this point. All he knows is that is how his people are thought of and represented to many people in this country.”
“I really do apologize,” Azaria added. “It’s important. I apologize for my part in creating that and participating in that. Part of me feels like I need to go to every single Indian person in this country and personally apologize. And sometimes I do.”
In July of last year, Cleese took on cancel culture directly, saying it “misunderstands the main purposes of life, which is to have fun.”
Illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Syria were reportedly apprehended Wednesday crossing the Rio Grande River across the southern border of the U.S. into Texas as Border Patrol continues to encounter migrants from a growing number of nations.
The exclusive report by retired Border Patrol agent Randy Clark was released Thursday on Breitbart.
Four of the individuals among a group of seven people reportedly apprehended Wednesday identified themselves as citizens of Afghanistan, according to a Customs and Border Protection source.
EXCLUSIVE: Afghans, Syrians, Pakistanis Apprehended in West Texas near Border https://t.co/kCMWBUYRG6
Two additional individuals were reportedly from India, while another was said to be a citizen of Pakistan.
Later the same day, the Del Rio Sector Border Patrol reportedly apprehended five more “significant interest migrants,” including four Syrian citizens.
Also on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security released an updated National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin.
The bulletin did not directly mention border crossings along the southern border.Should more National Guard troops be sent to the southern border?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
However, the update did note that “foreign terrorist organizations and [domestic violent extremists] continue to attempt to inspire potential followers to conduct attacks in the United States, including by exploiting recent events in Afghanistan.”
“As of November 10, 2021, DHS is not aware of an imminent and credible threat to a specific location in the United States.”
Concerns regarding migrants crossing the southern border continue to grow as the numbers have surged during President Joe Biden’s term in office.
An alarming 192,001 “land border encounters” were recorded by Customs and Border Protection in September. The number did not include migrants who alluded apprehension.
More than 1.7 million migrants have been apprehended at the southern border over the past year.
In addition to the large number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. in recent months, Biden authorized the entry of tens of thousands of Afghan refugees to live on U.S. military bases when the military departed Afghanistan at the end of August.
As of late October, more than 53,000 Afghans reportedly remained on eight American military bases. Nearly 6,700 additional Afghans have resettled within the U.S., according to an Oct. 25 Stars and Stripes report.
“Approximately 3,000 Afghans remain on U.S. military bases in the Middle East and another 463 are at U.S. bases in Europe, Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon,” the report said.
“Those evacuees are undergoing security screenings before they are taken to the U.S. to wait out their visa process.”
Several provinces and cities in China have released official guideline prices for human vital organs, such as livers, kidneys, and hearts. This is one of the actions taken by local governments following a notice issued by central authorities in July on fees and financial management measures for securing organs for transplant.
According to medical experts familiar with China’s organ transplant market, the actions indicate that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is attempting to normalize the country’s less than transparent organ transplant system as it continues to face pressure to disclose its sourcing of transplant organs.
In a July notice, the CCP ordered provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions to set their own rates for human organs effective Sept. 1.
In Henan Province, for example, six related departments, including the Health Commission, the Department of Finance, and the Market Supervision Administration, jointly issued “standard rates for donated organs.”
According to the list, organs for transplant include livers at 260,000 yuan ($40,700), kidneys at 160,000 yuan ($25,000), hearts at 100,000 yuan ($15,600), lungs at 80,000 yuan ($12,500), corneas at 10,000 yuan ($1,600), pancreas at 50,000 yuan ($7,800), small intestines at 50,000 yuan, and other organ segments.
Price Tags for Human Organs That Make No Medical Sense
Dr. Wayne Shih-wei Huang, a surgeon and director at the IRCAD Taiwan, Asia’s largest training center for minimally invasive surgery, said that the CCP is hoping to whitewash its transplant abuses by putting a price tag on human organs.
Huang told The Epoch Times that the CCP document clearly states that the cost of obtaining what it says are donated organs is calculated based on resource consumption, technology, labor value, and public acceptability.
However, in the organ prices listed by province officials, a heart is much cheaper than a kidney, which makes no sense in terms of medical cost. The cost of obtaining a heart should be higher than that of a kidney, since the heart must be extracted, appropriately stored, and transported within hours.
Huang believes that the pricing of organs is instead a reflection of market value and demand, and nothing to do with medical cost.
In addition, both Hubei and Henan provinces listed different prices for organs for children and adults. The price in Henan province is 100,000 yuan ($15,600) for a child’s liver, less than half of the 260,000 yuan ($41,000) for an adult. The prices for single and double kidneys for children are also lower than those for adults by 60,000 yuan ($9,400) and 80,000 yuan ($12,500) respectively.
Dr. Alex Chih-Yu Chen, medical director of Novartis Japan, told The Epoch Times that in terms of medical costs, organ supply and transplants for children are more difficult and should be more expensive than for adults.
Questionable Donation Figures
Dr. Huang believes that the CCP’s organ transplant system, in which organs are obtained, supplied, and traded, is only open to organ transplant hospitals. The system is not open to the public and not transparent, and is for the hospitals to make money.
“The CCP cannot make its organ transplant system as transparent as that of Western countries,” he said, but it must have a system on the surface for others to see.
He explained that the Red Cross Society of China, which is actually under the control of Beijing, is one of the organizations that documents organ donations and releases data to the national database. It says that in China, “organ donation is voluntary and free.”
The CCP will ostensibly get some organ donation cases, which may be used for media coverage of heartwarming patient stories, Huang said, but China’s Red Cross’s figures cannot be trusted.
Hamid Sabi—an independent counsel on the London-based China Tribunal, which found that forced organ harvesting had taken place “on a significant scale” in China—told a press conference in Belgium on Oct. 27 that the Chinese authorities have used testimony from China’s Red Cross to counter pressure from Europe, the United States, and other countries to provide transparency on its organ donation program.
But the Red Cross Society of China has nothing to do with the International Red Cross, Sabi said—it is simply an internal organ of the CCP that will certify whatever the party’s authorities demand of it.
As for the CCP’s official organ donor database, Sabi said that China’s claims of being able to obtain 2.8 organs per donor—which is 180 times higher than what is achievable by donation systems in Europe and the United States—would still fall far short of providing for the 10,000 transplants officially recorded per year.
Many experts also estimate that the actual number of transplants being conducted in China is magnitudes higher than the official figures.
CCP’s Live Organ Harvesting From Falun Gong Practitioners
A June 2016 report by David Kilgour, the former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific; David Matas, a human rights lawyer; and Ethan Guttmann, a senior American investigative journalist, estimated based on multiple sources of evidence that China could be performing between 60,000 to 100,000 transplants a year. Many indicators point to the main source of these organs being Falun Gong students and other prisoners of conscience caught up in China’s politicized judicial system.
Falun Gong is a spiritual meditation practice that became widely popular in China in the 1990s until it was banned in 1999 and its practitioners became the target of media slander, illegal arrests, and torture.
Reports from the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) also suggest that since the CCP began persecuting Falun Gong, imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners have become a large bank of living human organs for transplants in China.
The WOIPFG searched and analyzed hundreds of thousands of public media reports, papers, and databases from across 891 transplant hospitals and 9,515 transplant surgeons in China over the past 15 years, and found that, between 2000 and 2006, the number of organ transplants being conducted in China experienced exponential growth.
During the same period, at least one million Falun Gong practitioners were arrested and detained in China’s labor camps, prisons, detention centers, and brainwashing centers.
Of note, in addition to the top-rated hospitals in China that are qualified to perform transplants, many unqualified hospitals were transformed into transplant centers or started offering organ transplant procedures.
Eyewitness testimonies, audio recordings from interviews with 45 directors or doctors at 41 of China’s transplant hospitals and centers, and other information and evidence collated by the WOIPFG all point to the widespread forced removal of organs from Falun Gong practitioners across hospitals in China.
Each year we tell the world of our gratitude for the sacrifices of those who keep us free. But our gratitude is not enough.
In America, it’s Veteran’s Day. Across the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, it is Remembrance Day. In New Zealand, France, and Belgium it is Armistice Day, and in Poland, it is National Independence Day.
And it is an especially hard day in 2021, considering the sacrifices made by those who came before us, and the circumstances we have allowed to develop in their absence.
The fourth verse of For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon is the traditional Remembrance Day poem in the United Kingdom. Few have not heard it, even of younger generations:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
But the first verse perhaps should give us more pause, this year:
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
And whether you are from England, American, Australia, Canada, France, Belgium, Poland, New Zealand, or otherwise, those final words should resonate.
“Fallen in the cause of the free.”
The people the world remembers today were not fighting for a political party, nor for an oligarchy. They were fighting for something we have let too easily slip through our fingers. Basic freedoms. Freedoms, in fact, from oppressive, overbearing governments with little regard for life, and only regard for ideological or partisan compliance.
And today’s services of remembrance sting that little bit more knowing what hell the West hath wrought in our decades-long foreign wars that have left so many without full lives or full families.
The draw down in Afghanistan just three months ago served as a reminder – which of course most have now already forgotten – of the fragility of Western military might. And indeed the futility of our abilities to project values in places where they bear no weight.
That very point separates the hills of Kandahar from the Flanders Fields, not that the sharpest minds in foreign policy and military strategy seem to recognize it.
But then again, they’ve been very wrong, for so very long. As Peter Hitchens noted in pre-COVID 2018:
It has also struck me, since I am so often told that those who fought in 1914 did so for our freedom, that we are far less free as a people, from all kinds of government interference, than we were before that war. It was 1914 that began the era of heavy taxation, surveillance, regulation and general snooping and bureaucracy which now stifle us.
It was also 1914 that swept away the restrained and quiet world of yesterday, and the great, stuffy cumbersome empires of Austria, Germany and Russia, replacing them with the slick murderous modern empires of the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. Was this progress?
It wasn’t progress. And no “progress” has been made since the world removed those evils it installed in place of the empires that came before them. In reality, all we’ve achieved in 100+ years besides the good technological advancements that came from some relatively free enterprises using capital to lift people from poverty is cementing the dark specter of centralization as a means of governance. Today, we reap what has been sown.
“Fallen in the cause of the free”?
We do little to prove we ever deserved their sacrifices.
The Google-owned giant is going to hide “dislikes” to shield the Biden regime from criticism.
YouTube has removed its famous “dislike” button and counter following unprecedented levels of downvotes on President Biden’s White House channel videos. The removal of the feature was mooted in March. This week, it was announced that YouTube will be removing it.
When the Google-owned video streaming giant first announced the testing of new features surrounding the counter, an organization called 81m.org extrapolated data to determine the approval ratings of Biden’s channel. The site further noted that YouTube was manipulating dislikes to shield the early Biden administration from criticism.
When originally investigated by The National Pulse, it was found that within 6-12 hours of posting a video, YouTube began deleting dislikes from Biden’s videos. The firm continued to delete likes at regular intervals from that time onwards.
Twitter users were quick to note that the number of dislikes were removed. YouTube claimed, without evidence, that these dislikes were classified as “spam”.
Analysis by Zoe Phin found that the dislike counts were organic in nature, but the number of dislikes would reduce between the 6-12 hour mark after posting.
Analysis of other popular and mid-sized YouTubers revealed no manipulation in dislike counts.
Even with the dislike manipulation, The National Pulse found that all of Biden’s videos dislike count far outranked the likes. In one video “President Biden Reviews the Readiness of Military Troops in a Pass in Review” had twelve thousand (12,000) dislikes at the time of writing. The same video had only eighteen hundred (1,800) likes.
Almost a year later, the video only has forty-two hundred likes (4,200) and twenty thousand (20,000) dislikes. The inauguration video had only fifty-three thousand (5,300) likes to twenty-three thousand dislikes (23,000). The same video now has seventeen thousand likes (17,000) and one hundred and ten thousand dislikes (110,000).
A statement posted to YouTube’s Official Blog reads: “the dislike count will be private across YouTube, but the dislike button will remain.”
The platform stated the reasons for the removal were focused on “promoting respectful interactions between viewers and creators.” The statement went on to say that YouTube wants to reduce “dislike attacks – where people work to drive up the number of dislikes on a creator’s videos.” YouTube concludes by noting that this is just one of the steps being taken to reduce harassment on the platform.
Creators will still be able to view the dislike count in their YouTube Studio. The change started being rolled out on November 10th.
When President Joe Biden talks about “temporary” inflation, how long does “temporary” mean? Asking for America.
In October, inflation hit a high not seen in three decades, according to The Wall Street Journal. Prices year-over-year increased by 6.2 percent, the biggest jump since 1990. The core price index, meanwhile — which takes unpredictable food and energy prices out of the equation — sat at 4.6 percent, the highest since 1991.
When Biden took office in January, inflation was at 1.4 percent. By April, it had soared to 4.2 percent. It was at 5 percent in May and has stayed above that number ever since.
And yet, Biden has been dismissive of the idea that there would be any kind of long-term inflation problem — because Wall Street said so.
On July 19, for instance, the president said, “We also know that as our economy has come roaring back, we’ve seen some price increases.
“Some folks have raised worries that this could be a sign of persistent inflation — but that’s not our view,” he continued. “Our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price increases we’ve seen were expected and expected to be temporary.”
On July 21, he also said “the vast majority of the experts — including Wall Street — are suggesting that it’s highly unlikely that it’s going to be long-term inflation, that it’s going to get out of hand.”
Is inflation a real issue?
Yes, no long-term inflation problem because Wall Street said so. And it’s not just the president who comes across as a man who’s never read or watched the movie adaptation of “The Big Short,” Michael Lewis’ postmortem of the 2008 economic crisis and Cassandra-esque warning about why trusting Wall Street may not be the wisest move there is.
Take Jared Bernstein, a member of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.
“From the start, we were clear that inflation would firm as the rescue plan got shots in arms and checks in pockets,” Bernstein said in June, according to Politico.
“The reason these price pressures are upon us is getting lost: There’s an extremely robust recovery afoot, with strong job creation and wage gains for workers who finally have some bargaining clout.”
By most metrics, however, wage increases haven’t been able to keep up with inflation, according to a Friday CNBC report. Not only that, as the financial network noted in September, many analysts were concerned about how rising wages and the labor shortage were inducing inflation numbers to rise. It seems that if you pay people more money for the same work, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to be any better off — particularly if that causes costs to rise.
It’s worth noting that with this round of inflation numbers, Joe Biden is paying attention. Kind of.
“Inflation hurts Americans pocketbooks, and reversing this trend is a top priority for me,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday. “The largest share of the increase in prices in this report is due to rising energy costs — and in the few days since the data for this report were collected, the price of natural gas has fallen.”
“Other price increases reflect the ongoing struggle to restore smooth operations in the economy in the restart: I am traveling to Baltimore today to highlight how my Infrastructure Bill will bring down these costs, reduce these bottlenecks and make goods more available and less costly. And I want to reemphasize my commitment to the independence of the Federal Reserve to monitor inflation and take steps necessary to combat it.”
That first part isn’t just grammatically incorrect. The core price index still takes energy out of the equation — and it’s higher than it’s been in 30 years. The second part is disingenuous: Biden’s infrastructure bill won’t help bring down supply chain-induced inflation any time in the near future, to the extent trillions more in government spending will quell inflation at all.
But don’t just ask me. Ask Wall Street, as Joe Biden was so willing to do back in the summer. According to The Hill, Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, said in a Wednesday analysis that we’re just getting started.
“The costs for low-wage households to cover their commuting costs, grocery bills and rents are eating into the jump they have seen in wages,” Swonk wrote. “The public is angry.”
“Inflation is sizzling and will likely get hotter before it cools.”
Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps she’s not. Whatever the case, however, our inflationary issues don’t feel like they fit under any reasonable definition of “temporary” any more.
The Democrat who has battled to keep the Biden administration and far-out liberals from spending their way off an inflationary cliff can count on a Republican to back him in the next election.
Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, a Republican and a billionaire, said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he will raise funds for Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
For weeks, Manchin has rejected multiple elements of the spending plan proposed by the Bidenistas in Congress, saying last week, “I for one won’t support a multitrillion-dollar bill without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects of inflation,” according to WDJT-TV.
“I don’t see leadership any place in this country. Thank god for Joe Manchin. The guy gots guts and courage … I’m going to have one of the biggest fundraisers I’ve ever had for him. He’s special,” says Ken Langone on @Sen_JoeManchin. pic.twitter.com/HUkZHdI41a
“Thank God for Joe Manchin. The guy’s got guts and courage.”
Although Langone has never supported Manchin before, he will now. Manchin is up for re-election in 2024.
Will the Democrats still end up spending too much money?
“He’s a Democrat, I’m a Republican; I’m going to have one of the biggest fundraisers I’ve ever had for him,” Langone said. “He’s special. He’s precious. He’s a great American.”
But Langone was far more somber as he turned to a subject that vexes him and Manchin – inflation.
“Let me give you a warning — this inflation is a lot worse than people think. It is not transitory. The little people … they’re going to suffer,” Langone said.
Inflation rose 6.2 percent in the 12 months that ended in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Wednesday.
That’s the biggest monthly increase in 30 years, according to CBS News.
Fuel oil prices are up nearly 60 percent, gas is up about 50 percent, and average food costs are up over 5 percent. Beef is up about 20 percent, and pork is up approximately 14.
US crushed by an inflation crisis, energy crisis, supply chain crisis, employment crisis, border crisis (to name a few). In response, Dems planning to vote for a bill that spends trillions, taxes energy, offshores supply chains, pays people not to work & abolishes migration caps.
Inflation is now at 6.2%, which represents a huge tax increase on the working class. Joe Biden is a much worse version of Jimmy Carter & the idea that the government spending trillions more is going to make inflation lower, which is what they are arguing, is absolute insanity.
Manchin said the report shows that the Biden party line of inflation being just a tiny passing cloud is way off.
By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not “transitory” and is instead getting worse. From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day.
“By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not ‘transitory’ and is instead getting worse,” Manchin said on Twitter. “From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day.”
Forbes has reported that Langone has donated over $2.4 million to Republican causes since 2019.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Wednesday threatened to send illegal immigrants to President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware following reports the White House has directed dozens of flights of migrants to Florida in the dead of night.
Amid the ongoing border crisis, 70 flights filled with foreign nationals were flown into the city of Jacksonville in the middle of the night with no notice given to city or state officials, a Florida official told the Washington Examiner on Saturday.
“On average, there’s 36 passengers on each of these flights. And that has been going on over the course of the summer through September,” said Larry Keefe, DeSantis’ public safety czar.
Florida Republican Rep. Maria Salazar was among those to scorch the White House over the flights.
“It’s very embarrassing that this is happening … no one really asks us, the brown community, the representatives of the Latinos in this country, how do we feel about this?” she said Monday during an interview with Fox News.
“And I’m going to tell you that this is extremely embarrassing because do you know where those people wind up at? In our barrios, in neighborhoods and we do not know if those people are child sex traffickers, if they’re drug dealers, if they’re coyotes,” she said.
Salazar called for “immigration reform,” but that might be too late for one family.
According to police, a 24-year-old Honduran man named Yery Medina Ulloa lied about his age to get into the country this year and then stabbed a man to death, WJXT-TV reported Nov. 4.
The Associated Press reported that witnesses found Medina Ulloa covered in blood near a pond in Jacksonville on Oct. 7 after police say he killed Francisco Cuellar, a 46-year-old father of four who had taken in the immigrant.
Do you think DeSantis would be a great president?
Citing the case, DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw told the AP that border agents should have known Medina Ulloa “was not a minor, was dishonest about his real identity, and should not be free to move around our country.”
The governor said in a statement to WJXT last week that the “horrific crime is the latest example of how unfettered illegal migration costs Floridians’ lives. If not for the Biden Administration’s unlawful ‘catch and release’ policy, Francisco Cuellar would still be alive today.”
On Wednesday, DeSantis was asked about the immigrant flights during a news conference in Jacksonville — and responded by threatening to send illegals flown to his state to Biden’s home state.
“We’re going to get together and figure out what we can do in the immediate term to protect folks in Florida,” the Republican governor said, noting that because the federal government has jurisdiction over the air, his options are limited.
If the federal government isn’t going to protect Floridians, he said, “then clearly, I think, the state should be able to come in and provide protections, and so that’s what we’re going to be looking to do.”
What might DeSantis have up his sleeve? Buses headed north, he said.
“If they’re going to come here, you know, we’ll provide buses … I will send them to Delaware,” the governor said.
“If he’s not going to support the border being secured, then he should be able to have everyone there,” DeSantis said of Biden.
According to the New York Post, he was not joking. Pushaw told the paper that while the governor’s reference to Delaware was tongue-in-cheek, the idea of busing migrants out of Florida is being considered.
“To the extent that the federal government is paying for them to go all over the country and resettling them in Jacksonville, would it be against the law for us to send them somewhere else? … That’s something that I think we would want to look into,” she said.
“The big question is, how many more people can get through and what are the holes in this vetting process?” Pushaw added. “The Biden administration has not shared any information with us regarding how that vetting takes place.”
The governor’s remarks were met with a harsh backlash from leftists on Twitter.
DeSantis is also working with Republican Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, who this week tweeted his ire about planes full of migrants landing in his city.
2. To be specific, this is happening in Jacksonville without any communication with us. We hear about it after they land.
The Biden administration all year has failed border communities. Now, people as far away as Florida are being asked to absorb a never-ending influx of illegal migrants, at least one of whom has allegedly killed someone.
If a state is going to be asked to house and pay for people who don’t belong in the country, and some of them might be violent, why not send them straight to Dover or Wilmington?
Delaware is not your average blue state. Delaware elected Biden to the Senate and then kept on electing him for decades until he eventually wandered his way into the White House. Shouldn’t those voters be the ones feeling the consequences?
Parents who never imagined running for office battled to win seats on local school boards last week; they won some, but lost many. Their fiercest opponents were the teachers unions.
The media portrayed these school board races as culture wars, but more than anything they were struggles by parents to wrest control of the boards from self-serving unions. For decades, the unions have maintained a tight grip on who gets elected. No wonder school district decisions—about budgets, masking, COVID closures, curriculum, and teacher contracts—protect teachers first. Never mind what’s best for kids.
That needs to change. Albuquerque, New Mexico, winning candidate Courtney Jackson told a local newspaper, “the board of education should be the kids’ union,” not a puppet of the teachers union. Jackson decided to run after watching the board discuss when to end lockdowns. The discussion focused entirely on what teachers wanted, never addressing the kids’ needs. “Their interests were not brought up once,” she said.
In Guilford, Connecticut, a small seacoast town, the Guilford Education Association, representing teachers, ran the show. In a questionnaire for school board candidates, the union’s No. 1 question asked candidates to pledge support for “collective bargaining rights.” Question two asked candidates to guarantee unions will be included in all discussions of the schools’ policies and funding. Question three asked candidates to promise to “oppose all proposals that would censor teachers from teaching about inclusion, diversity, and equity.” What about the kids?
All five Guilford candidates who gave the “correct” answers won the union’s backing and prevailed on election night. Their slogan was “Protect Guilford Schools,” but their true goal was “Protect the Teachers Union.” One of the winners boasted of coming from “a long line of educators,” while another promised, “I will listen to our teachers, administrators, and superintendent and respect that they act always in the best interest of our students and schools.”
Nearly everywhere, teachers unions use money and manpower to turn out voters. Challengers need to do the same. The three Albuquerque school board candidates who defeated the union slate went to the local chamber of commerce, other small business groups, and Republican party allies for alternate sources of money.
When the results were in, the president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation predicted “a new dynamic on the board,” with some members actually disagreeing with the school district’s employees. Imagine that.
In Colorado’s cities, including Denver and Steamboat Springs, union slates won handily. But in Douglas County, Aurora County, and Greeley Evans School District 6, challengers outspent the union and broke its monopoly on school board seats.
After union-backed candidates were defeated in Douglas County, Kevin DiPasquale, president of the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, predicted big changes. In the past, teachers could just assume the school board “had their backs.”
In Montclair, New Jersey, the mayor, Sean Spiller, serves as president of the state’s largest teachers union but also appointed the school board—a blatant conflict of interest. The board negotiates the teachers’ contract. Last Tuesday, the town voted 70 percent in favor of replacing mayoral control with an elected board.
That’s an improvement, but electing the board won’t guarantee students become the priority. In New Jersey, the teachers union wields enormous electoral power with the support of Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.
Although school board elections are often officially labelled nonpartisan, that’s intentionally misleading. In Tennessee and Florida, Republican state lawmakers are pushing legislation to discard the nonpartisan label so voters can see these elections for what they are.
Last week’s elections were just the beginning. Many school districts will elect board members sometime in the spring, instead of on Election Day. That’s by design to keep the public in the dark that an election is even happening, and to discourage turnout.
Parents and other concerned citizens have roughly half a year to gird for these upcoming contests. For anyone who has a child in public school, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
The other night I had a brief but remarkable dream. I was speaking out against a proud propaganda artist regarding a poster he intended to give out to his fellows. He was peddling the sort of agitprop that one would expect to find in our fallen world and I wasn’t having any of it.
Now normally I would remain silent on such matters in the waking world, but in the dream I was boldly speaking out against the worldly misinformation.
I was ruminating on this dream for the greater portion of the morning, and while being careful not to read too much into it, I started thumbing my woolen knots in order to calm my spirit and try to discern which prayerful meditation may have inspired these feelings of mutebreak within me. Then it hit me, these words from my newly discovered patron that I chanced upon in an icon:
“Brothers: it is later than you think. Hasten, therefore, to do the work of God.” – Fr. Seraphim Rose
What explicit conviction these words bring to the humbled heart! Too careful I have been in the past few years of wavering unbelief to speak out against anything. -Lord have mercy-
Despite an entire lifetime spent in the shade of the shadow of the cross, I could not make declarations outside of echo chambers for fear of being wrong, cancelled or sounding a neophyte. -Lord have mercy-
The wanderings through culture secular and sanctified, all to sound well-read and enlightened, and yet I was fooled by a prelest-like false peace. -Lord have mercy-
No more. And so here we are, how can I begin to describe the wellspring from which words become intelligible and articulated again. This much I can relate: it is not for me to boast.
Those familiar with the epic animated film “The Prince of Egypt” 1998, will remember a particular scene that can make a man cry. From the Burning Bush, the LORD answers a shying Moses thusly:
“…Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? 12 Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.” Exodus 4:11-12 NKJV
Moses has been thought to have had a stutter or some other sort of speech impediment, more reason to have been reluctant than I. Yet by heeding the voice of God he went on to become one of the most important figures of the faith, remembered and venerated for generations after.
What is the point of saying all of this at all? Why speak up now, after years of suppression in a feigned humility? In my zigzagging back towards the light, I have remembered what is truly essential to be spoken and shared, more so than any political opinion, any scientific declaration, any sign or wisdom or identity or nationality: “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness” 1 Cor 1:23 NKJV.
This, the entire reason behind the repetitions ’round my rope (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner), the one thing so worth saying that it has reignited the logos within me.
This supreme truth, from which all other conversations and creations may follow, and by which I would have a solid foundation to begin again using my talents, is the essence of what is at all worth saying, or gabbing.
In this little dark age we have all been living through, let all of us who have been called and gifted with the ability to speak, write or sing, do so.
May we use our God-given talents to build for the Kingdom of God by participating in the re-creation of our fallen world remade in the image of His Son Jesus Christ.
I pray that this short post becomes a sort of rallying cry for all of the “little-c” creators out there and I can assure you that there will be much more to come on this subject. That thrilling adventure of the escape from stagnation and silence and towards a pursuance of beauty & truth, or, a craving of the cup.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health is refusing to share complete information about how it counted COVID-19deaths for reports ordered by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
The reports were ordered when the House unanimously approved a resolution in November 2020 requiring the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC) to review the Department of Health’s reporting of COVID-19 testing and deaths.
State Rep. Kate Klunk sponsored the legislation, House Resolution 1087, noting that throughout the pandemic, there have been discrepancies in the information published by the Department of Health, including thousands of COVID-19 positive cases being removed from the daily totals, days where there were significant statistical anomalies in the data, the commingling of data, and COVID-19 being listed as a factor of death when the cause of death was something else.
The LBFC was tasked with providing rolling reports continuing until 90 days after Gov. Tom Wolf’s emergency declaration ends. That declaration ended in June. Five months later, the LBFC issued its first report (pdf) on Nov. 10 after being delayed due to a lack of information.
The LBFC is a bipartisan body made up of state representatives and senators. It routinely conducts studies within the Pennsylvania state government.
“Our intent was to review death certificates/records for individuals who had COVID-19 listed on their death record,” the report reads.
And although the information that the LBFC sought is generally confidential under the state’s 1953 Vital Statistics Law, the law provides exceptions to that confidentiality, allowing for the Department of Health to share the information with government agencies. The law also permits sharing the information for research.
However, LBFC’s request for death records was denied.
The Department of Health wrote in letters that the LBFC isn’t an “agency of government,” that its work isn’t “in the interest of conduct of official duty,” and that its work studying and analyzing the reporting of death records is “not research.”
“We strongly disagree with the department’s position on each of these points,” the report reads.
The LBFC finally received what it described as “highly redacted information.” With that information, it issued the report with a “scope limitation,” meaning the report attempts to answer a research question, but the limitations imposed by the lack of access to information impairs the ability to arrive at an answer.
“Unfortunately for the people of Pennsylvania, the Wolf administration attempted to shield data needed by the LBFC to do its review,” Klunk said in a Nov. 10 statement. “It’s mind boggling to me that a branch of government would try to deny a bipartisan, bicameral government entity that routinely examines data and performs research, information it needs to complete its task.”
Study findings
The LBFC noted that this is the first of what will be several studies related to COVID-19 data reporting, and it made some recommendations:
First, the Department of Health should improve its data collection and presentation on its website. While COVID-19 data is plentiful on the site, it needs better descriptions of its source and where and why it may conflict with other presented data sources. And the Department should resolve the inconsistent reporting that’s apparent in long-term care facility data, according to the report.
Second, the department should monitor the accuracy in cause of death reporting by creating a task force to address ongoing issues. Cause of death reporting was an issue before the pandemic, according to the report. Since the pandemic, the need for accurate cause of death reporting has been emphasized. The task force should include coroners, physicians, funeral directors, and medical schools. It should work to improve reporting.
Finally, the General Assembly should consider amending the Vital Statistics Law to expressly grant access to the records to legislative agencies, in order to avoid any future confusion.
The 110-page report goes into detail about the intentions of the study and the difficulties the agency faced in obtaining the necessary data. Both the LBFC and the Department of Health have used attorneys to negotiate for or block access to data.
The report provides demographic information as well. Of those who died of COVID-19 in 2020, there were 8,092 females and 7,886 males. Asian American deaths numbered 266, the category “other” accounted for 573 deaths, and there were 2,243 black deaths and 12,896 white deaths.
In 2020, no one under the age of 14 died from COVID-19 in Pennsylvania, and five died in the age range of 15 to 19, the report shows. Deaths increase with age noticeably at roughly age 60, and the majority of people who died from COVID-19 in 2020 were aged 85 to 89. In that age group, 2,792 people died.
“This data shaped policies imposed by Gov. Tom Wolf throughout this pandemic,” Klunk said. “He and all Pennsylvanians have a right to know that the data driving public health policy and individual health choices is reliable. If the governor wants a ‘government that works,’ he and his administration must be willing to not only talk the transparency talk, but walk the transparency walk by releasing this data and working with the LBFC.”
Pennsylvania acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam, speaking to the press in Lancaster, Penn., on Sept. 14, 2021 (Commonwealth Media Service)
In a Nov. 3 letter to the LBFC, Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam reiterated the position that the department isn’t legally authorized to share the requested death records with the LBFC.
“The department worked closely with LBFC to support its drafting of the report and is pleased to see the result will largely serve as a great educational tool for the General Assembly and the Public,” Beam wrote. “The department believes that Pennsylvanians have a right to accurate and concise data and information related to the COVID-19 pandemic response.”
A federal appeals court on Thursday halted the scheduled transfer of records of President Donald Trump’s time in office from the National Archives to Congress, ruling that Congress cannot access the files for now.
A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overruled a federal judge, who had opined earlier this week that a House of Representatives panel investigating the Jan. 6 of the U.S. Capitol had a legitimate legislative purpose in seeking the records.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama nominee, said the transfer could proceed as planned on Friday.
Trump appealed. Jesse Binnall, a Trump lawyer, said the former president is likely to prevail as he tried to convince the higher court to enter an injunction against Chutkan’s order.
“The alleged legislative purpose underpinning the overbroad request at issue here clearly does not merit involving the President and his records,” Binnall said. “The Committee has failed to identify anything in the broad swath of requested materials that would inform proposed legislation.”
The panel agreed to stop the transfer, pending a further order from the court.
The court will hear the case in the coming days before making a more permanent ruling.
Trump’s team was ordered to file a brief by Nov. 16 at noon, with a brief due from the House panel six days later. Trump’s team can respond in a second filing due by Nov. 24 at noon. Oral argument is slated to take place on Nov. 30.
The panel consisted of Judges Patricia Millett, an Obama nominee; Robert Wilkins, an Obama nominee; and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden nominee.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the head of the Jan. 6 House panel, did not immediately react to the order.
A year after the election day in 2020, concerns still linger about election integrity in many states. This does not mean the election results are deeply in question, but it does suggest a need for more secure election processes next cycle.
According to Just the News, election integrity group VoterGA filed an Open Records Requests regarding the alleged destruction of ballot images from the 2020 election in Georgia. Their findings were stunning.
VoterGA said 74 Georgia counties had failed to produce the images, and it said 56 counties confirmed “most or all of the images” had been destroyed.
The images were automatically created by Dominion Voting Systems machines for tabulating votes, Just the News reported. The outlet said these images are “crucial for election records.”
Ballot images for people who voted in person are stored on compact flash memory cards. For ballots that were mailed in, the images are stored on flash drives.
After the elections, the most populated counties use scanners to transfer the images to the Election Management Server. Less populated counties manually upload the flash drives and cards to the server.
According to Just the News, federal law requires these images to be kept for 22 months post-election. In Georgia, state law dictates that the images be kept for 24 months.
Despite that, the election integrity group said the images are nowhere to be seen just 12 months after the 2020 presidential election.
“At least 28 counties admitted having no original images at all and 22 of those counties only had recount images that some claimed are the same as originals,” VoterGA said.
Are you concerned about election integrity?
Even if the recount images are the same as the originals, VoterGA said they are not as useful. Recount images lack original timestamps and meta data that the original images have.
For that reason, Just the News reported recount images are invalid for audits since “they can be changed by tampering between scans.”
The mere fact that many counties could not provide ballot images does not necessarily mean the election results were inaccurate. However, it does cast even more doubt on an already suspect election process in Georgia.
One of Georgia’s largest counties, DeKalb, has experienced a litany of issues since the election. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, DeKalb County elections director Erica Hamilton was placed on leave without explanation in early September, and she later resigned.
In addition, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger opened a probe into DeKalb County drop boxes from the election, according to a separate article from Just the News.
“The investigation includes not only whether DeKalb County properly complied with the documentation required by the State Election Board but also whether the actual procedures used by DeKalb adequately protected chain of custody for ballots returned to drop boxes,” the secretary of state’s office said in September.
When Georgia passed new laws to shore up future elections, leftists went crazy and accused them of suppressing minority voters. Major League Baseball even moved the All-Star Game out of Atlanta because of the new regulations.
In order to ensure American confidence in elections, malpractice must be addressed quickly and thoroughly. The latest issue in Georgia is another reminder that we still have a long way to go in the fight for election integrity.
The following is an installment in a weekly series of commentary articles by Cameron Arcand, host of the Young Not Stupid interview series and a contributor to The Western Journal.
While most documentaries now are either about serial killers or social justice movements, the Daily Caller’s “Cartelville, USA” brings fresh investigative journalism to the table.
The film, clocking in at a brief but impactful 36 minutes, features reporter Jorge Ventura as he delves into a troubling trend in the high desert of Los Angeles County: illegal cannabis farms.
Ventura was the perfect person to produce and narrate the documentary, as he is one of the few journalists who have covered the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border on location.
Ventura uses his own experience growing up in Palmdale, California, to explain that many families move to the desert to get out of the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. Now, they’re starting to flee what used to be their sanctuary.
Using testimonies from local residents and law enforcement, the documentary reveals how cartels are buying up cheap houses with vast amounts of land in order to start pot farms without proper state licensing.
Property prices in the area have skyrocketed, ruining the region’s reputation for being more affordable. The high desert is now overrun by criminal enterprises wasting precious resources, including water, with no regard for the communities around them.
Are progressive policies to blame for California’s illegal cannabis problem?
These cartels staff their operations with migrants smuggled in from the southern border, many of whom are working as indentured servants.
Ventura does a fantastic job drawing distinctions between the people running the farms and the ones laboring on them.
He tells a far more nuanced story about the average person coming across the border than the hyper-partisan narrative coming from both sides of the aisle.
Furthermore, the documentary clarifies which state laws make these operations possible in a way that is simple enough for laypeople to understand.
The fault lies with poor policies and, of course, with people — namely, Democratic Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón.
Gascón is currently under the threat of a recall petition, as his progressive law enforcement style has left many in the community feeling unsafe. Realistically, he would be the one necessary for a crackdown on illegal cannabis farms in the county.
LA County DA Gascón under fire as convicted killer set to be released 6 years into 50-year sentence https://t.co/UTJKNH1nCl
In Florida, every county has a supervisor of elections.
These supervisors have their own professional organization, the Florida Supervisors of Elections. Until 2019, their name was the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, which made their purpose far clearer. But then two years ago they changed it to the current name, “Florida Supervisors of Elections,” which hides their real purpose and makes them look like an official government body. Their website looks almost exactly like an official government website. It includes links for registering to vote. It has a calendar of election dates. It has a whole battery of links to other state election websites. It has a profile photo for the current chief of the organization, whom you might come away thinking is the holder of an official statewide post.
But of course, the Florida Supervisors of Elections organization is not a government body. It’s just a professional group representing all the county supervisors.
That might be all right if it were just a boring organization nobody had to pay attention to. But the Florida supervisors are not that. They’re staking out political territory. Last month, they released a statement, claiming that concern about fraud in the 2020 election is undermining, quote, “the integrity of our democracy.”
This group presents itself as a body for organizing and training 67 different election supervisors. If they’re then putting out statements assuring everyone that our elections are perfect, and we should ignore the obvious problems with mail voting and everything else, what exactly is the group teaching its members?
It gets weirder, though. Last June, all 67 of Florida’s election supervisors attended a conference organized by this group. Who sponsored that conference? What would be the absolute most ridiculous group that could sponsor a gathering of election supervisors? We’ll wait a few seconds for you to think on that.
Okay, ready? That’s right. It’s Dominion Voting Systems. They sponsored the Florida Election Supervisors. And by the way, it wasn’t just the supervisors there. Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee addressed the conference.
So this conference has dozens of elected officials at it, being addressed by the appointed chief overseer of Florida’s elections. And get this: It wasn’t open to the public. You could buy a ticket to go, but they sold out, and the proceedings weren’t broadcast online.
Now, you start to see an additional purpose for this organization to exist. Florida has one of the broadest sunshine laws in the country. Pretty much all government and legal documents are accessible to the public. Political proceedings have to be public too. But through this “non-profit”, dozens of elected officials and the secretary of state are meeting up to discuss governmental matters, but because it’s not “official” it’s not subject to the sunshine law and the public doesn’t have to have access.
It’s all shady, and Governor Ron DeSantis is letting his own chosen secretary of state participate in this.
Laura Loomer has been tracking this story, and just 6 days ago she published a video showing her interaction with that Dominion Voting Systems employee.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), a moderate who has broken with his party over a slew of issues, took to Twitter on Wednesday to warn that unprecedented inflation is not “transitory” as his party insists, but is only “getting worse.”
Currently, inflation of the U.S. dollar is at its highest level since 1990. According to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), inflation jumped by 0.9 percent in October alone, more than doubling September’s 0.4 percent increase.
The CPI showed a 30 percent increase in the price of energy in October. The price of gasoline itself increased by a staggering 49.6 percent in October.
These increased prices have been partly driven by an intentional effort by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to decrease their oil production. At the same time, the United States has cut its own oil production significantly since President Joe Biden, who promised to “transition away” from fossil fuels during the 2020 presidential campaign.
The cost of food also increased by 5.3 percent during the month of October, riding on the back of unprecedented supply chain issues.
Since Biden took office, many Democratic leaders, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Democratic caucus chair and co-chairs Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), have insisted that this unprecedented inflation is the result of the nation’s efforts to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The inflation, these leaders have insisted, is “transitory.” Sen. Joe Manchin, who has raised the alarm on inflation for months, does not agree with this assessment.
On Twitter, Manchin wrote: “By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not ‘transitory’ and is instead getting worse. From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day.”
The “inflation tax,” long a talking point for conservative and libertarian elements of the Republican Party, has been embraced by Manchin, who has demanded that his party limit its spending in order to combat continued inflation of the money supply.
In March 2020, soon after the beginning of the global pandemic, Congress authorized $2.2 trillion in spending to respond to the virus, which included direct payments to qualifying American families. President Donald Trump signed that bill into law not long after.
Later the same year, after months of wrangling, Congress passed an additional $900 billion in spending to modify and extend the earlier legislation, which Trump also signed into law.
Around a year after its original CCP virus relief package Congress, now controlled by Democrats, used the reconciliation process to pass a further $1.9 trillion bill called the American Rescue Plan on a party-line vote. The bill was quickly signed into law by Biden.
Recently, Democrats also passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill with some Republican support, though many in the GOP opposed the bill.
At the same time, Democrats tried to push through a $1.75 trillion budget bill even though the legislation had not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO); They failed in this effort after moderates demanded a CBO score as a precondition to vote for the bill, but Democrats still hope to pass the legislation in the near future.
The U.S. government has already added $6.2 trillion in new obligations with these bills, which will shoot to $7.95 trillion if the Democrats’ budget reconciliation bill is passed.
Manchin Has Tied Effects of Inflation to His Support of Budget Bill
In the wake of this unprecedented spending, Manchin has staked out a position against much of his party, emphasizing fiscal responsibility and warning of the effects that Democrats’ unprecedented spending will have on inflation.
“I will not support a bill that is this consequential without thoroughly understanding the impact it will have on our national debt, our economy, and most importantly all of our American people,” said Manchin at a Nov. 1 press conference. “We must allow time for complete transparency and analysis on the impact of changes to our tax code, energy, and climate policies to ensure that our country is well-positioned to remain the superpower of the world.”
At the same conference, Manchin accused his party of hiding the price of the bill.
The “so-called $1.75 trillion” reconciliation bill, said Manchin, is full of “shell games” and “budget gimmicks that make the real cost of the [bill] estimated to be nearly twice that amount.” He continued, “This is a recipe for economic crisis. None of us should ever misrepresent to the American people what the real cost of legislation is.”
“To be clear, I will not support the reconciliation bill without knowing how the bill will impact our debt and our economy and our country,” the West Virginia Democrat vowed.
Manchin also repeated a demand first put forward in a Sept. 2 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. To win his vote, he said on both occasions, his party must give him “greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on existing government programs.”
While Manchin staking out a position against his party is nothing new, he is now one of the only Democrats who have broken from the party line over inflation.
Manchin has tied his support for the Democrats’ budget bill, in part, to the effects of inflation. His latest split with the party over inflation could bode poorly for Democrats as they attempt to win Manchin’s vote for the budget bill after months of delays.
After the Labor Department report came out, Biden said that fighting inflation would now be a “top priority” for the administration, but getting inflation under control is sure to take some time—time that will be in short supply for congressional Democrats as they frantically try to pass their budget before the 2022 midterm election season.
For Democrats like John Kerry, no sacrifice is too great for the greater good — as long as it’s someone else doing the sacrificing.
The former secretary of state, U.S. senator, one-time Democratic presidential candidate and current Biden administration climate czar makes a pretense with the rest of his party of caring for the commoners in American life.
But in an interview from Glasgow, Scotland, this week, he made it clear that the policies of the White House he now serves are dead set on directly killing an industry that employs more than 40,000 of his fellow citizens.
“By 2030 in the United States, we won’t have coal,” Kerry said in an interview Tuesday, according to Bloomberg News. “We will not have coal plants.”
Kerry was speaking at COP26, one of those periodic multinational gatherings where the good and the great gather together to display their hypocrisy on the world stage while talking about ways to battle the boogeyman of “climate change,” usually on the backs of those far less fortunate.
In the Kerry case, those less fortunate include the tens of thousands of Americans whose livelihoods are directly connected to the coal industry liberals loathe (42,000 jobs in the U.S., according to the data company Statista). And that doesn’t even count their families, communities and businesses that rely on them.
That’s the Biden administration’s brand of “leadership” — part of a plan to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next 14 years.
“We’re saying we are going to be carbon free in the power sector by 2035,” Kerry said. “I think that’s leadership. I think that’s indicative of what we can do.”
And if that means destroying jobs and the source of nearly one-fifth of the country’s current energy supply, then that’s the price Kerry & Co. are willing to pay.
Do you think the U.S. coal industry will be around longer than John Kerry?
But it’s not a plan that’s likely to sit well with lawmakers who represent major coal-producing areas — like, say, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a guy who, with Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, basically holds the Biden administration’s future in his hands.
Manchin’s state, which went for Donald Trump by overwhelming margins in both 2016 and 2020, has about a quarter of the jobs that would be lost if coal disappeared, according to Statista.
In an interview with Newsmax, another U.S. lawmaker, Rep. James Comer, an outspoken Republican whose district includes coal-rich areas of Kentucky, said the plan is self-defeating for an administration that is also hellbent on getting rid of natural gas, oil and the internal combustion engine.
Electricity, he told Newsmax in an interview on Wednesday, has to come from somewhere.
“This is another bad policy being talked about by the Biden administration,” he said.
Even in the liberal cesspool of social media, plenty of Twitter users agreed with him.
Kerry, in this one statement, proves himself completely unable to handle his position. Without coal, a lot of America loses electricity, especially with natural gas usage hindered by Biden’s policies.
John Kerry and his socialist co-conspirators do not care if the vast majority of Americans are forced into abject poverty.
The ruling class will have wealth and power beyond their wildest dreams. That is all they care about. Kerry is a Clown!#DemsAreEvil#SocialismSucks#FJB — Scott Cook (@ScottCookOCMD) November 10, 2021
No energy source will ever come without costs and environmental tradeoffs. That’s part of life on earth.
But coal provides stable power, is in American hands and employees tens of thousands of jobs for the kind of workers liberals used to pretend to care about.
Democrats, on the other hand, provide little to the country besides duplicitous politics, social unrest and an ever more-grasping-hand of an ever-more-powerful state. Certainly, real jobs — the kind that don’t involve working for the government, for instance — aren’t high on the agenda. (President Joe Biden opened his administration by killing the Keystone XL pipeline, remember, at the cost of about 11,000 jobs. Democrats didn’t give much of a damn.)
The United States could cheerfully do without the likes of John Kerry and his hypocritical “climate change” hype by the year 2035, along with the rest of his socialist power-hungry party — much more so than it could do without coal and the electricity and jobs it provides.
Some people spreading information about COVID-19 contrary to what is deemed “acceptable” by Big Pharma are criminals, according to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
They’re professionals, he says, that “circulate, on purpose, misinformation” regarding mRNA vaccine shots.
“They’re not [just] bad people, they’re criminals. Because they literally have costed millions of lives,” Bourla said Tuesday in a telecast with Frederick Kempe, CEO of the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank.
.@pfizer CEO Albert Bourla: People who share “misinformation” on vaccines’ efficacy are “criminals.”
“They’re not bad people. They’re criminals because they have literally cost millions of lives.” pic.twitter.com/VjIXs5rQCg
So who are these professionals? Dissenting researchers? Doctors treating patients with the Drugs Which Must Not Be Named? Nurses losing their jobs because of the vaccine mandate?
What about the president of the United States, Joe Biden? He’s a professional. Is he a criminal? If we follow Bourla’s reasoning, he would be.
Is Pfizer’s CEO out of line calling professionals who are critics of COVID vaccines “criminals”?
Several times throughout the course of the pandemic, Biden has said things to large audiences which contradict White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“You’re not gonna get COVID if you get these vaccinations,” Biden said.
However, Fauci has told the American people, “It is important to remember…that infections after vaccination are expected.”
BIDEN: “You’re not gonna get COVID if you have these vaccinations.”
FAUCI: “Infections after vaccination are expected.”
— Young Americans for Liberty (@YALiberty) July 22, 2021
Now, in all likelihood, Bourla would not say Joe Biden is a criminal. He would say Uncle Joe’s just wrong. And Bourla said a lot of people are refusing to take the COVID vaccine for reasons which are largely not nefarious.
“There are two groups of people, alright, there are the people that — they are vaccinated [and] there are the people that are skeptical about the vaccination, and both of them are afraid,” he said.
“Those that are getting the vaccine, they are afraid of the disease and they believe, because people are not getting vaccinated, [the unvaccinated] are increasing the risk to them, they are increasing the exposure, so they are mad with them because they don’t get the vaccine.”
“Those that don’t get the vaccine, they’re afraid of the vaccine and they are mad with the people that are oppressing them to get it,” Bourla continued.
“Those I understand — they are very good people, they are decent people, but they have a fear and I understand it and they don’t want to take chances.”
“But there is a very small part of professionals, which they circulate, on purpose, misinformation so that they will mislead those that they have concerned. Those who are criminals. They’re not [just] bad people, they’re criminals. Because they literally have costed millions of lives.”
Millions of lives. Right.
There are plenty of top-notch medical researchers and professionals with legitimate questions about the catastrophic events of what is now going on two years, including the lockdowns, the mask mandates and, of course, the quickly developed vaccine.
But Bourla says professional dissenting “criminals” are profiting by pushing “conspiracy theory.”
“People want [to] make money — some of them — by playing with the emotions of these people [and] are creating a whole conspiracy theory and they are trying to basically to benefit and profit from this fear of the people. And this is who are the criminals.”
These are not criminals. They are individuals following the time-honored practices of science which, to sum it up as a sort of meme, is: “Here’s my hypothesis — change my mind.”
That’s the scientific practice of what’s called falsification.
That seems to have been missing in this entire COVID scenario. And it’s been evident in the unmitigated propaganda: the constant public service announcements, the droning announcements in stores, even the proclamations of electric highway signs.
And the censorship. Where there’s censorship, there is no science.
Besides being censored, people are losing their jobs, being subjected to unhealthy physical and mental health situations and suffering from divided friendships and families because of poor decision-making on the part of makers of public policy.
It’s due to a sickness that can be truly dangerous mainly to people who are aged and who have other physical problems, such as obesity, diabetes and more.
Maybe those at most risk can receive some reduction in the chance of getting COVID-19 from an experimental vaccine presented without legal liability on the part of companies like Bourla’s.
But confidence in a company like Pfizer is not increased when its CEO describes professionals who disagree as criminals.
Danchenko pleaded not guilty Wednesday to making false statements about the source of information that he provided to Steele for the dossier
Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, had a message for those who pushed and believed the anti-Trump dossier amid recent indictments out of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe: “We told you so.”
Last week, Durham indicted the Russian national, Igor Danchenko, who is believed to be the sub-source for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier that served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Trump campaign aide Carter Page in 2016.
The dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign through law firm Perkins Coie.
Danchenko pleaded not guilty Wednesday to making false statements about the source of information that he provided to Steele for the dossier.
In an interview with Fox News, Jordan, who was heavily involved in GOP congressional investigations into the origins of the Russia probe, reacted to the developments.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, during a Justice Department oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 21, 2021. (Greg Nash/Pool via REUTERS)
“Those of us who were in this, you know, back when no one else was, it’s sort of like, we told you so,” Jordan said. “That sounds arrogant, and I don’t mean to be, but this is what we said. This is what they were doing – what they were accusing President Trump of doing, they were actually doing – they were working with the Russians and it goes right to the Clinton campaign.”
Former Attorney General William Barr last year revealed that the sub-source, now known to be Danchenko, was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011 for suspected contact with Russian intelligence officers.
Jordan, citing Danchenko’s indictment, said he was “bragging that if Clinton won he was going to get a job in the State Department.”
“This is the Clinton campaign – they orchestrated this whole thing,” Jordan said.
Jordan also pointed out that both Danchenko and Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann were charged with making false statements to the FBI – not as part of Durham’s probe, but rather, during interviews with the FBI in 2016 and 2017.
“They are being indicted for the original lies that they told back in 2016 and 2017 to the FBI,” Jordan said.
Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 election.
At the conclusion of Mueller’s probe in 2019, Barr appointed Durham, who at the time served as the U.S. attorney from Connecticut, to investigate the origins of the FBI’s original Russia probe, also known as Crossfire Hurricane, which began in July 2016. Durham was instructed to review that probe through the appointment of Mueller in May 2017.
Barr, before leaving the Trump administration in December 2020, tapped Durham as special counsel to continue his investigation through the Biden administration.
In the scope order, Barr stated that Durham “is authorized to investigate whether any federal official, employee, or any other person or entity violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence, or law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, individuals associated with those campaigns, and individuals associated with the administration of President Donald J. Trump, including but not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III.”
Jordan, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, served as ranking member on the House Oversight Committee until March 2020, and now serves as the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee.
Jordan has led the charge on a number of high-profile congressional investigations – ranging from the Benghazi probe during the Obama administration, to the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, the first impeachment of former President Trump, the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, and more.
Jordan shares an “inside look” at those investigations and more in his new book, “Do What You Said You Would Do: Fighting for Freedom in the Swamp,” set to be released Nov. 23.
“I spent a lot of time writing about investigations,” Jordan told Fox News. “That’s by the nature of my committees – I just always seemed to be involved in all of this.”
He added: “I really do think that people who read this will enjoy it,” Jordan said, noting that it’s a “fun read,” and adding that the book also focuses on his interactions with Trump.
“You know, the title, no one, no one did the title more than President Trump,” he said. “No one did more of what they said they would do than he did.”
“We walked through all the important investigations and some fun stories are in there as well, that, like I said, I think readers are going to like,” Jordan added. “So I’m excited.”
Join Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke in the latest episode of “Truth Over News” as they reveal the latest details surrounding Peter Daszak’s violation of NIH grant requirements and his admission that information regarding the experiments conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology are currently subject to censorship by the Communist Party of China.
The National Institutes of Health recently gave EcoHealth Alliance five days to submit any and all unpublished data from its experiments at the Wuhan lab. Peter Daszak, President of the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit non-governmental organization that supports various programs on global health and pandemic prevention, failed to submit the required material. In a letter to the NIH, Daszak revealed concerning information regarding the quality and integrity of these experiments that may explain why this information was not submitted to begin with.
On Oct. 20, the NIH admitted to Congress that they had funded dangerous gain-of-function experiments conducted by Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The NIH also sent EcoHealth a letter giving it five days to provide missing data that was required under the NIH grant. Instead of directly complying with their request, Peter Daszak sent a response to the NIH. He again failed to provide the data, which included a fifth year progress report that was required under the terms and conditions of the NIH grant. This missing report was only discovered due to a lawsuit against the NIH for documents related to EcoHealth. If not for this lawsuit, the unsubmitted progress report would likely remain undetected.
In his letter to the NIH, Daszak claimed the NIH had not pursued EcoHealth for the missing data, among a host of other excuses. He said they had uploaded the report, but the system did not allow them to officially submit it. He also said that the NIH never sent a request for the fifth year report. Daszak however failed to mention whether or not he or other members ever raised the issue to anyone in the NIH. Rather, he continued to point the finger at the NIH for not pursuing EcoHealth when it was his organization that did not submit the required report under their grant agreement.
In his letter, Daszak also revealed a progress report that extended beyond the period covered by the missing report. Daszak noted that the NIH had only required that EcoHealth stop funding work at the Wuhan Institute in April 2020, after President Trump terminated their grant. However, even when the funding was no longer available, Daszak said EcoHealth continued reporting its work, saying “even though the grant was terminated and then suspended, and funding is not available to us to work on this, we have continued to comply with NIH reporting requests, and submitted reporting for years six and seven of this grant.” What types of experiments, if any, were done during this period? As far as the hosts know, these year six and seven reports are not currently made public.
Under the original NIH grant, EcoHealth was supposed to immediately stop any experiments that showed evidence of enhanced virus growth greater than 10 times. However, EcoHealth’s 2018 annual progress report described an experiment that exceeded NIH reporting thresholds. In these experiments, the Wuhan Institute of Virology had created a novel coronavirus with a 10,000 times higher viral load. This should have created a cessation of experiments and a review by the NIH. Instead, those experiments continued, even during the time when the fifth year progress report had failed to be submitted. Daszak defends his failure to report on these experiments by claiming that he was not under any duty to stop or report the experiments as the viral load data was based on genome copies per gram, not viral titer.
Daszak Admits Gain-of-Function Research Continued, CCP Censoring Data | Truth Over News [Full Episode]Play Video
However, the viral load was over 10,000 times greater when it should have remained under 10, making it far more pathogenic than the reporting requirements set forth in the NIH grant. Daszak argued that their work should have been ignored, noting that “given the small number of mice, it is also uncertain whether the survival and weight loss data were statistically relevant.” Professor Richard Ebright of Rutgers University, a long time critic of gain-of-function experiments, responded to Daszak’s reasoning in a tweet, saying “EcoHealth has reached a point of such desperation that it now points to the slipshod character of its research, and the limited predictive value of its research, as defense.”
Daszak also claimed several times that he couldn’t hand over the genetic sequence data to the NIH because that information is currently going through an approval process by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities. In other words, U.S. taxpayers, through the use of a government federal agency, gave Daszak millions of dollars in grant money to conduct advanced gain-of-function experiments, only for the results of those experiments to be withheld and censored under the control of the CCP. This is a breach of the terms and conditions of the NIH grant, which demanded all genetic sequence data be made available, regardless of CCP involvement. The fact that this data remains under the control of the CCP discredits the NIH and Daszak’s claim that their Wuhan experiments could not have caused the pandemic. It is not knowable what viruses were studied because the data has not been released and because it is still being censored by the CCP.
What is known is that EcoHealth did not comply with the reporting requirements and the NIH did not hold them accountable. Even though the two organizations are currently engaged in a conflict of words, they are likely both fighting for the same outcome—to convince the world that they were not involved in the creation of COVID-19.
Watch the full episode for more in depth information on this important topic, and share this article so others can know the truth behind the COVID-19 pandemic.
The world’s two largest emitters of carbon dioxide on Nov. 10 pledged to work together in tackling climate change as global leaders wrap up the two-week COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
The framework, unveiled by U.S. climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua two days before the conference comes to a close, was billed by both sides as a way to help the summit achieve success.
“In the area of climate change there is more agreement between China and the US than divergence, making it an area with huge potential for our cooperation,” Xie said through an interpreter at the conference briefing room.
He said that the joint agreement “shows again that cooperation is the only choice for both China and the United States.”
The plan identified five areas for cooperation but is thin on concrete targets, emphasizing that the countries have “differentiated responsibilities” according to their “different national circumstances,” a concept Xie stressed during the press briefing.
Xie did not commit the country to the Global Methane Pledge, which 104 countries signed onto during the conference promising to cut their methane emissions by 30 percent during the five-year period between 2025 and 2030.
Early into the summit, Xie also defended China’s reliance on coal—which supplies around 60 percent of the country’s electricity supply—saying Beijing is “at a special development stage” and already “making our biggest possible effort to address climate change.”
A coal-fired power plant in Shanghai, China, Oct. 14, 2021. (Aly Song/Reuters)
Beijing, in the joint declaration, promised to phase down coal consumption over the next decade and cooperate with America to boost clean energy. The two countries will also share technology innovation aimed at slowing climate change. A bilateral meeting on reducing methane, the second-largest source of greenhouse gases after carbon dioxide, will be convened in the first half of 2022, the announcement said.
Kerry said the declaration was a “roadmap for our present and future collaboration” on climate.
“You know the expression that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Well, every step matters right now, and we have a long journey ahead of us,” he told reporters.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the agreement between China and the United States.
“Tackling the climate crisis requires international collaboration and solidarity, and this is an important step in the right direction,” he wrote on Twitter.
China’s leader Xi Jinping did not attend the COP26 summit, becoming the only world leader who delivered remarks via written statement, in which he demanded richer nations to lead the climate effort and accommodate less developed countries. He did not give new promises.
Chinese officials have repeatedly asked Washington to soften its China policies to facilitate climate cooperation. On Nov. 2, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson declared that “you can’t ask China to cut coal production on the one hand, while at the same time imposing sanctions on Chinese photovoltaic enterprises,” a reference to a June trade blacklist on several Chinese solar panel parts manufacturers that allegedly used forced labor from Uyghur minorities in China’s Xinjiang region.
Kerry, who said previously that “life is always full of tough choices“ in answering a reporter’s question about Beijing’s abuses in Xinjiang, said again on Wednesday that pressing Beijing on human rights is within his purview.
“We’re honest about the differences. We certainly know what they are and we’ve articulated them,” Kerry told reporters. “But that’s not my lane here. My job is to be the climate guy and stay focused on trying to move the climate agenda forward.”
US special climate envoy, John Kerry speaks during a joint China and US statement on a declaration enhancing climate action in the 2020’s on day eleven of the COP26 climate change conference at the SEC in Glasgow, Scotland, on Nov. 10, 2021. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
The regime has not been sincere about tackling climate change but is merely playing the issue to its advantage, some China experts have said.
Even as China expands wind and solar capacity, such efforts are driven by a need to satiate energy shortage, according to Katie Tubb, an economic policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation think tank.
“They are willing to get energy wherever they can get it,” she told The Epoch Times.
China has made a long-term target to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, 10 years later than the deadline set by developed countries. In Tubb’s point of view, it is a strategic decision for the regime to see the West pursue green technologies and potentially reap any fruit coming out of it.
“They’re hedging their bets,” she said.
Miles Yu, the principal China policy advisor to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said getting China’s cooperation on climate is a “very difficult” task.
“China, really deep inside, does not care nearly as much about the issues like climate change as the United States current government does,” Yu told The Epoch Times late October.
Climate change is not “China’s top strategic priority” but a potential lever for Beijing to extract concessions on issues such as human rights and trade from the United States, Yu said.
“They focus on this radical push for just economic power at any cost, even at the expense of global ecology.”
For the second time in less than a week, parents are demanding answers after their children were given the incorrect of COVID vaccine.
The first incident, however, merely involved two children under 10 in Texas who were given adult doses of the vaccine on Oct. 31. This time, it involves over 100 children ages 5-to-11 in Loudoun County, Virginia, who were given diluted versions of the vaccine meant for those 12 and older, according to WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.
Despite the larger number of children who were affected this time, this still isn’t national news — in part because it doesn’t fit the narrative that the Biden administration is effectively rolling out a vaccine for children, and possibly because Google is trying to starve publications that don’t parrot the approved line when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines. (We’re trying to fight this at The Western Journal — and you can help us in our fight by subscribing here.)
On Wednesday, the Virginia Department of Health confirmed that Ted Pharmacy in Aldie, Virginia administered a diluted version of the inoculation formulated for 12- to 17-year-olds to 112 children younger than 11 on Nov. 3 and 4, according to Washington’s WTTG-TV.
On Nov. 5, state and federal authorities stepped in and ordered the pharmacy to stop administering the shots. The Virginia Department of Health later collected the remainder of the vaccines at the pharmacy.
Dasha Hermosilla’s daughter, 7-year-old Gryffin Fahle, is one of those affected. She told WRC that Gryffin was given a diluted dose of the vaccine for older kids, which comes with a purple cap. The dose for 5-11 comes with an orange cap to differentiate it.
The pharmacist said this was allowed. All it took was a Google search for Hermosilla to confirm that it wasn’t.
“Nothing says that you can change a purple to an orange,” Hermosilla told the station. “I had this pit in my stomach that, like, ‘what did they just do to my daughter?’”
She also criticized how the pharmacy treated parents after it happened.
Would you vaccinate your children against COVID-19?
“The way they have dealt with individuals is really, like, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal,’” Hermosilla said. “There are dozens and dozens of families out there that don’t even know that this is an issue.”
She wasn’t alone.
“Another mom sent News4 a screengrab of a Facebook conversation in which the pharmacy admitted to the mistake and apologized for the ‘inconvenience,’” WRC reported.
BREAKING NEWS: 112 children were administered the WRONG DOSE of COVID-19 vaccine at Ted Pharmacy in Loudoun County https://t.co/V1iq68N1yh
According to WRRC, the Loudoun County Health Department released an alert after the station reported Hermosilla’s case, acknowledging the incident.
The letter stated that the formulation used resulted in the affected children receiving “a dose of COVID19 vaccine that is potentially lower than recommended.”
“The pharmacy who administered the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination to your child last week has been removed from both state and federal COVID-19 vaccination programs,” said Loudoun County Department of Health Director David Goodfriend said in the letter.
Virginia’s Board of Pharmacy, meanwhile, said it is “not at liberty to confirm nor deny whether an investigation into a possible violation of a law or regulation is or is not underway.”
“Should an investigation reveal there is probable cause to believe a law or regulation was broken an Informal Conference or a Formal Hearing before the board may be held for consideration of possible disciplinary action,” the board said in a statement.
“The Board’s findings of fact and resulting actions are contained in a Board Order that becomes a matter of public record available online on the Board of Pharmacy’s website under License Lookup and Recent Case Decisions.”
It’s unclear what this means for the children. As the county health department’s letter stated, the pharmacy’s action meant the children likely received a lower dose than they ordinarily would have.
Even still, Goodfriend’s letter said parents should first contact their pediatrician “for clinical judgment and decision making to determine the best course of action for each patient.”
The letter also urged parents to watch for the traditional COVID-19 vaccine side effects, such as fever, chills, fatigue or pain or swelling at the site of the injection.
“If any additional or more serious side effects occur or are prolonged, contact your primary care provider or pediatrician,” the letter warned.
Parents were then told to log the event in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance says parents can either restart the vaccine series in 21 days or wait for a second dose with the orange cap as scheduled.
In this case, the danger seems less pronounced than it was during a similar incident on Oct. 31 in Garland, Texas, where a 6- and a 7-year-old were both given adult doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine before a child formulation had even been approved.
“They asked us our kids’ ages, and so we told them 4 and 6, and they said ‘the 6-year-old can obviously get it if you’d like to go ahead and do that,’” Julian Gonzalez, father of the 6-year-old, told KTVT-TV in Fort Worth.
“Going off their confidence and what we read [on the form], we were all for it,” he said.
The next day, however, they were contacted by the Garland Health Department, alerting them that the vaccine hadn’t been approved for their son but that they’d received adult doses.
A dose for ages 5-to-11 is 10 micrograms while an adult version contains 30 micrograms. Gonzalez’s son experienced some side effects, while the mother of the 7-year-old said he was fine.
The case in Virginia is worrying for a different reason: It involved 112 children getting faulty vaccinations over a two-day period. And people wonder why some parents are skeptical about vaccinations?
As of Nov. 10, CDC data show only 595 individuals under the age of 17 have officially died of COVID-19 in the U.S. — and this says nothing about whether or not they had pre-existing risk factors. While every death is tragic, of course, 595 is a minuscule fraction of the more than 780,000 deaths attributed to the coronavirus in the country.
When looking at the cost-benefit analysis of vaccinating a child, that’s something that has to be taken into consideration.
Incidents like the one in Virginia may be rare. However, when it’s questionable whether the vaccination is necessary for this age group at all, it’s enough to give a mother or father pause.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who has repeatedly criticized loose central bank policies and has forcefully sounded the alarm on the upside risks of the current bout of inflation, has warned that global financial markets seem to be pricing in slow growth and low real interest rates for the next several years.
“The stimulus that we’ve enacted is 5 to 10 times—depending on how you do the calculation—as large as the fiscal stimulus enacted after the [2008] financial crisis,” Summers said in a Nov. 10 lecture hosted by the London School of Economics (LSE).
“Currently, the driving event is the extraordinary scale of the fiscal stimulus, along with extraordinary monetary policy, that has been put in place,” he said, adding that, “what markets are seeming to price is a return to secular stagnation, or another way to put it is … Japanization.”
Secular stagnation is a period of little or no economic growth, while the term “Japanization” is often used by economists to describe long-term stagnation and deflation, typically accompanied by symptoms like high unemployment, real interest rates near zero, weak economic activity, and central bank stimulus, including quantitative easing.
“Japanization has been in the spotlight since the global financial crisis of 2008,” wrote Dino Lauria Ubatuba de Faria, CEO at Lince Investimentos, in a note. “The term Japanization refers to the economic conditions of Japan during the two lost decades, which resulted in both low growth and deflation.”
In a separate interview for International Economy magazine (pdf), Summers denounced what he called “woke central banking,” a condition where policymakers extend easy money policies in service of peripheral policy objectives, while losing sight of the need to rein in inflation.
“The climate today is of more woke central banking, where central bankers give speeches about challenges not proximally related to inflation or unemployment such as climate change, and reject the idea of preempting inflation in favor of the idea of waiting until inflation is firmly established,” Summers said.
“These things threaten a return to the kind of psychology that prevailed in the 1960s and 1970s and contributed to excessive inflation,” he warned.
It comes as consumer price inflation surged 0.9 percent over the month and 6.2 percent over the year in October, with the annual rate of inflation being the highest in nearly 31 years.
Summers, who served as chief economist at the World Bank and is an emeritus professor at Harvard, told LSE that he “came to a diagnosis a few years after the financial crisis that the right way to conceptualize the economic problem of the industrialized world in the 21st century was in terms of difficulty of savings absorption.”
He explained that the phenomenon entails excess savings combined with under-investment, along with very low real interest rates, economic sluggishness, high leverage and inflated asset prices, and “enhanced proclivity to financial crisis.”
He said that the years after 2013 bore out his hypothesis, with budget deficits considerably higher, interest rates considerably lower, and asset prices considerably higher than expected, yet growth far more sluggish than anticipated.
“That is exactly what we would expect if there was difficulty in generating excess demand—or adequate demand—because of a savings absorption problem,” Summers said.
“The judgment of markets is that real rates, for the next generation, are going to be negative, even in the presence of extraordinarily high, by historical standards, debt-to-GDP ratios and, prospectively for some significant number of years, relatively high fiscal deficits,” he said.
He said this shows that the problem of savings absorption is going to persist for “quite some time.”
Summers also said easy money policies raised the risk of asset bubbles and mis-allocation of capital.
“Extremely low interest rates set the stage for leveraging and the perpetuation of zombie enterprises and the perpetuation of financial bubbles,” Summers said. “We’re seeing a lot of evidence of speculative risk. Extremely low and negative real interest rates are problematic.”
A group of Virginia parents say they have secured enough signatures on petitions to remove the school board chair they say has endangered their children and placed woke politics ahead of education.
Fight for Schools filed the recall documents in Loudoun County Circuit Court on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.
The filing said board President Brenda Sheridan broke open meetings laws by using closed Facebook groups as a way to discuss school business without the public being aware. Sheridan is also accused of violating the First Amendment rights of parents by limiting public comment at meetings.
The board chair is also accused of mishandling a sexual assault case in the schools in which a student who was accused of a sexual assault was shunted from one school to another, where he has been accused of another sexual assault.
“Today, we just filed 1200 signatures to remove the chairwoman of Loudoun County School Board, Brenda Sheridan,” Fight for Schools Executive Director Ian Prior told Fox News. “We decided that for the chairwoman and the vice-chairwoman, the buck stops with them, that we were going to draft new petitions … We were able to finish those off in 13 days.”
The group says it also has petitions to remove Board Vice-Chair Atoosa Reaser and board members Ian Serotkin and Denise Corbo, all with more than enough signatures to meet the legal requirement to trigger a recall. In Virginia, elected officials can be recalled if a petition to remove them receives a number of signatures equal to 10 percent of the votes cast in the previous election, Fox reported.
Have school boards become rubber stamps for liberals?
The intent to recall all of the board members was expressed during a public comment period at Tuesday’s board meeting.
“By the way, Denise, Brenda, Ian, Atoosa, we are well over 100% of required signatures for the petitions,” Megan Jenkins said, according to Fox News. “So I’m not going to encourage any of you to resign because when you are recalled and removed from office, it will be much more satisfying. See you in court.”
“I have the privilege of telling you that we are finished collecting signatures for your removal,” parent Jessica Mendez said during the meeting.
“I used to think that there was no point in speaking at these meetings,” Mendez said. “There was no point in trying to have a voice because you never seem to listen, anyway. But I had it all wrong. It wasn’t you who needed to hear our voices. It was all those parents, grandparents and neighbors listening at home, horrified at your actions or inactions. They were the ones who needed to hear us, and they were the ones who sign petitions, see you in court.”
“For six months, Fight for Schools has been out collecting signatures in the heat, the cold, the rain and even hail,” Prior said on Monday. “To get 20,000 signatures during that time is a testament to the dedication of our volunteers and an engaged community that wants to see a change on its school board.”
“We are looking forward to the next steps and replacing school board members that are political servants with non-partisan public servants who will put the focus back on excellence in education,” he said.
Sheridan issued a statement in reply.
“My election was a mandate from those who came to the polls — three times — to choose me as their representative. Tuesday’s filing is the result of a fraction of those citizens signing a petition, whether they voted or not,” she said, according to the Post.
But Prior said change is necessary.
“From violating open meetings law to ignoring the school board’s code of conduct to neglecting to keep our children safe, all for her activist causes, Sheridan has been nothing short of a disaster,” Prior said, the Post reported.
“Let this serve as a message to the rest of the board and Superintendent Ziegler,” he said. “We’re still here, and we’re not going anywhere.”
Procedurally, if recall cases go to trial, a judge or a jury rules on the removal of a board member. The board then gets 45 days to appoint an interim replacement and 15 days to schedule a special election, according to Fox.
In addition to issues over student safety, parents have objected to the district embracing Critical Race Theory, as explained Tuesday night by parent Erin Dunbar, who accused the board of using tax dollars to teach “critical theory of the Marxist philosophy,” Fox reported.
“You have activist teachers using to indoctrinate their kids who are at the mercy of their authority,” she said. “That is child abuse. And you have no right to brainwash children into believing that their skin color determines their purpose.”
Apprehensions along the U.S.–Mexico border in October set a new record for the month, unpublished data obtained by The Epoch Times show.
Border Patrol logged about 163,000 arrests of illegal immigrants at the northern and southern borders, according to preliminary data that doesn’t include Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations (OFO). While arrests at the U.S.–Canadian border are typically less than 100 each month, the OFO has recently recorded at least 5,096 arrests per month.
While the total apprehensions are down from the previous month, they established a new record for October, easily clearing the 91,410 arrests recorded in October of 1999 and well above the figures seen during recent administrations.
“It’s an improvement, but it’s still four or five times the level that we saw during the Obama or Trump administrations,” Steven Kopits, president of the Princeton Policy Advisors, told The Epoch Times.
Arrests under former President Donald Trump averaged 45,000 per October and arrests under former President Barack Obama averaged 33,000 per October.
The new October record isn’t the only one set by the Biden administration. The arrests last month mean the administration has presided over the year with the most arrests, with two months still left to go.
For the full year, Princeton Policy’s forecast stands at 1.87 million apprehensions, up from the prior record of 1.61 million set under the Clinton administration in 2000.
A chart shows the number of border apprehensions at the southwest border in recent years. (Courtesy of Princeton Policy Advisors)A chart shows the annual number of border apprehensions at the southwest border in recent years and the projection that 2021 will set a new record. (Courtesy of Princeton Policy Advisors)
Most of the October apprehensions took place in the always-busy Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol sector in Texas. But agents in other areas also made significant arrests, with the number breaching 22,400 in the Yuma, Arizona, sector.
Illegal border crossings have exploded since President Joe Biden took office in January. The Democrat quickly reversed or altered key Trump-era border security and enforcement policies, including halting the construction of the border wall and stopping the “Remain in Mexico” program. The administration also ended the expulsion of many illegal immigrants despite the COVID-19 pandemic and released hundreds of thousands into the U.S. interior, some without official papers to appear in court.
The Biden administration, which has called Trump-era policies “inhumane” and “cruel,” has said its immigration system overhaul will take time to complete.
Vice President Kamala Harris was tapped in March to address the border issue and has said her focus is on the “root causes” of illegal immigration.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has said the agency’s three-part plan is to invest in countries that people are leaving, to build “safe, orderly, and humane pathways” for immigration, and rebuild the asylum system and refugee program.
Thousands of illegal immigrants amass in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Scores of illegal immigrants have said they’ve traveled to the United States because of Biden’s policies. Mexico’s government also appears to have become more lenient with illegal immigrants transiting through since Biden took office.
Many Haitians who crossed into a primitive camp under the international bridge in Del Rio, Texas, recently told The Epoch Times that now was the time to come because it was easier to get in and stay in under Biden. The majority had been living in Chile or Brazil for years.
In addition to the apprehensions in October, there were roughly 50,000 “gotaways,” or illegal immigrants who were recorded as evading arrest, according to the unpublished data. An untold number of other illegal immigrants enter the country without being arrested or recorded as having gotten away.
“Those gotaway numbers are higher than I’d have expected—they’re equivalent to 30 percent of apprehensions,” Mark Kirkorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Epoch Times in an email.
The decline in arrests from September may stem from a decrease in the number of U.S. job openings, Kopits said.
“There are a number of factors. One is that you may be running out of migrants right now—the number of people who wanted to come. It could just be a monthly blip, that happens sometimes. It could be the enforcement’s a little bit better than it was. Or it could be that the job market’s a little softer,” he said. “There’s a little bit less opportunity for migrants and so they’re slowing down a little bit.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated when the Biden administration would set a new yearly record. It already has. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
Jonathan Mantz – Hillary Clinton’s former Finance Director who’s “raised nearly half a billion dollars over his career for Democratic campaigns” – is now a lobbyist for the American Chamber of Commerce in South China, which seeks to craft policies favorable to American companies doing business in China and routinely partners with the Chinese Communist Party to do so.
Jonathan Mantz, a Principal at BGR Group, “leads the firm’s Democratic outreach efforts,” according to his professional bio and serves as a member of the Finance Committee of the Democratic Governors Association.
“Over the past three decades, Jonathan has held senior positions to elect Democrats to the White House, Senate, House of Representatives and governorships. A leading political strategist, he has raised nearly half a billion dollars over his career for Democratic campaigns,” the summary adds, including positions such as the National Finance Director for then-Senator Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Presidential campaign.
Mantz has also served as the Finance Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) under Nancy Pelosi.
Following his long stint in Democratic politics, Mantz is now lobbying on behalf of the American Chamber of Commerce in South China. Lobbying registration documents reveal Mantz is lobbying the National Security Council (NSC) and providing “strategic counsel on bilateral issues.”
The chamber counts its primary objective as “promot[ing] the development of trade, commerce, and investment between the United States and the People’s Republic of China” and includes over 2,000 corporations as members. “Through engaging in dialogue with our more than 2,300 members, we formulate policy objectives that represent the immediate interests of the Chamber as a whole, and then pursue them at the local, regional and national levels in the United States and the People’s Republic of China,” asserts the group.
To do so, however, the group routinely partners with the Chinese Communist Party on events and conferences.
The upcoming China (Shanxi)–U.S. Symposium on Investments is sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China in partnership with Chinese Communist Party officials from Shanxi province. The group has also organized events in support of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which the U.S. State Department has warned that Beijing “to expand foreign markets for Chinese companies and as a means of drawing nations, particularly their political and economic elites, into Beijing’s geopolitical orbit.”
“Supported by Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and People’s Government of Guangdong Province, it is built as an important high-end platform for business and trade exchange and cooperation, corresponding to the Belt and Road Initiative,” notes the chamber’s event summary.
The American Chamber of Commerce in South China has also sponsored events connecting its members with Chinese Communist Party and military-linked companies such as BGI Genomics, Huawei spin-off Honor, and DJI Drones.
“The delegation will focus on healthcare, manufacturing, and technology industries and offers exclusive opportunities for our members to meet with government officials from the Commerce Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality, Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission, [and] the Drug Administration of Shenzhen Municipality,” notes a description of a recent chamber delegation to Shanghai.
Import ban could agitate Beijing as U.S. pushes for climate deal
Climate czar John Kerry is lobbying House lawmakers to oppose legislation that would ban the import of all Chinese-made goods that are produced using Uyghur slave labor, a move aimed at buying goodwill with Beijing as the United States seeks a new climate deal, according to congressional sources and foreign policy insiders familiar with the matter.
Kerry and a faction of State Department officials oppose legislation meant to curtail Chinese imports made using slave labor, sources said, due to concerns that the restrictive measures will agitate Beijing. The legislation, known as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, in July passed the Senate by voice vote but is stalled in the House. It would target China’s construction of solar panels and other equipment the United States needs to migrate the country to green energy sources.
The Biden administration’s internal strife over China points to a tug-of-war between the White House, which supports this type of measure, and the State Department, which is pushing a softer China policy in the hopes of securing a climate deal with Beijing—an effort that Kerry is spearheading in his role as presidential envoy for climate change. Kerry has been under fire in recent weeks for owning stakes in an investment group that funds companies that are linked to forced labor and have been blacklisted for human rights abuses, as the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Reports issued during the past several weeks indicate that Kerry, who operates out of the State Department, is the principal opponent of increased sanctions on China and its use of Uyghur slave labor. During remarks Wednesday at the United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow, Kerry told reporters that the United States and China have made progress on reducing carbon emissions, which is fueling speculation that any action on Uyghur slave labor will take a backseat to these ongoing negotiations.
Kerry was reported to have engaged in a “forceful debate with other administration officials on the matter before his most recent China trip,” according to the Associated Press, a claim that jibes with information provided by congressional and foreign policy community sources to the Free Beacon. One veteran foreign policy hand told the Free Beacon that there “is a lot of chatter about” Kerry’s opposition to the legislation swirling “in the China policy circle.”
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Michael Sobolik, a fellow in Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, told the Free Beacon he sees evidence of an “ongoing turf war within the Biden administration over China policy—specifically, how will the president square his climate goals with his insistence that human rights is at the center of his foreign policy?”
China is forcing the Biden administration “to choose between those priorities,” Sobolik said. “If the bill remains stuck, it’s a safe bet that Biden’s rhetoric about human rights in China is just that—rhetoric.”
Renewed attention has been cast on the issue in the days since Democrats stripped language from the hotly contested House budget reconciliation bill that would have leveled restrictions on China’s surveillance and internment of Uyghurs, a move that generated outrage in the human rights community.
One senior GOP congressional aide tracking the matter said it is becoming clear that Kerry’s push for a climate deal is eclipsing the Biden administration’s human rights agenda, which has expressly included Uyghur rights issues.
“It’s not surprising that the Biden administration, especially Secretary Kerry, is actively pushing back against any efforts in Congress to stop Uyghur Muslim slave labor in China. Kerry will do whatever he can to get a climate deal with China, even allowing federal science funding for Uyghur Muslim slave labor and those involved in constructing the Uyghur forced labor camps,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak on record. “The Democrats should never again mention the word human rights.”
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was also reported to be siding with Kerry on the issue, but the White House National Security Council rejected this claim when contacted by the Free Beacon.
“This is false,” an NSC spokesman told the Free Beacon when asked if Sullivan was part of the faction opposing the slave labor legislation. “We share Congress’s concern about forced Labor in Xinjiang and in fact the Biden administration has taken concrete measures on our own, including but not limited to visa restrictions, financial sanctions, export controls, import restrictions, the release of a business advisory, and rallying the G7 to commit to take action to ensure all global supply chains are free from the use of forced labor, including from Xinjiang.”
Republican lawmakers say that Kerry’s lobbying on the issue is wholly inappropriate given Kerry’s holdings in an investment group that funds companies linked to Uyghur slave labor. Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.) wrote to President Joe Biden earlier this week to express their concerns about the matter.
“There isn’t a good explanation for why President Biden has not fired John Kerry, who appears to be profiting from slave labor,” Rubio told the Free Beacon. “But it does help explain why Kerry and others in the Biden administration continue to undermine my commonsense, bipartisan, and bicameral Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.”
Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), another chief backer of efforts to penalize China, told the Free Beacon, “John Kerry wants all of us to have a moral backbone as weak as a soufflé. Let’s be clear what he’s asking for: He’s so desperate for a paper-thin Chi-Comm climate pledge he can parade around Paris that he wants us to deny a genocide. It’s pathetic.”
Congressional Democrats are also divided on efforts to penalize the CCP’s use of Uyghur slave labor. Republican foreign policy leaders in the House told the Free Beacon that Democratic leaders refuse to explain why they stripped language from the budget reconciliation bill that would have penalized Beijing’s use of slave labor.
“Democrats still haven’t explained why they’re taking steps to enable and protect the Chinese Communist Party’s use of Uighur slave labor in the reconciliation bill,” Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Free Beacon. “I sure hope it doesn’t have anything to do with John Kerry’s desperate attempts to reach a climate deal with China. Anyone who says they care about the worst human rights violation of our lifetime but supports this bill is a hypocrite.”
Rep. Greg Steube (R., Fla.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Democrats “cruelly decided to remove” measures aimed at ensuring U.S. taxpayer dollars do not fund entities engaged in using Uyghur slave labor. “Democrats decry racial injustice in America but actively support slavery in China,” Steube said.
Senator Cortez Masto has close relationship with nonprofit that says ‘young people need to know’ critical race theory
Nevada Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto praised a liberal nonprofit that has called to defund police and teach critical race theory in public schools.
On Nov. 3, Cortez Masto said she was “so glad” to speak at Battle Born Progress’s annual fundraising event, lauding the liberal group as “incredible advocates for our state.” The self-described “public relations firm of the progressive community in Nevada,” Battle Born Progress has taken a number of radical positions on hot-button issues, including the movements to defund police and teach critical race theory in K-12 classrooms.
In July 2020, Battle Born Progress Called to “save money by defunding” the state’s police presence in schools, adding that “police officers in schools help foster the school-to-prison pipeline.” Roughly one year later, executive director Annette Magnus argued during a Battle Born Progress virtual event that Nevada “should be teaching” critical race theory in public schools because “young people need to know this information.”
Cortez Masto’s close relationship with Battle Born Progress—less than one week after her fundraising appearance, the Democrat held a tele-townhall with the group—could become a political liability as she enters a difficult reelection battle in 2022. According to a 2020 Las Vegas Review-Journal poll, nearly two-thirds of Nevadans oppose cuts to police department funding. In June, meanwhile, a Reno-based school district ditched its plan to enact a “social justice curriculum” for elementary school students amid backlash from local parents.
Neither Cortez Masto nor Battle Born Progress returned requests for comment.
Battle Born Progress advocated critical race theory during an August virtual conversation with No Racism in Schools cofounders Akiko Cooks and Jshauntae Marshall. After Cooks noted she “absolutely” supports critical race theory but is not “yet” focused on including the framework in public school curricula, Magnus said she “like[s] the ‘yet’ part, because that’s exactly right.”
“I mean, eventually, yes, we should be teaching that,” Magnus said. “Young people need to know this information. I would love to have known that information.”
Cooks, whom Magnus said she is “very close” with, is also tied to the defund police movement. According to her LinkedIn, she works as an organizer for Mass Liberation Project NV, which aims to “abolish the criminal legal system as we know it.” The group in 2020 disseminated petitions to defund the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and has likened policing to “terrorism.”
In addition to Battle Born Progress’s call to teach critical race theory in public schools, the group has attacked Nevada parents who oppose the controversial curriculum. In August, the group tweeted a photo of a mother who spoke against critical race theory at her local school board meeting, calling the woman “another ‘Karen'” who holds “conspiracy-laden beliefs.”
Battle Born Progress has received tens of thousands of dollars in funding from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a George Soros-funded group that funnels millions of dollars to liberal causes but does not disclose its donors. According to the Sixteen Thirty Fund’s IRS filings, the group gave nearly $6,000 to Battle Born Progress in 2017 and an additional $90,000 to the Nevada nonprofit in 2018.
Cortez Masto has condemned so-called dark money groups like the Sixteen Thirty Fund. In a September press release, she stressed the need to “put power back in the hands of the public” by “getting dark money out of politics.”
Cortez Masto joined the Senate in 2017 after she defeated Republican challenger Joe Heck by less than 3 points. A slew of Republicans have entered the race to unseat her in 2022, including former state attorney general Adam Laxalt and Army veteran Sam Brown.
COLORADO SPRINGS — They admitted it. Now they think they can get away with it.
Three weeks ago, I reported to you on the appalling case of sixth grade student Rylee M., who was pressured by teachers at Chinook Trail Middle School to seal her mask to her face with thick blue painter’s tape. Another schoolmate came forward to describe how those teachers would patrol their classrooms for violators while twirling the tape rolls around their wrists.
Skeptics accused the children of manufacturing the story and of voluntarily putting the tape on themselves. Others, including the Colorado Springs Police Department school resource officer stationed at Chinook Trail, baselessly dismissed the incident as a prank committed by a teacher in “jest.” Gaslighters in the school district and their supporters misleadingly denied that teachers applied the tape directly to victims’ faces — something Rylee and her mom never alleged. By mischaracterizing the actual allegations, public school propagandists deflected attention from the brazen abuse of authority exercised by educators who issued de facto ultimatums that children comply with their directive to use the tape handed to them. Or else.
On Monday, after the district’s three-week-long internal investigation, Chinook Trail Middle School principal Tom Andrew confirmed in a meeting with Rylee’s mom, Stephanie M., that teachers had indeed “directed students to affix a mask to their face with tape” — a cruel measure that only sadists, not sane public health advocates, could embrace. Moreover, the unfazed principal blandly acknowledged, “Yes,” the “students thought they were compelled to follow through” on the teachers’ “requests” (to choke themselves off).
“In short,” the principal told Rylee’s mom in his sing-song scripted voice, “district policy and procedures were broken,” “trust and respect” were “broken,” and “poor decisions” were made. Now, the principal told Stephanie M., it’s time “to move this forward” after “admitting our mistake” and “trust” the administration. The abusers will remain in the classroom with vulnerable 11- and 12-year-olds; any disciplinary measures will be kept “confidential”; and brave Rylee, who has been harassed over the incident, will now be enrolled in online school to keep her safe from the mask bondage bullies.
“It was never our intent,” the anonymous group of “Team 642” tape torturers wrote in a crappy little note to parents handed out Monday night at a meeting closed to the public, “to cause anxiety, fear, confusion, or physical or emotional harm.” Never mind that these petty tyrants wrought all of the above and will be shielded from any transparent punishment. “We look forward to returning to normal and continuing along this learning journey with your family,” the teachers (none of whom have reached out to Rylee or her mom directly) cheerily chirped.
Elitist privilege means always pretending to say you’re sorry without ever suffering consequences for wrongdoing.
Darcy Schoening, parent advocate and town of Monument Board of Trustees member, agrees. She believes “the teachers responsible for this behavior should be fired. Their names should be released. Parents have the right to know WHO is abusing their kids. Protecting the teachers’ identities and disciplinary actions is a slap in the face to parents.”
“It’s sickening to me,” Stephanie lamented as the principal echoed the educrats’ desire to get back out of the public spotlight and “resume normalcy.” She’s not going to let it drop. “I am not going to be quiet,” the work-at-home mom of three young daughters told KVOR-AM 740 radio talk show host Richard Randall this week. “Plenty of parents are willing to step up for their kids.” No doubt about it. The Election Day revolt against K-12 control freaks just demonstrated that parents across the country from Loudoun County, Virginia, to El Paso County, Colorado, to Los Angeles County, California, will not let COVID-era abnormalities hijack their children’s health and freedom.
With Justice Department goons and local cops treating parents protesting at school board meetings like criminals, we know we can’t rely on law enforcement to side with sovereignty-defenders over the State. Remember: Stephanie M. immediately contacted the Colorado Springs Police Department to report the abuse as soon as her daughter told her what happened. They blew her off. Instead, according to creepy public record files I obtained last week, at least three members of the CSPD’s Metropolitan Vice, Narcotics and Intelligence Division/Strategic Information Center passed around my Twitter and Gab posts about Rylee’s case to several CSPD command staff and other individuals whose names were redacted. A CSPD “Intelligence Unit” detective made note of my “2 million (yes, million) Twitter followers” (so what?), and a sergeant falsely claimed I was aware of protest plans at the school (I heard no such information until after administrators shut down the school on Oct. 25 amid an international maelstrom of public scrutiny and press coverage).
It’s getting impossible to “back the blue” when they stand down as antifa and Black Lives Matter attack you for defending law and order, kneel before the altar of George Floyd, enforce junk-science-based COVID-19 tyranny lining the pockets of Big Pharma and Big Government, and spy on you for standing up for parents fighting educational malpractice. Teach your children well.
If you have any doubt that the radical left is alive and well in the Biden administration, this should wipe it out once and for all.
Saule Omarova, the administration’s dubious pick for comptroller of the currency, is a radical by pretty much anyone’s definition. Up for a job that would put her in charge of regulating the country’s largest banks, she published a paper earlier this year with a proposal to “end banking as we know it,” as the New York Post reported.
And, as a video now circulating online shows, she’s on record desiring the destruction of the nation’s fossil fuel industries.
Scared yet?
Documents show Saule Omarova was a committed communist & planned a career as a Prof. of Scientific Communism. She hid her Karl Marx thesis and conveniently omits that she was planning to be a Professor of Marxism.
Whatever you think about climate change, it’s clear that political forces on the left are leveraging the idea in their bid for globalization. The COVID-19 pandemic is real, and the left politicized it in a sweeping power grab. They have no shame.
Speaking in March at a “Social Wealth Seminar” sponsored by the Jain Family Institute, according to The Daily Wire, Omarova made her feelings about the fossil fuel industries clear.
“We want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change,” Omarova said.
Biden nominee Saule Omarova saying the quiet part out loud. On the oil, coal and gas industries:
Born and raised in the former Soviet Union, Omarova graduated from Moscow State University in 1989, as noted in an October column by Forbes magazine editor in chief Steve Forbes.
“Amazingly, she still has nice things to say about the defunct U.S.S.R., where Western-style liberties were non-existent and countless millions died from man-made famines, arbitrary executions and, of course, in the notorious Gulag Archipelago,” Forbes wrote
Forbes also noted that Omarova, “advocates that consumer banking be taken over by the Federal Reserve and wants the government to direct where loans are made.”
Is Biden trying to ruin America?
In fact, her appearance at the Jain Family Institute seminar was to advocate the idea of a “National Investment Authority” — a top-down control of the economy that would basically implement the communist ideal of the state having the ultimate power over what, in a capitalist system, are free-market decisions.
For the record, as the Washington Examiner noted, Omarova denies having communist or Marxist sympathies (she told the Financial Times she’s an easy target for critics because she’s “an immigrant, a woman, minority”). But the names that are used aren’t nearly as important as the ideas.
And when it comes to the kind of government Omarova’s ideas conjure up, you get the picture: It’s leftist. It’s radical. And it’s a horror show.
If you have any doubt Biden is on board with Omarova’s thinking about fossil fuels, the White House has confirmed the administration is now studying the impact of shutting down the Embridge Line 5 pipeline. The pipeline brings 540,000 barrels of oil a day — about 23 million gallons — into the United States through Michigan’s Straits of Mackinac, according to Breitbart.
If you haven’t noticed, gas prices are already sky-high. After his opening-day decision to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, why on earth would Biden consider shutting down another pipeline under the current conditions? To make fuel prices go even higher?
Is he trying to destroy what the radical left sees as deplorable middle America?
Put the coal, gas, and oil, industries out of business, nationalize the banks, and what comes next? Hand over the rest of our hard-won American freedoms to would-be globalist overlords?
Jack Gist is an award-winning writer who has published essays, poetry and fiction in Catholic World Report, First Things, The Imaginative Conservative, New Oxford Review and others.
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One of the accomplishments of Donald Trump, among many, was that he “red pilled” many Americans on the issue of China, from unfair trade practices to the outright theft of intellectual property. If you were to ask most in the America First base what the top three or four issues are for them, behind election integrity and immigration, China is one of those top issues.
Which makes it even more important going into the 2022 elections, especially in primaries, that an America First candidate who is consistent across the board on all issues wins the GOP nomination, which brings us to Arizona and the Republican primary for US Senate.
It was already going to be one of the top pick up opportunities for Republicans in 2022, and in the wake of the Virginia elections, Larry Sabato shifted the Arizona seat, currently held by Democrat Mark Kelly, from Likely Democrat to Toss Up.
Because of the critical nature of the race, the GOP primary has now taken on even more importance, which leads to one of the men currently in the race, Jim Lamon.
As a declared candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, Lamon has claimed that he will put America First and stand up to Communist China. But when it comes to his business practices, he clearly has no intention of putting his money where his mouth is.
Lamon has said that he will “defeat the Communist Party,” and that as a Senator, he will see to it “that goods coming into the U.S. are not made with cheap slave labor, unfettered environmental pollution, and unsafe working conditions.” He has even claimed that his own company, Depcom Power, focuses on buying “American First.”
“We don’t buy Chinese products,” Lamon said in May of 2021. But the records tell a different story.
Yet as recently as October of 2020, Depcom had imported several million kilograms of solar supplies from a Chinese company called HT Solar; accounting for just over three-fourths of all trade with Depcom. HT Solar is far and away Depcom’s largest trading partner. It is a subsidiary of HT-SAAE, which is entirely owned and operated by the Communist Chinese government, operating under the China Aerospace Science Technology Corporation (CASC), a government-owned enterprise that was first established in 1956.
In addition to exporting solar power supplies to international buyers such as Depcom, CASC specializes in the manufacturing of ballistic missiles, precision-guided bombs, and other large-scale weaponry. CASC’s marketing arm for missile technology is the China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CPMIEC).
CPMIEC is currently under sanction by the U.S. government, forbidding all American citizens from doing business with them, after it was discovered that CPMIEC had been exporting ballistic missile technology to Iran and Pakistan. The broader umbrella of CASC was also the subject of sanctions during the Trump Administration, after President Trump determined that it had deep ties to the Chinese military.
On Lamon’s watch, Depcom has even taken legal action against several Chinese companies when it felt it was not provided with supplies that it was owed by such companies. Depcom filed a lawsuit in 2019 against Sunergy California LLC, a California-based subsidiary of China Sunergy Co., which is headquartered in Nanjing. Depcom ultimately reached a court judgment of $3.7 million, which was subsequently disputed; while the ruling was on appeal, Sunergy filed for bankruptcy in 2021.
But Lamon’s business dealings with China do not end there. Depcom has also done business with multiple Chinese companies that benefit from slave labor by Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region.
One example is Longi Green Energy Technology, one of several companies that is known to receive supplies from Daqo New Energy Group, which has been documented as profiting off of slave labor by Xinjiang’s Uighurs. In addition to the human rights violations, Longi has direct ties to the Xinjiang Communist Party’s paramilitary wing, the XPCC.
Depcom was also directly involved in the construction of the Pawpaw solar plant in Georgia in 2015, a facility that utilizes over 137,000 solar modules acquired from Trina Solar. Trina is yet another Chinese company with ties to the XPCC and slave labor in Xinjiang. In another similar deal, Depcom was behind the construction ofthe 40MW Boise Solar Farm in Idaho in 2016. The Boise facility was provided with over 175,000 solar modules from Jinko Solar, a Chinese company that, like Trina and Longi, is connected to the XPCC and Uighur slave labor.
With all of Lamon’s Chinese dealings over the years, it is no surprise that Lamon was openly critical of both President Trump’s tariffs against China and his skepticism of “green energy” alternatives. Lamon was prominently featured in a Time Magazine article in 2018 in which he lamented President Trump’s cracking down on trade with China, and admitted to lobbying the Trump Administration to rethink its approach to solar power and trade with China.
Lamon’s track record has indeed been consistent on this issue, as in consistently in the complete opposite direction of an America First agenda. His words on China and America First ring hollow after years of business deals with numerous Chinese companies, and quite frankly, his frequent vigorous defense of such transactions. Hopefully the Republican voters in Arizona become more acquainted with Lamon’s actions before voting in the 2022 primary.
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), a former White House physician who served under former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, said last week that President Joe Biden, who turns 79 this month, has “age-related cognitive decline” and is not “mentally fit” to serve as president.
Jackson, speaking on a podcast with Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), also said that he received a “scathing” email from Obama accusing him of “betrayal” for talking about Biden’s mental state in the past.
“All I know is that he’s got age-related cognitive decline, right. He is not mentally fit right now,” Jackson said on the podcast, the Washington Examiner reported. “He’s 78 years old and you can see it. You don’t need to be a physician to look at him and to look at his behavior and some of the other stuff, just the way he shuffles away, stares off into space.”
“I know what that job entails, both physically and mentally, and how demanding it is. And I can tell you right now, I’m 100% sure that Joe Biden is incapable of doing that job,” the doctor added.
Following a fumbling speech from Biden back in August, Jackson posted critical commentary of the president. “That was embarrassing,” he tweeted. “There is something so obviously wrong with Biden’s cognitive fitness it was hard to watch. He should NOT remain President for another SECOND. We deserve better – MUCH better.”
Jackson said Obama then wrote him a “scathing” email about his Biden commentary. “He just tore me up,” the representative recalled. “It was unbelievable.”
“An entire page about how disappointed he was in me and how it’s beneath me as a physician and beneath me as an officer in the military to be attacking Joe Biden like this,” the doctor explained. “And it was a betrayal of the trust that he and his administration put in me and he was so disappointed in me and yada, yada.”
Jackson also ridiculed the media’s double standard in treatment toward Trump compared to how they treat Biden, the Examiner outlined:
The first-term lawmaker said the event showed how the media and Democrats have a double standard when judging presidents. He viewed Trump as strong-minded but convinced him to take a cognitive test to quiet critics. He said Trump answered all questions correctly.
But when he called for the same thing for Biden, he was assailed.
As highlighted by The Daily Wire last month, GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician, called for annual senility tests for aging politicians, such as President Biden, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY):
Cassidy, a gastroenterologist, said that people generally begin a “rapid decline” when they hit 80 years old.
“It’s usually noticeable,” the senator said. “So anybody in a position of responsibility who may potentially be on that slope, that is of concern. And I’m saying this as a doctor.”
“I’m told that there have been senators in the past who, at the end of their Senate terms were senile,” Cassidy added. “I’m told that was true of senators of both parties.”
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.
Rev. Brian Hawkins doesn’t try to hide his troubled past. He believes in learning from mistakes, and he admits he’s made a few.
An ex-felon who spent 10 years in state prison for a series of low-level crimes, Hawkins eventually turned to faith. He is now a married Christian pastor and a devoted family man who cares deeply about his children’s education. Last year, he was elected to the city council in San Jacinto, Calif., and he’s running for Congress in 2022.
Hawkins, 43, believes in truth, forgiveness, and redemption, which are some of the many reasons he rejects critical race theory (CRT).
“I’m teaching my children how to respect people, how to care for all people. We’re teaching our children to not think of themselves more highly than anyone else, to have work ethic and positive attitude and mindset,” he said.
“I’m exposing my children to the history of America without them hating the history of America.”
Hands-on History
Last fall, Hawkins, his wife, Terri, and their children drove cross-country to Washington, D.C., where he stood in front of the slave auction block at Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“Had I not been able to see that stone, I wouldn’t have been able to tell my children that part of history,” said Hawkins.
“I said, ‘Listen, we’re looking at this through a museum, but 150 to 200 years ago, there were actual slaves—blacks or African Americans—who actually stood on this. But we’re not standing on this block anymore,” Hawkins said.
“So, my daughter looks at me and says, ‘Dad, we’ve come a long way.’ That moved me,” he said. “When you remove history, you don’t get to tell history. You don’t get to explain history.”
The family journeyed to Jamestown, Virginia to see where the first slaves were brought to America, to Washington, and to New York to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island to learn about immigrants who fled other countries to come to America for a better life.
“We wanted our children to learn history, not to hate people or not to look down on people for the color of their skin, or to blame the past or that someone else is responsible for your future. You charter your own destiny,” Hawkins said.
“We’re Christian and we’re raising out children in a Christian home, and so it’s alarming that my children have been subjected to so much hate and anger. … Those are the things that really bothered me in 2020.”
The anger that filled the streets and “really the atmosphere” during the summer of 2020 affected his children, he said, but as parents he and Terri were able to help them find their way through the crisis.
“I noticed that it put my kids in a different mindset from what we really wanted to teach them,” he said.
“I want to show them what life really is. I don’t have to teach my kids that we’re in 1963, 1854, or 1921, or different periods of time in history that are ridden with atrocities. I can teach my kids where we are right now.”
A Tale of ‘Equity’
With California’s Reparations Task Force talking about ways to close the wealth gap between black and white Americans, Hawkins, who is a descendant of slaves, likes to tells a different story about equity and incentives from the perspective of his nine-year old daughter, Naariah.
“She really looks up to me,” he said. “When I ran for council, she ran for school council, and she won last year. She was excited.”
Naariah Hawkins displays a poster she made for school. (Courtesy Brian Hawkins)
Not long after Hawkins announced he would run for Congress, the fourth-grader decided to run for the Eagle Elite Student Leadership Team at her school the San Jacinto Unified School District (SJUSD).
To qualify, students must campaign for the position. They were required to create an advertising poster board, take it to school, and talk to other students about why they were running for Eagle Elite and why they wanted to be a leader.
“So, my daughter over the weekend makes this beautiful board. She uses Stephen Covey’s [book] because she goes to a school where they use a curriculum from Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” Hawkins said.
She was one of three students to vie for Eagle Elite but the only one to make the poster.
“Nobody else did it,” Hawkins said.
Theoretically, because her opponents hadn’t followed the rules, they should have been disqualified, but they weren’t, he said.
Naariah campaigned on the issue, asking her schoolmates to vote for her because, unlike her opponents, she had followed the rules. But then her teacher announced all three students had won.
And, even though the teacher later whispered to Naariah she had earned the most votes, Hawkins said Naariah was disappointed.
The message of equity, social passes, and trophies for all is sending children the wrong message, that they don’t have to try to win, he said.
“It discouraged my daughter because she put forth all the effort to win only to turn around and find out that her efforts were meaningless because they were all winners,” Hawkins said.
Troubled Times
When Naariah came home from school with a teacher-recommended reading list that included a children’s book about Black Lives Matter (BLM), Hawkins decided it was time to get more involved in her education.
The book, “A Good Kind of Trouble,” essentially encourages young kids to get involved in the BLM movement, he said.
(Courtesy Brian Hawkins)
Hawkins ordered the book so he and Naariah could read it together.
The book’s main character, Shay, is allergic to trouble. Her sister Hana is involved in Black Lives Matter and after attending a protest, Shay decides some rules are worth breaking and wears an armband to school in support of the BLM movement.
“Tensions are high over the trial of a police officer who shot an unarmed Black man. When the officer is set free, and Shay goes with her family to a silent protest, she starts to see that some trouble is worth making,” is how Publishers Weekly describes the book by debut author Lisa Moore Ramée on its anti-racist children’s and young adults reading list.
But the lesson Naariah learned wasn’t the same. After reading the book, she told her dad she would never join BLM and that “it wasn’t for her,” Hawkins said.
Amazon describes the book as a “funny and big-hearted debut middle grade novel about friendship, family, and standing up for what’s right,” but Hawkins doesn’t buy the assumption BLM is fighting for a just cause.
To advance its own opportunistic and Marxist agenda, BLM has reopened old wounds to portray a false sense of history that ignores the fact slaves were freed more than 150 years ago, he said.
“They want to make it seem like it never happened so you can keep people in that mindset as though it’s still happening,” Hawkins said.
Ethnic Studies
During the summer, Hawkins attended several different school board and regional government meetings to protest CRT being taught in California classrooms under the guise of ethnic studies.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Oct. 8 making ethnic studies a statewide requirement for high school graduation starting in the 2029–30 school year. State Assembly Bill 101 also requires junior high schools to offer at least a one-semester course in ethnic studies by the 2025–26 school year.
(Courtesy Brian Hawkins)
Newsom signed the bill in the wake of the National School Board Association (NSBA) comparing angry parents protesting ethnic studies at school board meetings in recent months to a form of “domestic terrorism.” The NSBA later apologized for the remark.
The mainstream media has “hijacked” the conversation on CRT and pushed it to “uncomfortable levels” for many parents and students, he said.
At a Desert Sands Unified School District (DSUSD) board meeting in Riverside County, Hawkins urged the board of trustees to abandon the ethnic studies program which he sees as divisive and destructive. He asked trustees to level with parents about the intent of the curriculum and admit that it’s connected to CRT.
Many school board members, principals and teachers who claim CRT isn’t part of the ethnic studies program “have never studied critical race theory to qualify that,” Hawkins told the board at a July meeting.
“One of the principals said that it’s not intended to teach critical race theory, so I want to enlighten you, because eventually parents are going to come to understand that ethnic studies is the result of critical race theory.”
Hawkins cited Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leading scholar of CRT and professor at UCLA Law School and Columbia Law School. Crenshaw is best known for developing the theory of “intersectionality,” a term she coined in a 1989 paper, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.”
“So, to suggest that ethnic studies is not critical race theory, well, that’s far from the truth because right in your own curriculum is the word intersectionality,” he said. “To sit up here and play parents as though they’re not intelligent is going to be the worst mistake that you can ever make.”
Rather than ranking students on their level of “privilege” and portraying people of color as “the oppressed” and white people as their “oppressors,” schools should be teaching about children about freedom and equal opportunity, not pushing for guaranteed outcomes in the form of equity, Hawkins said.
(Courtesy Brian Hawkins)
“I’m teaching my children not to be angry at white people, not to be mad at history, but to understand it,” he told the board.
In the words on one principal, he said, it could “mess up a lot of students if the wrong person teaches ethnics studies.
“That’s a concern for me. The only people that are qualified to teach this class are totally biased. And, if you don’t think … black folks are prejudiced towards white people, you’re fooling yourself,” Hawkins said.
“There’s anger out there and society is feeding into that narrative. I grew up in the inner city, I know what it’s like,” he said. “I know the conversation that they’re having at barbecues and salons. Some of them won’t be honest enough to tell you, but they have been waiting. … There are some folks that are really ready for anarchy in this country.”
Hawkins said “it hurt” to see protesters burning the American flag on the Fourth of July. He celebrates Independence Day and Juneteenth because he believes “there’s a space in all of this for everybody to be equally respected.”
Hawkins told the board said he’s talked to Riverside County Sherriff Chad Bianco to “be a bridge” between law enforcement and the community.
“That’s something that I love calling myself—a bridge—because that’s what we need in society,” he said.
Hawkins warned if nothing is done to promote unity rather than the divisive rhetoric of CRT in California classrooms, eventually the blame will fall on the shoulders of school boards who refused to stand with the parents.
“It’s only going to get worse. And guess what? Some politicians are banking on this. Racism is a huge hustle,” he said.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonpartisan organization with an emphasis on federal finances, has said that Democrats’ budget reconciliation, which Democrats have marketed as a $1.75 trillion bill, will actually cost around $2.4 trillion.
The $1.75 trillion bill was unveiled by the White House after months of negotiations with a handful of moderates who refused to vote for the original, more expansive $3.5 trillion budget proposal.
But according to CRFB, this new $1.75 trillion figure is far too conservative.
CRFB, which describes itself as “a nonpartisan, non-profit organization committed to educating the public on issues with significant fiscal policy impact,” has an impressive history. The group was founded by Reps. Robert Giaimo (D-Conn.) and Henry Bellmon (R-Okla.) after both left Congress in 1981.
The group has researched legislation for decades, and has not shied away from criticizing proposals from both parties.
In 2017, when Republicans used the reconciliation process to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, CRFB warned that the legislation would increase the federal deficit and the national debt. “Tax cuts don’t pay for themselves,” they wrote in a blog post.
Now, CRFB has turned its attention to Democrats’ Build Back Better budget bill. According to new analysis by the group, the bill will actually initiate $2.4 billion in new spending.
By far the most expensive item in the bill will be universal pre-K and childcare programs, coming in at $390 billion. In addition, Democrats’ proposed family leave program, which has been controversial with some moderates, would cost $195 billion.
Climate provisions in the bill will set the nation back by over half a trillion dollars, costing $555 billion in total.
For many Democrats, climate policy has been an essential element of the bill, and supporters of the legislation, like President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have emphasized when discussing the bill that it is “the largest investment to fight climate change in U.S. history.”
Biden has put forward a lofty goal for the bill to achieve: a 50 percent reduction in U.S. emissions by the year 2030.
To meet this goal, the bill would devote most of its climate funding to incentivizing non-fossil fuel energy.
For example, utility companies will be eligible to receive kickbacks for transferring from fossil fuels to solar and other non-carbon emitting sources. Other plans in the bill would incentivize electric cars and charging stations in an effort to further reduce emissions.
Comparatively little in the bill will go toward health care provisions, which were significantly weakened in the pared down compromise budget.
$150 billion will go to funding home-based care, which Democrats have said will help people who are currently caring for a disabled or elderly relative to reenter the work force.
The bill would also extend Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, which allow some families to deduct the cost of their health insurance premium—but not all health insurance premiums are eligible for these deductions; According to CRFB, these extended tax credits will cost $125 billion.
The bill also appropriates $30 billion in spending on Medicare hearing benefits. Initially, progressives hoped for comprehensive hearing, vision, and dental benefits, but these did not make it into the compromise budget.
Another $30 billion will go to growing the healthcare workforce. Currently, hospitals and other healthcare facilities around the country are experiencing severe shortages of healthcare workers as nurses and doctors quit their jobs in order to avoid Biden’s vaccine mandates. These funds will go to try to regrow that workforce.
Looking at these and other expenditures, CRFB estimates that the bill will actually cost $2.4 trillion, $650 billion more than its top line price.
But CRFB also warns that “the legislation relies heavily on arbitrary expirations to keep reported costs down.”
In short, this means that the bill sets some programs to end in a few years, apparently lowering the price of the legislation. However, Democrats could easily re-authorize the programs later in another reconciliation bill. “Making all provisions permanent,” writes CRFB, “would cost $2 trillion to $2.5 trillion over a decade.”
At the same time, CRFB’s analysis shows that revenue schemes in the bill will not cover the full price of the bill. Rather, they will offset the price by $2.2 trillion, increasing the federal deficit by around $200 billion.
The Congressional Budget Office has yet to release their own analysis of the bill, which several moderates have indicated is necessary to gain their support for the legislation.
If the CBO’s analysis aligns with CRBF’s, some moderates—especially Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) in the Senate—may refuse to vote for the bill, forcing Democrats back to the drawing board after months of delays.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has vetoed a legislative package that would have granted tax credits for contributions to scholarship programs that could help low-income students to have a private school education they may not have otherwise been able to afford.
Collectively, the Senate Bills 687 and 688 and House Bills 5404 and 5405 would create Michigan Opportunity Scholarship Accounts that could be used by families to cover education expenses, including those related to non-public schools, courses, and programs. Michigan residents and businesses who donate to the scholarship accounts would receive a state tax credit equal to the value of their contribution.
Once established, the scholarships would prioritize students most in need, including those receiving free and reduced lunch, those living in foster care, and those with disabilities.
Whitmer, a Democrat, promised last month to veto the Republican-sponsored school choice bills, which the Democratic minority in the state legislature argue would have steered public money into private education.
“Simply put, our schools cannot provide the high-quality education our kids deserve if we turn private schools into tax shelters for the wealthy,” Whitmer said in her Nov. 5 veto message. “The movement to privatize education in this state has been a catastrophic failure, causing Michigan students to fall behind the rest of the nation.”
The Republicans decried the veto, saying that their plan was meant to help students get better educational outcomes after more than a year of school closures and the resulting stress, anxiety, and learning loss.
“Instead of empowering parents to give students—especially students with special needs or from underserved communities—better opportunities to learn and succeed, the governor has again rejected progress for the same old, tired, and failing approach to education, because she is beholden to the teachers’ unions and their generous donations,” said Republican state Sen. Lana Theis, who chairs the Michigan Senate Education Committee, said in a statement following the veto.
The Michigan Education Association (MEA), the state’s largest public sector union representing about 120,000 public school employees, applauded Whitmer’s decision. MEA President Paula Herbart criticized the Republican scholarship plan, characterizing it as an “unconstitutional school voucher.”
Herbart claimed that the plan would only benefit wealthy donors like Betsy DeVos, a Michigan-born billionaire whose tenure as the U.S. Secretary of Education was marked by increased federal support for charter and private schools.
“Michigan voters have resoundingly opposed attempts by mega-donors like Betsy DeVos to enact voucher schemes in our state,” Herbart said. “We value our neighborhood public schools and know that funneling money to private schools does nothing to provide equal opportunity for Michigan students.”
Civil liberties advocates oppose President Joe Biden’s proposed rescission of a Trump-era broadening of a regulatory exemption protecting religious employers against being forced to hire individuals who don’t share the organization’s faith views or practices.
In a proposed rule posted Nov. 9 on the Federal Register for official public comment, the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) said it had proposed in 2019 a revision that is now viewed as going too far in broadening the definition of “religious freedom” in hiring by federal contractors and subcontractors.
The 2019 proposal was amended in 2020 and became law in January 2021 just before then-President Donald Trump left office. Now, according to OFCCP under Biden, the previous broadening required that religious freedom “must be construed in favor of the broadest protection of religious exercise ‘permitted by the U.S. Constitution and law.’”
Prior to the Trump revision, federal officials usually recognized the right of religious organizations to hire individuals who shared a particular group’s faith principles and practices.
But when the Supreme Court expanded the definition of “sex” in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include homosexual and transgender individuals, a conflict was created with the Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and religious freedom in hiring practices.
The Trump rule was intended to make clear that an individual could not be fired because of a religious-based objection to being required to participate in actions or pronouncements favoring homosexual or transgender practices.. In addition, an employer could legally decline to hire an individual whose sexual practices or claimed gender conflicted with a clearly stated religious belief.
Atheist groups are lauding Biden’s action, with American Atheists Vice President for Legal and Policy Alison Gill saying in a statement that her group applauds “the Biden administration for restoring workers’ freedom of religion. The government should never fund businesses that justify discrimination based on religious beliefs. And American taxpayers should never be forced to be complicit in discrimination.”
But public interest law firms specializing in litigation on behalf of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom of practice and assembly said the Biden administration’s attempt to repeal the Trump-era regulation indicates an anti-religion prejudice.
“Religious liberty means that the government cannot force religious organizations and businesses to abandon their religious identity in order to partner with the government. The pattern of hostility toward religion that we’re seeing from the Biden administration is disturbing,” said Jeremy Dys, special counsel for litigation and communications for the Plano, Texas-based First Liberty Institute.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Orlando, Florida-based Liberty Counsel told The Epoch Times he is not surprised by the Biden proposal. “This has been Biden’s practice all along, including when he was part of the Obamacare campaign. He’s anti-religious freedom and anti-Christian,” he said.
Both First Liberty Institute and Liberty Counsel are representing hundreds of employees of the U.S. military and the federal civilian workforce, as well as corporations, health care organizations and private businesses in seeking to force the Biden administration to recognize religious exemptions to the president’s recent orders requiring workers to receive the vaccination against the CCP Virus.
Biden’s OFCCP proposal creates an unusual situation in which a change in presidential administrations leads in less than one year to a single agency completely reversing itself on an important major policy issue.
The OFCCP’s rescission notice explained that “the 2020 rule’s departures from Title VII principles and case law are likely to increase rather than decrease confusion about the application of the Executive Order 11246 religious exemption.
“Furthermore, to the extent the 2020 rule reflects the previous administration’s policy judgments regarding deviating from Title VII case law and principles, the present administration has evaluated the range of permissible policy options and determined that a return to its traditional approach of applying Title VII case law and principles will promote clarity and consistency in the application of the exemption.”
The same agency just 11 months ago described the Trump policy now being revised by Biden as being to “ensure that OFCCP respects religious employers’ free exercise rights, protects workers from prohibited discrimination, and defends the values of a pluralistic society … This rule is intended to correct any misperception that religious organizations are disfavored in government contracting by setting forth appropriate protections for their autonomy to hire employees who will further their religious missions, thereby providing clarity that may expand the eligible pool of federal contractors and subcontractors.”
An estimated one-quarter of all employers in the United States receive federal contracts or are sub-contractors on such agreements between the government and private businesses.
Comments on the Biden proposal are open until Dec. 9, 2021, and may submitted at http://www.regulations.gov.
The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol breach announced Tuesday it issued subpoenas to aides to former President Donald Trump, including Kayleigh McEnany and Stephen Miller.
McEnany, who currently works for Fox News and co-hosts “Outnumbered,” had served as the White House press secretary, while Miller was a senior Trump adviser. Miller earlier this year launched a legal group to fight Democratic lawsuits.
On Tuesday, the panel also subpoenaed Nicholas Luna, who served as the former President’s personal assistant, and who was reportedly in the Oval Office on Jan. 6. Subpoenas were also issued to Molly Michael, who served as a special assistant to the president; Benjamin Williamson, who served as an assistant to former chief of staff Mark Meadows; Christopher Liddell, and the former White House Deputy Chief of Staff.
Subpoenas were also issued by the committee to former Gen. Keith Kellogg, who was then-Vice President Mike Pence’s national security advisor; former White House personnel director John McEntee; Cassidy Hutchinson, a special assistant to the president on legislative affairs; and Kenneth Klukowski, the former senior counsel to former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark.
“The Select Committee wants to learn every detail of what went on in the White House on January 6th and in the days beforehand,” said the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), in a statement.
Thompson added that his office believes “the witnesses subpoenaed today have relevant information and we expect them to comply fully with the Select Committee’s investigation.”
The announcement comes a day after the committee said it issued subpoenas to several other Trump associates, including former advisor Michael Flynn, Bernard Kerik, Jason Miller, Angela McCallum, Bill Stepien, and John Eastman.
And previously, after the panel sent a subpoena to former Trump advisor and campaign strategist Steve Bannon, the House of Representatives voted along partisan lines to hold him in contempt. But it’s not yet clear if the Department of Justice will enforce the subpoena.
When asked about Bannon’s subpoena during an unrelated news conference Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that “there is an ongoing examination of the referral, and as you know the Justice Department doesn’t comment on those.”
“We evaluate these in the normal way we do, looking at the facts and the law and applying the principles of prosecution,” he continued.
Trump in October filed a lawsuit seeking to block the House committee from obtaining White House documents and records in connection to the Jan. 6 incident.
The former president on Monday filed an emergency motion asking Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, an Obama appointee, to grant a stay. She declined the request on Tuesday.
Former Trump administration State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus clearly made House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff uncomfortable when she pressed him on Tuesday about his promotion of the debunked Steele dossier.
Last week, special counsel John Durham charged Igor Danchenko with five counts of lying to the FBI.
Danchenko is a Russian national who worked at the liberal Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and is believed to be a primary source of information contained in the infamous anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Michael Steele.
That document was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee and was used to help launch the Russia probe in search of ties between the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign and Russia.
Ortagus, who was a guest-hosting ABC’s “The View” on Tuesday, questioned Schiff about his promotion of the Steele dossier and the false narrative underlying it.
“You’ve been really prolific over the past few years being the head of the Intel Committee. You defended, promoted, you even read into the Congressional Record the Steele dossier,” Ortagus said.
“And we know last week the main source of the dossier was indicted by the FBI for lying about most of the key claims in that dossier. Do you have any reflections on your role in promoting this to the American people?” she asked.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UWSdiJJ8pPU
Schiff first responded in a reasonable fashion, saying any who lied to the FBI should be prosecuted.
Do you think Schiff knowingly misled the American people regarding Trump-Russia collusion?
He then defended his conduct.
“We couldn’t have known, for example, people were lying to Christopher Steele. So it was proper to investigate them,” Schiff said.
The congressman added that one benefit of the investigation was learning that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had given polling data to Russian intelligence.
Schiff was playing pretty fast and loose with the facts.
According to The Associated Press, Manafort gave polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian and Ukrainian political consultant, who allegedly passed it along to Russian intelligence.
“But Mueller’s team said it couldn’t ‘reliably determine’ Manafort’s purpose in sharing it, nor assess what Kilimnik may have done with it,” the AP reported.
That sort of exaggeration by Schiff was typical throughout the Russia probe.
Ortagus reminded Schiff that Manafort was removed from the campaign in the summer of 2016 when questions arose regarding his past lobbying work for pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs.
Further, it should be noted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, though filled with Democratic investigators, “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated” with Russia, according to the Justice Department’s Mueller report.
Ortagus then brought the conversation back to Schiff’s role in promoting the whole collusion false narrative and the dossier.
“You may have helped spread Russian disinformation yourself for years by promoting this. I think that’s what Republicans and what people who entrusted you as the Intel Committee chair are so confused about your culpability in all of this,” Ortagus said.
“Well, I completely disagree with your premise,” Schiff responded. “It’s one thing to say allegations should be investigated, and they were. It’s another to say that we should have foreseen in advance that some people were lying to Christopher Steele, which is impossible of course to do.”
The Californian sells himself short. He was constantly out in front of the cameras claiming he was privy to intelligence that he could not share with the public validating the collusion charge.
For example in March 2017, NBC “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd asked Schiff if there was anything beyond circumstantial evidence suggesting the Trump campaign’s connection to Russia.
“I can tell you that the case is more than that and I can’t go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now,” Schiff said.
Further questioned whether he had seen direct evidence, the representative responded, “I don’t want to get into specifics but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of an investigation.”
.@RepAdamSchiff on Trump/Russia connection: “There is more than circumstantial evidence now…and is very much worthy of investigation.” pic.twitter.com/qvw7drsqQX
Despite making claims like that for many months, Schiff never came forward with such evidence, even after Mueller issued his report.
On Tuesday’s showing of “The View,” the Democrat pivoted away from discussing the dossier to raising the issue of the 2019 House Democratic impeachment of Trump and the Capitol incursion to prove investigating him was justified.
You’ll recall it was during the impeachment hearing that Schiff famously made up his own fanciful version of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to build his case that the American leader conducted a shakedown to secure an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden’s shady dealings in Ukraine.
This performance was even after Zelensky himself said he felt no pressure from Trump’s call and his country launched no investigation into the Bidens.
Schiff told Ortagus, “None of that is undercut. None of that serious misconduct is in any way diminished by the fact that people lied to Christopher Steele.”
“No. I think just your credibility is,” Ortagus shot back.
Schiff then opted for the verbal attack of a schoolboy, saying, “I think the credibility of your question is in doubt.”
Having boasted about so much with so little pushback from the media, it was refreshing to see his feet actually held to the fire for once.
Cortez Rice is the reported nephew of George Floyd, whose May 2020 death while in police custody triggered a summer of rioting, looting and mayhem. And he has a message for the Kyle Rittenhouse trial jury.
In a chilling video that was clearly designed to intimidate, Rice told members of the jury they’re being watched and that he fully expects a guilty verdict. In a menacing tone of voice, he says, “I ain’t even gonna name the people that I know that’s up in the Kenosha [Wisconsin] trial. But it’s cameras in there. It’s definitely cameras up in there. There’s definitely people taking pictures of the juries and everything like that.”
“We know what’s going on, so we need the same results, man. We need the same results,” he said, referencing the guilty verdicts delivered by the jurors in the Derek Chauvin murder trial in April.
George Floyd’s nephew, Cortez Rice, makes a claim that he knows people taking photos of jurors during the Kyle Rittenhouse trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin. His goal is to dox jurors if they do not convict. pic.twitter.com/uwLuV2ftfV
Rice’s relation to Floyd is a bit hazy, as severaloutlets have reported Rice is Floyd’s nephew, while others have said Rice’s relationship with Floyd was as close as a family bond would be, though the two were just friends.
Cortez Rice was not blood related to George Floyd but has continuously referred to himself as Floyd’s nephew, although they were merely friends.
Rice, a self-professed civil rights activist & advocate for the people, admins a private group on Facebook called “United We Walk”.
Kyle Rittenhouse, 18, has pleaded not guilty to seven charges which include “first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and first-degree attempted intentional homicide,” according to CNN. He shot two individuals fatally and wounded a third during the Kenosha riots last August.
Do you think Cortez Rice should be prosecuted for intimidating a jury?
His lawyers are making the case that Rittenhouse fired the shots in self-defense. His case was bolstered last week by aerial footage taken by the FBI which supports Rittenhouse’s version of events. He received a second boost on Monday when the survivor of the men he shot told the court he had pointed a gun at Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse fired his own gun, according to Reuters.
Judge Bruce Schroeder, who is presiding over the case, told the court Tuesday it had been reported to him that, the same morning, an individual was found video-recording the jury. Schroeder said, “The officers approached the person and required [them] to delete the video.”
If it happens again, he said, the officers have been instructed to take the phone and bring it to the court.
Evidently, Rice feels his “status” as Floyd’s “nephew” gives him some leverage over those who might dox or otherwise harm the jurors should they return an unsatisfactory verdict.
Because the jurors are not sequestered, it’s very possible that at least some will hear Rice’s messages.
One Twitter user informed his followers that, although Rice deleted his message from his Facebook page, an hour-long stream of the original can be viewed on YouTube.
Cortez Rice deleted the stream off his facebook, probably because he was admitting to crime (not that it’s likely it will be prosecuted given his connection to Saint Floyd)
WARNING: The following video contains graphic content and language.
I suppose there are many ways to influence a jury. One could choose the thuggish approach that Rice did.
Or one might try a more brazen approach as California Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat, tried the weekend before the verdict was reached in the Derek Chauvin trial. She showed up at a riot and essentially told the crowd a manslaughter verdict was unacceptable. If the jury didn’t find Chauvin guilty of murder, they needed to turn up the heat.
Maxine Waters is marching in Brooklyn Center tonight and told people to take to the streets if Chauvin is acquitted pic.twitter.com/RemfvCCLAn
For his part, President Joe Biden said he hoped the jury would make the “right” decision.
Republicans were outraged by Waters and Biden for their efforts to “weigh-in” on the case. Democrats, of course, were fine with it.
Unfortunately, this behavior is impossible to stop and difficult to prosecute. And it clearly marginalizes our system of justice which promises citizens a fair trial.
Hopefully, the city of Kenosha will provide members of the Rittenhouse jury with security for a period of time should they reach an “unpopular verdict.”
NLRB members David Prouty and Gwynne Wilcox served as counsel for SEIU
Two of the nation’s top labor arbiters will not recuse themselves from a case involving their former employer, a chief Democratic Party ally.
David Prouty and Gwynne Wilcox serve on the five-member National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency that dictates labor laws. Board chairman Lauren McFerran announced Friday that the pair will not recuse themselves from a lawsuit filed by the Service Employees International Union, their former employer and the nation’s second-largest union. The SEIU is challenging a Trump-era “joint employment” rule, which holds that franchises are distinct from parent companies.
Prouty directly opposed the Trump rule at the SEIU, and Wilcox worked with groups that fought the changes. Their failure to recuse themselves from the case could lead to a favorable ruling for their former employer. Unions largely oppose the rule, which makes it harder for parent companies to be held liable for violations committed by franchisees. The SEIU and other labor groups are pushing for a broader definition of “joint employers,” which would make it easier for them to sue large corporations when franchisees violate labor laws.
The NLRB has a history of asking for recusals in joint employer cases. The board vacated a 2017 decision on the issue after it ruled that Trump-appointee William Emanuel had a conflict of interest. Emanuel had no connections to the parties in the lawsuit, but the NLRB inspector noted that his former law firm represented a group in a case the 2017 decision overturned.
Sen. Mike Braun (R., Ind.) told the Washington Free Beacon that the NLRB is inconsistent in asking for recusals.
“The swamp is back to their usual hypocrisy, and the National Labor Relations Board’s double standard on what constitutes a conflict of interest is an obvious case of politics winning over ethics,” Braun said.
In a letter to Republican lawmakers, McFerran said an ethics officer ruled Prouty and Wilcox would not violate any rules or regulations by ruling on the case. The NLRB declined to comment.
Glenn Taubman, a staff attorney at the National Right to Work Foundation, said unions want to reclassify major companies as joint employers to boost their organizing efforts. At the moment, unions have to organize each franchise individually. But under an expanded rule, they could unionize an entire company and all its franchises at once.
“This is to grease the path to maximal unionization,” Taubman told the Free Beacon. “It has the smell of a collusive lawsuit.”
Prouty, who replaced Emanuel on the board, served as general counsel for SEIU Local 32BJ from 2017 until his appointment in June. Prouty signed on to the union’s 2019 letter in opposition to the Trump-era joint employer rule at the center of the case he will review.
Wilcox served as associate general counsel of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. One of her clients as a labor lawyer was “Fight for $15,” an SEIU-affiliated group that has filed its own lawsuits in opposition to Trump-era joint employer laws.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), a ranking member on the House Committee on Education and Labor, said McFerran’s letter dodges clear ethical questions on how the NLRB will handle the case.
“Prouty and Wilcox’s prior affiliation with the SEIU excludes them from being impartial arbiters, and we will be following up on the NLRB’s completely inadequate response to our concerns,” Foxx told the Free Beacon.
The SEIU and its PAC spent $13 million in total to elect Democrats in 2020, including $8 million to help elect President Joe Biden. Patrick Semmens, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation, said the NLRB under Biden has become increasingly partisan in favor of top Democratic Party donors.
“Wilcox and Prouty were appointed to the NLRB by President Biden specifically to help expand the coercive powers of Biden’s big labor political allies,” Semmens told the Free Beacon. “What this episode shows is that Wilcox and Prouty can’t even be bothered with the appearance of impartiality as they push the agenda of their former union colleagues.”
Internal documents show Meredith Whittaker was reprimanded for insubordination
The Biden administration’s choice to advise the Federal Trade Commission on artificial intelligence was pushed out of her position at Google for being too political and insubordinate, according to internal documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
Meredith Whittaker announced Friday that she is joining the FTC as a “Senior Advisor on AI,” a position that reports directly to chairwoman Lina Khan. The former Google employee made headlines in 2019 for organizing walkouts in opposition to the company’s partnership with the U.S. military. Internal reviews obtained by the Free Beacon show that Whittaker was repeatedly warned to focus on her job responsibilities and left Google in July 2019 after she was asked to take a more limited role following several critical performance reviews in the first quarter of that year.
Under President Joe Biden, the FTC has embraced the far-left positions Whittaker espouses. Khan has argued that Amazon, Google, and others may be monopolies even if they don’t raise prices for consumers. FTC commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter has said that antitrust enforcement “can’t be value-neutral” and that the FTC has a mandate to tackle “structural and systemic racism.” Carl Szabo, vice president of tech industry group NetChoice, told the Free Beacon that Khan, Whittaker, and Slaughter share “an obsession with using antitrust to shape progressive policy.”
Although Whittaker has presented herself as an expert in artificial intelligence ethics, some former colleagues have accused her of inflating her credentials, noting that she has no formal training in the field and has done no peer-reviewed research. One manager described her impact inside Google as “nonexistent in the AI bias space, if not negative” and said that “there is not a lot of value” in the work she touted.
Under Whittaker, Google’s AI Now Institute received funding from liberal donors, including the Ford and Omidyar Foundations. In her performance review, Whittaker highlighted her work on the institute as her major contribution at Google, prompting a manager to comment, “This isn’t her job at Google.” Whittaker made her priorities clear in a 2019 blog post that announced her departure from Google, in which she noted her commitment to “organizing for an accountable tech industry.”
Whittaker has a history of controversial statements. In 2019, she called Heritage Foundation president Kay Coles James an “outspoken bigot” after Google named James to its artificial intelligence advisory board. Whittaker in her attacks on James said the idea of viewpoint diversity is a rhetorical tool of the alt-right. She has called the gender gap in the artificial intelligence industry “an emergency” and called on Google to fire an employee who suggested that innate sex differences might contribute to the gap. Whittaker has also attacked white women who voted for former president Donald Trump and called out women in “positions of patriarchal power.”
Whittaker’s appointment will likely open another front in the battle over the FTC’s role. Republicans in Congress who think tech companies are a threat are divided over whether to trust the FTC with more power. Republican senators Josh Hawley (Mo.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), and Tom Cotton (Ark.) have all cosponsored bills that would give the FTC more power to go after tech companies. Other lawmakers, including Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah), have slammed the Biden FTC for political “abuses.”
Whittaker did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Sonia Aggarwal, a Senior Advisor to President Joe Biden on climate policy, lauded the Chinese Communist Party’s controversial “Belt and Road” Initiative in an unearthed op-ed.
Aggarwal, who’s worked in the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy since January, authored an op-ed for Forbes in December 2017: “The China Belt And Road Initiative Could Help – Or Hurt – Clean Energy In Emerging Economies.”
The article, which concludes that “recent developments suggest hope for China’s green Belt and Road Initiative,” evaluates the progress of the initiative based on its adherence to “green” energy goals. It fails to mention how the Chinese Communist Party has weaponized the Belt and Road Initiative to financially exploit developing countries and expand its global hegemony.
As the U.S. State Department has warned, Beijing “uses the Belt and Road Initiative and other undertakings to expand foreign markets for Chinese companies and as a means of drawing nations, particularly their political and economic elites, into Beijing’s geopolitical orbit.”
Its “infrastructure projects — ports, railroads, highways, dams, industrial parks, civil nuclear facilities and other energy related initiatives, and more — typically rely on imported Chinese workers rather than local labor, and sometimes involve 50- to 100-year business relationships that entrench China’s long-term access to local elites and confer power over key parts of the host country’s critical infrastructure,” warned the department.
Aggarwal fails to cite any of the aforementioned concerns, instead uncritically quoting International Renewable Energy Agency Director-General Adnan Amin, who claimed “the [Belt and Road] Initiative can not only help to interconnect electricity grids and deploy more renewable energy, but it can also expand electricity markets to countries with extremely high renewable energy potential, including those in Central Asia. China has the technology and the resources, and it can help to achieve these goals by building partnerships and cooperation.”
Aggarwal herself encourages the continued expansion of Chinese energy and increase international reliance on the country:
Due to domestic policy and market advancements, the Chinese grid is already getting better at maximizing energy from renewable resources, but this could be further helped by building out transmission lines within China as well as better integrating with neighboring regions. And if excess power generation persists on China’s grid, it could be exported to neighboring regions to meet growing energy demand. Certainly, using the Belt and Road-related overseas investments to build clean power plants rather than coal would help solidify China’s leadership in the global energy industry of the future.
“If China’s Belt and Road Initiative is truly green, it will have a global benefit,” Aggarwal concludes after describing “recent developments” as “promising.”
“Just as the United States looks to be forfeiting its seat at the negotiating table for international trade deals, China is stepping into the lead, going beyond the old-fashioned trade agreement to emphasize infrastructure and better energy connectivity over much of the globe,” she adds.
EcoHealth Alliance – the research group using funds from Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Health agency to work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology – counted several high-ranking American government officials as research partners during its controversial collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party-run lab.
The unearthed affiliation follows the National Institutes of Health (NIH) admitting the New York-based nonprofit carried out gain of function research with the Chinese military-linked Wuhan lab and failed to report its findings to the federal agency. Gain of function research, which counts support from EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, increases the virulence, lethality, and transmissibility of viruses including bat coronaviruses. Daszak has previously described the viruses he and his Chinese colleagues were manipulating as “killers” in video unearthed by The National Pulse.
In addition to receiving sizable grants from Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and hosting Fauci repeatedly as a speaker at its events, EcoHealth Alliance also appears to retain close relationships to additional federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through its research partnerships.
Three officials from the CDC are listed as active “partners” of EcoHealth Alliance along with one NIH official on the group’s website.
Since September 2012, two years before Fauci’s NIH agency funded EcoHealth Alliance’s bat coronavirus research with the Wuhan lab, Dr. Rima Khabbaz, the Director of the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases has been listed as on the group’s official partners.
Since April 2015, Dr. Heinz Feldmann, a Senior Investigator at the NIH, has also been a partner of EcoHealth Alliance. Feldman’s NIH biography describes him as a “laboratory expert on high containment viruses (BSL-4)” – the same biosafety level of the Wuhan Institue of Virology facility working on bat coronaviruses. Capt. Jason Thomas, the Biosurveillance Coordinator at the CDC, along with Dr. Stuart Nichol, Chief of the Molecular Biology Section of the Special Pathogens Branch at the CDC, have also been listed as EcoHealth Alliance partners since April 2015.MUST READ: Here’s What Else Senator Rand Paul Should Have Grilled Fauci On.
All aforementioned federal officials are still listed as EcoHealth Alliance partners, classified as “Science and Policy Advisors,” at the time of publication. Among the group’s other advisors is the Deputy Director for Surveillance and Epidemiology at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and World Health Organization (WHO) officials.
NIH to host seminar on vaccine mandates on Dec. 1, official says
A top infectious disease doctor has raised alarm about COVID-19 vaccine mandates despite top federal officials recommending them for businesses, schools, and other institutions.
Dr. Matthew Memoli, who runs a clinical studies unit within the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci—is scheduled to argue against COVID-19 vaccine mandates during a Dec. 1 seminar hosted by the agency, according to David Wendler, a senior NIH bioethicist who is planning the seminar.
“There’s a lot of debate within the NIH about whether [a vaccine mandate] is appropriate,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s an important, hot topic.”
Memoli had told Fauci in a July 30 email that he believes “the way we are using the vaccines is wrong,” adding that mandated vaccines are “extraordinarily problematic,” according to the WSJ.
In comments to the paper, Memoli said that he supports COVID-19 vaccination in high-risk groups including obese people and the elderly. However, widespread vaccinations for people who have a low risk of death or severe illness from COVID-19 could hamper the U.S. population’s ability to develop more robust protection against the virus via previous infections, he said.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study released last month suggested that those who had a previous COVID-19 infection saw a five times higher chance of testing positive than those who were fully vaccinated and never had COVID-19.
Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, who previously conducted a study that suggested people with natural immunity are at low risk of reinfection, told The Epoch Times that the CDC’s research was observational and said that “randomized controlled clinical trials are the gold standard of medical evidence.”
Memoli also told the paper that he has sought an exemption from the federal vaccine mandate on religious grounds, saying he is willing to risk his job and medical license for the right not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
Regarding the discussion, Memoli said that “part of my career is to share my expert opinions, right or wrong … I mean, if they all end up saying I’m wrong, that’s fine. I want to have the discussion.”
The NIH seminar comes as a federal appeals court temporarily blocked President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate targeting private businesses with 100 or more employees. About two-dozen states have filed lawsuits against the rule, arguing the federal government lacks the authority to implement it.
The NIH has not responded to a request for comment on the email. When contacted by The Epoch Times, an NIH official said Memoli would decline to comment.
The Epoch Times has also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain Memoli’s email.
In Saule Omarova’s world, America only really needs one bank—the Federal Reserve. Omarova, President Joe Biden’s nominee to be one of the top banking regulators, has proposed such drastic expansion of government control over finance that it’s leaving some experts scratching their heads over whether the administration is serious about her nomination.
A descendant of Kazakh intellectuals who were persecuted by the Soviet regime, Omarova saw firsthand the effects of a tyrannical state. However, that doesn’t appear to have tempered her vision of expanding the power of the state in America.
It would be best, she outlined in a series of articles and papers, to virtually abolish private banking. Every American would have a bank account set up at the Fed and authorities would be free to inflate the currency by issuing interest on the deposits or even crediting the accounts directly. To counter inflation, the Fed could also slash interest rates or even, if all else fails, take away people’s money as needed, she proposed in a recent paper (pdf).
Saule Omarova during a September 2018 hearing by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. (Courtesy Senate Committee)
However, she didn’t stop there. The Fed would build a stock portfolio mirroring the broader market and short stocks it perceives as inflated in value or “go long” on those it sees as undervalued. The government also would be given special voting rights as though it were a major shareholder in every publicly traded company, directly influencing the appointment and firing of executives.
According to several experts, the implications of the first proposal alone—the centralization of banking—are so enormous they would effectively enable the government to run the economy with near-unlimited discretion.
Omarova didn’t respond to emailed questions and a request for an interview.
Who Lends to Whom?
“If you have all of the deposits in the government bank, then all of the loans, or at least a very high percentage of the loans, are going to be there as well,” said Alex Pollock, former head of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago and financial research executive at the Treasury who is currently a senior fellow at the classical liberal Mises Institute.
Controlling credit means the Fed—and de facto the federal government—would have a say in most major individual economic decisions, such as what factory or office tower gets built, who gets to build or buy a home, and even who gets to go to college or buy a car.
“If you’re politically correct, well, then you can get a loan; if you’re not, you can’t,” Pollock told The Epoch Times about the implications.
Omarova argued the government wouldn’t necessarily make such detailed decisions, but would lend money to “qualifying lending institutions” (QLI) at “affordably priced” interest rates and those QLIs would then relend it to individual customers and pocket the difference in interest. Their pecuniary interest would thus lead them to lend only to financially sound projects.
Then what would stop a QLI from borrowing from the Fed excessively? Omarova would require them to pledge collateral for the money borrowed. Only “quality” collateral would pass, such as government bonds and various high-rated debt securities. Issuing “quality” loans would thus enable a QLI to borrow more from the Fed to make more loans, etc. As such, QLIs would be strongly incentivized to only make loans and investments that could pass as collateral with the Fed.
Omarova acknowledges how major “the impact of the Fed’s collateral eligibility policies on the economy-wide credit allocation” would be.
Government officials setting such criteria would thus pull many a string of the economy at large.
“She wants government to control the allocation of capital in the economy, which is a recipe for politicizing everything,” said David Burton, financial regulation expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Pollock concurred: “It would become purely political.”
Omarova seemed to affirm the influence of political priorities. The Fed would be “explicitly preferencing certain categories of assets” such as “loans to small and medium-size non-financial enterprises and minority-owned businesses, student loans, credit supporting development in underserved communities” and others, she wrote.
Meanwhile, the central bank would reject some assets such as “private equity bridge loans, highly engineered asset-backed securities,” etc., and even ban QLIs from using Fed money for certain loans, such as “loans fueling secondary-market financial speculation, leveraged buyouts (‘LBOs’), massive stock buybacks” etc., she wrote.
Who would have the power to approve QLIs? The federal comptroller of the currency at the Treasury Department—exactly the role Omarova was nominated for.
While her focus is mainly on suppressing what she sees as maladies of the financial market, the Biden administration has made clear it wants financial regulators to target a much broader set of priorities, including steering capital toward companies it sees as furthering the climate-change agenda and away from those that don’t.
In Omarova’s proposal, the Fed wouldn’t have to bother financing political priorities through private parties. It would create a National Investment Authority (NIA) to funnel money from the Fed into “publicly beneficial infrastructure projects.” The NIA would set up investment funds to finance projects such as “nationwide clean energy networks and high-speed railroads, regional air and water cleaning and preservation programs, systems of ongoing adult education and technical training, networks of mixed public-private ‘startup’ finance funds, and so on,” she wrote.
While she noted that such projects don’t necessarily “generate easily privately ‘capturable’ revenues,” private parties putting money into such funds would still reap “rewards,” she wrote. Where would the rewards come from? The Fed would come up with them through “advanced financial engineering,” she argued.
The Fed wouldn’t need private investors, she wrote. They would be invited only so they have something “productive” to do with their money and also to incorporate “price signals” into the NIA’s investment decisions.
It isn’t clear what such price signals would be worth when the investors would be limited to options predetermined by the NIA, Pollock noted.
In fact, it isn’t clear how the Fed would determine what is or isn’t productive in a system in which credit flows are largely determined by the government. The ordinarily robust private credit to serve as a frame of reference would be largely absent and so the Fed would have to fall back on its own judgment.
“Nobody, especially a government bureaucracy, can know enough to do this,” Pollock commented in an email. “It is a totally naïve and, in fact, silly idea.”
At times, Omarova contrasted “productive” investment with speculative investment, which she called “misallocation of capital.”
But speculation “can be destabilizing or stabilizing,” Pollock said. Suppressing it by government mandate doesn’t necessarily heal the monetary woes. In fact, the current practice of the Fed buying up securities seen as safe, like government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, depresses yields on such instruments and pushes investors toward riskier assets, he said.
Omarova argued that something like the NIA has worked before, giving the example of the New Deal-era Reconstruction Finance Corp. (RFC). She didn’t mention the demise of the agency in 1953 after a litany of corruption and scandals.
“According to a Senate investigation of 1951, securing an RFC loan through the Democratic National Committee had become a common practice,” Clark Nardinelli noted in a paper for the Heritage Foundation in 1983.
It’s not clear how Omarova would control corruption within the system she envisions.
Pollock estimated that such an all-powerful Fed “would go on inflating the money supply by lending to the government itself (monetizing government debt) and to politically favored entities of all sorts.”
‘Faith and Credit’
Omarova portrays her vision as the “democratization” of banking. In her view, the Fed functions as a “franchisor,” issuing franchises in the form of charters to its member banks. The Fed is, in turn, controlled by the federal government, which is run by politicians, who are elected by the public.
“The Fed acts on behalf of the sovereign public as the ultimate creator of a unique collective good: the monetized full faith and credit of the United States,” she summarized.
According to Pollock and several other economists, there are a number of problems with this view.
First off, the “faith and credit of the United States” simply means the ability of the federal government to capture a portion of the productivity of the American people in the form of taxes. If Americans aren’t sufficiently productive or if the government loses its ability to sufficiently tax, the “faith and credit” disappears too.
To portray this asset as a “collective good” is problematic because not everyone is contributing to it equally. People run the gamut from extraordinarily productive to utterly unproductive.
Moreover, in practice, the Fed only partly operates as a government-run franchisor. It is also controlled by the member banks who follow their own interests. After the 2008 crash, the Fed extended over $29 trillion in mostly short-term loans to various financial institutions (many of them foreign), in what critics called a bailout of the big banks. At the same time, the bailout also served a political purpose for the government as it, at least on its face, served to save the jobs and savings of millions of voters.
Omarova cited Fed’s interventions in the market to conclude that such measures are the normal and necessary job of a “modern central bank.” As such, the bank could intervene even more and do so more efficiently if it controls the financial industry outright.
The problem is, many experts argue that the Fed’s interventions simply delay the inevitable market correction the economy will eventually have to undergo. The more it’s delayed, the worse it will be. The Fed simply kicks the can down the frosty road of finance, watching it snowball.
“In my view, the Federal Reserve already intervenes too much. Making it the monopoly deposit taker and dominant lender would certainly create an inefficient federal bureaucracy,” Pollock said. “Just look how well student loans have turned out.”
Omarova’s ideas about redistributing the “monetized full faith and credit of the United States” raise the question of how much faith and credit the country has left.
Current federal debt stands at over $28 trillion and nearly 130 percent of the GDP. With consumer prices up nearly 7 percent up over the past two years, there’s a worry that excessive money printing could trigger runaway inflation.
There seems to be an air of suspense regarding the U.S. monetary system, which de facto undergirds financial markets worldwide. Increased spending on durable goods, jewelry, guns, and ammunition as well as the growing popularity of “prepping” hint at the level public anxiety toward the American economy as a whole.
If that should deter the government from further pushing its intervention in the economy, it may actually do the opposite.
If a financial crisis were to hit, the government could usher in Omarova’s proposals as a supposed solution, positioning itself as the savior, according to Mark Thornton, economist at the Mises Institute.
“It sure seems like they know how much the Fed has really messed up the structure of the economy and financial system and they are getting ready for high price inflation, bank runs and failures, and a stock market crash,” he said.
“They always want to manage the message that they solve problems, rather than cause them, and in this case, it is clear that they have brought about these problems with a decade-plus of ultra-low interest rate policy.”
Tools to counter inflation make up a significant part of Omarova’s proposals, particularly her idea of “draining liquidity” directly from people’s bank accounts.
This method, however, isn’t exactly new, Pollock said. It’s been the hallmark of socialist regimes.
One good example, he noted, is the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia’s “Monetary Reform” in 1953.
After World War II, the economy of the Eastern European country was weak and as the Soviet-backed regime gradually took over, it redirected massive investments toward the military and heavy industry. That exacerbated a shortage of consumer goods—people had nowhere to spend the money they managed to save up during and after the war.
Despite strict cash withdrawal limits and rationing, consumer goods prices went through the roof, especially in the open market, where one needed to go after running out of rations. A bag of rice was about 13 times more expensive in the controlled market and nearly 100 times more in the open market in 1952 than before the war. The regime then decided to curb inflation by draining liquidity.
On May 30, 1953, the regime announced that the old currency would expire the next day and would be exchanged for a new currency. The exchange rate was drastically “progressive.” Small cash amounts of old currency and small deposits were exchanged at a rate of 5 “old” for 1 “new.” Large deposits had a rate of 30-to-1 and larger cash amounts 50-to-1.
In effect, the populace was stripped of its savings. The move pushed back inflation, but decimated people’s trust in the monetary system. It also created massive opportunities for corruption. Communist officials were known to get better exchange rates than commoners. Some knew about the move in advance and could prepare accordingly. Rumors about the incoming “reform” were quashed by the authorities as malicious misinformation. Those who were most trusting and loyal to the regime thus ended up being hurt the most.
Omarova would alleviate people’s worries about the government suddenly taking money from their accounts by keeping physical cash in circulation and also giving “as much advance warning as possible” before any draining commences, she wrote.
In that case, it seems, people could simply withdraw their money the day before the “draining” and deposit it back the day after. Omarova didn’t explain how the Fed would prevent that from happening.
Many such questions appear to be left unanswered, often explicitly left to be figured out in “the implementation phase.”
It’s true that her vision would make the banking sector much simpler. Pollock says it’s “dubious,” however, whether that would lead to greater efficiency.
“Once the government takes control of everything, it generally doesn’t get more efficient.”
How much longer can this go on? As we head into the second year of the President Joe Biden “administration,” with the country in a shambles and heading no place good but full speed ahead, it’s time for all real Americans to take stock of our situation and formulate an emergency plan, with no time to spare.
Back in March, I wrote in these pages: “Biden’s Presidency Seems Ready to End.” In fact, Biden’s sham presidency never really began and whatever there was to it is now long over.
But then Brandon—excuse me! Biden!—isn’t really the president, simply the President in Name Only. Sure, he dutifully signs whatever executive order—increasingly authoritarian and blatantly unconstitutional—is put under his nose, which, at least until the next election, has the force of law until a federal court says otherwise. Even should a court block its implementation, as happened over the weekend with the illegal vaccine mandate being imposed on private industries by the Nixon-era excrescence of OSHA, the White House’s advice is to ignore it.
Biden also makes pro forma appearances on the international stage, including a mysteriously long audience with the former Cardinal Bergoglio (who’s every bit as much a pope as Biden is a president) that instantly gave rise to embarrassing rumors. And from time to time he even makes the short walk from West Wing to the Old Executive Office Building in order to stage something for the cameras in a studio-set version of the Oval Office.
But everybody in Washington knows the puppet presidency has no agency of its own, but is instead controlled from Kalorama by Barack Obama and his minions, including Ron Klain, who now serves as Biden’s chief of staff.
Meanwhile, the country he ostensibly leads is going to hell. We’ve gone from energy independence to passing the gasoline begging bowl, even as the forces behind Biden are busy choking off the domestic energy industry. Perhaps you’ve noticed the effects of this malicious policy at the gas pump.
Our long-neglected infrastructure, which is properly defined as roads, bridges, and buildings, remains a national disgrace, and the recent passage of a pork-laden $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill—with turncoat Republican help—not only won’t help a bit but will be paid for with imaginary money.
Overseas, right in Biden’s vaunted “foreign policy” wheelhouse, the Chinese are testing advanced missiles and expanding their fleet of aircraft carriers while what’s left of our Defense Department celebrates awarding four stars to a man in a skirt and hailing him as a “historic” female admiral.
A Navy sub’s trio of commanders was recently cashiered when the USS Connecticut struck an underseas mountain its crack officer corps somehow didn’t notice, while in San Diego the amphibious assault ship, Bonhomme Richard, was destroyed by an arsonist and a crew too incompetent to put out the blaze.
Oh yes, and the Marines recently got their tails kicked by the British in a desert-warfare exercise at their base at Twenty-Nine Palms in southern California. (The woke Marine Corps, of course, denies it.)
But the void in the White House is really the least of our problems, most of which we have brought upon ourselves. You get what you vote for and the American people, in rejecting Donald Trump, have voted for anarchy. As former New York City mayor Ed Koch said after being defeated for re-election in 1989, “the people have spoken, and they must be punished.”
Punishment is coming from every angle, principally from the criminal organization masquerading as a political party known as the Democrats. We now know that the vindictive but cunning loser Hillary Clinton set in motion the entire “Russian collusion”—in part with the collaboration of the Russophile leftist think tank, the Brookings Institution, and in part through the medium of a British spy channeling deliberate Soviet-style disinformation.
From the jump, it was obvious that the “Steele dossier” was a farrago of standard ex-KGB dirty tricks—in Russia and in Eastern Europe I’d seen this movie a dozen times—and I said so publicly at the time, practically from the day Buzzfeed published the “dossier.”
The American media deliberately weaponized this disinformation—which they knew at the time was false—against the lawfully elected president of the United States and crippled his presidency over it. And then they awarded themselves Pulitzer Prizes for their “reporting” of something that never happened.
Par for the course for the American version of Pravda. If you don’t think the New York Times hasn’t been in love with its Russian socialist confreres—and often actually been in bed with the KGB, its forebears, and its descendants—for the bulk of the 20th century, you need to wake up. Until the power of the Times is broken, the American Republic-as-founded will never have a moment’s peace.
But the weaponization didn’t and doesn’t stop there. “Former” members of the intelligence community now lie brazenly and openly on some of the “news channels,” such as CNN: the spooks are out of the shadows and in your living room.
The FBI is now investigating the alleged theft of Joe Biden’s daughter’s diary—a document that if genuine offers even more repellent insights into this stunningly dysfunctional family. How this is a federal matter is beyond me, unless the FBI has now become the Biden family’s private police force with a mandate to suppress bad news about the family. And if you don’t believe me, ask Hunter Biden.
Americans, quite properly, sense there’s something “off” about Biden and his crew, which is why his approval ratings continue to crater. But as long as the radical Left holds the media high ground, it’s hard for most people not obsessed by politics to grasp just how malignant these people are. For decades, they’ve made no bones about their desire to replace the United States of the founding with something “progressive.”
They’ve overtly collaborated with the Soviets, infiltrated the civil-rights movement, absorbed the legacy media, corrupted the lawmakers, overpowered academe, seized hold of the education of our children and now, in their moment of triumph, are forcing us to live in a fantasy world of their own psycho-sexual device, while their pet shrinks tell us that we’re the crazy bigots, via the media.
You never know when something you say will go viral. It has happened a number of times in my career, the latest being comments I made on my national radio talk show a few weeks ago when I had COVID-19. I said that I had hoped I would attain natural immunity, since science—evidenced, for example, in a major study from Israel, one of the most pro-vaccine and highly vaccinated societies in the world—strongly suggests that natural immunity provides more robust and durable protection against COVID-19 than the current COVID-19 vaccines have proven to provide.
Specifically, I said that I had hugged and taken photos with thousands of people from the beginning of the pandemic. I had two reasons for doing this: 1) I decided very early on that I would not live my life in fear, but instead live normally; and 2) if I did get the virus I had confidence that the prophylactic therapeutics and nutrients I had been taking for more than a year—ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, zinc, megadoses of vitamin D, vitamin C, and selenium (and a monoclonal antibody infusion once I tested positive for COVID-19)—would protect me from serious consequences. Most importantly, I repeatedly said from the beginning of 2020 that I chose to live normally, not hide in my house. As much as I want to live a long life, I have always believed that the purpose of life is to live fully, not necessarily long (though, of course, I want that too—just not at the expense of normal living).
My COVID-19 symptoms consisted of chills for three days, a cough and fatigue for about a week, and loss of taste for a day. I missed three days of radio but did not miss a speech (I flew from California to Florida to deliver a speech five days after testing negative).
From CNN to the Washington Post, I was mocked by much of the national mainstream media. Needless to say, not one of them bothered to interview me or invite me to respond either in writing or in person. That is how things now work in America: the media attack and mock those with whom they differ but offer no opportunity for the attacked party to respond. On the basis of a few sentences provided by a lie-based attack site (Media Matters), the Washington Post, for example, wrote an entire article on me and those comments. More on that in the next column.
Let’s begin with my premise—that natural immunity is more robust than a vaccine (or at least the vaccines we currently have). That is what a large study out of Israel—one of the most pro-vaccine and highly vaccinated countries in the world—reported.
On Aug. 25, 2021, medRxiv published a “preprint” study by ten Israeli scientists, all associated with an Israeli research institute, Maccabitech, in Tel Aviv. Among the 10 are three MDs, three professors of epidemiology, two professors at the Tel Aviv University School of Public Health, and an adjunct researcher at the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Institutes of Health in the United States. The study’s conclusion: “This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity …”
On Aug. 26, 2021, Science, one of the world’s most widely cited science magazines, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, published an article on the Israeli study. Its opening sentence reads: “The natural immune protection that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection offers considerably more of a shield against the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus than two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a large Israeli study …”
Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, confirmed the Israel study: “In Israel, vaccinated individuals had 27 times higher risk of symptomatic COVID infection compared to those with natural immunity from prior COVID disease …”
A Cleveland clinic study came to the same conclusion. Published on June 5, 2021, also on medRxiv, it concluded that “Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination …”
Even before the Israeli and Cleveland Clinic studies, a New York University study comparing vaccine immunity to natural immunity concluded that people who had had COVID-19 were better protected against the virus: “In COVID-19 patients, immune responses were characterized by a highly augmented interferon response which was largely absent in vaccine recipients.”
A Rockefeller University study published on Aug. 24, 2021, concluded, as the Israel study did, that “a natural infection may induce maturation of antibodies with broader activity than a vaccine does.” The study immediately added that getting natural immunity entails contracting COVID-19, and “a natural infection can also kill you.” But that valid warning does not negate its conclusion in favor of natural immunity. Nor does the study warn that getting the vaccine may also induce harmful consequences. To its everlasting shame, that is a taboo subject in America’s medical community despite the fact that the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists over 700,000 cases of suspected injury and more than 17,000 otherwise unexpected deaths temporally associated with COVID-19 vaccines.
Last week, the media reported that the CDC announced that vaccines provided greater immunity than natural immunity. But the way in which the CDC came to this conclusion is all but indecipherable, if not simply dishonest.
Here’s how Dr. Peter Hotez, a pro-vaccine spokesman and co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, summarized the Kentucky study:
“The Centers for Disease Control in their ‘MMWR’ (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) published a very interesting study out of Kentucky comparing individuals who were infected and recovered and chose not to get vaccinated versus those who are infected and recovered and then got vaccinated in addition. And clearly, those who chose not to get vaccinated were reinfected at much higher rates, several times higher, than those who were infected and recovered and vaccinated.”
Those comments are completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. The comparison I and others make is between natural immunity and vaccine immunity. The CDC-Kentucky study is not a comparison between natural immunity and vaccine immunity; it is a comparison between those who received a vaccine after natural immunity and those who did not receive a vaccine after attaining natural immunity.
NIH director Francis Collins also used the Kentucky study to avoid the question of COVID-recovered immunity versus vaccine immunity. On Aug. 12, 2021, he said on Fox News: “There was a study published by CDC just ten days ago in Kentucky …. So, what was the protection level? It was more than two-fold better for the people who had had the vaccine in terms of protection than people who had had natural infection. That’s very clear in that Kentucky study. You know that surprises people. Kind of surprised me that the vaccine would actually be better than natural infection …”
This CDC report and deliberate conflation by Dr. Peter Hotez and NIH director Collins of two completely different groups—COVID-recovered (with or without vaccine) and vaccinated who never had COVID-19—are among the many reasons so many Americans no longer trust the American medical establishment.
What’s the worst thing a government can do when there’s high inflation and supply shortages? Multiply spending on energy- and material-intensive areas. This is exactly what the U.S. infrastructure plan is doing and—even worse—what other developed nations have decided to copy.
If you thought there were problems of supply and difficulties in accessing goods and services in the middle of a strong recovery, imagine what will happen once central banks and governments turn up the printing machine to maximum to spend on white elephants.
There’s no such thing as “multi-cause inflation.” What President Joe Biden calls “speculation” is simply more money going to the same number of goods. So-called “supply chain disruptions” is more money going to the same services, and “cost-push inflation” is nothing other than more money created to bloat government spending and “infrastructure” plans going to the same number of goods. As one of my followers explains, “More credit issued for GDP related purposes chasing the same amount of goods and services.”
More money printed to bloat government spending chasing the same goods and services: Monetary inflation.
Who benefits from this massive spending plan? The biggest beneficiaries are Asian economies, according to Bloomberg Economics. Vietnam, Indonesia, and South Korea would get a boost of up to 1 percent of GDP, with India, Japan, and China gaining between 0.4 percent and 0.8 percent of GDP.
However, an additional—and quick—$1 trillion spending boost in energy-intensive and material-consuming industries is likely to also create important challenges in terms of inflation and supply shortages.
The key parts producers in the world are likely to see more orders but much higher energy prices and transport costs.
The reader will likely argue that infrastructure spending is good and needed. However, the problem of demand-side policies is that they create a bottleneck and inflationary pressures in the worst moment possible.
Even if the plan is implemented in eight years, it’s likely to put further pressure on prices of essential goods and services instead of putting more effort on reducing the burdens on improving the technology and supply chains through competition and investment.
The problem of demand-side policies is that they create a bullwhip effect that’s likely to reduce the potential for jobs. Why? Because firms that are already facing rising energy bills are unlikely to be able to hire personnel as they would have in a normal recovery.
The first effect of such an energy-intensive plan is damage to service sector costs and citizens’ expenses. Pushing a massive spending bill financed with printed money just when the United Nations Food Price Index reaches a new all-time high and oil, gas, copper, and aluminum are at five-year highs is a big problem for small and medium enterprises and families. You may have a job, but costs are going to be very steep.
The entire plan reads “more oil, gas, copper, and aluminum demand”: $110 billion in new spending for roads and bridges, $73 billion to upgrade power infrastructure, $66 billion for rail, $65 billion for broadband infrastructure, and $39 billion for transit.
Is this infrastructure needed? Maybe. But it would have been a better idea to present the plan with a stronger emphasis on allowing the private sector to pace it according to the reality of supply and demand, and less as a spend-for-spending’s-sake way to boost nominal GDP without understanding the risk to the services sector, which is 67 percent of the U.S. economy.
The services sector is going to be hurt badly from the rise in inflation as well as the shortages. The U.S. consumer might find that job creation is much smaller than the government expects, because it has always been so with these plans, and that the inflation tax will be much steeper for all.
U.S. citizens may think that the government is paying for this plan, but they’re wrong. Consumers and taxpayers will suffer the rise in cost of living added to the higher taxes.
Be honest. Does anyone really believe that any of these new schemes that President Joe Biden conjures up every few days to “tax the rich” will cause Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or Warren Buffett to pay more taxes?
It’s clear why the superrich are a tempting target to, as Biden puts it, “pay their fair share.” We have billionaires with almost unfathomable riches. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, calls their wealth “obscene.”
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has attained a wealth that exceeds some countries. Amazon’s stock is now worth close to $1 trillion. He owns perhaps 15 percent of the stock, which would mean his net worth is somewhere near $150 billion. But as he has correctly pointed out, it also means that he has collectively created some $850 billion of wealth for all of the millions of people who own Amazon stock—which is probably close to one-third of all Americans.
That’s not all. Amazon has added, conservatively speaking, $1 trillion of consumer surplus for all of the tens of millions of people in the United States and around the world who go online and click to buy products on Amazon. A “consumer surplus” is the value of a product that people buy beyond the price they pay for it. If I can buy a can of tennis balls for $3 but I derive $10 of pleasure from playing with those balls, that $7 difference is my net benefit. Multiply that by the billions of purchases people make from Amazon every day.
Or consider Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google. He is a billionaire many times over, but he provides an intricate search engine that finds for you nearly any information you want in about five seconds. And the miracle here is that he charged you ZERO for it. So maybe there is an elusive free lunch after all.
Progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argue that people like Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg became multibillionaires thanks to government programs, such as schools and roads. Maybe. But it is arguably more accurate to say that they could reach their empire of riches because the government didn’t stand in their way. There’s a good reason eight of the 10 most valuable companies in the world were sprouted here in the land of the free, the United States, and not in China, Japan, Germany, or France.
The Democrats argue that raising income, capital gains, or wealth taxes on these rich people to as much as 55 percent, or half their annual earnings, is good for the economy because it will help pay for social programs to help the poor, such as free child care. But if you had to choose someone to invest your money in a way that will reward you with a high payoff, who would you choose? An entrepreneur with a proven golden touch like Musk or a politician like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?
Higher tax rates on the rich are almost sure to make our society poorer, not richer. The government can’t even run a railroad, stop $75 billion of unemployment fraud, or build a health care website.
Then there is the question I asked above: Will the rich really pay more if the top tax rate goes to 55 percent on millionaires? Doubtful. Billionaires like Buffett and Gates hire squadrons of lawyers, lobbyists, and tax accountants who find or invent new loopholes in the tax system to shield them from the IRS tax collectors. This is why over the last 50 years, higher tax rates have generally corresponded with lower tax collections from the rich.
The scheme we should all be on to by now is that higher tax rates on the rich are always unfailingly gateways to taxing everyone else.
The original 1913 income tax was 1 percent for people with incomes above $3,000 (about $83,000 today) and $4,000 in income for married couples (about $111,000 today). The top rate was 7 percent on $500,000 or more ($13.8 million). About 3 percent of the population was taxed. Congress promised the public two things: Tax rates would never go above 10 percent, and the middle class would never pay the tax. A few short years later, the highest rate was 70 percent, and almost everyone got socked with this new income tax to be paid by the rich.
The Alternative Minimum Tax in the late 1960s was aimed at a handful of multimillionaires. However, it wasn’t long before this tax gadget was squeezing millions of people.
Biden promises he will never tax anyone making less than $400,000. Really? Then why does he want to audit the transaction of every person with $10,000 or more in their bank accounts?
It turns out that you may not think of yourself as rich. But Washington does.
In the wake of the accelerated withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in September, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) introduced the Secure America Act on Oct. 13 to stop Afghan refugees from being granted “parole status” into the United States with “zero vetting whatsoever.”
In an interview with NTD’s “Capitol Report,” Rosendale said the Biden administration’s accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan has in fact created “an excuse to bring hundreds of thousands of refugees” into the United States.
In response, the Secure America Act was introduced to let Congress “reclaim authority to how many refugees will come into our country on any given year,” he said.
Furthermore, if refugees are to be sent to specific states, the governor of such a state will direct “Homeland Security and the FBI to create a good, new, thorough vetting system.”
Under the new act, the executive branch will no longer be able to grant refugees entry and the ability to “travel freely” within the country with “zero vetting.”
Rosendale said the new bill ensures “anyone who comes in is vetted for criminal activity.”
The vetting process will also involve checking that incoming refugees do not have “deeply held beliefs or practices that are at odds with our Constitution.”
“That way, we can be assured that they’re going to embrace our culture and our way of life and and contribute to the American dream,” said Rosendale.
Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.) also warned of a “flawed” Afghan refugee vetting process in an interview with Fox News on Oct. 7.
“We already know there’s weakness in the vetting process and the screenings, and we want to make sure as this continues, we can make sure the American people can feel safe and secure about the entire process,” Herrell said.
Herrell gave the interview shortly after visiting Fort Bliss, Texas, where a female soldier reported being attacked by Afghan refugees.
“We can confirm a female service member supporting Operation Allies Welcome reported being assaulted on Sept. 19 by a small group of male evacuees at the Doña Ana Complex in New Mexico,” Lt. Col. Allie Payne, director of public affairs for Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, told ABC7.
“We take the allegation seriously and appropriately referred the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Payne added.
While Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in early September confirmed that people on U.S. watch lists were among the tens of thousands of people airlifted out of Kabul, he denied any allegations of ISIS members making it into the country as Afghan refugees.
“We have a multilayered, multiagency screening and vetting process to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Mayorkas said, according to the The Washington Times.
An official within the Biden administration stated during a Sept. 14 briefing that the government has put in measures to “enhance the screening and vetting operations” without compromising national security.
“The U.S. government’s work includes ensuring evacuees are thoroughly and appropriately vetted prior to arrival in the U.S.,” the official said. “We’ve also made sure that evacuees are thoroughly screened at ports of entry and tested for COVID upon arrival, with less than a 1 percent positive rate thus far.”
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been called out by his multimillionaire son in a Twitter exchange involving Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and his payment of taxes.
Adam Wyden, 37, lambasted his father and other politicians in a tweet that was a response to his father’s reply to Musk’s viral poll which asked whether he should sell 10 percent of Tesla stock.
“Why does he hate us / the American dream so much?!?!?!?!” tweeted younger Wyden who is a successful hedge fund manager and isn’t registered with either political party, according to a Forbes report.
“Reality is: most legislators have never built anything… so I guess it’s easier to mindlessly and haphazardly try and tear stuff down,” his tweet continued.
“Thankfully, I think I can compound faster than my dad and his cronies can confiscate it…” he added showcasing a group of ticker symbols.
Musk’s tweet in question that Sen. Wyden commented on was a poll about unrealized gains and tax avoidance.
“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?” Musk said on Twitter Nov. 7.
Out of a 3,519,252 total vote count, a majority, 57.9 percent, voted in the affirmative.
Musk said in the follow-up he would abide by the results of the poll and that he does not “take cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock.”
Sen. Wyden, who was estimated to have a net worth of $6,877,025 in 2018 according to research group OpenSecrets, took a jab at Musk in his tweet.
“Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll. It’s time for the Billionaires Income Tax,” Sen. Wyden said on Twitter.
Musk shot back at the senator with a crude reply.
Sen. Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee chairman along with fellow Democrats, introduced the tax proposal to levy fines on billionaires even when their stock holdings are not realized, that is, stocks would be taxed whether they’re sold or not. Democratic politicians have put forward the idea as a way to fund their trillion-dollar infrastructure bill.
Musk had earlier slammed the proposal claiming that the bill would start with billionaires and it’ll only then be a matter of time before legislators go after average citizens.
A deep value investor, Adam Wyden’s Miami-based ADW Capital Partners manages around $350 million. He prefers micro- and small-cap stocks that are mostly ignored by analysts and large hedge funds.
Since the fund’s inception in 2011, it has returned back to investors around 12 times their initial investment, which comes to roughly double that of the S&P 500. Adam Wyden’s current net worth is around $100 million.
As for his father’s radical tax proposals, “I don’t think I have any sway over my father,” he told Forbes.
Initially based out of New York, he moved his entire operations down to Florida like many billionaire investors who have made the sunshine state their home during the past decade. Florida is a low tax state.
Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe responded to a weekend FBI search of his apartment during an interview on Monday, saying agents handcuffed him and threw him against a wall.
In his first public remarks about the matter, O’Keefe confirmed the FBI raid at his Westchester County, New York, home after neighbors told media outlets over the weekend that agents showed up at his door on Saturday. Agents also searched the homes of Project Veritas associates a day earlier, O’Keefe confirmed in a video posted to Vertias’ YouTube channel.
“I woke up to a pre-dawn raid,” O’Keefe told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “Banging on my door, I went to my door to answer the door and there were 10 FBI agents with a battering ram, white blinding lights, they turned me around, handcuffed me, and threw me against the hallway. I was partially clothed in front of my neighbors. They confiscated my phone. They raided my apartment.”
Last week, O’Keefe said that Veritas associates’ homes were raided after the group allegedly received the missing diary of President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley. It was never published, he said.
His phone had reporters’ notes from sources unrelated to the Ashley Biden diary as well as confidential donor information, O’Keefe said. Agents spent about two hours searching his apartment, and two of his phones were confiscated.
“This is an attack on the First Amendment by the Department of Justice,” he said. “I’ve heard ‘the process is the punishment.’ I didn’t really understand what that meant until this weekend. And Sean, I wouldn’t wish this on any journalist,” he continued.
O’Keefe’s attorney Paul Calli, who appeared next to the Project Veritas founder in the interview, said Project Veritas paid alleged tipsters for the diary for “the right to publish the material.” The group instead handed it over to local law enforcement, he added.
O’Keefe then added that journalists need to stand against the FBI’s alleged targeting of his group.
“A source comes to us with information, I didn’t even decide to publish it. If they can do this to me, if they can do it to this journalist and raid my home and take my reporter notes, they’ll do it to any journalist,” O’Keefe remarked. “This is about something very fundamental in this country. I don’t know which direction this country is going in. But journalists everywhere have to rise up because we broke no laws here. If they can do it to me, they’ll do it to anybody.”
In a statement on YouTube on Friday, O’Keefe said he was told in a grand jury indictment to not discuss the FBI search but decided to speak out after New York Times reporters contacted Project Veritas reporters for comment within an hour of the raids being carried out. He then questioned how the NY Times obtained information about the searches and what they were about.
The Epoch Times has contacted the FBI for comment.
Over the weekend, an FBI spokesperson confirmed that “a court-authorized law enforcement action” was carried out “in furtherance of an ongoing investigation” in response to questions about O’Keefe’s home being searched.
Some Pennsylvania students just got a lesson in how discrimination really operates in American public schools.
A middle school used a video broadcast during school announcements to invite kids interested in flying drones to attend a weekend camp.
There was just one catch — and parents of white students probably weren’t happy to hear about it.
As National Review reported Monday, the Upper Merion Area Middle School’s announcement for the camp, which took place on Saturday, opened with a woman brimming with enthusiasm, followed by video of drone activities pretty much guaranteed to pique the interest of any adolescent.
Besides it being limited in size — there were only 24 slots available — the program was extremely limited in who its target audience was:
“Here’s the thing,” the woman said. “It is a Black Student Union-sponsored event, so, in order to participate, 1: You must have a signed permission slip to claim your seat.
“Secondly, you must be black, African-American, a person of color in order to participate.”
Check out the video here. The drone stuff is undeniably cool. The uncool, undeniably ugly part comes at the end:
S
There it is — an actual example of literal “systemic racism” that progressives claim, ludicrously, is everywhere. Except in this case, it’s openly biased against white people.
But Upper Merion Area School District Superintendent John Toleno evidently doesn’t see a problem.
In an email to The Western Journal on Tuesday (a collection of bubbly boilerplate that was apparently being sent for PR purposes to any news organization that raised questions), Toleno noted that the program was simply part of the district’s “ongoing efforts over the past 8 years to give opportunities to groups who are underrepresented in STEM fields with a primary focus on students of Color and students who identify as female. This has been a national focus in the STEM community.”
The modern education mindset is on full display in those few words: jargon like “groups” who are underrepresented”; the obsequious capitalization of the “c” in “Color”; being careful not to say “girls,” just “students who identify as female.”
Walking on eggshells at the same time must be a tough way to live.
A couple of comments on Facebook communicated the reactions of what were doubtless many, many more people who heard about the video:
One commenter wrote: “This is wrong on so many levels and not at all what I want for my children, and that’s why I’m homeschooling now and by the grace of God, my children will never step foot in another public school — they undo and undermine everything my husband and I teach them.
“Maybe white people should take to the streets and start burning communities down. 😏 I jest, obviously. But this is blatant racism on its face.”
Do you think this is racism against white people?
There aren’t too many other ways to see it. (Liberals love to claim racism over differences of opinion. Don’t expect them to see it where it actually is.)
In his email, Superintendent Toleno stressed that the school district has drone programs open to all students throughout the year. He even noted that this particular program would have accepted white students if not enough black students were interested.
“Please be further advised that if we didn’t get to our 24 student limit with African American students as stipulated in the grant we wrote and were awarded, we would have absolutely opened this up to our entire middle school student population to fill the 24 student seats,” he wrote.
How very gracious. (The email didn’t come out and say whether all of the slots were filled at the event, but it sounds like they were.)
It’s worth noting here that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Upper Merion area, in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, is about 72 percent white, about 19 percent Asian, and 6 percent black.
Assuming the school district’s demographics are similar, the overwhelming majority of students who watched that really cool video about drones were told right to their faces that there was a party going on and they weren’t invited.
As ugly as it sounds, there’s no other way to put it: They’re not of the favored race these days.
That isn’t the United States as most Americans of any race understand the country. It’s not the United States the civil rights movement of the 1960s fought for, with Martin Luther King Jr.’s dreams about content of character being more important than skin color.
And it’s not what parents want for their children, as evidenced by the critical role of public education in last week’s election results in Virginia.
We can say this about the Chandler Unified School District in Chandler, Arizona: They didn’t need Attorney General Merrick Garland to start spying on parents and coordinating their arrest.
According to the Daily Caller, emails uncovered by a parents group revealed that CUSD’s director of school safety, Tanya Smith, was in contact with Chandler police Sgt. Greg Howarth in April and May as parents were protesting against mask mandates in schools.
The situation was complicated by a long battle in the district over critical race theory. After a series of 2019 reports spotlighted a controversial teacher training program called “Deep Equity” being used across the country, including in Chandler, parents began to revolt. The pandemic no doubt exacerbated existing problems.
So Tanya Smith did what any director of school safety would do: She exchanged emails with police, asking them to provide information on parents groups as the mask mandate battle intensified.
In a May 4 email, Smith notified police of a May 12 board meeting dealing with mask mandates. She said she was scouring social media to see who would attend and asked law enforcement, “If you hear anything specific, can you please let us know.”
“Hours later, Howarth said that he had access to the websites of concerned parent groups and would ‘be monitoring all of them’ and updating the district,” the Daily Caller reported.
“In a separate email, Smith told Howarth that CUSD governing board member Jason Olive was in conversations with a school board member in a separate district who had access to a parent Facebook group. Olive’s inside source claimed that CUSD’s governing board meeting would be the next ‘target’ of parent activists who wanted to end mandatory masking.”
The police department not only complied with Smith’s request but set up an intelligence task force.
On May 27, Howarth emailed police Lt. Jason Sieczkowski about three parents groups — a progressive group police apparently had no issue with and two groups labeled “disruptors.”
One of the “disruptors” was called Patriot Party of Arizona. The group has less than 1,000 followers on Twitter, and it’s unclear how it is related to the Patriot Party movement that The Wall Street Journal reported last month was being suppressed by Facebook.
Do you support mask mandates?
What is clear, however, is that the group was considered a threat by Chandler police in part because of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Howarth’s ‘intel’ included links to the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center’s ‘hate watch’ page. The intelligence was focused more on the fringe political group and its leader than on actual parent groups that were protesting the mask mandates,” the Daily Caller reported.
“Other links included in the ‘intel’ report were to articles that dubbed passionate parents … disruptive for speaking out against their school board. The examples of ‘disruptive’ protests included three examples of parents refusing to wear their masks.”
Howarth said CUSD should “cut the mic” on parents speaking at meetings without a mask.
“If someone doesn’t comply and you want them removed from the property let us know,” Howarth said. “If they fail to leave let us know that you want them trespassed and we can do that.”
District parent Jennifer Alvey called the coordination with police and threats of arrest “egregious.”
“At worst, these emails would seem to indicate that [the Chandler Police Department] suggested to CUSD officials that they be anticipating and selectively looking for any opportunity to silence, trespass, [or] remove the anti-mask meeting participants, using CPD as the willing muscle to help CUSD remove we parents for non-legally enforceable issues,” Alvey said.
“[This] is pretty egregious for we community members to contemplate.”
And yet this is where we are.
Let’s not forget that while CUSD was enforcing mask mandates in schools, it was also canceling prom and severely limiting invitations for graduation until it was revealed that the district superintendent’s retirement party would go on as scheduled.
Now we know the school district was likely involved in a campaign of suborned surveillance against its civilian opponents. This is the blueprint for what Attorney General Merrick Garland wanted.
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley blasted a new report that revealed a provision in the Democrats’ budget reconciliation bill would allow illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes to remain in the U.S., calling the legislation “insane.”
The proposed bill would reportedly give undocumented residents who have committed crimes, including manslaughter and domestic violence, the ability to remain in the country rather than be deported.
“Immigration provisions in the legislation shield all illegal immigrants who have been in the country for at least 10 years from deportation unless they have been convicted of a ‘crime involving moral turpitude’ (CIMT), a vague legal category of crimes that involves ‘intent,’ ‘vicious motive,’ or ‘culpable mental state,’” the report said.
“An analysis of the provision by Senate Republicans determined it would shield illegal immigrants with a variety of criminal backgrounds,” it added.
The news comes just days after reports that the Biden administration is considering legal settlements of up to $450,000 per person who were separated by family members after illegally crossing the border during the Trump administration.
President Joe Biden said the report was “garbage” after the news was initially released.
For the millionth time, Joe Biden appears completely unaware of what his administration is doing – in this case, paying illegal immigrants https://t.co/KtCQR1SLQn
The White House then appeared to change its view following the president’s comment, claiming during a media briefing last week that Biden is “perfectly comfortable” with paying $450,000 to illegal immigrants.
So now the White House line is that Biden “perfectly comfortable” with paying illegal immigrants $450,000 https://t.co/SJCo8kFfk8
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton released a statement condemning the report.
“It would be unthinkable to pay damages to a burglar who broke into your home for the ‘psychological trauma’ they endured during the crime. And yet the Biden administration wants to reward migrants who illegally entered our country with up to $450,000 each for just that reason,” Cotton said in the statement.
It’s unthinkable to pay a burglar who broke into your home for the ‘psychological trauma’ they endured during the crime. Yet the Biden admin wants to reward migrants who illegally entered our country with up to $450,000 each for just that reason. Insanity. https://t.co/XNTFs9KkLo
“The Biden administration’s promises of citizenship and entitlement programs have already caused the worst border crisis in history — a huge cash reward will make it even worse. This is the height of insanity,” he added.
The concern regarding criminal illegal immigrants has also grown as the border crisis has spiked under Biden’s leadership.
A reported 70,000-plus illegal immigrants were released into the country between Aug. 6 and mid-October on parole, a status allowing temporary legal status and the ability to obtain a work permit.
Sometimes you have to wonder whose team President Joe Biden is playing on.
Nearly every decision he has made since taking office in January has been to weaken the United States.
What’s shaping up to be the latest example is the Biden administration considering shutting down a vital pipeline that transports 540,000 barrels of oil per day into the U.S. from western Canada.
White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed the reports are true, saying the Army Corps of Engineers is doing an environmental impact study on the Line 5 pipeline that runs through Michigan.
Biden spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledges the Biden administration is “studying” shutting down the Line 5 Pipeline.
If Biden shuts down Line 5, Millions of Americans could face higher energy bills this winter. pic.twitter.com/7ZJoDIBd0S
Of course, this brilliant move comes after Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office, which was slated to transport over 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to refineries in Texas.
Oh, and he halted oil exploration on federal lands just as the U.S. had reached energy independence during the Trump years, and he closed down drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska too.
The United States is producing nearly 2 million barrels of oil a day less under Biden than it was at its peak under former President Donald Trump, during whose administration the nation became a net energy exporter for the first time in nearly 70 years.
Predictably, with less supply and rising demand, gas prices have risen by an average of over $1.30 per gallon nationwide.
A year ago we were energy independent, a net exporter, and a gallon of gas was 2 bucks and change. After less than a year of a war on fuel producers here and giveaways to Russia, all those gains are reversed. The surprise is how quickly everything changed. https://t.co/JD3dF4mBjg
Perhaps, one could argue that Biden and his team have calculated if they make it painful enough at the pump, they will speed along the day when the U.S. transitions completely away from fossil fuels to wind and solar and, who knows, unicorn travel.
Well, that sounds nice, but it’s contradicted by the fact that imports of Russian and Saudi Arabian oil are up. So we’re burning oil, just less of our own.
The EIA reported that the U.S. imported 24.6 million barrels in August from Russia on top of over 26 million in May. That’s nearly 5 million more barrels per month than the highest number ever recorded under Trump.
During the previous administration, the amount imported consistently ranged between 11 million and 16 million barrels per month.
Under Biden, the total has been over 20 million barrels every month, with the exception of February.
In August, Bloomberg reported that Russia had become America’s No. 2 foreign oil supplier, edging out Mexico.
Because the Biden admin would rather import more Russian and Saudi oil than Canadian…brilliant. https://t.co/Rzbfr9cR6A
Meanwhile, oil imports from Canada have stayed roughly the same between Biden’s and Trump’s presidencies.
So why are we favoring Russia over Canada?
That wasn’t the only pro-Russia move Biden has made.
In May, the president announced no sanctions would be imposed to block the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, as Trump had threatened to do. The pipeline will transport natural gas from Russia into Western Europe.
To summarize, Biden — citing climate change concerns — shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, killing American jobs, and greenlit Nord Stream 2, which benefits Russia economically and gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a leverage point over NATO allies like Germany.
And now the administration is considering shutting down another U.S.-Canada pipeline, which is almost certain to drive up prices even more.
Again, whose team is Biden on?
For all the hooting and hollering by the Democrats about Trump and “Russia, Russia, Russia,” it sure feels like Biden’s the one Putin has in his back pocket.
State Farm on Monday said it supports Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ “personal point of view,” shortly after the footballer said he is unvaccinated and that he thinks the NFL rules regarding COVID-19 and vaccines “are not based in science at all.”
The insurance giant said in a statement to several media outlets on Monday morning that Rodgers had “been a great ambassador for our company for much of the past decade.”
“We don’t support some of the statements that he has made, but we respect his right to have his own personal point of view,” the company, which has been aligned with Rodgers since 2007, said.
“We recognize our customers, employees, agents and brand ambassadors come from all walks of life, with differing viewpoints on many issues. Our mission at State Farm is to support safer, stronger communities. To that end, we encourage vaccinations, but respect everyone’s right to make a choice based on their personal circumstances.”
However, Michigan-based ad tracking and consulting company Apex Marketing Group found that Rodgers featured in just 1.5 percent of 400 State Farm television advertisements aired on Sunday through 8 p.m. ET, down from more than 20 percent two Sundays prior.
It comes after the NFL star, 37, sparked controversy after he tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus last week, after claiming in August that he was “immunized” against the virus.
Rodgers, three-time Most Valuable NFL Player, claimed in an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Nov. 5 that he was told by a league doctor that people who take a vaccine for COVID-19 will not catch or spread the disease.
“One of the main docs said it’s impossible for a vaccinated person to get COVID or spread COVID,” he said. “We know now that information is totally false.”
He confirmed during his television appearance that he is not vaccinated against COVID-19, explaining that he is allergic to an ingredient in the mRNA Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and is wary of taking the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, citing documented past cases of blood clots that prompted federal regulatory agencies to temporarily pause administration of the shots earlier this year.
State Farm’s statement also follows the news that Rodgers was dropped by Prevea Health over the weekend. He had been aligned with the company for nine years.
“Prevea Health remains deeply committed to protecting its patients, staff, providers and communities amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” the company said in a statement. “This includes encouraging and helping all eligible populations to become vaccinated against COVID-19 to prevent the virus from further significantly impacting lives and livelihoods.”
The Epoch Times has contacted State Farm for additional comment.
One of the attorneys prosecuting Kyle Rittenhouse advised Kenosha Police Department Detective Ben Antaramian to not execute a warrant to search the cell phone records of Gaige Grosskreutz, a key witness of the shooting.
During his cross-examination on Nov. 8, Antaramian confirmed that one of the prosecutors advised him to not execute a warrant to search the phone of Grosskreutz, who was shot in the bicep by Rittenhouse.
“As was discussed previously, we were advised, given Marcy’s law, it would not be ideal to execute that search warrant,” Antaramian said in response to a question on the matter from Rittenhouse’s defense attorney, Corey Chirafisi.
When asked who had advised the detectives to not execute the warrant, Antaramian identified one of the prosecutors in the case, Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, as one of the people involved.
“The prosecutors in this case advised you not to execute the search warrant on Gaige Grosskreutz’s phone?” Chirafisi asked.
“That sounds correct,” Antaramian responded.
“Have you ever had a prosecutor say to you, ‘detective, you have a valid search warrant, don’t execute it’?” Chirafisi asked.
“Not that I can recall, no,” Antaramian answered.
Gaige Grosskreutz demonstrates how he was standing when he was shot by Kyle Rittenhouse on Aug. 25, 2020, during Rittenhouse’s trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., U.S. on Monday, Nov. 8, 2021. (Sean Krajacic/Pool via REUTERS)
Grosskreutz, a crucial first-hand witness in the case, agreed on Monday that he had his gun drawn and pointed at Rittenhouse as he advanced toward the teen before being shot. Grosskreutz also admitted that he carried a concealed gun illegally because his concealed carry permit was expired on the day of the shooting.
Rittenhouse’s defense attorneys argue that he acted in self-defense because he feared for his life when he killed two people and injured Grosskreutz. The 18-year-old faces life in prison if convicted of all the charges against him.
Grosskreutz, a former paramedic, was carrying a medical kit and said he had come to help the injured, as he had at dozens of Black Lives Matter protests prior to that night. He said he followed Rittenhouse because he saw the potential for trouble and thought he might need to provide medical aid.
“I thought that the defendant was an active shooter,” Grosskreutz told the jury.
Grosskreutz represented the only chance for lawyers from both sides to question a survivor and elicit testimony on his mindset and actions, which is crucial to determining whether Rittenhouse had reason to fear for his life.
Rittenhouse’s lawyers sought to portray Grosskreutz as dishonest, noting that he did not tell the police in his initial interview that he was armed, and pointing out some inconsistencies in his early accounts of that night.
The jury was shown video of an earlier encounter between Rittenhouse and Grosskreutz in which the teen said he was going to the police.
“How do you think these schoolchildren have felt for the last year?”
Speaking in Zephyrhills on Monday, Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis took aim at both Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers labor union in America, as well as Dr. Anthony Fauci. He pointed out that Weingarten, who had favored keeping schools closed through much of the pandemic, had been found maskless recently, but protested she did so because it was too hard to communicate while wearing a mask. DeSantis fired, “Well, how do you think these schoolchildren have felt for the last year?”
Regarding Fauci, DeSantis asserted, “I do think just the lack of just leveling with the public, I think it’s been very detrimental … I think you’re gonna see people have really, really serious misgivings the next time St. Fauci comes down the pike and says something.”
Speaking of mask mandates for schoolchildren, DeSantis said, “I think the smiles matter, and particularly the young kids. You will actually have school districts that will say, ‘We are relieving mask mandate for high schoolers but we’re keeping them on those elementary.” First of all, I don’t think you should have a mask mandate, period, but the elementary are the ones that need to be able to see the interaction more than anything, cause they’re learning to speak and read and do all that stuff.”
“And it’s absolutely critical. And don’t tell me it doesn’t make a difference,” he continued. DeSantis referenced Weingarten, who had said, “We took them off as people were having a hard time hearing us,” snapping, “Heck, this head of the teachers union who tried to keep the schools closed all last year; she was found maskless, and she said, I took it off because it was too hard to understand each other wearing the mask.”
He fired, “Well, how do you think these schoolchildren have felt for the last year?”
Speakers ‘acknowledge’ company campus located on Native American land
Microsoft is encouraging employees to begin presentations by stating their race, gender, and other physical characteristics.
Videos from last week’s Microsoft Ignite conference show employees reciting “visual descriptions,” which are meant to make blind audience members aware of presenters’ biases. In one video, program manager Allison Weins opened her remarks by saying she was “an Asian and white female, with dark brown hair.”
In a blog post released after the conference, Microsoft notes that it does not require its presenters to provide visual descriptions but recommends mentioning “distinguishing characteristics like hair color, race/ethnicity, gender, clothing, and background details to avoid unconscious bias.” The presenters at Microsoft’s conference all highlighted their race, preferred gender pronouns, and outfits.
One of the presenters who used visual descriptions, Nic Fillingham, directed the Washington Free Beacon to a video explanation of visual descriptions in which an activist explains the practice is “intersectional” and that visual descriptions “help fight racism, sexism, and classism.” Fillingham introduced himself by saying, “I’m a Caucasian man with glasses and a beard, I go by he/him, and I’m a security evangelist here at Microsoft.”
Neither Microsoft nor its PR firm responded to requests for comment.
In her opening remarks, Weins also noted that Microsoft wanted “to acknowledge that the land where the Microsoft campus is situated was traditionally occupied by the Sammamish, the Duwamish, the Snoqualmie, the Suquamish, the Muckleshoot, the Snohomish, the Tulalip, and other Coast Salish peoples since time immemorial. A people that are still here, continuing to honor and bring to light their ancient heritage.”
“Land acknowledgments” have come into vogue in recent years in social justice circles. According to the Portland, Ore., City Council, which carries out a “land acknowledgment” before every meeting, the practice can help “make amends” for centuries of colonialism. Microsoft frequently highlights its work with Native Americans, including hiring a Native American contractor for a day to help design a Native American video game character. Microsoft has not announced plans to return land it owns to indigenous peoples.
The town of Sammamish, the ancestral home of the Sammamish people where a major Microsoft campus is located, reported the highest median income of all cities in America in 2019.
The Trump admin nearly broke Tehran. Biden’s soft stance on sanctions helped the regime get back on track.
Iran’s stockpile of hard currency has skyrocketed during the Biden administration, rising from just $4 billion at the end of 2020 when sanctions were at their height, to more than $31 billion by the end of 2021, according to projections by the International Monetary Fund.
The Biden administration’s decision to pursue diplomacy with Iran and unwind the Trump administration’s sanctions has helped the country recover from its cash shortage, according to the IMF’s projections. The group says Iran’s cash reserves will top $31 billion by the end of the year and increase up to $42.9 billion by the end of 2022. This number could be even higher if the United States reenters the 2015 nuclear deal and removes all sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. Iran had $122 billion in cash reserves in 2018, when the Trump administration began to tighten the economic noose on Iran. That number dropped to $4 billion by the end of 2020, during the height of the former administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign.
Iran’s access to cash has been bolstered by the Biden administration’s lax enforcement of sanctions on the country’s illicit oil trade, which has increased to record levels amid a buying spree from China, the number-one importer of illegal Iranian crude oil. While Tehran’s oil sector is still sanctioned by the United States, experts told the Washington Free Beacon last week that the Biden administration has turned a blind eye to Tehran’s exports, enabling countries such as China, Russia, and Syria to provide the hardline regime a financial lifeline.
The IMF’s projections are the clearest sign to date that the Biden administration is serious about helping Iran’s hardline regime claw back from the brink of economic collapse. Republican leaders in Congress, who are widely critical of the Biden administration’s approach to diplomacy with Iran, maintain that the further removal of sanctions will embolden the ruling regime and help it fund terrorist groups across the Middle East, including those responsible for conducting a drone strike late last month on a U.S. military outpost in Syria.
Gabriel Noronha, a former State Department special adviser for Iran under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said the Biden administration gave up U.S. leverage on Iran by unwinding sanctions before it extracted assurances from Tehran that Iran will stop its nuclear buildup and end its support for terrorism.
“At the end of the Maximum Pressure Campaign in January 2021, Iran was facing a simultaneous debt, inflation, unemployment, and balance of payments crisis caused by massive U.S. economic pressure,” Noronha, the executive director of the Forum for American Leadership, a national security think tank, told the Free Beacon. “Now the regime is making tens of billions in unsanctioned oil sales with China while Biden’s Treasury Department looks the other way and even supported the IMF giving Iran a $5 billion currency bailout.”
“Instead of getting a better deal or depriving the regime of funds for its nuclear program and terrorism,” Noronha said, “the Biden administration has obtained zero concessions from the regime in its 10 months of appeasement.
Data from Iran’s budget and planning offices showed the country’s debt would increase more than 2,000 percent by 2027, from $68 billion to $1.39 trillion, if U.S. sanctions remained in place. If sanctions are unwound, however, Iran will only be around $561 billion in debt by 2027. It was also projected that the Iranian rial—which is already almost worth nothing—would devalue by 10 times the current amount by 2027 if sanctions are not removed.
This is primarily why Iran is pressuring the Biden administration to unwind sanctions before it agrees to a revamped version of the nuclear deal. It remains unclear, however, how long any sanctions relief will remain in place. Republicans in Congress have vowed to immediately trash any deal that is reached between the United States and Iran once Democrats are out of office.
Iran appears to be aware of this possible outcome. Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, a ruling body that holds power over the country’s policies, said last week that “the U.S. president has no authority [and] is not willing to provide any guarantees [the United States will not leave the nuclear deal again],” according to comments cited in the country’s state-controlled press.
Nearly a week later on Oct. 13, after placing Ulloa in a juvenile detention facility, police discovered he was not in fact a minor, the Post reported.
#BREAKING: 24 yr old Yery Noel Medina Ulloa pleads not guilty to second degree not premeditated murder & tampering with evidence charges in connection to the death of 46 yr old Francisco Javier Cuellar. His pre-trial hearing will happen later this month.https://t.co/58ceI5wtGapic.twitter.com/YxaOmS1Y4K
The outlet reported Cuellar had taken in Ulloa after the illegal immigrant had falsely told authorities he was 17 years old.
Has Biden kept the border safe?
Ulloa had previously confessed to his own mother that he planned on deceiving border authorities, according to the Post.
“When he entered [the U.S.] he told me, ‘Mommy, I didn’t go in with my name,’” Ulloa’s mother, Wendy Florencia Ulloa, told Univision.
“‘I went in with the name of another person because right there at the shelter they helped me.’”
Ulloa was then given a “Notice to Appear” before being released into the country, authorities told the Post.
According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, “When a child who is not accompanied by a parent or legal guardian is apprehended by immigration authorities, the child is transferred to the care and custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) … These sponsors live in many states.”
After all, no one would call what happened to Cuellar an act of compassion.
In an effort to appear inclusive and welcoming, the left’s weak immigration policies have simply made it easier for illegal immigrants to skip in line and game the system.
It also allows dangerous criminals easy access to enter the country.
As President Joe Biden’s border crisis continues to devastate the country, more and more immigrants are gaming the weak system currently in place, like Ulloa reportedly did.
But Biden refuses to do anything about it.
The president refuses to admit he was wrong, to admit that tougher, Trump-esque border policies were the right move for this country.
Likely because of that, four children in Florida no longer have a father.
Former President Donald Trump on Monday praised special counsel John Durham’s work, calling it “amazing” following the indictment last week of Igor Danchenko, who is believed to be a primary source of information contained in the infamous anti-Trump Steele dossier.
Wall Street Journal editorial board member Kimberly Strassel argued following Danchenko’s indictment that a more accurate description of that document should be the “Clinton dossier,” since it was Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign that, in part, funded it and people affiliated with the campaign allegedly fed false information used in it.
“It really has come out,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. “In all fairness, while it has taken a long time, hats off to John Durham.”
“Hats off, because, it’s coming out, and it is coming out at a level — Durham has come out with things that are absolutely amazing,” the 45th president added.
“We all sort of knew that happened, and now we have facts, and I think they’re only going to get deeper and deeper — and it all leads back to the Democrats, Hillary and the dirty lawyers,” he said.
Trump said Clinton’s lawyers were always after him and the entire effort was a “disgrace.”
“What they did was so illegal, at a level that you’ve rarely seen before,” he said. “Now, in all fairness, it looks to me like this is just the early building blocks.”
Danchenko — a Russian national who worked at the liberal Brookings Institute in D.C. — was arrested on Thursday and charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI regarding information he compiled and gave to former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who used it in writing the dossier.
#Durham: 39-page indictment Igor Danchenko stands out because it makes the linkage between Clinton campaign/lawyer, opposition research known as “Steele Dossier” used by FBI to obtain surveillance warrants for Trump campaign aide @carterwpage + then Special Counsel Mueller probe. pic.twitter.com/XVGvUpfYnL
Steele had been hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which had been hired by the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Perkins Coie, paid directly by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
In September, Durham indicted attorney Michael Sussman for allegedly making false statements to the FBI. Sussman was a partner at Perkins Coie during the 2016 presidential race but resigned in September after the DOJ’s indictment.
In addition to Danchenko and Sussman, Durham charged former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith for changing the information on a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant application to surveil 2016 Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
“The purpose was to present the FBI with oppo-research that masqueraded as ‘intelligence,’ and it worked. Mrs. Clinton lost the election, but the Russia tale sabotaged an incoming President with relentless media assaults and a special counsel investigation. The country spent years obsessing over the Trump conspiracy that didn’t exist—rather than the Clinton conspiracy that did,” it argued.
“The Durham indictments treat the FBI as the duped party, but the record shows former FBI director James Comey and his investigators knew from the summer of 2016 that Clinton campaign fingerprints were all over the dossier,” the board said.
“A transcript in the Danchenko indictment suggests that FBI officials knew Mr. Danchenko was lying in the 2017 interviews. But they did nothing to blow the whistle, nor to tell the public or Congress everything they had learned about the origins of the Russia collusion tale.”
Do you think more people connected with the Clinton campaign will be indicted?
Strassel, who carefully covered the DOJ’s Russia probe and its aftermath, contended on the Fox News program “The Journal Editorial Report” over the weekend that in light of Durham’s discoveries, former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report “is looking more and more like a coverup.”
She shares Trump’s assessment that Durham is laying the building blocks for further charges.
“From what has been laid out in these indictments so far,” Strassel said, “there is a big cast of characters and plenty to choose from. And given, again, the way these indictments have been written, it certainly leads one to believe that there is yet more to come.”
In a Saturday opinion piece for The Hill, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley suggested that the cast could go all the way up to Clinton herself.
“Steele also has testified that it was his understanding that Clinton was aware of his work and the development of the dossier,” Turley wrote. “Yet during the campaign and long afterward, Clinton never admitted that her campaign funded the dossier, despite media and congressional inquiries about that fact.”
…The question is whether Durham really wants to indict just the tail if he can get the whole dog — a question which now may weigh heavily on a number of Washington figures, just as it did following Durham’s indictment in September of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann.
The professor also tweeted, “The question is whether Durham really wants to indict just the tail if he can get the whole dog — a question which now may weigh heavily on a number of Washington figures.”
The man who survived a gunshot wound by Kyle Rittenhouse in Wisconsin last year said on Nov. 4 that he was pointing his gun at the teenager when the then-17-year-old shot him.
Witness Gaige Grosskreutz, who was one of three people shot by Rittenhouse during protests against racial injustice in Kenosha and the only survivor, was testifying during Rittenhouse’s murder trial in Kenosha, where the shootings happened on Aug. 25, 2020.
“It wasn’t until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him with your gun … that he fired, right?” Corey Chirafisi, part of Rittenhouse’s defense team, asked Grosskreutz.
“Correct,” he replied.
Rittenhouse had earlier fired on Joseph Rosenbaum, who witnesses said was acting aggressively and lunged at the teenager in the parking lot of a car dealership. Rosenbaum died from his wounds. After Rittenhouse took off running, he was attacked by Anthony Huber, who swung a skateboard at his head. Rittenhouse also is accused of fatally shooting Huber.
Grosskreutz, 27, then moved toward Rittenhouse while holding a gun, video footage showed, and Rittenhouse appeared to shoot him.
Kyle Rittenhouse and lead defense attorney Mark Richards arrive for his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Nov. 8, 2021. (Mark Hertzberg/Pool/Getty Images)
Grosskreutz had heard gunshots from several blocks away and sprinted toward the sounds.
He said he thought Rittenhouse was an “active shooter,” prompting him to act.
But even though he was within arm’s length of Rittenhouse, he expressed ambivalence about the idea of shooting the teen, claiming that preserving his own life “while also taking the life of another is not something that I’m capable of or comfortable in doing.”
Thomas Binger, a prosecutor, wondered why Grosskreutz hadn’t fired first.
“That’s not the kind of person that I am. That’s not why I was out there,” Grosskreutz said. “It’s not who I am. And definitely not somebody I would want to become.”
Jacob Marshall, a roommate of Grosskreutz, posted on Facebook shortly after the shooting that Grosskreutz conveyed to him that “his only regret was not killing the kid and hesitating to pull the gun [sic] before emptying the entire mag into him.”
Grosskreutz denied making those comments. Marshall is scheduled to testify on Nov. 10.
Corey Chirafisi, an attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse, cross-examines Gage Groskreutz during Rittenhouse’s trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Nov. 8, 2021. (Sean Krajacic/Pool/Getty Images)
Rittenhouse, 18, had been in Kenosha to help defend businesses against rioters and medically assist people in distress. Grosskreutz, 23, who has worked as a paramedic, also went to the city to help with medical situations.
The Milwaukee resident, who was active in so-called social justice protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, acknowledged that his concealed carry permit was expired, meaning he couldn’t legally carry the .40-caliber handgun he had with him that night.
“I believe in the Second Amendment. I’m for people’s right to carry and bear arms,” he said. “And that night was no different than any other day. It’s keys, phone, wallet, gun.”
Chirafisi pressed the witness on how he’d told officers after the shooting that his Glock fell from his belt clip.
“You didn’t take the Glock out of your back here and run with it?” he asked.
“I did,” Grosskreutz said.
“So it didn’t fall off your waist; it was in your hand?” the lawyer said.
“That’s correct,” Grosskreutz said.
Grosskreutz said he didn’t see his comments to police as a lie and also pushed back when Chirafisi asserted he was chasing Rittenhouse.
Chirafisi noted that Grosskreutz quickly brought a $10 million civil suit against the city and county of Kenosha for allegedly failing to keep the peace during the rioting and that there was no mention of Grosskreutz holding a weapon when he was shot.
“You left that part out, right?” he said.
“That’s correct,” Grosskreutz said.
Grosskreutz was struck in his right bicep. He said he still suffers from the wound, including difficulty lifting some heavy objects.
A California high school teacher appeared to mock conservatives in a high school test given to students last week, resulting in a school investigation and criticism from parents.
The multiple-choice question posed to Whitney High School students in the social science class said, “A group of complete idiots.” The possible answers given were “A) KKK; B) all of Florida; C) Fox news; D) Texans.”
The school is located in Rocklin, a city about 20 miles from Sacramento. Jessa Krissovich, a parent, shared a screenshot of the questions with Fox 40 Sacramento, telling the station that “it sounded unbelievable.”
“We all have different beliefs,” Krissovich told Fox 40. “This is the United States and we all come from different backgrounds and everybody should be OK with who they are.”
“He was always like a funny kind of teacher,” Joel Alquicira, a Whitney High School student, who had the social science teacher during a previous year, told KCRA-TV. But, he added, “That kind of stuff shouldn’t be on a test.”
In response to the incident, school Principal Justin Cutts sent out a conciliatory message to staff, students, and families. It read, in part: “The Whitney High School Administration Team and the Rocklin Unified School District recognizes and shares their concerns and is conducting a thorough investigation. Whitney High and Rocklin Unified is committed to providing each student, family, and staff with a safe and welcoming environment.”
Cutts promised to take appropriate disciplinary steps but that the personnel information will be kept discrete.
While Whitney High School deals with the incident, there is increasing concern among parents about the use of critical race theory (CRT) in several school districts.
A recent social media video made by a science coach and administrator at Indianapolis Public Schools, Indiana’s largest school district that serves about 23,000 students, went viral as he admitted to teaching CRT when the schools had promised otherwise.
“Parents, when we tell you critical race theory isn’t taught in our schools, we’re lying, keep looking,” Tony Kinnett said Tuesday in a video shared on Twitter.
Many parents are against teaching CRT to children as the ideology, under the banner of racial equity, teaches American institutions and systems are racist and dominated by white supremacy.
This eBook released exclusively by The National Pulse in 2020 is now available for free.
Many got The Russia Lie wrong. Far from a hoax sourced in Russian disinformation, it was a political hit involving Fiona Hill, The Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, the DNC, the FBI, the CIA, the Clintons, foreign intelligence services, Fusion GPS, CrowdStrike, Perkins Coie, top-Republicans, and the extreme naivety of those who trust sclerotic institutions.
We described it for you in this short ebook published in September 2020. Now that U.S. Attorney John Durham has indicted a Brookings Institution researcher, we wanted to remove this book from the paywall and offer it for free, so we could say, “told you so.”
You may not have heard this version because the news is often written by Washington insiders who were okay with using invasive tools designed to fight the Cold War to “Get Trump” — vindicating President Eisenhower’s warning about the “military industrial complex,” which has only become more bold in the Biden regime.
Those who follow The National Pulse know that what we publish in January usually becomes a headline everywhere else in March. We were first to Fauci, Wuhan, and gain-of-function. We published “The Insurrection Lie” on January 13, 2021. Durham is showing that our unique take on The Russia Lie nailed it.
If you want to see where Durham may go next, read this first. Enjoy (and share)! This round’s on us.
A group of intellectuals who have faced hostility for expressing their ideas are building their own institution of higher education in Austin, Texas, saying that they can no longer wait for the legacy universities to address the pervasive intolerance on campuses.
“We are done waiting for the legacy universities to right themselves. And so we are building anew,” wrote Pano Kanelos in a newsletter announcing the establishment of the University of Austin (UATX). Kanelos, the former president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, will serve as the founding president of the new school.
The goal of this educational initiative is to build a university “dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth,” a promise Kanelos said appears in mottos of many prestigious institutions but is hardly honored in practice.
“There is a gaping chasm between the promise and the reality of higher education,” Kanelos wrote, pointing to recent incidents in which faculty were “treated like thought criminals” because of their unpopular viewpoints. Last month, University of Chicago scientist Dorian Abbot was disinvited by MIT from delivering a prominent public lecture after he expressed doubts about diversity hiring. Peter Boghossian, a philosophy professor at Portland State University, quit in September following “years of harassment by faculty and administrators.” Kathleen Stock, a professor at University of Sussex, England, was forced to resign after facing death threats from extreme transgender activists over her research on sex and gender.
Many universities no longer have an incentive to create an environment where “intellectual dissent is protected and fashionable opinions are scrutinized,” according to Kanelos. Instead, for many of the most prestigious schools, the primary incentive is to “function as finishing school for the national and global elite.”
Kanelos said he set up the UTAX to renew the purpose of higher education. His project is joined by journalists, scholars, business leaders, and public intellectuals including Niall Ferguson, Bari Weiss, Heather Heying, Joe Lonsdale, and Arthur Brooks. Peter Boghossian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Kathleen Stock are the first three announced founding faculty fellows, who are tasked to design a curriculum and offer lectures and courses that “exemplify the pursuit of excellence in the service of truth-seeking.”
The UTAX will not be accepting undergraduates until 2024, but it is planning to launch at least three graduate programs, and will be rolling out summer programs as early as 2022.
The first summer program, according to the UTAX’s website, will be called “The Forbidden Courses.” It will invite students to discuss “the most provocative questions that often lead to censorship or self-censorship in many universities.” The goal of the course is to make students “proficient and comfortable with productive disagreement.”
An undergraduate college is planned to be open in fall 2024. The first two years of the four-year program will consist of “an intensive liberal arts curriculum, including the study of philosophy, literature, history, politics, economics, mathematics, the sciences, and the fine arts.” There has yet to be any news about tuition or scholarships.
In a call to action, Kanelos encouraged those who share the feeling that “something fundamental is broken” in higher education to join the effort.
“We welcome all who share our mission to pursue a truly liberating education—and hope that other founders follow our example,” he said.
Support is quietly growing across the ideological spectrum on Capitol Hill for measures intended to toughen congressional oversight muscles that have been allowed to atrophy for several decades under majorities of both political parties.
The first beneficiary of the gathering push could be the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, which has repeatedly requested more resources in recent years, only to be rejected by lawmakers.
A coalition of free-market-oriented conservative non-profits focused on government reforms told top Republican leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee in a Nov. 3 letter that “for too long, Congress has neglected many of its constitutional authorities,” and that GAO is the place to start in restoring congressional oversight authority.
“GAO is particularly deserving of increased resources. As the primary congressional watchdog, GAO has historically yielded an enormous return on investment. Spending just $656 million in 2020, the GAO estimated that their ‘work yielded about $77.6 billion in financial benefits—a return of about $114 for every dollar invested,’” the coalition said in its letter.
“As a nonpartisan agency, GAO is also perfectly positioned to provide concrete results during a time of hyper-partisanship and gridlock. Given their track record for effective oversight and substantial savings, Congress should fully fund the GAO’s $744.3 million request for FY 2022.”
The letter was addressed to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking minority member of the appropriations panel, and Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), the top GOP member of the panel’s subcommittee on the legislative branch.
Members of the coalition include Zach Graves, Head of Policy for the Lincoln Network, Jonathan Bydlak, Director of the Governance Program for the R Street Institute, Berin Szoka, President of TechFreedom, Jon Schweppe, Director of Policy for the American Principles Project, Kevin R. Kosar, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Roslyn Layton, Co-Founder of China TechThreat, and Jason Pye, Director of Rule of Law Initiatives at the Due Process Institute. The letter signers did so as individuals, not as official spokespeople for their employing organizations.
Leaders of liberal-oriented non-profits interviewed by The Epoch Times Monday also expressed support for the call to increase GAO’s budget.
Daniel Schuman, Policy Director for Demand Progress and the Demand Progress Educational Fund, said, “increasing funding on the GAO is one issue where everyone should be able to agree, with a mission focused on reducing government waste and a 100-to-1 return on investment.
“Sadly, the agency has suffered significant funding cuts over the last three decades, so a relatively modest restoration of its funding levels will yield benefits measured in the billions,” Schuman added.
Similarly, Project on Government Oversight’s (POGO) Tim Stretton told The Epoch Times that “for far too long, Congress has failed to properly increase their capacity to do oversight of our sprawling federal government by not adequately investing in the Government Accountability Office.”
Stretton, who directs POGO’s Congressional Oversight Initiative, observed that “given the trillions of dollars in new spending as result of the ongoing pandemic, a boost in funding for this congressional watchdog couldn’t come at a better time.”
Conservative veterans of congressional staffs and executive branch appointments also lauded the push. Robert Moffit, a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times that “at a time of intense political polarization and growing public distrust fueled by transparently partisan ‘talking points,’ Congress today needs GAO to help fulfill its primary constitutional responsibilities. Ultimately the job of Congress, as [founder James] Madison envisioned it, is the formulation of public policy based on a rational deliberation among the elected representatives of the American people.”
And similarly, Brian Darling, former senior counsel to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said GAO is “is the one government institution that needs more money to save taxpayer money. More Congressional oversight of resources is needed to put a dent in our national debt fast approaching $30 trillion.”
In their letter to Shelby and Braun, the coalition members pointed to the aggressive use of Executive Orders (EO) by President Joe Biden as a key justification for reviving and strengthening congressional oversight capacities.
“The proliferation of executive action under the Biden administration makes it all the more important that Congress work to restore the balance of powers and reign in executive overreach,” the letter signers wrote.
“In his first 100 days, President Biden signed a record 42 Executive Orders (EOs), and has signed a total of 66 EOs during his first year in office. Many of these EOs, especially those regarding healthcare and energy, should have been considered through a democratic, legislative process rather than being implemented through executive fiat. Congress should make it a priority to provide the resources necessary to effectively counterbalance this increase in executive action,” the letter said.
“In spite of the fact that our country faces a $3 trillion budget deficit for 2021—three times that of 2019—it is clear that Congress intends to continue spending at radical levels,” the letter said. With multiple new programs being established, the need for stronger congressional oversight becomes even more important, according to the letter.
“If Congress is intent on continuing to spend with reckless abandon, it should at least commensurately fund its oversight and legislative capacities within the existing funding levels,” the coalition writers concluded. “Rebuilding Congress to its former strength and reasserting its constitutional role is essential to a proper and accountable government.”
The coalition also expressed support for increasing funding for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Congressional Research Service (CRS), as well as improving staff levels and compensation.
“Retaining experienced staff is essential to promoting effective legislating and oversight, and a lack of investment in staffing has enabled the transfer of many Article I authorities to the Executive Branch. If Congress is to stand up to the administrative state without being outmanned and outgunned, it must invest in the staff that bring the experience and authority required,” the coalition said.
It’s the laugh heard ’round America — and the world.
Last week, Jennifer Granholm, President Joe Biden’s energy secretary, was appearing on Bloomberg TV when she was asked this question: “What is the Granholm plan to increase oil production in America?”
Granholm immediately began laughing. “That is hilarious,” she responded. “Would that I had the magic wand on this.”
“As you know, of course, oil is a global market. It is controlled by a cartel. That cartel is called OPEC, and they made a decision yesterday that they were not going to increase beyond what they were already planning.”
Laughing at Americans paying more for gas?
Biden and the Democrats are out-of-touch with how their failed policies hurt working families.pic.twitter.com/9lbi2Nzx5I
There are several problems to this answer, but the biggest one is the prelude to it: the laugh.
For Granholm, what she was dismissing is Americans who are paying a lot more at the pump — and stand to see further price increases. According to CNN, Bank of America projected last week that by June 2022, the price of crude oil would rise by 45 percent.
Do you think there will be a food shortage?
It’s not just the pump or the prices on store shelves, however. Lest we forget, carbon energy affects a number of other areas, too — including agriculture, where experts are predicting an energy shortfall will mean a deadly food shortage in the near future.
“I want to say this loud and clear right now, that we risk a very low crop in the next harvest,” said Svein Tore Holsether, the CEO and president of Norwegian-based fertilizer giant Yara International, according to a Fortune article published Thursday.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have a food crisis.”
Fertilizer prices, he said, had roughly tripled during the summer and fall, in part due to natural gas prices in Europe increasing at about the same rate.
Yara produces ammonia, which is one of the ingredients of artificial fertilizer. To this, they either utilize hydropower or natural gas.
“To produce a ton of ammonia last summer was $110,” Holsether said. “And now it’s $1,000. So it’s just incredible.”
While Yara has donated $25 million of fertilizer to vulnerable farmers, he said, they can’t just give the product away — and since September, it’s been reducing its production of ammonia by 40 percent.
While food prices have also gone up, meaning some farmers can afford to pay for more expensive fertilizer, smaller farmers could end up taking a hit. What’s more, Holsether predicted a food crisis could unfold similar to the computer chip crisis we’re currently experiencing — a delayed reaction to the effects of the COVID-19 shutdowns.
“That’s all linked to factories being shut down in March, April and May of last year, and we’re reaping the consequences of that now,” he said.
“But if we get the equivalent to the food system … not having food is not annoying, that’s a matter of life or death.”
Beyond food shortages is food families can no longer afford. That’s what made Granholm’s answer so infuriating; the administration she works for views carbon energy production and security as a minimal priority. (See how they canceled the permits on the Keystone XL pipeline and paused federal oil leases, for instance.)
This isn’t just about the price at the pump — and it doesn’t just affect Americans, particularly given agricultural exports.
Laugh now, Secretary Granholm. When families in America and abroad are starving or can’t afford basic foodstuffs, thanks in part to your administration’s reliance on OPEC for carbon-based energy, you can imagine how that cackle will look in 2022 political advertisements.
Deleted webpages reveal Bill Gates praising a controversial Chinese Communist Party-backed influence group – the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries – for its efforts to build “friendship.”
Gates, who has a long history of collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party in his personal and professional capacities, visited the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) in June 2014 to deliver a speech on philanthropy.
The CPAFFC has been dubbed the “public face” of the United Front Work Department – a billion-dollar effort executed by the Chinese Communist Party seeking “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence foreign individuals and the policies of foreign states to serve Beijing’s interests,” according to the federal U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission.
GATES.
Also referred to as “avowedly an arm of the party-state,” CPAFFC has been flagged by the U.S. State Department for its campaigns to “directly and malignly influence” American officials and business leaders.
Despite the CPAFFC’s known efforts to malignly influence Americans, archived webpages from a subsidiary of the CPAFFC, the China Friendship Foundation For Peace And Development, reveal Gates speaking at the association’s headquarters.
Gates’s speech was titled “Invent For The Poor,” and a CPAFFC summary of the event reveals the association’s president was in attendance:
Under the auspices of President Li Xiaolin, Mr. Bill Gates, dressed in a red short-sleeved T-shirt with a smile and confidence on his face, shared his personal experience in philanthropy and called on people to pay attention to the world, especially in Africa.
“He emphasized the non-negligible role played by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries in the world’s friendship and mutual assistance,” noted the CPAFFC’s summary of Gates’s speech.
GATES.
In 2017, Gates also sent a congratulatory letter to the CPAFFC amidst its World Philanthropy Forum, jointly hosted alongside Tsinghua University. The school is the alma mater of regime leader Xi Jinping and hosts a “Marxist” journalism school, training the next generation of Chinese state-run media propagandists with the assistance of the New York Times, CNN, and others.
On Oct. 26, TikTok executive Michael Beckerman was asked by members of U.S. Congress if the app shares data with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although Beckerman said no, there is reason to think otherwise.
With all this talk of Instagram, it’s easy to forget that other problematic apps exist. In fact, according to a comprehensive survey carried out by analysts at Piper Sandler, Instagram isn’t even that popular among U.S. teens.
Aptly titled “Taking Stock With Teens,” the 91-page report outlines the responses of 10,000 American teenagers. Just 22 percent of respondents listed Instagram as their app of choice; interestingly, 30 percent named TikTok as their favorite app.
The popularity of TikTok is particularly revealing—and, more importantly, particularly worrying. Launched in its current form three years ago, the social media app now has 1 billion active monthly users worldwide; rather incredibly, it has been downloaded in the United States more than 200 million times. Why should we be worried? After all, it’s just a harmless app, right?
Wrong.
As tensions between the United States and Chinacontinue to rise, the CCP has upped its cyberespionage game. Contrary to popular belief, TikTok is not a wholly unserious app designed to spread joy around the world. Created by ByteDance, a company with close ties to the CCP, TikTok should be viewed with a great degree of suspicion. As the Wall Street Journal reported back in June, the CCP now expects tech companies, including ByteDance, to share all its data with Party members.
At the very same time the CCP demanded access to data, TikTok introduced a new biometric policy solely catered to its U.S.-based users. The app now takes two key pieces of biometric data—“faceprints” and “voiceprints”—from every single U.S.-based user. The former involves the collection of digitally recorded representation of a person’s face; the latter involves recording different aspects of a user’s voice, including resonance, reverberation, intonation, rhythm, and pacing.
With at least 100 million users in the United States, that’s a lot of personal information. Also, why would TikTok, a company with headquarters in Beijing, require this sort of information from U.S.-based users? More importantly, why is this policy aimed solely at U.S.-based users? This is a question Congress needed to ask Beckerman. It didn’t.
The logo of Chinese video app TikTok is seen on the side of the company’s new office space at the C3 campus in Culver City, in the westside of Los Angeles, Calif., on Aug. 11, 2020. (Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images)
Could the CCP Be Weaponizing TikTok?
According to former employees, the answer appears to be yes. By providing users with algorithmically tailored videos, TikTok can easily be used to disseminate disinformation.
According to Kara Frederick, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, this makes the app the perfect vehicle for spreading pro-CCP propaganda. Young Americans spend an inordinate amount of time on TikTok. In fact, American app users now spend more time on TikTok than they do on YouTube.
Instead of asking if the CCP would ever use TikTok to influence young, impressionable Americans, a better question to ask is this: why wouldn’t it use the app to influence Americans? After all, it already uses Twitter to spread harmful propaganda.
As the nature of warfare changes, with boots on the ground being replaced by cyberhacks and killware, the threats we face also change.
TikTok is now the fastest growing app in the world; it provides a window into the lives of millions of Americans. The CCP already uses similar apps to spy on its own citizens, according to a recent report by Cure53, a German cybersecurity firm. We must wake up to the realities now facing us: If something can be weaponized, it will be weaponized. The United States and China are currently engaged in a new cold war; with the latter busy spreading disinformation about the former. The U.S. government should be on full alert.
Which brings us back to the potential threat posed by TikTok. Congress is responsible for making laws that influence the daily lives of 330 million Americans; rather alarmingly, it doesn’t appear to understand the threat posed by social media apps. Furthermore, the Biden administration doesn’t seem to care. In June, at the very same time as the aforementioned WSJ story was published, President Joe Biden chose to revoke and replace executive orders banning TikTok.
Now, China, a country known for extensive cyberespionage operations, is free to use the app to further divide a country that has never been more divided. Charles de Gaulle, the former president of France, once called silence “the ultimate weapon of power.” Today, however, social media is the ultimate weapon. The Chinese Communist Party knows this. Sadly, the U.S. government doesn’t. Such ignorance could prove to be very costly.
Focus on ‘genetically engineered,’ not on ‘accidental leak’
Let me just come out and say it: COVID-19 was engineered by China in cooperation with the democrats, deep state, elites of the world, etc. to oust Trump and take over and destroy the USA [US Patriot].
The recently declassified U.S. intelligence community report on the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 muddies the water.
There had been months of open-source reporting from scientists around the world speculating that the likely origins of the virus was the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), not the so-called zoonotic disease theory (for example, a naturally-occurring virus jumped from an animal—supposedly a bat in a Wuhan “wet market”—to a human) that has been widely propagated by the state-run Chinese media, the highly politicized World Health Organization, and medical trade journals like The Lancet, and Western media anxious to divert attention from China.
Even a U.S. government agency, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, had concluded in a classified report in May 2020 “that the hypothesis claiming the virus leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan is plausible and deserves further investigation.”
But on Oct. 29, an article in The Wall Street Journal quoted from a declassified intelligence report that made this incredible claim: “Researchers at a Wuhan, China, laboratory were probably unaware of the existence of the virus that causes Covid-19 before the pandemic began in late 2019, and if it leaked from the lab, it was likely the result of an accident not connected to deliberate genetic engineering.” Incredible, as in not believable at all!
Here is one item that was conveniently dropped down the memory hole in compiling that “intelligence report” and the Oct. 29 WSJ story that torpedoes the contention that the zoonotic theory is still possible. Back in June on its own pages, The WSJ reported that the CGG-CGG amino acid sequence found in the virus is manmade and can only have been inserted through gain-of-function research, as the CGG-CGG sequence is not found in nature.
How did the U.S. intelligence community sidestep that inconvenient truth in concluding that “U.S. government analysts cannot determine whether the global pandemic emerged when the virus passed to humans from an animal, or from a laboratory accident”? Did the 18 intelligence agencies that reviewed the final report neglect to review that study because the story reporting it was behind a paywall and not readily accessible?
A second item conveniently forgotten was the study completed by British professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sorensen in May 2021, which claimed “that Chinese scientists created COVID-19 in a Wuhan lab.” The two scientists also claimed to have first-hand evidence of Chinese “retro-engineering” in hand for over a year, but were ignored by the scientific community and others. Another stake in the heart of the zoonotic theory!
Workers place barriers outside the closed Huanan Seafood wholesale market during a visit by members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team, investigating the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China’s central Hubei Province on Jan. 31, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
The final inconvenient truth is from The Oxford Student, which provided this final stake in the heart of the zoonotic theory: “Research by Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Fellow, Professor David Macdonald, has shown that neither bats nor pangolins were sold at Wuhan’s wet markets between May 2017 and November 2019.”
To summarize:
The Oct. 29 WSJ article quoted a U.S. intel community report that claimed the following: a) that researchers at the WIV were “probably unaware” of the virus before “patient zero” contracted it, and b) the virus was not “connected to deliberate genetic engineering.”
The virus contains a CGG-CGG sequence not found in nature, ergo it was genetically engineered.
Evidence of Chinese virus “retro-engineering” has been suppressed for well over a year.
There were no bats or pangolins sold in the Wuhan wet markets between May 2017 and November 2019.
Conclusion: The zoonotic theory is a farce and complete misdirection.
Secondary conclusion: Open-source research-derived evidence trumps classified obfuscation by the U.S. intelligence community.
No facts have ever been presented by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that “patient zero” was anywhere other than in Wuhan city, Hubei Province. In fact, all clinical evidence gathered to date points directly to Wuhan as ground zero for the outbreak. The only question is whether the outbreak was mendacious and accidental, or mendacious and purposeful, because the CCP lies have persisted regardless of which is correct. Regardless of which is true, the virus was human-engineered through gain-of-function research.
The U.S. intel community cannot conclude which alternative is correct, either, and apparently want us to believe a theory that the lab researchers who handled virus-contaminated material were simply unaware of the potential dangers, and blithely went about their jobs in a biosafety level 4 laboratory without taking appropriate personal precautions. Who truly believes that fantasy?
Focusing on “accidental release” rather than the virus origin itself is a poor attempt to exonerate the CCP. Even though that U.S. intel community report concluded that almost certainly the virus originated in Wuhan, never mind pressing the CCP for accountability for that bio-engineered virus that is still destroying the world economy and the lives of many innocents around the world. If the virus had not been bio-engineered in the first place, whether it was “leaked” purposely or accidentally would be irrelevant because the ensuing damage would not have occurred.
The state-run Chinese media tell us everything we need to know about the true origins of the virus. They know perfectly well that the virus was engineered, with the WIV being its last port of call before it was released into the human population. Denial and blame-shifting, including by Xi Jinping and his wolf warrior diplomats, mask that reality as they seek to avoid the financial pain that is coming when world consensus develops that restitution from the Chinese regime for the damages inflicted by the CCP virus is warranted and lawful.
Police officers wearing masks walk as the CCTV Building (left, back), the headquarters for the Chinese regime’s mouthpiece broadcaster, is seen in Beijing on May 19, 2020. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images)
And denial and blame-shifting about the virus origins has continued unabated in Chinese state-run media from early 2020 to the present day. Here are a few recent headlines:
“Objective, scientific, responsible attitude should be adopted for COVID-19 origins tracing: Chinese FM [Foreign Ministry]”—People’s Daily
“China slams ‘declassified assessment on COVID-19 origins’ released by U.S.”—Xinhua
“Stop scapegoating China! Chinese FM rejects US intelligence-led origins-tracing report”—Global Times
Conclusion
When all is said and done, and when all the CCP propaganda and denials are deconstructed, the facts remain—the communist Chinese regime and its media mouthpieces know that the human-engineered SARS-CoV-2 virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Biosafety Level 4 laboratory. And the CCP knows that the world will soon be knocking on its door, demanding restitution. Hence its continuing complete denials in the face of all evidence to the contrary, even when a U.S. intelligence community report provides them with a little bit of shade.
In the aftermath of reports that the conservative media company Newsmax would comply with President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate, the company itself said that’s not quite true.
On Friday, Mediaite reported that it had obtained an internal email sent to Newsmax employees that indicated the company would not fight the Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule requiring every employer with more than 100 employees to have its workers vaccinated.
“To ensure that we are in compliance, we require that all vaccinated employees submit a copy of their vaccination card,” the email told Newsmax employees, Mediaite reported.
News of the corporate policy came as Newsmax host Steve Cortes was issuing blistering comments against a vaccine mandate.
I will not comply w/ any organization’s attempt to enforce Biden’s capricious & unscientific Medical Apartheid mandate.
I will not be forced into the injection, nor will I disclose my vaccination status.
No one should be pressured to choose between medical privacy & their job.
“Newsmax has no vaccine mandate nor do we require it for employment,” Newsmax wrote in an editorial on its website in which it called the rule “a dangerous overreach of federal power and opposed by Newsmax.”
The Newsmax editorial said that the company “informed our staff of the upcoming federal rule. At the same time, we have notified staff we will create an easy opt-out for any employee who does not want to be vaccinated.”
“Under the rule, any employee who is not vaccinated will be tested for COVID on a weekly basis,” the editorial continued, adding, “Newsmax is going beyond the OSHA rule to provide free weekly testing on its company premises.”
As noted by USA Today, the rule does not force employers to bear the cost of weekly testing, meaning that if they should wish, employers with more than 100 people could force unvaccinated workers to pay those costs themselves.
@KenPaxtonTX The testing option of the OSHA mandate stipulates that the employee is responsible for paying for the weekly COVD test. In many area COVD tests are $50+, which would be $200+ month. *Also, not free with insurance at doctors as person has to pay copay to get the test
“No Newsmax employee will be forced to receive the vaccine or be fired for not doing so,” the editorial said.
The balance of the editorial discusses the merits — or lack of same — concerning the mandate and the vaccine. It calls the OSHA rule “not good and probably illegal.”
“The Biden administration’s decision to implement an OSHA requirement is a dangerous overreach of federal power,” the editorial read, noting that states have been shepherding their populations through the pandemic, and there seems to be no need for federal intervention.
“Now the Biden administration is using authority intended for workplace safety to bypass the traditional governmental approach to health safety,” the editorial continued, adding that “by engaging in an unprecedented power grab, the Biden administration is taking its eye off the ball.”
The editorial states that the vaccine “which has been demonstrated to be safe and effective, is clearly playing a role” in the decline of COVID-19 deaths; however, it did point out that the vaccine is not the only contributing factor.
“While the vaccine works, so does natural immunity,” it read.
A LOT of fake news out there about @newsmax and the Vaccine. Well–here’s the TRUTH: no one at NEWSMAX will ever be forced get “the jab”—it’s a CHOICE!!! You can work at “The Max” if you’re unvaccinated!!!! (PS: @JoeBiden you SCREWED this up in EVERY) https://t.co/oAA4T5jqTj
“At Newsmax, we do not ignore the science nor the facts,” it said.
“President Donald Trump provided the funding for the vaccine and cut through the red tape to see it implemented. And Trump himself has been vaccinated. Publicly, he has encouraged others to receive the vaccine,” the editorial stated, while noting that Trump recommended it, but did not force it on anyone.
“His approach is the right way. Government provides an opportunity, but an informed citizenry in a free nation should make its own health decisions,” the editorial concluded.
“Sesame Street” has become a propaganda arm of the Biden regime, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas charged Saturday.
On Saturday, the Twitter account of the “Sesame Street” character Big Bird tweeted a message telling children to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
“I got the COVID-19 vaccine today! My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy. Ms. @EricaRHill even said I’ve been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. I had no idea!” the tweet read, referring to CNN journalist Erica Hill, who on Saturday hosted an event with Big Bird called “The ABCs of COVID Vaccines.”
I got the COVID-19 vaccine today! My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy.
Ms. @EricaRHill even said I’ve been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. I had no idea!
“Government propaganda … for your 5 year old!” he tweeted.
Has everything become political these days?
The Food and Drug Administration late last month gave Emergency Use Authorization for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be given to children between the ages of 5 and 11.
Newsmax host Steve Cortes joined in with his criticism of the “Sesame Street” edorsement.
“This kind of propaganda is actually evil. Your children are not statistically at risk, and should not be pressured into a brand new treatment. Do Not Comply!” he tweeted.
This kind of propaganda is actually evil.
Your children are not statistically at risk, and should not be pressured into a brand new treatment.
Erin Gauch, of Middletown, Rhode Island, said concerns over side effects make her pause, according to The New York Times.
“I’m looking at a 9-year-old, and if I make a bad decision and he ends up with some debilitating side effects or lifelong adverse reaction, I don’t think I could live with that,” she said.
“If we ultimately decide not to get my youngest vaccinated right now, I guess I’ll be subjected to mommy shaming, but I’ll just have to deal with it,” Gauch said.
You don’t have to be a fan of James O’Keefe’s style of journalism to be worried about how the government is reacting to it.
The FBI and Manhattan federal prosecutors are investigating the case of Ashley Biden’s diary: The president’s daughter says it was stolen in a burglary last year; an obscure right-wing Web site wound up publishing what it said are pages from it about 10 days before the election.
O’Keefe says someone shopped the diary to his Project Veritas, claiming Biden had left it somewhere. His outfit didn’t use it (in part because it couldn’t verify it), and he says he informed law enforcement of the whole thing.
But he has some ties to the outfit that did publish, which seems to be why the feds raided the homes of several current or former Veritas employees — before dawn, in O’Keefe’s own case.
He’s also outraged that the feds urged him not to go public with the subpoenas, but someone dropped a dime to The New York Times, which started calling for comment an hour after the first raids Thursday morning.
Journalists can’t be prosecuted for publishing stolen material unless they were part of the theft. And the theft in question hardly seems to rise to a federal crime.
And shield laws normally mean law enforcement can’t make reporters reveal a thing about their sources, even if they didn’t publish anything.
Journalists regularly publish material that has been leaked or even taken — consider the Times running President Trump’s tax returns. Unless the feds know something about Veritas sanctioning the burglary, the diary does not warrant pre-dawn raids. It has all the marks of a political vendetta.
That’s not at all a good look for a Biden Justice Department already in ill repute for intimidating parents who just ask questions at school-board meetings.
Requirements as common in STEM as in social science
Nearly a fifth of university jobs require diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements that press applicants to express and expound upon their commitment to diversity, according to a new study from the American Enterprise Institute.
The study, from the Educational Freedom Institute’s James D. Paul and the American Enterprise Institute’s Robert Maranto, is the first to empirically estimate the prevalence of diversity statements in higher education, which they say may narrow the research questions that academics feel comfortable addressing.
Using a representative sample of 999 job postings, the study found that 19 percent require a diversity statement; that the statements are significantly more common at elite schools than non-elite ones; and that jobs in STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—are just as likely as jobs in the social sciences to require a diversity statement from applicants.
DEI statements have grown more routine in recent years, especially on the West Coast. Between 2018 and 2019, most schools in the University of California system mandated DEI statements for all faculty applicants, with a system-wide task force recommending that the requirements be standardized across UC schools. Such requirements soon made their way east: In 2020, a job posting at the University of Denver asked applicants “how you plan to integrate DEI into your role as a faculty member, including new or existing initiatives you would like to be involved with.”
The last finding surprised Paul, the director of research at the Educational Freedom Institute, who told the Washington Free Beacon it was a testament to the sway of DEI ideology in academia. He and Maranto had hypothesized that the more empirical a field, the less likely it would be to use “soft” criteria when evaluating applicants. But when they actually ran the data, that hypothesis collapsed.
“The most surprising finding of the paper is that these requirements are not just limited to the softer humanities,” Paul said. “I would have expected these statements to be less common in math and engineering, but they’re not.”
This swift march has not gone unopposed. City Journal‘s Heather Mac Donald has blasted DEI requirements as an assault on meritocracy, quipping that Einstein’s groundbreaking research had nothing to do with diversity, equity, or inclusion. Paul agreed, saying it was “concerning” that DEI has begun to “take precedence over merit.” The study notes that at the University of California, Berkeley, more than 76 percent of applicants to a life sciences post were eliminated on the basis of their DEI statements.
Others, like Maranto’s American Enterprise Institute colleague Max Eden, see the requirements as ideological litmus tests, loyalty oaths to a “woke” worldview in which equity matters more than education and free thought.
“Universities are conditioning employment on fealty to an ideology that is inherently hostile to the university’s traditional mission,” Eden said. “If colleges started asking prospective faculty about their patriotism or commitment to American ideals, you can bet there would be a mass outcry about academic freedom.”
Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), echoed Eden’s concern.
“The idea that someone looked at the current crop of professors and said, ‘There’s just not enough political homogeneity’ is remarkable to me,” Lukianoff told the Free Beacon. “I fear that higher education has become a conformity engine.”
That conformity, Paul and Maranto note, “may also result in a narrowing of research questions, with negative consequences for intellectual pursuits.”
The study, which reviewed postings on three popular online job boards, suggests that DEI litmus tests are not aberrational. They are now common at both public and private universities—especially the elite ones, which the study found were 18 percent more likely than non-elite schools to require diversity statements. The authors defined an “elite school” as any college or university in the top 100 of the 2020 U.S. News & World Report rankings.
Paul speculated that the market power of such schools lets them be extra ideological. If elite universities get more job applicants, he reasoned, they may “be able to prioritize this ideology without sacrificing anything in quality. They’re in a position to pick and choose, so why not choose someone who toes the line?”
The study emphasizes that the 19 percent statistic is likely a low-ball estimate. For one thing, Paul and Maranto only used the terms “diverse” or “diversity” to identify jobs that require DEI statements; postings that eschewed that language in favor of “equity” or “antiracism” weren’t counted under their coding scheme.
For another, the study only looked at job postings, not job applications. If some applications required diversity statements that weren’t advertised in public postings, Paul and Maranto’s results could be a significant undercount.
“I strongly suspect that if we went through the steps of applying for positions there’d be more jobs with DEI statements,” Paul said. “Our estimate is conservative.”
Komi German, a research fellow at FIRE, argued that the proliferation of DEI statements could ultimately backfire, constraining not just ideological but racial diversity.
“Hiring committees may actually emphasize the political and ideological components of DEI statements to make them more palatable to politically progressive white scholars,” German said. “After all, being white won’t count against them if they can pledge strongly enough their allegiance to DEI.”
CBP cites law that prohibits foreign imports produced through labor abuses
U.S. Customs and Border Protection last week seized imports from a Chinese company backed by an investment group in which climate czar John Kerry holds a $1 million stake.
Kerry and his wife are invested in Hillhouse China Value Fund L.P., part of the Hillhouse investment group that is a top shareholder in a Chinese solar panel company that works with companies known to be using forced labor. It was on that account that CBP seized the imports from LONGi Green Energy, citing a law that prohibits foreign imports produced through labor abuses.
The news could raise additional concerns about the Kerry family’s investment in Hillhouse China Value Fund L.P., which the climate envoy disclosed at the beginning of the year. Although Kerry divested from many of his energy-related holdings in March, the list of divestments did not include Hillhouse, according to a disclosure Kerry filed in March with the Office of Government Ethics. The investment has drawn scrutiny from Republican lawmakers and China experts, who accuse Kerry of downplaying and enabling China’s human rights abuses while trying to win concessions from Beijing on climate change.
The Hillhouse investment group, which is run by Zhang Lei, an adviser to the Chinese government, owns a 6 percent stake in LONGi. Hillhouse is also a top shareholder of YITU Technology, a company that was blacklisted by the U.S. Department of Commerce for allegedly aiding the Chinese government’s surveillance of Uyghurs.
Kerry’s Hillhouse stake is through a trust in which his wife is the beneficiary. He stated in his disclosure that they are not involved in managing the investments.
LONGi, the White House, and CBP did not respond to request for comment.
LONGi Green Energy said its products were temporarily detained by CBP from Oct. 28 to Nov. 3, under a “Withhold Release Order,” according to an announcement filed by its board of directors with the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Nov. 4.
Withhold Release Orders are intended to “prevent merchandise produced in whole or in part in a foreign country using forced labor from being imported into the United States,” according to the CBP website.
LONGi’s board of directors sought to allay concerns over the seizure order, saying it impacted “a total of 40.31 MW of components exported to the United States” which “accounted for approximately 1.59 percent of export sales” to the United States last year.
“The U.S. Customs’ Temporary Detention Order (WRO) has not yet caused the company’s operations significant adverse effects,” the board said. “The company will continue to monitor and evaluate the impact of the WRO on the company’s U.S. shipments.”
Human rights investigators identified LONGi as “a customer of many of the polysilicon companies that are engaged in labor transfers in the Uyghur Region,” in a report published earlier this year by the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University.
Industry analysts recently warned that LONGi is likely to face trade obstacles, after the Biden administration ordered a ban in June on imports connected to forced labor of minority groups in China’s Xinjiang region.
Roth Capital Partners, a financial analyst firm, said on Tuesday that it believed a detention order for LONGi products was “imminent,” according to a client report obtained by PV Magazine, a solar trade publication.
“Look for this to impact LONGi in a broad-based way,” the analysis said.
A group called American Solar Manufacturers Against Chinese Circumvention (A-SMACC) has also been lobbying the Biden administration to investigate the supply chain of LONGi specifically, and other Chinese solar panel companies linked to forced labor, and to impose additional tariffs on those goods. The administration is expected to make a decision on the tariffs next month.
Kerry criticized moves by lawmakers to penalize Chinese solar panel companies in September.
“On the one hand, we’re saying to [China], ‘You have to do more to help deal with the climate,’” Kerry said. “And on the other hand, their solar panels are being sanctioned, which makes it harder for them to sell them.”
Although six House Democrats from the progressive wing of the party voted against passage of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi passed the bill late Friday night with the help of 13 Republicans. Hidden inside the 2,300 pages of this complete boondoggle of a bill are numerous dangerous provisions that would have our founders rolling in their graves.
Shortly before the vote, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana warned colleagues about several of the most egregious initiatives contained in this legislation.
Scalise, holding up a copy of the unwieldy bill that lawmakers had only received the night before, reminded his colleagues of Biden’s promise that passage of his agenda would not cost Americans earning under $400,000 one dime.
“He breaks the promise right here,” Scalise said. “In the bill, a tax, according to the American Gas Association, will increase household electricity rates by 30 percent. And by the way, that’s low-income families that pay that tax the hardest.”
Democrats had originally put amnesty for illegal immigrants into their larger Build Back Better bill. Because there is no Republican support in the Senate for this legislation, they hoped to pass it through the process of reconciliation.
However, in September, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough ruled that amnesty could not be included in a reconciliation bill because it has nothing to do with either spending or revenue. So they added it to the infrastructure bill instead.
Scalise told colleagues: “Millions of additional people will get amnesty in this bill. And it comes at a time where President Biden is negotiating — initially he said he wasn’t — and then the White House had to go back up and say the Justice Department is negotiating half a million dollar checks to people who came across our border illegally and then they’re going to give amnesty to millions more people. Estimates are seven million more people.”
“Can you imagine the flood that will come over when they hear that you can get a half a million dollars a person if President Biden gets his way?” he adds.
Scalise was referring to reports that the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are in talks to give $450,000 per person to immigrants who were separated from family members at the border during the Trump Administration. Questioned about these payments by Fox News’ Peter Doocy last week, Biden said the story wasn’t true. He was later “corrected” by White House officials who confirmed that negotiations are ongoing.
Do you believe inflation will rise next year from current levels?
Next, he addressed the addition of 87,000 IRS agents. “They call this infrastructure. They call this equity. Whatever they want to call it, it’s an army of IRS agents that are going to comb through your bank account. … Why? Because they’ve got to generate hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on more inflation-inducing spending. …”
“According to this Penn-Wharton account [a budget model], you’re going to have over $4 trillion of spending with $1.5 trillion of new taxes. By the way, that’s $2.5 trillion of additional debt. The President says there’s no cost – no cost, just … $2.5 trillion of debt.”
“These IRS agents are going to have to account for over $200 billion to find money from your checking accounts,” he said. “That’s what they’re trying to do at dark of night.”
“No wonder they don’t want a CBO score [on this bill], no wonder they want to do this by dark of night. This is going to induce more inflation that’s hurting families all across America,” Scalise said.
In this bill Dems are trying to ram through: – Mass amnesty – 87,000 new IRS agents – Insane leftist mandates – Giveaways to union bosses – Natural gas tax that’ll raise energy costs
Scalise listed two additional items in his Twitter post that time would not allow him to cover in his floor speech. The first was giveaways to union bosses.
According to the Labor Department, “Davis-Bacon Act and Related Act contractors and subcontractors must pay their laborers and mechanics employed under the contract no less than the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits for corresponding work on similar projects in the area.” Locally prevailing wages are set by the Labor Department.
A White House fact sheet states that “the overwhelming majority of the funds in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will be subject to Davis-Bacon requirements. … These requirements will protect wages for millions of workers, grow the economy, and support good-paying, union jobs.” (Emphasis mine.)
Stand for America has warned that tying federally funded infrastructure projects to the Davis-Bacon Act will make these projects substantially more expensive and will put unions at a distinct advantage to win these coveted government construction projects. They explain that “it’s mainly unionized companies that pay prevailing wage salaries, so they’re more likely to be chosen for federally-funded construction projects.”
According to their report, “Under Davis-Bacon, the government jacks up required wages. Studies show that prevailing wages can drive the costs of projects 20% higher than market cost. As of just a few years ago, carpenters’ prevailing wages in Nassau-Suffolk, New York, were 30% above market. Electricians and plumbers’ prevailing wages were 45.5% and 58.7% above market, respectively.”
The organization also discusses the union giveaways included in the Build Back Better bill, which they said are even worse.
The final grievance on Scalise’s list was “insane left mandates.” The bill contains an abundance of insane left mandates, so I’m not exactly sure which ones he had in mind.
I imagine he was referring to the legislation’s aggressive climate-change measures. Yahoo’s senior climate editor — yes, they have a climate editor — calls the spending in this bill alone “the largest climate change investment in U.S. history.”
For example, it includes $150 billion for clean energy advancement. This is a mere drop in the bucket when one considers Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s mind-boggling estimate of $100 to $150 trillion over the next 30 years to reach “net-zero” emissions. She delivered this stunning figure in her remarks to COP26 attendees last week. ZeroHedge had the story.
No need to worry, though. Yellen has assured us that this represents the “greatest economic opportunity” of our lives.
Scalise is right. None of these items are good for America. All are intended to move the country closer to becoming a socialist state.
The passage of the reconciliation bill would bring us to the brink. Let’s hope Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia who has thus far withheld his tie-breaking support, either blocks it, which may be too much to hope for, or at least takes the most dangerous provisions out of the final bill.
This administration represents the greatest national security threat America faces today.
A $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill the Republican Study Committee criticized as “a Green New Deal Lite” just passed the House of Representatives and is headed to President Joe Biden for signature.
Considering the bill has already passed the Senate, that’s pretty big news by itself, but an even bigger issue is that the radical Green New Dealers in the Democratic House caucus didn’t think it went far enough.
And the biggest issue of all might be that it wouldn’t have passed if 13 Republicans didn’t vote for a massive spending bill that could save President Joe Biden’s Democratic agenda.
According to the New York Post, the 13 GOP members/traitors were Reps.:
Don Bacon of Nebraska
Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania
Andrew Garbarino of New York
Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio
John Katko of New York
Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
Nicole Malliotakis of New York
David McKinley of West Virginia
Tom Reed of New York
Chris Smith of New Jersey
Fred Upton of Michigan
Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey
Don Young of Alaska
Malliotakis, a Republican whose district encompasses one of the few conservative areas of New York City — Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn — said the bill would “improve the safety and prosperity of communities across America and make the necessary improvements to bring our infrastructure into the 21st century.”
“For far too long, our local, state, and federal leaders have neglected to modernize New York City’s aging infrastructure to keep pace with economic and population growth,” she said.
“The funding stream we are providing today will be used by states and cities to modernize roads, highways, bridges, sewer systems, and flood resiliency projects, including right here on Staten Island and in Southern Brooklyn.”
Other Republicans who voted for it held up the bill as a necessity. New York’s Katko posted a message to Twitter in which he said the infrastructure bill was a “win” but that he didn’t vote for the larger Democratic spending bill — the so-called “Build Back Better” plan pegged for the moment at $1.75 million.
“This bill is a win,” Katko wrote, promising the spending would deliver a “once in a generation investment in our nation’s physical infrastructure including our roads and bridges, ports and waterways, broadband networks, electrical grid, clean water systems, and airports.”
“Make no mistake: This bill is a win for Central New York. I urge the president to move swiftly in signing it into law.”
Of the 13 who voted for the bill, six were from New Jersey and New York. Another two — Ohio’s Gonzalez of Ohio and Kinzinger of Illinois — are noted anti-Trump Republicans, both retiring.
Kinzinger “defended” his vote by quote-tweeting Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene criticism of Republicans who supported the bill, then likening the new measure to President Dwight Eisenhower’s construction of the nation’s highway system.
Infrastructure=communism is a new one. Eisenhower’s interstate system should be torn up or else the commies will be able to conveniently drive! Red Dawn in real life pic.twitter.com/WTPtBYDSHx
“Infrastructure=communism is a new one,” Kinzinger quipped.
“Eisenhower’s interstate system should be torn up or else the commies will be able to conveniently drive! Red Dawn in real life.”
Kinzinger’s analysis may have tried to strike the right notes for his audience. (The original 1984 film “Red Dawn” featured American teenagers battling a Soviet takeover of the U.S. A 2012 remake featured a considerably less credible North Korean invasion.) But this bill isn’t just investing massive amounts of money for something as essential as Eisenhower’s interstate system.
If only.
As a Republican Study Group tweet noted, there was plenty of wokeness to go around in this one:
The bipartisan infrastructure proposal floating around the Senate is essentially a Green New Deal Lite.
New York’s Garbarino took lessons from the Biden media team and clamed the “infrastructure bill will not raise taxes or increase costs to American families.”
However, it would provide lots of funds to the New York City area’s infrastructure, so he’s in:
“What it will do is allocate $24.9 billion for New York Highways, bridges and transit, provide $15 billion to replace lead service lines for New York drinking water, grant $470 million to New York’s MacArthur, Republic, LaGuardia and JFK airports, and fund many other vital infrastructure projects that Long Island residents desperately need,” he said in a statement.
But it won’t raise taxes. Gotcha.
And there were others scrambling to defend themselves:
…expand broadband to underserved communities, strengthen our energy grid against Russian & Chinese cyberattacks & create jobs across SW MI…
I regret that this good, bipartisan bill became a political football in recent weeks. Our country can’t afford this partisan dysfunction any longer. #MI06#Infrastructure
Our country is an economic powerhouse in no small part due to our historical support for infrastructure projects. Perhaps more than anyone else, Alaskans know just how vital reliable infrastructure is to stay connected with one another and secure upward economic mobility.
Keep in mind that, according to the New York Post, the Democratic progressives in New York who voted against the bill — Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for instance — are being roundly criticized because the sweet federal government money isn’t coming home to their districts.
“I don’t know why she voted against it,” retired college professor Michael Goodman told the Post. “For decades New York has given more money than they’ve gotten back. Politics is the art of compromise. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
According to the Post, AOC was willing to vote no because she said the infrastructure bill would increase greenhouse gas emissions.
“My main concern is … we just locked in the United States to increase its climate emissions,” Ocasio-Cortez told her followers on Instagram Live. “I did not feel that I had the assurances in that moment to vote to increase U.S. climate emissions for an IOU.”
That’s fine. Probably stupid, from a party point of view, given this ordinarily would have meant the Democrats didn’t have the votes, but fine.
Should these Republicans be punished by conservative voters?
However, what’s not fine is the decision these 13 Republicans made.
This was an opportunity for these representatives to hold up Biden’s spend-a-palooza. As the Washington Examiner noted, without the six Democrats who voted against it, the Democrats shouldn’t have had enough votes. It should have been the job of Nancy Pelosi & Co. to make AOC and Bowman vote with the rest of their party or make their party blow up the bill.
Considering last week’s defeats in Virginia elections and elsewhere, as well as the closer-than-expected governor’s race in New Jersey, the Biden-Democratic agenda has not been seeing good days lately. A defeat on the infrastructure bill could have been a devastating blow to a president already on the ropes.
Instead, these Republicans saved the day for the Democrats because they either loathe where the party is going — a la Kinzinger and Gonzalez — or want that sweet, sweet federal cash to buy off their constituents.
Finally!! Someone else seconds my view of the current administration: Idiocracy, the movie, embodied!! [US Patriot]
The heroic sacrifices of U.S. soldiers are being shelved in an effort to erase our humiliating defeat in Afghanistan — a defeat caused by politicians and generals, not the soldiers themselves.
An enormous collection of Afghanistan War footage has been removed from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service by the Pentagon, according to a report in Task and Purpose. More than 120,000 photos and 17,000 videos have been removed from the DVIDS official record.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said the images that were archived, so Afghans who helped the U.S. in the war will not be put in danger. The problem? A large number of the archived images do not show any Afghan soldiers or civilians.
If you feel like you’re living in “Idiocracy,” you’re not alone.
A significant percent of the archived images are portraits of U.S. service members on patrol and in combat.
In one example, photos showing U.S. Army soldiers in the Kandahar province are no longer on the DVIDS, though they remain in outlets such as the Los Angeles Times. A significant number of the archived images can still be found online.
The DVIDS houses a prodigious amount of public domain material available to the public and the press. It is the place reporters, historians and other interested parties go to to help them construct reliable narratives concerning the Afghan war.
Is the Biden administration attempting to create a reality based on false narratives?
The Taliban, since their victory in August, has targeted and brutalized Afghans, from those who participated in the former government, to female judges to the families of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government. There are many in Afghanistan facing grave danger to this day.
The Defense Department began archiving the imagery in August and September as it was working to get Afghans out of the country, according to Kirby. Are they so foolish as to believe that most if not all relevant DVIDS images of men and women who helped the U.S. in the war had previously been downloaded and stored elsewhere?
And what about all the archived images of U.S. Service members, many of them presumably dead or severely wounded in the war, that have compromised a total of zero Afghan soldiers or civilians? Why are they now missing from the DVIDS?
Kirby claimed his decision was not prompted by a specific security threat but said there was ample reason for the move. He also claimed the archived images will be republished at the “right time.” He didn’t give a hint as to when.
No specific threat? No timeline to republish? Is this just one more colossal blunder of a incredibly inept administration?
Many people wonder if the abrupt and disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was due to gross negligence. How about erasing American soldiers from the official historical record in an attempt to rewrite a history more favorable to the administration? Is this gross negligence or is it hubris?
It’s not wise to attempt to fool reality by creating false narratives, and there’s far too much of it going on these days. Reality always wins in the end. Always. Count on it.
The Biden administration’s reckless withdrawal from Afghanistan will never be forgotten, no matter what lengths they may go too to erase it.
Men are not gods who can create reality to their liking. To try to do so is an act of hubris.
In a representative republic, elected officials must negotiate reality to the best of their ability, not for themselves, but in the best interest of their constituents.
The U.S. troops who served bravely and with honor in Afghanistan were and are American citizens. They will not be forgotten.
Federal agents have raided the home of conservative journalist James O’Keefe and others involved with his organization as part of an investigation into the alleged theft of a diary that belonged to President Joe Biden’s daughter.
The New York Times reported that O’Keefe’s Mamaroneck, New York, home was searched early Saturday morning.
Others associated with O’Keefe’s organization, Project Veritas, were targeted Thursday in raids related to the diary that purportedly once belonged to Ashley Biden.
In all, three residences tied to Project Veritas have been searched by order of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Project Veritas never published the contents of the diary that initiated the raids because O’Keefe said its authenticity could not be verified.
In a statement on the Project Veritas website, O’Keefe expressed shock that the Times was even made aware of the raids.
“Within an hour of one of our reporters’ homes being secretly raided by the FBI, the New York Times, who we are currently suing for defamation, contacted the Project Veritas reporter for comment,” he said.
“We do not know how the New York Times was aware of the execution of a search warrant at our reporter’s home or the subject matter of the search warrant, as a grand jury investigation is secret.”
“The FBI took materials of current and former Veritas journalists despite the fact that our legal team previously contacted the Department of Justice and voluntarily conveyed unassailable facts that demonstrate Project Veritas’ lack of involvement in criminal activity and/or criminal intent,” O’Keefe said.
O’Keefe said the FBI raids came after Project Veritas voluntarily surrendered the journal to law enforcement.
Do you think the raids on Project Veritas journalists were politically motivated?
“Late last year, we were approached by tipsters claiming they had a copy of Ashley Biden’s diary. … The tipsters indicated that they were negotiating with a different media outlet for the payment of monies for the diary.”
“At the end of the day, we made the ethical decision that because, in part, we could not determine if the diary was real, if the diary in fact belonged to Ashley Biden, or if the contents of the diary occurred, we could not publish the diary and any part thereof. … Project Veritas gave the diary to law enforcement to ensure it could be returned to its rightful owner. We never published it,” he said.
Defenders of O’Keefe and Project Veritas accused the FBI of trying to intimidate conservative journalists.
I feel like the real reason the FBI is raiding James O’Keefe is because they want to know who is contacts are and who he’s planted at the top levels of government. He’s been exposing the corruption and now the corruption is coming for him.
When the FBI is totally fine with the fraudulent Steele dossier and the stealing of Trump’s tax return but on red alert for Ashley Biden’s diary… it’s time to disband them.
“Our efforts were the stuff of responsible, ethical, journalism and we are in no doubt that Project Veritas acted properly at each and every step,” O’Keefe said.
“However, it appears journalism itself may now be on trial.”
Vermont, the state with the highest COVID-19 vaccination rate in the United States, matched a record for daily COVID-19 deaths set during a winter 2020 surge and reported a record 527 CCP virus cases on Nov. 4, according to state data tracked by Worldometers.
Six people in the state died of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19, on Nov. 4, a death toll not seen since Dec. 27, 2020.
Between Aug. 25 and Nov. 3, deaths among the fully vaccinated population accounted for more than 60 percent of the state’s total COVID-19 deaths. In all, 62 of the 103 people who died during that 10-week period were fully vaccinated, according to Vermont’s vaccine breakthrough data.
The seven-day moving average of new COVID-19 cases in Vermont reached a record level in mid-September and has been trending upward since.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said 70 to 85 percent of COVID-19 hospitalizations and intensive care unit stays have been among people who haven’t taken a CCP virus vaccine.
“Enough is enough, it’s time to step up and get vaccinated, something over 90 percent of your fellow Vermont adults have done,” Scott said, according to New England Cable News.
Vermont had less than 60 total CCP virus deaths prior to the 2020 winter surge and prior to the approval of the three CCP virus vaccines. Since then, the death toll has risen to 384 as of Nov. 6. The state has reported that 72 of the total deaths have been among people who are vaccinated against the virus.
Infections, hospitalizations, and deaths linked to COVID-19 have risen in recent months among people who have had a COVID-19 vaccine, according to newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But the bulk of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have occurred among unvaccinated Americans, the data show.
The rate of infections and deaths among the fully vaccinated rose by roughly tenfold from late June to mid-August, according to the CDC. The rate of CCP-virus-associated hospitalizations among the vaccinated rose by more than eightfold during the same time.
Vermont boasts the highest vaccination rate among the 50 states, with 71.6 percent of the population having been fully vaccinated.
From Legal Scholar and George Washington University Law Professor, Jonathan Turley:
There is a curious story out this weekend on reported FBI raids of writers or associates of Project Veritas, the conservative investigative journalism outfit. Project Veritas has been described variously as “Gonzo” or “guerilla” journalism and some insist it is more of a political than a press organization. However, it fits the definition of journalism, in my view, and that makes the raids troubling. All the more troubling is the cause: the missing diary of President Biden’s daughter Ashley.
The New York Times reported that the FBI searched two locations in New York in search of the “stolen” diary that went missing days before the 2020 presidential election. Project founder James O’Keefe questioned how the Times received the story within an hour of the first raid.
O’Keefe says that the organization actually received a tip that the diary was abandoned in a room, an allegation that harkened back to the abandoned laptop of Hunter Biden. However, Ashley reportedly insisted it was stolen.
Project Veritas decided not to run the story because it could not verify that the diary belonged to Biden. (The FBI may have just offered that confirmation). Instead, it alerted the police, according to O’Keefe: “Project Veritas gave the diary to law enforcement to ensure it could be returned to its rightful owner. We never published it.”
So why the raids? Since when does the FBI conducted raids over missing diaries?
The FBI can cite the interstate elements of the alleged theft as raising a federal crime. However, what is the crime? It is not clear if they are suggesting that the responsible parties were seeking to sell the diary or that there was some national security element (which would be bizarre since Biden’s daughter was writing before her father ever became president).
Journalist organizations are routinely given material removed from businesses, agencies, or private owners without permission by confidential sources. If this is a federal crime subject to FBI raids, what happened to the new media policies of the Biden Administration after the Tucker Carlson controversy?
There are a host of unanswered questions. Here are five to start with:
What was the context for the diary’s loss? (Did Ashley Biden leave the diary in a room or was it stolen?)
What is the alleged federal crime (and what is the precedent for a major federal investigation over such an alleged theft)?
What precautions were taken by the Biden Administration in light of the claimed media status of the targeted individuals?
Why was there a delay in this action being taken if the alleged theft occurred a year ago?
Has this matter been under investigation for a year and did the White House request the intervention of the FBI?
Regardless of how one feels about Project Veritas, there should be calls from media outlets for some answers to these basic questions. Likewise, Congress should be seeking such answers as part of its oversight responsibilities.
Thirteen Republicans jumped across the aisle late Friday night to deliver President Joe Biden a massive victory by voting with Democrats to pass his $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill while many Americans were asleep.
The New York Post reported that the final vote was 228-206, ushering in a new era of spending on infrastructure and other aspects of Biden’s agenda.
The Republican traitors who voted for the bill were Reps:
Don Young of Alaska
Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
Fred Upton of Michigan
Don Bacon of Nebraska
Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey
Andrew Garbarino, John Katko, Nicole Malliotakis and Tom Reed of New York
Jamaal Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Those Democratic votes would have been enough to block the bill if the 13 Republicans hadn’t bucked party leadership and bailed out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Deseret News reported that it includes a controversial “anti-discrimination” measure that some fear could put religious freedom at risk.
The bill passed the Senate in August but had stalled out in the House, where Pelosi did not have the votes to advance it until the GOP members joined her ranks.
A vote on Biden’s slimmed-down Build Back Better Act is scheduled to take place before Nov. 15 as part of an agreement to inch the infrastructure bill across the finish line.
That vote will take place following assurances from the Congressional Budget Office that the bill will not contribute to the national debt.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki celebrated the bill’s passage on Twitter.
Proof that delivering for the American people is worth all the painful sausage making. Clean drinking water for kids, broadband access, electric vehicles, biggest investment in public transit. It’s happening. And more to come.
“Proof that delivering for the American people is worth all the painful sausage making. Clean drinking water for kids, broadband access, electric vehicles, biggest investment in public transit. It’s happening. And more to come,” Psaki tweeted.
“Tonight, we took a monumental step forward as a nation,” Biden said in a statement on Saturday. “Generations from now, people will look back and know this is when America won the economic competition for the 21st Century.”
Representative Paul Gosar accused the Biden administration of keeping “two secret lists” that it uses to deny constitutional rights to political opponents. He pointed to a specific instance of denying an opponent the ability to possess a firearm.
Laura Loomer, an activist and congressional candidate, was mentioned in particular by Gosar in his letter, detailing how she was put on one of these lists without any specific cause.
Gosar published the letter on October 28th, which was addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland, alluding to how the government is politicizing secret lists in order “to strip American citizens of their constitutional rights.”
“Between the No Fly List and the NICS List,” the letter asserted, “there are two secret lists the government uses to strip American citizens of their constitutional rights. But they do so in secret. With no charges. No hearing. No due process. It is a remnant from Soviet Russia and it needs to end.”
In the letter, Gosar wrote:
“I write to you today regarding innocent American citizens that are being stripped of their Second Amendment rights without due process and subjected to secretive lists that revoke constitutional rights without recourse. This troubling trend has affected an unknown amount of U.S. citizens. Secretive lists are increasingly being used to deny law abiding citizens, who have not committed a crime or used drugs, their constitutional rights.
This dubious practice by your department of disarming innocent Americans without due process is unacceptable and unconstitutional.”
Gosar was referring to a specific case, where Loomer found herself being mistakently listed as a prohibited possessor of a firearm. This was done despite Loomer not commiting any action to merit such a classification.
“Laura Loomer, a former Arizona resident now U.S. congressional candidate in Florida’s 11th district,” Gosar added, “recently contested her listing on the NICS index.”
The Arizona Congressman expanded on the FBII’s abusive behavior:
“The FBI never notified Loomer that she was placed in the NICS database, despite the fact that she had a gun at the time she was in the NICS database. Loomer only found out she was on the NICS list when she applied for a concealed carry CCW permit in Florida, and her application was denied. Even after being denied, Loomer had to make several more inquiries as to why she was denied.”
As Gosar pointed out in the letter, had Loomer been caught possessing a firearm that she was legally allowed to own – despite the NICS database mistakenly showing otherwise – she could’ve ended up in a complete legal fiasco. Gosar added, “Loomer could have still legally had a gun in Florida without carrying, and she never would have known that the FBI had banned her from being able to own a firearm. This begs the question, was the FBI trying to entrap Ms. Loomer, and how many other American citizens who are also in the FBI NICS database have not yet been notified that they have also been banned from owning and possessing firearms?”
Loomer published her own statement addresing the matter, where she revealed that she’s going to be working with Gosar to resolve her predicament. “Congressman Gosar asked the FBI whether or not they were trying to entrap me when they illegally red flagged me,” Loomer stated, “BANNING me from ever being able to own or possess a firearm, without ever notifying me when they placed me on the NICS database after I confronted former FBI Director James Comey.”
Loomer continued:
“I’m pleased to announce I will be working with Congressman Gosar on ANTI-RED FLAG legislation so the FBI & DOJ can no longer politically target Americans & strip them of their Second Amendment Rights!”
Pro-Gun News reached out to Loomer for comment.
She noted that her episode with the anti-gun episode began after she “confronted James Comey.” Loomer added that the FBI is “clearly retaliating against people.”
Loomer stressed she “had a gun and was never notified that I was on the NICS list.”
This incident Loomer is currently facing just demonstrates how depraved the gun control regime in Washington, DC has become.
Any serious right-wing candidate would make the defunding, if not the outright abolition, of NICS a priority.
Lawful individuals should not be subject to federal gun control laws. Last time I checked, federal gun control regulations are not authorized by the Constitution.
Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert appeared to mock New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and President Joe Biden Thursday night with a photo of her wearing a dress emblazoned with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” while standing alongside former President Donald Trump.
“It’s not a phrase, it’s a movement! #LGB” the post read.
The chant quickly spread across a wide variety of sporting events, ranging from college football games to the Major League Baseball playoffs and a New York Jets game.
The use of “Let’s Go Brandon” in white letters on the back of Boebert’s red dress appeared to mock Ocasio-Cortez and her “Tax the Rich” dress.
Ocasio-Cortez wore a strapless gown with “Tax the Rich” emblazoned on the back to the Met Gala in September.
The gala, a fundraiser that became a major New York City society event, comes with a $35,000 ticket price or a fee of $250,000 for a table, according to the Washington Examiner, which noted that the lavish cost might make it seem an unlikely place to find a self-proclaimed socialist.
Actor Michael Rapaport jabbed Ocasio-Cortez for her fashion choice.
“Custom TAX THE RICH dress while at the most elitist event in the world. @aoc will soon be rich with a ginormous production deal from somewhere & done with Politics, guarantee it. Stop treating ANY of these people like celebrities they are public servants that work for US,” he wrote on Instagram.
Tiana Lowe, writing for the Examiner, said the event’s outfit was both in bad taste but also bad politics.
Is AOC a hypocrite?Yes No
“And for AOC in particular, it’s an act of political suicide, not in terms of her own electoral fate (good luck explaining why you partied with the girlfriend of the richest man on the planet and Harvey Weinstein’s ex-wife!), but for the entire Democratic agenda,” she wrote.
“We can’t just play along, but we need to break the fourth wall and challenge some of the institutions,” Ocasio-Cortez said, according to USA Today.
“While the Met is known for its spectacle, we should have some conversations about it.”
Call me unsurprised if FBI informants urged people to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, as Fox News host Tucker Carlson apparently has been uncovering.
I witnessed similar shenanigans by an FBI informant while working on Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller’s campaign in Alaska in 2010, and his actions in all likelihood cost our candidate the race against incumbent RINO Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Reuters reported on March 3 that U.S. Army Iraq War veteran Mark Ibrahim was fired from his job with the Drug Enforcement Administration and faces up to 15 years in prison for allegedly entering the Capitol on Jan. 6 and carrying a firearm.
Ibrahim denied entering the building and said the gun was his DEA service weapon, which he had with him though he was off duty at the time, according to the report.
Episode 2 of Carlson’s Fox Nation three-part series “Patriot Purge” featured Ibrahim, who recounted that he was invited to attend the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally by a person he knew from his military service who is allegedly an FBI informant.
Carlson said in the program that the man confirmed he has been an FBI informant and that the bureau knew he was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and that he invited Ibrahim to the protest.
This same person urged Ibrahim to enter the Capitol building, but the Army veteran knew it was illegal and refused to do so, Carlson said.
Last week on his Fox News program, Carlson also waded into the prospect that an Arizona man named Ray Epps, who reportedly was captured on film on Jan. 6 urging people to break into the Capitol, is likely an FBI informant.
The ongoing mystery of Ray Epps, who repeatedly appears in videos encouraging and inciting an invasion of the Capitol on 1/6 yet, for some reason, has not yet been indicted or charged, even as people with far less involvement have been: https://t.co/hzGZCo9MKe
Darren Beattie, who wrote a piece about Epps for Revolver News on Oct. 25, told Carlson, “He is calling for going into the Capitol the evening before Jan. 6, and this isn’t just a one-off, someone, some crazy who comes and goes.
“He goes repeatedly to group after group, redirecting them saying we need to go into the Capitol. … He is everywhere, he’s all around the Capitol shepherding people to go to the Capitol, where ‘our problems are.’”
“Very curiously, Ray Epps is not indicted. It doesn’t seem like the feds want him or have any interest in him — although they did,” Beattie said. “They had him for a while on their most-wanted page, until Revolver News did a report.”
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky showed a video of a man reported to be Epps to Attorney General Merrick Garland during a House oversight hearing last month. In the video, bystanders could be heard yelling, “Fed, fed, fed,” when Epps called for going into the Capitol.
The January 6th video I showed AG Garland, which he refused to comment on, now has 2.7 million views. The article linked here might explain why he won’t tell us if assets of the federal government were present and encouraging others to enter the Capitol: https://t.co/57L1X0VDyzhttps://t.co/KIrnI4NTzv
The Arizona Republic reported last month that Epps “may have longtime ties to the Oath Keepers,” a group that describes itself as “a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders, who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to ‘defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’”
Beattie said that Stewart Rhodes, whom Revolver described in a June piece as “the founder, boss and kingpin of the Oath Keepers,” is also unindicted.
Revolver said the Oath Keepers are “the most extensively prosecuted paramilitary group alleged to be involved in 1/6.”
The USA Today list of those arrested in relation to the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion does not include either Epps or Rhodes, though it specifically notes that “Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes … has not been arrested or charged in relation to the riot.”
A search of the list includes more than 50 mentions of the Oath Keepers.
It’s odd that the leader of the group would escape any indictments while so many alleged members did not.
“So there is just a cast of curious characters unindicted,” Beattie told Carlson.
The Capitol incursion on Jan. 6 is not the only time that FBI informants were allegedly involved in a political operation.
BuzzFeed News reported in July that prosecutors revealed that there were a dozen informants working on a case involving the alleged 2020 plot by Michigan militia members to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer over her refusal to loosen COVID restrictions.
“Working in secret, they did more than just passively observe and report on the actions of the suspects. Instead, they had a hand in nearly every aspect of the alleged plot, starting with its inception. The extent of their involvement raises questions as to whether there would have even been a conspiracy without them,” the report said.
Then, of course, there was the FBI’s use of an informant to spy on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 in an effort to find connections to Russia.
The New York Times reported in May 2019 that FBI informant Stefan Halper met with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos in London in September of that year.
His bureau handlers instructed Halper to make the connection with Papadopoulos, who was put up in a five-star hotel and lured to London by the offer of $3,000 to write a policy paper on a Mediterranean natural gas pipeline project in which he was an expert, according to the report.
When they met, Halper immediately questioned him — in a “very belligerent” fashion, Papadopoulos recalled — about whether Russia was helping the Trump campaign.Are you concerned about the role the FBI informants are playing in U.S. politics?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Papadopoulos told The Western Journal in June 2019 that he believed special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators “were simply looking to cover up surveillance abuse of the Obama administration upon the Trump team.”
Which takes me to my own campaign experience in 2010 when FBI informant Bill Fulton offered his security services to Miller’s campaign team and ended up arresting a reporter.
Miller shocked political watchers when he defeated Murkowski in the Alaska Republican primary in August of that year. He had been down more than 20 points just over a month before pulling off the upset win.
Murkowski responded by recanting on a pledge both candidates had made to honor the election results and ran in the general election as an independent.
Early polling in the contest gave Miller the edge, but the race deadlocked by mid-October thanks, in part, to Fulton’s decision to handcuff then-Alaska Dispatch editor Tony Hopfinger at a town hall event.
Fulton first showed up on primary election night in Anchorage, unsolicited, volunteering to provide security.
Miller did not use security during the campaign, with the exception of the town hall at an Anchorage middle school, where, according to the terms of the venue contract, it was required. A member of the campaign staff contacted Fulton.
I was at the town hall where the informant took it upon himself to handcuff Hopfinger after the event.
Miller had told the journalist he would not give him an interview that day and left the room where the town hall had taken place.
Hopfinger followed him out into the hallway and ended up pushing an attendee into a set of lockers (the attendee told me), apparently trying to catch up with the candidate. Miller left the building, and not long thereafter Hopfinger got into a scuffle with the security team headed by Fulton, who ordered the reporter to be detained.
I came out into the hallway in time to find Hopfinger in handcuffs, which I questioned Fulton about.
He insisted Hopfinger needed to be detained until the police arrived.
In a January 2013 Huffington Post article titled “How Bill Fulton Infiltrated Alaska’s Right Wing As An FBI Informant,” the subject revealed that he voted for former President Barack Obama and lauded his own actions that day at the Miller town hall.
“It completely solidified our position within the right wing,” Fulton said of the handcuffing incident. “Because there’s nothing the right wing likes more than you roughing up the left-wing media and such.”
It cannot be overstated the amount of negative media coverage the Miller campaign received as a result of the incident, with claims the candidate opposed freedom of the press. It did not matter that neither the campaign staff nor the candidate had directed the handcuffing or approved of it.
In 2013, Los Angeles Times reporter Kim Murphy also noted the role Fulton played in the 2010 race in an article headlined, “Why was FBI informant William Fulton involved in political campaigns?”
Miller pointed out in the piece that his race was the second in as many cycles in Alaska in which the FBI had played a part in the contest’s outcome, referring to a criminal investigation that almost certainly cost Republican Sen. Ted Stevens his 2008 re-election bid. Stevens’ conviction was overturned just months after he lost the race to Democrat Mark Begich.
Murkowski ended up beating Miller 39 to 35 percent, with the Democratic candidate taking the rest of the votes in the three-way race.
FBI assets have been doing some weird stuff in the political realm for years; it’s not very far-fetched to believe that they may have played a part in the events that unfolded on Jan. 6.
He sat down with The Epoch Times at the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando, Florida, shortly before delivering his speech at the event, “Mass Immigration vs. Modern Society.”
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The Epoch Times: I’ve written a few times about the environmental impact of immigration, and particularly illegal immigration. I’ve focused on carbon emissions in their home countries versus the United States. You’d expect this to not be controversial, but this is something it seems to me you can’t discuss without being immediately accused of xenophobia or bigotry. What do you think that’s about—because I get the sense that’s changed over the past few decades.
Mark Krikorian: Immigrants come specifically to increase their carbon footprint. And I don’t mean [anybody’s] saying, ‘Boy, I’m gonna increase my carbon footprint.’ What they’re doing is they want to come and have a decent house, and maybe be able to own a car and have a more prosperous life, which translates inevitably into increasing their carbon footprint.
If you’re a peasant farmer in Honduras, you’re not having much of an impact on the environment. If you’re living in a modern society, even as a lower-middle-class working stiff, you’re having a hugely greater impact on the environment.
That was not controversial in the past, when the population issue was mainly a matter of domestic fertility—in other words, when most population growth was driven by Americans having kids, then it was okay to be concerned about population growth on the Left, because that was, in a sense, a way of being anti-American.
The Epoch Times: If you look at the response to countries that have adopted pro-natalist policies, I think that’s a very consistent theme.
Say what you will about the Club of Rome and some other groups, but at least there was more consistency there on immigration—but that seems to have fallen by the wayside.
Mr. Krikorian: I think the reason there was that consistency—it’s not so much because the people making those arguments hated America or hated the West, necessarily—although I think probably a lot of them did—it’s that they weren’t forced to confront the contradictions in their own worldview.
In other words, that non-whites are inherently superior to whites—morally, objectively superior—which is kind of a starting point for much of the Left. [As] an inversion of an older, pro-white racism, this is anti-white racism.
That was there even in the older sixties and seventies-era discussions of populations. But the conflict between that worldview and concern about population wasn’t really in their face when they [were] talking about at least American population issues, because we still had relatively robust population growth, most of which was driven by domestic fertility. It’s when immigration became the driver of population growth that you could no longer talk about population growth as a problem.
Personally, I’m not a population or environment alarmist, but if you’re worried about carbon emissions, one of the things you have to be worried about is large-scale immigration. How can you not? And yet, people aren’t.
That’s the companion sentiment to giving China a pass as a country for building coal plants and all the rest of it, is because you can’t really criticize China, because they’re a non-Western country.
Even though the economies of the West have become much less harmful to the environment, you still have to focus on that, because focusing on China as the biggest driver of further problems for the environment is somehow racist, just as talking about the Wuhan virus is racist, even though that’s obviously where that came from.
They’re different versions of the kind of pathological self-hatred of the elites in the West. And one of the ways that shows up is this attenuation—really, disappearance—of concern about immigration driving increased carbon emissions.
The Epoch Times: You can see this same sort of strange reaction even in the context of how the Left responds to Christian immigrants from the Middle East versus Muslim immigrants from the Middle East.
Mr. Krikorian: It’s the same idea—pathological self-hatred. Christians from the Middle East are still seen as somehow more like us, and therefore bad, even though they’re the ones getting the [expletive] end of the stick in the Middle East.
Mass immigration and de facto open borders are a non-negotiable value for the Left now. So, if you’re an environmental group, open borders has to trump environmentalism. If you’re a labor union, open borders has to trump the interests of workers.
The Epoch Times: Are there any other clear-cut environmental hazards or threats to ecosystems that are related to mass immigration?
Mr. Krikorian: The big [issue] is the carbon emissions and, generally speaking, water use and all the rest of it. The other is the on-the-ground, immediate impact that illegal flows in a fragile ecosystem like the Southwest have. It devastates the flora. You’ve got smugglers knocking over saguaro cactuses that took two hundred years to grow. You don’t just plant a new saguaro cactus, you know what I mean?
That kind of devastation could be avoided, the Left would say, by just opening the borders so nobody has to do that, and they could all come through ports of entry. But in the real world, there are going to be limits, and there are going to be people who want to skirt those limits, and they’re going to try to do it in environmentally destructive ways.
The mass illegal flows of people are much more damaging [to the Southwest] than they would be anywhere else.
The Epoch Times: One thing I often think about is, beyond what’s happening just across our borders, when you have massive numbers of people traveling, often on foot, across thousands of miles, you’d expect that to have an impact.
Mr. Krikorian: Especially where there are bottlenecks.
The Darién jungle of eastern Panama—it’s called the Darién gap, because there’s a gap in the road system. You could drive from Anchorage, Alaska, almost to Tierra del Fuego, expect for the Darién gap, where there’s no roads.
The Epoch Times: It’s lawless.
Mr. Krikorian: Completely lawless. And people are pouring through there, laying waste to the environment there. So it’s a similar phenomenon.
The leader of one of the Indian groups, the chief who lives down there, is screaming bloody murder because people are just overrunning their turf. It damages their way of life and ability to earn a living.
The Epoch Times: I’m also wondering about your remarks today: “Mass Immigration vs. Modern Society.” What do you mean by that?
Mr. Krikorian: What I mean by that is that’s sort of my unified field theory for immigration restriction. Everybody comes to immigration from a different angle. Some people are worried about security issues. Other people are worried about workforce or environment or government services or assimilation. My point is they’re all the same thing. They’re all ways that mass immigration is incompatible with the goals and the characteristics of a modern society.
We’re in a post-industrial, knowledge-based economy, and yet we’re importing a 19th century workforce. We’re importing poor people into a welfare state that never existed in the past. We have an elite that doesn’t believe in assimilation, and yet we’re importing a million-plus people a year who have to be assimilated. And we have different environmental and quality of life values than we did in the past, and yet we’re importing people who are undermining those objectives of environmental stewardship.
The immigrants aren’t the problem, because the immigrants really aren’t particularly different from anyone a hundred or two hundred or three hundred years ago. What’s different is us. Modern society is different in kind from anything that’s existed in the past. We are running a 19th century immigration policy in a 21st century country, and it doesn’t work.
Immigration is just a federal government program that we can upsize or downsize or change any time we want. It’s just like farm subsidies or small business loans or something else.
The Epoch Times: And yet we spent the last few years discovering that despite what the federal program may be, individual cities can apparently declare themselves sanctuaries and operate independently.
Mr. Krikorian: There is that. They can’t formally amnesty anybody, but by not cooperating with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], ironically, what they’re really doing is protecting criminals, because the only people that ICE picks up from non-sanctuary cities are people who were arrested for local crimes.
Editor’s note: in its Fiscal Year 2020 report on enforcement and removal operations, ICE reported that 68 percent of its administrative arrests were of convicted criminals, while 22 percent were of people with pending criminal charges and 10 percent were of other immigration violators.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Thursday was able to tour D.C. jail facilities, including the section that’s holding people accused of committing crimes in and around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
The tour lasted over three hours, according to Greene.
“I’ve never seen human suffering like I witnessed last night,” she wrote on Twitter.
Greene said she witnessed some inmates engaged in continuing education classes but also saw others she described as “truly suffering from long stays in solitary confinement for ‘bad behavior.’”
The tour concluded with the section of the D.C. jail system holding Jan. 6 defendants.
Greene said on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” that it was hard to detail what it was like when she, colleagues, and staff members entered the section.
“It was like they were prisoners of war. They had lost hope. They felt forgotten. They said that some of their family members thought they’re dead. They’re not dead. They’re there. And they are being treated horribly.” she said.
Greene is alleging the men were suffering from “virtually no medical care” and “very poor food quality.”
Greene and her staff members were putting together a report about what they saw.
“I am committed to ending this political war and seeing that our justice system is never used against Americans as a political weapon ever again. I am also beginning a plan for real prison reform. Our nation is broken and our people are divided. It’s time to fix it,” she said.
The visit came after Reps. Greene and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) were blocked from entering the facilities on Wednesday. They then implored Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser to direct officials to let them tour the system.
The D.C. Department of Corrections referred comment to Bowser.
“Several members of Congress asked for a tour of our DOC facilities and why not let them in if we’re conducting a tour. I think that would send an entirely wrong message to say that there’s something to hide at the DC Jail,” Bowser, a Democrat, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“This is an important issue and we want people who have to be in the jail to be treated humanely, to have safe conditions, to have access to their lawyers, and to go to trial. And if they’ve been sentenced to be transferred, to be transferred to wherever that sentence will be served. So we hold ourselves to a very high standard as well, and to the extent that the Marshals found deficiencies, I want to be very clear that we will deal with those deficiencies so that we have a safe jail until such time that the District is able to build a new one,” she added.
U.S. Marshals conducted an unannounced visit to the jail last month, the agency announced this week. The visit uncovered poor conditions in the portion not holding Jan. 6 detainees, authorities said, prompting the transfer of hundreds of detainees to a facility in another state.
A federal judge, meanwhile, on Wednesday ordered Christopher Worrell to be released to home incarceration because of mistreatment in the D.C. jail. Worrell, of Florida, is accused of committing crimes on Jan. 6.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan nominee, had last month found Washington jail officials in contempt for resisting efforts to get to the bottom of what happened to Worrell, whose recommended hand surgery was repeatedly put off.
Florida’s newly appointed public safety czar says he is frustrated with the Biden administration’s border policies and the fact that hundreds of illegals are being “dumped” onto Florida soil.
Larry Keefe says the illegal aliens are a burden to taxpayers and, if they commit crimes, to state and local law enforcement.
Keefe was appointed in September as Florida’s public safety czar. He told The Epoch Times that the federal government is flouting the law and is “making immigration policies because they couldn’t enact them legislatively.”
He said there is not an “official count”, but more than 70 private charter flights have been reported coming into the Jacksonville airport with at least 36 passengers aboard each flight.
“This is not haphazard that these people are coming here this way,” Keefe said. “This is a precision, military-like operation where they are coming in a covert and clandestine way.”
Keefe said that the flights land “in the middle of the night” and the people are met by “handlers” who escort the unaccompanied minors on to chartered buses and are “dispersed throughout the I-10 and I-95 corridor and go as far down as Miami.”
“This number [70] is what we currently know, not counting what we don’t. It’s very frustrating,” he said. “Because only the feds can take action against immigration.”
Keefe said he is trying very hard not to call this an “investigation”, because immigration is a federal act not a state one, but the federal government leaves the states no choice but to “defend and protect themselves.”
He said that he is “receiving reports” and cannot open an investigation until “you have proof of a crime.”
It is Keefe’s belief that Jacksonville was not randomly chosen, but targeted because of its central location and its close proximity to the two interstate systems.
“These flights are “secret and stealth” and the state of Florida has no warning that they (illegal immigrants) are being resettled here, because private non-profit, sometimes religious agencies, are being utilized—and are paid in grants funded by the federal government—to take the immigrants and resettle them throughout the state of Florida,” he said.
The governor’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw, estimated that border patrol agents have encountered approximately 1.7 million illegal aliens this year.
“Border patrol is overwhelmed,” Pushaw told The Epoch Times. “There is no effective vetting as to who these people are coming into our country.”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has reacted with an executive order and appointing Keefe.
DeSantis blames the border crisis on the “Biden administration’s failed immigration policies.”
The borders are overwhelmed and “cannot properly vet these immigrants,” he said recently. “They have no identifying papers when they get here, so there is no way to tell who someone is, or how old they are.”
The governor explained that this is how some of the immigrants get past border security, such as in case of the man who told authorities that he was 17 and was processed as an unaccompanied minor.
He later turned out to be 24 years old and is currently facing a murder charge over the death of his benefactor, who was trying to help him build a new life in Florida.
“The federal government is the curator of information where the illegals are concerned,” Keefe continued. “The state of Florida only know what the feds will tell them and what the illegal alien is willing to tell them.”
Keefe said that often illegal immigrants will “stay under the radar” to the point that they become “victims” of other illegal cartels. This puts undue hardship on state and local law enforcement agencies, he said.
“This is only going to be bad for law enforcement morale,” Keefe said. “They can’t deport them, because they have no power to do so, they have to stand down and let it happen.”
DeSantis signed an executive order in September to help combat the wave of illegal immigrants entering the state without warning.
The governor said he initiated the order because the influx of illegals is taking its toll on taxpayer dollars and overwhelming state agencies.
“This executive order makes it clear that Florida resources will not be used to “prop up the failed open border agenda enacted by this administration,” he said in September.
The executive order addresses several things:
It directs the Department of Children and Families to refuse to renew licenses to facilities that house unaccompanied minors;
It asks the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to conduct audits of companiesto verify they do not employ illegal aliens;
It requires the FDLE to “lawfully gather information on the number and identities of illegal aliens being transported from the border to Florida,”;
Encourages state law enforcement to “detain any vehicle transporting illegal aliens if there is reason suspicions it is being used for human or drug trafficking,”;
and it requests information from state officials “on the number of illegal aliens who are pending criminal prosecution or have been convicted of a crime.”
Keefe said: “As a former U.S. Attorney, I saw illegal aliens that would get deported, and come back, and then get deported, and come back, in an endless cycle.
“The states, including Florida, bear the brunt of this cycle. Over the coming weeks and months, our state agencies will be addressing the impacts illegal immigration has had on our state.”
Keefe said if “people are illegally in the state, and they have broken (state) laws” they will be punished.
The Epoch Times reached out to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but phone calls and emails were not returned by press time.
The same law used by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) as the basis for a sweeping intelligence program has also been interpreted to be highly restrictive on postal policing activities—raising questions among some critics about the legitimacy of USPS surveillance power.
When Postal Police Officers Association president Frank Albergo first read a leaked U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) memo about monitoring conservative anti-lockdown protestors, something in the fine print caught his eye.
Written at the bottom of the March bulletin, postal officials claim power to surveil and disseminate information about the right-wing protests under 18 U.S. Code 3061—a statute with which Albergo is familiar.
As a labor representative for some 500 postal police officers, Albergo has fought with the USPS over the meaning of U.S.C. 3061. Last summer, Postal Service authorities said 3061 largely confines postal police officers to USPS property—restricting them from patrolling the streets to protect letter carriers, blue collection boxes, and mail vehicles.
Albergo and his union think the USPS is restricting officers as a collective bargaining tactic to drive down their pay—by treating them as security guards rather than full police. But putting that dispute aside, Albergo said he’s puzzled at what he sees as a contradiction.
“So, according to the Postal Service, the law allows the Inspection Service to surveil Americans’ social media accounts while at the same time, the law doesn’t allow a uniformed police force to protect the mail and employees while away from postal premises,” Albergo told The Epoch Times. “Only in the topsy-turvy world of the Postal Service could this make sense.”
Privacy advocates also have concerns about what the USPS calls the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP)—the existence of which was first revealed in April by Yahoo News. The USPS faces lawsuits from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Judicial Watch, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and the James Madison Project over iCOP.
EFF senior staff attorney Aaron Mackey said he has similar questions about where the USPS derives its surveillance authority. While disclaiming that he’s not an expert in Postal Service law, Mackey said he found it “odd” that the iCOP bulletin relied on U.S.C. 3061 as the basis for the program.
“As I read the statute, it provides limited powers for postal service law enforcement to investigate crimes, seek search warrants, and make arrests, but the scope of those powers is limited to the functioning of the postal service, its property, and related laws that protect mail,” he said.
“It’s hard to square the sprawling iCOP surveillance program with the specific, limited law enforcement powers Congress created in section 3061,” he told The Epoch Times. “That’s partly why our FOIA lawsuit seeking records about iCOP has asked for documents that show the legal basis for the iCOP program.”
The USPIS—the law enforcement wing of the USPS—did not reply to questions about where it derives its authority for iCOP. USPS media contacts also did not respond.
Postal Service officials have previously defended iCOP as a legal open-source intelligence operation designed to protect its employees.
Albergo was blunter in his assessment of whether U.S.C. 3061 authorizes iCOP.
“Absolutely nothing in 3061 could be construed as allowing such broad law enforcement jurisdiction,” he said, accusing USPIS of wanting to be a “quasi-NSA.”
Albergo also criticized the wisdom of the USPIS devoting resources to surveillance ops at the expense of having officers on the streets.
Multiple reports suggest that the Postal Service has been dealing with a drastic upswing in theft, fraud, and violent crime.
In September 2020, NBC News published a story reporting a 600-percent increase in mail theft reports over the prior three years, from about 25,000 in 2017 to roughly 177,000 through August 2020. A May 2021 USPS Inspector General report further found a 161-percent increase in mail theft complaints from March 2020 to February 2021.
And last month, Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale announced that the USPIS responded to more than 7,000 reports of violent crimes against postal employees over the last year, including threats, assaults, and homicides.
“With the explosion in postal-related street crime, what exactly is the USPIS doing to stop it other than spending huge sums of money on surveillance?” Albergo asked. “The USPIS would rather investigate crime after it happens rather than stopping it.”
Albergo continues to fight for his officers to be back on the streets.
The Postal Police Officers Association initially sued over the matter in September 2020, after Deputy Chief Inspector (DCI) David Bowers issued a memorandum stating that U.S.C. 3061 confines postal police officers to USPS property—what’s now referred to as the Bowers Memo.
The Postal Police Officers Association sought an injunction on the policy confining officers until its grievance could be settled in arbitration. A U.S. district judge tossed the postal union’s lawsuit in Nov. 2020, declining to put a halt to the USPS policy.
The parties continue to dispute the matter in arbitration.
An Indianapolis-based public school educator and education journalist has gone viral on social media after he pushed back on the narrative that critical race theory (CRT) isn’t being taught in schools, warning concerned parents to not be deceived and to “keep looking” for its presence.
“When we tell you that our schools aren’t teaching critical race theory, that it’s nowhere in our standards, that’s misdirection,” Tony Kinnett said Tuesday in a video he shared to Twitter. He explained that he works as a science coach and administrator at Indianapolis Public Schools, Indiana’s largest school district that serves about 23,000 students.
“I’m in dozens of classrooms a week, so I see exactly what we’re teaching our students,” Kinnett said, noting that while the schools “don’t have the quotes and theories as state standards,” the teachers are incorporating the concepts of CRT into their teaching of a variety of subjects.
“We tell our teachers to treat students differently based on color; we tell our students that every problem is a result of ‘white men’ and that ‘Everything Western Civilization built is racist,’ ‘Capitalism is a tool of white supremacy,’” he continued. “Those are straight out of Kimberle Crenshaw’s main points verbatim in ‘Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement.’ This is in math, history, science, English, the arts, and it’s not slowing down.”
In June 2020, amid the nationwide unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd, the IPS adopted a racial equity resolution (pdf) to identify and correct practices and policies that may perpetuate racism, which is defined as “a white supremacy system” in which those considered white “oppress” those who are not. It also partly attributed the student achievement gaps to the district’s history of “privileging the prejudice of white parents over the interests of black and brown students.”
“If students of color have lower reading scores, it’s because of inequity,” Kinnett asserted. “Therefore, we take from the white students and give to the colored students. That’s Richard Delgado, straight out of ‘CRT: An Introduction.’”
“Parents, when we tell you critical race theory isn’t taught in our schools, we’re lying, keep looking,” he said at the end of the video.
Kinnett posted along the video screenshots of an email, which appears to show the IPS instructing school principals to tell parents and community members that CRT is not taught in their schools. He also posted slides that are allegedly used in the ISP, including one that explains some of the tenets of CRT.
Kinnett’s call to action comes as controversies around K–12 education, including the teaching of CRT and COVID-19 restrictions on campus, took center stage in many of the state- and local-level elections across the country. In Virginia’s gubernatorial race, Republican Glenn Youngkin, running on a “Parents Matter” platform, defeated former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe who said parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach. In Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and other blue states, school board seats are claimed by candidates who oppose the Marxist ideological indoctrination and support parents’ right to make medical decisions for their kids.
The Indianapolis Public Schools didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
![Virginia Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin gestures during a [Loudoun Parents Matter Rally] campaign event in Leesburg, Virginia, on Nov. 1, 2021.](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2021/11/640/320/GLENN-YOUNGKIN-RALLY-IN-VIRGINIA-THUMBS-UP.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
