SALEM, Ore.—After nearly four decades of Democratic control, voters in Oregon are ready for a change of leadership.
“I don’t like the Democratic approach to anything that’s happening,” said Terri, who lives with her husband outside of Salem and dropped her party affiliation two years ago. “I used to be a Democrat for 40 years.”
Like many voters who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon, Terri is fed up with President Joe Biden and Oregon governor Kate Brown (D.). She said both have attempted to woo progressives with policies that undermine public safety and contribute to record inflation.
“I want law and order. I want people who have committed crimes to be prosecuted,” she said before gesturing to her liberal friend seated next to her. “We want help for those who need it—not help for everybody, like this administration is doing, just handing out money willy-nilly.” Her friend agreed.
That dissatisfaction is threatening Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tina Kotek’s chances in Oregon, where voters rank crime and the economy as top concerns. Even after Biden visited the state to stump for Kotek, the Democrat trails her Republican opponent Christine Drazan in recent polls. Statewide surveys also show a majority of Oregonians have an unfavorable view of both Biden and Kotek.
“Kotek is Brown,” Terri said, a remark similar to others the Free Beacon has heard while visiting the state. Kotek has sought to distance herself from the least popular governor in America. She criticized Brown in interviews this year but accepted Brown’s endorsement.
Residents’ talk often centers on Portland, where Kotek lives and which has long been a hotbed of far-left activism in Oregon. Anti-police protests inspired by the killing of George Floyd gripped the city for over 100 days in 2020, with rioters damaging businesses and clashing violently against federal and local law enforcement. Data for Progress, a left-wing think tank, found two years later that 62 percent of voters want to see more police in their communities.
“When I drive through Portland, I’m scared. I didn’t used to be scared, but I’m scared,” Chris, who volunteers for a nonprofit that helps the homeless, told the Free Beacon. “The police are understaffed and underappreciated.”
Sixty percent of Oregon voters want police to step up enforcement against quality-of-life offenses such as public urination and homeless encampments, the Data for Progress survey found.
Drazan and unaffiliated gubernatorial candidate Betsy Johnson have criticized Kotek for siding with Portland rioters who attacked a police station during the 2020 protests. Kotek said in a recent debate she has “always supported” police but wants them to be held “accountable.”
The October Data for Progress poll revealed 52 percent of Oregon voters now trust Republicans to handle crime better than Democrats. Forty-eight percent favor Republicans to restore the economy.
As with crime, Kotek’s economic policies could hurt her at the polls. In 2017, she voted for one of the largest tax hikes in Oregon’s history. Two years later, Kotek supported a statewide rent control bill. At the time, critics said the plan would lead to a housing shortage. Today, voters say it’s driven up the cost of living.
“Most apartment complexes want three times your monthly income as a deposit,” Chris told the Free Beacon.
Oregon voters’ economic concerns have helped boost Johnson, who supports the growth of corporations in the state. Combined with her pro-choice stance, her pledge to help Oregon’s economy has made Johnson appealing to self-described liberal voters like Sam, a paralegal who told the Free Beacon she and her friends will support Johnson over Kotek.
Johnson has cost Kotek significant endorsements and campaign contributions. Nike co-founder Phil Knight has donated millions to Drazan’s and Johnson’s campaigns in recent months, telling the New York Times in October he was an “anti-Tina person.”
In an effort to win back support, Kotek has tried to distance herself from her progressive past. But the tactic hasn’t fooled those who spoke with the Free Beacon. When asked where to find Kotek supporters, they pointed to “the vegan restaurants in Salem.”
John Fetterman refused during a Senate debate Tuesday to release medical records related to his near-fatal stroke, citing a note from his doctor—a campaign donor—saying he is fit to serve. (He began his opening statement with the greeting, “Hi, goodnight everybody.”)
Fetterman was asked repeatedly whether he would provide transparency into his medical condition by releasing his full medical records. The candidate refused twice to commit to doing so, saying that he was being transparent by “showing up” for the debate against Republican Mehmet Oz.
“My doctor believes that I’m fit to be serving and that’s what I believe is where I’m standing,” Fetterman said on Tuesday.
In an hour-long debate in which Fetterman’s limitations were on full display, the Democrat sparred with Oz over crime, abortion, immigration, and the minimum wage. Fetterman repeatedly stumbled while trying to address his shifting position on fracking, saying “I do support fracking and —I don’t, I don’t, I support fracking and I stand and I do support fracking.” Fetterman attacked Oz for owning multiple residences and not being from Pennsylvania.
Departing from moderators’ questions, Oz called on Fetterman to apologize for a 2013 incident in which Fetterman, as mayor of Braddock, Pa., pulled a shotgun on an unarmed black jogger. Fetterman declined, saying in a jumbled reply that residents of Braddock “understood what happened and everybody agreed that and nobody believes that is was about me making a split-second decision to defend our community as well.”
Tuesday’s debate was not the first time Fetterman refused to provide a detailed report of his recovery from a stroke on May 13. The Pennsylvania lieutenant governor has acknowledged he nearly died from the stroke and that he has trouble processing sound. He relied on closed-captioning for Tuesday’s debate and repeatedly stumbled over his words.
When pressed about releasing his records, Fetterman cited a note from his primary physician released by the campaign last week. The doctor, Clifford Chen, said Fetterman was nearly completely recovered from the stroke and had no neurological damage. Chen said Fetterman was able to serve in public office.
The Washington Free Beaconreported that Chen is a longtime Democratic donor who has contributed $1,330 to Fetterman’s campaign since last year.
Biden, 79, was speaking during a forum hosted by NowThisNews.
Joshika Kumaran, a college junior, took the microphone and asked the president to fix what she described as a “broken education system,” pointing to how many graduates hold student debt and aren’t able to pay it off for years after graduating.
“What can your administration, working with Congress, do to help break this vicious cycle that is hurting the future of young people seeking an education for a better life?” she asked.
Biden said that the issue stems from tuition becoming more expensive and aid not rising to keep the costs in check.
“We have to do three things,” Biden said.
One, he said, was to point out that colleagues “in many cases, are raising tuition without any good reason to raise that, raise those tuitions.”
Another was to encourage state legislators to pass legislation that would bolster the amount of money students can receive in aid.
The third, he said, was to forgive debt.
That’s when he started talking about the new program, which was slated to start erasing loans this month but is currently paused on orders from a U.S. appeals court.
“I’ve just signed a law that’s being challenged by my Republican colleagues,” Biden started, adding after criticizing Republicans: “What we’ve provided for is, if you went to school, if you qualify for Pell Grant, you qualify for $20,000 in debt forgiveness. Secondly, if you don’t have one of those loans, you just get $10,000 written off. It’s passed, I got it passed by a vote or two, and it’s in effect.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Kumaran then noted that the forgiveness scheme was actually implemented by the Executive Branch, while expressing concern that another administration could reverse the program and “re-saddle us with the same debt.”
“What does a sustainable solution look like? That can’t be reversed with a new administration,” she said.
Biden said he was confident he would be in office for another six years, referring to his possibly winning again in 2024.
He also floated making sure people have “free and reduced access to community college and early education at 3 years of age.”
“I pushed it. I haven’t gotten it passed yet,” he said. “So there’s a lot of things we can do to increase the prospects of being able to have a better-educated public, where you’re not indebted and have sort of a weight around your neck for a long, long time.”
THE AMERICA FIRST COALITION HAS AN INCREASING, EFFORTLESS DIVERSITY THAT TERRIFIES THE LEFT.
The America First movement continues to win over constituencies that previously predominantly pledged political allegiance to Democrats, from union workers to Hispanics. In addition, black Americans increasingly grow disillusioned with the liberal political establishment that takes their support for granted. A new crop of impressive and persuasive conservative black candidates emerges this cycle that could accelerate this movement with a significant GOP black caucus in the Congress.
Specifically, the GOP has a solid opportunity to emerge from November 8th with a total of nine representatives and senators, which would eclipse the previous high water mark from the Reconstruction era. Two of the most impressive of these rising black stars are John James and John Gibbs, both running for the US House, from Michigan.
JOHN GIBBS.
Before detailing their strengths, note that our movement seeks an effortless diversity — not a dehumanizing quota fulfillment. We can never fall into the shallow leftist trap of simply viewing people as wholly defined by their immutable characteristics, such as skin color. As Americans, we all salute one glorious flag and bleed the same red blood of patriots.
Simultaneously, we recognize that important constituencies of the American family have shared cultural and demographic goals, challenges, and opportunities. In addition, growing this movement into the strongest political force in the Republic involves winning over groups that previously did not consider themselves to be right-leaning — or Republican.
Part of winning that voter support is presenting impressive candidates of the highest character and credentials. John James represents that combination superbly, and stands to win the newly created MI-10 congressional district in eastern Michigan.
JOHN JAMES.
James graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, beginning a career as a Ranger-qualified helicopter combat pilot. After serving America in the Iraq War, he returned home to Michigan to earn an MBA from the University of Michigan.
As a successful businessman and dedicated husband and father, James has never held political office before. But, previous races have sharpened his political skills, and he presently leads in polling for this seat. James earned the enthusiastic endorsement of President Donald Trump.
On the other side of the state in West Michigan. John Gibbs pulled off an incredible come-from-behind primary win to unseat an incumbent, always a tall task – an especially so for a first-time office-seeker like Gibbs. But speaking of “firsts,” John was the first in his family to attend college. Not just any college, mind you, but Stanford University, where he earned a degree in highly competitive computer science.
Gibbs’s smarts and hustle landed him on the fast-track in Silicon Valley where he worked for some of the biggest names in tech, including Apple, helping to launch the iPhone. But a calling higher than Big Tech led John to give up the worldly benefits of business success to become a Christian missionary to Japan. He learned that difficult language and immersed himself into the Far East before returning to America to earn another distinguished academic mark, this time a graduate degree from Harvard.
Upon entering public service, Gibbs served in top roles under Michigan-native Dr. Ben Carson at HUD, in Donald Trump’s administration, managing over 700 employees and an $8 billion annual budget as Acting Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development. Both Carson and Trump heartily endorsed Gibbs in his run for office.
Gibbs now faces off against a typical establishment liberal politician in the MI-03 race, Hillary Scholten. In fact, “the other Hillary” just received a massive campaign check from none other than Nancy Pelosi. Scholten also worked as a lobbyist for a far-left open-borders immigration group that supports so-called “sanctuary cities” and opposes ICE enforcement of deportations of dangerous illegal migrants.
Such radical Biden/Pelosi/Scholten policies clearly do not represent the people of West Michigan, who right now struggle with the twin created crises of runaway inflation and uncontrolled immigration.
On that topic of inflation, a recent USA Today study reported that rents in Grand Rapids, MI – in the heart of Gibbs’s district – saw a stunning annual rent increase of 30 percent year-over-year. Michigan also suffers from the 7th worst jobless rate in America, thanks to Joe Biden and the feckless state mismanagement of Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Clearly, the good citizens of Michigan need America First champions in Washington who will fight for their prosperity and security, rather than promote the prerogatives of the ruling class. Two such fighters are John James and John Gibbs. From a national perspective, these two Michigan candidates may well form key pillars to broaden this larger political movement.
Late-campaign general election debates are often more curiosity than determinative in influencing all but the most undecided of voters. Most face-to-face candidate clashes consist of a rehash of platform pledges, past achievements, and well-worn attacks on opponents, while hoping to induce or avoid a blatant blunder or loss of composure in the last laps before Election Day.
A 2019 Harvard Business School study of 62 elections in nine countries that included 56 televised debates found the vast majority of voters who change their minds about who they are going to vote for during the course of a campaign do so long before the final weeks, and are rarely dissuaded by what they see or hear during a debate in the final weeks before casting ballots.
The Pennsylvania Senate race to succeed retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) is rated as one of a handful of competitive elections that could determine which party controls the chamber in 2023.
According to an Oct. 21-24 CBS News/YouGov Battleground Tracker survey of 1,084 registered Pennsylvania voters released Oct. 25—which gives Fetterman a 2-percentage point lead in the race—respondents identified the economy, gas prices, crime, and abortion as among the top issues they want to hear about in the debate.
In a CBS News/YouGov Battleground Tracker survey, 45 percent of respondents, mostly Republicans, question if Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman is “healthy enough to serve” and want to see with their own eyes if he can endure the demands of an Oct. 25 debate with Republican candidate Mehmet Oz. (Courtesy of CBS News/YouGov Battleground Tracker)
But a significant component of respondents—45 percent—say they don’t believe Fetterman is “healthy enough to serve” and want to see with their own eyes if he can endure the demands of the one-hour debate before a live audience and under the glare of television cameras.
That number has actually grown since September, when 41 percent didn’t think the 53-year-old lieutenant governor was physically fit enough to be governor. Conversely, while 59 percent in September said Fetterman was “healthy enough to serve,” a lesser majority—55 percent—thought so in the survey released on the morning of the debate.
Fetterman’s health has been an issue in the campaign. Just days before the May primary, he suffered a stroke and cast his vote from a hospital bed. Since then, he has made limited public appearances and conducted a handful of media interviews.
Fetterman made his first public appearance since his stroke on Aug. 12. Oz, a former television personality, challenged him to five debates between Sept. 6 and Oct. 5. The Oct. 25 debate—tonight’s event in the studio of Harrisburg TV station, WHTM—is the only one Fetterman agreed to.
The state of Fetterman’s health is, of course, a partisan diagnosis. Less than a quarter of registered Republicans agree with more than 85 percent of registered Democrat respondents saying he is fit.
Republican U.S. Senate nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz holds a rally in Malvern, Pa., on Oct. 15, 2022. (Frank Liang/The Epoch Times)
Fetterman’s health, however, is only the sixth-most important issue that respondents say they want addressed in the debate.
More than 95 percent of those surveyed identified the economy and inflation policies as the top issues, followed by views of police and crime (91 percent), “plans for lowering gas prices” (83 percent), abortion (82 percent), and “plans to address drug and opioid addiction (81 percent).
Fetterman’s health is regarded as important by 46 percent percent of respondents, with 54 percent saying it is not important to them. Oz’s residency—he’s lived in New Jersey for years until recently—is an important issue with 43 percent of respondents.
More than 42 percent of respondents want the candidates to discuss President Joe Biden, while 33 percent said they want former President Donald Trump to be a debate issue.
Early in-person voting kicked off in Pennsylvania on Oct. 24. According to the University of Florida’s United States Elections Project, as of Oct. 25, more than 635,428 of 1.3 million vote-by-mail (VBM) ballots had been returned to local elections offices.
A Target Smart analysis maintains 73.3 percent of returned VBM ballots are from Democrats compared with 23.2 from Republicans.
A group that has been observing drop boxes in Arizona was sued on Oct. 24 for allegedly intimidating voters.
Clean Elections USA and its founder, Melody Jennings, were named as defendants in the suit, which was filed by lawyers with Marc Elias’s law firm on behalf of the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and Voto Latino.
The drop box observers are violating federal law, including the Voting Rights Act, the lawsuit asserts.
“No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for urging or aiding any person to vote or attempt to vote,” the law states in part.
Clean Elections USA members and supporters have gathered outside boxes in Maricopa County in recent weeks to watch as people drop off ballots.
Jennings said on social media that people should go to the boxes to act as a “deterrent” against voter fraud.
“We must legally deter people from committing voter fraud. The only way we can do this is to monitor those drop box locations with a team of volunteers. That is why we’re reaching out to patriots like yourself who have similar concerns. In short, we need your help!” the Clean Elections USA website states.
At least some of the observers have been armed.
Some of the observers told a local reporter that they were with Clean Elections USA.
“The tactics being used by Clean Elections USA aren’t just profoundly dangerous to voters in Arizona, they’re an affront to the fundamental principles of our democracy,” Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino, said in a statement.
The groups are seeking a temporary restraining order prohibiting Clean Elections USA from gathering “within sight of drop boxes” and from following or recording voters or prospective voters at or around drop boxes.
Clean Elections USA would also be barred from “training, organizing, or directing” people to monitor drop boxes if the order is imposed.
The case was filed in federal court in Arizona.
Clean Elections USA and Jennings did not have lawyers listed on the court docket.
Clean Elections USA does not list contact information on its website.
Jennings said on Truth Social, former President Donald Trump’s social media platform, that observers should follow the law.
“Knowing that we the citizens of the United States are protecting the rule of law is very satisfying,” she said.
Several voter intimidation complaints have been lodged in Arizona and referred to the U.S. Department of Justice. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday that the agency “will not permit voters to be intimidated.”
Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone said that the department has received two suspicious activity criminal reports but that no charges have been filed and the observers have not committed crimes.
“It doesn’t meet the threshold for a crime. This is a free nation. The Second Amendment is as important as the first. So that in and of itself does not constitute a crime,” he told reporters when asked about people being dressed in tactical gear and carrying guns.
Arizona law bars being armed or trying to persuade voters within 75 feet of a voting location.
The federal government, though, may decide that the people violated federal law, Penzone added. His agency is “working closely” with the Department of Justice.
New detail in Danchenko trial exhibits suggests that FBI intentionally targeted Trump on false Russia collusion charges
An FBI email previously not known to the public has revealed that the bureau planned to make Igor Danchenko—the primary source for British former spy Christopher Steele’s Trump dossier—a confidential human source (CHS) before it had even interviewed him.
The revelation, which was discovered as a result of special counsel John Durham’s case against Danchenko, indicates that the FBI deliberately targeted 2016 presidential candidate and later President Donald Trump with claims it already knew at the time to be false.
The email—of which only the subject line has been made public—was first uncovered by an internet sleuth who goes by the moniker “Walkafyre” and was included in hundreds of unused exhibits from Danchenko’s trial.
The FBI used Danchenko—who was acquitted last week on all charges of lying to the FBI—in its investigation of Trump, despite knowing that Danchenko had helped fabricate the dossier.
With the benefit of this new information, a renewed examination of the timeline between the Nov. 8, 2016, presidential election and the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller on May 17, 2017, reveals that the FBI—with the help of the Obama administration and Washington establishment figures—executed a concerted campaign to oust a sitting president.
Email Reveals FBI’s Plan for Danchenko
The newly discovered email was sent by FBI agent Kevin Helson to unknown recipients on Jan. 12, 2017. The email’s heading reads “Plan to Convert Danchenko into CHS.”
This email is critical for several reasons. It shows that the FBI intended to hide Steele’s main source behind CHS status after they had previously discovered Steele couldn’t back up the claims in his dossier despite their offer of $1 million to him for any corroboration. As a CHS, Danchenko also would be shielded from any external investigations—including those of Congress.
Of equal importance, Helson’s email also proves that the FBI planned to convert Danchenko into a CHS before the FBI had even interviewed Danchenko. Had they thought the dossier was real, there would have been no reason to hide Danchenko. Instead, the FBI would’ve been touting the existence of a crucial source.
The FBI proceeded to make him a CHS despite interviewing him several weeks later, in late January 2017, when Danchenko disavowed the claims in the dossier, saying during his interview that it was based on rumors and bar talk made in jest.
It had previously been assumed that the FBI only decided to make Danchenko a CHS after he had been interviewed.
This move by the FBI also directly coincided with President Barack Obama’s wishes expressed during a Jan. 5 White House intelligence briefing on the dossier that he wanted to withhold information from the incoming Trump administration.
Russian analyst Igor Danchenko is pursued by journalists as he departs the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse after being arraigned, in Alexandria, Va., on Nov. 10, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
That the efforts to effectively hide Danchenko started even before Danchenko had disavowed the dossier is critical evidence of the early commencement of the FBI’s efforts against Trump. Had the FBI not done everything it could to conceal Danchenko’s existence by bestowing him with CHS status, the truth about the dossier would have likely been revealed and the effort to oust Trump would have collapsed.
Lastly, the plan to grant CHS status to Danchenko coincides with a remarkable sequence of events that took place on the same day Helson’s email was sent.
Establishing Trump–Russia Collusion Narrative
To fully understand the significance of the FBI granting CHS status to a person the agency hadn’t yet spoken to, we need to go back to Election Day.
The unexpected election of Trump on Nov. 8, 2016, prompted an unprecedented response from the intelligence community and Washington establishment. The effort to undermine Trump and his administration began almost immediately after his victory.
On Nov. 9, 2016, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page exchanged texts that referred to a “secret society” the day after Trump’s victory. Page texted Strzok saying, “Maybe this should be the first meeting of the Secret Society.”
Strzok responded to Page saying, “Too hard to explain here. Election related.” The next day, Strzok texted Page saying, “Bill [Priestap, head of FBI Counterintelligence] just sent a two hour invite to talk strategy.”
In early December 2016, the CIA told congressional leaders that “Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency,” a claim that was a crucial convergence point between the FBI’s and CIA’s narratives. Although then-CIA Director John Brennan had been working behind the scenes by pushing information to the FBI, up to that point, it had been primarily the FBI driving the collusion narrative—for instance, by spying on Trump campaign aide Carter Page through a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant.
The CIA’s congressional briefings prompted Obama to direct the CIA, the FBI, and the National Security Agency (NSA) to draft an intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference in the election. While the reported date of Obama’s order was Dec. 9, 2016, the actual order may have been given much earlier, as both the CIA and FBI had been in the process of preparing reports on Russian interference.
Former Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John Brennan testifies before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 23, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The FBI quickly jumped on board with Obama’s ICA plan. Priestap and special agent Jonathan Moffa were assigned to the ICA project on behalf of the FBI. However, the FBI didn’t appear to be interested in presenting an analytical work product. Their real goal appeared to be the inclusion of the Steele dossier in the ICA, which would give the dossier much-needed credibility. Up to that point, no media organization had published the dossier or any of its lurid allegations. If Trump was to be unseated, the dossier’s breathless claims needed to be made public.
Notably, as Durham revealed during Danchenko’s trial, by that time, the FBI already knew that the dossier was completely uncorroborated. On Oct. 3, 2016, the FBI offered dossier author Christopher Steele up to $1 million to provide any evidence that would substantiate his allegations against Trump. Steele wasn’t able to do so.
However, instead of ending its investigation, the FBI escalated efforts to tie Trump to the Russia collusion narrative. The FBI’s offer of $1 million to Steele for corroboration would later be hidden from Congress, congressional inquiries, Trump officials, and the courts.
According to a 2019 Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General report on the FBI’s abuses in the Carter Page FISA warrant case, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe personally pushed his agents on Dec. 16 to include the dossier in the ICA. McCabe’s demand preceded the identification of Steele’s primary sub-source. As Durham reported last week, that sub-source, Danchenko, who, by his own account, was responsible for at least 80 percent of the dossier, was identified by the FBI a few days later on Dec. 20.
When FBI agent Moffa asked McCabe whether to limit what was included to “information concerning Russian election interference or to also include allegations against candidate Trump,” McCabe told him to include the allegations, “due to concerns over possible Russian attempts to blackmail Trump.”
That was an early indication that, contrary to what FBI Director James Comey would later repeatedly claim, the FBI was already targeting Trump personally in December 2016.
On Dec. 19, lead counterespionage agent Peter Strzok texted Lisa Page, who was McCabe’s personal legal counsel, that he needed to talk to someone “about using his [expletive]” in the ICA. The name of the person that Strzok wanted to talk to is redacted and remains unknown.
After Danchenko was identified on Dec. 20, the FBI for the first time told the CIA that it wanted to include the dossier in the ICA.
On Dec. 28, according to records published by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey personally made a push with both the CIA and the NSA for the dossier to be included in the ICA. Comey vouched that Steele was a “credible person with a source and sub-source network in position to report on such things.”
Comey didn’t mention that Steele had failed to back up his information, even after being offered $1 million.
With Comey’s push, the other two agencies tasked with producing the ICA—the CIA and NSA—agreed to include a two-page summary of the dossier at the back of the official report from the three agencies. This had the effect that Comey and McCabe had sought—to legitimize the dossier.
On Jan. 5, 2017, top intelligence officials, including Comey, Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and NSA Director Michael Rogers briefed Obama on the ICA report.
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington on Dec. 11, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Following the official meeting, Comey stayed behind to brief Obama on the dossier. It was at this meeting that Obama stated that he wanted his team to be “mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia” with the incoming Trump administration.
The next day, Comey and other officials including Clapper briefed President-elect Trump and his national security team on the ICA. During this portion of the meeting, the Steele dossier was mentioned in passing.
A member of Trump’s team—reported to have been Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn—asked whether the FBI had dug into Steele’s sub-sources. If the questions were indeed posed by Flynn, it may have precipitated his subsequent demise at the hands of Comey. Once again, Comey would stay behind to brief Trump more fully on the dossier.
Comey would later tell CNN’s Jake Tapper that he only briefed Trump on the “salacious” parts of the dossier because “that was the part that the leaders of the intelligence community agreed he needed to be told about.” News of the intelligence briefing to Trump was leaked hours later to the media.
Efforts Begin in Earnest After January 2017 Briefings
On Jan. 3, 2017, Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 into effect. This unprecedented new order significantly relaxed longstanding limits on dissemination of information gathered by the NSA’s powerful surveillance operations, granting broad latitude to the Intelligence Community with regard to interagency sharing of information.
On Jan. 10, 2017, following his Jan. 5 briefing to Obama and his abbreviated briefing to Trump on Jan. 6, Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. During the hearing, Comey was asked by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) if the FBI was investigating relationships between associates of Trump and the Russian government. Comey stated that he could neither confirm nor deny an active investigation, thereby setting the media frenzy of Trump–Russia collusion into motion. The Steele dossier would be released by BuzzFeed on the same day.
The day after Comey’s testimony, the Senate Intelligence Committee opened an investigation into Russian interference and the Trump campaign. Its report proved to be politically driven and much of it has been discredited.
Concerned over increasing leaks to the media, Trump had actually conducted a sting of sorts during his briefing from top intelligence officials on the ICA and the Steele dossier on Jan. 6, 2017. In order to identify the people leaking classified information to the press, Trump did not tell his staff that IC officials, including Clapper and Comey, were about to brief him.
As noted earlier, after the briefing, information from the meeting was leaked almost immediately to the press—leading Trump to conclude the leaks were coming directly from officials within the Intelligence Community. Trump disclosed this sequence of events during a Jan. 11, 2017, press conference. After receiving a call from Trump regarding the leaks, Clapper was forced to issue a statement condemning intelligence community leaks following Trump’s unexpected press conference.
Former President Donald Trump enters the stage at a “Save America Rally” to support Republican candidates running for state and federal offices in the state of Ohio at the Covelli Centre in Youngstown, Ohio, on Sept. 17, 2022. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Despite Clapper’s official condemnation of leaks, according to a March 22, 2018, House intelligence report, Clapper later admitted “that he confirmed the existence of the dossier to the media,” acknowledged discussing the “dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,” and conceded that he might have spoken with other journalists about the same topic. Crucially, the report noted that “Clapper’s discussion with Tapper took place in early January 2017,” following the briefing by leaders of the Intelligence Community to Obama and Trump on the Steele dossier.
Leaks from the Intelligence Community would remain prevalent throughout Trump’s term.
Events on Day Danchenko Was to Be Made CHS
On Jan. 12, 2017, the same day that Helson sent his email regarding Danchenko, and just a day after Trump’s surprise press conference, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced his initiation of a review of actions taken by the FBI in the leadup to the 2016 presidential election.
It isn’t known whether Horowitz was ever briefed about Danchenko’s CHS status or the million-dollar bounty. His report mentions neither. By design or by accident, Horowitz’s investigation effectively tied up any outside probes into the FBI’s actions for two years.
It was on the same day, Jan. 12, that Flynn’s Dec. 29, 2016, call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak was leaked to David Ignatius at The Washington Post. The leaker was never found, possibly because the leak came from within the FBI itself. Ignatius’s article, which further pushed the Trump–Russia collusion narrative, portrayed Flynn as undermining Obama’s fresh Russian sanctions during his call with Kislyak.
The article also raised the possibility that Flynn had violated the Logan Act, an obscure, 200-year-old law. Interestingly, it was Vice President Joe Biden who first suggested using the Logan Act against Flynn at the Jan. 5 White House meeting with Comey.
Flynn, who is believed to have been the person who asked Comey probing questions about the dossier’s sources, appears to have been the Intelligence Community’s first target in its effort to oust Trump. On Jan. 19, 2017, the day before Trump’s inauguration, Obama’s top intelligence and law-enforcement deputies met to talk about Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak. Flynn would be sworn in as Trump’s national security adviser on Jan. 22, 2017, and was subjected to an ambush interview by Strzok at the behest of Comey two days later.
Comey later bragged about the Flynn ambush having been his brainchild.
Retired Lt. Gen.Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, departs the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse following a pre-sentencing hearing, in Washington, on July 10, 2018. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates increased the pressure on the Trump administration regarding Flynn through a series of conversations with White House counsel Don McGahn. Yates told McGahn that she believed that “Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russians.”
Flynn resigned on Feb. 13, 2017, the same day that Yates’s claim was published by The Washington Post. In 2020, declassified transcripts of Flynn’s call with Kislyak revealed that Flynn never once talked about sanctions. Just like the dossier, the charges against Flynn had been fabricated.
One other event transpired on Jan. 12, the first renewal of the Carter Page FISA warrant, which had been based on the fabricated Steele dossier and claimed that Steele’s source was Russia-based when, in reality, he was a former Brookings Institution employee living in Washington.
FBI Escalates Probe Despite Dossier Disavowal
During a three-day period at the end of January 2017, Danchenko was eventually interviewed by the FBI. Danchenko said there were major inconsistencies between what he told Steele and what was in the dossier. Danchenko told the FBI that he had passed on bar talk and rumors to Steele and never intended for completely unverified information to be used in a dossier. He also admitted that he had never met the dossier’s key source who was alleged to be responsible for every major allegation against Trump, including the “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between Trump and the Kremlin, that Russia passed hacked DNC emails to Wikileaks, and the infamous pee tape story.
Because Danchenko was given CHS status by the FBI, proof that the Steele dossier was fabricated was completely shielded from congressional and other investigations. We know with certainty that Danchenko formally received official CHS status no later than March 2017, but we now also know from the newly discovered unused trial exhibit that the FBI had planned to extend CHS status to Danchenko well before he was even interviewed by the FBI.
(L–R) FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and CIA Director John Brennan prepare to testify before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Feb. 25, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Efforts to ensnare Trump in a Russia collusion narrative received a major boost on Feb. 27, when former President George W. Bush proclaimed “we all need answers” on the Russia collusion allegations. Bush added that he trusted Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) to decide whether a special counsel should be appointed.
Then, on March 2, Trump-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia inquiry, dealing Trump a huge blow. Sessions inexplicably failed to assess, or even ask for evidence indicating whether the inquiry was legitimate. Sessions recused himself without ever finding out about Danchenko, that he had disavowed the dossier, or that Steele had failed to provide any evidence despite being offered $1 million for doing so.
Trump hit back on March 4, when he famously wrote on Twitter that he knew that the Obama administration had spied on his campaign. Not knowing how much Trump knew, FBI leadership panicked. In direct response to the tweet, on March 6, the FBI sent three of its most senior officials—McCabe, Priestap, and Strzok—to brief the DOJ on the FBI’s Trump investigation.
Notes of the briefing, which included incoming Trump administration officials, were disclosed by Durham earlier this year revealing that the FBI failed to mention Danchenko, Danchenko’s disavowal of the dossier, or the million-dollar reward to their DOJ counterparts. Instead, they made it appear as if the dossier, which they referred to as “Crown reporting,” had checked out and that the Russia collusion investigation was therefore going full steam ahead.
Additional briefing notes from March 8, which were also exposed by Durham, show that Comey himself subsequently lied to the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leaders. Similar to the DOJ briefing, Congress wasn’t told that Steele couldn’t back up his dossier despite the huge reward offer, and also wasn’t told about Danchenko.
The FBI’s efforts culminated in Comey’s March 20 public announcement that the Trump campaign was being investigated for Russia collusion. It was that announcement that opened the door to Mueller’s appointment as special counsel. As with his previous, non-public announcements, Comey concealed that the dossier—and with it the predicate for his investigation—had collapsed.
Case Against Trump Based on Fabrications
While it’s been claimed by some media outlets that the dossier wasn’t central to the allegations against Trump, the Intelligence Community’s efforts to ensnare Trump, the Carter Page FISA application, as well as the March 6 and 8 briefing notes, all rely almost entirely on the dossier. Additionally, we know that Comey insisted that a summary of the dossier be attached to the ICA that was presented to Obama. These actions prove beyond any doubt that the case against Trump was based on a fabricated document.
The day after Comey’s testimony, on March 21, then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) met with a source. Following this meeting, Nunes informed Trump that he believed Trump and his staff were illegally surveilled and “unmasked,” a process of revealing redacted names of U.S. citizens that are incidentally collected during surveillance or intelligence gathering on foreigners. Nunes demanded that the CIA, FBI, and NSA disclose the nature of the unlawful surveillance he had uncovered.
For his efforts, an ethics investigation of Nunes was opened and he was forced to recuse himself from the Russia collusion investigation on April 6. The next day, the Carter Page FISA warrant was secretly renewed, proving that Nunes’s claim was correct. During his entire tenure as House Intelligence Committee chairman, Nunes was never told about Danchenko, his CHS status, or the million-dollar bounty.
Former UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele in London on July 24, 2020. Steele refused an offer of $1 million from the FBI to corroborate the allegations in the 2016 dossier he produced with funding by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee. (Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)
On May 9, 2017, Trump fired Comey from his position as FBI director and McCabe became acting director. Following Comey’s firing, DOJ official Bruce Ohr had a phone call with Steele, during which Steele expressed concern that “they will be exposed” because of Comey’s firing. Steele was undoubtedly worried that without Comey covering for him, his dossier lies would be exposed. It isn’t known whether Steele was aware that the FBI had already successfully concealed Steele’s collaborator, Danchenko, from any scrutiny or investigation.
Several days later, on May 12, Ohr and Steele began a series of exchanges via text message, with Ohr conveying a request from McCabe that Steele be reengaged by the FBI.
On May 16, Comey leaked memos about Trump to The New York Times through his friend, Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman. Comey would later acknowledge that he did so to spur the appointment of a special counsel.
The next day, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller, a former FBI director, as special counsel. As we can now see with hindsight, the FBI covered up Danchenko in early 2017. In doing so they ensured that they could continue using the fabricated Steele dossier to justify their investigation of Trump and his associates while also ensuring that no one would find out about Danchenko. In turn, the appointment of Mueller ensured that the FBI’s misdeeds were covered up.
Significantly, the many efforts to ensnare Trump, from the framing of Flynn to the media’s relentless airing of dossier smears and the Washington establishment’s push for a special counsel, couldn’t have happened unless Danchenko was kept hidden by the FBI. It was perhaps the most critical part of the effort and, as we have now learned, it happened much earlier than had been known.
People who just test negative advised to avoid 6 types of food
The effect of Chinese herbs in preventing and treating COVID has been affirmed in many international medical journals. Chen Chao-tsung, executive director of the Taiwan Medical Association (TMA), said that the prescriptions extracted from ancient TCM literature, through research, experimentation on animals, then on humans, followed by clinical tests after refining the drugs, have proved that they can treat COVID-19 and at the same time increase immunity. Dr. Chen introduced several Chinese herbs that can be used to enhance immunity. However, he also reminded patients who just tested negative for COVID-19 that there are six kinds of food they should avoid.
Chinese Herbs Effective in Improving Immunity, and Protection Against COVID
Dr. Chen recommended especially the following several medicinal herbs for daily health care and immunity enhancement.
Safflower (Carthamus tinctorious L)
Of the Compositae genre, its dried flowers are used medicinally. According to the Ming Dynasty “Compendium of Materia Medica,” safflower has the effect of promoting blood circulation and moisturizing effects, relieving pain, reducing swelling, and clearing the pulse meridians. In addition, safflower polysaccharide has a certain effect on promoting the mitosis of T cells, which is key in improving immunity.
Saffron (Crocus sativus)
A perennial bulbous herb, a precious medicinal material. Its efficacy had long been recorded in ancient texts in both the Yuan and the Ming Dynasties. In addition to promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis, it exhibits special curative effects in fighting blood clots, increasing immunity, anti-oxidation, and anti-aging.
Phellinus linteus
A kind of fungus growing on mulberry trees. Tang Dynasty texts described the efficacy of Phellinus linteus. Phellinus linteus contains triterpenoids, which have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, anti-cancer, liver protection, cardiovascular disease prevention, and immunity-enhancing effects.
Antrodia cinnamomea
Taiwan’s national treasure is effective in increasing body resistance, nourishing the liver, anti-fatigue, and anti-liver tumours.
TCM Effective in Treating New COVID
The traditional Chinese medicine “NRICM101 (Qing Guan No. 1)” developed in Taiwan has also been confirmed by clinical studies that it can effectively reduce the risk of persons infected by new COVID becoming more severe. The prescription of ” NRICM101″ is composed of 10 kinds of Chinese herbs, including Scutellaria baicalensis, Houttuynia cordata, Isatis indigotica, Trichosanthes kirilowii, Nepeta tenuifolia, mint, mulberry leaves, Magnolia, Radix Glycyrrhizae preparata, and Saposhnikoviae radix.
Dr. Chen pointed out that this medicine has the functions of clearing heat and detoxifying, such as clearing lung heat and anti-virus. He said that “Qing Guan No. 1” has very few side effects. That is why even high-risk groups, such as people over 65 years old with multiple chronic diseases, elderly people over 80 years old, or people who have not been vaccinated because of their physical condition, can also take “Qing Guan No. 1.”
Clinical data from nine hospitals, including the Tri-Service General Hospital in Taiwan show that during the 30-day observation period, 14 of the 151 mild and moderate patients (9.27 percent) who only received routine care from Western medicine developed into severe cases (intubation, transfer to ICU, etc.), while the other 151 patients of the same type who received both traditional Chinese medicine “NRICM101” treatment and routine Western medicine care did not become critically ill.
In addition, 27 of the 123 critically ill patients (21.95 percent) who received only routine care from Western medicine died, while only 7 of the other 123 patients (5.69 percent) of the same type who received both the traditional Chinese medicine “NRICM101” and routine care of Western medicine died, showing a significant reduction in the mortality rate by about 74 percent.
People Who Just Test Negative Have a High Amount of Virus
For many people who think that they will be fine after testing negative, Chen said that according to the data provided by The Lancet, an authoritative medical journal, 28 days after the patient tests negative, there is still a high amount of virus in the body. However, it cannot infect others but will hurt their resident patient only. So, after the virus test is negative, many people still have symptoms of the new COVID.
Chen reminded that it is not appropriate to take “Qing Guan No. 1” at this time because it has five major effects that work for COVID recovery. They are reducing fever, reducing joint pain, reducing muscle soreness and fatigue, reducing viral load, and alleviating cough, and pharyngitis, for which the first three are necessary to help test negative in the first place. The patient who has recovered does not need them anymore. In that case, it is best just to drink a decoction that clears heat and detoxifies, which targets to kill the viruses and treats coughing.
Six types of Food to Avoid Directly After Test Negative
Dr. Chen also reminded the viewers that after the patient’s COVID-19 test is negative, it is better to avoid the following six types of food, otherwise, it will be easy to turn positive again.
1. Fried 2. Spicy 3. Sesame oil, such as sesame oil chicken. 4. Nuts 5. Foods that contain a lot of onions, ginger, and garlic, such as “three-cup chicken.” 6. Tonic soups, such as chicken essence, ginseng chicken, Four Agents Decoction (Si Wu) soup, stewed pork ribs with medicine, and Chinese medicines such as ginseng, astragalus, wolfberry, angelica, Chuanxiong, Cinnamomi ramulus, cinnamon, and the like, are not suitable for consumption.
Chen warned that people usually feel tired and fatigued after an illness, thinking that drinking tonic soup will help restore vitality. But on the contrary, it is the time when the body is still not completely clear of toxic substances, any added tonic might help also nurture the virus and help it paves its way back.
In addition, Chen also reminded extreme sports, such as marathons, weight training, and other high-energy sports, should be stopped for a while so as not to hinder the recovery of body vitality.
If reelected on Nov. 8, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said he’ll fix Florida’s property insurance crisis, make teacher salary hikes a permanent component of the education budget, eliminate sales taxes on “baby items” and pet food, and lobby lawmakers to amend a state statute that requires death sentences for convicted murders be handed down only by unanimous jury decision.
But one thing DeSantis did not do during his first and only gubernatorial debate with challenger Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) in Fort Pierce’s Sunshine Theater on Oct. 24 was commit to serving all four years of a second term in Tallahassee.
Throughout the 13-question, one-hour debate, Crist—a three-term Congressional representative who served as Florida’s Republican governor in 2007-11 before changing parties in 2012—persistently claimed DeSantis will run for president in 2024.
At one point, after DeSantis repeatedly tied him to President Joe Biden’s policies, Crist said, “Ron, you talk about Joe Biden a lot. I understand. You think you’re going be running against him. I can see how you might get confused.”
He then asked DeSantis to “look in the eyes of the people of the state of Florida” and tell them, “If reelected, will you remain for the full term? It’s not a tough question.”
DeSantis had a snappy reply: “The only worn-out old donkey I’m looking to put out to pasture is Charlie Crist.”
While questions related to specific topics, the candidates rarely stayed within the lines of the queries, straying into “culture war” and federal issues, such as critical race theory, “gender transitioning,” and immigration.
The 1,200-seat Sunshine Theater, which will be 100 years old in 2023 and is the largest such venue between Miami and Jacksonville, was about two-thirds full. The audience—often raucous—was invited by the campaigns. Few from the general public were in the theater.
Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), a former Republican Florida governor, stumps in Jacksonville on Oct. 20, touting his 30-year career as “a uniter,” a quality the Democratic challenger emphasized in his gubernatorial debate with Gov. Ron DeSantis on Oct. 24 in Fort Pierce, Fla. (Courtesy Crist for Governor)
With a massive war chest of more than $177 million—approximately $150 million more than Crist—and leading by 8-to-12 percentage points in various polls, DeSantis appears to be comfortably cruising to reelection after edging former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gilliam by less than 34,000 votes in 2018.
Crist, a former state attorney general, needed a strong performance in his head-to-head clash with the favored incumbent during the debate, staged on the same day early in-person voting in the state began. More than 1.161 million Floridians have already voted in the Nov. 8 election via vote-by-mail ballots as of Oct. 23.
Crist ripped DeSantis for playing “culture war” politics to raise his national profile for a 2024 presidential run while the state’s 6.2 million property owners were seeing astronomical property insurance increases and allowing Florida’s Sadowski Affordable Housing Trust Fund to be underfunded while affordable and workforce housing projects languished.
“Gov. DeSantis has taken his eyes off the ball. He is running for president,” he said, telling those in the 1,200-seat theater and watching the debate hosted by WPEC-CBS12 on television that he represents a “stark contrast” to the governor.
“His focus is not on Florida, not on you,” Crist said. “You deserve a governor who will have your back, and I always have, and I always will.”
Among those contrasts, Crist said, he is “somebody who believes in a woman’s right to choose” regarding access to abortion, while DeSantis is “someone who signed a bill that would restrict that right” even in cases of rape and incest.
DeSantis said he was “proud” to sign a bill banning the procedure after 15 weeks, claiming, “Charlie Crist supports sex-selective abortions” and “supports taxpayer-funded abortion to the moment of birth.”
The governor touted his record in Tallahassee, citing the “largest budget surplus in state history,” 2.5 percent state unemployment rate, tax reform that produced “the biggest tax cut in Florida history,” school choice expansion, and significant improvements in reading and math.
He said during his second term he would continue to “protect parents’ rights,” raise teachers’ salaries, and badger the federal government to meet its commitments in the “historical restoration of the Everglades.”
DeSantis offered contrasts of his own between himself and his challenger, including their performances during the “once-in-a-century pandemic” in 2020.
“I lifted you up when some, like Charlie Crist, wanted to lock you up,” he said, citing a July 2020 letter from the Congressman urging him to follow CDC guidelines in closing “non-essential” businesses and schools.
“That would have destroyed the state of Florida, would have thrown millions of Floridians into turmoil. I worked like heck to make sure we had kids in school five days a week,” DeSantis said. “I rejected Charlie Crist’s letter.”
Crist said DeSantis’ “arrogance” is responsible for about 40,000 of the 82,000 Floridians whose deaths were attributed to COVID-19, noting that 6 million state residents were infected.
“I would have listened to scientists, unlike the governor. You can keep things open” without putting people at risk, he said, claiming if Florida had followed CDC guidelines, “40,000 people should still be alive—enough to fill Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.”
After a partial lockdown during the early months of the pandemic, DeSantis reversed course and resisted federal guidance. The decision paid off as Florida’s infection and mortality rates were lower than in some states which adopted strict lockdown policies.
Crist tried to turn the tables on DeSantis by blaming the governor and his policies for aggravating inflation in the state and for rising crime rates.
Citing a recent Forbes magazine analysis, he said, “Florida is the most expensive state in the country to live in” because of property insurance, health insurance, and utility rates.
“When I was governor, (utility rates) went down. Property insurance has doubled—doubled, Ron—that is not good for the people in the state,” Crist said, describing an upcoming October “gas tax holiday just before Election Day” as “political” gamesmanship.
DeSantis countered by laying blame on the federal policies of the Biden administration.
“Charlie Crist votes with Joe Biden 100 percent of the time,” DeSantis said, claiming it is Democratic policies that are “driving up the cost of everything” and fostering a 40-year high in inflation. Blaming him as governor “is wrong,” DeSantis said.
Crist, touting his “tough on crime record” as attorney general and governor, noted, “Crime is up under Gov. DeSantis. The crime was down when I was your governor.”
DeSantis scoffed, claiming Crist “used to be tough on crime six political parties ago.”
The candidates found a sliver of common ground in support of the death penalty, expressing anger that a jury did not sentence Parkland shooter Nicholas Cruz to death.
“I served as governor, signed death warrants. Gov. DeSantis has as well. This is one thing we actually totally agree on,” Crist said. “I believe that young man should have gotten the death penalty. You have to do what is right. It is a tough thing sometimes.”
Cruz “deserves the ultimate punishment,” but “one juror held out” and, by state law, a death penalty must be unanimous,” DeSantis said, vowing to spearhead a legislative initiative to amend that state law.
Crist described DeSantis as “disenfranchised from the truth” and divisive.
“Ron is all about cultural wars. I am a uniter, you love to divide our state—black vs. white, gay vs. straight, young vs. old,” he said. “He won’t even tell you he will serve four years if reelected. I mean, come on. Florida deserves better than that. You deserve better than that.”
Crist is the “divider,” DeSantis said, noting. “The day after Charlie Crist won his primary, he said anyone who supports the governor, ‘You have hate in your heart and I don’t want your vote.’”
The governor, more than 20 years younger than his challenger, questioned Crist’s work ethic.
A U.S. House representative is paid $174,000 a year, DeSantis said. Crist “only showed up 14 days” in Congress last year, he claimed, adding, “That’s the kind of effort this guy puts out in doing his job.”
Unilever United States issued a voluntary recall of several brands of dry shampoo aerosol products due to “potentially elevated levels” of benzene, a human carcinogen.
According to a company announcement posted on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website, brands include Dove, Nexxus, Suave, TIGI (Rockaholic and Bed Head), and TRESemmé. The recalled products were produced before October 2021, and have been distributed nationwide.
Benzene, a human carcinogen, can be found in many places in the environment. People are exposed to the agent daily, both indoors and outdoors, by inhalation, orally, or through the skin.
Exposure can result in cancers, including leukemia, blood cancer of the bone marrow, and blood disorders, which can be life-threatening.
Unilever U.S. said that based on an independent health hazard evaluation, “daily exposure to benzene in the recalled products at the levels detected in testing would not be expected to cause adverse health consequences.”
“An internal investigation identified the propellant as the source, and Unilever has worked with its propellant suppliers to address this issue,” according to the announcement.
The company said it is recalling the products “out of an abundance of caution” and “has received no reports of adverse events to date relating to this recall.”
Retailers have been asked to remove the recalled products from their shelves. The affected products and the consumer UPC codes are provided in a list (pdf).
“Consumers should stop using the affected aerosol dry shampoo products and visit UnileverRecall.com for instructions on how to receive reimbursement for eligible products,” the announcement reads.
“Adverse reactions or quality problems experienced with the use of this product may be reported to the FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program either online, by regular mail or by fax.”
A New York Supreme Court judge on Monday struck down New York City’s vaccine mandate, finding the rule to be unconstitutional, arbitrary, and capricious.
Attorney Chad LaVeglia, who announced the verdict outside the Richmond County courthouse, said the mandate was now “null and void.”
“So, we just defeated the vaccine mandate for every single city employee—not just sanitation,” LaVeglia said in a video on Twitter account NYCforYourself.
The ruling strikes down the mandate that saw over 2,000 city workers fired for not getting a COVID-19 vaccine. LaVeglia said the ruling extends to all public workers, including the New York fire department, the police department, and the Department of Corrections. However, the city disagreed and filed an appeal, saying it is keeping the mandate in place.
“For all the brave men and women who have been our first responders and have been brave through all this are now free, and you should be able to go back to work,” he said.
George Garvey and 15 others who worked at the New York City Department of Sanitation filed the lawsuit on July 20 after they were terminated for failing to comply with the mandate.
Judge Ralph Porzio ruled against the city and found the mandate, which allowed exceptions, to have been an arbitrary and capricious order. He said that Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, “made a different decision for similarly situated people based on identical facts” in his Executive Order No. 62.
However, there wasn’t anything in the record to “support the rationality of keeping a vaccination mandate for public employees, while vacating the mandate for private sector employees or creating a carveout for certain professions, like athletes, artists, and performers.”
“This is clearly an arbitrary and capricious action because we are dealing with identical unvaccinated people being treated differently by the same administrative agency,” Porzio said in his ruling (pdf).
‘No Reason’ to Terminate for Noncompliance: Judge
The ruling noted that all but one of the 16 petitioners applied for exemptions and received “generalized and vague denials.” They remained unvaccinated during the time their exemptions were being processed. Porzio said there was “no reason” they couldn’t have been allowed to keep working while submitting to COVID-19 testing.
“There was no reason why the City of New York could not continue with a vaccinate or test policy, like the Mayor’s Executive Order that was issued in August 2021,” the judge said in his ruling.
The judge affirmed vaccinations but said that public employees shouldn’t have been “terminated for their noncompliance” with the mandate, noting that almost 80 percent of New York City is vaccinated.
A person holds up a signs as people hold a rally in support of a group of teachers fighting enforcement of the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine mandate for public school employees at Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, in New York City, on Oct. 12, 2021. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Porzio’s ruling noted that “certain classes of people” were granted vaccination exemptions, proving the mandate for public workers “to be arbitrary and capricious.”
“It is clear that the Health Commissioner has the authority to issue public health mandates. No one is refuting that authority. However, the Health Commissioner cannot create a new condition of employment for City employees,” Porzio said in his ruling.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ Executive Order No. 62 “renders all of these vaccine mandates arbitrary and capricious.”
“Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting COVID-19. As of the day of this Decision, CDC guidelines regarding quarantine and isolation are the same for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.”
Judge Praises First Responders
In his ruling, Porzio said city workers shouldn’t be terminated for choosing “not to protect themselves” with a vaccine, noting that “breakthrough cases occur” even for those who are vaccinated and boosted. He also noted that President Joe Biden has declared “the pandemic is over.”
The judge noted that New York ended its COVID-19 state of emergency “over a month ago.” He also noted that the first responders named in the lawsuit continued to work without protective gear, and had “created natural immunity” after catching COVID-19.
“They were terminated and are willing to come back to work for the City that cast them aside. The vaccination mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health; it was about compliance. If it was about safety and public health, unvaccinated workers would have been placed on leave the moment the order was issued.
“If it was about safety and public health, the Health Commissioner would have issued city-wide mandates for vaccination for all residents. In a City with a nearly 80 percent vaccination rate, we shouldn’t be penalizing the people who showed up to work, at great risk to themselves and their families, while we were locked down.
“If it was about safety and public health, no one would be exempt. It is time for the City of New York to do what is right and what is just,” Porzio said in his ruling.
Correction: The judge’s ruling does not specifically apply to all NYC workers, only those who filed the petition. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
Fox News had a bit of a bumpy road shortly after former President Donald Trump failed to win the 2020 presidential election, but the network quickly found its footing. Once again, it’s absolutely dominating the competition.
The network has a deep bench of proven, highly-rated cable news stars, but most recently, it was former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, now a full-time co-host of “Outnumbered,” who generated waves with the latest ratings numbers.
According to Mediaite, “Outnumbered,” a popular midday show hosted by McEnany and Harris Faulkner, garnered nearly 2 million viewers on Wednesday alone. It was noted that such a number is “impressive” for daytime cable television.
For a bit of an insane perspective, CNN and MSNBC’s showings in the same time slot brought in 638,000 and 685,000 viewers, respectively. The network’s combined viewership numbers couldn’t touch the 1.96 million viewers who tuned in to watch McEnany do her thing.
In every ratings chart, the honeypot demographic for advertisers is the coveted 25-54 age group. McEnany dominated that group, bringing in an impressive 256,000 viewers.
By comparison, CNN and MSNBC, again combined, couldn’t even hit 200,000 in that demographic, let alone match McEnany’s numbers.
The story doesn’t end with McEnany’s ratings for “Outnumbered.” An impressively long list of Fox News hosts sit comfortably at the top of the ratings charts on a steady basis.
For instance, Tucker Carlson of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” scored over 3.2 million viewers last Wednesday. Every additional network on the list, in the same time slot, combined, doesn’t come within earshot of Carlson’s numbers.
Other primetime hosts at the cable news giant, like Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Bret Baier, and Greg Gutfeld, also routinely dominate their respective time slots, leaving any competition in the proverbial dust.
Last Thursday, the network scored once again, dominating all traces of competition.
Gutfeld carried Fox News to a new, unexpected record once thought to be impossible to set by a cable show. According to a Fox News report, his hit show, “Gutfeld!” recently became the first late-night cable show to take the number one spot in the time slot, a position held for five years by Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
It’s up for debate as to why Fox News seems to own the television cable news landscape consistently. Many believe that CNN and MSNBC became too comfortable with garnering solid ratings during Trump’s presidency, as the networks pumped out a steady stream of usually negative content, creating an echo chamber of anti-Trump propaganda that their viewers craved.
There’s also an argument to be made that, at the end of the day, people are simply more interested in truth and transparency, and not just another network carrying the Biden administration’s proverbial water.
Whatever the case, Fox News is nothing short of a blessing, as it’s difficult even to fathom the things we’d never know if we only had the left-leaning networks to provide us with information.
In sifting such news as comes out of heavily censored Russia, at least one Kremlin-watcher says a clue has emerged about Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s health that Russia did not want the world to see.
Last week, Putin made a visit to a boot camp where Russian soldiers are being trained. Photos of the visit were disseminated by the Ministry of Defense.
Among them was an image that raised eyebrows — one in which an unusual mark appears on Putin’s right hand as he is shown grasping the arm of a soldier, according to the New York Post.
PUTIN’S HEALTH 🇷🇺
Videos released by 🇷🇺 Government news show what could be track marks, from IVs, on the hand of Putin.
For the same event, the Kremlin released two videos: One with tons of watermarks (making the hand harder to see), the other without any shot of his hand. pic.twitter.com/a1mfs6hOud
“Videos released by [Russian] Government news show what could be track marks, from IVs, on the hand of Putin. For the same event, the Kremlin released two videos: One with tons of watermarks (making the hand harder to see), the other without any shot of his hand,” Kyiv Port journalist Jason Jay Smart tweeted.
Although rumors about Putin are always making the rounds of social media, they have taken on a new intensity with the war in Ukraine.
The 3-shape on Putin’s hand in these vid frames isn’t there in others from the event on zvezdanews (telegram), so I wouldn’t make much of it. But the puffy hands are, and with the same old puffy face seem to confirm long-term steroid use. Can’t be more precise but he is not well https://t.co/9RJB9Zibgv
Correspondent Tom Warner was reluctant to buy into the IV theory.
“The 3-shape on Putin’s hand in these vid frames isn’t there in others from the event on zvezdanews (telegram), so I wouldn’t make much of it. But the puffy hands are, and with the same old puffy face seem to confirm long-term steroid use. Can’t be more precise but he is not well,” he tweeted.
As noted in The U.S. Sun, the Telegram channel General SVR has been spreading unconfirmed allegations about Putin’s health.
It claimed at one meeting Putin “complained of aching pain in the abdominal cavity, which could not be quickly stopped, and he held the meeting leaning forward, trying to maintain a natural posture”.
“Putin’s oncology is progressing, and despite adequate treatment lately, the pain is not always completely relieved. It must be understood that the deplorable state of the president’s physical and mental health affects the adoption of key decisions,” the unsubstantiated claims said.
The channel most recently claimed that Putin recently took a turn for the worse, according to Australia’s News.com.
It reported people close to Putin believe his “thinness and persistent cough” will be seen by others as a “sign of the leader’s rapidly deteriorating health.”
CIA Director William Burns said this summer that rumors of Putin’s declining health are not accurate, the Post reported.
“There are lots of rumors about President Putin’s health, and as far as we can tell, he’s entirely too healthy,” he said.
We do know that the American press is hand-picked from those who know how to write – we did, however, think that this might include the ability to read as well. There goes another of our illusions busted.
One of the little secrets of journalism is that the folks who write the piece usually aren’t the same as the folks who write the headline. So, in the text, we get something closer to the truth – the truth of the report that is, not the actual one – in this:
“Those disastrous summer drought across the Northern Hemisphere were made 20 times more likely because of human-induced climate change…”
Not really. Even so, we can already see that there’s a vast difference between 20 times worse and 20 times more likely. The likelihood of my breaking a plate while doing the dishes is not the same as the probability of my breaking 20 plates while doing so. Twenty times the first doesn’t lead to the second, either.
“For the Northern Hemisphere extratropics, human-induced climate change made the observed soil moisture drought much more likely, by a factor of at least 20 for the root zone soil moisture and at least 5 for the surface soil moisture…”
No, they’ve not said the drought is 20 times – or even five times – more likely as a result of climate change. Nor have they said disastrous nor anything like that. What they have said is that drier soil is 20 times more likely as a result of climate change.
Yes, this is something different. Dry soil can be dealt with by irrigation, by changing the crop planted (some require less water), by changing the cultivar (different types of the same plant work better or worse with different amounts of water), and so on and so on.
Dry soil is a very different thing from drought.
The Verge ranks around No. 50 in news and media publishers in the U.S., with 40 million visits a month. It at least attempts to appeal to the technically and scientifically minded, which is one of the things that makes this elision across meanings so annoying.
As we’ve remarked recently it’s a significant problem when statistics get shaped in the course of a narrative. Because the end result of what people believe becomes shaped by that very shaping. It isn’t true that “science says the drought is 20 times worse because climate change.” So why say so?
This article originally appeared in Accuracy in Media. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News. Republished with permission.
(Reuters)—U.S. business activity contracted for a fourth straight month in October, with manufacturers and services firms in a monthly survey of purchasing managers both reporting weaker client demand, the latest evidence of an economy softening in the face of high inflation and rising interest rates.
S&P Global said on Monday its flash U.S. Composite PMI Output Index, which tracks the manufacturing and services sectors, fell to 47.3 this month from a final reading of 49.5 in September.
A reading below 50 indicates contraction in the private sector. Outside the slump during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, business output is retreating at the swiftest pace since the 2007-2009 global financial crisis, by S&P Global’s measure at least.
“The U.S. economic downturn gathered significant momentum in October, while confidence in the outlook also deteriorated sharply,” S&P Chief Business Economist Chris Williamson said in a statement. “The decline was led by a downward lurch in services activity, fueled by the rising cost of living and tightening financial conditions.”
But the S&P Global survey may exaggerate the slowdown. Rival surveys from the Institute for Supply Management have shown manufacturing and services industries still expanding through September.
Though gross domestic product contracted in the first and second quarters, the income side of the growth ledger showed the economy growing at a moderate pace over that period, and overall expansion likely resumed in the third quarter. Estimates among economists polled by Reuters for the first reading of third-quarter GDP, due from the Commerce Department on Thursday, range from an annual growth rate of 0.8% to 3.7%, with a median estimate of 2.4%.
That said, the economy is slowing as the Federal Reserve aggressively tightens monetary policy to cool demand and bring inflation back to the U.S. central bank’s 2% target.
The Fed delivered a 75-basis-point rate hike in September, its third straight increase of that size, and a fourth of that magnitude is expected at next week’s policy-setting meeting, though how aggressive policymakers remain after that is seen as one of the issues up for debate at the Nov. 1-2 meeting.
The flash composite new orders index slid to 49.0 from a final reading of 50.9 in September.
The survey’s measure of prices paid by businesses for inputs edged up to 67.8 from 67.3, which had been the lowest since January 2021, reflecting the uneven pace of easing in supply bottlenecks. Businesses are also not raising prices for their products as much as they did earlier in the year, in part because of slowing demand.
The survey’s flash manufacturing PMI fell to 49.9 this month, its first contractionary reading since June 2020, from 52.0 in September. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index slipping to 51.0. New orders dropped sharply to their lowest since the COVID lockdowns in the spring of 2020.
The survey’s flash services sector PMI fell to 46.6 from 49.3 in September. Services businesses reported both input prices and prices charged nudged up in October after declining steadily since late spring, a reflection of the uneven pace of easing in inflation pressures.
‘Google has relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders,’ group said in lawsuit
(Reuters)—The Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit against Alphabet Inc’s Google on Friday for allegedly sending its emails to users’ spam folders.
The U.S. political committee accuses the tech giant of “discriminating” against it by “throttling its email messages because of the RNC’s political affiliation and views,” according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in California.
“Google has relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building,” the RNC said in the lawsuit.
Google rejected the claims.
“As we have repeatedly said, we simply don’t filter emails based on political affiliation. Gmail’s spam filters reflect users’ actions,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement. “We provide training and guidelines to campaigns, we recently launched an FEC-approved pilot for political senders, and we continue to work to maximize email deliverability while minimizing unwanted spam,” he said, referring to the Federal Election Commission.
Spam filters on email services typically weed out unsolicited “spam” messages and divert them to a separate folder.
The RNC said that for most of the month, nearly all of its emails end up in users’ inboxes but at the end of the month, which is an important time for fund-raising, nearly all of their emails end up in spam folders.
“Critically, and suspiciously, this end of the month period is historically when the RNC’s fundraising is most successful,” the lawsuit said, adding that it does not matter whether the email is about donating, voting or community outreach.
The committee said the “discrimination” had been going on for about 10 months despite its best efforts to work with Google.
It said the alleged routing of its emails to spam folders had eaten up revenue and that more money would be lost in coming weeks as midterm elections loom.
Republicans have long accused big tech companies of discriminating against conservative views and suppressing free speech, an assertion tech companies strongly deny.
(Reporting by Rhea Binoy in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Rehoboth Beach, Del.; Editing by Robert Birsel and Matthew Lewis)
By Jonathan Stempel, Sarah N. Lynch and Karen Freifeld
NEW YORK (Reuters)—U.S. prosecutors charged two Chinese nationals with trying to obstruct the prosecution of Chinese telecommunications company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, as part of a broader crackdown on what they called efforts to exert unlawful influence in the United States.
Chinese nationals Guochun He and Zheng Wang were charged in a criminal complaint dated Oct. 20 and made public on Monday. Court documents did not name the company, but a person familiar with the investigation said they were trying to interfere with the prosecution of Huawei.
In February 2020, the Justice Department announced that Huawei had been charged in a superseding indictment for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
A spokesperson for Huawei could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by any foreign power to undermine the rule of law upon which our democracy is based,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told a news conference.
Prosecutors also unveiled charges against four Chinese nationals in what they called a long-running intelligence campaign.
The complaint against He and Wang alleges they tried to obtain confidential information concerning witnesses, trial evidence and any potential new charges the company could face.
To do that, it alleges they tried to recruit someone from a U.S. law enforcement agency who they thought would help them spy for China.
The recruit, who is referred to only as “GE-1,” was actually working as a double agent for the United States under FBI supervision, the complaint says.
Since October 2021, He and Wang paid the recruit $14,000 plus $600 worth of jewelry, in exchange for what they believed was confidential information about the Justice Department’s investigation and criminal prosecution of the company, the complaint said.
According to the complaint, He and Wang first started trying to access nonpublic information about the Justice Department’s investigation when the company was initially charged in 2019.
But their activity escalated in the summer of 2021, with He asking GE-1 about the details of meetings with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York as prosecutors were discussing preparations for the jury trial.
In response, GE-1 passed He a piece of paper that appeared to be marked as classified. That page purported to discuss a plan by federal investigators to arrest two of the company’s China-based executives.
In exchange for that page, He paid GE-1 $41,000 in bitcoin, the complaint says.
Later that same year, GE-1 also passed along a second page that also purportedly discussed legal strategy, including the use of several cooperating witnesses in the prosecution.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis, and David Gregorio)
Florida Dem Senate nominee has centered her campaign on her ex-cop status
It’s much harder to be a politician than a police officer—at least if you ask Florida’s Democratic Senate candidate Val Demings.
“You know, after 27 years as a law enforcement officer, there’s no doubt that’s a tough job, that’s a hard job, no doubt about it,” said Demings, a former Orlando police chief. “But being in elected office—that’s a whole ‘nother level, y’all.”
Demings’s remarks came at a rally Saturday in Pensacola and are likely to anger Florida’s law enforcement community, particularly given that Demings enjoys an array of perks as a congresswoman that she did not receive as a police officer.
Demings’s congressional salary, for example, sits at $174,000, allowing the Democrat to own a Washington, D.C., condo in addition to her Florida residence. Even after state cops in August received their first pay raise in years, the average state-level officer in Florida earns just under $60,500 a year. Demings’s job as a congresswoman also took the Democrat and her husband to Israel for a policy seminar in 2017, a trip that cost nearly $27,000. And in 2021, zero members of Congress died in the line of duty, compared to 52 Florida law enforcement officers.
“For congresswoman Demings to say that sitting around in Washington and voting with [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi 100 percent of the time is a harder job than what we do every day is just despicable,” Marion County sheriff Billy Woods told the Washington Free Beacon. “It proves once and for all that she’s completely abandoned the law enforcement community and turned into a creature of the swamp.”
Demings, whose campaign did not return a request for comment, has worked to unseat Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio in large part by running on her background as a police chief. Demings in 2007 “made history when she was appointed to serve as [Orlando’s] first female Chief of Police,” her campaign site states, and the Democrat often touts that position to prove she’s a “no-nonsense, tough-on-crime leader who knows how to keep our communities safe.” In August, Demings went as far as to say she’s inherently immune to criticism from Florida’s law enforcement community because she is “the police.” “I don’t just support the police. I am the police,” the Democrat said.
But Rubio has landed the overwhelming majority of law enforcement endorsements. Fifty-six of Florida’s 66 sheriffs back Rubio, as do the state’s Fraternal Order of Police and Police Benevolent Association. Demings has dismissed those endorsements by arguing that 85 percent of Sunshine State sheriffs are “playing political games” by backing Rubio, a remark that some of those sheriffs quickly rebuked.
“Like myself and thousands of other law enforcement officers, Val Demings took an oath to protect and serve—an oath she somehow forgot when she got to Washington and decided to vote with Nancy Pelosi 100 percent of the time,” Brevard County sheriff Wayne Ivey told the Free Beacon in August. “After six years in Washington, it’s clear that Val is no longer the police and didn’t have our backs when it counted most,” Bradford County sheriff Gordon Smith added at the time.
Demings emerged from her August primary race with 84 percent of the vote and will face Rubio at the polls in November. The Democrat has raised $65.5 million to Rubio’s $44.5 million as of Sept. 30, though Rubio holds a $3 million cash-on-hand advantage.
Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman’s campaign is looking to lower expectations ahead of Tuesday night’s debate against Republican Mehmet Oz, telling members of the media that Fetterman is at a disadvantage because of the lingering effects of the stroke he suffered in May and Oz’s experience as a television personality.
“We’ll admit—this isn’t John’s format,” Fetterman’s campaign said in a memo sent to reporters on Monday. “Let’s be clear about this match-up: Dr. Oz has been a professional TV personality for the last two decades.”
The campaign’s premature surrender ahead of Fetterman’s first and only debate against Oz comes as the Democratic lieutenant governor’s lead has narrowed in the polls. Fetterman has struggled to speak coherently in interviews since his stroke, and he requires closed-captioning technology to understand questions, raising concerns about his health and fitness for office.
“The TV studio is Oz’s comfort zone,” the Fetterman campaign said. “This guy is a media-savvy performer. … But remember: John did not get where he is by winning debates or being a polished speaker. He got here because he truly connects with Pennsylvanians.”
Fetterman’s campaign appeared to anticipate that video clips of the Democrat struggling to speak, of the sort that in recent weeks have raised alarm over his health, would go viral after the debate.
“We are prepared for Oz’s allies and right-wing media to circulate malicious viral videos after the debate that try to paint John in a negative light because of awkward pauses, missing some words, and mushing other words together,” the campaign said in the memo. “The captioning process may also lead to time delays and errors in the exchanges between the moderators and the candidates.”
“John is going to win this race—even if he doesn’t win the debate,” the campaign concluded.
Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams’s advocacy group has funneled $9.4 million in legal fees to a law firm owned by the gubernatorial candidate’s campaign chairwoman.
The group, Fair Fight Action, paid the seven-figure sum between 2019 and 2020 to a firm where Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Abrams’s campaign’s chairwoman and close friend, is one of two partners. The payments were part of Abrams’s $25 million legal campaign to challenge Georgia’s voting laws—an effort largely struck down by a federal judge last month.
Additional payments made in the last two years are not yet publicly available, Politico reported:
The firm received $9.4 million from Abrams’ group, Fair Fight Action, in 2019 and 2020, the last years for which federal tax filings are available. Lawrence-Hardy declined to comment on how much her firm has collected from Fair Fight Action in 2021 and 2022 — years in which Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger, for which Lawrence-Hardy was lead counsel, had most of its courtroom activity.
Fair Fight Action has maintained that the suit — which ended last month when a federal judge ruled against the group on all three remaining claims — served an important role in drawing attention to voting inequities.
But some outside the group questioned both the level of expenditures devoted to a single, largely unsuccessful legal action and the fact that such a large payout went to the firm of Abrams’ close friend and campaign chair. Those concerns were heightened by the fact that Abrams’ national campaign against voter suppression galvanized the Democratic Party, many of whose top donors helped fill its coffers.
This isn’t the first time Abrams has been caught in suspicious money dealings. Abrams received $150,000 from a shadowy company with no online presence and sits on the board of a foundation that gifted thousands of dollars to an anti-Israel activist who supports terrorists.
Abrams filed the legal challenge against Georgia’s voting laws after losing the 2018 gubernatorial race by more than 50,000 votes to now-governor Brian Kemp (R.). With nearly two weeks until the election, Abrams trails Kemp by 6.3 points, according to FiveThirtyEight.
A Florida Republican canvasser clad in a Marco Rubio T-shirt and a Ron DeSantis hat was brutally attacked in a Hialeah, Fla., neighborhood by Democratic residents, Rubio tweeted Monday morning.
“Last night one of our canvassers wearing my T-shirt and a DeSantis hat was brutally attacked by 4 animals who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood in #Hialeah #Florida,” Rubio wrote. “He suffered internal bleeding, a broken jaw, & will need facial reconstructive surgery.”
Hialeah is in Miami-Dade County, which narrowly voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. The Miami Heraldreported Monday afternoon:
Hialeah Police confirmed Monday afternoon that a man handing out fliers had been beaten and that an arrest had been made. But they made no mention of the canvasser’s party affiliation or his possible links to the senator or governor’s campaigns, and provided an account of the incident that involved only one attacker.
In an emailed response to the Miami Herald, Hialeah Sgt. Jose Torres said the 27-year-old victim had been hit “multiple times in the face and the head causing the injuries.”
Torres said the victim, who wasn’t named, had crossed the street at 140 E. 60th St. after being told he couldn’t hand out fliers there, and that he was followed. Torres said Javier Lopez, 25, struck him repeatedly, causing bruises and lacerations. Lopez was arrested, Torres said. He didn’t say what crime Lopez was charged with.
The report comes as 68 percent of American voters view crime as a “very important” issue in the midterm elections, according to a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll published last week. Rubio is ahead of his Democratic Senate challenger Val Demings by 6.4 points, and Gov. Ron DeSantis is beating Democrat Charlie Crist by 10 points, according to the latest polls.
How dare Republicans use ‘devastating’ results as ‘political fodder’ to ‘relitigate the debate over how long schools should have stayed closed’
What happened: The Department of Education on Monday reported a significant drop in math and reading scores for U.S. students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The math results were “the steepest declines ever recorded” by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card.
What they’re saying: In addition to the obvious harm students suffered—a direct result of pandemic school closures driven by teachers’ unions and Democratic politicians—the New York Timesfound another reason why the shocking test scores are bad for the country: They “could be seized as political fodder—just before the midterms—to re-litigate the debate over how long schools should have stayed closed, an issue that galvanized many parents and teachers.”
How dare they!
Why it matters: According to the mainstream media, Republican politicians are always nefariously “seizing” or “pouncing” on news that reflects poorly on Democrats. A normal person might think if anything deserves to be “political fodder” in the final stretch of a midterm election, it’s the fact that a generation of American children had their educations severely stunted as a result of the pandemic and policy choices that kept classrooms closed for the better part of two years.
Who’s to blame? An October 2020 study found that school districts with strong teachers’ unions were more likely to recommend that schools remain closed, even though scientific evidence found that reopening schools was safe and unlikely to result in “superspreader” events.
Last month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blamed Donald Trump and other GOP politicians for keeping schools closed. Reopening the schools, she said, “was the work of Democrats in spite of Republicans.”
Is that true? No, it’s not. Republicans who called for schools to reopen in 2020 were repeatedly denounced (without evidence) by Democratic-backed union activists for endangering the lives of teachers and students. Some schools in heavily Democratic districts remained closed until early 2021 even after teachers were given priority access to the vaccine. As recently as January 2022, teachers in Chicago and elsewhere went on strike after school districts voted to reopen schools.
What do Republicans want? More options for parents. Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election by vowing to keep schools open and give parents more control over their children’s education. McAuliffe, by contrast, campaigned with teachers’ union president Randi Weingarten and said he didn’t think “parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
What do Democrats want? More money. The Biden administration allocated $123 billion—about $2,400 per student—in emergency funding for public schools in 2021. According to the New York Times, that’s not nearly enough to address the learning loss students suffered during the pandemic.
In response to GOP efforts to ensure that children aren’t “trapped in failing schools,” Democrat Katie Hobbs, the gubernatorial candidate in Arizona, summarized her party’s stance on education in inspiring fashion.
“There are always going to be kids who are stuck in these schools,” Hobbs said, adding that more money is the only solution.
Last year, Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner (D.) made the controversial decision to free a murderer serving a life sentence. On Friday, that man turned himself in to the police and is expected to be charged in connection with a second murder.
Police announced on Friday that 32-year-old Jahmir Harris was in custody following the fatal September shooting of Charles Gossett. Security footage shows Harris acting as a getaway driver approaching the victim and two gunmen shooting Gossett in the back of the head.
Harris was convicted in 2012 of shooting 45-year-old Louis Porter to death and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. But in 2021, Krasner’s office vacated Harris’s sentence, claiming that his “constitutional rights had been violated at the time of his prosecution.”
Common Pleas Court judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi slammed the move, saying she did not believe Harris had been proven innocent and questioning how Krasner “felt confident in releasing a murder suspect from prison when [his office] said one page earlier that the criminal investigation in this matter was still ongoing.”
News of Harris’s repeat offense could spell trouble for Krasner, who has come under fire for his soft-on-crime policies. The Pennsylvania House’s Select Committee on Restoring Law and Order is weighing impeachment articles for Krasner, which the self-described progressive prosecutor has dismissed as a “political stunt.” Krasner’s campaign received nearly $1.7 million from the left-wing megadonor George Soros’s Justice and Public Safety PAC in 2017.
Porter’s brother, Walter, recognized Harris in surveillance footage showing Gossett’s murder and notified police.
“I’m like, ‘Wow, this dude again,’” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It’s the same exact pattern.” The other shooters have not been identified.
Harris was convicted of murdering Porter following a disagreement over fake Percocet pills. An eyewitness identified Harris at the scene of the shooting. Porter’s five-year-old son was also present in the backseat of a parked car.
Krasner defended Harris’s exoneration last week, saying “wrongful convictions” undermine public trust in the justice system. His office maintains Harris’s “constitutional rights had been violated” in the 2012 case since information on another suspect was not submitted to defense attorneys.
Krasner’s Conviction Integrity Unit, which handles cases like Harris’s, has exonerated nearly 30 convicts during his tenure. Prosecutors for the office say Harris is the first that has gone on to kill.
But the Porter family told the Inquirer it never doubted Harris’s conviction. Walter Porter said Gossett’s murder “reopens the wounds” of their family’s grief over the killing.
“I want to see justice,” Porter said. “Not only for my family. But I really want to see justice for this other family that’s out there suffering.”
Republicans fret Chase Oliver could play spoiler for Herschel Walker, send race to runoff
As the Senate election tightens in Georgia between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D.) and Herschel Walker (R.), the race could come down to who loses the most votes to the Libertarian Party candidate—a former Democrat who supports ending cash bail, cutting police budgets, and open borders but is attracting a surprising number of Republican-leaning voters.
Recent polls have shown Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver receiving between 3.4 percent and 5 percent in the race, blocking either Walker or Warnock from winning a majority. Under Georgia law, if no candidate receives over 50 percent of the vote on Election Day, the top two competitors have to face off in a second head-to-head election.
The Moore Information Group’s Erik Iverson, a pollster for Walker’s campaign, said he believes Oliver is pulling enough Republican votes away from Walker to have an impact on the race. Iverson said Oliver has been effective at appealing to “soft Republican” voters, who might associate “libertarians” with conservative-leaning political figures, such as Republican senator Rand Paul (Ky.). But a review of Oliver’s political positions and public comments found that the Libertarian has much more in common with Democrats than with Republicans.
Over the past two years, Oliver has said he supports “ending cash bail,” “closing most overseas bases,” and “open borders.” He has argued that he’s “more progressive on criminal justice” than Vice President Kamala Harris, described defense spending as “corporate welfare with explosions that kill innocent people,” and said he wants “free and easy immigration.” On another Twitter account, which Oliver appeared to use around the time he switched parties from Democratic to Libertarian in 2012, he said he backed “single-payer health care.”
Oliver opposed the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and said that if he were elected, he “would be drafting a bill to protect the bodily autonomy of women and codify abortion into law.” He also objected to a law, backed by many conservatives in Georgia, that prohibited students from participating on sports teams that are different from their birth gender.
“A reminder that the Georgia GOP passed a trans sports ban in hours and killed the school choice bill,” he wrote on Twitter in April. “School choice is in their platform. But banning trans girls from sports was their educational priority. Shame.”
Oliver, who is gay, has been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ rights and described himself last month as the “first #LGBTQ statewide candidate in Georgia history!”
In another post, Oliver wrote that he distrusts both the military and the police. “I heavily distrust all authority structures, chief among them the military and police because of their nature as institutions,” Oliver said. “They are the two we need to keep in check the most to secure individual liberty.” After the wave of anti-police protests in 2020, he said he wanted to “demilitarize the police” and “end qualified immunity.”
In a 2012 Facebook post, Oliver said he “always identified as a progressive Democrat” and voted for Barack Obama in 2008 but decided to vote for the Libertarian Party after he became disillusioned with Democrats for failing to end foreign wars. He said that he only made the decision because his vote in Georgia likely didn’t matter and that he would have voted for Obama again if he lived in a competitive state.
“I live in Georgia, a state President Obama will not win on Election Day,” Oliver reasoned. “I live in one of the reddest states in the country, and my vote will not change that. If I lived in Florida or Ohio, or a handful of other states, I would be voting Obama.”
Polling consistently shows that Oliver is drawing at least 3 percent of the electorate, an especially significant share given Georgia’s runoff rule. Iverson, Walker’s pollster, says he believes Republican support for Oliver is “what’s holding Herschel back right now on the ballot.”
“It’s soft Republicans; about 13 percent of them are voting Oliver,” Iverson said. “They think Oliver is a libertarian. He’s really not, he’s a liberal.”
The campaign’s internal polling shows that neither Walker nor Warnock comes close to passing the 50-percent threshold in a three-way race with Oliver, with Walker receiving 45 percent and Warnock receiving 43 percent—within the survey’s 3-point margin of error. Oliver is at 5 percent, according to the poll.
Those findings are in line with independent polls by InsiderAdvantage, Landmark Communications, and Trafalgar this month that show Oliver drawing between 3.4 percent and 4 percent in the race and neither Walker nor Warnock breaking 50 percent.
Despite his Twitter post supporting single-payer health care in 2013, Oliver told the Free Beacon that he no longer backs this policy and hasn’t for many years. He added that he thinks it leads to “shortages and actually higher prices.”
Oliver said he doesn’t consider his views to be left-leaning, calling this a “false left-right paradigm.” He said he also supports a “balanced budget” and gun rights.
“I think when it comes to a lot of issues, I actually am where the majority of Americans are,” he said. “I think I really am middle-of-the-road when it comes to things like comprehensive immigration reform.”
Oliver has said he is happy to play spoiler in the race and bragged that the runoff system hurt Republicans in 2020, when both Warnock and his Democratic colleague Jon Ossoff prevailed in runoff elections.
“Without a runoff, the GOP would have held 50 seats in the U.S. Senate after 2020,” wrote Oliver on Twitter in June. “Better thank the Libertarian for forcing the runoff huh.”
Oliver told Fox 5 earlier this month, “If I cause a runoff, I’m happy that that happens because it will show that voters are frustrated with the two parties.”
“I’ve never been a Republican,” Oliver wrote in a Twitter post in August. “Former Democrat actually who left when the wars never ended and Gitmo didn’t close.”
Oliver said his campaign has been working to push Warnock to take more progressive stances on police, immigration, and drug legalization.
“It surprises a lot of people when they realize I am pushing Warnock on issues like criminal justice, immigration, and the drug war,” he wrote. “Yeah, the Libertarian is more classically liberal here than the Democrat.”
Oliver told the Free Beacon he doesn’t know if he will vote in a potential runoff, and hasn’t decided if he would support Warnock or Walker. He said he didn’t vote in the previous runoff. When asked if he believes a runoff would benefit Democrats, Oliver said it would “benefit whichever candidate gets out there and campaigns the best.”
“Sometimes, even if something is a historical path, that can be changed by the current election. We see that all the time,” he said.
The unprecedented level of illegal immigration at the U.S.–Mexico border largely stems from people fleeing regimes in three countries, the White House said Oct. 24.
“What we’re seeing, this new migration challenge, is driven by people who are fleeing falling regimes and economic collapse in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and also Cuba,” White House Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing in Washington.
Jean-Pierre appeared to be the first White House official to react after the illegal immigrant arrests at the border in fiscal year 2022 shattered the 2021 number, which had set a new record.
For the first time in U.S. history, more than 2 million arrests were recorded in a fiscal year, after a record-high 227,547 apprehensions in September.
Statistics from Customs and Border Protection show that the number of Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, and Cuban nationals have spiked in recent months, coming in 245 percent higher in September versus the same month in 2021.
The Biden administration is trying to pivot to deal with the new reality, Jean-Pierre said.
“We are hard at work at driving towards a regional solution to manage this new challenge,” she said, pointing to joint actions undertaken by the United and Mexico this month.
New Venezuela Policy
Effective Oct. 12, any Venezuelans who enter the United States between ports of entry and are captured are returned to Mexico. At the same time, a new process introduced by the administration enables up to 24,000 Venezuelans who meet certain conditions to enter the country.
“These actions make clear that there is a lawful and orderly way for Venezuelans to enter the United States, and lawful entry is the only way,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a Biden appointee, said in an earlier statement. “Those who attempt to cross the southern border of the United States illegally will be returned to Mexico and will be ineligible for this process in the future.”
Eligibility hinges on having a “supporter” present in the United States who can provide financial backing and other support, meeting vaccination requirements, and passing screening. A removal order from the previous five years, crossing between ports of entry since Oct. 12, having illegally entered Mexico or Panama, or having not met the vaccination requirements make a Venezuelan ineligible.
Just 127 Venezuelans were encountered per month from fiscal years 2014 to 2019 but that number has risen dramatically since then, reaching over 25,000 in August and 33,000 in September.
The new process has already cut the number of illegal entries by Venezuelan nationals by more than 85 percent, the administration said on Saturday as the United States accepted the first Venezuelans who were authorized to enter the country.
The administration also said it was issuing new H-2B permits, largely used by farmworkers, to people from northern Central American countries and Haiti.
“We are doing the work every day to make sure that we deal with what we’re seeing at the southern border,” Jean-Pierre said.
Critics disagree, saying the Biden administration policies are fueling the sharp increase in illegal immigration that has taken place since former President Donald Trump left office.
“New reports showed at least 2 MILLION migrant encounters in FY22. This is the highest number in history but it doesn’t even account for the hundreds of thousands of gotaways. Our border is in crisis and the White House is in denial,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said in a statement.
“Make no mistake—this is an INVASION at our southern border. The party in power is exacerbating this national security crisis with lax border policies,” Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) added.
Republicans have said they plan to try to increase border enforcement if they flip the House of Representatives and/or the Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.
In March, Lt. Col. William P. Anton, along with several other service members, submitted a 100-page report to members of the U.S. House and Senate. The report included statements from various military pilots and other injured service members concerned about the Department of Defense (DoD) vaccine mandate and its alleged negative effects on their health and the nation’s security.
Having served in the military for more than 20 years, Anton said that he is “shocked and frustrated to have only received lukewarm responses from a couple of senators and their staffers.”
“For the most part, there hasn’t really been any action,” Anton told The Epoch Times, using a pseudonym for fear of reprisals.
“Injuries to my fellow service members are happening right before our eyes and we know the solution [stopping the mandate], but no one is doing anything about it,” Anton said.
As more injuries come to light, Anton said he’s disappointed in senior military and civilian leadership.
“They are each in their own way aware of the ill health effects on our service members or the negative impact on our military’s readiness, and yet they remain silent,” he said. “They justify their silence as obedience to military orders because that is easier than to acknowledge their own lack of moral courage.”
Anton has spoken to senior leaders who don’t want to risk their next promotion.
“We are clearly promoting the wrong type of officers as promotions were not the motivation that defined the character traits of past military leaders who served sacrificially, won wars, and preserved freedom for another generation,” he said.
“In the military,” Anton said, “people are willing to die for their country and the men and women standing right next to them.” While current senior leadership may be willing to lay down their lives for others, he is concerned that “they are not willing to lay down their careers to speak out on what’s going on.”
“Dying for the country is merely a platitude coming out of leadership now,” he said, adding that ignoring the negative effect of the vaccine on the military is “undeniable” proof of that attitude.
“The DoD’s objective to ‘defend this nation’ with ‘a healthy and ready force’ cannot be reached through these supposed vaccines, as they do not prevent transmission or infection,” Anton said. Thus, preserving the health of the nation’s service members should take priority as more injuries come to light, he added.
Grounded But Hopeful
Chief Warrant Officer (CW4) Aaron Murphy (a pseudonym) is a command pilot in the Army’s most advanced multi-role combat helicopter, the Boeing AH-64 Apache. He has over 15 years of flying service.
“When the [defense secretary] made it mandatory, I went out and got the vaccine like I did all the other vaccines in the past,” Murphy told The Epoch Times, using a pseudonym over privacy concerns.
Admittedly, he waited as long as possible to get it, allowing some time to note any adverse reaction for others who had already taken the vaccine.
“Because I thought it was valid at the time, I chose to take the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine on Aug. 24 [2021].”
“Within four minutes of the injection, I felt a tingle go up my arm, into my neck, and into my head, and immediately felt like I was going to pass out,” he said. In addition, his blood pressure plummeted.
“After about an hour of lying there with my feet propped up, I was finally able to get back up and walk out to my vehicle, trying to shake it off as if it were no big deal,” Murphy said.
However, he said he couldn’t make it through the remainder of the workday and made the decision to go home. The next day, he experienced a fever, a sore back, and significant fatigue, and was under the impression that these were all normal symptoms after taking the vaccine.
On his commute to work the following day, he began to experience “stroke-like” symptoms.
“I couldn’t breathe, as my breaths were too rapid, and the dizziness and mental confusion were overwhelming,” he said. “It was honestly a feeling of impending doom.”
Shortly after reaching out to his wife in distress, Murphy was able to compose himself enough to make it to work.
“But was still struggling to breathe and to tell my boss that I was going home,” he said. “Fatigued, dizzy, and in denial that I should have gone to the emergency room, I spent the next few days in bed, hoping I could sleep it off.”
A few days later on a Sunday morning, he said he was sitting in church when it happened all over again.
“I was short of breath, dizzy, and turning pale, so my wife took me home,” he said. “For the next several months, I felt like I was on a boat.”
He has also been bothered by abnormal fatigue and a reduction in cardiovascular exercise capacity ever since, Murphy said.
By October 2021, Murphy was able to schedule an appointment with a neurologist who ordered tests involving magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), and magnetic resonance venography (MRV). According to the radiologist, “the MRI and MRA came back normal,” he said. “However, the radiologist was unable to observe my left transverse sinus vein [with the MRV scan],” he added.
Murphy had been grounded from flight since August 2021, and without a medical diagnosis for the problem, he began to attribute his symptom to vertigo. And as a result, a primary care physician ordered physical therapy. After three months of physical therapy, he showed improvement.
“I was thinking we found it, and vertigo was the issue.”
By March this year, Murphy was medically cleared for flight.
“I flew from April through July, but that came to an unexpected end,” he said.
“While another neurologist agreed that my MRI and MRA looked fine, a second look at my MRV in August of 2022 led him to diagnose me with cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST).”
There was a thrombosis, or blood clot, in his left transverse sinus vein beneath the brain that was previously undetected, according to the diagnosis letter, which was viewed by The Epoch Times.
The neurologist in the diagnosis wrote that the thrombosis is a “possible result” of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine.
According to Johnson & Johnson, thrombosis can be caused by the vaccine, affecting the cerebral vein and other blood vessels.
Murphy has been grounded and non-deployable since July because of the blood-thinning medication prescribed to him. He has been directed to continue the medication in the months ahead, and schedule an additional MRV in December for analysis.
If the clots disappear and he’s able to pass neurological function exams, Murphy said, he is hopeful he can return to flight status.
Still Standing But Uncertain
Prior to the vaccine mandate in January 2021, Army Lt. Col. Allyn York (a pseudonym) said he “saw the writing on the wall and knew it would be coming.” In August of that year, the veteran of 20 years took the vaccine to comply with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s mandate.
York considered himself “diligent in researching” the available vaccines.
“I inherently didn’t trust the mRNA vaccine, so I chose the Johnson & Johnson, based on the information that it used traditional virus-based technology and seemed like the safest one available,” he told The Epoch Times, using a pseudonym over privacy concerns.
“I’ve taken every vaccine the Army has offered, but I’ve never had one knock me out like this,” he said. At his wife’s direction, he hydrated himself and took aspirin to combat the symptoms of fever and fatigue.
However, within a week, York felt like he was having a heart attack.’
“I had chest pains, issues in my left shoulder, tingling in my fingers and feet, and muscle spasms,” he said. “I never thought I was about to die, but it’s really unpleasant when you’re dealing with issues of the heart.”
He said physicians aren’T typically assigned to organizations outside of a wartime environment, but he was fortunate his unit has physicians available.
“I was told to see a doctor right away because it could be a case of myocarditis,” he said. “And when I did, the doctor sent me to the emergency room, concerned about blood clots.”
“Screening revealed swelling in the connective tissue of my chest, but I wasn’t sure that was the full story, as I continued to feel like someone shoved a stick in the middle of my heart,” York said. “Nonetheless, over the next couple of months, I just kind of dealt with it.” He continued to exercise, and by November 2021, his symptoms faded away.
He was advised to have an echocardiogram and other tests due to a concern about myocarditis—a type of inflammation of the heart—particularly because York may have needed to be in the position to refuse vaccine boosters or seek a medical waiver, and required adequate documentation to do so.
“Based on the results of a month-long heart study and the fact that I continue to run and exercise regularly, I’m being told that I had what would be considered a mild case of myocarditis that could have resolved itself,” York said. The Epoch Times has viewed documentation that confirms this diagnosis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted increased reports of myocarditis since April 2021 after vaccination with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, but not the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
“Even though I’m still experiencing some strange chest phenomena, and I can’t say I’m not unconcerned, my future is in God’s hands,” York said. He currently awaits further testing by a cardiologist.
Anton, Murphy, and York emphasized that their views don’t reflect those of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Armed Forces.
Neither the Department of Defense nor Johnson & Johnson returned requests for comment from The Epoch Times.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) has filed 73 lawsuits on election issues during the 2022 midterm election cycle, according to its chair.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel confirmed that the committee filed its 73rd lawsuit of 2022 last week, against officials in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
“The RNC has filed a new lawsuit against Kalamazoo, MI. Michiganders deserve election transparency, and we are going to court to get it. This is our 73rd case of election integrity litigation this cycle with more to come,” she wrote on Twitter.
Some advocacy groups hailed the bevy of legal challenges.
“After the shortcomings of the last election, a proactive and pre-emptive legal strategy is critical to the election integrity voters deserve in 2022, 2024, and beyond,” Michael Bars, executive director of the Election Transparency Initiative, told Fox News on Oct. 24, adding that there have been “significant strides” to try to bolster voters’ trust in the U.S. election system after allegations of fraud in 2020.
The lawsuits come after widespread complaints about the security of the 2020 election in which former President Donald Trump and his allies said there was significant fraud in key battleground states.
The lawsuits are part of a “multimillion-dollar investment into building an election integrity operations infrastructure that draws on its legal, political, data and communications resources,” RNC spokesperson Gates McGavick told the outlet. It reported that the six dozen lawsuits were filed in 20 states.
In recent days, the RNC has had some success in court. A New York judge recently struck down a law that would have added noncitizens to voter rolls.
A court in Michigan also found that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, updated an election manual to impose new restrictions on poll observers and challengers without going through the correct rulemaking process. Court of Claims Judge Brock Swartzle ruled that Benson’s office must either remove a May manual or amend specific sections that he said violate state and federal law.
“An executive branch department cannot do by instructional guidance what it must do by promulgated rule,” the judge wrote last week. “This straightforward legal maxim does most of the work in resolving these three consolidated cases.”
After his order, the RNC and McDaniel described it as a victory for the “rule of law.” Benson’s office indicated that the state will appeal Swartzle’s decision.
“This ruling is a massive victory for election integrity, the rule of law, and Michigan voters,” McDaniel said. “Jocelyn Benson not only disregarded Michigan election law in issuing this guidance, she also violated the rights of political parties and poll challengers to fully ensure transparency and promote confidence that Michigan elections are run fairly and lawfully.”
With fewer than three weeks to go before the 2022 midterm elections, a new poll shows about three-quarters of Americans believe the United States is on the wrong track.
About 71 percent of voters said the United States is headed in the wrong direction, and only 20 percent said it’s on the right track, according to a poll by Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies for NBC. Pollsters noted that it is the sixth out of seventh of such polls where the wrong track answer has been higher than 70 percent.
In the same vein, some 20 percent of respondents said they believe the U.S. economy will get better over the next year, 26 percent said it will remain about the same, and 50 percent say it will get worse. The 50-percent figure is the highest number on the question dating back to 1994.
“These are really difficult numbers for Democrats, and they have had them for months,” Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who works with Public Opinion Strategies, told CNBC.
Republican voters, meanwhile, have a “high interest” in the upcoming election, according to the poll. That’s compared to 69 percent for Democrats, it shows.
Other Polls
Some recent polls, including one from the Pew Research Center (pdf), suggest that the key issues are the economy, violent crime, and inflation. An overwhelming majority, or 79 percent, told Pew that the U.S. economy—which has been beset by decades-high inflation—is “very important” and another 61 percent stated that crime is also “very important.”
And a Politico-Morning Consult poll, reported by Politico on Oct. 19, showed about 71 percent of voters are “very concerned” by inflation, which is up 5 percentage points since August. About 42 percent remarked that economic issues such as taxes and jobs were their top issue when deciding who to vote for in November.
The pollsters found that over 90 percent of voters are concerned about the U.S. economy and inflation.
Republicans have repeatedly hammered the Biden administration and Democrats on their policies around oil drilling, record congressional spending, and COVID-19-related lockdowns and mandates, arguing that it has been those policies that have driven inflation and relatively higher gas prices. The consumer price index, a key inflation metric, hit 8.2 percent in September—running near highs not seen since the early 1980s.
Meanwhile, independent pollsters have argued that mainstream polls from the likes of Pew, NBC, and Morning Consult often undercount Republican voters and supporters of former President Donald Trump, continuing a trend from previous years. That’s especially so after President Joe Biden’s ominous speech on Sept. 1 that targeted “MAGA Republicans” while claiming Trump supporters are a threat to U.S. institutions and “our democracy.”
“These submerged voters aren’t answering polls, they aren’t putting stickers on their cars, or signs in their yard—they’re not even posting on social media,” Trafalgar Group pollster Robert Cahaly said in a recent podcast of the trend. “They are underwater. They’re not saying a word to anybody until election day.”
National math test scores in fourth and eighth grades showed the biggest drop since a national testing program began in 1990, and the reading level for the same grades reverted to a level from three decades ago.
Eighth-grade math performance has dropped eight points since 2019, and about a third of students in both grades can’t read at the minimum required level, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report.
NAEP, also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” is the only national and continuing assessment program administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the Department of Education. The Nation’s Report Card is the gold standard for measuring student academic achievements. The results released on Oct. 24 were based on tests administered in the spring.
Peggy Carr, the National Center for Education Statistics commissioner, presents national math and reading test results of fourth and eighth graders of the Nation’s Report Card in Washington, on Oct. 24, 2022. (Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Peggy Carr, the NCES commissioner who presented the math and reading test results, said the eight-point decline in eighth-grade math was “troubling” and “significant.” According to her, a two and three-point drop is considered significant at the national level.
She began her presentation with contexts of the testing results: the pandemic, reduced in-person learning, and increased mental health needs of students. She said she would have to talk to reading experts to find out why students’ reading performance lost 30 years of progress.
Bottom fourth-grade math performers have shown more significant drops since 2019. For eighth-graders in all percentiles, the performance declines are even. (National Assessment of Educational Progress; Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
“We are talking about a really serious erosion of children’s capacities to read and count in the next generation of the workforce,” Beverly Perdue, former governor of North Carolina and chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policies and achievement levels for the Nation’s Report Card, said during a media event at the National Press Club in Washington on Oct. 2. “So this becomes a global economic issue for America.”
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called the results “appalling” and “unacceptable.”
“This is a moment of truth for education,” he told reporters in a pre-release briefing on Oct. 21.
In a statement, Perdue said students’ learning gaps “predated—but were exacerbated by the pandemic.”
Dr. Vicki Alger, a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute, agreed.
“We should be careful not to make COVID school closures the whole story. School closures made an already bad situation worse. Alarming proportions of students are still not proficient in the core subjects of math and reading,” she told The Epoch Times.
“We’re also seeing the continuing pattern of lower proficiency rates among eighth-graders compared to fourth-graders. We would expect to see children’s subject-level mastery improving the longer they’re in school, but we’re still seeing the opposite instead.”
Virginia Takes Actions
The Nation’s Report Card also provides a platform for peer comparisons across states. Virginia saw the sharpest decline in the nation in fourth-grade reading scores, 13.6 points since 2017 and three times the national average.
Impact of raising and lowering standards in fourth-grade reading performance (Source: Virginia state Superintendent Jillian Balow’s presentation)
“We must acknowledge the glaring reality that we face together: our nation’s children have experienced catastrophic learning loss, and Virginia students are among the hardest hit,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said at a press event in Richmond on Oct. 24. “We also must clearly recognize that the underpinnings to this catastrophic performance were decisions that were made long before we had ever heard of COVID-19.”
He said the reason for Virginia’s decline was lowered standards and expectations and gave examples of recent events: the 2017 accreditation standard revision and the lowering of standards for math (2019) and reading (2020) in the Commonwealth’s Standard of Learning tests.
As a result of lowered standards, Virginia’s “honesty gap”—a performance gap between the state and national level—gave parents the false impression that students were doing well, said Jillian Balow, Virginia’s superintendent of public instruction.
Youngkin announced new policies, including investing $30 million in learning loss recovery, $3 million in enhancing teacher recruitment and retention, and releasing the “learning needs dashboard” for students not performing at grade level so parents and teachers could monitor learning recovery status.
He also challenged Virginia school divisions to spend the $2 billion remaining federal K-12 funds. Youngkin said that local school divisions would be required to submit updated spending plans for federal spending funds by Dec. 31.
A former Trump administration official and two Republican lawmakers are demanding an immediate investigation from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over an advocacy group’s use of $8.5 million taxpayer dollars.
Alianza Americas, a pro-mass immigration group funded by liberal billionaire George Soros, may have unlawfully used funds granted by agencies under HHS, according to Friday letters by Brian Harrison, the former chief of staff of the department, Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas). Federal grants are banned under U.S. law from being leveraged to weigh on government positions on legislation or policies, including lobbying.
“Despite statutory and regulatory restrictions on lobbying for recipients of federal funding from all federal agencies, forms submitted to the Internal Revenue Service by Alianza Americas appear to show activity in direct violation of the law and federal regulations,” Roy and Van Duyne wrote in an Oct. 21 joint letter sent to HHS Deputy Inspector General Christi Grimm, calling for “a review of all grants received by Alianza Americas as well as the publicly disclosed actions” taken by the group.
Besides calling to defund U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Alianza Americas launched in September a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after the state flew illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts under the governor’s order. Official records show Soros’s Open Society Foundations website awarded nearly $1.4 million to Alianza Americas between 2016 and 2020.
Yet lawmakers said official grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) totals $8.5 million over the past two years. CDC granted Alianza in February 2021 $7.5 million in funding, which will terminate in September 2025, “to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate impacts among Latinx and Latin American immigrants.” Since last July, the group had also received a total of $1 million from HRSA to “increase COVID-19 vaccine access” among local communities.
Van Duyne asserted that unchecked spending under President Joe Biden is “out of control.”
“I have continued to monitor actions taken by the Department,” Harrison wrote in his letter to HHS, saying he is “deeply concerned” that taxpayer dollars may have encouraged illegal immigration to the United States, both at home and in foreign jurisdictions, the Washington Examiner reported.
It also said that Alianza Americas held “two congressional briefings” on immigration-related issues in Washington and made over 200 “visits to Congress” between June 2017 and September 2019, citing the group’s 2019 tax documents.
“It appears that Alianza incorrectly stated on their IRS Form 990 that they do not engage in any lobbying when it appears that they do by getting their supporters to contact Congress to introduce or influence legislation regarding the status of illegal immigrants,” Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, told the outlet. “They are also required to file a separate form with the IRS detailing how much they spend on such lobbying activities.”
HHS and Alianza Americas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The effectiveness of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines turns negative against severe COVID-19 months after administration, according to a new study.
A single dose of the Pfizer vaccine was pegged at minus 121 percent effectiveness on day 84 and minus 85 percent effectiveness on day 98. A second Pfizer dose held up better, but still dipped below 50 percent at day 98, researchers concluded.
A single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine turned negative at day 70 and a second dose turned negative at day 84, according to the paper, which was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Negative effectiveness means that a vaccinated person is more likely to experience a condition than an unvaccinated person.
Pfizer and AstraZeneca didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Researchers reached the estimates by analyzing health records from roughly 12.9 million people in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The study period was from Dec. 8, 2020, to June 30, 2021—one of the reasons that boosters, which weren’t available until later in 2021, weren’t included in the study.
Steven Kerr, a senior research fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute, and the other researchers theorized that the negative estimates stemmed from behavioral differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.
“We believe that the most likely explanation … is that vaccination caused recipients to believe they were protected, leading them to change their behaviour in ways that increase their chance of contracting the infection,” they wrote. “These changes in behaviours should initially have been outweighed by the protection offered by the immune response stimulated by the vaccine, but as time progressed the protection is likely to have diminished such that the impact of behavioural changes may have become dominant.”
The researchers provided no evidence for the theory.
The group also stated that it’s possible that the protection one enjoys after recovering from COVID-19 may have played a role, pointing to one of many papers that have concluded that natural immunity is superior to vaccination.
Part of Growing Trend
The study is the latest to estimate negative vaccine effectiveness, although others have examined effectiveness against infection.
Researchers with Moderna said in a recent paper that vaccine effectiveness against infection turned negative after several months against BA.2.12.1, BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5, which are all subvariants of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
Another paper, which analyzed vaccine effectiveness against infection among children aged 5 to 11, estimated that Pfizer’s vaccine turned negative after 18 or 20 weeks, depending on whether the children had also been infected with COVID-19.
Researchers in Qatar, examining the effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, estimated in June that their effectiveness turned negative over time.
And another paper, this one published in May by U.S. scientists, determined that the effectiveness of Pfizer’s vaccine turned negative for 12- to 15-year-olds after five months.
Amid the bedlam of 10,000 voices chanting, singing, and shouting on the east terrace of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, those three words cut through the haze like a lighthouse beam.
The target of the message was U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Tarik Khalid Johnson, 46, who scanned the crowd for someone to help with an urgent mission. The speaker was retired New York police sergeant Michael Joseph Nichols, 46, an Oath Keeper who knew all about riots and making decisions under fire.
Their mission’s success depended on a partnership of exhausted, besieged Capitol police and a group of Oath Keepers, a patriot organization that would soon be the target of an unrelenting war on alleged “domestic terror” by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI.
Nichols and his wife Whitney, 33, had no intention of being at the Capitol on the afternoon of Jan. 6.
After hearing President Donald Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, they wanted to return to their Virginia hotel. But blocked streets and the “herding” of crowds by police put them at the bottom of the east steps of the Capitol at around 3 p.m.
Before the afternoon was over, Nichols, an Oath Keeper named Steve, and others would go into the Capitol at the request of a desperate lieutenant and rescue 15 riot-gear-clad officers and one uniformed officer trapped inside.
It was a good deed, to be sure. Unbeknownst to the participants, however, it would later punch a hole in the government’s narrative that the Oath Keepers’ purpose that day was to violently overthrow the U.S. government and forcibly keep Trump in office at any cost.
U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Tarik Khalid Johnson asks Oath Keepers Steve (center) and Michael Nichols (right) for help rescuing police officers trapped inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Rico La Starza/Special to The Epoch Times)
Lt. Johnson and Nichols approached each other by chance at the ground level not far from the east steps.
“I went right up to him and said, ‘How can I help you get control of this situation? It doesn’t look good over here,’” Nichols told The Epoch Times during a series of interviews.
“If you can help me move aside these people, I’d appreciate it,” Johnson said on the video, pulling on his COVID mask. “…I just need to get these other officers out.”
Nichols’ and Steve’s facial expressions instantly changed when they heard police officers were in need of assistance.
“Oh, they’re trying to get out?” asked Steve, a retired medevac helicopter pilot and Army veteran.
“I can do that,” Nichols said. “I’ll go with you. I can help.”
Nichols started heading for the steps, then turned around and flashed his gold retired-sergeant’s shield and reiterated, “I can help.”
Johnson handed him a bullhorn and the group moved out for the steps.
What was about to take place would have been largely lost to history if Rico La Starza, 30, a Florida-based videographer, had not approached at just the right time.
“I happen to look over … and I see a Capitol Police officer with a Trump hat on and I go, ‘Well, that’s interesting,’” La Starza told The Epoch Times. “Let’s go figure out what’s going on there.”
As the men began climbing the stairs to the giant Columbus Doors, the crowd was treated to the suspicious droning of the still-unidentified and never-indicted masked man who researchers dub the “Scaffold Commander,” who stood unmolested for hours high above the crowd, bellowing that “patriots” should go into the Capitol.
Johnson grabbed Nichols’ left hand with his right and they started working through the crowd. Steve kept his right hand on Johnson’s back. “I’m with you brother,” La Starza said to Steve as he brought up the rear.
La Starza trailed the trio with his camera and kept a watchful eye on Lt. Johnson’s holstered service weapon.
“I realize nobody’s even watching this guy’s gun,” La Starza said. “So my plan is I’ll just fall back a little bit, hang back like a foot or so. If any of these guys try to grab his gun, I can do something about it.”
Previous Attempt Failed
A short time before Nichols and Steve approached the Columbus Doors, Oath Keepers members Roberto Minuta, 38, and Joshua James, 35, were asked by a different Capitol Police official if they would help get officers who wanted to leave out of the building.
“He said we can have this area, they’re trying to get their guys out,” Minuta told The Epoch Times.
“We followed behind law enforcement into the foyer through the Columbus Doors,” he said. “So our intention was to help get the cops out. They said they wanted out.
“As Oath Keepers, we work alongside law enforcement,” Minuta said. “I mean, a lot of [members] are law enforcement. So it’s not uncommon for us to interact with them and offer help or ask if they need anything.”
Retired police sergeant and Oath Keeper Michael Nichols uses a bullhorn to ask people to make way for the police officers they were extracting from the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Directly behind him is Capitol Police Lt. Tarik Johnson. (U.S. DOJ/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Seeing a gathering of police, Minuta and James headed toward the Rotunda.
“I started yelling from behind him, ‘Let’s go! Get these cops out of here! Come on, let him out. Get him out of here.’ The last thing I said was, ‘Let them out.’
“I was loud, though,” Minuta said. “Because you’re in a crowd full of people. There’s pepper spray and tear gas. It was intense. So I was yelling. I was aggressive. But that’s what we went in there for—to get the cops out.”
James got into a tangle with one of the police officers. “You want out?” he shouted, just before the officer struck him on the left shoulder. James then “lost his [expletive],” Minuta said, and began pulling the officer and shouting, “‘Get out of my Capitol! Get out! This is my [expletive] building. This is not yours!’”
Minuta theorized that James—a combat veteran with a Purple Heart—got “triggered” by the hit and shove from the officer, causing him to lash out in a fight-or-flight response.
It was uncharacteristic of James—and the Oath Keepers, Minuta said, recalling they specifically discussed earlier that day not to get into any skirmishes with law enforcement.
“I got crushed,” Minuta said, “and pushed into the Rotunda. I couldn’t even breathe. I was like, ‘This is bad.’ Someone from the group of rioters shut the door to the Rotunda behind me. I screamed, ‘Don’t shut those doors!’”
James, whose family wrote on social media that he agreed to a plea deal to avoid a threatened life prison sentence, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and agreed to testify if called on by prosecutors.
With the police rescue gone south, Minuta escaped through the Columbus Doors shortly before Nichols and Lt. Johnson arrived to make their rescue attempt.
“It’s a little bit of a blur how I ended up seeing officers coming out and standing in a line and holding a line for them to come down the stairs,” Minuta said.
Michael Nichols stands in the backyard of his home in King Ferry, N.Y., on Oct. 13, 2022. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
Tip of the Spear
As Nichols climbed the stairs with Lt. Johnson, he drew on his more than 17 years of experience as a decorated police officer in the Southern Tier of New York State, 20 years as a volunteer firefighter, and years as a military policeman in the U.S. Army in Bosnia-Herzegovina and at other duty stations.
Nichols was used to being at the tip of the spear.
One of those times came in the late summer and fall of 1996 when Nichols got up-close experience with combat violence. A bomb almost ended his Army deployment—and his life.
“We drove through the ZOS [zone of separation] again,” he wrote in his journal. “Destruction everywhere. Hundreds of houses and buildings, blown away. I saw a car this afternoon that had been blown up by something just before we passed by it.
Michael Nichols in the gun turret of a U.S. Army Humvee in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996. (Courtesy of Whitney Nichols)
“Last night some kid shot off a 9mm outside our camp at checkpoint one,” he said. “When MPs gave chase, the kids ran into a field. One of the kids stepped on a personnel mine and blew up.”
Six weeks later, a teenager tried to take out Nichols and his watch partner as they sat in their High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, popularly known as a Humvee.
“While [Specialist Duane] Brucker and I were working checkpoint, some kid threw a bomb at our truck. The force of it knocked me back in the gun turret and shook the whole truck,” Nichols wrote in a journal entry.
In a letter home to his parents, Nichols added, “It was very loud and the guy in the truck with me thought I had been shot.”
Nichols had long had to think on his feet during rescue operations.
A six-year member of the Cortland Police Department SWAT team, he was called on Oct. 14, 2006, to a home where an armed, distraught father was holed up with his 5-week-old infant son. The man’s wife had just disclosed a one-year extramarital affair. The man, 32, later said he “felt boxed in” and that “my life was over.”
The man had an AR-15 rifle, a Mossberg 500 12-gauge shotgun, and more than 400 rounds of ammunition.
Elsewhere in the home, he had a Marlin .22-caliber bolt-action rifle, a Winchester 270 rifle, and a .50-caliber muzzleloading rifle.
The AR-15 and the Mossberg lay on the bed near him, along with handfuls of loaded magazines and three boxes of shotgun shells. The baby was asleep in his portable crib, oblivious to the unfolding drama.
“I could hear people outside and doors slamming, so I thought the police were just going to come in after me without even getting a hold of anyone to talk to me,” the man later told police.
Sgt. Michael Nichols of the Cortland Police Department in southern New York state. (Whitney Nichols/Special to The Epoch Times)
He was feeling desperate, telling his mother in a phone call he felt “like going postal.” He “started thinking to myself whether I should surrender or blow my head off,” noting, “The guns were next to me but I never picked one up and put it to my head.”
Amid the high-stakes confusion, the man saw a possible way to solve the crisis. He told the two patrol officers who had positioned themselves on the stairs to get out of his house. He said he would only speak to Mike Nichols.
“I have known Mike Nichols since the 7th Grade in school and I knew he wouldn’t let anything stupid happen to me,” the man later said.
Nichols was not on duty at the time, but dispatch located him and he raced to the scene on Elm Street in Cortland. Within five minutes he was on the phone with the desperate man.
“I told Mike I wanted to do the right thing and come out,” the man said, “but I had to feed my son one last time.”
The man called his mother and said he was going to surrender, but only to Nichols. “I knew he wouldn’t be trigger-happy and blow my head off,” he told his mother.
Nichols stood alone near the front door. The man emerged, handcuffed in the front and holding his infant son in a car seat. “Nichols was right in front of me, then reached out and grabbed me,” he said after the incident.
“Mike hugged me and told me I did the right thing and we would see this through.”
‘We’re Oath Keepers’
As Nichols, Lt. Johnson, and Steve reached the 17-foot-high bronze Columbus Doors at the Capitol on Jan. 6, the crowd reluctantly moved aside.
“We’re Oath Keepers,” Steve said as they walked past.
Nichols said he noticed some of the people around the entrance were loud and extremely aggressive—nothing like the crowds he had been in the rest of the day. He worried about bringing a group of officers out through these doors with such hostile agitators.
The inner set of doors opened long enough for the trio to enter. Nichols was pulled inside and before he could get his bearings, he saw a police officer with a closed fist ready to throw a haymaker at him.
“Blue! Blue! Blue!” he shouted, a code to identify himself as a police officer. Lieutenant Johnson confirmed, “He’s with me,” Nichols said.
Oath Keeper Steve (right) hangs onto U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Tarik Johnson as they move into the Capitol to free 16 trapped police officers on Jan. 6, 2021. (Rico La Starza/Special to The Epoch Times)
To the right side of the entrance, Nichols saw a group of Capitol Police in riot gear. Some were bent over and seemed sick to their stomachs, he said, likely from pepper spray used on police and spectators outside the Columbus Doors. Others looked almost terrified, Nichols said.
Using the bullhorn handed to him by Lt. Johnson, Nichols told the group they were going to link up and leave the Capitol. He told them to stay connected to the person in front and don’t stop until the group cleared the bottom of the stairs.
Nichols noted that the doors into the Great Rotunda were closed and locked. All he saw in the foyer were police, so the fear he observed did not make sense. Why was everyone so afraid? They were dressed as if members of the “hard squad,” wearing heavy protective tactical gear. He looked into their eyes and said he came to believe they were exhausted.
“I asked what the plan was and if we were going to take the stairs back,” Nichols said. “Johnson said he just needed to get his guys out. I said, ‘Ok everyone leaving get behind me and hold onto the guy in front of you. Don’t let go, and don’t stop moving until we get through this crowd.’
“We made sure everyone that was leaving was ready and then moved out.”
The same agitators outside the Columbus Doors were screaming obscenities. Nichols shouted back, “Make a hole!” A woman took the bullhorn mic and told the protesters not to interfere.
“We don’t do this [expletive],” she said, prompting one of the agitators to reply, “[Expletive] you!”
As the officers passed by, the woman gave each of them a hug. A man in the crowd shouted, “The cops are leaving! Let them go!” He then told the officers, “Thank you. God bless.”
Capitol Police are escorted down the Capitol steps through the crowd to safety by members of the Oath Keepers at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Oath Keeper Roberto Minuta is at right, with goggles on his head. (Courtesy of Roberto Minuta)
A Quick-Reaction Force?
As Nichols, Lt. Johnson, Steve, and the police officers began the slow parade down the east steps, more Oath Keepers emerged from the crowd to help clear the way.
Brian Ulrich, 44, of Guyton, Georgia, got out in front of Nichols by a few steps and signaled for protesters to stand aside.
Ulrich is one of six Oath Keepers to take a deal from prosecutors, pleading guilty earlier this year to seditious conspiracy. He was joined on the steps by Oath Keeper Ricky Jackson of Georgia, who does not face any Jan. 6 charges.
Minuta, who had been on the patio outside the Columbus Doors after abandoning his rescue effort, hustled down the steps to lend assistance. Minuta faces a late November trial with three other defendants on charges of seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and other counts.
Just to the right of him was Jonathan Walden, of Birmingham, Alabama, and his 82-pound security K-9, “Warrior.” Walden is charged with two Jan. 6-related crimes.
A young man in a MAGA cap near the bottom of the steps put his hand on the shoulder of each police officer and said, “Thank you,” according to a video shot by journalist Stephen Horn.
Whitney Nichols said she views her husband, Steve, and the other Oath Keepers on the steps as a true “quick-reaction force” (QRF) because they “were trying to extract people from the building.”
That’s a stark contrast to how prosecutors view the Oath Keepers QRFs that were standing by in Virginia on Jan. 6.
Prosecutors trying five Oath Keepers defendants in Washington said the QRFs were there to attack the Capitol by force to keep Trump in office.
Defense attorneys insist the QRFs only would have been used if Antifa attacked the Oath Keepers or Trump supporters in D.C. Weapons were only for use if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act and called up a militia to protect the White House from feared attacks by Antifa, numerous Oath Keepers have said.
Several of the riot officers thanked Nichols and Steve for helping to get them out of the Rotunda foyer.
The U.S. Capitol Police department, however, was anything but thrilled about the whole thing. An internal-affairs investigation aimed at Lt. Johnson was opened. He was eventually suspended from his job and has since left the USCP.
Some fellow officers complained to the USCP Office of Professional Responsibility because Johnson wore a bright red MAGA cap while the rescue operation took place. He was criticized for letting Nichols hold and use the department bullhorn, and for a radio dispatch in which he said he obtained “permission” from the crowd to bring officers out of the building.
According to a USCP internal report obtained by The Epoch Times, a protester gave the MAGA cap to Johnson the first time he emerged from the Rotunda foyer with a couple of riot police, just minutes before he encountered Nichols and Steve.
At least two fellow officers tried to take the cap away from Lt. Johnson, but he put it back on both times. He told OPR investigators that people in the crowd “listen to me” when the hat was on his head, and he viewed the cap as his protective helmet.
Lt. Tarik Johnson talks to a group of Oath Keepers about a group of officers trapped in the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Rico La Starza, Archive.org/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Media stories on La Starza’s video of the rescue operation said the MAGA cap was a ruse by Lt. Johnson to fool Trump supporters into helping him.
Nichols and his wife disagreed, based on what they said Johnson told them. “He told me he had it because he voted for Trump and he wanted the crowd at the Capitol to understand that the people inside were also Trump supporters,” Whitney Nichols told the FBI in 2021.
That could cast a new light on the criticisms peppered throughout the investigation report, which at least partially contradicted Johnson’s explanations for the rescue operation. Several officers were highly critical of Johnson and his actions.
In reply, Johnson told the OPR agents he was motivated by one thing: to safely get officers out of the Capitol because they were vastly outnumbered and in harm’s way.
Nichols said he found the Capitol Police response unfair to Lt. Johnson, whose actions he deemed heroic.
“He adapted to the environment, put the officers’ and people’s safety before his own, and succeeded in defusing a tense situation that could have resulted in a mass-casualty incident,” Nichols said.
“He read the crowd and with no alternative means, put together a rescue operation using members of the crowd and himself to extract 16 officers who had radioed for help due to being stuck between an angry group and the building.”
Nichols said he tried to stay in touch with Lt. Johnson after Jan. 6. They spoke on the phone a couple times, Nichols said, and have exchanged text messages on occasion. During one call not long after Jan. 6, both men were in tears reliving what they both went through. Johnson thanked Nichols and Steve for helping him.
La Starza said he was impressed by Lt. Johnson’s calm leadership on Jan. 6.
“He’s the leader people pray for,” La Starza said. “Quick on the feet and willing to go through flames for his team.”
The Epoch Times asked U.S. Capitol Police for comment on the OPR report, but did not receive a reply by press time.
The Backlash Begins
After Nichols and his wife returned home to New York state, the Jan. 6 backlash began.
They were shunned by friends and heavily criticized by some family for even being at the Capitol.
“We literally have footage of people just slowing down and flipping us off,” Whitney Nichols told the FBI. “And we have two little girls.”
Some extended family lashed out and threatened to call child protective services, claiming their attendance in Washington was evidence they were unfit parents.
Whitney Nichols said she lost clients from her small business. Other family and friends severed ties with the couple.
Michael Nichols talks with his wife Whitney, as their daughter Carter stands by, at their home in King Ferry, N.Y., on Oct. 13, 2022. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
“We lost all the friends we had at the time,” Mike Nichols said. “It was very nasty, a side of people you really don’t expect.”
The father of one of their friends penned a derisive song about them with the line, “I Think It’s Time I Call the FBI,” then posted it on YouTube, they said.
A short time later, an FBI agent showed up on the Nichols’ front deck.
Clad in a black trench coat, blue dress pants, blue shirt, and salmon-color tie, the agent wanted to know if the Nichols had any plans to return to the Capitol or to gather at or attack any state capitols. They told him “no.”
The stress was evident in Mike Nichols’ voice.
“It’s not a very trusting time right now, so excuse my feelings, as the world is making us feel like we did something wrong,” he said, according to a video Whitney Nichols made of the FBI visit. “The news makes it seem like going to our Capitol was a crime.”
The agent asked if they knew Lt. Johnson before Jan. 6. He wanted to know if they planned the visit to Washington with any groups or other individuals.
“Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with what took place in the context of that video,” the agent said.
He was not thrilled with being recorded, but Whitney said she wanted a record of all that was said.
“I know you’re recording me right now. Is that accurate?” the agent asked. “I’m not stupid, I know it’s been done.”
Mike Nichols said the video would not be shared with anyone. He asked the agent if they should turn off the recording.
“No,” he said, “because I’m open and honest and transparent with what I’m here for.”
While the agent seemed to be reassuring based on his analysis of La Starza’s video—which had briefly been posted on YouTube—the couple wondered if they were now a target.
Michael Nichols and his wife Whitney Nichols walk in the backyard of their home in King Ferry, N.Y., on Oct. 13, 2022. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
Memories of Hardship
The strain of the January FBI visit brought back vivid memories of hardships from across more than 17 years of Nichols’ police work. The kinds of days that burned into his brain are always with him, he said, including one year-long stretch during which he was called to the scene of the deaths of six children.
On July 18, 2008, Nichols responded to the Tioughnioga River near a highway overpass for a possible body in the water. When he reached the river, Nichols saw what appeared to be a young child under the water. He jumped in and quickly realized it was an unconscious teenager in the fetal position.
As a patrolman and later sergeant, Michael Nichols handled traumatic and heartbreaking cases. (Courtesy of Whitney Nichols)
Nichols struggled to get the boy onto shore because the youth’s body was slippery. He started resuscitation efforts and before long was relieved by emergency medical technicians from the Cortland Fire Department.
The boy did not make it.
Nichols had to guard the body and the scene while waiting for the medical examiner. He said he will never forget the boy.
An investigation later found the teen had been “huffing” a can of compressed air, a common way of getting high. The boy went on a rope swing and lost consciousness when he hit the water.
Another call brought Nichols to the home of a friend with two twin boys. One was found unresponsive in his bed. Life-saving efforts by Nichols and EMTs failed. Again, Nichols had to guard the scene and the body for more than an hour while waiting for the medical examiner.
There can be a cumulative effect of trauma in the life of any first responder. From his earliest days in the U.S. Army, Nichols sought to be someone who would lend a hand, save a life, and even save the world if he could.
“I can’t find a way to fix it all,” he wrote in 2002.
The strain caught up with him in 2004. Exacerbated by alcohol, trauma from many things he witnessed, and no clear way to forgive himself for not living up to his own expectations, he hit the wall. He awoke in the hospital, wondering why God had spared him—and where his path would lead next.
During a year-long medical leave, Nichols learned a lot about himself. Through the trials, though, he never lost his core beliefs.
“I am here to help others and to make a difference somewhere,” he later wrote in his journal. “I may not know where it is yet, but I can feel in me that there is more to why I am here than is physically visible.”
A page from one of Michael Nichols’ journals at his home in King Ferry, N.Y., on Oct. 13, 2022. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
More Visits by Federal Agents
The Nichols family received two more visits from federal agents in 2021 regarding their time at the Capitol.
An agent from the Department of Homeland Security who stopped by in March told them they were free to attend a rally and exercise their First Amendment rights. Nichols expressed frustration with the general backlash he and Whitney experienced.
“We all saw what happened that day. I was witness to what happened that day,” he said. “And since that day took place, we’ve been called radicals and racists and all kinds of things, and all we did was the right thing.”
Nichols said the two agents told him they were not given access to the Capitol’s security videos by the Department of Justice, nor were they aware the FBI had visited the home in January 2021.
Retired police sergeant and Oath Keeper Michael Nichols talks to an FBI agent outside his New York home on Sept. 27, 2021. (Whitney Nichols/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
The last visit of the FBI to the Nichols home came in September 2021, with an agent from Syracuse, who said he was trying to fill in some gaps and get some “clarifying details.”
Before the agent even reached the house, Whitney shouted to him. “I had called out to them from the bathroom window that they need to stop investigating people like us and go start looking into Nancy Pelosi,” she said. “And I think that threw them off guard.”
“We’re not here to accuse you of anything,” the agent said from behind his Oakley tactical sunglasses. “Quite the contrary. I watched that video. You look like you helped out those Capitol Police officers who were in a jam that day, right? I’m not here to question anything else other than just try to figure out some additional details about when you guys went down there.”
Nichols was visibly impatient with the repeated visits, breaking into an occasional profanity and criticizing the FBI for some of its tactics investigating Jan. 6.
His demeanor caused a plainclothes New York state trooper along on the visit to do a “splitting” maneuver, casually positioning himself to the right and just behind Nichols, ostensibly in case he had to do a takedown and arrest. After a few minutes, the trooper returned to his spot near the FBI agent.
“I’ll share with you what actually happened at the Capitol from a first-hand account,” Nichols said.
“I provided statements to give to your last partner that he didn’t want. I’m happy to help out. But if you’re here to try to get me jammed up for something, I can’t allow that to happen. Then I need to reach out and like protect myself.”
The agent did not take any of the information Nichols offered. Nichols said he still wonders what the visit was about.
The next day, the same FBI agent was in a neighboring county, arresting a local man on misdemeanor charges for being at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The Epoch Times asked the FBI for comment on its investigation of the Jan. 6 rescue, but had not received a response by press time.
Michael Nichols at his desk where he often writes in his journal at home in King Ferry, N.Y., on Oct. 13, 2022. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
Reasons for Hope
Sitting at an old-fashioned wooden desk in his home office, Nichols often takes pen in hand and shares his thoughts. He has been doing this for more than 35 years, filling untold pages with memories.
One day, he said, it will become a book. The working title is “Remember This Day Forever.”
That is especially fitting for Jan. 6, which he recalls mostly as a good day of patriotism and friendship. Even the chaos on the east steps led to good that he believes speaks to the true heart of the Oath Keepers.
“What it became is now a January day which will never be forgotten and will always be twisted,” he wrote in his journal on Jan. 6, 2022. “I choose to remember the good and wonderful moments of truth. Helping Lt. Johnson and saving countless lives was an honor. Thank you, Lord, for bringing our paths together at the moment the world needed it.”
Whitney Nichols has done plenty of reflecting in the nearly two years since Jan. 6. Despite the deep troubles in the world, she has an optimism that is contagious.
Sitting at her kitchen table in August, she told The Epoch Times she and Mike learned just the day before they are expecting their fourth child. “I have to have hope for my children,” she said.
Oath Keepers member and retired police sergeant Michael Nichols with daughters Meredith and Carter. (Whitney Nichols/Special to The Epoch Times)
She said her love and admiration for her husband of eight years has grown dramatically because of what he did on Jan. 6. They’ve taught their children to love America.
“Our children have flags under their car seats and wave them out the windows as we drive the countryside,” she said. “‘We’re for America. We believe in freedom,’ Meredith says from the back seat on the way to our homeschool co-op.
“Amid the fear and lies being peddled these days, there is still a purity that exists in our world. If you spend even five minutes with our children, you begin to live and breathe that wholesome goodness.
“Just like them, Mike continues to wave the American flag with vigor and pride,” she said.
“This is who he is, at his core, despite what the world has tried to do to so many strong Americans like him. There is a resiliency coursing through the veins of all us who value family, truth, and honor, and our love is what will ultimately conquer all.”
A new study has determined that critical race theory (CRT) concepts are being taught in U.S. schools, despite denials from some individuals or groups.
Zach Goldberg and Eric Kaufmann from the Manhattan Institute commissioned a study on a “nationally representative sample of 1,505 18- to 20-year-old Americans—a demographic that has yet to graduate from, or only recently graduated from, high school,” asking the students whether they were taught in class or heard from an adult at school about four CRT-related concepts.
Of the cohort, 82.4 percent reported having attended public schools.
The four concepts are “America is a systematically racist country,” “in America, white people have white privilege,” “in America, white people have unconscious biases that negatively affect nonwhite people,” and “America is built on stolen land.” Of these, the majority of respondents said they were taught or heard from an adult at school about at least one of the concepts—62 percent, 69 percent, 57 percent, and 67 percent, respectively.
The respondents also were asked whether they were taught or heard from an adult about two gender-related concepts: “America is a patriarchal society” and “gender is an identity choice, regardless of the biological sex you were born into.” Majorities responded affirmatively to both—53 percent and 51 percent, respectively.
The study also asked the students whether they were taught that “discrimination is the main reason for differences in wealth or other outcomes between races or genders” or that “there are many genders, not just male and female.”
“Overall, excluding those who didn’t know, 62 percent were taught that discrimination is the main reason for outcome gaps and a third were taught that there are many genders,” Goldberg and Kaufmann said.
The findings presented have been a preview of the study, and a complete Manhattan Institute report from the study will be published in the upcoming months.
An outgrowth of Marxism, CRT interprets society through a Marxist dichotomy of “oppressor” and “oppressed,” but replaces the class categories with racial groups. Proponents of CRT say that “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” persist in all aspects of American life—despite progress in civil rights throughout U.S. history—and demand the implementation of “anti-racist” policies, such as race-based redistribution of wealth and power along perceived lines of “racial inequity.”
Opponents argue that CRT and its concepts are needlessly divisive and ironically racist.
People hold up signs during a rally against critical race theory (CRT) being taught in schools at the Loudoun County Government Center in Leesburg, Va., on June 12, 2021. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
CRT has become a contentious topic of discussion in American society in recent years, with concerns flagged over CRT-related concepts in U.S. schools starting in about 2021. Parents across the United States have raised concerns and called on their school boards to halt the teaching of CRT-related concepts.
Some schools have denied that they’re teaching CRT-related concepts, and multiple left-leaning individuals, groups, and media outlets have also denied that it’s being taught at schools.
Denials ‘A Semantic Distraction’
Goldberg said the left’s “‘CRT is a legal theory taught only in [university] law programs’ retort” is “essentially a semantic distraction.”
“The question is not whether students are being assigned the ‘scholarship’ of Crenshaw, Delgado, and other CR theorists,” he wrote on Twitter. “Rather it is whether schools are uncritically promoting or passing off the assumptions and narrative of contemporary left-wing racial (and gender) ideology as ‘settled’ truths.”
Data from the study show most of the students—68 percent—weren’t taught opposing arguments or were taught that there are no “respectable” opposing arguments to the CRT-related or gender-related concepts noted in the study.
“Importantly, this rate does not meaningfully vary by race, political orientation, or high school type. … No evidence, then, suggests that this response reflects respondents’ political biases. Instead, the data suggest that large majorities in all groups have been given the impression that the concepts they were taught are beyond reproach,” Goldberg and Kaufmann wrote.
“If this isn’t indoctrination—unwitting or otherwise—then what is?”
The left has also presented the argument that conservatives are using CRT as a catch-all phrase to attack teachers’ efforts to teach about certain periods in U.S. history that involve slavery and segregation, the authors noted.
“But strong connections exist between the cultural radicalism of CRT and the one-sided, decontextualized portrayal of American history and society that Democratic activists endorse,” Goldberg and Kaufmann said.
The study also determined that “being taught a given concept is robustly (i.e., net of a large battery of controls) positively associated with endorsing it” and that “the volume of CRT-related classroom exposure robustly predicts blaming white people for racial inequality, viewing white people as ‘racist and mean,’ and support for ‘equity-oriented’ policies like affirmative action,” Goldberg wrote on Twitter.
He said the findings from the study “are hardly consistent with the ‘CRT is not being taught in schools’ narrative.”
“Even assuming exposure is overestimated in the current data, it’s safe to say that a sizable share of the pre-college student population is being subjected to this stuff,” Goldberg wrote. “We argue that schools and/or educators that want to teach such concepts should be given the choice of either teaching the diversity of thought surrounding them or being barred from teaching them altogether. Full stop.”
Nationwide early voting and vote-by-mail turnout trends for the 2022 midterm election reflect a pattern similar to that of the pandemic-skewered 2020 election.
As a result, it may take several days after polls close on Nov. 8 for results to be confirmed in several key battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
In-person early voting periods and vote-by-mail have grown increasingly popular over the last two decades. They became mainstream during the 2020 election when more than 101 million Americans cast early in-person votes or vote-by-mail ballots.
The 2022 early vote and vote-by-mail turnout is expected to easily eclipse the record for midterm elections set in 2018, when more than 5 million voters cast early in-person ballots and 30.4 million voted by mail. The totals this year may come close to matching the number of ballots cast before Election Day in 2020.
According to the University of Florida’s United States Elections Project, as of Oct. 23, more than 7.46 million Americans have already cast their midterm ballots.
An official VBM ballot packet in Irvine, Calif., on May 16, 2022. All 21.8 million registered voters in California receive ballots in the mail. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
Turnout
Of those 7.46 million ballots, nearly 1.65 million were cast in-person in the 27 states where early voting is under way. Early voting periods range from four to 45 days before Election Day.
By week’s end, another 18 states will open polls for in-person early voting, beginning with seven states on Oct. 24—including Florida, Texas, Colorado—and ending with New York and New Jersey on Oct. 29.
More than 5.8 million mail ballots of 41.52 million requested nationwide have been returned to local election offices as of Oct. 23, according to U.S. Elections Project. All 50 states offer voting by mail, or absentee ballot options. Nine states, including California, Colorado, Nevada, and New Jersey, send mail ballots to all registered voters.
Not all states break down early votes and mailed votes by political affiliation when posting turnout figures. In Kansas, North Carolina, and New Mexico, 138,406 Democrats (40.5 percent) and 112,047 (32.8 percent) Republicans voted early in-person.
Georgia, which opened its early voting period on Oct. 17, reported more than 740,600 early ballots cast as of Oct. 23. Early voting ends Nov. 5 in the state.
The Georgia tally includes a record midterm first-day early voting turnout of 131,000, twice as high as the 71,000 first-day early voters in 2018, and nearly matching the 136,739 who showed up on the first day early-voting polls opened in 2020.
“We’re extremely pleased that so many Georgians are able to cast their votes, in record numbers and without any reports of substantial delays,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement. “This is a testament to the hard work of Georgia’s election workers, the professionals who keep our elections convenient and secure.”
Georgia, which does not provide party affiliations with early voting and vote-by-mail turnout tallies, reported Oct,. 23 that more than 31 percent of requested mail-in ballots had been returned.
Voters line up to cast ballots outside Madison Square Garden, which is used as a polling station, on the first day of early voting in New York City on Oct. 24, 2020. Early voting for the Nov. 8 2022 midterm election in New York begins Oct. 29. (Jeenah Moon/Reuters)
Vote-by-Mail Turnout
Of 17 states that provide party affiliations for more than 3.74 million vote-by-mail tallies to the U.S. Elections Project, 51.3 percent came from registered Democrats, and 30 percent were mailed in by registered Republicans.
Florida, where early in-person voting begins Oct. 24 and ends Nov. 5, has registered the largest vote-by-mail turnout thus far with more than 1.16 million of 4.23 million requested mail ballots already filed with local elections offices as of Oct. 23. Registered Democrats cast 42.2 percent of the mail-ballot votes, and Republicans cast 38.2 percent. Nearly 20 percent of the mail ballots were cast by non-affiliated voters.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, in early October signed an executive order that allows four Southwest Florida counties that remain devastated in Hurricane Ian’s wake more flexibility in expanding in-person voting and voting by mail. Among those emergency measures is allowing three more days of early in-person voting.
During an Oct. 15 press conference, the Republican governor encouraged residents in Southwest Florida to vote by mail.
“What I would say is whatever you like is fine. We’ve got good returns on absentee, and I have confidence in early voting, in person (voting) and, of course, Election Day” voting, DeSantis said.
The only state that comes close to the 1.16 million who’ve returned vote-by-mail ballots in Florida is California, where all 21.87 million registered voters get ballots in the mail. As of Oct. 23, nearly 1.08 million Californians had returned mail ballots, according to the U.S. Elections Project.
Of those returned California VBM ballots, nearly half were mailed in by Democrats while 28 percent came from registered Republican voters.
Mail-in ballot requests and returns have significantly increased over 2018 numbers and are near the numbers recorded in 2020, report elections officials in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which are among the nine states that do not allow mail-in ballots to be counted until Election Day.
Mail ballots take longer to count and process because their envelopes must be opened, inspected, and prepared to be counted in ballot tabulators.
This raises the prospects of a repeat of 2020 in these key states when election results were not available for several days, laying the foundation for election fraud claims by the Trump campaign and other Republican officials.
Both Wisconsin and Michigan have already registered nearly twice as many mail ballots cast compared with the 2018 election.
In Pennsylvania, the project reports, nearly 39 percent of mail ballots had been returned as of Oct., 23. More than 73 percent of those are from registered Democrats, according to the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s office.
“This delay (in reporting mail ballot tallies) does not mean anything nefarious is happening,” Pennsylvania’s acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman said during an Oct. 18 press conference. “It simply means that the process is working as it’s designed to work in Pennsylvania and that election officials are doing their job to count every vote.”
Chapman, however, won’t guarantee results would be available in the hours after polls close Nov. 8, warning it could take several days to tally mailed ballots.
In Wisconsin, 210,753 of 455,828 requested VBM ballots had been returned as of Oct. 23, the U.S. Elections Project reports.
In Michigan, according to the U.S. Elections Project, as of Oct. 23, more than 642,870 mail ballots of over 1.75 million requested had been returned.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has assured voters that after the 2020 experience, elections officials should be able to process mailed ballots more efficiently, but offered no guarantees when results would be available.
Dutch near-death-experience (NDE) researchers have compiled more than 70 cases of people who’ve purportedly left their bodies and observed scenes they could not have perceived with their physical senses.
The details of what they saw—for example, actions performed by people in the hospital—could be verified, providing perhaps some of the strongest evidence for the mind’s ability to exist outside the brain.
Titus Rivas, Anny Dirven, and Rudolf Smit published this compilation in a book titled “Wat een stervend brein niet kan” (“What a Dying Brain Can’t Do”). They are seeking funding to translate the book into English from Dutch. In the meantime, Epoch Times has translated some of the cases for presentation.
In one case, reported by cardiac surgeon Lloyd W. Rudy (1934-2012), a patient declared dead for at least 20 minutes shockingly returned to life. Not only was his revival unusual; what he had to say about the time he was dead defied conventional explanation.
Dr. Rudy graduated from the University of Washington Medical School; he was dean of the Heart Program at the University of Georgia School of Medicine; and a member of the first heart transplant team at Stanford University. One Christmas Day, Rudy and his assistant Roberto Amado-Cattaneo performed surgery to replace an infected heart valve. The patient suffered an aneurism caused by the infection and, when the surgery was complete, would not have survived without life support.
Inset: Dr. Lloyd W. Rudy (Screenshot/DentalMastermindGroup.com/YouTube); Background: A file photo of a patient in a hospital (Edwin Verin/Hemera/Thinkstock).
After the patient’s situation became seemingly hopeless, the surgeons wrote a death certificate, informed the man’s wife of his death, and shut down the machines.
“For one reason or another, they had forgotten to switch off the machine that measures body functions such as blood pressure,” the researchers wrote. “Also, before they had proclaimed the patient to be beyond cure, they had lowered a long tube with a microphone at the end into his body to get a precise impression of certain body functions, such as his heartbeat.
“Rudy and his assistant were already changing. They both took off their jackets, gloves, and masks and stood in the door opening. They talked about what they could have done and which medicines they could have administered to save the patient.
“About 20 to 25 minutes had passed since the patient had been pronounced dead. Suddenly, there seemed to be some sort of electrical activity … Rudy and his assistant thought it to be some kind of heart convulsions, but the activity increased and resulted in a heartbeat, first slow then quicker.”
No one had done anything to revive the patient since he was declared dead; the revival was spontaneous. It took the patient a couple of days to regain consciousness, but he made a full recovery without any sign of brain damage.
Amado-Cattaneo said, “I have experienced a few times that people recovered from a deep and long shock, but these people were still alive, whereas in this case the man had died.”
As with many who have been reported leaving the body during an NDE, the patient described a bright light at the end of a tunnel. It’s the happenings he observed within the hospital, though, that intrigue those looking to scientifically verify NDEs.
He saw Rudy and Amado-Cattaneo talking; he accurately described their position in the room and how they stood with arms folded over their chests; he saw the anesthesiologist enter the room; but most interestingly, he saw a nurse’s computer monitor with a row of post-it notes lined up one over the other. Indeed, the nurse had taken telephone messages for Rudy on post-it notes and stuck them up in this arrangement.
The authors wrote: “Rudy points out that the patient could not have seen the notes before the operation, since there had not been any unanswered calls [at that time]. Obviously, the way the post-it notes were stuck up on top of each other on the monitor was not common, and the patient could not have randomly guessed how [the nurse] had stuck up the notes in this case.
“Rudy concludes that the patient really must have been positioned above his body, because he could not have described the room and such otherwise. He thus conjectures that coincidence or normal foreknowledge could not be realistic explanations.”
Amado-Cattaneo also could not explain the phenomenon. He confirmed that the patient accurately described events he could not have seen, because his eyes were taped shut to protect the cornea during the operation.
The machines monitoring his life signs were not malfunctioning, his heart had stopped, and he showed no signs of respiration for at least 20 minutes. Amado-Cattaneo could not remember the patient’s name, however, and Rudy had already died when Rivas and his fellow researchers looked into the case further.
In a paper published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies, Rivas and Smit wrote of this case: “Of course, this case would be complete if the identity of the patient could be established so that medical records could be examined, but unless Amado-Cattaneo recalls his name, such further investigation is not feasible. However, in our view, this imperfection only slightly reduces, but in no way negates, the case as serious evidence for AVP*.”
Rivas and Smit concluded in the paper: “We believe that the accumulation of such anecdotal evidence is making it increasingly difficult to dismiss this type of case out of hand.”
*AVP stands for apparently non-physical veridical perception, a term given to perceptions that should have been impossible based on the condition and position of the experiencer’s physical body.
A New York state court judge on Friday struck down one controversial sentence in New York’s new election laws.
New York Supreme Court Justice Dianne Freestone said the sentence deprived the rights of courts to rule on disputed ballots.
The last sentence in Article 9-209(8)e of the 2022 Election Law—which has been amended recently by the Democrat-led state legislature—says: “In no event may a court order a ballot that has been counted to be uncounted.”
Freestone said the clause violated the Constitution and abandoned a long-time bipartisan tradition.
“[It] abrogates both the right of an individual to seek judicial intervention of a contested ‘qualified’ ballot before it is opened and counted, and the right of the Court to judicially review same prior to canvassing,” she wrote.
The justice also said that the amendment de facto suspended a long-standing practice: that a questioned ballot should be preserved for three days while awaiting judicial review.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the New York State Board of Elections for comment.
Jennifer Wilson, the spokeswoman of the state election authority, told the State of Politics that their office is still reviewing the ruling to share its view on the impact to the upcoming election.
Nick Langworthy, chairman of the New York Republican Party, applauded the ruling.
“Today is another good day for free and fair elections in New York,” he said in a statement. “The Constitution has been on our side and we will continue to fight to uphold the will of the voters and to ensure honest elections in New York.”
The ruling is likely to be challenged in a higher court.
Timing of Ballot Contesting Changed
In New York election law, preservation and review of ballots are allowed in at least several circumstances, including election result audits and ballot contests.
The law clearly states that disputed ballots should be preserved for judicial review.
“The supreme court, by a justice within the judicial district, or the county court, by a county judge within his county, may direct the examination by any candidate or his agent of any ballot or voting machine upon which his name appeared, and the preservation of any ballots in view of a prospective contest, upon such conditions as may be proper,” reads Article 16-112 of the election law.
However, the disputed clause could, in its current wording, be argued to suggest that ballots can be challenged only before canvassing.
The timing of the ballot contest and accompanying judicial review could be re-extended to beyond ballot tabulation—as has long been standard election procedure until the changes slipped through with the new law—if the state appeal court upholds the ruling.
Extending Absentee Voting Provisions Is ‘Orwellian’
The Republicans who challenged the election law in this case have also asked the court to rule against the state’s new expanded absentee voting provisions.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Democrat-majority state legislature expanded absentee voting access in August 2020 to allow any voter who is afraid of the risk of “contracting or spreading a disease” to use absentee voting.
Before the law was amended, voters could justify the usage of absentee ballots only because of actual illness.
In January this year, the legislature extended the expiration date of the amendment to the end of 2022, which covers the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
Justice Freestone said she couldn’t overturn the rule because the issue had already been ruled on by the state appellate courts and is being appealed in the state’s appellate courts and the highest court.
However, she said the expanded absentee voting was against the will of the New York people and gave rise to opportunities for fraud, coercion, and other types of mischief.
“Despite the express will of the People against universal absentee voting by the defeat of Proposal 4 in 2021, the Legislature appears poised to continue the expanded absentee voting provisions of New York State Election Law forward ab infinito in an Orwellian perpetual state of health emergency and cloaked in the veneer of ‘voter enfranchisement,’” she concluded.
“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
That horribly cliched and overused quote from the seminal 2008 Batman film “The Dark Knight” is incredibly apropos when it comes to one Anthony Fauci and his clique (cabal?) of “experts.”
The once-beloved Fauci has fallen so far now. And things look to be getting even worse for him with a recent ruling from Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt.
Schmitt announced on Friday that the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana would be granting Missouri and Louisiana’s request to depose several top-ranking officials of the Biden Administration.
Those being deposed include Fauci, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Director of White House Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, CISA Director Jen Easterly and FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan. That’s quite a little cabal of “experts,” isn’t it?
“After finding documentation of a collusive relationship between the Biden Administration and social media companies to censor free speech, we immediately filed a motion to get these officials under oath,” said Attorney General Schmitt in a news release. “It is high time we shine a light on this censorship enterprise and force these officials to come clean to the American people, and this ruling will allow us to do just that. We’ll keep pressing for the truth.”
Schmitt’s decision means that Fauci may actually have to answer for his ego-maniacal rise to authority. The deposition ultimately means Fauci has just one real card left to play: testify under oath.
Now, Fauci could certainly refuse the subpoena but that can lead to a whole host of other legal issues for him. Besides, Fauci has never been one to shy away from a camera, even if he’s the one getting dunked on.
Fauci and crew are facing intense scrutiny after leaked emails showed that there appears to have been collusion between the Biden Administration and social media giants like Facebook and Twitter to suppress speech.
It’s a legitimate First Amendment violation, given the government capacity that Fauci is in.
If Fauci did, in fact, actively suppress speech as a government official, he could be facing quite a bit of trouble, as could other Biden admin officials. It would be quite the fall for a man who once actually had a decent approval rating.
As hard as it is to believe, given the more recent sniping at each other, there was a time when even former President Donald Trump and Fauci were positively chummy during the early days of the pandemic.
Trump even went so far as to joke about how much more popular Fauci and his team were than Trump himself. Fauci was genuinely a beloved figure of the Trump administration during the early COVID days, due to his calm exterior and insightful commentary.
Had that been the last time we ever heard from Fauci, he may be remembered vastly different than how he’s currently characterized.
The calm and insightful Fauci appears to have all been a facade, as what he really was was a power-hungry authoritarian whose word had to be taken as commandment, free speech be damned.
Thanks to Eric Schmitt, however, this villain may actually see his comeuppance.
Liz Cheney, the soon-to-be former representative from Wyoming who’s acting as Nancy Pelosi’s puppet on the Jan. 6 committee, told “Meet the Press” on Sunday the committee has no intention of giving former President Donald Trump a platform to address the country.
Responding to a lay-up question by lapdog “journalist” Chuck Todd about the potential for Trump testimony before the committee, which subpoenaed Trump last week, Cheney ruled out any kind of live appearance for the 45th president.
But Cheney being Cheney these days, she couldn’t give an honest answer for why that is.
She told Todd the committee did not want to give Trump the chance to turn the committee proceedings into a “food fight” but there was a much more obvious answer — one a Democrats’ toady Chuck Todd would never explore.
Check it out here:
“The committee treats this matter with great seriousness,” Cheney told Todd. “And we are going to proceed in terms of the questioning the former president under oath.
“It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves. We are not going to allow the former president … He’s not going to turn this into a circus. This isn’t going to be, you know, his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus and the food fight that that became. This is a far too serious set of issues.”
Yeah, well, let’s sum all that up in two words: They’re terrified.
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The members of the committee — very much including Liz Cheney — know damn well that Trump is an enduringly popular figure among conservatives and Republicans — or roughly half the population of the United States. Cheney herself was trounced in the August Republican primary for Wyoming’s congressional seat because of her Ahab-obsession with getting Trump.
They also know just how flimsy the whole case is for their grandiosely named Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. They know that the game has been rigged from the beginning, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s selections for the committee and appointed Cheney and fellow turncoat Adam Kinzinger as “Republican” representatives.
They know that the committee has no substantive cross-examination, no adversarial system aimed at bringing out the truth. They know the whole thing is a sham, a showboat of a process that literally brought on a high-powered producer from the entertainment world of television to make its product more palatable to the American people.
And they know that a scenery-chewing performance by Donald Trump — himself a former reality television star — would not only be meeting them on their own terms, he would be doing it with the arguments at his back.
The committee has been peddling the fiction that what took place on Jan. 6 was an “insurrection” fomented by the then-president that put “American democracy” at risk. It was nothing of the kind. Regrettable as the moment might have been, it was a passing storm, no more capable of destroying the constitutional republic established by the Founders than any Black Lives Matter riot — and a good deal less costly.
So far, the committee has been shielded by the all-too-accommodating mainstream media (see Todd’s performance, for example) and the combination of indifference and contempt its proceedings have been viewed with by the segment of the country that’s not obsessed with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
A Trump appearance — even the word of a Trump appearance — would destroy that. It would also galvanize the large part of the country that supports Trump, what his presidency meant to the American public and what he means to the Washington establishment.
Cheney being Cheney couldn’t admit that. And Chuck Todd being Chuck Todd couldn’t pursue it.
But plenty of social media users saw right through Cheney’s act, particularly the line about not wanting to turn the committee’s proceedings into a “circus.”
“Trump won’t be allowed to turn this into a circus! That’s our job!” ~ Jan 6th committee
That “Jan 6 Commission” has been a circus from the beginning – nothing about it has been correct or legal. Hear-say allowed as testimony — “witnesses” not cross examined. Twisted questions. Fake evidence. False answers. Just propaganda — all of it.
(Whether Trump actually would want to testify before the committee, live TV or no live TV, is another question. Reports that he would be willing to are sketchy at best at this point. Whether he should is a question for the former president and his lawyers.)
The committee’s work is scheduled end at the end of this year. And considering the likelihood that Republicans will control the House of Representatives when the new Congress is sworn in January 2023, it’s a good bet the committee will be consigned to history.
Regardless, Cheney will out of office and her role as an influential figure in the Republican Party is at an end for now, and probably forever.
After leaving Congress and she’ll have a wealth of opportunities to show up and pontificate on the cable news networks — MSNBC and CNN would love to have her, no doubt.
Fox might even want her. Motorists, after all, rubber-neck when they’re driving by a car wreck on the interstate.
But as far as a Republican influence goes, she’s heading right down there with Florida Republican-turn-independent-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist, who is now challenging the Sunshine State’s Gov. Ron DeSantis in an all-but-doomed effort.
No matter where Cheney ends up, like Crist, she’s going to be shilling for the anti-Trumpers on the right while giving aid and comfort to the opposition on the left.
If the past decade of American politics has proven anything, it’s that predicting a future is a job for a fool.
But here’s one bet that’s as rock solid as Mount Sinai: Members of the Jan. 6 committee and Donald Trump will never appear on live television together.
Cheney, Kinzinger and their Democratic allies are simply too terrified.
REVIEW: ‘Worse than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism’
Erwin Chemerinsky, law school dean at the University of California-Berkeley, is an accomplished, extensively published scholar. In 2017 he was named America’s most influential legal educator by National Jurist magazine. Formerly the founding dean of the law school at the university’s Irvine campus, he received awards from both the Anti-Defamation League and the American Association of Law Schools, and has litigated cases before the Supreme Court.
Considering his august academic standing, Chemerinsky is also, as the title of his latest book indicates, remarkably opinionated and sometimes rabidly partisan: I know of no other respected contributor to the debate over whether interpretations of America’s fundamental law should be guided by the intent of its authors or ratifiers who has gone so far as to dismiss his learned opponents’ views as “worse than nothing.”
Before proceeding, a word of explanation is in order. The term “originalism,” reportedly coined by one of its previous academic critics, Paul Brest, in the 1980s, refers to a movement that developed among conservatively inclined legal scholars in the last decades of the 20th century as a reaction against what were perceived as the abuse of the Supreme Court’s power of constitutional interpretation under chief justices Earl Warren and Warren Burger (continuing at a slower pace under chief justices William Rehnquist and John Roberts) so as to read into the Constitution all sorts of rights that had no evident grounding in its text—and which were seen by many Americans as destructive of the moral foundations of our civic life.
Take, for example, Roe v. Wade’s inventing a constitutional right to abortion; the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges establishing a right to same-sex marriage; earlier decisions providing constitutional protection to pornographic materials, treated as forms of “speech”; others transforming the First Amendment’s prohibition on the establishment of religion into a requirement of strict government neutrality between religion and irreligion, such that the reading of a nondenominational blessing at a public middle-school graduation was banned (lest it offend the sensibilities of agnostics or atheists); and the expansion of the rights of accused criminals, including the application of the “exclusionary rule” to state and local proceedings, weakening the ability of courts to convict and punish them.
Rather than a novel theory, originalism reflected what most judges had traditionally thought their duty to be, in accordance with the role assigned them by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 78: to defend the Constitution against depredations by the elected branches of federal and state governments. As Hamilton explained, such an authority presupposed that the Constitution has a fixed, if broad, meaning; without such a meaning, judicial overriding of the policies of elected officials would be incompatible with republican self-government.
The debate over originalism went public in an exchange during the 1980s between Attorney General Edwin Meese, explaining the Reagan administration’s determination to restore Supreme Court jurisprudence to its constitutional role, and Justice William Brennan, who assailed the “presumption” of anyone who thought he could determine a single meaning or intent in the Constitution’s text, and who held that, in any event, it was up to successive generations of judges to reinterpret the Constitution in a way that adapted it to changing mores—for instance, by ruling capital punishment unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments,” despite the fact that its practice is assumed elsewhere in the Bill of Rights.
Chemerinsky’s latest book—following previous tomes adopting a similar orientation—takes up where Brennan left off. Its publication was provoked by Donald Trump’s having named three originalist judges to the Supreme Court, giving it an originalist majority for the first time since before the Warren era. (The most celebrated, or notorious, outcome of that development, anticipated by Chemerinsky, was the Court’s Dobbs ruling, overturning Roe for its lack of textual grounding, and effectively turning the abortion issue back to the elected branches of the state or, possibly, the federal government.)
Chemerinsky devotes five chapters to the “problems” of originalism: the “Epistemological Problem” (the impossibility of determining a fixed meaning or intent to many constitutional provisions); the “Incoherence Problem” (the fact that the constitutional text nowhere explicitly authorizes federal courts to judge the constitutionality of national legislation, even though originalists want courts to retain that power); the “Abhorrence Problem” (the fact that if it weren’t for the Court’s flexible interpretation of the Constitution, all sorts of abhorrent policies ranging from racial segregation to the punishment of “seditious libel” and religious heterodoxy might still be with us); the “Modernity Problem” (the need to go beyond the Constitution’s text in order to adapt it to a changing world, e.g., extending the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures to cover wiretapping); and the “Hypocrisy Problem” (the fact that justices who profess originalism depart from it, in Chemerinsky’s view, when doing so conforms to their ideological beliefs).
The first problem with Chemerinsky’s argument is that he turns originalists into practitioners of a mechanistic jurisprudence that denies any need for the exercise of judgment, or room for debate, in interpreting the Constitution. But this is far from the case. It is true that nowadays, both Republican and Democratic nominees to the Court have to portray their views in that way during Senate hearings, to avoid being labeled “activists.” (Hence, Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s pledge to rule purely on the basis of the text of the laws and Constitution, and Chief Justice Roberts’s representation of a justice’s role as purely that of a neutral “umpire”—to say nothing of liberal justice Elena Kagan’s claim that “we are all originalists now.”)
But informed observers recognize these statements as temporary, rhetorical window-dressing. Throughout our nation’s history, judges (and commentators) have appreciated that the process of constitutional interpretation requires an exercise of deliberation and judgment, about which reasonable persons may disagree. What is in question—and what has provoked the originalist challenge—is whether there are any limits to what judges are entitled to read into the text. Certainly, numerous rulings by the Warren, Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts courts, including those mentioned above, made that question plausible.
Another flawed argument made by Chemerinsky against originalism is the stock observation that it is impossible to discern a single intent underlying many of the Constitution’s provisions, whether one looks to the text itself, to records of the Constitutional Convention or the congressional debates leading to the 14th Amendment, or statements made in the state-ratifying conventions. This, too, is a straw man. No serious originalist ever claimed that there is a single, unequivocal intent behind every clause of the Constitution—especially the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment (which are typically framed in broader language than the document’s unamended text).
Just as in legal interpretation, judges who adhere to originalism (or more precisely, textualism) will often disagree about the text’s meaning in a particular case, especially in the light of changing circumstances. (For instance, to choose one of Chemerinsky’s examples, how does the First Amendment’s free-speech guarantee apply to electronic communications?) Such devoted originalists as justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia—Chemerinsky’s bêtes noires—differed over whether the First Amendment invalidates laws prohibiting flag-burning, treated (by Scalia) as a form of “expressive” speech.
But there is a world of difference between such necessary inquiries into the contemporary meaning of the Bill of Rights, in light of technological changes, or changes in common modes of political protest, and the Burger Court’s outright invention of a (practically unlimited) constitutional “right” to abortion, grounded in a previously asserted “right to privacy” that was said in Griswold v. Connecticut to derive from “penumbras” formed by “emanations” from various amendments. (Such a claim recalls the language of medieval Scholasticism more than that of legal interpretation. If the Constitution guarantees me a right to privacy, how come I have to report my annual income to the government?)
To take another illustration of how even “conservative” justices have bought into the vastly expanded mandate of the courts to limit the legislative authority of the people’s elected representatives: In Dickerson v. United States (2000), Chief Justice Rehnquist, speaking for a Court majority, acknowledged that the exclusionary rule lacked any constitutional foundation, but upheld it on the ground that it had become part of our accepted “culture.”
Rehnquist’s position brings to mind another of Chemerinsky’s complaints about the originalist position: the fact that originalist decisions sometimes entail overturning previous Court precedents, which normally merit respect on the grounds of stare decisis. But here Chemerinsky neglects an important distinction between legal and constitutional interpretation, articulated by University of Chicago legal scholar Edward Levi in An Introduction to Legal Reasoning (1948): Whereas, for the sake of stability in people’s expectations, stare decisis, except in the case of outrageous precedents, must normally be followed, the same rule does not apply in constitutional interpretation, since the Constitution is our supreme law, and judges always have the authority to reconsider settled precedents in light of its text. (Chemerinsky has no objection to overriding previous constitutional readings when they favor his own political position, as in Brown v. Board of Education.)
Only in Chemerinsky’s penultimate chapter, defending “non-originalism,” does his real concern come out. The very term “non-originalism” is a neologism that lacks any clear meaning. But Chemerinsky defends it on three grounds: the desirability of considering “many different sources,” including foreign laws as well as domestic “social traditions,” in interpreting a constitutional provision; the claim that the Constitution should “be a living document that evolves by interpretation” as well as amendment; and the desirability of making constitutional decisions “with candor and transparency.” Under the first heading, he cites, pejoratively, Justice Thomas’s contention that justices “should not invoke stare decisis to uphold precedents that are demonstrably erroneous” interpretations of the Constitution’s text. On the other hand, given Justice Stephen Breyer’s argument “that the United States does not have a monopoly on wisdom about governance,” Chemerinsky would encourage reinterpreting the Constitution on the basis of foreign legal practices. In turn, the notion of a living Constitution enables the Court to take account of changes in “society’s needs.” (Chemerinsky does not explain why it is the function of courts, rather than elected officials, to adapt the laws to such changes.)
But the greatest benefit of non-originalism, in Chemerinsky’s account, is its “candor” about the “value choices” that all judges make in interpreting the Constitution. For instance, when originalists deny that the First Amendment’s religion clauses were intended to prohibit nondenominational support of religion, since “the historical record is unclear,” they are really misrepresenting their “values” as grounded in the text. The real function of judicial opinions, Chemerinsky explains, is to promote “open discussion about values,” since “constitutional law is ultimately a discourse about what values should be protected from majoritarian decision-making, why, and how.” According to him, “the Constitution is where society states its most important values about how governing is to be done and how individuals are to be protected,” a task that should be directly addressed by the courts without encumbrance by judgments that originalists locate in a text composed centuries ago.
“The primary objection to non-originalism,” Chemerinsky observes, is its “indeterminacy.” But he denies that non-originalism grants judges any more freedom of interpretation than originalism does, since it is in either case up to judges to “choose the level of abstraction” at which constitutional provisions like “equal protection” will be understood, and “determinacy is impossible” because almost any decision will require “balancing” competing interests—for instance, regarding the constitutionality of racial quotas in college admissions.
With that last argument, Chemerinsky gives the game away. As political scientist Christopher Wolfe observed in The Rise of Modern Judicial Review (1994), balancing competing interests is properly a task for the elected branches of government—not for judges aiming to impose their particular “value choices” on the rest of us. Indeed, Chemerinsky’s very use of the Nietzschean term “values” signifies the essentially subjective nature of the choices he wants judges to make for us. Why should a self-governing people submit to rules explicitly based on judges’ personal feelings, rather than on the constitutional text?
In his concluding chapter Chemerinsky warns of the “devastating” consequences an originalist majority will inflict on the American people—at least, those who aren’t conservatives. These include the overturning of abortion rights, “the right of parents to control their children’s upbringing” (actually, a right that has been denied by educational officials backed by the Biden administration, determined to impose curricula embodying transgenderism and “white privilege” ideology on the nation’s schools), abolition of the “wall” between church and state (a Jeffersonian metaphor found nowhere in the Constitution), the freedom of bakers to refuse to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples, and a “prohibition on affirmative action.”
Of course, even with the repeal of all such judicially sanctioned rights, Chemerinsky’s parade of horribles will occur only if elected officials representing voters allow it. His real fear is that a majority of voters may not share his views on racial quotas, abortion, same-sex marriage, the exclusionary rule, the latitude currently given to administrative agencies under the Chevron rule, and so on. How can they be allowed to write their opinions, rather than those of enlightened jurists like him, into law?
Complaints like Chemerinsky’s about the consequences of an originalist Court majority have already inspired some academics and politicians to urge President Biden and a Democratic Congress to “pack” the Court with additional justices, so as to restore a non-originalist, liberal majority. In the face of such partisan pressures, anyone who believes in genuine constitutional government can only pray: God save this honorable Court!
Worse than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism by Erwin Chemerinsky Yale University Press, 264 pp., $28
David Lewis Schaefer is a professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross.
There are few things Americans love more than a story that exposes the folly of snobs and experts. It explains the initial appeal of Donald Trump and the enduring appeal of Michael Crichton novels. We need specialists to make our complex economy work, but every now and again the eggheads are blinded by group think and can’t see what’s in front of their nose.
This is a theme of Jason Greenblatt’s memoir of his time as former president Trump’s envoy for the Middle East, In the Path of Abraham. As he writes in the introduction, “Most books like this are written by professional politicians or longtime Washington insiders. I am neither of those.” Greenblatt instead is a real-estate lawyer who worked for years with the Trump administration, an observant Jew, and a strong supporter of Israel. In other words, he is the opposite of the typical American diplomat who has managed a stagnant Arab-Israeli peace process for the last 30 years.
Greenblatt, together with David Friedman, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Israel, and Jared Kushner, the former president’s son-in-law, oversaw the diplomacy that led to the Abraham Accords in 2020. These were bilateral agreements between Israel and four Arab states, establishing unprecedented diplomatic recognition of the Jewish state in the heart of the Arab world. The countries that normalized relations through the Abraham Accords include Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.
To appreciate how groundbreaking these agreements are, consider that it was Israeli foreign policy doctrine for its first 30 years to seek diplomatic ties with states on the periphery of the Arab world—countries like Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia—because the opposition of the Arab monarchies to the very existence of Israel was so implacable. Things began to change in the 1990s after the Oslo Accords, which established the first direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The Oslo process was a double-edged sword. It softened the traditional opposition of states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE to Israel during the negotiations, but it also meant that most Arab states (with the exceptions of Jordan and Egypt) would condition diplomatic recognition of Israel on a deal that created a Palestinian state. In effect, it gave a veto to the diplomatic and economic integration of the Middle East to the Palestinian leadership.
To most professional American diplomats, the Oslo process was the only path to peace. The people who mastered its nuances and codicils were akin to foreign policy priests.
Greenblatt didn’t care much for the priests of Oslo. The 1993 accords created “an industry that no longer had as its goal the solution to a problem, but an altogether separate allegiance to the ‘peace process’ itself,” he writes. And that process was deeply unfair. According to Greenblatt, the obsession with Oslo resulted in a U.S. policy that considered the Israeli and Palestinian narratives about the conflict to be “equally valid, equally compelling, and equally deserving of serious attention.” In short, U.S. policy was “striving for symmetry,” as opposed to fairness. Symmetry is a process that is rigged to produce equal outcomes. Fairness, says Greenblatt, is a process where both parties are treated equally.
In this respect, Greenblatt’s outsider status served him well. He saw no reason why the former president should not have made good, for example, on his campaign promise to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to its capital in Jerusalem, something all prior presidents since Ronald Reagan had promised but never delivered. Greenblatt takes pleasure in quoting back the apocalyptic predictions of Washington insiders like former CIA director John Brennan, who claimed the embassy move “would damage U.S. interests in the Middle East for years to come.”
One reason Trump’s gamble in the Middle East paid off is because by the time he came into office, America’s Arab allies were already frustrated with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Greenblatt writes that in 2017 Arab leaders were still publicly supporting Abbas, “but behind the scenes, a different picture seemed to be emerging. Abbas and the ‘Palestinian cause’ had become a diminished presence in a broader political discussion in the region.” He adds, “More and more, at least in private talks, Arab governments were mulling tentative ties to Israel. At the same time they were beginning to seriously tire of being asked to fund what seemed, increasingly, a chronically corrupt, weak, and incompetent organization in Ramallah.”
The other factor that led to the Abraham Accords was the Iranian nuclear bargain negotiated by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama. That agreement allowed Iran to keep its industrial scale nuclear infrastructure and reap the rewards of sanctions relief and an effort to normalize investment in Iran’s economy. All the while, the Iranians were stepping up its shadow war throughout the Middle East. In this respect, the environment was perfect to unite Iran’s enemies against a common foe.
Greenblatt says the first seeds of the accords were planted in Trump’s overseas visit in May 2017 to Saudi Arabia. That was the visit that featured Trump and other Arab leaders in the famous photo with their hands on the glowing orb. Greenblatt writes that after the visit, Trump phoned Israel’s prime minister at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu, to say, “King Salman feels very strongly, and I can tell you, would love to see peace with the Israelis and the Palestinians.” Greenblatt adds that Trump also told Netanyahu, there’s a growing sense among your neighbors that they have common cause with you against Iran.
It should be said that Israel and Saudi Arabia, along with other Arab states, worked together secretly against Iran throughout the Obama years. And on much lower levels even explored diplomatic normalization. That said, there is a major difference between quiet cooperation and formalizing diplomatic ties. It took the sustained attention of the White House to turn the good vibes of the 2010s into the Abraham Accords, and for that Trump deserves credit. It also took outsiders like Greenblatt who were confident enough to ignore the advice of the Oslo priests and try something new.
It’s not always the case that the smartest guys in the room don’t know what they’re talking about. But every now and again, the experts get it wrong. And when they do, it takes an intelligent outsider to politely decline their counsel and try something else.
In the Path of Abraham: How Donald Trump Made Peace in the Middle East—and How to Stop Joe Biden from Unmaking It by Jason D. Greenblatt Wicked Son, 240 pp., $28
Eli Lake isa contributing editor to Commentary magazine and host of The Re-Education podcast.
Democratic Ohio Senate candidate has a pattern of being agreeable in campaign interviews
During a 2019 appearance on The Breakfast Club, a liberal talk show hosted by rapper Charlamagne tha God, Democrat Tim Ryan (Ohio) was asked whether he believes in a conspiracy theory regarding collusion between large food corporations and the pharmaceutical industry.
“You think the food industry and the health care industry are working hand in hand?” the rapper asked Ryan, explaining his belief that “certain foods are making people sick and then the health care industry is giving the medicine to treat it.” Another host specifically brought up the “Got Milk?” campaign, although it is unclear what exactly she was getting at.
But Ryan entertained the notions. “Yeah, it’s hard to tell what’s going on behind the scenes,” Ryan said. “What I do know is they’re making a lot of money.”
The response is part of a pattern for Ryan, who has a tendency to agree with whatever is presented to him. The Washington Free Beaconreported last week that Ryan during his first run for Congress in 2002 promised an interviewer that he would open an investigation into whether the federal government created HIV to kill black people, a baseless conspiracy theory that has been used to fuel anti-Semitic and anti-American sentiment around the world.
His tendency to say “yes” to whomever he’s speaking with, however, doesn’t only apply to bizarre conspiracy theories. The desire to agree has led Ryan to adopt far-left positions in interviews on issues ranging from criminal justice to immigration. That’s a problem for Ryan, who is now attempting to portray himself as moderate. A Free Beacon review of Ryan’s 20-year career in Congress found a lawmaker on every side of the issues resulting in an ideologically incoherent record.
Ryan was pressed, for example, during a 2019 interview with the far-left talk show hosts at The Young Turks for being to the right of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). He responded that he was as liberal as it gets.
“I’ve been on Medicare for All bill since 2007 … before it was cool,” Ryan said. “People say, ‘He’s a corporate guy.’ I’ve voted against every tax cut. … I’m on the Medicare for All bill, right, I’m on the debt-free and free college bill.”
Ryan this year has abandoned almost all of those positions. On health care, Ryan is vague about what kind of system he supports. Ryan’s Senate campaign website says he backs lowering the age of Medicare eligibility and creating a public option. At a campaign stop in March, Ryan said he’s no longer interested in “taking anybody’s health care away that they have and they like.”
On student debt, Ryan now says President Joe Biden’s executive order to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of student debt “sends the wrong message.” His campaign told the Free Beacon earlier this year that he has remained consistent on the issue of student loan forgiveness.
On crime, Ryan is telling Ohio voters he’s in favor of boosting police department budgets with federal grant money. But in the midst of his failed presidential bid just a few years ago, Ryan called for one million criminals to be released from prison and for eliminating cash bail—two policy proposals absent from his campaign website.
During a 2019 interview with PBS, also while Ryan was running for president, Ryan said he was in “lockstep with all progressives” on immigration. Footage from a candidate town hall in New Hampshire that same year shows Ryan pledging to a self-described “ACLU voter” that as president he would pressure local law enforcement groups to end the practice of detaining illegal immigrants who commit crimes.
Ryan’s shifting positions have become a recurring theme of attacks from his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance, who has portrayed Ryan as an ineffective legislator for Ohio.
“My simple argument is this: that Tim Ryan’s had his chance,” Vance said in a debate earlier this month. “He’s been in office for 20 years. He’s passed five pieces of legislation; three of those pieces of legislation were renaming post offices.”
Recent polling shows Vance expanding his lead over Ryan. A RealClearPolitics average of polls show Ohio voters favoring Vance by 2.3 points. The two will face off in November for the Senate seat held by the retiring Rob Portman.
Columbia Residential ranked in the 98 percentile of corporate evictors in 2021
Few corporate landlords sought to evict more residents in 2021 than the company Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D., Ga.) church partnered with to manage its low-income apartment building.
Columbia Residential manages 49 apartments in the Atlanta area, including Columbia Tower at MLK Village, a low-income apartment building owned by Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Warnock serves as senior pastor. Out of 1,587 corporate landlords across the country, only 30 filed more eviction lawsuits in 2021 than Columbia Residential, records show. The property management company filed 605 eviction actions against its residents in 2021, according to a dataset cited by House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis chairman Rep. James Clyburn (D., Ga.).
As Warnock’s opponent in the upcoming Senate race, Herschel Walker, has seized on the storyline, highlighting the evictions and squalid conditions at the building, Warnock has sought to distance himself from Columbia’s aggressive eviction practices. He told reporters on Tuesday he has no involvement in day-to-day matters and said—despite evidence to the contrary—that no evictions have been carried out at the apartment building. In fact, 15 eviction lawsuits have been filed against residents of the building since the start of the pandemic, one for just $28.55 in past-due rent. Fulton County marshals have carried out two court-ordered writs of possession at the property since 2020, and one resident accused the building in September of changing his locks and temporarily evicting him without notice.
Some dispossessory notices filed against residents of the building during the pandemic were ultimately dropped, but only after residents paid penalties far greater than their monthly rent. Columbia Tower resident Phillip White, for example, told the Free Beacon he had to pay $325 in fees before Columbia Residential dropped its attempt to evict him in September 2021 for $179 in past-due rent.
Columbia Residential has accelerated its rate of filing dispossessory notices in 2022. The company has filed 613 eviction actions in court against residents in 39 of its Atlanta-based properties so far this year, 318 of which remain open as of Sunday. Ebenezer tapped Columbia Residential to manage Columbia Tower “on its behalf,” the property management company told the Washington Free Beacon.
Ebenezer Baptist Church pays Warnock a salary and a $7,417 per-month, tax-free housing allowance. Columbia Residential founder and CEO Noel Khalil, who led the company until his death in October 2021, donated $14,000 to Warnock’s 2020 Senate campaign and runoff, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Warnock’s church owns 99 percent of Columbia Tower through a network of shell companies linked to a charity it controls, which identifies Warnock as its principal officer. The Georgia Secretary of State’s Securities and Charities Division launched an investigation into Ebenezer’s charity on Oct. 12, seeking to discover why it has been operating in the state without registering with state authorities, the Free Beaconreported.
Warnock has rejected Walker’s offer to pay the back rents of residents facing eviction from his church’s apartment building.
“Raphael Warnock continues to dodge important questions Georgia voters need answers to,” said Walker campaign spokesman Will Kiley. “We have copies of the eviction notices. Raphael Warnock claims to be a pastor for the people, the disadvantaged, and the poor. But the actions he and his church have taken say otherwise.”
Warnock, Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Columbia Residential did not return requests for comment.
A Christian baker in California has prevailed in a lawsuit that a lesbian couple filed against her for refusing to bake a wedding cake to celebrate their marriage on religious grounds.
The left has been targeting Christian bakers for years for political purposes, asking religious bakers that are opposed to same-sex marriage to bake wedding cakes for gay marriages knowing that they’ll be met with resistance. When the bakers refuse to make the cakes, these activists sue under anti-discrimination laws, hoping to secure favorable legal precedents.
In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018), the Supreme Court sided with a Christian baker whom a gay couple had asked to create a custom cake to celebrate their union. A state human rights commission violated Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips’s First Amendment right to free exercise of religion by ruling against him, the court found. The high court will hear a similar case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, on Dec. 5.
The new ruling (pdf) by Judge Eric Bradshaw of the Superior Court of California in Kern County came on Oct. 21 in Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) v. Cathy’s Creations Inc.
DFEH claimed that Cathy Miller and Cathy’s Creations, which runs a small bakery called Tastries in Bakersfield, California, violated state civil rights law and discriminated against Eileen Rodriguez-del Rio and Mireya Rodriguez-del Rio because of their sexual orientation. The two were married in California in December 2016. Miller refused to bake a cake honoring their marriage, citing her sincerely held religious belief that marriage is intended to be between a man and a woman, but referred the couple to another bakery.
But DFEH “failed to prove the discriminatory intent required” by state law, Bradshaw determined.
“The evidence also affirmatively showed that defendants offered full and equal service to [the couple] by referring them to a comparable bakery,” he wrote.
Miller’s “pure and expressive speech is entitled to protection under the First Amendment.” The baking of a wedding cake by Tastries is “labor-intensive” and “artistic,” according to Bradshaw.
DFEH is “barred by defendants’ right to Free Speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution from enforcing the [state law] to compel or prohibit defendants’ speech.”
“We applaud the court for this decision,” one of Miller’s lawyers, Charles LiMandri, partner at LiMandri and Jonna, said in a statement.
“The freedom to practice one’s religion is enshrined in the First Amendment, and the United States Supreme Court has long upheld the freedom of artistic expression,” said LiMandri, who’s also special counsel to the Thomas More Society, the public interest law firm that acted for Miller’s.
“There’s a certain irony there that a law intended to protect individuals from religious discrimination was used to discriminate against Cathy for her religious beliefs,” said Paul Jonna, who’s also a partner at LiMandri and Jonna and special counsel to the Thomas More Society.
Jonna said Miller has mainstream Christian beliefs that are entitled to be respected by the courts.
“Cathy believes in the Bible,” he said in a statement. “The state was actually questioning the sincerity of Cathy’s faith.”
Jonna noted that Tastries is adorned with Christian decor and plays Christian music over its sound system.
“The fact that they called Miller’s open and sincerely held beliefs into question is almost as disturbing as quibbling over her status as an artist,” he said.
The Epoch Times reached out to DFEH for comment but didn’t receive a reply as of press time.
The United States is down to 25 days of diesel supply as a top White House official declared the stockpile levels to be “unacceptably low.”
Data provided by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that diesel stockpiles are at their lowest level for October in records that date back to 1993, according to a Bloomberg News analysis. EIA data show that the United States, as of Oct. 14, has 25.4 days of supply—down from 34.2 days of supply four weeks prior.
National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, a top adviser to President Joe Biden, told Bloomberg News last week that current diesel levels are “unacceptably” low and that “all options are on the table” to increase supplies.
The diesel crunch comes just over two weeks before the November 2022 midterm elections and will likely drive up prices even more. Diesel is the fuel used by freight trains and commonly used by long-haul truckers to transport goods and food.
“Most of the products we use are transported by trucks and trains with diesel engines, and most construction, farming, and military vehicles and equipment also have diesel engines,” the EIA’s website states. “As a transportation fuel, diesel fuel offers a wide range of performance, efficiency, and safety features. Diesel fuel also has a greater energy density than other liquid fuels, so it provides more useful energy per unit of volume.”
Prices, meanwhile, remain relatively elevated, according to AAA data. The average price for a gallon of diesel stands at around $5.33 nationwide, or up nearly $2 since the same time in 2021, the data shows.
Wholesale diesel prices at the New York spot market spiked last week to more than $200 per barrel.
It comes as the Biden administration recently announced it would release another 15 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, part of the 180 million Biden authorized in March, that Republicans say is a bid to keep Democrats politically afloat ahead of the midterms. But Biden and his allies say that it’s not a political tactic, and the administration says it will refill the reserve when prices drop to $67–$72 per barrel.
“The United States government is going to purchase oil to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when prices fall to $70 a barrel,” Biden said on Oct. 19. “And that means oil companies can invest to ramp up production now, with confidence they’ll be able to sell their oil to us at that price in the future: $70.”
The move came after the International Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC+) announced that it would cut oil production.
“Now, after draining our emergency reserves to a 40-year low, Democrats want billions more of taxpayer dollars to refill the [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] at more than double the price,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told the New York Post last week. “This is a direct attack on every single American struggling to fill their tanks and heat their homes.”
PUNTA GORDA, Fla.—A Miami judge on Oct. 21 approved a motion to dismiss an elections fraud case brought by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Election Crimes Unit.
The state had charged Robert Wood and 19 other people with election fraud in August after a state roundup by the Election Crimes Unit, a new body that the governor put together in an effort to clean up voter rolls and charge those who have violated election laws.
Wood was convicted of second-degree murder in 1991, making him ineligible to vote under state law.
Larry Davis, who represented Wood, argued that the Office of the Statewide Prosecutor (OSP) did not have jurisdiction over the case and Judge Milton Hirsch agreed.
In his order, Hirsch dismissed the charges against Wood and decided the state’s prosecution of election crimes constituted an “overreach of power.”
However, the governor’s office disagreed with the court’s ruling and said it intended to appeal.
“Given that elections violations of this nature impact all Florida voters, elections officials, state government, and the integrity of our republic, we continue to view the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution as the appropriate agency to prosecute these crimes,” Bryan Griffin, the governor’s press secretary, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
“The state will continue to enforce the law and ensure that murderers and rapists who are not permitted to vote do not unlawfully do so,” he continued. “Florida will not be a state in which elections are left vulnerable or cheaters unaccountable.”
At an April 25, 2022 press conference in Spring Hill, Florida, Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis signs bill into law that establishes the nation’s first Office of Election Crimes and Security at the Department of State specifically to investigate voter fraud. (Patricia Tolson/The Epoch Times)
State Prosecutor Nick Cox said in an Oct. 21 statement that the judge had an “incorrect analysis” and the decision would be appealed.
In his order Hirsch of the 11th Judicial Circuit quoted Shakespeare, “His arms spread wider than a dragon’s wings,” he wrote quoting from King Henry VI, Part I.
“How much wider even than that does OSP seek to extend its reach? In the case at bar, the answer is simple: wider than the enabling statute contemplates, and therefore too wide.”
According to Florida law, in order for the statewide prosecutor’s office to have jurisdiction, the crime must either have occurred in two or more judicial circuits, or must be connected with an organized criminal conspiracy affecting two or more judicial circuits.
In their motion, the prosecutor’s office charged Wood with giving false information on his voter application form and, knowing he was not qualified, voting in the general election.
However, the OSP said that both of these crimes did involve multiple judicial circuits because Wood’s vote invoked the “participation of a government entity” in Tallahassee, Florida’s state capital, and “was tallied with other legal votes” and then sent to another circuit by virtue of going to Tallahassee.
The judge did not agree.
“On OSP’s version of affairs, it is unnecessary for Mr. Wood to commit a crime in any but his home jurisdiction in order for him to be subject to prosecution by an entity intended to prosecute only multi-jurisdictional crimes,” Hirsch wrote in his order.
“It follows, on OSP’s version of affairs, that OSP has a general power to prosecute voter crimes in Florida. And OSP does not blink in asserting that power.”
The prosecution argued that Wood’s case mirrored a previous case State v. Tacher, where four people “conspired to transport illicit drugs from New Jersey to Miami.”
In that case, a judge had determined that the possession of the drugs in multiple judicial circuits, “as part of a criminal enterprise,” gave the state authority to prosecute the case.
Hirsch ruled that Wood’s case was not the same because the alleged crime occurred in Miami and the “act of transporting Wood’s vote was not itself a crime.”
“Here, all criminal misconduct, if there was any, was performed by one man in one county,” the judge’s order read. “It is an old truth that all politics is local. OSP seeks to stand that old truth on its head.”
The prosecutors will likely go to the Third District Court of Appeal. There are 19 other cases pending, many of which are in Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties, and could eventually be brought before the Florida Supreme Court.
Davis said he hoped that the judge’s ruling might set a precedent for the other pending cases that involve similar arguments.
“Judge Hirsch is known as a very thoughtful judge,” Davis said in a statement. “So I think his ruling will carry a lot of weight.”
The spike proteins cause inflammation, turn of type 1 interferon response, and reduce autophagy among other things, all of which adds up to a dysregulated immune system
Multiple studies have shown that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is a highly toxic and inflammatory protein, capable of causing pathologies in its hosts.
The presence of spike protein has been strongly linked with long COVID and post-vaccine symptoms. Studies have shown that spike proteins are often present in symptomatic patients, sometimes even months after infectionsor vaccinations.
The numbers of long COVID and post-vaccine cases have been climbing in the United States, increasingly posing as a healthcare problem.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that around 7 percent of Americans are currently experiencing long COVID symptoms, which would be over 15 million people. Some people with long COVID have been so debilitated that they cannot go to work, the same has been reported in people experiencing post-vaccine symptoms.
Over 880,000 adverse events have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database for possible post-COVID vaccine symptoms.
However, statisticians argue that the number of people suffering from post-vaccine syndromes is much higher.
Canadian molecular biologist Jessica Rose estimated an underreporting factor of 31, adding up to an estimation that more than 27 million Americans may have suffered from adverse events following vaccination.
“The vaccine-injured are vast,” said Dr. Pierre Kory on Oct. 15 at a Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) conference.
“The numbers are massive … they are underserved and their needs are not being met.”
However, many doctors are looking to change this situation. The FLCCC has been at the forefront in treating COVID-19, long COVID, and post-vaccine symptoms.
No large-scale studies have been done on treatment for post-vaccine symptoms. Based on clinical observations, patient feedback, and extensive research, the FLCCC has released its updated treatment recommendations.
The FLCCC co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Paul Marik told The Epoch Times that recommendations are always subject to change based on patient feedback, as well as research on a new treatment option.
However, to understand the treatment options, one first needs to understand how the spike protein is causing damage.
Pathology of Spike Proteins
Long COVID and post-vaccine syndrome share a high degree of overlap as the two conditions have both been linked to long-term spike protein presence, and the symptoms are often similar too.
“The core problem in post-vaccine syndrome is chronic ‘immune dysregulation,’” Marik shared at the FLCCC conference.
Spike proteins can cause chronic inflammation. Studies have shown that inflammation can lead to cell stress, damage, and even death. Cells make up tissues, different tissues form organs, and organs are part of our own physiological systems. Therefore spike protein injuries are a systemic syndrome.
Spike proteins trigger chronic inflammation by causing immune dysregulation. Spike proteins enter immune cells, switch off normal immune responses, and trigger pro-inflammatory pathways instead.
The normal immune response for infected immune cells is to release type 1 interferons, this gives signals to other immune cells to enhance defense against viral particles. But spike protein reduces this signaling in infected cells, and uninfected cells will also take in and become damaged by the spike protein as the infection goes out of control.
Marik said that a critical aspect of long-term spike protein damage is that it inhibits autophagy, your body’s way of recycling damaged cells. Usually, when cells have been infected with viral particles, the cells will try to break these particles down and remove them as waste.
However, studies on SARS-CoV-2 viruses have shown that autophagy processes are reduced in infected patients, with spike proteins present many months after the initial exposure.
“The spike protein is a really wicked protein,” said Marik. “It switches off autophagy, that’s why the spike can stay in the cells for such a long time.”
Dr. Paul Marik, co-founder of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) and former Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, at the FLCCC conference “Understanding & Treating Spike Protein-Induced Diseases” in Kissimmee, Fla. on Oct. 14, 2022. (The Epoch Times)
Immune Cell Dysfunction
The immune dysfunction caused by spike protein not only causes inflammation, but also may also contribute to cancer proliferation, and autoimmunity.
Studies have shown that spike proteins can reduce and exhaust the action of T and natural killer cells. These two cell types are responsible for killing infected cells and cancerous cells. Therefore a reduced cellular immunity from T and natural killer cells can contribute to an untimely clearance of spike-infected cells.
Damage from spike proteins can lead to damaged DNA, and studies have shown that spike proteins can also reduce DNA repair. Psychological and environmental stress such as ultraviolet light, pollutants, oxidants, and many other factors, can routinely damage DNA, requiring constant repair.
Damaged DNA puts cells at risk of becoming cancerous, and these cells should be killed to prevent cancer formations. However, with reduced T and natural killer cell activity, this may lead to unchecked proliferation of potentially cancerous cells.
Other dysfunctions that have been reported following vaccinations include autoimmune diseases.
These diseases may be linked to the spike proteins having a high level of molecular mimicry, meaning spike proteins have many regions similar to other proteins in the human body.
So when the immune system attacks the spike protein, due to structural similarities, the antibodies produced against spike protein regions may also react against the body’s own proteins and tissues. Studies have shown that antibodies made against the spike protein can also bind to and attack self tissues.
Spike Protein Causes Fatigue
The spike protein is also linked with dysfunction in the mitochondria. Colloquially known as the powerhouse of the cell, mitochondria are responsible for harnessing energy from the sugar we ingest.
Human neural cells treated with spike protein have been shown to produce more reactive oxygen species, and this is an indication of mitochondrial dysfunction, suggesting possible reduction in energy production.
People with long COVID and post-vaccine syndromes often experience chronic fatigue, brain fog, exercise intolerance, and muscle weakness. These symptoms are also often seen in people with mitochondrial dysfunction, indicating a possible link.
Dr. Paul Marik’s slides presented at the FLCCC Conference in Orlando Florida (Courtesy of the FLCCC)
Spike Protein Damage to Blood Vessels and Organs
Spike proteins have shown to be particularly damaging to cells that line blood vessels. Spike proteins can bind to ACE2 and CD147 receptors and trigger inflammatory pathways.
These receptors are particularly abundant in cells of the blood vessels, heart, immune system, ovaries, and many other areas. Spike protein can therefore trigger inflammation and damage in blood vessels and its related organs, leading to systemic injury.
Marik said that spike protein injury is closer to a systemic syndrome rather than a disease.
“It’s not a disease. It doesn’t fit the traditional model of a disease. This is a syndrome which affects every single organ … the spike goes everywhere … so this is a multi-systems disease and it doesn’t follow the traditional paradigm of a disease which is one symptom, one diagnosis.”
Dr. Pierre Kory’s slides presented at the FLCCC conference in Kissimmee, Fla. (Courtesy of the FLCCC)
FLCCC’s First Line Treatments
Since long COVID and post-vaccine symptoms are both associated with spike protein presence, the first line treatments recommended by the FLCCC therefore focus on two main steps.
The first step is to remove spike protein, the second step is to reduce its toxicity.
The body will then heal itself, and this is “the primary treatment goal,” said Marik.
Most of the first line treatments have focused on clearing out the spike protein by reactivating autophagy—a process that is downregulated by spike protein.
Lifestyle implementations can boost autophagy through intermittent fasting, and photobiomodulation. Photobiomodulation can be done by exposing oneself to the sun, since sunlight contains infrared rays that boost autophagy in cells.
Intermittent fasting can result in multiple health benefits including improved insulin sensitivity, weight loss, reduced inflammation and autoimmunity, and many more.
However it should be noted that intermittent fasting is not recommended for people younger than the age of 18, as it can prevent growth. Pregnant and breastfeeding women are also not recommended to fast intermittently. People with diabetes and kidney disease are also recommended to check with their primary care physicians before considering intermittent fasting.
While intermittent fasting may not be suitable for everyone, there are other treatment options that can boost autophagy and reduce spike protein toxicity.
(Sonis Photography/Shutterstock)
Ivermectin
Ivermectin has been highly recommended by the FLCCC and many doctors treating COVID, long COVID, and post-vaccine syndrome, on the basis that it is inexpensive, highly accessible, has a high safety profile, and a high response rate.
The drug is highly dynamic and has also been documented with a variety of functions: antiviral, anti-parasitic, anti-inflammatory, and also boosts autophagy.
Ivermectin can help with the removal of spike protein. Studies have shown that ivermectin has a higher affinity for the spike protein and will bind to its regions, effectively neutralizing and immobilizing it for destruction.
Ivermectin also directly opposes the pro-inflammatory pathways that are triggered by the spike protein including NF-KB pathway that activates inflammatory cytokines and toll-like receptor 4.
FLCCC doctors reason that ivermectin and intermittent fasting can act “synergistically” to remove the body spike protein, and recommends taking ivermectin with or just after a meal.
Ivermectin is also able to bind to ACE2 and CD147, and therefore blocks spike protein from entering and triggering inflammation in cells that display these receptors. Studies have also shown that ivermectin can maintain the energy produced by mitochondria even under conditions of low oxygen.
Kory said that around 70 to 90 percent of his post-vaccine syndrome patients respond to the drug, generally within 10 days.
“Patients can be classified as ivermectin responders or non-responders … the non-responders—[are] actually a group of patients that are more difficult to treat,” said Marik.
Patients that are non-responsive—typically after four to six weeks of treatment—are recommended to go on a more aggressive treatment.
When overdosed, ivermectin can cause confusion, disorientation, and possibly even death. However, the drug has a high safety profile when used in reasonable doses. There is little literature on its use in pregnant women so the FLCCC cautions against the use of it during pregnancy.
“Ivermectin has continually proved to be astonishingly safe for human use,” wrote Dr. Satoshi Ohmura, the discoverer of ivermectin in his co-authored study.
“Indeed, it is such a safe drug, with minimal side effects, that it can be administered by non-medical staff and even illiterate individuals in remote rural communities, provided that they have had some very basic, appropriate training.”
Screenshot of a photo of naltrexone, a medication approved for opioid and alcohol addiction that is used in low dose to treat long COVID. (innovationcompounding.com/screenshot by The Epoch Times)
Low Dose Naltrexone
Low dose naltrexone (LDN) has recently made the news as an option for long COVID treatment.
“We’ve been using it for many, many months,” said Marik. “Low dose naltrexone is a very potent anti-inflammatory drug. It’s been used in many chronic inflammatory diseases.”
Clinically, FLCCC doctors have seen many of their patients’ symptoms improve following treatment with LDN, though it may take months for the benefits to be clearly visible.
Normal naltrexone is commonly used to prevent overdose in narcotic users. However, when reduced to around a 10th of its normal concentration, to 1 mg to 4.5 mg in LDN, the drug’s mechanism changes dramatically.
LDN has an anti-inflammatory effect; studies show that it is able to block inflammatory toll-like receptors, reduce the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and block inflammatory cascades.
Th1 type cytokines tend to produce pro-inflammatory response to kill intracellular parasites and propel autoimmune activities. Th2 type cytokines typically have more of an anti-inflammatory activity and can counteract the activity of Th1 cytokines.
LDN selectively modulates this balance by reducing Th1 activity and increasing Th2 cytokine activities.
Clinically, LDN has been shown to be effective against post-COVID and post-vaccine neurological symptoms. It has been listed by the FLCCC to be effective against neuropathic pain, brain fog, fatigue, bell’s palsy, and facial paresthesia.
This is because LDN also reduces neuroinflammation. It is neuroprotective and is able to cross the blood-brain barrier and reduce inflammatory actions of the microglia, which function as immune cells in the brain.
Blueberries on a wooden table; focus on single blueberry (Shallow DOF)
Resveratrol
Resveratrol is a nutraceutical commonly found in fruits. It can be found in peanuts, pistachios, grapes, red and white wine, blueberries, cranberries, and even cocoa and dark chocolate.
It can also be obtained through vitamins, though there is generally a low bioavailability of resveratrol, and therefore the FLCCC recommends it to be taken with quercetin.
Resveratrol is anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidizing. Studies have shown it to be selective in killing cancer cells. It activates DNA repair pathways and therefore can reduce cellular stress and prevent the formation of cancerous cells.
In stressed cells, resveratrol can reduce reactive oxygen species produced by the mitochondria and promote autophagy. In animal studies on fruit flies and nematodes, the use of resveratrol increased their lifespan, indicating the molecule’s anti-aging and life-extending properties.
An arrangement of aspirin pills in New York. (Patrick Sison/File Photo via AP)
Low Dose Aspirin
Similar to ivermectin, aspirin is another drug that has been found to be multifaceted in its effects on health.
Aspirin is anti-inflammatory and an anticoagulant. The drug therefore reduces the chance of micro-clot formation in the blood vessels. Studies have shown that it can also reduce pro-inflammatory pathways, oxidative stress, and is also neuroprotective.
Neurocognitive impairment has been a major complaint of many people suffering from post-COVID vaccine syndromes. This includes brain fog and peripheral neuropathic pain.
Studies on Alzheimer’s disease patients have shown that taking aspirin was associated with slower cognitive decline, though results have been conflicting across different studies.
Animal studies showed that rats that were given aspirin had lower cognitive decline. Studies in rats with damaged nerves suggested that aspirin may also be neuroprotective due to its anti-inflammatory nature.
The use of aspirin may cause side effects in pregnancy and such as bleeding.
Molecule Of Melatonin. By Sergey Tarasov/Shutterstock
Melatonin
Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland to promote a restful sleep. It has both anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidizing properties.
In cells, melatonin promotes mitochondrial health by reducing active oxygen species. Because the mitochondria uses a lot of oxygen, when it is stressed through environmental toxins such as radiation or spike protein exposure, it may produce reactive oxygen species.
Melatonin, an antioxidant, can therefore prevent oxidative damage. Studies show that it also prevents leakage of electrons from mitochondria and therefore maximizes energy production.
It also promotes autophagy by unblocking the autophagy pathway, helping the cell to break down spike proteins and boost the removal of these toxic proteins.
Due to its anti-oxidizing property, melatonin repairs DNA damaged by free radicals. Melatonin and its metabolites also activate genes that promote DNA repair, and suppress gene activity that may lead to damaged DNA.
Melatonin also has anti-cancerous properties. Animal studies on melatonin have shown that animals that were administered melatonin had a lower rate of tumor generation.
Melatonin has also been recommended by the FLCCC in treating tinnitus, a symptom of post-vaccine and long COVID. The symptom is a ringing in the ears, and can disturb sleep if severe. Melatonin can help reduce the ringing and help people to get a good night’s sleep.
A bottle is shown reading “Vaccine COVID-19” and a syringe next to the Pfizer and Biontech logo on Nov. 23, 2020. (Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images)
Differences Between Long COVID and Post-Vaccine Syndrome
Both long COVID and post-vaccine syndrome are driven by spike protein load and damage from spike exposure, and therefore share a high degree of overlap in treatment.
However, doctors notice slight differences in certain clinical presentations between the two conditions, and therefore the FLCCC have prioritized different treatments.
“It seems that with the vaccine injured, the predominant symptom and the predominant organ is neurological,” said Marik. In his observation, roughly “more than 80 percent of patients with vaccine injury have some degree of neurological impairment.”
Marik said post-vaccine symptoms can also be harder to treat than long COVID, and are more persistent, with some patients presenting with debilitating symptoms for almost two years.
Therefore treatment for people with post-vaccine symptoms are “more aggressive and more brain targeted,” said Marik.
“It seems like long COVID gets better with time. While some patients persist, it seems to be somewhat self resolving to a degree,” said Marik. “The problem with the vaccine-injured is that it can persist. We have patients who were vaccinated in December of 2020 … [who] are still severely, severely injured.”
“The two are similar, but we’ve put much more emphasis on the vaccine-injury because it’s a much more difficult disease to treat.”
As polls continue to tighten and the Nov. 8 midterm elections draw ever closer, Democrats are upping their campaign to disparage GOP candidates and sound the alarm on the potential consequences of a GOP takeover of Congress, but political analysts say this strategy is unlikely to work.
The extraordinary steps that some Democrats have taken in recent days, namely President Joe Biden’s Oct. 20 visit to Pennsylvania, during which Biden made a number of pointed remarks about GOP Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, who has the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, are a sign of how narrow the margins have gotten and how concerned Democrats are about the races, one strategist told The Epoch Times.
During his Pennsylvania visit, Biden made an impassioned case for Democrat Senate candidate John Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor, whose continuing health and cognitive problems since a stroke in the spring, along with his stated support for more lenient criminal justice policies and an end to fracking, have prompted many to question his viability.
Biden made the unusual claim that the outcome of the race is of concern not just to Pennsylvania voters or even to Americans in general, but to the world.
“The rest of the world is looking at this election as well. Both the good guys and the bad guys out there—to see what’s going to happen. We’ve got to win. John’s got to win,” Biden said.
Biden characterized Oz as one of the “MAGA Republicans” who, as the president previously stated allegedly pose a threat to the stability of the country and the world, and whose extremism undermines America’s standing in the eyes of geopolitical friends and foes alike.
The president further claimed that “these guys,” meaning Oz and the other MAGA Republicans, “they want to get rid of or fundamentally change social security and Medicare” and further charged, with respect to the Ukraine crisis, that “They have no sense of American foreign policy” and are uncommitted to the defense of Ukraine.
“This is not your father’s Republican Party, as I said. This is a different group of people,” Biden said.
President Joe Biden speaks at Irvine Valley College in Irvine, Calif., on Oct. 14, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
Races Tighten
Democrats’ concerns have risen in tandem with polls that show increasingly competitive races in states deemed critical for continued Democrat control of the House and Senate, including a number of contests where their preferred candidates enjoyed cozy leads as recently as the summer.
FiveThirtyEight’s most recent polling has Fetterman commanding the support of 47.2 percent of voters, compared to 43.6 percent for Oz, with the difference well within the margin of error. The gap has shrunk markedly since the beginning of August, when Fetterman led Oz 47.6 percent to 39.4 percent.
In another intensely followed race, the Georgia Senate contest between incumbent Raphael Warnock and challenger Hershel Walker, the gap has also narrowed considerably, and Warnock now enjoys only a 3.7 point lead with 47.8 percent to Walker’s 44.1 percent.
And in yet another closely watched contest, Trump-endorsed Blake Masters, who trailed his Democrat rival Mark Kelly by more than ten points in the summer, has narrowed the gap to a somewhat lesser but still considerable extent, with current polling giving Kelly 48.9 percent to 42.3 percent for Masters.
The Economic Albatross
The dismal economic performance of the Biden administration, and the inflation afflicting millions of voters, are fueling many of the attacks on candidates challenging Democrat incumbents, observers believe. This phenomenon is partly a reflection of the historical reality that a party presiding over a downturn will pay a steep price at the midpoint of a president’s term.
“It is unusual for adverse economic circumstances not to result in changes in midterms, and two adverse circumstances have materialized this year, inflation and a bear market,” Brian Domitrovic, a professor of history at Sam Houston State University, told The Epoch Times.
This pattern has held up regardless of whether the leaders deemed responsible for the downturn are Democrat or Republican, Domitrovic said, pointing to the midterm elections of 1974, in which voters unhappy with a bear market and double-digit inflation under Republican President Gerald Ford handed Democrats a massive victory, giving them four new Senate seats and 49 seats in the House. The pattern was also observable in November 1982, when Republicans suffered heavy losses, he noted.
“I expect this year to follow the normal pattern: inflation and a bear market mean good returns for the party out of power,” Domitrovic said.
People shop at a supermarket in Montebello, Calif., on Aug. 23, 2022. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
Nowhere Left to Turn
The dialed-up attacks on GOP challengers have largely to do with their lack of substantive answers to the problems facing voters, which happen to be the issues on which those challengers have campaigned, suggested Keith Naughton, head of the Maryland-based consultancy Silent Majority Strategies.
“I think the Democrats are struggling because they have no answers for the two big issues Republicans are running on: inflation and crime. Taming inflation is a long-term project, and they cannot withdraw the stimulus they passed or admit it was too much. The Democrats cannot get tough on crime as it would infuriate the progressive activists in the party. They are stuck with running on abortion, the alleged ‘threat to democracy,’ and Trump,” Naughton told The Epoch Times.
Politically speaking, this is not a position of strength, given that abortion is an issue of concern to some voters while inflation has an impact on virtually everyone, Naughton said. Moreover, the other social issues on which Democrats often try to build appeal—voting requirements and immigration—can be a double-edged sword, he noted.
“Plenty of voters think Democrats’ inaction on immigration and unwillingness to enhance vote security is as much of a threat to democracy as Trump. Trump is unpopular, but he is not president and his legal problems make him less of a threat” in the eyes of some voters, Naughton continued.
Even the much tighter polling results of the last few days may not capture just how much the dynamic has shifted, or how much of a shock Democrats may be in for on Nov. 8, he suggested.
“I don’t think the major polling organizations have fixed their sampling problems, and are likely underestimating Republican strength. The momentum toward GOP candidates should be very troubling for Democrats, and I think it is likely they will lose the Senate and suffer a bigger defeat in the House than expected,” Naughton added.
Inevitable Shift
David Carlucci, a former member of the New York State Senate who now works as a political consultant, said that shifts in strategy are to be expected because relatively few voters are undecided at this point in the game, and the question is more one of turnout than of which candidates can frame issues in a way that will woo the highest number of voters. Carlucci sees attempts underway by both sides to mobilize people with longstanding party affiliations and convey to them that nothing is assured if voters stay home.
“I think the Democrats knew this was going to be a tough midterm election. Historically, the president’s party does poorly in the midterms. A year ago, everyone was talking about the red tsunami, and I think what we’re seeing now is what the politicos expected, that this was going to be a good year for Republicans,” Carlucci told The Epoch Times.
The negative comments, and ads, targeting candidates come from both sides, and are only likely to increase as leaders of either party try to mobilize their base.
“I think we’ll see an increase in political advertising, but I think it will be overly negative because at this point, people are trying to suppress or demotivate their opposition’s support, because that is the best way to move the needle, if you will,” Carlucci said.
In the gubernatorial race in New York, where GOP challenger Lee Zeldin seeks to unseat incumbent Kathy Hochul amid widespread concern over crime, Carlucci believes it is important to keep recent Quinnipiac polling, showing Hochul leading Zeldin by only four points, in perspective. Hochul still commands far more support than Zeldin in New York City, the Quinnipiac poll shows, and Carlucci believes the real question is whether voters will be motivated to come to the polls in a state where many elections are a shoo-in for the Democrat candidate. If they do turn out in numbers reflective of their share of the electorate, then Hochul is likely to win, he said. The question of turnout is also paramount in other races, he said.
“If you look at Fetterman versus Oz, or Hochul versus Zeldin, people know the candidates by now, there have been tens of millions of dollars spent to identify the politicians, and now it’s about who comes out to vote. So now it might be time to come into a district and rally the base,” Carlucci added.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the DNC for comment.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky tested positive on Oct. 21, according to the CDC. She was said to be experiencing “mild symptoms.” She is isolating at her home and will work remotely, the CDC said.
Walensky didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Senior staffers and close contacts have been informed of the positive test and “are taking appropriate action to monitor their health,” the agency added.
Walensky, 53, is described as “up to date” on her vaccines, which refers to the agency’s recommendation that Americans get one or more boosters after a primary series, depending on when a person receives their initial shots.
Walensky received the new bivalent booster from Moderna in Massachusetts in September, telling ABC News at the time, “I think it’s critically important to do.”
“All the data from this new bivalent vaccine have demonstrated that it will protect you against—more likely protect you—against the strains that we have circulating right now, those Omicron BA.5 strains, as well as keep you well protected, because we’ve seen that some of that protection can wane over time. So we are really encouraging everybody to roll up their sleeves and get this updated bivalent vaccine,” she said.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization to the bivalent booster from Moderna and another like it from Pfizer, despite no human clinical data available for either shot.
The only evidence of the bivalent booster efficacy is from the testing of mice, which indicated that neutralizing antibody levels were higher after vaccination.
Experts believe, but don’t know for sure, that antibodies help protect against COVID-19.
The CDC recommended the updated boosters for Americans aged 12 and older in September, and expanded the availability to children as young as 5 years old in October.
While some experts agree with the push for the new shots, others note the uncertainty surrounding a benefit and the growing awareness of side effects, including heart inflammation.
“If there’s not clear evidence of benefit, then it’s not fair to ask people to take a risk, no matter how small,” Dr. Paul Offit, an adviser to the FDA, said in September.
Dr. Vinay Prasad, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California–San Francisco, and a critic of the vaccination push, said that Walensky’s positive test supports his position.
“She received the bivalent booster exactly one month ago at a CVS pharmacy. Right now, she’s probably in the window where the booster exerts the greatest protective effect it could possibly exert, yet still: look what happened,” Prasad wrote in an Oct. 22 blog post.
“Before we launch massive vaccination campaigns, we need good evidence that they actually benefit the people we are tasked with protecting and caring for.
“Rochelle Walensky’s infection is just a reminder to the American people she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, because she has not asked for good evidence.”
A Democratic myth has arisen that former President Donald Trump’s denial of the accuracy of the 2020 vote was “unprecedented.”
Unfortunately, the history of U.S. elections is often a story of both legitimate and illegitimate election denialism.
The 1800, 1824, 1876, and 1960 elections were all understandably questioned. In some of these cases, a partisan House of Representatives decided the winner.
Presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000 did not accept the popular vote results in Florida. He spent five weeks futilely contesting the state’s tally—until recounts and the Supreme Court certified it.
The ensuing charge that former President George W. Bush was “selected not elected” was the Democrats’ denialist mantra for years.
In 2004, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and 31 Democratic House members voted not to certify the Ohio election results in their unhinged efforts to overturn the election. Those denialists included the current sanctimonious chairman of the January 6 select committee, U.S. Representative Benny Thompson (D-Miss.).
After 2016, crackpot Democratic orthodoxy for years insisted that Trump had “colluded” with Russia to “steal” certain victory from Hillary Clinton.
Clinton herself claimed that Trump was not a “legitimate” president. No wonder she loudly joined #TheResistance to obstruct his presidency.
The serial denialist Clinton later urged Joe Biden not to concede the 2020 election if he lost.
Also after 2016, left-wing third-party candidate and denialist Jill Stein vainly sued in courts to disqualify voting machine results in preselected states.
A denialist host of Hollywood C-list actors in 2016 cut television commercials begging members of the Electoral College to violate their oaths and instead flip the election to Hillary Clinton.
Clinton herself had hired foreign national Christopher Steele to concoct a dossier of untruths to smear her 2016 campaign opponent, Trump.
The FBI took up Clinton’s failed efforts. It likewise paid in vain her ancillaries like Christopher Steele to “verify” the dossier’s lies.
The bureau further misled a FISA court about the dossier’s authenticity. An FBI lawyer even altered a document, as part of a government effort to disrupt a presidential transition and presidency.
The Clinton-FBI Russian-collusion hoax was a small part of the progressive effort to warp the 2016 election result.
The Washington Post giddily bragged about various groups formed to impeach Trump in his first days in office, on the pretext he was illegitimately elected.
Rosa Brooks, an Obama administration Pentagon lawyer, less than two weeks after Trump’s inauguration wrote a long denialist essay in Foreign Policy outlining a strategy to remove the supposedly illegitimate president. She discussed the options of impeachment, the 25th Amendment—and even a military coup.
When rioting exploded in the streets of Washington, D.C. after the election results became clear, Madonna infamously shouted to a mass crowd that she dreamed of blowing up the White House, presumably with the Trump family in it.
Was that not the most violent form of election denialism?
The election denialist Stacey Abrams became a media heartthrob and left-wing cult hero. Abrams monetized her ridiculous denialism (“voter suppression”) by stumping the country from 2018 to 2021 claiming, without evidence, that the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election was rigged. In truth, she lost by over 50,000 votes.
Time magazine’s Molly Ball in a triumphalist essay bragged that in 2020 a combination of Big Tech money from Silicon Valley—fueled by Mark Zuckerberg’s $419 million infusion—absorbed the balloting collection and counting of several key voting precincts weighed to help Biden.
Ball bragged of careful pre-election censoring of the contemporary news by Big Tech. Most notably, that effort spread the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop scandal was “Russian disinformation.”
Left-wing interest groups modulated the often-violent Black Lives Matter and Antifa street protests of 2020 in efforts to aid the Biden campaign.
Ball summed up that left-wing election engineering effort as “a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes” and called it “the secret history of the 2020 election.”
So, who exactly were those “secret” warpers of the 2020 election?
As Ball put it: “A well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.”
It is entirely legitimate to question the probity and legality of those systematic left-wing efforts in key states to overturn long-standing voting laws passed by state legislatures.
Then followed an even larger effort to render Election Day a mere construct for the first time in American history. Over 100 million ballots were not cast on Election Day, the vast majority of them (and by design) Biden votes. Somehow customary ballot disqualification rates of mail-in ballots in some states plunged—even as their numbers exploded.
The scariest form of election interference was the 2020 “cabal.” The FBI, Silicon Valley, street protesters, and the media all conspired to work for the “right result.”
Apparently, that “conspiracy” was the denialists’ response to the 2016 victory of Trump that they never accepted.
Last year on November 15th, 2021 the Biden approved the removal of Nigeria from the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) list. The CPC list was established under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 and Frank R Wolf International Religious Freedom Act of 2016. The criteria for the CPC list includes (1) Torture, (2) Prolonged detention without charge, (3) Forced disappearance, or (4) Flagrant denial of life, liberty, or security of purpose. Nigeria meets ALL of these criteria for their brutal treatment of Christians.
Nigeria is the most dangerous country in the world to be a Christian. Last year 4,650 Christians were martyred by Islamic terrorist groups and over 3,000 were kidnapped. 13,000 churches have been forced to close or have been destroyed and burned to the ground. Radical Muslim clerics have called for the immediately killing of any Christians who blasphemes, without exception, even if that person repents, stating that they should “kill now” and let “Allah sort it out.”
Christians that are kidnapped are often beaten, raped, sold as slaves and girls, typically young teenagers, have been forced to marry older Islamic men. Christians are often arrested on false charges of blasphemy while the Muslim persecutors of Christians are almost never charged.
No explanation was ever given as to why Nigeria was removed from the CPC by the Biden administration even though many have demanded to know why. All of this information was shocking to me. We must speak boldly and loudly about this atrocity and demand that Nigeria be placed back on the CPC list. Together we can and will make a difference in the lives of Christians who are being murdered for their faith.
When our friends at Revelation Media approached me about partnering up to create awareness of this issue and to help put pressure on the Biden administration to put Nigeria back on the CPC list it was a no-brainer for me. Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world and our brothers and sisters in Nigeria are literally being martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ. They need us to take a stand. We cannot, like President Biden, turn a blind eye to these atrocities. We must do everything we can to stop the killing.
We are calling this campaign “Stop Killing Christians.”
We have two goals. First, we are aiming to collect 100,000+ signatures to petition the Biden administration to place Nigeria back on the CPC list. Next, we are looking to secure 1,000 donations of any amount to help support the legal fight and to create awareness of what is happening.
Please prayerfully consider adding your name to the petition and making a generous donation to help this important campaign. We want to send a loud message to Washington and the Biden administration in particular that we will not sit by and ignore what is happening to Christians in Nigeria.
Andrew Torba CEO, Gab.com Jesus Christ is King of kings
The U.S. Senate continues confirming federal judges at a record pace. A total of 84 judicial nominees have been confirmed since President Biden took office.
After coming back from its August recess, the Senate confirmed seven appellate court nominees. This means there are now 25 Biden judges confirmed to the federal appeals courts, just one level below the Supreme Court and the place where most major cases are ultimately decided. However, most of Biden’s nominees—close to 60—have been confirmed to the lower district courts.
More Biden judges could be on the way. Approximately two dozen nominees are waiting for a Senate floor vote, including six who would take a seat on the appellate courts if confirmed.
The White House has repeatedly touted a “historic” pace of judicial confirmations. Yes, Biden is outpacing President Trump by double digits so far. 68 federal judges had been confirmed by this point in Trump’s presidency. But Biden’s impact on the judiciary must not be overstated. Even with as many confirmations as there have been so far, Biden’s judges comprise less than 10% of the federal bench. By comparison, Trump judges make up approximately 30%.
Nonetheless, Biden has brought about some change, particularly in the balance of conservative and liberal judges in appellate courts.
Flips in the Federal Appellate Courts
Biden flipped the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to a liberal majority, comprised currently of seven liberal and six conservative judges. It’s important to note that during his administration, Trump had flipped the 2nd Circuit to a majority of conservative appointees. Biden has appointed five judges to this 13-member court, which reversed the change the former president brought.
Biden could potentially push the 4th Circuit further in a liberal direction. That 15-member court currently consists of seven liberal and six conservative judges. There are two vacancies and one pending Biden nominee for one of those slots. If the president’s puts judges to fill both seats, that court would then consist of a 9-to-6 liberal majority.
Similarly, the 3rd Circuit is a 14-member court that currently has six liberal and seven conservative judges. There’s one vacancy and one Biden nominee pending confirmation, which means the 3rd Circuit could soon be evenly split (7-7). That razor-thin difference means there’s a possibility a flip could happen.
Although Biden has changed the balance of some appeals courts, we must keep in mind the big picture. NPR reported that conservative judges still comprise 53% of all federal appellate judges, while liberals comprise 47%.
The margins are narrow, but two appellate courts (or possibly three) with even slight liberal majorities is significant—and possibly concerning—especially for religious freedom cases. Appellate courts typically handle cases in three-judge panels, so the ratio of liberal to conservative judges plays a big role in whether a panel includes at least one (or more) originalist judge committed to the text and original intent of the Constitution.
120 Biden Nominees by End of the Year?
Judicial confirmations appear to be at the top of the Senate’s to-do list leading up to the midterm election. And the party in power shows no sign of slowing down.
NBC News reports that Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin “plans to advance more than 20 additional nominees this year.” Sen. Durbin said in an interview: “I’m hoping we can do all those, plus more…I think this is going to be a remarkable achievement if we do.” If that happens, it would mean a total of 100 (or more) Biden judges on the federal bench in the coming months.
Chicago Business reports that Sen. Durbin’s “goal is to confirm a two-year total of 120 judges before the new Senate takes office.” There are now more than 50 Biden nominees in the pipeline who are either waiting for a floor vote, a committee vote or a committee hearing. If every single one of those is confirmed, it would put President Biden’s total appointments far above 120, potentially closer to 140.
Will there be 100 or more Biden judges on the bench by January 2023? It’s possible. But there could be pushback from the minority party, as there is deep concern about the record and ideology of many of Biden’s judicial nominees.
What’s alarming isn’t just the number of Biden’s judges, but the fact that many of them hold positions far outside the mainstream. While in private practice, many of Biden’s judges, who are now on the federal bench for life, have fought against Americans’ core freedoms, including religious liberty.
Including Supreme Court Justice Jackson and many lower court picks, many of Biden’s nominees have either worked for or been endorsed by the most radical, Left-wing activist organizations in the country, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center. Their previous legal advocacy for and current support from extreme groups suggests they could unconstitutionally advance a liberal policy agenda from the federal bench. Two examples include:
Julie Rikelman, nominee to the 1st Circuit. She is an attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, a liberal organization that represented the Mississippi abortion clinic in Dobbs v. Jackson, the Supreme Court case that returned the power to regulate abortion to the states. Her nomination is pending a Senate Judiciary Committee vote.
Nancy Abudu, nominee to the 11th Circuit. She previously worked as senior staff counsel with the ACLU. More recently, Abudu’s legal experience comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center, an infamous organization known for labeling political opponents as “hate groups” or “extremists.” A coalition of more than 50 individuals and organizations—including multiple religious groups—sent a letter to Senate leaders expressing their opposition and concern about her record. She is waiting for a Senate floor confirmation vote.
Federal judges make critical legal decisions about your religious freedom and First Liberty will continue to monitor judicial nominees. As the Senate ramps up confirmations and hearings in the next several weeks, our team of experts will continue to provide you with the facts if any of them have a radical or unacceptable record.
For decades, Catholic hospitals in America have stood at the forefront of protecting the right of health care providers to treat patients with respect and dignity and in accordance with their faith.
Catholic hospitals in the United States have a long and enduring legacy of providing exceptional care. For example, the Franciscan Sisters at St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Louis established the premier polio treatment center in the Midwest in the 1940s.
Additionally, the Sisters of Charity founded New York City’s St. Vincent’s Hospital, which has provided emergency care for two centuries. Victims from some of the most devastating disasters, from the Titanic in 1912 to the terrorist attacks on 9/11, received life-saving care from the skilled health care professionals at St. Vincent’s.
Critics will claim that Catholic hospitals restrict treatment options and withhold emergency care from patients due to moral beliefs when in reality, the opposite is true.
Catholic hospitals adhere to guidelines set by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. As National Review staff writer and visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, Madeleine Kearns, summarized, “The only restrictions on medical interventions set in place by Catholic hospitals are for those done to impair or destroy healthy bodily functioning – which are typically performed for non-medical reasons.”
The Ethical and Religious Directives set forth the moral teachings of the Catholic Church and describe how they can be applied in a health care setting.
As a letter to the editor in The Wall Street Journal recently affirmed, doctors are better caregivers because of these teachings. “In my 43 years as a family physician,” Dr. William G. White wrote, “I found that Catholic moral teaching helped me and my patients, including non-Catholics, lead happier lives.”
The high standard of care, compassion, and respect for the dignity of the person benefit patients, which is evidenced by the remarkable number and reach of Catholic hospitals across the nation.
Every day, more than 14 percent of patients receive care at one of the 654 Catholic hospitals across America. Additionally, in a one-year period, Catholic hospitals deliver more than 500,000 babies, administer care in more than 17 million emergency room visits, and have more than 94 million outpatient visits.
Catholic hospitals not only provide jobs for more than 700,000 full-time and part-time employees, but also offer life-saving treatment and care to underserved rural communities.
Since January 2005, 183 rural hospitals have closed across America, yet, dozens of Catholic hospitals have remained dedicated to serving these communities.
In a piece criticizing Catholic hospitals, The Washington Post even admitted, “Acquisition by a Catholic health system has, at times, kept a town’s only hospital from closing.” As of 2020, more than 50 communities across the United States have access only to a Catholic hospital.
As Kearns correctly wrote, “Imagine being so singularly committed to progressive dogma that you would prefer a hospital close than continue being Catholic.”
America’s Catholic hospitals are more than just medical providers. They are essential components of our health care system that provide life-saving treatment with respect, dignity, and care for patients across our nation.
An unspecified number of Capitol Hill aides are being deployed as “official House election observers in close, or particularly cumbersome congressional elections, in the coming weeks,” according to House Administration Committee Ranking Member Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.).
The administration panel is responsible for exercising “the House’s constitutional responsibility to serve as the final ‘Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its Members,’” Davis told officials in identical October 20 letters (pdf) sent to all 50 states.
“While the Constitution grants the House of Representatives this responsibility and authority, the Constitution grants the states primary authority over the administration of federal elections. Committee Republicans respect the limited nature of Congress’ role in this space and are committed to safeguarding states’ vital constitutional authority,” Davis wrote.
“As in past elections, the House will use this legal authority to credential and deploy trained congressional staffers to serve as official House election observers in close, or particularly cumbersome congressional elections, in the coming weeks. This allows us to prepare for the possibility that a candidate could later contest the race in the House of Representatives,” Davis continued.
The staffers involved are doing so under the House Election Observer Program. Davis also launched the Republican members of the administration panel’s Faith in Elections Project: “a comprehensive effort to offer educational opportunities on how elections are administered, engage with key stakeholders, and put forth thoughtful conservative reforms on how elections are run in this country, with states maintaining primary control over their elections.”
The Illinois Republican said the panel “takes seriously its responsibility regarding federal elections, and we are committed to making sure all lawful ballots in congressional races are counted fairly, accurately, and according to law. Our credentialed observers have been trained by experts in election observation and instructed that they play no formal or advocacy role in the administration of the election or the vote counting process; they are to function exclusively as observers.”
The congressional observers “must be granted access to view the process even if state law credentialing, partisan quota, or access requirements exist to the contrary,” he added.
It is not known whether Democrats, who control the House, will be sending members of their staff as election observers. A spokesman for Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the administration panel’s chairman, could not be reached for comment.
Davis’s announcement comes as the 2022 midterm election campaign approaches its end, with Republicans holding what appears to be a sizable overall lead and are thus expected to regain the House majority they lost in 2018. The GOP’s prospects for retaking the Senate majority have also been brightening in recent weeks.
“The 2022 midterm elections are now only 18 days away, and Republicans have a four-point lead in their bid to recapture control of Congress. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that, if the elections for Congress were held today, 47 percent of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for the Republican candidate, while 43 percent would vote for the Democrat. Just four percent would vote for some other candidate, but another seven percent are not sure,” according to Rasmussen Reports.
On the Senate side, Politico wrote Oct. 22 that “Republicans are roaring back in the battle to control the 50-50 Senate. Over the past week, polls show GOP candidates closing the gap in states where Democrats have led all summer—and perhaps pulling away in races that had appeared close for months.”
Davis had been favored to succeed Lofgren as chairman of the administration panel, but he lost a GOP primary to Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.). The two Illinois Republicans were redistricted into the same district by Democrats who control the Illinois state legislature.
Miller was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
A federal court on Friday ordered Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top officials to testify under oath at depositions in a case that’s uncovered evidence of alleged federal government collusion with big tech companies to censor users.
The attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri and other plaintiffs allege that Fauci, director of NIAID and President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, and other defendants, colluded and coerced social media companies to “suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content” regarding COVID-19.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty went a step further than a previous ruling that forced written testimonies and ordered Fauci and other defendants to testify under oath at depositions.
“After finding documentation of a collusive relationship between the Biden Administration and social media companies to censor free speech, we immediately filed a motion to get these officials under oath,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a statement.
“It is high time we shine a light on this censorship enterprise and force these officials to come clean to the American people, and this ruling will allow us to do just that. We’ll keep pressing for the truth.”
🚨 🚨🚨 The court has granted our request to depose Dr. Anthony Fauci, former White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan, and other Biden Administration officials relating to collusion with social media to suppress free speech.
New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) joined the lawsuit in August, representing renowned epidemiologists Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, as well as Dr. Aaron Kheriaty and Jill Hines.
NCLA attorney Jenin Younes said she looks forward to learning just how far the accused government officials went to push their COVID-19 “perspective.”
“For the first time, Dr. Fauci and seven other federal officials responsible for running an unlawful censorship enterprise will have to answer questions under oath about the nature and extent of their communications with tech companies,” said Younes in a statement to The Epoch Times.
The judge also ordered the depositions of former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Director of White House Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, CISA Director Jen Easterly, and FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan.
Protesters hold signs denouncing Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Humanity Against Censorship rally in front of Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. on May 19, 2022. (Mrs. Hao/The Epoch Times)
Fauci’s ‘Self-Serving Blanket Denials’
In his ruling, Doughty said he agreed with plaintiffs that Fauci’s previous “self-serving blanket denials” about his role in censoring views on social media couldn’t be taken at face value.
“Plaintiffs argue that even if Dr. Fauci can prove he never communicated with social media platforms about censorship, there are compelling reasons that suggest Dr. Fauci has acted through intermediaries, and acted on behalf of others, in procuring the social-media censorship of credible scientific opinions.
“Plaintiffs argue that even if Dr. Fauci acted indirectly or as an intermediary on behalf of others, it is still relevant to Plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction motion. The Court agrees.
“Lastly, Plaintiffs argue that Dr. Fauci’s credibility has been in question on matters related to supposed COVID-19 ‘misinformation’ since 2020. Specifically, Plaintiffs state that Dr. Fauci has made public statements on the efficacy of masks, the percentage of the population needed for herd immunity, NIAID’s funding of ‘gain-of-function’ virus research in Wuhan, the lab-leak theory, and more.
“Plaintiffs urge that his comments on these important issues are relevant to the matter at hand and are further reasons why Dr. Fauci should be deposed. Plaintiffs assert that they should not be required to simply accept Dr. Fauci’s ‘self-serving blanket denials’ that were issued from someone other than himself at face value. The Court agrees,” Doughty said in his ruling (pdf).
Security personnel outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the World Health Organization (WHO) team tasked with investigating the origins of COVID-19, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on Feb. 3, 2021. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)
Censoring Lab Leak Theory
The plaintiffs argued that Fauci allegedly insisted on the censorship of “speech backed by great scientific credibility and with enormous potential nationwide impact” that contradicted Fauci’s views.
Fauci, for example, communicated in a long-shielded phone call with some scientists to discredit any theory that COVID-19 was the result of a “lab leak” in Wuhan, China. The scientists went on to write a paper severely reprimanding others who were open to the theory.
If the lab leak theory were true, in turn, it would mean Fauci could be potentially implicated in funding the research on viruses that caused the pandemic which killed millions worldwide, plaintiffs argued. This is because Fauci funded risky “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through intermediaries such as EcoHealth Alliance.
In late January 2020 and early February 2020, Fauci was also in touch with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in oral communications about the government’s COVID-19 response. Facebook then allegedly went on censor the lab leak theory, plaintiffs argued.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a White House daily press briefing at the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington on May 4, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
‘Overwhelming’ Need to Depose Officials
The court also found that Flaherty, Slavitt, Psaki, and other officials also have personal knowledge about the alleged censorship issues and ordered them to be deposed.
Doughty said there is an “overwhelming” need for Flaherty to be deposed to determine whether fundamental rights to free speech were “abridged” as a result of alleged collusion between senior Biden administration officials and Big Tech.
Plaintiffs argued Flaherty had “extensive” oral meetings with Twitter, Meta, and YouTube on vaccine hesitancy and combatting misinformation related to COVID-19.
The judge said there is a “substantive need” for the deposition of Slavitt, who served as the White House’s senior COVID-19 advisor. Doughty noted Slavitt’s remarks on a podcast which “showed he has specific knowledge as it relates” to the issues in the lawsuit.
The court order cited a series of public comments made by Psaki when she served as White House press secretary, including calling on social media platforms for consistency in banning disfavored speakers.
“Psaki has made a number of statements that are relevant to the Government’s involvement in a number of social-media platforms’ efforts to censor its users across the board for sharing information related to COVID-19,” Doughty said in his ruling.
A federal appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency petition from six Republican-led states who asked for a pause on the student debt relief while the court rules on their request for a longer-term injunction.
The St. Louis-based appeals court also ordered an expedited briefing schedule on the matter.
The lawsuit by the six Republican-led states—Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina—is before the appeals court after a lower court judge rejected the suit a day prior.
The states had argued that the debt relief program bypassed Congress and posed a threat to the states’ future tax revenues, as well as money earned by state entities that invest in or service the student loans. But U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey in St. Louis determined that while the six states had raised “important and significant challenges to the debt relief plan,” their lawsuit lacked the necessary legal standing to pursue the case.
Autrey’s decision had come about an hour after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied without explanation an emergency request to put the debt relief plan on hold in a separate challenge brought by the Wisconsin-based Brown County Taxpayers Association.
Biden’s student debt relief program, announced in August, seeks to cancel up to $10,000 to borrowers who earn less than $125,000 per year (or $250,000 as a couple per year), or $20,000 in debt relief to Pell Grant recipients who meet similar income standards.
Applications opened on Oct. 14. Nearly 22 million borrowers had applied for the debt relief program since, Biden said earlier Friday. This constitutes about half of the more than 40 million Americans that the Department of Education expects are eligible for some amount of debt relief.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.–A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit against Arkansas’ ban on gender-transition procedures for minors.
As a result, the nation’s first such law will remain in legal limbo while a national debate over these procedures seems to be intensifying.
On Oct. 21, after three days of testimony from plaintiffs’ witnesses in U.S. District Court in Little Rock, lawyers representing the state of Arkansas asked Judge James Moody Jr. to throw out a constitutional challenge to the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act.
But Moody said an Aug. 25 decision from a federal appeals court gave him “marching instructions” that largely neutralized the state’s arguments against the suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that Moody was correct when he temporarily blocked the law from taking effect in 2021. The state’s lawyers have asked the appeals court to reconsider that decision.
Meanwhile, the case has moved forward in Moody’s court; the trial began Oct. 17 and will resume Nov. 28 with testimony from the state’s witnesses.
Arguments Mostly Constitutional
The Arkansas trial is focusing narrowly on the constitutionality of the SAFE Act, which directly affects only a sliver of the population: youths seeking medical intervention for “gender dysphoria,” or mental distress about one’s gender.
Chase Strangio, an ACLU lawyer, argued that the testimony thus far has clearly shown that cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers “greatly improved” the lives of young people who received these treatments.
“This care has turned the lights on for them, and taking it away would be potentially catastrophic,” Strangio, arguing for Moody to allow the lawsuit to proceed. Strangio said the law unconstitutionally denies transgender patients access to treatments that are used for other purposes by non-transgender patients.
This building in Little Rock, Ark., is home to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, a court that is hearing a challenge to the state’s ban on transgender medical procedures for minors, on Oct. 17, 2022. (Janice Hisle/The Epoch Times)
Dylan Jacobs, an Arkansas assistant solicitor general, argued that the lawsuit should be thrown out because the state has a legitimate interest in protecting young people from taking steps that could lead to irreversible sterility and lifelong health consequences.
Jacobs also countered the ACLU’s contention that the law infringes on doctors’ rights to free speech by forbidding them from referring patients to other professionals for the controversial treatments.
“It’s not an actual speech restriction. It’s a conduct restriction,” he argued.
Bigger Than Arkansas
The Arkansas case’s implications stretch far beyond the state’s borders.
Testimony in Moody’s court has barely hinted at the intense moral, ethical and monetary arguments swirling around these procedures nationwide. In recent weeks, protests against the procedures have popped up in several states, including California, Texas and Tennessee.
Chloe Cole, who regrets taking steps to masculinize her female body, takes part in a demonstration in Anaheim, Calif., on Oct. 8, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
“Detransitioners”—people who regret undergoing gender-transition procedures—have been at the forefront. Several of international renown are listed in court records as proponents of the SAFE Act. They include Keira Bell,Laura Becker and Sinead Watson, among others.
Supporters of the SAFE Act argue that more states should outlaw the procedures as harmful to minors’ long-term health and happiness.
But the ACLU, transgender activists, and some prominent medical organizations say the treatments alleviate distress that could lead to suicide if unchecked. They also argue that denying the procedures amounts to illegal discrimination based on gender identity.
‘Grave Concern’
In Arkansas, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of four transgender youths and their families, along with two doctors who provide the controversial treatments. Both doctors testified that the procedures are considered safe and effective.
According to testimony during the trial, cross-sex hormones are the most commonly prescribed gender-transition procedure for minors.
Puberty-blocking medications and genital surgeries are rare among patients under age 18. But a rising number of teenage girls have had breasts removed so their bodies will appear more masculine.
The SAFE Act says it is based on “grave concern” over doctors providing these treatments to minors “despite the lack of studies showing that the benefits of such extreme interventions outweigh the risks.”
Although much of the ACLU witnesses’ testimony was highly technical, four parents of young plaintiffs gave often-emotional testimony; a teen who received cross-sex hormones was the final ACLU witness to testify.
Clinic Puts Procedures on Hold
Dylan Brandt, 17, began receiving cross-sex hormones at an Arkansas gender clinic two years ago.
Although the treatments are continuing for Dylan and other established patients, the clinic has hit the pause button on “gender transition procedures” until the Arkansas legal battle plays out in court.
Dr. Michele Hutchison, former director of the Gender Spectrum Clinic affiliated with Arkansas Children’s Hospital, testified that, earlier this year, the hospital ordered the clinic to start no additional patients on puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
Ryan, a “gender variant” fourth grader, center, runs with others during recess at their school in Illinois on May 2, 2013. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Previous patients are being allowed to continue as prescribed but hospital officials apparently thought it was unwise to start more patients on a treatment regimen that would be halted if the SAFE Act takes effect, Hutchison said.
Hutchison, who had been one of Dylan’s doctors until she moved out of state, is no longer a plaintiff in the case because she moved out of Arkansas. She traveled from her new residence, in New Mexico, to testify in Moody’s court.
The clinic’s current director, Dr. Kathryn Stambough, testified that 43 patients are awaiting cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers because they have been unable to get the medications elsewhere during the clinic’s moratorium. Stambough said she expects the procedures to resume if the ACLU prevails in its lawsuit.
The clinic has not performed gender-transition surgeries, the two doctors said; both reported no serious side effects from gender-transitioning prescriptions.
Concerns About Unknowns
Rep. Robin Lundstrum, who sponsored the SAFE Act, has said that she worries about the future of children who go through any gender-transitioning medical treatment.
She has cited stories of transgender adults who told her about long-term health effects of doing so. These adults also say that their happiness and mental health does not improve in the long run. In fact, some have publicly stated that their transitioning caused additional social, mental and health issues that they didn’t expect.
Arkansas Rep. Robin Lundstrum, sponsor of a state law that seeks to ban gender-transitioning treatments for minors, appears in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Robin Lundstrum)
Lundstrum and others refer to a 30-year Swedish study that followed more than 300 patients who underwent gender-altering surgeries. That group was 19 times more likely to commit suicide than a group of peers, the study showed.
Lundstrum said the SAFE Act is intended to protect children because the long-term effects on minors remain unknown; she and others consider the gender-transitioning medicines and surgeries “experimental” for youths.
Although parental consent is almost universally required before minors undergo such treatments, Lundstrum cited reports of some parents receiving insufficient information.
But Hutchison testified that, at the Gender Spectrum Clinic, doctors and other professionals have repeated, detailed discussions with young patients and their parents; a 10-page consent form lays out the risks and benefits of masculinizing or feminizing treatments.
Hutchison said patients and their parents have been specifically advised that treating adolescent gender-dysphoria is a relatively recent use of those drugs, and “we will learn more as time goes on.”
Teen Testifies About Testosterone
Dylan, who was born female, testified about a long-felt affinity for all things masculine. Dylan, who now presents as a male with obvious facial hair, said testosterone injections have done more than alter external appearance.
A transgender individual shows a testosterone ampoule at a hospital in Santiago, Chile, on Jan. 8, 2020. (Claudio Reyes/AFP via Getty Images)
When asked to use one word to sum up the effect of the gender-altering treatments, Dylan replied: “Hopeful.”
Lawyers representing the state of Arkansas declined to cross-examine Dylan. They also asked no questions of four parents of the young plaintiffs. All four expressed a common theme: They believe their children need the treatments to improve their outlook and self-perception. If the SAFE Act stands, they would be faced with the dilemma of either traveling out of state or uprooting their families to other states that would allow the treatments.
As The Epoch Times previously reported, nearly 40 other attorneys general have expressed opinions about the case. About half, mostly from Republican states, support Rutledge’s side; the other half, from predominantly Democratic states, align with the ACLU in its opposition to the SAFE Act.
As the Nov. 8 midterm election draws near, some see recent moves by President Joe Biden as a desperate means to “buying votes.”
Pardons for Marijuana Offenses
On Oct. 6, Biden announced a blanket pardon for some federal marijuana possession convictions.
“No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said. “Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit. Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities.”
He went on to say that minorities are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement for marijuana offenses.
A “No Trespassing” sign is displayed outside the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Ind., on Aug. 28, 2020. (Michael Conroy/AP Photo)
“First, I am announcing a pardon of all prior federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana,” Biden said, adding that he is “urging all governors to do the same with regard to state offenses” as a second measure.
What Biden did not explain was that very few people go to prison for simple possession of marijuana.
According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC), there were 36 people in federal prison in fiscal year 2021 for possession of marijuana. That was down from 1,877 in fiscal year 2015.
Tom Basile, best known as host of the Newsmax program “America Right Now,” is an adjunct professor at Fordham University and a member of the New York State Bar Association.
Tom Basile, Host of Newsmax’s TV’s America Right Now, adjunct professor at Fordham University and a member of the New York Bar. (Courtesy of Tom Basile)
“The feds don’t get involved with any small ball stuff,” Basile told The Epoch Times. “So it’s kind of insidious. They’re making it sound like he’s pardoning all of these people as some sort of social justice move.”
However, in terms of the actual prison population, Basile said “almost nobody in this country is in prison for possession of marijuana, unless it is a large quantity and is associated somehow with dealing.” Basile also said the White House offered no guidance as to how those pardon cases will be handled.
“They’re so desperate to demonstrate that the president is even remotely effective at trying to accomplish a lot of the goals of the Biden–Sanders Unity Taskforce, which was written by Bernie Sanders in 2020, they’re willing to just say and do whatever they feel like they need to say and do.”
Then, Basile said they either “fight this out in the courts” or “address the cleanup afterward.”
“That’s incredibly dangerous and incredibly damaging,” he said.
Debt Cancellation for Student Loans
On Aug. 24, the White House announced that “the Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education, and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients.”
Borrowers who qualify must make less than $125,000 a year as an individual or less than $250,000 a year for married couples.
“No high-income individual or high-income household—in the top 5 percent of incomes—will benefit from this action,” the statement said further.
The government also extended the pause on federal student loan repayment through Dec. 31, 2022, so borrowers will be expected to resume payment in January—after the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
President Joe Biden announces student loan relief with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Aug. 24, 2022 (Oliver Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration defended the program as a way of “providing families breathing room as they prepare to start re-paying loans after the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic.”
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Missouri in September, Republican attorneys general from Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina requested that the relief program be shut down, arguing that it’s unconstitutional and is “not remotely tailored to address the effects of the pandemic on federal student loan borrowers.”
On Sept. 26, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated (pdf) that Biden’s plan would cost American taxpayers $400 billion.
“Virtually every legal scholar that I have spoken to has said that the president of the United States really doesn’t have the authority to do this, and the people at the White House and Domestic Policy Council know that,” Basile said. “But they also know they couldn’t get it through Congress so they figure they would do this and let people believe they were going to be able to do this.”
In the meantime, Basile said Republicans would be baited into pursuing legal action, which the administration will use to make them “look like the bad guys by trying to uphold the rule of law.”
“They knew it would be litigated,” Basile noted, adding that the move is “very similar” to what the administration did with the eviction moratorium.
Activists rally outside the White House on July 27, 2022 to call on President Joe Biden to cancel student loan debt. It turns out student loans cost taxpayers much more than the Government Accountability Office estimated. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
According to Basile, the Biden administration was “told they didn’t have the authority to do the eviction moratorium,” but they “wanted to look like they were trying to do something” for that particular constituency and “look like the good guys.”
“They knew it was going to get overturned but they did it anyway,” Basile said. “They are establishing a very dangerous and lawless approach to how they want to advance public policy.”
Basile said the left has been fighting to control public policy through the courts, rather than through the legislative process—where they know it would fail—for a long time.
“But they are getting bolder in what they are trying to do, because they figure they know there will be political benefit simply by proposing something, knowing it will get struck down,” Basile added. “The important thing for the American people to know and appreciate when they play these games, the end result always is that the government gets bigger and government costs more and the regulatory creep continues. They’re shooting for the moon and figure, ‘maybe we don’t get to the moon but we at least get into orbit,’ and they still feel like they’ve made progress—and they have.”
In an Aug. 31 letter (pdf) to Biden, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said “this election-year bribe would cost American taxpayers nearly $519 billion and overwhelmingly benefit highly-educated, wealthy borrowers.”
“While our nation faces historically high inflation, such broad student loan relief is an act of highway robbery and a slap in the face to hard-working American families struggling to compensate for your increasingly reckless economic policies,” Boebert said further in the letter, signed by seven other Republican members of Congress. “Your regime couldn’t even pretend to care about the cost of inflation for more than a few weeks before you initiated yet another spending spree.”
In a statement to The Epoch Times, Boebert said she called out the Biden administration on behalf of hard-working Americans.
United States Representative Lauren Boebert, (R-CO) (Courtesy of Lauren Boebert’s office.)
“These responsible Americans paid off their student debt, worked their way through college, or chose a career path that did not require student debt—but Biden is now forcing them to pay off other people’s loans.”
Like Basile, Boebert noted that Biden lacked the authority to do this, saying even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Department of Education (DOE) have admitted he doesn’t have the unilateral authority to waive student loan payments.
“But Biden and his law-breaking regime don’t care,” Boebert wrote. “The American people see through Biden’s student loan bailout and know it is nothing short of an election year bribe. The economy is crumbling, inflation is out of control, the border is open, fentanyl deaths are going up, and crime rates are skyrocketing—Biden has nothing to run on, so he has resorted to buying votes.”
In a reversal from the original sweeping proposal in August to cancel federal student loans up to $20,000, the DOE announced Sept. 29 that it would not forgive debt from borrowers whose student loans are owned by private entities.
Depleting Strategic Petroleum Reserves
As The Epoch Times reported July 18, oil prices rose “$4.53, or about 4.5 percent, to $105.70 a barrel as of 4 p.m. EDT on July 18, after a 2.1 percent gain on July 15,” after President Joe Biden’s failure to secure a pledge from Saudi Arabia to boost crude oil output.
In 2021, when green energy policies caused gasoline prices to soar, Biden directed the Department of Energy to release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which amounts to about two and a half days’ worth of the nation’s consumption.
A Mobil station in Los Angeles shows gas prices are rising to record highs on March 7, 2022. (Jill McLaughlin/The Epoch Times)
When gas prices continued to climb, Biden dipped into the reserves several more times. By July 29, the SPR had reached its lowest level since 1985. As of Oct. 14, the SPR had about 405 million barrels, down from 638 million barrels in January 2021 when Biden took office.
Congress created the SPR in 1975 to protect the United States from volatility in oil markets and to ensure an inventory of energy supplies in emergencies, such as war or natural disasters. The United States just reached the end of peak hurricane season, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently threatened NATO forces with nuclear weapons.
Boebert said Biden and Democrat lawmakers are skirting legislative procedure to buy the votes they haven’t earned over the past two years.
“The Democrats have absolutely no long-term plan to stop the insanely high gas prices,” Boebert asserted. “If they did, they’d have passed it through the House they control, the Senate they control, and had it signed in the White House they control. Instead, they are artificially lowering prices before the election by selling off the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Worst of all, this is at the expense of our national security.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Basile.
“The claim by the White House that this has nothing to do with politics simply doesn’t pass the laugh test,” Basile said. “It’s a significant national security concern for this country that we have drawn down those oil reserves. This is press release politics because it has minimal, short-term impact. It does nothing to address the larger, systemic problem we have when it comes to achieving energy independence and reducing costs for consumers.”
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) greets U.S. President Joe Biden with a fist bump after his arrival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on July 15, 2022. (Bandar Aljaloud/Saudi Royal Palace via AP)
“This is America acknowledging that it cannot power itself and people should be outraged by this,” Basile said, referring to Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia to ask for more oil to be released. “They should also be outraged that he is running, hat in hand, to our enemies while at the same time declaring war on the American energy industry in virtually every speech.”
As Basile sees it, “if Republicans frame this the right way,” the issue of whether or not someone believes climate change exists becomes irrelevant when compared to “the lunacy of knowing we could be totally energy independent” yet are choosing to be dependent and purchase what we already have from our enemies.
“We don’t have to rely on the Saudis,” Basile noted. “We don’t have to rely on Russia or Venezuela. We don’t have to rely on the Chinese for lithium. We have lithium here, we just don’t mine it. It’s lunacy, in the guise of climate cultism for the sake of advancing a cultish sentiment around climate change, that you would intentionally make the country less secure and threaten the stability of the American economy. ”
“The left in this country think that people are stupid,” Basile surmised. “If anybody believes that Joe Biden, by virtue of him signing a piece of paper, is going to impact the climate today, tomorrow, five years from now, 10 years from now, you should question their basic competency. But I think people are starting to get that.”
The Nov. 8 Pushback
According to Basile, none of these tactics will help Democrats in November.
“Whether it’s about climate, whether it’s about student loan forgiveness, or it’s about this inquisition about so-called threats to democracy and white extremism in America, all of this is part of the program that [Biden] agreed to with Sanders and [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren during the campaign,” Basile said, noting it’s all part of the 110-page Biden–Sanders Unity Task Force (pdf) aimed at “combatting the climate crisis and pursuing environmental justice.”
“Nobody read it,” Basile noted, adding that the “so-called moderate Biden” nonetheless “allowed a socialist to write the agenda for his administration,” which the Domestic Policy Council has been using as a policy blueprint to destroy the country over the past two years, Basile said.
“But they didn’t count on the intelligence of the American people and they never considered the damage to people’s lives that are done by these policies,” he said. “That’s why on Nov. 8 they’re going to see some substantial pushback.”
In her summation of Biden’s latest efforts, Boebert was a bit more direct.
“Student loan forgiveness and now blanket marijuana pardons,” Boebert stated. “Biden is really looking for that hacky sack vote.”
No limit soldiers: Dem candidates won’t accept anything less than full-term abortion on demand
What’s happening: Democratic candidates in this year’s midterm elections do not support any limits on abortion.
• U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman and others have said so explicitly, while many have refused to give direct answers when asked.
• Democrats can’t run on low prices and a strong economy. They are trying to inspire their base by stoking outrage at the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The party and its activist allies are flooding states and districts with ads accusing Republicans of wanting to throw women and their doctors in prison.
The monthly federal budget deficit was up 562 percent from September of last year, according to Treasury Department figures released Friday, mainly due to President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan.
The deficit specifically jumped in the last month of fiscal year 2022, the Associated Press reported, because of Biden’s plan to forgive student loans for millions of Americans, which the Penn Wharton Budget Model projects will cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion.
Biden on Friday praised his administration for lowering the total deficit to $1.4 trillion since last year, though the Congressional Budget Office attributed the decrease to the ending of pandemic-era spending and an increase in income taxes. Biden continues to claim that “our economy is strong as hell” as inflation soars and a recession looms.
“The entirety of the decline in the deficit between 2021 and 2022 can be attributed to the expiration of temporary COVID relief, not due to a renewed era of fiscal responsibility,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in a statement Friday. “In fact, the deficit would have been almost $400 billion lower had the Biden administration not decided to enact an inflationary, costly, and regressive student debt cancellation plan in August.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders is worried about low Democratic turnout and enthusiasm
Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) is planning a blitz of campaign events to “rally young voters and progressives” to support Democrats before midterm elections, which are widely expected to be a Republican wave, the New York Timesreported Wednesday.
Sanders, who is not a Democrat but has run twice for the party’s presidential nomination, will begin the campaign blitz next week in Oregon, a traditionally deep-blue state that this year is leaning Republican. He will then attend events in multiple swing states, including Nevada, where Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt is leading Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto, and Pennsylvania, where the most recent poll has Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz tied in the Senate race.
Sanders, a self-described socialist, supports massive tax increases, universal health care, and the Green New Deal. Those far-left positions have some Democrats worrying that Sanders’s “campaigning in swing states could backfire,” the Times noted.
Wisconsin Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, who is trailing in the polls, is one Democrat who appears hesitant about Sanders’s presence. While Sanders “allowed the Barnes campaign to use his name” in fundraising emails, Barnes has not said whether he will appear with Sanders at three events in Wisconsin. A Barnes spokeswoman declined the Times‘s request for comment.
Sanders is concerned about low turnout and low energy among Democrats, who are “doing rather poorly” at appealing to working-class voters, he told the Times.
“Poll after poll, the American people look more favorably upon the Republicans in terms of economic issues than they do Democrats,” Sanders noted.
This is not the first time the socialist senator has criticized the Democratic Party for economic issues. “The middle class in this country is falling further and further behind” under President Joe Biden, Sanders told talk show host Seth Meyers in September.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.) on Thursday said congressional Democrats knew when they signed off on Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar legislative plans that the laws would lead to increased inflation.
“Let me make it very clear. All of us are concerned about these rising costs, and all of us knew this would be the case when we put in place this recovery program,” Clyburn said on MSNBC after host José Díaz-Balart asked about Americans’ struggles with surging food and energy prices. “Any time you put more money into the economy, prices tend to rise.”
🚨WATCH: House Democrat Whip Jim Clyburn claims Democrats KNEW their wasteful spending would cause inflation — but they did it anyway. pic.twitter.com/ojiMf41MTj
— Senate Republican Communications Center (@SRCC) October 20, 2022
But Clyburn and the rest of Democratic leadership in Congress championed that recovery program and other legislation, insisting the bills would not damage the economy, even as experts say the bills contributed to the country’s record inflation.
Clyburn voted in favor of Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and $738 billion Inflation Reduction Act. Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco said the American Rescue Plan contributed significantly to inflation, and Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said the Inflation Reduction Act would have no meaningful effect on reducing inflation.
Just four months after he signed the American Rescue Plan, Biden insisted that “no serious economist” was “suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way.”
Today, polls show inflation is one of the top issues for voters heading into the midterm elections, and the prices of many foods and energy expenses are up more than 10 percent from a year ago.
Warnock faces increased scrutiny over church-owned apartment evictions
A flood of negative advertising against both candidates in Georgia appears to be hurting Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D.) image more than Republican challenger Herschel Walker’s in the final weeks of the election, according to an internal Walker campaign poll obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
While the internal polling shows a tight race, consistent with independent surveys showing the race within the margin of error, Walker’s pollster says the surveys show that criticism of Warnock is starting to take a toll on his favorability rating in the run-up to Election Day.
Warnock’s favorability rating has dipped to 40 percent, a 5-point decrease since the campaign’s previous poll taken 10 days ago, prior to the debate. The portion of respondents who view Warnock unfavorably has also increased 3 points, to 47 percent.
The findings come as Warnock has faced increased scrutiny over his church-owned apartment complex’s attempts to evict low-income residents, which was first reported earlier this month by the Free Beacon. Warnock has also been hit with a deluge of negative ads highlighting his ex-wife’s accusations that he tried to run her over with a car.
The poll also follows a debate between Warnock and Walker, in which the Republican went in with low expectations and avoided any significant blunders.
Opinions on Warnock are now on par with Walker, who is viewed favorably by 42 percent and unfavorably by 46 percent, according to the poll. By contrast, Walker’s numbers have stayed fairly consistent since early October—when he was at 43 percent favorable and 47 percent unfavorable—despite an onslaught of negative advertising and news articles targeting him.
The Moore Information Group’s Erik Iverson, a pollster for Walker, said this finding indicates that months of relentless negative media coverage of Walker are already “baked in” to voter perceptions, while coverage of Warnock’s vulnerabilities is now starting to break through with voters.
“You have an 8-point swing over the last 10 days,” said Iverson. “Generally speaking when you see movement in image, the ballot trails that by about two weeks.”
Iverson said this trend has been most noticeable among soft Republicans, independents, and black voters.
Warnock has “seen a negative 25-point shift in his image among independents” and a 10-point negative shift among so-called soft Republicans from 10 days ago, according to Iverson.
The pollster said Warnock also saw a negative shift with black voters, 78 percent of whom viewed him favorably and 12 percent unfavorably in the early October poll. Now, 65 percent view him favorably and 21 percent view him unfavorably, according to the findings.
“A 22-percent drop among what is his very biggest core base of supporters is significant,” said Iverson.
The poll shows a competitive race, within the 2-point margin of error. Forty-five percent of respondents say they would vote for Walker, 43 percent say they would vote for Warnock, and 5 percent say they would vote for the Libertarian candidate, Chase Oliver. Neither Walker nor Warnock is above the 50-percent threshold that would be necessary to avoid a runoff.
Iverson said his polling hasn’t seen a trend of ticket-splitters who are voting for both Republican governor Brian Kemp and Warnock. But he said there are indications that soft Republicans voting for Oliver, the Libertarian candidate, could impact the race.
“It’s soft Republicans; about 13 percent of them are voting Oliver. That’s the issue,” said Iverson.
The vast majority of respondents said they had seen, heard, or read something about both Walker and Warnock over the past few weeks. When asked what they saw, 17 percent recalled seeing negative ads about Walker regarding his family issues, such as allegations that he once paid for an abortion for his former girlfriend. Walker has denied the claim.
Another 10 percent recalled seeing negative information about Warnock regarding allegations that he tried to run over his wife with his car or neglected his children, up from 4 percent in early October. Warnock has denied these claims.
Forty-eight percent of respondents said the information they saw made them less likely to support Walker, while 46 percent said the information made them less likely to support Warnock.
As the Iranian regime violently cracks down on growing nationwide protests, lawmakers’ attention is again on the atrocities committed at the hands of the Iranian regime. Yet not a single House Democrat has lent support to legislation that would sanction Iran’s supreme leader and his inner circle for mass human rights crimes, according to senior congressional sources familiar with the matter.
The bill, dubbed the Mahsa Amini Act after the 22-year-old Iranian woman who was killed by the regime’s morality police for improperly wearing her head covering, would “impose sanctions on the supreme leader of Iran and the president of Iran and their respective offices for human rights abuses and support for terrorism,” according to a copy of the measure obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Amini’s murder last month sparked nationwide anti-regime protests that threaten to topple the hardline Iranian government, which has reacted to the demonstrations with more violence, including beating, imprisoning, and shooting protesters.
The Republican-led bill was circulated to every single Democratic House office, but not a single one has yet to cosponsor the bill, two senior Republican congressional aides told the Free Beacon.
The legislation is part of a larger effort by Republican leaders in Congress to codify a range of sanctions on the Iranian regime for its human rights abuses and support for regional terror groups, including those that have killed Americans. The protests in Iran have been met with a muted response by the Biden administration, which is trying to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. And while many Democrats have issued public statements of support for the Iranian protesters, none have gotten behind Republican efforts to boost sanctions on the hardline regime.
“Democrats spoke out against Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal just a few years ago. Today, standing up to Iran is a completely partisan issue,” Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and one architect of the legislation, told the Free Beacon. “That’s disappointing, but it won’t stop Republicans from doing just that when we’re in the majority.”
The legislation was coauthored by Banks with Reps. Michael Waltz (R., Fla.) and Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.). It is sponsored by 19 other Republican lawmakers and is being championed by the Republican Study Committee, Congress’s largest conservative caucus, which is helmed by Banks.
Waltz and other lawmakers who spoke to the Free Beacon about the bill said it is time for the Biden administration to abandon its hope of inking a revamped nuclear deal with Iran. Negotiations have long been at a standstill and the percolating protest movement provides the White House with an opportunity to discredit the hardline regime.
“We’re nearly two years into the Biden administration and it’s clear their appeasement policy towards Iran isn’t working,” Waltz said. “The Iran regime continues to export terrorism, repress its people, directly aid Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, and is closer to a nuclear weapon than ever before. We need to stand up for our national security and the people of Iran by reimposing crippling sanctions on the Iran Regime.”
The legislation codifies and invokes several executive orders issued by the Trump administration that targeted Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and his inner circle.
“The supreme leader holds ultimate authority over Iran’s judiciary and security apparatus, including the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, law enforcement forces under the Interior Ministry, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the Basij, a nationwide volunteer paramilitary group subordinate to the IRGC, all of which have engaged in human rights abuses in Iran,” the legislation states. “Additionally, the IRGC, a United States designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, which reports to the supreme leader, continues to perpetrate terrorism around the globe, including attempts to kill and kidnap American citizens on United States soil.”
The legislation also expresses “the sense of Congress that the United States shall stand with and support the people of Iran in their demand for fundamental human rights.”
The measure includes provisions that would sanction and block the assets of all Iranian officials tied to human rights abuses, including the supreme leader and his inner circle of advisers, as well as Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi.
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R., N.Y.), a cosponsor of the legislation, told the Free Beacon that Congress must not pass up the opportunity to aid protesters by increasing sanctions on the Iranian regime.
“The Iranian regime’s heartless murder of Mahsa Ahmini once again exposed the reality that Iran’s government abuses and subjugates women,” Tenney said. “Furthermore, the brutal crackdown on protesters has shown their disdain for basic human rights and underscores the need for a more permanent sanctions regime against the Iranian government.”
John Fetterman will canvass in Philadelphia this weekend with two members of the Democratic Socialists of America, including a state lawmaker who wants to “increase the number of socialists in elected office.”
The Pennsylvania Senate hopeful is launching a voter drive effort on Sunday with state representative Elizabeth Fiedler and state senator Nikil Saval, according to an email from his campaign. Fiedler and Saval were members of the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist group in the country. As a member, Fiedler in 2019 expressed solidarity with teachers in Oakland, Los Angeles, and Chicago who led successful work strikes. Saval, a former magazine editor, touted socialism in a recent interview and expressed optimism that more socialists will win elected office. Both also have ties to a left-wing activist group in Philadelphia that supports the movement to defund police departments.
It’s the latest example of Fetterman campaigning with left-wing activists even as he publicly downplays his own progressive views. Fetterman, whose lead over Republican Mehmet Oz has narrowed dramatically in the last few weeks, recently walked back his support for the decriminalization of all drugs. He disavowed a former campaign official he appointed to serve on the Board of Pardons following a Washington Free Beaconreport that she is a “friend” and supporter of cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. He has also insisted that he never supported the movement to defund police.
“It was always absurd to defund the police,” he said this week. “From my own experience I’d say, anytime you have fewer police, you’re going to have more crime.”
But Fetterman has still aligned himself with many activists who do support the controversial movement. He held a rally on September 11 with a pro-abortion activist who supports defunding police. He campaigned in Philadelphia last month with three city council members who have expressed support for the cause.
Saval and Fiedler are both affiliated with Reclaim Philadelphia, a group formed by supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) that also supports the defund movement. The organization in 2020 pushed to defund the Philadelphia police department, saying that much of its funding came from money “stolen from communities.” In a bid for the anti-police group’s endorsement in 2018, Fetterman said he opposed “tough on crime” policies, including cash bail. Saval cofounded Reclaim Philadelphia. Fiedler’s husband is a member of the organization.
Oz and his Republican allies have released an onslaught of ads highlighting Fetterman’s push for criminal justice reform as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor. Fetterman, who chairs the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, has said he used the position as a “bully pulpit” to enact progressive criminal justice policies. On the Board of Pardons, he has voted to free multiple first-degree murderers, often over the wishes of their victims’ families.
Florida’s Charlie Crist quietly dropped Austin John Durrer from campaign to ‘focus on a family matter’
Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist quietly dropped his campaign manager, Austin John Durrer, the day after Durrer was arrested for domestic violence. The campaign said Durrer resigned “to focus on a family matter.”
Durrer was arrested Tuesday on assault charges after a dispute with his girlfriend. A day later, the Crist campaign announced his resignation, with no mention of the arrest.
Durrer’s girlfriend was left with marks on her face after the incident, NBC News reported.
Austin John Durrer, 43, was arrested early Tuesday on a second-degree misdemeanor assault charge following a dispute at a Cambridge, Maryland, home, according to online court records and the prosecutor in the case, Amanda Leonard, who read a probable cause affidavit to an NBC News reporter over the phone.
In a brief telephone interview with NBC News, Durrer acknowledged the arrest occurred in the dispute with the mother of his child, Jackie Whisman, with whom he lives. He said he pressed charges the following day, which NBC News confirmed via online court records. She confirmed the account and issued a joint statement with him.
“Very sadly, an incident took place this week at our home that we both regret. We are both working to drop legal charges and move forward,” the statement said. “Our primary focus at this time is our daughter, our greatest joy, and we appreciate privacy and respect as we navigate this as a family.”
According to the probable cause affidavit read by Leonard to NBC News, the woman had marks on her face from the dispute.
Durrer is not the first Democrat exposed for domestic abuse. Delaware senator Tom Carper in a 1998 interview admitted to slapping his wife, even though he had declared the accusation a lie in his 1982 congressional campaign.
With less than three weeks until the election, Crist is trailing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis by 9 points, according to the latest polls.
What happened: U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman’s primary care doctor released a letter asserting (without evidence) that the Pennsylvania Democrat’s “health has continued to improve” following his stroke in May.
“Overall, Lt. Gov. Fetterman is well and shows strong commitment to maintaining good fitness and health practices,” the alleged doctor wrote. “He has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.”
Nevertheless, Democrats keep trying to anoint Fetterman’s wife Gisele as the de facto candidate in the race against Muslim entrepreneur Mehmet Oz. “Gisele, you’re going to be a great, great lady in the Senate,” President Joe Biden said Thursday.
Who wrote the letter? The purported author is Dr. Clifford Chen, who has donated thousands of dollars to Fetterman and other Democratic candidates this cycle.
Has the letter been analyzed? It has. The Washington Free Beacon performed a thorough analysis of the “doctor’s note” to determine if there was any hidden message or secret codes embedded in the text.
Were the findings troubling? They were. See for yourself.
Democrat Jay Chen ‘should have’ known of horrific hazing ritual as school board member, lawsuit states
As a school board member in Southern California, Democratic congressional hopeful Jay Chen voted to reject a damages claim from a high school student who was sodomized with a pole as part of a horrific hazing ritual.
Chen—who is now running for Congress in California’s 45th Congressional District—sat on the Hacienda La Puente school board during a high-profile hazing incident in 2011, which saw older members of a boys’ high school soccer team in the district sexually assault and sodomize their younger teammates with a sharp, javelin-like pole. In October 2012, one victim filed a claim for at least $25,000 against the district, alleging that Chen and other top officials failed to protect him. Chen led a motion to reject the claim in November 2012, board meeting minutes show.
The victim later detailed the brutal attack in a lawsuit against Chen’s district, which cited the initial damages claim. “Plaintiff and other varsity soccer players were victimized after being lured to the backroom … where athletic equipment was stored,” the suit stated. “Before the assault, the victim is asked whether he wants it ‘the easy way’ or ‘the hard way.’ The easy way meant that the victim would bend down and accept the sexual assault without resistance—while the hard way meant, upon resistance by the victim, he will be physically attacked by those present and forcefully have a foreign object inserted into his anus.”
Chen was explicitly mentioned in the lawsuit, which alleged that Chen knew or should have known of the “sexually abusive actions” and that the district “failed to protect” the victims. Chen’s district settled the suit just days before its scheduled trial date in March 2016. The attacks also led to felony assault convictions against three juveniles.
Chen campaign spokeswoman Lindsay Barnes pointed to a 2012 interview in which Chen said the district would “make sure” those involved in the attacks were “prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” Barnes also told the Washington Free Beacon Chen “is grateful that the perpetrators were convicted, a settlement was reached with the victims, and justice was served.” Barnes ignored questions regarding Chen’s vote to reject the victim’s claim and the lawsuit’s allegation that Chen knew or should have known about the attacks.
Years after the ordeal, Chen is mounting a high-profile bid to unseat freshman Rep. Michelle Steel (R.). That race has seen Chen lean heavily on his academic background—his campaign site touts his role as a “school board member” and says he “dedicated himself to public service and education” to “ensure all students have a chance to thrive and succeed.” But Chen’s school board tenure may very well be his weak point as a candidate.
Beyond his 2012 vote against the sodomy victim, Chen in 2010 spearheaded an effort to bring the Confucius Classroom program—which China’s Ministry of Education, an arm of the Chinese Communist Party, funds and runs—into his district’s K-12 classrooms. The program would have brought CCP-backed teachers and curriculum materials into Chen’s Southern California community. After local parents pushed back, Chen’s district rejected the teachers but accepted program textbooks from China, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. Chen did not understand the outrage, telling the Daily News he didn’t “see anything sinister about using books from China” given “practically everything we use is made in China.”
Chen’s embrace of the program prompted criticism from Steel, whose campaign in February highlighted the Democrat’s support for “CCP-sponsored schools.” Chen responded by accusing Steel—one of the first Korean-American women to serve in Congress—of engaging in “anti-Asian racism.” Just months later, Chen mocked the Republican’s accent during a campaign event.
“She just had another town hall the other day. And it’s tough. Like, we’ve transcribed it,” Chen said. “You kind of need an interpreter to figure out exactly what she’s saying.”
In addition to his school board tenure, Chen touts his role as a Mt. San Antonio Community College trustee. Chen became president of the school’s board in 2015, and over the next four years, the Democrat thrice voted to raise nonresident tuition, the Free Beaconreported in June. Now, Chen calls student loan debt “one of the biggest crises faced by our country” as tuition costs “skyrocket.”
Chen first ran for Congress in 2012, losing to former Republican congressman Ed Royce by 15 points. He will face Steel in November after winning 43 percent of the vote in California’s June primaries. Chen has raised $4.1 million to Steel’s $6.3 million as of Sept. 30.
THERE’S A LOT OF CONCERN OUT THERE, AND RIGHTLY SO. BUT IT MIGHT BE SAFER TO STAY PUT FOR NOW.
The U.S. housing market continues to stumble as rising interest rates reduce the demand for mortgages and make homes more difficult to sell. But will the bottom fall out of the market?
The 30-year “fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.94%… as of Thursday (October 20, 2022), up from 6.92% a week ago… A year ago this time, the 30-year rate averaged 3.09%.”
As one would expect, these high mortgage rates are driving applications to near record lows.
“Mortgage applications decreased 4.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the seven-day period ending October 14. Application activity fell for the ninth time in 10 weeks and was 68% below its level during the same week a year ago. Applications are now into their fourth month of declines, dropping to the lowest level since 1997.”
In addition, applications to refinance mortgages are dropping as well. “Applications to refinance a home declined 11%… and are 84% lower than the same week (week ending September 23) one year ago. They are now at a 22-year low because there are very few borrowers who can benefit from a refinance at today’s higher rates.”
These high mortgage interest rates are also hurting homebuilders’ sentiment. “Homebuilder sentiment in the single-family home market has fallen to half of what it was just six months ago… Homebuilder sentiment is at is lowest level since 2012, “with the exception of a brief drop at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.”
This explains why housing starts are down as well. “Residential starts – including both single and multi-family units – decreased 8.1% last month to a 1.44 million annualized rates.”
We are seeing a record number of people backing out of their offers to purchase homes prior to the closing date. “Approximately 60,000 deals fell through in September, marking the highest share on record aside from March 2020, the same month the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus pandemic.” September marked the fourth consecutive month which saw 15 percent or more of home purchase contracts fall through. In August, ten cities saw “back-out” rates of more than 20 percent.
The high number of people backing out of their offers has contributed to a significant decrease in home sales. “Sales of previously owned homes fell 1.5% in September from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.71 million units…That marked the eighth straight month of sales declines. Sales were lower by 23.8 percent year-over-year.
To make matters worse, foreclosures are back to pre-pandemic levels. Lenders started the “foreclosure process on 23,952 U.S. properties in August 2022, up 12% from (July) and up 187 percent from a year ago… there were a total of 34,501 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings – default notices, scheduled auctions, or bank repossessions – up 14 percent from (July) and up 118 percent from a year ago.”
Given the chaos in the housing market, one would expect that prices to tank, circa what happened in 2008.Not quite.
The median home price reached a “record high of $413,800 in June before falling to $389,500 in August… Some of that decline may be seasonal as the market slows down in the fall months. What’s more, the median home price in August was still nearly 8% higher than a year ago.”
What is going to happen to the housing market? Will it crash as it did during the “great recession?” The answer is probably not as circumstances are very different. Prices will fall, but the decline won’t mirror 2008. The difference is homeowners’ “personal balance sheets are much stronger today then they were 15 years ago. The typical homeowner with a mortgage (has) a fixed-rate mortgage at a rate well below 5 percent.”
The fall in housing starts and the unwillingness of homeowners to sell homes with low mortgage rates will create a lack of inventory. My advice… stay put. For now.
Just one day after she got a COVID-19 booster shot, Regan Lewis, a 20-year-old nursing student at Colby Community College in Colby, Kansas, had a heart attack.
Her mom, Connie Werth Lewis, desperately asked for prayers for her daughter in a public post on Facebook.
“I can’t say for sure that there is a link, but our beautiful 20 year old healthy daughter … had a [COVID-19 injection] yesterday so she could participate in her clinicals,” Werth Lewis wrote. “Today, she went into cardiac arrest and has been flown to Kearney. She is on a ventilator and is fighting for her life. PLEASE PLEASE PRAY FOR HER!”
That night, Regan Lewis died.
Not an Isolated Incident
As of Oct. 7, 31,470 deaths have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration via their Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, a passive post-market surveillance system designed to help government officials and researchers pick up safety signals about vaccines.
According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, “adverse events from vaccines are common but underreported, with less than 1 percent reported to the Food and Drug Administration.”
Other peer-reviewed scientific articles, including a 2012 study published in the journal Human and Experimental Toxicology, have similarly shown that only a fraction of adverse events following vaccines are reported to the government.
In addition, recent research, published by an international team of scientists last month in the journal Vaccine, found that the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were associated with a much higher excess risk of serious adverse events compared to baselines established by placebos.
At a conference for front-line doctors who have been treating COVID-19, held in Sedona, Arizona, Peter McCullough, a cardiologist, immunologist, and scientific researcher, said that deaths and other adverse outcomes following vaccines have been “grossly underreported.”
Sudden Deaths Continue
It appears that there has been a rise in excess deaths in industrialized countries around the world. For example, the Australian government has released provisional mortality statistics that show a dramatic rise in excess deaths. In June, in Australia, a country of only 26 million people (making it smaller than the population of the entire state of Texas), there were 2,410 deaths above the historic average. The top three causes of excess death in Australia were attributed to cancer, dementia, and non-COVID respiratory diseases, including influenza and pneumonia.
On Dec. 30, 2021, Scott Davison, chief executive of OneAmerica, a major insurance company based in Indianapolis, said in an online news conference that his company was seeing “the highest death rates [they] have seen in the history of [the] business.”
Davison said that death rates had climbed 40 percent and that COVID-19 fatalities “greatly understate” the actual deaths from working-age people hit by the pandemic, as most of the claims being filed weren’t being classified as COVID-19 deaths.
“It may not all be COVID on their death certificate, but deaths are up just huge, huge numbers,” he said.
Brian Tabor, president of the Indiana Hospital Association, said in the same news conference that hospitals across Indiana were being flooded with patients “with many different conditions.”
At the recent Sedona conference (where Jennifer Margulis also was a speaker) several physicians pointed out that there has been a growing number of “unexplained” sudden deaths among young people who have received COVID-19 injections as well as booster shots.
That point was made by several of the speakers, including Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, a physician based in Cleveland; and Dr. Jeffrey Barke, a medical doctor in private practice in California. These untimely, age-inappropriate deaths, they pointed out, often were the immediate result of heart dysfunction, blood clots, or seizures. But, they said, where there was a history of prior COVID-19 injection, the health condition that ostensibly led to death may actually have been caused by the shots.
McCullough cited the case of U.S. Rep. Sean Casten’s (D-Ill.) teenage daughter. Casten wrote in a statement that his 17-year-old daughter, Gwen, died in her sleep in June.
Casten’s statement says that his daughter was “a healthy 2022 teenager” who “ate well, exercised, got regular check-ups, [and] didn’t suffer from any behavioral health issues.” She was also “fully vaccinated, and quarantined after occasional positive, asymptomatic COVID tests during the omicron wave.”
According to the statement, the family was “left grasping at the wrong end of random chance” following Gwen Casten’s sudden death.
But McCullough and other experts argue that random chance may have had an accomplice.
“As with any other new medical product, the burden of proof must be on the vaccine,” McCullough said.
A Formerly Pro-Vaccine Cardiologist Speaks Out
British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra has outspokenly defended vaccines throughout his entire medical career.
“Vaccines are the safest of ALL drugs,” he wrote in a tweet in late November 2020. “Far safer than any other drug people are taking on a regular [basis],” the tweet continues. “The vaccine safety concerns are totally disproportionate to reality.”
Malhotra initially believed that the COVID-19 vaccines were crucial to ending the spread of SARS-CoV-2. In fact, when the COVID-19 vaccines became available, he was among the first to take them.
In February 2021, he even appeared on “Good Morning Britain” to defend COVID-19 vaccine safety. He told the host then that there was “clearly irrational reasoning behind why people don’t want to take the vaccine, which is based on very blatant false information.”
However, when his father died suddenly of cardiac arrest just five months after that television appearance, Malhotra started researching the safety and efficacy of these vaccines in more depth. When he dove into the medical research and spoke with medical colleagues, scientific researchers, and investigative health journalists, he became increasingly disturbed by what he uncovered.
Based on his scientific research and clinical experience, Malhotra says he no longer recommends the COVID-19 vaccines.
Moreover, he now insists that there’s strong scientific, ethical, and moral evidence that the current COVID-19 vaccine administration must stop and that the raw data submitted to approve the vaccines must be subjected to fully independent scrutiny.
Not Safe or Effective
When Malhotra was interviewed for the newly released documentary film “Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion,” he reiterated that he has “reluctantly concluded that this vaccine is not completely safe and has unprecedented harms.”
Malhotra also has shared this view in a new peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Insulin Resistance. The study, titled “Curing the Pandemic of Misinformation on COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Through Real Evidence-Based Medicine—Part 1,” shows that the risk of serious adverse events from the vaccines is greater than the risk of being hospitalized from COVID-19.
The real-world safety data, coupled with an understanding of the plausible mechanisms of harm, “are deeply concerning, especially in relation to cardiovascular safety,” the study found.
“It cannot be said that the consent to receive these agents was fully informed, as is required ethically and legally,” the study concluded. “A pause and reappraisal of global vaccination policies for COVID-19 is long overdue.”
In part 2 of Malhotra’s study, published in the same journal, he concluded that, “There is a strong scientific, ethical, and moral case to be made that the current COVID vaccine administration must stop until all the raw data [have] been subjected to fully independent scrutiny.”
According to Malhotra, not only do we need to halt the current program, we need to make sure that profits don’t take precedence over people’s health in the future.
“Looking to the future, the medical and public health professions must recognize these failings and eschew the tainted dollar of the medical-industrial complex,” he said. “It will take a lot of time and effort to rebuild trust in these institutions, but the health—of both humanity and the medical profession—depends on it.”
An oil CEO said the White House put the United States in a “very precarious position” after another significant release of oil from U.S. reserves.
After President Biden announced an additional 15 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) would be released to combat rising gas prices just weeks before the midterm elections, one American oil industry leader is now calling it the “strategic political reserve.”
“This is a very precarious position we’re in today at a time of dramatic geopolitical upheaval,” American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Mike Sommers told Fox News on Thursday. “We need to have that SPR in place and at the right levels dealing with the current geopolitical situation we’re in today.”
In the coming months, the United States could again see record-high gas prices, he warned.
Criticism
After receiving criticism from GOP lawmakers that he’s misusing the SPR, Biden said the release of oil is not being done for political reasons. Some Republicans and oil industry officials have alleged that the Biden administration is only releasing oil in a bid to keep gas prices relatively low before the 2022 midterms.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on energy during an event in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Oct. 19, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“It’s not politically motivated at all,” Biden said. “It’s motivated to make sure that I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing on, and that is making sure there’s enough oil that’s being pumped by the companies so that we have the ability to be able to produce enough gas that we need here at home, oil we need here at home and at the same time keep moving in a direction of providing for alternative energy.”
But in Thursday’s interview, Sommers disagreed with that assertion. Instead, he argued that the Biden administration’s policies have clamped down on U.S. oil production since he took office last year.
“We’re currently at a point where we have less federal leasing from this administration than we’ve had in any administration since World War II,” Sommers said. “We’re at record-level lows. At this point in the Obama administration, they’d done 60 leases in the offshore. So far, [Biden’s] only done six.”
This week, the White House released a fact sheet saying it would refill the SPR when oil prices fall below $72 per barrel.
“As part of its commitment to ensure replenishment of the SPR, the [Department of Energy] is finalizing a rule that will allow it to enter fixed price contracts through a competitive bid process for product delivered at a future date,” a White House statement said, while again alleging that the high gas prices are due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Laws
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called for legal safeguards to prevent the SPR from being used for political purposes after the latest release of oil.
“The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was designed for an emergency time period. He’s using it trying to manipulate an election,” McCarthy said.
The stockpile, he added, should only be used after natural disasters and during times of war.
“He has just jeopardized the American people,” McCarthy said during a radio interview. “So, we’re going to have to safeguard that [so] that you cannot use that for your political gain.”
During its peak in 2010, the SPR held approximately 726 million barrels. Around 400 million barrels remain after the latest release.
According to data from the automotive club AAA, the nationwide average price of a gallon of regular gas is $3.83, down about 8 cents from the previous week.
“The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, did not review nor issue awards for experiments described in a pre-print article on SARS-CoV-2 research at Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL),” NIH told news outlets this week.
The statement added that the “NIH is examining the matter to determine whether the research conducted was subject to the NIH Grants Policy Statement or met the criteria for review under the HHS [Health and Human Services] Framework for Guiding Funding Decisions about Proposed Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens (HHS P3CO Framework).”
It came after an NIAID official, Emily Erbelding, told Stat News that her agency should have been informed about the research before it was carried out. She claimed that Boston University did not disclose the exact nature of the study when it applied for a grant.
“What we would have wanted to do is to talk about exactly what they wanted to do in advance, and if it met what the P3CO framework defines as enhanced pathogen of pandemic potential, ePPP, we could have put a package forward for review by the committee that’s convened by HHS, the office of the assistant secretary for preparedness and response,” Erbelding told Stat News.
The official said that they are “going to have conversations over upcoming days” about the research.
When contacted by The Epoch Times for comment, a Boston University spokeswoman pointed to a statement issued on Tuesday that refuted the NIH’s claims.
It also refuted claims made by Erbelding and NIAID in the STAT News articles, saying that it “fulfilled all required regulatory obligations and protocols,” and “following NIAID’s guidelines and protocols, we did not have an obligation to disclose this research for two reasons.”
“The experiments reported in this manuscript were carried out with funds from Boston University. NIAID funding was acknowledged because it was used to help develop the tools and platforms that were used in this research; they did not fund this research directly,” the statement said.
After reports of the study were published online, it drew criticism.
“History has taught us that viruses have managed to escape even the most secure labs. This is not a risk that scientists alone should be able to take without concurrence from the American public. This research must stop immediately while the risks and benefits can be investigated,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said in a statement.
The Epoch Times has contacted the NIH and NIAID for comment.
A Chinese firm’s purchase of land in Florida to build a breeding facility for lab monkeys is drawing scrutiny over the company founders’ ties to the Chinese military.
JOINN Laboratories CA Inc., the California subsidiary of a biotech firm headquartered in Beijing, in July purchased more than 1,400 acres of land for building a primate facility in Florida’s Levy County, county records show.
With a combined value of $5.5 million, the 10 parcels of land purchased from L & T Cattle & Timber represents one of the largest known Chinese acquisitions of U.S. land in recent years. While construction has not begun, the deal has attracted public attention at a time of heightened concern about Chinese investments in the United States over security and other risks.
The purchaser’s parent company JOINN Laboratories describes itself as a leader in non-clinical drug screening in China. According to its website, the company was founded in 1995 and employs over 1,500 staff. It has wholly-owned subsidiaries in major Chinese and U.S. cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, San Francisco, and Boston.
Zhou Zhiwen and Feng Yuxia, the couple who founded and control JOINN Laboratories, both graduated from China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, in 1989 and 1992 respectively. The school is the Chinese military’s top medical institute, which was added to a U.S. trade blacklist last year for supplying biotechnology to the Chinese military.
After graduating, both Zhou and Feng went on to work as researchers at the academy before establishing their business venture, according to Chinese media reports. Zuo Conglin, a board member of JOINN Laboratories, also graduated from the same academy.
These links with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) should raise red flags, according to Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.).
“The idea that we would permit a … biotech firm with ties to the Chinese military to breed lab monkeys on U.S. soil is baffling, especially after China unleashed the Covid-19 pandemic on the world,” he told The Epoch Times.
“The Biden administration allowing Chinese Communist Party affiliated companies to buy up American land is unacceptable, especially for these purposes. If the President won’t put his foot down to protect American interests, Congress will.”
Future of Project Uncertain
It’s unclear if JOINN Laboratories can proceed with its plans in Levy County. Because the purchased land is currently zoned for forestry and rural residential, the company would need to rezone the land to industrial to build its lab facility, the county said in a Sept. 22 statement.
The county said that it had been asked about a possible rezoning of the land, and that it replied that “such a request would not receive a favorable staff recommendation” because of “compatibility” issues and that it would create “spot zoning,” referring to the controversial practice of singling out a piece of land for special zoning laws different from the zoning laws around it.
A laboratory monkey interacts with employees in the breeding centre for cynomolgus macaques (longtail macaques) at the National Primate Research Center of Thailand at Chulalongkorn University in Saraburi, on May 23, 2020. (Mladen Antonov/AFP via Getty Images)
County officials, when reached by The Epoch Times in early October, said it hasn’t received such a formal rezoning request from JOINN Laboratories.
The company did not publicly announce the sale and not much is known about the proposed breeding facility. JOINN Laboratories didn’t respond to an inquiry from The Epoch Times regarding the purchase and its plans for the site.
It’s unclear whether the company intends to sell the lab monkeys in the United States, China, or elsewhere. Both countries have a high demand for primates for experimental use, and the United States imports a large portion of monkeys from China.
According to Chinese media reports, the average cost for a long-tailed macaque, commonly used for lab research, paid by the Chinese regime has soared from around 30,000 yuan ($4,153) in 2019 to over 130,000 yuan (around $18,000) in early 2022.
JOINN Laboratories currently owns about 18 acres of animal testing facilities in Beijing and Suzhou, a major city in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province, according to its 2021 annual report. It is also building another primate breeding base with the capacity of raising 15,000 large animals in Wuzhou of southern China’s Guangxi Province. The quarantine station for the base is now complete, the report stated.
Another sign spells out the concerns many residents have over a proposed corn mill in Grand Forks, N.D. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)
Chinese Deals Under the Spotlight
Around the time JOINN Laboratories inked its Florida land deal, another Chinese firm’s farmland investment near the northern border was also drawing scrutiny.
Fufeng Group, a Chinese agricultural firm, acquired 370 acres of land near the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, where it plans to build a corn mill.
But such proximity to a sensitive U.S. military base has alarmed residents and lawmakers alike, who fear that the location could be used for foreign espionage.
Construction on the land was halted in September when the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a federal interagency panel tasked with conducting national security reviews of foreign investments, sought more information about the project.
A local group opposing the Fufeng project is appealing to the state’s highest court to allow a public vote on the plan. The city had earlier denied a local petition that had collected over 5,300 signatures to bring the project to a referendum vote.
Florida, meanwhile, is also paying attention to the Fufeng case. Standing behind a “Stop CCP Influence” sign, Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis last month proposed a legislative measure to bar Beijing-affiliated companies from buying land surrounding military bases, of which the state has 21.
“There’s the danger of having this land misuse for intelligence or military purposes. But put that aside, we saw what happened with COVID, when almost all this stuff was made in China, why would you want them to be involved in our own food supply in our chain supply chain here in the United States?” Desantis told the audience at Miami Dade College on Sept. 22.
Republicans scored a legal victory this week after a judge ruled against Democrat Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over state restrictions that were imposed on poll challengers ahead of the 2022 midterms, according to the Michigan Republican Party.
The Michigan Republican Party and the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit against Benson in a bid to invalidate new instructions that she handed down for election observers and challengers. Michigan Court of Claims Judge Brock Swartzle ordered Benson’s office to either remove a May 2022 manual or amend specific sections that he said violate state election law and the Administrative Procedures Act, a federal law passed in 1946.
“An executive branch department cannot do by instructional guidance what it must do by promulgated rule,” the judge wrote in his Thursday ruling, local media reported. “This straightforward legal maxim does most of the work in resolving these three consolidated cases.”
Swartzle noted that some provisions in the Michigan poll challenger manual including a ban on the use of electronic devices at mail-in ballot counting boards were at odds with the law or did not go through proper public rule-making procedures that require comment from the public and state lawmakers.
“Under the APA, only a department’s ‘rule,’ promulgated by that department through the crucible of public notice-and-comment rulemaking, has the force and effect of law,” Swartzle added in his order. “Any other pronouncement by a department does not have the force and effect of law unless specifically authorized by our Legislature.”
The order deems invalid instructions that required challengers to present credentials issued using a form from Benson’s office and restricted election challengers’ communication to only those designated as challenger liaisons.
Victory for ‘Rule of Law’
Election challengers credentialed by political parties and organizations can contest a voter’s eligibility to cast a ballot. They also can challenge election procedures at polling locations and counting boards that process absentee ballots. Poll watchers observe election day activities.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson speaks in Detroit, Mich., on Aug. 18, 2020. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)
The RNC and Michigan Republican Party celebrated the win in a statement saying, the ruling is a victory for “the rule of law” and “election integrity.”
“This ruling is a massive victory for election integrity, the rule of law, and Michigan voters,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a news release. “Jocelyn Benson not only disregarded Michigan election law in issuing this guidance, she also violated the rights of political parties and poll challengers to fully ensure transparency and promote confidence that Michigan elections are run fairly and lawfully.”
“This legal win will help deliver the transparency at the ballot box that Michiganders deserve with midterm elections in 19 days.”
In a court filing, the state Bureau of Elections argued the manual is needed due to disputes over the 2020 election amid allegations of voter fraud in Michigan.
In response, Benson’s office indicated that it will appeal Swartzle’s ruling, according to a spokesperson.
“We will appeal this ruling to provide certainty to all voters, clerks, election workers, and election challengers on how to maintain the peace and order at all voting locations that state law requires and every voter expects and deserves,” Michigan Department of State spokesman Jake Rollow told The Associated Press.
Rollow contended that the “Michigan Bureau of Elections has always provided clear and detailed instruction for interaction among all participants to ensure legal compliance, transparency, and equal treatment of all voters.”
The 2022 midterm elections will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. Early voting has already started in Michigan and a number of other states.
While Michigan has no contested Senate seats, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, is facing a challenge from Republican candidate Tudor Dixon.
The campaign finance report for Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Democrat gubernatorial candidate, is tall enough to ride a rollercoaster. It would take 22 reams of paper to print all 10,983 pages of his most recent campaign finance report.
That’s 55 inches tall.
Within those pages are three contributions totaling $120,000 from the family of far-left billionaire George Soros, who has funded the campaigns of soft-on-crime district attorneys now in office in major cities across the nation.
On June 29, George Soros’ son, Jonathan Soros, who lives in New York, gave Shapiro $10,000. The next day, June 30, Jennifer Soros, Jonathan Soros’ wife, contributed $10,000. On Aug. 8, Andrea Soros, George Soros’ daughter, gave Shapiro $100,000.
The large number of special interest donations may explain why Shapiro has raised significantly more than state senator and Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano.
Although Mastriano has some large donations from Pennsylvania-based political action committees—$25,000 from Northeast Leadership Fund, a Republican PAC based in Wilkes-Barre, and $15,000 from Range Resources Energy Independence PAC, which is connected to Pennsylvania’s gas industry—most of Mastriano’s donations come in small amounts from individual donors.
He received $25 from a voter who lives in Shade Gap in Huntingdon County, $50 from someone in Palmyra in Lebanon County, and $30 from a voter in Phoenixville in Chester County.
Shapiro has small donors, too, but much of his money comes from out-of-state individuals with progressive political agendas. His donors are attached to groups like the Service Employees International Union; Swing Left, a political activism group; and Banking for Climate, an initiative of high net worth individuals asking their banks to stop funding fossil fuel expansion.
Spending Matters
Shapiro has proved himself as a well-connected Democrat fundraiser, with nearly $39 million raised for his campaign, compared to Mastriano’s $3.6 million raised.
While fundraising is vital for campaigning, it is not in the governor’s job description. Governors decide how to allocate money within the state budget.
If campaign spending is an indicator of how candidates will use taxpayer money, Pennsylvania voters may be considering the different spending habits between Shapiro and Mastriano.
Shapiro has promised environmentalists that he will hold polluters accountable. His campaign website says he will invest in zero-carbon technology and set a goal for Pennsylvania to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Yet his campaign finance report shows Shapiro has expanded his own carbon footprint during the campaign.
In addition to numerous commercial flights, Shapiro paid $116,000 to Leading Edge Aviation of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, a charter service offering private flights in small aircraft with eight reclining leather passenger seats and a sound system for entertainment. He paid Florida-based luxury air charter, ABOVE Private Aviation, more than $23,000, and spent $24,000 on Pennsylvania-based Contrail Inc., another private airplane service.
Shapiro’s report shows travel expenses in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Connecticut, as well as Pennsylvania, with stays in rented homes and hotels. In July, the campaign spent over $900 at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta. He also paid $5,200 at Four Seasons Hotel in Seattle and $4,815 at Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley in East Palo Alto, California.
Mastriano is traveling the state in a camper with expenses including many stops at gas stations and stores such as Sheetz and BJ’s Wholesale Club. When the campaign pays for hotels, it is often a Days Inn or Hampton Inn.
Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano speaks to supporters at the Unite and Win Rally at the Wyndham Hotel in Pittsburgh on Aug. 19, 2022. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Campaign spending and donations happen every day, so the financial picture is constantly changing, but the state requires candidates to file reports during defined cycles of the race. The numbers included here are based on the most recent Cycle 4 report, covering financial activity from June 7 to Sept. 19, 2022.
As of that date, Shapiro had spent $28 million to get a job that pays $213,000 annually. In other words, Shapiro has spent more than 131 times the annual governor’s salary in the pursuit of the position.
In Pennsylvania, the governor’s office has a four-year term with a limit of two terms. Current Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf is leaving an open seat after completing his second term.
Mastriano has spent just under $1 million according to the Cycle 4 report. It amounts to nearly five times the governor’s annual salary.
It’s common for candidates to spend more than their political office’s yearly salary. When they were campaigning, former President Donald Trump and Wolf both pledged they would not take the annual salaries that came with their positions.
Using Out-of-State Talent
Shapiro not only receives significant money from out of state, he also looks outside Pennsylvania when hiring most of the services for his campaign.
Shapiro has paid thousands to New York-based Eidolon Communications and JBW Consulting, plus $210,000 to CDT Strategies of Woodside, California, for fundraising consulting.
He has paid $593,000 to Global Strategy Group in New York; $30,000 to North Carolina-based Public Policy Holding; $98,500 to TBD Research of Burbank, California; and $35,000 to Washington-based Spiros Consulting, each for research consulting.
Shapiro paid $68,100 to Weymouth Watson, a Washington firm, for event production and management, plus $3.3 million to GPS Impact in Des Moines, Iowa, for digital consulting and ad production, and more than $956,300 on digital consulting to Ascend Digital Strategies in Boulder, Colorado.
He has purchased some services in Pennsylvania, including $15,000 to SPB Strategies of Pittsburgh for strategic consulting; $12,500 to Cornerstone PR for digital consulting; and $10,500 to Chartiers Group for strategic consulting.
Mastriano, too, has spent money out of state. He has paid C&M Transcontinental of North Carolina $81,000 for campaign consulting; $28,000 to Abundant Life Collective, a St. Louis marketing firm, for event production; and $7,200 to Cape Fear Media LLC in North Carolina for media consulting.
But much of Mastriano’s spending is in state, including $78,700 to Capitol Promotions Inc., a Pennsylvania political yard sign company; $79,400 at Hot Frog Print and Media, a Pennsylvania printing company; and $33,700 to Misfit Creates, a Pennsylvania marketing company, for campaign consulting.
“Money is not everything in politics,” a Mastriano spokesman told The Epoch Times. “That’s why Doug Mastriano won the GOP primary by nearly 25 points against eight opponents who spent $18 million attacking him. The people are a tremendous cudgel against the power of AG Shapiro’s money. While many consider a large war chest an indicator of public support, this view of political fundraising is outdated. As recent history clearly shows, grassroots political support is a far better indicator of election outcomes than dollars raised.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the Shapiro campaign for comment.
The most recent reports show Shapiro still has $11 million left to spend. Mastriano has $2.5 million.
At a conference for medical professionals in Sedona, Arizona this past weekend, several speakers–all physicians–commented on a disturbing trend: an increase in otherwise healthy people dying in their sleep.
Sudden unexplained age-inappropriate deaths seem to be happening more than usual, both in the United States, where these medical doctors practice, and in several other countries in the industrialized world.
Excess death “is a phenomenon all over the world at the moment,” said Dr. John Campbell, a nurse educator who has been meticulously following and commenting on the scientific data for his YouTube channel, which has 2.47 million subscribers.
The data shows that “deaths are 16 percent higher than we would expect,” Dr. Campbell said in a recent video, “and the vast majority of these are not COVID deaths.”
Statistics tell part of the story. Unusual deaths making headlines tell another part.
For example, South African actress, Franci Swanepoel, was found dead in her bed on Sunday morning, October 16. She was in the middle of filming a new project. Swanepoel was 50 years old. Her cause of death is not yet known, according to news reports.
Earlier this month, a young dad, Jack Grozier, was also found dead at his home in New Cumnock, Scotland. Just hours before, he had texted his girlfriend to say that he’d talk to her the next morning. Grozier was 23. He leaves behind a one-year-old son, according to the Irish Mirror.
Seventeen-year-old Gwen Casten, whose father is a lawmaker in the state of Illinois, also died in her sleep.
On October 7, 2022, Casten’s family issued a statement on Instagram explaining that their daughter, who had no known health or behavioral problems, died of a heart arrhythmia of an unknown cause.
“She had just come home from an evening with friends, went to bed and didn’t wake up,” the statement read.
Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist who is board-certified in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease, who presented at the conference, said that when people—especially young people—die in their sleep the underlying cause is often myocarditis.
Myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart, can lead to irregular heart rhythms that can be lethal without immediate treatment.
Dr. McCullough pointed to a “state-of-the-heart review” done by an international team of cardiologists published in the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy this May. According to this study, many heart issues are being reported post-vaccination, with myocarditis being the most common. “While myocarditis is the highest reported cardiovascular ramification, other serious complications are also being increasingly reported,” the scientists wrote.
A Surge of Catecholamines
Though it may seem counterintuitive, Dr. McCullough said that sudden deaths that happen during sleep are biochemically similar to the sudden deaths during or just after vigorous exercise.
The reason people die seemingly inexplicably in their sleep, Dr. McCullough explained, is sometimes because of a surge in catecholamines during the end of the sleep cycle. This natural biochemical change is the body’s signal to wake up.
Catecholamines are hormones that are made by the adrenal glands. They are released into the body in response to physical exertion or emotional stress. But they are also released during sleep, just before waking, as a signal to the body and the brain that it is time to get up.
These catecholamines can increase our heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate, among other things.
In the body there are three catecholamines: dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. A surge in catecholamines, whether it happens during sleep or during exercise, can stress the heart and cause it to beat arrhythmically, Dr. McCullough said.
Dying Before Dawn
If a young person’s heart has been damaged, by an infection, vaccination, or for any other reason, the surge of catecholamines can be lethal. This is the reason, McCullough said, that people seem to die in their sleep. They’re really dying just before dawn.
After a careful review of the peer-reviewed scientific literature (to which he has also contributed several studies as a lead or co-author), Dr. McCullough said that the sudden and unexpected deaths we are seeing in young people are most likely from undiagnosed or asymptomatic vaccine-induced myocarditis.
“We have now learned that roughly half or more of cases [of myocarditis] are initially asymptomatic. That means the young people don’t know they have myocarditis,” McCullough explained. “So, a scar is being formed in the heart, but they have never been told not to exert themselves and many are involved in athletics and all different types of activities.”
During a catecholamine surge—whether a result of rigorous exercise or part of the normal wake-up process—this undetected vaccine-induced myocarditis can be fatal, Dr. McCullough said.
These were also the findings of an analysis published in the journal Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine earlier this year, which was led by a pathologist, Dr. James Gill, from Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. The study’s team of three medical doctors autopsied two teenage boys who died just after getting the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
They found that the post-vaccine myocarditis had “features resembling a catecholamine-induced injury, not typical myocarditis pathology.” The same study cites other research that showed that myocarditis is rarely the cause of deaths due to COVID-19 infections.
“Understanding that these instances are different from typical myocarditis … may help guide screening and therapy,” the researchers concluded.
Scott Davison, chief executive of OneAmerica, a major insurance company based in Indianapolis, told an online news conference on Dec. 30, 2021, that his company was seeing “the highest death rates [they] have seen in the history of [the] business.”
Davison said that death rates had climbed 40 percent and COVID-19 fatalities didn’t explain the bulk of the increase. The people dying were under 65, which was unusual, since COVID fatalities were heavily tilted towards those 65 and older.
“It may not all be COVID on their death certificate, but deaths are up in just huge, huge numbers,” he said.
According to Dr. McCullough, the most scientifically responsible assumption by our regulatory agencies must be that the unusually high number of excess deaths occurring in the United States and other countries since the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines are caused by the vaccinations themselves.
A link between these vaccines and the excess deaths should be the assumption unless a different cause is clearly identified and there is proof that the deceased was not vaccinated, Dr. McCullough said.
“That’s a safe regulatory stance,” he insisted.
“So, when we develop new products, when there is a death that occurs after the use of a new product, a safe stance is that it’s due to the new product, unless proven otherwise.”
Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis May Take Months to Appear
In November of 2021, a team of scientists in the Department of Pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital, which is affiliated with the University of Washington, published a study in the journal Pediatrics that showed a definitive link between mRNA vaccines and heart problems in adolescents, research which has since been confirmed by over half a dozen other studies and case reports.
The University of Washington team found that myocarditis and pericarditis emerged in patients aged 12 to 17 years of age who presented with chest pain within one week after the second dose of the mRNA vaccines.
These patients were found to have higher than normal levels of troponin in their blood. Troponin is a type of protein found in the heart muscles. When it is present in the bloodstream it can be a marker of heart failure.
The same team of scientists published a follow-up study in March of 2022, also in the Journal of Pediatrics. Their follow-up study examined a group of young people, ages 12 to 17, who had been diagnosed with heart inflammation after the second dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccines, they found that nearly 69 percent of the patients continued to have abnormal heart findings on their cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, even eight months following vaccination and in the absence of other clinical symptoms.
This finding, the scientists wrote in their discussion, “is an indicator of cardiac injury and fibrosis [scarring] and has been strongly associated with worse prognosis in patients with classical acute myocarditis.”
Dr. McCullough finds this March 25, 2022 study, which was led by Dr. Jenna Schauer at the University of Washington, deeply disturbing.
“But what we understand with myocarditis is that it may take several months for the scar to form, and the papers by Jenna Schauer show this,” Dr. McCullough said, adding that children can have a relatively “substantial scar.”
He went on: “So, I would conclude as a cardiologist that the abnormal rhythm could certainly go into effect four months, six months, eight months, twelve months after the scar is formed in the heart.”
The sudden death of a young person who is ostensibly healthy and dies unexpectedly in their sleep or during exercise, even up to eight months after being vaccinated, McCullough said, may actually be from undiagnosed myocarditis that happened as a result of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Parents, Please Come Forward
Dr. McCullough urged parents to be open about whether their children took the COVID-19 vaccine. The easiest way to prove a sudden and unexpected death, especially among young people, is not related to the injections, he said, “is for the families to come forward and say that they didn’t take the vaccine. Then that’s been ruled out.”
However, Dr. McCullough continued, “When families are quiet, and nothing is said, either they did or didn’t take the vaccine, I think it’s safe to assume they took the vaccine.”
Dr. Angelina Farella, a pediatrician in private practice in Webster, Texas who also spoke at the Sedona conference, explained that she began treating adults suffering from COVID-19 when her medical colleagues refused to help them.
Dr. Farella said that she is very concerned about the heart issues in young people she and her colleagues are seeing clinically and reading about in the scientific literature.
“As a pediatrician, we rarely send a child to a cardiologist [who] doesn’t have a congenital heart defect,” Dr. Farella said. “Very rarely do we send them to a cardiologist.”
These days, however, heart issues among children and young adults who have taken the COVID-19 vaccines are common enough that Dr. Farella said she will no longer sign routine sports physical forms without doing a full blood work-up on her patients to check for signs of cardiac decline.
This includes testing for troponin in the blood as well as D-dimer levels (a simple blood test used to rule out the presence of blood clots).
Though some families in her practice are upset by the extra step, Dr. Farella insisted that the extra testing is crucial to keeping children safe.
“I just want to reassure myself and that family that they have the safest and best possible life ahead of them,” Dr. Farella said.
A former atheist attests to how his belief system was shaken to the core when he experienced meeting Jesus during a near-death experience. He recalled his savior transporting him from a hellish realm to the kingdom of Heaven for a glimpse of what could be earned in life. It was here that he also realized the grave error of his old ways.
Howard Storm, now 75, admits that he had an obsession with success in his earlier years. Raised in a suburb of Boston, he attended school in California before taking a job as an art professor at North Kentucky University in 1972. He became a renowned painter and sculptor, and that pursuit consumed him. Today, Storm is a retired ordained minister and lives with his wife, Marcia, in Fort Thomas.
“I Was My Own God”
“I was an atheist. I thought that lives were short and sweet and then you die, so the whole point was to be as successful as possible,” he told The Epoch Times. “I was an alpha male … I was totally self-absorbed. I considered myself to be a good person because I didn’t flagrantly break the law, rob, steal, or murder anybody. I was my own God.”
But on June 1, 1985, at the age of 38, a brush with death changed Storm’s outlook on life completely.
A painting by Howard Storm; (Inset) Howard Storm in his early life and more recently. (Courtesy of Howard Storm)
He said, “I was taking a group of art students, along with my wife, on a three week tour of Europe. We spent our last week in Paris. The last day … I exhausted the students, taking them to galleries and museums and some archaeological sites.
“At the hotel … I collapsed to the floor with the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. My wife called the hotel desk, they called the emergency services, and a doctor came in quite promptly. With a great deal of effort, he got me off the floor and examined me … I had to have surgery immediately, or I would die.”
Storm had suffered a perforation of the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine where gastric acids enter the digestive system, and was at risk of having sepsis. The cause of this was never determined, but Storm believes his life of excess—alcohol, overeating, and stress—was to blame.
He was rushed to a Paris hospital. Storm has since conferred with doctors in the United States who suspect that he had only two or three hours to live. Yet he survived ten hours; it was a Saturday, and there were no surgeons on the ward. He had to wait in agonizing pain.
Between Life and Death
“I spent hours begging for drugs,” he recalled. “About once an hour, the nurse would come in and ask me how I was doing, and I would say, ‘I’m dying, I need morphine.’ She’d say she was sorry but no—no doctor, no orders.”
Struggling to breathe, Storm felt he was nearing the end. Tearfully, he and his wife said their goodbyes, before Storm lost consciousness.
“I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but the next thing I knew I was sitting next to the bed and I felt wonderful,” he recalled. “I felt better than I ever felt in my whole life. I was overjoyed, amazed, thrilled, excited. … The next thing I noticed was that my senses were heightened. I could see better, hear better, taste better, feel better—much better than I ever had before.”
Storm performed a “reality check” on his body, feeling his way from his feet to his head. He felt “real.” He tried to communicate with his wife and ward mate; despite raising his voice and even yelling, they stared right through him. Next came a troubling vision: a lifeless body in the bed beside him.
“The sheet went up over the shoulders, the neck, and the head was turned away from me. I bent over and looked at the face of the body, and to my complete horror and surprise it looked like me,” he said.
The horror continued when Storm realized he was not alone in this realm of what he found out was the afterlife.
The Hell Realm
“I heard people calling me outside the room,” he said in a video testimony. “There was a group of people in the dark hallway, back in the shadows, maybe eight … They said, ‘We know all about you, we’ve been waiting for you for a very long time, and it’s time for you to come with us.’”
Storm wanted to believe these were medics, but as he followed the group into a dark abyss their professional demeanor changed, their numbers increased, and their words became cruel, blasphemous, and mocking. Storm became scared and lost.
He said, “I’m going back!” But the figures wouldn’t have it, and they beat him into a crumpled heap on the floor. He found himself in a hellish place, and Storm was compelled to call out to Jesus, despite his atheism. He remembered the format from Sunday school as a child.
A painting by Howard Storm depicts the strange figures who tormented him in a hellish realm during his near-death experience. (Courtesy of Howard Storm)
“The prayer was very simple: Jesus, please save me. My prayer was from the heart, out of pure desperation, and it was simple and direct,” Storm told The Epoch Times.
In answer to this, a man in a white robe appeared, causing the cursing figures to retreat. The robed figure had “a beard and long hair,” Storm recalled. He was “very well-built, very athletic” and “exceedingly gentle and kind.” This was Jesus. He led Storm to a safer place, bathed in a comforting light.
A Glimpse of Heaven
“He gave me a tour of Heaven but I was never admitted, I was strictly a tourist,” Storm said. “He said, ‘You don’t have the character to fit into heaven, and that’s why life is the way it is.’
“When I asked Jesus, ‘Am I going to go back into the pain?’ He said, ‘Yes, but you will learn from that. You will suffer a lot.’ He wanted me to fulfill the purpose with which I was brought into this world in the first place: to be a loving, kind person.”
Storm woke up, certain in the knowledge that Heaven is vast and ruled by God’s love, and all that is good, and ever will be, is already there. But he had not yet earned his place with his savior.
A painting by Howard Storm depicts a path with a divine destination. (Courtesy of Howard Storm)A painting by Howard Storm depicts Jesus leading his people. (Courtesy of Howard Storm)
An hour later, Storm was on the operating table. Upon his return to the United States, he was readmitted to the hospital for two months, with complications, before being sent home for a months-long recuperation.
Weak and bed-bound, he had time to contemplate his spiritual experience.
“The only thing I could do was read,” he said. “I got my wife to get me a book on Buddhism, and on Hinduism, and I had a Bible. I came to the conclusion that the Bible was much closer to what I’d experienced than the other books, so I decided that I was going the way of Christianity.”
When Storm was strong enough to walk, he took an old colleague up on an invitation to join her at a local church. Storm attended with his wife, and quickly felt at home in the company of others seeking God. Yet finding his own spiritual path was easier than convincing his friends and colleagues in the art world.
Conviction
“Everybody made fun of me and told me I needed to see a psychiatrist,” he said. “All my friends, all the other university professors were atheists. One of our favorite topics was making fun of people that were religious, as they were the equivalent of adults who believed in fairy tales.”
To be loving toward those who attack you and do not share your same values is a life-long journey, he added, but Heaven is the final destination.
“We’re just really raw amateurs at love,” he said. “When we go to Heaven, as we become perfect, are holy, sanctified, fully and wholly in love, we are given responsibilities. In time, we may be ruling and working in cooperation with God over other systems: people, maybe some cities, maybe some countries, maybe some worlds.”
(L) A depiction of Jesus by Howard Storm; (R) A recent photo of Howard Storm and his wife. (Courtesy of Howard Storm)A heavenly landscape painting by Howard Storm. (Courtesy of Howard Storm)
The year after having his near-death experience, Storm returned to the university. In 1989 he left to attend seminary, eventually becoming an ordained minister. His longest service was 14 years at Zion United Church of Christ in Norwood, Ohio.
His work, he said, even involved exorcising “demonic entities,” counseling people following “demonic attacks,” and championing the power of prayer. “It’s got to be sincere, it’s got to be from the heart, it’s got to be forceful,” he said.
Now retired, Storm works with a village mission in San Victor, Belize. He has written four books based on his experiences: “My Descent into Death” (2005), “Befriend God: Life with Jesus” (2019), “Lessons Learned: A Spiritual Journey” (2014), and “It’s All Love” (2014).
He has rendered several oil paintings about his experience, including portraits of Jesus. But capturing the luminous eyes of the Lord escaped him. “They are radiance, coming from His love and light, and I haven’t figured out how to depict them,” he said.
Today, Storm’s doctrine is simple. He echoes the words of his savior: “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Why do some people report adverse events after COVID-19 vaccinations while some do not? This question is central to the controversy of COVID-19 vaccine adverse events.
Doctors have identified several factors that contribute to an increased risk of spike protein-induced disease, specifically, post COVID-19 vaccine injury.
Dr. Paul Marik—Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance(FLCCC) co-founder—said at an FLCCC conference on Oct. 15 that there are many overlaps in the symptoms and disease mechanisms of long COVID and injury from the COVID-19 vaccines.
Both diseases are systemic, affecting multiple organs, tissues, and are both driven by a high load of spike protein. These spike proteins trigger inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and autoimmunity.
However, not everyone will experience these symptoms.
Whether a person will suffer from spike protein injuries is dependent on factors that are both unchangeable and temporal.
Dr. Paul Marik, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) speaks at the FLCCC conference in Kissimmee, Fla., on Oct. 15, 2022. (Oliver Trey/NTD News)
Spike Protein Exposure Increases Risk, Severity
The best way to reduce spike protein injuries is to reduce opportunities of spike protein exposure through infections or vaccinations.
While early treatment can usually prevent spike protein exposure by clearing spike from the lungs, blocking spike from entering the blood. Vaccines bypass the lungs by administering spike protein genetic materials directly into the muscles and blood vessels.
There is a dose-response with the vaccine, such that the greater the number of vaccine doses, the higher the risk of spike protein injury.
“The more the patients are exposed to spike [proteins], the more severe the disease,” said Marik.
Dr. Flavio Cadegianni hypothesized that receiving COVID-19 vaccines after having had COVID-19 increases one’s risk of spike protein injury. This is because vaccines likely trigger a higher amount of spike protein load in the bloodstream than a common COVID-19 infection.
In a common COVID-19 infection, it is difficult for the virus to enter the bloodstream through the lungs, but the vaccination gives spike protein mRNA and DNA a one-way ticket into the deltoid and then into the bloodstream.
The mRNA and DNA vaccines then enter the blood vessels and endothelial cells, these cells then produce spike proteins and present them on their cellular surface, resulting in an immune attack against these cells.
Spike proteins from vaccines can also be free-floating in the bloodstream and in the extracellular fluid (lymph fluid). These spike proteins can trigger inflammatory pathways by binding to and reducing ACE2 receptors, forming complexes with antibodies, and triggering immune pathways that lead to pro-inflammatory responses.
Spike proteins from vaccination have been observed to be present even at 9 months (pdf) following vaccination, so subsequent shots and boosters could lead to more spike protein production, and therefore higher risks of disease.
Dr. Pierre Kory, co-founder of FLCCC, who now has a clinic for treating long COVID and vaccine injury, said that he noticed his patients with either of these conditions would appear to worsen with subsequent spike exposures.
He recommended his patients to therefore avoid opportunities that may lead to spike protein exposure lest their symptoms go out of control.
Dr. Pierre Kory, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of FLCCC speaks at the FLCCC conference in Kissimmee, Fla., on Oct. 15, 2022. (Oliver Trey/NTD News)
How Bad is My Batch is a website that compiles data on adverse events from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) on COVID-19 vaccination.
By separating each adverse event into its corresponding vaccine batch, the website has shown that some vials are likely different from others, as they are associated with a greater number of adverse events, deaths, and disabilities.
This could be due to impurities in the vaccines.
Leaked emails from staff in the European Medicines Agency (EMA) showed that the agency only asked for 50 percent mRNA integrity in their Pfizer vaccinations.
However, potential issues could also be due to the dosage; some vials may have a higher mRNA or DNA spike protein content than others.
Currently, doctors have no way to verify what is in the vials.
“We basically do not know what’s in these vaccines,” said Merryl Nass, an FLCCC-affiliated internal medicine specialist at the FLCCC conference. Doctors only know that some people are injured and that not all vials are made the same.
Nass had her medical license suspended by the Board of Licensure in Medicine (BOLIM), a state agency that regulates medical licensing in Maine. In January 2022 she received an order to submit to a neuropsychological evaluation by a psychologist selected by BOLIM to determine whether she was competent to practice medicine, citing her online criticism of COVID-19 policies as cause for concern. She filed a lawsuit and recently had a hearing.
DNA double helix. (typographyimages/Pixabay)
Genetic Factors
“There’s a genetic predisposition,” said Marik. “If someone in the family is vaccine injured, it is very common that the brothers of that individual … [will also become] vaccine injured so there are genetic factors which we don’t understand.”
Marik has observed that certain genetic mutations may also put them at a greater risk of COVID-19 vaccine injury.
This included individuals with a methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene mutation and those with Ehlers-Danlos type syndromes.
Around 40 percent of people in the United States carry or are affected by the MTHFR mutation. It is an enzyme responsible for transforming folate (vitamin B9) into its active form. Folate plays a role in breaking down homocysteine—an amino acid that is toxic in higher concentrations—to methionine, a useful amino acid.
Depending on the type of the MTHFR mutation and the number of copies a person carries, the MTHFR enzyme function can be moderately or severely reduced.
This can put a person at a higher risk of folate deficiencies, which also increases a person’s risk of severe COVID-19 such that homocysteine levels have been directly predictive for worsened COVID-19 outcomes.
Testimonies (pdf) from people with relatives who carry MTHFR mutations have told of adverse events following vaccination. However, the actual mechanism behind this genetic predisposition is not well understood.
People with MTHFR mutations have generally been reported to have a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension, blood clotting disorders, pregnancy loss, and certain types of cancer.
Ehlers-Danlos type syndrome is a disorder of connective tissue primarily affecting the skin, joints, and blood vessels. People with these conditions often report joint dislocation, chronic pain, and chronic fatigue. This condition is also often associated with inflammation—a primary driver of long COVID and spike protein-induced disease.
By Ground Picture/Shutterstock
Underlying Chronic Diseases and Immune Deficiencies
Metabolic diseases, especially high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, have been associated with severe symptoms in COVID-19 infections and vaccination.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a renowned cardiologist, wrote in his paper that even “a single high blood glucose reading in non-diabetics admitted to hospital [for COVID-19] has been shown to be associated with worse outcomes.”
Many metabolic diseases including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease are driven by inflammation. The spike proteins also trigger many inflammatory pathways, which may be why people with these chronic diseases are at a greater risk.
Spike proteins both from the virus and the vaccine can bind to ACE2 receptors displayed on cells across any tissue it comes into contact with. ACE2 is responsible for reducing inflammation, but this binding reduces ACE2 receptors and therefore increases inflammation across the tissues.
“We’re talking about mononuclear cells in the brain, in the heart, in the liver, the spleen in the ovaries, so it results in a systemic disease,” said Marik.
Spike proteins are also highly autoimmune, meaning that it is able to trigger the immune system to mount attacks against self-tissues.
Studies led by Dr. Aristo Vojdani showed that antibodies made against SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins reacted “with various tissue antigens including the muscles, joints, thyroid, brain, skin, gastrointestinal tract, almost any antigen taken from different parts of the body,” said Vojdani to The Epoch Times.
A significant finding Marik and Kory observed was that individuals suffering from vaccine injury have a higher concentration of autoantibodies than those with long COVID.
Those with a relapse of autoimmune diseases often experienced symptoms of greater severities.
These are all suggestive that people with underlying chronic diseases that compromise their health and immune system are at a greater risk of possible vaccine injury.
Modern life has taken us away from the sunlight and deprived us of our primary source of vitamin D, a nutrient critical to our health and immune function. (Aleksandra Gigowska/Shutterstock)
Vitamin Deficiencies
Deficiencies in folate, cobalamin (vitamin B12), and vitamin D have been associated with an elevated risk of COVID-19 infection.
A pre-print study (pdf) authored by UK researchers funded by the National Health Service found that supplementation in vitamin D and vitamin B12 relieved neurological symptoms caused by COVID-19 vaccination.
Vitamin D is anti-inflammatory and can boost immune action. Vitamin B12 is critical for neural health as it helps to produce myeline—a fatty coat wrapped around neurons that protects them from scarring and improves neural messaging.
“Vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccines, are known to cause severe and/or chronic neurological reactions in rare cases. We support screening for vitamin B12 deficiency prior to vaccination in high-risk groups,” wrote the study authors.
Folate deficiencies have also been observed in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. The vitamin plays a role in the formation of DNA and RNA for cellular protein.
(fizkes/Shutterstock)
Age and Sex
Marik said that women generally have a higher risk of suffering from symptoms following COVID-19 vaccination.
He based this statement on the results from a survey conducted by React19 (pdf), a website that provides advice on vaccine injuries and early treatment. There were 508 patients suffering from post-vaccination injury evaluated in October 2021 as part of the questionnaire.
The survey found that 81 percent of people reporting vaccine injury were females. Between the two sexes, patients aged between 30 to 50 were the most prevalent.
Results from REACT19 survey on vaccine injured people, survey conducted on Oct. 5, 2021. (Courtesy of React19)
Data from VAERS also showed that women constituted around 65 percent of the adverse event reports; 41 percent of these reports came from women aged 18 to 49 at the time of the report.
Women in the 50 to 59 age bracket and the 65 to 79 age bracket also constituted a large fraction of the adverse event reports, taking up almost 35 percent of all reports in females.
Spike proteins trigger inflammation through many pathways. One pathway is through binding to ACE2 receptors on cell surfaces. This receptor is important for reducing inflammation, and a reduction of ACE2 through spike protein interaction thus increases inflammation.
Though ACE2 receptors are found across many organs, studies show that it is particularly abundant in the ovaries and the eggs.
Since the rollout of vaccines, many women have reported menstrual irregularities.
A study published (pdf) on My Cycle Story compiled survey results from more than 6,000 women. The study found alarming results: while fewer than 40 cases of decidual cast shedding have been documented over the past 100 years, after the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, 292 women experienced decidual cast shedding.
The Ohio Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended a local judge, citing “unprecedented misconduct” that includes falsifying court documents, issuing illegitimate arrest warrants, and donning inappropriate attire in court.
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey Carr, a Democrat, was found to exhibit such misconduct that comprise more than 100 incidents over a period of about two years.
The misconduct “encompassed repeated acts of dishonesty; the blatant and systematic disregard of due process, the law, court orders, and local rules; the disrespectful treatment of court staff and litigants; and the abuse of capias warrants and the court’s contempt power,” stated the court’s per curium opinion (pdf). “That misconduct warrants an indefinite suspension from the practice of law.”
Justices agreed with the court’s three-panel Board of Professional Conduct’s assessment that Carr “ruled her courtroom in a reckless and cavalier manner, unrestrained by the law or the court’s rules, without any measure of probity or even common courtesy,” and that she “conducted business in a manner befitting a game show host rather than a judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court.”
Indefinite Suspension
Justices on the Ohio Supreme Court voted 5–2 on Oct. 18 to indefinitely suspend Carr’s law license—a sanction that is the most severe penalty from the court, besides disbarment. The punishment is also more severe than the two-year suspension that the court’s Board of Professional Conduct had sought (pdf).
Official court documents (pdf) state that Carr, who had been a judge since 2012, is now “indefinitely suspended from the practice of law and immediately suspended from judicial office without pay for the duration of her disciplinary suspension.”
Carr was found to have ignored an administrative order by the presiding judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court to postpone hearings around March and April 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to not rescheduling hearings, she was determined to have issued arrest warrants for at least 20 non-jail defendants who did not appear in court. Furthermore, she waived fines and court costs for people who were “brave enough” to appear in court in this period. Carr also lied to local news media and to her presiding judge that she did not issue arrest warrants.
The former judge agreed to some 583 statements of fact and misconduct related to her ethics violations, including acknowledging that she often held hearings without a prosecutor present to avoid complying with procedural safeguards in state law, which include requiring a judge to inform the accused of the nature of the charge, the identity of the complainant, the right to counsel, and the effect of various pleas.
Carr acknowledged that she has falsified court journal entries to conceal her actions, which included unilaterally entering no-contest pleas and then finding defendants not guilty of their charged offenses, or arbitrarily waiving fines and costs for defendants whom she had found guilty but without looking into their ability to pay the fines. In at least 24 of 34 cases, Carr’s journal entries falsely said she had looked into defendants’ ability to pay and determined they couldn’t pay. Instead, most of the time, Carr had frequently waived fines and costs based on the defendant’s birth date.
According to the court’s opinion, Carr put at least five people in jail after she used warrants and incarceration to force people to pay fines and costs by tying their bond to the amount of the fine and costs. She acknowledged that this “essentially created a modern-day debtors’ prison.”
The court opinion determined that Carr abused her power and held a person in contempt, which resulted in the person serving 15 days in jail.
It also noted that Carr “violated rules governing the appropriate dress, order, and decorum for courtroom,” noting that her bench “was littered with dolls, cups, novelty items, and junk” and that Carr presided over her courtroom “wearing tank tops, T-shirts—some with images or slogans, spandex shorts, and sneakers.”
Mental Health Disorder Cited
Carr had argued that her diagnosed mental health disorders contributed to her misconduct, but the board concluded that she didn’t establish that they caused her past misconduct. The board acknowledged that Carr has voluntarily undergone comprehensive evaluations of her mental and physical health, adhered to her doctor’s treatment plan, and entered into a contract with the Ohio Lawyers Assistance Program.
Carr must now wait at least two years before she can apply to reinstate her law license in Ohio. To be able to regain her law license, she must convince the court that she has dealt with the issues that led to her indefinite suspension. Her reinstatement will require a report from a qualified healthcare professional stating that she can return to “the competent, ethical, and professional practice of law,” and require proof of compliance with her OLAP contract.
Carr’s attorney Rich Koblentz told News 5 Cleveland after the Ohio Supreme Court decision that they are “disappointed.” He said that Carr “was not being appropriately treated” for her menopause and sleep apnea, which triggered a generalized anxiety disorder. “She was not being appropriately treated for those conditions,” Koblentz told the outlet.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is set to pick her replacement until voters can elect a replacement in a future election.
A funeral director from New Zealand says that 95 percent of the corpses he has been seeing had received a COVID-19 vaccine within two weeks of their passing away.
“Ninety-five percent of the people who have passed away through the work that I’ve done have been vaccinated within two weeks,” Brenton Faithfull said.
Faithfull has been working as a funeral director for the last 41 years and has been running his own mortuary business for the last 26 years. He recently spoke out about the apparent relationship between the COVID-19 vaccines and the deaths he has been observing.
“It’s very obvious, they die within two weeks of receiving the vaccination, a lot of them … almost appear to have died from anaphylaxis, almost a reaction straight away to the booster.”
Anaphylaxis is an acute reaction of the body to an antigen, such as that of a bee sting, or an injection.
“They die the same day, the following day after receiving the COVID-19 vaccination. This isn’t a one-off case, this is the majority of cases that have come through our facility,” Faithfull said in an interview.
UK Funeral Director
Similar data has been discussed by funeral director John O’Looney in the UK and Richard Hirschman from Alabama, previously reported by The Epoch Times.
“From the very moment these injections went into arms, the death rate soared beyond belief. They labeled them all as COVID deaths, but the reality is they were almost exclusively the people who were vaccinated,” O’Looney told The Epoch Times.
“We now see record numbers of deaths in the vaccinated and in record numbers of young people. They die from a mixture of sudden very aggressive cancers or blood clots, which cause heart attack and stroke,” he added.
Doctors Comment
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, who has been informing the public on the dangers of vaccines for over two decades, weighed in on Faithfull’s testimony:
“On Dec. 2, 2020, UK regulators granted emergency-use authorization (EUA) to Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot. Within a week, MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency] Chief Executive Officer June Raine said in a statement that ‘Any person with a history of anaphylaxis to a vaccine, medicine or food should not receive the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.’ She went on to say that ‘allergic reactions had not been a feature of Pfizer’s clinical trials,’” Dr. Tenpenny told The Epoch Times.
However, Tenpenny further noted that anaphylaxis was the “first identified risk.”
“Pfizer was forced to release their findings by a Texas federal judge in January 2022. Within that first tranche of documents, you will find Table 3–Safety Concerns–on page 10 of this document [pdf]. The first identified risk is anaphylaxis. In a risk survey … conducted between Dec. 1, 2020, and Feb. 28, 2021, a mere three months, 1,833 cases of anaphylaxis had been observed and four individuals died from anaphylaxis on the same,” she said.
The Epoch Times reached out to Pfizer for comment.
In certain cases, Faithfull and his staff try to get the coroner involved.
Faithfull shared one instance where a man insisted that his father should not get the vaccine, but his sister pressured their father. When the father conceded and took the shot, he died four days later.
“When I started counting in August of last year, it was one after the other, after the other, after the other, and when I got to 20, it was 19 who had died within two weeks [of getting the vaccine],” Faithfull said.
“So the first 20 days, I counted 19 of them—that’s 95 percent,” the funeral director explained. “The next number was 100 percent of the people who died had been vaccinated within two weeks.”
Dr. Sanjay Verma is a cardiologist practicing in California who has been seeing a dramatic increase in heart problems since the rollout of the vaccines.
“Previous work by Dr. Gundry demonstrated an increase in cardiac inflammatory markers after COVID-19 vaccination. Interestingly, from Dec 2021 thru Jun 2022, 100 percent of the patients needing urgent cardiac catheterization for heart attack had been vaccinated, many of them with booster doses. More than half had been recently vaccinated (within a few weeks). In a county where 60 percent of the population is vaccinated, this trend was worrisome,” Verma told The Epoch Times.
“There have been 31,470 deaths after COVID-19 vaccination reported in VAERS. The vast majority of them are clustered within seven days after vaccination. Additionally, there are some other worrisome trends. Data from CDC indicate there were 60,000 deaths in Sept 2019 and Sept 2020. However, in Sept 2021 that number surged to 90,000. We also have numerous social media posts on people, especially athletes, who ‘died suddenly’ with no apparent cause,” Verma said.
Verma believes that any unexplained death within a few weeks or even months after vaccination should be “investigated with a thorough autopsy,” specifically evaluated for spike protein in the brain, major blood vessels, and heart.
“We know the spike protein is toxic to blood vessels, causing endothelial dysfunction. The spike protein is also toxic to heart muscle, causing myocardial injury. There are also case reports of autopsy proven vaccine-mediated encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), myocarditis, and vasculitis, all of which can cause death,” Verma added.
The climate change activist crowd seems to be getting bolder by the day.
According to Australia’s News.com.au, recently, at the Porsche pavilion floor at Volkswagen’s Autostadt, located in Wolfsburg, Germany, a group of climate change activists — some of them from a group called Scientist Rebellion — seemingly felt the best way to pressure the government “to decarbonize the German transport sector” was to glue themselves to the showroom floor.
The climate protesters who glued themselves to the floor eventually realized that they needed to use the restroom. They were appalled to discover that Volkswagen officials reportedly wouldn’t provide bowls “to urinate and defecate” in.
The activist group also announced a hunger strike to bolster the seriousness of the protest.
“[Nine] of us glued to the floor and some of us on hunger strike until our demands to decarbonise the German transport sector are met,” Gianluca Grimalda, a researcher with the Kiel Institute and a member of Scientist Rebellion wrote on Twitter.
In another tweet, which shows some of the climate protesters glued to the floor around one of the cars in the showroom, it was stated that not only were the activists not provided with bathroom bowls, but they added that the heat had been turned off.
.@VW told us that they supported our right to protest, but they refused our request to provide us with a bowl to urinate and defecate in a decent manner while we are glued, and have turned off the heating. People in support can’t get out of the building. 2/ pic.twitter.com/YZuuiww5Q4
The activist group also bragged that members glued climate change-related scientific papers all over the showroom, including on what appear to likely be very expensive new vehicles.
Grimalda, in one of the videos posted to Twitter, proclaimed that CO2 gasses are directly linked to warming temperatures and demanded that “decarbonization” should be a top priority for the German government.
“We know that we must decarbonize. The standard net-zero [emissions] by 2050, which also Volkswagon complies with, we know that will bring many millions of people dying. We know that for sure,” Grimalda said.
As far as what happened with the bathroom situation, it was not disclosed when or how the climate activist group relieved themselves, most fortunately.
The incident came in the wake of several recent dramatic climate change protests, including one that resulted in the attempted destruction of a priceless Vincent van Gogh painting at the National Gallery in London, Fox News reported.
Two climate protesters, representing a group called Just Stop Oil, tossed two cans of tomato soup on Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting. The two were arrested by London Metropolitan Police “on suspicion of criminal damage and aggravated trespass.”
Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ painting was vandalized with tomato soup by two anti-fossil fuel protestors in London.
The protestors then glued themselves to the wall beneath the painting.
Some believe that negative press is better than no press, but what these nutjob climate activists have done — trying to destroy classic works of art and disrupting regular business by gluing themselves to the floor, among other disruptive events — only garners embarrassment and intense backlash, which greatly diminishes their cause.
Does Joe Biden actually have dementia? Nobody knows.
However, given that the 79-year-old president often displays common symptoms of the cognitive condition, it’s a fair question. Some of his repeated actions, like acting increasingly aggressive and physical toward reporters asking simple questions, as he did on Thursday, raise concerns that the U.S. president might possibly be experiencing a loss of cognitive function, which poses all sorts of problems, including national security concerns.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, some of the key symptoms of dementia include “aggressive behaviors” and “anger.” Anyone who’s lived with or taken care of a family member or friend with dementia can spot some of the same signs in Biden’s behavior, and that’s just what we see on television and the internet.
For instance, Thursday, before Biden boarded Marine One, the president was peppered with several questions by reporters. While answering those questions, the president seemed especially angry and aggressive toward them, even getting physical on a few occasions — all symptoms of dementia, especially in a person his age.
The first question was related to abortion rights. Upon providing his nonsensical answer in which he referred to the now-overturned landmark Roe v. Wade case, Biden can be seen reaching out and grabbing the reporter’s arms.
Reporter: “Should there be any restrictions on abortion at all?”
Pretty bizarre, right? One can only imagine the sheer outrage from the left if former President Donald Trump exhibited the same erratic behaviors, to the point where he grabbed and yanked reporters’ hands and arms.
Another question seemed to rattle the current president, as a reporter pointed out the embarrassing lack of requests from Democratic candidates who want Biden to rally with them in the final stretch leading up to the 2022 midterms. Biden, in response, not only snapped at the female reporter, calling her “kid” and telling her to “count,” but he also reportedly grabbed her, too.
“John Fetterman’s gonna appear with you today in Pennsylvania, but there haven’t been that many candidates campaigning with you —”
Biden, grabbing the reporter: “That’s not true! There’ve been 15. COUNT KID, COUNT!” pic.twitter.com/Weg5WPHrSU
Let’s take a quick look at some of the other key symptoms of dementia, from the National Institute on Aging, and see if they might ring a bell.
“Experiencing memory loss, poor judgment, confusion, difficulty speaking, understanding and expressing thoughts, or reading and writing.” It also listed “wandering and getting lost in a familiar neighborhood” as a symptom. Almost all of those top-level symptoms have been displayed by Biden at one point or another, sometimes multiple times.
Again, who knows, right? Can you feel how strongly my eyes are rolling into the back of my head?
The point is that Biden clearly has something going on, whatever it is. If it’s simply old age, fine! Nobody is knocking the guy for being old. It happens to us all, eventually.
But the concern is that if Biden is just aging rapidly, or dealing with some level of dementia or another condition that presents with cognitive decline, we’re talking about the leader of the free world who is never more than inches away from the nuclear codes. A dementia-ridden person typically also has trouble at night, so can you imagine Biden, with dementia, having to respond to a breaking threat in the middle of the night? Is he even capable?
That’s a serious question and one for which every American deserves a clear and serious answer. One must also consider that despite multiple requests, Biden still refuses to submit to a run-of-the-mill cognitive skills test. Why in the world is that?
If Democrats take a drubbing in the off-year elections — and it seems increasingly likely, but not certain, that they will — it will be because they lost their moorings when the country seemed to go crazy with excessive COVID closedowns and irrational obsessions about systemic racism.
Schools were closed down despite the minuscule risk to children, and millions of modest-income folks were put out of work. People were told they were just as racist as in the days of slavery and segregation and that we must defund the police, pay reparations and impose endless racial quotas and preferences.
Let’s see how the voters’ response is developing.
Republicans regain lead in generic vote for the House.
In an era of straight-ticket voting, party support in congressional elections is a good benchmark. The Real Clear Politics average showed Republicans ahead by about 3 points from last November to June. The developments — President Joe Biden’s legislative successes, the Dobbs decision, the restoration of jobs — appeared to reduce Republicans’ lead in August and September.
Three weeks ago, Republicans seized the lead and are ahead now by slightly more than in 2014, when they won more House seats (247 of 435) than in any election since the 1920s. Polls focused on likely voters showed Republicans ahead 48% to 45%.
Fundamentals have taken hold: out-of-control inflation, sparked by first President Donald Trump and then even more by Biden spending to compensate for COVID closedown losses; out-of-control crime, sparked by liberals’ defunding and deactivation of police forces and no-bail and quick-release of criminals. Liberal crime policies are hugely unpopular. Racial quotas and preferences in college admissions, the subject of a Supreme Court case on colleges to be argued on Oct. 31, are opposed by 73% in a Pew Research poll, and quotas have been voted down in eight of nine referenda since 1996, most recently in California in 2020.
Trump fixation is past its sell-by date.
Immigration was one issue on which the sole rationale for Democrats’ policy was Orange Man Bad. If Trump would build a wall and force asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico, Biden would let everyone in. As New York Times reporter Frank Bruni notes, focusing on Biden rather than Trump “doesn’t exactly track with media coverage of the midterms.” Voters, in contrast, except for Democratic activists who are, in my colleague David Freddoso’s words, “obsessed with Trump to the point of insanity,” are focused on the current rather than the former president.
Hispanics trending Republican.
Although most news media try to suppress the story, Democrats are also suffering from out-of-control illegal immigration, highlighted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flying immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. It turns out that Hispanics, especially in the Rio Grande Valley but elsewhere, identify not with the illegal immigrants but with the Border Patrol, which has been ordered to let them enter, and with blue-collar workers whose jobs they may threaten.
As Clinton administration veteran William Galston admits in the Wall Street Journal, “The distinctive black experience in America isn’t the template for other minority groups.” Hispanics, it turns out, are more like Italians, as I argued in my 2001 book “The New Americans,” which means they’re moving toward Republicans — where they haven’t been doled out scraps from big government machines (Florida, Texas, Arizona, Georgia).
The abortion issue fizzles.
Last summer, liberal pundits salivated at the prospect of pro-abortion-rights voters voting Democrat to rebuke the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Women’s Health decision reversing Roe v. Wade. But this month’s New York Times survey found only 5% saying abortion is their top issue, with the Times’ ace analyst Nate Cohn summarizing, “the summer’s abortion/democracy/guns focus fading.”
My own sense is that many abortion supporters assumed that reversing Roe would make abortion illegal everywhere. As they realized it didn’t, their concern about the issue faded. Meanwhile, Democrats who support legalizing abortion until the moment of birth may be finding themselves on the defensive against Republicans pivoting to popular restrictions on late-term abortions.
Republicans’ “weak candidates” performing better than expected.
Over the summer, it looked like Republican primary voters, urged on by Trump, had saddled the party with weak nominees for senator and governor in otherwise winnable races. But in recent debates, the Republicans so characterized seem to be holding their own: Blake Masters in Arizona, Herschel Walker in Georgia, J.D. Vance in Ohio. In the single Pennsylvania debate on Oct. 25, the question is not how the fluent Republican Mehmet Oz does, but whether the stroke-disabled Democrat John Fetterman, who has trouble understanding spoken words, will respond to the closed captioning he has insisted on.
Democrats’ blue-state blues.
The most startling October development so far is Democrats’ apparent weaknesses in heavily Democratic states like Oregon and New York. Oregon hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 1982, but Republican Christine Drazan is leading in polls for reasons that apparently puzzled a team of New York Times reporters, whose account began by highlighting “liberal disharmony,” big contributions by Nike co-founder Phil Knight and the unexplained unpopularity of retiring incumbent Gov. Kate Brown. Only in the 12th paragraph did they finally make reference to “widespread homelessness and safety fears in Portland, which set a record for murders last year” and the new law decriminalizing “hard drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.”
The Times found space to mention Oregon’s law welcoming abortion-seekers but failed to mention the antifa violence that plagued Portland during and after the “mostly peaceful” demonstrations and riots in the summer of 2020. Even in Oregon, as Nate Hochman reports in City Journal, there is a distaste for dystopia.
Is something similar happening in other Democratic states? Few House races have public polls this year, with a few showing Democrats trailing even in states like California, Minnesota and Rhode Island.
More startling is New York, where Kathy Hochul, elevated to the governorship after Andrew Cuomo’s resignation in August 2021, is leading Republican congressman Lee Zeldin by only 50% to 44% in the RCP average. She’s ahead just 50% to 46%, according to Quinnipiac, which shows Sen. Charles Schumer, in his 42nd year in Congress, leading Republican Newsmax TV host Joe Pinion by only 54% to 42%. Schumer has won reelection twice previously with 71% of the vote.
If these numbers are right, Cook Political Report analyst David Wasserman says, Democrats are in jeopardy of losing seven New York House seats. And perhaps even more: State Attorney General Letitia James trails unknown Republican Michael Henry 45% to 44% in a Trafalgar poll.
What’s the No. 1 issue in New York? For Democrats, it’s “protecting democracy,” but for Republicans and independents, it’s crime. New Yorkers know, from the days of Mayors Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, how pleasant it is to live in safety, and they have seen how violent crime has skyrocketed following the George Floyd demonstrations and riots and the passage of the state’s no-bail law. Meanwhile, James is focused on accusing Trump of overvaluing his assets when seeking loans from big banks. Trump fixation continues to trump real-life concerns.
I’m not predicting that Schumer is going to lose, and if the leaders in current polling win, the Senate will remain tied at 50-50. But we know that polling has missed the mark in recent elections, overpredicting Republicans in 2012 and maybe 2018, and overpredicting Democrats in 2014, 2016 and 2020.
But there’s more evidence that Republicans, or some subset of them, are refusing to be polled more often than Democrats. Pollsters are having trouble getting interviews in rural areas, most of which tend to vote heavily Republican. Fundamentals favor the Republicans — fundamentals that have their roots in the COVID closedowns and the racial reckonings, in decisions taken in those delirious times and in their consequences now.
After only six weeks in office, Truss becomes shortest serving PM in British history
Another success story coming out of Great Sh!tain [US Patriot]
LONDON (Reuters)—Liz Truss said on Thursday she was resigning as British prime minister just six weeks after she was appointed, brought down by an economic program that sent shockwaves through financial markets last month and divided her Conservative Party.
Speaking outside the door of her Number 10 Downing Street office, Truss accepted that she could not deliver the promises she made when she was running for Conservative leader, having lost the faith of her party.
A leadership election will be completed within the next week to replace Truss, who is the shortest serving prime minister in British history. George Canning previously held the record, serving 119 days in 1827 when he died.
“I recognise though, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party. I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the King to notify him that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party,” she said.
Earlier, Conservative Party officials had gathered at Downing Street while a growing number of her own lawmakers called on her to quit.
Appointed on Sept. 6, Truss was forced to sack her finance minister and closest political ally, Kwasi Kwarteng, and abandon almost all her economic program after their plans for vast unfunded tax cuts crashed the pound and British bonds. Approval ratings for her and her Conservative Party collapsed.
On Wednesday she lost the second of the government’s four most senior ministers, faced laughter as she tried to defend her record to parliament and saw her lawmakers openly quarrel over policy, deepening the sense of chaos at Westminster.
New finance minister Jeremy Hunt is now racing to find tens of billions of pounds of spending cuts to try to reassure investors and rebuild Britain’s fiscal reputation as the economy heads into recession and with inflation at a 40-year high.
(Writing by Kate Holton; additional reporting by Farouq Suleiman and Kylie MacLellan; Editing by William Schomberg, Sarah Young and Catherine Evans)
Surging mortgage rates and record-high prices push affordability beyond the reach of many Americans
(Reuters)—U.S. existing home sales dropped for an eighth straight month in September as surging mortgage rates and still-elevated selling prices push affordability beyond the reach of many prospective buyers.
Existing home sales fell 1.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.71 million units last month, the National Association of Realtors said on Thursday. Outside of the short-lived plunge during the spring of 2020, when the economy was reeling from the first wave of COVID-19, this was the lowest sales level since September 2012.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast sales would decrease to a rate of 4.70 million units. On a regional basis, sales fell in the Northeast, Midwest, and South and were unchanged in the West.
Home resales, which account for the bulk of U.S. home sales, decreased 23.8% on a year-on-year basis.
The Federal Reserve, staging an aggressive battle with the highest inflation in 40 years, has raised its benchmark overnight interest rate from near zero in March to the current range of 3.00% to 3.25%, the swiftest pace of policy tightening in a generation or more. That rate is likely to end the year in the mid-4% range, based on Fed officials’ own projections and recent comments.
The rate-sensitive housing market has taken a pounding as a result, far more so than most other sectors of the economy. In contrast, other sectors of the economy, like the labor market, have shown resilience despite the Fed’s attempts to cool demand.
Data this week showed confidence among homebuilders eroding for the 10th straight month in October, and ground-breaking for new single-family home projects tumbled to the lowest level in more than two years in September.
Mortgage rates, which move in tandem with U.S. Treasury yields, have soared even higher. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.94% in the latest week, the highest in 20 years, up from 6.92% in the prior week, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac.
Though house price growth has slowed as demand weakened, tight supply is keeping prices elevated. The median existing house price increased 8.4% from a year earlier to $384,800 in September. There were 1.25 million previously owned homes on the market, down 0.8% from a year ago.
At September’s sales pace, it would take 3.2 months to exhaust the current inventory of existing homes, up from 2.4 months a year ago. A four-to-seven-month supply is viewed as a healthy balance between supply and demand.
Properties typically remained on the market for 19 days last month, up from 16 days in August. First-time buyers accounted for 29% of purchases, unchanged from August. All-cash sales made up 22% of transactions, up from 23% a year ago.
Democrats insulated CFPB from requiring congressional appropriations
(Reuters)—A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding apparatus is unconstitutional, faulting a system Democrats designed to insulate the agency from requiring congressional appropriations.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the CFPB’s independent funding through the Federal Reserve rather than budgets passed by Congress violated the separation of powers principles in the U.S. Constitution.
That ruling, by a panel of three judges appointed by then-President Donald Trump, a Republican, in the process vacated a 2017 regulation the agency adopted aimed at combating “unfair and abusive” practices in the payday lending industry.
The Community Financial Services Association of America sued in 2018 to challenge the rule, which barred lenders from making a new attempt to withdraw funds from an account where two consecutive attempts had failed unless consumers consented.
“Even among self-funded agencies, the Bureau is unique,” U.S. Circuit Judge Cory Wilson wrote. “The Bureau’s perpetual self-directed, double-insulated funding structure goes a significant step further than that enjoyed by the other agencies on offer.”
A CFPB spokesperson said there was “nothing novel or unusual about Congress’s decision to fund the CFPB outside of annual spending bills.”
The bureau could ask the full 5th Circuit to reconsider the case or take it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Multiple other courts have deemed the CFPB’s funding constitutional, a point the 5th Circuit acknowledged but disagreed with.
The ruling marked the latest in a series of legal challenges to the CFPB, which Congress created in 2010 through the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act during Democrat Barack Obama’s presidency, in response to the 2008 financial crisis.
Republicans have long opposed the agency. The Supreme Court in 2020 ruled in another case that the protection Congress originally afforded the CFPB director, who could only be fired for cause, was unconstitutional.
“Extreme right-wing judges are throwing into question every rule the CFPB enforces to protect consumers and businesses alike,” U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who proposed the CFPB’s creation, wrote on Twitter.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Stephen Coates and William Mallard)
Tech giant has ‘collected biometric data from innumerable Texans and used their faces and their voices to serve Google’s commercial ends,’ according to complaint
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—Texas has filed a lawsuit against Alphabet’s Google for allegedly collecting biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining proper consent, the attorney general’s office said in a statement on Thursday.
The complaint says that companies operating in Texas have been barred for more than a decade from collecting people’s faces, voices or other biometric data without advanced, informed consent.
“In blatant defiance of that law, Google has, since at least 2015, collected biometric data from innumerable Texans and used their faces and their voices to serve Google’s commercial ends,” the complaint said. “Indeed, all across the state, everyday Texans have become unwitting cash cows being milked by Google for profits.”
Google did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The collection occurred through products like Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max, the statement said.
The lawsuit is one of several filed by states against Google alleging unfair practices with regard to privacy. Arizona settled one in early October for $85 million. Texas, Indiana, Washington State and the District of Columbia sued Google in January over what they called deceptive location-tracking practices that invade users’ privacy.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement that the “indiscriminate collection” of such data “will not be tolerated.”
30 percent of Democrats oppose mandates to force bakeries to make same-sex wedding cakes
Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman begged people not to vote for him if they think bakers should not be required to make cakes for same-sex weddings, a position that puts him at odds with many voters in his own party.
In a 2020 interview, Fetterman rattled off a list of political stances on which he refused to waiver, including the release of people serving prison time for marijuana possession, the acceptance of Syrian refugees, and support for same-sex marraige. He also weighed in on the controversy over a Colorado bakery’s refusal on religious grounds to design a cake for a same-sex wedding.
“If you think that two people can’t love who they love…or you think someone should be able to not bake someone a wedding cake,” said Fetterman, “I’m begging you, vote for the other person, because it’s not ever going to be me.”
Fetterman’s unwavering position would spell bad news for him should voters in swing-state Pennsylvania take his advice at the ballot box next month. According to a Pew Research poll in 2017, Americans were evenly split on whether bakers should be required to make cakes for same-sex weddings. Thirty percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Republicans opposed the mandates, according to the poll. Fetterman’s Republican opponent Mehmet Oz supports same-sex marriage, but has not publicly weighed in on the wedding cake issue.
Fetterman’s views also put him at odds with some of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices. By a 7-2 vote in 2018, the Court sided with Masterpiece Cakeshop in a case against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The Commission had sued to force shop owner Jack Phillips to design a cake for a same-sex wedding, but he refused to do so on religious grounds. Liberal justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan joined all of the conservative justices in support of Phillips.
Fetterman weighed in on the cake controversy days after his 2020 interview, referring to Phillips as an “asshole” on Twitter. He also said that anyone who refuses to bake a cake for a gay marriage on religious grounds “may need a new religion.”
Phillips’s legal drama has not gone away. A Colorado state judge fined Phillips $500 last year for refusing to bake a birthday cake for a woman celebrating the day she came out as transgender. Lawyers for Phillips at the Alliance Defending Freedom said that an “activist attorney” ordered the cake in order to “test” Phillips.
“Radical activists and government officials are targeting artists like Jack because they won’t promote messages on marriage and sexuality that violate their core convictions,” his lawyers said.
The Fetterman campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters)—After more than two years of surging demand, the volume of container imports coming through U.S. ports has tumbled sharply, raising questions about where a sector once tracked as a supply-chain stress point will hit bottom.
Container import volumes across all U.S. ports hit an all-time high in May and pulled back slightly before plunging in August and September. That put the indicator close to the levels last seen in 2019, before the pandemic and a surge in demand for shipments of furniture, clothing and appliances, according to data tracked by Descartes Datamyne.
The question is whether the trendline—an indicator for strength of consumption, the wider economy, and trade—flattens out in the coming months, relieving a source of supply-chain distress that had driven prices higher, or whether the boom turns to an outright bust with a potential recession looming, analysts told Reuters.
Goods packed in ocean containers account for roughly 25% of U.S. imports and many of the purchases made by consumers, whose spending fuels as much as 70% of U.S. economic activity. Volume surged as much as 40% from 2019 levels during the pandemic as retailers raced to meet soaring demand for goods.
That surprise surge clogged ports and spawned cascading delays, leading to delayed deliveries of everything from pharmacy supplies to Peloton exercise bikes. As recently as March, the Biden administration supply chain task force had tracked container imports as part of a “dashboard” to monitor the distress in the distribution of goods and a contributor to higher prices.
“We’re going back to 2019,” said transportation economist Walter Kemmsies, who believes consumers are reverting to their historical spending split of 70% on services and 30% on goods.
Spending on services, which had risen during every U.S. recession since 1973, broke that pattern when the U.S. economy slipped into recession in early 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The resulting drop in spending on that category – at one point as steep as 14% – freed up dollars for goods purchases.
Kemmsies said the August and September pullbacks in the volume of container imports are the result of retailers like Walmart and Amazon.com canceling billions of dollars of orders earlier this year. They made that call after shoppers stopped bingeing on sweatpants, sofas, remote school laptops, and big-screen televisions, and shifted to spending on concert tickets, travel, in-restaurant dining, and other services.
U.S. retailers are now swimming in excess apparel, personal computers, small appliances, and holiday decor and racing to clear bulging product supplies. And they are likely to hold back on new orders until that profit-sapping overhang is eliminated.
S&P Global on Tuesday forecast that worldwide trade would contract slightly in 2022 and 2023 before recovering in 2024.
“Warehouses are full. Until importers clear their inventory, expect overseas orders to be weak,” shipping consultant Jon Monroe said in a weekly update.
Bank of America analysts struck a similar note on Tuesday. “We are skeptical of a major restock coming anytime soon,” they said.
(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, editing by Kevin Krolicki and Marguerita Choy)
The Pentagon will pay for the travel costs of service members who obtain abortions, according to a memo from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin obtained by Politico.
“Our Service members and their families are often required to travel or move to meet our staffing, operational, and training requirements. Such moves should not limit their access to reproductive health care,” Austin said Thursday in the memo, which directed the Defense Department to provide travel allowances to service members and their family members seeking access to abortions.
The move comes after Austin in June vowed, following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, to protect service members’ access to abortions.
Austin said in the Thursday memo that the abortion travel allowances are needed to address the harm the Supreme Court’s decision inflicted on the military’s “ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force.”
Austin also ordered the Defense Department to establish a program supporting health care providers in the department who face state penalties for providing abortions.
Eight-count indictment is latest case by Justice Department targeting Beijing’s expatriation campaign in U.S.
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The United States unsealed criminal charges on Thursday against seven Chinese nationals accused of waging a surveillance and harassment campaign against a U.S. resident and his family, in a bid by the Chinese government to repatriate one of them back to China.
The eight-count indictment, unsealed in a U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, is the latest case by the Justice Department targeting China’s apparent expatriation campaign, known as “Operation Fox Hunt.”
The seven individuals charged are Quanzhong An, 55, of Roslyn, New York his daughter Guangyang An, 34, and five others still in China: Tian Peng, Chenghua Chen, Chunde Ming, Xuexin Hou, and Weidong Yuan.
The lead defendant, Quanzhong An, and his daughter were arrested on Thursday morning. The rest of the defendants remain at large. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with China.
According to the indictment, Quanzhong An is accused of working at the behest of China’s Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection to harass and intimidate a Chinese man and his son living in the United States. The man and his son are identified only as “John Doe-1 and John Doe-2.”
As part of the plot, the defendants allegedly coerced a relative of the family to travel from China to the United States in a bid to convince John Doe-1 to return to the country.
At a meeting in a restaurant in Sept. 2018, the relative explained to John Doe-2 that he had been forced to travel there by the government as part of a plan to repatriate the 100 most-wanted fugitives, the indictment said.
Other examples of harassment the family endured included a letter-writing campaign, with one letter warning that “coming back and turning yourself in is the only way out.”
The Chinese government also filed a lawsuit against the father and son in a New York state court, claiming the father had stolen money from a Chinese employer and his son illegally profited from the scheme.
“The victims in this case sought to flee an authoritarian government, leaving behind their lives and family, for a better life here. That same government sent agents to the United States to harass, threaten, and forcibly return them to the People’s Republic of China,” said Michael Driscoll, the FBI’s assistant director in charge in the New York office.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
PORTLAND, Ore.—Oregon Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tina Kotek tried to walk back her progressive stances in the race’s final debate Wednesday. Her opponents weren’t having it.
Kotek said that residents “need to feel safe” in the state and that she has “always supported” Oregon’s police but thinks they should be held “accountable.” Republican opponent Christine Drazan countered that Kotek “did not support police even when rioters were attacking a police station” during Portland’s 2020 George Floyd-inspired protests. She called Kotek “the original defund-the-police candidate.”
Kotek also tried to distance herself during the debate from Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D.), the least popular governor in America. She hit Brown in particular for her failed response to the homelessness crisis in Oregon. But unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson said Kotek had contributed as well to the problem, voting for the 2021 bill that decriminalized tent encampments. Brown in June last year signed that bill into law.
With 20 days to go until Election Day, Kotek and Drazan are neck and neck. Seven of the last eight polls show Drazan leading Kotek, with a Hoffman Research Group poll published Wednesday finding the Republican up 2 points. The poll showed Johnson trailing Drazan by 20 points.
Kotek during the debate accused her opponents of “misrepresenting” her record on law enforcement. One of Kotek’s own staff members was also arrested during the 2020 protests in Portland.
Drazan and Johnson attacked Kotek for supporting drug decriminalization. Both called for the repeal of Measure 110, which decriminalized all drugs held in small amounts, though Johnson voted for the measure as a state senator.
Kotek defended her vote for Measure 110, saying officials just need to “make it work” by involving law enforcement and providing more treatment options. She said scrapping the law would result in more deaths.
Drug overdose deaths due to opioids more than doubled in the state between 2019 and 2021.
Drazan told voters that both of her opponents would continue nearly four decades of disastrous “one-party” rule in Oregon.
“Oregon is on the wrong track,” Drazan said. “They’re having an argument about what Democrats should be about. I want to bring Oregon back to balance again, and the way you’re going to do that, in fact, is to elect a Republican.”
When asked if her independent bid was “spoiling” Democrats’ chance for the governorship, Johnson pivoted to attack her Democratic rival.
“The spoiler in this race is Tina—Tina has spoiled the state I love, she spoiled the party that I used to belong to with these outrageously progressive policies that I spoke out against during my time in the legislature,” Johnson said.
Drazan and Johnson also took Kotek to task for joining with Brown and teachers’ unions in closing schools during the coronavirus pandemic, which state education officials say slashed students’ reading, writing, and math proficiency. Kotek admitted that students were barred “too long from the classroom.”
Toward the end of the debate, Kotek called Drazan a “threat” to women seeking abortions, saying she would ban the procedure in the state. Drazan said Kotek was “lying to voters” and that Oregon had already codified abortion up until birth.
Abortion “is not on the ballot,” Drazan said. “What actually is at risk is Tina Kotek losing power.”
After working under both Adam Laxalt and Catherine Cortez Masto, Dawn Buoncristiani puts vote behind Laxalt
A former Nevada deputy attorney general who served under both Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D.) and Republican Adam Laxalt when they were state attorneys general is endorsing Laxalt in his bid to unseat Masto in November.
Dawn Buoncristiani, who worked with four Nevada attorneys general as deputy, announced her support for Laxalt in an opinion piece published Thursday in the Reno Gazette-Journal. Buoncristiani served under Laxalt when he was Nevada’s attorney general from 2015 to 2019. Buoncristiani also worked with Cortez Masto during her stint as attorney general from 2007 to 2015.
“I observed both candidates firsthand, and I believe Adam Laxalt will be a more professional, innovative, efficient and hardworking senator than Catherine Cortez Masto,” Buoncristiani wrote.
Buoncristiani praised Laxalt’s work establishing the Committee on Domestic Violence and Office of Military Legal Assistance, emphasizing his “timeliness and efficiency.”
“I know many voters simply want to be sure that their senator’s office staff will pick up the phone when they call, and that their concerns will be addressed in a timely and thorough manner,” Buoncristiani wrote. “Well, Adam Laxalt ran the best attorney general office I ever worked in. He took an innovative approach and addressed problems that his predecessors had not. That’s why he has my vote.”
Laxalt is in a tight race against incumbent Cortez Masto in what RealClearPolitics is calling a “toss up” race.
Buoncristiani did not comment on Cortez Masto’s job performance.
John Fetterman has few official duties as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor. Still, the Senate hopeful has failed to show up for nearly every meeting for two economic development committees on which he serves, skipping the sessions to conduct media interviews, go on vacation, or do nothing at all.
Since 2019, Fetterman missed 11 out of 13 meetings for the Pennsylvania Military Community Enhancement Commission and Local Government Advisory Committee, according to meeting records and calendars obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. He missed several meetings in October 2020 on days he gave interviews to MSNBC, Australia’s Sky News, and the progressive “Pod Save America” podcast, the records show. He missed a military commission session in October 2019 to travel to his hometown for “family stuff” the following day. He skipped a local government advisory committee meeting in June while on vacation on the Jersey Shore. On some days he skipped committee meetings, Fetterman’s calendars are blank.
It’s the latest example of Fetterman’s truancy in public office. As mayor of Braddock, a town of less than 2,000, Fetterman missed more than one-third of city council meetings, the Free Beaconreported. As lieutenant governor, Fetterman failed to show up to one-third of Senate sessions. His absenteeism has drawn scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats alike. State Senator Tony Williams, the Democratic whip, toldPolitico that Fetterman often failed to show up to preside over the Senate, hampering his ability to develop relationships with state lawmakers. Jesse Brown, a former Braddock borough council president, said in 2015 that Fetterman “should have been at all council meetings,” but stopped showing up after several confrontations over his duties as mayor.
Fetterman has only four official duties as lieutenant governor, a job with “limited responsibilities” for which he is paid around $180,000 a year. In addition to the military commission and local government committee, which he chairs, he is chairman of the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons and oversees the Senate when it is in session. Fetterman has attended all of the Board of Pardons meetings, where he has cast numerous votes to free first-degree murderers.
Fetterman has missed five out of six meetings for the Military Community Enhancement Commission, which seeks increased federal support for military installations to protect jobs in Pennsylvania. Fetterman has missed six out of seven meetings for the Local Government Advisory Committee, which coordinates with local leaders, businesses, and other stakeholders to assess the “needs and challenges facing local governments.”
According to meeting summaries obtained through public records requests, the meetings are usually attended by around a dozen commissioners and other state officials. Fetterman attended the first meeting for both committees after he took office in 2019, but has failed to attend any meetings since then. He is marked “excused” for meetings he missed for the Military Commission. Notes from the Local Government Advisory Committee meetings show Fetterman was unable to attend most of the sessions. He had staffers attend several of the meetings or phone in to them on his behalf.
A review of Fetterman’s work calendars sheds light on what else he was up to while truant from his official duties. In a couple of cases, Fetterman was tied up with other government business. A meeting for the Military Commission on March 25, 2020, coincided with a COVID-19 workgroup meeting Fetterman attended. Fetterman was unable to attend a June 17, 2020, meeting for the Local Government Advisory Committee because he was in a cabinet meeting with Gov. Tom Wolf (D.).
But more often, Fetterman missed meetings for other events not involving his official duties as lieutenant governor. He skipped a Military Enhancement Commission meeting on Oct. 24, 2019, to travel to his hometown of Braddock for “family stuff,” his calendars show. Fetterman avoided an Oct. 15, 2020, meeting for the military commission, but gave interviews both before and after the event to Australia’s Sky News and the progressive Pod Save America podcast to discuss the 2020 presidential election. Nothing else was on Fetterman’s calendar when he missed the Commission’s April 22, 2021, session. He skipped an Oct. 28, 2021, meeting but attended a parole board merit review hearing held hours later.
Fetterman missed the Local Government Advisory Committee’s meeting on Oct. 20, 2020, but gave an interview to MSNBC. He missed meetings on March 31, 2021, and Nov. 16, 2021, though his calendar does not show any personal or business commitment for those days. He was on vacation at the Jersey Shore during the committee’s most recent meeting on June 21, 2022. Fetterman was accompanied on that trip by a Pennsylvania state police security detail, which billed taxpayers $1,200 for hotels, meals, and rental cars, according to government records.
Both the Pennsylvania Military Community Enhancement Commission and Local Government Advisory Committee oversee local economic development issues that Fetterman touted as mayor of Braddock and on the campaign trail. He released a campaign ad entitled “Forgotten Places,” a homage to “towns in Pennsylvania that feel like their communities’ best days were a generation ago.”
At meetings Fetterman missed, the Military Commission discussed grants for military installations in Pennsylvania, potential closures of military medical clinics, and infrastructure investments to support the state’s military outposts. At Local Government Advisory Committee meetings, attendees discussed the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, police reform, and federal funding through the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan, two Democrat-backed bills. At the June 21, 2022, meeting that Fetterman skipped in lieu of vacation, the committee discussed housing assistance, another issue Fetterman has claimed to support as a public official.
Fetterman campaign spokesman Joe Calvello called the allegations that Fetterman shirked his duties on the committees a “ridiculous lie from Dr. Oz and his allies.” He said Fetterman was “represented by senior staff in meetings he was unable to attend” for the Local Government Advisory Committee. While Fetterman remains on the Military Enhancement Commission, Calvello said that he transferred his chairmanship position to a former state senator in 2019 in order to allow experts on veterans affairs to have “more direct oversight” of the commission. Calvello also noted that Fetterman transferred $145,000 of the lieutenant governor’s office budget to the organization’s mission.
Consumer prices were becoming exceptionally high, and policymakers at the Federal Reserve became increasingly worried they were falling behind. Having been forced into buying U.S. Treasurys—a lot of USTs—policymakers wanted to scrap the bond purchases and reverse course before it got to be too late, fearing the resulting overabundance of bank reserves.
While this sounds like something from earlier this year, the story here begins in 1948. Actually, it starts back in 1946. The Europeans having suffered directly the devastations of World War II, and with much of American and undamaged global supply still on a wartime footing, postwar prosperity quickly grew into systemic price imbalances.
Demand for non-lethal goods came roaring to life after having previously been shut off for more than a decade and a half. First the Great Depression, then the war, global consumers had been patiently waiting for their day to come around again.
It did early in 1946. Except, industry wasn’t nearly ready for it. While spending soared, supply was slow to respond given rigid government dictates and very real physical limitations. As real economics (small “e”) teaches us, a sharp rise in demand for these serious and persistent supply restraints can only balance through rapidly rising prices.
Within the blink of an eye, the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) went from a gentle 1.69 percent increase (year-over-year) in February 1946 to more than double digits, 11.6 percent, in a matter of six months (August). Just four months further on, December 1946, the CPI was rising at an 18 percent clip.
Eighteen!
At first, those at the Federal Reserve were more worried about bonds than consumer prices. The central bank mandate for stable inflation didn’t come about until much later, during the Great Inflation of the 1970s (contrary to popular perception, the vast majority of the Fed’s history is littered with incompetence and grand failures). At this time, the institution’s primary role was to ensure smooth sales for the government’s debts.
Up to 1946, this directive from Treasury was more symbolic than anything. Before then, the Fed didn’t need to enter the debt market because that market was more than willing to absorb massive UST issuance, first from the New Deal, then to finance WWII. Banks repeatedly demonstrated their unshakable preference for safe and liquid assets (at the expense of lending, therefore economic growth).
With the CPI nearing 20 percent rates, however, officials at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) began to wonder just how long the domestic banking system would continue to purchase Treasurys at the low yields the Treasury Department commanded.
Even though consumer price gains had slowed considerably from a peak rate of 19.7 percent in March 1947 to “just” 10.6 percent that October, the Fed began to buy longer-term Treasury bonds anyway (while at the same time rolling off its large hoard of Treasury bills). From then until November 1948, bond purchases totaled a whopping (for the time) $10.5 billion.
Accounting for the bill runoffs (about $8.4 billion) and several sundry other balance sheet items, all combined had led to the sudden (out of thin air) creation of roughly $1.75 billion in fresh bank reserves.
This hadn’t initially seemed much of a problem. The rate of general consumer price increases continued to decline, reaching a low of 6.8 percent by March 1948.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the deceleration reversed. By July, the CPI was rising at just about double digits all over again. In the midst of creating these bank reserves at the Treasury’s demand, policymakers were doubly concerned that what had been a supply-driven shock in economics might unravel into full-blown inflation.
During August of that year, Thomas McCabe, the Fed’s Chairman, traveled up the street to Capitol Hill to inform Congress it needed to reauthorize the use of reserve requirements—the very same that had been misused only a decade before, plunging the economy back into depression in 1937—lest they risk ending up in the monetary territory of Weimar Germany (only slight hyperbole on my part).
“In view of the pressure of current demands, the continued shortages of many goods, the limited capacity for increased output, and the available accumulations of liquid assets, further credit expansion will add to the pressure for rising prices.”
What most on the FOMC really wanted was to be set free from their perceived requirement to buy bonds to keep yields down (this part is highly contestable, see below; there is more than sufficient evidence to show yields were never in danger of rising and that the Fed’s buying program was a mistake of its own making fearing inflation the market did not). But if Treasury insisted, locking up the reserves created by the purchases with higher reserve requirements seemed the next best thing.
It was, if you haven’t guessed, all for naught. Prior to McCabe pleading in Congress for its approval, consumer prices were on their way back down once again. Before the Fed even began to use those powers, the CPI had receded to 6.5 percent by September 1948, then 1.2 percent by January 1949.
Not because of anything the Fed did or would do; bank reserves weren’t an issue (never are).
In fact, the majority of the FOMC got its wish when the bond purchases were indeed reversed—because deflation, not inflation, quickly developed. The U.S. economy fell into the sharp, nasty recession of 1948–1949 (the NBER dates its start to November 1948, though several key statistics suggest it may have begun much earlier, preceding McCabe’s congressional odyssey).
Policymakers had fretted over the wrong set of risks. When testifying that eventful August, McCabe had said, “We are convinced that, so long as the present situation lasts, it is important to restrict further credit expansion and to promote a psychology of restraint on the part of both borrowers and lenders.” In other words, without powerful Fed action “promoting a psychology of restraint” the United States was doomed to unending inflationary hell.
But that’s not how inflation works, something the 1948 Fed found out the hard way.
Nothing ever goes in a straight line, however much we might wish for such simplicity and ease. Consumer prices had accelerated, then slowed only to quicken again. Officials merely followed their own biases in selecting which of those to focus on.
As it turned out, the re-acceleration was the last shock to the domestic economic system, one too many to have withstood. What had seemed— to these policymakers, anyway—an increasingly likely path into uncontrolled inflation had really been a final gasp before deflationary recession.
Whether the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, is aware of these specifics is unknown. More than likely, he is not because today he sounds nearly exactly like his long-ago predecessor, McCabe. The rate hikes of 2022 are about the same psychology expressed nearly three-quarters of a century ago. Even the re-acceleration of the CPI.
Though so much has changed from then to now, economic principles have not. Nor has the market’s determination, regardless of what policymakers believe.
Mexico’s president said he has been discussing with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken the possibility of merging the American continent into an EU-style of governance.
“Mr. Blinken talked about consolidating the North American region, and we agreed on that,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during a press conference last month.
“Not only did I tell him that we were in agreement with consolidating ourselves as a region, including the three countries—Canada, the United States, Mexico—but we were also in favor of the unity of the entire American continent to repeat our project that, just as the European community first emerged and became the European Union. That is what we want, which is [Simón] Bolivar’s dream, but integrating Canada, the United States, all of the Americas.”
Concerned that Blinken appears to be having such discussions abroad, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) sent a letter to the secretary to find out more.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to reporters at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., on Oct. 17, 2022. (Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)
“Is it your position that the North American continent should be united by a regional constitution to further the economic interests of its member states?” Gaetz asked Blinken.
“Is the position of the Department of State that the United States, Canada, and Mexico should become a union of states formed in the likeness of the European Union?”
A spokesman from Gaetz’s office said on Oct. 18 that the congressman hadn’t yet received a response from Blinken.
“Our office is actively monitoring the Biden administration’s plans and will continue to communicate our concerns with the State Department,” the spokesman told The Epoch Times.
“I don’t want my constituents living under socialist tyrannical lockdowns enacted by Justin Trudeau while their nephews get poisoned by Mexican fentanyl,” Gaetz wrote on Twitter on Oct. 14.
“But that is the globalist order the Left supports, because they never thought much of America in the first place.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 6, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
The Epoch Times reached out to the State Department for comment on the veracity of Obrador’s remarks, and to ask if anyone from the department has spoken to Canadian counterparts about the idea. The State Department didn’t respond.
Obrador said he and Blinken also discussed furthering President Joe Biden’s green energy agenda. A cooperation between Mexico and the United States for expanded lithium and solar energy production, outlined in Obrador’s Sonora Plan, has placed the northwestern Mexican state on Washington’s renewable energy radar.
Organization of American States
Earlier this month, Blinken traveled to Latin America to attend the Organization of American States General Assembly, a United Nations-style organization that was formed in 1948.
At the completion of the summit, the 35 member countries adopted the Lima Declaration, titled “Together Against Inequality and Discrimination.”
“When all communities have equal access to development, all of society benefits. And because more equal democracies tend to be more stable and secure partners,” Blinken said during his remarks on Oct. 6 in Lima.
The Lima Declaration couches its goals within the “diversity, equity, inclusion” framework that is criticized for favoring diversity over merit and an assumption that white people are inherently racist.
The declaration focuses on economic issues, climate change, and bolstering inclusion for “minority” groups, especially around gender.
It states that there is a “need to achieve significant increases of financing in favorable conditions and investment from a wide variety of public and private sources, and of international development cooperation, including multilateral organisms, developed countries and the private sector, in order to achieve equitable, fairer, diverse and more prosperous societies.”
American taxpayers fund just shy of 50 percent of the Organization of American States budget, which in 2023 is set to be more than $90.1 billion.
Brazil is the next largest contributor, kicking in 15.3 percent of the budget. Canada and Mexico are next, contributing 12 percent and 7 percent respectively.
Twelve other nations commit $37,6000 each for the year, while Cuba puts in $468,800.
A map shows the 35 member nations in the Organization of American States. (The Epoch Times)
A regional analyst says a consolidated North American region could offer mutual economic benefits and create regional stability, but would need strict guidelines.
“An economic community between the U.S., Mexico, Central America, and the Antilles would be a step forward for the entire region, but it has to be based on the concept of a community of democracies,” Dr. Orlando Guiterrez-Boronat told The Epoch Times.
“Such a supranational union, in order to be beneficial, must be based on solid principles of freedom and democracy. Not on the absurd ambiguity towards the tyranny of say, President Lopez Obrador in Mexico.”
Some critics of Mexico’s incumbent president believe the country’s democracy is fragmenting under Obrador due to a departure from democratic norms, including silencing critics, defunding regulatory agencies, and pilfering state-controlled trusts outside the appropriate legal channels.
Boronat says the North American region shouldn’t model itself directly after the EU. He believes that for a consolidated effort to work, a higher level of political rectitude is necessary.
“The lack of political coherence and integrity has hurt the European Union and placed it in the current crisis with the Russian aggression against Ukraine,” he said.
“It’s ludicrous the European Union is currently financing the terrible dictatorship in Cuba. How can that be in consonance with the values the EU is supposed to share with the U.S.?”
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks during the daily briefing at Palacio Nacional in Mexico City, Mexico, on June 28, 2022. (Hector Vivas/Getty Images)
New Leftist Presidents
The same week Blinken was in Peru, he visited Colombia and Chile to discuss shared priorities and emphasize regional collaboration.
The U.S. delegate met with Colombia’s newly elected leftist President Gustavo Petro and top-level officials to discuss climate action, the migration crisis flowing through the Darien Gap that links Colombia and Panama, and a “holistic approach” to countering narcotics trafficking in the region.
Petro was elected in June, in a surprising outcome, as Colombia’s first left wing president. Petro is a former member of the M-19 guerilla group, which was a 1970s-era Marxist organization with ties to the notorious Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The terrorist group demobilized in 1990 and became a legitimate political party under the name Aliaza Democratica M-19.
In Chile, Blinken met with socialist President Gabriel Boric and Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola on Oct. 5 to discuss similar initiatives, including climate mitigation, bilateral trade opportunities, and illegal migration.
Boric, who has open ties to Chile’s communist party, has faced significant scrutiny in recent months amid a crushing economic downturn and protests. The Millennial became the country’s youngest head of state in a runoff election last December.
The tide took a personal turn against Boric in September, when a group of protesters recognized his brother and attacked him. Simon Boric, who works as the chief of staff for the rector’s office at the University of Chile, was hospitalized after an angry mob punched and kicked him outside his home in Santiago.
The attack took place just days before a historic vote on whether to abolish the national constitution that was put in place under the controversial former President Augusto Pinochet. The vote failed and the constitution stands.
Newly elected President Gabriel Boric speaks with the media after meeting with President of Chile Sebastian Piñera at La Moneda Presidential Palace in Santiago, Chile, on Dec. 20, 2021. (Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images)
The China Connection
There is another player wooing the United States’ southern neighbors.
China is now South America’s largest trading partner and is poised to edge out the United States in trade throughout Latin America.
With its Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sunk sizable investments into the region and has become one of its biggest lenders.
The CCP has built ports, roads, dams, and major power projects throughout Latin America over the past 20 years.
“As is the case in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere in Asia, Beijing is using its economic and financial prowess to raise its diplomatic profile and influence,” says Milton Ezrati, chief economist for Vested, a New York-based communications firm and contributor to The Epoch Times.
“Chinese leader Xi Jinping has visited Latin America 11 times since taking office in 2013 and has signed strategic partnerships—the highest classification Beijing offers diplomatic allies—with seven countries, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.”
Between 2009 and 2019, the most recent year for which data are available, China has also sold the equivalent of $165 million in military equipment to Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, including aircraft, air defense radar, and small arms, Ezrati noted.
The war between states and banks over environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing and similar practices has reached the doorstep of the U.N. A total of 19 state attorneys general have launched investigations of major financial institutions’ commitment to the U.N.-convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
The alliance’s website states that its members control roughly 40 percent of the world’s banking assets and are “committed to aligning their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050.”
“The Net-Zero Banking Alliance is a massive worldwide agreement by major banking institutions, overseen by the U.N., to starve companies engaged in fossil fuel-related activities of credit on national and international markets,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a statement regarding the investigations.
A May statement from the alliance states that it “does not support the financing of fossil fuel expansion” but notes that it “believes that immediate divestment from existing fossil fuel positions will not necessarily bring about the required real economy decarbonization that the world needs.”
“We are leading a coalition investigating banks for ceding authority to the U.N., which will only result in the killing of American companies that don’t subscribe to the woke climate agenda. These banks are accountable to American laws–we don’t let international bodies set the standards for our businesses,” Schmitt said.
Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia are among the states now investigating the banks through a powerful tool known as a civil investigative demand.
One demand encompasses the following requests: “Describe Your involvement in each Global Climate Initiative in which You participate, including the date You first began participating; any promises, pledges, or other commitments You made to the Global Climate Initiative; or any actions You made or took pursuant to, or consistent with, such commitments, or Your initial or on-going participation, and the employee(s) responsible for managing Your relationship with each Global Climate Initiative.”
Schmitt’s announcement is the latest salvo in a long-running conflict between major financial institutions and individual U.S. states regarding ESG.
State treasurers, such as West Virginia’s Riley Moore, have sought to move their state’s money from financial institutions that follow ESG principles.
Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, praised the investigations.
“States are holding big banks accountable for obvious violations and for peddling highly questionable climate initiatives under the label of ESG—all part of a coordinated effort to handicap American energy at the expense of U.S. consumers,” Hild said in a statement regarding the investigations.
On the other side of the coin, environmental groups have criticized the U.N.’s alliance for accommodating financial institutions that they believe haven’t gone far enough in divesting from coal, oil, and natural gas.
“It’s time for the NZBA [Net-Zero Banking Alliance] to make clear that banks who continue to finance massive fossil fuel expansion while making grand pronouncements about climate goals are not welcome in the alliance,” said Adele Shraiman of the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance campaign at Climate Week NYC, Reuters reported.
The Epoch Times reached out to Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo for comment. JP Morgan Chase declined to comment. None of the other banks responded by press time.
A new poll showed that a significant number of voters rate inflation and U.S. economic decline as their top concern going into the November midterm elections.
A Politico-Morning Consult poll, published Wednesday, showed that 71 percent of voters are “very concerned” with inflation, up 5 percentage points since August. Another 42 percent said that economic issues such as taxes and jobs were their top issue when deciding who to vote for next month.
Overall, more than 90 percent of voters are worried about the U.S. economy and inflation, the poll revealed.
The consumer price index, a key metric that measures inflation, reached 8.2 percent in September—running near 40-year highs. Another metric, the producer price index, rose to 8.5 percent year-over-year.
More than 80 percent told Politico that the economy would play a significant role in deciding who to vote for. About 75 percent of Democrats and 90 percent of Republicans said it would play a major factor in their decision-making process come November.
The poll revealed that 70 percent of voters believe the United States is heading down the wrong track, continuing a trend of majority polled voters feeling that way for 38 consecutive weeks.
The poll also comes as CEOs and some organizations said that a recession may be on the horizon.
“Inflation may prove surprisingly persistent, prompting more aggressive tightening of monetary policy,” the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a recent report about the United States. “Further disturbances to global markets in response to the war in Ukraine or other factors could also have a substantial negative impact on real GDP growth and cause even higher inflation.”
The Fed has raised its benchmark policy rate from the near-zero level at the beginning of this year to the current range of 3.00 percent to 3.25 percent and has warned of pain ahead for the U.S. economy as it tries to bring inflation back down to its 2 percent goal without causing a recession. The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation is more than three times that target.
In its report, the OECD noted that inflation is posing “significant challenges” in the United States, given that it has broadened in scope from goods to services, keeping the Fed on an aggressive tightening path for now. “Nonetheless, considerable flexibility is warranted and policy deliberations will benefit from careful monitoring of the impact,” of the global factors driving up inflation, the OECD said, as well as “the tightening of financial conditions on the economy.”
Also, a recent survey of CEOs showed that 98 percent believed a recession would occur in the coming 12 to 18 months.
The Vice Chairman of the Munich Security Conference and a former Ambassador of the European Union to the U.S. headlined an event sponsored by a leading Chinese Communist Party influence group, The National Pulse can reveal.
The group, the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), has been identified by the U.S. federal government as seeking to “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing.”
CUSEF functions as part China’s “United Front,” which works “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party.” The U.S. State Department has also compared the effort to the Chinese regime’s “magic weapon” to advance its preferred policies by infiltrating American politics, media, and academia.
Despite these concerning ties, Former Ambassador of the European Union (EU) to the U.S., David O’Sullivan, and Former Deputy Ambassador of Germany to the U.S., Boris Ruge, headlined a virtual webinar hosted by the group on September 20th. The event, which “assess[ed] the U.S-China relationship and how it informs European politics, trade, and perspectives,” was held in collaboration with the Association of Former Members of Congress.
“The webinar covered the challenges of the U.S.-China relationship. In particular, the speakers provided insights from a European point of view on issues relating to Taiwan, the current war in Ukraine, the changes in European perception of China, possible future EU engagement and partnership with China, and more,” explained a synopsis of the event.
WEBINAR.
O’Sullivan, currently the Director General of the Institute of International and European Affairs, has held a variety of influential positions within the European Union including Chief Operating Officer of the European External Action Service (EEAS), which is the diplomatic service and combined foreign and defense ministry of the EU.
Ruge also has ties to the EU’s military infrastructure, as he currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, the premier forum for international security issues.
The event was moderated by Professor Alejandro Reyes, a former Senior Policy Adviser within the Canadian Foreign Ministry who has also worked with the Clinton Global Initiative and the World Economic Forum.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—Joe Tinsman’s family got into the pork business about 10 years ago, more as an avocation than an industry.
“It started with the kids showing pigs in 4-H. We figured we could raise them for less than we could buy them,” Tinsman told The Epoch Times.
The Tinsmans, appropriately enough, live in Farmland, Indiana. They’re first-generation pork producers and are small by design, between 40 and 50 head at a time.
Like many family farmers, Tinsman works another full-time job in addition to their farm, so the specter of California’s Proposition 12 tended to be theoretical, but still unsettling.
“The cost of it would take you out,” Tinsman said. “You would need more ground, more space in buildings. There’s no way to make that happen. There would be multiple farmers in the same situation.”
Tinsman’s children receive an award for their hog winning grand champion at the Indiana State Fair in August 2022. (Courtesy of Joe Tinsman)
Proposition 12
In 2018, 63 percent of Californians voted to make Proposition 12 a state law. It was an animal welfare initiative that requires pork producers to provide up to 24 square feet for each of their sows.
The law was almost immediately challenged by the pork industry. The U.S. 9th District Court of Appeals in California assigned it to San Diego, which ruled for California in July 2021. The National Pork Producers Council, which represents the pork industry, and the American Farm Bureau Federation argue that the law violates a provision in the U.S. Constitution known as the commerce clause. They appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments last week.
The California measure would be costly to implement and thus drive up pork prices around the country, pork producers say.
Many producers would have to remodel and expand their barns. That could cost upwards of $3,500 per sow, Josh Trenary, head of the Indiana Pork Producers Association, told The Epoch Times.
California is trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist, according to Jeff Petree, director of procurement for Weichman Pigs, a Nebraska-based pork producer.
“It’s another example trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. This just adds cost and makes the industry less productive. These are the same people who tell us to use fewer resources. Proposition 12 would force us to use more resources,” Petree told The Epoch Times.
Proposition 12 would force pork producers to “invest more so you can produce less in the same amount of time,” Petree observed. California has also said it would send inspectors to producers in other states to make sure its requirements are met, Petree said.
“I’ve been doing this 36 years, then someone comes along and tells you that everything you’ve been doing is wrong,” he added.
Pork operators trying to adhere to California’s standards are seeing more culls, as a result of animals killing each other, Petree said. Sows put together will establish a pecking order, which they establish by fighting. When that happens, some will get hurt.
Earlier this year, Smithfield Foods, America’s largest pork producer, did its talking with moving vans. Smithfield said the cost of doing business in California wasn’t worth it and closed its Vernon, Calif. plant, shedding 1,800 jobs.
California Overreach?
For Michael Formica, chief legal Strategist for the National Pork Producers Council, the California measure is a bad deal for everyone.
While proposition 12 is framed as a moral issue, Formica countered that animal welfare is already the industry’s priority, and said farmers make decisions on how they house their animals based on recommendations of leading veterinary groups.
“California Prop 12 will force more industry consolidation as smaller farms are pushed out. Food costs are already up 12 percent year over year. Any increase is too much for families living paycheck to paycheck,” Formica told the Epoch Times.
“California can’t reach across its borders and send inspectors to Iowa or Indiana farms. Ninety-nine percent of the economic impact of Prop 12 is outside the state of California and it will hurt animals, farmers, and consumers,” he added.
The legal case before the Supreme Court appears to draw familiar battle lines: blue-state Californians vs. red-state Iowans, North Carolinians, and Indiana’s Hoosiers. Interestingly, the Biden Administration weighed in with a brief supporting the pork producers. The Justice Department argued that Proposition 12 violates the Constitution’s commerce clause, which bans states from imposing “undue burdens on interstate commerce.”
Those battle lines rolled right into the Supreme Court for last week’s oral arguments.
Chicago attorney Timothy Bishop argued on behalf of the pork producers that Proposition 12 violates the commerce clause by forcing out-of-state farmers to adopt that state’s “preferred farming methods, for no valid safety reason.”
“No other state makes its farmers house pigs the way that California does. And very few farmers do. An Iowa farmer doesn’t know where pork from his sows will be sold,” Bishop said, adding that pork is sold around the world in response to demand.
“If Proposition 12 is lawful … Oregon can condition imports on workers being paid the minimum wage. And Texas can condition sales on the producer employing only lawful U.S. residents,” Bishop told the Justices. “Iowa has 65,000 sow farms. It has a very great interest in how those sows are housed. And what California is doing is essentially trampling on Iowa’s ability to say no.”
A few pork producers already meet Proposition 12’s standards. That pork is sold in places like Whole Foods for $8 a pound, Bishop said. Consumers can buy those same cuts for $5 a pound in other stores.
California Solicitor General Michael Mongan, arguing for Proposition 12, said Californians are willing to pay that price in exchange for the right to reject products they view as morally objectionable. California consumes 13 percent of the nation’s pork products, leaving 87 percent of the national market available. Pork producers servicing that 87 percent remain free to raise their animals in any way they choose, Mongan pointed out.
Arizona and seven other states ban the sale of eggs from hens that don’t have enough space, Mongan said.
Markets as a Moral Issue
Jeffrey Lamken, representing the Humane Society and arguing in support of the California measure, said Proposition 12 reflects a moral tradition that has been respected for millennia, arguing that consuming meat that is a product of animal cruelty is itself immoral. With Proposition 12, California chose to rid its markets of some of those immoral products, he said.
Those distinctions are nothing new in the United States, Lamken said.
Americans ban blood diamonds and conflict diamonds, but not ordinary diamonds. Nine states deal with animal testing. Eight states ban eggs from caged hens. Nine states ban aborted fetal tissue, but not fetal tissue that’s not from abortions, Lamken said.
Chief Justice John Roberts countered: “People in states that produce a lot of pork, such as Iowa, North Carolina or Indiana, may think there’s a moral value in providing a low-cost source of protein to people, maybe particularly at times of rising food prices. But, under your analysis, California’s view of morality prevails over the views of people in other states because of the market power that they have.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett also appeared non-plussed.
“Could you have California pass a law that said we’re not going to buy any pork from companies that don’t require all their employees to be vaccinated, or from corporations that don’t fund gender-affirming surgery or that sort of thing?” Barrett asked.
James Bowers, managing director of the Center for Consumer Freedom on Prop 12, an advocacy group opposing the measure, was hopeful that the Supreme Court would ultimately side with the pork producers.
“California’s bad policies should stay in California. California has no right to drive up the costs for Americans’ breakfasts nationwide. We’re confident the Supreme Court will see through this stunt —which was designed by anti-meat animal rights movement—and protect Americans against this anti-democratic attempt to impose California regulations on all 50 states,” Bowers told the Epoch Times.
Back in Indiana, the Indiana Pork Producers Association’s Trenary said the industry is already improving its animal welfare efforts without burdensome regulations from places like California.
“A pork farmer has the incentive, both from an ethical standpoint and a financial standpoint, to do the right thing. And toward that end, the pork industry has been proactive about putting together science-based production standards,” Trenary said.
Advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Oct. 20 recommended adding COVID-19 vaccines to the child and adolescent immunization schedules, despite the vaccines still being under emergency authorization for some children.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) cast the vote during a meeting on updating the schedules for youth and adults.
All members voted to add the Moderna, Pfizer, and Novavax vaccines to the 2023 schedules, asserting that the vaccines, despite waning effectiveness, can still prevent severe disease.
“We view this as COVID is here to stay,” said Dr. Matthew Daley, one of the advisers. “When I think about the routine immunization schedule as a pediatrician, I think of it as an opportunity to prevent serious disease and death. And if something is added to the schedule, it’s because I feel like the benefits continue to strongly outweigh the risks.”
The Pfizer and Moderna bivalent boosters will also be added if ACIP’s advice is taken.
The CDC and partner groups review schedule recommendations from the ACIP. The American Academy of Family Physicians, one of the groups, said that it would review the ACIP’s recommendation.
The COVID-19 vaccines have proven increasingly ineffective against both infection and severe illness from newer virus variants. In addition, there is no evidence the vaccines protect against severe disease for children under 5. The clinical trials for that population weren’t powered to measure such efficacy. Further, the new bivalent boosters haven’t been tested in humans at all.
“I suppose we should not be surprised that the ACIP has voted to add it to the CDC’s recommended childhood vaccine schedule, even though it has not been fully licensed by FDA for use in children. The past three years has [sic] taught us that federal health officials have politicized the COVID vaccine development, licensing, and policymaking process and rubber-stamped the questionable science provided by pharmaceutical companies,” Barbara Loe Fisher, president and co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“Now it is up to parents to let their state legislators know they want vaccine informed consent protections in public health laws and are opposed being forced to give their children the COVID vaccine as a condition of attending school, receiving medical care or for any other reason.”
An image from a CDC presentation shows the proposed additions to the child and adolescent immunization schedules. (CDC via The Epoch Times)
Mandates
Advisers stressed before the vote that adding the vaccines to the schedules doesn’t in itself mean the vaccines will be mandated for school children. But laws in 31 states and the District of Columbia require the vaccines on the schedules to be taken by children for school attendance, according to the Policy, Practice, and Prevention Research Center at the University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Public Health. Some other states impose requirements that largely align with the schedules.
The COVID-19 vaccines are still under emergency use authorization for children aged 6 months to 11 years. No vaccines are available to children under 6 months of age. Lynn Bahta, a CDC adviser, asked whether it was allowed to add such a vaccine to the schedules.
“Before we brought this to the workgroup, we had a conversation about this with the Office of General Counsel and we’re told it’s OK to add it to the schedule,” Dr. Patricia Wodi, a CDC official, responded.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of General Counsel and the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Epoch Times has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for communications between the offices and the CDC on the matter.
