Texas National Guard troops deployed to El Paso have constructed a razor-wire barrier along the Rio Grande and have been blocking people from making unauthorized crossings into the United States amid a migrant surge and legal back-and-forth about ending Title 42, a Trump-era rule that helped stem the tide of illegal immigration.
Acting under orders from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, several hundred soldiers that are part of a “contingency border force” have set up along the river channel separating El Paso from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, with the aim of preventing people from crossing the border illegally.
“This morning, service members deployed to El Paso, Texas constructed a triple-strand concertina barrier near the border to secure the area from illegal crossings,” the Texas Military Department, which oversees the state’s National Guard, said in a Dec. 20 statement.
This morning, service members deployed to El Paso, Texas constructed a triple-strand concertina barrier near the border to secure the area from illegal crossings@36thInfantryDivpic.twitter.com/MpGLS7axYs
The Texas National Guard told media outlets that its service members are trying to funnel asylum-seekers to designated ports of entry while their “primary goal” is to prevent “illegal crossings into Texas.”
A group of around 75 people seeking to enter the United States through an unauthorized crossing faced off against National Guard members and state troopers on Tuesday, according to the Texas Tribune, which reported that a National Guard service member told them through a bullhorn that they would be unable to enter.
People gather near a crossing into El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Dec. 20, 2022. (Christian Chavez/AP Photo)
Abbott ordered more than 400 Texas National Guard personnel to El Paso on Monday as part of a “contingency border force” being deployed in response to high levels of illegal border crossings in recent times and the pending expiration of Title 42 restrictions.
Title 42 is the Trump-era rule that has been used around 2.5 million times to block people from making asylum claims in the United States and that has been widely credited as helping reduce the influx.
“The end of Title 42 is expected to lead to a massive influx of illegal immigrants allowing criminals to further exploit gaps while federal authorities are inundated with migrant processing,” the Texas Military Department said in a statement.
U.S. military guard El Paso’s border with Mexico, seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Dec. 20, 2022. (Christian Chavez/AP Photo)
Abbott’s “enhanced border security effort” will include the deployment of a Security Response Force that includes elements from the 606th Military Police Battalion, which the Texas Military Department said is “trained in civil disturbance operations and mass migration response.”
Tens of thousands of would-be border crossers have assembled near the border amid expectations that the Title 42 restrictions would be lifted.
U.S. military prevent people from crossing illegally into El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Dec. 20, 2022. (Christian Chavez/AP Photo)
Title 42 Back-and-Forth
Texas was among the 19 Republican-led states that asked the U.S. Supreme Court to extend Title 42 restrictions beyond its scheduled Dec. 21 end date.
Chief Justice John Roberts granted the request, prompting the Biden administration to ask the high court to lift Title 42 but give it some time to prepare for an influx in illegal border crossings.
The Biden administration wants the restrictions in place until the end of Dec. 27 if the Supreme Court were to act before Dec. 23. If the court acts on Friday or later, the government wants the limits to remain until the second business day following such an order.
“The government recognizes that the end of the Title 42 orders will likely lead to disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings. The government in no way seeks to minimize the seriousness of that problem,” a Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyer said in a Supreme Court filing.
The lawyer added that “the solution to that immigration problem cannot be to extend indefinitely a public-health measure that all now acknowledge has outlived its public-health justification.”
Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, who sued along with other organizations to end Title 42, said Abbott has no legal right to stop migrants from seeking asylum anywhere on the border. “What Texas is doing by preventing people from seeking asylum is patently unlawful and should stop immediately,” he said in an interview.
Before troops deployed to El Paso on Monday, hundreds of people had crossed the border and waited in line to be processed by Border Patrol agents, with many later released into the city.
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat, warned that shelters across the border in Ciudad Juárez were filled to capacity, with an estimated 20,000 people looking to cross into the United States.
Leeser on Sunday declared a state of emergency in El Paso amid a surge in unauthorized crossings that has left people sleeping in the streets.
He said the emergency measures will allow the city to access more resources and authority to shelter people, adding that the measures would be even more necessary after Title 42 ends, when he predicted that the rise in the number of illegal border crossings would be “incredible.”
Over the past week, border agents have encountered an average of around 1,500 illegal aliens a day in a 268-mile stretch of the border known as the El Paso Sector, according to figures published by the city.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement on Tuesday that over the past week, agents have moved more than 3,400 illegal aliens by expelling them to Mexico under Title 42 or flying them back to their home countries via ICE expedited removal flights.
In a bid to ease pressure on El Paso, agents have also moved 6,000 aliens from the area to other sectors for processing.
“Average daily encounters have also dropped 40 percent—from roughly 2,500 a day to roughly 1,500 a day—over the last three days as we continue to work with partners in Mexico to discourage disorderly migration and disrupt criminal smuggling operations,” DHS said in the statement.
With cold temperatures gripping Texas, Abbott asked President Joe Biden on Tuesday to deploy federal assets immediately “to address the dire border crisis, particularly in the City of El Paso, as a dangerously cold polar vortex moves into Texas this week.”
In a letter to Biden, the Texas governor blamed “federal inaction” for putting the lives of migrants at risk, warning that the numbers of people crossing the border illegally would rise if Title 42 expulsions end.
The Neuralink implant that aims to allow a person to control a computer with thoughts has good potential to achieve its initial goal of helping paralyzed people communicate. It may, at least to some extent, help restore vision for the blind. It may also, to a significant degree, restore limb control for those with spine injuries, according to several neuroscientists.
But when it comes to Neuralink’s broader goals of letting healthy people interface with computers directly via the mind, the technical capability is achievable but would lead to expansive ethical, safety, security, privacy, and even philosophical issues, experts told The Epoch Times.
Neuralink—founded in 2016 by the world’s richest man, prolific entrepreneur Elon Musk—recently applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for human trials of its brain implants. The company staged a three-hour presentation of its progress, including demonstrations of a monkey controlling a computer with its mind, a robot that can handle some of the most delicate parts of the required brain implant insertion surgery, and a pig whose legs can be controlled remotely by a computer.
The presentation also included a monkey with a brain implant that made it see flashes of light, a step toward the company’s proposition to restore vision for the blind.
“The overarching goal of Neuralink is to create, ultimately, a whole brain interface. So a generalized input-output device that in the long term literally could interface with every aspect of your brain and in the short term can interface with any given section of your brain and solve a tremendous number of things that cause debilitating issues for people,” Musk said during the presentation.
Elon Musk speaks at the 2020 Satellite Conference and Exhibition in Washington on March 9, 2020. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The Neuralink technology “makes a lot of sense” for helping people with disabilities, according to Nicholas Hatsopoulos, a neurology professor at the University of Chicago and one of the pioneers of brain-computer interface development.
“It is impressive, actually,” Hatsopoulos said after seeing the Neuralink presentation.
Mark Churchland, associate professor of neuroscience at Columbia University and an expert on brain signal decoding, commended Neuralink for bringing the brain-computer interface technology a long way from experiment to product.
“They seem to have a solid wireless interface, which is not an easy thing to build. And going from needing racks of equipment and computers to needing an iPhone is impressive,” Churchland said.
“In terms of the actual experiments, it’s not doing anything that hasn’t been done before, but if you’re doing it better and more easily, that counts for a lot.”
When it comes to the company’s plans to one day mass produce the implants for use by anyone and everyone, both Hatsopoulos and Churchland were much more reserved.
“We’re going to have to have some serious ethical conversations,” Hatsopoulos said, noting that “it’s one thing to help restore function in people who have a disability,” but “another thing to augment people.”
“Augmentation is going to be a big ethical concern.”
Churchland was more blunt.
“I think that is likely a really bad idea,” he said.
Other experts raised concerns as well, ranging from philosophical questions over free will to security and privacy issues with regard to data collected from the brain, as well as the potential to hack the implant.
Level 1: Mind Mouse
Neuralink’s initial goal is to enable physically incapacitated people to control a computer. At the current stage of development, the implant is roughly the size of a small stack of quarters. To install it, first, a piece of skin would be cut and peeled off the skull of the patient. Then, a small hole would be drilled into the skull. Next, a series of extremely thin, flexible wires would be connected to a thin needle one by one and stuck by a robotic machine inside the surface layer of the brain in the motor cortex area. The implant would be placed inside the hole in the skull, sealing it. The skin would be sewn over it and, as it heals, the implant would become invisible from the outside.
The person would be asked to think, for instance, about moving their hand in a certain direction. Corresponding brain activity signals from the implant would be collected over a period of time, translated to computer data and commands via artificial intelligence, and voila—the implant would then allow the person to control a computer with their mind.
The Neuralink presentation proved the concept by showing a video of a monkey with the implant. The primate moved a mouse cursor to highlighted positions on a computer screen, getting bits of banana smoothie through a tube as a reward.
Neuralink company logo on a phone and its website on a computer. (Shutterstock)
The underlying technology is real and a similar experiment has been repeated many times by researchers using various methods, according to Shinsuke Shimojo, a professor of experimental psychology at the California Institute of Technology.
In fact, a similar effect can be achieved even without sticking wires inside the brain, as some brain activity can be detected on the surface of the head, he said, noting that he’s currently working on one such technology.
“It can be recordable reasonably well from the electrodes outside of the skull,” Shimojo said. “Those are done already, and it’s going to be even better.”
The more invasive path Neuralink has taken is more ambitious and delicate.
Regulatory authorities don’t allow invasive experimental techniques unless there’s an urgent medical need, Shimojo noted.
“It’s not a science problem. It’s an ethical problem,” he said.
Such experiments have so far been approved on a small scale for research purposes.
In the early 2000s, implants developed by Cyberkinetics, a company co-founded by Hatsopoulos, were tested on several physically disabled patients. The project fizzled out because its investors lost interest, he said.
The underlying software was acquired by a company called BrainGate in 2008 and clinical trials with small groups of patients have been ongoing at several research institutions, including one called BrainGate2 under the leadership of Leigh Hochberg, an engineering professor at Brown University.
The science has only recently reached a point where multiple companies have decided to try to move it from research to a marketable product, Hochberg said.
He’s currently helping several such companies, including Neuralink, which is now in talks with the FDA to run clinical trials that could lead to official approval of its implant as a form of treatment.
“Clinical trials of this type would generally take a few years,” Hochberg said.
Each new iteration of the implants would then require further trials, although he hopes software improvements of the system could be incorporated “with perhaps more speed.”
The technology has been aided by advances in machine learning, which allows matching brain signal patterns with specific actions, such as moving a mouse cursor in a particular direction. Machine learning allows the correlation of brain patterns with physical outcomes without the need to understand the function of each specific neuron.
“That’s the difference between the scientific approach and the engineering approach,” Shimojo said.
Scientists try to find out how things work, such as by exploring “how each neuron is wired” or “what’s the hierarchy of information processing in different parts of the brain,” he noted. As a result, they try to drill down to causal relationships.
Engineers, on the other hand, try to solve a problem. If an artificial intelligence finds a pattern that matches the desired result 95 percent of the time, that may be good enough, according to Shimojo.
“I think right now, it’s moving, especially because of this deep learning progress, in that direction,” he said.
Level 2: Artificial Eye
The next step for the Neuralink technology would be to restore sight, the presenters said. The same implant would be inserted at the back of the skull and connected to the visual cortex, the part of the brain responsible for processing images from the eyes. A video stream from a camera would then be encoded as neural signals and used to stimulate neurons responsible for image processing, thus rendering a picture.
This seems to be possible in principle, but there may be difficulties in practice.
“There are some constraints that can be removed eventually by just technical advance. And then there are some intrinsic limitations related to how the visual cortex itself is organized,” Shimojo said.
Some neurons in the visual cortex indeed correspond to a location in the visual field. That means correct stimulation of one location in the brain produces a flash of light at a particular location in one’s vision and stimulation of another location produces a flash of light at a different place. Experiments of this kind have been done in apes, and Neuralink demonstrated one.
“[But] so far, the resolution is very, very low—ridiculously low,” Shimojo said.
The flashes of light such stimulation produces can only be positioned on a grid of perhaps 12 by 12 pixels, he said.
The picture quality can be improved by stimulating more neurons, i.e. inserting more electrodes into the brain. The Neuralink implant currently uses more than 1,000 electrodes with a promise of 16,000 electrodes on the same chip. For the visual aid, the presentation proposed two implants with 16,000 electrodes each. If each electrode could be used to stimulate multiple “pixels,” perhaps a picture quality on par with a 1980s computer can be achieved.
But even if the number of electrodes is further boosted in the future, the resulting image quality would still be limited, according to Shimojo.
The problem is that if one creates a topographic map of the visual field, assigning each neuron to its position in the field, the result is nowhere near precise enough to make up a clear image.
“The topographic map is kind of crude and diffuse. It’s not pinpoint,” he said.
People see with clarity thanks to complex, multi-layer image processing by the brain in which the signal can travel back and forth between the layers and where neurons help adjacent neurons with the tasks.
It isn’t clear how the implant could achieve a comparable result, according to Shimojo.
“It’s not easily solved by the technical side,” he said.
Musk went as far as to suggest that vision can be restored for people who are congenitally blind because even such people possess a visual cortex.
“Even if they’ve never seen before, we’re confident that they could see,” Musk said.
Hatsopoulos wasn’t so convinced.
“I’m not clear that that’s possible,” he said.
The issue is that the visual cortex “develops over the first several years of life” and the visual input from the eyes “helps organize how the visual cortex will function,” Hatsopoulos said.
At about the age of 2, the brain loses the initial ability to develop so rapidly.
That early development is “crucial,” he said, giving the example of children born with cataracts. The condition can be remedied by surgically replacing eye lenses, but it needs to be done early on. If the operation is performed too late, the patient won’t be able to see, even though all the physical parts are present and functioning.
“Everything is perfectly fine, but the person will not understand the visual input coming in,” Hatsopoulos said.
Level 3: Stretching the Limbs
The Neuralink presentation outlined how the implants could restore limb control for people paralyzed after spine injuries. Aside from the implant in the motor cortex, several other implants would be inserted into the spine. Signals from the brain would then be recorded and sent to the spinal implants, bridging the part where the spinal cord is severed or damaged.
In principle, this is fully achievable, according to the experts.
“In fact, we’re doing that right now,” Hatsopoulos said.
His university is working with a different implant technology that allows a patient to control a mechanical arm via the mind.
One challenge is to record from many neurons at the same time “to give you the rich kind of movement that you would want to get” in order to produce “movement that’s somewhat normal,” he said.
Reading from maybe a thousand neurons should suffice to restore “functional movement,” such as allowing a person to feed or dress themselves, Hatsopoulos said.
“Maybe not as quickly as they would if they had an intact system, but they can do it,” he said.
Based on its technical specifications, the Neuralink implant should enable a wide range of movement. Its presentation included a video of a pig with brain and spinal implants bending its leg and stretching its thighs in response to commands sent to the implants.
Facilitating complex movement, such as playing a piano, would probably require thousands of electrodes, Hatsopoulos said, noting that they’re “taking baby steps right now.”
Another challenge is fine-tuning the stimulation so it targets muscle threads that don’t tire quickly.
“You’ve got to do more than just activate muscles,” Churchland said.
“You’ve got to activate them in a relatively natural way to avoid fatigue. And that’s definitely doable, but it’s certainly not trivial.”
It’s helpful in this endeavor that patients usually actively cooperate to make the solution work. Even though the number of electrodes may create a bottleneck, with effort, patients could rewire their brains to take maximum advantage of the interface.
“With practice, they can get better at it,” Hatsopoulos said.
However, the ability to move isn’t enough. To truly restore function to a limb requires fixing the sense of touch as well.
That means recording sensory impulses from the limb and sending them to another implant in the brain’s sensory cortex.
In principle, that has already been done as well. Stimulating some brain cells, for example, can create an impression that one is touching something, Hatsopoulos said, referring to experiments done at his university. The issue, again, is reading from and stimulating enough neurons to create a sufficiently robust touch experience.
The technology still has a long way to go in this regard, according to Hochberg.
“It’s early, but exciting days,” he said.
For truly natural movement, however, one would need to go further yet.
A healthy person not only senses limb movement from what he touches externally but also gets a sense of movement and limb position from inside the body.
The phenomenon is called proprioception. Scientists know that certain brain areas receive those kinds of sensory inputs, but it isn’t quite known how it works.
“That’s the next frontier in this field,” Hatsopoulos said. “No one has cracked that yet.”
Level 4: Cyborgs
Musk envisions Neuralink going far beyond helping the disabled. He portrayed it more as a natural next step from a smartphone or smartwatch. Just like “replacing a piece of skull with a smartwatch for lack of a better analogy,” as he put it.
“I could have a Neuralink device implanted right now and you wouldn’t even know. I mean, hypothetically, I may be one of these demos. In fact, one of these demos I will,” he said to laughs and cheers from the audience.
Musk argued that “we are all already cyborgs in a way that your phone and your computer are extensions of yourself.”
“I’m sure you found if you leave your phone behind you end up tapping your pockets, and it’s like having missing limb syndrome,” he said.
However, Neuralink for healthy people may be far in the future, if it ever comes.
“The FDA is not going to approve this for use in healthy individuals. At least in this version of the implant,” Hatsopoulos said. “You would have to show an incredible level of safety.”
Shimojo expressed a similar sentiment.
“If the safety is proven, then there’s a possibility, in the long, long future, that maybe intact, healthy people have electrodes inside of the brain. But I don’t think that’s going to happen soon,” he said.
The technology would likely have to get to a point of giving disabled people greater capabilities than healthy people have.
Musk believes the implant would indeed bestow superior capabilities.
“We’re confident that someone who has basically no other interface to the outside world would be able to control their phone better than someone who has working hands,” he said.
But even if the implant is technically safe in the sense that it wouldn’t accidentally harm the user and even if it eventually passes regulatory muster, the technology faces other problems that may prove intractable.
Data Security
The Neuralink implant currently communicates with a computer using Bluetooth. That can be hacked by a number of easily available tools, according to Gary Miliefsky, a cybersecurity expert, head of Cyber Defense Media Group and a founding member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“If you’re in the proximity of the person, you will probably be able to steal some data. So that’s not secure,” he said.
As a first step, the communication between the implant and a computer would need to be encrypted, but that would drain the battery and processing power on the implant.
Even then, “people will find ways to hack” the implants, Miliefsky said.
There are already devices that can “unwind” SSL and TLS encryption protocols commonly used to secure emails, he said. And new technologies can go even further.
There’s “quantum-proof” encryption on the horizon, but the processing power it requires is far beyond anything a small implant could handle now or even in the upcoming decades, he estimated.
“Nothing is bulletproof. Nothing is foolproof. When they tell you it’s unhackable, it’s usually hacked in five minutes, whatever it is,” Miliefsky said.
Even if the implant-computer communication is somehow secured, the brain activity data could still be exfiltrated from the computer, such as by infecting the computer with malware.
“Seventy percent of new malware gets past all the virus scanners,” Miliefsky said.
And even if the data is somehow secured on the computer, it would still need to be accessed by technicians servicing the implant.
Anybody with insider access to the Neuralink system would immediately become a prime target for every intelligence agency and every malicious actor in the world, according to Miliefsky.
“They’ll be unsuspecting victims. Absolutely,” he said.
And that doesn’t even include the issue of covert operatives of all sorts lining up for jobs at Neuralink.
“Insider threat defense is a big issue,” Miliefsky said.
Yet another area of concern is that, once the data exists, there’s a chance the government could use the legal process to force Neuralink to preserve the data and share it for purposes of criminal investigations, counterintelligence, national security, and intelligence collection.
Brain Hack
The implications of a hacked implant appear difficult to fully grasp.
People seem to be willing to accept some level of privacy intrusion. Smartphones, for example, can easily be used to listen in on a person and track one’s movement.
“We’re walking around with spyware every day,” Miliefsky said.
However, a brain implant can produce personal data on another level of intimacy.
From the motor cortex, an implant could record a wide range of body movements, according to Hochberg.
“It continues to, I think, both amaze and pleasantly surprise a lot of people in the field just how rich the information is that can be extracted from small areas of the motor cortex,” he said.
From the visual cortex, everything a person sees could theoretically be recorded, albeit likely in low resolution.
The implant would also be under the skin, meaning that it can’t be removed by the user, and it can’t be turned off, as it needs to maintain the capability of being turned on and off remotely.
Worse yet, the implant can send signals into the brain as well. Issuing commands to the motor cortex could make one move involuntarily.
Theoretically, it’s possible to make a remote-controlled human, Hatsopoulos said.
Sending visual signals could make one see things that aren’t there, distract a person, or perhaps obstruct vision with flashes of light, the Neuralink experiments indicate.
However, Churchland dismissed such concerns as too far removed from the technology’s current reality.
“It’s not physically impossible, but it’s extremely improbable,” he said.
“Concerns about external manipulation, I think, are fanciful for the foreseeable future.”
Level 5: Far From ‘The Matrix’
Musk expects to go even further. As the electrode insertion technology improves, the implant will be able to reach deep areas of the brain as well, according to the presentation.
Those parts of the brain are responsible for thought activity, such as memory processing, emotions, motivations, and abstract thinking.
Yet the know-how for decoding signals from these parts of the brain is so far limited, according to Shimojo.
Machine learning can recognize patterns with a high degree of probability, but some level of ambiguity may be “intrinsic,” he said.
“The brain is complicated and one neuron is not participating in one task. The same neuron can be participating in different networks for entirely different purposes. It’s really highly context-dependent and environment-dependent.”
Whether it’s possible to fully decode such thought processes remains an open question.
“Even among neuroscientists, there are different opinions,” Shimojo said, noting that such difficulties may need “some clever creativity to deal with.”
“So is this eventually overcome? It may be, but it’s very long-run. It’s not as easy as those demonstrations may indicate.”
Hypothetically, the ability to truly read and write in deeper areas of the brain would raise profound ethical and philosophical questions.
For example, accessing memory processing centers would open another floodgate of privacy and security issues, according to Miliefsky, from password theft to national, corporate, and personal secret exfiltration.
“There is not a single computer on the internet that I would say is safe and secure from a loss of privacy or having enough security that you could say, ‘Jimmy, who’s got the implant, all of his private thoughts are still secure.’ And it’s not going to happen,” he said.
Linking brain parts responsible for decision-making with an AI would put in question the integrity of free will, according to Shimojo.
“If you and AI together make a decision about an action, is that your free will or is it hybrid free will?” he asked.
“Is it OK for people? Is it OK for society? What‘s going to happen to elections, for instance?”
As Musk explained during multiple talks, interfacing with an AI is actually the primary goal of why he pursued the implant technology to begin with.
His original motivation for starting Neuralink was to address the rapid development of artificial intelligence, he said.
During the presentation and in previous talks, he opined that as AI develops, it’s likely to far surpass human intelligence. At that point, even if it turns out to be benevolent, it may treat humans as a lower life form.
“We’ll be like the house cat,” he said at the Recode’s Code Conference in 2016.
The solution would be to prevent AI power from getting centralized in a few hands, according to Musk.
“If instead AI power is broadly distributed and to a degree that we can link AI power to each individual’s will,” meaning that everyone would have control over their own AI system, “then if somebody did try to do something really terrible then the collective will of others could overcome that bad actor,” he said.
For that reason, he co-founded OpenAI in 2015, a nonprofit developing AI that should be made available for free. It recently unveiled a language processor AI called ChatGPT, which made waves by its ability to compose complex text, including essays, opinions, and even poetry and jokes.
The trouble is that the human ability to input commands into a computer is too slow to even go “along for the ride” with a powerful AI, according to Musk.
“If you’re interacting with a phone, it’s limited by the speed at which you can move your thumbs or the speed [at] which you can talk into your phone,” he said during the Neuralink presentation.
“This is an extremely low data rate, maybe it’s like 10, optimistically 100 bits per second. But a computer can communicate at gigabits, terabits per second, so this is the fundamental limitation that I think we need to address to mitigate the long-term risk of artificial intelligence and also just go along for the ride.”
Yet there’s no evidence that the implants would meaningfully close the speed gap between a human and a computer. People are still limited by the pace at which they form thoughts and make decisions.
Previous research has indicated that the brain can’t process decisions faster than perhaps 100 bits per second. Reaction time measurements suggest that people can only make a handful of decisions per second, and the rate drops as the complexity of the decisions increases.
Muscle response time is a bit of a drag, but generally, the speed of the body seems a good match for the speed of the brain.
“One can certainly imagine that there are certain circumstances where you could be faster with an implant, but … overall the body is optimized to be a very, very good output device,” Churchland said.
Taking Musk’s reasoning to its conclusion, wide adoption of brain-computer implants wouldn’t solve potential dangers of AI, but rather open a way to totalitarian outcomes of unprecedented caliber, according to Michael Rectenwald, a retired liberal arts professor at New York University who has explored the consequences of government-Big Tech collusion in several books.
“The state already has used the pretext of a pandemic to abrogate rights and control the behavior of millions. What’s to keep them from direct, remote control of human subjects?” he wrote via email.
“It would amount to a bait-and-switch routine. The bait is the transhumanist promise of superhuman capacities and life extension. The switch is to an algorithmically controlled world with no autonomy, no liberty, and a virtual existence in a metaverse of their creation.”
Republican Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota has moved to terminate a contract between her state’s Department of Health and a Sioux Falls-based transgender advocacy group, The Transformation Project, which has allegedly failed to meet a number of contractual obligations.
Ian Fury, Governor Noem’s chief of communications, told The Epoch Times in an email that, “The contract was signed without Governor Noem’s prior knowledge or approval.”
Noem’s office also put out a short announcement on Dec. 19 that Joan Adam, secretary of the South Dakota Department of Health, had given notice of plans to retire. The announcement thanked Adam for having served in the state agency for two decades. The notice did not link the resignation with the controversy surrounding the state’s contract with the transgender group.
The Transformation Project’s website describes the organization’s mission as “to support and empower transgender individuals and their families while educating communities in SD and the surrounding region about gender identity and expression.”
Susan Williams, founder and executive director of the Transformation Project, has been billed as a “Christian trans activist.”
The group is due to host the “Midwest Gender Identity Summit” with Sanford Health, the country’s largest rural health care provider, set to take place on Jan. 13 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Noem’s office acknowledges that the governor never intended for her state’s Department of Health to enter into a contract with an organization promoting transgender ideology.
“South Dakota does not support this organization’s efforts, and state government should not be participating in them. We should not be dividing our youth with radical ideologies. We should treat every single individual equally as a human being,” Noem said in a statement, according to Fury’s email.
Fury added “The Transformation Project’s contract was also found to be out of compliance, including failing to submit required quarterly reports for two consecutive quarters.”
When pressed about how one of the biggest departments in the state government entered into such a contract without the governor’s knowledge or approval, Fury did not elaborate.
Contractual Issues
The Epoch Times also obtained a copy of a Dec. 16 letter (pdf) Lynne Valenti, deputy secretary of the South Dakota Department of Health, sent to Williams, setting forth a number of reasons for the termination of the contract between the department and the organization.
According to the letter, The Transformation Project failed to meet critical obligations under the contract including the formation of a community health care worker program with at least one certified worker on board; developing infrastructure for the program such as marketing and communication resources and a billing department; the sharing of data with which to evaluate the program; the provision of regular financial reports to the state; and other clerical and administrative functions.
The reasons set forth in the letter for the termination of the contract are all of this technical and legalistic nature, and nowhere does the letter mention any objections on the part of Noem or others in her administration to the “radical ideologies” referenced in the governor’s statement.
The Epoch Times has reached out to The Transformation Project for comment.
The House Jan. 6 committee’s referral of former President Donald J. Trump to the Justice Department for prosecution violates the U.S. Constitution, according to Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz.
The committee, comprised of seven Democrats and two Republicans, voted unanimously to refer Trump for four criminal charges during its last hearing on Dec. 19, including one charge that would prevent him from ever holding office again.
“In my view, it’s clearly unconstitutional,” Dershowitz told Just the News on Monday. “Article One limits the power of Congress through legislative actions. This is not a legislative action, naming a specific individual and referring them to the Justice Department. It’s not legislative and it tramples on the authority of the executive branch.”
The charges the committee recommended included insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, making a false statement to the federal government, and conspiracy to defraud the federal government.
Under U.S. law, “whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
As of yet, no one has been charged with insurrection in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, though some defendants have been convicted of or are facing seditious conspiracy charges.
According to Dershowitz, the 14th Amendment does allow for Congress to act against an individual if that person was engaged in an insurrection or rebellion like the Civil War, but the committee did not act under that provision.
Adding that it was his belief that the Justice Department would likely accept and then ignore the referrals, the lawyer noted: “Remember, they now have a special counsel. They have the ability to investigate. They have a much higher standard of prosecution than Congress does. So, they will politely ignore what Congress has said.”
Alan Dershowitz speaks at The Epoch Times’ Defending the Constitution event in New York City, on July 19, 2021. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
Trump Responds
Following Monday’s hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee, explained the panel’s reasoning in making the referrals.
“Our criminal referrals were based on the gravity of the offense, the centrality of the actors, and the evidence we had available to us. There were undoubtedly other people involved, but we were stymied by virtue of a lot of people refusing to come and testify, refusing to give us the information they had, or taking the Fifth Amendment. So, we chose to advance the names of people where we felt certain that there was abundant evidence that they had participated in crimes.”
Trump, however, dismissed the charges in the criminal referral as “fake” and an attempt to keep him from running for president again in 2024.
“The people understand that the Democratic Bureau of Investigation, the DBI, are out to keep me from running for president because they know I’ll win and that this whole business of prosecuting me is just like impeachment was—a partisan attempt to sideline me and the Republican Party,” he said in a statement shared via Truth Social.
Trump also contended that the committee’s move would make him stronger, stating: “These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. Americans know that I pushed for 20,000 troops to prevent violence on Jan 6, and that I went on television and told everyone to go home.”
In his speech at The Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell”—a remark that the Jan. 6 select committee has often cited as evidence that he intended to incite violence at the Capitol.
However, in a less-publicized statement from the speech, the former president also stressed that his desire was for the crowd to “peacefully and patriotically make [their] voices heard.”
Further, after the situation at the Capitol had deteriorated to the point of violence, Trump released a recorded statement urging the protestors to “go home, and go home in peace.”
“I know your pain; I know your hurt,” the then-president said. “We had an election that was stolen from us. … But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order.”
Legislators Weigh In
As news of the committee’s referrals spread on Capitol Hill, lawmakers shared their perspectives on the matter, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day. Beyond that, I don’t have any immediate observations,” the Republican senator said in a statement, according to The Hill.
McConnell previously criticized Trump for the events of Jan. 6 in February 2021, after the former president was acquitted on the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection.
“There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day,” McConnell said at the time, after voting to acquit Trump on the grounds that he no longer held the office.
Meanwhile, Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) weighed in via Twitter, stating: “No one is above the law. I’m proud of my colleagues on @January6thCmte for their tireless work defending American democracy and the Constitution.”
Others, however, were less complimentary of the committee’s work.
Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), for instance, criticized what he described as the panel’s “relentless assault” on the former president.
“The continued demonization of President Trump is an attempt to cover up for the disastrous open border, reckless spending, and projecting American weakness abroad policies of President Joe Biden,” Mooney contended in a statement.
Likewise, according to The Hill, incoming Senate Republican Conference Vice Chairwoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said the work of the Jan. 6 committee was “obviously politicized,” adding, “I never heard of Congress instructing [the Justice Department] in that way.”
In addition to Trump, the Jan. 6 select committee also recommended a formal ethics investigation into the actions of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and fellow Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) in relation to the Capitol breach.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Jan. 6 select committee. The Justice Department declined to comment.
Far-left Canada-based activist group Adbusters has cooked up a new plan to stick it to “the man” and save the planet at the same time. The plan is for its network of loyal followers to go around deflating the tires on SUVs. That supposedly is going to cut down on CO2 emissions and thus save the planet. I’d say they’ve been huffing a little too much paint thinner.
Adbusters took to Twitter to spread news of the plan, calling it a “gentle escalation” to make people aware just how much they need to panic about the climate crisis. Followers are instructed to use pebbles to keep the tire valves open, instead of slashing the sidewalls and committing vandalism. Leadership thinks deflating tires will “engdender a systemic aversion to SUVs.” I think they need to lay off the punch a little bit.
At best, the Adbusters loyalists who engage in this kind of activity will end up pissing off a bunch of people. If they’re like me, they have an air pump on hand and can have their tires inflated within minutes. Or they might have to call a tow truck to have it air up their tires. That tow truck will burn more fossil fuels than the SUV, so it’s a net loss when it comes to preventing CO2 emissions.
But loyalists will likely argue this is about changing perceptions. That’s why they’re leaving a leaflet to preach the evils of SUVs on the vehicles they target. If someone has a real emergency and that SUV is their only vehicle, it’s possible they could have a legal case against Adbusters. Even worse, if someone notices a person rummaging around by their vehicle at night, they might grab their gun to investigate. Really, this is a horrible idea, but I expect nothing less from these guys.
The hope is that by deflating SUV tires, people will stop buying SUVs as they see them in a negative light. More likely they will see Adbusters in a negative light. But the organization thinks it can deal a blow since “SUV sales are playing a massive role in the expansion of the auto industry.” Oh give me a break, who actually believes this tripe? They think by deflating tires people are just going to stop buying not only SUVs but vehicles in general. Oh, that’s rich!
Followers are instructed to get a group together and coordinate using “any untraceable apps.” If they aren’t doing anything illegal, why the paranoia? They want the groups to hit specific neighborhoods, with a preference for wealthy ones so they don’t “disrupt workers.” And these guys claim to be anti-communist.
What if someone gets in their vehicle while the tires are still deflating, starts driving, then gets into a horrific fatal accident because of this stunt? Not properly inflating tires can cause a blowout, which can make a driver lose control. Did they think of this? Do they even care?
Maybe you haven’t heard of Adbusters before. The group, which was founded back in 1989 in Vancouver, is a non-profit which claims to have “a global network of activists (sic) writers (sic) artists (sic) hackers (sic) tricksters (sic) poets (sic) philosophers (sic) and punks.” The whole point ostensibly is to revitalize liberal democracy, which is ironic considering they’re using tactics directly opposed to classical liberalism. I’m sure they’d argue with me they aren’t, that they’re freedom fighters and such. I have to credit their dedication in a world where so many are content to just consume the latest gossip about Paris Hilton or whomever.
If Adbusters wanted to fight actual dragons instead of charging at windmills, it would do something about the pollution pouring out of China. Its mega-cities routinely generate so much air pollution people fear to go outside and it’s difficult to see across the street. But it’s a lot easier to deflate some tires in the comfort of a free nation. Then you get to claim you’re helping without risking much of anything.
This article originally appeared in Motorious. 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.
BUT IS IT, REALLY READINESS? OR IS IT CLIMATE POLITICS? – For the Navy and Marines, weather readiness is climate readiness. Recently, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations, and Environment Meredith Berger claimed that for the Navy and Marines, climate readiness is mission readiness. She made her case by citing this year’s North Atlantic hurricane season and stating that climate change is making the world a more volatile place by bringing extreme weather events, more humanitarian crises and heightened friction around essential natural resources. Her main point was that the Department of the Navy’s Climate Action 2030 addresses these issues by increasing the resilience of the Navy and Marine Corps while reducing the threat.
Washington is waking up on weapons for Taiwan. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2023, which now heads to President Joe Biden for his signature, includes landmark legislation related to Taiwan that can begin to close the gap between words and actions in Washington and play a decisive role in deterring Chinese aggression and avoiding great power war.
India beefs up military at tense China border. India’s foreign minister has said that the country has scaled up troop deployment along a disputed border with China to an unprecedented level.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 300. Speaking ahead of Security Services Day which falls on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin ordered the strengthening of Russia’s borders as Moscow tries to regain momentum in its war against Ukraine. Russian “kamikaze” drones hit key energy infrastructure in and around Kyiv on Monday, which followed Friday’s missile attacks in one of Russia’s biggest assaults against Ukraine since the start of the war, Ukrainian officials said.
The Pentagon says it has helped Ukraine thwart Russian cyberattacks. The Pentagon’s Cyber National Mission Force has been supporting Ukraine’s digital defense with daily consultations, a collaboration that has helped unearth thousands of warning indicators of potentially compromised Ukrainian computer networks, a top U.S. cyber commander said.
Send the ground-launched small diameter bomb to Ukraine. The GLSDB would allow Ukrainian forces to strike Russian military targets up to 150 km away with an accuracy of around one meter, write John Hardie and Bradley Bowman of FDD.
US flies bombers, stealth jets nearby as Kim’s sister threatens. The United States flew nuclear-capable bombers and advanced stealth jets in a show of force against North Korea on Tuesday, as the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un derided doubts about her country’s military and threatened a full-range intercontinental ballistic missile test.
North Korea says latest launches tested 1st spy satellite. North Korea said Monday it fired a test satellite in an important final-stage test for the development of its first spy satellite, a key military capability coveted by its leader Kim Jong Un along with other high-tech weapons systems.
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY – NATO, MIDDLE EAST, ASIA, AFRICA
In joint raid, Kurdish forces seize IS militant in Syria. A Kurdish-led group in Syria said Monday that its fighters alongside U.S. forces have arrested a wanted militant with the Islamic State group that continues to stage attacks in the region.
Pakistani forces retake anti-terrorism center, free hostages – sources. Pakistani security forces retook a counter-terrorism interrogation center on Tuesday two days after it was seized by Islamist militants, security sources said, adding that all hostages, some slightly wounded, had been rescued.
STARCOM hosts largest ever Space Flag Exercise, focusing on Europe. Space Training and Readiness Command hosted its largest ever Space Flag exercise at Schriever Space Force Base, Colo., from Dec. 5 to 16, with 165 participants exercising potential strategies for a European conflict.
US MILITARY
Meet America’s new manned B-21 stealth bomber. It might be the last. The U.S. Air Force has, to put it mildly, a mixed record building strategic bombers over the past 60 years. The B-1 Lancer was poorly regarded from the start and canceled by Jimmy Carter before being revived by Ronald Reagan following his 1980 election. The B-2 Spirit, known for its stealthy, fuselage-free profile, was so expensive that Congress and George H.W. Bush agreed to cut the fleet to just 20 aircraft. The spotty performance managing bomber programs helps explain why the Air Force keeps about 70 aging B-52s in service, six decades after that production line shut down.
B-2 nuclear bomber fleet grounded amid search for safety defects. All 20 of the Air Force’s B-2 Spirit bombers are grounded as the service hunts for potential safety defects, a spokesperson confirmed Monday. The stealth aircraft will be down until further notice.
DOES SMALLER, LIGHTER AND WEAKER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT? – Barriers still preventing women from joining special ops, watchdog say. Inconsistent policies to prevent gender discrimination and sexual harassment are among the barriers to why women make up less than 10% of U.S. special operations forces, according to a government watchdog report released on Dec 15.
BIGGEST AND BADDEST – At sea with the Navy’s newest carrier. USS Gerald R. Ford: “The Biggest and Baddest” reads a T-shirt in the store aboard the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier. The slogan appeared again on a poster not far from the galley. And it was repeated by the ship’s captain as he overlooked the flight deck from the bridge.
END of PDB
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
Radical leftists continue their unhinged and deranged campaigns against Tesla CEO Elon Musk following his purchase of Twitter.
Musk has broken the complete stranglehold that Big Tech executives held to silence conservatives in the social media space.
The billionaire has lifted the platform’s bans on influential conservative voices such as Jordan Peterson and the popular Christian satirical news site The Babylon Bee, just two examples of accounts that fell prey to pre-Musk Twitter’s abuses.
Leftists appear to resent their loss of this influential platform so bitterly that Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has taken it upon herself to attack Musk’s position at Tesla.
According to CNBC, the failed 2020 presidential candidate wrote to the chairwoman of Tesla’s board, Robyn Denholm, on Sunday to suggest Musk might have violated his legal responsibilities to the electric car maker since his purchase of Twitter and the board should rein him in.
″[E]very Board of Directors of a company with multiple shareholders – especially publicly traded companies – is responsible for ensuring that a controlling shareholder (especially one who is also a Chief Executive Officer, or CEO) does not treat the company as a private plaything,” Warren wrote in the letter, according to the report.
Apparently, Twitter was not a “private plaything” in Warren’s eyes when people like former CEO Jack Dorsey and former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde permanently suspended the sitting president of the United States, Donald Trump, and suppressed reports about Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop preceding the 2020 election.
Warren also said Musk’s Twitter acquisition “raised questions about possible violations of securities or other laws, including whether Mr. Musk is funneling Tesla resources into Twitter, a potentially ‘improper diversion of resources that might impact Tesla’s sales and earnings’ and could result in ‘delays in programs at Tesla,’” CNBC reported.
The left-wing senator also heavily implied an unsupported “direct link” between his purchase of the social media platform and the recent dip in Tesla’s stock price in an attempt to feign concern that he might be harming Tesla and its shareholders.
Musk was not shy in his rebuttal to Warren on Twitter.
“The United States has definitely been harmed by having her as a senator lol,” he said.
The United States has definitely been harmed by having her as a senator lol
In 2017, Warren spearheaded the “Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act,” a ridiculous attempt to require then-President Donald Trump to “divest his business holdings in order to avoid conflicts of interest while serving in the White House, according to HuffPost.
The bill was introduced again in 2019, but it never went anywhere.
Speaking of conflicts, Warren was all too happy to accept lobbyist money for her Senate campaigns, but she changed her tune when she ran for president.
According to CNBC, she abruptly opposed the practice in 2019 — but funneled $10.4 million from her Senate political committee to her White House bid.
Warren should be the last person to accuse Musk of conflicts and malfeasance.
Let’s pray the attacks from censorship-minded leftists will only strengthen Musk’s resolve to defend free speech on his social media platform.
Utility costs have surged across the nation this year, leaving millions of Americans falling behind on their monthly bills. It might get more challenging as households nationwide can expect to pay higher utility costs for decades to come due to storm recovery bond charges.
Natural disasters have ravaged the United States in recent years, from hurricanes to winter freezes. These weather events have destroyed infrastructure and cost electric and gas utility firms billions of dollars in repairs and maintenance.
The numbers confirm that more companies have taken on recovery bonds this year. According to data shared by advisory firm Saber Partners, businesses issued a record $20.2 billion in recovery bonds this year, with utility customers expected to pay about $12.7 billion of this debt over time. This is a huge jump compared to nearly $7 billion in long-term recovery bonds issued by states and utilities between 2007 and 2021.
Most utility debt has been weather-related as these companies try to strengthen their power grids against fierce storms and harsh conditions. Securitizations or recovery bonds have increased this year, owing primarily to weather-related events in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas in February 2021.
Bond issuers receive the money upfront from investors and repay the loan over time with funds from customers’ monthly bills. Financial experts note that this type of debt securitization can mean a cheaper month-over-month option than conventional financing alternatives, ranging from 1–13 percent of average client bills.
While this has been standard practice since the deregulation efforts in the 1990s, the measure has accelerated over the last several years.
General view of Lower Broadway as vehicles and people traverse through snow and ice in Nashville, Tenn., on Feb. 15, 2021. (Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)
Industry experts note that the enormous debt increase in 2022 was caused by Winter Storm Uri, the significant snow and ice storm and tornado outbreak that left millions of homes without power in Texas in February 2021. The week-long weather event, which was the deadliest winter storm in North America since 1993, had been estimated to cost nearly $200 billion in damages.
Uri also caused the price of electricity and natural gas to spike across multiple states.
According to Joseph Fichera, CEO of Saber Partners, recovery bonds are issued by utilities to finance specific costs (approved by the state legislature and the regulators) incurred as a result of weather-related calamities like hurricanes. They’ve also been used for other costs like rising fuel costs and coal plant retirements. Fichera’s firm provides advisory services to regulators and utilities on securitization deals.
“Financing early coal plant retirements will be a focus in the future,” Fichera told The Epoch Times.
The maximum maturity of these bonds used to be between 10 and 15 years; however, they’re now targeting 25 to nearly 30 years, he said.
“Utilities are spreading it out over a much longer period of time, and that raises policy questions about which generation of customers should be responsible for paying specific costs.”
More States Embracing Recovery Bonds
Experts purport that ratepayer-supported bonds have their advantages and disadvantages. These funding mechanisms can avoid costly bill shocks or lower energy costs amid expensive disasters.
In February, the Railroad Commission of Texas approved a financing order that allowed several utilities, including Atoms Energy, CenterPoint, and Texas Gas Service, to issue customer rate-relief bonds. This would authorize these companies to spread out additional charges for their customers.
“The financing order allows natural gas utilities to spread the high cost of gas incurred during last year’s winter storm across multiple monthly bills rather than having customers face a large spike in one bill. This order is not a windfall for natural gas utilities and is for the benefit of Texas consumers,” the commission stated.
This past summer, the Kansas Corporation Commission let the Kansas Gas Service issue securitized bonds to recover more than $300 million in deferred and carrying costs due to Uri. For the next seven to 10 years, customers would pay a winter event securitized cost of as much as $6.42. Without securitized bonds, households would face monthly charges between $9.04 and $13.90, according to a report from the commission.
Earlier this month, the Louisiana Utilities Restoration Corp./ENO announced it intends to issue nearly $210 million in storm recovery bonds that maintain a final maturity date of September 2037.
At the same time, there have been concerns that the costs are unequal, as households in different parts of the country may pay more over time. Today, five states pay the highest percentage of securitization charges on their monthly bills: New York, Texas, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma.
According to Fichera, utility securitizations provide benefits and are a most cost-effective way to raise funding for utility costs. However, he said, the recent utility recovery bond issues have much higher interest rates than other top-quality, similarly rated corporate bonds, which is unfair to customers.
“Unfortunately, Wall Street underwriters seem to be taking advantage of electricity customers and regulators. These bonds are being priced like riskier A-or BBB-rated securities rather than the pristine AAA securities they are,” he said. AAA-rated bonds are deemed the least likely to default and usually have very low interest rates.
“We estimate that the cost of the overpayments from the past bonds issued in 2022 compared to top-rated corporate bonds is around $1.5 billion to $2 billion,” he said, referring to the higher interest payments over the life of the bond that are passed on to customers in their monthly bills. “That can only be a result of bad marketing and bad negotiations with Wall Street because the bonds have a better credit rating than any other corporate bond.”
Americans Struggling With Utility Bills
Despite efforts to mitigate the financial pain of utility bills, millions of Americans are struggling to keep the lights on and the water running.
The National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) reported that more than 20 million families were behind on their utility bills. The policy organization also found that the collective amount owed totaled about $16 billion, up from $8.1 billion at the end of 2019. The average delinquent bill increased from $403 to $792.
“The increase in the energy burden for families in the bottom 40 percent of the U.S. income distribution is of even greater concern,” the NEADA noted in a report (pdf). “From 2020 to 2022, families’ average energy costs increased from $3,098 to $3,770, and the amount spent on gasoline increased from $1,035 to $1,662. This increase in utility costs reflects the continued high prices for natural gas, heating oil, and propane, as well as this past summer’s heat waves that increased the cost of air conditioning from an average of $450 the previous summer to about $600.”
A recent LendingTree survey discovered that more than one-third (34 percent) of households struggled to pay for food and medicine because of high utility bills. Twenty-three percent of households couldn’t pay a portion of their energy bill in the past year.
“Life is getting more expensive by the day, and it’s shrinking Americans’ already tiny financial margin for error down to zero,” said LendingTree chief credit analyst Matt Schulz in a statement. “Unless they’ve been able to increase their income, millions of Americans have had to make sacrifices because of inflation to pay the bills. Perhaps the worst part is that inflation likely isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. That means that short-term quick fixes won’t cut it.”
In November, electricity prices increased 13.7 percent year over year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Utility piped gas service rose at an annualized rate of 15.5 percent.
The average cost of home heating is forecast to rise 17.2 percent since last winter’s heating season to $1,208, the NEADA stated (pdf).
Victims of Palestinian terror attacks are suing the Biden administration for awarding nearly half a billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds to the Palestinian government, which allegedly uses these funds to pay convicted terrorists and their families.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court on Tuesday by American victims of Palestinian terror attacks and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R., Texas), alleges the Biden administration is in violation of federal law for resuming U.S. aid to the Palestinian government, according to a copy of the lawsuit exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The Trump administration froze these funds due to the Palestinian government’s financial support for terrorists as part of a program known as pay-to-slay.
The plaintiffs, led in the suit by the America First Legal Foundation, a watchdog group composed of lawyers, are asking the court to halt the Biden administration’s Palestinian aid program over charges it is sustaining the pay-to-slay program in violation of a 2018 law known as the Taylor Force Act. That law—named after an American who was killed in 2016 by a Palestinian terrorist—bars all U.S. payments to the Palestinian government until it halts the terrorist payment program.
The State Department, which is named as a defendant in the suit, has formally determined in congressional notifications that the Palestinian government pays terrorists and incites violence against Israel. Now, a court must determine if U.S. aid payments should be stopped for violating federal law.
Force’s family is also listed as a plaintiff in the case, along with Jackson and Sarri Singer, who survived a Palestinian suicide bombing in 2003.
“I am committed to doing everything in my power to get the accountability these families so richly deserve as we work to make sure U.S. taxpayer-funded terrorism never happens again,” Jackson told the Free Beacon. “President Trump showed tremendous leadership when he signed the Taylor Force Act into law and ended taxpayer support for the Palestinian Authority’s terrorist activities. Joe Biden’s decision to reverse course knowing full well blood is on his hands as a result is unconscionable.”
Stuart and Robbi Force, Taylor’s parents, said in a statement that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are “dishonoring the memory and legacy of a good man, and ignoring the citizens of the United States who understand that taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund the killing of innocent civilians.”
The lawsuit centers on the Biden’s administration’s decision to resume U.S. aid even as the State Department determines the pay-to-slay program has continued, disclosures that were first made public by the Free Beacon reveal.
The Palestinian government “continued payments to Palestinian prisoners who had committed acts of terrorism, as well as the families of so-called ‘martyrs’ who died while committing acts of terrorism,” the State Department affirmed in a non-public report to Congress earlier this year.
The Palestinian government has provided an estimated $1.5 billion to convicted terrorists and their families from 2013 to 2020, according to information contained in the lawsuit. As much as $15 million per month is being paid into the pay-to-slay fund as of 2020, according to Palestinian officials quoted in regional news outlets.
While the bulk of U.S. funds are channeled through a Palestinian economic support program that primarily benefits non-governmental groups operating in the region, the lawsuit alleges this fund is a tactic to skirt the Taylor Force Act.
The administration is “intentionally laundering Economic Support Fund grants and awards through non-governmental organizations that are in fact or by operation of ‘law-by-decree’ Palestinian Authority affiliates or instrumentalities,” the suit says.
The State Department maintains that all aid to the Palestinians is consistent with U.S. law.
“The Biden administration is strongly opposed to the prisoner payment system and has consistently engaged the Palestinian Authority to end this practice,” a State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon in October. The U.S. Agency for International Development’s “assistance in the West Bank and Gaza is implemented consistent with U.S. law.”
Julie Strauss, senior counsel at the America First Legal Foundation, told the Free Beacon the administration knew that resuming Palestinian aid would prompt a “massive infusion of U.S. funds [that] has led to a correspondingly massive increase in the frequency and lethality of Palestinian terrorism.”
The lawsuit, she said, “seeks to protect Taylor Force’s memory and the rule of law by stopping Joe Biden and Secretary of State Blinken from subsidizing Palestinian terrorism.”
Virginia Democrats are fighting to abolish single-sex bathrooms in public schools and keep parents in the dark when their children assume different genders at school.
Democrats on the state legislature’s rules commission in a 5-4 vote on Monday rejected Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R.) plan to protect same-sex spaces and increase parents’ role in education. If the plan is adopted, administrators and teachers would have to seek parents’ consent before referring to children by different names or pronouns. The plan would also preserve sex-specific sports teams, locker rooms, and bathrooms.
The vote is the latest attempt by Virginia Democrats to block Youngkin’s transgender policies. Delegate Elizabeth Guzmán (D.) in October floated a bill designed to counter the governor’s policies, which would make it a crime for parents to ignore their children’s chosen name, pronouns, or sexual orientation. School districts in liberal enclaves across the state have pledged to flout Youngkin’s plan if implemented.
A spokeswoman for Youngkin said the governor did not support the commission’s decision.
The commission’s vote was largely formal. The model policy, which was introduced in September, will be finalized by Virginia’s Department of Education and does not require legislative approval. The policy improves upon guidelines put in place last year by disgraced former Virginia governor Ralph Northam (D.), which mandated that schools abide by names, pronouns, and bathroom choices that correspond with a student’s perceived gender.
The state Education Department is “in the process of reviewing more than 71,000 public comments” before the state superintendent announces the final version, according to a spokesman. He did not give a timeline. Education Secretary Aimee Guidera on Monday testified in support of the policy before the commission.
“Children do not belong to the state,” she said. “They belong to families.”
Democrats have not made use of the rules commission since they won a majority in the General Assembly in 2020. Republican delegate Chris Head noted that the commission’s chairman gave left-wing groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Equality Virginia the chance to testify while limiting parents’ groups to brief public comments.
Parents’ groups weren’t “afforded the opportunity to be a part of the official presentation here as was afforded the other folks,” Head said. “So discrimination is fine for the other side.”
Democratic senator R. Creigh Deeds, who chairs the commission, told the Washington Free Beacon that he “did not in any way limit” the presentations of either side.
“We asked the administration to address the rules changes. There was no other party to the matter,” he said. “We asked the ACLU to present the other side. The ACLU partnered with Equality Virginia.”
Head disagreed, saying the two groups “were each given extended time to present their arguments, complete with supporting slide decks, against the model policy.”
“All supporters of the governor’s model policy were denied the courtesy that was afforded to groups in opposition,” Head told the Free Beacon. “Democrats wanted a showcase to attack the governor, but what they got was a room full of angry parents who reminded Virginians that Democrats are still all-in on allowing schools to keep secrets from parents.”
The Virginia ACLU and Equality Virginia bothargued Youngkin’s model policy would lead to a “hostile” school environment that harms LGBT youth and increase their risk of suicide.
Harry Jackson, a parent of Fairfax County students who submitted a public comment, told the Free Beacon that it has been “terrifying to see the politicalization of the K-12 education in Virginia.”
“Parents do not know they are in custody battle with these activists,” he said.
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, a mother of three from Fairfax County who spoke during the public comment period, said that “a tyrannical minority has taken transgender policy so far that it is threatening freedom and parental rights.”
“Not only are parents’ rights to raise their children formally being dismantled, but many Virginians are afraid to even discuss it,” she told the commission. “We need to reset the scales, and I believe Governor Youngkin’s Model Policies will help us to do that.”
Youngkin was elected in 2021 after campaigning to defend parents’ rights in education. After taking office, he signed nine day-one executive orders to ban critical race theory from classrooms and investigate wrongdoing in Loudoun County schools, among other measures.
Update 12/22/2022 at 1:30 p.m.: This piece has been updated with additional comment.
White House oversaw fiscal-year record high of 2.4 million border encounters in 2022
Border czar Kamala Harris, whose administration oversaw a fiscal-year record high of 2.4 million border encounters in 2022, on Monday blamed the nation’s migrant crisis on Republicans.
“Sadly, what we have seen in particular, I am sad to say, from Republicans in Congress is an unwillingness to engage in any meaningful reform that could actually fix a lot of what we are witnessing,” Harris, who has made one visit to the southern border despite handling the White House’s border portfolio since March 2021, told NPR.
The vice president’s comments come just weeks after President Joe Biden said there are “more important things going on” than visiting the border amid a record surge in illegal immigration. Many Republican lawmakers point to Biden’s policies, including attempting to repeal Title 42, a Trump-era rule that lowers the number of asylum seekers permitted into the United States due to the pandemic, as contributing to the surge. Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday temporarily ordered that Title 42 stay in place. It was set to expire on Wednesday.
El Paso’s Democratic mayor Oscar Leeser said 20,000 migrants are waiting in Mexico for the order to expire. The number of migrants streaming across the border hit a monthly record in September, with border agents reporting 230,000 encounters. Last week more than 1,000 migrants, reportedly the “largest caravan in history,” crossed into Texas.
Republican governors have tried to compensate for the lack of federal support. Texas governor Greg Abbott (R.) is resuming wall construction and deployed 400 National Guard members to help with the border crisis. The governor also deployed his state’s “contingency border force” Monday to aid in addressing the influx of illegal immigrants.
“More border wall is going up next month,” Abbott said last week. “It took months to negotiate with private property owners on the border for the right to build on their property.”
Arizona governor Doug Ducey (R.), meanwhile, installed hundreds of shipping containers along his state’s border. The Biden administration is suing Arizona over the makeshift wall, and Democrat governor-elect Katie Hobbs says she opposes it.
The Biden administration is set to dole out more than $550,000 in grants to develop an artificial intelligence model that can automatically detect and suppress microaggressions on social media, government spending records show.
The award, funded through Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, was granted to researchers at the University of Washington in March to develop technologies that could be used to protect online users from discriminatory language. The researchers have already received $132,000 and expect total government funding to reach $550,436 over the next five years.
The researchers are developing machine-learning models that can analyze social media posts to detect implicit bias and microaggressions, commonly defined as slights that cause offense to members of marginalized groups. It’s a broad category, but past research conducted by the lead researcher on the University of Washington project suggests something as tame as praising meritocracy could be considered a microaggression.
The Biden administration”s funding of the research comes as the White House faces growing accusations that it seeks to suppress free speech online. Biden last month suggested there should be an investigation into Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter after the billionaire declared the social media app would pursue a “free speech” agenda. Internal Twitter communications Musk released this month also revealed a prolonged relationship between the FBI and Twitter employees, with the agency playing a regular role in the platform”s content moderation.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton likened the Biden administration’s funding of the artificial intelligence research to the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to “censor speech unapproved by the state.” For the Biden administration, Fitton said, the research is a “project to make it easier for their leftist allies to censor speech.”
A spokesman for the National Science Foundation, which issued the research grant, rebuffed criticism of the project, which he said “does not attempt to hamper free speech.” The project, the spokesman said, creates “automated ways of identifying biases in speech” and addresses the biases of human content moderators.
The research’s description doesn’t give examples of what comments would qualify as microaggressions—though it acknowledges they can be unconscious and unintentional. The project is led by computer science professor Yulia Tsvetkov, who has authored studies that suggest the artificial intelligence model might identify and suppress language many would consider inoffensive, such as comments praising the concept of meritocracy.
Tsvetkov coauthored a 2019 study titled “Finding Microaggressions in the Wild,” which categorized microaggressions into subcategories, one of which was the “myth” that “differences in treatment are due to one’s merit.” Examples of microaggressions laid out in the paper included statements like “Your mom is white, so it’s not like you’re really black,” and questions including “But where are you from, originally?”
Tsvetkov also coauthored a July article that analyzed the “prominence of positivity in #BlackLivesMatter tweets” during the June 2020 George Floyd riots. Tsvetkov and her colleagues determined positive emotions like “hope, pride, and optimism” were prevalent in pro-Black Lives Matter tweets, evidence they said contradicts narratives framing Black Lives Matter protesters as angry.
Conservative watchdog groups raised alarm over the Biden administration’s funding of the research, telling the Washington Free Beacon the project represents a White House effort to curb free speech online.
“It’s not the role of government to police speech that some might find either offensive or emotionally draining,” said Dan Schneider, vice president of the Media Research Center’s free speech division. “Government is supposed to be protecting our rights, not suppressing our rights.”
Tsvetkov did not respond to a request for comment regarding free speech advocates’ concerns about the research.
The research is the latest instance of the government assuming a role in online content moderation. The Biden Department of Homeland Security established a Disinformation Governance Board with the goal of “countering misinformation,” only to scrap the controversial board after intense backlash.
