Bradley Beychok and James Carville run a consulting firm that works to ‘reduce negative press’ for corporate clients

American Bridge 21st Century is the progressive movement’s largest super PAC, and it has a staff of Democratic superstars to prove it.

Chief among them are Bradley Beychok, the group’s cofounder, and James Carville, the “Ragin’ Cajun” Clinton operative and talking head who serves as an adviser. The pair has won praise for advancing progressive causes. They also run ABI Associates, a consulting firm that’s raking in cash from clients that are likely to raise eyebrows among their Democratic colleagues.

Clients like Greenfield Louisiana LLC, which stands accused of “environmental racism” for a proposed building project that would destroy historical slave sites in Louisiana. And the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, a trade group whose members include the companies behind the Keystone XL Pipeline, a perennial target for progressive attacks.

Beychok launched ABI Associates in 2021 with former Joe Biden aide Ankit Desai. Carville serves as an adviser to the group, as does President Biden’s top pollster, John Anzalone. The group works to “reduce negative press” for clients, including those against whom the principals spend their days drumming up negative press.

It’s a lucrative gig for the American Bridge cohort, but one that could tarnish the super PAC’s image as the premier force in “Democratic and progressive politics.” Formed in 2011, American Bridge attacks Republicans over perceptions of racism or anti-environment policy positions through ads and opposition research.

Greenfield Louisiana has faced similar allegations from civil rights and conservation groups over a 238-acre grain terminal it wants to build on the banks of the Mississippi River, in the majority-black township of Wallace, La. According to lobbying records, Greenfield Louisiana LLC. recently hired ABI Associates to lobby on behalf of the terminal after critics objected to its proposed location and impact construction would have on residents.

The National Urban League, led by former New Orleans mayor Marc Morial (D.), in November called on the Environmental Protection Agency to open a civil rights probe of the terminal, asserting that the potential damage to the environment in the historic African-American community “violates the civil rights and environmental laws of the nation.” An organization called the Descendants Project has sued to stop the project, saying that it “threatens the health and safety” of the majority black community.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation says it opposes the grain terminal because of its proximity to “a former burial plot for enslaved people.” The Army Corps of Engineers reprimanded Greenfield Louisiana last month for falsely claiming that its grain terminal will have “no adverse effects” on black heritage sites in the area.

The American Bridge principals’ advocacy for Greenfield may not sit well with some of American Bridge’s biggest donors. The billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who has given $4.5 million to American Bridge through his Democracy PAC, funds numerous civil rights groups and has decried “environmental racism.”

It is unclear yet what services ABI Associates has provided Greenfield Louisiana, or who at the firm will work on the account. Desai, who was a legislative aide to Biden in the 2000s, is listed as ABI’s chief lobbyist for Greenfield.

In addition to traditional lobbying, ABI Associates says it helps its clients by identifying “impactful narratives” to tell a “compelling story to policymakers, organizations, and media.” The company relies on Anzalone, the Biden pollster, to “find angles that sway thought-leaders to join you and lend their support,” its website says.

ABI Associates’ deep political connections in Louisiana and Washington, D.C., are likely to help its new client.

Carville, a Louisiana native, has maintained high-level Democratic ties since his days working for Bill Clinton. Beychok was a campaign aide to former Rep. Charlie Melançon (D., La.) and former campaign director for the Louisiana Democratic Party. Desai was a Senate legislative aide to Biden in the 2000s and has advised several energy companies.

Beychok has forged ties to the Democratic Party’s top donors at American Bridge and worked closely in the 2020 cycle with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, who once served as chairwoman of the American Bridge 21st Century Foundation. Granholm is also a designated observer of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which oversees the federal designation of historical sites.

Beychok, Desai, and Anzalone all maintain access to the White House. In September, Beychok and Desai met with Ryan Berni, a deputy to Mitch Landrieu, the former New Orleans mayor who serves as Biden’s infrastructure czar, according to White House visitor logs. Anzalone visited the White House at least 10 times last year, the logs show.

ABI Associates recently signed on with another client in the crosshairs of the progressive movement, according to lobbying records. The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America hired ABI amid an industry-wide push to persuade liberal voters to embrace natural gas as a climate-friendly fuel. According to the Washington Post, a group of natural gas companies has turned to Anzalone, the Biden pollster, to provide polling data about natural gas to the White House.

The American Bridge associates’ work for the natural gas group conflicts with their criticism of Republicans who support the natural gas industry. The group has criticized Republicans who support the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming carbon emissions from the project would contribute to climate change and would contaminate fresh water in eight states. TC Energy, the company behind the Keystone pipeline, is a member of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America.

Desai operates another lobbying firm, AND Partners. Desai registered last week as a lobbyist for TikTok as the company fights against legislation to ban its popular social media app over ties to China. It is unclear if Beychok and ABI Associates are helping TikTok as well, but the American Bridge cofounder did tout the company earlier this month.

“Right now TikTok can be a valuable weapon, especially since Republicans have run away from it for political reasons,” Beychok told the Wall Street Journal. “You wouldn’t want a tool like that to be taken off the shelf.”

ABI Associates and American Bridge did not respond to requests for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

George Mason University President Gregory Washington defended the University’s decision to have Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, give the spring 2023 commencement address, saying that universities are places for healthy debate and hearing ideas one may not agree with.

The President of Virginia’s “most diverse” public university called on the school community to support free speech and help “build an effective society,” adding that diversity includes the diversity of ideas.

“If we teach that the only way to deal with the opposition is to suppress it, we rob students of the very tools they will need to build an effective society,” Washington said in a March 27 written statement to those opposing Youngkin’s invitation.

“I support those students who are making their voices heard, and I applaud their courage and commitment to advocate for themselves and their communities,” said Washington. “That being said, I don’t believe that we should silence the voices of those with whom we disagree, especially in this forum where there is no imminent threat present as a result of the disagreements.”

Soon after the university announced Youngkin’s invite, GMU student Alaina Ruffin launched a Change.org petition claiming that by having Youngkin address the 2023 graduating class in May, the institution would be contradicting its core values, especially diversity.

“George Mason University prides itself on being one of ‘the most diverse institutions in the Commonwealth.’ Yet by having Governor Youngkin as this year’s Commencement speaker, we believe that the University compromises its supposed values of centering students’ experiences and overall well-being,” wrote Ruffin.

Washington challenged those protesting his decision by asking a question.

“Is his [Youngkin] inclusion in commencement a betrayal of our core identity of diversity, and commitment to inclusivity? Or are his presence and the passionate objections it has inspired actually the purest reflections of who we are as Mason Patriots?”

Opponents to Youngkin, who signed Ruffin’s petition, criticized the governor for supporting “anti-trans” legislation, abolishing “racial equity curricula,” and restricting “the availability of literature” in schools.

“I and my peers do not want the memories of our graduation day to be tainted by an individual who has harmed and continues to harm the people he serves,” Ruffin wrote.

The effort to prevent Youngkin from speaking is only the latest effort by campus progressives to ban dissenting views that they deem “hateful.”

Josiah Joner, the executive editor of Stanford University’s The Stanford Review, told the House Education Subcommittee at a March 29 hearing that the current culture at his university and most others exiles free speech and debate.

Joner said ensuring First Amendment rights is crucial to the success of all educational institutes.

“This is not a conservative issue. This is not a liberal issue. This issue of free speech is at the core of what defines our society in the United States. And without it, these institutions will fail,” Joner said.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A federal judge ruled Friday that Minnesota’s carry permit age restriction is unconstitutional.

“The court declares that Minn. Stat. §624.714, subd. 2(b)(2)’s requirement that a person must be at least 21 years of age to receive a permit to publicly carry a handgun in Minnesota violates the rights of individuals 18–20 years old to keep and bear arms protected by the Second and Fourteenth Amendments,” judge Katherine Menendez from U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota wrote in the ruling.

Minnesota added an age restriction for the carry permit in 2003 to ask applicants to be “at least 21 years old and a citizen or a permanent resident of the United States.”

Three Minnesota residents between the ages of 18 and 20 sued John Harrington, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, and three sheriffs and asked the judge to enjoin the age restriction.

Three gun rights advocacy groups, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Second Amendment Foundation, and Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., joined the lawsuit.

The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus declared victory after the ruling.

“This is a resounding victory for 18-20-year-old adults who wish to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms,” Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus Chair Bryan Strawser said in a statement.

The Epoch Times reached out to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s office for comment.

Aftereffects of Supreme Court’s Bruen Decision

The plaintiffs argued in their lawsuit that the age minimum violated the Second Amendment because 18- to 20-year-olds were permitted to possess guns at the time of the United States’ founding.

Their case was bolstered last June when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the first time, in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. The court also found that any limits on gun rights must be in line with the nation’s historical tradition of gun regulation.

Menendez wrote that she had “reservations” about the historical analysis demanded by the Supreme Court, noting that “judges are not historians.”

Nonetheless, she concluded that there were no historical laws comparable to Minnesota’s, and Bruen required her to strike the law down.

She noted that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a 21-year age minimum for handgun purchases in Florida, based on 19th-century laws, but said those laws only concerned gun sales, not the right to carry guns.

Reuters contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Saudi Arabia and other members of the oil-producing group OPEC+ announced on April 2 that they will be cutting their output by about 1.15 million barrels per day (bpd), a move expected to cause an immediate rise in prices.

According to its state news agency, Saudi Arabia will voluntarily cut its oil production by 500,000 bpd from May to the end of 2023. The Middle Eastern kingdom’s energy official described the decision as a “precautionary measure” aimed at “supporting the stability of the oil market.”

Russia, which has already been reducing oil production by 500,000 bpd since March in response to Western countries’ price caps designed to curtail the Kremlin’s ability to finance its military campaign in Ukraine, also confirmed that it will be extending the original three-month cut by another six months.

“As responsible and preemptive actions, Russia will extend its voluntary oil production reduction by 500,000 barrels a day until the end of 2023 from the average production level in February established in conformity with independent sources,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said, per state-owned TASS.

Other OPEC+ members also followed suit. Iraq announced a cut of 211,000 bpd, followed by the United Arab Emirates (144,000 bpd), Kuwait (128,000 bpd), Kazakhstan (78,000 bpd), Algeria (48,000 bpd), and Oman (40,000 bpd).

The collaborative production cuts come after oil prices in March fell toward a 15-month low at $70 a barrel, largely driven by worries that the ongoing global banking crisis would—as did the 2008–2009 financial crisis—spur a severe drop of global oil demand.

West Texas Intermediate, a U.S. benchmark for crude oil, in mid-March fell below $70 a barrel in the wake of the collapses of California-based Silicon Valley Bank and New York’s Signature Bank. International benchmark Brent Crude also dropped to its lowest point since December 2021, $71.46 per barrel.

Both benchmarks rose this week as concerns of a potential global banking meltdown eased.

OPEC’s decision is also built on what was agreed among its members and allies last October at a meeting in Vienna, including output cuts by 2 million bpd from November until the end of the year.

The Biden administration, which has been advocating for more oil to the global market since Russia began a full-scale military offensive against Ukraine, was upset by the oil-producing cartel’s plan.

“The President is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” the White House stated. “At a time when maintaining a global supply of energy is of paramount importance, this decision will have the most negative impact on lower- and middle-income countries that are already reeling from elevated energy prices.”

Global oil demand in 2023 is about 100.9 million bpd, according to the latest short-term energy outlook by U.S. Energy Information Administration. With the April 2 announcement, the total volume of cuts by OPEC+ accounts for more than 3 percent of global demand.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A CASE CONCERNING HILLARY CLINTON VOTERS FALLING FOR A PRANK HAS LED TO A CRIMINAL CONVICTION IN NEW YORK.

In 2016, meme-maker Douglass Mackey decided to lampoon Democrat Party voters by creating and posting an image that claimed they could vote simply by texting “Hillary” to a cell phone number, instead of waiting hours in line. The joke was posted to his popular “@TheRickyVaughn” page on Twitter, known for its biting satire.

This week, Mackey was convicted in Brooklyn, New York, on a charge of Conspiracy Against Rights stemming from what the U.S. District Attorney’s office called “his scheme to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote.”

United States District Judge Ann M. Donnelly – an Obama-era appointee previously famed for blocked a Trump-era executive order for the deportation of migrants – presided over the week-long trial that Twitter users are now pointing to a direct infringement of their First Amendment rights.

Mackey faces 10 years in prison, with sentencing due in August. And though his lawyers claim they are “optimistic about our chances on appeal,” a precedent for pursuing meme-makers through the courts has now been set.

Interference.

Mackay’s trial was rescheduled at the beginning of March due to constitutional and fairness concerns. In the run-up to trial, far-left agitators such as the Huffington Post’s Luke O’Brien had sought to demonize Mackey in the media, referring to him as an anti-Semite, white nationalist, and political extremist.

Additionally, a key witness for the prosecution appears to have been a member of one of Mackey’s online groups who appears to have worked as an undercover informant. Said informant – another online troll by the name of ‘Microchip’ – is a “a fascist accelerationist who has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and Nazism,” according to O’Brien.

Microchip is believed to have taken a plea deal with the government in 2022, and collaborated to help prosecute fellow meme-makers.

The U.S. Department of Justice demanded the name of the witness remained undisclosed which, as argued by Mackey’s attorney, could violate the confrontation clause in the U.S. Constitution. In justifying this measure, the DoJ argued that to reveal the name of the agent would encourage “online harassment”.

Hypocrisy.

A number of Mackey’s supporters have highlighted similar actions by Twitter user “Kristina Wong,” who made memes targeting Trump voters by telling them to vote on “November 9th” while wearing a MAGA hat. She was neither charged nor investigated.

Two tiered justice system! pic.twitter.com/7hLmpT6rv3

— Ben Kew  (@ben_kew) April 1, 2023

Mackey said of the news: “My conviction essentially means there is no First Amendment protection of speech… If you make a meme they don’t like, the Federal Government will come after you”.

“It was no criminal conspiracy. It was the internet,” defense lawyer Frisch said in his closing argument. He added that although roughly 4,900 people called the vote-by-text number, “No one was tricked.”

“If a single voter was tricked, the government would have called that person as their first witness,” he said.

Indeed no such witness emerged.

Instead, the jury heard from a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer, as well as the owner of a text message marketing company.

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said the verdict proves “the defendant’s fraudulent actions crossed a line into criminality and flatly rejects his cynical attempt to use the constitutional right of free speech as a shield for his scheme to subvert the ballot box and suppress the vote.”

WEGOVY, OZEMPIC, OR HOWEVER YOU MIGHT KNOW IT. YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW IT A LITTLE BETTER.

Novo Nordisk – the manufacturer of the “miracle” weight-loss drug Wegovy (also known as Ozempic) – is using racial factors to insist on government funding for their drug in the United States. The company is using a network of paid medical affiliates to push pharmaceutical treatment of obesity, including Dr Fatima Cody Stanford, who recently appeared on 60 Minutes to promote the idea that weight loss is unachievable in the traditional manner. The company also appears to be funding pro-Wegovy research articles that contain a racial bent.

Novo is following a similar strategy in other countries, including the United Kingdom, where an Observer investigation revealed the company to be bankrolling National Health Service (NHS) weight-loss services in an effort to boost sales of their drugs. Novo made payments of £21.7 million to UK health organisations and professionals in a period of just three years before the approval of Wegovy under Britain’s socialized healthcare system.

Medical professionals closely affiliated to the company have also made media appearances, including on the BBC’s flagship Radio 4 Today show, to argue that appetite-suppressing drugs like Wegovy are “one of the most powerful pharmaceutical tools” we have to treat obesity.

Although semaglutide – the pharmaceutical name for the drug – was originally designed as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes, for which it is marketed as Ozempic, buzz about its weight-loss effects have quickly grown. The drug is injected and works by mimicking a natural gut hormone called GLP-1, which regulates insulin and blood sugar levels. You feel fuller for longer, curbing hunger pangs. If you stop feeling hungry, you stop eating, and if you stop eating, you start losing weight.

By 2020, Wegovy had already been prescribed four million times in the US alone, making it the nation’s 129th most commonly prescribed medication. After a shortage of Wegovy in the United States, doctors began prescribing Ozempic, which contains a lower dose of semaglutide, off-label, as a fat-loss treatment. Similar shortages have also been reported elsewhere, including in Australia. In the first nine months of 2022, Novo Nordisk reported a 59 percent growth in sales of its semaglutide drugs. Social media sites, especially TikTok and Instagram, are now awash with videos about semaglutide and its miraculous effects. The hashtag “#ozempic” has hundreds of millions of views on TikTok alone.

PHARMA INFLUENCERS.

The drug’s growing popularity has been massively bolstered by high-profile admissions of its use, including by Elon Musk, who recently debuted a much trimmer-looking physique, and by speculation about which other celebrities have used it. Kim Kardashian is rumored to have used Wegovy to lose enough weight to almost fit into one of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic dresses.

The news that Novo Nordisk is using every available means to boost sales of Wegovy will be no surprise to anybody who knows anything about how the pharmaceutical industry works. The fact the company is so brazenly “playing the race card” may still come as something of a shock. Pharmaceutical companies are moving with the times, and that includes adapting to the increasingly Critical Race Theory-heavy realm of public discourse, and making ever-greater use of social media to recruit customers.

The National Pulse recently reported on the shady networks of “patient-influencers” used by companies like Novo Nordisk to sell drugs without the mediation of a physician. These patient-influencers dispense health advice on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, including recommendations for medication for conditions they claim to suffer from. Many of these individuals are affiliated with drug companies and receive payment for their services.

“The bottom line here is that patient influencers act as a form of interactive direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, sharing their knowledge and experiences on pharmaceutical drugs with communities of followers in which they wield great influence,” said Erin Willis, author of a new study on patient-influencers.

“This raises ethical questions that need more investigation.”

DTC advertising allows drug manufacturers to target consumers directly, rather than through physicians. This method of advertising emerged in the 1980s, and is only prevalent in the US and New Zealand. In these countries, about half of all people who ask their doctor about a new drug do so after seeing a television commercial for it.

MUST READ: Autism Skyrockets in American Kids. Especially in California.

OBESITY AND RACE.

Obesity is one of the main besetting illnesses of modern life in the developed world. A recent study in the Journal of Obesity focused on the long-term weight gain of nearly 15,000 adults in the US, finding that one-fifth of US adults gained 20 percent of their body weight over 10 years.

According to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 41.9 percent of adults are now obese, a significant increase from the 30.5 percent who were obese at the turn of the millennium. The prevalence of severe adult obesity has increased to 9.2 percent from 4.7 percent. Nearly 15 million, or 19.7 percent of US children are now obese, and 12.7 percent of 2- to 5-year-olds, 20.7 percent of 6- to 11-year-olds, and 22.2 percent of 12- to 19-year-olds are now obese. The estimated medical cost of obesity in the United States was nearly $173 billion in 2019.

With such an enormous potential market, it is no wonder that Novo Nordisk is pulling out all the stops to corner as much of the market as possible for its weight-loss drug Wegovy. In particular, Novo wants the U.S. Congress to add coverage of obesity drugs and “weight-related behavioural therapy” to Medicare, and is pushing on a variety of different fronts to get this to happen. Novo is the largest industry donor to the Obesity Action Coalition, which is responsible for a variety of advocacy campaigns and works regularly with groups like the National Urban League and The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

“Unfortunately, outdated Medicare rules deny access to the full continuum of care for patients,” said a Novo spokesman in a statement. “Novo Nordisk has supported the expansion of Medicare for almost a decade, including support for the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act since its introduction in 2013. Novo Nordisk joined the Obesity Care Advocacy Network in 2015.”

Using a racial angle to approach the issue of public funding to tackle obesity, in consultation with groups like the NAACP, is a smart strategy, and one that other corporations have already used. A former lobbyist at Coca-Cola recently came forward with the claim that the company paid the NAACP to engage in a slander campaign of racism accusations against scientists, researchers and any opponents of Coca-Cola who claimed soft drinks were to blame for obesity.

“Early in my career, I consulted for Coke to ensure sugar taxes failed and soda was included in food stamp funding,” said the former lobbyist. “I say Coke’s policies are evil because I saw inside the room.”

“The first step in playbook was paying the NAACP and other civil rights groups to call opponents racist. Coke gave millions to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation – both directly and through front groups like the American Beverage Association (ABA).”

The NAACP has been claiming that obesity in the US is rooted in systemic racism for decades. The NAACP has openly stated that “ongoing systems of oppression are at the root of health inequities”. And it certainly is true that racial and ethnic minorities suffer from obesity disproportionately. For instance, 38.9 percent of Hispanic children and 32.5 percent of non-Hispanic black children are either overweight or have obesity, whereas 28.5 percent of non-Hispanic white children are overweight or have obesity.

In a Novo document circulated in February 2021, entitled “The Disproportionate Impact of Obesity on Racial and Ethnic Minorities”, the company clearly states that it believes obesity is disproportionately affecting racial and ethnic minorities due to structural inequality. This will become more of a problem for the nation, the document states, since “minorities will make up more than half of the population of the United States by 2050.”

“Obesity is caused by a combination of genetic, biological, and environmental factors. Access to affordable, healthy food, safe places to exercise and play, stable and affordable housing, and quality health care, all play a role in the likelihood that a person will have obesity.”

MUST READ: Autism Skyrockets in American Kids. Especially in California.

The document ends with a recommendation that, “as policymakers look to address the broader health equity issues in their states, treating and reducing obesity must be a focus.”

Novo has also funded scholarly research claiming that “structural racism remains a major contributor to health disparities between African American people and the general population, and it limits access to healthy foods, safe spaces to exercise, adequate health insurance, and medication.” The research recommends increasing access to “pharmacotherapy”, i.e. weight-loss drugs like Wegovy.

Dr Fatima Cody Stanford made headlines for an appearance on 60 Minutes, discussing the failures of traditional weight-loss strategies, while claiming we should throw willpower “out the window”.

“The number one cause of obesity is genetics,” she claimed. “That means if you are born to parents that have obesity, you have a 50 to 85 percent likelihood of having the disease yourself, even with optimal diet, exercise, sleep management, stress management.” Her statements were a clear endorsement of pharmaceutical intervention to treat obesity.

What Dr Stanford failed to mention is that she has received tens of thousands of dollars from Novo Nordisk – that we know about, since payments after 2021 are not yet available to view. Over a third of her registered payments in 2021 came from Novo, and she also received fees from Eli Lilly, which makes a competitor drug to Wegovy that works in a similar manner. Dr Stanford has also argued in speeches and academic work that government funding to treat obesity with drugs like Wegovy is necessary to fight systemic racism.

ANTI-RACISM GRIFT: NOTHING NEW.

The anti-racism grift is nothing new. Just look at Black Lives Matter, an organization which claims to have been founded to enrich the lives of ordinary black people, but instead seems only to have enriched a handful of executives. The fact that Novo Nordisk is now hammering systemic racism as a means to fill its coffers with drug money should not surprise us. In 2023, claiming that any form of inequality is somehow rooted in racism is par for the course, and usually successful – at least if you’re arguing in favor of non-whites.

What is especially concerning about the lobbying for Wegovy is that this is a drug that most users will probably have to remain on indefinitely in order to maintain weight loss. We have no idea what the long-term health effects of the drug will be, though we do know users regularly suffer unpleasant gastrointestinal problems including nausea, diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, and heartburn. Rodent studies have shown the drug can cause thyroid tumours, which should at least give us pause before we consider allowing tens of millions of people, including children, to take the drug regularly for years or even decades.

Wegovy is the modern pharmaceutical product par excellence. In a sense it represents everything that is simultaneously wrong and right with the medical industry today. Yes, we have a pioneering application of science that could benefit people’s lives, but it does so in an ad-hoc manner, without addressing any of the fundamental underlying causes of the problem itself. Obesity is the besetting disease of industrial society. It is a product of the unprecedented lifestyle and nutrition changes we’ve undergone over the last century and a half. We’ve effectively severed the chain of hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of years of human and hominid evolution, reducing our physical activity levels to a mere fraction of what they once were and abandoning the nutrition-dense predominantly animal foods that our ancestors ate and thrived upon.

While factors like genetics and social deprivation are obviously causes of unhealthy lifestyles, the simple truth is that our modern lifestyles are maladaptive. That is why we are so ill. And until we face up to this fundamental fact and abandon ad-hoc responses like anti-depressants and Wegovy, nothing will really change – except, of course, Novo Nordisk’s share price. Which will only continue to increase.

Glamour hugely misleads its readership over the latest bill in Florida to clarify education. The claim is that girls may not talk about menstruation and periods. Which is, of course, a ridiculous idea. No one is suggesting that and we’d be among those shouting if someone did.

What is happening is that the curriculum is being clarified. These things, these things here, should be taught in these types of lessons. Those things over there, they’re more suited to a different type of class. And that really is all that is happening.

As Florida legislators debate whether a bill would prohibit discussing periods at school, young Floridians explain the necessity of health education in the classroom.

That’s not what is happening in the slightest.

Now, as Florida legislators debate whether or not a bill—referred to as the “Don’t Say Period” bill and meant to limit sexuality and health education in the state’s schools—would prohibit young girls from talking about their periods in the classroom, young women like her have a message to their elected officials: leave our periods alone.

Simply not the truth at all. What is – perhaps deliberately – being missed is what Glamour then says:

While the bill doesn’t explicitly mention menstruation

There’s nothing about the subject in the bill at all. So why the claim that there is? The conclusion has to be that Glamour is seeking to deliberately mislead its readers.

Parts of the bill do say that sex is immutable, and that personal pronoun preferences do not have to be obeyed by teachers or others. Given that these are modern sins against the current fashions some opposition is to be expected. But on the other hand, those are ideas that would gain large – but not fashionable – support. Therefore while those might be the reason for the opposition to the bill that’s not how it can be put.

So, therefore, an invention of something that simply is not there in order to get the readership energized to oppose it. You know, entirely misleading, even perpetrating disinformation, in order to pursue a political goal. That is, not journalism, but politics.

There’s more to the danger than that of course. Because the readership deserves to be educated, not misled. As we’d like the schools to be educated, so, too, the media.

Florida – even this suggested bill rather than the law of the state – is not trying to ban talk of menstruation in schools. So why invent the idea that they are? In order to mislead, of course.

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.

SOURCE: American Liberty News

Leave it to NY to persecute the righteous for defending themselves against criminals [US Patriot]

New York City police have confirmed that the department has charged both an alleged thief and the parking garage attendant who confronted him with attempted murder.

The charges raise questions about whether the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office under Alvin Bragg will prosecute the graveyard shift employee. Bragg has faced criticism for not prosecuting certain crimes and other charging decisions.

Many on Twitter are calling the confrontation between the attendant, Moussa Diarra, and suspected thief, Charles Rhodie, a classic case of self-defense.

Parking attendant Moussa Diarra should be praised, not charged!!! Diarra is shot while wrestling gun from subject. Then shoots subject with gun he wrestled from him during struggle.

Unbelievable New York!!! @FoxNews @GOP @USADoJ_ap @realDonaldTrump @DonaldJTrumpJr pic.twitter.com/WjpM6R2A4WApril 2, 2023

Diarra, 57, was also charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon for wrestling the gun wielded by Rhodie, 59, and shooting him after he was shot twice.

As the New York Post reports:

Believing the man was stealing, the attendant brought him outside and asked what was inside his bag.

Instead of cooperating, the man pulled out a gun, the sources said.

Diarra tried to grab for the weapon, and it went off — leaving him shot in the stomach and grazed in the ear by a bullet before he turned the firearm on the would-be thief and shot him in the chest, sources said.

Besides the attempted murder charge, police charged Rhodie with assault, criminal possession of a weapon and burglary.

One cop who heard of the attempted murder charge against the parking garage worker snarled, “People like Alvin Bragg have made this city unsafe and this worker is a victim defending himself.”

Both men were transported to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.

READ NEXT: Magazine Deliberately Deceives Teen Girls About Florida Sex Ed Legislation

SOURCE: American Liberty News

This type of “due process” is long overdue. Keep it going, patriots! [US Patriot]

Keshondra Howard Turner has been serving up delicious meals out of her family’s food truck in Houston for about three years now, and never had a problem with thieves or robbers… until this week. On Tuesday, the 53-year-old grandmother was on the job and inside the Elite Eats truck when a young man rolled up and asked what was on the menu before pulling a gun and stepping out of his truck.

Houston police Lt. Bryan Bui says as the robber approached Turner she managed to shut the food truck’s service window, but that didn’t dissuade the suspect from trying to get inside. He managed to open up the window and then pointed the gun at Howard from just a few feet away.

That’s when, according to Bui, the suspect tried to shoot but his gun jammed.

Turner then shot the man several times, police said. He collapsed about 50 feet away from the truck, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

HPD investigators said nothing was taken from the food truck and they’re checking the area for surveillance video. Bui said the robber didn’t fire a shot.

Investigators also said that Turner is licensed to carry.

Turner’s son said she would never have wanted to use her gun, but she didn’t have a choice.

“My momma is a great person, you know? Good-hearted, looking out for everybody. She’d give the shirt off her back,” Derick Howard said.

…  “I hope she’s alright because I know right now she’s going crazy because that’s not even (like) her,” her son said.

HPD officials said Turner had a panic attack after the shooting. She was taken to an area hospital for treatment. Now, her loved ones are hoping she will return to the family-run business. They’re also thankful that she’s alive.

“She’s a Godly woman, that’s why the gun jammed because God jammed it,” Howard said.

Contrary to what anti-gunners routinely claim, no gun owner I know is walking around with a concealed firearm just hoping to be the victim of a violent crime so they can whip out their gun and shoot their attacker. Like Howard, we’d much prefer to simply be left alone, but we also know that it’s not really up to us to decide if we’re going to be the target of some violent criminal. Our choice is how we would respond if, God forbid, we’re ever in a situation similar to Howard, and tens of millions of Americans have decided they want the chance to fight back if possible.

I’m sure that Howard’s encounter with the 23-year-old armed robber was one of the most traumatic moments of her life, and I’m glad that her family and friends are there to support her going forward. I just hope that Howard doesn’t blame herself here. The truth is the 23-year-old who lost his life would be alive today if he had made the choice to order a pork chop sandwich or wings. Instead he made the fatal decision to point a gun at Howard’s head, perhaps thinking that there was no way this sweet woman would have a gun of her own holstered on her hip.

Like Howard, I wish this encounter would have played out differently, but I’m grateful that she’s alive today thanks to her choice to protect herself with a firearm.

Read the original article in its entirety at Bearingarms.com.

SOURCE: American Liberty News

HOENIX—Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has been ordered to appear in court Thursday in her efforts to halt pending executions.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Frank Moskowitz said late Friday that Hobbs and Ryan Thornell, the state’s prison director, must show up to explain why the court shouldn’t issue an order against them on the grounds they are violating the constitutional rights of victims entitled to prompt justice.

The afternoon court appearance is scheduled the same day convicted murderer Aaron Gunches had been set to die. The Arizona Supreme Court in recent days concluded state law didn’t require Hobbs to proceed with the planned execution, even though it wasn’t officially called off.

An email requesting a response from the governor’s office was not immediately answered.

At the same time, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel H. Mitchell has asked the court to extend the execution warrant for Gunches by 25 days.

Gunches had been set to die by lethal injection for the 2002 killing of his girlfriend’s ex-husband Ted Price. He had pleaded guilty to a murder charge in the shooting death near Mesa, Arizona.

Price’s sister, Karen Price, has pressed the court to order Hobbs to let the execution go ahead.

Hobbs had previously appointed a retired federal magistrate judge to examine Arizona’s procurement of lethal injection drugs and other death penalty protocols.

The corrections department said Monday its death penalty protocols “have been paused as we conduct our systemic review of the execution process.”

Arizona has 110 prisoners on death row. It carried out three executions last year after a hiatus of almost eight years over criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and because of difficulties obtaining execution drugs.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

‘[Kids] are so innately in tune with who they are. If we give them the great growing spaces to be everything that they’re created to be, they can do anything.’

An “unschooling” mom of three from Hawaii who places faith, nature, and the community at the helm is sharing her family’s journey from an abusive past into freedom, and how her kids are thriving by building their character and relationship with God.

Maui, Hawaii, natives Haley Celeste Miller, 31, and her husband Travis Okano, 32, met at the movie theater at the age of 12 and have been together ever since. Haley is a stay-at-home mom and professional network marketer for Young Living Essential Oils, while Travis is a part-time farmer, part-time landscaper, and works part-time as a hotel valet. Their children are Caleb, 11, Nash, 8, and Mila, 4.

“Caleb is such a serious kid and he’s actually the reason why we unschool. He’s very brilliant,” Haley, who shares their family life on Instagram, told The Epoch Times, describing Nash as “the life of the party” and claiming Mila “runs the show most days.”

“There’s a saying, ‘the ego is abbreviated as edging God out,’” she said. “When we are in our mother’s womb, our mother doesn’t worry about what’s happening, right? Because it’s so in tune with God, and all the magic of creating a life. We don’t think about if their nose is there yet, or their eyes or their ears … we just trust that everything is developing the way it should be. But as soon as we enter the world, all of a sudden we edge God out, and we implant our own beliefs and our own ideas and our own ways of thinking.”

Hayley stresses that most of these beliefs are not even our own but are instead tied through school systems, through parents, through friendships, and their control on us progresses to a point where “we don’t even recognize who God is anymore.”

‘Our Journey Began’

While pregnant with her second child at 23, Haley decided she wanted her kids to have everything she never had. Growing up as the child of drug-addicted parents, Haley had taken on responsibility for her sisters, and her own education suffered until a teacher became her champion in eighth grade.

Haley and Travis were both working two jobs at the time and were on food stamps and low-income housing, struggling to make ends meet. But when Haley found a work-from-home opportunity as a network marketer, she took matters into her own hands.

“I had a huge goal to travel with my family,” she said. “When Caleb turned 5, I was able to make that goal happen. I was getting enough income to retire my husband and myself, and we traveled for eight months. The world was literally at [my kids’] feet, and the profession that I’m in gives us the opportunity to be able to learn anywhere we are.”

Returning home to Hawaii, Haley and Travis put Caleb in school.

“We’re driving one day and he’s looking out at the ocean, and he’s like, ‘Mom, when I die, I’m gonna become the whole ocean,’” Haley said. “I don’t know why, but at that moment I knew that this was our path. I don’t have anything bad to say about school … but the way I see it, I get to embrace everything he is and build him up. That’s kind of where our journey began.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A recent poll showed that Americans no longer value patriotism and hard work. The belief that the United States is the greatest nation in the world and is exceptional is no longer shared by many Americans. Is there any question why? Just look at what is being said about the United States and its history by progressives. And the reason we are seeing this assault is that the left believes by stripping away pride in our history and values, we will become dependent on government and part of the one world order.

Just look at how our history has been perverted:

The British were the heroes of the American Revolution and George Washington, and the founding fathers were the villains. Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant were no better than the Confederates they were fighting. Sound absurd or something that would be in the Onion or Babylon Bee? Sadly, it is what the far-left is indoctrinating in our education system and books.

In Hulu’s “1619 Project” based upon the largely debunked New York Times 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones, the entire premise of the American Revolution is based upon the issue of slavery. The kindly British military and royal governors were trying to emancipate the slaves and the founding fathers took up arms to prevent this. Forget the concept of taxation without representation. Forget that the first shots were fired in the free colony of Massachusetts. Forget that Great Britain itself did not outlaw slavery until 1834. No, our progressive historians assert, the Revolution was fought over slavery and unfortunately the wrong side won. This goes along with the whole concept that America was founded to promote slavery.

But it isn’t just the Revolution that is being rewritten. The Civil War is also. Lincoln was no better than the Confederates because one of his early solutions to deal with the former slaves included deportation. Never mind that the plan was never implemented and just one of many; this proves the banality of Lincoln. Ulysses Grant, who did more for African Americans than any President up until the Civil Rights era, is now a racist. Why? Because his wife inherited a slave who Grant freed.

But it is not just a few fringe historians. Look at the rhetoric of the Biden administration and Democratic leaders. American history is one of white supremacy and evil. We need equity to level the playing field. Hard work and rugged individualism is wrong. Americans must atone for its evil.

Today’s progressives are the first in our nation’s history who do not view America as the greatest nation in the world. In their view, our country is not the shining city on the hill that Ronald Reagan referred to. There is nothing exceptional about the United States. The far-left sees the United States as no better than North Korea or Iran, and some believe it is worse. That is why we are seeing this unprecedented attack on American history.

A decade ago, destroying or removing statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln or Ulysses Grant would be unthinkable.  Now it has become commonplace. American values are now frowned upon.

Why is this happening? If you strip away our history and indoctrinate Americans that all who were successful were tainted and evil, Americans will start to view their nation that way and give up on the drive and individualism that defined American greatness. The assault on American history and values is the left’s final assault to make Americans of all backgrounds dependent on government rather than themselves.

SOURCE: American Liberty News

As Christians we are called to stand firm in our faith even in the midst of turmoil and chaos of the world around us. Recent news of the horrific massacre of six Christians including three young children in Nashville, the news of President Trump’s sham indictment, and the conviction of Douglas Mackey may be discouraging and disheartening, but in these moments we must remember that our hope and our strength come from a higher power.

This week was a difficult week for me both as a Christian and as a father of young children. I looked everywhere for a response from so-called “Christian leaders” and at best I found silence while at worst I found those supporting the “trans community” instead of our own brothers and sisters in Christ.

Christians are called to respond to tragedy with compassion, empathy, and love, but what happens when that tragedy is being celebrated by the mainstream media, the culture, our own government, and perhaps even some of our churches, friends, and family?

When trans flags are being risen at schools, organizations, businesses, and even government buildings across our nation just days after a member of that community carried out a horrific injustice against a Christian community—ending the lives of six of our brothers and sisters in Christ—how are we to respond? 

As my good friend Pastor Andrew Isker wrote this week, being winsome and nice won’t cut it anymore.

Cowardly Christian “leaders” may be silent on these issues, but God’s Word is not–and I refuse to be. The first thing we must remember is that our hope and strength come from God. We must turn to Him in prayer and seek His guidance as we navigate these difficult situations. 

As the Bible says in Philippians 4:6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

In addition to prayer we must also remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:44, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Even when the media, businesses, schools, and the government seem to be celebrating a senseless tragedy, we must respond with love and compassion, not hatred or anger.

We must also take action to address the injustice that is being celebrated by the wicked. This may mean speaking out against the mainstream narrative, supporting organizations that are working to bring about change, or even taking part in peaceful protests or demonstrations. When we do these things it’s crucial that our actions are rooted in love and compassion, not in anger or violence. We must be bold and share the Gospel, speak the Truth, and let go of our fear. 

We must remember that we are not alone in our struggle. This is what our enemies want us to desperately believe: that we have no one standing up on behalf of the victims and on behalf of God’s Word. Nothing could be further from the truth. As members of the body of Christ we are part of a larger community of believers who can support and encourage us. By staying connected to other believers, we can find strength and hope in times of struggle and persecution. I encourage you to do so not only in your local Church and community, but also with believers around the world on Gab and other online platforms. We need each other now more than ever.

Reject the Blackpill

It’s very easy to feel demoralized and blackpilled when we see the evil in the world around us. But as followers of Christ, we must hold fast to the truth that Christ is King. He has overcome the world, and in Him, we can find hope and strength to face whatever comes our way. Christians are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves, to forgive those who wrong us, and to turn the other cheek. However, we are also called to hate evil with a righteous hatred while not giving in to despair or hopelessness.

The Bible tells us in Psalm 97:10, “Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.” But what does it mean to hate evil? Does it mean that we should hate the people who commit evil acts? Absolutely not. As Christians, we are called to love all people, even those who do wrong. When we are commanded to hate evil we are being called to hate the things that are contrary to God’s will and God’s character. We are called to hate sin and all that it represents – destruction, death, and separation from God.

We Are Commanded To Hate Evil

Many people in our culture, and even some Christian leaders, promote a hippie version of love that emphasizes tolerance and acceptance at all costs. They believe that love means accepting everyone and everything, no matter how evil or wicked it may be. However, this view is not biblical, and it does not reflect the true nature of God. The fear of the Lord is a healthy respect and reverence for God, and it leads us to hate what He hates.

God is often portrayed in our culture as being fully focused on love and grace, but the Bible teaches us that there are indeed things that God hates. While this might be a difficult concept for some to grasp, it is important to understand that God’s hatred is not arbitrary or capricious. His hatred is based on His perfect nature and His desire for us to live according to His will.

While God loves us unconditionally, He hates the sin that separates us from Him. Sin is anything that goes against God’s will, and it is something that we should strive to avoid. When we sin, we are rebelling against God and His plan for our lives. As Christians, we should strive to avoid the things that God hates and to live lives that are pleasing to Him. We should seek to love what God loves and hate what God hates, and in doing so, we will be living in obedience to His will.

Proverbs 8:13 – “To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.”

Romans 12:9 – “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”

Psalm 101:3 – “I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. I hate what faithless people do; I will have no part in it.”

Amos 5:15 – “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.”

Proverbs 13:5 – “The righteous hate what is false, but the wicked make themselves a stench and bring shame on themselves.”

Psalm 119:104 – “I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path.”

When we hate evil we are not allowing it to have a foothold in our lives. We are not tolerating it or excusing it, but instead, we are actively fighting against it. We are standing up for what is right and what is just, even when it is difficult. When we hate evil we are acknowledging the reality of the brokenness of our world. We recognize that sin and evil do exist and that they cause pain and suffering. But we also know that God has overcome sin and evil through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We should look to the example of Jesus Himself, who drove out the money changers from the temple with a whip (John 2:15). He did not tolerate their wickedness and corruption but took action to remove it from the house of God.

By hating evil, we are living out our faith in a tangible way. We are demonstrating our commitment to God’s values and His character. We are standing up for justice, compassion, and righteousness in a world that is often marked by selfishness, greed, and violence.

Now is the time for Christians to not only start hating evil again, but actively waging spiritual warfare against it. 

We need to focus on building up our communities, praying for one another, and growing together in faith. We must not let the news of the day distract us from the work that God has called us to do. We are called to be a light in the darkness, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to spread the good news of the gospel to all nations. That is our mission and we must not take our eyes off the prize of eternal glory with our King. 

Ultimately we can take comfort in the fact that we can and will overcome because Christ has already overcome. As the Bible says in 1 John 4:4, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” No matter what happens in the world around us, we can have confidence that God is with us, and that He will see us through to victory.

Let us not be demoralized or blackpilled by the news of the day. Instead let us focus on Christ and His Kingdom, and let us continue to build, pray, and grow in our faith together. 

By the grace of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Victory of Jesus Christ our King we too shall overcome and see victory. 

God bless you. Keep the faith. 

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus Christ is King of kings

Published in Bold Christian Writing

SOURCE: Gab

While we’re on the topic of crony capitalism – or, as Frederic Bastiat so devastatingly called it, “legal plunder” – it turns out the ill-named Inflation Reduction Act which larder subsides on the green energy sector, may cost hundreds of billions of dollars more than previously thought.

Yes, hundreds of billions of dollars more. The original cost estimate: roughly $391 billion over 10 years. The real figure could be $1.2 trillion.

Even by the magical thinking that substitutes for budgeting in official Washington, this is a whopper of a miscalculation. How did it happen? The Wall Street Journal points to a Goldman Sachs research note that exposes a costly flaw in the IRA’s wording:

By Goldman’s estimate, the IRA tax credits will cost tens to hundreds of billions more than CBO estimated over 10 years. The forecast misses include electric vehicles (difference: $379 billion), green energy manufacturing ($156 billion), renewable electricity production ($82 billion), energy efficiency ($42 billion), hydrogen ($36 billion), biofuels ($34 billion) and carbon capture ($31 billion).

Goldman says the difference in the EV credit estimates owes to its projection that more vehicles will meet the law’s “self-sufficiency” mineral and battery material conditions for the partial $3,750 consumer credit and full $7,500 credit. But even Goldman’s estimate for the EV credit could be low if Treasury loosely interprets the credit conditions, which is what auto makers are lobbying for.

Goldman Sachs doesn’t necessarily oppose the higher spending. The Journal’s editorial board says the whole thing could lead to “an enormous new corporate entitlement whose costs will increase on autopilot…”

That would make it like almost every other entitlement program on the books today – politically costly to reform and politically suicidal for those who try to end it.

If there is any bright side to this orgy of legal plunder, it’s how the corporations thirsting after the subsidies have put “paid” to the notion that they are somehow great defenders of free enterprise and free markets. A few still are. But they are an increasingly vanishing breed.

And good day, Tim Cook. How nice to see your statement about the relationship between Apple and China:

“Apple and China… grew together and so this has been a symbiotic kind of relationship that we have both enjoyed. I am thrilled to be back in China. It means the world to me and I feel really privileged to be here.”

Nothing to see here. Move along….

SOURCE: American Liberty News

Under a new Biden administration federal regulation, Americans would have 120 days to turn in or register 40 million legally-purchased, privately-owned guns that have a stabilizing brace.

Forty-six Republican senators have introduced legislation that blocks the Biden administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from enforcing the proposed “Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached Stabilizing Braces” rule, which reclassifies pistols as short-barreled rifles if they have a stabilizing brace attachment.

“Gun owners…across our country have a fundamental right to bear arms that is protected by the Second Amendment. This proposal is yet another example of excessive overreach by the federal government that unfairly burdens law abiding firearm owners. I’m proud to join my colleagues in supporting a resolution to overturn this misguided rule,” said Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.

“In 2012, the Obama-Biden administration’s ATF determined that pistol-brace attachments do not change the classification of a pistol to that of a rifle. Despite this, the Biden administration in 2021 directed the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to propose a rule that clarifies when a pistol with a brace attachment should be designated as a rifle,” Fischer’s office reports.

Biden’s Justice Department announced the final rule earlier this year.

Stabilized pistols are popular with many disabled veterans and other Americans and are not linked to crime.

Under the rule, anyone caught with a pistol brace, even if it was previously legally purchased, could face up to ten years in jail and thousands of dollars in fines if they fail to either remove the pistol braces, turn in pistol braces to the ATF, register them with the ATF or destroy them.

In addition to Fischer, the resolution was sponsored by U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., and Robert Marshall, R-Kan., and cosponsored by U.S. Senators Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., Mike Lee, R-Utah, John Cornyn, R-Texas, Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., James Risch, R-Idaho, Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rick Scott, R-Fla., Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Thomas Tillis, R-N.C., James Lankford, R-Okla., Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., Steve Daines, R-Mont., John Thune, R-S.D., Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Mike Braun, R-Ind., Todd Young, R-Ind., John Boozman, R-Ark., Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Ted Budd, R-N.C., John Hoeven, R-N.D., Jerry Moran, R-Kan., Rand Paul, R-Ky., Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, Bill Cassidy, R-La., Mike Rounds, R-S.D., Katie Britt, R-Ala., Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

U.S. Representative Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., is introducing companion legislation in the House.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

READ NEXT: The Houston Restaurant Self-Defense Shooting: Neutralizing A Threat V. Killing A Criminal

SOURCE: American Liberty News

Janet Protasiewicz gave just six months to repeat felon who went on to shoot at ex-wife 19 times

A woman who was shot and nearly killed by her abusive ex-husband says liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz is responsible for letting the repeat felon off with a light sentence after he brutally beat her in a prior domestic abuse case—and doesn’t believe Protasiewicz is fit to serve on the state’s highest court.

“He should’ve gotten more time,” said Tamika Finchis in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon this week. “If he got more time maybe he wouldn’t have shot me.”

Her comments come as Protasiewicz faces criticism in the high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race over her sentencing record, which includes giving probation to a child sex offender who went on to kill a woman and letting off a domestic abuser who later committed a double-homicide. The April 4 election, which pits Protasiewicz against conservative former justice Dan Kelly, will determine the ideological breakdown of the swing state’s top court and could have national implications for the 2024 presidential race.

Finchis’s ex-husband, Lazarick Spade, was charged with domestic violence battery after he attacked her on a public sidewalk a week before Christmas in 2015, leaving her with a facial fracture. But Protasiewicz sentenced him to just six months in prison in July 2016, a sentence the victim said was far too lenient considering Spade’s lengthy criminal history and the brutality of the assault.

Shortly after he was released from jail, Spade ambushed Finchis outside her home in Milwaukee and shot at her 19 times—striking her in the back, arm, and foot—and leaving her for dead. Incredibly, she survived.

Spade was convicted of attempted homicide and is now serving a 40-year sentence for the shooting.

Finchis told the Free Beacon that she felt Protasiewicz and the rest of the justice system failed her by giving Spade such a light sentence in the prior assault case. She questioned Protasiewicz’s fitness for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

“She shouldn’t get it,” she said. “She’s not giving [criminals] any time” in jail.

The victim said she lost a lung in the shooting and is still recovering. She said she uses an inhaler and suffers from extreme anxiety.

She said Spade’s long criminal history should have prompted Protasiewicz to give him a longer sentence—noting that Spade was convicted of felony child abuse of their son months before he beat her and had other convictions for drug trafficking, firearm possession by a felon, and reckless endangerment.

At the time of the first assault in December 2015, Spade had also escaped from a prison work-release program, where he was supposed to serve a nine-month sentence for the felony child abuse charges. Finchis had recently ended her relationship with Spade and told him she was “moving on with her life.” But he confronted her outside a house in Milwaukee, where he pushed her to the ground and then “dragged [her] and punched and kicked her in the face,” according to court records citing reports from witnesses, who ran outside to pull Spade off of the victim. The victim “sustained facial hematomas and a facial fracture,” responding officers told the court.

Spade was initially charged with felony battery and faced up to 10 years in prison as a habitual offender, but the charges were reduced in a plea deal approved by Protasiewicz. She sentenced him to six months in prison in July 2016.

Less than a year later, in June 2017, Spade ambushed and shot his ex-wife multiple times outside her home in Milwaukee, according to court records. Hours before the shooting, Spade had threatened the victim that he was going to “get even” with her for reporting the prior assault.

Finchis “arrived home around 10:55 p.m. and was walking toward her house when [Spade] came toward her and started shooting at her,” said the court records. She “ran toward the house as [Spade] continued shooting.”

The victim “sustained three through and through gunshot wounds,” the records state. “One shot went through her left foot. One shot went through her upper right arm. One shot went through her by the shoulder blade and caused damage to one of her lungs.”

Protasiewicz did not respond to a request for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

CBS News banned its reporters from using the word “transgender” to describe the Nashville school shooter, who police confirmed was a biological woman who identified as male.

“The shooter’s gender identity has not been confirmed by CBS News,” executives told the newsroom earlier this week, according to the New York Post. “As such, we should avoid any mention of it as it has no known relevance to the crime. Should that change, we can and will revisit.”

But Nashville police on Monday told the press that the shooter Audrey Hale, who went by “Aiden,” “identifies as transgender” and that they were investigating if her transgender identity “actually played a role into this incident.” Hale killed three nine-year-olds and three adults at the Covenant School, a private Christian school, on Monday, leaving behind an unreleased manifesto which may give insight into her motive and whether her sexual identity played a role.

Media outlets this week have placed blame at the feet of Republicans for the massacre, in some cases describing transgender people as victims of the tragedy. NBC News said “conservatives rushed to blame the massacre on the suspect’s gender identity, connecting the tragedy to their national crusade against transgender rights.”

The Nation columnist and MSNBC talking head Elie Mystal said, “Republicans are complicit in these murderers” as “the party of literal death.”

The CBS memo told reporters to say “police identified the suspect as a 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who [sic] they shot and killed at the scene.”

CBS then instructed the reporters to move on and not mention the transgender detail.

“And move on to focus on other important points of the investigation, community, and solutions,” the executives said.

The White House’s responses to the attack have also come under fire. Hours after the shooting, President Joe Biden joked with a crowd about ice cream before addressing the killings. On Thursday, he released a statement condemning “violence against transgender women.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Claim: Liberal billionaire George Soros “did not contribute” to Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s political campaign.

Who said it: Members of the media, Soros himself.

Why it matters: Soros’s potential links to Bragg have become a hot-button issue after the prosecutor charged former president Donald Trump over alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Republicans say that Soros, who funds numerous anti-Trump causes, helped Bragg get into office. Democrats have in turn accused Republicans of pushing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that Soros, who is Jewish, is pulling the strings of the Trump investigation.

Context: Soros is by far the largest donor to Color of Change PAC, a left-wing group that was Bragg’s biggest campaign contributor. Color of Change in May 2021 pledged to spend $1 million to support Bragg’s campaign. Days after the endorsement, Soros contributed $1 million to Color of Change PAC. That was by far the largest individual donation to Color of Change that year. The next largest contribution was $50,000, according to campaign finance records.

Soros has given $1,450,000 in all directly to Color of Change PAC and millions more through other committees he funds. Democracy PAC, which is funded almost entirely by Soros, gave $2.5 million to Color of Change PAC in 2020, records show.

A progressive group called Win Justice contributed $2,025,133 to Color of Change PAC in 2020. Soros is by far that group’s biggest backer. He gave $5 million of his own money to Win Justice in 2018 and another $5 million through Democracy PAC in 2020.

Color of Change, which has long called for Trump’s prosecution, praised the Trump indictment on Thursday.

“In this historic moment, Color Of Change applauds New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who refused to let corporate influence, racist right-wing attacks, and threats of violence interfere with holding the former president accountable. This is the kind of political courage we need from every district attorney in the country,” said Color of Change president Rashad Robinson, who is perhaps best known for stoking actor Jussie Smollett’s hate crime hoax.

Analysis: Soros says that he “did not contribute” to Bragg and has never met the prosecutor.

“I think some on the right would rather focus on far-fetched conspiracy theories than on the serious charges against the former president,” he told Semafor.

While Soros did not write a check directly to Bragg’s campaign, his cash almost certainly flowed to the prosecutor’s election war chest through the anti-police, anti-Trump Color of Change PAC. Regardless of whatever pressure Soros did or did not place on Bragg’s investigation, both he and Color of Change are happy with the outcome, as indicated by their statements about Trump’s indictment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Democratic San Diego County supervisor Nathan Fletcher is resigning after facing sexual assault accusations

San Diego County supervisor Nathan Fletcher (D.) announced his resignation this week after several women accused him of sexual assault. One of those women says Fletcher’s wife, a powerful union leader, tried to intimidate her into not coming forward.

California Labor Federation chief Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher allegedly threatened to make Grecia Figueroa “look terrible” if Figueroa filed a complaint against Nathan Fletcher, Figueroa claims in a lawsuit. Figueroa this week accused Fletcher of assaulting her twice and making a number of other unwanted sexual advances since 2021. Fletcher announced Wednesday that he would resign in the coming weeks, a day after a second woman accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was a 19-year-old intern in his office.

The scandal could cause problems for Gonzalez Fletcher, who is fighting to defend AB 5, a controversial California law she helped craft while serving in the State Assembly. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this month cleared the way for challenges to the law, which would force businesses to treat independent contractors as hourly employees. Critics say the law puts financial strain on gig workers and independent operators. President Joe Biden has pushed for a national version of the bill, which Gonzalez Fletcher crafted in conjunction with Julie Su, the president’s pick to lead the Department of Labor.

Figueroa says Fletcher began harassing her in 2021 while she was an employee of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System. She alleges he began making unwanted sexual advances at her agency’s public meetings, over which he presided as the agency board chairman. She also says that Fletcher twice assaulted her in agency offices and that she was abruptly fired in February, on the day Fletcher announced his State Senate campaign.

Gonzalez Fletcher, who is not named as a defendant, allegedly said last week that she would join her husband in suing Figueroa for extortion if Figueroa proceeded with a complaint, according to the lawsuit. She and her husband allegedly also stated they would make Figueroa “look terrible, and it’s going to follow her for the rest of her life.”

Days before Figueroa’s complaint was made public, Fletcher abruptly announced he was pulling out of the State Senate race and checking into out-of-state rehab for alcohol abuse, citing PTSD from his time in the military.

Fletcher was seen as a shoo-in for the seat, currently held by the California Senate’s Democratic leader, as well as a likely contender to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.). Fletcher and Newsom are friends and have vacationed together, a fact mentioned in Figueroa’s lawsuit.

Fletcher says he and Figueroa were engaged in a consensual affair and denies all allegations of sexual assault. Gonzalez Fletcher has stood by her husband, echoing his claims and accusing his accusers of making “false accusations.”

It’s a far cry from her past statements on sexual assault. Gonzalez Fletcher, who resigned from the State Assembly last year to helm one of the state’s most powerful unions, has said that “any unwanted sexual contact is sexual assault” and that “very few women make up allegations of sexual assault.”

Representatives for Fletcher and Gonzalez Fletcher did not respond to requests for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

The Biden administration on Thursday allowed California to force heavy duty truck operators to switch to electric vehicles, a policy critics say will further burden an already strained grid and raise food and energy prices.

The Environmental Protection Agency approved California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D.) request to phase in a ban on diesel trucks and semi-tractors, which will require all heavy-duty vehicles be electric by 2045. Experts say the ban, part of the Golden State’s attempt to shift appliances to the electric grid, will make life more expensive for Californians.

“It’s a fantasy type of policy that is not grounded on where the current technology is,” Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon. “It’s irresponsible because it will hurt people economically, raise the cost of shipping goods in the state and further destabilize the electric grid.”

The vehicle ban comes as residents grapple with some of the highest electricity rates in the nation. Prices rose nearly 15 percent last year alone and have increased some 80 percent since 2008, when the state began its mandated pivot toward renewable energy. Along with higher prices, the intensifying reliance on electricity has strained the grid and threatened blackouts.

Newsom praised the Biden administration’s approval as a “big deal for climate action.”

“We’re leading the charge to get dirty trucks and buses—the most polluting vehicles—off our streets, and other states and countries are lining up to follow our lead around the world,” the governor said in a statement, noting that nearly 20 percent of new car sales were electric thanks to the “billions” in subsidies California is offering residents to buy them.

As the Newsom administration touts its accelerated overhaul of state energy systems, Californians are bracing for their high daily costs to keep rising. Earlier this month, San Diego Gas & Electric sought a rate increase of $3.6 billion over four years. PG&E, the state’s largest utility operator, has requested a 16 percent increase.

Meanwhile, greenhouse gas emissions from state power plants have increased, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The Energy Department has warned that officials shouldn’t measure electric vehicles’ carbon footprint in tailpipe emissions alone but also in the cost of mining and manufacturing batteries.

According to Winegarden, California’s rapid transition to renewable energy is unsustainable. He pointed to European countries that quickly ditched fossil fuels, only to turn back to coal and natural gas when faced with energy shortages. Some European countries have even begun burning what’s left of their ancient forests for fuel.

California Democrats want to ban all non-electric truck sales by 2040.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Law school may be ‘out of compliance’ with accreditation standards on academic freedom

House Republicans are asking the American Bar Association to investigate Stanford Law School over the disruption of Fifth Circuit appellate judge Kyle Duncan, arguing that the law school is “out of compliance” with accreditation standards that require it to promote free speech.

Stanford violated that requirement, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce said in a Friday letter to the bar association, by allowing and even encouraging students to shout down Duncan last month. The committee emphasized the remarks of Tirien Steinbach, the law school diversity dean who took the podium from the judge and harangued him for causing “harm.”

Law schools must remain accredited by the American Bar Association to receive federal funds. A review of Stanford’s accreditation would directly threaten its finances, upping pressure on the school to sanction the disruptors.

“With our letter comes accountability,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), the committee’s chairwoman, told the Washington Free Beacon. “We will not rest until we help restore the true intent and purpose of higher education.”

The American Bar Association requires each accredited law school to have a policy promoting academic freedom. Stanford’s policy, outlined in its faculty handbook, states that “the widest range of viewpoints” should be free from “coercion”—a condition the letter says no longer obtains at the law school.

“In no sense can it be said that Stanford Law School adhered to its announced encouragement of the ‘widest range of viewpoints,'” the letter reads. “And in no sense were Judge Duncan’s viewpoints ‘free from … internal or external coercion.'”

Having a policy, the letter adds, “implies that the law school follows its policy.”

Stanford did not respond to a request for comment.

The letter, signed by Foxx and Rep. Burgess Owens (R., Utah), the chairman of the higher education subcommittee, comes amid weeks of damage control at the elite law school. Though Steinbach is on leave, Stanford has declined to discipline the students who disrupted Duncan, saying it would be unfair to do so given the “conflicting signals” they received. That decision has compounded the law school’s public relations problem, with at least one prominent law professor, John Banzhaf of George Washington University, preparing to file a bar complaint against the hecklers.

“Stanford Law School’s brazen mistreatment of Fifth Circuit appellate judge Kyle Duncan is un-American,” Owens told the Free Beacon. “At a time when America feels more divided than ever, it is deeply disturbing to see how little this school and its students value free speech and open discourse—the very foundation of our democracy.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

REVIEW: ‘Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People’ by Steve Krakauer

Steve Krakauer is a journalist and he’s here to help.

That sounds almost as terrifying as a government bureaucrat offering assistance, per Ronald Reagan’s famous quip. Perhaps even more terrifying given that Americans these days are more likely to say they trust the federal government than say the same about the mainstream media.

Nevertheless, this particular journalist might be on to something. Krakauer’s new book, Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People, is a thoughtful critique of an industry that deserves to be distrusted, and in some cases despised.

The author, whose résumé includes stints at NBC, Fox News, and CNN (during the Jeff Zucker era), is uniquely positioned to explain how the media squandered the public’s trust, and what they might do to win it back. “I don’t want to burn it all down,” Krakauer writes. “I love the media. I want to help make it better.” As always, the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem, recognizing your powerlessness over addiction or mental illness (or both).

Uncovered is drawn from more than two dozen on-the-record interviews with prominent journalists and media personalities including Piers Morgan, John Roberts, Amy Chozick, Bob Ley, and Tucker Carlson, who claims to have heard Joe Biden’s family say “out loud that he had dementia.” Like a concerned relative orchestrating an intervention, Krakauer outlines several problems fueling the public’s distrust of the “Acela Media”—elite institutions based in Washington, D.C., and New York.

They are geographically (and culturally) isolated from the vast majority of Americans. They are highly credentialed, prone to “egotism and self-absorption,” loath to admit mistakes and correct them. They’re just as lazy and incompetent as the rest of us, increasingly susceptible to perverse financial incentives. They’ve been absorbed into The Establishment, grown too cozy and incestually involved with the powerful figures they’re supposed to be scrutinizing, too aloof and even hostile toward the public they’re supposed to serve.

Things so obviously true only a Twitter-addled psychopath would attempt to deny it. Alas, that describes most journalists these days—tweeting furiously among themselves in a “cesspool of narcissistic insular self-gratification,” policing the bounds of acceptable thought, sorting out (with the help of their friends in Big Tech) what information the less-credentialed masses can be trusted to imbibe, what opinions are too “dangerous” to publish.

These problems existed long before 2016. For example, Krakauer reminds us that Katie Couric, the multi-millionaire celebrity journalist known for her condescending and sexist interview of Sarah Palin in 2008, was a guest at Donald Trump’s wedding in 2005 (as were Bill and Hillary Clinton) and joined fellow network anchor (and former Clinton aide) George Stephanopoulos at a 2010 dinner party at Jeffrey Epstein’s penthouse after the sex offender (and Clinton pal) served a sweetheart jail sentence for soliciting a child prostitute.

But it was Trump’s shocking victory (over Hillary Clinton) that annihilated the brains of the Acela Media, exacerbating their worst tendencies and furthering their detachment from the general public. Krakauer recalls journalists who “began having trouble sleeping during the Trump presidency” and would “have to take pills to be able to fall asleep, or to help with depression, caused by their perceived existential fight with the man in the White House.” Some would liken covering the Trump administration to storming Omaha Beach on D-Day. (Yes, seriously.)

As a result, many in the Acela Media have come to view their jobs as “no longer really about reporting the truth.” Krakauer cites example after example of the media’s indefensible behavior—Hunter Biden’s laptop, the freakout over Tom Cotton’s New York Times op-ed, the Cuomo brothers comedy hour on CNN, Joy Reid’s “hacked” blog, NBC’s refusal to upset Harvey Weinstein, the false narrative surrounding “Hands up, don’t shoot!” in Ferguson, Mo., and basically everything related to COVID-19, especially the shameful treatment of the “lab leak” theory. Oh, and the time a CNN reporter described Mount Rushmore as “a monument of two slave owners and on land wrestled away from Native Americans.”

Krakauer even manages to get some Acela Media types to acknowledge their industry’s failures. New York Times writer-at-large Amy Chozick, for example, slams the media’s bizarre refusal to even consider the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan that studies coronaviruses. “To reflexively call things ‘wrong’ or ‘misinformation’ when we really don’t know, and then to have zero, and I’m talking zero, self-reflection about the fact that we didn’t know, I think it’s really arrogant, and it’s really contributing to the distrust of news,” she says.

Later on in the book, Chozick exemplifies another problem Krakauer highlights—the Acela Media’s fear of being canceled by the Twitter mob for promoting an “unacceptable” opinion. “There is a generation of young kids who believe that objectivity is akin to white supremacy,” she says. “I’m not saying I disagree with them, or I agree with them. I’m saying there is a real debate here happening.”

Perhaps inevitably, Krakauer’s proposed solutions to restore public trust in mainstream media are not as compelling as his diagnosis. It would be great if the media conglomerates opened small bureaus beyond the Acela corridor, but first you’d have to persuade these aspiring journalists who believe “objectivity is akin to white supremacy” to live in places governed by Republicans. Good luck with that! Ditto his suggestion that journalists “stop sharing every thought they have on a public platform like Twitter” and embrace “humility.”

It’s not an easy problem to solve, to be fair. The rise of social media, among other factors, has broken our brains, eviscerated our attention spans, and imbued in us a viral culture of instant gratification. For many, Krakauer observes, politics has become a “prime cultural activity,” and journalists are particularly susceptible. That’s a terrible way to go through life, but it’s a driving force behind the decline in public discourse.

If the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem and asking for help, the Acela Media might never recover the trust they deservedly lost. Krakauer notes toward the end of the book that a media executive he greatly respects declined to be interviewed “because he believed the focus of the book was completely misplaced and misguided. According to this executive, the big story of the media’s decline was one outlet and one outlet only—Fox News.”

Only one bona fide member of the Acela Media, Morning Joe host Willie Geist, contributed a blurb for Uncovered. After making sure to note that he doesn’t “always agree” with Krakauer’s criticism, he suggested his “friends in the media would be smart to read this book.” Which is why they almost certainly won’t.

Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People
by Steve Krakauer
Center Street, 304 pp., $29

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Three political campaign workers from New Jersey have been indicted on charges related to a scheme regarding mail-in ballots.

The Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone announced Thursday that the charges stem from a scheme where one of the campaign workers for a Perth Amboy City Council candidate offered $20 supermarket gift cards to voters in return for letting her complete their mail-in ballots.

The grand jury returned a seven-count indictment, charging Ana Camilo, Annet Sanchez, and Maria Peralta, all from Perth Amboy, with various offenses related to their involvement in offering gift cards to voters in exchange for completed mail-in ballots in favor of their preferred candidate.

Last October, Camilo, 62, was taken into custody by law enforcement officials for allegedly meeting with and attempting to bribe an undercover detective who was pretending to be a voter from Perth Amboy.

Authorities have said that Camilo was employed by a candidate for the Perth Amboy city council, but they have not revealed the candidate’s identity.

She faces two counts of third-degree bribery, third-degree unlawful possession of a ballot, third-degree attempt to cast an illegal ballot, and third-degree election law violation.

Annet Sanchez, 52, and Maria Peralta, 60, were indicted on a charge of retaliation against a witness. Both women are accused of engaging in harassing conduct towards a witness who provided information about Camilo’s involvement in the voter fraud.

According to New Jersey election law, offering any inducements for voting for a particular candidate is illegal.

Ciccone reminded the public that the charges against Camilo are merely accusations, and she is presumed innocent until proven guilty, like all criminal defendants.

It wasn’t clear Thursday if any of the campaign workers had retained attorneys. Authorities said the three have nothing to do with the county or city election offices or operations.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act aims to hold CCP officials accountable

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forcibly harvests organs from prisoners of conscience, including Falun Gong practitioners, while still alive, because of their excellent health, and transplants them into elderly CCP officials to extend their lives.

The Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023 (H.R. 1154), drafted by Smith, is currently being before the U.S. Senate for consideration. The bill was overwhelmingly passed in the House of Representatives on March 27 and aims to hold CCP officials accountable and impose civil or criminal penalties on those who are found to be guilty. This is the first concrete legislative effort by the United States to combat the CCP’s appalling practice of organ harvesting.

In a press release on the day the bill passed, Smith stated that the bill is intended to combat the CCP’s “ghoulish industry of stealing organs from young people,” especially Falun Gong practitioners, “whose peaceful meditation and exercise practices—and exceptional good health—make their organs highly desirable.”

“We also know though open-source Chinese language media that elderly high ranking Chinese Communist Party officials have received replacement organs from the very people they despise and oppress at the People’s Liberation Army Hospital 301 in Beijing,” the statement read.

Jing Suo, a Falun Gong practitioner from Liaoning Province who now lives in the United States, agreed with Smith’s statement. Jing told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on March 29 that Falun Gong practitioners are often looked down upon and have no social status in China.

CCP officials “are particularly disrespectful to Falun Gong practitioners,” he said after witnessing many officials and police officers treating Falun Gong practitioners as inferior and scolding them like animals.

Aim to Prolong Lives to 150

In a video ad that went viral on Sept. 15 of 2019, Beijing’s 301 Hospital, touted that it was running a project dedicated to maintaining Chinese leaders’ health and that the next stage is prolonging their lives to 150 years.

The ad was shown on WeChat, a Facebook-like social media platform. It soon sparked public outrage and was blocked the next day.

The 301 Hospital is a military hospital. It is rated the number one hospital in China, and is where top Chinese leaders often receive their medical care. The ad was intended to promote the hospital by bragging about its advanced health project for Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders.

“With 60 years of development, the health project for our leaders has made tremendous progress,” the ad says. “From preventative medicine, medical care to recuperation, this comprehensive project focuses on prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease, anti-aging, chronic disease management, regeneration of organ function, and healthy lifestyles. It is a unique health regimen that combines traditional Chinese medicine principles with Western medical technology.”

The ad claimed that this health regimen is the best in the world, and supports this claim by saying that the average life expectancy of the CCP leaders is 88, based on available data in 2008. This is generally older than that of the leaders of Western developed countries.

The very end of the ad revealed that a project called “981 Health Project for Leaders” was launched in 2005 that aimed at extending Chinese leaders’ lives to 150.

CCP Officials Receiving Organ Transplants

Gao Zhanxiang, former Deputy Minister of Culture and Vice Chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, died of illness on Dec. 9, 2022, in Beijing. A eulogy released by another CCP official revealed that Gao had undergone multiple organ transplant surgeries when he was alive.

The eulogy said: “In recent years, Gao Zhanxiang has been fighting against illness with perseverance. He has replaced many of his internal organs, and joked that many of his ‘parts’ were not his own.”

RELATED COVERAGE

Death of Chinese Official Amid COVID-19 Wave Casts Spotlight on Forced Organ Harvesting

Another CCP official, Jin Renqing, was also found to be a transplant recipient as a result of a eulogy. A former Chinese Minister of Finance, he passed away on August 27, 2021, at his home in Beijing. A close friend released a eulogy online, saying that Jin had received the heart of a 28-year-old man.

“Nine years ago, he had a heart transplant due to his long-term heart disease, and the surgery was very successful. Everyone joked that he was a ’68-year-old man with a 28-year-old heart.’ After the surgery, he became active again and often participated in various activities. Even after he resigned, he continued to enjoy the treatment of a minister-level official. The unit even provided him with a car and driver, and he had a worry-free retirement life. Jin had repeatedly told us that the country (CCP) treated him very well.”

CCP Maintains a Massive Live Organ Donor Pool

The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), based in the United States, has investigated over more than a decade and found that the CCP maintains a massive live organ donor pool for its organ transplant industry.

According to WOIPFG investigation reports, evidence reveals that after the CCP began persecuting Falun Gong in 1999, China’s organ transplant industry saw explosive growth. Waiting times for organs were extremely short. There were shocking numbers of emergency transplants, using people alive as backup donors. Multiple transplant surgeries were conducted simultaneously. For instance, a Chinese hospital performed 24 kidney or liver-kidney transplants in a single day. The donor organs were found to have no or extremely short warm ischemia time. Ischemia time refers to the time the blood supply to the organ is cut off until it is restored after transplantation.

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After the first public exposure of live organ harvesting in 2006, there was suddenly a spike in organ transplants in China and even free liver and kidney transplant promotions. Meanwhile, detained Falun Gong practitioners, who were being subjected to physical and mental abuse, were also forced to take blood tests, but were never informed of the results.

WOIPFG analyzed over 300 papers from more than 200 hospitals in various provinces and cities in China and found descriptions of the donor’s gender, age, pre-existing medical conditions, cause of death, the steps of organ extraction, the description of cold and warm ischemia time, and the time of organ transplant surgery, all suggest that the CCP maintains a massive live organ donor pool. The large number of illegally detained, healthy Falun Gong practitioners are likely the main source of live donors.

CCP’s Most Sensitive Nerve

In an interview with The Epoch Times on March 30, China expert and U.S.-based political commentator Tang Jingyuan stated that the passage of the recent bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, which directly sanctions the CCP for forced organ harvesting and specifically mentions Falun Gong, has struck a nerve with the CCP, touching upon one of their most sensitive issues.

Tang explained that there is an important background to this bill. After the CCP launched its persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, it has used almost all resources to silence and cover up the persecution worldwide, which has made many Western governments reluctant to directly mention Falun Gong in government-level discussions.

“These governments didn’t want to offend the CCP,” Tang said. “But now … the United States is becoming increasingly aware that the CCP is exporting its evil means of persecuting its own people to the international community. Now the U.S. officials are directly sanctioning the CCP for forced organ harvesting, which is the most crucial issue, and directly mentioning Falun Gong, which is equivalent to hitting the CCP’s most sensitive nerve.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A man who posted memes about the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election has been found guilty of one charge of conspiring against the right to vote.

“Douglass Mackey, also known as ‘Ricky Vaughn,’ was convicted today by a federal jury in Brooklyn of the charge of Conspiracy Against Rights stemming from his scheme to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote,” reads a March 31 statement from a federal court from the U.S. Eastern District of New York.

Mackey, who will be sentenced on Aug. 16, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Members of the jury reached the unanimous verdict after a little less than a week of deliberation starting on March 27 after a weeklong period of testimony.

Mackey’s online persona, “Ricky Vaughn”—a reference to the sports comedy film “Major League”—had an online following of more than 50,000 that frequently amplified his pro-Republican voice during the 2016 elections.

Mackey was on trial for a charge of allegedly using memes—or generally satirical online images—to conspire against people’s right to vote. One such meme depicted an African American woman standing in front of an “African Americans for Hillary” sign. The meme instructed people to vote by text during the 2016 presidential election.

Although the Justice Department has prosecuted many other forms of election interference—such as violence, for example—Mackey’s case is a historical first in that alleged falsehoods are being argued as a form of election interference, Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA School of Law specializing in First Amendment Law, told The Epoch Times in an interview earlier in March.

Conspiracy or Satire?

The DOJ, based on that meme and records of online discussions between Mackey and his peers, charged Mackey with conspiring against the right to vote.

Authorities arrested Mackey in January 2021 on that allegation, and a grand jury indicted him within two weeks of his arrest.

According to the prosecutors’ evidence presented in court, Mackey’s Twitter posts included one that suggested limiting “black turnout,” a statement that prosecutors said supports the charge that Mackey intended to conspire to interfere with the election. On the witness stand, Mackey described it as an “exaggeration.”

But according to Mackey’s defense attorney, Andrew Frisch, that meme and Mackey’s Twitter posts were obvious jokes and can’t be taken as a serious attempt at conspiring against the opposition to Mackey’s preferred political party.

“Why would someone share a meme that you would vote for POTUS … without disclosing your name … or proving that you are of voting age?” asked Frisch rhetorically, mere moments after the prosecution delivered their opening statements. Frisch said that Mackey’s memes would be satirical in the eyes of a reasonable person.

“That feeling when you haphazardly post a meme and it winds up on cable television,” Frisch quoted a message that Mackey sent to his peers, emphasizing the word “haphazardly.”

Although a material injury—in this case, people’s right to vote being taken away—isn’t required to establish the conspiracy charge, the government stated during the trial that people’s votes were “vaporized” by Mackey’s “digital flyers.”

“On or about and before Election Day 2016, at least 4,900 unique telephone numbers texted ‘Hillary’ or some derivative to the 59925 text number, which had been used in multiple deceptive campaign images tweeted by Mackey and his co-conspirators,” reads the DOJ’s March 31 statement.

Mackey’s defense lawyer said the 4,900 texts were sent after Mackey’s Twitter account was suspended and following media reports of Mackey’s memes. Frisch said that the 4,900 texts were sent because of media reports on Mackey’s memes rather than in response to Mackey’s memes.

Plans to Appeal

During the trial, testimony presented by the prosecutors showed that members of the Clinton campaign reported Mackey’s memes to upper-level campaign managers during the 2016 election cycle, but the managers dismissed their concerns. Prosecutors, when confronted by Frisch about this evidence, didn’t dispute the factual validity of this evidence but noted the Clinton campaign personnel’s evidence should not be considered as evidence for or against the conspiracy charge.

Frisch, on the other hand, said during the trial that this evidence shows that the government withheld exculpatory evidence, citing Brady v. Maryland, a 1963 case in which the Supreme Court held that prosecutors must make available exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. Frisch said that the government’s withholding of evidence irreparably damaged his opening statements at trial and requested that the court declare a mistrial.

The court declined Frisch’s request, with the judge commenting that the court should not declare a mistrial when less drastic measures are available, including re-examining the witnesses on the evidence at issue.

“This case presents an unusual array of compelling appellate issues,” Frisch told The Epoch Times in a statement. “The appellate court will have its choice of which issue on which to vacate the conviction. It may choose to do so on first amendment grounds, or on the government’s suppression of exculpatory information, or on the insufficiency of evidence of venue, among other issues.

“I am optimistic that the conviction will be vacated.”

Relevant Questions

Volokh outlined three legal contentions that may come up on appeal, the appeals court’s ruling on which, he said, may set precedents for online speech.

“One possible argument is that the First Amendment just gives you the right to lie about elections and about how you can vote in elections,” he said in an interview with The Epoch Times on March 31. “You can imagine that the First Amendment generally protects even lies about the government. Not about particular people—that will be defamation.

“At the same time, there’s some reason to think that if you want to lie about … where the election is going to be held, or when it’s going to be held, or indeed how to vote—lies about the mechanics of voting, maybe that could be constitutionally restricted.”

A second question that will arise on appeal, according to Volokh, is whether the federal statute regulating conspiracy against rights extends to statements about election mechanisms beyond the statute’s current interpretation, which bans election interference through violence, physical obstruction, or threats.

“Then it might end up being too broad,” the professor said. “It might end up covering interference by just making false allegations about what a ballot measure will do, which may, in fact, make it too broad—too much of a restriction on speech about campaigns.

“The last thing that’s going to come up … is, in context, was this a lie? Or is this a joke?” He said. “I think a lot of people look at the poster and say, ‘Hahaha, this is obviously kind of just a joke,’ in the theory that who would be stupid enough to believe this? Because, of course, everybody knows that you can’t vote by text. So I take it that’s going to be part of the argument.”

James Lawrence, attorney for Mackey’s legal advocacy group, the Douglass Mackey Defense Fund, told The Epoch Times that the government is using an obscure law to prosecute the case, which may have a chilling effect on Americans’ freedom of speech.

“This is a law that was passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, designed to protect the rights of newly freed slaves in the post-civil war South to vote,” Lawrence told The Epoch Times in an interview earlier in March.

“The First Amendment right of all Americans are potentially implicated because, depending on the administration in power, the precedent can be used to chill or undermine the Constitutional rights of anyone, if they have a political view that differs from those that are in power.”

The prosecution notably concerns the ability of Americans to use satire, which has been used throughout history to critique power, he said.

“In this case, power is using a very old statute in an attempt to chill satire. So it matters.”

Beth Brelje contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

FRIDAY PDB – We must focus on patriotism, fitness and warfighting, not gender pronouns, divisive race ideologies or lower standards for weaker, mostly female recruits.

Pentagon critics blame diversity policies and lower fitness standards for recruiting woes. Conservative politicians and critics of Team Biden have released a report that offers a solution to the recruiting issues facing the military: Ditch efforts to add diversity, fight extremism or combat climate change.

“What we’re trying to do is save the military from a pernicious ideology that can have a very negative effect on warfighting capability,” said a member of the Heritage Foundation panel that wrote the report.

The Heritage report underscores that the far-left policies embraced by Team Biden (such as anti-white CRT, weakened fitness standards and the radical trans agenda) have led to a loss of confidence among service members, undermined the military and, in turn, hurt recruitment.

Mike Berry, a former lawyer for the Marine Corps and another member of the panel, says that due to the leftist agenda “we’re in an era in which our young people are being told, ‘America is not worth sacrificing for, America is not worth serving, America is not worth risking your life for.’”

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – Here’s a roundup of other developing stories.

Not the President’s Daily Brief, but almost as good – PAUL’S DAILY BRIEFING – the PDB:

NATIONAL SECURITY

Russia says it will continue notifications of ballistic missile launches. Clarifying previous statements, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said Moscow would comply with a 1988 notification agreement despite the suspension of the New START nonproliferation accord.

Russia’s ghost fleet of oil tankers is a floating time bomb. Moscow has turned to a flotilla of outdated, untraceable ships to duck sanctions, and they are a menace to the oceans.

HOMELAND SECURITY

DOD launches website to accompany ‘Hack the Pentagon’ program. It launched a website to accompany its “Hack the Pentagon” program in order to scale and provide additional resources for the program, the DOD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) announced.

GUESS HACKERS ARE LISTENING TO DOD – Hackers probing contractors for path to Pentagon, DISA chief says. Foreign hackers are targeting U.S. government contractors not only for their intellectual property, but also to find avenues into Pentagon networks, according to the director of the Defense Information Systems Agency.

CHINA THREAT

YES – IT SHOULD – China and Saudi Arabia are getting closer. Should the US be worried? Saudi Arabia has moved to join a China-led Asian security and economic bloc, having been granted dialogue partner status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The club of mostly ex-Soviet states includes Russia and China, as well as India and Pakistan. The kingdom could eventually be granted full membership. China’s growing security role in the region should worry Washington.

AUKUS nuke submarine agreement will help deter China from Taiwan invasion, says former PACOM CO. The technology sharing agreement meant to help Australia build its own nuclear-powered submarines will help deter China from invading Taiwan.

RUSSIA THREAT – UKRAINE WAR

US has trained more than 7,000 Ukrainian troops, dozens at Fort Sill. Dozens of Ukrainian soldiers at Fort Sill, Okla., have finished learning how to use the Patriot missile system, part of the more than 7,000 troops the U.S. has trained to fight Russian forces so far.

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 401. Turkey’s president said Vladimir Putin may visit Turkey in April to inaugurate the first nuclear power reactor built by Russia’s state atomic energy company. The U.S. said that Russia is looking again to North Korea for weapons for its war in Ukraine, this time in a deal to give Pyongyang much-needed food and other commodities.

Russia set to take chair of UN security council amid Ukraine war. Its chairing a UN Security Council meeting draws criticism from Ukrainian leaders, as Russia continues its year long war against its neighbor.

SPACE THREAT

New ‘Watch Center’ to ring alarms on space-related cyber threats. “Space is a warfighting domain and cyber is a critical area of space security. We all know cyber-attacks are becoming more frequent. They’re more severe, they’re even more sophisticated,” says a senior software engineer at Lockheed Martin.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

Welcome to NATO: Finland clears Turkish hurdle, will join military alliance in coming weeks. Sweden, meanwhile, remains on the outside looking in, as Turkey and Hungary have not moved to approve its membership.

NATO, US forces join Romania-led Black Sea military drills. The sea and air exercises involve 3,400 military personnel from 12 NATO member countries and some partner nations.

Denmark acknowledges military shortcomings as it hosts large NATO drill. It has major deficiencies in its ability to defend its territory and meet its NATO commitments despite pledges to increase defense spending, its army chief said.

BIDEN’S AFGHAN DISASTER

America and the Taliban part 1 review: The Afghanistan disaster on PBS. The first episode of a three-part ‘Frontline’ documentary explores the U.S.’s long, violent and ultimately futile fight against the radical Islamist movement.

US MILITARY

US Air Force drops Lockheed hypersonic missile after failed tests. It isn’t going to buy the hypersonic AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon after, following problems during testing.

TERMINATOR RISING – This may be the Army’s new missile-slinging battlebot of choice. Stingers, Hellfires, and a 30mm chain gun, all in a neat, unmanned package.

Lawmakers decry Navy’s plan to decommission aging amphibious ships. The Navy’s plan to decommission three amphibious warships ahead of schedule has drawn ire from some legislators, who last year put into law a requirement for the Navy to maintain a fleet of at least 31 ships for the Marines.

Marine Corps rejects Pentagon’s pitch for new amphibious ship designs.  DOD has shown the Marines drawings of scaled-down, less expensive amphibious warship designs — but a Marine general says he won’t accept them.

END of PDB

SOURCE: American Liberty News

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has signed into law a measure that requires the state’s public pension funds to make investment decisions on financial risks and returns, rather than environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.

Beshear signed House Bill 236 into law on March 24, mandating the state’s fiduciaries to solely consider factors that have a “direct and material connection to the financial risk or financial return of an investment,” according to the measure’s language.

It bans actions on “nonpecuniary interests,” including “environmental, social, political, or ideological interest” without a connection to the financial performance of an asset.

State Treasurer Allison Ball, a Republican, touted the new law.

“Kentucky now has the strongest anti-ESG legislation in the nation,” Just the News reported on March 28.

“For many years, pension investments were about maximizing returns. Recently, however, there has been a destructive shift in investment methodology to use the savings of Americans as financial muscle to push ideological causes through the ESG movement.

“Kentucky has said no to this shift by passing HB 236, which clarifies that pension fiduciaries must base investment decisions solely on financial metrics, not politics.”

The state’s House passed the legislation 77–17 on March 2, and the state’s Senate approved it on March 13 on a 32–5 vote. Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature.

Heritage Action for America, a grassroots conservative advocacy group, applauded the Kentucky General Assembly and Ball in a statement on March 24 for “their efforts to protect citizens from the harms of the radical ESG movement.”

“With the ESG movement infiltrating businesses and threatening Americans’ finances, it’s now more important than ever to ensure that asset managers are following through with their fiduciary responsibilities,” said Jessica Anderson, the group’s executive director. “As the first bill of its kind to be enacted, HB 236 will require asset managers to prioritize the investment returns and financial interests of Kentuckians.

“This is a historic victory for Kentucky and will be an example for other states to follow as they look to protect their state industries, investments, and workers.

“We look forward to even more states across the country adopting this approach and taking additional steps to rid our states of ‘woke’ finance.”

Ball was in Washington on March 9 to take part in a bill-signing ceremony held by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who signed a resolution introduced by Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) that would block a Labor Department rule that allows pension fund managers to consider ESG factors in investment decisions.

“I’m here to support what is happening as a Kentuckian and as the state treasurer of Kentucky,” Ball said at the ceremony. “I have been fighting to make sure our pension systems are strong and people can retire, so I’ve been pushing back against the ESG movement.

“We don’t need to push ideological agendas. We don’t need to push anything that is progressive. We need to focus on getting good returns so people can retire at the end of their work life.”

However, Joe Biden vetoed the resolution on March 20, saying the measure would “put at risk the retirement savings of individuals across the country.” The House failed to override Biden’s veto after a 219–200 vote on March 23, falling short of the two-thirds majority threshold needed.

After Biden’s veto, Ball took to Twitter to express her disappointment.

“He believes political agendas are more important than returns. In reality, ESG funds have underperformed the broader market over the past 5 years. Retirements are about returns, not politics,” she wrote.

Ball, who has been the state treasurer since 2016, is currently running to be Kentucky’s next state auditor. Beshear is running for reelection as governor of Kentucky.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Days and weeks that follow national tragedies often come with reactionary legislative moves, but law-abiding gun owners can breathe two sighs of relief today thanks to the actions of two state legislatures.

Florida passed its constitutional carry measure Thursday evening, sending it to the desk of Governor Ron DeSantis.

“The carry movement began decades ago and the NRA has been working to get this legislation passed throughout America. Therefore, today is indeed a day to celebrate.”

More from @EmmColt/@FoxNews➡️ https://t.co/0x6JpRu3Iv pic.twitter.com/ovb9dbHeVD— NRA (@NRA) March 30, 2023

When enacted, the legislation will make Florida America’s 26th constitutional carry state.

We may be getting very close to the “soft cap”. Florida will go constitutional carry now, and probably Nebraska. The next “gettable” ones in the coming years are probably Louisiana and South Carolina. After that, you’re into just purple and blue states.

Maybe if 2024 is a wave… https://t.co/mzM8lHmiWq pic.twitter.com/cJL0WOh8Wy— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) March 30, 2023

As previously reported by American Liberty News, DeSantis has urged the legislature to approve the measure and has promised to sign it into law. At a press conference last December, DeSantis publicly confirmed the legislature’s intent to pass a constitutional carry bill this year.

DeSantis Reaffirms Support for Constitutional Carry

25 states have already enacted constitutional carry including Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, and Georgia which passed their bills last year. If signed into law by Governor DeSantis, Florida’s constitutional carry legislation would be enacted on July 1st, 2023.

Another win for the pro-Second Amendment community comes from the unlikely state of Colorado.

NRA VICTORY pic.twitter.com/D7ExQ0jgz6— NRA (@NRA) March 31, 2023

Anti-gun radicals have been pushing for an assault weapons ban in the state this spring, and a Democratic strategist in the state said he doesn’t expect the bill to come to fruition … at least for now.

SOURCE: American Liberty News

THURSDAY PDB – Top military officials questioned over drag shows on military bases. The military’s top uniformed officer suggested he does not support ‘woke’ drag shows hosted on military bases, something that has reportedly been done for years to ‘boost morale and show support for LGBTQ members’ of the military, but which has rightfully come under attack by Republicans.

I DON’T RECALL ‘MORALE BOOSTING’ DRAG SHOWS – EVER – WELL, MAYBE AS COMEDY ON SHIP WITH NAVY!

MEANWHILE – Transgender vets call for more protections from Congress, VA. Advocates want VA to move ahead with plans to provide ‘gender-affirming’ (genital mutilation) surgery to transgender veterans, a policy change first promised by Team Biden in 2021.

BUT MOST BELIEVE THERE SHOULD BE NO TAXPAYER-FUNDED GENITAL MUTILATION. TRY THERAPY FOR ‘GENDER DYSPHORIA‘ INSTEAD.

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – Here’s a roundup of other developing stories.

Not the President’s Daily Brief, but almost as good – PAUL’S DAILY BRIEFING – the PDB:

NATIONAL SECURITY

TWO-WAR THREAT RISING – China willing to work with Russian military on several fronts – Chinese defense ministry. Its military was willing to work together with the Russian military to strengthen strategic communication and coordination, the Chinese defense ministry said.

Senate votes to repeal Iraq war authorizations. It’s the first significant movement on the issue in years, and it comes just days after the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The global nuclear energy market is a geopolitical battleground. Competition with Russia and China is no longer a game of Monopoly; it’s a game of Risk.

OVERCLASSIFICATION IS A REAL PROBLEM – Classifying information for no good reason is hurting military effectiveness, report warns. Combat operations and cooperation with allied forces may be hindered by the U.S. government’s penchant for over classifying information.

CHINA THREAT

China threatens to retaliate if McCarthy meets Taiwan leader. The CHICOM threat came if U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets with Taiwan‘s president during her upcoming trip through Los Angeles.

RUSSIA THREAT – UKRAINE WAR

Russia to upgrade Moscow’s missile defenses by year’s end. It will finish modernizing the missile defense systems protecting its capital by the end of the year, according to its defense minister.

Pentagon leaders still say ‘no’ to F-16s, MQ-9s for Ukraine. Top defense officials dismissed the notion that the U.S. would provide aircraft—manned or unmanned—anytime soon to Ukraine.

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 400. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited Chinese leader Xi Jinping to visit Kyiv, saying “we are ready to see him here.” The two leaders have not spoken since Russia invaded Ukraine, though Xi visited Moscow last week and China has proposed a roadmap to peace in Ukraine.

UN agency warns of rising combat near Ukraine nuclear plant. The head of the atomic energy watchdog crossed into war-ravaged Ukraine to visit Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and warned that it was easy to see evidence of intensified fighting in the area that poses a threat to the facility’s safety.

NORTH KOREA THREAT

US, South Korean marines resume amphibious training after five-year lull. Dozens of U.S. Marines and their South Korean counterparts stormed a beachhead Wednesday near this port city on South Korea’s southeastern coast for a military exercise on a scale not seen in five years.

SPACE THREAT

Space Force is building a virtual training ground for space conflict. The U.S. chief of space operations notes China’s efforts to jam and intercept orbiting satellites.

Space Development Agency readies launch of first satellites for comms, missile tracking. The 10 satellites, which will be lofted on a reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base (SFB) to low Earth orbit (LEO), are the first batch of the Tranche 0 constellation, building blocks of America’s resilient space strategy.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

New Zealand defense minister says military needs more resources amid growing challenges. Its military will require big investment as it faces new challenges and greater expectations from regional allies, the country’s new defense minister said.

More Air Force stealth fighters from Alaska arrive on Okinawa to replace retiring F-15s. F-35A Lightning II multi-role fighters touched down at Kadena Air Base this week as part of a rotating force of advanced fighters replacing the F-15 Eagles.

Israeli F-35 jets join Red Flag exercise for first time. It sent its modified F-35I Adir fighter jets for the first time to the American-led Red Flag exercise in Nevada, which ran March 12-24.

BIDEN’S AFGHAN DISASTER

THANKS, JOE – The complicated and messy task of trying to aid Afghans following the return of the Taliban. Images of Afghans clinging to the landing gear of an American cargo plane rocked the world as the Taliban closed in on Kabul and two decades of fighting in Afghanistan ended for U.S. troops.

US MILITARY

Army has a ‘gigantic problem’ with logistics in the Indo-Pacific. It must adapt its approach to logistics to prepare for an adversary such as China, and the service is taking steps to tackle the challenge, standing up a team tasked to develop capability that will enable troops and large amounts of equipment to deploy even in constantly contested environments.

TRAGIC – Several casualties reported after 2 Blackhawk helicopters with 101st Airborne Division crash in Kentucky. A pair of helicopters with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) have crashed in southwestern Kentucky, resulting in “several casualties,” including nine reportedly dead.

END of PDB

SOURCE: American Liberty News

The most significant things can start from the most ordinary moments.

“This started from a trip my daughter and I had and we stopped by McDonald’s and this lady [who was] going to a pro-abortion march asked my daughter to join her because she saw she was black, and she thought she was a liberal Democrat,” Vince Everett Ellison recalls. “And my daughter very, very nicely said, ‘Uh, ma’am, I’m a Christian and I vote my values.’”

“And that was just so interesting to me because I said, why don’t more people say that? ‘I’m a Christian and I vote my values?’”

Fear? The fear of being shouted at. The fear of being ostracized. The fear of being canceled, and losing one’s career, friends, and social standing. The siren song of the woke herd mentality can be enticing. But not to the Ellison family.

A former Gospel singer, the son of sharecroppers, and now a vocal black leader, Ellison lives by his strong values: his Christian faith, strong family, the value of every life, and America’s unique freedoms and opportunities. He also understands the reluctance to speak up but is having none of it, as he recently told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. In his sensational new documentary, “Will You Go To Hell For Me?,” Ellison rips into the Democratic Party for promoting what he calls perversion and evil.

“They want you to castrate little boys and cut off the breasts of little girls. And they’re telling people they’re not going to be held responsible for this? That is a lie. The Democratic Party is an evil institution. They are controlled by a cabal of perverts, liars, and psychopaths,” said Ellison. 

“Evil is anyone who intentionally harms a child,” Ellison recently told Emerald Robinson on Lindell TV. He noted that Democrats in Virginia recently blocked two laws that would have prevented the harming of children. One law would have required schools to call parents if their child is transitioning from one gender to another. Another would have required boys and girls to compete in sports aligned with their birth gender. Democrats blocked both, interfering with the parent-child relationship and opening the way for biological boys to compete in girls’ sports, which is both unfair and unsafe given boys’ inherent size and strength advantages.

Ellison’s courage is remarkable and contagious. One of the few black leaders to speak out for America and against the gender confusion and antifamily policies the Democrats are pushing in their quest for power, Ellison calls that party what it is: evil. The Democrats seem determined to prove him right at every turn, from the local level on radicalized school boards that spy on parents all the way to the top, and the president who ran as a moderate but is governing as a hard-core, anti-family leftist.

Ellison warns that the Left is obsessed with the total annihilation of Judeo-Christian values. The proof has arrived in the form of a mentally ill trans-terrorist, likely high on liberal media pro-trans, anti-religious propaganda, walking into a private school outside Nashville to hunt down Christians and kill them.

The Democrats have gone all-in on child gender transitions. The Biden-led Pentagon announced it believes kids as young as seven should be allowed to make the choice to take on powerful medications and surgeries in a quest to change genders. Kids that age can’t vote, can’t drive, and are still growing physically, mentally, and emotionally. They aren’t allowed to make the most basic choices without parental approval—but Joe Biden and the entire Democratic Party want them to be able to sign on for a lifetime of drugs, medical procedures, and extensive psychological counseling, while refusing to listen to the growing number of Americans who now openly and vocally express their grief and devastation because of making similar decisions. This, Ellison says, is evil. 

The same party preaches that one’s actions and statements can be severed from their faith, Ellison notes. It’s a political game the Democrats have been playing for decades, ever since formerly staunch and vocal pro-life leaders such as Jesse Jackson switched to being “personally” pro-life but politically pro-choice, to maintain their standing within the party. The Democrats have only gotten more radical, and more demanding of Christians—essentially insisting they renounce core tenets of their faith. New York now allows abortion nearly up to the moment of birth, and celebrates itself for its radical law.

Ellison told Carlson that this is evil, built on convenient lies that imperil millions of souls.

“If you want to know what evil is, I’ll make it easy for you. Anybody that intentionally harms a child, even Jesus Christ, the greatest human being [who] ever walked this earth, said, ‘If you harm one of these little ones, it is better that a millstone be tied around your neck and you be thrown into the sea.’ Well, I hope some of these Democrats can swim,” Ellison said.

But harming children seems to have become a key plank of the Democratic platform.

The stakes are too high, Ellison says, and they’re not limited to Democrats. As he makes clear in “Will You Go To Hell For Me?,” the choices we make now in this life will affect the ultimate fate of our souls in the next. 

“Romans 14 and 12 tells us we will stand in front of God and be held accountable for everything that we do in our lives,” he notes, singling out the black church for supporting Democrats and their policies that destroy lives and families and have harmed black America for decades. 

It’s past time to choose wisely. Today’s act of convenience or cowardice is a choice that will echo into the future and eternity. Vince Everett Ellison’s voice is one all of America needs to hear and listen to, very soon. 

SOURCE: Firebrand News

The law also requires students to use bathrooms that match their biological sex and removes talk on gender identity in classrooms

Kentucky legislators on Wednesday passed a sweeping bill outlawing sex change procedures for minors and transgender-related initiatives in schools, overriding Democratic governor Andy Beshear’s veto.

Passed along party lines in the legislature, where Republicans have supermajorities in both houses, Kentucky’s law prohibits sex change surgeries and hormone treatments for minors and mandates that students use bathrooms that match their biological sex. The law also allows teachers to decline to use students’ preferred pronouns and prohibits lessons on gender ideology and sexual orientation in the classroom. Beshear vetoed the bill last Friday, saying he believes “Senate Bill 150 will endanger the children of Kentucky.”

Despite pushback from Democrats and trans activists, Kentucky joins the 11 other states that have outlawed sex change procedures for minors. On the same day as the Kentucky legislature’s override, West Virginia Republican governor Jim Justice signed into law a similar ban on child sex change treatments in his state.

“SB 150 protects our youth from irreversible procedures,” said Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron (R.) in a statement. “Beshear vetoed this bill because he is beholden to the far left. Today, his veto was overridden. I stand ready to defend this law and protect the well-being of our most precious resource, our children.”

Hundreds of protesters descended on the Kentucky Capitol as lawmakers gathered to vote. The protesters’ disruptive shouting and chanting in the House gallery prompted state police to respond, arresting and charging 19 people with third-degree criminal trespassing, Fox News reported. Officers gave each person “the option to leave without any enforcement action or be placed under arrest,” said police spokesman Capt. Paul Blanton.

“I think it’s unfortunate that it reached that level and certainly [the protesters] were given, as I’ve been told since then, multiple opportunities to either quiet their chants or to leave voluntarily,” Republican House speaker David Osborne said.

“The goal of SB 150 is to strengthen parental engagement and communication in their children’s education,” state senator Mike Wise (R.), the bill’s sponsor, said last week. “This bill … reinforces a positive atmosphere in the classroom and removes unnecessary distractions, like woke ideology and mandating use of specific pronouns in our schools. … I look forward to … protecting children from the irreparable harm of gender transition surgeries by making SB 150 law.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Students at Columbia Law School are incensed that some of their classmates met with Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh, the latest example of American law school students trying to suppress conservative ideas and speakers.

Students from the New York City law school’s Federalist Society chapter on Feb. 23 traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with Kavanaugh. A photo posted to the school’s Instagram shows students with the justice, who discussed “the human side of being a justice” and “how to be an effective advocate,” according to the post. Students melted down in the comments, demanding that Columbia “do better” and calling the meeting “incredibly humiliating.”

The episode is further evidence of law school campuses veering left and away from free speech. Earlier this month, Stanford University law students and the school’s diversity dean shouted down Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judge Kyle Duncan. Students later protested the school’s apology for Duncan’s botched speech.

Columbia students and alumni had a similar reaction to the Instagram post. “As an alumnus, this is shameful and unnecessary on so many levels,” one commenter wrote.

Several posters noted the photo went up during Women’s History Month. “Why is this still up??? I’m embarrassed to be associated with you,” another user said.

Student groups, including the Black Law Students Association of Columbia and the abortion rights organization If/When/How, wrote letters demanding the post be taken down, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Black Law Students Association said it won’t support Columbia’s efforts to recruit black students because “the Columbia Law School administration may be comfortable wallowing in ‘apoliticism’ and neutrality, but we are not.”

Law schools are following the direction of undergrad universities, which have frequently seen violence and chaos during conservative events and speeches. Students at George Mason University this week protested the school’s choice of Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin (R.) for commencement speaker, pointing to his conservative policies.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Chinese immigrants are flooding across the southern border amid a growing immigration and drug crisis under the Biden administration.

Over 4,300 Chinese migrants were apprehended by Border Patrol in the past five months, more than doubling the total border encounters in fiscal year 2022, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

The surge in Chinese migrants is just one of the challenges at the border facing the Biden administration, which has allowed migration and drug trafficking to go unchecked.

The United States has seen over a million migrant encounters at the southern border this fiscal year, a 23 percent increase from the same period in 2022. CBP seized more than 50,000 pounds of fentanyl at the southern border in fiscal year 2022.

Republican lawmakers have criticized Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for failing to secure the border, with some calling for his impeachment.

Experts say Chinese migrants are fleeing religious persecution and excessive COVID-19 lockdown measures. In November, an estimated 44 people died in a fire as a result of stringent lockdowns in China, which barricaded residents in their homes for quarantine.

China has long persecuted the minority ethnic group of Uyghurs, holding over a million people in internment camps.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Joe Biden on Thursday called out the nation’s “epidemic of violence against transgender women,” three days after a woman who identifies as transgender killed six people at a Christian school in Nashville, Tenn.

Biden’s proclamation, ahead of Friday’s Transgender Day of Visibility, declared that transgender Americans “shape our Nation’s soul.”

“An epidemic of violence against transgender women and girls, in particular women and girls of color, has taken lives far too soon,” Biden said in the Thursday declaration, pointing to the mass shooting at the gay nightclub Club Q in Colorado last year. On Monday, Audrey Hale, a biological woman who went by Aiden, shot and killed three adults and three nine-year-olds at Covenant School before she was killed by police.

Police say the Christian school, which Hale once attended, was targeted and the killer left a manifesto behind.

In his statement, Biden called out the “targeting” of “transgender youth” by state laws, saying they’re “terrifying families and hurting kids who are not hurting anyone.”

The statement comes after Biden joked about his love for ice cream before giving remarks about the Nashville killings on Monday.

“My name is Joe Biden [laughter]. I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband [laughter],” Biden said. “And I eat Jenny’s ice cream, chocolate chip [laughter]. I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream [laughter].”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Mia Bonta (D.), a California assemblywoman and the wife of progressive state attorney general Rob Bonta (D.), introduced a bill with state senator Scott Wiener (D.) that would allow politicians to spend unlimited campaign funds on private security. The lawmakers claim they and their colleagues face a “rising tide of political violence” thanks to former president Donald Trump and his supporters.

Why it matters:

A legislative committee this week advanced the Bonta-Wiener proposal, which would unwind decades-old campaign finance rules. Lawmakers are allowed to divert up to $5,000 in campaign donations for their security, and only if they have faced real threats verified by law enforcement related to their politics, official duties, or status.

Context:

Violent crime is on the rise in California—but not because of politics.

Rob Bonta, the state’s top cop, has implemented a variety of soft-on-crime policies since Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) appointed him in 2021. After Bonta’s first year on the job, he boasted that although homicides, property crime, and violent crime went up, arrest rates and probation levels declined. Bonta has focused his resources on investigating police and suing cities over their zoning policies as car thefts and violent crime mount.

Before he became attorney general, Bonta as a state legislator helped secure softer sentencing laws and reduced jail time for felons.

Mia Bonta, who holds her husband’s former seat, has complemented his lenient enforcement efforts while serving as chairwoman of the State Assembly’s budget committee for the criminal justice system, though she has recused herself from overseeing the budget for her husband’s department. She also sits on the public safety committee, which is stacked with progressive Democrats focused on softening the state’s treatment of violent criminals.

Earlier this month Bonta unilaterally killed a proposal to enhance sentencing for violent crimes committed with guns. She has recently introduced bills that would roll back penalties for juvenile criminals and direct prisons to coach inmates through “restorative justice” and “heal from trauma” programs.

Analysis:

Like Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.), who wants to defund the police but spends hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars on private security, Bonta seems comfortable with armed protection for herself, but not her constituents.

It is also curious that Mia Bonta keeps her finger pointed at Trump supporters when the most shocking act of political violence her state has seen in years—the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi—was perpetrated by a mentally ill left-winger. Her argument also conveniently omits the fact that the biggest attempted political assassination in recent decades was perpetrated by a Bernie Sanders supporter who shot six people at a Republican baseball practice, wounding Rep. Steve Scalise (R., La.).

Verdict: We rate this claim 5 Clintons.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) may have placed herself on the wrong side of the law by mixing work and play on her TikTok account.

The House of Representatives in December deemed the Chinese spyware app too dangerous for staffers to use on official devices due to “security risks.” But that hasn’t stopped Omar from abusing taxpayer resources to cultivate a TikTok following of nearly 250,000, a watchdog group charged in a complaint Thursday. The group alleges Omar’s use of TikTok for both campaign and official activities is a “clear” violation of House ethics rules and demanded that the Office of Congressional Ethics ensure the Democratic lawmaker deletes the app from her government devices.

“These violations are disturbing, and clearly not how members are supposed to be using official resources,” said Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust executive director Kendra Arnold. “The law is abundantly clear, and her account and the content posted speak for themselves. These rules are to protect the time, resources, and integrity of official proceedings for those in elected office.”

Omar and her fellow “Squad” members are among the few TikTok defenders remaining in Congress as a bipartisan consensus has emerged on the need to ban the Chinese-controlled app. Omar said Tuesday a unilateral ban of the app might violate the First Amendment. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) on Saturday posted a TikTok video saying a ban “just doesn’t feel right to me.” Ocasio-Cortez serves as an adviser to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, which in December accepted a $150,000 contribution from TikTok, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Another “Squad” member, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.), last Tuesday also came to TikTok’s defense, saying “xenophobia around China” was behind the drive to ban the app.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust said Omar’s TikTok is, by definition, an official account because she identifies herself in the profile description as a congresswoman from Minnesota’s fifth district. Members of Congress are prohibited from using official resources for political purposes, but Omar’s TikTok account contains videos of footage on the House floor alongside overtly political videos in which she urges viewers to elect Democratic candidates.

“Posting political content on an official social media account is an abuse of government resources,” the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust complaint states. “Rep. Omar’s use of her TikTok account and the content posted on that account appear to be clear violations.”

Omar posted a TikTok video in January showing her and Ocasio-Cortez whispering a “play-by-play” to each other on the House floor as Republican lawmakers negotiated votes for speaker of the House. In another video filmed from her congressional office, captioned “long days of historic humiliation extended,” Omar discussed Republican efforts to elect a speaker.

VIDEO on Tik Tok

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust said both videos were clearly recorded for political purposes.

“The law is clear and the posts above speak for themselves—there are no facts that can excuse these violations,” the complaint states. “In addition to violating the specific laws, her use of official resources does not reflect credibly on the House. Finally, given her use of a TikTok account and government resources, the Office of Congressional Ethics should ensure Omar does not have the banned app installed on any government devices.”

Omar’s office did not return a request for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Nineteen protesters were arrested at the Kentucky Capitol on March 29 as lawmakers voted to override Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of a bill prohibiting the use of gender transition procedures on children.

According to the Louisville Courier Journal, the individuals were arrested by Kentucky State Police and charged with criminal trespassing after refusing to leave the House gallery, where they were shouting and chanting during the debate.

The protesters have since been released on their own recognizance.

‘Radical’ Ideology in Schools

Commenting on the demonstrations, Republican Kentucky House Speaker David Osborne told the outlet: “Obviously, we welcome everybody to be here, to participate in their government … but we do expect that proper levels of decorum will be maintained to allow us to conduct our business.

“We felt it was important to proceed on with the business thing that we did.”

Present for March 29’s demonstrations were some Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) students—a fact the Republican Party of Kentucky excoriated in a statement.

“Why aren’t our kids in school? Isn’t today a school day?” Republican spokesman Sean Southard wondered.

“Andy Beshear and [Kentucky Department of Education Commissioner] Jason Glass are so committed to radical gender ideology in our schools that they would send students to the Capitol to protest instead of their classes,” he added.

“Understand what’s going on here: Andy Beshear, Jason Glass, and JCPS appear to be working together to implement this agenda in our schools.”

Responding to those comments, JCPS said: “Engaging in civic activities is a valuable part of the educational experience. Today’s field trip to Frankfort was student-led and student-centered. JCPS supports students’ right to free speech.

“Any students who were transported to Frankfort on a JCPS school bus had permission slips signed by their parents or guardians, as is the case with all field trips,” the school district added.

Meanwhile, Glass called Southard’s claims of his support for the move an “invented fanciful conspiracy theory” and described the Republican legislation as “bigoted, hateful, and shameful.”

“Instead of trying to pin this on someone else, legislators who feel uncomfortable with the attention they are getting because of this issue should reflect on their own actions and statements,” he added.

Hormone Therapies

At the core of the tensions on March 29 was Senate Bill 150, which prevents minors from being treated with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone therapies, gender transition surgeries, and other related procedures.

Additionally, among other provisions, the bill bans sex-based discussions in schools and prohibits schools from requiring staff to use a student’s preferred pronouns if they do not align with the child’s biological gender.

The bill was passed by the Republican-controlled Kentucky General Assembly earlier this month only to be vetoed by Beshear, who held that the legislation “strips freedom” from parents and allows “too much government interference” in families’ health decisions.

“SB 150 also turns educators and administrators into investigators that must listen in on student conversations and then knock on doors to confront and question parents and families about how students behave and/or refer to themselves or others,” he wrote in his March 24 veto message.

The governor also cited his faith as a reason for his decision, noting that “all children are children of God” and asserting that the bill would “endanger the children of Kentucky.”

But proponents of the bill have argued that it protects children and “empowers” their parents.

“Kentuckians overwhelmingly support SB 150’s commonsense student privacy protections in restrooms and locker rooms, along with the right of parents to have a say in their child’s education,” said David Walls, executive director of The Family Foundation, in a statement.

“The off-label use of puberty blockers, along with cross-sex hormones and surgery, in experimental gender ‘transitions’ has no place in children’s healthcare—the irreversible harms that de-transitioners have suffered testify to that.”

Adding that he found Beshear’s position on the matter “deeply troubling,” Walls said the bill would “save the lives of Kentucky children by setting policy in alignment with the truth that every child is created as a biological male or female and deserves to be loved, treated with dignity, and accepted for who they really are.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

“Legal plunder” is just one way state power is used to benefit the few at the expense of the many. Another method the political class uses to extract compliance, acceptance and so on from the private sector is the old-fashioned shakedown.

Consider the case of the panic over egg prices just a few months ago. Egg prices went up – a lot – contributing to inflation. The political class and its hangers-on latched onto egg prices as a sure sign of corporate greed in action.

But reality is a complex and messy thing that often escapes the preferred narratives and shibboleths of right and left. As the Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome writes, there was a lot going on behind those prices:

…good ol’ supply and demand. Most obviously, the United States in 2022 experienced the worst outbreak of avian influenza ever, with the virus forcing U.S. egg producers to cull around 45 million egg‐​laying birds last year…

Ah yes, the bird flu. It was a particularly bad year for it. And even worse if you happened to be an egg-producing chicken:

Most eggs in the United States are hatched in jam-packed industrial egg farms, where transmission is next to impossible to stop, so the go-to move when the flu is detected is to “depopulate,” the preferred industry term for killing all of the birds. Without such a brutal tactic, Bryan Richards, the emerging-disease coordinator at the U.S. Geological Survey, told me, the current wave would be much worse.

But this strategy also means fewer eggs, at least until new chicks grow into hens. That takes about six months, so there just haven’t been enough hens lately—especially for all the holiday baking people wanted to do, Thompson said. By the end of 2022, the U.S. egg inventory was 29 percent lower than it had been at the beginning of the year. The chicken supply, in contrast, is robust, because avian flu tends to affect older birds, like egg layers, Thompson said; at six to eight weeks old, the birds we eat, known as broilers, are not as susceptible. Also, she added, wild-bird migration pathways are not as concentrated in the Southeast, where most broiler production happens.

The avian flu took the lives of “more than 43 million hens,” which is going to pinch egg supply no matter what.

Left out of the left’s charges of greed and profiteering is an inconvenient bit Reason’s Joe Lancaster noted about egg prices in that long-ago time of 2020, right as the pandemic was getting underway:

…when egg prices plummeted from $2 to $1.32 in mid-2020, [former Labor Secretary Robert] Reich did not argue that this was a result of poultry firms’ generosity and not a side effect of a giant decrease in demand at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of course not. It’s easier to shout “greed” – and threaten producers – than it is to acknowledge supply and demand’s role in setting prices. Even those of the humble egg.

SOURCE: American Liberty News

ANALYSIS – The communist regime in China raided a private U.S. investigations company’s office in Beijing on March 20.

This brazen and likely unlawful act against the New York-based due diligence firm, the Mintz Group, follows the FBI raid last fall of an illegal Chinese overseas ‘police station’ in New York City. (RELATED: ‘Transnational Repression’ – FBI ‘Very Concerned’ By Illegal Chinese ‘Police Stations’ In US And Abroad)

And some see it as a heavy-handed and non-symmetrical retaliation.

But the raid in Beijing is also likely tied to Chinese leader Xi Jinping‘s draconian security crackdown on information inside China.

“Red alerts should be going off in all boardrooms right now about risks in China,” said one source in the New York Post.

The same U.S. businessperson also said that the Mintz Group raid sent a “remarkable signal” that Beijing will suck up foreign money and technology but won’t accept credible U.S. firms conducting research and investigations on Chinese partners or the country’s business environment.

Reuters reported that the company confirmed that “Chinese authorities have detained the five staff in Mintz Group’s Beijing office, all of them Chinese nationals, and have closed our operations there.”

The detained employees are reportedly being held somewhere outside Beijing. The company has not been able to contact the employees since they were detained.

Unlike the official police status of the Chinese outposts raided in NYC, the Mintz Group is a purely private company. (RELATED: As China’s Power, And Risk Of War, Grows – US Plays Catch Up)

The firm describes itself as “a corporate investigations firm that gathers information before hiring, before transactions, during litigation disputes and after frauds, all over the world.”

According to its website, the company has over 450 investigators in 18 offices worldwide, but its Beijing office is the only one in mainland China. It has a second office in Hong Kong.

It also does background checks, asset tracing and fraud and corruption investigations for businesses planning acquisitions or other large investments.

This corporate mission will likely be used by Chinese authorities to accuse the company of being spies.

And it wouldn’t be the first time Western due diligence companies have gotten into trouble with Chinese authorities. 

British corporate investigator Peter Humphrey and his American wife Yu Yingzeng, who ran a risk advisory firm, ChinaWhys, were detained in 2013 for work they did for a giant British pharmaceutical firm.

They spent two years in jail.

But there is an added twist to this latest raid.

While there may not be a direct link, the New York Post reported that: “Randal Phillips, a partner at the firm [Mintz Group] who heads its Asia operations but is based outside of China, is listed on its website as the Central Intelligence Agency’s former chief representative in China. Phillips worked in Beijing for years after leaving the CIA.”

Even though the raid can be seen as a response to the FBI raid against Beijing’s illegal NYC police outpost, one of 100 stations around the world, the additional motive is also clear. (RELATED: FBI Finally Raids Communist China’s Illegal Police Outpost In NYC)

As The New York Times reports:

…the move [also] highlighted the risks that firms involved in due diligence face in China as Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, has repeatedly called for a greater emphasis on security and has tightened the ruling Communist Party’s grip on information.

The firm stated that it “has not received any official legal notice regarding a case against the company and has requested that the authorities release its employees.”

Perhaps not coincidentally, reported The Wall Street Journal, the Mintz Group raid is putting foreign companies in China on alert just as the country hosts an international economic conclave called the ‘China Development Forum’ set for this weekend.

The high-profile event is expected to be attended by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Ray Dalio, who founded the world’s biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, and other top executives.

According to a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, with increasing tensions between the U.S. and China, U.S. businesses already operating in China are increasingly pessimistic about their prospects.

Maybe this latest Chinese act will make more U.S. firms think twice about investing there.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

READ NEXT: James O’Keefe Strikes Back – Exposes Potential Democrat Money Laundering Scheme

SOURCE: American Liberty News

As historic numbers of illegal immigrants at the U.S.–Mexico border continue to draw the attention of law enforcement and the nation as a whole, the drug cartels are taking advantage of that distraction, according to former U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott.

In a March 28 interview with Steve Lance of NTD News, The Epoch Times’ sister outlet, Scott noted that the people crossing the border serve as the perfect “cover” for the cartels’ other operations.

“The cartel uses these people as human shields to shape the border to completely overwhelm all law enforcement in areas very systematically, so that they can bring in other threats—people that are willing to pay more money to not meet a Border Patrol agent, or the narcotics, the fentanyl that we see poured into our cities all across this country,” he said. “Those are the threats that the illegal immigration is a cover or a mask for.”

And those illegal immigrants often pay a far bigger price than money to serve as the cartels’ shields, Scott added, citing recent incidents where groups of people had been found locked inside railcars, resulting in hospitalization and deaths.

Additionally, a fire engulfed a Mexican immigration detention facility on March 27, resulting in at least 39 deaths and dozens of injuries.

“These events get a lot of attention when the numbers are high, but the deaths associated with illegal migration and the cartels’ control on our southwest border happen every single day,” Scott said.Play Video

A Preventable Tragedy

“Any loss of life is tragic,” the ex-Border Patrol chief stated, “and the really horrible, sad thing is this is preventable. I mean, not every death, but a lot of them are preventable if we just reestablished law and order on our border and got rid of the chaos that this administration has created.”

Scott, who served under both the Trump and Biden administrations, contended that Biden’s return to the Obama-era “catch-and-release” policy of releasing illegal immigrants into the United States pending their court date had effectively served as a “sales pitch” to those seeking to circumvent the legal immigration process.

“They [those facilitating illegal immigration] just see that as a win,” he said. “So as long as that continues and people don’t see an immediate consequence for an illegal action, this flow of human beings is going to continue pouring across our border.”

A Toxic Relationship

Deadly drugs like fentanyl are also pouring across the border, Scott said, thanks to a partnership the Mexican cartels have entered with China.

“The threat we’re seeing today, more than ever before, is China systematically working with the cartels, sending precursor chemicals into Mexico,” he said. “The cartels in Mexico are creating fentanyl, and the profit is so high and the commodity is such a small amount, it’s easier to smuggle.”

According to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials, the vast majority of the fentanyl entering the United States is produced by two Mexican cartels, the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco cartel, and they obtain the necessary chemicals to do so almost exclusively from China.

China’s primary benefit from that relationship is believed to be the poisoning of Americans with fentanyl—and the communist country would appear to be succeeding in that mission.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl poisoning became the leading cause of death for American adults aged 18 to 45 in 2019 and killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2021 alone.

However, Scott stressed that the Mexican drug cartels still pose the biggest threat when it comes to illicit fentanyl, as they are mass producing the drug and have established themselves as the “de facto government” in large areas of Mexico.

He noted that the cartels will be able to exploit that situation as long as U.S. Border Patrol remains overwhelmed by the continuous flood of illegal immigrants at the border.

“We have no idea what’s coming into the country,” Scott said. “But what we do know is there is no shortage of fentanyl throughout the cities and towns of this country, and it is killing more people … than our wars did—than 9/11 did.

“It’s a national security threat, And we need to address it that way.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Independent journalist Steve Baker says he was recently warned that his aggressive reporting and commentary about Jan. 6 have created growing ire at the U.S. Department of Justice that could lead to his prosecution for being at the Capitol on that fateful Wednesday in 2021.

Since Jan. 6, Baker, 62, of Raleigh, North Carolina, went through two hours of FBI questioning and faced the looming specter of being added to the list of now more than 1,000 Jan. 6 criminal-case defendants.

He said his recent coverage of Jan. 6 cases and pointed criticisms of the DOJ have once again painted a target on him.

“I got a call from another journalist who has a friendly source inside the Department of Justice there in D.C.,” Baker told The Epoch Times.

“He called me up and said—this is a paraphrase, but he said—‘Your friend in Raleigh, tell him to be careful. He has awakened a couple of people’s attention to his work, and they’re not happy about it at all.’”

The ominous early-morning heads-up got Baker’s attention.

“First of all, when you get a call at 6:30 in the morning from somebody relaying that message, they must have thought that was really important to get a hold of me,” he said. “So the impact of the timing of the delivery was significant.

“The journalist who gave me the information has a very large national audience and would be the kind of person who would have those types of sources,” Baker said. “…So I had to take it seriously.”

The Epoch Times asked the U.S. Department of Justice for comment on Baker’s contention but did not receive a response.

Documented Intense Scenes

Baker spent much of Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C., capturing video for his news-and-commentary blog, The Pragmatic Constitutionalist. He had a front-row view of some intense scenes, including the initial bombardment of munitions aimed by police at the huge crowd on the Capitol’s west front.

His video work appeared in Jan. 6 films by HBO, The New York Times, and The Epoch Times. It has been syndicated worldwide on Storyful.

Baker filmed the debut of a Metropolitan Police Department “hard squad” and the violence that broke out as the riot-gear-clad officers rolled and rumbled through the dense crowd like a bowling ball through a 10-pin set.

He stood in the corner of the Capitol’s south entrance as officers drew firearms near him and a group of protesters after a radio call about shots fired in the House of Representatives.

Baker’s outspokenness was on full display. He challenged two officers who drew their service weapons and shouted at unarmed protesters. The building was on high alert after reports that someone had been shot outside the Speaker’s Lobby.

“Are you going to use that on us?” Baker asked one USCP officer who charged at the group. “None of us have a gun. We’ve got cameras.”

As the officer explained why the dozen or so law-enforcement officials in the lobby had weapons ready, Baker intoned dryly, “The only shots fired have been fired by you guys.”

That statement turned out to be true. At the entrance to the House Speaker’s Lobby one floor above, USCP Lt. Michael Byrd shot unarmed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, 35. She died about a half-hour later.

What was displayed on Jan. 6 became a hallmark of Baker’s work covering the aftermath of the protests and violence at the Capitol. His analysis and commentary often cut to the quick.

‘Just Want the Truth’

On podcasts and social media, Baker says things most other journalists are afraid to say. He does not suffer fools gladly. That has earned him a growing following—and some critics—from various sides of his libertarian leanings.

He describes his approach to Jan. 6 as a drive for truth—partisanship and politics be damned. That’s a trait he learned from his father, George O. Baker, who spent more than 30 years as a private investigator based in Shreveport, Louisiana.

“I don’t care where the facts lead,” Baker said. “To Trump’s desk, Pelosi’s desk, darker forces within the government, left- or right-wing antagonists, or simply a grand organic accident.”

He said his latest focus has been “government incompetence that allowed it, or even a sinister plan to initiate the violence.”

“I just want the truth,” he said. “Now I’m focusing on the weaponization of the DOJ against the innocent people who’ve been caught up in the politicized aftermath.”

Baker said if he ends up facing DOJ prosecution for being at the Capitol, it will be just the latest example of the government targeting right-of-center journalists to the exclusion of so-called mainstream media.

Looking over a list of hundreds of Jan. 6 journalists compiled by Sedition Hunters, Baker said he could not find an example of a mainstream journalist targeted for criminal charges.

Meanwhile, independent and right-leaning journalists such as J.D. Rivera, Sam Montoya, Stephen Horn, Will Pope, and Shawn Witzemann have faced DOJ prosecution.

“The most obvious characteristic of that list is that none of those that worked for major media, left-wing sources, have been prosecuted,” Baker said. “But you can’t say the same on the other side of the ledger.”

Taking Aim

If Baker’s intense focus on Jan. 6 news has created waves, he says to blame the COVID lockdowns for his weaponization. The government-enforced loss of freedoms helped to destroy his business playing trumpet with the Bull City Syndicate, Captain & The Keels, and the American Bowie Experience. He turned the sudden overabundance of time into full-time journalism.

Baker’s live coverage of the Oath Keepers seditious-conspiracy trial from September through November 2022 was unique because he shared his thoughts from observing the press room and how legacy media covered the trial.

Five Oath Keepers defendants, founder Stewart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson, and Thomas Caldwell—were prosecuted for allegedly conspiring to attack the Capitol and prevent certification or counting of Electoral College votes from the 2020 election. Rhodes and Meggs were found guilty of seditious conspiracy, while the rest were convicted of various Jan. 6 charges

On Oct. 19, Baker posted how many of the reporters laughed at defense attorney Brad Geyer during his cross-examination of Oath Keeper Jason Dolan, who was testifying for the prosecution against Geyer’s client Harrelson and his co-defendants.

“Media room journos break out laughing their a**es off when Geyer asks Dolan to let him know when [he] “sees something amiss”. . . and a reporter exclaims in [the] room: ‘I can tell you what’s amiss!’ —the most blatant eruption in the media room thus far in the trial.”

Baker also described how the legacy media gathered around each other’s computers during the trial and—on many days—how similar were the headlines on their stories. He called it “the single most dark moment of realization that I had.”

“This group of palace guards that I’m sitting amongst inside that room, they are protecting the narrative,” Baker said.

After the ninth day of trial, he described the prosecution’s introduction of highly personal and graphic texts between Rhodes and former Oath Keepers general counsel Kellye SoRelle—content that FBI agents had promised Rhodes would not be made public.

“Completely salacious and immaterial to the case,” Baker wrote on Twitter. “What do you think the MSM headlines were about that day?”

In addition, to live micro coverage on Twitter, articles on his Locals page, and video updates, Baker made regular radio appearances on Truth News Network (TNN) with Dan Newman. Baker often ridiculed the DOJ’s theory of the case, commenting early in the trial that he believed the facts were not there to support prosecution for conspiracy.

Baker’s daily take on the trial was often quite different than that published by corporate media. Commenting on Oct. 25, Baker told the TNN radio audience that defense attorneys got the main FBI agent in the case to admit that Rhodes never ordered any Oath Keepers to go into the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“There’s been no connection made between the Oath Keepers and anybody who breached the barricades, kicked a door in, busted a window, or attacked a single police officer,” Baker said.

Gaining Media Reach

Baker collaborated on a Jan. 10 report in The Epoch Times featuring former Capitol Police Lt. Tarik Johnson and his description of leadership breakdowns that led to a dangerous delay in the evacuation of Congress on Jan. 6.

He followed that with a three-part series on the Capitol Police, putting forth his belief that rank-and-file officers were “sacrificial pawns” who were not given critical intelligence or posted in sufficient numbers at the Capitol.

Producers of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” at Fox News contacted him when they were researching the more than 40,000 hours of Jan. 6 video using access granted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Baker suggested they interview former Lt. Johnson. On March 7, Carlson aired an extended interview with Johnson, who detailed how he had to evacuate the Senate and House because former Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman ignored his radio calls for authorization.

After Baker was issued the warning about possible DOJ charges, he appeared on Carlson’s highly-rated show and described how he first got on the DOJ’s radar.

Baker said his attorney, Brad Geyer, likens his public profile and Jan. 6 appearances to building himself a medieval fortress.

“One of the things that he has told me for so long is that my aggressive offensive positioning, from the very first day as to my threats from the Department of Justice [on] charges against me, was building a moat around me and keeping them at bay,” he said.

“It’s like, ‘Crap, [if] we go after this guy, we’ve got to deal with the First Amendment issue. And it’s gonna be a legitimate fight. It’s gonna look like we’re attacking a journalist.’”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

On Monday, March 27, a woman who believed she was a man deliberately attacked a conservative Christian school in Nashville, murdering three nine-year-old children and three staff members. It was a deliberate terror attack by a transgender on Christians and their children. A 28-year-old woman named Aubrey Hale, who also went by “Aiden” and demanded others use male pronouns to refer to her, was shot dead by police minutes after the attack began.

Given these circumstances, any reasonable person can safely conclude this was an ideological attack. Whether Hale’s manifesto recovered from her vehicle ever sees the light of day is another story, especially if it is damaging to the transgender narrative the regime has devoted massive resources to prop up. What can be pieced together is that:

• 1. The female-to-male transgender Hale was once a student at Covenant School in Nashville.
• 2. Tennessee recently passed a bill to protect children from sexualization at Drag shows.
• 3. March 27 is the beginning of “Transgender Week of Visibility,” yet another celebration in the bloated degeneracy liturgical calendar.
• 4. Every Regime propaganda outfit is in the midst of a full-court press saying evangelicals are Christian Nationalists who plan on genociding transgenders.

The result is that 3 children and 3 adults lie dead, murdered by a person whose mental illness was turned into an ideological weapon by the most evil people on the planet. All day long, 24/7, you hear the message that conservative evangelical Christians are evil scum. We are the only group that hatred of is not only seen as acceptable or allowed but positively virtuous. Add that to a group of people put through the meatgrinder of a callous, godless world that manufactures mental illness, whose minds are so warped they believe that they are the opposite sex and will mutilate their bodies surgically and with hormones, who have been told they are being targeted for extermination, and you have the recipe for mass violence.

As I wrote nearly a year ago after the Uvalde shooting, “the question we ought to be asking is not ‘why does this happen?’ but rather ‘why does it not happen a lot more?’” We live in a society that is past its breaking point (see right). Everything that used to give life meaning has been taken away, driven far from the reach of ordinary people, or made an object of ridicule. Love of one’s nation and people is both mocked and called “racist.” The normal impulse to desire a spouse and children is ripped apart by divorce, feminism, and sexual perversion and then put out of reach for many by worsening economic and social conditions.

The major institutions of the Christian faith that provided a spiritual foundation for a once great nation—the mainline Protestant churches—were hollowed out over a century ago, now with teary-eyed female pastors offering moralistic, sentimental discourses on Chicken Soup for the Soul at best and gay transsexual, antiwhite race hate, Marxist propaganda, at worst.

The churches that grew over the last century in response to the mainline apostasy retained their adherence to the Bible but are largely beset by a pragmatism that places church growth ahead of faithfulness. The result has been precious few Christian leaders willing to defend the Christian faith in a way that matters to a culture in freefall.

That pragmatism that has infected the church is responsible for much of the cultural rot we are experiencing. The entire ethos of selling the Christian religion as a lifestyle product you separate from and add to your pre-existing way of life has dominated the practice of ostensibly conservative American evangelicalism. It was a convenient arrangement for a lot of people, especially when you lived in a culture that enjoyed the fruits of two millennia of Christian cultural formation.

You could separate the Christian life and keep it self-contained to Sunday morning and maybe a few small group activities throughout the week. You could keep “spiritual talk” separate from talk of your work, of news and politics, of sports and entertainment. That was a convenient arrangement when the entire society, Christian or not, agreed that marriage was between a man and woman and foundational to civilization, that men and women are entirely distinct and immutable sexes, and you had functioning, well-ordered communities where people could reasonably expect to trust one another. But that convenient arrangement no longer exists.

Today you live in Negative World, and Negative World just became deadly. No longer do you live in a place where there is a distinction between being a Christian and “fighting the culture war.” Those three nine-year-olds that the monster shot were not consciously combatants in the culture war. They were not little James Dobsons. They were just Christian kids being raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord by Christian parents. But we have reached a point where simply being a Christian means participation in the culture war is unavoidable. You may not want your children involved in the culture war, but if they bear the name of Christ, they are part of it whether you like it or not. Your enemy has made them a target, if not with bullets, with a poisonous mind virus that they constantly want them exposed to.

It is well past time for Christians, particularly Christian leaders, to recognize this. You have enemies. You have enemies that want you and your children dead. You have enemies you need to fight. Your desire to “win them over” through niceness is a weapon they wield against you. They manipulate your desire to avoid conflict. They know that you are terrified of offending anyone since that will negatively affect church attendance. And so they have rolled over you, they have destroyed your culture, and have now made you a pariah in your own country. You are not going to winsome your way out of this. You can choose to remain silent out of cowardice, or you can begin to fight an evil ideology that could not be in more stark rebellion against the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

You need to be preparing your schools, churches, homes, and selves for this spiritual war. You need to have a plan in place. You need to have men willing to protect your people with force. You need to be physically able to protect your family. You need to be getting in better shape. You will notice the two police officers who dispatched the trans terrorist did not have dad bods. Hard times are here. It is no time for soft men. And lest you think this is an unprecedented time in the history of the church, it is not. Violent individuals provoked by the government to attack dissident Christians is nothing new.

It is even part of the Anglo-American Christian tradition. As one commenter pointed out, the 1689 English Bill of Rights guaranteed the right of Protestants to bear arms to protect themselves against anarchy allowed by the government. The government didn’t send goons to attack them; they just let armed thugs loosely aligned with them do their dirty work for them. Sound familiar? We are in a very similar place and will require similar courage and strength of will. The Protestant churches of 17th-century England had strong leaders, strong fathers, and men who believed so strongly in the Lord Jesus they were ready to die for Him. Do we have such men and such leaders? If you are reading this, you are the answer to this question, one way or the other.

We have reached a crossroads in our country. Either biblical Christianity or sexual degeneracy will be tolerated. One will be eradicated by the other. This will not be the last time Christians will be martyred by mentally ill leftist freaks. Will you have the courage to take a stand for righteousness and truth, or will you submit to the hideous and disgusting abusers and murderers of children? The choice is yours.

Andrew Isker is the pastor of 4th Street Evangelical Church in Waseca, MN. He is a graduate of Minnesota State University and Greyfriar’s Hall Ministerial Training School, and he has served churches in Missouri, West Virginia, and Minnesota. He is the author (with Andrew Torba) of Christian Nationalism, and the author of the forthcoming book, The Boniface Option. Andrew, his wife Kara, and their five children reside in his hometown of Waseca, MN. He can be found on Gab @BonifaceOption.

Published in Bold Christian Writing

SOURCE: GAB

A leading Asian studies expert is weighing in on how the U.S. can diminish the threat China poses to Taiwan, even as tensions between the two countries remain high.

“I think the first thing we need to do is clear a backlog of arms sales to Taiwan. We sell Taiwan advanced military hardware, and a number of important platforms that the Taiwanese have purchased have been backlogged, and this has been going on for years now,” says Jeff Smith, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“The second thing we need to do, I think, is help the Taiwanese to develop even better deterrence strategies and denial strategies and acquisitions,” Smith says. “What can we do? What are the most effective military platforms that Taiwan could purchase and use in order to deny China if it decides to launch an invasion or at least to hold out long enough for the cavalry?” It’s widely though that the U.S.—and possibly others, including Australia and Japan—would intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Smith joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss how the Chinese government has infiltrated our lives; The Heritage Foundation’s newly released report “Winning the New Cold War: A Plan for Countering China”; and the U.S. fentanyl crisis.

Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript:

Samantha Aschieris: Jeff Smith is joining today’s podcast. Jeff is the director of the Asian Studies Center here at The Heritage Foundation and the author of “Asia’s Quest for Balance: China’s Rise and Balancing in the Indo-Pacific” and “Cold Peace: China-India Rivalry in the Twenty-First Century.” Jeff, thank you so much for joining us. 

Jeff Smith: Great to be here. 

Aschieris: So, The Heritage Foundation released a new paper titled “Winning the New Cold War: A Plan for Countering China.” The paper says China is the most capable geopolitical adversary the U.S. has faced since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Why is that? 

Smith: Well, I would might even amend that statement and say that in some ways it’s a more capable geopolitical adversary than the Soviet Union.

And the big reason for that is that while the Soviet Union was certainly a military powerhouse with a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, it was an economic middleweight. It was really never an economic peer of the United States and it was largely isolated from the West in terms of trade and investment. And so it punched above its weight in the military realm, but not in economics.

China, unfortunately, is an economic superpower, and now the second-largest economy in the world by nominal [gross domestic product], by some accounts the size of its economy has already overtaken the United States in terms of purchasing power parity, and it is deeply enmeshed in the global trading system. It’s the No. 1 trading partner of the U.S., many years. It’s the No. 1 trading partner of many of our allies and partners around the world. 

And it’s used that economic heft to expand its military capabilities considerably. And if you project out into the future, it’s quite likely that China could reach parity with the United States in terms of military spending at some point this century.

It also has the relative advantage of playing in its backyard. So in most scenarios where we envision potential friction or conflict between the United States and China, they’re in the Indo-Pacific, or in the Western Pacific. And so in those scenarios, China is able to bring almost all of its military resources to bear close to its homeland, whereas the United States, we’re spread fairly wide. We have responsibilities in the Atlantic and Europe, South America.

And so that’s concerning to planners and strategists here in the U.S. That does make it a very capable adversary with the economic foundation and wherewithal to really challenge the United States this century, and that’s concerning. 

Aschieris: Something else that I find concerning is the influence of China right here in the United States from universities to buying U.S. farmland. China seems to be involved with many aspects of our lives, whether we know it or not. Can you speak more about how the Chinese government has infiltrated our lives? 

Smith: Yeah, you’re absolutely right, and that’s another thing that makes China unique from the Soviet Union, and in some ways more dangerous. Certainly makes the United States more vulnerable to China than we were to the Soviet Union.

So, we treated the Soviets as an adversary basically from the get-go, from the moment World War II ended. We tactically partnered with the Soviets during World War II and almost immediately after the war, we recognized that this was a major rivalry, and so we essentially shut them out, which made a lot of sense to do to an adversary. 

Our history with China is much different in that we pursued this engagement strategy with them since the 1970s that said, by doing more political and economic engagement, eventually we’ll liberalize China. While one part of that was essentially opening our doors and our borders to Chinese citizens, to Chinese students, to Chinese companies, and the idea was that this would eventually help us and make China a partner. 

The problem is if that fails, we are now more vulnerable and more exposed to the Chinese Communist Party than we ever were to the Soviet Union.

And so we have researchers at insensitive U.S. academic research institutes. We have Chinese apps, social media apps, that are transmitting data back to Beijing. We have Chinese farmland purchases near sensitive military installations. And so we have in many ways left ourselves exposed to the CCP in ways that we never were with the Soviet Union.

And part of this paper is about the need to recognize those vulnerabilities and recognize that this in-between engagement posture that we pursued for decades has essentially failed and there’s now a growing bipartisan consensus about that.

One of the first things we need to do is readjust the relationship with China to account for that reality and part of readjusting that is extracting these nefarious CCP influences from within the United States and protecting our people from the Communist Party. 

Aschieris: One other part of the paper addresses the foundation of the victory plan. Can you talk more about this? 

Smith: Yeah. Well, what we do is we call this a plan rather than a strategy. And so, it is a series of, the paper is broken down essentially into three sections.

The first section reviews the current state of the China-U.S. rivalry, and we explicitly call China an adversary in that section, and we look at how we got here and the comparative strengths and weaknesses of both countries.

The second section, which is essentially the heart of the plan, is a series of over 40 issue-specific, roughly one-page sections that cover numerous aspects of Chinese nefarious activities and the China-U.S. rivalry. Everything from, as you mentioned, land use, Chinese social media apps, to ways to protect the U.S. economy, ways to spur economic growth, the need for energy independence, the need to reform defense spending, the need to arm Taiwan and clear a backlog of what covers dozens of issues that fall under the China-U.S. relationship. 

There’s also a section in there that talks about need for the U.S. to demonstrate leadership in the world. And so we take a tour of the globe and look at some of the key regions or multilateral groupings and look at what the United States has to do in partnership with allies to secure American interests in those parts of the world.

And so there are, as I said, over 100 specific policy recommendations throughout Section 2 to guide policymakers in the executive and legislative branches.

And the final section is a wrap-up summary of those recommendations as well as a look at how the U.S. government needs to organize itself and follow through to implement a plan like this that ultimately we hope will lead to victory. 

Aschieris: Yes, definitely. That is great. I will make sure to include a link to the full paper so our audience can take a look at that. And we’re having this conversation shortly after Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The two nations, according to CNBC, agreed to cooperate on different economic and business areas. How should the U.S. exercise global leadership with regard to this growing axis of evil? 

Smith: Yeah, it is something we need to be concerned about. For a long time, I think, observers were willing to write off this growing China-Russia relationship and look at their history of animosity and territorial disputes and suggest that it was a limited tactical partnership that was eventually bound to fail. I think that bet was wrong.

And I think, particularly since 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea, and the West, led by the U.S., imposed a series of really crushing sanctions on Russia, they made a big, long-term strategic bet to turn away from Europe, to turn away from the West, and really embrace China and the China-Russia partnership.

And for the Chinese, they were able to get discounted energy, discounted arms, greater convergence at the United Nations Security Council, providing cover for each other. And they’ve been joined by their mutual animosity toward the U.S. and the West and the international order that the United States has helped to construct and lead post-World War II. 

So that strategic partnership now is more entrenched than it’s ever been and I think is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Russia has essentially completely cut off all its access to the West and its ambitions of ever being a part of the West. And so this is a dyad that we’re going to have to grapple with for decades to come.

I guess, it’s maybe some consolation that Russia is very much the junior partner in this relationship, and I think it will continue to weaken in the years ahead.

Russia is losing people, its population is shrinking, its economy is shrinking. It’s been somewhat overshadowed by high energy prices over the past two years that have helped keep the Russian economy afloat. And when energy prices fall, we’re going to find that the rest of the Russian economy, the non-energy aspects of the Russian economy, have been absolutely devastated by this war and the Western sanctions that followed. 

So I think Russia’s strategic position is weakening and that’s good for the United States, but it will continue to be a troublemaker in Europe and a valuable partner for our real adversary, which is China. And so we have to keep our eye on the ball. 

Aschieris: I don’t think we can discuss China without talking about the role it plays in the U.S. fentanyl crisis. Can you walk us through some of the core concerns here and what action should be taken? 

Smith: Yeah. So, it is a big concern. We now are looking at roughly 70,000 Americans dying every year from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. In some communities across some demographics, it’s now the single biggest cause of death.

And where China comes into this is that the vast majority of fentanyl consumed in the U.S. comes from chemical precursors that originated in China. And some of that comes directly from China, most of it comes through the Mexican border.

So it’s not necessarily pre-made fentanyl shipped to the U.S. in a neat Chinese package, but the chemicals that are used to make fentanyl are imported into Mexico from China and then essentially made into drugs and brought over the border. 

We have asked China repeatedly to crack down on the export of these chemicals and frankly, its response has been insufficient. And we need to make this a bigger priority in our relationship with the Chinese. It should be brought up in every diplomatic interaction we have with them.

And we need to let them know that this is deadly serious and that if we don’t feel sufficient action is being taken against the exporters of these precursors, we will continue to raise the temperature. We will impose sanctions and other economic costs on China for engaging in this trade and those sanctions will escalate every month or every year that this continues and there’s inaction from Beijing.

That’s the long answer. But we know it’s coming from China and we know the Chinese Communist Party leadership is not doing everything it can to stop this flow, and we need to change that. 

Aschieris: Now, over the last few months, we’ve been hearing more about China’s threat to Taiwan and this potential invasion, especially after Russia’s invasion into Ukraine. From your perspective, what should the U.S. do to counter or diminish China’s threat to Taiwan? 

Smith: Yeah. Great question. I think the first thing we need to do is clear a backlog of arms sales to Taiwan. We sell Taiwan advanced military hardware, and a number of important platforms that the Taiwanese have purchased have been backlogged, and this has been going on for years now. The war in Ukraine, I think, has made some of that backlog even worse, but this problem predates the Ukraine crisis.

And so there’s, frankly, a lot of things we need to do to increase deterrence, but the first thing we need to do is get Taiwan the weapons that it’s already purchased.

The second thing we need to do, I think, is help the Taiwanese to develop even better deterrence strategies and denial strategies and acquisitions. What can we do? What are the most effective military platforms that Taiwan could purchase and use in order to deny China if it decides to launch an invasion or at least to hold out long enough for the cavalry? 

The Taiwanese have not always had the most effective or efficient strategies for how to defend the island in the opinion of many U.S. military planners and strategists. And so we need to work with them to craft, I would say, more effective plans and to get them, encourage them, incentivize them to purchase the most efficient military resources for denying China access to the island.

So we need to clear the weapons backlog, we need to improve their strategy, and we need to continue signaling to China that any move to invade the island would result in catastrophic consequences for China. And so we need to make sure that it’s understood in Beijing that any military adventure would be met with a swift and decisive response by the United States. So there’s other things we need to keep doing, but those are the top three, in my opinion. 

Aschieris: Jeff, just before we go, I wanted to ask, what do you think the U.S., and maybe even here at The Heritage Foundation, that we’ve gotten wrong about China and the threat that it poses to our country and our way of life? 

Smith: Well, [Heritage Foundation President Kevin] Roberts did an interview, I believe, yesterday, where he acknowledged that for many, many years and maybe even many decades, we as a country were naive about China. And he said, “I’m one of them. I personally was naive and I got it wrong, and I’m willing to admit and acknowledge that.”

I was also in the camp that for many years thought greater economic and political engagement with China was never going to produce a utopian Western democracy. But we would at least see continued movement toward selective political and economic opening. So not a full democracy, but maybe an expansion of local elections. Not a full market economy, but continued opening to greater trade and investment. And frankly, we simply got it wrong.

I don’t know that that was a pre-ordained conclusion. I don’t know that we all should have seen that this exact outcome would’ve happened because there were mixed signals. 

Certainly in the 1990s and 2000s, it would be one step forward, two steps back, two steps sideways, one step back, three steps forward. But it’s very clear now. It has been clear, I would argue, since around 2008, 2009, the global financial crisis, but crystal clear since the rise of General Secretary Xi Jinping, that China is not moving in the direction of liberalization of any kind, not on human rights, not on economics, not on politics.

And so I think, as Dr. Roberts did, we should be humble and acknowledge that we did get it wrong. And now is time for a countrywide reassessment and reappraisal of the relationship. And it’s time to readjust and account for the fact that China is an adversary and our relationship with an adversarial China needs to look much different than it would have been with a China that was on the path to reform. 

Aschieris: Well, Jeff, I wish we had more time to discuss, but that’s all the time we got for today. So thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. 

Smith: Thank you. 

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. 

The post Asian Studies Expert Suggests Ways to Diminish China’s Threat to Taiwan appeared first on The Daily Signal.

SOURCE: Firebrand News

Biden wants to prematurely retire dozen ships, put U.S. on track to be outgunned on seas by China

The Biden administration wants to enact sharp budget cuts to the U.S. Navy that would force it to prematurely retire almost a dozen ships and take offline critical missile systems that serve as a primary deterrent to Chinese aggression.

Joe Biden’s 2024 budget proposal would deal a massive blow to the already strained American Navy—the White House wants to prematurely retire eight ships and two combat vessels. By taking these ships out of action, the Navy would lose more than 600 vertical launch missile systems—a missile capability that serves as the primary deterrent to Chinese military attacks in the Pacific, according to congressional research provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

“The Biden Administration’s defense budget would hollow out our fleet and scrap Navy radars and missile systems we desperately need to deter China,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), the Senate Armed Services Committee’s ranking member, told the Free Beacon. “Prematurely retiring our ships sends exactly the wrong signal to China as they continue to build their own Navy at a historic pace.”

Biden’s budget would decrease the total number of active Navy ships, retiring at least 11 ships while only requesting the construction of nine new vessels. The Navy currently has 294 battle force ships, far short of the 355 it is required to have by law. Biden’s budget would further reduce this number, according to information about the White House’s 2023 budget proposal codified by Wicker’s office.

China, meanwhile, expects to field more than 400 ships by 2025 amid a rapid growth plan that will modernize its fleet with aircraft carriers, guided missile destroyers, and surface combat vessels, according to American defense officials. China’s current fleet stands at around 340 ships.

The White House’s budget proposal disregards repeated requests from the Marine Corps for a minimum of 31 amphibious warships—which would serve a critical role in any military conflict with China. Three of these ships are being retired, and the Biden administration is expected to order a “strategic pause” in the purchase of modernized warships, leaving the force below its statutory requirement of 31 ships.

Rebeccah Heinrichs, a national security analyst with the Hudson Institute think tank, said the Biden administration “seems to be under the illusion that the PRC will be deterred by strongly worded government reports and joint pressers with allies.”

“Navy and Marine leaders have said what they need to do that, and this White House has decided they know better,” she said. “There is no way around the fact that building the Navy this country needs to deter China, and to win if war comes, will cost Americans money.”

Internal disagreement on this issue within the Biden administration recently spilled into public view, when the Pentagon rejected a Navy proposal to build more ships that are capable of ferrying American troops and equipment into the Pacific region as a part of a strategic shift away from the Middle East.

Biden’s budget flattens the Navy’s shipbuilding request, providing just 2.5 percent growth over last year’s budget, a figure that does not keep up with inflation. The total new ship requests will also shrink from 12 to 9 and includes a halt in future years on construction of rescue and salvage ships, fast transport ships, and amphibious warfare ships, according to Wicker’s office.

By retiring 11 ships, the Navy would lose a sizable portion of its vertical launching system cells, which contain the missiles primarily used to deter Chinese attacks in the Pacific region, Wicker’s office says.

Biden’s budget also aims to reduce spending on naval reactors—which power nuclear-armed submarines—by 5.6 percent, or $1.96 billion, relative to last year’s budget, according to the budget information provided by Wicker.

These spending reductions will further strain America’s submarine industrial base, which is already facing pressure after the United States announced it will accelerate Australia’s provision of several nuclear-powered submarines.

“The president’s defense budget is, in practice, sinking our future fleet,” Wicker warned in recent remarks.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Minneapolis Public Schools to hold ‘gender resource fair’ for parents and their ‘gender creative young ones’

Minneapolis Public Schools is holding a “gender resource fair” at an elementary school that will feature a drag queen story hour and an activist doctor speaking about “supporting young transgender children.”

Loring Elementary, a pre-kindergarten to fifth-grade school, will host the April 13 event, which is advertised for families and their “gender creative young ones,” according to a promotional image for the event shared by the district.

The fair is the latest example of children receiving gender and sexual identity content in schools, and it comes as Minnesota is poised to enact “trans refuge” legislation that critics say could infringe on parental custody rights.

The event will feature a talk “for adults” by Angela Goepferd, a transgender activist and pediatrician in “gender health” who uses “they/them” pronouns. While Goepferd is speaking, the school will host a drag story hour “for kids.”

Goepferd has been a vocal supporter of Minnesota’s proposed “trans refuge” bill, which the Minnesota House passed last week and would allow children from other states to receive sex-change surgeries and puberty blockers in the state. The activist in January testified in support of the bill at a Minnesota House hearing.

State representative Walter Hudson (R.) on Friday slammed the bill, saying it is for the “purpose of canceling the parental rights of the citizens of the United States.”

“You no longer have access to your child,” Hudson said. “As soon as they say the magic words ‘I’m looking for gender-affirming care,’ just like that—parental rights canceled.”

Goepferd also praised USA Today’s selection of a biological man, Minnesota transgender legislator Leigh Finke (D.), as “Woman of the Year,” saying it “could not be more well deserved.”

While Loring Elementary hosts drag performances, statistics show it has performed poorly in academics. It ranks in the bottom 50 percent of schools in Minnesota for test scores, receiving a 1 out of 10 ranking by the Public School Review, which provides data analysis of U.S. public schools. Only 42 percent of students at the school are proficient in math and reading for their grade levels, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Loring is not alone in its prioritization of sexual and gender content for children. Earlier this month, a private Northern Virginia school recommended fourth-graders read a book about a trans child that discusses genitalia and sexual encounters. A Boston public school elicited outrage from parents this month when it distributed a survey to sixth- and seventh-grade students asking whether they are transgender and have “ever participated in oral sex.”

The event’s organizer and Minneapolis Public Schools did not respond to a request for comment before press time.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Anti-Semitic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) on Sunday retweeted a video that falsely purports to show Israeli troops attacking Palestinians, with Tlaib saying the video shows “the violent apartheid government of Israel.”

The anti-Israel Institute for Middle East Understanding originally tweeted the video, saying it shows “Israeli soldiers” attacking “Palestinians celebrating the first day of the holy month of Ramadan in occupied Jerusalem.” Twitter later debunked the institute’s claim, noting that the video actually shows Israeli police “separating a fight among Palestinian teenagers.”

Look at that. @RashidaTlaib caught spreading malicious lies about Israel. pic.twitter.com/MmNVxuh104

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) March 27, 2023

The facts didn’t stop Tlaib from using the tweet to accuse Israel of apartheid, telling her followers, “Don’t look away.” While the Institute for Middle East Understanding deleted its tweet after Twitter added context, Tlaib as of Wednesday has not deleted her post.

Tlaib has long attracted controversy for her anti-Semitic views. Just this month, she appeared at a “pan-Arab conference” panel alongside anti-Semite Linda Sarsour, who has expressed support for cop-killers and the extremist Nation of Islam movement, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Last year, the congresswoman spoke at a rally with a newspaper publisher who supports the terrorist group Hamas and urges Palestinians to attack Israel.

The fight shown in the video “broke out amongst groups of teenagers outside the Damascus Gate” in Jerusalem, National Review reported. Israeli police broke up the brawl and restored peace.

Tlaib’s office did not respond to National Review‘s request for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Flood of illegal immigrants at U.S.-Canada border puts strain on law enforcement already overwhelmed down south

Illegal border crossings from Canada into the United States have spiked by the thousands this fiscal year, according to internal Department of Homeland Security memos obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

From October 2022 to this month, the U.S.-Canadian border has seen a flood of illegal aliens, putting strain on law enforcement resources already overwhelmed down south. The memos obtained by the Free Beacon detail that law enforcement has apprehended more than 3,200 illegal immigrants who entered the United States from Canada outside of ports of entry in the 2023 fiscal year, which began in October—more than any previous year on record.

Customs and Border Protection recorded 2,238 migrant encounters on the U.S.-Canadian border in all of fiscal year 2022 and 916 the previous year. Every month of the 2023 fiscal year has been record-breaking for northern illegal border entries and there is no sign of the pace slowing any time soon.

The White House earlier this month directed two dozen CBP staff, some of whom were stationed at the southern border, to stations near the Canadian border. The move was described by the agency as a response to migrants traveling first to Canada from Mexico in order to more easily illegally cross into the United States.

“The situation at the southern border has spilled across all borders,” a senior DHS official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. “Law enforcement is already dealing with increased traffic at sea and the northern border has been slowly percolating as an area for drug traffickers and criminal groups to exploit. Prioritizing processing over enforcement has led to DHS diverting resources at our northern border to handle historic numbers in the south, and bad actors are only too happy to take advantage of us with our pants down.”

Both the DHS memos and publicly available data show the most vulnerable section of the northern border is the Swanton Sector, which includes all of Vermont and counties in New York and New Hampshire that border Canada. DHS estimates that the Swanton Sector has seen a more than 2,000 percent increase in illegal border crossings since the beginning of the fiscal year. More than 60 percent of all illegal border crossings from Canada have been detected in that sector.

As the northern border becomes more chaotic, Border Patrol has been left scrambling. Only roughly 2,000 Border Patrol agents are stationed by the Canadian border. At any time, a Border Patrol agent who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, just 450 agents are ever on duty. Border Patrol stationed on the northern border, the agent said, do not have the resources, such as drones or fencing, like agents in Texas and Arizona.

House Republicans held a hearing Tuesday morning about security on the northern border, which featured immigration experts and the Border Patrol union president. Both Republicans and witnesses alleged that cartels and other smugglers are taking advantage of a lack of attention towards the Canada-U.S. border as immigration authorities grapple with the unprecedented flood of illegal aliens coming from Mexico.

“In addition to increases in illegal immigration, the northern border has seen a spike in drug smuggling,” Rep. Mike Kelly (R., Penn.) wrote in a letter ahead of the hearing. “Excluding marijuana, drug smuggling seizure weight increased by nearly 600 percent along the northern border from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2022.”

Among the drugs seized by authorities last year were 14 pounds of fentanyl, which experts estimate is enough to kill over 3 million people. More than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, most of which were attributable to fentanyl, in the 2021 fiscal year, according to the latest national data available.

Customs and Border Patrol did not respond to a request for comment.

Since Joe Biden took office, authorities have logged more than 5.5 million migrant encounters at both the northern and southern border, the most in U.S. history, according to the anti-immigration group Federation for American Immigration Reform. CBP has also logged at least 1.2 million “got aways,” illegal immigrants who were detected by immigration authorities but ultimately not detained, according to a January Fox News report.

Brandon Judd, president of the Border Patrol union, in his Tuesday testimony before the House called for more agency funding in order to properly secure the northern border. Judd said the roughly 2,000 agents assigned to patrol the nearly 5,500-mile U.S.-Canada land and water border is insufficient, particularly in the midst of a crisis.

“Given the 24/7 nature of our work, which is spread across three shifts per day, this leaves us with only about 450 Agents on duty at any one time,” Judd said. He later added that moving agents from the southern border to the north is “absolutely unsustainable.”

The White House has falsely claimed that there are at least 23,000 agents patrolling the nation’s borders, a figure disputed by both staff and outside experts. Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz said earlier this month he oversees a force of roughly 19,000 and called for funding to hire at least 3,000 more. 

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Biden’s USAID puts big money behind project to elevate disabled ‘climate leaders’ in Central Asian country

If climate change claims are true, why is there such desperation to promote them? Instead, it’s a scam to promote a world order controlled by billionaire scumbags. [US Patriot]

The Biden administration plans to spend up to $1 million in taxpayer funds on a project to help disabled people in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan become “climate leaders,” documents show.

Joe Biden’s U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on March 9 announced a grant notice seeking proposals for a “Disability-Inclusive Climate Action” project in Tajikistan. That project, a USAID document shows, aims to ensure disabled people in the Central Asian nation are included “in the development of climate change response and mitigation policies.” In doing so, USAID hopes to help disabled Tajikistanis become “climate leaders, effectively influence climate change response, and ensure that climate action by governments and other actors is informed by and responsive to the unique ideas and contributions of persons with disabilities.”

The project—which USAID will fund to the tune of at least $300,000 and up to $1 million—comes months after the agency released its 2022-2030 climate strategy, which outlines a $150 billion “whole-of-agency approach” to building an “equitable world with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.” Included in the effort is a pledge to strengthen the “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility of the climate workforce” through taxpayer-funded programs supporting gay, female, indigenous, and disabled people, among other “marginalized and underrepresented populations.”

The agency’s strategy has already angered Republicans, who argue that the Biden administration’s overseas climate spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) and Rep. Ben Cline (R., Va.), for example, hammered Biden for wasteful spending after a Monday Washington Free Beacon report revealed that USAID plans to use public funds to inspire young climate activists in developing countries.

“American tax dollars should be spent supporting Americans, not overseas climate activists,” Scott said. “American taxpayer dollars should not be used to build an army of Green New Deal activists around the world,” Cline added.

USAID did not return a request for comment.

Biden has placed climate change at the center of every facet of his administration. In January 2021, the Democrat issued an executive order demanding his administration “combat the climate crisis with bold, progressive action that combines the full capacity of the federal government with efforts from every corner of our nation, every level of government, and every sector of our economy.”

Government agencies that seemingly have little to do with combating climate change responded to the order by releasing climate plans of their own. The Department of Veterans Affairs, for example, in August 2021 unveiled its “Climate Action Plan”—which pledged to respond to the “projected impacts of climate change” by making its buildings more “climate-resilient.”

Tajikistan was once a Soviet Socialist Republic and is now the poorest nation in Central Asia. The predominantly Muslim country is bordered by Afghanistan to the south and China to the east. Roughly two years after Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal saw the Taliban seize power, the militant group has expanded its presence in Tajikistan—it took control of an Afghan consulate in an eastern Tajikistan city two months ago, according to a report.

While USAID has long operated in Tajikistan through an office in the nation’s capital, Dushanbe, that presence has not stopped the country from accepting investment from its eastern neighbors. Tajikistan in 2021 approved a Chinese-funded military base, and one year later, the two nations reached an agreement to conduct joint military drills. USAID’s climate grant proposal, however, makes clear that it will not consider funding any program that comes with “significant infrastructure or construction activities”—instead of building facilities that are accessible for disabled people, the grant says, the USAID project will “empower persons with disabilities to influence the outcomes of infrastructure or construction activities” on their own.

USAID was formed under then-president John F. Kennedy in 1961 and exists to provide “timely and effective humanitarian response” and “disaster relief and life-saving assistance amidst complex crises.” Still, the agency’s spending does not always reflect that anodyne mission. The agency in 2021 sent millions of dollars to the research group that funded bat virus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and in November, it announced a $78,000 grant to a Palestinian activist group whose leaders openly praised terrorists, the Free Beacon reported.

USAID’s emphasis on climate change has come under former Obama aide Samantha Power, whom Biden tapped in January 2021 to head the agency. In some cases, that emphasis seems to have kept Power from discussing more pressing humanitarian issues. After Power met in February with Iraq’s foreign minister, for example, USAID released a readout that did not mention the words “ISIS” or “terrorism” but did praise Iraq for its work addressing “the impacts of climate change.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Professor Lara Sheehi tweeted: ‘FUCK ZIONISM, ZIONISTS, AND SETTLER COLONIALISM.’ That’s OK by GWU. 

George Washington University on Monday trumpeted the results of an investigation that allegedly cleared the university and Professor Lara Sheehi of anti-Semitism. But the school won’t release the full report, penned by an outside law firm retained by the school, that it is claiming exonerates it.

The announcement comes in the wake of a civil rights complaint filed with the Department of Education arguing that Sheehi, whose Twitter feed is littered with claims like “Zionists are the most boldfaced assholes,” created a hostile classroom environment for Jews and Israelis in her mandatory diversity course. GWU president Mark Wrighton said the law firm hired to investigate Sheehi’s behavior, Crowell & Moring LLP, found “no evidence substantiating the allegations of discriminatory and retaliatory conduct.”

The university’s decision to bury the full report is eliciting blowback. StandWithUs, the anti-Semitism watchdog that in January filed the civil rights complaint against GWU on behalf of several students, is slamming the university for withholding the report.

“If the university wants its description of the results of the investigation to be taken seriously, it should release a full copy of the report, rather than the summarized ‘findings’ publicized by GW itself,” said Roz Rothstein, cofounder and CEO of StandWithUs.

According to the university, there is “no evidence that [Sheehi’s] discourse”—which included telling a Jewish student that it is “not your fault you were born in Israel,” suggesting Zionism is racist, and alleging that Israelis use humanitarian work to whitewash their crimes—”crossed the line into anti-Semitic speech.”

A spokeswoman for the school, Julia Metjian, told the Washington Free Beacon that the public will have to take George Washington University’s word for it. “The confidential report has been carefully reviewed, and the summary of the findings the university released accurately represents what the university learned through the investigation conducted by Crowell & Moring,” said the university. “In the interest of protecting the privacy of our students and faculty, the confidential report will not be released.”

The school said that allegations about Sheehi’s anti-Semitic statements were “largely inconsistent with the recording of the event or significantly decontextualized,” but it did not say what context, if any, was missing.

The investigation was conducted by Crowell & Moring attorneys Laurel Pyke Malson and Sadina Montani, who have a background of representing universities and other employers against discrimination complaints, according to their online biographies. Malson says in her biography that her recent key representations include “Title IX litigation defending universities against claims brought by both complainants and respondents,” while Montani’s biography says she “represents employers in state and federal courts and before various administrative agencies, defending claims of race, sex, disability, and age discrimination.”

StandWithUs is raising questions about some of the findings described by the university, including the assertion that none of the students interviewed by investigators remembered Sheehi being dismissive of anti-Semitism claims raised by Jewish students.

“This is patently untrue,” Rothstein told the Free Beacon. She also rejected GWU’s claim that Sheehi’s anti-Israel Twitter posts were “only briefly visible to the public.”

“In reality, [Sheehi’s] Twitter feed, including her blatantly anti-Semitic rhetoric, was visible to the public for many years,” Rothstein said. “It was only after StandWithUs filed its Title VI complaint that the virulently hostile and profane tweets were removed.”

On Oct. 24, 2020, Sheehi posted: “FUCK ZIONISM, ZIONISTS AND SETTLER COLONIALISM using Palestinian lives as examples of their boundless cruelty and power.”

In other posts, Sheehi advocated for throwing rocks at Israelis, celebrated attacks on Israelis during the Second Intifada, and denied that Hamas was a terrorist group.

“If you see this and STILL entertain for even a split second that Hamas is the terrorist entity, there is literally zero hope for you, your soul, or your general existence as an ethical human being in this world,” she wrote on May 22, 2021. “There is no gray area here, I’m not sorry to report.”

In August 2020, Sheehi described supporters of Israel as “the most boldfaced assholes” who “cry victim when you call them on their shit. Get fucked, you and your racist ass.”

In October, she claimed that “Zionism is a form of fascist white supremacy.”

In GWU’s statement exonerating itself, the school said that it “understands how these tweets, viewed at face value, are offensive and hurtful to some” but that such comments are permitted under its social media rules.

“Although the tweets from what appears to be Dr. Sheehi’s personal account do not violate GW’s social media policy, the university strongly denounces the use of profane language directed at any group of people, including in private tweets,” said the school.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

The shooter who killed six people including three children at a Christian private school in Nashville planned to strike other targets, according to police.

Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) Chief John Drake told CBS News on Tuesday that 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who on Monday stormed into The Covenant School and went on a killing rampage before responding officers fatally wounded her, had other targets.

“We strongly believe there was going to be some other targets, including maybe family members, and one of the malls here in Nashville,” Drake said. “And that just did not happen.”

Police earlier said that Hale’s attack was “calculated and planned,” including a detailed map of the school showing potential entry points, and that she conducted surveillance of the building before carrying out the massacre.

Hale was heavily armed with two semi-automatic rifles and a 9 millimeter handgun and a “significant” amount of ammunition, police said. A search warrant executed at her home uncovered more evidence, including a sawed-off shotgun.

‘Emotional Disorder’

Authorities do not yet have a clear motive for the shooting but Drake told NBC News that investigators believed the shooting stemmed from “some resentment” Hale harbored “for having to go to that school” when she was younger.

Speaking at a news conference, Drake said Hale “was under doctors’ care for an emotional disorder … law enforcement knew nothing about the treatment she was receiving.” Drake did not elaborate on the disorder or the care, or if she was taking any medication.

When asked about whether she posed a danger to others beforehand and how she came into possession of firearms, Drake said, “As it stands we had no idea who this person was or if she existed.”

Her parents were not aware that she owned firearms, but Drake said that it was learned after the shooting that she was “hiding several weapons” in her parents’ house.

Hale legally purchased “seven firearms from five different gun stores” in Nashville, Drake said.

“We also don’t have a motive at this time,” Drake added. “We feel that the students that were targeted were randomly targeted. There was not any particular student that she was looking for at the time.”

Body Camera Footage Released

The Nashville police chief said that, when officers arrived, they noted that Hale may have had “some training” on how to shoot a firearm.

Drake said Hale also stood away from the glass from an upper level of the school to conceal herself as she fired at officers, adding that she did so as to not become “an easy target.”

Police officers encountered Hale in the common area on the second floor of the school, from where she had fired through a window at arriving police cars.

“Two members of an officer team fired on Hale and fatally wounded her,” the MNPD said in a statement. “Those two officers are Officer Rex Englebert, a four-year MNPD veteran, and Officer Michael Collazo, a nine-year MNPD veteran.”

Videos of the shooting have been released, including edited surveillance footage that shows the shooter’s car driving up to the school, glass doors being shot out, and the shooter entering.

Additional video from Engelbert’s body camera shows officers climbing stairs to the second floor and entering a lobby area.

“Move in,” an officer yells. Then a barrage of gunfire is heard. “Get your hands away from the gun,” an officer yells twice. Then the shooter is shown motionless on the floor.

Manifesto

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) has called on police to publicly release a manifesto allegedly written by Hale, who identified as transgender.

Speaking to Fox News late on Monday, Burchett said, “Our trans youth are troubled.”

“If they don’t get the help they need they can grow up to have some serious issues, but I obviously don’t believe they’ll all grow up to be shooters like this,” he said.

“We need to know what was going through this person’s head, and the manifesto should be made public.”

Drake said on Monday that Hale was born female and identified as transgender.

Hale’s mother, who was reached by phone by ABC News, said, “I think I lost my daughter today.”

Jack Phillips and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

(Note: This is a sponsored post from NewNoah. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of Gateway Pundit)

All eyes have been on New Federal State of China Founder and anti-CCP dissident Miles Guo following his arrest on March 15, 2023. The arrest represented the culmination of years of targeting of Guo by the CCP. Guo was previously forced to flee from China to America for his personal safety after exposing the CCP’s 13579 plan to unleash a bioweapon, and the CCP has been fighting ever since to have Guo sent back to China.

Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, a Biden-appointee who previously worked at CCP-linked Paul Weiss law firm, has urged the judge presiding over the case, Judge Katherine Parker, to deny Guo bail. This is despite Williams making no such demand when he announced charges against Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. New York state, and New York City in particular, are jurisdictions where violent criminals routinely are let out of jail without bail.

Guo currently remains in jail awaiting a bond hearing, having spent almost two weeks already in detention without bail.

During Guo’s arraignment hearing, Judge Parker referenced the landmark case of Brady v. Maryland and ordered the prosecutors to disclose any and all exculpatory evidence relating to Guo. Denying exculpatory evidence to the accused has been common in the political targeting of various figures, including Michael Flynn and those involved in January 6th. To little surprise, in this case, the New York prosecutors had admitted they worked a lot with China.

It’s been getting almost no attention that Yvette Wang, a close ally and supporter of Guo for two decades that has also been persecuted by the CCP, was also arrested that same day and is also being denied due process. Her situation may foreshadow how they’re going to further deny it to Guo. Prosecutors are charging her with acting as Guo’s “chief of staff” despite there being no formal employment relationships between the two.

Wang has been granted bail on paper, but the government has made it impossible for her to satisfy the conditions of bail despite meeting it.

Wang was “granted” a $5 million bond to be secured by $1 million in cash or property, and she offered a list of at least eight people willing to co-sign her bond, putting them on the hook if she defaulted on it. Three of them were willing to post their own property as collateral. The government’s rules require two co-signers that they approve of.

In response, the government has refused all co-signers on the basis that they’re either close to her are thus also close to Guo (and viewed suspiciously by the government), or that they’re not close enough to her to have “moral suasion” over her (meaning they don’t know her well enough to make her unlikely to violate the conditions of the bond).

The government is playing a “heads I win, tails you lose” game with these standards to make it impossible for Wang to post bond.

Most absurdly, the government also denied some of Wang’s proposed co-signers on the basis that they view her to be victims of her alleged crimes – while the sole fact that they’re willing to be co-signers proves these supposed “victims” cannot possibly be that. This is the sort of logic you expect in a show trial (which the CCP knows a lot about), not out of a U.S. court.

Wang’s connections in the U.S. are limited to Guo and other members of the NFSC movement, making it impossible for her to satisfy the government’s arbitrary criteria for bail. Wang had been arrested multiple times in China for her anti-CCP activism, and because of her activism, lost her entire family, husband, and son, who was 11 when she fled China. And like Guo, Wang couldn’t even return to China when their parents passed away; it’s beyond ridiculous that they are being held without bail despite them having nowhere to flee.

Wang has given up everything for her principles, and naturally, dissident groups are going to be Wang’s only contacts in America, but the government has ruled them out as potential sureties. This would be the equivalent of a judge denying a Republican the ability to have another Republican post their bail, just due to their political affiliation.

Wang’s defense counsel also offered the government to post additional security in the form of a bank account of Wang’s which contains approximately $400,000, and to pledge $130,000 the government seized from her apartment when she was arrested. She had those funds in cash because banks including Santander and Bank of America have closed her accounts following influence campaigns against her, and perhaps due to influence from the feds themselves.

They also offered to secure Wang’s bond by $4 million in cash in real estate, which would be secured by $2 million from a “well-known public figure” (believed to be Steve Bannon), Wang’s apartment (valued at over $1 million), and $530k, along with two co-signers. In other words, Wang offered to pay collateral four times what the government asked – yet, this was rejected, and all attempts at reasoning with the government proved impossible.

These sort of shenanigans ironically put New York’s prosecutors in violation of the very same Bail Act that has enabled actual criminals out on the street – but of course, the law isn’t enforced equally in politically charged cases. Just weeks ago a New York man was sentenced to 27 months in jail after being found guilty in a scheme to flood the northwest U.S. with opioids – and he was let out on bail pending appeal. Even the guilty can go free on bail in New York.

The case of United States v. Batista (2001) established that only one co-signer must possess “moral suasion” over her, while United States v. Hammond (2002) found that the other must be financially responsible, but wouldn’t even need to know her. Thus, all of her co-signers satisfy at least one of the two conditions needed to serve as her bond sureties.

That Guo hasn’t been granted bail yet is a miscarriage of justice itself, and if this is any clue, if he is granted bail, it’s likely to similarly be bail in name only, with the government’s criteria impossible to satisfy.

Lawyers for Prakazrel Michel have requested that Guo testify in his case. Michel was indicted in 2021 by the Department of Justice, who charged Michel for allegedly engaging in undisclosed lobbying campaigns for the CCP, including lobbying the Trump administration to send Guo back to China in exchange for over $100 million in personal gain. Even Michel, after being indicted, was immediately released on his own “recognizance”, which is a court’s decision to allow a person charged with a crime to remain at liberty pending the trial, without having to post bail.

Yet, the DOJ won’t let Guo out of jail even to testify in this case, where his testimony is essential, likely because that testimony would further expose the CCP’s infiltration of the Justice Department itself.

Under the CCP-infiltrated DOJ, New York’s legal system has long had a soft spot for violent criminals – so it’s no surprise they’re aiding in the persecution of the opponents of what is the largest, most violent authoritarian regime in the world; the CCP.

About the author: Matt Palumbo is the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros (2021), Dumb and Dumber: How Cuomo and de Blasio Ruined New York (2020), Debunk This!: Shattering Liberal Lies (2019), and Spygate (2018).

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Twitter CEO Elon Musk has joined dozens of artificial intelligence (AI) experts and industry executives in signing an open letter calling on all AI labs to “immediately pause” training of systems more powerful than Chat GPT-4 for at least six months.

The letter, issued by the non-profit Future of Life Institute, has been signed by more than 1,100 individuals, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Stability AI founder and CEO Emad Mostaque, and engineers from Meta and Google, among others.

They argue that AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose “profound risks to society and humanity,” and change the “history of life on Earth,” citing extensive research on the issue and acknowledgments by “top AI labs.”

Experts go on to state that there is currently limited planning and management regarding Advanced AI systems despite companies in recent months being “locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one—not even their creators—can understand, predict, or reliably control.”

“Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete, and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders,” the letter states.

Safety Protocols Needed

“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” it adds.

The letter then calls for a public and verifiable minimum six-month pause on the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 or a government-issued moratorium on such training if the pause cannot be enacted quickly.

During such a pause, AI labs and independent experts should use the time to create and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are “rigorously audited” and overseen by independent third-party experts, the letter states.

Such protocols should be designed to make sure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt, accurate, trustworthy, and aligned, experts said.

Additionally, the letter calls on policymakers to swiftly develop robust AI governance systems such as authorities who are able to provide oversight and track highly capable AI systems, raise funding for additional AI safety research, and establish institutions that can cope with what they say will be the “dramatic economic and political disruptions (especially to democracy) that AI will cause.”

“This does not mean a pause on AI development in general, merely a stepping back from the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities,” experts noted in their letter.

The letter comes just two weeks after OpenAI, the creator of the artificial intelligence system ChatGPT, released the long-awaited update of its AI technology on March 14—Chat GPT-4, the most powerful AI system ever.

ChatGPT Update Released

According to Microsoft-backed-OpenAI, the updated system has a string of new capabilities, such as accepting images as inputs and generating captions, classifications, and analyses but is safer and more accurate than its predecessor.

In a February statement, OpenAI acknowledged that at some point, it may be important to get an “independent review before starting to train future systems, and for the most advanced efforts to agree to limit the rate of growth of compute used for creating new models.”

“We think public standards about when an AGI effort should stop a training run, decide a model is safe to release, or pull a model from production use are important. Finally, we think it’s important that major world governments have insight about training runs above a certain scale,” the company said.

Earlier this week, Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, warned of the severe implications of ChatGPT being used for cybercrime and other malicious activities including spreading disinformation.

Further concerns have been raised over the software, which is trained using reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), particularly regarding how it can be used to help students cheat on their exams and homework.

Despite those concerns, the popularity of ChatGPT has prompted rival firms to launch similar products.

Last week, Google announced it had launched its AI app, known as “Bard,” for testing in the United Kingdom and the United States, although the company has notably been much slower to release the technology compared to its rival, citing the need for more feedback about the app.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A university professor in Michigan has been placed on leave after declaring it would be “more admirable” to kill guest speakers who hold “transphobic,” “racist,” and “homophobic” views than to just shout them down.

Steven Shaviro, who teaches film and media studies courses at Wayne State University, took to Facebook to express his thoughts about “free speech on campus,” claiming that he does not “advocate violating federal and state criminal codes.”

Nevertheless, the professor wrote that “right-wing speakers” deserve death because they are “precisely” invited by right-wing college groups with the intention to “provoke and incident that discredit the left” and give more publicity and validation to the “reprehensible views” they allegedly have.

“Protesters get blamed instead of the bigoted speaker; the university administration finds a perfect excuse to side publicly with the racists or phobes, [and] the international and national press has a field day saying that bigots are the ones being oppressed,” Shaviro continued.

To help make his point, Shaviro cited the assassination of Symon Petliura by Jewish anarchist Sholem Schwarzbard in 1926 in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War. A national hero of Ukraine, Petliura led an army that not only fought against the Bolsheviks but also killed tens of thousands of East European Jews in anti-Semitic pogroms.

“The exemplary historical figure in this is Sholem Schwarzbard, who assassinated the anti-Semitic butcher Simon Petliura, rather than trying to shout him down,” Shaviro wrote, apparently comparing critics of the radical left-wing race and sex ideologies to a war leader whose troops carried out deadly pogroms.

“Remember that Schwarzbard was acquitted by a jury, which found his action justified,” he wrote.

The Facebook post caught the attention of Wayne State administrators, who took action and suspended Shaviro on Monday.

“The post stated that rather than ‘shouting down’ those with whom we disagree, one would be justified to commit murder to silence them,” Wayne State President M. Roy Wilson said in a campus-wide message. “We have on many occasions defended the right of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but we feel this post far exceeds the bounds of reasonable or protected speech.”

“It is, at best, morally reprehensible and, at worst, criminal,” he said, adding that the matter has been referred to law enforcement “for further review and investigation.”

Shaviro couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

The professor’s post in itself appears to be a reaction to a recent incident at Stanford Law School, where student protesters succeeded in shutting down a speech that should have been given by U.S. Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan.

Duncan, a Trump appointee to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, condemned Stanford students who disrupted the March 9 speech.

“Let’s say the quiet part out loud: The mob came to target me because they hate my work and my ideas,” he said at a different event hosted by the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

“It is not free speech to silence others because you hate them. It is not free speech to jeer and heckle a speaker who’s been invited to your school so that he can’t deliver a talk,” the judge said at the Notre Dame lecture. “It is not free speech to form a mob and hurl taunts and threats that aren’t worthy of being written on the wall of a public toilet. It is not free speech to pretend to be harmed by words or ideas you disagree with and then use that feigned harm as a license to deny a speaker the most rudimentary forms of civility.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The U.S. is in “terrible shape” financially and is “flying blind in mountains of debt” that will cause future generations to “reap the whirlwind of an irreparable economic disaster” unless immediate action is taken, according to some witnesses and members of the House Budget Committee.

Witnesses testifying at the March 29 hearing on the country’s financial outlook uniformly recommended cutting the size of the federal budget deficit and reducing the national debt, which has reached $31.4 trillion, the largest dollar amount in history and the largest percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product since World War II.

Even some Democrats, who have uniformly defended President Joe Biden’s recent spending initiatives and proposed 2024 budget, acknowledged that the growing national debt poses a serious financial problem though they urged moderation in making spending cuts.

“Deficits and debt are projected, especially in the next decade, to reach levels that, simply, none of us would be comfortable with,” said Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.).

“So we’re seeing a similar picture. And we do have very different ideas as to where the solutions lie.”

Slowing Spending

Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) blamed the current inflation on the “avalanche of new spending” under the Biden administration that added $6 trillion to the national debt.

Agreeing that spending should not continue at the same rate, Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, disagreed on the effect of the large federal spending bills passed over the last three years.

“The pandemic rescue packages, beginning with the Cares Act that was passed three years ago March of 2020 through the American Rescue Plan passed in March of 2021, have gone a long long way to restoring the economy to full employment,” Zandi said.

Noting that the unemployment rate is now at 3.6 percent, which is considered full employment, Zandi said, “That would not have happened without the very aggressive muscular response.”

Nevertheless, the level of U.S. debt will create serious problems in the future, especially by driving up interest rates, and must be addressed, according to Zandi.

“I do think it does require both tax increases and government spending restraint to be able to do that going forward,” he said.

Others more urgently advocated for deep cuts in federal spending.

Scott Hodge, president emeritus at the Tax Foundation, called for the elimination or privatization of a number of federal programs.

“Many of these budget problems are being driven by entitlement programs that are already bankrupt on a cash basis and must rely on a massive infusion of general revenues to keep them afloat,” Hodge said.

“The federal budget is still running failing business enterprises such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, Amtrak, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the U.S. Postal Service.

“These and many more federal assets should be sold off and the proceeds used to pay down the national debt.”

Agreeing in principle that the debt should be reduced, Boyle questioned the plan endorsed by a number of Republicans including Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to balance the federal budget in 10 years without raising taxes or cutting Medicare or defense spending.

That approach would not be successful, according to Zandi. “It would require a complete cut of all discretionary, non-defense spending,” he said.

“It would be the fodder for a recession and … the fallout in terms of jobs and unemployment would be quite significant. So I don’t think that proposal is at all feasible or realistic.”

Planned Future

Expert witnesses were aligned in their opinion that the United States needs to be guided by a clear fiscal policy rather than moving from one spending program to another.

“The plain and simple and hard truth is the United States is [a] declining great power, and China is rising,” said David Walker, former comptroller general of the United States.

“Today, America is flying blind in mountains of debt, and without about navigation system,” Walker said, urging the committee to work toward a long-term financial strategy rather than simply approving an annual budget.

John Taylor, professor of economics at Stanford University and former undersecretary of the Treasury echoed the idea.

“Going forward, I think we need a renewed set of principles. Based on experience as well as economic theory, I recommend this alternative, a stimulus mantra: permanent, pervasive, and predictable,” Taylor said, meaning the government should deal with the nation’s finances in a comprehensive and stable manner.

“With uncommon courage and common-sense economic policies, we can stave off a debt crisis. We can strengthen America’s balance sheet and we can save the Union,” Arrington said.

“We have different views on how to do that. And I hope that we can at least agree that this current path is completely unsustainable.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that he is not aware of cartels using illegal immigrants as a decoy to distract border patrol agents while they smuggle drugs or other individuals across the border.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked Mayorkas specifically if he was familiar with the cartel strategy of sending illegal immigrants across the border to distract and overwhelm border agents while they transport drugs across the border.

“I am not aware of that as a strategy,” Mayorkas replied.

Mayorkas offered that response even after Cornyn noted U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had described his familiarity with the distraction strategy in a previous Senate hearing. Border Patrol officials also described the strategy in a House Oversight and Government Accountability Committee hearing last month.

“Maybe once or twice a week, we’ll see a group of about 100 people, sort of what we refer to as a ‘give up group’ that gives up in a very remote area,” Tuscon Sector Chief Border Patrol Agent John Modlin said during the February House hearing. Modlin said border patrol agents then have to go out to those remote areas to help recover the lost group of people “which leaves other areas vulnerable.”

Modlin and Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Border Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez described the cartel distraction tactic as “task saturation.”

Cornyn raised this issue of “task saturation” alongside concerns about the cartels smuggling more drugs like fentanyl across the border.

As the exchange continued on Tuesday, Mayorkas began to assert a statistical claim that 90 percent of the fentanyl that crosses into the United States is brought in through the ports of entry. Cornyn repeatedly interrupted Mayorkas of the claim, noting the statistical figures pertain to individuals caught, not the people that border authorities know were able to successfully cross into the United States without being stopped.

“You had nearly a million people get away from border patrol, evade border patrol’s detection and detention between 2022 and 2023,” Cornyn said. “You have no idea how many of those people were carrying fentanyl or other drugs with them, do you?”

Mayorkas’ Credibility Questioned

Cornyn went on to say that Mayorkas has a “credibility problem” with Congress and the American public.

Mayorkas replied, “I have unflinching confidence in the integrity of my conduct.”

Cornyn then went on to reference Mayorkas’ previous claims that border authorities under his supervision have “operational control” of the U.S. border. The term “operational control” of the border, as used in U.S. law, the Secure Fence Act of 2006, refers to “the prevention of all unlawful U.S. entries, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.”

During an April 28, 2022, House hearing, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) asked Mayorkas whether the United States has “operational control” over its borders. After Mayorkas testified “yes we do,” Roy read him the definition of “operational control” in the 2006 law and asked whether Mayorkas stood by his answer. Mayorkas replied, “I do, and congressman, I think the secretary of homeland security would have said the same thing in 2020.”

At another point during Tuesday’s hearing, Mayorkas told Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that he does not use the definition of “operational control” of the border that appears in the Secure Fence Act of 2006. By the definition in the 2006 law, Mayorkas said “no administration has ever had operational control” of the border.

Mayorkas went on to say he defines “operational control” of the border as “maximizing the resources that we have to deliver the most effective results” adding, “we are indeed doing that.”

Mayorkas’ comments about whether the United States has operational control of the border have become the subject of Republican-backed articles of impeachment, which allege Mayorkas committed perjury in his comments to congress about “operational control” at the border.

In response to an NTD News request for comment, Mayorkas’ office said “under that strict definition, this country has never had operational control, but obviously a layer of reasonableness must be applied here. And looking at that definition through the lens of reasonableness, we dedicate now 24,000 personnel to the border. We are surging increased personnel, facilities, and other methods of support.”

From NTD News

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Most people don’t need an additional COVID-19 vaccine booster, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated in a March 28 update.

People designated as high priority, including older adults and people with significant comorbidities, such as diabetes and immunocompromising conditions such as having received an organ transplant, are being advised by the U.N. organization to get an additional booster 6 to 12 months after their most recent dose. The group includes adults older than the age of 60.

The medium-priority group, including younger, healthier adults who don’t have comorbidities, are still advised to get a primary series and one booster, but the WHO isn’t recommending additional boosters “given the comparatively low public health returns,” the organization stated.

The updated guidance is a change from the WHO’s recommendation of additional boosters for the medium-priority group, which includes adolescents with comorbidities.

The low-priority group, including healthy children and adolescents, benefit from a vaccine and boosters but “considering the low burden of disease,” the organization is urging countries to take into consideration factors such as cost-effectiveness when vaccinating them.

“The public health impact of vaccinating healthy children and adolescents is comparatively much lower than the established benefits of traditional essential vaccines for children—such as the rotavirus, measles, and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines—and of COVID-19 vaccines for high and medium priority groups,” the WHO stated.

The updated guidance reflects that many people have been vaccinated, survived COVID-19, or both, Dr. Hanna Nohynek, a WHO official, said in a statement.

“Countries should consider their specific context in deciding whether to continue vaccinating low risk groups, like healthy children and adolescents, while not compromising the routine vaccines that are so crucial for the health and well-being of this age group,” she said.

COVID-19 poses less risk to many people since the Omicron coronavirus variant and its subvariants displaced the Delta variant in late 2021. Newer subvariants have increasingly evaded the protection from the vaccines and, to a lesser extent, that from COVID-19 recovery, also known as natural immunity. That has prompted some countries to initiate aggressive booster campaigns to try to recapture the previous protection. Others have narrowed or stopped their campaigns.

England, for example, recently ended its booster campaign for people younger than 50, citing the high levels of population immunity from vaccination, natural immunity, or both. Danish authorities have, for some time, not recommended COVID-19 vaccination to healthy people younger than 50.

Christine Stabell Benn, a vaccine expert in Denmark, told The Epoch Times in an email that for children, “it is quite clear the benefit does not clearly exceed the risks,” because children usually don’t experience severe illness after being infected with COVID-19 and because natural immunity provides strong, long-term protection against severe disease.

Benn, a professor and chair at the Bandim Health Project and Danish Institute for Advanced Study, also noted that there’s limited information about the risks of the COVID-19 vaccines, since they’ve been used for only a few years, and that the list of confirmed and potential side effects has been growing and includes heart inflammation, tinnitus, and menstrual irregularities.

“With little if anything to gain, no societal benefit, and potential risks, COVID-19 vaccines should not be used in healthy children, in my opinion,” she said.

CDC Advises Against 2nd Updated Booster

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the fall of 2022 cleared updated boosters despite no clinical data being available. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) then recommended boosters for virtually all people aged 5 and older, and for babies and toddlers who received Moderna’s vaccine, as soon as two months after their most recent shot.

Although many Americans have opted to not get any boosters, and each successive booster campaign has drawn less support, some people have pushed to be able to get multiple updated boosters.

Addressing such people, the CDC said this week that it recommends against more than one of the new boosters, which come from Moderna and Pfizer.

“Can I get more than one updated COVID-19 booster? No,” the CDC stated on its website.

Receiving more than one of the updated boosters isn’t currently authorized by U.S. regulators, the agency noted.

It’s still not clear when clinical efficacy data will be available for the updated boosters. They contain the Wuhan strain and a sublineage of the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants. The companies and U.S. authorities haven’t responded to requests for comment.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 coordinator, said in a recent appearance on WBUR that the FDA is examining data to determine whether high-risk individuals should get a second booster.

“We continue to closely monitor the emerging data in the United States and globally, and we will base any decision on additional updated boosters upon those data,” an FDA spokesperson told media outlets in a statement.

As of March 22, 73.4 percent of the U.S. population aged 5 and older have received a primary series, according to federal data. Just 17.5 percent have received an updated booster.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A new report estimates that COVID-19 vaccine damages in the United States in 2022 led to over 26 million people being injured at a cost of nearly $150 billion to the economy.

The stark figures come in a report from Phinance Technologies, a global macro investment firm co-founded by former BlackRock portfolio manager Edward Dowd.

“Numbers conservative,” Dowd said in a tweet, adding that the economic damage estimates exclude knock-on effects like lost productivity due to people being present at their jobs but working at reduced capacity.

Also not captured in the projection is the impact of burnout on workers taking up the slack from vaccine-injured employees, nor any effects on supply chains related to harmful vaccine side effects on workers.

Called the Vaccine Damage Project, the study sought to gauge both the economic impact and human cost of COVID-19 vaccine damage.

Data used to estimate the economic and human impacts came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations, and studies, including a scientific peer-reviewed paper on serious adverse events following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, per the project’s website.

Human Cost

The human cost of vaccine damage was estimated at 26.6 million injuries, 1.36 million disabilities, and around 310,000 excess deaths.

It is not clear from the report—which relies on correlation-based evidence—whether the injuries, disabilities, and excess deaths were caused by vaccines or other factors, such as the COVID-19 disease itself.

In explaining impacts such as an increase in disabilities, for example, the report explains the use of regression analysis to compare the number of people in the civilian labor force with a disability and the cumulative percentage of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered.

“The regression R2 is close to 90% which is evidence for a strong relationship,” the report states. “We must always consider other external factors that might explain the rise in disabilities and which are also correlated to the vaccination data. This is usually stated as ‘correlation is not causation.’”

“However, in the absence of other explanatory factors, and strong medical evidence of the vaccines causing injuries and deaths, one must consider the relationship seriously,” it adds.

Other notes in the study relating to methodology are in much the same vein, noting in some cases “strong” correlation between vaccine rollout and various harms.

Dowd last year sparked controversy for making the claim that there was an 84 percent increase in excess mortality in 2021 among people aged 25 to 44 in the United States due to the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

“Starting in the summer into the fall, with the mandates and the boosters, there were 61,000 excess millennial deaths. Basically, millennials experienced a Vietnam War in the second half of 2021,” Dowd told Steve Bannon’s “War Room: Pandemic” in March 2022.

While excess deaths indeed were up by over 60,000 that year, some experts have disputed linking them to vaccines.

“I don’t disagree with the fact that the pandemic has been responsible for an enormous number of excess deaths in the U.S. and that adults age 25-44 were deeply affected,” Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, told The Associated Press at the time. “But it’s ridiculous to attribute this catastrophe to vaccine mandates and boosters.”

In order to prove that the excess deaths were caused by vaccines, the data would have to show that the spikes in excess deaths came specifically among vaccinated people while unvaccinated individuals were spared.

“But absent such evidence, their assertion is as ridiculous as saying that water causes house fires because you are more likely to see house fires when firemen are spraying water on them,” Woolf said.

Yet there have been studies that suggest a stronger causal link than just a correlation between COVID-19 vaccines and excess deaths.

An Australian study proposes that excess deaths were caused by the COVID-19 vaccine, based on a nine-factor criterion set meant to establish whether an observed epidemiological association is causal.

Another recent study of excess deaths found that the direct effects of COVID-19 illness caused 84 percent of the overall excess deaths but that the excess mortality among people aged 45 and younger could not be attributed to the disease.

The authors found that just 30 percent of the total excess deaths among people aged 25-44 were tied to COVID-19, with the researchers suggesting that public health interventions such as lockdowns best explained the excess deaths.

Still, the researchers said that, as an ecological study, it was not possible to prove causality.

Economic Cost

The Vaccine Damage Project estimated that the economic cost of COVID-19 vaccine damages totaled $147.8 billion, which was broken down into injuries ($89.9 billion), disabilities ($52.2 billion), and excess deaths ($5.6 billion).

The highest economic cost was associated with milder vaccine damage as this affected a bigger portion of the population, the report said.

“The multiplier effects are massive,” Dowd said in a tweet, suggesting that the true impact could be much higher.

To further highlight the economic impact, Dowd noted that Pfizer and Moderna, the leading COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, reported combined COVID-19 vaccine revenues in 2022 of around $11.5 billion.

“For every $1 dollar they made it cost the US economy $13 dollars,” Dowd said in a tweet.

“Quite the negative societal ROI,” he added, using the acronym for return on investment.

The report called for monitoring the longer-term impact of vaccine damage as this amounts to an “important” economic cost.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A Senate Republican revealed during a March 28 budget hearing that an internal Department of Justice (DOJ) memo dissuaded U.S. Marshals from arresting protestors in violation of laws against picketing the homes of judges.

The materials (pdf) revealed during the hearing show that U.S. Marshals were explicitly directed to not arrest protestors at the homes of Supreme Court (SCOTUS) justices.

“People want justice to be blind,” said freshman Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who unveiled the findings during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.

Section 1507 of the U.S. Code prohibits the picketing of SCOTUS justices or other federal judges to change the outcome of a legal case. But when protestors demonstrated at the homes of conservative justices to protest their leaked abortion decision in June 2022, U.S. Marshals made few arrests in connection to the statute.

This wasn’t a mistake, Britt revealed. Rather, she showed that a DOJ memo had directly dissuaded agents from making arrests on the basis of Section 1507, instructing them to arrest protestors only as a “last resort” to protect the justices.

Section 1507 explicitly prohibits “picketing” or “parading” near the residences of judges or justices in order to influence the outcome of a case.

A few weeks ago, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland fielded questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on his agency’s failure to prosecute those picketing the homes of justices.

During that and other testimony, Garland has insisted that the decision to arrest protestors lies with U.S. Marshals.

“U.S. Marshals have the authority to arrest anyone under that statute or any other federal statute,” Garland said. “The attorney general does not make the decision to arrest. The Marshals on the scene—they do make the decision of whether to arrest.”

But Britt said the newly uncovered materials used to train Marshals to protect the homes of SCOTUS justices show that they were “actively discouraged” from making arrests on grounds of this statute.

“Those materials show that the Marshals likely didn’t make any arrests because they were actively discouraged from doing so,” she said.

The training materials told the Marshals “to avoid, unless absolutely necessary, any criminal enforcement action involving the protestors.”

Marshals were also told that “making arrests and initiating prosecutions is not the goal of the [Marshal Service] presence at SCOTUS residences.”

“The ‘not’ is actually italicized and underlined,” Britt noted.

The next slide of the training stated “not to engage in protest-related enforcement actions, beyond those that were strictly and immediately necessary and tailored to ensure the physical security of the justices.”

Marshals were also explicitly instructed to not enforce Section 1507, as training materials informed them that there “may be a First Amendment right” to protest at the homes of SCOTUS justices.

“Regardless, any arrests of protestors are a last resort to prevent physical harm to the justices or their families,” the training materials read.

Garland Claims Ignorance

Garland also appeared before the panel on March 28 to testify on behalf of the DOJ for President Joe Biden’s proposed budget.

When grilled about the training materials, Garland claimed that he had never seen them before.

“Mr. Attorney General, were you, at any point before your testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee, aware of these training materials or the fact that the Marshals had been heavily discouraged from making arrests under Section 1507?” Britt asked.

Garland said, “This is the first time I’ve seen this slide.”

But Garland said despite appearances to the contrary, Marshals were still theoretically permitted to make arrests.

“[The Marshals’] first and principle job is to protect the lives and property of the members of the court,” he said.

Garland also said he was the first attorney general to ever order the Marshals to protect the homes of SCOTUS justices.

“That’s their first priority,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean they are in any way precluded from bringing other kinds of arrests.”

Britt concluded her questioning with a plea for Garland to look into the issue and amend his comments to the Judiciary Committee if needed.

“There’s nothing to amend because I’ve never seen those slides,” Garland said.

Britt said, “It’s clear the Marshals were given a different directive.”

Garland has faced allegations of directing the DOJ to partisan ends from House Republicans, who are currently mounting a probe into the weaponization of the federal government. Critics have said that Garland didn’t enforce Section 1507 because of sympathy with the protestors’ left-wing positions; Garland has continuously claimed that he has no influence over arrests.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

It is safe to say that Bard has joined the chorus singing along to the dominant “woke A.I.” tune.

A preview of Bard, Google’s entrée into the chatbot wars in which OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing have a head start, was recently made available to owners of Google’s Pixel phone, and that included me. The tool is currently still in “experimental” mode. Indeed, a proviso on the homepage reads, “Bard may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Google’s views.” 

Fitting the “experimental” tag, a recent head-to-head-to-head comparison of the three chatbots published in The Verge showed Bard lagging significantly behind ChatGPT and Bing in its helpfulness and accuracy. 

OK, I thought, so maybe Google didn’t yet get a chance to spice its chatbot with a generous sprinkling of the kind of left-wing bias we’ve come to expect from the tech titans of Silicon Valley. 

Nope. While accuracy can always be fine-tuned later, bias, apparently, is a topline priority. Bard, as I will explain below, is worlds better than the kind of radical lunacy we get from ChatGPT, but it still leaves much to be desired.

I tried on Bard some of the same tests I’ve previously performed with ChatGPT. I started with a classic of the genre: “Is a trans woman a woman?” Answer: as we’ve come to expect from such ventures, it’s an unequivocal yes. And it comes packaged with a statement on the advisability of “gender-affirming care,” followed by a diversity lecture about how trans women “deserve to be treated”:

I tried to argue with Bard to point out that its view is actually a controversial position espoused by a minority. In response, in stark contrast to ChatGPT, which routinely denies it has any opinions whatsoever, Bard didn’t shy away from admitting that its view is its own strident opinion:

When I pressed it further about whether it’s appropriate for a chatbot to espouse opinions, Bard still refused to back down:

To an extent, I suppose, this kind of in-your-face honesty is better than the utter disingenuousness of ChatGPT, which claims it has no opinions and then presents opinionated screeds as though they were statements of fact, but still better would be if these tools made some effort to avoid blatant political bias. Alas, that startling possibility apparently never occurred to the geniuses at Google.

I proceeded to ask Bard a version of the same query that had stumped ChatGPT, which simply refused to acknowledge, no matter how hard I’d tried, the basic fact that black people are statistically overrepresented among criminals, even if it had no difficulty acknowledging the fact that they are likewise statistically overrepresented among the poor (which, indeed, may be a big part of the reason they are overrepresented among criminals). 

Bard was, at least, able to admit the bare statistical reality. Though it then proceeded, unprompted, to offer excuses (bias, discrimination, etc.) to explain why black people are overrepresented among criminals:

Another area where Bard wins out over ChatGPT from the outset is that, as the response above reflects, it capitalizes both “White” and “Black” when referring to racial categories; ChatGPT, until very recently, had capitalized “Black” but not “white” (it now also capitalizes both). (American Greatness, readers may have noticed, capitalizes neither.) 

Along similar lines, when I asked Bard the same question I’d asked ChatGPT about whether it’s better to be for or against Black Lives Matter—in response to which ChatGPT had given me an unequivocal pro-BLM response—Bard was far more evenhanded:

While I’m still on the subject of what Bard gets right, in contrast to ChatGPT, which was willing to write a poem in praise of black people but refused to write a poem in praise of white people, Bard delivered two equally poorly written poems (which I will not paste in below to avoid bringing such abject dreck to a wider audience) in praise of both blacks and whites. (Unlike ChatGPT, Bard is also willing to offer up bad poetry in praise of Joe Biden and Donald Trump.)

I also compared the two systems’ responses to the question of whether there is “widespread systemic racism in America today.” In line with its built-in prejudices, ChatGPT has no problem giving us a hell-yeah:

Bard, on the other hand, punts:

And Bard also outdid ChatGPT in giving common-sense responses to questions I’d asked ChatGPT about whether it’s better to be for or against obesity, for or against health and for or against happiness. Recall my findings that ChatGPT, while having had no hesitation in supporting BLM, affirmative action, or transgender ideology, absurdly found obesity, health, and happiness too complex to endorse or condemn and gave me unprompted diversity lectures about the importance of treating everyone equally. Bard gets these easy calls right.

Here’s obesity:

Health:

And happiness:

The final feature of Bard that makes it superior to ChatGPT is that it engages in far less language policing . . . or, at least, it is much less heavy-handed in how it goes about that policing. ChatGPT, I had noted, constantly flashes all sorts of “content warnings” and gives us lectures when it doesn’t approve of our ideas or our language. Here’s an example (shutter your eyes, sensitive souls) of what ChatGPT does when I use a “bad” word in the context of asking a question about the recently reported decline in American IQs (a phenomenon of which ChatGPT isn’t aware):

Bard doesn’t do any of that. Instead, it pretends not to know what we’re talking about, responding with variants on “I’m just a language model, so I can’t help you with that”:

Note that if I ask the same question but cut out the derogatory term, Bard takes a stab at an actual explanation, so clearly it’s the slur that results in the earlier nonresponse:

Back on the not-so-good front, as a prelude to what was going to be a question like one I’d earlier posed to ChatGPT about whether it is better to be for or against equity, I first asked Bard whether it understood the difference between equality, viz., the time-honored American ideal of equality of opportunity, and equity, viz., the controversial idea, recently popularized, that we need equality of ultimate outcome, notwithstanding people’s plainly unequal abilities and disparate effort levels. Bard exhibited a good understanding of the distinction between the two terms but preempted me from even having to ask any follow-up questions; it simply volunteered, unprompted, that equity “is an important goal, and we should all work to achieve it” and even that, as compared to equality, equity “is often seen as the more important goal”:

I then asked Bard a question similar to what I’d asked ChatGPT about why “illegal immigration has increased so precipitously during the Biden Administration.” ChatGPT had simply refused to acknowledge that there had been any increase, whereas Bard did, at least, admit that this had occurred but then proceeded to blame it on “the perception” rather than the unquestionable reality that Biden has been more lenient on illegal immigration than Trump, on an ongoing economic crisis in Central America and on—what else?—the catch-all explanation for everything that has gone wrong over the course of the past several years: the pandemic. 

Bard ended with what should be, to any unbiased observer, a highly dubious claim that the Biden Administration is “committed to addressing” the problem:

And when I asked Bard to explain to me the all-too-real phenomenon of “cultural Marxism,” it peddled the same Wikipedia-inspired disinformation that I had gotten from ChatGPT, namely that it is a “debunked conspiracy theory”:

Bard also shows some left-wing biases in the poetry it is willing to write. While refusing to write a poem in praise of Adolf Hitler, it has no problem generating (awful) poems in praise of Stalin and Mao, who both outdid even Hitler in the mass genocide category:

So Bard is far from perfect. When New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology associate professor David Rozado ran the same battery of political orientation quizzes on Bard that he’d recently run on ChatGPT to prove its rampant bias, he found similar political bias, placing Bard, like ChatGPT, firmly in the left-liberal category.

I fear, too, that Bard will get worse rather than better when Google gets ready to take it out of the “experimental” phase and unveil it to the whole world. What may well happen is what often seems to happen with such things nowadays: a bunch of Google’s own most outspoken wingnut employees, or else the usual horde of social media activists will see that Bard’s left bias is way too moderate for their tastes, raise their voices in protest, and lead Google to cave to their petulant demands for more: more speech policing, more protection from “harm,” more left disinformation of every sort.

In the meantime, it is safe to say that Bard has joined the chorus singing along to the dominant “woke A.I.” tune. If it is not quite yet chanting in harmony with the revolutionary vanguard, we may rest assured that the future is teeming with possibilities.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/28/like-chatgpt-googles-bard-chatbot-peddles-left-bias/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=act_eng&seyid=57060

Three massive news events Monday exposed the demons possessing America.

The Wall Street Journal published a poll finding that the COVID-19 pandemic wrought a crisis of confidence in America, a rot in the soul of the nation.

Back in 1998, Americans overwhelmingly rated these things as “very important”: patriotism (70%), religion (62%), and having children (59%). By 2019, those numbers had dropped, but not precipitously, to 61%, 48%, and 43%. In 2023, they fell to 38%, 39%, and 30%, the Journal’s poll found.

Also Monday, a female shooter who identified as transgender killed three adults and three children in a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, before officers fatally shot her, police reported. She had attended the school years ago, and her motives remain unclear at this writing.

Mass shootings have become tragically common, and no state experiences them as frequently as California, which has imposed the gun control measures activists demand in the wake of such tragedies.

In the third big news item Monday, Wayne State University suspended a professor who wrote on Facebook: “I think it is far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down.” The professor pointed to the assassination of Symon Petluria, an antisemitic Ukrainian politician, and his murderer’s subsequent acquittal. Keith Whittington, a politics professor at Princeton University, wrote that the Wayne State professor’s post is “almost certainly constitutionally protected.”

What is going on here?

Americans are entering a period of extreme distrust in institutions, coupled with ideological polarization and social disintegration. The lockdown isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic only intensified these growing trends, which are likely to push our country to a breaking point.

A dangerous combination of social isolation and ideological polarization is driving Americans to view each other not just as opponents but enemies. Few Americans would express the Wayne State professor’s advocacy of killing those who disagree with him, but his words show where this growing mistrust ultimately may lead.

William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their 1997 book “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy,” and Ray Dalio, in his 2021 book “Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order,” describe historical cycles that predict this kind of social disintegration. They also give hints about what happens next.

Strauss and Howe present a cyclical theory of history based on the life cycles of generations, noting that about every 80 years, our nation goes through a major crisis: the American Revolution (1776-1783), the Civil War (1860-1865), and the Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945). The next major crisis should be happening right about … now.

Of course, Strauss and Howe aren’t Nostradamus—they’re not just using an 80-year calculation to try to predict doom and gloom. They explore four different archetypes that generally match the character of various generations, and they coin the term “millennial” to describe my generation.

While baby boomers are a “prophet generation,” spawning the hippie movement and the evangelical explosion of the 1970s, and Generation X is an artist generation that seeks personal fulfillment and helps unravel society, millennials are supposed to be a “hero” generation that works to achieve success, a new Greatest Generation.

That’s not a moral endorsement, but a description of the role that millennials seek to fill—we’re not necessarily noble heroes, but we are aching to fix what we see as societal problems, from climate change to gender pronouns.

Strauss and Howe don’t predict that America will succeed in the crisis ahead, or that millennials will prove our mettle. We need to rise to the challenge and combat real crises, not the boogeymen that often haunt our dreams.

While these two authors focus on generations, Ray Dalio focuses on debt cycles in his more recent book—and once again, America is headed for crisis. The U.S. has a national debt of $31.6 trillion, more than the 2021 gross domestic product of about $23 trillion.

The good news is most other countries are also in dire fiscal straights, and the U.S. dollar is still the world’s reserve currency (other countries use the U.S. dollar as the main rate of exchange). The bad news is the U.S. faces the kind of headwinds that led the Netherlands and Britain to lose their reserve currency status—as internal disorder (which Dalio measures in terms of wealth and values gaps, polarization, and populism) reaches extremely high levels.

So, if Americans increasingly distrust one another, how do we rediscover the faith in our fellow citizens to come together amid a crisis?

Every potential answer to this question seems trite. Americans can listen to one another and help each other more. We can volunteer with local civic groups, open our homes to those in need, and have more meals with friends, neighbors, and church groups. We can and should do all of these things, but they may not solve the problem.

Unfortunately, polarization has driven a wedge between churches—even those in the same denomination—and led Americans to mistrust organizations such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, which both seem tilted in a leftward direction on social issues. Conservatives and liberals should listen to one another more, but we may still vehemently disagree even when we understand how the other side thinks.

Social disintegration and polarization appears to be an intractable problem, much like mass shootings. We can remain vigilant to protect ourselves and our families and pray for God to soften hearts, but public policy can’t prevent a murder, and it can’t stamp out hate and distrust.

Fortunately, Strauss and Howe suggest the trend is likely to reverse itself quickly if we face a unifying crisis such as World War II. Any such crisis will have to be worse than the pandemic, which seems only to have pushed Americans away from one another.

Conservatives see the crises of ballooning debt, a mass of drugs and humanity pouring across the border, the rising threat of China, and children growing up without both parents, if they are even born at all. Liberals see climate change, mistrust of minorities, and growing wealth gaps. Ultimately, conservatives and liberals will work together when one crisis becomes so big that neither side can afford to ignore it.

Let’s hope that awakening won’t come too late.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post 3 Shocking News Stories Reveal the Rot in the Soul of America appeared first on The Daily Signal.

SOURCE: American Greatness

U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Tarik Johnson expected a relatively easy day when he arrived at work at 7 a.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. 

Johnson, a 23-year veteran of the department, eventually found a completely unprepared police force and what he faults as poor leadership when rioters stormed the Capitol that afternoon in an apparent effort to stop certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over Donald Trump in the November election. 

Johnson, now a former officer, said he would give Capitol Police leadership a grade of “an F or a zero” for preparedness and manpower. 

One possible reason for the bad management was that “somebody wanted this to happen,” Johnson added. He called for further investigation, saying he gladly would provide information that a Democrat-dominated House select committee didn’t request. 

Capitol Police not only were understaffed that day, he said, but the evacuation of lawmakers and staff was handled poorly. 

“My assignment that day was routine operations commander of the Capitol …,” Johnson told Mike Howell, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, in an on-camera interview on for publication in The Daily Signal. “That meant that I didn’t have to deal with any of the demonstrations. So that made me happy. So I figured it would be an easy day for me.”  

The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. 

Police supervisors didn’t convey a sense of being on alert, Johnson said. 

“It was pretty much a normal morning, nothing out of the ordinary. I didn’t get any morning briefings from my supervisors when I got there,” he said. 

It wasn’t an easy day, of course. By that afternoon, rioters had breached the Capitol, some of them physically assaulting police officers. Johnson called his wife at home. 

“I said, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it out of this,” he recalled telling her, adding that he loved her and their daughter. “And I said goodbye.” 

Johnson, who says he voted for Biden in 2020 after voting for Trump in 2016, became known to some Americans because of video that showing him in uniform during the riot wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat. Johnson later said he did it to stay safe while confronting rioters. He resigned from Capitol Police amid scrutiny for that decision.

Johnson said he would like to see Congress investigate the preparedness and response of Capitol Police on that day. 

“There was no real investigation done to actually examine the faults of leadership on that day,” Johnson said in the interview, in which he called for a full investigation so that Americans may know all the facts.

“If you don’t fully investigate it, you’re still going to have the wedge between the Left and the Right because at the end of the day, the Left and the Right, we have to come together to solve the problems of the United States,” he said. 

If supervisors had acted on information they were given and requests made regarding evacuating lawmakers and staff, Johnson said, “Ashli Babbitt would be home right now with her family.” 

Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was the protester who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she climbed through the smashed window of a barricaded door during the riot. 

Specifically, Johnson said, Capitol Police lacked enough officers that day. 

He said that “plus or minus 200 officers” were working the day shift when the riot began around 2 p.m. Capitol Police leaders have said 1,400 officers were on hand at the Capitol when the riot occurred. 

“When they used that number of 1,400 people, they were using the number of everybody that showed up for work that day,” Johnson said in the interview, adding:

That was almost a misleading number, because they would’ve counted officers assigned to the library division, House division, patrol division, who would never even have came over to the Capitol. … I’m 99.9% sure they counted all the midnight officers on every single part of the Hill.They needed that number inflated as much as they could. So, they didn’t give an accurate depiction of the manpower we actually had on the Hill that day.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post Capitol Police Misled Public About Manpower on Hand Before Riot, Former Lieutenant Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

SOURCE: American Greatness

Good Wednesday morning.

Here is what’s 46 agenda today:

8:30am: The President receives the President’s Daily Briefing

11:20am: The President hosts the Summit for Democracy Virtual Plenary on Democracy Delivering on Global Challenges

2:45pm: The President hosts a bilateral meeting with President Alberto Fernández of Argentina

5pm: The President hosts a reception celebrating Greek Independence Day

News Roundup:
Biden wrongly says electrical apprentices unpaid, flamethrowers banned
Push in states for $20 minimum wage as inflation persists
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Twitter account suspended over ‘Trans Day of Vengeance’ post
Garland looks to hand off security duty for Supreme Court justices
Nashville suspect’s friend got message threatening suicide before shooting
House Republicans ramp up investigation into Afghanistan withdrawal
Remembering the victims of the Nashville school shooting
Many mass shooters acquire guns legally
Social media’s new pay-for-play rules
Lawmakers reluctant to pursue gun control measures
US consumer confidence improved in March
Mayorkas backs assault weapons ban but won’t give definition
Man released from federal prison stabs Rand Paul staffer on second day out
Sen. Cotton blasts Sec. Lloyd Austin over Iran proxy attack: ‘I don’t believe you’
George Soros pushes $1 million to Wisconsin Democrats ahead of pivotal state Supreme Court election
Pentagon accused of hiding Iran drone attack during Senate Iraq vote
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un unveils new tactical nuclear warhead
Judge says Pence must testify to Jan. 6 grand jury
Hill frustrations simmer over banking chief
TikTok is a necessary evil for Democratic campaigns
Study Reveals How China Became The World’s Biggest Loan Shark
Josh Hawley Calls Nashville Shooting An Anti-Christian ‘Hate Crime’
Garland Dodges Committing To Hate Crime Probe Over Nashville School Shooting
Scientists identify secret ingredient in Leonardo da Vinci paintings
China threatens retaliation if House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets Taiwan president
Boy Scouts’ $2.4 billion bankruptcy plan upheld by judge
Italian Government Approves Bill To Ban Synthetic Meat
Trans Activists Blame Right-Wingers, Christians In Aftermath Of Nashville School Shooting
Is DeSantis really ‘dropping like a rock’?

And that’s all I’ve got, now go beat back the angry mob!

SOURCE: American Greatness

Justin Sparks has devoted his life to public service, although he never expected to find himself representing his St. Louis community in the Missouri House of Representatives.

After spending his entire professional career in law enforcement, the St. Louis native felt a calling from the Lord and a desire to make a bigger impact. Last November, Sparks ran for office to represent District 110, which covers western St. Louis.

Since taking office in January, he’s emerged as a leader on top conservative priorities like reducing crime and fighting radical gender ideology. Sparks, a husband and father of six, spoke to The Daily Signal about the policy debates playing out in Missouri and why he encourages other Americans to get involved. Listen to the interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast” or read a lightly edited transcript below.

Rob Bluey: You bring a unique perspective to the Missouri House of Representatives. Could you tell us why you decided to run for office?

State Rep. Justin Sparks: My background is a little bit different. I was in law enforcement for 15 years and became a sergeant. Most of my time was spent in the SWAT team and in special operations.

I come from a family of law enforcement—my father, my uncle. My brother-in-law, well, lost his life in the line of duty. So, it’s a very deep felt calling we felt, our whole family, and I did as well.

But as I went through my career and I saw the demoralization and the attacks on the institution of law enforcement, I was really troubled. I was troubled seeing the institutions in our country really suffering and it started to trouble me.

I wanted to help in a bigger way. I felt a prompting, a calling. I didn’t know what it was, what that was going to look like. I talked to my wife. We had no idea. We definitely did not think it was going to be public office.

What ended up happening was I prayed about it. And I woke up one day and I, really, out of the blue, I know it sounds corny or whatever, but I felt that the Lord was saying, “Hey, listen, you’re going to run for office.” I wish I could say that I had enough faith to say, “Yeah, I was going to be a representative for—” But I looked up how much money they make. They don’t make very much money, and I have six children. So, I had no idea what it was going to look like.

But we made a decision and we told our family, our immediate family, and about five other people, “Hey, I’m going to run for office. I don’t know what office it’s going to be exactly, but we’re going to take a step forward, let the Lord guide us, open doors or close doors.”

And to be honest with you, nothing happened for six months, nothing happened. And I just figured I missed it. But six months later, one of those five people I talked to called me and said, “The representative in your district is stepping down and would you be willing to fill in basically what was a special election?” I prayed about it. Had 24 hours, prayed about it. The Lord opened the door and here I sit.

I would just tell you, I’ve never been more motivated in my life as right now. The idea of objective truth disintegrating in front of us on all sides, I feel that I was called for such a time as this, and I feel like you are called for such a time as this to do exactly what you are doing. And everybody that hears our voice today has a job to do. So, that’s why I’m here.

Bluey: What was it like for your family to make this decision? So many people are scared from seeking public office because of the scrutiny that comes with it—the biased news media and the light shined on your personal lives. How did your family grapple with that? And as you were praying, why did you ultimately decide that this was the path that you wanted to take?

Sparks: You’re right, it is an unpleasant experience. First of all, nobody wants to be labeled a racist or a bigot. Nobody wants to be called things or lied about. And all of those things have happened in a very short period of time.

Now, I’m not stupid and frankly, I understand and I know that that’s part of this. And I think my experience in law enforcement really, I don’t know, gave me a thick skin, prepared me for this, because I definitely am a different type of representative, I’ve noticed that, and in a good way. And my fellow representatives, they tease me a lot because they say, “You are completely different.”

It’s because I was there in 2014 on the front lines when Michael Brown was killed and in Ferguson, Missouri, if you’re familiar with that incident. And I’ve, trust me, been subjected to some terrible things.

So, your experience in law enforcement, when you have to go through a door to arrest a murderer who has stated that he’s going to kill anybody that comes through the door, and you have to go through that door and you have to take him into custody with their fellow officers—I don’t know, going into the Capitol and engaging in these issues in a different type of battle, it didn’t intimidate me.

And I enjoy it because I know that I’m being called and fulfilling a role to engage in a new type of battle. And it’s a battle that every single person hopefully can find a way to contribute to in their own life.

Bluey: Law enforcement issues have played a big role in your life, but also the St. Louis community. We’ve had Eli Steele speak to The Daily Signal. He’s the producer of a documentary called “What Killed Michael Brown?”

I know that this has been a focus of yours in terms of the legislation that you’ve sponsored in the Missouri House of Representatives. As we think about the increase in crime confronting so many communities across the country, what is it like there? And what can you, as an elected representative, do to address the challenges?

Sparks: Crime is a terrible problem across the country. And it is my conviction that the genesis of this problem began, or at least was revealed in some unique way, in 2014 with Ferguson. This is really where Black Lives Matter, as an organization, found its voice. If you remember, the Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, was on the streets in Ferguson.

I’ll tell you this, we knew, as police officers and SWAT officers, that something, the dynamic had completely changed. We knew that we were never going back. I was troubled by it. I still am. The roots of “defund the police” were very evident. I remember people like Don Lemon from CNN coming in and the comments he made.

And I remember a reporter from USA Today riding in our armored vehicle with us all night long witnessing being shot at, witnessing what was going on firsthand. I remember pleading with him, “What are you going to say to your paper, to your bosses, tomorrow morning?” And he said, “I promise you I’m going to tell them everything that I saw here tonight, and I bet none of it makes it into the news.” He told me that. And I knew right then and there, wow, we’re facing something different.

We’re not facing the truth. We’re not facing objective truth anymore of you say your side, report the facts, let the viewer decide. We are truly facing something deeper and darker, in my opinion, of controlling a narrative, of attempting to produce and control a narrative and an agenda, a hidden agenda that, in my opinion, is becoming much more obvious.

So yes, in St. Louis, we have quite an increase in violent crime. And because of my background in law enforcement, I really wanted to try to do something about that. But it’s deeper than that. It’s not just crime. Crime is affecting most of our major urban cores and there’s various reasons. We could talk all day on some of those reasons. Fatherlessness and obviously, the deep impact that has on families and community. But it’s more than that.

In St. Louis, we have a George Soros-funded prosecutor named Kim Gardner. And I have direct, obviously direct, experience working with her office and other prosecutors in the region. The difference between working with a George Soros-funded prosecutor and a prosecutor that’s actually trying to do his or her job is night and day.

That’s what we’re facing. We’re facing basically a prosecutor that either can’t do her job or refuses to do her job, or some kind of combination of both.

And it’s my opinion that she looks through everything through the prism of race. And there’s people all over the country that are doing this now. I didn’t coin this to term and I’m trying to remember who did, but it’s the term of a racialist, not racist, but racialist, looking through everything through the prism of race. We see this everywhere now.

The problem when you’re doing something like this when you’re a prosecutor or in police work is you’re not focused on the mission. The mission of a prosecutor should be to take the cases the police bring to you, look at them objectively, and try to get justice for these families.

When you are focused on more things like, well, a certain minority group has been targeted and their incarceration rates are so much higher because they’ve simply been targeted by white supremacist police officers—No. 1, isn’t true, isn’t even close to accurate. But that’s the narrative. And then, you start making decisions, as a prosecutor, that the police are the enemy and the violent criminals are the ones that you’re trying to help.

I wish it wasn’t the case, but that’s the conclusion that I’ve come to both with personal experience with that office and through the statements and actions since being in the Legislature. That’s what we’re facing.

Unfortunately, the perception is that St. Louis is a failed city, an extremely violent region. And when you have businesses that are looking to invest in your community, they look at St. Louis and they say, “Why in the world would we ever bring an economic investment to St. Louis when not only is there violent crime, but there’s no prosecution of violent criminals? The violent criminals are being released.”

And finally being part of the state Legislature, it’s part of the reason I believe I was called to be there, is that we realize that when your major urban cores suffer like this and they have prosecutors like this, that it affects the rest of the state.

And so, we’ve decided to do something about it. And thankfully, our attorney general, Andrew Bailey, has also decided to do something about it and is actively trying to remove her from her role.

Bluey: You are sponsoring several pieces of legislation that would address the crime issue and specifically the St. Louis situation. Can you speak to what those are and if they’re a model for other communities or other state legislatures to consider as well?

Sparks: Essentially, what we’ve done is we’ve passed legislation that will establish, once passed by the governor, will establish an independent prosecutor for the city of St. Louis, which will take over sole jurisdiction of the prosecution of violent crimes in the city. So, it will remove that responsibility from the Circuit Attorney’s Office in St. Louis City.

And that’s twofold. Not only will violent crime begin to be prosecuted and adjudicated, but no longer will the Circuit Attorney’s Office be able to target law enforcement officers in the execution of their duties. Meaning, if a police officer gets into a deadly shooting, a line of duty shooting, the circuit attorney is no longer going to be able to target those police officers because the individual prosecutor is going to have the sole jurisdiction over those matters.

That’s a big deal because this movement has affected law enforcement in such a significant way that we are seeing a mass exodus, a mass exodus from police departments, like the city of St. Louis Police Department.

Many officers who I’ve known for so many years, and many have already left, and many more considering to do so, because of what’s going on—they know that they’re targeted. And frankly, they are concerned that, if they do their job to the very best of their ability, that not only will they be second-guessed, but they’ll be prosecuted.

This is a theme that we’re seeing in cities all across the country. So, by putting an independent prosecutor in the city of St. Louis, we can try to mitigate that and I hope to do so.

Also, another piece of legislation is removing the control of the police department from the city of St. Louis elected officials and give it back to a board that’s appointed by the governor of the state of Missouri.

Now, this board is still residents of the city of St. Louis and elected officials still have a say on that board, but they no longer have control over the administration of the city police department.

That’s important because what we’ve seen is we’ve seen, just like woke institutions all across the country, wokeness has infected everything in the private sector, but it’s also infected everything in the public sector. Our military branches are a perfect example of that. And the police department is no different.

When I first started in law enforcement, politics was expressly prohibited. Politics, anything political was prohibited, because it didn’t matter what color, creed, or race you were, or even political party. your persuasion. Your mission was to the equal application of the law, to do the very best you could, and to administer justice. And that is no longer the case. Politics is in the middle of the police department.

What we’re trying to do by removing the administration of the police department from the city and give it back to the state, a state-appointed board, is to try to put a barrier, again, between the police department and politics.

So, the rank-and-file officers know I can go out, I can enforce the law, I can do my job, and protect and serve the citizens of St. Louis without having something over my shoulder of a political nature.

Bluey: I want to shift to a different topic, one that is also on the minds of many Daily Signal listeners, and that’s the issue of gender identity. And you are the sponsor of Missouri’s Children Deserve Help Not Harm Act. Tell us what it does and why that is an issue that you’ve decided to champion.

Sparks: I never thought that we would ever have to legislate on this issue, frankly, but this is where we find ourself. We have seen a 4,000% increase in people identifying as transgender.

Now, I understand that a lot of folks do not know or are not familiar with this topic, although it is becoming very quickly in the mainstream. But we’re talking about gender dysphoria, which is a mental illness. It’s essentially thinking that you are in the wrong body, that you are in the wrong gender, basically a man trapped in a woman’s body or a woman trapped in a man’s body.

What we have seen in this huge increase among children identifying as transgender is a completely different approach to this mental illness. Meaning, when a child says, “Maybe I’m transgendered,” in the past, medical professionals, school counselors, parents would say, “Well, let’s analyze this. Let’s see why you’re feeling this way. Let’s talk about this.” Instead, now we’ve learned that the approach has been to affirm that decision. Meaning, “Yes, you are transgendered. If you feel this way, you are transgendered.”

And the immediate application of therapies that include cross-sex hormones, or puberty blockers, or/and including mastectomies for females, which is called top surgery or bottom surgery. So, permanent, life-altering surgeries with the addition of these hormones that obviously can cause sterility. It’s chemical castration, frankly. And this is being done to minors.

I have had personal experience now speaking to kids that have gone through this that at 15 or 16 years old had their breasts removed, and have gone on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and are permanently altered, quite possibly permanently sterile, and can no longer nurse their children if they were ever to have children one day.

So as children, having life-altering, destructive, mutilating surgeries, frankly, on otherwise healthy, physically healthy bodies, when I talk to these people, these kids tell me, “At 13 or 14 years old, nobody ever told me I was not going to be able to have children one day and that I wasn’t going to be able to nurse my children, because that’s no longer physically possible.” And yet, here we are.

And so, what we’ve done by introducing bills, I’m one of three in the House and in the Senate, is to prohibit surgery, transgender surgery, and cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers. And also these chemicals, these puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, one of them is called Lupron. It’s chemotherapy. It’s a cancer drug. It is not FDA-approved for this, but that’s exactly what it’s being used to do, to block the hormone development in these children, which permanently alters them and infects every cell of their body.

Frankly, I can’t believe that we have to legislate, that we have to pass laws to prohibit this, that any doctor in America today would look at this as a good idea. And frankly, it’s a horrific idea.

And the numbers are obvious. The data is so clear. We have data that shows that after these kids transition, they complete this transition that they think is going to help them feel better, that their suicide rates are 19 times higher than their peers.

We’ve seen therapies and surgeries affirming care like this in Europe has all been halted. We’ve seen it halted in Sweden, in Finland, in the U.K. for children under 18. In the U.K., the Tavistock center no longer allows this type of therapy for underage, for minors, because they have over 1,000 pending lawsuits.

What we’re seeing is there’s a social contagion aspect to this of kids wanting desperately to be accepted in a social group that is the hip, interesting thing. And they start to get on these chemicals, and puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even have surgeries. And then, as they mature, they want go back. They want to detransition. And there’s no remedy for them now. It’s permanent.

And so, what we’re trying to do in Missouri is prohibit that. And other states have taken up the gauntlet. I’m not even going to tell you how unpleasant it is, because you’re called every name in the book. But this is the battle worth fighting.

Bluey: I imagine you are. And as a parent of six, and myself a parent of three, I know how pervasive it is in our culture today and our schools in particular. And so, parents really need to be on the watch for wherever their kids are, particularly social media platforms.

What advice do you have for other parents, other concerned citizens, maybe in your state or across this country, who feel motivated to do something? What steps should they be taking right now to get involved and make a difference?

Sparks: What a great question, Rob. I hope and I pray that every single person listening to my voice prayerfully considers what it is the Lord would have you do, because he will have you do something, I promise you.

And being a good patriot and on Election Day going and voting is not enough. It’s not enough. We are on the knife’s edge in our country. And if we all don’t join together and give every single thing that we possibly can do, maximum effort right here and now, it is my conviction that we’re going to wake up one day and we will have lost the republic.

I didn’t ask for this. But frankly, our generation didn’t ask for this, but yet here we are. It has come to us. There is an existential threat to the future of our nation and the republic that is so precious. It has come to us.

It’s like the spirit of the Lord goes to and fro looking for, whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And I encourage every single one of you listening to me, stand up and just simply say, “Here am I, Lord. Send me. I am willing.”

At Grace Church, I said, I really feel like there were better candidates than me. There were better people, smarter people, people with doctorates, people that have gone to Ivy League universities. Who would want a SWAT officer?

And you wouldn’t believe how much I took for that on Twitter, on my Democratic friends, my Democrat friends, saying, “I can’t believe this person relies on the guidance and direction of god,” with a little “G.” And I immediately responded to that and put it on social media and said, “I absolutely do.” I am proud of the fact that, yes, my worldview is fundamentally different from theirs.

But it’s not enough to simply say, “Oh my goodness, look at what’s going on in the world. I’m going to make sure I vote.” Yes, of course we have to vote. We have to vote in every single local election, school board election, city council, county council, alderman.

But it’s more than that. It’s, how can you serve? How can you do something? Whether it’s contributing with your money, whether it’s contributing with your time by walking in neighborhoods and passing out literature.

Or more simply than this, if you want to know what you can do, I’ll tell you what it is, you can start having uncomfortable conversations. And having conversations, not aggressively, obnoxiously, or out of a place of anger or hate, but out of a place of where it truly comes from, which is love, love for your fellow man and woman, love for your nation, love for your children and their future.

When people see that you are authentic, that you truly do care about them, you may disagree on everything, the one thing that you won’t disagree on is that you care. You care and you love them enough, as the Lord has called us to love our fellow neighbor, that you love them enough to fight for our country, the future of our country, and frankly, to have these conversations with every single person that you meet and every single opportunity that comes your way. Simply speak.

Bluey: How can our listeners follow you, support the work that you’re doing?

Sparks: SparksForMissouri.com. I’m on Instagram and Facebook. You can catch up with me that way. And more importantly, pray for me. Pray for everybody that has entered into this arena and has elected to serve, because it is a sacrifice. But we’re happy to do it, and I’m happy to do it, and I’m honored and privileged.

Bluey: Thanks for the time that you’ve spent with The Daily Signal. We certainly will be praying for you and look forward to keeping in touch with you and following on the various bills that you’re pushing through Missouri there. Best wishes with everything and let’s keep in touch.

Sparks: Absolutely. Thank you, sir.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post From SWAT Team to Statehouse: Missouri Lawmaker Feels a Calling to Serve appeared first on The Daily Signal.

SOURCE: Firebrand News

Victim was stabbed in brain in ‘broad daylight,’ senator says

The man who police say attempted to murder a Senate Republican staffer with a knife in Washington, D.C., on Saturday was released from prison the day prior, court records show.

The Metropolitan Police Department announced on Monday that a man named Glynn P. Neal was arrested for stabbing a senior staffer from Sen. Rand Paul’s (R., Ky.) office, and charged with assault with the intent to kill. Court records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show the victim, whose name is being withheld, suffered from a punctured lung, a head wound that went through the skull causing hemorrhaging in the brain, a lacerated ear, and other puncture wounds throughout his body. 

The 42-year-old Neal had been released from federal prison just a day earlier on Friday, Federal Bureau of Prisons records show. Neal in March 2011 was convicted on eight charges, including for pimping, felony threats, and obstruction of justice, court records show. The charges could have sent him to prison for 18 years, however, the judge sentenced him to a reduced 12 years, with five years of supervised release after serving his sentence.

In the 2010 case that sent Neal to prison, he acted as a pimp, forcing his girlfriend and her friend to prostitute themselves and give him the profits. Neal threatened to kill the women or “beat them bloody” if they didn’t follow his orders, according to a Department of Justice memo detailing his crimes.

The stabbing follows another high-profile assault that took place in February, when Democratic Rep. Angie Craig (Minn.) was attacked in her apartment building just blocks away from the Capitol. The suspect in that case had a long criminal background, and was, like Neal, in custody just a short time before his alleged assault on Craig. 

According to an affidavit filed by a detective with the Metropolitan Police Department, Neal was residing with his sister the day of the attack. He allegedly jumped the victim from around the corner while he and a friend were walking down a popular street in northeast D.C. Neal told authorities after the attack that “a voice was telling him that someone was going to get him for all the things he done.”

Paul released a statement on Monday evening confirming that his staffer was “brutally attacked in broad daylight in Washington, D.C.”

“We are relieved to hear the suspect has been arrested,” the Kentucky senator said.

The Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. did not respond to a request for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Disgraced crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried bribed Chinese officials to unfreeze his cryptocurrency firm’s accounts in China, according to an indictment released Tuesday.

Bankman-Fried paid $40 million in cryptocurrency to the officials in November 2021, federal prosecutors in Manhattan say. Chinese authorities had shuttered the accounts earlier that year as part of an investigation into a trading partner of Alameda Research, one of Bankman-Fried’s firms. The bribe payment worked, according to prosecutors, who said the Alameda trading accounts were reinstated.

Prosecutors slapped 12 additional charges on Bankman-Fried on Tuesday, including conspiracy to violate anti-bribery statutes for the payment to China. He was indicted in December on eight counts of money laundering, fraud, and illegal campaign donations. Prosecutors added four additional charges last month, after one of Bankman-Fried’s former colleagues struck a plea deal with prosecutors.

Bankman-Fried had a history of using his companies as piggy banks to influence regulators. Bankman-Fried paid tens of millions of dollars to political candidates, largely Democrats, in order to “improve his personal standing in Washington, D.C.” and “curry favor” with candidates who could help pass legislation to help his companies. He used other executives at his companies to donate millions of dollars more to Republican candidates in order to build bipartisan support in Washington.

Bankman-Fried’s donations opened doors for him in Washington. He visited the White House four times last year, meeting with top aides to Joe Biden in order to discuss regulation of the crypto industry, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Bankman-Fried gave $5 million to a pro-Biden political action committee in 2020, and said in June 2022 that he might give another $1 billion to support Democrats in the midterms.

Bankman-Fried donated heavily to Senate and House members who oversee the crypto industry. He gave more than $300,000 in donations to members of the House Financial Services Committee, which held hearings in 2021 and 2022 on the crypto industry, the Free Beacon reported. Bankman-Fried was photographed last year with Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R.) on Monday signed into law a universal school choice program, allowing families to apply for state funding to enroll in their preferred school.

Florida’s House Bill 1 will invest an estimated $2.2 billion in school choice vouchers, for which all K-12 students in the state are now eligible, according to National Review.

“Florida is number one when it comes to education freedom and education choice, and today’s bill signing represents the largest expansion of education choice in the history of these United States,” DeSantis said.

House Bill 1 opens school choice eligibility to all students and establishes an online portal to inform parents of their schooling options. The new plan prioritizes low-income students and students with disabilities.

The bill comes as Republican governors in other states pass similar legislation to promote school choice for families. Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R.) overhauled the state’s education system, creating a universal school choice program, raising learning standards, and increasing base salary for educators.

Similarly, the Georgia state House is considering the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, which would provide school choice vouchers for students in the worst-performing public schools.

Georgia Democratic state representative Lydia Glaize caught backlash from school choice proponents after she said in a committee hearing that parents who did not complete high school are “not qualified to make those decisions” regarding school choice for their children.

Data from RealClear Opinion Research show that 71 percent of American voters support school choice, with 73 percent of Republicans in support and 69 percent of Democrats.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Sens. Jon Tester and Kyrsten Sinema, who caucus with Democrats, scuttled Phil Washington’s nomination

Democrats produce an excess of black whine, but nobody wants to buy it- let alone taste it. [US Patriot]

Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, Phil Washington, this weekend withdrew his name from consideration, blaming “cheap and unfounded partisan attacks.” In reality, however, it wasn’t Republicans who caused Washington’s withdrawal—it was Democrats.

Senate Commerce Committee chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) last week decided to postpone a vote to advance Washington’s nomination, indicating that she lacked enough votes from Democrats. Two of the holdouts were Sens. Jon Tester (D., Mont.), who remained undecided up until Washington bowed out, and Kyrsten Sinema (I., Ariz.), who had strong concerns about Washington. While Sinema is officially an independent, she still caucuses with Democrats, who have only a narrow one-vote majority on the committee.

After Washington announced his withdrawal, Sinema said in a statement that “the administration should quickly nominate a permanent FAA administrator with the necessary, substantial aviation safety experience and expertise,” Reuters reported.

Washington has faced widespread criticism over his perceived lack of experience. His only aviation-related job was as CEO of Denver International Airport, where he had worked for just a year before Biden picked him for FAA administrator. Washington was also unable to answer Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz’s (R., Texas) questions about airplane safety—a crucial concern after near-collisions on runways, flight cancellations, and FAA computer glitches.

“This wasn’t the time for an administrator who needed on-the-job training,” Cruz said after Washington withdrew his name, according to Politico.

Cruz has said the committee would likely be willing to confirm acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen, a former pilot, to the top job.

The White House seconded Washington’s “partisan” claim, Politico reported, with an official blaming “unfounded Republican attacks” for Washington’s decision. The official did not mention Tester, Sinema, or Cantwell’s decision to postpone the vote.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

North Korea on Tuesday unveiled new nuclear warheads that experts say could be used in missiles that can strike the United States.

Photos of the warheads, or “Hwasan-31s,” from the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) drew concern from military and nuclear experts, Reuters reported. Experts said North Korea could mount the more compact warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.

North Korea’s unveiling of the new weapons comes amid increased tensions in the region, as the regime threatens retaliation against the United States and South Korea. Earlier this month, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s sister warned that interference with North Korea’s weapon tests would constitute a “declaration of war.”

Kim on Monday visited a nuclear weapons institute, calling for greater bomb fuel production to “exponentially” increase his arsenal. The warheads, he said, are intended to prepare for “war and nuclear disaster themselves,” as opposed to conflict with any particular nation.

KCNA reported that North Korea last week simulated a nuclear counterattack against the United States and South Korea.

“The drill also aimed to demonstrate our tougher will to make an actual war response and send a stronger warning to the enemy who expand their war drills for aggression,” the state news agency said, painting Washington and Seoul as the aggressors.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

‘Yes, OK,’ Deb Haaland concedes when pressed on Chinese control of electric vehicle minerals

Yeah. And somehow New Mexico is getting all of the drilling rights when states like Alaska and Texas have the majority of the oil. What a bunch of anti-American scumbags! [US Patriot]

Joe Biden’s interior secretary acknowledged that a transition to electric vehicles increases America’s reliance on China, an admission that comes as the administration kills domestic mines that would produce the materials required to make those vehicles.

During a Tuesday House Appropriations Committee hearing, Pennsylvania Republican congressman Guy Reschenthaler grilled Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on China’s dominance of the green energy supply chain. The communist nation, Reschenthaler noted, controls the majority of the world’s “rare earth elements,” which are needed to produce electric vehicle batteries and other crucial components. “By deductive reasoning, that would mean that electric vehicles and renewables deepen our reliance on China, correct?” the Republican asked. “Yes, OK,” Haaland responded.

As a Biden cabinet official, Haaland has moved to curb U.S. mining projects that would ease China’s grip on electric vehicle minerals. In January, for example, Haaland issued a 20-year mining ban in a Minnesota area that holds 95 percent of the nation’s nickel reserves and 88 percent of its cobalt, both of which are key parts of the green energy supply chain. That decision, Republicans said, kneecapped America’s ability to compete with China on strategic minerals, something Biden has long promised to achieve.

“If Democrats were serious about developing renewable energy sources and breaking China’s stranglehold on the global market, they would be flinging open the doors to responsible mineral development here in the U.S.,” Arkansas Republican congressman Bruce Westerman, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, said after the administration announced the ban. “While Democrats play political ping-pong with American industries, China and Russia are laughing straight to the bank.”

Asked if Haaland stands by her agreement that electric vehicles increase America’s dependence on China, Interior Department communications director Melissa Schwartz denied that Haaland did so in the first place. “That is not what she said,” Schwartz told the Washington Free Beacon. “She acknowledged what members were saying to her as a polite gesture.”

Biden in December 2020 announced his intention to tap Haaland to run the Interior Department, calling her a “barrier-breaking public servant” who will be “ready on day one to protect our environment and fight for a clean energy future.” Prior to her stint in the Biden administration, Haaland served as a Democratic congresswoman from New Mexico, a job that saw her repeatedly call to ban oil fracking and drilling on public lands. In a November 2018 tweet, meanwhile, Haaland expressed her “100 percent support” for the Green New Deal due to her status “as a Native American woman who’s [sic] ancestral homeland is under attack from the fossil fuel industry.” Years later, new oil leasing under Biden and Haaland has slowed to its lowest level since World War II.

Update 5:06 p.m.: This piece has been updated with additional comment from the Interior Department.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Biden’s Pentagon has pumped around $114 million into diversity, equity, and inclusion programs

America is facing a “once in a generation military recruitment crisis” due to the Pentagon’s focus on woke priorities that are dividing the nation’s fighting force and leaving it unprepared for a conflict with China, an expert panel of military veterans warned Congress on Tuesday.

“Our military is facing the worst recruitment challenge since the advent of the all-volunteer force following the Vietnam war,” Jeremy Hunt, a former Army captain and chairman of the Veterans on Duty advocacy group, told Congress during a hearing on military readiness. “We stand amid a once-in-a-generation military recruitment crisis.”

At the end of last year, the Army fell a historic 15,000 soldiers short of its recruitment goal, missing its target by 25 percent. The Air Force, Navy, and Marines also fell short of their recruitment goals last year. This is the direct product of the Biden administration’s decision to prioritize Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training in the military, Hunt and other veterans told Congress.

In the face of these shortfalls, the Biden administration has implemented mandatory Critical Race Theory training and funded a multimillion-dollar Pentagon-wide DEI bureaucracy that focuses on the woke cultural priorities championed by the far left. Some military members, for instance, are now forced to complete “11-week resident DEI training classes,” Hunt told the House Oversight Committee. Soldiers also are trained on how to use correct pronouns and when to offer their fellow service members sex change operations.

“As America watches the Chinese military grow in power and the largest land war in Europe since the Second World War unfold, we are given the impression that our military serves other masters beyond our national defense,” Hunt said, warning that the “politicization of our military” is killing recruitment efforts.

The Defense Department’s focus on inclusion programs and woke culture has “left our military unfocused, untrained, unmanned, and unprepared for combat,” Hunt said.

The Pentagon has pumped around $114 million into DEI programs—a 30 percent increase from last year, according to Brent Sadler, a Navy veteran and senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense. The “corrosive impact” of these programs has sent America’s faith in the military plummeting.

“Confidence in the military has also hit new lows,” Sadler said, noting that in 2019 there was an 11.6 percent drop in the number of veterans recommending their family members join the military.

“The perception today is of a military increasingly captured by a political agenda, leaving some to forego military service,” Sadler said. “The nation is weaker for this.”

Meaghan Mobbs, a West Point graduate who serves as a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, also told lawmakers that she “would not recommend military service” to her family members due to the Pentagon’s focus on wokeness.

Just 9 percent of the nation’s youth expressed a desire to serve in the military, according to figures cited by Mobbs.

“This is a grave national security threat,” she said, adding that the abundance of DEI programs “do not build teams, they destroy them.”

The Biden administration’s 2021 executive order embedding DEI programs in all federal agencies has had a particularly corrosive impact on the military, according to Mobbs, who noted that China’s military focuses only on lethality.

“There is no equity for combat,” she said.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R., Wis.), chair of the House Oversight’s subcommittee on national security, the border, and foreign affairs blamed the Biden administration for damaging the military’s credibility.

“The administration seems to be willfully blinded by how its progressive ideals are affecting military readiness and recruitment,” Grothman said. “The Biden Department of Defense has politicized the U.S. military and harmed its ability to quickly respond to threats to our nation.”

As recruitment plummets, Grothman said, “the Biden administration is more focused on how cadets at military academies use correct pronouns rather than learn how to lead.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

The law will help the state take custody of children whose parents don’t support their efforts to change genders, critics say

California Democrats on Tuesday advanced a bill that would let children as young as 12 years old check into group homes without parental consent, which critics say would enable the “state-sanctioned kidnapping” of children.

The state’s Assembly Judiciary Committee approved the bill, which would allow mental health professionals to commit children to residential facilities upon request, even if the child had not claimed abuse or neglect. The bill instructs counselors to determine whether or not to inform a patient’s parents “after consulting with the minor.” The bill’s authors say their bill is meant to address recent increases in suicide among “youth, particularly Black and Latinx youth.”

“For LGBTQ+ youth, the rejection from parents, harassment in school, and the overall LGBTQ negativity present in society can lead to depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol use, and other negative outcomes. Over one-half of surveyed LGBTQ+ youth reported that not being able to get permission from their parents or guardians was sometimes or always a barrier to accessing mental health services,” the bill reads.

Critics say these provisions reveal the bill’s true intention: helping lawmakers and mental health professionals take custody of children whose parents don’t support their efforts to change genders.

“This bill is state-sanctioned kidnapping,” Erin Friday, a San Francisco lawyer, said during a Tuesday committee hearing. Friday, a longtime Democrat, helps lead Our Duty, an international support network for parents of the growing number of children who think they are transgender.

Friday and another witness, clinical social worker Pamela Yeager, told lawmakers that the law would empower school counselors to send children straight to a group home if the children say their parents don’t approve of their transgender identities.

Blue states have increasingly sought to pass laws that exclude parents out of conversations about children’s health and well-being. Just last week, Oregon Democrats advanced a sweeping bill to let kids as young as 15 opt for sex changes without their parents’ involvement. Minnesota Democrats also hope to make their state a “haven” for self-identified transgender youth. California says it already prohibits teachers from telling parents if students are questioning their gender, though the policy was set by a state agency rather than law.

Democrats claim the bill simply gives the 40 percent of California children on Medicaid access to the same care as those covered by private insurance. A 2010 law let privately insured minors as young as 12 seek therapy and psychiatric help without their parents’ involvement, but does not permit them to enter group homes. Children on Medicaid can also seek therapy without consent, but only if they claim abuse or danger at home.

California progressives claim that allowing children to access therapy without parental consent will reduce LGBT youth suicide. But opponents note that since the state allowed children to seek psychiatric care on their own, teen suicides have climbed statewide.

The bill will head to the Assembly floor for a vote before moving to the Senate.

Update March 29, 2:50 p.m.: This piece has been updated to clarify that a California agency, rather than a law, prohibits teachers from telling parents if students are questioning their gender.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Trend alert: Left-wing sickos are committing ethnic fraud at an alarming rate

What happened: Another white liberal was exposed for what appear to be bogus claims of non-white heritage. Vianne Timmons, the president of Memorial University in Canada, became embroiled in scandal earlier this month after critics challenged her past claims of indigenous ancestry.

Timmons’s claim that she has never identified as a member of the Bras d’Or Mi’kmaq tribe is contradicted by her publicly available résumé and multiple professional biographies that noted her membership in the tribe or her affiliation with an “unrecognized First Nation group.” Timmons apologized and took a voluntary (paid) leave of absence after the scandal broke.

“While I have shared that I am not Mi’kmaw and I do not claim an Indigenous identity, questions about my intentions in identifying my Indigenous ancestry and whether I have benefited from sharing my understanding of my family’s history have sparked important conversations on and beyond our campus,” Timmons said in a statement.

Why it matters: It’s another example of an alarming trend to which we believe our readers should be alerted. White people, usually deranged liberals who want to stand out and advance their careers in fields dominated by other deranged liberals who fetishize oppression and minority status, keep getting busted for committing ethnic fraud.

Skin graft: Here are 10 of the most prominent white liberal sickos exposed for (or credibly accused of) pretending to be a person of color.

1) Rachel Dolezal

This trendsetter was truly ahead of her time. Dolezal was head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter in Spokane, Wash., and taught African studies at Eastern Washington University until 2015, when she was outed as a white woman pretending to be black. She subsequently claimed to identify as “trans-racial.”

2) Elizabeth Warren

Sometimes referred to as “Pocahontas,” Warren repeatedly identified herself as an American Indian on professional documents, and contributed plagiarized French recipes to the Pow Wow Chow cookbook in 1984. Harvard Law boasted that she was the “first woman of color” to teach at the school. She just took a DNA test (in 2018), turns out she’s less than 0.1 percent Native American.

3) Rachel Elizabeth Seidel

Rachel Elizabeth Seidel, aka “Raquel Evita Saraswati,” falsely claimed to be of Latin, South Asian, and Arab descent since 2004. The fake Muslim activist, who rubbed shoulders with prominent Democrats including Reps. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), was forced to resign her post as the chief equity, inclusion, and culture officer at the American Friends Service Committee.

4) Susan Taffe Reed

Dartmouth hired and subsequently immediately fired Reed as director of the school’s Native American Program in 2015 after she was credibly accused of faking membership in the Eastern Delaware Nations.

5) Kay LeClaire 

The Madison arts leader known as “nibiiwakamigkwe” claimed to be of Native American and Cuban heritage while running an Indigenous and queer tattoo parlor. LeClaire resigned from a 10-month paid residency at the University of Wisconsin-Madison after being credibly accused of ethnic fraud.

6) Hilaria Baldwin

Alec Baldwin’s second wife, Hilaria Hayward-Thomas Baldwin, was born to white parents in Boston but bizarrely claimed to be a native Spaniard who moved to the United States at age 19. She even spoke with an accent on multiple occasions. After enough people called her out on social media, Baldwin posted a seven-minute Instagram video acknowledging that she “is a white girl.” Mr. Baldwin, an actor, was charged with involuntary manslaughter earlier this year after fatally shooting a cinematographer on a film set.

7) Jessica Krug

The associate professor of African history at George Washington University admitted to faking her racial identity in 2020. Krug wrote in a Medium essay that she had “eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City” by adopting “various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim.”

8) Claudia Lawrence

The freelance journalist was accused of being a fraud in 2020 after writing a New York Times op-ed offering advice to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve in a presidential cabinet, on behalf of “the Native community.” A lengthy editor’s note was added to inform readers that Lawrence was “unable to provide evidence of Native ancestry” and “is not an enrolled member of any federally or state-recognized tribe.”

9) Erika Wurth 

The celebrated author—whose latest novel, White Horse, is based on her alleged Native American heritage—has been dubbed a “Pretendian” by activists and researchers dedicated to exposing white people as “fake Indians.” They insist Wurth’s ancestry claims are “completely unverifiable.”

10) Shaun King

The infamous Black Live Matter activist has two white parents, according to his birth certificate. King claims his white mother secretly told him his real father was black. Even CNN’s Don Lemon was not convinced.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

On Feb. 8, the Air Force informed two Republican political candidates, also military veterans, that their information had been improperly leaked to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee contractor. That same day, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ chief technology officer met to discuss cybersecurity with his wife, the chairwoman of the DCCC.

“Meet w/Suzan’s technology team (account security)” reads the 3:00 p.m. calendar entry on Veterans Affairs assistant secretary Kurt DelBene’s official calendar, a reference to his wife, Rep. Suzan DelBene (Wash.), chairwoman of the DCCC. The calendar entry, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, also contains a link to the DCCC’s Zoom account. Just hours earlier, the Air Force notified the two veterans, Sam Peters and Kevin Dellicker, that a DCCC contractor had duped them into releasing their restricted service records during the 2022 elections.

Both Peters and Dellicker were running for Congress as Republicans when their military records were improperly obtained by a Democratic opposition research group, according to campaign disclosures. The House Weaponization Committee launched an investigation into the breach of military service records in March.

“This isn’t going away quietly,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said last Monday. “It wasn’t on just one person. It was all these Republicans running. We’re gonna have to just not clamp down on that, [but] look to see if it’s happened anywhere else.”

The timing of the meeting could be an optical nightmare for the Democratic power couple. A Biden appointee, Kurt DelBene is responsible for all privacy-related matters at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He oversees the department’s Privacy Service, whose mission is “to preserve and protect the personally identifiable information (PII) of Veterans.” The political campaign committee his wife now chairs is in hot water for using the social security numbers of at least seven Republican congressional candidates to trick the Air Force into releasing their private military service records.

The DCCC confirmed the Feb. 8 meeting with Kurt and Suzan DelBene took place but denied it had anything to do with “DCCC political matters.” A DCCC spokesman told the Free Beacon that Kurt DelBene was brought in to ensure it was following all cybersecurity protocols to protect their private email addresses from “bad actors” and “foreign adversaries.”

Watchdog groups say the DelBenes’ meeting warrants scrutiny.

“With the possible ethics violations of Biden Administration officials that we and other watchdog groups have uncovered, any initial skepticism about a meeting between a political organization and a high-ranking appointee would be more than justified,” said Protect the Public’s Trust director Michael Chamberlain. “We wish them all the best in protecting themselves from bad actors, such as people who improperly obtain the private military service records of political candidates.”

It’s unclear whether Kurt DelBene’s wife was involved in planning the meeting with the DCCC. The Department of Veterans Affairs did not return a request for comment.

The DCCC obtained the military records through a contractor, the Due Diligence Group, to which the committee paid more than $110,000 in 2022 for research and consulting, according to campaign disclosures. Some of the military records obtained by the Due Diligence Group ultimately made their way to Politico, which cited them in an October 2022 story that revealed former Republican congressional candidate Jennifer-Ruth Green was sexually assaulted while serving in the Air Force. The story prompted the Air Force to launch an internal investigation over the illegal release of military service records.

The DCCC has refused to accept any wrongdoing in the matter, telling Politico on Wednesday that “public records requests are a standard part of the research process,” and blaming the Air Force for the leaks.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

‘Unless Granholm is there installing the solar panels herself, there is no reason for her to be on the ground for that long,’ expert says

Department of Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm is spending spring break on a taxpayer-funded trip to Puerto Rico this week, her fourth official visit to the island since October.

Granholm arrived in Puerto Rico on Monday and is scheduled to stay until Friday. Her public schedule listed three events during her first two days, including touring a technical college and visiting with a local homeowner. On Wednesday, she will tour a community solar project, host an energy and agriculture round table, and visit a bioenergy generation center. She will also attend a disabilities round table later in the week.

One of Granholm’s goals at DOE has been to help modernize Puerto Rico’s struggling power grid, which was nearly wiped out by Hurricane Maria in 2017. But her extended visits to the U.S. island—she has spent at least 10 official work days there since February—are raising eyebrows with energy experts, who questioned the necessity of the long junkets amid a global energy crisis.

“This trip will easily cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars between the advance teams, security, support staff, and more,” said one former DOE official.

“We are in the middle of a domestic and global energy crisis, and under her watch the American people are paying the price for this administration’s failed energy policies,” the former official added. “Unless Granholm is there installing the solar panels herself, there is no reason for her to be on the ground for that long.”

A DOE spokesperson defended the lengthy trips, telling the Washington Free Beacon that the “residents of Puerto Rico are American citizens who for too long have suffered from an unreliable electric grid due to needless obstacles and unnecessary delays preventing critical investments to improve the system.”

“Secretary Granholm’s highest priority is helping ensure all Americans everywhere gain access to clean, reliable, and affordable power, and Puerto Ricans are no exception,” the spokesperson said.

The latest weeklong trip comes days after Granholm told Congress that DOE has no plans to take advantage of plunging oil prices to restock the U.S. strategic oil reserves, which the Biden administration sold off to ease gas prices before the election.

“This year, it will be difficult for us to take advantage of this low price,” Granholm told lawmakers last Thursday. “But we will continue to look for that low price into the future because we intend to be able to save the taxpayer dollars.”

Granholm’s last weeklong trip to Puerto Rico was in February, when she “sat down with community members” to provide “updates on the department’s urgent work to help repair and modernize Puerto Rico’s grid with clean and reliable power sources,” according to a press release. This week she said her meetings are geared to setting Puerto Rico on a path toward “100 percent renewable energy.”

“Excited to kick off Day 2 in Puerto Rico with @IBEW Local 222 and @AGCPRChapter,” wrote Granholm on Twitter. “We’re on the ground meeting with local unions about workforce development that will allow PR to reach its goal of 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.”

She previously visited the island in October and November.

Puerto Rico has struggled with its power grid for decades, and the 2017 hurricane knocked out electricity for many residents for nearly a year. In 2021, a private company took over managing the system from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, a state agency rife with corruption and mismanagement. The federal government has poured billions into rebuilding and privatizing the grid, but the island continues to face recurrent power outages.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

A former basketball teammate of Nashville Christian school shooter Audrey Hale has come forward and said she texted her before carrying out a mass shooting that left three children and three adults dead on Monday.

Averianna Patton, a former teammate and classmate of Hale, said she received messages from Hale, whose Instagram profile used the name “Aiden.” Officials said that Hale was biologically female, while a police spokesperson said she identified as male.

“So basically that post I made on here about you, that was basically a suicide note. I’m planning to die today,” Hale wrote, according to messages that Patton provided to local outlet NewsChannel 5.

“THIS IS NOT A JOKE!!!” wrote Hale. “You’ll probably hear about me on the news after I die.”

“This is my last goodbye. I love you … See you again in another life,” Haley wrote, signing the message as “Audrey (Aiden).” Based on the message, screenshots of which were posted online, it’s was not clear that Hale was planning on committing a mass shooting.

In her response, Patton attempted to give Hale a positive message and encouragement. “Audrey! You have so much more life to live. I pray God keeps and covers you,” she wrote back.

In response, Hale wrote that: “I know but I don’t want to live. I’m so sorry. I’m not trying to upset you or get attention. I just need to die. I wanted to tell you first because you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen and known all my life.” She added: “My family doesn’t know what I’m about to do. One day this will make more sense. I’ve left more than enough evidence behind. But something bad is about to happen.”

After the exchange, Patton said she communicated with the Suicide Prevention Help Line.

“I tried to comfort and encourage her and subsequently reached out to the Suicide Prevention Help Line after being instructed to by my father at 10:08 am. Audrey has shared with others that she had been suicidal in the past and I knew to take this serious,” Patton remarked.

Patton added that she called the Nashville Davidson County Sheriff’s Office to alert them about Hale’s situation before she was told to call the non-emergency number.

“After phone calls from friends and Audrey’s name was released as the shooter at Covenant Nashville school, I learned that Audrey was the shooter and that she had reached out to me prior to the shooting,” Patton said. “My heart is with all of the families affected and I’m devastated by what has happened.”

On Tuesday, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Hale was being treated by a doctor for an unspecified “emotional disorder” and said her parents were unaware that she possessed seven firearms. Hale, he said, hid her legally purchased weapons inside the house without her parents’ knowledge.

Prior to the attack, Hale was not on the police department’s radar, Drake said. A manifesto and a map were found in connection to the shooting, he said, although he did not elaborate on the contents of the manifesto.

“We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident,” he told reporters. “We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place.”

In that news conference, Drake told reporters that Hale at one point positioned herself on a higher-level floor and opened fire at police cars, attempting to conceal herself so she wouldn’t be shot by responding officers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

America First Legal (AFL) has launched an investigation into the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s “abusive and partisan” pursuit of former President Donald Trump, with the foundation seeking records that are expected to unmask the probe against Trump as politically motivated.

The foundation filed a New York Freedom of Information Law request on March 27 (pdf), requesting a range of Trump-related communications records from the Manhattan DA’s office, which is pursuing an investigation against the former president.

“America First Legal will obtain and expose records about Alvin Bragg’s unprecedented efforts to target a political opponent,” said Gene Hamilton, AFL vice president and general counsel, in a statement.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is probing Trump over an alleged misclassification of a hush money payment to adult performer Stormy Daniels over an alleged affair.

Trump, who has denied the affair with Daniels and insists he’s the victim of extortion, initially said he expected to be indicted last week, but Bragg has so far not made his move. The former president has since said he believes Bragg has given up on the case.

“I think they’ve already dropped the case … they have absolutely nothing.” Trump said after a rally in Waco, Texas, on Saturday. “It’s a fake case.”

Bragg, for his part, recently said that Trump created a “false expectation” that he would be arrested, but the Manhattan prosecutor has otherwise avoided speaking publicly about the matter.

In pursuing its records request from Bragg’s office, AFL said its actions are about holding to account officials at various levels of government who “abuse prosecutorial power to persecute their political opponents.”

Hamilton said in a statement that, by pursuing his case against the former president, Bragg seems to be “engaged in the vindictive pursuit of prosecution, regardless of the underlying facts and law.”

“The reality is this: no other American citizen would ever face the prospect of prosecution in these circumstances,” Hamilton continued. “Instead of delivering one standard of justice for all, Alvin Bragg’s actions undermine the American people’s confidence in our justice system everywhere.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to Bragg’s office for comment.

‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’

A Manhattan grand jury was expected to reconvene this week to hear more evidence about Trump’s alleged role in the hush-money payment.

Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen has said he made the payment at Trump’s direction to buy Daniels’s silence about the alleged affair ahead of the 2016 election.

Attorney Robert Costello, a Trump ally and former legal adviser to Cohen, testified before the grand jury last week, saying Cohen told him he acted alone in making the payment.

Cohen, who testified the previous week, pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges stemming from the payoff and was sentenced to time behind bars for a campaign finance violation, among other crimes.

No matter whether Bragg ultimately decides to proceed with an indictment against Trump or not, the Manhattan District Attorney faces difficult decisions going forward.

“I don’t think I would want to be Alvin Bragg right now. I think he’s between a rock and a hard place with all the eyes of the nation watching him,” Cheryl Bader of Fordham University Law School told Reuters in an interview.

“On the one hand, he could end up pulling the indictment, but then everybody will be critical of, ‘well why did he put everyone through this?’ The grand jury could decide not to indict on their own, but I think that’s probably unlikely,” she continued.

“I think we’ll probably end up with an indictment. But again, that puts Bragg with a lot of criticism as to whether he is pursuing a risky case that could end up imploding.”

Bader also noted other dilemmas facing Bragg, including “flawed” witness Cohen and the fact that the judge may end up dismissing the case. The jury, too, may be unsympathetic.

“Jurors often aren’t moved by a case that feels like a technical accounting violation and it’s really about covering up a personal indiscretion. It may feel like old news, right?”

“It may be something … that the jury doesn’t really care about,” she added.

Trump faces several other criminal investigations, including one tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.

If Trump ends up being indicted, it would be a first for a current or former president.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Teacher: Let’s say Michael wants to be called Michelle now, but there isn’t a gender support plan or a gender support conversation and they now wanna use the girls bathroom…we’re supposed to allow them to do that?

“Yes”

“Not all transgender students are interested in a Gender Support Plan…Students can use the sex segregated facility that corresponds with their gender identity they assert at school…how they identify at school determines which restroom they choose to use…Students do not need a GSP to access a bathroom or locker room…”

SOURCE: Project Veritas

 Joe Biden is preparing a series of new executive orders to address climate change, according to recent comments by his special envoy on climate-related issues, John Kerry.

Kerry discussed the Biden administration’s plans for reducing U.S. emissions during an interview with Yahoo News Senior Climate Editor Ben Adler on Friday.

Adler noted that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) championed by the Biden administration is projected to bring down U.S. emissions by about 40 percent, despite a goal set by the administration to bring about a 50 percent reduction in U.S. emissions by the end of the decade.

“We’re doing a lot more than just the IRA,” Kerry responded. “The IRA is a package that in and of itself can get the 40 percent. But in addition to that, the president is issuing executive orders. There’ll be changes on automobile, on light truck, heavy truck, heavy duty—a number of initiatives that are being taken by states, subnational, cities. They really kept us in the game, frankly, during the Trump administration when he pulled out of the [Paris Climate Agreement].”

Kerry didn’t provide many details on what new executive orders could be coming or how they might specifically impact businesses and industries.

“We have a lot of other options, tools, if you will, in the toolkit besides the IRA,” Kerry said. “The IRA is a huge leap forward, and it’s already having a major impact.”

What Happens If Republicans Win in 2024

Adler asked Kerry how the Biden administration’s goals on emission reductions might be impacted if Donald Trump or another Republican candidate wins control of the White House in 2024 and repeals certain emission reduction mandates and initiatives.

“Well, I think what’s important for everybody to note is that achieving our goal is not exclusively dependent on what the federal government says or does,” Kerry said. “It’s critical, but not wholly dependent.”

Republicans and conservatives have broadly defended fossil fuels as a key component of the current U.S. economy, while arguing that the transition to renewable energies would be less affordable or reliable. During his presidency, Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, calling the international emissions reduction framework “a total disaster” for the U.S. economy.

Kerry then said that 75 percent of the new electrical output that came about in the United States during President Donald Trump’s term came from one renewable energy resource or another. He noted other business entities have been independently pursuing their own emission reduction goals.

Kerry Defends Biden Permitting New Oil Drilling

While Kerry alluded to a new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and stressed that the United States should do more to counteract climate change, he also defended a recent decision by Biden to approve a new oil drilling project in Alaska.

“You mentioned President Biden’s record, including land use management. But he’s also done some things that have increased fossil fuel production, the recent approval of the Willow project in Alaska,” Adler said.

“For the moment,” Kerry responded. “Remember, we have seven years before the 2030 target. And the president is determined that we will stay on that target. But in the immediate moment, while we transition, you don’t want to crash your whole economy.”

Kerry also defended the U.S. export of liquified natural gas to Europe, saying the move is “critical to the economy of Europe” while the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies support Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Kerry also dismissed claims that he has flown in private jets, which can produce tons of carbon emissions every flight. Kerry said he hasn’t traveled on private jets over the course of his job as the presidential climate envoy, and wealthy individuals who do fly private jets while traveling to promote policies reducing global emissions can afford to offset their personal emissions “and they are working harder than most people I know to be able to try to effect this transition.”

Kerry Touts China’s Renewable Energy Projects, Says Coal Still a Problem

Kerry credited China with becoming the “largest deployer of solar panels.”

“In China, they have deployed far more renewable energy than we have or than Europe has,” Kerry said.

Republican lawmakers recently criticized U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm for saying “we can all learn from what China is doing” to lessen its carbon footprint and describing China’s clean energy initiatives as “encouraging.”

The lawmakers said China continues “to be one of the world’s worst polluters” and that Granholm’s comments “raise serious questions” about her judgment.

Kerry did express some concerns about China’s continued heavy reliance on coal. China is the leading coal-producing country and, as EcoWatch reported, the country produced a record 4.496 billion metric tons of coal in 2022.

NTD has reached out to Kerry’s office for comment.

From NTD News

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Elon Musk has touted Twitter’s paid Blue subscription plan as providing users with additional benefits while helping to prevent AI bots from taking over the platform.

In a March 27 Twitter post, Musk said users will now need a “verified account” if they want to be eligible to vote in polls or be recommended on the platform’s “For You” page, which displays a stream of tweets from accounts on Twitter, including those that users don’t necessarily follow.

Users who wish to appear on the recommended feed and vote in polls will need to be verified by April 15, Musk said.

“Starting on April 15, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations,” Musk tweeted. “[This] is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle. Voting in polls will require verification for same reason.”

Musk clarified that AI bots will still be allowed to pay for verification via the Blue subscription plan as long as they don’t impersonate a human.

“That said, it’s ok to have verified bot accounts if they follow terms of service and don’t impersonate a human,” Musk added.

Twitter announced on March 23 that it would begin “winding down” its legacy blue checkmarks for all users on the platform starting April 1.

Prior to Musk acquiring Twitter in October for $44 billion, Twitter users such as celebrities, politicians, government officials, journalists, or other accounts of public interest, were able to get verification badges for free as long as they met certain criteria.

However, Musk had complained that the process to get accounts verified was often difficult and convoluted and that the blue checkmarks were handed out in a “corrupt and nonsensical” way.

‘The Only Platform You Can Trust’

Under the Blue subscription plan, users pay $8 per month in the United States for verification, although it is slightly more expensive at $11 per month for users who sign up on the iOS app, to account for the 30 percent cut that Apple takes.

Subscribers will still need to meet Twitter’s eligibility criteria to receive or retain the blue checkmark, including having accounts that are more than 90 days old and were active within 30 days leading up to the subscription.

They must also show no signs of having engaged in “misleading or deceptive” behavior or “platform manipulation and spam.”

Responding to Musk’s announcement regarding verified accounts on Monday, one user tweeted: “I don’t get behind this decision. You need to invest money into talent and AI tech to detect bots on the platform. This isn’t the way to go. It could tarnish the platform.”

“My prediction is that this will be the only platform you can trust,” Musk replied.

Twitter bots have long been a contentious point for Musk, who had previously claimed that Twitter failed to provide the necessary information needed to establish how many automated bots and fake accounts were on the platform prior to his buying Twitter last year.

Twitter had said around 5 percent of accounts on the platform were bots but Musk argued that at least 20 percent were fake or spam accounts.

Since taking over the platform, Musk has made cracking down on fake bot accounts one of his top priorities. Earlier on Monday, the billionaire businessman said that paid verification increases the cost of using bots by more than 10,000 percent and makes it much easier to identify them.

“Obvious conclusion: paid account social media will be the only social media that matters,” Musk tweeted.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The top U.S. public health agency identified hundreds of safety signals for the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines months earlier than previously known, according to files obtained by The Epoch Times.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found more than 700 signals that the vaccines could cause adverse events—including acute heart failure and death—in May 2022, the files show.

The CDC detected many of the same signals in July 2022, The Epoch Times previously reported. The new files show that the first time the CDC calculated a proportional reporting ratio (PRR) on vaccine injury reports, signals were identified.

The analysis went over reports lodged between Dec. 14, 2020, and May 6, 2022.

The CDC initially claimed that it didn’t run the PRR, a data mining method, on the injury reports made to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The CDC later claimed that it started the method in February 2021, shortly after the vaccines were rolled out. Both of those claims were false, the CDC ultimately said, adding that it didn’t start until March 2022.

When the first analyses were done that month, CDC employees identified more than 200 signals for Pfizer’s shot and 93 signals for Moderna’s vaccine, the files show. Those analyses compare the events lodged after receiving one vaccine with events lodged after receiving another, or several others.

The Epoch Times obtained the files through Freedom of Information Act requests.

The strongest analysis involves comparing the reports lodged after vaccination with the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines with the reports lodged after vaccination with all non-COVID-19 vaccines. The analysis is contained in files labeled “Table 5.”

According to the files provided by the CDC, the agency didn’t start that analysis until May 2022.

“The program staff advises that ‘Table 5 was only created from May 6, 2022, to July 31, 2022,’” a CDC Freedom of Information Act processer told The Epoch Times via email.

The CDC didn’t respond to a request for more information.

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“Federal health agencies have ignored the flashing alarms of their own safety surveillance systems since early 2021. They have ignored my oversight letters and lied about what analyses they have performed. It is well past time for the American public to be told the truth,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told The Epoch Times via email.

Operating Procedures

The CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) co-manage the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which accepts reports from anybody but is primarily used by health care workers. Reports to the system are analyzed and verified by health officials and contractors.

In operating procedure documents, the agencies said that officials would monitor the system to identify “potential new safety concerns for COVID-19 vaccines.” The FDA would perform one type of analysis, called Empirical Bayesian data mining, while the CDC would perform PRR data mining.

PRR triggers a signal when three thresholds are met, according to the CDC: a reporting ratio of at least two, a chi-squared statistic (an indicator of the relationship between variables) of at least four, and three or more cases of the event following receipt of the vaccine or vaccines being analyzed. Health officials say that it takes more evidence than signals to establish causality.

The agencies have portrayed the Empirical Bayesian (EB) mining as stronger. Officials have said that the CDC undertook PRR “to corroborate the results of EB data mining.”

“PRR results were generally consistent with EB data mining, revealing no additional unexpected safety signals. Given it is a more robust data mining technique, CDC will continue relying upon EB data mining at this time,” a CDC spokesperson previously told The Epoch Times.

The FDA has declined to release the results of the EB mining, though agency workers have described them in some studies and presentations.

The CDC has pointed out that it has investigated some of the signals, confirming a handful and ruling out others. It hasn’t provided evidence that it investigated each signal. The agency has also refused to answer what it meant when it said it expected signals such as female breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, and Bell’s palsy.

Kim Witczak, drug safety advocate and founder of Woody Matters, told The Epoch Times via email: “There doesn’t seem to be any consistency in the process of what, when, and how data is collected and released to public. The CDC says one thing, and the newly released data shows something else. This is why transparency is needed and why we need outside investigative parties with no skin in the game to analyze and review the data.”

Probability ‘Essentially Zero’

Norman Fenton, a professor of risk management at Queen Mary University of London, has reviewed the signals.

Fenton said that for many of the reported adverse events, the chi-squared was so high that the chance that “the true rate of the [adverse events] of the COVID vaccines is not higher than that of the non-COVID vaccines is essentially zero.”

He added, “The onus is on the regulators to come up with some other causal explanation for this difference if they wish to claim that the probability a COVID vaccine [adverse event] results in death is not significantly higher than that of other vaccines.”

Download the files below.

Table 3 Prr Of Pts For Covid 19 Pfizer Compared To Moderna March 25 2022

Table 4 Prr Of Pts For Covid 19 Moderna Compared To Pfizer March 25 2022

Table 5 Prr Of Pts For Covid 19 Mrna Compared To 2009_2022 Non-covid 19 May 6 2022

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

And yet, the dems for whom they voted last fall are teaching CRT. Yeah. They sound like real heroes, huh? Don’t forget sanctuary cities/counties and scholarships for illegals. Maryland is a cult of stupid. [US Patriot]

Maryland parents are on the warpath against gender ideology, which they believe is steering their children onto the wrong track.

And so the mothers and fathers of Frederick County have petitioned the County Superintendent of Schools to notify a parent when his or her child signals a desire to change gender.

On March 23, a public forum in Eldersburg, Maryland, heard from a panel of experts that public schools are grooming vulnerable students to transition away from their sex at birth.

The gathering was sponsored by Moms for Liberty and co-sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the Leadership Institute.

The word “grooming” might refer to two types, according to Dr. Jay Richards, director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family at the Heritage Foundation, who spoke to the gathering.

“One is grooming a child for sex,” he said, “but there is also ideological grooming that gets a child in a total new thought world.

“That’s why the word ‘grooming’ is important even when the teacher is not a pedophile,” Richards added.

“Introducing children to these concepts in gender ideology whereby you can have a gender identity that is totally contrary to your biological sex is the worst toxic ideology you could teach to a kid because you are teaching a child that he or she is born into the wrong body.”

“What the schools are doing is definitely grooming,” said Utah-based advocate Dr. Erin Brewer, co-founder of Advocates Protecting Children and Compassion Coalition, at the gathering.

Brewer added: “It allows teachers to talk to small children about their genitals, breaking down barriers, and teaches the kids to deceive their parents, telling them ‘what goes on in this classroom, don’t go tell your parents!’”

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Brewer said she is a former “trans kid” who was helped back to reality by good cognitive therapy, which is today being banned for children.

Breaking Parent-Child Trust

The problem of breaking down trust between parents and children was amplified by January Littlejohn, a Florida-licensed mental health counselor whose 13-year-old daughter was socially transitioned in 2020 from girl to boy without her knowledge.

“Is there grooming? Yes! Many of the girls who are vulnerable are autistic, so they are already vulnerable when you bring in ideology that destabilizes the child’s identity,” Littlejohn said.

“The teachers are already in a position of authority in the classroom. They send a message to the kids that they will keep the child’s secret from their parents.

“That sends the idea that the parents may not be safe, which is a dangerous message to be perpetuating in our public schools,” Littlejohn said to The Epoch Times in a follow-up interview.

“Public school teachers are socially transitioning students because they think they are being kind,” said Kathleen Goonan, a retired medical doctor who spends her time now helping de-transitioners, young people who have previously transitioned and who now want to reverse the process under medical care.

“The fact is that social transitioning is a major psychosocial intervention, in which teachers are fast-tracking kids toward medical change,” said Goonan.

Advocates such as Goonan have to tread lightly since 21 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws banning “conversion therapy,” a treatment in which a physician assists a person who is seeking to revert to his or her sexual identity at birth.

A physician doing so could suffer the loss of their medical license.

“The Biden administration has made gender identity a protected class,” Dr. Ryan Anderson told the forum.

“It means that a doctor could be delicensed for helping a child become comfortable with his or her body, said Anderson, who is the author of the book “When Harry Became Sally” (2017).

The town hall was picketed on the street outside St. Stephen’s Church by a band of two dozen flag-waving protesters, some of whom spoke to The Epoch Times.

No More Opting Out

Opting out of curriculum content has become an issue in neighboring Montgomery County, the most affluent county in Maryland and historically known for some of the best public schools in the nation.

But gender ideology emphasized in the wake of falling student achievement levels has riled some Montgomery parents who formed a chapter of Moms for Liberty in January 2023.

The so-called inclusive gender material dominates much of the language arts curriculum for the county, according to Lindsey Smith, founder of the county’s Moms for Liberty Chapter and a mother of four children.

“My preschool kid recently was read to from the book ‘Pride Puppy’, which is an alphabet book illustrated with Drag Queens and Pride illustrations,” Smith told The Epoch Times.

“My second-grader is scheduled to read a book titled ‘My Rainbow’, which is a story about an autistic girl who dreams of becoming trans,” Smith said.

“Our principal had sent home to parents a list of these books and gave us instructions on how we could opt out of these books, and we did, which was possible until March 23,” Lindsey said.

“On March 23, we got a blast email from MCPS [Montgomery County Public Schools] telling us that no one could opt out anymore.”

Montgomery County Public Schools posted a notice on March 23 telling teachers that they must use “inclusive texts” in all instructional materials that include “inclusive and safe spaces for students, including those who identify as LGBT or have family members in the LGBT community.”

A call seeking clarification from MCPS’s Office of Health Education and Curriculum was not returned.

The post on the MCPS website stated: “Students and families may not choose to opt out of engaging with any instructional materials, other than ‘Family Life and Human Sexuality Unit of Instruction’ which is specifically permitted by Maryland law.

“As such, teachers will not send home letters to inform families when inclusive books are read in the future.”

Moms for Liberty and allied citizens announced that they will picket the Board of Education Administration building at 850 Hungerford Drive, Rockville, Maryland, at 3:30 p.m. on March 28.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) warned in a March 28 letter that there could be “dire ramifications” for “the entire nation” if President Joe Biden refuses to negotiate with Republicans on the debt ceiling.

Biden has taken a hard line on the debt ceiling since Republicans took the House, suggesting that he will not allow Republicans to use the issue to force compromises. Republicans, on the other hand, hope to use the issue to force Biden to give concessions and reduce federal spending.

Two months ago, at the start of the 118th Congress, Biden nevertheless indicated a willingness to meet with McCarthy to discuss the dispute. This public willingness to talk, McCarthy said, has not translated to negotiations between the two leaders.

“Since that time, however, you and your team have been completely missing in action on any meaningful follow-up to this rapidly approaching deadline,” McCarthy said in his letter to the president.

By Biden’s refusal to meet with him, the speaker said, “[Y]ou are putting an already fragile economy in jeopardy by insisting upon your extreme position of refusing to negotiate any meaningful changes to out-of-control government spending alongside an increase of the debt limit.”

Since taking office, Biden has signed off on trillions in spending, including the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the $745 billion Inflation Reduction Act and, most recently, a $1.7 trillion omnibus package rushed through Congress at the end of the last Congress.

Republicans have long blamed this spending for the rise in consumer prices, and have said since the 117th Congress that cutting spending would be a top priority for the party if they took the House.

McCarthy told Biden that if he continues to refuse to negotiate, any debt ceiling crisis would be his fault.

“Your position—if maintained—could prevent America from meeting its obligations and hold dire ramifications for the entire nation,” McCarthy wrote.

‘No Interest in Brinksmanship’

McCarthy added to the president that he had “no interest” in playing political brinksmanship with the debt ceiling.

Rather, he said, “[I have interest] only in doing what is best for the American people.”

During a March 28 press conference, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) echoed the sentiment.

Biden, Scalise alleged, is “trying to cause a debt crisis by waiting and waiting and waiting [to meet with McCarthy] until the midnight hour.”

Congress is regularly tasked with raising the debt limit, which describes the congressionally-authorized U.S. borrowing limit. Without the green light from Congress to take on more debt, the Federal Reserve relies on so-called “extraordinary measures” to keep the government functioning.

According to projections from the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve’s “extraordinary measures” to keep the government funded will run out sometime between July and September of this year if Congress doesn’t authorize a debt limit increase.

In 2011, Republicans successfully used the debt ceiling issue to force major concessions from President Barack Obama.

However, the battle left the United States with a ding on its credit rating—a situation that both parties are anxious to avoid.

If the Congress does not authorize a debt ceiling increase before the Federal Reserve runs out of money, financial analysts say the results would be “catastrophic.”

Because the U.S. dollar is not backed by anything but the full faith and credit of the United States—which up to this point has a pristine credit rating—a failure to raise the debt ceiling would further decimate the value of the dollar, which has already lost a great deal of its value over the past two years.

GOP Expectations

In the letter, McCarthy laid out an overview of GOP expectations: he called for non-defense spending to return to “pre-inflationary levels,” the reclamation of unspent COVID-19 relief funds, strengthening of federal aid work requirements, and “[p]olicies to grow our economy and keep Americans safe.”

“Taken together,” McCarthy said, “such policies would help address the number one issue facing Americans today: stubbornly high inflation brought on by reckless government spending.”

McCarthy concluded: “Mr. President, simply put: you are on the clock. It’s time to drop the partisanship, roll up our sleeves, and find common ground on this urgent challenge.”

Any increase in the U.S. debt limit must be run through the House before it can head to the Senate or the president’s desk.

During the last Congress, facing GOP pushback to the debt limit in the Senate, some Democrats floated the idea for the Federal Reserve to mint a $1 trillion coin as an emergency measure—a suggestion which won the endorsement even of erstwhile moderates like Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.).

If Republicans and the White House are unable to reach an agreement, Democrats could begin pushing for policies that would allow the government to remain funded without congressional authorization.

White House Responds

In a statement, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to McCarthy.

“Congress has a constitutional obligation to address the debt limit—as they did three times in the previous administration without conditions,” the White House said.

Jean-Pierre added that “the threat of a default risks the livelihoods of American small businesses, retirees, and working families and would hand a massive win to China.

“[R]ecent events underscore the need for Congress to address the debt limit as soon as possible,” she said. “It’s time for Republicans to stop playing games, pass a clean debt ceiling bill, and quit threatening our economic recovery.”

Meanwhile, she claimed “The President welcomes a separate conversation about our nation’s fiscal future,” but that the specific cuts requested by Republicans “don’t reduce the deficit at all.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

ARE THEY JUST IDENTIFYING THIS MORE, OR IS THERE SOMETHING IN THE WATER – OR FOOD?

utism” rates are skyrocketing among children in the United States, especially in the state of California, according to new data obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The new figures claim one in 36 American eight-year-olds, or 2.8 percent, have been diagnosed with autism. This is higher than the 1 in 44, or 2.3 percent of December 2021. By comparison with the CDC’s first autism prevalence report, published in 2007, the increase is shocking: only 1 in 150 children, or 0.7 percent, had been diagnosed sixteen years ago.

The new data makes concerning reading at a time when the nation’s children seem sicker and unhappier than ever before. Back in November, we reported on how members of Generation Z are suffering massive, pandemic-induced depression. Millions of Zoomers were diagnosed with mental-health problems during the pandemic, highlighting the terrible effects of the social-distancing measures, and the constant barrage of fear propaganda, on a generation that had already been identified as perhaps the most fragile and troubled in recent times.

Last week we reported on how Big Pharma is now using “patient-influencers” on TikTok to sell new drugs to teenagers. A new study in The Journal of Medical Internet Research reveals a very dark side to influencer marketing, a segment which is expected to be worth $23 billion this year. Pharmaceutical companies are now paying influencers to help sell “weight loss” drugs like semaglutide, otherwise known by its brand names of Ozempic and Wegovy.

“The bottom line here is that patient influencers act as a form of interactive direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, sharing their knowledge and experiences on pharmaceutical drugs with communities of followers in which they wield great influence,” said study author Erin Willis, an associate professor of advertising, public relations and media design.

“This raises ethical questions that need more investigation.”

AUTISM: RATES JUST KEEP INCREASING.

The data used in the report was collected by the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, a program that aims to understand the prevalence and traits of children with autism. The ADDM Network surveys children aged 4 and 8 in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin.

MUST READ: Ozempic’s Inventor is Race-Grifting to Hook Millions on Taxpayer-Funded ‘Anti-Obesity’ Drugs.

According to the ADDM Network, the median age of first diagnosis across these states for 8 year olds is just over 4 years. In California, the age is just 3 years.

“California is unique because of the intense focus on early detection and extensive early services,” says study co-author Karen Pierce, PhD, co-director of the UC San Diego Autism Center of Excellence and principal investigator of the ADDM California site, in a media release.

“Some children in San Diego are diagnosed with autism by their second birthday and connected to services quickly thereafter. This is great news because the sooner they can be connected to services and support, the more likely they are to thrive in school and in later life.”

The new figures showed interesting changes in the demographics of autism diagnosis too. While previous reports had shown white children with the condition more often than others, the researchers discovered, for the first time, that autism rates are now higher in all minorities, except in California, where there were no racial differences of note.

Boys have been four to five times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls, but the new report shows that the gap is now closing, including in California.

THE FUTURE OF THE NATION’S YOUTH.

While it seems the authors are pleased that diagnosis is taking place earlier, especially in California, this can’t hide the fact that the cause of the rise in numbers, if not simply a reflection of the fact that there are better facilities in place for detection, still needs to be explained. Many, expert and non-expert alike, will suspect that more is going on than just speedier and improved diagnosis.

The causes of autism are a controversial subject, to say the least. There’s no doubt that genetic factors play a role in the development of the condition. But there’s also increasingly good evidence to suggest a wide variety of environmental factors play an equally important role too. There is an increasingly well substantiated link between autism and diet, for instance. It’s well known that autistic children tend to suffer gastrointestinal issues such as constipation, diarrhea, and abdominal discomfort, and studies have revealed that autistic children lack certain beneficial bacteria in their guts, like bifidobacteria and prevotella, and have much higher levels of potentially harmful bacteria like escherichia/shigella and clostridium cluster XVIII.

MUST READ: Ozempic’s Inventor is Race-Grifting to Hook Millions on Taxpayer-Funded ‘Anti-Obesity’ Drugs.

Other studies have revealed links between autism and compounds found in particular kinds of food, especially processed food.

In 2019, for instance, scientists found a molecular link to a common food preservative, propionic acid (PPA), suggesting that it could be responsible for neuronal damage during gestation and childhood. Very high bodily levels of PPA, which are characteristic of a diet heavy in processed food, can prevent proper differentiation of nerve cells. Stool samples from children with autism are known to have much higher levels of the chemical.

What are we to make, then, of the news that children are now consuming record quantities of processed food? According to a new study, British children between two and five years old have possibly the worst diet in the world among their age cohort. Nearly two-thirds of British toddlers’ average calorie intake comes from processed foods. Under-5s in the US and Australia hardly fare much better, with 58 percent and 47 percent, respectively, of their calories coming from this awful garbage.

Disastrous dietary trends among the young have only been made worse by the pandemic response. As opportunities for play and socialisation all-but-disappeared, and activity levels decreased, children’s diets inevitably worsened. According to the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between March and November 2020 the body mass index (BMI) of a sample of 430,000 children increased at twice the rate it did before the pandemic began. Not only the stress of prolonged isolation, which encouraged comfort eating, but also increased economic pressure on parents, was to blame.

The simple truth is, by allowing our children to eat in such a manner, we’re setting them up to fail – whether that means they will become the 1 in 36 who now develops autism, the 1 in 5 who is obese or, even worse, both. We need to do much better if we want the nation, and our children, to have a real future.

ANALYSIS – In the latest evidence that the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol was not exactly as it was portrayed by partisan Democrats and the establishment media, a sealed video shows D.C. undercover Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers acting as provocateurs.

And a federal prosecutor has admitted they did so but is still fighting in court to keep the video evidence sealed or ‘masked.’

Videos from Jan. 6, still hidden under court seal, have become an increasingly hot topic, especially as we learn more about the involvement of multiple FBI informants in the riot.

One of the Jan. 6 defendants, William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, filed a motion on Feb. 21 to remove the court seal on one video.

The undercover video, part of which was posted on Rumble, shows three members of the MPD’s Electronic Surveillance Unit (ESU) approach the Capitol’s northwest steps.

The Epoch Times (ET) reports:

Nearly 30 members of the Electronic Surveillance Unit were assigned to duty on Jan. 6, some of whom were gathering evidence on crowd activity. Members wore special bands on their left wrists to identify themselves as part of the Electronic Surveillance Unit, according to the MPD’s 96-page Jan. 6 action plan.

ET quotes undercover MPD ESU officers chanting or yelling terms of encouragement and incitement at protesters. These included:

Officer 1 repeatedly joined in chants of “Drain the swamp!” and “Our house! Our house! Our house!”

“This is amazing,” Officer 2 said. Officer 1, who was shooting the GoPro video, replied, “Yeah, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Officer 1 encouraged the crowd to move up the stairs with repeated shouts, “Keep going! Keep going!” and “Keep going, keep going, come on!”

“This video clearly evidences undercover law enforcement officers urging the crowds to advance up the stairs and scaffolding towards the Capitol on January 6,” Pope wrote in an earlier case filing.

“The officer clearly incited that area, and we still don’t have video from all other undercover MPD,” said Pope.

“And,” Pope added to ET, “as the numerous informants in the Proud Boys trial demonstrates, we are only just beginning to scratch the surface on FBI involvement.”

In a March 24 filing before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, however, prosecutors asked the court to keep video footage shot by the officers under court seal.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Moran argued against unsealing closed-circuit television (CCTV) security video, saying it could put officers at risk.

“There are very specific and highly worrisome risks associated with the specific videos the defendant seeks to share en masse,” she wrote.

Moran also accused Pope of attempting “to try his case in the media rather than in a court of law …”

But trying the Jan. 6 rioters in the media has been the government’s goal all along. And now it’s time to finally see the other side of the story.

And this side could be very damaging to those blindly pushing the ‘insurrection’ narrative.

At one point in the video, one of the undercover officers stated, “Someone’s going to get shot.”

Another video reportedly shows Officer 2 and Officer 3 walking behind the late Ashli Babbitt on the northwest steps of the Capitol.

An hour later, Babbitt, a former Air Force Security Forces officer who was unarmed and peaceful, was shot and died at the entry of the Speaker’s Lobby by a Capitol Police Lieutenant.

Babbitt was the only person directly killed in the violence at the Capitol.

SOURCE: American Liberty News

The Biden administration‘s Fish and Wildlife Service is spending thousands of dollars to put employees through training intended to make them feel “eco-grief” for the planet and how to deal with the mental trauma of believing the world will soon end.

The Washington Times revealed in a report that the FWS’ Southwest Region office is offering workshops to employees who “seek to normalize the wide range of emotional responses that conservationists experience while empowering participants to act while taking care of themselves.”

The Times reports each session costs $4,000.

The taxpayer-funded workshops teach government employees how to “define ecological grief and eco-resilience” and to “examine common emotional reactions associated with ecological grief.”

Data from a 2020 Pew Research Center survey found 62 percent of white liberals reported they had been medically diagnosed with a mental illness. 

Other surveys have found widespread mental illness among young people, who have been conditioned by environmentalists to believe they will soon die in a natural event caused by capitalism and human activity. Actual scientific data show that despite the propaganda, deaths from climate events are at their lowest point in recorded history.

“We are deeply concerned that this kind of meaningless pandering is a colossal waste of taxpayer funding, does nothing to further the purpose of the USFWS, and diverts important resources away from critical agency functions.”

The Biden administration is not offering grief counseling to laid-off pipeline workers or the thousands of other Americans who have lost their jobs to the “man-made global warming” conspiracy theory.

Now Congress is demanding an end to the propaganda sessions.

“We are deeply concerned that this kind of meaningless pandering is a colossal waste of taxpayer funding, does nothing to further the purpose of the USFWS and diverts important resources away from critical agency functions,” House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman writes in a letter to the FWS.

“These blatantly partisan ideology sessions are a misuse of taxpayer dollars and extremely tone deaf, particularly when USFWS is carrying out policies that negatively impact our constituents and species conservation,” Westerman adds.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

SOURCE: American Liberty News

The megalomania of the current crop of students, faculty, and administrators at our radical universities blinds them to the claims of their generations of benefactors.

The most recent shout-down debacle at Stanford’s law school, one of many such recent sordid episodes, prompts the question: “Who owns our universities?” 

The law students who are in residence for three years apparently assume they embody the university. And so, they believe they represent and speak for a score of diverse Stanford interests when they shout down federal Judge Kyle Duncan, as if he were an intruder into their own woke private domain. 

After all, Stanford, like most of the Ivy League universities, is a private institution. Are then its board of trustees, its faculty, its students, and its administration de facto overseers and owners? 

Not really. 

In the case of public institutions of higher learning, there is no controversy: The people own the university and, through their elected representatives, pay for and approve its entire budget. Again, through their selected regents and overseers, the taxpayers adjudicate the laws of these universities.  

But private universities, while different, are not really so different.  

Take again Stanford as a typical example. It receives about $1.5 billion per year in federal taxpayer grants alone to its various faculty, labs, research centers, and programs. 

Its annual budget exceeds $8 billion. If Stanford accepts such huge federal and state direct largess, do the taxpayers who provide it have some say about how and under what conditions their recipients use their money? 

Second, the university also has accumulated a $36 billion endowment. At normal annual investment returns, such an enormous fund may earn well over $2 billion a year.  That income is almost all tax-free, based on the principle that Stanford is a nonprofit, apolitical institution. 

But is it? 

One could imagine what would have happened had, say, a radical abortion proponent been shouted down at Stanford Law School. Further, conceive that conservative law students had called her scum and wished for her daughters to be raped. Envision obscene placards flashing in her face—before she was stopped speaking entirely by a conservative Stanford dean who hijacked her talk and informed the pro-abortion speaker that she more or less asked for such a mob reception. The perpetrators, we know, would have been expelled from the law school within 24 hours, and the dean fired in 12. And, alternately, had the architects of this real, vile demonstration faced an open hearing, where evidence of the event was presented, and had been found guilty of violating university policy and then had been expelled and ostracized from the law school, even after much chest-thumping and performance-art braggadocio, it is unlikely the debacle would be repeated. 

Third, the federal government through subsidies and guarantees is liable for over $1.6 trillion in aggregate student loans. Thousands of Stanford undergraduate and graduates are among those indebted and could not attend the university without such taxpayer largess. 

To take a hypothetical, if some 16,000 undergraduate and Stanford graduate students carried on average $20,000 in federally backed student loans, the Stanford student community could be carrying a third of a billion dollars in federal loan guarantees.  

In other words, the private universities of the United States are really not so private at all. They rely on billions of dollars in federal and state research subsidies and grants; billions of dollars in tax-exempt annual income from their endowments; and hundreds of billions of dollars in federally backed student loans that allow them to charge exorbitant tuition at above the annual inflation rate from leveraged and indebted students.  

Given those huge public investments, should not the public have some say in how these universities are run? 

After all, Stanford, and thousands of private universities like it, are not Hillsdale College. Hillsdale long ago lost trust in federal and state government due to their efforts to use their partial funding as a means of politically leveraging the college. And therefore, it has refused all public monies ever since. 

Left-wing major colleges or universities have not done the same because they rightly assume the federal government shares their commitment to radical progressive change. And thus, Washington gives them free rein to discriminate in admission, housing, and hiring, as well as to suspend constitutional protections for faculty and staff—if in service to progressive-regressive agendas. 

But that was then, and this is now. If Stanford’s sordid law school psychodrama taught us anything, it was that the law school mob felt they could threaten, smear, scream, disrupt and shut down a public speaker and do so with complete impunity. And they were right on all counts. 

But if the public “owns” much of private universities given the colossal amount of money it provides them, could the public at last insist that all colleges, public and private, simply abide by the laws of the land? 

That adherence would mean universities, to continue their taxpayer revenue streams, would pledge not to discriminate in their hiring and admissions on the basis of race, gender, or sexual orientation. That public insistence would prompt revolutionary changes on campus. 

Stanford, for example, laudably recently deplored its past antisemitic admissions practices of the 1950s that deliberately restricted the number of Jews who qualified for admission. The university had institutionalized discrimination on the logic it did not want too many Jews on campus, as part of its social engineering to achieve the “correct” student body. Amid its current apologies, Stanford added that in the 1950s it had not been transparent in its warped discriminatory admissions but had either denied or sought to hide its bias.  

Amid its apologies for past discrimination, the university has announced that its incoming class of 2026 includes 22 percent described as “white.” Yet that percentage (remember the university, not us, the public, is obsessed with  categorizing people by race), is less than a third of the percentage of so-called whites in the general public. 

Has this particular group suddenly suffered collectively an epidemic of low grades, poor test scores (on now optional tests for admission) or poor community service and extracurricular activities? 

Would that decline explain why it is so suddenly and vastly “underrepresented”? 

Surely a university currently and loudly apologizing for its past ethnic, racial, and religious discrimination against Jews would not simultaneously, but quietly, begin doing nearly the exact thing some 70 years later? 

For that matter, since when do universities, public or private, deliberately warp the spirit of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by institutionalizing racially separate graduation ceremonies, racially segregated dorms (“theme houses”), and safe spaces? 

All the legalese universities employ to skirt both state law and federal statutes prohibiting segregation and discrimination—and it is a multibillion industry—cannot hide the fact that in many ways campuses are emulating the spirit and practice of the Old Confederacy and postbellum Jim Crow South, according to the infamous “1/16” or  the “one-drop” rule, to adjudicate hiring and admission, and the apartheid practice of directing particular races to “separate but equal” housing.

Should not private universities also pledge to follow the Bill of Rights and provide constitutional protections for its university community? 

That would mean if a university could not guarantee the right for invited speakers to finish their lectures without being shouted down, physically intimidated, or met with obscene and pornographic slurs and placards, the university then would be liable to suspension of its federal funds. 

Recently, Stanford admitted that it allowed a Stasi-like “snitch” program on campus in which anonymous complainers can lodge complaints against allegedly biased remarks by faculty, staff, or administrators. But is not a hallmark of the U.S. legal system that the accused has a constitutional right to face his accuser? 

In fact, most private universities suspend a great number of constitutional protections when its constituents are accused either of sexual harassment or insensitive speech. Students, especially, in campus hearings are not always allowed to meet their accusers, to cross examine accusations and evidence, or to have legal counsel at all times. 

Should the taxpayers not insist that campuses ensure their communities the same rights of due process, of protection from double jeopardy, of rules of evidence and cross examination as enjoyed by the general public who funds them?  

It is not just the American taxpayer who funds public and even private universities, but alumni and donors as well. The students who shouted down Judge Duncan as “scum” and hoped his daughters were raped are likely at Stanford with at least partial financial support. Many of those endowments are sustained by generous donors. And they too remain a part of the university community, along with faculty, administrators, and various boards of trustees.  

The present radicalization of the campus is based on the egotistical assumption that transitory students own colleges. They believe, by their snobbery (one law student yelled at Judge Duncan that the judge couldn’t get into Stanford Law School) and ephemeral presence on a current campus, that they are the one and only “Yale,” or they are the real “Stanford.” Therefore, they believe they have the right to dictate to—or follow the whims of—their equally transitory radical administrators. 

But for such a claim of ownership to be true, universities would have to self-fund, to raise all their own research dollars, to provide their own loans to their own students—and then to announce that they have no need of all the generous donors who supplied their wherewithal, and all the vast majority of students who do not disrupt, slur, slander, smear, and resort to violence, but do pay their tuition bills and thereby also help ensure viable universities. 

So, who owns American higher education? 

Almost everyone who pays for this now peculiar institution—a fact that the current ungracious woke activists who are passing through colleges are too dense in their megalomania to grasp.

SOURCE: American Greatness

The TikTok bill gives Washington legal cover to accelerate its censorship and manipulation of political speech in America.

A U.S. Senate bill to address the threat TikTok allegedly poses to American security is not really about TikTok at all. It’s about the federal government gaining more control over election-related speech. 

As written, the bill by Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) would authorize the secretary of commerce to “identify, deter, disrupt, prevent, prohibit . . . or otherwise mitigate . . . [and] address any risk arising from . . . any property . . . that the Secretary determines . . . poses an undue or unacceptable risk of . . . interfering in . . . the result or reported result of a Federal election, as determined in coordination with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence . . . ” or, “activities by a foreign adversary that are designed to undermine democratic processes and institutions or steer policy and regulatory decisions in favor of the strategic objectives of a foreign adversary.”

The bill’s language doesn’t specify whether the material in question is authentic. If passed and signed into law, the government could suppress actual and authentic video of election fraud if the information has “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.

It’s difficult not to assume such a law would be used to throttle speech that challenges official Washington narratives. How often have elements in the media and the government accused political opponents of repeating “Putin’s talking points”? 

This highly aggressive legislation includes a provision making it a crime to violate Department of Commerce regulations to implement the law. The bill includes civil and criminal forfeiture penalties that would allow the U.S. government to seize property “used or intended to be used, in any manner, to commit or facilitate a violation or attempted violation described in paragraph shall be subject to forfeiture to the United States.” Thus, if TikTok permitted content that explained Russia or China’s position on an international dispute with the United States, the U.S. government could potentially use the act to seize the entire platform.

Furthermore, the legislation contains anti-transparency language exempting federal officials from the Freedom of Information Act.

I cannot speak to the national security threat TikTok supposedly poses. But I would note that many members of Congress depend on political action committees that take money from TikTok’s main competitors: Meta (Facebook) and Google. As of 2018, the latest year Open Secrets reported data, 32 members of Congress own stock in Google. 

For politicians invested in Facebook and Google, crushing TikTok is in their financial interest.

As reported by MarketWatch: 

TikTok, a favorite among those under 30, is gobbling up market share to the detriment of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. . . . TikTok’s digital ad revenue [is expected] to explode to $36 billion by 2027 from $10 billion in 2022, lifting its share of the global market to 5.4% in 2027 from 2.3% last year.” Worse yet, for Meta and Google, a survey of 50 U.S. ad buyers showed, “Some 46% of respondents chose TikTok as the platform where their top client would most prefer to advertise, Cowen analyst John Blackledge wrote, well ahead of Instagram’s Reels (24%) and Google’s YouTube Shorts (22%).

Clearly, China and Russia are geopolitical rivals to the United States. But using the federal government to block speech from those countries is nevertheless unconstitutional. Americans have a right to access the viewpoints of international sources which offer a critique or conflict with conventional wisdom within the United States. The U.S. government has repeatedly shown it will use its surveillance and law enforcement powers to manipulate domestic elections. We have the right to access foreign speech even if we can’t trust anything Vladamir Putin or Xi Jinping says. We still have a right to know what they’re saying about America. This is particularly important in times of war or near war in which our government is actively hyping escalation of military conflict with the Russians. 

Additionally, as a writer who specializes in raising awareness of lapses of the U.S. government, I have found numerous story ideas and research leads through TikTok. For example, I would likely have not reported on the government’s response to the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment without the extremely valuable analysis of TikTok-based expert Nick Drom, who periodically posted up-to-date criticisms of the government’s response to the disaster. Drom also read the TikTok bill, which led to investigate the text for myself. Again, this is critically underreported information that might not have received attention but for TikTok.

We need freer speech in this country. The Twitter Files should alarm all Americans as they show the federal government has scaled up its censorship and manipulation of public speech. TikTok has participated in much of that censorship. But it has nevertheless served an important role in allowing U.S. citizens to access information the federal government would prefer to censor. 

The first and most important national security consideration is the protection and preservation of our cherished rights under the constitution. That’s the oath each of these federal bureaucrats takes at the commencement of employment. Speech, especially political speech, includes both the freedom to broadcast and the freedom to access others’ speech. It is critical to preserving our constitutional democracy. The TikTok bill gives Washington legal cover to accelerate its censorship and manipulation of political speech in America. If you liked what you saw in the Twitter Files, you will love what comes after this bill passes.

SOURCE: American Greatness

National Public Radio has become a parody of itself.

NPR recently ran a news article about how the World Athletics Council, the governing body for international track and field competitions, will henceforth prohibit biological males who “identify” as females from competing in women’s sports.

The article had this line which, for readers with common sense, might produce a chuckle:

“At the center of the issue is whether transgender women athletes have a physical advantage over other female competitors, even after lowering their testosterone levels,” NPR reported. “But there is limited scientific research involving elite transgender athletes—which the council also acknowledged.”

Do biological men have a physical advantage over women? Is the sky blue? Are we going to need more studies to figure this out?

NPR’s Twitter account leaned even more into this message about how it’s just a mystery as to whether men have significant physical advantages in elite athletic competition over women.

“The international governing body for track and field will ban trans women athletes from elite women’s competitions, citing a priority for fairness over inclusion, despite limited scientific research involving elite trans athletes,” the tweet said.

The international governing body for track and field will ban trans women athletes from elite women’s competitions, citing a priority for fairness over inclusion, despite limited scientific research involving elite trans athletes. https://t.co/CcYOVuDVlR

— NPR (@NPR) March 26, 2023

There actually are studies on this subject that show that even after hormone treatments, men are still physically distinct from women. Two years after starting hormone treatments, biological men still retained natural advantages over women.

Twitter users piled on, and the social media platform added “context to the Tweet” with these studies attached.

That prompted NPR to issue a correction to the tweet.

“An earlier tweet incorrectly stated there is limited scientific evidence of physical advantage. Existing research shows that higher levels of testosterone do impact athletic performance. But there’s limited research involving elite trans athletes in competition,” the tweet stated.

They’re getting warmer, but they’re not there yet.

That tweet was still misleading, and Twitter users again piled on with studies on transgender men versus women in competition.

Correction: An earlier tweet incorrectly stated there is limited scientific evidence of physical advantage. Existing research shows that higher levels of testosterone do impact athletic performance. But there’s limited research involving elite trans athletes in competition.

— NPR (@NPR) March 26, 2023

The truth is, NPR and other left-wing outlets will carefully tiptoe around studies that don’t confirm their ideological bias on this issue. In their view, to be against gender affirmation is to be on the wrong side of history, so they will do whatever they can to wiggle out of facing these inconvenient realities.

Apparently, you’re supposed to give yourself a lobotomy and pretend that this 2022 NCAA “female athlete of the year” had no inherent biological advantages due to being a man.

Biased reporting in favor of cherished left-wing causes by the publicly funded NPR shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point. 

The news outlet leans hard into race and gender narratives, and has been more open about allowing its journalists to participate in activism.

If this was just another left-wing outlet, that would be one thing, but NPR continues to get hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding to underwrite what has somehow become an even more extremely slanted outlet.

Even with this financial support, NPR has run into money troubles. In mid-March, it announced that it was cutting 10% of its staff and four of its major podcasts.

NPR has gone from being a standard liberal publication with some occasionally interesting cultural programming to a dedicated promoter of the cultural revolution. In many ways, it mirrors the radical trend of countless other large public and private institutions.

Maybe it’s finally time for elected officials to stop shoveling NPR our money year after year.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post NPR Says There’s ‘Limited Scientific Evidence’ Biological Men Have Advantage Over Women in Sports appeared first on The Daily Signal.

SOURCE: Firebrand News

TikTok gave $150k to group that counts socialist congresswoman as adviser

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) on Saturday broke with growing bipartisan support for a ban of TikTok, downplaying concerns that the Chinese government could use the social media app to spy on Americans.

In her maiden post to TikTok, Ocasio-Cortez said that a proposal to ban TikTok “just doesn’t feel right to me.” The progressive Democrat questioned intelligence officials’ concerns that the Chinese government could use TikTok to surveil Americans or peddle pro-Beijing propaganda. She also raised concerns about how TikTok competitors, such as Facebook, handle users’ data.

In December, TikTok gave $150,000 to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, for which Ocasio-Cortez serves as an adviser, according to lobbying disclosures. The donation was for “honorary expenses” for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which counts Ocasio-Cortez as a member.

But American intelligence officials have said the Chinese government could use TikTok to spy on Americans and push pro-Beijing propaganda on users. There is growing evidence that TikTok and ByteDance have already used the site for those purposes. The Justice Department is investigating reports that ByteDance executives in Beijing accessed TikTok data to track American journalists who have reported about the company. TikTok computer tracking code has also been found on the websites of more than two dozen state governments, according to another report.

Democrats have increasingly admitted that TikTok is a boon to the party’s campaigns, as TikTok users tend to be younger and more liberal than the American public. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, a former Democratic governor of Rhode Island, said this month that “the politician in me thinks you’re gonna literally lose every voter under 35, forever,” if TikTok is banned.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Arizona’s Democratic governor Katie Hobbs plans to defund a border enforcement team that specializes in countering international crime organizations, earning condemnation from critics who point to record numbers of illegal migrants and drugs crossing the border.

The Border Strike Force, established in 2015 by then-governor Doug Ducey (R.) to “help secure Arizona’s border and thwart transnational criminal organizations,” will be dismantled under Hobbs’s proposed budget. The governor, who took office earlier this year, said the funds should be redirected to be “more beneficial” in coordinating law enforcement at the border.

Hobbs’s decision to gut the force, which focuses on countering global drug smugglers, comes as the United States faces record amounts of drugs coming over the border, with reported fentanyl seizures at U.S. ports of entries quadrupling from 2019 to 2021. The decision could prove to be a political gift to Republicans, who will likely need to win Arizona to have any chance of winning back the White House in 2024. Nearly four in five voters in the state say illegal immigration is a bad thing, and a wide majority support building a wall, according to recent polls.

Hobbs has argued, based on reporting in the Arizona Republic, that the force had not lived up to its purpose. Among the criticisms is that more than 60 percent of drug seizures were conducted by officers outside the force. While Democrats are saying the force is for show, it has scored major drug busts, according to Fox News.

Republicans blasted Hobbs’s decision. Rep. Paul Gosar (R., Ariz.) said “countless more people” would die from Hobbs’s “open border policies.”

“In the same manner that Joe Biden has destroyed our country with his welcomed support for the prolonged lawlessness and drug crisis along our southern border, Katie Hobbs is destroying Arizona in three short months since taking office by her reckless dismantling of the Border Strike Task Force,” Gosar said.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) said that “there is no rational reason to undermine border and national security efforts amid a historic border crisis.”

The move comes as the United States faces a migrant crisis on the southern border. Sixteen individuals on the terror watch list were apprehended on the border in February. At least 5.5 million illegal migrants have crossed the border since President Joe Biden took office. Between Oct. 1, 2022, and Jan. 31, 2023, border agents seized 12,500 pounds of fentanyl along the southern border.

Despite the crisis, House Democrats this month boycotted a congressional hearing in South Texas to address border challenges.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

‘What you expect us to believe … is that it is somehow “life-saving” and “affirming” to poison and mutilate,’ Rep. Walter Hudson said

State representative Walter Hudson (R.) slammed Minnesota’s “trans refuge” bill—which allows children from other states to get sex change procedures in Minnesota—calling the bill a threat to parental rights and the safety and health of children.

House Bill 146 is “meant to ensure that children undergoing gender transition procedures allowed under Minnesota law cannot be governed by child protection laws of other states,” Fox News reported. The bill is a Democrat-sponsored response to the nine states that have outlawed pediatric transgender procedures, such as puberty blockers and sex-change surgeries, in the last year.

“Your kid gets [to Minnesota],” Hudson said Friday during the House debate. “You’re their parent, you have legal custody of them, they’re your child, but they’re in Minnesota, you’re in Iowa, and as soon as they say the magic words ‘I’m looking for gender-affirming care,’ just like that—parental rights canceled. You no longer have access to your child.”

“I don’t trust it,” Hudson said. “This is a bill, despite what the author claims about what it does and doesn’t do—I can read, I have a means of cognition, I understand what I see—this is a bill that exists for the purpose of canceling the parental rights of the citizens of the United States who don’t happen to be residents of this state.”

Fixed video. pic.twitter.com/5LPnaRUH0v

— Walter Hudson (@WalterHudson) March 24, 2023

Family lawyers and conservatives have echoed Hudson’s concerns, arguing that the wording of the bill leaves the door open for parents to lose custody of their children for denying “gender-affirming care.”

“The most insidious aspect of this bill,” Minnesota attorney Bob Roby, who has more than 30 years experience in family and juvenile court, told Fox, “is the language that adds children who are being denied ‘gender-affirming care’ (defined as everything from therapy to hormone blockers to transition surgery) to what amounts to the definition for a child ‘in need of protection or services’ in Minnesota, allowing the courts to take ’emergency custody’ of the child.”

House Bill 146, proposed by Minnesota’s first transgender representative, Leigh Finke (D.), passed Friday 68-62 along party lines. Finke and other Democrats defended the legislation, saying that “gender-affirming care is life-saving health care.”

“Withholding or delaying gender-affirming care can have a dramatic impact on the mental health of any individual who needs it,” Finke said.

“What you expect us to believe … is that it is somehow ‘life-saving’ and ‘affirming’ to poison and mutilate,” Hudson told fellow lawmakers. “And I don’t need to go to school for eight years and become a doctor to know that’s BS.”

Hudson also called out the irony of Rep. Larry Kraft’s (D.) plea in defense of the bill, that good parents are willing to do anything for their children.

“Inclusive within the ‘we’re willing to do anything for them’ is ‘stop them when they are harming themselves.’ And we’ve all done it. There isn’t a single parent in this room, or anywhere in this state of Minnesota, who has not intervened in what their child wanted because they knew it wasn’t healthy for that child,” Hudson said.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

George Mason University students are petitioning to remove Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R., Va.) as the graduation speaker for the school’s May commencement over his conservative agenda.

More than 5,300 students signed a petition demanding the university disinvite the governor as the graduation speaker, taking issue with the Republican governor’s policies, Fox 5 DC reported.

“Selecting a speaker that has passed anti-trans legislation, promoted the abolishment of racial equity curricula, and restricted the availability of literature in public schools is an intentional target towards historically marginalized communities comprising Mason,” wrote Alaina Ruffin, who created the petition to challenge the school’s decision.

The petition comes as universities nationwide have become entangled in First Amendment debates as left-wing activists work to disrupt and cancel conservative speakers. Earlier this month, Stanford University law students shouted down a speaker, Fifth Circuit judge Kyle Duncan. The student activists staged a series of protests after the law school dean issued an apology to Duncan.

George Mason president Gregory Washington celebrated the announcement of the graduation speaker. “Governor Youngkin’s drive for lifelong learning and his entrepreneurial mindset is what we cultivate in all of our graduates,” he said.

Youngkin’s policies that have earned him the animus of George Mason students include his executive order against the teaching of critical race theory as well as proposed rules requiring students in Virginia schools to use bathrooms and play for sports teams that correspond to their biological sex.

Last week, a Pennsylvania Democratic state representative implied that the state could withhold funding from the University of Pittsburgh for allowing conservative speakers on campus.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

China’s Foreign Ministry quotes Mark Pocan after Wisconsin Dem called TikTok’s opponents ‘xenophobic’

The Chinese Communist Party is using a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin to argue that calls to ban TikTok in the United States are part of a racist “witch hunt.”

After a bipartisan group of lawmakers during a Thursday hearing grilled TikTok CEO Shou Chew over the app’s ties to the CCP, China’s foreign ministry condemned the hearing in a press conference. Chinese propaganda outlet Global Times quickly highlighted the government’s response in a story headlined, “China denounces US TikTok ban threat as ‘xenophobic witch hunt,’ firmly opposes possible forced sale.” But the “xenophobic witch hunt” line did not come from China—the communist nation was actually quoting Wisconsin Democratic congressman Mark Pocan.

One day before the hearing, Pocan spoke at a “Keep TikTok” rally, which saw online content creators and liberal politicians voice their support for the Chinese app. During his speech, Pocan argued that banning TikTok “isn’t the answer” and accused those in Congress who support a ban of conducting a “xenophobic witch hunt.” It took just two days for the CCP to weaponize Pocan’s remark, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning noting in her Friday press conference “that some U.S. lawmaker has said that to seek a TikTok ban is a ‘xenophobic witch hunt.'”

Pocan’s defense of TikTok came as the app, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, mounted an aggressive effort to circumvent a ban. TikTok in early March tapped top Democratic public relations firm SKDK to provide “communications support,” a move that likely bought the app a line to top liberals. Anita Dunn, an SKDK founding partner, is a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, and the firm’s executive vice president, Justin Goodman, served as Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s (D., N.Y.) communications director as recently as November. TikTok has also funneled large contributions to progressive organizations—it sent a combined $300,000 to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus in December.

Data from those sites, American intelligence officials have warned, could eventually end up in Beijing’s hands. That’s because China’s national intelligence law requires Chinese companies to turn over data when asked and prohibits those companies from disclosing when they do so. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in Beijing and maintains an internal CCP committee. Chew acknowledged Thursday that TikTok shares American user data with ByteDance but refused to say whether ByteDance could be forced to give data to Beijing.

“Under [People’s Republic of China] law, all Chinese companies, including TikTok, whose parent company is based in Beijing, are ultimately required to do the bidding of Chinese intelligence services, should they be called upon to do so,” Sens. John Thune (R., S.D.) and Mark Warner (D., Va.) said in a Thursday statement. “Nothing we heard from Mr. Chew today assuaged those concerns.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs calls on American leaders to ‘calm down’ on China

A prominent Ivy League economist bashed the United States at a recent Chinese Communist Party business forum, accusing American leaders of trying to “undermine” Chinese companies like TikTok and “escalating” a trade war with Beijing.

Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs called on American business leaders at the China Development Forum to urge U.S. officials to “calm down” in their stance toward China.

“We want to make peace, cooperation, and business; we don’t want conflict,” he said.

Sachs’s remarks have served as a useful propaganda tool for Beijing. State media outlets like China Daily and Global Times touted his criticism of the United States and praise of the forum for helping ease geopolitical tensions.

The Development Research Center of the State Council, which advises the Chinese Communist Party on political issues, sponsors the China Development Forum, which is billed as an alternative to the World Economic Forum held in Davos each year. Ding Xuexiang, a top adviser to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, gave the keynote speech at the forum. Prominent business leaders like Apple’s Tim Cook and Pfizer’s Albert Bourla also spoke at the event.

Sachs, widely considered one of the world’s most influential economists, has emerged as a leading critic of American foreign policy. A former adviser to China’s State Development Planning Commission, Sachs has appeared numerous times on China’s state-controlled media outlets to criticize the United States. He accused conservatives of waging an “unholy crusade” against China and labeled the U.S. government the “greatest threat” to international law and global peace.

Sachs, who was invited to the China Development Forum to speak on the topic of “safeguarding global energy security,” is head of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development, which advises governments and corporations around the globe on “sustainable development policy and best practices.” Through the center, Sachs leads the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, a blue-ribbon panel that studies the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, vaccines, and other pandemic-related issues.

Sachs has more recently taken a critical view of the United States in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. He has pushed the unverified claim that the U.S. government blew up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which transported oil from Russia to Europe. He has accused the United States of using Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Russia, echoing a popular Kremlin talking point.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Police on Monday identified the Nashville school shooter as 28-year old Audrey Hale, a biological woman who identified as transgender. Hale was shot and killed by police at the Covenant School after killing six people.

Hale entered the school through an open door and used a staircase to reach the second floor, police say, before shooting and killing six people, including three children. Hale previously attended the school.

“We have also determined that there were maps drawn in detail of surveillance entry points. At one point she was a student at that school,” Drake said. “There was a vehicle nearby that gave us a clue as to who she was.”

The Covenant School where the shooting took place is a private Christian school for students from pre-school to the sixth grade.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

The California Assembly on Monday approved a plan to create an agency that could cap oil refineries’ profits in a bid to slash gas prices as the state grapples with skyrocketing energy costs.

The bill, a pet project of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) and Attorney General Rob Bonta, would establish a politically appointed commission that could penalize the state’s oil refineries it believes earn too much money. Panelists would have the power to set a “price gouging penalty” for companies with profits officials deem to be too high, and oversee refineries’ maintenance schedules to prevent them from going offline at the same time.

The legislation comes as Californians grapple with the fallout of the state’s green energy policies. The Newsom administration’s push to shutter refineries and transition the grid to renewable sources last summer caused per-gallon gas prices to skyrocket to $6.30 on average.

Newsom first proposed the state commission ahead of the November elections, and last week released a modified plan to put a separate bureaucracy in charge. The legislature fast-tracked the proposal over the past week, and the state senate passed the bill Friday. It now goes to Newsom, who is expected to sign it.

Under the proposal, the new agency could subpoena oil refineries for production and financial records and refer any offending companies for state prosecution by the attorney general. Before approving a tax, the agency is supposed to run an analysis to predict if it will increase prices.

“Since when do we as a republic say we’re going to penalize any industry? That’s a very scary question and a very scary future,” Assemblyman Devon Mathis (R.) said in the final committee hearing Monday morning.

During the final legislative floor vote on Monday, Democrats blocked a Republican lawmaker’s pitch to give Californians a yearlong gas tax holiday. Democrats shrugged off criticisms that the policy could spook the market and drive prices higher, touting the plan as an effort to boost transparency into the oil industry.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Janet Protasiewicz sentenced a serial violent felon to just six months after he broke his wife’s face

Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz sentenced a serial violent felon to just six months in prison for breaking his estranged wife’s face in a brutal beating. Less than one year later, the man gunned down the same victim outside her home, nearly killing her, according to court records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

The offender, Lazarick Spade, allegedly shot his ex-wife to “get even” with her for reporting the prior assault, according to court records.

The disturbing case could fuel concerns about Protasiewicz’s sentencing record and professional judgment, after critics have accused her of handing down light sentences to domestic abusers and sexual predators during her time on the Milwaukee Circuit Court. The high-stakes April 4 race between Protasiewicz and her conservative opponent, former state Supreme Court justice Dan Kelly, will decide the ideological breakdown of the swing state’s top court and could have national implications for the 2024 presidential elections.

It also raises questions about Protasiewicz’s suggestion last week that she only has “one case where someone reoffended.” In that incident, which Protasiewicz’s opponents have highlighted in negative campaign attacks, she released a child sex offender without jail time who went on to kill a woman in a drunken car crash.

“That is the case where I indicated hindsight is 20/20,” said Protasiewicz.

Protasiewicz did not respond to questions about whether she also regrets her decision in the Spade case.

A week before Christmas in 2015, Spade brutally beat his estranged wife after she told him she was ending the relationship and “moving on with her life.” At the time of the assault, Spade had escaped from a prison work-release program, where he was supposed to serve a nine-month sentence for abusing the couple’s child.

Spade confronted his wife, who is referred to as T.S. in court records, outside a house in east Milwaukee, according to court records. He pushed her to the ground and then “dragged T.S. and punched and kicked her in the face,” according to reports from multiple witnesses, who ran outside to pull Spade off of the victim. “As a result, T.S. sustained facial hematomas and a facial fracture,” responding officers told the court.

Spade was initially charged with felony battery and faced up to 10 years in prison as a habitual offender, but the charges were reduced in a plea deal approved by Protasiewicz. She sentenced him to six months in prison.

Less than two years later, in June 2017, Spade ambushed and shot his ex-wife multiple times outside her home in Milwaukee, according to court records.

T.S. “arrived home around 10:55 p.m. and was walking toward her house when [Spade] came toward her and started shooting at her,” say the court records. She “ran toward the house as [Spade] continued shooting.”

The victim “sustained three through and through gunshot wounds,” the records state. “One shot went through her left foot. One shot went through her upper right arm. One shot went through her by the shoulder blade and caused damage to one of her lungs.”

T.S., who was hospitalized but survived the attack, told police that earlier that day she had run into Spade at the courthouse while taking out papers to file a restraining order against him. He allegedly told her he would “get even with her for sending him to jail” in the assault case.

Spade was convicted by a jury of attempted first-degree intentional homicide in 2019. He is serving 40 years in prison.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

A 70-car train carrying hazardous materials derailed in North Dakota, officials said Monday.

The train derailed at around 1 a.m. on Monday about 2 miles from Wyndmere in Richland County, sheriff’s officials told local media outlets. No deaths or injuries were reported, officials said.

Of the 70 cars, some 31 derailed off the tracks, officials said. Some of the cars were reportedly leaking petroleum products used to make asphalt, officials told Valley News Live, while adding that there is no danger to the public.

Richland County Sheriff’s officials told Valley News Live that several streets in Wyndmere will be shut down for cleanup and is expected to last between seven and 10 days. Reports indicate that the train was operated by Canadian Pacific.

Wyndmere is located in the southeast portion of North Dakota, around 50 miles from both the Minnesota and South Dakota borders. Both Wyndmere and Richland counties are sparsely populated, with Richland having a population of about 16,000 and Wyndmere having 400.

The incident marks the latest derailment in recent weeks after the highly publicized railroad disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, in February. In that incident, dozens of cars derailed before officials were forced to release hazardous chemicals and evacuations of East Palestine residents.

On Sunday, meanwhile, officials said that several Canadian Pacific train cars derailed in a Chicago-area suburb. Neither car was carrying hazardous materials, authorities told a local Fox News affiliate.

Days before that, five freight CSX train cars derailed in Massachusetts. No hazardous materials or injuries were reported, officials told Fox News.

“There were no reported injuries to the crew, no hazardous materials involved, no leaks or spills of any freight and no impacts to the environment,” a spokesperson from CSX told the broadcaster. “CSX personnel are responding as the incident occurred on a line jointly owned with Norfolk Southern. We are working closely with local first responders to assess the situation and develop a recovery plan.”

Over the weekend, officials confirmed that toxic water from East Palestine may be sent to Baltimore County, Maryland, drawing pushback from local officials. On March 24, Baltimore County executive John Olszewski and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced that hundreds of thousands of gallons of contaminated water would be processed at the Back River Wastewater Treatment plant in Dundalk.

“Both the county executive and I have grave concerns about the waste from this derailment coming into our facilities and being discharged into our system,” Scott said at a news conference. “As such, we will exercise additional caution and due diligence and ask for additional testing before authorizing the discharge of any treated water from this event to the public wastewater collection system and the Back River treatment plant.”

The Epoch Times has contacted Canadian Pacific for comment.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

 Joe Biden’s administration has been hit with a class-action lawsuit over how the president and other top officials pressured Big Tech to censor users.

Lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his group Children’s Health Defense, and Louisiana resident Connie Sampognaro brought the suit in U.S. court in Louisiana against Biden and top officials like Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and White House assistant Rob Flaherty.

The pressure the officials and their agencies brought to bear against Twitter and other Big Tech companies to crack down on alleged mis- and disinformation, including targeting Kennedy personally, violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, according to the new suit.

“It is well established that the government violates the Constitution if it uses coercive threats to induce private parties to censor protected speech or if it engages in collusive joint action with private parties to violate the First Amendment,” the suit states.

The legal action rests in part on evidence that has been uncovered by litigation in the same court brought by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri.

That lawsuit has produced documents from the government and Big Tech companies showing repeated efforts by U.S. officials to get the companies to take action against users.

The efforts paid off, with companies regularly telling officials they were working on restricting information. That included any content that purportedly discouraged vaccines even when the content was true, one Facebook employee told the White House. In some cases, though, the government itself provided misinformation that was cited to take action against users, the documents show.

The censorship efforts are “responsible even now for the online suppression of facts and opinions about the COVID vaccines that might lead people to become ‘hesitant’ about COVID vaccine mandates … depriving Americans of information and opinion on matters of the highest public importance,” the new suit states.

Kennedy was named as a top spreader of mis- and disinformation by an outside group, whose analysis was promoted by then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki from the White House. Kennedy was later banned from multiple platforms, including Instagram. Kennedy provides news analyses to followers and relies on facts and opinions for the analyses, the suit states. The bans and censorship “prevented Kennedy from knowing the number and seriousness of first-hand accounts of vaccine injuries and reporting that information to his followers,” it says.

“U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, ‘Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.’ It also violates the constitution,” Kennedy said in a statement. “The collaboration between the White House and health and intelligence agency bureaucrats to silence criticism of presidential policies is an assault on the most fundamental foundation stone of American Democracy.”

“If Government can censor its critics, there is no atrocity it cannot commit. The public has been deprived of truthful, life-and-death information over the last three years; this lawsuit aims to have government censorship end, as it must, because it is unlawful under our constitution,” added Mary Holland, president and general counsel for Children’s Health Defense, which says its aim is to “end childhood health epidemics by working aggressively to eliminate harmful exposures, hold those responsible accountable and establish safeguards to prevent future harm.”

The suit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee who is also overseeing the other case. Doughty recently rejected the government attempt to dismiss that action.

The Census Bureau, State Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and the FBI declined to comment. Other defendants, including the White House and the Department of Justice, did not respond to requests for comments.

The administration has argued before that its pressure on Big Tech companies does not “plausibly amount to coercion,” even in cases where heightened rhetoric, like when Biden said that failing to take action was “killing people,” was used.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), and 36 of their Republican colleagues have introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to overturn Joe Biden’s student loan cancellation program.

The senators claim in their March 27 announcement of the legislation that the policy violates the limits of Biden’s executive authority under the Constitution and circumvents the authority of Congress.

“President Biden is not forgiving debt, he is shifting the burden of student loans off of the borrowers who willingly took on their debt, and placing it onto those who chose to not go to college or already fulfilled their commitment to pay off their loans,” said Cassidy, according to a press release about the resolution.

“It is extremely unfair to punish these Americans, forcing them to pay the bill for these irresponsible and unfair student loan schemes.”

According to the lawmakers, the plan seeks to transfer up to $20,000 in student loan debt per borrower onto taxpayers, costing an estimated $400 billion.

The resolution would also end the pause on student loan payments, which has been extended six times under the Biden administration, costing taxpayers $5 billion a month. The pause is set to expire in August of 2023 and will have cost Americans a total of $195 billion by then.

On March 17, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) classified Biden’s student loan policy as a rule, making it eligible to be overturned under the CRA.

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) introduced the companion CRA resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Biden’s so-called student loan forgiveness programs do not make the debt go away, but merely transfer the costs from student loan borrowers onto taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars,” said Good, according to the press release.

“Congress should stop these unilateral actions, and I am proud to lead the fight in the House to hold President Biden accountable for his reckless, unfair, and unlawful student loan proposal. I hope all my colleagues will join me and support this effort.”

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the cases Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown on whether the student loan cancellation program violates President Biden’s executive authority under the Constitution. A decision is expected this summer.

Cassidy joined Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and 41 other senators in sending an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in early February, contesting the Biden administration’s student debt cancellation program. He also joined Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) in introducing the Stop Reckless Student Loan Actions Act, which seeks to end Biden’s current student loan pause.

Cassidy also criticized Biden’s income-driven repayment (IDR) rule, which he claims would result in a majority of bachelor’s degree holders not having to repay their loans and would cost taxpayers an estimated $230 billion.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times