One would think Steve Schmidt, co-founder of the anti-Trump political action committee the Lincoln Project, would be keeping a low profile these days.

The former Republican strategist-turned-professional NeverTrumper got what he wanted; Donald Trump is no longer president.

While the impact the Lincoln Project’s multitude of viral advertisements smearing Trump had on the election can be debated — one study found they were hilariously ineffective at doing anything but making a handful of squishy former GOP power brokers momentarily beloved on the left — the spots will remain a bit of overheated ephemera emblematic of the 2020 campaign.

The post-election period was never going to be kind to the Lincoln Project, given that it had no overarching principles other than returning the ossified country-club establishment to pre-eminence in the Republican Party.

It’s been more unkind than one might have originally thought, given the majority of headlines the group has generated since last November have come from co-founder John Weaver, who was alleged to have sexually harassed scores of young men and behaved like a predator, sending his targets provocative text messages and enticing them with promises of employment.

What’s worse, reports alleged that the Lincoln Project was informed of accusations against Weaver as early as June 2020, despite a statement from the group saying it was “shocked” by the revelations.

As for the veracity behind the accusations, Weaver pulled a Kevin Spacey and said in a statement that he had “tried to live a life that wasn’t completely true” and that “[t]he truth is that I’m gay.”

Of course, no one was accusing him of homosexuality; they were accusing him of sexual harassment and using his power to procure assignations with much younger men. Given the situation, one might have thought a rebrand into the “Epstein Project” might have been in order.

Add into that another report from female-centric publication The 19th that chronicled a culture at the Lincoln Project “where women in key positions were sidelined and where sexist and homophobic language was used by those in leadership posts,” and you would have thought every one of the group’s principals would have consciously withdrawn from the spotlight.

Schmidt, in fact, resigned from the Lincoln Project board of directors in February, saying he was “incandescently angry” about the allegations.

But having been “incandescently angry” about his own group’s failures apparently hasn’t instilled a whit of humility when it comes to lecturing others.

Schmidt has persisted — telling MSNBC that right-wing anger “is very quickly metastasizing into violent extremism.”

He made the claim during an appearance Thursday on “Deadline,” telling host Nicolle Wallace that a suspect who is alleged to have thrown a Molotov cocktail into the Travis County Democratic Party headquarters in Texas on Wednesday at 2 a.m. was “radicalized like a young man drawn to the lies of ISIS.”

“We have an autocratic movement teeming with violence and the intimations of violence in this country. And it’s a threat to democracy,” Schmidt said.

“So let’s look at that domestic terrorist, that criminal who desecrated the American flag by wrapping it around his head, who committed violence in the name of right-wing extremism. What is it that he has heard?” he continued. “He has heard that he lives in an occupied country with an illegitimate president who lost the election, who was put into power by millions of fraudulent votes, mostly black and brown votes out of the inner cities.

Poll: Support for Third Party in America Reaches All-Time High

“He turns on [Fox News host] Tucker Carlson, and he hears that he’s going to be replaced in a great plot where the Democratic Party is importing people from the third world to strip him of his franchise, of his rights. He has been stoked. He has been instigated. He has been radicalized like a young man drawn to the lies of ISIS in a different part of the world, and we will have more of it.

“Since the beginning of time, all right-wing political movements try to create chaos, including violence. And out of that chaos and out of that violence that they have caused, they then claim that they can bring order, that only they can bring order, and it is with that order that we will lose our democracy.”

For whatever reason, I don’t remember Schmidt going on MSNBC and sounding the alarm about liberals being “radicalized like a young man drawn to the lies of ISIS” when the Orange County Republican Party headquarters in North Carolina was attacked with a Molotov cocktail during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, along with spray-painted graffiti that said “Nazi Republicans” on the side of the building. I’m sure I just missed it.

Or apparently Schmidt just missed the entirety of the 2016 election, since he went on to say that “there is a fundamental difference between these political parties in two big ways. And those two big differences exceed every other difference. One party will abide by election results. They’re called the Democratic Party. The other political party no longer will.”

“Since the beginning of time, all right wing political movements tried to create chaos… out of that chaos… that they have caused, they then claim that they can bring order… and it is with that order that we will lose our democracy” – @SteveSchmidtSES w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/CwKO9fjSLn

— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) September 30, 2021

The Democratic Party, you might remember, spent four years prattling on about how the 2016 election was suspect, with some openly saying it was stolen. Then, with whiplash speed, anyone who didn’t just accept but enthusiastically embrace the results of the 2020 race was party to the “big lie.”

And now, according to Schmidt, Republicans and conservatives are essentially on par with bloodthirsty terrorists — and they’re responsible for what happened at the Travis County Democratic Party headquarters.

“Historically, we know, when you put all of that fuel on the ground, and you start throwing sparks at it, that you can ignite a conflagration, and when you dehumanize people the way that this man and this movement has, in the end, it kills people,” Schmidt said.

“And historically, this type of politics has wound up, in its worst excesses, killing tens of millions of people,” he said. “That’s why it’s such a frightening moment, and that’s why it’s time to wake up and understand that we don’t have a shortage-of-panic-buttons problem. We have a political extremism problem that is very quickly metastasizing into a violent extremism that we’ll be dealing with for a generation because of what happened over the last five years.”

Oh please.

We may have a political extremism problem, but the agents of it won’t be found where Schmidt thinks they will be. Instead, you’d be better off looking at the Lincoln Project, a group that injected content-free vitriol into the 2020 electoral race and, in the immediate aftermath of Biden’s inauguration, promised to build “a database of Trump officials & staff that will detail their roles in the Trump administration & track where they are now. No personal info, only professional. But they will be held accountable & not allowed to pretend they were not involved.”

If that sounds a lot like a witch hunt, that’s because it is.

The Lincoln Project also targets other Republicans it finds distastefully close to Trump, such as Trump-endorsed Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin. As Fox News reported last week, the group issued a public warning to Youngkin that it was “coming for him” in his attempt to defeat Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor and Clinton family ally.

And yet, the Lincoln Project, with or without Schmidt on board, is arguably the least effective vehicle for fist-shaking moral indignation that there is. Weaver remains the most prominent example of the group’s hypocrisy, but it was always little more than an outrage machine designed to stoke fear for the benefit of its principals.

Amazingly, long after that should have become apparent to everyone, the group is still stoking baseless anxiety.

Now, Steve Schmidt is putting forth the ludicrous notion that a random guy who threw a Molotov cocktail into a local Democratic Party headquarters represents a vanguard of men indoctrinated like Islamic State group terrorists — but instead of being radicalized by a video of an infidel being beheaded in the name of Allah, they’re being radicalized by “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

If this fatuous notion won’t convince MSNBC that Schmidt and his Lincoln Project cohort are fundamentally unserious grifters who are noxious to democracy, nothing will.

Looks like this ‘whistleblower’ is doing less whistling and more blowing.

acebook “whistleblower” Frances Haugen is a longtime Democrat donor, supporting campaigns for far-left extremists such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She has also donated money to activist groups actively attempting to derail the U.S. primary process that allows ordinary members of the public to beat out establishment, career politicians, The National Pulse can reveal.

Blowing the Establishment.

Haugen’s “whistleblowing” has been lauded by the corporate media: a sure sign that rather than being a sole actor attempting to call out corporate abuse, she is likely backed by some hefty interests. Haugen first anonymously leaked internal documents before revealing her identity and calling for mass censorship on the Facebook, but only of political ideas she opposes.

The National Pulse has thus far identified 36 donations from Haugen during her time as an employee of Facebook, Pinterest, and Gigster. All of the donations, which total nearly $2,000 since December 2016, have gone to Democrats including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

On January 13th, 2020, Haugen sent money to Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional campaign and a further contribution to her “Courage to Change” Political Action Committee (PAC).

“All endorsees will embody the ideals of racial, social, economic, and environmental justice,” promises the PAC.

Haugen’s most recent donation was August 4th, sending $100 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

Anti-Democracy Campaigners.

In-keeping with her wishes to purge political views other than hers from social media, Haugen has also donated to a left-wing “resistance” group which lists as one of its top priorities the dismantling of the U.S. primary process for elections.

America is somewhat unique on the world stage in its commitment to a decentralized process whereby ordinary citizens can become political party candidates. It is perhaps the most democratic part of U.S. elections.

But, in the words of the Haugen-backed “It Starts Today” campaign, “the modern partisan primary—particularly within the GOP—has turned out to have an unintended consequence: extremism in our elected officials and dysfunction in our legislatures.”

There is, of course, far more extremism on the political left in the U.S. Congress than on the political right. But as of June 2021, the group founded by ActBlue’s Jonathan Zucker decided that the way to beat Republicans was not to win the battle of ideas, but rather to stop real conservatives winning primaries.

Haugen donated twice to “It Starts Today,” and curiously claims that it “holds donations” for Democratic primary nominees until the end of the selection process.

Haugen’s loathing of free speech tracks with her disdain for the democratic process. Her previous roles include working at Google, which paid for her degree from the Harvard Business School.

Jessica Berg Wilson’s obituary described the Seattle woman as “an exceptionally healthy and vibrant 37-year-old young mother with no underlying health conditions” who “died unexpectedly on Sep. 7 from COVID-19 Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VITT).”

The obituary on Legacy.com continued: “Jessica fully embraced motherhood, sharing her passion for life with her daughters. Jessica’s motherly commitment was intense, with unwavering determination to nurture her children to be confident, humble, responsible, and to have concern and compassion for others with high morals built on Faith.”

“Jessica’s greatest passion was to be the best mother possible for Bridget and Clara. Nothing would stand in her way to be present in their lives,” it said. “During the last weeks of her life, however, the world turned dark with heavy-handed vaccine mandates. Local and state governments were determined to strip away her right to consult her wisdom and enjoy her freedom.

“She had been vehemently opposed to taking the vaccine, knowing she was in good health and of a young age and thus not at risk for serious illness. In her mind, the known and unknown risks of the unproven vaccine were more of a threat.

“But, slowly, day by day, her freedom to choose was stripped away. Her passion to be actively involved in her children’s education—which included being a Room Mom—was, once again, blocked by government mandate. Ultimately, those who closed doors and separated mothers from their children prevailed.

“It cost Jessica her life. It cost her children the loving embrace of their caring mother. And it cost her husband the sacred love of his devoted wife. It cost God’s Kingdom on earth a very special soul who was just making her love felt in the hearts of so many.”

This very sad story was made even worse by the Twitter Police.

When a Twitter user shared Wilson’s obituary on Friday, adding in the caption that she had not wanted to get vaccinated, the post was slapped with a warning label.

“This Tweet is misleading,” it said. “Find out why health officials consider COVID-19 vaccines safe for most people.”

It provided a link so users could “find out more,” adding, “This Tweet can’t be replied to, shared or liked.”

Seattle, WA — Jessica Berg Wilson, an “exceptionally healthy and vibrant 37-year-old young mother with no underlying health conditions,” passed away from COVID Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia. She did not want to get vaccinated. 😥

RIP🕊️https://t.co/0gz98R1YW4 pic.twitter.com/pF10pk2nDr

— Kelly Bee 🐝 (@ke11ybender) October 2, 2021

Here is a screenshot of the Twitter warning label, which apparently was removed after many users complained about it.

This is what popped up if you clicked on the retweet button.

Election Manipulation Nightmare: DeSantis Opens Investigation Into Facebook

Misleading? On the contrary, it’s very clear. A healthy young woman, who believed that the vaccine posed a greater risk to her health than contracting the virus itself, was forced to comply with the school’s vaccine requirement for visitors if she wanted to be involved in her children’s classrooms.

She took the vaccine and then died of a vaccine-induced blood clot. She was one of the unlucky ones.

The author of the tweet was not misleading readers, either. She was simply mourning the loss of a young mother who would not have gotten the vaccine (and therefore likely would not have died) had she not been forced to.

Nobody was trying to convince others not to take the vaccine or claiming that it will cause mass deaths.

I am not anti-vax. Vaccines are a potent tool in the fight against COVID. That said, these vaccines do pose a risk to some individuals. Some might have medical reasons for rejecting the vaccine, and others are highly skeptical about taking a vaccine that was developed so quickly. Not everyone needs to be vaccinated.

This is tyranny, and it’s hard to believe this is happening in America.

A Facebook whistleblower, who is due to testify before Congress on Tuesday, has accused the Big Tech company of repeatedly putting profit before doing “what was good for the public,” including clamping down on hate speech.

Frances Haugen, who told CBS’s “60 Minutes” program that she was recruited by Facebook as a product manager on the civic misinformation team in 2019, said she and her attorneys have filed at least eight complaints with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

During her appearance on the television program on Sunday, Haugen revealed that she was the whistleblower who provided the internal documents for a Sept. 14 exposé by The Wall Street Journal that claims Instagram has a “toxic” impact on the self-esteem of young girls.

That investigation claimed that the social media giant knows about the issue but “made minimal efforts to address these issues and plays them down in public.”

“The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money,” said Haugen.

She explained that Facebook did so by “picking out” content that “gets engagement or reaction,” even it that content is hateful, divisive, or polarizing, because “it’s easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions.”

“Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they’ll click on less ads, they’ll make less money,” she claimed.

Haugen is expected to to testify at a Senate hearing on Oct. 5 titled “Protecting Kids Online,” about Facebook’s knowledge regarding the photo sharing app’s allegedly harmful effects on children.

During her appearance on the television program, Haugen also accused Facebook of lying to the public about the progress it made to rein in hate speech on the social media platform. She further accused the company of fueling division and violence in the United States and worldwide.

“When we live in an information environment that is full of angry, hateful, polarizing content it erodes our civic trust, it erodes our faith in each other, it erodes our ability to want to care for each other. The version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world,” she said.

She added that Facebook was used to help organize the breach of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, after the company switched off its safety systems following the U.S. presidential elections.

While she believed no one at Facebook was “malevolent,” she said the company had misaligned incentives.

“Facebook makes more money when you consume more content,” she said. “People enjoy engaging with things that elicit an emotional reaction. And the more anger that they get exposed to, the more they interact and the more they consume.”

Shortly after the televised interview, Facebook spokesperson Lena Pietsch released a statement pushing back against Haugen’s claims.

“We continue to make significant improvements to tackle the spread of misinformation and harmful content,” said Pietsch. “To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true.”

Separately, Facebook Vice President of global affairs Nick Clegg told CNN before the interview aired that it was “ludicrous” to assert social media was to blame for the the events that unfolded on Jan. 6.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Facebook for additional comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/facebook-whistleblower-claims-profit-was-prioritized-over-clamping-down-on-hate-speech_4030295.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Rapper Pitbull, whose real name is Armando Christian Pérez, slammed those who do not like the United States during what appears to be a recent performance.

“To whoever the f*** doesn’t like the United States of America, may God bless you, but f*** you at the same time,” Pitbull said. “If you don’t like the United States of America, go back to the countries that we the f*** from, and you’ll see how much you appreciate the United States of America.”

Pitbull, who is Cuban, made the comments at a concert, and video of the remarks went viral late last week.

WATCH:

YES! SPOT ON! 💯🇺🇸 @pitbull

*warning: explicit language*@erickr258 #pitbull #dale #usa pic.twitter.com/GmUbtqWEZk

— Justin Roman (@LiveWithRoman) September 29, 2021

Pitbull has repeatedly spoken out against communism in the past and has strongly advocated for freedom.

“The reason I can have this conversation is because my family comes from communism, they fled communism, they had everything taken away from them, everybody got murdered, everybody got killed,” Pitbull said during an interview last year. “That’s the reason me, being a first-generation Cuban-American … I look at freedom and I appreciate that s***. I appreciate opportunity. I appreciate anything that you give me. … And, that comes from the fact that when Castro took over everything, and I’m looking at what’s going on right now — the only person here that’s hot … it’s Castro. He’s going, ‘Y’all did it with a virus? S***. Y’all took over the world with a virus? Y’all gotta be kidding me.’”

“In this day and age, I’m hoping that people see: as quick as you get it … come quick, leave quick,” he added. “When it comes to this technology, that’s exactly what it is. You got instant gratification and think you can touch many people, as quick as they [are] gonna pull it from you.”

Pitbull encouraged politicians to get involved with the crisis in Cuba over the summer when mass protests swarmed the island.

“This is a message to the world. We need to stand up, step up,” he said. “But if you don’t understand what’s going on, then you need to wake the f*** up. Not only is this a Cuba event, a Cuba thing, this is a world event. This isn’t about politics. This is about saving lives. This is about unity, not division. And bottom line, it’s about taking action. Let me tell you something, why I’m frustrated and when I see everybody out there and doing what they’re doing, which I love what they’re doing. Okay, because not only do we live for freedom, we ride for freedom, we die for freedom, but we motherf***ing appreciate freedom.”

“And it gets me hot, it bothers me, and it frustrates me to a certain extent, being a Cuban American, and having a platform to speak to the world and not being able to help my own people, not being able to get them food, not being able to get them water, not being able to get them medicine,” he continued. “But most of all, not being able to help and really get them what they deserve, which is freedom. And this is my way of talking to the world. All world allies get together to help. Global businesses get together to help. People that we’re so proud of, people such as a Jeff Bezos, a Cuban American, graduated from high school in Miami, built one of the biggest companies in the world, the richest man in the world. He’s somebody that can get involved and really help us and what we got. All we can do is create awareness, but politics are gonna be polititricks.”

“And while they figure out what they figure out, we need to figure out how to really help,” he added. “We need to get creative, we need to figure out solutions while they’re losing their lives over there literally for something that we wake up every day and appreciate, which is freedom. So to everybody out there, stand up, step up. And if you don’t understand, get with the motherf***ing program and wake up because this is about freedom and it’s about human rights. And to everybody in Cuba, keep the fight up.”

https://www.dailywire.com/news/pitbull-to-those-who-hate-the-u-s-f-you-go-to-cuba-and-youll-see-how-much-you-appreciate-u-s?itm_source=parsely-api&utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was reprimanded on Twitter for not following the science when he tried to push the Biden administration’s policy of forcing students to wear masks in school.

Cardona seized upon a study published on the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website as evidence that wearing masks in school reduced transmission of the coronavirus.

“A Wisconsin study found that schools that required masking had a 37% lower incidence of COVID-19 than the surrounding community,” he wrote in a Twitter post last week.

A Wisconsin study found that schools that required masking had a 37% lower incidence of COVID-19 than the surrounding community. https://t.co/hGN5eX3Bau

— Secretary Miguel Cardona (@SecCardona) September 27, 2021

After Deputy Stops to Help Her, 96-Year-Old Woman Demands to Speak with His Supervisor

The 2020 study, which examined 17 Wisconsin schools over three months last fall, found that in those schools in which masking, social distancing and other steps were taken to minimize the spread of the virus, the percentage of positive coronavirus cases was in fact lower than the community at large.

But Tracy Heeg, an author of the study, objected to it being misrepresented for political purposes.

Although the study showed there was apparently high mask-wearing and low incidence of virus transmission, there was nothing to show one caused the other.

Further, Heeg noted, one of the basics of the scientific method was lacking.

Secretary Cardona, I was the senior author of this study. Our study is not able to give any information about the role masks played in the observed low in-school transmission rates. We had no control group so don’t know if the rate would have been different without masks.

— Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) September 28, 2021

“Secretary Cardona, I was the senior author of this study. Our study is not able to give any information about the role masks played in the observed low in-school transmission rates. We had no control group so don’t know if the rate would have been different without masks,” she tweeted.

That led some to note that the administration that promised to follow the science might have wandered afield.

Secretary Cardona, I was the senior author of this study. Our study is not able to give any information about the role masks played in the observed low in-school transmission rates. We had no control group so don’t know if the rate would have been different without masks.

— Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) September 28, 2021

Inflation Hits 30-Year High, And Now Biden’s Economic Adviser Is Dropping More Bad News

It’s almost like, and bear with me here, the administration is not “following the science”. 😬

— Jay Knower (@jcknower) September 28, 2021

In fact, the published study said there were seven limitations on its result, which relied on surveys for its data.

For instance, the study noted that the level at which students actually wore masks might not have been all it was cracked up to be.

“First, mask use was assessed using a survey that was not validated, dependent on voluntary teacher response and subject to recall and social desirability biases,” the study reported.

“The actual mask-wearing rate might have been different because only approximately one half of teachers participated in the study. Teachers with lower masking compliance in their cohort might have been less likely to complete the survey, which limits the reliability of this measure,” the student said.

The study also noted that there was no independent verification of whether teachers and other staff actually wore masks as much as they said they did.

“Third, it was not possible to determine the specific roles that mask-wearing and other disease mitigation strategies played in the low rate of disease spread, and information on school ventilation systems was not obtained,” the study said.

⁦@SecCardona⁩ claims WI study proves masks in schools work. Physician author of study says study proves no such thing.

Education Secretary Touts Mask Study—Gets Rebuked by Senior Author of the Study – Foundation for Economic Education https://t.co/RWBQ1Cn383

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 3, 2021

The study’s purpose, as explained on the CDC site, was to determine – at a time when many schools were closed – whether schools could reopen without spreading the virus, and not whether masks were essential.

Despite his repeat denials, we’ve got the paper trail linking Anthony Fauci to Wuhan’s BSL4 lab.

New Anthony Fauci e-mails obtained by The National Pulse reveal that a lab he funded through his National Institutes of Health agency was training researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s biosafety level four facility.

Biosafety level four (BSL4) facilities handle agents that can be aerosol-transmitted and/or cause severe to fatal disease in humans. The news follows yesterday’s revelation that Fauci lauded Xi Jinping awards for U.S. researchers.

Now, a new e-mail confirms a previous National Pulse report on the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party-run institute and the Galveston National Laboratory (GNL), which describes itself as “constructed under grants awarded by [Fauci’s] National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).”

The National Pulse can reveal a 2017 e-mail exchange between Fauci and GNL director James LeDuc confirming the existence of the lab’s partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In brief, the e-mail shows Fauci’s funding of GNL via NIAID was doing directly towards training Chinese BSL4 staff.

Collaborations with ‘Important Leaders of China’

LeDuc sent an email [below] to Fauci on October 31st, 2017 titled “China BSL4 labs” where he reminds Fauci how they conversed “regarding collaborations with the new Chinese [biosafety level 4] labs.” Among the labs referenced by LeDuc are the “Chinese Academy of Sciences (Wuhan BSL4).”

LeDuc notes that “the directors of each of these 3 new labs has agreed to come to Galveston”:

Tony,

In follow up to our brief discussions at the UT meeting regarding collaborations with the new Chinese BSL4 labs, the US National Academy of Sciences will be hosting a meeting here at the GNL Tuesday, 16 Jan to Thursday, 18 Jan 2018 with counterparts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Wuhan BSL4), the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (Kunming BSL4), and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Harbin BSL4). Each of these labs has been constructed and they are about to begin operations. The directors of each of these 3 new labs has agreed to come to Galveston, as has George Gao (if his schedule permits) and about 6-8 other accomplishes [sic] Chinese scientists.

SCALP: Lancet Scrubs ENTIRE COVID Origins Investigation Team After National Pulse Exposés.

The GNL Director continues, noting that the goal of the meeting is to facilitate “collaborations” and train the Chinese researchers in “practices in safety and security”:

The meeting will focus on a balance of science and operations with the goal of building collaborations and ensuring that the new labs are exposed to US best practices in safety and security. I’m wondering if you would be interested in joining us.

LeDuc concludes the email by adding that “important leaders of China” would attend the meeting:

This is not a “command performance” so no pressure is intended, but it would be a good opportunity for you to meet and interact on a personal and informal basis with these important leaders of China. We expect about 10-12 senior Chinese and a comparable number of senior US scientists from outside UTMB, plus several UTMB folks. I will be hosting a dinner at our home on Tuesday evening to facilitate informal discussions. Let me know if you’re interested and we can work to accommodate your schedule—again, no pressure. Happy to chat if you like.

On the same day Fauci receives the email, he forwards it to a contact – “NIAID OD AM” –  while adding “let us discuss.”

The following day, Fauci informs LeDuc he is unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts, adding “thanks for the note and the invitation” and expressing no concern over the program:

Jim:

Thanks for the note and the invitation. Unfortunately, that week in January, 2018 is all tied up for me and so I regrettably will not be able to come to Galveston. Thanks for thinking of me.

REVEALED: Daszak Admits Fauci Funded Chinese Coronavirus Research at Conference Featuring Hunter Biden-Linked Pandemic Group.

Best regards,

Tony

Previously unearthed presentations from the Texas-based lab show its researchers training counterparts at the Wuhan Institute of Virology on how to handle the “world’s most dangerous pathogens.” American researchers funded by Fauci, such as University of North Carolina’s Dr. Ralph Baric, have visited the China-based lab as part of the program.

Baric is a proponent of gain-of-function research, calling the controversial form of virus manipulation “a crucial tool,” and was referenced by Senator Rand Paul as a partner of the Wuhan lab’s top bat coronavirus researcher Shi Zhengli while she carried out the risky form of research.

Fauci denied any involvement – via funding or personnel– from his NIAID on the research.

Another National Pulse scoop proving Fauci’s fealty to China’s leaders.

One of the underpinnings of America’s justice system is being threatened by uneven tactics used by the Justice Department, according to a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, said Friday that a double standard is being applied to those who are facing rioting charges in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion.

He said authorities were far more lenient in charging those connected with riots that took place after the death of George Floyd, according to CNN.

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office would have more credibility if it was even-handed in its concern about riots and mobs in the city,” McFadden said at a sentencing hearing for one of the Jan. 6 rioters, the network reported.

McFadden noted that Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser issued a scathing letter last summer to federal officials over their refusal to prosecute cases from the riots.

One Thousand Roses Delivered to Nancy Pelosi’s Office in Campaign to Move Her Heart on Abortion

“[S]ince May 30, the Metropolitan Police Department has submitted 63 affidavits in support of arrest and search warrants directly related to criminal activities conducted under the guise of First Amendment assemblies,” Bowser wrote in the August letter, according to WUSA-TV.

“Twenty-eight of these warrants have been declined, while another 24 are will [sic] pending review by your office. This mirrors a disturbing pattern we have also identified in homicide cases, where our records reveal 18 warrants that are currently pending with your office awaiting action,” she wrote.

During Friday’s sentencing, McFadden scolded defendant Danielle Doyle, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for unlawfully protesting at the Capitol.

“You were acting like those looters and rioters who attacked our city last year,” McFadden said, likening the Capitol incursion to the violent Floyd protests.

“You participated in a shameful event, a national embarrassment that, like last year’s riots, made us feel less safe and less confident that our country could be governed by democratic values and not mob rule,” he said, according to CNN.

Prosecutors wanted Doyle to be sentenced to two months of house arrest. McFadden instead fined her $3,000, with an additional $500 to cover damages to the Capitol.

Doyle entered the Capitol through a broken window and spent 24 minutes inside the building, according to The Associated Press.

She said she never intended to be part of what the protest morphed into.

“I love this country,” she said, according to the AP. “So many people came here to represent things that were important to us but in the blink of an eye, all of those things were overshadowed. For that, I’m sorry, because it overshadowed the things that were good.”

Pelosi’s House Sergeant-at-Arms Just Hit Rep. Dan Crenshaw with a Significant Punishment

Some have noted that many of those charged for the events of Jan. 6 did not commit serious crimes.

“Many of those charged are people who pushed their way through, were taking selfies and were not causing damage,” sentencing consultant Tess Lopez told The Washington Post in May.

“Defense attorneys are likely to make compelling arguments that a prison sentence isn’t warranted.”

It is curious, and perhaps not coincidental, that the searchers-out and punishers of so-called hate speech have not yet turned their attention to expressions of class hatred.

It is curious because class hatred and its associated policy, economic egalitarianism, were probably responsible for as many deaths in the twentieth century as racism, if not more.

I don’t want to make a precise calculation as to which was worse, class hatred or racism because I recall what Doctor Johnson replied when asked who was the better poet, Derrick or Smart. “Sir,” he said, “there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.”

I do not expect any time soon that the inquisitors of hate speech will call for class warriors to be banned from expressing themselves in the social media or anywhere else. Some hatreds, then, are deemed respectable, even praiseworthy, and expression of them, even to the point of incitement, a manifestation of a good or pure heart.

The deputy leader of Britain’s left-leaning Labour Party, Angela Rayner, recently told a meeting, with regard to the governing Conservative Party, “We cannot get any worse than a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute vile … banana republic, vile, nasty, Etonian … piece of scum,” later adding that she had held herself back a little.

We cannot get worse? I have no great regard for the antics of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who seems to me unprincipled, inconstant, boastful, vainglorious, and incompetent, but to say that we cannot get worse seems to me to demonstrate a pitiful ignorance of history that is rather worrying in someone who might one day hold high office.

Were not Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot (to name only a few) just a little worse than Johnson? Even as an emotive insult, however, Rayner’s words seem to me to indicate not merely a lack of restraint but also a worrying lack of command of the English language: for example, scum does not come in pieces, although it does, almost by definition, rise to the top.

However, literary criticism is not my main concern here.

It is the depth of hatred and resentment expressed in Rayner’s words that worries me, and the evident absence of hesitation in giving vent to them.

Contrary to the hydrostatic view of emotions such as hatred, they tend with venting to increase rather than to decrease. The view that if an emotion is not expressed openly it will do incalculable damage to a person is one of the “gifts” of psychoanalysis to the world.

As a prisoner who had just murdered his girlfriend once put it to me, “I had to kill her, doctor, or I don’t know what I would have done.” Suffered some frustration, perhaps.

Rayner was criticized for what she had said, but she defended herself by claiming that this was her habitual manner of speaking: as if she could not conceive that she might do wrong, as if her only criterion of rightness was what she herself had done.

Although what she said was, in my opinion, horrible, I do not think that she should be punished for having said it or prevented legally from ever saying anything similar again. Freedom of speech is freedom of speech, not gentility or decency or even intelligence.

Her words were imbued with infinitely more hatred than those of, say, someone who merely points out that a transgender woman is not a real woman, for the latter, far from being an expression of hatred, is perfectly compatible with sympathy for such a person.

Indeed, in a sense it is a prerequisite for such sympathy, insofar as it recognises the inevitable psychological discomfort of anyone in such a position.

But it is he or she who draws attention to an evident truth, rather than someone whose words seethe with insult and crude insensate loathing, who is held to be guilty of hate-speech—because hatred in the name of equality is regarded as generous, despite its record of mass murder rivalled only by racism.

Those who hate in the name of equality believe themselves, and are frequently believed to be, virtuous because they supposedly value justice.

But two things need to be pointed out. First, if by equality is meant identity or even similarity of outcome, rather than equality before the law, then there could be no greater injustice than equality, at least if justice is the distribution of reward according to desert.

Naturally, desert is a complex and difficult concept, but real egalitarians wish to eliminate it completely in their desire that all should have prizes, and the same prizes at that. However, if reward is disconnected entirely from desert, much, most or all meaning in life is eviscerated, for the reward will be the same whatever you do. Why, then, even try?

Second, however, is the fact that while justice is desirable, it is not the only thing that is desirable, and sometimes must yield place to considerations such as charity, kindness and humanity.

An utter wastrel may well deserve to starve, considered in the abstract, because of his constant and repeated feckless behaviour, but we should not let him starve because our humanity will not allow it. As Hamlet puts it, “Use every man after his desert, and who shall ‘scape whipping?”

Thus, the fact that inequality is not in itself unjust does not dispose altogether of the question of how equal in outcome a society should be, even leaving aside the question of the loading of the dice in some people’s favour and against others, and how far the dice may in practice be loaded fairly.

A society is certainly conceivable in which only a tiny proportion of the population deserved by their efforts to enjoy the better things in life, but we should not care to live in such a society, however just it was. But the problem with modern redistributionism is that it is founded much more upon hatred of the rich or fortunate than it is upon love of the poor or unfortunate.

Hatred is an incomparably stronger political emotion than love. In the worldview of redistributionists such as Angela Rayner, it is more blessed to take than to give, which is why taxation is for them an end in itself, irrespective of its effect upon the economy and society as a whole.

It also has the great advantage, from their point of view, of conferring great power on those who levy it, namely themselves. All power corrupts, but the desire for power corrupts even before it is ever achieved.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-hatred-in-the-name-of-equality-is-deemed-virtuous_4029162.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The FBI’s latest annual report on hate crimes seemed to deliver more grim news about race relations in America, announcing a nearly 40% rise in anti-black hate crimes in 2020. Major news outlets trumpeted the headline-grabbing statistic, noting that it coincided with a rise in “white nationalism” and came amid a surge in anti-black “hostility” caused by summer 2020 protests. Attorney General Merrick Garland quickly promised “a comprehensive response” by the Department of Justice.

But a closer look at the data reveals a more complicated picture. Some of the biggest increases in anti-black hate crimes occurred in Democratic Party strongholds yet, perhaps surprisingly, almost no increases were reported in major cities riven by the racially tinged protests and riots after George Floyd’s murder. It’s no surprise, then, that experts caution against using these numbers to claim an epidemic of anti-black crime–both because of the FBI data’s limitations, as well as the small absolute and relative size of the reported increase.

The recent FBI dataset tallies reported hate crimes, not the number proven in court. It’s unknown whether the “true” number of hate crimes committed in 2020 is higher or lower than the FBI’s reported total. On one hand, not all crimes are reported to police, which could lead to undercounting. On the other, it’s likely that some portion of reported hate crimes would not withstand legal scrutiny, meaning the FBI’s figures might be inflated. The high evidentiary threshold required to prove a hate crime in court is illustrated by the fact that Derek Chauvin–the white cop cast as a racist convicted of murdering George Floyd last year–was not charged with a hate crime.

Whether the FBI’s data over or understates the true number of hate crimes, the total number of reported anti-black hate crimes is relatively small. In 2020, the FBI recorded a total of 7,759 hate incidents—which the FBI defines as “one or more offenses committed by the same offender, or group of offenders acting in concert, at the same time and place”—in a country of 330 million people. Assailants with anti-black biases allegedly initiated 2,755 such incidents, targeting some 3,769 victims. This was the highest number of anti-black incidents recorded by the FBI since 2008, but at that time there were 13,690 law enforcement agencies submitting hate crime data, versus the 15,136 agencies reporting such data last year, reflecting the imprecise nature of hate crime statistics.

What was the nature of these reported crimes? Most of the anti-black offenses recorded by the FBI in 2020 were acts of intimidation and vandalism; roughly 1,200 (approximately 30%) involved violence. One bias-motivated crime is too many, of course, but the number of reported black hate-crime victims pales in comparison to the reported black victims of other crimes.

For example, there were over 189,000 reported black victims of aggravated assault in 2020—more than 50 times the number of victims in all anti-black incidents combined. Black homicide victims dwarfed the total number of victims of all anti-black incidents in 2020. According to the FBI’s Expanded Homicide Data, there were more than 9,900 black homicide victims recorded by the FBI in 2020. Of the more than 3,700 black victims in single offender/single victim homicide cases, over 85 percent of the offenders were black. Among all anti-black offenses reported nationally in 2020, the FBI recorded a total of five murders and nonnegligent manslaughters—less than 1/10^th of 1% of the total homicides committed against African Americans.

While the absolute increase is relatively small, there’s no doubt that reported anti-black hate incidents rose significantly in 2020. A majority of states (37) reported year-over-year increases to the FBI. However, only 14 of these states—including Ohio, which submitted its figures after the FBI released its report—saw increases of more than 20 cases.

Further, state data available on the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer site reveals that just six states—California, Ohio, Texas, Oregon, Indiana, and Colorado—were responsible for more than half of the national increase between 2019 and 2020.

Charles Lehman, a fellow at Manhattan Institute and an expert on policing and public safety, told RealClearInvestigations that one reason the number of reported anti-black hate crimes varies significantly across states is that state and local police departments differ in how they classify criminal incidents. In other words, some states are more willing than others to label certain criminal incidents as hate crimes. State laws, too, vary with respect to hate crimes, which can affect the types of incidents that are ultimately reported as such. Lehman pointed to the disparity between Alabama and Arizona as an illustrative example, noting that Alabama has more than twice as many black residents as Arizona but recorded only seven anti-black hate incidents in 2020 compared with Arizona’s 124.

City-level data complicates the story further. Several solidly blue cities that figured prominently in the summer’s protests—Minneapolis, Portland, New York, Kenosha, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Chicago—did not record meaningful increases in anti-black hate crimes between 2019 and 2020. Minneapolis recorded nine anti-black hate incidents in 2020 after failing to report in 2019. Portland and New York City each had two additional reported anti-black hate incidents between 2019 and 2020; Seattle’s total fell from 84 in 2019 to 52 in 2020. Chicago had five total reported incidents in 2020, down from seven in 2019. Kenosha and Atlanta recorded zero incidents in both 2019 and 2020.

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, cautioned that municipal hate crime data can be imperfect.

“The problem is, when you get to a place like Kenosha, or some other places, they have no levels of reporting. During these kinds of protests, when 911 systems are overwhelmed, you may not get all those [hate crime] reports in. In addition, there are issues with regard to trust [with] those police departments,” Levin told RealClearInvestigations.

Sample size is also a significant issue with hate crime data. The relatively small number of anti-black hate crimes reported annually makes it difficult to distinguish genuine trends in the data from random noise.

The issue is underscored by the FBI’s findings regarding hate crimes perpetrated against other groups. Asian Americans, for example, suffered a 70% increase in reported hate crimes during 2020 – to a total of 274. This was trumpeted as a “surge” in anti-Asian hate incidents, but the absolute numbers are so small relative to the population that it’s unclear whether the increase is due to a bona fide spike in “hate” against Asian Americans or randomness.

Some researchers argue that traditional hate crime statistics are unreliable more generally. Jacob Kaplan, the chief data scientist in research on policing reform and accountability at Princeton University, explained in his book on the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting initiative (UCR) that hate crimes are the most difficult category of crime to track at the national level because of reporting irregularities and the relative infrequency of hate crimes.

“[The hate crimes dataset] is also the most under-reported UCR dataset with most agencies not reporting any hate crimes to the FBI. This leads to huge gaps in the data with some states having zero agencies report crime, agencies reporting some bias motivations but not others, [and] agencies reporting some years but not others,” he said. “While these problems exist for all of the UCR datasets, it is most severe in this data. This problem is exacerbated by hate crimes being rare even in agencies that report them—with such rare events, even minor changes in which agencies report or which types of offenses they include can have large effects.”

Lehman echoed Kaplan’s concerns about underreporting, noting that the “number of jurisdictions that actually report [hate crimes] at all is small and varies wildly, and people’s willingness to report also varies significantly.”

Levin argued that the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey proves that a significant number of hate incidents go unreported each year. He also claimed that southern states such as Mississippi and Alabama have historically underreported the number of hate crimes, which has had the effect of depressing the national numbers.

“We were having more hate crimes in Eugene, Oregon, than in multiple Southern states combined for a while,” he said.

The reporting disparities across states and localities make it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about reported hate crime data. The nebulous nature of “hate”—most crimes involve some element of malice, after all—adds to the challenge. Despite these limitations, Lehman argued that the reported surge in anti-black hate crimes warrants federal attention.

“I think it warrants serious attention,” he said. “In absolute terms, non-hate crimes are a much bigger deal, and I’d prefer limited resources go there. But we should always take it seriously when there’s a spike in heinous offenses, and I think hate crimes qualify.”

This article was written by John Hirschauer for RealClearInvestigations.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/second-thoughts-about-that-fbi-report-of-a-40-spike-in-anti-black-hate-crime_4025223.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

A public defender who was fired for speaking out against critical race theory says what happened was troubling and that she expects to win a legal battle she’s engaged in.

“I wasn’t even talking about my job. I was talking about my kid’s schools and my kid’s education. And so the idea that my employer felt that they had the right to weigh in, and to say that my ideas and my thoughts rendered me unfit to do my job, it’s really troubling,” Maud Maron said on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.”

Critical race theory is a movement that focuses on a person’s race being the defining aspect of their identity, as opposed to other aspects of their being such as personality traits or achievements. It assumes that race is socially constructed and racism is systemic. Critics say the movement, which supporters allege is aimed at combating racism, is itself racist.

Maron spoke out about “anti-bias training” she received from the Department of Education as a public school council member. She said she was told to refer to herself as a “white woman” and that attendees learned about the “white-supremacy culture” and other ideas that trace back to “White Fragility,” a book penned by white author Robin DiAngelo that claims people must constantly think about race as they interact with others in their daily life.

Maron’s op-ed, published in the New York Post in July 2020 after the training, also detailed how she was harassed after correctly listing Asians as being part of the group sometimes referred to as “people of color.” Critical race theorists sometimes allege Asians are not people of color because their achievement metrics are often the highest of any racial group.

“We all want a well-integrated, high-quality public-school system. Parents have the right to demand an education that prepares their children to meet or exceed grade-level expectations, which in America often lag other countries,” Maron wrote at the time.

The piece and comments Maron made on social media drew backlash, including from the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid, representing black lawyers who work for the Legal Aid Society.

They said Maron’s rhetoric was ostensibly against racism but that she was actually racist, in part because she denounced the so-called “anti-racism” ideas that some put forth.

“That Maud finds this to be ‘chilling’ tells true racial advocates all they need to know: she’s racist, and wants the [New York City] school system—which holds the honors of being the most segregated in America—to remain unequal,” the group wrote in a statement.

That led to the Legal Aid Society and the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, Maron’s employer and union, attacking her. For instance, the society shared the black attorneys’ statement, suggesting an endorsement of the views. The society later denounced Maron for her op-ed in its own statement, claiming she “denies the existence of structural and institutional racism.”

Maron sued the society and the union, charging there was no evidence that, among other allegations, she is racist and emphasizing she believes in structural and institutional racism and opposes it.

“My union and my employer released statements basically saying that I was unfit to do the job because of the opinions that I held,” Maron told The Epoch Times.

Redmond Haskins, a spokesperson for the Legal Aid Society, told The Epoch Times in an email: “We believe this lawsuit is a frivolous and misguided attempt to use litigation to harass a non-profit employer and its employees who have spent their careers advancing social justice causes.”

The case is still in its early stages and has not been ruled on.

Maron, who is running as an independent for a seat on the City Council for New York City, said she received support from a wide range of folks, including people who hold far-left views and people who are “deeply conservative” after her situation was highlighted by former New York Times reporter Bari Weiss.

“They were people whose politics and whose ideas spanned a very wide range but agreed with the idea that you should have any ideas you want and still be able to show up and work and if you’re doing your job well you should be able to keep doing it, even if your employer doesn’t agree with you about some issues, some concern. So there is common ground among Americans, even Americans have different political parties, even people with very divergent views on important issues; there is common ground that if you’re invested in finding it and creating a space for that open discourse, you can find it,” she said.

Maron encouraged people to run for office and go to local meetings, nodding to those who have shown up in large groups in recent months at school board meetings to protest against critical race theory and similar ideologies.

“I’d like to see more people run for office who are not parroting the party line, whether it’s the Democratic Party line or the Republican Party line, but are really speaking directly to the issues that people are talking about,” she said. “School boards are a great place to see sort of grassroots concerns. If you go to your local school board and you see what makes parents get up, stand up, sit on uncomfortable chairs, and wait around forever to speak two minutes into a mic, then you’ll know what people are worried about and concerned about. And we need more politicians who are speaking to that.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/really-troubling-public-defender-on-being-fired-for-speaking-out-against-critical-race-theory_4027472.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Ozy Media, the digital media company embroiled in controversy after reports that one of its top staffers impersonated a YouTube executive in context of funding talks with investment bank Goldman Sachs, is shutting down.

The company’s board of directors announced the decision in an Oct. 1 statement.

“At Ozy, we have been blessed with a remarkable team of dedicated staff,” the statement said. “Many of them are world-class journalists and experienced professionals to whom we owe tremendous gratitude, and who are wonderful colleagues. It is therefore with the heaviest of hearts that we must announce today that we are closing Ozy’s doors.”

The announcement came on the heels of a damning expose by The New York Times, which claimed that Ozy co-founder and chief operating officer Samir Rao pretended to be a YouTube executive on a conference call with Goldman Sachs several months ago as the investment bank was closing in on a $40 million investment in the media company.

Rao—pretending to be the YouTube executive—reportedly said on the call that Ozy was well-regarded by YouTube and popular on the platform, while praising the leadership of the company’s founder and chief executive officer, Carlos Watson.

After the misrepresentation came to light, an investigation was launched, reportedly involving the FBI, and Watson apologized on behalf of Rao and the company, attributing the incident to a mental health crisis.

Watson on Friday sent a letter to company investors, according to Axios, that read, in part: “As you know, Ozy has been materially and adversely affected by recent events. After considering all alternatives and input from many of you, we have determined that ceasing operations and beginning the process of winding down the company with an eye toward preservation of value is in the best interest of all stakeholders.”

A financial restructuring advisory firm will be helping bring Ozy operations to a close, Watson said in the statement.

Watson co-founded Ozy in 2013 with Rao. Both are Harvard graduates and both at one point worked for Goldman Sachs.

On Friday, Watson resigned from NPR’s board of directors, while Ozy Media chairman, billionaire hedge fund manager Marc Lasry, stepped down earlier in the week.

Ozy produces left-leaning podcasts, television series, and events.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Ozy for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/ozy-media-shuts-down-amid-allegations-of-deceitful-business-practices_4028784.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

State lawmakers in Arkansas are attempting to take some of the teeth out of President Joe Biden’s burdensome vaccine mandate for private businesses by providing some loopholes for workers through proposed legislation.

Biden last month demanded that all companies nationwide with more than 100 employees require a COVID vaccine as a condition of employment. He threatened to use the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to impose harsh fines.

While Republicans nationwide, in opposition to the mandate, attempt to find their footing to fight the unprecedented mandate for private companies, Arkansas Republicans are attempting to throw out a lifeline for those in the state who don’t want or don’t need the vaccine.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that the state Republican Party, which holds majorities in both the state Senate and House, is working on bills which would exempt workers who can prove they have natural immunity following a COVID infection — ignoring the politicized Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which advises against antibody testing for natural immunity.

Those willing to submit to regular COVID tests would also be able to navigate around the mandate, according to the report.

One Thousand Roses Delivered to Nancy Pelosi’s Office in Campaign to Move Her Heart on Abortion

“This is what we felt we could get through to give employees some protection,” Republican state Sen. Kim Hammer said.

The Democrat-Gazette reported both chambers of the Arkansas General Assembly, and their respective public health committees, have embraced an identical bill to ease the burden for people who face losing their job if they refuse Biden’s mandate.

The legislation would offer a way for employees to opt-out, and also would make people fired for refusing a vaccine eligible for unemployment benefits — which is something the far left in the country seems largely against. That bill is one of the numerous pieces of legislation proposed in relation to the vaccine mandate.

Often in favor of government programs which pay people not to work, leftists have suddenly become opponents of unemployment benefits for people who might face hardships for refusing to be told what to put into their own bodies.

Look at these compassionate liberals:

And when someone quits or is terminated for not get a vaccine I hope this means they were fired for cause and are therefore ineligible for unemployment. They don’t deserve it.

— Cheryl Smith (@mscheryl58) September 29, 2021

If you’re fired for refusing to take the vaccine, you don’t deserve unemployment benefits. You quit.

— Milquetoast (@BlueRobotDesign) September 17, 2021

If you lose your job cause you refuse to get the vaccine you don’t deserve unemployment

— Riley Stone (@RileyStone420) September 15, 2021

FDA Approves ‘Horse Drug’ in Fight Against COVID

If Arkansas Republicans get their way, people fired over an overreaching mandate won’t be out on the street. But unfortunately for Natural State residents who do face being put out over a mandate from Washington, GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson doesn’t appear to support the bills currently in committee.

The Republican said he was not in favor of lawmakers using time during the legislative session to focus on protecting state workers and their jobs.

“To use [the extended session] as a means to bootstrap yourself into a whole host of other issues doesn’t make sense to me and it doesn’t seem to fit within the constitution,” Hutchinson told the Democrat-Gazette.

The governor said he hasn’t read any of the bills, and would rather the state legislature focus on redistricting following the release of the 2020 Census. Surely, if a bill passes with overwhelming support to give Arkansas workers a reprieve from Biden’s mad power grab, Hutchinson will jump aboard.

In any event, people nationwide are reeling from a historic mandate from the White House, and in places like New York, they’re losing their jobs and being denied unemployment benefits, the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported.

In Arkansas, the people with the power to oppose draconian mandates and their effect on working people are setting their noses to the grindstone.

A Gold Star family visiting Washington this week to lay their daughter to rest was attacked by a Politico reporter online after the family members toured the Capitol, and most of them were photographed without wearing masks.

KCRA-TV reported U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole Gee, who was among the 13 U.S. service members killed by a suicide bomb last month at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan, was laid to rest on Wednesday.

The outlet previously reported that Gee, who was 23-years-old at the time of her death, was honored late last month in a ceremony in California where she was remembered as being passionate about her service.

In an Instagram post just before her death, Gee posted a photo of herself holding a baby.

One of the last Instagram posts from fallen Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee in Kabul, who was killed in the suicide blast. She’s holding a rescued infant.

“I love my job”.

She was 23. RIP. pic.twitter.com/NUmR0KLp2n

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) August 28, 2021

One Thousand Roses Delivered to Nancy Pelosi’s Office in Campaign to Move Her Heart on Abortion

“I love my job,” she captioned it.

Gee was taken this week to her final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Her family, who had traveled to the Washington area from California, reportedly decided to visit the Capitol while they were in the area this week.

Semper Fidelis

Today, Sergeant Nicole L. Gee was laid to rest during a full honors funeral service at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

Rest easy, Sgt. We have the watch. pic.twitter.com/Ju8gvbzsdw

— 2nd Marine Logistics Group (@2ndMLG) September 29, 2021

Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, the representative for the family’s district, had publicly grieved with the family after Gee’s death.

He posted a photo of the fallen soldier on Twitter after she was killed.

23 year old Marine Sergeant Nicole Gee from Roseville is the definition of an American hero. A selfless Marine who put her country before herself was lost in the line of duty while helping evacuate Americans and our allies in Afghanistan. Remember her name. pic.twitter.com/7DOkeYbyCM

— Tom McClintock (@RepMcClintock) August 28, 2021

House Republicans Demand Immediate Release of Marine Officer Jailed for Criticizing Biden Policy

McClintock was reportedly the reason Gee’s family was at the Capitol on Wednesday, as he had offered them a tour. This seemed to anger Politico reporter Heather Caygle.

Politico’s Heather Caygle previews the week ahead in Washington https://t.co/ZA0tVY5atM pic.twitter.com/Z4RuzTauaY

— Washington Journal (@cspanwj) February 26, 2018

In a since-deleted tweet, Caygle posted an image of the family touring the building.

“Masks requirement in the House,” she wrote to her 50,000 followers. “Tours not allowed… Yet here we are — group of 9, only 2 in masks.”

The tweet was taken down, but an archived version of it is still available online.

Former Republican Sen. Jim DeMint posted a screenshot of Caygle’s tweet and pointed out that after criticizing the grieving Gold Star family, it looked like the reporter gave an image of maskless reporters surrounding Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia her approval.

“Same reporter. Mocks family of fallen marine on small private Capitol tour without masks. 2 hours later celebrates photo of dozens of journalists on top of each other without masks. Vain media thinks of themselves as the true heroes,” DeMint commented.

Same reporter. Mocks family of fallen marine on small private Capitol tour without masks. 2 hours later celebrates photo of dozens of journalists on top of each other without masks. Vain media thinks of themselves as the true heroes. #JournalismIsDead pic.twitter.com/0MHSeCk4Sw

— Jim DeMint (@JimDeMint) September 30, 2021

DeMint used the tag “#JournalismIsDead.”

As of Saturday, Caygle’s Twitter account has either been deactivated or deleted. When attempting to view posts from her account, a message from Twitter reads: “This Tweet is from an account that no longer exists.”

The U.S. Marine who called for accountability after the messy U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is risking a lot for fellow Americans, his parents say.

“He is an American war hero. He has fought for his men and women that follow him. He’s fought on the battlefield for them. I believe he has risked his life for his fellow service people and Americans. He is now risking his livelihood for them. He saw a misjustice happening at the top and he felt that they should be held accountable for it,” Cathy Scheller, Stuart Scheller’s mother, said on NTD’s “The Nation Speaks.”

Stuart Scheller’s father, Stu Scheller Sr., said support from fellow Americans will greatly help his son.

The Marine Corps will “win the battle,” he said. “But America is going to help Stuart win the war.”

Stuart Scheller was dismissed from command after publishing a series of videos calling for U.S. military leaders to step up and own the “obvious mistakes that were made” during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The United States left over 100 Americans behind in the Middle Eastern country after completing the withdrawal on Aug. 30. Additionally, 13 U.S. service members were killed in a suicide bombing attack on the Kabul airport, which troops were holding for approximately two weeks to facilitate evacuations after the Taliban routed the U.S.-backed Afghan forces.

Military leaders have said they were shocked by how quickly the Taliban captured the country and were caught off guard.

But none have so far resigned and they have by and large painted the evacuation effort as a success, pointing to the over 120,000 people, primarily Afghan nationals, that the United States evacuated or facilitated the evacuation of before pulling out.

Stuart Scheller said he wanted senior leaders to admit mistakes were made. After being removed from command over his videos, he resigned in late August. He was thrown in the brig recently and remains there at this time. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 5.

Stuart Scheller is suspected of violating four articles outlined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including Article 88, which prohibits the use of “contemptuous words” toward superiors, a Marine spokesperson told Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas).

Stuart Scheller’s parents are advocating for his release and helping raise funds for his defense. They and the Pipe Hitter Foundation have raised over $2 million so far.

“I do know that he broke rank and I know that he knows that there are consequences for that. But he didn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t do any violent crimes. He spoke up on Facebook. And yes, there is a chain of command and there should be punishment for that,” Cathy Scheller said on NTD.

“But that chain of command that we saw broken, we also just saw broken on the Senate floor. That chain of command was broken. Our son has been given a gag order and thrown in prison and strip searched and thrown in isolation and is facing prison for breaking his chain of command. I’m fine if that’s the exact punishment that is taken out all the way across the board for anyone who breaks command,” she added.

Scheller Sr. said that the congressional hearings this week, which saw Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie questioned sharply by members of Congress and appearing to lie about at least one matter, made evident that senior military leaders “are not accepting responsibility or accountability for their failures.”

Milley was asked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) whether he would resign when informed military leaders had urged President Joe Biden to keep troops in Afghanistan but Biden chose to complete the withdrawal anyways.

“It would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice wasn’t taken. This country doesn’t want generals figuring what orders we’re going to accept and do or not,” Milley said.

Milley later called the end of the war a “strategic failure” while Austin defended the evacuation effort, noting that it moved many people out of the country.

“Was it perfect? Of course not,” he said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/lt-col-who-spoke-out-after-afghanistan-risking-his-livelihood-for-americans-parents_4028603.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Whenever COVID-19 infections are on the rise, calls to impose a lockdown begin. Proponents of lockdowns will invariably justify their advocacy by stating that it is what medical experts are calling for. Indeed, physicians, nurses, and virologists will usually support lockdowns as a means of reducing the spread of infections.

Governments often forget to do a cost benefit analysis in their zeal to lock things down and that involves listening to experts outside of the medical field.

Medical specialists are bound to promote whatever actions are possible to protect public health. They don’t think about the costs of lockdowns, only the potential benefits. Although their advice is critical and we should take it seriously, medical experts are only able to present part of the picture.

Economists are experts in their field as well. Many economists have been pointing out the fiscal damages being wrought through nearly two years of rolling pandemic restrictions. They are sounding the alarm as public debt becomes unsustainable and inflation risies. While we don’t want economists offering medical advice, we should be seeking their input when considering lockdowns. Rest assured, if the economy collapses it will cause very direct harm to people.

Logistics specialists are expressing concerns over world supply chain challenges. We are seeing unusual product shortages in everything from automotive computer chips to noodles for Asian restaurants. While the challenges presented by those shortages may seem trivial, they are warnings of a much larger potential problem.

The world population is nearing eight billion people. It is only through a massive, complicated, and sensitive supply-chain system that we are able to stave off mass starvation and economic breakdowns. When countries impose lockdowns, whatever products they supplied to the world are reduced or cut off. That leads to a whiplash effect which can cause all sorts of product shortages that may take months to resolve. Transportation issues have led to a fuel shortage in Great Britain. While that is manageable right now, what will happen in northern countries if fuel delivery fails in January?

We should consult with experts in sociology. What sort of impact are the lockdowns having on society at large? People have been stressed and divided. We certainly saw a lot of that in the recent federal election. How much damage is that causing to the cohesiveness of our society? How long will it take to recover?

Addictions experts have their hands full these days as we have seen a moderate opioid addiction crisis explode into a massive one. From April of 2020 when the pandemic began until March of 2021, nearly 7,000 Canadians died of opioid overdoses. That is an 88 percent increase over the same period a year before. We can’t pretend that lockdowns didn’t contribute to this. Let’s get input from addictions experts when we make decisions.

Some children are entering Grade 2 this year without ever having experienced a full school year in classrooms. What do early childhood experts have to say on how that impacts their development? We can’t turn the clock back on children. They are only that age once.

Post-secondary students are suffering as well. Online courses are a sorry substitute for many fields of learning. Our graduates are not going to be better for lockdowns.

Aside from experts on physiological health, we also have experts on mental health. We should consult them on the psychological impacts of lockdowns.

Medical experts tend follow the philosophy of “if it saves just one life, it’s worth it.” That outlook makes sense from a medical point of view but it’s unreasonable in practice.

How many fatal collisions would be avoided if we reduced all speed limits to 20 km/h?

How many lives would be saved if we had an ambulance on every street corner?

How many heart attacks would be avoided if we had a dietary consultant offering advice in every grocery store?

Why don’t we do those things? Because they would come at too much of a cost.

We have always applied a cost benefit approach with government policy. We seem to have forgotten that approach when it comes to COVID-19 lockdowns, however.

It is not being unreasonable or heartless to ask for other experts to weigh in before considering legislative moves as harsh as public lockdowns. Media and policymakers need to listen to a broad spectrum of specialists before acting. The perspective of an exhausted ICU nurse is important but so is the perspective of an economist.

Policy needs balance, and if we don’t listen to diverse opinions we may find that lockdowns are doing far more harm than good.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/governments-should-look-beyond-medical-experts-for-advice-before-imposing-lockdowns_4028787.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

A bit more information has emerged from the John Durham investigation into Russiagate (or “Spygate,”as it is known hereabouts).

This is due to what is likely a leak from one or more of the targets to their loyal propagandists at CNN. (In the article, the reporters do their best to downgrade the scandal they fanned for years as no more than a trivial “dirty trick” that all campaigns do. There’s a well-known word for that adapted into the English language.)

The import of these leaks is usually to soften the impact on the target(s), but it also gives us another indication Durham is still active.

In this instance, more subpoenas have been issued, including some to Perkins Coie. That’s the Democratic National Committee’s and Hillary Clinton’s law firm that only a few weeks ago defenestrated—for reasons unspecified, but we can guess— one of Hillary’s principal lawyers, Mark Elias.

The other Clinton campaign lawyer, Michael Sussman, has already been charged with lying to the FBI on the matter of alleged Trump links to the Russian Alpha Bank, ties that turned out to be non-existent.

This time, however, we learned that “Tech Executive-1” in the Sussman indictment is Rodney Joffe, a rather distinguished cybersecurity expert, but not in this case because he was apparently involved with the same attempted deception.

Mr. Joffe was evidently no fan of Donald Trump. How far he took his enmity we shall see as this plays out.

Or we won’t. Therein lies the problem. Many are worried that Durham will only take the investigation so far and then peter out.

A real Russiagate investigation has myriad possible targets with very famous names, some of the most famous, in fact. Yet negativism about the results is everywhere in conservative circles with some justification.

When then AG William Barr gave Durham his brief, he was quoted in The Hill (March 2020) as follows:

“Attorney General William Barr said Monday that he does not expect a criminal investigation of former President Obama or former Vice President Joe Biden to result from the probe undertaken by U.S. Attorney John Durham.

“Based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man,” Barr told reporters at the Justice Department. ‘Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others.’”

Sounds pretty weak, doesn’t it, with some people, too big to be investigated, surrounded by a cordon sanitaire.

Yet rumor has it already that Jake Sullivan is under suspicion in the Alpha Bank matter, at the least. That’s remarkably close to Biden as Sullivan is his National Security Advisor, one of the most powerful positions in the country (cf. Henry Kissinger), as we have seen, to our national misfortune, during the Afghanistan debacle.

How justified is that suspicion of Sullivan? Paul Sperry wrote in Real Clear Investigations: “The indictment states that Sussmann, as well as the cyber experts recruited for the operation, ‘coordinated with representatives and agents of the Clinton campaign with regard to the data and written materials that Sussmann gave to the FBI and the media.’ One of those campaign agents was Sullivan, according to emails Durham obtained.”

Biden himself was said to have recommended the ancient and hardly-used Logan Act—how he would even have known about it is worth finding out, but anyway…—in an attempt to punish Gen. Michael Flynn during an oft-discussed, but never fully revealed, Oval Office meeting at the tail end (Jan. 5, 2017) of the Obama administration.

That meeting itself, emailed about by Susan Rice weeks after it took place seemingly to provide Obama presidential deniability, is even more worthy of exploration—or is it off limits as per William Barr? We don’t know.

Yes, there is plenty of reason to be skeptical. The Sullivan matter has barely been discussed in the mainstream media, even though the possible miscreant is the National Security Advisor.

Is everything being sent down the memory hole? Who exactly is to blame in all this? We don’t know that either, though we have guesses about that too.

But it is imperative we must ultimately know. Durham must carry his investigation through to the end, because Russiagate quite clearly marked the beginning of the end of our democratic republic as we knew it.

All the malfeasances that have occurred since from the endless COVID lockdowns to Afghanistan to the open border to the violence in our streets and the relentless propaganda and bizarre arrests surrounding Jan. 6, not to mention the 2020 election itself, point back to it, relate to it, in one way or another.

None of these events would have happened the way they did without it. Some would not have happened at all.

Russiagate was a crime whose extent and import dwarfed Watergate and made that supposed scandal, subject of a Hollywood movie though it is, barely as important, by comparison, as shoplifting at a 7-11.

Yet Nixon and the others paid, badly. Hardly anyone has been punished here so far beyond what has amounted to slaps on the wrists.

So what do we do? Do we sit back passively, maybe adding a few snipes here and there, and let Durham do his job, hoping for the best?

I say no. We all have a role to play. Durham is a man like the rest of us. Consciously or unconsciously, if he knows we’re watching, he’s going to behave in a different manner than if he thinks we’re lulled to sleep.

Be as active as possible in talking and lobbying about this. You don’t have to be a so-called “elite” to do this or be an anchorman on ABC. You just have to be a concerned citizen, an honest man or woman. Keep talking about it to friend and foe. Show up with a sign at an inconvenient (for them) place. Put it on the internet, text to everyone you know or can think of. Discuss it on Signal and Telegraph. Never let Russiagate be forgotten. Put it out there in the zeitgeist and keep it there.

The mainstream/legacy media isn’t going to do it. They will obfuscate as much as possible. We have to do it. It’s up to us. If we don’t, we have no grounds for complaint when it goes down the memory hole—and with it our country.

Two things are of paramount importance to us going forward if we want to save our republic, this full explication of what happened during the Trump-Russia affair, including everyone responsible being properly punished, so we are sure as we can be it will never happen again, and genuine integrity for our broken elections.

Work on that too. Many already are. The two go hand in hand.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/to-save-america-durham-must-reveal-the-whole-russiagate-story-and-punish-the-guilty_4028798.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

I speak from experience when I say the following: China is not a fun place to live. Constantly monitored, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, citizens find themselves victims of a perverse social credit system.

Like something quite literally out of the British TV series “Black Mirror,” innocent people are punished for the most frivolous of reasons. Then, there’s the grueling “996” work culture, which involves working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week. Although the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has promised to regulate the country’s excessive work culture, millions of Chinese citizens have already thrown in the towel. Fed up of 72-hour work weeks and poor pay, China’s Gen Zers and millennials have embraced the idea of “lying flat.”

Instead of working, they are opting to “chill.” In other words, they are refusing to work.

Obviously inspired by the rebels in China, an increasing number of young Americans are opting to “lie flat.” This does not bode well for the U.S. economy, according to Alison Schrager, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal. Schrager is, of course, correct. Gen Z and millennials are leaving the workforce in record numbers. Why? Because of “high unemployment benefits and stimulus payments,” the author argued. Furthermore, because the country was basically shut down for 18 months, many now find themselves “flush with savings.” After all, they had nowhere to spend all this free money, wrote Schrager.

Well, that’s not completely true. According to a Yahoo-Harris poll, young investors are all too eager to gamble as 11 percent of Gen Zers have bought cryptocurrencies with their stimulus payments. Meanwhile, 15 percent of millennials, those between the ages of 25 and 40, have invested in crypto. Is this a wise way of using “free” money? I’ll let you decide.

In the United States, those opting to “lie flat” would do well to realize that Americans have “never worked so little,” wrote Schrager, a statement that is backed up by a rather interesting study. Since 2003, American men have gained an average of 28 hours of extra leisure time per month. American women, on the other hand, have gained an average of 24.

With so much extra leisure time, why are America’s Gen Zers and millennials opting to lie flat? Is it because they are lazy, ungrateful souls? No, not necessarily. They are lost, some of them incredibly so.

As someone with a background in psychology, I believe the problem is much more deeply rooted. The “job hopping” and refusal to work paint a worrying picture for the future of the country. There exists a fundamental disconnect that cannot be legislated away.

Entitlement and Self-Absorption

Before continuing, I must state two things. First, although I loathe the term, I am a millennial. Second, the points made going forward are not intended to describe all Gen Zers or all millennials. They are designed to give a broad picture of the troubles facing the country and its citizens. The refusal to work is symptomatic of a deeper malaise.

The decision to “lie flat,” I contend, has more to do with narcissism and entitlement than laziness. We’re told millennials are painfully narcissistic. Gen Zers appear to be even worse. God help those born after 2010, the members of Generation Alpha.

According to psychologist Karyl McBride, entitlement is defined as “the unreasonable expectation that one should receive special treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.” In the world of the narcissist, wrote McBride, he or she must always come first. This is called narcissistic entitlement.

McBride warns that the narcissistically entitled lack the capacity “to feel empathy towards others.” Therefore, they are governed by impulse and craven desires, or as Freud would say, their identity. When a narcissist speaks, others must listen. All must obey. They see themselves as special, even exceptional, and for this reason they must be treated like royalty.

Not surprisingly, because of their tendency to manipulate and deceive, narcissists find it incredibly difficult to build or maintain connections with other people. In this “Age of the Selfie,” where individual needs come first, the community comes a distant second. According to one pertinent study, over the past 30 years, American college students have become 30 percent more narcissistic. Thirty years from now, expect things to be 30 percent worse.

With the atomization of society and less commitment to long-term, monogamous relationships, young Americans are opting to turn inwards. Traditional values, no longer attractive, have been replaced by nihilism. Society is becoming increasingly selfish. In the United States, maintaining a job is, as obvious as it sounds, hard work. According to Gallup, 85 percent of Americans hate their jobs. To be an American is to persevere with Sisyphus-like persistence—or at least that used to be the case. Younger workers appear to be less resilient than previous generations. Resilience, which is intimately linked to wellbeing, involves possessing the ability to not just adapt to new situations, but persevere through the pain. Now, though, among the younger generations, perseverance is in short supply. With less commitment to marriage, less commitment to community, and less commitment to religion, millions of Americans are less committed to the idea of work. This is a deeply worrying trend with no obvious solutions.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/i-refuse-to-work-chinas-lying-flat-culture-comes-to-america_4024854.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

In March, WGCL-TV in Atlanta reported on a series of incidents in the suburb of Douglasville in which families were receiving letters from “a local racist who is hoping to spread fear.”

“I received one two days ago, and I was alarmed at what I read,” one father told the station.

“The letter is using the N-word, talking about the KKK, hanging people, killing kids, killing whole families, and setting houses on fire,” he said, adding that he had given the letter to police, who had hoped to find forensic evidence on the note.

Other residents had told the station they’d received similar notes starting in December; on one street alone, at least seven black families reportedly had been targeted.

Video of ‘Furious’-Looking Pelosi at Congressional Baseball Game Blows Up Online

In arguably the least shocking update this story could have received, police say the incidents are a hoax — that the perpetrator is a 30-year-old black woman named Terresha Lucas who identified as a 6-foot white man with a red beard and as a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

WGCL reported Thursday that Lucas, a Douglasville resident, was arrested and charged this week with making terroristic threats to residents on Manning Drive in the Georgia city from Dec. 21, 2020, to Sept. 6 of this year.

Douglasville police said in a Facebook post that they “received the break they needed on Labor Day, Sept. 6, when evidence was found linking the notes to the house of Terresha Lucas. Detectives said they were able to gather enough evidence to obtain a search warrant.”

For 11 months, black families in an Atlanta suburb were terrorized w/letters from someone saying they’re a white KKK member who will burn the houses & kill them. Following an extensive investigation, police charged Terresha Lucas, a black woman. #HateHoax https://t.co/eCpOLefnoJ

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) October 1, 2021

“During the search, detectives found other evidence which ties the suspect to the incidents,” the statement continued.

Police said the notes all had similar handwriting, tone and verbiage, leading them to the conclusion they were all written by one person.

The notes said they were from a 6-foot white man with a long, red beard. In initial reportage on the notes, no one seemed particularly concerned about the fact that hate criminals don’t usually identify themselves if they’re leaving anonymous letters in neighbors’ mailboxes.

More Protection Demanded for Fauci, Others; Critics of Scientists Could Face Hate Crime Charges Under One Idea

What would have been surprising in an incident as brazen and blatant as this is if the suspect arrested hadn’t been a minority.

Take a high-profile case of racist graffiti at Emory University in Atlanta. In August, the Emory Autism Center was hit with a burglar who left behind racial slurs and a swastika.

“These acts of racism and antisemitism are painful for all of us at the EAC and in the Emory community. They will not be tolerated and every effort will be made to bring the perpetrators to justice. Our priority remains the wellbeing and safety of our faculty, staff, learners, patients and their families, and upholding our values and Emory’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion,” the university said in a statement.

“As we heal in the days and weeks ahead, it is important that we continue to support and provide strength to one another. Our goal will remain to provide an environment and a learning community focused on each other and maintaining an inclusive society where everyone’s identity is valued and celebrated.”

On Sept. 22, the university announced the arrest of Roy Lee Gordon Jr. on a charge of second-degree burglary. That statement was much drier, save for a pro forma statement about how racism and anti-Semitism remain “painful for the entire Emory community.”

Unmentioned were Gordon’s race or prior employment history. According to WGCL, he’s black and a former part-time employee of the Emory Autism Center.

In the St. Louis metro area, Parkway Central High School in Chesterfield, Missouri, was the site of a student walkout after racist graffiti was discovered in bathrooms last week.

“The walkout at Parkway Central was organized on social media on Wednesday evening, students said, by those fed up with similar incidents. Students stood outside the administrative building on campus on Wednesday, chanting ‘no justice, no peace’ and passing around a megaphone to share their experiences with prejudice at school,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on Sept. 24.

“Students at the rally circled around Principal Tim McCarthy and yelled questions and complaints through a megaphone, some cursing at him, asking how school policies would change to discourage racist behavior.”

The reason for the invective apparently was a supposed pattern of racist incidents at the school: “We just absorb it, most of us,” senior Ronald Griffin told the Post-Dispatch. “There’s a ton of people that act friendly, but then you hear about things people have said … off to the side.”

“It’s messed up, and it’s not funny,” said senior Joe Siervo. “We want to see a change … but this happens every year.”

This past Wednesday, the Post-Dispatch reported a black student had admitted to writing the graffiti. A participant in the walkout called it “embarrassing” but said it didn’t diminish their message.

However, as the newspaper noted, this was the second time in recent years that the school has seen a hate-crime hoax; in 2017, a non-white student eventually admitted to writing “White Lives Matter” in a bathroom.

And these, it’s worth noting, are just the arrests made in September. Given that, the only real shock here would have been if Douglasville, Georgia, police had found a 6-foot-tall Klansman with a red beard.

A Bravo network TV personality is under fire from the left after she shared her shock over a bizarre story in which she said small girls were exposed to a so-called transgender girl’s penis this past summer at a camp.

Only in today’s depraved society could a mother who is bothered by the thought of young girls being exposed to male genitalia become the villain. But that is what has happened to former “The Real Housewives of New York City” star Bethenny Frankel when she took on the transgender lobby this week.

The TV personality recently spoke on her “Just B” podcast about an incident she’d heard about from a friend which she said had happened recently at an all-girls camp.

“It’s an all-girls camp and a person with a penis, who identifies as being a girl, went to the camp and was in the bunk with the girls,” Frankel told her listeners. “And the girls saw her — because it’s her, because it’s a male anatomy but identifying as a woman — so the other girls saw a penis.”

“They’re like 9, 10 years old, so the parents … obviously weren’t that happy,” she added.

Watch: Obama Comes Out Firing Against Biden’s Border Crisis, Says ‘Open Borders’ Are ‘Unsustainable’

Frankel also commented she’d heard that this “trans girl” at the camp had been “making out with a lot of the different girls at the camp.”

Frankel further angered the pronoun warriors during the podcast by sharing a story about her 11-year-old daughter’s experiences in school with gender hysteria.

“We have to go into the fact that I did a Zoom for my daughter’s school and [had] the pronouns conversation with each teacher, each parent, each child,” she complained. “And my daughter says in school, too, that everybody has to say their pronouns.”

“And my daughter didn’t even know what hers were,” she added. “[She said], ‘I know what I am or what I think I am, but I never have said it out loud. It hasn’t come up for me.’ So she didn’t know.”

Naturally, Frankel was attacked and accused of being a bigot.

Your comments promote anti-trans rhetoric and the idea that #trans people aren’t welcome in spaces with cis people. That’s hateful and wrong.

Imagine how this innocent kid must feel hearing your words, @Bethenny.https://t.co/Mxf5bJISCB

— Jack Turban MD 🏳️‍🌈🧠 (@jack_turban) September 29, 2021

Hi Beth! I was going to quote the transphobic language you used in the horrific intro to this episode, but it’s too hurtful to even put it in writing. Maybe do the bare minimum of research before you speak to your audience? https://t.co/x56eMpCOMH

— Matt McConkey (@mattmcconkey) September 25, 2021

Mainstream Filth: NBC Contributor Becomes Spokesman for Murky Organization, Attempts to ‘Normalize’ Pedophilic Thoughts

After Page Six got involved, Frankel resounded and made it clear she wouldn’t be walking the comments back in the face of potential cancelation.

Listen to the podcast. Then comment. I was absolutely not wrong. And I’m going to discuss this again this week. Thankfully I have a platform to clarify what the media loves to distort. @justbpodcast ps. I’m not afraid of cancelation so not afraid of charged discussions. https://t.co/FDVsKUCWan

— Bethenny Frankel (@Bethenny) September 28, 2021

Ok I’m going to attempt sleep. My new book cover shoot is in the am & @PageSix says I’m transphobic so it must be true…or listen to @justbpodcast & decide for yourself. Gotta sell papers. #donthatetheplayerhatethegame 😘

— Bethenny Frankel (@Bethenny) September 28, 2021

Not apologizing….so don’t hold your breath. I didn’t do a single thing wrong. People need to be able to have discussions without fearing the cancelation citations you get excited to give. Wrong celeb. Find someone afraid to troll.

— Bethenny Frankel (@Bethenny) September 28, 2021

How sick is our culture? A mother to a young girl shared a normal reaction upon hearing that girls near her daughter’s age were exposed to a penis at camp. Many of those who responded painted her as a villain — and not a well-adjusted adult with a sound moral compass.

For now, it doesn’t look like she’ll be backing down. You never apologize to the cancel mob, and it looks like Frankel knows that.

Yet more Fauci e-mails shed light on the closeness to the CCP of U.S. healthcare officials.

ew e-mails from Mr. Anthony Fauci – obtained exclusively by The National Pulse – reveal the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director congratulated epidemiologist Dr. Ian Lipkin, a key Wuhan Institute of Virology collaborator, on receiving personal awards from Chinese Communist Party dictator Xi Jinping.

Lipkin – a Columbia University Professor – received the China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award from regime chief Xi in 2016 before going on to claim another award from China’s Central Government, Central Military Commission, and State Council.

The 2016 award is the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) top science honor for foreign scientists, and, as quoted in a Columbia University press release, Lipkin remarked that “it solidifies my relationship with dear friends and colleagues in the Chinese Academy of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Health” – all of which are wholly-owned and operated Chinese Communist Party entities.

In 2020 he commented, “It is a great honor to receive this medal… I will cherish it as a reminder of my dear friends and colleagues in China and all we have accomplished together for the health of the Chinese people and all people around the world.”

The latter award came just days before Communist China told the world of the human-to-human transmission of the then “novel coronavirus” which came to be known as COVID-19.

As the virus spread Dr. Lipkin became one of the most frequent media talking heads on the subject.  Lauded by the New York Times in 2010, Lipkin’s work in covering for his Chinese Communist friends became apparent just 6 days after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a “pandemic.”

EXC: Fauci Authored Article For Wuhan Lab Collaborator Peter Daszak.

Without much evidence at all, Lipkin and four others produced a paper on “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” wherein they speculated that “[i]t is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.”

A few months later Lipkin even thanked Fauci for his dismissal of the lab-leak theory. Today, almost 18 months later, that view is no longer credible.

Congrats!

In addition to his close links to China’s hardline Marxist regime, Lipkin has also received nearly 100 grants from Fauci’s own National Institutes of Health (NIH) agency to fund his research.

The press release, included in the email sent from Fauci, touches on Lipkin’s long history of collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

A summary of his professional experience reveals he even “consults” for the regime and has lectured and accepted grants from Chinese state-run scientific bodies, as previously revealed by The National Pulse.

Fauci exclaimed “Congratulations!” before adding, “Very much deserved” in an email sent to Lipkin the day following the January 8th, 2016 press release.

The email obtained by The National Pulse follows Lipkin’s stark denial of a lab origin for COVID-19. Lipkin was quoted by outlets including CBS and USA Today as a means by which to “debunk” Dr. Redfield’s explosive claim linking the virus to a Chinese lab.

“We should be moving away from finger-pointing,” Lipkin told CBS after adding there is “no evidence to suggest that it was created in a lab.”

Lipkin has also given several interviews to state-run Chinese news outlets including China Global Television Network, where he insisted “I have so many friends in China, in universities, and in government that I can help people to talk to one another and work together.” “Renowned epidemiologist Walter Lipkin lauds China’s transparent and professional approach against coronavirus outbreak,” reads a headline from the state-run outlet Global Times.

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, has consistently trailed his well-known opponent, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton ally and one-time governor of the state. If Youngkin is able to pull out a win in November, he may owe it to McAuliffe’s rather telling blunder on the topic of critical race theory during their Tuesday night debate.

“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” McAuliffe told his opponent.

Glenn Youngkin: “I believe parents should be in charge of their kids’ education.”

Terry McAuliffe: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” #VAgov pic.twitter.com/LqIlRMLKgj

— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) September 29, 2021

There’s no question that critical race theory has become a flashpoint issue that has deepened the divide between the left and the right in America.

Watch: Obama Comes Out Firing Against Biden’s Border Crisis, Says ‘Open Borders’ Are ‘Unsustainable’

On Wednesday, the leftist National School Boards Association penned a letter to President Joe Biden pleading with him to treat parents who oppose the teaching of critical race theory and mask mandates as domestic terrorists.

The NSBA began by asking “for federal law enforcement and other assistance to deal with the growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation occurring across the nation.”

“Now, we ask that the federal government investigate, intercept, and prevent the current threats and acts of violence against our public school officials through existing statutes, executive authority, interagency and intergovernmental task forces, and other extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of our children and educators, to protect interstate commerce, and to preserve public school infrastructure and campuses.”

The group said it has already called on local and state law enforcement agencies to “prevent further disruptions to educational services and school district operations.” This is insufficient because “these threats and acts of violence have become more prevalent.”

What is really needed to address these threats, the NSBA wrote, is assistance from federal law enforcement agencies — specifically the DOJ, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service.

The group also “request[s] the assistance of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to intervene against threatening letters and cyberbullying attacks that have been transmitted to students, school board members, district administrators, and other educators.”

And here is the clincher: “As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

“NSBA requests that such review examine appropriate enforceable actions against these crimes and acts of violence under the Gun-Free School Zones Act, the PATRIOT Act in regards to domestic terrorism, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Violent Interference with Federally Protected Rights statute, the Conspiracy Against Rights statute, an Executive Order to enforce all applicable federal laws for the protection of students and public school district personnel, and any related measure.”

NSBA presents school board members as victims. The group made the claim that “extremist hate organizations” are showing up at school board meetings and “inciting chaos.” Parents are also “spreading misinformation.”

Mainstream Filth: NBC Contributor Becomes Spokesman for Murky Organization, Attempts to ‘Normalize’ Pedophilic Thoughts

“These threats and acts of violence are affecting our nation’s democracy at the very foundational levels, causing school board members — many who are not paid — to resign immediately and/or discontinue their service after their respective terms.”

If only they would.

The letter cited examples of the pushback school boards have encountered from fed-up parents. The NSBA detailed several threats of violence and thuggish acts against the teachers and board members who truly care about the children.

Let’s get this straight. The left insists on presenting a controversial and poisonous Marxist theory as the truth to their children and parents are supposed to accept it. Because like McAuliffe, they “don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Critical race theory is, by definition, a theory. A theory is someone’s opinion. In this case, it’s the opinion of Karl Marx, the author of The Communist Manifesto. He advanced the idea of pitting one class against another as a means of achieving and maintaining control over the masses. There was a reason Karl Marx was reviled by so many in his day and ultimately exiled.

Why would anyone in America think this extremism is something to aspire to? Does the left really understand what they’re fighting for? It sure doesn’t look like it.

By imposing this radical ideology on American children against the will of their parents, progressives have migrated into very dangerous territory. And they should not be surprised by the consequences.

Consider how this would be handled in nature. An incensed mother bear catching an animal trying to harm her cub would tear the perpetrator to pieces.

These parents are not domestic terrorists. They are rightly concerned when they discover their children are being indoctrinated by anti-American propaganda. Rather than being taught an accurate version of history, their children are learning to view the world through the lens of race.

Unfortunately, NSBA’s letter will likely be taken seriously by Team Biden, an administration that has slowly revealed itself to be corrupt, power-hungry, shameless, and I would go so far as to say evil.

In a discussion about his then-newly released book, “American Marxism,” Fox News host Mark Levin told viewers, “We are not looking into the abyss … We are IN the abyss.”

Sadly, he’s right.

President Trump cared about the voices of America’s youngest voters, while the Biden administration seeks to suppress the voices of young dissenters through unfair disciplinary procedures and restrictions.

Free Speech on college campuses is more important than ever as university students across the country make the long-awaited return to in-person learning this fall. Along with this exciting transition, however, is the anxiety that many students feel in expressing their personal beliefs.  

Colleges have long been known to promote liberal ideology to students. Conservative student groups such as the College Republicans, Young Americans for Freedom, and conservative women’s groups, are often extracurricular safe-havens for conservative students. These clubs, however, do not mitigate the threat of retribution from peers, professors, and university administration.  

The fear of being “cancelled” has stretched across the country, and is now besetting students on both sides of the aisle. According to Forbes, more than half of college students regularly hold back their political views, for fear of consequences. While many schools proclaim their commitment to intellectual diversity and curiosity, self-censorship and fear prevent the expression of free speech and diverse perspectives. Another report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, surveyed 37,000 students from 159 colleges. The report found that three-quarters of students who identify as strong Republicans, regularly censor themselves, while less than half of strong Democratic students do so.  

Recently, colleges have become increasingly combative against speakers who do not promote the university’s liberal ideology. Campus groups spend months coordinating with speakers and receive funding to host top conservative speakers. Many of these events are ultimately canceled by university administration. Ben Shapiro, one of the most popular speakers among young conservatives, has been barred by several colleges including UC Berkley, Gonzaga University, Grand Canyon University, and others due to his “controversial” opinions. The sited “controversial” opinions all boil down to Shapiro’s unapologetic conservatism which violates liberal groupthink on campuses.  

On Sept. 23, Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania cancelled Turning Point USA speaker, Joe Basrawi’s speech on critical race theory due to an alleged “disruption” at the college. College administration met with the Turning Point chapter leader and directed him that the event should be canceled and moved off campus. The school also requested for its name to not be associated with the event. Elizabethtown claimed that Basrawi was not qualified to speak on the topic of critical race theory because he is not a critical race theorist.  

University suppression has led to a renewed commitment to free speech by many campus groups. Counter-protests and national representatives from groups such as YAF and Turning Point USA are more vocal against cancel culture on campuses, but the reality is that the left has become so good at suppressing beliefs, many students have been silenced.  

As the new administration seeks to undermine our most basic freedoms, we are reminded of the work of President Donald Trump, who defended the rights of America’s youngest voters.  

In March 2019, President Trump signed an executive order protecting freedom of speech on college campuses. President Trump signed this executive order with the support of student leaders who faced suppression at their universities. The executive order supported free inquiry and debate and aimed to promote a culture of understanding on campuses. Colleges that benefit from American tax dollars should not actively limit First Amendment rights.  

President Trump cared about the voices of America’s youngest voters, and supported a culture of free inquiry and debate. The Biden administration wants to suppress the voices of young dissenters through unfair disciplinary procedures and restriction. When it comes to free speech, Trump was right, and Biden is wrong. Our President must support and defend the voices of young Americans.  

Can there be injustice if there is no truth?

Martin Luther King Jr. considered this question in his powerful letter from Birmingham Jail (1963). He was responding to fellow members of the clergy who opposed segregation but rejected civil disobedience, which involved breaking the law. His central point was that laws may be just or unjust. We have a duty to obey just laws and to oppose, even defy, unjust laws. We need to recognize that both kinds exist and learn how to tell the difference.

Referring to the examples of Nazi tyranny under Hitler and the 1956 Hungarian revolution against communist tyranny, King writes,

“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal.’ It was ‘illegal’ to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.”

King gives examples—from the Bible, the martyrdom of early Christians, and the Boston Tea Party—of the refusal to submit to unjust laws.

Truth and Justice

Like the American Founders and the Declaration of Independence, King does not seek to abolish the rule of law but to appeal to it. King saw, as Thomas Jefferson did, that it was not enough to define law as whatever the sovereign power declared it to be. He saw, as did the Founders, that law so defined provides no constraint on tyrants who want to reduce it to a matter of their own will and power.

So what distinguishes a just law from an unjust one?

In addressing this question, both King and the Declaration draw on a classical tradition that perceives law as rooted in objective reality, in the way things are. It’s a tradition at least as old as Aristotle. King cites St. Augustine as stating the principle that “an unjust law is no law at all.” He cites St. Thomas Aquinas as teaching that “an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.”

In a similar way, the Declaration appeals to “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” It bases itself on truths that it holds to be self-evident and affirms inalienable rights that are endowed by the Creator rather than conferred by the state or sovereign:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

No Truth, No Injustice

For some moderns, such appeals to truth or reality seem intrinsically intolerant, since your truth is different from my truth. We see a radical relativism pervading law, education, and media that turns out to be anything but tolerant. It’s not enough to accept that I have the right to proclaim my belief, however absurd or illogical or contrary to the very nature of the human person or species. It’s not enough that you tolerate it, you must now endorse it with all the visible enthusiasm of a Communist Party Central Committee member applauding the statements of the Dear Leader.

Relativism is the ideology of tyrants. For Stalin and Hitler, history was on their side, victory was inevitable, and anyone who questioned their version of truth was objectively an enemy of the state. “Truth” itself was a matter of the will and power of the ruler. If the outcome of their policies and edicts was not what they promised, it was not because they contradicted reality, the givenness and constraints of life. It was because enemies, within and outside the ruling party, conspired to sabotage the program.

In the United States, we see such an unconstrained vision of reality, not in the full-blooded totalitarianism of a Stalin or Hitler, but in the growing denial of reality itself. It’s a rejection of democratic processes, a refusal of argument or debate, the censoring or suppression of speech, even of plain information, in the media and on campuses. Those who bravely speak up for truth and against injustice are more likely to face hateful mobs on Twitter than Red Guards or Brownshirts in the street.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy often accompanied his most aggressive judicial activism with rhetorical flourishes about the right to make up our own reality. The rhetoric was a sign that Kennedy was going to ignore the Constitution and impose his own views in place of democratic political and legislative processes.

In the Casey abortion decision of 1992, Kennedy famously declared, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center translates: “We justices have the unbounded authority to decide which matters you yahoo citizens should be prohibited from addressing through legislation.” Kennedy’s purple prose signified in practice the inauguration of decades of legalized killing of the vulnerable and innocent on an unprecedented scale, the denial of reality and repudiation of the right to life of a whole class of human beings, the most vulnerable among us.

Transgender identity ideology appears in this light as an extreme case of truth-denying as a requirement for participation in polite society. The absurdity and incoherence of the claims being advanced as scientific by this quasi-religious pseudoscience, along with the catastrophism and zeal of adherents (you must accept my self-diagnosis or you will kill me; saying that is committing genocide) suggests a fringe cult of extremists. The numbers who identify as trans is small, even allowing for the craze among teen girls in the United States and Britain. But the rapid embrace of the ideology in left-liberal parties, professional bodies, media, education, libraries, and the bureaucratic state has been extraordinary, and this despite the irreversible damage done to young people, their bodies, and their family relationships.

Live Not by Lies

Communism and Nazism both accept a relativism that reduces “truth” to a matter of will and power, while seeking to impose their own truth on others. They are obviously tyrannical, if not totalitarian. But we see the same tendencies in ideologies and movements promoted by Western elites that deny objective truth and seek to suppress free speech, open debate, and democratic decision-making.

The tyranny of radical relativism is one of its paradoxes. It denies the very existence of objective reality while insisting on its own truth.

Must we surrender to this bullying out of fear that speaking the truth will elicit enraged Twitter mobs demanding that we be canceled, fired, refused admission to the college or job of our choice, or deplatformed from speaking engagements or denied future employment?

The witness of those who have survived the severest persecution in our times, under Nazis, communists, or Jihadi terrorists of ISIS, offers an answer. Whether the surviving victims were Jews or Christians, victims of slavery or religious persecution, they always insisted on the ultimate importance of telling and hearing the truth about what happened on the ground. The perspectives of concentration camp guards and their victims in the Holocaust were different, as were those of Christians in communist Eastern Europe and the agents of state repression who persecuted them.

To say this is not to assert that there is only one true narrative of an event, or that accusers must always be believed. The ruin of many lives and reputations by a pedophile fantasist, Carl Beech, whose false allegations led British police to conduct a sweeping historical sex abuse investigation (2014–2016), should give us pause before adopting the then fashionable mantra “believe all victims” or junking due process and the assumption of innocence. Years later, in 2019, Beech was convicted on multiple charges of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison. His false allegations against prominent individuals, some no longer living, led to a disastrously flawed investigation and immense damage to those Beech accused and their families, while discouraging true victims of abuse from coming forward.

Truth Matters

Justice can be perverted or denied by false allegations: by the failure to take seriously real victims (as happened notoriously in Rotherham in the UK over several decades where authorities failed to act on reports of actual sex trafficking and organized child sexual abuse); and by victims’ fear of retaliation if they speak the truth—there were an estimated 1,400 victims in Rotherham, many of whom were not believed.

The point is simply that justice depends on recognizing the real, objective nature of truth (beyond what the state or party or leaders says it is at the moment), establishing the truth of the matter, and then telling it (or at least not lying about it) even when the cost of truth-telling is high in terms of job security or, in these days of doxxing, risk to one’s family. It’s the priority of those who have witnessed such horrors as the Russian Gulag or the Nazi concentration camps. It should be ours as well. Without truth there can be no injustice, and hence no justice.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/if-there-is-no-truth-there-is-no-injustice_4023876.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

So happy someone else sees the Orwell and Animal Farm in The Woke Joke Making Us Broke [US Patriot]

“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” — George Orwell, “Animal Farm”

What were we to make of multimillionaire Barack Obama’s 60th birthday bash at his Martha’s Vineyard estate, and the throng of the woke wealthy and their masked helot attendants?

Was socialist Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) suffering for the people when she wore a designer dress to the more than $30,000-a-ticket Met gala? Her entourage needs were certainly well-attended to by masked Morlock servants.

Did the leftist celebrities at the recent Emmy awards gather to discuss opening Malibu beaches to the homeless when the (unmasked) stars virtue-signaled their wokeness?

For answers about these hypocritical wokists, always turn first to George Orwell. In his brief allegorical novella, “Animal Farm,” an array of animal characters—led by the thinking pigs of the farm—staged a revolution, driving out their human overseers.

The anti-human animal comrades started out sounding like zealous Russian Bolsheviks (“four legs good, two legs bad”). But soon they ended up conned by a murderous cult of pigs under a Joseph Stalin-like leader. And so, the revolution became what it once had opposed (“four legs good, two legs better”).

Our own woke, year-zero revolution is now in its second year. Yet last year’s four-legged revolutionaries are already strutting on two legs. They are not just hobnobbing with the “white supremacists” and “capitalists,” but outdoing them in their revolutionary zeal for the rarified privileges of the material good life.

The Marxist co-founder of BLM, Patrisse Cullors, is now on her fourth woke home. She has moved on from the barricades to the security fences of her Topanga Canyon digs in a mostly all-white, all-rich rural paradise—the rewards for revolutionary service.

Professor Ibram X. Kendi has evolved from the edgy revolutionary work of flying all over the country, hawking his Orwellian message of “All racism bad! But some racism good!” Now he has mastered the art of zooming the wannabe woke for his $20,000 an hour avant-garde hectoring.

What of Colin Kaepernick, the mediocre second-string quarterback turned sudden firebrand? He refused to stand for the national anthem and spread his “take a knee” kitsch throughout professional sports.

Kaepernick became a boutique revolutionary multimillionaire. For $12 million a year, he pitches Nike sneakers, often made in Chinese forced-labor camps.

Woke NBA star LeBron James, from his $23 million Brentwood mansion, blasts America for its endless unfairness—in service to his totalitarian Chinese paymasters who will ensure his good life with an eventual lifetime $1 billion payout for hawking their goods.

Our other elite wokists navigating around the revolution are even more cynical. The corporate and Wall Street capitalists feel that a little virtue signaling, showy diversity coordinators, and woke advertising will more or less buy off the latest version of Al-Sharpton-like shake-down artists.

Then there are the trimmers and enablers. These are the wealthy, rich, and the professional classes. They feel—in abstract—absolutely terrible about inequality, but hardly enough in the concrete to mix with the unwashed.

For them, wokism is like party membership in the late ethically bankrupt Soviet Union. It is necessary for peace of mind and good income, but otherwise not an obstacle for the continuance of the privileged, comfortable life.

The more TV news hosts rant about “systemic” this and “supremacy” that, and the more college presidents write stern penance memos to their faculty about “that’s not who we are,” the more they feel not just good about themselves, but relieved of any real obligation to live and socialize with the Other.

As for the self-declared non-white Other, wokism is also a top-down revolution of celebrities, intellectuals, actors, activists, academics, grifters, lawyers, and the upper-middle class and rich. And they are not calling for a Marshall Plan to bring classical education to the inner city. They themselves have little desire to move in or spread their wealth. They rarely mentor others on their shrewd capitalist expertise that made themselves rich.

They are far more cynical than that. The regrettable violence of the street, the 120 days of 2020 looting, death and arson, are the levers of the woke professionals. They fight with the various tribes of the same class and mindset over the slices of the same coveted elite pies. But they bring to the scrap the unspoken cudgel that without greater non-white de facto quotas in comic books, TV commercials, Ivy League faculties and students, symphonies, and sit-coms, then “systemic racism” could once again ignite downtown Portland or Seattle or Baltimore.

Orwell would say of the woke Obamas, Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Bernie Sanders, LeBron James, or Ibram Kendi—and their supposedly unwoke, but similarly rich and privileged enemies—“It was impossible to say which was which.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/orwell-and-the-woke_4024997.html

LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va.—Hundreds of protesters rallied in Loudoun County to voice their objection over a recently adopted pro-transgender policy. The event occurred outside the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) administration building on Sept. 28, an hour before the school board meeting.

The policy, also known as policy 8040 (pdf), requires LCPS staff to address students with their preferred pronouns and allows transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms according to their self-identified gender. It also requires all LCPS staff to “complete training on topics relating to LGBTQ+ students” and schools to create more single-user restrooms within the next five years. It was adopted on Aug. 11, before the start of the current school year.

For the county parents, the pro-transgender policy was just one out of many issues they had with the Loudoun County School Board (LCSB). “Trust,” or instead, the loss of trust, was often mentioned in rally speeches and during public comment at LCSB meetings since June 22, at which two LCPS residents were arrested after the superintendent Scott Ziegler declared the meeting an “unlawful assembly.”

“I’m even thinking about sending my kids to school with a body cam. When they get into the class, start recording. Because we’re not in the classroom,” said an LCPS parent at the rally. Another LCPS parent said during public comment of the LCSB meeting, “The parents of Loudoun trusted that the members of the board would have our children’s best interests in mind when making decisions; that trust is lost.”

Ian Prior, executive director of Fight for Schools, said that the LCSB needed to act like elected officials and “stop acting like a politburo” that wants to take away parents’ responsibility of raising their children. “If you want to take that responsibility from me, you’re going to have to pry it from my cold, dead hands,” warned Prior. On Aug. 25, Fight for Schools filed a petition in the Loudoun County Circuit Court to recall LCSB member Beth Barts. The next court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 5.

On Sept. 23, the LCPS changed the rules of public participation at LCSB meetings, again. It asked registered speakers to show proof of residence in the county, following changes that took away public viewing during public comment in August. Public participation didn’t dwindle as a result. Instead, the number of registered in-person speakers at the Sept. 28 meeting was 82, more than the 70 at the previous session on Sept. 14.

Andrea Weiskopf, an LCPS teacher, was the only in-person speaker supporting the LCSB. “Will you fight so that it will be pretty clear that they will benefit, that all children of Loudoun will feel like they belong? Cui bono [for whom it benefits]?” she asked. She wrote in a tweet about her plan to “incorporate critical race theory into my lessons” during the summer. On Aug. 24, Weiskopf posted another tweet asking for lesson plans “designed to indoctrinate students.” The LCPS has repeatedly said that it doesn’t teach critical race theory.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/parents-protest-school-pro-transgender-policy-in-loudoun-county_4022687.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Calling the proposed Democratic budget package of progressive sugar plums “fiscal insanity,” Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia on Wednesday said he has not budged in his opposition to the mammoth spending bill.

Manchin and Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have long been holdouts in the Senate and have indicated opposition to a bill that totals $3.5 trillion, a sum Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders has already said is “not enough” for what should be doled out to social programs.

This week, they were courted by President Joe Biden in an effort to get them on board, as CBS News reported. The two votes matter to Democrats because without them – and with continued united Republican opposition – the spending bill cannot pass a Senate that’s divided between the parties 50-50.

That makes Manchin’s announcement a huge roadblock to progressive plans.

Manchin explained his stand in a statement on his website.

“I can’t support $3.5 trillion more in spending when we have already spent $5.4 trillion since last March. At some point, all of us, regardless of party must ask the simple question – how much is enough?” he wrote.

“What I have made clear to the President and Democratic leaders is that spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can’t even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity,” he wrote.

Manchin wrote that claims that spending will not fuel increased inflation are pipe dreams.

“Suggesting that spending trillions more will not have an impact on inflation ignores the everyday reality that America’s families continue [to] pay an unavoidable inflation tax,” he wrote.

Manchin also expressed doubts that an unprecedented deluge of taxpayer dollars will create the version of nirvana its supporters claim will take place.

“Proposing a historic expansion of social programs while ignoring the fact we are not in a recession and that millions of jobs remain open will only feed a dysfunction that could weaken our economic recovery,” he wrote.

Manchin noted he supports tax code changes to address fairness concerns, but that there is a limit.

“Overall, the amount we spend now must be balanced with what we need and can afford – not designed to reengineer the social and economic fabric of this nation or vengefully tax for the sake of wishful spending,” he wrote.

Manchin did not rule out further conversations about an appropriate amount of spending, but wrote that “I cannot – and will not — support trillions in spending or an all or nothing approach that ignores the brutal fiscal reality our nation faces.”

Republicans Down Democrats in Congressional Baseball Game as GOP Rep. Launches Historic Home Run

Manchin also hinted that the final solution may not be a one-party bill, as the $3.5 trillion package was designed to be.

“If there is one final lesson that will continue to guide me in this difficult debate ahead it is this: America is a great nation but great nations throughout history have been weakened by careless spending and bad policies,” he wrote. “Now, more than ever, we must work together to avoid these fatal mistakes so that we may fulfill our greatest responsibility as elected leaders and pass on a better America to the next generation.”

Sinema is doing her negotiating directly with the WH and Schumer. She’s been at the WH for meetings 10 times since the summer. Durbin, No. 2, himself acknowledged being in the dark about her and Manchin’s demands. Sanders: “I don’t want to talk about Sinema and Manchin.” https://t.co/GvnwyQ8oYs

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 29, 2021

Progressives in the House of Representatives say they want to move forward regardless of what Manchin does.

“Progressives won’t back down on delivering paid leave, education, health care, child care, and climate action because of an arbitrary deadline,” said Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, according to Fox Business. “We’re sticking to our deal and delivering for the people.”

Radical Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota indicated disgust with Manchin and Sinema.

“It is saddening to see them use Republican talking points. We obviously didn’t envision having Republicans as part of our party,” she said, according to The Hill.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has a habit of responding to difficult questions with sarcasm, condescension or downright snark. Earlier this week, she appeared to get so miffed by a press query that she forgot to mask up.

At the end of her Monday media briefing, Psaki was gathering up her notes to exit the White House briefing room when a reporter — as they are wont to do — shouted a parting question to her about President Joe Biden’s poll numbers.

“The president’s polling continues to collapse–” the reporter began, but Psaki quickly spoke over her.

“I know you like to shout at the end. Next time we’ll do it during the briefing,” she replied in a sarcastic, condescending tone.

Psaki then put on an artificial smile, walked off the stage, and in a voice still dripping with snark, repeated “thanks everyone,” and “thank you so much” before finally leaving the briefing room.

World-Class Athlete Says He Regrets Getting COVID Vaccine, Now Has Serious Problems

Psaki often appears to work hard to convey the kind of cool and in-control demeanor that made Trump supporters such big fans of White House press secretaries Sarah Sanders and Kayleigh McEnany, who expertly thwarted the attacks of the activist media on a routine basis without batting an eye.

Yet Psaki was clearly bothered by this comment, as she left the stage without obediently remasking as she was finished speaking, as per White House guidelines.

Lately, Psaki has typically paused when she is finished with her briefing to put her mask back on, during which time it is normal for reporters to shout out last-minute questions they’re hoping she’ll answer.Is this another case of Democrats’ double standards?Yes No
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Reporters, of course, remain masked during the whole of the briefings as the White House requires. The guidelines were reimposed over the summer after a brief pause in the practice before the delta variant prompted a fresh wave of COVID scares.

At the time, as The New York Times reported, Psaki said she was prepared to wear masks again, although she does not appear to be required to do so while giving briefings.

When President Donald Trump was in office, he was roundly criticized both for his treatment of the establishment media and his own failure to wear a mask in public.

The Biden administration, for which Psaki is the chief spokeswoman, promised to be the administration that was going to play by the rules and respect our nation’s free press.

And here Psaki is, throwing shade at reporters and forsaking masks that she herself has insisted are necessary to save lives.

Dems Have Forgotten the Lessons That Reagan and JFK Taught About Taxing Corporations

The Democrats seem to genuinely believe that what they expect of everyone else — particularly us plebs in the American public — doesn’t apply to them.

After all, during Monday’s briefing, Psaki had been pressed on a comment that Biden made Friday while meeting with Indian Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which he’d disparaged the American press on a hot mic and suggested the Indian media was “better behaved.”

As the New York Post reported, several reporters had taken their grievances to Psaki immediately after Biden’s Oval Office meeting with Modi, and Psaki was then grilled about the incident on Monday.

Maybe this was why she was feeling so annoyed with the press pool and distracted to the point that she forgot to dutifully swath her face before leaving the podium.

She’d already fielded a question on why Biden would suggest that the American media is worse than the Indian media when the latter nation ranks 142nd in the world for press freedoms, so perhaps a question on the president’s dropping polling numbers was just too much for her to handle.

Yes, it certainly can’t be easy being the press secretary for the disastrous Biden administration and being expected to live up to all those lofty goals it set for itself by slandering and smearing the unwashed, unmasked masses who criticize the media.

Poor Jen.

They say when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When it comes to Vice President Kamala Harris, she can count on energetic admirers in the press who take on the task of making lemonade out of her lemons.

Take Washington Post White House reporter Cleve Wootson Jr., who accentuated the positive in a Sunday story headlined “Handed a pile of no-win issues, Harris builds a network: Gains credit with liberals focused on migration, abortion and the vote.”

One would think that being handed “volatile social issues” such as illegal immigration, abortion and voting rights may be very damaging for Harris. But no! Wootson touted that, “behind the scenes, Harris has been quietly seizing the opportunity to build a liberal national network of dedicated activists that is convinced she embraces its causes.”

Wootson found delighted leftists who appreciate the allyship of Harris. “Advocates invited to the White House, or to Harris’s ceremonial office in the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building, often express appreciation that their opinions and standing are being amplified by a political star.”

Is this reporting? Or merely advertising? Cuddly Cleve has a way with sweet talk.

The story began with Harris meeting with abortion advocate Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder of Whole Women’s Health in Austin, Texas. Miller said she appreciated how Harris would “talk straight to the extreme politicians in this country,” and she meant Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

That’s fascinating. The House of Representatives just passed a bill called the “Women’s Health Protection Act” with 218 of 219 Democrats that is so extreme on untrammeled abortion that it would require states to allow abortions of an unborn baby viable outside the womb if one physician can proclaim that an abortion would protect the woman’s health. An army of Gov. Ralph Northams could make post-birth abortions happen across America.

But sure, tag the anti-abortion Republicans as the “extreme politicians in this country.”

Liberal extremism is no vice in the pursuit of the presidency. Wootson added, “If Harris has a path to the presidency, it is likely to run through an energized liberal base — not, as it did for Biden, through blocs of centrist Democrats and moderate Republicans.”

Political scientist Matthew Wilson argued that Harris doesn’t need to be broadly popular to win the presidency, but can triumph as the “champion of a base cause.”

The Washington Post story noted Harris was “dogged” by Republicans on the issue of “irregular migration.” She was hounded as the “border czar” who wouldn’t go to the border. But when she (sort of) went there in June, to El Paso, it was a triumph with her base.

Fernando Garcia of the left-wing Border Network for Human Rights, a group bearing hashtags such as “#HugsNotWalls,” told Wootson, “I made remarks in regard to not forgetting our history — this border, the U.S.-Mexico border, is the new Ellis Island. And then when she went over and had a press conference at the hangar, she said the same thing.”

Wootson concluded the story by telling readers that an audience with Harris gives activists the proverbial “seat at the table,” and then they will feel they are heard and this will make them more open to “bring about a Harris administration,” whenever Joe Biden isn’t going to be president anymore.

“She’s breaking ground, and Black women will keep fighting and keep supporting her,” said Melanie Campbell of the Black Women’s Roundtable, another leftist collective.

Harris is not exactly holding a pile of press conferences, so almost no one can name her press secretary. But keep an eye out for Wootson. He’s making a good case for himself.

https://rightandfree.com/news/2021/09/28/no-win-kamala-still-has-fans-in-the-press?utm_campaign=AmEagles&utm_source=AmEagles-20210930&utm_medium=email

41 percent of Democrats believe there is a 50 percent chance of being hospitalized for CCP virus, survey finds

Parrots don’t think; they just repeat what they hear [US Patriot]

A Gallup poll released this week found that Americans, by in large, overestimate COVID-19 hospitalization or death rates.

Survey results suggest “most Americans overstate the risk of hospitalization” for both unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals. Some 92 percent “overstate the risk that unvaccinated people will be hospitalized” while 62 percent overstated the risk for vaccinated individuals, Gallup said in a blog post.

The poll found that 41 percent of registered Democrats believe there is a 50 percent chance that an unvaccinated individual will go the hospital for COVID-19, whereas 21 percent of Republicans and 26 percent of independents believe the same. The correct answer is fewer than 1 percent of unvaccinated COVID-19 cases result in hospital stays, said Gallup, which cited data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for what it said is the accurate hospitalization rate.

“Democrats are more likely to overstate hospitalization risks for unvaccinated people, which may fuel efforts, often led by Democratic Party leaders, to enforce both mask and vaccine mandates,” the pollster concluded. “At the same time, Republicans overstate risks to vaccinated people, leading to very low vaccine efficacy estimates. This may be one of the reasons that so many Republicans have been reluctant to get the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Meanwhile, data provided by Johns Hopkins University, shows the United States has a 1.6 percent case-fatality ratio, meaning that more than 98 percent of those who contract COVID-19, the illness caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, survive.

Health officials early on in the pandemic would often warn that elderly individuals and those with compromised immune systems are at the most risk from COVID-19. A recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) slide presented earlier this month during a panel discussion on whether approve Pfizer’s booster shot suggested that a healthy 30-year-old American has a 1 in 250,000 chance of dying from the CCP virus, or just 0.0004 percent.

“For both vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, very few adults reported a correct answer,” Gallup said of its recent poll. “For unvaccinated hospitalization risk, 2 percent of Democrats responded correctly, compared with 16 percent of Republicans,” it found.

Overall, “Only 8 percent of U.S. adults gave correct answers for the unvaccinated population and 38 percent for the vaccinated population,” the pollster also wrote.

Democrats, Gallup added, were “more likely to estimate hospitalization risk for the vaccinated population correctly,” saying that 42 percent correctly stated that “less than one percent of vaccinated people have been hospitalized.” About 33 percent “of Republicans correctly reported that less than one percent of vaccinated people have been hospitalized,” it continued.

According to Gallup’s appendix, citing HHS and CDC data, some 0.005 percent of the vaccinated population was hospitalized for COVID-19, whereas the hospitalization rate for the unvaccinated population was 1.6 percent. However, the organization issued a caveat.

“But those numbers exaggerate the benefits of the vaccine because the unvaccinated population confronted many more days of risk, since vaccination was gradually rolled out starting in December of 2020,” the pollster said. The first COVID-19 cases in the United States were reported in February 2020 before the virus spread across the country in the ensuing months.

“For that reason, we take the average population totals over the relevant periods for each population (March 1, 2020-Aug. 9, 2021 for the unvaccinated population and Dec. 15, 2020,-Aug. 9, 2021, for the vaccinated population),” said Gallup. “The adjusted population of vaccinated people comes to 83 million and 295 million for the vaccinated population, since the entire U.S. population was unvaccinated—except a small number of participants in clinical trials—up until December of 2020.”

Gallup then said it calculated the hospitalization rate for unvaccinated individuals to be 0.89 percent, whereas the vaccinated population is 0.01 percent.

For the findings, Gallup pollsters surveyed more than 3,000 Americans in August. It did not provide the margin of error for the poll findings.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/poll-americans-vastly-overestimate-covid-19-hospitalization-rate_4021212.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The progressive left has, for too long, dismissed conservative claims that the LGBT agenda normalizes the sexualization of children as “homophobic” or “bigoted.”

Yeah … about that.

An NBC contributor and vocal proponent of the LGBT movement has been slated as the spokesman for an organization with uncomfortably close ties to the sexualization of children.

Activist Noah Berlatsky is an ideal choice for this organization, as it happens, as he himself also has a long history of promoting the very same thing.

What’s incredibly stunning, however, is that he isn’t just some fringe liberal arts college academic no one’s ever heard of. He’s a contributor to one of the nation’s major news outlets as well as several other huge platforms, and his appointment to this position will no doubt only further legitimize the faction of LGBT Americans who vocally support the acceptance of pedophilia, child prostitution, child pornography and child sexuality.

And yes — Berlatsky and the organization, Prostasia, appear to be supportive of all of these things, however shrouded with seemingly conflicting claims to be interested in protecting children from sexual abuse.

Berlatsky is a writer and editor who, according to his LinkedIn profile, has contributed to, among other outlets, The Atlantic, The Guardian, NPR, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Slate, Media Matters, and of course, NBC News.

It appears that he is now the communications director for the non-profit organization Prostasia, which as The Post Millennial recently detailed at length, gives off the very conspicuous impression of working to normalize pedophilia.

This is fitting — he seems to have worked with the organization for some time and has shared tweets from one Dr. James Cantor, also affiliated with Prostasia, who, in a now-deleted tweet captured in a screenshot by Post Millenial, argued that a “P” for pedophiles should be included under the extensive LGBT+ banner.

.@nberlat, this true? https://t.co/RyEFWmCwT8 pic.twitter.com/VRkIXEDMwv

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) August 29, 2021

Prostasia has a support group for “Minor Attracted Persons” for adults and teens over the age of 13, which is described as a “peer support chat for minor attracted people who are fundamentally against child sexual abuse and committed to never harm children, and is a safe space to have peer support in times of trouble.”

“Prostasia bills itself as ‘a new kind of child protection organization’ that has a different approach to protecting children than the current methods of social work and law enforcement, saying that these approaches ‘are less effective than they should be, because they are driven by emotion rather than evidence,’” the Post Millennial explains.

One of these novel approaches is validating the desires of “minor attracted persons” who they believe can be “committed to never offending.”

Despite this apparent commitment to supporting those who are attracted to children but do not want to harm them or view child pornography, however, Anna Slatz recently wrote for the feminist website 4W that they nonetheless “have dedicated themselves to crusades against child pornography bans, letter-writing campaigns to state representatives demanding child-likeness sex dolls be kept legal, and funding research into ‘fantasy sexual outlets‘ for pedophiles.”

Dad Cracks Eye Socket of Alleged Pedophile He Caught Touching Boy, 9, at Bus Stop

“Prostasia sees the threat pedophiles pose to children as a bogeyman dreamed up by the alt-right, while condemning anti-pedophile sentiment as harmful ‘Nazi-like’ rhetoric which requires mass censorship across social media,” Slatz wrote.

“In Prostasia’s blog entries, ‘child protection’ routinely ends up in the same sentences as ‘free speech,’ ‘kink,’ or ‘sex positivity.’ The topics of age play, furries, hentai [anime or manga pornography], and prostitution are spoken about no differently as, and often with no barrier between, child sexuality and child sexual abuse,” Slatz noted.

You can see for yourself by visiting the organization’s website — but you have most certainly been warned … it’s nauseating, horrifying and infuriating.

One stunning example of Prostatsia and Berlatsky’s openness to accepting and promoting child sexuality is an interview he conducted for the group with a porn star who glowingly promoted the idea of exposing children to pornography, recalling a wonderful experience she had as a child discovering nude photographs and developing an insatiable appetite for smut — at the age of 8.

“The anti-porn crusaders fear that children being exposed to sex is going to lead them to some kind of ultimate demoralization,” Mireille Miller-Young told an apparently entirely supportive Berlatsky in a July interview for Prostatsia.

“And, of course, the socialization that pornographic materials can provide at that age can be interpreted in different ways. And my experience was of it being joyful and fun. It was an image of beauty and sexiness that influenced my ideas about sexuality through life,” she declared.

Another example is an article he wrote for The New Republic in 2016 headlined, “Child Sex Workers’ Biggest Threat: The Police,” which sympathetically president a professor arguing for the decriminalization of minors engaging in sex work.

(Cops and the criminal justice system are worse for the kids than their pimps, the article essentially argues.)

So, Belatsky is full of empathy — though it might not be a surprise that there’s one group he has no empathy for: supporters of former President Donald Trump.

In a YouTube video from 2019, in fact, he spent the better part of an hour bashing any idea of trying to understand Trump’s backers.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/5_sdX3uzsp8?feature=oembed

Berlatsky has issued tweets from his now-protected Twitter account defending practices like child prostitution.

No, really.

Referring to trafficked children as “young people trading in sex,” according to Twitter posts captured in screenshots by the Post Millennial, he has argued that child sex trafficking laws somehow victimize children rather than help them escape a sick and disgusting cycle of abuse and exploitation.

He’s also written that “Pedophiles are essentially a stigmatized group” and that people “love accusing people of pedophilia” as it’s apparently “an explosive accusation linked historically to queer people and Jewish people and sex workers.” (The quotes are again from Twitter posts captured in screenshots by the Post Millennial.)

Or perhaps people accuse people of pedophilia when they actively oppose laws restricting the production of child pornographic images, fight to get pedophiles recognized under the banner of LGBT, and support the idea of exposing children to pornography.

As far as such outrageous ideas go, Berlatsky is in good (well, abhorrently immoral) company in today’s “sex-positive” culture that seems to serve only as a very, very thinly veiled push to normalize child sexuality.

There was the Manhattan prep school teacher who taught kindergartners about masturbation and gave high school students a “porn literacy” seminar.

There was the blue-check writer Flora Gill, who has been published by GQ, The Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Sunday Times, among other outlets, who wrote in a since-deleted tweet earlier this year that “Someone needs to create porn for children.”

This may qualify for the worst Tweet of the year. pic.twitter.com/uzf1NkKfPC

— Harrison Krank (@HarrisonKrank) July 29, 2021

“Young teens are already watching porn but they’re finding hardcore, aggressive videos that give a terrible view of sex. They need entry level porn! A soft core site where everyone asks for consent and no one gets choked,” she argued.

Maybe Prostasia has an opening for Gill, too.

There is also the trans activist Alok Vaid-Menon, himself a blue checkmark on Twitter, who once wrote that fears that transgender bathroom laws could little girls being sexually assaulted by adult men were misplaced as there are “no innocent victims” because “little girls are also kinky.”

Vaid-Menon also appeared on self-identified non-binary pop star Demi Lovato’s YouTube channel earlier this year and was the subject of an HBO Max documentary in 2020:

Meet luminary @alokvmenon ✨ Just like La Veneno, they knew they were an icon from an early age. pic.twitter.com/awZKgOmkQJ

— HBO Max (@hbomax) December 6, 2020

Meanwhile, across the nation, schools have been using sex-ed curricula under the umbrella of so-called “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” backed by the abortion provider Planned Parenthood and entirely centered around the ideology of “sex-positive” yet is more accurately described as “Grooming 101.”

The push to normalize child sexuality has been burgeoning over the last few decades, but only in the last few years has it gotten this far into legitimacy, and suddenly we find it is at the heart of mainstream media and parts of public education.

There is no longer any basis whatsoever to dismiss the opposition to this dangerous and disgusting ideology as hysterical, homophobic, or bigoted.

It’s never been more clear that, as the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir so gleefully celebrated earlier this year, they are, indeed, coming for our children.

Are you paying attention yet?

The Washington Post on Tuesday fact-checked U.S. President Joe Biden over his claims that he can accomplish his spending goals with a price tag of “zero” dollars.

While speaking to reporters on Friday, Biden claimed that his spending plan for the country has a “zero price tag on the debt. We’re paying — we’re going to pay for everything we spend,” according to footage and a transcript of the news conference obtained by Factbase.

The following day, the President wrote in a Twitter post: “My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars.”

My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars.

Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America.

And it adds zero dollars to the national debt.

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 26, 2021

“Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America. And it adds zero dollars to the national debt,” Biden’s tweet further stated.

According to the Biden administration, the Build Back Better Agenda is an “ambitious plan to create jobs, cut taxes, and lower costs for working families,” which among other things seeks to lower the cost of child care, higher education, prescription drugs, health care and housing, as well as institute tax cuts for low-wage workers and families with children.

The agenda also seeks job creation through workforce training, clean-energy jobs, and investing in teachers and schools.

The Biden Administration plans to fund such lofty goals “by making the tax code fairer and making the wealthiest and large corporations pay their fair share,” which is Democrat-speak for raising corporate and other taxes that Americans have to pay to the government.

Despite Biden’s belief that the Build Back Better Agenda would cost “zero dollars” and his optimistic claims that his plan will not increase the nation’s already high deficit, the plan would require around $3.5 trillion through a reconciliation bill for it to be implemented according to the New York Post.

On Tuesday, Washington Post fact-checkers gave Biden’s comments two “Pinnochios.” By the Post’s fact-check rating scale, a Pinnochio count of two means that the statements by Biden had “[s]ignificant omissions and/or exaggerations.”

“Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily,” according to the Posts’ rating description. “A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people. (Similar to ‘half true.’)”

Regarding Biden’s zero-cost budget claim, the Post wrote that, “given our long experience in writing about the federal budget, we’re pretty certain a deficit score of zero would only be accomplished with some dubious gimmicks that help disguise the true cost of Biden’s agenda.”

“Even if the reconciliation bill lands with a calculated deficit impact of zero, the president will still be in a deficit hole because of the bipartisan infrastructure bill.”

House Republicans Demand Biden Reverse ‘Shameful’ Obstruction of COVID Origins Investigation

“Originally the two bills were supposed to work in tandem, but now the White House claims only the reconciliation bill represents the president’s ‘Build Back Better’ plan. That wasn’t the story in the spring,” the Post’s fact-check report stated.

In addition to the Post — a major, left-leaning legacy news outlet — several Republicans slammed Biden for his claims that his plan will have a price tag of zero dollars.

GOP Congresswoman Mary Miller of Illinois called Biden’s claims “a lie.”

This is a lie. https://t.co/Fvc1FLVk1X

— Congresswoman Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) September 27, 2021

“Simple math for President Biden: $3.5 trillion does NOT equal zero,” GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York said on Twitter.

Simple math for President Biden:

$3.5 trillion does NOT equal zero. https://t.co/pVqODYCOGT

— Congresswoman Tenney (@RepTenney) September 26, 2021

“This is completely false. The largest spending spree in government history will cost ‘zero dollars’? That defies logic and basic math. Alongside massive tax increases, it will add trillions to the debt. Peddling false narratives won’t change those facts,” said Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas.

A lawsuit brought by bartender Dustin Hice alleging CNN anchor Don Lemon inappropriately touched him in a sexually charged assault more than three years ago is expected to make it to a courtroom early next year, according to a Fox News report.

It is the latest such headache for the network, as last week veteran television news producer Shelley Ross accused CNN host Chris Cuomo of sexually harassing her in 2005 when both worked for ABC News. The host of “Cuomo Prime Time” apologized at the time, according to Shelley, and reiterated his apology to The New York Times last week.

The assault and battery suit against Lemon, 55, who is openly gay, hasn’t made it before a judge due to a lengthy discovery process and the coronavirus pandemic, but Hice’s legal team told Fox News Digital it expects the suit to end up in court around January 2022.

Hice, 40, claims Lemon, anchor of “CNN Tonight,” rubbed his own genitals and then put his fingers into Hice’s face at Murf’s Backstreet Tavern in Sag Harbor, New York, in July 2018.

“At such time, Mr. Lemon, who was wearing a pair of shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt, put his hand down the front of his own shorts, and vigorously rubbed his genitalia, removed his hand and shoved his index and middle fingers into Plaintiff’s moustache under Plaintiff’s nose,” the complaint, filed in Suffolk County Court on Aug. 11, 2019, stated.

“Mr. Lemon intensely pushed his fingers against Plaintiff’s face under Plaintiff’s nose, forcing Plaintiff’s head to thrust backward as Defendant repeatedly asked Plaintiff ‘Do you like p**** or d***?’ While saying this, Mr. Lemon continued to shove his fingers into Plaintiff’s face with aggression and hostility.”

George Gounelas, Hice’s former boss, told Fox News last year he witnessed the incident, corroborating his onetime employee’s account of his encounter with Lemon.

“Dustin worked for me as a bartender [and] we went out after work one night. We were standing there and he said, ‘Hey, that’s Don Lemon,’” Gounelas said at the time.

After Lemon allegedly refused Hice’s attempt to get his attention and buy him a drink, Lemon approached Hice and Gounelas sometime later.Is CNN right to stand behind Don Lemon over this allegation?Yes No
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“Don Lemon has now come around the corner and is standing face to face with us. There is a beam, a pole, in the place. Don’s standing up against the pole, face to face with Dustin, I turn around and I’m standing right there between the two of them,” Gounelas said, noting the alleged incident occurred shortly after.

The complaint went on to note Hice stepped outside the bar after being “emotionally devasted by Mr. Lemon’s demeaning unprovoked and offensive assault. Plaintiff and Mr. Gounelas remained outside for approximately 5 to 10 minutes before Plaintiff was able to collect himself and return to Murf’s,” as the incident left Hice “shocked and humiliated.”

According to Hice, a proposed six-figure payment was offered by Lemon before talks broke down, resulting in the lodging of the formal complaint, the Daily Mail reported.

For his part, Lemon has been adamant he did nothing wrong.

On June 3, 2020, Lemon’s attorney, Caroline Polisi, wrote in a court document that her client is “often subjected to racist and homophobic harassment” and “strangers” often approach him in public, at “times intrusively and repeatedly,” as reported last year by Fox News.

Watch: Biden Gives Answer So Unintelligible It Sounds Like He’s Speaking a Foreign Language

She called Hice’s allegations “speculative,  hypothetical, unsupported by any reasonably methodology” and “not cognizable as a matter of law.”

“The plaintiff in this lawsuit has previously displayed a pattern of contempt for CNN on his social media accounts,” a CNN spokesperson told Mediaite in 2019.

“This claim follows his unsuccessful threats and demands for an exorbitant amount of money from Don Lemon. Don categorically denies these claims and this matter does not merit any further comment at this time.”

An Instagram post from January 2017 allegedly posted by Hice and obtained by the news website showed him posing in front of CNN’s Atlanta headquarters with the caption, “touring the #CNN center today … or as #Trump would say ‘the home of Fake News’ lol.”

The allegations against Lemon and Cuomo follow on the heels of CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin returning to the network this summer, eight months after being suspended for exposing himself during a Zoom call with colleagues at The New Yorker, where he also worked.

The magazine fired him over the incident.

It would be difficult for the media to be more obsequious toward President Joe Biden, but he’d certainly like them to try.

On Friday, Biden met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House. As they sat down to face questions, the American president was caught on a hot mic giving his opinion of their respective countries’ media.

“I think what we’re going to do is bring in the press. The Indian press is much better behaved than the American press,” Biden said.

“I think, with your permission, you could not answer questions because they won’t ask any questions on point.”

WATCH: President Biden, during meeting with Indian PM Modi:

“The Indian press is much better behaved than the American press…I think, with your permission, you could not answer questions because they won’t ask any questions on point.” pic.twitter.com/VppL7973ma

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 24, 2021

The Hidden Gift for Media Dems Put in Their Spending Bill Effectively Turns Every Outlet Into NPR

The hot mic moment took place days after White House staff ordered journalists to leave a joint appearance between Biden and United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson despite the fact Johnson had agreed to take questions.

During a meeting between Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, staff abruptly order journalists to leave. pic.twitter.com/kJ4itX2kU4

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 21, 2021

As Indian media watchdog Newslaundry pointed out, this probably wasn’t the kind of compliment he wanted to give.Does the media go easy on Biden?Yes No
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“Modi replied saying that he ‘completely agreed’ with Biden,” Newslaundry reported on Saturday. “It’s worth pointing out here that issues plaguing the freedom of the press under Modi have been well-documented. Since Modi came to power in 2014, he hasn’t held a single press conference except one in 2019 where he refused to answer any questions.”

Not well behaved enough for Modi, but just about right for Biden.

And keep in mind, this is a theme for Biden. Remember back in July, right before Independence Day, when the president was asked at a media briefing about Afghanistan? He literally told a reporter, “I want to talk about happy things, man!”

NOW – Biden on Afghanistan: “I want to talk about happy things, man!”pic.twitter.com/PuZyebqAFv

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) July 2, 2021

Watch: Psaki Manages to Embarrass Herself and Biden with Stunning Answer

“Look, it’s Fourth of July. I’m concerned that you guys are asking me questions that I will answer next week, but it’s the holiday weekend,” Biden went on to say. “I’m going to celebrate it. Great things happening.”

Don’t ask Sloppy Joe about Afghanistan. “I want to talk about happy things, man. I’m not going to answer anymore on Afghanistan. It’s the Fourth of July.” pic.twitter.com/NaRhybwyVL

— LivePDDave 🇺🇸 🚨 🥊 (@LivePDDave1) July 2, 2021

The next month, less-terrific things started happening — namely, the implosion of the Afghan government and the return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

On Monday, during a media briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the issue is the media isn’t willing to talk about what Joe wants to talk about.

No, seriously.

Psaki was just confronted by two reporters about Biden asking Indian Prime Minister Modi to not take questions from the American press.

Psaki then embarrassingly justifies the remark by saying sometimes the Press doesn’t ask about what Biden wants to talk about.

Watch. pic.twitter.com/LhOz9ItEEt

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) September 27, 2021

“Well, I would note first that he took questions on Friday and he took questions again today. And I think what he said is that they’re not always on point,” Psaki said.

“Now I know that isn’t something that anyone wants to hear in here, but what I think he was conveying is, you know, today he might want to talk about COVID vaccines, some of the questions were about that … Some of the questions are not always about the topic he’s talking about in that day. I don’t think it was meant to be a hard cut at the members of the media, people he’s taken questions from today and on Friday as well.”

The problem is the on-point questions are the important ones, as evidenced by this exchange when Biden walked away from a question about Afghanistan in late August.

Following his remarks on Hurricane Ida, President Joe Biden refused to answer a Bloomberg reporter’s questions on the Afghanistan crisis after saying he would take questions. pic.twitter.com/TXFjedI6Ni

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) August 30, 2021

What’s an “on point” question supposed to look like? “Mr. President, what’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” “That’s better. Today, it’s chocolate-chocolate chip.”

But remember the words of White House communications director Kate Bedingfield after the Afghanistan debacle: “The president never shies away from taking questions.”

WH Comms Director Kate Bedingfield: “The president never shies away from taking questions.” pic.twitter.com/KNkSqyCgtU

— America Rising (@AmericaRising) August 20, 2021

Except if those questions aren’t “on point” or if you’re not talking “about happy things, man.”

So, media of America, heed Joe Biden’s call. Sure, you may have been scoring a 10-out-of-10 on obsequiousness so far. Remember, though, that Spinal Tap’s amps went up to 11. It’s time to step your game up.

After all, you don’t want to get beat out by India, do you?

In late August, Marine Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller took a blowtorch to the woke military leadership for their failures in Afghanistan that resulted in 13 US servicemen dying.

Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, a 17-year veteran, risked his career and pension when he posted a scathing rebuke of the senior military leaders who failed US servicemen serving in Afghanistan.

Joe Biden’s incompetence and corruption led to the death of 13 US servicemen and 15 more were critically wounded in a blast by a suicide bomber in Kabul on Thursday.

“I want to say this very strongly. I have been fighting for 17 years. I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders: I demand accountability,” said Scheller.

NOT MAKING HEADLINES: AZ Audit Could Not Find the Identity of 86,391 Voters – They Don’t Appear to Exist and 73.8% Are Democrat or No Party Affiliation

“I’m not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan forever. But I am saying, did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, ‘Hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone’? Did anyone do that? And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, ‘We completely messed this up’?” Scheller added.

“I thought through, if I post this video, what might happen to me — especially if the video picks up traction, if I have the courage to post it,” he said. “But I think what you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk. If I’m willing to risk my current battalion seat, my retirement, my family’s stability to say some of the things I want to say, I think it gives me some moral high ground to demand the same honesty, integrity, and accountability from my senior leaders.”

https://www.youtube.com/embed/h7DO56ERVGc?embed

Following his public scolding, Lt. Scheller submitted his resignation letter to his superiors effective 9/11.

On Monday Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller was arrested and sent to the brig.

You are not allowed to speak out against Joe Biden. Even if you retire from your post earlier in the month.

FOX News reported:

Scheller is “currently in pre-trial confinement,” a spokesperson for Training and Education Command said of the officer’s status.

“The time, date, and location of the proceedings have not been determined. Lt. Col. Scheller will be afforded all due process,” the statement continued.

But the elder Scheller defended his son, arguing that he was only asking for “accountability” from the military’s top brass.

“He’s asking for the same accountability that is expected of him and his men,” he said.

“I’ve had Vietnam veterans contacting me applauding him for his courage because they too want to know: Was it all worth it?” he continued. “And by demanding accountability and honesty from his senior leaders, that’s all he was asking. And the way the Marine Corps has dealt with it: They have now put him in jail.”

Ozy Media took donations from Ford Foundation, Laurene Powell Jobs, Charles Koch Institute

The taxpayer-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting and several progressive billionaires have partnered with a digital media company now under FBI investigation for attempting to defraud investors.

Ozy Media is accused of trying to defraud executives from Goldman Sachs earlier this year, the New York Times reported this week. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 2018 gave the media company a $500,000 grant to produce a documentary series featuring interviews with liberal celebrities. Ozy has lured in other wealthy investors, including Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Marc Lasry, the hedge fund billionaire whose son is running for Senate in Wisconsin, is Ozy’s board chairman. Lasry organized a $35 million investment round for Ozy in 2019.

Founded in 2013, Ozy bills itself as a “modern media company” with a knack for spotting rising stars in entertainment and politics. According to the Times, Ozy cofounder Samir Rao represented himself as a YouTube executive and touted Ozy’s viewership statistics on the video platform. Rao also hyped the leadership of Ozy’s president Carlos Watson. According to the Times, Ozy has vastly overstated its traffic numbers for years. Google, which owns YouTube, contacted the FBI about Rao’s scheme. Federal agents have contacted Goldman Sachs, the newspaper reported.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting partnered with PBS and the left-leaning Ford Foundation on Ozy’s 12-part documentary series, according to a press release of the partnership. Watson interviewed a number of liberal public figures for the series, including Comedy Central host Trevor Noah, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), and Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Congressional Republicans have for years called for cutting funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, citing a perceived liberal bias in the organization’s programming.

The Ford Foundation gave Ozy $1.95 million in grants in 2016 and 2017, according to its grants database. The foundation supports a number of left-wing causes, including a journalism center at Howard University that will be led by Nikole Hannah-Jones, the creator of the 1619 Project. The foundation also awarded a $50,000 grant to Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, a controversial proponent of critical race theory.

The Ford Foundation has received effusive praise from Ozy in the wake of its contributions to the media startup. Earlier this year, Ozy’s Watson hyped Ford Foundation president Darren Walker during an interview for the Carlos Watson Show, which aired on Ozy’s YouTube channel. Watson called Walker “one of the biggest, boldest thinkers in the world.” The Ford Foundation’s earlier funding for Ozy was not disclosed in the 23-minute program.

The Charles Koch Institute, the think tank funded by billionaire libertarian Charles Koch, paid $500,000 to Ozy in 2018 as an independent contractor for media services, according to tax filings.

Taxpayer Dollars Flowed to Media Company Now Under FBI Investigation (freebeacon.com)

NBA players reject COVID-19 vaccine mandate

Woke millionaire Kyrie Irving and other NBA players are stupid conspiracy theorists who literally want all of your family members to die. Rolling Stone reports there is significant opposition among NBA players to the league’s proposal to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine, considered by many to be a “non-starter.”

Irving, whose Instagram feed is filled with homages to Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party, has urged Americans to “do your own research”—not as it relates to the COVID-19 vaccine, but rather as to whether the Earth is round or flat. His views on the vaccine, however, can be extrapolated with a high degree of confidence.

For example, Irving has started liking Instagram posts from conspiracy theorists claiming that “secret societies” are using the vaccines to fulfill “a plan of Satan” by implanting black people with microchips connected to a master computer. Similar conspiracies have reportedly spread throughout the NBA.

Irving is a vice president on the executive committee of the NBA players’ union, which held its annual meeting last month to discuss vaccine mandates and other issues ahead of the upcoming season. According to the NBA’s most recent health and safety guidelines, the anti-vaccine players were successful in forcing the league to accept nearly all of their demands.

The league and the players’ union are still negotiating a number of contentious issues, such as “prohibitions on accessing indoor bars, clubs, and lounges.” NBA superstar LeBron James, who has repeatedly refused to discuss his vaccination status, violated the league’s health and safety protocols (but was not punished) earlier this year by attending an indoor tequila party with Drake and other celebs.

Weeks prior to the party, James’s former teammate Dennis Schröder told a German media outlet that “LeBron and I” were the only players for the Los Angeles Lakers yet to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. James has insisted that believing in science (or not) is “a private thing,” despite vowing to use his platform to speak out on “everything that’s going on around this country and around the world,” except for China.

Irving has also refused to comment on his vaccination status, but all evidence suggests he is not. His aunt, Tyki Irving, told Rolling Stone: “There are so many other players outside of him who are opting out, I would like to think they would make a way.”

The NBA may have caved to its anti-vaxx players, but some state and local governments have sought to impose their own vaccine requirements. New York City, where Irving plays for the Brooklyn Nets, will require athletes to show proof of at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose in order to play indoors.

On Monday, the Nets hosted a media day at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Irving, who would have had to present proof of vaccination to attend, wasn’t there. In a virtual interview, he once again refused to discuss his vaccination status. “I like to keep that stuff private,” Irving said. “I’m not able to present there today, but that doesn’t mean that I’m putting any limits on the future of me being able to join the team.”

It remains unknown why Irving, who took a two-week leave of absence to protest the riot at the U.S. Capitol, wants his fellow Americans to die as a result of his reckless behavior. For whatever reason, sanctimonious white liberals were significantly less vocal, if not completely silent, in response to the Rolling Stone report.

Shut Up and Get Vaxxed: These Woke Millionaires Are Literally Killing People (freebeacon.com)

Kimberly Jenkins, a critical care nurse at Banner Health Center in Phoenix, Arizona, knows she could be out of a job soon—unless she complies with her employer’s COVID-19 vaccine program by Nov 1.

That’s just not going to happen, said Jenkins, who is pinning her hopes on a religious exemption to the shot.

“If it’s denied, I won’t be working for Banner any more,” she told The Epoch Times.

Dressed in hospital scrubs, Jenkins and several other nurses in hospital garb stood outside Arizona’s Senate Building on Sept. 24 to protest against the mandatory vaccines.

“I don’t care how I get a paycheck [but] I have to take a step back for my own mental health,” said Jenkins, holding a sign with a drawing of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.

“It Appears To Be Mutating Into A Dictatorship,” the sign’s caption read.

Across the street from the Arizona Capitol, more than 1,000 people had gathered at a medical freedom rally sponsored by more than a dozen anti-COVID-19 vaccine organizations.

Among the sponsors were the Arizona Coalition for Medical Freedom, America’s Frontline Doctors, America’s Healthcare Workers for Medical Freedom, the Patriot Party of Arizona, and Arizona for Medical Freedom.

Jenkins, 41, shrugged when asked what she will do for work if and when she gets fired from her job.
“Other organizations are hiring in Arizona. The biggest problem is staff, and having to deal with the fact that we will lose a lot of nurses” over the vaccine mandates, Jenkins said.

“So, you now have new graduates working in high-security areas [in place of seasoned nurses]. We don’t have the staff to train new nurses.”

Since the Biden Administration announced vaccine mandates for federal employees and companies with 100 employees or more, health-care facilities across the country have suffered losses.

Earlier this month, Novant Health Inc. announced 375 staffers had been suspended for their noncompliance with the company’s COVID-19 program.

Meanwhile, Lewis County General Hospital in Lowville, New York, this month shut down its maternity ward when dozens of employees chose to quit their jobs rather than take the injection.

And at Indiana University Health, 125 staffers resigned this month after they refused to get vaccinated.

While Jenkins said she isn’t sure how many nursing jobs are on the chopping block at her facility, “it’s enough to make a huge dent to do proper care.”

She said the standard of care in ICUs is three skilled nurses per patient. Now, it’s common to see two nurses for every critical care patient, she said.

“I don’t like it when science is ignored,” said another unvaccinated nurse at the Sep. 24 rally, who works at Common Spirit Health in Phoenix. “I’ve seen adverse [side effects] happen to co-workers of mine,” after they received the vaccine.

“The vaccine was completely rushed through. It was being rushed through even when we were in a pandemic state,” she told The Epoch Times.

The irony, she said, is that during the pandemic in 2020 “we were heroes. Now, we’re zeroes.” Regardless, she said, “I’m not quitting. I’m not worried about their timeline.”

Another registered nurse at the rally who also works at Common Spirit Health told The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity, “I wouldn’t say I’m fearful [about losing my job]. I would say it’s wrong what they’re doing.”

Hundreds Gather Outside Arizona’s Capitol Building for Medical Freedom Rally (theepochtimes.com)

For a guy with the support of billionaires, millionaires, China, Mainstream Media, and Social Media, his numbers are WAY worse than Trump ever [US Patriot]

President Joe Biden’s approval rating has hit a new record low at just 40 percent, according to a poll released on Monday by Rasmussen Reports.

The poll of likely U.S. voters also revealed 58 percent of likely voters disapprove of the president’s job performance.

Among those, 50 percent selected “Strongly Disapproved.”

In contrast, only 21 percent selected “Strongly Approve.”

The current approval rating places him below former President Donald Trump, who was at 43 percent approval at this point in his presidency, according to Rasmussen.

Biden National Security Advisor May Be Guilty of Perjury Related to Clinton Campaign’s ‘Collusion’ Claims Against Trump: Report

Today’s #bidenapproval numbers are out, continuing down to a new record low:https://t.co/uzsUlTESNa

Sponsored by The ANTIFA by @JackPosobiec pic.twitter.com/Z4rpISTdj7

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) September 27, 2021

The daily poll has followed Biden’s approval rating since his first day in office.

He ranked as high as 55 percent approval on May 26. Since then, his approval has dropped by 15 percent.

According to a Rasmussen Reports Twitter post Monday, the majority of Americans oppose Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending bill, his plan to raise the debt ceiling and his pandemic restrictions.

Coming Up Today:@JoeBiden daily presidential job approval % is – now at a new record low.

– Majority Oppose $3.5 Trillion Spending Bill
– Majority Against Raising Debt Ceiling
– Majority Now Believe Pandemic A Trojan Horse For Permanent Socialism pic.twitter.com/XB2r7zFGQF

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) September 27, 2021

The Democratic spending bill will be a central focus this week as Speaker Nancy Pelosi seeks a House vote on Thursday. The California Democrat has claimed to have the votes to pass the bill, but some House members remain uncertain.

Biden’s recently announced vaccine mandates for federal workers and companies with 100 employees or more has also led to widespread frustration with many Americans. Several states have opposed the measure through letters and across social media.

Taliban Endgame: Former National Security Advisor Warns Extremists Could Secure 150 Nuclear Weapons

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem have both vowed to sue the Biden administration over the issue.

Daily tracking results for the daily poll are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis, according to Rasmussen Reports.

The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.

A poll from Fox News last week showed Biden’s approval rating with independent voters had experienced a strong drop. Since January, his approval rating plummeted 24 points.

WATCH: Joe Biden’s approval rating collapses 24 points among independent voters. pic.twitter.com/a8YxNMmyQJ

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 23, 2021

“Very, very weak numbers,” Fox News host Martha MacCallum said in the report.

Joe Biden’s Approval Rating Sets Another Record, Is Now Lower Than Trump’s (westernjournal.com)

Dozens of Massachusetts state troopers have submitted their resignations ahead of a deadline to comply with the state’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination mandate.

“Many of these troopers are going to be returning to their previous municipal police departments within the state that allow for regular testing and masks,” State Police Association of Massachusetts President Michael Cherven said in a statement. “To date, dozens of troopers have already submitted their resignation paperwork.

“Throughout COVID, we have been on the front lines protecting the citizens of Massachusetts and beyond,” he said. “Simply put, all we are asking for are the same basic accommodations that countless other departments have provided to their first responders, and to treat a COVID-related illness as a line of duty injury.”

The action comes as a Massachusetts Superior Court judge rejected the union’s request to delay the vaccine mandate, which goes into effect on Oct. 17. Exemptions are granted, under an order issued by the governor’s office, to those seeking religious or medical exemptions to the vaccine.

“We are disappointed in the judge’s ruling; however, we respect her decision,” Cherven said. “It is unfortunate that [Gov. Charlie Baker] and his team have chosen to mandate one of the most stringent vaccine mandates in the country with no reasonable alternatives.”

The State Police Association of Massachusetts recently filed a lawsuit saying the Oct. 17 deadline would cause troopers “irreparable harm” and sought more time to “negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment.” They also had sought to have troopers who are not vaccinated instead submit to regular COVID-19 testing and wearing a mask on the job.

But the judge, Suffolk County Superior Court Associate Justice Jackie Cowin, said that delaying the vaccine mandate wouldn’t serve the public’s interest.

“The public interest is, unquestionably, best served by stopping the spread of the virus, in order to protect people from becoming ill, ensure adequate supply of medical services, and curtail the emergence of new, deadlier variants of the virus,” according to her ruling.

At the federal level, the Biden administration earlier this month issued an order mandating that all federal workers and contractors, including law enforcement personnel, get a COVID-19 vaccine. Earlier, the federal government stipulated that federal employees and contractors who didn’t get the shot would have to instead wear masks, socially distance, and undergo routine testing.

A few dozen federal employees, including U.S. Secret Service members, have filed lawsuits against the Biden administration over the mandate. Some argued that a prior COVID-19 infection should preclude them from receiving the vaccine, while others said that mandatory vaccines would violate their religious freedom.

Gov. Baker’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

‘Dozens’ of Massachusetts State Troopers Submit Resignations Over Vaccine Mandate (theepochtimes.com)

If you think the establishment media doesn’t like the Democrats enough already, wait until the federal government is subsidizing it.

There’s plenty of objectionable waste in the $3.5 trillion spending bill the Democratic Party is pushing on Capitol Hill, but few giveaways hidden in the 881-page document are so blatant as a tax credit for “local news” outlets.

According to the Washington Times, the credit would allow the outlets to receive a quarterly tax credit “equal to 50%” of a journalist’s salary up to $12,500 a quarter.

Add that up and it’s a gift of $50,000 per year per journalist, courtesy of the Democrats and the federal government.

After the first year, the credit would decrease to 30 percent of a journalist’s salary. In five years, the program would sunset. Joint Committee on Taxation estimates say the program will cost over $1.3 billion between now and 2031.

“Think of it as a way to turn every news outlet in America into a version of NPR,” said Adam Guillette, president of conservative media watchdog Accuracy in Media, in a commentary piece for The Daily Signal.

“Let’s be clear: ‘Saving’ the media would destroy the media. How could we ever trust journalists to accurately cover the elected officials who voted against their funding?” he wrote in the Wednesday piece. “How can you ‘speak truth to power’ when you’re also pleading with that power for cash? Which news outlets would get the funding, and which would be snubbed?

“Any pretense of objectivity would be destroyed once the media is on the federal payroll,” he continued. “And if you think the media is already hostile to conservatives, libertarians, Christians, business leaders, southerners, and basically anyone who didn’t love Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, D-N.Y., dress from the Met Gala, just imagine the disdain they’ll show us once they’re funded by tax dollars. Also imagine the press coverage of any politician that dares to oppose renewing — or increasing — their funding.”

In other words, don’t expect the tax credit to expire after the five-year sunset period — unless you want to see media outlets attacking the politicians who let it expire as enemies of democracy.

Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson has called the “local news” bailout “media collusion.”

“Not only is this proposal a grotesque waste of taxpayer money,” Johnson said, “it would be a dangerous precedent of government collusion with the media. Biden’s collusion with the press has already caused enough damage to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

“Freedom of the press does not contemplate government funding of it,” Johnson added.

Let’s keep in mind, too, that the definition of a local news outlet in the bill’s language is promiscuous enough to cover some of the biggest names in media.

As the text crafted by the House Ways and Means Committee stands, it would benefit a “local newspaper publisher” that serves “the needs of a regional or local community and who employs no more than 750 employees.”

Photographer Behind Photos of Border Agents on Horseback Blows Massive Hole in Establishment Media, Biden Narrative

“The criteria are broad enough to cover major newspapers with a national reach,” the Times’ Haris Alric wrote in a Sept. 16 piece.

The language was introduced by Democrat Arizona Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who’s introduced a similar local-news subsidization bill in previous Congresses.

“Local journalism is a bedrock pillar of communities across the United States,” Kirkpatrick said. “Unfortunately, journalistic endeavors throughout the country face major economic struggles that put the future of many publications in serious jeopardy.”

Yes, but the reason these papers “face major economic struggles” is because they’ve lost out to the competition, in no small part due to the built-in liberal bias in establishment media.

“In 2021, most Americans are getting their news from independent podcasts, blogs, social media sites, and more. They compensate these journalists using new payment services like Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and GoFundMe. Last year Patreon alone paid out roughly $1 billion to creators,” Accuracy in Media’s Guillette wrote.

“Rather than using politicians to shake down taxpayers, why don’t these desperate journalists try to collect money voluntarily on Patreon?”

The question answers itself: We wouldn’t give it to them, because we have choices. The journalists, in turn, think we shouldn’t have those choices because they’re bad for us.

Local establishment media in general — and newspapers in particular — still want to operate on a model that hasn’t existed for decades. Inside every dying newsroom in America, there’s a feeling readers and viewers would all be better served if we went back to the paternalistic model of half-a-century ago, where most cities had three TV stations and two newspapers, at best.

These outlets curated the news you could consume and shaped how you thought about it. One flavor of local news might be slightly different than another — this one a bit further to the left, this one skewing to the right — but if media outlets were restaurants, you’d still be eating at a burger joint every night.

We now live in a world where you can have Thai, poké bowls, Texas-style barbecue, quinoa wraps, cronuts and paleo. However, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) are incensed that you just won’t just eat at the freaking burger joint like you used to. They love burger joints so much, in fact, they want to take your money to keep them running so that you’ll have a good place to chow down when you finally come to your senses.

Except the government already has its own burger joints. They’re called PBS and NPR, and if one wants to see how government-funded media institutions cover government — particularly when one party supports that government funding and the other doesn’t — all one needs to do is turn on “All Things Considered.”

The only positive development that can come out of this tax credit, if the spending bill ends up passing in its current form, is that it further delegitimizes ossified local media outlets. Everything else about this proposed $1.3 billion giveaway is rotten to the core.

The Hidden Gift for Media Dems Put in Their Spending Bill Effectively Turns Every Outlet Into NPR (westernjournal.com)

Apparently, federal charges against a lawyer linked to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign for allegedly lying to the FBI have convinced one of the entertainment industry’s most politically active leftists to conclude Trump-Russia collusion narrative was engineered by the Democrats.

In a video posted to YouTube on Thursday, outspoken English comedian Russell Brand said he was “flabbergasted” by a federal grand jury’s indictment of Michael Sussman. The indictment was part of special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia “collusion” inquiry, according to The Hill.

According to the indictment, Sussman met with an FBI official in September 2016 to tip him off about a connection between then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank. The bureau could never substantiate the connection.

In the indictment, prosecutors say Sussman didn’t disclose that his law firm, the Democrat-linked Perkins Coie, was working for Hillary Clinton’s campaign when he talked with FBI General Counsel James Baker roughly a month and a half before the election.

“Sussman’s false statement misled the FBI General Counsel and other FBI personnel concerning the political nature of his work and deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it more fully to assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis, including the identities and motivations of Sussman’s clients,” the indictment stated.

In a news release, the special counsel’s office said Sussman’s “false representation led the General Counsel to understand that Sussmann was providing information as a good citizen rather than a paid advocate or political operative. In fact, Sussmann assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two clients, including a U.S. technology executive and the Clinton Presidential Campaign.”

The news release also stated that Sussman had provided information about the Alfa Bank theory to the media.

This was all enough to alarm Brand. During his Thursday video — titled “So…Trump was RIGHT About Clinton & Russia Collusion!!” — the comedian and actor said he thought the indictment was “serious evidence that it was the Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton acolytes” behind the narrative.

“It seems like years ago that we were hearing that Trump was colluding with Russia, that he wouldn’t have won the election without Russia, that his whole presidency was kind of a Putin plot,” said Brand, star of “Get Him to the Greek.”

“Well, now there’s serious evidence that it was the Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton acolytes that were directly involved in the generation of what has proven to be conspiracy — untrue!

“Think about how much media you watched. Me, a person who I think, broadly speaking, is from the left — a liberal, certainly not a Trump-supporting Republican, with respect to those of you who are — I find myself in awe, gobsmacked, flabbergasted and startled by these revelations.”

Brand also noted that “we have to recollect just how prevalent this story was. Every late-night talk-show, all over the news, it was just — you were bombarded with it.”

Brand he wanted to be believe that the Democratic Party is the party of “inclusivity, and diversity and truth and social justice and all great, positive ideas.” But now he’s not so sure.

“What my concern is becoming is that these are totemic issues pushed to the forefront to mask ordinary, regular corruption like the Russiagate thing, the Hunter Biden laptop, all of that stuff.”

Brand admitted he wasn’t paying much attention to the Russia “collusion” narrative as it unfolded in 2016, but noted that it was “seen as a defining issue,” and “still, in 2020, it was something that was being talked about.”

“And it was like, being sort of in a way discussed as if it was just an absolute fact. To discover that this was propaganda, a construct, a confection by the Democratic Party — who, of course, are now in government — is kind of beyond disappointing, because you begin to question and query what other things may not be true,” he said.

“Once you recognize that people create certain truths in order to meet certain ends and aims, the idea that you might be able to trust their integrity obviously dissolves.”

None of what Brand was talking about — or what was disclosed in Sussman’s indictment — was necessarily news for conservatives. It’s long been known the FBI’s investigation of Trump-Russia “collusion” was predicated on a dossier that was nothing more than a piece of opposition research by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The allegation that the Alfa Bank tip was provided to the FBI by someone connected to the Clinton campaign, who supposedly lied to the bureau about his connection to said campaign, might be new — but it’s similarly unsurprising.

The only surprise here is that Russell Brand, vocal liberal though he may be, was willing to acknowledge how rotten this all seems.

That said, we welcome Brand to the reality party, late to it though he may be.

While we don’t expect to welcome many more celebrities here, it’s a sign that that one of the most cherished fictions the left holds about the Trump presidency — that he was little more than the Muscovite Candidate, propped up by Vladimir Putin and his election-meddling — is crumbling for good.

Massive Liberal Celeb Sees the Light: ‘Trump Was Right About Clinton & Russia!’ (westernjournal.com)

Facebook has known for a year and a half that researchers are right, its Instagram app hurts teens

Facebook officials had internal research in March 2020 showing that Instagram—the social media platform most used by adolescents—is harmful to teen girls’ body image and well-being but swept those findings under the rug to continue conducting business as usual, according to a Sept. 14 report in The Wall Street Journal.

Facebook’s policy of pursuing profits regardless of documented harm has sparked comparisons to Big Tobacco, which knew in the 1950s that its products were carcinogenic but publicly denied it into the 21st century. Those of us who study social media use in teens didn’t need a suppressed internal research study to know that Instagram can harm teens. Plenty of peer-reviewed research papers show the same thing.

Understanding the effects of social media on teens is important because almost all teens go online daily. A Pew Research Center poll shows that 89 percent of teens report they are online “almost constantly” or “several times a day.”

Teens are more likely to log on to Instagram than any other social media site. It’s a ubiquitous part of adolescent life. Yet studies consistently show that the more often teens use Instagram, the worse their overall well-being, self-esteem, life satisfaction, mood, and body image. One study found that the more college students used Instagram on any given day, the worse their mood and life satisfaction was that day.

Unhealthy Comparisons

But Instagram isn’t problematic simply because it’s popular. There are two key features of Instagram that seem to make it particularly risky. First, it allows users to follow both celebrities and peers, both of whom can present a manipulated, filtered picture of an unrealistic body along with a highly curated impression of a perfect life.

While all social media allows users to be selective in what they show the world, Instagram is notorious for its photo editing and filtering capabilities. Plus, that’s the platform popular among celebrities, models, and influencers. Facebook has been relegated to the uncool soccer moms and grandparents. For teens, this seamless integration of celebrities and retouched versions of real-life peers presents a ripe environment for upward social comparison, or comparing yourself to someone who is “better” in some respect.

Humans, as a general rule, look to others to know how to fit in and judge their own lives. Teens are especially vulnerable to these social comparisons. Just about everyone can remember worrying about fitting in while in high school. Instagram exacerbates that worry. It’s hard enough to compare yourself to a supermodel who looks fantastic (albeit filtered); it can be even worse when the filtered comparison is Natalie down the hall.

Negatively comparing themselves to others leads people to feel envious of others’ seemingly better lives and bodies. Recently, researchers even tried to combat this effect by reminding Instagram users that the posts were unrealistic.

It didn’t work. Negative comparisons, which were nearly impossible to stop, still led to envy and lowered self-esteem. Even in studies in which participants knew the photos they were shown on Instagram were retouched and reshaped, adolescent girls still felt worse about their bodies after viewing them. For girls who tend to make a lot of social comparisons, these effects are even worse.

Objectification and Body Image

Instagram also is risky for teens because its emphasis on pictures of the body leads users to focus on how their bodies look to others. Our research shows that for teen girls—and increasingly teen boys—thinking about their own bodies as the object of a photo increases worrying thoughts about how they look to others, and that leads to feeling shame about their bodies. Just taking a selfie to be posted later makes them feel worse about how they look to others.

Being an object for others to view doesn’t help the “selfie generation” feel empowered and sure of themselves—it can do exactly the opposite. These aren’t insignificant health concerns, because body dissatisfaction during the teen years is a powerful and consistent predictor of later eating disorder symptoms.

Facebook has acknowledged internally what researchers have been documenting for years: Instagram can be harmful to teens. Parents can help by repeatedly talking to their teens about the difference between appearance and reality, by encouraging their teens to interact with peers face-to-face, and to use their bodies in active ways instead of focusing on the selfie.

The big question will be how Facebook handles these damaging results. History and the courts have been less than forgiving of the head-in-the-sand approach of Big Tobacco.

Christia Spears Brown is a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky. This article was first published on The Conversation.

Instagram Is Bad for Teens—and Facebook Knows It (theepochtimes.com)

Once upon a time, not that long ago, we had something called reporters in the United States. Millennials and Gen-Z’ers may not believe this, but there were actually people employed by newspapers and television stations who would gather the news and then report on it without any overt political spin or coordinated narrative. Reporters have now largely vanished from the mainstream media landscape in favor of journalists, making it even more important to share episodes like “Why Does the IC Assessment Ignore Established Facts On COVID-19 Origins?” with people who still think outlets like CNN and the big three networks are just reporting the facts. Hans Mahncke and Jeff Carlson of “Truth Over News” are the real deal when it comes to reporting, and their continued coverage of the hunt to find the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

To be sure, our federal government doesn’t seem to be nearly as interested in where and how COVID-19 originated as Mahncke and Carlson. Having already done an episode on the two separate labs in Wuhan that could easily have been the source of the initial outbreak, they now turn their attention to the Intelligence Community assessment of COVID-19’s origins—at least the declassified portions. This is, of course, the report President Joe Biden ordered be compiled when his administration could no longer pretend an accidental lab leak wasn’t just as plausible an origin to the pandemic, if not more so, than the idea that the SARS-CoV-2 virus jumped from animals to humans. This assessment dropped at the tail end of our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and has received almost nothing in the way of media coverage. There have been plenty of print stories done, largely boiling down to the Intelligence Community thinking we’ll never know where it started, but televised coverage is almost nonexistent.

That’s what makes this episode important, as Mahncke and Carlson not only highlight various parts of the assessment, but give an analysis of how truthful or potentially misleading the assessment is. As Mahncke states at the outset of the episode, the IC assessment says a lot about the Biden administration’s desire to let China off the hook for unleashing the pandemic on the world, whether they intended to or not. Much of what they review seems to fall under the umbrella of plausible deniability while relying on the reader’s willful suspension of disbelief. Given how readily most of our government officials are to make a big show about vowing to get to the bottom of something, only to do little more than shake their fists and gnash their teeth, it seems unlikely that much more will come out of the Intelligence Community, which currently seems light on intelligence.

To illustrate this point, Carlson and Mahncke start out reviewing the very first paragraph of the “Key Takeaways” of the assessment, which in just a few sentences manages to be accurate, plausible, and misleading. The important thing to note is that what they consider misleading has to do with whether the virus was genetically engineered, as this term is used in the vaguest sense with no concrete definition. As Mahncke explains, Dr. Fauci has been hard to pin down, to say the least, on what he thinks qualifies genetic engineering. It’s a neat trick he’s used to try to claim the National Institute of Health never funded gain of function research (they did) and his dodginess surrounding genetic engineering gives the IC an out when making their assessment. Mahncke is not nearly so forgiving, pointing out the Wuhan Institute of Virology was genetically modifying bat viruses, and had been for more than a decade. He also explains the concept of conducting serial passage experiments, a process that is meant to alter the genes of a pathogen at an artificially increased rate of speed. This is the gain of function research Fauci insisted isn’t gain of function research, where scientists force a virus to go through multiple mutations that would typically take decades in a much shorter amount of time. Not calling this genetic engineering is the height of splitting hairs and doesn’t pass muster with Mahncke. The last sentence of the assessment’s opening paragraph claims that China had no foreknowledge of the virus before the outbreak, which Mahncke rates as poorly worded and mixed in its honesty. This claim hardly seems probable once Mahncke dismantles it with cold hard facts of information we do know—information that precedes the outbreak by a dozen years.

Carlson attacks the next portion of the assessment and the agencies’ agreement that it is as likely that the virus has natural origins as it is that it had manmade origins. Here the assessment is again splitting hairs, as Carlson points out that if exposure occurred due to contact with an infected animal, it hardly matters whether that contact happened accidentally inside a lab with poor safety controls in place or outside in a wet market. Either way, it could be considered a natural exposure because the infection came from an animal, rather than breaking a vial of the virus and inhaling it. It is yet another misleading statement meant to make it sound like the IC really did try to find the origins of this, even though they don’t seem to have tried very hard or put much logical thought into the matter. Carlson also has the receipts for their decision to call out this claim as intentionally non-specific.

Why Does the IC Assessment Ignore Established Facts On COVID-19 Origins? | Truth Over News [Full Episode]

Carlson moves onto the bullet points of the “Key Takeaways” and quickly blows up the idea that it’s most likely the SARS-CoV-2 virus had natural origins, dismissing the claim as illogical and inaccurate. He presents documented evidence contradicting the IC’s reasoning and their seeming desire to continue providing cover for China, in addition to highlighting that we’ve still not found the “missing link” animal that allowed COVID-19 to jump to humans if it did have a purely natural origin completely unrelated to any lab experiments. He reminds the viewer of the SARS outbreak in 2003, nearly 20 years ago, when we were able to determine the originating animal in just a couple of months. Why, with all the medical advances that have taken place since then, are we still unable to find not only the “bridge” animal but figure out exactly how this virus evolved to bind more perfectly to human cells than any animal cell we’ve tested, including the presumptive pangolin progenitor? It also has such a higher kill rate than other SARS viruses we’ve encountered that it seems even more unlikely to have developed without any human intervention.

Mahncke tackles more of the bullet points, assessing the claim that the virus probably escaped a laboratory after an accidental infection as accurate, even if only one IC agency found that to be the most likely origin. It’s astounding to anyone capable of deductive reasoning to think that just one agency came to this conclusion, but it’s fairly evident under our current administration that China must be protected from blame at all costs, even if it requires ignoring the documented safety hazards and risky nature of working with bat viruses at both labs operating in Wuhan. Even more unbelievable is that three additional IC agencies think both a lab leak and natural origins are equally possible. It is again a sign that when it comes to COVID-19, our Intelligence Community appears to have strapped on its dunce cap.

The final claim of the “Key Takeaways” is that there’s just no way to find out more about COVID’s origins and is assessed by Carlson and Mahncke as both inaccurate and misdirection. There are plenty of other scientists to ask questions about what they know, particularly in the West, including Anthony Fauci. Surely Fauci would be willing to turn over any and all information they have on the virus, wouldn’t he? At the same time, it’s ridiculous at this point to expect China to give any more information than they already have on just how this pandemic started, and it shouldn’t be necessary given how many independent researchers have been able to dig up information on their own.

This episode is crucial to view and share as we move ever closer to two years since this virus first appeared, particularly with the number of governments continuing to exploit the pandemic to wrestle freedom from their citizenry. The number of Americans who still believe the government has their best interests at heart when it comes to fighting COVID is truly frightening. Maybe if some of them watch this episode of “Truth Over Facts,” they’ll realize our current administration appears to care more about protecting China than protecting us.

“Truth Over News” premiers every Tue and Thu at 5 p.m. —exclusive on EpochTV.

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EpochTV Review: Things That Make You Go Hmm… (theepochtimes.com)

Part 2 of the 3-part series ‘World Summit on Forced Organ Harvesting’

The World Summit on Combating and Preventing Forced Organ Harvesting is highlighting media silence on one of the greatest atrocities of our time: a billion-dollar forced organ harvesting industry in China.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used its gatekeeper role over the immense economic power of China, and its political influence campaigns abroad, to silence global media and influence nations and international organizations globally, on the human rights atrocity of forced organ harvesting. The summit, held between Sept. 17 and Sept. 26, sheds light on not only this, but on what one participant calls a “diplomacy of silence.”

Despite incontrovertible evidence, Beijing denies that it is currently conducting forced organ harvesting and has gotten the World Health Organization (WHO) to support the CCP’s denials. But the WHO assessment is faulty. According to Lord Hunt in the United Kingdom, “it was revealed by the UK government in 2019 that the World Health Organization’s assessment is based on China’s own self-assessment and that the WHO has not carried out its own assessment of [the] Chinese organ transplant system.”

Organizers of the World Summit demonstrate that CCP pressure has decreased media coverage of forced organ harvesting in China, leading nations and international organizations with little incentive to take the costly steps necessary to address the problem.

“Many members of the news media have failed to report truthfully on this atrocity but bowed to CCP pressure and published paid propaganda instead,” the organizers wrote on the summit website. “Societies around the world are kept ignorant of the dangers of becoming complicit with forced organ harvesting crimes.”

The founder of the nonprofit group Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) and host of the summit, Dr. Torsten Trey, stated on Sept. 17 that the summit looks “into the role of the news media and the issue of censorship. By default, the first task of the news media is to report facts and truths, however, another important aspect of the media is to connect people. Over the past fifteen years [since the New York Times broke the story of forced organ harvesting in China], the mainstream media has failed to connect the people in the free world with the victims of forced organ harvesting in China. This separation between the readers and the victims is another, often neglected aspect of censorship.”

Trey noted that the World Summit is an attempt to bridge the divide between citizens and victims of forced organ harvesting.

Dr. Weldon Gilcrease, director of Oncology at the University of Utah School of Medicine, told the summit that the extensive evidence of forced organ harvesting has gone unrecognized by “most of the medical community, and indeed most of the world.”

When Gilcrease attempted at his own university to stop training Chinese doctors in transplants, arguing that they would likely use the knowledge to murder unwilling donors, his administration opposed him, saying that “there’s no doubt that forced organ harvesting is happening, but that taking a stance against a large, strong country such as China could be dangerous both to our institution, as well as the undergraduate and graduate schools that we serve at our university.” He was told that “if we said anything [about these atrocities], China would simply send all of its students to Texas.”

Several other summit participants called for an end to the international training of doctors from China in transplant techniques. Dr. Andre Gattolin, a senator from France and co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), criticized “developed countries which, in the name of sacrosanct medical and health cooperation, have proceeded without precaution to transfers of skills and technologies which have led to the shameful abuses observed today in China.”

Gattolin noted that France has “widely taken part in the training of numerous Chinese surgeons in the very delicate technique of organ transplantation.” As a result, “our trust—granted too naively—has been betrayed. We failed to demand a right of supervision over what might have resulted, and those who were tricked in the name of sharing knowledge and a certain scientific humanitarianism still refuse to acknowledge their share of responsibility.”

Carlos Iglesias Jimenez, an international human rights lawyer from Spain, said at the summit that Western governments and international organizations have not been tough enough to confront the CCP and condemn forced organ harvesting.

“We have many examples of this, the CCP has infiltrated so many international organizations: the United Nations Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, the United Nations itself, managing to ensure that everything goes unnoticed, that everything is concealed, that these events can never be generally and publicly known by society and the whole world. And they are succeeding with the complicit silence of Western governments and international institutions and international organizations,” he stated.

According to retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general Robert Spalding, the CCP’s use of carrots and sticks against international democratic processes and deliberations on forced organ harvesting amount to “political warfare.” He told the conference on Sept. 19 that political warfare, in the form of influence through economic elites, is used to immobilize democracies to these atrocities.

Spalding said, “Political warfare is used to desensitize, to deflect any criticism on understanding of things like the genocide of the Uyghur population, the lockdown and control of the people of Hong Kong, the mass incarceration and organ harvesting of the Falun Gong, and the outright oppression of … certain elements of the Chinese population, particularly those that … the Chinese Communist Party fears.”

Françoise Hostalier, a member of the French Parliament, explained that the failure to acknowledge that Chinese leaders are operating on discrepant moral and ethical principles is because “China is an unavoidable economic partner, which is increasingly successful in many scientific fields, and which is bringing more and more territories and countries under its domination. There is a great risk that our researchers, doctors, laboratories, industrialists, and students, through scientific or economic exchanges, will find themselves complicit in the inhuman and criminal practices of their Chinese counterparts, which are contrary to all ethics, but without being aware of it.”

Hermann Tertsch, a member of the European Parliament from Spain, criticized the mainstream media for failing in its duty to cover the crimes of the CCP. “The criteria of the media world, which has hegemony over the world’s communication, are criteria that have been increasingly defined in one direction over the last 50 years, and it is in this direction that the crimes committed by the Chinese dictatorship are treated in such a benevolent way.”

Tertsch said that images critical of the CCP “have been disappearing from the networks, not only in the Chinese networks where nothing can be found about that tragedy of 32 years ago [the Tiananmen Square massacre], [but] also in the Western media, by Chinese desire or by the desire of so many of China’s partners, as we have among those who applaud in Davos, with those who applaud Xi Jinping, the great giants of the big takers of the big technology companies, of the big networks, we all know their names.”

He continued by saying that we are indulgent of CCP crimes because “they manufacture a lot there, because they have many economic relations, because they admire the model, because they want to apply a similar model.”

Democracies in the West could hold the CCP accountable, according to Tertsch, but “they prefer a big globalist regime where every person is anonymous and interchangeable, and we can take organs from one person and give them to a higher bidder or to someone who suits us for some reason.”

Economic interests, according to Tertsch, “lead these Western elites to be complicit with the Chinese Communist Party … to hide the monstrosity of the transplants, which are taking away, we do not know how many thousands of political prisoners, of common prisoners, of people from the Falun Gong movement, of dissidents.”

The world has a responsibility to face squarely the atrocity that is forced organ harvesting. That it is mostly imposed on highly vulnerable populations in China, namely the Falun Gong and potentially the Uyghurs as well, and that these populations have been targeted for cultural eradication, brings forced organ harvesting to the level of a means of genocide, per the U.N. definition. As forced organ harvesting is also a commercial medical procedure, those who support human rights face an entirely new type of crime against humanity: medical genocide for profit. The mainstream media must do a better job of covering this issue, or it loses any claim to be an unbiased conscience of the community.

Read part 1 here.

Beijing Silences Global Media on China’s Forced Organ Harvesting (theepochtimes.com)

Part 3 of the 3-part series ‘China’s Web of Geopolitical and Economic Goals and Objectives’

Since 2013, the Chinese communists under the leadership of Xi Jinping have been diligently pursuing two strategic initiatives focused on building a worldwide colonial empire and restoring China to world leadership: the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as “One Belt, One Road”) and Made in China 2025.

In the wake of the economic devastation wrought on the world economy by the COVID-19 pandemic, Xi announced on Sept. 21 at the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly a third grandiose program—the so-called “Global Development Initiative (GDI)” that is intended to “steer global development toward a new stage of balanced, coordinated and inclusive growth.”

According to China Daily, Xi’s new initiative involves six areas: “prioritizing development, a people-centered approach, benefits for all, innovation-driven development, harmony between man and nature, and a commitment to results-oriented actions.” Apparently, the only standard Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda phrase missing from Xi’s announcement was the euphemism “toward a shared future,” which underscores all ChiCom “altruism” that has been trumpeted in recent months by the CCP’s media.

If Xi was truly serious about GDI and his vision for the future, he would have reined in the myriad of secondary initiatives and goals that the CCP apparatchiks have been relentlessly pursuing at the world’s expense over the past several years. A number of these were previously summarized in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

But maybe Xi merely “forgot” to mention that GDI, BRI, and those secondary initiatives and goals are meant to result in the world bowing to CCP leadership in all spheres of human endeavors because that is the ultimate objective of the sticky Spider Dragon web of ChiCom “benevolence” being offered to the world.

This third part of the series completes the exposure of the CCP’s secondary initiatives and goals and lays bare the ChiComs’ real intentions: to control all aspects of human endeavors. The scope and diabolical synergy across those initiatives is breathtaking.

Conquer Space

The goal is to dominate space in every way, but especially in military and economic domains. The Chinese missions to Mars and the moon are window dressing used to advertise ChiCom scientific prowess and leadership in advanced space technologies, as well as to masquerade the weaponization of space by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as noted here.

Win Without Fighting

The ChiComs seek to achieve all of their objectives, ultimately leading to economic and military global dominance, without the need for kinetic warfare. Rather, they exploit political and psychological warfare to achieve a fait accompli in the minds of their adversaries, mainly the United States and its allies.

Exploit the United Front Work Department to Win Overseas Friends

The United Front Work Department provides cover for intelligence agents (spies) operating under the Ministry of State Security and has tentacles reaching into the Confucius Institutes, Thousand Talents program, Chinese news services, Overseas Chinese Affairs Offices, and the Cyberspace Administration of China aimed at influencing foreign opinion and winning friends for ChiCom policies.

Oust the US From the Middle East

This objective is a “two-fer” for Beijing: destroy U.S. influence in the Middle East and gain access to massive supplies of oil and gas. Energy-poor China is investing billions under their BRI to develop the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor consisting of highways, rail lines, and pipelines from the port of Gwadar on the Indian Ocean to Xinjiang (East Turkestan). This corridor will be the transmission belt to China for Middle East oil, including oil from Iran, with whom the ChiComs have also established a strategic relationship, as noted here.

Exploit Merchant Seamen to Control the World’s Shipping

The goal here is to dramatically expand the number of qualified and experienced merchant seamen and subsidize their employment by other nations’ shipping industries in order to monitor, surveil, and influence shipping operations around the world.

Implement Global Ocean Governance

The CCP objective here is to substitute China’s standards, technology, and protocols for the international conventions such as UNCLOS that presently determine conduct, responsibilities, and maritime law on the seas of the world. The effort also involves developing a network of surveillance satellites capable of monitoring sea-going traffic around the world, as well as convincing other nations to use the Beidou Navigation Satellite System in lieu of other commercial satellite navigation systems.

Collect and Exploit the World’s DNA

U.S. government advisers warned that the Chinese regime has been collecting genetic data in order to dominate global pharmaceuticals, and this effort could “potentially lead to genetically enhanced soldiers, or engineered pathogens to target the U.S. population or food supply,” according to a Reuters report.

Dominate the Indo-Pacific Region

This goal is to expand Chinese military bases throughout the region in order to counteract U.S. geopolitical dominance, as well as to place additional pressures on key U.S. allies in the region, including India, Australia, and Japan (which together with the United States comprise the Quad).

Replace US Brands With Chinese Labels

The ChiComs seek to displace U.S. brand names with Chinese labels. While this might seem to be simply standard competition, the issue is much more complex and important, as popular brands provide cultural and psychological influences that can be exploited because each one is linked with the country of origin.

Become the Dominant Producer of Industrial Goods in the World

Acknowledging the great strides made in recent decades toward this goal, Beijing’s mouthpiece People’s Daily crowed that “China is the world’s largest producer of over 220 types of industrial products.” Production leadership translates to geopolitical influence and leverage—the underlying objective.

Replace Western-Style Democracy With Chinese ‘Whole Democracy’

This is a ChiCom psychological play to leverage the West’s support for democracy, but with “Chinese characteristics” controlled by the CCP. The word “whole” implies that traditional Western democracy is somehow incomplete and deficient, and that the ChiCom version is better.

Control All Data and Information

The objective here is to limit the exchange of data and information among citizens and entities to that which is approved by the state—and only the state! In other words, George Orwell’s “1984” writ large on the rest of the world but with Chinese characteristics.

Convert the South China Sea Into a ‘Chinese Lake’

Beijing’s goal is to seize control of natural resources in the area and to simultaneously intimidate China’s neighbors. Chinese efforts involve sovereignty disputes and the building of artificial islands controlled by the People’s Liberation Army.

Promote ‘Common Prosperity’ Through Total Control of the Private Sector

Common prosperity is another one of those meaningless Marxist euphemisms that sound good as they roll off the tongue but whose meaning is murky and obfuscated. The CCP has been using it to describe their domestic efforts to deliver improved living standards through the “wise leadership” of ChiCom collectivism.

Exploit the Natural Resources in the Deep Seabed

China has a stranglehold on rare earth element (REE) production and seeks to dominate new REE sources, including those in the deep seabed. Control of REE production provides considerable economic and geopolitical leverage with other industrial nations through “supply chain disruption,” particularly the REE-poor European Union nations.

Subvert International Green Advocates While Masking Domestic Economic Expansion

This goal is about reducing U.S. competitiveness while increasing China’s competitive advantage and expanding the world’s dependency on Chinese manufacturing and production—in this case for “green products” such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and batteries. Only the Western greenies believe ChiCom propaganda that China will achieve its publicly stated goal of “net zero emissions” by 2060. The rest of us know that it’s just another feint in the CCP’s scheming to achieve world economic dominance.

Achieve Information Dominance Around the World

China has invested enormous resources to gain total information dominance in the international arena in order to improve decision-making related to the achievement of all of its goals and objectives. Information dominance involves consuming and understanding all relevant data and information in order to support decision-making. This secondary objective is highly synergistic with all of Beijing’s other secondary objectives.

Foment Discord in the US

Fomenting discord and division in the United States—China’s main rival on the world stage—has been an ongoing ChiCom objective for decades, as reported here and here. Pitting Americans against each other, exploiting economic disparities and “unfairness,” and promoting cultural Marxism throughout American society have been continuing prongs in the relentless ChiCom attack on America.

Build the Infrastructure of a ChiCom World Empire Through Property Acquisition Overseas

Beijing has been making strategic investments in overseas property for years for a variety of purposes, including providing security for the BRI investments, constructing bases for China’s military and navy, acquiring natural resources for future exploitation, and intimidating and pressuring other nations to accommodate Chinese interests. All of those acquisitions over time will form the core infrastructure and network for a ChiCom “colonial world empire.”

Implement the Dual Circulation Model

The objective is to make the Chinese economy less dependent on foreign advanced technologies and supply chains. Chinese companies would become independent of “foreign know-how” while creating domestically produced Chinese products that would be in demand around the world.

Monopolize and Control the World’s Energy Supply

The ChiComs understand that controlling the energy supplies of the future provides them with geopolitical leverage to achieve other objectives. That is why they are exploiting their competitive advantages to capture the energy production market around the world. Controlling the world’s energy resources means controlling the economies of the world.

Dominate the Small Nuclear Reactor Marketplace

Despite all the caterwauling about “green energy,” the only real energy production technology capable of achieving the carbon dioxide reductions desired by green energy advocates is nuclear power (refer to heat exchange ratio comparisons among green energy technologies and the laws of thermodynamics, as well as the German experience with wind and solar as described here). China is moving rapidly to corner the market on exportable nuclear energy capabilities that could be feasibly budgeted by many nations.

Control and Manipulate the World’s Strategic Commodities

Beijing has been successfully acquiring control of strategic commodities for years while building up strategic reserves as both an inflation hedge and also as a means of market manipulation to influence targeted countries. A strategic commodity is a raw material or agricultural product that is considered critical to a nation’s economy such that the economy would suffer significantly if that commodity’s trade and supply is interrupted in any way.

Control Foreign Narratives Through the Use of Artificial Intelligence and Fake Social Media

Beijing has been using aggressive information warfare tactics to influence foreign leaders, diplomats, and other key decision-makers in order to achieve CCP strategic goals and objectives. Part of their information warfare campaign involves the exploitation of social media and artificial intelligence technologies to create fake accounts, bots, and social networks aimed at influencing foreign decision-makers.

Conclusion

This series summarized 52 interlocking initiatives and goals being pursued by the CCP around the world. The ever-expanding Spider Dragon’s web aims to ultimately control and direct all human endeavors: economic, geopolitical, financial, legal, medical, security, travel, individual expression, culture, psychological, ideological, and much more. “Chinese benevolence” and “Chinese altruism”—as expressed by Xi Jinping and the CCP cadres—are oxymorons that camouflage their real objectives. Unbeknownst to many people, the world is meant to pay handsomely for that “benevolence” at the expense of personal and economic freedoms.

The Chinese Regime Aims to Influence and Control All Human Endeavors (theepochtimes.com)

I seem to have been fortunate enough to stumble upon the latest vaccine shaming “copy and paste” post some people have decided to share on social media. If you’re vaccinated, good for you. If you’re not vaccinated, good for you. I honestly don’t care what you do with your body because the only person I have any control over is myself.

That being said, I’m honestly tired of staying silent while everybody else, including Joe Biden, go off on their tangents.

You’re vaccinated, and you don’t know what’s in it? You don’t know what’s in hot dogs or treatments for cancer, AIDS, MS, etc.? You don’t know what’s in Tylenol and Ibuprofen and tattoo ink and shampoo and your food? Well, the great thing about living in the information technology age is a lot of that information is available right at your fingertips, presuming of course it hasn’t been censored. We live in a time where we have the ability to know a lot of things that we didn’t know before. There may be a lot of things you don’t know right now, but you have the ability and opportunity to educate yourself. If you decide not to take the time, that’s your business. But that also makes you incredibly lazy and ignorant.

Life is short. And it passes quickly and can change on a dime. I believe all of us still have a lot of things we want to do in this life and experiences we want to share. Places we want to go. People we want to see.

If you seriously think the answer is shaming people who HAVE done their research into getting injected with something that isn’t even a vaccine is going to allow you to get your life back, you’re wrong.

The problem is, we’ve been putting our lives on hold for almost 19 months now. We’ve listened to the science. We kept our kids home from school for a year. We shut down businesses, some forever. We closed our churches, our parks, our gyms, our hiking trails, our beaches, pretty much everything. Obesity of U.S. children increased among 5- through 11-year-olds from 36.2 percent to 45.7 percent. Where’s the outcry over that? How about the excess consumption of processed sugars like high-fructose corn syrup? Where’s your passport for being allowed to be a parent or a human being for that matter? Maybe it’s time for you to remedy that for your fellow man.

And yet some still keep believing the next hurdle you jump over will get you back to your normal lives. But the goalposts keeps moving!

Guess what? You can’t comply your way back to freedom. This will never end if we keep submitting to the latest and greatest “scientific suggestion” that’s being forced on us. Label me a conspiracy theorist? I don’t care. The stats are in my favor as I’m currently at about 50-0 as far as how things are going down. If anything, I identify as a walking spoiler alert.

Personally, I’m appalled and offended that certain people in certain occupations are having to choose between getting injected with an experimental gene therapy (yes, that’s what your “vaccine” is, read the FDA “approval”), or lose their jobs, livelihoods and ability to support their families. It’s abhorrent to think in order to have a place in society, we’d have to inject ourselves with this and show proof to anyone and everyone. I’m sure the Germans in the 1930s allowed fear and division to make them think what was being done to the Jews was fair and justified as well. It’s taken almost 90 years for history to repeat itself. The Nuremberg Code is still in effect and these people enforcing these mandates are in violation of it.

Are these hospitals seriously going to fire nurses and doctors for NOT getting a vaccine in the middle of a pandemic? That’ll be a sight to see. It may resemble our exit from Afghanistan! These medical professionals worked through COVID for 18 months on the frontlines and were last year’s heroes and are now deemed expendable because they don’t want to inject themselves with an experimental vaccine. How about teachers? Are we going to shut down schools again? Parents will LOVE that. Or maybe we should eliminate the teaching certification so any random person can teach our kids? In Oregon you no longer need to show proficiency in reading and math. Will that become the new standard?

I advise you all to read The Thirty Tyrants. There is a ton of corruption in this world and in our government. Our Founding Fathers NEVER meant for our representatives to make lifelong careers in Washington, DC. Some of these younger representatives show promise but if they’re there too long, it’s only a matter of time before their soul and morals obtain a price tag and they’ll be bought and sold to the Devil himself.

How is it okay for these politicians to mandate how we live our lives and lock us down and torment our kids while they go out to expensive dinners indoors unmasked nor socially distanced at The French Laundry? How is it okay to have a 60th birthday party with 600 guests when my father’s funeral was limited to 10 people? How is it acceptable to enforce mask mandates and no social gatherings and be caught at a backyard BBQ doing exactly what was mandated NOT to do? How is it acceptable to say we can’t travel while politicians are off vacationing abroad? How is it okay to close hair salons and most of us went without getting a haircut for a year when you parade maskless inside a salon you had opened especially for you?

I also advise you all to do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Turn off the news, the television and the radio. FOLLOW THE MONEY. There’s a medicine that costs 12 cents that could eradicate this virus but instead the $300 billion option is being forced on us. Stop shaming people for the decisions that they make. Stop buying in to this ridiculous rhetoric. This won’t end until we say it ends. People all over the world are starting uprisings because they have had ENOUGH.

I’ve been affected by loss from COVID. I’m not denying the reality or severity of the virus. But Fauci is not my God. Bill Gates’ software and computers get viruses all the time! What is he doing working on and funding vaccines? Ultimately, the only person who knows how many days I have left on this earth is Jesus Christ, and that’s who I’m choosing to put my faith in. Not Fauci, not Pfizer, not Moderna, or whomever else is trying to dictate how I live my life. I do not consent. I will not comply.

For those doctors and nurses who have blatantly stated they won’t treat people who aren’t vaccinated, for the nurse who posted on social media recently that they’ll mess with your ventilator if you’re not vaccinated, I’m sorry, didn’t you all take an OATH when you became licensed? It’s your duty to do your job no matter what state or condition a person is in. Those lives lost are on YOUR hands, not the unvaccinated. And for those people who say the unvaccinated deserve to die? You’re no better than the dictators and tyrants. And even with your vaccine you can still get and spread the virus so YOU also should have to submit to regular tests.

I woke up about 18 months ago. Waking up is painful and disillusioning. But honestly, walking around awake in a world that’s still asleep is more painful and creates a righteous anger inside of you. I pray every day that darkness comes to light, that the truth comes out, and most importantly that those who have committed these crimes against humanity be held accountable.

Danielle Price

Letter to the Editor: ‘You Can’t Comply Your Way Back to Freedom’ (theepochtimes.com)

Is there global cooling? The answer might not be what you expected. – Home

Hardly a day goes by when we are not assailed by claims of doom and gloom over “climate change,” with some well-known politicians warning us that our world will cease to exist as we know it by 2035 (a short 14 years from now!).

Just a few weeks ago, representatives of the government blamed the catastrophic flooding in New York and New Jersey in the aftermath of Ida on “climate change,” as did another member who earlier blamed another natural weather phenomenon on “climate change.” Apparently, neither understands the difference between “weather” (the cause of fires in California, hurricanes like Ida, tornadoes, etc.) and “climate” (longer-term swings in temperature, precipitation, etc.).

The fact is that, statistically, such “weather” events (e.g., tornadoes) are no more frequent or intense than they have been in the past. Accordingly, you should be excused for asking about the bases of these extravagant claims.

Do the claimants have a magical crystal ball with which they can see the future more clearly than the rest of us, or is it simply the blind leading the blind with some of the blind being more vocal than others? After all, paleontologists and earth scientists will tell you that Earth’s climate has been changing since time immemorial and it has changed drastically and cyclically during the approximately 2.5-million-year history of the human species.

However, at issue is a more subtle phenomenon related to changes induced by the human species themselves. Humankind has had that capacity for less than 300 years (since the start of the Industrial Revolution, from the mid-1700s).

But, you may say, 300 years is just a “blink of an eye” within typically climatic (not weather) cycles that occur over thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years. For example, 300 years of CO₂-producing industrialization represents just 0.3 percent of a 100,000-year ice-age cycle.

To provide the reader with some idea of the complexity of the climate issue, it is necessary to review a few basic facts upon which we can all agree. The major natural climate cycle is the ice ages (Milankovitch cycles) that are due to variations in the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit about the sun and which now appear every 100,000 years. Earth’s eccentricity, currently, is near its least elliptic (most circular) and is very slowly decreasing, in a cycle that spans about 100,000 years.

However, variation in the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit is considered to be a relatively minor contributor to long-term climate change. There are other factors that need to be considered, including the obliquity (the angle Earth’s axis is tilted with respect to Earth’s orbital plane) and the direction that Earth’s axis of rotation is pointed (“axial precession”).

For about a million years, the obliquity has varied between 22.1^o and 24.5^o perpendicular to Earth’s orbital plane. That is important because it determines the seasons, and those seasonal swings in temperature can be large (e.g., 80^oF in Winnipeg, Manitoba). Currently, the angle (23.4^o) is about midway between the extremes and is very slowly decreasing in a cycle of about 41,000 years.

As the angle decreases, the seasons become milder with increasingly warmer winters and cooler summers. Clearly, obliquity is an important contributor to “climate change”, but it is natural and is not induced by human activity.

Earth wobbles on its axis as it rotates (“axial precession”) due to the gravitational influences of the sun and the moon resulting in Earth bulging at the equator, which affects the ocean tides, for example. The axial precession has a cycle of about 25,772 years. This phenomenon also impacts the long-term cycles of the climate by making seasonal contrasts more extreme or less extreme in opposite hemispheres.

While a discussion of this topic is fascinating in its own right, my purpose of introducing it is to show that Earth’s climate is a superposition of at least three natural cycles related to the mechanics of the solar system. Because these cycles have different phases, it is possible that they could constructively or destructively interfere, resulting in extremes of temperature that have nothing to do with humans.

Now, superimposed upon these mechanical cycles, we have the impact of the biosphere (sans humans) with its own impact on the climate, including the CO₂/O₂ cycle of photosynthesis, water respiration, solar energy reflectance, turbulent atmosphere, ocean currents, variations in solar output, and a myriad of other factors.

My point is that the climate is an exceedingly complex physico-chemical system, and we must ask the question: Do climate models faithfully include each of these phenomena, in a deterministic manner with sufficient detail that they can be described by the relevant constitutive equations and natural law constraints in a form that renders the predictions reliable (see below)? Or are we again being led by the blind?

To be clear, my goal is not to pass judgment on any specific climate model, for that would entail a much deeper analysis than that which I present here. I simply wish to make the reader aware of the stringent conditions that must be met when modeling complex physico-chemical systems, such as our climate, the results of which may impact how future multi-trillion-dollar investments are made.

Hopefully, this discourse will prompt people to ask the right questions before approving such expenditures.

At the outset, it is important for the reader to note that science does not advance by consensus (universal agreement). If everyone agrees on something, it may simply mean that they are all wrong. Such is the case before all revolutionary changes in science (e.g., Einstein’s relativity revolution and Planck’s quantum revolution).

Accordingly, when I hear climate change proponents claim that 97 percent of scientists agree that human-induced climate change is real, I cannot help but think back to Albert Einstein and the other scientific revolutionaries and wonder what they might have thought of that pronouncement!

Likewise, science is based upon proof at the minute level of detail and not upon “belief,” which has no place in the scientific lexicon. When I hear someone proclaim “I believe in climate change,” I shudder and want to respond: “Well, prove it to me.”

Two great philosophies exist with respect to prediction: empiricism, which is the philosophy that everything that we can ever know we must have experienced; and determinism, which posits that we can predict the future from the past upon the basis of the known physical laws (“Laws of Nature”). Thus, all scientists collect data that are converted into knowledge, and that knowledge is eventually used to formulate the Laws of Nature that, unlike the Laws of Man, are inviolate and are true under all circumstances everywhere in the universe.

Indeed, I like to define “science” as the process of transitioning from empiricism (what we observe) to determinism (what we know and can predict) upon the formulation of the Natural Laws. Thus, the Natural Laws represent the condensation of all scientific experience so that when we invoke such a law it contains knowledge extending back thousands of years, to before Aristotle and Archimedes.

Impeding the transition from empiricism to determinism is “complexity.” Volumes have been written on complexity, and space does not allow even a cursory review of the subject here.

“Complexity” is like driving on a highway on a foggy night. The fog obscures your vision and allows you to see just a short distance along your path. Now you switch on your high beams, and lo and behold, you can see much farther. Thus, you have used an instrument (the high beams of your automobile) to allow you to see farther and with greater clarity.

So it is in science; in fact, it is fair to say that the digital computer (our “high beams”) has allowed us to advance science more over the past four decades than science had advanced throughout previous history. In other words, the computer has greatly extended our intellects, which is the role of models!

The development of models in human intellectual pursuits is a very complex subject that extends well beyond this op-ed, but an excellent, somewhat technical review is given by Frigg and Hartmann [1]. I will focus on deterministic models, as their predictive powers are so much greater than those of empirical models since “prediction” is the single most important attribute that climate models claim to possess.

All deterministic models have a common structure, either explicitly or implicitly. All deterministic models must have a theoretical basis that is, itself, based upon observation. These observations may be presented as postulates or assumptions, with postulates being based directly on observation.

Thus, it is important to note that a theory can be no more valid than the postulates and assumptions upon which it is based. Also, the postulates must not presuppose the output of the model; that is, the postulates must not accept as an empirical fact that human-induced global warming is occurring.

Thus, if one starts with a postulate that states that the climate is changing and that humans are responsible for that change, the chances are that the model will predict exactly that, but the prediction will be invalid because of the input of even unrecognized bias.

The prediction environment is also problematic, because what is sought is a reliable difference between two large, fluctuating numbers: the climate as we now know it (including human impact) and the unknown climate that might have existed were there no human impact. We can measure how the climate is changing in current time using a variety of techniques, but how do we measure the climate as it might have existed over the same period sans human impact? The short answer is that we cannot!

Unfortunately, only the former is commonly reported in newspapers, giving the impression to non-experts that it is all due to human impact. It is not, and the human impact component is normally only minor, but nevertheless, it is an important component. The headlines would not be as dramatic or fear-inducing if the readers were reminded that the human component is the difference between what we observe and what we model in the absence of human impact, and that is normally small.

Thus, we are concerned with changes in temperature due to human impact of a few tenths of a degree Celsius on a background that fluctuates several tens of degrees Celsius daily to monthly (due to the weather) and even more (typically 30 to 45^oC) over the seasons of the year.

That is not to dismiss the possible seriousness of human-induced climate change if, in fact, it is actually occurring at the rate claimed by the doomsayers. That is the still unanswered challenge.

There is no question that climate change modeling exists at the very edge of feasible modeling, and it is for this reason that the nature of the models employed must be critically examined. You see, part of the problem is that the art and science of modeling is seldom taught in universities; somehow, students are expected to know how to model complex physico-chemical systems as though it was part of the human genome.

The author became so concerned with the lack of modeling skills among graduate students that he, while a Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University, taught a course titled “Theories and Models in Science and Engineering.” I don’t recall anyone involved in climate change taking the course.

I began this op-ed with the question “Can We Really Model Climate Change?” and I will end with a considered opinion. The answer is a qualified “yes,” but only, in my humble opinion, if the modelers adhere to certain rules. The modelers must:

• Carefully describe the theoretical bases of the model, clearly state all postulates and assumptions, and demonstrate that they do not reflect any preconceived bias toward a certain result.
• List and describe the constitutive equations and constraints, demonstrate that all equations are independent, and demonstrate that there are a sufficient number of equations to cover all unknowns.
• Refrain from introducing “ad hoc” factors (“crook’s constant” in my student days) to make the model “work.”
• Ensure that any calibrating data are known from independent experiment and are known to be true within well-established bounds.
• Carefully define “success,” and ensure that the scientific method of prediction and assessment is strictly adhered to, including the rejection of the model if only one incorrect prediction is made that cannot be corrected by valid reassessment of model parameters and input data.

I emphasize that the “rules” of modeling outlined above have been established by numerous scientific philosophers over thousands of years of collective work and have been instilled into the transition from empiricism to determinism that I call “science.”

As the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.” The emphasis on the natural laws renders these rules in compliance with previous scientific experience and must be recognized in any attempt to model complex physico-chemical systems in a deterministic manner, including (and especially) Earth’s climate. To ignore them is to do so at your (and our) peril.

1. R. Frigg and S. Hartmann, “Models in Science,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

Can We Really Model Climate Change? (theepochtimes.com)

On Friday, the findings of the audit conducted by the Arizona state Senate investigating the results of the 2020 presidential election were revealed.

CEO Doug Logan of Cyber Ninjas, the cybersecurity firm commissioned by Senate Republicans to assist in conducting the audit, noted that 23,344 mail-in ballots were reportedly sent to the wrong person in his presentation during the Livestream of the Arizona election audit results.

The slideshow detailed that those ballots sent to a different address in Maricopa County revealed “no one with the same last name shows as living at the address.”

In addition, Cyber Ninjas alleged, “2,382 voters voted in person even though they show … as having moved out of Maricopa County.”

The group’s data also showed that another 2,081 voters who moved out of state in the month prior to the election were given a “full ballot” with local and state level races as opposed to just the option to vote in the presidential election.

The months-long contentious audit has left Americans curious about the results, although the overall results presented by Cyber Ninjas confirmed that President Joe Biden won the state of Arizona.

However, the audit reportedly revealed numerous disparities and security issues in the election system. Arizona Republicans will likely continue to push for election integrity measures following the results of the audit being announced.

Many Americans across the country have had their suspicions regarding the level of election integrity present during last November’s election. Some think there were vast issues with the way voting was handled, while others say the problems were minuscule.

However, when it comes to Maricopa County, auditors of the 2020 election in the state of Arizona presented an eye-opening finding during a Friday Livestream: There were hundreds of potential dead voters.

Doug Logan, the CEO of cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas, a group commissioned by the Arizona state Senate, reported that 282 “potentially deceased people” were discovered as having voted in the November election.

But according to the auditors, that’s not all.

The Cyber Ninjas team also reportedly found that up to 5,047 people voted in more than one county in Arizona, with approximately 5,295 compromised or doubled instances of voting.

The auditors noted 198 individuals registered to vote after the Oct. 15 registration deadline and went on to vote in the election.

Even when voter ID was used for protection, Logan noted, mistakes were made — 186 people who potentially had duplicate voter IDs submitted a vote in the election.

Maricopa County is one of the largest voting districts in Arizona. Millions of people cast their ballots.

While these reported mistakes may be in the hundreds, or even the thousands, all of the errors presented are inexcusable.

If these audit findings are indeed accurate, someone needs to answer for the discrepancies — America deserves election integrity.

AZ Auditors Say Hundreds of Potential Dead Voters, Thousands Potentially Voted in More Than 1 County (westernjournal.com)

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, an expert hired by the Arizona Senate to audit the mail-in ballot envelope images from November’s general election, told Senate leadership on Friday that his team’s review found thousands of duplicate ballots, as well as over 1,700 with no signatures.

Ayyadurai, who holds a Ph.D. in systems engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that there were 34,448 duplicate ballot envelopes from 17,126 unique voters.

Dr. Shiva On The Case Reporting That There Was Duplicate Ballots Found In The Maricopa Audit pic.twitter.com/cOhW0eukpj

— J̵̟̦̲̞̭̱̀̈́͑̄̇̈́̚͝ustice (@The_Justice7) September 24, 2021

Additionally, Ayyadurai reported there were 1,771 envelopes with no signatures and 2,580 with scribbles for the signature.

4,292 Scribbles signatures, blanks, and likely blanks! BAD votes. Decertify the election! pic.twitter.com/81gQN3aKwf

— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) September 24, 2021

By the official count, President Joe Biden won the Grand Canyon State in November’s general election by 10,457 votes.

The only county he flipped from red to blue to do so was Maricopa, the state’s most populous, encompassing the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Dr. Shiva’s team identified 17,322 duplicate ballots — this finding is NOT in the audit report

MORE than the election margin pic.twitter.com/Vr8VwjmmuL

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) September 24, 2021

Former President Donald Trump carried the county by approximately 44,500 votes in 2016 and Biden won it by 45,100 in 2020.

AZ Auditors Say Ballot Envelopes Without Signatures, Blank Duplicates Verified and Approved by Maricopa County (westernjournal.com)

In the months following the tense 2020 presidential election, Americans have been keeping an eye on the Arizona state Senate-conducted election audit.

On Friday afternoon, the findings presented by auditors during a Livestream event showed just how messy the election reportedly got in Maricopa County.

According to the audit team, the county initially sent 26,965 ballots to duplication. Cyber Ninjas, the digital security company which took part in conducting the audit, found that ballots seemingly appeared out of thin air.

The forensic audit counted 29,557 duplicate ballots, according to a presentation submitted by auditors. However, the county’s self-reported numbers were a few thousand below that number.

Maricopa County only reported 27,896 of these duplicate ballots.

How were there reportedly thousands of ballots worth of discrepancies?

Maricopa County, and the rest of the nation, are waiting anxiously to see what these alleged discrepancies mean for voter integrity across the country.

AZ Audit Stunner: Auditors Say Thousands of Duplicate Ballots Appeared Out of Nowhere (westernjournal.com)

There were many shocking revelations forwarded on Friday during the Arizona Senate Republicans’ hearing on the Maricopa County 2020 election audit results.

Among the findings were that a number of the ballots appear to be digitally altered or “photoshopped,” although investigators have yet to officially confirm this.

The allegedly digitally altered ballots were highlighted by Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, an expert in pattern recognition enlisted in the audit investigation by the Arizona Senate.

Ayyadurai revealed that, during the audit, election officials discovered a number of ballots were given “verified and approved” stamps despite signatures not being present on the ballots.

Curiously, in some instances, these “verified and approved” stamps were found behind graphics that were initially printed on the ballots, according to a presentation displayed by Ayyadurai.

This has led the auditors to believe that the ballots were “photoshopped.”

Also, Ayyadurai revealed that only 10 percent of the total ballots — roughly 1.8 million — even received a “verified and approved” stamp.

Most of those votes that did get the aforementioned stamp were actually received after election day, the auditors reported.

The Western Journal is following the Arizona audit findings closely as they are revealed during Friday’s hearing.

If you would like to know more, be sure to stay tuned in to The Western Journal’s coverage.

Photoshopped Ballots? AZ Auditors Say ‘Verified and Approved’ Stamp Mysteriously Present Behind Signature Blocks (westernjournal.com)

On Friday, Arizona state Republicans announced the findings of the Arizona Senate audit of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County.

Among the audit’s many findings was that over 17,000 total duplicate ballots — meaning ballots submitted by individuals who voted more than once in the election — were found.

Dr. Shiva’s team identified 17,322 duplicate ballots — this finding is NOT in the audit report

MORE than the election margin pic.twitter.com/Vr8VwjmmuL

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) September 24, 2021

As much was revealed by Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, an expert in pattern recognition and classification of diverse signals and signatures who has four degrees from M.I.T.

The Arizona Republicans conducting the audit enlisted Ayyadurai and his team of experts to aid in the audit by investigating mail-in ballot envelopes used in the election.

The team reported it found 17,322 duplicate ballots in the election.

As noted by Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Twitter, Maricopa County itself had reported no duplicate ballots.

Maricopa reported ZERO duplicate ballots.

Real total is 17,322.

This is more than enough to change the election result. https://t.co/wsru0E0VHO

— Kari Lake for AZ Governor (@KariLake) September 24, 2021

“Maricopa reported ZERO duplicate ballots. Real total is 17,322,” Lake wrote on Twitter.

“This is more than enough to change the election result.”

Other conservatives went to Twitter to react to the shocking findings as well.

WOW! Look at the surge of duplicate ballots AFTER Nov. 3!

96% of the ballots that came in on 2 of these days were DUPLICATES

The same exact surge can be seen in blank ballot envelopes with no signatures, and scribbles, indicating a bad signature pic.twitter.com/xPywE6Azuo

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) September 24, 2021

Auditors Say 23,344 Mail-in Ballots Were Sent to the Wrong Address But Were Completed and Counted Anyway

A high number of duplicate (illegal) mail in ballots were dropped off in Maricopa County on 11/5, and were counted.

— Christina Bobb (@christina_bobb) September 24, 2021

The Western Journal is following the Arizona audit results closely.

If you want to stay informed on the investigation’s many findings, stay tuned.

AZ Auditors Say Over 17,000 Duplicate Ballots Found in Maricopa County, 1.5 Times What Biden Won By (westernjournal.com)

A photographer who captured images of Border Patrol agents on horseback near an influx of Haitians who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border said he didn’t see the agents whip anyone.

“Some of the Haitian men started running, trying to go around the horses,” photographer Paul Ratje told local station KTSM, explaining the situation. “I’ve never seen them whip anyone,” he said. “He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”

The images of agents on horseback drew criticism from Democrats, pro-immigration activists, and White House officials this week, with some claiming that the agents were whipping the Haitians. However, a union that represents Border Patrol agents said that claim is false, while some officials said the agents were merely controlling the horses with their reins.

President Joe Biden, during a news conference Friday, promised an investigation into the incident and declared that the agents’ actions were “wrong” and “will pay.” Biden didn’t make any reference to the pushback against the claims that agents were whipping illegal immigrants.

“I promise you, those people will pay,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “There will be consequences. It’s an embarrassment. But beyond an embarrassment, it’s dangerous. It’s wrong.”

A top Border Patrol union official, Brandon Judd, told The Epoch Times this week that agents were not whipping their reins at the illegal aliens.

“Agents have to keep the migrants away from the horses for their own protection. And so they will use the reins, to twirl the reins, so that they will stay away from the horses. But they do not use those reins to lash out, to try to strike people. Those agents did not use those reins in any way, shape, or form to try to strike anybody,” he said, adding that horses are used as a “deterrent technique” to prevent illegals from entering the country.

Regarding comments made by White House officials, Judd said Border Patrol officials feel abandoned in the wake of a burgeoning crisis.

In recent weeks, more than 15,000 Haitian illegal aliens camped underneath an international bridge spanning Del Rio, Texas, and Mexico, prompting humanitarian concerns.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday said that horse patrols around the border will be suspended following the images having gone viral.

“Which the president feels, we all feel, was inhumane, immoral, ineffective, wasn’t operationally working. And because of the disfunction of it, we have led to a very broken system that we’re dealing with today,” she said in a comment at the White House.

The nation has been waiting for months to see what findings would come out of the Arizona audit of the 2020 election.

On Friday afternoon, the results were presented.

According to Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, the founder of EchoMail, the software team in charge of looking for just the signatures themselves, there were significant discrepancies in the signature fields of ballots submitted in Maricopa County.

Ayyadurai highlighted the findings during a Livestream of the audit results.

“EchoMail was commissioned to identify [the] presence of Blanks, Scribbles, Signatures in Signature Region, NOT to perform Signature Verification/Matchmaking,” a presentation shared by Ayyadurai noted.

“If Scribbles ALONE were considered ‘Bad Signatures,’ then EchoMail ITSELF identified 335% more ‘Bad Signatures’ than Maricopa did from its ENTIRE Signature Verification process.”

The EchoMail founder noted this report does not even include the “blank” signatures that Maricopa County counted. These findings were reportedly only taking into account the signatures which were considered “scribbles.”

According to auditors, there are significant discrepancies between Maricopa County’s initial results of the 2020 election and what audit findings revealed, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

AZ Auditors Say 335% More ‘Bad Signatures’ Found Than Maricopa County Initially Reported (westernjournal.com)