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Ohio State Senator Calls for Incompetent Buttigieg to Resign

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By Discover The Networks

In an interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday, Ohio State Senator Michael Rulli (R) said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg “needs to resign right now” over the train derailment in East Palestine.

“Buttigieg needs to resign right now. He is an embarrassment. He is incompetent, and he is actually getting people hurt by holding that position,” Rulli said. “The people in Congress, we need to impeach him. And it needs to happen right now.”

Referring to the diversity hire Buttigieg’s comments last week that there are roughly 1,000 train derailments each year, Rulli added that Buttigieg “had the gall to tell my people that he has 1,000 train accidents, and that this isn’t that bad. It is that bad.”

“[Buttigieg] doesn’t even understand, in that town, it’s half and half. You got half Democrats, you got half Republicans,” Rulli added. “They’re going to punish my people because they just think that we’re all Trump, and that’s it. That’s what they’re doing here.”

Pete Buttigieg

8 Known Connections

Buttigieg on Capitalism & Socialism

In March 2019 Buttigieg told MSNBC that he thinks of himself as a capitalist but believes the system should be changed. Specifically, he stated that big business is a threat: “The biggest problem with capitalism right now is the way it’s become intertwined with power and is eroding our democracy.” Buttigieg was less critical of socialism, telling the network that socialism “is a word in American politics that has basically lost all meaning” and “has been used as a kill switch to stop an idea from being talked about.”

To learn more about Pete Buttigieg, click here.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Chemical and Biological Military Activities

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By Kelleigh Nelson

“In the field of biological weapons, there is almost no prospect of detecting a pathogen until it has been used in an attack.” —  Barton Gellman, author and journalist

“I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas.” —  Winston Churchill

“We knew the world would not be the same.  A few people laughed, a few people cried.  Most people were silent.” —  J. Robert Oppenheimer, recalling in a 1965 documentary how he felt after watching the Trinity Test

Previously, I’ve mentioned how my mama used to read the Chicago Tribune to me after we ate dinner.  She started my political education when I was four or five years old and sat me atop the pink Formica table to listen.  I recall several articles, but one is easily remembered because my mother became so angry.  She read a small paragraph in the back of the then conservative Tribune; this was 1950-1951.  It stated that the government had sprayed a flu virus over the area where we lived to see how it traveled.

The American people have always been used as guinea pigs for the US government.  And we still are!

From the Protective Altruism Forum by Thomas W., is the history of chemical and bacteriological experiments on American citizens.  (Worth the full read!)

In September of 1950, a ship sailed by the Golden Gate Bridge. It carried a stockpile of Serratia marcescens bacteria, which it released in a huge plume over the city of San Francisco. Those onboard hoped to expose as many people as possible to the bacteria. Their mission was a success, and most of the city’s residents were exposed. 

The ship was not operated by a hostile foreign government or terrorist operatives, but by the United States Navy. Though Serratia marcescens is a “simulant” bacterium not known to cause harm, the test showed the potential for attacks with more deadly forms of bacteria. [1] Despite the “benign” nature of the bacterium, Stanford University doctors reported several bizarre cases of urinary tract infections at the time, leading eventually to one death.[2] The test was far from the only biological weapons test conducted in secrecy by the U.S. government from World War II until as late as 1968.

And 1968 wasn’t the end of the experiments, biological, chemical or medical.

Inside America’s Secret Biolabs written in 2015 by Alison Young and Nick Penzenstadler for USA Today, states:

Vials of bioterror bacteria have gone missing. Lab mice infected with deadly viruses have escaped, and wild rodents have been found making nests with research waste. Cattle infected in a university’s vaccine experiments were repeatedly sent to slaughter and their meat sold for human consumption. Gear meant to protect lab workers from lethal viruses such as Ebola and bird flu has failed, repeatedly.

Oversight of biological research labs is fragmented, often secretive and largely self-policing, the investigation found. And even when research facilities commit the most egregious safety or security breaches — as more than 100 labs have — federal regulators keep their names secret.

Of particular concern are mishaps occurring at institutions working with the world’s most dangerous pathogens in biosafety level 3 and 4 labs — the two highest levels of containment that have proliferated since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. Yet there is no publicly available list of these labs, and the scope of their research and safety records are largely unknown to most state health departments charged with responding to disease outbreaks. Even the federal government doesn’t know where they all are, the Government Accountability Office has warned for years.

And all those contrails.  Why in the world are they constantly spraying us? Video link. Unless you grow vegetables in a greenhouse, the spraying actually kills the plants with a fungal rot that starts at the roots.

Sars-CoV-2

The investment into weapons of infectious diseases has been promulgated since WWII.  The Wuhan National Institute of Virology (WIV) is nothing new. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has openly admitted we have exactly the same thing in the United States and it is run by the Department of Defense (DoD).

We know the origins of C-19 were here at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  Peter Daszak used scientific and professional connections to convince media and government officials of natural Covid-19 origins. He even secretly organized a statement in the prestigious medical journal, the Lancet, deeming the lab origin a “conspiracy theory.” Ralph Baric PhD, professor in the UNC epidemiology department was allowed to continue his “gain of function” work until it was transferred to the WIV with funding by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) through Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance.

Since its inception in 1994, the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD Center) has been at the forefront of research on the implications of same for U.S. security. Originally focusing on threats to the military, the WMD Center now also applies its expertise and body of research to the challenges of homeland security.

Biological and Chemical Weapons

The nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was a prominent feature of the Cold War. A lesser known but equally dangerous element of the superpower competition involved biological weapons (BW), living microorganisms that cause fatal or incapacitating diseases in humans, animals, or plants. By the late 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union had both acquired advanced BW capabilities.

The U.S. biological weapons complex, operated by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps, consisted of a research and development laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland, an open-air testing site at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and a production facility at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas that manufactured biological warfare agents and loaded them into bomblets, bombs, and spray tanks.

Soon after President Richard M. Nixon took office in January 1969, Members of Congress pressured the administration to clarify U.S. policies on the use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW), as there had been no comprehensive review of this issue in more than 15 years.  Here is the chronology from 1969 to 1997.

Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird decided to address the series of controversies that had been swirling around the Army’s Chemical Biological Weapons (CBW) programs.

A number of highly publicized events had sparked controversy over chemical weapons (CW), which were closely associated with biological weapons in the public mind.

Dugway Proving Ground was established during WWII where the US Army had been conducting testing.  In March 1968, an open-air test of the nerve agent VX had gone awry, causing the toxic cloud to drift off the test range and kill or injure more than 6,000 sheep in an adjacent grazing area.  That test came to be called, “The Skull Valley Sheep Kill.”  The farmers received remuneration for their losses, but an investigation by the US Army found that lethal chemical agents tested in Dugway on March 13, 1968, “may have” contributed to the sheep deaths.

Sound familiar?  Remember Agent Orange in Vietnam?

The Army had also secretly been disposing of obsolete and leaking chemicals by transporting them by train across the country and then scuttling them at sea.

Ultimately, President Nixon’s decision to renounce the U.S. offensive biological weapons program culminated in his signing of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) on April 10, 1972, the same day as Iran.

In recognition of these dangers, he continued, the United States had decided to destroy its entire stockpile of biological agents and confine its future biological research program to defensive measures, such as vaccines and field detectors.

The Convention bans bioweapon agents, toxins, equipment and the means of delivery. However, The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological, Biological and Toxic Weapons does not ban biodefense weapons.

It is doubtful the signees of the convention truly stopped their research inasmuch as no one is tasked to oversee compliance and countries rarely keep the honor system.

China has accused us of having 336 bioweapon labs in 30 countries under U.S. control, including 26 in Ukraine.  Just how many does China have?

Ohio Train Derailment, Chemical Spill and Fire

Ohio is rich Midwest farmland and is one of the states with a large number of organic farms. East Palestine, Ohio is also the home of over 30 meat processing plants.  Close by in Columbus, Ohio is one of the largest heirloom seed companies.

I lived in Ohio for many years.  It is a beautiful state, and part of our own breadbasket for America.  Was it targeted?  Was it planned?  Interestingly enough, a movie with the same plot was filmed nearby only a year ago.

If you doubt we’re fighting a war against communists and fascists, please read my previous two articles.  Here and Here.

The latest chemical nightmare, after the Pfizer, Moderna and J&J poisons, is the Ohio train derailment.  The toxins allowed in the air, water and soil have already killed birds, chickens, a man’s foxes and heaven knows how many pets and wildlife.  The map shows the areas affected via air and water pollution.

For more information as to how deadly this derailment truly is to those in the area, please see The Conservative Treehouse articles here and here.  There are videos within which show the total and complete devastation of what happened.

Sundance states, “In an Ohio town called East Palestine, a Norfolk Southern train pulling 150 cars derailed. 20 of those cars were carrying hazardous materials, including a liquified substance called ‘Vinyl Chloride.’”

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said on Monday, February 13th, that Norfolk Southern requested and was granted the controlled release of chemicals, including deadly vinyl chloride, following the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.  Norfolk Southern, whose top shareholders include BlackRock and Vanguard, told the government how they wanted this disaster handled.

Isn’t it interesting that only 11 days before this tragic derailment, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) changed the toxicity for vinyl chloride?

The railroad and the EPA released the full list of chemicals that were being transported.  Norfolk Southern did the “controlled breach” by starting the fires allegedly so the containers would not blow up. New footage has surfaced, in just a few days, of contaminated water in and around East Palestine, Ohio. Despite Governor DeWine’s statements reassuring Ohioans that the water is safe to drink, the chemical contamination is visible.

Here is the East Palestine Ohio Train Disaster in Numbers.  The following is from JTrudels Substack page.

  • 50 rail cars derailed on 3 February 23rd.
  • 11 rail cars carried hazardous materials.
  • 5 rail cars released Vinyl Chloride, a flammable, colorless liquified gas that causes liver, brain, and lung cancers.
  • 28-degree Celsius/82-degree Fahrenheit is required for Vinyl Chloride to become slightly water soluble.
  • One waterway was directly impacted, the Leslie Run. It feeds the Little Beaver Creek, a tributary to the Ohio River.
  • One billion plus animals of varying types, livestock and wildlife, depend on these waterways for life.
  • None of the waterway have ever hit a sustained 82 degrees F in human history.
  • 3500 fish and aquatic animals have died in the Leslie Run in the past week.
  • Almost all small livestock have died in East Palestine since Friday, 10 February 23, especially poultry.
  • 4800 residents call East Palestine home.
  • 94% of the residents are white
  • 81% of the 74 million Americans who depend on the Ohio River and associated waterways including the Mississippi for water for themselves and/or their livestock are white.
  • Zero FEMA officials have arrived in East Palestine as of 15 February 23.

Trudel states, “This does not appear to be an accident.  It appears to be genocide.”

A good portion of Ohio may be ruined for decades.  Link  The people who lived in that town are most likely about to lose everything, including their health.  Gov. DeWine told them it was safe to go home, but it obviously is not.  DeWine should be forced to live out the remainder of his term in East Palestine, Ohio.

EPA Administrator, Michael Regan, who visited the town on Thursday the 16th, asked the people to “trust the government.”

Yeah right, in your dreams.  President Reagan made a statement in the 1980s about “trusting the government.”

Has the EPA even checked the water, air or soil?  The EPA is also telling everyone it’s fine to return home.  The Environmental Protection Agency is more concerned about cow farts than the vinyl chloride poisoning of a third of America’s air, water and soil.

Where is FEMA to help these people and their animals?

Where is Biden?  Out to lunch 24/7!

Trump decides he’ll visit East Palestine and all of a sudden FEMA says they’ll show up.

These families all need new homes, new places to live, health checks, and new vehicles.  Where’s the federal funds to help them?

How about it President Trump?  You can get donations to give enough to all of these families to rebuild in  healthier environments that aren’t poisoned for the next century.

Glenn Beck interviewed a lady who lived there, and had a dog kennel and horses and had to evacuate all of them as well.  Needless to say, any animals left behind didn’t make it.  Crews conducted a “controlled spill” of these deadly chemicals.  Controlled?  Controlled to kill?  How insane is that to release a poisonous chemical into water and ground and then set it on fire?

Conclusion

I’ve heard another take on this from veterans who have handled some of these dangerous chemicals.

One said, This looks more like gross stupidity (way too many hazardous cars on a single train) and greed.  What was criminal was burying the damaged cars right in town without any attempt to decontaminate the entire wreck site and town.  The Governor received mucho campaign money from Norfolk Southern.  DeWine is complicit in that.  He ordered that burn so Norfolk Southern could relay track to get other trains moving.

That incident was awful, but I’m skeptical that there’s going to be a mass “Die Off” of the entire NE US.  There is much fear mongering going on, some very legitimate (especially for those near that town and along the Ohio River) wild speculation unsupported by hard data.

There have been half a dozen derailments and chemical burns in the last few weeks.  Coincidence?  Doubtful.  I’m just reporting what I’ve read, heard and seen.

Pray for these people, and if there’s a collection for them, give what you can.

©Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.

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Texas Border Operation Catches 348,000 Illegal Immigrants, 361 million Lethal Fentanyl Doses

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By Judicial Watch

In the absence of adequate federal enforcement a Texas border security initiative heavily criticized by Democrats and the media has apprehended hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants—including thousands of criminals—and seized millions of lethal doses of fentanyl. Known as Operation Lone Star, the project was launched by Governor Greg Abbott in March 2021 as the illegal immigration crisis gripped his border state. Essentially the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Texas National Guard are picking up the slack for the federal government, which is charged with protecting the famously porous southern border.

Texas had to take charge to combat the smuggling of people and drugs, the governor’s office wrote in the 2021 press release announcing Operation Lone Star, which integrates DPS with the Texas National Guard and deploys air, ground, marine and tactical border security assets to high threat areas to prevent Mexican cartels and other criminal elements from smuggling drugs and humans into the state. “The crisis at our southern border continues to escalate because of Biden Administration policies that refuse to secure the border and invite illegal immigration,” Abbott said at the time. The governor’s office assures that the operation continues to fill the “dangerous gaps left by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border.” Every arrested individual and every ounce of drugs seized by Operation Lone Star would have otherwise made their way into communities across the nation due to the president’s open border policies, Texas officials point out.

The most recent figures, released just days ago, show that Operation Lone Star is succeeding despite detractors on the left. Since the multi-agency effort was launched more than 348,000 illegal immigrants have been apprehended and over 24,000 criminals have been arrested. DPS has also seized a startling number of drugs, over 361 million lethal doses of fentanyl. “Texas has also bused more than 9,100 migrants to our nation’s capital since April, over 5,200 migrants to New York City since August 5, more than 1,500 migrants to Chicago since August 31, and more than 890 migrants to Philadelphia since November 15,” the state announcement reveals. The document offers specific Operation Lone Star cases that prevented the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and humans into Texas.

The crisis along the southwest border is unprecedented and has created a tremendous threat to national security. The latest government stats show a drop in monthly illegal immigrant crossings that carries little weight since it is a decrease from the record-highs that have prevailed during the Biden administration. The stats show that U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 128,000 illegal immigrants in January 2023 and federal agents at crossing ports prevented an additional 28,000 migrants from entering the country. Considering illegal immigration records have been shattered under Biden, the latest monthly figure is not bad. In his first year as president, federal agents apprehended 1,659,206 illegal immigrants at the southwest border, breaking the previous high of 1,643,679 in 2000. To put things in perspective, during Donald Trump’s last year as president federal agents arrested 400,651 illegal aliens along the Mexican border.

But as the Biden presidency progresses, the crisis worsens. Fiscal year 2022 also started with a bang, a 137% increase in the first quarter over the final quarter of 2021. By the end of 2022, the Border Patrol arrested a record-breaking 2.4 million migrants, up from an already shocking high of 1.7 million in 2021. Among the apprehended were hundreds of gang members—mostly from the famously violent Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)—and dozens of people on the national terrorist watchlist. Federal agents also confiscated thousands of pounds of drugs, mainly methamphetamine. The unprecedented numbers depict a chaotic Mexican border region rife with lawlessness that has inevitably seeped north into many parts of the United States. At least Texans have Operation Lone Star to help compensate for the federal government’s ongoing failures.

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Biden’s War On Suburbia: The Democrats Are Coming For Your Home and Neighborhood, Playing the Race Card

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By The Geller Report

No where to run to, baby, nowhere to hide.

The Biden administration announced on January 19th it will require all towns across America to submit “equity plans” showing how they will make it possible for low-income people to live there, by providing affordable housing, transportation and other resources.

By Betsy McCaughey, NY Post, February 7, 2023:

The Biden administration is warring on local zoning laws to build high-rise apartment buildings with “affordable” units in tree-lined, single-family neighborhoods.

If you’ve worked hard to afford a suburban house with a patch of lawn where your kids can play, you’re under attack.

The Biden administration and Democrats in New York, Connecticut and other states are warring on local zoning laws to build high-rise apartment buildings with “affordable” units in tree-lined, single-family neighborhoods. All in the name of equity, meaning everyone can live in a tranquil suburb, whether they’ve earned the money to pay for it or not.

The Biden administration announced Jan. 19 it will require all towns across America to submit “equity plans” showing how they will make it possible for low-income people to live there, by providing affordable housing, transportation and other resources.

Towns that don’t meet the cookie-cutter requirement for economic diversity will lose federal funding.

No one’s denying there’s a housing shortage. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing some reasonable ideas such as allowing mother-in-law apartments and relaxing environmental restrictions on a residential building.

But Hochul’s biggest proposal, the Housing Compact, is another misguided attack on local control and single-family zoning. It would compel each town and village in the New York City metro area to increase its housing stock to meet a uniform, state-imposed target and rezone for high-density housing — apartment buildings — within a half-mile of every Metropolitan Transportation Authority train stopI

If a town fails to meet state targets, the compact will allow developers to build big in defiance of local zoning boards in almost all cases.

Hochul is seeking legislative approval for her plan by April. Suburban homeowners are battling a powerful alliance of real-estate developers in it for the money and social-justice warriors determined to end single-family zoning.

Local control will be obliterated. Albany will call the shots on what your town looks like, how much traffic there is and ultimately what your home is worth.

Slate’s Henry Graber bashed Hochul’s critics as “a band of recalcitrant, remorseless ne’er-do-wells.” He’s wrong. Their concerns are legitimate. For most people, their home is their biggest asset.

Opponents of single-family zoning are also playing the race card. ERASE Racism President Laura Harding says she’s fighting for a Long Island “free of structural racism and de facto segregation.” The same phony pretext is being trotted out everywhere.

Racial discrimination is abhorrent and should be prosecuted. But as a Brookings analysis of the 2020 census shows, race isn’t a barrier to suburban living: Blacks are moving to the suburbs at a faster pace than whites. Anybody can be suburban. It just takes money.

Especially in Connecticut. In 2022, developer Arnold Karp purchased a colonial house on tree-lined Weed Street in small, ultra-wealthy New Canaan. There are no commercial or multi-family buildings on the street. He wants to build a five-story, 102-unit apartment complex with 30% set aside for affordable housing.

Weed Street is only a 10-minute drive or 17 minutes on the local train to Stamford, a midsize city where the quantity of affordable housing (nearly 16%) exceeds state guidelines.

Ensuring a supply of affordable housing within a region is more reasonable than demanding every town alter its character.

Local officials explain that New Canaan’s six-person fire department doesn’t even have hoses or trucks to fight a fire in a building as big as Karp’s design.

Weed Street neighbor Chris DeMuth Jr. warns Karp’s “plan is to cram over 300 people into a lot currently occupied by a single family home.” He adds, “If they destroy Weed Street, they could come for your neighborhood next.”

Keep reading.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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12-Year-Old New Jersey Boy DIES SUDDENLY During Football Practice

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By The Geller Report

Look at what the Democrats have done to our children all in their insatiable hunger for absolute power over our lives. And they are still promoting and mandating this RNA poison. When a nation kills their children, the nation is already dead.

Nu: Warner Todd Huston, Breitbart News, 19 Feb 2023:

A family in Newark, New Jersey, is left with questions after their 12-year-old son collapsed and died suddenly during football practice at a local field.

The boy, Elijah Jordan Brown-Garcia, was reportedly performing drills along with his team, the Essex County Predators, at the West Side Park football field when he collapsed.

Team officials say that Brown-Garcia was not engaged in heavy activity at the time, according to News 12.

“No contact. It was just drills running back and forth. He didn’t get hit,” said his mother, Raven Brown. “He was a healthy kid…I don’t know why Friday night was his day.”

“He was so happy to be there. He didn’t know that it was going to be his last day,” Brown added.
empty football stadium.

Brown added that her ten-year-old son, who was also at the practice, called her and told her that Elijah had collapsed and they were “fanning” him and pouring water on him.

The bereaved mother also says that even though there were at least three calls for an ambulance, it took. more than 40 minutes for one to arrive. In fact, she told the media that she beat the ambulance to the field when she rushed there herself.

“I beat the ambulance there,” Brown insisted. “Like 30-40 minutes. It took them a long time.”

Brown is also wondering why no one involved with the team or the league is CPR certified. She added that the coach admitted that no one on site was able to help.

“They are neglectful. You can’t run a team like that,” Brown insisted.

“I miss his face. I miss him dancing…I just miss him. I miss everything about him,” the boy’s mother said.
football player runs with ball – football stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images

A spokesman for the Big 21 league said that they didn’t have enough information about the incident to make any statements.

The teen’s school, KIPP Rise Academy, released a statement saying how much they will miss the boy.

“Elijah will be deeply missed by our KIPP students, families and educators, and we will remember him as a kind, outgoing student who was a friend to all,” said Jessica Shearer, a school spokesperson. “Elijah has a brother and an aunt learning and teaching within our school. To support the Brown-Garcia family as they navigate this tragedy, please donate to their GoFundMe.”

Read more.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Undercover DC Police Pushed Protesters Toward Capitol, Climbed Over Barricade: Court Filing

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By The Geller Report

Everything the American people were told about January 6th was a lie. There was an insurrection, just not the one created out of whole cloth by the very same caballers that stole the election. The people in charge of our country right now are the criminals, the insurrectionists.

By: Joseph M. Hanneman Epoch Times, February 20, 2023:

Three undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers joined the march of protesters up the northwest side of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—including one who climbed over a barricade and pushed others toward the Capitol, and another who walked behind Ashli Babbitt and predicted that “someone will get shot,” according to newly disclosed court documents.

New court motions filed by Jan. 6 defendant William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, also show MPD bicycle officers stopping four armed men in plainclothes on Jan. 6. The men turned out to be federal agents. Video included with Pope’s filings also shows uniformed MPD officers saying, “we were set up” to fail on Jan. 6.

Information in the court papers will rekindle the debate about the role that undercover officers and agents played in the riots of Jan. 6 and why the U.S. Department of Justice and federal judges have kept the evidence under seal and away from public view.

“This video clearly evidences undercover law enforcement officers urging the crowds to advance up the stairs and scaffolding towards the Capitol on January 6,” Pope wrote in one motion. “The government may claim that incidents like this did not happen, but the facts show they did.

“Since the government cannot be trusted to disclose these facts,” Pope wrote, “it becomes even more important that defense teams, including Pro Se defendants, be able to directly examine the evidence.”

Timeline of Events in DC on Jan. 6

The three undercover MPD officers approached the northwest corner of the Capitol grounds at about 1:40 p.m. on Jan. 6, one of the motions states. Officer 1, who was filming their journey, joined the crowd chanting, “Drain the swamp!”

When a group of men ran past them toward the Capitol, Officer 2—wearing a Trump beanie—remarked, “Those guys are getting shot,” the motion said.

At the base of the scaffold stairs, Officer 1 joined the crowd in a chant, “Whose house? Our house!”

“Officer 1 began yelling at people in front of him to ‘Go, go, go!’ As they climbed bicycle racks, Officer 1 yelled for the crowd to ‘help him up, help him up!” followed by ‘push him up, push him up!’” the motion reads of Pope describing how Officer 1 climbed over a barricade.

“Needing help to get up, Officer 1 asked a nearby man to give him a boost,” the motion says. “The man gives Officer 1 a lift up, and Officer 1 says ‘Thanks, bro.’”

Officer 1 pushed protesters in front of him to advance on the Capitol, shouting, “c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, let’s go!,” the motion said. People around him climbed over bike-rack-style barricades and scaffolding that had been set up for the presidential inauguration.
Right Behind Ashli Babbitt

At one point, Officers 2 and 3 were almost directly behind Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt on the exterior stairs, about an hour before Babbitt was gunned down at the entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby, Pope said in a Twitter post on Feb. 18.

“Why hasn’t the government informed the public that undercover MPD officers were chanting, ‘Our house!’ and repeatedly urging protesters to advance up the northwest steps of the Capitol on January 6?” Pope wrote on Twitter under his handle @FreeStateWill. “Officer 2 said someone would get shot and went up right behind Ashli Babbitt.”

Keep reading……

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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20,000 Protest War in Ukraine During Kamala Harris Visit at Munich Security Conference

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By The Geller Report

There is a peace movement growing apace in Europe. Meanwhile, America slouches to bankruptcy and failure.

The same ‘anti-war peaceniks ‘who set the country on fire to oppose the Vietnam war are America’s biggest supporters and promoters of this vicious, pointless war in Ukraine, a country long in the Russian sphere. The two countries’ shared heritage goes back more than a thousand years.

20.000 Protestors March for Peace in Munich to Protest Kamala Harris’ Ukraine War

By: Richard Abelson, TPG, February 19, 2023:

As Kamala Harris accused Russia of “war crimes” at the Munich Security Conference while ignoring Ukrainian war crimes and the bombshell Hersh report, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski demanded Ukraine join NATO and be supplied with illegal cluster bombs at US taxpayer expense. Outside, a new peace movement formed, combining left and right, mobilizing over 20.000 protestors.

The protest under the motto “Make Peace” was organized by Covid lockdown opponents “Munich Stands Up!” and was open to all political affiliations. Speakers included Leftist MP Dieter Dehm and journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer, formerly of Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

The ruling Green Party used to be the party of the German peace movement, hailing from the Anti-Reagan protests of the 1980s, but now is fully in thrall to the World Economic Forum, Open Society and the National Endowment for Democracy. Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is a Young Global Leader and a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and German Marshall Fund, which funds Twitter censorship of conservative users, as Matt Taibbi reported.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: AMERICA LAST: Biden Makes Surprise Visit to …..Ukraine Not East Palestine, Ohio

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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When Biden and GOP Agree on Section 230, It’s Not a Good Thing

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By Jihad Watch

When you’re doing what the Left wants, check whether you’re walking into a trap.

Long-time readers know that I’ve been banging the drum on Google and Big Tech for a long time. The “conventional wisdom” in conservative circles has concentrated on going after Big Tech with Section 230 of the CDA. My argument has been that while 230 should have no legal standing, it’s not any kind of solution and that antitrust action will break up Big Tech monsters like Google and create a more competitive market.

The Left loves going after Section 230 because it opens the door to regulating them. And those regulations will lead to even more censorship of conservatives.

It’s easy to see where this is going with an upcoming Supreme Court case: Gonzalez v. Google.

Biden and Republican senators join forces in attack on Big Tech at Supreme Court – NBC News

The Biden administration is roughly on the same page as prominent Republicans, such as Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, in arguing in favor of limits on internet company immunity under a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act called Section 230.

But the loose alliance in a case involving YouTube that the court hears on Tuesday illustrates how opposition to the broad immunity companies receive for their content moderation decisions and what content users post cuts across ideological lines. There are also unusual bedfellows backing YouTube owner Google, with the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union, the libertarian Cato Institute and the corporate giant U.S. Chamber of Commerce all taking their side.

Gonzalez v. Google is a particularly bad case that blames YouTube’s recommendations for causing Islamic terror attacks in Europe. The case strikes me as extremely farfetched on factual grounds, but nobody cares about the actual factual question of whether YouTube recommendations caused a particular ISIS attack in Europe. The endgame here is to bypass Section 230 on the way to dismantling it by arguing that it doesn’t protect algorithmic recommendations. Such recommendations can be generated automatically or with some intervention.

I understand why the Biden administration wants in on the action. It’s been obsessed with getting YouTube and social media companies to stop recommending content it doesn’t like.

But what exactly is the payoff here for Republicans? The underlying issue is discrimination against conservatives. YouTube already censors conservatives on a variety of issues, so maybe there’s not much there to lose, but I imagine a sustained government regime could quickly show us how much more there is to lose.

The endgame is destroying Section 230, but on the way to what? Senator Hawley’s legal filing concludes with, “The Court should not interpret Section 230 to shield platforms from liability for distributing unlawful content.”

Okay. I don’t think there’s a problem with the legal argument. Since Senator Lieberman began pressuring YouTube to remove terrorism videos, the company eventually gave in. But what’s the stake for conservatives in creating liability for YouTube on the content it hosts? What are we winning here exactly except more censorship?

What Biden’s people want is pretty clear.

Biden took a shot at tech companies in his State of the Union address earlier this month, although he did not mention Section 230. He was more specific in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last month in which he called for reform, saying companies need to “take responsibility for the content they spread and the algorithms they use.” A White House spokesperson declined to comment on the administration’s position in the case.

Cruz said in an interview that while there might be some common ground on legislation to overhaul Section 230, the Biden administration is mostly OK with companies “censoring” views with which they disagree.

“Big Tech engages in blatantly anti-competitive activity. They enjoy monopoly profits. And they use that power to, among other things, censor and silence the American people and I believe we should use every tool at our disposal to stop that,” he said.

How is this stopping that?

There are multiple tracks to fighting Big Tech from antitrust to treating political discrimination as a civil rights issue. If the latter were in place, then Section 230 reform might make sense within that framework. Right now all that nuking Section 230 does is make it easier for government oversight and lawsuits over content, but doesn’t provide a meaningful way for conservatives to change anything. Eliminating 230 would create a lot of liability for Big Tech, but like most government regulations will make it harder for smaller upstarts to compete.

Without Section 230, leftist lawfare could easily cripple upstart conservative upstarts like Rumble or Parler, it won’t stop Google.

When you’re doing exactly what the Left wants, it might be a good idea to check whether you’re walking into a trap.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Diversity Narrative Fall Down and Go Boom

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By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

It was an embarrassing moment for the Left’s phony diversity narrative.  I’ve commented previously on the narrative’s many faults, one of which is the deliberate attempt to lower standards of performance throughout society.

Last month, Finland chose a transgender to represent the country at the opening ceremonies of the European Figure Skating Championships.  It was an amateur performance during which this person, a biological male dressed like a woman, fell on the ice and was helped up.

This person was not chosen for merit or competence.  This person was chosen to check the diversity, equity, and inclusion box.  I feel sorry he had to be humiliated in front of a worldwide audience.  He was exploited by virtue-signaling leftists who ride identity politics to their own personal wealth and power.

Too bad the consequences of lower standards don’t stay on the ice.  One commentator goes so far as to blame the recent rash of airline incidents to the aviation industry’s new racial and gender quotas for pilot training programs.  When you look at the dumbing down of medical school in the name of promoting equity and inclusion, you have to wonder whether a single-minded focus on diversity kills.  The question came up in connection with the recent death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of five black police officers in Memphis.  News accounts painted a picture of a short-handed police department desperate to fill slots and lowering hiring standards in order to get enough officers on the force.  They hired recruits with less work experience and even criminal records.  They also lowered physical fitness standards and dropped the running test entirely because too many people were failing.

But you don’t have to believe the diversity narrative kills to recognize standards are deteriorating in a number of areas, and the problems that’s causing.   A large county in Virginia has implemented “equitable grading” to eliminate racial disparities in grade outcomes – no penalties for late assignments, standing permission to retake tests, and everybody gets points even if they never turn in assignments.

Not exactly the best preparation for high school, where the work gets tougher.  But it doesn’t matter because a number of states have dropped graduation tests to graduate high school.  Instead of working to bring poor and minority students up to standard, places like Oregon and New Mexico have done away with a testing requirement to get a high school diploma.  Other states like New Jersey are considering the move.

Critics say lowering expectations in high school guarantees students will have trouble handling college courses.  But not to worry.  Colleges are now firing professors whose courses are too hard.  A professor in California found another solution – just give every student an ‘A’ to decolonize the classroom.  That’s right, high standards are just another bad idea imposed on you by your colonialist oppressors.

So is it any wonder med students at the University of Minnesota now pledge to fight “white supremacy” and study indigenous medicine?

Critics have warned lower standards are now infecting a number of professions, including science, accounting, firefighting, and the military.  How this will come back to bite people is a story yet to be written, but you can start to imagine the fallout.

But let me conclude by suggesting one other ramification of lowering standards:  Psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden wrote books arguing that competence – the ability to do things well – is the indispensable key to good mental health.  If all you know how to do is hold a participation trophy, not only are you being robbed of a full human experience, you are on the road to mental illness, no matter what identity group the Left wants to put you in.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

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Congressman Says East Palestine Citizens Deserve Answers After Catastrophic Train Derailment

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By Family Research Council

A Norfolk Southern train derailment that occurred two weeks ago in eastern Ohio still has not received the attention it should have from the federal government, said Representative Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) February 17 on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” Those impacted by the disaster need answers, he insisted.

The February 3 incident and “controlled explosion” of leaking rail tanker cars by authorities in East Palestine, Ohio escaped the national media’s attention for days. Yet as a result of the derailment, 38 rail cars derailed, including 11 carrying hazardous materials, according to a National Transportation Safety Board press release.

The decision to drain and ignite the contents of the tankers, which carried vinyl chloride, prompted an intense explosion that sent a plume of dark smoke and particulates high over the town of nearly 5,000 people, has sparked controversy over the federal government’s response.

Citing the health and environmental concerns of those who live in the area, Johnson said the community remains in an “emergency phase.”

The Ohio congressman, whose district includes East Palestine, told “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice February 17 on “Washington Watch”that he has stood at ground zero of the train derailment and “controlled explosion.” “We can’t dismiss the claims of the community about some of the ailments that they’re seeing and the fears that they have for their children to go outside,” he said.

“My number one concern today is getting the people of this community the answers that they need,” Johnson emphasized. Johnson serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Budget Committee. He complimented the work of the state and federal Environmental Protection Agencies in responding to the incident. “While there is still a long way to go,” Johnson continued, “they are making progress.”

Yet Johnson said what has happened in East Palestine should not happen in any community in the U.S. “The people here are frightened. They’re scared. They’re not getting answers to their questions …” the congressman continued.

“They’re concerned about the air in their homes and the water that they drink. And there’s been a lot of confusion,” Johnson said.

Residents of the eastern Ohio town are extremely frustrated and have “more questions than answers,” Hice agreed, noting U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has indicated he has no plans to visit East Palestine and that the Biden administration determined the region fails to qualify for federal disaster aid.

Johnson said he was surprised that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) denied the request for disaster funding. “If this doesn’t qualify as a disaster, I don’t know what does,” he said, noting he has reached out for an explanation. The congressman said as well that he was shocked that Secretary Buttigieg has not visited the site. Johnson noted the National Transportation Safety Board is moving forward with their own investigation of the matter.

He called Secretary Buttigieg’s February 13 statement on the East Palestine tragedy an “outrageous comment.”

Buttigieg told Yahoo! Finance Live that “… while this horrible situation has gotten a particularly high amount of attention, there are roughly 1,000 cases a year of a train derailing.”

“The secretary has been AWOL, absent without leave,” Johnson argued. “He just has not been tuned into this at all.” The congressman said Buttigieg’s comment suggests he is being “very lighthearted” about the incident.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) announced late Friday evening FEMA has reportedly reversed course and will respond to the emergency situation in East Palestine with federal resources.

AUTHOR

K.D. Hastings

K.D. Hastings and his family live in the beautiful hills of Middle Tennessee. He has been engaged in the evangelical world as a communicator since 1994.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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‘Lucrative Business’: The Child Sex Change Industry Is Exploding In The US

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By The Daily Caller

  • The child sex change industry is massive and growing, and children undergoing cross-sex treatments can bring a massive cash influx to hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and others in the medical industry. 
  • From 2017-2019 at least 56 genital surgeries and 776 mastectomies were performed on minors as part of the gender transition process in the U.S., but even this figure is outdated and vastly underestimates the scope of the child sex change industry by excluding certain patients. 
  • “There is no question that financial rewards play a role in the adoption of gender affirming care. Hospitals and physicians generate substantial payments from insurers or self pay patients when children enter into the transition protocols,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, board chair of Do No Harm and former Associate Dean for Curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Child sex changes procedures, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries, have become a rapidly-growing, multi-million-dollar industry, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

While there is no comprehensive data set tracking the number of children undergoing cross-sex procedures, and the cost of these procedures varies widely, existing data and experts in the field have shed light on a highly profitable and quickly growing market offering largely irreversible procedures to minors. Mastectomies and breast augmentations cost about $10,000, cross-sex genital surgeries cost about $25,000, plus several thousand dollars for anesthesia and a hospital stay, and facial and other cross-sex surgeries range from $2,000 to $15,000, according to the Philadelphia Transgender Surgery Center’s (PTSC) 2019 price list; those prices have gone up in recent years, an employee told the DCNF, but the clinic has not released an updated list and wouldn’t disclose its new prices without a patient consultation.

“There is no question that financial rewards play a role in the adoption of gender affirming care,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, board chair of Do No Harm and former Associate Dean for Curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, told the DCNF. “Hospitals and physicians generate substantial payments from insurers or self-pay patients when children enter into the transition protocols.”

“No matter what other motives come into play, there is no way that the surgical and medical activities would be embraced by various gender clinics and hospitals if they were financially harmed by these clinical activities,” Goldfarb added. (RELATED: ‘Groomed And Preyed Upon’: Young Woman Was Pressured Into Mastectomy, Testosterone As A Child — Now She Regrets It)

About 300,000 children in the U.S. identify as transgender, according to the University of California Los Angeles Williams Institute, though not everyone who adopts a transgender identity seeks a medical transition. While many of these children undergo surgical procedures, particularly mastectomies, a larger portion receive puberty blockers and/or hormones, which provides a continuous stream of revenue to pharmaceutical companies and medical providers.

There are more than 100 gender clinics in the U.S. that treat children, according to Reuters, and each of these clinics would need to see at least 100 patients annually to be successful but are likely seeing as many as 300 a year, Goldfarb told the DCNF. By that estimate, there are likely at least 10,000 to 30,000 children undergoing some form of gender transition in the U.S. each year.

The overall cross-sex surgery market was valued at $1.9 billion in 2019 and is projected to rise to $5 billion by 2023, according to Grand View Research, which attributed rising market value to the increased prevalence of transgender identification and improved insurance coverage for the procedures. The rise in transgender identification has been heavily concentrated among the youth population.

The medical industry is acting on these financial incentives: Johns Hopkins Medicine has been lobbying the Maryland legislature to expand Medicaid coverage of transgender procedures to include a host of interventions typically considered cosmetic, such as Adam’s apple reduction, facial contouring and laser hair removal, according to a DCNF investigation. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, a professional association, has been fighting against state legislation restricting child sex change procedures and advocating for expanded coverage of trans procedures since at least 2017.

A woman identified as Dr. Shayne Taylor of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) reportedly touted the profitability of gender surgeries during a lecture in 2018, the same year VUMC opened its gender clinic, according to the Daily Wire. VUMC offered hormones and double-mastectomies to minors who identified as transgender to help them present as the opposite sex until it paused the procedures in late 2022 following pressure from the state legislature.

“This is only including top surgery, this isn’t including any bottom surgery, and it’s a lot of money. These surgeries make a lot of money,” Taylor said. “So a female to male chest reconstruction can bring in $40,000. A patient who just got routine hormones treatment who I’m only seeing a few times a year can bring in several thousand dollars without requiring a lot of visits and labs. It actually makes money for the hospital.”

From 2017-2019 at least 56 genital surgeries and 776 mastectomies were performed on minors in the U.S., though this data only includes minors who had formal gender dysphoria diagnoses and had their surgeries covered by insurance, according to insurance data analyzed by health technology company Komodo Health Inc and originally reported by Reuters. The data set doesn’t account for the likely much higher numbers of children undergoing such surgeries in more recent years amid skyrocketing rates of youth transgender identification.

“There’s money to be made, but not from the single cost of a procedure,” Mary Hasson, director of the Person and Identity Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute, told the DCNF. “The gender docs are creating a steady money stream by converting adolescents with healthy bodies into ‘consumers’ of drastic medical procedures that turn them into lifelong medical patients, dependent on additional drugs, surgery, and psychological help to live a stable life.”

“Unfortunately, as we know from the suicide studies, the promised long-term happy result is illusory,” Hasson said.

Based on PTSC’s estimates, the 259 minors annually undergoing top surgery prior to 2020 likely brought in about $2.6 million — and this only includes minors whose surgeries were covered by insurance and who had formal gender dysphoria diagnoses. Genital surgeries are rare for children, but if about 19 minors had those procedures annually prior to 2020, as Komodo’s data suggests, that would bring in $570,000 per year for child genital surgeries.

A sex change patient who begins treatments during puberty incurs massive costs immediately; the puberty blocker Lupron-Depot-PED costs about $2,000 a month, according to Drugs.com, so a youth patient who takes the drug from age 14 to 16 would spend $48,000 over two years of treatment. Cross-sex hormones, the next step of medical transition, are far less expensive than blockers. They’re typically offered at age 16, according to England’s National Health Service, and though some may eventually stop taking them, patients must continue treatments for the duration of their lives to continue seeing its full effects, according to Duke Health.

Hormones cost about $10 per month, according to Lurie Children’s Hospital; a patient who starts hormones at 16 and continues until age 80, would spend about $7,600 on the drugs over the course of a lifetime. The cost of routine medical visits to monitor a hormone patient would presumably be much higher; Taylor estimated hospitals rake in “thousands” each year from one patient taking hormones.

Advocates for child gender transitions argue that the procedures are medically necessary to address the mental health and suicide risks among transgender people and to allow them to live as their authentic selves. Several DCNF investigations and reviews have disputed claims that medical gender transitions reduce mental health problems and suicide risks.

“While transgender activists have tried to pass off their cause as a civil rights movement, it is more accurate to describe it as a profit-making machine,” Terry Schilling, president of American Principles Project, a group that opposes child gender transitions, told the DCNF. “‘Gender transitions’ are a lucrative business, enriching Big Pharma as well as numerous hospitals and clinics. And as the number of people claiming a transgender identity has exploded, so has the industry catering to their desires.”

AUTHOR

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social issues and culture reporter.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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A Tribute To Our Friend Phillip B. Haney Who Was Assassinated on February 21st, 2020

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By Dr. Rich Swier

We became close friends with Phillip B. Haney while he was a federal agent and top national security and terrorist tracker at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Phillip was the first agent to be sworn in at DHS and was highly decorated for his work in stopping terrorists from infiltrating and carrying out attacks against the American people after 9/11/2001. Phillip worked closely with with FBI and CIA.

His work was so successful that it came to the attention of the Obama administration, who shut him and his efforts down. You see Phillip stopped Islamic terrorists and this was against the embrace of Islam by Barack Hussein Obama.

We spoke with Philip weekly while he was in DHS and learned how his work was being thwarted by the Obama administration. After he retired from DHS he wrote  See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad, first published in 2016.

Phillip was working on his second book when at a rest stop in Amador County, California he was assassinated on February 21st, 2020 by person or persons unknown to this day. We use the word “assassinated” because that what we believe his death was. It was imperative to stop Phillip from telling the truth about what has now become known as the “deep state.”

in a February 17, 2023 FrontPage Magazine article titled Who Killed Philip Haney? The Mystery Continues wrote,

The FBI is now the American KGB, a squad of deep-state partisans operating above the law. Show the FBI the man and they create the crime through stagecraft and entrapment, as with Gen. Michael Flynn. In the case of Philip Haney, they target a dead man for further investigation by the federal CPB. The expert on jihadism got the same treatment in death he did in life – false accusation by a federal agency, and quite possibly a lot more.

[ … ]

Philip Haney bravely exposed them and paid the price. He’s gone but will not be forgotten. The struggle against terrorism is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

On February 25th, 2020 in an article titled Why I Believe That My Friend Phillip B. Haney Was Assassinated I wrote,

I write this column knowing that my friend Phillip is with God in Heaven. This column is a tribute to a man who stood against evil. This column is in remembrance of a man who never ever gave up. This column is dedicated to a true American patriot. This column pays homage to a fellow warrior in the fight against those who would destroy America from within.

Let me begin by explaining how Phillip and I first met. My contacts with Phillip were all via phone. We spoke frequently, sometimes 2-3 times a week, over a period of 8 years during the most difficult times in his life. While I never had the honor of meeting him in person, we spoke frequently about life, his career, his family, his work and his passion for telling the truth no matter what the consequences.

Phillip became a contributor of ours writing fourteen columns. Phillip’s last column was dated December 3rd, 2019 titled Four Years Ago Today: A Tribute to the Victims of the San Bernardino Jihad Attack. Phillip concluded his last column writing:

As a sworn Federal Law Enforcement Officer who has also been deeply affected by this case, it is my intention, in the weeks, months and years ahead, to help make sure that their stories are not forgotten, and that on one fine day, we will all know more about what really happened on that December day in San Bernardino.

Phillip felt personally responsible for the deaths in San Bernardino because he knew that the Obama administration had shut down his investigation into several Islamist groups, two of which we now know were tied to the San Bernardino attack. Watch:

Upon his retirement after 13 years as a Customs & Border Protection Officer in the Department of Homeland Security, he relished his new role as a whistleblower explaining how political correctness was making us all less safe.

Phillip B. Haney was Assassinated

I believe my friend did not commit suicide. I believe Phillip was not murdered. I believe Phillip was assassinated.

I waited to write this column as the first shock of his death hit me. I kept asking myself why?

I was so distraught that I just couldn’t write about Phillip until I knew more about the circumstances of his death. I read column after column seeking answers to the who, what, where, when and how. As of the writing of this column the investigation into his death is on going. What we do know is that, according to the Washington Examiner:

[Phillip] was found dead with a bullet wound on Friday morning [February 21st]  about 40 miles east of Sacramento, California, in a park-and-ride open area immediately adjacent to state Highway 16 and near state Highway 124, according to law enforcement authorities.

“Highway 16 is a busy state highway and used as a main travel route to and from Sacramento. The location is less than three miles from where [Haney] was living,” the sheriff’s office statement explained.

Here are the reasons why I firmly believe that Phillip was assassinated:

  1. He was a man on a mission to tell his story to anyone who would listen.
  2. He was a man of character.
  3. He was a seasoned federal officer who dedicated his life to serving the nation.
  4. He was a target of various Islamic terrorist groups and individuals because of the work he did at the Department of Homeland Security.
  5. He never gave up even when he was under investigation by his own department’s IG, the U.S. Department of State and then Attorney General Eric Holder.
  6. He was never depressed during hundreds of the conversations we had while he was in DHS, after he retired from DHS and while he was a contributor to our publication.
  7. He was a strong Christian who knew that it was God who put him on this path to tell the truth.

Nick Givas from Fox News reported:

Haney was recently in contact with DHS officials about a possible return to the agency, the Washington Examiner reported, adding that he was also engaged to be married.

Phillip and I often spoke about his desire to return the the Department of Homeland Security. Phillip wanted to first write his book and then return as an agent to continue his work to root out terrorists and their enablers domestically and globally.

Phillip never gave up on this dream.

Conclusion

QUESTION: Why was Phillip B. Haney assassinated?

ANSWER: He was causing Fitna in the Muslim world.

In a February 18, 2015 article titled Fitna Is Worse Than Slaughter Phillip wrote:

I have come to believe that Fitnah is the most essential motivational component of Islamic theology, i.e., it is the cornerstone of an adversarial, confrontational worldview that inevitably leads to a state of perpetual conflict with the non-Islamic world.

Philip concluded:

The word ‘Phobia’ has two meanings – either to hate something intensely, or to fear something intensely. Using these two meanings, it could be said that Muslims and non-Muslims both have ‘Fitnaphobia’ – Muslims because they hate Fitnah, and non-Muslims because they fear it.

However, in the case of the non-Muslim world, it appears that we are much more concerned about causing Fitnah (by Opposing the Strategy & Tactics of the Global Islamic Movement), than we are about protecting our western civilization from the increasingly aggressive promoters of Shariah Law.

Phillip was assassinated because he was causing Fitna. You see the slaughter of Phillip was justified in order to stop the Fitna, his pushing back against Islamic terrorism.

Phillip did not hate Muslims nor did he fear the terrorists. He was fearless!

EDITORS NOTE: Phillip wrote 14 columns for us between 2015 and 2019. Here are links to his columns from the first in 2015 to his last in 2019. We do this as a tribute to his love of country, dedication, fearlessness and in his memory.

  1. Is Fatah Really ‘Moderate’?
  2. If Abbas is a ‘moderate,’ what’s a ‘radical’?
  3. Fitna Is Worse Than Slaughter
  4. Global Islamic Caliphate Spreading Like Spilled Ink: One Observant Muslim at a Time
  5. An Analysis of President Obama’s Middle East Policy: The Blind, Misleading The Blind
  6. In Defense of The Center for Security Policy 2015 Poll on American Muslims
  7. Why Resisting Islam [Fitnah] Is Worse Than Slaughter, Part II
  8. Commentary on the Saudi Situation
  9. The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America’s Ominous Post-Election Statement
  10. ‘Through the Looking Glass’ – An Analysis of Linda Sarsour’s July 01, 2017 Speech at the 54th Annual ISNA Convention
  11. The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America’s Ominous Post-Election Statement
  12. Analysis of Linda Sarsour’s Speech at the 54th Annual ISNA Convention
  13. Former Obama Security Clearances Removed — Liberal media in a frantic stir!
  14. Four Years Ago Today: A Tribute to the Victims of the San Bernardino Jihad Attack

©Dr. Richard M. Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEOS:

Louie Gohmert on the life and death of Phillip Haney

Philip Haney on his book See Something Say Nothing.

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‘Serious Threat’: The National Science Foundation Has Spent Millions On Projects Combating ‘Misinformation’

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By The Daily Caller

  • The National Science Foundation (NSF) has launched initiatives to fund projects that develop tools and research in the area of combating ‘disinformation.’
  • Nearly $40 million has been granted to “misinformation” related projects since the start of the Biden administration, according to the Foundation For Freedom Online.
  • One $324,000 grant funds a two-month summer program at Old Dominion University that teaches undergraduates about the field of “disinformation detection and analytics,” preparing them for “disinformation-related jobs.”

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is pouring millions into research and the development of tools to combat online mis- and disinformation, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of agency grants.

Since the start of the Biden administration, the total NSF dollars spent on “misinformation” related projects have reached $38.8 million, according to a November report by the Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO). However, NSF has awarded even more grants to combat mis- and disinformation since the release of FFO’s report, the DCNF found. Most grants reviewed by the DCNF, which are ongoing and have past disbursement dates ranging from July 2019 to Dec. 2022, fall under the “Convergence Accelerator Track F: Trust & Authenticity in Communication Systems” or “Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC).”

The disinformation industry is growing and increasingly used to inform social media platforms content moderation policies, which seem to disproportionately target conservative speech. Last week, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported that the U.S. State Department helped fund the “disinformation” monitor Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which the Washington Examiner earlier found maintains a blacklist of conservative media groups and websites rated based on disinformation risk that ad companies in turn utilize to defund.

Aaron Terr, Director of Public Advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told the Daily Caller News Foundation it is “not a far-fetched scenario” to imagine the government using the technology it is funding through NSF to regulate speech.

“The government doesn’t violate the First Amendment simply by funding research, but it’s troubling when tax dollars are used to develop censorship technology,” said Terr. “If the government ultimately used this technology to regulate allegedly false online speech, or coerced digital platforms to use it for that purpose, that would violate the First Amendment. Given government officials’ persistent pressure on social media platforms to regulate misinformation, that’s not a far-fetched scenario.”

One of the most recent NSF awards, a $50,000 grant given to the University of Houston on Dec. 20, 2022, seeks to create a “social media misinformation interactive dashboard” that would “forecast trends and analysis to help address the misinformation endemic in America,” according to the grant abstract.

“Misinformation online may result in people questioning evidence-based medical guidance or refusing safe treatments,” the grant says. “Understanding current misinformation content and trends supports both corporate entities and social media users.”

In August 2020, a $149,858 project was launched at the University of Illinois to examine “the ways that misinformation regarding COVID-19 disseminates through social media and news outlets,” the grant abstract says.

“The ultimate goal is to use machine learning and network analysis tools to provide insight into the locations where misinformation originates and understanding of the mechanisms through which this misinformation spreads,” the abstract says. In order to locate “potentially dubious” information, the researchers test information against “insights from the Centers for Disease Control.”

The estimated end date is July 31, 2023, and the long-term results could be “useful for fighting future pandemics as well as other topics that are vital to the health of the Nation,” according to the grant.

On July 26, 2019, Syracuse University was awarded a $495,478 grant to study the “online dynamics of misinformation,” focusing on how “misinformation becomes woven into narratives online, how technology influences this process, and how design might be used to alter it.”

“Online misinformation can influence public health attitudes, potentially costing billions of dollars and numerous lives,” the abstract states. “This project will span a series of crowd-based experiments to investigate how people in online networks work together to combine misinformation to create and defend public health narratives.”

A late January report from FFFO highlights censorship tools created at various universities who received $750,000 grants through the NSF’s Convergence Accelerator Track F.

One project funded through a grant awarded on Sept. 20, 2021 to the University of Michigan, WiseDex, uses keywords to automatically flag posts with a “misleading claim” for social media company reviewers to compare against company Terms of Services.

WATCH:

Another project out of the University of Wisconsin system, “Course Correct,” aims to “help journalists” find and correct misinformation, along with tracking “the actual networks where the misinformation is doing the most damage.” The grant was awarded on Sept. 15, 2022.

Six projects have qualified for an additional $5 million grant as part of Phase 2: ARTT, Expert Voices Together, DART, Course Correct, Co-Insights, and Co-Designing for Trust.

An NSF spokesperson told the DCNF that the goal of the program is to “support increased citizen trust in information.”

“The overarching goal of Track F is to help develop tools, techniques, educational materials and programs to support increased citizen trust in information by more effectively preventing, mitigating, and adapting to critical threats in our communications systems,” the spokesperson said. “These threats include, but are not limited to, fake social media accounts, online disinformation campaigns, online harassment, and other emerging misinformation narratives that stoke social conflict and distrust.”

The NSF is also funding projects through its Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, which began inviting proposals in February 2022.

“Although information manipulated for political, ideological, or commercial gain is not new, the dissemination of inaccurate information at unprecedented speed and scale in the modern digital landscape is a new phenomenon with potential for vast harm,” the invitation letter stated. “There are many terms in use to characterize manipulated information, including misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. By any of these names, wide-spread distortions of the truth serve to undermine public trust in critical democratic institutions and the validity of scientific evidence, and authentic communication.”

A collaborative SaTC research project between the University of Utah, New York University, and the Georgia Tech Research Corporation aims to develop “early warning and detection technique” that reduce the time “between misinformation generation and fact-check dissemination.” The institutions were awarded grants of $441,200, $396,000, and $428,000, respectively.

In one instance, the National Science Foundation granted $324,000 for an undergraduate summer program at Old Dominion university in “disinformation” research. The two-month program, which will take place during the summer of 2023, offers students a $6,000 stipend, a $600 travel subsidy, housing, and meals as they learn about the “the rapidly growing research area of disinformation detection and analytics,” according to its website.

“Disinformation that spreads on the Web and social media isn’t just a nuisance, it causes real harm,” the flyer says. “Participants will develop essential STEM skills for studying disinformation.” 

An NSF spokesperson said the project’s goal is to “enable people to identify fake online identities,” sharing a blog from one of the main researchers on identifying fake Twitter accounts.

“The purpose of this Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site project is to give students experience working with technology to protect Internet security, which is why NSF’s Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) supported this award,” he stated.

The program was first hosted last year, when eight students were invited to conduct research for the summer on various topics, ranging from testing models that detect “COVID-related fake scientific news” to identifying fabricated tweets, according to an Old Dominion University news release.

One sample project listed on the website, “Spot bogus science stories and read news like a scientist,” instructs students that “public digital media can often mix factual information with fake scientific news.”

“In this project, students will investigate computational methods to automatically find evidence of scientific disinformation from a large collection of scientific publications,” the description reads. “The goal is to find an effective model to recommend the most relevant scientific articles that helps readers to better assess the credibility of scientific news, and locate the most relevant claims.”

The grant description adds that the knowledge students learn will prepare them for future “disinformation-related jobs.”

“Government attempts to suppress ‘misinformation’ are a serious threat to free speech,” Terr told the DCNF. “The government isn’t omniscient. It’s made up of people who, like everyone else, lack perfect access to the truth. Reality is messy, and human knowledge is constantly evolving. But that evolution can’t happen if we let the government have final say on what’s true or false. Nor should we trust the government to arbitrate truth in a fair and unbiased way. It will inevitably abuse that power to suppress criticism and dissent.”

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Here Are The Sexually Explicit Books Florida Is Working To Remove From Public Schools thumbnail

Here Are The Sexually Explicit Books Florida Is Working To Remove From Public Schools

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By The Daily Caller

  • Florida public school districts have removed over 100 books for containing content that is pornographic, violent or not age-appropriate, the Daily Caller News Foundation learned.
  • The books included “This Book is Gay,” “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It” and “It’s Perfectly Normal,” all of which include graphic references to sex.
  • Florida law requires librarians and media specialists to undergo training before selecting material that is age-appropriate, and it has a law prohibiting the distribution of pornographic material to minors.

Florida schools have removed more than 100 books that contain pornographic material during the 2022-2023 academic year in order to comply with state law, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

A survey of local school districts found that 153 of 175 books were removed the the district for including pornographic, violent or age-inappropriate content, according to a document obtained by the DCNF. The removed books included “This Book is Gay,” “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It” and “It’s Perfectly Normal,” all of which contain sexually explicit depictions according to snippets shared by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.

“This Book Is Gay” is described as an informational book about growing up in the LGBTQ+ community and includes a section about the “ins and outs of gay sex,” according to Sourcebooks. Taryn Feske, DeSantis’ communication director, shared a page from the book that defines sex terminology including “rimming,” “scat,” “scissor sisters” and “strap-on.”

Found in a Florida school:

“This Book is Gay”

Recommended age: tweens & teens.

Includes a glossary: pic.twitter.com/JVzZOl9Alr

— Taryn Fenske (@tarynfenske) February 15, 2023

Feske also shared pages from “Gender Queer,” an autobiography from author Maia Kobabe who uses e/em/eir pronouns, that depict two characters attempting oral sex by using a strap-on. The book also depicts the characters sexting, masturbating and tasting themselves.

“Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears,” the book description reads.

Found in multiple Florida schools:

“Gender Queer”

Book description: “an intensely cathartic autobiography following a journey of the mortification & confusion of crushes, bonding w/ friends over erotic gay fanfiction, & facing the trauma & fundamental violation of pap smears.” pic.twitter.com/zEvnLTT6kG

— Taryn Fenske (@tarynfenske) February 14, 2023

“Let’s Talk About It” includes an image of two people engaging in anal sex and a diagram of an anus, according to pages of the book shared to Twitter.

“When it comes to reproducing, the penis and the vagina can fit together to form the ultimate baby-making machine. Let’s take a peek right now and see how —” the book reads.

It also explains that “your genitals exist to let you feel pleasure with yourself or others (no matter which genitals they may have)” and promotes hookup culture.

“Sexual intimacy is a powerful way to feel good and bond with another person, whether it’s for a night or a lifetime,” the book reportedly reads.

Found in a Florida School:

“Let’s Talk About It”

From the book’s own description: “Covering relationships, friendships, gender, sexuality, anatomy, body image, safe sex, sexting, jealousy, rejection, sex education… the first in graphic novel form.” pic.twitter.com/aBTBieqHUj

— Bryan Griffin (@BryanDGriffin) February 14, 2023

“It’s Perfectly Normal,” advertised for children ages 10 and older, includes sections on masturbation, heterosexual and gay sex and all gender restrooms.

Found in a Florida school:

“It’s Perfectly Normal.”

The cover says that this book is appropriate for 10-year-old children. pic.twitter.com/BbyrTU8fZW

— Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) February 14, 2023

Only 23 districts out of 56 reported to remove books from the schools and a majority of books were removed from the schools’ media center and not classrooms. The number of books removed for having inappropriate content may be higher because 13% of reports did not include a specific reason for removal.

DeSantis signed legislation in March 2022 that requires school districts to be “transparent” about the material being taught in public schools. House Bill 1467 required those involved in selecting school library books to undergo training prepared by the state Department of Education beginning in January 2023 before selecting age-appropriate materials.

Florida law also prohibits distributing pornographic materials to minors under section 847.012, which reads that a person cannot distribute on school property “any picture, photograph, drawing, sculpture, motion picture film, videocassette, or similar visual representation or image of a person or portion of the human body which depicts nudity or sexual conduct” to minors.

Videos circulating on social media appeared to show empty book shelves at a Duval County public school, according to First Coast News. DeSantis challenged this video on Tuesday and said it was a “fake narrative.”

“That was not true,” DeSantis reportedly said, according to First Coast News. “This is trying to create some narrative as if that they hadn’t even put the books out yet to begin with. So there’s no need for all of that stuff. What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to act like somehow, you know, we don’t want books.”

Eighty-four percent of books removed from Duval County schools contained pornographic, violent or inappropriate content, according to data provided to the DCNF.

Tracy Pierce, Duval County Public Schools chief of marketing and public relations, confirmed to the DCNF the video was fake.

“Yes, this video is an outstanding example of deceptive and false narrative,” Pierce said. “The videographer took great care only to show a portion of the media center where books were removed. At that time, an extensive array of non-fiction books, biographies and reference materials remained in stock and accessible. In fact, well over half of the books in the library were still available to students.”

AUTHOR

ALEXA SCHWERHA

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

MAO-STYLE CULTURAL REVOLUTION: Roald Dahl Children’s Books Rewritten to Delete References to ‘Fat’ Characters, Add ‘Inclusive’ Gender Terms

‘Gender Queer’ and ‘The V-Word’: Republican AG Releases Report On ‘Sexually Explicit’ Children’s Books In Libraries

Is The University Of California System Becoming A Safe Space For Antisemitism?

School District Enlists ‘Black Lives Matter Task Force’ To Help Teach 7th Graders How They’re Implicitly Biased

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Democrat to Biden: Ignore Court Ruling against Abortion Pills. It’s What Abraham Lincoln Would Do. thumbnail

Democrat to Biden: Ignore Court Ruling against Abortion Pills. It’s What Abraham Lincoln Would Do.

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By Family Research Council

A prominent Democratic senator has urged the Biden administration to “ignore” a potential federal court ruling that could impose a nationwide ban on abortion pills, comparing the “right” to abortion with Abraham Lincoln’s efforts to free the slaves.

“In a few days, a lawless Trump-appointed judge in Texas is expected to ban access to the abortion medication Mifepristone nationwide,” tweeted Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Thursday. Mifepristone, with misoprostol, forms the two-drug regimen that causes a chemical abortion. “Today, I’m calling on the FDA to ignore the ruling and keep this life-saving drug on the market.”

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is expected to rule in a case filed last November by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) that argues the FDA approval of the drug in 2000 was illegal and invalid. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, formerly served as deputy general counsel at the pro-life First Liberty Institute.

Wyden’s tweet encapsulated a 22-minute Senate speech claiming a pro-life ruling against the abortion-inducing drug would be “frightening,” “illegitimate,” and “clearly part of an effort to backtrack on a century of progress for American women and deprive them of fundamental rights.”

“The power of the judiciary begins and ends with its legitimacy in the eyes of the public,” Wyden said. In fact, courts derive their authority from Article III of the U.S. Constitution. “I have raised my hand and taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I do not intend to dishonor that oath,” Wyden claimed during the speech.

Wyden went on to invoke Abraham Lincoln’s defiance of the Dred Scott case and likened abortion expansion to the abolitionist cause, since both allegedly deal with “the advancement of rights versus the deprivation of rights.”

“Not only have abortion activists placed abortion ideology ahead of sound healthcare, but now they are even calling on the government to ignore federal laws. Senator Wyden directly calling on the FDA to ignore federal court rulings hasn’t been seen since segregationist senators called on politicians to ignore Brown v. Board of Education in 1954,” Connor Semelsberger, director of Federal Affairs at the Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. Exhortations for Southern leaders to engage in “massive resistance” against federal desegregation orders motivated segregationists from Lester Maddox to Bull Connor. In his “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. criticized Alabama Governor George Wallace for having “lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification.”

Wyden’s conservative colleague, Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.), replied that Biden and “his team do not need encouragement to break the law to promote DIY abortions — they’re already doing it.”

In a few days, a lawless Trump-appointed judge in Texas is expected to ban access to the abortion medication Mifepristone nationwide.

Today, I’m calling on the FDA to ignore the ruling and keep this life-saving drug on the market. https://t.co/zglMI8EJUk

— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) February 16, 2023

ADF has asked Judge Kacsmaryk to vacate the FDA’s approval in 2000 and all successive rule changes, which could take mifepristone off all national pharmacy shelves as early as the end of this month. “The FDA never studied the safety of the drugs under the labeled conditions of use, ignored the potential impacts of the hormone-blocking regimen on the developing bodies of adolescent girls, disregarded the substantial evidence that chemical abortion drugs cause more complications than surgical abortions, and eliminated necessary safeguards for pregnant girls and women who undergo this dangerous drug regimen,” said ADF. (Family Research Council, the parent organization of The Washington Stand, submitted one of 15 friend-of-the-court briefs in the case.)

Wyden protested that a statute of limitations on FDA review expired decades ago and that Congress signed off of all FDA drug approvals in subsequent legislation.

The Biden administration’s FDA dismissed the lawsuit’s allegedly “speculative allegations of harm” from the pill. “The public interest would be dramatically harmed by effectively withdrawing from the marketplace a safe and effective drug,” the Biden administration argued.

The Biden administration also stated that holding the FDA accountable if it failed to observe proper drug approval protocol would undermine “the pharmaceutical-drug infrastructure.”

But pro-life physicians say the documented harms of chemical abortion are all too real. “I’ve performed at least a dozen surgeries on women who experienced complications when the abortion pill regimen failed, including one emergency surgery just last month,” said Dr. Ingrid Skop, director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

“The safety of chemical abortion is greatly exaggerated. The largest and best available U.S. data shows that abortion pill-related emergency room visits have skyrocketed more than 500%,” noted Dr. James Studnicki, who also works at CLI. “Many of those abortion pill-related complications are being miscoded as natural miscarriage, which masks the true impact of the abortion pill and also makes those women twice as likely to be admitted for surgery for retained” aborted fetal tissue.

A life-affirming legal decision would protect 40 million women from the potential side effects of chemical abortions, according to numbers published in an analysis from NARAL Pro-Choice America. “Without medication abortion using mifepristone, the share of U.S. counties with an abortion provider could drop from 10% to as low as 8% and access to abortion would be compromised — or possibly disappear altogether — in about one in five US counties that currently have an abortion provider,” according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.

The president reportedly fears the political fallout and his inability to impose his will independent of checks and balances. “White House officials are privately worried about the far-reaching implications if the FDA’s mifepristone approval is struck down and what they see as the limited options they have for responding,” reported Politico. The Biden administration plans to appeal any ruling that harms the abortion industry’s interests immediately and has considered declaring a national health emergency, although officials “don’t believe that declaring a public health emergency would provide meaningful new resources in this fight,” said Jennifer Klein, co-chair of Biden’s Gender Policy Council.

Absent any effective alternative, the Biden administration plans to launch “a messaging response” that “Republicans are determined to ban abortion everywhere,” Politico added.

“The insistent push from pro-abortion politicians for nationwide, no-appointment access to dangerous chemical abortion pills demonstrates just how little these politicians care about protecting women’s health,” Semelsberger concluded.

Judge Kacsmaryk has extended the case’s deadline until next Friday, February 24.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

FOX News Legal Filing: DOMINION Voting Systems Executives Including Eric Coomer Knew Its Voting Systems Had Major Security Issues, Was Hacked, and Was ‘Riddled with Bugs’ thumbnail

FOX News Legal Filing: DOMINION Voting Systems Executives Including Eric Coomer Knew Its Voting Systems Had Major Security Issues, Was Hacked, and Was ‘Riddled with Bugs’

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By The Geller Report

It hardly needs pointing out that these glitches and bugs always vote Democrat.

Editor note: This analysis is opinion. Dominion sues to silence. That, too, is opinion.

By: Joe Hoft, TPG, February 17, 2023:

Dominion Voting Systems is in big trouble after the filing by FOX News in its case with Dominion yesterday. FOX News uncovered through its discovery in the case that Dominion’s own employees expressed serious concerns about the security of its machines.

Dominion Voting Systems sued FOX News for $1.6 billion in a defamation lawsuit in March 2021. The AP reported on the suit in a very nasty and biased report.

The AP shared:

Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News on Friday, arguing the cable news giant falsely claimed in an effort to boost faltering ratings that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election.

The lawsuit is part of a growing body of legal action filed by the voting company and other targets of misleading, false and bizarre claims spread by President Donald Trump and his allies in the aftermath of Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden. Those claims helped spur on rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in a violent siege that left five people dead, including a police officer. The siege led to Trump’s historic second impeachment.

The AP included numerous falsities and biases in its report, so much so that it looked like it was written by Dominion.

Since the 2020 Election, there has been a concerted effort by the Mainstream media to protect the results of the election and label anyone or any entity who challenges the uncertifiable results of the 2020 results as an election denier.

On Thursday, FOX News filed a brief in this case with Dominion Voting Systems.  FOX News uncovered some material issues with Dominion and its voting systems.  These items were so serious that Dominion employees expressed concerns about these issues.

Discovery in this case revealed that Dominion’s own employees expressed serious concerns about the security of its machines. 

Mark Beckstrand, a Dominion Sales Manager, confirmed that other parties “have gotten ahold of [Dominion’s] equipment illicitly” in the past.  Beckstrand identified specific instances in Georgia and North Carolina and testified that a Dominion machine was “hacked” in Michigan.  Beckstrand confirmed that these security failures were “reported about in the news.”

On Thursday, FOX News filed a brief in this case with Dominion Voting Systems. FOX News uncovered some material issues with Dominion and its voting systems. These items were so serious that Dominion employees expressed concerns about these issues.

Discovery in this case revealed that Dominion’s own employees expressed serious concerns about the security of its machines.

And just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Dominion’s Director of Product Strategy and Security, Eric Coomer, acknowledged in private that “our shit is just riddled with bugs.”  Indeed, Coomer had been castigating Dominion’s failures for years. In 2019, Coomer noted that “our products suck.”  He lamented that “[a]lmost all” of Dominion’s technological failings were “due to our complete f— up in installation.”

In another instance, he identified a “*critical* bug leading to INCORRECT results.” Ex.H4, Coomer Email (Jan. 5, 2018). He went on to note: “It does not get much worse than that.” And while many companies might have resolved their errors, Coomer lamented that “we don’t address our weaknesses effectively!”

Click here to view Fox Lawsuit excerpt.

Other internal documents noted that a glitch identified by a security expert in Antrim County should be detected in the software. Coomer shared that the expert isn’t entirely wrong.

In addition, after the 2020 Election, Dominion received complaints from Georgia noting irregularities with machine counts that required employees to reprogram the machines.

Keep reading.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VINDICATED: Trump Victimized by Media thumbnail

VINDICATED: Trump Victimized by Media

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By Judicial Watch

Trump Vindicated: Media Elite Turn on “Russiagate” Coverage

Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, reviews in Investigative Bulletin the work of two distinguished journalists who look back at the terrible failure of the press that didn’t so much as report on President Trump as try to prosecute him.

The entire mad media Russia mess of the Trump presidency—the furious coverage of the salacious Steele Dossier, the Mueller special counsel probe, the presidential tweets and bombast, the FBI inquiries, Congressional inquiries, inspector general inquiries, the sinister suggestions of collusion and corruption, treason and betrayal, prostitutes and pay offs, the small fish hauled in and then tossed aside—Flynn, Page, Papadopoulos, Kilimnik, Manafort, Mifsud, Millian, Bannon, Stone—“which office do I go to, to get my reputation back,” former Labor Secretary Ray Donovan famously asked in an earlier scandal—the white-hot spectacle has faded from the news cycle. The circus has left town.

Years too late to have any real-time impact, it now appears that a reckoning has begun to arrive. Close observers of the media landscape may have noticed a shift when Bob Woodward, the most famous name in American journalism, began reminding readers of his opinion of the Steele Dossier. The dossier is the Rosetta Stone of Trump era reporting. Published to an immediate media frenzy in January 2017, the dossier was a compilation of grotesque rumors and allegations against the newly elected president—purportedly the work of a skilled Western intelligence asset, but in reality, as would emerge much later, the product of Trump’s political enemies.

In The Trump Tapes, an audio book of Trump-Woodward interviews published in November, Woodward repeatedly reminds Trump that he called the Steele Dossier a “garbage document” on Fox News as far back as 2017, and that Trump tweeted a thank you.

Woodward went further with his Washington Post colleagues, reports former New York Times investigative journalist Jeff Gerth in a monumental takedown of media coverage of Trump, “The Press Versus the President.” After the Fox News appearance, Woodward told Gerth in an interview, he “reached out to people who covered this” at the Post to express his concerns. Reporters at the Post ignored him, Woodward said. “To be honest, there was a lack of curiosity on the part of people at the Post about what I had said, why I said this.”

Gerth, like Woodward, is very much a figure of the media elite, a storied and widely respected investigative reporter. “The Press Versus the President” appears in a leading industry publication, the Columbia Journalism Review. Few news organizations “have reckoned seriously with what transpired between the press and the presidency,” Gerth writes. His 24,000 word, four part report, goes a long way to correcting the record. It likely will remain a landmark study of media malfeasance for decades to come.

Gerth focuses on the Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal—still the standard setters across the journalistic spectrum. At the root of the problem in the Trump era, Gerth writes, “was an undeclared war between an entrenched media and a new kind of disruptive presidency.”

Gerth sets important context for understanding this war. He notes that it was Hillary Clinton, not Trump, who began the campaign “facing scrutiny over Russia ties.” He details the financing and evolution of the Steele Dossier as a product of Clinton allies and hired guns, and the media’s long love affair (with a few notable dissents) with the document. He reminds us that the Steele Dossier exploded on to the media scene after Trump won the election but before he was inaugurated—setting in motion a chain of events that embittered the new president toward the press and touching off dreams of a new Watergate among legions of ambitious reporters. He gets the former president and others on the record in interviews that offer revealing glimpses into the psychological dynamics at work on both sides of the war.

The president-elect was blindsided by the Steele Dossier. “Trump, unaware of the coming tornado, including the most salacious contents of the dossier, set out to make peace with the press [after the election]. He made the rounds of news organizations, meeting with broadcast anchors, editors at Conde Nast, magazines, and the Times.” At the end of the Times meeting, Gerth notes, he called the paper a “world jewel” and added, “I hope we can get along.”

After the emergence of the Steele Dossier and a tsunami of Russia-related stories, the new president abandoned hope of getting along the media. “I realized early on I had two jobs,” Trump told Gerth in an interview after he left the presidency. “The first was to run the country, and the second was survival. I had to survive: the stories were unbelievably fake.”

Fake—but deadly serious. A special counsel probe, led by Robert Mueller, was quickly triggered and Congress began to investigate. The Mueller probe loomed over Trump for two years—a mortal threat to his presidency. The probe, Gerth notes, “issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, interviewed 500 witnesses, and generated enormous interest. There were 533,000 news articles published involving Russia and Trump or Mueller…. The articles led to 245 million interactions on social media.”

In the end, Trump was cleared of wrongdoing. In a lengthy report, Mueller wrote: “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”

No collusion. No conspiracy. Trump tweeted that the Mueller Report was a “complete and total exoneration.” But the media did not quit—or for the most part even pause for reflection.

The Mueller Report noted “multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government,” and ten episodes of possible obstruction of justice. Gerth notes that “the media, having already learned there was no overarching conspiracy, fleshed out the new details, including the more than hundred ‘links’cited by Mueller.”

Gerth is perhaps at his best examining these small fish and their fate at the hands of the FBI, Mueller, and the media. One example is Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukrainian political consultant tied to former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort. The Mueller Report, Gerth notes, said the FBI assessed Kilimnik “to have ties to Russian intelligence.” Manafort met with Kilimnik in August 2016 and shared campaign polling data with him. Sharing polling data apparently is a serious crime to the FBI—or so Mueller’s prosecutors believed. A later Senate Intelligence Committee Report called the Manafort-Kilimnik meeting as the “single most important direct tie” between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence.

“But the evidence of Kilimnik’s Kremlin ties is far from certain,” Gerth notes. The “only known official inquiry, by Ukraine in 2016, didn’t result in charges. And some recently surfaced documents suggest that Kilimnik in fact was a “sensitive source” for the U.S. State Department.

Other once-promising villains in the media narrative of Trumpian wrongdoing, including Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and Michael Flynn, get similar treatment from Gerth. And he offers a sharp analysis of what went wrong between the press and the president.

His main conclusion? Journalism’s “primary missions” of “informing the public and holding powerful interests accountable” have been undermined by an “erosion of journalistic norms and the media’s own lack of transparency about its work.” The U.S. media failed “to report facts that ran counter to prevailing narrative;” failed to seek comments from people who were “the subject of serious criticism;” failed to put reasonable limits on the use of anonymous sources; and failed to take a close look at their own behavior and motives.

And what of the president himself? The media’s failings were many, but Gerth also suggests that Trump’s towering self-confidence and love of showmanship contributed to his poisoned relationship with the press.

“At times,” Gerth notes, “Trump seemed to be almost toying with the press, offering spontaneous answers to questions about Russia that seemed to point to darker narratives.”

“I’ll often sit down with hostile press,” Trump told Gerth, “just to see if it’s possible to get them to write the truth. It almost never works.”

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D.C. Schools Set to Push CRT, Anti-Americanism, Leftist Propaganda

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EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Northern Border Agents Were Asked To Deploy To Florida Due To Massive Illegal Migrant Surge thumbnail

Northern Border Agents Were Asked To Deploy To Florida Due To Massive Illegal Migrant Surge

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By The Daily Caller

Agents patrolling the northern border were asked to deploy to Florida due to a large surge in illegal migrants in recent months, National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told the Daily Caller News Foundation Friday.

The Miami sector has seen increasing flows of illegal migrants with a surge of hundreds of them reaching the Florida coast in a matter of days in early January, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than 1,300 migrant encounters. For the last few months, agents stationed along the northern border have been dealing with their own migrant surge and deployments to address another surge at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“While the southwest border with Mexico continues to be the most problematic area for border security, Biden has made it possible for people and cartels to exploit weakness on all our borders including our coastal borders and northern border. Robbing Peter to pay Paul by moving resources from one area to another is, and has never been the answer, while it might help one area, it weakens the area the agents vacated. This Administration has proven it has little ability and care to protect our borders thereby safeguarding US Citizens,” Judd told the DCNF.

#BreakingNews @USCGSoutheast reports that all remaining migrants on @DryTortugasNPS, an #updated total of 337 migrants (not including the 90 migrants previously removed by @USCG), were removed from the island & are onboard a @USCG cutter for transfer to Key West, tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/2t8c0Mu4XU

— Homeland Security Task Force – Southeast (HSTF-SE) (@HSTF_Southeast) January 5, 2023

Border Patrol agents stationed along the U.S.-Canadian border, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak, confirmed to the DCNF that they were asked to volunteer.

“What’s next?” one of the agents told the DCNF. “We’re all being stretched pretty thin.”

“The situation in Florida isn’t uncommon. However, it wasn’t consistent as it has appeared to be recently. Once the boats started showing up consistently, and with hundreds of apprehensions per vessel, the need for additional agents brought about the requests for agents who wanted to volunteer to deploy down to Miami Sector,” a second northern border agent told the DCNF.

The situation has also led Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to send in additional state resources, including the National Guard, and declare an emergency. In one instance, two cruise ships in the area came to the rescue.

CBP told the DCNF that it had deployed additional resources to address Florida’s influx of illegal migrants.

“Due to maritime migrant fluctuations in Florida, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has deployed additional Border Patrol and Air and Marine Agents to the south Florida area of operations. These additional resources along with our integrated collaboration with our federal, state, and key stakeholders, allows for a rapid and efficient response to any increase in migratory flows. CBP seeks to deter and disrupt human smuggling activities by transnational criminal organizations and ensure our personnel are properly equipped to maintain border security,” a CBP spokesperson said.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: American Dissatisfaction With Immigration Levels Increases As Border Crisis Continues: POLL

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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CBO: Interest on Debt to Triple by 2033, Surpass Defense Spending by 2028 thumbnail

CBO: Interest on Debt to Triple by 2033, Surpass Defense Spending by 2028

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By Family Research Council

Here’s one ballooning problem the military can’t simply knock out of the sky: net interest payments on the U.S. government’s debt are projected to triple over the next 10 years, totaling 300% of 2022 outlays in 2033, according to a new report published this week by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

According to CBO projections, interest on the debt (which claimed 7.5% of federal government spending in 2022) will rise sharply to 10.3% of spending in 2023 and then continue rising steadily, surpassing defense spending (11.9% of spending in 2022) in 2028 and reaching 14.4% of spending by 2033.

This bad news on rising interest costs comes amid another, short-term crisis regarding the debt ceiling. The U.S. government hit its statutory debt limit of $31.4 trillion on January 19 of this year. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has resorted to “extraordinary measures” to “borrow additional funds without breaching the debt ceiling,” the CBO explained, but they estimate that “the Treasury would exhaust those measures and run out of cash sometime between July and September of this year” unless Congress acts to raise the debt ceiling. For every penny Congress raises the debt ceiling, it will only aggravate the interest problem more.

The increase in net interest payments has two primary causes: interest rates and deficit spending.

First, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes to fight inflation contribute to higher interest rates the U.S. must pay on preexisting debt, with a small lag in time. The Federal Reserve has raised the federal funds interest rate eight times in the past 12 months, from a targetrange between 0.25%-0.00% in January 2022 to a range between 4.50%-4.25% today.

“Net outlays for interest, which rose by 35 percent last year, are projected to increase by 35 percent again this year,” said the CBO. “The projected increase in 2023 occurs primarily because the average interest rate that the Treasury pays on its debt has risen sharply this year and is expected to rise further as maturing securities are refinanced at rates that are higher than those that prevailed when they were initially issued. For example, the interest rate on 10-year Treasury notes averaged 1.3 percent in 2021 and 2.4 percent in 2022; that rate averages 3.8 percent in 2023 in CBO’s current economic forecast.”

Second, continued deficit spending increases the volume of debt on which the U.S. government must pay interest. (To clarify, “debt” is the total, cumulative amount owed, while “deficit” is the difference between expenditures and revenues over a given period of time.) “Debt held by the public (in nominal terms) is on track to increase by 6 percent from 2022 to 2023,” said the CBO, which “projects a federal budget deficit of $1.4 trillion for 2023.”

In fact, the CBO projects the federal government will run an annual deficit of $1.4 trillion-$2.8 trillion (amounting to 5.4%-7.3% of estimated Gross Domestic Product [GDP]) for every year, 2023-2033. In their February report, the CBO added 20% to their projected deficit over the next 10 years, due to changing economic and legislative factors.

Assuming that “current laws governing taxes and spending generally remained unchanged,” CBO projects that “federal debt held by the public is projected to increase in each year of the projection period and to reach 118 percent of GDP in 2033 — higher than it has ever been.”

Rising interest payments will only exacerbate the U.S. government’s budget shortfalls. According to the CBO project, the percentage of the budget devoted to paying interest will nearly double from 2022-2033. Other slices of the pie must get smaller as a result. But, as Figure 1 shows, the decreases won’t come from mandatory spending (it’s mandatory, after all), which is already a majority of federal spending. Instead, the increasing interest payments mean a smaller slice of the pie is left over for discretionary spending — including a vital subset, defense spending. The CBO estimates that defense spending will decline from 13.2% of federal expenditures in 2024 to 11.1% in 2033 (with nondefense spending declining proportionally), as interest payments increase from 11.5% to 14.4% over the same period.

VIEW: Figure 1: CBO Projection – Spending by Category (in Pct.)

Of course, one often overlooked feature of the spending “pie” analogy is that the pie can grow in size — through either expanding revenues or assuming additional debt. As Figure 2 makes clear, the CBO doesn’t predict that discretionary spending — either for defense or nondefense purposes will shrink in absolute terms. Rather, it will grow more slowly than interest payments, mandatory spending (mostly Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare), and by implication, the whole economy as well.

VIEW: Figure 2: CBO Projection – Spending by Category (in $Billions)

One major asterisk to CBO estimates is their assumption that “current laws governing taxes and spending generally remained unchanged.” There’s nothing wrong with projecting from that assumption — it’s their job at the Congressional Budget Office, actually. But a lot can change over 10 years. For one thing, “forecasting interest rates is particularly challenging,” the CBO admitted in 2020. Three presidential elections and two midterm elections give plenty of time for political coalitions to change “current laws.”

It’s not implausible that America might experience a recession, or even two, over a 10-year period; this, too, could radically alter taxation and spending priorities. Foreign events may also interject themselves; a foreign conflict with, say, China could substantially increase military spending. All these plausible variables could dramatically alter the shape of actual government spending, 10 years down the road.

What the CBO projection can tell us is that our current policies are needlessly backing us into a corner. Just paying the interest on our current national debt will cost more and more, and the government continues to overspend its revenues to the tune of trillions (with a “T”) per year. Meanwhile, the CBO predicts mandatory spending will increase by 60% from 2023 to 2033, primarily due to the population aging into Social Security benefits. The combined pressure of these factors will reduce the federal government’s freedom to spend discretionary funds (on everything else), trimming them from 26.5% of total spending in 2022 (and somehow 29.1% in 2024) to 23.9% of total spending in 2033.

If the CBO’s projection is accurate, when Congress gets around to allocating funds in 2033, they will have less than a quarter to work with out of every dollar that they spend. That quarter must cover all discretionary spending, including defense spending.

Net interest payments are far from the most expensive category of federal spending, as Figures 1 and 2 illustrate, so why do they matter so much? One reason is that they perpetuate the deficit spiral. The CBO called the “net interest outlays increase … a major contributor to the growth of total deficits.” These deficits add to the debt, which then increases the interest the U.S. government must pay even further.

Another reason is the irresponsible folly it implies. The U.S. government is in the situation of a person who has gotten up to their eyeballs in credit card debt. Yet the government not only continues to finance purchases with credit, but only ever pays the interest that comes due, and never pays down the ever-growing principal. Sooner or later, those chickens will come home to roost, and, when they do, everything will smell like chicken houses.

A third reason to worry about the growing interest payments is that it complicates the math for any plan to reach a balanced budget. “Opportunities to trim costs are limited, with only about one-third of federal spending labeled as discretionary,” wrote analysts at The Wall Street Journal. Those opportunities shrink further as discretionary spending is crowded out by interest payments.

A fourth, and related, reason is it leaves us less prepared for any crisis. Apart from possible military crises, the CBO forecasted last month that Social Security will become insolvent in 2033, 10 years away. Analysists have recognized for decades that the entitlements time bomb is most likely to kill us when it finally detonates, but America lacks the political will to address that issue yet.

Still, the U.S. government can be better or worse prepared when that time comes. Our best escape route is to free up some funds to deal with the ultimate insolvency of Social Security. Instead, we continue to spend money we don’t have. It’s as if we are trapped in a corral with a deadly bull lying fast asleep. We could choose to flee before the bull awakes. Yet America has not only remained in the ring, but we have backed ourselves into a corner, limiting our chances to dodge its gory horns. And, on top of that, we occupy ourselves by stringing barbed wire across our best escape route. When the bull finally awakes, we will deserve all the consequences of our folly.

If America’s fiscal situation is dangerous, even desperate, why haven’t we confronted our fiscal irresponsibility yet? One reason is that historically depressed interest rates kept legislators from feeling the consequences of their actions. For 11 out 14 years from 2008-2020, the federal funds effective rate lay under 1% (and most of that time it was under 0.2%). In 2015, the interest rate on a three-month Treasury bill, which averaged almost 5% in 2007, had dropped to 0.03%. This created an era of cheap debt, where Congress could overspend with hardly any consequences. Now, as interest rates rise, as we always knew they would, the U.S. government not only has to shoulder an interest burden to which it is unaccustomed, but it has also lost the habit — or even the façade — of fiscal restraint.

According to the latest CBO report, 2028 represents a shocking threshold: the year when the U.S. government will have to spend more paying the interest on our $31.4 trillion of debt than it will spend on national defense. Whether we reach this landmark a few years early or late, the point is that our profligate legislature is spending our country into a pointless crisis.

Just as no one wants to be the team down by three touchdowns at the two-minute warning, no country should willingly bury itself under so much debt that it’s mathematically impossible to escape. Alas, the only similarity between wisdom and Washington is that both begin with “W.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Rubio Bill Would Restrict Gender-Confused from Military Service thumbnail

Rubio Bill Would Restrict Gender-Confused from Military Service

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By Family Research Council

On Thursday, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced legislation that would prevent individuals who identify as transgender or who have gender dysphoria from serving in the military, with some exceptions. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) introduced companion legislation in the House. The lawmakers have emphasized that the bill’s purpose is to help the Pentagon stay focused on “military readiness” and not on complications that ensue from gender confusion in the ranks.

“The military has strict standards for who can and cannot qualify to serve,” said Rubio in a press release. “For example, under President Biden, you can’t serve with a peanut allergy. Biden has turned our military into a woke social experiment. It is a stupid way to go about protecting our nation. We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter threats like China, Russia, and North Korea and less time thinking about pronouns.”

The Ensuring Military Readiness Act would build on the requirements that former President Trump issued in 2018 that barred those with gender dysphoria or who were undergoing gender transition procedures from enlisting. Five days into his presidency, Biden rescinded the order. Rubio’s bill would restore the Trump-era regulations by restricting those who actively identify as transgender, who seek or have already undergone gender reassignment surgery, or who have a history or have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

Exceptions to the rule for troops with a history gender dysphoria include those who have been stable in their biological sex for 36 months prior to joining and those who are already serving and remain deployable according to the standards of their biological sex (who may receive medically necessary treatment, which would exclude transition surgery and hormone therapy).

Banks identified the need for the military to uphold its medical standards in order to ensure battle readiness.

“Americans who were treated for ADHD in the past two years must receive a waiver to enlist,” said Banks. “Our military holds recruits to stringent medical standards for a reason and the Biden administration’s special carveout for those suffering from gender dysphoria was purely political. Our bill ensures that [the] DOD puts lethality and readiness before far-left ideology.”

Research shows that allowing individuals who actively identify as transgender and who demand medical treatments such as gender transitions surgeries and hormone treatments to serve in the military could cost anywhere between $1.9 and $3.7 billion in taxpayer funds over 10 years.

In 2018, the Department of Defense released recommendations for why barring transgender-identifying individuals from the military was necessary. They cited mental health concerns, including high rates of anxiety, depression, substance use disorders, suicide ideation, attempts, and completion. They also noted that “Service members with gender dysphoria are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than Service members as a whole” and “nine times more likely to have mental health encounters.”

The DOD further emphasized physical health concerns, including the fact that combat deployments anywhere in the world are often part of military service without the expectation of specialized medical care, which is required for gender transition procedures. Also cited was the concern over duty limitations that gender transition procedures would cause. Research indicates that these procedures could cause troops to be nondeployable anywhere from 111 to 135 days.

Other issues highlighted by the DOD include the private spaces of one sex, such as bathroom and shower facilities, being open to the opposite sex, which the department argues would undermine the “reasonable expectations of privacy” that both sexes have. Additionally, the department pointed to problems that could arise from trans-identifying individuals of both sexes being held to the opposite military physical standards of their biological sex.

The DOD concluded that “exempting such persons for well-established mental health, physical health, and sex-based standards, which apply to all Service members, could undermine readiness, disrupt unit cohesion, and impose an unreasonable burden on the military that is not conducive to military effectiveness and lethality.”

Military experts are voicing similar concerns over the prospect of transgender-identifying individuals serving in the armed forces, particularly with the current global challenges facing U.S. troops.

“Senator Rubio’s efforts to deal with the issue of transgender-identifying individuals in the military are to be lauded,” said Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William G. Boykin, who serves as executive vice president of Family Research Council. “The senator clearly understands that at a time when China is flying surveillance platforms into our airspace and becoming more and more belligerent and provocative that our precious dollars and time need to go into preparing our military for war. The notion that we can continue prioritizing making our military more ‘woke’ is a specious notion.”

“Every decision made by the president and Congress regarding our military should be made with the readiness of our military in mind,” Boykin concluded. “What the senator is proposing would set us on a pathway to spend our time and money preparing for war with not only China but other adversaries that loom on the horizon.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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