Biden Administration Issues Mass Release Policy; Florida District Court Stops It thumbnail

Biden Administration Issues Mass Release Policy; Florida District Court Stops It

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By Federation for American Immigration Reform

Just hours before the end of Title 42, the District Court for the Northern District of Florida issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) halting the implementation of the Biden Administration’s mass release policy issued by the Border Patrol only one day earlier.

The new policy, which the Border Patrol dubbed “parole with conditions,” authorized agents to release aliens who have illegally crossed the southern border through parole before they are given a Notice to Appear (NTA) in immigration court.  Issuing that NTA to illegal aliens is extremely important because it officially places them in deportation proceedings.  However, the new policy authorized border agents to parole illegal aliens and release them into the U.S. with only a promise that, within 60 days, the alien would self-report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office to receive an NTA, or use an online portal to request that ICE send them an NTA through the mail.

Through the new policy, the Administration was clearly seeking to bypass federal law that requires detention of illegal aliens arriving at the southern border and to bypass the restrictions set forth in the parole statute, which allows parole only to be given on a case-by-case basis.  Reports swirled that the Border Patrol simply planned to release illegal aliens on the streets of border communities when Border Patrol stations and NGO shelters were full.

Less than 24 hours after the Biden Administration issued the policy, the State of Florida sought to stop it.  On Thursday morning, Florida’s Attorney General filed a complaint in federal district court arguing that the new “parole with conditions” policy is not only contrary to federal law, but also violates that same Court’s decision vacating a similar parole policy issued by the Biden Administration.  Florida’s complaint asked the Court to declare the new policy unlawful and enjoin Homeland Security from enforcing or implementing it.

Federal Judge Wetherell agreed with Florida and issued the temporary restraining order.  Judge Wetherell indeed found that the Border Patrol’s new mass release policy, called “parole with conditions” was functionally indistinguishable from the Border Patrol’s prior “parole + alternatives to detention” policy, which the same District Court determined was issued in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).  The District Court rejected the Biden Administration’s claim that the new policy was not subject to the APA due to the crisis and need for urgent action.  Instead, the Court pointed out that the Administration’s parole with conditions policy memo “does not explain how this surge was unexpected or why DHS waited until the day before the Title 42 Order was scheduled to end before issuing the new parole policy.”

Judge Wetherell ordered that the TRO would expire in 14 days and scheduled another hearing on May 19 to determine whether the TRO should be converted into a preliminary injunction.  Until any further action in court, the Biden Administration must now process illegal aliens entering through the southern border in accordance with existing statutes and regulations issued under Title 8 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

The Biden Administration criticized Judge Wetherell’s decision to issue the TRO. “This is a harmful ruling that will result in unsafe overcrowding at CBP facilities and undercut our ability to efficiently process and remove migrants, and risks creating dangerous conditions for Border Patrol agents and migrants,” said a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statement released in response to the order.

AUTHOR

FAIR Staff

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RELATED TWEET:

EXCLUSIVE: An improvised explosive device bound for the U.S. was intercepted at an Arizona port of entry.

The improvised explosive device was intercepted during secondary inspection by CBP officers at the Douglas, Arizona POE on May 6th.

The IED was made using an M&M container… pic.twitter.com/P7E9tdxrU3

— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) May 11, 2023

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

The Threat Behind Biden’s Latest Lie About the ‘White Supremacist Terror Threat’ thumbnail

The Threat Behind Biden’s Latest Lie About the ‘White Supremacist Terror Threat’

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By The Geller Report

Old Joe Biden gave the commencement address at Howard University on Saturday, and as he has done so many times during his presidency, he stoked the flames of racial hatred, resentment, division, and mutual suspicion. That’s par for the course for this conscience-free, senescent corruptocrat, but his words at Howard had an ominous edge that all Americans should not fail to discern.

Biden wasn’t just lying, as he always does. He was signaling the future plans of his regime.

Biden at Howard Univ.: “The most dangerous threat to our homeland is white supremacy … and I’m not just saying this because I’m at a black HBCU.” pic.twitter.com/WhwoSvlyN7

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 13, 2023

Biden repeated his frequently repeated lie that Donald Trump had called Nazis “fine people,” and also said: “But on the best days, enough of us have the guts and the hearts to st- — to stand up for the best in us. To choose love over hate, unity over disunion, progress over retreat.  To stand up against the poison of white supremacy, as I did in my Inaugural Address — to single it out as the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy. And I’m not saying this because I’m at a black HBCU.  I say it wherever I go.”

What’s a “Black HBCU,” Joe? “HBCU” stands for “Historically black colleges and universities,” so our alleged president, who is sharp as a tack and not at all in the throes of advanced dementia, was saying that he was speaking at a “black historically black college and university.” This ridiculous phrase could be the result of Joe’s speechwriter making lazy use of the acronym, but it’s more likely that Biden was going off-script and saying something incoherent. Again.

Old Joe lied yet again when he said that he repeats the lie that white supremacists constitute the nation’s biggest terror threat everywhere he goes, but he has indeed said it before. And not just Biden, but also Gestapo chief Merrick Garland, and the FBI have told us so, and they wouldn’t lie to us, now, would they? In November 2021, FBI and Homeland Security Department officials increased investigations of “domestic extremists,” reiterating the claim that they are today’s foremost terror threat. Yet no matter how often Biden and his henchmen repeat this, actual white supremacist terrorists in any significant numbers have been conspicuously lacking.

Ever so conveniently for Biden, no sooner had he uttered this false claim again at Howard on Saturday than a couple of hundred actual white supremacist terrorists miraculously materialized in Washington. All were young, physically fit men; not a single fat Nazi in the bunch. All wore the same blue shirt and khaki pants uniform, all with their faces covered, and once again, the feds showed no curiosity about who they are and made no attempt to determine where they came from or where they went. This clumsy false-flag operation was widely exposed and ridiculed on Twitter, but conservative writer Chris Brunet pointed out: “What’s sad about this clip is that everyone here on my side of Twitter instantly knows this is a glowie/fed operation… pure theatre. But it is actually a really effective psyop, they keep doing it, because it works. Ask any normal person on the street, ask your mom, ask your sister, and they will be terrified of this clip and fall for it hook-line-and-sinker.”

The FBI has also been busy fashioning a white supremacist threat in other ways. Whistleblowers have revealed that Old Joe’s pure-as-the-driven-snow FBI has been hard at work pressuring agents to classify cases as “domestic violent extremism” (DVE) when they aren’t, and rewarding them when they do. That’s how you create a white supremacist terror threat.

This revelation came last year in a letter that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent to FBI top dog Christopher Wray. Jordan stated that “from recent protected disclosures, we have learned that FBI officials are pressuring agents to reclassify cases as ‘domestic violent extremism’ even if the cases do not meet the criteria for such a classification.” This was no surprise. This is, after all, the same FBI that investigated angry parents who protested at school board meetings against the imposition of the woke agenda in public schools.

That’s the threat that was contained in Old Joe’s words at Howard. Old Joe said it plainly last September in his ominous red and black speech: “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” The parents at the school board meetings were just the beginning. This regime aims to criminalize political dissent, and that will require demonizing and stigmatizing fully half of the electorate. Before too long it will be clear that when Biden claims that white supremacists are the biggest terror threat the nation faces, he means ordinary Americans who have never broken any law but who oppose his agenda. If everyone who opposes him is a white supremacist terrorist, then the nation has over a hundred million of them. Arrests and prosecutions on false pretenses will follow. That’s the threat that was contained in his words at Howard.

AUTHOR

Robert Spencer

RELATED VIDEO: Joe Biden giving the eulogy for KKK Exalted Cyclops, Senator Robert Byrd

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

America Must Not Just Survive, She Must Thrive! thumbnail

America Must Not Just Survive, She Must Thrive!

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By Dr. Rich Swier

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” ― John F. Kennedy, remarks on the 20th Anniversary of Voice of America on February 26, 1962.

Sadly, today its Mourning in America.

President Donald J. Trump’s campaign released a new anti-Biden/pro-American ad titled “Mourning in America,” which pays homage to the iconic “Morning in America“ ad by President Ronald Reagan. The ad depicts the suffering felt by average Americans under President Joe Biden, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, ongoing inflation, an illegal alien surge at the southern border, transgender athletes competing in female sports and much more.

The new ad begins with these prophetic words, “It’s mourning again in America. And thanks to Joe Biden, our borders are now wide open for all to come. Why would we ever accept the incompetence and weakness of Biden when we could have the freedom, security, and economic prosperity we enjoyed just three years ago?”

WATCH: Mourning in America

Today America is Barely Surviving

Mark Twain wrote, “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

Today we have seen the native American criminal class expanded to include: the White House, first family, FBI, CIA, DOJ, DOD, DHS, and every other federal, state and local agency. From the school house to the White House we are witnessing an America where we the people have been, via public policy, put into the survival mode by the Nuevo Elected Criminal Class (NECC).

Today Americans can’t afford food, clothing, gasoline or a new car. Many can’t afford to buy a home in places like California and in the big metropolitan areas like Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, New York City and Detroit. Many newly graduated students find it difficult to rent an apartment to just live freely and pursue their chosen career and happiness. Today Americans are pursuing ways to survive until, hopefully, the NECC is drained from the swamp.

What is the swamp? It is a system of governance that wants power, absolute power.

In his dystopian novel 1984 George wrote, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

People are living in fear. Fear of losing their job because they used the wrong personal pronoun. Fear of speaking out on social media. Fear of being labeled a domestic terrorist for telling the truth. Fear of being white, straight, Christian, Jew and because they stand up for the American flag with their hand over their heart and pledge allegiance to it. Patriots are now the enemy of the state.

Patriotic citizens fear their governments at every level from the local school boards to the halls of Congress, to the U.S. Supreme Court and finally to the White House.

We now live in a time when our government is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market. We now are ruled by a government that is afraid of its own people.

Americans are now not just barely surviving, and not thriving. Americans are now living in fear.

This is why there is “mourning” in America.

Make America Thrive Again

President John F. Kennedy said, “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”

Since the inauguration of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. there have been numerous persistent, persuasive and unrealistic myths that have led to and caused the decline in America’s prosperity and with it the ability of Americans to thrive.

These persistent, persuasive and unrealistic policies include:

  1. Mankind must control the climate in order to save the planet. This myth has lead to the Green New Deal and efforts to reduce the carbon, CO2, levels. This myth has lead to mandating the use of all electric vehicles, stopping efforts to drill for fossil fuels in America, importation of oil from foreign nations and even an attack on appliances such as stoves which use natural gas, a very clean form of energy. This myth has been totally debunked by a recent study titled World Atmospheric CO2, Its 14C Specific Activity, Non-Fossil component, Anthropogenic Fossil Component, and Emissions (1750–2018) which stated, “Our results show that the percentage of the total CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming.” This lead to our asking: How many U.S. Soldiers lives will be needlessly lost after our military converts to an all Electric Military Fleet of Land Vehicles (EVMLVs)?
  2. People can choose their gender. This myth was created by the LGBTQIE+ community to educate, encourage, promote and recruit underaged children to become partners for adult sodomites. This agenda has gone on warp speed since the inauguration of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., who prides himself, no pun intended, on furthering the queering of every aspect of American life. Today using the wrong pronoun can get you fired, harassed, assaulted and even killed. Gender-Queer is becoming the new norm. Recently a ‘Gender Queer’  school counselor was arrested for grooming and assaulting a child. Zobella Brazil Vinik, a 29-year-old woman who identifies as trans reportedly groomed and molested a 15-year-old female student. Companies like Anheuser-Bush, Google, Disney Corporation have embraced sodomy, promoted sodomites and have lost billions of dollars doing so.
  3. All whites, and blacks who love white people, are racists. This myth began with the Black Panthers, Nation of Islam and now the Black Lives Matter movements. The Critical Race Theory (CRT) myth is promoted in our schools from Kindergarten to our colleges and universities. It, along with the New York Times’ 1619 Project, have lead to the myth that we should judge people by the color of their skins, not by the content of their characters. This has lead to convicted felons like George Floyd being idolized and statues of American leaders torn down, like Abraham Lincoln. Even the Department of Defense has fully embraced CRT and put into practice at every military academy, it is taught to new recruits and in various officers courses. Even military bases are being renamed to embrace the myths in CRT.
  4. Communism lead to Utopia Myth. This myth is the ongoing war against capitalism. It has not stopped despite the fall of the former Soviet Union. It is being embraced as a panacea when in fact it is a pariah. Communism kills. It kills families, cultures and eventually individuals by the tens of millions.
  5. Bigger government, more spending and taxation lead to equal outcomes myth. We now have Americans paying more taxes and the federal government spending more not to help we the people but rather to help other nation states and causes that are disturbingly anti-American. This has led to the largest national debt in U.S. history. It seems that neither pollical party has the will to stop the spending and reduce the debt on this and future generations.
  6. Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) myths. The policies driven by DIE are harming American workers and forcing companies to turn their attention away from serving their customers to complying with government ESG scores. DIE is now more important than equal protection under the law. DIE is a law unto itself that destroys the prosperity and ideal of America being a melting pot made up of all races, colors and creeds working toward making America a great and prosperous nation.

The above list is just the tip of the iceberg. We have not listed how non-profits, corporations, churches, synagogues, Mosques and many of the 20 political parties in the U.S. are harming our ability to thrive.

The 2024 presidential election takes on greater importance that any previous election. We as a nation will either continue down the narrow street to survival, or we get on the pathway back to prosperity and a thriving United States of America.

As JFK asked, “If not us, who? If not now, when?”

Choose wisely. Your, your children and grandchildren’s futures depend on it.

©2023 Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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WATCH: “Morning in America” – by Ronald Reagan

‘Cannot Control The Movement Of People’: Mayorkas Refuses To Say Whether Border Crisis Could Have Been Avoided thumbnail

‘Cannot Control The Movement Of People’: Mayorkas Refuses To Say Whether Border Crisis Could Have Been Avoided

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By The Daily Caller

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas refused to say Friday whether the crisis on the border could have been prevented.

“We cannot control the movement of people before they reach our border,” Mayorkas told “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos. “Our responsibility attaches once they are in our custody.”

Mayorkas predicted during testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee at an April 18 hearing that there would be a surge of migrants after Title 42 expired. The Trump-era border policy expired Thursday at 11:59 p.m.

Mayorkas has claimed that the border is not open on multiple occasions, including during a Wednesday press conference where he ignored questions from Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter Jennie Taer.

WATCH:

Over 1.2 million illegal immigrants have been encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border during fiscal year 2023, according to data released by United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), following 2,378,944 encounters in fiscal year 2022 and 1,734,686 in fiscal year 2021, while Fox News reported that 600,000 migrants evaded CBP in fiscal year 2022.

The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained documents detailing the Biden administration’s plans to allow illegal immigrants to be released on “parole with conditions” without any means to track them or giving them court dates. U.S. District Judge Kent Wetherell halted the Biden administration’s proposed “quick release” program Thursday, following a lawsuit by Republican officials in Florida.

Taer said during a Thursday appearance on Newsmax that word of mouth from migrants entering the United States was encouraging other illegal immigrants to come, despite Mayorkas’ statements to the public.

“Migrants are coming across, they’re getting released and they’re telling their families that are south of the border that that’s happening and that’s really the message, I think, that’s resonating with migrants,” Taer said.

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Progressive Do-Gooder: This Is Not Our Country

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Biden nominee says she supports spending 150 million of US tax payer dollars to build a border wall for Jordan because walls are important in securing nations.

pic.twitter.com/eplJEHN1DU

— Redneck Azn (@LMFireSystems1) May 12, 2023

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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.

Interior Secretary: ‘The Monstrous Administrative State Killing Self-Government Must Be Stopped’ thumbnail

Interior Secretary: ‘The Monstrous Administrative State Killing Self-Government Must Be Stopped’

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By The Geller Report

News sites like Geller Report have warned of the subversive take-over from within in our most powerful government agencies.

David Bernhardt has written a screed against the burgeoning administrative state built on his firsthand experience as a Beltway insider.

By: Tristan Justice, The Federalist. May 8, 2023:

A new book out Tuesday lifts the curtain on what the modern administrative state has become: a bureaucratic leviathan undermining representative systems of government — and it needs to be reined in.

After a long career in civil service that includes stints under the last two Republican presidents, former Trump Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has written a screed against the burgeoning administrative state from his firsthand experience as a Beltway insider. The book, titled You Report to Me: Accountability for the Failing Administrative State, is both an expose of the swamp-style tactics leveraged to stifle the agenda of democratically elected leaders and a guide to confront the weaponization of the federal bureaucracy.

In a Monday interview with The Federalist, Bernhardt pointed to the “lionization” of “the resistance” within federal agencies following the triumphant 2016 election of President Donald Trump as an inflection point in the administrative state subverting the will of American voters.

“My concern over time is that if you have 2.2 million people in the civil service, and 1 percent of them is actively resisting,” Bernhardt said, “that’s one thing.” He continued:

But if it’s 10 percent of them, it’s a different thing. If it’s 20 percent of them, it’s something else. And if it’s more than that, what does that mean for representative democracy and government? Because at the end of the day, in my mind the entire point of us having an election system is so that the American people can express a view and have it mean something.

While primarily drawn from his time at the Department of the Interior, the book examines how employees across federal agencies have learned to manipulate bureaucratic processes to hamper White House priorities that run counter to their ideologies. From turning in products rendered unusable to outright delaying the completion of projects deemed important by the elected administration, employees exploit protections as federal bureaucrats to “resist” presidential directives.

In one chapter, Bernhardt pulls extensively from a report by the America First Policy Institute, where he serves as chairman of the Center for American Freedom, titled, “Tales from the Swamp.” The 2021 paper documents episodes of resistance throughout the four years of the Trump administration.

A plurality of examples Bernhardt cites involve the Department of Justice, the same agency that sought to frame Trump and his 2016 campaign as engaged in Russian collusion. The FBI investigation known as Crossfire Hurricane culminated in the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who ultimately exonerated the president. Bernhardt made no reference to the Russia-collusion hoax but shed light on a litany of other abuses by DOJ officials who successfully subverted the will of voters by thwarting White House initiatives. The cross-agency examples illustrate the extent to which unelected ideologues are able to hijack democracy to substitute presidential policy with their own agendas.

Axios published a report last summer that unveiled Trump’s plans for a complete overhaul of the entire federal bureaucracy in a potential second term, starting with the Department of Justice. Bernhardt’s book offers not just a warrant but a mandate for bureaucratic reform to be a top priority for the next Republican president.

“The election involves the change of, let’s say, 3,500 people,” Bernhardt told The Federalist. “There’s 2.2 million that don’t change, and you have to figure out, ‘How am I going to have these folks help me drive change forward?’”

Trump, he added, “started very late,” with “Schedule F” for federal employees not proposed until the last year of his administration.

The delay not only gave the president’s antagonists years of experience in hampering administrative priorities but also gave former Trump officials a lesson in urgency. Last week, the Heritage Foundation announced the hiring of former White House Personnel Director John McEntee to preemptively staff the next administration. Bernhardt wrote about the importance of administrative staff moving on the president’s agenda from day one.

“A presidential term is 1,461 days,” Bernhardt reported. “In the absence of a second term, everything that is not accomplished by day 1,461 is probably never going to be done.”

In his interview with The Federalist, Bernhardt finished with a warning for the next administration. “The resistance to the next Republican president’s policies will be 10 times worse from the standpoint of the career civil service, the [nongovernmental organizations], and the radical left,” Bernhardt said.

The prophetic note makes Bernhardt’s book a must-read for anyone wishing to understand the true scale of the administrative state, especially for those hoping for a political appointment.

Read more.

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

‘There’s a Remedy for Our Nation — and That Remedy Is Not Gun Control’: Congressman thumbnail

‘There’s a Remedy for Our Nation — and That Remedy Is Not Gun Control’: Congressman

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By Family Research Council

Waves of grief continue to break over Texas, as the tight-knit Allen community comes to grip with the weekend’s senseless shooting. As the names and pictures of Saturday’s victims were released by police, hearts across the country shattered at the news that two families had lost multiple loved ones. A six-year-old boy, orphaned by the death of his parents and brother, is all that remains of the Cho family. Other moms and dads reeled at the horror of losing two elementary-aged daughters as the Mendozas did. After Nashville, Louisville, and so many other devastating tragedies this spring, people are desperate for answers. When will it end — and what can we possibly do to stop it?

Congressman Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who had a front-row seat for the overwhelming sorrow that followed The Covenant School killings in March told “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice that he stepped off the House floor after those murders and said, “This country needs a revival.” As a result, he pointed out, “I was mocked by the national media and across the country — and maybe across the globe, I don’t know. But I still stand by that.”

As usual, Hice said, the Left is “trying to blame the instruments of death.” “So they’re going after the guns. But as Christians,” he pointed out, “we know that evil exists in our world. We know that there’s a remedy for our nation — and that remedy is not going to be found simply in gun control. We’ve got to go to the heart of the issue, which is the heart of mankind — mankind which has turned away from the Lord.”

While Democrats like Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez blame Republicans — “We’re living in a Texas nightmare, and it’s a nightmare that [the GOP] created” — the reality, Hice insists, is that guns have been around “for hundreds of years.” “It’s just now that we’re seeing a change, a surge in violence. So it’s not the guns.”

Burchett agreed. “Well, it’s an easy scapegoat,” he pointed out. “… And it’s an election year coming up, [and] they have a weak candidate [in Joe Biden]. So [gun control is] what they’re going to go for. … [I]t’s symbolism. It’s what sells. And … these murders are just horrible.” But, he went on, “We lose 100 people a day in automobile accidents every 39 minutes. We lose somebody to a drunk driver. Yet nobody’s wanting to take alcohol or cars away from people. And so, to me it’s pretty telling about what’s going on.”

When Americans look at what happened in Brownsville, Texas on Sunday, “a man with murder in his heart [used] his vehicle to attack others,” Hice said. “[But] there are no cries to do away with SUVs, right?”

That’s because, as Bishop Charles Flowers said later, “You cannot legislate righteousness. Policies don’t change the heart of a person,” he insisted on “Washington Watch.” “But policies do set the environment in which either evil or righteousness flourish. And with respect to the right to bear arms, that is the responsibility that you and I have been given — not by men, but by God — to protect that which belongs to us.”

It’s important to remember, Flowers said, “The gun itself has never shot anybody.” It’s in someone’s hands. “And the person who has their hands on that weapon is either more or less likely to use it based on what kind of environment … that is around them.”

“Every lost life, of course, is a sad situation in any case,” he emphasized. “But it’s not the possession of guns that do[es] it. I believe in responsible gun ownership. [But if] you put the guns in the hands of somebody that … [will] aid them in their already twisted behavior, you don’t do that. That doesn’t make good sense. But at the same time, [you also don’t] pull that right and responsibility from everybody else who would rightfully use the weapons.”

As Hice mentioned, this is a “heart” problem, and that heart is molded by several so many factors. “We have this outcry to get rid of guns. Why is there no outcry to restore the family, to restore morality? Why this misguided blame for an issue that they’re trying to address with a Band-Aid rather than get to the heart of it?”

Flowers said the answer, at least from the Democrats’ perspective, is simple. “Gun control is part of a larger agenda, and that agenda is to disarm the citizens so that another power can come in and massively control the citizenship. A broken family assists that agenda, so they can’t tout the strength of a strengthening family, because it is counterproductive to what the end goal is.”

But there is hope, he insists, and it starts with prayer and action. “Pray, he says in Second Chronicles: ‘If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek his face and turn from their wicked ways …’ Turning is a prerequisite,” Flowers pointed out. “… ‘Then will I hear from heaven. I’ll forgive their sins, and I’ll heal their land.’ Secondly, don’t let passivity gulf you up like the vicious monster that it is. We have to begin to act — and act out our morals in the social environment.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©2023 Family Research Council.

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.

‘Death with Dignity’ — Ha! thumbnail

‘Death with Dignity’ — Ha!

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By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

The Left loves its phony narratives and I’ve taken aim at several of them.  Today I take aim at ‘death with dignity’, the phony narrative the Left uses to sell assisted suicide and euthanasia.

I start with the spectacular story out of the Netherlands in 2019 where a court upheld the actions of a doctor who euthanized a woman with dementia against her wishes.  The doctor put sedatives in the woman’s coffee and had the family hold her down for the lethal injection.  The woman put up a fight.  Doesn’t sound like a very dignified death to me.

And it wasn’t very dignified what happened to the brother of a friend of mine.  The brother had his third stroke and was sedated.  His wife violated his written instructions by stopping all treatment and withdrawing all food and water.  The wife was heard to say she was tired of dealing with the situation and it’s also true the sooner he died, the more she stood to inherit.   A financial motive – how dignified is that?

To these two ugly stories, we can now add a third.  A palliative care nurse recently published the story you are about to hear so “eyes will be opened to the horrifying reality of euthanasia”:

  • They say euthanasia is a compassionate, dignified way to die. They say everyone should have the option, and that a life with suffering is not a life worth living. But that’s not what I’ve seen. I know Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) to be messier and more distressing than anyone cares to talk about.
  • Laura had picked out music to play in the background while she died, and had chosen which loved ones she wanted by her side. It was planned for 6 pm. She was alert and oriented, and had signed a waiver saying that if for whatever reason she was no longer judged to be of sound mind at the time of the MAID provision, she could be euthanized anyways. She thought she had complete control. Just a few hours before 6 pm Laura had a completely unexpected grand mal seizure. She wouldn’t stop seizing and required large doses of a sedating anticonvulsant. The time of the provision came, and she was confused and groggy from the sedating medication, and unable to properly confirm she wanted the euthanasia, or say goodbye to her family members. She tried to speak but no one could understand what she was saying. Laura was euthanized at 6 pm, according to the waiver she had signed. This was what she had requested, but the family came out of her room shaking, with eyes wide. They cried, and kept saying it should have never happened that way. They had no closure. There was no dignified, peaceful ending. Just their loved one, killed in the middle of trying to say something…. (H)er death was sudden, and traumatic, and the family went home right after without anyone to support them through the process…. (A) coworker sped out of the room shaking and crying,
  • I know multiple other nurses who have been through the same experience. Although they had no religious or moral objections to MAID, after witnessing it first hand they swore to never be in the room again while it happened. They were deeply unsettled, and their conscience told them what they couldn’t admit to themselves: the intentional ending of a life is wrong, no matter the circumstances.
  • Patients may think that choosing MAID relieves their family of the burden of waiting for their death, or seeing suffering. But in reality it steals time and closure, and replaces a natural process with an unsettling ending. From what I have seen, loved ones of euthanized patients appear to struggle more in their grief than loved ones of patients who die naturally.

Welcome to the wacky world of the Left, where ‘death with dignity’ means people being killed against their wishes, for unsavory motives like money.  Where the vendors selling assisted suicide are not killers.  Where the real cause of death – assisted suicide – is kept off death certificates.  Where death is considered ‘medical treatment‘ and medicine means a ‘substance to cause death’.   Where doctors push assisted suicide on vulnerable patients, elder abuse is common, agonizing deaths routinely occur from lethal drugs that don’t work as advertised, destructive social contagion takes over, and people are taught all of this is good when it could not be more evil.

If this is ‘death with dignity’, you can keep it.

©2023 Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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

Gavin Newsom’s Carbon-Neutral Grid Plan Looks To Be Going The Way Of The Bullet Train To Nowhere thumbnail

Gavin Newsom’s Carbon-Neutral Grid Plan Looks To Be Going The Way Of The Bullet Train To Nowhere

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By The Daily Caller

California’s planned transition to a carbon-neutral electricity grid by 2045 relies heavily on offshore wind power. It might take a miracle to get there. The growth of offshore wind will have to accelerate faster than a Tesla Model S, which goes from zero to 60 in less than two seconds.

As of 2023, there is no offshore wind in California. But, as the Los Angeles Times reports, “state and local governments are banking on offshore wind to help reach their renewable energy goals.” CalMatters environment reporter Nadia Lopez says “California is betting on giant wind farms in the ocean to strengthen the grid and meet [the state’s] renewable energy goals.”

The potential is there. So are the hurdles.

“The California coast is home to some of the best offshore wind resources in the country,” says the energy and environmental blog of law firm Davis Wright Tremaine. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates there is the potential to generate 201,000 megawatts of power off the coast. Plans call for the state to harness from 2,000 to 5,000 megawatts of it by 2030, then 25,000 megawatts (25 gigawatts) by 2045, generating enough electricity for 25 million homes. (There are currently about 14.5 million housing units in California, according to the Census Bureau).

But this is California, where building anything, in particular massive public works projects — say, a bullet train — is a task that is grueling, protracted and in some instances impossible.

The most stubborn barrier to overcome — and who could have guessed this? — will be cost. MIT Technology Review says California’s “audacious plans” run up against “a daunting geological challenge.” Just a few miles off the coast, the continental shelf drops sharply. This “makes it prohibitively expensive to erect standard offshore wind turbines which are set atop fixed structures that extend to the seafloor.” Turbines located near Morro Bay, where the water is 4,300 feet deep, will have to be built on floating platforms. But these floating turbines are not only “speculative,” says MIT, the technology behind them is also “very costly.” As of now, there are only a handful of floating offshore wind platforms in the world and the combined output of these demonstration projects, 123 megawatts, is meaningless on a global scale.

The University of California Berkeley’s Center for Environmental Public Policy says that nearly 24 of the 25 gigawatts of planned offshore electricity will be produced from windmills floating on platforms.

This of course will cause costs to rise to unaffordable levels. At $1.04 per megawatt hour, offshore wind has the most expensive “levelized cost of electricity and levelized cost of storage for new resources entering service in 2027,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Battery storage is next at 64 cents per megawatt hour. All dispatchable sources are far cheaper, including nuclear, which would cost 61 cents per megawatt hour.

There are also logistical detours and roadblocks ahead. Adam Stern, executive director of Offshore Wind California, an industry group, says to expect the planning and regulatory process to drag out (our words, not his) for five to six years.

The same eco-warriors who have pressured the state to close natural gas and nuclear plants, and wield almost unlimited political clout in Sacramento and Washington, will find environmental hazards to justify their opposition to offshore wind. Fishermen will protest the negative impacts on their livelihoods, and engineering, material and cost challenges associated with the underwater cables needed to anchor floating turbines and move the power they generate are bound to emerge.

And should the state decide to locate turbines nearer to shore to avoid the high cost of floating platforms, there will be opposition from rich coastal elites who don’t want their views by the spinning monsters.

What’s more, offshore wind is vulnerable to tsunamis, the threat of which is “high to very high” on the West Coast.

We are in the fourth month of 2023, not 22 years from the state’s 2045 deadline, and not a single offshore wind project has been started. It’s unlikely we will see even a glimpse of progress for years, maybe not even in this decade. Despite the obvious obstacles ahead, there’s been no talk of revisiting a surely impossible target date, no sense of uneasiness in Sacramento, just an Admiral Farragut “damn the torpedoes” mindset that has the potential to sink California.

AUTHOR

KERRY JACKSON

Kerry Jackson is a fellow with the Center for California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.

RELATED ARTICLE: JASON ISAAC: The Great Carbon Capture Scam

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

ANOTHER BANK FAILURE: PacWest Shares Plunge, Troubled Bank Crashes thumbnail

ANOTHER BANK FAILURE: PacWest Shares Plunge, Troubled Bank Crashes

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By The Geller Report

$640 billion in bank failures. Another Biden success. PacWest stock plummets more than 50%, other bank stocks join in decline.

PacWest Tumbles; Oil Steadies

…..following Federal Reserve interest-rate increase

By: Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2023:

Aftershocks from March’s banking turmoil rumbled on, even as the the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-rise campaign approaches its end.

In recent market action:

PacWest’s already battered shares fell by 45% in premarket trading. The bank said it was talking to potential partners and investors, and would keep evaluating “all options to maximize shareholder value.”

A raft of other regional lenders fell in sympathy before the opening bell: Western Alliance Bancorp slid 23%, while Comerica and Zions Bancorp fell by 9% and 10%, respectively. First Horizon sank nearly in half after its $13.4 billion sale to Toronto’s TD Bank was called off.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

BIDEN’S ECONOMY: Silicon Valley Bank COLLAPSES Following Run on Bank, 2nd Biggest Bank Failure In United States History

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

The SCOTUS Case To Watch—Loper Bright Enterprises vs. Raimondo thumbnail

The SCOTUS Case To Watch—Loper Bright Enterprises vs. Raimondo

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By Royal A. Brown III

This could be good news for reducing the unfettered power of the Administrative State.

SCOTUS Grants Review of Case That Will Gut the Federal Bureaucracy

By Bonchie | May 01, 2023

In the biggest news to come out of the Supreme Court of the United States since Roe v. Wade was overturned, the Court has granted a review of Loper Bright Enterprises vs. Raimondo. In its deliberations, the court will deal with the question of whether to overrule the infamous Chevron Doctrine, a ’70s-era precedent that granted broad powers to the bureaucratic state to interpret vague, often narrow statutes with near zero accountability.

Here’s a quick explainer on the Chevron Doctrine via Cornell Law School.

One of the most important principles in administrative law, the “Chevron deference” was coined after a landmark case,Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 468 U.S. 837 (1984). The Chevron deference is referring to the doctrine of judicial deference given to administrative actions. In Chevron, the Supreme Court set forth a legal test as to when the court should defer to the agency’s answer or interpretation, holding that such judicial deference is appropriate where the agency’s answer was not unreasonable, so long as Congress had not spoken directly to the precise issue at question.

Read more.

©2023 Royal A. Brown III. All rights reserved.

Who coined the term ‘Deep State’? And what does this term mean today? thumbnail

Who coined the term ‘Deep State’? And what does this term mean today?

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By Dr. Rich Swier

To answer the question: “Who coined the term ‘Deep State’?”

We need to understand: What is the deep state?

To answer the question: “Who are the people in the deep state?”

We need to know what does this term mean in the year 2023 and exactly who’s behind it?

The Turkish phrase derin devlet which translates into “deep state” was created in the early part of the 20th century. Derin devlet is a “secret government” buried deeply within the visible government?

Curiously, it was candidate Donald J. Trump who borrowed from Turkish history. Donald J. Trump spoke of a “Deep State” embedded deeply within the government bureaucracy – and centered in the Department of Justice – which actively worked to defeat him in 2016 and then sought to undermine him once he won the presidency.

Who coined the term ‘Deep State’?

In his book Last Rites for a ‘Pure Bandit’: Clandestine Service, Historiography and the Origins of the Turkish ‘Deep State’ published in 2010 Ryan Gingeras wrote the term “Deep State”,

[G]enerally refers to a kind of shadow or parallel system of government in which unofficial or publicly unacknowledged individuals play important roles in defining and implementing state policy.”

On April 10th, 2017 in a Daily JSTOR article Matthew Wills wrote,

This concept of a deep state, Gingeras continues, is used to “explain why and how agents employed by the state execute policies that directly contravene the letter and spirit of the law.” Breaking the law, of course, often means employing criminals. Gingeras, a specialist in organized crime in Turkey, looks at the underbelly of the Turkish deep state to examine how alliances between generals, statesmen and “narcotic traffickers, paramilitaries, terrorists, and other criminals” are formed. 

[ … ]

Essentially, dirty work needs dirty workers: so a clandestine force was recruited from paramilitary and criminal elements during the chaotic years of the first quarter century of the [20th] century.

Read full article.

Who are the people in the Deep State today?

Today we have federal agents, the DoJ, FBI, DoD generals, statesmen and women from all parties, narcotics traffickers, paramilitaries, terrorists and other criminals that are part of the “Nuevo Deep State”.

These “Nuevo Deep Staters” include:

  • Eco-terrorists, elected officials, the Department of Energy, NASA, corporations and non-profits who are pushing the Green New Deal.
  • Social justice organizations, including educators K-20, media, social media, corporations, government officials, generals, that promote an “anti-white” narrative using the mythical Critical Race Theory and racist the New York Time’s 1619 Project.
  • The LGBTQIE+ radicals who using the diversity, inclusion and equity myths to further the chemical and physical castration of American underaged children.
  • Public school teachers, school board members, superintendents who promote the LGBTQIE+ radical ideology by teaching it to American children, especially young and impressionable children.
  • Public school librarians and public school media specialists who insist on have pornography on their book shelved that depict graphic sexual acts between children and between children and adults.
  • Organizations such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter who are paramilitary organizations that have caused extensive chaos, burned down entire communities, attacked their opponents and either attempted or actually murdered those who they deemed a threat to the deep state.
  • Nation states such as China, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, Cuba et. al. who are dedicated to supporting the deep states efforts to destabilize the American Constitutional Republic and replace it with a one-party system. Some of these nation states interfered in every election since 2016.
  • Global governance organizations including the United Nations, World Economic Forum, World Health Organization and others involved in the “Great Reset”.

The Bottom Line

The Nuevo Deep State’s mission is gaining and keep power. It is designed to undermine Judeo-Christian based religions, the individual, the traditional family and the American republic.

Without this the Deep State understands that it will go the way of the former Soviet Union. The Deep State have added new words to the political lexicon like “woke”. It is taking away words like male, female, white, children, boy, girl and replacing them with hundreds or categories of genders and words like homophobic, racist, Islamophobic and fascist.

For the Deep state to win good men and women must do nothing to stop it. They must look the other way while the Deep States takes away more and more of their liberties.

Good men and women must look the other way when their children are taught that they aren’t little boys and little girls anymore. Good men and women must look the other way when their neighbors and friends are imprisoned for attending a peaceful rally or supporting a particular political ideology.

Good men and women must submit.

The Nuevo Deep State demands it.

Today, the Nuevo Deep State stretches from the school house to the White House.

As George Orwell warned in his book “1984″,

“There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.”

The Deep State continues to attack President Donald J. Trump, but you see the Deep State isn’t after him. It is really after we the people.

You see we are the Winston Smith’s of today.

Thus ends the lesson on the Orwellian Nuevo Deep State.

©2023 Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

DUMPING THE DOLLAR: Argentina Abandons U.S. Dollar. Will Pay for China Imports in Yuan thumbnail

DUMPING THE DOLLAR: Argentina Abandons U.S. Dollar. Will Pay for China Imports in Yuan

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By The Geller Report

No media coverage. The biggest stories of the day are censored from the American public, leading sheep to slaughter. The dollar as the main world currency is a pillar of our strength and power. More countries are mulling a similar move.

Another defeat for the Biden Administration by China. Little to no coverage on this story from the mainstream media, who continue to supress information about the Biden Administration’s incompetence. A vote for the Biden Administration in 2024 is a vote for China to rule the world, and to downgrade the United States into a second rate power like Britain & France.

Argentina Shuns U.S. Dollar: Will Pay for China Imports in Yuan

By SIMON KENT •

Argentina struck a deal with Beijing on Wednesday to stop using U.S. dollars to pay for Chinese imports and embrace the yuan instead.

The measure, driven by Argentina’s leftist President Alberto Fernández, is designed to relieve the South American country’s dwindling dollar reserves, AP reports.

The deal further enhances China’s rise on the world stage and the diminished role of the U.S. on a host of fronts under President Joe Biden.

After reaching the agreement with various companies, Argentina will use the yuan for imports from China worth about U.S.$1.04 billion from next month, accelerating trade with China as Beijing seeks to gain a further foothold in South America.

In November last year Argentina expanded a currency swap with China by $5 billion in an effort to increase its yuan reserves.

Read more.

Iraq To Drop Dollar In Trade With China

By ZeroHedge, February 23, 2023:

  • Iraq’s central bank is set to allow trade with China to be settled in yuan.
  • Iraqi imports from China have previously been financed in U.S. dollars.
  • Last year, US regulators began enforcing controls on transactions by Iraqi commercial banks which caused a dollar shortage in Iraq.

The Iraqi central bank announced Wednesday that, for the first time, it plans to allow trade from China to be settled directly in yuan instead of the US dollar to improve access to foreign currency.

“It is the first time imports would be financed from China in yuan, as Iraqi imports from China have been financed in (US) dollars only,” the government’s economic adviser, Mudhir Salih, told Reuters.

According to a statement released by the Iraqi central bank, carrying out transactions in the Chinese currency would boost the balances of Iraqi banks with accounts with Chinese banks. However, this option depends on the size of the central bank’s yuan reserves.

A second option to boost local banks’ yuan balances would involve converting US dollars held in the central bank’s accounts with JP Morgan and the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) to yuan before paying the final beneficiary in China……

AUTHOR

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The Government’s Sprawling Effort to Censor [True] Information During the Pandemic thumbnail

The Government’s Sprawling Effort to Censor [True] Information During the Pandemic

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By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

In July 2022, Twitter permanently suspended Rhode Island physician Andrew Bostom after awarding the epidemiologist and longtime researcher at Brown University a fifth strike for spreading “misinformation.”

A July 26 tweet alleging that there was no solid evidence Covid-19 vaccines had prevented any children from being hospitalized—”only RCT data we have from children reveals ZERO hospitalizations prevented by vaccination vs. placebo”—was apparently the final straw.

The funny thing was, it appeared Bostom’s tweet was true.

Dr. Anish Koka, a cardiologist and writer, said he was initially skeptical of Bostom’s claim. But after speaking with him for more than an hour, he realized Bostom was citing the government’s own data, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) briefing document that included randomized controlled trial (RCT) data on children.

“…Dr. Bostom’s tweet appears quite correct as per the FDA documents,” Koka wrote on Substack. “In the RCTs available, there does not appear to be evidence that the vaccine prevented hospitalizations.”

Bostom’s permanent suspension was one of many anecdotes shared by journalist David Zweig in a December Twitter Files thread viewed by more than 64 million people, which exposed how the government worked with Twitter to try to “rig the Covid debate.”

It turns out this was not the only one of Bostom’s tweets that was true but was nevertheless flagged for “misinformation.”

“A review of Twitter log files revealed that an internal audit, conducted after Bostom’s attorney contacted Twitter, found that only 1 of Bostom’s 5 violations were valid,” Zweig notes. “The one Bostom tweet found to still be in violation cited data that was legitimate but inconvenient to the public health establishment’s narrative about the risks of flu versus Covid in children.”

In other words, all five of Bostom’s tweets that had been flagged as “misinformation” were legitimate. At the very least, four-out-of-five were, and that’s according to Twitter’s own internal audit.

How this happened was partially explored by Zweig, who explained Twitter’s convoluted censorship process, which relied heavily on bots, contractors in foreign countries who lacked the expertise to make informed decisions, and Twitter brass who carried their own biases and incentives. This structure led to a predictable result.

“In my review of internal files,” writes Zweig, “I found countless instances of tweets labeled as ‘misleading’ or taken down entirely, sometimes triggering account suspensions, simply because they veered from CDC guidance or differed from establishment views.”

The CDC had effectively become the arbiter of truth.

This is alarming for at least two reasons. First, for anyone familiar with the government’s track record on truth, there’s reason to be skeptical of putting any government agency in charge of deciding what is true and false. Second, the CDC has been, to put it kindly, fallible throughout the pandemic. Indeed, the agency has been plagued with so much dysfunction and made so many crucial mistakes that its own director announced less than a year ago the organization needed an overhaul.

So there’s some reason to believe that Bostom and people like him—including epidemiologists like Dr. Martin Kuldorff (formerly of Harvard) and mRNA vaccine creator Dr. Robert Malone—were being suspended, banned, and de-amplified simply because Twitter was poorly situated to determine what was true and what was false.

There’s reason to doubt this claim, however.

1. THREAD:

THE TWITTER FILES: HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE

– By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy
– By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed
– By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*

— David Zweig (@davidzweig) December 26, 2022

Months after Zweig published his report on the Twitter Files, journalist Matt Taibbi published a separate deep dive exploring the Virality Project, an initiative launched by Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center.

The project, which Taibbi described as “a sweeping, cross-platform effort to monitor billions of social media posts by Stanford University, federal agencies, and a slew of (often state-funded) NGOs,” is noteworthy because officials made it clear that a goal was not just to flag false information, but information that was true but inconvenient to the government’s goals. Reports of “vaccinated individuals contracting Covid-19 anyway,” “worrisome jokes,” and “natural immunity” were all characterized as “potential violations,” as were conversations “interpreted to suggest that coronavirus might have leaked from a lab.”

In what Taibbi describes as “a pan-industry monitoring plan for Covid-related content,” the Virality Project began analyzing millions of posts each day from platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Medium, TikTok, and other social media sites, which were submitted through the JIRA ticketing system. On February 22, 2021, in a video no longer public, Stanford welcomed social media leaders to the group and offered instruction on how to join the JIRA system.

In contrast to Twitter’s previous internal guidance, which required narratives on Covid-19 to be “demonstrably false” before any censorship actions were taken, the Virality Project made it clear that information that was true was also fair game if it undermined the larger aims of the government and the Virality Project.

Specifically noted were “true stories that could fuel [vaccine] hesitancy,” personal testimonials about adverse side effects of vaccination, concerns over vaccine passports, and actual deaths of people following vaccination, such as Drene Keyes.

As NBC noted in 2021, Keyes, a 58-year-old black woman, died after receiving the Pfizer vaccine in February 2021. Described as an “elderly Black woman” by the Virality Project, Keyes’s death became a “disinformation” event after it garnered attention from “anti vax groups”—even though no one denied that she died within hours of taking the vaccine.

No autopsy was conducted on Keyes and there’s no way of knowing if the vaccine caused her death. But merely raising the possibility could have resulted in a ban. Officials at the Virality Project warned platforms that “just asking questions”—at least the wrong questions—was a tactic “commonly used by spreaders of misinformation.”

Ironically, Taibbi notes, the Virality Project itself was often “extravagantly wrong” about Covid science, describing breakthrough events as “extremely rare events” (a fact it later conceded was wrong) and implying that natural immunity did not offer protection from Covid.

“Even in its final report, [the Virality Project] claimed it was misinformation to suggest the vaccine does not prevent transmission, or that governments are planning to introduce vaccine passports,” Taibbi writes. “Both things turned out to be true.”

1.TWITTER FILES #19
The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine
Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories” pic.twitter.com/v41dyC26ZR

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023

‘You Can’t Handle the Truth’

It’s clear that the Virality Project’s primary purpose was not to protect Americans from misinformation. Its goal, as Taibbi notes, was to get the public to submit to authority and accept the state’s Covid narrative, particularly the pronouncements of public figures such as Drs. Anthony Fauci and Rochelle Walensky.

The official policy can be summed up in the immortal words of Colonel Nathan Jessup, the villain portrayed by Jack Nicholson in Aaron Sorkin’s popular 1992 film A Few Good Men: “You can’t handle the truth.”

It’s important to understand that public officials, just like Col. Jessup, genuinely believe this. Jessup utters these words in anger in a wonderful monologue, after he is baited by Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) into telling the court how he really feels. Similarly, the Twitter Files reveal a program designed to control information—even true information—because it serves the state’s plan.

The last word—plan—is important, because it calls to mind Ludwig von Mises’s warning about those seeking to plan society.

“The planner is a potential dictator who wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to their own plans,” Mises wrote. “He aims at one thing only: the exclusive absolute preeminence of his own plan.”

‘Sometimes They Are Five’

Mises’ words apply perfectly to the Virality Project, a program designed specifically to get people to submit to the government’s narrative and objectives, not their own. The preeminence of the plan is so important that it requires censoring information and targeting individuals—as the Virality Project did—even if it’s true.

It’s difficult to overstate how Orwellian this is.

In Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith, the protagonist of the story, says, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four.”

Absent any context, the quote doesn’t make much sense. But it’s important to understand that Orwell saw statism and politics as forces destructive to the truth. His own brushes with state propaganda during the Spanish Civil War left him terrified that objective truth was “fading out of the world,” and he saw the state as inherently prone to obfuscation and euphemism (regardless of party).

“Political language,” he wrote, “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Within the context of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the meaning of Winston Smith’s words becomes crystal clear. Saying “two plus two makes four” might be an objective truth, but sometimes objective truth runs counter to Big Brother’s plan. Winston Smith is a slow learner, state agents tell him, because he can’t seem to grasp this simple reality.

“How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”

“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder.”

Many people who lived through the Covid-19 pandemic likely can identify with the terror of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Orwell’s fear that objective truth is “fading out of the world.” We witnessed public officials say things that were demonstrably false and face no consequences, while Andrew Bostom and countless others were exiled from public discourse because they said things that were true, but ran counter to the state’s narrative.

Fortunately, in large part because of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, we now know how this happened.

“Government, academia, and an oligopoly of would-be corporate competitors organized quickly behind a secret, unified effort to control political messaging,” Taibbi writes.

All of it was designed to control information. And in doing so, the state—which actually attempted to create a “Disinformation Governance Board,” which critics promptly dubbed a Ministry of Truth—created an environment hostile to free speech and truth.

Ironically, despite the egregious abuse delivered upon the truth over the last three years in the name of fighting “misinformation,” polls show roughly half of Americans believe social media companies should be censoring such material from their sites. Few seem to realize this will almost certainly involve those with influence and power—especially the government—deciding who and what are censored.

This is a recipe for disaster. History shows there’s no greater purveyor of falsehood and propaganda than the government itself. The Twitter Files are a reminder of that.

AUTHOR

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. (Follow him on Substack.) His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

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

The Shaking of the International Political System thumbnail

The Shaking of the International Political System

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By Bud Hancock

“See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” — Hebrews 12:25-27 KJV

The writer of Proverbs stated: “These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.” Proverbs 6:16-19 KJV.

Anyone who has followed politics for very long will testify that the six characteristics listed in this proverb provide a perfect description of politics, and MOST politicians. I call them the “Six Pillars of Politics”. Without their presence in the system, it would cease to exist.

St. Paul, who wrote nearly two thirds of the  New Testament, wrote this to Timothy: “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” 1 Timothy 6:9-10 KJV

Inherent in the very nature of politics is its tendency to surround those who participate in it, with an “atmosphere of greed”; that greed can be for money and fame, or power and control. In either case it reveals itself in those who allow that foul system to shape, determine, and eventually expose, their true nature, whether good or evil. If good, that nature will not soon remain, as the working of greed will change it into something sinister and corrupt.

And corruption in politics is NOT an American phenomenon, it can be found in every political system in every nation on earth.

The First Politician

The words in Proverbs chapter six, above, appear to be a perfect description of the spiritual creature we know as Satan. He was so proud that he imagined himself to be equal with God, he was a chronic liar (Jesus called him the father of all lies), he has been responsible for shedding the blood of hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of humans (only God knows the true number), through the hands of his human minions who allow him to use their physical bodies on this earth, his heart devised the wicked imagination that he could war against and defeat God, he is said to be roaming the earth, looking for anyone whom he may devour. He is called ‘the accuser of the brethren’, and he definitely works hard to create divisions among the Church. Satan is THE quintessential politician.

Even though God had clearly spelled out His rules for their behavior to Adam and Eve, and also made clear the penalty for breaking them, they allowed themselves to fall victim to a politician, even though they had the TRUTH, straight from the mouth of God.

Satan cleverly used a serpent to be his ‘mouthpiece’ when approaching Eve regarding whether or not God had spoken truth to her and Adam. He used lies, questioning the very word of God in his effort to deceive her and gain the control and authority man had been given. His trickery and lies worked and, through lies anddeception, Satan established his kingdom on earth, becoming the first politician, thus making him the first known liar in history and the ‘pattern’ for all politicians in the future.

If you question whether all politicians are liars, do your own research, as I did, to determine what is the true definition of politics. If you can find any good in the corruption of politics, please let me know.

Political Effect on the Nations

I would estimate that the majority population of every ‘developed nation’ has some knowledge of the ‘political system’ that governs their nations. Whether a ‘democracy’, a ‘theocracy’, a dictatorship or empire, you can be sure that it was established by political means, using lies and deception and possibly physical force, and is constantly being re-enforced by the same political means.

Throughout history, nations have been destroyed and millions of lives have been forfeit through the actions of one, or a few, politicians. Every war ever fought has been the result of politics, and most, if not all, were planned events, meant to enrich those who became extremely wealthy by providing the means of war: guns, ammunition, artillery, tanks, ships and aircraft along with the fuel needed to run them, as well as the food and medicines needed when soldiers are wounded. The ‘global war-mongers’ always come out on top while the nations, wherein the wars are fought, lose EVERY TIME.

The involvement of politicians from many western nations in the corruption of Ukraine is evidence of this.

The Politics of the Russia/Ukraine War

From the White House to the US Congress and federal bureaucracies, to the Governors mansions of many states, they ALL seem to desire their own gain of wealth over that of the people who vote for them and pay their bloated salaries.

The recent news item that major American oil producers, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron and Halliburton are meeting with Ukrainian officials, with the desired result being the oil companies will be allowed to take over control of Ukraine’s oil production offers solid proof of the statement above. This will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in profit flowing into the coffers of these giant oil corporations. This is a perfect example of the political power of major corporations, and how they use that power for profit.

When the fiasco in Ukraine is over, there will have been millions of lives negatively affected and many totally destroyed, while the same group of global “war apparatus providers” will rush in to “help the nations recover” from the bloodbath they mostly started and underwrote. This is one of the many effects that politics has always had and will continue to have until it is no longer present on this planet.

Politics, regardless of what it might have been when this nation actually had some ethics and morals in government (many, many years ago), has become merely a system whereby evil people do their evil and then hide behind the dark curtains of the legalese jargon and mumbo-jumbo their ‘attorneys’ spout that keeps challenges against  their evil tied up in courts for months, perhaps even years. The dark curtains are built into, and are an integral part of, the party structure and platforms, and the marketing of the candidates they run for office in either party. They were created solely for that purpose.

God LOVES justice and set it into the heart of our Founders to form a constitutional republic based on laws, on rights, with justice, providing liberty for all, but the politicians use of the nation’s “justice system”, even though legal (based strictly on man’s law), points to the foulness of those who use it in a way that would have our Founders doing flip-flops in their graves.

The underhanded strategies, machinations and deceitful stratagems that are so deeply imbedded in the foul practice of politics are not “one-sided”, meaning they are not used by only one political party. They are mostly the same for any and all political parties and they were designed to do one thing: win at any cost, no matter who might be harmed.

The Republicans love to tout their moral high ground, their conservativeness, you might say their ‘righteousness’, in their political processes, but they are no different from the Democrats, Independents or any other political party. All the political parties in the world exist to enrich themselves by engaging in illegal, immoral and unjust behavior, by controlling the money that is extracted from the citizens of the nations through unlawful taxation, as well as through the massive ‘private’ donations they receive from their controllers.

And just as a reminder, there are far more ‘hidden’ politicians, those who sit in the boardrooms and offices of multinational corporations and the major banks of the world, who use underhanded, devious political strategies and devices to achieve their goals, than there are those who sit in parliaments, congresses and other institutes of governance in the nations. These are the REAL politicians, the ones who, by their possession and use of their huge monetary holdings, have the REAL power and control over the nations.

When God starts the shaking, the fall of these politicians and their part of the whole system will be worldwide and earth-shaking in its magnitude.

The End of Politics

I will make a simple statement, which I personally believe to be true, and which is plainly supported by the Bible: “The earth, the skies, the sun, moon and stars were all created by God and all these plainly reveal the creator”.

I know there is a group of people who will refuse to ever believe that, preferring to accept the widely held view (among atheists) that some ‘big bang’ occurred some unknown hundreds of millions of years ago and eventually, somehow, produced everything we see. To their explanation  of our presence on this planet I say: Hogwash.”

God will always have the final say about everything that humans will ever believe, think, say or criticize. He has tolerated man’s increasing rebellion, disobedience and apostasy far longer that I would have believed possible. Even if man fails to recognize the eternal fact that God WILL have the final say, that failure to recognize it will NOT change it: God has the final say……period. In His perfect time, he will step in and make the decision to end, for all time, the corrupt and destructive international political system.

To reiterate the Bible’s statement regarding the six things that God hates, A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren”, I am, and long have been, highly expectant that a totally righteous God will NOT tolerate these continued “pillars of politics” much longer.

God is perfect in all His ways and those ways are much higher that any human ways. His timing is also perfect and, when HIS time is right, He will do as He has promised and He WILL shake the foundations of international politics and that corrupt system WILL cease to exist.

I do not question just HOW God  will ‘shake the things that can be shaken’; being God, He always does what is right and in the right way. We who study end-times Bible prophecy realize just how close we are to the end of the Church age, a time when major world-wide changes are going to take place. The arrival or the advent of the Antichrist will certainly have major impacts on all political systems that are currently governing nations. That event will most definitely be a part of God’s shaking.

He has set aside a seven year period, called the Tribulation Period, Daniel’s 70th week, and that period of time has several definite purposes. One is to judge the world and his plans for judgement are already set. That seven years will be a time of GREAT shaking on the entire earth and its inhabitants. Anything that cannot be redeemed out of the shaking, will be destroyed. Another definite purpose of that time is to deal with God’s chosen earthly people, the Jews. Their previous rejection of Jesus Christ as their Messiah has set them on a collision course with God and the majority of them will not survive that collision.

Also, as the Antichrist will represent the evil and unrighteousness of all the previous empires on earth, all of which were politically controlled, God will deal with that ugly, corrupt system with finality.

Nothing sinful or unrighteous will be allowed to continue into the 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ on the earth. As a popular rock star famously wrote, “Gonna be a whole lot of shaking going on”, and the result will NOT be pleasant for those who experience it.

Conclusion

For way too long, Satan has had his way with the human race, at least those who are not believers and do not allow Christ to govern their lives. Satan’s evil system of politics, a system that has NEVER produced any positive results on earth, has been used to gain control over individuals and nations and has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions, if not billions of people, from the time of Adam right up to the present day.

God, who lives outside of time, established a pattern of time in the creation account detailed in Genesis 1-2. One day is the same as 1000 years to God. Based on the pattern established, God gave man a “six day lease” on this earth, six days, or 6,000 years to prove his ability to govern himself using the authority given to him by God. History readily proves that all efforts at self-government for the past nearly 6,000 years have been a complete failure.

God certainly knew that man’s efforts would fail, so why did He not just add a few years out of a sense of pity for man? Because God knew that, without Jesus Christ being in complete control, man would not be able to successfully govern himself even if he were given a million years, and therein is proven God’s mercy for man. He will stop the time clock on the exact day man’s lease is up and install the only man capable of governing the entirety of mankind: King Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.

Be watchful for the shaking that is even now starting. It may seem to start slowly, but when it reaches its crescendo, the entire system will collapse in a moment. I say, bravo! Let the shaking begin. The earth has been groaning for the arrival of God’s shaking for thousands of years and will, along with all mankind, rejoice to see that wonderful day!

Maranatha!

©2023 Bud Hancock. All rights reserved.

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House Passes Bipartisan Bill To Repeal Biden’s China Solar Rules

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By The Daily Caller

The House passed a resolution Friday morning to repeal President Joe Biden’s moratorium on solar panel tariffs to several Southeast Asian nations, where Chinese firms linked to slave labor have reportedly been assembling their products to avoid U.S. tariffs.

The resolution passed 221 to 202, with the support of most Republicans and 12 Democrats, with supporters arguing in the preceding debate that the legislation was necessary both to support the U.S. solar industry while simultaneously holding China accountable for avoiding tariffs. Democratic detractors pointed to opposition from industry trade groups, arguing that the moratorium was set to run out next summer, and that it was necessary to grow the U.S. solar industry in the interim.

Biden has threatened to veto the legislation should it reach his desk. Several Democratic senators have announced support for the resolution.

A group of federal lawmakers are trying to use the CRA to undo Pres Biden’s moratorium on new solar tariffs that is providing the bridge for manufacturing to grow. Simply put, this is bad policy.
https://t.co/8NcFehmKof #StopRetroactiveTariffs #solar #tariffs #manufacturing pic.twitter.com/7HTKa680gp

— Standard Solar (@StandardSolar) April 27, 2023

The resolution would reinstate tariffs on four Southeast Asian nations — Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam — which a Commerce Department investigation found were being used by Chinese firms to avoid U.S. tariffs on their products. The four nations account for roughly 80% of U.S. solar panel inventory, according to Bloomberg.

The resolution has drawn criticism from trade groups in the solar industry, who have argued that the tariffs were necessary to help U.S. manufacturing find its legs, Bloomberg reported. The moratorium gives U.S. solar manufacturers time to establish domestic solar supply chains while ramping up production, according to supporters.

The solar industry has faced a significant crackdown under the Uyghur Forced Labor Production Act (UFLPA), which aims to penalize Chinese firms using the forced labor of Uyghur Muslims, an ethnic minority in the nation’s Xinjiang province. U.S. Customs and Border Protection impounded approximately 2,600 Chinese solar imports worth more than $800 million for violations of the UFLPA between October 2022 and January 2023.

AUTHOR

JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘The President Got This One Wrong’: Senate Dems Revolt Against Biden’s Chinese Solar Rules

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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Bloated Voter Rolls Make It Easy to Cheat in Elections

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By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

Here’s how election fraud is committed.  First, you bloat the voter rolls, like keeping dead people on them.  Next, you create a bunch of loose ballots floating around out there, like through universal mail-in balloting.  Then, bad actors get ahold of loose ballots and vote them in the name of people who won’t vote because, for example, they’re dead or moved out of state.  The last step is to match up illicitly cast ballots with registered voters in the election computer system to make it all look kosher, and you’re done.

Now do you understand why the Democrats ferociously resist cleaning the voter rolls at every turn, which is just common sense?  Bloated voter rolls make it easy for the Democrats to cheat.

But people who care about election integrity are starting to get a handle on things:

A lawsuit by a watchdog group forced Colorado to start cleaning up its voter rolls as required by the National Voter Registration Act.  The state settled a lawsuit by agreeing to report its progress in removing ineligible voters to the group for six years.  The number of ineligible voters removed per reporting period has already gone up.  The watchdog group has achieved similar results in other states.

Virginia elections officials discovered 19,000 dead people were left on the rolls, supposedly because of a computer coding error.  This will be corrected when the state’s new voter registration system is finished.  Meanwhile, local elections officials are being given the authority to remove dead people from the rolls on the basis of an obituary or family notification, instead of requiring an official death certificate.

Wisconsin Senate Republicans have introduced a bill to start examining 3.8 million voter registrations in the state that are believed to be voters who are deceased, inactive, noncitizens, felons, or declared incompetent.  The Governor is likely to veto the bill, but an override is a decent possibility.

A bill in the Texas Senate would suspend voters if they haven’t cast a ballot in more than two years. They’d be sent a notice and, if they fail to respond, they would be removed from the rolls after another two years.  The U.S. Supreme Court approved a similar Ohio law in 2018.

Iowa follows a similar process, but with a twist.  It moved half a million voters to inactive status after they didn’t vote in the election last fall.  They’ll still get to vote through 2026, but the state no longer waits for voters to miss two consecutive general elections before starting the process of potentially removing them from the rolls.

Count on citizen and legal groups to keep banging away on cleaning up the voter rolls until the problem is cut down to size.  Maine lost in court after it tried to restrict researchers from obtaining and using voter roll data to look for ineligible voters by comparing it to data from other states.  Maine’s law originally restricted access to voter data to certain entities like political parties, but was amended to frustrate the lawsuit with, among other things, the state line restriction.  The new restrictions were cooked up by Democrat lawmakers, staffers, lobbyists, and ERIC, a left-wing voter data nonprofit.  But the court blew them all away, ruling the new restrictions thwarted Congress’ intent to achieve transparency under the National Voter Registration Act.

A group in Michigan has figured out how to give access to Michigan voter data to approved citizen researchers working at home on their own computers.  Researchers can now see whether someone voted in past elections, uncover an impossible number of voters registered at the same address, and determine whether registrations belong to actual living persons at addresses of record.

Cleaning the voter rolls will be a never-ending process.  For example, hundreds of noncitizens are on the voter rolls in Maricopa County Arizona.  Some of them vote even though they are ineligible.  The problem stems from the federal Motor Voter law, which requires states to allow people to register to vote at their local motor vehicle bureau when getting a driver’s license.  Not an easy problem to solve, but the status quo is unacceptable, and people who care about election integrity will eventually get around to working on it.

©2023 Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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Tuberville on His Military Abortion Blockade: ‘I Have the Power, and They’re Panicking’

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By Family Research Council

In the military, most men and women would do anything to save a life. They’ll jump on grenades, parachute into enemy territory, walk across landmines. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) isn’t asking them to do any of that for the lives on the line with Pentagon’s new abortion policy. All he’s requesting is that a couple hundred flag officers wait a little longer for their promotions — an inconvenience that could save as many as 4,000 innocent lives. Who could possibly object to that? Radical Democrats, of course.

On Tuesday, abortion zealot Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) went on a tirade over Tuberville’s decision to hold up flag officer promotions until the Biden administration backs off its unconstitutional abortion expansion. “Holding up the promotion of every single military nominee isn’t democracy,” Warren ranted, “it’s extortion. That kind of extortion has serious consequences for our national defense. These holds pose a grave threat to our national security and to our military readiness. They actively hurt our ability to respond quickly to threats around the world.”

Funny how Warren is suddenly concerned about military readiness, since it hasn’t seemed to factor into any of the Democrats’ policies detracting from it — transgenderism in the ranks, unconstitutional vaccine mandates, CRT and pronoun trainings, and diversity, equity, and inclusion classes. The only war the president’s party seems intent on fighting is the cultural one.

Yet Warren wasn’t the only one raising a ruckus. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) insisted that “what’s happening” because of Tuberville’s “charade” is “not only dangerous, but it’s insulting. That’s the only word that can be used for one senator to hold up 184 men and women and their promotions in the military. I never thought I’d see that day in the United States Senate.”

In that case, Durbin must have been AWOL the day that Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) threatened to hold up the promotions of more than 1,100 senior Army officers if the Trump White House blocked their impeachment witness, Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, from advancement.

Either way, Tuberville made it clear where the blame for this situation really lies. “This is Secretary [Lloyd] Austin’s choice, not mine. He knew the consequences for months” of his radical abortion expansion. “I’m not going to budge,” he assured his Democratic colleagues. “I will come down here as many times as it takes — day and night — to vote. I’m not afraid to vote.”

Later, on “Washington Watch,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that this isn’t just about abortion. It’s about a “tyrannical executive branch walking all over the United States Senate and doing our jobs.”

“This White House [is] dictating now from their purview,” Tuberville shook his head. “They’re turning into Canada and a lot of the European countries [with] one single leader. [They] don’t worry about going through Congress. Don’t worry about going through proper order. They just push things on the American people. You can’t force taxpayers to pay for abortion. That’s a law,” he pointed out. “Been a long law a long time. … And it’s worked pretty good,” Tuberville said, pointing out that the Pentagon has only approved about 20 abortions a year under the exceptions of rape, incest, and life of the mother.

Nobody had a problem with that policy until the Dobbs decision, the famous football coach explained. Now, they want to force as much taxpayer-funded abortion on the country as possible, “so they’re allowing abortions at any time in the military for any reason. Also, their dependents, they’ll fly them anywhere they want to go. They’ll pay them for three weeks. And who’s paying for it? The taxpayer is. Well, the Hyde Amendment says that’s against the law. But these people don’t worry about the law.”

Tuberville is planning to make them care. “They have the power, but now I have the power. One senator has got the power to put a hold on anything. And they are panicking. They don’t know what to do. But I can give them [something] to do: go back to the old policy.”

Of course, the Alabama icon said, “It’s not really about the military guys, and it’s not about the [Department of Veterans Affairs]. It’s about them controlling our country and doing what they want to do. … They’re circumventing every rule they possibly can. They said, ‘What can we do? How can we give more and more abortions? How can we make the taxpayers pay for it? Well, let’s look at this. The VA, we can do that.’”

Under this new rule, Perkins pointed out, “it’s estimated that the number [of military abortions] will grow from [20 per year] to over 4,000. That’s over 200 times the number of abortions that would be performed under this policy. This isn’t parity. This is expansion.”

Like a lot of Republicans, he’s been frustrated by the GOP’s timidity on the life issue. “We need more and more people to step up. … You know, if we’re going to be pro-life, let’s be pro-life. You can’t ride the fence.” Too many people are focused on protecting their seats, Tuberville warned. “I’ve been up here two years, and that’s all people try to do is get reelected. They like power. They like the prestige of all of this. … [But] we’re working for the people; we’re not up here for us.”

If that means he’s not popular, so be it. “They’ve called me every name in the book,” Tuberville said. “And I told them, ‘Listen, I coached college football for 40 years. I’ve already been called everything. That doesn’t bother me.’ I’m doing the work for the American people. … And the Constitution backs the law, [which] says … taxpayer money cannot be used for abortion. Done deal. Game, Set. Match.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

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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Who said, ‘Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed’

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By Dr. Rich Swier

The United States Department of Education was created by President Jimmy Carter and signed into law on October 17, 1979 under the Department of Education Organization Act. The creation of this federal Education Department began the process of inextricably and fundamentally transforming our Constitutional Republic, over the past 44 years, into a totalitarian state.

According to the U.S. Department of Education website the mission of the DOE is,

ED’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.

ED was created in 1980 by combining offices from several federal agencies. ED’s 4,400 employees and $68 billion budget are dedicated to:

  • Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education, and distributing as well as monitoring those funds.
  • Collecting data on America’s schools and disseminating research.
  • Focusing national attention on key educational issues.
  • Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.

The General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953 Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin said, “Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

So who holds the Education Department’s weapon in its hands and at whom is it aimed?

Education in America

This Department of Education’s bureaucracy has grown not only in terms of its size and budget but more importantly in the scope of its policies.

Today’s education is no longer about reading, writing and arithmetic. It is about equity, a.k.a. social justice, inclusion and diversity.

Since Dr. Miguel A. Cardona, the former commissioner of education in Connecticut, was sworn in as the 12th U.S. Secretary of Education on March 2nd, 2021 public education has taken a dramatic.

Dr. Cardona’s biography reads in part,

Across all these areas, Secretary Cardona has highlighted the urgency of seizing this moment through intentional collaboration—particularly working in partnership with parents, families, students, and educators—and the opportunity we have, as a nation, not only to recover from the pandemic, but to reimagine a higher-performing and more equitable education system that works better for all.

However, in 2022 Cardona solicited a National School Board Association letter comparing parents to “domestic terrorists.” According to Fox News, NSBA Secretary-Treasurer Kristi Swett recounted that NSBA interim CEO Chip Slaven “told the officers he was writing a letter to provide information to the White House, from a request by Secretary Cardona.”

In response, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI to use its authority to identify threats and prosecute concerned parents.

But there’s more.

Before the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday [April 18th, 2023], Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) grilled U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on biological male athletes participating in women’s sports, as Cardona repeatedly and awkwardly refused to offer a definition of the term “woman.”

“Following the civil rights movement of the 1960s, lawmakers established Title IX — rules to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex and federally-funded education programs, making a historic impact on girls and women sports,” Clyde said. Prior to that, he noted, “female athletes only received two percent of college athletic budgets and athletic scholarships for women were quite rare.”

According to Clyde, Title IX “unquestionably transformed women’s sports, ensuring female athletes enjoy the same opportunities as their male counterparts.”

Turning to Cardona, the congressman from Georgia said, “Earlier this month on April the 13th, your department filed a proposed rule, amending Title IX regulations that would unilaterally force schools to allow biological males to participate in women’s athletics,” he said. “This proposed rule would withhold federal assistance from schools across the nation seeking to maintain the integrity and safety of women’s sports.”

Due to the relevance of determining the difference between men and women, Clyde asked: “So can you please tell me or can you please define for me what is a woman?”

“Our focus at the department is to provide equal access to students, including students who are LGBTQ, access free from discrimination,” Cardona responded.

“So what’s the definition of a woman? You haven’t given me that. You haven’t answered my question,” Clyde fired back.

“I think that’s almost secondary to the important role that I have as secretary of education,” Cardona replied.

Clyde explained that his question was “not secondary.” He pressed, “My question is very simple: what does HHS say the definition of a woman is?”

“I lead the Department of Education, and my job is to make sure that all students have access to public education, which includes co-curricular activities,” he said. “And I think you highlighted pretty well the importance of Title IX and giving students equal access, whether it’s scholarship and facilities and participation as well.”

“OK, so you’re not going to answer my question,” Clyde said “Do you believe that a biological male who self-identifies as a woman should be allowed to compete in women’s sports?”

“I believe our focus needs to make sure that all students have access to public education,” he said.

“A yes or no is sufficient,” Clyde retorted.

“I think it’s not answered with a yes or no,” he said. “I think all students should have access to co-curricular activities.”

“I think that is a yes or no question,” Clyde said. “Do you believe that a biological male who self-identifies as a woman should be allowed to compete in women’s sports?”

“I believe all students should have access to all things that public education—” Cardona replied.

“So you’re not going to answer my question: do you believe allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports benefits female athletes?” Clyde interjected.

“I believe it’s important that we take into account the needs of all students when they’re engaging in co-curricular—” he began to say.

“So again you’re not going to answer my question: do you believe allowing biological males to enter women’s private spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms is safe for female students?” he asked.

Cardona responded: “It’s critically important that we make sure all students feel safe in their school environment… It means that the perspective of all students should be taken into account when decisions are made around facilities.”

A person who can’t, or rather won’t, define what a woman is should have no position in government at any level, from President down to dog catcher. That person shouldn’t even be allowed to graduate from grade school.

The Bottom Line

Discover the Networks says this about Secretary of Education Cardona,

In 2011, Cardona joined a state task force committee that made policy recommendations intended to close the “academic achievement gap between racial and socioeconomic groups in Connecticut.” Upon its inception in January 2011, the task force affirmed its belief that “it is morally and economically imperative that Connecticut eliminate the academic achievement gap between racial and ethnic minority and white students, and between poor and middle-income students, by the end of the current decade.” In a 2014 report, the committee recommended remedies that included increased access to public housing, social services, and anti-hunger programs.

[ … ]

In 2013, Cardona began working as a Performance and Evaluation Specialist for Meriden Public Schools. In 2015 he was promoted to Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, a role in which he pursued an array of ambitious measures designed to support minority students. These measures included: (a) flying to Puerto Rico to attract bilingual teachers; (b) hiring school climate specialists to interact with students in their native languages; and (c) ensuring that those same specialists were of the same racial and/or ethnic background as the students whom they served.

[ … ]

During his Senate confirmation hearings in early 2021, Cardona expressed his firm support for the acceptance of transgenderism in public schools: “It’s nonnegotiable to make sure that our learning environments are places that are free of discrimination and harassment for all learners, including our LGBTQ students,” he declared. Cardona also indicated his support for legal protections that would enable transgender students to participate on sports teams in accordance with their own “preferred gender identity.”

Read more.

The current Department of Education has now become “a weapon” and that weapon is aimed at parents, Christians, Jews, Muslims, girls, straight white men and those who understand scientifically that there are only two genders (XX and XY).

Adolf Hitler said, “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”

The U.S. Education Department has become a weapon of mass destruction. It is intent on teaching children what to think, not how to think.

The DOE is now in his hands of ideologues like Cardona who:

  • Blames racism for the “academic achievement gap” between black and white students
  • Supports the tenets of Critical Race Theory
  • Views America as a racist nation
  • Promotes the acceptance of transgenderism in public schools
  • Advocates free community college
  • Favors the forgiveness of student loans

Each of the above destroys not only our children’s minds but also sets the stage for centralized state control by those that it is raising and teaching children to hate America.

Be warned that the swamp goes from the school house to the White House and they are winning the hearts and minds of our children. Their most effective weapons of mass destruction are K-12 public school students.

©2023 Dr. Rich Swier, Ed.D. All rights reserved.

Study: Wearing Face Masks Increase Risk of Stillbirths, Testicular Dysfunction, & Cognitive Deterioration From Carbon Dioxide Buildup thumbnail

Study: Wearing Face Masks Increase Risk of Stillbirths, Testicular Dysfunction, & Cognitive Deterioration From Carbon Dioxide Buildup

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By The Geller Report

The catastrophic consequences from Democrats’ weaponization of the flu (Covid) and their freedom crushing mandates will be felt for generations to come.

By Jim Hoft Apr. 23, 2023:

The intense propaganda to coerce you to wear a face mask is not based on science.

It is a pure political power play designed to force you and your children into submission.

‘Explosive’ new research reveals that using a face mask during pregnancy may increase the chance of stillbirth, testicular dysfunction, and cognitive decline in children, Daily Mail reported.

When worn for extended periods of time, facial coverings may increase the risk of mild carbon dioxide (CO2) poisoning, according to a review of 43 previously published studies on exposure to CO2, mask-wearing, and pregnancy by German researchers.

Researchers in Germany found that elevated levels of carbon dioxide in pregnant women were associated with an increased risk of birth defects.

They also stated that CO2 is a contributor to oxidative stress, which can have negative effects on brain function and lead to testicular problems in men.

The German researchers reviewed a study that found that even short-term exposure to concentrations of CO2 as low as 0.3% caused brain damage, increased anxiety, and impaired memory in both pregnant rats and young mice. Testicular cells and sperm were destroyed in another study when male mice were exposed to 2.5 percent CO2 for four hours, the human equivalent of which is 0.5 percent. A third study found that stillbirth and birth defects occurred in pregnant rats exposed to 3 percent CO2 (equal to 0.8 percent for humans).

(The primary limitation of the research is that it is limited to studies on animals due to the unethical nature of doing such trials on human subjects due to the potential toxicity of carbon dioxide.)

More from Daily Mail:

Alluding to the surge in stillbirths during the pandemic, the German researchers said: ‘Circumstantial evidence exists that popular mask use may be related to current observations of a significant rise of 28 percent to 33 percent in stillbirths worldwide.’

‘[And] reduced verbal, motor, and overall cognitive performance of two full standard deviations in scores in children born during the pandemic,’ the researchers wrote in the paper, published in the journal Heliyon.

The German research team gathered data from 43 previously published studies on exposure to CO2, mask-wearing and pregnancy.

One mask study conducted in Germany, researchers measured the CO2 concentration of air behind surgical masks worn by 15 healthy men. Within 30 minutes, the CO2 concentration rose to roughly 2.8-3.2 percent.

In another study in Italy, scientists measured the air under surgical masks worn in a lab and found a concentration between 0.22 and 0.29 percent within five minutes.

Masks provide breathing resistance and create a dead space that traps CO2, leading to more inhaled and re-breathed CO2, the reviewers said.

Keep reading.

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

Biden’s Border Chaos Fuels Child Trafficking thumbnail

Biden’s Border Chaos Fuels Child Trafficking

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By The Daily Caller

What is happening along our international borders today is not just about illegal immigration or drug smuggling. It’s also about the rapid increase in human trafficking and modern-day slavery, which is flourishing with the chaos that open borders facilitate.

With a record number of unaccompanied minors crossing into the U.S., it has become increasingly difficult to ensure they are leaving government care and going into safe, financially secure situations with people who will care for them. This disorder sets the stage for unaccountability and abuse of the system.

It is not uncommon that when Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officers come across unaccompanied minors, they find them with a phone number and name attached to them. Most times, the minor does not know and has never met the person that they are supposed to be handed over to. Recent investigations are revealing the truth of what happens to many of these most vulnerable children.

They are being exploited, abused, and trafficked.

Unaccompanied minors go into the Unaccompanied Children (UC) Program managed by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (OOR) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), an operational division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Once children enter OOR care, they are put in contact with their parents, guardians, or relatives, if known, and the process of finding a sponsor begins.

As of April 17, 2023, there are approximately 7,380 unaccompanied children in HHS care. The average length of time an unaccompanied child remains in ORR’s care is 25 days.

Tara Lee Rodas revealed in an interview that often, sponsors are typically not citizens, permanent residents, nor do they have a legal status in the U.S.

Minors are coming forward revealing their abuse. One young female explained that her sponsor was forcing her to engage in sexual acts for money. Antonio Diaz Mendez, a 14-year-old, claimed that he had to earn money to repay his debts and was working long shifts in a warehouse. He hadn’t seen his sponsor in months.

Due to the total chaos associated with processing over 6,000 illegal aliens each day, U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) agents simply do not have time to conduct thorough investigative interviews to develop the articulable suspicion of trafficking, or even assess a claimed family relationship with co-travelers in any meaningful way. In all but the most egregious events, agents are forced to accept the information being provided at face value.

It is also important to note that many victims of trafficking do not know they are being trafficked when they initially enter the country illegally. They are often still under the belief that the smuggler is just providing a service to get them into the U.S. under the radar. They don’t find out the truth until it is too late.

Under prior administrations, as the border security environment was constantly improving and illegal immigration was slowing down dramatically, agents had more time to conduct in-depth interviews and identify inconsistencies in claimed family members’ stories. Agents identified countless cases where they were able to get a child or adult to admit they were not related. We will never know for sure how many children were rescued before they were victimized further.

Chaos provides cover for all types of criminal activity. As a direct result of the catch-and-release polices implemented by the Biden administration, our international border with Mexico and our immigration process for unaccompanied alien children have devolved into total chaos. Chaos that is ripe for exploitation by human traffickers.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Deterrence policies and programs work. USBP has countless examples to show that if you simply enforce the law, hold people accountable and avoid releasing aliens into the U.S. until after a judge has adjudicated their case, cross border illegal entries dramatically decrease. This immediately increases the time that agents can investigate and mitigate more sophisticated criminal schemes like narcotics smuggling and human trafficking.

Some children are fortunate to make it out of these situations by running away and seeking help, or due to the diligent efforts of citizens who are paying attention—citizens like Jallyn Sualog, who was removed from her position at HHS after raising concerns over the phenomenon.

Tragically, there are likely hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of children who will be enslaved to labor and sex work for most of their lives.

A safe and secure border will help ensure children are less likely to be put in harm’s way and support a system that can more effectively place them in proper homes. Getting there will require bipartisan efforts to regain operational control of the border.

Once that is underway, substantial reform can be enacted to hold HHS more accountable to the children they are responsible for.

In the U.S., almost no group is more vulnerable to falling victim than children migrants who have no legal guardian to ensure their safety.

We must work toward restricting human trafficking by securing and maintaining our borders. Customs and Border Protection personnel should be given every tool at their disposal to intercept and stop human trafficking efforts, both at and between ports of entry.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

SELENE RODRIGUEZ

Selene Rodriguez is the Assistant Director of Federal Affairs at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She served as an Intelligence Specialist in the U.S. Marine Corps and is completing her MA in Political Science at Texas State University.

RELATED ARTICLES:

MARK MECKLER: Biden’s Border Crisis Is About To Get Even Worse

U.S. Sudan Embassy Evacuated Amid Escalating Violence

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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