White House Unleashes Hundreds of Billions of New Legislation as Congress Breaks fore Recess
The Biden Administration’s regulatory onslaught is more unrelenting than the heat. With Congress leaving town, the White House last week dumped another truckload of regulations that will cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars. Corporate lawyers, enjoy the beach reading. There’s much more to say about this regulatory typhoon, which the Administration is counting on the press corp to ignore, as it usually does. But we thought Americans might like to know what regulators are up to while they vacation.
The Administration is imposing by regulation what it can’t pass through Congress and hoping nobody notices…
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-08-05 01:51:452023-08-05 01:51:45White House Dumps Another Truckload of New Regulations That Will Cost Americans Hundreds of Billions
John Kerry’s deranged ‘Green’ policies are wreaking havoc on American families. And Kerry flies around the world on private jets to promote this crap. Kerry has been wrong on practically everything, but he continues to exert significant power in American and global affairs. Watch below.
Kerry ripped for demanding agriculture emission cuts: ‘Bankrupt every farmer in America’
U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry was blasted on social media over the weekend by critics who accused him of trying to destroy the agriculture industry in order to achieve “net zero” emissions.
“Agriculture contributes about 33% of all the emissions of the world, depending a little bit on how you count it, but it’s anywhere from 26 to 33, and we can’t get to net zero, we don’t get this job done unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution,” Kerry told a climate change summit in May.
Frequent private jet passenger, John Kerry, admits that destruction of the farming industry is essential to achieving ‘Net Zero’:
“Agriculture contributes about 33% of all the emissions of the world. And we can’t get to net zero—we don’t get this job done—unless agriculture is… pic.twitter.com/1nlzrDFr6A
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-08-04 12:53:082023-08-04 12:53:08Kept Husband and Private-Jet Connoisseur Kerry Ripped for Demanding Agriculture Emission Cuts: ‘Bankrupt Every Farmer in America’
By Steven Bradbury • Distinguished Fellow, Executive Vice President’s Office
The FBI’s chilling record of politicized abuses and the executive branch’s continuing misuse of federal intelligence authorities to target the exercise of free speech and other constitutional rights of Americans gives Congress clear and compelling grounds for enacting forceful reforms, starting with the FBI. In fact, the time is ripe for Congress to consider a complete reconstruction of the FBI, defining the scope of its jurisdiction, refocusing its mission on traditional law enforcement, and putting it under effective control. Short of that comprehensive reform, Congress must, at the very least, put in place the minimum set of proposed reforms outlined in this paper, and reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s Section 702 offers a perfect vehicle for doing so.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The executive branch’s misuse of federal intelligence authorities gives Congress clear and compelling grounds for enacting forceful reforms, starting with the FBI.
Congress should define the scope of the FBI’s jurisdiction, refocus its mission on traditional law enforcement, and put it under effective control.
At the very least, Congress must adopt a minimum set of critical reforms necessary to safeguard America’s freedoms.
The liberty of the American people is under threat from politicized national security agencies, exemplified by the abuses of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Congress must act to restrain and reform the FBI and mitigate this threat to our cherished freedoms.
There is good reason to rethink the entire idea of the FBI at a fundamental level—to start over from scratch and reconstruct the Bureau in a new form, one refocused on its core law enforcement responsibilities, brought under effective control and oversight, and subject to the structural restraints needed to protect the constitutional rights of Americans.
After laying out the need for fundamental reform, this paper describes the general elements that would be involved in rebuilding the FBI and offers options for Congress’s consideration. We at The Heritage Foundation stand ready to assist with the foundational research and analytical work needed to flesh out the components of a serious plan for the Bureau’s reconstruction.
Whether or not Congress decides to advance a comprehensive package for reimagining the FBI, there still remains an urgent imperative for Congress to act without delay to end the weaponization of the FBI and the misuse of intelligence authorities. We describe below the minimum set of reforms we believe must be enacted. The push this year for legislation reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) provides a useful opportunity for congressional action. Any reauthorization of Section 702 must include meaningful reforms.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-08-02 11:51:142023-08-02 11:51:14How to Fix the FBI
In an interview, Elon Musk shared sharp criticism of environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) principles, characterizing them as a reframe of on old communist ideas.
Elon Musk slammed environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) during an interview late last week, saying it was effectively a “rebranded” form of communism.
Musk made the remarks during a Friday discussion on an X Space while discussing corporations investing in implementing the woke agenda into their firms.
“We don’t basically do some sort of like bizarre, like communism rebranded thing, which is like a lot of what ESG is and to be inflicted upon corporate America without the knowledge of the actual shareholders, which is what’s going on!” Musk said.
“The big firms that you hear are BlackRock, you know, Vanguard, all them, they’re like, they’re setting themselves up for the biggest class action lawsuit in the history of class action lawsuits by an order of magnitude!” he added.
WATCH:
🚨 @ElonMusk calls the ESG scam “communism rebranded,” predicting rogue asset managers (like @BlackRock) will face the largest class action lawsuits in history over their political activism: pic.twitter.com/HITs0mZfQl
You may have noticed starting with your April-May power company electric bill a new charge entitled Storm Surcharge which varies based on the number of kWh of power you use. This is different from another state approved charge which you’ve been billed for entitled Storm Protection Charge which has occurred for much longer.
After waiting 38 mins* (starting approximately 9:20 am today) I finally got thru to a TECO Customer Service Agent to ask what the relatively new Storm Surcharge was about. The nice lady I talked with told me this was a new state approved charge to defray costs of hurricane damage to power company facilities, lines, transformers etc. by Hurricane Ian and was temporary e.g. would occur for 12 months (9 more to go).
I don’t know about you but I received no written notice from TECO explaining this new Storm Surcharge.
The Storm Protection Charge had previously been explained in writing under a page entitled Understanding Your Electric Charge and was defined as – “The cost of additional hardening efforts to further protect the power grid from hurricanes or other extreme weather events. (Note: Nothing about hardening against EMP events).
The very helpful TECO agent told me something else which was very disturbing along the lines of FL govt (I assume FL Dept of Financial Services – Division of Insurance but could be some other agency) was considering requiring every FL property owner be required to purchase flood insurance whether they live in a flood plane or not. I certainly hope this is not true as it would be very unfair for those of us who don’t live on the coasts or in other flood planes to bear the burden of bailing out those who do and suffer storm surges or other flood damage.
-If it turns out this is true then we tax paying property owners who don’t live in flood plains or flood prone areas should fight against this additional govt mandated expense.
*Note – the explanation for why I had to be on hole for so long was that electric company customers, especially the elderly have been inundated with scam calls often using power company phone numbers that they owe X ? on their electric bills and if they didn’t pay within 24 hours their power would be cut off and, link to send ? either by credit cards or with Bit Coins. This, in turn has led to many more phone calls to the power companies by customers. I was told they had reported this to LE agencies but nothing had been done to curtail these scams.
Florida electric utilities’ storm protection plans will speed electricity restoration minimally, for very few customers, with dramatic rate increases for all. the plans are about utility profits, not storm protection. You still have time to take action!
AARP Florida has been closely following developments at the Public Service Commission (PSC) regarding Florida electric utilities’ Storm Protection Plans (SPPs). Florida’s for-profit monopoly utilities are using the opportunity and incentives provided by a recently-enacted SPP state law to make massive and largely ineffective investments in Florida’s electric grid. The plans anticipate rate increases of $18 to $29 per customer, per month by 2029, though there is no way to measure post-storm restoration performance, and no way to hold utilities accountable for proposed improvements.
On Aug. 10, in rubber-stamp hearings that were part of rushed regulatory proceedings, PSC commissioners unanimously approved the four utilities’ SPPs (Florida Power & Light (FPL), Duke Energy Florida, Tampa Electric Company, and Gulf Power Company). AARP Florida members should know these facts:
AARP Florida estimates Florida electric customers will pay $40 billion for implementation of the plans by 2059, including an estimated $12 billion in profits for utilities.
All customers will subsidize a tiny few. Despite the SPPs massive size, few customers will experience shorter storm-related outages. For example, just 4 percent of FPL’s residential customers and 5 percent of Duke Energy’s customers will get their overhead powerlines undergrounded.
The SPPs are not strategic, and do not consider any modern options for reducing grid dependence, such as: solar, batteries, or a more decentralized electricity system.
None of the SPPs complied with the PSC’s own Rules (25-6-030) for such plans.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-08-01 09:51:242023-08-01 09:51:24FLORIDA: Electric Companies Now Charging a State Approved Estimated $12 Billion in ‘Storm Surcharges’ to Every Floridian
“The government must be allowed to seek to persuade people of its views”
In response to efforts to stop the government from censoring the speech of people it opposes, the censors keep arguing that they have the free speech right to censor. Here’s how I originally described it.
When Judge Terry Doughty issued an injunction in Missouri v. Biden that banned the government from “specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression”, all hell broke loose.
Laurence Tribe, a lefty constitutional law professor, co-authored an op-ed complaining that the injunction “seems to maintain that the government cannot even politely ask companies not to publish verifiable misinformation.”
“The First Amendment certainly doesn’t prevent them from merely asking,” Tribe contends, and preventing the government from doing so “would turn the Constitution’s protection of free expression in an open society into an obstacle course for some of the most valuable exchanges of information and ideas we can imagine.” The most valuable exchanges of ideas apparently involve asking social media monopolies to take down content mocking the president.
The Biden administration has doubled down on Tribe’s argument that it has the right to “persuade” companies to censor.
In a filing Tuesday evening with the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the administration argued that a lower court judge’s July 4 decision was overly broad and would hurt the government’s ability to fight misinformation on platforms in a crisis.
“The government cannot punish people for expressing different views,” lawyers for U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration wrote. “But there is a categorical, well-settled distinction between persuasion and coercion. The government must be allowed to seek to persuade people of its views, even where those views are the subject of controversy.”
If the government wants to persuade people of anything, it should speak to them. Talking behind their backs to monopolies with vast censorship powers and then ‘persuading’ them to use those powers to censor its opponents is a violation of the First Amendment.
Persuasion is Biden giving a speech. Coercion is Biden officials telling companies what materials should be taken down. However it’s worded, it amounts to the government coordinating on removing speech against the will of the speaker.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-31 20:52:052023-07-31 20:52:05Biden Regime Wants to ‘Persuade’ Americans by Censoring Them
Congressman Troy Nehls represents the 22nd Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas’ 22nd Congressional District includes portions of Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Harris counties.
Prior to his election to Congress, Troy served his district for nearly 30 years in law enforcement and served our country 21 years in the U.S. Army Reserve.
At the age of 19, Troy enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve. He deployed on combat tours to Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places. After 21 years of service, he retired with the rank of Major and as the recipient of two Bronze Star medals.
Back home, Troy continued his service through law enforcement, a multi-generational tradition for his family. In 1994, Troy began his law enforcement service with Fort Bend ISD. He spent the next twenty-six years serving Fort Bend County in various law enforcement roles.
From 2004 to 2012, he served two terms as the elected Constable for Ft. Bend County Pct. 4. After two successful terms as Constable, Troy was elected as Fort Bend County Sheriff in 2012. In 2016, Troy was re-elected and completed his second term in December 2020.
Troy was officially sworn in as Congressman for Texas’ 22nd District on January 3rd, 2021. Troy received his bachelor’s degree from Liberty University and his master’s degree from the University of Houston Downtown. He resides in Richmond with his wife, Jill, daughters, Jenna, Cambry, and Tori, and their four dogs Archer, Buddy, Boo, and Lulu. They worship at Faith United Methodist in Richmond.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-31 07:51:532023-07-31 07:51:53WATCH REP. TROY NEHLS: Border Judo! President Bill Clinton Testifies Against DHS Secretary Mayorkas
Other Parties: 2 Independents (both caucus with Democrats)
Total Seats: 100
“Note:From January 3, 2021, to January 20, 2021, party division stood at 51 Republicans, 46 Democrats, 2 Independents (who caucused with the Democrats), and 1 vacancy. Both Senate seats in Georgia were up for election in 2020 – the Class 2 seat held by Senator David Perdue, and the Class 3 seat held by appointed senator Kelly Loeffler (special election).No candidate in either race won a majority (50%+) as required by Georgia State law, forcing run-off elections for both seats held on January 5, 2021. Senator Perdue’s term expired on January 3, 2021, resulting in a vacancy until the winner of the run-off election was sworn in.Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock defeated Perdue and Loeffler, respectively, in the run-off elections and were sworn in on January 20, bringing the party division to 50 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and 2 Independents (who caucus with the Democrats). Democrats hold the majority due to the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.“
One can readily observe majority, in fact, isnot held by Democrats in the US Senate (chalk this up to giddy partisan Senate staff mayhaps) – but putative Vice President Harris, does wield the tie-breaking vote as putative President of the Senate.
Hold that thought.
Following two (2) excerpts, from the USConstitution, specify naturalbirth qualification to hold office as President, or Vice President, of the United States.
“NoPersonexceptanaturalbornCitizen, or a CitizenoftheUnitedStates,atthetimeoftheAdoptionofthisConstitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
Ms. Harris, the former AttorneyGeneralofCalifornia, a previously sitting USSenator & graduate of the UniversityofCalifornia,HastingsCollegeoftheLaw is well aware she is not qualified to even campaign for the office of Vice President, let alone be elected, or seated in it.
Her parents were Jamaican & Asian Indian.
Naturalbirth means both your parents are citizens of the country you are born in.
Even today, Jamaica is a Commonwealth of Great Britain.
The Framers of the Constitution, specified naturalbirth as qualification for Office of President – to keep foreign influence from creeping into US governance & policy, including control of US Armed Forces as Commander In Chief.
Robert Laity of New York has asked US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to place emergency injunction upon Ms. Harris, prohibiting her exercise of the office of Vice President.
THATCONTROLSNV,WI,PA,GA,MI,WIVOTINGMACHINES FROM DOMINION, SMARTMATIC, ES&S, SEQUOIA, PREMIER, DIEBOLD
AND
OPTECHVOTINGMACHINESRESPONSIBLEFOR THE MASSIVE 2020 VOTING FRAUD.
TheseUndisclosedHarris-EmhoffRelationships arePrimaFacieEthicsFraudandDisqualifyKamalaHarris from Running for Dog Catcher.
See especially above, Filing Pages 22,23,63,66,74, California Schedule“S” & CA Form 3805 EZ, which reference British firm DLAPiperLLP, run by Sir Nigel Knowles of Smartmatic’s SGO & the Queen’s Privy Council. (Kudos to American Intelligence Media (AIM) & Patriots for Truth.See www.aim4truth.organdwww.patriots4truth.org.)
The Anglo Banker controlled Crown of Great Britain has caused a lot of trouble for the United States over the last two & one half centuries, now straining once more, the common bonds of these two Filial Peoples, (despite ongoing separation by a common language). In fact, elements of the English Crown, through activities of the Queen’s Privy Council, control major portions of US Society in this very moment, in the five or six major control sectors of American Society – including Elections, Intellectual Property, Monetary Policy, Media & Federal Legislature, Bureaucracy & until President Trump, the Executive Branch. See,
Thus, we have Chief Justice John G. Roberts – indefactoStateofTreason, per Harris matter – slated to preside over Impeachment Trial of former President Trump, should that Fraud receive fullest, basest expression, with the President of the US Senate, putative Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris – likewise manifest in a State of Treason – wielding the tie-breaking vote in the question of a Conviction.
Were one President Trump – with past as prologue – one shouldn’t like one’s chances in such moments, we may think.
16th century Elizabethan courtier Sir John Harrington from time to time, found himself asked to remove him away from Court, where his Godmother Queen Elizabeth I, on occasion, found his insouciant witticisms striking perhaps too too, close to the mark, for the tastes of the pious Spinster Monarch.
Such a Harrington riposte as this, may have been so posited,
“Treason never prospers.
What’s the reason?
If it prosper – NonedarecallitTreason.”
Now at length, as once more ad nauseum, matured English designs crowd headlong into our American affairs, it can truly be said,
Upon one heartbeat hinges operation of all three (3) Branches of Enumerated Federal Government – thatofcomplicitChiefJusticeRoberts.
I refer you Dear Reader, to the original prerogative, yet available to all five (5) Branches.
Only the Creator could have constructed so interesting, intriguing & humbling a scenario for repentance & action, in our fallen nation.
Let us seek His Face, in humble supplication, gird our loins, & respond in the Liberty He gifted us with which to heal our land.
Treason cannot prosper, if America will but Stand Fast.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-30 18:51:272023-07-30 18:51:27A State of Treason
Interestingly, within 72 hours of these hearings new material has emerged which offer a very high resolution lens with which to view the testimony given below.
A highly-anticipated internal FBI document – obtained by DailyMail.com – includes bombshell claims that Joe Biden and his son Hunter forced a Ukrainian oil executive to pay them $10 million in exchange for the then-Vice President’s influence in getting a senior prosecutor fired.
According to the conversation between a confidential source and Burisma CFO Vadim Pojarski in 2015, Hunter Biden was hired onto the company’s board to ‘protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.’
Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky told the source: ‘It costs 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.’
‘For the better part of a year, I’ve been pushing the Justice Department and FBI to provide details on its handling of very significant allegations from a trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme,’ Grassley said in a statement.
‘While the FBI sought to obfuscate and redact, the American people can now read this document for themselves, without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats, thanks to brave and heroic whistleblowers.’
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-23 09:53:232023-07-23 09:53:23VIDEO: Full Hearings on Biden Family Tax Evasion
If one visualizes the establishment of the first (small) society, as Enlightenment thinkers did (circa 1690-1800), one must suspect that it was founded on the mutual agreement of—a social contract among—the first members. It seems unlikely that it could not have lasted very long if any society had been fashioned on disagreement. Given that agreement was at the foundation of the community, the only thing that could break the club apart would be the introduction of disagreers into its midst.
Of course, disagreers might have been expected to come from outside the society, if only because they could not have been party to the agreement in the social contract. But disagreers might also have been expected to come from inside the society if the children of the members needed to be schooled in the necessity to continue the agreement made by their parent, guardian, and ancestors. Such “schooling” arose at first within every family’s lodgings (and duties). As the generation succeeded generation, the survival of society depended upon the effectiveness of family schooling. Successful schooling and transmission of social commitment to the agreement eventually led to establishing a culture with rules, laws, and (sometimes) a constitution.
Anyway, somewhere along the line, in many (if not all) growing societies, these two types of problems arose. External problems arose as people from outside the club occasionally attempted (usually by engaging in armed conflict) to take over the community and impose a new and different agreement system. Thus, the threat of external attack by disagreers–aka enemies–made it necessary to devise an externally oriented (military) self-defense force.
(2) Internal problems arose, as people (parents) on the inside, for whatever reason, failed to properly school their children properly, opening the way for the rise of rebellious disagreers in the midst the society, who would attempt (usually by engaging in law-breaking behaviors) to take action against one or more (law-abiding) members of the community. The threat of internal attack by disagreers—a.k.a. criminals—made it necessary to devise an internally oriented (police) self-defense force. The problem faced by every society has been what to do with disagreers, especially with those who were actually citizens by birth but technically non-citizens by disagreement—non-citizens by rebellious choice–against the very social contract in which they had been nourished to adulthood.
For thousands of years, the accepted way to deal with external enemies was to defeat them on the field of battle, and the accepted way to deal with internal criminals was to capture and punish them with lashing, torture, incarceration, exile, and execution.
But, today, we style ourselves as having reached Kantian (enlightened) maturity, no longer (completely) accepting such methods, if only because we think those methods are inhumane. Furthermore, our (U.S.) system of government not only permits disagreement, it has come to encourage it. It has created a (tacitly legal, at least) second category of citizen disagreers who are not considered criminals.
This second category of citizens who disagree with the social contract has a variety of euphemistic labels: progressives, liberals, mainstream media, change agents, innovators, visionaries, special interest groups, etc. Hence society is destined to be in constant turmoil as waves of new children (encouraged to question authority and to think there isn’t even supposed to be a box) rush onto the agreement stage with ideas of how to change it from whatever it was before, even if it’s for no good reason at all.
Drug users and the drug industry want drugs legalized the same way alcohol was because there is a market for getting stoned. Thieves want robbery legalized because they are poor. Criminals wish to have prisons abolished because they are oppressed. Illegal immigrants want citizenship rights even if they are not citizens. Even if they displace American jobs, businesses want to have international business ties for labor. Snoops wish to increase surveillance capabilities and rights with less hostility from privacy advocates because they think they can save the nation. Technologists wish to have more customers with less work. Governments want more power with less disclosure. Employers wish to lower wages for more work. Employees expect to pay higher wages for less work. Bullies don’t like bullying criminalized. Stock brokers want insider trading legalized. Women’s liberation leaders want to end the biological definition of womanhood and erase it from social memory. The salacious want sexting legalized, just like “adult” literature.
Muslims want to build mosques legally like churches have been lawfully made. Atheists want all public evidence and acknowledgment of Christianity and all religion removed from the public square. The NRA wants to keep Second Amendment rights free of surveillance. The anti-gun advocates wish to have every gun and owner tracked in detail. Etc. All these things are pleas and petitions about the social contract.
No society can survive for long in such persistent bickering and turmoil. And when we overlay all this with the “fact” that there are terrorists behind every tree, under every rock, and in every social setting, who can be confident that anything they say or do will not mark them for some watch list? After all, everyone is watching everyone for signs of anti-social behavior. But what is anti-social behavior in this turmoil? Who is appropriately defending his human rights? Who is not entitled to display violence to make their point in a society drowning in messages of change? How else can the message gain precious national television and news media coverage?
I advocate for stopping the encouragement for change, if only because it affects the stability and future survival of this Great Nation that many of us have worked and died to establish. Not everything done or settled in the past is wrong and needs change, simply because the sweep hand passed the twelve on the clock and someone has succumbed to the media mantra for change. The fact is that every society must have a stable constitution, laws, and rules. And it is not much harder to adjust to the government to have no premarital sex than it is to accept the current calls for no sexual harassment.
Societies have adapted to the former quite well. It is time to think about establishing certain sections of the country where all those who disagree with the current constitution and laws are separated from those who accept them. Perhaps there should be sections of the country where all the gun advocates can live; areas of the country where all the free-sex people can live together; sections of the country where all the married men and women, who want to live happily with each other and raise their children together by the social contract, can live together; or sections of the country where all the disagreers with the social contract can sit around disagreeing all day long if they want to.
According to the United Nations, self-defense is legal and a human right. But, in my view, no one has the right to violence and destruction of property for a political cause contrary to the law, no matter how much the change might be desired. Violations of the law must (should) be met with policing force to end them and punish the offenders, lest more illegalities be encouraged the next time someone has a problem with authority. If one does the crime, one should do the time.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-19 19:51:342023-07-19 19:51:34America: A Society in Crisis
Technocracy would be great, if it weren’t for the technocrats. Technocracy is the idea that experts working for the government know better than you do how to run your life and are, therefore, entitled to tell you what to do. Nice theory, but the COVID vaccine fiasco shows you just how stupid the theory is when put into practice.
I’ll get to my own court case on the vaccine safety issue in a minute but, first, a lot of other people are working on this issue now and all our combined efforts show you just how bad it was what our government did to us. The experts and apologists keep saying there is no proof the vaccines caused anyone to die, but a review of 325 autopsies by medical professionals found that COVID vaccines were the cause of death in three-quarters of the cases, primarily from vaccine-induced heart trouble. EU technocrats were aware of tens of thousands of adverse events and thousands of deaths after vaccination at the same time they were proclaiming there were no safety signals and the benefits of the vaccines outweighed the risks. Remember that line about benefits and risks, because it’s exactly what U.S. regulators say to this day. Our own CDC admitted this month that it decided not to include diagnostic codes showing COVID vaccines as the cause of death on a number of death certificates, leading to accusations the CDC is hiding vaccine injuries in federal records with the intent to deceive the public about the risks. The FDA ignored the mounting evidence of vaccine-induced deaths and refused to put warnings on COVID vaccine labels, despite pleas from watchdogs. The FDA insists there is insufficient proof of causation, which is funny because federal law only requires some basis to believe there is a problem, not strict proof, before warnings are supposed to go on. Bottom line: people didn’t get the right information because the government withheld it from them.
Now, on to my case in federal court in the District of Columbia. I just filed a motion to compel searches for records from HHS components, including the CDC and FDA, for documents containing or discussing decisions by agency officials – including HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra – to undertake or not undertake causation and other safety studies on the COVID vaccine incident reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). I filed my FOIA request more than a year and a half ago and filed suit when it became apparent HHS was stonewalling me. In all that time, HHS has not released to me a single new record not previously released in other FOIA cases – NOT ONE. Nothing that could legitimately be called a search has been performed. HHS has scoffed at the law and the court.
I’ve never seen anything like this in years of FOIA litigation. Usually agencies stonewall by conducting token searches and releasing a few inconsequential records. Not HHS in this case. It is my contention they didn’t search at all, showing contempt for the Freedom of Information Act and the Rule of Law. They didn’t search their databases, their email systems, or even ask employees where relevant records might be.
HHS Secretary Becerra cannot very well claim he is out of the loop when it comes to COVID vaccines when he has repeatedly been in the news pronouncing on COVID vaccine matters, the latest instance being last week when he warned COVID vaccine manufacturers not to price gouge on their next round of vaccines. Anthony Fauci, who worked for HHS, was all over the media during the pandemic. The government spent a billion dollars to push the narrative ‘the vaccines are safe and effective’ in the media. At the same time, Fauci, others at HHS, the White House, and other agencies were engaged in a “massive, sprawling federal ‘Censorship Enterprise’” suppressing truthful information about COVID vaccines and other matters in what a federal judge earlier this month called “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.”
HHS and other government censors tried to keep us from learning about the hazards of the COVID vaccines. They also criticized natural immunity, saying the vaccines were better, which is not true. They lied to us and suppressed truthful information, making informed consent for getting vaccinated impossible. Instead of giving us all the information and relying on people to make decisions that were best for themselves, these technocrats presumed to know what was best for everybody and to make our decisions for us.
These people think they’re in charge and rule over us. They don’t understand their own country. They think this is a technocracy when, in fact, it is a constitutional Republic where We The People are sovereign.
Our government’s line, as in the EU, has consistently been the benefits of the COVID vaccines outweigh the risks. Maybe, but that doesn’t explain why they spent a billion dollars to have the media lie to us about the vaccines, and suppressed information about the dangers of vaccination and the million-plus adverse reaction reports piling up in government databases. They deliberately gave people the wrong information so they could not make informed choices for themselves. These technocrats, for whatever reason, arrogated to themselves the right to make people’s decisions for them. This turns our system of government upside down. As a result, thousands of people took the vaccine and went to their graves trusting their government, a government that betrayed them, usurped their choices, and robbed them of their freedom and their individual sovereignty. A technocratic government that completely disregarded the sovereignty and primacy of the American people in the belief that it knew best.
I cannot tell you how furious all of this has made me. I will never rest until we have justice for the vaccine victims who went to their deaths trusting a government that deliberately betrayed them for its own cynical purposes.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-19 18:52:202023-07-19 18:52:20COVID Vaccines and the Case Against Technocracy
Limited government is essential to American freedom.
We are protected by a fundamental system of constitutional checks and balances.
When giant financial corporations try to use their power to force Woke-Left ideology such as ESG, or “Environmental, Social, Governance,” on the rest of us, it is an attempt at an end run around our constitutional defenses that must be brought down.
Take a look at my article in Issues and Insights. The push to sack ESG is on, and state and local officials, angry shareholders and freedom-oriented organizations like CFACT are leading the way.
I quote Florida Governor Ron Desantis who said, “Who do these people think they are? That they govern our society? Nobody voted for [BlackRock CEO Larry Fink]. So our mantra in Florida is, no economic or social transformation without representation. These are policies that could not win at the ballot box, so they’re trying to do through corporate America what they can’t do in the electoral process.”
CFACT has been actively participating in corposrate shareholder meetings and those of us engaged are having an impact.
As I explain in the article, “a number of free-market representatives and corporate shareholders have taken part in BlackRock, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and other annual shareholder meetings to raise a fuss. They vote on various matters, put up some of their own proposals, and ask the CEOs uncomfortable questions about their involvement in ESG activities… The CEOs are not accustomed to such pushback from conservatives. They dodge, weave and filibuster evasively and defensively. They have no answers. Their reputations have been challenged.”
ESG proponents won’t go down easily, but we are already having success. A number of Attorneys General have initiated legal action leading to 15 of 31 companies leaving the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance, whose original members collectively controlled more than $3 trillion in assets. Shareholders are rejecting radical ESG proposals when they come up for a vote.
“The American people are showing they will not stomach the woke agenda these wealthy, powerful, unelected ESG promoters are imposing on them. We the People and our elected representatives have a right and duty to confront and, hopefully, put a stop to them.”
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-11 16:51:582023-07-11 16:51:58Sacking the ESG End Run Attempt
Carbon neutrality refers to a product that has net zero carbon emissions. The manufacture and use of corn-based ethanol has expanded based on the assumption that it’s carbon neutral and therefore far better for the environment than gasoline. However, several studies have shown that such assumptions are categorically false
A 2016 study found corn grown for ethanol only offset 37% of carbon dioxide emissions produced by burning biofuels, resulting in net-positive carbon dioxide emissions that are greater than gasoline
One of the primary reasons why growing corn for ethanol has a net-positive CO2 impact is because farmers are plowing up native grasslands to make more room for corn; 60 tons of carbon dioxide are released into the environment per acre of grassland plowed
Ignoring water consumption further underestimates CO2 emissions from land-use change by 28%. When corn plants’ water needs are considered, corn ethanol is worse for the environment than gasoline
A five-year study published in 2022 concluded the CO2 emissions from corn-based ethanol are at least 24% greater than that of gasoline. On top of that, it has led to increased fertilizer use, resulting in greater water pollution and a growing dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico
Carbon neutrality is the holy grail of the biofuel industry. It refers to a product that has net zero carbon emissions. In the case of ethanol, the corn or soybeans grown to produce it would have to remove as much carbon dioxide from the environment as is given off when the ethanol is burned.
The manufacture and use of ethanol in the U.S. has been allowed to expand based on the assumption that it’s carbon neutral and therefore far better for the environment than gasoline. However, a 2016 study1 by professor John DeCicco, Ph.D., at the University of Michigan, showed that such assumptions were categorically false.
Ethanol Is Far From Carbon Neutral
What DeCicco and his team discovered was that biofuels such as corn ethanol are associated with a net increase in carbon dioxide emissions — even more so than gasoline. It turns out that the crops only offset 37% of carbon dioxide emissions produced by burning biofuels. At the time, DeCicco explained:2
“The name of the game is to speed up how much CO2 [carbon dioxide] you remove from the air … The best way to begin removing more CO2 from the air is to grow more trees and leave them. Prior to settlement, Michigan was heavily forested.
A state like Michigan could do much more to balance out the tailpipe emissions of CO2 by reforesting than by repurposing the corn and soybeans grown in the state into biofuels. That is just a kind of shell game that’s not working.”
Granted, DeCicco’s study was funded by the American Petroleum Institute, which obviously has reason to want to discredit the sustainability of biofuels. However, the research reiterates what other, more independent researchers have found before.
Ethanol Raises Net Carbon Emissions
For example, in 2014, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a report titled “Ethanol’s Broken Promise,”3 which reached similar conclusions as DeCicco’s study. It too concluded that corn ethanol is worse for the environment than gasoline.
One of the primary reasons why growing corn for ethanol has a net-positive carbon impact is because farmers are plowing up native grasslands to make more room for corn. The failure to take this change in land use into account is how proponents of biofuels have been able to perpetuate the myth that it’s carbon neutral.
According to EWG, more than 8 million acres of grassland and wetlands were converted to corn between 2008 and 2011 alone, and every time an acre of grassland is plowed, 60 tons of carbon dioxide are released into the environment.4
So, while the ethanol fuel program was designed to reduce carbon emissions, the loss of grasslands does just the opposite. Estimates showing corn ethanol’s positive influence on the environment have also failed to consider the water needed to grow the corn.
“Ignoring water constraints underestimates emissions from land-use change by 28%,” EWG reported.5 According to agricultural economists at Purdue University, when corn plants’ water needs are considered, corn ethanol is worse for the environment than gasoline.6
The EWG also cited data debunking the false claim that ethanol has no impact on the price of corn and other agricultural commodities. According to scientists with the National Academies, the radical change in the proportion of corn used for ethanol resulted in the price of corn rising by 20% and 40% between 2007 and 2009 alone. This is partly why anti-hunger organizations have been so against corn-based ethanol.
The Many Downsides of Biofuels
A five-year study7,8 published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) in February 2022 also came down hard on corn-based ethanol, concluding its CO2 emissions are at least 24% greater than that of gasoline. On top of that, it has led to increased fertilizer use, resulting in greater water pollution and a growing dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. As reported by Civil Eats:9
“Despite the promise that the RFS [renewable fuel standard] would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a new study … finds that expansion of U.S. corn cultivation has come at eye-popping environmental costs.
Corn production expanded by 8.7%, or 2.8 million hectares (6.9 million acres), between 2008 and 2016. As a result, the researchers found that nationwide annual fertilizer use surged by 3 to 8% and water pollutants rose by 3 to 5%.
The sheer extent of domestic land use change, however, generated greenhouse gas emissions that are, at best, equivalent to those caused by gasoline use — and likely at least 24% higher.
That’s because the RFS caused corn prices to spike by 30% and soybean and other crops by 20%. As a result, farmers planted corn everywhere they could, replacing other crops and pastureland, and plowing up land that had previously been reserved for conservation purposes. They also often skipped the soybeans in their rotations, despite the potential impacts on their soil …
Previous studies … dramatically underestimated the impacts those land use changes had on carbon emissions; in fact, the models treated the land that was converted from conservation or pasture as if there was little change in the amount of carbon stored once it was planted with corn — which runs counter to existing empirical evidence10 …
In 2008 … Timothy Searchinger, a senior researcher at Princeton University’s Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment, was one of several who predicted11 that using U.S. croplands for biofuels would increase greenhouse gas emissions through land use change.
Now, his assessment has been validated by the new study. Searchinger says the new study boils down to a simple, inescapable truth: Using land has a cost. And some uses simply don’t make sense because the cost is too high.
‘It’s crazy to use this very limited resource — highly productive land — for energy,’ he said. ‘It’s almost spectacularly inefficient.’ Corn ethanol converts 0.15% of solar energy into usable energy, while a solar cell today converts 15 to 20% of sunlight to energy. ‘And the good news is you don’t need to put a solar cell on the best available farmland.’”
Will Large-Scale Carbon Capture Worsen the Situation?
Fertile farmland may soon also be sacrificed for large-scale carbon capture and sequestration projects that are being implemented in South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska.
In a March 4, 2022, interview with SDPB Radio, Chris Hill, director of permitting for the Summit Carbon Solutions project, explained how they intend to capture and sequester the carbon emitted during the ethanol fermentation process:
“The science behind it is relatively straightforward … fermentation is not a new process … The bugs eat the sugars or the starches that are from the corn. They ultimately produce alcohols. They release CO2 in that process. That CO2 bubbles up through the fermentation tanks and ultimately leaves the tanks and it’s currently being emitted to the atmosphere. So that’s the science and where the CO2 is coming from.
We’ll be pulling the CO2 off its current emission point, which is the stack. And what we’re doing with that is, we’re going to use multistage compression to pressurize the CO2 into a dense phase …
After the CO2 is compressed into a dense phase … where it behaves similar to a liquid, it’s going to be injected into a pipeline that will range between 4 inches and 24 inches depending on where you’re at in the system, ultimately to transport that CO2 up to North Dakota, just west of Bismarck in the Oliver/Mercer county area, where it will be injected for safe and permanent sequestration …
The USGS’s study estimates that the state of North Dakota has a capacity to store approximately 250 billion metric tons of CO2 … And our annual capacity of 12 million metric tons. You can easily calculate … that there’s … over 100 years of capacity in that area …”
Summit Carbon Solutions is the largest of three companies seeking to pipe CO2 from ethanol-producing plants into porous rock, deep underground. The two others are Archer-Daniels-Midland and Navigator CO2 Ventures.12
What Can Go Wrong?
According to Hill, the science behind this ridiculous plan has been carefully analyzed and the process deemed 100% safe. Does that mean nothing can go wrong? Hardly. If history tells us anything, it’s that anything that can go wrong probably will, sooner or later, and when it comes to liquefied CO2 gas under pressure, it just so happens to be explosive when exposed to heat above 125 degrees Fahrenheit (52 degrees Celsius).13
Could liquefied CO2, under pressure, deep down in a rock formation, possibly get heated to combustible temperatures under extreme conditions? Something to ponder. Exposure to this CO2, say if a pipe were to bust a leak, also has severe health impacts, ranging from dizziness and increased heart rate to nervous system damage, frostbite and rapid suffocation.14
Aside from that, there’s the direct and immediate threat to farmers — and anyone who needs food — as usable farmland may be seized through eminent domain for these pipelines.15 Seizing the land of small farmers to install CO2 sequestration pipelines hardly seems to be a wise move, seeing how all the signs point to severe food shortages and, potentially, worldwide famine in coming years.
ESG Is a Complete Fraud
In late April 2023, Summit Carbon Solutions signed a multiyear agreement to sell Carbon Dioxide Removal credits (CDRs) to the NextGen, a joint venture between South Pole and the Mitsubishi Corporation.
According to PR Newswire,16 NextGen is seeking to create “one of the world’s largest diversified portfolios of CDRs, with plans to purchase over 1 million tons of CDRs by 2025.” While this may thrill investors, it won’t do a thing for our environment.
In fact, ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing is a complete scam, designed to inflate profits, not save the planet. As reported by the Harvard Business Review in August 2022,17 the trillions of dollars currently being pumped into ESG assets are “dedicated to assuring returns for shareholders, not delivering positive planetary impact”:
“The separation of profit and planet is by design. ESG ratings which underlie ESG fund selection are based on ‘single materiality’ — the impact of the changing world on a company’s profits and losses, not the reverse.
They also bear no connection to natural boundaries. According to Bloomberg,18 ‘[ESG] ratings don’t measure a company’s impact on the Earth and society. In fact, they gauge the opposite: the potential impact of the world on the company and its shareholders.’
Yet it’s hard to blame casual observers for believing that investing in an ESG investment fund is helping to save the planet. Marketing materials of ESG funds often make lofty statements about social or environmental aspirations, but the fine print reveals that the real goal is to assure shareholder profits.
For example, a prior statement from State Street’s ESG Investment Statement mentions the need to encourage a ‘transition to a low-carbon, more sustainable, resource-efficient and circular economy,’ but later it defines ESG issues as ‘events or conditions that, should they occur, could cause a negative impact on the value of an investment.’
According to Henry Fernandez, CEO of the leading ESG ratings provider MSCI, ESG doublespeak has confused most individuals, many institutional investors, and even some portfolio managers.”
In 2020, Social Capital founder and CEO Chamath Palihapitiya went even further, telling CNBC that ESG investing is a “complete fraud.”19 According to Palihapitiya, ESG “does not necessarily encourage best practices, nor does it move the ball forward on things like the climate crisis.”
Rather, it’s primarily a marketing ploy to sell potentially questionable investments and “a way for companies to get free money,” as having a high ESG means you can get negative-interest loans.
Rampant Greenwashing
Similarly, a March 2022 post titled “The False Promise of ESG” on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance20 noted that highly-ranked ESG businesses oftentimes are LESS socially responsible than companies with far lower scores. Indeed, several investigations have revealed rampant greenwashing, with many ESG-labeled funds being far from “sustainable.”
Take FTX, for example. FTX — the cryptocurrency exchange that went belly up overnight while its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried absconded with up to $2 billion of client funds — had a higher governance score than Exxon Mobil,21 despite having almost no corporate governance whatsoever.
It had no board of directors, an “irregular ownership structure,” was rife with conflicts of interest and self-dealing and had no financial controls. Bankman-Fried didn’t even keep an accurate list of accounts. If this doesn’t tell you that ESG is flawed at best, and a complete fraud at worst, I don’t know what will.
FTX isn’t alone in falling short of expectations, though. According to a September 2021 report by climate change think tank InfluenceMap, more than half the 723 funds marketed using ESG claims failed to meet the Paris Accord rules on carbon emissions and clean energy, and more than 70% of funds with broad ESG goals failed to meet global climate targets.22
ESG Is Another Globalist Takeover Tool
One glaring problem with ESG is the lack of regulations that define what qualifies a company as environmentally or socially responsible. It is this very lack of definition that allows the globalist cabal to use ESG to push their own self-serving ideologies on companies and consumers.
In a November 2022 Newsweek opinion piece,23 Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, Kathy Barnette, called ESG “a woke scam” that is changing our nation by forcing companies to embrace ideologies that most people would otherwise reject:
“ESG is the latest trendy acronym designed to empower the elites at the expense of us non-elites,” Barnette wrote. “It’s a wokeness scorecard for investors.
Think of the E in ESG as code for climate change activism. Think of the S in ESG as code for social justice — how open a company is to critical race theory, diversity mandates, and drag queen story hour in public libraries. And the G is all about how much power employees have to shake things up at a company …
Altogether, ESG investing insidiously changes traditional American values, all while never by having to stand before the American people and ask for their permission.
But the real danger is to society. ESG is a win-win for climate change activists and social justice warriors who can bypass the ballot box — and thus the will of the people — to implement policy that would have a very hard time getting passed in Congress.”
ESG Drives the Financial Great Reset
F. William Engdahl, a strategic risk consultant and lecturer who holds a degree in politics from Princeton University,24 has discussed how ESG investing fits into the globalists’ Great Reset more directly:25
“[BlackRock founder and CEO Larry] Fink … now stands positioned to use the huge weight of BlackRock to create what is potentially … the world’s largest Ponzi scam … Fink with $9 trillion to leverage is pushing the greatest shift of capital in history into a scam known as ESG Investing.
The UN ‘sustainable economy’ agenda is being realized quietly by the very same global banks which have created the financial crises in 2008.
This time they are preparing the Klaus Schwab WEF Great Reset by steering hundreds of billions and soon trillions in investment to their hand-picked ‘woke’ companies, and away from the ‘not woke’ … Oil companies like ExxonMobil or coal companies … are doomed as Fink and friends now promote their financial Great Reset or Green New Deal.”
The case of Tesla also shows how ESG can be, and is, used as a weapon. Elon Musk initiated his acquisition of Twitter in mid-April 2022. One month later, his company Tesla was removed from the ESG Index, despite its focus on creating environmentally conscious vehicles. Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil remained in the S&P 500 ESG Index top 10.26 Musk tweeted,27 “… ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.”
Control by Allocation of Resources
In summary, the ESG system is an early phase of the new financial system envisioned by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Basically, a company’s ESG score decides its ability to obtain loans and investment opportunities, and in the future, the same “social conscience”-type scoring will apply to private individuals as well.
ESG is also a specific tactic to push the “green” agenda forward, and it too is part and parcel of the WEF’s Great Reset. While the notion of a pollution-free world is an attractive one, ESG investing isn’t about the environment, or social justice, or anything else it claims to stand for.
It’s all about creating a control system in which the world’s resources are owned by the richest of the rich, while the rest of the population can be controlled through the allocation of those resources, including energy. As explained in an anonymous Winter Oak article:28
“Under such an economic construct, asset holding conglomerates can redirect the flow of global capital by aligning investments with the UN’s SDGs [sustainable development goals] and configuring them as Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) compliant so that new international markets can be built … and eventually move populations towards a cap-and-trade system, otherwise known as a carbon credit economy.
This will centralize power in the hands of stakeholder capitalists under the benevolent guise of reinventing capitalism through fairer and greener means, using deceptive slogans like ‘Build Back Better’ without sacrificing the perpetual growth imperative of capitalism.”
The WEF itself also describes ESG as being part of its resource-based economic system:29
“Digital finance refers to the integration of big data, artificial intelligence (AI), mobile platforms, blockchain and the Internet of things (IoT) in the provision of financial services. Sustainable finance refers to financial services integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into the business or investment decisions.
When combined, sustainable digital finance can take advantage of emerging technologies to analyze data, power investment decisions and grow jobs in sectors supporting a transition to a low-carbon economy.”
So, in closing, it’s important to be aware of the downsides of relying on suspect labels like ESG, which could ultimately tie the global population to a new form of data slavery.30
Zuckerberg steals. It’s what he does. From the Winklevoss twins (Facebook) to Instagram, Zuck is infamous in this. He doesn’t invent, he doesn’t create, he either steals or buys other people’s ideas. Musk ain’t haven’t it.
Social media platform Twitter warned rival Meta that intended to protect its intellectual property rights following the latter’s debut of a Threads, a Twitter competitor that is linked to Meta’s other platforms.
Twitter has raised concerns that Meta may have improperly used its intellectual property and issued the firm a cease-and-desist letter on Thursday.
“Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms (‘Meta’) has engaged in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property,” the letter reads. Twitter went on to note that Meta had hired many of the company’s former employees and tasked them with creating the “copycat” threads app.
“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” it warned.
Meta, which also owns Instagram and Facebook, debuted Threads on Wednesday. The microblogging platform is comparable to Twitter but offers users a larger character limit.
Upon taking over Twitter, Musk implemented dramatic staffing cuts and upended the company’s content moderation policies to permit the posting of previously disfavored content. He has since made many technical changes to the app, prompting mixed responses.
Meta’s launch of Threads appeared to be an attempt to capitalize on user frustrations with Twitter.
Musk and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who controls Meta, have openly clashed in recent weeks, with the pair seemingly agreeing to a cage match that may or may not actually take place.
Turns out Meta was hiring dozens of former Twitter employees who had work phones & docs from the company so that they could create a Twitter clone this past few months
Now @elonmusk is getting ready to sue them for violating intellectual property & trade secrets laws
EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-08 10:51:482023-07-08 10:51:48Twitter To Sue Facebook (Meta) Over Its Twitter Clone ‘Threads’
Wednesday on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, unhinged racist Joy Reid said she did not leave her house on July 4 over fears of mass shootings because “America is awash with guns.”
Reid said, “Sadly, there is nothing more quintessentially American than fireworks and gun violence.”
Really? Americans who don’t hate this country would say that there is nothing more quintessentially American than a freedom that Reid could not enjoy anywhere else in the world. And why does it make Reid sad that we celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks? How should we celebrate? With woke finger snapping instead? Let’s face it: what she really hates is that we celebrate America at all instead of wallowing in racial guilt and self-flagellation.
“So far we’ve had more than 350 mass shootings this year,” Reid continued, citing a completely misleading, bogus figure. “According to a recent survey, around 1 in 5 Americans has lost a family member to gun violence, 1 in 5. More than half of American adults have said that they or a family member have experienced a gun-related incident, more than half. Violence, terror and trauma doesn’t happen in a vacuum. This country is awash with guns and the gun lobby is using its power to both increase access to them and to expand gun owner’s right to shoot first and ask questions later.”
She continued, “I have to say, I did not go out on July 4 and would not. The idea of going to a mass gathering, a parade, or a big fireworks thing outside seems insane to me, to be blunt, in America because America is awash with guns, and now people don’t just have them. They seem to want to shoot people with them and use them for whatever, you know?”
“Use them for whatever, you know?” What does that mean? How does this incoherent, fear-mongering, bitter propagandist have a job posturing as a serious political commentary? Oh, that’s right – she works for MSNBC.
On November 23, 2022, Reid used her opening remarks on her show The ReidOut to “unpack the myth of Thanksgiving,” saying:
“It is a holiday riddled with historical inaccuracies. It is built on this myth that the indigenous welcomed their colonizers with open arms and ears of corn. A simplistic fairytale interpretation of a 1621 encounter between indigenous tribes and English settlers that erases the genocide that followed. It’s the truth that Republicans want banned from our textbooks. Because here is the secret they want so desperately to keep: we are a country founded on violence. Our birth was violent. In 1619, a ship with more than 20 enslaved Africans landed in Virginia, ushering in two centuries of American slavery that left millions in chains or dead. When those humans in bondage were finally free, a terrorist organization that was a card-carrying member of polite society, The Ku Klux Klan, picked up where the Civil War ended, using violence to maintain white supremacy. The Klan is still active, and as Americans, we continue to choose violence. We are a country that chooses violence over and over again. There is no facet of American society that is untouched by it.”
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-07 10:51:572023-07-07 10:51:57America-Hating Reid Wouldn’t Go Out on 4th of July Because U.S. ‘is Awash with Guns’
Planet-saving Hollywood egos including Vietnam-era traitor Jane Fonda met in Los Angeles from June 21 to 24 for a special summit designed to show how the entertainment industry can influence the world in tackling “climate change.”
The Hollywood Climate Summit claimed to unite “thousands” of filmmakers with scientists and activists in a bid to “change the industry’s culture and to encourage movies and TV shows to use their outsized influence on audiences around the world.” That influence will come through increased efforts to subtly insert climate-related words, messages and phrases in TV and film scripts.
Fonda was seen as playing a key role at the summit, continuing her past efforts to push for climate hysteria.
The gathering followed a recent study by the Norman Lear Center and Good Energy which found that the climate crisis was — horrors! — “virtually nonexistent” in scripted entertainment. It noted that fewer than three percent of around 37,000 TV and film scripts made since 2016 mentioned “any climate-related keywords,” and only 0.6 percent used the words “climate change.”
They’re actually scanning every script for words that mention “climate.”
“We see this as a huge problem because, for the most part, people on average spend more time with television and film characters than they do with their own families,” summit co-founder Heather Fipps said. “It is really important for us to steep our fictional worlds in our reality.”
Translation: it’s really important for us to exploit our insidious, family-destroying influence to propagandize for the Progressive agenda.
This virtue-signaling summit comes after a study in 2019 showed private jet-setting Hollywood celebs have carbon footprints up to 300 times bigger than the rest of us.
Fonda Blames “Climate Crisis” on “Racism” & “Misogyny”
During the December 2, 2022 broadcast of MSNBC’s The Beat, anchor Ari Melber said to Fonda: “I mention women’s rights because so much we know came out of some of what you were doing, where you start out at the Vietnam protest, and then it is all of the guys, and all of the speakers are guys, and you start to say, wait, there is a lot more change even within the protest movement. You were part of that. What do you think about the progress made, and the progress being unwound, when you look at the [Supreme] [C]ourt’s [June 2022] decision [to strike down Roe v. Wade], which we know turned out a lot of voters in the midterms?”
Fonda replied:
“Yeah, it did. We’ve experienced having the right to control our bodies. That is not going to go away. We’re not going to give that up. So while it is absolutely unconscionable what the Supreme Court did, I believe that we’re going to fight and win to get those rights back. But, you know, as I learn more about climate, and as I dig deep, as I have for the last four or five years, what you realize is if there were no racism, there would be no climate crisis. If there was no misogyny, there would be to the climate crisis. It is a part of a mindset. It is the mindset that looks at a woman and says, ‘nice tits,’ or she could work in the fields. It is the same mindset as the person who looks at the tree and said floors, that could make good flooring. Everything is transactional and hierarchy, and certain things matter more than other things. So what has to happen is we not only have to stop new fossil fuel development, we have to change our mindsets.”
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-01 15:51:172023-07-01 15:51:17Fonda Leads Push for Climate Change Content in Movies and TV
When Erich Honecker (1912-1994) ruled East Germany, it was a crime to say or print anything critical of him. Now, we learn the U.S. Army has a Protective Battalion to watch over key active and even retired general officers. The mission of the Protective Battalion includes monitoring social media for “direct, indirect, and veiled threats” and identifying “negative sentiments” regarding the generals under its protection. Could Herr Honecker have desired anything more chilling?
Those who have served know that it is a favorite pastime of GIs to complain about military martinets, rear-echelon staff officers, and phony heroes like John Kerry and his paper-cut-Owie Purple Hearts. But now, if a GI e-mails his girlfriend to tell her his weekend pass was pulled because that jerk General X restricted everyone to the base, the Protective Battalion could charge that GI for calling General X a jerk. Actually, some are jerks.
I have to ask those of the Greatest Generation, the Silent Generation, and the Boomer Generation who, along with their families, sacrificed so much to defeat Communism and win the Cold War: Was this what we were fighting for? Did we and our families suffer the loss of loved ones and endure our own wounds and hardship so the U.S. Army could act like the former East German dictator Erich Honecker?
Granted the Ministry of State Media (MSM) will not dig into the horrifying implications of the missions assigned to the Army’s Protective Battalion, but where is the outrage from those of us who won the Cold War? Complaining to the Biden* White House will do no good. But is anyone contacting their Congressperson? If the GI’s right to bitch (“express negative sentiments”) about those above him or her is not written in bold letters in the U.S. Constitution, it should be.
Okay. Was it really that bad behind the Iron Curtain? Or, was that just Hollywood hype, back when Hollywood was on our side? Wonder Wife and I were behind the Iron Curtain three times. Once, on the sealed, blacked-out night-only Duty Train jolting on neglected tracks across East Germany to West Berlin. Twice via Lufthansa into the USSR and internally twice within the USSR via Aeroflot, the airline with the world’s worst safety record.
We know first-hand what it is like to live under 24/7 electronic surveillance, to talk only outdoors with brave (foolish?) locals who covered their lips to thwart lip-reading KGB or Stasi snitches. Yes, life within the USSR and East Germany was just as scary, sterile, and joyless as reported in the insightful novels by Joseph Kanon, John le Carré, and many others.
It is also shocking to learn that Pentagon officials think retired generals cannot take care of their own personal security. What kind of warriors are they? A better use of tax-payer dollars would be to allow generals to retain their issued sidearm, that compact automatic pistol that comes with their Flag Officer Kit. Or, they could exercise their 2d Amendment rights and buy something really useful like a M1911 or a Glock 17.
Protective Battalion nota bene: I did NOT say General X is a jerk.
* Election disputed.
Suggested reading:The Berlin Exchange by Joseph Kanon, 2022. Or, any of the espionage novels by John le Carré.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-07-01 02:51:272023-07-01 02:51:27GIs: Quit yer Bitchin’ or Face Charges!
If rulemaking and regulatory costs continue to accelerate at the same rate as they did during the Obama administration, the report states, “[T]he result after eight years [under Biden] would be a cumulative $7 trillion, which is almost $60,000 per household.”
Biden admin regulatory costs surpassing those under Obama, research shows
By Aaron Kliegman | Fox News June 29, 023:
The Biden administration’s burdensome regulations have cost Americans about $10,000 per household, according to a new report, which noted that figure could skyrocket if President Biden is re-elected in 2024 and serves another four years.
Casey Mulligan, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, compares the regulatory records of President Biden and former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama in a new study published by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.
As of the end of last year, according to the study, the Biden administration imposed new regulatory costs on American households and businesses at a pace that is surpassing that of the Obama administration during a comparable time period. Specifically, Mulligan writes that the Biden administration has so far been adding regulatory costs at a rate of $617 billion per year of rulemaking, not counting regulatory costs created by statutes and other non-rule regulatory actions.
Mulligan calculates that the added costs of these Biden-era rules finalized in 2021 and 2022 — including both their current and expected future costs — amount to about $9,600 per household. These costs are spread over time rather than concentrated in the first year that the rules take effect — and could spike significantly if Biden is re-elected.
If rulemaking and regulatory costs continue to accelerate at the same rate as they did during the Obama administration, the report states, “[T]he result after eight years [under Biden] would be a cumulative $7 trillion, which is almost $60,000 per household.”
Still, Biden has fewer regulations per year than Obama and Trump in almost every category, according to the report. However, the current administration has implemented some especially costly regulations, such as actions on student loans and vaccine mandates.
Overall, automobile fuel economy and emissions standards account for a third of the total regulatory costs, with health, labor, telecommunications and consumer finance regulations also comprising a significant chunk.
Unlike Biden, Trump oversaw large-scale deregulation, as the report notes.
“The Trump administration’s agencies through four years reduced regulatory costs by almost $11,000 per household in present value,” according to Mulligan, who notes that figure doesn’t include Operation Warp Speed to produce a COVID vaccine. “On an annual basis, President Trump was on net reducing regulatory costs (more than $300 billion per year of rulemaking) almost as fast as Presidents Obama and Biden were creating them ($600 billion per year of rulemaking).”
If rulemaking and regulatory costs continue to accelerate at the same rate as they did during the Obama administration, the report states, “[T]he result after eight years [under Biden] would be a cumulative $7 trillion, which is almost $60,000 per household.”
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-06-30 11:51:252023-06-30 11:51:25BIDENOMICS: Biden Regulations Have Cost Americans a Whopping $10,000 Per Household: Study
More than two decades after Islamic terrorists exploited the U.S. government’s inefficient system for tracking foreigners who overstay visas, the problem is only getting worse with a startling 853,955 visa overstays in fiscal year 2022. A new report issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tries to downplay the severity of the situation by shining a light on the positive, that the overstay rate is a mere 3.67% compared to 96.33% of over 23 million nonimmigrants that departed the country on time in accordance with the terms of their admission.
The reality is that the latest available overstay figure is an alarming record-breaker for the U.S. and it indicates that national security is not being taken seriously by the government. At least four of the September 11 hijackers were in the United States with expired visas and all these years later the government—under both Democratic and Republican administrations—has not found a way to adequately track visa overstayers. After the 9/11 attacks Congress created a system to track the entry and exit of foreign nationals by using electronically scanned fingerprints and photographs. It was called the U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indicator Technology (US VISIT) and it was seriously flawed even though the government invested around a billion dollars over several years to get it going. It never worked properly, however.
In the meantime, a persistent crisis involving visa overstays has gripped the nation in years following the 2001 attacks. The investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that nearly half of the nation’s illegal aliens entered the U.S. legally and overstayed their visa undetected. Other federal investigations have revealed that the U.S. has failed to properly remove millions who overstayed their visa, including DHS losing track of hundreds of dangerous foreigners that “could pose a national security or public safety concerns.” Every year the government fails to catch hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals who overstay their visa. In fiscal year 2015 it was more than half a million, including thousands from terrorist nations like Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Syria. A few years later the number of visa overstayers increased to 702,000. Among them was a Portuguese man with an expired visa charged in the gruesome kidnap and murder of a young woman whose body was found bound in a suitcase on a Connecticut street.
The latest figures included in the Fiscal Year 2022 Entry/Exit Overstay Report illustrate that the problem is much worse than previously reported, though DHS tries to sugarcoat it by highlighting that most foreigners left when they were supposed to. The agency also uses the excuse of the “unique challenges” due to COVID-19 and temporary changes in U.S. policy that allowed travelers to file for immigration benefits while out of status. Nevertheless, DHS is forced to recognize in the document that the record-breaking figure of 853,955 “presents the overstay rates of those who remained in the United States beyond their authorized period of admission with no evidence of an extension to their period of admission or adjustment to another immigration status.” This is very disturbing and deserves congressional scrutiny.
The new data shows that 9,005 Chinese citizens overstayed their student visa last fiscal year, accounting for around 16% of student or exchange visitor overstays. India is second in the category with 5,037 followed by 2,918 Colombians and 2,427 Brazilians. Venezuelans accounted for the largest number of short-term visitors with expired visas at 172,640 followed by Mexico with 123,623. Mexicans also accounted for the biggest chunk of overstays in temporary worker visas with 131,000 followed by India with 5,800. Throughout the report DHS appears to make excuses for the security lapses, writing in one instance that “determining lawful status requires more than matching entry and exit data.” As an example, the agency offers that “a person may receive a six-month period of admission upon entry and then subsequently apply for and receive an extension for the period of admission of up to six months from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.” Identifying those extensions, changes, or adjustments of status are necessary steps to determine whether a person has overstayed the authorized period of admission, DHS stresses.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-06-29 10:51:142023-06-29 10:51:14Record 853,955 Foreigners Overstay Visa Decades after Terrorists Did it to Execute 9/11
Biden’s Health Department is being weaponized to promote homosexuality and the transgender agenda. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra launched the department’s “Pride Summit” on Monday, stressing the importance of normalizing the LGBT agenda. He quipped, “Supporting the LGBTQI+ community is a top priority for me and HHS. Equity runs at the heart of every initiative we take on here.”
Numerous Biden administration officials participated in the event, including White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who identifies as a lesbian, and HHS Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine, a biological man who identifies as a woman. Several other non-governmental LGBT activists were present too, including American Civil Liberties Union “Trans Justice Strategist” Arli Christian and Casey Pick, director of Law and Policy for the Trevor Project, which has hosted sexually explicit online chatrooms for children and teens.
The Pride Summit served dual purposes: the first was to laud, in the words of an HHS press release, “the historic actions taken by the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure that LGBTQI+ communities … have the resources and support they need and deserve.” Under Biden’s tenure, the HHS has turned into a veritable LGBT cheerleading squad, with both Becerra and Levine marching in Pride parades and vociferously promoting gender transition procedures (including genital mutilation surgeries) for minors, flying the “Progress Pride” flag outside HHS headquarters, and hosting a pro-trans roundtable discussion — and that’s just this month’s activities.
The second purpose of the Pride Summit was to showcase future HHS endeavors to promote LGBT ideology. Among them are the planned release of a “Behavioral Health Care Advisory on Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth” for mental health experts to use in advocating for harmful gender transition procedures, mandating state child welfare agencies use federal funding to promote gender transition procedures, and efforts to force health care providers to violate their consciences and commit gender transition procedures.
Becerra said of the HHS’s efforts, “This game of defense can get tiring. We want offense. Let’s play on the offensive and let’s grow.”
The sentiment was echoed by Levine, who tweeted last week, “All summer long we will be celebrating the ‘Summer of Pride.’” He repeated the slogan at the Pride Summit, calling for not just a whole month dedicated to the LGBT agenda but a whole season: “Happy Pride Month, and actually — let’s declare it a summer of Pride.”
Speaking on gender transition procedures for children — including puberty blockers, hormone drugs, medically-unnecessary double mastectomies, and genital mutilation surgeries — Levine declared, “We often say that gender-affirming care is healthcare, gender-affirming care is mental healthcare, and gender-affirming care is literally suicide prevention care.” There is no evidence to support Levine’s claims, and there is actually evidence which contradicts it.
In fact, Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, Family Research Council’s director of the Center for Family Studies, told The Washington Stand that “this is the most invasive ‘intervention’ that exists to treat any psychological condition and yet it has the least evidence to recommend it.” In a 2021 study authored by Bauwens, she noted that “despite the years of empirical study, there is no clear understanding of etiology in the suicide literature. In other words, there is no clear understanding of the individual and combined risks that cause a person to commit suicide,” yet transgender advocates consistently claim to know definitively, after a cursory period of usually inconsistent research, exactly why teens and adults identifying as transgender commit suicide.
Most U.S. studies on the link between gender transition procedures and suicide are largely inconclusive, admitting that there is not enough data available over a long enough period of time. The most thorough study on the subject comes from Sweden. The 30-year-long study found that the suicide rate amongst those who identify as transgender increased after gender transition surgeries, rising to at least 20 times the suicide rate of peers.
Back in 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services refused to mandate coverage of gender transition procedures, citing an absence of evidence that such procedures are actually beneficial. That was undone by the Biden administration last year, and health insurance providers are now required to cover gender transition procedures. Conservative author and commentator Matt Walsh’s documentary “What Is a Woman?” also explores the question, highlighting the experiences of those who regret their gender transitions and the increased risk of suicide, especially since underlying psychological issues aren’t addressed by gender transition procedures.
Quena Gonzalez, Family Research Council’s senior director of Government Affairs, told The Washington Stand, “How much more aggressive can the Biden administration possibly get? We may be about to find out. Buckle up: Biden has another year and a half in this term.”
Monday’s Pride Summit doesn’t just mark the ideological weaponization of yet another federal agency under Biden’s guidance: since his appointment to head HHS in 2021, Becerra has turned the department into arguably the largest pro-abortion activism arm in the U.S. It should be no surprise that a man who considers the brutal, broadscale killing of unborn babies to be “health care” should also advocate for the sexualization and mutilation of children who aren’t killed in the womb.
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.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2023-06-28 21:52:432023-06-28 21:52:43Weaponized HHS Takes LGBT Agenda on ‘Offense’
