The Federal Trade Commission issued a proposed, $7.8 million settlement order Thursday related to charges that an online counseling service revealed customers’ sensitive data with online advertisers like Facebook.
“In the hierarchy of health information, details about a person’s mental health may be among the most confidential,” the FTC said Friday in a blog post explaining the disturbing case.
“[BetterHealth] promised to keep [sensitive health information] private through statements like: ‘Rest assured – any information provided in this questionnaire will stay private between you and your counselor.'”
“But from the FTC’s perspective, a truthful statement would have been ‘Rest assured – we plan to share your information with major advertising platforms, including Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo, and Pinterest.'”
BetterHelp, an online counseling service, also does business as My Therapist, Teen Counseling, Faithful Counseling, Pride Counseling, Terappeuta for Spanish-speaking clients, and others, the FTC indicates in its pending settlement updated March 2.
People who signed up and paid for BetterHelp services between August 1, 2017 and December 31, 2020 may receive partial refunds thanks to the proposed settlement. The settlement order also bars the company from continuing to share customers’ health data for advertising purposes. Third parties that received the data are to delete it.
BetterHelp, despite repeated promises to the contrary, reportedly shared health information from over 7 million consumers with Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, and others for advertising purposes.
Among the most egregious examples are allegedly uploading nearly 2 million current and former clients’ email addresses to Facebook to target their friends with ads for mental health services. The company also allegedly disclosed to Facebook 1.5 million clients’ responses to an intake questionnaire query about whether the client had been in counseling or therapy in the past.
Similarly, the company allegedly broke its privacy promises by disclosing the IP and email addresses of 5.6 million former clients to Snapchat. Criteo is yet another company to which BetterHelp shared clients’ email addresses.
BetterHelp’s home page, which boasts it is “256-bit SSL secure,” claims 3,822,804 people have received “help” from their more than 31,366 licensed therapists. The popular platform, which claims to be the “world’s largest therapy service,” regularly runs television and online ads for its service.
The advertisement below was published February 28, according to iSpot.tv.
The confidentiality section on BetterHelp’s frequently asked questions page says, “Generally, the therapist will keep what you tell them confidential, but there are limited exceptions … please discuss with your therapist their legal obligations to confidentiality if you have an concerns or questions.”
Unfortunately for patients, the data sharing came from outside an established, patient-provider relationship. The data in question stemmed from an intake questionnaire that “repeatedly pushed” would-be clients to “hand over sensitive health information through unavoidable prompts,” rather than the protected interactions with therapists on the platform.
The website also goes into great detail about how they, theoretically at least, protect clients’ privacy and security. “We have built state-of-the-art technology, operations, and infrastructure with the goal of protecting your privacy and safeguarding the information you provide,” the website says, detailing the steps they claim to take to ensure that privacy.
BetterHelp’s privacy page goes into considerable depth, evidently to convince would-be clients that their private data is secure.
The FTC’s ruling in this case carries implications for other companies. For example, though an email address might not automatically be considered health information, it can be if the source of that email address is a health-related website like a therapy service, a diabetes supplies manufacturer, or a physical therapy establishment.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
A teen who has been arrested and charged with murdering a Chicago police officer was also arrested last summer, but county prosecutors ultimately dropped the charge against him.
Around 4:45 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, Chicago PD received a call about an armed suspect chasing a woman down the 5200 block of South Spaulding Avenue near an elementary school in Gage Park. Two patrol units responded to the call. One unit went to the woman’s house, but the other pursued the suspect on foot.
One of the pursuing officers, 32-year-old Andres Vasquez-Lasso, soon exchanged fire with the suspect, identified as 18-year-old Steven Montano, “at close range,” Police Supt. David Brown said. According to reports, Montano struck Vasquez-Lasso in the head and leg several times. The officer died at Mount Sinai Hospital soon afterward.
“We are heartbroken,” Brown said in a press conference that night. “Policing is a big family. People know at some point they may be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice, but you never wish or hope that it actually happens. And tonight, this tragedy did.”
Before he died, Vasquez-Lasso shot and wounded the suspect in the head. Montano was transported to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, leaving his in-person appearance in court, scheduled for Friday, in doubt. Montano has been charged with first-degree murder, felony aggravated unlawful use of a weapon with no FOID card, felony aggravated discharge of a firearm near a school building, misdemeanor assault, and misdemeanor interfering with the reporting of domestic violence.
Though Montano currently has no criminal record, Ald. Raymond Lopez of the 15th Ward of Chicago claimed that the suspect is a known gang member who was allegedly involved in an area shooting last summer.
On July 28, witnesses claimed that three men shot a 27-year-old man in the leg several times and then sped away in a white Honda Accord, which turned out to be stolen. When police attempted to pull the car over, the car stopped and three men fled the scene on foot in separate directions. Montano was later found hiding under a nearby porch, and two guns believed to be connected to the shooting were found elsewhere on the same street “in the direct flight path of the offenders from the vehicle,” the police report said.
Against police recommendations, Montano was never directly charged in connection to the shooting or the discovered weapons, but instead was assessed a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest. “The defendant, who was a passenger in the vehicle, was not charged with a felony because the evidence does not support a charge of gun possession,” the office of Kim Foxx, the Cook County state’s attorney, said in a statement on Thursday.
Prosecutors later offered Montano “an alternative to traditional prosecution,” and after he performed 25 hours of community service, the misdemeanor charge was dropped. Lopez claimed that the decision not to prosecute Montano led directly to Officer Vasquez-Lasso’s death.
“Officer Lasso would be alive today if we put that gangbanger away, the way we should have,” Lopez stated.
Vasquez-Lasso had just celebrated five years on the Chicago police force. He leaves behind a wife in Chicago and other family members in Colombia. Supt. Brown has called for the city to cover the cost of flying those Colombian family members, some of whom are local law enforcement officers, to Chicago for the funeral. “This is a family of public servants,” Brown said, “and as you can imagine, they are taking this tragedy very, very hard.”
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Actor-turned-podcast host Russell Brand pummeled MSNBC, big pharma, and the military-industrial complex during his appearance on the latest episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
Brand tussled with fellow guest and liberal MSNBC analyst John Heilemann during a debate about media bias. Brand contended that all of the corporate cable news networks have an inherent bias because of pressure from their controllers. Heilemann claimed that Fox News was far worse in regards to disinformation than MSNBC – the network that signs his checks.
Brand declared, “But I have to say that it’s, it’s disingenuous to claim that the biases exhibited on Fox News are any different from the biases exhibited on MSNBC.”
“It’s difficult to suggest that’s because these corporations operate as anything other than mouthpieces for their affiliate owners in Blackrock and Vanguard,” Brand continued. “We’ve have to take responsibility for our own perspective.”
Brand said, “I’ve been on that MSNBC. Man, it was a propagandist nut-crackery over there.”
Brand spoke about previously appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show, “It was absurd the way they carried on.”
“No one could concentrate, they didn’t understand the basic tenets of journalism,” the comedian stated.
“No one was willing to stick up for genuine American heroes like Edward Snowden,” Brand proclaimed. “No one was willing to talk about Julian Assange and what he’s suffered – trying to bring real journalism to the American people.”
“I think to sit within the castle of MSNBC throwing rocks at Fox News is ludicrous. Make MSNBC better. Make MSNBC great again,” Brand said.
A perturbed Heilemann lashed out, “You don’t actually know anything about any of these organizations you’re talking about. You’ve been on MSNBC once – big f***ing deal! You don’t have a single actual fact.”
Heilemann challenged Brand to provide one example of an MSNBC correspondent or anchor saying something they knew was false on TV.
Brand gladly accepted the challenge.
“The ludicrous, outrageous criticisms of Joe Rogan around ivermectin,” Brand retorted. “Deliberately referring to this as a horse medicine when they know this an effective medicine.”
Brand raised another example, “What about Rachel Maddow turning up on the TV saying, ‘If you take this vaccine you’re not gonna get it.”
Heilemann simply dismissed Brand’s examples without explaining why.
The “Stay Free” podcast host then questioned the MSNBC analyst, “Do you think you can improve America by avowedly condemning Fox News without acknowledging that you’re participating in the same game?”
Brand called for systemic changes, and taking money out of politics.
“We need new political systems that genuinely represent ordinary Americans so that we can overcome cultural differences,” Brand told Bill Maher. “And bickering about which propagandist network is the worst is not going to save a single American life, not improve the life of a single American child, not going to improve America’s standing in the world, and the world needs a strong America. I’ll tell you that.”
Brand told Heilemann, “So you have an obligation, a duty, not to condemn these people.”
(WARNING: Explicit language)
Russell Brand Calls Out MSNBC's Hypocrisy on COVID
"Do you want an example? The ludicrous, outrageous criticisms of Joe Rogan around Ivermectin deliberately referring to it as a horse medicine when they know it's an effective medicine!"@rustyrockets@billmaher@joeroganpic.twitter.com/5J0e0hkpSh
Maher said the pandemic dissenters are “looking better these days.”
Brand delivered a comedic take on the origin of COVID-19. He suggested that COVID came from a Wuhan lab leak and not the wet market that was touted as the origin of the deadly outbreak.
Maher sarcastically joked, “How could it not be a possibility? It’s a lab in Wuhan where the virus started that studied the virus and was doing gain of function research on the virus. How could it not be?”
Heilemann blamed the politicization of the COVID-19 origin debate on former President Donald Trump.
“If you go back to that time, why do people seize on the notion that they’ll reject the lab-leak theory? Because like everything else in COVID, Donald Trump politicized it from day one,” Heilemann theorized.
Brand pushed back by saying, “It seems that it’s not solely the responsibility of Donald Trump that this issue has become politicized. When we take the issue of natural immunity, the efficacy of masks, it’s difficult not to posit that perhaps increasingly a centralized authority becomes subject to inquiry that it has never before faced because of the advancement of technology, because of our media ability to communicate, they are doubling down on authoritarianism.”
Bill Maher & Russell Brand on the Suppression of the COVID Lab Leak Theory
Brand also delivered a warning about big pharma and the military-industrial complex.
“If you have an economic system in which pharmaceutical companies benefit hugely from medical emergencies, where a military-industrial complex benefits from war, where energy companies benefit from energy crisis, you are going to get states of perpetual crisis where the interests of ordinary people, separate from the interests of the elite,” Brand asserted.
Russell Brand Calls Out MSNBC's Hypocrisy on COVID
"Do you want an example? The ludicrous, outrageous criticisms of Joe Rogan around Ivermectin deliberately referring to it as a horse medicine when they know it's an effective medicine!"@rustyrockets@billmaher@joeroganpic.twitter.com/5J0e0hkpSh
Fox News host Tucker Carlson called out “professional Christians” Thursday, saying they did not speak up for religious freedom when “Christians are arrested for being Christians.”
“You have to wonder when you see a tape like that where are so-called Christian leaders?” Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and honorary board member of the Daily Caller News Foundation, said after discussing the legal ordeal of Mark Houck, who was charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in 2022 before being acquitted in January. “Where is Russell Moore and all the other breastfeeding Christians as that happens, as the U.S. government cracks down on Christianity and prayer? Silent.”
WATCH:
Carlson noted that the Biden administration dropped charges against some rioters in Portland, while others were sentenced to community service in contrast to the prosecutions of Houck and Paul Vaughn, who was one of 11 pro-life activists arrested over a March 2021 protest at an abortion clinic. Video showed heavily armed FBI agents taking Vaughn into custody in October.
Carlson also mocked Attorney General Merrick Garland over his explanation during a Wednesday hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee about why more pro-life protesters were arrested than alleged perpetrators of attacks on crisis pregnancy centers.
Carlson then discussed the ordeal of Canadian pastor Derek Reimer, who was arrested by Calgary police Thursday on charges of “mischief” and “causing a disturbance,” after he was forcibly removed while protesting an “all ages” drag show, the Post-Millennial reported.
“Where all the professional Christians? You have to wonder that again,” Carlson said. “Where’s David French and Beth Moore and Tim Keller and all these people who were defending Christianity when actual Christians are being arrested for being Christians? Not a word.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee attends The Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center at National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of Washington D.C., on March 2, 2023. | The Christian Post/Nicole Alcindor
NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — Speaking Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., highlighted the connection between the Chinese Communist Party and the humanitarian crisis at the U.S. southern border.
In a panel discussion at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center titled “No Chinese Balloons over Tennesse,” the 70-year-old Blackburn discussed the border crisis and national security with Fox News contributor Sara Carter serving as the moderator.
Blackburn, who recently led an all-female delegation to the border in January alongside Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss. and Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., shared how she has spoken with individuals crossing the border who have been taken advantage of by human traffickers and drug cartels.
As the Tennessee senator noted, Homeland Security Investigations reported that the smuggling of migrants across the border went from being a $500 million industry in 2018 to a $13 billion in 2022.
At one point, Carter revealed that she frequently receives pictures from the Texas Department of Public Safety showing children, some as young as 2, found in the backs of trunks. The Fox News contributor also shared stories of young girls being brought across the border and sold to “the worst of mankind.”
“Shouldn’t this be a bipartisan issue?” she asked the Republican senator.
Blackburn responded that she finds the lack of bipartisan support for legislation to secure the border “astounding.” She stated that there is nothing “compassionate” about having an “open-border policy,” which she argued the Biden administration has adopted, pointing to victims who have “been raped thousands of times” or harmed by fentanyl.
“We should be able to stop this,” Blackburn said, highlighting two pieces of legislation she has proposed to combat the issue.
The first would require an adult that comes to the border with a child that does not have documentation proving a relation to take a DNA test. The other piece of legislation would prevent anyone charged with drug or human trafficking-related crimes at the country’s international border or territorial waters from receiving government benefits.
“There is no trafficker that should be getting government benefits,” she said.
In addition to the exploitation of human beings, Blackburn also talked about the rising number of fentanyl-related deaths. Last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that opioid overdose deaths increased from over 70,000 in 2020 to over 80,000 in 2021, with over 71,000 of those 2021 deaths coming from synthetic fentanyl.
“Our children are being harmed by fentanyl that is coming across the border,” she said, emphasizing how the drug has become the leading cause of death for U.S. adults ages 18-45.
The senator discussed how the chemicals used in the fentanyl trafficked at the border are coming from China, an issue the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raised in December. The fentanyl is then disguised to look like ordinary medications, such as Xanax or OxyContin, and is trafficked by drug cartels.
“Our children are the victims of this. It’s up to us to protect our precious children,” Blackburn said. “It’s up to us to protect these future generations; it’s up to us to protect our freedom and our liberty that is going to let our children dream big dreams and make those dreams come true.”
In October, the DEA announced that it had seized more than 10.2 million fentanyl pills and approximately 980 pounds of fentanyl powder from May 23 through Sept. 8 as part of its One Pill Can Kill initiative. Fifty-one of the 390 cases investigated were linked to overdose poisonings, and 35 were connected to one or both Mexican cartels.
The DEA also issued a warning in August, alerting people that disguising fentanyl pills to look like candy, calling it “a new method used by drug cartels to sell highly addictive and potentially deadly fentanyl made to look like candy to children and young people.”
Pro-life activist Abby Johnson addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2023, at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Washington, D.C. | The Christian Post/Nicole Alcindor
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — A women-centered panel at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference focused on defending human dignity and how the panelists believe the culture has lost sight of God’s intended vision for humankind.
The panel, “Some Tuff Mutha,” featured pro-life advocate Abby Johnson, founder of And Then There Were None; Penny Nance, CEO and president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America; and Kimberly Fletcher of Moms for America. Radio host Sandy Rios served as the moderator for the panel.
One of the ways the panelists believe human dignity has been lost is through the practice of abortion, which has killed 63.5 million Americans since it was legalized in 1973.
Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director (read more about her here and here), drew attention to the Food and Drug Administration modifying restrictions on abortion pills and enabling women to obtain prescriptions for the drugs at major retail pharmacies. Under the Biden administration, the FDA “greenlit abortion into the home of every woman across the country,” she said.
“We have created abortion facilities in every woman’s home across the country,” Johnson added, lamenting the risk this imposes on women.
The former abortion clinic director noted that the full extent of the ramifications of the FDA’s decision is still unknown, highlighting the lack of medical supervision surrounding at-home chemical abortions. According to a 2009 study, the complication rate for chemical abortions is four times higher than for surgical abortions.
Johnson cited several concerns she has with the modified regulations, such as women potentially hemorrhaging to death in their bathroom. She also emphasized that women will be looking into the toilet to see the remains of their “fully-formed baby.”
“And then they’re going to have to make a decision,” she said. “‘What do I do with this fully-formed baby? What do I do with this child? Do I scoop the child out of the toilet? Do I take the child to be buried? Do I flush my child down the toilet?’”
The pro-life advocate raised further concerns about the psychological impact of seeing their child’s remains.
Nance added that abortion is the “ultimate disrespect of human dignity,” but stressed that God still loves and can redeem women who have had abortions.
The conservative leader pointed to another loss of human dignity, criticizing the Biden administration’s treatment of women. She asserted that the Administration seemingly believes “men can do everything better than women, including being women,” highlighting the appointment of Rachel (Richard) Levine, a man who identifies as a woman, to the position of U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health. In 2022, USA Today listed Levine, a man who identifies as a woman, as its Woman of the Year.
Nance said CWA intends to “stand up for the unique dignity of American women” and encourages other Americans to do the same.
“We are fearfully and wonderfully made as male and female,” she said. “That is the ultimate disrespect, to deny who we are and how God created us in that unique, dignified position as American women.”
Speaking about public education, Fletcher shared how, when she talks to mothers, she tells them how “parental rights are fundamental and supreme.”
“We as parents have got to stand up,” she said. “First of all, we have to know what’s coming our way.”
Fletcher noted that mothers are attending school board meetings, reading the sexual content in books made accessible to their children, and being lectured for sharing such things out loud. She also pointed to incidents involving comprehensive sex education being taught to early elementary school students or schools instructing young children about changing their sex.
The parental advocate asserted that conservative Christian women haven’t been voting or paying enough attention to what’s happening at their school boards. This demographic of women, she added, can “repair” what’s wrong in the education system.
In terms of fixing what they see as negatively impacting the culture, Johnson said God wants His people to participate in “daily victories,” imploring those gathered to use their “voice” and “speak boldly” on these issues.
Nance seconded Johnson’s challenge, adding that the “Holy Spirit is alive and well,” and whether it be at school board meetings or outside abortion facilities, she called on everyone to speak the “truth” and fulfill God’s command to “care for the least of these.”
FIRST ON FOX: The Biden administration acknowledged in a memo, accidentally leaked on Friday, that charging fossil fuel companies less to drill would provide “greater energy security” despite its plans to hike royalty fees.
Former Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Amanda Lefton recommended late last year that, as part of its climate agenda, the Department of the Interior (DOI) move forward with higher royalty fees for an oil and gas lease sale spanning 958,202 acres in the Cook Inlet off the coast of Alaska, according to the memo obtained by Fox News Digital. DOI Assistant Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis ultimately signed off on the recommendation.
“If a Cook Inlet prospect would be developed, there would be additional government revenues and greater energy security for the State of Alaska, especially if development of natural gas resources in the Cook Inlet ameliorated the long-term supply challenges facing the Anchorage area,” Lefton wrote in the memo.
“Nevertheless, because of the serious challenges facing the Nation from climate change and the impact of [greenhouse gasses] from fossil fuels, BOEM is not recommending this option since it would not include an appropriate surcharge to account for those impacts,” she continued.
The internal Biden administration memo noted that charging fossil fuel drilling companies less would increase energy security, but said climate considerations were more important. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Lefton’s specifically recommended the federal government charge drillers with a royalty fee of 18.75% as opposed to an alternative of 16.67% which she said would attract more bids and “be more likely to facilitate expeditious and orderly development of [offshore] resources.”
Daniel-Davis stated in her record of decision — published in November after she signed off on Lefton’s recommendation — that she selected a fee of 18.75% “because this rate constitutes the most reasonable balancing of environmental and economic factors for the American public.” She didn’t mention the alternative would produce greater energy security as highlighted in the memo.
BOEM ultimately held the auction, known as Lease Sale 258, on Dec. 30. The sale garnered just one bid worth $63,983 for a single 2,304-acre tract, according to federal records.
In May, the White House canceled Lease Sale 258, which had been proposed under the Trump administration, in an unexpected decision that was promptly criticized by the fossil fuel industry and Republican lawmakers. However, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) mandated that the administration reverse the decision and hold the sale by the end of 2022.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks during a hearing on May 4, 2022. Manchin blasted the Biden administration after the oil and gas document was leaked Friday. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“The Department of the Interior mistakenly posted an internal memo making recommendations to Acting Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, Laura Daniel Davis, on the Cook Inlet Oil and Gas Lease Sale 258 mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who helped author the IRA, said in a statement Friday.
“I am appalled by its contents, which make crystal clear that this administration is literally putting their radical climate agenda ahead of the needs of the people of Alaska and the United States,” he continued.
Manchin blasted the administration for ignoring Congress’ intent and seemingly pandering to environmental groups “at the expense of shoring up American energy security and keeping Americans safe.”
“The contents of this memo speak volumes – if this is what this Administration truly believes and is how they are going to make decisions, it is unacceptable,” the West Virginia senator continued. “It’s a clear and intentional threat to energy security and the all-of-the above energy policy Congress has consistently reinforced.”
“I will not support anyone who agrees with this type of misguided reasoning.”
BOEM didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
Democrats lashed out at President Joe Biden on Thursday after he announced he would sign a bill overruling a radical overhaul of the Washington, D.C., criminal code. Mayor Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) vetoed the bill, but the D.C. City Council overruled her veto. But because of the nature of the law, which significantly reduces penalties for certain felonies and violent crimes, Congress acted to use its constitutionally vested power to prevent the crime bill from taking effect.
Last month, the House passed a resolution blocking the law. A sizable number of House Democrats, 31, supported the resolution, while most House Democrats, 173, opposed it.
On Thursday, Biden told Senate Democrats that he would not veto the bill if and when the Senate approves it. Furious House Democrats blasted Biden for reneging on his support of D.C.’s crime law overhaul.
Indeed, on Feb. 6, the Office of Management and Budget released a Statement of Administration Policy voicing opposition to the House bill overruling D.C.’s law. The effort to overturn to the law, the statement claimed, is an example of “how the District of Columbia continues to be denied true self-governance and why it deserves statehood.”
“While we work towards making Washington, D.C. the 51st state of our Union, Congress should respect the District of Columbia’s autonomy to govern its own local affairs,” the statement added.
Thus, by reversing its position, one House Democrat told The Hill, “The White House f***** this up royally.”
“So a lot of us who are allies voted no in order to support what the White House wanted. And now we are being hung out to dry,” the lawmaker said in a text message. “F****** AMATEUR HOUR. HEADS SHOULD ROLL OVER AT THE WHITE HOUSE OVER THIS.”
That lawmaker added that other Democrats are “EXTREMELY pissed” at Biden.
When the Senate finally does hold a vote, it will likely pass the bill because moderate Democrats, especially those up for re-election, have already said they would support it or are leaning toward supporting it.
Image Source: Yahoo Finance YouTube video screenshot composite
The head of a major railroad union confronted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday with allegations that some Norfolk Southern railroad workers have taken ill at the site of the railway’s catastrophic toxic spill in East Palestine, Ohio.
Jonathon Long, the general chairman of the American Rail System Federation, accused Norfolk Southern of putting workers’ health at risk at least in part due to its “cost-cutting business model.” He suggested further that the company “and other railroads alike must be held accountable in their operations, through rule-making and regulatory reform that establishes minimum safety standards in their operations.”
In his March 1 letter to Buttigieg, entitled “Norfolk Southern Is Dangerous to America,” Long, whose union represents workers on the Norfolk Southern Railroad, noted that while “the world was learning about the horrors occurring in East Palestine on television, NS officials assessed the damages and carried out their plans for rebuilding their track structure so that they could get trains moving again.”
According to Long, the railroad’s alleged prioritization of resuming business, as opposed to first adequately addressing safety and health concerns after the derailment, reflected the interests of shareholders and Wall Street, contra the well-being of those in the disaster area.
While East Palestine residents were ordered to evacuate amid the release of trench warfare gas — the result of the railroad’s combustion of its toxic cargo — Long noted that the approximately 40 Norfolk Southern maintenance-of-way employees tasked with cleaning up the wreckage were neither offered nor provided with “appropriate personal protective equipment.”
Among the items of PPE the workers had allegedly done without but needed were: “respirators that are designed to permit safely working around vinyl chloride, eye protection and protective clothing such as chemical restraint suits, rubber overboots and rubber gloves rated for safely working around the spilled chemicals that prevent direct contact with such substances.”
Workers allegedly replaced cabin filters on the derailment site and conducted deep cleanings of machinery used by outside contractors in cleanup, efforts all without appropriate protective equipment.
One worker reportedly told Long that the chemicals released in the derailment caused him to suffer nausea and migraines. Upon expressing this and other health concerns to his supervisor, he was allegedly ghosted.
“Many other Employees reported that they continue to experience migraines and nausea, days after the derailment,” wrote Long. “They all suspect that they were willingly exposed to these chemicals at the direction of NS. This lack of concern for the Workers’ safety and well-being is, again, a basic tenet of NS’ cost-cutting business model.”
TheBlaze previously reported that independent analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data concerning the fallout of the derailment has revealed that, contrary to previous claims made by EPA officials, there continue to be abnormally high levels of airborne toxins that could jeopardize the long-term health of residents in the area.
In a nearly identical letter to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), Long emphasized that action needs to be taken “before more trains go off the rails in communities like East Palestine and endure the sorrows that follow such senseless, preventable disasters.”
“[Norfolk Southern] has pierced itself, but it has somehow left communities like East Palestine and the NS Workers with the many sorrows,” said the letter. “This is immoral, and it is all because of the railroad’s cost-cutting business model that disregards the sanctity of human life for the sake of more record profits.”
Norfolk Southern, which reportedly has greased politicians’ hands to the tune of nearly $100 million since 1990, told Axios that the company was “on-scene immediately after the derailment and coordinated our response with hazardous material professionals who were on site continuously to ensure the work area was safe to enter and the required PPE was utilized, all in addition to air monitoring that was established within an hour.”
Buttigieg, who didn’t make a public statement about the disaster until 10 days after the derailment and didn’t make it to East Palestine for another 10 days, met with railroad union heads and Amit Bose, the top official at the Federal Railroad Administration, on Wednesday to discuss the disaster and potential safety improvements.
Having ostensibly dropped the ball on East Palestine, the FRA and Buttigieg announced a national initiative “for focused inspections on routes that carry high-hazard flammable trains (HHFTs) and other trains carrying large volumes of hazmat commodities.”
“Safety is always our number one priority, and the Norfolk Southern derailment reminds us of the importance of ensuring no industry can put its profits over the safety of its workers and the communities it serve,” said Buttigieg.
Bose said, “FRA is vigorously responding to the concerns expressed by residents of East Palestine and the surrounding areas, and as a result of the recent derailment, we are ramping up our safety efforts across the country.”
The DOT will also purportedly seek to implement a rule requiring two-person train crews as well as target legacy tank cars, particularly those carrying hazmat, for inspections and safety reviews.
WEWS-TV reported that Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw is expected to testify before the Republican-controlled Congress next week over the derailment and the company’s hand in recovery efforts.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
On June 30, 2022, someone named Robert posted this comment on our ministry’s YouTube channel: “Why would anyone in the 21st century give a [expletive] what illiterate desert dwellers from 2,000 years ago thought about anything?”
In writing this, he reflected the views of many people today, especially the younger generation. Why on Earth should I care about what this old, outmoded, outdated book has to say? What does it have to do with me?
Of course, the authors of the Bible were anything but “illiterate desert dwellers.” To this day, scholars are still trying to understand all the nuances of the brilliant Hebrew of Job (let alone plumb the philosophical depths of the book), while theologians have written thousands of books and articles debating the meaning of single verses in the writings of Paul. But who cares about facts? It’s convenient to bash the Bible and dismiss it out of hand. “I’ve got better things to do than read the Bible!”
I want to give you a fresh perspective on God’s Word. I want to invite you to get reacquainted with the most wonderful book that has ever been written. Are you ready to come along?
In recent years, I’ve heard lots of people say, “You can’t trust the Bibles you read. They are translations of translations of translations.” Is there any truth to this? Absolutely not. Whether you’re reading an older English Bible (like the King James Version) or a modern English Bible (like the NIV or ESV or NASB), you’re reading a translation into English straight from biblical Hebrew, biblical Aramaic, or biblical Greek. That’s it.
You are not reading a translation from Hebrew into Greek into Latin into German into English (or something like that). You are reading a translation straight from the biblical languages (namely, Hebrew and a little Aramaic for the Old Testament and Greek for the New Testament) into English. Everyone who knows anything about Bible translations knows this to be true, and the translators have spent decades studying the original languages and then many years producing their translations. So, let’s bury that myth about “translations from translations” once and for all.
“But,” you say, “I’ve heard of ancient translations of the Bible like the Septuagint, translating the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, or the Vulgate, translating the whole Bible into Latin. And then scholars today use those versions, meaning, they use translations of translations. What about that?”
Well, you’re right and you’re wrong. It is true that such translations exist, dating as far back as 250 years before the time of Jesus. And it is true that scholars use them to see how ancient readers understood the original text. In other words, when a scholar is translating the Hebrew Scriptures into English today, he will see how the Septuagint translated those same verses more than 2,000 years ago, seeking to understand the Hebrew as best as possible. Why not use all the tools you have? But then — and this is the key point — that scholar will go directly from the original language into the target language, in this case, English.
“But hang on,” you protest. “I understand what you’re saying about these scholars going straight from the biblical languages into the modern language they’re working with. But you keep talking about ‘the original Hebrew’ or the ‘original Greek,’ yet we don’t have any original copies of the Bible. We only have copies of copies of copies. So that undermines your whole argument.”
Actually, it’s true that we only have copies of copies of copies. It’s the same with virtually all the major books from the ancient world. But we must remember that the people copying books and verses of the Bible did so with the utmost seriousness, believing these to be sacred texts, even the very Word of God. It’s true, of course, that with so much interest in these texts, not every scribe was professionally trained or thoroughly meticulous. But there’s good news here, too, since we have so many thousands of manuscripts to compare, sorting out the least accurate from the most accurate.
The more you dig into this, the more amazing it becomes. That’s why, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the late 1940s, scholars were amazed to see that among the Hebrew manuscripts found there, some of them dating back to as early as 150-100 years BC, some were identical to the text found in our Hebrew Bibles today virtually letter for letter.
But this should not surprise us. After all, if you look at a Hebrew Bible today, which is based on manuscripts that are roughly 1,000 years old, you’ll see a note like this at the end of the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch, referring to the first five books of the Bible). It lists the total number of verses in the Torah, then the middle verse. Then the total number of words in the Torah, then the middle word, then the total number of letters in the Torah — yes, letters.
This means that, upon finishing his work of copying out the Torah, the scribe would have to go back and count every verse, every word, and every letter. (How many times do you have to count something like that before you’re sure you counted correctly?) And what happens if your total deviates by one single letter? You cannot use the manuscript. It is considered defective. Talk about a painstaking job!
It is true that there are some verses in the Bible that we find troubling today, such as the command to drive out (or kill) the Canaanites, a subject I have addressed at length in other books. For the moment, let me just say that there are explanations that make good sense — and I mean good moral sense. But here, I want to focus on another subject. What kind of morality does the Bible put forth? How does God call us to live?
Let’s start with the Ten Commandments. If you’ve forgotten them or are not familiar with them, I’ll print them here in full:
And God spoke all these words:
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in Heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:1–17).
Now, ask yourself this question. If the whole world lived by these words, would the world be a better place? A safer place? A healthier place? A more moral place? Would it be easier for you to raise your kids in an environment like this? Would there be less crime? Would marriages be stronger? Would people be more at peace with themselves and one another? The answer is obviously yes — unless you think that more murder and more adultery and more theft and more lying and more dishonoring of parents and more covetousness and more workaholism and more worship of false gods would make the world a better place. Yet it is these Ten Commandments which lay the moral foundation of the rest of the Old Testament. Perhaps the Bible has some divine wisdom after all.
It made news this week when The Lancet, a once-respected medical journal, finally admitted that there’s such a thing as “natural immunity” with COVID. (Is it too much to hope that, in another three years, The Lancet will cease referring to women as “bodies with vaginas”?)
Several months into “15 days to flatten the curve,” actual experts, like the Great Barrington Declaration scientists, began screaming from the rooftops about natural immunity. They argued — correctly, as it turns out — that we should protect the vulnerable while allowing those not at risk to go about their lives, get COVID and acquire immunity.
Millions upon millions of wrecked lives later (including 170,000 excess non-COVID deaths), the people who lied to us for their own selfish motives — getting on TV, high ratings for their panic porn, the joys of bossing other people around — are quietly admitting the truth.
Contrary to hysterical warnings in 2020 that “people you know” will die from COVID and “it’s definitely not just the flu,” I still don’t know anyone who knows anyone who died from COVID. For most people, it was “just the flu.”
How could the truth about natural immunity be suppressed for so long? At least there weren’t repeated studies during our COVID hell proving the strength and durability of immunity from a prior COVID infection.
Oh, except these:
May 2021: Washington University School of Medicine study finds “robust” antibodies still present at least 11 months after infection.
June 2021: Cleveland Clinic study finds no benefit from vaccination to those with natural immunity.
July 2021: Emory University Vaccine Center study finds “durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
August 2021: Israel study finds natural immunity “confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization” than two shots of the vaccine.
But medical journals, the mainstream media and “public health authorities” dismissed the notion that a prior COVID infection served any useful purpose. Those who mentioned it were treated like flat-earthers.
Days after the Great Barrington Declaration was released, the man chosen by President Donald Trump to lead the country’s response to COVID, Anthony Fauci, and Trump’s director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, colluded to ensure there would be a “quick and devastating published takedown” of the declaration.
As we now know, Twitter dutifully shadow-banned at least one of the signatories, Jay Bhattacharya.
Governors who followed the science — as opposed to Anthony THE SCIENCE Fauci — and opened their states were ripped in deranged headlines.
— “God Save the Florida Governor From His Stupidity” — The New Republic
“Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice” — The Atlantic. (President Trump also criticized the state, after a careful examination of the scientific evidence, no doubt.)
The final score on age-adjusted COVID deaths by state proves that the shutdowns accomplished absolutely nothing. Florida, for example, did way better than New York, New Jersey, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. — all top 10 “most aggressive” lockdown states. New Jersey did a lot worse than Wyoming, Kansas and Missouri, three of the least locked-down states. Whatever the explanation for the death rates — ethnicity, wealth, education, population density — it’s clearly not about how masked and locked-down a state was.
The Lancet’s long-delayed admission sent me to Nexis to review the important medical advice I’d been getting from MSNBC’s TV doctors.
— “The 11th Hour With Brian Williams,” June 7, 2020
Dr. Murtaza Akhter, clinical assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine: “Natural immunity is fine for a little bit. But that is not the way to protect yourself. The way to protect yourself from COVID is by being vaccinated and by just not getting it.”
— “All In With Chris Hayes,” Oct. 18, 2021
Dr. Syra Madad, an infectious disease epidemiologist and senior director of the Special Pathogens Program at New York Health and Hospitals system: “With natural infection … it’s like playing a game of Russian roulette. … You know, through natural infection, you’re risking a whole lot, not just yourself, but you know, for the community.”
— “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Oct. 27, 2021
Dr. Vin Gupta, NBC News medical contributor (in one of hundreds of appearances on MSNBC, I’m sure to the delight of his overworked colleagues): “People relying on natural protection, those antibodies are just not where they need to be to prevent an infection.”
— “The 11th Hour With Brian Williams,” Nov. 18, 2021
Gupta: “Natural immunity is 20% as effective at keeping you out of the hospital, in preventing serious illness. … It’s not nearly as effective as vaccine-induced immunity.”
— “The ReidOut With Joy Reid,” Jan. 10, 2022
Dr. Kavita Patel, MSNBC medical contributor: “Here’s the problem with natural immunity. It doesn’t last at the same levels forever.”
You couldn’t get the truth about a worldwide pandemic that led to catastrophic responses from public health authorities, but at least MSNBC’s doctors were “diverse”!
In a plot line that seems ripped right out of the hit Paramount series “Yellowstone,” some 65 Wisconsin families are currently being held hostage by the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The tribe has erected illegal barricades on the only roads that lead to their homes, preventing residents from entering and leaving. The only way out of the reservation is over frozen lakes that are quickly melting with the coming spring.
The yellow barricades and chained-together concrete blocks were set up 31 days ago over a bitter land dispute among two non-tribal title companies, the town of Lac du Flambeau, and the tribe. Meanwhile, racial tensions are rising, and many fear violence in a standoff that’s also shining a long-needed spotlight on the dysfunctional arrangement between Indian tribes and the U.S. federal government.
To open the roads for only 15 years, Tribal President John Johnson is demanding $20 million. It’s an amount Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany describes as tantamount to “extortion.” Tiffany also says it’s unlawful since all four roads in question receive federal funding through the Tribal Transportation Program. According to Tiffany, the tribe has received a total of $218 million in federal funds since 2013.
“I’m paying taxes to be illegally blockaded on my private land,” said Marsha Panfil. Panfil and her partner Mike Hornbostel own and run Hornwinkels Bear Stube, a historic bar and restaurant in the area. The pair has been considering closing their doors ever since they were blockaded because the only way in and out of their home is by crossing a frozen lake.
“I have to rent another house now so that I can continue to run my business,” said Hornbostel. “Crossing a [frozen] lake with the hours that we keep just isn’t conducive to sanity,” added Panfil.
Many of the blockaded homes are over 20 miles from the nearest grocery store and their residents’ jobs. Denny Pearson, another blockaded resident, crosses Ross Allen Lake every day to get to work, but he won’t be able to for much longer. “When the ice goes out, there’ll be no way to get to and from work,” Pearson told The Federalist. According to Pearson, it will likely only be safe to cross the lake for another two weeks before the ice becomes too thin. That’s when locals fear tensions will reach a breaking point.
The Dispute
When developers built homes for non-members of the tribe, they obtained right-of-way easements for parts of the roads that pass tribal land, but the easements expired more than a decade ago.
No one is denying that the tribe owns portions of the roads it’s barricading. “I think that the tribe has a legitimate position. They want to be compensated,” said Jeff Lang, a blockaded resident.
The question is whether the easements are worth $20 million. Interestingly, the tribe has barred anyone from viewing the roads’ rights-of-way appraisals. Tribal President Johnson claims the title companies could have paid much less had they “negotiate[d] in good faith” years ago. The attorney representing the non-tribal residents, however, says the tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) were slow in responding and negotiating for years.
According to the residents’ attorney, “the Landowners have made two good faith settlement offers and two good faith requests to meet to resolve these road issues,” but have received no “substantive response from the Tribe.” The Federalist reached out to Johnson but did not hear back.
Law Enforcement Refuses to Act
Some of the residents knew that the easement to their property was expiring, while others had no idea there even was an easement. All the residents, however, were guaranteed by the town and the title companies that they would have access to and from their homes.
Hornbostel told The Federalist it’s the duty of the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Police Chief TJ Bill to remove the unlawful barricades. Bill has refused, though, and Hornbostel believes the chief is taking orders from Johnson. The Federalist reached out to Bill and asked why he hasn’t removed the illegal barriers but did not hear back.
“I’ve worked my entire life to buy a beautiful home on a lake, and now it’s worth zero,” said Hornbostel. “I can’t live there. I can’t sell it. It’s worth nothing. And that’s because the government won’t do anything, law enforcement will not enforce the laws, and our town is inept.”
Pawns on a Chessboard
The residents behind the barricades are, as Lang says, “pawns on a chessboard,” and they’re suffering. Don Pollard and his wife, who are both 88 years old, along with the other residents were given less than 24-hour notice that the roads were closing. The couple’s son had fallen through the ice a couple of years ago, and though he survived, they did not want to rely on crossing the frozen lake. The Pollards have consequently had to move in with their daughter in southern Wisconsin. Other elderly residents do not have anywhere else to go and remain behind the barricades.
Residents can’t work, buy groceries, receive mail, or vote unless they cross the lake. The tribe agreed to remove the barricades for doctor appointments and ambulances only. Residents say it can sometimes take the police department almost an hour to open the roads, which has become a major safety concern.
“There are people up here that are living with high degrees of stress and emotional stress,” said blockaded resident Dave Kievet. “I talked to one gentleman yesterday who’s a Vietnam veteran, [and] he said, ‘Dave, my stress level in Vietnam was at a 10. I’m at a 9.9 right now.’”
Nicole Beer, a trapped resident, says that once the ice melts, she and her husband will have no choice but to remove the barricades themselves. “We have lives and businesses,” she said. “I should have the freedom and the liberty to drive and get my own groceries and to have the garbage service that I pay for come in and pick up my garbage.”
Racial tensions are also growing. “It’s escalating very, very quickly to violence,” said Panhil. “Somebody threatened to burn all the [blockaded] houses down yesterday,” she revealed. “I sleep with a 95-pound lab and a 12 gauge shotgun now,” stated Hornbostel. “They threaten to burn our houses. They threatened our business. What am I supposed to do? I’m going to protect what’s mine.”
The situation is so combustible that The New York Times covered the story, but its reporting has only made things worse. The Times said the tribe is “on solid legal ground” but failed to mention that the barricades were illegally erected on publicly funded roads. The Times also reported that the tribe has “promised to allow ambulances and other emergency services to pass through if needed” but did not report how slow the process has been for law enforcement to remove the barricades when needed.
“With all due respect to The New York Times, I’m not sure they really understand the situation,” said Lang. “It’s a local problem,” he continued, warning against “extreme voices” inhibiting resolution.
Is It Stolen Land?
Non-tribal residents live on the reservation thanks to the 1887 Dawes Act, which broke up communally run reservations, allotting plots of land to each head of an Indian family. Since then, parts of the reservation have fallen into non-tribal ownership via sale, foreclosure, or enforcement of tax liens.
Many residents said they believe the tribe’s barricades are part of the native “#LandBack Movement,” in which natives try to recapture reservation land owned by whites to reassert their sovereignty.
Tribal member Melissa Christensen told The Federalist that while she sympathizes with the residents behind the barricades, they “shouldn’t have been able to buy [reservation] property to begin with.” But is the Lac du Flambeau reservation really the tribe’s land? After all, the Sioux Indians occupied the area until the Chippewa Indian ancestors of the Lac du Flambeau tribe fought a bloody war against the Sioux and forced them off their land.
“If they don’t want us on their roads, are they entitled to our roads?” asked Pollard. “They’re supposed to be another country, but doggonit, are they really another country? And if they are, do they want us to treat them like another country?” asked Pollard, referencing the millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that flow into the tribe each year.
The System Is Broken
Blame for everything can ultimately be placed on the U.S. federal government and the defective, paternalistic tribal system it created. In the 1831 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia ruling, Chief Justice John Marshall stated that Native “relations to the United States resemble that of a ward to his guardian.” As a result, the U.S. government holds tribal lands in trust, managing them allegedly for the well-being of American Indians.
In reality, the regulations and bureaucracy inflicted on the reservations stifle American Indian innovation and prosperity. According to Tribal President Johnson, part of why the negotiations have taken so long is that the BIA ignored tribal leader questions and showed an “utter lack of recognition” of the tribe’s sovereignty.
But as Pollard suggested, the tribe isn’t really sovereign. Natives born on the reservations are born with American citizenship (and are eligible for Social Security, Medicare, welfare, and other benefits) because they are born on United States soil.
If the tribe were truly independent, tribal members would not be U.S. citizens, the reservations would receive no federal funding, the BIA wouldn’t exist, and the Lac du Flambeau tribe’s blockades would not be illegal. Since the tribe does receive federal funds and is demanding more and more every year, it is not sovereign and its decision to blockade its non-tribal neighbors is unlawful.
For the residents behind the barricades, their predicament is deeply complicated because the trust system is broken. The problems they face are not unique. More easements are set to expire in the area. As racial tensions and talk of reparations in America heat up, this combustible land-rights issue will also affect other reservations and non-Native Americans who live on tribal lands.
Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday laughed and appeared to trivialize the deaths of two men who died of fentanyl overdoses, all in an effort to bash Republicans. Speaking at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference, Biden bashed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), saying that if the Republican Party elects a few more lawmakers like her, then the majority of Republicans will be “running” to embrace the Democratic Party.
“Isn’t she amazing?” Biden mocked. “Oof.”
The president immediately followed up by invoking Michigan mother Rebecca Kiessling, whose two sons — Caleb, 20, and Kyler, 18 — died of fentanyl overdoses. Kiessling testified before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday, where she pleaded with lawmakers to increase border security and narcotics interception.
In his speech, Biden emphasized that Kiessling’s sons died when Donald Trump was president.
“I’ve read she was very specific recently, saying that a mom — a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl, that I killed her sons. Well, the interesting thing is that fentanyl they took came during the last administration,” Biden said, letting out a laugh.
Yesterday, a mom who lost her two sons to fentanyl poisoning told her story.
That is one interpretation of Greene’s remarks about Kiessling’s testimony. Another interpretation, however, is that Greene was making a larger rhetorical point — the same that Kiessling made, in fact — that weak border security is driving the fentanyl crisis and that the government must increase border security to stop the influx of lethal narcotics into America.
It’s true that Kiessling’s sons died in 2020 when Trump was president. But Biden’s reaction — laughter — to a fact that absolved him of direct responsibility is what drew criticism.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), for instance, demanded that Biden “apologize for this immediately.”
“No person, let alone the president of the United States, laughs when speaking about a mother who lost two sons to fentanyl poisoning,” Lee said. “What, President Biden, do you find amusing about this?”
President Biden Delivers Remarks at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
They called it a “night of rage.” But outside the charred walls of Buffalo’s CompassCare, pro-lifers could barely get the national media to call it anything. Like the string of domestic firebombings across Wisconsin, Oregon, Colorado, Tennessee, and Washington, the blown-out windows, graffiti, and trashed offices were barely a blip on network news. It’s been quite a contrast to the extensive coverage a single burned flag in New York is getting. But then, that’s the power of the Pride.
The incident that’s grabbing headlines happened in the wee hours of Monday morning. According to security footage, a woman parked her SUV, walked over to a rainbow flag hanging outside SoHo’s Little Prince restaurant, pulled out a lighter, and set the flag on fire. An employee working late inside saw the flames and called 911. Although the residents on higher floors had to be evacuated, no one was injured. There were, however, cracked windows and “external damage,” especially to the outside landscaping.
“It’s disgusting,” restaurant owner Cobi Levy said. His staff, he told the press, is shaken and scared. “These kinds of acts are desperate acts committed by people who are consumed with hate and filled with hate,” thundered Eric Bottcher, a local councilmember. The New York Times and other major newspapers descended on the scene, interviewing sympathetic neighbors and calling for the suspect to face the harshest penalties.
Within 24 hours, an investigation had been launched by NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force and a replacement flag — larger than the one that proclaimed “Make America Gay Again” — had already been hung.
The all-hands-on-deck response was quite a contradiction to what more than 100 churches and pro-life groups have experienced over the last seven months from the FBI, which waited six of those months just to list the attackers on its Most Wanted website. Not a single arrest has been made in CompassCare’s case. In fact, the federal government has been so indifferent to the crimes that several pro-life groups have resorted to launching their own private investigation.
Meanwhile, in the Big Apple, Bottcher celebrated the LGBT movement’s resilience. “Our resolve is only strengthened when acts like this happen,” Bottcher told the community at a special ceremony to replace the colors on Tuesday. “We are standing up in the face of this hate and reasserting our pride in ourselves and our community. That’s why we hung the flag again.” Little Prince posted a photo of the new flag with one word: “Defiant.”
I want to be clear right off the bat: While there’s an obvious discrepancy in how the two sides have been treated by the media and law enforcement, no one is defending this woman’s actions. Respect for other people’s property — whether it’s a ministry or a drag bar — ought to be a reasonable expectation of every American. There’s no excuse for lawlessness in any form or against any person. That said, the hysteria over what happened in SoHo is a powerful illustration of where we are as a nation, and ignoring it only primes the pump for more hypocrisy.
There are plenty of double standards at play here, not the least of which is the excessive significance the legacy media assigns to victims of their pet political causes, while more than 100 pro-life ministries, churches, and pregnancy care centers sit smoldering in the ashes of a similar hatred, virtually ignored. Imagine if this woman had set fire to an America flag. Would the press race to the scene and mourn the lack of national pride across their platforms? Of course not, because in this age of identity politics, we’ve gotten to the point where setting fire to a rainbow flag is a “hate crime” and burning Old Glory is self-expression.
Frankly, the fact that a single act of arson can make national news is astonishing in an age when mobs can burn down entire cities with the ruling class’s blessing. During the George Floyd riots of 2020, torching federal buildings, courts, city property, and private businesses wasn’t violence, the Left said. It was “justice” — the kind that major Democratic figures publicly embraced.
It wasn’t even two years ago that Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., told the masses that if there wasn’t a guilty verdict in the Floyd murder case, then “… we got to not only stay in the street, but we have got to fight for justice.” Party leaders, like then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, defended Waters’ call to arms, saying she should not have to apologize for inciting violence. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., flat-out called for “unrest,” while liberal city leaders from Portland to Chicago linked arms with anarchists, even going so far as to sue federal officials who tried to restore law and order.
At the time, the soon-to-be vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, also endorsed the mobs, telling Stephen Colbert, “They’re not going to stop … This is a movement … And everyone, beware … They’re not going to let up. And they should not, and we should not.”
Protestors, emboldened by Democrats, went on an anti-American rampage, toppling statues, defacing monuments, spraypainted historic buildings, and destroying private property, racking up more than $1 billion in damage across the country — the most expensive riot spree in U.S. history. And yet this, the burning of a single LGBT flag, is “war in America.”
The irony is hard to miss. At a time when liberal ideologues argue against prosecuting anyone for anything, a woman destroying a rainbow flag faces double the punishment under New York’s hate crimes statute, which not only penalizes crimes but motives too. But what about the motives of the arsons in Buffalo? Where was the demand for “hate crimes” in cities where “ABORT THE CHURCH” and “DEATH TO CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM” were spraypainted across houses of worship?
If you’re starting to believe double standards are America’s only standards, you’re not alone. When burning our flag is “protected speech,” and a banner of sexual fanaticism is untouchable, we’ve passed the point of absurdity as a nation. And yet, these are the lessons our children have been taught: you can kneel for the national anthem but not refuse to wear a rainbow.
Now the bitter fruits of that indoctrination are everywhere. Today, more of Generation Z identifies as LGBT (20%) than feels proud to call America home (16%). Is it any wonder that society treats the Pride flag with a reverence it used to reserve for the country that gave activists the right to fly it in the first place?
In 1989, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the criminal penalties for burning a U.S. flag, Justice John Paul Stevens lamented in his dissent, “[The American flag] is more than a proud symbol of the courage, the determination, and the gifts of nature that transformed 13 fledgling Colonies into a world power. It is a symbol of freedom, of equal opportunity, of religious tolerance, and of goodwill for other peoples who share our aspirations.”
It does not “represent the views of any particular party, and it does not represent any political philosophy,” Chief Justice William Rehnquist insisted. “The flag is not simply another idea or point of view competing for recognition in the marketplace of ideas.” The value of its unifying power, the four dissenting justices argued, cannot be measured.
Thirty-four years later, that unity is being tested as never before. We’ve become a people determined to wave our own flags, so comfortable in our factions that we’re trampling our country’s ideals — the same ideals that laid the foundations of self-expression the Left worships today. But if America has any hope of healing these deep divides, of ending these uncivil wars, the solution is returning — not to what divides us, but to what connects us. A national identity found, not in a spectrum of colors, but in three: red, white, and blue. PLEASE SEE BELOW)
Tony Perkins is president of the Family Research Council.
Matthew 24:3-14 (NIV) 3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” 4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains. 9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Romans 1:18-32 (NIV) 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
In its latest attempt to interfere in the electoral process, the Biden administration announced on Monday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is planning to award millions of taxpayer dollars to local governments throughout the country for so-called “election security” purposes.
In an agency press release, the department revealed its plans to provide “more than $2 billion in funding for eight fiscal year 2023 preparedness grant programs,” which it claims are designed to “help state, local, tribal, and territorial officials prepare for, prevent, protect against, and respond to” so-called “acts of terrorism.” Under Joe Biden’s presidency, DHS has routinely identified targeting “domestic violent extremism” as its top priority. Of course, such proclamations are never in reference to violence carried out by leftist groups such as Antifa or Black Lives Matter, but rather right-of-center people and organizations that threaten the regime’s narratives and policy goals.
Included in the new DHS press release are six “national priority areas” for the 2023 grants, with one of the priorities being what the department calls “election security.” Under the directive, grant recipients such as the agency’s “Urban Area Security Initiative” are required to spend at least 3 percent of their total grant money on so-called “election security” efforts. As even the left-wing Bipartisan Policy Centeradmitted, federal funding for elections has never been conducted this way.
While the press release doesn’t specify what the agency means by “election security,” a separate report detailing the specifics of the 2023 grant program lists several vague “core capabilities” of election security, including “cybersecurity,” “operational coordination,” and “long-term vulnerability reduction.” The document also lists numerous examples of potential projects local election offices could invest their grant money in, such as “online harassment and targeting prevention services” and “physical/site security measures — e.g., locks, shatter proof glass, alarms, access controls, etc.”
Furthermore, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has indicated these grants will be directed toward primarily urban areas, where voters routinely favor Democrat candidates over Republican ones. Recall how private funding from partisan actors such as Mark Zuckerberg was injected into government election offices primarily in the blue, urban areas of swing states, creating what amounted to a Democrat get-out-the-vote effort. As Mayorkas said:
This year, we are therefore expanding the reach of our more than $2 billion in funding by adding four additional urban areas as grant recipients: Austin, Texas; Honolulu, Hawaii; Jacksonville, Florida; and Nashville, Tennessee. This is in addition to the thirty-six urban areas we continue to support, bringing the total number of funded urban areas to 40.
The new directive is hardly the first example of Biden or his administration attempting to insert themselves into state and local election administration. In March 2021, Biden signed an executive order mandating that all federal agencies, and thus the partisan bureaucrats who staff them, “expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.” If past is prologue, these efforts will be concentrated in Democrat hubs, but the plans have been obscured.
Efforts by government watchdog groups to obtain documents related to the order have been met with resistance by federal agencies, which worked relentlessly in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms to cover up how they intended to follow the president’s directive.
Further attempts to insert the federal government into the electoral process continued into Election Day, when the Department of Justice (DOJ) deployed attorneys from its Civil Rights Division to mostly blue and swing counties to monitor polling locations “for compliance with the federal voting rights laws.” Among the localities the agency surveilled were Democrat strongholds such as Fulton County, Georgia, and Wayne County, Michigan.
The DOJ’s sensationalized pledge to “prohibit [the] intimidation of voters” came at the same time legacy media outlets were publishing story after story warning that GOP poll watchers were plotting to disrupt local election precincts on Election Day. Like most other media-manufactured narratives, the tale never came true.
Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
The project creates video game-like avatars with which people can envision specific body parts they want to target with surgery to make themselves look more masculine or feminine.
The National Institutes of Health is funding a study to create 3D avatars for transgender-identifying people to envision the body they imagine they should have and then medically alter their figure accordingly. Another NIH-funded project aims to allow trans folks to adopt a voice congruent with their sex-denying identity. Multiple taxpayer-funded studies on transgender issues focus on “intersectionality,” disparity, and HIV.
The NIH Reporter database, which lists active federally funded research projects, shows 75 with “transgender” in the title, totaling more than $26 million of taxpayers’ money annually.
The NIH is wasting taxpayer dollars on a project titled “Personalized 3D avatar tool development for measurement of body perception across gender identities,” which purports to help people with gender dysphoria by mapping the difference between their actual physical embodiment and what they believe their body to be. But instead, it indulges their illness by defying science and denying the immutability of sex.
The tool (a prototype is pictured here) would scan individuals to create personalized 3D visualizations with which they can interact on mobile and desktop devices. Those behind the project say they are trying to create technology that “can potentially improve clinical outcomes by identifying specific sets of body parts as targets for treatments to improve body congruence.” In other words, the research project will create video game-like avatars with which people can envision specific body parts they want to target with surgery — which includes removing healthy organs, shaving facial bones, and more — to make themselves look more masculine or feminine.
The study is at the University of Toronto, Canada, and has received $288,000 so far. It began in 2021 and is scheduled to run through 2024.
Other Taxpayer-Funded Research on Ideal Voice, Acne, and Sex Ed
Another taxpayer-funded study addresses how transgender-identifying people experience challenges in adopting a voice characteristic of their so-called identity. Trans individuals “report that producing a voice congruent with their gender identity is crucial to affirming their gender identity. There are a variety of gender affirming services available, but medical interventions, such as surgery or hormones do not … ensure satisfaction with vocal gender.”
A third NIH-funded study looks at acne in the trans-identifying population. “Little is known about the interplay of endogenous and exogenous hormones on acne incidence, severity, impact, treatment, and experience,” the summary says.
NIH is also funding “A fully functional online interactive sexual education tool” for “transgender and gender expansive (TGE) youth.” Such children “are at high risk of several sexual health outcomes that have life-long impacts including sexually transmitted infections, early, unwanted pregnancies, and unwanted sexual contact/intimate partner violence. … [C]urrent educational and clinical structures largely ignore their experiences,” according to the project summary. The tool will clarify “that gender-affirming medical interventions do not prevent unintended pregnancies.” It will also address what it calls “difficulties navigating partner consent because it is often described in heteronormative, binary terms in sexual education classes.”
The bluehead wrasse, a small fish and sequential hermaphrodite, meaning it contains both types of reproductive organs, will be the subject of another taxpayer-funded transgender study: “Organisms that naturally undergo sex transformations in response to changes in their social environment provide excellent systems in which to investigate mechanisms of behavioral sex specification.” Adult female bluehead wrasses can rapidly switch sex in response to changes in social structure, according to the project.
Four ongoing NIH-funded studies related to transgenderism mention “disparities” in their project titles and three mention “stigma.” NIH even issued a Notice of Special Interest in understanding how so-called “intersectional stigmas” harm health. About half of all NIH-funded transgender research, including that which has been completed, relates to higher rates of HIV among the transgender population, totaling approximately $80 million since 1985.
Despite all the possible health risks, President Joe Biden has issued executiveorders charging “HHS to work with states to promote expanded access to gender-affirming care.” The administration has issued directives that federal health insurance benefits must “provide comprehensive gender-affirming care.”
Taxpayers are already paying for transgender procedures, as they are covered by some insurers and Medicaid in some states.
Woke Waste
House Budget Committee Republicans have announced “woke waste” is among the spending cuts they want in a debt limit deal. According to the House Budget Committee:
The recent omnibus included millions of dollars in funding for woke policies that American taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for, including $1.2 million for “LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers,” $1 million for a space for “gender-expansive people of color” … and $750,000 for “Transgender and Gender nonconforming and Intersex (TGI) immigrant women in Los Angeles.”
Under the Republican plan, billions of dollars in savings would also come from ending the Environmental Protection Agency’s “environmental justice” programs, enacting new work requirements for welfare, halting Biden’s student loan forgiveness, and getting back unspent Covid-19 pandemic funds.
This byline marks several different individuals, granted anonymity in cases where publishing an article on The Federalist would credibly threaten close personal relationships, their safety, or their jobs. We verify the identities of those who publish anonymously with The Federalist.
Image source: Twitter video screenshot via @VigilantFox
A Harvard University professor of medicine delivered a stinging — and very funny — takedown of “vaccine fanatics” during a House select subcommittee roundtable on examining COVID-19 policy decisions Tuesday. The professor in question — Dr. Martin Kulldorff — is on leave from Harvard but is a biostatistician and epidemiologist and possesses “expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations,” according to the Great Barrington Declaration, a document he co-authored that questions COVID policies.
Toward the end of the roundtable, Kulldorff engaged in a discussion about COVID vaccines and natural immunity with Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa.
Kulldorff said, “By forcing children to have a vaccine that they don’t need because they already had the disease, that undermines the trust in other vaccines like the measles vaccine or the polio vaccine, and that’s very, very serious. I think during the last several decades … the never-vaccinate people, the anti-vaccine people had tried to undermine the trust in vaccines but with very little success. But the vaccine fanatics who want to vaccinate every person in this country … even though they’ve already had COVID, that has undermined the trust in other vaccines … creating enormous vaccine hesitancy.”
Miller-Meeks replied, “So not allowing their provider or physician to determine the risk and the benefit?”
Kulldorff continued, “Yeah, and also people themselves, because people know about immunity. We learned that in school. People know that if you’ve had a disease —”
Miller-Meeks — who’s also a physician — interrupted Kulldorff with a smiling, good-natured quip: “It wasn’t until I came to Congress that I found out infection-acquired immunity was a novel concept.”
“Yeah,” Kulldorff replied before proceeding to raise the trolling ante considerably. “I guess we knew about it since 430 B.C. — the Athenian plague — until 2020. And then we didn’t know about it for three years, and now we know about it again …”
Here’s the clip:
Dr. @millermeeks: Infection-Acquired Immunity Was a Never a Novel Concept Until I Came to Congress
Dr. @MartinKulldorff: "Yeah, I guess we knew about it since 430 BC, the Athenian plague, until 2020. And we didn't know about it for three years. And now we know about it again." pic.twitter.com/qm5NkW5oG8
“Actually not surprising considering for the first time in human civilization marriage is not just between man and woman,” another commenter wrote. “We are in full-blown post-rationalism, and the slippy slope is vertical.”
“Martin just pouring out molten satire is a beautiful thing to see,” another user observed.
The idea of acquiring natural immunity to COVID for the young and healthy became an almost taboo subject in the early stages of the pandemic — but recently has found its way back into the list of subjects you’re allowed to discuss without getting canceled list.
Mainstream Media have egg on their faces as more right-wing conspiracies come true, like the Wuhan lab leak. CNN, NPR, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NY Times, WaPo, etc., shame on you.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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