Since the boycott of Bud Light seems to have been a rousing success, many people are shifting focus to retail giant Target and its years of supporting radical LGBT groups — one of which even advocates to “transition” children without parental consent. It is so outrageous that even Elon Musk felt compelled to begin asking some questions about it.
Musk, who is considered center-left in most things political was shocked by a recent Fox News article that reported that Target has been supporting the radical gay group GLSEN for years, even though the group “calls for gender ideology to be integrated into all classes, even math,” and spends its donations to get American schools to comply with that policy.
In its tweet, Fox News also noted that GLSEN “encourages secret gender changes among children in schools.”
TARGET TAKES AIM: The retail giant provides annual donations to GLSEN, which calls for gender ideology to be integrated into all classes, even math. https://t.co/f7g9yLDvuOpic.twitter.com/vCK6fqXepa
In its May 26 report, Fox News noted that Target is “partnering with a K-12 education group for which focuses on getting districts to adopt policies that will keep parents in the dark on their child’s in-school gender transition, providing sexually explicit books to schools for free, and integrating gender ideology at all levels of curriculum in public schools.”
Indeed, Fox even obtained a direct quote from Target saying how much they support the organization with their annual donations of tens of thousands.
“GLSEN leads the movement in creating affirming… and anti-racist spaces for LGBTQIA+ students. We are proud of 10+ years of collaboration with GLSEN and continue to support their mission,” the retailer told Fox.
Fox goes on to explain what GLSEN does: “GLSEN calls for gender ideology to be integrated into all classes, even math. It provides educators instructions on how they can make math ‘more inclusive of trans and non-binary identities’ by including ‘they/them’ pronouns in word problems.”
“We advise on, advocate for, and research comprehensive policies designed to protect LGBTQ students as well as students of marginalized identities,” the group itself describes on its own site.
This group that Target has supported urges schools to add “intersex,” “transgender,” “non-binary” and other such left-wing “choices” of sexual identity into all class work from math to science, per Fox.
GLSEN tells schools to keep confidential any information about students “transitioning” or self-identifying as the opposite or some fantasy gender, and to make sure parents are not told of any such information unless explicitly approved by the child.
The group pushes a policy that maintains that schools and faculty “shall ensure that all personally identifiable and medical information relating to transgender and nonbinary students is kept confidential… Staff or educators shall not disclose any information that may reveal a student’s gender identity to others, including parents or guardian… This disclosure must be discussed with the student, prior to any action.”
In a Saturday news release condemning “right-wing extremists,” GLSEN attempted to spin that little nugget of information as such: “Supportive educators are a lifeline to students who do not have the freedom to be exactly who they are safely, and GLSEN will always fight back against policies that force educators to jeopardize student safety.”
The group also seeks to force schools to allow boys who claim to be transgender girls to play in school sports with the girls.
“To date,” Fox added, “the retail giant has donated at least $2.1 million to GLSEN.”
Fox’s shocking report spurred Twitter chief Elon Musk to ask, “Is this true, @Target?”
A Twitter “community note” also appeared on the tweet, noting that, “Target has donated to GLSEN for more than a decade: ‘Target annually supports GLSEN and its mission to create…spaces for LGBTQIA+ students.’” The note also presented links to the radical policies for which GLSEN advocates.
One Twitter user blasted Musk for asking the question, carping, “Oh come on, this is Fox News. You question CNN, MSNBC, but not Fox News? Don’t you think that this is hypocritical?”
But Musk pointed out that he literally was questioning the claims, and tweeted back, “Maybe it’s not true, hence the question.”
So far, Target has not made any statement past its quote to Fox that it supports GLSEN.
This newest wrinkle in Target’s big-dollar support of the radical LGBT lobby comes on the heels of a boycott effort over its “pride” merchandise and for partnering with a company that embraces satanism along with its LGBT advocacy. Target is now hemorrhaging money, as is Anheuser-Busch, following Bud Light’s decision to partner with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
The bad news continues to mount for Target and Bud Light both, and conservatives must keep the pressure on these woke corporations. Examples must be made if we hope to reverse the wide trend in corporate America of donating billions to these organizations whose main goal is to groom our children for their disgusting sexual agenda.:
Warner Todd Huston has been writing editorials and news since 2001 but started his writing career penning articles about U.S. history back in the early 1990s. Huston has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN and several local Chicago news programs to discuss the issues of the day. Additionally, he is a regular guest on radio programs from coast to coast. Huston has also been a Breitbart News contributor since 2009. Warner works out of the Chicago area, a place he calls a “target-rich environment” for political news.
During the campaign, she had frequently questioned the integrity of the 2020 election that led to Joe Biden’s presidency, and last month she had told ABC News that she would concede the gubernatorial race only if “it’s fair, honest and transparent.”
“When I first started voting back in the ’80s, we had Election Day,” Lake said in that interview. “Our Constitution says Election Day. It doesn’t say election season, election month, and we’ve watched as our Election Day has turned into election week and election weeks and now election month. And the longer you drag that out, the more fraud with problems there are.”
On Monday, nearly a week after the midterm elections, ABC News projected Hobbs to be the winner of the Arizona race, concluding that her election was part of “a stunning rejection of election deniers in midterm contests.”
CNN also projected the Democrat to win, saying she was “defeating one of the most prominent defenders of former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.”
Fox News joined the chorus declaring Lake had been defeated but noted that according to Arizona’s rules, the contest might face a recount.
The Associated Press explained its call for Hobbs by saying “the latest round of vote releases gave her a big enough lead that the AP determined she would not relinquish it.”
“The AP concluded that, even though Lake had been posting increasingly larger margins in vote updates from Maricopa County, she was not gaining a big enough share to overtake Hobbs and was running out of remaining votes,” the wire service said.
AP numbers posted in The New York Times on Monday night gave Hobbs a margin of about 20,000 votes out of the roughly 2.5 million votes cast with 95 percent reported.
Hobbs issued a statement after media outlets proclaimed her to have won.
“I want to thank the voters for entrusting me with this immense responsibility. It is truly an honor of a lifetime, and I will do everything in my power to make you proud. I want to thank my family, our volunteers, and campaign staff. Without all of your hard work, passion, and sacrifice this night would not be possible. Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” she said.
“For the Arizonans who did not vote for me, I will work just as hard for you – because even in this moment of division, I believe there is so much more that connects us,” she said, adding, “Let’s get to work.”
Just like you can reject Covid mRNA shots and not be an 'anti-vaxxer,' you can recognize an election is run in a corrupt manner and not be an 'election denier.'
Democrats throw around lazy personal attacks that are meant to avoid debating the issues or solving the problems.
It implies that anything Democrats say is a free, fair, transparent & legitimate election must be one & anyone questioning them is guilty of being an 'election denier.'
No one is supposed to question whether Democrats have corrupt motives for framing a debate this way.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Is Google attempting to change the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections with its biased algorithms? Robert Epstein believes the answer is “yes” and claims to have proof.
Epstein, a Ph.D. from Harvard University, has quite an accomplished resume. He formerly served as editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, has published 15 books and currently serves as senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology.
Leading up to the midterm elections, Epstein and a team of thousands have been monitoring political content being pushed by tech companies like Google and Twitter, and in a Sunday article for the Daily Caller, Epstein revealed those findings.
Epstein’s team has recorded 1.9 million “ephemeral experiences” pushed into users’ feeds by Google in order to convince users to vote a certain way — presumably Democrat given the company’s history of bias. Epstein expects to have recorded 2.5 million of these messages by election day.
Ephemeral content is described by Epstein as “short-lived content that impacts people and then disappears, leaving no trace.”
So, via its search engine, the Google-owned video platform YouTube and other means, Google is pushing messages meant to sway voters in a biased manner that later disappears without a trace. Or rather, it would have disappeared without a trace if Epstein had not mobilized a team of “field agents” — registered voters — to record these messages on over 2,500 computers.
There are many different types of “ephemeral experiences” meant to sway opinion — about a dozen — that Epstein has identified over the course of nearly a decade. This includes bias in search results, search suggestions, voting reminders and interactions with digital personal assistants.
For example, if you look up the candidate of one party, only favorable articles, videos and other results are pushed to the top. Additionally, what Epstein describes as “carefully crafted search suggestions” flash on Google’s search bar when a user begins to enter a term.
According to Epstein, these messages “can shift voting preferences of undecided voters by up to 80 percent in some demographic groups after a single search.”
Reminders to vote were sent more often to liberal voters than to conservatives, and question-and-answer interactions with digital personal assistants manage to “shift the voting preferences of undecided voters” by 40 percent or more, Epstein’s team found.
The psychologist’s team collected and recorded 1.5 million ephemeral experiences of this nature in the lead-up to the 2020 election. They believe these manipulations may have shifted as many as six million votes in favor of Joe Biden.
In 2022, his team found similar results.
“In swing states, and especially in Wisconsin, Arizona and Florida, we are finding a high level of liberal bias in Google search results, but not in search results on Bing (the same pattern we have found in every election since 2016),” Epstein wrote.
“In several swing states, 92 percent of the autoplay videos being fed to YouTube users are coming from liberal news sources (YouTube is owned by Google). Unless Google backs down, it will shift hundreds of thousands of votes on Election Day itself with those brazen targeted go-vote reminders — and we will catch them doing so.”
It shouldn’t come as a shock that Google would find itself ensconced in such controversy. Leaked emails leading up to prior elections have shown the company’s willingness to use biased algorithms to push the subjective values of Google employees and administrators. Leaked emails obtained by The Wall Street Journal in 2018 revealed that Google employees were discussing different methods they could use to “leverage” search functions in order to combat then-President Trump’s travel ban. At the time, Google claimed none of the ideas were implemented.
Epstein does believe there is hope on the horizon, however. According to him, just prior to the 2020 election, his company went public with their findings, prompting three U.S. senators — Ron Johnson, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz — to send Google CEO Sundar Pichai a letter threatening investigation. After the letter was sent, Epstein’s team found that Google manipulations in the Georgia Senate race dropped to zero. This is because, according to one Google whistleblower, the company can turn biased algorithms off and back on again “like flipping a light switch.”
Epstein hopes, going forward, his team can serve as an accountability shield, preventing Google and other tech companies from engaging in partisan antics.
“[T]his time, we will continue to expand the monitoring system, and we will be monitoring content going not just to voters but also to America’s children. By late 2023, we will have a digital shield in place — a panel of more than 20,000 field agents in all 50 states — and we will shame Big Tech into staying clear of our elections and our kids for many years to come,” he wrote.
Michael wrote for a number of entertainment news outlets before joining The Western Journal in 2020 as a staff reporter. He now manages the writing and reporting teams, overseeing the production of commentary, news and original reporting content.
In a case of highly charged sticker shock, a Florida Chevrolet dealer admits that it offered to replace the battery in a hybrid car for more than the vehicle is worth.
As reported by the website AutoEvolution, the case of the almost-$30,000 battery was being bandied about on social media for days, with some folks believing the tale and other relegating it to the pile of urban myths. The story was based on a copy of an estimate for the battery of a 2012 Chevrolet Volt that was making the rounds. The Volt was a hybrid that was produced as Chevy was dabbling in the electric vehicle market. Its place in Chevrolet’s lineup has now been taken by the Bolt.
The estimate said that getting the battery would set the car’s owner back $26,853.99. Other costs brought the total bill to $29,842.15 — essentially $30,000.
According to the automotive site Edmunds, a 2012 Volt is estimated to go for between $7,999 and $17,590 these days. Chevrolet advertises that its new Bolt starts at $25,000.
In the end, the truth about a used car came from a car dealer – in this case Roger Dean Chevrolet in Cape Coral, which prepared the estimate.
“This is an estimate for a 12 year old vehicle out of warranty and for a battery that is extremely hard to get, due to the older technology of the 12 year old vehicle,” the dealership posted on Facebook in an attempt to set the record straight.
(Roger Dean Chevrolet / Facebook)
The dealership also used this controversy as a chance for a sales pitch on newer electric vehicles.
“The dealership does not set battery prices. In the newer EV or EUV vehicles with newer technology the batteries do cost less. Think of it like big screen TVs. Remember when the first big screen came out, they were very expensive, and as the technology advanced the prices became better. This battery is also out of warranty of 8yr/100k miles whatever hits first,” the posting stated.
By way of context, an April report in Consumer Affairs gave a ballpark range of $4,000 to $10,000 to replace a gasoline-powered engine.
When seeking to learn how electric vehicle owners felt about the tale of the big-ticket battery, WBVH-TV in Fort Myers, Florida, visited a charging station and interviewed a man the station identified only as “Ian.”
“Thirty thousand dollars is a lot to fix anything on a car, especially when the car itself could be, like, worth less than that,” the man said.
Ian, who leases a Bolt, said things have changed in the EV market.
“As far as electric cars go, they’re being made in better ways now,” he said.
“I feel like electric vehicle space is innovating a lot. It’s moving on past the initial, like, if something goes wrong with your battery, you hit a rock or something and it messes up your battery you need to spend the entire amount you spent on your car to fix it.”
“I’m like ‘well, OK that’s gotta suck for that person’,” Ian said. “I think now that might not be as much of an issue for other people with newer cars.”
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
As the drama around Hunter Biden continues to unfold, it has come to light that he has been under federal surveillance for ties with Chinese figures, according to a recent report. Paul Sperry, a reporter for Real Clear Investigations, tweeted U.S. counterintelligence officials told him about Biden coming under surveillance and looking into his contacts and deals in China.
DEVELOPING: US counterintelligence officials tell me Hunter Biden has come under federal surveillance amid growing concerns his partnerships with CCP-tied figures–notably Che Feng, aka "Super Chairman"–could "compromise" the president or help Beijing gather US intel thru Hunter
DEVELOPING: US counterespionage officials investigating alleged contacts between Hunter Biden and members of CFIUS during Chinese takeover of US firm making automotive parts w/ dual-use technologies. CFIUS approved the sensitive 2015 deal, which had national security implications
This is not the first time that the issue of Hunter Biden and his connections to China have made headlines. Former President Donald Trump actually claimed that the Biden family had suspicious ties to China in 2019, Reuters reported.
Trump particularly accused Hunter Biden of using his position of influence to secure the financial backing of China for his investments. But at the time Trump provided little evidence of his claims about Biden, and many dismissed it. But since the contents of Biden’s laptop have been discovered by the New York Post, the connection between Biden and China has some real evidence behind it now. It has become clearer that the Biden family has strong ties to China and Chinese business and have profited from the connection.
“The Biden family has done five deals in China totaling some $31 million arranged by individuals with direct ties to Chinese intelligence — some reaching the very top of China’s spy agency,” the New York Post reported in January.
“Indeed, every known deal that the Biden family enjoyed with Beijing was reached courtesy of individuals with spy ties. And Joe Biden personally benefited from his family’s foreign deals,” the Post continued.
These deals have been going on for years it appears. When President Joe Biden was vice president under Barack Obama, Hunter Biden tagged along with him on a trip to China in 2013. While the older Biden was working on the tensions in the South China Sea, Hunter Biden paid a visit to Jonathan Li, a Chinese financier who ran the private-equity fund Bohai Capital, the New York Post reported.
“Ten days later the Chinese business license for Bohai Harvest — a new company which would invest Chinese cash in projects outside the country that Hunter Biden had been trying to launch for more than a year — was approved by Chinese officials,” the New York Post reported.
As more and more of these connections between Hunter Biden and China have been examined, there seem to be clear indication that the Biden family has immensely profited from their business deals in China.
Hunter Biden’s laptop continues to provide evidence of the connections in China that have helped along the way.
“Hunter Biden’s hard drive contained an enviable lineup of contacts for top US officials tasked with overseeing the US-China relationship, and at least 10 senior Google executives — raising new questions about the extent to which Joe Biden’s well-connected son could have leveraged his connections for personal profit,” the New York Post reported.
But now it has landed Hunter Biden in a tough spot as the security concerns surrounding his connections and business practices are raising questions.
Abby Liebing is a Hillsdale College graduate with a degree in history. She has written for various outlets and enjoys covering foreign policy issues and culture.
A new report says that the Texas school shooter told fourth graders what was coming after he shot his way into their classroom Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. The report from KENS-TV was based on the account of a fourth-grade pupil it did not name. The gunman killed 19 children and two adults before he was killed in a shootout with law enforcement. The fourth grader explained that the ordeal began with a gunshot.
“He shot the next person’s door, and then, we have a door in the middle, and he opened it. And then he came in. He crouched a little bit, and he said, ‘It’s time to die,’” the boy said.
The boy was doing all he could to survive.
“When I heard the shooting through the door, I told my friend to hide under something, so he won’t find us. I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us.”
Four boys hid with the child who spoke to KENS, partially shielded by a tablecloth. The boy recounted a harrowing moment near the end of the ordeal.
“When the cops came, the cop said, ‘Yell if you need help!’ And then one of the persons in my class said ‘help.’ The guy overheard, and he came in and shot her,” the boy said.
“The cop barged into that classroom, and the guy shot the cops. And the cops just started shooting,” he said.
Then came silence.
“I just opened the curtain. And I just put my hand out,” he said. “I got out with my friend. I knew it was the police when I saw the armor and the shield.”
The boy recalled the actions of his slain teachers, Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles.
“We were scared, and the teacher started telling us we can pray,” Timothy Silva, 8, told CBS.
His second-grade teacher alerted the students, he said.
“She started yelling, and I didn’t think it was a drill because they would have announced it. The teacher just went out there and started yanking on our door to go hide.”
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
A new report that analyzed the forthcoming movie from conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza warns that based on the 2020 election, Democrats have a “cunning plan” for the future.
After previewing the documentary “2,000 Mules,” New York Post columnist Miranda Devine wrote that “pesky evidence is starting to emerge of systematic schemes to subvert the electoral process — which must not be allowed to happen again if we are to restore faith in elections.”
Devine called the movie — which debuts next month — “the most compelling evidence to date” concerning the race between then-President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden and said research conducted by the election integrity group True the Vote reveals what appears to be “suspicious ballot harvesting.”
The Western Journal reached out to the Biden White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
The research Devine cited relied on sophisticated tracking and surveillance video to reach its conclusions.
True the Vote acquired 3 trillion geo-location signals from cellphones that were near ballot drop boxes and election nonprofits in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 3, 2020 vote.
“Then they went searching for ‘mules,’ operatives who picked up ballots from election NGOs — such as Stacey Abrams’ outfit, ‘Fair Fight Action’ — and then carried them to different drop boxes, depositing between three to 10 ballots in each box before moving to the next,” Devine wrote.
Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, said she chose the term “mule” for the people involved in the operation because “it felt a lot like a cartel, it felt like trafficking … This is in its essence ballot trafficking … You have the collectors. You have the stash houses, which are the nonprofits. And then you have the mules that are doing the drops.”
Devine wrote that the network included individuals in battleground states who collected ballots from organizations that were ostensibly out to help everybody vote and then put them in drop boxes, a few at a time.
“The extent of the operation is jaw-dropping,” she said.
“When a mule is matched with video, you can see the scheme come to life,” she wrote.
Devine noted one snippet from the film.
“A car pulls up at a drop box after midnight. A man gets out, looks around surreptitiously, approaches the box, stuffs in a handful of ballots and hightails it out of there. Then he goes to the next box, again and again,” she wrote.
D’Souza said the efforts of the mules could have swung the election based on his contention that at least 380,000 potentially fraudulent votes were tracked by the project.
“Shockingly, even this narrow way of looking at just our 2,000 mules in these swing states gives Trump the win with 279 electoral votes to Biden’s 259,” he said.
Devine said that’s hard to prove. “There is no way to scrutinize those ballots now and see if they are fraudulent but if we must have drop boxes at election time, they need to be secure and under 24/7 surveillance,” she said.
From @mirandadevine at the New York Post—the newspaper that broke the Hunter Biden story—comes a detailed preview of the evidence in “2000 Mules.” Fasten your seatbelt! @nypost https://t.co/bCAtlcD5zN
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
President Joe Biden struggled mightily when speaking at a Wednesday press conference. Biden was speaking at an event in which the Violence Against Women Act was being reauthorized. The act provides resources for the federal government to prosecute domestic violence.
Biden claimed that every American knows somebody who has been the victim of revenge porn, to the extent that they were “blackmailed” on the internet.
“So, we’ve established a new civil rights … a new civil rights cause of action,” said Biden of the new version of the legislation.
“For those whose intimate images were… shared, on the public screen.”
BIDEN: "I bet everybody knows somebody…that in an intimate relationship, what happened was the guy takes a revealing picture of his naked friend, or whatever, in a compromising position and then blackmails.” pic.twitter.com/Jw7L1u58KF
“Send it out, put it online,” said Biden, not exactly providing the clearest explanation.
President Biden’s son Hunter gave a laptop to a computer repair shop owner that contained his own intimate images. The Biden laptop isn’t a case of “revenge porn,” as the younger Biden agreed to surrender the device in question to a Delaware repairman if he didn’t return to pick it up from his shop.
Biden’s claim that every American knows someone who’s been the victim of intimate internet blackmail is highly questionable. While the crime is far from unheard of, it’s a bit of a stretch to assume it’s common enough to have affected every person in the country. He didn’t do himself any favors through his confused and convoluted explanation of the law’s new provisions, speaking in a fashion many have come to associate with the 79-year old president.
On Tuesday, Biden incorrectly stated that the “first lady’s husband” had contracted coronavirus, before realizing he was talking about himself. Maybe Joe Biden isn’t the best person to either speak on or enact internet policy.
Many people, organizations and countries have made their disapproval of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine very clear since it began last week.
Companies have stopped working with Russia. The royal family, generally quiet on political matters, has publiclycondemned the invasion. Even Switzerland has moved to sanction Russia.
Plenty of celebrities have used their social media platforms to decry Russia’s actions. Tim Allen has joined their ranks, stating in no uncertain terms how he feels about the situation.
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“My mind and body are full of anger and disgust at the coward putin ghouls that have attacked a sovereign country,” he tweeted on Thursday.
“This is the definition of wrong. My head, heart and soul pray for the people of Ukraine.
My mind and body are full of anger and disgust at the coward putin ghouls that have attacked a sovereign country. This is the definition of wrong. My head, heart and soul pray for the people of Ukraine. F-putin
Allen also shared his sentiments last week as news of war began circulating, asking for prayer for the Ukrainians under attack.
“‘Appeasement’ is the policy of feeding your friends to a crocodile, one at a time, in hopes that the crocodile will eat you last. – Franklin D. Roosevelt,” he tweeted on Feb. 24.
“Pray if you will for all those attacked today by the Russians.”
"Appeasement" is the policy of feeding your friends to a crocodile, one at a time, in hopes that the crocodile will eat you last. – Franklin D. Roosevelt Pray if you will for all those attacked today by the Russians.
While many in the replies pointed out that the quote was misattributed to FDR and actually comes from Winston Churchill, Allen’s point remains.
Other celebrities have posted in solidarity with Ukraine and pointed followers to charities that will help where the need is greatest.
Actress Mila Kunis, who is Ukrainian, and her husband Ashton Kutcher have started a GoFundMe for Ukrainian refugees, pledging to personally match up to $3 million.
In partnership with @gofundmedotorg, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have just launched a fundraiser to support @Flexport & @airbnb—two organizations providing immediate relief to Ukrainians in need. They are also matching the first $3M raised.
The celebrity couple hopes to raise $30 million to help those fleeing the country through Airbnb, which is offering free temporary housing to refugees, and Flexport, which is “organizing shipments of relief supplies to refugee sites in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Moldova,” according to the GoFundMe page.
“While we are witnessing the bravery of Ukrainians, we are also bearing witness to the unimaginable burden of those who have chosen safety,” the page reads.
“Countless amounts of people have left everything they know and love behind to seek refuge. With nothing but what they could carry, these Ukrainian refugees are in need of housing and supplies right away.”
Amanda holds an MA in Rhetoric and TESOL from Cal Poly Pomona. After teaching composition and logic for several years, she’s strayed into writing full-time and especially enjoys animal-related topics.
The price of gas continues to soar in this era of Bidenflation. It is getting so bad, some experts are warning that we could see prices as outrageously high as $7 per gallon in some parts of the country. The current high prices are not new, either. Gasoline has been on the rise for seven straight weeks, according to GasBuddy data reported by Fox Carolina.
“Veteran energy strategist Dan Dicker said he can see gas prices going up to $5 a gallon. Dicker said some areas might even get to $6.50 or $7,” Fox Carolina added.
GasBuddy noted that the national average is almost twenty cents a gallon higher than a month ago and is nearly a dollar higher than one year ago. Worse, per gallon prices have already nearly doubled in just two years. Gas was only $2.17 a gallon average at the end of 2020. And it is no coincidence that 2020 was the last full year we had a president who wanted the U.S. to be energy independent. But already, in deep blue states, gas is getting perilously close to double those prices seen in 2020. In deep blue Illinois, for instance, gas now averages $3.60 a gallon for regular (nearly $4.50 for premium), while the national average is $3.50, according to traveler assistance group AAA.
It is even worse in California where the average price per gallon for regular is an unheard of $4.75 — more than a dollar higher than the national average!
Left-wing news sources continue to lay the blame for these skyrocketing prices at the door of Russia’s threatened invasion of Ukraine. Indeed, the Associated Press is only worried over the high costs of gasoline because it will likely have a political impact for Biden and the Democrats in the 2022 elections, ……………………………
The Biden administration continues to make bizarre recruiting decisions for top government jobs on the basis of toxic identity politics. A recent addition to President Joe Biden’s motley crew of dubious hires is drag queen Sam Brinton, who was tapped last month as the “Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy for the Department of Energy.”
Rather than touting his qualifications for the job, Brinton — who lists his pronouns as “they”/”them” — bragged on Twitter about his unique status as the “first gender fluid person in federal government leadership.”
In a biographical statement on an LGBT website provided by Brinton, he boasted about having “worn his stilettos to Congress to advise legislators about nuclear policy and to the White House, where he advised President Obama and Michelle Obama on LGBT issues.”
The bio continued: “He shows young men and women everywhere he goes that they can be who they are and gives them courage. Once, while he was walking around Disney World in 6 inch stilettos with his boyfriend, a young gay boy saw Sam with his boyfriend and started crying. He told his mother, ‘It’s true, Mom. WE can be our own princess here.’”
Brinton is an active member of the Washington, D.C., chapter of a drag queen society known as the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” the National Pulse reported Thursday.
The drag queen has referred to White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci as “Daddy Fauci” and even called him a “saint.”
There are also photos on social media where he displays his fondness for “pup play,” a sexual role-playing game.
In a 2016 interview with the LGBT-focused Metro Weekly magazine, Brinton discussed his fetish in detail.
“Pup and I have what I feel is one of the most ideally perfect connections between our personal and kink life,” he said. “Both of us have other partners, so we come into this space, and then we come out of it, knowing the boundaries of where your kink and non-kink relationships begin and end.”
Brinton acknowledged that others didn’t understand his activities.
“One of the hardest things about being a handler is that I’ve honestly had people ask, ‘Wait, you have sex with animals?’” he told Metro Weekly. “They believe it’s abusive, that it’s taking advantage of someone who may not be acting up to a level of human responsibility. …
“The other misperception is that I have some really messed up background, like, did I have some horrible childhood trauma that made me like to have sex with animals.”
This is who’s helping Biden run the country right now, which is in shambles amid record inflation, soaring crime, race wars and ongoing border invasions.
People can do whatever they want in the privacy of their homes (provided it’s not illegal or hurting anyone), but the fact that the kinky sex life of a high-level Department of Energy executive overshadows his qualifications is truly alarming. This is how empires crash and burn.
Under Biden, we are witnessing the real-time destruction of America — economically, culturally and socially. And we’re only in Year 2 of his reign.
Sports network ESPN has finally run coverage of Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania. But both ESPN’s coverage and the general issue of having a transgender swimmer competing against women have sparked controversy and backlash from viewers. At first, ESPN was confronted for not covering Thomas enough and was called “cowardly” by Jason Whitlock at Blaze Media.
In mid-January Op-Ed titled, “ESPN isn’t man enough to even discuss transgender Penn swimmer Lia Thomas,” Whitlock called out the sports coverage leader for ignoring Thomas.
Comparing Thomas to “Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Colin Kaepernick rolled into one gender transition,” Whitlock noted that while the Ivy League and other universities had made announcements about Thomas competing in women’s swimming events, ESPN remained silent. Then ESPN finally ran an article about Thomas.
Written by reporter Katie Barnes, who is known for covering LGBT issues and women’s sports, the article highlighted how Thomas has been winning, even in the midst of protests against the fact that he was allowed to compete in races against women. Barnes looked at the policies and discussions taking place over the principles of transgender athletes in various sports and how the NCAA and other organizations are changing policies.
The NCAA revised its policy about the eligibility of transgender athletes. Instead of a blanket policy for all schools and sports, the NCAA decided to use the policies of each individual governing body, meaning that requirements will vary for different sports. The NCAA’s new policy also will require testosterone testing in the championship windows, beginning in 2022-23.
Barnes’ article also explained that, though Thomas has won individual events, he didn’t set any records.
“At Blodgett Pool, Thomas finished first in both of her individual events. But she didn’t set any records in either the 100 or 200 freestyle. She high-fived teammates and laughed with them between races. Despite the controversy continuing to swirl around her, Thomas turned in what is becoming a typical performance,” Barnes wrote.
But after ESPN ran the article, there was significant outcry on social media, as readers spoke up and many disagreed with the idea of a transgender athlete competing in women’s sports.
“Sidelining women in womens sports. Hope everyone is proud of themselves,” one Facebook commenter posted.
“In this case we have a male body racing female bodies. While I do not believe Lia Thomas switched to being a woman to dominate swimming, she has the same advantage over her competitors as a drug cheat would,” another user commented.
“ESPN cheers on the death of female sports. Shameful,” another posted.
“1st and foremost EVERYONE has the right do whatever makes them happy in regards to physical appearance and Identity. With that being said this is obviously unfair to natural born female athletes,” another Facebook user wrote. “It’s my understanding that fairness and equality for all are major pillars of the LGBTQ community. I don’t see either of these under the current format. There needs to be a 3rd division added or compete in the men’s division until we know more…”
Teammates of Thomas have also commented on the situation, though. Not all of them are comfortable with the fact that Thomas is competing against women. Speaking anonymously to the Washington Examiner, one teammate explained how the female swim team members were overlooked in this process.
Apparently, Thomas’ move from male to female swimming was in the works for quite some time and the university knew that the change was coming. But as this one Penn swimmer described, the university’s athletic department never asked those already on the team about adding Thomas.
“Lia swimming was a non-negotiable,” the swimmer said. “The school made it seem like they were trying to say, ‘Don’t even bother to come to us with your concerns or anything like that because we’re not going to help you.’ Or they don’t really care because ‘this is going to happen one way or the other.’”
The swimmer added how stressful it was to be put in this position, because if team members did have concerns, they felt like they couldn’t speak up.
“It just seems like if you say anything, everyone is just going to attack you and call you transphobic, and it’s not even true. We just want to have what we were promised by joining the swim team, which is fair competition and equal opportunities,” she said.
“It’s been really frustrating because we all agree, and I have yet to meet anyone or talk to anyone who thinks what is going on is OK. But yet somehow, these are the rules and allowed,” she added.
The U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that though the whole team had been strongly advised not to talk to media about the issue, another teammate also came forward to complain.
As Thomas continues to compete and beat competitors by large margins (in one 1,650-yard freestyle event, Thomas beat his teammate by 38 seconds, the Mail reported), the controversy continues. From teammates to ESPN readers, there are a lot of people questioning the situation.
Abby Liebing is a Hillsdale College graduate with a degree in history. She has written for various outlets and enjoys covering foreign policy issues and culture.
A massive chunk of a Russian rocket re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere Wednesday after raising fears of an impact in various U.S. locations.
US Space Command said in a statement that it was “aware of and tracking the location of the Angara A5/PERSEY rocket body in space,” according to CNN.
“At this time, the 18th Space Control Squadron assesses the entry point into the Earth’s atmosphere at approximately 2054 UTC (1:54 pm MST) over the Southern Pacific Ocean.” That equates 3:54 p.m. ET.
“Factors such as the atmospheric conditions and the exact angle of the object as it enters the atmosphere can alter the re-entry location,” Space Command said.
The rocket was projected to fly over parts of Mexico and Texas on one possible path to its landing, according to NBC.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
A technology company that markets microchips believes that its invention is just the thing to serve as a way to document a person’s coronavirus vaccination status.
The Swedish startup DSruptive Subdermals is touting its microchip, which measures 2 millimeters by 16 millimeters and is injected under the skin, according to the Express.
Hannes Sjoblad, managing director of the company, said critics of the technology fail to understand that it can be put to good use.Advertisement – story continues below
“This technology exists and is used whether we like it or not,” he said. “I am happy that it is brought into the public conversation.”
“New technologies must be broadly debated and understood. Smart implants are a powerful health technology,” Sjoblad said.
First lady Jill Biden revealed the 2021 White House Christmas decorations on Monday, and the State Dining Room was adorned with stockings above the mantel. But there was one blatant problem with the decor.
According to Daily Mail reporter Emily Goodin, the stockings were meant to represent the Bidens’ grandchildren, with each one having the name of a different grandchild.
Trees in state dining room decorated with old photos of first families. Stockings on fireplace have names of Biden grandkids pic.twitter.com/pkFjrAPyhy
However, Twitter users quickly noticed a glaring omission from the mantle. Only six stockings hung above the fireplace despite the fact that President Joe Biden has seven grandchildren.
According to Marie Claire, Biden has three granddaughters from his son Hunter: Naomi, Finnegan and Maisy.
He has two more grandchildren from his late son, Beau: Natalie and Robert, who goes by Hunter after his uncle.
So who is Biden’s seventh grandchild? That would be Hunter Biden’s son with adult entertainer Lunden Alexis Roberts. The boy was born in 2018 and Hunter was proven to be the father in 2020, according to Marie Claire.
So that makes a total of seven grandchildren, one more than the number of stockings on the mantle.
Multiple people pointed out the omission on Twitter, including reporter Amber Athey of The Spectator.
Despite this seemingly obvious exclusion, the establishment media refused to report on it. (At The Western Journal, we fight to bring you the news other outlets will not. You can support us in the fight for truth by subscribing.)
Many social media users also speculated that Hunter Biden’s child with Roberts was the one grandchild who was left out.
In the photo above, some letters can be seen on the stockings. The beginnings of the names “Naomi,” “Finnegan” and “Natalie” appear to be written.
Since all the names cannot be seen, it is hard to confirm that Roberts’ child is the one left out. However, that does not make the Biden family look much better.
If the family left out Hunter’s son with Roberts, they were essentially ignoring him because they view him as an embarrassment. If it was a different grandchild who was left out, the family simply forgot one of their grandchildren.
Trees in state dining room decorated with old photos of first families. Stockings on fireplace have names of Biden grandkids pic.twitter.com/pkFjrAPyhy
Grant is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He has five years of writing experience with various outlets and enjoys covering politics and sports.
Former Trump administration State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus clearly made House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff uncomfortable when she pressed him on Tuesday about his promotion of the debunked Steele dossier.
Last week, special counsel John Durham charged Igor Danchenko with five counts of lying to the FBI. Danchenko is a Russian national who worked at the liberal Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and is believed to be a primary source of information contained in the infamous anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. That document was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee and was used to help launch the Russia probe in search of ties between the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign and Russia.
Ortagus, who was a guest-hosting ABC’s “The View” on Tuesday, questioned Schiff about his promotion of the Steele dossier and the false narrative underlying it.
“You’ve been really prolific over the past few years being the head of the Intel Committee. You defended, promoted, you even read into the Congressional Record the Steele dossier,” Ortagus said.
“And we know last week the main source of the dossier was indicted by the FBI for lying about most of the key claims in that dossier. Do you have any reflections on your role in promoting this to the American people?” she asked.
Schiff first responded in a reasonable fashion, saying any who lied to the FBI should be prosecuted.
He then defended his conduct.
“We couldn’t have known, for example, people were lying to Christopher Steele. So it was proper to investigate them,” Schiff said.
The congressman added that one benefit of the investigation was learning that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had given polling data to Russian intelligence. Schiff was playing pretty fast and loose with the facts. According to The Associated Press, Manafort gave polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian and Ukrainian political consultant, who allegedly passed it along to Russian intelligence.
“But Mueller’s team said it couldn’t ‘reliably determine’ Manafort’s purpose in sharing it, nor assess what Kilimnik may have done with it,” the AP reported.
That sort of exaggeration by Schiff was typical throughout the Russia probe.
Ortagus reminded Schiff that Manafort was removed from the campaign in the summer of 2016 when questions arose regarding his past lobbying work for pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs. Further, it should be noted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, though filled with Democratic investigators, “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated” with Russia, according to the Justice Department’s Mueller report.
Ortagus then brought the conversation back to Schiff’s role in promoting the whole collusion false narrative and the dossier.
“You may have helped spread Russian disinformation yourself for years by promoting this. I think that’s what Republicans and what people who entrusted you as the Intel Committee chair are so confused about your culpability in all of this,” Ortagus said.
“Well, I completely disagree with your premise,” Schiff responded. “It’s one thing to say allegations should be investigated, and they were. It’s another to say that we should have foreseen in advance that some people were lying to Christopher Steele, which is impossible of course to do.”
The Californian sells himself short. He was constantly out in front of the cameras claiming he was privy to intelligence that he could not share with the public validating the collusion charge. For example in March 2017, NBC “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd asked Schiff if there was anything beyond circumstantial evidence suggesting the Trump campaign’s connection to Russia.
“I can tell you that the case is more than that and I can’t go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now,” Schiff said.
Further questioned whether he had seen direct evidence, the representative responded, “I don’t want to get into specifics but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of an investigation.”
.@RepAdamSchiff on Trump/Russia connection: "There is more than circumstantial evidence now…and is very much worthy of investigation." pic.twitter.com/qvw7drsqQX
Despite making claims like that for many months, Schiff never came forward with such evidence, even after Mueller issued his report.
On Tuesday’s showing of “The View,” the Democrat pivoted away from discussing the dossier to raising the issue of the 2019 House Democratic impeachment of Trump and the Capitol incursion to prove investigating him was justified.
You’ll recall it was during the impeachment hearing that Schiff famously made up his own fanciful version of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to build his case that the American leader conducted a shakedown to secure an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden’s shady dealings in Ukraine. This performance was even after Zelensky himself said he felt no pressure from Trump’s call and his country launched no investigation into the Bidens.
Schiff told Ortagus, “None of that is undercut. None of that serious misconduct is in any way diminished by the fact that people lied to Christopher Steele.”
“No. I think just your credibility is,” Ortagus shot back.
Schiff then opted for the verbal attack of a schoolboy, saying, “I think the credibility of your question is in doubt.”
Having boasted about so much with so little pushback from the media, it was refreshing to see his feet actually held to the fire for once.
Randy DeSoto has written more than 2,000 articles for The Western Journal since he joined the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” and screenwriter of the political documentary “I Want Your Money.”@RandyDeSoto
They may not have been the first publication to publish such an opinion piece, but the first place I saw one — fittingly — was in the U.K. Guardian. The Guardian — a left-wing, British-favored rag written by the kind of Labour Party die hard that still doesn’t get what was so extreme about Jeremy Corbyn — published the piece Friday. Headline: “Rust shooting sparks fresh debate over gun violence on screen: Firearms remain commonplace in major blockbusters but industry figures say Hollywood is led by audience demand.”
Never mind that this “fresh debate” was mostly happening in the pages of the Guardian. The header image for the article was Keanu Reeves carrying what appears to be a silenced pistol in the 2014 movie “John Wick.”
This is important because, while I was unable to find reliable data on the first film, MovieWeb reported in 2019 that the eponymous character fired 302 shots in the second film, hitting his targets 242 times. Of these hits, 104 were head shots, with a further 90 hitting the target in the chest. One shot even hit someone in the foot.
There’s no count of shots fired by the baddies in “John Wick: Chapter 2,” but given that they appear to be intergalactic descendants of the Imperial Stormtroopers in the “Star Wars” universe — at least when it comes to a genetic predisposition to itchy trigger fingers and terrible eyesight — there were a lot of fake gunshots fired.
According to New Zealand’s NewsHub, through three movies, the fictional Mr. Wick has killed 299 people. Here is the number of people who have been killed in actuality on the set of those three movies: Zero.
Those who might be persuaded by the Guardian’s hot take on guns and cinema in the wake of the “Rust” tragedy, keep those numbers in mind. Keep in mind, too, the reported last words of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins seconds after being shot by Alec Baldwin during the filming of the Western in New Mexico last week.
A report in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times detailed the events of the day of the shooting, including what happened in the moments leading up to Hutchins’ mortal wounding. The Times reported that Baldwin “had been preparing to film a scene in which he, as a grizzled 1880s Kansas outlaw, becomes involved in a shootout in a church. He was just going through the motions, giving the camera crew a chance to line up their angles.”
Those on set say the final moments began as Baldwin put his hand on a holstered Colt .45 revolver, which was supposed to be loaded with a dummy round with no gunpowder. “I guess I’m gonna take this out, pull it, and go, ‘Bang!’” he said.
Baldwin had been assured the Colt .45 was a “cold gun” — as in, no live ammunition was loaded. As he demonstrated what he was supposed to be doing when filming commenced, however, he shot both Halyna Hutchins and director Joel Souza.
“What the f*** was that? That burns!” Souza screamed after he was shot.
“What the f*** just happened?” Baldwin yelled; the Times reported he “put the gun down on a church pew” and “looked down in horror at his two injured colleagues, repeating his initial question like a mantra.”
Crew members gathered around Hutchins, with a boom operator saying, “Oh, that was no good.”
“No,” Hutchins said. “That was no good. That was no good at all.”
Those were her last recorded words, and, in a few hours, she would be pronounced dead.
The problem with those using “Rust” as part of a wider debate around gun violence in Hollywood is that very basic firearm safety measures — both in the entertainment industry and in real life — would have precluded this from ever happening.
Plenty has been made about the entertainment industry’s best practices for firearm safety. First and foremost, no live ammunition should be present on set. According to NBC News, attorneys for armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed said she had “no idea” how the live rounds got there and the “set would never have been compromised if live ammo were not introduced.”
“Hannah was hired on two positions on this film, which made it extremely difficult to focus on her job as an armorer,” the statement read.
“She fought for training, days to maintain weapons and proper time to prepare for gunfire but ultimately was overruled by production and her department. The whole production set became unsafe due to various factors, including lack of safety meetings.”
“Rust” assistant director David Halls — another focus of the investigation — reportedly admitted to authorities he should have checked the gun he handed Baldwin more thoroughly before it was handed off.
“David advised when Hannah showed him the firearm before continue rehearsal, he could only remember seeing three rounds,” a search warrant affidavit read, according to NBC News. “He advised he should’ve checked all of them, but didn’t, and couldn’t recall if she spun the drum.”
Furthermore, Baldwin violated basic rules of gun safety. The California Department of Justice, in their Firearm Safety Certificate study guide, lists six of them. Of the first three, Baldwin violated at least two and arguably a third.
The first rule, inculcated in every gun user (and plenty of people who aren’t) from the day they’re around firearms: “Treat all guns as if they are loaded.”
Rule number two: “Keep the gun pointed in the safest possible direction.”
Rule number three: “Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.”
First, yes, live ammunition isn’t supposed to be present on a production set. Even still, if Baldwin treated the gun as if it were loaded, we wouldn’t be talking about this.
Second, the demonstration could have been done in a way where the gun was pointed away from people. Also, while we don’t know where Baldwin’s finger was, what we do know is that it somehow found its way to the trigger — and he was not ready to shoot, either on camera or in real life.
You may find it either surprising or predictable that Baldwin, a staunch gun-control advocate, either didn’t know or exercise these basic gun safety rules. The failure, however, cannot be blamed on firearms — not when this accident happened in one of America’s most liberal industries and to a man who once said the “Second Amendment is not a moral credit card that buys you all the guns you want.” Corners were cut and rules were broken.
The Guardian, however, looks at the firearm first, which shouldn’t shock anyone. First, a Hollywood workplace safety incident puts the blame on the people it usually lionizes within its pages. Second, noting the fact three John Wick films can pass without a single major firearms injury while a low-budget Alec Baldwin Western claimed one life would open up too many unsettling ideological doors for them. After all, if those on the left admit the firearm wasn’t the problem here, imagine how much else about gun violence they would have to re-examine.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he’s written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
U.S. Marine veteran James Kilcer, who thwarted an attempted robbery in an Arizona convenience store last week, received an award Tuesday from the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office while wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt. He was also sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat, apparently in support of former President Donald Trump.
Sheriff Leon Wilmot presented Kilcer with the YCSO Citizen’s Valor Award, “For extraordinary heroism and exceptional courage while voluntarily coming to the aid of another citizen during an incident involving criminal activity at extreme, life threatening, personal risk in an attempt to save or protect human life,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
“The YCSO Citizen’s Valor Award is the highest award for citizens whose actions warrant recognition.”
Surveillance video of Kilcer stopping the robbery at the Chevron convenience store early in the morning on Oct. 20 went viral. The now-U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground employee had just purchased some Gatorades and other items and was talking to the clerk when the suspects came in, Kilcer told the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.
“I heard the door start opening forcefully and my ‘Spidey senses’ or whatever kind of tingling, and I turn around and saw they were coming in real quick,” he said.
The veteran turned around and his military training kicked in as he sought to disarm the robber.
“I was ready: I saw it coming,” Kilcer said. “The minute my hands closed around it, I never lost contact with the gun. And I pulled him down.”
ZERO FEAR: When this Yuma, AZ veteran saw some criminals pop in guns high — he didn't wait for things to potentially go south.
“The Marine Corp taught me not to [mess] around,” he later said.
He held the suspect down until law enforcement arrived. The person arrested was a 14-year-old juvenile who has now been charged with one count of armed robbery and one count of aggravated assault.
“Kilcer served as a tactical air operations technician in the Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan during his time in the military. He credits his actions to his Marine Corps basic training and mindset,” DVIDS reported.
“I guess I was just in the right place at the right time,’’ Kilcer said. “I was doing what needed to be done.”Advertisement – story continues below
While appearing on Fox News on Friday, the Arizonan also waded into the political when he ended the segment, saying with a smile to host Dana Perino, “And remember, [Jeffrey] Epstein didn’t kill himself.”
The Marine who stopped the corner store robbery in the viral video was just on Fox News.
Randy DeSoto has written more than 2,000 articles for The Western Journal since he joined the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” and screenwriter of the political documentary “I Want Your Money.”@RandyDeSoto
The woman responsible for the weapon used by Alec Baldwin in a tragic film set accident this week had said she was “really nervous” about her ability to work with prop guns.
Baldwin’s prop firearm discharged during the filming of the movie “Rust” in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Thursday. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, was killed. Director Joe Souza, 48, was injured and taken to a nearby hospital.
Hannah Reed, the film crew’s armorer, last month admitted that she was unsure of her ability to do her job.
“You know, I was really nervous about it at first, and I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready. But doing it, like, it went really smoothly,” Reed said on the “Voices of the West”podcast on Sept. 11.
Reed was then working on a movie called “The Old Way.” She said it was her first time as a head armorer. Loading blanks was the “scariest” part of the job, Reed said. She said her father, fellow Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, helped show her the ropes.
According to CNN, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department has issued a search warrant for the property where “Rust” was being filmed.
Steve Wolf, a theatrical firearms safety expert, said “there is no excuse for something like this to happen.”
“The physics of how bullets enter people has been known for about 5,000 years,” he added.
Armorers should always look inside the cylinder of a weapon to ensure “there is nothing in the gun that could come out,” Wolf said.
“If you put a blank in there, you make sure there is a blank, no bullet on the end of it.”
Baldwin tweeted his condolences to Hutchins’ family and friends after the accident.
“There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours,” Baldwin wrote. “I’m fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred and I am in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family.‘
“My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna.”
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
A proposal within Biden’s new $3.5 trillion plan will allow the Internal Revenue Service to stick its fingers in your personal finances. More specifically, the measure will give the IRS the authority to track each year the total deposits and withdrawals from accounts that have a balance of over $600 or bring in over $600 annually, according to WMUR-TV.
Americans are understandably upset over the prospect of having the government spy on their bank accounts. According to Just the News, this has become so much the case that some are even pulling their accounts from credit unions over the prospect of possible government surveillance.
The president and CEO of the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, Dan Berger, claims that Biden’s new spying plan will carry with it “extremely serious and costly implications for consumers and financial institutions.”
“If this provision goes into effect, credit unions would not only be left facing technical challenges and added costs to meet the reporting requirements, they would also have to deal with an increase in questions and concerns about what they are reporting from their members,” Berger said according to Just the News.
“Not to mention the major financial data privacy concerns they’d need to address to ensure their members feel safeguarded and still willing to place their trust in credit unions.”
“Some credit unions are already seeing consumers withdraw their accounts because they are concerned about the possibility of this government intrusion,” Berger said. “Any increase in compliance burdens ultimately leads to higher operational costs that could impact service and credit unions’ lending capacity. Every dollar spent on cumbersome compliance costs is one less dollar to lend to members.”
These new rules won’t hurt the richest Americans. They already have a team of lawyers making sure their client is able to use every possible loophole. Moreover, the rich elite who are trying to evade taxes don’t keep the money they’re trying to hide in checking accounts at credit unions.
Rather, the targets hit worst will likely be lower-income single mothers who run businesses out of their homes and high-school dropouts working for the minimum wage, to name just two examples. Those are the people on whom the IRS will clamp down.
Many Americans are already aware of this reality. According to Just the News, some of the Americans most concerned over the new proposal are immigrants who escaped from countries with “state-controlled banks.”
“We work with a number of minority banks across the country, minority depository institutions,” said Aaron Stetter, the executive vice president of The Independent Community Bankers of America.
“And many of them that are within our membership have come to us, and their concern is that many are serving a community that have come from authoritarian regimes, that have a natural distrust for governments and big government. And this is actually furthering or exacerbating those concerns, so they’re very concerned with how they communicate to their customer base.”
When big government is given more power, despite what Biden may claim, rich elites aren’t ultimately the ones who pay the price. It’s everyday, low-to-middle income Americans that will face the consequences.
Michael Austin joined The Western Journal as a staff reporter in 2020. Since then, he has authored hundreds of stories, including several original reports. He also co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”
A new report seems to confirm what we all already knew about the Ashli Babbitt case: She was shot unjustifiably. For those who may not remember, Babbitt was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer while trying to open a door that led to the House chamber during the Jan. 6 incursion.
Judicial Watch reported on Wednesday that it had obtained 532 pages of documents from the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police, all regarding Babbitt’s death. Witness testimonies indicated Babbitt was not holding a weapon at the time of the shooting and that the officer involved, Michael Byrd, looked “upset” after shooting her.
A Capitol Police sergeant testified that he didn’t know why Byrd shot Babbitt.
“I saw Lt. Byrd kind of. I don’t know if it was before or after,” the sergeant said. “I don’t know if something happened to him [that] caused him to take the shot or not.”
“These previously secret records show there was no good reason to shoot and kill Ashli Babbitt,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said.
“The Biden-Garland Justice Department and the Pelosi Congress have much to answer for … over the mishandling and cover-up of this scandalous killing of an American citizen by the U.S. Capitol Police.”
“She was posing a threat to the United States House of Representatives,” he said in an August interview with NBC News.
“I know that day I saved countless lives. … I know members of Congress, as well as my fellow officers and staff, were in jeopardy and in serious danger. And that’s my job.”
The Capitol Police concluded an internal investigation seven months after the shooting, declaring Byrd’s actions “lawful and within Department policy,” according to Fox News.
After a full year of the establishment media and the Black Lives Matter crowd preaching ad nauseam about police misconduct and abuse of power, it was strange to see them fall completely silent regarding Ashli Babbitt’s death. Or maybe it wasn’t so strange.
After all, Babbitt was a white woman, which means her unjustified killing doesn’t play well into their race-baiting narrative.
In July, The Western Journal conducted an interview with Michelle Witthoeft, Babbitt’s mother. Witthoeft blasted Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for failing to investigate the circumstances of her daughter’s death.
“Nancy Pelosi … I feel like, orchestrated the death of my daughter,” Witthoeft told The Western Journal.
“I’ve reached out to Nancy Pelosi’s office several times, and she has yet to call me back because she’s too busy playing in her clubhouse with all of her elite people.”
She went on to remind Pelosi that she should be serving the people.
“You know, it’s the people’s house. It’s not your house, Nancy. It’s the people’s house. That’s my message to Nancy Pelosi,” Witthoeft said.
“The Capitol Police should be held accountable like every other police department in the country.”
It’s well past time that Witthoeft and Babbitt’s other family members were afforded the justice they deserve for the death of their loved one.
Now we all know the truth. Hopefully, justice comes soon.
Michael Austin joined The Western Journal as a staff reporter in 2020. Since then, he has authored hundreds of stories, including several original reports. He also co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”
The establishment media has neglected, yet again, to cover a story concerning voter fraud.
What a surprise. (Sarcasm intended.)
On Monday, it was announced that three Michigan women had been charged with crimes related to their alleged attempts to commit voter fraud in the 2020 election.
“These cases highlight the scrutiny applications and ballots undergo throughout the election process, as well as the thorough investigative process that ensues when instances of attempted fraud are suspected,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement.
“We will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who attempts to undermine our elections.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson added that “our election system is secure, and today’s charges demonstrate that in the rare circumstances when fraud occurs we catch it and hold the perpetrators accountable.”
“These charges also send a clear message to those who promote deceitful claims about widespread fraud: the current protocols we have in place work to protect and ensure the integrity of our elections. It’s time to share that truth and stop spreading lies to the contrary,” Benson said.
But a look at what these women were charged with tells a different story and illuminates the many potential pathways to voter fraud.
It also raises an important question: Are the American people supposed to trust government officials to catch each and every instance of fraud when mail-in voting makes it so easy to cheat the system?
The first of the women, Trenae Myesha Rainey of Macomb County, was an employee at a nursing home.
Rainey stole a stack of “roughly two dozen absentee voter applications” meant for nursing home residents, filled them out, forged the residents’ signatures and had the applications turned in.
Again, under the universal mail-in voting system Democrats so desperately want, this sort of fraud couldn’t be any easier to commit.
The second woman, Carless Clark of Wayne County, returned her grandson’s absentee ballot by mail “despite her grandson deciding to vote in person.”
The third woman, Nancy Juanita Williams of both Wayne and Oakland counties, was a caretaker for legally incapacitated people.
Williams “implemented a plan to obtain and control absentee ballots” for those individuals under her care “by fraudulently submitting 26 absentee ballot applications to nine identified city and township clerks, seeking to have absentee ballots for those individuals mailed directly to her.”
A total of 50 charges were brought against the women, including 36 felonies.
Thankfully, these alleged culprits were caught and are being held to account. If Democrats get their way with their reckless election laws, however, there’s no guarantee the next fraudsters will be apprehended.
And when more fraud does occur, the American people likely won’t know until it’s too late.
Michael Austin joined The Western Journal as a staff reporter in 2020. Since then, he has authored hundreds of stories, including several original reports. He also co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”
A Texas teenager who allegedly shot a classmate and a teacher on Wednesday was freed on bail Thursday as his family members tried to paint the suspected shooter, Timothy Simpkins, as the victim of bullying. In the shooting, which followed a fight, Simpkins, 18, has been accused of wounding a 15-year-old boy multiple times at Timberview High School in Arlington, Texas, according to The Dallas Morning News. Teacher Calvin Pettitt was injured when he was shot in the back while trying to break up the fight. Two other people were injured in the incident. One student was grazed on the arm by a bullet, and a teacher fell in the confusion of the fight and its aftermath.Advertisement – story continues below
Cint Wheat, a cousin of Simpkins, posted on Facebook that “At the end of the day my lil cousin was bullied I don’t know to feel about this he not no bad kid.”
Carol Harrison Lafayette, who identified herself as a family member and said she would speak for the family, said Simpkins had been robbed at the school in the past, according to the Morning News.
“He was robbed,” she said. “It was recorded. It happened not just once, it happened twice. He was scared, he was afraid.”
“There is no justification of anybody … being hurt,” she said.
“We have to take a look at the fact that bullying is real. And it takes us all. And I do apologize. We ask as a family for forgiveness of any type of hurt.”
Simpkins lives in a $400,000 home with his grandmother and drives a $35,000 Dodge Challenger, according to the Daily Mail.
“He was able to get things that other teenagers cannot have; because he wore nice clothes, because he drove nice cars, he was like a target,” Lafayette told the outlet.
Simpkins had been held by police on a $75,000 bond on three charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, but Thursday, the bond was posted, and he left Tarrant County Jail, the Daily Mail reported.
Timothy Simpkins released on bail less than one day after his school shooting.
Four people were hurt in the shooting including two teachers and two students. One 15-year-old boy was critically injured.
One Twitter poster who said her brother was a victim was outraged that Simpkins was freed.
The Daily Mail reported that Pettitt was still hospitalized with a wound that narrowly missed his aorta, and the 15-year-old Simpkins allegedly was fighting with was in critical condition.
This is how the Shooting started, a fight broke out and Timothy George Simpkins Started shooting. He is currently missing, Arlington Police say he may be driving a 2018 Silver Dodge Charger LP: PYF6260 pic.twitter.com/p9lvR8tJo6
A police report outlines what allegedly took place, according to the Daily Mail: “Multiple teachers and coaches were working to break up the altercation between Simpkins and the juvenile victim. Once the fight was broken up, the juvenile witness observed Simpkins go to an orange backpack and retrieve a black firearm.
“The witness observed Simpkins point the firearm at the juvenile victim and sees Simpkins shoot, from her account, seven to eight times. The witness then observed the juvenile victim fall to the ground.’
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Illegal Haitian migrants are crossing the southern border of the U.S. via a new route in Yuma, Arizona, as Border Patrol braces for the arrival of up to 60,000 Haitian migrants. “Haitian migrants find new route to cross illegally into United States in Yuma, Arizona, location is known as ‘The Gap,’” the Daily Caller’s Jorge Ventura tweeted Thursday.
“As the state of Texas prepares for 60,000 Haitian migrants to arrive later this month, Haitian migrants find new route in the Yuma sector.”
Ventura shared a video of “three Haitian adults with three young children making their way to the United States.”
“We’re getting early reports of Haitian migrants starting to make their way into Yuma, Arizona, after the 15,000 Haitian caravan arrived in [Del Rio, Texas] in late September,” Ventura said.
Haitian migrants find new route to cross illegally into United States in Yuma, Arizona , location is known as 'The Gap". As the state of Texas prepares for 60,000 Haitian migrants to arrive later this month , Haitian migrants find new route in the Yuma sector pic.twitter.com/8sFgZEPs83
A second video showed a human smuggler receiving a cash payment from illegal Cuban migrants who had arrived at “The Gap.”
“Before crossing into the United States illegally, human smuggler gives his final instructions to these Cuban migrants and receives his cash payment. Cuban migrants cross into Yuma, Arizona,” Ventura tweeted.
Before crossing into the United States illegally, human smuggler gives his final instructions to these Cuban migrants and receives his cash payment. Cuban migrants cross into Yuma, Arizona. This route is known as 'The Gap', Haitian migrants are also crossing through this route pic.twitter.com/SqIGt4NQFa
“These are three Cuban migrants who are also taking the same route here in Yuma as the Haitians and Central Americans,” Ventura said.
“This area of Yuma has been hit with a huge migrant surge. They’re seeing a 2,000 percent increase compared to the same time last year,” he added.
Last month, Ventura documented illegal migrants crossing into the U.S. in Roma, Texas, including over 100 on rafts.
“Migrants coming off the raft were wearing bracelets that cartels/smuggling groups put on them to track and determine payment,” he tweeted.
Many of those crossing the border illegally were children.
Border Crisis Continues : Last night we witnessed human smugglers bring over 100 Central American migrants with small rafts from the Mexican side. You can see small children on the rafts being smuggled into the United States throughout the night. @DailyCallerpic.twitter.com/Ahhxf9B9m6
Dr. Anthony Fauci has been propped up by the left as a savior throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. If leftists wrote a Marvel superhero movie, former President Donald Trump would be like Thanos, and Fauci is supposed to be some sort of Avenger who saves that day. The problem with that picture is that as far as I’m aware, Avengers are not supposed to brutally murder puppies and mutilate their bodies.
According to a watchdog group called the White Coat Waste Project, that is exactly what the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases did under the leadership of Fauci.
“Documents obtained by WCW through the Freedom of Information Act show that Fauci’s division at the National Institutes of Health ordered cruel and unnecessary drug toxicity tests on dogs and other animals that cost taxpayers $1.68 million,” the group said in a Tuesday news release.
This follows an August report that NIAID sent $424,455 in taxpayer money to the University of Georgia in September 2020 for research that would infect beagles with parasites so that an experimental drug could be tested on them.
In that research, documents obtained by WCW show at least 28 beagles were set to be infected with the parasites for three months. Afterward, they would be euthanized and their blood would be collected. The research was supposed to be completed by January 2022, but it is unclear whether the beagles were euthanized, according to the Daily Caller.
According to the new report from the Daily Caller, additional animal research took place between October 2018 and February 2019. These experiments reportedly included 44 beagle puppies aged 6-8 months who were given experimental drugs through either injection or force-feeding.
Afterward, WCW said the dogs were killed and dissected, supposedly for “research.”
In addition, NIAID paid for the abused puppies to have cordectomies, meaning part or all of their vocal cords were removed. WCW said Fauci’s division paid for these procedures so the puppies “couldn’t bark in the lab while they were being abused.”
NIAID defended the horrific treatment in its documents by saying the experiments were conducted to “provide data of suitable quality and integrity, in order to support applications to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory agencies,” according to the Daily Caller.
In July, WCW told KABC-TV that human drugs were being tested on puppies because of a 1930s law requiring drugs to be tested on animals before humans.
However, when KABC reached out to the FDA for comment, the agency said it “requires that an FDA-approved medical product must be demonstrated to be safe and effective,” but “does not mandate that human drugs be studied in dogs.”
This implies that NIAID’s reckless animal testing was conducted by choice, not out of obligation.
The timing of this new information is particularly ironic for Fauci. On Monday’s episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Carlson revealed Fauci had candles in his own home depicting himself as a saint.
“Tony Fauci isn’t just the high priest of Fauci-ism. He’s also a true believer himself,” Carlson said.
The very next day, Fauci was revealed to have overseen experiments brutalizing innocent puppies. Somehow, that doesn’t seem to be very “saint-like” behavior.
“People are naming puppies after Anthony Fauci, but he’s actually dogs’ and taxpayers’ worst nightmare,” WCW vice president of advocacy and public policy Justin Goodman told the Daily Caller.
“From poisoning puppies here at home to funding gain-of-function experiments in China, the government’s highest-paid employee has proven he can’t be trusted to spend taxpayer dollars responsibly. With NIH director Francis Collins retiring, Fauci should be the next one to go.”
Grant is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He has five years of writing experience with various outlets and enjoys covering politics and sports.
President Joe Biden, left, meets with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and committee chairs to discuss the coronavirus relief legislation in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 5, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Stefani Reynolds – Pool / Getty Images)
President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda is supposed to tax the wealthy to help the middle class. If you don’t believe me, just ask Biden, who’s more than willing to tell you about it on his Twitter account.
To be fair, I’m assuming the messages aren’t written by Biden himself, a man who seems like his relationship with technology involves yelling at his phone, either asking Siri to find his slippers or telling Scotty to beam him up. However, whoever tweets for him stays on message when it comes to the president’s tax-and-spend plan.
“We’re going to pass a historic middle class tax cut — and we’ll do it by making those at the top pay their fair share,” one tweet from Sunday read. “I know the crowd on Park Ave might not like it, but it’s time we give people in towns like Scranton — the folks I grew up with — a break for a change.”
“From health care to child care, my Build Back Better Agenda will lower everyday costs for middle class Americans,” a tweet from this Monday read.
“I’m not looking to punish anyone, I just think it’s only fair that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share once again. Then, we’ll use that money to invest in the middle class,” a tweet from last week reads.
“For me it’s pretty simple: It’s about time working people got the tax breaks in this country,” a tweet from the day before that read. “That’s the Build Back Better Agenda.”
From health care to child care, my Build Back Better Agenda will lower everyday costs for middle class Americans. pic.twitter.com/eqzWKmw1wy
I’m not looking to punish anyone, I just think it’s only fair that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share once again. Then, we’ll use that money to invest in the middle class. pic.twitter.com/xZYMMUo5yi
If someone has to repeat themselves this much, it’s usually because they’re lying — and, lo and behold, the Joint Committee on Taxation seems to have confirmed that.
According to a media release from the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday, the Joint Committee on Taxation — a non-partisan congressional tax scorekeeper — found that almost every income level below the threshold the Biden administration said would be immune would take a hit.
Furthermore, the committee’s analysis found the vast majority of taxpayers would see no benefit from the plan in its current form.
According to the analysis, by the calendar year 2023, nearly 5 percent of those making between $40,000 and $50,000 would see a tax increase. Nine percent of those making between $50,000 and $75,000 would see an increase, 18 percent earning between $75,000 and $100,000 would see their taxes go up and 35 percent of those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 would be subject to a hike.
The media release also noted that the benefit most people see will pretty much be nil.
In 2023, two-thirds of all taxpayers won’t get see any kind of real benefit from the legislation, either seeing their tax bill changed by less than $100 or getting a tax increase.
By 2027, this number would balloon to 85.5 percent, with huge swaths of the middle class seeing a sizable tax increase; these numbers are projected to stay mostly steady until 2031.
Meanwhile, the Joint Committee on Taxation also found that hiking corporate taxes would hit middle-class Americans hard, too.
“Within 10 years of a corporate tax increase from 21 percent to 25 percent, 66.3 percent of the corporate tax burden would be borne by lower- and middle-income taxpayers with income well below $500,000,” an August media release from the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee read.
“This statistic becomes only more striking in absolute number of taxpayers. Of the more than 172 million taxpayers who would bear the burden of the increased corporate tax rate, 98.4 percent, or about 169 million, have incomes under $500,000.”
Of course, the charge from the left would be that this doesn’t take into account what the spending these tax hikes will pay for is going to buy for the middle class. Beyond the fact these “investments” never bring back the kind of returns that are promised, Biden promised a middle-class tax cut. At least in the plan’s current form, it doesn’t look like it’ll end up delivering — no matter what the president says.
Do you know who did lower taxes on the middle class? Former President Donald Trump.
Joe Biden may have spent much of the campaign whining about Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which slashed taxes across the board. Most of the outrage focused on the fact he didn’t soak the rich: “Tax experts estimate that over the long run, 83% of Trump’s tax giveaway will flow to the top 1% of earners in this country,” Biden’s campaign website read.
And yet, in March of 2020, MarketWatch reported that “Americans paid almost $64 billion less in federal income taxes during the first year under the Republican tax overhaul signed into law in late 2017 by President Donald Trump, with some of the sharpest drops clustered among taxpayers earning between $25,000 and $100,000 a year, even as the overall number of refunds dropped during a turbulent tax season” in 2019.
Biden plans on taking that away. In return, he’s offered nothing of substance — except, as promised, he’s soaking the rich. And the upper-middle class. And some people in the middle class, too. But mainly the rich. See, priorities!
Biden may not be giving people in towns like Scranton — the folks he grew up with — a break the same way Trump did. But at least they can watch as his administration takes (and then squanders) Park Avenue’s money. He’ll be squandering Scranton’s money, too, but at least they get the joy of class-based schadenfreude out of the deal.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he’s written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
On Friday, Arizona state Republicans announced the findings of the Arizona Senate audit of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County. Among the audit’s many findings was that over 17,000 total duplicate ballots — meaning ballots submitted by individuals who voted more than once in the election — were found.
As much was revealed by Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, an expert in pattern recognition and classification of diverse signals and signatures who has four degrees from M.I.T. The Arizona Republicans conducting the audit enlisted Ayyadurai and his team of experts to aid in the audit by investigating mail-in ballot envelopes used in the election. The team reported it found 17,322 duplicate ballots in the election.
As noted by Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Twitter, Maricopa County itself had reported no duplicate ballots.
WOW! Look at the surge of duplicate ballots AFTER Nov. 3!
96% of the ballots that came in on 2 of these days were DUPLICATES
The same exact surge can be seen in blank ballot envelopes with no signatures, and scribbles, indicating a bad signature pic.twitter.com/xPywE6Azuo
Michael Austin joined The Western Journal as a staff reporter in 2020. Since then, he has authored hundreds of stories, including several original reports. He also co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”
President Joe Biden, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday for the first time since taking up residence in the White House, did what he does best. He embarrassed his country with a foreign policy speech that was detached from reality, full of straw men and false dichotomies, rambling and incoherent at times and — c’mon, man — punctuated by avuncular exasperation and fake bravado.
The 23-second video below captures the tone of Tuesday’s oration before the global body.
Biden, spinning like a centrifuge, stressed that the disastrous removal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan will open “a new era of relentless diplomacy.”
“Instead of continuing to fight the wars of the past,”Biden said,“we are fixing our eyes on devoting our resources to the challenges that hold the keys to our collective future: Ending this pandemic, addressing the climate crisis, managing shifts in global power dynamics, shaping the rules of the world on vital issues like trade, cyber and emerging technologies, and facing the threat of terrorism as it stands today.”
Taking on those problems requires foreign governments to “engage deeply with the rest of the world” and “work together with our partners toward a shared future,” Biden said, according to a White House copy of the speech.
Biden’s flowery verbiage is misplaced, belied by the reality of recent events.
American allies remain frustrated with Biden’s handling — mishandling — of last month’s chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, including the Pentagon’s acknowledgment that a Kabul drone strike that was touted as “righteous” by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had, in fact, killed 10 civilians, including seven children.
Americans remain trapped in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, even as the Taliban tighten their bloody grip on the country by sweeping away what little opposition remains and killing anyone in-country who worked with the United States and its allies over the past two decades.
More recently, the Biden administration has found itself grappling with an angry French government still smarting over a new trilateral security pact with the United Kingdom and Australia, which saw Canberra reverse course on a multibillion-dollar deal it had brokered with Paris.
Nevertheless, Biden defended his administration’s international engagement over the past eight months. He argued he had “prioritized rebuilding our alliances, revitalizing our partnerships and recognizing they’re essential and central to America’s enduring security and prosperity.”
Biden’s take on other flashpoints around the world evidenced a similar naivete and refusal to acknowledge reality, including returning to the useless Iran nuclear deal (officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and putting the North Korean nuclear genie back in the bottle.
“The United States will remain committed to preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. We are working with the P5 plus one to engage Iran diplomatically and to seek a return to the JCPOA,” Biden said, referring to the five members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany.
“We’re prepared to return to full compliance if Iran does the same. Similarly, we seek serious and sustained diplomacy to pursue the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
Likewise, Biden reiterated his commitment to the pipe dream of a two-state solution regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The commitment of the United States to Israel’s security is without question, and our support for an independent Jewish state is unequivocal,” Biden said.
“But I continue to believe that a two-state solution is the best way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish democratic state living in peace alongside a viable sovereign and democratic Palestinian state.”
One glaring omission from the speech was any mention at all of China — the top international rival of the United States and, more importantly, the source of a pandemic that has killed more than 4 million citizens of the countries the United Nations delegates represent. Maybe even Biden’s speechwriters couldn’t find a way to spin a China reference in anything like a positive direction.
Biden’s weakness on the world stage is in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s more muscular approach to foreign policy, including a deal negotiated with the Taliban that resulted in no U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan for 18 months, withdrawing from the JCPOA while making Iran a pariah in its own Middle East neighborhood, easing tensions with North Korea, and ignoring the Palestinian Authority to facilitate the Abraham Accords between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
That’s what effective leadership looks like. Biden’s appearance at the U.N. on Tuesday — a bumbling fool with a fool’s record of failure — was exactly the opposite.
Brett Davis, who earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Western Washington University, has written for newspapers, public policy organizations, a major humanitarian institution and a software company. Brett lives in Federal Way, Washington, just south of Seattle.
On Aug. 31, 2021, John Stokes was preparing for his senior season playing Division 1 NCAA golf at Tennessee State University. By Sept. 6, the 21-year-old was hospitalized with heart complications. What changed during the span of those four days? According to Stokes, he received the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I am a Division 1 student-athlete with no prior health issues, and I got the second COVID shot Tuesday [on Aug. 31],” he said in a now-viral TikTok video. “And within four days, I have been diagnosed with myocarditis and was told that I probably won’t be able to play my senior season now.”
According to his profile on Tennessee State’s website, Stokes was set to begin his second and final season with the program. His newly developed heart condition is putting his ability to play in jeopardy.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines myocarditis as “inflammation of the heart muscle,” and the agency says it can be caused by an immune system response to some trigger, such as an infection. The CDC has admitted myocarditis, along with an “inflammation of the outer lining of the heart” known as pericarditis, has been reported after mRNA COVID vaccines.
The agency even went as far as to say that these side effects are most common in adolescent or young adult males after receiving the second vaccine dose from either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna. Yet the CDC continues to push the vaccine even on this specific group.
“CDC continues to recommend that everyone aged 12 years and older get vaccinated for COVID-19,” the agency says on its website.
“The known risks of COVID-19 illness and its related, possibly severe complications, such as long-term health problems, hospitalization, and even death, far outweigh the potential risks of having a rare adverse reaction to vaccination, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis.”
A simple study of the numbers will prove that this theory is questionable, at best. According to Statista, there had been 3,043 COVID-19 deaths among Americans aged 18-29 as of Sept. 8, 2021. In another chart, Statista reported 7,148,719 COVID-19 cases among Americans aged 18-29. That means that if you get COVID-19 between the ages of 18-29, you have approximately a .04 percent chance of dying from the virus.
In addition, that only takes into account known positive cases of COVID-19. It does not include unreported cases, nor does it include Americans aged 18-29 who never even get COVID-19. Suffice to say, the chances of 18 to 29-year-old Americans dying from COVID-19 are very slim.
While cases of myocarditis and pericarditis as a result of the vaccine are admittedly rare, they are at least a possibility. Many 18 to 29-year-olds are not willing to take that risk to protect themselves from a virus that has an extremely low chance of killing them. Even if you feel that 18 to 29-year-olds should be vaccinated, you should at least be able to see the problem with mandating a vaccine that has some potential to cause heart inflammation. The CDC’s argument that the risks of COVID-19 outweigh the risks of the vaccine is a choice that Americans should make for themselves, not one that the government gets to decide for them.
“It isn’t right for people to be forced to take the vaccine because there are actual side effects like this that could happen to you,” Stokes said. “Everyone should be informed of the side effects, and no one should be forced to take something that could cause what has happened to me.”
While the CDC says the possible long-term effects from COVID-19 are a reason to get the vaccine, Stokes said the possible long-term effects from the vaccine itself are unknown.
“No one knows the long-term effects of what’s possibly going to happen from this,” he said. “It’s kind of uncharted territory because everyone else with the same heart issues from the vaccine as me, we’re all being tracked and monitored.’
“We’re basically like test subjects from the vaccine, so it’s a very serious issue that really needs to be spread.”
Just as living unvaccinated could present a higher risk of getting COVID-19, receiving the vaccine presents its own risks. The choice of which risk to take has always been and must remain a personal one.
Grant is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He has five years of writing experience with various outlets and enjoys covering politics and sports.
North Korea announced on Monday that its military had successfully tested long-range cruise missiles with the ability to strike a target more than 900 miles away.
“The ‘long-range cruise missiles’ were launched on Saturday and Sunday and allegedly hit a target 1,500 kilometers away, officials said on North Korea‘s state-run media,”ABC News reported.
“The missiles flew for over two hours, according to the report,” the report said.
Joseph Dempsey, a defense researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the development of a cruise missile should be a concern, the BBC reported on Monday.
“The development of a long-range cruise missile could pose additional challenges for South Korea’s missile defenses,” Dempsey said.
He said that a “cruise missile doesn’t have to follow a straight trajectory. Its flight plan may be programmed to avoid defenses or use terrain to reduce detection, but we still don’t know exactly how the North Korean version navigates.”
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said that unlike previous launches by North Korea, the latest missile test did not fly over Japan. But if the missile can fly as far as North Korea reported, he said, “it would be a major concern for us,” according to NBC News.
The missile test follows an August report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that said North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.
“Since early July 2021, there have been indications consistent with the operation of the 5MW(e) reactor,” the IAEA report said.
“The DPRK’s nuclear activities continue to be a cause for serious concern,” the report said. “Furthermore, the new indications of the operation of the 5MW(e) reactor and the Radiochemical Laboratory are deeply troubling.’
“The continuation of the DPRK’s nuclear programme is a clear violation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions and is deeply regrettable.”
In its annual report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said North Korea appeared to have restarted a nuclear reactor believed to have produced plutonium for the country's nuclear arsenal https://t.co/gBSeRiJkyvpic.twitter.com/en4cotUcD9
“Yongbyon, a nuclear complex at the heart of North Korea’s nuclear programme,” is the location of the reactor, Reuters reported Monday.
“More plutonium could help North Korea make smaller nuclear weapons to fit on its ballistic missiles, said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security,” the report said.
“It appears to indicate North Korea has resumed producing plutonium for its nuclear weapons program,” said Gary Samore, director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“While North Korea already has a significant stockpile of nuclear weapons,” Samore added.
There’s little doubt President Joe Biden has been planning his 9/11 anniversary speech for some time now. After all, the main cause of the entire Afghanistan withdrawal disaster was Biden’s insistence on an artificial deadline — Aug. 31 — so that, when the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks rolled around, he could presumably boast all about how he did what no other post-9/11 president before him could. He could say he ended the war in Afghanistan.
Things didn’t work out quite as Biden hoped — the overly hasty nature of the withdrawal resulted in a terrorist takeover of the country, a result that many intelligence officials predicted and warned the president would happen, despite his assurances to the American people.
And now, as his approval rating plummets, the president will not address the nation live on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
“[White House press secretary] Jen Psaki confirms Joe Biden will not deliver a live speech on 20th anniversary of 9/11,” Breitbart News’ White House correspondent Charlie Spiering revealed on Twitter on Thursday.
Spiering then quoted Psaki as saying “You will hear from [Biden] in the form of a video in advance — or if that will be available that day, I should say.”
Reuters reported the president, instead of addressing the nation live on Saturday, plans to visit the three memorial sites of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, ignoring the family members of 9/11 victims who have asked Biden not to show his face.
In a prerecorded video, should he choose to film one, there’s still a good chance Biden will use the opportunity to brag about his “success” in Afghanistan.
He may do so, despite leaving hundreds of Americans stranded in the terrorist-controlled country, despite handing over billions of dollars worth of military equipment to the Taliban and despite the fact that his actions indirectly led to the deaths of 13 service members in Afghanistan.
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Americans will be mourning the devastating loss of those brave men and women, some of whom weren’t even old enough to buy alcohol.
And also on 9/11, thanks directly to Biden’s actions, the Taliban will be celebrating. In fact, the terrorist group reportedly plans to have an inauguration ceremony for its new government on that very day.
“Speaking about the symbolism of the War on Terror, the Taliban are planning to have their interim government inauguration ceremony on Saturday, September 11th, on the 20th anniversary of 9/11,” former U.S. State Department adviser and Afghan native Arash Yaqin revealed on Tuesday.
If Biden does release a video on Saturday in honor of the 9/11 anniversary, it is likely he will ignore all the facts, as he usually does. He’s too cowardly to face up to the consequences of his actions. Otherwise, he’d be addressing the nation live.
Michael Austin joined The Western Journal as a staff reporter in 2020. Since then, he has authored hundreds of stories, including several original reports. He also co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”
President Joe Biden, right, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in the Oval Office at the White House on Aug. 27, 2021. (Sarahbeth Maney – Pool / Getty Images)
President Joe Biden is expected to reopen the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, in a reversal of a decision by former President Donald Trump. When the Trump administration moved the U.S. Embassy in 2019 from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem, the consulate was merged with the new embassy — a move that led to worsening ties with the Palestinian Authority, NPR reported at the time.
However, according to a Wednesday report by Axios, the Biden administration has its eyes set on overturning the decision made by the Trump administration, despite Israeli objections.
“President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett during their White House meeting that he will not abandon his plan to reopen the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, setting up a major point of contention between the administrations,” Axios reported.
Citing unnamed Israeli and U.S. officials, Axios correspondent Barak Ravid reported that during Bennett’s bilateral meeting with Biden, the issue of the consulate in Jerusalem was raised multiple times by the U.S. president. Biden reportedly stressed that he had made a campaign pledge regarding the issue. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also already said the U.S. would go ahead with the decision. According to Axios, the Biden administration previously agreed to carry out the reopening after Nov. 4, which is the deadline for Bennett to get his budget passed in the Knesset, the unicameral Israeli equivalent of Congress.
Biden’s plans were criticized by several Israeli officials.
“We think it’s a bad idea,” Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid, told journalists on Sept. 1, according to The Guardian.
“Jerusalem is the sovereign capital of Israel and Israel alone, and therefore we don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“We know that the [Biden] administration has a different way of looking at this, but since it is happening in Israel, we are sure they are listening to us very carefully,” Lapid said.
“Jerusalem is the capital of one country only: Israel. I don’t want to go into details, but this is my clear position,” Bennett told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on Friday through a Zoom video conference.
Bennett, however, also mentioned that he desired a “no drama” relationship with the Biden administration, according to Axios. The outlet reported that many Israeli leaders, such as Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and Minister of Justice Gideon Sa’ar, believe that reopening the consulate would be tantamount to Biden infringing on Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem. Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital. The Palestinians seek the eastern half of the city to be the capital of their desired Palestinian state.
“We have an interesting and yet delicate structure of our government and we think this might destabilize this government and I don’t think the American administration wants this to happen,” Lapid told reporters at the Sept. 1 news conference, The Guardian reported.
“If the Biden administration wants to see Netanyahu abandoning his Pilates classes and going back to the prime minister’s office, this is the best way to do it,” a senior Israeli official told Axios.
Remember when House Democrats accused former President Donald Trump of pressuring Ukraine to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden while leveraging military aid as collateral during a phone call with Ukraine’s president in 2019? I do. The accusation prompted Trump’s first impeachment on the grounds of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress” that December, according to the U.S. Sun.
Now, two years later, it’s President Joe Biden who’s responsible for talks with world leaders, talks like the one House Democrats used to attack Trump. And, to afford Biden similar scrutiny to what Trump received, one particular aspect of Biden’s last call with now-former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani seems especially interesting.
Biden’s final call with Ghani came on July 23 — three weeks before Kabul fell to Taliban forces and Islamic extremism toppled 20 years of democratic progress in the country. The two discussed “military aid, political strategy and messaging” for approximately 14 minutes, Reuters reported on Tuesday after reviewing what it said was a transcript and audio of the exchange provided by an anonymous source. One particular aspect of the leaked transcript appears especially damning for Biden, as the New York Post pointed out.
The Post noted the transcript shows Biden “pressured” Ghani to “‘create the perception’ that the Taliban weren’t winning, ‘whether it is true or not.’”
“I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” Biden said during the call, according to Reuters.
“And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”
Biden’s pressuring went a step further, however, according to Reuters.
If Ghani could successfully fool the public into thinking the Afghan government had plans to control what Reuters called the “spiraling situation” of the Taliban’s resurgence, Biden would offer aid.
“We will continue to provide close air support, if we know what the plan is,” Biden said, according to Reuters.
The outlet added that, just days before the call, the U.S. supported Afghan security forces with air strikes against the Taliban. The Taliban maintained that these air strikes violated the Doha peace agreement signed under the Trump administration.
To provide some context, the Taliban had already advanced into approximately half of Afghanistan’s district centers at the time of the phone call, the Post noted. Just three weeks later, the nation’s capital would be directly threatened by Taliban forces. Ghani fled just before the city fell. But before that would happen, Biden advised Ghani during their exchange to employ prominent Afghan political and military figures — including former Afghan President Hamid Karzai — to further generate the sense of security, the Post added.
“That will change perception, and that will change an awful lot, I think,” Biden said, according to Reuters.
At another point in the conversation, Biden said a change in the Afghan government’s strategy would do more than help “on the ground,” Reuters reported. It would generate support for the Ghani regime internationally.
“I’m not a military guy, so I’m not telling you what that plan should precisely look like, you’re going to get not only more help, but you’re going to get a perception that is going to change,” he said, according to Reuters.
It was never OK to give Afghans or our allies a false sense of security in light of the danger steadily progressing across the country.
Afghan civilians and U.S. allies alike (particularly those in Europe) have since succumbed to a grim reality in one way or another — either being forced to flee their homes, scramble to return to their home countries (if residing there on behalf of another nation) or stay behind in the Taliban’s wake.
And it makes our president look like a liar.
Now, as September begins, the aftermath of the U.S.’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan seems clearer every day.
Our allies are furious with us, Gold Star families mourn the loss of our 13 heroes killed in action during an ISIS suicide bombing outside of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport and several Americans and U.S. allies have since been left behind in the region.
We can only expect things to get worse from here.
Amid the bombshell leaked transcript of Biden and Ghani’s exchange that’s likely to make headway in the news, it’s reasonable to wonder whether Biden’s coercion and deception will stick to his image or roll off his shoulders as if he’s covered in Teflon.
Considering the establishment media’s — and our elected officials’ — histories of handling Biden with kid gloves, the likely answer is already clear.
Taylor Penley is a political commentator residing in Northwest Georgia. She holds a BA in English with minors in rhetoric/writing and global studies from Dalton State College. As a student, she worked in government relations and interned for Georgia’s 14th congressional district. She previously published an article with Future Female Leaders and published her rhetorical analysis of President Reagan’s Berlin Wall Speech in a collegiate journal. She seeks to study journalism or communication in graduate school.
The mother of one victim of the terrorist attack in Kabul sharply criticized President Joe Biden on Friday. Kathy McCollum, the mother of Rylee McCollum, 20, was notified of her son’s death on Friday. He was among 13 U.S. service members killed in the bombing the previous day at Kabul’s airport.
“My son was one of the Marines that died yesterday,” she told the call-in show “The Wilkow Majority.”
“Twenty years and 6 months old, getting ready to come from freaking Jordan to be home with his wife to watch the birth of his son, and that feckless, dementia-ridden piece of crap just sent my son to die.”
Mother of U.S. Marine Rylee McCollum, who died in the Kabul bombing: “all you Democrats… who voted for [Biden], you just killed my son… never would have happened under Trump.” pic.twitter.com/74eZ24jwaE
“I woke up at 4 o’clock this morning. Two Marines at my door telling me my son was dead,” she said.
Voice breaking with anger and emotion, she raged at a previous caller who framed the fall of Afghanistan as a diplomatic event with no consideration for its human toll. The attack was the deadliest day for the U.S. military in Afghanistan since 2011, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“I just want all you Democrats who cheated in the election, or who voted for him legitimately, you just killed my son. With a dementia-ridden piece of crap who doesn’t even know he’s in the White House who still thinks he’s a senator. So I’m gonna try and calm down, sorry,” McCollum said on “The Wilkow Majority.”
Noting that Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado was coming to her house in Montrose in an attempt to console her, McCollum said with bitterness, “My son did die in vain.”
“This was an unnecessary debacle that could have been handled properly. They had months and months to remove everyone from Afghanistan and they chose not to,” she said.
“And so they sent in freaking what, 6,000 troops? And my son, through the law of statistics, my son was one of the ones who just got blown up in a freaking terrorist bomb yesterday. … So instead of grieving and crying, I’m just getting mad.”
She spoke about the son she lost.
“My son was a genius child, an IQ of 156,” McCollum said. “He could have done anything he wanted to do in the military, and he chose to be a Marine sniper, and that was his choice.’
“Instead of just being fast-tracked, he chose this course, but I never thought in a million years he would die for nothing.”
“For nothing,” she repeated, “because a feckless, dementia-ridden piece of crap decided he wanted a photo op on September 11th.”
She said she never expected to suffer such a loss while seeing a president “smirk on television while he’s talking about people dying.”
Amid a stream of insults directed at Biden, McCollum said he “needs to be removed from office. It never would have happened under Trump.”
Boebert shared a letter to McCollum, according to KCNC-TV.
“Kathy, on behalf of a grateful nation, we mourn with you for the loss of your son,” the letter said in part.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
A volunteer group of American veterans launched a final mission on Wednesday night, dubbed “Pineapple Express,” to reportedly help hundreds of members of Afghan elite forces and their families reach safety. The group, dubbed Task Force Pineapple, operated in darkness to help those at risk.
“As of Thursday morning, the group said it had brought as many as 500 Afghan special operators, assets and enablers and their families into the airport in Kabul overnight, handing them each over to the protective custody of the U.S. military,”ABC News reported.
“That number added to more than 130 others over the past 10 days who had been smuggled into the airport encircled by Taliban fighters since the capital fell to the extremists on Aug. 16 by Task Force Pineapple, an ad hoc groups of current and former U.S. special operators, aid workers, intelligence officers and others with experience in Afghanistan who banded together to save as many Afghan allies as they could.”
The group was led by Army Lt. Col. Scott Mann, who leads an organization called Rooftop Leadership. Mann is a retired Green Beret commander.
“We made a commitment to get them out and this is our chance to do the right thing. And I’m telling you if we don’t, Brianna, it’s going to haunt us for a very, very long time,” Mann said during a CNN interview on Monday.
They're called "Task Force Pineapple" – one of many networks formed by US soldiers, vets, fmr contractors mobilizing to save Afghan lives@RooftopLeader: "We made a commitment to get them out.. I'm telling you if we don't, Brianna, it will haunt us for a very, very long time." pic.twitter.com/7qQ45y6l1s
A GoFundMe page offered supporters an opportunity to donate to the group’s expenses. A video from Mann also explained the purpose behind the group’s effort.
More than $68,000 had been donated as of Friday morning.
The news comes as more than 100 people were killed in Kabul on Thursday. A total of 13 U.S. military personnel were killed, with more injured.
The U.S. continued evacuation flights from the Kabul airport on Thursday. The Hill reported 12,500 people were evacuated from Afghanistan between early Thursday to early Friday morning.
“Of the 12,500 evacuees, roughly 8,500 of them were on 35 U.S. military flights out of Kabul, which included 29 C-17 planes and six C-130 planes. Another 4,000 people were carried on 54 coalition flights out of Kabul,” The Hill reported.
“White House officials said that since Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of about 105,000 people out of Afghanistan.’
“Since the end of July, approximately 110,600 people have been relocated.”
In what conservative commentator Glenn Beck slammed succinctly in an Instagram message as “Afghanistan betrayal,” Afghan Christians are being turned away from the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, as time ticks away for them to escape the Taliban, according to new reports.
A report by the Catholic News Agency said that although the Taliban have made no secret of the group’s antipathy to Christianity, Christians were not given priority status by the Biden administration, which bestowed it upon women, journalists, academics and other populations the administration considered important. And that means Christians will be left behind when the frenzied flight to find safety ends before the Aug. 31 deadline for U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan.
“I was told by contacts from various groups working to rescue those still in danger in Afghanistan — who must remain anonymous — that the State Department, at least at a certain point, was not implementing the lists that they require the organizations to compile — even though they have sent them multiple times,” said Faith McDonnell, director of advocacy at Katartismos Global, an Anglican nonprofit group, according to CNA.
“It seems at present as if no one is getting any priority unless they have some sort of special connection inside the airport.”
Republican Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia said Tuesday that Christians are in danger, according to Townhall.
“The environment, obviously, under Sharia law, creates an extremely dangerous situation for anyone who is of any other faith, probably, the top of which, is Christians. And of course, not only us but many offices have been in contact with many Christians who are being literally hunted by the Taliban right now. Every effort possible is underway to try to evacuate those individuals and I’m sure those efforts will continue with unceasing resolve until we get those people to safety,” Hice said. “[T]heir lives are our biggest concern.”
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said priority for fleeing Afghanistan should go to “Afghan religious minorities, in recognition of the severe risks they already face, which will only heighten after the end of the U.S. evacuation,” according to a statement by USCIRF Commissioner Frederick A. Davie.
According to CNA, McDonnell said that in the rush to pack planes, lists prepared in advance amount to just so much confetti.
“Several organizations have reported that even though these organizations‘ aircraft have passenger manifests, the airport personnel are loading different people [from] those on the manifest onto all the aircraft that are departing,” she said.
“Others have reported that at times, one government agency is rejecting people that another government agency has approved and tried to bring into the airport,” she said.
Amid the chaos and cross purposes, Beck’s nonprofit group, The Nazarene Fund, is working independently of the Biden administration to rescue Afghan civilians. Beck, who posted a moving message about the crisis on Instagram Wednesday, has said that based on the more than $25 million received, he hopes to get 7,000 people out of Afghanistan by Friday
The Biden administration is NOT telling you the truth about what's going on in Afghanistan. TONIGHT on GlennTV, I join you from the Middle East as the Nazarene Fund's rescue mission continues. pic.twitter.com/YZi8bFPcqI
“I’ve started receiving panicked emails from Afghan Christians through their Western contacts. They are not being allowed to board USG [U.S. government] flights in Kabul. I’m advising them to try to board Glenn Beck’s flights instead,” Shea said, according to CNA.
“Kabul is falling apart and our people are panicking. The next 72 hours are going to be very dark,” Jason Jones, a podcaster who runs a nonprofit humanitarian organization called The Vulnerable People Project, wrote in an email to CNA.
“Kabul has descended into chaos and confusion and our citizens and friends are collapsing into despair. People are being contacted by the State Department and told to go to the airport only to be sent away,” he wrote.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
For the past year and a half, those of us who have felt the pandemic was being used as a tool to manipulate people have been labeled conspiracy theorists by the establishment media and leftist elites. As time goes on, more evidence emerges that seems to suggest we were right all along.
According to the Post Millennial, students at Eatonville High School in Washington were forced to wear ankle monitors in order to participate in athletics.
An anonymous mother who spoke to the outlet said she received a text from her 15-year-old daughter saying she was asked to wear a monitor at a school volleyball practice. When her daughter did not answer her subsequent texts and calls and no one at the school was able to answer her questions, the mother eventually drove to the school’s campus.
School employees told her that a meeting had been held the prior week to discuss the implementation of a monitoring program. It was “allegedly designed for contact tracing in the event of a positive COVID test of a student,” the Post Millennial reported.
Both unvaccinated and vaccinated students were reportedly told to wear ankle monitors. If someone tested positive for COVID-19, unvaccinated students who were identified as close contacts would be required to quarantine for 14 days, while vaccinated students would not.
The device is called TraceTag and is manufactured by a company called Triax, according to the Post Millennial.
“Being able to properly comply with social distancing guidelines is critical to containing and slowing the spread of COVID-19,” the company says in its description of the product.
“Additionally, having a log of all worker interactions for contact tracing, in the event that a worker is diagnosed with COVID-19, will help to accelerate the process for further containment and isolation.”
See, it’s no big deal. Why would you even have an issue with being forced to wear a tracking device? It’s for your own good.
The device also emits “a visual and audible alarm, so individuals know when to adjust their current distance to a proper social distance.” In other words, don’t get too close to someone if you don’t want your ankle monitor to sound the alarm.
Forcing students to wear these devices is a ludicrous idea on its face. Ankle monitors are meant for prisoners, not minors just trying to play school sports.
To make matters worse, the mother said she was never contacted about the program. The school’s head football coach told her forms were provided at the aforementioned meeting for those who wanted to opt out of the program, but the mother said she was never even informed that the meeting was taking place.
According to the Post Millennial, the school’s athletic director “acknowledged the error and apologized for the ‘slip up’ of not getting her consent.”
This was not just an innocent “slip-up.” It’s a symptom of the growing assumption that people should be forced to give up any number of basic rights in the name of “public health.”
For months, the establishment media has been telling people they essentially have no right to choose whether they want certain substances injected into their bodies. If public and private employers are allowed to tell their workers what to put in their bodies, why wouldn’t school administrators be allowed to tell students what to attach to them?
The reality is that students in Washington state are being forced to wear ankle monitors. That is not a conspiracy theory — it’s real life. If we don’t stop this kind of invasive behavior now, there is no telling how far it will go.
Grant is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He has five years of writing experience with various outlets and enjoys covering politics and sports.
Sharia Law is triumphant in Afghanistan and democracy is dead.
Although leaders of the Taliban are making up some pieces of how they will govern the conquered country as they go along, those are the foundational principles, according to Reuters.
“There will be no democratic system at all because it does not have any base in our country,” senior Taliban leader Waheedullah Hashimi told the outlet.
“We will not discuss what type of political system should we apply in Afghanistan because it is clear. It is Sharia Law and that is it.”
Sharia Law is a strict code of behavior supported by some Muslims. Taliban officials have tried to present a softer side to the world in the aftermath of their victory.
“We assure the international community that there will be no discrimination against women, but, of course, within the frameworks we have,” spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.
Since taking power, the Taliban has tried to put a gloss on its image to the extent where one CNN reporter characterized a group of Taliban fighters as seemingly “friendly.”
“The entire world now recognizes that the Taliban are the real rulers of the country,” said Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad, a member of the organization’s media team, according to The New York Times. “I am still astonished that people are afraid of Taliban.”
A spokesman for the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, Rupert Colville, expressed skepticism about what the words actually mean.
“Such promises will need to be honored, and for the time being — again understandably, given past history — these declarations have been greeted with some skepticism,” he told The Associated Press. “There have been many hard-won advances in human rights over the past two decades. The rights of all Afghans must be defended.”
For example, Fox News reported Thursday that the Taliban “killed a woman in Takhar province after she went out in public without a burqa.”
According to Aliya Kazimy, 27, of Mazar-i-Sharif, women who went shopping alone were told they had to go home and return with men as chaperones.
“I am from the generation that had a lot of opportunities after the fall of the Taliban 20 years ago,” she told the Times.
“I was able to achieve my goals of studying, and for a year I’ve been a university professor, and now my future is dark and uncertain. All these years of working hard and dreaming were for nothing. And the little girls who are just starting out, what future awaits them?” she said.
Hashimi indicated to Reuters that Afghanistan would likely be run by a ruling council, while the group’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, would keep overall control. When the Taliban previously ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, it had a council making day-to-day decisions, according to the Post.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Terrorists who had been rounded up across Afghanistan are now on the loose.
One prize in the total collapse of the former government and military of Afghanistan was that the Taliban were able to overrun Bagram Air Base on Sunday, where, according to the BBC, occupying forces began to set free inmates there at Pul-e-Charkhi prison.
In early July, when the U.S. handed control of the base to Afghan forces, CNN reported that between 5,000 and 7,000 prisoners were housed there, including “senior al Qaeda and Taliban figures.”
100s of Pakistani Taliban – TTP – fighters including key commanders were freed in various Prison breaks in Afghanistan during recent advances of Taliban especially from Bagram Prison & Pul-e-Charkhi Prison. Fate of Daesh IS-K prisoners probably be decided by Taliban's courts. pic.twitter.com/0OHoet2eVw
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley noted Sunday in a call with senators that instead of the original estimate] that terrorist groups could use Afghanistan as a base to rebuild within the next two years, the new timeline could be sooner.
Former President George W. Bush issued a statement Monday expressing “deep sadness” over the debacle in Afghanistan. Bush was president when America launched Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan to hunt down those responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Last month, in a rare display of comment on the policies of a successor, he said he disagreed with President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all military troops from Afghanistan, according to The Washington Post. Bush said he was “afraid Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm” as a result of the withdrawal.
“I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad. And I’m sad. Laura and I spent a lot of time with Afghan women. And they’re scared,” he said,
“I think about all the interpreters and people that helped — not only U.S. troops, but NATO troops — and they’re just, it seems like they’re just going to be left behind to be slaughtered by these very brutal people,” Bush said.
“And it breaks my heart.”
On Monday, he said in his statement that he and former first lady Laura Bush“have been watching the tragic events unfolding in Afghanistan with deep sadness. Our hearts are heavy for both the Afghan people who have suffered so much and for the Americans and NATO allies who have sacrificed so much,” he said, according to a statement sent by the Bush Center.
Bush said no ally should be left behind.
“The Afghans now at the greatest risk are the same ones who have been on the forefront of progress inside their nation. President Biden has promised to evacuate these Afghans, along with American citizens and our allies,” he said.
“The United States government has the legal authority to cut the red tape for refugees during urgent humanitarian crises. And we have the responsibility and the resources to secure safe passage for them now, without bureaucratic delay. Our most stalwart allies, along with private NGOs, are ready to help,” Bush added.
Amid scenes of panic from Kabul, Bush said that with the American military in charge, there is hope for the best possible outcome.
“Laura and I are confident that the evacuation efforts will be effective because they are being carried out by the remarkable men and women of the United States Armed Forces, diplomatic corps, and intelligence community,” the statement said.
Bush then added a statement to veterans and service members.
“Many of you deal with wounds of war, both visible and invisible. And some of your brothers and sisters in arms made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror. Each day, we have been humbled by your commitment and your courage,” he said.
Bush sought to validate the sacrifice of the more than 2,000 Americans who died and the more than 20,000 wounded in Afghanistan.
“You took out a brutal enemy and denied Al Qaeda a safe haven while building schools, sending supplies, and providing medical care. You kept America safe from further terror attacks, provided two decades of security and opportunity for millions, and made America proud. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and will always honor your contributions,” he said.
Bush, who was president in America’s dark days of adversity, said hope always endures.
“In times like these, it can be hard to remain optimistic. Laura and I will steadfastly remain so. Like our country, Afghanistan is also made up of resilient, vibrant people. Nearly 65 percent of the population is under twenty-five years old. The choices they will make for opportunity, education, and liberty will also determine Afghanistan’s future,” he said.
The former president then quoted Sakena Yacoobi of the Afghan Institute of Learning, who helped open schools for girls, as saying, “The Taliban cannot crush a dream. We will prevail, even if it takes longer than we wanted it to.”
“Laura and I, along with the team at the Bush Center, stand ready as Americans to lend our support and assistance in this time of need. Let us all resolve to be united in saving lives and praying for the people of Afghanistan,” the statement said in closing.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met with Border Patrol agents in Texas, reportedly stating “we’re going to lose” the border crisis in an audio recording leaked on Friday.
“A couple of days ago I was down in Mexico, and I said look, you know, if, if our borders are the first line of defense, we’re going to lose and this is unsustainable,” Mayorkas said, according to audio reportedly obtained by Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin.
Biden DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on the border crisis in leaked audio:
“We can’t continue like this, our people in the field can’t continue and our system isn’t built for it,” he added.
“In July there were over 212,000 illegal immigrants who came into the country (and that’s not counting the ‘got-aways’ / only God knows how many we missed),” South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted.
“The men and women of the Border Patrol are heroes who are being asked to do the impossible.”
The leaked audio comes as it was reported authorities made 212,672 apprehensions at the southern border in July. The number marks a 13 percent increase over June and a 21-year high for a single-month total, according to U.S. News & World Report.
“The U.S. also saw a 24 percent uptick in the number of unaccompanied children at the southwest border as well as a nearly 50 percent jump in the number of families,”The Hill reported on Thursday.
The surge of illegal immigrants has led Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs to pursue the impeachment of Mayorkas. Biggs filed the articles of impeachment on Tuesday, tweeting, “I just filed articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas.’
“His impeachment is well overdue and critical for the security of our nation.”
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton agreed with Biggs, tweeting on Thursday, “Time for Secretary Mayorkas to go.”
Even so, the impeachment is unlikely to move forward in the Democrat-controlled House.
In this case, NBC was the middleman in an Olympics where many of the athletes were less than thrilled to be representing the United States.
On July 26, for example, there were only 14.7 million people watching primetime coverage — a 49 percent drop from the 2016 Olympics and a 53 percent decline from the 2012 Olympics, Fox News reported. These ratings are so poor that the network began re-airing commercials for advertisers at no additional charge.
The Monmouth University Polling Institute released a poll showing that 43 percent of Americans did not have much interest in watching the games whatsoever. Patrick Murray of the polling institute told Fox News that the reason might have been the politicization of the games by some athletes.
“The Olympic spirit is a bit dampened this year,” he said.
“The delay from last year and lack of spectators have taken the edge off the typical anticipation and excitement for this event. But the emergence of Black Lives Matter in the sports world has also led to a backlash among some Americans.”
“I’m just here to represent, man,” she said last week, CNN reported.
“I know a lot of people like me, a lot of athletes like me, a lot of people are scared to succeed or speak out. As long as I can represent those people, I’m fine.”
Berry also had an “X” written on her hand in protest during the final.
Fencer Race Imboden did the same thing, saying he did so in “support of athletes of color, Ending Gun violence, and all the athletes who wish to use their voice on the platform they’ve earned,” according to CNN.
Shot-putter Raven Saunders crossed her arms during her medal ceremony, explaining later that the “X” was “the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet.”
Then there is U.S. soccer captain and social justice connoisseur Megan Rapinoe, who led the charge in kneeling in protest before her team’s games.
“It’s an opportunity for us to continue to use our voices and use our platforms to talk about the things that affect all of us intimately in different ways,” Rapinoe said, according to The Associated Press.
“We have people from Team USA, from all over the country, from all backgrounds, and people literally from all over the world for every other team so I obviously encourage everyone to use that platform to the best of their ability to do the most good that they possibly can in the world, especially as all eyes are on Tokyo these next couple weeks,” she later added.
Rapinoe and her team went on to finish a disappointing third in Tokyo.
While they certainly have the right to protest, Americans have the right to turn off the television when they feel their country is being insulted or disrespected.
Tamyra Mensah-Stock—the first black woman to win gold in wrestling for the U.S.A.—also shared her contagious love for America: “I’m so happy I get to represent U.S.A.!” 🤼♀️🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/mqDL2G9qzM
There were many athletes who were extremely patriotic on the world stage, but the social justice warriors have become martyrs in the establishment media and have monopolized the coverage.
Cable television is already a dying medium, and wokeness could be the nail in the coffin.
Cameron Arcand is a political commentator based in Orange County, California. His “Young Not Stupid” column launched at The Western Journal in January 2021, making Cameron one of the youngest columnists for a national news outlet in the United States. He has appeared on One America News, and has been a Young America’s Foundation member since 2019.@cameron_arcand
And listen for the “Tsk, tsk, you don’t really understand what we’re about, dear.” That’s how it will be in Minnesota and probably elsewhere if a leftist teachers union can spread its ideas on how to respond to its promotion of critical race theory.
Before reading the following, you might want to take a deep breath and exhale or whatever it is you do to reduce stress. You might have to do that after reading it, too.
Education Minnesota is trying to counter growing community pushback against CRT around the state, so it has published a guide on how teachers should respond, a copy of which was obtained by Powerline and publicized by Minnesota’s Alpha News. First of all, the union tells teachers not to call what they’re teaching critical race theory. They know parents are catching on. And the guide presents buckets of mush designed to obscure the issue and talk down to critics.
It’s a classic snow job using the special language of “educanto,” a term coined by the late Paul Greenberg, public school critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning Arkansas newspaper editor. Education Minnesota tells teachers that when asked why they teach kids that all white people are racist, they should give the following response:
“First off, I’m thrilled you’re taking such a deep interest in how and what our kids are taught, a conversation that I feel is long overdue.
“What I know most Americans believe is that we expect our students — whatever their color or background — to be able to learn hard truths and handle honest history and civics.”
May I pat your head?
“I believe in children’s potential to meet new challenges and have an honest reckoning, and when we try to edit and distort our history, we are doing them, and our future, a disservice. My loyalty is to children and who and what they can become.”
That’s how teachers should respond to your question about their “evil white people” push. And, of course, as the left always says: It’s for the children.
Education Minnesota does more than purr in its teacher voice. In its guide for its union members, it provides does some hard-knuckle political messaging against CRT critics by presenting “Key Concepts for Responding.”
Here are excerpts:
“Seize the moral high ground and engage on our terms. With attention on education, let’s talk about the teaching and curricula we support and communicate how it benefits all students.”
“Ascribe motivations to the opposition. Instead of reflexively repeating the opposition’s claims to dispel them (e.g. ‘we are not teaching grade schoolers about XYZ’) talk about why they’re attacking standards, equity and classroom educators.”
“Bring the conversation back to what we want. Don’t stay on defense.”
“Avoid the academic term ‘critical race theory. This phrase, unfamiliar to most audiences, has been redefined by the political right as an all-purpose racial dog whistle. Talk instead about the more honest and more complete education our students deserve.”
“[I]t is so disappointing to see that a few billionaires, and the promoters and talking heads they pay for, have launched a national campaign to mislead Americans about the lessons educators teach about history, culture, gender and politics.”
“Once again, they’re trying to distract and divide us so we don’t demand the richest 1 percent and the largest corporations pay what they owe for what our communities need, like affordable health care for all.”
Leftist educators try to hide what they’re teaching, but word is getting out. The Center for the American Experiment has been monitoring CRT in Minnesota and produced a video noting instances of it. It found that in Burnsville, fourth-graders were reading a book that said police officers were “mean to black people but nice to white people” and deliberately shot black men.
The video cited officials in the Minneapolis suburb of Hopkins as saying school operations were built on “white supremacy” values of logic, linear thinking, perfectionism, objectivity and “requiring black students to turn in assignments on time.” Letter grades are gone since they are part of “a dominant white culture.”
White Bear Lake sixth-graders were divided into groups based on race, sex, religion and place of birth and told to address issues of oppression and privilege.
Edina kindergarteners through second-graders did an exercise on how to identify themselves by their skin color. Kindergarten through second grade!
St. Louis Park scrapped the gifted and talented program, opening it to everyone and focusing on “anti-racist talent development.”
Minnesota teachers are taking anti-racism training, which, in effect, advocates new forms of racial discrimination, according to the video.
It’s not known if Minnesota schoolchildren are learning, like first- and second-graders in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, that “whiteness is a bad deal” and that if you are white, you essentially are a devil oppressing people of color, as reported Wednesday in a RealClear Policy piece that included shocking curriculum photos.
Education Minnesota defines CRT as “an academic framework that is more than 40 years old and is centered on the idea that racism is systemic, not just a product of individual bias or prejudice, and embedded in our policies legal structure.”
Indeed, CRT came from legal theorists during the 1970s and ’80s. The problem is it left the campus, and no matter how groups like Education Minnesota try to hide it, it is gumming up primary and secondary education.
Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist scholar and social commentator whose gravitas stems from also having been a farmer, points out a problem with woke nonsense being dreamed up on the college campus. College professors, Hansen has said, were once like court jesters of old. They could say all kinds of crazy things and no one was offended, not even the king, because everyone knew professors, like jesters, had no real power. Now, according to Hansen, crazy ideas have escaped the campus and are setting public policy.
Classic Marxism may have hit some resistance since its call for dividing people by income and class could be hindered by the relative affluence of most of the U.S. population, at least by world standards. But for sure, today’s Marxists are focused on dividing by race and gender to class. And critical race theory fits right in.
There’s a lot to process here: lying teachers, overt racism, emotional oppression upon very young children. You might want to take that deep breath.
Mike Landry, PhD, is a retired business professor. He has been a journalist, broadcaster and church pastor. He writes from Northwest Arkansas on current events and business history.
The cost of living is on the rise, calls for yet another wave of pandemic restrictions have begun and now, buried deep in the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill, the left has laid out yet another idea to bring Americans to their knees. Make no mistake: The suffering is intentional, goal-oriented and not bound to stop anytime soon. Still, one proposal in the 2,702 page infrastructure bill seems especially cruel — cruel enough to make it too expensive for many Americans to even drive a car.
Nick Short of the Claremont Institute highlighted an item on Pages 508-519 of the bill that would introduce a national per-mile motor vehicle user fee on a trial basis.
“Buried on page 508 of the 2,702 page infrastructure bill is a pilot program for a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee (MBUF) which is basically a long-term plan to make it too expensive to drive a car,” Short said Tuesday on Twitter.
The pilot program is set up “to test the design, acceptance, implementation, and financial sustainability of a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee, to address the need for additional revenue for surface transportation infrastructure and a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee” and “to provide recommendations relating to the adoption and implementation of a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee,” the bill says.
An article from The Lid Blog attached to Short’s tweet detailed the proposal even further, breaking down each component, from the program’s objectives to its proposal that “volunteers” from each state should discover different ways to collect data on miles driven by “both commercial and private vehicle operators.”
On Page 513, the proposal says that the “Secretary of the Treasury shall establish, on an annual basis, per-mile user fees for passenger motor vehicles, light trucks, and medium- and heavy-duty trucks.” In theory, these per-mile user fees would vary by vehicle contingent upon several factors, including — you guessed it — environmental impact.
To ease any apprehension about participating in the pilot program, the measure indicates that participants’ identities will be protected, perhaps, as The Lid said, to prevent ostracization “if this happens and achieves the desired result.”
The left can chalk up this test run of what eventually might turn into a full-blown measure to make owning a vehicle next-to-impossible as an effort to be “environmentally conscious,” but is it instead another way to cripple our existing ways of life?
We might dismiss it now, but imagine telling yourself five years ago that the government would order small business closures, codify when and how Americans could worship and adopt an increasingly draconian “do as I say, not as I do” policy to address a global pandemic.
From the way we work to the way we breathe, so many aspects of our lives have already changed — albeit willingly, for some. What’s so different about changing how we get to one place from another?
With $10 million dedicated to this program for each year from 2022 to 2026, it’s easy to see how the government doles out what it acquires from hardworking Americans.
Any Republican lawmakers who vote in favor of this “bipartisan” bill have no right to label themselves “conservative.”
Taylor Penley is a political commentator residing in Northwest Georgia. She holds a BA in English with minors in rhetoric/writing and global studies from Dalton State College. As a student, she worked in government relations and interned for Georgia’s 14th congressional district. She previously published an article with Future Female Leaders and published a rhetorical analysis of President Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate Address in a collegiate journal. She aspires to earn an MA and a PhD in journalism in the near future.
A new video shows up to 1,000 illegal immigrants were held for processing outdoors under a bridge near the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday as the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector in Texas continues to experience a surge of people crossing the border.
Fox News reporter Bill Melugin tweeted, “This is the largest group of migrants we’ve ever seen being held by Border Patrol under Anzalduas Bridge in Mission, TX. Looks like it could be up to 1,000 people. We can only get a look at the area with our drone. There’s a popular Rio Grande crossing area nearby.”
NEW: This is the largest group of migrants we’ve ever seen being held by Border Patrol under Anzalduas Bridge in Mission, TX. Looks like it could be up to 1,000 people. We can only get a look at the area with our drone. There’s a popular Rio Grande crossing area nearby. @FoxNewspic.twitter.com/AsAygsO966
Townhall.com reporter Julio Rosas also shared photos of the scene on Twitter, saying, “I’ve seen Border Patrol’s processing site underneath the Anzalduas International Bridge in Mission, TX off and on since March.
“I can say this is the most illegal immigrants I’ve seen at the site at one time. It’s close to 100 degrees out right now.”
Rosas also shared a video from Sunday night of another group, saying, “Another night in La Joya, TX another large group of illegal immigrants turning themselves over to Border Patrol. There are well over 150 people here. There is also a lot of sneezing and coughing among the group.”
Another night in La Joya, TX another large group of illegal immigrants turning themselves over to Border Patrol. There are well over 150 people here. There is also a lot of sneezing and coughing among the group. pic.twitter.com/cFkwdD8qnT
“Can’t stress enough that I’ve never seen such a large group at one time who have as many individuals who appear/sound to be sick,” he said.
The report comes as the delta variant of the coronavirus has led to a spike in new cases in recent weeks while President Joe Biden’s administration welcomes illegal immigrants into the country. Last week, authorities said a charity in the border town of La Joya had rented an entire hotel to house illegal immigrants who have tested positive for COVID-19, giving no notification to the local community.
“Police in La Joya, TX, a Border town, announce a charity has rented an entire hotel here for COVID-positive migrants,” Fox News State Department Correspondent Rich Edson tweeted Wednesday night. “They say they only found out when a family, showing symptoms and staying there, ate at a restaurant next door. A customer flagged down a police officer.”
A later post added, “They’re advising La Joya to mask up and distance.”
“The La Joya Police Department said a patrol officer was waved down Monday by someone concerned about a group that appeared to be sick at a Whataburger fast food restaurant,”Fox News reported late Wednesday night.
“The officer found a family inside who were coughing and sneezing and not adhering to health guidelines, including the wearing of masks, authorities said during a news conference,” the report said.
La Joya Police Sgt. Manuel Casas said his department and the city had not been notified of the situation.
“We did not know this,” he said. “No one told the city of La Joya. No one told the police department that these people were here, and no one told us that these people were possibly ill.”
The reported individuals were staying at Texas Inn & Suites after being released by Border Patrol.
There’s something in the air this week. Can you feel it?
It’s not just the super-duper scary Delta variant — it’s the rising consternation of Americans who are being told that, despite the willingness of millions to submit themselves to the novel COVID-19 vaccine so life could “get back to normal,” they’re now being told they need to mask up, regardless of vaccination status, even at home around their own children — some of whom may even be diving into yet another semester of distance learning, if things keep up, all thanks to said Delta variant.
While COVID-19 cases have indeed risen in the U.S. in recent weeks, which is being blamed on Delta, there’s a good chance that the media and health officials may be blowing its long-term impact on daily life out of proportion. Shocking — I know
According to the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, the Delta variant may actually be more widespread than is being reported, but this could signal that hope is right around the corner.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb explained while speaking with CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that he believes we are “much further” into the resurgence of COVID-19 than we realize, but, based on the trajectory seen in the United Kingdom just a few weeks ago, we might just have a few more weeks ourselves before cases once again decline.
“I believe there’s more virus than we’re picking up right now,” he said, noting that cases detected by at-home antigen tests or infections among younger Americans who might be asymptomatic won’t show up in government data.
“If you look at the U.K. in the last seven days, they do appear to be turning the corner,” Gottlieb explained.
He said that while it’s “unclear” if this downward trajectory is going to be sustained as the U.K. only recently lifted mitigation measures that were previously in place, if our friends across the pond are any indication, “we are perhaps further into this epidemic and hopefully going to turn a corner in the next two or maybe three weeks.”
He repeated his prediction for CNBC’s Squawk Box later in the week while discussing transmission between and mask guidance for vaccinated individuals.
“The bottom line is, the vaccine does not make you impervious to infection,” Gottlieb explained. “There are some people who are developing mild and asymptomatic infections even after vaccination.”
Although the Delta variant is indeed “much more transmissible” than the previous strain, Gottlieb said, and vaccinated individuals should still consider wearing masks, particularly around the vulnerable, he also noted that this shouldn’t necessarily “translate into general guidance” for mask-wearing and vaccine requirements.
“I don’t think we’re going to get enough bang for our buck by telling vaccinated people they have to wear masks at all times to make it worth our while,” he said. “I think we’re further into this Delta wave than we’re picking up. I think in another two or three weeks we’ll be through this.
"If you are vaccinated in a high prevalence area, in contact with virus, you think you might have the virus because you have mild symptoms–be prudent, get tested, maybe wear a mask especially if you are around a vulnerable person," says @ScottGottliebMD. pic.twitter.com/LFlMffkfe9
It’s also worth noting that “this,” i.e. a resurgence of COVID-19 cases as compared to previous months, isn’t anywhere near as scary as the Chicken Little state and media establishments seem to want us to believe. While cases are indeed rising, deaths due to COVID-19 remain at a 16-month low, as Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorff recently tweeted.
No one wants to hear about packed ICUs or young people on ventilators, and there is not a single life in this nation that needs to be reduced to a mere statistic. But since, pragmatically, the statistics are both what public health guidance should be based on and what we’re told it is based on, it’s pretty safe to conclude that there simply may not be a reason to panic. Certainly, there’s no telling what the next few weeks will bring, and Gottlieb was merely making predictions based on the trajectory of cases in a different country than our own.
If we can look at declining case rates in the U.K. as an indication that we may see the same trajectory here at home, perhaps we should also look to their “keep calm and carry on” attitude when it comes to examining the data. But will Americans keep calm as officials seem ready to send us into a new wave of lockdowns and school closures? That, just like the trajectory of COVID-19 cases, remains to be seen.
Isa grew up in San Francisco, where she was briefly a far-left socialist before finding Jesus and her husband in Hawaii. She now homeschools their two boys and freelances in the Ozarks.@crunchyconmama
If there’s one good thing that came out of school closures, it’s that parents finally had a window into what their kids were being exposed to in the classroom — and many were horrified by what they saw.
That’s exactly what happened in Carmel, Indiana, where parents learned the full scope of the perversion being peddled to their children. The school libraries there are filled with storybooks pushing radical transgender ideology, lessons on masturbation for middle schoolers, and novels with explicit sexual scenes including one describing a bloody rape.
At a meeting of the Carmel Clay School Board on Monday, outraged parents took turns reading excerpts from these materials. They are so objectionable that it’s necessary to issue more than our usual warning of graphic content. Watch at your own risk — but keep in mind, this smut is being made available to schoolchildren.
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
One parent spoke out against the “global campaign to promote sexualized material to grade school children which is heralded by the UN, championed by Planned Parenthood and is now making its way into the Carmel schools.”
She noted some of the titles available at elementary schools, including “Introducing Teddy: A Gentle Story About Gender and Friendship,” which uses a teddy bear to teach kids that gender isn’t determined by biology. There is also “Sparkle Boy,” about a toddler’s cross-dressing tendencies, and “Call Me Max,” in which a kindergarten girl gets a teacher to call her by a boy’s name.
(Whatever happened to reading Dr. Seuss books to schoolchildren? Oh, right — canceled by the woke mob.)
Another parent read from a novel available to Carmel high schoolers that includes a pornographic scene explicitly describing characters engaged in various sex acts. It’s too obscene to even summarize.
A third parent read from the book “It’s Perfectly Normal,” which is available to middle school children and promoted by Planned Parenthood. It teaches kids how to masturbate and is filled with nitty-gritty details.
A book called “Crank” details a disturbing rape that transpires when a young couple goes into the woods to get drunk and high on meth.
“If I had known you were just going to lay there, I wouldn’t have bothered,” the rapist tells his victim on the car ride home.
The video of Monday’s school board meeting was uploaded to YouTube by the group Unify Carmel, which is raising the alarm on the wokeism pervading the city’s public schools.
Alvin Lui, a parent activist, told WIBC in May that he fled California to escape radical leftist ideology — only to find it in his new home in Indiana.
“If I [raised] my daughter in California, the schools and the culture there would teach her that her two most important things in life [are] that she’s Asian and she’s female,” he said.
Lui said he began to worry about his daughter’s new school when he saw ideas like critical race theory make their way into the curriculum, a change that no doubt came about when the district hired its first “diversity, equity and inclusion officer” in January.
“We saw a lot of little things before other people saw it because we’ve lived through it previously,” Lui said. “So for my wife and I, it kind of feels like we’re living through that same nightmare all over again except in the very beginning.”
Parents have already begun pushing back against other items on the woke agenda, but Monday’s meeting in Carmel revealed the sexual indecency introduced to children in public schools.
“If I were to read it to you, you wouldn’t be able to air it because it would be against FCC obscenity laws,” Lui told WXIN-TV. “Everyone was uncomfortable, and these are adults.”
To his credit, Carmel Clay Superintendent Dr. Michael Beresford said he wasn’t aware of the books until the meeting and pledged to look into them. Carmel certainly isn’t the only place where so-called educators are sexualizing children — leftists are hard at work across the country. They know that sexually active kids make great abortion clients for Planned Parenthood and turn into Democratic voters when they become impoverished single parents.
Transgender advocates know that if they can get a hold of kindergarten minds, they can recruit a generation of confused children. The doctors who prescribe the puberty blockers and perform the “transition” surgeries can get that much richer.
Beyond the political sphere, what we have here is a battle for the hearts and souls of American children. This perversion tailored to kids stems from a diabolical determination to spoil their innocence and set them up for a life of servitude to sin. Whether they know it or not, the teachers giving smut to their students are cooperating with the dark powers that would turn us away from God by shackling us to our basest desires. There’s no surer way to do that than to expose children to this filth early and often.
Americans now have the opportunity to see and hear exactly what’s going on in public schools — and it’s our job to do exactly what these parents did on Monday.
Christine earned her bachelor’s degree from Seton Hall University, where she studied communications and Latin. She left her career in the insurance industry to become a freelance writer and stay-at-home mother.@CFavocciFacebook
Get your children vaccinated for COVID. That’s the official position of experts at Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — at least for children 12 and over. But there are growing doubts as to whether all children need the COVID vaccines, including uncertainty from Johns Hopkins faculty member Marty Makary.
In an Op-Ed last week for The Wall Street Journal, Makary wrote that he and a research team reviewed about 48,000 cases of children under 18 reported to have COVID between April and August of last year.
“Our report found a mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia,” he added.
Got that? Among that sample, no individuals under 18 without pre-existing conditions died of COVID.
Not one.
Zero.
None.
Overall, the CDC has reported that 335 children with a COVID diagnosis have died.
“Yet the CDC, which has 21,000 employees, hasn’t researched each death to find out whether Covid caused it or if it involved a pre-existing medical condition,” wrote Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Bloomberg School of Public Health and Carey Business School.
“I’ve written hundreds of peer-reviewed medical studies,” he said, “and I can think of no journal editor who would accept the claim that 335 deaths resulted from a virus without data to indicate if the virus was incidental or causal, and without an analysis of relevant risk factors such as obesity.”
Makary is not the only one who has raised questions about whether it’s really necessary to vaccinate children. Amid debate, the U.K., unlike the U.S. and Canada, has delayed vaccinating most children, according to the venerable British medical journal The BMJ.
On Friday, the journal published an article that indicated a government agency had recommended vaccinating 12- to 15-year-old children who had medical conditions (at-risk 16- and 17-year-olds already were eligible) or who were living with someone with immune system problems. In a point-counterpoint debate published in an edition of The BMJ earlier this month, three professors argued against vaccinating children, saying the risks outweigh the benefits and citing limited supplies of vaccines.
They referenced a U.S. CDC slide presentation that outlined the risk of myocarditis, mainly for young males, following vaccination. In boys aged 12 to 17, there were 56 to 69 cases of myocarditis per 1 million vaccine doses over a 120-day period, the CDC presentation said.
“… the risk of myocarditis, mainly for young males, following vaccination. In boys aged 12 to 17, there were 56 to 69 cases of myocarditis per 1 million vaccine doses over a 120-day period, the CDC presentation said. “
These instances may be rare. But they’re something that should go into parents’ decision-making process.
And that’s the key — parents ought to be the ones deciding whether or not their children will get vaccinated, not the government or any other parties that want to get involved. It’s up to the parents to evaluate the risks and benefits, and then decide what they want to do.
And the truth of the matter, as Makary’s research appears to show, is that for most children — not all, of course — COVID poses a much less serious risk.
It isn’t that COVID is something to take lightly (it’s not) or that children can’t get sick or die from it (they can, especially if they have pre-existing conditions). But politicians and others must be wary of pushing parents to just shut up and get their children vaccinated — the science simply isn’t on their side.
Mike Landry, PhD, is a retired business professor. He has been a journalist, broadcaster and church pastor. He writes from Northwest Arkansas on current events and business history.
An “America First” rally that had been scheduled for Saturday in Anaheim, California, was canceled, and city officials were jubilant over the news.
A Twitter post from the city announced the cancellation, noting that the city was a prime mover in ensuring that the event featuring Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia would not take place.
“The city of Anaheim shared public safety concerns with the operator, and those concerns were shared by the operator,” the statement said.
Then came a hint at the real reason.
“As a city we respect free speech but also have a duty to call out speech that does not reflect the city or our values,” the statement said.Advertisement – story continues below
When the city was called out for picking and choosing which brands of free speech were permitted, the city insisted safety concerns it did not elaborate upon were the real reason.
“Please help us share accurate information. We uphold free speech every day in Anaheim. As a city, we enjoy the same right of free speech and can note when something doesn’t align with our values. To be clear: public safety concerns are why this is not still on,” the city said in a statement.
Many on Twitter noted that this decision smacked of censorship.
Saturday’s canceled rally was to be held at the Anaheim Event Center, a privately owned facility, according to KNBC-TV.Advertisement – story continues below
The event had been scheduled at venues in two other southern California cities — Laguna Hills and Riverside — but each backed out, KNBC reported.
“I recognize this was a divisive issue in our community, and I am glad it has been resolved,” Riverside Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said, adding that she commended a venue that canceled the event.
The Laguna Hills venue, the Pacific Hills Banquet & Event Center, is also privately owned.
However, the Riverside Convention Center, which also canceled the rally, is owned by the city. That means the cancellation could face a serious legal challenge, KNBC reported.
Greene and Gaetz did hold a protest event outside Riverside City Hall on Saturday.
“They may try to shut down our venues, but we will take this fight to them in the courts, in the halls of Congress and, if necessary, in the streets,” Gaetz said, according to KCAL-TV.
Donald Trump won the last election and he’s gonna win the next one!
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
The chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus celebrated her arrest Thursday after leading an incursion of protesters into the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio said that breaking the law was an important way to illustrate her belief that voting reforms passed by state legislatures will disenfranchise black voters.
“I stand in solidarity with Black women and allies across the country in defense of our constitutional right to vote. We have come too far and fought too hard to see everything systematically dismantled and restricted by those who wish to silence us,”Beatty said in a statement on her website.
“Be assured that this is just the beginning. This is Our Power, Our Message,”the congresswoman in the statement.
“You can arrest me. You can’t stop me. You can’t silence me,” Beatty said on Twitter.
NBC News reported that the protesters who joined Beatty in the incursion demanded passage of the so-called For the People Act, a Democrat bill that would largely put elections under the thumb of the federal government instead of the states.
Capitol Police said the demonstrators were arrested after refusing to disperse.
“This afternoon, nine people were arrested for demonstrating in a prohibited area on Capitol Grounds,” the department said in a statement on Thursday.
“At approximately 3:30pm, the United States Capitol Police responded to the Atrium in the Hart Senate Office Building for reports of illegal demonstration activity. After officers arrived on the scene, they warned the demonstrators three times to stop. Those who refused were arrested for D.C. Code §22-1307. Two males and seven females were transported to USCP Headquarters for processing,” Capitol Police said.
Unlike the coverage of the Jan. 6 incursion of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, there was no hue-and-cry in the media about Beatty and the other protesters staging an “insurrection” or “threatening our democracy.”
Police arrested nine people including Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, in a prohibited area on Capitol Grounds during a pro-voting rights demonstration pic.twitter.com/kWZjpJrwYz
Many Republicans have said the fight over election reform legislation is an attempt by Democrats to use their current congressional majority as a means to cement leftist rule in America.
“Democrats want to rig every election going forward to make it nearly impossible for a conservative to win again,”Fox News host Laura Ingraham said Wednesday.
“They’re now effectively arguing that the very voting rules that delivered two two-term victories for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are essentially just like Jim Crow 2.0,” she said.
“So this leaves them really with only one option in their mind, which is to promote racial fear-mongering in pretty much everything around them. We already know what they’re doing in our schools, to our workplaces, the military, even to now our system of voting,” Ingraham said.
Fox News host Sean Hannity said the left’s fuss over voting rights is part of a strategy to sway the 2022 elections.
“So what does this really all about? We all know there’s nothing racist about integrity in elections. Democrats are obviously worried. Chances are they now believe they probably will lose in 2022 and maybe even 2024,” he said Thursday on “Hannity.”
“Mark my words, if Democrats suffer huge losses in 2022, they will blame racist right-wing voter suppression. … The truth isn’t important to the Democratic Party or the media mob, for that matter. Power is all that matters,” Hannity said.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
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President Joe Biden, right, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in the Oval Office at the White House on Aug. 27, 2021. (Sarahbeth Maney – Pool / Getty Images)
Commentary: A child receives a shot in the stock image above. (Melinda Nagy / Shutterstock)
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