Author Archives: granny g

Information We All Need

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On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about Monkeypox. The article provides a brief summary of the things the public needs to know.

Here are some excerpts:

In total, 92 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed so far, with another 28 suspected cases, according to the World Health Organization. Most of the cases in the U.K. and Europe have been in young men with no history of travel to Africa and who were gay, bisexual, or had sex with men.

…All of the cases that have been confirmed through a PCR test were infected by the strain native to West Africa, but only one case has a direct tie to the region. The first to be confirmed in the U.K. was a person who had traveled from the U.K. to Nigeria and back. The person was immediately isolated upon return, and “the risk of onward transmission related to this case in the United Kingdom is minimal,” the WHO said. But that still leaves open the question of where the dozens of other cases came from.

A leading adviser to the WHO, Dr. David Heymann, told the Associated Press that sexual transmission at two raves in Belgium and Spain appear to have been major catalysts for the spread of the virus in Europe.

…There is not currently a vaccine made specifically to prevent monkeypox infection, but smallpox vaccines have proven to be at least 85% effective in preventing monkeypox. Experts also believe that administering a smallpox vaccine after a monkeypox exposure may help prevent the disease or make it less severe.

The article concludes:

Infectious disease experts said this outbreak is very different from COVID-19, which caught the U.S. public health infrastructure off guard. Unlike symptoms of COVID-19 infection, symptoms of monkeypox are visual and cases are easier to trace. Monkeypox is also far less transmissible than COVID-19. And unlike COVID-19, monkeypox is not an airborne pathogen.

“Contact tracing COVID-19 is a nightmare, and I don’t want to say it’s a piece of cake, but it’s a much more straightforward proposition [to trace monkeypox],” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.

The Food and Drug Administration has also approved several antiviral medications to treat smallpox and diseases like it.

“That’s why I’m pretty optimistic that we’ll be able to contain it because the overall level of transmissibility is low, the incubation period is longer, and in about two weeks, the characteristic rash makes contact tracing easier, and we already have vaccines and antiviral drugs ready to go. … [COVID-19 is] really just the opposite of monkeypox,” Hotez told the Washington Examiner.

At least there is some good news.

What The Disinformation Bureau Is Really About

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The Disinformation Bureau has not gone away. On May 18, CNS News reported the following:

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that DHS is pausing its Disinformation Governance Board so that there can be an “assessment” by former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, but “DHS is still going to continue the work.”

“DHS said today that they’ll be pausing the Disinformation Governance Board. Did the White House play a role at all in perhaps expressing frustration in how it was rolled out or express any involvement in how, whether or not it should be paused, and then also some experts have said that it was set up to fail the way it was rolled out.

In case you have forgotten, Jamie Gorelick was paid more than $26 million in total compensation as a top executive at Fannie Mae–before taxpayers had to bail out the mortgage giant. She has a very interesting biography.

The article notes:

“Look, the Department of Homeland Security, they began their statement repeating that the board had been intentionally mischaracterized, which is a little bit of what you were asking me, and they were explicit about what it does and does not do,” Jean-Pierre said.

“It was never about censorship, policing speech, or removing content from anywhere. Its function was to keep homeland security officials aware of how bad actors, including human smugglers, transnational criminal organizations and foreign adversaries could use disinformation to advance their goals,” she said.

If you believe that, I have some waterfront property in Arizona I can sell you.

On May 23, PJ Media reported:

Nina Jankowicz, the self-proclaimed “Mary Poppins of Disinformation” who was up until recently supposed to become the chief of Joe Biden’s Orwellian and ominous Disinformation Governance Board, can’t seem to stop herself from stepping on rakes. She has complained, now that the Board has been “paused,” that the Board itself was a victim of “disinformation,” which casts into question how effective it could possibly have ever been, if Jankowicz couldn’t even manage to counter false statements about what it was supposed to be doing. On Monday, she made matters even worse by remarking off-handedly that the Board was meant to do something that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had said it would not be doing: countering “disinformation” not just from foreign sources, but from Americans.

Jankowicz tweeted that she was “thinking a lot the past few weeks about the paper I co-authored in the US Army War College Quarterly in 2020,” and she provided the link. “It lays out a government strategy,” she continued, “for dealing with disinformation based on 3 Cs- capability, coordination, and cooperation.” She added: “Since this piece was published in summer 2020, the spread and effects of disinformation on American society have only worsened and become entrenched in domestic politics (as the last few weeks of my life have shown).” And: “This is the type of work I had hoped to do at DHS, and the type of work the USG sorely needs to invest in. This is the type of work that I have built my career on—not a few contextless tweets. And this is the type of work I will continue in the public sphere.”

America now has a Ministry of Truth.

Challenging Admission Policies

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On Sunday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

  • University of Michigan professor Mark Perry told The Daily Caller News Foundation that he filed a Title VI complaint over a program application at the University of South Carolina that was restricted to students of certain race and ethnicities. 
  • Following his complaint, the application was updated stating the program is  “Open to all Rising High School Juniors and Seniors in South Carolina,” but highlighted students “who are in support of the advancement of business students from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply,” Perry told TheDCNF. 
  • “They’re so corrupt and they’re so unprincipled, that they do this all the time,” Perry said. “They might not even realize they’re violating federal civil rights laws or they know that it’s illegal, but they do it anyway because they’ve done it in the past (and) they’ve always gotten away with it because no one has ever challenged them.”

On Monday, The Carolina Journal reported:

The N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Virginia Lt. Gov Winsome Sears, each the first black lieutenant governor of their respective state, have joined forces to pen a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Asian-American students suing Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill. Carolina Journal was present at the Lieutenant Governor’s Mansion on May 19 at a press conference where the North Carolina Asian American Coalition (NCAAC) thanked Robinson for his support.

The students in the lawsuit accuse the institutions of discriminatory admissions practices, where they are held to a higher standard during consideration because of their race. The Robinson/Sears Amicus brief was filed May 9th.  

“While it can be argued that these policies had a role in helping many Americans overcome the persistent effects of historical and past discriminations in higher education, those effects are becoming less impactful the further we travel from the dark days of state-sanctioned discrimination,” said Robinson at the event. “Instead, they now function to unfairly discriminate against and deny opportunity to other ethnic and racial groups. Discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity is immoral in all of its forms, and we can do better. We must do better.”

The nonprofit group Students for Fair Admissions filed the original suit in 2014, but when it was ruled in November 2021 that Chapel Hill could continue to use affirmative action in their admissions, the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  

College admissions should be based on merit. If a student is admitted because of race or ethnicity and does not have the ability to do college work, the student is being set up to fail. No one gains by doing that. I hope the lawsuit is successful and we go back to rewarding people who work hard and stop rewarding people or punishing people for something they have no control over.

How To Drain The Swamp

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On Monday, The Conservative Playbook posted an article detailing an actual plan to drain the swamp that is Washington, D.C.  Please follow the link to read the entire article. It contains some really good ideas.

The article reports:

Donald Trump promised us that he’d drain the Swamp. As a real estate developer, you’d think that he understood how that should be done. The State Department is known as “Foggy Bottom” because it is in what was originally a fetid swamp. Land had to be reclaimed by filling to “drain” that swamp. Disney World near Orlando is built on swamp land, as any golfer will discover after a rainstorm. Much of that land became usable after swamps were filled in. And the beat goes on.

The bureaucratic mire in DC is full of predatory beasts, noxious insects, and other unseen hazards. Directives from the White House are apt to be ignored, since there is no one translating those directives into marching orders for the lower floors of government owned buildings. This leaves the denizens of departments to their own devices, none of which are the slightest bit concerned with anything beyond the office water cooler.

Thus, if the concerns of the cubicle align with the editorial page of the Washington Compost, then all is well, and the office sports pool becomes the most urgent part of the day.

If the Secretary of Department X decides to go full MAGA, little or nothing will actually happen, since most of his underlings frankly don’t give a damn. They are protected by Civil Service rules, and can’t be fired short of the next millennium. In other words, it’s hopeless.

…If you can’t get rid of all the feral animals inside a bureaucracy, what can you do? Ask Donald Trump how he dealt with swamp land on his golf courses or building sites! You don’t drain the swamp. You get rid of it! That’s right, you fill it in so it’s not a swamp anymore. And just in case this picture isn’t clear enough, watch the TV series “Swamp People.” The water in the swamp goes up and down, but even when it’s down, it’s still a swamp. With the next rain, it’s full again. And it doesn’t matter how many alligators you pull out of the swamp. There are hundreds new for each one harvested.

The only way to drain a swamp is to fill it in. Let that sink in.

The article cites ways to fill in the swamp and regain the country the Founding Fathers envisioned. Please follow the link to the article and read the details.

Eliminating The Terrorists One By One

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On Monday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog reported that IRGC Colonel Hassan Sayad Khodayari was killed yesterday.

The article reports:

IRGC Colonel Hassan Sayad Khodayari was assassinated yesterday Sunday in broad daylight outside his home by two men on a motorcycle who rode off into the sunset. Iran blamed the assassination on “elements linked to the global arrogance,” which the Times of Israel’s story translates as “the term for the United States and its allies including Israel.”

I think Iran is fingering Israel, but they don’t want to let the Great Satan off the hook either. The mullahs have their assassins working on Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, if not President Trump himself. The Jerusalem Post notes: “The IRGC also reported that Khodayari was involved in the security of the Shiite holy places in Damascus and that he had a close relationship with Qasem Soleimani, an IRGC commander who was killed in a US airstrike in 2020.”

The ToI story adds one more translation: “Reports identified [Khodayari] as a ‘defender of the sanctuary,’ a reference to Iranians who carry out Tehran’s operations in Syria and Iraq within the Guard’s elite Quds Force that oversees operations abroad.” The Jerusalem Post covers the techniques employed in the assassination here (also linked above).

The Jerusalem Post also notes: “According to Iranian sources, Khodayari was responsible for attempts to abduct and assassinate Israelis in Cyprus, Turkey and Colombia, N12 reported.” There’s a war underway. However, I’m quite sure the United States has quit fighting back President Trump left town. The Post’s analysis separately concludes “Assassination of IRGC official shows Israel has shifted gears.”

If America chooses to sit on the sidelines while Israel deals with terrorist attacks, Israel will successfully deal with those attacks on her own. It would be nice if America helped, but not necessary. The Israelis have a way of getting things done on their own.

The article notes:

Unsourced reports in the Israeli media state that Khodayari had planned kidnappings and other attempts to attack Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide. Israel Hayom has more here.

I guess those plans are at least temporarily on hold.

Who Is Actually Guilty Of Mass Shootings?

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On Monday, The Federalist posted an article citing the statistics on who is actually committing mass shootings. It’s not white supremacists.

The article reports:

Of the 82 mass public shootings from January 1998 to May 2021, 9 percent have known or alleged ties to white supremacists, neo-Nazis, or anti-immigrant views. Many of the anti-immigrant attackers, such as the Buffalo murderer, hold decidedly environmentalist views that are more in line with the Democrat agenda.

Other groups commit mass public shootings disproportionately more than whites do. While non-Middle Eastern whites make up about 64 percent of the population, they make up 58 percent of the mass public shooters. Another 9 percent are carried out by people of Middle Eastern origin, who make up only 0.4 percent of the country’s population. That makes Middle Easterners the most likely ethnic or racial group to carry out mass public shootings.

Blacks, Asians, and American Indians also commit these attacks at a slightly higher rate than their share of the population. Hispanics commit them at much lower rates (11 percent lower) than their share of the population.

It is interesting to me that Hispanics are the least likely to commit mass shootings. Is that related to the fact that in many cases, Hispanics have a fairly solid family foundation. What is the percentage of two-parent families in the Hispanic population versus other populations?

The fact that Middle Easterners have the largest number of mass public shootings in relation to their population should not  be a surprise. Many Middle Easterners who have come to America have not assimilated into the country and do not understand our culture. Many are also taught that killing infidels is a duty and will get them into paradise.

The article continues:

Seventy-one percent of mass public shooters have no identifiable political views. But you would never know this from watching TV police dramas or listening to Biden’s constant claim that white supremacists pose the biggest threat of domestic terrorism.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed in testimony in April that white supremacy is the top terrorism-related threat to the homeland. But when pressed, Mayorkas couldn’t name a single white supremacy case that his department referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.

White supremacists with guns are not the threat that our government would have us believe. It’s not just that white supremacy is rare. So too are gun crimes. The number of gun crimes has been falling dramatically, and they now make up less than 8 percent of violent crimes in America. Yet we constantly hear the opposite from politicians who support gun restrictions.

All of the current rhetoric coming from our political class has one purpose–to convince Americans that giving up their guns will make them safer. Those who study history understand that nothing could be further from the truth.

The ACLU Actually Supports Civil Rights

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On Thursday, Just the News posted the following:

Last week, attorneys for the ACLU wrote a letter to Judge Analisa Torres of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York objecting to the court declining to unseal the search warrant application and related judicial documents filed in connection to the raid of the home of investigative journalist James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas.

In November, federal prosecutors obtained and executed warrants to raid the homes of three Project Veritas journalists, including O’Keefe, and seize their electronic devices. O’Keefe was handcuffed by FBI agents during the search of his home and required to stand in the public hallway of his apartment building dressed in his underwear, according to court documents.

In December, the magistrate judge assisting Torres in the case declined requests to unseal the search warrant materials, arguing the government’s stated interest in protecting both the integrity of an ongoing grand jury investigation into Project Veritas and the privacy of uncharged individuals named in the documents outweighed the public’s interest in accessing the information.

The magistrate judge’s opinion led the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) to file a motion calling on the court to unseal the materials.

The ACLU’s new letter expresses support for the RCFP’s objection, noting that a significant amount of information about the government’s investigation has been made public since the magistrate judge issued her order.

If you remember, the FBI search of the home of James O’Keefe happened about the time it became known that James O’Keefe had been offered a copy of Ashley Biden’s diary (see story here). The raid on James O’keefe at his home appeared to be another example of the federal government attacking someone they perceived as a possible enemy or person who might release negative information about people (or relatives of people) in the Biden administration.

The article at Just the News concludes:

Through the Microsoft search warrants, which were unsealed in March, the government seized nearly 200,000 Project Veritas emails and other files, many of which were unrelated to the Justice Department’s purported reason for initiating the warrants.

The Justice Department has contended there’s probable cause to believe Project Veritas was involved in stealing the diary and transporting it — a claim denied by the sources, who have consistently said it was abandoned at the Florida house, and O’Keefe’s legal team.

Calli (O’Keefe’s attorney, Paul Calli,) has accused the FBI and Justice Department of a witch hunt targeting a media organization openly critical of the Biden administration, arguing the government is violating the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and the Privacy Protection Act.

“The ACLU has taken a righteous and principled stance regarding the government’s desecration of the First Amendment,” Calli told Just the News. “Project Veritas is grateful for the support of the ACLU and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.”

Calli added, “Sadly, partisan political activists like those at the New York Times, and others in the for-profit, credentialed, cloistered, legacy media, as well as blogs like the Columbia Journalism Review, have not woken to the threat to all journalists.”

Calli has previously told Just the News that the government doesn’t want to unseal the search warrant materials for Project Veritas because federal prosecutors and FBI agents lied and misled in them to obtain warrants from judges.

The Justice Department declined to comment for this story.

The politicization of the Justice Department in America will eventually become a problem for both political parties. It is good to see the ACLU getting involved in this case.

What Is The Real Result Of The Covid Vaccine?

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On May 3 (updated May 22), The Epoch Times posted an article about the COVID-19 vaccine.

The article reports:

  • According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, more than 1 million excess deaths — that is, deaths in excess of the historical average — have been recorded since the COVID-19 pandemic began two years ago, and this cannot be explained by COVID-19. Deaths from heart disease, high blood pressure, dementia and many other illnesses rose during that time
  • Across the world, death rates have also risen in tandem with COVID shot administration, with the most-jabbed areas surpassing the least-jabbed in terms of excess mortality and COVID-related deaths
  • According to Walgreens data, during the week of April 19 through 25, 2022, 13% of unvaccinated persons tested positive for COVID. Of those who received two doses five months or more ago, 23.1% tested positive, and of those who received a third dose five months or more ago, the positive rate was 26.3%. So, after the first booster shot (the third dose), people are at greatest risk of testing positive for COVID
  • U.K. government data show the all-cause mortality rate is between 100% and 300% greater among people who got their first COVID shot 21 days or more ago. The risk for all-cause death is also significantly elevated among those who got their second dose at least six months ago, and mildly elevated among those who got their third dose less than 21 days ago. As of January 2022, all who got one or more doses at least 21 days ago were dying at significantly elevated rates
  • Other data also show that COVID mortality rates are far higher in areas with high vaccination rates, and risk-benefit analyses reveal the jabs do more harm than good in most age groups

This is frightening. These statistics should be enough to stop the administering of the COVID-19 vaccine immediately.

The article notes:

Ever since the announcement that the COVID “vaccines” would be using novel mRNA gene transfer technology, I and many others have warned that this appears to be a very bad idea.

Numerous potential mechanisms for harm have been identified and detailed in previous articles, and we’re now seeing some of our worst fears come to bear. “Fully vaccinated” individuals are both more likely to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 and more likely to die, whether from COVID or some other cause.

As reported by investigative journalist Jeffrey Jaxen in the April 22, 2022, Highwire video above, data from Walgreens’ COVID-19 tracker[6] reveal that COVID-jabbed individuals are testing positive for COVID at higher rates than the unjabbed. What’s more, people who got their last shot five months or more ago have the highest risk.

As you can see in the screenshot below, during the week of April 19 through 25, 2022, 13% of unvaccinated tested positive for COVID (with Omicron being the predominant variant). (The data reviewed by Jaxen are from the week of April 10 through 16.)

Of those who received two doses five months or more ago, 23.1% tested positive, and of those who received a third dose five months or more ago, the positive rate was 26.3%. So, after the first booster shot (the third dose), people are at greatest risk of testing positive for COVID.

The article concludes:

While we may indeed need better pharmacovigilance, there’s really no doubt at this point that the COVID jabs are ill-advised for most people. I believe that in the years to come, people will look back at this time and vow to never repeat it. In the meantime, all we can do is look at and assess the data we do have, and make decisions accordingly.

If you have not already gotten your COVID shot, please don’t.

Who Was There?

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The World Economic Forum is the group many people believe is planning “The Great Reset,” which will lead us into one-world government. Unfortunately, many Americans  have been drawn into this circle of influence.

A website called usasupreme posted a list of the Americans who recently attended The World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Here is the list:

American Attendees of the World Economic Forum 2022:

Gina Raimondo Secretary of Commerce of USA
John F. Kerry Special Presidential Envoy for Climate of the United States of America
Bill Keating Congressman from Massachusetts (D)
Daniel Meuser Congressman from Pennsylvania (R)
Madeleine Dean Congresswoman from Pennsylvania (D)
Ted Lieu Congressman from California (D)
Ann Wagner Congresswoman from Missouri (R)
Christopher A. Coons Senator from Delaware (D)
Darrell Issa Congressman from California (R)
Dean Phillips Congressman from Minnesota (D)
Debra Fischer Senator from Nebraska (R)
Eric Holcomb Governor of Indiana (R)
Gregory W. Meeks Congressman from New York (D)
John W. Hickenlooper Senator from Colorado (D)
Larry Hogan Governor of Maryland (R)
Michael McCaul Congressman from Texas (R)
Pat Toomey Senator from Pennsylvania (R)
Patrick J. Leahy Senator from Vermont (D)
Robert Menendez Senator from New Jersey (D)
Roger F. Wicker Senator from Mississippi (R)
Seth Moulton Congressman from Massachusetts (D)
Sheldon Whitehouse Senator from Rhode Island (D)
Ted Deutch Congressman from Florida (D)
Francis Suarez Mayor of Miami (R)
Al Gore Vice-President of the United States (1993-2001) (D)

The article concludes:

“The Annual Meeting 2022 will embody the World Economic Forum’s philosophy of collaborative, multistakeholder impact, providing a unique collaborative environment in which to reconnect, share insights, gain fresh perspectives, and build problem-solving communities and initiatives,” explains the group, whose efforts to exploit COVID-19 for its “Great Reset” has come under intense scrutiny.

It would probably be a good idea to keep an eye on the political careers of these people in the future.

One Consequence Of An Open Border

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On Saturday, Sharyl Attkisson posted an article about the increase in drug overdoses in America and the relationship between that increase and our open southern border.

The article reports:

The following is an excerpt from the Executive Summary of the Commission on Combatting Synthetic Opioid Trafficking.

Cumulatively, since 1999, drug overdoses have killed approximately 1 million Americans. That number exceeds the number of U.S. service members who have died in battle in all wars fought by the United States. Even worse is that the United States has never experienced the level of drug overdose fatalities seen right now.

In just the 12 months between June 2020 and May 2021, more than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdose—more than twice the number of U.S. traffic fatalities or gun-violence deaths during that period. Some two-thirds of these deaths—about 170 fatalities each day, primarily among those ages 18 to 45—involved synthetic opioids.

The primary driver of the opioid epidemic today is illicit fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times more potent than heroin.

In 2018, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the cost of overdose fatalities was $696 billion, despite being roughly two-thirds of annual overdose deaths today. It is therefore reasonable to estimate that drug overdoses are now costing the United States approximately $1 trillion annually.

Given these fatalities, the Commission finds the trafficking of synthetic drugs into the United States to be not just a public health emergency but a national emergency that threatens both the national security and economic well-being of the country.

The article continues:

In less than a decade, illegal U.S. drug markets that were once dominated by diverted prescription opioids and heroin became saturated with illegally manufactured synthetic opioids. Some of these synthetic variants are cheaper and easier to produce than heroin making them attractive alternatives to criminals who lace them into heroin and other illicit drugs or press them into often-deadly counterfeit pills.

Mexico is the principal source of this illicit fentanyl and its analogues today. In Mexico, cartels manufacture these poisons in clandestine laboratories with ingredients—precursor chemicals—sourced largely from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Because illicit fentanyl is so powerful and such a small amount goes such a long way, traffickers conceal hard-to-detect quantities in packages, in vehicles, and on persons and smuggle the drug across the U.S.–Mexico border.

It is difficult to interdict given that just a small physical amount of this potent drug is enough to satisfy U.S. demand, making it highly profitable for traffickers and dealers.

Indeed, the trafficking of synthetic opioids offers a more profitable alternative to heroin for Mexican drug traffickers. The Mexican government, in part out of self-preservation and in part because the trafficking problem transcends current law enforcement capacity, recently adopted a “hugs, not bullets” approach to managing the transnational criminal groups. However, such approaches have not been able to address trafficking issues, and further efforts will be needed.

The article concludes:

U.S. and Mexican efforts can disrupt the flow of synthetic opioids across U.S. borders, but real progress can come only by pairing illicit synthetic opioid supply disruption with decreasing the domestic U.S. demand for these drugs.

Congress established the Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking to examine the causes of the influx of synthetic opioids, to understand how to reduce the trafficking of these drugs, and to identify solutions to mitigate a worsening overdose death crisis.

The magnitude of this fast-moving problem and the unique challenges it presents will require a new and different national response across all levels of government and policy domains.

Read or download the entire commission report here.

In a sense, the drug problem has something in common with the current debate over abortion. Until we have a cultural change that makes marijuana (a gateway drug) use socially unacceptable, we will not be able to solve the drug crisis. Until we make abortion socially unacceptable, overturning Roe vs. Wade will only be a small step forward. Peer pressure is real, and it has a lot to do with the drug problem in America. As long as teenagers and young adults believe it is cool to smoke marijuana, a percentage of those teenagers and young adults will go on to more dangerous drugs. In the past thirty years, we have seen the cultural change in the area of cigarette smoking. Smoking in a restaurant thirty years ago was acceptable, now it simply does not happen. We need to make similar changes in the areas of drug use and abortion.

It’s Long Past Time To Reconsider Our Relationship With China

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The Daily Wire recently posted an article about organ donations in China.

The article reports:

Dr. Enver Tohti, a former physician in China, remembers the day with horror. The whistleblower said his chief surgeon approached him and asked, “Do you want to do something wild?” The surgeon then took Dr. Tohti and other medical professionals to the site of a public execution, pointed to one of the criminals, and told him, “As quick as possible, remove the liver and two kidneys.” 

“Then, I saw he was alive,” Dr. Tohti, who is now an Uber driver in London, recently told Vice TV. 

Stories of China harvesting organs from live “donors” have proliferated for decades, but a new and credible scholarly article has exposed concrete evidence that China has engaged in the gruesome practice. Researchers Matthew P. Robertson of Australia and Jacob Lavee of Israel combed through 2,838 papers on Chinese organ transplantation published in medical journals, covering prisoner organ donations between 1980 and 2015. They published their findings on April 4 in an article titled “Execution by organ procurement: Breaching the dead donor rule in China,” in the American Journal of Transplantation, a peer-reviewed journal.

The article continues:

Robertson told me it is important that the media not misreport their data about live organ transplants. “It’s not that there were only 71 of this sort,” he said. “It’s 71 that we found.” 

He and his co-author are almost certainly undercounting the incidences when CCP officials killed prisoners by removing their beating hearts, because they counted only those officially documented in medical journals. “We don’t know how many transplants actually end up in a medical paper,” said Robertson. “It could be one in 100; it could be one in 1,000; it could be 1 in 10.” 

Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but estimates abound — and none of the numbers add up. In 2019, the China Tribunal found that Chinese physicians likely performed 60,000 to 90,000 organ transplants a year from 2000 to 2014, but the number of eligible organ donors registered in 2017 numbered only 5,146. Another estimate places the number of organs taken from Falun Gong practitioners at 41,500 over a five-year period. For his part, Robertson said once Chinese Communist Party officials perfected the process, they employed this form of organ removal “probably with all heart transplants” in the nation.

The article concludes:

These allegations also illustrate the legacy media’s perpetually favorable coverage of the People’s Republic of China. “China used to harvest organs from prisoners. Under pressure, that practice is finally ending,” The Washington Post told its readers in 2017. “China vows to battle corruption in organ harvesting,” reported the Associated Press a year earlier. But human rights attorney Hamid Sabi told the UN Human Rights Council in 2019 that forced organ harvesting in China “continues today.” 

Such silence makes it all the more important for Western media outlets to cover these atrocities. “China and their advocates will do everything they can to belittle or discredit” such findings, said Andrew Bremberg, a former ambassador and now CEO of Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. “And all too often, people in the U.S. and the West will do their best to ignore” them. 

But in order for such human rights abuses to end, the West must act. Thanks to Robertson and Lavee’s research, some of the doctors who took part in China’s forced organ harvesting are now known, Bremberg said. “But we don’t know all of their relationships with U.S. or other Western-based hospitals or universities, or whether they collaborate or publish with other Western academics.”

A bipartisan collection of legislators — Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Chris Coons (D-DE) and Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), and Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) — introduced the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act last March. The bill would allow U.S. officials to identify and sanction those involved in organ harvesting, including revoking their passports. 

“It’s past time to hold Beijing accountable for these heinous acts,” said Sen. Cotton.

This is not an acceptable practice and needs to be addressed. No country engaged in the practice of live organ harvesting should be allowed to trade on any world markets. The only way to end this ghoulish practice is to hit China in the pocketbook.

The Fix Is In

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Many Americans are hopefully watching the trial of Michael Sussmann for indications that our justice system’s principle of all men are equal under the law still applies. Well, don’t get your hopes up too high. If you are following the case, you realize that the prosecution is very carefully laying out the case that the bad people in the Clinton campaign fooled the Justice Department into going along with the Russia hoax. There is no suggestion that the Justice Department was part of the plan. That is the first indication that this trial is a show put on to appease those in America who actually want to see people held responsible for ignoring the civil liberties of their political opponents and lying to the media and the American public. There are also some other indications that the truth is not actually welcome in this trial.

On Friday, Fox News posted the following quote from Jonathan Turley:

JONATHAN TURLEY: Durham faces a lot of challenges in this trial. The judge in the trial has hit the prosecution with limiting orders. This jury pool is a nightmare for the prosecutors. There are three Clinton donors on the jury. In the last 24 hours, the judge turned down a motion to dismiss a juror whose daughter is actually playing on the same team with the daughter of Sussmann. So I think for the prosecutors, it seems like the only thing that is missing on the jury is Chelsea Clinton. A jury of your peers is not supposed to mean other Clinton people. And so, I think that the prosecutors have quite a challenge with this pool.

If I am ever charged with a crime, can I get a jury of my friends? How likely is that?

An Honest Mistake?

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On Thursday, Hot Air posted an article about the 2020 census and some of the mistakes made.

The article includes the following map:

I realize the map is a little difficult to read, but the purple states were under-counted and the green states were over-counted.

The article notes:

So, the bottom line is that it’s too late now for any of this to matter. Still, it’s hard not to notice the pattern. Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida and Texas are all red states. Here’s the breakdown of who these states send to the House of Representatives:

    • Arkansas – 4 Republicans
    • Florida – 16 Republicans, 11 Democrats
    • Mississippi – 3 Republicans, 1 Democrat
    • Tennessee – 7 Republicans, 2 Democrats
    • Texas – 23 Republicans, 13 Democrats (though one, Filemon Vela, resigned in March)

These are the numbers:

I am reaching the end of my ability to believe in amazing coincidences.

Have The People In Congress Read The Constitution?

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On Thursday, Politico posted Huddle, which the site describes as “A play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news.” Included in Huddle, about half-way down is the following:

FIRST IN HUDDLE: BOOKER INTRODUCES GUN LEGISLATION— Democrats have not leaned into gun control measures in the wake of the racist shooter’s deadly attack in Buffalo over the weekend, but Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is taking on the issue despite long legislative odds. Booker, along with Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), is introducing legislation today that would require people trying to get a firearm to get a license from the Department of Justice before they can buy or receive a gun. The DOJ license would require both a written firearm safety test and hands-on training, a criminal background check and submission of fingerprints and proof of identity. The license would only be available to people over 21 years of age, essentially raising the age of gun ownership to 21. “This is the moment to enact ambitious legislation – as a nation, we must rise to it, or we are fated to witness the deadly scenes of this past weekend and years past over again,” Booker said in a statement. Read the bill text.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a leading advocate for gun safety legislation shares Booker’s sense of urgency and told The New York Times’ Annie Karni that even if legislation cannot clear Congress, Democrats need to talk more about guns, especially with voters. Congress Is Paralyzed on Guns. Here’s Why Chris Murphy Is Still Hopeful.

Below is an excerpt from the bill:

 

The license is good for five years.

The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This proposed law violates both of these amendments. Has Cory Booker read the U.S. Constitution that he swore an oath to uphold?

This Might Be Good News For Republicans

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On Wednesday, The Western Journal posted an article about voter turnout in the recent primary elections.

The article reports:

McDaniel (Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel) told Fox News on Wednesday that she believes it bodes well for the general election in November, but she cautioned GOP supporters not to become complacent.

She pointed first to Tuesday’s elections in Pennsylvania.

“The thing that we’re taking away from last night is, first of all, Republicans outpaced Democrat turnout by 100,000 votes. That’s the first time we’ve ever beaten the Democrats in 10 years in this type of primary situation,” McDaniel said.

Republican voters cast over 1.3 million ballots to Democrats’ slightly less than 1.2 million.

That would be very good news for the Republicans in the mid-term elections assuming that the mid-terms would be an honest election.

The article concludes:

“We know that inflation is hurting average Americans. We know that gas prices are hurting people. We know that there is a baby formula shortage that this administration is not addressing,” McDaniel added.

“It seems that every time a crisis comes up, they’re ill-prepared, and that’s why we’re seeing voters look at Republicans and say, ‘Maybe we need to switch leadership in Washington and put Republicans in charge of the Senate and the House in the midterm elections,’” she said.

The GOP leader is cautious about predicting a red wave in the fall, pointing out that Republicans only need a net gain of five seats in the House to take back that chamber and just one to retake the Senate.

“I don’t want anyone to get complacent,” McDaniel said. “We all need to work hard for every single victory.”

We need a conservative takeover of Congress (whichever party those conservatives belong to) to put an end to the destructive policies of the Biden administration. It’s time to become energy independent again. It’s time to control spending, and it’s time to remove (again) the regulations that make it nearly impossible for businesses to operate easily in America.

Refusing To Learn The Lessons Of History

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Our Founding Fathers were not fans of nation-building. They felt that nations had to struggle to find freedom for themselves in order to be strengthened enough to hold on to that freedom. That idea is similar to the concept of not helping a baby chick peck its way out of the shell. The pecking is what builds the strength for the survival of the baby chick. Fighting for freedom is what causes a nation to cherish that freedom. Unfortunately our current politicians have forgotten that particular history. We are currently pouring money into Ukraine as if we actually have the money (rather than borrowing it from China). We are considerable weakening the American economy in an attempt to shore up another country. There is also some question as to why our Congress is so interested in funneling money into Ukraine. It would be very interesting to see which Congressmen have large investments in Ukraine and how much those investments are currently worth and would be worth if Ukraine falls to Russia.

On Thursday, Fox News reported that the Senate had passed a bill to send $40 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

The article reports:

Despite some GOP opposition, the bill passed by a final tally of 86-11, with the support of leadership from both parties and a significant majority of Republican senators. It will now go to President Biden’s desk. 

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., led the opposition to the bill, demanding an inspector general be appointed to oversee the spending. The U.S. total financial commitment to the Russian war on Ukraine will now total nearly $54 billion. 

The article concludes:

“Those senators who voted to gift $40 billion to Ukraine argue that it is in our national security interest,” Paul said on the Senate floor after the vote. “I wonder if Americans across our country would agree if they had been shown the costs, if they had been asked to pay for it.”

Paul added: “By my calculation, each income taxpayer in our country would need to pay $500 to support this $40 billion, which by some accounts is a down payment and will need to be replenished in about four months.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are railing against Republicans for the fact they delayed the Ukraine funding bill by a full week. “Senator Paul’s obstruction of Ukraine funding is totally unacceptable, and only serves to strengthen Putin’s hand in the long run,” Schumer said this week.

It’s time to elect people to Congress who will treat the American taxpayer’s money with respect. The current spending level is totally unacceptable.

Popularity On Twitter

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Popularity on social media is a bit questionable at best. It’s like sitting at an imaginary ‘cool kids’ table in high school–and I do mean imaginary. However, there are those who use the number of followers on Twitter as a gauge of something. What, I don’t know, but something. At any rate, the question is, “How many people on Twitter are actually real people?”

Breitbart posted an article on Wednesday reporting that nearly half of President Joe Biden’s 22.3 million Twitter followers are fake accounts. One wonders who set up these fake accounts and why they were set up.

The article reports:

Software company SparkToro found that 49.3 percent of accounts following the official @POTUS Twitter account are “fake followers” or inauthentic accounts known as bots, according to a report by Newsweek.

The same analysis reportedly also found that more than 14 million accounts that follow Biden’s personal @JoeBiden Twitter account are either fake or insufficiently active. Therefore, a crackdown on fake Twitter accounts could see users like Biden lose a huge number of followers.

SparkToro reportedly defines fake followers as “accounts that are unreachable and will not see the account’s tweets (either because they’re spam, bots, propaganda, etc. or because they’re no longer active on Twitter).”

The news of Biden’s fake Twitter followers comes after Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is currently trying to buy Twitter, expressed concerns about the number of bots on the social media platform.

Musk has since announced that his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter cannot move forward until the number of bot accounts on the platform is independently confirmed.

The SpaceX CEO tweeted that his offer was based on “Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate,” and he believes bots could account for 20 percent of the platform “or *much* higher.”

All of this has come to light because of Elon Musk’s plan to purchase Twitter. The article at Breitbart notes that uncovering these numbers may actually be part of Elon Musk’s negotiation process to acquire Twitter. Knowing that Elon Musk is a successful businessman who knows how to negotiate, that is entirely possible.

The Wrong Answer

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On Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported that the Biden administration is preparing to ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil imports into America.

The article reports:

The Biden administration is expected to soon announce it would ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil amid the ongoing energy crisis, several media outlets reported.

The federal government will ease “some” of the energy sanctions on Venezuela, two senior administration officials told CNN. In addition, U.S. oil corporation Chevron will be allowed to enter into negotiations with Venezuelan state-owned firm PDVSA over potential continued operations in the South American oil-rich nation.

The article concludes:

“Our experience buying Russian energy should have taught President Biden that buying energy from tyrants is a dangerous proposition,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso said in a statement.

“Yet President Biden continues to reward our enemies by waiving sanctions while his administration does its best to kill American energy production. Funding despots isn’t in the national interest. Supporting American energy is,” he continued.

Venezuela consistently ranks as one of the least “free” countries in the world, according to Freedom House.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has increasingly moved to restrict further domestic oil and gas production. The Department of the Interior canceled the three remaining federal offshore oil and gas lease sales last week and dramatically scaled back the federal onshore program in April.

The average price of gasoline reached an all-time record $4.52 a gallon on Tuesday, according to AAA data.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Biden administration is under tremendous pressure from the environmental extremists to end America’s use of fossil fuel. What the environmentalists don’t realize is that America is one of the most environmentally safe countries in the world in its extraction of fossil fuel. Getting fuel from Venezuela is not only foolish because it strengthens a tyrant, but because it is not as environmentally friendly as drilling practices in America. This move by the Biden administration is another step in the wrong direction.

Sometimes ‘The Spin’ Is Very Entertaining

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On Wednesday, Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line Blog about a breaking news story being reported by The Washington Post.

Steven Hayward reports:

Today is offering a surfeit of feel-good news, but this one came in too late for the pervious post. The Washington Post is just up with the breaking story that the Biden Administration has decided to “pause” (but almost certainly shut down) the mis-named “Disinformation Governance Board”:

Just three weeks after its announcement, the Disinformation Governance Board is being “paused,” according to multiple employees at DHS, capping a back-and-forth week of decisions that changed during the course of reporting of this story. On Monday, DHS decided to shut down the board, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. By Tuesday morning, Jankowicz had drafted a resignation letter in response to the board’s dissolution.

But Tuesday night, Jankowicz was pulled into an urgent call with DHS officials who gave her the choice to stay on, even as the department’s work was put on hold because of the backlash it faced, according to multiple people with knowledge of the call. Working groups within DHS focused on mis-, dis- and mal-information have been suspended. The board could still be shut down pending a review from the Homeland Security Advisory Council; Jankowicz is evaluating her position within the department.

This is The Washington Post headline at the time of this article:

I hadn’t realized that free speech was such a partisan issue. I do notice that the headline is a little vague about where the disinformation is coming from–do they mean the White House is going to stop releasing disinformation?

The article at Power Line Blog concludes:

And “experts”—the mainstream media’s favorite sources for their ventriloquist journalism—show up for duty:

Experts say that right-wing disinformation and smear campaigns regularly follow the same playbook and that it’s crucial that the public and leaders of institutions, especially in the government, the media and educational bodies, understand more fully how these cycles operate.

There is absolutely nothing I can add to that statement.

Something To Keep In Mind

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It is becoming obvious that someone will be thrown to the lions in the John Durham investigation. It will probably be someone (or someones) associated with the Clinton campaign. It may even include a Clinton (but I doubt it). The mob (many Americans) are demanding accountability, and some accountability will be provided. However, the root of the problem will never be dealt with.

The following is an excerpt from an article posted in The Conservative Treehouse on May 17:

As noted by Charlie Savage, prosecutor Deborah Shaw, a member of the Durham team, delivered the opening remarks to frame the government position in the case.

The telling remarks came early: “Shaw addresses “the elephant in the room” – tells jury their feelings about Russia, Trump, Clinton can’t play a role in the case. This is about “our FBI” which should not be used as a tool by anyone, Republicans or Democrats.”  In essence, prosecutor Shaw is telling the jury the FBI were duped into the Trump-Russia conspiracy investigation by outsiders connected to the Clinton campaign.

That’s a critical baseline from the government we must understand and accept.  That baseline now indicates that none of the DOJ and FBI operatives involved in the fraudulent scheme will be held accountable by the Durham team.  “Our FBI should not be used as a tool by anyone,” yet they were, so sayeth the United States Government.

There you have it folks.  For those who tried to avoid the uncomfortable reality of the situation. The Durham prosecution has set down the cornerstone establishing the DOJ/FBI was used and tricked.

The prosecution cannot later turn toward DOJ and FBI officials who were victimized by the Clinton outside group, reverse the predicate motive of the prior trial, and then hold the DOJ and FBI legally accountable.

That’s that.

The Durham accountability focus is now narrowed to the Clinton team, starting with Michael Sussmann.

This outcome was always visible when we accept the totality of the Robert Mueller probe as an overlay into this entire scenario.  Put into a question I have asked for two years:

How could John Durham hold DOJ and FBI officials accountable for participating in the Trump-Russia fraud, when those same DOJ and FBI officials were part of the Robert Mueller cover-up operation? 

Answer, they can’t.   If Durham were to connect the conspiracy of the outside government and inside government collusion, he would be penetrating an impregnable firewall that would take down multiple DC government institutions simultaneously.

Durham is being permitted to give the illusion of accountability, but he was not authorized or permitted to expose the Dept of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, or any other institution.

The vehicles of our justice institutions are rusted and broken.

Bill Barr was the Bondo application.  John Durham is the spray paint.

The article includes the following Tweet:

That’s where we are, folks. Until we pay closer attention to primary elections and un-elect the Washington swamp creatures, things will not change.

 

Prepare For Gas Lines

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In the 1970’s we had gas lines. Part of the problem was our reliance on oil from the Middle East and part of the problem was the government’s efforts to keep the cost of gasoline down. Those efforts together created the perfect storm. To put things in perspective, in 1969 a gallon of gas cost $.35 or $2.75 in today’s dollars (according to dollartimes.com). In 1978, a gallon of gas cost $.65 a gallon or $2.99 inflation adjusted (according to CNBC). By 1981, the cost was $1.35 a gallon or $4.46 inflation adjusted (CNBC). With the exception of 2011-2014, gasoline has generally stayed between $2 and $3 a gallon. Right now the price is over $4 a gallon, and obviously that impacts everything Americans buy. The Biden administration desperately wants to lower the price of gasoline before the mid-terms. However, there is some disagreement as to how to do that. The easiest way would be to open up drilling in America and bring back our energy independence, but considering who the Biden administration is beholden to, that is highly unlikely. So we are left with more risky solutions.

On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about one suggested solution.

The article reports:

Several economists slammed a Democratic proposal making its way through Congress that would enable energy price controls amid record high fuel costs.

Such a policy, which prohibits private companies from increasing prices regardless of market conditions, would have catastrophic consequences including energy supply shortages and increased inflation, the economists argued in a series of interviews with The Daily Caller News Foundation. Democrats have alleged in recent weeks that inflation is being driven by corporate price gouging and that Big Oil is using the Ukraine crisis as cover to raise prices and boost profits.

Oil is a commodity. It is subject to supply and demand. When America drastically decreased the amount of oil it was producing (under the Biden administration) and the amount of fossil fuel it was exporting, the supply shrank and the cost went up. The war in Ukraine did not help, but the problem was there before the war.

The article continues:

“I just can’t believe they’re dumb enough to do this,” Benjamin Zycher, an economist and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told TheDCNF in an interview.

“If prices are controlled at below-market clearing levels, then you get shortages because the quantity demanded is greater than the quantity supplied at the legal maximum price,” he continued. “And that’s why you get gasoline lines and allocation controls.”

The House Rules Committee announced that it would review the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act — a bill that enables the president to issue an emergency declaration banning energy prices issued in an “excessive or exploitative manner,” according to its sponsors — on Monday before reporting it to the floor. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who told reporters last week that oil and gas companies were exploiting consumers, promised that there would be a floor vote on the legislation this week.

The article concludes:

Economists, meanwhile, have also rebuked the argument that oil companies are price gouging amid the Ukraine crisis.

“[Retail gas stations] don’t necessarily drop their price as rapidly as what wholesale prices and oil prices are doing,” Garrett Golding, a business economist tasked with analyzing energy markets at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, told TheDCNF in an interview. “Some people want to call that price gouging because it’s not in lockstep with where wholesale prices are. But the fact of the matter is, what they’re doing is making back the money that they were losing on the way up and that’s how they stay in business.”

Golding and fellow Dallas Fed economist Lutz Kilian published a May 10 paper laying out why gasoline prices haven’t risen and fallen in lockstep with oil prices over the last few months. They said pump prices are also affected by operating expenses such as rent, delivery charges and credit card fees, and that prices are set by retail gas stations, not oil drillers.

Democratic Reps. Kim Schrier and Katie Porter, the sponsors of the Sponsors of the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act, and Pelosi didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from TheDCNF.

Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced similar legislation Thursday that would implement a federal ban on “unconscionably excessive price increases.” House Democrats, led by Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, unveiled a companion to Warren’s legislation.

Democrats are not likely to let facts get in the way of increasing federal control over our lives.

Allowing Ordinary Citizens To Run For Office

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On Monday, The Patriot Journal posted an article about a recent Supreme Court decision that will make it easier for the average American to run for political office.

The article reports:

All of America is waiting for the Supreme Court to release a number of ground-breaking rulings. Last week, the court revealed it was set to release “one or more” rulings today.

It seems they are holding off that one ruling and addressing other important cases. One of them came from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who was challenging a campaign finance law.

Cruz claimed the law was wrongfully punishing him. And the court, in a 6-3 ruling, backed the senator.

The ruling involved how much money a candidate could raise to pay off their personal debts after an election. In other words, if a candidate funded his own campaign, he could only pay himself back $250,000. Like it or not, in today’s elections, that is chump change. The Supreme Court agreed with Senator Cruz that the cap on how much a candidate could pay himself back was a limitation on free speech. The ruling was 6-3. The Supreme Court’s three liberal judges voted against removing the limit. A vote against removing the limit is a vote to keep the incumbents in power in Washington by making it more difficult for political outsiders to run for office.

The article concludes:

Although this might not seem relevant to us peons who don’t have nearly $250,000 to our names, this benefits anyone who wants to run for public office.

This ruling means someone can donate their own money to their campaign, without fear that they’ll go bankrupt. Because, after an election, they can use campaign funds to pay themselves back.

This ruling can help folks who want to run for public office but had previously avoided out of concerns for their livelihood.

Does The Vaccine Actually Work?

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On Monday, The Epoch Times posted an article about a recent study of the effectiveness of the Pfizer–BioNtech’s COVID-19 vaccine against the Omicron coronavirus variant.

The article reports:

The protection afforded against the Omicron coronavirus variant fades quickly after a second and third dose of Pfizer–BioNtech’s COVID-19 vaccine, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the JAMA Network.

A Danish study published in the JAMA Network on May 13 found that there was a rapid decline in Omicron-specific serum neutralizing antibodies only a few weeks after the administration of the second and third doses of the vaccine.

The study evaluated 128 adults who were vaccinated, and of that number, 73 people received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and 55 people received three doses between January 2021 and October 2021 or were previously infected before February 2021, and then vaccinated.

“Our study found a rapid decline in Omicron-specific serum neutralizing antibody titers only a few weeks after the second and third doses,” an abstract of the study reads. “The observed decrease in population neutralizing antibody titers corresponds to the decrease in vaccine efficacy against polymerase chain reaction–confirmed Omicron infection in Denmark and symptomatic Omicron infection in the United Kingdom.”

The antibody levels, which are associated with protection against future infections, dropped within a few weeks of getting the vaccine doses. They were also much lower than the antibodies specific to the Delta and original COVID-19 strains, according to the study.

The article concludes:

Those antibodies (Omicron-specific antibodies) increased with a third dose, increasing 21-fold three weeks after the dose before dropping to eightfold at week four. But with the third dose, antibody levels dropped as early as three weeks, falling 5.4-fold between the third and eighth week, the researchers said.

They concluded that it may be needed to provide additional booster doses to combat the Omicron variant, which emerged last fall, primarily among older individuals.

However, a study from Israeli researchers published in early April in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a fourth dose, or a second booster, of the Pfizer vaccine, doesn’t offer strong protection.

“Overall, these analyses provided evidence for the effectiveness of a fourth vaccine dose against severe illness caused by the omicron variant, as compared with a third dose administered more than 4 months earlier,” the study’s authors wrote at the time, after analyzing data from the Israeli Ministry of Health. “For confirmed infection, a fourth dose appeared to provide only short-term protection and a modest absolute benefit.”

I really think that the only real protection against Covid is actually getting Covid. I realize that the disease can be dangerous for some people, but what good does continually giving shots to people only to receive a short-term benefit do? We have reached the point where most Covid cases are similar to the common cold. Finding a vaccine that will work against all of the variations of Covid is about as likely as finding a vaccine for the common cold. I think it’s time to accept the fact that Covid is now with us forever and simply learn to deal with it without creating a population of pin cushions.

 

A Different Take On Electric Cars

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On Tuesday, The Western Journal posted an article about some recent changes in electric cars to increase their range.

The article reports:

(Here at The Western Journal, we’re making sure consumers know that electric cars don’t just run on rainbows and dreams; there are serious environmental tradeoffs politicians and environmentalists haven’t fully publicized, or even considered, as they push these vehicles relentlessly on American car-buyers. We’ll keep bringing America the truth the establishment media won’t. You can help us by subscribing.)

According to a piece published Monday by the EV-centric outlet Green Car Reports, a British-based independent emissions testing firm found that particulate matter emissions from tires are 1,850 times greater under normal driving conditions than from a tailpipe of a gas-powered car.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, particulate emissions are “microscopic solids or liquid droplets that are so small that they can be inhaled and cause serious health problems.” It notes the particles “are also the main cause of reduced visibility (haze) in parts of the United States, including many of our treasured national parks and wilderness areas.”

The EPA defines particle pollution as “inhalable particles,” which are under 10 microns in diameter, and “fine inhalable particles,” 2.5 microns and smaller.

The firm that conducted the study, Emissions Analytics, had previously found in 2020 that particulate emissions from tires could be 1,000 times greater than those from tailpipes. That test was designed to capture worst-case emissions under legal driving, according to the report. But when researchers replicated the test “across a wider range of driving conditions,” they found the number was even higher.

As the cars are becoming more efficient and larger batteries added however, the tire emissions increase.

The article notes:

Furthermore, they found that adding half a metric ton (1,100 pounds) “of battery weight can result in tire emissions that are almost 400 more times greater than real-world tailpipe emissions, everything else being equal.”

The article concludes:

And then there’s the environmental damage caused by mining the minerals needed to build EV components. Or the fact that China controls most of the supply-chain access to said minerals. Or that EVs are considerably more expensive than gas-powered vehicles.

Pick your poison. Heaven knows there are plenty of them. We’ve found a new one in electric vehicles. It’s time the progressive left at least admits the truth: There is no such thing as a free lunch.

We are in search of the perpetual motion machine. At some point we may actually come close, but the laws of physics are definitely working against us.