Be Cautious In Giving The Coronavirus To Your Teenage Children

Young people do not seem to get seriously ill if they contract the coronavirus. They are generally not part of the ‘at risk’ population. Therefore in making a decision to have your child vaccinated, you need to carefully consider the risk/benefit aspect of giving your child the shot..

Just the News posted an article yesterday reporting on some of the adverse effects of the coronavirus vaccine on adolescents and young adults.

The article reports:

A relatively small number of individuals have reportedly experienced myocarditis after receiving COVID-19 vaccinations, according to a post on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website pertaining to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Technical (VaST) Work Group.

The relatively infrequent reports of heart muscle inflammation seem to have taken place “predominantly in adolescents and young adults;” “more often in males than females;” and more often after the second vaccine shot. The discussion pertains to the mRNA vaccines, which would include the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

“Most cases appear to be mild, and follow-up of cases is ongoing,” according to a statement regarding the matter. “Within CDC safety monitoring systems, rates of myocarditis reports in the window following COVID-19 vaccination have not differed from expected baseline rates. However, VaST members felt that information about reports of myocarditis should be communicated to providers.”

The article quotes a doctor in a New York Times article saying that this could simply be a coincidence because so many people are getting vaccinated right now. I don’t think I would be willing to take that chance if I still had teenagers living at home.

I understand the need to vaccinate those people who are at risk from serious complications from the coronavirus. However, I don’t understand the push to vaccinate those who are not at risk or those who have already had the coronavirus. There is simply too much we do not know. I fear that at some point in the next five years of so we are going to learn a lot more about the consequences of strongly encouraging people to be vaccinated.

Slowly The Light Dawns

I am not a scientist or a doctor, but occasionally I have a grasp of the obvious. There are two very interesting articles about the coronavirus on the internet right now concerning the beginnings of the virus.

Scott Johnson posted the following at Power Line Blog today:

It will not come as a great shock to Power Line readers to learn, as the Wall Street Journal reports from previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence: “Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin.” Subhead: “Report says researchers went to hospital in November 2019, shortly before confirmed outbreak; adds to calls for probe of whether virus escaped lab.”

With a New York Times-style byline listing three reporters, the story relates from previously undisclosed intelligence that the reporters themselves have not seen: “Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care[.]”

Alright, it may shock you that U.S. intelligence has the information, but the substance of it will shock only the willfully blind, whose numbers should not be underestimated.

The Power Line Blog article continues:

The Journal story is laughable with its gingerly handling of the sensitivities involved. We don’t want to be too rash. However, we do have this from happier days:

David Asher, a former U.S. official who led a State Department task force on the origins of the virus for then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, told a Hudson Institute seminar in March that he doubted that the lab researchers became sick because of the ordinary flu.

“I’m very doubtful that three people in highly protected circumstances in a level three laboratory working on coronaviruses would all get sick with influenza that put them in the hospital or in severe conditions all in the same week, and it didn’t have anything to do with the coronavirus,” he said, adding that the researchers’ illness may represent “the first known cluster” of Covid-19 cases.

Long characterized by skeptics as a conspiracy theory, the hypothesis that the pandemic could have begun with a lab accident has attracted more interest from scientists who have complained about the lack of transparency by Chinese authorities or conclusive proof for the alternate hypothesis: that the virus was contracted by humans from a bat or other infected animal outside a lab.

Meanwhile The New York Post reported yesterday:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top adviser to President Biden on the coronavirus pandemic, said he’s “not convinced” the deadly virus developed naturally and has called for further investigations into where it emerged.

Fauci was asked during a Poynter event, “United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking,” earlier this month about whether he was confident that COVID-19 developed naturally.

“No actually. I am not convinced about that. I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said, according to Fox News.

“Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus,” he added.

I guess the facts change (even about diseases) when you get a new President.

Politicizing A Government Agency

Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about some recent actions by the National Labor Relations Board.

The article reports:

The top federal labor arbiter smacked down a controversial Biden appointee’s move to dismiss a worker’s complaint against union leaders.

National Labor Relations Board acting general counsel Peter Ohr attempted to withdraw the agency’s support for a Texas nurse who accused union and company officials of conspiring against workers. Three members of the five-member NLRB, which enforces federal labor law, said the Biden appointee ignored “significant legal issues” the case presented.

“This case presents significant legal issues regarding the duty of fair representation and the appropriate framework for resolving allegations that a union breached that duty,” the board wrote in its decision. “This case presents the Board with an opportunity to examine these issues, based on a fully briefed and litigated record, and to provide guidance to employees and unions alike. Accordingly, after careful consideration, we conclude that the Acting General Counsel’s motion should be denied.”

The move comes as pressure ratchets up on Ohr, who is facing questions about the legitimacy of his appointment. Several workers have filed appeals in the wake of the Biden administration’s firing of two Trump-era labor prosecutors whose terms had yet to expire. These legal challenges could complicate Ohr’s decision to shift the board to be more favorable to union leadership, as he has withdrawn or reversed agency guidances put in place by his ousted predecessor.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is supposed to be apolitical.

On February 16th, The Hill reported:

On inauguration day, President Biden performed an act unprecedented in the history of the presidency. He fired the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. Never in the 73 year history of the NLRB general counsel’s office had a general counsel been fired by the president.

…On every such occasion in the past, the incumbent general counsel has been allowed to serve out his or her term, as required by law. Only President Truman’s requested resignation of the general counsel that he himself appointed even comes close to the current situation.

The article at The Washington Free Beacon continues:

Texas-based nurse Marissa Zamora accused National Nurses United leadership of striking a deal in secret with hospital management contrary to worker interests. Zamora drew backlash when she tried to organize her fellow nurses to oust the union leaders. Her complaint said that hospital management and union leaders tore down her fliers and denied her “access to post material on protected bulletin boards, where her material would be shielded from vandalism.”

Former NLRB general counsel Peter Robb signaled his support for the challenge to the union’s authority. Zamora’s attorneys argue that Ohr did not have the authority to dismiss the case because his appointment was unlawful.

“The Acting General Counsel has no authority to unilaterally seek dismissal of Ms. Zamora’s exceptions,” Zamora’s response to Ohr’s dismissal states. “Finally, the Acting General Counsel had no authority to file the Motion because: (1) the removal of General Counsel Robb was unlawful; and (2) Acting General Counsel Ohr was unlawfully appointed.”

In response to a request for comment, Ohr said, “I respect but am disappointed with the Board’s majority decision, and we will wait for the Board’s ruling on the merit of the case.”

In a statement, National Nurses United legal counsel Micah Berul said, “The administrative law judge already found that the union did not violate the law. We agree with Chairperson McFerran that the General Counsel should not be required to continue to pursue this case when he has made a determination that it is not in the public interest to do so.” Board chairwoman Lauren McFerran dissented from the ruling.

Ohr’s appointment is generating controversy as President Biden’s violation of decades of precedent sparks legal challenges, according to National Right to Work Foundation president Mark Mix.

The President should have a right to choose his own people for his cabinet and other staff positions. However, the NLRB is not supposed to be a political organization. It is not supposed to be either pro-union or anti-union. Unfortunately the Biden administration has changed that.

Stating the Obvious

The Conservative Daily News posted an article today detailing the six blatant and dangerous lies told by President Biden. I have posted the list below. Please follow the link to read the details.

The list:

#6: There is no border crisis, and this surge in migrants “happens every single, solitary year. Nothing has changed.”

#5: “I have this strange notion…[that] we are a democracy…[there are] things you can’t do by executive order unless you’re a dictator. We’re a democracy. We need consensus.”

#4: It is time for corporations and the richest Americans to “start paying their fair share.”

#3: The Biden administration inherited a “nonexistent coronavirus vaccine distribution plan.”

#2: Wearing masks is “a small precaution to take that has a profound impact. It’s a patriotic responsibility for God’s sake.”

#1: “It was a murder in the full light of day, and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism…that is a stain [on] our nation’s soul.”

There are some basic problems with these lies. Most of them create division within our nation. Most of what President Biden has done in office he has done without Congress and definitely without bothering to work with the Republicans. He has made little or no effort to build consensus. Unfortunately the mainstream media happily ignores these lies and the damage they are doing to our nation.

The Audit Few People Are Watching

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the ballot audit that is taking place in Windham, New Hampshire.

The article reports:

The people on the ground in Windham, New Hampshire, are doing an excellent job holding the election officials and auditors accountable to the people during this forensic ballot audit. The audit started because the tabulating machines (Dominion hardware and software) did not accurately count the votes from the physical ballots.

During the first small audit (recount) it was discovered that Republican votes were undercounted and Democrat candidates were overcounted. This anomaly was discovered during a hand recount of the ballots as compared to the electronic tabulation results. After the first set of tabulation results were discovered to be inaccurate the state authorized a full forensic audit. The full audit is ongoing, here’s the update:

Yesterday it was reported the second hand recount matched the first, which means the machine tabulation of those ballots was wrong. The auditors wondered if folded ballots generated the problem. The test of folded -vs- unfolded ballots (counted by same machine) showed a high number of errors. That would mean the tabulation machines across all of New Hampshire may have this problem.

The article goes on to explain that part of the problem may be that some of the ballots had been folded at one point, and the folds are creating a situation where the ballots are misread.

This is a story to watch, because it has implications for problems with these specific machines in other areas of the country. We need to make sure these problems are solved before the next election.

I Suspect There Is More To This Story

Yesterday The New York Post reported that the two guards responsible for guarding Jeffrey Epstein have admitted that they falsified records detailing their activities during the time that they were supposed to be checking on him.

The article reports:

Tova Noel and Michael Thomas admitted that they “willfully and knowingly” lied on forms stating that they’d made the required rounds checking on inmates the night of Epstein’s August 2019 suicide

Prosecutors said the guards were sleeping and surfing the web when they should have been monitoring the maximum security federal prisoner, who had recently been on suicide watch at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Under a plea deal announced Friday, they will avoid jail time in connection with their misconduct.

Instead, the disgraced duo will be required to complete 100 hours of community service and cooperate with a federal probe, according to the agreement, which must be approved by a judge.

This is a very odd story. There are a lot of twist and turns in this saga–why was Jeffrey Epstein left alone in his cell when he was supposedly a suicide risk? Why have all of the surveillance tapes from the time of death mysteriously disappeared? Isn’t it interesting that the two prison guards have avoided jail time? I hate to be cynical, but someone should take a good look at their bank accounts in recent years to see if there were any strange deposits.

Taxes For Thee But Not For Me

As I have stated before, any tax increase on ‘the rich’ wind up impacting the middle class rather than the rich. Those creating tax policy seem to forget that ‘the rich’ have tax accountants that help them avoid paying the tax increases. That is not illegal, but it is particularly annoying when those avoiding the taxes are the same people who are increasing the taxes on everyone else.

On Wednesday The Federalist posted an article about the Biden’s income tax returns.

The article reports:

On Monday, the delayed due date for filing federal taxes for the last calendar year, the White House made a theatrical show of releasing President Biden’s 2020 tax returns. In so doing, the new administration wanted to show a contrast with Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, who did not release his tax returns.

But while the White House emphasized the release of Biden’s returns, it does not want reporters to scrutinize the content of those returns, because doing so would highlight a pattern of hypocritical behavior by the current president and his family. To wit: For the fourth year running, the First Family used a questionable tax loophole to avoid paying more than $500,000 in Medicare and Obamacare taxes — a loophole that the Biden administration now claims it wants to close.

The article includes the following information:

But Jill Biden continued to use this loophole in 2020 on earnings from her corporation. As the chart below shows, the Bidens avoided a total of $516,992 in taxes over the past four years:

2017 Return 2018 Return 2019 Return 2020 Return
Total Wages Paid $245,833 $500,000 $308,932 $200,000
Total Corporate Profits $10,048,739 $3,236,764 $228,703 $90,854
Medicare Taxes Avoided (2.9% of Corporate Profits) $291,413 $93,866 $6,632 $2,635
Obamacare Taxes Avoided (0.9% of Corporate Profits) $90,439 $29,131 $2,058 $818
Total Taxes Avoided $381,852 $122,997 $8,691 $3,452

The article concludes:

The president’s tax plan also includes provisions to “increase investment in the IRS, while ensuring that the additional resources go toward enforcement against those with the highest incomes.” If Joe Biden believes in this provision so much, he should start by asking the IRS to audit his 2017 through 2020 tax returns, given that tax experts have called his use of the “corporate profits” loophole so aggressive as to potentially violate federal guidelines.

The current febrile atmosphere of cynicism and contempt toward Washington stems in large part from politicians who say one thing and do another. For Joe Biden — who preaches “tax fairness,” yet uses loopholes he wants to eliminate for others — to understand this phenomenon should not take much effort. He only need to look in the mirror.

In the Biden administration, the rules only apply to the little people.

When You Want To Change The Political Climate But You Don’t Want To Move

On Wednesday The Epoch Times posted an article about a recent vote in several counties in Oregon.

The article reports:

Several counties in Oregon on May 18 voted to consider joining the state of Idaho, which is part of a long-shot movement to break away from the state that has long been dominated by politicians in Portland.

Voters in Malheur, Sherman, Grant, Baker, and Lake counties approved various measures that require county officials to take steps to look into moving the Idaho border west to incorporate the counties.

The grassroots group Move Oregon’s Border for a Greater Idaho is aiming to have the eastern counties—which are mostly rural—join Idaho because they believe they would be better off with Idaho’s more conservative political leadership.

“This election proves that rural Oregon wants out of Oregon,” lead petitioner Mike McCarter said in a statement to local media outlets on May 18. “If Oregon really believes in liberal values such as self-determination, the Legislature won’t hold our counties captive against our will. If we’re allowed to vote for which government officials we want, we should be allowed to vote for which government we want as well.”

McCarter told the Oregonian last year that the bid to join Idaho is more of a “lifestyle/values judgment” that separates rural and urban residents.

The timing of this is very interesting. On Wednesday, Townhall posted an article about some of the items contained in President Biden’s infrastructure bill.

Townhall reports:

If you saved your money and bought a house in the suburbs, your investment and lifestyle are under attack. President Joe Biden is pushing to end single-family zoning. The biggest item in Biden’s infrastructure bill, now being negotiated with Congress, is $213 billion he claims will to increase affordable housing. Biden wants to put the federal government in charge of zoning and distribute apartment buildings throughout single-family home neighborhoods.

That $213 billion is nearly twice the spending on roads and bridges. It will change towns everywhere and torpedo the American dream of a house with a patch of lawn.

Biden’s plan should be called “hypocrisy housing.” Its backers are hypocrites. Biden himself owns a four-acre lakefront home in upscale Greenville, Delaware, where there is absolutely no public housing, affordable housing or rentals that accept housing vouchers. And don’t expect any to be built next door to the Bidens.

Democrats realize that people who live in the suburbs do not vote for them, so they are planning to dilute the suburban vote by moving people from the city, with the mindset of city residents, there. This would dramatically change America.

The article at The Epoch Times concludes:

Throughout the history of the United States, changing state lines has been a rare occurrence—all taking place before the 20th century. In 1792, Kentucky was created from Virginia’s territory, Maine was created from Massachusetts in 1820, and West Virginia in 1863 was admitted into the United States when Union states and counties separated themselves from the Confederate ones during the Civil War.

Voters in Oregon’s Harney and Douglas counties will hold a vote on similar measures in upcoming elections.

McCarter told media outlets that Idaho state Reps. Barbara Ehardt and Judy Boyle, both Republicans, are planning to introduce a bill about a possible relocation of the Idaho–Oregon border in January 2022.

I wonder if we will see more of this in the future.

 

Following The Science?

On Tuesday, the John Locke website posted an article about North Carolina’s response to the coronavirus.

The article includes the following information:

Here is the NC Threat-Free Index for the week ending May 17:

    • As of May 17, there were 963,539 North Carolinians presumed to be recovered from COVID-19
    • Active cases comprised just 1.6% of NC’s total case count (note: a case of COVID isn’t a permanent infection, and only someone with an active case of the virus can conceivably transmit it to you)
    • Active cases represented over 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of NC’s population (note: active cases are lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 minus recoveries and deaths)
    • Now 34 out of every 35 (97.1%) of NC’s total cases were recovered, meaning they are no longer infectious
    • Only just over 0.1% of people in NC had died with COVID-19 (regardless of the actual cause of death)
    • About 90.6% people in NC had never had a lab-confirmed case of COVID-19, despite the PCR test cycle threshold set so high as to produce a large amount of false positives (note: this proportion will always decline, but we have been living with this virus since February 2020, as far as testing is concerned)
    • All things considered, nearly 99.9% of people in NC posed no threat of passing along COVID-19 to anyone — a virus most had never had and the rest had recovered from (note: this proportion will fluctuate based on relative growth in lab-confirmed cases vs. recoveries, and it is likely understand because it does not account for vaccinations)

The title of the article asks the question, “The NC Threat-Free Index for the Week Ending May 17 — and Why Are We Still Under a “State of Emergency”?”  That is a very good question.

Notes On A Truce

The first thing to remember when viewing the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is the Islamic concept of “hudna.” RELIANCE OF THE TRAVELLER  (is a classical manual of fiqh for the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence) describes the rule for making “hudna” (or truce) as follows:

If the Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him Peace) made a truce with Quraysh for that long, as it related by Abu Dawud. It is not permissible to stipulate longer than that, save by means of new truces, each of which does not exceed ten years. (from CATASTROPHIC FAILURE by Stephen Coughlin)

In the eyes of Islam, the purpose of a truce is to give the Muslims time to rearm and grow stronger. That is one of many reasons I am not impressed with the current truce.

The Center for Security Policy posted an article today which mentions some other problems with the truce. One of the main unresolved issues is the right of Jews to go to the Temple Mount. This issue has the potential to unravel the Jordan-Israeli peace treaty.

The article reports:

The fact is, since the rioting escalated to the Temple Mount surrounding the Muslim holiday of Laylat al -Qadr two weeks ago, the Israeli government barred any Jew from setting foot on the Temple Mount since May 5. It did so as a temporary tactical move to calm unnecessary tensions. However, the war is now over, which means in the coming days, Israel will have to make a decision as to whether it will lift that ban. If it does lift the ban, Jews will again be able to go to the Temple Mount, at which point Hamas will ensure that there will be violence so that it maintains and emphasizes its control of events. Israel will either have to lift that ban and a Jew will go to the mount. That event will represent an immediate escalation and Jordan will be unable to take a neutral position given the col de sac into which it has rhetorically maneuvered itself. The resulting violence which Hamas will instigate now that it has such immense currency on the Palestinian street will not only threaten the survival of the Palestinian Authority, but it could even reverberate enough to destabilize the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan.

The article concludes:

In short, Hamas has positioned itself in a win-win position over all its enemies, presenting the world with the final verdict in this 12-day war and positioning itself to gut Judaism and threaten both Jordan and the PA.

We will see shortly whether Israel lifts the prohibition and a Jew ascends the Mount. If so, then we have a crisis in which Jordan, because of its imprudent intervention, will be forced to react with such intensity that it may cause the peace treaty to falter materially. If on the hand the ban is not immediately lifted, then Hamas has successfully changed the status quo to ban Jews, leaving Jordan and Abu Mazen fatally weak.

This ceasefire is fraught with great peril, and the President should be careful not to attach too much of his or the United States’ reputation and stature to it. It may indeed turn out to be a historical turning point, but not a positive one.

The current ceasefire in Israel is as much of a minefield as the war. We need to step very carefully. Unfortunately, I am not convinced we have leadership that knows how to do that.

 

Protecting The Fourth Amendment

Sharyl Attkisson posted an article on her website today about a recent Supreme Court decision. Hopefully the decision will give pause to those politicians who want to take guns from law-abiding Americans.

The article reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court recently unanimously agreed that a warrantless search and seizure of a man’s firearms from within his home was unconstitutional.

The case involved a domestic argument between a husband and wife. The husband placed a handgun on the dining room table and asked his wife to “shoot [him] now and get it over with”. The wife left the home and returned the next morning with police.

The man reportedly agreed to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation on the condition that the officers not confiscate his firearms. But the police allegedly told the man’s wife that he’d agreed to give up the firearms. So the wife allowed them to enter the home and take them.

The lower courts upheld the police conduct under a “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment search and seizure protection.

I posted an article about the incident in March. The thing about the story that bothered me most was that the police lied to both the husband and the wife in order to take the guns from the house. I don’t think police should lie to law-abiding citizens.

Also, when was the last time the Supreme Court agreed 9-0 on anything?

The article concludes:

The community caretaking exception is commonly considered to apply to vehicles when a law enforcement officer is giving aid to a motorist.

A recognition of the existence of “community caretaking” tasks, like rendering aid to motorists in disabled vehicles, is not an open-ended license to perform [warrantless searches and seizures] anywhere.

U.S. Supreme Court

If the exception had been upheld, it would have been a significant limitation of Fourth Amendment rights.

I am truly glad to see that ruling. It protects all of us.

 

Losing A Legacy

On Aug. 28, 1963, at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr., said the following:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Unfortunately there are many Americans who have chosen to ignore the wisdom contained in that statement. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached forgiveness and non-violence.

Today we are dealing with leaders in the black community preaching division and racism.

Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about Critical Race Theory–something the government encouraging to have taught in our public schools. The premise of the theory is that all white are racist and all blacks are victims. Teaching the theory has a very negative impact on our children.

The article reports:

This week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that officials are preparing to use taxpayer money for K-12 schools to advocate the idea that America is systemically racist, and anyone who thinks differently, children included, are part of the problem—whether students know it or not.

Since members of Congress reintroduced a legislative proposal this year to create national civics standards, the Education Department’s new rule would help shape the content of those standards around the intolerant ideas of critical theory.

In a proposed rule released April 19, federal education officials outlined new priorities for federal grant awards to K-12 educators for use on history and civics education in schools.

The content of these standards does not prepare or encourage children to become productive Americans.

The article reports:

The agency would prioritize grants that use critical theory, a worldview that says racism is everywhere and anyone who disagrees is oppressing other people. The Education Department’s announcement highlights The New York Times’ 1619 Project and civics content that the National Museum of African American History and Culture created as exemplary material for educators to use.

Yet the proposal does not mention that the Times’ editors issued a correction to the 1619 Project after high-profile criticism from scholars who said the project’s claims about colonists fighting the American Revolution to protect slavery were wrong. Nor does the federal register say anything about how project editors refused to correct other factual inaccuracies after criticism from Pulitzer Prize-winning researchers.

The federal proposal is even more problematic for parents and teachers who want children to learn attitudes and behaviors that will help them to be good parents, neighbors, employees, and community members when they grow up.

The announcement highlights educational material from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture without admitting that museum officials had to withdraw some content after widespread complaints over the museum’s message.

Last summer, the museum released an infographic describing “white culture” as oppressive, and said ideas such as “hard work” and efforts to “be polite” are evidence of systemic oppression.

Students should not be taught to “work before play” or “plan for the future” because these ideas represent systems of power, according to the museum. Museum officials issued an apology and removed the document in July.

I wrote about that exhibit last July (article here).

The article concludes:

Biden issued an executive order during his first week in office that is consistent with this latest proposal from the Education Department. If approved, the federal education agency’s new rule would ingrain critical theory in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the law governing federal actions on K-12 schools.

Washington is bringing critical theory’s prejudice to your child’s classroom, and whether or not you are a parent of a student, we all should reject the notion that the next generation should be trained in bigotry.

We are ruining the legacy of Martin Luther King. Jr. Let’s go back to raising children who respect authority and don’t judge people according to their race.

 

Can You Walk Back Up A Slippery Slope?

According to Oxford Eagle:

Lavrentiy Beria, the most ruthless and longest-serving secret police chief in Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror in Russia and Eastern Europe, bragged that he could prove criminal conduct on anyone, even the innocent.

“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” was Beria’s infamous boast.

Unfortunately we are watching a version of that statement play out in America right now.

On May 18, The New York Post reported:

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation of the Trump Organization is criminal in nature, her office revealed Tuesday.

James’ office had been conducting a civil investigation of former President Donald Trump’s company.

“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature,” a spokesperson for the attorney general said in a statement.

…James has been investigating the Trump Organization since 2019 after Trump’s onetime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress that Trump exaggerated the value of his financial assets in order to help score more favorable terms on loans and insurance policies. Cohen is serving the remainder of a three-year prison sentence under federal house arrest after pleading guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance violations.

The thing to keep in mind here is that Attorney General James campaigned on a platform of promising to destroy President Trump. She was elected.

During the past five or six years, we have seen our justice system turned on its head.  There has been unlawful surveillance of American citizens–a violation of their civil rights, ridiculous jail terms for people who hold conservative values, early morning raids on people who posed no flight risk (complete with advance notice to CNN), etc. The people who want to spend their time looking for a crime to attribute to President Trump need to remember that the justice system that will look for a crime to fit a person could ultimately be turned on them.

The swamp in Washington is deep and wide and extends out into many blue states. If we don’t get it drained soon, I fear that the American most of us grew up in with equal justice under the law will be gone forever.

Be Careful Out There!

Yesterday PJ Media posted an article about a new study on the effects of the Covid-19 vaccine.

The article reports:

A new study of COVID-19 vaccine recipients globally should give the public health community a reason to reevaluate recommendations that everyone needs to be vaccinated regardless of prior infection with the virus. The researchers surveyed slightly more than 2,000 self-reporting vaccinated individuals who were at least seven days past their first vaccine dose and monitored their reports of side effects and their severity through the vaccination process. They compared the results for recovered patients with a confirmed COVID-19 PCR or antigen test with those who had not had COVID-19.

The author of the article posted the following with his emphasis:

People with prior COVID-19 exposure were largely excluded from the vaccine trials and, as a result, the safety and reactogenicity of the vaccines in this population have not been previously fully evaluated. For the first time, this study demonstrates a significant association between prior COVID19 infection and a significantly higher incidence and severity of self-reported side effects after vaccination for COVID-19. Consistently, compared to the first dose of the vaccine, we found an increased incidence and severity of self-reported side effects after the second dose, when recipients had been previously exposed to viral antigen. In view of the rapidly accumulating data demonstrating that COVID-19 survivors generally have adequate natural immunity for at least 6 months, it may be appropriate to re-evaluate the recommendation for immediate vaccination of this group.

The article concludes:

Anyone interested in finding out if they have a current immune reaction to COVID-19 can order a T-Detect test. It does not require a doctor’s order and can be completed at a local lab. The CDC estimates that only 1 in 4.3 infections with COVID-19 have been confirmed by testing. This test may be worthwhile for those who did not receive a positive test but are hesitant to get the vaccine to help them better assess their risk in conjunction with their doctors.

It would be great if our public health gurus would acknowledge recovered immunity. Then colleges and employers could accept proof of immunity in place of proof of vaccination, at least while researchers continue to study the question of the durability of naturally acquired immunity. Given this first glimpse regarding the increased severity of side effects, it would be irresponsible not to. And worth wondering why, if they do not.

As I have previously stated, my husband and I had Covid-19 in November and had our antibodies tested early in May. We still have the antibodies. I will have my antibodies tested again in about six months to make sure I still have them. As long as I have them, I will not get the vaccine.

This Could Get Very Interesting

Today The Epoch Times is reporting that an auditor has told Arizona legislators that the information that was deleted from the Maricopa County voting machines has been recovered.

The article reports:

Ben Cotton, founder of CyFIR, one of four firms working on the 2020 election audit, said at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix that he discovered a master file table “that clearly indicated that the database directory was deleted from that server.”

“Subsequently, I’ve been able to recover all of those deleted files, and I have access to that data,” he added. “I have the information I need from the recovery efforts of the data.”

Maricopa County responded in a tweet on Tuesday: “Just want to underscore that AZ Senate’s @ArizonaAudit account accused Maricopa County of deleting files- which would be a crime- then a day after our technical letter explained they were just looking in the wrong place- all of a sudden ‘auditors’ have recovered the files.”

Auditors told Maricopa County officials through the Arizona Senate earlier this month that they discovered an entire database directory from an election machine had been deleted.

In addition, the main database for election management software was not found anywhere on the machine, despite it being referenced as the location for the database.

“This suggests that the main database for all election related data for the November 2020 General Election has been removed,” Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, wrote to Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors.

The board later said the allegation was false, accusing auditors of making a mistake while performing their analysis. The Maricopa County Elections Department, in a technical analysis, said officials and subject matter experts reviewed the allegation and found the database folder in question was not deleted.

I haven’t posted a lot about this audit because frankly I have no idea exactly what is going on there. I suspect there was some serious fraud in the vote count in Maricopa County, but I question if it can be proved or even if it is proved, will anyone be held accountable.

One of the biggest problems with our justice system right now is that equal justice under the law no longer applies. We have seen major abuses of surveillance on American citizens with no one held accountable, and we have seen major breaches of security protocols regarding emails with no one held accountable. Until the justice system in America begins acting in a manner that shows impartiality, I have no hope that anyone guilty of massive voter fraud will be held accountable. There will be a few minor cases, the the heart of the matter will be carefully avoided.

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington?

Our Founding Fathers never intended for politics to be a career. Their concept was that a man would go to Washington for a few years and return home to live under the laws he passed. Obviously things have not worked out that way. One blatant example of a politician who had a rude awakening when he entered the private sector was George McGovern. He wrote an article for Forbes in June 2011 detailing what happened when he opened a business in Connecticut and had to live with the laws he had helped pass. The intention of our Founding Fathers was to elect people who would truly represent the Americans in their states or districts.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse reported that Mark McCloskey has announced that he will run for the U.S. Senate seat in Missouri. In case you have forgotten, Mark McCloskey is the attorney who was indicted for defending his family against a BLM mob. If he wins, he could be part of bringing the voice of ordinary  people back to Washington.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse reports:

McCloskey would be running to fill the senate seat of Roy Blunt, a republican who announced he was not running for reelection.

“On June 28, 2020, and then again on July 3, 2020, Mark McCloskey and his wife, Patty, held off a violent mob through the exercise of their 2nd Amendment rights. Since then, they addressed the Republican National Convention, and have been frequent guests on Fox, Newsmax, OAN, CNN and a variety of national and local news and talk TV and radio programs. They campaigned extensively in support of President Trump and continue to speak around the nation on their support of the Constitution, the traditional values that have made the USA the greatest nation on earth, and the current threats to its continued existence.”

The article includes a link to the campaign website.

A Cease-Fire Will Be Called If Israel Is Winning

For a short time in 2020, it looked as if peace might break out in the Middle East. Instead, the ending of the policies that were moving in the direction of peace has brought us war. It is interesting to see the divide in America regarding this war. Yesterday John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about what is happening in America and in the Middle East.

The article reports:

The current round of violence that was initiated by Hamas firing thousands of rockets into Israel is depressing on a number of fronts, not least because we are once again hearing brain-dead shibboleths from the White House. After a four-year respite under President Trump, ignorance again reigns. Today Jen Psaki was pressed by White House reporters on why President Biden had not yet called for a cease fire. She bobbed and weaved, saying that “we all know” that the only way to end violence is “for there to be a two-state solution.”

Really? How do we all know that? The Arabs were offered a two-state solution in 1948, and they turned it down, preferring to try to destroy Israel and kill the Jews. They have made the same choice consistently over the last 73 years. And if Gaza were a “state,” why would Hamas be any less prone to launch missiles against Israel?

The article notes that President Biden has called for a cease-fire and asked Israel to make every effort to protect innocent civilians.

The article concludes:

This is the weird false equivalence that we see all the time where Israel is concerned. How about if the world’s “leaders” demand that Hamas “make every effort to ensure the protection of [Israel’s] innocent civilians”? But that wouldn’t make sense, since the whole point of Hamas’s terrorist offensive is to kill innocent civilians. The Palestinians have sown the wind, and yet the world’s prime concern is that they not reap the whirlwind. Why?

Similarly, world “leaders” tell Israelis that their response to Hamas’s thousands of rockets must be “proportionate,” which means, apparently, that no more Palestinians than Israelis should die. Evidently Israelis are supposed to downgrade their own competence to match Hamas’s primitive, if brutal, rocketry.

This is a standard never before known to warfare. If you are attacked by an enemy, it is appropriate to respond with overwhelming force so as to devastate your enemy and disable him from further attacks, not at the least cost to your enemy, but at the least cost to your own citizens. See, e.g., the U.S. response to Japanese and German aggression in World War II. Hamas started this war, and Israel has every right to inflict maximum damage until it is satisfied that Hamas can never again pose a threat.

Of course, for reasons I will never understand, that is not how things play out in the Middle East. I suppose Israel will stop too soon, under pressure from “world leaders” and public opinion, and leave Hamas more or less intact to fight again another day. This is, I think, the real reason why the “cycle of violence” that is such a cliche in the region persists.

The definition of insanity is ‘doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.’ That is exactly what the Biden administration is doing in resurrecting the failed Middle East policies of the Obama administration. Until Hamas stops lobbing rockets at Israeli civilians, there will not be peace. Until the world stops trading with Iran who is supplying the rockets, there will not be peace. Meanwhile, if Israel begins to win this war, the United Nations will demand a cease-fire. That’s how things work in the Middle East.

Things That Money Can Buy

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about the relationship between Michael Bloomberg and the Chinese Communist government. The article details the close relationship between them that has continued for a number of years, noting that in order for the Bloomberg businesses to have access to Chinese markets, the news reported about China had to be controlled by the Chinese government. Alex Marlow of Breitbart News has recently published a book titled, Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption, detailing the relationship between Michael Bloomberg and the Chinese government.

The article reports:

According to documents reviewed while researching for this book, these propagandists regulate Bloomberg LP and control the extent to which the former Democrat mega-donor-turned presidential candidate’s business can access the gigantic Chinese market. Michael Bloomberg himself has spoken favorably—even glowingly—about China, President Xi Jinping, and other top Beijing officials. Bloomberg LP seemingly does a lot more business with China than its competitors.

The article concludes:

In Breaking the News, I also delve into the details of Michael Bloomberg’s short-lived presidential run. In 2019, Bloomberg said in an interview that “Xi Jinping is not a dictator.” He most certainly is; he even made himself “president for life.” Bloomberg, an anti-climate change activist, has complimented China’s environmental policies despite the fact they release by far the most carbon dioxide of any country on earth.

Bloomberg himself remains one of the most powerful players in American media and in Democrat Party politics.

Yet, Bloomberg was not the only major news outlet to send representatives to Beijing to form ties with anti-American propagandists.

More details can be found in Breaking the News.

There is a reason alternative news sources are gaining ground in America. Americans simply cannot trust the mainstream media.

 

Who Is That Child?

Recently I was able to listen to parts of the North Carolina House of Representatives debate on H-453, the Human Life Non-Discrimination Act/No Eugenics. The debate was interesting and disturbing.

Before I comment on the debate, I would like to mention a few statistics:

In September 2011, Lifesite News reported the following:

A survey of all U.S. ZIP codes where Planned Parenthood clinics are located in the United States has found that most are located in areas with a minority population significantly higher than the state average.

In November 2016, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the following:

Among the 29 areas that reported cross-classified race/ethnicity data for 2013, non-Hispanic white women and non-Hispanic black women accounted for the largest percentages of abortions (37.3% and 35.6%, respectively) and Hispanic women and non-Hispanic women in the other race category accounted for smaller percentages (19.0% and 8.1%, respectively) (Table 12). Non-Hispanic white women had the lowest abortion rate (7.2 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) and ratio (121 abortions per 1,000 live births) and non-Hispanic black women had the highest abortion rate (27.0 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) and ratio (420 abortions per 1,000 live births). Data for 2013 are also reported separately by race and by ethnicity (Tables 13 and 14).

Some of the legislators speaking against the bill objected to the use of the term eugenics. When you look at where the abortion clinics are located and whose babies are being aborted, what else would  you call it?

Some of the supporters of the bill asked, “Who is that child that is being aborted?” Have we killed the child who would find the cure for cancer? But what about the ordinary child? Does a child who will be ordinary have a right to live? What about the loving, gentle spirit of a Down Syndrome child? Is that worth anything?

Some of the legislators objected to the bill because it limited ‘healthcare’ options for women. When did killing your child become healthcare? Another objection was ‘my body, my choice.” But it’s not your body any more than a robin’s egg in a nest is part of the robin’s body–it has its own unique DNA.

The bottom line here is that this bill is a small step in restoring our humanity. Killing a child because it is the wrong sex, the wrong race, or imperfect is not the mark of a civilized society.

Goodreads.com posted the following story about civilized society:

“A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead, “What is the earliest sign of civilization?” The student expected her to say a clay pot, a grinding stone, or maybe a weapon.

Margaret Mead thought for a moment, then she said, “A healed femur.”

A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person, did their hunting and gathering, stayed with them, and offered physical protection and human companionship until the injury could mend.

Mead explained that where the law of the jungle—the survival of the fittest—rules, no healed femurs are found. The first sign of civilization is compassion, seen in a healed femur.”

Compassion is letting a child live. The bill has passed the House of Representatives and has been referred to the Committee On Rules and Operations of the Senate.

Questionable Priorities

Yesterday Breitbart reported that the Biden administration is using money designated for healthcare initiatives toward the cost of caring for unaccompanied illegal migrant children.

The article reports:

“The Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] has diverted more than $2 billion meant for other health initiatives toward covering the cost of caring for unaccompanied immigrant children,” Politico reported May 15. The article continued:

The redirected funds include $850 million that Congress originally allocated to rebuild the nation’s Strategic National Stockpile, the emergency medical reserve strained by the Covid-19 response. Another $850 million is being taken from a pot intended to help expand coronavirus testing, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

In addition to transferring money from the Strategic National Stockpile and Covid-19 testing, HHS also has pulled roughly $436 million from a range of existing health initiatives across the department.

The article concludes:

Biden’s policy is being implemented by Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban-born child refugee who runs the Department of Homeland Security. Mayorkas frequently claims the United States is a “Nation of Immigrants,” not of Americans. He frequently argues the nation’s values require Americans to accept many migrants, poor or rich, old or young, as if there is no economic or civic cost to Americans from the inflow of foreign migrants.

The federal delivery of children to their illegal migrant parents, after their handoff at the border by cartel-controlled coyotes, has been an open secret in Washington, DC, for at least six years.

The secret federal cooperation with the coyotes and the cartels stopped when President Donald Trump used his emergency authority in 2020 to send the migrants home when they arrived at the border.  The cooperation has been accelerated by President Biden as his deputies seek to extract more wage-cutting workers, taxpayer-supported consumers, and high-occupancy renters from Central American into the United States.

“We’re complicit as a nation in human trafficking,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said at a March 26 press conference in Texas with 17 other GOP senators.

It truly is time America stopped cooperating with the coyotes and the cartels.

Texas Gets It Right

Hot Air reported the following today:

Two months after dropping mask mandate, Texas reports zero COVID deaths in a day.

The article includes the following Tweet:

Does anyone remember how Texas was treated in the media when they ended their mask mandate?

The article also notes the decrease in Covid cases nationally:

With just 17,834 cases nationally, the U.S. just had the lightest day for COVID that it’s had since the first weeks of the pandemic last March. Again, that surprisingly low number is probably the product in part of a “weekend effect” in which states are doing less reporting. But we’ve had 60 weekends or so since the virus arrived last spring and have never hit a total as low as we did yesterday. Slowly but surely, we’re vaccinating our way out of a crisis.

The Covid epidemic is slowing down. There are still some pessimistic reports that it will pick up when people go inside during the summer, but right now it is slowing down. Part of that may be due to the vaccine, and part of it may be due to the fact that the virus may have run its course (as SARS did). I am  hopeful of the latter.

I Guess He Didn’t Read The Memo

The Washington Examiner reported the following today:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken claims that he hasn’t been shown evidence to justify Israel’s airstrike of the building in Gaza, which housed the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera offices.

“Shortly after the strike we did request additional details regarding the justification for it,” Blinken said at a news conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, choosing not to address specifics, adding that he “will leave it to others to characterize if any information has been shared and our assessment that information,” according to the Associated Press.

“I have not seen any information provided,” he continued.

Why hasn’t he seen the information provided? Is this another example of ‘plausible deniability”?

Meanwhile, Breitbart reported the following yesterday:

Israel reportedly showed U.S. officials “smoking gun” intelligence Sunday indicating that the Palestinian Hamas terrorist organization was using the Jala Tower in Gaza, which also housed the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and other international news outlets.

On Saturday, Israel destroyed the tower, after warning the occupants to allow them to leave. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tweeted that the building contained “Hamas military intelligence assets” and that the media had been used as “human shields.”

In deciding which story to believe, it’s important to look at the entire event and the history of both sides. Hamas has a history of using ‘human shields’. It places rocket launchers in hospitals and homes. Israel has a history of bending over backwards to avoid civilian casualties–to the point of sending ‘knock-knock’ bombs to warn civilians to evacuate.

The article at Breitbart concludes:

But on Sunday, according to the Jerusalem Post, Israel shared its evidence that the building had been used by Hamas:

Israel shared intelligence with the US showing how Hamas operated inside the same building with the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera in Gaza, officials in Jerusalem said on Sunday.

Officials in more than one government office confirmed that US President Joe Biden’s phone call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday was, in part, about the bombing of the building, and that Israel showed Biden and American officials the intelligence behind the action.

“We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building,” a source close to Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said. “I understand they found the explanation satisfactory.”

Hamas continued firing rockets at Israeli communities on Sunday, even as its officials claimed that they wanted a ceasefire.

If the Secretary of State hasn’t been shown the evidence of Hamas headquarters in the same building as the media, maybe he need to ask why.

The Cancel Culture Strikes Again

The Epoch Times is reporting today that Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, a former instructor and fighter pilot, has been relieved of his position as commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron.

The article reports:

“Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, Space Operations Command commander, relieved Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier of command of the 11th Space Warning Squadron, Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado, May 14, due to loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead,” the Space Force said in a statement to various news outlets over the weekend.

“This decision was based on public comments made by Lt. Col. Lohmeier in a recent podcast. Lt. Gen. Whiting has initiated a Command Directed Investigation (CDI) on whether these comments constituted prohibited partisan political activity,” according to the statement.

The “public comments” that he made in a podcast were likely in reference to the spread of Marxist ideology within the military, which was detailed in Lohmeier’s recently self-published book, “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military.”

There are two sides to this situation. If Lt. Col. Lohmeier’s remarks were seen as undermining the authority of the Commander-in-Chief or engaging in political activity while in uniform, his removal was appropriate. However, his removal is another example of the politicization of our military. This politicization began under President Obama, paused somewhat under President Trump, and is continuing under President Biden. It should be noted that his comments (and book) were not actually partisan–they were observations on a political theory. The politicization of our military is a threat to our national security, and it does not align with the values and freedom that form the basis for this nation.

The Consequences Of A Porous Border

On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about the drug smuggling that is going on at our southern border.

The article reports:

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) stated that there has been a nearly “800% increase April over April” in the amount of fentanyl coming across the border apprehended by the Texas Department of Public Safety. And that there has been enough fentanyl obtained to kill everyone in New York.

Abbott said, “I’ve got to tell you, Steve, there’s something else, a new dynamic about what’s going on at the border that Americans need to know about, and that is the increased apprehension of fentanyl coming across the border. Yes, there may be people coming across the border. But there [are] dangerous drugs coming across the border. For your audience who may not know, two milligrams of fentanyl is a fatal dose. And so, know this, we had…[an] almost 800% increase April over April of the amount of fentanyl that has been apprehended by the Texas Department of Public Safety. We have obtained enough fentanyl coming across the border to kill every single person in the state of New York.”

It is time to finish the wall and close the southern border. What is happening now strengthens the drug cartels and endangers the lives of Americans.