Dealing With America’s Health Crisis

There is a health crisis in America. It has taken many forms. How many people do you know in your life that take less than two pills a day (other than vitamins)? Compare the beach-goers of today with those of the 1960’s–admittedly in the 60’s they were covered in more material, but there was a whole lot less fat. Did the entire country stop exercising or eating right? What happened? A number of well-informed people believe the increase in obesity is due to things being added to our food that weren’t there 60 years ago.

On Tuesday, Zero Hedge posted an article about the health crisis in America and some plans to make us all healthier.

The article reports:

After more than four decades in public health, Redfield believes the former president “chose the right man [RFK Jr.] for the job” to combat the processed foods industrial complex, which has ignited an obesity crisis across the Heartland. 

“For instance, obesity in American children has increased dramatically since John F. Kennedy’s presidency, from around 4 percent in the 1960s to almost 20 percent in 2024,” he said, adding, “The causes of childhood obesity are complex, but a primary origin is clearly the modern American diet of highly processed foods.” 

He explained the causes for this obesity crisis are primarily due to “special interest and corporate influences on our federal agencies.” 

Redfield pointed out that “Kennedy is right” about the corporate capture problem of federal agencies.

Kennedy is right: All three of the principal health agencies suffer from agency capture. A large portion of the FDA’s budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies. NIH is cozy with biomedical and pharmaceutical companies and its scientists are allowed to collect royalties on drugs NIH licenses to pharma. And as the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I know the agency can be influenced by special interest groups.

Redfield acknowledges that agency capture is a serious issue, highlighting that federal agencies responsible for regulating food and medicine are possibly compromised by the food industrial complex and big pharma. 

Maybe it was a warning sign when big pharma and the feds pushed Ozempic as the ‘wonder shot’ to end the obesity crisis instead of promoting exercise and safe, clean food.

Voting for President Trump could improve your health!

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Has Specific Issues He Wants To Target

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is an interesting addition to the Trump team. I am sure there are places where the two seriously disagree, but I suspect there are also places where they strongly agree. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has said for years that he distrusts the pharmaceutical companies who push vaccines and that is concerned about the chemicals being put into our food supply. While I don’t agree with all of his ideas on either subject, he does have some good ideas.

On Saturday, Zero Hedge posted an article about one of the good ideas.

The article reports:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent decades as an environmental lawyer fighting polluters and supported ‘green’ organizations for environmental justice. He is now setting his crosshairs on the pharmaceutical industry and cleaning up the nation’s food supply chain of ultra-processed foods and seed oils that poison consumers. He has determined that suspending his presidential campaign to team up with former President Trump will be necessary for the strongest success rate in making Americans healthier again, not through big pharma’s Ozempic shots but instead revitalizing small farms and shaking up corrupted federal agencies.

Lifelong liberals like RFK Jr. backing Trump is one of the strongest indicators of just how extreme the ticket, unoriginal Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats have become. Harris’ team recently announced their first proposed economic policy, which was rooted in communism and included disastrous price controls. It appears the far-left ticket is being advised and heavily influenced by Marxists. 

The article concludes:

Mega corporations, some of which are part of the ‘green’ cult, want greater and greater control over the nation’s food supply chain. Some are even pushing insect-based diets.

The big takeaway from RFK Jr.’s support of Trump is that he believes the correct path to restoring America’s health is not Ozempic shots but revitalizing the nation’s local food supply chains by making small farms great again. He wants to reset the food supply chain system and purge it of ultra-processed foods and seed oils that are killing consumers. He also proposed shaking up federal agencies in health and food that have close ties with ultra-processed food companies. 

For years, we have told readers that it’s critical to support local farmers and put the food supply chain back into the hands of the people—not corrupt mega-corps that flood store shelves with cancer-causing junk food.

Henry Kissinger famously said, “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

It’s time for Americans to regain control of the nation’s food supply chains by making small farms great again. Also, boycotting the processed food industry and buying local food is critical.

If Trump wins, RFK Jr. will likely provide tailwinds for small farmers. And Europe will take note as corp/gov’ts have also waged war on small farms. 

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. This would be very good for all Americans.

Recognizing Marxism

Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D 

Since WWII, America has resisted Marxism at home and abroad. The reason for that  resistance is not only that Marxist ideology is contrary to the founding principles of our country, but also because no Marxist country has ever brought economic success and freedom to its people. Unfortunately, some Americans do not recognize the extreme threat that Marxist ideology presents to our freedom. It is essential, that all of us recognize when our politicians, leaders, and the media, are advocating for Marxist principles and leading us on a destructive path.

Here are some Marxist principles that should raise a red flag. First: Central government control. Marxism cannot exist without strong central government control over people’s lives. Expanding the size of the federal government and allowing federal agencies to issue increasing numbers of regulations directly limits our freedom. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that federal agencies are exceeding their authority by issuing increasing numbers of regulations with the force of law, without congressional approval.  There are currently over 3,000 federal rules and regulations spanning 90,000 pages.  Second:  Income equality. Marxism advocates reducing income differences so that everyone earns the same. This would eliminate rewards for effort and creativity essential to economic growth and prosperity. Examples are increasing the minimum wage, guaranteed minimum income, reparations, and many existing and proposed welfare programs. Third: Disarming citizens.  Every Marxist government prevents citizens from owning firearms; for example: China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, etc. They obviously want to remove the ability of the people to resist their authoritarian dictates. Some countries, such as Australia, have moved in this direction through mandatory firearm buyback programs. Fourth:  Destroying traditions. Cultural cleansing attempts to remove the history and traditions that are an essential part of a country’s identity. Removing statues, rewriting history books, re-naming military bases and schools, are some examples of cultural cleansing that then allows the central government to impose its own Marxist culture. Open borders allow the influx of diverse people who do not share American principles and beliefs. Fifth:  Destruction of the traditional family, which has always served as the primary mechanism to teach essential cultural values. Homosexual marriage, government funded childcare, Head Start programs, marrying later in life, if at all, have undermined the integrity of the family.  As Hillary Clinton once said “ … it takes a village”  to raise a child, thus putting the government in charge of child rearing. Sixth:  Information control. If the government can control the people’s access to the truth, they can control their decisions and behavior.  Social media and the broadcast news outlets are increasingly relaying government dictated information. A free press is essential for a free people. Marxist governments want the people to rely on so-called  “experts” who are controlled by the government.  Seventh:  Indoctrinating the youth. All Marxist governments control the education of their youth to ensure that they are committed to the correct principles. Public education from kindergarten to the universities are used to ensure this indoctrination.   Homeschools and private schools are threats to this process.

When evaluation any candidate for public office, especially for president, it is critical to examine their prior actions and stated goals to see if they advocate any of the above seven Marxist principles. If you want to preserve this country’s freedom for future generations, you will know what to do.

Another Consequence Of Our Open Southern Border

On April 16th, The Center for Immigration Studies posted an article about the infiltration of the Mexican drug cartels into some American Indian reservations.

The article reports:

On April 10, I joined three tribal leaders at a hearing held by the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources to examine the threat to Indian Country communities posed by foreign drug cartels. Those leaders expressed alarm at how Mexican drug cartels have rapidly established a foothold on drug trafficking and other criminal activities in their communities, and they literally braved death threats to appear at the hearing.

Representatives of two tribes in Montana and one from Arizona implored Congress and federal agencies to prioritize the well-being of the citizens in Indian Country by securing the border and providing resources to help them eradicate the cartels. Said Jeffrey Stiffarm, president of the Fort Belknap Indian Community: “It seems like [the feds] are more concerned about the immigrants coming across the border than concerned about what they’re doing here once they get here … and to me more importantly, the first people of this country they’re coming into.”

The Sinaloa cartel in particular has targeted several Indian reservations in northern Montana, including Blackfeet, Rocky Boy’s, Fort Belknap, and Fort Peck, for expansion of their drug-trafficking enterprise. They are attracted primarily by the opportunity of huge profit margins, as fentanyl pills can be sold for as much as $100, compared to three to five dollars in urban areas of the country. Other factors that work in the cartels’ favor are the remote geography, relative scarcity of law enforcement, and jurisdictional complications between tribal police and local and federal authorities.

According to tribal leaders, the cartel operatives can “blend in” to the native communities, and in some cases have “married in” to become embedded in the reservation community and to facilitate the recruitment of street-level dealers, who are often local people who become vulnerable to cartel control through addiction and substance abuse. The tribes have experienced a spike in sex trafficking, child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, and theft that they attribute to the burgeoning drug addiction problem fostered by the cartel. The week before the hearing, two residents of the Rocky Boy’s reservation were killed in what was described as a cartel hit.

Stiffarm stated that the Fort Belknap reservation police deal with cartel-related crime on a daily basis, but they generally have no jurisdiction over non-tribe members, and the cartels know it. Federal authorities, including Border Patrol, ICE, and the FBI are rarely present on these tribal lands. Verlon Jose, chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, lamented that “the feds don’t follow their own mandates” to enforce immigration and other federal laws, and that his tribe, which is located on the U.S. southern border, spends half of its law enforcement budget on border-related crime, including investigating everything from the deaths of crossers to stolen property.

A lot of our law-enforcement problems could be solved very quickly simply by closing the southern border to all but legal immigrants.

Government Intrusion Into The Election Process

On Tuesday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the collaboration between the federal government and left-leaning get-out-the-vote organizations.

The article reports:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is working with a left-wing advocacy group to boost voter turnout as part of President Joe Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to get involved in elections.

The USDA worked directly with Demos, a New York-based group that helped draft Biden’s Executive Order 14019, according to records obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet.) 

Biden signed his order on agencies and voter registration in March 2021. On Aug. 9, 2021, Demos’ Adam Lioz emailed USDA officials, many in the office of Secretary Tom Vilsack, under the subject line: “Demos Meeting on Voting Rights EO.”

“Team USDA, with apologies for the delay, I wanted to follow up and thank you all for all your time and a productive conversation,” wrote Lioz, who was Demos’ senior counsel and political director before departing in September 2021. “As we noted, we’ll have our ‘best practices’ slides ready in the next 1-2 weeks and in the meantime, y’all had asked for data on voter registration at the state level, which I’ve pasted below.” 

Just for the record, the Hatch Act of 1939 prohibits civil servants in the Executive Branch of government (except the President and Vice-President) from engaging in some forms of political activity. The goal of the law is to stop the federal government from affecting elections or going about its activities in a partisan manner.

The article concludes:

Biden’s initiative includes the Department of Homeland Security’s registration of voters during naturalization ceremonies, the Department of Education’s promotion of voting at high schools and colleges, and agencies’ work with private, nonprofit organizations to increase voter turnout. 

Many congressional Republicans have joined government watchdog groups in expressing concern about agencies’ engaging in partisan political activity under Biden’s executive order, in violation of laws such as the Hatch Act. 

The records obtained by Heritage’s Oversight Project include the USDA’s directions to employees on how to avoid violating the Hatch Act. 

Neither the Department of Agriculture nor Demos responded to inquiries from The Daily Signal before publication of this report. 

The effort to steal the 2024 election has already begun.

Spied On Again

On Wednesday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted the following headline:

Congress demands answers from White House over ‘invasive’ surveillance program known as Hemisphere that has tracked TRILLIONS of phone records for Americans each year – even if they are not suspected of a crime

Who authorized this surveillance?

The article reports:

Congress is demanding answers from the Biden administration about a secret spying program that tracks more than a trillion phone records from innocent and unsuspecting Americans each year.

The under-the-radar system, known as Data Analytical Services or ‘Hemisphere,’ has been in operation for over a decade. It allows federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to tap into the phone records of U.S. citizens who have not been accused of any crime.

Under the Hemisphere program the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) pays phone service provider AT&T to hand over phone records as far back as 1987.

The deal first came to light in 2013 after a bombshell New York Times report, but it has since been expanded.

The article notes that Congress is ready to investigate why the government is spying on innocent Americans.

The article reports:

Republican congressman Andy Biggs, Ariz., accused the government of spying on Americans.

Hemisphere is ‘invasive’ and allows ‘government agents warrantless access to trillions of Americans’ domestic communications records,’ he said.

Biggs went on: ‘The federal government doesn’t care about your privacy and it’s long past time we end these abuses and hold rogue actors accountable.

‘The Hemisphere Project highlights major loopholes in federal law through which the government is able to spy on Americans without judicial oversight, such as the purchase of personal data.’

Congress is currently considering renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s Section 702.

That allows for warrantless surveillance of foreigners but often catches the conversations of Americans.

Biggs said it must also look at the Hemisphere program.

The article concludes:

The program is run primarily by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Its stated purpose is to help investigate drug traffickers and other complex criminal enterprises.

However, it has also been used to arrest jewelry store robbers, a murder suspect and even a woman who was making nuisance bomb threats.

The program bypasses usual privacy regulations through a complex network of funding.

Rather than directly funding the surveillance, the ONDCP provides a grant to the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which in turn pays AT&T to operate the program.

Because of this Hemisphere is not subject to a federal Privacy Impact Assessment like most projects funded by federal agencies.

The program is obviously not successful in stemming the drug problem; why is it still in place?

Common Sense Rears Its Head In Washington

On Wednesday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

President Donald Trump issued on Aug. 24 an executive order to direct federal agencies to prioritize moving their facilities to distressed areas, including opportunity zones, in an effort to lower costs and uplift poor communities.

The new order could help support investments in any of the 8,766 distressed areas designated as opportunity zones, a bipartisan incentive created by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

In the past, federal agencies were encouraged to consider locating facilities in central business districts, which were often the most expensive areas, according to a White House statement.

But the new order will change that policy and “invest Federal resources in distressed areas and save taxpayer dollars.”

There is another aspect of this. The move will put federal employees in contact with real people who live with the policies the bureaucracies create. It will get federal employees out of the ‘Washington bubble’ and into communities where people have different ideas than the political elite.

The article concludes:

There has been a bipartisan push to move some federal agencies outside the Beltway to help distressed communities.

Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced in 2019 the HIRE Act that proposed moving most federal agencies out of Washington and into the heart of America.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang also proposed moving agencies to support distressed communities.

“Federal agencies that aren’t directly tied to general government activities (e.g., the NIH) should be relocated to different areas throughout the country to provide a boost to local economies,” he stated on his campaign website in 2019.