The Mississippi House and Senate have voted overwhelmingly to ban biological males from being able to compete against women.
In an 81-28 vote, the state House passed the Mississippi Fairness Act on Wednesday. The bill passed in the Senate by a similarly overwhelming vote, 34-9, and now moves to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.
“If we do not move to protect female sports from biological males who have an unfair physiological advantage, we will eventually no longer have female sports,” Republican state Sen. Angela Hill told ABC News after the bill passed.
ABC notes that more and more states are considering similar legislation, with “25 states considering such bills this year, compared to 18 last year.”
The Fairness Act reads in part (formatting adjusted):
Interscholastic or intramural athletic teams or sports that are sponsored by a public primary or secondary school or any school that is a member of the Mississippi High School Activities Association or public institution of higher education or any higher education institution that is a member of the NCAA, NAIA or NJCCA shall be expressly designated as one of the following based on biological sex: (a) “Males,” “men” or “boys”; (b) “Females,” “women” or “girls”; or (c) “Coed” or “mixed.” Athletic teams or sports designated for “females,” “women” or “girls” shall not be open to students of the male sex.
If disputed, a student may establish his or her sex by presenting a signed physician’s statement which shall indicate the student’s sex based solely upon: (a) The student’s internal and external reproductive anatomy; (b) The student’s normal endogenously produced levels of testosterone; and (c) An analysis of the student’s genetic makeup.
One of the most controversial Executive Orders that Democrat President Joe Biden signed in his first days in office mandated allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports. The order states in part:
Every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love. Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports. Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes. People should be able to access healthcare and secure a roof over their heads without being subjected to sex discrimination. All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.
The order “unilaterally eviscerate[d] women’s sports,” author and women’s rights activist Abigail Shrier wrote on Twitter. “Any educational institution that receives federal funding must admit biologically-male athletes to women’s teams, women’s scholarships, etc. A new glass ceiling was just placed over girls.”
Former President Donald Trump slammed Biden and the Democrats during his CPAC speech for not protecting women’s sports.
“Joe Biden and the Democrats are even pushing policies that would destroy women’s sports,” Trump said. “Now, young girls and women are incensed that they are now being forced to compete against those who are biological males,” Trump added. “It’s not good for women. It’s not good for women’s sports, which worked so long and so hard to get to where they are. The records that stood for years, even decades, are now being smashed with ease, smashed. If this is not changed, women’s sports, as we know it, will die, they’ll end, it’ll end.”
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On this episode of “The Federalist Radio Hour,” Federalist Political Editor John Daniel Davidson joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss why, despite the Biden administration’s firm denial, there is indeed a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border and how it can be stopped.
“It’s a really sophisticated operation that’s going on at the border,” Davidson explained. “These people aren’t coming by accident. There’s massive amounts of money that are changing hands. There’s incentives involved, and the Democrats and the Biden administration are juicing those incentives. They’re the ones who are creating the incentives through their policies, and then the smugglers run with that.”
While many on the left see the border as a place for “performative moral outrage and virtue signaling,” Davidson said that corruption and cartels run amok, causing danger to migrants and U.S. citizens, and will continue to threaten the nation if left unresolved.
“The United States cannot just allow the Central American countries and Mexico to just implode because it creates irresistible incentives for those people to come north and to get into the United States to be able to provide for their families,” Davidson said. “We can’t have failed states on our southern border and in Central America. It is not a long-term sustainable solution. We are going to have and continue to have border crises forever until we can figure out a way to help those places stabilize and reduce some of those incentives for people to come north.”
Read more of Davidson’s reporting on the border here.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) – often referred to as ‘Socially Responsible Investing’ (SRI) or ‘Sustainable Investing’ (SI) – account for roughly 33% of total US assets under management, largely due to institutional investors which can then advertise their virtuous holdings.
Except, America’s largest ESG fund – the Parnassus Core Equity Fund – has no direct investments in renewable energy companies, according to Bloomberg, which notes that “Instead, the $25 billion Parnassus Core Equity Fund holds stocks like Linde Plc, an industrial gas company, Deere & Co., the largest manufacturer of agricultural machinery, and Xylem Inc., which makes water and wastewater pumps for municipal customers. It also owns big stakes in technology behemoths Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc.”
Managers of many environmental, social and governance funds were slammed in 2020 for running what amounted to index-trackers that relied on tech stocks to beat their market benchmarks—albeit with shiny green labels.
While Ben Allen, co-manager of the Parnassus fund, doesn’t dispute this critique of the ESG industry, he said his fund is different. Its assets are concentrated in 40 large-cap stocks that are measured against ESG metrics. He said publicly traded renewable energy companies aren’t big enough or mature enough to meet Parnassus’s investment criteria. –Bloomberg
That said, Parnassus has divested from fossil-fuels, selling its last such holding in September 2018, while they also claim to avoid direct investments in any energy-focused company unless there is a comprehensive plan in place to address their ‘carbon-insensitive’ business.
And as we know all too well – that typically means purchasing carbon ‘offsets’ to atone for their climate sins.
Microsoft, another large Parnassus holding, has pledged to remove all of its historical carbon emissions by 2050, Allen said. “In effect, Microsoft is winding back the clock to the 1970s,” Allen said. “It’s as if the company never existed.”
Until recently, Amazon was considered a pariah of the ESG industry, Allen said, having waited until 2019 to publish its first sustainability report. Amazon subsequently pledged that it will zero out its carbon footprint by 2040, or eliminate the greenhouse-gas emissions caused by its activities. –Bloomberg
“It’s true that we don’t own any pure-play solar manufacturers, but the portfolio is full of companies that are committed to the transition away from carbon,” said Parnassus’ Allen, who also serves as CEO of San Francisco-based Parnassus Investments which has around $41 billion in assets under management (AUM).
Still, the Parnassus fund has outperformed the S&P 500 over the last three years, and does hold stakes in companies involved in green-ish technologies.
The Parnassus fund has risen at an annual rate of 17.2% during the past three years as of Feb. 26, outperforming the 13.2% advance of the S&P 500 Index, including reinvested dividends.
Linde is a company in which the Parnassus fund held a $704 million stake as recently as Jan. 31. Its products are designed for “industrial applications to be as clean as possible,” Allen said. Linde is a leader in the hydrogen market and looking to triple its clean-hydrogen production, and has earmarked more than one-third of its annual research and development budget over the next decade to decarbonization, Allen said. –Bloomberg
Parnassus’ $956 million stake in Deere – “best known for its distinctive green-colored tractors (which tend to run on fossil fuels)” – was ‘greenlit’ because the company is investing in so-caled precision agriculture which uses information technology to optimize crop production, and utilizes less water and fewer pesticides “so it’s better for the environment and Deere’s bottom line,” according to Allen.
So – nevermind that Deere’s entire fleet of machinery are gross polluters. The company qualifies for ESG treatment because they’re investing in a technology to maximize crop yields.
“We hesitate to overplay the ESG hand,” said Allen – who some might argue is seriously stretching to fit the profile of a ‘green’ fund. “We have a responsible large-cap investment approach. We use the ‘E’ to help us discover what we want to avoid, and also to help us find stocks that we want to own.”
As media cheered emergency approval of J&J’s COVID vaccine and the company’s plans to team up with Merck on production, there was little mention of safety concerns or the two companies’ criminal track records.
On Feb. 26, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced — via a Saturday evening tweet — that the agency granted Emergency Use Authorization for Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) coronavirus vaccine for Americans 18 and older.
Claiming that “we’re in a hurry” because there’s not enough supply of the two COVID-19 vaccines already authorized for emergency use — Pfizer’s and Moderna’s — members of FDA’s committee agreed without dissent to allow a third COVID injection into the U.S. mix.
While the media drummed up enthusiasm for the expanded options, the Washington Post on March 2 offered an even splashier scoop: a “historic” production partnership between J&J and Merck, two pharma giants ordinarily portrayed as “fierce competitors.”
Employing hyperbolic language about the “wartime effort” and good “corporate citizenship,” public health leaders instantly celebrated the “unusual” arrangement for its potential to double “what Johnson & Johnson could make on its own.”
Experts bill J&J’s one-dose injections, which are storable for several months at refrigerator temperatures, as the ideal solution for vaccine programs challenged by the trickier storage and handling requirements of the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna shots — an “advantage [that] goes up in neon,” Dr. William Schaffner, an internist and infectious disease specialist with Vanderbilt University’s Department of Health Policy, told News7 Boston.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, who leads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVID-19 vaccine efforts — and who two years ago sat next to Dr. Anthony Fauci as he gave Congress false information about adverse events from measles vaccination — according to CNBC conceded the J&J product will be “operationally easier in lots of contexts” and “better suited for some populations.”
Anticipating a lucrative opportunity, J&J is already preparing to launch expanded clinical trials in children (including newborns and infants) and pregnant women.
Different design, same goal
Rather than use the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology being deployed for the first time in the Pfizer and Moderna injections, J&J’s vaccine (made by the company’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals subsidiary) features a genetically engineered “viral vector” design reliant on a weakened common-cold virus called adenovirus 26.
Adenovirus vaccines have a lengthy history of use in the U.S. military, but the FDA’s emergency green light for J&J’s COVID injection represents the first time the agency has authorized an adenovirus-vectored vaccine for civilian use.
Last summer, J&J obtained European approval for an Ebola vaccine using the vector technology. Oxford-AstraZeneca and CanSino Biologics have adopted a similar approach for their COVID-19 vaccines, though with different adenoviral vectors.
As J&J describes them, adenoviruses are “good for transporting things into humans.” In the case of the COVID vaccine, the aim is to shuttle genetic instructions — DNA coding for the coronavirus spike protein — into the cells and force the cells to make spike protein. In theory, these “self-made spike proteins” are then supposed to train the body to “detect and terminate any real SARS-CoV-2 infections before the virus wreaks havoc.”
Although the mode of delivery is different from the lipid nanoparticles (what CNN describes as “delicate little balls of fat”) that function as a carrier system for the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines, all three FDA-authorized COVID vaccines share the same novel goal of getting the body to manufacture spike protein — a goal that represents a radical departure from traditional vaccines.
A University of Tennessee microbiologist told Knox News that J&J’s approach is immunologically powerful, stating that the modified adenovirus vector is “about as subtle as a wrecking ball” and “very visible to the immune system.”
According to a May 2020 article in Chemical & Engineering News, the adenovirus approach — with 30 years of study behind it — has a “checkered past,” including as a “failed gene therapy.”
Undaunted by adenoviral vectors’ ability to generate dramatic and even fatal inflammatory effects, vaccine researchers embraced the strategy, only to discover that booster shots might “unleash an antibody attack on the vaccine itself.”
In 2007, Merck encountered yet another problem when it conducted clinical trials for an adenoviral-vectored HIV vaccine that, paradoxically, increased the risk of HIV infection in a subset of recipients — a cautionary tale that “put a big kibosh on adenoviruses” for some years thereafter.
‘Morally compromised’
In response to the FDA’s emergency authorization of J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine, the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans and Catholic leaders in St. Louis immediately pronounced the injection “morally compromised,” citing the company’s “extensive use of abortion-derived cell lines” and urging local Catholics not to take it. These objections are in the same vein as a letter submitted to the FDA a year ago by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which expressed concern about the development of COVID-19 vaccines reliant on “ethically problematic” cell lines.
The cell line in which Janssen grows its adenovirus vector is a human embryonic cell line called PER.C6. The retinal tissue that launched the cell line was obtained following the elective abortion of a healthy, 18-week-old fetus. The AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID vaccine uses a different human embryonic cell line called HEK293T to propagate its adenovirus.
To produce a continuous cell line of this type — what is called an “immortalized” cell line — scientists must artificially manipulate the original cells, which otherwise would have finite lifespans. This is accomplished by introducing chemical exposures or rendering them cancerous. Because this manipulation introduces genetic changes into the cells, “cell populations and cellular mechanisms are altered.”
A senior FDA official warned over two decades ago about the inherent risks of using continuous cell lines for vaccine development, noting that such cell lines, “by definition” have abnormalities, and worriedly acknowledging their “potential for growing tumors in laboratory animals.”
An FDA document published in late 2020 shows that these issues are far from resolved; explicitly referring to cell lines such as PER.C6 and HEK293T, the FDA author states: “The use of tumorigenic and tumor-derived cells is a major safety concern” and observes that the cell lines contain “latent” or “quiet” threats that “might become active under vaccine manufacturing conditions.”
The fact sheet for healthcare providers administering the J&J COVID vaccine specifies that each dose of vaccine “may … contain residual amounts of host cell proteins … and/or host cell DNA,” but the simplified fact sheet intended for vaccine recipients and their caregivers does not.
That means that unless vaccine recipients seek out the healthcare provider fact sheet, they’ll be unaware of this potentially crucial piece of information.
The Italian vaccine research and advocacy organization, Corvelva, which has conducted detailed studies of DNA from aborted fetal cell lines in vaccines, warns that such DNA is abnormal and potentially tumor-causing. Corvelva concludes that vaccines of this type “should be considered defective and potentially dangerous to human health.”
Along with a variety of other inactive ingredients, the J&J COVID vaccine also includes polysorbate-80, a stabilizer that studies have shown capable of transporting other substances across the blood-brain barrier.
Serial felons
When evaluating the potential safety of the J&J-plus-Merck experimental COVID vaccine, it would be prudent to take note of the corporate behemoths’ less-than-flattering track records as serial felons.
Merck, for example, paid out $4.85 billion in 2007 after pleading guilty to criminal charges over illegal marketing of its lethal drug Vioxx. The company has gone on to face numerous other allegations of fraud, deceit and negligence, including for its measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines.
For its part, J&J’s recent criminal history includes:
A 2013 order by the U.S. Department of Justice to pay $2.2 billion in civil and criminal fines related to the antipsychotic drug Risperdal and two other drugs, following aggressive off-label marketing and other dubious practices such as fraud and kickbacks.
A 2019 award by a Philadelphia jury of $8 billion in punitive damages to a man alleging that J&J failed to warn that Risperdal could lead to breast growth in boys. Thousands of other lawsuits against J&J feature the same allegation.
A $572 million judgment against J&J by the state of Oklahoma in 2019 for the company’s role in the opioid crisis.
$3.9 billion set aside for 25,000 lawsuits related to J&J’s asbestos-tainted baby powder. And a 2018 Missouri verdict, “one of the largest punitive-damages awards in U.S. legal history,” was reached after internal documents showed that the company had been aware of the baby powder contamination since the 1970s.
In the wake of these scandals, The Guardian wrote in 2019 that “experts are concerned that one of the world’s most recognizable names and most reliable and valuable companies is caught in no less than an existential crisis.” Citing the “product misfires,” “court judgments” and stark reputational decline, the British news outlet asked, “what happened to Johnson & Johnson?”
With the advent of J&J’s COVID vaccine (an injection already being hawked as a “vaccine for the world” and the potential “end of the pandemic”), it appears that The Guardian has its answer: J&J will send its former woes down the memory hole, an obliging media will ignore the spotty safety record of past adenovirus vaccine attempts (including J&J’s paused clinical trial last October) and a to-be-determined number of COVID-frightened Americans — tempted by the ease of a single shot — will line up for J&J’s investigational injection that, in the FDA’s own words, is “not licensed for any indication.”
Sadly, many of these individuals will be unaware that, unlike with dangerous drugs, they cannot sue indemnified COVID vaccine manufacturers should anything go wrong.
The Arizona Department of Education wants its teachers to promote racial “equity and diversity” through an “anti-racist” program that promotes the idea that white babies and toddlers are racist.
Provided for teachers is an “equity and diversity” toolkit. Included in this toolkit, is the wild-eyed insanity that your white baby is racist.
Look at this garbage…
SCOOP: The Arizona Department of Education has created an "equity" toolkit claiming that babies show the first signs of racism at three months old and that white children "remain strongly biased in favor of whiteness" by age five.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 2, 2021
And this naked racism is aimed directly at white parents.
For example, one recommended piece of reading linked in the toolkit is titled “How White Parents Can Talk to Their Kids About Race.” It says, “White parents should begin addressing issues of race and racism early, even before their children can speak. Studies have indicated that infants as young as 3 months old can recognize racial differences.”
It warns, “Avoiding the topic rather than actively countering it with anti-racist attitudes and actions, simply opens the door for children to absorb bias from the world around them.”
For babies aged — no joke — 0-2, this same article stresses that “White parents should make sure that their children see them interact in close, warm, intimate, trusting, and caring relationships with individuals whose race and ethnicity differs from their own.”
Additionally, there’s the “importance of creating a home environment that challenges broader societal messages privileging whiteness, whether it’s through board books with characters of color, artwork in the house or even the people invited over.”
This sounds like satire, but it’s not a joke. This is what the Arizona Department of Education wants you to teach babies and children. But only white babies and children. For it is white babies who are the problem — white babies and white toddlers and white parents.
So what we have here is the Arizona Department of Education teaching and spreading blatant racism, teaching children that whites are so awful and evil, unless there’s a concerted intervention, their babies and toddlers will grow up racist.
Naturally, another piece of recommended reading in the toolkit is “Why Teaching Black Lives Matter Matters,” which means “teaching second-graders about Black Lives Matter.”
So Arizona wants its teachers teaching second-graders that Black Lives Matter, a full-blown domestic terrorist group, is a good and noble thing.
Listen up… You have to homeschool. This evil racism is not going away. The fascist Woke Nazis are now in power, are emboldened, and are desperate to poison white children with self-loathing, while they poison minority children with the lie that they cannot succeed in this country.
How can you succeed in a country where white people are so evil, their babies are evil!!
You have to pull your children out of these government-run schools. This evil cannot be fixed, reasoned with, or eradicated.
Nothing will ever change.
The left controls the public schools, which leaves you with no choice other than to disengage entirely.
Save your children while you still can.
This is not a drill.
“It suggests that white children specifically are strongly biased in favour of their own race by the time they are five years old, but claimed that such a phenomenon does not exist among black and "latinx" children.” https://t.co/i9tFY4YL5j
— Michael S. Miller (@imichaelsmiller) March 3, 2021
Two city council members in Paterson, New Jersey, were indicted on mail-in voting fraud charges in the city’s May 2020 election, according to officials.
Michael Jackson, 49, and Alex Mendez, 45, face a variety of charges including election fraud, fraud in casting mail-in votes, tampering with public records, and unauthorized possession of ballots, according to a statement from the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday.
They were initially charged in June 2020 after winning their races for seats on the City Council.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign cited the allegations against Jackson and Mendez as a danger of using relaxed mail-in balloting. A federal judge dismissed the campaign’s suit and said there were anti-fraud measures to secure elections. Supporters of the former president pointed to the case against Mendez and Jackson before the Nov. 3 election, noting that voting via mail could lead to fraud.
Mendez and Jackson won their races by more than 200 votes each. The two City Council members have asserted they were charged because of their opposition to Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh and have denied the charges.
“These indictments are an important step in our prosecution of these two sitting city councilmen on charges including second-degree election fraud,” Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement on Wednesday. “As we have seen all too clearly in recent months, public confidence in our democratic process is critical. If anyone tampers with an election in New Jersey and threatens that process, we will hold them accountable.”
An investigation was opened by the Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability after the U.S. Postal Inspection Service alerted the state agency that hundreds of mail-in ballots were found inside a mailbox in Haledon before hundreds of more mail-in ballots were found inside a Paterson mailbox. The Paterson election in May of last year was all vote-by-mail.
“New Jersey’s criminal code includes various indictable offenses related to election fraud and, in particular, fraud involving mail-in ballots,” noted Thomas Eicher, director of the Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability. “With these indictments, we’re using those laws for their intended purpose—defending free and fair elections by prosecuting those accused of seeking to undermine them.”
Jackson and Mendez have previously argued that they were charged with the crimes for political reasons, claiming that his criticism of Sayegh prompted the New Jersey attorney general’s office to convene a grand jury.
“You would like to think that local politics wouldn’t reach that far, but I guess it does,” Jackson said, according to NorthJersey.com.
“My client has maintained his innocence through out this process and will enter a plea of not guilty to the charges and will continue to serve the citizens of Paterson,” Mendez’s lawyer, Paul Brickfield told NJ.com in an email Wednesday night after the charges.
But Sayegh, in a statement Wednesday, said the “indictments reaffirm the seriousness of the crimes for which the defendants are accused,” adding: “I remain hopeful that justice will be served on behalf of the residents of Paterson.”
Shelim Khalique, 52, of Wayne, N.J., and Abu Razyen, 23, of Prospect Park, N.J., were also charged in connection to the case, the attorney general’s office said.
Jackson could face a maximum of more than 26 years in state prison if he is convicted while Mendez could face a maximum of more than 36 years in prison if he is convicted.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Mendez’s and Jackson’s lawyers for comment.
Some U.S. bishops are advising Roman Catholics to avoid the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, saying it is immoral because aborted human tissue is used in its manufacture.
Their guidance is stricter than the Vatican’s declaration that the formula is broadly acceptable for the faith’s 1.3 billion followers.
The Archdiocese of St. Louis, known as the “Rome of the West” for its size and influence, on Tuesday urged its 500,000 members to choose shots by Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc., but to go with J&J “in good conscience if no other alternative is available.”
The Archdiocese of New Orleans, with 518,000 Catholics, was more forceful. In a Feb. 26 statement, it cited “the wrongdoing” of the vaccine’s creators for the “extensive use of abortion-derived cell lines.” The two archdioceses declared the formula “morally compromised.”
Asked to comment, Sarah McDonald, a New Orleans archdiocese spokeswoman, emailed a portion of the guidance: “If the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine is available, Catholics should choose to receive either of those vaccines rather than to receive the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of its extensive use of abortion-derived cell lines.”
The U.S. coronavirus death toll on Feb. 22 surpassed 500,000 as Catholics worldwide observed Lent, the season that precedes Easter, the Church’s holiest day. Almost 25% of Americans identify as Roman Catholic, according to a 2018 Gallup Poll.
The sanctity of life is central to global church teaching, and abortion is considered a grave sin, even if the fetus is the result of rape or the expectant mother’s life is in danger. On Dec. 21, though, the Vatican — the center of Catholic rule — declared that COVID-19 vaccines tied to abortion “can be used in good conscience.”
“The morality of the vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one’s own health, but also on the duty to protect the common good,” according to a statement ordered to be published by Pope Francis.
In the absence of choices, “It is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.”
J&J’s product is the third to enter the U.S. market after its approval by the Food and Drug Administration on Saturday. The formula, which doesn’t need freezer storage and is one shot as opposed to its rivals’ two, will ease broader distribution and faster population immunity. Its addition, with manufacturing help from Merck & Co., means that enough vaccine doses will be on hand by the end of May for every American adult, said President Joe Biden, who is Catholic.
The development of all three vaccines relied on cells from aborted fetal tissue, though none has that ingredient in the shots. The product by New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J differs because the cells are used during production.
“We are able to manufacture hundreds of millions of doses using our engineered cell-line system and look forward to delivering those doses around the world and help meet the critical need,” spokesperson Lisa Cannellos said in a statement.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a statement issued Tuesday, said that if one has the choice, it should be “the vaccine with the least connection to abortion-derived cell lines.”
“While we should continue to insist that pharmaceutical companies stop using abortion-derived cell lines, given the world-wide suffering that this pandemic is causing, we affirm again that being vaccinated can be an act of charity that serves the common good,” read the statement, by Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend and Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas.
Maria Lemakis, a spokesperson for the St. Louis Archdiocese, said in an email that no one was available to comment but that its J&J statement is aligned with that of the bishops group.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is not counting out a possible run for the White House in 2024 if former President Donald Trump doesn’t enter the race.
Pompeo made his comments during an interview with Fox News‘ Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
“Sean, I’m always up for a good fight,” he said. “You and I have been part of the conservative movement for an awfully long time now. I aim to keep at it.”
Hannity said he would take Pompeo’s remarks as “a strong maybe.” And Pompeo replied: “That’s perfect.”
Pompeo voiced concern over how world leaders perceive President Joe Biden.
“World leaders and my counterparts all across the world are watching closely,” Pompeo said. “Senior leadership all across the world, they watch every statement that is made, they watch every move. They see what their patterns are like, the kinds of behaviors they exhibit when times are tough and when the pressure is really on.”
Appearing on Newsmax TV on Feb. 22, Pompeo had questioned the Biden administration’s approach to foreign policy.
Pompeo said he wanted to give the administration “every opportunity to get it right” but feared that on some issues they were “about to throw it all away … for … almost nothing.”
“What I have heard so far, suggests a very muddled understanding of what led to so many successes that our administration had,” Pompeo said. “When you’re tough, when you’re strong, where you establish deterrents, then securing American freedom is possible to do.”
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is threatening to force Senate clerks to read through the entire 600-700 page $1.9 trillion coronavirus package and offer a series of amendments in order to stall Joe Biden‘s signature legislation.
Johnson issued the threat online and in a radio interview, blasting a proposal that enjoys broad popularity in opinion polls. It passed the House 219-212 this weekend on a mostly party line vote, with all Republicans voting against it.
Since more than 90% of this "COVID relief" bill is not even related to COVID, I think we need a full reading of the bill.
Yes, it could take 10 hours but the American people deserve to know what's in it. https://t.co/QQDoCfkrHZ
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) March 4, 2021
‘I’m going to make the Senate clerk read the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion bill. All several hundred pages of it,’ Johnson tweeted.
‘Then I’m going to offer amendments. Many amendments. We need to highlight the abuse. This is not a COVID relief bill. It’s a boondoggle for Democrats,’ he said.
The process will ‘probably take about 10 hours,’ he told Wisconsin radio station WISN.
He drove home the point point on the Senate floor. ‘My suggestion: At least, while we’re considering this, let’s have a debate. Let’s have a discussion. Let’s consider the amendments. Let’s not do this in 20, 24, 30 hours. Let’s take the time to seriously consider what we are doing to our children,’ he said.
The move comes as Biden continues to try to appeal to Republicans to back the package, after tweaking provisions on income groups that get $1,400 checks in order to assuage centrist Democrats.
Johnson, who has infuriated Democrats by promoting conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6th Capitol riot, said he would ‘lead the effort to resist’ the legislation.
The bill contains several provisions that have made it popular in opinion polls, even while attracting virtually no Republican support in Congress. It includes an extension of unemployment benefits and a supplemental unemployment benefit of $400 per week, an expanded child tax credit of up to $3,600, and more than $300 billion for state and local governments.
Chuck Schumer accused Sen. Ron Johnson of going to "ridiculous lengths" to show his opposition to a COVID relief package widely supported by the American public, after Johnson demanded that the entire 600-page bill be read on the Senate floor. https://t.co/ZnCjBfWzvx
President Biden pitched the plan in a virtual speech to House Democrats holding their annual issues conference.
‘Staying unified as we complete this process to pass the American Rescue Plan won’t just make a difference in our fight against COVID-19 and our efforts to rebuild the economy, it will also show the American people we are capable of coming together for what matters most to them,’ he said.
‘They have lost faith in government. This is a time to reestablish that faith.’
‘It’s good policy and it’s good politics,’ he said of the package.
‘And I’m not sure we’ve ever seen something that is needed as badly as the American Rescue Plan that was as broadly popular.
‘We’ve never had anything this urgent and this ambitious that was so widely embraced. If we deliver on this it also builds momentum. It builds real enthusiasm as well. … this will make everything more possible to get it done. That’s why starting off this victory is so important because it’s so consequential to their lives,’ he said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted what he called a ‘partisan bill’ on the floor Wednesday. He complained that education funds would go out over a period of years, and funds to boost rural agriculture would come out at a ‘slow drip.’
Ron Johnson neglecting to mention here that as "bad" as he feels for the Senate clerks as he forces them to read the 591 pg bill -he's also going to make them read every single GOP relief bill amendment -and they won't be just a few sentences long Jackass https://t.co/xrfKr0LgbN
‘Doesn’t sound very urgent to me,’ he said. He also complained about adding money to the debt, although previous coronavirus bills also also contained ’emergency’ spending. He called it a ‘runaway government bailout’ and called it a ‘smorgasbord of borrowed money.’
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) pointed to broad Democratic support for a series of coronavirus packages under President Trump.
‘Every Democrat voted for the proposed CARES Act that was engineered by the Trump administration. Party was pushed aside,’ he said. Democrats also backed the coronavirus bill in December.
He said the lack of GOP cooperation had forced Democrats to use a reconciliation procedure and rely on every Democrat to back it. ”It’s not a pretty seen. But it’s long overdue,’ he said.
Sen. Ron Johnson says he will make Senate clerk read through the entire coronavirus relief bill | Just The News https://t.co/zT94sBCdo5
A former congressional campaign volunteer who was recorded on hidden camera saying she could deliver thousands of votes for tens of thousands of dollars, had a series of gift bags that were similar to the one she was recorded giving to an elderly woman, arrest warrants stated.
Raquel Rodriguez (left) faces charges of election fraud, illegal voting, unlawfully assisting people voting by mail, and unlawfully possessing an official ballot, according to a press release from AG Ken Paxton’s office. (Kendall County).
The warrants say that in exchange for $500, Raquel Rodriguez agreed to show a person that posed as a potential client how she could get votes for the candidates of her choice, reported San Antonio Express-News.
She was recorded in October last year by journalists working undercover for Project Veritas.
In the video, Rodriguez visits an elderly woman and appears to assist her in changing her mail ballot from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to Democrat challenger MJ Hegar.
Rodriguez then gave the 72-year old lady a gift bag that had a shawl. The warrant says the same type of gift bags were found at Rodriguez’s home office.
On Oct. 29, the Texas Attorney General’s office started investigating the Bexar County Elections Office.
ORLANDO, FLORIDA – FEBRUARY 26: James O’Keefe, President, Project Veritas, addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference being held in the Hyatt Regency on February 26, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Begun in 1974, CPAC brings together conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders to discuss issues important to them. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Rodriguez said in a live stream on the show “Carpenters Apprentice” in October last year that she was just playing along with the undercover reporter.
“I don’t care again what party you are on, I’m non-partisan,” Rodriguez said. “I feel horrible about that because reality is, I lied. I lied about a lot of stuff. Just to make sure I was enticing them enough to find out what the bottom of this was. They asked for a proposal, I gave them a proposal.”
“99 percent was bs to make a sale,” Rodriguez added. “I expect people to believe me now. I’m here telling you my story, I have nothing to hide at this point.”
“It was just conversation, like the bs-ing,” Rodriguez told News4SA. “They were pulling me and I was pulling their strings that’s how I saw it. Little did I know what they were doing but I knew something was wrong and I just went with it.”
In the Project Veritas video, she also indicated she has experience in manipulating votes and boasted about her influence with elected officials in Texas who owe her “favors.”
“First, everybody who knows me directly, they know what I do for the community, they know what I do for people, but I’m not like a monster like they make me out to be,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez was charged with four felonies: election fraud, illegal voting, unlawfully possessing an official ballot, and unlawfully assisting people voting by mail—a practice known as ballot harvesting, the collection and submission mail-in ballots by a third-party rather than direct submission by the voters themselves.
She said in the video she was a “consultant” for GOP congressional candidate Mauro Garza, but was seen in one clip attempting to persuade a voter to cast a straight Democrat ballot.
“This is what you call flipping people!” she was recorded as saying, also noting that she “could go to jail” for what she did.
When Veritas founder James O’Keefe confronted the woman in public with some of the recordings, she said she didn’t want to talk and that she didn’t break any law.
