Republican Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin issued an executive order Tuesday extending the ban on vaccine mandates while Republican Gov. Brad Little was out of town, prompting Little to clarify he would reverse McGeachin’s order upon return.
Little signed an order in April banning vaccine passports, ordering that no government entity could ask for proof of vaccination in order for citizens to use facilities or receive public services.
McGeachin then announced Tuesday she “fixed” the original order to include K-12 schools and universities.
“Today, as Acting Governor, I fixed Gov. Little’s Executive Order on ‘vaccine passports’ to make sure that K-12 schools and universities cannot require vaccinations OR require mandatory testing. I will continue to fight for your individual liberty!”
Today, as Acting Governor, I fixed Gov. Little's Executive Order on "vaccine passports" to make sure that K-12 schools and universities cannot require vaccinations OR require mandatory testing. I will continue to fight for your individual Liberty! #idpolpic.twitter.com/Jz87jfZaWc
Little responded almost immediately, saying he would be “rescinding and reversing any actions” taken by McGeachin upon his return from the southern border.
I will be rescinding and reversing any actions taken by the Lt. Governor when I return. pic.twitter.com/iBuQqX1R5i
Little alleged McGeachin also tried to activate and send the Idaho National Guard to the southern border to address the growing crisis.
“Attempting to deploy our National Guard for political grandstanding is an affront to the Idaho constitution and insults the men and women who have dedicated their life to serving our state and the country,” Little said.
In Idaho, the governor and lieutenant governor are elected separately. Both McGeachin and Little are running for governor in 2022.
This isn’t the first time McGeachin has tried to issue executive orders while Little is out of town.
McGeachin took it upon herself in May to ban mask mandates while Little was unaware and out of state. McGeachin issued an executive order banning state and local governments, including public schools, from implementing a mask mandate.
Little was unaware of McGeachin’s plans to do so, CNN reported at the time.
The two also clashed during the beginning of the pandemic after Little issued a stay-at-home order in March of 2020 that expired in April. Little then reopened the state in a four-stage process.
McGeachin wrote in an op-ed, however, that she lost “sleep at night because the heavy hand of our government is hurting so many Idahoans.”
Republicans and Democrats alike are now working for the Big Pharma lobby.
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent vaccine rollout, pharmaceutical giants including Pfizer and Moderna have substantially increased their lobbying efforts, a National Pulse investigation has revealed.
The lobbying apparatuses at both vaccine-reliant companies – in terms of the number of lobbyists hired and the overall budget deployed to influence government officials – have seen dramatic increases since 2019.
Many of the new Big Pharma hires have come from consulting firms with deep and historical links to the current White House, and President Joe Biden himself.
In October alone Pfizer tapped Sudafi Henry, Joe Biden’s former legislative affairs director from his days as Vice President.
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT ARE: VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN; BRUCE REED, CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE VICE PRESIDENT; SUDAFI HENRY, ASSISTANT TO THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS; AND ROB NABORS, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS. (OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY DAVID LIENEMANN)
Another recent hire is Kwabena Nsiah, a former staffer for Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra and top aide to director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.
Nsiah also worked in Congress for over eight years, most recently as Policy Director for the Congressional Black Caucus and on the Joint Economic Committee as a Senior Policy Advisor.
RINOs Turn Vax Lobbyists, Too.
Among Pfizer’s robust lobbying team are alumni of Republican presidential administrations and Congressional offices.
Justin McCarthy, who served under George W. Bush as a Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs, and Ben Howard, who served as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs under Donald Trump, both lobby for the pharmaceutical giant.
David Schiappa, a longtime Republican staff member of the Senate holding the role of Secretary for Leader Mitch McConnell, is also lobbying for Pfizer.
Pfizer, which recently received approval for a third booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine, has substantially increased its lobbying budget. In 2019, the company spent $11,000,000 on lobbying efforts before increasing the total to $13,150,000 – the highest total since 2010.
In 2019, the company retained 77 lobbyists before the total grew to a team of 102 lobbyists in 2020. So far in 2021, Pfizer has declared 92 lobbyists.
PFIZER LOBBYING.
While Moderna retained just one lobbyist throughout all of 2019 and added one lobbyist the following year, in 2021, the company has already hired an additional twelve lobbyists, representing a 600 percent increase in the company’s total lobbying force.
In 2019, Moderna spent $40,000 on lobbying and $280,000 in 2020, and just halfway into 2021, the company has already spent $290,000.
MODERNA LOBBYING.
The real scandal, however, is represented in the sheer number of political operatives who have recently gone on to work for Big Pharma, from both Democrat and Republican offices.
The National Pulse has assembled a list of those declared by Pfizer and Moderna alone, below. The list includes their previous jobs or affiliations. Of the 83 listed below, many come from high level backgrounds such as the White House, presidential candidates, the Speaker of the House’s office, and a number of congressional offices.
ESPN went full-woke and alienated a good chunk of their subscriber base. It’s something that longtime fixture of the network Linda Cohn mentioned, which landed her a brief suspension. It was nonsense. All she said was that maybe ESPN’s political dabbling caused people to cancel their packages. There was chatter that the trajectory in the drop in revenue could lead to the sports network not being able to afford the rights to Monday Night Football. There were also stories of staffers who had to pretend to be liberals just to keep their jobs. So, should we be surprised that the network decided to throw one of their own into the brig for questioning the COVID vaccine mandates? Nope.
Sage Steele has been yanked off the air for questioning the company’s stance on the matter. She also said something about Barack Obama’s racial makeup. Both of which would cause the front office to reach for the muzzle (via Fox News):
On ESPN’s vaccine mandate, Sage Steele said mandates are “sick” and “scary,” but wasn’t “surprised it got to this point with Disney, a global company.” pic.twitter.com/SoBabFgldF
ESPN’s “SportsCenter” host Sage Steele is being pulled off the air following remarks she made knocking her employer’s vaccine mandate as well as comments made about former President Obama.
“At ESPN, we embrace different points of view — dialogue and discussion makes this place great. That said, we expect that those points of view be expressed respectfully, in a manner consistent with our values, and in line with our internal policies,” the network told Fox News. “We are having direct conversations with Sage, and those conversations will remain private.”
[…]
Last week, on former NFL player Jay Cutler’s “Uncut” podcast, Steele suggested she was forced to get the COVID vaccine or jeopardize her employment.
“I didn’t want to do it. But I work for a company that mandates it and I had until September 30 to get it done or I’m out,” Steele told Cutler.
“I respect everyone’s decision, I really do, but to mandate it is, um, sick,” Steele said. “And it’s scary to me in many ways. But I have a job, a job that I love, and frankly, a job that I need, but again, I love it. I’m not surprised it got to this point, especially with Disney, a global company… but it was actually emotional.”
In another exchange, Steele spoke about filling out the U.S. Census form and how she expressed wanting to include multiple races instead of just one.
“If they make you choose a race, she’s like ‘What are you going to put?’ And I go, ‘Both.’ And she’s like, ‘Well, you can’t,'” Steele said. “She goes, ‘Barack Obama chose Black and he’s biracial.’ And I’m like, ‘Congratulations to the president. That’s his thing. I think that’s fascinating considering his Black dad was nowhere to be found and his White mom and grandma raised him, but hey, you do you. I’m gonna do me.'”
Now, of course, there’s nothing wrong with anything she said. That’s a given, and the whole Obama-biracial thing has been a quiet debate, but it’s not the first time someone has brought that up in a conversation. Then again, this is Disney. This is ESPN. Steele spoke her mind—and she got punished for it.
(Yale Daily News) A recent Yale study has called into question the safety of vaccines and could lend fuel to anti-vaccine advocates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has already written a piece covering the study on the news site EcoWatch.
The study, published last month in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, reports that patients diagnosed with neuropsychiatric disorders like obsessive-compulsive disorder and anorexia nervosa were more likely to have received vaccinations three months prior to their diagnoses. Though the collaboration between researchers at Pennsylvania State University and the Yale Child Study Center yielded results that seem to dispute the safety of vaccines, the authors asserted that the study needs replication on a larger scale and does not establish a causal relationship between vaccines and neuropsychiatric disorders.
“There’s a fair amount of interest in the vaccine safety question, so let’s try to be critical and do further studies that will help examine this issue in a more thorough way,” said James Leckman, professor of pediatrics and one of the study’s five authors.
Using information from a health insurance claims database, Leckman and his co-authors examined the correlations between specific vaccines and various neurological disorders in six- to 15-year-old children. Children with open wounds and broken bones were used as the two control groups.
While only about 10 percent of children with open wounds had received vaccinations, vaccines had been given to over 20 percent of children later diagnosed with anorexia. Higher numbers of vaccinated children were also found among those who were diagnosed with OCD, anxiety disorder and ADHD as soon as three months after their vaccinations.
Other findings in the study, however, reveal that these correlational results should be taken with a grain of salt.
The broken bone control group also included a higher percentage of vaccinated children, though not as high as that of the anorexia group. Furthermore, vaccinations were more likely to be associated with a lower incidence of major depression and bipolar disorder.
The researchers found correlations for one vaccine in particular: the influenza vaccine, which was associated with higher rates of OCD, anorexia, anxiety disorder and tic disorder.
A biological explanation for these correlations has not been found, but a potential mechanism could lie in the body’s immune response to vaccines, the study suggested.
Vaccines work by prodding the immune system to produce antibodies against viruses and bacteria, thus priming the body against these pathogens before they enter it. Some antibodies, however, can react against not only the intended pathogen proteins, but also against human proteins — a phenomenon called cross-reactivity. A 2015 study published in Science Translational Medicine discovered that antibodies elicited by the Pandemrix influenza vaccine cross-reacted with a human brain protein — hypocretin receptor 2.
Autoimmunity, in which antibodies attack human proteins, is also known to play a critical role in normal brain development, Leckman noted. According to Leckman, if children were experiencing inflammation — a process that promotes autoimmunity — at the time of vaccination, the combination of inflammation and vaccination could have deleterious effects on brain development. Such data on vaccination timing was not included in the database on which the study was based.
Another biological explanation could involve genetic factors, Leckman said. Prior studies in Scandinavian countries and China found that the H1N1 influenza vaccine was associated with narcolepsy. The influence of multiple genes found in specific populations could be responsible, he added.
Yale professor of pathology John Rose suggested that the act of vaccine administration, rather than the vaccine itself, could even have an effect on neuropsychiatric development, recalling his childhood experience of being one of the first children to receive the polio vaccine.
“We had to line up in school, and we were getting needles stuck in our arms,” Rose said. “That kind of trauma could be leading to these kinds of neuropsychiatric disease. The age range of the children in the study is quite sensitive.”
Rose, who developed a vaccine template that was used for the development of the current Ebola vaccine, said he trusts the current process of drug development to establish safety measures for vaccines. On average, a vaccine takes 15–20 years to be fully approved, Rose said.
Leckman said the accuracy of the diagnoses reported by the administrative database could also be questioned.
John Treanor, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Rochester Medical Center, voiced concerns about the database, citing issues of immeasurable confounding variables and the extent to which the control groups actually serve as effective controls. Nevertheless, he emphasized the importance of vaccine safety and further research to understand it.
Rose expressed concern that the study would “activate anti-vaccine people in a very serious way” and agreed with the study’s assertion that the results are very preliminary and do not establish a cause and effect relationship. Animal models, Leckman noted, could help establish such a cause and effect relationship by allowing researchers to manipulate and control for multiple variables.
Even the authors noted that the results of the study are too inconclusive to warrant any reconfiguration of public health strategies.
“Given the modest magnitude of these findings in contrast to the clear public health benefits of the timely administration of vaccines in preventing mortality and morbidity in childhood infectious diseases, we encourage families to maintain vaccination schedules according to [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines,” they wrote in the study.
Sage Steele has taken a break from TV after she made controversial comments about race, sexism and coronavirus protocols during interview with Jay Cutler
Steele called ESPN’s vaccine mandate ‘sick,’ commented on Obama’a blackness and accused female journalists of welcoming harassment
She was placed on a break and will not take part in the network’s espnW summit, which focuses on women in sports
Her break was attributed to her controversial comments, however a source familiar with the situation also claims Steele tested positive for COVID
She is expected to return to full duty at ESPN next week
ESPN anchor Sage Steele has been taken off the air after blasting vaccine mandates and questioning Barack Obama’s blackness – with network sources claiming she also has COVID.
During a podcast interview, Steele, 48, called her network’s coronavirus vaccine mandate ‘sick.’ She suggested that female journalists welcome harassment based on the way they dress, and also remarked on how the bi-racial former president was raised by his white mom.
The furor over Steele’s appearance on ex-NFL star Jay Cutler’s podcast has seen the divorced mom of three announce she is taking a break from her job – while also issuing a groveling apology for her remarks.
‘I know my recent comments created controversy for the company, and I apologize,’ Steele said in a statement obtained by Variety. ‘We are in the midst of an extremely challenging time that impacts all of us, and it’s more critical than ever that we communicate constructively and thoughtfully.’
Steele’s mea culpa was shared as unnamed source who is familiar with the situation alleges that the presenter was removed from air because she also tested positive for COVID-19. She is expected back at work next week.
SportsCenter anchor Sage Steele (right) has been taken off the air after she made allegedly controversial comments on former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler’s (left) podcast last monthSteele was taken off air after commenting on former President Barack Obama’s race. Obama, who is bi-racial, is pictured with his father Barack Obama Sr in the 1960s Obama, pictured furthest right during the 1970s, was raised by his mom Ann Dunham, who is white (center) and his Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetoro
The drama began when Steele appeared on Uncut with Jay Cutler on September 29 and addressed several hot button topics, including the ongoing pandemic and vaccine mandates.
She claimed that she was required to get the shot after Disney — ESPN’s parent company — issued a mandate for all employees. The longtime anchor said she felt ‘defeated’ and got the shot in an effort to preserve her job.
‘I respect everyone’s decision, I really do, but to mandate it is sick and it’s scary to me in many ways. But I have a job, a job that I love and, frankly, a job that I need,’ Steele told Cutler.
Steele also joked that the nurse who issued her vaccination intentionally injured her arm because the she thought the sports journalist was Candace Owens, a black conservative political commentator who has spoken out against the virus.
‘It hurt! And I’m tough, but I think she put it in the muscle and was like “err,”‘ Steele said. ‘Maybe she thought I was Candace Owens, I don’t know.’
Steele noted that she ‘respects the hell out of Candace Owens.’
The anchor also touched on race, sharing a story about how she was ‘ripped’ on live television for identifying as bi-racial.
She claimed that the show host told her she had to choose either white or black when filling out federal census data. Steele said the host then cited that Obama identified as black on his census.
‘I’m like, “Well, congratulations to the president. That’s his thing,”‘ Steele said.
‘I think that’s fascinating considering his black dad was nowhere to be found, but his white mom and grandma raised him, but hey, you do you. I’m going to do me.’
The presenter’s mom Mona is Irish-Italian, while her father Gary was the first African-American to play football for the United States’ Military Academy as a tight end for West Point’s Black Knights team in 1966.
Steele is herself bi-racial. She is pictured with her father Gary Steele in December 2020 Gary Steele became the first African-American to play for West Point Military Academy’s Black Knights team in 1966 Steele is pictured with her mother Mona, who is of Irish and Italian descent Steele appeared on Uncut with Jay Cutler on September 29 and addressed several hot button topics, including the ongoing pandemic and vaccine mandatesSteele called ESPN’s coronavirus vaccine ‘sick,’ suggested that female journalists welcome harassment based on the way they dress, and commented on former President Barack Obama’s ‘blackness’
Steele, who began her career as a TV news reporter in Indiana in 1997, before joining ESPN in 2007, also shared how some athletes would make inappropriate comments towards her or invite her to dinner in exchange for inside information.
‘There were some guys, some players in particular, who made things difficult and if I looked back on the things they said — but I didn’t know any different,’ she explained.
‘What are you gonna do? I had no one to tell.’
She continued: ‘I actually didn’t care, Jay. Women now would probably have a problem with me not caring because, I get it, with Me Too and all that. But at the end of the day, I was new and I don’t think people were being malicious. They were just being stupid guys in the locker room. So I would laugh it off and ask my question anyway.
She added that, in recent years, she rejected requests from female journalists asking for help and advice on succeeding in the industry because she doesn’t want to associate herself with reporters who present themselves in certain ways.
Steele also stated that she believes women ‘need to be responsible as well’ for inappropriate comments directed at them.
Asked by Cutler ‘Was it tough getting jobs as a woman in (the sports broadcasting) field?’, the anchor gave a lengthy answer detailing how contacts had offered her information in return for dates, adding that she’d always stuck to her principles.
She then explained how women occasionally contact her for advice on getting into the field of sports’ journalism – but that she was put-off by some who dressed inappropriately.
Steele said: ‘I do think as women we need to be responsible as well.
‘It isn’t just on players and athletes and coaches to act a certain way
‘I mean I’ve had talks with young women who like would come in and they didn’t turn um with with me with our channel or just other women who reach out to me now
‘And I’ve said to a couple of them they’re like well would you look at my tape would you do this.
‘And I said listen I would love to but the way that you present yourself is not something I want to be associated with.
Steele shared that, in recent years, she rejected requests from female journalists asking for help and advice on succeeding in the industry because she doesn’t want to associate herself with reporters who present themselves in certain ways
‘Yeah, so when you dress like that yeah I’m not saying you deserve the gross comments.
‘But you know what you’re doing when you’re putting that outfit on too
‘Like women are smart, so don’t play coy and put it all on the guys when we – and again I’m not saying anybody deserves anything yes – but we need to be responsible as women too.
‘Because we know what we’re doing when we put certain things on and and then return a certain text.’
Her interview sparked controversy in the sports world, as well as on social media.
‘“Not saying you deserve the gross comments BUT you know what you’re doing…” Soooo, basically you’re saying someone actually does deserve the gross comments. What if a person just likes a particular style and they dress for themself (sic) and not for anyone else’s pleasure? Girl bye!,’ one Twitter user said.
‘Is the polio vaccine sick too? Million of people have died from this. When is enough enough? If you think it’s sick you better have a good argument for why. She has no argument,’ another said.
Her interview sparked controversy in the sports world, as well as on social media
‘What legitimate purpose is there for forcing someone to pick one race when they are mixed? Why isn’t mixed an option? If I were her, I would check the “other” box and write in “mixed”. If enough people do that, they will revise the form,’ echoed another Twitter user.
‘So you respect everyone’s decision when it comes to vaccinations but not about how Obama identifies on the census and in society. Huh, got it,’ one social user slammed.
Some users applauded the anchor, included one who wrote: ‘You are absolutely spot on Sage! Thank You for not putting your principles in your pocket like so many of the ESPN and Disney executives and decision makers do! God Bless You Girl!’
‘Keep spreading the TRUTH @sagesteele @JayHasTweets!!! We’re possibly going to set the record for most deaths in a month from COVID soon, even tho it’s 18 months in & despite all the vaccinations, so we need to make sure Conservatives stay UNvaxxed. GREAT plan, patriots! #BeBest,’ wrote another.
Steele has since been placed on a break and is expected to return to full duty at ESPN next week. She will not take part in the network’s espnW summit, which focuses on women in sports
Steele has since been placed on a break and is expected to return to full duty at ESPN next week.
She will not take part in the network’s espnW summit, which focuses on women in sports.
ESPN issued a statement to Variety in response to her break saying: ‘At ESPN, we embrace different points of view — dialogue and discussion makes this place great.
‘That said, we expect that those points of view be expressed respectfully, in a manner consistent with our values, and in line with our internal policies. We are having direct conversations with Sage, and those conversations will remain private.’
A correction from the Associated Press pokes a hole in the official January 6 narrative.
A correction in a story run by the Associated Press seems to reveal reveals that infamous laptop stolen from the U.S. Capitol on January 6, long rumored to belong to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was in fact a staff laptop only used for presentations.
The correction came as part of an Associated Press story regarding a New York mother and son “charged with theft in aiding the disappearance of a laptop belonging to the staff of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.” The Associated Press erroneously describes the January 6 protests as an insurrection despite no protesters being charged with that crime.
The Associated Press originally reported that the laptop was Pelosi’s personal property. Soon after, the article was corrected to note that the laptop in fact belonged to a member of Pelosi’s staff. It is unclear if it was that staff member’s personal property, but it seems likely it was a laptop owned by Pelosi’s office, as the Associated Press notes that it “was used only for presentations.”
“This story has been updated to correct that the laptop did not belong to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” noted the news agency, “but was a staff laptop stolen from a conference room that was used only for presentations.” The FBI agents who arrested the mother and son, according to the Associated Press, “said they were looking for Nancy Pelosi’s laptop.”
Previously, led by a apparently false tip, the FBI raided the home of Paul and Marilyn Hueper, an Alaska couple who attended President Donald Trump’s rally in Washington, D.C. on January 6, but maintain they did not take place in the protest at the U.S. Capitol. Despite the FBI breaking down the family’s door in what they maintain was a no knock raid, they now admit the family was not responsible for taking the infamous Pelosi laptop, as National File reported.
It is now clear that the infamous Pelosi laptop that provoked this raid was, in fact, a staff laptop used for presentations that likely held no sensitive information.
If blue states were able to successfully serve as sanctuaries for illegal alien sex offenders from federal law enforcement during Trump’s presidency, why can’t red states serve as a constitutional sanctuary for Americans losing their most basic human rights?
Americans in all 50 states are losing their livelihoods for not getting injected with a very questionable shot that no longer works; they are being refused proper treatment for a virus they didn’t create; the federal government is hunting down anyone who was within earshot of the Capitol on Jan. 6; and the FBI are now threatening to treat anyone who protests critical race theory at school board meetings as terrorists.
On the other hand, Republicans control 23 trifectas, 19 of them with supermajorities in the legislatures. Where are they during this time of peril, and why have those states not become sanctuaries for Americans fleeing this era of totalitarianism? Why are red-state governors and legislatures completely missing in action during these dangerous times when our federal government, which controls corporate America, seems to have devolved back to pre-enlightenment governing principles? Why are they not holding one emergency session after another to redress our urgent grievances? Why are Texas-based companies like Southwest Airlines able to violate the Nuremberg Code with their inhumane mandates without the much-vaunted Texas GOP apparatus outlawing mandates or at least subjecting them to liability? Is anyone home? What is the breaking point that will actually draw a meaningful response from the so-called opposition?
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Monday that he is directing the FBI and federal prosecutors to meet with state and local law enforcement on how to combat what he referred to as “threats of violence” against school board officials by protesters of critical race theory.
“The Justice Department will also create specialized training and guidance for local school boards and school administrators,” said Garland in a DOJ press release. “This training will help school board members and other potential victims understand the type of behavior that constitutes threats, how to report threatening conduct to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, and how to capture and preserve evidence of threatening conduct to aid in the investigation and prosecution of these crimes.”
First, it’s important to note that our adversaries are telling us exactly what they fear. They understand that the lynchpin to us winning back our freedom is by taking back our local governments, such as school boards. Which should motivate us even more to focus on the policies and elections at the local level more than congressional and presidential elections.
It’s also noteworthy that the same people who couldn’t care less about BLM burning down dozens of cities, illegal aliens organizing a stalking campaign against Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and violent cartels crashing our border are suddenly fearful of moms and dads protesting the teaching of racism in their schools.
However, the most important question we should all be asking is: Where are the GOP governors? This order should be dead on arrival in every red state. Within 24 hours of this announcement, every GOP governor should have issued an order barring all law enforcement from working with the feds to target First Amendment rights and peaceful Americans, especially at a time when this same administration is advocating the de-incarceration of violent criminals.
It’s time conservatives demand more from their supposedly Republican officials. Every GOP governor, attorney general, and state legislative leadership team should coordinate across state lines to push back against federal tyranny on a myriad of issues. This is a more effective check and balance on this administration’s behavior than Republicans winning back Congress, even if real Republicans actually secured positions of leadership. States are sovereign units of government and have the ability to stave off federal usurpations, especially when backed by the culture on the ground among the people. Just ask Trump how successful he was fighting California on sanctuary cities. Well, if it’s good enough for illegal aliens, it should be good enough for Americans.
Some politicians think they’ve found a silver bullet for the impasse over the debt limit, except the bullet is made of platinum: Mint a $1 trillion coin, token of all tokens, and use it to flood the treasury with cash and drive Republicans crazy.
Even its serious proponents — who are not that many — call it a gimmick. They say it is an oddball way out of an oddball accounting problem that will have severe consequences to average people’s pocketbooks and the economy if it is not worked out in coming days.
But despite all the jokes about who should go on the face of the coin — Chuck E. Cheese? Donald Trump, to tempt or taunt the GOP? — there’s scholarship behind it, too. However improbable, it is conceivable the government could turn $1 trillion into a coin of the realm without lawmakers having a say.
The intent was to help with the production of commemorative coins for collectors, not to create a nuclear option in a fiscal crisis. Oops.
Specifically, the law says the treasury secretary “may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.”
This is that time, in the view of coin advocates. But Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the White House and some Democrats slapped down the idea Tuesday, just as past leaders have done when the going got tough and radical quick-fixes emerged.
“The only thing kookier would be a politically inflicted default,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va, said of the coin.
Said Yellen, “What’s necessary is for Congress to show that the world can count on America paying its debt.” A platinum coin, she told CNBC, “is really a gimmick.”
Sure it is, said Rohan Grey, a Willamette University law professor and expert on fiscal policy.
“The fact that (the coin) represents an accounting gimmick is a source of its strength, rather than a weakness,” Grey wrote in a 2020-21 study in the Kentucky Law Journal. “The idea of ‘fighting an accounting problem with an accounting solution’ is entirely coherent … the debt ceiling itself can be viewed as one big, poorly designed accounting gimmick.”
The United States will hit the ceiling Oct. 18 unless Congress acts in time to suspend it. The two parties are in a stalemate in the Senate — Republicans unwilling to join Democrats in what used to be a routine exercise; Democrats holding back on using only their own votes to fix the problem.
That’s what makes a shiny coin with a 1 and 12 zeroes tempting to some, if that untested and audacious path actually would work.
But fraught questions arise for lots of Democrats as well as Republicans: Would they have wanted President Donald Trump to be ordering up mega-coins like Diet Cokes to his desk? Do they want the next president to have that power? Or even this one?
Other extraordinary possibilities have been floated, too, such as invoking the 14th Amendment’s guarantee that the “validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned,” which some scholars argue could be used to override the debt limit.
The White House has looked at all such options “and none of those options were viable,” press secretary Jen Psaki said. “So, we know that the only path forward here is through Congress acting.”
The debt ceiling was instituted in the World War I era to make it easier for the U.S. to issue war bonds without needing congressional approval each time. Legislators only needed to stay under the approved total.
Raising or suspending the ceiling has been a mostly uncontroversial task until recent times, because the debt comes mostly from spending that has already been approved by Congress or covers payments mandated by law. Now everything is fodder for a fight to the last minute.
The Treasury can’t introduce new currency into circulation, only the Fed can do that. In theory, the coin would be minted and deposited with the Fed and its value would make its way into Treasury’s general account and used to pay a whole lot of bills.
In practice, no one knows precisely how it would work and what problems, like inflation, would result. Democrats do not seem willing to upend a messy process that for generations has nevertheless stood as the gold standard in global credit.
The idea of a $1 trillion coin got attention in 2013 when President Barack Obama struggled to get Republicans on board. Donald Marron, a tax policy expert who had led the Congressional Budget Office during part of the Bush administration, thought it wasn’t a great idea — but not a terrible one, either.
“Analysts have considered a range of other options for avoiding default, including prioritizing payments, asserting the debt limit is unconstitutional, and temporarily selling the gold in Fort Knox,” Marron said then. “All raise severe practical, legal, and image problems. In this ugly group, the platinum coin looks relatively shiny.”
Still, he said, it sounds like an Austin Powers sequel or a “Simpsons” episode: “It lacks dignity.”
In a recent lecture, Dr. Peter McCullough presented alarming data related to COVID vaccines, the fraud of national health authorities, the ‘Therapeutic Nihilism’ being exercised in hospitals, and the urgent necessity of active resistance.
Prominent physician Dr. Peter McCullough recently provided a well-documented lecture on the “catastrophe” of COVID-19 “gene-transfer” vaccines, the “loaded weapon” of the spike protein they produce, and the high effectiveness early treatments.
He also detailed the malfeasance, fraud, and conflicts-of-interest committed by U.S. medical officials.
McCullough, who has made the case that he is the world’s foremost authority on the topic, set the tone for his remarks when he began to address a full hotel ballroom in Michigan on September 24.
“I think the reason why everybody’s here is we have a sense that something very bad is going on in the world. And I’m here to tell you, I think it is,” he said.
“If you feel tension right now and you feel some emotional distress and if you feel as if things aren’t going right … I think your perceptions are correct,” the physician continued.
“And if your perceptions are correct, now’s the time for action.”
McCullough calmly explained how his professional titles are being taken from him.
“Today I was stripped of the editorship of Cardiorenal Medicine, a Swiss-based journal and in the last year, I have lost my job at a major health system, with no explanation and no due process,” he said.
“I’ve been stripped of every title that I’ve ever had in that institution. I’ve received a threat letter from the American College of Physicians, [and] a threat letter from the American Board.
This has happened because of his “lawful” participation “in a topic of public importance,” he said.
“What we are doing is lawful,” he told the packed ballroom.
“What’s not lawful, and what’s not right, is what’s happening with respect to censorship and the threat of reprisal.”
McCullough predicted that the eight professional acronyms behind his name, “will be progressively erased.” This is “going to happen because there’s powerful forces at work, far more powerful than we can possibly think of, that are influencing anybody who is in a position of authority.”
Explaining his background further, he described how in his distant past he was “on President Clinton’s advisory panel to healthcare,” and had been “on C-SPAN for seven hours getting fried by the senators.” And thus, he explained, “I’m not new to the national scene.”
Needing “a window to America,” McCullough recently started his own radio program and podcast on America Out Loud. Now he can get important medical information out quickly; medical journals, of which he is an editor of two, are aimed at doctors and take a long time to publish.
Absence of safety reports ‘a gamble of extraordinary implications’
McCullough emphasized that safety is of paramount importance in every industry, including the automotive and building sectors. He said it was ‘beyond astonishing” that “there has been an injection of a substance into half of Americans’ bodies and there’s yet to be a report to America on safety.”
This “wasn’t the case back in 1976” for the Swine Flu vaccination campaign, he said. After the emergence of 25 deaths and 550 cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome, the government shut it down. Although it was debated whether or not the vaccine caused the damage, “it didn’t matter,” the physician recalled.
“Unexplained deaths [occurred, so it] didn’t matter. Shut down the program, [it’s] not safe. It was considered a debacle.”
Today, in testing out new technology on, not just the nation, but the world, the government and big pharmaceutical authorities are taking “a gamble of extraordinary implications,” McCullough said.
“The gamble is genetic gene-transfer technology. The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] considers the current American vaccines, Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, as gene-transfer tech.”
McCullough explained how these gene transfer technologies work. He also voiced his concern that, although “normally a messenger RNA is used once and disposed of,” with these mRNA injections by Pfizer and Moderna, messenger RNA is “used over and over … again and stays in the cells for a [very] long time.”
“We are working with scientists all over the world, and there is a belief now that the messenger RNA can survive cell division, [and] so a parent cell can give it to daughter cells,” he explained.
“For the first time in human history, we have a biologic product that’s telling our body to produce an abnormal protein,” he said.
The mRNA enters cells and causes them to create spike proteins, a “kind of a ‘loaded weapon,’ if you will. … It’s now known that the spike protein itself is independently pathogenic: it causes damage itself” to the cells in which it is produced, and then circulates in the body for about two weeks.
“As this protein circulates, it damages organs, it damages endothelial cells, blood cells, causes blood clotting,” McCullough said.
“There is nothing about the spike protein that’s good. They’re lethal.”
‘Colossal misstep’ of omitting independent safety monitor boards
McCullough decried the lack of independent safety regulators in monitoring the situation.
“If we don’t have safety boards, data safety monitoring boards, critical event committees, human ethics committees, assigned to these programs, we have no hope of shutting this down or even evaluating for safety,” he said.
“I’m not fooling around when I say our governments owed it to us from the beginning to have a Data Safety Monitor Board (DSM). Where’s the DSM?”
The only monitors right now are the FDA, the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], and pharmaceutical companies with a stake in the outcome, he explained.
“We never let the company decide on causality of a problem. We never let a company tell us if a product is safe,” McCullough said.
“Not having a Data Safety Monitoring Board will go down in history as a colossal misstep in public health,” he continued.
“How in the world can we take the sponsors of the program, the FDA, the CDC, Pfizer, Moderna, and let them be in charge of safety? And even worse, how can we let them not ever produce a safety report? We never do a safety press briefing, nothing.”
The eminent physician also described doctors he meets as ashamed and confused, particularly about injecting pregnant women with the experimental jabs.
“I have a lot of interaction with doctors,” McCullough said.
“I don’t [know] a single doctor who can look me in the eye and support what’s being done to pregnant women. What I see in their eyes is fear, shame, guilt. They know they’re wrong, but they’re confused.”
According to McCullough, many doctors and medical personnel are currently “in a trance.”
“They’re in a mass psychosis, and it’s worldwide,” he declared.
“They’re in lockstep. They’re thinking the same way. They’re frightened. They’re confused. They’re kind of scrambled. They can’t really explain or justify what they’re doing.”
When pressured to take the vax, focus on the lack of safety reporting
McCullough has chaired 24 data safety monitoring boards, and he advises those who are asked what they think of the new vaccines to focus on the lack of safety reporting.
“’Listen, I’m concerned there’s been no report card,’” he suggesting saying.
“The CDC and FDA hold all the data. You don’t. They hold all the data. Where’s the report card? They work for us. Demand it,” he continued.
“Every time you’re confronted with this, ‘Oh, my employer wants me to take a vaccine.’ [Ask] ‘Where’s the report card from the CDC and FDA?’ Demand a report card. Until we get transparency of data, this thing is not going to be corrected.”
To underscore the importance of safety, he cited a paper which demonstrates that the chance of a youngster being hospitalized with myocarditis because of the gene-based injections “is greater than that child being hospitalized with COVID-19.”
“You can’t make this thing up,” McCullough marveled. “It’s not a proposition that anyone would take.”
The physician also takes a dim view of authorities minimizing the seriousness of vaccine injuries.
“The other thing I think is malfeasance is to call anything ‘rare,’” he said.
“We never do that in clinical research. Never. The correct term in safety pharmacovigilance is ‘tip of the iceberg,’ he explained.
“Whatever we’re seeing now in sporadic reporting is ‘tip of the iceberg.’ VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] could be an underrepresentation by a hundredfold, or even more.
“When we think we’ve done some analysis on this, using CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service], we think on mortality—maybe it’s a multiplier of five—but the point is, we never would say ‘rare.’ And what the CDC has done … very disingenuously, is when they had 200 cases [of myocarditis] in June, they divided it by everybody who took the vaccine and said, ‘It’s rare.’ Well, you can’t do that unless you check everybody for myocarditis, unless you do an EKG and troponin. You can’t declare they don’t have myocarditis unless you check for it.”
Early treatment more effective than vaccination
McCullough also discussed the importance of early treatment compared to the effectiveness of the experimental vaccines.
“You know what determines who gets hospitalized or doesn’t get hospitalized in the United States? If they got early treatment,” he said.
“That’s what makes a difference, not a vaccine. Take a look at these papers. Every single paper that makes a claim a vaccine prevents hospitalization and death, your next question [should be] ‘Who received early treatment [and] who didn’t?’”
The physician then presented evidence that the Pfizer vaccine has “completely and totally failed,” using data from Israel to predict what can happen in the U.S.
“Israel’s post-vaccination curve in their country is bigger than their pre-vaccination curve,” McCullough said.
“If you had asked the question, ‘Would Israel have been better off not to vaccinate a single person?’ the answer is, ‘Yes,’ from an epidemiology perspective. Yes, [the Pfizer vaccine] is a complete and total failure,” he continued.
“Yet, what are they doing in Israel? Doubling down. Boosters. They’ve got 11 million people in the country, [and] they’ve already boosterized two million people.”
Nevertheless, these boosters have failed as well.
Early treatment vs Therapeutic Nihilism
When many more serious cases of vaccine injuries started emerging in the U.S., the authorities created a narrative blaming busy hospitals on patients who refused the vaccines.
“… The CDC made some decisions [on] May 25th of what’s called biased asymmetric reporting,” McCullough said.
“This fabricated the books. It cooked the books to make the vaccine failures look small and make the problem starting May 25th forward look like it was going to be a ‘crisis of the unvaccinated’,” he continued.
“And we started to hear talking points like ‘Oh my gosh, the hospitals are filling up and they’re all unvaccinated,’ and people would kind of say ‘unvaccinated’ with kind of a snarl.”
Furthermore, Dr. Anthony Fauci has lied about ivermectin, McCullough alleged.
“…Ivermectin is supported by over 60 studies, over 30 clinical trials,” the Texas physician said.
“When our director of the national allergy and immunology branch [Fauci] … got on TV and said categorically there is no evidence supporting ivermectin, he was committing fraud,” he charged.
“You don’t say, ‘No evidence’ when there are over 30 randomized trials in aggregate that support it.”
In addition, hospitals are refusing to use hydroxychloroquine.
“Do you know hydroxychloroquine [HCQ] today is not used in a single hospital despite a high-quality study [having confirmed its effectiveness]? It’s a crime,” McCullough said.
“What’s going on is absolutely a crime against humanity.”
Meanwhile, there should be nothing to stop physicians from prescribing these early treatments, for doctors are “completely entitled to prescribe hydroxychloroquine [and] ivermectin … according to regulatory law,” McCullough added.
In Italy, “they have announced zero cases, but they use a hydroxychloroquine-based program,“ he stated.
“In one of the major Indian provinces, just two days ago, they announced zero deaths with an ivermectin-based protocol. [The successful] Mexico City [results also used an] ivermectin-based protocol,” he explained.
McCullough classifies the general denial of early treatments practiced by much of the medical industry today as Therapeutic Nihilism.
“Therapeutic Nihilism is this intent to do nothing” when facing the threat of a potentially fatal disease,” he explained.
“With such an omission we promote fear, suffering, isolation, hospitalization, and death.”
The physician called this approach unethical, immoral, and illegal.
“It’s called malpractice, and there will be judgment for this,” he promised.
Therefore, McCullough believes that the “the best place in the world” to have COVID-19 is by a doctor willing to treat patients “early with a sequence multi-drug approach.
“Demand it, and tell your family members to demand it,” he advised. “Vaccinated or not, demand it.”
As one example of Therapeutic Nihilism, McCullough flagged a news story about a California woman who sued a hospital to force doctors to treat her ailing husband with ivermectin.
“Since when do we actually have to sue hospitals to use simple affordable generic medicines that may help patients of which we have some randomized trials to support?” McCullough asked.
He revealed that the last time he treated a patient with a big heart attack in the ICU, he and the patients’ family negotiated “drugs all day long.”
“Suddenly, with COVID, there’s no negotiation,” he said.
“None. ‘No, sorry, we’re not going to do it.’ Therapeutic Nihilism. It’s in the minds of doctors, hospital administrators, nurses and others to actually cause harm,” he continued,
“And that thought pattern is something you need to smell out, recognize, call out, and we’ve got to extinguish [it].”
McCullough discussed the importance of “natural immunity.” He believes that early treatment and the large numbers of people soldiering through the illness will get the world to that state.
“Natural immunity is the way out of this. Listen, if we don’t recognize natural immunity, when is this going to end?,” he asked.
Recognition of natural immunity must by demanded of the CDC and the government, he added.
“We have to … be relentless on this.”
“Medical freedom is related to social freedom is related economic freedom.”
McCullough urged his hearers to convince others that “freedom is at risk.”
“We’re at the beginning of, I think, a dark time,” he said.
“Now is the time to talk about it … to get activated … and [start] talking to as many people [as you can]. And you have to try to clear their eyes… conversation by conversation.”
McCullough recalled what rock musician Eric Clapton, who came to his home after suffering a COVID-19 vaccine injury, told him about the relationship of medical freedom to other freedoms.
“He said, ‘Listen, there’s a circle of medical freedom, and if this is broken, then it’s going to break social freedom, and then economic freedom. So, right now, we have got to shore up that medical circle no matter what’.”
This medical circle includes “medical freedom to get the treatment that people need, medical freedom to demand good care in the hospital and get it, and medical freedom to decide what goes in your body,” McCullough said.
“It’s very very important: No one, under any circumstances at all—approved, unapproved, I don’t care—no one can receive any pressure, coercion, or threat of reprisal for [accepting] something injected into your body that you can’t take out, period.”
“That is the line.”
McCullough has discouraged patients who ask him which vaccine is best, just wanting to get through the ordeal to save their jobs.
“I said, ‘How much is this going to buy you? … Are they going to guarantee you 10 years of employment? …You’re not guaranteed anything for taking a vaccine.”
McCullough warned that censorship is harming medical science, and pointed to the so-called “trusted news initiative,” including the BBC, CNN, MSNBC and all big social media.
The physician believes that these organizations have virtually said, “We are going to do everything to promote the vaccine, and we’re going to do everything to crush any vaccine hesitancy, including crushing early treatment and crushing anything on vaccine safety.”
“That’s the reason why we haven’t heard anything [about] vaccine safety,” he stated.
“Everything is wide open, there’s no trickery here.”
McCullough also informed his hearers of incidents of conflict of interest, alleging that key players have profited personally from choices that have harmed Americans.
“Rick Bright, the guy who blocked hydroxychloroquine inside the White House, and starved America of hydroxychloroquine, he has joined the Rockefeller Foundation,” the doctor stated.
“Stephen Hahn, the FDA Commissioner who put all these negative blankets on hydroxychloroquine and the other drugs, he has joined the Venture Capital firm who basically is the funder of Moderna.”
Regarding the National Institutes of Health, for which Fauci and Francis Collins work, McCullough said that “they co-own the patent for the Moderna vaccine.”
“It’s in the wide open. Scott Gottlieb, former chairman of the FDA is on the board of Pfizer. This is in the open,” he added.
“The conflict of interest is absolutely unavoidable and is crushing the lifeblood of medicine.”
‘We’re in the middle of a major biological catastrophe’
McCullough said that he and his audience were not alone in the knowledge that we are in dark times.
“I’m telling you, we are not the only ones who realize that we’re in the middle of a major biological catastrophe,” he said.
He explained that he has recently been called by at least one head of state, by two individuals “up pretty high in the Vatican,” and individuals at the federal reserve bank.
Knowledge can be dangerous. After showing his audience a letter from the American Board of Internal Medicine threatening to revoke his medical license, the eminent internist said that medical boards are going to “hunt” doctors like him.
“And the question is, how far are they going to go, and how much are we going to lose?” he said.
“I can tell you, personally, I’m willing to lose it all.”
McCullough warned that if Americans don’t get active now, the future holds the same lockdowns, oppression and violence that has happened in Australia.
“There are powerful forces in place that want this to happen, very powerful forces,” he said.
“The challenge is to break [them], and the only way to break these powerful forces is to just say ‘no’.”
People as high-profile as FOX News’s Tucker Carlson have asked McCullough what is behind this crisis. Although he could not answer, the eminent doctor did promote a new book by Peter and Ginger Breggin titled COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We are the Prey.
“It has a thousand references; it’s meticulous,” McCullough said.
“It’s largely going to tell you who’s profiting from this and the web of stakeholders here and what’s driving it. I don’t think it’s the root cause, but I think it’s who’s behind a lot of what’s going on. I can tell you, everything we’re living through right now was planned.”
McCullough confesses that he is being so outspoken because he doesn’t know what else to do.
“I can’t save every person who calls me, but if I can actually help you and help others and help everybody who comes into my circle, we can get some awareness and awakening,” he said.
“We are going into a really bad time right now. We have very little time left to get active, [and] I mean really active.”
Project Veritas’ fourth video in its COVID vaccine investigative series quotes two Pfizer scientists who said natural immunity is better than Pfizer’s vaccine, and one who called the company “evil” and said it’s “run on COVID money.”
Project Veritas released the fourth video of its COVID vaccine investigative series Monday, which exposes three Pfizer officials saying that antibodies lead to equal if not better protection against the virus compared to the vaccine.
Nick Karl, a scientist who is directly involved in the production of Pfizer’sCOVID vaccine, said that natural immunity is more effective than the very vaccine he works on, and Pfizer produces.
“When somebody is naturally immune — like they got COVID — they probably have more antibodies against the virus … When you actually get the virus, you’re going to start producing antibodies against multiple pieces of the virus … So, your antibodies are probably better at that point than the [COVID] vaccination,” Karl said.
Notwithstanding, Karl still believes that vaccine mandates are positive for society. He said:
“The city [of New York] needs like vax cards and everything. It’s just about making it so inconvenient for unvaccinated people to the point where they’re just like, ‘F*ck it. I’ll get it.’ You know?”
A second Pfizer official, senior associate scientist, Chris Croce, corroborated Karl’s assertion about COVID immunity derivative of antibodies:
Veritas Journalist: “So, I am well-protected [with antibodies]?”
Chris Croce, Pfizer Senior Associate Scientist: “Yeah.”
Veritas Journalist: “Like as much as the vaccine?”
Croce: “Probably more.”
Veritas Journalist: “How so? Like, how much more?”
Croce: “You’re protected most likely for longer since there was a natural response.”
Croce expressed dismay with his company’s direction and moral compass:
Veritas Journalist: “So, what happened to the monoclonal antibody treatments?”
Croce: “[It got] pushed to the side.”
Veritas Journalist: “Why?”
Croce: “Money. It’s disgusting.”
…
Croce: “I still feel like I work for an evil corporation because it comes down to profits in the end. I mean, I’m there to help people, not to make millions and millions of dollars. So, I mean, that’s the moral dilemma.”
Veritas Journalist: “Isn’t it billions and billions?”
Croce: “I’m trying to be nice.”
Veritas Journalist: “No, I hear you. I hear you. I do. I mean, I’ll still give you a hard time about it.”
Croce: “Basically, our organization is run on COVID money now.”
The third Pfizer scientist, Rahul Khandke, admitted his company demands that its employees keep information from the public.
“We’re bred and taught to be like, ‘vaccine is safer than actually getting COVID.’ Honestly, we had to do so many seminars on this. You have no idea. Like, we have to sit there for hours and hours and listen to like — be like, ‘you cannot talk about this in public,’” Khandke said.
Khandke also signaled that proof of antibodies is on par with proof of vaccination.
“If you have [COVID] antibodies built up, you should be able to prove that you have those built up,” he said.
Want to Guess Why ESPN Threw One of Their Reporters into the Gulag?
ESPN went full-woke and alienated a good chunk of their subscriber base. It’s something that longtime fixture of the network Linda Cohn mentioned, which landed her a brief suspension. It was nonsense. All she said was that maybe ESPN’s political dabbling caused people to cancel their packages. There was chatter that the trajectory in the drop in revenue could lead to the sports network not being able to afford the rights to Monday Night Football. There were also stories of staffers who had to pretend to be liberals just to keep their jobs. So, should we be surprised that the network decided to throw one of their own into the brig for questioning the COVID vaccine mandates? Nope.
Sage Steele has been yanked off the air for questioning the company’s stance on the matter. She also said something about Barack Obama’s racial makeup. Both of which would cause the front office to reach for the muzzle (via Fox News):
Now, of course, there’s nothing wrong with anything she said. That’s a given, and the whole Obama-biracial thing has been a quiet debate, but it’s not the first time someone has brought that up in a conversation. Then again, this is Disney. This is ESPN. Steele spoke her mind—and she got punished for it.