But Capitol riot, called an ‘insurrection,’ lasted only hours, cost $1.5 million.
Real Clear Investigations has released a report that documents the wide disparity between the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, which Democrats have insisted was an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government, and the months-long string of riots stemming from the death of George Floyd in 2020.
The Capitol event was because among the tens of thousands attending a rally for President Trump, there were a few hundred to went to the Capitol and broke doors and windows and generally did other vandalism.
The George Floyd riots happened over the course of 2020 as activist groups used the tragic death of the Minneapolis man, at the hands of police, to try to “defund” police across the nation, impose radical new race programs, such as Joe Biden’s plan to forgive debts of minority farmers but not those of white farmers, and such.
The Real Clear report, and an accompanying database, show the stunning differences in impact on America.
For example, there were 140 officers who were assaulted during the Capitol riot, but 2,037 assaulted during the George Floyd events.
There were 570 Capitol riot arrests, but 16,241 from the George Floyd riots.
There was about $1.5 million in damage at the Capitol riot, but up to $2 billion in damages from the George Floyd riots.
The federal government has claimed that the Washington riot was “domestic terrorism,” yet it still classifies the George Floyd riots as “riots.”
It was a single event versus 8,700 events, 574 involving violence, in more than 140 cities.
In Washington, authorities encountered knives, flag poles, fire extinguishers, bats, tasers and even a tomahawk as weapons. In the George Floyd riots, they saw firearms, incendiaries, vehicles, rocks, bricks, fireworks, poles, bats, hammers and cinderblocks.
Damage in Washington included broken glass and doors, graffiti, damage to statues and murals, pepper spray residue and spray from fire extinguishers. At George Floyd events, there were burned buildings and cars, looted stores, smashed storefronts, destruction of property.
In Washington, dozens of suspects have been held, sometimes in solidarity, for months, and nonviolent offenders without criminal records have been behind bars ever since their arrests. In the George Floyd cases, some 90% of citations and charges were dropped, dismissed or not even filed, including many felony cases.
“Many in the political and media establishment have cast the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol as one of the darkest episodes in American history, comparing an episode in which one person was slain (a protester shot by police) to 9/11, Pearl Harbor, the Civil War, and the British sacking of the capital city in 1814. Seizing on the gravity of a mob trying to interfere with the process of recording Electoral College votes after a presidential election, Democrats impeached Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 breach and put him on trial in the Senate. Democrats have also spearheaded a congressional investigation – one focused on the former president – that will likely stretch into next election season,” Real Clear reported.
Actually, the Democrat campaign against President Trump was the second attempt to impeach him and remove him from office. Both failed.
“Republicans, Trump supporters, and others see a double standard at play in Democrats’ emphasis on Jan. 6. They note that many Democrats cheered nationwide protests and some even put up bail after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, a black man, by a white police officer — prolonged unrest that generated far more death and destruction. They argue that groups associated with the summer’s violence, such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa, themselves aim to subvert democracy, and acted accordingly in targeting cops, public offices, and private businesses,” Real Clear explained.
The report noted polling shows a majority of Americans like the idea of examining both events.
The analysis also looks at the “all-but-forgotten” riot in Washington on Inauguration Day in 2017.
Real Clear said it found “the summer 2020 riots resulted in some 15 times more injured police officers, 30 times as many arrests, and estimated damages in dollar terms up to 1,300 times more costly than those of the Capitol riot. George Floyd rioters were found to have used more sophisticated and dangerous tactics than did the Capitol rioters, and in some cases weapons of greater lethality.”
It also concluded, “Authorities have pursued the largely Trump-supporting Capitol rioters with substantially more vigor than suspected wrongdoers in the earlier two cases. Many accused Capitol rioters, unlike accused participants in the other riots, have been held in pretrial detention for months – with one defendant serving more time than the maximum sentence for the charge to which he pleaded guilty. Some allegedly endured solitary confinement and other mistreatment.”
Unlike the Capitol case, the defendants on George Floyd riot cases many times have seen criminal charges, dropped, dismissed, or ignored by prosecutors to start.
The recent controversy surrounding the Texas abortion law caused a diverse coalition of left-leaning men to suddenly sound like sophomore gender studies majors. I have been disheartened by the number of men who think other men should shut up about abortion — unless they support it — because they have bought the “my body, my choice” mantra. That desire to evade responsibility in such a highly charged political debate mirrors similar behavior in our everyday lives. The country is getting weaker because American men are suffering from a responsibility crisis.
Many of these men, like the women they are trying to appease, believe babies derive their value from the extent to which they are wanted by their mothers, the circumstances of their conceptions, the economic background of their parents, their risk of disability or birth defect, and their stage of development. Like Nick Cannon, they think they are being good male feminists by silencing themselves and saying what happens after conception is all on the woman. They think manhood means playing the role of seed-spreader. This embrace of the matriarchy makes life easy for them.
The truth is a lot more complex. Humans are not amoebas who reproduce through binary fission. It takes one man and one woman to make a baby. No surgery can make a biological female produce sperm or give a biological male the ability to “chestfeed.” No matter what the CDC, Cori Bush, AOC, Marc Lamont Hill, or other science-deniers may say about “birthing people” for the sake of social justice or a paycheck, all the man-made gender ideology in the world cannot disrupt God’s design for reproduction. A father provides half of a child’s DNA and determines the child’s sex. We shouldn’t allow people who think men can get pregnant to scare us into devaluing the role men play in creating life and building families.
Responsibility is one of the main things that separates men from boys. Environments have order and accountability when it is embraced, but disorder and confusion reign when it is abdicated. This is due in part to what I have dubbed the “law of dissipating responsibility.” Similar to the law of the conservation of energy in physics, the law of dissipating responsibility states that once created, responsibility for a particular person, object, or entity is never destroyed. It is transferred from one body to another, and the level of investment, care, and concern generally diminishes with each transfer to a new party.
This principle can be applied to politics as well as culture. One area where this law shows up most clearly is with children. When adults — or children making adult decisions — have a child, they are accepting responsibility for the care and protection of that child. When they fail to fulfill that responsibility, someone else who does not have the same bond with the child has to step in. One example of this principle put into practice occurs when fathers abandon their financial responsibilities to their children. Their decisions mean someone else has to pick up the slack, and often that means government aid. I would contend that one reason the government has grown so large and become so involved in the personal affairs of American citizens is because many men have discharged their responsibilities onto elected officials and bureaucrats.
It is a man’s job to provide for the children he creates. Absent fathers lead to stressed and overworked mothers as well as vulnerable children. Children in fatherless homes are at higher risk for neglect as well as sexual and physical abuse. Whenever I see an overwhelmed mother who ends up harming her children, I always ask myself, “Where is their father?” The same goes for instances when a mother’s new boyfriend ends up harming her children. NFL running back Adrian Peterson’s two-year-old son was killed by his mother’s new boyfriend, but Peterson only learned about the child two months before he died. Raising children is a job women should not have to do alone.
This is part of the reason I advocate so passionately for the benefits of marriage and the nuclear family. Women and children deserve to be protected. This is one of the primary functions any man should fulfill. That may sound chauvinistic to some people, but what woman wants a man who hides behind her when something goes bump in the night?
Our children need us. They need us to pray for them, provide for them, and protect them. They need our guidance and attention. They need us to discipline them lovingly so that they understand that correction is as much a sign of love as affirmation. For husbands, our children need to see us loving their mothers well. We need to set an example for what we want our sons to become and demonstrate the characteristics we want our daughters to value in a future husband.
Irresponsible men become parasites — constantly feeding from those they should be nourishing. Responsible men become patriarchs — planting seeds of faith and wisdom in good soil today so that future generations can reap a bountiful harvest in the future. We have too many of the former and too few of the latter. It’s time for us to change that.
Pandemic-related unemployment benefits slowed the economic recovery by incentivizing out-of-work Americans to remain unemployed, small business owners said.
The recently-expired unemployment boost often paid better than working and, therefore, forced employers to compete with government programs when hiring workers, according to a Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) paper shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation. Authors of the paper concluded that it is important for the nation’s economic recovery that Americans return to work soon.
“The negative response by some to these benefits expiring is a perfect example of a simple issue being overcomplicated, all in the name of more government,” FGA Senior Fellow Joe Horvath, who authored the paper, told the DCNF. “These federal unemployment benefits were created because governments forced businesses to close, and those closures eliminated jobs. Now, businesses are ready to reopen, ready to hire, and ready to pull themselves back from the brink.”
Small businesses have been forced to take desperate measures to attract workers and avoid closures amid the pandemic, according to Horvath’s paper.
“The negative response by some to these benefits expiring is a perfect example of a simple issue being overcomplicated, all in the name of more government,” FGA Senior Fellow Joe Horvath, who authored the paper, told the DCNF. “These federal unemployment benefits were created because governments forced businesses to close, and those closures eliminated jobs. Now, businesses are ready to reopen, ready to hire, and ready to pull themselves back from the brink.”
Small businesses have been forced to take desperate measures to attract workers and avoid closures amid the pandemic, according to Horvath’s paper.
“We have paid higher salaries than they’ve had in years and years,” Janey Moores, the CEO of Kentucky-based staffing firm BJM & Associates, told the FGA. “We’ve paid double time and triple time.”
“But people won’t return calls, they won’t return texts, they don’t return emails,” she continued. “We post things on all the social media sites, all the job boards. Everywhere. People just aren’t looking for work. They’ve got money, magically I guess in their minds, coming into their bank accounts and they’re not interested in working.”
Moores was one of several small business owners interviewed by the FGA for the paper, which found that the continuation of generous government welfare programs ultimately rewarded Americans who stayed at home while the economy opened up.
On Monday, the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) program, which was introduced at the beginning of the pandemic and later extended, expired without pushback from the White House. The March 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act implemented the program as a $600 weekly bonus and the American Rescue Plan extended it as a $300 weekly bonus.
More than 11 million Americans lost access to emergency unemployment benefits when the FPUC expired Monday, according to an Oxford Economics estimate.
Most states had withdrawn from the program by July 31, causing decreased jobless claims compared to the 24 states that remained enrolled. A studyconducted by economists from Columbia University, the National Bureau of Economic Research and other universities found that the states that withdrew experienced 20% more job growth while a Goldman Sachs analysis concluded the expiration of emergency benefits led to unemployed people returning to work quicker.
The preliminary results of a study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University released Sept. 3 supported the conclusions made by the researchers from Columbia University and other institutions. The Mercatus Center researchers, though, acknowledged that more data had to be collected to understand the full effects of increased unemployment benefits during the pandemic.
“The federal UI benefits, plus other cash-type welfare programs, added up to more than some people would make working full-time,” the FGA’s Joe Horvath told the DCNF. “You can’t blame individuals for making a rational choice.”
“But we also couldn’t afford to keep them going, or else we’d risk turning store fronts’ ‘Help Wanted’ signs into ‘Closed’ signs,” Horvath said. “The only thing left to do not is make sure states don’t perpetuate the hiring crisis by creating their own enhanced unemployment benefits.”
Job growth, meanwhile, has fallen far behind expectations and U.S. employers continue to report record numbers of job openings nationwide, according to Department of Labor data. The labor market remains about 5.5 million jobs below its pre-pandemic level while there are 10.9 million jobs available.
Half of all small business owners said they had job vacancies that they were unable to fill, a Sept. 2 National Federation of Independent Business survey showed. A record 66% of all small business owners reported hiring or trying to hire last month.
“The original enhanced unemployment, the $600, probably the majority of our people did not want to work at all,” Ralph Smith, the director of human resources at The Fiesta Tableware Company in West Virginia, told the FGA. “They felt they were much better off at home. Even some supervisory personnel.”
Smith said workers at the Fiesta warehouse were able to make more money on unemployment during the pandemic than the company paid. When Fiesta looked for job applicants using Ohio and West Virginia government resources, they didn’t receive a single résumé, Smith added.
A single parent with two kids could make more than $44,000 per year and as much as $52,000 per year in a state like Hawaii with the $300 weekly emergency bonus, an FGA report published in May found. The average employed American earns $56,310 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“We have to put out so many ads to get people to come in, but the ads aren’t even working right now to get anyone in to apply for a job,” Kiki Cyrus of South Carolina food chain Kiki’s Chicken and Waffles told the FGA.
“They rather not work, they rather take the free money and not work at all,” she added. “Any restaurant you go to right now is hiring, any other business right now, they’re hiring.”
During the pandemic, Cyrus started a referral program that awarded employees with a $300 bonus if they recommended someone for a job vacancy at Kiki’s Chicken and Waffles, she said.
Restaurant owner Patrick Pelley and Robert Defibaugh, the owner of a lumber and fencing company, echoed what other small business owners said in interviews with the FGA. Both reported difficulty competing with emergency pandemic unemployment payments.
“There’s plenty of jobs, but guess what, there’s just nobody that wants to work because of the free money,” Defibaugh said.
“During this entire pandemic, not only was I the owner, operator and manager, I was also the pizza maker, the sandwich maker, the bus boy, the dish washer,” Pelley told the FGA. “At one point in time, it was me and one other person in the kitchen running the restaurant. That’s not how this place is designed. I could not find anyone else to work.”
In an interview with The Defender, Dominique De Silva described her frustration trying to get answers for the neurological complications she developed after her first dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine, and with doctors who dismissed her symptoms and refused to acknowledge the vaccine as a possible cause.
Dominique De Silva, 30, is still searching for answers from doctors after developing a long list of debilitating conditions, including severe neurological complications, pain and at times, an inability to walk, following her first dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.
In an interview with The Defender, Dominique, who goes by @QueenCityDom on Instagram, said she was moving from Las Vegas to North Carolina to start her new life, get married and open her real estate practice when she decided to get vaccinated. Because she has only one living parent, she wanted to protect her mother and other loved ones.
“This virus consumed me to the point where I was wiping down my groceries with Clorox wipes, masking up everywhere I went, staying away from my friends, using hand sanitizer 24/7 and living in complete fear of getting sick,” Dominique wrote in an update on her GoFundMe. “So, of course, when I had the opportunity to get my V [vaccine], I took it as soon as I could because I was ready for life to go back to how it was before.”
On March 18 — two days before her big move — she and her now husband received their first and only dose of Pfizer’s vaccine.
Shortly after, Dominique said she felt the typical fatigue she was warned about before getting the vaccine, but she also noticed changes to her vision. “I think I just blew it off because maybe it was just ironic,” she said. “It felt like everything was super bright and too much to take in.”
Dominique said she felt awful, but thought maybe she was tired from getting ready to move across the country. “I felt like my brain was sick,” she said. “That’s the best way I can describe it because it is a feeling I had never had before.”
The next day Dominique got on the tram to the airport and said it felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest. “I didn’t know what was happening with my heart but it did not feel good,” she said. “Before I got on the plane, I got hit by the beginnings of a migraine and started seeing spots in my vision, but the migraine never actually came.”
Within two weeks of receiving Pfizer’s vaccine, Dominique noticed cramping pains in her legs that turned into what felt like growing pains late in the evening. The next morning the leg pain returned.
Dominique said:
“I got up and I had to grab on to the wall because my legs were giving out on me and the pain started kicking back up. So I walked around my bed to the bathroom and it took a really long time to get from point A to point B.
“My legs were weak and numb, and I had trouble walking. At that moment that’s when I realized the vaccine had done something to me.”
The pain never went away and after seven days, Dominique decided she couldn’t wait for her new insurance to kick in before seeing a doctor.
“My husband took me to the hospital that night and they admitted me,” she said. “I let the doctor know I had gotten my vaccine two weeks and three days ago, but he brushed it off and said what I was experiencing was absolutely not connected to the vaccine.”
After running a full brain and spine MRI along with countless blood tests, the neurologist on duty was unable to find the cause of Dominique’s symptoms. Although some conditions were ruled out, her symptoms were not treated or resolved and she was told to follow up with a neurologist.
After waiting months to get in with three separate neurologists, she said multiple other symptoms began to emerge, including dizziness and vertigo, insomnia, pain in her legs, sharp shooting pains, dull pain, weakness, difficulty walking, brain fog, short-term memory loss, vision issues, waves of anxiety, lack of sensation throughout the body, feeling out of body, depth perception issues, internal vibration, tremors in right hand, tinnitus in right ear, muscle twitches, deep pain in the brain stem, tics, vocal utterances and involuntary eye movements.
The first neurologist Dominique saw was very open to the possibility of the vaccine being the cause, she said. “He said he’s seen some weird stuff happening with the vaccines, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it,” Dominique explained.
Next, Dominique visited a traditional neurologist. “As soon as he heard me say I got my vaccine two weeks before this started happening, it seemed like he disconnected from the appointment,” she said.
The neurologist reviewed Dominique’s MRI and said there was “nothing to see here” and she needed to see a therapist. “We go to these people whom we trust, who told us to get these shots, but when something is wrong with us, we’re told it is in our heads,” she said.
Dominique then went to a functional neurologist who “heard her loud and clear,” she said. The neurologist told her, “Absolutely this is something the vaccine triggered in you.”
The doctor told Dominique she was experiencing dystonic storms, and recommended glutathione, turmeric and other supplements to address her dystonic movements and inflammation.
According to the Journal of Clinical Movement Disorders, a dystonic storm is a frightening hyperkinetic movement disorder. Clinical features of dystonic storm include fever, tachycardia, tachypnea or respiratory change, hypertension, sweating and autonomic instability. Dystonia can be tonic (i.e. sustained posturing) or phasic (i.e. irregular jerking). Pain is common, and often requires aggressive symptomatic control.
Dominique changed her insurance and got into a specialist at a prestigious hospital for further testing and diagnosis, but it was going to be a four-month wait.
Her symptoms became so bad she went to the emergency room so she could be seen sooner and waited 22 hours before an “episode” occurred and staff finally performed a CT scan to rule out a stroke.
“The CT came back clear,” Dominique said. “The doctor started clapping in front of my face, pinched me to get the episode to stop and recommended seizure medication.”
Dominique said the doctor didn’t recognize the adverse reaction and said “there’s no test to confirm it was caused by the vaccine even if it was.” However, a physician’s assistant and nurse recognized what she was experiencing as a vaccine injury.
While at the hospital, Dominique also had a D-dimer test to check for blood clots. It came back positive, but she wasn’t taken seriously, she said.
Dominique followed up with a movement specialist who also could not find what was wrong with her and recommended she see a therapist.
“She looked at the April MRI, the CT scans, the EEG and the office exam,” Dominique said. “She came back in and said, ‘You’re not going to like what I have to say but I think this is psychosomatic and you need to see a therapist.’”
“Why is another doctor telling me this is in my head?” Dominique said, “This is not in my head.”
Dominique made contact with two functional neurologists and a physician in New York, who did blood work and extensive testing that hadn’t been done before. Dominique’s PET-MRI, EMG nerve study, nerve conduction test and skin biopsy all came back abnormal.
She also had neuropathy and brain scan abnormalities.
Dominique said her doctor in New York believes in vaccines, but said she “obviously had a bad reaction.” Dominique sent her results to the neurologist at the prestigious institute who said her symptoms were “just in her head.”
Dominique had no previous exposure to COVID and had a history of autoimmune hashimoto’s thyroiditis, though it had been in remission since 2019. She is currently undergoing more testing to determine the extent of her injuries.
CDC and Pfizer ignore vaccine injury
Dominique contacted a local member of Congress about her vaccine injury, who told her to “take it up with VAERS, the CDC and the manufacturer” — none of whom followed up.
Dominique submitted a report to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about her vaccine injuries. She also contacted Pfizer, who sent her a survey, which she returned in the mail.
Dominique worked up the courage to share her story on Instagram and it went viral, but she was also harassed, bullied, sent hateful messages and received death threats. She said she has since met many people who are experiencing the same issues and are forced to do their own testing and cover the costs of their injuries.
Dominique has spent thousands of dollars on labs, scans, her PET-MRI, skin biopsy, hospital visit –– which is going to collections — and radiology bills, which she shared on her Instagram and GoFundMe page.
“I’m not here to say do or don’t do something with your own body,” Dominique said. “Do your own research and make your own decision. I wasn’t given that information and I wasn’t given that opportunity. The people that are hurt and suffering every day and aren’t working need help.”
Dominique no longer drives a car and has put her real estate practice on hold. She’s not sure if she will ever return to it. She did get married and said it was a “good day” for her symptoms, but had to figure out how to make room for a wheelchair.
“I will never regret why I received my vaccine as I did what I believed was right for myself as well and everyone around me. I had the best intention at heart when I rolled up my sleeve and received my first dose. I knew that there wasn’t much data on these very new vaccines, however I trusted the science behind them. Unfortunately, my body reacted terribly to it and has placed me in the situation I am in today.”
Although Dominique said she believes in freedom of choice, neither she nor her husband will be getting further doses of any COVID vaccine. “This is happening to a lot of people, they just don’t want me to talk about it,” she said.
According to the most recent data from VAERS, there have been 14,485 total reports of dystonia, dystonic tremors, neurodegenerative disorders, neurological symptoms, neuropathy, polyneuropathy and tremors following COVID vaccination.
President Joe Biden plans to require all federal employees and government contractors to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters.
The Associated Press, citing an unnamed souce, also confirmed Biden’s plan move.
In July, Biden said federal workers had to get vaccinated or face regular COVID-19 testing and such other safety rules as mandatory face masks at workplaces and restrictions on official travel.
Biden will sign an executive order Thursday that will cover millions of federal workers and contractors that do business with the federal government, the source said.
As part of the vaccination push, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Indian Health Service, and the National Institutes of Health “will complete implementation of their previously announced vaccination requirements that cover 2.5 million people,” the source said.
In a speech later Thursday, Biden will focus on new plans to get more people vaccinated, enhancing protection for those who already have had shots and keeping schools open, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
Just over 53% of Americans are fully vaccinated, including almost two-thirds of the adult population, according to CDC data. The disease has killed more than 651,000 Americans.
President Joe Biden’s plan to force American private businesses to implement vaccine mandates may be the greatest executive overreach of power in U.S. history.
The president’s administration will use the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration to force all employers with 100 or more employees to require their workforces to either get vaccinated for COVID-19 or take weekly coronavirus tests indefinitely.
Requiring federal employees to vaccinate is one thing, but mandating vaccination within the private sector is an absolute overreach of power that the federal government simply does not hold constitutionally.
This is naked authoritarianism, plain and simple.
Nevertheless, Biden is going to force his new plan down Americans’ throats, and if any governor opposes his new decree, he vowed to force them to comply.
“If they’ll not help — if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way,” Biden said during his announcement of the plan on Thursday, according to a White House transcript.
Thankfully, many GOP governors aren’t going to go out with a fight.
More than two dozen of them quickly fired back at Biden, promising to fight him and his new authoritarian mandate with everything they have.
Those governors include Mississippi’s Tate Reeves, Georgia’s Brian Kemp, South Dakota’s Kristi Noem, South Carolina’s Henry McMaster, Arizona’s Doug Ducey, Arkansas’s Asa Hutchinson, Iowa’s Kim Reynolds, Montana’s Greg Gianforte, Oklahoma’s Kevin Stitt, Alabama’s Kay Ivey, Missouri’s Mike Parsons and Texas’ Greg Abbott.
If you want to get a good grasp of how incredibly dangerous Biden’s new mandate is, read what these governors had to say.
Biden’s plan will only worsen our workforce shortage and further limit our economic recovery. (2/3)
President Biden’s vaccination mandate is unlawful and un-American. We are committed to protecting Montanans’ freedoms and liberties against this gross federal overreach.
Once again, @POTUS has missed the mark. His outrageous, overreaching mandates will no doubt be challenged in the courts. Read my full statement below. #alpoliticspic.twitter.com/9BNbvenVEJ
Some governors, including Reeves, Parsons and Hutchinson, agreed that the vaccine itself is “life-saving” but still promised to protect the rights of individuals to make their own medical decisions.
The President has no authority to require that Americans inject themselves because of their employment at a private business. The vaccine itself is life-saving, but this unconstitutional move is terrifying. This is still America, and we still believe in freedom from tyrants.
Vaccination protects us from serious illness, but the decision to get vaccinated is a private health care decision that should remain as such. My administration will always fight back against federal power grabs and government overreach that threatens to limit our freedoms. (3/3)
Ducey, McMaster and Abbott all condemned the Biden administration for its assault on personal freedoms, promising to fight the order.
This dictatorial approach is wrong, un-American and will do far more harm than good. How many workers will be displaced? How many kids kept out of classrooms? How many businesses fined? The vaccine is and should be a choice. We must and will push back. 2/2
The most notable statement among those three came from McMaster, who promised to “fight them to the gates of hell to protect the liberty and livelihood of every South Carolinian.”
Rest assured, we will fight them to the gates of hell to protect the liberty and livelihood of every South Carolinian.
My legal team is standing by ready to file our lawsuit the minute @joebiden files his unconstitutional rule. This gross example of federal intrusion will not stand.
In conjunction with the “Let Us Worship” tour, revivalist Sean Feucht is inviting all Christians to the nation’s Capitol for a National Day of Prayer on Saturday, September 11.
According to CBN News, Feucht has also asked America’s past four presidents to join in the event, and has hinted that Donald Trump may appear in a video cameo.
“I just feel like we’re in the middle of a leadership crisis in America,” he said, adding that having the former president deliver an address in which he calls on the nation to pray, remember the fallen, and salute members of the military is necessary to provide people with some reassurance that they are not alone in this struggle.
The event, dubbed “Day of Prayer for America,” was not intended to take place this month, according to Feucht, but God has a perfect plan.
“I didn’t want this day. When I asked the National Park Service for a permit just like we did last year, I wanted a date in October,” he said. “They came back to me and said, ‘Actually we can’t give you a date in October, the only dates we have available are September 11 and 12.’ And I knew in that moment this was a total God setup.”
CBN noted that last year’s worship gathering on the National Mall’s famous green lawn drew almost 35,000 people.
Feucht’s little daughter, who was also in attendance, reportedly stepped in front of the huge throng to pray for the revival.
Feucht also pointed out that he has received a lot of backlash since launching “Let Us Worship” more than a year ago. But despite the adversary employing a variety of spiritual attacks, Feucht maintains that Christ-followers are bound to faithfully proclaim the gospel.
“Anytime you’re going after something of the Kingdom, you’re going to get resistance,” he said, while pointing out that any opposition practically confirms that what he is doing is in line with God’s will.
Feucht also believes that America is experiencing a revival at the moment, and he intends to keep touring.
They have visited over 132 cities throughout America so far. Each concert tour attracts thousands of people, many of whom experience deliverance, healing, and redemption from their sins.
“We are in the middle of revival…We have to keep going until we see every promise of God fulfilled over our nation and the nations of this season,” he proclaimed.
While Feucht’s calling is as an itinerant preacher-revivalist, others have been tasked with covering more ground where they are. One of the most dramatic revivals recorded happened in California through Mario Murillo’s ministry. Hundreds were reportedly saved last month in Sacramento on the first night of Murillo’s tent crusade.
“The Jesus Movement of the new millennium is happening right before your eyes,” Mario Murillo said, as hundreds rushed the altar at his Living Proof Sacramento Tent Crusade in California.
“I don’t want to lose this harvest. I want every single one of you who are on your feet that wants me to pray with you, that wants this miracle, to walk to the front and come to Jesus,” he said.
Grassroots canvass report reveals 173,104 votes were discarded and 96,389 votes were cast by someone other than the voter assigned to that vote in Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 General Election.
QUICK FACTS:
Liz Harris—leader of the citizen-led 2020 election canvass—released a document outlining the group’s findings, reports The Gateway Pundit (TGP).
The most significant statistics involved “lost votes”—votes in which people voted but their votes were discarded—and “ghost votes”—votes cast by someone other than the voter assigned to that vote.
Regarding lost votes, 34.23% (173,104) of Maricopa County residents who were recorded with no vote said they had voted, notes TGP.
And regarding ghost votes, 96,389 came out of addresses where the mail-in ballots could not have possibly been cast by the person that the vote was registered to.
These numbers are significant because the Presidential race was decided by only 10,457 votes statewide, and the U.S. Senate election was decided by 78,886 votes statewide.
These “[t]wo primary categories of ineligible ballots and election mishandling, encompassing thousands of votes, render the 2020 General Election in Maricopa County uncertifiable,” according to the document.
“These results are a travesty to our democracy and our voting rights,” the document states.
Harris discussed the findings on Steve Bannon’s War Room (video at bottom).
“An estimated 173,104 votes are missing or lost, as reported to our volunteers who went door to door verifying registration and voting information for thousands of residents,” the document reads. “These are American citizens living in Maricopa County who cast a vote, primarily by mail, in the election and yet there is no record of their vote with the county and it was not counted in the reported vote totals for the election.”
“Additionally an estimated 96,389 mail-in votes were cast under the names of registered voters who were either unknown to the residents of the registration address or who were verified as having moved away prior to October 2020,” the document goes on to report. “Other irregularities were uncovered during the canvass at a smaller scale, including votes cast by mail from vacant lots, votes recorded from residents who had not actually voted, etc.”
“We saw many other issues during the canvass including such things as a resident informing us that the name registered to that address and under which a mail-in vote had been cast was their immediate relative and deceased as of several years ago. We believe that specific issue, votes cast under the names of the deceased, can best be uncovered by an analysis of the voter registration data compared to the social security death index.”
Results of the 2020 Maricopa County election canvas. 173,000 missing votes. 96,000 ghost votes.
This is not the Maricopa County audit report. It is an independent report detailing the results of a canvas conducted by Liz Harris and a group of volunteers.
— Josh Barnett for Congress (AZ-06) (@BarnettforAZ) September 8, 2021
HOW THE CANVASS WAS CONDUCTED:
During the canvass, volunteers would visit the homes of registered Maricopa County voters.
At the door, if the resident answered, the volunteers would identify themselves as private citizens conducting voluntary election integrity research and ask if they would mind answering a few questions.
Next the volunteer would ask the resident’s name and then verify it in the county data.
Then the volunteer would say, “We’d like to quickly go through each registered voter at this address. First, we will start with the name identified initially and go through the other registered voters at this address.”
The questions which followed were: What method did you use to vote? How many ballots did you receive in the mail for yourself? How many ballots did you receive for person(s) who do not live here? What did you do with any extra ballots received? How many registered voters are there supposed to be at this address? Total number of registered voters who voted in the November 2020 election?
The answers were entered into a database live onsite and later compiled and analyzed.
Jon Fleetwood is Managing Editor for American Faith.
The Texas heartbeat law is much more complicated—and less dramatic—than what is being portrayed by the president and corporate media.
On Sept. 1, the Texas heartbeat bill became law, the first time a “heartbeat bill” has become enforceable law in any state. The Supreme Court’s decision declining to enter emergency relief against the law even prompted a direct condemnation from President Joe Biden, who called the decision “an unprecedented assault” on Roe v. Wade.
But the situation is much more complicated—and less dramatic—than what is being portrayed by the president and the corporate media.
What is the Texas Heartbeat Law?
On May 19, 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott signed the Texas Heartbeat Act, which prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, except in cases of medical emergency.
The Texas Heartbeat Act is unique among abortion laws in that it does not impose criminal sanctions or administrative penalties on those who violate the statute, and it specifically prohibits state officials from enforcing the law. Instead, the Heartbeat Act authorizes private civil lawsuits to be brought against those who violate the law, and provides that these private citizen-enforcement suits are the sole means of enforcing the statutory prohibition on post-heartbeat abortions.
How do the Heartbeat Law’s private-enforcement lawsuits work?
The Heartbeat Law allows suits to be brought by any person with evidence an illegal abortion has been performed, but merely bringing a suit does not entitle that person to receive civil penalties or other relief. Normal rules of civil procedure and Texas precedent apply in terms of the standard of proof involved, confidentiality, and the way the cases proceed in court.
The Heartbeat Law prohibits suits from being brought against women who receive abortions, nor may a suit be brought by someone who impregnated the abortion patient through rape, sexual assault, incest, or other criminal act. The Heartbeat Law also provides that abortion providers have a defense if they can show that awarding relief would be an “undue burden” for a woman or group of women seeking an abortion, which is the legal standard given by the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
How did the case get to the U.S. Supreme Court?
The Texas Heartbeat Act was scheduled to take effect on Sept. 1, 2021. On July 13, 2021—nearly two months after Abbott signed the bill into law—a group of abortion facilities, doctors, and associated organizations filed a federal lawsuit challenging the law in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, located in Austin.
Because the law did not allow for enforcement by government officials, the abortion plaintiffs instead tried to sue judicial officials to prevent the private-enforcement suits from being filed or considered, which is unusual. The plaintiffs sued a state district judge in Smith County, Texas as a defendant class representative of every non-federal judge in Texas. They also sued the clerk for the district court of Smith County as a defendant class representative of every Texas court clerk.
The abortion plaintiffs also sued the Texas attorney general and several state agency officials, as well as Mark Lee Dickson, a pro-life activist. The plaintiffs waited until Aug. 7, 2021, to file a motion for preliminary injunctive relief.
After a flurry of briefing, including on significant jurisdictional objections raised by the defendants, the parties were preparing for the preliminary injunction hearing, which was scheduled for August 30, 2021. On August 25, 2021, the federal district judge overruled the defendants’ jurisdictional objections. (Courts are supposed to make sure they have jurisdiction—authority to hear a case—before proceeding further.)
Established law allows for an immediate appeal if a governmental entity is denied immunity from suit, so that night, the defendants appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The law also provides that the district court no longer has jurisdiction after this happens, so the defendants asked the district court to enter a stay of proceedings while the case proceeded on appeal.
The district judge granted that request the next day, but only for the governmental defendants. Dickson, the individual defendant, asked the Fifth Circuit to stay the proceedings against him as well, since he raised some of the same jurisdictional objections that would be at issue in the governmental defendants’ appeal.
On Aug. 27, the Fifth Circuit issued a temporary administrative stay of proceedings as to Dickson, vacating the preliminary injunction hearing set for Aug.30 (which would have proceeded against Dickson only, pursuant to the district court’s order). That temporary stay allows the court more time to consider the motion to stay as to the individual defendant.
The abortion plaintiffs asked the Fifth Circuit to lift the stay and dismiss Dickson’s appeal. The Fifth Circuit denied the motion to lift the stay and is still considering the motion to dismiss along with Dickson’s stay motion.
The Fifth Circuit’s denial of the abortion plaintiffs’ request to lift the stay prompted them to seek emergency relief from the U.S. Supreme Court on the afternoon of August 30, 2021.
What happened at the U.S. Supreme Court?
The abortion plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to enter an injunction, lift the stay in the district court, or (oddly) vacate the district court’s order in their favor overruling the defendants’ jurisdictional objections so an injunction hearing could proceed in district court. The Supreme Court ordered the defendants to file a response in 24 hours, by 5 p.m. on Aug. 31.
The Heartbeat Act went into effect at midnight on Sept. 1, 2021. Late that night, the Supreme Court issued its opinion. Five of the justices (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett) agreed that relief should be denied because the plaintiffs failed to carry their burden.
It was unclear whether the Supreme Court could grant the relief the plaintiffs requested because of “complex and novel” procedural issues. Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, argued that while the defendants “may be correct” about the procedural issues, the Supreme Court should have acted to stop the law from going into effect so the courts could consider the complicated procedural issues.
It is unclear exactly how this would have been accomplished. The chief justice mentioned enjoining the defendants, but since no classes have been certified, that means any injunctive relief would have only barred one individual (out of millions), one court clerk (out of hundreds), and one judge (out of hundreds) from filing, docketing, or considering private enforcement cases brought under the Heartbeat Law.
In other words, the plaintiffs would still have been subject to lawsuits in every other Texas county brought by virtually anyone else in the state, which was the harm they complained of. Thus, the law would not have been “blocked,” even if a majority of the Supreme Court had agreed to grant this relief.
Incidentally, a common misconception is that courts can “block” or erase bad laws with their rulings. But courts can only prevent enforcement of laws, which is why it was impossible for the Supreme Court to grant relief that would have prevented the potential harm the plaintiffs were complaining about.
What does the Supreme Court’s ruling mean, and what happens now?
The Supreme Court did not overrule Roe v. Wade, nor did it make a determination on the merits of the Heartbeat Law. All it did was deny the extraordinary emergency relief the abortion plaintiffs sought, which had the secondary effect of allowing the law to go into effect on Sept. 1 as scheduled.
The case will now return to the Fifth Circuit, where the court will consider the jurisdictional issues raised by the defendants and decide whether the individual defendant can stay in the Fifth Circuit for the appeal or return to the trial court. The Supreme Court also acknowledged that the plaintiffs could raise their constitutional challenges in Texas courts, which they did on Sept. 3 when Planned Parenthood sued in state court in Austin.
Thus, the constitutional challenges to the Heartbeat Law itself are still pending and may not be resolved for some time. In the meantime, the law remains in effect.
Max Lucado, a Christian author and teaching minister at Oak Hills Church in Texas, revealed that he was diagnosed with ascending aortic aneurysm and requested for prayers.
The pastor posted his health update on his website, captured by The Christian Post, alongside a video clip.
In the statement, he said that he decided to share the news himself due to his serious condition.
He went on to say that he keeps his usual activities and hopes that his condition will not progress.
“Though surgery is a possibility, none is planned at the moment. The current strategy is to wait, watch, and pray that the aneurysm doesn’t increase any further in size. I am maintaining my normal routines and commitments; my ministry is undisturbed by this news.”
Despite his diagnosis, the author assured his followers that he is fine.
“Here’s the good news: I feel fine. I am under the care of an outstanding medical team, and most of all, I am in the hands of a good God.”
He concluded by declaring his trust in God and expressing his gratitude for the prayers.
“For now, please know that I am fully trusting our heavenly Father. I am grateful for your prayers for me and for my family.”
The minister also shared his health update on his Facebook and Twitter accounts. A number of his fans have written their support for Lucado, many of them prayed for his healing.
“I will add you to my daily prayer list, Max. You & your ministry have blessed me for many years. So glad you have competent physicians watching your aneurysm closely. But, you’re in the palm of our Father’s hand,” a Twitter user named Patt Brown said.
But one of his followers posted a controversial statement, claiming that the disease is a side effect of the COVID vaccine.
“So sorry you took the CV vaccine. This is a side effect of that. May no weapon formed against us prosper,” @7dgriffiths replied.
Last July, the pastor was stricken with COVID infection, in spite of completing his vaccination.
Church Leaders disclosed that Lucado received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), breakthrough cases of the illness are expected since no vaccine is completely effective to fight against COVID.
CDC’s record shows that as of Aug. 30, there were already more than 173 million fully vaccinated people in the United States. But at the time, the center uncovered that it received reports of 12,908 cases of breakthrough infections. 10,741 of these individuals were hospitalized while the rest (2,437) have died.
Moreover, the center said that its record is merely an undercount of the actual breakthrough cases in the country.
Despite the concerning report, CDC maintains that COVID vaccines are effective. However, it confirms that, in addition to some usual side effects, cases of pericarditis and myocarditis have also emerged among young adults and adolescents after taking the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
