If you want to know why Republicans have no faith in news organizations, look no further than the Rolling Stonestory shared liberally across Twitter this weekend claiming that Oklahoma hospitals were turning away gunshot victims because they were overwhelmed by “horse dewormer overdoses.”
Headlined “Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says,” the Rolling Stone story, written by Peter Wade , quoted a Dr. Jason McElyea who claimed, “The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated.”
McElyea blamed the lack of hospital beds on an influx of patients who had taken ivermectin to counteract COVID-19 symptoms. Despite the drug’s long history of successful prescribed use in human patients, the online left has taken to calling the Nobel Prize-winning drug a “horse dewormer.”
McElyea added some color to his story, claiming, “The scariest one that I’ve heard of and seen is people coming in with vision loss,” the doctor said.
The biggest names in progressive media loved the story and shared it widely on Twitter. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow tweeted a version of the story to her 10.5 million followers, and the Daily Beast’s Wajahat Ali retweeted the story, adding, “It’s like a Biblical horror story. You literally have people denying a vaccine and life to follow their pharaohs towards death.”
The problem is the story was complete fiction. The hospital system in question issued a statement hours later explaining: Although Dr. Jason McElyea is not an employee of NHS Sequoyah, he is affiliated with a medical staffing group that provides coverage for our emergency room. With that said, Dr. McElyea has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months. NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin. This includes not treating any patients for ivermectin overdose. All patients who have visited our emergency room have received medical attention as appropriate. Our hospital has not had to turn away any patients seeking emergency care. We want to reassure our community that our staff is working hard to provide quality healthcare to all patients. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify this issue and as always, we value our community’s support.
Earlier this week, Pew found that Republicans’ trust in national news organizations had fallen to 35%. This Rolling Stone story and the progressive media’s unquestioning embrace of it is just the latest example of why.
The mother of a fourth-grade student in Las Vegas, Nevada is fuming after a substitute teacher reportedly taped a mask to her son’s face after he mistakenly took it off during class.
What are the details?
The mother, who wished not to be identified, spoke at length about the alleged incident in an interview with KVVU-TV over the weekend. She has since filed a police report and is calling for the teacher’s resignation.
“I was furious, furious. I was scared for my son on what kind of long-term effect it is going to have on him socially, the fact that the entire class was laughing,” the mother said, noting that her 9-year-old son’s failure to wear the mask properly was just an honest mistake.
“He went to get a sip of water, forgot to put the mask on,” she said.
But rather than reminding him to put the mask back on or even sending him to the principal’s office, the teacher allegedly dragged him in front of the whole class and then applied the tape.
“The teacher did not tell him to put it back on or send him to the office, she instead pulled him up in front of the classroom in front of all of the students and she then taped the mask across the top of his face,” the mother continued, adding that the teacher applied a second layer of tape from his nose to his forehead.
With the tape still on his face, her son was then allegedly sent to the office to pick up homework. While he was there, an alarmed administrator took notice, prompting the school’s principal to go to the classroom and investigate. When the principal arrived, she reportedly discovered another student with tape on their face.
What else?
The mother told KVVU that her son said the face mask taping has gone on regularly since the beginning of the semester and that at least 5 other students have experienced it.
In a statement to the news outlet, Clark County School District said: “The district is aware of the isolated incident and is dealing with the employee through the proper channels. The principal proactively notified the family of the investigation.”
CCSD has a mask mandate in place for the 2021-2022 school year that requires all students over the age of 2 to wear face masks while indoors and on school buses, regardless of vaccination status.
The mother insisted she didn’t mind the mandate but argued young students should be given grace and not be publicly embarrassed for forgetting to wear masks.
“It’s crazy,” she complained, adding, “Corporal punishment in schools should not be happening.”
She is now reportedly considering moving her son to a different public school, or potentially a charter school.
The US commanders in charge of evacuation abandoned dozens of American citizens at the gates of Kabul airport amid a chaotic rush to leave Afghanistan, US war correspondent and former special forces soldier Michael Yon told RT.
On Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain was forced to acknowledge that around 100 Americans still remained in the turbulent country a week after the Biden administration’s August 31 deadline to get everybody out expired.
Former special forces soldier-turned-journalist Michael Yon, who was among the volunteers helping to airlift Americans out of Afghanistan, has shared with RT some disturbing details of how holders of US passports were left behind by their own military.
On August 30, Taliban members delivered a mother with three children as well as 45 other American citizens to the gates of Kabul airport. Three civilian jets, which had been paid for by volunteers, were waiting for them at the airfield.
“We still had time to get them on… but the US military wasn’t letting even civilian Americans with passports… on the base,” Yon said. The media had also been ejected from the airport, so there was no one left to record what was going on, he added.
According to Yon, the fighters from Taliban special operations unit Badri 313 guarding the airfield said that they would let the Americans through the gates if the US military came to pick them up, or at least phone over to give an order to let them through.
Yon said he called all his contacts in the armed forces to get the group through and reach those in charge of the evacuation to persuade them to open the gates and let the Americans board the planes.
“But the military simply wouldn’t let them through. Of course, the military was blaming it on the Department of State,” he said, adding that at the time the government was telling the public that any Americans who didn’t get through had not made it to the airport.
One unnamed US army colonel with knowledge of the evacuation process, who exchanged messages with Yon, was especially frustrated by the chaotic situation.
In one screenshot shared by Yon, the colonel wrote: “Yes, we are f**king abandoning American citizens.”
While not physically at the airport, that colonel was “demonstrating a lot of frustration” and at one point asked “Can you ram the gate?” In other words, Yon said, he was suggesting hitting the gate with a car to get the people through. “I mean, he wanted to rescue those people,” but his supervisors regrettably didn’t share the sentiment.
Yon later wrote a letter to one of the US commanders at the airport, directly blaming her for abandoning Americans.
“You guys left American citizens at the gates of the Kabul airport. Three empty jets paid by volunteers were waiting for them,” the message read, adding sarcastically: “Great job saving yourselves. Probably get a lot of medals.”
Claims from the White House and Pentagon that Americans were only left because they could not reach the airport were “bulls**t,” according to Yon. “They definitely were at the gate. Period.”
With evacuation flights no longer departing from Kabul airport, the volunteers are using other routes to evacuate the Americans out of Afghanistan.
“Our biggest problem in getting people out actually is the US government. It’s not the Taliban. I know that sounds crazy…. The military and the Department of State are in our way at this point. In addition to leaving the people behind, they’re stopping us from getting them out now,” Yon said.
Yon said the US was “humiliated in front of the world” after its two-decade-long military presence, only to have the Taliban ultimately takeover and commandeer American military hardware left behind.
Washington’s failure is “dangerous for everybody because now our collective enemy, which is militant Islam, are going to feel their power and they’re going to come after a lot of people,” including the US, Russia and others, Yon predicted.
The days are winding down until California’s Sept. 14 recall election and Gov. Gavin Newsom is bringing out big-name Democrats to support him in the final stretch. On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris will appear with the progressive governor in the Bay Area, which conservatives are pointing out is actually a “gift to Larry Elder.”
The campaign stop is the second time such an event was planned—the first Harris canceled after the terror attack in Kabul killed U.S. 13 service members.
The campaign stop points to continuing concern among Democrats about Newsom’s chances — despite the Golden State’s deep-blue electorate.
California Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly two-to-one — but voter backlash against the governor’s pandemic restrictions has been mushrooming.
Harris, a California native who won statewide elections to the US Senate and to serve as the state attorney general, will be the highest-profile Dem to hit the hustings on Newsom’s behalf. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was set to appear with him in Los Angeles Saturday.
So a failed candidate that quit before she could receive minimal support in CA primary is going to stump for a failed governor. Solid strategy they have. https://t.co/LViZWQrZUG
In addition to her tanking popularity in recent weeks as VP, she was so unpopular as a presidential candidate that she dropped out before the California primary, preventing an embarrassing fifth or sixth place finish in her home state.
“The morning Harris withdrew from the race, UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and the Los Angeles Times published a poll that awarded her 7% support in the state among likely primary voters and found that 61% of those voters thought she should drop out of the race,” USA Today reported at the time.
The Justice Department said Monday that it will not tolerate violence against anyone who is trying to obtain an abortion in Texas as federal officials explore options to challenge a new state law that bans most abortions.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department would “protect those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services” under a federal law known as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
Garland said in a statement that federal prosecutors are still urgently exploring options to challenge the Texas law. He said the Justice Department would enforce the federal law “in order to protect the constitutional rights of women and other persons, including access to an abortion.”
The federal law, commonly known as the FACE Act, prohibits physically obstructing or using the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking reproductive health services. The law also prohibits damaging property at abortion clinics and other reproductive health centers.
The new Texas law prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks — before some women know they’re pregnant. Courts have blocked other states from imposing similar restrictions, but Texas’ law differs significantly because it leaves enforcement up to private citizens through lawsuits instead of criminal prosecutors.
Justice Department officials have also been in contact with U.S. attorneys in Texas and the FBI field offices in the state to discuss enforcing the federal provisions.
“The department will provide support from federal law enforcement when an abortion clinic or reproductive health center is under attack,” Garland said. “We will not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, physical obstruction or property damage in violation of the FACE Act.”
President Trump weighed in on controversial topics in a wide-ranging interview. On Saturday, the interview on Full Measure brought up the recent Supreme Court decision on abortions in Texas.
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold a near total ban on abortions in the state. Many have said Trump’s Supreme Court nominees allegedly affected the outcome.
“We do have a Supreme Court that’s a lot different than it was,” he stated. “Before, it was acting very strangely and I think probably not in the interest of our country.
Promises KEPT!
President Trump created the most Pro-life Court we have ever had.
The SCOTUS ruling on the Texas Heartbeat Bill confirms that!
The 45th president added he has been studying the ruling.
“I know that the ruling was very complex and and also probably temporary,” he expressed. “I think other things will happen and that will be the big deal and the big picture, so we’ll see what would happen.”
Also on the table, Trump discussed the recent crisis in Afghanistan, which fell to the Taliban several weeks ago after Joe Biden pulled all U.S. troops. Although Biden declared the 20 year war to be over, Trump wasn’t so sure in consideration of the Afghan refugees.
“I don’t know, because you have people going all over the world and being dropped all over the world right now,” he mentioned. “Nobody knows who the hell they are.”
“Who are all of the people coming into our Country?…How many terrorists are among them? How much money is this costing? With all of these developments, our Country is more unsafe now than ever before—and many Americans are still left behind!”
He added these were people that “rushed” into planes.
“These people, many of these people are going to be terrorists, they’re going to be terrorists,” he asserted. “They were very powerful, very energetic in getting onto the aircraft.”
In response to a question regarding vetting for Afghan refugees, Trump stated they aren’t doing that.
“You can’t, because there is no documentation in that country, there’s virtually no documentation,” he explained. “They didn’t vet them, they didn’t even try to vet them. They’re trying to vet them now, but it’s a little bit late.”
However, Afghan’s would be faced with a difficult journey as the U.S. government has tried to work around legal issues to give refugees assistance.
The US Justice Department is expected to release several batches of documents related to the 9/11 terror attacks in the next six months. The first batch is due to be declassified no later than 11 September 2021. Here we examine what has prompted the Biden administration’s move.
As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 looms, President Joe Biden signed an executive order on 3 September directing the Department of Justice to declassify the inquiry documents into the terror attacks. According to the president, “information collected and generated in the US government’s investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks should now be disclosed, except when the strongest possible reasons counsel otherwise.”
Last month, some families of 9/11 victims urged Biden not to attend any memorial events on 11 September this year unless his administration agreed to publicise documents related to the hijackers – 19 men associated with al-Qaeda,* 15 of whom were Saudi Arabian nationals. In July 2021, the 9/11 families sued Saudi Arabia for money, alleging that the country’s officials could be complicit in the tragedy. Riyadh resolutely denies official involvement, and the 9/11 Commission also found no connection between the terror attack and the Saudi government.
Biden Needs to Divert Public Attention
“The timing for the release of the classified documents may be related to the Biden administration’s need to justify the withdrawal from Afghanistan following [Donald] Trump’s decision,” says Dr Luciano Zaccara, an assistant professor and research coordinator at the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University.
Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan caused his approval rating to plummet. Polling by FiveThirtyEight statistics-pooling website, shows that 48.4 percent of American respondents disapprove of the president’s performance in office with his approval rating hovering around 45.9 percent. According to the Washington Examiner, these figures have prompted growing concerns among Democrats who are nearly a year out from 2022 mid-term elections in which they will struggle to maintain their congressional majorities.
“The criticism [Biden] received from inside the country related to the lack of US accomplishments during the past 20 years of occupation focused on the human cost, mainly in American lives, that the occupation represented, demanded such a measure to demonstrate the actions in Afghanistan accomplished the objective of punishing those who were behind the attacks,” notes Zaccara.
Under these circumstances, the Biden administration is seeking to set a new foreign policy doctrine of the US regarding the whole Middle East which prioritises its own security concerns over other third countries, the academic highlights. Thus, the long-anticipated release of 9/11 documents could divert public attention from the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan and help identify new priorities, according to the professor.
Biden Risks Damaging Relations With MBS, Again
At the same time, some observers suggest that the documents might cast doubt over Saudi elites, given that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian nationals. If the forthcoming release contains any material of that kind, “this may certainly erode relations” between Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Zaccara suggests.
“We are seeing a greater reluctance by the Biden administration to ‘protect’ America’s Saudi allies from the release of potentially damaging information regarding the extent of Saudi involvement and subsequent cover-up by both the Saudis and by the Bush administration,” echoes Dr Mehran Kamrava, director of the Center for International and Regional Studies and professor of Government at Georgetown University Qatar.
Previously, the Biden administration criticised the crown prince, suggesting that he could be involved in the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. On 26 February, the Biden administration released an intelligence report “linking” the crown prince with the incident but providing no evidence to back the claims. Some media suggested at the time that Biden’s White House was seeking to “sideline” the powerful prince, known for his sympathy with former president Donald Trump.
Release of the documents related to the Saudi nationals’ involvement in 9/11 is “20 years overdue”, says Peter Kuznick, professor of History in American University, Washington, DC. According to Kuznick, “this lack of transparency is sometimes simply to avoid embarrassment and sometimes because of geopolitical calculations.” Under George W Bush, the US was dependent on Middle Eastern hydrocarbons and tried not to infuriate its allies.
“As Gulf oil diminishes in importance in US foreign policy thinking, the US has been trying to extricate itself to some degree from the region, which is good,” the professor notes. “Unfortunately, Biden and the blob think this will free them to confront more aggressively the real antagonists – Russia and China – which is in no one’s interest at a time when collaboration is needed on so many fundamental global issues.”
Docs May Expose US Complicity in ‘Creating’ Jihadi Criminals
At the same time, however, the documents may also shed some light on the US Cold-War era collaboration with jihadists, Kuznick says. He points out that the US used to train, arm, and finance Afghan Mujahideen in the late Seventies and Eighties in order to use them as Cold War proxies against the USSR. “Those insurgents included Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders as well as many of the Taliban*,” according to the academic. Washington has long abstained from releasing 9/11 documents apparently because “it could have exposed the US complicity in creating the criminals who hit this country on 9/11,” Kuznick suggests.
Meanwhile, on 3 September, CBS released an interview with Danny Gonzalez, a former FBI agent who participated in Operation Encore, the still-secret investigation into the two Saudi hijackers who were based in San Diego. Gonzalez told CBS News that “19 hijackers [could not] commit 3,000 mass murders by themselves,” suggesting that they had a US-based support network. According to him, two of the culprits attended flight training in Arizona before the attack.
terrorists were flight training in the US, said of the files, “The evidence is there. I've seen it. But I can't get into specifics because of the protective order.” Operation Encore drilled down on 2 hijackers who lived in San Diego + who helped them. https://t.co/iuU2taNC1V
It is still unclear whether the release would become a bombshell or whether “the government machinery [would] slow the process, provide excuses and redact documents so heavily that they are meaningless,” says Bruce Eagleson, the son of a 9/11 victim who suggested in his September op-ed that “the first test” would be 11 September 2021 when the batch of files is due to be released.
(UPI) The Taiwan air force said Monday that more than a dozen Chinese fighter jets, four bombers and one surveillance craft intruded in Taiwan’s air defense zone.
Taiwan responded to the intrusion Sunday by tracking the craft with land-based missiles, scrambling fighter jets and broadcasting radio warnings. Sunday was the third straight day the Chinese air force dispatched two or more aircraft to the zone, according to Taiwan News.
Taiwan military fears the fleet could include aircraft designed for electronic warfare.
China has regarded Taiwan as a breakaway province but Taipei sees itself as a sovereign state. For more than a year, Taipei has expressed outrage over repeated missions by the Chinese air force near the island.
The zone is self-declared by Taiwan but remains international air space. An air defense identification zone is outside of a country’s national airspace but where foreign aircraft are still identified, monitored and controlled.
A 25 year old woman from California has spoken out about living in Taliban-led Afghanistan, where many Americans remain unable to leave. The woman, who identified herself only as Nasria, recounted how she traveled to Kabul in June to visit family and marry her boyfriend.
“There’s been days, you know, where I think to myself, ‘Am I going to make it home? Am I going to end up living here? Am I going to end up dying here?” Nasria told Voice of America, refusing to share her last name for security reasons. She lamented that upon the final U.S. withdrawal on August 31, Taliban terrorists began “hunting Americans” who were left on the ground.
“Apparently, they’re going door to door now trying to see if anyone has a blue passport,” Nasria shared. She also shared how she and her husband, as newlywed couple fled to the Kabul airport when the Afghan government fell and the Taliban took over, but they failed to make it inside the airport.
“It was so hard to just get on a flight. There was a couple days where we had to sleep on streets. People were literally stepping over people. That’s how bad it was,” Nasria recalled. Breitbart reported that she then contacted the U.S. State Department, which officials told her to proceed to a designated area where she and her husband would be escorted onto an evacuation flight. However, the Taliban forbade them to go.
“Our troops were literally at the gate just waiting for us to continue walking and they had blocked us,” the pregnant California woman said. Nasria added that Taliban fighters prevented her from going to the airport despite seeing her passport. She recounted how she started walking towards the airport and one of the Taliban forces shot right by her leg, ordering her to return or they would shoot her.
“That’s how it was and I’ve never in my life have ever experienced anything like this,” Nasria lamented. Her husband even asked the Taliban to let her escape on her own, but she refused to leave without him.
According to Fox News, Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California was sounding the alarm on how Nasria and other Americans who were stranded in Afghanistan are experiencing persecution and abuse. Rep. Issa said during an appearance on Fox News that Nasriia had been kicked in the stomach by Taliban fighters.
Rep. Issa insisted that “anyone who says there aren’t people stranded is wrong.” He added that the Taliban continues to use Americans and its allies as “hostage.” He said that the U.S. State Department “cleared these flights and the Taliban will not let them leave the airport.”
Up to 1,000 people, including Americans and Afghans who hold U.S. visas or visas to other countries remain stranded in Afghanistan, the New York Times reported. The U.S. State Department admitted on Sunday that they no longer have “personnel on the ground…air assets in the country”and that the U.S. “do not control the airspace – whether over Afghanistan or elsewhere in the region,” making it more difficult to arrange a safe exit for those who remain.
Outbreak of judicial tyranny is a symptom of the authoritarianism pandemic that is the real threat to America.
Cook County, Illinois, Judge James Shapiro reached a new low in covid tyranny by forbidding Rebecca Firlit from seeing her 11-year-old son until she receives a covid vaccine. Judge Shapiro is not alone in abusing judicial power to force individuals to get vaccinated. Judges across the country have ordered defendants to get covid vaccines, sometimes as a condition of avoiding prison. This outbreak of judicial tyranny is a symptom of the authoritarianism pandemic that is the real threat to America.
Corporations are imposing requirements, including that employees show proof of vaccination, pay more for health insurance if they have not had a covid vaccine, and undergo regular (in some cases weekly) covid tests. An increasing number of state and local governments are requiring their employees and even people working in some private jobs to take covid vaccines, as well as imposing vaccine passport requirements on people generally.
President Biden has urged employers to implement vaccine mandates, and government is working with its big tech allies to develop “model” vaccine passports.
Government approved model vaccine requirements combined with government officials encouraging their adoption send the message to businesses that imposing vaccine requirements on their employees, and maybe their customers as well, is a good way to stay in the politicians and bureaucrats’ good graces.
An effective way for the US government to “encourage” adoption of vaccine mandates and vaccine passports is denying federal funds to businesses, states, local governments, and other institutions that refuse to require employees, customers, or other people to prove they are vaccinated. This will result in vaccine requirements while enabling government to claim it is not forcing vaccines on anyone.
President Biden is already planning for the US government denying Medicare and Medicaid funding to nursing homes that do not require their employees to prove they are vaccinated. This could result in staff shortages at nursing homes. A short-staffed nursing home poses a much greater risk to residents than a nursing home with a staff comprised of healthy, unvaccinated individuals. Texas is experiencing a nursing shortage thanks in part to hospitals firing unvaccinated nurses.
Health care workers have good reason to resist vaccine mandates. Many individuals have died or suffered other adverse effects — including miscarriages — after receiving a vaccine.
Some people try to justify vaccine mandates and vaccine passports by saying that, by risking infecting others, unvaccinated individuals endanger other people. However, the federal Centers for Disease Control recently admitted that covid vaccines do not prevent the spread of infections. In addition, the claim that we are having a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” relies on data collected from early in the year — before many Americans had taken covid vaccines.
An important objection is that, if government can force people to take a potentially dangerous vaccine to protect against a hypothetical harm to others, the same reasoning would support the imposing of many additional liberty violations. These could include, for example, “red flag” laws and other forms of gun control, restrictions on access to “extremist” ideas, or a system of mass surveillance to prevent possible future acts of violence. The argument that government can use force to prevent hypothetical harms renders restraint on government power meaningless.
It is imperative that we support the growing resistance to vaccine mandates and vaccine passports. We must also expand the resistance to covid authoritarianism to resistance to all forms of government infringements on liberty.
