Senate Republicans on Friday blocked the creation of a bipartisan panel to study the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, refusing to back down on their opposition to the independent investigation.
The Senate vote was 54-35 — short of the 60 votes needed to consider a House-passed bill
Democrats and some moderate Republicans had called for a commission to probe the events leading up to and on Jan. 6, when hundreds of people, some of them supporters of President Donald Trump, stormed the Capitol, fighting with police, urging violence against lawmakers and delaying the formal certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
Four people died in the attack, and a police officer collapsed and died afterward of what authorities said were natural causes. Two police officers took their own lives in the days after the riots.
Gwen Stefani has been repeatedly accused of “cultural appropriation” because of her love of Japanese street style, but the pop icon isn’t caving in.
Speaking to Paper Magazine, Stefani said there would be much less beauty in the world if people stopped cultural appropriation.
The issue the singer has received the most heat for has been over her Harajuku clothing line and backup dancers.
“I had this idea that I would have a posse of girls — because I never got to hang with girls — and they would be Japanese, Harajuku girls, because those are the girls that I love. Those are my homies,” Stefani told Paper. “That’s where I would be if I had my dream come true, I could go live there and I could go hang out in Harajuku.”
Stefani also insisted that the rules of cultural appropriation are divisive and stop the sharing of beauty.
“If we didn’t buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn’t have so much beauty, you know?” Stefani said. “We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more.”
“I am the latest target of cancel culture,” former Bellevue deputy marshal Nate Silvester told Sean Hannity on his Fox News show Thursday, hours after he was fired.
“That’s all it is,” the officer-turned-viral videomaker insisted.
In his clip, Silvester pretended to have a phone conversation with the NBA superstar to get his advice while witnessing an imaginary black person trying to stab another black person.
“So you don’t care if a black person kills another black person, but you do care if a white cop kills a black person, even if he’s doing it to save the life of another black person?” Silvester said.
According to NBC News and other sources, President Joe Biden is expected to appoint Tom Nides ambassador to Israel. Nides’ wife, Virginia Moseley, is Senior Vice President of Newsgathering at CNN.
There appears to be overlap between Moseley’s work and her husband’s. WikiLeaks released an email from 2015 showing Nides tipping off Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta to a favorable CNN poll that was soon to be released.
Currently an executive at Morgan Stanley, Nides served as deputy secretary of state under Hillary Clinton. He was a top bundler for Biden’s 2020 campaign and is on the advisory board of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware.
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan advised the GOP to steer clear of the “populist appeal of one personality,” a thinly-veiled shot at fellow Republicans who support Donald Trump.
Ryan made his remarks Thursday in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
Though he didn’t mention the former President by name, his words could hardly be misinterpreted.
“Here’s one reality we have to face,” Ryan told Republicans. “If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we’re not going anywhere.”
The former vice presidential nominee in 2012, according to the New York Times, set out to “obliquely criticize(e)” Trump and warn that “the only viable future for the fractured party was one unattached to the former president.”
"Here’s one reality we have to face: If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we’re not going anywhere," fmr. House Speaker Paul Ryan says. https://t.co/wNgTzylnNw
Paul Ryan Wants Republicans To Abandon Trump Supporters
Imagine the burden of being Mitt Romney-lite, without ever realizing you’re Mitt Romney-lite. Such is the plight of Paul Ryan in his quest to steer the Republican Party away from Donald Trump.
Even CNN scoffed at Ryan’s “Reaganite” speech saying “the power of Trump drowns out” his “call for change.”
It really is amazing that Paul Ryan, who is the reason the GOP lost the House in 2018, is going to come out today and blame Trump for the problems in the GOP.
Ryan, in his speech, also advised the Republican Party to stand down on culture wars.
“[W]e conservatives have to be careful not to get caught up in every little cultural battle,” he said. “Sometimes these skirmishes are just creations of outrage peddlers, detached from reality and not worth anybody’s time.”
“They draw attention away from the far more important case we must make to the American people.”
Unfortunately, they also work for the left, leading to cancel culture and conservatives not having a voice in those skirmishes either in the entertainment world, in sports, in academia, in the federal bureaucracy, or with Big Tech and social media.
Conservatives are being silenced and Ryan wants you to continue whistling past the graveyard.
Republican voters had watched their party come to heel on the culture wars as Paul Ryan suggests for years which, at least partially, led to the rise of a fighter like Donald Trump who doesn’t roll over when he’s told to do so.
Paul Ryan confirms yet again he doesn't know what time; he is living in 2005 and doesn't understand, refuses to understand, what is taking place inside the GOP. https://t.co/a3DhGPcAsD
“Fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported,” according to an analysis submitted to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is a Federal agency working “within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.” The agency is charged with improving the safety and quality of America’s health care system by developing “the knowledge, tools, and data needed to improve the health care system and help Americans, health care professionals, and policymakers make informed health decisions,” according to the AHRQ website.
Screenshot of the DHHS analysis from The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality website taken May 28, 2021
On page 6, the report concludes that less than 1% of vaccine injuries are reported to the Vaccine Adverse Reporting System (VAERS). “Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported,” write the authors, adding, that “[a]lthough 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”
“Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported,” say the authors.
The authors also point out that “low reporting rates” make it difficult to identify “problem” drugs and vaccines that “endanger public health.” They also urge,
“New surveillance methods for drug and vaccine adverse effects are needed. Barriers to reporting include a lack of clinician awareness, uncertainty about when and what to report, as well as the burdens of reporting: reporting is not part of clinicians’ usual workflow, takes time, and is duplicative.”
Likewise, a 2009 study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) titled “Postlicensure Safety Surveillance for Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Recombinant Vaccine” found that VAERS has data analysis limitations that include “underreporting, inconsistency in the quality and completeness of reported data, stimulated reporting due to extensive news coverage and reporting biases.” The authors reveal the following:
“A further limitation of VAERS reports after qHPV [quadrivalent HPV vaccine] is that a large proportion (68%) come from the manufacturer and most of these reports (89%) do not include sufficient identifying information to allow medical review of the individual cases. For example, when additional clinical information was available for review, approximately one-half of the cases of GBS and transverse myelitis were not confirmed.”
Screenshot of the JAMA publication PDF documented downloaded from the JAMA Network website taken May 28, 2021
VAERS officially monitors the safety of vaccines after they are authorized or licensed for use by the FDA, according to the CDC website. “VAERS is part of the larger vaccine safety system in the United States that helps make sure vaccines are safe. The system is co-managed by CDC and FDA,” the site reads.
Earlier this month, FOX News’ Tucker Carlson reported that “[b]etween late December of 2020, and last month, a total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the COVID vaccines in the United States.”
“The data we just cited,” Carlson went on to say, “come from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System—VAERS—which is managed by the CDC and the FDA,” before mentioning the 2010 DHHS report. “A report submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services in 2010 concluded that “fewer than one percent of vaccine adverse events are reported” by the VARES system. Fewer than one percent. So what is the real number of people who apparently have been killed or injured by the vaccine? Well, we don’t know that number,” lamented Carlson.
If 3,362 is only 1% of the total number of people who reportedly died after being vaccinated (between December 2020 and April 2021), then the total number of deaths is really 336,200.
Jon Fleetwood is Managing Editor for American Faith.
Zondervan and HarperCollins will not publish or manufacture a version of the Bible that would feature various patriotic American documents for the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, contrary to concerns expressed online.
Earlier this month, Meagan Clark of Religion Unplugged wrote an article reporting that the Michigan-based international Christian media and publishing company was “in talks” to release the God Bless the USA Bible on the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks that killed thousands of Americans in 2001.
This Bible version will reportedly include the lyrics to the 1984 song “God Bless the USA,” the U.S. States Constitution, the Pledge of Allegiance and other historic American documents.
But Casey Francis Harrell, senior director of corporate communications at HarperCollins, Zondervan’s parent company, stated in an email to The Christian Post on Thursday that the publisher had no plans to release the controversial version of the Bible.
“Zondervan is not publishing, manufacturing or selling the ‘God Bless the USA Bible,’” read the statement, which noted that nothing had been finalized between the two parties.
“While we were asked for a manufacturing quote, ultimately the project was not a fit for either party, and the website and marketing of the NIV project were premature.”
As of Thursday morning, the Bible version is being promoted on a website and can be pre-ordered for $49.99. Copies are expected to be shipped in late September.
The initial report about the possibility of the God Bless the USA Biblebeing released prompted backlash online, including a petition backed by more than 900 signatories.
“Zondervan/HarperCollins has a been a great blessing to Christian publishing for many years. But a forthcoming volume damages this fine record,” the petition reads.
(Radiology Business) A California x-ray technologist died recently after receiving his second dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, according to published reports.
Tim Zook was brimming with optimism back on Jan. 5, sharing a picture of his vaccination card and bandaged arm. But the 60-year-old rad tech later started experiencing trouble breathing and an upset stomach. A COVID test came up false, but his condition worsened, leading to Zook being induced into a comma and placed on a ventilator Jan. 7 at UC Irvine Medical Center.
After several “code blue” alerts, Zook died on Jan. 9, the Orange County Register reported. The county coroner said the cause of death is currently inconclusive, with toxicology screenings expected to take months. He was slightly overweight and suffered from high blood pressure, managing the latter with medications for years, his wife told the newspaper. But the sexagenarian was otherwise healthy and had never been hospitalized, Rochelle Zook said.
The president’s plans to invest in infrastructure, education, health care and more would push federal spending to its highest sustained levels since World War II.
President Biden will propose a $6 trillion budget on Friday that would take the United States to its highest sustained levels of federal spending since World War II as he looks to fund a sweeping economic agenda that includes large new investments in education, transportation and fighting climate change.
Documents obtained by The New York Times show that the budget request, the first of Mr. Biden’s presidency, calls for total spending to rise to $8.2 trillion by 2031, with deficits running above $1.3 trillion throughout the next decade. The growth is driven by Mr. Biden’s two-part agenda to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure and substantially expand the social safety net, contained in his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, along with other planned increases in discretionary spending.
The proposal for the 2022 fiscal year and ensuing decade shows the sweep of Mr. Biden’s ambitions to wield government power to help more Americans attain the comforts of a middle-class life and to lift U.S. industry to better compete globally.
The levels of taxation and spending in Mr. Biden’s plans would expand the federal fiscal footprint to levels rarely seen in the postwar era to fund investments that his administration says are crucial to keeping America competitive. That includes money for roads, water pipes, broadband internet, electric vehicle charging stations and advanced manufacturing research. But it also envisions funding for affordable child care, universal prekindergarten and a national paid leave program — initiatives that Republicans have balked at bankrolling. Military spending would also grow, though it would decline as a share of the economy.
“Now is the time to build the foundation that we’ve laid, to make bold investments in our families, in our communities, in our nation,” Mr. Biden told a crowd in Cleveland on Thursday. “We know from history that these kinds of investments raise both the floor and the ceiling of an economy for everybody.”
Mr. Biden plans to finance his agenda by raising taxes on corporations and high earners, and the documents show budget deficits shrinking in the 2030s. Administration officials have said the jobs and families plans would be fully offset by tax increases over the course of 15 years, which the budget request also anticipates.
The documents forecast that Mr. Biden and Congress will allow tax cuts for low- and middle-income Americans, signed into law by President Donald J. Trump in 2017, to expire as scheduled in 2025. Mr. Biden has said he will not raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000 a year. It is possible that he could propose to extend the Trump tax cuts for those earners in a future budget, potentially coupled with additional tax increases on high earners or businesses.
While his plan projects additional tax revenue down the line, the United States would run significant deficits as it borrows money to finance his plans. Under Mr. Biden’s proposal, the federal budget deficit would hit $1.8 trillion in 2022, even as the economy rebounds from the pandemic recession to grow at what the administration predicts would be its fastest annual pace since the early 1980s. The deficit would recede slightly in the following years before growing again to nearly $1.6 trillion by 2031.
Total debt held by the public would more than exceed the annual value of economic output, rising to 117 percent of the size of the economy in 2031. By 2024, debt as a share of the economy would rise to its highest level in American history, eclipsing a World War II-era record.
Republicans warned on Thursday that Mr. Biden’s spending and tax plans would saddle the economy with dangerous levels of debt and accused him of abandoning his pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class.
“President Biden’s budget blunder sets us up for an even worse economic recovery than the Obama-Biden record of the slowest in history,” said Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee. “Lower- and middle-income families are already suffering under the stealth tax of higher prices. Now the president wants their income taxes to go up as well.”
Some fiscal hawks also sounded a cautious note, welcoming Mr. Biden’s commitment to paying for new spending but warning that the nation faces daunting fiscal challenges.
“This proposal includes significant temporary spending within 10 years that’s paid for over 15 years with permanent revenues,” said Michael Peterson, the chief executive of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which supports curbing the national debt over time. “While this certainly projects out more favorably than pure deficit spending, in the end it will only be as fiscally responsible as our future fortitude to actually stop the spending and continue the revenues.”
The budget is simply a request to Congress, which must approve federal spending. But with Democrats in control of the House and Senate, Mr. Biden faces some of the best odds of any president in recent history in getting much of his agenda approved.
Still, he must find a way to appease moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who has said he would not back as high a corporate tax rate as Mr. Biden’s budget proposes, while not alienating House progressives who have pushed Mr. Biden to spend even more. With Republicans and the White House still far apart on the president’s infrastructure proposal, the president will most likely need to secure votes from every Democrat in the Senate to get his spending plans through.
Whether it’s a ‘Marxist’ co-founder of Black Lives Matter investing millions in real estate, or an Atlanta politician calling cops when his Mercedes is taken, all the cute slogans go out the window when reality sets in.
The term, “when the rubber hits the road” is used whenever an idea that seems good in theory meets practical application – basically, whenever you try to apply your own perceived genius to everyday life. Sometimes this works wonderfully, at other times the proverbial rubber explodes and everything you thought that was going to work doesn’t. Such is the way that the woke ideology goes, because it seems more and more that those who follow these ideas end up either abandoning them or seeing the error of their ways.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Patrisse Cullors is a good recent example. Just yesterday, she resigned from her position as the executive director of the BLM foundation. The “trained Marxist” was recently outed as having spent $3.2 million on real estate. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” seems to go out the window pretty quickly once you have a certain number of zeros in your checking account. She blamed those darn right-wingers for making it into news, of course.
Unbeknownst to her, she’s only one “meddling kids” rant from sounding like a Scooby-Doo villain. And, like those villains, you can’t blame the person who does the unmasking of your own deeds, especially if they conflict with the ideology you say you have adopted.
Another interesting story is that of Antonio Brown, a current Atlanta city councilman and mayoral candidate. His recent past seems a bit sketchy, given he’s under investigation for possible fraud, but his vote to try to defund Atlanta’s police department of $73m is the more interesting bit. Especially when you consider that, when he had his car stolen this week, the first people he called were the police. After he got his vehicle back, he penned a tweet that seemed as if it heralded a change of attitude: “Thanks to @Atlanta_Police for taking swift action to address the situation. It’s time we Reimagine Atlanta Together.”
