FILE PHOTO: U.S. Department of Homeland Security emblem is pictured at the National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) located just outside Washington in Arlington, Virginia September 24, 2010. REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang
By Jack Phillips for EPOCH TIMES February 8, 2022
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Feb. 7 declared a heightened terrorism threat due to “false and misleading narratives,” misinformation, and “conspiracy theories.”
“The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors,” the DHS bulletin said.
The agency did not say what foreign or domestic actors are responsible for the alleged proliferation of misinformation or disinformation.
“Mass casualty attacks and other acts of targeted violence conducted by lone offenders and small groups acting in furtherance of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances pose an ongoing threat to the nation,” the DHS continued, adding that some individuals are seeking to “sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.”
Some individuals, the bulletin alleged, are calling for violence against critical infrastructure, faith-based institutions like churches or synagogues, colleges, government personnel or facilities, and other targets.
As an example of key factors that allegedly contribute to the heightened threat environment, the DHS said there are misleading narratives surrounding COVID-19 and claimed that some individuals have used COVID-19 mandates or vaccines to carry out attacks since 2020. The agency did not elaborate or provide additional evidence for its allegations. The DHS also listed online claims of election fraud as a contributor, and it also did not provide additional details or evidence.
The agency said that “foreign terrorist organizations and domestic threat actors continue to amplify pre-existing false or misleading narratives online to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions. It said violent extremists, including the individual who recently launched an attack against the synagogue in Texas, highlight “the continuing threat of violence based upon racial or religious motivations, as well as threats against faith-based organizations.”
The ISIS terrorist group and its affiliates “may issue public calls for retaliation due to the strike that recently killed ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi,” the bulletin said. The Biden administration announced last week that al-Qurayshi was killed during a raid in northern Syria.
The bulletin also made note of alleged recent threats to black colleges and universities across the United States.
“Domestic violent extremists have also viewed attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure as a means to create chaos and advance ideological goals, and have recently aspired to disrupt U.S. electric and communications critical infrastructure, including by spreading false or misleading narratives about 5G cellular technology,” the bulletin continued.
The DHS said the heightened threat alert will expire on June 7, 2022.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is facing a congressional probe after reports emerged alleging the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) spent millions of taxpayer dollars on a cruel experiment, injecting beagle puppies with cocaine.
The non-profit watchdog organization White Coat Waste Project (WCW) reported on another cruel experiment allegedly funded by taxpayers. According to WCW’s findings, via a Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request, “seven 6-month-old beagle puppies were trained to wear a jacket” which “served a cruel purpose: to inject the animal wearing it with drugs.” Puppies were then dosed with cocaine repeatedly “for months” with what WCW described as an “‘experimental compound,’ to see how the two drugs interacted”:
The experiment, which ran from September 2020 to September 2021 (with a report due May 2022), was filmed, so experimenters could see if the puppies had any “adverse reactions” to the drugs. Prior to being drugged, the dogs were also forced to undergo surgery, where they were implanted with a “telemetry unit” to monitor their vital signs throughout the experiment.
That was not the only experiment, either:
A second experiment, which ran from March 2020 until March 2021, also used special jackets to inject beagles with cocaine. Six puppies were used in these experiments.
Why do the same experiment twice? Why even do it once? We don’t know — but what we do know is that you’re footing the bill. These two experiments cost taxpayers over $2.3 million dollars.
According to WCW, researchers either killed the “coke hounds” after the experiment or shipped them away to be used for other experiments:
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is now leading the investigation into these allegations, sending a letter to Nora D. Volkow, director of NIDA, informing her of their concerns.
“The documents state that the supposed purpose of these cocaine experiments on puppies was to generate a report that ‘may be submitted by NIDA to the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration].’ However, the FDA itself has recently indicated that it ‘does not mandate that human drugs be studied in dogs,’” they wrote, citing the reporting from WCW as well as the revelations made by the FOIA requests.
“Nevertheless, despite the FDA’s assertion, these NIDA documents state that, ‘this study is required by a relevant government regulatory agency,’” the lawmakers, led by Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Brendan Boyle (D-PA), continued.
“We are concerned that NIDA is spending tax dollars on dog testing that is cruel, costly, outdated and that the FDA has claimed is unnecessary,” they wrote, requesting her answers to the following questions by February 16, 2022:
How much taxpayer money has been spent on dog testing under contract number HHSN271201800019I to date?
Has all dog testing being conducted under contract HHSN271201800019I been completed? If so, on what date? If not, what dog tests are still ongoing or scheduled?
Since the FDA has stated that it does not require dog testing for new drugs, why did NIDA commission testing on puppies specifically?
What, if anything, did NIDA do to work with the FDA to explore non-animal alternatives to meet data requirements? Please describe in detail.
This is far from the first time the NIH has come under scrutiny for cruel puppy experiments. In October, reports surfaced accusing Dr. Anthony Fauci’s division of the NIH, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), of partially funding an experiment allowing hungry, diseased sandflies to eat beagle puppies alive. However, the Washington Post later stated that researchers “mistakenly listed NIAID as a funder when they published a paper in a scientific journal in late July,” prompting the journal to issue a correction October 26. WCW spokesman Justin Goodman, however, referred to the explanation as all “too convenient.”
WCW also obtained FOIA documents which found the NIAID funding an experiment “which involved injecting puppies with a mutant bacteria and allowing hundreds of ticks to feast upon them,” as Breitbart News detailed.
A man hammers quality Japanese steel as he makes a traditional Japanese sword at his workshop in Himeji, Japan, on Nov. 28, 2017. (Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)
First Biden removed the tariffs from the Europe Union, now he’s removing them from Japan. I normally don’t support tariffs, but our allies were dumping their products like Steel and Aluminum below cost. Who was crying the most? California steel companies wanted to buy that cheap steel Would rather import from Japan and other companies instead of buying from American companies.
The United States reached an agreement with Japan on Monday to lift the 25 percent tariff imposed on Japanese steel products by Trump during his presidency, according to U.S. Trade Representative and Department of Commerce officials.
The agreement will allow up to 1.25 million tons of Japanese steel imports per year into the U.S. market without being subject to Section 232 tariffs, starting April 1. U.S. steel industry executives had voiced concern that the Biden administration would negotiate too much access for foreign steelmakers, which might result in a flood of imports as they invest billions of dollars in new capacity.
And the giant sucking sound of jobs leaving will continue.
California state Democrat senator Dave Cortese. (California State Senate)
By Matthew Vadum for Epoch Times February 6, 2022
A California state lawmaker wants the government to give $500 a month to impoverished college students as a test for a controversial kind of social program known as universal basic income (UBI).
Legislation that would create the program may be introduced later this month by Democrat Dave Cortese, a state senator who represents part of Silicon Valley.
The measure would “establish a UBI pilot program at 3-5 [California State University campuses],” according to a summary Cortese provided to reporters.
The pilot program would cover about “9,500-14,000 eligible student participants,” and “the total cost for the proposal would range between $57 million and $84 million, excluding minimal administrative costs.”
“College students are couch surfing and sleeping in their cars. This could be enough money to rent a room, and if you don’t need a room, by all means, use it for what you do need it for,” Cortese told The Los Angeles Times.
“It’s like a booster shot. It could help get them off of this treadmill and stop them from dropping out, being on the streets, and becoming homeless long term.”
Cortese could not be reached over the weekend to elaborate on his proposal.
George Kamel, of Ramsey Solutions, a financial consultancy, told The College Fix that Cortese’s proposal was “not a solution to the actual problem.”
“Giving up to 14,000 students $500 a month is not going to change what caused the problem. In fact, costing the state $57-84 million over 3-5 years will add to the problem,” he said, adding that UBI “only works when the people receiving the money actually use the income to lift themselves out of poverty.”
“All students, not just low-income students, should avoid the traps of student loans and the outrageous cost of higher education,” he said.
Support for UBI programs, in which a simple cash payment is made to every citizen without other requirements or restrictions, surfaces periodically in the United States, a country that is traditionally more hostile to government-funded welfare programs than European nations.
Liberals have been pushing the idea of giving people money for doing nothing for years and the idea has popped up recently on the campaign trail as Democratic candidates compete for their party’s 2020 presidential nomination. Republican President Richard Nixon flirted with the idea in 1969, supporting legislation that would have paid $1,600 annually to a family of four, but the bill never made it out of Congress. In the 1960s and early 1970s, New Jersey and Pennsylvania experimented with such income maintenance programs.
Last year Oakland, Calif., launched Oakland Resilient Families, which it described as one of the largest guaranteed income pilot programs in the United States. The pilot, a collaborative effort between Oakland-based nonprofit UpTogether and the national organization, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, will provide 600 low-income families with $500 per month for an 18-month period.
“Poverty is not a personal failure, it is a policy failure,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, a Democrat, said at the time. “Guaranteed income presents one of the most promising tools for systems change, racial equity, and economic mobility we’ve seen in decades,” she said, adding evidence is growing to justify a federally guaranteed income program.
According to the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research, various UBI programs have been tested or are currently being tested or planned in: New Orleans; Ulster County and New York City, N.Y.; Stockton and Los Angeles, Calif.; St. Paul, Minn.; Richmond, Va.; Columbia, S.C.; Gary, Ind.; Paterson, N.J.; and Cambridge, Mass. The center is participating in creating some of the programs.
UBI programs don’t work well in the real world, according to a 2019 study by a left-wing global trade union federation that The Epoch Times previously reported on.
The report by the France-based global trade union federation Public Services International and U.K.-based New Economics Foundation think tank, concluded “making cash payments to individuals to increase their purchasing power in a free-market economy is not a viable route to solving problems caused or exacerbated by neoliberal market economics.”
Pressing for UBI, which some claim is a “silver bullet,” wastes political energies that could be better used on “more important causes,” stated the report, which also found there was no evidence that UBI has achieved durable improvements in well-being anywhere it has been tried. There is no evidence that such programs “can be affordable, inclusive, sufficient and sustainable at the same time.”
GoFundMe says it won’t be giving the C$10 million ($8 million USD) raised to support the truckers protesting COVID-19 mandates to the organizers anymore, saying it will instead work with the organizers to send the funds to “established charities verified by GoFundMe.”
“To ensure GoFundMe remains a trusted platform, we work with local authorities to ensure we have a detailed, factual understanding of events taking place on the ground,” the fundraising platform said in a statement on Feb. 4.
“Following a review of relevant facts and multiple discussions with local law enforcement and city officials, this fundraiser is now in violation of our Terms of Service (Term 8, which prohibits the promotion of violence and harassment) and has been removed from the platform.”
GoFundMe added that it has “evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity.”
John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) which is providing legal representation for the organizers, told The Epoch Times that the linking of protesters to violent or unlawful activity is unfounded.
“I would like to see what evidence there is,” Carpay said. “That’s political spin.”
Carpay said the organizers have maintained that the protests are peaceful.
“It’s a constitutional freedom to protest peacefully,” Carpay said.
He also said that it’s his understanding from people on the ground that people can move freely in Ottawa, and for example in a recent case an emergency vehicle was able to “rapidly race through the streets because the trucks were neatly parked off to the side.”
“They’re not obstructing the daily lives of people in Ottawa, and they’re committed to peace and non-violence,” he said.
The Epoch Times reached out to GoFundMe for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
Trucks parked in downtown Ottawa as demonstrators continue to protest COVID-19 mandates and restrictions on Feb. 2, 2022. (Jonathan Ren/The Epoch Times)
GoFundMe had earlier put a freeze in withdrawal of the funds as it undertook a review “to ensure it complies with our terms of service and applicable laws and regulations.”
Keith Wilson, a lawyer from JCCF representing the organizers, had said earlier at a Feb. 3 press conference that GoFundMe has been “bombarded with an orchestrated social media and other campaigns to try and shut [the fundraiser] down.”
Ottawa police have made a few arrests while the protesters remain in Ottawa. On Feb. 1, the Ottawa Police Service announced that it had charged one man with mischief under $5,000 and another man with carrying a weapon to a meeting. Police charged another man from Quebec while in Ottawa on Feb. 2 in relation to “threats and comments made on social media.” Police say there have been no injuries or riots during the protests.
“I have it on very reliable information that people from the movement were not associated, and that offences related to property damage, and just an assault this morning, committed by agitators were witnessed and reported by a trucker and one of our volunteer security personnel, which was reported to the police and handled by the Ottawa Police Service,” said Daniel Bulford, a former RCMP officer who worked as a sniper to protect the prime minister and is now helping the protest organizers, at the Feb. 3 press conference.
Preliminary data shows there has been a decline in police-reported street crime since the protest began in downtown Ottawa, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
In the week prior to the protest, there were 31 police calls for crimes such as robbery, assault, drug trafficking, public drunkenness, and other crimes in the Ottawa district the protest is set up, but there were only three reports of street crime since the protests began, Blacklock’s Reporter said.
In a Feb. 4 post on Twitter, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson thanked GoFundMe for “listening to the plea made by the City and the Ottawa Police to no longer provide funds to the convoy organizers.”
“I’m hopeful that limiting their access to … funding and resources will restrict their ability to remain in Ottawa,” Watson said.
GoFundMe had earlier allowed withdrawal of C$1 million by the organizers to be used for expenses such as fuel and food for the protesters. The fundraising platform said in its Feb. 4 statement that donors may submit a request for a full refund of their donation until Feb. 19.
The trucker convoy demonstration initially started as a protest against the federal government’s requirement for truck drivers crossing the U.S.-Canada border to have COVID-19 vaccination, but became a large movement as many across Canada opposing various COVID-19 mandates and restrictions joined the protest.
The convoy converged in Ottawa on Jan. 29, and many protesters have remained in the city, parking their trucks and vehicles by Parliament Hill. Sounds of horn honking by protesters can be heard throughout the day.
The protesters say they will remain in the nation’s capital until the government removes COVID-19 mandates.
The organizers have now set up an alternate donation site on GiveSendGo, which they say will ensure the money gets to the protesters. The donation site had raised over $175,000 in just a few hours after its creation.
Cancel GoFundMe for illegally stealing money donated for the truckers!
Next, they will be seizing money for people who didn’t get the jab.
Mandatory Face mask law and by-law for wearing masks and facial coverings as a regulation for public safety as a medical or hospital legal issues with 3D illustration elements.
Doctor Eva Raunig vaccinates a person with a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine inside a special container to use for general practitioners, called “vaccination box” in Vienna, Austria, on April 26, 2021. (Lisi Niesner/Reuters)
By Jack Phillips for Epoch TimesFebruary 4, 2022
Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen on Friday signed a controversial law introducing a national COVID-19 vaccine mandate for adults that includes fines.
Those without proof of vaccination or exemption face an initial fine of 600 euros ($680) and additional fines up to 3,600 euros ($4,100). Individuals can be fined up to four times per year, and the law will last until January 2024.
Van der Bellen signed the law after parliament approved it on Thursday, according to his office in a statement to media outlets. The law will come into force on Saturday, his office said.
Pregnant women and those who can’t be inoculated because it could harm their health are exempt from the mandate. People who recently recovered from COVID-19, caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, within 180 days are also exempt, according to details of the law.
According to the law, anyone aged 18 and older has to get the vaccine. They also have to receive boosters when eligible.
“The vaccine mandate won’t immediately help us break the Omicron wave, but that wasn’t the goal of this law,” Austrian Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein said Thursday before Parliament’s upper chamber approved the plan. “The vaccine mandate should help protect us from the next waves, and above all from the next variants.”
Demonstrators hold flags and placards as they march to protest against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions and the mandatory vaccination in Vienna, Austria, on Dec. 4, 2021. (Lisi Niesner/Reuters)
In March, Austrian police will start checking people’s vaccination status during traffic stops and checks on COVID-19 restrictions, according to the law. People who can’t produce proof of vaccination will be asked in writing to do so and will face fines.
Opposition politicians, including Freedom Party of Austria leader Herbert Kickl, said the rule represents “an inglorious era for the rule of law and the fundamental rights and freedoms of Austrians,” according to Die Presse.
“I don’t really see the added value of the vaccine mandate at this point,” said Gerald Gartlehner, an epidemiologist at the Danube University Krems. The Omicron variant’s highly infectious nature and milder symptoms have proven to be a pandemic game-changer, he said, adding that much of the population already has immunity via a previous infection or vaccination.
Meanwhile, in Germany, members of Parliament are debating on whether to also consider a compulsory vaccine for all adults.
But elsewhere in Europe, some countries have started to drop COVID-19 rules, including vaccine mandates. Denmark, for example, lifted all its COVID-19 restrictions on Tuesday and Sweden will follow on Feb. 9.
“At the same time as infections are skyrocketing, [the number of] patients admitted to intensive care [is] actually going down,” Soren Brostrom, director-general of Denmark’s Health Authority, said in a CNN interview. “It’s around 30 people in ICU beds right now with a COVID-19 diagnosis, out of a population of 6 million.”
Months after Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) for information about a secret program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, more of the agency’s controversial spy mechanisms are being exposed. The newly uncovered tools are sophisticated hacking devices that can breach cell phones and the USPS’s law enforcement arm, U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), has utilized them hundreds of times in the last few years, according to a news story that cites USPIS data buried in a lengthy agency report. The questionable surveillance schemes appear to indicate that the government is weaponizing the nation’s postal service to improperly spy on the citizens who fund it.
The social media surveillance program was uncovered early last year by an online news outlet that revealed the USPS has been quietly tracking and collecting the social media posts of Americans, including notes about planned protests. It is known as Internet Covert Operations Program (ICOP). Analysts dig through social media sites searching for “inflammatory” postings, which are shared across government agencies. Civil liberties experts quoted in the story questioned the legal authority of the USPS to monitor social media activity and one asked a logical question: Why would the government depend on the postal service to examine the internet for security reasons? “If the individuals they’re monitoring are carrying out or planning criminal activity that should be the purview of the FBI,” said one civil liberties authority in the piece, adding “if they’re simply engaging in lawfully protected speech, even if it’s odious or objectionable, then monitoring them on that basis raises serious constitutional concerns.”
Judicial Watch quickly launched an investigation, filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the USPS for information relating to ICOP. As the government often does with FOIA requests, it failed to meet the federally mandated deadline for providing the records and Judicial Watch was forced to file a lawsuit in early July. Among the things Judicial Watch asks for in the federal complaint is all records from January 1, 2020 to the present identifying criteria for flagging social media posts as “inflammatory” or otherwise worthy of further scrutiny by other government agencies. It also asks for records relating to ICOP’s database of social media posts, communications between USPIS and FBI or Homeland Security regarding the program and an analysis outlining the authority of the USPIS to monitor, track and collect Americans’ social media posts. Judicial Watch will provide updates as the case evolves.
In the meantime, Judicial Watch is filing a FOIA request with the USPS for information on the devices used by the agency to hack cell phones. The news agency that exposed the alarming operation this week discovered its existence in the USPIS’s 2019 and 2020 annual reports. “Altogether, the records suggest that the USPIS has cracked hundreds of iPhones—generally thought to be one of the most secure commercial phones on the market—as well as other devices,” the article states. The hacking tools are known as Cellebrite and GrayKey and they were used by the agency to extract previously unattainable information from seized mobile devices. In fiscal year 2020, 331 devices were processed and 242 were unlocked and/or extracted, according to information obtained from the USPIS reports. The 2020 document discloses an increase in phone cracking from the previous year.
These clandestine operations within the nation’s postal service should create concern, especially for a troubled agency that has failed miserably to fulfill its mission. The USPS has long been a bastion of mismanagement and frivolous spending that has fleeced American taxpayers out of billions in the last few years alone. In 2021, the USPS reported a net loss of $4.9 billion and in 2020 a net loss of $9.2 billion. One federal audit slammed the USPS for blowing the opportunity to save nearly $22 million had it bothered to maintain its fleet of vehicles more efficiently.
A few years before that the USPS blew hundreds of thousands of dollars on professional sports tickets, booze and fancy meals while it claimed to be crippled by an $8.3 billion deficit. The items were purchased by USPS managers and employees with special charge cards issued to U.S. government agencies. The USPS’s top executives have also been found to receive illegally high salary and compensation packages that should outrage the public. Several years ago, a federal audit found that at least three USPS officers made more than the legal compensation limit for their respective work category while the agency was billions in the red.
Chairman (SEAC) Ramon "CZ" Colon-Lopez speaks with a Capitol Police officer by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is licensed under flickr Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced that it filed an opposition to the U.S. Capitol Police’s (USCP) effort to shut down Judicial Watch’s federal lawsuit for January 6 videos and emails. Through its police department, Congress argues that the videos and emails are not public records, there is no public interest in their release, and that “sovereign immunity” prevents citizens from suing for their release.
Judicial Watch fileda lawsuit under the common law right of access after the Capitol Police refused to provide any records in response to a January 21, 2021, request (Judicial Watch v. United States Capitol Police (No. 1:21-cv-00401)). Judicial Watch asks for:
Email communications between the U.S. Capitol Police Executive Team and the Capitol Police Board concerning the security of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The timeframe of this request is from January 1, 2021 through January 10, 2021.
Email communications of the Capitol Police Board with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security concerning the security of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The timeframe of this request is from January 1, 2021through January 10, 2021.
All video footage from within the Capitol between 12 pm and 9 pm on January 6, 2021
Congress exempts itself from the Freedom of Information Act. Judicial Watch, therefore, brought its lawsuit under the common law right of access to public records. In opposing the broad assertion of secrecy, Judicial Watch details Supreme Court and other precedent that upholds the public’s right to know what “their government is up to:”
“In ‘the courts of this country’— including the federal courts—the common law bestows upon the public a right of access to public records and documents” … “the Supreme Court was unequivocal in stating that there is a federal common law right of access ‘to inspect and copy public records and documents.’” … “[T]he general rule is that all three branches of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, are subject to the common law right.” The right of access is “a precious common law right . . . that predates the Constitution itself.”
The Court of Appeals for this circuit has recognized that “openness in government has always been thought crucial to ensuring that the people remain in control of their government….” “Neither our elected nor our appointed representatives may abridge the free flow of information simply to protect their own activities from public scrutiny. An official policy of secrecy must be supported by some legitimate justification that serves the interest of the public office.”
“The Pelosi Congress (and its police department) is telling a federal court it is immune from all transparency under law and is trying to hide every second of its January 6 videos and countless emails,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The hypocrisy is rich, as this is the same Congress that is trying to jail witnesses who, citing privileges, object to providing documents to the Pelosi rump January 6 committee.”
In November 2021, Judicial Watch revealed multiple audio, visual and photo records from the DC Metropolitan Police Department about the shooting death of Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021, in the U.S. Capitol Building. The records include a cell phone video of the shooting and an audio of a brief police interview of the shooter, Lt. Michael Byrd.
In October, Judicial Watch released records, showing that multiple officers claimed they didn’t see a weapon in Babbitt’s hand before Byrd shot her, and that Byrd was visibly distraught afterward. One officer attested that he didn’t hear any verbal commands before Byrd shot Babbitt.
Also in November, Judicial Watch filed a response in opposition to the Department of Justice’s effort to block Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit asking for records of communication between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several financial institutions about the reported transfer of financial transaction records of people in DC, Maryland, and Virginia on January 5 and January 6, 2021. Judicial Watch argues that Justice Department should not be allowed to shield “improper activity.”
Afghanistan’s opium production skyrocketed in 2021, potentially providing the Taliban government a source of revenue between $1.8 billion and $2.7 billion. This according to a new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The war-torn nation’s illegal production ranked as the third-highest recorded since the United Nations began reporting it in 1994. It comprised between 9 and 14 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP and exceeded the value of all of the country’s officially recorded legal exports in 2020.
The surge in opium production comes as the U.S. government allocates millions to combat the spread of illicit drugs in the country, according to SIGAR’s latest report, released on Wednesday.
While the Taliban has vowed to combat opium production—even though it could serve as a lucrative source of revenue for them —SIGAR says it “has seen no evidence that the Taliban are enforcing or can enforce such a ban. On the contrary, the opium trade in Afghanistan appears to be flourishing.”
In fact, opium dealers, who once operated in the shadows while the U.S.-backed government was in power, are now selling their drugs from “stalls in village markets,” according to SIGAR’s report. “Opium poppy farmers, a key constituency for the Taliban, are likely to resist a ban,” the watchdog said.
The report quoted one opium seller as saying that the Taliban have “achieved what they have thanks to opium. None of us will let them ban opium unless the international community helps the Afghan people.”
The Biden administration, meanwhile, has renewed its efforts to inject millions of dollars in U.S. aid into the country without formal ties with the Taliban or officially recognizing its rule.
The State Department reported last year that the U.S. Agency for International Development had “suspended all contact with the Afghan government, and terminated, suspended, or paused all on-budget assistance.” The latest report, however, discloses that USAID has “resumed some off-budget,” U.S.-managed activities in Afghanistan.
The White House announced last month it sent an additional $308 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, where poverty and hunger has run rampant since the Taliban in August 2021 retook control of the country amid a bungled evacuation of U.S. forces.
Afghanistan’s citizens are starving. More than half face a “tsunami of hunger,” according to the United Nations. This is the result of “record drought, rising food prices, internal displacement, and the severe economic downturn and collapse of public services following the Taliban’s return to power in August.”
Around 22.8 million Afghans will be at “potentially life-threatening levels of hunger this winter,” with around 8.7 million facing “near-famine conditions.” Another one million are at risk of dying, according to SIGAR, which cites statistics from a recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification study.
Up to 97 percent of Afghanistan’s population is now at risk of slipping below the poverty line by mid-2022 “as a result of the worsening political and economic crises,” according to the report.
Additionally, the Biden administration’s failure to evacuate skilled Afghan soldiers who worked for the country’s former fighting force has likely led to them joining the ISIS terrorist group, according to the SIGAR report.
In an interview with former Afghan general Sami Sadat, SIGAR learned that “Afghan fighters, especially commandos and intelligence officers, could lead to IS-K’s resurgence. Sadat said these people would be especially vulnerable to IS-K recruitment. Sadat added that this issue needs to be addressed more systematically, noting that IS-K may have the capability to take eastern Afghanistan quickly and establish itself in Kabul within a year.”
By Bethany Mandel For Dailymail.ComPublished:Updated:
Tracy Compton, a mother of two in Fairfax, Virginia, had voted for Democrats for as long as she can remember, until the COVID-related school closures. “I tried and went to apply to work with the Democratic Party. I was told I was not allowed to become a member of the Democratic Party [in Fairfax].”
A recording of a reorganization meeting showed fellow Democrats deeming Compton too ‘anti-school’ to be part of their political efforts.
What made Compton anti-school? She wanted the public schools to fully reopen.
When Compton worked to collect signatures for a recall petition for the local school board, she was welcomed out of the rain by a Republican party tent, even after telling them she was a Biden voter.
In contrast, when Compton offered the petition to those inside the Democrat party tent, she was yelled at.
Now? Given a hypothetical matchup between Kamala Harris or President Joe Biden vs. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, she said she’d vote for the Republican in a heartbeat.
Compton lamented how she got here, now supporting a political party with whom she felt very little in common with until COVID hit.
She told me, “All the things that Biden and Kamala believe in; and what the Democratic Party believe in… I still believe in it. But I have to look at what’s happening in my family and with my children right now.”
Bethany Wagner (above with family) said the ‘schools issue’ proved to be a gateway into seeing the world through another set of eyes.
Wagner (above with children) went from a casual viewer of CNN and MSNBC to seeking out Fox News clips about the ‘schools issue’ on YouTube because they were the only ones covering it.
“They’re being hurt by not being able to be in school, and not in school normally. My focus has to be on making sure that they’re going to grow up and prosper and be the good citizens that they need to be.
“So that they can protect the environment. And they can go on to do all the things that are important to me… I’ve got to put my attention on the thing that’s yelling at me the most.”
She went on, describing how she’ll vote in the future, “Until [Democrats] can present someone that’s logical, I’m going to have to make choices. Right now, my choices are very much based on my children and my children getting an education.”
“If that can be solved, then I can worry about other things that are important to me, like gun control, the environment, and universal healthcare. I can’t do that until I know my kids are good.’
Compton isn’t alone, she’s part of an army of Virginia parents who swung the gubernatorial election towards the Republican Glenn Youngkin, who just took office this week.
Compton was active in her community’s efforts to open schools, as was her friend Bethany Wagner, a mother of two, also living in Fairfax.
For Wagner, the ‘schools issue’ proved to be a gateway into seeing the world through another set of eyes.
She realized early in the pandemic that it was conservative sites that were reporting on the impact of school closures and concerns she had over curriculum.
She went from a casual viewer of CNN and MSNBC to seeking out Fox News clips about the ‘schools issue’ on YouTube because they were the only ones covering it. Soon, she did the unthinkable: She just turned on Fox News itself. And she realized, “It’s not what CNN claims it to be.”
Neither women see themselves as Republicans, but for the time being, they will be voting for them. Compton and Wagner are just two names behind a widespread shift towards Republicans over the course of the last year.
Ashley (a pseudonym), a mother of three from Central New Jersey, fumed, “I hate when Democrats like Biden get all defensive and say that 95% of schools are open right now. They are being willfully ignorant and not paying attention that even though schools are ‘open’ they are NOT NORMAL.”
Gallup reported a remarkable shift in the way Americans identify themselves politically. Strikingly, the most pronounced shift away from Democratic party identification came in the third and fourth quarter of the year, coinciding with the fall as children returned to school.
In the first quarter of 2021, 49% of U.S. considered themselves to be Democrats. By the third quarter of 2021, self-identified Democrat (and Democrat-leaning individuals) dropped to 42%.
For Republicans it went in the opposite direction. 40% self-identified with the GOP at the start of 2021, and 47% put themselves in the Republican-camp at the end of the year.
That’s a 14-percentage point swing from a nine-point Democratic advantage to a five-point GOP edge, and among the largest advantages the GOP has ever held in Gallup polling.
Strikingly, the most pronounced shift away from Democratic party identification came in the third and fourth quarter of the year, coinciding with the fall as children returned to school.
Why might parents have snapped in the fall when their kids finally went back to school? Ashley (a pseudonym), a mother of three from Central New Jersey, fumed, “I hate when Democrats like Biden get all defensive and say that 95% of schools are open right now. They are being willfully ignorant and not paying attention that even though schools are ‘open’ they are NOT NORMAL.”
It’s a line that President Biden repeated at his two-hour White House press conference on January 19.
“It’s always going to be the top of the news,” Biden said of the ‘schools issue.’
“But let’s put it in perspective: 95 — as high as 98 percent of the schools in America are open, functioning, and capable doing the job.”
He’s not fooling parents like Ashley.
Kids are masked, have no field trips, no extracurriculars, no sports (our town canceled winter recreation sports just for kids but kept adult recreation programming). Not to mention the constant threat of closures when cases rise. School might be mostly ‘open’ but it is not normal. Democrats should be paying attention instead of gaslighting me and telling me everything is fine.’
Now we’re learning that Biden wants to increase masking for children – not reduce it.
President of the American Mask Manufacturer’s Association (AMMA) told Reuters that the White House is interested in creating a U.S. manufacturing base for protective masks for kids.
“We are ready to provide protective children’s masks for American families,'”said President Lloyd Armbrus. I’m sure they are. But do parents want them, and do kids really need them anymore?
It’s not only in K-12 schools where the situation is critical.
On parenting boards across the country parents of young children in daycares and preschools are at a breaking point.
After a huge spike in cases around the holidays, and with holidays and then weather-related closures, many of these centers have been closed more than they’ve been open so far in 2022.
A single case can lead to a closure of 10-14 days, and several of those means no routine or steady childcare for parents of small children.
On supply chain issues, Biden asserted much of the same. Everything is fine, don’t believe your lying eyes.
Biden claimed, “The share of goods in stock in stores is 89% now, which is barely below the 91% that prevailed pre-pandemic.”
It’s a fascinating strategy, telling Americans that everything is fine when they are keenly aware of the reality.
It’s a strategy that isn’t exactly paying off for the President, with his approval numbers sinking faster than the Titanic.
According to new poll numbers from Gallup, Biden’s approval rating is at just 40%, with 56% of respondents disapproving.
Alongside a shift away from the Democratic Party, there was a similar shift away from the President, with his support dipping in the fall of 2021.
Gallup explains, “In the latest survey, 40% of Americans approve and 56% disapprove of the job he is doing, as the U.S. is plagued by the highest inflation in four decades and another surge of COVID-19 cases, this time fueled by the omicron variant of the coronavirus.”
But it’s not just that.
Read the President’s meandering answer when he was asked if school closures would become a potent midterm issue for Republicans.
To get the full-flavor of this alternatively dismissive, halting, and incoherent answer – you really have to watch.
(Problems with sound)
Here’s some of it from the official White House transcript:
Reporter question: Could school reopenings or closures become a potent midterm issue for Republicans to win back the suburbs?
Biden: Oh, I think it could be, but I hope to God that they’re — that — look, maybe I’m kidding myself, but as time goes on, the voter who is just trying to figure out, as I said, how to take care of their family, put three squares on the table, stay safe, able to pay their mortgage or their rent… You know, every — every president, not necessarily in the first 12 months, but every president in the first couple of years — almost every president, excuse me, of the last presidents — at least four of them — have had polling numbers that are 44 percent favorable… I mean, the idea that — the American public are trying to sift their way through what’s real and what’s fake.’
You can see why struggling Democratic parents have snapped.
In contrast, Republicans in Congress are vocally advocating for children. “Children are paying one of the greatest costs of this pandemic, despite being the least at risk to COVID-19. It’s time for the Biden administration to prioritize children’s well-being above junk CDC science, political donors and teachers unions,” tweeted Washington Congressman Cathy McMorris Rodgers on January 20.
Ashley warned, ‘I’m about as lefty as they come. I campaigned for Elizabeth Warren in 2020, Bernie Sanders in 2016, and Ralph Nader in 2000. Most of my views on specific issues haven’t changed… Now I don’t know if I can vote for any of them unless they reckon with what they did, and continue to do, to kids during this pandemic.’
‘I would even accept an apology, a mea culpa, a reflection on what they failed to do, and an effort to make it right. But I’m not holding my breath.’
Judging from Biden’s performance at the White House an apology or more importantly a change of course – is not coming.
