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Quick hide your children Progressives claim Trumps out to kill all who get in his way.

Quick hide your children Progressives claim Trumps out to kill all who get in his way. Former President Trump made a statement that.

“IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”  Well, the fanatics on the left are in fear. Some maybe even went into hiding. According to Jackie Boy the statement was a threat of violence against the witnesses and Smith and his crackerjack team.

The judge bought the lie and now wants a response from Trump as to what he meant. My first thought was to tell the judge to rotate on it. But seriously this will be a long string of complaints that will be filed.

Under the process known as discovery, prosecutors are required to provide defendants with the evidence against them so they can prepare their defense.

“It could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case,” prosecutors wrote in their filing, adding Trump has a history of attacking judges, attorneys and witnesses in other cases against him.

At his arraignment on Thursday, Trump swore not to intimidate witnesses or communicate with them without legal counsel present.

Protective orders are routine in cases involving confidential documents, but prosecutors said it was particularly important to restrict public dissemination given Trump’s social media statements.

A Trump spokesperson issued a statement defending the former president’s social media post.

“The Truth post cited is the definition of political speech, and was in response to the Rino, China-loving, dishonest special interest groups and super PAC’s,” the statement said.

 

 

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FDA Head Robert Califf Battles Misinformation — Sometimes.

 

This is a clown who served during the Obama administration. Thought the job was all fun and games. Much of this article is Government misinformation. But there are parts that they get right. Come 2024 all these clowns that took part in the attacks on our young and elderly will be gone or in jail.

FDA Head Robert Califf Battles Misinformation — Sometimes.

Robert Califf, MD, the head of the FDA, doesn’t seem to be having fun on the job.

“I would describe this year as hand-to-hand combat. Really, every day,” he said at an academic conference at Stanford in April. It’s a sentiment the FDA commissioner has expressed often.

What’s been getting Califf’s goat? Misinformation, which gets part of the blame for Americans’ stagnating life expectancy. To Califf, the country that invents many of the most advanced drugs and devices is terrible at using those technologies well. And one reason for that is Americans’ misinformed choices, he has suggested. Many don’t use statins, vaccines, or COVID-19 therapies. Many choose to smoke cigarettes and eat the wrong food.

Califf and the FDA are fighting misinformation head-on. “The misinformation machine is really causing a lot of death,” he said, in an apparent ad-lib, this spring in a speech at Tufts University. The pandemic, he told KFF Health News, helped “crystallize” his need to tackle misinformation. It was a “blatant case,” in which multiple studies gave evidence about very effective therapeutics against COVID. “And a lot of people chose not to do it.” There were “large-scale purveyors of misinformation,” he said, poisoning the well.

Occasionally, though, Califf and the FDA have added to the cacophony of misinformation. And sometimes their misinformation is about misinformation.

Califf hasn’t been able to consistently estimate misinformation’s public health toll. Last June, he said it was the “leading cause of meaningful life-years lost.” In the fall, he told a conferenceopens in a new tab or window: “I’ve been going around saying that misinformation is the most common cause of death in the United States.” He continued, “There is no way to prove that, but I do believe that it is.”

 

At other times, as in April, he has called the problem the nation’s “leading cause” of premature death. “I’ll keep working on this to try and get it right,” he said. Later, in May, he said, “Many Americans die or experience serious illness every year due to bad choices driven by false or misleading information.”

Americans’ health is indeed in dire straits. The CDC noted the country’s life expectancy has dropped 2 years in a rowopens in a new tab or window — it’s at 76.1 years as of 2021 — a dismal capper to 4 decadesopens in a new tab or window of lagging gains. Countries such as Slovenia, Greece, and Costa Rica outrank the U.S. Their newborn citizens are expected to live more than 80 yearsopens in a new tab or window, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Several factors are at the root of those differences. But Americans’ choices, often informed by bad or misleading data, political jeremiads, or profit-seeking advertising, are among the causes. For instance, one 2023 paper estimated that undervaccination against COVID — caused in part by misinformation — costs as much as $300 million per dayopens in a new tab or window, accounting for both the costs of healthcare and economic costs, like missed work.

Outside experts are sympathetic. Misinformation is a “huge problem for public health,” said Joshua Sharfstein, MD, a Johns Hopkins University public health professor and former FDA principal deputy commissioner. Having a strategy to combat it is crucial. But, he cautioned, “that’s the easiest part of this.”

The agency, which regulates products that consumers spend 20 cents of each dollar on per year, is putting more muscle behind the effort. It’s begun mentioning the subject of misinformation in its procurement requests, like one discussing the needopens in a new tab or window to monitor social media for misinformation related to cannabis.

The agency launched a “Rumor Control” pageopens in a new tab or window seeking to debunk persistent confusion. It also expects to get a report from the Reagan-Udall Foundationopens in a new tab or window, a not-for-profit organization created by Congress to advise the FDA. Califf has said he thinks better regulation — and more authorityopens in a new tab or window for the agency — would help.

Califf has noted small victories. Ivermectin, once touted as a COVID wonder drug, “eventually” became one such win. But, then again, its use is “not completely gone,” he said. And, despite winning individual battles, his optimism is muted: “I’d say right now the trend in the war is in a negative direction.”

Some of those battles have been quite small, even marginal.

And it’s difficult to know what to take on or respond to, Califf said. “I think we’re just in the early days of being able to do that,” he told KFF Health News. “It’s very hard to be scientific,” he said.

Take the agency’s experience last fall with “NyQuil chicken” — a purportedly viral cooking trend in which users roasted their birds in the over-the-counter cold medicine on social media platforms like TikTok.

Califf said his agency’s “skeleton crew” — at least relative to Big Tech giants — had picked up on increasing chatter about the meme.

But independent analyses don’t corroborate the claim. It seems much of the interest in it came only after the FDA called attention to it. The day before the agency’s pronouncement, the TikTok app recorded only five searches on the topic, BuzzFeed News found in an analysis of TikTok dataopens in a new tab or window. That tally surged to 7,000 the week after the agency’s declaration. Google Trends, which measures changes in the number of searches, shows a similar pattern: Interest peaked on the search engine in the week after the agency announcement.

Califf also claimed “injuries” occurred to participants “directly” due to the social media trend. Now, he said, “the number of injuries is down,” though he couldn’t say whether the agency’s intervention was the cause.

Again, his assertions have fuzzy underpinnings. It’s not clear what, if any, actual damage the NyQuil chicken fad caused. Poison control centers don’t keep that data, said Maggie Maloney, a spokesperson for America’s Poison Centers. And, after multiple requests, agency spokespeople declined to provide the FDA’s data reflecting increased social media traffic or injuries stemming from the meme.

In countering misinformation, FDA also risks coming off as high-handed. In September 2021, the agency tweeted about purported mythsopens in a new tab or window and misinformation on mammograms. Among the myths? That they’re painfulopens in a new tab or window. Instead, the agency explained that “everyone’s pain threshold is different” and the breast cancer-screening procedure is more often described as “temporary discomfort.”

Statements like these “erode trust,” said Lisa Fitzpatrick, MD, MPH, MPA, an infectious diseases physician and currently the CEO of Grapevine Health, a startup trying to improve health literacy in underserved communities. Fitzpatrick has previously served as an official with the District of Columbia’s Medicaid program and with the CDC.

“Who are you to judge what’s painful?” she asked, rhetorically. It’s hard to brand subjective impressions as misinformation.

Califf acknowledged the point. Speaking to 340 million Americans is difficult. With mammograms, the average patient might not have a painful experience — but many might. “Getting across that kind of nuance and public communication, I think, is in its early phases.”

Scrutiny over the agency’s role regarding food and nutrition is also mounting. After independent journalist Helena Bottemiller Evich wrote an article criticizing the agency for relying on voluntary reporting standards for baby formula, Califf tweeted to correctopens in a new tab or window a “bit of misinformation,” saying the agency did not have such authority.

An agency communications specialist made a similar intervention with New York University professor Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH, referring to a “troubling pattern of articles with erroneous information that then get amplified.” The agency was again seeking to rebut arguments that the agency had erred in not seeking mandatory reporting.

“As I see it, the ‘troubling pattern’ here is FDA’s responses to advocates like me who want to support this agency’s role in making sure food companies in general — and infant formula companies in particular — do not produce unsafe food,” Nestle retortedopens in a new tab or window. Notwithstanding the agency’s protests to Evich and Nestle, the agency had only recently asked for such authority.

Efforts to respond to or regulate misinformation are becoming a political problem.

In July, a federal judge issued a sweeping, yet temporary, injunctionopens in a new tab or window — at the instigation of Republican attorneys general, multiple right-wing political groups, and prominent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense — barring federal health officials from contacting social media groups to correct information. A large section of the ruling detailed efforts by a CDC official to push back on suspected misinformation on social media networks.

An appeals court later issuedopens in a new tab or window its own temporary ruling — this time countering the original, sweeping order — nevertheless underscoring the extent of pushback on government pushback against misinformation. Califf has consistently played down the government’s ability to solve the problem. “One hundred percent of experts agree, government cannot solve this. We have too much distrust in fundamental institutions,” he said last June.

 A photo of Robert Califf, MD

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Biden Cartel Commentary Government Overreach Opinion Politics Reprints from others.

Tucker Carlson. Part 1. Devon Archer and Part 2. Devon Archer Interviews.

Tucker Carlson. Part 1. Devon Archer and Part 2. Devon Archer Interviews. Here’s part 1 and 2 of the Devon Archer interviews.

Around 10 minutes into the more than hour-long interview, Archer starts to discuss how he got involved with the Bidens and the origins of their overseas business dealings, including how Burisma got the president of Poland to invite him and Hunter to work on the board of the Ukrainian gas company.

“It sounds like you had a successful business. So how does Hunter Biden get involved and why?” Tucker asks around minute 12:30.

“We had this lunch with a mutual friend… an attorney of Hunter’s had introduced us,” Archer said. “You’re always looking for kind of an edge or advantage, being a boutique. Certainly [managing] $3 Billion was good… but in real estate, it’s kind of a levered number… We were demystified to Washington, and Hunter was in a stage where he was transitioning from lobbying to strategic advising… There are some legal limits to registering when your father is the vice president, so I think that’s what they ran into.”

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Daily Hits. How funny is this? Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. WOKE

Weekend Funnies: Toast The last man left standing

Weekend Funnies: Toast The last man left standing

 

 

The things one finds on facebook…







.













I love Branco – but this time he didn’t see the elephant in the room…


How Things Are Going At Meta’s Threads (on Rumble)

(JP hit it out of the park with this one.)




 

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Corruption January 6 Links from other news sources. Politics Reprints from others.

Ex-Capitol Police Chief Called Jan. 6 Events a Cover-Up.

Ex-Capitol Police Chief Called Jan. 6 Events a Cover-Up.

Former Capitol Hill Police Chief Steven Sund called the events of Jan. 6 a cover-up in an interview with then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, an interview that never aired but resurrected by The National Pulse.

Sund made the comments on Carlson’s show, “Tucker Carlson Today.” But according to the Pulse, the interview was buried by Fox.

In the interview leaked by the Pulse, Sund tells Carlson he believes that Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had intelligence of what was coming on Jan. 6 but failed to communicate it and subsequently covered it up in the aftermath.

“Everything appears to be a cover-up,” Sund told Carlson. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist … but when you look at the information and intelligence they had, the military had, it’s all watered down. I’m not getting intelligence, I’m denied any support from National Guard in advance. I’m denied National Guard while we’re under attack, for 71 minutes …”

Sund resigned his post shortly after the riots. He was chief of the Capitol Police beginning in 2019 and served as a police officer for more than 30 years.

At one point, Carlson begins to posit a question to Sund, saying, “It sounds like they were hiding the intelligence.”

Sund responded: “Could there possibly be actually … they kind of wanted something to happen? It’s not a far stretch to begin to think that. It’s sad when you start putting everything together and thinking about the way this played out … what was their end goal?”

In a bipartisan Senate report released in June 2021, the panel concluded that federal agencies did not raise a sufficient alarm concerning the threat of violence and that the Capitol Police’s intelligence division did not adequately communicate what it knew with the department’s leaders and rank-and-file officers.

Sund told Carlson that should have started at the top.

“If I was allowed to do my job as the chief we wouldn’t be here; this didn’t have to happen,” he said.

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Florida versus California is the election we should be having DeSantis and Newsom are willing to debate major policy issues in front of the country.

 

Florida versus California is the election we should be having DeSantis and Newsom are willing to debate major policy issues in front of the country.

DeSantis and Newsom are willing to debate major policy issues in front of the country

National elections should be about contrast and choice — and those choices should offer the clearest opportunity for parity in the candidates and the parties. If the polls are to be believed, the 2024 election as it stands now, before any debates or primaries, does not offer that. Instead the country currently faces the prospect of two senior citizens clashing, both with low approval ratings, personal and legal baggage and questions of mental acuity.

There is a side debate forming, however, between Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a declared candidate for president in 2024 and the only polling alternative to Donald Trump at the moment, and California governor Gavin Newsom, an all-but-declared candidate running a standby campaign, should Joe Biden decide to step aside and Kamala Harris be found unviable (as her own polls would suggest).

This week, while appearing on Hannity, DeSantis accepted a debate offer from Newsom, with Hannity moderating, possibly to happen in the fall. It’s an unorthodox move by a presidential candidate to appear in a debate with a non-candidate, and it carries risk for DeSantis. It also carries a huge reward as he continues to poke Newsom into declaring against Biden, where he would certainly be viewed as a serious alternative to a president whose own party is concerned about both his age and stamina for another five years in office.

All the grandstanding and politicking by governors and candidates aside, there could not be a better debate for this country coming out of the pandemic. As we are still attempting to navigate a post-pandemic world, there’s an profound contrast between the current extreme progressive model of California Democratic policy versus the hyper-wartime conservatism on offense of DeSantis and Florida. The country has yet to have an open policy debate about the fallout of Covid policies that saw record numbers of Californians pack up their homes and move out of state, with approximately 500,000 of them landing in Florida in 2020.

 

Governor Newsom has never really had to account for his own masking and lockdown policy of schoolchildren, as he dined at exclusive restaurants and went on state-funded excursions. On the other hand, DeSantis has made a national name for himself on keeping schools mask-free and open, disagreeing with the national media, local Democrats, teachers’ unions and both Trump and Biden White Houses.

Newsom has been one of the most outspoken critics of Florida’s new education policies, which has removed pornographic books from K-3 libraries and made the Parental Rights in Education act law. Newsom and his media allies have stood by enacting a school curriculum that celebrates LGBTQ culture, while leaning into the progressive framing of Florida’s law as “Don’t Say Gay.”

California’s large city municipalities are being swallowed up by rising energy costs due to a “green” agenda, as well as record crime, open-air drug use and immigrant populations descending due to the Biden administration’s relaxed border polices. DeSantis has made a name flying migrants to progressive enclaves, sending assistance to Texas and signing a law protecting fossil-fueled gas appliances, such as stoves.

Whether it’s post-Covid policy with vaccine and mask mandates, Critical Race Theory and gender debate in schools, energy independence, AI development and regulation, border policy or crime and prosecutorial enforcement… every major policy and culture fight happening in this country is taking place at the intersection of California and Florida.

It’s good that DeSantis and Newsom are willing to debate these issues in front of the country. It’s the debate and the election we should be having. It’s the one we could still have, if we wanted it.

 

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Why we don’t need Wind and Solar as a major supplier of energy. Power plant at landfill updated.

Why we don’t need Wind and Solar as a major supplier of energy. Power plant at landfill updated.

EDL, a global energy producer, and project stakeholders including Republic Services have started operations at the Carbon Limestone Renewable Natural Gas Facility near Youngstown.

EDL owns and operates a portfolio of 97 power stations in North America, Australia and Europe. It has upgraded an existing landfill gas-to-energy power plant to a renewable natural gas facility near Republic Services’ Carbon Limestone Landfill. It is said to be one of the largest plants of its kind in North America.

Renewable natural gas is biogas that has been upgraded and placed in the conventional natural gas system.

Partners in the venture are NW Natural Renewables and Pennant Midwest. A goal of the project, those involved said, is decarbonizing their energy system across North America and reaching climate goals.

The new facility is designed to process and condition landfill gas — a by-product of naturally decomposing materials in the Carbon Limestone Landfill — and is expected to ramp up to 1.7 million British thermal units of pipeline-quality renewable natural gas in 2024.

Richard M. DiGia, EDL chief executive officer-North America, said EDL is proud to leverage its waste-to-clean energy expertise to drive development and construction of the Carbon Limestone project.

“The limestone facility is one of the largest plants of its kind in North America. It captures landfill gas that would otherwise be wasted and converts it into renewable natural gas that is a clean fuel source for powering vehicles, heating homes through the natural gas system, or electricity generation,” DiGia said.

“This facility is designed to produce volumes of RNG comparable to removing the emissions from 13,170 passenger vehicles from our roads each year. … We’re pleased to be assisting a key customer to progress toward their goal of decarbonizing through renewable natural gas supply.”

Republic Services Inc. provides customers with services such as recycling, solid waste, special waste, hazardous waste, container rental and field services. Republic Services said it has set ambitious sustainability goals to reduce emissions and increase the beneficial reuse of biogas by 2030.

“At Republic Services, our vision is to partner with customers to create a more sustainable world now and for future generations,” Republic Services Area President Chris Nie said.

“Through our partnership with EDL, we are capturing gas that is created by decomposing waste in our landfill. This project allows us to convert that gas into a lower-carbon fuel source that reduces greenhouse gas emissions.”

NW Natural Renewables, a competitive RNG business, has agreements in place for a 20-year supply of RNG produced by the facility. NW Natural Renewables Holdings said it is committed to leading in the energy transition and providing renewable fuels to support decarbonization in the utility, commercial, industrial and transportation sectors.

“We’re excited for this project to begin operations and start providing renewable natural gas to NW Natural Renewables and its customers,” said Mike Kotyk, president of NW Natural Renewables. “We believe renewable natural gas will play a critical role in decarbonizing our energy system across North America and helping us reach our collective climate goals.”

Pennant will transport up to 6,000 cubic feet of RNG per day through its existing system from the landfill, redelivering the gas to EDL’s downstream markets. Pennant is a wholly owned subsidiary of UGI Energy Services

Pennant Midstream operates both wet and dry gas and natural gas liquid gathering pipelines in Mercer and Lawrence counties, Pa.; and Mahoning and Columbiana counties in Ohio. Pennant operates a giant natural gas processing plant located near New Middletown.

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Trump Endorsements in Ohio Reflect Sea Change.

Trump Endorsements in Ohio Reflect Sea Change.

As former President Donald Trump was under legal fire and rumors swelled of another indictment, Sen. J.D. Vance and a virtual who’s who of Ohio Republicans endorsed him for the presidential nomination in 2024.

The list of endorsements, released by the Trump campaign Tuesday morning, includes two of the three Republicans vying for the U.S. Senate nomination next year, five of Ohio’s 10 GOP U.S. Representatives, and State Treasurer Robert Sprague.

While two of the Senate hopefuls — Secretary of State Frank LaRose and businessman Bernie Moreno — weighed in with strong endorsements of Trump, the third major GOP contender was not on the list and is unlikely to be on any future list of Trump supporters.

State Sen. Matt Dolan, who disparaged Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, ran for the Senate nod in 2022 with the backing of much of the more moderate GOP “establishment.” He ended up third behind Vance and former State Treasurer Josh Mandel, both of whom ran as Trump Republicans. (First-time candidate Vance actually got Trump’s endorsement in the primary).

Along with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, the Trump supporters in Ohio’s GOP U.S. House delegation are Reps. Mike Carey, Max Miller (a former Trump White House staffer), Bill Johnson, and Troy Balderson.

“No elected officials — not even in the state House or Senate — are backing [Ron] DeSantis or anyone else,” said a Columbus-area GOP activist who requested anonymity. “There is a fear of getting a Trump-backed primary challenge.”

A poll from Ohio Northern University shows that among likely GOP primary voters, Trump holds a hefty lead with 64% of the vote, followed by entrepreneur and Ohio native Vivek Ramaswamy with 12%, and Florida Gov. DeSantis 9%.

Trump’s strength among Ohio Republicans reflects a sea change in the party. In 2016, then-Gov. John Kasich defeated Trump in the primary by 46% to 35%, with the rest going to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Kasich subsequently refused to endorse Trump and, in 2020, was a high-profile Republican for Biden.

The Ohio presidential primary will be held March 19.

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax.

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Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. The Courts

Sweet. Fifth Circuit Reverses Lower Court ATF Pistol Brace Ruling.

Sweet. Fifth Circuit Reverses Lower Court ATF Pistol Brace Ruling. We have this from the Fifth Circuit.

“We move on to plaintiffs’ claim that the Final Rule violates the APA’s procedural and substantive requirements. On that front, plaintiffs establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. The ATF incorrectly maintains that the Final Rule is merely interpretive, not legislative, and thus not subject to the logical-outgrowth test. The Final Rule affects individual rights, speaks with the force of law, and significantly implicates private interests. Thus, it is legislative in character,” the panel stated.

The circuit court also homed in on the differences between the ATF’s Proposed Rule and its Final Rule. It said that the difference between the two “violates the APA” and pointed out that “the Proposed and Final Rule must be alike in kind so that commentators could have reasonably anticipated the Final Rule.”

 

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Back Door Power Grab Biden Cartel Corruption Crime Links from other news sources.

Judge Releases Hunter Biden Plea Deal. Now that’s news.

Judge Releases Hunter Biden Plea Deal. The judge who bitch slapped Hunter has released the full transcript of the under the table deal the government did with Hunter. We have this from Newsmax.

Noreika also released the diversion agreement, which included that the U.S. agreed to “not criminally prosecute Biden, outside of the terms of this Agreement, or any federal crimes encompassed by the attached Statement of Facts (Attachment A) and the Statement of Facts attached as Exhibit 1 to the Memorandum of Plea Agreement filed this same day.”

The Republican heads of three House committees on Monday announced in a letter they will investigate the circumstances surrounding Biden’s failed plea deal, the New York Post reported.