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Winning. Judge Presiding Over Trump’s Arraignment Bars Video Cameras From Courtroom

Judge Presiding Over Trump’s Arraignment Bars Video Cameras From Courtroom.

Former President Donald Trump’s arraignment won’t be televised after a judge presiding over the case declined a request from media outlets to have video cameras in the courtroom.

Five pool photographers will be allowed inside the courtroom before the arraignment begins, but they will only be allowed to take still photographs for several minutes, Acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan decided in a ruling (pdf) late Monday.

Any electronic devices, including cell phones and laptops, will not be allowed in the main or overflow courtrooms, Merchan wrote in the decision. But cameras will be allowed in the hallways of the courtroom building, located in lower Manhattan at 100 Centre St.

Trump, who was recently indicted by a grand jury in New York City, is set to appear in his first hearing in the case on April 4 at 2:15 p.m.

Media outlets, including CNN, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, previously asked Merchan to allow them to broadcast the hearing.

“The gravity of this proceeding—the unprecedented and historic arraignment of a former U.S. President—and, consequently, the need for the broadest possible public access, cannot be overstated,” attorneys representing the outlets wrote in a letter to Merchan.

But Trump’s lawyers sought to keep cameras out of the courtroom and asked for the media outlets’ request to be denied. They told Merchan, per CNBC, that broadcasting the proceeding “will create a circus-like atmosphere at the arraignment, raise unique security concerns, and is inconsistent with President Trump’s presumption of innocence.”

Charges Under Seal

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had convened the New York grand jury earlier this year. Bragg, a Democrat, had been probing a payment by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to adult performer Stormy Daniels. The payment was made in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. Daniels alleged Trump had an affair with her, but Trump has consistently denied any extramarital relationship with Daniels. Meanwhile, Cohen has said he spoke to the grand jury.

The exact charges in Trump’s indictment are currently under seal but appear to be centered on whether Trump made a $130,000 payment to Daniels and documented the payment as false business records—thereby committing a state offense—to cover up or commit violations of federal campaign finance laws.

Us-politics-justice-trump
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg arrives at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in New York City, on March 23, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Late Monday, Trump accused Bragg of having illegally leaked the contents of the indictment ahead of the arraignment. Trump’s accusation came about half an hour after Yahoo News published a report titled, “Exclusive: Trump to be charged Tuesday with 34 felony counts, but spared handcuffs and mug shot.”

The report, citing an unnamed source “who has been briefed on the procedures for the arraignment of the former president,” said that Trump “will be placed under arrest on Tuesday and informed that he has been charged with 34 felony counts for falsification of business records.”

Michael Bachner, a New York defense lawyer and former Manhattan prosecutor, told The Epoch Times that, by law, grand jury proceedings are secret, and whoever leaked information from the Manhattan grand jury could face charges.

People who serve on grand juries, officials involved in the proceedings, and even foreign language interpreters, if used, all take an oath of secrecy, Bachner said.

“The only person who can talk about what happened in the grand jury is the witness himself, because he has a First Amendment right to talk about what he said,” Bachner said.

When reports came out that Trump faced at least 30 counts, if those were accurate, the information could have only come from someone inside the grand jury room, the prosecutor’s office, the clerk of courts office or “somebody with knowledge,” Bachner said.

“And I’m troubled by that. Grand jury secrecy is extremely important to protect the rights of the defendant.”

Bragg’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the accusation.

NTD Photo
A supporter of former President Donald Trump waves as his plane takes off from Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., on April 3, 2023. (Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo)

Separately, late Tuesday, Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that he plans to file “a host of” motions to dismiss, including one based on prosecutorial misconduct and selective prosecution.”

Tacopina added that the defense team, after seeing the indictment, will also consider filing other motions, such as a venue change or statute of limitations considerations.

‘Searching for Crimes’

Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz previously said that Bragg is stretching the law to get Trump.

“They’re searching for crimes to get him. They’re just rummaging through the law books and doing everything they can to get him, but I don’t think they’ve succeeded,” he told The Epoch Times in an interview earlier in March.

“It’s not a righteous prosecution. It’s not a just prosecution. And I think every libertarian, whether you’re conservative or liberal, should be opposed to it,” he said.

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What’s making news today.

Complete articles of the WSJ can be found here.

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Biden Pandemic COVID Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

WHO trying to fix what they broke.

Part of what’s in this report should have come out the first six months of when COVID HIT. I have disagreements with alot of this, but at least they are starting to see the light.

Don’t get me wrong, the WHO was protecting China as was the NIH. CDC and the FDA went along.

The WHO report edited.

SAGE updates COVID-19 vaccination guidance
28 March 2023

News release
Following its 20-23 March meeting, WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) revised the roadmap for prioritizing the use of COVID-19 vaccines, to reflect the impact of Omicron and high population-level immunity due to infection and vaccination.

The roadmap continues SAGE’s prioritization of protecting populations at the greatest risk of death and severe disease from SARS-CoV-2 infection and its focus on maintaining resilient health systems. The roadmap newly considers the cost-effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination for those at lower risk – namely healthy children and adolescents – compared to other health interventions. The roadmap also includes revised recommendations on additional booster doses and the spacing of boosters. The current COVID-19 vaccines’ reduction of post-COVID conditions is also considered but the evidence on the extent of their impact is inconsistent.

“Updated to reflect that much of the population is either vaccinated or previously infected with COVID-19, or both, the revised roadmap reemphasizes the importance of vaccinating those still at-risk of severe disease, mostly older adults and those with underlying conditions, including with additional boosters,” stated SAGE Chair Dr Hanna Nohynek. “Countries should consider their specific context in deciding whether to continue vaccinating low risk groups, like healthy children and adolescents, while not compromising the routine vaccines that are so crucial for the health and well-being of this age group.”

The revised roadmap outlines three priority-use groups for COVID-19 vaccination: high, medium, and low. These priority groups are principally based on risk of severe disease and death, and consider vaccine performance, cost-effectiveness, programmatic factors and community acceptance.

The high priority group includes older adults; younger adults with significant comorbidities (e.g. diabetes and heart disease); people with immunocompromising conditions (e.g. people living with HIV and transplant recipients), including children aged 6 months and older; pregnant persons; and frontline health workers.

For the high priority group, SAGE recommends an additional booster of either 6 or 12 months after the last dose, with the timeframe depending on factors such as age and immunocompromising conditions. All the COVID-19 vaccine recommendations are time-limited, applying for the current epidemiological scenario only, and so the additional booster recommendations should not be seen as for continued annual COVID-19 vaccine boosters. The aim is to serve countries planning for the near- to mid-term.

The medium priority group includes healthy adults – usually under the age of 50-60 – without comorbidities and children and adolescents with comorbidities. SAGE recommends primary series and first booster doses for the medium priority group. Although additional boosters are safe for this group, SAGE does not routinely recommend them, given the comparatively low public health returns.

The low priority group includes healthy children and adolescents aged 6 months to 17 years. Primary and booster doses are safe and effective in children and adolescents. However, considering the low burden of disease, SAGE urges countries considering vaccination of this age group to base their decisions on contextual factors, such as the disease burden, cost effectiveness, and other health or programmatic priorities and opportunity costs. 

The public health impact of vaccinating healthy children and adolescents is comparatively much lower than the established benefits of traditional essential vaccines for children – such as the rotavirus, measles, and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines – and of COVID-19 vaccines for high and medium priority groups. Children with immunocompromising conditions and comorbidities do face a higher risk of severe COVID-19, so are included in the high and medium priority groups respectively.

Though low overall, the burden of severe COVID-19 in infants under 6 months is still higher than in children aged 6 months to 5 years. Vaccinating pregnant persons – including with an additional dose if more than 6 months have passed since the last dose – protects both them and the fetus, while helping to reduce the likelihood of hospitalization of infants for COVID-19.

 

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Links from other news sources. The Courts

U.S. Circuit Court Judges James Ho and Elizabeth Branch have decided they will no longer hire students from the woke law school.

U.S. Circuit Court Judges James Ho and Elizabeth Branch have decided they will no longer hire students from the woke law school.

 

This from The Free Beacon.

Ho’s announcement is the latest and most dramatic effort to hold Stanford accountable for its treatment of Fifth Circuit appellate judge Kyle Duncan, who was shouted down by hundreds of students—and berated by Stanford diversity dean Tirien Steinbach—when he spoke at the law school last month. The students called Duncan “scum,” asked why he couldn’t “find the cl*t,” and screamed, “We hope your daughters get raped.”

Though Steinbach is on leave, Stanford has ruled out disciplining the hecklers, who by Stanford’s own admission violated the school’s free speech policy.

“Rules aren’t rules without consequences,” Ho said. “And students who practice intolerance don’t belong in the legal profession.”

Calling the disruption an act of “intellectual terrorism,” Ho argued that Duncan’s treatment reflects “rampant” viewpoint discrimination at elite law schools, some of which do not employ a single center-right professor.

If they could get the names, maybe pass that to all the judges nationwide

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Weekend Listening: Mobs, Scapegoats, and Courage

A great piece from The Free Press.

If you’ve been listening to our show, The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, you know that this show is about much more than just J.K. Rowling and the blowback to her position on transgender issues.

It’s about social polarization in the age of the internet. It’s about the chasm between what people say they believe and how they’re understood by others. It’s about what it means to be human—to be a social animal who feels compelled to be part of a tribe. It’s about how hard it can be to discern if you are standing up for what’s right or joining a mob.

Those are questions that run through so much of our work at The Free Press. Today, we’re releasing a conversation that aims to answer the question “Why Do We Hunt Witches?” with host Megan Phelps-Roper; Yale sociologist, author, and mensch Nicholas Christakis; author and entrepreneur Luke Burgis (you’ll remember his recent piece for us about why everyone wants the same things); and the brilliant mind behind Wait But Why, Tim Urban.

This was a remarkable conversation, and we urge you to pour a nice cup of coffee and watch the whole thing. But a few highlights from the conversation follow just below:

Nicholas Christakis:

It is no small thing to deprive an adult of a livelihood. To take someone’s job away. If you’re a writer or a reporter and you’ve been run out of the profession, for example, that’s devastating. Your whole life has been devoted to this profession. And so not only do you lose your income, but you lose a lot of your identity. This is not a trivial sanction. Yes, we didn’t burn you at the stake. That’s true. But we did something very bad to you. We put a scarlet letter on you and we took away your job, and your friends were afraid to associate with you. These are devastating social sanctions, not to be trifled with.

I have spoken, over the last ten years, to many people who have been the objects of these types of inquisitions, for lack of a better word. And I know of at least eight cases of people who seriously considered suicide because of the social ostracism. . . . It is a very disorienting thing to have your livelihood taken away, to have people shun you, to be the object of public scorn, especially if you’re innocent and you haven’t actually done anything wrong. It’s bewildering. So I don’t think it’s such a trivial matter as to say, well, you know, okay, we’re not Pol Pot. That’s like a pretty low bar.

Tim Urban:

There are these basic Trojan horse terms like inclusion. You say, “We want to be inclusive, therefore we can’t allow any of these viewpoints on campus,” which, of course, is the opposite of inclusive. “We want to have diversity, so therefore we have to all have the same core beliefs,” which is the opposite of diversity. There’s a lot of these. When you look at them, you’re like, this makes no sense. But a lot of people are not thinking that hard about it. And they hear things like diversity, inclusion, safe space. Well, we want that. And they’re kind of falling for the kind of cheap Trojan horse that I think is being used in a lot of these cases.

Luke Burgis:

This spiral of silence is real. You know, when you’re sitting around a dinner table and you’re the only one who’s like, “Yeah, I’m not quite sure if I really agree with what everybody else is saying, but I better not speak up because I really don’t want to. I don’t have the energy to have the conversation right now.”

And then everybody else assumes, you know, it reinforces their idea that you agree with them and it’s a spiral. And the word that Tim used that I think is so important is culture, culture of free speech. If you don’t like what’s going on on Twitter and some of the tribalism, I personally don’t believe that there’s anything that Elon or anybody at the top of Twitter can do.

Jay Z & Rick Rubin in New York City in 2001. (KMazur via Getty Images)

There’s no feature that they can introduce, nothing that they can do to solve the problem because they can’t create culture. And there’s no technological solution that can create that culture. So if we believe that the fabric of a pluralistic society is somehow breaking down, that is a cultural problem just as much as it is a technological problem.

And I’m skeptical that I don’t believe, in fact, that there’s any kind of top-down solution for that. We have to kind of dig deep and see what we’re doing as people.

 

Jay Z & Rick Rubin in New York City in 2001. (KMazur via Getty Images)
Meantime, this week on Honestly we hosted Rick Rubin. If you haven’t heard of Rubin, perhaps you’ve heard of Adele. Or Johnny Cash. Or the Beastie Boys. Or Jay Z. Or Justin Bieber, Neil Young, Slayer, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers. What all of these iconic artists have in common is a single person: Rick Rubin.

Ever since he created Def Jam Recordings from his college dorm room 40 years ago and helped launch hip hop as a global phenomenon, Rubin has produced some of the world’s most popular records. Rubin works on up to ten records a year, and has become something of a high priest of popular music. (His discography is almost unbelievable.)

I spoke to Rubin about his new book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being. We also talked about what it means to be creative; how to trust your own gut; art and culture; separating the art from the artist; what he thinks of growing self-censorship in our music; why the Beatles are proof of the existence of God; and what it means to listen in an era of ceaseless distraction.

 

 

 

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An Ivermectin Success Story. Rapid recovery from severe symptoms

Thanks to Christopher Cook (former executive editor of The Western Free Press) from The Freedom Scale.

If you’ve been paying attention—and if you’re reading this, then chances are you have been!—you know that ivermectin is effective against covid. You know that ivermectin has been maligned, lied about, and mocked by the mainstream narrative-creation machine. You know that orders came down from the top, and then spread down through the entire medical-pharmaceutical establishment, to make ivermectin nearly impossible to get. The government has even gone so far as to confiscate shipments that people have ordered from overseas.

You may have also read some of the many studies and data that demonstrate ivermectin’s effectiveness. You know about Uttar Pradesh and other states in India. You know about the lower severe-covid rates in Africa—where they eat ivermectin like candy because of the parasites there.

You also likely know that it is extremely safe, with few side effects; that it garnered a Nobel Prize; and that it has been administered several billion times worldwide since its advent.

That said, you may or may not have seen ivermectin work with your own eyes. Facts tell, but stories sell, and seeing it save someone is powerful stuff. So I am going to share one such story about which I have direct personal knowledge, and whose details I can confirm are 100% accurate.

First, some background…

For an as-yet-unknown reason, this patient appears to be more susceptible to severe covid symptoms. Patient had a strong reaction to Alpha in 2020 and severe symptoms, hospitalization, and multi-month recovery from Delta in the second half of 2021. (One hypothesis for this heightened susceptibility involves overactive immune response, but no dispositive determinations have been made.) Fever in 2021 was over 103˚ for 7 days; patient’s history thus gave strong reason for concern as soon as high fever began to manifest with this most recent infection.

And yet, read the details below and observe the rapid recovery as soon as ivermectin was administered:


Saturday:

Patient complained of upper respiratory symptoms culminating in high fever.

Sunday:

Fever reached 102.6 before administering fever-reducing medication (ibuprofen, acetaminophen). Fatigue, upper-respiratory symptoms strong. Covid test negative.

Monday:

Covid test in AM positive. Ivermectin administered mid-morning (0.6mg/kg). Fever reached 102.8 before administering fever-reducing medication. Fatigue, cough, fog, sputum production all severe. Heart rate elevated. Daytime SpO2 low-mid 90s. Covid test repeated to confirm; still positive. Fever-reducing medication taken before sleep (10PM).

Tuesday:

7 AM wakeup, no fever. Ivermectin administered (same dosage). Daytime SpO2 low-mid 90s. Took until 2pm for fever to slowly climb to 100.8. Fever-reducing medication administered. Fatigue, cough, fog, sputum production, heart rate all improved.

Wednesday:

7 AM wakeup, temperature normal. Ivermectin administered (same dosage). Temperature remained normal all day. Daytime SpO2 low-mid 90s. Fatigue, cough, fog, sputum production, heart rate all significantly improved.

Thursday:

Temperature normal. Ivermectin administered (same dosage).  All symptoms further improved. Entering pulmonary-inflammatory phase. Daytime SpO2 variable (91–95) Nighttime SpO2 average 91.

Friday:

Temperature normal.  Ivermectin administered (same dosage; final dose). All symptoms significantly improved. Daytime SpO2 variable (93–97) Nighttime SpO2 average 93.

Saturday:

Temperature normal. Covid test negative. All symptoms dramatically improved. Daytime SpO2 variable (94–97) Nighttime SpO2 average 94 (which is low-average for patient).

Sunday:

Temperature normal. Covid test negative result confirmed. All symptoms continue to improve. Daytime SpO2 is between low-normal and normal.

Subsequent days:

SpO2 normal. Minor cough and fatigue linger but improve, and no indication of increase in inflammatory risk.

Notes:

This began as a stronger-than-expected reaction to the current strain, based on reports of mild symptoms for most others. Fever ~103 for two days, with no indication of any pending improvement. Given patient’s previous history, there was strong concern and expectation of severe symptoms and continued high fever. After ivermectin administered, fever went from ~103 to ~101 to normal in under 48 hours, and remained normal thereafter. Symptoms showed significant improvement each day.

Vitamins and other supports were administered, but ivermectin was the main player.


There is always the risk of confusing correlation with causation, and obviously this is a single case study and not a broad scientific study. But given the fact that close to 100 studies have been done…and given the patient’s rapid recovery in spite of apparent susceptibility to severe covid reaction, this does appear to be one more data point in ivermectin’s favor.

Given all we know about ivermectin’s effectiveness, we can rightly say that its vilification, and especially its removal as a medical option for millions of people in America and elsewhere, constitute literal

crimes against humanity.

I wonder if anyone will ever be held to account.

 

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Links from other news sources. Medicine

Another Biden Lie. He was the first one who lowered the cost of Insulin for seniors.

Another Biden Lie. He was the first one who lowered the cost of Insulin for seniors. Back in February Biden started the lie that it was he not  Trump who lowered the cost of Insulin for seniors

Sure Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, which went into effect on January 1 year after being passed by Congress and signed into law had that provision. But President Trump had negotiated  with insulin manufacturers and healthcare providers to drastically reduce the cost of insulin for American seniors who relied on Medicare during his presidency — and before Biden took office.

The deal Trump’s administration made limited the co-pay for a month’s supply of the drug to $35, as Breitbart News reported at the time.

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The Rainbow Jihad Comes For The Christians.

Thanks to Emerald Robinson for this great article.
The Nashville school shooting is another front in the great theological war of our time

A number of things have become clear in the aftermath of the Nashville school shooting. The killer was a mentally ill woman who targeted a Christian school and killed Christian children because she was a member of the LBGT community and she considered Christians to be her enemies. Audrey Hale was engaged, in other words, in the great theological battle of our time between Christianity and the Rainbow Jihad — that coalition of pagans, perverts, pedophiles, atheists, and abortion fanatics which marches under the “Pride” flag in their unholy war to supplant the dominant religion of the West.

There can be no confusion on that score anymore — least of all from the complacent Christians whose moral cowardice has led to this societal crisis.

Audrey Hale was not confused — she knew which side she was fighting for. That’s why she left behind a manifesto rather than a suicide note. It’s a manifesto that the LBGT “community” doesn’t want anyone to read for obvious reasons. Why would a tiny minority of transvestites announce a hot war with the well-armed Christian majority in America?

They’re crazy — not stupid.

But it’s time for that complacent Christian majority to face facts: the LBGT’ers definitely want to dominate and supplant you if you won’t affirm them. Not “affirming them” is a crime in their eyes —and that crime justifies your murder.

A former Christian explained this to you explicitly on TV last week.

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Child Abuse Crime Links from other news sources. The Law

Why this must be investigated as a hate crime. The Nashville killings.

Why this must be investigated as a hate crime. The Nashville killings. Recently a California loon was carrying on about Senator Hawley. Claimed he wanted to try a dead person for a hate crime. As usual the Progressives ignore facts. Here’s  what he said.

“I urge you to immediately open an investigation into this shooting as a federal hate crime,” Hawley added. “The full resources of the federal government must be brought to bear to determine how this crime occurred, and who may have influenced the deranged shooter to carry out these horrific crimes. Hate that leads to violence must be condemned. And hate crimes must be prosecuted.”

Open an investigation, not try a dead person. So why are progressives against this? If the DOJ would do this, then it would put all Transgenders on notice that your hatred is being watched and you can be charged with a federal crime.

 

 

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Child Abuse Emotional abuse How sick is this? Just my own thoughts Links from other news sources.

I couldn’t have said it any better. This has to be stopped.

I couldn’t have said it any better. This has to be stopped. Finally a parent has decided to send shock waves across the country. A father of one of the children who was killed has decided to take this war against children public.

I have no issues with males or females over 18 who wish to mutilate themselves. But this war on children is a moneymaker. This is a form of mental illness. And with several states wishing to pass laws where the children can be taken away from their parents must be stopped.

The California legislature passed Senate Bill 107, allowing courts to take away parents’ rights if their child comes to the state for what is dishonestly called “gender-affirming health care.”

The bill now goes to the governor’s desk, where it must be signed or vetoed by September 30.

SB 107 allows adults to bring children and teens from other states to California for experimental and damaging transgender medical interventions, without the knowledge or consent of their parents.