Both websites are built in the discussion forum format for citizens to make their recommendations on policy and nominees for the future Trump Administration.
Sign up to discuss Policy here: Policies for the People
Sign up to discuss Nominees here: Nominees for the People
Link to Trump’s policy agenda platform (Agenda 47): https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform
Robert Spencer
On Saturday evening, Donald Trump gave a strong signal of what his second term would be like, writing on Truth Social: “I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation. I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” This was an unusual move that many ascribed to Trump’s personal pique against both, but there was more to it than that.
The New York Post reported Saturday that “since winning Tuesday’s election in a landslide victory against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump and his team have been working behind closed doors at Mar-a-Lago to staff the 47th president’s administration, with loyalty the primary job requirement.” Neither Haley nor Pompeo has been even close to loyal to Trump, and so that may be all there is to the kiss-off they got from the once and future president on Saturday, but the gulf between the incoming commander-in-chief and these two establishment Republicans is wider than a matter of personal loyalty.
As recently as Oct. 29, Haley, despite professing her support for Trump, criticized his campaign for being “overly masculine.” According to the Daily Beast, “Haley not only said that the bashing of Puerto Rico that occurred at Trump’s rally over the weekend was problematic, but that the campaign also ‘needs to look at how they are talking about women.’”
The “bashing of Puerto Rico” was a major Harris campaign talking point in the waning days of the campaign, as leftists once again proved that they were humorless prigs who couldn’t take even the mildest jest. Why was Haley repeating, endorsing, and amplifying a claim that the Harris campaign was using as a weapon against the candidate she supposedly supported?
Haley added: “This bromance and this masculinity stuff—it borders on edgy to the point that it’s going to make women uncomfortable. You’ve got affiliated PACs that are doing commercials about calling Kamala [Harris] the c-word, or you had speakers at Madison Square Garden referring to her and her ‘pimps.’ That is not the way to win women. That is not the way to win people who are concerned about Trump’s style.” What? Where were commercials running calling Harris “the c-word”? If such a thing existed, what network would even have run it? In any case, Trump has made clear his rejection of trans madness and the left’s related insanities. Why should he bring on board someone who shares the left’s hatred of masculinity?
That wasn’t the first time that Haley had repeated Democrat talking points. Politico reported in Aug. 2020 that Haley had claimed in her memoir to have been “deeply disturbed” when Trump said that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the Charlottesville protest, and still stood by her statements. Old Joe Biden, of course, made the lie that Trump had called National Socialists “fine people” a cornerstone of his 2020 campaign, and repeated this frequently throughout his presidency. Yet Trump in the same remarks in which he said that there had been “fine people” at the Charlottesville rally, also said: “I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.”
Thus the claim that he called Nazis “fine people” was always false, and Haley should have known that. Her tendency to endorse leftist claims without hesitation or due consideration places her in precisely the group Trump is signaling he wants to avoid this time around: Republicans who allow Democrats to set the agenda and even dictate the rules of the game, and simply raise minor objections here and there if they aren’t just rubber-stamping the whole leftist program.
[…]
Dr Mercola
Story at-a-glance
Aluminum is everywhere in our modern world, from cookware to food packaging. But did you know that your everyday use of aluminum foil could be significantly increasing your exposure to this harmful metal? Research published in Environment International revealed aluminum foil and containers used in food preparation contribute to your body’s aluminum burden,1 with serious risks to your health.
While aluminum is naturally present in the environment, its widespread use in consumer products has led to increased human exposure. Your body doesn’t need aluminum for any biological processes, and accumulation over time is dangerous.
Aluminum has been linked to various health issues, including neurological problems and bone disorders. What’s more, your body may struggle to eliminate excess aluminum, especially if you have impaired kidney function. Minimizing your exposure to this pervasive metal in your daily life, the new study shows, may start right in your kitchen.
The research, a first-of-its-kind human intervention study, explored whether consuming food prepared with aluminum foil and containers leads to increased aluminum levels in the body. The study involved 11 healthy participants who followed a controlled diet for 30 days.
During the middle 10 days, their meals were prepared using aluminum foil and stored in aluminum containers. Urine samples were collected twice daily throughout the study to measure aluminum excretion. This rigorous design allowed researchers to detect even small changes in aluminum levels and determine if any increases were reversible.
The findings were clear: consuming food prepared with aluminum foil and containers led to a measurable increase in aluminum levels in the body.2 On average, participants experienced an 8.1% increase in their urinary aluminum concentrations during the exposure phase.
This increase was reversible in healthy adults with normal kidney function — once the exposure to aluminum cookware ceased, aluminum levels returned to baseline within days. However, this reversibility might not apply to everyone, especially those with compromised kidney function.
The estimated additional aluminum intake from this high-exposure scenario represented about 4.4% of the tolerable weekly intake set by European food safety authorities. However, aluminum exposure is cumulative and comes from multiple sources in your environment.
Even small increases in aluminum exposure could contribute to a higher body burden over time, and current safety guidelines may not account for the most vulnerable populations or the effects of lifelong exposure.
A study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health also found aluminum leaches into your food when you cook with aluminum foil.3 Researchers examined the aluminum content in meat and fish wrapped in aluminum foil and cooked in an oven.
The use of aluminum foil significantly increased aluminum levels in the food. For instance, chicken and fish cooked with aluminum foil and seasoning showed aluminum concentrations as high as 40 to 42 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg). When cooked without seasoning, the aluminum levels were still notably elevated compared to food cooked without foil.
These findings are particularly concerning because the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has established a tolerable weekly intake (TWI) of 1 mg of aluminum per kg of body weight. The study suggests that regular consumption of foods cooked in aluminum foil could lead to exceeding this recommended limit, especially when combined with other sources of aluminum.
Several factors influence the amount of aluminum that leaches into your food when cooking with foil. The study revealed that pH levels, salinity, fat content, temperature and exposure time all play roles in this process.4 Acidic foods, those high in salt and fatty foods tend to increase aluminum migration from the foil into your food.
In some cases, such as with beef, cooking without seasoning led to higher aluminum levels. This unexpected result was attributed to the high fat content in beef, which may interact with organic acids present in the meat, resulting in increased aluminum uptake from the foil.
The study also noted that the thickness of the aluminum foil used affects the amount of metal released. While the research used one of the thinnest foils available on the market, preliminary tests suggested that thicker foils might lead to even greater aluminum release into food.
To further illustrate the aluminum leaching process, researchers examined used aluminum foil under a scanning electron microscope. The results were striking. Foil that had been in direct contact with food showed significant deterioration, with numerous holes ranging from 100 to 150 micrometers in diameter.5 Foil used to cook food with seasoning showed even more extensive damage, with larger and more numerous holes.
This visible degradation of the foil’s surface provides clear evidence of aluminum migration into the food. Even portions of the foil not in direct contact with the food showed some deterioration, albeit to a lesser extent. These microscopic observations offer a tangible representation of how cooking with aluminum foil leads to the transfer of aluminum into your food.
In another study exploring how cooking different foods in aluminum foil affects aluminum levels, significant increases in aluminum content across various food types were found, especially those that were marinated.6
For example, marinated mackerel wrapped in foil and baked showed aluminum levels up to 49.34 mg/kg — over 40 times higher than the control samples. Even without marinade, foods like salmon and duck breast still saw noticeable increases in aluminum. The study authors concluded that “excessive consumption of food prepared by baking in aluminum foil can carry a health risk.”7
Again, the study found the amount of aluminum that migrates into your food depends on several factors. Temperature plays a key role — higher cooking temperatures lead to more leaching. In this study, foods were baked at 220°C (428°F) for 40 minutes, resulting in significant aluminum increases.8
The acidity and salt content of food also impact aluminum transfer. Marinated foods consistently showed higher aluminum levels compared to their non-marinated counterparts. For instance, marinated duck breast without skin reached levels of 45.18 mg/kg when cooked in foil, while the non-marinated version only increased to 0.61 mg/kg.9 Interestingly, the presence of skin seemed to provide some protective effect.
Duck breast with skin showed lower aluminum levels than skinless samples, suggesting the skin may act as a barrier. The specific type of aluminum foil used can also influence leaching. The study tested five different commercial foils and found variations in their aluminum transfer rates, revealing that not all foils are created equal when it comes to food safety.
Aluminum has been linked to several serious health conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease and autism. It’s considered a neurotoxin and accumulates in various tissues, including bones, your parathyroid gland and your brain.
For instance, studies have found higher concentrations of aluminum in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients compared to people without Alzheimer’s, particularly in areas like the hippocampus and temporal lobes.10
Drinking water with high aluminum levels (over 0.1 mg/L) was also associated with two to three times higher Alzheimer’s prevalence in long-term studies,11 while reducing aluminum burden through silicon-rich mineral water consumption improved cognitive function in some Alzheimer’s patients. Silicon appears to be a natural antagonist to aluminum, helping reduce its absorption and accumulation.
Meanwhile, autism rates have risen dramatically since the late 1990s, with some researchers attributing 75% to 80% of this increase to environmental factors rather than just improved diagnosis. Multiple studies have found higher aluminum concentrations in hair and urine samples of autistic children,12 and autism may involve impaired ability to metabolize and excrete aluminum.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients also show higher aluminum levels in brain tissue compared to controls. One study found MS patients had urinary aluminum excretion comparable to those undergoing metal chelation therapy, suggesting their bodies are actively trying to eliminate excess aluminum.13
Silicon-rich mineral water consumption increased aluminum excretion in MS patients, potentially reducing its accumulation.14 For Parkinson’s disease (PD), occupational exposure to aluminum appears to double the risk. Miners with respiratory aluminum exposure, for instance, had 30% higher PD incidence.15
Aluminum accumulates in the substantia nigra and Lewy bodies, disrupting dopamine production. It may also affect genes related to PD. Combining aluminum exposure with other metals or pesticides seems to have synergistic negative effects. Early PD diagnosis may be possible by analyzing serum aluminum levels along with other element imbalances.
When you’re exposed to aluminum through food, water or other sources, it accumulates in various organs and tissues, leading to a range of health issues. As mentioned, in your brain, aluminum interferes with gene expression and enzyme function, contributing to neurodegenerative diseases. It disrupts mitochondrial function, depleting adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels and causing cell death.16
In your bones, aluminum replaces calcium, leading to weakened bones and increased fracture risk. It inhibits the enzyme that activates vitamin D, further compromising bone health. Aluminum accumulation in your bone marrow causes anemia by interfering with hemoglobin synthesis. In your liver, aluminum disrupts iron metabolism and mitochondrial function, contributing to fatty liver disease and metabolic disorders.17
The symptoms of aluminum toxicity can be subtle at first but become more severe as exposure continues. You may experience memory loss, confusion and difficulty with coordination and speech. In advanced cases, this progresses to seizures and even coma.
Aluminum also impacts your musculoskeletal system, causing bone pain, fractures and muscle weakness. Your kidneys may struggle to filter aluminum, leading to kidney dysfunction and increased risk of kidney stones. Respiratory issues like asthma, chronic bronchitis and pulmonary fibrosis can develop, especially in occupational settings with high aluminum exposure.18
You might also experience changes in your blood cells, leading to anemia and increased susceptibility to infections. Liver function is also compromised by excess aluminum, resulting in abnormal enzyme levels and liver disease. These diverse symptoms underscore the importance of recognizing and addressing aluminum toxicity early19 — and taking steps to reduce your exposure.
To protect yourself from aluminum’s harmful effects, start by examining your diet and lifestyle. Avoid cooking with aluminum foil or cookware and storing foods in aluminum containers, as this poses the risk of leaching. Opt for stainless steel, glass or ceramic cookware instead.
While I don’t recommend cooking your food in foil, if you do be sure to avoid cooking acidic or salty foods in it, as these increase aluminum leaching. Reducing cooking temperatures and times when using foil may also help limit transfer. If you’re preparing food for young children, it’s especially important to avoid using aluminum foil. Children under 3 years of age, in particular, are considered a high-risk group.20
Avoiding processed foods and beverages is also important, as many contain aluminum additives. Check your personal care products, especially antiperspirants, as well and choose aluminum-free alternatives. Have your water tested for aluminum and consider using a reverse osmosis filter if levels are high.
To further reduce your exposure, avoid aluminum-based antacids and be aware that aluminum is the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant,21 making vaccines another route of exposure.
[…]
Via https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/11/06/aluminum-foil-aluminum-exposure.aspx
Dr Mercola
Story at-a-glance
You may have heard of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), an organosulfur compound, as a remedy for joint pain or inflammation. DMSO is produced both naturally and synthetically. It’s found in trace amounts in certain foods and widely used as a solvent in scientific research and industrial processes due to its ability to dissolve organic compounds.
In medicine, DMSO is used as a topical pain reliever and anti-inflammatory agent. It’s approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of interstitial cystitis, also known as bladder pain syndrome, a chronic condition that causes bladder pain, pressure and discomfort.1
DMSO is also used as a cryoprotectant to prevent cell damage during freezing.2 This compound shows promise for benefitting many health conditions, but it has a complex relationship with your cells. Recent research on yeast cells, for instance, reveals that DMSO’s effects depend heavily on concentration and exposure time, influencing whether the compound is healing or harmful.3
At low and moderate levels, DMSO activates cellular stress responses that boost your resilience. However, at higher concentrations or with prolonged exposure, it impairs cell growth and may even prove toxic. Too little DMSO didn’t trigger the response, while too much overwhelmed the cells’ defenses.
[…]
At higher doses though, DMSO began to interfere with cell division and survival. Your cells’ preferred energy source plays a surprisingly important role in how well they tolerate DMSO. The study found that yeast cells using primarily aerobic respiration, which relies heavily on oxygen, were most sensitive to DMSO’s toxic effects. In
[…]
Studies reveal DMSO has another unexpected benefit: fighting cancer. Researchers investigated DMSO’s impact on both leukemia cells (representing blood cancers) and epithelial cancer cells (representing solid tumors).5 They found that DMSO significantly inhibited cell growth in all tested cancer cell lines, including MV4-11 and TF-1a leukemia cells, as well as Hep-G2 liver cancer cells and MCF7 breast cancer cells.
[…]The higher the DMSO concentration, the more pronounced these effects became. Even the adherent epithelial cancer cells, which normally form a smooth monolayer in culture, began to detach and cluster when exposed to DMSO. These observations suggest that DMSO could be triggering the cancer cells’ built-in self-destruct mechanisms.
Digging deeper into the molecular mechanisms, the researchers uncovered how DMSO sets off a cascade of events leading to cancer cell death. They found that DMSO significantly decreased levels of CDK2 and cyclin A — crucial proteins that regulate cell division. The CDK2-cyclin A complex, which plays a key role in driving cells from one phase of the cell cycle to the next, was particularly affected.7
By disrupting these regulators, DMSO effectively puts the brakes on cancer cell proliferation. But perhaps most tellingly, DMSO triggered DNA fragmentation in the treated cancer cells. This is considered a definitive sign of apoptosis, as it represents the cell systematically destroying its own genetic material. The researchers confirmed this by detecting increased levels of activated caspase 3, an enzyme central to the execution of apoptosis.
Interestingly, they didn’t see activation of caspase 9, suggesting that DMSO triggers apoptosis through the extrinsic pathway rather than the intrinsic mitochondrial pathway. This specific mechanism could be crucial in developing targeted cancer therapies that don’t harm healthy cells.
The study suggests that even at relatively low concentrations, DMSO has profound effects on cancer cell health and survival. Moreover, because DMSO is already widely used and well-tolerated in many medical contexts, it could potentially be fast-tracked for cancer treatment studies.
Early animal studies raised some concerns about DMSO causing eye problems, particularly affecting the lens. These findings were not found to translate to humans,8 however, and recent research offers a more reassuring perspective for those considering DMSO as part of their health regimen.
Research using a mouse model of Alzheimer’s revealed that DMSO, even at very low concentrations, significantly improves visual function.9 The study focused on 5xFAD mice, which are genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer’s-like symptoms. These mice typically experience a decline in contrast sensitivity, an important aspect of vision that’s also affected in human Alzheimer’s patients.
Remarkably, when treated with just .01% DMSO in their drinking water, the mice showed a marked improvement in their contrast sensitivity. This improvement was comparable to the effects seen with R-carvedilol, a drug specifically being investigated for Alzheimer’s treatment.
The fact that such a low dose of DMSO could produce these benefits is particularly intriguing, as it suggests DMSO’s therapeutic effects may have been underestimated in previous research where it was used merely as a vehicle for other drugs.
The study’s findings point to DMSO’s antioxidant properties as a mechanism for its beneficial effects. DMSO is well-known as a powerful scavenger of hydroxyl free radicals, which contribute to oxidative stress, a factor in the development and progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers observed that DMSO treatment corrected abnormalities in the retina that are associated with oxidative stress.
Specifically, they found that DMSO normalized the thickness of a particular layer in the retina (the ELM-RPE layer) that becomes contracted in the presence of oxidative stress. This correction suggests that DMSO is actively combating oxidative damage in the retinal tissue. Given that your retina is essentially an extension of your brain, these findings imply that DMSO could be providing similar protective effects throughout the central nervous system.
This is particularly exciting because oxidative stress is believed to be one of the earliest events in the development of Alzheimer’s, occurring even before the appearance of characteristic amyloid plaques and tau tangles.
Given these findings, there’s potential for DMSO as an early intervention in Alzheimer’s disease. The study focused on relatively young mice (4 months old) that were just beginning to show signs of visual impairment.10 The fact that DMSO was able to improve function at this early stage suggests it could be particularly valuable as a preventative measure or early treatment.
Early intervention is crucial in Alzheimer’s disease, as by the time cognitive symptoms become apparent, significant brain damage has often already occurred. If DMSO can help protect against oxidative stress and maintain neuronal health from the earliest stages of the disease process, it could slow or even prevent the progression to full-blown Alzheimer’s.
Moreover, the safety profile of DMSO at low doses is well-established, making it an attractive option for long-term use in at-risk individuals.
While this study focused on visual function and retinal health, its implications reach far beyond Alzheimer’s disease. The protective effects of DMSO observed in the retina extend to other tissues and organs throughout your body. Oxidative stress is implicated in a wide range of age-related conditions, from cardiovascular disease to arthritis.
For instance, DMSO is closely related to another compound that could benefit your joint health: methylsulfonylmethane (MSM). DMSO is a precursor to MSM, and both compounds share similar sulfur-based structures. Like DMSO, MSM has been shown to have significant anti-inflammatory effects, especially for joint pain. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in Japan explored the effects of MSM on mild knee joint pain in healthy individuals.11
Participants who took 2 grams of MSM daily for 12 weeks experienced significant improvements in their knee health compared to those taking a placebo. The study used a comprehensive measure of knee health (the Japanese Knee Osteoarthritis Measure) and found that MSM not only improved knee-specific symptoms but also enhanced overall health conditions.
This research suggests the sulfur-containing compounds in both DMSO and MSM may offer a range of health benefits, from neuroprotection to joint pain relief.
Given that DMSO can be converted to MSM in your body, using DMSO might provide some of the joint health benefits associated with MSM, in addition to its neuroprotective effects and anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties. These actions make DMSO an intriguing compound for overall health maintenance as you age.
DMSO’s ability to inhibit and kill a range of bacteria — even at low concentrations — has also been known for decades. Researchers tested DMSO against several bacterial strains, including Staphylococcus aureus, β-hemolytic streptococci, Corynebacterium acnes, Escherichia coli and Proteus species.12
They found that a 20% concentration of DMSO was enough to inhibit the growth of all these bacteria. So, even at relatively low concentrations, DMSO can effectively stop bacterial reproduction.
While DMSO shows promising benefits, it’s important to approach its use with caution and awareness. As with any supplement or treatment, DMSO has side effects and contraindications that you need to be aware of. The most common side effect is a garlic-like taste or breath odor, which occurs because DMSO breaks down into dimethyl sulfide in your body. Some people may also experience skin irritation when DMSO is applied topically.
DMSO also increases the absorption of other substances through your skin, amplifying the effects of medications. This means you need to be careful about what comes into contact with your skin when using DMSO topically. It’s also important to note that DMSO interacts with certain medications, including blood thinners and steroids.
Additionally, high concentrations may cause liver damage if used improperly. Pregnant women and those with liver disease should use caution when considering DMSO. As always, I recommend consulting with a holistic health care practitioner to determine if DMSO is right for you.
Proper product selection and dosing are key to getting the best results. A Midwestern Doctor recommends looking for DMSO that has at least 99.9% purity and, if liquid, is stored in glass. For topical dosing, start with 70% and dilute it 50/50 with water. Gradually work your way up to the full-strength product as long as no skin irritation occurs. You can also progress to a 100% DMSO product if you have thick scars or are using it for specific health conditions.
For oral dosage, a typical starting dose is 0.5 to 1 teaspoon (of 70% or 100%). You may gradually increase the dose as long as you are tolerating it well. The maximum safe dosage is up for debate, but generally 3 teaspoons is considered the upper limit. Keep in mind that since DMSO has an unpleasant taste, you’ll likely want to mix it with milk or juice when consuming it orally. Be sure to mix it well so the DMSO doesn’t settle at the bottom.
Remember, while DMSO shows promise, it’s not a miracle cure. It should be considered as part of a holistic approach to health, including a nutrient-dense diet, regular exercise, stress management and other lifestyle factors that support your overall well-being. Used responsibly and under proper guidance, DMSO could be a valuable tool in your health arsenal, particularly for its antioxidant, neuroprotective, anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties.
[…]
Dr Eddy Betterman
The regime of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has revealed that formerly illegal gain-of-function research is now fully legal, meaning the bioweapons industry is free to start churning out more plagues like the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).
Entitled “United States Government Policy for Oversight of Dual Use Research of Concern and Pathogens with Enhanced Pandemic Potential,” a new White House document explains how “certain types of federally funded life sciences research on biological agents and toxins” is now legal, including the kind of biological agents and toxins that “when enhanced, have the potential to pose risks to public health, agriculture, food security, economic security, or national security.”
The new rules are to replace those established in 2012 and 2014, which at that time did not allow for gain-of-function research to take place on United States soil – back then, gain-of-function was only supposed to take place in China, Ukraine, or elsewhere.
Part of the new plan is to have the appropriate federal agencies complete “an interagency review” of the situation in order to “strengthen responsible conduct for biological research” moving forward.
“This Policy has also been issued pursuant to Section 2315 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (42 U.S.C. § 6627) to achieve consistent review and oversight of life sciences research proposed for federal funding that may be reasonably anticipated to involve the creation, transfer, or use of pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential (PEPPs),” reads the “Purpose” section of the new rules.
Starting in early 2025, the federal government will need to make any necessary updates to its guidance concerning this area of research so it reflects the changes. Research involving biological agents and toxins “is essential to the scientific advances that underpin improvements in the health and safety of the public, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, and the environment,” the document states.
“The intent of research oversight is to increase the awareness of researchers, research institutions, and federal funding agencies about the biosafety and biosecurity concerns associated with certain types of research to ensure that appropriate risk mitigation measures are in place to prevent biosafety incidents (e.g., unintended personal exposure or release of an agent outside of containment) or biosecurity incidents (e.g., theft or intentional misuse of information, knowledge, products, or technology).”
Everything laid out in the White House document makes gain-of-function research sound important and essential to both the well-being and perpetuity of humanity itself. We know, however, from what happened with COVID that tampering with disease is a recipe for disaster.
The University of Nebraska Medical Center published a notice about the changes that make it sound as if the White House is “tightening” the research rules for gain-of-function rather than expanding them.
“The White House is tightening federal oversight of so-called gain-of-function (GOF) studies that could enhance risky viruses in ways that increase their ability to cause a pandemic,” the Center says. “It is also overhauling rules for a broader category of federally funded research on dangerous pathogens that is considered ‘dual use,’ because the results could be used as bioweapons.”
According to the Center, the new rules, released by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), “are narrower” than the ones floated last year. Scientists feared that the initial rules would “complicate studies on low-risk pathogens such as cold viruses and herpesviruses,” so they were replaced with new rules that “will expand the number of studies that must undergo special review” as part of the gain-of-function bioweapons development process.
[…]
Via https://dreddymd.com/2024/11/07/white-house-legalizes-gain-function-research-bioweapons/
Tis the season for name calling. It’s election season. Data analysis and historical analysis of policy proposals that haven’t worked in the past, but are proposed again since “we’ll do it better this time” take second place to throwing around invectives such as “Nazi,” “Hitler,” and “fascist.” Name-calling. That’s all it is. Name-calling.
[…]
One of the favorite slanders to try to gain votes is to attach an opposing candidate to Adolf Hitler. “This guy wants to have the military only be responsible to him, just like Hitler.” “This person is a fascist waiting to take over the country and take your freedoms away.” Seldom does anyone actually define terms.
It’s much easier to just yell an emotional insult that hopefully can be repeated as an emotional tagline to discredit a candidate. Emotion tags memory, so if the emotion can be strong enough, especially negative emotion, then the memory pops into your conscious mind quickly. The memory and the negative emotion ride into consciousness together, so it’s a valuable tool in the non-data, non-analytical world of politics.
Since the name-calling term of the season is “fascist,” it seems like maybe we could modify young Forrest’s comment into “Fascist is as fascist does.” That led to me trying to reconcile the name-calling with what we’ve been through in the past couple of years: lockdowns. I thought we should see if anyone other than a presidential candidate might fit the title, “fascist;” but fit it in actions versus having someone from the opposing party name-call.
Early in the year of 2020, the governor of the state of Washington locked down the state. By mandate, without input from the public, but certainly lots of input from “experts” and a relatively small cadre of advisors, including advisors on a national scale such as Dr. Fauci, Governor Jay Inslee doomed many small businesses, fired long-serving first responders, stole up to two years of schooling from the state’s children, possibly negatively affected child neurological development, probably caused discomfort for those suffering from Alzheimer’s as ability to see facial detail was impaired by demanded masking, and may have contributed to the epidemic of myopia.
As I documented here, between NIAID and the Washington State Department of Health, about 2,600 purported public health experts couldn’t figure out that we may have permanently injured children’s visual neurological (as well as other neurological such as speech) development.
Wow. Talk about a record of “achievement.”
The governor was aided in this by a state Department of Health that generated data to advise him and provide graphical representations for public discussion that were rife with errors, distorting the truth and thereby misguiding public policy decision-makers producing “devastating effects” in the populace.
Those decisions were suggested by the state to be helping rather than devastating. I’ve documented my thoughts on my economic devastation here. Those who supported lockdowns probably didn’t have out-of-pocket losses that seemed devastating. As I said here, “cheering the sacrifice of the other guy…has always been downright comfortable for the non-sacrificed.”
The governor limited the size of groups who could openly meet, in contradistinction to the guarantees of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The State of Washington constitution after being grateful to the “Supreme Ruler of the universe for our liberties” acknowledges the US Constitution as the supreme law of the land.
The state constitution goes on to guarantee religious freedoms as well as prohibiting special “privileges or immunities” that don’t “belong equally to all citizens, or corporations.” Since my small (“nano”) business was shut down while Costco and Amazon were governmentally chosen to take care of the masses, the equal privileges and immunities guarantee seems remarkably easily forgotten – or ignored – by the governor.
The governor barred groups of more than 250 from assembling. If barring meetings of groups of more than 250 can be considered an assault on religious freedom, that assault fits nicely with a truly global assault on religion. Two hundred fifty people is a moderate church size in my area, I suspect. But demanding churches turn people away starting at number 251 is anti-religion.
The sad news is the number of churches who fell for that, often using the Apostle Paul’s admonitions to “…submit to the governing authorities since there is no authority except from God. So, then, the one who resists the authority is opposing God’s command, and those who oppose it will bring judgment on themselves.” Rom 13:1-2 and “never put a stumbling block or pitfall in the way of your brother or sister.” Rom 14:13 (Christian Standard Bible). Some smaller churches will never recover since their congregations often are older.
Many of those abuses will never be reversed. They probably can’t be at this point. They certainly will never be acknowledged as errors, nor will there likely be an apology, as might be suggested on page 74 of this critique.
At least for the state of Washington, some analysis has been done on what decisions were made, and what contributed to those decisions. Those decisions and the data used as reasoning for those decisions can be compared, then, to the ultimate definition of fascism, “The Doctrine of Fascism” as written by Benito Mussolini in 1932.
Perhaps by comparing the two, we can get a handle on who might or might not be a fascist. Importantly, my intention is not necessarily to call the governor of Washington State a fascist. I’m not joining in with the name-calling. What I am suggesting is that, if we can extrapolate Forrest Gump’s adage that stupid is as stupid does, all the way from stupidity to fascism, then we can evaluate fascist is as fascist does. From that premise, we may see actions that were taken that parallel the doctrines of fascism.
We can start with an easier point to analyze: religion. If we categorize barring assembling of people as part of the global assault on religion, then that action of the governor of Washington has to be classified as more communist than fascist. Karl Marx is credited as saying religion is the opiate of the masses whereas Mussolini says fascism “respects the God…[of the] primitive heart of the people, the God to whom their prayers are raised.”
Looking at a selected scattering of fascist sub-doctrines might find a few commonalities between the actions of the governor of the State of Washington and fascism. For example, according to Mussolini, “…The State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people.” “…It is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered from the point of view of…the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed of one…”
The governor, in closing schools and “non-essential” businesses, no doubt paid attention to some counsel, including the lieutenant governor, health department, and national figures such as Dr. Fauci, but certainly did not look to broad counsel. (In fairness to that point, if broad council means the people, many had been scared out of their wits by – in part – the misuse of data.)
The governor considered himself and his advisors as the quality conscience the people needed. Dissenting voices were actively suppressed. They still are. Besides, [fascism] “denies the right of numbers [of people] to govern by means of…universal suffrage.” We’re kidding ourselves if we thought we had a say.
Speaking of “the will of the few” – the evaluation of the data from the Washington State Department of Health mentioned above shows possibly a remarkable level of incompetence. But if we take it a step further, “the conscience and will of the few” (here, a data-analysis-incompetent Department of Health), reporting to the “one” (the governor) we see the fascist expression of “the purest form of democracy.”
A few people have assumed control of everything for all of the rest of us and determined how the state (and country) will go.
Some may argue that they were all doing the best they could; that although they invalidated and corrupted almost all data used to demand behaviors of the people, whether by misclassifying data, ignoring testing cycle recommendations, ignoring base rates and seasonality of illness, misclassifying people as unvaccinated, or changing methodology on the fly, they still were doing the best they could in a bad situation.
However, the post-pandemic analysis states “the WA DOH classification errors carried the…risks of distorting the truth and misguiding public policy decision makers who used the WA DOH data and distorted [data] visualizations [used] as a basis for decisions that affected the citizens of Washington State, and in many cases, with devastating effects [results].”
The potential for devastating effects on the population of Washington State is not an issue in the fascist view of democracy. But, since ‘fascism is not only a system of government, but also and above all a system of thought”…relating to a “higher law…transcending the individual,” who “by self-sacrifice [and] the renunciation of self-interest”…can achieve “his value as a man [person],” devastating effects are OK.
In a fascist context, the devastating effects of the demands of the governor of Washington supported by the incompetent and rigged data of the state Department of Health are not to be viewed negatively, but as part and parcel of the “purest form of democracy.”
“The state [is] the expression of the conscience and will of the people.” Fascism “reasserts…the state” rather than the individual. “The only liberty worth having [is] the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State.” “The state is all embracing, outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist.”
Pandemic demands, then, reflected into the framework of fascism are justifiable. The state was in charge. “The Fascist State…sums up all the manifestations of the moral and intellectual life of man.” “Fascism…enforces discipline and uses authority with undisputed sway.”
Therefore, the three threats to my license to practice, with no opportunity to face my accusers or to even know accurately what my pandemic lockdown transgressions were, fit remarkably well into a fascist system of governmental practice. “Fascism believes…in acts in which no economic motive…is at work.” So, my financial losses mean nothing in a fascist context. “Fascism denies the materialistic conception of happiness as a possibility.” OK. Got it.
Fascism “discards pacifism.” “War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum…and sets the seal of nobility on those peoples who have the courage to face it.” (emphasis mine). We don’t need to look far to see the lionization of those people who pushed the pandemic into war status (Dr. Fauci, President Biden, and on and on). The seal of nobility has been impressed on them, as they trampled individuals under foot. “Life…means duty…lived…above all for others.” Duty to live for others, not freedom to help others. So, we accept the trampling as the duty of the individual within the structure of the state.
If after all this we want to move to the federal level, we need look no further than the words of Herman Goering (from prison after the war) who was responsible for planning the controlled economy that was the economy of Nazi Germany:
Your America is doing many things in the economic field which we found out caused us so much trouble. You are trying to control people’s wages and prices – people’s work. If you do that you must control people’s lives. And no country can do that part way. I tried it and failed. Nor can any country do it all the way either. I tried that too and it failed. You are no better planners than we. I should think your economists would read what happened here…Will it be as it always has been that countries will not learn from the mistakes of others and will continue to make the mistakes of others all over again and again?
[…]
Via https://brownstone.org/articles/fascist-is-as-fascist-does/
Could Israel Become a Failed State?
Interview by Aaron Bastani (2024)
Film Review
Author of a Very Short History of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict, Ilan Pape describes the deep division between Israel’s secular Jews and those who support Messianic Zionism. This demographic crisis is worsened by the departure of 600,000 members of Israel’s economic and cultural elite (European Jews with dual passports) since October 2023. Translating into major brain drain (with the loss of many of Israel’s high tech engineers) and capitol flight (they took their money with them), it’s led Moody’s to downgrade Israel’s financial rating to “junk” status, ie unsafe for investment.
Along with an unwinnable war on three fronts, this has begun a slow motion economic collapse. According to Pape, in 15-20 years Israel will likely be a failed state like Libya, Syria and Yemen.
Netanyahu himself isn’t a Messianic Zionist. He supports Israel’s current military agenda because he believes it will keep him in power. However the loss of much of Israel’s economic/political elite means the there will be no viable opposition to offer an alternative at the next election.
The demographic supporting what Pape calls the “state of Judea” (a theocratic state in which laws are based on God’s law) consists of 1) Messianic Zionists who believe the current war in Israel signals impending Armageddon 2) 700,000 West Bank settlers representing both secular and ultra-orthodox Jews** and increasingly 3) Mizrati Jews (the Arabic Jews indigenous to Palestine).
Paper believes current birth rates (with ultra orthodox Jews producing an average of 6 kid to the 1.5 kids produced by educated liberals) makes the current effort to convert Israel into a theocracy inevitable. He also believes this internal division is a bigger threat to Israel than Iran. There is no support whatsoever in Europe or the US for a theocratic state of Judea, except for a small contingent of fundamentalist Zionist Christians.
For me, one of the most interesting parts of the interview was the history of Jordan and its recent support for the attacks on Gaza. The Hashimite princes*** founded the state of Trans-Jordan in the 1920s after the Arab Revolt drove them out of the Arabian peninsula. British spy T. E Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) had promised Hashimite leader Sharif Hussein ibn Ali that his sons would be kings of the new states the French and English would create (Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Transjordan and Lebanon) after conquering the former Ottoman empire during World War I.
The Zionist Jews arriving from Europe helped them consolidate the Transjordan state, and the Hashimites’ failure to oppose the 1948 Nakba led Israel to support Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank 1950. In 1988 (a year after Palestinians launched the first Intifada), Jordan officially ceded the West Bank to Israel.
*Moody’s Cuts Israel’s Rating: Warns of Drop to Junk Status
**Excludes Neturai Carter – ultra orthodox Jews who support the state of Palestine.
***Descendants of Mohammad who ruled Mecca for more than 700 years. Jordan opposes Israel’s current attacks on Lebanon. See Jordan Reiterates Full Support of Lebanon: Condems Israeli Aggression
By Sarah Kaplan and Simon Ducroquet (with commentary by Dr Meryl Nass)
September 19, 2024 at 2:01 p.m. EDT
An ambitious effort to understand the Earth’s climate over the past 485 million years has revealed a history of wild shifts and far hotter temperatures than scientists previously realized — offering a reminder of how much change the planet has already endured and a warning about the unprecedented rate of warming caused by humans.
The timeline, published Thursday in the journal Science, is the most rigorous reconstruction of Earth’s past temperatures ever produced, the authors say. Created by combining more than 150,000 pieces of fossil evidence with state-of-the-art climate models, it shows the intimate link between carbon dioxide and global temperatures and reveals that the world was in a much warmer state for most of the history of complex animal life.
At its hottest, the study suggests, the Earth’s average temperature reached 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit (36 degrees Celsius) — far higher than the historic 58.96 F (14.98 C) the planet hit last year.
The revelations about Earth’s scorching past are further reason for concern about modern climate change, said Emily Judd, a researcher at University of Arizona and the Smithsonian specializing in ancient climates and the lead author of the study. The timeline illustrates how swift and dramatic temperature shifts were associated with many of the world’s worst moments — including a mass extinction that wiped out roughly 90 percent of all species and the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs.
The largest mass extinction happened 250 million years ago, when gases from volcanic eruptions – including CO₂ – raised Earth’s temperature by more than 18ºF (10ºC) in the span of about 50,000 years. [But now they say volcanic dusts cause 1-2 years of cooling—duh?-Nass]
“We know that these catastrophic events … shift the landscape of what life looks like,” Judd said. “When the environment warms that fast, animals and plants can’t keep pace with it.”
At no point in the nearly half-billion years that Judd and her colleagues analyzed did the Earth change as fast as it is changing now, she added:
“In the same way as a massive asteroid hitting the Earth, what we’re doing now is unprecedented.” [Correct—getting rid of sensors that provide undesired data, collecting data near pavement and roads that collect heat, etc. is an unprecedented method of collecting scientific data—Nass]
The timeline encompasses almost all of the Phanerozoic — the geologic eon that began with the emergence of multicellular, non-microscopic organisms and continues today.
It portrays a global climate that was more dynamic and extreme than researchers had imagined, said Jess Tierney, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona and co-author of the study. Compared with graphs based solely on climate models, which tend to depict smaller and slower swings in temperatures, the new timeline is full of sudden spikes and abrupt shifts.
But, in keeping with decades of past research on climate, the chart hews closely to estimates of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, with temperatures rising in proportion to concentrations of the heat-trapping gas.
“Carbon dioxide is really that master dial,” Tierney said. “That’s an important message … in terms of understanding why emissions from fossil fuels are a problem today.”
At the timeline’s start, some 485 million years ago, Earth was in what is known as a hothouse climate, with no polar ice caps and average temperatures above 86 F (30 C). The oceans teemed with mollusks and arthropods, and the very first plants were just beginning to get a toehold on the land.
Temperatures began to slowly decline over the next 30 million years, as atmospheric carbon dioxide was pulled from the air, before plummeting into what scientists call a coldhouse state around 444 million years ago. Ice sheets spread across the poles and global temperatures dropped more than 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius). This rapid cooling is thought to have triggered the first of Earth’s “big five” mass extinctions — some 85 percent of marine species disappeared as sea levels fell and the chemistry of the oceans changed.
An even more dramatic shift occurred at the end of the Permian period, about 251 million years ago. Massive volcanic eruptions unleashed billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing the planet’s temperature to shoot up by about 18 F (10 C) in roughly 50,000 years. Acid rain fell across the continents; marine ecosystems collapsed as the oceans became boiling hot and depleted of oxygen. [Hate to tell the science reporter that salty oceans do not boil till they are well over 100 degrees C, yet her graph says the planet’s average temperature never got above 30 degrees C 250 million years ago.—Nass]
“We know it to be the worst extinction in the Phanerozoic,” Tierney said. “By analogy, we should be worried about human warming because it’s so fast. We’re changing Earth’s temperature at a rate that exceeds anything we know about.” [By what measure? Oh yes, the measure of whether Tierney will get another NSF grant—Nass]
The study also makes clear that the conditions humans are accustomed to are quite different from those that have dominated our planet’s history. For most of the Phanerozoic, the research suggests, average temperatures have exceeded 71.6 F (22 C), with little or no ice at the poles. Coldhouse climates — including our current one — prevailed just 13 percent of the time.
This is one of the more sobering revelations of the research, Judd said. Life on Earth has endured climates far hotter than the one people are now creating through planet-warming emissions. But humans evolved during the coldest epoch of the Phanerozoic, when global average temperatures were as low as 51.8 F (11 C).
Without rapid action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, scientists say, global temperatures could reach nearly 62.6 F (17 C) by the end of the century — a level not seen in the timeline since the Miocene epoch, more than 5 million years ago.
[Can you see how they are now tweaking the narrative to conform to these new observations? It is no longer the degree of warming that is a problem, since we experienced much warmer climates in most of the past; no, it is the speed of warming.—Dr Meryl Nass]
The planet has been heating up for the past 20,000 years – but human-caused emissions in recent centuries have pushed the rate of warming into unprecedented territory.
“We built our civilization around those geologic landscapes of an icehouse,” Judd said. “So even though climate has been warmer, humans haven’t lived in a warmer climate, and there are a lot of consequences that humans face during this time.”
[So the “scientists” are saying most other animals got along fine in a warmer climate, but humans won’t. Except that is really stupid, because humans lived in the warmest areas of the planet till recently, when we became able to build warm homes there. We started out in Africa, near the equator—where it is a WHOLE lot warmer than 2 degrees C compared to where I live in Maine. Tonight it will drop to 4 degrees C where I live. In Miami FL it will drop to 22 degrees C tonight. That is an 18 degree increase. Are they suggesting if I got on a plane to Miami tomorrow and dealt with 18 degrees warmer weather, I couldn’t handle it? I would “face consequences”? Give me a break.—Nass]
The project began nearly a decade ago, when Smithsonian scientists were developing a new fossil hall for the National Museum of Natural History. In a departure from most other paleontology exhibits, which tend to spotlight the strangeness of dinosaurs and other ancient creatures, the new hall sought to draw parallels between Earth’s past and the climate shifts happening today.
But when curators decided to install a graph of Earth’s temperature during the Phanerozoic, they realized that no single timeline existed. Although the scientists could cobble together estimates drawn from disparate data sets and reconstructions of shorter time intervals, the approach left a lot of room for uncertainties and errors.
“That was not very satisfying scientifically,” said Scott Wing, the museum’s curator of fossil plants and one of the authors of the new study. He and his colleagues wanted to create an estimate of past climates in “a statistically rigorous way.”
The first task was to create a database of climate proxies — bits of fossil evidence that hint at how the world once was. For example, the variety of oxygen found in the teeth of extinct, eel-like creatures known as conodonts reflects the water temperature in the oceans where they lived. The chemical composition of fats from ancient algae indicates how they constructed their cell walls to deal with the heat.
Yet the database was restricted to evidence from the oceans, which cover only 70 percent of the planet’s surface. And each proxy could reveal the temperature only at a particular spot at a single point in time. Even with 150,000 data points, Judd said, it was like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle with only 1 percent of the pieces.
The researchers could get a better, bigger picture using a climate model — but those simulations might vary a lot based on what assumptions they made about the Earth’s behavior, and the scientists would have no way of knowing which result was the right one. So the team turned to a technique called data assimilation, which combines real-world evidence with climate models to yield more rigorous and accurate results.
“It’s a way of mathematically integrating those handful of puzzle pieces with those possible pictures and finding out, what’s the picture those pieces belong to?” Judd said.
Though data assimilation is widely employed for modern weather forecasts and has been used to create reconstructions of temperature over shorter spans, the timeline published Thursday is the longest and most detailed scientists have ever produced.
It is also more accurate than other estimates, said Benjamin Mills, a paleoclimate researcher at the University of Leeds in England who was not involved in the study, because it uses the data assimilation approach.
“This will contribute to assessing the driving processes behind long-term temperature changes and the natural mechanisms of stabilizing or destabilizing Earth’s climate,” Mills wrote in an analysis that was published alongside the timeline.
The new temperature timeline raises as many questions as it answers, Wing said. Finding global average temperatures of more than 35 degrees Celsius implies that some parts of the planet were even hotter — during the warmest parts of the Cretaceous, for example, average temperatures in the interiors of continents might have reached 122 F (50 C). Even the hardiest modern species would wither in such a sweltering environment.
[No, they would move to the coast, dummy. I crossed the Sahara in Algeria and Niger where it was about 120 degrees and I hate to spill the beans, but people did live there, wherever there was water. You stay in the shade. Wild animals and birds lived there too. —Nass]
“It’s an indication of all the things we don’t know about how greenhouse climates work,” Wing said.
Perhaps organisms that evolved during hothouse eras were much better adapted to extreme heat than the plants and animals that live today, he added. Or maybe global temperatures were much more uniform during those periods, with few areas getting much colder or warmer than the average.
Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who is known for his analyses of past global temperatures, said he was also surprised by the suggestion that the planet got so warm.
The finding supports many scientists’ concern that feedback loops in the Earth system could lead to much higher temperatures than most climate models predict, he wrote in an email. But it’s also possible that the data assimilation assumes too much warming and is missing factors that might forestall a runaway greenhouse effect.
“While I applaud the authors for this ambitious and thoughtful study, I am skeptical about the specific, quantitative conclusions,” Mann said.
Wing acknowledged that there is a lot more work to do. He and his colleagues aim to continue to refine the timeline by adding data from land-based proxies, such as fossil leaves. They also hope it will help researchers trying to model future climate change by allowing them to examine warmer periods from Earth’s past.
And for the billions of people who are now living through the hottest years ever recorded [Because someone deleted old data from when it was warmer; see the Australian data below—Nass]— and facing a hotter future still — Judd said the timeline should serve as a wake-up call. Even under the worst-case scenarios, human-caused warming will not push the Earth beyond the bounds of habitability. But it will create conditions unlike anything seen in the 300,000 years our species has existed — conditions that could wreak havoc through ecosystems and communities.
“As long as one or two organisms survive, there will always be life. I’m not concerned about that,” Judd said. “My concern is what human life looks like. What it means to survive.”
___________
But this graphic shows the truth about how hot it really is today. Not that hot compared to the past. Unless you selectively erase old data.
Video of Dr. Patrick Moore, Co-Founder and former President of Greenpeace, telling the truth about climate change:
[…]
Via https://merylnass.substack.com/p/entire-climate-narrative-shown-up
A federal disaster relief official ordered workers to bypass the homes of Donald Trump’s supporters as they surveyed damage caused by Hurricane Milton in Florida, according to internal correspondence obtained by The Daily Wire and confirmed by multiple federal employees.
A FEMA supervisor told workers in a message to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they canvassed Lake Placid, Florida to identify residents who could qualify for federal aid, internal messages viewed by The Daily Wire reveal. The supervisor, Marn’i Washington, relayed this message both verbally and in a group chat used by the relief team, multiple government employees told The Daily Wire.
The government employees told The Daily Wire that at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags were skipped from the end of October and into November due to the guidance, meaning they were not given the opportunity to qualify for FEMA assistance. Images shared with The Daily Wire show that houses were skipped over by the workers, who wrote in the government system messages such as: “Trump sign no entry per leadership.”
It is unclear whether the same guidance was issued elsewhere in the country. The employees were part of a Department of Homeland Security surge capacity force team, meaning they volunteered from other DHS agencies to help an understaffed FEMA as it dealt with a second major hurricane in a span of just a few weeks.
“I know they’re short-staffed, I thought we could go help and make a difference,” one of the employees said. “When we got there we were told to discriminate against people. It’s almost unbelievable to think that somebody in the federal government would think that’s okay.”
The employee said it felt wrong to discriminate against Trump supporters when they were at their “most vulnerable.”
“I volunteered to help disaster victims, not discriminate against them,” the employee said. “It didn’t matter if people were black, white, Hispanic, for Trump, for Harris. Everyone deserves the same amount of help.”
The guidance came as the Biden administration was criticized over its sluggish response to Hurricane Helene in rural areas across the country. In Roan Mountain, Tennessee, for example, locals told The Daily Wire it took nearly two weeks for FEMA to show up. The town is located in Carter County, which voted 81% for Trump on Tuesday.
The FEMA agents ordered not to help houses with Trump signs were operating in Highlands County, a deep-red area located in south central Florida that backed Trump by 70% on Tuesday. It was hit with tornadoes, torrential wind and rain, and flooding when Milton hit in October.
In the chat, Washington said that it would be “best practice” to “avoid homes advertising Trump,” according to photos of the messages viewed by The Daily Wire. No explanation was given for this guidance, which included other recommendations like telling the workers to “practice de-escalation and preventative measures,” and to “avoid high salt diets and coffee.”
Photos from the system used by federal relief workers to track what homes they visit showed that relief workers followed Washington’s guidance. Several addresses were marked “not able to access property” with listed explanations such as: “Trump sign no entry per leadership,” “Per leadership no stop Trump flag,” “Trump sign,” and “Trump sign, no contact per leadership.”
Washington is the Disaster Survivor Assistance crew leader for Highland County, a leadership chart reviewed by The Daily Wire shows. She did not respond to multiple phone calls or an email seeking comment on the guidance.
Chad Hershey, Washington’s FEMA supervisor, told The Daily Wire that the agency is looking into the situation.
“We are aware of it and we are taking proper action in this situation currently,” Hershey said.
Pressed to confirm the messages, Hershey said: “We are aware of it and we are taking action at this moment regarding the situation that you’re talking about.”
Hershey added that FEMA would be providing a fuller statement though none was yet provided by press time. He said that officials in Washington, D.C., would be reaching out to The Daily Wire.
After publication of this story, a FEMA spokesperson told The Daily Wire it was “deeply disturbed” and “horrified” by the employee’s actions, and that it has “taken extreme actions to correct this situation.”
“While we believe this is an isolated incident, we have taken measures to remove the employee from their role and are investigating the matter to prevent this from happening ever again,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The employee who issued this guidance had no authority and was given no direction to tell teams to avoid these homes and we are reaching out to the people who may have not been reached as a result of this incident.”
“This is a matter that we take extremely seriously and we are doing everything we can to make sure all survivors receive support from FEMA. To date, we have helped over 365,000 households impacted by both Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the state of Florida and have provided over $898 million in direct assistance to survivors.”
“We are horrified that this took place and therefore have taken extreme actions to correct this situation and have ensured that the matter was addressed at all levels. Helping people is what we do best and our workforce across the agency will continue to serve survivors for as long as it takes.”
In addition to the statement, a FEMA spokesman clarified that Washington is not actively working for the agency, pending an investigation.
The guidance was first issued by Washington verbally on October 22, and again in the group chat on October 27, according to one of the federal employees. The Trump-related instructions were deleted from the chat a few days later, photos of the chat reviewed by The Daily Wire show.
By October 30, Washington had started walking back the instructions about skipping Trump supporters’ homes, one of the federal employees told The Daily Wire. The relief workers said Washington denied that homes were being skipped after a meeting with other FEMA administrators.
The employees say that Washington has not been punished for the guidance, but has been shifted to another county in Florida.
The whistleblower complaint says that the Trump guidance further undermines trust in FEMA and its response to the hurricanes.
“This behavior raises significant concerns of discrimination against United States citizens because of their political views,” a copy of the complaint obtained by The Daily Wire said. “These actions not only undermine the integrity of our agency and create a hostile work environment for those who may hold differing political beliefs but they also threaten the very democracy of our country.”
[…]
FILE PHOTO. © Morteza Nikoubazl/Getty Images
RT
The US authorities earlier charged a Tehran resident with laying the groundwork for an attack on the president-elect
Iran has denied US accusations that it attempted to orchestrate a plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump before the November election. It has dismissed the allegations as a hoax orchestrated by pro-Israel actors in a bid to exacerbate tensions between Washington and Tehran.
On Friday, the US Department of Justice claimed that Iranian officials had asked a man named Farhad Shakeri to “provide a plan” to kill Trump, adding that he was also tasked with carrying out assassinations of US and Israeli citizens inside the US. Shakeri was described as an Afghan national residing in Tehran after being deported from the US in 2008 following a lengthy prison sentence for robbery.
The indictment also implicated two American citizens, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, who were accused of helping Tehran track a US citizen of Iranian origin. “The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
Baghaei also recalled that Iran had denied similar “false” allegations in the past. He was apparently referring to an indictment by the US Department of Justice from August in which a Pakistani national was accused of being sent to the US by Iran to carry out murders. One of the planned attacks was allegedly aimed at Trump.
Trump was the target of two assassination attempts this year prior to the election. The first one occurred in July when Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on him at a Pennsylvania rally, with one bullet grazing Trump’s ear. The would-be assassin was killed on the spot by the Secret Service.
The second incident took place in September, when a suspect identified as Ryan Wesley Routh allegedly tried to assassinate Trump at his Florida golf course but was intercepted by security.
[…]
Via https://www.rt.com/news/607411-iran-denies-plotting-kill-trump/
