Political outsider Vivek Ramaswamy is heading back to Iowa this week with a lot of momentum and a big target on his back in the Republican Party presidential nomination chase.
Read MoreAs Ramaswamy Rises in the Polls, Political Knives Come Out
Tag: COVID
Commentary: Michelle Obama Could Really Be the Choice of the Democrat Establishment
The Democratic establishment is laying the groundwork to dump Joe Biden. When the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Axios, and the Atlantic desert a liberal president, you know the knives are out. Which raises two questions: when will they stick the shiv into Biden? And how do they plan to deal with the “Kamala problem”?
To all but her most ardent fans, it is obvious that having Kamala on the 2024 ticket would be a disaster for the Democrats. Her 2020 campaign collapsed before a single vote was cast. Biden made her his running mate, not because she was a good candidate, but solely because he had backed himself into a corner when he promised he would choose a black woman as his running mate.
Read MoreGOP Presidential Hopeful Ramaswamy Brimming with Youth, Energy and Confidence
He’s young. He’s successful. And he’s extremely confident. Some might say cocky.
Read MoreStudents’ Math and Reading Scores Aren’t Bouncing Back from School Closures
Students’ academic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic has stalled despite efforts to make up for the learning loss, according to a Tuesday report.
Students on average need more than four extra months in school in order to catch up to grade-level expectations, according to a report by NWEA, a nonprofit organization that provides Pre-K-12 assessment data. The report showed that, on average, students’ math and reading scores are growing slower than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read MoreCommentary: As Hiring Slows Down, So Does the Economy
The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June, according to the latest establishment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than expected as 306,000 were added in May, as hiring slowed down nationwide. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained about the same at 3.6 percent.
Historically, when hiring slows down by establishments, that usually coincides with economic slowdowns and recessions. In the recent cycle, the 2020 and 2021 recovery from COVID notwithstanding, hiring peaked at about 5.2 percent annualized increase in Feb. 2022. Now, it’s down to 2.5 percent.
Read MoreCDC Admits Not Including Diagnostic Codes Showing COVID Vax as ‘Cause’ on Some Death Certificates
The CDC’s explanation for leaving certain diagnosis codes off Minnesota death certificates that cite COVID-19 vaccines as a cause of death, allegedly hiding vaccine injuries in federal records, shows “intent to deceive,” according to a person who helped analyze the death certificates for the Brownstone Institute, a think tank that challenges the scientific basis for COVID conventional wisdom and policy.
Read MoreMasks Offer ‘Small’ Benefit Against COVID, Increased CO2 May Be Tied to Stillbirths: Research
The termination of the COVID-19 national emergency has not ended mask mandates in various jurisdictions and settings such as healthcare, even as more peer-reviewed research suggests that face coverings can cause more harm than good.
The Annals of Internal Medicine published the “final update” to a three-year “living, rapid review” of research on mask effectiveness against COVID infection, which concluded masks in healthcare and community settings “may be associated with a small reduction in risk” — 10-18% — but that the evidence is weak.
Read MoreCDC Director Walensky Leaving CDC
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky is leaving her post in June. Walensky’s departure was announced by President Biden, according to several news reports.
Read MoreMinnesota Family Receives Reimbursement After COVID-19 Booster Death
In a rare move acknowledging a death caused by the COVID jab, a Minnesota family has received $9,000 from the federal government to reimburse them for funeral costs.
Darlene Carlson, 82, died at a Twin Cities hospital on June 2, 2022, days after receiving the Pfizer booster.
Read MoreInternational Research Suggests Masks Better at Causing ‘Long COVID’ than Stopping Virus
Government-backed assumptions about the safety and effectiveness of high-quality mask-wearing against COVID-19 are facing scrutiny from new international research that shines a harsh light on the feds’ continued faith in face coverings.
Surgical and N95-grade masks might induce symptoms misidentified as biologically elusive “long COVID,” according to a “systematic review” in the peer-reviewed Swiss journal Frontiers in Public Health. It echoes a recent study of Norwegian adolescents and young adults on long COVID’s connection to “loneliness” and physical inactivity — conditions exacerbated by pandemic interventions.
Read MoreTrump Asks NRA Members for Their Votes to End the Radical, Gun Control Left’s Reign
Reminding gun owners what he did for the protection of the Second Amendment and pledging to do much more, former President Donald Trump closed the National Rifle Association’s main event Friday with a stemwinder that brought the crowd to its feet.
In a full-on campaign speech, the Republican presidential frontrunner told those assembled at the NRA-Institute for Legislative Action Leadership Forum that he was running for another term to right the ship listing from “nation-wrecking, globalist marxists, RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) and tyrants.”
Read MoreWorld Health Organization Puts CDC on Defense by Drastically Narrowing COVID Vax Recommendations
The U.S. one-size-fits-all COVID-19 vaccine policy, which recommends “up to date” inoculation at all ages regardless of risk level and provides the basis for ongoing mandates in low-risk settings, has become an even bigger international outlier.
The World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization is removing “healthy children and adolescents” from its default recommendations for primary series and booster shots, according to an official “highlights” summary from its meetings the week of March 20.
Read MoreSeattle Public Schools Consider Closures as Student Enrollment Plunges Post-Pandemic
Seattle Public Schools may have to close some of its schools over the next few years as the district battles budget shortages and plummeting enrollment after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read MoreVaxxed Army Pilot Denied Promotion While Alleged Military Clinic Sexual Harasser Keeps Job
A vaccinated Army pilot, who was reprimanded after his initial hesitation to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, is still being denied promotion and might not be able to retire, while a woman who allegedly sexually harassed him at a military medical clinic retains her employment.
Read MoreFederal Agencies Withholding Data Behind Pilot Heart Condition Change, COVID Vax Stroke Reversal
Federal agencies are withholding the data behind recent decisions that relate or may relate to COVID-19 vaccines and severe adverse events, fueling speculation that they are putting both vaccinated and unvaccinated lives at risk. The Federal Aviation Administration told Just the News it widened the acceptable range of heart rhythms for commercial pilots, who were initially subject to industry-wide vaccine mandates, in light of “[n]ew scientific evidence” that it has yet to specify.
Read MoreMinnesota’s ‘Let Them Play’ Founder and Mother of Five Heads to Legislature
On the latest episode of “Liz Collin Reports,” Liz sat down with incoming Minnesota state representative Dawn Gillman to discuss Republican priorities for the new legislative session, advice for Minnesota parents trying to navigate left-wing ideology in their children’s schools, and more.
Gillman was the founder of Let Them Play Minnesota, a grassroots movement that successfully pressured Gov. Tim Walz into reopening schools and their athletic programs in the fall of 2020. She said the movement grew to a whopping 25,000 members and raised over $500,000 in under a year.
Read MoreCommentary: Biden Admin Blames the American People for its Own Ludicrous Spending
Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen blamed the American people for the 40-year high inflation we have been enduring.
Appearing on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” she said that Americans “were in their homes for a year or more, they wanted to buy grills and office furniture, they were working from home, they suddenly started splurging on goods, buying technology.” According to her, this consumer “splurging” caused prices to rise so much.
Read MoreRigorous International Study of N95 Masks Upends Federal COVID Narrative
The CDC took nearly two years to formally recognize distinctions between masks for mitigating COVID-19 spread, finally saying in January that cloth masks offer “the least” protection and N95 respirators, which meet strict federal standards, “the highest.”
The agency’s slight nod to the largely symbolic value of cloth masks, predominantly worn in school settings, followed months of calls by onetime White House COVID advisers, among others, to promote masks actually designed to stop aerosolized transmission. It also spurred a run on N95s, sending prices skyward.
Read MoreNational Science Foundation Gives Tens of Millions to Fight COVID ‘Disinformation,’ Populism
Government efforts to squelch purported misinformation and disinformation on the most contested subjects in American politics don’t stop with Cabinet-level agencies.
The National Science Foundation has awarded at least $39 million in grants and contracts in fiscal years 2021 and 2022 for projects that target misinformation or disinformation, frequently pertaining to COVID-19 and elections.
Read MoreFDA Social Media Posts on COVID Under Legal, Medical Scrutiny for Misleading Claims
The FDA’s Twitter habits are getting scrutiny in court and from medical professionals as the feds seesaw between walking back their once-confident COVID-19 assertions and making sweeping new claims without providing evidence.
Having long ago conceded that COVID vaccines can’t stop viral transmission and that assertions to the contrary by President Biden among others were based on “hope” rather than science, the feds are now downplaying the influence of their social media to escape liability for allegedly violating statutory limits by interfering in medical judgments.
Read MoreCommentary: The Top 10 U.S. Senate Races to Watch
Americans will soon get to cast their first votes since the science–denying COVID mask and vaccine mandates, the second wave of COVID-related blowout spending and subsequent inflation, and the COVID-related school closures that allowed parents to see what the public schools are really teaching their boys and girls – including that they can choose whether they are boys or girls. With all of these matters implicitly on the ballot, how are things shaping up going into Election Day?
Starting with the House of Representatives, six months ago Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report projected “a GOP gain in the 15-25 seat range.” At the time, I responded, “While things could change over the next six months (although the cake is probably largely baked), a GOP gain of 30 to 40 House seats appears more likely at this stage of the contest than Walter’s projected GOP gain of 15 to 25 seats.”
Read MoreCommentary: The Left Were the Mad Scientists, Americans Were Their Lab Rats
As the midterms approach, one way of looking at America’s current disaster is that we, the American people, were lab rats. And since 2021, the Left were the mad scientists, eager to try out their crackpot leftist experiments on us.
The result is that the housing market is tottering on the verge of collapse.
Read MoreCommentary: The Fed’s Interest Rate Hikes Have only Destroyed $398 Billion of the $6 Trillion It Printed
“Our expectation has been we would begin to see inflation come down, largely because of supply side healing. We haven’t. We have seen some supply side healing but inflation has not really come down.”
That was Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Sept. 21, speaking to reporters following the central bank’s meeting where the Federal Funds Rate was once again increased 0.75 percent to its current range of 3 percent to 3.25 percent in a bid to combat sticky 8.3 percent consumer inflation the past year.
Read MoreCaryn Sullivan Commentary: A Gaslit Mom Will Vote Republican for the First Time
The 2022 midterm election is officially underway in Minnesota, as early voting commenced Friday. Recent polls showed the economy, crime, and abortion were in the forefront of voters’ minds. Then Minnesota made international news again when U.S. Attorney Andy Luger issued indictments of nearly 50 individuals accused of perpetrating the largest COVID fraud on record.
Commentators now say concerns about fraud will influence voters. But there’s another issue that’s garnered little attention. I wonder how it will play out as voters weigh in.
Read MoreUnvaxxed Cancer Patients Were Excluded from Rochester Treatment Housing During COVID
A Minnesota nurse and mother fighting breast cancer says she has been denied free housing by the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodge because of her decision not to get the COVID vaccine.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that the organization recently changed its policy to allow unvaccinated patients without informing her.
Read MoreBiden Says COVID Pandemic Is ‘Over’ in the United States
President Joe Biden said the COVID-19 pandemic is “over” in the United States.
“The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lotta work on it. It’s– But the pandemic is over,” Biden said during a pre-recorded CBS “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday.
“As you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape, and so I think it’s changing,” he said.
Read MoreDenmark Will No Longer Offer COVID Vaccines to Healthy People Under 50
Denmark has just tacitly admitted that the risks of mRNA injections outweigh the benefits for healthy people under 50.
The Nordic country will no longer offer COVID-19 boosters and vaccines to persons under 50 who are not at high risk of becoming ill from the virus, the Danish Health Authority (SST) announced on Tuesday.
Read MoreHead Start School Programs Require COVID Masks for Children, Contrary to CDC Guidance
Head Start, the federal program providing preschool and child care for low-income families, will require COVID-19 masks for children 2 and older this school year, which is inconsistent with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Read MoreCommentary: Enormous Amounts of Money Flow into the Bottomless Education Pit
Spurred by COVID panic, schools have been the recipient of ungodly sums of money. And it’s not as if the beast was starving before. To put things into perspective, the United States spends about $800 billion on national defense, more than China, Russia, India, the UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Japan combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. America now spends even more on K-12 education, with an outlay of about $900 billion dollars a year, which includes an additional $122 billion from the COVID-related American Rescue Plan.
Read MoreJudge Chastises DoD, Marine Corps in Order Granting Class Action Status in Vaccine Mandate Case
U.S District Court Judge Steven Merryday issued a blistering rebuke of the Department of Defense and Marine Corps for refusing to grant religious accommodation requests to service members.
Merryday did so when issuing a 48-page ruling Thursday in which he granted class action status for all active and reserve U.S. Marine Corps service men and women in a lawsuit filed against the Secretary of Defense over the department’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Read MorePoll: Americans More Worried About COVID, Less Confident in Vaccination
Newly released polling data shows Americans are more pessimistic about COVID-19.
Gallup released survey data Wednesday showing that 41% of Americans think the situation is improving, down from 63% who said the same in early May of this year.
Read MoreTrump: ‘America Is on the Edge of an Abyss’
Donald Trump on Saturday delivered stinging rebukes of the Biden administration at the Dallas Conservative Political Action Conference, one of a continuing series of indications that the still-popular former president has set his sights on a return to the White House for 2024.
Trump during his speech declared that the U.S. “is being destroyed more from the inside than the out,” and that the country “is on the edge of an abyss, and our movement is the only force on earth that can save it.”
Read MoreCoast Guard to Discharge COVID Vaccine Mandate Objectors Without Separation Hearings
While federal courts have ordered the Navy and Air Force not to take any adverse actions against military members seeking religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the Coast Guard is seeking to discharge service members refusing the vaccine without allowing them to appear before administrative separation boards to defend their cases.
Federal courts in Texas and Ohio have granted injunctions against the Navy and Air Force vaccine mandates, respectively, for members seeking religious exemptions. Those injunctions, however, do not apply to any other military branches, including the Coast Guard.
Read MorePresident Biden Tests Positive for COVID-19 Again
President Biden on Saturday tested positive for COVID-19 again, the White House state in a statement.
A statement was from the White House physician and said the 79-year-old president tested positive “late Saturday morning” after multiple negative tests earlier in the week. He returned to in-person work Wednesday, after having tested positive days earlier. The situation of getting COVID soon after having already contracted the virus is frequently referred to as “rebound” COVID.
Read MoreSchools See Rise in Students Seeking Mental Health Assistance After COVID
Over three-fourths of American public schools have reported a rise in the number of students seeking mental health assistance in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As reported by Fox News, the data was released on Tuesday by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which operates under the guidance of the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The report shows that 76 percent of public schools saw staff express concerns about the mental health of their students, including depression, anxiety, and trauma since the coronavirus pandemic began in early 2020.
Read MoreWhisteblower’s Lawyer: Pfizer Got Away with Vaccine Fraud Because Government Was Co-Conspirator
Pfizer has asked a U.S. court to throw out a whistleblower’s lawsuit on the basis that the company can’t be guilty of fraud, abuse, and protocol violations in its COVID Vaccine clinical trials because its contract with the U.S. government allowed them to skirt regulations and federal laws that typically apply to government contracts.
Read MoreArizona GOP Gubernatorial Hopeful Kari Lake Vows to Defend Parents, Kids Against Leftwing Teachers
Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, covered Arizona GOP gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake’s May 12, 2022, in front of the statehouse in Phoenix, where Lake unveiled her education policy.
Read MoreChina Bans Its Own National Anthem as Anger over Lockdowns Rises
China’s censors banned social media posts featuring the communist country’s national anthem after internet users co-opted its lyrics to protest Shanghai’s ongoing lockdown, multiple sources reported.
Censors are actively removing Chinese posts containing the first stanza of “The March of the Volunteers,” which features the lyrics “Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves,” NY Daily News reported.
Read MoreDHS Extends COVID Vax Mandate for Noncitizens Entering Legally, as Illegal Entrants Remain Exempt
The Department of Homeland Security is extending the requirement for all “noncitizen non-LPRs” (those who are neither U.S. citizens nor lawful permanent residents) arriving at legal points of entry, including ferry terminals, to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19, according to a rule issued by the agency on Thursday.
Read MoreCommentary: America Has Become La La Land
America these last 14 months resembles a dystopia. It is becoming partly the world of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, partly the poet Homer’s land of the Lotus-Eaters.
Nothing seems to be working. And no one in control seems to care.
Read MoreThree-Fourths of Americans Say COVID No Longer a Crisis
An overwhelming majority of Americans now believe that the coronavirus crisis has all but passed and is now a much more manageable issue, according to a new poll.
Axios reports that in its latest poll, conducted with Ipsos, only 9 percent of Americans call the coronavirus pandemic “a serious crisis.” Conversely, 73 percent described it as “a problem, but manageable.” Another 17 percent say it is “not a problem at all.” Along party lines, only 3 percent of Republicans called it a “crisis,” in comparison to 16 percent of Democrats; 66 percent of Republicans called it “manageable,” while 81 percent of Democrats said the same. Just 3 percent of Democrats think it is no longer an issue, with 31 percent of Republicans giving the same answer.
Read MoreCommentary: A Biden Recession Is Virtually Guaranteed After 10-Year, 2-Year Treasuries Spread Inverts as Economy Overheats from Rampant Inflation
The spread between 10-year treasuries and 2-year treasuries, a leading recession indicator whose inversions have predicted almost all of the U.S. economic recessions in modern history, on March 31 inverted for the first time since Sept. 2019.
When the 10-year, 2-year spread inverts, a recession tends to result on average 14 months afterward, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. The one time there was a head fake on the 10-year, 2-year was in the mid-1990s at a time when inflation was much lower Visit Site than it is now.
As an aside, potentially the Sept. 2019 inversion might have ended up being a premature indicator, too, but then Covid and global economic lockdowns in early 2020 went ahead and ensured a recession even if one was not due. On the other hand, at that point it had been 11 years since the prior recession and so the business cycle was going to end sooner or later.
Read MoreCommentary: Follow the Money to Uncover the Corruption Around COVID-19 Measures
When Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. published his book The Real Anthony Fauci in November, the fact that it was met with near-total silence from the media was hardly surprising. After all, since the declaration of the COVID pandemic in March 2020, with social media in the lead, Americans have witnessed an unprecedented suppression of any view departing from the official narrative on everything from the origin of the virus to lockdowns, mitigation strategies, and early treatment.
Read MoreMinnesota to Provide 500,000 At-Home COVID Tests to Residents
The state of Minnesota is launching a new program to distribute 500,000 at-home coronavirus tests to residents of the state.
The new initiative will replace a system that forces individuals to order a COVID-19 test from a lab and ship the test back for analysis and confirmation of the virus.
Read MoreCommentary: 10 Realities of Ukraine
One. Reassuring an enemy what one will not do ensures that the enemy will do just that and more. Unpredictability and occasional enigmatic silence bolster deterrence. But Joe Biden’s predictable reassurance to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will show restraint means Putin likely will not.
Two. No-fly zones don’t work in a big-power, symmetrical standoff. In a cost-benefit analysis, they are not worth the risk of shooting down the planes of a nuclear power. They usually do little to stop planes outside of such zones shooting missiles into them. Sending long-range, high-altitude anti-aircraft batteries to Ukraine to deny Russian air superiority is a far better way of regaining air parity.
Three. Europe, NATO members, and Germany in particular have de facto admitted that their past decades of shutting down nuclear plants, coal mines, and oil and gas fields have left Europe at the mercy of Russia. They are promising to rearm and meet their promised military contributions. By their actions, they are admitting that their critics, the United States in particular, were right, and they were dangerously wrong in empowering Putin.
Read MoreCommentary: Schools’ COVID-Aid Joy Ride Could Send New Hires off a Fiscal Cliff – Again
As school districts across the country grapple with declining enrollments induced by the pandemic, many are engaged in spending sprees like those of the past leading to widespread layoffs and budget cuts when federal money ran out.
Bolstered by $190 billion in pandemic relief funding from Washington, the nation’s public schools are hiring new teachers and staff, raising salaries, and sweetening benefit packages. Some are buying new vehicles. Others are building theaters and sports facilities.
Using such temporary support for new staff and projects with long-term costs is setting the table for perilous “fiscal cliffs” after COVID funding expires in 2024, some education budget analysts say. And that’s on top of doubts about whether money to battle the pandemic is being properly spent in the first place.
Read MoreCensored: Twitter Suspends John Solomon’s Account for Story on Peer-Reviewed COVID Study
Twitter on Thursday suspended the account of Just the News CEO and Editor John Solomon for tweeting a story about a peer-reviewed study on COVID vaccines published in a respected medical journal by a research university that has worked with the both National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization.
Read MoreCommentary: Justices Must Stop the Legal System from Becoming a Quick-Return Investment Scheme for Trial Lawyers
In the interest of a return to normalcy, we take this short break from COVID and Ukraine coverage to bring to your attention an actual conservative policy matter. The pesky trial lawyers and their junk science “experts” are at it again, providing certain justices of the Supreme Court an opportunity to show us they can still do the right thing.
I’m not pointing fingers at say, Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, but certain esteemed members of the court who had less than smooth sailing in their confirmation battles and for whom conservatives stormed the ramparts (figuratively speaking of course), have left us wondering if they were worth the battle scars. Here’s some low hanging fruit for them to pick off and make everyone breathe a little easier. All they have to do is vote to take a certain case.
The case involves a long-running dispute brought by the inventor of a special warming blanket called the Bair Hugger (now owned by 3M) which has proven to reduce post-operative infections and other complications and has been used in over 300 million surgeries worldwide to maintain patients’ body temperatures. The inventor, Dr. Scott Augustine made a fortune on this device but lost his rights to the product and its proceeds when he pled guilty to Medicare fraud in an unrelated matter. Dr. Augustine then invented a competing device and waged a campaign to discredit the Bair Hugger claiming that it caused infections. He then hired “experts” and funded studies to back up his claim. Except one of the actual authors of the studies called those studies “marketing rather than research.” As in not based on facts. The FDA admonished Dr. Augustine to stop the false campaign. And not a single physician who uses the Bair Hugger, or a single epidemiologist or any public health officials have supported Dr. Augustine’s contention.
Read MoreCommentary: Critical Thinking Crumbles in the Case of COVID
According to Hans Rosling “Critical thinking is always difficult, but it’s almost impossible when we are scared. There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.” The American Psychological Association indicates the use of fear to influence behavior is effective, especially among women. For fear to be a successful change agent, it must be viewed as a legitimate warning about what will happen if behavior does or does not occur.
Read MoreCommentary: In 2022, Voters Must Stand Up to America’s Uniparty Empire
If we follow the conventional political thinking, Republicans can anticipate an electoral shift during the November midterm elections and appear likely to recapture the White House in 2024. A grassroots revolt is already showing signs that the Democrats should expect to be punished for politicizing education and mismanaging COVID policy.
If we follow the conventional thinking even further, this will spell success for a usual cast of Republican-leaning characters in leadership and consulting roles. Karl Rove is likely already updating his fee structure. Veterans of the two Bush Administrations will send their résumés east in hopes of retaining old posts so they can steer contracts and favors back to their allies and former employers.
Right, Left, Right, Left, the hypnotic rhythm drums on—briefly interrupted only by an aberrational Trump Administration or popular uprising—but it all returns to the statists’ status quo in the end. The uniparty simply shifts its weight from its left foot to its right while business proceeds as usual.
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