Democrat Mandated COVID-19 Lockdowns Caused More Deaths Instead Of Reducing Them, RAND study finds

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The Democrat media complex was an accomplice to this mass murder.

COVID-19 lockdowns caused more deaths instead of reducing them, RAND study finds

By: Michael McKenna,  June 30, 2021 Washington Times,:

COVID-19 lockdowns caused more deaths instead of reducing them, study finds

Those who pushed ‘shelter in place’ policies share the blame, but everyone feels the consequences

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

As we begin to pick through the rubble of the early days of the coronavirus that started in Wuhan in an effort to determine with some specificity the origins of COVID-19, and whether it was accidentally or purposefully released from a Chinese lab, it is important, too, that we assess the wisdom of our public health approaches to the disease.

Chief among those approaches was the institution of lockdowns across a broad range of populations.

The pathologies of the lockdowns are clear and have been both predicted and recorded. They include increased risk of preventable deaths from cancer, heart disease, etc., as well as psychological trauma, resulting in increased homicides, accidents and suicidal ideations, caused by long periods of isolation.

What is less clear is whether the lockdowns served any useful medical purpose.

Fortunately, two researchers at the RAND Corporation and two researchers from the University of Southern California have done an analysis of the medical value of the lockdowns (which they refer to as “sheltering in place,” or SIP, policies). They looked at 43 countries and all of the states in the union, and published their assessment in June as a working paper of the National Bureau for Economic Research.
Shelter-in-place orders didn’t save lives during the pandemic, research paper concludes

You may have missed the report. It has not received much coverage from the media, who must be busy with some incredibly important and hard-hitting story about Dr. Anthony Fauci or the first lady.

Let’s remedy that oversight.

The RAND/USC team is unsparingly direct: “[W]e fail to find that SIP policies saved lives. To the contrary, we find a positive association between SIP policies and excess deaths. We find that following the implementation of SIP policies, excess mortality increases.”

So, the lockdowns didn’t reduce the number of deaths, failed to prevent any excess deaths, and in fact resulted in increased deaths.

Additionally, countries that locked their citizens in their homes were experiencing declining — not increasing — excess mortality prior to lockdowns. In other words, lockdowns probably made the situation worse.

The researchers were again direct. “If SIP were implemented when excess deaths were rising then the results … would be biased towards finding that SIP policies lead to excess deaths. However, we find the opposite: countries that implemented SIP policies experienced a decline in excess mortality prior to implementation compared to countries that did not implement SIP policies.”

Moreover, unless you lived on an island, it did not seem to make any difference when the lockdowns were implemented. They were ineffectual at best and led to increased mortality at worst.

From the study: “It is also possible that the average effects in our event studies might hide heterogeneity (differences) in the impact of policies across countries and U.S. states. For example, SIP policies might be more effective when implemented early in the pandemic or SIP policies might work better when community transmission is high. … Overall, we find little evidence of heterogenous effects except that SIP policies seem to be more effective in island nations or … Hawaii.”

Finally, there was no advantage to locking down early or staying locked down longer. The researchers noted: “We failed to find that countries or U.S. states that implemented SIP policies earlier, and in which SIP policies had longer to operate, had lower excess deaths than countries/U.S. states that were slower to implement SIP policies.”

So, the duration of the lockdowns made no difference.

The simple fact is that COVID-19 was and is a highly infectious respiratory disease to which everyone is eventually going be exposed either naturally or through vaccines. The disease tends to kill older people and those with preexisting respiratory challenges or who are obese.

The RAND/USC study makes it clear that all the lockdowns accomplished was to add personal, psychological and economic devastation to the terrible personal and societal toll of illness and death.

Everyone involved — from President Trump and his public health advisers who initiated the first lockdown (remember “15 days to slow the spread”), right on through to those who continue to insist that isolation for everyone, even those not at risk, is the correct course of action — share the blame.

But all of us share the consequences.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Demented Joe Biden Snaps at the Press: ‘I Want to Talk About Happy Things Man!

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This is not funny anymore.

Joe Biden Snaps at the Press: ‘I Want to Talk About Happy Things Man!

By: Charlie Spiering, Breitbart News, 2 Jul 2021:

President Joe Biden again snapped at reporters on Friday after delivering remarks to celebrate the substantial employment gains in June.

After finishing his remarks, Biden took a few questions from the attendant media, but immediately complained they were too negative.

One reporter asked him about the future of Afghanistan and his proposed timeline of withdrawal of troops from the country.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks about the June jobs report in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 02, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Biden defended the withdrawal of troops, noting the United States had been in that war for 20 years.

“I want to talk about happy things, man!” Biden replied after a second reporter asked about Afghanistan.

After a third reporter asked Biden about Afghanistan, he grew even more frustrated.

“I’m not going to answer any more questions about Afghanistan,” he replied. “Look it’s the Fourth of July. I’m concerned that you guys are asking me questions that I’ll answer next week.”

“This is a holiday weekend, I’m going to celebrate it,” Biden continued. “Great things happening.”

Biden told the press jobs numbers were up, the economy was up, coronavirus cases were down, the troops were coming home and people were getting back to baseball stadiums.

“I’ll answer all your negative questions… not negative, you’re legitimate question,” he said.

Another reporter asked Biden if he was concerned that enough Americans had been vaccinated to gather and celebrate the holiday in large groups without another coronavirus outbreak.

“I’m not concerned there’s going to be a major outbreak, in other words, that we’re going to have another epidemic nationwide,” Biden said. “But I am concerned that lives will be lost.”

As Biden left the podium, another reporter asked him about whether he was confident his infrastructure deal would make progress in Congress.

“C’mon guys,” he replied. “Have you ever been confident about anything with guarantee … who wants to put money on anything that Congress is going to do?”

“Look folks this is a process,” he continued. “This is a process. I love you guys. but it’s a process.”

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

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College Roommates of Muslim Who Stabbed Rabbi in Boston Say He’s ‘Violent’ and ‘Very Much Anti-Semitic’

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Violent and anti-Semitic. Wow, I’m totally stumped. Is Khaled Awad a white supremacist? After all, what other ideology inculcates violence and anti-Semitism?

College Roommates Of Khaled Awad, Suspect In Brighton Rabbi Stabbing, Say He Was ‘Very Much Anti-Semitic’

by Kristina Rex, CBS, July 2, 2021:

BRIGHTON (CBS) – College roommates of Khaled Awad, the man accused of stabbing Rabbi Shlomo Noginski eight times outside a Jewish school in Brighton Thursday, say he was “violent” and “very much anti-Semitic”….

Prosecutors said Awad has no record in Massachusetts, but has faced charges of battery and theft in Florida and was sent to a mental health facility there….

His former college roommates and friends at the University of Southern Florida, where he studied chemical engineering until very recently, say Awad had showed a propensity for violence.

“He started becoming violent,” said Eric Valiente, a friend of Awad’s.

His roommate Aidan says he and Awad were friends until Awad attacked him in their shared kitchen on day, prompting Aidan to move out and get a restraining order.

“We were friends, to be honest with you. I’m Jewish. And he knew that since I moved in,” said Aidan Anderson, the suspect’s former roommate.

Aidan and Eric say Awad’s beliefs towards certain cultures became evident early on.

“He was very much anti-Semitic. He would say like all types of Jewish jokes. I thought he was joking at first and then I started to see seriousness in his comments,” said Eric.

After the assault in fall of 2020, the friend distanced themselves from Khaled, but still say they’re shocked he would go so far as to assault a stranger with a weapon.

“He disgusted me at that point. I wanted nothing to do with the guy. At this point, I was a little scared of him. I was scared of what he was capable of because I realize he was a very dark person,” said Eric….

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Historic Church Used as a Stable in Southeast Turkey

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

From My Mother’s Womb, You Are My Strength

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Randall Smith: If we turn a blind eye on abortion, can we really face the God who made both them and us? More is at stake than Republican vs. Democrat.

There were several especially interesting readings for the recent Solemnity of St. John the Baptist. One set begins with this text from Jeremiah 1:5:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I dedicated you,
a prophet to the nations I appointed you.

The responsorial psalm was a selection of verses from Psalm 71 that contained these lines:

R.   Since my mother’s womb, you have been my strength.
Be my rock of refuge,
a stronghold to give me safety,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
O my God, rescue me from the hand of the wicked.
R.    Since my mother’s womb, you have been my strength.
For you are my hope, O Lord;
my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
On you I depend from birth;
from my mother’s womb you are my strength.

The other option for the day contained a reading from Isaiah 49 that included these two passages:

The LORD called me from birth,
from my mother’s womb he gave me my name. (Is 49:1)

. . . my reward is with the LORD,
my recompense is with my God.
For now the LORD has spoken
who formed me as his servant from the womb. (Is 49:4-5)

The responsorial psalm that went with that reading was taken from Psalm 139 and contained these popular words:  “I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made.”  The sermon I heard that day took its basic theme from these words.  I am grateful any time the readings of the day are mentioned in a homily, but I have yet to hear anyone comment on the following words in that same psalm:

R.   I praise you for I am wonderfully made.
Truly you have formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made.

Both sets of readings make sense as precursors to the Gospel reading for the day, which recounts the story of John’s naming.  When Elizabeth announced that the child in her womb would be named John, her family members objected, saying that no one else in the family had that name. When they appealed to Zechariah, who had been struck dumb during his service in the Temple, he wrote:  “His name is John,” and his tongue was loosed.

What should we make of all this?  Well, one thing we might take from it is the rather obvious conclusion that human beings are “known by God” in the womb. Or to put this in modern terms, fetuses are persons intended by God.

I am aware that a Scriptural argument of this sort would not be credible to the non-Christians in our society. Fine.  But what about the rest of us? What about Catholics? What about our Protestant brethren? Wasn’t the Protestant Reformation supposed to be about defending the Scriptures as the inspired and authoritative word of God?

Scholars throughout history, both Protestant and Catholic, have pored over the Scriptures diligently, exhaustively, trying to unlock its innermost secrets in the conviction that the Scriptures contain the words of truth and life.  Is something hidden or obscure in the passages I’ve quoted? Or is it not rather that the truth of the matter is proclaimed like a loud trumpet blast? Is Christ both fully man and fully God from the moment of His conception or not? If He is, then all the rest of mankind is fully human from the moment of their conception too. And if so, then one cannot “terminate” these lives without violating the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.”

Please understand, this isn’t meant as a partisan political appeal.  I set it before any reader who is Christian as an existential choice. Do the Scriptures contain God’s inspired word and truth or not?  And if they do, are we really listening to God’s word to understand what it teaches and to heed its directives? Or are we picking through to find passages that fit our prejudices and preconceptions while avoiding the ones calling us to something we might find unpleasant?  Have we, like so many in Christ’s day, simply closed our ears, our minds, and our hearts to a message we need to hear?

Because if the constant teaching of the Church that has for centuries unequivocally condemned abortion is to be easily ignored and if even the words of the Scriptures have become a dead letter to us, then I really have no idea who we are or what we’re doing in all these “Christian” churches.  Are we simply making ourselves feel better about ourselves?  Banking some “brownie points” to earn our way into heaven – or perhaps into the local country club?

If we fail to be moved by God’s word and harden our heart against these little ones, can we really call ourselves “Christians” in any serious sense?  Wouldn’t we be guilty of the “cheap grace” that the great Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned about?  Could any of our blessed ancestors who gave their lives in defense of the faith fail to be disgusted by the hypocrisy of this generation, much the way we are disgusted at the hypocrisy of the German Christians who failed to condemn the murders of millions of Jews?

The slaughter of 66 million children in the womb since 1973, each of whom (if the Scriptures are telling the truth) is “known by God” and “fearfully and wonderfully made,” is no more “just another issue” than was the slaughter of 6 million Jews.  No one cares now about the labor policies of the 1937 German government.  We only care that Christians didn’t protect 6 million Jews from slaughter.

If we turn a blind eye to the wholesale slaughter in our own midst, if we do not see in each one of these unborn children the handiwork of the Creator, can we really face the God who made both them and us?  More is at stake than Republican vs. Democrat.

COLUMN BY

Randall Smith

Randall B. Smith is a Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas. He is the author of Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Guidebook for Beginners and Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Scholastic Culture of Medieval Paris: Preaching, Prologues, and Biblical Commentary (2021). His website is: randallbsmith.com.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2021 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Gender Case, Gives Up On Protecting Basic Values

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Our elected representatives and their appointees need to do their duties, even when it isn’t politically expedient. That’s why the Supreme Court’s recent actions are cause for concern.

Earlier this week, the court announced that it wouldn’t review a 2019 ruling by a lower court that granted a gender-confused female high school student in Virginia the right to use male restrooms. Notably, none of the three justices appointed by President Donald Trump argued in favor of considering the appeal. Last December, the court declined to review a similar case, when parents in Oregon tried to challenge school policies allowing gender-confused students the right to use opposite-gender restrooms.

The Supreme Court’s submission on this issue is deeply troubling. Six of the nine justices are supposedly principled conservatives who should recognize the risks of normalizing gender confusion. Girls and young women across the country will have to endure humiliating privacy violations, and free speech will be at risk if public schools cannot state simple realities about biological sex. Perhaps the heightened agitation around the issue during “pride” month made the justices too wary of a backlash. If so, they are abandoning their responsibility to protect basic freedoms to appease a small group of activists who will never be appeased either way.

This dangerous trend hasn’t just taken root in Virginia. In 2016, the Obama administration tried to force public schools across the country to let boys into girls’ private spaces or risk losing funding. And when North Carolina passed a law protecting the rights of private businesses – not government – to affirm the reality of biological gender, activists pressured corporations to boycott the state, and the Obama administration sued.

The Supreme Court must protect the right to call a man a man and a woman a woman. And it needs to ensure that the wellbeing of children – including young people driven to gender confusion – is protected by not normalizing transgender ideology.

EDITORS NOTE: This 2ndVote column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Media Matters: Andrew Breitbart’s Attack on Critical Race Theory ‘Appears to be Working’

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Media Matters for America, the George Soros-funded smear machine that lies about conservative media, whined Thursday that the late Andrew Breitbart’s prescient 2012 criticism of Critical Race Theory “appears to be working” this time around.

Media Matters’ Spencer Silva wrote Thursday that today’s backlash currently sweeping across America against the Marxist ideological weapon known as Critical Race Theory (CRT) began with conservative media revolutionary Breitbart drawing attention to the doctrine as far back as 2012, the year of his untimely death.

At that time, Breitbart News founder Andrew Breitbart had linked then-President Barack Obama with Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell, the race-mongering anti-American “godfather” of CRT, whom Obama admired.

Silva recalls: “As Joel Pollak, then-editor-in-chief of Breitbart News, would tell CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, ‘Derrick Bell is the Jeremiah Wright of academia. He passed away last year, but during his lifetime, he developed a theory called critical race theory which holds that the civil rights movement was a sham and that white supremacy is the order and it must be overthrown.’”

Silva claims that Breitbart’s “smear attempt” — i.e., his warning about a president whose radical beliefs had been ignored by the media — failed. But now, he says, “[r]ight-wing media and activists, as well as their peers at conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute, seem to know exactly what they are doing because they have dusted off the same playbook from 2012.”

He concludes: “Nearly a decade later, Breitbart News’ failed smear of critical race theory is back — and this time it appears to be working.”

It’s working not because conservative think tanks are ginning up a “smear” about CRT, but because Americans themselves are waking up to the truth about the left’s weaponization of race and their subversive, Marxist agenda.

Media Matters for America (MMFA)

59 Known Connections

Media Matters’ Influence on the Obama Administration

A February 2012 Daily Caller exposé revealed that Media Matters had “regular contact with political operatives” inside the Obama White House, in part through its weekly strategy calls with members of the administration. In June 2010, for instance, David Brock and Media Matters president Eric Burns met at the White House with Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett and the President’s former communications director, Anita Dunn, who had recently (in November 2009) stepped down from that post amid controversy. Dunn, for her part, parroted Media Matters’ claim that Fox News is “more a wing of the Republican Party” than a media outlet. When Fox News host Glenn Beck had accurately revealed, in 2009, Dunn’s self-professed admiration for Mao Zedong, Media Matters condemned the broadcaster for what it called his “ridiculous smear of Anita Dunn.”

Collaborating with NOW, Against Rush Limbaugh

In early May 2012, Media Matters and the National Organization for Women held a secret, narrowly focused strategy session to brainstorm ways of getting the conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh off the air. According to Media Matters online outreach director Jay Carmona, the key would be to target Limbaugh’s advertisers in local radio markets. “[M]ost local station affiliates make the bulk of their profit off of these local advertising dollars,” said Carmona, “so targeting your local advertisers really is how you get those local stations to drop Rush.”

To learn more about Media Matters, click here.

EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: YouTube Censored Our Election Security Video at the Request of California Officials

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**ELECTION INTEGRITY CRISIS** Dirty Voter Rolls, Ballot Harvesting & Mail-in-Voting Risks! from Judicial Watch on Vimeo.

Making a mockery of the First Amendment has reached a new height in – where else? – California, where employees of the state conspired with employees of Google to strangle the free flow of information. And they targeted us.

The office of the Secretary of State of California directly emailed Google employees to remove a Judicial Watch video on election integrity. The video titled, “**ELECTION INTEGRITY CRISIS** Dirty Voter Rolls, Ballot Harvesting & Mail-in-Voting Risks!” was removed within three days.

The censored Judicial Watch video featured me discussing vote-by-mail and our lawsuit settlement that resulted in Los Angeles County agreeing to remove up to 1.6 million inactive voters from its voting rolls.

We learned of this state/big tech conspiracy in 165 pages of new documents disgorged from the office of the Secretary of State.

The documents also reveal an email exchange wherein Sam Mahood, Press Secretary of the Secretary of State’s office, reaches out to Kevin Kane, of the Public Policy Department at Twitter, to have a tweet removed after Twitter had found it to have not been in violation of their terms of service, and a Google form filled out by the consulting firm that was advising both California and the Biden Campaign which flagged two tweets that criticized the California election.

In an email exchange beginning on September 24, 2020, Social Media Coordinator Akilah Jones of the California Secretary of State’s office contacts Civics-outreach@google.com and copies four Google employees with the subject line, “REPORT VIDEO: **ELECTION INTEGRITY CRISIS** Dirty Voter Rolls, Ballot Harvesting & Mail-in-Voting Risks!”

Jones’ email falsely characterizes Judicial Watch video in her email:

Hi YouTube Reporting Team,

I am reporting the following video because it misleads community members about elections or other civic processes and misrepresents the safety and security of mail-in ballots.

Thank you for your time and attention on this matter.

All the best, Akilah.

The next day, on September 25, 2020, Andrea Holtermann, a Google employee, replies to Jones:

Hi Akilah,

Thanks for reaching out.  We will look into this and get back to you as soon as we can.

Best,

On September 27, 2020, Google/YouTube confirms it censored the video:

Hi Akilah,

Circling back on this. Thank you for raising this content to our attention, this has been removed from the platform for violating our policies. Please do not hesitate to reach out if there are any other questions or concerns you may have.

Best,

In an email exchange beginning on January 15, 2020, Sam Mahood, press secretary for the California Secretary of State’s office, forwards an email to Twitter Public Policy Department’s Kevin Kane asking that he review a tweet that Twitter support had determined to not be in violation of their terms of service. Mahood copies Deputy Secretary of State Paula Valle and Chief Counsel Steve Reyes on the email.

Kane agrees to a January 31 meeting with Reyes and Valle.

In an email dated November 13, 2020, Zeke Sandoval of SKDK (the consulting firm that advised both the California Secretary of State’s office and the Biden campaign) emails the Secretary of State’s office and their colleagues, flagging two popular tweets that criticized the California election process. The first from @DC_Draino states:Audit every California ballot Election fraud is rampant nationwide and we all know California is one of the culprits Do it to protect the integrity of that state’s elections

The second from @WatchTheBreaks states:

Just did some research on California voting and unless I’m missing something, there isn’t a place I can see HOW my ballot was counted. I think that inability for me to check my Votes in the system (not just IF it was counted) is a big flaw, regardless of which side you are on.

Both accounts were later removed from Twitter

These new documents show the California Secretary of State directly conspired with Google to censor me and Judicial Watch in violation of our First Amendment rights. This government censorship, also in conspiracy with the Biden campaign, is smoking gun evidence of election interference.

In April, this Judicial Watch FOIA request first uncovered documents showing the Office of the Secretary of State of California pressured social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor us and other posts about the 2020 election. “@DC Draino,” Rogan O’Handley, recently filed a lawsuit against Twitter based on these Judicial Watch disclosures.

In May, we separately uncovered records that show Office of the Secretary of State of Iowa pressured social media companies (Twitter and Facebook) to censor posts about the 2020 election. Included in these records were emails from Iowa state officials to representatives of Big Tech pressuring these companies to remove our posts. The emails show how the state agency successfully pressured Facebook to censor our post about Iowa’s management of its voter rolls.

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Why Woke?

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Why Are They Woke?

Victor Davis Hanson June 23, 2021

The systemic con behind wokeism.

There are lots of reasons why wokeism spread like wildfire once America lost its collective mind during the pandemic, quarantine, self-induced recession, and rioting of 2020.

Wokeism was never really about racism, sexism, or other -isms. Instead, for some, it illustrated a psychological pathology of projection: fobbing one’s own concrete prejudices onto others in order to alleviate or mask them.

Consider outspoken liberal icon Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). He’s one of the Senate’s most woke. Yet Whitehouse turns out to be a mostly unapologetic member of a de facto all-white prestigious “beach club” of elites in Newport, Rhode Island. Is Whitehouse committed in the abstract to rooting out white privilege so he can concretely relax amid it with fellow bluebloods?

The second catalyst of wokeism is the distraction it provides from scary problems that threaten the very existence of American civilization. While the country consumes itself in demanding more than 12 percent representation of black actors in television commercials, it is nearing $30 trillion in national debt. Eventually, the astounding red ink will require recessionary belt-tightening, more inflationary money printing, or both.

The woke Biden Administration cannot stop 2 million immigrants this year from crossing illegally and with exemption into the United States. Almost all are in need of free American health care, housing, food, and legal subsidies. Violent crime is spiking at an astonishing rate. Yet few dare say why that is—or how to stop it.

When our elites are clueless about national debt, inflation, illegal immigration, crime, and soaring gas prices, they reassure themselves that at least they can cancel out Father Junípero Serra or knock down another statue of Robert E. Lee.

America is systematically being conned by those who disguise their hypocrisy, who manipulate the guilt-ridden, who have no interest in solving America’s most dangerous problems, and who get or stay richer by hyping an America in need of massive rebooting—and with it their own careerist remedies.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Election Rules

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Slow and steady wins the race.

Slow and steady wins the race. Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Election Rules

By: Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2021:

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court upheld a pair of Arizona voting rules against Democratic claims that the state discriminated against minority voters, a decision that could make it more difficult to challenge new state efforts to tighten election regulations.

The court, in a 6-3 opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, ruled Arizona was on solid legal ground in enforcing rules that prohibit third parties from collecting mail-in ballots and disallow votes cast in the wrong precinct.

Justice Alito said that while Arizona’s laws “generally makes it very easy to vote,” the process of voting entails some level of burden for everyone. “Mere inconvenience” for voters isn’t enough to establish that election regulation violate the law, Justice Alito wrote……..

RELATED ARTICLE: Supreme Court Strikes Down Nonprofit Donor Disclosure Rule

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense permanently banned us. Facebook, Twitter, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Help us fight. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here a>— it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Help us fight the great fight.

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Trump’s Former Top Aide Launches GETTR, A New Conservative Social Media Platform

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GETTR is another alternative social media platform, launched by former Trump aide Jason Miller. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, GETTR will not censor supporters of President Trump and other conservatives. However, if President Trump does not support these alternative social media platforms, then it is unlikely that they will have the impact we need to counter the Left.

Trump’s former top aide launches GETTR, a new conservative social media platform

By Insider, July 2, 2021

  • A former Trump aide has started a new conservative social media platform, GETTR.
  • GETTR’s format is similar to Twitter’s, with trending topics and resharing posts.
  • Trump was booted from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. He shut down his blog over low readership.

Former President Donald Trump’s top aide Jason Miller has launched a new social media platform, GETTR. 

Miller recently left his post as Trump’s spokesman to launch GETTR, Politico reported on Thursday. He was replaced by former Republican National Committee press secretary Liz Harrington.

Trump has explored various ways to get back on social media after being banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram in the wake of the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Trump is permanently suspended from Twitter, and will be suspended from Facebook and Instagram for the next two years. 

Most recently, Trump shuttered his blog “From the Desk of Donald Trump,” reportedly due to low readership rates and mockery over the site’s low traffic and engagement.

Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs reported later on Thursday that Trump won’t be joining GETTR and still wants to create his own platform.

GETTR very strongly resembles Twitter in format, with trending topics, verified users, and the ability to reshare and like posts.

The Daily Beast reported on Thursday that one of the app’s financial backers is fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui. Another former top Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, was arrested on Wengui’s yacht off the shore of Connecticut and charged with fraud (he subsequently received a presidential pardon from Trump).

Buzzfeed News reported in February that Trump’s team was in talks for the former president to exclusively join Parler, another conservative platform that tried to mimic Twitter, in exchange for a 40% stake in the company, a deal that never came to fruition.

An excerpt of Michael Wolff’s upcoming book “Landslide” also reported that a condition of the deal would have been for Parler to ban any users who spoke poorly about the former president. This, despite Trump’s complaints about social media platforms censoring users over their social media beliefs.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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OPPRESSION: Facebook Now Sending Messages to Some Users Asking About ‘Extremist’ Friends

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Geller Report readers cannot share our links to Facebook. This is an overthrow of our Constitution, our freedoms, are very way of life. It’s war.

This is a form of domestic terrorism. Facebook, YouTube, Google, Pinterest, Twitter, et al are the real extremists, serving terrorists that align with the likes of BLM, Antifa and jihad terrorists.

Facebook Now Sending Messages to Some Users Asking About Potentially ‘Extremist’ Friends

Some Facebook users have recently reported being sent warning messages from the social media giant relating to “extremists” or “extremist content.”

By: Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times, July 1, 2021:

“Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?” one message reads. “We care about preventing extremism on Facebook. Others in your situation have received confidential support.”

The message also provides a button to “Get Support,” which leads to another Facebook page about extremism.

Redstate editor Kira Davis, who said was sent a screenshot of the message from a friend, wrote: “Hey has anyone had this message pop up on their FB? My friend (who is not an ideologue but hosts lots of competing chatter) got this message twice. He’s very disturbed.”

And others reported getting a warning that they may have been “exposed to harmful extremist content recently.” The message then states that “violent groups try to manipulate your anger and disappointment,” similarly offering a “Get Support” option.

“Facebook randomly sent me this notice about extremism when I clicked over to the app. Pretty weird. … The Get Support button just goes to a short article asking people not to be hateful,” another user on Twitter wrote.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to The Epoch Times on July 1 that the company is currently running the warnings as a test to some users.

“This test is part of our larger work to assess ways to provide resources and support to people on Facebook who may have engaged with or were exposed to extremist content, or may know someone who is at risk. We are partnering with NGOs and academic experts in this space and hope to have more to share in the future,” the spokesperson said, without elaborating.

The messages come after lawmakers have repeatedly targeted and pressured CEOs of big tech firms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft, essentially accusing them of allowing “extremism,” misinformation, and cyberbullying on their platforms. Such social media companies have faced criticism from Republicans who have accused them of censoring conservative voices and limiting the reach—or outright blocking—content that portrays Democrat political figures in a negative light.

Conservatives, including former President Donald Trump, have argued for the revocation of Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which serves as a liability shield for online publishers. However, the movement to rein in Big Tech was dealt a blow earlier this week when a federal judge tossed a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against Facebook that had accused the firm of engaging in anti-competitive practices.

These warning messages, however, are sure to trigger even more negative feedback against Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, over fears that the company is attempting to stifle free speech. On Twitter, as screenshots of the warning messages were being shared en masse on July 1, many users expressed concern over the direction Facebook is taking.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense permanently banned us. Facebook, Twitter, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Help us fight. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Help us fight the great fight.

And if you can, please contribute to Geller Report. YOU make the work possible.

Democrats and Our Enemies Advance the Same Agendas: Is There a Difference Between Them?

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The Red-Green Axis has been hard at work promoting Critical Race Theory (CRT), anti-Semitism and every other anti-American trope being advanced by today’s Democrat Party. For the uninitiated, the Red-Green Axis refers to the active collusion between the extreme Left and Islamic jihadis. It is difficult to tell the difference between these groups and today’s Democrats. Were we not actually seeing examples before our eyes every single day, one would be hard-pressed to believe it. And it goes even further than that. If you object, or have even just voted for the wrong people, you join the ranks of those characterized as “domestic enemies” by the Biden administration, Congressional Democrats and their allies in media, the FBI, DHS, CIA and countless others.

Leaving the border wide open has allowed unprecedented drug trafficking and opened the door to terrorists entering the U.S. This was confirmed by Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, despite widespread denials from Democrats and most media. But to suggest that any element of this agenda opens the doors to Islamic terrorism earns you the title “Islamophobe.”

Despite the mass media’s positive spin on virtually everything that Biden and the Democrats are promoting, however, even some elements of the media have enough sense to notice that this could cause problems. A recent study published by Time Magazine highlights, for example, how Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism, has jumped on board:

Social media accounts tracked to troll farms run by the Iranian government have ramped up disinformation after several major events this year, including Biden’s effort to return the U.S. to the Iran nuclear deal, the April 14 announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the guilty verdict of Derek Chauvin on April 20, and the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas that started on May 10…

 …[W]ithin days of the conflict beginning last month in Israel and Gaza Twitter accounts linked to Iran were amplifying anti-Semitic messages in English, including the phrases “hitler was right” and “kill all jews” [sic] at a rate of 175 times per minute, according to analysis by Network Contagion Research Institute, which studies disinformation and is affiliated with Rutgers University and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)…

A U.S. intelligence analysis cited in the report added that “Iran carried out a multi-pronged covert influence campaign intended to undercut former President Trump’s reelection prospects-though without directly promoting his rivals-undermine public confidence in the electoral process and US institutions, and sow division and exacerbate societal tensions in the US.”

While all this is going on, the Biden administration has been working assiduously to relaunch the failed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that would sanction Iran’s continued development of an atomic bomb, if it hasn’t accomplished that already. Following a drone attack by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq that caused no casualties, the Biden administration launched air attacks on some weapons storage facilities. While it was hyped in the press to suggest a stern American response, these attacks were largely symbolic, with no known fatalities. And to no one’s surprise, they are unlikely to derail JCPOA talks.

Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill, their most notorious anti-Semite, Ilhan Omar, a poster child for the Red-Green Axis, is speaking out again. Following Israel’s military response to the latest unprovoked rocket attack from Gaza this past May, she accused the U.S. and Israel of “crimes against humanity,” equating the U.S. and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban. While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a few other House Democrats issued a tepid rebuke to Omar, Pelosi later modified this, stating, “We did not rebuke her. We thanked — acknowledged that she made a clarification.”

This is nothing new, however. Two years ago, then newly-elected Rep. Ilhan Omar posted her infamous tweet claiming “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” referring to Congressional support for Israel. She was severely criticized by many members of Congress, including some Democrats, who proposed House Resolution 183, condemning her for her anti-Semitism. Pelosi reworked that resolution, turning it on its head to implicitly defend Omar, citing “anti-Muslim bigotry and discrimination against minorities,” with “anti-Semitism” as a mere throwaway. It became instead an indictment of “white supremacy.” The fourth clause reads:

Whereas white supremacists in the United States have exploited and continue to exploit bigotry and weaponize hate for political gain, targeting traditionally persecuted peoples, including African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and others with verbal attacks, incitement, and violence;

The more things change, the more they stay the same. On Tuesday, Omar replied to a question from CNN’s Jake Tapper, saying that despite the rebuke by fellow Democrats, she didn’t regret what she said. With each passing day it becomes more and more difficult to see the difference between today’s leading Democrats and the enemies we are facing across the globe.

COLUMN BY

James Simpson is a bestselling author, investigative journalist, businessman and economist. His latest book is Who Was Karl Marx? The Men, the Motives and the Menace Behind Today’s Rampaging American Left.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Covid Ensured Massive Wealth Transfer

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For a period of well over a year, our government, Republican and Democrat, used Covid as a way to create the largest ever wealth transfer from average Americans to those that were already extremely wealthy. The destruction of the Middle Class.

I am not sure Americans actually even will come to terms with what I just wrote. I mean I am incensed but I do not hear too many of my fellow Americans saying a thing. They are not in the streets. They don’t even appear to be too upset???? I am sure some people recognize this fact but just seem accepting of it. When I immigrated to the USA in October, 1994, if you had asked me if Americans would have just folded over, bent over and taken a rough insertion by these enemies of the people, I would have said NO. HECK NO. NOT AMERICA!!

I read an English blogger the other day called Algora. She wrote the following after a massive London protest against the tyrannical Covid regulations and the One World Order. Reading the below sadly appears true about America today.

She wrote: 

“And where are similar protests in the USA? Oh, that’s right. You have to go to a public school board meeting to see parents up in arms about COVID measures because they want to keep using the Nanny State’s school system to babysit their children so they don’t have to. And if we do see protests, they will probably be much smaller than this one in London today, with BLMers on one side and Trump supporters on the other, and they won’t be protesting against the Globalists, but fighting each other instead. If the masses do rise up together to overthrow tyranny, I’d bet on the UK over the US any day. It looks like they are fairly unified in taking down Boris Johnson and the rest of the hoodlums in Parliament.”

How sad that the above is how America and Americans are seen in the world today. No pride in that. Just shame. All gone since the fraudulent elections of 2020 which bought a mentally challenged traitor, crook and pervert into the White House.

The reduction in our rights, freedoms and liberties already lost will never return without bloodshed and sacrifice. Even then maybe some will be lost for ever.

For years the government has been interfering at the expense of small businesses but ensured the rewarding of large corporations and companies. Everything it touches from healthcare to education, home ownership to food has cost us billions in tax money and overruns that has badly affected the middle class. We have the Federal Reserve, which should not exist, printing money 24/7 like there is no tomorrow and suppressing interest rates at speeds not seen before. Why? To continue the wealth transfer.

Coronavirus arrived and boy, the government took advantage. They and they alone decided which businesses were ‘essential’ and which were not. Which businesses had to close their doors and which could stay open. Which group of workers lost their jobs and which kept theirs.

Trust me – this wasn’t based on science but on political clout. Small companies were forcibly closed with shockingly little to no rebellion by the owners and large companies stood prepared and ready to take their sales, customers and money!

The Fed has continuously since Covid started and before taken actions to support the stock market and biggest companies allowing them unlimited access to capital with next to zero interest rates. This way the Fed kept pumping money into our economy while destroying small businesses.

Trust me here America, if the government had attempted to close down those huge corporations and companies, the yelling and noise that would have come from them would have had the government reversing themselves real fast. The tyrannical lockdowns would have been over in days or maybe weeks. The huge profits earned by these ‘protected’ big businesses is in the trillions of dollars. The profits became absolutely insane.

Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Costco, Sams etc. reaped the benefits they were offered and helped destroy lives.

The Government mustn’t ever be allowed again to pick and choose their cronies over ordinary Americans. Everyone should be treated equally under the law. Our very freedom and survival as a group is at risk by the governments full frontal assault on small businesses and their staff and families.

In the mean time the elderly retirees and savers have been kicked in the proverbial groin area as we have been unable to earn any interest on savings without taking too much risk. Pensions like Social Security and state pensions have not kept up with inflation and as we hurtle into hyper inflation we will fall further behind again affecting the Middle class and lower class folk.

How did we ever allow such a disconnect between government and the citizenry? I will tell you how. We were asleep at the wheel. We trusted them too much despite the obvious signs of their corruption and their lies. Despite the fact that we saw politicians getting richer and richer while serving. People like AOC who a few years ago didn’t have a penny to her name, but a few years as a congresswoman has a new Tesla, huge apartment in a luxury area and wears $2000 outfits! All while claiming she is a girl of the people!! How about Sniffer Joe with his multiple million dollar homes? The list of corrupt, treasonous and evil anti America globalist and socialist politicians living the high life on our dime goes on for ever. Both parties. This is not just a Democrat thing.

We have become lazy, uncaring, unpatriotic, demanding, expecting everything for nothing. We should be in the streets with pitchforks demanding a total reversal of all the wrongs government had done in our name. They are not to be trusted. They have proved that endlessly. They enter politics occasionally meaning to actually serve but then get corrupted by the swamp members whose sole intention is to destroy our beloved country while gaining power and enriching themselves.

America. We are not all in this together. There is a them and us. Everyday they get richer while our dreams are shattered. Billions are spent in promoting and getting the right people elected to ensure these huge company and their stockholders keep getting richer.

©Fred Brownbill. All rights reserved.

Here Are the 10 Best [And Worst] Cities Ranked By Post-Pandemic Economic Recovery

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When the COVID-19 outbreak began and governments started imposing economic lockdowns, most parts of the country experienced huge upticks in unemployment. But how have different cities fared in the year since? A new report from WalletHub offers some insight.

The financial analytics firm looked at cities’ most recent unemployment rates, from May 2021, and compared them to their pre- and mid-pandemic unemployment rates from May 2019, May 2020, and January 2020. Using the national unemployment rate of 5.9 percent as a standard, this gives us a useful comparison showing how different cities have recovered from the pandemic and ensuing economic damage.

Here are the top 10 cities with the best post-pandemic unemployment rates as of May 2021:

  1. Manchester, New Hampshire: 1.6 percent
  2. Nashua, New Hampshire: 1.7 percent
  3. Burlington, Vermont: 1.3 percent
  4. South Burlington, Vermont: 1.2 percent
  5. Lincoln, Nebraska: 2.2 percent
  6. Huntsville, Alabama: 2.4 percent
  7. Omaha, Nebraska: 2.8 percent
  8. Salt Lake City, Utah: 2.7 percent
  9. Sioux Falls, South Dakota: 2.7 percent
  10. Billings, Montana: 3 percent

And, in stark contrast, here are the 10 cities with the worst post-pandemic unemployment rates as of May 2021:

  1. Hialeah, Florida: 8 percent
  2. New Orleans, Louisiana: 11 percent
  3. Long Beach, California: 10.6 percent
  4. Glendale, California: 10.4 percent
  5. Newark, New Jersey: 11.6 percent
  6. New York City, New York: 9.8 percent
  7. Los Angeles, California: 10.1 percent
  8. San Bernardino, California: 9.6 percent
  9. Chicago, Illinois: 9.3 percent
  10. North Las Vegas, Nevada: 9.9 percent

What explains the wide discrepancy between the cities who have essentially entirely recovered and those that remain deep in the red? Well, there are undoubtedly many factors influencing these cities’ unemployment rates, but two glaring ones stand out.

First, not all parts of the country locked down their economies with equal vigor or duration. From New Hampshire to Vermont to South Dakota, many of the states with cities represented in the top 10 strong recovery spots had relatively lighter government restrictions and rolled them back sooner. On the other hand, cities from intense lockdown states like California, New York, and New Jersey are heavily represented on the list—and that’s surely no coincidence.

Economies are complex systems, and cannot simply be switched on and off like a light switch. Those cities whose governments strangled economic activity over an extended period of time and hoped it would all come back when they decided to “open up” are clearly still experiencing the economic pain.

Secondly, the availability of ultra-generous unemployment benefits that pay many unemployed people more to stay home on welfare surely has had some influence on these rankings. States like New Hampshire with cities ranking highly have announced that they would end these benefits early, whereas states like California, Illinois, and New York have left them in place. The clear work disincentive presented by an unemployment system where households can earn the equivalent of $25/hour in many states has surely led to prolonged and heightened unemployment in the states which continue to embrace it.

Of course, there are many complex causes of city-level variations in unemployment rates and the economic recovery. But time and time again across these statistics and, frankly, the entire global economy, we see that areas with freer markets and less interference prosper more than those stifled by government control.

Data of the Day:

The jobs report for June was released today, and it shows an economy on the rebound. The economy added 850,000 new jobs in June, while the unemployment rate actually ticked up from 5.8 percent to 5.9 percent. This latter change likely indicates more people seeking work—only active job hunters count as “unemployed”—rather than more layoffs/job losses.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: What You Need to Know About China’s Technology Theft Campaigns

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One of the greatest threats to our freedom and democracy is the undermining of our economic vitality. The Chinese Communist Party and its business partners continue to steal technology and information from the U.S. at a staggering rate. They then use this technology to undermine our economy and achieve global economic dominance.

Investigative journalist Lara Logan explains the issue and provides viewers with an overview of this large and growing threat to our freedom.

WATCH:

©Clarion Project. All rights reserved.