Marijuana And Other Drugs Can Kill Babies In First Year Of Life

Drug-related deaths among US infants

For the first time, researchers find that during the first year of life, even infants can die from exposure to addictive drugs, either directly or indirectly. They defined “drug-involved deaths” as those deaths due to underlying or contributing causes. Drugs most frequently mentioned on death certificates included methamphetamine, opioids, opioid treatment drugs like methadone or naloxone, cocaine, and cannabis.

Nearly 92,000 Americans died of a drug overdose in the one-year period ending in October 2020. More than 823,000 Americans have died of an overdose since 2000. Infant deaths comprise less than 1 percent of those deaths, according to the study.

Read CDC interview with the author of the study here.

Read full text of the study here.

©National Families in Action’s The Marijuana Report. All rights reserved

At Least 1.8 Million People Refused to Return to Work Because of Generous Welfare Benefits, Poll Shows

The real number is probably even larger.


Here are FEE, we predicted from the beginning of the pandemic that Congress’s decision to create an unemployment benefits system paying most individuals more on welfare than they earned by working would backfire. We weren’t the only ones. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office similarly cautioned that this move would cause unemployment and hurt the economy.

The system has offered many unemployed households the equivalent of $25/hour in benefits for staying home. It was always obviously illogical, based on the work disincentive it creates. However, in the year and a half since, there has been an enormous, concentrated, politically motivated effort to deny that the excessively generous welfare benefits are playing any role at all in joblessness.

new poll makes this continued denial impossible.

For context, we currently have 1.2 unemployed people for every unfilled job opening. Small businesses are also reporting massive shortages of willing workers, even as they raise wages.

So, Morning Consult surveyed unemployed Americans and asked them why they turned down job offers. About 13 percent openly admitted their reason for not returning to work was “I receive enough money from unemployment insurance without having to work.” If this representative sample is extrapolated across the entire unemployed population, that equates to 1.8 million Americans who admitted to declining to go back to work because they could earn more on welfare.

Meanwhile, another 12.1 percent said that they were not offered enough money to return to work. This subjective determination is likely also influenced by the generous benefits as a fall-back option.

Click here for a graph from Axios showing the full results.

Here we have solid confirmation that millions of people have remained unemployed because of the federal government’s reckless expansion of the welfare state. This is, on its face, even more vindication for the many conservative-leaning states that canceled the benefits early. And it offers even more compelling weight to the argument that the federal welfare expansion ought to be allowed to lapse in September as scheduled. (There will undoubtedly be a push to extend it; the “temporary” program has already been extended several times.)

But the Morning Consult poll results are also, most likely, a wild underestimate.

Just think about it: Would you admit, if a pollster called you up, that you’re lazily staying on benefits because it pays more than working? Probably not. There’s a very real phenomenon in polling results where people, quite naturally, skew toward offering answers that are more flattering to them than the unadulterated truth. We can’t know the full extent, but I think it’s safe to assume that the real figure is much higher than 1.8 million.

Of course, we never should have needed poll results to tell us that disincentivizing work would lead to fewer people working. That’s what basic economics taught us all along.

COLUMN BY

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

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

Study: Obama’s TEVUS crime database hides BLM, ANTIFA violence and inflates white, right-wing violence

Terrorism and Extremist Violence in the United States (TEVUS) is a US government-funded database that tabulates violent attacks in the United States. Used by the US government and media alike, it is one of the fundamental sources of information about who is conducting violent attacks in the United States. TEVUS reporting appears to set out to cover up Islamic, Arab, Black Nationalist, and Left-Wing terrorism and extremist violence and attempts to document white and right-wing violence where little to no violence actually exists.

There is much debate these days about the level of violence taking place in American streets. It was an important topic in the first presidential debate and President Trump was asked about right-wing violence a number of times. So, what is the source for the claims that right-wing violence is such a big problem and threat? As it turns out, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with other federal funding sources, pay for TEVUS Database and Portal, a 2009 Obama administration initiative.

Much of the information about the existence of right-wing violence does in fact come from the responsible agency, which in this case is the Department of Homeland Security via TEVUS. The latest annual Homeland Threat Assessment published in October 2020 by DHS director Chad Wolf, stated:  “That is why we design our programs to be threat agnostic – ensuring that we can combat a broad range of domestic threats. However, I am particularly concerned about white supremacist violent extremists who have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent, targeted attacks in recent years.”

Americans for Intelligence Reform partially funded an exhaustive 2-year study by AIR senior fellow Christopher Hull PhD. to look at the details and accuracy of what TEVUS reports that is used by DHS, the rest of our federal government, and media. It appears that TEVUS is a deeply political product with little information based on accurate analysis.

TEVUS is a compilation of four open-source terror and extremism-related databases:

  1. The American Terrorism Study, led by researchers at the Terrorism Research Center at the University of Arkansas
  2. The Global Terrorism Database, led by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism housed at the University of Maryland
  3. The US Extremist Crime Database, compiled by researchers located at Michigan State University, John Jay College, Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis, and Seattle University.
  4. Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism in the US.

TEVUS uses their reporting and simply excludes many violent acts if they were perpetrated by non-whites — or worse, outright lies about the races of the individuals conducting violent acts. In a blatant display of data manipulation, the exclusively Arab 9/11 hijackers who murdered nearly 3,000 innocent people were categorized by TEVUS as “White/Caucasian non-Hispanic” and as a result, TEVUS is able to attribute all of those killed in 9/11 to whites. This is by far the largest source of deaths attributed to acts of violence by whites and wildly throws off the actual statistics to make white right-wing violence appear common. TEVUS reports there are 39 court cases which they characterize as right-wing, yet there is only one reference of any kind to terrorism in any of these court cases and that was a single instance where the attacker referred to his target as a ‘terrorist’ and a ‘suicide bomber.’

TEVUS systematically covers up the violence associated with black nationalist groups such as Black Lives Matter (BLM), even though BLM activists and supporters have allegedly killed at least 11 police officers and wounded nine since 2014 — none of that information is included. TEVUS also systematically excludes left-wing violence and does not contain a single reference to ANTIFA, for example, a group that is routinely violent and openly promotes violence.

This is a serious issue well beyond the political back and forth. Since DHS uses TEVUS information and concludes that right-wing violence is a serious problem, they allocate resources and personnel from FBI, DHS, and other agencies to combat those threats. This absorbs massive levels of resources when they could be allocated against groups who are genuinely destroying property and hurting people. When it comes to saving lives and property, we should all be above politics.

Our Methodology

This study evaluated the data and variables included in the Terrorism and Extremist Violence in the United States (TEVUS) database, which, according to its User Guide: “…compiles behavioral, geographic, and temporal characteristics of extremist violence in the United States dating back to 1970. Through the portal, users are able to build search queries based on four data types including specific events, perpetrators of an act of terrorism or an extremist crime, groups, and/or court cases related to terrorism and extremist crime in the United States.”

Based on concerns with TEVUS source material, including a component drawing on findings from the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the project compared the database with open source data and reports to determine whether the database systematically over- or under-reports Islamist, Far-Left, and/or Far-Right motives for attacks, addressing inter alia these specific questions:

  1. Does TEVUS include Antifa-related crimes, given that despite SPLC labeling numerous mainstream conservative organizations as “hate groups” while the Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security described Antifa’s activities as “domestic terrorist violence,” the SPLC has refused to label Antifa a hate group?
  2. Does TEVUS include each of the US-based and otherwise relevant attacks listed at Religion of Peace, which tracks “Killings in the Name of Islam” since 9/11?
  3. Do the two Far-Left attacks associated with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a source for one TEVUS component, appear accurately in the database?
  4. Do TEVUS’ results conform with the finding that as of December 2016, just 13 far-right extremists had been indicted on federal terrorism charges since Sept. 11, 2001?
  5. Does TEVUS include all of the Department of Justice’s public list of 580 individuals convicted of terrorism and terror-related charges between 9/11 and the end of 2014?
  6. Does TEVUS include all the individuals on the list compiled by then-Sen. Jeff Sessions’ office of 131 individuals implicated in terrorism from March 2014 to June 22, 2016?
  7. Do TEVUS results comport with the finding reported in December 2016 that an up-to-date list of terror attacks since 9/11 from the think tank New America showed Islamist attacks had led to 94 deaths in the U.S., while Right-Wing attacks had killed 50?

The findings associated with each research question were then compiled into a single discussion laying out overall patterns in TEVUS’ anomalies.

©Brad Johnson. All rights reserved.

No, Fidel Castro Didn’t Improve Health Care or Education in Cuba

Cuba has made less educational and health care progress than most Latin American countries over the last 60 years, data show.


On CBS’s 60 Minutes, Senator Bernie Sanders recently praised the achievements of communist Cuba. An interviewer asked him about his 1985 comments that Cubans supported communist dictator Fidel Castro because he “educated their kids, gave their kids health care, totally transformed society.” In response, Sanders defended those comments, by stating that when “Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program.”

But Castro did not give Cubans literacy. Cuba already had one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America by 1950, nearly a decade before Castro took power, according to United Nations data (statistics from UNESCO). In 2016, the Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler debunked a politician’s claim that Castro’s rule significantly improved Cuban healthcare and education.

In today’s Cuba, children are taught by poorly paid teachers in dilapidated schools. Cuba has made less educational progress than most Latin American countries over the last 60 years.

According to UNESCO, Cuba had about the same literacy rate as Costa Rica and Chile in 1950 (close to 80 percent). And it has almost the same literacy rate as they do today (close to 100 percent).

Meanwhile, Latin American countries that were largely illiterate in 1950—such as Peru, Brazil, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic—are largely literate today, closing much of the gap with Cuba. El Salvador had a less than 40 percent literacy rate in 1950, but has an 88 percent literacy rate today. Brazil and Peru had a less than 50 percent literacy rate in 1950, but today, Peru has a 94.5 percent literacy rate, and Brazil a 92.6 percent literacy rate. The Dominican Republic’s rate rose from a little over 40 percent to 91.8 percent. While Cuba made substantial progress in reducing illiteracy in Castro’s first years in power, its educational system has stagnated since, even as much of Latin America improved.

Contrary to Sanders’ claim that Castro “gave” Cubans healthcare, they already had access to healthcare before he seized power. Doctors frequently provided free healthcare to those who couldn’t afford it. As the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler noted:

As for health care and education, Cuba was already near the top of the heap before the revolution. Cuba’s low infant mortality rate is often lauded, but it already led the region on this key measure in 1953-1958, according to data collected by Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a Cuba specialist and professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh.

Cuba led virtually all countries in Latin America in life expectancy in 1959, before Castro’s communists seized power. But by 2012, right after Castro stepped down as Communist Party leader, Chileans and Costa Ricans lived slightly longer than Cubans. Back in 1960, Chileans had a life span seven years shorter than Cubans, and Costa Ricans lived more than two years less than Cubans on average. In 1960, Mexicans lived seven years shorter than Cubans; by 2012, the gap had shrunk to just two years.

(Today, life spans are virtually the same in Cuba as more prosperous Chile and Costa Rica—if you accept the rosy official statistics put out by Cuba’s communist government, which many people do not. Cuba has been credibly accused of hiding infant deaths, and exaggerating the life spans of its citizens. If these accusations are true, Cubans die sooner than Chileans or Costa Ricans).

Cuba has made less progress in health care and life expectancy than most of Latin America in recent years, due to its decrepit health care system. “Hospitals in the island’s capital are literally falling apart.” Sometimes, patients ”have to bring everything with them, because the hospital provides nothing. Pillows, sheets, medicine: everything.”

As The Washington Post’s Kessler noted:

Reporters have also documented that Cuban hospitals are ill-equipped. A 2004 series on Cuba’s health-care system in Canada’s National Post said pharmacies stock very little and antibiotics are available only on the black market. “One of the myths Canadians harbor about Cuba is that its people may be poor and living under a repressive government, but they have access to quality health and education facilities,” the Post said. “It’s a portrait encouraged by the government, but the reality is sharply different.”

Under communism, Cuba has also fallen behind on more general measures of human development. As the progressive economist Brad DeLong pointed out:

Cuba in 1957—was a developed country. Cuba in 1957 had lower infant mortality than France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had doctors and nurses: as many doctors and nurses per capita as the Netherlands, and more than Britain or Finland. Cuba in 1957 had as many vehicles per capita as Uruguay, Italy, or Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had 45 TVs per 1000 people—fifth highest in the world …Today? Today the UN puts Cuba’s HDI [Human Development indicators] in the range of … Mexico. (And Carmelo Mesa-Lago thinks the UN’s calculations are seriously flawed: that Cuba’s right HDI peers today are places like China, Tunisia, Iran, and South Africa.) Thus I don’t understand lefties who talk about the achievements of the Cuban Revolution: ‘…to have better health care, housing, education.’

As Michael Giere notes, Cuba was prosperous before Castro’s communists seized power:

A United Nations (UNESCO) report in 1957 noted that the Cuban economy included proportionally more workers who were unionized than in the U.S. The report also stated that average wages for an eight hour day were higher in Cuba than in “Belgium, Denmark, France, and Germany.”…PBS explained in a 2004 retrospective, that

“Havana [prior to Castro] was a glittering and dynamic city. Cuba ranked fifth in the hemisphere in per capita income, third in life expectancy, second in per capita ownership of automobiles and telephones, first in the number of television sets per inhabitant. The literacy rate, 76%, was the fourth highest in Latin America. Cuba ranked 11th in the world in the number of doctors per capita. Many private clinics and hospitals provided services for the poor. Cuba’s income distribution compared favorably with that of other Latin American societies. A thriving middle class held the promise of prosperity and social mobility.”

But after Castro took over, the prosperity came to an end:

Castro’s destruction of Cuba cannot be over dramatized. He looted, murdered, and destroyed the nation from the ground up. Just one factoid explains it all; Cubans once enjoyed one of the highest consumption of proteins in the Americas, yet in 1962 Castro had to introduce ration cards (meat, 2 ounces daily), as food consumption per person crashed to levels not seen since the 1800s.

Hunger became so widespread that a visiting Swedish doctor, Hans Rosling, had to warn Cuba’s dictator in 1992 about widespread protein deficiency among Cubans. Roughly 40,000 Cubans had been reported to have been experiencing “visual blurring and severe numbness in their legs.” Rosling investigated at the invitation of the Cuban embassy in Sweden, and with the approval of Castro himself. Rosling travelled to the heart of the outbreak, in the western province of Pinar del Río. It turned out that those stricken with the disorder all suffered from protein deficiency. The government was rationing meat, and adults had sacrificed their portion to nourish children, pregnant women and the elderly. Dr. Rosling told Fidel Castro about this.

During this period of widespread hunger, Bernie Sanders was peddling the myth that hunger was non-existent in Cuba. In 1989, he published a newspaper column claiming that Fidel Castro’s Cuba had “no hunger, is educating all of its children and is providing high quality, free health care.”

This article was reprinted with permission from Liberty Unyielding.

COLUMN BY

Hans Bader

Hans Bader practices law in Washington, D.C. After studying economics and history at the University of Virginia and law at Harvard, he practiced civil-rights, international-trade, and constitutional law.

RELATED ARTICLES:

My Visit to Cuba — An American in Havana

The Economic Cost of Cuban Socialism

Cuban protesters can overwhelm regime targets with ‘people power’

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

The ATF’s Latest Proposed Regulation Could Make 40 Million Gun Owners Felons Overnight

This is a conspicuous confiscation of power, and it’s precisely what America’s founding fathers strove to avoid through the establishment of checks and balances.


The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has published a notice outlining their plans to update regulations on stabilizing braces.

Originally developed to help those with disabilities shoot comfortably, stabilizing braces have become a popular firearm accessory used to legally adapt AR-style pistols into guns that can be shot from the shoulder, like the highly regulated short-barreled rifle.

According to the ATF, stabilizing braces will now have to conform to a set of stringent guidelines to be considered legal. If they don’t meet those standards, they—and the gun to which they’re attached—will automatically become regulated as a rifle under the National Firearms Act.

This isn’t the first time the ATF or the DOJ have attempted to regulate this popular accessory. A similar reclassification was proposed back in December, but it was shot down due to uproar from lawmakers and the firearm community. However, after pistol-braced firearms were used in two recent, high-profile mass shootings, the ATF has circled back to the issue and seems more motivated than ever.

After the ATF notice was published, more than 130 representatives penned a letter to the agency and called upon the bureau to withdraw the rule, stating that the “proposed guidance is alarming and jeopardizes the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”

Most importantly, the lawmakers reminded the ATF that for the last decade, it had asserted that there were legitimate uses for stabilizing braces, as the accessory was designed to aid disabled gun owners who enjoy recreational shooting.

“Should this guidance go into effect,” they wrote, “a disabled combat veteran who has chosen the best stabilizing brace for their disability is now a felon.”

In response, the ATF claimed that this new classification won’t impact braces designed to help those with disabilities. However, their proposed point-based worksheet of stabilizing brace criteria fails to make this clear for gun owners.

At 52 pages, the intricate proposal is so lengthy and establishes such specific requirements that law-abiding citizens will have no idea if their firearm is still legal.

“Certain prerequisites,” the proposal reads, such as weapon weight and the overall length, “will be applied to determine if the firearm will even be considered as a possible pistol or immediately determined to be a rifle.”

Furthermore, “design factors that are more likely to demonstrate a manufacturer’s … intent to produce a ‘short-barreled rifle’ and market it as a ‘braced pistol’ accrue more points than those that reveal less evidence.”

A stabilizing brace that has accumulated too many points based on these criteria will be deemed a rifle, and therefore unlawful. Not only is this formula complicated, but there seems to be another hitch.

“The new factoring system,” remarks the NRA-ILA, “seems designed to ensure that few, if any, firearms can meet the criteria.”

Therefore, by classifying these braced pistols as Short Barreled Rifles, one of the most highly regulated guns on the market, the federal government is forcing 10-40 million law-abiding gun owners to surrender, destroy, or register their legal firearms … or face felony charges.

Essentially, the ATF is able to add rules and reclassify weapons without holding a single vote in Congress. As a result, this significant assault on the Second Amendment will not receive its due process.

This is a conspicuous confiscation of power, and it’s precisely what America’s founding fathers strove to avoid through the establishment of checks and balances.

The Constitution’s authors designed the United States government as three separate branches: the legislative, judicial, and executive. The legislative creates laws, the judicial determines their constitutionality, and the executive implements them.

In certain scenarios, each branch has the power to override the others and ensure that no branch of government is able to hold too much centralized power.

Unfortunately, through its unilateral proposal that would impact tens of millions of US gun owners, the ATF is violating the Separation of Powers designed by the Constitution to limit government overreach and protect individual rights.

In Federalist No. 48, James Madison warned that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

This is exactly what is happening today.

This stealth power grab should concern all Americans, even if they are outside the immediately-impacted gun community.

COLUMN BY

Brett Cooper

Brett Cooper is a professional actress and a Libertarian-Conservative writer. She’s an ambassador for PragerU and TurningPoint USA and content manager at Unwoke Narrative.

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

‘I’m from the Government, and I’m Here to Vaccinate’

Most people were shocked when the president wanted to go door-to-door with his vaccine campaign — but that’s only the half of it. According to a Pentagon spokesman, the White House is also planning to go barracks to barracks — requiring the men and women of our voluntary military to involuntarily surrender their freedom and take an unproven shot some of them don’t want.

Frankly, Obama Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told CNN, “I think the president ought to issue an order requiring everybody in the military to get a COVID-19 shot — period. That’s an issue involving our national security,” he argued. “The last d— thing you need is to have those in the military that are our warriors unable to respond to a mission because they’ve gotten COVID-19. There’s no excuse for that.” Interesting, considering that the same military leadership has been cheerleading the troops’ gender reassignment surgery, which renders patients completely undeployable for months. Apparently, it’s no problem if you skip out on your job for the extreme LGBT cause. But if you have a personal objection to the vaccine, well then, a handful of potential sick days is unacceptable.

Republicans, who’ve been absolutely outraged at the government’s heavy-handedness, introduced a bill to stop the Pentagon from forcing the shots, which have not yet received final FDA approval, on our troops. Although the vaccination rates are high across every branch, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) says he’s been contacted by members of the military who vow to quit if the COVID shots are forced on them. And it’s no wonder, Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) explains. “Keep in mind,” he told listeners on “Washington Watch,” “it’s not received final approval from anybody.” And there are enough new red flags with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to make young people think twice.

As deadly as the virus has been, Brooks points out, certain age groups are in more danger than others. “That’s not to say there’s no risk, but it is substantially lesser [for] the people who are serving in our military. So right now, I very much prefer that our military personnel have the right to choose for themselves, exercise their free will, exercise their liberty to decide for themselves which risk they want to accept” — whether that’s the risk of the virus or the vaccine. “I hope that they’ll make the right decision,” Brooks added, “but it ought to be their decision. Because it is a life and death one.”

In the Marines, where I got more immunizations than I could count, no one was ever ordered to get a flu shot. And essentially, that’s what this is. It’s not a vaccine in the traditional sense, because it won’t protect people from the virus forever. That’s not to say it doesn’t have value — it offers protections to people, especially in the high-risk categories. But the fact that the Defense Department has its fingers on the trigger of a mandate, as they alluded in the last few days, ought to be concerning to everyone. Brooks says he finds it “disconcerting” that the military would have this kind of order “already drafted and ready to unleash, particularly insofar as it relates to a vaccine that has not been thoroughly vetted and tested.” When the FDA gives its blessing, that’s one thing. But there’s still the issue, he points out, of “taking the vaccine versus the risk associated with the youth catching COVID. And I much prefer that we defer that to the liberty and freedom and good judgment of our military personnel, all of whom are adults. And I believe that they are mature enough to be able to make that decision for themselves.”

Regardless, this idea that the government feels entitled to dictate what’s best for us ought to sound all kinds of alarm bells. Just this week, the White House doubled down on the idea of vaccine mandates, arguing that it’s the “right” of local officials and employers to demand it. As for Biden’s widely panned door-to-door intimidation campaign, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) warned over the weekend where it could lead. “Think about what those mechanisms could be used for. They could go door-to-door to take your guns. They could go door-to-door and take your Bibles.”

That’s also crossed the mind of former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (and FRC Board Chairman), who told Fox News on Saturday that every American should go out and buy a “No Trespassing” sign at their local hardware store “because the government has zero business to do this. Zero. And what they’re wanting all of us to do is to check our Bill of Rights, our civil liberties, at the door.” The whole point of this country, she argued, “is based upon the fact that we have rights against the government. And they want us, just as a matter of idea, [to] give up all of our [freedoms].” Don’t be deceived, she warned. “There will be a database — and everybody will be in that database. And it’s not just vaccine status, it will be your entire medical history. It will be connected to your finances. This is going to get bigger, bigger, bigger, so stop it now, and don’t give any information to the government official at your door.”

And yet, Dr. Anthony Fauci insists that Americans should have less personal choice. “… I do believe, at the local level, there should be more mandates,” he insisted. “… We have got to put aside this ideological difference thinking that somebody is forcing you to do something… Vaccinations have nothing to do with politics.” Tell that to 2020’s Democrats, who spent months sowing doubts about the shots, just because they were created while Donald Trump was president. At one point Biden openly questioned whether a vaccine approved by Trump’s agencies would be safe. They are the ones who stoked fears and undermined the scientific progress. Now, suddenly, they want to flip a switch, undo that damage, and blame all of the hesitancy on conservatives. You can’t have it both ways. It was their politicking that put people’s lives at risk. And now, their heavy-handedness threatens to do the same — to our freedoms.

COLUMN BY

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is Family Research Council’s fourth and longest-serving president, joining the organization in August of 2003. Described as a legislative pioneer by the national media, Tony has established himself as an innovative pro-life and pro-family policy and political leader since first being elected to office in 1996.

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

BIDEN’S INFLATION NATION: Inflation Rate Jumps, Highest Since 2008, Prices Up 5.4% in June

Ouch! The Biden Administration’s out-of-control tax-and-spend policies are driving up inflation to levels that we have not seen since the Great Recession of 2008. Watch your wallet, America.

Making every dollar you earn and you spend worth measurably less. Never would have happened under Trump.

BIDEN’S INFLATION NATION: Inflation Rate Jumps, Highest Since 2008, Prices Up 5.4% in June

By Hannity.com, July 13, 2021

The inflation rate in the United States jumped to 5.4% in June as prices for consumer goods soared; posting the fastest pace since 2008 while the economy struggles to recover from the COVID-19 shutdown.

“The Labor Department said last month’s consumer-price index increased 5.4% from a year ago, the highest 12-month rate since August 2008. The so-called core price index, which excludes the often-volatile categories of food and energy, rose 4.5% from a year before,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

“The index measures what consumers pay for goods and services, including clothes, groceries, restaurant meals, recreational activities and vehicles. It increased a seasonally adjusted 0.9% in June from May, the largest one-month change since June 2008. Prices for used cars and trucks leapt 10.5% from the previous month, driving one-third of the rise in the overall index, the department said. The indexes for airline fares and apparel also rose sharply in June,” adds the newspaper.

Read the full report here.

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

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

POLL: 61% of Black People Oppose Protests During National Anthem at the Olympics

Democrats couldn’t give a fig about Blacks — they mean to destroy the country and they exploit divisiveness and hate in order to achieve their malevolent goal.

Poll: Most Black People Oppose Protests During National Anthem at the Olympics

By Warner Todd Huston, Flag and Cross, July 13, 2021:

Last week, black U.S. Olympic hammer thrower Gwen Berry raised eyebrows by refusing to stand at attention during the national anthem, but a new poll finds that most blacks don’t agree with such actions.

A new I&I/TIPP poll finds that Americans overwhelmingly reject athletes showing disrespect for the American flag at the Olympics.

The poll found that 79% of respondents say it’s important “for professional athletes to publicly respect the American flag on the international level,” while 60% say it is “very important.”

However, only 16% of the adults surveyed think it’s not important.

But even when broken down by gender, race, party and the like, the anthem protesters have little support.

Per Issues & Insights:

This sentiment was true across the board, with majorities in almost every demographic group broken out by the I&I/TIPP poll saying it was important for U.S. athletes to show respect for the flag when competing against athletes from other nations. That includes nearly two-thirds (61%) of black people surveyed and 69% of Hispanics.

By party breakdown, 93% of Republicans say showing respect is important, compared with 72% of Democrats. Support for showing respect increases with education as well – going from 73% of those with a high-school education to 81% of those with some college, and 83% of college graduates. Other breakdowns are shown in the nearby table.

Only young people don’t care if athletes respect the flag. Just 49% of those aged 18-24 say respect for the flag is important, while 39% say it’s not. Last week’s I&I/TIPP poll report showed members of this same age group were least likely to say they are proud to be an American: Just 36% said they are “very” or “extremely” proud of their nationality.

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

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

MISSOURI: Muslim Threatens to Blow Up and Shoot Up Factory Where He Works

Celebrate diversity!

The name “Yassine” is derived from “Ya Sin,” the 36th chapter of the Qur’an.

Versailles man charged with Making a Terroristic Threat

by Dan Claxton, KRCG, July 12, 2021:

NEW BLOOMFIELD — A Versailles man is in custody in the Morgan County jail charged with Making a Terroristic Threat by allegedly telling two co-workers on July 8 that he was going to blow up their workplace.

According to court documents, 33-year-old Yassine Bouyassine told a co-worker “when I come back I’ll blow it up.” Asked what he meant, he replied “Gates,” meaning Gates Corporation in Versailles, where Bouyassine works. He made a few more comments about “blowing up” and “shooting up” the facility, at one point asking co-workers how fast they thought he could do it.

The two employees who heard the comments then told their supervisor, who reported the incident to police.

Morgan County Prosecutor Dustin Dunklee charged Bouyassine with one count of Making a Terroristic Threat in the Second Degree. Missouri law defines that crime in part as communicating “an express or implied threat to cause an incident or condition involving danger to life.”…

RELATED ARTICLE: Boston: Antisemitic Muslim migrant who stabbed rabbi arrested for battery last year, sent to mental health facility

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

Islamic Republic of Iran Sent Goons to Kidnap Iranian Freedom Activist in NYC and Take Her Back to Iran

Meanwhile, they were sitting down with Biden’s handlers to demand the end of sanctions. The mullahs know that there is nothing they can do that will make Biden’s handlers not want to give them everything they want.

Iranian Operatives Planned to Kidnap a Brooklyn Author, Prosecutors Say

by Benjamin Weiser, New York Times, July 13, 2021:

An Iranian American journalist living in Brooklyn was the target of an international kidnapping plot orchestrated by an Iranian intelligence network, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

In an indictment unsealed in federal court in Manhattan, four Iranians were charged with conspiring to kidnap the journalist and author, Masih Alinejad, who has long been a staunch critic of the Iranian government.

Ms. Alinejad was not identified by prosecutors, but confirmed in an interview that she was the intended target of the plot. Last year, Ms. Alinejad wrote in a newspaper article that Iranian government officials had unleashed a social media campaign calling for her abduction.

The four defendants all live in Iran, the prosecutors said, identifying one of them, Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, as an Iranian intelligence official and the three others as “Iranian intelligence assets.” A fifth defendant, accused of supporting the plot but not participating in the kidnapping conspiracy, was arrested in California.

A federal indictment describes a plot that included attempts to lure Ms. Alinejad to a third country to capture her and forcibly render her to Iran. The intelligence official, Mr. Farahani, and his network used private investigators to surveil, photograph and video record Ms. Alinejad and members of her household in Brooklyn, the government said.

The extensive surveillance that Mr. Farahani’s network procured included the use of a live, high-definition video feed depicting Ms. Alinejad’s home, prosecutors said.

“This is not some far-fetched movie plot,” William F. Sweeney Jr., the head of the F.B.I.’s New York office, said in a statement.

In a 2018 essay in The New York Times, Ms. Alinejad described her decision to leave Iran a decade earlier.

“As a journalist in Iran, I often got into trouble exposing the regime’s mismanagement and corruption until, eventually, my press pass was revoked,” she wrote. “I was often threatened with arrest or worse for writing articles critical of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ultimately, I was forced to flee my homeland in 2009.”…

RELATED VIDEO: Jay Smith and Robert Spencer on the revised and expanded edition of ‘Did Muhammad Exist?’

RELATED ARTICLES:

Taliban say China is friend of Afghanistan, promise not to allow Uighur jihadis to enter the country

Missouri: Muslim threatens to blow up and shoot up factory where he works

Afghanistan: Taliban scream ‘Allahu akbar’ as they murder 22 Afghan commandos who were surrendering

Tennessee: After two-year investigation for criticizing Islam, DA cleared by Board of Professional Responsibility

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

Trump: ‘We Will Take Back that Glorious White House’

Trump states, “We Will Take Back that Glorious White House.”

WATCH: President Donald Trump FULL SPEECH at CPAC 2021 in Dallas, TX 7-11-21

©Right Side Broadcasting Network. All rights reserved.

Fear, Control and the Authoritarian Abuse of Power

“The primary method by which governments increase their control is by creating fear.” – Charles Eisenstein, Author

“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.” –  Bertrand Russell

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” – H. L. Mencken

“The people need wholesome fear. They want to fear something. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive.” – Adolph Hitler, 1933


Sadly, after years upon years of conditioning, most people don’t use critical thinking (logic is not taught in government schools) and instead let others think for them.  This became all too obvious with the propaganda of fear proliferated by worldwide establishment hierarchies.

In 2020, America became a country of sheep, donning the useless face diapers, even while alone in their vehicles or outside on warm sunny days. Fauci’s fear propaganda was successful.  In 2021, Americans allowed themselves to become lab rats for an unlicensed and dangerous injection that is not a “vaccine,” but an unapproved experimental toxic genetic agent containing squalene.  Dr. Lee Merritt says this is the same ingredient in one of the “vaccines” given to Gulf War vets allegedly to prevent Anthrax poisoning, where there was no time for oversight or independent review, and instead caused Gulf War syndrome.  In animal testing for the messenger RNA Covid injections, the ferrets, cats, and monkeys all died when a new virus was introduced.

Viral Variants

Comrade Fauci is again using fear to frighten the lemmings into believing that the new Delta variant is far more dangerous than the original never-isolated Covid-19. Variants of viral strains have nearly always been of a weaker variety.  The gain-of-function Wuhan virus variants may be a natural result of the virus, a new strain released on the world or more likely, a result of the mRNA Covid injections.  The majority of Americans as well as the rest of the world, fell prey to fear mongering sold by the establishment elite, and are now spreading fear again with the lie of a dangerous “variant.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claim the Delta strain of the virus is a “variant of concern” that could lead to more deaths and hospitalizations, while the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the strain has been detected in more than 80 countries and continues to mutate as it spreads.  Dr. Fauci and China’s mouthpiece, WHO President Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, are very close friends.

The article, How Broad is Covid Immunity? by former scientist and vice president of Pfizer, Dr. Michael Yeadon, and Marc Girardot of PANDA, states that “health authorities and mainstream media have been very wary of supposed heightened risk profiles of new variants.  This well-known phenomenon occurs continuously for influenza as well as for Coronaviruses. To date, these mutations have caused changes in less than 0.3% of the entire virus sequence. All variants are therefore currently 99.7% similar to the original Wuhan viral sequence.”

“To date no robust scientific evidence proves that any of variants identified are more transmissible or deadly than the original.  By definition, variants are clinically identical. Once there is a clinical difference then a new ‘strain’ of virus has emerged.”

“There is therefore no possibility that the human immune system will be fooled into regarding the variants as a new pathogen.”

So then, what is Delta?

Variant Spread

Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington says “there is no doubt in my mind” that “vaccinated” Americans are helping spread the Indian Delta variant as Los Angeles and New York City see cases surge by up to 165% in a week.  He added, “It could explain why states with high vaccination rates such as California, Illinois, New York and Washington are seeing a rise in cases.”  In New York City, where 63% of all adults have completed their vaccine series, new cases have risen by 295 since June 24.

Since June 25, COVID-19 infections have jumped 84 percent from 1,747 cases to 3,216 recorded July 9th, according to data from the Scottish Government.  ‘You cannot explain the explosive epidemic in Scotland, in a pretty highly vaccinated population, if they’re not playing a role in transmission,’ Murray said.

Here’s what the article is not telling us.  These cases are rising in areas of the unvaccinated as well.  Remember that it’s already been acknowledged that those who are inoculated are shedding the spike proteins and infecting non-inoculated.

Even the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has written a “guidance document” entitled, Design and Analysis of Shedding Studies for Virus or Bacteria-Based Gene Therapy and Oncolytic Products.

Toxic Jabs

A true vaccine will develop antibodies to the virus or bacterium, will protect you from contracting the virus, reduce deaths from the virus, and reduce the circulation of the virus in society.  The Covid-19 injection does none of these.  In fact, injected citizens can still contract the virus, are not producing antibodies, can still spread the virus, and Public Health England just released a new report showing that at least 62 percent of all deaths associated with the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) are occurring in people who were already “vaccinated.”

Why would anyone trust these injections?  Apparently, many are not.  Anti-vaxxers used to be three percent, and are now up to 45%, thus the reason Biden will be sending vax-agents to your doors.  The media is saying that because of those who will not take the injection, America will not reach herd immunity.  Whoa…wait the hell a minute; that is pure poppycock.  If you’ve had the virus (Type A or B flu which was all that was found in the lungs of Covid patients) then you have God’s immunity and you don’t need an experimental injection!

There is no Covid-19 virus that has ever been isolated!  It’s the blooming flu…whether natural or manmade in a bioweapon lab via the NIH/Fauci gain-of-function, it still reacts the same way as other viruses.  Like seasonal influenza, it is dangerous to elderly with comorbidities.

Cure Worse Than the Disease?

Dr. Lee Merritt’s July 5th article in the New American Magazine, Covid-19 Vaccines, A “Cure” Worse Than the Disease? spells out the dangers of these experimental injections being slickly sold to the American public with bribes to entice Americans into receiving the jab. Both Moderna and Pfizer Covid-19 injections are “experimental, employing a genetic technology never before used on humans.  Legally, those who get the vaccine are unnamed participants in a Stage IV Food and Drug Administration (FDA) trial.

Dr. Merritt writes that during the first four months after the 2021 rollout of Pfizer and Moderna, 97 percent of deaths from vaccines recorded in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) were for those injections…only three percent reported were from other vaccines.  The VAERS statistics on vaccine deaths per year from 2018-2021 are telling.

2018: 22 deaths

2019: 27 deaths

2020: 26 deaths

2021: 3,661 deaths (January through April)

Why weren’t these lethal jabs terminated like the swine flu after 25 deaths?

According to the CDC, from mid December 2020 to July 2, 2021, there have been 9,048 Americans who have died from these injections, including 917 unborn babies following the shots, and 520,747 injuries.  Link

The following billboards can be seen across the country and were posted by Sidney Powell’s organization, Defending the Republic!  Please support them by sending a check here:  Defending the Republic, 2911 Turtle Creek Blvd., Suite 300, Dallas TX 75219

Physicians, pharmacists, and nurses have no idea what is in these Covid injections.  Only the people at the top of the four “vaccine” makers know.  Recipients are guinea pigs receiving an experiment that may kill or disable them.

Videos of magnets sticking to the skin of recently inoculated Americans have been circulated.  Like everyone else, I originally thought it was nonsense and a typical hoax.  But Dr. Merritt tells us that in an article published in August 2019 at LabRoots.com states, “Scientists Developed Magnetic Nanoparticles that can Remotely Modulate Neural Circuits,” nanoparticles can be put into the blood vessel feeding a brain tumor, then MRI scanning of the area causes the particles to heat and burn out the cancerous mass. So, what will happen when these vaccinated people enter the MRI for other reasons?

Dr. Lawrence Palevsky is a New York state licensed pediatrician, who utilizes a holistic approach to children’s wellness and illness.  In this short video, he explains what the injection for Covid-19 actually does to our bodies and the side effects.

Dr. Palevsky says the Sars-Cov-2 “messenger RNA” injection is not a vaccine, instead it is believed to be a piece of the Sars-Cov-2 virus, but is a manmade synthetic of the spike protein.  That spike protein is known to be damaging, and the injection creates the genetic ability to produce more spike proteins in the body.  Yet there is no guarantee it ever stops reproducing.  The list of side effects from the spike protein are deadly: thrombocytopenia, blood clots, brain damage, neurological damage, lung, liver and kidney disease, heart attacks and inflammation, strokes and impairment to male and female reproductive organs, miscarriages, stillborn babies and death.

The unvaccinated who are near those who have had the jab are experiencing many of the same side effects, which means the spike protein is shedding from skin, breath, sweat, saliva, etc. from mRNA injected individuals.  There has never been, in history, a demonstration that using mRNA technology in vaccines has solved the problem of an infectious disease outbreak.

In this longer video, Dr. Palevsky tells of the few ingredients known within the mRNA jabs that have also never been tested for human injection. These were listed as “in addition” contents on Covid-19 injection paperwork; no other contents were given.

Polyethylene glycol (a petroleum derivative), lipid nanoparticles and something called SM102, also known as “hydro-gel” have never been tested for safety or effectiveness when injected into the human body or in animal studies.

Seventy-five percent of Americans are known to have an allergic reaction to polyethylene glycol.  The lipid nanoparticle is known to cause brain damage, lung, kidney and liver damage, and male and female reproductive damage.  The lipid is a fat and the nanoparticle is a very tiny particle able to travel everywhere in your body. They are known to cause damage to the above-mentioned tissues, are known to stay in the body permanently, and they also have the potential to be magnetized which will then give the powers that be the ability to collect data from you once you’ve had the injection.  Aluminum nanoparticles could well invite Alzheimer’s as aluminum attaches to the fluoride in our body which is in our drinking water.

Dr. Palevsky states that there is no oversight with these manufacturers or the manufacturing process or proper safety standards.  There is no actual standardization of how much messenger RNA is even in each injection.  And of course, these companies are not liable if their product harms you or kills you.

Biden’s Vaccine Gestapo

And here is where the rubber meets the road with our totalitarian despotic dictator, comrade Joseph Biden. He’s about as sharp as a marble, yet he’s telling us that he wants all Americans injected, including teenagers, despite the fact the youth of America are not affected by this virus and the recovery rate across the board is 99.75%.  How special!  Recently we heard of a 13-year-old boy who died in his sleep three days after his second injection and his autopsy showed an enlarged heart.  In a recent interview with Dr. Lee Merritt, she said, “These forced vaccines are a Holocaust level crime against humanity.”  Wake up people!

Jen Psaki announced Biden’s plan to have every American vaccinated.  Agents of the federal government will be knocking on people’s doors to intimidate them into getting vaccinated for a virus with a 99.75 percent survival rate.  We don’t need a stinkin’ vaccine!  Never have!  Number one on Biden’s list: “Targeted, community-by-community, door-to-door outreach to get remaining Americans vaccinated by ensuring they have the information they need on how both safe and accessible the vaccine is.”

Kiss my grits!  There is nothing safe about this forced and bribed injection!

The heavily targeted states are all southern, from Georgia and Tennessee across the south to Texas, but every state will have either government officials or National Guard at your door.  Many southerners still understand freedom.

Remember, you do not have to answer questions and they do not have a right to trespass on your property.  The 4th and 5th amendments and HIPAA laws prevent this type of government questioning which is an overarching blanket abuse of power.

In Oregon’s fourth most populous county, which includes the college town of Eugene, National Guard members may be among the teams designated to persuade people to take the shots, according to Jason Davis, Public Information Officer with Lane County Public Health.  Using the military to go door-to-door to persuade Americans to take this experimental jab is a Bolshevik tactic!  This is an unconstitutional use of state military who answer to both state and federal authorities.  The abuse and misuse of the National Guard has been deliberately corrupted.

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Health Department and Fire Department are going door to door in communities to bring the vaccines to the poorer neighborhoods.  Their health commissioner said community vaccination is the primary goal.  God help them!

CNN Medical contributor, Dr. Leana Wen suggested on July 10th that President Biden should get behind “vaccine credentialing.”  She said that life needs to be “hard” for Americans who have not received the experimental Covid-19 jab and individuals who refuse should face weekly testing.  Wen is the former Planned Parenthood president and she believes people who don’t take the injection should not be allowed to normally go about their lives without any consequences.

We went from “flattening the curve in 14 days” to going “door to door to see your papers.”  The “brownshirts” have arrived.

Conclusion

Physicians and scientists all over the world are risking their livelihoods and licenses to tell us the truth, that the Covid shot is not a vaccine, it’s an unlicensed experiment, and one that kills.  Over 9,000 Americans have died from the vaccine, and only one percent of deaths and adverse reactions are reported to VAERS.

Real extremists, factual corruption, and the historic destruction of America’s liberties are ignored.  The FBI is now asking Americans to spy on their own families and friends to prevent extremism.  We have entered Nazi Germany once again.

As Dr. Lee Merritt said at the end of her article in the New American Magazine, “If you are a physician, it is time to choose your allegiance.  Will you stand for your patients? Or will you hide behind the medical authorities and say someday, ‘I was just following orders.’”

©Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: America Under Attack! Biden Turning USA Into Giant Sanctuary for Illegals

Apprehensions of illegal aliens are skyrocketing along our southern flank. Worse, most of these illegals are not being deported; they are being allowed to infiltrate this Republic and are not subjected to our rule of law. This is war, folks. This is a battle against, not the illegals, but the Biden clan which is destroying the very fabric of our culture. Graham Ledger speaks with the president of the national Border Patrol Union, Art Del Cueto about attempting to stop illegals from attacking our country while the President is aiding and abetting their assault on our sovereignty.

EDITORS NOTE: This Ledger Report video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

#FREECUBA! Watch Massive ANTI-COMMUNIST Protests Erupt, Cubans Demand End To Communist Dictatorship

The courageous people of Cuba desperately yearn for freedom after decades of socialist and communist rule. Let’s see how Bernie Sanders, AOC, Tlaib, and Omar respond to the freedom rallies being held by the people of Cuba, who are protesting against the ideology that they want to implement in America. Pray for the Cuban people.

Cubans in over 32 cities protested in retaliation to the communist regime chanting “Freedom! “Down with Communism!” and “Patria y Vida” (Homeland and Life) in a live Facebook video. The demonstrators demanded access to food, medicine, vaccines and the end to communism amid a massive COVID-19 outbreak (Daily Caller).  From CNN International Corresponded and Havana Bureau Chief Patrick Oppmann: I have lived in Cuba for nine years and the scenes we saw today were stunning. The protests spread more quickly than anyone could have imagined. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring but the level of discontent and anger isn’t going anywhere (Twitter). From Wall Street Journal Latin America Correspondent Jose de Cordoba: Cubans always talk about the “doble cara” – hiding your true feelings and thoughts because of the fear that comes with living in a police state. This is what happens when a people take off their masks (Twitter). White House press secretary Jen Psaki said it’s not about freedom (RedState). As of late last night, Socialist Bernie Sanders, who heaped high praise on the government of Cuba, was silent (Fox News). From Katie Pavlich last night: Nothing from the @WhiteHouse@JoeBiden or @SecBlinken on Cuba. Telling (Twitter). From Erielle Davidson: Biden WH predictably out to lunch as Cuba erupts in protest against its socialist government while waving the American flag (Twitter). From Marco Rubio: Frustration with the dictatorships incompetence,greed & repression is mounting rapidly (Twitter). From Dan McLaughlin: … one hopes that the Cuban regime can & will fall to the Cuban people, if not now, soon. And we should do whatever we can to help that along. Cuba Libre (Twitter).

Massive Protests Erupt In Cuba As Citizens Demand End To Communist Dictatorship: ‘We Want Freedom!’

By Daily Wire, July 11, 2021

Massive protests erupted on Sunday in Cuba as citizens of the island nation demanded an end to the communist dictatorship as they suffer in poverty while having limited freedom.

“In a country known for repressive crackdowns on dissent, the rallies were widely viewed as astonishing,” The New York Times reported. “Activists and analysts called it the first time that so many people had openly protested against the Communist government since the so-called Maleconazo uprising, which exploded in the summer of 1994 into a huge wave of Cubans leaving the country by sea.”

The report noted that numerous videos that were posted online that showed the protests had “suddenly disappeared.” “The people are dying of hunger!” one woman shouted during a protest highlighted by The Times, “Our children are dying of hunger!” Other chants included “We want freedom” and “We want vaccines.”

“Never seen images from #Havana,” Alexandre Krauss, Senior Advisor EU Parliament, tweeted. “Thousands are mobilizing across #Cuba demanding the end of the communist dictatorship while screaming ‘we are not afraid…we are not afraid.’”

“I have been covering Cuba since the 1994 rafter crisis,” New York Times reporter Frances Robles tweeted. “I have never ever seen anything like the protests today.”

The AP reported:

Police initially trailed behind as protesters chanted “Freedom,” “Enough” and “Unite.” One motorcyclist pulled out a U.S. flag, but it was snatched from him by others. … Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in decades, along with a resurgence of coronavirus cases.

The demonstration grew to a few thousand in the vicinity of Galeano Avenue and the marchers pressed on despite a few charges by police officers and tear gas barrages. People standing on many balconies along the central artery in the Centro Habana neighborhood applauded the protesters passing by. Others joined in the march.

“We are fed up with the queues, the shortage,” one protester told the AP. “That’s why I’m here.”

RELATED ARTICLES:

Biden Administration Claims Cuban Anti-Communist Protests Are About ‘Rising COVID Cases/Deaths’

Socialist Sanders silent on Cubans begging for freedom after praising Castro’s communist policies

Leaders of the Democratic Socialists of America travel to Venezuela to meet with dictator Nicolas Maduro

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

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

IG REPORT: Islamic Terrorists Lead Religious Services in 25% of U.S. Federal prisons

Prisons are a notorious hotbed of jihad recruitment. Who better to target than the violent, broken and disenfranchised? Why would authorities give violent jihadis access to the general population? In no fewer than five states, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, Muslims make up 1 out of 4 or 1 out of 5 prisoners. Overrepresentation may be partially a product of the success of Islamic dawah or missionary activity in prisons. Islamic prison dawah has produced many converts and at least some terror plots. And it may serve to explain high Muslim prison numbers in some states, but not necessarily in others.

Islamic terrorists lead religious services in a quarter of federal prisons: inspector general report

Audit found inmates affiliated with Islamic State, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab allowed to lead services.

By: Just the News, July 9, 2021:

Inmates convicted on terrorism-related charges or with “known connections to terrorist organizations,” including the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab, were allowed to lead religious services at a third of the federal prisons audited by a federal watchdog, raising deep security concerns.

A recent audit by the Justice Department’s inspector general of the Chaplaincy Services Program in the Federal Bureau of Prisons found four out of 12 facilities in which terrorist inmates were eligible to lead religious services.

At three of the facilities, the prisoners were affiliated with Islamic terrorist groups, with at least two leading services “on a regular basis” or a “frequent basis.” One of them was chosen to lead services by other inmate coreligionists “due to his extensive faith knowledge and Arabic fluency.”

This wasn’t the first time the IG found terrorist inmates leading services, the report states, citing a March 2020 audit.

The July report blamed the absence of a “fully-staffed and diverse chaplaincy” for such lapses: The 236 chaplains are about 30 percent below BOP targets. This prompted many institutions to “turn to alternatives such as inmate-led services and heavy reliance on contract faith providers and minimally vetted volunteer faith providers to fill the gaps in the chaplaincy staff. These staffing shortages and alternatives present risks.”

BOP policies don’t restrict “certain inmates from leading services and appear to be inconsistent regarding the level of required monitoring,” the report states. It found only one chaplain who “reportedly took preemptive action to prevent a known terrorist from leading religious services.”

RELATED ARTICLES:

Alaska must pay $100,000 to Muslim inmates over Ramadan food options, TERROR ORG CAIR will give religious sensitivity training to Department of Corrections

Thousands of “radicalized” jihad inmates set to be freed from prisons

Nation of Islam receiving federal cash to teach federal inmates

Terror-Tied ICNA Solicits Donations for Prison Program

Scroll: Prison jihad

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

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.