Tag Archive for: Covid

More on the FDA and COVID Injections

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This is a fertile area for Critical Thinkers. 

Many people wrote to thank me for my recent post alerting them that the new FDA is now taking comments from citizens about the COVID injections (until May 23).

Several readers also sent me a copy of what they sent to the FDA. Below, I am sharing with you an example of what an MD submitted, which was excellent…

To the FDA:

As of February 28, 2025, the CDC has recorded 19,310 American deaths reported to them in VAERS by healthcare professionals or pharmaceutical companies who believe the death is vaccine-related. Approximately 1134 deaths have occurred on the same day, and 1266 on the day following vaccination.

From FDA testimony, VAERS deaths should be multiplied by an under-reporting factor of 30± to get a nationwide estimate of 580,000 vaccine casualties!

The largest autopsy study published to date indicates 74%± of deaths after vaccination are a direct cause or significantly contributed to by COVID-19 vaccination. There are over 4000 peer reviewed manuscripts in the medical literature concerning fatal and nonfatal COVID-19 vaccine injuries including those recognized by regulatory agencies around the world such as myocarditis, neurologic injury, thrombosis, & immunologic syndromes.

In 2022, the World Council for Health produced a pharmacovigilance report which is factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus driven calling for global market withdrawal of COVID-19 vaccines based on lack of safety.

Dr. Peter McCullough, a widely regarded expert on COVID-19 and vaccine safety, on December 7, 2022, in the US Senate, and on September 13, 2023, in the European Parliament, has called for with assent of an expert panels, removal of all COVID-19 vaccines from the US and EU markets for excess risk of death.

On March 21, 2023 the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons issued a factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus driven statement calling for all COVID-19 vaccines to be removed from the market based on lack of safety and efficacy.

The National Citizens Inquiry, a Canadian citizen-led and citizen-funded organization chartered to investigate governments’ COVID-19 policies, on September 14, 2023, called for market removal of all COVID-19 vaccines.

On January 12, 2024, Dr. McCullough again called for removal of all COVID-19 booster products from the market in a US House of Representatives Panel on COVID-19 Vaccine Injuries.

In July, 2024, Mead et al published two extensively referenced, peer-reviewed reports concluding the COVID-19 vaccines are not safe for human use and should be removed from public use.

In 2025, Hulscher et al, reported >81,000 physicians, scientists, researchers, and concerned citizens, 240 elected government officials, 17 professional public health and physician organizations, 2 State Republican Parties, 17 Republican Party County Committees, and 6 scientific studies from across the world have called for the market withdrawal of COVID-19 vaccines.

No large-scale, conclusive, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials have demonstrated reduction in infection transmission, hospitalization, or death as primary endpoints. Thus, the COVID-19 vaccines are not proven to be effective in reducing important clinical outcomes. A position supporting COVID-19 vaccination goes against good medical practice and cannot be backed by ethical and prudent physicians.

Based on these horrific facts, I am in support of banning the mRNA platform in humans.

The above well-written FDA submission brings to mind a powerful, short video of a few years ago. A dedicated and competent nurse lost her job for choosing not to get an experimental bio-chemical injection. She can tell her story better than I can. (Note: select the full screen option [upper left-hand corner arrows] to be able to better read her moving statements.) —

This is one of many stories that tell the adverse consequences when we stray from Real Science and implement political science instead. Hopefully, avoiding that trap will be the DHHS, FDA, CDC, etc. theme going forward…

©2025 All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Doc Who Revived Zombie Virus From Frozen Corpse Now Has Keys To Fauci’s Old Agency

Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2025 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

U.S. Government Lost $1 Trillion in COVID Relief Funds to Fraud

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The U.S. government loses nearly $1 trillion in emergency relief funds annually, according to experts. In a “60 Minutes” interview Monday night, Audient Group founder and former Government Accountability Office executive Linda Miller alleged that international crime rings defraud American taxpayers of billions of dollars every year.

“I believe the government is losing between $550 billion and about $750 billion a year — we’re coming up close to the $1 trillion amount — [that’s] lost every year to fraud,” Miller stated. She explained, “What we’re really talking about is nation-state actors, we’re talking about organized crime rings, we’re talking about using vast amounts of stolen American identities to monetize them for criminal activity.”

Fraud was rampant during the COVID-19 era, Miller explained. “I mean, it was like they threw money in the air and just let people run around and grab it. The most egregious part is that a lot of the people who stole that money were foreign, adversarial nation-states,” she said, estimating that over $1 trillion in COVID-19 relief funding was stolen through fraud.

However, she warned that security measures need to be increased even though the COVID-19 era has ended. “One of the things I found really disheartening is, since then, I’ve talked to some folks who said, ‘Well, that was just the pandemic. We don’t have to worry about it anymore.’ Was it? No,” Miller said. She added, “It’s whack-a-mole and these guys are paying close attention. They’re seeing where better controls are being put in place, and then they’re going to where the controls still haven’t been improved.”

Miller identified disaster relief funds as a top target for fraudsters. “When a disaster happens in the country, the fraud actors see where it’s coming, they look at the zip codes and they begin buying stolen identities so that they can begin applying for disaster loans, disaster grants on behalf of stolen identities,” she explained. FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran confirmed, “All of our personally identifiable information — name, date of birth, former address, and social security number — is available on the dark net and can likely be purchased.”

Vorndran explained that much of the fraud being committed against the U.S. is sponsored by China and other nations hostile to America. He cited one case last year where the U.S. identified a $6 billion loss in COVID-era unemployment funds. The FBI agent confirmed that, unfortunately, “very little” of the money lost to fraud will ever be recovered. “These are arguably digital gangs in the 21st century that are built off of having safe haven status, meaning their governments are not going to interrupt their activity even if it’s illegal,” he said, pointing to foreign governments that sponsor or allow large-scale fraud operations in an effort to cripple the U.S. He added, “I believe that there are sustained campaigns across this globe that are very well resourced, with a goal of causing damage to the United States.”

Miller noted the fact that billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are doing more than other agencies have to combat and prevent fraud. “Elon Musk coming out and saying there is a huge amount of fraud — I welcome that message completely because finally someone is actually saying this,” she quipped. “When I watch DOGE today, I do see some hints that they are addressing the right issues,” she added. However, she advised the bloat-slashing agency not to conflate fraud with wasteful spending. “Fraud is willful deception,” Miller said.

She continued, “Often, you may not agree with what USAID does. You may not want to be investing American dollars in foreign fertilizer, for example. You may think that’s the wrong thing to be spending money on, but that’s not fraud.” She continued, “I really think fraud is not a political issue. This is mom and apple pie stuff, we all agree that bad actors should not be stealing American taxpayer dollars. … We see the adversary not as Republicans or Democrats, but as foreign adversarial nation states and organized crime rings.” Miller added, “I believe that there [are] opportunities for DOGE to save a lot of significant money if they focus on the right things, if they focus on real fraud.”

According to the Government Accountability Office and the FBI, up to $135 billion in unemployment insurance, at least $135 billion in economic injury disaster loans, and nearly $65 billion in paycheck protection program funds were stolen through fraud during the COVID-19 era. Thousands of individuals have been charged by the Department of Justice with fraud-related crimes over the past several years.

“I think it’s safe to say future historians will make entire careers on writing about the failures of the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter told The Washington Stand. “More than five years removed from the start of the pandemic, we now know masking, closures, social distancing, and vaccinations did little to nothing to stop the spread of COVID-19. Now, we know the government’s prescription to prevent the economy from collapsing during COVID-19 not only did not work but led to the largest instance of fraud in American history, that we know of at least. We are a country $36 trillion in debt. We cannot afford to have a trillion dollars lost to fraud and abuse.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council,

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Proxy Wars: Johnson Fights to Keep House Voting the Way Our Founders Intended

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People wouldn’t blame House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for trying to find some breathing room in his microscopic majority. Last week, Americans saw how seriously Republicans are taking their whisper-thin margins when President Trump pulled his nomination for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), surprising everyone by sending her back to Congress to provide some much-needed GOP backup. But as much sleep as Johnson has lost trying to count noses on key votes, there’s one gimmick he refuses to consider.

When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was in Johnson’s shoes — clinging to the slimmest majority in a generation — she got incredibly creative to arrive at the numbers she needed on any given bill. Turns out, having control of Congress when a global pandemic swept through the country was unusually kind to the Democratic Party’s agenda. Recognizing that she couldn’t afford to lose a single vote — especially on the extreme legislation that her more moderate members opposed, Pelosi instituted a rule that let members vote from somewhere other than the House floor. And while the policy was supposed to be a temporary measure in the early months of COVID, the Democratic leaders managed to extend it well beyond the point of rationality.

As The New York Times chronicled, Pelosi’s “proxy voting” was exploited for months as members decided it was “too dangerous” to go to Washington (but perfectly fine to attend packed-out local political fundraisers). “It’s a huge scandal,” Republican Mike Gallagher (Wis.) argued at the time. “Members have been signing their names to a straight-up lie.” “It indulges the worst impulses of the modern congressman,” he insisted, “which is to spend all their time flying around the country, raising money, and avoiding all the nuts and bolts of legislative work.”

When Pelosi first announced a proxy voting system back in May 2020, the idea was so controversial that more than 160 Republicans sued. “Our founders intended that Congress convene and deliberate,” the GOP argued. “The Constitution requires a majority of members be present to constitute a quorum to conduct business.” After all, they argued, since the first session of Congress in 1789 through 2020, members have had to be present to vote. This current ruse, conservatives fumed, is nothing but “heavy-handed partisan maneuvering.”

Two years later, with the public health threat largely behind us, the practice made even less sense. And yet, no-show voting was such a powerful tool for the Left that Democrats were reluctant to let it go. “Despite a narrow, ten-member majority in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been able to control her caucus in part because members who couldn’t make it to Washington could still vote,” Time Magazine pointed out.

When Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, won the gavel, conservatives did away with the Democrats’ racket, insisting that members again be present on the House floor to vote. But now, much to some people’s surprise, the concept is making the rounds again — this time in Republican circles.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) is pressing the issue in what’s been described as a “narrower” version of proxy voting that would only apply to new parents in Congress. Against most Republicans’ wishes, she took the unusual step of forcing the bill through a discharge petition, a weapon typically used by the minority party. Under her proposal, a congressman or woman could designate a fellow member to vote on their behalf for up to 12 weeks while they’re home with a new baby. And while it sounds like a reasonable concept at face value, the implications, conservatives warn, could be far more dangerous than Luna or others realize.

“It’s not like all 435 members are gonna run out and get pregnant, then all of a sudden you’re gonna have a massive vote by proxy,” Luna argued. “That’s simply not possible, also too, not the case.” But Johnson, who’s a devoted family man, still cautions that the idea is a bridge too far. “It sounds good on the surface,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins agreed on Saturday’s “This Week on the Hill,” but where do you draw the line?

“It’s very problematic,” the speaker wanted people to know. “And look, I’ve talked with Anna about this at great length, and she’s also a dear friend. … [H]er motives are pure,” Johnson said. “… She’s in her 20s, she’s a young mom. And she had a baby recently, and she had to miss some votes. And so, she wants to change the rules [to] say any young family that has a baby, that that member of Congress, either the wife or the husband, doesn’t have to show up for 12 weeks. And I just think it’s a real problem.”

The reality is, he continued, “We sympathize with all our colleagues, many of whom face circumstances that prevent them from being present in Congress. But proxy voting raises serious constitutional questions that change more than two and a half centuries of tradition. It abuses our system,” Johnson emphasized, “and it creates a slippery slope toward more and more members casting votes remotely. Because if we could change the rules for this with a discharge petition — which is really a tool of the minority party, not the majority — then all bets are off. You’ll have other people who will bring discharge petitions for a number of other things,” the speaker explained, “and it will just become totally chaotic. So I hope that that doesn’t pass.”

On Monday, Luna sent a fiery letter to the House Freedom Caucus, resigning from the group for their lack of support for her petition. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who was an ardent critic of Pelosi’s proxy voting four years ago, responded, posting, “Respectfully to my friend — this (unconstitutional) rule would ultimately NOT be limited to moms. Cancer patients, dads, & worst of all, people who lazily abuse it (eg, voting from boats). She leaves out [that] her discharge allows no amendments! We should show up to work/vote.”

In response to the criticism, the speaker pointed out, “Look, I’m a father. I’m pro-family. [But] here’s the problem. If you create a proxy vote opportunity just for young parents, mothers and, the fathers in those situations, then where is the limiting principle?”

At the end of the day, Johnson reiterated to Perkins, “This is a Nancy Pelosi invention. Proxy voting had never been allowed in Congress until Nancy got the gavel. And we went to court to stop it. In fact,” the speaker reminded listeners, “I was a plaintiff in the lawsuit. We went and took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to declare proxy voting to be unconstitutional. The problem is … the court punted, and they said they didn’t [want] to address it. … They thought it would be a separation of powers problem if the court stepped in and told us how to do our business. So … that really underscores the importance of us handling this on our own.”

Of course, the interesting piece of this internal feud is that Johnson, of all people, stood to benefit from a proxy system in a chamber where he’s hanging on to the majority with his fingernails. Instead, he took the ethical path, refusing to make votes easier for his party just because the shoe was on the other foot. As FRC’s Quena Gonzalez told The Washington Stand, “The speaker put constitutional principle above political gain. That’s rare in Washington. It doesn’t earn you many friends,” he admitted, but in the long run, “it will earn him continued respect from his colleagues and opponents.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Congressional Report Finds (Nearly) Every COVID-19 ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Was True

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The most thorough report ever released on America’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic has concluded that virtually everything that would have gotten you banned from social media for spreading “misinformation” was true.

After a two-year investigation, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its 520-page report titled “After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward” this week. The report finds the COVID-19 virus likely originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where it may have been manufactured as a chimera. Lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing, and vaccine mandates were not based on sound science and did more harm than good. Natural immunity exists for COVID-19, as it does for other viruses. And President Donald Trump’s “racist” travel bans likely saved lives.

Expressing any of these would have been enough to get one banned from social media. Twitter infamously set up a portal for government agents to flag “misinformation” and target posts or whole accounts for shadow bans, censorship, or removal. Meta boasted that, since December 2020, “following consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO),” the company had “removed false claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts” from Facebook and Instagram. In February, it broadened its list of verboten ideas “to include additional debunked claims about the coronavirus and vaccines,” such as “COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured,” and “Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease.”

The new report debunks this “debunking.”

1. The COVID-19 virus was probably man-made and originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

From the outset, public health officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci presented the novel coronavirus outbreak as the result of a “zoonotic spillover” — that the virus transferred from an animal to humans, probably a bat purchased at a wet market and eaten. Yet the balance of the evidence shows that “SARS-CoV-2, the Virus that Causes COVID-19, Likely Emerged Because of a Laboratory or Research Related Accident,” says the new report.

“The U.S. National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” wrote Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) in his introduction.

In 2018, EcoHealth applied for a federal grant to fund a new project at the Wuhan Institute of Virology which “sought to do what nature had not been ever known to do — insert a furin cleavage site into a SARS2 virus,” states the report. “EcoHealth and its WIV partners stated their intent to create a SARS-like virus with a furin cleavage site, which is the exact same feature that made humans susceptible to COVID-19 infection.”

Rather than come clean about this federal funding, “Dr. Anthony Fauci Played Semantics with the Definition of Gain-of-Function Research,” the report concludes.

“The WIV has a published record of conducting ‘gain-of-function’ research to engineer chimeric viruses,” noted a State Department fact sheet released in January 2021. “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19.”

Further, “key evidence that would be expected if the virus had emerged from the wildlife trade is still missing,” such as infected animals. Dr. Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at MIT and Harvard, wrote in The New York Times that “the outbreak at the Wuhan market probably happened after the virus had already been circulating in humans.”

Dr. Robert Redfield, the Biden administration’s director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), testified before Congress last March 8, “COVID-19 infections more likely were the result of an accidental lab leak than the result of a natural spillover event.” Weeks earlier, the FBI and the Department of Energy expressed their support for the lab leak theory, with varying degrees of confidence. Even legacy media fact-checker Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post, who originally claimed that “it is virtually impossible for this virus [to] jump from the lab,” later acknowledged that the lab leak theory was “credible.”

2. Social distancing of six feet had no science to back it up.

The rule that Americans keep “social distancing” of six feet between one another to prevent COVID transmission became one of the most consequential events of the pandemic. Businesses deemed worthy of being open had to limit how many customers they could serve, and schools had to rearrange rooms or resort to virtual learning to comply with the new guidelines.

The report states bluntly, “There Was No Quantitative Scientific Support for Six Feet of Social Distancing.” Yet the report merely repeats what the guidelines’ authors have already admitted.

Last January 9, Dr. Anthony Fauci said “I don’t recall” where the six-feet guideline came from. “It sort of just appeared” from the ether. “I was not aware of studies” that justified the social distancing decision, said Fauci. The rule amounted to “just an empiric decision that wasn’t based on data or even data that could be accomplished.” Two days later, Dr. Francis Collins testified, “I did not see evidence” to support the six-foot rule. This June 3, Fauci admitted that “there wasn’t a controlled trial … there wasn’t that scientific evaluation of” the rule.

In short, says the report, “There were no scientific trials or studies conducted before this policy was implemented, there appeared to be no pushback or internal discussion amongst the highest level of leadership, and more importantly there appears to be no acceptance of responsibility. That is an unacceptable answer from public health leadership.”

3. Masks do not effectively stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus — and masking children did more harm than good.

The most ubiquitous symbol of the COVID era was the paper face mask. The masks, required by public venues and many businesses, supposedly protected their users against transmission of the novel coronavirus. YouTube actually suspended Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a doctor, for posting a video quoting studies saying that masks do not work.

The suspension seemed odd, as the government itself ultimately performed a triple Lutz on the efficacy of face masks. “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” tweeted then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams on leap day, February 29, 2020. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!” The CDC and WHO issued guidelines in March 2020 encouraging mask-wearing only for those who were ill or caring for someone who was. But a month later, in April 2020, the CDC issued a guidance recommending people wear masks around others and “went as far as posting a video teaching the public how to make masks with a T-shirt and rubber bands.”

During his first two days in office, President Joe Biden signed executive orders making the wearing of masks compulsory for federal workers and contractors, and then on airplanes and other public transportation. Biden administration officials offered contradictory statistics, telling the public wearing masks made them anywhere from 350% to 56% less likely to get COVID. As this author wrote at The Daily Wire, the Biden administration relied on flawed studies, one of which “found that cloth masks could reduce transmission — or make the wearer 17% more likely to test positive than someone wearing no mask.” Most studies showed no correlation between COVID-19 outbreaks in schools and masking.

The new report verifies what Paul and science have long known: “Masks and Mask Mandates Were Ineffective at Controlling the Spread of COVID-19,” and “Forcibly Masking Young Children, Ages Two and Older, Caused More Harm than Good.”

The report cites the U.K.-based Cochrane Collaboration, whose research “did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks” and that “[t]here were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection.” Numerous studies over many years had come to the same conclusion. In 2015, the BMJ publication discovered cloth masks offered “almost 0%” filtration of viruses. In fact, “Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.” One team of researchers found “significant levels of pollutants” in all face masks, questioning whether paper face masks are “safe to be used on a daily basis and what consequences are to be expected after their disposal into the environment.”

“Ignoring the science and facts of COVID-19 and the harms of masking young children was profoundly immoral on behalf of the leadership of the country’s public health officials,” states the House report.

The Biden administration began to walk back mask mandates and directives in 2021 and 2022. “The science has changed,” Dr. Leana Wen (formerly the president of Planned Parenthood), told CNN in February 2022. Yet the science had always shown masks do a poor job of preventing the transmission of viruses.

The results bear this out. “The trajectories of the rate of COVID-19 infections for states with mask mandates and states without is virtually identical,” the report notes.

4. Science did not support COVID-19 vaccine mandates, which needlessly hurt Americans and the U.S. military.

On August 24, 2021 — one day after FDA approval of the Pfizer COVID injection — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. armed forces. In November, the Biden administration extended the vaccine mandate to all federal workers, health care workers who worked in a facility accepting federal Medicare or Medicaid funds, and Head Start contractors or volunteers. OSHA issued a federal vaccine mandate for all employers with 100 employees or more.

“The COVID19 vaccine mandates caused people to lose their livelihoods, hollowed out our healthcare and education workforces, reduced our military readiness and recruitment, caused vaccine hesitancy, reduced trust in public health, trampled individual freedoms, deepened political divisions, and interfered in the patient-physician relationship,” says the report.

In all, more than 8,000 soldiers left — or were fired from — the military for refusing to take the then-experimental COVID-19 jab. “However, more than 17,500 troops’ religious exemptions were still being adjudicated just prior to the rescission of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate,” states the report.

Gil Cisneros, Biden’s undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, defended the great military vaccine purge as “appropriate disciplinary action” necessary “to maintain good order and discipline,” which affected only a “small fraction” of service members. “Congressman, I would say we are as strong as ever” as a result of the mass firing, Cisneros told then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

The report finds it no coincidence that, in 2022, the military missed its recruitment goals by 25%, or 15,000 soldiers. “Vaccine Mandates Were Not Supported by Science and Caused More Harm than Good,” the report concludes.

5. Natural immunity applies to COVID-19, like any other virus.

Yet the Biden-Harris administration attempted to coerce Americans into getting the COVID-19 shot, in part, by denying or dismissing a scientific fact that applies to every other virus in existence: natural immunity. Once someone has gotten a viral infection, that person develops antibodies that lower the risk of reinfection. “Public Health Officials Disregarded Natural Immunity, Despite Its Proven Effectiveness and Durability,” says the report.

As this author reported at The Washington Stand, Biden administration officials formally denied the efficacy of natural immunity, under oath. “There’s no good evidence, and the research is still going on as to how we need to progress with this,” Cisneros testified to Congress last February 28. “But as for right now, natural immunity is not something we believe in for this, and so we are still moving forward” with vaccine mandates.

6. COVID-era lockdowns had no scientific grounding and irreparably harmed Americans.

If face masks were the most prominent sight of the COVID era, its most infamous words were uttered on March 16, 2020: “15 days to slow the spread.” The government ordered Americans to “shelter in place” and not have unnecessary physical contact with anyone else. Church members were often ordered not to meet in person or saw their attendance severely limited. Schools closed down. Businesses not deemed “essential” closed, many permanently. Relatives died without their loved ones at their side.

Ronald Reagan once said, a government program “is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” The “15 day” program proved no exception. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, admitted, “No sooner had we convinced the Trump administration to implement our version of a two-week shutdown than I was trying to figure out how to extend it.” In some areas, restricted capacity endured for more than a year.

The report notes that “Unscientific COVID-19 Lockdowns Caused More Harm Than Good.” The lockdowns were unnecessary and extracted a demanding mental and physical toll on Americans. Lockdowns ignored the fact that the virus proved most deadly to the elderly and vulnerable populations with comorbidities. By August 2020, the CDC knew that 40% of Americans were struggling with mental health issues. A study in Nature released this March found mental health disorders surged by 22% from 2019 to 2020. Another study found an extra 212 young people committed suicide in 2020, and the CDC found adolescent overdoses more than doubled during the lockdown period.

Adults also died at higher rates from non-COVID diseases. “One analysis done using CDC data found that non-COVID-19 excess deaths totaled nearly 100,000 per year in 2020 and 2021,” the report states.

Further, “Long Term School Closures Were Not Supported by Available Science and Evidence,” notes the report. Instead, the Biden administration invited a teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers led by Randi Weingarten, to shape the federal school closure guidelines. The AFT’s “School Closures Significantly Contributed to Increased Instances of Mental and Behavioral Health Issues” and “Made an Already Alarming Trend in Declining Physical Health Worse,” states the report.

“The American people could have been better served by policies which focused on protecting the most vulnerable while prioritizing productivity and normalcy for the less vulnerable,” the report concludes.

COVID-19 had one additional casualty: American liberty. “The Constitution cannot be suspended in times of crisis and restrictions on freedoms sow distrust in public health,” wrote Wenstrup.

7. President Trump’s ‘racist’ China travel ban likely saved lives.

When President Donald Trump learned of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, he promptly paused all inbound flights to the United States from China. Although the legacy media regarded this as a “racist” undertaking, President Trump’s travel restrictions against China — and Europe — delayed the spread, the report finds.

“With four years of hindsight, it is clear the international travel restrictions early in the pandemic delayed spread of the virus but did not prevent COVID-19 from entering the U.S. By the time the European travel ban was enacted in March 2020, it is now known that the virus had already spread significantly within the U.S. due to earlier untracked travel from Europe,” the report notes. “One study estimated that the U.S. travel bans helped to prevent approximately 77,000 cases of COVID-19 in the first month of their implementation. This study concluded that, while the travel restrictions did not entirely stop the virus from entering the U.S., they were effective in slowing the rate of transmission, giving the U.S. healthcare system more time to prepare and respond to the pandemic.”

Critics Say the Report Is Incomplete

Critics welcomed the report’s openness but felt it did not go far enough to address the adverse impact of the COVID-19 shot and suppression of basic civil liberties. “Forgive my cynicism,” Dr. Robert Malone, chief medical and regulatory officer for The Unity Project, told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on Tuesday. “I don’t see the federal government at this point in time taking these suggestions in and acting appropriately to respond to them. This should be a very active [case of] ‘lessons learned’ on their openness and transparency. We’re not seeing that.”

Dr. Malone noted the report’s odd “juxtaposition of endorsement of Operation Warp Speed, followed by a resounding lack of endorsement of the efficacy and safety of the vaccines.” He found the disconnect “perplexing” or an example of “the usual D.C. process of speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins agreed transparency over public health measures is “something I think we need to stay on” in the second Trump administration.

Dr. Malone is “right to be cynical, because government rarely learns its lessons,” Perkins concluded.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Truth Breeds Trust, Deceit Breeds Destruction

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Americans’ trust in mass media has stumbled to 31%, the lowest measurement since Gallup first asked the question in 1972, while those with absolutely no trust in the media has climbed to 36%. Trust in the media is higher among Democrats (54%) than Republicans (12%) and among senior citizens (43%) than those aged 18-29 (26%), but the media is now the least trusted of all civic and political institutions included in the survey.

How could this happen? If you’re reading The Washington Stand, you likely already know. Mass media, as an institution, lost Americans’ trust by behaving less like the neutral arbiters of objective information they claimed to be and more like partisan organs dedicated to getting candidates who shared their ideology elected.

In other words, they lied — or at least significantly misrepresented themselves. If the media were open about their biases and allowed consumers to reach they own conclusions, they might enjoy greater public trust than they do today.

In fact, the media’s problem with accurate reporting was “highlighted this week,” noted Family Research Council Action President Jody Hice on “Washington Watch,” in a “CBS news interview with [Vice President] Kamala Harris and … an interview with [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson.” On one hand, CBS News faced accusations of selectively editing Harris’ answers, as well as giving her multiple chances to respond to the same question when her first attempt was unsatisfactory. On the other hand, Johnson accused CBS News of selectively cutting out the most persuasive parts of his interview.

While the media may be the worst offender, Americans’ distrust of institutions is not confined to the evening paper. “Trust in our institutions is eroding” more broadly, warned David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, “whether it’s the courts, whether it’s our school system, even the military.”

“Why is that?” Closson asked. “It’s because of decisions that our leaders have made.”

“Thinking of the military,” he continued, “why are recruitment levels so low? Well, think of the woke ideology that’s been introduced into our service branches.” The military is not supposed to be a partisan or ideological entity. Yet servicemembers were subjected to critical race theory trainings, celebration of transgenderism, and DEI performance objectives. Not only was the military drifting away from its critical mission, it was also becoming unmoored from objective reality and truth.

Or, “think about the thousands of service members that were discharged because they didn’t want to get the COVID-19 shot,” Closson added. In fact, public officials in many arenas squandered trust profligately during the COVID pandemic. “Think of all of us that were told to wear masks, and how none of that was actually based on science,” recalled Closson.

Indeed, the brazen lies and arbitrary orders issuing from public institutions during COVID created a “run” on public trust that went beyond just the issues at hand. Backed by the media and powerful government agencies, public health officials demanded that citizens comply with draconian mandates, including stay-at-home orders, mask mandates, vaccine passports, and social distancing farces. These officials traded on their scientific reputation as public health experts, when in fact few to none of the recommendations they issued were based on science.

As a result, Americans jaded by their COVID-era interactions with government are more willing to question the government on unrelated points. If public health officials were willing to lie about the efficacy of the COVID jabs, for example, then why should they be trusted on the rest of the recommended vaccine regimen? This, combined with a wide-open southern border — another example of gaslighting — has led to the resurgence of diseases once on the verge of eradication. Drug companies are now paying for advertisements that aren’t selling new products, but which are simply begging Americans not to turn their backs on longstanding vaccine recommendations. Building trust takes much longer than destroying it.

The collapse of public trust in America holds lessons for Christians to take to heart. “As Christians, we believe in an objective order, right and wrong,” concluded Closson. “And we believe in speaking the truth in love. And, too often, people in positions of power are abusing their authority, and that is eroding trust we have. And that’s not sustainable for any society in the long term.”

Three thousand years ago, David lamented that “Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak” (Psalms 12:2). But, rather than giving in to despair, David placed his trust in the Lord. “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6).

Because God speaks the truth, his children should also be known for their truthfulness. Paul describes how God has given the church pastors and teachers to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,” so that we may not be misled “by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:12, 14-15).

The goal is unity and mutual edification (Ephesians 4:16), but the means are truth and love. Truth fosters trust, but deceit leads to destruction. This holds as true for the church as it does for the society at large. So, rather than be discouraged and disillusioned by the maelstrom of brazen lies swirling through our public discourse, Christians should consider in what ways they are walking in the truth, and how that can contribute to building up the body of Christ.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Trump Recalls ‘Only’ Interaction With Tim Walz On ‘Fox & Friends’

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Former President Donald Trump reflected Wednesday morning on his “only” interaction with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Trump told “Fox and Friends” co-hosts in his first televised interview since Harris tapped Walz to join the ticket Tuesday that the Minnesota governor called him “very concerned” during the intersection of Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots and COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. Trump expressed that he “can’t believe” Harris chose Walz.

“I know him a little bit,” Trump said. “I helped him very much during the riots because his house was surrounded by people that were waving an American flag. Doesn’t sound like very bad people. And he called me, and he was very concerned. Very, very concerned that it was going to get out of control.”

On April 17, 2020, dozens of protesters gathered outside Walz’s governor’s mansion in St. Paul for a second day, demanding he end Minnesota’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order, according to CBS News. The demonstrators, consisting of frustrated business owners holding signs and waving American flags, referred to themselves as “Liberate Minnesota.”

Walz issued multiple COVID-19 executive orders April 17, 2020, extending his emergency order for another month. While the Minnesota governor loosened restrictions on outdoor recreation, a six-foot distance was still required for those in separate households. Minnesotans who could “work at home” were required to continue.

Trump said Walz’s mansion only had “one guard” and that the Minnesota governor called him for help. Trump said the anti-lockdown protesters “left” after he “put out the word” about Walz.

“They only had one guard, I guess it was at the mansion or had his house in some form. And he called me, and I said, ‘What do you want me to do about it?’ I was in the White House. He said, ‘If you would put out the word that I’m a good person,’ and I did, I put out the word. I said, ‘he’s a good person. I hope everything’s good.’ And everybody put down their flags and took their flags with them. But they took the American flags and their MAGA flags and they left. It was thousands of people,” Trump said Wednesday on Fox News.

“And that was the first time I said, ‘Wow, that’s very interesting.’ And he called me back and he thanked me very much. That’s my only thing I ever had to do with him,” Trump continued. “He’s a very, very liberal man, and he’s a shocking pick. And I’m, I’m thrilled. I could not be more thrilled.”

In April 2020, similar anti-lockdown protests occurred in states including Ohio, New York, North Carolina, Kentucky and Michigan, according to NBC News. Trump sent three tweets April 17, 2020, the same day Walz’s mansion was mobbed by demonstrators, saying, “LIBERATE VIRGINIA,” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”

At the time, Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee accused Trump of “fomenting domestic rebellion” and that he was “putting millions of people in danger of contracting COVID-19.” A Twitter spokesperson rebutted that claim, stating that Trump’s rhetoric was too vague and did not violate the website’s COVID-19 policies, NBC News noted at the time.

On April 20, 2020, Trump tweeted that he “received a very nice call” from Walz and that his administration was working “fast” to help fulfill the Minnesota governor’s needs.

The Star Tribune reported that Walz said Trump “expressed great desire to work with us” following their 10-minute phone call April 18, 2020. The Minnesota governor made clear his disinterest in “adjudicating why we don’t have these things now” and emphasized his interest “in how we get them.”

AUTHOR

Julianna Frieman

Contributor

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

Guess who has Covid? One person in 8.1 billion!

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There are 8.1 billion people in the world and out of those 8.1 billion people one person has Covid.

Guess who it is? You got it, the installed Marxist in the White House Joe Biden. Poor little thing.

Will the White House staff and secret service agents now be forced to wear face masks now Biden is “sick?”

Don’t forget Comrade Biden did say he would drop out as a presidential candidate if he got medically diagnosed as sick. lol.

Here’s your sign.

Are you not frustrated and sick and tired of the bull**** corruption, lies and incompetence flowing to the fake news from this Marxist weaponized government ?

I recall eating breakfast in the White House with former President Bush’s Chief of staff and Condi Rice. I certainly recall the roof to the White House being sloped as I checked in with the secret service and the roof definitely had secret service protection.

Click here to see a picture of a Secret Service agent standing on the roof of the White House.

Wait a sloped roof is too dangerous for the Secret Service to protect according to their incompetent director.

The honorable female DEI agents might slip in their high heels, then slide down the roof in their mini skirts, dropping their side arms and sunglasses then jam their thongs into the cracks of their asses.

Now that’s something to see.

Trump 2024.

©2024. Geoff Ross. All rights reserved.

Military Funding Bill Passes House, Includes Conservative Priorities

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The U.S. House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 217-199 Friday, largely along party lines. Conservatives attached a number of amendments, which the mainstream media described as “culture war amendments,” designed to keep social issues out of the military.

The NDAA is an annual, must-pass bill that authorizes appropriations for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and sets DOD policies.

Due to its must-pass, pro-military nature, progressives in Congress have used the NDAA to advance their policy agenda by attaching left-wing riders to a bill they know many Republicans will support. Since retaking control of the House of Representatives, where all such spending bills must originate, Republicans have sought to reverse the progressive Left’s social engineering of the U.S. military by disentangling it from abortion, LGBT ideology, and DEI practices.

Although most Republicans voted for the fiscal year (FY) 2025 NDAA and most Democrats voted against it, due to the conservative-leaning policies included, a handful of members did cross the aisle. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) voted against the NDAA. Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Vincente Gonzalez (D-Texas), Mary Peltota (D-Alaska), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) voted for the bill.

Before the bill’s final passage, the NDAA went through the customary amend-a-thon. Members of Congress submitted hundreds of amendments, and they voted on the amendments ruled in order on Thursday. Highlights of those amendments are divided into categories below:

Abortion:

  • Amendment #55, proposed by Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas), prohibits the Secretary of Defense from paying for or reimbursing expenses relating to abortion services. The House adopted it 214-206, with most Republicans and one Democrat (Cuellar) voting “yes” and most Democrats and two Republicans (Reps. John Duarte (Calif.) and Brian Fitzpatrick, Pa.) voting “no.”

Religious Liberty:

  • Amendment #341, proposed by Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), requires the Secretary of Defense to review and repair the personnel records of military chaplains who suffered forced separation, downgraded performance reports, denials of promotion, schooling, training, or assignment, or any other adverse personnel actions as retaliation for seeking a Religious Accommodation Request (RAR) to the COVID-19 vaccination mandate. The House adopted this amendment “en bloc” (with other amendments considered uncontroversial), which means there was no recorded vote.

LGBT Ideology:

  • Amendment #52, proposed by Rosendale, prohibits the provision of gender transition procedures, including surgery or wrong-sex hormones, through TRICARE and the Department of Defense. The U.S. House adopted it 213-206, with most of the Republicans and one Democrat (Cuellar) voting “yes” and most of the Democrats and one Republican (Rep. Tony Gonzales, Texas) voting “no.”
  • Amendment #53, proposed by Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), prohibits the provision of gender transition procedures, including surgery or wrong-sex hormones, through the Exceptional Family Medical Program. The House adopted it 218-205, with most Republicans and one Democrat (Cuellar) voting “yes” and most Democrats and one Republican (Rep. Neal Dunn, Fla.) voting “no.”
  • Amendment #46, proposed by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), prohibits DoD’s military base schools, DODEA, from purchasing, displaying, or maintaining material that promotes radical gender ideology or pornographic content. The House adopted it 221-202, with all Republicans and three Democrats (Cuellar, Davis, and Gonzalez) voting “yes” and most Democrats voting “no.”
  • Amendment #54, proposed by Reps. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) and Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), prohibits drag shows, drag queen story hours, and similar events. The House adopted it by voice vote, which means the votes of individual members were not recorded.

DEI:

  • Amendment #43, proposed by Reps. Clay Higgins (R-La.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), and Duncan, eliminates the position of Chief Diversity Officer of the Department of Defense and prohibits the establishment of any substantially similar position. The House adopted it 214-210, with most Republicans voting “yes,” while all Democrats and four Republicans (Reps. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.), Fitzpatrick, Thomas Kean (N.J.), and Mike Turner (Ohio)) voting “no.”

“Misinformation”:

  • Amendment #45, proposed by Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), prohibits funding of companies whose operations, activities, or products, function to demonetize or rate the credibility of a domestic entity (including news and information outlets) based on lawful speech of such domestic entity under the stated function of “fact-checking” misinformation, disinformation, or mal-information. The House adopted it 218-206 with all Republicans voting “yes” and all Democrats voting “no.”

Israel:

  • Amendment #5, proposed by Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), prohibits U.S. funds from building or rebuilding in the Gaza Strip. The House adopted the amendment by voice vote.

These are the nine amendments tracked by Family Research Council Action, on the organization’s core issues of life, religious liberty, and sexuality, as well as other important topics, such as opposing the DEI worldview, protecting free speech, and supporting the nation of Israel. All nine amendments tracked by FRC Action were passed, making the NDAA for FY 2025 a victory for Bible-believing conservatives.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Trump Vows: I Will Rip Up, Throw Away WHO Pandemic Agreement

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President Donald Trump has put the issue of world government at the forefront of the 2024 presidential race, vowing to “protect American sovereignty” and the U.S. Constitution from the designs of unelected global bureaucrats.

President Trump took aim at global governance institutions in general, and the World Health Organization (WHO) specifically, on Saturday, promising to shred and annul the WHO Pandemic Agreement unless Joe Biden submits the document to the U.S. Senate for ratification, as required for treaties.

“As we speak, Joe Biden’s minions are in Geneva, secretly negotiating to surrender more of our liberty to the World Health Organization,” President Trump told the Libertarian Party National Convention, eliciting a fulsome chorus of boos. “Drafts of the agreement show that they want to subjugate America to foreign nations, attack free speech, [and] empower the World Health Organization to redistribute American resources.”

Multiple drafts of the proposed accord show the WHO limiting national sovereignty by demanding nations follow its regulations on “routine immunization” and “social measures,” turn over 20% of all vaccines for global redistribution, and abide by the agreement’s terms even after they withdraw.

“They’re going to take our money and send it all over the world to other countries that we need for our own citizens,” in the event of a pandemic, Trump told the crowd in Washington on Saturday, warning that a pandemic “could happen again” in the United States. His comments came just days after the Department of Health and Human Services took the first steps to deny future federal grants to the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based NGO which funded gain-of-function research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I will protect American sovereignty from the creeping hands of global government,” promised Trump. By contrast, the Biden administration has signaled its desire to sign the agreement, which WHO downgraded from a “legally-binding treaty” after Biden realized the U.S. Senate would never ratify the controversial document.

“I am hereby demanding that Joe Biden submit these monstrosities to the Senate as treaties,” declared Trump on Saturday. “If he does not, I will rip them up and throw them out on day one of the Trump administration.”

Opposition to the WHO pandemic treaty-turned-agreement has spread throughout America, including all 49 Republican U.S. senators, two dozen Republican governors, and 22 state attorneys general.

“The globalists are making a run over American sovereignty,” said Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) on the most recent episode of “This Week on the Hill,” hosted by Tony Perkins. “We can’t allow these global organizations to dictate to us what our policy is going to be.”

Although the body tasked with drawing up the agreement, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body, failed to finalize its text before the World Health Assembly commenced its annual meeting in Geneva on Monday, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus insisted the globalists would eventually prevail. “I remain confident that you still will” complete the global power transfer and have it adopted, he told delegates Monday. “Where there is a will, there is a way.”

But the internationalists compiling the sovereignty-destroying agreement will proceed from a radically government-centered philosophy alien to the American founding, experts say. “Some of these nations come from a very different governance perspective than the United States,” one which “says it’s normal to look to the federal government to deal with these problems,” Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at Family Research Council — who is currently in Geneva monitoring the WHA proceedings — told guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice on “Washington Watch” Tuesday.

“Constitutionally, there are areas enumerated to the federal government under our Constitution. If they’re not, the issue in theory should be left to the states,” Weber told Hice. “We have a philosophy of government going back to our founding which depends on a self-governing, moral, and religious people. So, this really sets the stage for people in the United States to say, ‘Why should the federal government be tackling [this] issue in the first place?’”

President Trump also cited constitutionalist themes in his pitch for libertarians to endorse his candidacy at Saturday’s convention.

“I unbound the United States from globalist agreements that surrendered our sovereignty. I withdrew from the Paris Accord. I withdrew from the anti-gun U.N. Arms Treaty. And I withdrew from the corrupt and very expensive World Health Organization,” said Trump, emphasizing that any institution of global governance is “not a good thing, not a good thing.”

Trump delivered a message precision-targeted to libertarian concerns. “Marxism is an evil doctrine straight from the ashes of Hell,” said Trump. “We believe that the job of the United States military is not to wage endless regime change wars around the globe.”

“We will shut down our out-of-control federal Department of Education and give it back to the states and local governments. I will return power to the states, local governments, and to the American people. I am a believer in the Tenth Amendment,” said Trump. “I will always defend religious liberty and the right to keep and bear arms. And I will secure our elections.” Trump also pledged to put a libertarian in his cabinet and in senior posts of his administration.

“What you’re witnessing under Biden is a toxic fusion of the Marxist Left, the Deep State, the military-industrial complex, the government security and surveillance service, and their partners all merging together into a hideous perversion of the American system,” he said. “The great liberation of America begins on November 5th, 2024.”

Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle also invited Joe Biden and Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to address the convention. RFK Jr., who has said the WHO Pandemic Agreement “should be dead in the water,” delivered extended remarks to the delegates Friday afternoon. Biden demurred. Former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, former Congressman Ron Paul, and Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) also spoke at the convention.

Trump vied for the party’s backing, quoting at length a Deroy Murdock article, “The Libertarian Case for Donald J. Trump” and encouraging delegates to nominate him — but only “if you want to win. If you want to lose, don’t do that. Keep getting your 3% every four years.”

The 3.3% of the 2016 vote, won by former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson (R), actually represented an outlier for the Libertarian Party, which typically claims to 0.5%-1% of the presidential electorate.

Ultimately, the collected Libertarian Party delegates nominated Chase Oliver, an Atlanta-based activist who describes himself as “pro-police reform, pro-choice,” as well as “armed and gay.” Oliver supported COVID-19 lockdowns and mask mandates, opposed bills protecting minors from transgender injections and surgeries, and posed with a drag queen. The Georgian, who forced a run-off in the 2022 Senate race that saw Democrat Raphael Warnock defeat Republican Herschel Walker, plans to gear his campaign toward young people, “in particular those who are upset with the war going on in Gaza.”

Some hope liberty-minded voters will ignore the Libertarian Party’s official endorsement and support Trump out of prudence. Walter Block, an economics professor and prolific libertarian author, urged libertarians in swing states to vote for the 45th president this November. “In Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, we could make the difference,” wrote Block in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Tuesday.

He reminded readers that “Libertarian nominee Jo Jorgensen received roughly 50,000 votes in Arizona in 2020, when Mr. Trump lost the state by about 10,000 ballots.”

Absent a more conservative government, America may be yoked to the WHO Pandemic Agreement without Senate ratification, circumventing the democratic process. “It only breeds more public distrust when people are not able to fully share their concerns and air their grievances,” Weber told Hice. “The people of the United States need to be heard in terms of their concerns about the WHO, about the way the COVID-19 pandemic was handled, about the way their health information might be distributed or shared, or given over to some government program.”

FRC Action has created a form allowing voters to contact their senators, urging them to oppose the WHO Pandemic Agreement.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

24 GOP Governors Warn Biden against ‘Unconstitutional’ WHO Pandemic Agreement

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As President Joe Biden considers adopting a global health agreement that would turn the power of the federal government over to leaders of a world government, dozens of governors have put him on notice that they “stand united in opposition” to handing over America’s national sovereignty.

Nearly every Republican governor in the country has signed a letter asking Biden to reconsider adopting a forthcoming accord enhancing the power of the World Health Organization before, during, and after global health crises. Negotiators are working around the clock to hammer out a final version of the WHO Pandemic Agreement before the World Health Assembly meets on Monday. The current text of the accord would require nations to agree with WHO regulations on “routine immunization,” “social measures” such as lockdowns and mask mandates, and require a massive global redistribution of U.S. wealth and technical information based on “equity.” The Biden administration has signaled it will accept the agreement without congressional approval.

The proposed document would grant WHO “unprecedented and unconstitutional powers over the United States and its people,” which “could drastically change the role of governors,” noted the 24 governors in Wednesday’s letter. “The objective of these instruments is to empower the WHO, particularly its uncontrollable Director-General, with the authority to restrict the rights of U.S. citizens, including freedoms such as speech, privacy, travel, choice of medical care, and informed consent, thus violating our Constitution’s core principles.”

The agreement would grant WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus and other leaders “unilateral power to declare a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ (PHEIC) in member nations, extending beyond pandemics to include a range of perceived emergencies,” they said. The current text of the agreement states that “a range of environmental, climatic, social, anthropogenic and economic factors may increase the risk of pandemics.” The latest details about the global health treaty are available in Family Research Council’s updated comprehensive explainer on the WHO Pandemic Agreement.

Enhancing global bureaucrats’ authority “would erode sovereignty” by “stripping elected representatives of their role in setting public health policies and compelling citizens to comply with WHO directives, potentially including mandates regarding medical treatments,” stated two dozen governors spanning the party’s ideological spectrum, including Ron DeSantis (Fla.), Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Ark.), Glenn Youngkin (Va.), Doug Bergum (N.D.), and Chris Sununu (N.H).

The state leaders are also concerned about “a global surveillance infrastructure and requirements for member states to censor speech related to public health. Requiring Americans to share information about deadly, incurable, highly-transmissible viruses with the rest of the world may “potentially facilitat[e] the proliferation of biological weapons.”

“[P]ublic health policy is a matter reserved for the states, not the federal government, and certainly not international bodies like the WHO,” they point out. “We are committed to resisting any attempts to transfer authority to the WHO over public policy affecting our citizens or any efforts by the WHO to assert such authority over them.”

Every Republican governor in the United States signed the letter except three: Governors Mike Parson of Missouri, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Phil Scott of Vermont.

“The governors appear to be more concerned about their sovereignty than Joe Biden seems to be concerned about the sovereignty of the U.S.,” said FRC President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch” Thursday. “I also think it is a precursor to one-world government.”

The governors’ letter followed a May 1 letter led by Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) and signed by all 49 Republican senators branding the WHO Pandemic Agreement “unacceptable” and “dead on arrival” if it ever comes before the U.S. Senate for ratification, as required of a treaty. “Instead of addressing the WHO’s well-documented shortcomings, the treaty focuses on mandated resource and technology transfers, shredding intellectual property rights, infringing free speech, and supercharging the WHO,” noted the senators.

They called on the Biden administration to “withdraw your administration’s support for the current IHR amendments and pandemic treaty negotiations” and champion “comprehensive WHO reforms that address its persistent failures without expanding its authority.”

It also comes after 22 state attorneys general put the executive branch on notice that it cannot turn over U.S. health policy to any global governance body, because the “U.S. Constitution doesn’t vest responsibility for public health policy with the federal government,” the legal authorities pointed out in a May 8 letter. They added the present text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement “would lay the groundwork for a global surveillance infrastructure, ostensibly in the interest of public health, but with the inherent opportunity for control (as with Communist China’s ‘social credit system’).”

Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at Family Research Council, said the rising chorus of concern could help uphold fundamental American liberties. “We hear a lot in the press and in the culture right now about protecting democracy,” Weber told Perkins. “The Constitution leaves health care to the states, [it] certainly does not put it in the hands of the federal government to be automatically put in the hands of an international body like the WHO.”

All signs show U.S. opposition to the WHO Pandemic Agreement growing among the American people, as well. Just over 93% of Republicans voted no on Question 8 in Georgia’s primary Tuesday, which asked, “Do you believe unelected and unaccountable international bureaucrats, like the UN-controlled World Health Organization (WHO), should have complete control over management of future pandemics in the United States and authority to regulate your healthcare and personal health choices?”

Opposition has spread globally, as well. On May 8, authorities in the U.K. announced they would not sign on to the agreement unless it no longer required them to turn over 20% of British pandemic vaccines, therapeutics, and medications to WHO for redistribution. Slovak leader Robert Fico had also opposed the accord.

FRC has set up a campaign allowing Americans to email national leaders with their opposition to the WHO Pandemic Agreement, as well.

Signatories of the governors’ letter included Kay Ivey of Alabama, Mike Dunleavy of Alaska, Sarah Sanders of Arkansas, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Brad Little of Idaho, Eric Holcomb of Indiana, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Jeff Landry of Louisiana, Tate Reeves of Mississippi, Greg Gianforte of Montana, Jim Pillen of Nebraska, Joe Lombardo of Nevada, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Bill Lee of Tennessee, Greg Abbott of Texas, Spencer Cox of Utah, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, Jim Justice of West Virginia, and Mark Gordon of Wyoming.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED PODCAST: Who is the WHO?

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

U.K. Rejects WHO Pandemic Treaty as Critics Sound Alarm over ‘New World Order’

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The British government is preparing to reject a global health treaty that critics warn gives power to “a new world order.” According to The Telegraph, the U.K. is opposed to signing the World Health Organization (WHO) global pandemic treaty, insisting the accord would undermine the U.K.’s sovereignty.

The U.K. reportedly refuses to agree to any treaty which would not allow the nation to put its own interests first. In its present form, which is the ninth and final draft, the WHO treaty would require wealthier Western nations such as the U.S. and the U.K. to surrender 20% of their “pandemic-related health products” — including medicines, vaccines, and protective equipment — to be given to nations the WHO deems less developed. The terms of the treaty would grant the WHO 10% of those products for free and the other 10% “at affordable prices.” A spokesperson for Britain’s Department of Health and Social Care stated, “We will only support the adoption of the accord and accept it on behalf of the UK, if it is firmly in the UK national interest and respects national sovereignty.”

The pandemic treaty was introduced in May 2021 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, purportedly as a means of ensuring a united international global response to future pandemics. However, critics across the globe, including in the U.S., are urging nations to reject the accord, warning that it effectively grants the bureaucratic WHO unprecedented control over sovereign nations and their health care systems.

Appearing on “Washington Watch” on Thursday night, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) cautioned against the “dangers of global governance” and “a new world order.” He explained that the WHO “engineered” the global response to COVID-19 but ultimately “gave cover” to China, where the virus originated. “I think it probably was manmade, probably from a lab in Wuhan,” Johnson said. “But again, there’s corruption. The Chinese exert way too much influence on the World Health Organization. Why would we want China’s influence dictating American actions or other nations’ actions as well?”

Johnson and his fellow Senate Republicans issued a letter last week to President Joe Biden, demanding he withdraw the U.S. from WHO pandemic treaty negotiations. Declaring the terms of the treaty “unacceptable,” the letter states, “Some of the over 300 proposals for amendments made by member states would substantially increase the WHO’s health emergency powers and constitute intolerable infringements upon U.S. sovereignty.” The letter also called on the U.S. to hold the WHO accountable for its “total” and “predictable” “failure” to respond adequately to COVID-19, a failure which the letter argues “did lasting harm to our country.”

The letter concludes noting that any treaty must be approved by the Senate and that Biden is expected to “submit any pandemic related agreement to the Senate for its advice and consent.” On “Washington Watch,” Johnson explained, “The presidents are abusing their authority in terms of entering these agreements, calling them executive agreements when they clearly fall into the guidelines of what treaties should be.” He added that Americans should “understand what our president is getting America involved in.”

Johnson and his Senate compatriots aren’t the only ones calling on Biden to withdraw from negotiations. Last week, 22 state attorneys general also sent a letter to the president, warning that the pandemic treaty would give the WHO “unprecedented and unconstitutional powers over the United States and her people” and cautioning against “relinquish[ing] more power to unelected and unaccountable institutions.” Referring to the pandemic treaty as “highly problematic,” the attorneys general wrote:

“To varying degrees, these measures would threaten national sovereignty, undermine states’ authority, and imperil constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. Ultimately, the goal of these instruments isn’t to protect public health. It’s to cede authority to the WHO — specifically its Director-General — to restrict our citizens’ rights to freedom of speech, privacy, movement (especially travel across borders) and informed consent.”

They further noted that the negotiations Biden has involved the U.S. in “would transform the WHO from an advisory, charitable organization into the world’s governor of public health” and “inappropriately cede American sovereignty to the WHO.” Additionally, they pointed out that the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to “delegate public health decisions to an international body,” observing that “responsibility for public health policy” is vested in the states, not in the federal government.

Finally, the attorneys general warned that the WHO’s proposals “would lay the groundwork for a global surveillance infrastructure, ostensibly in the interest of public health, but with the inherent opportunity for control (as with Communist China’s ‘social credit system’).” They added, “The current draft instructs signatories to ‘cooperate, in accordance with national law, in preventing misinformation and disinformation.’ This is particularly dangerous given that your administration pressured and encouraged social-media companies to suppress free speech during COVID-19.”

Nations are expected to either accept or reject the terms of the pandemic treaty at the WHO’s World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, later this month.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

China Bioengineers Deadlier Coronavirus

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Researchers associated with the Chinese military have bioengineered a COVID-related coronavirus (GX_P2V) that “can cause 100% mortality” in lab mice modified with human DNA, according to a “preprint” — a not-yet-reviewed paper — posted online on January 4. The development “is sure to remind many of the Wuhan lab incident,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins warned on “Washington Watch,” as the Chinese research team underscored the “spillover risk of GX_P2V into humans.”

After modifying a coronavirus found in a Malaysian pangolin, researchers were surprised that “all the mice that were infected with the live virus succumbed to the infection within 7-8 days post-inoculation, rendering a mortality rate of 100%.”

The laboratory test was designed and conducted by “researchers from the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering and the Research Center for Clinical Medicine of the Fifth Medical Center of PLA (the People’s Liberation Army) General Hospital,” according to The New American.

The researchers “detected significant amounts of viral RNA in the brain, lung, turbinate [nose], eye, and trachea [throat],” with a “severe brain infection during the later stages of infection” being the most likely cause of death, in their opinion. By Day Seven, “the mice displayed symptoms such as piloerection, hunched posture, and sluggish movements, and their eyes turned white.”

“It is possible,” they admitted, that the modified coronavirus strain “has undergone a ‘virulence-enhancing mutation.’”

“This paper demonstrates that gain-of-function research on SARS-related viruses continues,” declared Dr. Robert Malone, chief medical and regulatory officer for The Unity Project, who emphasized “the risks of such research” and “the need for robust and verifiable restrictions.”

Rutgers University chemist Richard Ebright observed that “The preprint does not specify the biosafety level and biosafety precautions used for the research.” The absence of this information concerned him that “part or all of this research, like the research in Wuhan in 2016-2019 that likely caused the Covid-19 pandemic, recklessly was performed without the minimal biosafety containment and practices essential for research with a potential pandemic pathogens [sic].”

Malone called the research “alarming” and “deeply troubling” during an appearance on “Washington Watch,” lamenting that Chinese researchers “seem to have learned nothing” after the COVID-19 pandemic likelyoriginated from a lab leak. “This is quite alarming,” Perkins agreed, “given the fact that we know what happened last time.”

“Why would we be doing these types of research, especially given what happened with COVID-19?” Perkins asked.

Researchers rationalize their gain-of-function research with “contrived logic,” Malone responded. “‘Dual function research’ is what it’s technically called because it can be used for weapon purposes or for research and discovery purposes,” he said. Scientists believe that, if they “meddle about with these viruses and demonstrate ways that they can become more lethal, then they can anticipate that happening in nature,” he described.

However, Malone added, “clearly, what we’ve learned over the last four years is that that’s not sufficient to justify the risk to the global population.”

“I would think that, at some place, ethics would come into this,” Perkins responded. “Maybe there might be a remote chance that we … get ahead of [the next pandemic].” But he suggested that possibility seems insignificant “when you weigh the risk with … the fact that people will die if it leaks, like many suspect it did last time.”

Malone responded that, for some researchers, the ethic is a lack of any. “I can’t get into the minds of the people that are doing this,” he said. “But there is an ethic that if things can be done, they should be done. It is rampant in this research environment, in this research culture, that these scientists often believe that they’re the best and the brightest, and they’re entitled to do this.” Perhaps we can call it, “the Fauci Affect.”

Of course, not every virologist is so irresponsible. “It’s a terrible study, scientifically totally pointless,” asserted University College London infectious disease expert Professor Francois Balloux. “I can see nothing of vague interest that could be learned from force-infecting a weird breed of humanized mice with a random virus. Conversely, I could see how such stuff might go wrong.”

It’s relevant to note here that the communist Chinese research team’s study was not entirely devoid of an ethical framework. Their paper even included this “Ethics Statement:”

“All animals involved in this study were housed and cared for in an AAALAC (Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care) accredited facilities. The procedure for animal experiments (IACUC-2019-0027) was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Fifth Medical Center, General Hospital of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and complied with IACUC standards.”

They weren’t very concerned about the possibility that their genetically mutated virus will escape the lab and kill millions of human beings. But they were very eager to inform their audience that their mutated lab mice were imprisoned humanely — before they infected them with a disease that caused the subjects to die slow and painful deaths. How comforting to the conscience.

“There needs to be a global ban on this type of research and development activity. It’s clearly not safe, and those that are performing it clearly have few, if any, ethical boundaries,” said Malone. Retired Stanford professor of medicine Dr. Gennadi Glinsky concurred. “This madness must be stopped before [it is] too late.”

One problem is, “we’re talking about the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]. So, their ideas of what is justified are not aligned, let’s say, with classical Western thought,” Malone said wryly. University of Michigan molecular biologist Dr. Christina Parks described the Chinese study as “classic gain-of-function, whether they tell you it is or not.”

As one more exhibit in a fistful of reasons not to trust the Chinse Communist Party, congressional investigators recently learned that Beijing had largely mapped out COVID-19’s genetic sequence two weeks before sharing it with the rest of the world. Dr. Lili Ren of the CCP-affiliated Institute of Pathogen Biology submitted the virus sequence to a U.S.-run genetic database on December 28, 2019; China did not share the virus sequence with the WHO until January 11, 2020. However, the NIH deleted it from the database after Ren failed to respond to questions about technical details. Reading between the lines, we can guess the reason why a scientist in China would suddenly become quiet about information inconvenient to the state.

However, another problem is, our own government is too often complicit in China’s unethical research. For the Chinese Communist Party, who seem to have little to no regard for human life, to engage in such monstrous research is one thing. “But we, as Americans, by and through our government, should be nowhere in the neighborhood,” insisted Perkins. If “we’re funding [gain-of-function research], … we bear responsibility as a nation.” We can’t change the evil nature of the CCP; we can change our participation with it.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) were deeply involved, through an American research consortium called EcoHealth Alliance, in funding research projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), including gain-of-function research with coronaviruses similar to Sars-Cov-2, the viral strain which sparked the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH’s parent agency, debarred the WIV in 2023 due to its poor safety practices, but NIH still contract with EcoHealth Alliance, which is currently pursuing research related to Ebola-like viruses and noroviruses.

For Dr. Malone, the only explanation for this behavior was moral, not scientific. “We’re in a post-truth environment,” he said. “We seem to also be in a post-ethical environment for a large segment of our government. It’s driven by other considerations — you know, ‘realpolitik,’ — Henry Kissinger’s world rather than the logic of the United States as the ‘shining city on the hill’ and the ethical beacon for the world.”

For Perkins, Malone’s analysis explained more problems than just some foolish funding on virus research. Rather, it penetrated to the heart of the blight infecting politics across the board. “We live in a post-truth culture,” Perkins reiterated. “I mean, how else can you come up with the failure to recognize what science and biology tells us [about gender]? … [Y]ou talk about ‘deniers.’ These folks are deniers. They’re deniers of truth.” The same theme carries through the intellectual dishonesty recently exposed at the highest levels of academia and the media.

Paul warned his mentee Timothy of a coming time “when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:4). He could have been describing our own time and place.

“We have to stand firm for truth,” said Perkins, “lest our children be carried away in this ungodly culture, this godless culture that is being advanced.”

Meanwhile, global elites have gathered this week in Davos, Switzerland, where World Health Organization (WHO) Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus led a panel on “Preparing for Disease X.” But, instead of suggesting foolish scientists abandon their useless and risky research, WHO is pushing for a global pandemic treaty that would vastly expand their power at the expense of national sovereignty, free speech, and the right to life.

“It’s almost as if the WHO’s working in concert with the CCP,” suggested Perkins. “They’ve got a hand grenade with their finger on the pin saying, ‘Approve this treaty,’ because this [potential deadly virus] is out there.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green Holds Hearing on Injuries Caused by Covid-19 Vaccines

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Army Tries to Bring Back Soldiers Booted for Refusing the COVID Vaccine

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In August of 2021, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made the COVID vaccination shot a requirement for all U.S. servicemembers. President Joe Biden released a statement revealing his strong support before it went into effect. As a result, Politico reported that over “8,400 troops were kicked out of the military for refusing the vaccine.” About a year later, Biden signed a defense bill that repealed the vaccine mandate.

This month, news broke that the Army has sent letters to many of the troops who were ousted, which explains that soldiers can correct their records and reenter the service. The reversal has been met with tremendous backlash.

Retired Army Major Chase Spears wrote about the mistreatment servicemembers faced while the vaccine mandate was in effect. He shared, “The Army requires several immunizations and checkups throughout the year to maintain one’s medical readiness. Not one of those came with the coercive force of the COVID mandate. … It became the primary marker of human worth.” For Spears, the Army officials who heavily enforced the mandate seem to have no remorse for their actions. He added, “Hearkening back to biblical language, you were clean or unclean based on your shot status.”

Spears described the policy reversal as “a step toward sanity,” but concluded “it is far from enough.” “The question is whether those who made such un-American policy decisions can be trusted going forward.” He believes they cannot. Those affected by the military’s course of action have insisted this is a matter of trust and warn the military is about to get a wake-up call from the soldiers who no longer have confidence in the current leadership.

Many of the soldiers affected by the vaccine mandate were deprived of pay and benefits. According to Breitbart, retired attorney Dale Saran and attorneys Andy Meyer and Brandon Johnson are representing former troops who were kicked out “in three separate lawsuits they plan to turn into a class action lawsuit.” Saran estimated roughly “80,000 to 100,000 service members — both active-duty and reservists — who were impacted by the mandate.”

Mike Berry, vice president of External Affairs, director of Military Affairs, and senior counsel for First Liberty Institute, commented to The Washington Stand, “The only way an all-volunteer military works is with trust. But these past few years, the Pentagon has done nothing but shatter the trust of our servicemembers and veterans with lies, broken promises, and incompetence.” He explained that when First Liberty first “sued the Navy over its COVID vaccine mandate,” they warned them that the “unlawful manner in which the DOD was enforcing the mandate would result in a recruiting crisis.”

On Tuesday’s episode of “Washington Watch,” Berry unpacked the mandate’s rollback more. As far as he’s concerned, the problem with the letter is that it “doesn’t say anything about accountability.” He added, “It’s not about accomplishing the mission. And in this case, it’s not about protecting religious freedom, which is one of the things that our military exists to do.” He concluded, “They know what this is all about. This is all about just trying to save face, trying to make sure that on paper, our military is meeting its recruiting and retention numbers.”

Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at Family Research Council and a Navy veteran, also commented to TWS, “The military never should have coerced its servicemembers to get the vaccine to begin with.” For Weber and all those witnessing the unfolding of the military’s actions, we “are dealing with the fallout as they try to woo back the thousands that they kicked out for refusing to violate their consciences and get the vaccine.”

Weber shared that it’s not surprising that servicemembers would be hesitant to return “to an institution that so easily thrust them aside in the face of public pressure” during COVID, which “the military bowed to along with much of the rest of society.” He concluded, “May this sad episode never be repeated, and may our nation’s military and civilian leadership be on guard to ensure they actually lead and not simply follow the blowing winds of public sentiment.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

WHO Furthers Effort to Establish Global Health Governance Apparatus

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On Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) released the latest draft of its controversial International Health Regulations, with the purported aim to eventually establish a global accord on how to handle future pandemics. Expert observers are continuing to express concern with the regulations, saying that they are covertly designed to take away sovereignty from countries and push contentious issues such as abortion.

Jim Roguski, a member of the Law & Activism Committee at the World Council for Health, has been closely monitoring the WHO’s activities in the wake of the “serious failures” that the organization made since the COVID pandemic broke out in 2020. On Tuesday, he joined “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” to provide an update on where the accord currently stands.

“[T]he fact that it’s not referred to as a treaty is actually very important,” he explained. “What they are setting up is an ongoing series of what they call ‘the Conference of the Parties’ that would meet pretty much forever. And the idea is they’re trying to hash out an agreement just to have an agreement so that they can pat themselves on the back and say, ‘Look what great work we did.’”

Roguski continued, “I was actually a little bit surprised that from the last version, this version got smaller by about 12 pages. And so what they’re doing is trying to reach a basic, fundamental agreement to set up a bureaucracy that would meet on an ongoing basis, year after year after year, to impose protocols that we wouldn’t have any say over the matter, much like the Framework Convention for Climate Change that was agreed to by the United Nations back in 1992 — that ongoing system of forever unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats making decisions on our behalf without our input. It’s something that’s just absolutely not acceptable.”

Roguski went on to contend that the WHO’s true goal with the global accord is to force countries to make substantial financial investments into experimental and unproven vaccines.

“The thing to realize … is that it doesn’t have any resemblance to what people would think of as health,” he pointed out. “It’s really a financial venture capital prospectus to literally get developed nations to invest money in infrastructure, in developing nations, to build out more laboratories, more testing facilities, more mRNA manufacturing facilities. … [The] Global Preparedness Monitoring Board put out a report … tracking the mRNA manufacturing plants in Africa. [W]hat they’re really looking for is not an evaluation of the mistakes that happened over the last three or four years. They’re more than doubling down. They want to build the infrastructure to do more of what they did to us over the past four years.”

As the WHO considers amendments to the accord at its planned meeting in Geneva, Switzerland next week, Roguski strongly encouraged the public to contact their representatives and urge them to reject the amendments.

“[T]here’s an 18-month period for every nation on the planet to reject the amendments that the Biden administration shoved through on May 27, 2022,” he explained. “[We] put together a page, which is rejecttheamendments.com, where people can download a letter, sign it, and just mail it to your congressmen [and] your senators. … I really want the Senate to pay attention and submit H.R. 79, or at least a copy of it in the Senate, so those amendments can still be rejected.”

“I certainly feel that the senators and members of Congress should come together, understand this issue, and realize that they need to take action because their silence is viewed as consent,” Roguski underscored. “And that is just absolutely not acceptable.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: The Fundamental Transformation of the W.H.O. From Health Advisor to Global Dictator

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Elon Musk Drops Vaccine Bombshell Personal Story

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The Covid shot “nearly sent me to the hospital.” There are tens of millions of post vaccine trauma stories not being told.

Elon Musk Drops Vaccine Bombshell Personal Story | Facts Matter

By: The Epoch Times, Facts Matter, September 28 2023:

2 days ago, the Vice President of the European Commission singled out Twitter as the largest platform hosting dis/misinformation — and added that they “will be watching” what Elon is doing.

This statement of hers came on the heels of an EU law recently implemented (the Digital Services Act) which—among many other things—forces social media companies to censor so-called “disinformation”.

However, as a rebuttable, Elon Musk took to his platform and started a thread wherein he exposed the hypocrisy of the government’s push to censor so-called disinformation, as well as his own experience with taking 3 doses of the mRNA vaccine.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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