Daily News Roundup - PRICKLY PEAR

Estimated Reading Time: 32 minutes

NOTABLE QUOTES

Thorsteinn Siglaugsson contributor to Brownstone Institute: Freedom of expression is the ultimate test of totalitarianism. Totalitarianism begins in the psyche of the extremists. Then it appears in the willingness to take away people’s freedoms. It appears in contradictions and untruths. But the opposition to free speech is what ultimately exposes totalitarianism beyond any doubt.

Steve McCann contributor to American Thinker: The Founders of America were extraordinarily aware of this cavernous flaw within the human race. The Constitution’s primary purpose is to make it extremely difficult for despotism to take root without the consent of what the Founders hoped would be an educated, principled and patriotic populace. However, based on the polling, unfathomable ignorance of America’s founding and history, and increasing belief in moral relativism by the Millennials and Gen Z, that consent apparently is in the offing.

Mark Wauck Substack: In his landmark 1966 book, The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Rieff said the death of God in the West had given birth to a new civilization devoted to liberating the individual to seek his own pleasures and to managing emergent anxieties. Religious Man, who lived according to belief in transcendent principles that ordered human life around communal purposes, had given way to Psychological Man, who believed that there was no transcendent order and that life’s purpose was to find one’s own way experimentally. Man no longer understood himself to be a pilgrim on a meaningful journey with others, but as a tourist who traveled through life according to his own self-designed itinerary, with personal happiness his ultimate goal.

Kevin Downey Jr. contributor to PJMedia: [President] Eisenhower knew what he was talking about. Every president who opposed the CIA, ended a war (even the Cold War), and/or didn’t start a war has either gotten shot or lost reelection. Those who have played nice with them kept their jobs and heads.

Revolver.news: Paul Ryan is the avatar of a failed era of the GOP. The 2009-2015 GOP was a party with a losing presidential coalition, unpopular signature issues, and a crippling lack of coolness, sure. But most of all, the Ryan-era GOP was failing because it was psychologically defeated. It was a party beholden to moral imperialism of the left, incapable of articulating or pursuing its own values. As such, it was conquered before any election was even held.

Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) president: COVID-19 is a means to an end; to suspend and strip us of Constitutional rights and civil liberties, and to further social, political and financial restructuring objectives outside democratic processes. COVID is a propaganda masterpiece.

J.B Shuerk contributor to Gatestone Institute: None of the WEF’s expansive programs for remaking the world according to its members’ interests sounds like anything free Westerners could ever voluntarily embrace. Surely that is why so many of the WEF’s speakers urge the forceful adoption of these policies regardless of public support. Perhaps that is also why the Chinese Communist Party recently applauded this year’s “Davos spirit.” Communists know communism when they see it, and in Klaus Schwab’s globalist oligarchy of “elites,” China likes what it sees.

John Hinderaker contributor to Powerline Blog: This is no secret if you follow leftist writing, but many people find it hard to believe. To be fair, there is a great deal about modern liberalism that I find hard to believe. But the plan to convert us all to insect-eaters is real.

Joe Allen’s Singularity Weekly: By the way, viruses don’t exist. No one has ever seen a virus. The electron microscope images are being misinterpreted. The many thousands of virologists around the world are just studying, well, nothing. The entire field is a fraud.

Carla Peters contributor to Brownstone Institute: The health system is turned into a money driven Public Private Partnership, selling sickness, with limited interest in promoting health and well-being, let alone considering the advice of Hippocrates ‘First do not harm.’

Michael Kane & Meryl Nass, M.D. contributors to Children’s Health Defense: An attack on the free speech of doctors and medical scientists is being waged across America today. While controversy is inherent in scientific advancement, and scientific knowledge continuously evolves, disagreement with the federal public health recommendations has led to draconian censorship and suppression. Doctors have been investigated, lost their specialty board certifications, and even lost their medical licenses for speaking out publicly against federal guidelines.

45

Fremantle: Commonsense Advice for Trump 2.0

The unadulterated havoc created, and almost blissfully sustained, by the Biden administration has put a spotlight on attributes of this president that many Americans find reprehensible. […] A simpleton may lay blame at the feet of Trump’s insatiable social media bombast for his failure to secure victory in the 2020 election. Rather, one could argue that his first term in office was undone by the company he kept. Trump’s inner circle was no reboot of Lincoln’s Team of Rivals; rather, it was a conglomeration of subversive Obama holdovers, ruling-class politicians owed electoral favors, and glad-handing lackeys doing the bidding of the ever-watchful GOP. Plain and simple, the disparate efforts of this group, whether by nefarious design or through sheer bureaucratic ineptitude, crippled Trump from the onset. […] For Trump to succeed in any campaign for his return to the presidency, he must immediately consider a shift in his public stance on the jabs and Operation Warp Speed. A change of this magnitude would be a difficult one for Trump to accept, as a leader who has doggedly boasted of his administration’s life-saving prowess through the advent of the vaccine rollout in 2021. This stance is quickly becoming unsustainable, as seemingly every news cycle is littered with unexplained deaths of young adults, celebrities, and athletes in peak physical condition. […] It goes without saying that American foreign policy under Joe Biden is an abject failure, replete with human loss of life and tragedy, displaced millions, and a significantly diminished stature on the world stage. […] Trump turned to his Art of the Deal tactics in his first term, and if he isn’t already holding back-channel discussions with world leaders, much like what John Kerry did in an unofficial capacity to broker then–former president Obama’s Green New Deal, he should strongly consider it.

GLOBALISM (GREAT RESET) & TRANSHUMANISM (HUMANS 2.0) ARE INEXTRICABLY LINKED

Burdick, PhD.: The ‘Great Food Reset’: Who’s Behind Plan to Reengineer the Global Food Supply?

The world’s food supply is being reengineered under the guise of a fake food crisis, according to journalist James Corbett. “From cricket powder dumplings and bug burgers to GMOs and glyphosate to bioreactors and designer microbes to nutrigenomics and 3D printed material, the future of ‘food’ is shaping up to be radically different from anything you’ve eaten before,” the author of the “The Corbett Report” said. Food, Corbett noted a week earlier on his Substack, has been leveraged throughout human history as a “powerful tool of control.” But it’s not too late to “start formulating our own plans for counteracting this agenda” of control, Corbett said. What’s the first step? Look closely at who’s behind the agenda. According to Corbett: “In order to truly do something to derail the runaway train that is the Great Food Reset, we must first understand it. And in order to understand it, we have to know something about the people behind this agenda.” Corbett provided an information-packed rundown of the groups and individuals he believes are the drivers — historically and today — of the Great Food Reset.

(H/T AS) ChatGPT: Grading artificial intelligence’s writing

OpenAI’s artificial intelligence writing program ChatGPT will, with a few prompts, compose poetry, prose, song lyrics, essays, even news articles. And that has ethicists and educators worried about the program’s ease at replacing human ideas with chatbot-generated words. Correspondent David Pogue delves into the minefield of AI communications and what it might mean for homework.

Watch the 8:02 minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=2MZs44gSIwg

Shurk: Censorship, Mass Surveillance and Bugs: World Economic Forum vs. The Free World

The World Economic Forum’s nation-crushing empire looks like a chop shop that has stolen parts from the world’s worst dictatorships in order to create Frankenstein’s “woke” monster. It has swiped the Aztecs’ penchant for human sacrifice to ward off bad weather, the Chinese communists’ love of total control and the eradication of traditional culture, the Italian fascists’ society-squeezing partnership with corporate monopolists, and the German Nazis’ belief in a “master race” — chiefly the celebrities, bankers, crony capitalists, and potentates who assemble in Davos and elsewhere to applaud their own achievements and further implement their “master plan,” which the WEF affectionately calls “The Great Reset.” As Klaus Schwab, himself, recently declared to his potpourri of princely guests, the WEF intends to “master the future,” and who better to “master” what has not yet been written than those who view the rest of the planet’s inhabitants as little more than servants and serfs?

Caddle: Great Reset Watch: EU Gives Green Light for Use of Two Insect Species in Human Food

As of Tuesday, a powdered form of Acheta domesticus — better known as the house cricket — will be given the green light for human consumption within the European Union, documents from the body have confirmed.

This is soon to be followed by further approval for the sale and consumption of the larval form of Alphitobius diaperionus — also known as the lesser mealworm — which will be given the green light for human consumption in frozen, paste, dried and powder forms within the European Union later this week.

The new insect-based products for human consumption represent the latest push by the European Union to normalise the consumption of bugs through legislation, with many bigwigs from a variety of organisations pushing insects as a food item for both economic and environmental reasons in recent years.

[…] Global elites have been keen to move western populations away from meat eating over the last number of years, with the topic once again receiving attention at the World Economic Forum’s annual conference at Davos earlier this month.

War Room: Joe Allen: Big Tech Racing Towards Superhuman Artificial Intelligence

ranshumanism Editor Joe Allen talks to “War Room” host Steve Bannon about the rapid development of artificial intelligence, especially as represented by the Open AI chatbot called ChatGPT.“You will see the rise of AI companions, people normalizing turning to AI as a person in their lives. In the decades after that, AI will be able to do everything… because it will be able to take in more data, because it will have basically a permanent memory, and because it is lightning fast, it will be de facto artificial super-intelligence… and this technological revolution is unstoppable.”

Read more/Watch the 6”04 minute interview: https://warroom.org/2023/01/25/joe-allen-big-tech-racing-towards-superhuman-artificial-intelligence/

Bartee: Bank of America CEO Calls for ‘Global ESG Standards’ at Davos

Moynihan said Wednesday that current efforts to produce a set of official global standards on ESG issues were vital to “align capitalism with what society wants from it.”… “Without that definition, without that convergence, what you had is everybody defined it their own way. Somebody would think this issue’s important or this way to talk about it is important,” he said. Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives are increasingly discussed in corporate results and by senior business figures, though they have also proven controversial. Critics have included both those who claim they are a PR exercise and, recently, those who argue ESG investment funds will provide weaker returns.

If you want to get a good look at what ESG standards to do living standards once they move out of the theoretical realm into practice, check out what they did to Sri Lanka.

FIRST AMENDMENT UNDER ATTACK

Landry: Police Officer Resigns After Facebook Post on Traditional Marriage Landed Him on Leave

There must be a surplus of first responders in Georgia since cities can get rid of them for believing the Bible. First, there was the fire chief canned by Atlanta for his self-published book on how men should do better as husbands and fathers. Now there’s a police officer quitting the Port Wentworth Police Department after harassment — including suspension — for Biblical beliefs he put on Facebook. […] The reason for restricting his posts was a claim of separation of church and state, Kersey said. Also, he was told the police department was developing guidelines on what officers could post on social media.

CORRUPT U.S. INTELLIGENCE/ADMINISTRATIVE STATE APPARATIS

Drey: FBI Director Christopher Wray Summons Bureau’s Jet To D.C.-Area Airport To Dodge Traffic: Whistleblower

When FBI Director Christopher Wray wants to use the bureau’s $60 million Gulfstream G550, he typically summons it to nearby Reagan National Airport instead of being driven 30 miles to the regional airport where it’s kept, a whistleblower told The Daily Wire, describing a costly habit paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

Records obtained by The Daily Wire show the jet has made the roughly 15-minute flight between its base at Manassas Regional Airport in Virginia and Washington, D.C., area airports 140 times since 2020. The whistleblower and currently suspended FBI agent, who spoke to The Daily Wire, said the local trips are made to save Wray and possibly other bureau bigwigs from the 45-minute drive to and from Manassas on either end of their flights. […] “[Wray] does it simply because he doesn’t want to be inconvenienced by traffic on I-66,” Seraphin said. […] The private sector cost to fly the jet ranges between $7,000 to $11,000 per hour, including fuel, landing fees, and other costs, the source said. Gulfstream G550 jet fuel tanks hold about 6,000 gallons and the aircraft burns roughly 500 gallons per hour, the source said, adding most fuel is burned at takeoff and landing. The shorter the flight, the less cost-effective, the aviation expert said. A 15-minute flight of that duration by a Gulfstream 550 burns . . .

MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Downey Jr.: Ike Was Right: The Military-Industrial Complex Has Become a Serious Problem

In his last few days as President, Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a televised speech in which he warned the nation about the dangers of what he referred to as the “military-industrial complex” (MIC). Eisenhower would know about the MIC. He presided over the European Theater of Operations during WWII. He was president during the largest expansion of the MIC in history as the U.S. manufactured acres of armaments, warehouses of bombs, and B-52 bombers to deliver them to Soviet cities, not to mention the Vietnam War, at a moment’s notice. Eisenhower wisely delivered his speech warning the nation about the MIC when he was leaving office, perhaps not wanting to anger the CIA. This is the important part of what he said: Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea. Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

JUDICIARY

Sundance: California Judge Orders Police Bodycam Footage of Paul Pelosi Attack Incident to Be Released, Possibly Today

This could be interesting…. According to multiple media sources [LINK] a California judge has ordered the police bodycam footage of the incident at Paul and Nancy Pelosi’s home to be released to the public. The order to the clerk of the court was made immediately on Wednesday and the released footage could come as soon as today. […] San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stephen M. Murphy ruled there was no reason to keep the footage secret, especially after prosecutors played it in open court during a preliminary hearing last month, according to Thomas R. Burke, a San Francisco-based lawyer who represented The Associated Press and a host of other news agencies in their attempt to access the evidence.

Sundance: Competency Cringe – Senator John Kennedy Exposes the Outcome of Equity and Diversity Amid Joe Biden Judicial Nominees

Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) questioned a series of Joe Biden Federal District Court nominees today including: (1) Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren who is nominated to be United States District Judge for The Eastern District of Washington; (2) Matthew P. Brookman, to be United States District Judge for The Southern District of Indiana; (3) Michael Farbiarz, to be U.S. District Judge for the District Of New Jersey; (4) Robert Kirsch to be U.S. District Judge for The District of New Jersey, and (5) Eleta Merchant to be U.S. District Judge for The Eastern District Of New York. Judge Bjelkengren couldn’t even explain what Article II or Article IV of the U.S. Constitution are about. It gets worse from there.

REPUBLICAN U.S. HOUSE MAJORITY

War Room: McCarthy Demolishes Lib Reporter; Harvey and Davis Hopeful He’s Ready to Deliver on Promises

Watch in the first video as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy schools a liberal reporter who was upset that Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell are being kept off the House intelligence Committee. McCarthy lays out chapter and verse of why the two Democrats cannot be trusted with America’s national security. In the next two videos, watch reactions from the first two guests on “War Room,” both of whom were skeptical of McCarthy but saw hope that he was really going to carry out the MAGA agenda and fight the Democrats.

Part 1: Part 1:McCarthy ANNIHILATES lib reporter who challenged him on Schiff, Swalwell

Part 2: Col. Derek Harvey: Speaker McCarthy’s Finally Stepping Up To His Leadership Role And Delivering

Part 3: Part 3: Mike Davis Praises Speaker McCarthy For Calling Out Reporters’ Lies, Calls For More Action From Judiciary On Big Tech

Watch the three short videos: https://warroom.org/2023/01/25/mccarthy-demolishes-lib-reporter-harvey-and-davis-hopeful-hes-ready-to-deliver-on-promises/

Justice: Stefanik: Rooting Out Deep State Corruption Is A Top Priority For House Republicans

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of New York pledged that aggressive oversight of executive agencies to rid the federal government of overt corruption will be a top priority for Republicans in the new Congress. On Tuesday, Stefanik became one of a dozen Republican lawmakers appointed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to serve on the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. In an exclusive interview with The Federalist on Wednesday morning, Stefanik characterized the select panel, which was established under the Judiciary Committee led by Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as House Republicans’ primary vehicle for pursuing accountability for the Biden administration’s abuses. […] Other prominent members of the Republican conference named to the panel include Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie and Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman. In August, Hageman successfully toppled three-term incumbent Liz Cheney in the Wyoming Republican primary by 37 points. Cheney, who ran House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Select Committee on Jan. 6 as vice chair, relied on Democrats switching parties to blunt a loss that might have otherwise been near unanimous among the state’s Republicans.

DEMOCRAT U.S. HOUSE MINORITY

Sundance: Adam Schiff Predicts Political Operatives in U.S. Intelligence Community Will Not Assist House Intelligence Committee, or House Subcommittee on Federal Govt Weaponization

While these remarks are cast against the backdrop of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy refusing to seat Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the larger point within his remarks about the intelligence community need to be emphasized. {Direct Rumble Link} While claiming McCarthy has no right to stop himself or Swalwell from participating in the 118th Congress HPSCI, Schiff claims the larger intelligence community will no longer share information about national security matters with the committee if he is not present. Essentially, without Schiff in attendance to politicize the intelligence information, the larger intelligence community will not cooperate.

Chaitin: Former CIA Director Accuses Schiff Of Leaking Classified Information

Former Trump administration official Mike Pompeo accused Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) of leaking classified information. The fresh allegation was made after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) blocked Schiff’s appointment to remain on the House Intelligence Committee, where he served as chairman for the last four years. “During my time as CIA director and secretary of state, I know that he leaked classified information that had been provided to him,” Pompeo said on Fox News on Wednesday.Pompeo did not offer specifics, but he insisted the problem was bad enough to restrict what he shared with Congress.

RNC CHAIR ELECTION UPDATE

Schlichter: Re-Electing Ronna McDaniel Is the GOP’s Worst-Case Scenario

Let’s assume the Republican Party, as is its wont, decides to do what it traditionally does and make the worst possible decision. Let’s assume it reelects Ronna McDaniel Chair of the Republican National Committee. We talked about the case for Ronna in my previous column and found there is none, but the subject of the GOP’s choice to flip off its base is important enough to talk about again. And I am speaking to the 168 Republican National Committee members directly. Folks, nothing less than the future direction of the Republican Party is at stake. Are we moving forward to victory in 2024 or treading water in a reeking cesspool of failure? We will know on January 27^th, when the RNC members will meet at a Waldorf Astoria in California to choose between accomplished Republican attorney and GOP veteran Harmeet Dhillon (You can help her at www.HireHarmeet.com) and the aforementioned five-time election loser Ronna McDaniel. It is a secret ballot and the numbers have been moving Harmeet’s way. Ronna’s strategy has been to make this seem like a done-deal, assisted by a regime media eager to have someone so manifestly unable to win at the helm of the GOP.

RNC Chair Debate Closing Statements from Mike Lindell and Caroline Wren

Wren represented Harmeet who could not attend.

Watch the 5 minute video: https://rumble.com/v2748t4-rnc-chair-debate-closing-statements-from-mike-lindell-and-caroline-wren.html

2022 ARIZONA MIDTERM ELECTION UPDATE

(1/24/23) Lake: Wendy Rogers-Led Election Committee Exposed Arizona’s Election Had “No Signature Verification”

Kari Lake talks to host Steve Bannon about the latest news in her lawsuit to have the 2022 governor’s election thrown out because of multiple irregularities. “They started an election committee in the Arizona Senate led by Wendy Rogers, and she held a hearing yesterday top talk about some of the major issues… One of the issues was this problem with signature verification… They don’t have any signature verification… It’s just outrageous what was laid out in court.”

Watch the 6:44 minute interview: https://warroom.org/2023/01/24/lake-wendy-rogers-led-election-committee-exposed-arizonas-election-had-no-signature-verification/

War Room: Shelby Busch: Machines Have 50% Failure Rate On Election Day

Watch the 9:08 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v272qny-shelby-busch-machines-have-50-failure-rate-on-election-day.html

CHINA: AMERICA’S MORTAL ENEMY

Anderson: Meet the Biden Energy Official Who Fought To Shield China From US Solar Tariffs

When China’s largest solar companies faced costly U.S. tariffs, they turned to industry veteran Jigar Shah to lobby on their behalf. Now, President Joe Biden is handing that same man hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to invest in green energy companies, prompting concern that the money could benefit Beijing. Shah in late 2011 partnered with three Chinese solar giants to form the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy, a nonprofit that mounted an aggressive campaign to kill U.S. tariffs on Chinese solar panels. As the group’s president, Shah said evidence that his Chinese clients accepted illegal subsidies from Beijing was merely part of an “anti-China crusade.” He also argued that American consumers could not afford solar panels without cheap Chinese goods, stressing the need for the two nations to “work together to solve our planet’s energy and environmental crisis.”

Arnold: Ted Cruz Challenges the Sale of Oil to the Communist Party of China

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a bill that would ban the Biden Administration from selling oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) to the communist country of China. Titled, Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act, the House bill passed in a bipartisan vote of 331-97, with 113 Democrats voting in favor of the bill. In a statement, Cruz criticized President Joe Biden for selling America’s oil to the Chinese Communist Party, and in return, Americans are having to shell out more of their hard-earned money to pay for his actions.

BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA’S AMERICA LAST REGIME: TRANSFORMING FOREIGN POLICY

(Biden’s War) Newman: The West is now ‘directly involved’ in Ukraine conflict after agreeing tank deal, Kremlin says as Putin unleashes missile attack on Kyiv in response

The Kremlin claims the West is now ‘directly involved’ in the Ukraine war after agreeing to send state-of-the-art tanks to the front lines in the fight against Russia’s invading forces. Yesterday, after weeks of bitter infighting, the US and Germany finally agreed to give in to Volodymyr Zelensky’s demands and send 31 M1 Abrams tanks, 14 Leopard 2 tanks, and give allies permission to send their own supply. The deal has been hailed as a potential game-changer in the conflict. A furious Russia has lashed out at the deal and threatened escalating the war beyond the borders of Ukraine, while slamming a barrage of missiles into Kyiv overnight.

War Room: Col. Derek Harvey Draws Parallels Between Russia’s Great Patriotic War And Current Ukraine Conflict

The U.S. incremental escalation in Ukraine.

Watch the 6:34 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v272j40-col.-derek-harvey-draws-parallels-between-russias-great-patriotic-war-and-c.html

Widburg: In Ukraine, it appears America will soon be arming both side’s combatants

I happen to be one who believes that the escalating war in Ukraine is entirely Biden’s fault, that the current Ukraine government is completely corrupt, and that the entire thing, which has seen tens of thousands of Ukrainian deaths and the destruction of large swaths of that country, has become a profitable boondoggle for politicians and military contractors. Call me cynical or naïve, but that’s where I am. I also think the whole enterprise has taken on a truly hallucinatory quality, exacerbated by the news today: Putin is negotiating to buy abandoned American weapons from Afghanistan while Biden is sending 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. We will have armed both sides to the battle.

BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA’S AMERICA LAST REGIME: TRANSFORMING AMERICA

War Room: Voters Say: Stop The Spending, And Shutdown The Government If That’s What It Takes

Watch the 632 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v272z6c-voters-say-stop-the-spending-and-shutdown-the-government-if-thats-what-it-t.html

Binder: Analysis: ‘Mind-Blowing’ Illegal Immigration Under Biden Approaching 1% of Total U.S. Population

As illegal immigration hit a record monthly high in December 2022, with more than 250,000 apprehensions at the border, Kopits writes that the figures “are simply surreal” and suggests that Biden is on pace to set a new illegal immigration record this year. Kopits writes: With December apprehensions exceeding expectations, we increase our calendar and fiscal year 2023 forecast for southwest border apprehensions to 2.7 million, which would represent a new record by 400,000 over fiscal and calendar year 2022. These are truly mind-blowing numbers. Annual southwest border apprehensions are beginning to approach 1% of the total US population.

Greenfield: Biden’s Treasury Dept Blocks Congressional Request for Hunter Biden Transactions

The Treasury Department has delayed a House Republican request for information on Biden family financial transactions that may have been marked as suspicious, saying that it must first determine whether the disclosure of the records is consistent with “longstanding Executive Branch interests.”

Considering that there’s a Biden at the top of the executive branch, it’s obviously not. […] It’s obvious to Treasury why he wants it. And Treasury’s claim that it’s holding them back to protect “ongoing law enforcement investigations” is a cynical dodge. Prolonging an investigation is a good way of blocking congressional information requests before burying the whole thing after midnight. That’s the game here.

Nelson: White House claims GOP pushing Social Security cuts after McCarthy rules it out

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed Wednesday that House Republicans want to slash Social Security and Medicare as they push for spending reduction in exchange for raising the debt limit — despite House Speaker Kevin McCarthy repeatedly ruling out such cuts. Jean-Pierre denounced social safety net changes — which McCarthy already took off the table — after being asked about President Biden saying Tuesday that “I have no intention of letting the Republicans wreck our economy” despite his own refusal to negotiate with Republicans. […] Jean-Pierre acted as if the House Republican majority intends to cut Social Security and Medicare despite McCarthy (R-Calif.) specifically ruling out cuts nearly 24 hours beforehand in a TV interview and then again in a Wednesday morning meeting with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVa.).

VDH: The Real Differences Between the Biden and Trump Troves

onald Trump for now certainly seems to have had more documents labeled classified at Mar-a-Lago in Florida than did Joe Biden at his various homes in Delaware. Yet otherwise, the comparisons between the two cases, contrary to popular punditry, hardly favor Biden. First, a stranger would face a far greater challenge entering a post-presidential Mar-a-Lago than a pre-presidential Joe Biden’s home, office, or garage—or who knows where? Secret service agents and private security were stationed at Mar-a-Lago. Prior to the 2020 presidential election they were not at citizen Biden’s various troves for most of 2017-2020 much less prior to 2009. Second, we seem to forget that for much of the developing controversy, Joe Biden’s own team was investigating Joe Biden. On the other hand, the Biden Administration’s Justice Department and the FBI were not just investigating Trump as an outside party, but as a former president—and possible 2024 presidential candidate and opponent of Biden himself.

Bahney: Biden administration unveils renter protections

In response to rent payments soaring across the country in recent years, the Biden administration unveiled new actions Wednesday to protect tenants, make renting more affordable and improve fairness in the rental housing market. Multiple agencies are expected to take part in improving conditions for renters, taking actions in tandem with a set of principles outlined by the administration focused on renters’ rights. This blueprint informs further action by the federal government, state and local entities, as well as the private sector, in efforts to strengthen tenant protections and encourage rental affordability.

[…] The actions outlined on Wednesday target the practices of landlords, rental housing financing and ways to support renters who may be unfairly excluded from renting. Here’s what some of the agencies will do: . . .[…] Housing advocates celebrated the administration’s announcement, despite it falling short of more robust tenant protections they’d like to see. […] Meanwhile, others in the housing industry say that this kind of federal involvement in housing policy serves to increase housing costs. “Rental housing policy is heavily regulated at the state and local level,” said Kenny Parcell, president of the National Association of Realtors.”Federally enacted policies can potentially drive housing providers out of the market, which will have an immediate and long-term impact of making rental housing even more competitive and, therefore, more expensive for renters.” What’s more, he added, “expanding the federal government’s role in rental policy also places an even greater undue burden on mom-and-pop housing providers.”

Devine: This migrant mess is ruining NYC’s Midtown

Why is Mayor Eric Adams destroying Midtown? The pulsing heart of the city, the theater, restaurant and tourism district, has not fully recovered from the COVID lockdown yet is already full of homeless hotels with their associated problems. Now the mayor has announced he’s going to turn yet another hotel into a shelter for illegal migrants in the middle of the Theater District. The Paramount Hotel, a 600-room, Renaissance-style gem opposite the Richard Rodgers Theatre where “Hamilton” has been playing since 2015, is the fifth Midtown hotel converted to an “emergency” shelter in as many months. Earlier this month, tourists were paying $330 a night to stay there and prices hit as high as $1,000 around New Year’s Eve. The Paramount is around the corner from the $400-a-night Italianate Row Hotel on Eighth Avenue, whose 1,300 rooms were handed over to illegals late last year.Where are the tourists supposed to stay, the ones who actually spend the money the city needs to pay for all the social services Adams likes to splash around?

THE DEMOCRAT PARTY MARXIST PLAYBOOK: LEFTIST INDOCTRINATION, CHILD MUTILATION, CHILD SACRIFICE, CHILD SEXUALIZATION

Weaver: Teacher Makes BLM Protest Signs With Four, Five-Year-Olds In Daycare Training Video

A teacher made Black Lives Matter signs with her students in a video guide promoted to North Carolina daycare workers. In the video, the teacher makes the sign after reading a children’s book titled “20 Protesters Who Changed America.” The book includes a page on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the national anthem before football games in protest of police brutality against black Americans. “Colin took a knee to support Black Lives Matter,” the teacher said. “This way his way of spreading the word and showing people that things are not fair right now. Things need to change.” The teacher then gave the children . . . […] Denver Elementary School promoted Black Lives Matter trainings that advocate disrupting the “nuclear family” and directs students to be “transgender affirming” in June 2022. BLM Week was an event promoted by a number of school districts in states from Boston to Seattle and promoted “the 13 values of Black Lives Matter” to students in February 2022.

McCann: America’s Future is Bleak When Only 27% of the Younger Generations are Proud to be American

As recently as 2004, 91% of Americans were extremely or very proud to be American and the United States ranked first in the world in national pride. However, in less than twenty years there has been a stunning reversal that portends a dire future for the United States as a precipitous erosion in national pride has undermined societal confidence, self-reliance, optimism, and cohesion. A recent poll revealed that a record low of just 68% of the citizenry are extremely or very proud to be American. However, underlying that overall dismal outcome is the reality that among the two youngest generations only 38% of Millennials and 16% of Gen Z are proud to be American despite being the beneficiaries of living in a unfathomably prosperous nation that has not known any profound national adversity since the Great Depression. What we are seeing play out is the reality of demographic change in America as the younger mal-educated generations account for over half of the populace and are increasingly becoming culturally and politically influential. Within these generations an overwhelming majority have been indoctrinated by socialist/Marxist ideologues to believe that a capitalist United States as founded is irredeemable and must be transformed.

ANOTHER CORPORATION GOES WOKE

Turner: Burberry’s gender neutral ad featuring model with scars from a double mastectomy sparks outrage for ‘glamourising girls having healthy breast removed’

A new advertisement from Burberry featuring gender neutral models has sparked outrage for ‘glamourising girls having healthy breast removed’. The British fashion house’s latest campaign features a topless young person with scars from a double mastectomy, a procedure that can be used to remove cancer or for those transitioning genders. Burberry’s latest campaign, that is entitled B:MINE, celebrates intimacy and embracement and critics have assumed the model is transgender. ‘I don’t think adverts should be normalising in fact glamourising girls having healthy breast removed,’ one wrote.

Read ore: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11679351/Burberry-ad-featuring-model-double-mastectomy-sparks-outrage.html

BIDEN’S COVID VACCINATION JAB MANDATES

MAJORITY of Americans vaccinated with new Omicron Covid shot are NOT protected against falling ill with the latest XBB.1.5 variant, CDC report suggests — despite US paying $5bn for the new vaccines

A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released Wednesday found the updated shots were just 48 percent effective at stopping symptomatic infection caused by the XBB.1.5 subvariant for up to three months. The CDC highlighted that the main purpose of the vaccines is to prevent hospitalization and death rather than transmission, and they are still expected to give high protection against severe illness .But the findings mean the bivalent shots – which the US Government paid $5billion for last autumn – fall short of the World Health Organization’s 50 percent efficacy threshold for an effective vaccine.

Project Veritas: Pfizer Executive: ‘Mutate’ COVID via ‘Directed Evolution’ for Company to Continue Profiting Off of Vaccines … ‘COVID is Going to be a Cash Cow for Us’ … ‘That is Not What We Say to the Public’ … ‘People Won’t Like That’ … ‘Don’t Tell Anyone’

Jordon Trishton Walker, Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations – mRNA Scientific Planner: “One of the things we’re exploring is like, why don’t we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create — preemptively develop new vaccines, right? So, we have to do that. If we’re gonna do that though, there’s a risk of like, as you could imagine — no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating f**king viruses.” Walker: “Don’t tell anyone. Promise you won’t tell anyone. The way it [the experiment] would work is that we put the virus in monkeys, and we successively cause them to keep infecting each other, and we collect serial samples from them.”

Read more/Watch the disturbing 9:58 minute video: https://www.projectveritas.com/news/pfizer-executive-mutate-covid-via-directed-evolution-for-company-to-continue/

War Room: Dr. Harvey Risch Explains Critical Failures in Covid Booster Awaiting FDA Vote

Watch the 4 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v274bxw-dr.-harvey-risch-explains-critical-failures-in-covid-booster-awaiting-fda-v.html

FAUCI “I AM SCIENCE” VIRUS MASKING POLICY

Mansell: Why N95 Masks Fail to Stop the Spread

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been assured that community masking compliance would solve our problems and halt the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Yet real-world application data has consistently shown them to fail as a mitigation measure for personal protection, and instead of correcting course on the haphazard guidance that was doled out, we were told to mask harder with increasingly restrictive, albeit effectively non-mitigating apparatuses. But why did they fail, and why do they continue to fail? Below, we delve into the specifics on why, even if assuming hypothetical perfect capture capacity, N95s fail to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2. […] Masks and respirators certainly count as porous surfaces. Many respirators are also constructed of melt-blown plastics. Has viral viability on mask membranes been studied to a great enough extent? […] Some have recently commented that masks and N95s are even more effective when particle sizes get smaller than 0.3 microns. This theoretical construct, known as Brownian Mmotion, only occurs when there is essentially no velocity in the system being studied. But with masks and respirators – assuming the person is living, breathing, and not dead – significant momentum from airflow (breathing in and out) suggests the particles are in the laminar flow regime and not at near- zero velocity. Thus, except for a potentially very brief time between breathing in and out, the Brownian flow regime is not possible.

FDA

Reuters: U.S. FDA proposes limits on lead in processed baby food

High levels of lead exposure can cause brain damage and other problems, particularly in young children. The FDA estimates the new limits could cut lead exposure by 24-27% from processed baby foods.

Hill: Senior FDA official resigns following baby formula crisis, turmoil in agency

Frank Yiannas has resigned from his post as the Food and Drug Administration’s deputy commissioner for food policy and response, following the baby formula crisis and a series of internal breakdowns at the main agency tasked with overseeing food safety in the U.S. […] Yiannas was among the senior FDA officials involved in the Biden administration’s hobbled response to the infant formula crisis. FDA officials were warned months before about food safety concerns at a key plant in Sturgis, Mich. operated by Abbott Nutrition. The plant issued a recall of some formula products, after reports that babies died after drinking formula from the facility and FDA inspectors finding strains of a bacteria that can be deadly to infants. Abbott has maintained that there is no link between the deaths and the formula at the plant.

Dong, M.D.: The Truth About HPV Vaccination, Part 3: Can It Prevent Cervical Cancer?

In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we discussed the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and its links to ovarian insufficiency and autoimmune disease. In part 3, we turn to questions regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, and the limitations of relevant clinical trials to detect such a type of effect. […] In Australia, government data similarly reveal an increase in cervical cancer rates in certain age groups of women following the implementation of the Gardasil vaccine. Thirteen years after Gardasil was recommended for teenagers and young adults, there has been a 30% increase in 30- to 34-year-old women (4.9 cases/100,000 compared to 6.6 cases/100,000 in 2020) being diagnosed with cervical cancer. Even though the rates decreased in other age groups, the abnormal increase in the 30–34 age group needs an explanation. […] In the U.K., HPV vaccination was introduced in 2008 for girls aged 12–13 with catch-up for those aged 14–18. Many expected cervical cancer rates in women aged 20–24 to fall by 2014 as the vaccinated cohorts entered their 20s. However, in 2016 national statistics showed a worrying and substantial 70% increase in the rate of cervical cancer at ages 20 to 24 (i.e. from 2.7 in 2012 to 4.6 per 100,000 in 2014). While the author would consider it to be too early to draw conclusions regarding vaccine efficacy in protecting against cancer, this merits further study. […] Besides the vaccine’s unclear effectiveness in cancer prevention, studies further suggest the suppression of the HPV strains targeted by the vaccine may induce more virulent strains.

EDUCATION INDOCTRINATION

Lamb: Gender studies program celebrates anniversary with drag show

‘We need women, gender and sexuality studies and these conversations because we need to be working toward social transformation,’ professor says

The Oregon State University gender studies program will celebrate its 50th anniversary of fighting the patriarchy with a “drag show,” where men will dress up as cartoonish versions of women. “Oregon State University’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program turns 50 this year, and a week of activities is planned for Jan. 23-29 to celebrate the anniversary and to learn about the program’s history and future from alumni, faculty, guest scholars and current students,” the department announced.

Pullmann: Why DeSantis Should Be Skeptical Of Promised Revisions To The White House-Backed Racist AP Class

Just days after getting the Biden White House to support its new, openly Marxist high school class, College Board appears to have backed down after Gov. Ron DeSantis’ refusal to allow the class into Florida. On Tuesday, the massive curriculum company said it is revising its draft Advanced Placement African-American studies class and will release the changes within a week. On Friday and Sunday, respectively, the White House press secretary and U.S. vice president publicly criticized the DeSantis administration for denying the class entry into Florida. The two characterized as “American history” the critical race theory-laden teaching materials that spoke positively of violence and racial strife and presented no opposing nor divergent perspectives. DeSantis responded on Monday by pointing out that drafts of official materials for the class, which College Board has refused to release publicly, include “queer theory” and characterize extremist, Black Panther-style racial ideology as representing black Americans. After College Board’s Tuesday announcement, the DeSantis administration celebrated the promised revisions as a win. This is definitely a win, but as DeSantis Press Secretary Bryan Griffin notes above, it’s not yet a complete win. The College Board deserves continued scrutiny, if not an expanded investigation of its teaching materials in every Republican-controlled state, for multiple reasons.

OTHER NEWS, COMMENTARY, OPINION

(As California goes, so goes the country) Billingsley: Sudden Infant Execution Syndrome

California outsources capital punishment to criminal gangs – while the Biden Junta imports murderers. […] As the sheriff explained, “I know for a fact that this young lady was running for her life, and I know for a fact that there was no reason to kill her, but they did. I know for a fact that this 10-month-old baby was riding on the comfort of his mother. There was no reason to shoot that baby. And they did it.” This criminal savagery failed to draw a response from the Biden White House, which had been quick with a statement in other cases. […] According to Sheriff Boudreaux, the executions were similar in to “high-ranking gang affiliations” but “we don’t know if it is a gang-affiliated shooting, a cartel affiliation or if the two are combined.” The sheriff did say the cartel is well known in the Central Valley and throughout the state. For all but the willfully blind, it’s MS-13, according to the Fresno Bee “like no other gang.” […] At this writing, the shooters are nowhere to be found and Sheriff Boudreaux says “some of our investigation has already led outside the county.” Trouble is, “we have a very unsecure border right now. There’s a lot of back and forth when it comes to the cartels and free movement up and down the state and across the border.” Biden and Newsom like it that way. Under California’s sanctuary law . . .

Herlihy: Kristi Noem under fire from state Freedom Caucus for allegedly overstepping South Dakota constitutional limits

Gov. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., is facing criticism from some of her home state Freedom Caucus members who say Noem’s office has “overstepped” its constitutional authority by circumventing part of the legislative process. One state lawmaker said it could complicate a presidential bid for her in 2024.

[…] It says Noem and her agencies have “overstepped their authority” by exploiting a loophole in the state lawmaking process that allows agencies to introduce bills without a legislative sponsor, an act some Republicans in the state say is crossing the line too frequently into an area that should be controlled by elected officials. The issue came to a head for the group last week when the state’s Department of Labor and Regulations introduced two bills with the Commerce and Energy Committee without any legislative sponsor.

Ginsberg: Pelosis Sold Google Stock One Month Before DOJ Announced Antitrust Lawsuit

The Pelosis sold 30,000 shares of Alphabet, the holding company for Google and several other firms, on Dec. 20, 21, and 28. They received between $1.5 million and $3 million for the total sale, netting capital gains of more than $600, according to a financial disclosure form Pelosi, filed on Jan. 12. The DOJ announced its lawsuit against Alphabet on Tuesday. Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment on the matter.

Fox News: TUCKER CARLSON: A look into the strange circumstances around Jeffrey Epstein’s death

On Saturday morning, Aug. 10, 2019, Attorney General William Barr was working in his home office when his chief of staff called to say that Jeffrey Epstein had just been found dead in his cell in New York City. Barr was shocked and upset to hear this. His first reaction, as he recounts it in his memoir, was to worry that some people in America might not buy the idea that Jeffrey Epstein had killed himself. “No one’s going to believe it was a suicide,” Barr fretted to his chief of staff. “There will be conspiracy theories all over the place.” Now, that’s a pretty odd response, if you think about it. At the time, there was no way that Bill Barr could have known for sure how Jeffrey Epstein died. So, you would think as the attorney general, his first concern would be finding out what actually happened, but instead, his first concern was worry that the public might jump to unapproved conclusions about what happened and, in some ways, Bill Barr was right to worry.

Zeisloft: California Bill Would Create New ‘Worldwide Wealth’ Tax, Even For People Who Flee The State

The legislation, introduced by California Democratic Assemblymember Alex Lee, would create a 1.5% tax for a resident’s worldwide net worth that exceeds $1 billion in the 2024 and 2025 tax years. The bill would subsequently create a 1% annual tax for a resident’s worldwide net worth that exceeds $50 million and an additional 0.5% tax for worldwide wealth exceeding $1 billion. “With this modest tax on the ultra-wealthy who pay a lower effective tax rate than the bottom 99%, we would have sustained investments in our schools, tackle homelessness, maintain and expand needed services, and much more,” Lee said in a press release. “We’ve been losing our lower and middle-income residents that are being priced out of this state because they can’t afford the high cost of living while shouldering the burden of paying for our roads, infrastructure, and schools all the while the ultra-wealthy doubled their fortunes during the pandemic.”

LifeSite News: New York Legislature Passes Bill for Right to Kill Babies in Abortions Up to Birth

To amend the New York Constitution, the language must pass the state legislature in two separate sessions and then receive a majority of voters’ approval on the ballot. Rather than place the amendment on the ballot this fall, however, lawmakers chose to wait until the presidential election in November 2024 when they expect a larger Democrat voter turnout, according to the report. New York already allows unborn babies to be aborted for basically any reason up to birth and has some of the highest abortion numbers in the United States. The amendment would prevent future legislatures from enacting even modest protections for babies in the womb.

Rigolizzo: ‘They Turned Abortion Into A Pagan Idol’: New York Courthouse Installs Statue Symbolizing Abortion And RBG

The sculpture, entitled “NOW,” was installed on the roof of the Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State, First Department on Madison Avenue last week as part of an art exhibit from artist Shahzia Sikander. The statue is meant to represent the legacy of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but New Yorkers and other viewers on Twitter noticed that the statue is both unsightly and unsettling. Corporate consultant Andrew Beck shared pictures of the art installation in a Twitter thread. “A new statue atop a New York City courthouse,” he wrote. “The artist says it’s part of an ‘urgent and necessary cultural reckoning underway as New York reconsiders traditional representations of power in public spaces and recasts civic structures to better reflect 21st-century social mores.’”

Lavoie: Lawyer: Warnings boy had gun ignored before he shot teacher

Concerned staff warned administrators at a Virginia elementary school three times that a 6-year-old boy had a gun and was threatening other students in the hours before he shot and wounded a teacher, but the administration “was paralyzed by apathy” and didn’t call police, remove the boy from class or lock down the school, the wounded teacher’s lawyer said Wednesday. Later in the day, the school board voted to fire school district superintendent George Parker III as part of a separation agreement that will pay Parker a little over $502,000 in severance — two years of his current base salary of $251,000. Parker has been sharply criticized by parents and teachers since the Jan. 6 shooting.

Musto: US approves first small modular nuclear reactor design

NuScale Power’s design has become the seventh reactor design cleared for use in the U.S., a move the Department of Energy said would equip the nation with a new clean power source and send emissions falling. The NRC Commission voted to certify the design last July, following a final technical review.

The rule takes effect on Feb. 21, allowing utilities to reference NuScale’s advanced light-water SMR design when applying for a combined license to build and operate a reactor.

INTERNATIONAL

War Room: Christian Persecution Is At All Time High And Christian Leaders Are Silent, Thomas Williams Reports

Watch the 6:18 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v272pn0-christian-persecution-is-at-all-time-high-and-christian-leaders-are-silent-.html

Fox News: Glenn Greenwald: We are witnessing ‘judicial tyranny” in Brazil

Watch the 2:39 minute interview: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6319260707112

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

TAKE ACTION