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Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

President Joe Biden said in a recent speech that the infamous gallows built on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, were “erected to hang Vice President Mike Pence.”

That’s a strong claim coming from the sitting—at least for now—leader of the free world. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., asked FBI Director Chris Wray about Biden’s claim during a Wednesday congressional hearing, and Wray surprisingly debunked the president’s false characterization of the “gallows.”

Biden recently alleged that “gallows” erected on January 6th were intended to assassinate Vice President Mike Pence.

But today the @FBI Director disagreed with that assessment. pic.twitter.com/Yg5w5pKy6g

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 25, 2024

“I’m not aware of any physical gallows … It might have been a replica or symbol,” Wray told Massie.

The congressman agreed: “It looks like a prop. The construction doesn’t look like it would lend itself to hanging somebody. If the president were correct, that would be a very serious allegation.”

Massie asked Wray whether anyone has been arrested or even identified as the builder of the gallows. He also asked whether the gallows builders were FBI informants.

Wray said he had no knowledge of informants being involved, and that he didn’t know whether the gallows-makers have been arrested—but the answer is almost certainly no. As Headline USA reported in February, the FBI still doesn’t know who built the gallows.

“Three years later, the FBI still has no suspects. Additionally, the Select Committee on January 6th seemingly did not review the USCP CCTV footage to identify the culprits behind the gallows, or if they did, they never released information about when the gallows were built and who built them—which can all be seen on CCTV footage from early in the morning on January 6,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., stated said in a February press release.

According to Loudermilk, the gallows builders arrived at approximately 6:30 a.m. on January 6, 2021, in a white full-size van parked north of Constitution Avenue. There, three passengers unloaded a large bundle of lumber with wheels.

After unloading, the group walked the bundle across Constitution Avenue and onto the grass at Union Square, according to Loudermilk. They were then joined by two more people arriving by cab at the corner of 1st and C Streets NW, Loudermilk said.

Between 6:30 a.m. and 7:15 a.m., the group constructed the platform and two main pillars of the gallows, only leaving off the crossbeam, he said. During this time, the apparent group leader along with one other person, left the group and walked down 3rd Street, heading north. They returned a few minutes later with coffee, and the entire group left the scene, according to Loudermilk.

“Despite the leader’s distinctive clothing—he was wearing a long trench coat, long white scarf, fedora-type hat, and walking with a cane—he has never been identified publicly,” he said.

“At approximately 1:00 p.m., the group of five returned to the scene and the presumed leader, now wearing a baseball cap, installed the final crossbeam and added the noose made of bright orange rope. Shortly after construction was complete, all five men left the grounds.”

Loudermilk noted that the construction of the gallows violated the Capitol Police Guidelines for Conducting an event on United States Capitol Grounds, which prohibit temporary structures from being built on Capitol grounds. He asked why Capitol Police allowed the gallows to remain intact throughout the morning of Jan. 6.

“It is inconceivable that a gallows could be constructed on U.S. Capitol property and left up all day,” he said.

“These men arrived early in the morning, several hours before the rally even started or anyone had gathered, to construct the gallows platform, yet this structure was allowed to stay intact for all to see. These actions raise more serious and troubling questions. Why didn’t the U.S. Capitol Police take down the gallows once it was seen on Capitol property, and why have the individuals never been identified?”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Former President Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Friday, just after the Israeli leader met with President Biden and VP Harris.

Trump claimed in the context of the meeting that a major war in the Middle East – and even possibly a “third world war” – will break out if he doesn’t win the election. He’s long been running as the candidate who will deescalate global hotspots that Washington is too deeply embedded in.

“If we win, it’ll be very simple. It’s all going to work out and very quickly,” Trump told reporters just before the meeting’s start.

“If we don’t, you’re going to end up with major wars in the Middle East and maybe a third world war. You are closer to a third world war right now than at any time since the second world war. You’ve never been so close, because we have incompetent people running our country,” he said.

Likely he had in mind the Russia-Ukraine war, and the Israel-Hamas conflict, given he has made similar comments of these flashpoints in the past. However, he’s never put it so bluntly as to say world war three could result if he loses.

He also reflected on controversy left in the wake of Netanyahu’s meeting with VP Harris. The Israeli leader was reportedly upset with Harris’ post-meeting statement, where she said she would “not be silent” at the mounting civilian Palestinian casualties and suffering.

“Harris’ statement after the meeting was much more critical than what she told Netanyahu in the meeting,” one Israeli official told Axios. According to more, “The Israeli official also said Netanyahu was unhappy with the fact that Harris criticized Israel publicly for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and for killing civilians, especially at the current timing amid the hostage deal negotiations.”

Trump said going into the meeting with Netanyahu that Harris’ remarks on the Gaza war were “disrespectful”. Referencing Harris and the Biden administration, and Democrats broadly, Trump said “They weren’t very nice pertaining to Israel. I actually don’t know how a person who is Jewish could vote for her, but that’s up to them.”

Trump also said something a bit unusual pertaining to Iran and the possibility of a future US war on Tehran…

Uh, what? pic.twitter.com/JIz1HIpnpt

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 26, 2024

He said in social media statement that Iran must be wiped out if it ever carries out an assassination against a future President Trump.

The comment appeared in follow-up to Netanyahu’s fiery Wednesday speech before Congress. The prime minister focused a lot of the talk on Iran, and described that it remains behind “all the terrorism” and “all the killing”. He then asserted that the Islamic Republic “brazenly threatened to assassinate President Trump.”

Authored by ‘A Midwestern Doctor’,

Story at-a-glance

• The power of sleep — Proper sleep is essential for our health, and disruptions can lead to severe issues like heart attacks, psychiatric illnesses, car accidents, fatigue, diabetes, cognitive impairment, and dementia

• A widespread epidemic — Poor sleep affects many due to a lack of understanding about its importance and the use of sedative sleeping pills that hinder healthy sleep. For instance, medical training often deprives students of sleep, despite its critical role in learning

• The forgotten miracle drug — In 1964, a remarkably effective sleeping medication hit the market, improving conditions like insomnia and overall health. However, its success threatened other drug markets. By 1990, the FDA and media launched a campaign against it, much like the case with ivermectin, resulting in the drug becoming almost unknown and many sleep disorders remaining untreated

• What you’ll learn — This article delves into the harms of poor sleep, explores common causes, and uncovers effective treatments for sleeping disorders

One of the key themes I’ve tried to illustrate in my writings is that chronic illness has vastly increased over the last 150 years. A major cause of this is the disruption of the natural rhythms essential for our body’s self-regulation and self-repair.

Modern Medicine (Allopathy) often overlooks this concept because it doesn’t recognize the innate health of the body. Allopathic treatments focus on stabilizing or altering the body (e.g., ICU care or surgery) and hoping it heals itself, unlike other medical systems that enhance the body’s natural recovery capacity.

Typically, Allopathy excels with acute conditions, while a health-augmenting approach is better for chronic illnesses, an area where Allopathy often falls short. Here are three reasons why the Allopathic model dominates:

1. Economic incentives — The Allopathic model creates many expensive treatments and diagnostics, making it highly profitable and incentivizing its dominance in the medical market.

2. Cultural psychology — Our culture’s need to control and understand everything leads to methods that dominate nature rather than work harmoniously with it, oppose the philosophy of trusting the body’s natural healing.

3. Research bias — Medical research favors treatments that show immediate, observable changes (like lowering blood pressure) rather than those that promote gradual, long-term recovery, skewing the focus towards pharmaceutical interventions.

The Impact of Natural Rhythms on Health

The health of the body relies heavily on the normal functioning of self-regulating cycles:

• Breathing — Slow, smooth, nasal breathing profoundly impacts health and longevity by regulating many critical physiological functions.

• Sunlight — Regular exposure to sunlight is vital for health, and its absence doubles the risk of mortality and can lead to conditions like depression or cancer.

• Physical activity — Regular exercise is crucial, and a sedentary lifestyle leads to significant health issues. Those who walk daily often experience dramatically improved longevity.

• Mental rest — The mind needs to alternate between rest and activity, but modern life often forces constant thinking and stress.

In short, many of the natural rhythms our bodies rely upon for self-regulation are heavily disrupted in modern society, which in turn results in a variety of consistent derangements to normal physiology that are now seen throughout the population.

The Importance of Sleep

Throughout my career, I’ve met many integrative practitioners who emphasize normalizing their patient’s sleep as a crucial step in treating chronic illness. Sleep is a foundational process for restoring health, yet patients with chronic illnesses often suffer from disrupted sleep cycles, which can be challenging to correct.

Sleep is a tightly regulated cycle, highly responsive to environmental signals and essential for maintaining other critical body rhythms. During sleep, the body cycles through different phases, each with critical functions: deep NREM sleep heals the brain and drains toxins, while REM sleep consolidates memories and processes emotions. A typical sleep cycle goes as follows:

Note: Since REM sleep predominates later at night, not sleeping long enough disproportionately disrupts REM sleep. NREM sleep is responsible for eliminating unnecessary memories, whereas REM sleep processes the day’s experiences and reinforces them into long-term memory.

Matthew Walker is one of the world’s most vocal sleep researchers. In his book Why We Sleep, he argues that sleep serves several vital functions, including:

 

Any individual, no matter what age, will exhibit physical ailments, mental health instability, reduced alertness, and impaired memory if their sleep is chronically disrupted.

 

Even when controlling for factors such as body mass index, gender, race, history of smoking, frequency of exercise, and medications, the lower an older individual’s sleep efficiency score, the higher their mortality risk, the worse their physical health, the more likely they are to suffer from depression, the less energy they report, and the lower their cognitive function, typified by forgetfulness.

The Sleep Crisis

Adequate sleep requires:

1. Sufficient time set aside for sleep.

2. Ability to fall asleep quickly.

3. Cycling through all sleep phases once asleep.

Adults generally need 7 to 9 hours per night, with infants and children needing more. Unfortunately, many people don’t get enough sleep, contributing to widespread health issues.

Key points:

• Gallup poll 57% of Americans want more sleep; only 42% get enough.

• 35.5% of American adults sleep less 7 hours per night; 30% have insomnia symptoms.

• 13.5% of adults feel tired most days; 10 days of 6-hour deficient sleep is equivalent to 24 hours of being awake (no sleep).

• Sleep Apnea affects 9% to 38% of the population.

• 30% to 48% of the elderly have insomnia symptoms, and 12% to 20% have insomnia disorders. Aging reduces sleep efficiency and quality and increases nighttime awakenings.

Sleeping Pills

Despite a $65 billion annual market for sleep aids in the U.S.24 and a $432 billion global “sleep economy” 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders. The pandemic worsened sleep for over half of Americans in 2020, and 76% admitted to buying sleep aids.

The problem lies in the nature of most sleeping pills: they are sedatives, not sleep aids. They sedate the brain, impairing its ability to initiate restorative sleep, leaving users tired and at risk for health issues.

Studies have shown that sleeping pill users are significantly more likely to die early and develop cancer. For example, one study found a twofold increase in mortality for sleeping pill users, with another study reporting a 3.6 to 5.4 times higher death rate for users over 2.5 years, and an increased cancer risk of 7% to 99%.

This in turn, led the authors to conclude that in 2010, prescription sleeping pills “may have been associated with 320,000 to 507,000 excess deaths within the USA alone.”

Most prescription sleeping pills, like Ambien, are “sedative hypnotics” similar to benzodiazepines (e.g., Valium), which are addictive and often used long-term despite being intended for short-term use. Over-the-counter options, like Benadryl or Unisom, are antihistamines that also disrupt the sleep cycle. Alcohol, with a similar mechanism to benzodiazepines, is another addictive sedative that inhibits sleep long after being ingested.

Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate

While most sleeping medications are unsafe and ineffective, one drug, gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB), has shown remarkable results. Developed in 1874, GHB was marketed in Europe as an intravenous anesthetic in 1964. Despite its benefits, it wasn’t practical for surgeries but was useful in intensive care due to its unique properties:

 

Decades of research followed and demonstrated GHB’s extraordinary properties and low toxicity. It metabolizes to succinate and water, has a high LD50, and no deaths have been conclusively attributed to it. GHB is a powerful sleep aid, restoring deep sleep cycles and leaving individuals refreshed — in many cases after just 3 to 4 hours of sleep.

 

As more scientists (and then members of the public) began exploring the drug, according to Ward Dean MD29 (who provided extensive references to support his claims), through decades of research, they found a variety of benefits from GHB including:

Given these remarkable benefits and the decades of research supporting its use, why has no one ever heard of it?

The Ivermectin of Sleep Medicines

The medical industry often uses public relations to create campaigns that generate profits at the expense of public health.

For instance, dermatologists rebranded themselves as skin cancer fighters, spreading hysteria about skin cancer and sunlight dangers. This transformed dermatology into a lucrative field, despite the essential health benefits of sunlight. Similarly, during COVID-19, the FDA downplayed the benefits of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, creating unwarranted fear and blocking their use.

GHB’s story mirrors this pattern. In the early 1990s, as it gained popularity as a supplement (largely due to bodybuilders recognizing the value of it increasing growth hormone in the body), the FDA and CDC publicized adverse reactions to it, despite no fatalities (e.g., hospital doctors misinterpreted the brief deep sleep it created as a coma requiring intubation).

As recounted by Ward Dean MD, this led to an FDA ban, highly deceptive press releases, and a variety of illegal enforcement actions that were eventually overturned in court.

The FDA then helped create a media hysteria over GHB, fueled by comparisons to Rohypnol (“Roofies”) and made up GHB tragedies, which led to its portrayal as a dangerous date-rape drug. This culminated in a 2000 Federal anti-date rape drug law 2000 that made GHB a Schedule I drug, while simultaneously enshrining a pharmaceutical GHB preparation as a Schedule III drug.

Note: To be a Schedule I drug, the substance cannot have an acceptable medical use, which is hence irreconcilable with the FDA-approved preparation of it being a Schedule III drug.

In reality, GHB was rarely involved in sexual assaults and had a distinct easily detectable taste. Misleading media reports and government actions overshadowed the actual data and research. Most remarkably GHB, Rohypnol (Roofies) avoided similar bans due to effective lobbying by its manufacturer, is still a schedule IV drug in America (where it was never brought to market), and remains legal in many countries. Here, Comedian Jimmy Dore covers the GHB saga in more detail:

The Aftermath

Because of this debacle, it became almost impossible to get GHB, and many leading integrative doctors at the time were disgusted with the FDA as they saw how much GHB benefitted their patients and treated a variety of immensely challenging illnesses.

Patients occasionally ask me for GHB, and I sadly have to explain the criminal penalties associated with Schedule I drugs. Ironically, while GHB was outlawed, the off-patent and easy to manufacture schedule III pharmaceutical preparation of it sodium oxybate38 (Xyrem), remained legal but is prohibitively expensive, costing between $60,000 to $100,000 annually, a figure desperate patients will pay for this live changing medication.

Despite evidence supporting GHB’s efficacy for conditions like alcohol addiction, fibromyalgia, and numerous debilitating sleep disorders,41 efforts to change the FDA’s perception of GHB as merely a date-rape drug have been unsuccessful.

At the same time, underground GHB use has persisted, both recreationally and amongst certain patient groups (e.g., veterans with PTSD) due to its unique effects (e.g., enhanced sensory experiences and sociability alongside its myriad of remarkable therapeutic benefits). Here, Joe Rogan and Jimmy Dore discuss where things currently stand with GHB:

Overall, one of the most extraordinary things about the GHB saga is that its many benefits discovered over the decades of research it received were then subsequently rediscovered by the sleep research community. This again illustrates how often the research we really need (and hence spend billions on each year) already exists but was simply buried due to it being inconvenient for the industry.

More than anything else, I believe the GHB story demonstrates the importance of not being overly biased. For example, while many doctors hold a strong prejudice against any “natural” (e.g., nondrug) therapy, I am the opposite and typically avoid using pharmaceutical drugs because of how frequently I find their harms outweigh their benefits.

Nonetheless, I periodically find extraordinary drugs I take a hard look at and end up using throughout my medical practice. Sadly, as the war against ivermectin showed the world, the primary motivation behind most of medicine is money, and as a result, whenever a highly beneficial drug is discovered that competes with existing drugs, the medical industry moves to bury it, regardless of how much evidence there is in support of it.

Note: The existing research on GHB is discussed in further detail here.

Sleep Hygiene

Let’s now look at other options for improving sleep. One of the most tried and true ones is to change the signals your body receives so it can go to sleep on its own. Here are key approaches:

1. Regulate circadian rhythm — The body’s natural cycle, governed by processes like adenosine buildup and circadian cues, signals when to sleep. Consistency in sleep and waking times is an essential piece of good sleep hygiene. Following environmental cues and natural cycles is ideal but often disrupted by modern lifestyles.

2. Address sleep barriers — Factors like age-related brain damage or fluid obstructions hinder sleep. Remedies such as electrically improving the body’s fluid circulation or reducing EMF exposure can help.

3. Avoid disruptive substances — Caffeine and alcohol, by blocking adenosine receptors or disrupting sleep cycles, impair sleep quality. Their effects linger due to varying metabolic rates, exacerbating sleep issues, especially as metabolism slows with age. One of the most intriguing data points I’ve seen about the effects of caffeine came from this NASA study.

4. Temperature management — Natural temperature drops aid sleep onset, making cooler environments conducive to rest. Techniques like cooling baths or sleeping in cooler rooms promote better sleep quality.

Note: One of the most interesting approaches to overcoming the temperature barrier for sleep was a study that found using a customized suit to externally drop people’s temperature made it much easier for them to sleep (especially in the elderly).

5. Manage light exposure — Blue light from screens disrupts melatonin secretion, crucial for sleep regulation. Using blue light filters, minimizing screen time before bed, and creating darker sleep environments support healthy sleep patterns.

6. Behavioral adjustments — Establishing bedrooms as sleep sanctuaries, maintaining consistent sleep-wake schedules, and practicing relaxation techniques before bed enhance sleep quality. Physical activity during the day and avoiding stimulating activities close to bedtime also aid in achieving restful sleep.

Note: Many people find cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to be extremely helpful for insomnia and there is now significant evidence to support it being a first-line therapy.

7. Diet and lifestyle — Maintaining a balanced diet, avoiding late-night eating, and monitoring caffeine intake play roles in promoting restorative sleep. Keeping a sleep journal can help identify triggers contributing to insomnia.

By addressing these facets, we can optimize sleep environments and routines, fostering healthier sleep patterns, without being dependent on the sleeping pill industry, and despite the absence of healthy therapeutic options (GHB) for more serious physiological ailments and sleep dysfunctions.

Conclusion

One of the things I’ve repeatedly heard people say through COVID-19 was “if they did this with ivermectin (or hydroxychloroquine), what else have they done this with?” Here, I provide one such example, and sadly, the GHB story is by no means an isolated example (e.g., others are discussed here).

However, while the GHB story is atrocious, on one level I am grateful for it, as had a safe and effective cure for insomnia existed, we likely would have never been forced to learn what the actual underlying causes of sleep impairment are, and likewise, our society would have never conducted the research which demonstrated just how critically important sleep is.

Sadly, one of the greatest problems in medicine is that it typically takes 17 years for scientific discoveries to change the practice of medicine. In turn, despite the dire need for improved sleep in society, it is unlikely this problem will be addressed by the mainstream for a long time (even in areas like intellectually based professions or education where the cognitive impairment resulting from poor sleep is highly counterproductive to the goals of the institution).

I hope the knowledge provided here has given you an appreciation for the importance of healthy sleep and a few helpful approaches you can incorporate into your life!

Author’s note: This is an abbreviated version of a full-length article that takes a deeper look into the causes and treatments of insomnia. For the entire read with much more specific details and sources, please click here.

A home of a former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was raided by the FBI earlier this week, according to NBC. 

The Manhasset house was owned by Linda Sun, who served as the deputy chief of staff to the governor, the report says. 

The FBI commented earlier this week stating it had carried out “court-authorized law enforcement activity”, but refusing to provide further details. 

NBC reported that per her LinkedIn profile, Sun served as a senior advisor on business development, legislative priorities, and “constituent affair engagement” while deputy chief of staff from 2021-22, overseeing executive operations.

After working for the governor, Sun transitioned to the role of deputy commissioner for strategic business development at the state Department of Labor.

In May 2023, she began working as a campaign manager, creating a budget for advertising.

Earlier this year, the FBI also raided the homes of Winnie Greco, a staffer for New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in the Bronx, according to the Associated Press.

Greco, a former fundraiser and current director of Asian affairs for the mayor, was under investigation following allegations she promised an employee a job in exchange for renovating her kitchen, as reported by The City.

Last year, the FBI also raided the homes of Brianna Suggs, a fundraiser for Adams, and Rana Abbasova from the mayor’s international affairs office, according to the Associated Press.

A spokesperson for Adams stated that the mayor expects ethical behavior from all employees.

Adams’ spokesperson said: “Our administration will always follow the law, and we always expect all our employees to adhere to the strictest ethical guidelines.”

“As we have repeatedly said, we don’t comment on matters that are under review, but will fully cooperate with any review underway.”

What is going on in New York?

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

The year was 1994.

Former NFL superstar OJ Simpson has just fled from police in the infamous low speed chase in his white Ford Bronco. Pulp Fiction was playing in the cinemas.

And 29 year old Kamala Harris began dating one of the most powerful politicians in the State of California— Willie Brown.

Brown had been in politics for decades at that point and has risen to become the Speaker of California State Assembly, then Mayor of San Francisco.

(And despite having spent his entire adult life in politics, Brown somehow managed to amass a collection of $6,000 suits and expensive sports cars.)

Willie Brown was also at 60 years of age back in 1994 (he’s 90 now), three decades older than his girlfriend Kamala.

Obviously she was in it for love. I’m sure that’s the case.

But it just so happened that, barely a few months into their steamy relationship, Speaker Willie Brown appointed Kamala to multiple, senior-level positions in the state, including a seat on the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the Medical Assistance Commission.

I’m also sure that Brown appointed his girlfriend due entirely to her competence, and absolutely no other reason whatsoever.

These appointments, along with Sugar Daddy’s public support and endorsement, were integral in Harris’s later campaign to become San Francisco District Attorney, then Attorney General of California in 2010.

Willie Brown also endorsed her for Senate when she declared her candidacy in 2016, and was instrumental in securing her top endorsements, including from Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

Again, all of this success was clearly due exclusively to Kamala’s tremendous competence and nothing more.

Now, a lot of people have been remarking lately that Kamala is a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) hire.

But that’s completely unfair.

Talk about a low blow. I mean, Kamala’s critics have completely missed the point that this woman— who claims to embody female empowerment— got her start by having sex with a powerful California politician 30 years her senior.

So let’s give credit where credit is due: she slept her way to the top well before she became a DEI hire.

In fact it wasn’t until she was picked to be Joe Biden’s running mate that she started benefiting from the DEI obsession.

Curiously, it is now considered racist to even bring this up. CNN has decided that calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “DEI Candidate” is a “pseudonym for the N-word” and “racist dog whistle”.

That’s absurd. Joe Biden’s entire presidency has been about promoting DEI candidates, and he admitted this himself recently when he said:

“To me the values of Diversity, Equality, Inclusion are literally— and that’s not kidding— the core strengths of America. That’s why I’m proud to have the most diverse administration in history that taps into the full talents of our country. It starts at the top with the Vice President.”

Biden also made it perfectly clear in 2020 that he wanted to select a woman of color as his running mate.

So why exactly is it controversial to assert that Kamala was a DEI hire? Is it also controversial that the sky is blue, or that Michael Jordan was an exceptional basketball player?

But these people in charge have a way of acting offended about even the most basic and obvious truths. It’s quite a talent.

Speaking of talent, Kamala has none.

Whenever she opens her mouth, she is as incompressible as Joe Biden yet without the excuse of age and dementia. Like this gem:

“So I think it’s very important… for us, at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past, but the future.”

This is also the person that was put in charge of the border security, which has been a total disaster. But in her televised explanation, she justified having not been to the border by saying she hadn’t been to Europe either.

Wow, really racking up those foreign policy credentials!

And on the topic of foreign policy, check out this inspiring quote as Kamala showcased her encyclopedic understanding of European affairs:

“Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine, so, basically, that’s wrong.”

Note that this wasn’t an interview on Nickelodeon or some event with elementary school kids. This was an actual response in a real interview about the war in Ukraine.

One of my favorite Kamala stories, though, is when she visited Puerto Rico earlier this year.

Protesters were in the streets of San Juan, singing in Spanish. Kamala merrily clapped along, until an aide quietly whispered that the song was protesting her visit as a representation of the federal government’s “colonization” of Puerto Rico.

Her track record as a prosecutor is also far from impressive.

As the Attorney General of California, she prosecuted and incarcerated cannabis users. But in 2019, asked if she herself had ever smoked weed, she cackled and said, “I have. And I inhaled.”

In 2014, Kamala’s office argued to keep non-violent inmates (including from minor drug convictions) locked up so that the state would have free prison labor to fight wildfires.

But Kamala would prefer that her Black Lives Matters voters forget about all that.

The Big Lie they are now force-feeding us is that the party of democracy is energized and united around Kamala Harris.

Personally I think they are terrified and desperate. Deep down they know this woman is an incompetent buffoon. And more importantly, they are still incredibly fractured.

Just look what the radical left has been doing this very week.

Their Marxist foot soldiers have been busy burning American flags, defacing public monuments, and hoisting Hamas flags, while chanting “Allahu Akbar!” in the streets. Curiously most of them are white atheist 20-somethings from upper-middle class upbringings.

And some of the Left’s most prominent politicians boycotted a speech given by the Prime Minister of Israel— one of America’s strongest allies during its time of war.

This continues to look like a group that is completely out of touch, but insists that they have everything under control… which is pretty much par for the course given the last few years under Biden.

Having said all that, it would be foolish to think they won’t pull out all the stops— continue to create all the propaganda, tell whatever lie, manufacture whatever hoax, and suppress whatever truth is necessary to win.

A 22-year-old man was arrested this week after allegedly stealing a Seattle Fire Department truck, according to KOMO. 

On Wednesday morning, the man rode a scooter to the truck, entered it, activated the lights and sirens, and attempted to drive away around 3:30 a.m. on the 9200 block of Second Avenue Southwest.

The suspect couldn’t deactivate the parking brake and only managed to drive around the corner before exiting the vehicle, the report said. 

A witness reported seeing a man on a scooter ride up to a fire engine, get on, and drive away with its lights and sirens on, additional reporting said. 

Police then arrived, confirmed with Seattle Fire Department employees that a fire engine had been stolen.

“The firetruck involved was from South Park-based Engine 26, as noted by the SFD incident log,” the West Seattle Blog reported.

The man was arrested and booked into King County Jail for motor vehicle theft. According to police, the truck was returned to the Seattle Fire Department.

Hoodline reported that this incident is the suspect’s ninth arrest in nine months.

Previous arrests led to short stints in custody, except for his most recent one from June 20 to July 1 for two stolen-vehicle cases, with hearings set for early August.

Despite frequent arrests, he has no past felony convictions.

Authored by John Hilton-O’Brien via The Epoch Times,

There’s been a lot of noise about getting rid of standardized exams. Supposedly, minorities are at a disadvantage with them. Consequently, the argument runs, doing away with standardized exams will allow more minorities to enter into prestigious career paths, enhancing “social justice.”

If you look more closely at the history of standardized exams, however, this isn’t true.  Instead, getting rid of standardized exams serves the interests of an elite class—and will permanently lock minorities and entire classes of people out of social advancement.

Standardized tests have already been eliminated in a number of places. Oregon, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire no longer have bar exams. The University of California no longer uses Standardized Admission Tests as part of its entrance requirement, just like SUNY and an association of Ivy League universities. And in Canada, many provinces are decreasing the use of standardized tests.

But here’s the problem. Without the tests, how do we decide who gets admitted to university?

(Unless, as in the movie “Idiocracy,” we get rid of them.)

How do we decide who becomes a lawyer or a doctor?

The most famous example of a standardized exam is the Public Service Commission Test used to vet applications for government civil service. If we do away with those, how do we decide who is qualified to become a public servant?

Civil service examinations have been around for thousands of years. Imperial China used the examinations to allow young men from any social class or background to enter the imperial bureaucracy. Before that, and during dynasties where the exams were not used, entry into the patrician or bureaucratic class had been restricted by birth.

Of course, entry still wasn’t easy. In imperial China, even more than today, you wouldn’t have the resources to study for the difficult standard exams unless you had access to money. Then, as now, money was a good indicator of success.

But the point is that money wasn’t the only indicator. In fact, the imperial system came to run the exams as a double blind, going so far as to have exam responses copied out by another person, to ensure that nobody received favourable grading because a grader recognized their calligraphy.

The China’s worst times are instructive for us, too. When the Mongol Yuan dynasty took over, they did away with the exams. When they returned them, only 25 percent of the exam seats were allotted to the majority Han Chinese ethnicity. How did they decide which Han wrote the exams? Letters of reference, of course, from existing bureaucrats or their Mongol overlords. Without open standardized exams, in other words, advancement was based on who you knew.

That’s becoming true in the West today—complete with attempts at Yuan-style race-based admissions.

As anybody who has ever applied to an elite university knows, reference letters are already important. If you’re entering a profession like medicine or law, a good reference letter can mean the difference between getting that coveted residency and not. Reference letters already reinforce pedigree—what university or prep school you attended. Even admissions specialists who hate reference letters admit they make a difference—and expensive prep schools write much better reference letters.

In the absence of standardized tests and grading, reference letters will become even more important. And how are those rated? By who wrote them. The letter from an elite prep school is noticed as a letter from an elite school, regardless of content, and that tells the admissions expert what she or he needs to know.

Who decides who becomes a lawyer? The partners in the law firms. And how will they choose their candidates? In the absence of a standardized bar exam, admission will depend on who the partners know. The same is true for doctors.

If we wind up doing away with the public service admission tests, worse will follow.  Imagine a government whose civil service is hired based on who they know. The West has been here before—but not since the days of the absolute monarchs.

So, who benefits from ending standardized tests? We suspect it is not the students.

There is a sort of feedback loop inside the education industry, when the same people designing the curriculum are the ones testing for it. Internal tests such as “performance-based assessment” check only to see if the students can do what the teacher told them to do.  They don’t check to see if it will help the student in the environment that they are going to. In other words, little Suzy may consistently get top marks for her “holistic” language arts classes—but when she graduates, outsiders find that she can’t read or write.

Externally administered standardized tests are the best way to make sure that the education system helps anyone aside from the teachers’ unions.

You know who isn’t interested in dropping standardized test scores? Minorities who aren’t part of the “favoured” few. Part of the reason that elite U.S. universities are dropping standardized exams is that the U.S. Supreme Court told them that they couldn’t have race-based admission courses that left Asian-American students out in the cold. Dropping standardized tests allows universities to engage in discrimination without legal pushback. The racial policies of the Yuan and Qin dynasties live again in the Ivy League.

Today, the abandonment of standardized testing is done specifically to disadvantage poor whites, as well as Asian students. The official reason given is that institutions—which claim to be guided by the highest ideals—can favour African American and Hispanic students in the United States, and (hopefully) First Nations in Canada. In the name of social justice, of course.

But without standardized tests, admission decisions are arbitrary. Tomorrow, African-Americans, Hispanics, and First Nations may find that not all of them are favoured. Instead, favour will go to particular African American families, particular Hispanic families, and particular First Nations families. Skin tone doesn’t tell us the real story here.

The simple truth of North American society is that we are developing a class system.  Those trying to get rid of standardized testing tell us outright that their motive is to decide who joins their social class of educated functionaries. They are trying to restrict entry. They are trying to become a self-selecting aristocracy.

The only mechanism that ensures everyone with academic ability can have access to universities, professions, and civil service is standardized exams. We abandon them at our peril.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has argued in a new court filing that former President Trump’s criminal case and guilty verdict are not affected by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.

“That decision has no bearing on this prosecution and would not support vacatur of the jury’s unanimous verdict (let alone dismissal of the indictment) even if its reasoning did apply here,” reads a July 24 brief from Bragg’s team.

Earlier this month the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for core constitutional conduct, presumptive immunity for official acts, but no immunity for unofficial acts – which Bragg has seized on in his response to a Trump filing asking New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to toss Trump’s indictment, arguing that communications between Trump and his aides have been used as evidence before the grand jury which indicted Trump and a jury which returned a guilty verdict.

According to Bragg’s team, all of the criminal charges in Trump’s ‘hush money’ case “stem from the defendant’s ‘unofficial acts’ – conduct for which ‘there is no immunity.'”

As the Epoch Times notes further, the affected evidence is only a “sliver” if the “mountains of testimony and documentary proof that the jury considered,” therefore not warranting dismissal.

Timing of Objections

Prosecutors had relied on testimony of White House Communications Director Hope Hicks and Oval Office Director of Operations Madeleine Westerhout to establish that President Trump had signed Trump Organization checks at the White House.

Defense attorneys had raised presidential immunity objections to Ms. Hicks’s testimony, and Justice Merchan had overruled the objections. The defense had also objected during Ms. Westerhout’s testimony, but not specifically citing presidential immunity.

Prosecutors had also shown several social media posts made by President Trump during his time in office, some directly addressing allegations after his former attorney Michael Cohen was charged for financial crimes.

Defense attorneys had objected to the admission of these quotes, but not on the basis of presidential immunity.

Prosecutors argue defendants failed to preserve a record of objections based on immunity for official acts, and this “precludes this Court from considering any claim to vacate his conviction.”

Prior to the trial, attorneys for President Trump did file a presidential immunity motion. Justice Merchan had dismissed the motion, ruling that defense attorneys could make individual objections against the admission of specific evidence during the trial and that he did not believe the motion was filed in good faith. The judge had faulted defendants for not raising presidential immunity earlier, including during an attempt to remove the case to federal court.

Prosecutors now argue that the defense “waived reliance on presidential immunity as a defense” when they tried to remove the case to federal court. They cited a separate, civil case against former President Trump in which a federal judge had ruled that presidential immunity was a waivable defense. However, the U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion held presidential immunity to be necessary to the core principle of separation of powers.

Charges

Former President Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, and prosecutors argued that even excluding the contested evidence, the grand jury evidence establishes these charges.

The 34 records are 11 checks to Mr. Cohen and their corresponding invoices and vouchers, including one repeated record after the initial one was lost. Prosecutors argue that the grand jury record establishes that these are business records, that they contain false entries, that former President Trump caused or made the entries, and that he “acted with intent to defraud.”

“Even excluding all of the evidence defendant belatedly identifies as immune, the grand jury record is easily sufficient to support the indictment,” the brief reads.

Justice Merchan has scheduled former President Trump’s sentencing in the case to Sept. 18. The judge is expected to issue a ruling on the presidential immunity arguments by then.

Authored by W.J.Astore via BracingViews.com,

They’re Everywhere in America

Soon after Joe Biden took office as president in 2021, I remember hearing that his VP, Kamala Harris, was put in charge of immigration, informally known as the “border czar.” Yesterday, the House passed a resolution condemning Harris for her handling of the border crisis. Yet I’ve also been hearing from Democrats and the media that Harris never was the border czar, even as there’s plenty of video evidence of networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC referring to her using that term.

Denying that Harris was the border czar is a fairly small lie immersed in much larger sea of lies, and of course it’s a bipartisan effort. Donald Trump exaggerates and lies just to stay in shape. Democrats love to attack Trump for lying even as they lie themselves. Truly, it’s hard to run a government and a country when lies confuse every issue.

Another lie being told about Kamala Harris is that her candidacy is the result of democracy in action. She’s the people’s choice! Except almost nobody voted for her as a presidential candidate. She’s been elevated and selected by the DNC and the donor class. She is a packaged product of the so-called elites within the party, the very opposite of a candidate chosen by the people. And yet I’m told this packaged product is going to “save democracy” from Trump, who was actually selected as a candidate in a more democratic process.

Of course, there are far bigger and more serious lies than whether Harris was the border czar or whether she’s the people’s choice as the savior of democracy. U.S. troops’ deadliest enemies, I’d argue, are most often the lies told by the U.S. government, abetted and amplified by senior officers in the military. Think here of Iraq and Afghanistan, or go back further to Vietnam.

Daniel Ellsberg, truth-teller about the Vietnam War and so many other things

Knowing (or sensing/feeling) you killed for lies, or knowing your friends died for lies, is surely a contributing cause to a rash of suicides in the U.S. military today. The sacrifices and horrors of war may be eased by a “just” war, like World War II, but they are aggravated by unjust wars.  And they are further aggravated when you try to get help through the VA only to be turned away or stonewalled.

All this is prologue to a note I received from a regular reader of Bracing Views about lies in America. I’ve decided to retain the profanity because it’s more than appropriate:

I don’t know about you, but I find it quite amazing that, despite decades of bold-faced lying about US wars, all of it proven and even reported in the NYT and other mainstream media, the narrative of the each subsequent war is always accepted as true, until it too is exposed as being nothing but lies.

Let’s look at the recent record:

1) Vietnam–exposed as nothing but lies by the Pentagon Papers.

2) Iraq–exposed as lies when the infamous WMD were never found and there was nothing found to back up the claim of links to Al Qaeda.

3) Afghanistan–exposed as pure fiction as revealed by the Washington Post “Afghanistan Papers” which said that “senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”

Add to the above list the fact that the Mueller report investigating the Russiagate hoax came up with nothing, ZERO.

Currently, there are a couple of new false narratives duly reported by the mainstream media and, for the most part, swallowed by most people. First is the false narrative about the US war in Ukraine, that NATO expansion has nothing to do with it but rather was caused by naked Russian aggression and Putin’s plans to re-create the Soviet Union and take over the rest of Eastern Europe. Second, the false narrative that Israel is just defending itself against Palestinian terrorism rather than committing grotesque war crimes, completely ignoring the fact that the Israelis have been keeping the Palestinians under illegal occupation for over 50 years, since June 1967. 

Lie after lie after lie after lie. And yet none of it matters. It is all sent down the memory hole as if it never happened. And then it is on to the next war, when the official narrative spewed out by the DC blob will once again be swallowed hook, line and sinker. It appears to be never ending. No matter how much lying is exposed, it simply does not matter.

I think it is pretty fucking amazing. What will it take to get people to come out of their coma and realize what the fuck is going on?

And keep in mind…..it has nothing to do with party affiliation. The lying is endemic, it’s in the DNA of the National Security State. Presidents come and go, but the lying for war-making never stops. And no one is ever held accountable either. 

It’s pretty fucking impressive, when you think about it.

Keep this is in mind……one would think that, after this abhorrent track record, the appropriate response would be to assume that the narrative justifying the new war of the moment was not true and nothing but more of the same lying. But that NEVER happens. NEVER.

How is that possible? Is it just a serious form of denial? Is it due to mental illness? Is it just some perverted form of patriotism? In what other realm is it possible to lie non-stop and never be held accountable? Even worse, to continue to have credibility despite a track record of pathological lying? 

A friend of mine pointed out that, in the old USSR, people knew that the official news on their TV every night was nothing but lies. 

So, this begs the question: Which system is more pernicious and has more effectively brainwashed its people? The one where people are controlled but they are aware that they are being fed nothing but lies, or the one that is constantly lied to but the people still believe they are being told the truth?

To those keen insights, I made this reply:

Our [American] system of lying is better! We have state/corporate media too, it’s just more subtle and advertised as “free.” We have our own “Pravda” except it rarely tells the truth, unless that “truth” is in the interests of the powerful.

To which our BV keen reader replied:

Exactly. But to suggest that we have our own version of “Pravda,” only worse because it has the cover of supposedly being “free,” is tantamount to treason, you realize.

This is the reason why Julian Assange/Wikileaks was such a threat…for actually challenging the right of the National Security State to lie non-stop about its war making and never be exposed for its lying or held accountable.

Of course, that is exactly why Assange was locked away in prison for so long and tortured, not because he was spreading lies but because he was revealing truths.

And we can’t have that in America!

After being caught driving 71 in a 35 mph zone, Arizona State Senator Justine Wadsack is claiming she is the victim of “political persecution”. 

As a result, she’s refusing the sign the citation, according to reports from Jalopnik, citing the Tucson Sentinel. 

According to the report, in Arizona, driving 20 mph or more over the speed limit is a Class 3 misdemeanor. The penalties include up to 30 days in jail, up to a year of probation, a $500 fine, and three points on your license.

And in further proof our politicians get too much leeway, the incident occurred in March, but Wadsack wasn’t ticketed due to her legislative immunity. Legislators can be charged after the session ends, which this year was on June 15.

At that point, when the Tucson PD tried to have her sign the citation, and officer said she “immediately became defensive and argued that she was in fact not speeding.”

The officer continued: “I explained that there was probable cause to issue her a citation for criminal speeding and that she could present her arguments to the judge; however, she refused to meet to sign the citation and said she would not accept it.”

She was “also was upset that she was being cited several months after the fact and I explained that was due to the legislative session was ongoing at the time of the traffic stop (thus legislative immunity to be issued a ticket on March 15) however it did not prevent her from receiving a ticket once the legislative session adjourned.” 

Then, she demanded to speak with the manager with the chief of police and claimed “political persecution”. 

City attorney Mike Rankin commented: “Citing someone – Ms. Wadsack or anyone else – for putting other people in danger by driving at speeds more than 20 miles per hour above the posted speed limit within city limits is not ‘persecution.’ It is prosecution.”

When asked why she was driving more than twice the speed limit, Wadsack claimed she was rushing home because her 2015 Tesla Model S had a low battery.

This excuse is illogical, as electric vehicles are less efficient at high speeds. Even if she had a more plausible reason, like needing a restroom, she was still caught driving 36 mph over the limit. This behavior is reckless and dangerous, the report said, especially near the University of Arizona, where pedestrians are common.

Additionally, Wadsack’s claimed residence raises questions. She and her husband own a home outside the district she represents. She listed an apartment in the district when running for office but now allegedly lives in a different apartment.

When stopped, she was about 10 blocks from her house, 17 miles from one apartment, and 19 miles from the other.