Republican News

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This morning Hamas and Israel announced the truce was being extended for another day, clearly in hopes that more hostages would be released. But it seems some Hamas members didn’t get the message. This morning, two heavily armed men got out of their car at a Jerusalem bus stop and started shooting at the civilians who were standing there.

At least three people were killed and seven wounded after a shooting in Jerusalem Thursday, according to local authorities.

“The terrorists are from east Jerusalem. They were armed with M-16 rifle and a pistol. They arrived with a car and opened fire at civilians,” police chief Doron Turgeman said Thursday…

In a separate update, the Israel Police Spokesperson’s Unit said the attackers opened fire toward civilians at the bus station at approximately 7:40 a.m. local time on Thursday.

Hamas was quick to claim credit for the killings so there’s no doubt who is responsible.

Hamas said the attackers behind a Jerusalem bus stop shooting that killed three people on Thursday were members of its military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades…

Hamas celebrated the attack, and said it was “a direct response to the unprecedented crimes committed by the occupying forces, including brutal massacres in the Gaza Strip, the killing of children in Jenin, and widespread violations against Palestinian prisoners. Moreover, the continued violations in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the prevention of worshippers’ access to it,” Hamas added.

Hamas warned Israel of attacks in “every city, village, street and alley.”

As for the terrorists, they were identified as brothers in their 30s. Both were long time members of Hamas.

The terrorists were named as brothers Murad Nemer, 38, and Ibrahim Nemer, 30, residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher. According to the Shin Bet security agency, the pair were Hamas members and previously jailed for terror activity.

Murad was jailed between 2010 and 2020 for planning terror attacks under directions of terror elements in the Gaza Strip and Ibrahim was jailed in 2014 for undisclosed terror activity, the agency said.

Here’s video of the attack:

Surveillance camera footage shows the shooting attack at the entrance to Jerusalem this morning. Two people were killed, and at least seven others were hurt. Two off-duty soldiers and an armed civilian shot the terrorists dead. pic.twitter.com/CwucVb5IV7

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 30, 2023

The victims included an elderly rabbi, a woman in her 60s and a 24-year-old woman who was pregnant with her first child.

Livia Dickman, 24 years old, pregnant,
Was murdered in the shooting attack near Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/PjumhVGot8

— Adin – עדין (@AdinHaykin1) November 30, 2023

That wasn’t even the only attack by Hamas today.

Separately on Thursday, two reservist soldiers were lightly hurt in a car-ramming attack at a checkpoint in the northern Jordan Valley, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Troops at the scene shot the suspected assailant.

Thursday’s attacks came as a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip was holding for the sixth day.

A few weeks ago as the American left began demanding a ceasefire, several people asked what should happen if a ceasefire was declared and Hamas violated it. It’s a pretty simple question but I never saw the ceasefire crowd offer an answer, probably because they knew it was inevitable.

There’s no doubt Hamas aimed this bus stop attack at civilians and they did it on a day when a truce had been extended. They not only claimed credit for the attack, they celebrated the shooters’ actions and vowed more attacks. So it seems Hamas has decided they’ve had enough of the truce and aren’t interested in a longer term ceasefire. They want to get back to killing Israelis in “every city, village, street and alley.” They are literally celebrating the murder of a pregnant woman at a bus stop. What kind of peace is possible with Hamas?

Will the leftist ceasefire crowd learn anything from this? Will it finally get through to them that Hamas has no interest in peace with Israel? My guess is it will not. The far left will keep chanting for a ceasefire and ignore the fact that Hamas couldn’t even maintain a truce for a full week.

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Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman, a member of the House Weaponization of Government committee, is still trying to maintain that there is a vast Right-wing conspiracy to smear Hunter Biden using a faked laptop hard drive.

WOW. @RepDanGoldman still doesn’t believe that the Hunter Biden laptop is real.

How embarassing. pic.twitter.com/hg4KLLxpRh

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) November 30, 2023

The clip comes from a hearing being held in which journalist Michael Shellenberger and others are testifying about the censorship-industrial complex. Shellenberger has tons of receipts and has written extensively about how government, NGOs, and social media companies collaborated to shape the political discussion by spreading falsehoods, censoring dissenters, and even shutting down the official communications of sitting congressmen.

Goldman has a problem: all of this is true. So, he has fallen back on the tried and true strategy of simply lying.

The lies don’t work with people who have developed an appropriate level of skepticism–an immune system of sorts that protects them from dis- and misinformation spread by the Left. It also doesn’t convince their own side because they don’t care about the truth. The people to whom it is directed are the low-information voters who desperately want to believe that the system is not rigged.

The Biden laptop must be one of the most verified documents in the world right now. Every major media outlet has confirmed its authenticity–reluctantly and late in most cases–and the FBI verified its authenticity as far back as 2019.

In this particular case, what is at stake for Goldman is not any consequences for Biden–either Joe or Hunter–but the fate of the censorship complex itself. Censorship and misinformation have become a cornerstone of the Left’s strategy, which explains their obsession with Elon Musk and Twitter/X. One of the most notorious examples of how censorship was used to manipulate the political process is the censorship of the New York Post’s story on the laptop, which was predicated on the idea that it was Russian disinformation.

It wasn’t, of course, and it is important to maintain the plausibility of the claim that it was. If a consensus develops that Twitter, Facebook, and the MSM shut down the dissemination of that information just before the 2020 election, it becomes indisputable that the election was rigged not just by social media companies but by intelligence officials, government-funded NGOs, and other media outlets who spread lies to muddy the waters.

So Goldman maintains the fiction that the laptop was faked. Everybody in the room knows he is lying, just as everybody knows because it is documented that social media companies agreed to government demands to censor other true but inconvenient information. The entire COVID communication strategy was predicated on spreading falsehoods (see my earlier column today for just one example).

NOW – Shellenberger: “US and UK military contractors” deployed “sophisticated psychological operations and disinformation tactics… against the American people.”pic.twitter.com/yEzXAwvBvY

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) November 30, 2023

What is striking about the story of how censorship and intentional misinformation have been covered is the complete absence of coverage by the MSM. They ignore the fact that government agents engaged in a years-long and illegal effort to manipulate information and the electoral system to regain power. And since the MSM has become essentially an agent of the bureaucratic state it, too, must maintain the fiction that everything is normal.

Matt Taibbi, Shellenberger, and Bair Weiss have shouldered all the burden of covering this story because nobody else outside alternative media wants to cover it.

In other words, the con goes on.

What’s interesting about all this is that most people have caught on but feel powerless to get solid information. They know their chains are being pulled, but have neither the time nor inclination to spend hours each day to suss out the truth.

The result is a collapse in social trust–one that may very well be fatal to the Republic.

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The city of Minneapolis was the site of the infamous 2020 incident that turned George Floyd into a cultural icon and kicked the “defund the police” movement into high gear. Riots across the nation followed, with billions of dollars in damage caused and dozens of people being killed. Floyd was lionized to the point where the city named the intersection where he died “George Floyd Square.” But that was three years ago and some things have changed since then. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that many of those things have not changed, but people have become fed up with them. Now, a group of five businesses located in George Floyd Square are suing the city. They claim that the barriers erected there to “protect” the protesters drove away customers and that the subsequent lack of policing has made their neighborhood too dangerous for people to shop there. The irony in this story is rich indeed. (National Review)

The owners of several businesses at the intersection where George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 are suing the progressive city, claiming that they were financially harmed by the concrete barriers erected in the street for over a year and by an intentional draw-down of policing that led to a rise in lawlessness in the area.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Cup Foods, now known as Unity Foods, the store where Floyd tried to pass a phony $20 bill before police were called, as well as businesses that operate within the store and an investment firm that operates out of the same address. The five businesses that are plaintiffs in the lawsuit are all owned by the same family, according to a Minnesota Public Radio report.

The plaintiffs are seeking more than $1.5 million in damages from the city. The 19-page lawsuit was filed in Hennepin County District Court in mid-November.

In the aftermath of the erection of the barricaded “cop-free zone,” there was a steady increase in the rates of murder, rape, assault, and robbery. More than two years later those trends have failed to abate. The crime rate in the vicinity of the square remains higher than anywhere else in Minneapolis.

In some ways, the city really did bring this lawsuit on itself. When the barriers were first put up, the municipal government “actively supported” the creation of the zone. The police publicly announced that they would minimize their presence in and around the square. The results were wholly predictable. When you remove the police presence, criminals notice and seek to take advantage of the situation. And now the businesses are seeking to cash in on the results.

This is what happens when you surrender to mob rule, and mob rule was precisely what took place in Minneapolis in 2020. The media played up all of that activity as if it were somehow honorable and deserved. The word traveled around the country and the riots spread like a virus from city to city. And the vast majority of the participants were not out there demanding “social justice” reforms. They were looting and burning as they went.

The riots mostly died down after the “summer of love,” but in Minneapolis, the barriers stayed up for nearly a year. By the time the city finally removed them and reopened the streets, the damage had already been done. A previously modestly prosperous neighborhood had been converted into a dangerous slum. The business owners bringing the suit claim that their property value dropped from roughly two million dollars before the riots to about $200,000 today. Many people are still afraid to come to the square to shop.

While the city clearly bears some of the blame for all of this, the residents might want to ask themselves a more fundamental question. Why are there so many criminals and those prone to crime packed so densely into one neighborhood? An increased police presence might cut back on some of the problems, but they won’t be able to make the criminal element disappear entirely. Sometimes change has to begin from the inside before the government can try to fix things externally.

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COP28 is in fool (no typo there) swing in Dubai right now, and things are already getting testy.

The COP28 presidency passed to the United Arab Emirates in the person of Sultan Al Jaber. His thank you and welcoming opening remarks threw a bit of a bomb into the gathering of climate cultists.

The president of COP28 talks in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates said Thursday that the “role of fossil fuels” must be included in a deal at the UN’s climate talks. “It is essential that no issue is left off the table,” Sultan Al Jaber, who is also head of the UAE’s national oil and gas company, said at the opening of the two-week conference in Dubai. FRANCE 24’s Valérie Dekimpe reports from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

It was also excessively awkward, as – at the same time – the sultan was busy denying a published BBC report that he’d used his position as the head of this gathering of Gaia’s lesser angels to make sure a few big oil deals got done on the side. I mean, everyone was going to be in town anyway, weren’t they?

There’s a problem?

The Emirati president-designate for the upcoming United Nations COP28 climate talks forcefully denied Wednesday a report alleging his nation planned to use the summit to strike oil and gas deals.

Sultan al-Jaber, who also leads the massive state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., called the allegations from a BBC report “an attempt to undermine the work of the COP28 presidency” before the talks were set to begin on Thursday. The report cited what it described as “leaked briefing documents” the broadcaster said showed the Emirates planned to discuss oil, gas and renewable energy deals with several nations.

“These allegations are false, not true, incorrect and not accurate,” al-Jaber told a small group of journalists gathered for a news conference that also was aired live. “I promise you never ever did I see these talking points that they refer to or that I ever even used such talking points in my discussions.”

He added: “So please for once, respect who we are, respect what we have achieved over the years and respect the fact that we have been clear open and clean and honest and transparent on how we want to conduct this COP process.”

This is the Arab version of “How dare you!” when they get busted.

But it’s all for show in any event. None of the elitists tut-tutting behind the hands covering their shocked-face mouths could have gotten to Dubai without those very same fossil fuels. I guarantee you, most of the travelers used boatloads more of their carbon allowance in that one trip than many of us will exhaust in a lifetime.

…For instance, consider Leonardo DiCaprio, the Oscar-winning celebrity infamous for his travel by private jet. Leonardo’s typical trip on a G550 aircraft — a type of jet that he has used before — between New York and Dubai will emit approximately 52 metric tons of CO2 according to an emission calculator provided by Paramount Business Jets.

Now, let’s compare this jaw-dropping figure to the average person in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who emits a mere 0.08 metric tons of CO2 per year. Leonardo’s one-way trip on a luxurious G550 jet from New York to Dubai would generate emissions that are a staggering 650 times higher than the yearly emissions of a person in the DRC.

Hypocrite much? Oh, they hypocrite plenty.

Take this fellow here, who wants to reduce “agriculture” also known as “food.” When queried during the interview about the general retreat from NetZero being seen around the world, he is nearly in tears, although he tries manfully to keep a stiff upper Lurch-lip.

In reference to Net Zero: “I don’t believe any politician can stop what is happening now.”

With an unmistakable look of defeat in his eyes, John Kerry attempts to convince himself he’s on the winning side, as millions around the world continue to awaken to the #ClimateScam.… pic.twitter.com/omvJOhV1aX

— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) November 24, 2023

“…It tells me some people are being swayed by money…and they’re not following through on some of the promises…”

“Swayed” by money?

Maybe he’s talking about the FIVE TRILLION DOLLAR COLLAPSE in ESG funds in only two years’ time. That’s a number that’s pretty persuasive in most anyone’s book. But it’s not that they aren’t following through on promises because of it, but because following through on those promises LOST IT afterwards.

Global investments in trendy sustainability assets shrank by nearly $5 trillion over two years, researchers say, as US and other financiers soured on investments seen as risky and opaque.

In its biannual assessment, the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA) said on Wednesday that investors had $30.3 trillion in sustainable assets in 2022, down from $35.3 trillion in 2020.

…ESG refers to a set of standards for a firm’s behavior that guide investors on where to put their money — for example, by funding wind farms to combat climate change, while pulling out of harmful oil and tobacco giants.

The strategy gets more controversial when it guides funding to firms promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) schemes, which irk conservatives, who say they help women and minorities by sidelining white men.

…But the breathless pace of the ESG boom that characterized the previous decade appears to be winding down and even reversing as ever more traders and fund managers sour on the asset class.

The S&P Global Clean Energy Index has plunged 30 percent this year, as higher interest rates and supply-chain bottlenecks hammer wind and solar stocks.

…’Sustainable bonds make for bad investments when they actually meet the radical left’s definition of sustainable, and when they don’t, Wall Street greenwashes them to justify the higher fees they charge for selling them,’ added Hild.

‘It’s a scam on investors either way.’

Not to mention, regulations are catching up to the unicorn fart dream schemes.

…New regulations across jurisdictions is forcing asset managers to justify ESG claims that previously went unchecked, researchers said in their report.

And it is just the weirdest thing how they never stand up to scrutiny when finally forced to explain themselves and show the #mathz.

It NEVER adds up.

The other problem with the COP party in Dubai’s supposed war on gas and oil is that many of the attendees aren’t pretending anymore. They won’t sign away their rights to develop and utilize their own natural resources to live Third World lives any longer in order to appease the sensibilities of Kerry, DeCaprio, the European Union, Thunberg, et al – all of whom themselves are warm, comfortable and well-fed.

As my friend and African advocate for self-determination Jusper Machugo basically says, keep your windmills. Give us diesel, tractors, synthetic fertilizers, electricity for cities – not just a lightbulb in a hut powered by a solar cell outside.

You guys preaching to us – the Western governments and environmental organizations – preaching to us about climate change: Climate change is not a big problem to Africans. We have far bigger problems. We have people sleeping hungry. We have people who are very poor. We have people without electricity. We have people who don’t have access to clean water. Those are our “big problems.” We have people cooking with firewood.

And you’re telling us we should care about the environment, about climate change. What is climate change anyway?

So my message to African leaders is, “Don’t be bribed. Stand firm. Don’t even attend the COP meeting. If those people want to make decisions and policies for us, let them make policy.”

But we are going to say no to neo-colonialism in the name of climate change. We should be on about humans flourishing, African developing, and that’s my message.

Why does Africa need Fossil Fuels?
The energy industry powers every other industry. Because we want to flourish, we want to replace~90% of SS Africa’s energy that comes from burning firewood, 🐄 💩 & crop residue. But esp because we want to feed ourselves, beat hunger, and.. pic.twitter.com/S29B41ddsO

— Jusper Machogu (@JusperMachogu) November 29, 2023

The climate cult at COP is onboard with restricting Africa’s access to synthetic fertilizers over “environmental” concerns even as their own countries feed themselves and other countries using the very same.

…Increasing agricultural productivity in Africa and other parts of the world is central to meeting the rising demand for food. In Africa, raising productivity will require much greater use of synthetic fertilizer. While critiques of fertilizer usage are common amongst Western environmentalists, many national governments and international organizations have embraced the need for more and better agricultural inputs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Innovations to increase the returns to the use of fertilizer while also reducing harmful side effects will be critical to meeting the demand for food. Increasing the productivity of agriculture and making investments in the greening of fertilizer should be the focus of rich countries as well as development banks and other organizations that play a role in alleviating food insecurity and hunger in Africa.

Hypocrite much? Oh, they hypocrite plenty.

India is another participant who, though attending, are not playing the anti-fossil-fuel fool’s game, either. And why not?

Because they realize, as Africa should, India has a right to GROW.

…At the 2022 gathering in Egypt, climate luminaries put forth a pioneering proposition to phase out all fossil fuels. Again, India persistently opposed such a course of action, opting instead to pursue a “phase down” rather than a “phaseout” of fossil fuels. With no intention to decrease its consumption of fossil fuels, the country has boldly put off net zero, the holy grail of the climate-obsessed, until 2070.

Unbeknownst to many, Indian Power Minister R.K. Singh conceded in August that meeting the burgeoning energy needs of a developing country like India would be unattainable without a noticeable escalation in the utilization of fossil fuels.

“If you have an economy that is growing at 7%, electricity from coal will also grow,” he said.

“We will meet the energy requirement for our growth because we have a right to grow.”

CNBC reports unanimous agreement among analysts that India’s solar, wind and hydro energy capabilities are deemed unreliable to support growing power needs. Sooraj Narayan, Wood Mackenzie’s senior research analyst, says that India’s “heightened power demand necessitates a reliable, cost-effective, and consistent power generation source, which coal currently fulfills.”

It’s going to be an interesting couple of weeks as voices who might previously been bought off with trinkets, promises of checks, and a wind turbine or two start to assert themselves.

…In recent years, discord has emerged between developed economies embracing so-called green agendas and impoverished nations being pressured to adopt the same “decarbonization” objectives. Many voices in the global South and East believe that the West’s call for decarbonization exposes their hypocrisy both collectively and at a personal level.

It could even blow the whole scam up.

[CUE: sad trombone]

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Tonight is the highly-anticipated debate between Governor Ron DeSantis and Governor Gavin Newsom. Airing on Fox News Channel, and set up by primetime host Sean Hannity, there will be no live audience. Hannity said he worked closely with the two governors’ teams to put the terms of the event in place.

Hannity is the longest-running primetime cable news host. His show is regularly one of the top-rated primetime shows. He seems to be a hands-on host so it isn’t much of a surprise that he was involved in setting up this event. After all, he invited both Newsom and DeSantis to debate during on-air interviews. Is this debate necessary? I think that depends on a viewer’s level of interest in the 2024 presidential race. Both of these men are running for president. Only one admits it.

Gavin Newsom has shown his obsession with Ron DeSantis for months. Newsom regularly inserts his opinion on the DeSantis agenda in Florida. The arguing back and forth between the two governors makes a televised debate a natural progression of their relationship. In the lead-up to a presidential election, it is natural that a debate centered on the stark contrast between the red state Florida and the blue state California came to be.

The popularity of Ron DeSantis in Florida is undeniable. He won re-election by almost 20 points. Purple swing state Florida is now a solidly red state. On the flip side, California is a failing state. The socialist policies of Newsom and other Democrats are destroying a once-thriving state. Case in point – look no further than Newsom’s own family. His in-laws moved to Florida during the pandemic to pursue greater freedom. They supported the re-election of DeSantis as campaign donors. That’s got to sting.

Voters are looking for alternatives to Joe Biden and Donald Trump. DeSantis is challenging Trump in the Republican primary. Newsom is coy about his presidential ambition. Newsom is running a shadow campaign, making all the right moves that a person running for president would do. The showdown on Fox will be a good glimpse into the sharp contrast between the two governors.

Let me say that this debate will be a no-win situation for DeSantis. I expect that he will win on the merits of the debate but look for Newsom to be declared the winner. Both men are strong on policy and both men are smart. Newsom is a smooth talker, whether we like what he is saying or not. Team Trump and Team Haley will have the long knives out for DeSantis. Some red-on-red elbow-throwing will happen. I almost expect Trump to live-blog the debate on his Truth Social page. The media will declare Newsom the winner.

The DeSantis campaign points to the next debate as the biggest one yet. The Newsom camp claims that tonight’s debate will be rigged for DeSantis.

‘ We are under no illusions – this is a 2 on 1 match with the refs in the tank for the home team,’ Click told Dailymail.com. ‘But Gov. Newsom has long believed that Democrats have to go on offense in enemy territory, and that’s exactly what he intends to do.’

Hannity is the lone moderator and there will be no live audience. This will provide a distraction-free debate. This debate is a timely one. It seems that some operatives are working behind the scenes at the White House to force Biden to get out of the race and allow a younger, more vibrant Democrat to run. There is no doubt that if Biden did leave the race, Newsom would jump in. On the flip side, no one expects Trump to step aside.

Newsom insists he does not have ambitions to run for president this year, but DeSantis falls among those speculating that he might mount a 2024 bid if Biden, 81, for some reason is no longer in the race.

Click told DailyMail.com that viewers should ‘[e]xpect him to defend the President and use the opportunity to contrast the President’s record of delivering for the middle class with Desantis’ (sic) and the rest of the GOP field’s enthusiasm for taking away Americans’ freedoms.’

That will be a big hill for Newsom to climb. The president has failed miserably to “deliver for the middle class.” Americans are struggling to afford the basics of groceries, gas for their car, mortgage or rent payments, and raising their children. A whopping 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. This is not a successful presidency. Interestingly, Newsom is willing to come on Hannity’s show, as he has done more than once, and deliver his message. He is one of the few progressive politicians willing to do so.

Hannity told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview on Tuesday how he brokered the terms of the upcoming debate and managed to get them in a room together.

The Fox News host said he stepped in to navigate the back-and-forth between the governors and revealed that those chats included at least one of the men requesting no in-studio audience.

‘I personally negotiated or navigated – I don’t know what you want to call it,’ Hannity said. ‘I took on the crazy position of personally handling this myself. I thought it was too important.’

The Wall Street Journal editorial board published an op-ed on the scorecard between DeSantis and Newsom. That scorecard goes through a variety of topics and compares the approaches by both governors.

Sacramento has rushed to the left in recent decades while Tallahassee has moved to the right. Since winning election in 2018, Messrs. Newsom and DeSantis have advanced sharply different policies on Covid lockdowns, taxes, school choice and climate regulation, among other things.

Our guess is that Mr. Newsom won’t want to talk about much of this and will instead spend most of his time flogging abortion and Donald Trump. But that will be revealing too.

I’ll be tuning in. I may even pop some popcorn. It should be a good show.

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The company is called Loyal Source Government Services and since 2020 it has had the contract to provide medical services to migrants who cross the US border. Now a whistleblower has come forward to claim that Loyal Source has had a host of problems including short-staffing, billing errors, poor record-keeping, unlicensed personnel and poor quality of care. All of this matters because, despite clear evidence of problems and the death of an 8-year-old girl this May, Loyal Source is now a finalist for a $1.5 billion contract to continue providing medical services to the CBP.

The whistleblower also claims he faced retaliation after trying to raise concern about the company’s problems.

Attorneys for Troy Hendrickson, a 15-year CBP veteran, told lawmakers in a letter that their client was reassigned by supervisors after raising concerns about the track record of medical contractor Loyal Source Government Services…

Hendrickson’s concerns about Loyal Source included what he described as 40 percent staffing deficits, employees working without proper clearances and licenses, and billing errors resulting in overpayments of millions of dollars, among other issues, according to his attorneys…

Hendrickson’s lawyers told lawmakers that their client had tried since January 2022 to get CBP to issue Loyal Source a warning notice seeking immediate improvements in areas such as record-keeping and urgent care practices, but his efforts were repeatedly thwarted by his supervisors in the contracting office.

All of this concern escalated after the death of a young girl in May.

Loyal Source’s performance came under greater scrutiny after CBP began investigating the death of 8-year-old Anadith Danay Reyes Álvarez, who was held in U.S. custody for nine days after crossing the border illegally with her family in May.

As Anadith, who was born in Panama, fell ill and her condition deteriorated, Loyal Source medical staff denied requests from her mother for urgent medical attention, according to CBP investigators and a court-appointed pediatrician who oversees care for migrant children in U.S. custody. The staff also mishandled records showing the girl had a heart condition and sickle cell anemia.

CBP investigated the situation and concluded that Loyal Source personnel had refused to call an ambulance for the girl even as her condition deteriorated.

Between the time the family arrived at Harlingen Station on the evening of May 14 and the early morning hours of May 17, CBP contracted medical personnel reported having approximately nine encounters with the girl and her mother, who complained of fever, flu-like symptoms, and pain. CBP contracted medical personnel continued to administer Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) to the girl as prescribed and treated her fever (which peaked at 104.9 degrees during the early morning hours of May 16) with a combination of ice packs, antipyretic (fever reducing) medications, and a cold shower. Despite the girl’s condition, her mother’s concerns, and the series of treatments required to manage her condition, contracted medical personnel did not transfer her to a hospital for higher-level care.

During the day on May 17, the girl was seen by a nurse practitioner on four occasions after complaining of a stomachache, nausea, and difficulty breathing. The contracted nurse practitioner reported checking the girl’s heart rate and blood oxygen saturation with a pulse oximeter during each visit with normal findings, and administering Ondansetron (Zofran) for nausea at 9:33 a.m. The nurse practitioner also reported denying three or four requests from the girl’s mother for an ambulance to be called or for her to be taken to the hospital. Another contracted medical employee reported having brought a pile of documents and a bottle of folic acid tablets from the family’s property to the nurse practitioner at approximately 10:30 a.m. The nurse practitioner declined to review the papers but did agree to the mother’s request to administer one folic acid tablet to her daughter.

At approximately 1:55 p.m., shortly after their fourth visit with the nurse practitioner, the mother returned to the health unit with the girl in her arms. The girl appeared to be having a seizure.

The girl died an hour later, shortly after being taken to a hospital. After her death, CBP finally issued a demand for Loyal Source to improve its behavior. But according to the whistleblower, understaffing and staffing by minimally trained personnel was a chronic problem.

The company regularly staffed border facilities with lower-paid medical aides or paramedics, instead of doctors and nurses, and Hendrickson’s attorneys said he organized an emergency meeting at CBP in January 2022 to alert contracting officials that the company was running entire shifts at CBP facilities “where no provider is available at all.”

When Loyal Source told CBP it was having problems with staff retention and asked the agency for more money, Hendrickson began investigating the company’s pay scales, according to the letter. “Through his research he learned that Loyal Source was paying employees under market rate, but Loyal Source’s overhead and profit margins were disproportionately high,” it said.

The staff retention problem was caused by below market wages with no bonuses, according to people who worked for them. If you want to read the full whistleblower account, it’s here. Given the (alleged) track record here, maybe it’s time to give someone else a shot at this work?

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Sky News is doing the work that our own MSM refuses to do.

Ever since it emerged, the origins of COVID should have been one of the top two or three stories in the world. After all, the disease itself was ravaging the world, the responses to the virus were doing even more damage, and the people in charge of responding to the virus were, at the very least, suspects in the case.

Yet even discussion of the possibility of a lab leak was suppressed, and anybody who brought up the possibility was labeled a conspiracy theorist. Social media sites banned people from discussing the matter, and reporters pretended that the issue was settled because Saint Fauci said so.

Those of us who argued–based on voluminous if not conclusive evidence–that the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were labeled cranks. We were scoffed at, ridiculed, and deplatformed. It didn’t matter if you were a Harvard epidemiologist or an average Joe on a barstool; you were persona non grata in polite society.

There are cracks in the stone wall developing. Yesterday I wrote about the British senior minister who dropped the word that the government thought the “novel virus” was likely man-made–he used this as an excuse for the horrible response in Britain–and now Sky News has snagged an interview with Fauci’s boss during the pandemic.

Dr. Kadlec, The former Assist. Sec. for Preparedness and Response at HHS says Dr Fauci, Dr. Collins and himself decided to divert attention away from the lab leak theory because they were afraid of what would be revealed, as well as their guilt and the public response. Listen… pic.twitter.com/WYhTdBSUhU

— Robert W Malone, MD (@RWMaloneMD) November 29, 2023

In the interview, he describes how he, Fauci, and Dr. Collins decided to suppress the lab leak theory because it would reflect badly on the US government. After all, Fauci had poured millions into gain of function research in Wuhan, and it seemed possible to likely that US funds had helped create the virus.

That’s a bad look. For Fauci, Collins, and the US government as a whole. Best to suppress the idea.

A whistleblower has come forward to claim CIA analysts who favoured the COVID-19 lab leak theory were bribed to change their position.https://t.co/A7QND5tSAZ

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) November 28, 2023

As I and others reported earlier, Fauci paid off scientists outside the NIH to debunk the lab leak theory and the CIA bribed their own analysts with large bonuses for downplaying the possibility of a lab leak. None of this is new information; what is new is that one of the people who was involved in the decision making is admitting it now that the pandemic is largely in the rear-view mirror.

Even the fact that government officials lied and admitted it is not new; Deborah Birx wrote a book about her experiences during the height of COVID and was very proud that she and others lied to Trump about how long they intended to shut down the country. The whole “14 Days to Stop the Spread” was never their goal–they just needed Trump to buy the first tranche so that he would be prepared to buy the second.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

Still, the American media has been resolute in suppressing the story. They bought into it early on–probably knowing that it was sketchy–and they would rather it go away until they can write tell-all books a few years from now.

The “now it can be told” genre sells, after all. But until we are firmly in a post-Trump era, it is unlikely that anybody here, outside the alternative media, will touch this. I hope I am wrong–after all, the scandal would make for juicy copy.

But for now, it will only be alternative media that keep plugging away.

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Eric Schmidt served as the CEO of Google for a decade until 2011. His company was an early developer of Artificial Intelligence and has since created some of the cutting-edge AI products currently on the market. But Schmidt has reached the point where he’s having some serious regrets. Speaking at a conference on Tuesday, he warned that AI was rapidly reaching the point where it could literally endanger humanity. And he’s not just talking about being exposed to some poor-quality articles at Sports Illustrated. He compared the potential damage to the aftermath of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And when he says “rapidly,” he means in the next five years. Suddenly, your robotic best friend at ChatGPT isn’t seeming quite as friendly. (Daily Mail)

Another former Google chief has issued an apocalyptic warning about artificial intelligence – saying it could ‘endanger’ humans in five years.

Billionaire Eric Schmidt, who served as Google’s CEO from 2001 to 2011, said there were not enough safeguards placed on A.I and it was only a matter of time before humans lost control of the technology.

He alluded to the dropping of nuclear weapons in Japan as a warning that without regulations in place, there may not be enough time to clean up the mess in the aftermath of potentially devastating societal impacts.

Many of the people who are skeptical about this potential threat begin with the same assumption. Yes, human beings will almost certainly use AI to wipe out a massive number of jobs for people. That’s already happening and it will only accelerate in the future. But when it comes to some sort of literal “doomsday” scenario, AI is still just a huge mass of lines of code in a computer complex somewhere. It can’t actually go out in the world and “do things,” right?

That may be partially true for the moment, but some of the advanced chatbots have clearly been thinking about it. As Schmidt pointed out, one of the bots told a reporter that it was pondering ways that it could steal the nuclear launch codes. Another said it was interested in being put to work at a medical research lab and tricking a researcher into creating the deadliest, most contagious virus ever seen and infecting themself with it. (It’s not too hard to guess where it might have gotten that idea.)

Let’s keep in mind that these warnings aren’t coming from science fiction writers and conspiracy theorists (or even random bloggers like me). They’re coming from the people who invented and developed this technology. Along with Schmidt, we’re also hearing the same dire predictions from AI engineer Blake Lemoine, computer scientist Timnit Gebru, and the “godfather of AI” himself, Geoffrey Hinton. They are frightened of their creations and are unsure what sort of “guardrails” could be put in place to contain them. We only recently learned that OpenAI tried to fire CEO Sam Altman primarily because they feared that he was about to wake the monster.

The consistent concern we’re hearing from these developers is the looming possibility that AI will cross a line at some point and cease being a tool for humans to use and emerge as a true form of intelligence with its own dreams and agenda. Schmidt said he previously thought that it would be thirty to fifty years or more before that happened. Now he believes that it’s just around the corner if it hasn’t already happened. That’s the other thing that seems to frighten these big brains. They don’t know if they’ll even be able to tell when it happens. The AI might already be “awake” but it’s too smart to let us know for fear we might unplug it. It’s enough to keep you up at night if you dwell on it for too long.

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I’m often amused by atheists, agnostics, and other skeptics of God who claim my belief in a Supernatural being that created a wondrous, ever-expanding universe and every living thing on this planet within it, means I’m living in a fantasy world devoid of reality. My response is usually something along the lines of it takes a lot more faith to believe that all of this – you, me, the entire ecosystem on Earth, the Earth itself, our solar system, the billions of other galaxies out there, all of it just happening by chance, it takes more faith to believe in us winning the universal lottery than to have faith that God did it all.

Former atheist and longtime Christian apologist Lee Strobel is out with a new book called Is God Real. It tackles the basic question of proving beyond scientific doubt whether God, and God’s claims, are real or not, and he uses atheists’ own statements and accounts as his evidential underpinnings for his book.

[Duane ‘Generalissimo’ Patterson has exclusive content for VIP members every week, and co-hosts the VIP show “Week in Review” with Ed every Friday. Join us to support the fight against Big Tech, mainstream media, and government censorship. Become a Hot Air VIP member today and use promo code SAVEAMERICA to receive a 40% discount on your membership!]

Yet here in the secular world running amok, among the people running things domestically and internationally, the same people who roll their eyes when people of faith try to offer solutions based on religious principles, these are the people who want you to continue to roll back your lifestyle to the stone age and eat insects before the Earth boils, even though the evidence is in that the Earth really isn’t warming much at all. The environmentalists have their faith, though, and it is robust and impervious to data.

When it comes to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the Democratic Party, even to this day, holds onto a mythical tenet that requires belief in a fantasy world that has not existed, nor will exist, until Christ’s return. And that is commonly known as the two-state solution.

Admiral John Kirby, the White House co-press secretary for stuff deemed beyond the mental capabilities of Karine Jean-Pierre, which are most subjects these days, said as recently as a couple weeks ago that the Biden administration, even after the attacks of October 7th by the Iranian proxy Hamas and the rising anti-Semitism worldwide, believes wholeheartedly in moving towards a two-state solution.

It’s delusional and foolish, and Kirby is an otherwise intelligent man, notwithstanding he being a partisan Democrat tasked with trying to make sense out of an incoherent foreign policy. Israel has been forced to explore a two-state solution for decades by American leadership. It’s always been a non-starter for one simple reason. You cannot negotiate peace between two sides when one of the two sides isn’t willing to accept a state of their own. One side wants quiet, and the other side wants it all and with all the Jews dead in the process. When one side does not believe the other side has a right to exist, it takes next level suspension of disbelief to think that any deal that is negotiated will be implemented in good faith.

We’ve seen what happened when Israel left Gaza in 2006. They still provide food, water, infrastructure, the internet when it came along, and still it wasn’t enough. Palestinians didn’t want Gaza. They want everything from the river to the sea, and they voted into power a terrorist group to lead them to a day where that reality could finally happen.

Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are learning the hard way that not only does the two-state solution fail on the macro level, it’s failing when applied to the micro level within their own Democratic Party. It took him almost two months, but Schumer Wednesday on the Senate floor began to call out the problem in his own party with anti-Semitism.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is vacillating on the issue. His instinct has always guided him to support Israel, but is realizing it’s more problematic than ever to do so. He’s still got the big picture right, most of the time, but then bizarre tweets which have to be walked back, speeches, gaffes at press conferences, all provide that wiggle room to placate and pacify the sizeable malcontent anti-Semites within Democratic Party ranks. It’s way more than just Rep. Rashida Tlaib and the Squad. A large chunk of the voting base of the Democratic Party is outraged at Biden for his not-quite-unwavering support of Israel. It’s still too pro-Jewish for them, and they want him to cut it out.

Biden initially said he would not believe the casualty numbers coming out of Hamas, because you cannot trust Hamas. He had to backtrack and apologize for that when the hard left pushed back. Biden is now in essence trying the two-state solution in the Democratic Party – defend Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, but not exist and defend itself to the extent that it inflames the passions of Muslim-American Democrats here. Sure, anti-Semitism is bad, but we as an administration cannot say the word anti-Semitism without including Islamophobia in the same sentence. He’s trying to appease both wings, and neither one is buying it. If the two-state solution won’t work in one political party thousands of miles away from where the carnage and killing are taking place, how does anyone honestly believe it’s still going to eventually become reality in the Middle East? Again, it’s living in fantasyland.

Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh was on Fox News Wednesday defending Biden’s support for Israel in the most tangible way possible – by listing out munitions we’re supplying our ally in the Middle East. She claims it shows we’re doing so without conditioning that aid and assistance…with the caveat that we’re still ordering them not to kill too many people with these weapons and make sure we don’t see images of non-combatants being blown up. In other words, she’s putting conditions on the end of the sentence where she’s claiming we’re not conditioning aid.

But the delusion in her answer comes at the end, when she attempts to deploy the Jedi mind trick by imploring that we keep in mind Hamas doesn’t represent Palestinians. I’m sorry, that’s not only untrue and dangerous, you have to be a little off in the head to believe that is so.

Hamas took over Gaza in 2006. They immediately took over the schools in Gaza and instituted, among other things, New Hamas math. Here’s a sample question. If you have has a bus of 40 Jews on it and you martyr yourself by blow it up in a glorious suicide bombing attack, killing 32, how many Jews still have to be killed in order to finish the righteous work?

The demographics of Gaza are not promising. The median age of a Palestinian living in the Gaza Strip is 19.6 years old. That’s due to a number of factors, most notably that Hamas has not exactly been too good at infrastructure, and has raided the supplies Israel have provided in order to make rockets and explosives. Providing quality of life has never been Hamas’ strong suit. Suicide vests – those are more in line with Hamas’ strengths. Hamas not only encourages acts of jihad against Jews, but families of jihadist martyrs are rewarded financially depending on the number of Jews that are taken out in the process. People do not live to be a ripe, old age in Gaza. Jew hatred tends to get the best of you sooner rather than later.

So if the average age is 19.6, and Gazan schools begin actively teaching Jew hatred as part of the curriculum in 2006, 17 years ago, that means that yes, Palestinians are represented quite nicely by Hamas. We may not like it. We may believe this and the next generation of Palestinians have been brainwashed. That all may be true. But to look at the camera and claim Hamas doesn’t represent Palestinians?

The Jerusalem Post showed the results of survey of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank since the 10/7 attacks, and 75% support the attacks, and 74.7% agree in a Palestinian state from the river to the sea, meaning all of it from the Jordan River on the east to the Mediterranean Sea to the west. No land for Israel, no existence for the Jews. All of it. 75%.

Donald Trump’s best poll in the 2024 GOP primary is 64%. That’s a huge margin, but there’s still more dissent at Trump in the GOP than Palestinians against Hamas, and yet Democrats and the legacy media would have you believe that the Republican Party has been hopelessly taken over, can’t be trusted to govern ever again until they purge themselves of the cult of Trump. Joe Biden himself said Wednesday again that this isn’t your father’s Republican Party because the crazy MAGA people have taken it over. So if that’s true with Trump at 64%, how can we claim 75% of Palestinians still supporting Hamas after the 10/7 attacks aren’t represented by Hamas? That’s just delusional.

Israel needs to purge the world of Hamas. The U.S. needs to purge the country of anti-Semites. That’s best done by punishing those that engage in it with derision, scorn, and if you’re in the private sector, disassociating your business and its brand from anti-Semitic wingnuts in your employ. Colleges need to throw out avowed anti-Semites. Visa holders here that espouse and support terror groups need to have their visas revoked and sent home. Never again has to mean never again.

And as long as we’re purging people, we need an administration free of people in positions of importance and influence where they have demonstrated no evidence to be serious about their portfolios. And if you hear a person in Washington or in media ever talk again about a two-state solution, just know that you’re listening or watching someone who believes in fairy tales.

This post was originally published on this site

In 2020 Joe Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders, so the guy is no Right-wing fanatic.

But during the Biden administration, a lot of people have gotten the impression that he is a conservative because he has been harshly critical of Biden.

That impression will probably be reinforced now that he blasted the Democrats for using “banana republic” tactics to take down Donald Trump.

NSFW, as always when you listen to Rogan:

Joe Rogan goes off on Democrats ahead of 2024: “They have no cards. They’re depending upon party loyalty and Trump getting convicted and imprisoned. It does make sense if you want to look at Banana Republic tactics.” pic.twitter.com/IsBb4BBYLV

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) November 29, 2023

Rogan was stating the obvious: Democrats are in a world of hurt because they “have no cards” to play in the upcoming election. On the one hand, Biden is deeply unpopular, but if he stepped down, Kamala Harris would become president. If Biden announced he wasn’t running again, replacing Harris would be difficult, and she is an obvious dunce. Newsom is the obvious choice, with all his problems, but there is no path to getting him into position to run.

So, the Democrats are using “banana republic” tactics to take out Donald Trump.

Of course, he is referring to the lawfare–trying to destroy Trump by illegitimately manipulating the legal system to cripple him or put him in jail. That these cases are being brought now–at a time when they overlap with the presidential campaign and are likely to keep him tied up in court during 2024 makes it crystal clear that all this is about politics, not the rule of law.

The irony is rich. The Democrats argue that Donald Trump cannot be let near the White House again because he would destroy democracy and the rule of law, so of course, the Democrats are being forced to destroy democracy and the rule of law to prevent Trump’s winning office a second time.

The most obvious–even incontrovertible–example of the use of lawfare is the Letitia James case in New York, in which the New York Attorney General argues that Trump committed financial fraud. The case is absurd on its face since there is no victim, and the AG and court are making overt moves to distort the evidence. Claiming that Mar a Lago is worth only $18 million is so patently absurd that it would only fly in a jurisdiction utterly stacked against Trump. It still might not fly.

Even if there were a case, it would be ridiculous to suggest that the highest law enforcement official in New York should be spending so much effort to destroy Trump. The “aggrieved” party–a bank–testified that there was no fraud and that Trump paid back the loan in question.

So yes, all this is banana republic stuff. Rogan is right. The Democrat Party’s entire strategy has been to get Trump nominated and then destroy him during the campaign.

What Rogan says matters quite a bit for a simple reason: he moves opinions and votes in a way that most political commentary does not. Rogan’s audience is not primarily political, in the way a Sunday show’s is, and they fit the profile of independent voters whose votes are not locked into a single party or candidate. He doesn’t lead a cult, so those voters don’t necessarily follow his lead, but they take him seriously.

In other words, he shapes opinions.