Category: Opinion

Senate Republicans, Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, are resolute in that they won’t help Democrats raise the debt ceiling even in the face of the October deadline when the U.S. will default on its debt.

“If they have 50 votes for raising the debt limit and they’re in the majority…Why do they think Republicans ought to be involved when they’re in the majority?” said Grassley
“They want to spend this four and two tenths trillion – that’s one of the reasons why it’s got to go up so much — and no Republicans in favor of their programs. Why would we help them to get room in the debt limit to increase their budget.”

In protest of Democrat’s unreasonable spending plans, most notably their reconciliation bill, Forty-six Senate Republicans signed a letter last month vowing that they would not vote to help raise the debt ceiling.

Republicans say Democrats must raise the debt limit in the reconciliation bill itself or by separate reconciliation means as the GOP will not help them as long as the majority is still trying to pass trillions more in spending along party lines.

Democrats want a bipartisan bill to raise the debt ceiling. Their current plan is to include the debt ceiling increase in a government funding bill later this year. Majority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., accused Republicans of “playing dangerous political games” with the debt limit. He added that he believes Republicans will cave and “it will ultimately be done in a bipartisan way,” in part because business interest may pressure them into it.

When Grassley was asked Tuesday if he thinks Republicans are going to cave, he responded by saying that Democrats are going to have to raise the debt limit on their own.

“When they’ve got 50 votes, if they’re going to spend this four-and-two-tenth trillion, they’ll have to have the 50 votes to do it or they aren’t getting anything,” Grassley said, “So why are they coming to us, I don’t understand it?”

“They might get some Republican support if they don’t spend this four-and-two-tenth trillion dollars. That’s baked into this whole thing,” Grassley continued. “They want us to make room for them to spend money for programs we aren’t for. If they want to get rid of that stuff they might get some Republican support.”

McConnell, R-Ky.,expressed a similar opinion on the Senate floor Tuesday, saying that the GOP is not likely to give in on the stance it took just over a month ago.

“This isn’t the last four years, when we were reaching bipartisan government funding agreements, bipartisan appropriations, and bipartisan COVID bills,” Mcconnell said. “Democrats are making different choices. They want to make policy all by themselves, so they can come up with the financing on their own as well.”

In a letter earlier this month, the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote that the Treasury Department’s “extraordinary measures” to prevent default after the suspension of the debt limit expired on July 31 are expected to run out in October.

Schumer did indicate room for compromise under certain conditions.

“We are discussing all of the options with the president and with Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” Schumer said.

Throughout his career, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has maintained that the playing field is level on his platform and that they treat all of its roughly three billion members similarly. The covert Facebook tool is known as “X-Check” or “Cross-Check,” according to a new Wall Street Journal investigation, has long allowed celebrities, politicians, and other high-profile accounts to evade restrictions that other users are required to observe. Even though we knew all along with the favoritism that Zuckerberg shows his radical elitists.

The source was able to receive a private internal audit, which revealed that the social media platform Cross-Check had allowed millions of renowned users to publish bullying, sexual material, hate speech, incitement to violence, and other prohibited materials without being penalized. Some privileged users enjoy a completely hands-off attitude, whilst posts from others that violate the rules are flagged for review, which never materializes.

In the beginning, the goal of Cross-Check was to offer Facebook an additional layer of scrutiny that would aid the company in avoiding any public relations concerns that might arise from the censorship or de-platforming of celebrities. In actuality, however, the company’s researchers discovered that it resulted in a large number of high-profile accounts being “whitelisted.” These individuals were free to express themselves without fear of being subjected to the kinds of penalties that ordinary users suffer at the hands of moderators and algorithms.

To give one recent example, in 2019, Facebook allowed Brazilian soccer player Neymar to upload nude photographs of a woman who had accused him of rape on a Facebook page that had hundreds of thousands of followers. Facebook eventually removed the images, but it did not do so as soon as it would have done in other circumstances. According to the Journal, the examination also reveals that the firm permitted VIPs to falsely claim that former President Donald Trump called asylum-seeking refugees “animals” and that Hillary Clinton was involved in a pedophile network, according to the Journal.

The Journal reported Facebook researchers found the company’s favoritism to those users “to be both widespread and ‘not publicly defensible.’”

A 2019 internal memo titled “The Political Whitelist Contradicts Facebook’s Core Stated Principles” detailed the disconnect between the social media giant’s public stance and its actual practice. The researchers called the program a “breach of trust” and stated, “We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly…Unlike the rest of our community, these people can violate our standards without any consequences.”

According to the Journal’s findings, these papers show that Facebook’s public responses to inquiries about its oversight policies and procedures — including those it has presented in Congressional hearings — are frequently false or partial. It claimed that the corporation had concealed the extent to which its top executives were aware of the difficulties.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Tuesday that in the end, Texas, along with a “large number of Republican states,” will be challenging President Joe Biden’s sweeping vaccine mandate, particularly the part that mandate businesses that have 100 or more employees to require their employees to either get the COVID-19 vaccine or be tested on a weekly basis.

“We don’t think the president has the authority to do that,” Paxton said. “He’s just making up law, which he seems to be pretty good at these days, and so we will challenge them. Not just Texas, but I think you’ll see a large number of Republican states, particularly, that will say no, you can’t do this to our people. You have to go through Congress and make sure that they follow the Constitution. The president can’t just order this by edict.”

Paxton stated that he can’t grasp how Biden and former President Barack Obama can look at the law and say they will create their own laws.

“It’s a power thing, and it’s really important, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, that the Constitution be followed because it’s our elected representatives that we put in place that are supposed to make these types of decisions,” said Paxton.

“There’s nothing more important than getting these Americans out of Afghanistan or other people that have helped our troops while they were over there who are now at a great risk,” said Paxton. “Yet all of a sudden out of the blue, after this disaster in Afghanistan…you see a shift to focusing on something that they had promised, all of them, would never happen,” said Paxton. “So, you have to ask the question, how did we shift away from something so important where we have American lives at risk to this vaccine mandate all of a sudden?”

On Tuesday Paxton said that later this month the Texas Facilities Commission will likely award the state contract for construction on a 700-mile stretch of border.

He said he finds it “really interesting” that Biden is insisting that Americans get the COVID-19 vaccine while “hundreds of thousands of people” are coming across the southern border every month, many of them COVID positive.

“He is inviting them in and he’s moving them around the country, so it does seem very inconsistent to me to be so focused on ordering mandates for Americans, and yet he lets all these people come into the country and move them around to spread COVID other ways,” the attorney general said.

President Joe Biden announced a vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 employees or more, adding fuel to the fire that is the great vaccine debate. Half the country feels very strongly against the vaccine and the other half believes in the right to choose for themselves what they can or can’t do with their own bodies.

Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska is an outspoken opponent of Biden’s planned vaccine mandate, even accusing the president of being out of touch with how different parts of the country have handled the coronavirus pandemic.

Rickett bashed Biden for not communicating with other leaders across the country, pointing out that since the president took office he’s not participated in any of the weekly phone calls the White House regularly has with the nation’s governors.

“The president should look at the data, and maybe the president should attend one of the weekly calls his administration has with all the governors – he’s not been on one yet, since he’s been President – and maybe talk to some of the governors and ask them about what’s going on in their states because he appears to be pretty ignorant of what’s going on in places like Nebraska,” Ricketts said.

Governor Ricketts noted Nebraska had the third-lowest COVID-19 death rate in the nation, their hospitals are not overrun, and that patients between the ages of 10-19, for the year 2020, were “26 times more likely to die in a car accident than they were of COVD19.”

As part of Biden’s mandate, all federal workers are required to get vaccinated, with no option to submit to regular testing instead. He further directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to require private companies with more than 100 employees to require workers to receive the vaccine or get weekly testing.

Ricketts says that he has no qualms with people being vaccinated, but he does not think the government should play any part in the matter.

“First of all, we have been encouraging people to get vaccinated. We’ve been providing information and encouraging people to reach out to their neighbors because vaccines work and they will help people,” Ricketts said. “But it should be a personal health care choice. This is not something that the government should mandate and somebody shouldn’t have to make the choice between keeping their job and getting a jab in the arm. I mean, it’s just wrong.”

https://youtu.be/qsVDU6sEZpQ

Nebraska students are already required to receive vaccinations for measles, chickenpox, polio, and hepatitis B, which Ricketss claims are different because they have a long history that parents accept.

Ricketts said he is considering legal action, stating the State Attorney General Doug Peterson is exploring options along with attorneys general in several other states.

“He’s coordinating with other attorneys general across the country who share similar views about the overreach,” Ricketts said. “This is an egregious overreach of federal authority. And as we see what these rules are we will be able to know exactly how we will be able to challenge them in court. I’m also talking with my colleagues around the country as well, the other governors who feel the way I do, and we’ll be working on other strategies.”

The White House is requesting that Congress make welfare payments available to Afghan migrants who have been evacuated out of the nation and allowed into the United States of America.

Over the course of a few weeks, the United States, in collaboration with ally governments and private organizations, oversaw the evacuation of more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan, ost of those were Afghans escaping the Taliban, and approximately 65,000 of those Afghans were taken in by the United States and brought to American military bases all over the world, including those in the United States.

Joe Biden wants to spend $6.4 billion to resettle his unvetted Afghans across America.

If we have 95,000 “refugees” that’s about $67,000 each.

This is the same guy who tried to charge Americans $2k a piece to get home.

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) September 8, 2021

Joe Biden will give Afghan refugees free health insurance.

Have you had enough of America Last yet?

— Lance Gooden (@Lancegooden) September 10, 2021

According to the New York Post, the White House requested that Congress appropriate $6.4 billion to assist Afghan refugees in resettling in the United States last week. A portion of the monies will be used to provide welfare benefits and legal identification to each migrant who was processed and paroled into the United States between July 30 and September 30 of this year.

The United States government has committed to resettling tens of thousands of Afghan allies who have collaborated with our military over its two-decade presence in their country. It is clear that many evacuees had no official ties to any Western country during the final weeks of the evacuation, which was marked by confusion and bad planning on the part of President Biden.

As authorities from the State Department strive to process and vet the tens of thousands of Afghan refugees who have arrived as a result of the hasty evacuation, a series of difficulties have arisen at U.S. military sites. After one Afghan migrant tested positive for measles at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, one of the facilities responsible for processing migrants, there was concern that a measles outbreak could occur.

Monday a California man was parked near the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington D.C. where he was found by U.S. Capitol Police to have multiple knives in his possession.

Donald Craighead, 44, of Oceanside, California was arrested for possession of knives which are prohibited weapons.

A Capitol Police officer was on patrol around midnight, when he noticed the Dodge Dakota truck “with a swastika and other white supremacist symbols painted on it.”

The pickup was missing a license plate, instead, it had a picture of an American flag where the tag should have been. The officer pulled the truck over along the 500 block of South Capitol Street, and that’s when he noticed a bayonet and machete inside the vehicle, both of which are illegal in Washington, D. C.

At that time, Craighead allegedly stated that he was “on patrol” and “began talking about white supremacist ideology and other rhetoric pertaining to white supremacy,” according to the U.S. Capitol Police.

“This is good police work plain and simple,” Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in a statement, “We applaud the officers’ keen observation and the teamwork that resulted in this arrest.”

“This is an excellent example of the work our officers do every day,” Operational Services Bureau Deputy Chief Jason Bell added. “We are so proud of these officers for their vigilance.”

The U.S. Capitol Police Investigations Division will continue looking into the case.

Monday a group of international scientists said that available evidence does not yet indicate a need for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots among the general population. Two senior FDA officials are reportedly stepping down from their posts over a disagreement with the White House on the administration of booster shots.

Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review, and her deputy director, Phil Krause, who are set to leave in October and November, along with other worldwide experts published a viewpoint in The Lancet, arguing that the COVID-19 vaccines remain effective in preventing severe disease, including against the highly contagious delta variant.

“Careful and public scrutiny of the evolving data will be needed to assure that decisions about boosting are informed by reliable science more than politics,” the authors wrote, adding, “Widespread boosting should be undertaken only if there is clear evidence that it is appropriate.”

Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the FDA, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, warned the White House that more time is needed to review data before approving a COVID-19 booster plan. Data from the FDA and CDC at this point suggest that some individuals who received the Pfizer vaccine should get a booster shot.

Last month, the nation’s top health officials announced the U.S. was prepared to begin offering booster shots to Americans beginning Sept. 20, pending FDA review.

That statement was attributed to Walensky, Woodcock, U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins, President Biden’s chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and others, said that available data indicated protection begins to decrease over time, and “could diminish in the months ahead, especially among those who are at higher risk or were vaccinated during the earlier phases of the vaccination rollout.”

Gruber, Krause, and other authors warned about drawing conclusions about vaccine efficacy from preliminary studies possibly affected by “confounding and selective reporting” to inform the country’s booster shot rollout. The best way to reduce the risk of serious illness and emerging variants would be to set aside the vaccine supply for the unvaccinated populations.

In connection with the fatal Surfside condo collapse earlier this year, some family members of victims are claiming the identities of their dead relatives have been stolen by a group of criminals.

According to The Hill, three persons have been charged with a variety of crimes relating to identity theft including stealing a minimum of $45,000, which does not include an additional $67,000 that they attempted to steal.

The Hill reported:

Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a news conference that the actions of the thieves were first identified by a sister of a deceased victim on July 9, roughly 16 days after the building collapsed.

The sister told the Surfside Police Department that she had noticed the victim’s mailing address had changed and replacement credit cards were requested after the collapse. There were also multiple wire transfers from the deceased victim’s account, and several fraudulent purchases on the replacement credit cards, authorities said.

Rundle said the suspects stole the identities of at least seven victims of the building collapse, two of whom are not deceased. There were also two other victims that were not part of the building collapse.

“These individuals appear to be very skilled identity thieves. They’re professionals,” Fernandez Rundle said. “Except for their names, almost nothing else about them seems to be true.”

“We discussed that cyber-grave robbers move quickly after the collapse to grab what they could from deceased victims while families and friends were in emotional turmoil,” Fernandez Rundle also said.

“Their motto could’ve been, ‘Your loss is our gain’,” she added.

“Today, they got what they deserved,” said Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett.

In July, Burkett said that crooks were looking to take advantage of victims of the tragedy.

“It’s the revictimization of the victims that we’re sort of starting to experience right now with these hackers,” Burkett said at the time. “They’ve seen the names in the paper, they’re going right to that and we’ve had to have discussions with the families and listen to them telling us the stories about all of a sudden credit cards appearing in their names and things being purchased in their name, so we’ve told ‘em, you’ve got to immediately shut down your credit.”

They are scheduled to appear in bond court on Thursday, according to authorities. They were set to be held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Wednesday night on bonds ranging from $1 million to $500,000 to $430,000, according to the court schedule, as reported by Fox News.

Afghanistan’s new interior minister has been appointed by the Taliban, who had been declared a designated terrorist for whom the United States government has placed a $5 million bounty.

In 2017, a truck bomb explosion in Kabul killed more than 150 people, according to reports from the BBC. Sirajuddin Haqqani “is the leader of the militant group known as the Haqqani network, which is affiliated with the Taliban and has been responsible for some of the deadliest attacks during the country’s two-decade-long war,” according to reports from the BBC. “In contrast to the wider Taliban, the Haqqani network has been designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization. “It also has strong ties to al-Qaeda.”

The FBI says that Sirajuddin Haqqani is “wanted for questioning in connection with the January 2008 attack on a hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed six people, including an American citizen.”

“He is believed to have coordinated and participated in cross-border attacks against the United States and coalition forces in Afghanistan,” the FBI added. “Haqqani also allegedly was involved in the planning of the assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai in 2008.”

So, the #Taliban just appointed #Sirajuddin Haqqani as #Afghanistan's Interior Minister.

He's a U.S. "most wanted terrorist."

At least 3 other Haqqani's in the "cabinet," including another "most wanted" — Khalil Haqqani, who's Minister of Refugees. pic.twitter.com/f3QhKZa3iJ

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) September 7, 2021

In a statement released by the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Sirajuddin Haqqani is described as “currently leading the day-to-day activities” of the Haqqani Network, which is a Sunni Islamist insurgent organization formed by Jalaluddin Haqqani and based in Pakistan.

ODNI added:

The Haqqani Network is primarily based in North Waziristan, Pakistan, and conducts cross-border operations into eastern Afghanistan and Kabul. The group is primarily composed of members of the Zadran tribe. The Haqqanis are considered the most lethal and sophisticated insurgent group targeting US, Coalition, and Afghan forces in Afghanistan; they typically conduct coordinated small-arms assaults coupled with rocket attacks, IEDs, suicide attacks, and attacks using bomb-laden vehicles.

The Haqqani Network is responsible for some of the highest-profile attacks of the Afghan war, including the June 2011 assault on the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, conducted jointly with the Afghan Taliban, and two major suicide bombings—in 2008 and 2009—against the Indian Embassy in Kabul. In September 2011, the Haqqanis participated in a day-long assault against major targets in Kabul, including the US Embassy, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters, the Afghan Presidential Palace, and the Afghan National Directorate of Security headquarters. More recently, in October 2013, Afghan security forces intercepted a truck bomb deployed by the Haqqanis against Forward Operating Base Goode in Paktiya Province. The device, which did not detonate, contained some 61,500 pounds of explosives and was the largest truck bomb ever built. The group is also involved in a number of criminal activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including extortion, kidnapping for ransom, and smuggling.

It appears that Minnesota Running back starter, Mohamed Ibrahim, will be watching from the sidelines for the upcoming season.

Ibrahim appeared to have something horrible pop in his lower leg while carrying the ball during the Gophers’ loss against the Buckeyes on Thursday night.

It was instantly obvious that he was in a significant amount of agony. You can see the painful moment below.

Mohamed Ibrahim leaves the field after going down on this play pic.twitter.com/CJ3broRGRw

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) September 3, 2021

According to former NFL doctor David Chao, Ibrahim has sustained a “clear left Achilles tendon rupture,” which means he will require season-ending surgery to repair.

Back in the day, I worked with the @GopherFootball team some early in my career so this certainly did not make me happy to post on. 🤕

— David J. Chao – ProFootballDoc (@ProFootballDoc) September 3, 2021

This is another stark reminder that football is a very deadly sport on a physical level. Guys are hit quite hard, and you might occasionally be harmed without being touched.

The latter is what occurred in the case of Ibrahim. He planted his foot and something gave way in his leg. It doesn’t get any scarier than this when it comes to non-contact injuries.

Mohamed Ibrahim leaves the game with a boot on his foot pic.twitter.com/ey72eqB8qi

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) September 3, 2021

The worst part is that Ibrahim is one of America’s top players, and his season has already ended after one game.

For the gifted player, this is a heartbreaking turn of events.