Category: Opinion

Late last week, Governor Ron DeSantis vowed to appeal the ruling of a new Florida Law which was aimed to protect free speech online and prevent “a social media platform from willfully de-platforming a candidate” by a Clinton-appointed federal judge.

DeSantis’ vow indicates that the battle in the war over the intersection of legislation and technology is far from over.

DeSantis signed the legislation in late May, aiming to empower users who believed they have been discriminated against unfairly while reigning in the Big Tech giants.

According to DeSantis, under SB 7072:

All Floridians treated unfairly by Big Tech platforms will have the right to sue companies that violate this law — and win monetary damages. This reform safeguards the rights of every Floridian by requiring social media companies to be transparent about their content moderation practices and give users proper notice of changes to those policies, which prevents Big Tech bureaucrats from “moving the goalposts” to silence viewpoints they don’t like.

The Attorney General of Florida can bring action against technology companies that violate this law, under Florida’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act. If social media platforms are found to have violated antitrust law, they will be restricted from contracting with any public entity. That “antitrust violator” blacklist imposes real consequences for Big Tech oligopolies’ bottom line.

Big Tech is prohibited from de-platforming Floridian political candidates. The Florida Election Commission will impose fines of $250,000 per day on any social media company that de-platforms any candidate for statewide office, and $25,000 per day for de-platforming candidates for non-statewide offices. Any Floridian can block any candidate they don’t want to hear from, and that is a right that belongs to each citizen — it’s not for Big Tech companies to decide.

“This session, we took action to ensure that ‘We the People’ — real Floridians across the Sunshine State — are guaranteed protection against the Silicon Valley elites,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “Many in our state have experienced censorship and other tyrannical behavior firsthand in Cuba and Venezuela. If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable.”

“The legislation compels providers to host speech that violates their standards — speech they otherwise would not host — and forbids providers from speaking as they otherwise would,” U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle argued in his injunction of the law.

“Like prior First Amendment restrictions, this is an instance of burning the house to roast a pig. … Balancing the exchange of ideas among private speakers is not a legitimate governmental interest. And even aside from the actual motivation for this legislation, it is plainly content-based and subject to strict scrutiny,” Hinkle added sarcastically, according to NBC News.

At the site of the collapsed Surfside condo search crews have become more concerned for their safety over the past few days. The portion of the still-standing building was structurally unstable and could have jeopardized rescue efforts.

Matters are made even worse by the impending approach of Tropical Storm Elsa which is heading straight for Florida after pounding the Caribbean for a few days. Surfside may not get the worst of the storm they’re still expected to see some high winds and lots of rain.

So officials ordered the building to be razed to the ground in hopes that it will give search crews better access to other parts of the site. The state hired BG Group, a general contracting outfit, to do the job for a whopping $935,000.

Demolition crews placed explosives within the basement and lobby levels of the remaining structure with a blast the building fell to the ground.

#BREAKING:Remainder of Champlain Tower South building has been demolished. pic.twitter.com/jvom1ctBkA

— WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) July 5, 2021

County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said search efforts will proceed in hopes of recovering any remaining survivors despite the odds of anyone still being alive after more than a week.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett promised that rescue efforts will not end until every body is accounted for.

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine should continue shielding against recently discovered viral variants, including the Delta variant which was first reported in India.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said recent data showed the variant now accounts for about 20% of U.S. coronavirus cases, with the rate steadily growing.

Recent lab studies using blood samples from eight trial participants who previously received both doses showed “minimal impact” on neutralizing the Alpha variant first detected in the U.K. and a “modest reduction” by 2.1-fold against the Delta variant, which has been detected in over 85 countries all over the world.

According to the CEO of Moderna, Stephane Bancel, “As we seek to defeat the pandemic, it is imperative that we are proactive as the virus evolves. We remain committed to studying emerging variants, generating data and sharing it as it becomes available. These new data are encouraging and reinforce our belief that the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine should remain protective against newly detected variants. These findings highlight the importance of continuing to vaccinate populations with an effective primary series vaccine.”

This news follows an emergency approval for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine granted in India this week giving the country four options to fight against the virus and paving the way for Indian drug company Cipla to begin distributing shots.

Cipla reiterated its current development of booster shots, however, a panel of experts from the CDC says there is not yet enough data to support a recommendation for use of these shots.

The active spread of the Delta variant has caused some U.S. leaders to begin encouraging mask use again, regardless of vaccination status. Los Angeles health officials strongly urge everyone wear masks even while indoors after the Delta variant rose to account for almost 50% of the county’s sequenced variants. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is encouraging all residents to no go out without their masks regardless of their vaccination status.

It’s never a bad time to become a hero and one toddler decided it was time to step up.

Footage from a family’s house shows how a 4-year-old girl saved the family’s house from burning down when she spotted a fire in the kitchen. Amazingly, the young girl reacted quickly and rushed to get her father’s attention, who was able to stop the blaze before it destroyed his house.

Daniel Patrick Jermyn spoke with Fox News, saying that the incident occurred after he finished cooking lunch and getting ready to go out of the house. His 4-year-old daughter, Amelia, was playing with her toys and dancing around the home when she noticed the blaze on top of the stove.

Luckily one of the family’s security cameras filmed the moment when Amelia noticed the fire and rushed to alert her father. Here is the footage below:

“She’s a little hero,” Jermyn said. “She probably saved my house.”

He explained that she found him and said “Hey dad, you have to come look at this.” She was also flailing her arms around. According to Jermyn, he could tell by the way she was acting that something was wrong.

Apparently, the family’s air fryer had caught fire. Acting fast, Jermyn grabbed the appliance with his bare hands then quickly ran out of the house and threw it in the backyard pool. While he was able to prevent a major fire from breaking out, there was still some significant damage.

“The stove is down,” he said, explaining that the fire melted much of the appliance’s top. The rug was damaged as well, along with the microwave. According to him, if it had burned for two more minutes, his cabinets probably would’ve been lost as well.

Jermyn said that he hopes that this incident shows other parents that even at a young age, kids can still have really good situational awareness. According to him, when they say that something is wrong, it’s probably a good idea to take it seriously.

A new video surfaces minutes before the collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida. It shows a massive stream of water pouring into the basement level garage.

“The part of the parking garage shown in Sarmiento’s video was identified in 2018 by engineer Frank Moabito as having major damage to the concrete slab above. The damage, he wrote, was caused by a design error that caused the waterproofing on the pool deck to fail, allowing water to seep into the concrete and corrode the internal rebar,” The Miami Herald noted.

Video shows a stream of water spilling into the basement level garage of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, only minutes prior to its partial collapse in the early hours of June 24. https://t.co/cON8A7LpWV pic.twitter.com/uC0FibDByo

— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 1, 2021

Other witnesses to the collapse of the building have reported seeing the pool deck plunge into the garage moments before the collapse. Allyn E. Kilsheimer, one of the veteran engineers investigating the incident, told the post, “There is a possibility that part of the pool [area] came down first and then dragged the middle of the building with it, and that made that collapse. And then once the middle of the building collapsed, number two, then the rest of the building didn’t know how to stand up and it fell down also, number three.”

“Of more than a dozen experts interviewed for this article, including nine structural engineers, most agreed that the collapse appeared to involve a failure at the lowest levels of the building or in the parking garage beneath it. In images of the rubble, four experts saw indications of ‘punching shear failure,’ in which concrete slabs that make up the floors of a building detach from the structure’s vertical support columns,” the Post added.

“Work at the site of the condo building collapse in Surfside, Florida, was halted early Thursday due to concerns about the part of the structure that is still standing, officials announced at a press conference. Operations halted shortly after 2 a.m.,” CBS News reported on Thursday evening.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Thursday evening, “We’re proceeding with planning for the likely demolition of the building while the search and rescue continues, as our top priority. This is a decision that we need to make extremely carefully and methodically as we consider all the [possible] impacts to the pile of debris and to our search and rescue operation, as well as considerations of how to best manage the demolition in order to [safeguard] the integrity of the existing debris field,” CNN reported.

Earlier in the day, Levine Cava stated, “Our fire rescue team has been working around the clock, as you know, since this fateful building fell and we needed our engineers on-site to evaluate the safety of the standing structure. I am grateful to their hard work that got us back to work on the search and rescue as soon as possible. And we are continuing, of course, to assure that we do everything to protect our first responders. We will continue to search feverishly as we have done all along in the parts of the collapse that we currently have access to.”

A new study from the researchers of the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan, Fukushima have found a new mutant species of radioactive boar-pig from the wasteland.

The study focused on the impact of nuclear disasters on the local habitat; the high levels of radiation supposedly had no “adverse effects” on the genetics of the animals, which has been determined to be false.

“However, wild boars (Sus scrofa leucomystax) have proliferated in the area, after being left to roam freely from the lack of humans,” The Daily Mail reported. “The boars have bred with domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) that escaped from nearby properties after farmers had to flee, creating a new hybrid species.”

“The study has been led by Donovan Anderson, a researcher at Fukushima University in Japan, who has been driving through the land exclusion zone around the Fukushima nuclear reactor,” The Daily Mail explained. “For the study, Anderson colleagues analyzed DNA samples from muscles of 243 wild boars, pigs and boar-pig hybrids, taken from local slaughterhouses.”

According to the study, 31 wild boar were hybrids, representing 16 percent of the wild boar from that region.

“We show evidence of successful hybridization between pigs and native wild boar in this area,” Anderson and his colleagues announced. “We recommend that future studies assess the fitness of these hybrids and better characterize their ecological niche.”

Anderson also noted that the cross-breeding has nothing to do with radiation, even though the boar-pigs are radioactive.

“While the boar and hybrids are technically radioactive, the radiation had nothing to do with the genetic changes — this was the pigs’ fault,” said Anderson. “The wild boar in Fukushima are still relatively contaminated and can range from no detection of radionuclides to 30,000 becquerels per kilogram.”

The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 was primarily caused by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami and was the most severe nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

Every time the folks on capitol hill have something to hide they bring out something crazy to push their focus on towards the public. And now that focus has shifted onto UFOs and a “confediational report” that has been released to congress.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson, a former astronaut, and U.S. senator, said Monday that he doesn’t think we “are alone” here on Earth.

Nelson said he read the intelligence community’s recently released report on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), an unclassified version of which was released Friday. The report says there have been more than 140 UAP sightings.

“Yes, I’ve seen the classified report. It says basically what we thought. We don’t know the answer to what those Navy pilots saw, they knew that they saw something, they tracked it, they locked their radar onto it, they followed it, it would suddenly move quickly from one location to another,” Nelson said on CNN.

“What the report does tell us that is public, is that there have been over 140 of these sightings. So naturally, what I ask our scientists to do is to see if there’s any kind of explanation, from a scientific point of view, and I’m awaiting their report,” he said, adding that he spoke with Navy pilots following a briefing on the matter while he was still serving in the upper chamber of Congress.

“I talked to the Navy pilots when we were briefed in the Senate Armed Services Committee, and my feeling is that there is clearly something there. It may not necessarily be extraterrestrial, but if it is a technology that some of our adversaries have, then we better be concerned.”

“Are we alone? Personally, I don’t think we are,” Nelson said.

The intelligence community “can’t explain 143 of the 144 cases of unidentified flying objects reported by military planes,” NBC News reported.

“In a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics. These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception and require additional rigorous analysis,” said the report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and meant to shed light on the mystery of those dozens of flying objects, spotted from 2004 to 2021.

Nelson said “we don’t think” the UAPs are from foreign adversaries.

“But when it comes to the universe, remember the universe is so large, we have a program in NASA called the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. But thus far, we don’t have any receipt communication from something that’s intelligent,” he said.

“People are hungry to know. And of course, ever since ‘Star Trek,’ you know people are yearning to find out what’s out there in the cosmos. Are we alone? Personally, I don’t think we are. The universe is so big, it’s 13 1/2 billion years [since] the universe started. That’s pretty big. But people are hungry for this kind of information and we’re going to keep searching.”

Earlier this month, former President Bill Clinton said he thinks aliens could well exist.

“The truth is, we’ve never proved one, but there are things flying around up there that we haven’t fully identified yet,” Clinton, 74, claimed on “Live with Kelly and Ryan.”

“Keep in mind there are billions of galaxies in an ever-expanding universe,” he told hosts Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. “I mean, you can’t even get your mind around the sheer number of things that are out there. No one knows, but I think the probability is that there is something you would call life somewhere else.”

And a few weeks ago, another former president, Barack Obama, said on “The Late Late Show” that the U.S. is monitoring UFO sightings.

“Well, when it comes to aliens, there are some things I just can’t tell you on air,” he told host James Corden. “What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there is footage and records of objects in the skies that

On “Fox News Sunday,” Fox News anchor Chris Wallace repeatedly pointed out that Republicans are responsible for defunding the police during his interview with Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks.

Wallace claimed that since Banks and the GOP voted against the $350 billion in President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan that funds police officers that the Republicans are truly responsible for trying to defund the police. Cedric Richmond made the claim earlier on the show that Republicans were indeed responsible.

Banks did not address Wallace’s question and instead explained how police forces are having a hard time recruiting new officers due to language from the Democrats.

Wallace asked, “Can’t you make the argument that it’s you and the Republicans who are defunding the police?”

“Not at all, Chris,” Banks replied. “I mean let’s go back again and look at the last year and the record of comments that Democrats have made from Rashida Tlaib who said that policing is inherently evil.”

“No, no, no,” Wallace interjected. “Wait, sir, respectfully. Wait, wait, sir. Respectfully. I heard you make that point but I’m asking you, there’s $350 billion in this package the president says can be used for policing and I – let me put up some of the specific points he said.”

Banks said, “Chris, the point that I’m making … Chris, the point that I’m making is important.”

“Congressman Banks, let me finish,” Wallace interjected again, “and I promise I’ll give you a chance to answer.”

Wallace went on to describe the American Rescue Plan that will fund police officers to develop new technologies and summer job training programs for America’s young adults.

When Wallace gave Banks a chance to respond, Banks stated that Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar said policing is rooted in evil and that Nancy Pelosi compared police officers to Nazi storm troopers, making it difficult to recruit police officers.

After all of the hoopla surrounding Gwen Berry turning her back on the American flag during the National Anthem, it was a total shock to hear the news that U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson has been suspended from competing in the Tokyo Olympics for failing a drug test.

According to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, Richardson agreed to a one-month temporary suspension for violating the very strict anti-doping rule.

“The rules are clear, but this is heartbreaking on many levels; hopefully, her acceptance of responsibility and apology will be an important example to us all that we can successfully overcome our regrettable decisions, despite the costly consequences of this one to her,” USADA CEO Travis T. Tygart said in a statement. backlash  

Confirmed: US star sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson is given a one-month ban for taking marijuana at the US trials. Means her including her Olympic qualifying results at the US trials are disqualified, and she forfeits any medals, points, and prizes. pic.twitter.com/9LKn0QeTdO

— Sean Ingle (@seaningle) July 2, 2021

“Sha’Carri Richardson’s situation is incredibly unfortunate and devastating for everyone involved. Athlete health and well-being continue to be one of USATF’s most critical priorities and we will work with Sha’Carri to ensure she has ample resources to overcome any mental health challenges now and in the future,” USATF said in a statement.

During an appearance on “TODAY” following the suspension, Richard apologized and explained she wasn’t looking for pity. She admitted that the loss of her mother before the trials hurt and deeply upset her.

“…Being in that position in my life, finding out something like that … something that I would say is probably one of the biggest things that have impacted me positively and negatively in my life when it comes to dealing with the relationship I had with my mother so that definitely was a very heavy topic on me and people don’t understand what it’s like to have to … or people do and we all have our different struggles and we all have our different things we deal with,” Richardson said. “But to put on a face and to have to go on in front of the world and put on a face and hide my pain … who am I to tell you how to cope when you’re dealing with a pain or you’re dealing with a struggle you never experienced before or that you never thought you would have to deal with. Who am I to tell you how to cope? Who am I to tell you that you’re wrong for hurting.

“Leading up to that, dealing with my mental health dealing with mental health leading up to the Games, every time stepping onto the track expecting to be a record-breaking time or something like that. Just with that pressure in itself was just a whole ‘nother thing which actually was the first full professional career, my first full professional circuit this year due to the pandemic.”

Sha’Carri Richardson (@itskerrii) joins us live for an exclusive interview to discuss the positive marijuana test that’s put her Olympic future in limbo. pic.twitter.com/iVBp3zhvja

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 2, 2021

Richardson said she only learned of her mother’s death after a reporter questioned her about it. She said that sent her into a state of “emotional panic” but still felt obligated to go out and compete.

The National Security Agency Issued a response on Fox News host Tucker Carlson claiming that they have been spying on him via his texts and emails. Their response sparked a wide range of emotions on Tuesday Night with most people either shifted to one of two sides: Either they used the statement to claim Carlson was lying for the views on Fox or they noted how carefully the statement by the NSA was crafted.

Carlson claimed this at the start of the week:

“Yesterday we heard from a whistleblower within the U.S. government who reached out to warn us that the NSA, the National Security Agency, is monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air. … The whistleblower, who is in a position to know, repeated back to us information about a story that we are working on that could have only come directly from my texts and emails. There’s no other possible source for that information, period. … The NSA captured that information without our knowledge and did it for political reasons. The Biden administration is spying on us. We have confirmed that. This morning we filed a FOIA request — Freedom of Information Act request — asking for all information that the NSA and other agencies have gathered about this show.“

https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1410091087171969024

The NSA responded by very publicly releasing a statement the moment Carlson’s show aired on Tuesday night that claimed:

On June 28, 2021, Tucker Carlson alleged that the National Security Agency has been ‘monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.’ This allegation is untrue. Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air.

NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States. With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting.

Carlson responded to the NSA’s statement by stating in part:

“Tonight’s statement from the NSA does not deny that. Instead, it comes with this non sequitur, in part, quote, ‘Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the agency.’ Okay, glad to know. But the question remains, did the Biden administration read my personal emails? That’s the question that we asked directly to NSA officials when we spoke to them about 20 minutes ago in a very heated conversation. Did you read my emails? And again, they refuse to say, again and again. And then they refused even to explain why they couldn’t answer that simple question. We can’t tell you and we won’t tell you why we can’t tell you. My emails. And the message is clear. We can do whatever we want. We can read your personal texts; we can read your personal emails; we can send veiled threats your way to brush you back if we don’t like your politics; we can do anything.“