Kennedy is scheduled to appear before the committee on Wednesday, where he will assert, “News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-industry. Well, I am neither; I am pro-safety. I worked for years to raise awareness about the mercury and toxic chemicals in fish, but that didn’t make me anti-fish. All of my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have a critical role in healthcare.”
The hearings are expected to be contentious due to Kennedy’s past statements regarding vaccines, including his repeated claims linking vaccines to autism. Kennedy has also been associated with Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit where he served in leadership roles, known for its advocacy against vaccines and legal challenges against federal vaccine policies.
In his defense, Kennedy will stress that the United States faces significant health challenges, with chronic diseases being a major concern. He plans to thank President Trump for entrusting him with the task of improving public health, stating his intentions to scrutinize food additives, remove financial conflicts of interest within health agencies, and foster an HHS driven by honest, unbiased science.
These hearings come at a time when Kennedy’s confirmation is uncertain. However, his message seems to resonate with some GOP senators, who might be convinced by his pivot towards advocating for safety and transparency in vaccine policy rather than outright opposition.
Article generated from legacy media reports.
It’s understandable that he will be taking a more “mainstream” stance during today’s hearings. Those of us who are vehemently opposed to vaccine mandates as well as the “bioweapons” that some of them represent should not be too discouraged if he sounds like a pro-vaxxer today.
He’s not. But he understands the need to toe the line and if that’s what it takes to earn a position that will allow him to address the plethora of health concerns we have in America, so be it. What he says to get there is far less important than what he does once he’s in position.
]]>DeepSeek, which was rolled out on Jan. 15, rose to the top of the charts in Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store on Tuesday, and has been downloaded more than 2 million times, the New York Post reported.
Although it is not uncommon for AI chatboxes to store user data, the information being stored in China is concerning, according to experts. DeepSeek’s terms of service says all user data is stored “in secure servers located in the People’s Republic of China,” and it automatically collects personal data such as “device model, operating system, keystroke patterns or rhythms, IP address, and system language.”
In addition, DeepSeek has shown signs of censorship and bias. It won’t answer, for example, prompts about the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, the country’s leader Xi Jinping, certain questions about Taiwan, and known human rights abuses by China against the Uighurs, according to the Post.
Under Chinese Cybersecurity laws, the government can access data from any Chinese company upon request, meaning they can potentially access the U.S. data collected by DeepSeek. […]
]]>— Read More: justthenews.com
Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. A “current employee at the Office of Personnel Management” says that Trump has initiated a “hostile takeover of the federal civil service”. This is the message that this anonymous employee posted on Twitter…
In other words, Trump and his team have literally taken control of the infrastructure that oversees all federal personnel decisions.
We have never seen anything quite like this before.
When Trump started his first term, he tried to play along with the establishment.
This time around, he is doing things much differently.
On Tuesday, the White House announced a “temporary suspension” of most federal grants and loans…
President Donald Trump’s administration has enacted a temporary suspension of all federal grants and loans, effective today, Tuesday, January 28, 2025.
This strategic pause, orchestrated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is designed to facilitate a comprehensive review of federal financial assistance programs, ensuring that taxpayer dollars are utilized efficiently and in accordance with the administration’s objectives.
This initiative reflects President Trump’s unwavering commitment to fiscal responsibility and his dedication to eliminating wasteful spending.
We have never seen an incoming president do anything like this either. But it makes sense. Trump and his team want to evaluate where federal money is going so that taxpayer dollars can be deployed as efficiently as possible.
Assistance that goes directly to individuals is not being frozen. As White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has made quite clear, this temporary freeze does not apply to Social Security, Medicare, or the food stamp program…
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the pause wouldn’t cover Social Security and Medicare benefits or food stamps – assistance that is going directly to individuals.
“This is not a blanket pause on federal assistance and grant programs from the Trump administration,” Leavitt said. “However, it is the responsibility of this president and this administration to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
However, on Tuesday there were reports that Medicaid payment systems were not functioning…
Several lawmakers took to social media on Tuesday afternoon to confirm that that their state’s Medicaid payment systems have been shut off.
“Can confirm. Connecticut’s Medicaid payment system has been turned off. Doctors and hospitals cannot get paid,” wrote Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut in a post on the social media site X. “Discussions ongoing about whether services can continue.”
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said on X that his staff has confirmed that Medicaid portals in all 50 states are down due to the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze.
The Trump administration says that it is aware of this issue and insists that any Medicaid payments that were temporarily delayed will soon be processed…
The White House has said it is ‘aware of the Medicaid website portal outage’ but insisted no payments had been denied and were instead just delayed in being processed.
But state and federal officials say the issue is already impacting providers across the country and worrying millions of people who rely on Medicaid for everything from prescription medicines and preventive screening to unexpected hospital stays and checkups.
Needless to say, once Trump’s funding freeze was unveiled, liberal organizations that rely on federal funding went absolutely ballistic.
A bunch of groups quickly went to court, and they were able to find a federal judge that was sympathetic…
A federal district judge on Tuesday granted an administrative stay in a case challenging the Trump administration’s planned freeze of federal aid, pausing the plan for a week and setting a hearing for further arguments Monday morning.
The order applies only to the pause of disbursements in open grants, Judge Loren AliKhan said. And it doesn’t get into the legality of the freeze; instead, it gives her time to hear more fleshed-out arguments from a coalition of nonprofit groups about why she should issue a temporary restraining order that could block the freeze for an additional two weeks. The hearing will take place at 11 a.m. Monday.
Why are they able to get the courts to move so quickly?
For most Americans, our court system moves at a glacial pace.
In any event, I expect that Trump’s temporary suspension of federal grants and loans will eventually be upheld.
The Trump administration has also decided to temporarily freeze most foreign aid…
Internal communications reviewed by ABC News show that the Trump administration plans to strictly implement an executive order from the president mandating a 90-day freeze on almost all U.S. foreign aid amid a review, a measure that already has sparked widespread concern among humanitarian organizations.
“We get tired of giving massive amounts of money to countries that hate us, don’t we?” President Donald Trump said in a speech during the House Republicans’ annual retreat in Florida on Monday, touting a blizzard of executive actions he had taken since returning to the White House.
Emergency food programs and military aid to Israel and Egypt are the only exceptions to this freeze on foreign assistance.
Once again, the goal is to review where the money is going so that it can be used as efficiently as possible.
For far too long, money from the U.S. has been ending up in the pockets of corrupt officials all over the globe.
That needs to stop.
On top of everything else, Trump has announced that buyouts are being offered to all federal employees that “don’t wish to return to in-person work at the office”…
The Trump administration is offering buyouts to all federal employees who don’t wish to return to in-person work at the office, a White House official confirmed to USA TODAY.
The offer, which will be outlined in a memo the U.S. Office of Personnel Management intends to send on Tuesday, would give federal employees eight months of pay until September if they resign by Feb. 6.
“If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal deferred resignation program,” according to a copy of the memo reviewed by the USA TODAY.
I had no idea that so few federal employees were showing up for work at the office each day.
According to one administration official, only 6 percent of all federal employees show up to work at the office on a full-time basis…
“The government-wide email being sent today is to make sure that all federal workers are on board with the new administration’s plan to have federal employees in office and adhering to higher standards. We’re five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office. That is unacceptable,” said the anonymous senior administration official.
There are some people that are able to efficiently work from home, but there are others that simply lack the discipline to do so.
For example, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst has pointed out that one VA official was actually “on a Zoom call from his bathtub”…
‘One VA employee who was in charge of some of these hotlines – he actually was on a Zoom call from his bathtub,’ said Ernst, who is chairwoman of the Senate Small Business Committee. ‘You’re not actually working if you’re taking a long, hot soak in a bubble bath.’
This March 2023 example is often used by Republicans to exhibit why returning to the office is necessary. The VA worker posted a story to Instagram showing him in a bathtub with the caption: ‘My office for the next hr.’
Are you kidding me?
Federal employees should not be doing their jobs from their bathtubs.
Now that Trump is demanding that they start showing up for work again, a lot of them are threatening to quit, and that is actually what Trump and his team are hoping for…
Experts say the aggregate effect of the changes will be to drive frustrated government employees out of their jobs, a goal the Trump team is explicitly gunning for.
Musk – who chairs DOGE – recently predicted that revoking ‘the COVID-era privilege’ of telework would trigger ‘a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.’
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he also demanded that employees return to the office, and the size of Twitter’s workforce slimmed down quite rapidly.
Now the same thing is happening to the federal bureaucracy.
I didn’t think that I would ever see it happen in my lifetime.
But here we are.
Of course this is just the beginning.
So grab your popcorn and get ready for a lot more epic and necessary governmental chaos in the months ahead.
Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
]]>From the White House pressure on social media companies to banish ideas with which Joe Biden and his administration disagreed, to the willing cooperation of those companies, to the shunning of those who had alternative views to the stunningly extra-constitutional “canceling” of those individuals, President Donald Trump has pledged to end it.
But now there’s appearing a scheme by European bureaucrats to pick up where Biden, Kamala Harris and Facebook left off.
According to a report from the Washington Stand, those bureaucrats are considering plans to apply their “online censorship” agenda to Americans.
Free speech promoters warn what is being lined up is dangerous.
“Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) debated expanding the Digital Services Act (DSA) last week, according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International,” the report explained, noting the controversial DSA took effect just last year and already requires the removal of “illegal” content from social media software.
Now those bureaucrats want to move far beyond cracking down on illegal material to pursue their claimed objective to “protect democracy” in Europe from “foreign interference.”
They specifically are concerned about Elon Musk, who restored free speech to the X platform when he took it over, and the leftists in Europe are accusing him of promoting the “far right” because he’s spoken in support of Trump’s pro-America agenda.
Curiously, it was Democrats in America who for years have claimed to want to be protecting democracy by attacking Trump and conservatives in America. For that agenda, they insisted on controlling what people saw and read, and they even tried to restrict the candidates for whom Americans could vote.
The report said Iratxe Garcia, a lawmaker and chief of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, claimed, “In recent months, we have seen how Elon Musk and his social network X have become the main promoter for the far right by supporting Donald Trump and Alice Weidel’s AfD party through fake news and hate messages.”
She is demanding that all those social media platforms follow the rules she wants to impose.
The European Union also has plans to expand its censorship staff to 200 people, a move that “would potentially allow the European Union (EU) to target American citizens for online speech considered hateful or criminal under European laws.”
There already are situations that have developed in Europe in which a simple statement of Christian faith has been considered hate speech.
The DSA already allows the EU to impose massive fines on social media corporations.
The report noted that while progressives in Europe, like their counterparts in America in recent years, like the idea of government censorship, conservatives there have warned that such programs are a “tool” for limiting political discussion.
Paul Coleman, chief of ADF International, said in the report, “We are living in a new bipolar order of speech. On the one hand, Europe is doubling down on censorship, while the U.S. is recommitting to its free speech heritage.
“This will usher in an unprecedented era of tension within the West itself over this most basic of human rights, and it is the responsibility of all who value freedom to side with the protection of free speech. The effects of the DSA will not be confined to Europe. There are legitimate worries that the DSA could censor the speech of citizens across the world, as social media companies could regulate their content globally to comply with European standards,” he told the Stand.
Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.
]]>White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorized the drones to fly for “research” and were “not the enemy.” A brief panic ensued among the public and lawmakers over the mysterious drones in December, which was aggravated by hobbyists flying their own over the area, according to the White House.
In December, residents of Morris and Somerset counties in New Jersey saw what appeared to be flashing and darting lights overhead, with some appearing to travel in formations. Lawmakers began to ask federal agencies for answers, which were met with silence at the time.
Republican New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew said Dec. 11 that the drones were launched by Iran from a “mothership,” citing “qualified” and “responsible sources.” The Pentagon quickly shot down Van Drew’s assertions that day, saying there was “no truth” to the rumor while also saying they were not “U.S. military.”
Trump called for the drones to be shot down in a Truth Social post Dec. 13, saying the public deserved to know what the objects were and adding that the incidents couldn’t “be happening without our government’s knowledge.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned residents on Dec. 16 to not shoot down the drones, citing potential legal repercussions and the potential to accidentally shoot down a manned vehicle.
The FAA deferred to the White House while reiterating that drones can fly legally in most places under 400 feet with some exceptions when the Daily Caller News Foundation requested comment.
This was the finding of the Supreme Court in Arthur Andersen v. United States, an infamous case related to the Enron scandal where then-U.S. Attorney Andrew Weissmann put one of the “Big 5” accounting firms out of business – costing maybe 80,000 Arthur Andersen employees their jobs – only to eventually be reversed by the Supreme Court in a 9-0 decision.
The crime that Arthur Andersen supposedly committed? It followed its internal policy for destroying client records – Enron in this case – before it received a federal grand jury subpoena for those records as part of the probe into Enron’s accounting practices. Arthur Andersen was charged under Sec. 1512(b)(2) – there was no subsection (c) at that time – which made it a crime to “knowingly [and] … corruptly persuade another person … with intent to … cause” that person to “withhold” or “alter” documents intended for use in an “official proceeding.”
To get around the problem of Enron not having instructed Arthur Andersen to shred documents, Weissmann and crew focused on Arthur Andersen’s management directing Arthur Andersen employees to shred Enron documents. But no one at Arthur Andersen knew Enron was under investigation.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court’s decision was that because Arthur Andersen was following its internal policy, and was not aware the records were relevant to a federal grand jury investigation, it could not have acted “corruptly” in directing its employees to destroy Enron’s records. […]
]]>— Read More: redstate.com
This is done by many self-styled “progressives” – in reality, those like London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who shortly before the presidential inauguration in the US penned an opinion piece in the UK press, referring to Musk as “a billionaire bully.”
But the mayor didn’t seem bothered by quite a number of billionaire “bullies” who during the past eight years (see: Big Tech-government censorship collusion) literally put profits over the interests of democracies – which is what Khan now accuses Musk of doing.
Not while that “dirty work” was done in favor of his political and ideological ilk.
It is almost as if the fear and loathing related to the realignment of Big Tech is greater than that of Trump himself, and if so, there is a good reason: all those who greatly benefited from rampant online censorship realize the power free speech has – which is why they would work so hard to suppress it.
To try to curb the tide of major social platforms turning against censorship, the likes of Khan – but also many in the EU, of which the UK is not formally a member – are now pushing for even stricter rules that enable censorship. They refer to those as “laws on harmful content.”
Lies, hate, misinformation, resurgent fascism, century-defining challenge, hard-right wing politicians (just for supporting Trump) – these are some of the dramatic and over-the-top terms and concepts now being thrown around to justify such a policy push.
Writes Khan: “A billionaire bully shouldn’t be able to use his social media platform as a propaganda tool to amplify lies and advance the cause of the far right.”
And the London mayor adds, “Nor should social media companies be able to evade responsibility for algorithms that maximize – and monetize – hate.”
That last remark is oddly synchronized – both in the timing and the messaging – with a recent EU decision to investigate the way algorithms and recommendations work on X (after being prompted to do so by Germany’s ruling politicians facing a very uncertain election next month.)
Maybe they all received the memo with the same talking points.
If you’re tired of censorship and surveillance, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.
]]>The sentences, including minimum prison terms ranging from eight to 20 years, were handed down by a judge at the High Court in Glasgow, who described the crimes as among the most severe they had encountered.
The group, comprised of two women and five men, was found guilty of the systematic abuse of children in an environment saturated with heroin and crack cocaine. Four of the member of the rape gang faced additional charges of attempting to murder a child by placing her in dangerous situations, including inside a microwave. Meanwhile, prosecutors decided against pursuing charges related to alleged Satanic witchcraft practices involving the victims.
The appalling case comes as Britain’s far-left Labour government has been pressured into approving some limited public inquiries into child rape grooming gangs in England, comprised primarily of Muslims of Pakistani heritage. There are estimated tens or hundreds of thousands of victims of Muslim rape gangs across Britain.
]]>On day one in office, Trump issued sweeping actions to combat illegal immigration, including deployment of military personnel to the southern border and deportations targeting those with a criminal record nationwide. Additionally, Trump declared a national border emergency and issued an order to end birthright citizenship for children of non-citizens or those on temporary status visas.
According to ICE’s account on social media platform X, targeted enforcement operations involve “planned arrests of known criminal aliens who threaten national security or public safety.”
Since Jan. 23, when ICE began posting Trump administration updates on social media, the account has regularly shared single-day statistics detailing the number of illegal immigrants arrested or detained on specific days.
The first update announced 538 arrests and 373 detainers lodged on Jan. 23. The next day brought slightly higher figures, with the department’s announcement of 593 arrests. On Jan. 25 and 26, the agency announced 286 and 956 arrests, respectively. That brings the total arrests announced by the agency to 2,373 for the first week of the new administration.
ICE issued a statement on Jan. 26 about the arrests, explaining that it “began conducting enhanced targeted operations today in Chicago to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.”
ICE said it was working with the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Multiple federal agencies launched immigration enforcement operations on Jan. 26 in Chicago. Federal officials were present in the city to observe the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration enforcement, including Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove.
ICE did not offer figures for how many illegal immigrants it has arrested in Chicago. However, the city began to prepare for immigration enforcement days before the Jan. 26 arrests began.
Mayor Brandon Johnson spoke out about the operations in a post on X: “We’ve received reports of ICE enforcement activity in Chicago today. Please know that Chicago police were not involved. My team and I are working closely with City officials.”
The DEA Rocky Mountain Field Division worked with ICE and other federal officials to arrest 41 illegal immigrants from a “makeshift nightclub” in a Denver suburb on Jan. 26.
During the arrests, agents seized drugs—including cocaine—and weapons. The agency reported that a number of those found at the event are connected to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Houston’s DEA division posted on social media on Jan. 26 several photos of arrests carried out with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and DHS officials to make an unspecified number of arrests.
In Newark, local officials allege that ICE carried out an enforcement operation and illegally arrested workers at a local fast food distribution center, with Mayor Ras Baraka asserting that in addition to the detention of three non-citizens, some of those detained were citizens, one of which was allegedly a military veteran.
ICE Newark did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’s request for comment.
Los Angeles DEA also confirmed via social media on Jan. 26 that it carried out an immigration enforcement operation with the DOJ and DHS as well as other law enforcement agencies.
Arrests of illegal immigrants have also been reported by federal agencies in San Antonio, Miami, Detroit, Omaha, Phoenix, and Atlanta.
ICE has also released details on specific arrests of criminal illegal aliens, including the arrest of a man in Houston. Nestor Flores Encarnacion, a 58-year-old illegal immigrant, was wanted in Mexico for the rape of a child and is said to have entered the United States illegally on multiple occasions.
“This foreign fugitive brazenly entered the U.S. in violation of our nation’s laws on four separate occasions to evade prosecution in Mexico for allegedly raping a child,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston Field Office Director Bret A. Bradford.
On the same day, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations San Francisco arrested an illegal immigrant and Guatemalan national convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor. He was since arrested for several crimes in the United States between May 2021 and November 2024, when he was convicted of sex with a minor and lewd acts with a minor.
Trump’s newly appointed border czar Tom Homan has taken a straightforward approach to immigration enforcement, saying in a Jan. 21 interview on CNN that ICE will prioritize the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants with a criminal record. He said, however, that the enforcement would not be limited to those illegal immigrants with a criminal background.
“That is the difference between the last administration and this administration: ICE is going to enforce immigration law. There’s nothing in the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act] that says you’ve got to be convicted of a serious crime in order to be removed from this country,” Homan said.
“[ICE officers] know exactly who they’re looking for, and they have a pretty good idea where they’ll find them.”
The Associated Press and Lawrence Wilson contributed to this report.
]]>“I am optimistic that President Trump is focusing his energies here,” she said, adding that she hopes it is not a false promise. “Because I just don’t think the people could handle that at this point.”
Glowinski, who has been driving six hours each way from her home in Columbia, South Carolina, for four months straight with supplies such as food, water and diapers to those affected in Swannanoa, North Carolina, said she was called to service just days after the images started to emerge from western North Carolina.
“We had a dear friend who lived in the Asheville area reach out to us to see if she could borrow our generator. Her neighborhood was without power, and she had elderly and sick neighbors that she wanted to take care of,” Glowinski explained.
Her friend from Asheville came to pick it up and stopped at a Sam’s Club in South Carolina because nothing was open in her area. “As she shared with us the devastation in the area, we asked what was needed. She said ‘everything,’ so we reached out to friends and neighbors for donations with our intent to take items up to the mountains,” Glowinski recounted. […]
]]>— Read More: www.dailysignal.com