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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Famed Alzheimer’s Researcher John Hardy Is a Knight … but Not in Shining Armor By Eric Felten

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/02/08/famed_alzheimers_researcher_john_hardy_is_a_knight__but_not_in_shining_armor_813737.html

The celebrated Alzheimer’s Disease researcher John Hardy was among the British doctors and medical researchers honored by Queen Elizabeth II with knighthoods at the dawn of the new year. It was just the latest on a long list of prestigious awards Hardy has collected, including the Potamkin Prize for his work identifying genetic aspects of Alzheimer’s disease, the MetLife Prize, the Thudichum medal, the Robert A. Pritzker Prize, and the Breakthrough Prize.

In 2018, Hardy added the Brain Prize to his list of accolades. Awarded by the Danish Lundbeck Foundation, it is regularly referred to as the “Nobel of neuroscience.” Winners are assumed to be on the short list for the Nobels themselves.

Missing among all the flattering kudos and attendant news coverage has been any mention of the geneticist’s leading role in a conspiracy that held Alzheimer’s research hostage to fraudulently acquired gene patents. The sordid affair mired efforts to find a cure in tangled, resource-sapping litigation. The last of the courthouse wrangling that began in 2003 wouldn’t be resolved for more than a decade – a resolution that came with a ringing rebuke from the bench expressing the judge’s outrage at the scheme, the schemers, and the damage they caused.

Biden’s administration wants to make life easier for minority crack addicts By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/02/bidens_administration_wants_to_make_life_easier_for_minority_crack_addicts.html

In times past, the American government stood with productive people and pushed back against the forces of corruption and decay. In Biden’s America, though, the opposite is true. Big cities are becoming concierge services for hard-drug addicts and Biden’s administration is joining in, with a multi-million plan to provide crackpipes for addicts. And here’s the kicker: In the name of equity, the administration will make a special effort to bring these instruments of destruction to Blacks and members of the LGBTQ+ crowd.

There’s a growing trend on the left to facilitate drug addiction. Just recently, under ex-Mayor de Blasio’s aegis, New York opened legal shooting galleries—or, as they’re politely called, “Overdose Prevention Centers.” On the very first day, five people overdosed in the Harlem site—although they were brought back to life.

The theory is that, if the drug addicts have a nice, safe place to shoot up, fewer will die. This is the same belief system that sees parents offer their kids pot and alcohol at home so that they’re not on the mean streets doing drugs. Either way, with a green light from those who would ordinarily try to protect them from vice, the kids end up seriously addicted and heading downhill fast. (Just ask Robert Downey Jr., who ended up in federal prison after his dad got him started on drugs; or ask Mackenzie Phillips, whose father did the same for her.)

No Shot at a Fair Trial for January 6 Defendants in the Swamp Biden’s Justice Department relies on the Beltway trifecta—partisan federal judges, news outlets, and prospective jurors—to codify its punitive prosecution and criminalize political dissent. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/07/no-shot-at-a-fair-trial-for-january-6-defendants-in-the-swamp/

The first set of trials for the hundreds of protesters charged in the Justice Department’s sweeping criminal investigation into January 6 begins later this month. Since the Capitol building is considered the scene of the crime, every trial will be held in the District of Columbia—which means the jury pool will be composed solely of residents living in the nation’s capital.

To say this is a problem for Trump supporters facing even minor charges is a huge understatement.

January 6 defendants already have suffered the wrath of D.C.-based federal judges who’ve imposed unusually harsh prison sentences for low level misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies while routinely berating defendants from the bench.

For example, before sentencing a man who pleaded guilty to “parading” in the Capitol to serve 14 days in prison, D.C. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, declared that January 6 protesters were “told lies, told falsehoods, told our election was stolen when it clearly was not.” The defendant, Mehta claimed, “was a pawn in a game directed and played by people who should know better.”

Now the fate of hundreds of January 6 defendants is in the hands of biased judges like Mehta and a city populated with government workers who voted nearly 94 percent for Joe Biden in 2020, prompting some defense attorneys to try to move trials out of Washington. In July, a defense lawyer in one high-profile case filed a change of venue motion before Judge Mehta that explained why January 6 defendants could not get a fair trial in such a heavily Democratic, politically obsessed  city. “The level of antipathy towards Trump and his supporters in the District is off the charts and makes it impossible to find an impartial jury,” David W. Fischer, the attorney representing Thomas Caldwell, charged in the multi-defendant Oath Keepers prosecution.

Politicians and the media continue falsely to portray January 6 defendants as racists, Fischer continued, an accusation certain to enrage potential jurors in a city evenly split between blacks and left-wing whites. “President Biden, in a speech ironically advertised as intended to heal America’s racial divide, referred to January 6th Trump protesters as ‘thugs, insurrectionists, political extremists, and white supremacists.’ At his confirmation hearing, Attorney General Merrick Garland pledged to ‘supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on 6 January.’”

THE CHILLING EFFECTS OF BIG TECH CENSORSHIP: DONALD KENDAL

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/02/08/the-chilling-effect-of-big-tech-censorship/

Over the past few years, we have witnessed a growing trend amongst social media companies and other tech giants to censor content. “Big Tech censorship” has become a rallying cry for conservative content creators. This practice has the overt effect of silencing conservative voices, but it also has a potentially more powerful consequence – a chilling effect on speech.

The chilling effect is often defined as “a usually undesirable discouraging effect or influence.” In politics and policy, the term is mostly used to label the actions of a government that intentionally or even inadvertently stifles free expression. An example of this practice can be seen in Cuba. When the Cuban government cracks down on a journalist critical of the ruling regime, this sends a warning to other journalists in the country to tread lightly on certain topics out of fear they may be the next to be targeted. The effect of the original specific crackdown is to stifle speech more generally across all media in the country.

Like it or not, the censorship of conservative voices by Big Tech is having the same effect.

Child Custody’s Gender Gauntlet Transgender ideology has already achieved a powerful hold on our court system—and parents and children are paying the price. Abigail Shrier

https://www.city-journal.org/child-custody-gender-gauntlet

Before she decided to strip him of all custody over his son, Drew*—before determining that he would have no say in whether Drew began medical gender transition—California Superior Court Judge Joni Hiramoto asked Ted Hudacko this: “If your son [Drew] were medically psychotic and believed himself to be the Queen of England, would you love him?”

“Of course I would,” the senior software engineer at Apple replied, according to the court transcript. “I’d also try to get him help.”

“I understand that qualifier,” Judge Hiramoto replied. “But if it were—if you were told by [Drew’s] psychiatrist, psychologist that [Drew] was very fragile and that confronting him—or, I’m sorry, confronting them with the idea that they are not the Queen of England is very harmful to their mental health, could you go along and say, ‘OK, [Drew], you are the Queen of England and I love you; you are my child and I want you to do great and please continue to see your psychologist.’ Could you do that?”

“Yes,” Hudacko said. “That sounds like part of a process that might take some time, sure.”

“What process?” Judge Hiramoto said. “What is the thing that might take some time? Accepting the idea that [Drew] occupies an identity that you believe is not true?”

“The identity you just mentioned to me was the Queen of England,” Ted began. “I can tell him and I can affirm that to him, to reassuring him situationally; but objectively, he is not the Queen of England and that won’t change, and even the therapist in that case would know that.”

Prison-Gang Politics The Left’s racialist ideologies threaten to transform America into a prison yard. Christopher F. Rufo

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/prison-gang-politics-frontpagemagcom/

When new inmates arrive in California state prisons, they pass through the gauntlet of other men and must make a quick decision: With whom do they stand? They have four options: the whites, the blacks, the Latinos, and the others. For most of the “fish,” or fresh convicts, it’s not much of a choice—they are chosen. The prisons are divided into strictly separated racial gangs, which have their own leadership structure, lunch tables, yard space, and black markets. The new inmates typically fall in with their racial brothers: whites with whites, blacks with blacks, Latinos with Latinos. The only exceptions are those who join the others: a collection of smaller ethnic groups, sexual minorities, and whites who refuse to join with the Aryan Brotherhood.

California prison gangs operate on a model of collective, identity-based security. If a white inmate attacks a black inmate, or vice versa, their racial compatriots must fight to protect the group’s interests. The threat of race war, they believe, is the only way to secure peace. The prisoners maintain separate facilities, separate sleeping quarters, and separate trade networks. They communicate with the other races through “reps,” or emissaries, who deliver messages on behalf of gang leaders. An individual might not want to join the white supremacists or the Norteño drug-runners, but his survival depends on doing so. Courts have occasionally attempted to integrate prison facilities but have never succeeded. Prison wardens have accepted the racial reality and work in tacit cooperation with the gangs to maintain segregated intake, cell assignment, and amenities.

I spent three years directing a documentary about life in America’s three poorest cities, including Stockton, California, which has some of the highest crime and incarceration rates in the country. Stockton is a case study in America’s diverse racial future: it is approximately one-quarter white, one-quarter black, one-quarter Latino, and one-quarter Asian. In the city’s daily activities, the racial groups generally cooperate and go about their business together. There are widespread interracial friendships, marriages, and families. Even some of the city’s street gangs are multiracial. But in the jails and prisons that surround the city, the cultural divide is stark: inmates are subsumed into their racial group; enmity between the races is the assumed condition; racial violence, retaliation, and revenge always loom. There are no individuals, only identity-based expressions of power. This “prison politics” has been cemented into the system.

Biden betraying the nation he ‘leads’ By Eric Utter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/02/biden_betraying_the_nation_he_leads.html

It would be far better for the nation if the military didn’t discharge the unvaccinated…and the people did discharge the Biden administration.

The U.S. Army is going to immediately start discharging the unvaccinated. And this after attempting to purge itself of patriots, devout Christians, and Trump supporters. At this rate, the “force” may literally soon mirror its recruiting slogan of 2001-2006, which touted an “Army Of One.” This seems particularly bizarre timing, given the fact that Uncle Sam believes Russia is going to invade Ukraine soon, and China is now openly threatening Taiwan.

The Biden administration has also pressured hospitals and businesses to get rid of their unvaccinated employees, putting more burden on already over-stressed doctors and nurses and worsening the ubiquitous labor shortages and supply chain disruptions.

When Will Covid 19 Become Endemic? By Henry L. Miller

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/02/07/when-will-covid-19-become-endemic/

With pandemic fatigue becoming ever more intense, there is increasing speculation about when the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, might become “endemic” – a time when outbreaks will be more modest and manageable and we can “coexist” with the virus. That juncture has been described as when the virus has become “annoying but rarely deadly or disruptive.” Unfortunately, there are no quantitative milestones that tell us when we’ve arrived. It’s really a judgment by individuals and society, and prematurely concluding that we’ve reached endemicity and abandoning precautions can have perilous consequences.

Many observers cite influenza – the “flu” – as an example of an endemic infectious disease, so it’s useful to review its impacts. According to the Centers for Disease Control’s statistics, from 2012-2019 the flu virus annually caused about 31 million symptomatic illnesses, 400,000 hospitalizations, and 39,000 deaths in the U.S. Those high numbers are in spite of moderately good vaccines, with efficacy in the range of 40%-60%, and which need to be administered each year.

Apparently, that’s what we, as a society, consider manageable and acceptable; after all, we don’t impose lockdowns, mask requirements, or widespread vaccine mandates during the annual flu outbreaks.

Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Received a $1400 Covid Stimulus Check By Adam Andrzejewski

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2022/02/07/boston_marathon_bomber_dzhokhar_tsarnaev_received_a_1400_covid_stimulus_check_815332.html

On April 15, 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev murdered three people and injured more than 250 others in the horrific Boston Marathon bombing. Seven years later, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev collected a Covid stimulus check in federal prison.

For his role in orchestrating the bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to several life sentences in federal prison, as well as the death penalty (though the death penalty sentence was vacated and is currently under review by the US Supreme Court).

So why is Tsarnaev receiving stimulus checks from the U.S. government?

In March of 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act, which included provisions to send $1,400 stimulus checks to all citizens making less than $75,000 filing individually or $150,000 filing jointly. This included felons. Some Republicans like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) raised the issue and forced a vote to amend the CARES Act to exclude felons from receiving stimulus money, but it ultimately failed, and felons were included. This means that in addition to Tsarnaev, the likes of Dylan Roof, who murdered nine African Americans at Charleston’s Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015, also received stimulus checks.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that a judge ordered Tsarnaev’s stimulus check be seized and put towards the $10.1 million in criminal restitution he owes his victims. So far, he has paid just over $2,000 of that $10 million, despite having an additional personal trust account with a balance of over $3,000.

While there is plenty of healthy debate to be had regarding the efficacy of the stimulus checks, one thing most people should be able to agree on is that murderers like Tsarnaev should not receive federal aid financed by your tax dollars and ever-increasing government debt.

Understanding the Covid Odds If you’ve been vaccinated and still feel mortally threatened by the virus, please read this. John Tierney

https://www.city-journal.org/understanding-the-covid-odds?wallit_nosession=1

It’s obviously not easy to give up fear of Covid-19, to judge from a recent survey showing that the vaccinated are actually more frightened than the unvaccinated. Another survey found that most Democratic voters are so worried that they want to make it illegal for the unvaccinated to leave home. But before you don another mask or disinfect another surface, before you cheer on politicians and school officials enforcing mandates, consider your odds of a fatal Covid case once you’ve been vaccinated.

Those odds can be gauged from a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, published by the Centers for Disease Control. They tracked more than 1 million vaccinated adults in America over most of last year, including the period when the Delta variant was surging, and classified victims of Covid according to risk factors such as being over 65, being immunosuppressed, or suffering from diabetes or chronic diseases of the heart, kidney, lungs, liver or brain.