WORLD NEWS
The UN’s real plan of attack on the United States! Greg Reese reports:
The southern border of the United States is wide open, and the Federal government has been conducting a wide-scale criminal operation of flooding the country with unvetted foreigners, distributing them across the United States, and providing them with homes and financial support. The GOP’s talking point has been that this is all about election fraud, but this has been happening all across the Western world for over a decade. This is something far more sinister than election fraud.
The Population Division of the United Nations concerns themselves with international migration. In the year 2000, they published Replacement Migration, a solution put forth to deal with declining and aging populations. For years we were told that this was a conspiracy theory, but now that we are seeing tens of millions murdered by the experimental shots, it is becoming more clear what the objective is.
We are told that these are poor families fleeing tyranny, but there are massive amounts of healthy young men without any families. And time and time again we have seen them act violently against the native population, with very little repercussions from the law. As we are expecting the announcement of Disease X, and another lockdown, a recent report from the UK’s Jim Ferguson provides a plausible explanation of what we are seeing.
JIM FERGUSON: “This isn’t normal. There’s something not right. This isn’t just refugees coming, these aren’t people fleeing from some kind of war zone. These are predominantly men aged between 25 and 35, young fighting age man, as my old boss, Nigel Farage once referred to them. And I think he’s right. John, what do you think’s going on here mate?”
JOHN O’LOONEY: “So I can tell you, these are UN soldiers and they will be deployed by the W.H.O. when they announce the next pandemic lockdown. That’s what’s going to happen. They’ve been trained by British soldiers. Been trained by the Black Watch Regiment. They were trained in Antalya, in Turkey, and in the east of Ukraine. They’re predominantly down to sergeant ranks. They’re then shipped to France. They all signed the Official Secrets Act, then they’re ferried over. If you were fleeing war and tyranny, I don’t know about you, but I would certainly take my wife and children with me. The most precious, They’re my prized asset, you know, they’re everything to me. If you’re going to war, you go to war with lads. They gonna be deployed, they will be deployed.”
JIM FERGUSON: “John, I mean you say you spoke to people in the Black Watch. I mean, Black Watch, a very famous yellow regiment. Are they actually going along with this?”
JOHN O’LOONEY: “They’ve got no choice. I kind of said, you know, why are you doing it? And he said, soldiers follow orders. What you’re going to see is the following, we’ll have a minister somewhere in cabinets, suddenly come up with a great idea on how we’re going to get these guys to contribute to help us. And they’re going to put them in uniforms. A couple of people have told me these uniforms are burgundy. Others have told me they’re U.N. blue. I really don’t know. I guess we’ll see when they deploy them. They are gonna be deployed. Because otherwise, if they announce another lockdown, what would everyone say? They’d say bollocks. And they’d go about their business wouldn’t they? They’re gonna need armed young men in uniform to try and enforce it. Why did they import young men from the East? Because, traditionally, if you want to kill and tyrannize white people, you put black soldiers in. Because there’s a cultural disassociation. And that’s their method. That’s the way these globalists are gonna do it.”
JIM FERGUSON: “You know, in America, when it was a colony of the United Kingdom of Britain, there was a revolution against British colonial rule.”
JOHN O’LOONEY: “That’s right.”
JIM FERGUSON: “And, you know, a lot of people don’t realize, but it was only 3% of those people in America that overthrew the British forces and basically got rid of them. 3% of the population, John.”
JOHN O’LOONEY: “I look forward to it. I’m ready, I’m ready. I can’t wait because I know it’s gonna be the beginning of the end for them. I do foresee victory. I see that at a very great cost. But we will see it. And people, I think the world will become closer than ever when we do see victory. It’s gonna come on the back of a load of bloodshed. And unfortunately, it has to. Once people of all colors come together and recognize their common enemy, We’ll walk over these people in ten minutes.”
Trilateral Commission immigration policy destroyed Great Britain ( it will destroy America too)!
Trilateral Commissioner Peter Sutherland (1946-2018), hailed as the “Father of Globalization,” was the undisputed architect of Europe’s disastrous immigration policy. This scurrilous rat set the immigration quotas for Europe and then enforced them as nations resisted the Islamic invasion. Nobody today has a clue how this happened.
Mass immigration has not delivered the economic growth successive U.K. governments claimed it would and has contributed to rising pressure on public services, Britain’s former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, has claimed in a report written in collaboration with a leading think tank.
The report by the Center for Policy Studies published this week offers several findings that challenge the Western liberal narrative that mass immigration fuels economic growth, provides a fiscal benefit, and is a force for good for European nations.
“The scale and composition of recent migration have failed to deliver the significant economic and fiscal benefits its advocates promised, while putting enormous pressure on housing, public services, and infrastructure,” it states.
The study found that net migration accounted for 89 percent of the 1.34 million increase in England’s housing deficit over the last decade, resulting in a housing shortage and pushing house prices to a record property-price-to-salary ratio.
It warned that Britain would have to build a home every five minutes night and day just to cope with the current levels of immigration. The 515,000 homes needed every year would be the equivalent of adding a city the size of Cardiff to the U.K. every year.
Commenting on the report, Jenrick explained how he had resigned as an immigration minister in December last year because he “refused to be another politician who broke their promise to reduce immigration.”
At the time of his resignation, Jenrick cited the government’s Rwanda policy as the primary reason for his departure, insisting the legislation did not go far enough and would not be able to effectively reduce illegal immigration into Britain.
“Three decades of mass migration have utterly failed the British public. The costs have been covered up. Here is the truth that needs to be told,” Jenrick added.
WHO goes into overtime in drafting the pandemic treaty as opposition grows!
Representatives of the countries comprising the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) failed to submit a finalized draft this weekend of a proposed international accord to govern how to address pandemics, meaning the parties will likely continue to debate the document until the World Health Assembly begins.
The World Health Assembly, the W.H.O.’s annual meeting to address issues of global concern, is expected to begin on May 27. Under the leadership of Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O. has spent much of the past three years encouraging the establishment of a global “pandemic treaty” to empower the United Nations to address international health emergencies. The idea surfaced in the aftermath of the W.H.O.’s total failure to competently respond to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, which began as an isolated epidemic of a novel disease in Wuhan, China, and rapidly spread as the Chinese communist government opposed travel restrictions and obfuscated W.H.O. research to investigate its origins.
W.H.O. member parties have reportedly hotly disagreed on several of the provisions in the multiple drafts of what is formally known as the “W.H.O. convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response,” or “WHO CA+.” The two most controversial matters are how much to expand the W.H.O.’s authority to declare public health emergencies within countries, potentially curtailing national sovereignty, and provisions in the text demanding “equity” in responsibility for developing medications and vaccines, stockpiling personal protective gear, and other costly health services.
The W.H.O. conceded in a statement on Friday that the negotiators had failed to make the progress they were hoping for by May 10. They nonetheless claimed the parties involved were committed to creating a workable pandemic treaty and would continue their work beyond the deadline.
According to Reuters, the draft agreement as it existed last week included a more specific call for “pharmaceutical manufacturers to reserve 10% of such items to donate to the WHO, and 10% for the agency to buy at affordable prices to distribute in poorer countries during health emergencies.” The ten percent number prompted alarm as some member countries were reportedly concerned the number was too high to ensure those countries would be prepared for internal health emergencies.
The United Kingdom’s health officials issued statements during negotiations last week suggesting London would not sign to the draft as it currently exists, as it is a threat to the country’s sovereignty. Conservative leader Nigel Farage launched a campaign this week to oppose the adoption of the W.H.O. pandemic accord, warning that the draft could result in an international push “for mandatory lockdowns and vaccinations.”
“It must reform to respect national sovereignty, stop interfering in people’s lives, and abandon the frankly terrifying pandemic treaty,” Farage said, referring to the W.H.O. itself. “The WHO can no longer ignore the growing dissatisfaction from people across the world. It either reforms, or countries must leave it altogether!”
In the United States, Republican lawmakers have taken the lead in opposing a push to bind America to the pandemic accord, potentially without following the constitutional provisions required for the country to sign into a treaty-level agreement. In March, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) introduced a bill specifying that, if passed, the White House could not become a signatory to the pandemic accord without recognizing it as a treaty, which would require two-thirds of the Senate to approve.
In April, over half of the Senate signed a letter to President Joe Biden opposing the pandemic accord.
“Some of the over 300 proposals for amendments made by member states would substantially increase the WHO’s health emergency powers and constitute intolerable infringements upon U.S. sovereignty,” the letter warned.
Tedros has responded to criticism by claiming that any concerns about the erosion of sovereignty are “misinformation” and the pandemic accord will actually strengthen sovereign powers.
“W.H.O. will not even be a party to the agreement. The parties are governments and governments alone,” Tedros said in February. “Far from ceding sovereignty, the agreement actually affirms national sovereignty and national responsibility in its foundational principles. Indeed, the agreement is itself an exercise of sovereignty.”
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
REPORT: More than half of immigrants in America are unemployed!
More than half of the foreign-born immigrant population in the United States under
President Joe Biden’s administration is unemployed, according to a recent report.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released a report on Monday that showed that just 46 percent of migrants who had arrived in the U.S. “in 2022 or later” were employed as of the beginning of 2024.
“Immigration clearly adds workers to the country, but it just as clearly adds non-workers who need to be supported by the labor of others,” Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler, researchers with the CIS, wrote.
This was the case in the past, it is true today, and it will surely be the case for immigrants who arrive in the future. Those who simply see immigration as a source of labor need to understand it is also a source of school children, retirees, and many other non-workers.
The data from the CIS report undermines arguments that supporters of illegal immigration have used to try to point out that migrant workers help the economy by working hard.
The report also found that, since Biden took office in January 2021, the migrant population in the U.S. increased by roughly 6.6 million over the course of 39 months.
As of March 2024, there were 51.6 million foreign-born migrants, 5.1 million more than in 2022. This number made up 15.6 percent of the population in the U.S.
“Many advocates for the unauthorized argue they should be given work permits so they can support themselves while they await a court date,” the researchers wrote in the report. “Of course, others worry that this would only incentivize more illegal immigration. In 2024, a larger share of new arrivals were unauthorized relative to prior years due to the ongoing border crisis.”
Another report from the CIS in February found that Biden’s job growth centered around hiring millions of foreign-born immigrants while the number of American citizens with jobs decreased from pre- COVID-19 levels.
Trump had company in court yesterday!
Republican Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, seen as a potential pick to be former President Donald Trump’s 2024 vice presidential running mate, appeared alongside President Trump in a Manhattan court on Monday during his “hush money” trial.
Mr. Vance was seen entering the courthouse with the former president on Monday, as part of his entourage, while President Trump’s former attorney-turned-enemy, Michael Cohen, took the stand to testify.
The race for the vice presidential spot has heated up in recent weeks, as Mr. Vance and others have been portrayed as auditioning for the spot after appearing at a recent event at President Trump’s home and club Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Later this week, Mr. Vance is also expected to join President Trump on the campaign trail for a fundraiser in Cincinnati.
Also joining Mr. Vance on Monday at the courthouse were Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall.
The GOP elected officials supporting President Trump in court on Monday spoke in a press conference as court recessed for lunch.
Mr. Vance spoke briefly, stating “to all the American voters and American people who are watching this, the one opportunity you get to speak up against this sham prosecution and to say the American people elect their president, not corrupt DNC prosecutors, is to vote for Donald Trump in November.”
Mr. Tuberville spoke in more detail, calling the courtroom “depressing” and stating the repeated use of “Mr. Trump” opposed to “President Trump” was disrespectful.
“That courtroom is depressing. This is New York City—the icon of our country—and we got a courtroom that’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever been in,” Mr. Tuberville said outside the courthouse Monday. “Mental anguish is trying to be pushed on the Republican candidate for the President of the United States this year. That’s all this is.”
Mr. Tuberville continued, stating he was disappointed in the courtroom antics of District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who was treating the courtroom like “it is his Super Bowl.”
Referring to Mr. Cohen, Mr. Tuberville said he was a “serial liar” and that there should be “no reason that anybody should listen to” him.
BTW, Cohen testified that he acted under Trump’s direction and had plans to be reimbursed for the payout to Daniels. He also said that Trump was concerned with the presidential contest, not his marriage, in trying to bury news of the alleged affair, claiming Trump urged him to drag on negotiations to get past the election. He’ll continue on the stand today and be cross-examined by Trump’s lawyers.
“But, at the end of the day, the Democrats are trying to beat President Trump in the jury box because they can’t beat him at the ballot box,” Alabama’s senator added. “That’s end of story. So, I’m from the South. I’m here today to represent and to pay my respects to what President Trump is going through. It’s a tough time for him, but you saw what happened this weekend. He’s got more support than ever because of what they’re putting him through in that courtroom.”
Ms. Malliotakis said that Mr. Bragg should focus on the actual crime occurring on the streets of New York City, of which she represents Staten Island and Brooklyn.
“The case is called the people of the state of New York versus Donald J. Trump, but the people of the state of New York know that this is a sham trial,” Ms. Malliotakis added. “The people of America know that it is a sham trial based on a star witness that is a convicted, disbarred perjurer, who lied to Congress multiple times.”
Trump had more dignitaries in court today: Speaker Johnson, Vivek Ramaswamy et al!
After a group of elected Republicans joined former President Trump in New York to support him amid his ongoing criminal “hush money” trial on Monday, a slew of other high-profile GOP supporters including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) joined the former president on Tuesday.
Joining Mr. Johnson in court alongside President Trump on Tuesday were two men rumored to be on the shortlist for President Trump’s 2024 vice presidential pick—Gov. Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) and former GOP candidate for president Vivek Ramaswamy— as well as Florida Reps. Byron Donalds and Cory Mills. The GOP elected officials were seen entering the courthouse with President Trump as he walked to cameras to give brief comments before court resumed on Tuesday.
Tuesday’s high-profile members of President Trump’s entourage came as his former attorney-turned-enemy, Michael Cohen, took the stand for the second day. Mr. Cohen’s testimony and upcoming cross-examination is set to be the most contentious part of the trial, and a key part of President Trump’s defense.
Last week, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) made an appearance at the trial to support President Trump as well.
In a post on X Tuesday morning, Mr. Ramaswamy said it was good to see President Trump in good spirits as they headed to the courthouse.
“This sham trial is a politically motivated assault on the leading candidate for U.S. President, green lit by his political opponent, Joe Biden, and carried out at the highest levels of the White House and Department of Justice,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in his post. “Joe Biden’s former number #3 at the Department Justice, Matthew Colangelo, is now leading the prosecution effort for Bragg, who himself ran for office on the promise of going after Trump. It’s an insult to American democracy.”
Reuters then went out on a limb to demonstrate the ultra-right aspect of MAGA supporters!
On a recent Tuesday morning, a visibly frustrated Donald Trump sat through a tense hearing in the first-ever criminal trial of a former American president. During a break, he let rip on his social media platform.
New York Justice Juan Merchan, Trump declared on Truth Social, is a “highly conflicted” overseer of a “kangaroo court.” Trump supporters swiftly replied to his post with a blitz of attacks on Merchan. The comments soon turned ugly. Some called for Merchan and other judges hearing cases against Trump to be killed.
“Treason is a hangable offense,” one wrote.
“They should all be executed,” added another.
The April 23rd post by Trump and the menacing responses from his followers illustrate the incendiary impact of his angry and incessant broadsides against the judges handling the criminal and civil suits against him. As his presidential campaign intensifies, Trump has baselessly cast the judges and prosecutors in his trials as corrupt puppets of the Biden administration, bent on torpedoing his White House bid.
The rhetoric is inspiring widespread calls for violence. In a review of commenters’ posts on three pro-Trump websites, including the former president’s own Truth Social platform, Reuters documented more than 150 posts since March 1 that called for physical violence against the judges handling three of his highest-profile cases – two state judges in Manhattan and one in Georgia overseeing a criminal case in which Trump is accused of illegally seeking to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Those posts were part of a larger pool of hundreds identified by Reuters that used hostile, menacing and, in some cases, racist or sexualized language to attack the judges, but stopped short of explicitly calling for violence against them.
Experts on extremism say the constant repetition of threatening or menacing language can normalize the idea of violence – and increase the risk of someone carrying it out. Mitch Silber, a former New York City Police Department director of intelligence analysis, compared the Trump supporters now calling for violence against judges to the U.S. Capitol rioters who believed they were following Trump’s “marching orders” on Jan. 6, 2021.
“This is just the 2023-2024 iteration of that phenomenon,” Silber said. “Articulating these ideas is the first step along the pathway of mobilizing to violence.”
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung did not respond to specific questions about the posts. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has a right to criticize what he called “un-Constitutional witch hunts,” Cheung said. He also asserted, without citing examples, that Trump has been the target of calls for “despicable violence” from “Democrats and crazed lunatics.”
On Patriots.Win, an online forum that describes itself as Trump’s “community of choice,” Trump’s attacks on courts and judges regularly spur calls for violence. Merchan “needs to be strangled with piano wire,” one poster wrote. He “deserves garroting in the street,” wrote another.
The Gateway Pundit, a website influential in the pro-Trump community, is also a frequent venue for Trump-inspired violent rhetoric against judges hearing his cases. “These judges and lawyers should HANG for perpetuating these fraud cases,” a commenter wrote on April 16, suggesting the executions would be “an example for future generations of judges and lawyers.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York Police Department declined to comment on whether any threatening posts directed at the New York judges were under federal or local investigation.
While Trump himself hasn’t called for violence on judges, his language can signal to followers that judges are no different from partisan rivals worthy of scorn, derision and attack, threatening the legitimacy of the independent judiciary, said experts on political violence.
Former Massachusetts prison to be turned into a migrant shelter!
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) is turning a former correctional facility into a temporary shelter to house migrants. Last Friday, residents in Norfolk were informed that the state had plans to convert the Bay State Correctional Center into a “temporary emergency shelter” for migrants, a statement from Norfolk town administrator Justin Casanova-Davis said.
As of 2024, the population of the town of Norfolk was estimated to be 11,676 people.
Casanova-Davis’s statement continued to say that the decision from the Healey administration had been made as part of the state’s “ongoing response to the number of migrant families arriving in Massachusetts” and that the town “had no role” in making the decision:
By law Massachusetts is a “right to shelter” state. The state must provide adequate living spaces, clean and decent surroundings, pure air and water, sanitation, and other civic amenities to families, pregnant women, and migrant families in an attempt to reduce homelessness.
“Emergency shelters have opened in communities of all sizes across the state,” he continued.
Massachusetts State Sen. Becca Rausch (D) issued a statement in which she expressed concerns regarding “the impacts of an influx of more than 400 people” to a town with a population of roughly 11,500 people.
“I hope no one would want to see pregnant women, children, and families without shelter,” Rausch wrote in her statement. “At the same time, the impacts of an influx of more than 400 people, including many school-aged children, to a town with a population of only 11,500 must be managed carefully and responsibly.”
The announcement from the Healey administration comes more than a week after the Massachusetts governor signed the state’s budget, which provides an additional $426 million for housing undocumented migrants.
An analysis from the Immigration Learning Center found that there were around one million migrants living in Massachusetts.
Nearly 3,500 migrants were reported to be in the Massachusetts emergency shelter system as of December 2023. In 2023, almost 4,000 migrants were given asylum in the state, according to CBS News.
While Massachusetts deals with a surge of migrants, many citizens have begun fleeing. State records have shown that the state spends roughly $64 to feed each migrant each day and is on track to spend around one billion dollars by 2025.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
REPORT: Red Lobster closes 48 locations around U.S.!
Seafood restaurant chain Red Lobster has closed 48 locations around the United
States, according to a liquidation company.
CEO and Founder of TAGeX Brands, Neal Sherman announced in a post on LinkedIn that his company would be hosting “the largest restaurant liquidation” through an online auction. The website for TAGeX Brands showed that 48 Red Lobster locations throughout the U.S. had been closed.
Red Lobster locations in places such as Jacksonville, Florida, Watertown, New York, and Bloomingdale and Danville, Illinois, were among the restaurants that were closed. The seafood chain has more than 700 locations throughout the U.S., according to its website.
“The Furniture, Fixtures, and Equipment from select Red Lobster locations MUST GO ASAP!” Sherman wrote in his post. “We’re handling this closure differently than we have in the past with each auction having a SINGLE winner for the listed items from the location they bid on — WINNER TAKES ALL.”
This announcement comes after the seafood restaurant chain has reportedly been considering filing for bankruptcy after their all-you-can-eat shrimp promotion led to the company losing $11 million in 2023.
“For those who have been in the US recently, $20 was very cheap,” Red Lobster CFO Ludovic Garnier said in a statement in November. “And the rationale for this promotion was to say we knew the price was cheap, but the idea was to bring more traffic to the restaurants.”
In 2020, ThaiUnion, a Thailand-based company that produces seafood products, bought a stake in Red Lobster. ThaiUnion revealed in January 2024 that it would be exiting from its investment in Red Lobster and would be taking a roughly $530 million loss as a result of its investment in the company.
HEALTH
Why some people just cannot lose weight: Thyroid issues!
Weight gain, hair loss, a constant feeling of fatigue and apathy—the cause of these symptoms may be a malfunction of the thyroid gland. But often this problem is caught too late.
“[There is] an epidemic of subclinical hypothyroidism,” said Dr. Dana Churchill, a naturopath, nutritionist and director of The Churchill Center.
While today’s main test used to analyze thyroid function is the Thyroid-Stimulating-Hormone (TSH) level, Dr. Churchill says this may not reflect the true situation of the thyroid.
“It won’t be representative of your entire body. This would only be representative of an ideal area where the TSH would be near normal most of the time, leaving the brainstem, into the pituitary gland.”
He believes it is necessary to take a more comprehensive approach to thyroid testing, such as examining laboratory data, interviewing the patient, palpating the thyroid gland, measuring body temperature, and assessing bowel function.
“This is really very important for the thyroid because a lot of the autoimmunity that the body creates or chemicals that are heavy metals or things like that in the body is created in the gut.”
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
The U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear the app developer’s antitrust suit against Apple!
Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to take up the case of app developers who accuse Apple of antitrust violations for refusing to make COVID-19 tracking and bitcoin apps available in the company’s App Store. The petition for review in Coronavirus Reporter v. Apple Inc. was denied in an unsigned order. No justices dissented from the denial.
App makers had sued Apple, claiming the Silicon Valley giant had violated antitrust laws and that its refusal to allow its apps constituted censorship, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected the lawsuit late last year.
The denial came after the U.S. Department of Justice filed its own antitrust lawsuit against Apple in federal court in New Jersey in March.
The Biden administration alleges that the company has monopoly power in the smartphone market and “illegally maintains a monopoly over smartphones by selectively imposing contractual restrictions on, and withholding critical access points from, developers.”
SURVEILLANCE STATE
Highway Robbery: How car companies steal your data!
Automakers love to wow us with the latest infotainment systems — and it’s not just to move more cars. The private data these apps gather provides a nice secondary income stream for car companies.
Dutch conglomerate Stellantis — which owns Ram, Dodge, Jeep, and Chrysler, among other brands — harvests so much data that it recently started a separate company to sell it.
It is not alone. If your vehicle has any kind of connectivity, chances are you’ve inadvertently consented to having all sorts of data tracked: from your location and direction of travel to your speed. Not to mention the possibility of in-car audio recording.
You don’t sign these agreements at the dealership. No one will hand you paperwork and confirm you understand what you’re agreeing to before you click confirm. You buy your car, go to use one of the integrated services like the built- in apps, radio, maps, Wi-Fi, autonomous driving features, phone connectivity, etc., and a screen pops up requiring you to agree to the terms of service.
Most of us simply click “yes” rather than scroll through the copious legalese. Anyone who does make it through the fine print essentially gets this message: When you get in your car, you become a highly lucrative data source for the car company and its partners.
You can opt out! If you can figure out how. Some services automatically activate if you don’t withdraw consent within a certain time period, often as short as a week. Again, this information is buried deep in the fine print.
What about Apple CarPlay? I have far more faith in Apple’s information protection than I do in SiriusXM, which partnered with Guardian, a new company that no one really knows about. These companies hope people will assume it’s part of their satellite radio service, but it has nothing to do with satellite radio. You can call SiriusXM and get the radio service without this extra security service, but most people don’t know that.
Android Auto and Google-based devices are even worse for protecting your privacy. On a computer, consumers can safeguard their information by using browsers Brave or DuckDuckGo. On the road, they have no such option, at least for now.
Overuse has blunted the power of the term “Orwellian,” but it certainly applies to the mobile surveillance states these companies have created in the vehicles they sell.
In its quarterly earnings call last month, Volvo asserted that data harvesting is set to become one of its main profit centers. The company will maintain a competitive advantage through its superior ability to monitor the activities of their drivers via more powerful computers, cameras, microphones, and other sensors.
GM’s OnStar system has become quite adept at hoovering up anything and everything about its users. GM’s Global B architecture (standard in the C8 Corvette and most new Cadillacs) constantly uploads your info and enables GM to monitor and even disable your vehicle. In the event of a crash, GM will receive data on your speed, braking, reaction time, as well as the location of other vehicles. While this is ostensibly to protect GM from lawsuits, this information can also be accessed by insurance companies and the government.
GM even performs AI analysis on thousands of traffic violation data sets to show how self-driving (Super Cruise) and automatic driver assist software features make cars safer.
No, you can’t turn this off. It’s for your own good.
You can, however, see what exactly your car knows about you. U.S.-based Privacy4Cars offers a free Vehicle Privacy Report based on your car’s VIN.
One day soon we may see a person arrested, charged, convicted, and sent to prison entirely based on evidence from vehicle monitoring. Until that happens, most consumers will settle for giving up their privacy in exchange for a little convenience.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Vermont Climate Bill would demand oil companies pay for extreme weather events!
A Vermont bill that would mandate private companies pay for damages caused by global warming has raised concerns that the legislation could hurt the business climate as well as raise energy prices for already cash-strapped residents of the state.
If approved, the controversial Vermont Climate Superfund Act is poised to make oil and gas giants such as Shell, ExxonMobile, and Chevron shell out billions in climate change cleanup and climate-related health care costs to state authorities. Penalties from the “Climate Superfund Act” will be assessed using a calculation based on to what extent authorities determine “extreme weather events” have affected the state.
Fines would be imposed retroactively and calculated based on each corporation’s emissions from 1995 to 2024, according to the legislation.
2ND AMENDMENT
Houston pizza delivery driver shoots, kills burglar; grand jury will decide on the pepperoni!
Texas police say a pizza delivery man told them he shot and killed a man who was trying to rob him with a gun, but the victim’s family is trying to cast doubt on his story.
Police said that the man tried to deliver a pizza at a residence on Yellowstone Blvd at about 11 p.m. when he got into an altercation with a customer. The delivery man shot and killed the man.
When police responded, the delivery man told them that he had been accosted by two men, one with a gun, who were trying to rob him. He said the other man ran away after his companion was shot.
“We’re not sure how the pizza delivery went so wrong that somebody wound up getting shot,” said Houston Police Department Sgt. Mark Holbrook. “But that is what we’re investigating right now.”
The delivery man was uninjured.
While police would not identify the man who was killed, a man named Ameer White told WTHR-TV that he was the man’s brother and identified him as 21-year-old Areyeh White.
“They say he was the pizza delivery guy, but we don’t have a receipt that he was buying a pizza,” Ameer White said. “If you were the pizza delivery guy, why did you have a, why were you armed?”
Contrary to his comment, Holbrook appeared to confirm to reporters that police had confirmed the delivery of a pizza.
“The driver is cooperating and speaking with investigators about this incident. And there were witnesses who saw parts of what happened,” Holbrook said. “There was a pizza delivery.”
Police did not confirm whether a gun was found on the body of the dead man.
The brother of the man shot said that they lived together in a unit at the complex but that his brother had been at his girlfriend’s apartment when the shooting happened.
“It most definitely destroyed me. Because he said he was going to be home in 30 minutes. I stayed up for him,” Ameer White added.
Houston police said that a grand jury will decide whether the man will face charges over the shooting.
CANCEL CULTURE
Gov. Sanders says, “Ban the Phones!” (opinion by Mark Bauerlein, worthy of discussion)
“America’s kids are facing a mental health crisis.”
That’s the opening line of a statement Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders sent this month to governors of all the 50 states and to legislators in her own state of Arkansas.
She included in each delivery a copy of Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” which compiles persuasive evidence of the impact the smartphone has had on the emotional condition of teens. (For discussions of Mr. Haidt’s book, see Politico’s “‘It’s Causing Them to Drop Out of Life’: How Phones Warped Gen Z,” Time magazine’s “Jonathan Haidt: Putting down the screen,” and the American Enterprise Institute’s April 8 American Dream Lecture Series.)
Gov. Sanders endorses Mr. Haidt’s policy recommendations. They are:
No smartphones before high school.
No social media before age 16.
Phone-free schools.
More outdoor play and childhood independence.
These are blunt and sweeping descriptions, and each one should be implemented immediately. Mr. Haidt and Ms. Sanders are absolutely right. When social media came about 20 years ago, younger Americans were the first ones to pick them up. Commentators of the time dubbed those users “digital natives” and “early adopters,” and they meant those terms positively.
They cheered the advent, speaking as if handheld devices wielded by energetic, innovative youths, that is, by individuals whose minds hadn’t been grooved and hardened by the “linear” cognitive acts of print reading during childhood years (as was the case for Boomers and X-ers, we were told), would open up fresh pathways of knowledge and insight and creativity. The smartphone would bring the universe of known things to the eyes and ears of 14-year-olds, who would proceed to become the most informed and worldly generation in American history. A kid in 2011 well-equipped with the latest tools would deserve the epochal label Millennial.
Of course, it hasn’t turned out that way, and it was never going to turn out that way. The smartphone didn’t impress adolescents as a window onto history, art, politics, religion, science, and foreign affairs. It was naïve, in fact, ever to assume that it would, a specimen of pro-youth sentimentality that a certain strain of liberal has adopted since the Sixties.
In this case, the phone did something else: it connected teens to other teens, kids their own age who brought all the traits of peer pressure, group dynamics, sexual curiosity, and emotional instability into the system. With the smartphone, youths could be more social than ever before with and to one another—a grievously unhealthy situation.
It is a situation that tech companies pursued with all the money and science at their disposal. Their intentions must be pointed out. As Gov. Sanders puts it, “Big Tech companies got American kids addicted to their products by preying on adolescent insecurities and basic human psychology.”
The designers and programmers and titans wanted to grab kids’ attention and keep it for as long as they could. The more kids felt that they needed to go online and stay there throughout the day and night, to monitor their networks and build their contacts, the more money poured into Silicon Valley. The mental health data that Mr. Haidt has gathered, along with disturbing trends in educational achievement, demonstrate what their machinations have done to Gen Z.
People who don’t like that conclusion and assert that correlation-is-not-causation can find no other element in the lives of young Americans that can account for the downward shift. The smartphone is the most impactful change in the lives of average teens from 1980 to 2024.
Conservatives don’t like it when the state intervenes in private behavior. Let people choose to do what they want to do, say those on the right with a libertarian bent. The actions of Gov. Sanders and a few other Republican leaders, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed a bill in March to prohibit kids under 14 from joining social media, show that the libertarian argument is weakening, at least when it comes to children.
The severity of the mental health crisis forces schools to set new rules. We should have no doubt that teachers and administrators will cheer the ban, knowing how often social media has proven to be the mechanism by which small tensions among students develop into open conflict. Parents, too, will welcome the rule, because of their own struggles to keep phone time down at home, during meals, and after lights out. This is a political winner, too, a concern for people on the right and the left. As I said, the only ones objecting to such restrictions are libertarians, and their political influence is waning.
What Gov. Sanders and Gov. DeSantis are doing in their states should be copied in every other state in the country. A cellphone in the hands of a teen is a curse to its owner, a lure whose costs far outweigh its benefits. Silicon Valley no longer has the cachet of 2006. Tech gurus and entrepreneurs seem now like antisocial characters, a little odd and power-hungry, not the heightened visionaries they once were claimed to be. The real innovators of the present time are the ones saying “No” to the digital wave.
PET NEWS
CDC issues strict new rules for dogs entering the U.S.!
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published rules on May 8 that will significantly alter how dogs are brought into the United States.
The rules are being changed in an attempt to control the spread of the rabies virus, which is 99 percent fatal, according to the CDC. Dog rabies isn’t controlled in more than 100 countries, which creates “a risk” to the United States and thus requires limiting which dogs can enter.
The CDC posted the new rules in the Federal Register which will go into effect on Aug. 1st.
“Preventing infected dogs from entering the United States is a public health priority,” the agency stated. “Each dog imported with rabies could infect people and other animals and could cost more than half a million dollars to contain.”
The expanded rules mandate that all dogs entering the country appear healthy when they arrive, be at least 6 months old, and have a microchip along with a CDC dog import form that was filled out two to 10 days before arrival in the United States. The import forms that are currently being used will expire on Aug. 31, according to the agency.
“If you don’t follow CDC’s rules, your dog won’t be allowed to enter the United States,” the agency warned on its website, updated on May 8. “If denied entry, your dog will be sent back to the last country of departure at your expense. Country of departure is where the last trip originated—not where the dog was born or where it lives.”
The latest regulations “apply to all dogs, including puppies, service animals, and dogs that left the United States and are returning,” the CDC stated, and they “also apply whether you are a U.S. citizen, legal U.S. resident, or foreign national.”
Dogs arriving from a country that the CDC deems a high risk for rabies or dogs who got a rabies vaccine in another country have to meet more criteria, according to the agency.
Some dogs coming to the United States might have to get a blood test to ensure that it has immunity to the virus, pass a physical examination upon arrival, and get a vaccine inside the United States. Under some circumstances, the dog could be quarantined for 28 days, according to the agency.
ICYMI
Omar gets party endorsement in Minnesota!
Political tension filled the room on May 11 during the Minnesota Congressional District 5 Nominating Convention, as members of the divided Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) voted for their party’s pick.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), 41, one of the original four members of the progressive wing of congressional Democrats known as “the Squad,” hung on to win support from the local party despite attempts by two other Democrat candidates to push her out of the running by denying her the party nomination.
The candidate winning the party’s nomination needed 60 percent of the votes. Ms. Omar received 60.5 percent (133 votes), and challenger Don Samuels received 38.64 percent (85 votes).
It is the fourth time that she has gone through the process and prevailed.
Traditionally, after the district convention, candidates who were not nominated drop out and get behind the nominee, although that did not happen in 2022 in Minnesota District 5. Mr. Samuels ran against Ms. Omar in 2022 and lost in the primary by just 2 percent.
Mr. Samuels, who turns 75 on May 13, is a former Minneapolis city councilman. At the convention on May 11, he vowed to stay in the race.
But with the party’s endorsement of Ms. Omar, more donations will come to her already sizable war chest.
Ms. Omar has raised nearly $5 million and has $2.2 million cash on hand. Mr. Samuels has raised $755,000 and has $233,000 cash on hand.
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