Blog

What Is the PREP Act?

In conjunction with EUA (Emergency Use Authorization), the PREP Act is the legislation that enabled – and continues to perpetuate – the rollout and administration of mRNA “countermeasures” against Covid-19.

In this article I will discuss what the PREP Act says, how it was passed, what prominent politicians and legal experts said about it at the time, how it is related to Covid, and why I support efforts (1) calling for the HHS Secretary to immediately repeal the PREP Act emergency declaration for Covid, and (2) calling on legislators to repeal the law entirely.

What the PREP Act Says

The PREP Act is a long and convoluted piece of legislation. You can read the entire thing here:

42 U.S. Code § 247d-6d – Targeted liability protections for pandemic and epidemic products and security countermeasures

This is a summary of the main sections of the law:

(a) Liability Protections

  • Anyone defined as a “covered person” is immune from legal liability related to the use or administration of anything defined as a “covered countermeasure.”

A “covered person” includes (A) “the United States” or (B) any person or “entity” that manufactures, distributes, plans a program for, prescribes, administers, or dispenses a covered countermeasure, or an official, agent, or employee of any of the above.

A “covered countermeasure” includes any drug, biological product, or device that is authorized under Emergency Use Authorization or approved through any other legal pathway.

  • Scope of claims for loss:
    • The immunity applies to any claim related to death, actual or fear of physical, mental, or emotional injury, illness, disability, or condition; and loss of or damage to property, including business interruption loss.
    • The immunity applies to any causal relation to any of the above types of loss related to the design, development, clinical testing or investigation, manufacture, labeling, distribution, formulation, packaging, marketing, promotion, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, licensing, or use of a covered countermeasure.
  • The immunity applies only if a countermeasure was applied or used during the effective period of the emergency declaration for that countermeasure, and was used for the disease, population, and geographic area specified in the declaration.
  • For manufacturers or distributors, the immunity applies to any population in any geographic area, without regard to the population or area specified in the emergency declaration for the countermeasure.

(b) Declaration by Secretary

  • The HHS Secretary has the sole discretion to determine that a disease or other health condition or other threat to health constitutes a public health emergency, or that there is a credible risk for a future such emergency and, based on that determination, to make a declaration recommending the manufacture, testing, development, distribution, administration, or use of one or more covered countermeasures, thereby activating the legal immunity described in section (a).
  • In the emergency declaration, which is made by publishing it in the Federal Register, the secretary shall identify – with respect to the use of countermeasures – the category of threat, the period during which the threat is in effect, the population for which it is in effect, and the geographic area for which it is in effect.
  • The period during which the emergency declaration is effective is flexible, depending on various determinations by the Secretary.
  • The Secretary can change any aspect of the declaration of emergency without retroactively affecting the immunity granted under the declaration.
  • The Secretary’s decision to issue an emergency declaration for immunity can be based on anything, including the “desirability of encouraging” the design, development, clinical testing or investigation, manufacture, labeling, distribution, formulation, packaging, marketing, promotion, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, or licensing of a covered countermeasures
  • No court – whether Federal or State – has subject matter jurisdiction to review any action by the Secretary related to the emergency declaration
  • No State may pass or enforce any law that is different from or in conflict with anything related to the declaration of emergency or to anything related to the qualified persons or covered countermeasures.

(c) Definition of Willful Misconduct

(d) Exception to Immunity of Covered Persons

These two sections define the circumstances under which the PREP Act immunity does not apply. In general, the sole exception is defined as “an exclusive Federal cause of action against a covered person for death or serious physical injury caused by willful misconduct.”

The definition of “willful misconduct” is: “an act or omission taken intentionally to achieve a wrongful purpose; knowingly without legal or factual justification; and in disregard of a known or obvious risk that is so great as to make it highly probable that the harm will outweigh the benefit.” This is specifically defined as “a standard for liability that is more stringent than a standard of negligence in any form or recklessness.”

A plaintiff who tries to sue under this section has “the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence willful misconduct.”

Keep reading

MSNBC Contributor Goes Full Drama Queen Over Colbert Cancelation: ‘Really Scary’

People on the left truly seem to live in an alternate universe. During a recent segment on MSNBC, contributor Molly Jong-Fast reacted to the Colbert cancelation by saying that it’s ‘really scary.’

It’s scary that a TV show got canceled? That happens all the time. In this case, the show in question was losing tens of millions of dollars a year.

She actually goes on and compares this situation to the McCarthy anti-communism hearings. This isn’t even remotely similar to that but she takes herself and her words so seriously.

“And even if it’s not quid pro quo, the idea of self-censorship. And I talk about my grandfather, Howard Fast, who was jailed by McCarthy during The House UN-American Activities, that that our government has done this before, that history is very much filled with moments like this.”

Keep reading

“There’s No Nothing”: Empty Shelves, Rotten Odors Plague Gov’t-Funded Supermarket In Missouri

One of the dozen or so socialist policy proposals from NYC Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is the creation of government-funded grocery stores.

While the Democratic Party increasingly embraces socialist and Marxist-leaning policies, such as the seizure of private property, this idea of government-funded grocery stores appears disconnected from both fundamental economic realities and historical precedent.

Nowhere is this more evident than in East Kansas City, where a nonprofit operates a grocery store on government land that has become a symbol of failure, plagued by the smell of rot and empty shelves.

Local media outlet KSHB 41 Kansas City toured Sun Fresh Market at 3110 Wabash Ave (31st & Prospect) on the city’s Eastside. The store opened in 2018 as part of a multi-million dollar public-private revitalization of the Linwood Shopping Center. Operated by Community Builders of Kansas City, a nonprofit focused on urban development, the store has since become a massive reminder that while socialism may sound great on paper, in practice, it can be an absolute disaster. 

KSHB 41’s Alyssa Jackson reported that her news team received a tip from a viewer about empty shelves throughout the dairy section, meat department, bakery aisle, and deli counter.

Keep reading

An Offensive Shield — for Impunity, and Genocide: The Iron Dome and U.S. Complicity in Slaughter of Gazans

The House of Representatives has approved giving Israel an additional $1.3 billion in “emergency defense assistance” for its Iron Dome missile defense program, another installment of countless billions sent from the United States to intensify a one-sided war against the Palestinian people.

The Iron Dome system intercepts short range rockets (launched from 2.5 to 43 miles) through the joint work of the IDF, Israeli contractors, and U.S. weapons manufacturers like Raytheon. Radar batteries detect incoming missiles, calculate direction and threat level, and, if necessary, target the menacing projectile and speed interceptors to destroy it.

The Iron Dome destroys incoming rockets at high altitude, but, since its emplacement in 2011, the system has also functioned to enable Israel to conduct ethnic cleansing and perpetuate genocide with impunity in Gaza and the West Bank.

It has underwritten an astonishingly deadly campaign of collective punishment, with lengthy, targeted air, drone, and guided missile strikes in densely populated areas. These deadly attacks are carried out against a people who have no army, no shield, and no means of response.

When we fund one-sided protection without justice, we destroy the possibility of peace for them, and for ourselves.

The Iron Dome, then, is not just a “defense” system. It is the preeminent strategic enabler of Israel’s asymmetric genocidal war against Palestinians. First the shield, then the sword.

It must be said clearly: Opposing genocide and illegal occupation is not antisemitic. It is the defense of humanity. The Israeli government’s ongoing colonization of Palestinian land, its collective punishment of a captive population, and its refusal to recognize a sovereign Palestinian people all constitute violations of international law.

To oppose this violence is not to oppose Jewish people. It is to stand against the machinery of oppression, just as we should for any people subjected to such inhumanity.

By eliminating the possibility of reprisal, the Iron Dome has insulated Israel from accountability, enabling it to continue inhumane policies of dispossession and aggression without consequence. This strategic impunity dulls domestic dissent and emboldens a government that continues to seize land and to erase Palestinian life.

War crime inquiries, censures, sanctions, none of it matters while the Netanyahu government pursues with single-minded intensity a “Greater Israel,” using the most advanced military technologies against people who cannot fight back.

That the whole of the United States is not consumed with outrage at the mass murder, the diabolical, Torquemadan cruelties of the IDF, the self-appointed agents of death who gleefully kill children, laugh while shooting starving people desperately scrapping for a morsel of food to survive, and bomb hospitals, mosques, churches, markets, cafes, even tents, — is a wrenching testimony to the psychic numbing that occurs with distance from the grim reality of war and the power of the dehumanizing narrative to which many Americans have succumbed. The capacity to emotionally respond to the agonizing suffering of Palestinians has been muted by distance and by relentless propaganda in the West.

I remember years ago, during the Vietnam War, daily news accounts of the carnage in Southeast Asia eventually dissolved into an undifferentiated mass of information, causing readers to turn the page or switch the channel. Information overload can normalize atrocity as it dulls cognition. Then, when battle scenes of U.S. soldiers being killed or injured were carried by US television networks, the powerful emotional impact drove home the true cost, propelled public opposition to the war and forced President Lyndon Johnson from office.

Spectators of events in Israel can become morally anesthetized as high technology is employed in mass murder, when journalists are targeted and killed, when civilian casualties roll up like an odometer at high speed. Except for random videos posted online, the only testimony is that of the IDF, which denies, denies, denies, cries “anti-Semitism” at exposure, and then, after a pause for a drink of limonana, efficiently continues the killing.

Keep reading

Everyone in the Neighborhood Knew Hillary Was Bats**t Crazy. Now the Intel Confirms It

Every neighborhood has one: the unpredictable one who calls the cops if you park too close to their mailbox, yells at the garbage man for looking at her too long, and glares at the local Girl Scouts as if they’re conducting a home invasion instead of selling cookies. You don’t make eye contact. You certainly don’t walk your dog past her house. And when she starts screaming into the sky at 3 a.m. about how she knows what really happened to JFK Jr., everyone rolls over in bed, sighs, and says, “Well, that’s just her being her.”

For the Clinton White House, that neighbor was Hillary. And for years, the rest of us who dared to say so were labeled conspiracy theorists, misogynists, or right-wing loons. Funny thing, though. This week, the intelligence community handed us a dusty file and said: “Hey, remember that lady with the vase and the tranquilizers? Yeah. Turns out you were right.”

She Didn’t Just Snap

We weren’t supposed to know, but we did.

In his 2016 book, Crisis of Character, retired Secret Service officer Gary Byrne shared inside details of the Clinton White House. His book read like The New York Post’s Page 6. Byrne didn’t consider Hillary a calculating stateswoman. Instead, she was a seething cauldron, acting like a pressure cooker that blew explosive steam.

Bill had the Blue Dress; Hillary had the launch of a vase. She exploded at staff, swore at Bill like a drunken sailor, and once launched a vase across the room in a fit of fury. Her target? Slick Willie ducked out of the way while the vase shattered against the wall. The rest of the staff decided it was a great time to go and check their offices for messages. They cleared the room to let her cool off.

The media reaction? Vapors overcame them as they gasped, “Unverified! Uncorroborated! Byrne is a bitter ex-employee.”

The bastion of calm, cool reportage, CNN, spoke to “experts” who declared, without proof, that Byrne had to be lying because they saw Hillary as a charming, calm person.

You know, nice the way that batsh*t neighbor lady throws rocks at kids and says she’s misunderstood.

Byrne’s account wasn’t a lone description. Many former agents and staffers confirmed her poor behavior, but (of course) only off the record.

They knew that if they were outed telling the truth, they’d end up on the Clintons’ enemies list, living the rest of their lives looking over their shoulder. However, they know. Everybody in the political sphere knew. The rest of us, however, just weren’t allowed to say it.

Keep reading

Survey Reveals “Seismic Shift” As More Parents Reject Vaccine Schedule

A new survey published in the JAMA Network by researchers at Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that an increasing number of pregnant women and new mothers are delaying, or even outright refusing, government-recommended vaccines that hospitals and pediatricians push on newborns and young kids. The findings come just ahead of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s much-anticipated announcement on what the federal agency believes to be the root cause of the autism spike in children ahead of the fall school season. 

Titled “Vaccination Intentions During Pregnancy and Among Parents of Young Children,” researchers found that 33% of parents with children under age 5 intend to delay or refuse some or all government-recommended vaccines. In contrast, only 4% of first-time pregnant women reported plans to delay or refuse all recommended vaccines.

Researchers noted that first-time pregnant women are increasingly distrustful of newborn vaccinations. About half of these women are unsure whether they will commit to the entire vaccine schedule promoted by the government, which includes dozens of shots, compared to only 4% of parents of young children who reported being uncertain about the same schedule. 

Wonder why parents are increasingly concerned…  

Keep reading

When You’re Plotting to Overthrow the Government, Don’t Put It in an Email

Today’s whopper of a Russiagate reveal from Intel Director Tulsi Gabbard is like spending 10 years trapped in Alice’s Wonderland, only to wake up and discover that you’re still there.

Gabbard unleashed a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in our 2016 election, including evidence that then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton suffered “psycho-emotional problems” and that Russian intelligence possessed internal DNC communications describing Clinton’s issues as including “uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and even cheerfulness.”

Do you doubt the Russian assessment?

Most people don’t know that cheerfulness is a “psycho-emotional problem,” but then, most people don’t have access to Clinton’s pharmacist. 

I trust that one of my PJ Media colleagues will do the full writeup of the Clinton story, but I’d like to give you a chance to step back and look at the bigger picture — because Wonderland is even weirder than Lewis Carroll imagined. 

With Gabbard’s one big email reveal after another, it’s safe to conclude that not only are Swamp creatures just as conniving as you’d dared to imagine, they’re even stupider than you might have thought.

And Another Thing: Gabbard seems to be on the outs with the Trump administration on Iran policy, and perhaps increasingly on Russia policy, too — as I reported a while back, at least on the Iran angle. But can you imagine anyone else doing the Deep State cleanup job she’s doing right now? She’s a woman scorned by her old party, sure, but more importantly, she’s sharp and fearless, too.

A name you know — I won’t say who — many years ago advised that whenever you need to discuss something important that could be misconstrued by people out to get you, always do it over the phone. Never, they told me, put it in an email or a text message. They warned me never to put anything sensitive in writing — no emails, no texts. Paper trails get people burned. And if what you’re discussing wouldn’t need to be twisted to land you in hot water? All the more reason to keep it off the record.

Heh. 

Going a bit further, anybody who’s ever watched a mobster movie knows that even over the phone, it’s best to speak in code.

Keep reading

US House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Epstein’s Accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell – Disgraced British Socialite and Convicted Sex Trafficker Will Be Deposed on August 11

Maxwell is back in the spotlight.

From the obscurity of her FCI Tallahassee, Florida cell, to the screens of the US Capitol in DC, Ghislaine Maxwell is again the talk of the town.

She was born into a life of privilege and tragedies. The youngest daughter of Czech-British media mogul (and alleged intelligence asset) Robert Maxwell, she saw her life crumble after his father ‘fell from the boat’ and a scandal broke regarding the fact that Maxwell was stealing from the pension funds of his employees.

She fled Britain and the scandals, and ended up with her Jay Gatsby from hell, the ‘financier’ Jeffrey Epstein, coincidentally also rumored to be an intelligence asset.

CBS News reported:

“The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday subpoenaed Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence, to sit for a deposition as fallout over the Trump administration’s handling of the case intensifies.

‘The facts and circumstances surrounding both your and Mr. Epstein’s cases have received immense public interest and scrutiny’, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the chairman of the committee, wrote to Maxwell.

Comer said the committee is seeking Maxwell’s testimony “to inform the consideration of potential legislative solutions to improve federal efforts to combat sex trafficking and reform the use of non-prosecution agreements and/or plea agreements in sex-crime investigations.”

Keep reading

EPA Defends Plan to Gut Key Office Studying Health Risks of Pesticides and Other Toxins

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will move forward with plans to gut the agency’s office that studies how air pollution, drinking water contamination and toxic chemicals, including glyphosate, affect human health, the agency announced Friday.

As part of its “reduction in force,” which reportedly will cut $748.8 million from the agency’s budget, the EPA is eliminating the Office of Research and Development (ORD).

ORD is strictly a scientific research organization. It has no regulatory responsibilities, which means it isn’t subject to industry influence in the same way as other sectors of the EPA.

As a result, ORD often reaches different conclusions than other EPA research groups, according to Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety.

The office’s findings underlie many of the policies and regulations issued by the agency. Its research is often used to justify stricter rules, prompting opposition from pesticide and chemical manufacturers and other industries — and even from other sections within the agency that are allegedly captured by the chemical industry.

For example, ORD identified glyphosate as a carcinogen when the EPA’s pesticide wing argued it was safe.

Keep reading

U. Kansas staff required to remove gender pronouns from emails

The University of Kansas staff is now required to remove gender pronouns from their email signatures to comply with a new Kansas Board of Regents directive, the school announced Tuesday.

All staff must remove “gender-identifying pronouns and personal pronoun series from their KU email signature blocks, webpages, Zoom/Teams screen IDs and any other form of university communications,” the announcement from KU Chancellor Douglas Girod states.

KU staff have until July 31 to comply.

Further, Girod told the university community that “KU Information Technology will remove the gender pronoun field from the ‘people’ pages on websites.”

The announcement cites the Kansas Board of Regents’ recently issued directive to state universities, which comes in the wake of a state legislative budget provision targeting “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives across state agencies.

The regents mandated that state universities dismantle DEI programs, “including pronoun labels,” the University Daily Kansan reported.

Girod’s announcement also lists four other provisions that the university has already addressed in response to the new directive.

The school has eliminated all positions, “mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities” that relate to DEI. It has also canceled related state grants or contracts and abolished DEI training requirements.

Some of these changes are already apparent.

Keep reading