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GOP Congresswoman Pushes For Psychedelics And Marijuana Research For Veterans In Floor Speech

A GOP congresswoman is touting recently released Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance on psychedelics research and calling for additional work to study the therapeutic benefits of marijuana for military veterans.

In a speech on the House floor on Wednesday, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) talked about the need to support “novel forms of research” to unlock the potential of psychedelics and cannabis for the treatment of conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that commonly afflict veterans.

“As a doctor, former director of the Iowa Department of Public Health and 24-year U.S. Army veteran, the mental, emotional and physical health of my constituents and fellow veterans is one of my top priorities in Congress,” she said. “For too long, PTSD and other mental or physical ailments have had devastating effects and far too often go untreated.”

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The Supreme Court ‘Ethics’ Scandal Is The New Russia-Collusion Hoax

Senate Democrats are advancing a doomed Supreme Court “ethics” bill that would withhold $10 million in funding from Chief Justice John Roberts until the Supreme Court has “put into effect a code” for all justices.

The Senate doesn’t have the power to dictate how the Supreme Court conducts its business — any more than SCOTUS has the power to prescribe rules for the Senate. They know it. Then again, the effort to intimidate and delegitimize the court is meant to corrode constitutional governance, so perhaps the bill makes a certain amount of perverse sense.

Of course, turning to the likes of Sheldon Whitehouse and Dick Durbin for ethical guidance is much like seeking truth from Adam Schiff. And much like the Russia-collusion hoax, the effort to destroy the Supreme Court is a highly coordinated partisan scheme.

First, anti-court left-wing activist groups cook up some ethics “scandals.” These accusations are then laundered by complicit or credulous leftist media outlets for public consumption. Then, the bogus scoops are held up by partisans as proof of alleged wrongdoing. Everyone, other than perhaps the most gullible partisan hysteric, understands what’s happening.

Each week another ethics “scandal” emerges, one dumber than the next. The stories are divvied out among numerous outlets to saturate the news and create a perception of widespread wrongdoing. Some, such as ProPublica, are paid by pack-the-court groups. Others, such as Politico, Slate, and The New York Times, do it for free.

A recent Guardian hit piece on Clarence Thomas, for example, offers a good example of how all this works. The justice, the paper excitedly reports, received “seven payments” through Venmo accounts in November and December 2019 from lawyers who had once clerked for the justice. Though the amounts were not disclosed — one strongly suspects the minuscule sums would make the story even more preposterous — The Guardian explains that “the purpose of each payment is listed as either ‘Christmas party’, ‘Thomas Christmas Party’, ‘CT Christmas Party’ or ‘CT Xmas party.’”

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US ‘Disinformation Industry’ Lands in Court

What kind of a week was last week in the theater of war wherein battles rage over illegal censorship, illegal attacks on freedom of speech, illegal government infringements on our constitutional rights, and, amid it all, the complicity of our most powerful media in these illegalities?

For a brief while it looked as though it was a very fine week. On July 4, an excellent day for this, a district court in Louisiana ruled that the White House and a long list of other federal agencies are barred from all contacts with social media companies if the intent is to intimidate or otherwise coerce Twitter, Google, Facebook, and other such platforms into deleting, suppressing, or in any way obscuring content protected as free speech, to paraphrase a key passage in the ruling.

Wow. A federal judge brings to the surface, there on your morning page one, all the illegal interventions, years of them, in which the Biden regime and its Capitol Hill allies have indulged to quash dissent. What liberal authoritarians impudently dismissed as a kooky “conspiracy theory” on July 3 is in a judicial stroke written into the record as an ugly reality to be eliminated. What’s not to like?

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US Will Boost Military Presence in the Middle East

Washington announced a plan to deploy additional fighter jets to the Middle East to prevent Iran from seizing ships in the Persian Gulf. The Pentagon is additionally evaluating proposals to send more military equipment into the region to address Russian aircraft operating in Syrian skies. 

According to the AP, a defense official told reporters that the US would deploy F-16s to the Middle East to stop Iran from hijacking ships. The official, who spoke to the reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the aircraft would provide cover to vessels traveling in the region. 

The US seized a ship carrying Iranian oil to China in April, kicking off a new tanker war. Iran retaliated, in the Persian Gulf,  by seizing two ships. In response, the US said it increased the number of patrols its personnel were conducting in the region but stopped short of sending additional military equipment to the Middle East. 

The lack of new military deployments angered Washington’s allies in the region, including the UAE. Abu Dhabi halted its involvement with a Washington-led coalition aimed at preventing Iranian ship seizures in May. 

Last week, Washington claimed it prevented Iranian forces from seizing two ships with the presence of a guided missile destroyer. The F-16s sent to the Middle East will support A-10s in conducting patrols over the sea. 

The official additionally told reporters that the Department of Defense is looking to confront the Russian air force in Syria. Over the past several months, the White House and the Kremlin have accused each other of conducting provocative sorties in the skies above Syria. The official claimed that Moscow, Tehran and Damascus were working to drive US forces from Syria. 

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FBI Colludes with Ukrainian Intel to Censor Americans under Biden Misinformation Campaign

In the most recently exposed Biden administration scheme to combat misinformation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) colluded with a compromised Ukrainian intelligence agency to censor the speech of Americans. The federal agency responsible for protecting the nation against terrorists, violent street gangs and serial killers joined forces with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which is widely known to be infiltrated by Russian-aligned forces, to take down the authentic social media accounts of Americans. This includes a verified U.S. State Department profile and those belonging to American journalists. Interestingly, accounts targeted for removal by the SBU and FBI criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and expressed pro-Ukrainian views.

Details of the illicit operation are outlined in a new congressional report made public this week by the House Judiciary Committee. The document also exposes how the FBI offered Facebook and Instagram legal cover to delete social media accounts singled out by the SBU. The two agencies routinely sent the popular social media platforms spreadsheets and other documents identifying thousands of profiles to eliminate. “Regardless of its intended purpose in endorsing the SBU’s requests, the FBI had no legal justification for facilitating the censorship of Americans’ protected speech on social media,” the report states. “In contrast to the Biden Administration’s stated support for Ukraine, the FBI, on behalf of the SBU, flagged Americans’ accounts and posts that were critical of Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

The report says that the FBI also delivered censorship orders from the SBU to Google and YouTube and reveals that a senior cybersecurity employee at Google said the company was “deluged with various requests” for content removal after Russia invaded Ukraine. The primary liaison between the FBI and Silicon Valley is Elvis Chan, a San Francisco-based assistant special agent in charge of the division’s cyber branch. The congressional probe highlights the FBI’s unconstitutional role in enabling the SBU’s censorship regime and raises grave concerns about the agency’s credibility and competence as the nation’s premier law enforcement organization. “Put simply, the FBI worked with and on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency—widely known to be compromised by Moscow at the time—and directly abetted efforts to censor Americans engaging in protected speech,” the report says. “As a result, the FBI agents’ actions had the potential to render substantial aid to the Kremlin’s war effort.”

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Massachusetts Excludes Wealthy Sanctuary Cities From List of Communities to House Illegal Immigrants

Amid an illegal immigration crisis so bad in Massachusetts that some have been sent to Logan International Airport in Boston, the absence of affluent communities on a newly released list of communities slated to absorb the influx is raising some eyebrows.

Among the communities missing from Gov. Maura Healey’s list is Martha’s Vineyard, the ultra-liberal affluent Massachusetts atoll that made national headlines last year for shipping 49 Venezuelans off the island last year almost as soon as they arrived at the affluent Cape Cod atoll where Pride flags and Black Lives Matter signs adorn oceanfront homes and well manicured lawns.

Also absent from the list is the overwhelmingly Democrat-dominated Newton and Cambridge, despite both Boston-neighboring communities being self-declared sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants.

“The only answer for this can be hypocrisy,” Republican state Rep. Peter Durant told The Epoch Times. “You advocate for more services for immigrants, but when the rubber meets the road, you don’t want anything to do with them.”

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The White House Does Damage Control After Kamala Harris Claims ‘Reducing Population’ is Needed to Fight Climate Change

Kamala Harris made an interesting remark during a speech on the purportedly devastating effects of climate change on Friday.

“When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce population, more of our children can breath clean air and drink clean water,” she said to applause.

The White House has already “corrected” the transcript of the speech by claiming that Harris meant to say “pollution.”

But Harris did not correct herself during her speech, and the audience applauded her message apparently without bridling at the de-population message.

Kamala Harris’s remarks, whether scripted or unscripted, do reflect a segment of the climate change activist community’s views on the matter.

In 2019, more than 11,000 “experts” signed an emergency declaration warning that energy, food and reproduction must “change immediately,” according to Bloomberg News.

Kathleen Mogelgaard, a consultant on population dynamics and climate change and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland, told the Canadian site CBC News that population does play a role in climate change.

“It is a very complicated, multifaceted relationship. Population issues certainly are an important dimension of how society will unfold, how society will be able to cope with this crisis over the course of this century,” said Mogelgaard.

“But it’s not a silver bullet, and it’s certainly not the main cause of climate change. And fully addressing population growth is not, on its own, going to be able to solve the climate crisis. But it is an important piece of the puzzle,” she added.

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CDC Used Journal To Promote Masks Despite ‘Unreliable’ And ‘Unsupported Data’: New Analysis

A new analysis of studies in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) flagship scientific journal found the agency promoted the effectiveness of masks using unreliable data with conclusions unsupported by evidence.

The preprint, published July 11 on MedRxiv, found the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) made positive findings about the efficacy of masks 75 percent of the time, despite only 30 percent of studies testing masks, and less than 15 percent having “statistically significant results.”

No studies were randomized, yet the CDC in over half of their MMWR studies, made misleading statements indicating a causal relationship between mask-wearing and a decrease in COVID-19 cases or transmission, despite failing to show evidence of mask effectiveness.

The inappropriate use of causal language in MMWR studies was directly adopted by then CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky to promote masks and recommendations urging Americans to mask up. The authors said their findings “raise concern about the reliability of the journal for informing health policy” and suggest bias within the journal.

The MMWR, often called “the voice of the CDC,” is the agency’s primary vehicle for “scientific publication of timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations.”

The publication—subject only to peer review internally by the agency—is frequently used to draft national health policies. For example, mask requirements implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic for federal workers, travelers, schools, businesses, healthcare workers, and Head Start programs—“mirrored” CDC recommendations.

Of the 77 reviews cited in the agency’s MMWR used to promote masks, researchers found the following:

  • Only 23 of 77 studies assessed the effectiveness of masks, yet 58 of 77 studies claimed masks were effective.
  • Of the 58 studies, 41 used “causal language,” and 40 misused causal language. Causal language is where an “action or entity is explicitly presented as influencing another” and should not be used in observational studies because these types of studies merely identify “associations” and cannot establish that the “associations identified represent cause-and-effect relationships.”
  • According to the analysis, the 40 studies that used causal language indicated with certainty that masks lower transmission rates, despite the fact their results, at most, found a correlation. In addition, 25 of the 40 studies didn’t even assess the effectiveness of masks. The one remaining study used causal language related to particle filtration on mannequins with “unknown relevance for human health.”
  • Of the 58 studies referenced above, only one mentioned conflicting data on mask effectiveness—the authors noted it was an international study primarily focused on influenza.
  • Four of the 77 studies had more cases in the mask group than in the comparator group, yet all four studies concluded masks were effective.

None of the 77 studies assessed after 2019 were randomized, and none cited randomized data.

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“Morality Police” Return to Streets of Iran in New Campaign to Force Islamic Dress on Women

On Sunday, Iranian officials announced a new campaign to force women to wear the Islamic headscarf.

Regime thugs had pulled back from crackdowns following nationwide protests after the murder of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini while in police custody.

Amini died from injuries sustained at the hands of police after her arrest for the “improper” wearing of a hijab.

Iranian men and women protested against the regime’s brutality and paid the price for daring to speak up.  Protestors faced  being fired on with an AK-47 , the indiscriminately firing on protesters in the street from moving vehicles, the murder of Hadis Najafi , a powerful symbol of the uprisings, the kidnapping, torture, rape and murder of Nika Shakarimi,  and a woman being dragged by police and sexually assaulted by a gang of Islamic Republic oppressive forces.

Iranian celebrity chef Mehrshad Shahidi was beaten to death by security forces during anti-hijab protests, reportedly killed by multiple violent baton blows at the hands of security forces just shy of his 20th birthday.

Over a thousand students were allegedly poisoned ahead of a mass protest.

More than 500 protesters were killed and almost 20,000 more were detained.

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Boston mayor Michelle Wu under fire after sending list of critics and protesters to police

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, is facing criticism for “Nixonian tactics” after her administration admitted to creating a list of her most vocal critics and providing it to local authorities.

“The list was made in response to a request from the Boston Police Department after the Mayor had been harassed and physically intimidated by individuals for several months outside her home, at city functions such as the annual neighborhood parks coffee hours, and at other public events,” Wu spokesman Ricardo Patron said in a statement to the Boston Herald.

The acknowledgment by the administration that it had compiled the document came after the list was uncovered in an email obtained through a public records request by Wu’s opponents, the outlet noted.

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