Blog

All Birth Control Pills, Not Just One, Should Be Over the Counter

On July 13, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally allowed women to access one birth control pill over the counter. The FDA signaled in May that this was likely to happen after an advisory panel recommended that the agency approve over-the-counter marketing of the progestin-only oral contraceptive Opill, manufactured by the Dublin-based Perrigo Company. Progestin-only oral contraceptives have been around since 1973. Dubbed the “mini pill,” these contraceptives have their limitations.

For example, women must take the pill at the same time every day, within a three-hour window. If they miss the window, they must discontinue the pill and begin again with the next cycle. With standard birth control pills that combine estrogen and progesterone, women who miss a daily dose can double up the next day. Women who take progestin-only pills have a slightly lower risk of developing blood clots that can break off and travel through the body (venous thromboembolism, or VTE) than they do with combination pills. But the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), which has for decades advocated making all hormonal contraceptives available over the counter for women of all ages, states the risk of VTE “with combined oral contraceptive use is small compared with the increased risk of VTE during pregnancy and the postpartum period.”

ACOG is not the only medical professional organization calling to free the birth control pill. It is joined by the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Medical Association. And most reproductive health care providers surveyed in 2016 favored over-the-counter birth control pills. These medical experts, who get paid to evaluate women and prescribe hormonal contraceptives, have the financial incentive to argue for maintaining the status quo. When they repeatedly assert that women do not need their services to obtain birth control pills, regulators should take notice.

The FDA approved over-the-counter emergency contraception, the so-called morning-after pill, for women of all ages in 2013. These pills (for example, Plan B) usually contain high progestin levels. But standard birth control pills can also be used for emergency contraception. The required dose is 8-10 pills. The FDA denies women over-the-counter access to contraceptives with one-eighth to one-tenth the potency of over-the-counter emergency contraceptives.

Keep reading

The Achilles’ Heel Of The JFK Assassination

The autopsy that the U.S. national-security establishment conducted on President Kennedy’s body has always been the Achilles heel of the assassination. That’s because the autopsy was fraudulent. But because the military “classified” the autopsy, forcing enlisted personnel to sign secrecy oaths and threatening them with court martial or criminal prosecution if they ever revealed what they saw or did, the military was able to cover up much, but certainly not all, of its autopsy fraud for decades. That cover-up came to a screeching halt during the 1990s during the term of the Assassination Records Review Board.

When I began delving into the JFK assassination many years ago, I naturally read lots of books. Gradually, I became convinced that the assassination was a highly sophisticated regime-change operation orchestrated and carried out by the U.S. national-security establishment. I became convinced that it was no different in principle from other regime-change operations, especially ones that involved state-sponsored assassinations based on “national security,” such as those operations that targeted Iranian leader Mohammad Mossadegh, Congo leader Patrice Lumumba, Chilean Gen. Rene Schneider, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz.

But I was trained as a lawyer. My professional career began as a trial attorney. I practiced law for 12 years. I tried both civil and criminal cases in both state and federal courts. These consisted of both jury and non-jury trials.

While I became convinced that the Kennedy assassination was, in fact, a regime-change operation, I also believed that I could never walk into a courtroom and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard of proof required in a criminal case. I didn’t think that any of the assassination researchers had provided sufficient evidence to meet that burden. After many years of studying the assassination, I still believe that to this day.

To be sure, there are lots of suspicious aspects to the assassination, such as the so-called magic-bullet theory. But for me, all those suspicious aspects, while convincing me of criminal culpability, were still not enough to convict beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Thus, in my opinion, those who cry “Conspiracy theory!” when one focuses on what happened in Dealey Plaza are essentially saying, “You don’t have enough evidence to convict the national-security establishment of this offense beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Not so, however, with the autopsy. Once I came to the realization that the military establishment had conducted a fraudulent autopsy, it was “game over” and “case closed” for the national-security establishment.

The fraudulent autopsy is the “back door” that establishes beyond a reasonable doubt criminal culpability of the national-security establishment in the Kennedy assassination.

Keep reading

Young Ukrainians Scared To Leave Their Homes As More And More Videos Emerge Of Forced Conscription

As Ukraine’s manpower on its frontlines starts to dwindle, military leaders are becoming increasingly desperate to locate new recruits to propel its counteroffensive against Russia forward; however, the number of young people volunteering for such a challenge has plummeted.

Recent videos of young Ukrainian men being conscripted across the country have circulated in popular encrypted messaging apps in Ukraine, and those fearful of being sent to the front are actively engaging in evasive and, in some instances, illegal tactics to avoid such a fate.

The brutal mobilization by Ukrainian military recruitment officers of young men has been occurring for a year and a half now, Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet reports.

“Many conscripted men are taken straight off the street by uniformed men,” it states. “Most recently in Subcarpathia, a surveillance camera recorded the overreach of the authorities as a man trying to go to a store was kidnapped from his bicycle in broad daylight.”

The man was abducted right on a street during the day by police and conscription officers in a small village in the Municipal District of Munkács, with his bicycle left in the road.

Keep reading

Biden Authorizes Military to Call Reservists to Active Duty to Support Ukraine War

President Joe Biden on Thursday issued an executive order authorizing the Pentagon to call reservists to active duty “for the effective conduct” of U.S. military support to Ukraine.

At the same time, the Pentagon designated the U.S. military support to Ukraine since 2014 under Operation Atlantic Resolve a “contingency operation.”

Biden wrote in a message to Congress:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 121 and 12304 of title 10, United States Code, I hereby determine that it is necessary to augment the active Armed Forces of the United States for the effective conduct of Operation Atlantic Resolve in and around the United States European Command’s area of responsibility.

Operation Atlantic Resolve began in 2014 to bolster the U.S. military presence in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and annexation of Crimea.

Biden said in the message that he authorized the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Coast Guard, to order to active duty any units or individuals not assigned to a unit.

He said in the message that the number would not exceed 3,000 total members at any one time, and no more than 450 members of the Individual Ready Reserve.

Pentagon officials said no troops would be deployed for combat to Ukraine.

Army Lieutenant General D.A. Sims, the Joint Staff J3 director of operations, told reporters:

Based on the level of presence and operations in the U.S. [European Command] area of operations, DOD’s support requirements have grown, as well.  These authorities will enable the department to better support and sustain its enhanced presence and level of operations in the U.S. EUCOM [area of responsibility].

He also said the moves reaffirm “the unwavering support and commitment to the defense of NATO’s eastern flank in wake of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked war on Ukraine.”

Keep reading

Half of POLITICO Letter ‘Foreign Policy Experts’ Calling for More Arms to Ukraine Tied to Arms Industry

An open letter signed by “46 foreign policy experts” calling for more arms shipments to Ukraine published in POLITICO failed to mention ties of nearly half of the signatories to the defence industry, allegedly glossing over conflicts of interest, the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft claimed.

On June 5th, the neo-liberal POLITICO news website published an open letter entitled ‘Ukraine Needs a Roadmap to NATO Membership ASAP‘, calling for Western leaders at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania this week to commit to supplying Ukraine with weapons, fighter jets, and tanks in “sufficient quantities to prevail on the battlefield”.

The letter argued that Western leaders should help facilitate a “comprehensive transition” of the weapons systems being used in the war against Russia up to “NATO standards”.

“The focus should be on the transition to Western weapons systems; creation of a modern, NATO-compatible air and missile defense system; creation of a medical rehabilitation system for wounded soldiers, as well as a system for soldier reintegration into civilian life and a comprehensive demining effort,” the letter stated.

Although POLITICO listed the names of the 46 ‘foreign policy experts’ and claimed to have outlined their “affiliations”, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft — which argues for a less interventionist U.S. foreign policy — claimed that at least 21 of the signatories currently have connections to the military-industrial complex that were left unmentioned by the news outlet.

Quincy Institute Senior Advisor Eli Clifton writing for Reasonable Statecraft noted that “support for increasing Western military aid to Ukraine is not a view exclusively held by those with direct or indirect links to the weapons industry, but signatories of the letter are noticeably embedded in the financial umbrella of institutions and businesses with direct financial ties to some of the world’s largest weapons firms.”

Keep reading

Everything we know about family of ‘quiet’ Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann

The suspect busted for the Gilgo Beach murders is a twice-married architect quietly raising two children — including a son with special needs — in the ramshackle Long Island home he grew up in.

Rex Heuermann’s stunned neighbors in Massapequa Park were nearly united Friday in calling him a quiet businessman and “regular family man.”

Among them was actor Billy Baldwin, 60, who tweeted his shock at waking to “learn that the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect was my high school classmate” from Berner High School’s class of 1981.

“Married, two kids, architect. ‘Average guy… quiet, family man.’ Mind-boggling,” the local-born actor wrote.

“Massapequa is in shock.”

The 59-year-old architect was raised with his brother, Craig, in the unkempt 1956 home on 1st Avenue that is directly across the bay from where 11 bodies have been found strewn since 2010.

Keep reading

RFK Jr. says COVID was ‘ethnically targeted’ to spare Jews

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dished out wild COVID-19 conspiracy theories this week during a press event at an Upper East Side restaurant, claiming the bug was a genetically engineered bioweapon that may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

Kennedy floated the idea during a question-and-answer portion of raucous booze and fart-filled dinner at Tony’s Di Napoli on East 63d Street.

“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” Kennedy hedged.

Keep reading

House And Senate Both Move To Keep Blocking D.C. Marijuana Sales But Protecting State Medical Cannabis Laws

House and Senate appropriators have approved large-scale annual spending bills that once again include language to protect state medical cannabis programs, as well as a controversial rider to block Washington, D.C. from implementing a system of regulated marijuana sales.

The Senate and House Appropriations Committee both held markups of Fiscal Year 2024 spending legislation for Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) on Thursday. And the Senate panel, as well as a House subcommittee, have also advanced their appropriations measures for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS).

Aside from the state medical cannabis and D.C. marijuana sales provisions, House lawmakers rejected a GOP-led amendment to the chamber’s FSGG report that would have called on the federal government to take steps to study other state cannabis regulatory models and develop a national legalization framework.

Lawmakers have consistently attempted to use appropriations measures as vehicles for cannabis reform, with mixed results. Even with Democrats in control of both chambers last session, efforts to expand marijuana protections to all legal states and enact limited cannabis banking reform stalled out following bicameral negotiations.

A rider to protect state medical cannabis programs from federal intervention, meanwhile, has been annually renewed each year since 2014—and appropriators in both chambers agreed again this Congress to keep that language intact in their respective base bills as they advance.

Keep reading

Report Contradicts Secret Service Claim No Fingerprints Were Found on White House Cocaine Baggie

Officials at the White House know who brought cocaine into the White House and have confirmed that finding via fingerprint analysis, according to a report which contradicts a statement released by the Secret Service.

A security source told Soldier of Fortune magazine, “We know who handled it… We’ve known since last week.”

According to the report — which Breitbart News has not independently verified — two sources disclosed the name of the person who is believed to have handled the cocaine, but the magazine is withholding the name pending official confirmation.

The report alleged that the second test by the FBI “brought back a hit on fingerprints.”

The report conflicted with a statement put out by the Secret Service on Thursday, which claimed that the FBI did not “develop latent fingerprints” and that “insufficient DNA was present.”

The statement said:

The substance and packaging underwent further forensic testing. The substance was analyzed for its chemical composition. The packaging was subjected to advanced fingerprint and DNA analysis. Both of these analyses were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crime laboratory given their expertise in this area and independence from the investigation.

…

On July 12, the Secret Service received the FBI’s laboratory results, which did not develop latent fingerprints and insufficient DNA was present for investigative comparisons. Therefore, the Secret Service is not able to compare evidence against the known pool of individuals. The FBl’s evaluation of the substance also confirmed that it was cocaine.

The Secret Service said there was “no surveillance video footage found” that provided “investigative leads or any other means for investigators to identify who may have deposited” the cocaine.

Keep reading