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Biden Requiring Federal Agencies to Form ‘Equity Action Teams,’ Deliver ‘Annual Equity’ Plans

President Joe Biden has ordered federal agencies to ensure delivery of equitable outcomes for all Americans, particularly people of color, women, LGBT persons, and other minorities.

The executive order, issued Feb. 16, sparks fresh debate over what it means for all Americans to receive equal protection under the law.

Biden signed a previous order mandating equity on his first day in office, Jan. 20, 2021, to address “systemic racism in our Nation’s policies and programs.”

This latest order has the broader aim of ensuring equity for religious minorities, women and girls, LGBT persons, and persons with disabilities, among others.

The president directed administrators to form Agency Equity Teams and create Annual Equity Plans to deliver equitable outcomes through government policies, programs, and activities.

That includes ongoing equity training and equity leadership development at all levels of the federal government, and embedding equity into all government processes.

Mixed Reaction

Critics have claimed that equity initiatives subtly shift the government’s focus away from guaranteeing equality under the law to creating an equitable status in life.

Indeed, while the president’s order defines equity to mean fair and impartial treatment of people, the order repeatedly states the aim of producing equitable outcomes.

That echoes a statement made by Vice President Kamala Harris when seeking election in 2020.

Harris said in a Tweet: “So there’s a big difference between equality and equity. Equality suggests, ‘Oh everyone should get the same amount.’ . . . Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.”

Critics claim that is both discriminatory and dangerous.

“Equality means equal treatment, unbiased competition, and impartially judged outcomes. Equity means equal outcomes, achieved if necessary by unequal treatment, biased competition and preferential judging,” Charles Lipson emeritus professor of political science at the University of Chicago wrote in a 2021 op-ed.

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The sudden global push for age verification to end online anonymity and drive digital ID uptake

Anonymity online, long considered by civil rights groups as a fundamental feature of the internet, is coming under fire from different directions, and through a range of methods: from criticism by political elites, to actual legislation.

One kind of new law that can undermine or do away with online anonymity are those mandating age verification before users are allowed on a website. Another effect these rules have is increasing the uptake of digital IDs.

Earlier this week, Senator Josh Hawley introduced the Making Age-Verification Technology Uniform, Robust, and Effective (MATURE) Act, whose goal is to prevent minors under 16 from accessing social media.

In order to ensure this, all users would have to have their age verified before creating an account, by giving up information fully revealing their identity: legal name, date of birth and a copy of a government issued ID that proves this is their actual name and age.

Hawley’s explanation for this and similar initiatives is that social media is harmful to children, from monetizing their data to facilitating exploitation and manipulation. But the solution would clearly affect everyone’s privacy by further “unmasking” them to notorious data collectors and (ab)users, those same social sites.

Age verification is also being pushed in some states but, in Utah at least, the proposal that has just been adopted in the local Senate is leaving out the government ID requirement.

The bill, known as SB152 and which will next be considered in the House, makes it mandatory for companies behind social media platforms to make sure that children can sign up only with their parents’ consent. To ensure this is the case, the ages of all users would be verified.

However, how exactly these companies can accomplish that remains unclear for now, while the bill’s sponsor, state State Senator Mike McKell, is quoted as saying that “there are third-party options that use various technologies to verify ages without government IDs.”

Facial recognition is mentioned in reports as one such option, while another is to use “existing consumer data.” Once again, the need for such legislation is explained as a way to protect children from bad influences online.

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DOJ Drops Probe Into Rep. Matt Gaetz After Leaked Texts Implicate Israeli Govt in $25M Extortion Plot

The Department of Justice officially declined to charge Florida Rep Matt Gaetz in a sex trafficking investigation on Wednesday after leaked texts revealed the Israeli government appeared to be implicated in a $25 million extortion plot targeting Gaetz’s family.

From The Palm Beach Post, “Justice Department drops sex trafficking probe of Rep. Matt Gaetz without charges, lawyers say”:

The Justice Department has formally decided not to charge firebrand Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz in a sex trafficking investigation, the lawmaker’s lawyers said Wednesday.

“We have just spoken with the DOJ and have been informed that they have concluded their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice, and they have determined not to bring any charges against him,” attorneys Marc Mukasey and Isabelle Kirshner said.

Gaetz’s office also issued a brief statement acknowledging the Justice Department’s contact with the lawmaker’s attorneys.

The department did not immediately comment. The decision was first reported by CNN.

[…] The Gaetz inquiry was launched following the arrest of Joel Greenberg, formerly a Gaetz family friend and Florida tax collector. As part of a plea agreement, Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor and other offenses. He pleaded guilty to six federal crimes, including identity theft, stalking, wire fraud and conspiracy to bribe a public official. Prosecutors said he paid at least one girl to have sex with him and other men.

Joel Greenberg, a potential Jeffrey Epstein-esque figure who had worked as a tax collector for Seminole County, Florida, appears to have tried to entrap Gaetz into having sex with a 17-year-old girl for blackmail purposes.

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Police told to keep record of ‘conspiracy theorists’ and ‘communists’

The Queensland police are required to report interactions with people who “allegedly hold a range of ideological beliefs” including “conspiracy theorists” according to an email sent to all members of the Queensland Police Service on Thursday and seen by ABC News.

Police must record interactions with such individuals in the state’s QPrime database “at the first available opportunity,” the email states, explaining that in addition to “conspiracy theorists,” “religious, social or political extremists and sovereign citizens, as well as people with ideologies relating to capitalism, communism, socialism or Marxism” also fit the bill.

Officers were also told to report “all matters that indicate concerning or escalating behavior due to ideological beliefs, including religious and single-issue ideologies” and advised of the “risks” inherent in dealing with these groups.

The guidance comes after a deadly shooting in Wieambilla in December left two officers and a civilian dead, in addition to the three shooters. Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train reportedly gunned down constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold and injured two other officers on their property, also killing neighbor Alan Dare when he was drawn to the scene by the noise. The Trains were then killed by specialist police following an hours-long standoff.  

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Congressional Republicans Urge Biden to Provide More Military Funding to Taiwan

The authors of the new letter to Biden reasoned that arming and equipping Taiwan “to make it a stronger and more capable partner” would be an improvement for the “national and economic security” of the United States.

Republican members of the US Congress’ foreign relations and defense committees have penned a letter to US President Joe Biden asking him to ramp up military aid to Taiwan, according to a US media outlet familiar with the contents of the missive.

The letter was reportedly authored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jim Risch and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, as well as Senator Roger Wicker and Rep. Mike Rogers, Republican leaders of the Senate and House armed service committees, respectively.

“Using every authority, we must arm and equip Taiwan to make it a stronger and more capable partner — which will only help the United States’ national and economic security,” the politicians declared in their letter.

They also argued that the United States “must be willing to accept the tension that comes with supporting Taiwan.”

As the media outlet points out, in December the US Congress did authorize foreign military aid financing for Taiwan – $2 billion per year – but that money comes in the form of “US-backed loans,” and the letter’s authors claim that “without FMF grants, loans are not enough to address the scale of this challenge.”

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CDC Director Suggests It Will NEVER Change Child Masking Policy

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky suggested during congressional testimony Tuesday that the organisation will never change its policy on masking for children, despite multiple studies showing that the face coverings do nothing to stop the spread of COVID.

During a hearing in the House on the government’s response to the pandemic, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers asked Walensky if the CDC is going to consider revising its guidance on masking in schools (which is still happening in many areas of the country) in the wake of perhaps the most extensive study yet confirming that masks are not effective.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, is the strongest science to date refuting the basis for mask mandates worldwide.

The CDC still recommends masking in areas with “high” rates of transmission (fewer than 4% of US counties, as Just the News notes), along with indoor masking in areas with “medium” rates of transmission (27%).

Walensky effectively dismissed the Cochrane review, claiming the study “only includes randomised clinical trials,” and that those trials were “for other respiratory viruses, not COVID 19.”

She continued, “Our guidance for school-based masking is related to our COVID-19 community levels. Unfortunately, we’re in a place now in this country where most of our country is in green or yellow. Has low to moderate transmission communicable levels. And in those communities we don’t recommend masking. We recommend it for high level communities.”

Then came the kicker, as the CDC head stated “our masking guidance doesn’t really change with time. It changes with the disease.”

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After serving in CIA, lawmaker now has role overseeing it

As former CIA Director David Petraeus recently told the House Intelligence Committee about the needs of the agency’s workforce, one of the committee’s youngest members flashed a knowing smile and began to nod.

Abigail Spanberger spent almost a decade as a CIA operations officer. Now, she’s a third-term Democratic congresswoman from Virginia who was just named to one of two committees that oversees the work of America’s spy agencies.

The relationship between Congress and the U.S. intelligence services can be uneasy and is often adversarial. That’s especially true now as lawmakers demand answers about classified documents found in the private possession of two presidents and the Biden administration’s response to a suspected Chinese spy balloon.

Years of high-profile fights over intelligence matters have taken a toll, with some Republicans accusing the agencies of being part of a “deep state” controlling U.S. politics.

Spanberger, 43, is part of a small group of former intelligence officers to have been elected to Congress. Like others with access to America’s top secrets, she will be called on to review intelligence matters in private and explain what she can to fellow lawmakers and the public.

“I know the lingo. I know the language. I know the culture,” Spanberger told The Associated Press in a recent interview in her office. “I hope that helps me do my job better. But I’m sure there will be points of frustration probably for me and for them, frankly speaking.”

She rejects talk of a “deep state” and called on other lawmakers not to promote conspiracy theories about intelligence or the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

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Can’t Afford Groceries In Biden’s America? Wall Street Journal Says Just Don’t Eat!

As many Americans struggle to put food on the table, The Wall Street Journal proposed an idea this week: Instead of Biden taking responsibility for his destructive public policy, you should just skip breakfast.

Titled “To Save Money, Maybe You Should Skip Breakfast,” the article analyzed three popular breakfast foods — eggs, juice, and cereal — and offered explanations for why they cost significantly more since last year. According to the Journal, eggs are up a whopping 70 percent, frozen orange juice is up more than 12 percent, and cereal is up 15 percent since just one year ago.

Why the crippling increases? The explanations were as plentiful as they were diverse: avian flu, bad weather, citrus disease, dead chickens, and Vladimir Putin.

Global food supply includes a myriad of liabilities and moving parts, and of course, a drop in supply will play in role in rising prices. But the Journal neglected to mention perhaps the most important contributor to Americans’ economic woes: Biden’s apparently limitless federal spending.

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FBI whistleblower resigns from bureau, warns Congress about dangers of case ‘quota system’

An FBI whistleblower has divulged to Congress that the bureau has created a case quota system that can incentivize agents to pursue frivolous cases or delay action on real crimes to attain statistical goals.

Steve Friend, a special agent and former SWAT team member who blew the whistle on alleged civil liberties violations in the Jan. 6 investigation, told Just the News on Thursday that he resigned from the bureau this week and gave the House Judiciary Committee an extensive interview detailing his concerns about the politicization of criminal cases and the growing manipulation of investigations to attain statistical and budget goals.

Friend said he made the decision to leave the bureau after he had been denied a paycheck for 150 straight days as his security clearance was placed under review after he made protected whistleblower disclosures. The denial of pay, he said, came even though he was never accused formally of any wrongdoing or subjected to any formal disciplinary action.

“The FBI had weaponized the security clearance revocation process in order to essentially try to wait me out financially,” he said in an interview on the John Solomon Reports podcast. “You know, I was in a position where I had some personal savings and was able to survive. But at the end of the day, you know, I’m a married father of two small children. I have to support my family.”

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US Uses UFO Psyop to Hide Crimes and Advance Military Agenda

The strategies used by the US to distract public opinion seem increasingly stupid. Now, Washington is resorting to science fiction mechanisms, promoting the narrative of “UFO attacks”. The reasons seem quite simple: to prevent the media from paying attention to the recent chemical disasters in the country and at the same time generate concern among citizens about alleged “unknown threats”, which may enable the advancement of military agendas.

A few days after shooting down a Chinese weather balloon claiming “risks to national security”, Washington decided to deepen its conspiracy theories. Now, the US government claims to be monitoring the activities of alleged UFOs in its territory. According to American and Canadian authorities, some of these UFOs would have been shot down in the border region between both countries – however, very suspiciously, the debris of the unknown objects have not been found yet.

The American government has refrained from accusing any country of launching the alleged UFOs, although some propagandists have suggested Chinese involvement, linking the episode to the case of the weather balloon. More than that, the Americans even resorted to bizarre and unrealistic speculations about a possible “alien visit”. For example, when asked about the “possibility” that the incidents were an actual contact with extraterrestrial beings, General Glen Van Herck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), stated that he does “not rule out anything”.

“I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out (…) I haven’t ruled out anything (…) At this point, we continue to assess every threat or potential threat unknown that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it”, he said during a press conference.

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