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Why your flu shot may work differently than you think

Two decades of federal surveillance data reveal how immune imprinting and an aging immune system undermine flu vaccine effectiveness. Current universal vaccination policy has not caught up to the biology.

Every autumn, public health authorities deliver a message that is simultaneously accurate and misleading: get your flu shot. All Americans aged six months and older are recommended to receive one. The guidance is consistent, reassuring, and considerably more complicated than it sounds.

A synthesis of two decades of CDC surveillance data, which will be published separately in Malone.News makes an argument that has been quietly building in the immunology literature for years: the current one-size-fits-all approach to seasonal influenza vaccination fails to account for two fundamental features of how the immune system actually works. The first is that your first flu exposure as a child permanently shapes how you respond to every flu vaccine you will ever receive. The second is that the immune system ages in ways that make older adults both the most important target for vaccination and the least reliable responders to it.

This is not a case against flu vaccination. It is a case for being honest about what the vaccine does and does not do, and for whom. In other words, it is a case for open and transparent informed consent.

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IDF Iron Dome Operator Arrested, Charged With Spying For Iran

There’s quite obviously been Israeli intelligence inroads into Iran, which at times US and Israeli officials themselves have boasted about, with Tehran recently announcing efforts to round up and arrest “traitors” – and there’s even in some cases been executions of the accused.

Inside Israel, there are also fears of locals spying for Israel – but the phenomenon remains much less common (as far as anyone knows). That’s why the latest headlines are likely a shock to the Israeli establishment. On Friday an Israeli reservist tied to the country’s missile defense network has been charged with serious security offenses after allegedly working with Iranian intelligence.

Police have identified Raz Cohen, a 26-year-old from Jerusalem, who served in the Iron Dome unit, as the alleged culprit. It’s been revealed he was arrested March 1, merely one day after the joint US-Israel war on Iran kicked off. “These included passing sensitive security information to the Iranian agent during December 2025, including details about how Iron Dome works, locations of Israeli Air Force bases, and the locations of Iron Dome batteries,” writes Times of Israel.

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Partisan Hack Jim Acosta Warns Partisan Hacks Are Taking Over the News Business

Former CNN employee Jim Acosta is deeply worried that ‘partisan hacks’ are taking over the news business. You couldn’t make this up.

Acosta offered his comments at a hearing set up by California Senator Adam Schiff, which just makes this story even more perfect.

Acosta is really upset about the fact that the news media is changing and he is being left behind. He claims that CBS News and other outlets are going pro-Trump. That is not happening. Jim just thinks that the news is going right wing if it’s not attacking Trump 24/7.

Deadline reported:

“The news is broken, we may not be able to put the pieces back together,” former CNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta told a packed Burbank City Hall on Friday, warning of the rise of entertainment industry oligarchs and “media domination.”

“We need to talk about busting up big media,” Acosta insisted. “This is not America what we’re seeing now.”

Citing a “danger to our democracy,” Acosta called Donald Trump’s attacks on the media “an assault on our freedom of speech … taking us down the road of Putin and China to state-controlled media.” An old and constant thorn in Trump’s paw, Acosta certainly had something to say about David Ellison’s pending $111 billion purchase of Warner Bros Discovery – the owners of CNN.

Taking a swing at “partisan hacks” running CBS News and the probability of more job losses like we saw today, and “self-censoring,” the journalist was speaking Friday at Sen. Adam Schiff’s “Lights, Camera, Competition”: Promoting American Film Production event in the former home of the Tonight Show.

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The Ellisons are building a media empire. Trump keeps cheering them on.

President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly celebrated the wealthy Ellison family’s growing media empire in recent days, even as the Trump administration is reviewing Paramount Skydance’s deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery and its assets including CNN for $110 billion.

“The Ellison family, two great people, great people. It’s a great family,” Trump said Monday, in remarks ahead of a Kennedy Center board meeting that referenced CBS and its upcoming broadcast of a UFC event.

On Friday, Hegseth called Warner Bros.-owned CNN’s coverage of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran “fake news” after it reported that the administration had underestimated the risk of disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Hegseth said. A spokeswoman for CNN declined to comment on his remarks.

CNN, a longtime target of Trump’s complaints about the media, is among the most prominent assets in Paramount’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros., which requires approval from the Justice Department.

Larry Ellison, co-founder and chairman of Oracle and a longtime friend and ally to Trump, has financially backstopped Paramount’s pending deal to buy Warner Bros. and is also a major investor in the White House-blessed deal that spun off TikTok into a U.S. company. That has helped rebrand the tech billionaire and his son David into media tycoons — with some help from Trump.

The administration’s posture toward Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery has drawn scrutiny since a bidding war erupted over the troubled media giant late last year.

After Netflix announced an $83 billion deal in December to buy most of Warner Bros. Discovery and spin off CNN and other cable properties, Trump told reporters he would be “involved” in deciding whether to approve it, citing the streaming giant’s market power as a potential concern.

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Ohio, Indiana Stop The ‘Horrors’ Of Ranked-Choice Voting From Corrupting Their Elections

Ohio and Indiana have officially joined a growing number of states prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting (RCV) in their elections.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation (SB 63) on Tuesday that prevents elections from being conducted with ranked-choice voting (or “instant runoff voting”). Should the secretary of state determine that an Ohio city or locality “approved the use” of such a system in its elections via resolution or ordinance, “then the county or municipal corporation is ineligible to receive any local government fund distributions from the state during the period beginning with the month following the adoption of the resolution or ordinance and ending with the month following the last day it is in effect.”

SB 63 was introduced by Republican Sen. Theresa Gavarone and Democrat Sen. William DeMora and received overwhelming support in the state House (65-27) and Senate (24-7).

Under RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

As The Federalist previously reported, Democrats have often pushed ranked-choice voting as a way of winning races in which Republican candidates receive a majority of the vote. The system has also been shown to produce confusion among voters, delayed election results, and thrown-out (“exhausted”) ballots.

“From decreasing voter turnout, to even having the losing candidate declared the winner, we have seen the horrors of ranked choice voting play out in several states throughout the country, but that will not happen in Ohio!” Gavarone wrote in a tweet responding to DeWine’s signing of SB 63.

The law is expected to take effect 90 days after its approval, according to Dayton Daily News.

DeWine’s signature comes nearly a month after GOP Gov. Mike Braun approved legislation barring RCV in Indiana.

Much like its Ohio counterpart, Indiana’s SB 12 stipulates that elections “may not be determined by ranked choice voting” and that candidates “may not be nominated for or elected to an office by means of ranked choice voting.”

The measure passed the Indiana House (58-30) last month after clearing the state Senate (38-9) in January.

There are now 19 states that have adopted laws prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting in their elections, according to Ballotpedia.

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‘WHO HAS THE BOXES?!’ Fulton County numbers don’t match after FBI seizure

Officials from Fulton County, Georgia, wanted to quash a subpoena from the Georgia State Board of Elections because providing “approximately 750 boxes” of material would be too burdensome.

Yet, when the FBI came knocking in a Jan. 28 raid, federal agents left with 656 boxes (653 by one count), prompting a top Georgia election official to wonder about the gap in the number.

“That’s almost 100 boxes of evidence,” Janice Johnston, vice chair of the Georgia State Election Board, told The Daily Signal.

She referenced one county affidavit that only estimated “over 700 boxes” at the county elections hub. She said, “Even 50 [extra] boxes would be a lot of evidence.”

In a post on X, Johnston posed the questions, “WHERE ARE 100 BOXES OF ELECTION DOCUMENTS?!! … WHO HAS THE BOXES?!!”

A rough estimate does not excuse such a large numerical disparity in an affidavit or court filings, Johnston said.

The State Election Board has since made a records request to the Fulton County Board of Elections to provide information about materials delivered or removed from storage in the four weeks preceding the FBI raid.

“Fulton County is effectively the person of interest in this case,” Johnston said. “We are not assured that everything was available.”

The FBI seized materials from the 2020 election that included ballots, tabulator tapes, and ballot images from a recount, Georgia Public Broadcasting reported, citing court documents that supported the search warrant. About 370,000 ballot images are missing, Johnston noted.

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Americans can thank Netanyahu, his lackeys in Congress for $1T ‘Israel First tax,’ Iranian FM says

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s top diplomat, posted a screengrab of a Washington Post article titled, “Pentagon Seeks More Than $200 Billion in Budget Request for Iran War,” and wrote that “ordinary Americans” can thank Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his lackeys in Congress for the new tax bill — that will end up being much, much higher.

“We’re only three weeks into this war of choice, imposed on both Iranians and Americans. This $200b is the tip of the iceberg. Ordinary Americans can thank Benjamin Netanyahu and his lackeys in Congress for the trillion-dollar “Israel First tax” that’s about to hit the U.S. economy,” he posted.

The Iran War continued to escalate before Araghchi’s post, and President Donald Trump appears to be so rattled that he is posting incoherent messages on Truth Social, including one that blamed Israel for bombing Iran’s vital South Pars gas reserve “out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East.”

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Democrat Is Shocked to Learn CA Bans Voter ID Requirements

In a conversation with Representative Kevin Kiley (R-CA), a Democrat, and ESPN analyst, Stephen A. Smith was shocked to learn that not only does the state of California not have any voter ID requirements for its elections, but it has even barred counties from imposing their own ID rules.

“I think the fact that we don’t have voter ID in places like California is extremely unusual in democracies across the globe,” Kiley said. “There’s maybe like two or three democracies in the world that don’t have it. This is just kind of like a administrative requirement in a well-functioning democracy. So I think we should just have it. We should get this out and move on with our lives. It shouldn’t be a big controversial issue.”

“It’s excuse me for being so ignorant, this is definitely my last question,” Smith replied. “What do you mean you don’t have voter ID in California. Could you please elaborate specifically on that for my audience that may not know?”

“Yeah, California does not have voter ID,” Rep. Kiley replied. “You don’t need to present it to register. You don’t need to present it to vote. As a matter of fact, the past, the state passed a law forbidding voter ID so, so cities, counties… “

“Forbidding?!” Smith exclaimed.

“They’re not allowed to under state law.”

“What, when did that happen?!”

“A couple of years ago? Because I think it was Orange County. They wanted to have their own requirements of the state passed a law saying, no, you’re not allowed to you,” Kiley said. “Voter ID is not only not required. It is actively forbidden.”

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Three Women Indicted on 37 Counts in Alabama Ballot Fraud Scheme — Judge Orders Special Election After Rigged Absentee Votes Potentially Flipped the Race

Three Alabama women have been indicted on a staggering 37 combined criminal counts tied to an alleged ballot fraud scheme that may have altered the outcome of a local election.

According to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, Monroe County residents Sarah Bennett (60), Sharon Denson (67), and Samantha Kyles (46) were arrested and charged in connection with the August 26, 2025, Frisco City municipal election.

The charges are severe:

  • 17 counts of ballot harvesting
  • 20 counts of unlawful use of absentee ballots

Prosecutors allege the trio falsified absentee ballot applications and verification documents, while also illegally collecting and submitting ballots on behalf of multiple individuals, a direct violation of Alabama election law.

The criminal case follows a civil lawsuit filed by former Frisco City Mayor Allen Lang, who lost the election and is now challenging the results.

Lang’s lawsuit outlines what appears to be a coordinated scheme:

  • 131 illegal absentee ballots were allegedly counted
  • 85 individuals falsely claimed work conflicts to justify absentee voting
  • 33 voters falsely claimed disabilities
  • At least 13 non-residents voted in the election

Under Alabama law, according to Attorney General Steve Marshall:

  • Unlawful use of absentee ballots is a Class C felony, punishable by 1 year and 1 day up to 10 years in prison
  • Ballot harvesting is a Class A misdemeanor, carrying up to 1 year in jail

Bond amounts reflect the seriousness of the charges:

  • Bennett: $54,000 (18 counts)
  • Denson: $36,000 (12 counts)
  • Kyles: $21,000 (7 counts)

Wes Allen, Alabama’s Secretary of State, provided an election integrity update to Alabama voters following the recent arrests:

“The Secretary of State’s Office remains vigilant in its pursuit of election integrity and the protection of your vote. We will continue to assist law enforcement in every way possible as they investigate and prosecute violations of Alabama election law,” Allen said. “Absentee ballot harvesting is not being tolerated in Alabama. These arrests send a clear message to those contemplating violating Alabama election law.”

“Alabama law provides some of the strongest protections in the nation for our voters and imposes penalties on those who violate the law,” Allen said. “Thanks to the advocacy of my Office and every member of the Alabama Legislature that voted for SB1, Alabama votes are not for sale.”

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Clinton Judge Rules Hegseth’s New Pentagon Press Policy is Unconstitutional

A federal judge on Friday ruled that the Pentagon’s new press policy restricting press credential of reporters is unconstitutional.

In October, Pentagon reporters turned in their badges after they refused to sign Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s new security rule.

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded that reporters agree by 5 p.m. Tuesday to a new policy, under which they would need to pledge to not obtain or use any unauthorized material, even if the information is unclassified — or hand over their press badges in the next 24 hours,” The Hill previously reported.

By that afternoon, Pentagon reporters turned in their badges.

The reporters turned in their badges and left the building.

The Pentagon Press Association previously released a statement blasting Hegseth.

“Today, the Defense Department confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America. It did this because reporters would not sign onto a new media policy over its implicit threat of criminalizing national security reporting and exposing those who sign it to potential prosecution,” the PPA said.

“The Pentagon Press Association’s members are still committed to reporting on the US military. But make no mistake, today, Oct. 15, 2025 is a dark day for press freedom that raises concerns about a weakening US commitment to transparency in governance, to public accountability at the Pentagon and to free speech for all,” the statement said.

The Pentagon press pool now includes conservative outlets, including The Gateway Pundit.

The New York Times filed a lawsuit to stop the Pentagon from enforcing its new policy.

On Friday, US District Judge Paul Friedman, a Clinton appointee, blocked the Pentagon from enforcing its new policy and said it violated the First Amendment.

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