Never-Trumpers Exit Stage Left
The dramatic exit on January 14 by Rep. John Katko (R-NY), who announced he would not run for reelection, may have shocked liberals but was no surprise to Trump supporters. One by one, the Republicans who voted for the second impeachment or who publicly blamed Trump for the Jan. 6th rally at the Capitol are leaving public office.
Katko was the third to prematurely retire among the impeachers, and the most significant due to his seniority and otherwise bright future. He was in line to become chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee after the predicted takeover of the House by Republicans this November.
In addition to his impeachment vote, Katko also helped draft legislation to create a 10-member commission to investigate the Jan. 6th rally. He promoted his vote last year for Biden’s first trillion-dollar infrastructure deal, which he laughably described as a “quintessentially conservative bill” despite its wasteful pork.
Across the aisle, Democrats are retiring from Congress in droves, and a recent Gallup poll shows a record 5-point advantage by the GOP among voters nationwide. That is a 14-point swing to Republicans from a 9-point lead held by Democrats a year ago.
The most recent Quinnipiac poll shows that Biden’s approval rating has dropped to a record low of only 33%. Republicans are expected to gain 4 seats in the Senate in addition to winning the House if Biden’s approval rating remains below 44%, and he is far below that now.
Trump took a much-deserved victory lap on January 15 before a humongous outdoor crowd of tens of thousands in Arizona. The media rarely shows the extent of his audiences, bias that Trump criticized again, and the turnout was overwhelming despite unusually cold weather.
Standing before a roaring crowd that kicked off more planned rallies like it, Trump declared that this “year we are going to take back the House, we’re going to take back the Senate and we are going to take back America. And in 2024, we’re going to take back the White House.”
It will be a far stronger Republican Party, too. In addition
to the departure of Never-Trumpers from Congress, members of the Administration who turned against Trump a year ago have likewise vanished from the political scene.
Prominent among them is the cabinet secretary Elaine Chao, wife of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has disappeared from public view after lashing out against Trump while she herself was being investigated for misconduct. As Senator Lindsey Graham pointedly asked, “Can Senator McConnell effectively work with the leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump?”
At the spectacular rally in Arizona on January 15, Trump rattled off the conservative agenda that prioritizes election integrity, ending mask requirements for children, protecting freedom from vaccine mandates, holding China accountable for Covid, stopping the unfair invasion by men into women’s sports, protecting the unborn, nominating better judges, and helping our veterans.
Trump praised the new breed of candidates whom he’s endorsed for office, and welcomed to the stage Kari Lake as the candidate for governor of Arizona. She declared that as governor she will build Trump’s southern wall to stop the flow of illegal aliens into our country through Arizona.
The contrast is stark between the energetic Trump- endorsed candidates, such as Kari Lake, and the dough- faced opponents of Trump, such as Katko. Despite winning office by presenting himself as a tough prosecutor, Katko admittedly spent the afternoon of Jan. 6th “holed up” inside his office with the lights turned off, in fear of unarmed Trump- supporting Americans.
Never-Trumpers should not have been frightened by the likes of the recently sentenced woman who entered the Capitol with her 14-year-old child, or by the fellow who amused the entire country by harmlessly hoisting Nancy Pelosi’s podium with a goofy grin on his face. One and allegedly two unarmed pro-Trump women were killed there by Capitol police, but there has been no justice for them.
In early January of this year liberal Republicans expressed unjustified fear about comments to be made by Trump on the anniversary of Jan. 6th, while House conservatives declared that they wanted to listen and learn from what Trump would say. At the Arizona rally Trump delivered those comments, and they were spot on.
He observed that “it’s a disgrace to our country” that politicians are resorting to “Stalinist show trials” against those who participated in the Jan. 6th rally. He remarked that witnesses brought before the sham House investigatory committee say they “have never been treated so horribly in my life.”
It is perpetrating an “unprecedented assault on civil liberties” and engaging in a “blatant abuse of power to harass their political opponents,” he continued. Trump rightly pointed out that “it’s never happened to this extent” to misuse the powers of government to persecute political opponents as House Democrats are doing.
A Titanic Hearing on Covid
Thousands of Americans gathered on the national mall on January 23 for the “Defeat the Mandates” rally led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose new book, The Real Anthony Fauci, has already sold more than 500,000 copies. The diverse crowd somehow got there despite airline cancellations and how cities including Washington, D.C., require proof of vaccination before customers can be served in restaurants.
The next day, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) courageously convened a panel discussion of some of the world’s most highly credentialed experts on infectious disease. Entitled “Covid-19: A Second Opinion,” the meeting was held in the historic Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building, whose marble columns and heavy red drapes have provided the backdrop to many famous congressional hearings.
Senator Johnson’s convocation may be the most important hearing in the 110 years since the Senate heard from survivors of the Titanic disaster in the very same room. Senators conducted the Titanic hearing in 1912 in order to determine why 1,500 of the Titanic’s 2,200 passengers needlessly perished in that catastrophe.
Among the witnesses this time was Dr. Paul Marik, M.D., a critical care doctor whose 500 peer-reviewed articles have been cited in over 48,000 other peer-reviewed publications. Referring to the 850,000 Americans who have died of Covid, Dr. Marik said bluntly: “These have been unnecessary, needless deaths.”
Dr. Marik was highly critical of the very expensive but “toxic” new drug remdesivir for hospitalized Covid patients, saying “The question is why. Why have cheap, safe, and effective drugs been ignored for the treatment of Covid-19 which could have saved maybe 500,000 lives?”
Another witness was Aaron Kheriaty, M.D., who was fired by the University of California at Irvine for not being vaccinated although his natural immunity provides greater protection to the virus. He said the argument for mandates collapses now that we have “clear evidence that Covid vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission of the virus.”
Dr. Kheriaty called attention to the unprecedented 40% increase in all-cause mortality among working-age adults (18-64). The public health establishment has provided no explanation for that shocking rise in mortality, which is not directly related to Covid though it may be due to its vaccines and lockdowns.
Dr. Robert Malone, M.D., testified that the vaccines “do not prevent infection, viral replication, or transmission,” so why are they mandated? They cannot produce herd immunity, Dr. Malone said, even if every man, woman and child in America is vaccinated.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., reiterated the teaching of the Great Barrington Declaration, which he co-authored in October 2020, and testified against the lockdowns. Dr. Richard Urso, M.D., an expert on inflammation which is usually the first symptom of respiratory viruses including Covid, stressed the importance of taking medication in the first few days while the virus is replicating.
Dr. Peter McCullough, M.D., said “there are only two bad outcomes: hospitalization and death,” so the overriding need is for widely available early treatments that can be taken as soon as symptoms appear. Because Covid is “a mass casualty event,” Dr. McCullough said, we can’t afford to wait for randomized trials that are not forthcoming.
Dr. Ryan Cole, M.D., said that vaccinated people are not only getting the Omicron variant, but are getting it at a higher rate than the unvaccinated, especially if they received 2 or 3 shots. “This is why mandates are absolutely moot, irrelevant, and need to go away worldwide,” adding that “we know how to treat an upper respiratory infection” like the common cold.
Dr. Paul Alexander, Ph.D., cited the high risk of vaccinating people who have natural immunity from a previous bout with Covid. “Children should never get these vaccines,” Dr. Alexander said, noting that “properly informed consent has never occurred.”
Dr. Harvey Risch, M.D., the renowned Yale epidemiologist, denounced the mainstream media for failing to report the “very significant evidence of benefit” for both hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, shown to reduce hospitalization and death by over 50% when used for early outpatient treatment. Dr. Risch criticized “outright fraud” by the FDA in using data from hospitalized patients in order to exaggerate the risks of these very safe medications in an outpatient setting.
Dr. Pierre Kory, M.D., a specialist in pulmonary critical care, cited evidence from Mexico, India, Brazil, and elsewhere that Covid was virtually eradicated by the early, widespread use of cheap ivermectin. Dr. Mary Bowden, M.D., an ear, nose, and throat specialist who, unlike Dr. Fauci, has personally treated many Covid patients, alleged Houston Methodist Hospital was warehousing Covid patients with ineffective treatment while impeding early treatment.
Sen. Johnson is pivotal to the battleground state of Wisconsin, and is running again for reelection to help the GOP retake the U.S. Senate. His Titanic-like hearing illustrates how essential he is to push back against biased and misguided public health policies.
Securing Elections is #1 Priority
As state legislatures open their 2022 sessions, their top priority should be election integrity. Topics such as freedom from Covid tyranny, redistricting, and rejecting critical race studies are also important, but without secure elections then all other issues are put at risk.
A new poll shows that the number of Americans who don’t believe that Joe Biden was elected fairly has grown among Republican voters. According to a Yahoo News/ YouGov poll the first week of January, a whopping 75% of Trump voters recognize that the last election was “rigged and stolen” to hand it to the unfit Biden.
Today only 9 percent of Trump voters believe that Biden won “fair and square,” which is even less than the mere 13% who thought that a year ago. Republicans are not eating the dog food being fed by the liberal media and Democrats who insist that all must bow down to the hokey election procedures used last time.
NPR recently confirmed that two-thirds of Republicans feel that “voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election.” One Republican was quoted as expressing disbelief that anyone would actually vote for Biden as president.
Trump has not wavered in his view of the last election, and increasingly Americans agree with him. Even New York Republicans, not known to be conservative, filed suit to block allowing 800,000 non-citizens from voting in New York City elections there.
States establish the law for elections and the time is ripe for them to ensure election integrity. This includes restoring predominantly in-person voting on one Election Day, with narrow exceptions subject to transparency about voter verification to reduce fraud, and reporting final results that same night.
On a sinking ship, Democrats in Congress rush to propose new federal legislation that would expand the opportunities for mischief. Now they want to end the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate in order to pass sweeping changes to election law that would make permanent the travesty of the last presidential election.
Two Democrats, Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), have long opposed eliminating the filibuster rule that prevents merely 50 senators in only one party from passing most kinds of legislation. Manchin has particularly endorsed the need for bipartisanship on major legislation, such as drastic changes in our election procedures.
But other Democrats are plowing ahead with their plan to rewrite election law at the federal level. Their bad bills, the first two of which have passed the House, are H.R. 1 (“For the People Act”), H.R. 4 (“John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act”), and S. 2747 (“Freedom to Vote Act”), which would expand unverified voting, prohibit requiring photo ID, and destroy election integrity in additional ways.
It’s essential to block these harmful federal bills, and equally important to enact new laws at the state level to thwart the election chicanery. New York City is beginning this year to allow illegal aliens to vote, and Democrat governors are expected to support similar moves.
Legal challenges should not deter GOP legislators as in the past. A majority on the Supreme Court is expected to affirm state authority over cleaning up their election procedures, regardless of which side benefits.
At the January 7 Supreme Court hearing on Biden’s suffocating new Covid regulations, the most prominent two words in the view of the Court majority appeared to be, “who decides?” In other words, is this an issue that the federal government should decide, or one that the States (or Congress) should decide?
The Constitution and two centuries of tradition confirm that the States decide election procedures, and have the authority to prevent and punish misconduct. Transparency should be mandated by all state legislatures, such that public information about who voted and their verification is made available to all in order to deter and drive out fraud.
Panicked by the poll numbers showing how many recognize pervasive election fraud, liberals found little- known Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) to declare on January 16 that the 2020 election was fair. But he has not audited any ballots cast in battleground regions, and Trump responded by observing that Rounds “just went woke.”
States should reform their laws to restore the authority of state legislatures to pick the slate of presidential electors and, if necessary, to override reported results tainted by lack of verification. This is not a matter to be left in the hands of unaccountable courts or election officials, as picking the next president is far too important an issue for state legislatures to delegate to another branch of government.
Trump stands by to endorse the opponent of any Republican who foolishly obstructs legislation for election integrity. He has a nearly perfect track record of success by his endorsements of candidates, for the good reason that restoring secure elections is a top priority of the American people, too.
High Noon at High Court for Vax Mandate
The Supreme Court took up the issue of vaccine mandates on January 7, holding a special hearing that was nearly unprecedented in its rushed timing.
At issue were two of Biden’s mandates. One compels the vaccination or testing of everyone who works at a 100+ employee company; the other requires vaccination of every staffer at every hospital, nursing home, or health care facility that receives funding from Medicare or Medicaid.
Will we become a country of haves and have nots concerning the Covid vaccine, whereby those who sensibly decline the vaccine are segregated in cities, schools, hospitals, and concerts? The new year has rung in a slew of new “no vaccination, no service” rules in restaurants, bars, gyms, and even maintenance work in high-rise apartments.
This is not a fight in which the Supreme Court wanted to be involved, just as the sheriff in the famous Western movie High Noon did not want to confront the outlaws whose ringleader returned on the noon train after he was released from prison. Ever since the Oscar-winning performance by Gary Cooper in that 1952 classic, its title has been synonymous with an unavoidable high-drama conflict that one side must win.
Four cases were consolidated for this historic Court hearing, two on the OSHA employer mandate and two on the Medicare health facility requirement. Biden won on his employer mandate in an appellate court, while losing on his Medicare mandate in two other lower courts.
Much of the argument focused on statutory interpretation, which the Court prefers rather than getting to the heart of the failure of the vaccine strategy against Covid. Liberals increasingly disguise their politics as science, and the more they mischaracterize the Covid vaccines as good science the less willing any justice is to challenge falsehoods by public health officials.
But over a million reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), an official government database, tell a story very different from the Biden party line. Pro-Trump Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was permanently banned from Twitter after she posted official data from VAERS on the shocking number of Covid vaccine injuries.
“Note that the total number of deaths associated with the Covid-19 vaccines is more than double the number of deaths associated with all other vaccines combined since the year 1990,” concludes vaersanalysis.info, which compiles VAERS data in a more user-friendly way. This is no ordinary vaccine that Biden and his minions are imposing on the American people for the first time in American history.
The VAERS data show that the number of reported adverse reactions from the Covid vaccine has reached 1,071,856; the number of hospitalizations, 121,597; and the number of deaths, 22,607. British researchers published a report last June confirming the reliability of these VAERS data.
Yet the court filings by the Biden Administration made no mention of these shocking numbers of injuries and deaths posted by VAERS, as reported mostly by health care workers. It is understandable that many health care workers themselves decline to receive a vaccine after seeing how much harm it has caused to others they treat.
The lengthy oral argument – which consumed more than 3.5 hours – came and went without anyone mentioning these official VAERS data, which are hard to find on the internet and apparently censored on social media. A case of “the emperor has no clothes” continues to be on display until someone is willing to blurt out, “but this vaccine has apparently killed more people than all other vaccines combined!”
Each Justice had time to ask questions and make points about the legality of mandating the same vaccine that has reportedly injured a million people, while failing to end the pandemic. VAERS is maintained by the United States government, the same entity for whom the Justices work and by whom they are paid.
A century ago, the mindset of compulsory vaccination led the Supreme Court to affirm the mandatory sterilization of women thought not to be smart enough to have children. In Buck v. Bell (1927), the High Court used a precedent upholding mandatory vaccination to justify additional tyranny, relying on the same utilitarian logic that was widely accepted by progressive Democrats in the Woodrow Wilson era.
“The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough,” ruled Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a favorite of liberal law school professors.
The vaccine strategy for Covid was hatched by a few faceless D.C. bureaucrats in 2020, despite how vaccines were unsuccessful in responding to the Spanish flu in 1918-19 or the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and 1990s. Their strategy has resulted in skyrocketing Covid cases in the United States compared with poorer countries that are doing better with early treatment and natural immunity.
Rendering its decision six days after the oral argument, which is extraordinarily quick by its usual standards, the Supreme Court blocked the employer vaccinate-or-test mandate by the Biden Administration, but allowed its CMS vaccine mandate to go into effect.
