The most powerful and influential newspaper in the U.S., arguably the west, is The New York Times. Journalists who write for it, especially those whose work is featured on its front page or in its op-ed section, wield immense power to shape public discourse, influence thought, set the political agenda for the planet’s most powerful nation, expose injustices, or ruin the lives of public figures and private citizens alike. That is an enormous amount of power in the hands of one media institution and its employees. That’s why it calls itself the Paper of Record.
One of the Paper of Record’s star reporters, Taylor Lorenz, has been much discussed of late. That is so for three reasons. The first is that the thirty-six-year-old tech and culture reporter has helped innovate a new kind of reportorial beat that seems to have a couple of purposes. She publishes articles exploring in great detail the online culture of teenagers and very young adults, which, as a father of two young Tik-Tok-using children, I have found occasionally and mildly interesting. She also seeks to catch famous and non-famous people alike using bad words or being in close digital proximity to bad people so that she can alert the rest of the world to these important findings. It is natural that journalists who pioneer a new form of reporting this way are going to be discussed.
The second reason Lorenz is the topic of recent discussion is that she has been repeatedly caught fabricating claims about influential people, and attempting to ruin the reputations and lives of decidedly non-famous people. In the last six weeks alone, she twice publicly lied about Netscape founder Marc Andreessen: once claiming he used the word “retarded” in a Clubhouse room in which she was lurking (he had not) and then accusing him of plotting with a white nationalist in a different Clubhouse room to attack her (he, in fact, had said nothing).
She also often uses her large, powerful public platform to malign private citizens without any power or public standing by accusing them of harboring bad beliefs and/or associating with others who do. (She is currently being sued by a citizen named Arya Toufanian, who claims Lorenz has used her private Twitter account to destroy her reputation and business, particularly with a tweet that Lorenz kept pinned at the top of her Twitter page for eight months, while several other non-public figures complained that Lorenz has “reported” on their non-public activities). It is to be expected that a New York Times journalist who gets caught lying as she did against Andreessen and trying to destroy the reputations of non-public figures will be a topic of conversation.
The third reason this New York Times reporter is receiving attention is because she has become a leading advocate and symbol for a toxic tactic now frequently used by wealthy and influential public figures (like her) to delegitimize criticisms and even render off-limits any attempt to hold them accountable. Specifically, she and her media allies constantly conflate criticisms of people like them with “harassment,” “abuse” and even “violence.” . . . Read Full Article Here.
Skip The Scoop | Seek Understanding
Delta Cancels Over 100 Flights, Opens Some Middle Seats
DETROIT—Delta Air Lines canceled about 100 flights Sunday due to staff shortages, and it opened up middle seats a month earlier than expected in order to carry more passengers. The airline says it had over 1 million passengers during the past few days, the highest number since before the coronavirus pandemic began last year. “We […]
The post Delta Cancels Over 100 Flights, Opens Some Middle Seats appeared first on NTD.
Forget your phony laptop excuses, Hunter Biden: Devine
Hunter Biden now is trying to deny that he dropped his infamous laptop off at a Delaware Mac Repair shop in 2019.
“You didn’t drop off a laptop to be repaired, in Delaware?” he was asked in a softball interview Sunday on CBS, the same Democrat-aligned media conglomerate which paid him for the memoir he currently is promoting.
“No. Not that I remember at all. At all.”
At least he acknowledged that the laptop “certainly” could be his.
Fact Check: Major League Baseball Moves All-Star Game over Law that Expands Some Voting
Since the Georgia law actually expands voting access, MLB is arguably opposing the rights of voters — which, Democrats have argued elsewhere, is racist.
The Cabal, As Time Magazine Called Them, Are At It Again | “More Corporations, Including Google, Microsoft, and American Express Denounce Georgia’s Voter Integrity Law”
More corporations are speaking out against Georgia’s voter reform law, otherwise known as Senate Bill 202.
Officials at Microsoft, American Express, Google and others this week condemned SB 202 as a form of voter suppression.
This, despite Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s adamant denials. As reported, Major League Baseball officials have already announced that SB 202 prompted them to move the previously scheduled All-Star Game and MLB Draft out of Atlanta. But Kemp said Saturday that “the facts and the truth don’t support their narrative.”
Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to chrisbutlerjournalist@gmail.com.
The post More Corporations, Including Google, Microsoft, and American Express Denounce Georgia’s Voter Integrity Law appeared first on The Georgia Star News.
Matt Gaetz’s Stirring Speech On The House Floor Hours After The January 6th Capitol Breach Finalized Putting A Target On His Back | Video: 4 Minutes 15 Seconds
Allegations against Representative Matt Gaetz (R) may or may not be true. But there’s one thing the American public can count on: if you have a Democrat in trouble, in this case Joe Biden (D) and his son Hunter Biden with a laptop of evidence on Chinagate, Russia, sex trafficking and procurement, go after your political opponent and shift the accusations on them.
Hours after the January 6th breach of the U.S. Capitol, Matt Gaetz gave a speech that infuriated Democrats by pointing out a summer of non-stop violent BLM and Antifa protests, calls for de-funding the police when politically expedient, the use of impeachment as the weapon of choice against President Donald J Trump and to put the icing on the cake, the use of mail in ballots to effectuate election malfeasance.
“People do understand the concepts of basic fairness. And no competition, contest or election can be deemed fair if the participants are subject to different rules. Baseball teams that cheat and steal signs should be stripped of their championships. Russian Olympians who cheat and use steroids should be stripped of their medals and states that do not run clean elections should be stripped of their electors. . . ”
“. . . In 2016 Democrats found out that they couldn’t beat Donald Trump at the ballot box with voters who actually show up. So they turned to impeachment and the witness box. And when that failed they ran to the mailbox where this election saw an unprecedented amount of votes that could not be authenticated with true ID, with true signature match and with true confidence for the American people. Our article 3 courts have failed by not holding evidentiary hearings to weigh the evidence. We should not join in that failure. We should vindicate the rights of states. We should vindicate the subpoenas in Arizona that have been issued to get a hold of these voting machines and we should reject these electors.” ~ Matt Gaetz
Video: 4 Minutes 15 Seconds
https://media-files.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/gaetz/index.m3u8In rural Minnesota, where cops and community are familiar, Derek Chauvin trial looks different
Waseca County Deputy Sheriff Doug Gerdts | Photo By Richard Tsong-Taatarii, Star Tribune
Waseca County Deputy Sheriff Doug Gerdts said that he knows there are people who feel they have been treated negatively by law enforcement, but he does his best to keep interactions positive.
WASECA – When Doug Gerdts was growing up on a Waseca County farm, he heard stories about Great-uncle Don. Don Eustice had been the sheriff until he was shot and killed in 1976 while conducting a welfare check.
Gerdts never met his great-uncle, but Eustice was a legend in the boy’s mind. In family lore, the sheriff played by his own rules. He would take in a troubled youth instead of putting him in jail. He once brought his sons to a grocery store robbery and had the 8-year-old dust for fingerprints.
In the two decades Gerdts has worked as a sheriff’s deputy in Waseca County, things have changed in law enforcement. And tension from incidents like George Floyd’s death, which happened an hour’s drive north, have reverberated even in this rural expanse of farms, lakes and prairie.
One thing about the job, however, stays the same: Law enforcement officers here are people, neighbors, not some anonymous badge.
Vaccinations Rise, but Variants and Factory Mix-Up Present Hurdles
Officials worry that the debacle at a Baltimore plant that ruined 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will erode public confidence just when states are expanding capacity to deliver shots.
Iowa governor signs bill allowing permitless purchase, carry of handguns
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) on Friday signed a bill that allows people to purchase and carry handguns in the state without a permit.”Today I s…
Beijing Accelerating Timeline for Possible Invasion of Taiwan, Expert Warns
TAIPEI, Taiwan—The Chinese communist regime is accelerating its plans to invade Taiwan, an expert warns, as Beijing ratchets up military maneuvers against the island. Twenty Chinese military aircraft—including four nuclear-capable H-6K bombers, 10 J-16 fighter jets, two Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft, and a KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft—entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on March 26, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. It was the largest incursion ever reported by the ministry. Taiwan’s ADIZ, located adjacent to the island’s territorial airspace, is an area where incoming planes must identify themselves to the island’s air traffic controller. The incursion caps off a significant increase in hostility by Beijing against Taiwan since 2020. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, re-elected last January, has taken a hard line against threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while the island has deepened its cooperation with the United States—prompting the regime to …
Crowds gather at holy sites across Jerusalem for Easter as the country unlocks
Many holy sites in Israel were open for Easter, thanks to the country’s ambitious vaccination campaign that has seen more than half its population receive two doses.
Commentary: History of Easter
by Brent Landau
Today we celebrate Easter, the day on which the resurrection of Jesus is said to have taken place. The date of celebration changes from year to year.
The reason for this variation is that Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox.
I am a religious studies scholar specializing in early Christianity, and my research shows that this dating of Easter goes back to the complicated origins of this holiday and how it has evolved over the centuries.
Easter is quite similar to other major holidays like Christmas and Halloween, which have evolved over the last 200 years or so. In all of these holidays, Christian and non-Christian (pagan) elements have continued to blend together.
Easter as a rite of spring
Most major holidays have some connection to the changing of seasons. This is especially obvious in the case of Christmas. The New Testament gives no information about what time of year Jesus was born. Many scholars believe, however, that the main reason Jesus’ birth came to be celebrated on December 25 is because that was the date of the winter solstice according to the Roman calendar.
Since the days following the winter solstice gradually become longer and less dark, it was ideal symbolism for the birth of “the light of the world” as stated in the New Testament’s Gospel of John.
Similar was the case with Easter, which falls in close proximity to another key point in the solar year: the vernal equinox (around March 20), when there are equal periods of light and darkness. For those in northern latitudes, the coming of spring is often met with excitement, as it means an end to the cold days of winter.
Spring also means the coming back to life of plants and trees that have been dormant for winter, as well as the birth of new life in the animal world. Given the symbolism of new life and rebirth, it was only natural to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at this time of the year.
The naming of the celebration as “Easter” seems to go back to the name of a pre-Christian goddess in England, Eostre, who was celebrated at beginning of spring. The only reference to this goddess comes from the writings of the Venerable Bede, a British monk who lived in the late seventh and early eighth century. As religious studies scholar Bruce Forbes summarizes:
“Bede wrote that the month in which English Christians were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus had been called Eosturmonath in Old English, referring to a goddess named Eostre. And even though Christians had begun affirming the Christian meaning of the celebration, they continued to use the name of the goddess to designate the season.”
Bede was so influential for later Christians that the name stuck, and hence Easter remains the name by which the English, Germans and Americans refer to the festival of Jesus’ resurrection.
The connection with Jewish Passover
It is important to point out that while the name “Easter” is used in the English-speaking world, many more cultures refer to it by terms best translated as “Passover” (for instance, “Pascha” in Greek) – a reference, indeed, to the Jewish festival of Passover.
In the Hebrew Bible, Passover is a festival that commemorates the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, as narrated in the Book of Exodus. It was and continues to be the most important Jewish seasonal festival, celebrated on the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
At the time of Jesus, Passover had special significance, as the Jewish people were again under the dominance of foreign powers (namely, the Romans). Jewish pilgrims streamed into Jerusalem every year in the hope that God’s chosen people (as they believed themselves to be) would soon be liberated once more.
On one Passover, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem with his disciples to celebrate the festival. He entered Jerusalem in a triumphal procession and created a disturbance in the Jerusalem Temple. It seems that both of these actions attracted the attention of the Romans, and that as a result Jesus was executed around the year A.D. 30.
Some of Jesus’ followers, however, believed that they saw him alive after his death, experiences that gave birth to the Christian religion. As Jesus died during the Passover festival and his followers believed he was resurrected from the dead three days later, it was logical to commemorate these events in close proximity.
Some early Christians chose to celebrate the resurrection of Christ on the same date as the Jewish Passover, which fell around day 14 of the month of Nisan, in March or April. These Christians were known as Quartodecimans (the name means “Fourteeners”).
By choosing this date, they put the focus on when Jesus died and also emphasized continuity with the Judaism out of which Christianity emerged. Some others instead preferred to hold the festival on a Sunday, since that was when Jesus’ tomb was believed to have been found.
In A.D. 325, the Emperor Constantine, who favored Christianity, convened a meeting of Christian leaders to resolve important disputes at the Council of Nicaea. The most fateful of its decisions was about the status of Christ, whom the council recognized as “fully human and fully divine.” This council also resolved that Easter should be fixed on a Sunday, not on day 14 of Nisan. As a result, Easter is now celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox.
The Easter bunny and Easter eggs
In early America, the Easter festival was far more popular among Catholics than Protestants. For instance, the New England Puritans regarded both Easter and Christmas as too tainted by non-Christian influences to be appropriate to celebrate. Such festivals also tended to be opportunities for heavy drinking and merrymaking.
The fortunes of both holidays changed in the 19th century, when they became occasions to be spent with one’s family. This was done partly out of a desire to make the celebration of these holidays less rowdy.
But Easter and Christmas also became reshaped as domestic holidays because understandings of children were changing. Prior to the 17th century, children were rarely the center of attention. As historian Stephen Nissenbaum writes,
“…children were lumped together with other members of the lower orders in general, especially servants and apprentices – who, not coincidentally, were generally young people themselves.”
From the 17th century onward, there was an increasing recognition of childhood as time of life that should be joyous, not simply as preparatory for adulthood. This “discovery of childhood” and the doting upon children had profound effects on how Easter was celebrated.
It is at this point in the holiday’s development that Easter eggs and the Easter bunny become especially important. Decorated eggs had been part of the Easter festival at least since medieval times, given the obvious symbolism of new life. A vast amount of folklore surrounds Easter eggs, and in a number of Eastern European countries, the process of decorating them is extremely elaborate. Several Eastern European legends describe eggs turning red (a favorite color for Easter eggs) in connection with the events surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Yet it was only in the 17th century that a German tradition of an “Easter hare” bringing eggs to good children came to be known. Hares and rabbits had a long association with spring seasonal rituals because of their amazing powers of fertility.
When German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania in the 18th and 19th centuries, they brought this tradition with them. The wild hare also became supplanted by the more docile and domestic rabbit, in another indication of how the focus moved toward children.
As Christians celebrate the festival this spring in commemoration of Jesus’ resurrection, the familiar sights of the Easter bunny and Easter eggs serve as a reminder of the holiday’s very ancient origins outside of the Christian tradition.
– – –
Brent Landau, Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Texas at Austin
The post Commentary: History of Easter appeared first on The Georgia Star News.
Why Is Jesus Still Wounded After His Resurrection?
“The risen but scarred body of Christ is the ultimate signifier of divine empathy.”
Hackers leak phone numbers and personal data from 533 MILLION Facebook users online
Personal information from users around the world is being offered for a few euros’ worth of digital credit on a well-known site for digital hackers.
Facebook removes Capitol attack suspect’s page
Facebook has removed the account belonging to the suspect in Friday’s attack at the Capitol that killed one Capitol Police officer and wounded another. The platform confirmed […]
Continue reading Facebook removes Capitol attack suspect’s page …
Virgil: The Great Reset Continues — Facebook’s New Imperial Order
Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have been fashioning themselves into some sort of world state. But empires can rise as well as fall, and they can also be regulated.
Zuckerberg-Funded Group Spent over $30 Million in Texas in the 2020 Election
by Eric Lendrum
A report released Tuesday by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) revealed that the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), a group funded by Facebook founded Mark Zuckerberg, spent over $36 million in 14 urban counties in the state of Texas in an effort to influence the outcome of the 2020 election, according to Breitbart.
The report states that “Texas counties were given money to help shift voting to the mail and away from traditional procedures in Texas law. The large blue-leaning counties received huge sums to transform their elections,” while “smaller red counties did not receive anything close.” Among the initiatives that were pursued by this funding were “drive-thru voting, mail voting sorting assets, polling place rental expenses, and…voter education/outreach/radio costs.”
The county that most benefited from these funds was Dallas County, which received just over $15 million, followed by Harris County (where Houston is located) at $9.6 million. The remaining 12 counties all received less than $3 million.
CTCL did provide further funding to 101 other counties across the state, though not to the same level as the 14 heavily urban counties. This means that out of the state’s 254 counties overall, 115 were influenced in some way by Zuckerberg’s money.
The push for increased mail-voting and other tactics was widely seen as increasing the likelihood for fraud, and there is overwhelming evidence that such fraud did occur in the 2020 election across several key states, ultimately swinging the election away from President Donald Trump and in favor of Joe Biden.
– – –
Eric Lendrum reports for American Greatness.
Photo “Mark Zuckerberg” by Anthony Quintano CC 2.0.
The post Zuckerberg-Funded Group Spent over $30 Million in Texas in the 2020 Election appeared first on The Georgia Star News.
Mark Zuckerberg’s cellphone number goes online after massive Facebook hack
A massive trove of hacked data from more than 500 million Facebook users was made easily accessible Saturday — including Mark Zuckerberg’s cellphone number, according to one security expert. The information was initially stolen in January, after hackers exploited a vulnerability related to phone numbers associated with Facebook accounts, ultimately creating a massive database of…
Facebook data on more than 500M accounts found online
NEW YORK — Details from more than 500 million Facebook users have been found available on a website for hackers.
The information appears to be several years old, but it is another example of the vast amount of information collected by Facebook and other social media sites, and the limits to how secure that information is.
The availability of the data set was first reported by Business Insider. According to that publication, it has information from 106 countries including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, and email addresses.
Facebook has been grappling with data security issues for years. In 2018, the social media giant disabled a feature that allowed users to search for one another via phone number following revelations that the political firm Cambridge Analytica had accessed information on up to 87 million Facebook users without their knowledge or consent.
In December 2019, a Ukrainian security researcher reported finding a database with the names, phone numbers and unique user IDs of more than 267 million Facebook users — nearly all U.S.-based — on the open internet. It is unclear if the current data dump is related to this database.
“This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019,” the Menlo Park, California-based company said in a statement. “We found and fixed this issue in August 2019.”
Clear Thinking on Elections from Clarence Thomas
The Supreme Court shut the door on the 2020 election late last month, but Justice Clarence Thomas got the last word. In a dissent directed at the court’s decision not to take up two cases involving the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and mail-in ballots, Thomas encapsulated the world of electoral woe surrounding the 2020 presidential contest.
“We failed to settle this dispute before the election,” Thomas wrote, “and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence.”
The Pennsylvania cases centered on which state bodies have the ultimate authority to set election rules, the legislature or the judiciary? The U.S. Constitution says that the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections…shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” But state courts often intervene.
In the run-up to the presidential election, the Pennsylvania state legislature gave all Pennsylvania voters the option of casting mail-in ballots. But it left in place a November 3 deadline for ballots to be in. Unhappy with the deadline, Democrats sued, arguing that in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the deadline violated a voting-rights clause in the state constitution stating that elections “shall be free and equal.” The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed, extending the deadline for mail-in ballots by three days.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined petitions to intervene in the case before the election. In February, with the election settled, petitioners tried again. The high court again declined to hear the cases, prompting the Thomas dissent.
It’s worth reading in its entirety. Thomas zeroes in on two key issues: legislative versus judicial power, and problems with mail-in voting.
Both “before and after the 2020 election,” Thomas notes, “nonlegislative officials in various States took it upon themselves to set the rules,” resulting in “an unusually high number of petitions and emergency applications” to the high court.
The Pennsylvania changes undermine confidence in the electoral system. “Changing the rules in the middle of the game is bad enough,” Thomas writes. “Such rule changes by officials who may lack the authority to do so is even worse.”
Thomas is clear-sighted on the problems of mail-in voting. “Voting by mail was traditionally limited to voters who had defined, well-documented reasons to be absent,” he notes. But in recent years, “many States have become more permissive, a trend greatly accelerated by Covid-19.”
The opportunity for cheating in mail-in or absentee balloting is substantial, Thomas writes. He cites a 2012 New York Times article that notes the “vastly more prevalent” risk of fraud in mail-in balloting. He cites ballot fraud cases in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. He reminds us that Heather Gerken—now dean of Yale Law School—told the Times in the same article that absentee voting allows for “simpler and more effective alternatives to commit fraud.”
At Judicial Watch, we’ve been tracking ballot fraud for years. We’ve noted that as far back as 2005, the bi-partisan Carter-Baker Commission warned that “absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” In July, we pointed to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s rapid escalation of mail-in voting and reported on a New Jersey fraud case. Read the JW bulletin here.
The thanks Justice Thomas got for his rigorous dissent was to be attacked by Democrats and the progressive media. But the complex issues surrounding election fraud aren’t going away. The country owes Clarence Thomas a debt of gratitude for his clear thinking on the coming crisis.
***
Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for Judicial Watch. Follow him on Twitter @micah_morrison. Tips: mmorrison@judicialwatch.org
Investigative Bulletin is published by Judicial Watch. Reprints and media inquiries: jfarrell@judicialwatch.org
The post Clear Thinking on Elections from Clarence Thomas appeared first on Judicial Watch.
Psaki Doubles Down On Biden’s ‘Four Pinocchio’ Claim That Georgia Election Bill Ends Voting Hours Early
White House press secretary Jen Psaki doubled down Thursday on President Joe Biden’s claim that the recently passed Georgia election bill ends voting hours early, for which he earned four “Pinocchios” from The Washington Post.
Major League Baseball bends to bullies, endorses lies about Georgia voting law
It’s beyond ridiculous that Major League Baseball has caved to partisan politics and media hysteria by moving this year’s All-Star Game, plus the draft, out of Atlanta over Georgia’s new election law. Pressured by Democratic politicians and Twitter mobs, MLB is endorsing the overwrought and fundamentally false agitprop campaign. Democrats from President Joe Biden on…
South Carolina Democrat Introduces Bill Banning Minors from Gender-Reassignment Surgery
The debate over whether minors should be allowed life-altering gender reassignment surgery is, for whatever reason, contentious and partisan. The people in opposition tend to be Republican. Sen. Rand Paul had a well-publicized dust-up over the issue with Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine. The Republican-led Alabama Senate is putting forth a bill they say is to protect kids. In South Carolina, there is a similar bill being introduced banning minors from this life-altering surgery. Only it’s being introduced by a Democrat.
Democrat State Rep. Cezar McKnight has introduced the South Carolina Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act. From the bill:
No person shall engage in, counsel, make a referral for, or cause any of the following practices to be performed upon a minor if the practice is performed for the purpose of attempting to alter the appearance of or affirm the minor’s perception of the minor’s gender or sex, if that perception is inconsistent with the minor’s sex as defined in this chapter.
If signed into law, not only would the bill make it illegal for minors to receive the treatment, but violating the law would be a felony with up to twenty years in prison. Rep. McKnight had this to say to the Associated Press:
Black Democrats tend to be more conservative than white progressives. I would not have ever put this bill forward if I didn’t think the people in my district wouldn’t be receptive, and they are. Pastors, young parents, older parents, they all tell me the same thing: If you want to do this, wait until you’re 18.
Where this legislation and legislation like it go from here will be interesting to watch. Rep. McKnight shows that there is bipartisan support for such legislation. Opposition so far comes entirely from the partisan far left. If more states start to take up this debate and activists on both sides organize for or against it, I can’t imagine any resolution without the Supreme Court chiming in. Nationally, the American people will have their first opportunity to have their voice heard with the 2022 midterm elections.
RAND PAUL: Biden’s Assistant Health Secretary is LYING To You! | Louder With Crowder
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Sen Paul blasts libs for ‘implying that people of certain races are not able to comply with rules’
Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE CHECK OUT WeThePeople.store for best SWAG! Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican, believes that the […]
Continue reading Sen Paul blasts libs for ‘implying that people of certain races are not able to comply with rules’ …
Our Species Is Enduring Largest Uncontrolled Experiment Ever, We Shouldn’t Ignore Vanden Bossche’s Warning
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Defender is committed to providing a space for scientific debate. This is an opinion piece by Rob Verkerk, Ph.D., on concerns raised by Geert Vanden Bossche, Ph.D. about immune escape and mass vaccination during a pandemic. This article follows Verkerk’s recent interview and previous analysis of the ongoing debate (this piece + this piece) sparked by Vanden Bossche.
It was a week ago that we released my interview with Geert Vanden Bossche on our brand new Speaking Naturally channel. It’s caused something of a stir in some circles. Mainly among those of us who don’t see vaccines as a panacea or at least the sole exit strategy to exit lockdowns, social distancing and other elements of the surrealism that have swept the world since the genome of a virus causing pneumonia-like symptoms in China was sequenced last January.
The silence from those who are overseeing or administering the global mass vaccination program has been deafening.
Some of the scientific concerns around Geert Vanden Bossche’s arguments appear to be the result of linguistic interpretations. Others challenge Geert’s speculative concerns linked to immune escape through the application of selection pressure from vaccines that could create ever more vaccine resistant, and potentially dangerous, virus variants.
For the uninitiated, “immune escape” is a term used to describe when the host (in this case humans) is no longer able to recognize and counter (eliminate or sterilize) a pathogen (in this case, a relevant variant or mutant of SARS-CoV-2).
“Selection pressure,” on the other hand, is a term used to describe the process (gene-environment interactions) that helps an organism or pathogen to evolve in ways that make it better adapted (i.e., more able to survive and propagate) to its changing environment. Antibiotic (antimicrobial) resistance is a good example of selection pressure caused by overuse of antibiotic drugs, which has selected for more and more bacterial strains that can detoxify or tolerate commonly used antibiotic drugs.
Let’s be reasonable, not polarized
I’m not an immunologist, virologist or an epidemiologist. But I do have three science degrees in ecology with a Ph.D. and postdoctoral research (Imperial College London) in the area of multitrophic interactions in agroecosystems. I’ve therefore been long fascinated by interactions between hosts, herbivores, carnivores and pathogens. I’ve also been looking closely at the science around COVID-19 since the outset and have been a critic of health authority and government handling of it from the outset (see ANH-Intl covid zone).
I’m writing this update on the Vanden Bossche controversy because I’m concerned it has the potential to unnecessarily divide people who share many common views and values, while differing in others. Alongside generating mutant variants of SARS-CoV-2, one of the haunting consequences of lockdowns has been their ability to polarize communities. I believe passionately that we need to be more tolerant of those with whom we share significant areas of our respective COVID-19 Venn diagrams.
Don’t expect that you’ll find unanimous agreement with many people given the amount of scientific uncertainty that abounds on so many of the scientific, medical, social, political and economic issues surrounding COVID-19 and the way it’s been and is being handled. We must have forums to be able to discuss scientific matters and we must be ever careful to not destroy the reputation of individuals who potentially can be important catalysts for change.
The host-pathogen tango
The reality is that — as ever — the relationship between a pathogen and its host is not a simple one. It is not only highly complex, it is also dynamic. It’s a tango that involves both players who don’t like dancing to the same music. While lockdowns might increase the time it takes to achieve herd immunity, the mainstream scientific view accepted by governments with little evidential basis has been that lockdowns will also reduce opportunities for transmission chains being established. Lockdowns, curfews, social isolation and the like were meant to be temporary stand-ins until vaccines were ready.
There are two fundamental problems with this approach. First, people don’t stop transmitting viruses among each other even in lockdowns and more opportunities for mutation are created, including among the most vulnerable people that allow for the greatest level of viral replication.
This explains the generation of at least 16 mutant lineages in South Africa. Secondly now that the vaccines have come, they don’t stop transmission of all SARS-CoV-2 strains, especially those that are resistant to antigen-specific antibodies that they are designed to induce.
More than that, if you apply a very strong selection pressure because you have a highly infectious virus that has lots of opportunities to express its inborn error code (mutations) — or you vaccinate millions or even billions of people with a highly specific antigen constructed around the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, you are inducing massive selection pressure — like never before in human history. That is one of Geert Vanden Bossche’s concerns, one he has a right to have and express.
We also know (e.g., Ho et al 2021) that the UK variant B.1.1.7 that originated in the UK and B.1.351 from South Africa have extensive mutations in the main (receptor-binding domain, RBD) region of the spike protein that binds to the ACE2 receptors in human tissues. Not only that, neutralizing antibodies that have been created in response to exposure to wild virus or the vaccines (developed to match the original Wuhan strain) don’t neutralize the virus effectively.
Vanden Bossche’s red flags
The story continues to evolve and unfold because the relationship between the virus and its host does as well. What we’re now beginning to see is the same mutations in the spike protein cropping up in different parts of the world. For example, the UK variant (B.1.1.7), the Brazilian variant (P1/B.1.1.28) and the South African variant (B.1.351) all share common mutations such as E484K and N5011Y. These were Geert’s red flags.
It suggests that different virus strains have found the same way of outsmarting the highly specific vaccine and in the process, these new virus strains are becoming more transmissible including among younger people. That creates ever greater opportunities for mutation. The show goes on. And potentially never stops. Especially if you keep interspersing your strategy with lockdowns and related measures.
But don’t trust me on this — I’m just an ecologist. Some of the most thorough work in this area is being conducted by Paul Bieniasz’s group at the Rockefeller University, the same university with which Knut Wittkowski (see our separate interview) was associated for many years. The group has shown clearly that new mutant variants such as E484K and Q493R are resistant to antibodies produced by the original Wuhan strain on which the existing clutch of vaccines were based.
OK — so Bieniasz’s group has gone down the road of developing engineered monoclonal antibodies as a solution to get around the problem of immune escape both from wild infection or antigen-specific vaccines. In fact, they’re moving forward with trials for commercialization of monoclonal antibody therapies that could be delivered as injection.
Find out more about the research of Bieniasz around 37 minutes into the following video:
And so…?
What our species is currently enduring is the largest uncontrolled experiment ever conducted. Not only are highly-specific vaccines being applied in a manner that is considerably different from any previous vaccines, the frontrunner Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are also most definitely experimental (phase 3 trials results are incomplete), and they rely on lipid encapsulation delivery systems that have never been used at any significant scale to get synthetic codes into our muscle cells.
We also have no good idea of how effectively our T cells will be corralled into our armory of immune defense. Or how vaccine-induced immunity compares with naturally-acquired immunity (let’s not forget the SARS and MERS epidemics never had the same opportunity for mutation).
Geert Vanden Bossche has rung an alarm bell — that many, it seems, don’t want to hear. To ignore the wider concern he expresses around the selection pressure that will create immune escape and antibody resistant strains would be foolhardy — and would be inconsistent with the known science.
Originally published by Alliance for Natural Health International.
The post Our Species Is Enduring Largest Uncontrolled Experiment Ever, We Shouldn’t Ignore Vanden Bossche’s Warning appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.
Democrat Leaders Welcome MLB All-Star Game to Their States: Georgia Election Law Saga
After Major League Baseball decided to move out the All-Star game out from Georgia as a response to the state’s newly passed election integrity law, several political leaders, all Democrats so far, are welcoming the game to their states. The Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon wrote Friday on Twitter that his state would welcome the All-star Game. “Hey, MLB, we in Minnesota would welcome the All-star Game! Bonus: We have pro-voter election laws, and the #1 voter turnout in the nation,” Simon wrote. Recently, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law election reforms that would require photo ID for absentee voting, mandatory dropbox security, and mandatory early voting dates, among other measures. According to The Denver Post, a spokesperson for Colorado Governor Jared Polis said that he would welcome the All-Star game to their local field. “The governor knows that Colorado is the best home for the All-Star Game, especially because Colorado also …
Georgia governor on growing backlash to election reform law: ‘We are not backing down’
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday said state Republican leaders are not buckling under the growing pressure from activists and corporations opposed to the state’s recent election reform law.
“I can tell you, we are not backing down,” Kemp told Tucker Carlson on Fox News when asked about the controversy.
Is Dominion Voting Systems The Only Platform In The History Of Technology To Be Beyond Hacking As Dominion CEO Claimed Under Oath During Election 2020 Testimony? | Mike Lindell’s Second Television Special In Response | Video: 55 Minutes 39 Seconds
Is it any wonder that privately developers snicker at the notion that any platform is impervious to hacking (the latest fracas being Facebook), but everyday Americans are starting to scratch their heads looking at the real world and thinking, “Wait. The largest institutions in the world, from banks, credit agencies, governments and tech companies themselves are breached, but it’s impossible and even unthinkable, therefore it must never even be contemplated out loud, for Dominion Voting Systems to be compromised? Why would anyone in technology claim such a thing and then seemingly sue anyone that questions the premise?”
Mike Lindell has been sued by Dominion Voting Systems. He has responded by saying he’s not backing down and that he has his beliefs based on his own and other’s observations and sworn testimonies and as such has the right to express them as any American would, right or wrong.
“So this was the clue that told me that they were using population to control registration. . . (in Colorado they made a mistake using 2010 census data) the blue line is the population and the black line are the registrations. Oh, wait a minute, the registrations goes above the blue line.” ~ Dr. Douglas Frank | Scientific Proof
Scientific Proof | Video: 55 Minutes 39 Seconds
Will Joe Biden walk back these comments after son Hunter admits laptop ‘could’ be his?
During last year’s presidential campaign, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden said information gleaned from the laptop, which was first reported by the New York Post that included Hunter Biden allegedly introducing foreign energy executives to his father, was a Russian disinformation campaign. […]
Continue reading Will Joe Biden walk back these comments after son Hunter admits laptop ‘could’ be his? …
Hunter Biden was ‘smoking crack every 15 minutes,’ his memoir ‘Beautiful Things’ reveals
His candid chronicle of his drug- and alcohol-fueled binges and relationship with Beau’s widow, Hallie Biden, are sure to shock — but don’t let all the tabloid fodder fool you.
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, has seen his fair share of ugly things. His alcohol and drug addiction sent him spiraling for years and led him to cook his own crack cocaine. But he’s seen a lot of beautiful things, too — namely the love he shares with his father and brother Beau Biden, who died of glioblastoma in 2015.
Biden wrote about all of it in in his new memoir, “Beautiful Things” (Gallery Books, 255 pp.), out April 6. His candid chronicle of his drug- and alcohol-fueled binges and relationship with Beau’s widow, Hallie Biden, are sure to shock — but don’t let all the tabloid fodder fool you. Biden has found love again with new wife Melissa, whom he credits for getting him back on the winding path to sobriety.
“Where’s Hunter?” was a rallying cry from former President Donald Trump to try and smear Joe Biden. “I’m not going anywhere,” Biden writes. “I’m not a curio or sideshow to a moment in history, as all the cartoonish attacks try to paint me.”
Yes, the book touches on Trump and Biden’s Ukraine business, but more compelling are the vulnerable, human details of Biden’s personal life. Here’s what we learned about Biden by reading his devastating memoir.
Hunter talks trauma, addiction: ‘Why I feel the way I do’
Biden has been through more than most would dare to imagine. He and Beau were in the 1972 car accident that killed his baby sister and mother. It’s a moment that defined not only Joe, but his sons too. Biden doesn’t think he ever fully came to terms with the violence of it.
“I don’t see that tragic moment as necessarily resulting in behaviors that lent themselves to addiction,” he writes. “But I do have a better understanding of why I feel the way I do sometimes.”
He took his first drink – a glass of champagne the night his father was reelected to the Senate in 1978 – when he was 8 years old. He drank more when he was 14, even though he knew he shouldn’t be doing it. He went to Mass with a hangover and threw up outside during the service.
His drinking followed him into adulthood (he attended Georgetown University and later Yale Law School). After his third daughter, Maisy, was born in 2000 to then-wife Kathleen, he started to drink more heavily after work at his law firm. He ultimately went to rehab in Antigua and remained sober – for a time.
‘I would not have survived’
In November 2010, Biden relapsed and had three Bloody Marys on a plane; when his father joined Obama’s campaign ticket in 2008, he had to upend his career because of his lobbying work (i.e., it would be a conflict of interest). He “had huge expenses and no savings, and now I had to bust my (expletive) to build another career from scratch.”
After Beau’s death, everything Biden did “for the next four years, resulted in me stumbling, then sliding, then racing downhill.” As his marriage to Kathleen fell apart, he returned to rehab and tried to stay on the straight and narrow. His drinking, however, only worsened. “I was drowning myself in alcohol,” he says.
With the encouragement of his father, he again went to get clean. “Left on my own, I’m certain I would not have survived,” he writes.
By Memorial Day 2016, however, someone offered Biden cocaine. He took it.
This led to his buying crack cocaine in Washington from Rhea – a homeless, middle-aged woman he met while he was at Georgetown. Rhea is a pseudonym, Biden writes.
“I spent a couple of thousand dollars on crack in those first two weeks, with Rhea serving as my conduit,” he writes. She even moved into his apartment and stayed there for approximately five months. When he’s strong enough, he says he hopes to see her again and help “get her in a position where she wants to be saved.”
‘I was smoking crack every 15 minutes’
In the spring of 2018, he used his “superpower – finding crack anytime, anywhere” – in Los Angeles. At one point, a dealer pointed a gun at his head before he realized Biden was looking for drugs.
He later learned how to cook drugs and spent a lot of time with thieves, addicts and con artists. “I never slept. There was no clock. Day bled into night and night into day,” he writes.
The situation grew out of control. “I was smoking crack every 15 minutes,” he writes.
Biden returned to the East Coast in the fall of 2018, again wanting to get better, though that didn’t happen.
Eventually, his family tried to stage an intervention. “I don’t know what else to do,” Joe Biden told him. “I’m so scared. Tell me what to do.” His son replied: “Not (expletive) this.”
It wasn’t until he met now-wife Melissa Cohen in Los Angeles – whom he married after only a week of knowing – that he got sober again. They told each other they loved each other on their first date; she had the same eyes as Beau, he writes. She championed his sobriety and dumped out his crack.
Hunter’s relationship with Hallie doomed from the start: ‘A failure of epic proportions’
Hallie and Biden connected — romantically — in the wake of Beau’s death, between their grief and Biden’s addiction. His then-wife Kathleen discovered texts between them on an old iPad. “That gave her the gift of justification: I was the sicko sleeping with my brother’s wife,” he writes.
But once they tried living together full-time, it didn’t work.
“It was a giant miscalculation on both our parts, errors in judgment born of a uniquely tragic time,” he writes. And later, when they tried to rekindle their romance after he got sober (again) in January 2018, it didn’t work. “It felt like a failure of epic proportions,” he writes.
The title ‘Beautiful Things’ comes from Beau
Beau’s mantra to his brother during his illness was “beautiful things.” He wanted them to “dedicate our lives to appreciating and cultivating the world’s boundless beauty” – referencing relationships, places and moments.
“It was our code for a renewed outlook on life,” he writes. Shortly before Beau died, Biden promised him he would stay strong and sober. Beau had gone with him to his first AA meetings, found him his first sponsor and taken him to rehab plenty of times.
“I had no idea then how many dead-end detours I’d take before I could finally keep those promises,” he writes.
Still, “Beautiful Things” serves as a fitting title, considering the book closes with a letter to Beau.
“I’ve survived, buddy,” the letter reads. “I know you were with me through it all.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse or addiction, you can call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline at 800-662-HELP (4357) any time of day or night.
Read more at usatoday.com
GOP Senators Demand Intelligence Records on Hunter Biden’s Dealings with Chinese Energy Conglomerate
by Chuck Ross
Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson called on the Biden administration Wednesday to turn over intelligence records regarding Hunter Biden’s work with a Chinese energy company with suspected ties to the Chinese military.
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, Grassley and Johnson said that it is “imperative” for Congress to understand the relationship between the Biden family and CEFC China Energy, the now-defunct energy conglomerate.
CEFC China Energy paid Biden approximately $6 million from August 2017 to September 2018 for consulting and legal services, according to a report that Grassley and Johnson released last year.
The Republicans said in the report that banking regulators flagged some of the wire payments from CEFC to Biden for “potential criminal financial activity.” Grassley and Johnson also noted that CEFC’s founder, Ye Jianming, was an official in the mid-2000s for a front group of the Chinese Communist Party.
Biden met multiple times with Jianming, including at Jianming’s home in New York.
CEFC also paid $1 million to Biden to represent Patrick Ho, a former Hong Kong official who operated a think tank funded by the Chinese energy firm.
Ho was indicted in November 2017, and later convicted on charges that he offered bribes in 2014 to two leaders of African countries for oil drilling contracts on behalf of CEFC China Energy.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that the Justice Department obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Ho based on suspicions that he was acting as a foreign agent of China.
Grassley and Johnson called on the administration to produce “all intelligence records,” including information derived from the FISAs against Ho, by April 14.
Hunter Biden was first introduced to CEFC officials in 2015. In October 2015, a consultant working on behalf of the firm emailed Biden hoping to discuss investing up to $100 million in an asset management firm with links to Biden, according to records obtained by the DCNF.
In May 2017, Biden and a group of partners formed a consulting company that planned to scout out investment projects for CEFC China Energy in the U.S., South America and Europe.
Tony Bobulinski, one of the original partners, has said that Biden cut him out of the deal and formed a side partnership with CEFC in August 2017.
It is unclear what, if anything, Joe Biden knew about his son’s arrangement with CEFC.
In another email obtained by the DCNF, dated Sept. 21, 2017, Biden referred to his father and Gongwen Dong, a CEFC employee in the U.S., as “office mates.”
“The sharing of office space with Chinese nationals and entities linked to the communist regime and its military demands additional explanation,” Grassley and Johnson wrote.
Biden has acknowledged that he is the target of a federal investigation that started in 2018. He said in a statement on Dec. 9, 2020, that the probe centered on his taxes. CNN has reported that federal prosecutors have looked into Biden’s dealings in China and Ukraine.
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Chuck Ross is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
The post GOP Senators Demand Intelligence Records on Hunter Biden’s Dealings with Chinese Energy Conglomerate appeared first on The Georgia Star News.
NPR issues stunning mea culpa after claiming Hunter Biden laptop story was ‘discredited’ by intelligence
National Public Radio has corrected an online article that falsely asserted that documents from first son Hunter Biden’s laptop had been “discredited by U.S. intelligence.” A book review of Hunter Biden’s memoir “Beautiful Things” initially dismissed the documents first reported in October by The Post. “The laptop story was discredited by U.S. intelligence and independent…
NPR Issues Correction After Falsely Claiming US Intelligence ‘Discredited’ Hunter Biden Laptop Story
NPR issued a correction Thursday to a book review after it incorrectly claimed that U.S. intelligence discredited the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Ron Elving, NPR’s Washington desk senior editor and correspondent, wrote the lengthy review for Biden’s upcoming memoir “Beautiful Things.” The article pointed out various topics covered in the book, such as Biden’s “relationship with Burisma” and efforts by former President Donald Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to “portray Hunter as a liability” amid President Joe Biden’s candidacy.
“The last gasp of Giuliani’s campaign against the Bidens featured a laptop supposedly obtained from sources that would document the younger Biden’s drug use and other offenses,” the NPR review originally declared. “The laptop story was discredited by U.S. intelligence and independent investigations by news organizations.”
Hunter Biden: Ukraine Laptop ‘Could’ Be His but Says He Possibly Hacked by Russians
President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has acknowledged a laptop computer with a slew of previously secret messages could be his but also suggested he was hacked by Russians.
“There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was the—that it was Russian intelligence,” Hunter Biden told CBS in an interview clip released Friday.
The post Hunter Biden: Ukraine Laptop ‘Could’ Be His but Says He Possibly Hacked by Russians appeared first on NTD.
Hunter Biden admits infamous laptop could be his, throwing media narrative for a loop
Hunter Biden was nowhere to be found when his father was running for president as controversy swirled over his business dealings overseas, including in China, but now […]
Continue reading Hunter Biden admits infamous laptop could be his, throwing media narrative for a loop …
NPR issues major correction on Hunter Biden laptop, Hunter admits laptop could be his
National Public Radio has corrected a story about Hunter Biden that stated the U.S. intelligence community had discredited stories about a laptop he left at a repair shop and that perhaps had information about his overseas business dealings.
The correction was made on Thursday in a story about a recently published memoir by Biden, the son of President Biden, titled “Beautiful Things.”
Hunter Biden will talk about drug intervention, notorious laptop in CBS interviews
Hunter Biden says an abandoned laptop “certainly” could belong to him. In CBS interviews, he also shares details of his family’s drug intervention.
Hunter Biden says he doesn’t remember having sex with Lunden Roberts
EXCLUSIVE: Hunter Biden tells how he found his grieving sister-in-law ‘alluring’ and claims he doesn’t recall having sex with a stripper – who ended up having his child – months before meeting his current wife who ‘saved his life,’ in new memoir being released April 6, 2021.
Hunter Biden Addresses Laptop Saga for the First Time
by Chuck Ross
Hunter Biden said in an interview that a laptop of his purported emails released before the election “could be” his, but that it may have been stolen or released with the help of Russian intelligence.
“There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was Russian intelligence,” he said in an interview with CBS, which will air in full Sunday.
Biden at first said that he was unsure whether the laptop is his.
“For real, I don’t know.”
Pressed on the question, Biden conceded that the laptop “certainly could be” his.
The short clip of the CBS interview does not show whether Biden was asked about claims from a Delaware computer shop owner that he dropped off the laptop at his store in April 2019 and never came back to get it.
There have been no reports that Biden filed a police report regarding any possible thefts or hacks of his email account.
Biden, who has not previously discussed the laptop in public, has been under federal investigation since 2018 over his taxes and foreign business dealings.
WATCH:
John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of a repair shop in Delaware, told The New York Post on Oct. 14 a man he believed to be Biden dropped off the laptop for repairs
Isaac says he provided the device to the FBI in late 2019. He then shared it with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani in September 2020.
Giuliani helped place a story about the emails with The New York Post.
Many Democrats have suggested that Russian intelligence was behind the release of emails from the laptop. Isaac has vehemently denied having any connection to Russians.
Emails from the laptop, which the Daily Caller News Foundation obtained, provide insight into Biden’s business and personal dealings. He emailed frequently with business partners about Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company that was at the center of President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Another email shows that Biden referred to his father and an employee of a Chinese energy firm, CEFC China Energy, as “office mates” at an office he rented in 2017.
Senate Republicans this week asked the Biden administration to turn over intelligence documents on Biden’s relationship with CEFC China Energy, which had suspected ties to China’s military.
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Chuck Ross is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
The post Hunter Biden Addresses Laptop Saga for the First Time appeared first on The Georgia Star News.
Text messages that allegedly sparked fed probe into Matt Gaetz emerge
Text messages that allegedly sparked a federal sex crimes probe into Florida rep Matt Gaetz emerged Friday in a new report. They are purported to show that Gaetz was with Joel Greenberg, a Seminole County tax official who’s under investigation for child sex trafficking, at the office he allegedly used to make fake IDs, the…
Matt Gaetz’ Communications Director Resigns Amid Sexual Allegations Scandal
Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s communications director Luke Ball resigned Friday, days after his boss was accused of having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and more.
One Hill source familiar with the decision told the Daily Caller that Ball struggled with the choice to depart and did not want to bring further criticism on the congressman, but thought it best to part ways.