While in Austin, Texas on Monday, President Joe Biden was told by a reporter that his plan to remake the Supreme Court had already been pronounced “dead on arrival” by House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Biden replied, “I think that’s what he [Johnson] is. He is dead on arrival.”
President Biden was just asked on the tarmac about Speaker Johnson calling his Supreme Court reform “dead on arrival.” “That’s what he is,” Biden said. Asked for clarification, a reporter shouted, “That he is?” Biden responded: “He is. Dead on arrival.” pic.twitter.com/kEOV2y21Yi
It’s the kind of thing that the legacy media would run with if Donald Trump had said it. It would be declared a threat on the Speaker’s life.
But in these times, the mainstream reporters are only reporting negative news on Trump, not on Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.
Reporters, for example, reported that Trump had said if people vote for him, they’ll never have to vote again. He was speaking at an event organized by the conservative group Turning Point Action in West Palm Beach, Fla., when he said, in his characteristic way, “Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
The media pounced, purposefully trying to show that Trump intends to be a dictator:
Four years ago, at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, the National Institutes of Health gathered a group of experts to provide Covid-19 recommendations to health care providers and issued the first version of the “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Treatment Guidelines on April 21, 2020.”
Forty experts gathered to review data and make recommendations that would be followed worldwide. The NIH was extremely influential in controlling the narrative and ensuring a lockstep approach to Covid treatment. That included multiple jabs, face masks, social distancing, closing businesses, isolating the sick, etc. Any alternative therapies were frowned upon, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, and the chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022, led the charge.
The government stayed diligent in updating these guidelines as new therapies approved by the government became available. Even though the federal Covid-19 Public Health Emergency was ended by President Joe Biden in May 2023, this panel of experts at NIH continued to review the guidelines and update them as needed. They released 72 versions of the guidelines during the Covid years.
Now more than a year after the health emergency was officially over, the NIH will stop updating the information and take down the website that has the recommendations on it, citing that other professional organizations will continue to provide those guidelines (as they did these last four years).
Meanwhile, the mainstream media are firing warning shots with articles about the uptick in Covid rates caused by the latest highly contagious new variants. Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist at the University of California, is sounding the alarm. Dr. Chin-Hong stated “you have a very, very transmissible variant, probably one of the most transmissible we’ve had. We have a lot of population immunity, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of chaos.”
The “you should be worried bell” is being rung again to foment fear. But fear not: The government is ready with a new Covid jab that is coming out this fall for those of you who feel a desire to get the jab. And rather than call it a “booster,” it will simply become the annual shot you need to take, much like the push to take the flu shot. The government has promised it will be updated to be “effective” against whatever the current strain is.
It’s unclear how the government will do that as the little bugger has mutated faster than pharmaceutical companies can make an effective update.
So, why now with Covid on the uptick would the NIH choose to take down its web page concerning Covid treatments?
It seems the NIH suddenly realized other professional organizations were also posting guidelines. Or perhaps it was that the NIH realized new treatment modalities for Covid have slowed to a drip. And NIH stated they are getting fewer and fewer calls asking for advice.
Dr. Cliff Lane, director of the clinical research division at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a co-chair of the panel, stated there are “specialty doctors’ groups — such as the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America — who will be the keepers of Covid-19 treatment guidance from now on. They’re the usual stewards of best-practice guidelines anyway.”
I didn’t see where they would archive the data so you could access it in the future. NIH announced “the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines website will remain available until August 16, 2024, and will provide a downloadable PDF of the final version of the Guidelines.”
I recommend you download a copy so you can review which recommendations worked or didn’t work. This would also be useful information if you were harmed by some of the “recommendations” and need a copy of them for a future lawsuit.
As we “close” this episode of American history, Dr. Marty Makary, professor and surgeon at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, summed up those Covid years well. He said:
“The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the U.S. government. Misinformation that Covid was spread through surface transmission, that vaccinated immunity was far greater thannatural immunity, that masks were effective … That myocarditis was more common after the infection than the vaccine. We’ve seen something which is unforgivable, and that is the weaponization of medical research itself … Public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people.”
Many people were fearful and believed the government four years ago. I don’t think many people will ride that train again, but then again, who knows? Fear is a powerful tool, especially when it is used by any government.
Linda Boyle, RN, MSN, DM, was formerly the chief nurse for the 3rd Medical Group, JBER, and was the interim director of the Alaska VA. Most recently, she served as Director for Central Alabama VA Healthcare System. She is the director of the Alaska Covid Alliance.
Editor’s note: This report will not be posted on Must Read Alaska’s Facebook page because the company is deplatforming conservatives. Join us over on X/Twitter.
Anchorage resident Jay McDonald was one of those who found that a photo he had posted on social media of Donald Trump right after the assassination attempt on July 13 was blocked by Facebook.
He wasn’t the only one. Soon, others were writing about their same experiences. People were posting on X/Twitter their experiences with Facebook’s election interference.
The photo was of Donald Trump triumphantly raising his fist after being shot in the ear. People who posted the photo showed that the image was blocked and blurred by Facebook, with the message that it was an “altered photo.”
The photo that McDonald posted was put on his Facebook page the same day as the shooting in Butler, Penn. and is the same photo that has been seen millions of times around the world.
Dani Lever, a communications employee for Facebook eventually took to X/Twitter to explain that the removal of the photo was an “error.”
Screenshot of Dani Lever’s Twitter post on July 29, 2024.
Critics note, however, that these errors only seem to be applied to conservatives. In McDonald’s case, Facebook did not say it was its system but was “independent fact checkers” who determined his photo to have been doctored.
Earlier, people had noticed that Google and artificial intelligence programs were preventing them from seeing informationabout the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
One of the things those of us with military experience consider before the exchanging unpleasantries with the “other side” is choosing and preparing the location most advantageous to whatever it is we want to do and least advantageous to whatever it is the other side wants to do. This is referred to as battlespace preparation.
The battle this time around is the removal of the Eklutna Dam, something it appears that the Anchorage Assembly fully supports.
Rick Whitbeck has written multiple pieces about what a bad idea this is. Suzanne Downing also has multiple pieces on the festivities.
Today’s issue is AO 2024-46, by Chairman Constant and Vice Chairman Zaletel. This ordinance directs Anchorage Water and Waste Utility to “decouple” the Municipality’s access to drinking water from the 1991 Eklutna Fish and Wildlife Agreement. This decoupling was introduced April 24. The first public hearing was on May 7. Action on it has been postponed four times, most recently to July 30.
If you sort through the multiple “Whereas” clauses, you find that Mayor Dave Bronson did a brilliant job obstructing the Assembly’s efforts to remove the dam, most recently neglecting to notify the Assembly of a Regulatory Commission of Alaska order for the Municipality to surrender its vote on the Eklutna Operating Committee. This was done as part of its approval of Chugach Electric’s purchase of Municipal Light & Power, agreed to by the Assembly and the Ethan Berkowitz Administration in 2019. The Assembly claims that the Bronson administration did not inform them until December, 2023.
In Jan 2024, AWWU and the Eklutna Owners (Chugach Electric and Matanuska Electric Association) executed a term sheet governing AWWU’s access to drinking water. The Assembly demanded access to the sheet and eventually saw it during a February 2024 executive session. They were not allowed to retain copies, which irritated them greatly, as shown in the “Whereas” statements. Since then, there has been at least one amendment executed.
The final “w”Whereas” clause claims public funds, water rights, public lands have been encumbered by agreements that the Assembly was never informed of, and has no voice, while the Bronson Administration withheld “critical information.” Note that all of this is direct fallout from the ML&P sale that the Assembly, Mayor and Regulatory Commission of Alaska all approved.
From here, it looks like the Bronson Administration prudently took steps to keep both the lights on in Anchorage and keep drinking water flowing to Anchorage residents (per the AWWU term sheet).
On the other hand, these steps make it more difficult for the newly self-anointed experts in all things electrical and water on the Assembly to remove the Eklutna dam, something they are hell-bent to do.
The Assembly is in something of a tough spot with this, as MEA doesn’t support the dam’s removal. The Chugach Board got a little less likely to support the removal in April. And the RCA, Legislature and governor don’t support removal, though the greens certainly do support removal.
Why is the Assembly so hard-over on removing the dam? I expect the opening bid was obeisance to green dogma. Over the last three years, they included kneejerk opposition to all-things Bronson. Today, I don’t have a publicly stated reason, but if it were me, I would first use the follow the money filter.
We already know that Assemblywoman Meg Zaletel is making a very nice living off the Homeless Industrial Complex she helped build over the last decade, a complex that has wasted tens of to over a hundred million dollars over that period. Given government-to-government relations established between this Assembly and the 72-member Eklutna tribe, one can only wonder what sorts of offline negotiations and promises have been made.
In my view, follow the money is the very first thing to look at.
Passing this ordinance is simply another step toward making it easier to remove the dam. Their problem is that removal will require RCA approval and a compliant governor. Doing something about the RCA will take a while. They think their compliant governor is waiting in the wings when Democrat Forrest Dunbar runs to replace Gov. Dunleavy in 2026.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
The July 30 meeting of the Anchorage Assembly contains an action item that could lead to even more regulations for businesses and residents, as well as increased government carrying costs in the future: Another Climate Action Plan is going to be funded.
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance is requesting $362,750 to pay a private company to plan and provide the Climate Action Plan. The contract with Resource Systems Group, Inc., the group being recommended for the award, would run until June 30, 2026.
“The AMATS Climate Action Plan will build on the existing Anchorage Climate Action Plan, inventory transportation greenhouse gas emissions, evaluate strategies to reduce future emissions, update equity data from the AMATS Non-Motorized Plan, and engage a broad array of stakeholders throughout the development of the plan,” according to the LaFrance Administration.
The original climate action plan for Anchorage was adopted by the Anchorage Assembly on May 21, 2019, during the administration of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, a Democrat who left office early due to a scandal involving a local news reporter.
There’s no explanation given by the current mayor’s office as to why another Climate Action Plan is needed. The goals of the first Climate Action Plan for Anchorage still need to be executed. They include:
Continue upgrading street and trail lights to high-efficiency LEDs.
Improve energy and water efficiency in municipal facilities.
Expand local renewable energy generation and use.
Increase opportunities for residents and businesses to implement clean energy technology.
Reduce the number of vehicle trips by offering alternatives for getting around by walking, biking, carpooling, and taking public transit.
Support infrastructure for electric vehicles.
Increase waste diversion.
Capture more potential energy in collected refuse.
Protect forest, wetlands, waterways and urban green spaces.
Prepare for and respond to increased risk of wildfires and other health and safety impacts of climate change.
Conduct a financial analysis to assess and plan for the cost of climate actions.
Evaluate life-cycle costs in planning and procurement.
The prioritizing of planning for climate change comes at the expense of real-world problems that Anchorage is facing, which include a loss of population as working Alaskans move to the MatSu Valley, and the overtaking of the city by large vagrant-and-criminal encampments, which have made walking the streets and trails an unsafe activity for residents, who may choose to use their cars to get around in order to ensure greater safety.
If an average homeowner pays $6,000 in property taxes to Anchorage, that means the tax payments of 61.3 homeowners are being used to finance this new Climate Action Plan. Just the plan, not the action itself.
Meanwhile, China is building two coal plants per week, according to Reuters, which reported last year that China had 243 gigawatts of coal-fired power either approved or under construction, enough to power the whole of Germany.
China began building coal-fired plants with a total capacity of 37 GW in the first half of this year, and approved 52 GW of new projects, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor, whose dataset shows the Bank of China to be the largest financier of coal plant construction globally, with over $6.5 billions invested, while China Construction Bank has $3.3 billion invested in coal plant manufacturing.
“The climate cult must be celebrating the return of its influence with Municipal leadership,” said Rick Whitbeck, Alaska state director of Power The Future. “Spending $362,000 to refresh a completely unnecessary and cost-prohibitive set of criteria that will lead to increased municipal costs seems counter-productive to rational people. Yet, here we are with doing just that under the two-headed monster of Chris Constant and Suzanne LaFrance. Anchorage needs to focus on crime, homelessness and economic development, and less on trivial matters that only will line pockets of special interests at taxpayer expense.”
Overnight, the National Debt Clock turned a big number: $35 trillion is the current national debt for the United States of America. That’s $104,000 of debt for every individual in the United States, and over $267,400 for every actual taxpayer.
The public debt to gross domestic product ratio for the U.S. is now 89.72%, not the highest in the world. That honor belongs to Japan, which has a public debt to GDP ratio of over 300%. Japan is also the largest foreign holder of U.S. treasury securities, with Japanese banks, pension funds, and other financial institutions holding more than $1.1 trillion at the end of 2023.
When the federal government spends more than it takes in, the government simply borrows money to cover the deficit. Each year as the debt grows, the interest rate on it gobbles up more and more of the taxpayers’ contributions.
In the past, large deficits were linked to national emergencies like major wars or the Great Depression. But in 2024, there is a structural issue that involves shrinking participation in the workforce, aging baby-boomer population, the explosion of health care costs and transfers of that cost to the taxpayers. Even while many Americans pay up to 50% of their salaries to the government in the way of local, state, and federal taxes, the debt is outstripping their contributions.
One day, our grandchildren may talk about Medicare the way we talk about Bernie Madoff.
Medicare’s trustees recently released their annual report on the program’s finances, and things are not looking good. The entitlement spent $12 billion more than it took in from taxes in 2023. Absent change, Medicare’s Part A hospital insurance trust fund will be exhausted by 2036.
Years ago, there may have been more than enough workers to cover the cost of Medicare for many fewer retirees — and sock away some extra in the accounting fiction that is the Part A trust fund. Those days are gone. Soon, Medicare won’t be able to collect enough in taxes from workers to pay for the benefits that retirees are redeeming.
Sounds an awful lot like a Ponzi scheme. Preserving the program for future generations will require harnessing the power of competition to lower costs and bringing eligibility requirements into the modern era.
A new report from the Paragon Health Institute highlights Medicare’s problem. The average American who turned 65 in 2020 will receive $176,500 more in Medicare benefits than they paid in. One who retires in 2030 is on track to receive $248,500 more than they paid in.
Some 62 million Americans were enrolled in Medicare in 2023. By 2033, that number is projected to swell to 78 million. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that by the following year, Medicare spending will account for just over 17% of the federal budget and 4% of GDP.
Medicare’s growth is fueled by an aging population. Americans 65 and older will make up nearly one-quarter of the population by 2050, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
Americans are also living longer. Men who make it to age 65 can expect to log another 17.5 years; life expectancy for women who reach 65 is another 20.2 years. That’s an increase of 4.5 years for men and almost four years for women, relative to 1965, when Medicare was created.
Yet Medicare’s eligibility age — 65 — has remained the same since the program’s inception. Given improvements in longevity, raising the age at which Americans become eligible makes sense — and would ease some of the fiscal pressure on the program.
But that’s not the only way to save Medicare from insolvency. The program can institute more “means-testing,” to ensure that richer beneficiaries pay for a greater share of their coverage than their poorer counterparts.
For example, lawmakers could lower the threshold at which means-testing already kicks in for premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers physician services, and Part D, which covers prescription drugs. Right now, only individuals who make more than $103,000 a year — and couples who make more than $206,000 a year — face additional costs in Parts B and D.
Policymakers need not limit themselves to income when formulating means-testing policies. As the Paragon Health Institute report points out, Social Security calculates benefits based on lifetime earnings. Medicare could do something similar.
There are any number of roads back to Medicare solvency. Medicare’s choice is no longer between change and the status quo. It’s between change and dissolution.
Sally C. Pipes is President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is “False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All” (Encounter 2020). Follow her on X/Twitter @sallypipes. This column was originally published by PennLive.
On second thought, Fairbanks Assemblyman Brett Rotermund has decided he won’t resign from the Fairbanks North Star Borough.
Last week, Rottermund resigned after a vote was taken by the Assembly to censure one of the conservative members of the Assembly, Barbara Haney, after a citizen associated with the Assembly’s Presiding Officer Savannah Fletcher had filed a complaint about an opinion column that Haney had written in the local newspaper, the Fairbanks Daily News Miner.
Rotermund at the time he resign last week said he would not be part of an unconstitutional action to violate someone’s First Amendment rights.
After the weekend had passed, however, Rotermund had heard from many people in Fairbanks, from both sides of the political spectrum, asking him to rescind his resignation. He did so in an email to the Borough Clerk.
The resignation, after all, would not be final until the Assembly meets again on Aug. 8 and votes on whether to accept it. Now, the Assembly won’t have to do that.
Assembly Presiding Officer Savannah Fletcher, who started her career with Black Lives Matter and who is an attorney for the radical Northern Justice Project, has worked to smack down any opposing voices on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly and across the state. She has gone after conservatives, such as Rep. David Eastman, Rep. Kevin McCabe, Sen. Lora Reinbold and the MatSu Borough Library Committee.
Rotermund said that in hindsight, he should have just announced that he could not participate in the unconstitutional action, and leave it at that. But hindsight is 20-20, he said on Monday, as he began his work day after chilling over the weekend at his cabin.
The people of Fairbanks rallied for him, he said, and he realized he can’t fight corruption if he walks away. The Assembly, Rotermund said, needs to have a dissenting voice.
An experiment going around social media goes like this: Pull up a Google search box and type in “assassination attempt” and then wait to see what Google auto-populates the rest of your search with.
For many, the rest of the search is for people like Hitler, Reagan, Truman, or other figures. Nowhere does the word “Trump” appear, even though on July 13, an assassin came within centimeters from taking his life with a spray of bullets.
Must Read Alaska tested the experiment over two days. Our results agree with the critics:
Screenshot of a search on Google on July 29, 2024.
We tried it another way. This time we typed in “assassination attempt trump.” The result was … no result. The field would not auto-populate with any information. By hitting the “I’m Feeling Lucky” key, we were directed to a story from USA Today that had the topic of the need for gun control.
Screenshot from July 28, 2024.
Then, we tried typing “assassination attempt on t” to see what would auto-populate. This is the helpful result: “truman” and “the pope”:
Screenshot from July 29, 2024.
We also tried other search terms, like “Trump assassination attempt,” and saw similar results, with no additional terms offered by Google.
“Big Tech is trying to interfere in the election AGAIN to help Kamala Harris,” wrote Donald Trump Jr. on X. “We all know this is intentional election interference from Google. Truly despicable.”
Elon Musk, who is the majority owner of X, was pulled into the quest to see if Google is slanting its search function. He typed in the words “president donald” and received the result “president donald duck” as his first result.
Screenshot from July 28, 2024.
“They’re getting themselves into a lot of trouble if they interfere with the election,” Musk commented.
Must Read Alaska was not able to replicate the Musk search result and it’s possible that the scrutiny by Musk forced the company to adjust its results overnight.
Robby Starbuck reminded his followers that Google executives were unhinged after Trump won the election in 2016, and that the company has vast control over the information that people receive online:
Never forget this is how Google Executives reacted after Trump won the 2016 election. I don’t think there’s a question of if they’re willing to commit election interference. They are. The question is if there will be legal consequences. https://t.co/2x3SFPH77jpic.twitter.com/iCcODirOuJ
It’s not just Google. Here’s what Big Tech’s artificial intelligence is saying about the assassination attempt against Trump earlier this month: Nothing.
This query is from Meta A.I., which is the company that owns Facebook:
Screenshot from July 28.
We then asked Chat GPT to “tell me about the assassination attempt on Trump.” The is the result, even two weeks after the attempt on Trump’s life during a campaign rally in Butler, Penn.:
Screenshot from July 29, 2024.
In 2020, Google and other media giants claimed that at least 149 million citizens voted in the general election that brought Joe Biden into the White House, for a turnout which would have been 97% of registered voters at the time.
(With what appears to be “memory-holing” (the intentional suppression of history) of news on Donald Trump, it will be helpful for readers to share our stories on social media. We expect this story to be suppressed by Big Tech. Thank you.)
