This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
One of the more controversial pardons unleashed by Joe Biden on his way out the door of the White House was for Anthony Fauci, the former federal health official.
He reportedly was involved in the origins of COVID-19 to the extent of allowing American funding of the dangerous gain-of-function research in China, and then he demanded that Americans submit to the COVID-19 shots that were created in response to the pandemic that killed millions around the globe.
Those shots themselves have now been confirmed as carrying side effects that could be fatal.
And don't forget the masking and social separation demands.
He once boastfully proclaimed that he is the "science" on the questions of COVID.
WND reported that Fauci promptly expressed his appreciation for the pardon but proclaimed his innocence.
"I really truly appreciate the action President Biden has taken today on my behalf. Let me be perfectly clear, Jon, I have committed no crime, you know that, and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me," he claimed.
Fauci said he is grateful because the threats and possibility of a politically motivated prosecution "creates immeasurable and intolerable distress on me and my family."
Social media immediately responded with confirmation that people will think Fauci did something wrong, no matter his protestations.
And now a statement from the group called Children's Health Defense said the investigations – and even possible charges – will happen no matter the pardon.
Mary Holland, the organization's chief, explained, "This is another way that the Biden administration is trying to put a shadow over the incoming administration to preserve its own power and to undermine anything that a new administration might do. What we know is that Tony Fauci lied throughout COVID."
She continued that the pardon "is in no way going to stop congressional investigations, and it will not necessarily stop other federal investigations or charges related to other things like taxes, and it won't stop state prosecutions or possibly other prosecutions by other countries."
In fact, Biden's pardon protects Fauci from federal charges over events that have happened.
Holland noted her organization welcomes congressional review of Fauci's actions, especially a commitment by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, "to investigate the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the role played by Anthony Fauci."
"It's entirely appropriate to investigate Dr. Fauci and his role. One of the things that's positive here is that because he has been preemptively pardoned, he will not be able to assert a 5th Amendment protection in Congress when he is going to be investigated. There's no question that Senator Rand Paul, in particular, has every intention of going forward to investigate this man."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed Barack Obama's oath of office some years ago.
He rearranged the words of the oath, moving "faithfully" to a place out of order, so Obama's oath was not the correct version from the Constitution.
The two of them got together later in the day and "fixed" it by having Obama say the right words, in the right order.
Today Roberts was part of another flub, this time involving President Donald Trump.
He apparently rushed the oath, not allowing Melania Trump to approach the two and offer a Bible on which the president could his hand.
So Trump swore the oath without his hand in that position, which is not required by the Constitution.
But it immediately gave leftists who hate Trump and jump-start on their conspiracy theories.
A social commenter said, "Great. Just great. No hand on the Bible. Melania tried to get it close to him but Roberts and Trump didn't notice. Now we get 4 more years of people saying he's not President, and 4 more years of people saying he's the AntiChrist."
A different angle, showing the uncovered Bible more clearly:
And an image:
A Twitchy commentary said, "Because Roberts started before everyone was ready, Trump ended up not placing his hand on the Bible."
Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley explained the alternation of tradition was insignificant.
"The Chief Justice moved a tad too quickly before Trump could put his hand on the bible. Roberts previously had an embarrassing moment with Obama. On this occasion, Roberts got the oath right but the timing was off. However, there is no need for a redo..0"
Twitchy said, "When Roberts flubbed Obama's oath of office, Roberts came to White House and did the oath again, just to clear up any doubt. While we agree with Turley that there is no legal need to do so, we think its probably a good idea to have Trump do it again, hand on the bible, with Chief Justice Roberts, and post it on video, just to shut the crazies up."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Even Biden administration officials are admitting that it took President-elect Donald Trump wading into Israel-Hamas negotiations to close the deal and force a hostage release and cease-fire after 15 months of war, reported the New York Post.
Multiple insiders and officials in both Israel and the U.S. told The Post that it was Trump's impending inauguration – combined with the efforts of his Middle East special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who finally solved a problem which had proved intractable for President Biden and his team.
A source with Trump's transition team described the conversation last weekend between longtime Trump pal Witkoff and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "straightforward, no phony platitudes and very direct."
Another official told Reuters: "Witkoff was able to pressure Netanyahu into accepting the deal and moving quickly. It's that conversation that shifted everything into motion."
Waltz: U.S. will back Israeli action in Gaza if Hamas breaks ceasefire
Incoming U.S. National Security Advisor Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., said on Wednesday the Trump administration will support renewed Israeli military action against Hamas in Gaza if the terrorist group violates the terms of the ceasefire, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.
"We've made it very clear to the Israelis, and I want the people of Israel to hear me on this – if they need to go back in, we're with them. If Hamas doesn't live up to the terms of this agreement, we are with them," the Republican representative from Florida's 6th District, whom President-elect Donald Trump tapped for the NSA role in November, told Fox News anchor Bret Baier.
"Hamas is not going to continue as a military entity and it certainly is not going to govern Gaza," Waltz stressed.
Report: Two dual citizen U.S.-Israeli hostages thought to be released Sunday in first phase of deal
Five Israeli female soldiers will be released from Gaza on Sunday, coinciding with the first day of a planned ceasefire – according to a report by KAN news, a senior U.S. official announced Wednesday night.
The exchange will include Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal mediated by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt, reported the Jerusalem Post.
"I am disappointed that this agreement does not talk about all the hostages. It is unacceptable that the second phase is not defined in a way that shows when my son will be released from captivity," Ruby Chen, the father of American-Israeli IDF Sgt. Itay Chen, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
Israel rebuffs Erdogan over Syria warning
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Israel must withdraw its forces from Syria or it will cause "unfavorable outcomes for everyone," according to the Times of Israel.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – With a hostage deal apparently as good as done, although intense public scrutiny and the myriad of messages emanating from Israel, the United States, Hamas, and Qatar and others, has yet to produce concrete results, the prospect of the agreement's signing has shifted some of the focus in Israel to what will happen within the country if it is finally done.
From a practical political perspective, two of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition partners – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir – whose removal of their 13 combined seats in the Knesset (out of a total of 120) from the government, would almost certainly trigger new elections in the near future.
The country had barely recovered politically from the five elections it held in four years, before it was plunged into its current and longest war following the Hamas-led massacres of Oct. 7, 2023. And while it is difficult to predict which way the electorate might go, the full effects of the war will likely not redound to Netanyahu's benefit.
Indeed, if his right-wing abandons him, Netanyahu will either be forced to try and create a ruling coalition with ideological and personal opponents (although he has plenty of those on the right too), or be forced to call for new elections.
Chiefly, Netanyahu's most fervent right-wing antagonist is Ben Givr, who only a day or so ago baldly admitted he torpedoed potential hostage deals multiple times over the last year. Considering the outline of the deal which has been released does not seem significantly different from those previously outlined, some uncomfortable truths emerge.
Primarily, it shows how beholden Netanyahu was (presumably still is) to an individual whom he said he would never allow to sit in Israel's government due to his extremism. After all the name of his party – Otzma Yehudit – Jewish Power – is based on asserting control of Jewish control over the entirety of greater Israel, and very much including Judea and Samaria.
Even if we take it as a given that Ben Gvir has a deep ideological opposition to what amounts to capitulation to terrorists, his pressure to not do a deal has lengthened the war and cost the lives of both hostages and soldiers. And people were not being wise after the event; Ben Gvir was a known quantity, and some of the vociferous push-back against him was because large numbers of people thought him unfit for high office.
This situation also shows the limits of Netanyahu's relationship with President-elect Donald Trump. And as an aside, it would be ironic if it was the Trump administration that caused Bibi's fall, considering the Biden administration – and senior congresspeople, such as Chuck Schumer, D–N.Y. had so publicly and obviously tried to maneuver his ouster over the last four years.
The expectation in Israel had been that Biden's White House staff and those at the State Department, who had proved both wrong and meddlesome, would be replaced with bureaucrats who would allow Israel to finish the job – as Vice President-elect J.D. Vance recently intimated on Fox News.
Netanyahu will point to the multiple victories the IDF and Mossad among others have scored over the months since the last hostage deal was thought to be close over the summer. These include the elimination of Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, the pager operation in Lebanon and Syria, and the extirpation of the entirety of the upper echelon of the Hezbollah leadership structure, especially arch-terrorist Hassan Nasrallah.
While Netanyahu has been in numerous political scrapes over the last two-and-a-half decades and managed to emerge from them, it feels as though there is real jeopardy attached to his current predicament. There are large swaths of the population who will never be able to forgive that Oct. 7 occurred on his watch, no matter his attempts to deflect to the intelligence community and the top brass of the IDF for their own failures – which were similarly and unforgivably catastrophic.
Perhaps the last words should be reserved for the hostage families. It is difficult to adequately put into words how on a macro level the kidnap of hostages, the youngest – Kfir Bibas, who if he is still alive will now be turning two – has ripped the country asunder.
So, how much more painful must it be for the families themselves whose most fervent desire is to see and hold their stolen loved ones again? Most of the families are in favor of the deal, however, there is a smaller group – haunted by the Gilad Shalit exchange deal in 2011, which released convicted murderer (of Palestinians) Yahya Sinwar, and ultimately led to the Oct. 7 massacre.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – In less than three weeks, Poland will hold commemoration ceremonies to mark 80 years since the Soviet Red Army's liberation of the Auschwitz – the largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp on its soil – and yet, there is still significant doubt as to whether Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be among the participants.
It seems extraordinary that the elected leader of the Jewish state – the largest single Jewish population on earth – would not be present to mark such a somber event as the liberation of the place, which is the largest Jewish burial ground in the world. And yet, here we are.
As a result of the International Criminal Court's late November decision to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu, and his then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, over their alleged war crimes in conducting the Gaza war against Hamas, there are several countries – including Poland – which have threatened to fulfill those warrants.
On Wednesday, Polish President Andrzej Duda called on Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government to guarantee Netanyahu's safety from arrest if he should attend the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation. In a Jan. 8 letter to Tusk reviewed by Bloomberg, Duda emphasized the need to ensure Netanyahu's presence would remain "unhindered" during his time in Poland, citing the "absolutely exceptional circumstances" of the commemoration.
The commemoration of the Nazi death camp's liberation is set to take place on Jan. 27, the mandated International Holocaust Remembrance Day. A Netanyahu spokesperson was asked what the prime minister's plans were with regard to the commemoration, and slightly curiously responded no official invitation had yet been received. Privately Polish officials assess any lack of contact from their Israeli counterparts is due to fears the prime minister will indeed be arrested if he sets foot on Polish soil.
Despite his frequent disagreements with Tusk's administration, – who hails from the other side of the political aisle – Duda expressed confidence in the letter that the government could develop an "adequate formula" to guarantee Netanyahu's safety while respecting international law and honoring the significance of the Auschwitz liberation commemoration.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The nation's "fact-checkers" are in panic mode this week after Facebook announced it has opted for free speech.
WND reported Tuesday that Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has announced he's ending the social media site's censorship practices.
"We're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms. More specifically, we're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S," Zuckerberg announced.
Now Business Insider is reporting that the International Fact-Checking Network, a large part of the industry supporting Facebook's previous censorship practices, is in turmoil.
The organization called an emergency meeting of all of its members following the announcement that involves all of Meta's branches, including Facebook.
Zuckerberg said that censorship team will be replaced with "community notes," similar to what billionaire Elon Musk installed on Twitter, now X, when he took it over.
The meeting "is expected to draw between 80 and 100 attendees from the IFCN's network of fact-checkers, which spans 170 organizations worldwide," Business Insider explained.
It confirmed, "The IFCN has long played a crucial role in Meta's fact-checking ecosystem by accrediting organizations for Meta's third-party program, which began in 2016 after the U.S. presidential election that year. Certification from the IFCN signaled that a fact-checking organization met rigorous editorial and transparency standards. Meta's partnerships with these certified organizations became a cornerstone of its efforts to combat misinformation, focusing on flagging false claims, contextualizing misinformation, and curbing its spread."
However, the end result of the so-called "fact-checking" has been for leftists to use the industry to call out what they have labeled as misinformation, disinformation and even malinformation and insist on censorship, regardless of the accuracy of the information. That has left many conservative individuals, web sites, comments and discussions in a black hole of suppression.
The meeting was called for Wednesday, but it was uncertain what results would be announced.
IFCN director Angie Holan confirmed the meeting was in response to Meta's announcement.
"People are upset because they saw themselves as partners in good standing with Meta, doing important work to make the platform more accurate and reliable."
The report explained, "An employee at PolitiFact, one of the first news organizations to partner with Meta on its Third-Party Fact-Checking Program in December 2016, said the company received virtually no warning from Meta before the program was killed."
It was only weeks ago that a congressional report confirmed that the censorship schemes assembled and implemented by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, working with social media platforms, were "blatantly unconstitutional."
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, already had admitted in a letter to Congress that he was censoring Americans on the orders of Biden.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
America is getting a new $20 billion investment in a data company that plans operations in multiple states, President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday.
Fox News reported Trump confirmed the $20 billion will come over a "short period of time" from DAMAC Properties, whose chief, Hussain Sajwani, confirmed plans for Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.
The centers are needed to help the development of AI and cloud-based tech, he said.
Trump, who is to be inaugurated Jan. 20, said his administration would have a practice of expediting approvals for companies seeking to invest $1 billion or more in the U.S.
He cited the "quagmire" of regulations that now exist.
Under Joe Biden's presidency, Americans have suffered inflation of more than 20%, have seen millions of illegal aliens flood the southern border and end up competing with Americans for jobs, and more.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – A recently published report from an Israeli think tank again highlights some of the intelligence failures, which led to the scale of the Hamas onslaughts against southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, being far worse than it ought to have been, given the information about the planned attack was publicly available, if the resources had been directed to analyze and read it.
Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, or JCFA, revealed a series of alarming posts that appeared on a Hamas-affiliated Telegram channel the night before the Oct. 7 massacre. His analysis suggests that different preparedness measures might have been possible had this intelligence been monitored and analyzed in real time, according to Israel Hayom.
"On October 6, 2023, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of the Islamic Jihad, held a military parade to mark the anniversary of the establishment of the organization. Fighters from military arms of other organizations also participated in the march, including the Al-Qassam Brigades. The military parade continued until 6:20 in the evening," Halevi wrote on X.
Halevi went on to explain that the Gaza Interior Ministry, which is responsible for all the security mechanisms, mobilized all security forces including the "national security, the engineering, the traffic police, the civil defense, the special police force and the special police unit "Sahm" (سهم) to secure Islamic Jihad's military parade, which Hamas apparently used to organize the forces in preparation for the Oct. 7 attack," which commenced approximately 12 hours afterward.
At the center of Dahoah-Halevi's analysis is the figure of Maam Rashid al-Masri, also known as "Abu Hafs." Al-Masri, a Hamas Nukhba terrorist, managed the Telegram channel named "Military Tactics" and co-founded the "Al-Qassam Brigades Dispatch" channel.
And this was not all. According to Halevi, the infiltration of some 6,000 Hamas fighters was preceded by explicit Telegram warnings, which contained more than simply overt threats against Israel. Rather, it was a "repository of detailed military instruction materials encompassing combat methodology, concealment techniques, and explosives handling," reported the outlet.
The researcher's findings also show there were warning signs about Hamas' actual intentions in September 2023, which discussed plans to attack the communities abutting the border fence. In fact, a direct threat emanated on Sept. 18, calling on them to "flee and leave before it is too late."
"We will turn your skulls into a bridge over which we will cross to Jerusalem and al-Aqsa [mosque]," it added. "You are deluding yourselves about your weak army and crumbling government. Nothing will help you except escape. Woe to you from our coming hours [our actions in the near future] which will bring you what no eye has seen and no ear has heard. The revolutionary youth, Gaza Strip."
Several more posts of escalating threat were posted throughout September, with one suggesting that by Sept. 21, the die was already cast, the decision had been made and the Gaza border area would be made "uninhabitable."
Halevi's research only goes up to the end of September, although no doubt there will be further work done on the messages missed and the eye-witness testimony ignored up to and including Oct. 7, when army spotters saw the scale of the Hamas attack, sending urgent messages up the chain of command.
It seems fanciful there will not be a full public inquiry into the war and the glaring intelligence failures, which immediately preceded it, despite the best efforts of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fighting tooth and nail to prevent the establishment of one, while there is still fighting in Gaza, and there is a precarious ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – The topic of the largely Muslim grooming gangs that operated in working-class areas of the U.K. and in which thousands of white girls and barely pubescent young women were routinely sexually abused over a more than 30-year period is one of the most shameful in recent British history. The issue apparently had died down a little, until two interconnected events brought it rocketing back above the surface.
GB News, which has taken a clear moral stance and reported the assailants predominantly are men of Pakistani origin – although you would be hard-pressed sometimes to glean this from the reporting of mainstream outlets – reacted with consternation bordering on disgust when the Labour Party's Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips MP rejected a call for a public inquiry into grooming gangs in Oldham. This city near to Manchester in northern England was one of the main loci of the systematic abuse over a prolonged period of young white girls.
On learning of Phillips' rejection of an inquiry, Elon Musk, who is as much of a lightning rod for issues as is President Trump, decried the government's inaction, and attacked Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer into the bargain. Starmer was the director of public prosecutions between 2008-2013 and there is no doubt the grooming gangs issue would have crossed his desk. He didn't do anything about it then, was Musk's contention, and he wouldn't do anything about it now, up to and including the prevention of a thorough investigation into one of Britain's vilest episodes.
Musk calls for Tommy Robinson's release, amid YouTube crackdown on disseminating Peterson interview
The new co-head of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency was not finished with his tirade against the British establishment. Musk liked a post from Rebel News' Avi Yemini, who called Tommy Robinson a "political prisoner."
He also called for the prosecution of politicians or those in law enforcement who helped cover up decades of abuse.
Robinson was one of those people who most vociferously called out the evil which was the grooming gangs, and he has paid for this truth-telling with his liberty. This particular aspect took another turn as Jordan Peterson, who interviewed Robinson twice, attempted to repost the first time he did so on YouTube, found the Google-owned video platform had shadow-banned it. Peterson's daughter, Mikhaila, also took to X to say she'd tried to share her father's first interview with Robinson, only to find YouTube had disabled sharing and comments. "YouTube," she wrote, "you realize you're on the side of the rapists, right?"
The fallout did not end there, as social media has been on fire all day covering and responding to the grooming gangs story. GB News presenter Matt Goodwin posted on X saying he couldn't read some of what he'd posted on air "because it was too graphic." A former prosecutor within the Crown Prosecution Service, who worked under Starmer, made an astonishing admission. "Let me clarify an issue," he posted on X.
"I was told by some officers that Home Office circular 17/2008 had led others interpreting it as permitting them to allow a child, past the age of puberty, to continue engaging in sexual activity where the officer perceived them to understand the dangers."
As if the facts of these cases could not get worse, some fathers who managed to track down their daughters to these rape dens in an attempt to rescue them, not only found the police would not help them, but in at least two instances they were themselves arrested!
It isn't clear what will happen now, not just to Tommy Robinson, but to the U.K. too. The government is wildly unpopular, not just because of the grooming gang issue, which has been at least in the background for successive governments of all colors, but the issue is clearly coming to a head.
People in the U.K. will continue to lose trust in Starmer, with Musk's intervention in the long-running grooming gang scandal coming but a few short months after he baldly lied to the British people about the background of the attacker in Southport, who left three little girls dead after going on a demented stabbing spree at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party. The political and cultural elites have gaslit the British working class for decades, labeling them as far-Right thugs; with regard to the grooming gangs, perhaps they were on to something.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
One person was killed when a Tesla Cybertruck exploded directly in front of Trump International Hotel near the north end of the Las Vegas Strip Wednesday morning, and the incident is now being probed as a potential act of terrorism.
Video from numerous angles reveals the severity of the explosion and subsequent fire.
Fox News confirmed the blast is being investigated as a potential act of terror.
Elon Musk of Tesla said: "We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself.
"All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion."
KSNV-TV in Las Vegas reports: "A vehicle fire was first reported around 8:40 a.m. in the valet area of the hotel, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters.
"A Cybertruck pulled up to the front to the entrance when smoke started showing and there was an explosion.
"One person inside the vehicle was killed, according to McMahill. Authorities have not identified that person.
"Seven people suffered minor injuries as a result of the explosion, the sheriff added. Two of those people were taken to a hospital for treatment, according to Clark County Deputy Fire Chief Tommy Touchstone.
"There does not appear to be any further threat to the public, but McMahill acknowledged that because of the suspected terror attack in New Orleans, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police were taking precautions to check for anything else.
"It's still unclear what led to the explosion.
"Jeremy N. Schwartz, acting special agent in charge for the FBI's field office in Las Vegas, said agents are helping with the investigation but they did not have many answers as of yet."
Eric Trump, son of President-elect Donald Trump, said: "Earlier today, a reported electric vehicle fire occurred in the porte cochère of Trump Las Vegas.
"The safety and well-being of our guests and staff remain our top priority. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Las Vegas Fire Department and local law enforcement for their swift response and professionalism."
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo indicated his office is coordinating with Las Vegas police and partner agencies on the response, and said, "we will continue to ensure they have all necessary resources available."