This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Many Americans were stunned during the course of Joe Biden's administration in Washington by the aggressive censorship tactics used to suppress thought that was not necessarily wrong, but did not align with the Democrat talking points adopted by the White House.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has admitted to Congress that the Biden administration pressured him, including swearing at his employees and screaming at them, to censor what the Democrats didn't like.
Multitudes of conservative thought expressions simply were erased.
Alongside that was the stunning use by Biden of the power of the federal government to attack, through law enforcement and the courts, those whose ideologies differed from his.
An example would be the legal assaults that were created against President Trump, including one that shared virtually identical circumstances as the evidence against Biden. The cases involved a former president, or in Biden's case a former vice president at the time, having government documents.
Trump was attacked with multiple felonies; Biden got a free pass.
But now those two campaigns are going to be under review themselves, as two of Trump's executive orders, issued immediately after his inauguration, address the concerns the American public has about them.
The order also instructs the attorney general, expected to be Trump nominee Pam Bondi, to work with other executive agency chiefs to "investigate how federal government actions over the four years of the Biden administration could have infringed on free speech," the report said.
The logical result will be, the report said, "remedial actions" based on the findings.
The result of the Biden censorship agenda included pressure from the government, and then action by private actors, including social media companies whose officials simply demonetized or even suspended accounts for those individuals and groups, including news organizations, that reported facts unfriendly to Biden and his schemes.
The topics targeted included anything that questioned the COVID-19 shots he mandated for millions, and which now are known to have included possible side effects up to and including death, any questions about the schemes that influenced the 2020 election, such as the FBI's election interference actions, and more.
The report noted, "Facebook-founding Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently echoed that accusation, saying senior Biden administration officials pressured his employees to inappropriately 'censor' content during the COVID-19 pandemic. Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform that used to be known as Twitter, X, has accused the FBI of illegally coercing Twitter before his tenure to suppress a story about Hunter Biden.
Another was specific to the weaponization programs.
"The American people have witnessed the previous administration engage in a systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents, weaponizing the legal force of numerous Federal law enforcement agencies and the Intelligence Community against those perceived political opponents in the form of investigations, prosecutions, civil enforcement actions, and other related actions," it said.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The echoes of President Donald Trump's inauguration speech still were reverberating in the Capitol Rotunda when he released a list of priorities, of which the first is to "Make America Safe Again."
The extent of his plans is unlikely to miss very many portions of American life.
"President Trump will take bold action to secure our border and protect American communities. This includes ending Biden's catch-and-release policies, reinstating Remain in Mexico, building the wall, ending asylum for illegal border crossers, cracking down on criminal sanctuaries, and enhancing vetting and screening of aliens," the White House said.
"President Trump's deportation operation will address the record border crossings of criminal aliens under the prior administration," the strategy explained. "The president is suspending refugee resettlement, after communities were forced to house large and unsustainable populations of migrants, straining community safety and resources."
Further, "The Armed Forces, including the National Guard, will engage in border security, which is national security, and will be deployed to the border to assist existing law enforcement personnel."
Mexico drug cartels also were put on notice, as they, including the "dangerous Tren de Aragua" criminals from Venezuela, are being designated "foreign terrorist organizations." Trump is to use the Alien Enemies Act to remove them.
And the Department of Justice now will be seeking "the death penalty as the appropriate punishment for heinous crimes against humanity, including those who kill law enforcement officers and illegal migrants who maim and murder Americans."
Trump's second point is to "Make American affordable and energy dominant again."
Many of these agenda points likely will be addressed by executive orders first, with congressional action to follow if needed in some situations.
"The president will unleash American energy by ending Biden's policies of climate extremism, streamlining permitting, and reviewing for rescission all regulations that impose undue burdens on energy production and use, including mining and processing of non-fuel minerals," the White House announced. "President Trump's energy actions empower consumer choice in vehicles, showerheads, toilets, washing machines, lightbulbs and dishwashers."
The Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration had, in fact, pursue a wild disarray of limits on ordinary appliances, such as gas stoves, in pursuit of their green ideology.
"President Trump will declare an energy emergency and use all necessary resources to build critical infrastructure. President Trump's energy policies will end leasing to massive wind farms that degrade our natural landscapes and fail to serve American energy consumers. President Trump will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord," the outline said. "All agencies will take emergency measures to reduce the cost of living. President Trump will announce the America First Trade Policy. America will no longer be beholden to foreign organizations for our national tax policy, which punishes American businesses."
Third is to "Drain the swamp."
"The president will usher a Golden Age for America by reforming and improving the government bureaucracy to work for the American people. He will freeze bureaucrat hiring except in essential areas to end the onslaught of useless and overpaid DEI activists buried into the federal workforce. He will pause burdensome and radical regulations not yet in effect that Biden announced," the plan confirmed.
"President Trump is announcing an unprecedented slate of executive orders for rescission. President Trump is planning for improved accountability of government bureaucrats. The American people deserve the highest-quality service from people who love our country. The president will also return federal workers to work, as only 6% of employees currently work in person. President Trump is taking swift action to end the weaponization of government against political rivals and ordering all document retention as required by law. President Trump is also ending the unconstitutional censorship by the federal government. No longer will government employees pick and require the erasure of entirely true speech. On the president's direction, the State Department will have an America-First foreign policy."
Further, the statement addressed "American values."
"The president will establish male and female as biological reality and protect women from radical gender ideology."
And, "American landmarks will be named to appropriately honor our nation's history."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The federal government quietly has discontinued an "interdiction" program that demanded travelers allow agents to rummage through their luggage.
The extent of the program's reach was revealed in a video posted online by the Institute for Justice a few months ago.
The video has gotten millions of views and that organization now is suing over the activity.
It also confirmed in a new announcement that the Drug Enforcement Administration quietly, last week, confirmed it was shutting down the program, called the Transportation Interdiction Program.
"The program's 'consensual encounters' with travelers were suspended by the Department of Justice in November after the release of a critical Office of Inspector General (OIG) report. That report was in response to a video showing a traveler's confrontation with DEA agents released by the Institute for Justice (IJ) in July," the organization explained.
"We welcome this much-needed policy change, which will help protect the rights of travelers from the abuses so many have suffered while flying. TIP encouraged DEA agents to prey on people who were flying with cash, even though doing so is perfectly legal," said IJ lawyer Dan Alban.
"But agency policies can be changed at any time, by any administration. We once again call on Congress to pass the FAIR Act to permanently reform federal civil forfeiture laws that encourage and enable this bad behavior.
"FAIR would end the profit incentive, close the equitable sharing loophole, and guarantee every property owner receives their day in court by ending so-called administrative forfeitures," he said.
It was DEA chief Anne Milgram who issued the memo, explaining the DEA considered the effectiveness of the program and found it resulted in few arrests or drug cases.
"The 'consensual encounters' used by the DEA agents at airports and other transportation hubs were often based only on a flyer's purchase of a last-minute ticket, hardly a sign that someone is engaged in criminal conduct," the IJ explained.
The IJ's video featured David C., who recorded the agent taking his baggage without permission and searching it.
The IJ said its legal action is against the DEA and Transportation Security Administration over the government's airport seizure and forfeiture practices.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
California's problem with fires, where wildland blazes already have scorched some 40,000 acres and consumed 12,000 homes and other buildings in Los Angeles, has gotten worse.
There now is a fire that has hit a lithium battery storage site in Monterey County, and there are concerns it will jeopardize California's power grid.
A report from RedState explained, "There's a huge fire Thursday night at a lithium battery plant in northern Monterey County. What's a little lithium smoke in the air in the name of progress, right?
"Highway 1 is closed and evacuations were ordered in Moss Landing and the Elkhorn Slough area after a major fire erupted Thursday afternoon at a battery storage plant in Moss Landing in northern Monterey County," the report explained.
RedState's comments continued, "It all seems as if it's almost timed to coincide with the return of Donald Trump's return to power. The failure of progressive leadership has been exposed in a way that it has never been before as disastrous wildfires wipe out entire neighborhoods in deep-blue Los Angeles, a result not only of natural forces like unusually high winds and dry conditions but by the epic breakdown of any real leadership in the Golden State and the misplaced priorities of elected officials like LA Mayor Karen Bass and camera-addicted Gov. Gavin Newsom."
Monterey County spokesman Nicholas Pasculli confirmed the fire was raging out of control and some 1,500 people were ordered evacuated from nearby residential areas.
The report said the plant is located on the site of a now-shuttered 1950s-era PG&E Moss Landing natural gas plant visible for its huge smokestacks near Moss Landing Harbor.
The battery storage unit provides power to PG&E.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
House Speaker Mike Johnson says that Joe Biden could just as well have skipped giving a "farewell" speech to America.
Biden's speech Wednesday boasted of what he claimed were his accomplishments, although some of the claims were grounded in shaky facts.
Johnson explained the speech wasn't needed.
Johnson cited the landslide Electoral College and popular vote victories by President-elect Donald Trump in the November election.
Trump is, he said, "strong," and Biden is "weak."
The American people, in fact, "just answered" questions about what they want.
And they already know his legacy: "Wide open border … Skyrocketing cost of living … terrible foreign policy … weaponization of the DOJ … lawfare."
And, too, there was the coverup of "his cognitive decline."
"These are objective facts," Johnson said.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Democrats are a minority, by a handful of votes, in the U.S. House at this point. So they don't always get their way.
Which some might consider a good thing, as 145 of them voted on Thursday to protect sex offender illegal aliens from deportation.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reports legislation that would "require the deportation of illegal migrants who commit sexual offenses or domestic violence" was adopted 274-145.
The plan was supported by just 61 House Democrats, and opposed by 145.
The proposal, from Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., also would bar entry for immigrants convicted of sex crimes.
"No family should endure the heartbreak the families of Laken Riley, Mollie Tibbetts, Karina Vetrano, and Maddie Hines have experienced. Every woman and every girl deserves to feel safe in their own community," Mace, explained, according to the report.
"The radical left doesn't agree with this. One hundred and forty-five liberals in Congress love illegal immigrant rapists and murders. House Republicans united to expand protections for women and put the safety of Americans first."
Mace said the issue wasn't complicated, "keeping criminal illegal aliens out of our country and off our streets is just common sense."
The plan, moving forward in spite of Democrat opposition, now goes to the Senate.
"Mace's bill previously passed the House 266 to 158 during the last Congress in September 2024 with just 51 Democratic lawmakers voting for the legislation. The bill died in the Senate under Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's leadership, forcing Mace to reintroduce the legislation cracking down on illegal immigration on Jan. 3," the Daily Caller News Foundation documented.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Pam Bondi, the longtime Florida attorney general nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to be the nation's top cop, took the concept of the politicization of the Department of Justice directly to Democrats during her confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
Specifically, it was Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse who was described by an online commentary at Twitchy as having "stepped on his own rake" while questioning her.
He brought up the incorrect law-enforcement concept of starting with a name, then hunting for a crime for that name.
That concept commonly has been attributed to Stalinist-era Soviet jurist Andrey Vyshinsky, Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria or even Stalin himself, who formulated the ideology of "Give me the man and I will give you the crime."
Whitehouse said, "It would not be appropriate for a prosecutor to start with a name and look for a crime? It's a prosecutor's job to start with a crime and look for a name, correct?"
Bondi's response, "Senator, I think that is the whole problem with the weaponization that we've seen the last four years and what's been happening with Donald Trump."
In fact, Democrats have engaged in a years-long lawfare campaign against Trump in which he was charged for his opinions and statements after the 2020 election, he was charged for having government documents, even though Joe Biden was given a pass for the same circumstances, he was accused of fraud in his businesses even though no one was defrauded, he was accused of business reporting felonies for calling legal expenses legal expenses. He even was accused of running an organized crime scheme.
Bondi explains that when allegations are made, the evidence is reviewed and the law applied – equally to all.
When Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., raised the question of "birthright" citizenship, she scolded him that she was not there "to do his homework," and again for cutting her off.
She says she'll meet and discuss the issue of birthright citizenship.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Planned Parenthood, the biggest player in America's abortion industry, is being accused of violating federal tax law by helping Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the Democrat nominees in last year's presidential race, in Florida.
Fox News reports a complaint has been filed by the organization "40 Days for Life" with the Internal Revenue Service charging the abortion corporation provided office space to the Democrats.
That would violate the restrictions to which the organization agreed for being given a tax-exempt status.
"40 Days" is one of the nation's leading pro-life organizations, and it contacted the IRS just weeks ago with its information about "potentially prohibited political activities that may impact the tax-exempt status" of Planned Parenthood in Florida.
"This is one of the many violations we've seen Planned Parenthood do, because we're physically at these abortion facilities, holding peaceful vigils and offering medical alternatives to abortion. And so because we're out there, you know, at over 1700 locations, we see a lot of things that Planned Parenthood does," "40 Days" spokesman Shawn Carney said in an interview with Fox.
Fox News Digital said it did not get a response to its inquiries of Planned Parenthood Florida.
"This was clearly noticeable. They were giving out flyers that said Tim Walz Tuesdays, which doesn't sound like the greatest time in the world, but nevertheless, they were promoting all these events of hosting Walt Harris campaign events and providing their space to do that, which, of course, they did not do for the Republicans. And you just can't do that as a 501c3. This is very, very basic," the pro-life organization explained.
Carney said his group hopes that the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump will review the facts, given that this is the second offense that has been reported.
"Last summer, Carney's group filed a separate complaint about Planned Parenthood's mobile abortion bus that was operating a few miles from where the Democratic National Convention was taking place," the Fox report said.
"The pro-abortion angle of running on celebrating abortion was a dismal failure for the Harris-Waltz campaign, but when we filed that, we did get a response that they had received it, and we are hoping and pushing the Trump administration to take up that investigation, because now we have two violations, both of which were obviously against the Trump administration and were heavily politically partisan towards the Democrats, which, of course, as nonprofits, you just can't do," Carney charged.
The complaint notes that the abortion company's actions served "as a clear indicator of political endorsement or opposition of particular candidates and parties."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Raging wildfires in and around Los Angeles that still are far from controlled have left behind still-untabulated deaths and damages: 24 lives lost already and billions of dollars in burned-up homes and businesses.
But the lawmakers in California have picked a different situation to address in a special legislative session on which they have just worked: Fighting President Trump.
They've adopted a plan to spend $50 million fighting to have their state and the nation go in a different direction from what Trump has chosen.
Washington Examiner reports the Democrat-majority legislature met in a special session just days ago.
They came out with the $50 million spending package "to resist" Trump.
"The state legislature is in a session aimed at combatting the incoming Trump administration's proposed policies regarding illegal immigration, among other issues," the report explained.
The spending allows $25 million for the state to pursue legal complaints against the federal government and another $25 million to defend against the deportation of illegal aliens.
Scott Wiener, a Democrat state senator, explained the lawmakers have cemented "California's readiness to serve as a bulwark against Trump's extremist agenda."
This is even though Trump's "extremist agenda" has been adopted by a vast majority of American voters, who chose him over the Democrat party's presidential nominee in November.
Republicans in California pointed out Democrats made their "slush fund" a priority when Los Angeles, literally, is burning up.
"At a time when California should be laser-focused on responding to the devastating wildfires in LA, Democrat lawmakers' priority is creating a $50 million slush fund to hire government lawyers for hypothetical fights against the federal government and to defend criminal illegal immigrants from being returned to their home countries," said a social media comment from Rep. James Gallagher, a Republican in the state assembly.
"The disconnect between what Californians need and what Democrats are focused on is astounding."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Department of Defense reportedly ignored data showing a high degree of herd immunity to COVID-19 among military service members, clearing the path for tyrannical enforcement of an ineffective, unproven and hazardous vaccination mandate.
First reported in December, a series of eight interim reports provided by a whistleblower reveals the Department of Defense's participation in a longitudinal SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus) seroprevalence study of 29,000 military service members between May 2020 and June 2021. To avoid being released outside of DOD, each document is marked "For Official Use Only" or "Controlled Unclassified Information."
As noted in the Gateway Pundit report, "A seroprevalence study can be a helpful indicator of the development of herd immunity, which occurs when a large portion of a population becomes immune to a disease through infection or vaccination, making it difficult to spread."
Thanks to the whistleblower, the public is now aware that the military likely achieved herd immunity as early as June 2021, months prior to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's now-rescinded 2021 COVID-19 shot mandate. Tens of thousands of service members were negatively affected, and treating the data on military herd immunity seriously could have resulted in a decision not to impose the vaccine mandate, which unnecessarily exposed thousands to a problematic vaccine they didn't need, while forcing many more out of the military for refusing "the jab."
WorldNetDaily interviewed Nick Kupper, a retired Air Force veteran who experienced the COVID-19 era while in service and is now a member-elect of the Arizona House of Representatives, set to assume office on Tuesday, Jan. 13.
Long before the military's rollout of the COVID-19 shot mandate, Kupper was familiar with tests to detect the presence of antibodies in the blood. He had already used such testing to acquire medical exemptions for a handful of vaccines required by the Air Force. "Although I was never against vaccines, I had the right amount of antibodies for some of them, so I didn't feel the need to put something in my body if I didn't need it," he told WND.
Kupper suspects he may have had COVID-19 in July 2020, but admitted he was not interested in being tested for the virus at this time. Coincidentally, in the months to follow, he donated blood at a facility that also tested for COVID-19 antibodies. He had none.
However, following a short period of illness with a typical COVID symptoms like body aches in January 2021, COVID antibodies were indeed present in his blood the next time he donated in February. Donating blood in May, his blood tested positive for antibodies once again. Seeking another antibody test in July to quantify the presence of neutralizing antibodies in his blood, he discovered that he had "a ton." A third blood test confirmed the same.
With Defense Secretary Austin's shot mandate coming into play in August 2021, Kupper went to an immunologist to begin the process of seeking an exemption. Previously, he said, medical exemptions had only required evidence of immunity based on serologic tests or documented infection. But for the so-called COVID-19 vaccination, he was shocked to discover that he would not be provided with an exemption.
"My bosses won't let me [grant an exemption]," Kupper was told by the immunologist. Added Kupper, "He was the one person on the entire base who's qualified to make that decision, but he wasn't allowed to do so."
With that, in September 2021, he filed for a religious accommodation request. Like thousands of other service members, the request was denied and he was set to be separated. Coincidentally, on the same day he was ordered to separate from the Air Force, Kupper was given a letter of reprimand for sharing his story with Tucker Carlson . Less than a week later, due to a legal injunction for Air Force members, he was able to retire after nearly 19 years of honorable service.
In a worst-case scenario, according to the agency's own Interim Report #8, DOD should have been made aware that both the seroprevalence rate and presence of neutralizing antibodies in service members was on a clear path to herd immunity sometime between June 2021 and November 2021. Yet the findings of the DOD's study weren't shared publicly until August 2023.
Kupper was not surprised, he said, considering it "par for the course of everything DOD was doing at the time." More than that, he said, "It pisses me off." Admittedly, he is most frustrated about "how the government, military and supposed leaders can disobey the law and refuse to right the wrongs they've done."
To retrieve more information related to the Department of Defense's SARS-CoV-2 Seroprevalence Study, this reporter submitted a Freedom of Information Act request on Dec. 18. A case number has been assigned, but an estimated completion date has not been provided.