$38M in Pandemic Relief Aid Sent to Dead People

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$38M in Pandemic Relief Aid Sent to Dead People

(By Brett Rowland, The Center Square) Data scientists from the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee identified nearly $38 million in potentially improper or fraudulent pandemic loans were obtained using Social Security Numbers of dead people.

The loans were made through both the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and Paycheck Protection Program.

Pandemic Response Accountability Committee Chairman Michael Horowitz testified in February before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability that PRAC used a verification process to determine that 69,000 questionable Social Security Numbers were used to obtain $5.4 billion in pandemic loans and that another 175,000 questionable social security numbers were used in applications that were not paid.

As a follow up to a January report, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee said it took a closer look at those Social Security Numbers that belonged to people who had died.

“Using data available from DNP’s matching process and date of death information, the PRAC’s data scientists found that 3,222 of the 15,307 deceased individuals’ SSNs were used on COVID-19 EIDL/PPP applications across three analytic scenarios,” according to the report.

In some cases, these COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and Paycheck Protection Program applications were submitted after the SSN owner’s date of death; in other cases the applications were submitted both before and after the SSN owner’s date of death and in some cases the applications were submitted before the SSN owner’s date of death, but were paid after the date of death, according to the report.

PRAC data scientists determined that funds were disbursed in connection with applications using 305 of the 3,222 SSNs, totaling nearly $38 million in potentially improper or fraudulent payments between the two programs.

“The work of the PACE makes clear why sustained data analytics capability, beyond the PRAC’s sunset and the COVID-19 pandemic, would be a gamechanger for the oversight community,” Horowitz said in a statement. “Retaining an antifraud analytics center will ensure the federal government has the resources it needs to conduct effective oversight of all federal expenditures.”

Horowitz testified in February that federal agencies failed to use some of the tools at their disposal to prevent fraud, including the Do Not Pay list. The U.S. Department of the Treasury had set up the list of suspicious payees who should trigger additional screening. He said advance screening with the U.S. Department of the Treasury Do Not Pay list could have saved taxpayer money.

‘Ambitious’ Biden Regulation Would ‘Force’ Most Americans Out of Gas Cars, Critics Say

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‘Ambitious’ Biden Regulation Would ‘Force’ Most Americans Out of Gas Cars, Critics Say

(By Casey Harper, The Center Square) Will the Biden administration’s latest energy regulations force Americans out of gas vehicles and into more expensive electric cars? Lawmakers in the U.S. House held a hearing Wednesday tackling that key question.

The hearing, held by the Oversight Committee’s Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee, focused on newly proposed Environmental Protection Agency tailpipe emission rules that the federal agency itself called “ambitious.”

The EPA projects the proposed regulation would mean that fully electric vehicles make up two thirds of all new “light duty” and 46% of new medium-duty vehicle sales by 2032.

The EPA, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, said in a news release that the rules would improve air quality and would avoid “nearly 10 billion tons of CO2 emissions.” The rule changes still faces a lengthy public comment and approval process as well as avoiding an override from Congress after it is implemented.

“By proposing the most ambitious pollution standards ever for cars and trucks, we are delivering on the Biden-Harris Administration’s promise to protect people and the planet, securing critical reductions in dangerous air and climate pollution and ensuring significant economic benefits like lower fuel and maintenance costs for families,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said.

The rule proposal was a focal point of scrutiny from Republicans during the hearing Wednesday.

“The rules would require an incredibly rapid EV transition that industry, the grid, and consumer demand cannot keep pace with,” U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, who chairs the subcommittee, said during the hearing. “Further, the critical mineral supply chain is already under stress. Does EPA even know whether there is enough raw material to meet its proposed standards?”

Fallon pointed out he does not oppose electric vehicles, only the federal effort to rapidly replace gas vehicles with them via government regulation. He also said EPA officials were invited to testify but declined.

“We hope this hearing will sound an alarm about the costs these two rules would inflict on American consumers, American manufacturers, the American economy, and American national security,” Fallon said.

Some witnesses pushed back against the EPA’s claims and poked holes in the assumptions about electric vehicles.

“The EPA defines EVs as zero-emission vehicles. However, EVs are not truly zero-emission vehicles,” Josh Roe, CEO of the Kansas Corn Growers Association, said during his testimony. “While they do not have a tailpipe, you still need to account for the emissions that come from the power grid. The U.S. power grid is currently 60% powered by coal and natural gas. Current and proposed EPA rules do not account for these upstream emissions when calculating compliance, let alone the additional emissions and toxic pollution generated by mining rare earth minerals around the world.”

Roe pointed to the added cost for Americans, especially farmers and those in rural areas.

“EVs are $10,000-25,000 more expensive than comparable internal combustion engine vehicles, placing them out of reach for many consumers including those in rural America where median incomes are lower than that of urban areas,” he said.

Critics say the new rule is the latest in what they call the Biden administration’s sustained war on American energy and fossil fuel companies. They point to Biden’s discouragement of pipeline investment and oil permitting while simultaneously calling on other nations to produce more oil.

“The administration is on a whole-of-government mission to address climate change, no matter the law or the choices of consumers,” Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, told The Center Square, adding that the rule changes would “force everyone into electric vehicles.”

The Biden administration is standing by the rules, one of several changes to implement a more progressive, green agenda at the federal level.

“These ambitious standards are readily achievable thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, which is already driving historic progress to build more American-made electric cars and secure America’s global competitiveness,” Regan said.

GOP Lawmaker Set to File Contempt Charge against Sec. State Blinken

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GOP Lawmaker Set to File Contempt Charge against Sec. State Blinken

(Headline USA) In response to another Biden official hampering Congressional oversight, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is prepared to move forward a legislative effort to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress next week if he does not release a classified cable sent from U.S. diplomats in Kabul shortly before the chaotic and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told reporters Monday that the House Foreign Affairs Committee could vote on the contempt charges at a hearing May 24.

The State Department has said it is trying to provide Congress with “appropriate” information on the cable while also protecting its employees. The so-called dissent channel has for decades provided a way for diplomats to discreetly voice concerns about strategy. They are automatically classified to protect the identities of the Foreign Service officers.

McCaul has battled with the Biden administration for months over gaining access to the messages as part of a larger Republican inquiry into the disastrous and deadly 2021 withdrawal under the Biden administration’s watch. It has raised the prospect of a constitutional showdown on the ability of the legislative branch to conduct oversight.

The State Department has previously briefed McCaul on it version of the substance of the cables, but he said he was not satisfied.

“I want to see the original content, and I also want to see the secretary’s response,” McCaul told reporters. “It’s a state of mind in the embassy at the time, and to have 23 dissenters is very significant.”

The vast majority of the 123 cables sent since 1971, when the dissent channel was created during the Vietnam War, have remained classified, according to the National Security Archives at George Washington University. The State Department has long protected the cables from being released publicly.

McCaul said he expected the State Department to respond to his previous efforts with a letter Thursday. He expected it to be a “counter-offer.”

A contempt of Congress charge would require a full committee vote before going to the House floor. With Republicans’ slim majority in the chamber, it is possible the vote to hold Blinken in contempt could pass the chamber. The charge does not carry the force of prosecution, but it serves as a referral to the Department of Justice to consider charges.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Biden-Era Funding Is Skewing Scientific Research Ever-Wokeward

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Biden-Era Funding Is Skewing Scientific Research Ever-Wokeward

(By Steve Miller, RealClear Wire) While pushing record spending for research and development, the Biden administration is working not just to advance science but also progressive ideology. In line with the administration’s “whole of government” commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, recent grants and requests for proposals from the National Science Foundation encompass research that:

Critics, including some scientists, claim such projects are outside the scope of the National Science Foundation, whose $10 billion annual budget is one of the government’s prime mechanisms for supporting basic research in the non-medical sciences. Through 11,000 awards each year to academic and corporate researchers, the NSF sets the agenda for inquiry in a wide variety of fields including computer science, environmental science, mathematics, engineering and the social and psychological sciences.

“People should realize that [we] are paying tax money to fund science that should be going to help improve people’s lives,” said Leif Rasmussen, a research Ph.D. student at Northwestern University who has analyzed NSF research grant funding in a white paper titled, “Increasing Politicization and Homogeneity in Scientific Funding.”

“That money isn’t always going to that [and] is instead pushing an agenda in which people have to use the right words,” Rasmussen adds.

His research shows that the emergence of politically driven science did not begin with the Biden administration. He found that 3% of successfully executed NSF grants in 1990 included indicative terms such as “equity,” “inclusion,” or “diversity.” In 2020, such words appeared in 30% of grants. And the number rose to 36% of all executed grants in 2021, the first year of the Biden administration and the last year he has numbers for.

“These types of grants claim diversity is inherently beneficial to scientific progress, but ironically, that statement has not come anywhere close to being validated scientifically,” Rasmussen added in an email. He noted that the “NSF reviews are conducted by a community of academic scientists and so the community is still responsible for the ideological turn.”

An NSF spokeswoman, Martha Vilarchao Klinck, defended the foundation’s DEI efforts.

“For more than two decades, NSF has been engaged in a concerted effort to address racial disparity,” she said in an email. “NSF’s extensive portfolio of funded activities aimed at broadening participation in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] provides a strong foundation for such efforts. We continue to work with the STEM community, government agencies and other stakeholders to better understand the barriers and how best to support efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM.”

The increasing politicization of NSF grants echoes the embrace of progressive ideology across the sciences, including the medical sector,  a focus of earlier RealClearInvestigations reporting.

Many medical schools now require a DEI statement from applicants, and some course studies begin with the preconception of implicit bias in the healthcare system. That assumption is embedded in grants from the National Institutes of Health, the primary source of federal funding.

“There is plenty of research that can no longer get funded by the NIH due to political correctness,” said Michael Bailey, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University. Sexuality, for example, is very difficult to research objectively, as progressive definitions blur distinctions between male and female.

“Both political sides have been less concerned about the truth over the years, but these days, the left is far more deranged and destructive than the right,” Bailey said. “And that doesn’t mean it can’t go the other way at some point.”

Among the aims of NSF funding and programs is a social goal that goes beyond increasing scientific knowledge: boosting the participation of minorities and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – an endeavor the federal government has spent millions of dollars pursuing since the early 80s, when encouraging girls and young women in the STEM disciplines was the focus.

Government-funded research for science has long been considered the most objective way to learn about the world and its workings. In the past, private funding sources have delivered results influenced by outside interests.

In 1953, under increasing scrutiny for the alleged link between tobacco and cancer, the tobacco industry funded studies that, it insisted, showed the cancer link was tenuous. In 1967, the sugar industry did the same thing as public health officials probed the link between sugar and heart disease. Both industries were skewered publicly and legally for their financial connection to the studies, which were later discredited.

In today’s echoes of the tobacco and sugar industries, publicly funded research derives results favorable to supporters ranging from top-notch medical schools to the federal government to political advocates. Research that aligns with a political stance is celebrated as “the science” for validating activist claims of existential threats from a climate crisis or the contested benefits of “gender-affirming” care. Such research is often rooted in assertions of systemic or institutional “racism” espoused mostly by progressives.

A RealClearInvestigations review of advertised research grants and funded projects over the past three decades finds that while purely scientific research continues, ideology continues a steady advance into many programs. The Biden administration has issued two executive orders, part of its “whole of government” approach to addressing self-defined inequities in federal government programs. Both ordered federal agencies to advance plans to address “underserved” communities, and both assume entrenched racial bias in the federal system.

The policies extend across the federal government’s spectrum, touching scientific research administrated by all executive agencies.

For research pitches to the federal Bureau of Land Management, the project seeking funding “must assist BLM in meeting … one of the following priorities of the Biden-Harris Administration,” the grant notice states, listing Biden’s executive orders, including addressing climate change, advancing racial equity, and employing union labor.

“These academic forms of reparations are a good glimpse of what priorities are,” said John Sailer, a fellow at the National Association of Scholars, a conservative advocacy group. “They see race as a frontier to be transformed and utilized as a tool for their social goal.”

The NSF funds many studies regarding climate change, and almost all assume it is manmade and requires vigorous action to address. Duke University, for example, has issued a “climate commitment” to “address the climate crisis by creating sustainable and equitable solutions.” The North Carolina school today is offering a number of NSF-funded grants in keeping with its platform, including proposed research that will “contribute equitable solutions to climate change mitigation” – linking the research funding to carrying out work that supports the university’s climate concerns.

There is notable pushback. While meteorology and other topics related to the climate are worthy research pursuits, the research “should not push climate change” with a foregone conclusion, said John Staddon, professor emeritus of psychology at Duke University and author of “Science in an Age of Unreason,” which examines how social causes have impacted science. “Yet the university will push faculty members to get research in that area.”

In an email, Duke research spokesman Karl Bates said, “I’ve been writing about the scientific findings and trends since 1990 and it’s very real. Any controversy … is manufactured. I’m confident I speak for the university when I say we find these ‘teach both sides’ arguments about climate to be unpersuasive.”

Critics argue that the grants approved only tell part of the story of social justice diktats in research: There is the research not executed because it does not align with the prevailing narrative. Studies of correlations between race and IQ, for example, are nearly verboten.

“Most science is boring and people don’t get emotional about talking about protein folding or battery efficiency, and that allows science to progress,” said Stephen Hsu, who was forced out of his job as senior vice president for research and innovation at Michigan State University in 2020 after he commented on research regarding natural intelligence and the possibility of biological traits in populations. “When you get into these areas that are emotionally charged, all bets are off and you can have one paradigm dominate, and that field doesn’t make any progress.”

Hsu, who remains a professor at MSU, said funding for research on differences in natural intelligence among populations “is sensitive … no one can get money to study the genetic basis for intelligence.”

While the science research system worked relatively well for decades, “scientists believe they are intellectually independent, and they can be,” said J. Scott Turner, a biologist and emeritus professor of biology with the State University of New York in Syracuse. “Now, when this funding is overseen by certain entities, they want certain results,” he said.

This equation, Turner said, also casts doubt on what should be scientifically derived information.

“It’s a political game now. The death of science should be a source of skepticism. A reality check on government programs is now gone, it’s just not there anymore.”

Rubio Publishes Vast COVID-19 Report: ‘Beijing Hid the Truth’

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Rubio Publishes Vast COVID-19 Report: ‘Beijing Hid the Truth’

(By Philip Wegmann, RealClear Wire) A new report by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., concludes that “a serious biosafety incident” in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic. But the exhaustive study, which took two years to complete and includes vast translations of original Chinese language source material, reaches another, perhaps more troubling, verdict: They knew.

The document obtained early by RealClearPolitics paints a picture of a Chinese Communist Party so eager to make advancements in bioscientific research that officials in Beijing willfully and repeatedly ignored known safety shortcomings at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as early as July 2019. Then, once the pandemic that would eventually kill 7 million people started, they launched a “cover-up.”

Chinese officials have consistently called the lab leak hypothesis a lie, insisting that the theory is politically motivated and has no scientific basis. The Rubio report details, however, that as early as February 2020 China had launched a comprehensive effort to strengthen biosafety measures at the Wuhan lab and facilities around the country through new, stricter regulations.

“Just as Beijing was denying the possibility that COVID-19 came from a lab on the world stage,” according to the document authored by the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, “it was warning its own officials of such risks and rolling out new measures to prevent lab accidents.” Additionally, as China downplayed the danger, or even took steps to hide it and its origin from the world, they were quietly moving to protect themselves.

Scientists associated with the People’s Liberation Army filed a patent for a COVID-19 vaccine in February of 2020. According to research methodology reviewed by Rubio, they began work four months earlier in November of 2019. Beijing did not alert the World Health Organization of the outbreak of a virus “of unknown etiology” until January of 2020.

“The implications are impossible to ignore,” Rubio said in a statement. “Beijing hid the truth. This report reinforces the need to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable.”

The White House has repeatedly voiced frustration with China for its lack of transparency, and early in his tenure, President Biden ordered the director of national intelligence to conduct a 90-day inquiry into the origins of the virus. The intelligence community, however, was divided on the question when they turned in their findings in August of 2021, concluding that “a more definitive explanation” of the origin of the virus would “most likely” not be possible without cooperation from China.

The administration, as well as the World Health Organization, have repeatedly called on China to share health data from the early days of the pandemic that would further scientific investigation into the COVID-19 origins. The Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did upload some data related to samples taken at the nearby Wuhan wet market to the global virus database but removed it shortly afterward.

A classified report by the Department of Energy, which oversees numerous biological research labs in the U.S., concluded “with low confidence” in February of this year that the virus most likely came from the lab in Wuhan.

Until that assessment was made public, Republican lawmakers including Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton were widely derided for spreading misinformation when they entertained the possibility that the pandemic could’ve begun anywhere other than the animal “wet market” in Wuhan. The Washington Post, for instance, reported in February of 2020 that Cotton was spreading a “debunked” and “fringe” “conspiracy theory.”

Behind the scenes that month, Chinese officials were implementing new directives governing research facilities with the stated goal being to “earnestly advance the biosecurity of the state, and further strengthen the biosafety management of laboratories.”

The effort to shore up safety standards was what some might call a whole-of-government response, extending even to the Chinese president himself. As China was suppressing online speculation about the origins of the virus, the report details how Xi Jinping “drew a clear link” in a February speech to the CCP Politburo “between the political security of the party-state, public health, and better regulation of biosafety and biosecurity.”

The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology issued additional regulations for a second time in February to establish “a long-lasting mechanism to prevent and control biosafety risks.”

If Beijing believed that the virus had occurred naturally, rather than as the result of a lab leak, which they consistently denied, the report states “it is unclear why they took time to address biosafety conditions” at research laboratories studying coronaviruses.

The Rubio report speculates that the vast lack of transparency from Beijing during the early days of the pandemic until now stems from a simple cause: “extreme embarrassment.” To confirm that the virus emerged from a lab, the document concludes, would represent “existential crisis for the CCP and therefore must be avoided at all costs.”

Beijing could handle the fallout if the virus originated naturally because, after all, spillover from the failure to properly regulate wet markets “is a crisis that the CCP has weathered before.” According to the Rubio report, “there’s no reason to believe that they could not survive it again.”

But a once-in-a-century pandemic brought on by risky research, conducted in order to showcase Beijing’s advancements in the biosciences, is another matter.

“When one further considers that this state-run laboratory was built to showcase China’s growing scientific prowess, and at least some segment of its research involved state secrets,” the report concludes, “it is not hard to imagine the extreme embarrassment and sensitivity that such a scenario would elicit in CCP leaders, even if the accident had not precipitated a pandemic.”

Democrats Use OKC Bombing as Political Prop to Smear Conservatives

Ken Silva
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Democrats Use OKC Bombing as Political Prop to Smear Conservatives

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., made a baseless comparison between the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 2020 alleged militia plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor.

“We’ve had a lot of right-wing terrorism that’s tried to imitate [OKC bomber Timothy] McVeigh, or follow along the ideological tracks he set out,” Ivey said. “In fact, I believe it was [McVeigh’s accomplice, Terry Nichols] who was connected to the Michigan Militia, which was also connected to the same group that tried to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.”

This is false. Nichols, who is serving life imprisonment for helping McVeigh build a truck bomb, is a Michigan native, but neither he nor McVeigh were ever members of the Michigan Militia—and the Michigan Militia was not involved in the plot to kidnap Whitmer.

Moreover, McVeigh has little in common with right-wing dissidents involved in the Michigan plot or Jan. 6. Indeed, McVeigh was a deranged psychopath who participated in war crimes during the Gulf War, consorted with literal Nazis and federal informants, and exhibited signs of mental illness—telling people around him that government planted a microchip in his posterior.

Ivey seems to have taken his mistaken facts from the disgraced Zoom masturbator Jeffrey Toobin, who made the same false claim in his recently published book about OKC and the Jan. 6 protests. Headline USA has published two reviews of Toobin’s error-ridden book—one debunking false information about Jan. 6, and another one exposing his whitewashing of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s role in suppressing information about the OKC case.

However, there is a comparison to be drawn between the OKC and Michigan plots: Both were heavily infiltrated and provoked by federal informants.

While the role of federal informants in the Michigan plot is relatively well known—even outlets such as Buzzfeed wrote about the subject—their involvement in the OKC bombing is not as well publicized.

Nevertheless, multiple federal informants are linked to the OKC bombing.

Perhaps the most well-known informant is ATF informant Carol Howe, who warned her handlers in early 1995 that Nazis at a white supremacist compound called Elohim City were plotting to attack the federal building in Oklahoma City. Former FBI official Bob Ricks has explained away the government’s failures at Elohim City by insisting that they didn’t want to raid the compound and cause another Waco-like catastrophe.

Howe briefly dated Elohim City resident Andreas Strassmeir, who was also suspected of being an informant. Other informants at Elohim City included ones from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which was acting as an intelligence cutout for the FBI at the time, according to FBI memos obtained by legendary journalist J.D. Cash.

Then, there’s Pete Langan, a former Nazi bank robber who now goes by the first name Donna and who recently made history as the first federal inmate to receive a sex change. The Secret Service sprung Langan from prison in the early 1990s to become an informant, but he instead went rogue and created the Aryan Republican Army, which helped McVeigh carry out the attack.

Even the CIA may have had an asset involved in the OKC bombing. McVeigh’s one-time gun show associate Roger Moore—whom McVeigh supposedly robbed to help fund his attack—was a key witness at McVeigh’s trial. But it was later revealed that Moore used to build boats for the CIA and was involved in Iran-Contra—raising questions about the authenticity of McVeigh’s “robbery.”

Despite the slew of government informants and assets connected to OKC, researchers dismissed the government failure to prevent the bombing as an intelligence issue.

But in 2011, former FBI informant John Matthews went public and said he saw McVeigh with Strassmeir in the leadup to the bombing.

Matthews had worked on a 1990s-era undercover FBI operation called Patriot Conspiracy, or PATCON for short. Matthews was silent about his exploits until he discovered that the FBI was releasing records identifying him as an informant.

Matthews then approached Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue—who’s been embroiled in a decades-long lawsuit against the FBI over OKC records—as well as Roger Charles, a nationally acclaimed journalist who also worked a brief stint as an investigator on McVeigh’s defense team.

Matthews told Trentadue and Charles all about PATCON, from selling guns to domestic extremists for FBI sting operations to sitting in on meetings by white supremacists about attacking a nuclear plant in Alabama.

“He told me that he had been told by the FBI that the purpose of PATCON was to infiltrate and to monitor the activities of [the] extreme political right consisting of organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and various Neo-Nazi groups, but that he no longer believed what he had been told by the FBI about the purpose of PATCON,” Trentadue said in a sworn declaration to the court.

“Mr. Matthews told me that, based upon his experience, he now believed that the FBI’s real objective in PATCON had been to infiltrate and to incite these fringe groups to violence.”

Matthews’s most jolting claim was that he saw McVeigh in 1994 with a German national named Andy Strassmeir—whose name appears in CIA records in relation to the Oklahoma City bombing investigation.

“Mr. Matthews even told me that prior to the Oklahoma City Bombing he had seen Timothy McVeigh and a German National by the name of Andreas Strassmeir at a militia training facility near San Saba, Texas,” Trentadue said in his sworn declaration.

“According to Mr. Matthews, he had reported the McVeigh–Strassmeir [sighting] to the FBI, and was told by the FBI that the Bureau was already aware of that fact, which indicated to Mr. Matthews that others within the FBI were monitoring McVeigh on the [run-up] to the attack on the Murrah Building.”

So why aren’t Matthews’ allegations more well known to the American public? Matthews was set to testify for Trentadue in his trial against the FBI in 2014—the only known Freedom of Information Act case to go to trial—but the FBI allegedly intimidated him from testifying.

A federal judge appointed a “special master” to investe these witness-tampering allegations since 2015. Ever since then, Trentadue’s lawsuit has been sealed with gag orders imposed on all parties, and Matthews has gone off the grid. It’s not clear when the special master will finalize his investigation.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to make false comparisons between OKC bomber McVeigh and modern conservative dissidents. Along with Ivey’s false statement about the Michigan Militia, Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., displayed a picture of the damaged OKC federal building and a dead baby from the attack—accusing Republicans of ignoring this.

“It was famously a right-wing attack against the federal government, which may be why my colleagues never talk about it,” Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y. said Tuesday at a Homeland Security hearing, which was supposed to be about left-wing organized violence.

“I highlight this to show that right-wing movements in the U.S. have a long history of violence in this country … what is new is the extent to which the Republican party has encouraged violence—especially under the extreme MAGA cult of Donald Trump.”

While Clarke made many of the same sloppy mistakes as Ivey and Toobin in her statement, she did stumble onto a truth: Republicans have indeed been tight-lipped about OKC, as have Democrats.

In fact, Congress has been almost completely silent on the bombing, never holding a hearing into the attack. Trentadue has told Headline USA that he hopes the newly formed House select subcommittee to investigate the weaponization of the federal government will finally resume what his ongoing lawsuit started.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Feinstein Spaces Out on Extended Senate Absence, Health Issues

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Feinstein Spaces Out on Extended Senate Absence, Health Issues

(Headline USA) Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., seemed to forget in an interview this week that she had been away from the Capitol for more than three months due to health setbacks.

Feinstein, 89, returned to the Senate this month after being hospitalized for shingles treatment in February. When asked about the reception she received from her colleagues upon her return, Feinstein denied that she had been away.

“No, I haven’t been gone,” Feinstein said. “You should follow the — I haven’t been gone. I’ve been working.”

When the reporter asked if Feinstein meant she had still been working remotely, Feinstein insisted that she had been present for all Senate votes.

“No, I’ve been here,” she said. “I’ve been voting. Please. You either know or you don’t know.”

Feinstein told reporters that she is “feeling fine” but has a “problem with the leg”. When asked what was wrong with her leg, Feinstein said, “Nothing that’s anyone’s concern but mine.”

The California Democrat has come under pressure from members of her own party in recent weeks to resign given her ongoing health problems. Her extended absence from the Senate prevented Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee from confirming President Joe Biden’s judicial appointments, leading to frustration among members of leadership.

Feinstein’s decline has been well-documented since at least 2020, when the New Yorker reported that she relied entirely on her aides to do her job for her. Her short-term memory was so bad that she “often forgets she has been briefed on a topic, accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have,” the outlet reported at the time.

The publication also reported that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tried to have several “painful” conversations with Feinstein about resigning, but she quickly forgot any talks had taken place.

Feinstein revealed earlier this year that she does not intend to seek reelection next year, but will not resign in the meantime.

Elon Musk Destroys CNBC Reporter Trying to Deny Truthful ‘Conspiracies’

Jacob Bruns
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Elon Musk Destroys CNBC Reporter Trying to Deny Truthful ‘Conspiracies’

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Red-pilled billionaire Elon Musk schooled a CNBC reporter on conspiracies in an interview Tuesday, arguing that the mainstream media’s suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal constituted election meddling.

During the segment on CNBC’s Last Call, host David Faber accused Musk of promoting misinformation in the public square, Breitbart reported.

“You do some tweets that seem to be, or at least give support to, what some call conspiracy theories,” Faber said.

Musk, however, noted that many things that the mainstream media had derisively labeled “conspiracy theories” and refused to cover had subsequently been validated by the facts.

“Well, yes, but I mean, honestly, you know, some of these conspiracy theories have turned out to be true,” replied the Twitter CEO.

Specifically, Musk cited the Hunter Biden laptop story, which the mainstream media suppressed leading up to the 2020 election.

Faber even admitted Musk was correct. “That’s true,” he agreed.

According to Musk, the covering over of the Biden scandal turned out to be “a pretty big deal,” and the story was systematically ignored by numerous outlets.

“There was Twitter, and others engaged in an act of suppression of information that was relevant to the public,” Musk noted. “That’s a terrible thing that happened. That’s election interference.”

Faber later brought up a recent Musk tweet about George Soros, wherein he suggested that Soros wished to erode the foundations of civilization.

“How do you make a choice in terms of when you’re going to engage?” Faber asked. “You said he wants to erode the very fabric of civilization and Soros hates humanity.”

“Yeah, I think that’s true,” Musk said. “That’s my opinion.”

In response, Faber questioned why an entrepreneur like Musk would risk alienating consumers and advertisers in his moneymaking ventures.

“Why share it when people who buy Teslas may not agree with you?” he asked. “[When] advertisers on Twitter may not agree with you?”

Musk, however, maintained that business concerns were secondary to fundamental political rights.

“Freedom of speech,” he replied. “I’m allowed to say what I want.”

Illinois Parents Call Cops on Middle School Teacher Who Gave Students Graphic LGBT Book

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Illinois Parents Call Cops on Middle School Teacher Who Gave Students Graphic LGBT Book

(Headline USA) Illinois parents called the cops on a middle school teacher who gave her students pornographic LGBT material, according to reports.

Sarah Bonner, 42, teaches 8th grade at Heyworth Junior High School. She admitted during an interview with TODAY.com this week that she offered her students a book called This Book is Gay, which includes graphic descriptions of sexual behavior and terms. The book is banned in many public schools across the country due to its inappropriate content.

“I wanted to give them a smattering of fiction and nonfiction to choose from on a day that we called ‘Reading Monday,’” she claimed. “We just read and celebrate books.”

Parents reportedly saw pictures of the book that their children took during class and filed a police report against Bonner for child endangerment.

The day after the police report was filed, Heyworth Junior High officials placed Bonner on administrative leave. The letter said the school district “recently became aware of certain allegations” against Bonner that it would be investigating. Until the investigation was complete, Bonner was told “not to perform any duties for the school district.”

Bonner decided to resign the next day.

“The notion that I was putting children in danger because of books — I didn’t feel safe,” she complained. “I knew I couldn’t go back.”

Bonner claimed that by exposing children to graphic LGBT content, she hoped to provide them with a “safe place.”

“If I am a safe place and I’m leaving, what does that do for our students?” Bonner asked. “‘What about the kids?’ has always been a question rooted in everything I do.”

She went on to blame the “heightened culture war that’s continuing to build nationwide” for her ousting.

“In regards to the book that was challenged in my classroom, it was a message to the LGBTQ+ community in my room and in my district that they’re ‘less than,’” she said.

White House Press Sec. Fled the Podium After Being Pressed on Durham Report

Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji Bello
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White House Press Sec. Fled the Podium After Being Pressed on Durham Report

(Abdul–Rahman Oladimeji Bello, Headline USA) White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre abruptly ended her briefing from the White House podium Tuesday after RealClearNews reporter Philip Wegmann pressed her about special counsel John Durham’s report on the investigation into the Trump–Russia collusion, according to Fox News. 

Durham’s 300-page report regarding the FBI and DOJ’s investigation into Russia’s possible collusion with the Trump 2016 campaign dropped on Monday. The report found that both bodies “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law” regarding this investigation. 

Wegmann made reference to this report and asked for the White House’s press briefing. “What is the White House reaction to the special counsel report on how the FBI handled the Trump-Russia probe?” Wegmann asked.

However, the press secretary responded, “I would leave it to the Department of Justice to speak on that.”

Relentless, Wegmann pressed, “The president talks often about how he wants the DOJ and FBI to remain independent and above the fray. That report seems to reflect the opposite. Does he agree with Special Counsel Durham that there need to be wholesale changes at the FBI?”

“Again, that is with the Department of Justice,” Jean-Pierre responded, closing her briefing book. “That’s not something that I’m going to speak from the podium. As you just stated in your question, we believe in an independent Department of Justice. That’s what the president said when he was running, and that’s what the president has said the last two years.” 

Before any more questions could be asked, Jean-Pierre said, “Thank you so much. I’ll see you guys in Japan,” immediately leaving the podium. 

Social media users immediately took to social media to blast the press secretary for ignoring the White House and her history with the Russia collusion allegation. 

Steve Guest wrote, “It’s no surprise KJP fled the podium… she is guilty of pushing the “Russia, Russia, Russia” nonsense.

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