The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the final days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower nicotine levels, which could end up boosting business for cartels operating on the black market, an expert tells Fox News Digital. //

It's not a done deal yet; the rule has yet to be finalized. Fortunately, there is a process for these things, and this one is still in the works — and, presumably, open for a new presidential administration to point out that this doesn't pass the stupid test. //

The Biden administration appears to have learned nothing from Prohibition, or any other time the federal government has tried this kind of heavy-handed approach. The Mexican cartels, when they learn of this, will be rubbing their hands together in glee; another billion-dollar black market will soon be opening up, courtesy of the Biden administration, complete with turf wars and all that goes with it. //

anon-hllt
4 hours ago
This a plot. A plot for us smokers to smoke more to cope with lowered nicotine, and thus to pay even more taxes. It’s a hike of the sin tax clothed in another “see how the government cares about you?” lie. It will backfire spectacularly, just like everything else this administration has done under the guise of “caring.”. //

Watt stickdude90
5 hours ago
The process appears to have started during the first Trump administration.

https://natlawreview.com/article/ctp-advances-proposal-set-maximum-nicotine-level-cigarettes

We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. So we are going to get back to our roots, focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.

This was disputed by the former fact-checkers in a New York Times article headlined, and I swear I'm not making this up, Mark Zuckerberg Says Meta Fact-Checkers Were the Problem. Fact-Checkers Rule That False. //

While the fact-checkers may be technically correct that they didn't have the authority to meddle with content on Facebook and Instagram, that is sort of like the guy working in the Zyklon B factory claiming he never gassed anyone. Of course, they knew what the result of their work product was, and of course, they acted with political bias. //

When we first reported rumors of a lab leak at Wuhan, we were forced to choose between staying in business and withdrawing a post. Both Mike Ford and I had posts pulled that dealt with January 6. These people were not only evil, but most of them were profoundly stupid. They literally did not understand the subject matter they were reviewing and made no effort to do so; on the bright side, there was no internal check on their journalistic terrorism by Meta, so YOLO; //

On Wednesday morning, the International Fact-Checking Network (there actually is such a thing) will convene an emergency meeting of its members to decide what to do. The money stream has dried up, and the few remaining clients for KGB-like editorial control don't have deep pockets. Most of them will, if there is justice, spend a long period of time unemployed and suffer financial devastation. //

Zuckerberg knows he's up to his eyebrows in highly questionable censorship activity at the behest of the Biden administration and that no one is around to rescue him now.

Hopefully, this will change the culture in Big Tech from defaulting toward fascistic government control to favoring individual freedom. Only time will tell.

When the FBI urges E2EE, you know it's serious business. //

In the wake of the Salt Typhoon hacks, which lawmakers and privacy advocates alike have called the worst telecoms breach in America's history, the US government agencies have reversed course on encryption.

After decades of advocating against using this type of secure messaging, "encryption is your friend," Jeff Greene, CISA's executive assistant director for cybersecurity, told journalists last month at a press briefing with a senior FBI official, who also advised us to use "responsibly managed encryption" for phone calls and text messages.

In December, CISA published formal guidance [PDF] on how to keep Chinese government spies off mobile devices, and "strongly urged" politicians and senior government officials — these are "highly targeted" individuals that are "likely to possess information of interest to these threat actors" — to ditch regular phone calls and messaging apps and instead use only end-to-end encrypted communications.

It's a major about-face from the feds, which have historically demanded law enforcement needs a backdoor to access people's communications — but only for crime-fighting and terrorism-preventing purposes.

"We know that bad guys can walk through the same doors that are supposedly built for the good guys," Virtru CEO and co-founder John Ackerly told The Register. "It's one thing to tap hardline wires or voice communication. It's yet another to open up the spigot to all digital communication." //

Pete 2Silver badge
Who's who?

"We know that bad guys can walk through the same doors that are supposedly built for the good guys,"

Although which are the good / bad guys is increasingly difficult to determine. //

Aleph0
Reply Icon
Re: Who's who?
The Patrician to Captain Vimes, in Guards! Guards!: "I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people," said the man. "You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.". //

Al fazed
Reply Icon
WTF?
Re: I bet . . .
and the only people interested in spying on you are good people, who have your best interests at heart.

A few of us don't believe this bullsh*t, even here in the UK.

ALF. //

Caffeinated Sponge
Reply Icon
Re: I bet . . .
The last I heard, British Conservatives were still all over the idea that 'only people with something to hide should want encryption'.

Of course, as with the Sir Pterry quote above, whilst this is actually true it is built around the easy to sell misconception that the only people with anything to hide are bad people.

The World Bank’s mission has been subverted by green ideologues who assert that a low-carbon world benefits the world’s poor but fail to acknowledge that making energy much more costly increases poverty. The World Bank tags itself as ‘working for a world free of poverty’ … In making its choice between development and sustainability, the World Bank has decided it is going to try and ‘save the planet’ on the backs of the poor.

By abdicating its founding principles for alleviating global poverty, the World Bank has taken a lead role among multilateral financial institutions in denying vast financial resources to poorer countries. It has hypocritically vetoed the right of developing countries to adopt the path of economic growth and environmental improvement that the now-rich countries had taken up successfully since the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago. The World Bank’s obsessive support for intermittent, low-yield renewable energy such as solar and wind power comes at the cost of its central charter to help the poor, an outcome that can only be described as egregiously unjust.

At the end of each year—only hours before a new year begins—Roberts releases his “Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary.” Think of it as a written “State of the Judiciary” address. In this latest report, he focused on “four areas of illegitimate activity that … threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends.”

What are those threats? According to Roberts, they’re “(1) violence, (2) intimidation, (3) disinformation, and (4) threats to defy lawfully entered judgments.”

Unfortunately, Trump cannot undo Biden’s executive order.

Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), a law established in 1953, states, “the President of the United States may, from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the Outer Continental Shelf.”

Trump needs Congress to change the law. That could happen since the GOP controls the House and Senate.

No one can receive a lease to drill for oil, gas, or other minerals in those areas.

OCSLA lacks language that allows a future president to undo an executive order under Section 12(a).

Former President Barack Obama issued a similar executive order on December 20, 2016.

In April 2017, Trump signed an executive order to undo Obama’s order.

Activist groups challenged Trump’s order.

In 2019, US District Court Judge Sharon Gleason, based in Alaska, overturned Trump’s executive order, leaving in place Obama’s protection of the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea and the East Coast of America.

Of course, this is all talk. Canada isn't going to join the United States, and we can hardly just go up there and take it; for one thing, Canada is still part of the British Commonwealth, and the King may have something to say about it.

Which brings us back to the "Art of the Deal" idea. Donald Trump is mercurial; he likes throwing out proposals like confetti to see if any of them land anywhere interesting. By summer, he may well be talking up some other Canadian policy completely, especially if he's dealing with Pierre Poilievre, who will be a great improvement over the unlamented Justin Trudeau. And, no matter what happens, Canada and the United States will remain joined at the hip. We are each other's primary trade partners, we share a lot culturally, and nowhere else in the history of mankind have two nations shared a 5,525-mile land border, the longest international border in the world today, for over 200 years without so much as a squabble along that line.

The Democrats’ entire assault on the court, and especially on Justices Thomas and Alito, has ended in utter defeat. //

The Democrats falsely accused Justices Thomas and Alito of violating ethics laws by not disclosing vacations with friends and not recusing from cases because of their spouses’ activities. They are wrong on both counts.

Justices Thomas and Alito complied with the laws, regulations, advice, and Judicial Conference rulings regarding reporting trips with friends. They were not required to report these trips under the personal hospitality exemption outlined in the law, no matter what the leaders of this witch hunt, Democrat Sens. Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse, claim or wish.

When the Judicial Conference, which was established by law to administer the ethics laws for the federal judiciary, changed its rules in March 2023 and excluded from the personal hospitality exemption trips on private planes and boats, Justice Thomas promptly reported such trips.

Breanna Morello @BreannaMorello
·
Merrick Garland just put out a press release claiming 5 officers died in the line of duty as a result of January 6.

How many J6 defendants were charged with manslaughter or murder?

None.

You know why?

Because this is a lie that wouldn't hold up in a courtroom.
9:34 AM · Jan 6, 2025. //

It's just gaslighting in the extreme by Garland to make a false statement of such magnitude.

The five officers he is referring to did not die "in the line of duty" in the sense that the term is widely understood. Four of them committed suicide - two of them (Jeffrey Smith and Howard Liebengood) just days after January 6, 2021, and the other two (Gunther Hashida and Kyle deFreytag) within six months of it.

Officer Brian Sicknick's death, which occurred the day after, was the result of natural causes stemming from a stroke, as the DC medical examiner ruled.

The people who died that day were Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by Capitol Police officer Michael Byrd, two men (Kevin Greeson and Benjamin Philips) who died of natural causes stemming from cardiovascular disease, and Rosanne Boyland, whose official cause of death was an amphetamine overdose though some believe she was crushed by the crowd at the Capitol building. //

Largo Patriot
16 hours ago edited
On the 4th anniversary of January 6th, why didn't Garland recite the names of the five officers he remembered so graciously instead of referring to them anonymously? Because not a single officer died as a result of injuries he/she received defending the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The battle of wits had begun. And Kinzinger clearly went into a gunfight with a spork.

“Just a quick point, both parties have always accepted the presidential election until one, four years ago,” Kinzinger falsely claimed.

Jennings countered, quite simply, “False, they have not."

Curtis Houck @CurtisHouck
·
PANTS ON FIRE: Adam Kinzinger falsely claims Scott Jennings lied in saying this was the first time in our lifetime both parties won't object to a presidential election result.

Kinzinger and Ashley Allison say Jennings mentioning 2000, 2004, and 2016 are why we're so divided

1:36 PM · Jan 6, 2025. //

Democrats have objected to election results in each of the Republican-won elections this century.

In 2000, 15 Democrats, including 12 members of the Congressional Black Caucus at the time, would object to counting Florida’s electoral votes.

This was after then-Vice President Al Gore refused to accept the free and fair election results and would not concede defeat to George W. Bush. He instead tied up the election process through litigation in the courts for months.

Gore consistently lost his bid to overturn the election results in the lower courts and kept fighting in the Florida Supreme Court. He would not concede until mid-December of that year, a month and a half after Election Day.

In 2004, 31 Democrats voted in favor of rejecting electoral votes from Ohio, trying to delegitimize President Bush once again, despite the fact that he won the electoral count by a wider margin and the popular vote count over John Kerry.

In 2016, seven different Democrats objected 11 times to certifying the results of the 2016 presidential election victory for Donald Trump. Additionally, 67 Democrats boycotted Trump’s inauguration, with many claiming “his election was illegitimate.”

There was violence in the streets, and Democrat lawmakers were most assuredly trying to “obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the presidential election, just as Republicans are accused of doing on January 6.

Never forget. //

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and ten other senators objected to the certification of the 2020 election. It wasn't a unique tactic by any stretch. If anything, Democrats wrote the playbook on election denialism.

Ready2Squeeze
an hour ago
Having experienced this on a very small scale for an organization I work with - the whole concept of contingency fee based lawfare needs to be addressed. We went through a lawsuit where a disgruntled party shows up with a slip and fall lawyer and made ludicrous claims on us owing money for a project. We had the numbers and cancelled checks to prove that the claims were crazy and by the time we were about to go to trial 90% of the original ask of a 7 figure number were thrown out or withdrawn by the plaintiff. Just before going to trial the plaintiffs lawyer offered a deal for a tiny fraction of the original claim. Our trial lawyer indicated that if we went to trial our costs would be close to 6 figures - he was sure that the plaintiffs remaining claims would be denied and that we were more than likely to win on our countersuit for legal fees (this had dragged on for YEARS so they were substantial - again multiple 6 figures) and for shoddy work on the original project which were originally not interested in pursuing for complicated reasons. He also said that even if we won - we would not collect a penny as the plaintiff already had multiple judgements against them and had no assets in their name. So we wound up paying for having been put through this as that amount was a fraction of what a trial would have cost - with no reward for winning.

How did we get to that point - the plaintiffs lawyer had nothing to lose - he just put in some time (very minimal based on what he turned over in discovery) for the possibility of a large chunk of a 7 figure settlement. The amount we wound up paying him probably easily covered his time and expenses. In the meantime - we had to PAY our legal bills and had no way of recovering the costs from the plaintiff - who never would have pursued this lawsuit if he had to pay for his lawyer up front. So the plaintiff swung and missed, the plaintiffs lawyer didn't make a windfall but did alright, and we were f**ked.

Here's the point - in these contingency cases - the lawyer is not just providing legal assistance - they are forgoing payment in lieu of what they hope to be a big payday if they win. If they lose the only thing invested is some time. The lawyer in a contingency case is actually a party to the lawsuit as they have a monetary vested interest in the outcome of the case, therefore they should be on the hook for at least legal costs if they lose and their client can't/won't pay. This would eliminate tons of these lawsuits and make it worthwhile for defendants to aggressively push back and not settle to avoid continuing legal fees.

Joe burning down the house as he heads for the exit.

True to form, he pulled another fast one on Monday and engineered the transfer of 11 Yemeni detainees—some of them former Bin Laden bodyguards and committed terrorists—to Oman to “re-settle” them.

Are you kidding? There are some people who simply cannot be "re-settled." If you worked for Osama bin Laden, you are one of them. //

Michele Tafoya @Michele_Tafoya
·
Biden is setting fire to the house on his way out the door.
nypost.com
Biden admin releases 11 Yemeni detainees with suspected al Qaeda ties...
9:44 PM · Jan 6, 2025

Meta announced it is ending its notorious fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to "restore free expression" across Facebook, Instagram, and Meta platforms, finally admitting that its current content moderation practices have "gone too far." Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning:

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. //

We went to independent, third-party fact-checkers. It has become clear there is too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because, basically, they get to fact-check whatever they see on the platform. //

Chelan Jim
13 minutes ago
And another domino falls in the leftist wall of control of information.

But I don't believe it. They are admitting that they got caught. They see the pendulum swinging and don't want to be left behind. Plus, they want to appear as if they will be more 'trustworthy' going forward. They will still maintain their ability to limit the reach of information that they don't like. They will just not be as transparent.

While it is much too early to tell what will happen in Syria, the initial signs are encouraging. Unlike nearly any other Arab civil war, reconciliation is given a priority over vengeance. An effort is being made to bring all parts of Syrian society together. While there is no doubt it will be a distinctly Islamic society, al-Julani seems to understand that Syria has enough religious and ethnic diversity that the "one size fits all" model we see in most of the Islamic world will not work. The Russians have abandoned their naval and airbase, removing the Kremlin's meddling in a delicate situation. //

In his Farewell Address, Washington left us with this warning.

In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. //

Lord Palmerston treats the same subject in a much pithier quote, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

I fear that many on the right have fallen into the trap of seeing American and Muslim relations through the lens of 9/11, and they are willing to see the change of government in Syria as the creation of yet another terrorist breeding ground. Indeed, on social media, some of the accounts most adamantly against US support for Ukraine and so-called "forever wars" by the "neocons" are also in favor of doing nothing to influence the outcome in Syria because of 9/11 and the 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan that they decry.

The initial moves of al-Julani seem to be focused on keeping much of the same multicultural tolerance of the Assad regime without, so far as we can see right now, the terror and repression. //

The fact is that when given the opportunity to break with al-Qaeda, he did. And he fought ISIS even when it got him nothing of value. //

Nauta and De Oliveira claim that Smith, whose appointment as Special Counsel was ruled unconstitutional by the court, lacks the authority to issue a report under federal regulations. The motion also emphasizes that the report would unfairly influence public opinion and taint any potential jury pool while legal appeals are still pending. Defense attorneys describe the report as a "one-sided narrative" that improperly uses grand jury materials and privileged information. //

Shipwreckedcrew
@shipwreckedcrew
·
Could Merrick Garland and his staff, plus other DOJ Officials TBD potentially face criminal investigation for improper access/disclosure of Rule 6(e) materials to Jack Smith after he was DQ'd from the Florida case, and the D.C. case was dismissed?

Violations of Rule 6(e) are subject to a criminal penalty.

If Jack Smith still has access to those materials for purposes of writing his "Report" to the AG, has he been provided unauthorized access in violation of the Rule????
10:00 PM · Jan 6, 2025. //

The defendants argue that the report would serve as an impermissible "public verdict," undermining their right to a fair trial. They further claim that releasing the report would disregard federal grand jury secrecy rules and the court’s previous rulings that disqualified Smith from the case.

In 2019, during Trump's first term, a federal judge ruled that OCSLA does not permit presidents to overturn bans established by previous administrations. This means Trump would need congressional approval to reverse Biden's decision. //

Here's the part that really makes Joe Biden look petty and vindictive, not that he didn't look that way already. The outgoing president cited concerns about climate change as a reason for signing the order. If that really was his concern — if he really wanted to shut down energy production on essentially the entire United States continental shelf because of climate change — why did he wait until two weeks before leaving office?

The answer is obvious: This order has nothing to do with the climate. It's all political backbiting and attempted sabotage, pure and simple.

In those early years of his post-presidency, the general agreement was that Carter meant well, and was just the poster child of the Peter Principle, having been promoted infinitely beyond his limited ability.

As the years went on, however, and as Carter continued his post-presidential activism, it became more and more difficult to make this argument.

During his presidency, the American people didn’t see a general worldview from Jimmy Carter. His support of nuclear weapons parity (favoring plans allowing Russia to build more while requiring the USA to reduce our stock), his support of giving away the Panama Canal that we built and paid for, his support of a new education bureaucracy at the federal level, and his capitulation to OPEC, are all just a few examples of the countless issues that may look like unrelated issues at first.

It is only with the advantage of hindsight that we see that, in fact, Jimmy Carter did have a coherent worldview: he worked constantly and intentionally toward increasing the general weakness of the United States of America and our allies.

Americans didn’t want to admit this, at the time. Many of us still don’t.

Americans are not a vindictive people; we were happy to see him out of the White House, and we preferred to give them the benefit of the doubt and just call him a dummy, for years and years.

But we can no longer deceive ourselves.

Between his writing, his speeches, and his endorsement of blatantly corrupt global elections, it has become undeniable that Carter long supported the prevailing Leftist theory, more commonly associated with Barack Obama today, that Americans and the West need to be brought down a few pegs.

Nowhere is this more evident than in his mishandling of the middle east.

As president, he convinced Israel to give a huge amount of land – the Sinai Peninsula – to Egypt, in return for nothing but a peace treaty. Israel has so little land, they could hardly spare so much; they should have demanded a solution to the problem of the arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. But Carter talked them into giving up the Sinai for nothing, and now, here we are, 45 years later, and Israel still suffers from this problem.

Also as president, he refused to support our solid ally, Iran, when its Shah was sick, enabling the mullahs to take over the country and enslave what had been the happiest, most modern, most westernized country in the muslim world.

It is therefore undeniable today, with the advantage of hindsight, that Carter is responsible for most of the jihadist terrorism of the past 40 years. He supported the PLO over Israel, and he supported the mullahs over the Shah. //

This one-time Sunday school teacher became a supporter of abortion. This one-time Naval officer supervised the downgrading of our military preparedness and materiel. This one-time southern politician supported the massive expansion of federal bureaucracy. And this once-noble veteran supported the growth and empowerment of numerous foreign terrorist organizations, from the PLO on.

In October, Biden insisted that “nobody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore because of Hurricane Helene.”

“Scientists report that with warming oceans powering more intense rains, storms like Helene are getting stronger and stronger,” he said. “Today, in North Carolina, I saw the impacts of that fury: massive trees uprooted; homes literally swept off their foundations, swept down rivers; you know, families that are heartbroken.”

Yet is Hurricane Helene really proof that man-made climate change is making life more dangerous in the U.S.?

The Heritage Foundation special report “Keeping an Eye on the Storms: An Analysis of Trends in Hurricanes Over Time” answers definitively in the negative.

In the report, Joe D’Aleo, visiting fellow in Heritage’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment, and Kevin Dayaratna, chief statistician in Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis, break down the data. //

Although hurricanes may not have worsened with climate change, alarmists often claim that tropical cyclones are more destructive now than previously.

Twenty of the 30 most destructive hurricanes since 1900 have hit the mainland U.S. after 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Besides Hurricane Katrina, which carried out a devastating $200 billion in damage in 2005, all of the top four made landfall in the last decade. //

Yet this data does not reflect the worsening of hurricanes so much as the population growth and economic growth of the U.S. in coastal areas, D’Aleo and Dayaratna conclude.

For instance, only 1.3 million residents called Miami-Dade County, Florida, home in 1971, living in 473,200 housing units. By 2022, the population had grown to more than 2.6 million, and the housing units had more than doubled, to 1.1 million, according to the Census Bureau.

In 2018, a paper in the journal “Nature Sustainability” put the hurricane damage from previous years into better context by adjusting for increases in wealth, population, and inflation. This graph shows no meaningful trend in hurricane losses, although a general increase in recent years reflects the growing population in America’s coastal regions.

The Biden administration announced Monday that it is banning future offshore oil and gas activity across 625 million acres of the Outer Continental Shelf—an area larger than the amount of land included in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803—in its waning days.

The action will shut down future drilling along the East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, 250 million acres along the West Coast, and 44 million acres of the Bering Sea along the Alaskan Coast. The law that President Joe Biden invoked to issue the policy does not give presidents explicit authority to revoke withdrawals approved by a former president, so the incoming Trump administration may have difficulty unwinding the ban as it pursues plans to unleash the U.S. energy sector. //

The White House announcement laying out the new drilling ban suggests that Monday’s actions secure Biden’s legacy on climate and energy policy, and the administration previously moved to cut offshore oil and gas drilling by issuing the most restrictive five-year leasing schedule in modern history in 2023. The 625 million acres affected by Monday’s announcement is a larger total area of land than the 530 million acres bought in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

An astute America First Re-Ignited subscriber, Kathy, read my article entitled 13 Million Democrat Voters Died Since 2020: Where Are The Bodies? and responded with her own list as to why we can’t find the 13 million Democrat voters’ bodies, and why/how Blue States will continue to defraud their voters: