Armed passengers? New push underway in Missouri to allow concealed carry on public transportation

JEFFERSON CITY — Concealed-carry permit holders would be able to legally board MetroLink trains and buses with their firearms if a proposal Missouri lawmakers are weighing becomes law.

The Senate General Laws Committee heard legislation Tuesday by Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake Saint Louis, that would allow guns on trains and buses amid continued security concerns regarding the region’s mass transit systems. The measure wouldn’t apply to Amtrak.

The hearing this week followed the fatal shooting of security guard James Cook on Jan. 31 at the Delmar MetroLink station. Eight days later, the Bi-State Development Agency, which oversees MetroLink, voted 7-2 against rearming security guards.

Opponents of rearming guards said the matter required more discussion; members disputed whether it was legal for guards to carry guns. Officials took steps to improve security last year, including increasing police presence on the trains.
GOP lawmakers have made similar efforts to allow the public to carry concealed weapons on public transit for years, to no avail.

Democrats have mostly opposed the measures, but state Sen. Steven Roberts, D-St. Louis, said Friday he would consider supporting the bill as written — if GOP proponents maintain limiting who could carry guns to concealed-carry permit holders…………..

Utah: Governor Cox Signs Permitless Carry Legislation!

****

The fledgling governor had previously said he supported the legislation, a departure from his predecessor. Former Gov. Gary Herbert had blocked legislation to do away with the concealed carry permit for years with a veto and, later, a promise of veto.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Walt Brooks, R-St. George, and Sen. David Hinkins, R-Orangeville, takes effect May 5………….

How dumb are reporters?
This dumb:
Between two of the “top” journalists in the US they couldn’t divide two numbers. And bear in mind that this was a prepared segment.
That means their fact checkers and editors couldn’t do it either.

I’ll take ‘As A Post‘ for $500, Alex.

What’s surprising is that she hasn’t deleted all of this in the usual attempt at making believe it really never happened.

How Dumb Are Reporters?

Years ago, I had a lot of fun with the New York Times Corrections section, which documented the fact, day after day, that the paper’s reporters and editors had little knowledge of mathematics, science, literature or history. The gaffes that appeared in the Times were stunning to anyone with a halfway-decent education.

I have been off that beat for a while, but our reporters’ educational deficiencies continue to amaze. Thus we have NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who tried to one-up Ted Cruz. Bad decision. Cruz described the Democrats’ farcical impeachment proceeding as “like Shakespeare, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Mitchell sought to correct Cruz:

Heh. Cruz and many others explained that Faulkner got the line from Shakespeare, a writer of whom Mitchell apparently is unaware. Mitchell tried to retire from the field with her ego intact:

Here’s the thing, though. No one who studied Faulkner even superficially could fail to understand that the title of The Sound and the Fury was a Shakespearean reference. This was explained in every freshman English class where Faulkner’s book has been taught.

Here’s why: The full Shakespeare quote, from MacBeth, says that life “is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Why did Faulkner choose that Shakespeare quote for the title of his book? Because the first section of The Sound and the Fury is, in fact, a “tale told by an idiot.” It is a narrative by a character named Benji who lacks normal mental capacity. He describes many things that he does not understand–other people playing golf, for example–and the art of that section of the book is for Faulkner to write it so that Benji doesn’t understand what he is seeing, but we do.

This is all undergraduate English stuff, and no one could study Faulkner in college without the origin and significance of The Sound and the Fury being explained. And, if you didn’t take English classes in college, as Andrea Mitchell perhaps did not, you could just Google it.

In short, by trying to match wits with Ted Cruz, Andrea Mitchell revealed herself as a person who knows little or nothing about either Shakespeare or Faulkner. That isn’t necessarily disgraceful, except that 1) she shouldn’t have picked a fight with a very smart guy from a position of ignorance, and 2) her fallback position, claiming to be a Faulkner scholar, made her look dumber than ever. Deservedly.

This is all trivial, except for one fact: the politicians, reporters, writers, editors, “intellectuals,” college professors and so on who try to intimidate you with their claim to be smarter and more knowledgeable than you, are, with only occasional exceptions, frauds.

UPDATE: I am sorry to report that Andrea Mitchell (who is allegedly noteworthy only because she is married to Alan Greenspan, maybe we should return to describing her that way) majored in English literature at Penn. So she has no excuse for being ignorant of both Shakespeare and Faulkner. Maybe she skipped class a lot, I don’t know. But one way or another, she failed to get the most basic education. And now she is trying to export her ignorance to the rest of us.

That is pretty much the story of the 21st century.

Attacks on Second Amendment Trigger Tyranny

The election swept in a legion of Second Amendment foes. Americans can expect them to take James Madison’s statement that disarming the people is “the best and most effective way to enslave them” as less of a warning and more of a directive.

During the campaign, Joe Biden was asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper if a Biden administration would mean “they are going to come for my guns,” and Biden responded, “Bingo.”

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BLUF:
Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Sheriff Brett Zimmerman said Payton had a violent history with police, including charges of attempted murder, attempted robbery of a firearm and assault on a protected person. All involved police and arriving officers had knowledge of Payton’s violent past before the shooting.

“Justice System” failure, or is that ‘feature’?. hrmmmm.
27 years old with a rap sheet of several violent felonies and still on the street means the Justice System Revolving Door™ seems to work just fine. It’s apparent Marvon felt-with a certain justification -that he could get away with whatever he wanted, with minimal consequences, until he finally ran into people who wouldn’t put up with his crap and they took care of business. Permanently. As In Dead Right There.

Vegas Man Shot 14 Times Outside a Vegas Gun Range
Las Vegas — Officers were called at 11:59 a.m. last Weds to The Range 702, at 5999 Dean Martin Drive, after an employee reported that a man had been caught rifling through a customer’s bag during a break from a concealed carry permit course . Range employees escorted the man, Marvin Payton Jr, 27 outside to await the police.

Seconds after police pulled up, the man attacked a female officer, striking her twice with a screwdriver. Most everyone on the scene then shot Payton 14 times.

Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Sheriff Brett Zimmerman said Payton had a violent history with police, including charges of attempted murder, attempted robbery of a firearm and assault on a protected person. All involved police and arriving officers had knowledge of Payton’s violent past before the shooting.

The injured officer, who has not been named, was treated and released from University Medical Center the afternoon of the shooting. She suffered a fracture near her eye, Zimmerman said.

No charges have been filed against the crowd that shot Payton.

Indiana looks to scrap carry permits for handguns, allow ‘constitutional carry’

(The Center Square) – Sixteen other states have done it. And Indiana now looks ready to join them in getting rid of the requirement that a person have a license in order to carry a loaded weapon on them or in their vehicle.

Earlier this week, the House of Representatives held a hearing to consider allowing what’s called “constitutional carry.”

It was the first time a hearing has been held on such a bill, and the first sign in years the Republican supermajority in the Indiana General Assembly is getting behind permit-less carry.

Numerous county sheriffs testified in support of the bill.

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Remember, demoncraps called Trump the latest reincarnation of Hitler for his having ‘tent cities’ constructed to house illegal aliens, so cue the meme

Biden administration opens another tent city to detain surge of illegal migrants

The Biden administration is facing fresh spikes of over 100 percent in illegal border crossings from this time last year and has opened another tent city to detain illegal immigrants in Texas, US Customs and Border Protection has announced.

The Border Patrol revealed in a report released Wednesday that the number of migrants apprehended at the border in the month of January reached nearly 78,000, up from 36,679 in January 2020.

Single adult Mexican citizens accounted for more than 37,000 CBP encounters, a 119 percent increase from this time last year, according to the agency.

Amid the surge, a new “soft-sided facility” was established this week by the agency in Donna, Texas, to hold individuals originally staying at the Centralized Processing Center in McAllen, Texas.

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It’s a long one folks.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Banned From Instagram Days After Outlining Bill Gates’ Global Domination Efforts

Lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy, has been banned from Facebook owned Instagram just days after he penned a comprehensive account of Bill Gates’ attempt to monopolise and dominate global food production and public health programs………….

Bill Gates and Neo-Feudalism: A Closer Look at Farmer Bill
Bill Gates has quietly made himself the largest owner of farmland in the United States. For a man obsessed with monopoly control, the opportunity to also dominate food production must seem irresistible.

“Gates has a Napoleonic concept of himself, an appetite that derives from power and unalloyed success, with no leavening hard experience, no reverses.” — Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, presiding judge in the Gates/Microsoft antitrust-fraud case

The global lockdowns that Bill Gates helped orchestrate and cheerlead have bankrupted more than 100,000 businesses in the U.S. alone and plunged a billion people into poverty and deadly food insecurity that, among other devastating harms, kill 10,000 African children monthly — while increasing Gates’ wealth by $20 billion. His $133 billion fortune makes him the world’s fourth wealthiest man.

Gates has been using that newfound cash to expand his power over global populations by buying devalued assets at fire-sale prices and maneuvering for monopoly control over public health, privatizing prisons, online education and global communications while promoting digital currencies, high tech surveillance, data harvesting systems and artificial intelligence.

For a man obsessed with monopoly control, the opportunity to also dominate food production must seem irresistible.

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New “Gun Trafficking” Bill Could Cripple Legal Firearms Market

Democrat Illinois Representative Bobby Rush has sponsored a bill — already referred to the House Judiciary Committee — that would criminalize many previously acceptable practices.

So purchasing a gun on consignment at your local gun store, or — while not named — on sites such as GunBroker could be defined as a straw purchase, which in turn could effectively kill the online firearms market, never mind that any state-to-state transfer must already occur between licensed FFLs, and necessarily requires a background check before the firearm can be picked up. Nor can you pawn the thing if you’re a little short of cash.

Firearms have always been something of an investment, rarely losing value and always easy to convert to cash if you must. This bill could very well end that longstanding practice.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has several concerns as well. Communications Director Mark Oliva said the general prohibition language against purchasing a firearm on “behalf of another” is particularly troubling:

The way it is drafted now says the bill would punish innocent conduct in the case of a lawful purchaser who is not prohibited when that person buys a firearm “on behalf of” another person who is also not prohibited.

In essence, the bill would make it illegal for an entity like a Boy Scouts or Future Farmers of America marksmanship programs to buy a rimfire .22 to use in a rifle marksmanship program or a rancher to buy a firearm for a ranch hand to use against predators.

“(ii) (I) includes a finding that such person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child;

It would also puts restrictions on just how many you can buy or sell as well.

“(a) It shall be unlawful for any person to—

“(1) ship, transport, transfer, cause to be transported, or otherwise dispose of 2 or more firearms to another person … if the transferor knows or has reasonable cause to believe that the use, carrying, or possession of a firearm by the transferee would be in violation of, or would result in a violation of, any Federal law punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding 1 year;

“(2) receive from another person 2 or more firearms … if the recipient knows or has reasonable cause to believe that such receipt would be in violation of, or would result in a violation of, any Federal law punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding 1 year.

Unless you’re already a co-conspirator, exactly how are you going to know if the “transferee’s” possession of a firearm “would result in a violation of” federal law?

Not only can this stuff lead to a prison term of up to 25 years — the previous prison terms for violations were “not more than 5 years”, but it now includes “forfeiture and fines.”

Ҥ 934. Forfeiture and fines

“(a) (1) Any person convicted of a violation of section 932 or 933 shall forfeit to the United States, irrespective of any provision of State law—

“(A) any property constituting, or derived from, any proceeds the person obtained, directly or indirectly, as the result of such violation; and

“(B) any of the person’s property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part, to commit, or to facilitate the commission of, such violation.

Section 924(h) currently reads “Whoever knowingly transfers a firearm, knowing that such firearm will be used to commit a crime of violence (as defined in subsection (c)(3)) or drug trafficking crime (as defined in subsection (c)(2)) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, fined in accordance with this title, or both.”

H.R. 30, if passed, would replace the entire section, amending it to read:

(h) (1) Whoever knowingly receives or transfers a firearm or ammunition, or attempts or conspires to do so, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such firearm or ammunition will be used to commit a crime of violence (as defined in subsection (c)(3)), a drug trafficking crime (as defined in subsection (c)(2)), or a crime under the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.), the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.), the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (21 U.S.C. 1901 et seq.), or section 212(a)(2)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)(C)) shall be imprisoned not more than 25 years, fined in accordance with this title, or both.

Oliva said NSSF’s legal team was also concerned about one section removes exceptions for gifts.

HR 30 removes three exceptions and only includes a gift to a recipient who provided no service or tangible thing of value to acquire the firearm, or winner of an organized raffle, contest, or auction. So, that would be a cause for concern particularly for someone who chooses to gift a firearm as gratuity to a hunting guide, a bonus to an employee – as would be the case when someone retires and they are given a firearm as a gift – or an honorarium.

Like I said earlier. Jackson-Lee’s idiot bill was simply to make this idiot bill look more ‘reasonable.

Carolyn Maloney unveils gun safety legislation package

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday unveiled a legislative package of five bills focused on gun safety.

Maloney introduced the Gun Trafficking Prevention Act, which would make gun trafficking a felony and make straw purchasing — when someone buys a gun for another person who is ineligible — a felony as opposed to a misdemeanor.

She also introduced the Handgun Trigger Safety Act, which would incentivize the development of “smart-gun technology” that would only allow authorized gun owners to fire a gun. In addition, Maloney introduced the Firearm Risks Protection Act, which would require gun owners to purchase liability insurance.

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday unveiled a legislative package of five bills focused on gun safety.

Maloney introduced the Gun Trafficking Prevention Act, which would make gun trafficking a felony and make straw purchasing — when someone buys a gun for another person who is ineligible — a felony as opposed to a misdemeanor.

She also introduced the Handgun Trigger Safety Act, which would incentivize the development of “smart-gun technology” that would only allow authorized gun owners to fire a gun. In addition, Maloney introduced the Firearm Risks Protection Act, which would require gun owners to purchase liability insurance.

ALAN GOTTLIEB TALKS GUN CONTROL, RISKS TO 2ND AMENDMENT RIGHTS

Guns.com: Let’s talk about 2021. Why is 2021 the most critical year for gun owners, possibly ever, to kind of band together here and fight some of this anti-gun legislation that we’ve been seeing?

Gottlieb: Unfortunately, 2021 has become the ultimate storm, the perfect storm against gun rights with the Biden administration in the White House. He’s had a long history of being anti-Second Amendment, and the House and Senate in control of Democrats who have already come out, basically, with a lot of anti-gun legislation. As well as, we’ve got the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee talking about, it’s a high priority for him to get anti-gun bills through the committee in the Senate so it gets to the Senate floor. If these get through the Senate and the House, there’s no doubt that the president will sign those bills, and the legislation they’re talking about, it is extremely dangerous to Second Amendment rights.

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Any bill from the idgit Jackson-Lee should receive ‘significant scrutiny’.

Below The Radar – Gun Violence Reduction Resources Act of 2021

While a lot of attention is rightfully being paid to the threat posed by HR 127, the Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act that we have covered earlier this month and in the last Congress, there are other bills targeting our Second Amendment rights. As of this writing, a search for the term “firearm” under legislation in the 117th Congress reveals 29 entries.

Not all of them are massive assaults on our rights. Some are relatively minor, or they seem neutral but the lead sponsor of the legislation means that they require significant scrutiny. One such bill is HR 121, the Gun Violence Reduction Resources Act of 2021. The lead sponsor is Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee, who also introduced HR 127.

According to the text of the legislation, the bill seeks to add 200 agents and investigators to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Now, that in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem is just how these agents will be used. 200 ATF agents, in the right places, could make a big difference in the violent crimes we see in cities like Chicago and Baltimore.

The problem is that Representative Jackson-Lee doesn’t intend for some common-sense ideas for how to use those agents, like following up on arrests of violent criminals in possession of firearms and using the provisions of 18 USC 922 and 18 USC 924 to get some lengthy prison terms for them.

Let’s just look at a few from 18 USC 922:

  • 18 USC 922(a)(6) makes it a federal crime to make any false statement or to present a false ID to a FFL. Penalty: 10 years in prison.
  • 18 USC 922(d) makes it a federal crime to provide a felon a firearm. Penalty: 10 years in prison.
  • 18 USC 922(g) makes it a federal crime for a felon to possess a firearm. Penalty: 10 years in prison.

Then there are these provisions from 18 USC 924:

  • 18 USC 924(b) provides for a 10-year sentence to ship, transport, or receive a firearm in interstate or foreign commerce if they know or have reason to believe a felony would be committed in that transaction.
  • 18 USC 942(h) provides for a 10-year sentence for anyone who provides a firearm knowing or having reason to believe it will be used in a crime of violence or drug-related crime.

In the findings, she mentions how many are killed, but doesn’t discuss the problem of violent criminals. Instead, the bill claims, “Millions of guns are sold every year in “no questions asked,” transactions and experts estimate that 40 percent of guns now sold in the United States are sold without a background check of the purchaser.”

In other words, these agents will be sent, often on wild goose chases, harassing FFLs who, in all likelihood, followed the law and did nothing wrong. The actual violators of the law won’t be touched – and there are significant provisions that could work to address those who run guns to violent criminals. Those provisions have been around for a long time and could work.

So, in the scheme of things, HR 121 is not a bill Second Amendment supporters should back. Instead, they should contact their Representatives and Senators and politely urge their opposition to this bill, and to instead support legislation like the Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act, which actually addresses the misuse of firearms and does not infringe on our rights. Second Amendment supporters should also support the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action and Political Victory Fund to ensure that the current anti-Second Amendment regimes in the House, Senate, and White House are defeated at the ballot box as soon as possible.

Oklahoma Governor Nullifies Biden’s Executive Order — With His Own

Charging that Executive Order 13990 issued by President Biden “is in contravention of Article II Section 2 and the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution,” Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt issued his own executive order this week to, in effect, nullify it.

Governor Stitt is a Republican, elected in 2018. His order is challenging Biden’s order as “adverse to energy producers throughout the United States and Oklahoma. His decision terminates the Keystone XL pipeline and claims to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord while failing to seek ratification by the U.S. Senate.” According to the U.S. Constitution, a presidential agreement with the government of another nation is not law until at least two-thirds of the Senate ratifies it. President Barack Obama placed the United States in the Paris deal without a treaty vote. This was reversed by President Trump, and now President Biden has put the United States back into it.

“These policies [of the Paris Accord] allow the world’s powers to continue CO2 emissions,” Stitt wrote, “causing the U.S. to harm its own economy, threatening millions of jobs in states like Oklahoma, while making no meaningful difference in world’s emissions. Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, admitted as much only days ago.”

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I’m so old I can remember when they said snow would be a thing of the past.
I’m so old I can remember when they said we were entering a new Ice Age.
Strangely the solution for both was More Socialism!™ (cue the meme)

Eiffel Tower needs blowtorch for ice as snow blankets Europe.

PARIS — Workers at the Eiffel Tower used a blowtorch to melt the ice collecting on its surfaces and snow was blocking roads and halting trains and school buses Wednesday across northern France.

Amid a European cold snap, areas in Normandy and Brittany unused to such icy conditions were closing highways for lack of snow-clearing equipment. In parts of the Paris region, local authorities halted school buses and urged parents to keep their children at home.

Snow blanketed the French capital and froze the Eiffel Tower.

“When negative temperatures return, my floors get partially covered with ice! To get rid of it, we need to use a blowtorch because ice-control salt is too corrosive for the metal,” tweeted the monument, which has been closed to the public for months because of coronavirus restrictions.

Nothing says “return to normalcy” like calling all your opponents seditionists and conducting loyalty evaluations in the military

Questioning the military’s loyalty: Who in uniform qualifies as ‘extremist’?

The U.S. National Guard – and by extension, the military generally – may be dangerous based on race, gender, and the possibility members didn’t vote for Joe Biden for president.

So said U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-TN, on Jan. 18, in an interview with CNN.

Cohen’s “analysis” was consistent with the congressman’s history of controversial statements and attention-seeking acts. In this latest case, Cohen questioned the loyalty of many of some 600,000 U.S. Army National Guard and Air Guard members nationally, nearly 12,000 of whom are in Tennessee.

Regardless of how someone may wish to slice, dice, or parse Cohen’s comments, he said what he said. The broader issue is that his comments are reflective of thinking in the Biden defense department that has led to a one-day ordered “stand-down” during the next 60 days for units to begin to address extremism in a way the military can’t yet even describe.

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Where’s my coffee!

Daily coffee linked to lower risk for heart failure.

Fill up that mug: Having one or more cups of caffeinated coffee a day may reduce your risk of heart failure, new research suggests.

There was one caveat, however: Decaffeinated coffee doesn’t appear to provide the same protection as caffeine-rich blends.

“The association between caffeine and heart failure risk reduction was surprising,” admitted study senior author Dr. David Kao. “Coffee and caffeine are often considered by the general population to be ‘bad’ for the heart because people associate them with palpitations, high blood pressure, etc.”

However, “the consistent relationship between increasing caffeine consumption and decreasing heart failure risk turns that assumption on its head,” said Kao, who is assistant professor of cardiology and medical director at the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Still, the findings can’t prove cause and effect, and they also don’t mean that coffee is any substitute for healthy living when it comes to your heart, Kao said.

“There is not yet enough clear evidence to recommend increasing coffee consumption to decrease risk of heart disease with the same strength and certainty as stopping smoking, losing weight or exercising,” he said in a journal news release.

In their study, Kao and his colleagues analyzed data from more than 21,000 U.S. adults who took part in three major studies: the Framingham Heart Study, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study and the Cardiovascular Health Study. Participants were followed for at least 10 years.

In all three studies, drinking one or more cups of caffeinated coffee a day was associated with decreased long-term risk of heart failure.

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A Few Covid Vaccine Recipients Developed a Rare Blood Disorder
A link to the vaccines is not certain, and investigations are underway in some reported cases.

One day after receiving her first dose of Moderna’s Covid vaccine, Luz Legaspi, 72, woke up with bruises on her arms and legs, and blisters that bled inside her mouth.

She was hospitalized in New York City that day, Jan. 19, with a severe case of immune thrombocytopenia — a lack of platelets, a blood component essential for clotting.

The same condition led to the death in January of Dr. Gregory Michael, 56, an obstetrician in Miami Beach whose symptoms appeared three days after he received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Treatments failed to restore his platelets, and after two weeks in the hospital he died from a brain hemorrhage.

It is not known whether this blood disorder is related to the Covid vaccines. More than 31 million people in the United States have received at least one dose, and 36 similar cases had been reported to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, VAERS, by the end of January. The cases involved either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, the only two authorized so far for emergency use in the United States.

But the reporting system shows only problems described by health care providers or patients after vaccination, and does not indicate whether the shots actually caused the problems.

Officials with the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that they were looking into the reports, but that so far, rates of the condition in vaccinated people did not appear higher than the rates normally found in the U.S. population, so the cases could be coincidental. Overall, the vaccines are considered safe. A small number of severe allergic reactions have been reported, but they are treatable, and the rates are in line with those reported for other vaccines, regulators say.

In a statement, Pfizer said: “We take reports of adverse events very seriously,” and added that it was aware of thrombocytopenia cases in vaccine recipients.

The statement also said: “We are collecting relevant information to share with the F.D.A. However, at this time, we have not been able to establish a causal association with our vaccine.”

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Q: Who needs a script just to have a conversation with a constituent?

A: If we have to tell you, you must have slept through last year — lucky you.

On Day 17, Joe Biden Read From A Script For His ‘Phone Call With An Ordinary American’.

In their first “Weekly Conversation,” the Biden team opted for a tightly-edited, piano-backed montage depicting a reconstructed phone call between Biden and an ordinary American mom, “Michele from California,” who was laid off because of the pandemic and had written to the president.

It might even be impressive if it wasn’t so obvious Joe is reading from a script in front of him:

BIDEN READS FROM A SCRIPT DURING A PHONE CALL

On the call, Biden pitches his “American Rescue Plan” legislation to a woman who has reportedly been out of work since July, and Michele replies: “We’re so glad that we have you focusing on that.”

Trump retired the rote, scripted, Saturday weekly address in favor of more casual video messages, often filmed outdoors, where he spoke directly to the camera in his own style without notes.

You can watch it for yourself if you like:

Revealed: 104 terrorist border crossings.

Critics laughed at former President Donald Trump when he claimed that terrorists, “some real bad ones,” had crossed the border just as he was selling Congress on paying for a border wall. But it turns out that Trump was correct that in the waves of illegal immigrants pouring over the southern border in the last decade were dozens of terrorists and terror sympathizers.

In his new book, America’s Covert Border War, The Untold Story of the Nation’s Battle to Prevent Jihadist Infiltration, journalist and former counterterrorism intelligence official Todd Bensman found a model in Europe that could play out in the United States.

There, he found 104 crossed the border. That, he told Secrets, “proved the concept that border crossings by terrorists can and does happen.”

Government records he reviewed showed that 22,000 so-called “special interest aliens,” the catchphrase for terrorist-related immigrants, were “encountered” between 2008 and 2019.

“Professional homeland security leadership under both Democrats and Republicans, with access to intelligence reporting most Americans don’t have, regarded the threat of terrorist infiltration as quite real,” wrote Bensman, now with the Center for Immigration Studies.

And just a few slipping in, as with the 9/11 attackers, could be catastrophic.

“Despite comparatively small numbers, the potential consequences of attack from that pathway are high and society-changing,” he wrote.

His book is being released this week as President Biden is reversing the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration by implementing existing law that the former Obama administration simply ignored.

That raises the possibility that terrorists will again hide in the waves of illegal immigrants crossing the border.

In an interview with Secrets, former acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan raised concerns about terrorists and cartels mixing in with those the new administration plans to let in.

“We saw the cartels and smuggling operations use families and kids as a tactic to distract Border Patrol agents. They would send a family and a small group across knowing that resources would go there to process them and care for them,” he said.

“Meanwhile, the criminals and drugs went across the border right behind them. Now, that’s exactly what is already happening,” he said as some 3,500 are now surging the border since Biden signaled an open-door policy.

Clarification: This article has been updated to make clear that the border crossings counted by the author were in Europe during the migrant crisis and that this demonstrates it can happen in the U.S.