Former President Donald Trump’s social media platform will debut in 3 to 4 months, according to Corey Lewandowski, a former senior adviser with Trump’s 2020 campaign.
Lewandowski, in an interview with Newsmax aired on March 27, described the platform as “an interactive communication tool whereby the president is going to be able to post things to it that people will be able to report and communicate directly with him.”
“What we’ve seen from Big Tech and the cancel culture is if you don’t agree with their philosophy, they’re going to cancel you, and we’re going to have a platform where the president’s message of America First is going to be able to be put out to everybody and there’ll be an opportunity for other people to weigh in and communicate in a free format without fear of reprisal or being canceled.”
The new platform will not rely on Amazon or Amazon servers, Lewandowski said in response to a question on what is being done to insulate Trump’s social media from suffering the same fate as Parler, a site that billed itself as a free speech alternative to Twitter before it was simultaneously de-platformed by Amazon, Apple, and Google.
“It’s going to be built completely from scratch, from the ground up and that’s going to give him the opportunity to control not only the distribution of it but also who participates in it,” Lewandowski said.
Lewandowski said that the former president has been working on the platform for “a long time.”
Jason Miller, a current Trump adviser, said last week that the president will soon set up a platform that will “completely redefine the game” and attract “tens of millions” of users.
Trump was banned from Twitter and Facebook following the Jan. 6 incident at the U.S. Capitol in January, cutting a direct line of communication between the commander-in-chief and tens of millions of his followers. Both companies alleged that the president’s messages could incite violence. The U.S. Congress later exonerated Trump on similar charges brought by Democrats.
Since then, a number of world leaders have expressed concern over the censorship. Twitter has said that its ban is permanent, while Facebook is deliberating whether to restore access to the former president.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) recently said he was “uncomfortable” with Twitter removing Trump and cautioned that people with a different view from Trump’s could be banned as well.
“Bernie Sanders, and I don’t agree with him very often, but he’s absolutely right. When you can cancel the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, from issuing First-Amendment rights and opinions then you can cancel anybody,” Lewandowski said. “Big Tech is out of control. They’re out of line.”
Social media platform Parler said it had referred violent content from its platform to the FBI ahead of the breach at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Parler made the disclosure in a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, in response to the panel’s request for documents. The company said that it had referred “violent content and incitement” from its platform to the FBI over 50 times before Jan. 6. It also warned the bureau about “specific threats of violence being planned” about the Jan. 6 incident.
“Parler now writes to set the record straight and provide new information about the positive role Parler played in the days and weeks leading up to January 6th, which should finally put an end to the spurious allegations against the Company,” the letter, penned by Parler’s attorney Michael S. Dry, stated.
The information is the latest in an ongoing feud between Parler and big tech companies that had sought to terminate the platform’s operation following the Jan. 6 incident. Apple and Google removed Parler from its app stores, while Amazon removed the platform from its web hosting service. All three companies took issue with the company’s alleged lax approach to violent content posted by its users and “repeated violations” of their terms of service related to such violent content.
Parler has denied the allegations and argued that the big tech companies had colluded against it as it had not taken action against competitors like Twitter and Facebook, which had similar content on their platforms regarding Jan. 6. Parler has also sued Amazon for a breach of contract, defamation, and anticompetitive behavior.
“There is no truth to the absurd conspiracy theories that have been put forth by Big Tech and its media allies to unfairly malign the company and which were referenced in the Committee’s Letter,” Parler said, according to the letter. “Contrary to what has been reported, and as explained in more detail below: the company is and always has been American-owned and controlled; Parler has never engaged in any collusion with ‘the Russians’; and Parler never offered President Donald J. Trump an ownership interest in the company.”
In its letter, Parler said that the company recognizes “legal limits to free speech” and that its policies “have always prohibited threats of violence and incitement on its platform.” It said that it had developed a “strong working relationship with the FBI” to foster cooperation with law enforcement, and ensure that unlawful incitement and violent threats were reported in a timely manner.
The company added that it had formalized its working relationship with the FBI in November 2020 and began to regularly forwarding screenshots of unlawful posts that called for violence or merited additional investigation for public safety. Such posts include users threatening to kill politicians and former Attorney General Bill Barr.
Parler said it had also alerted the FBI in December to content about specific threats of organized violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
The company also sought to underscore the alleged unbalanced scrutiny of the platform, arguing that, out of 270 Justice Department charging documents it had perused, 80 percent of social media references related to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, while only 5 percent mentioned Parler.
The letter also denied other accusations that had been lodged against the platform, including alleged collusion with Russian businesses and alleged discussion with former President Donald Trump aides to offer the former president an ownership interest in the company.
“This is also false,” the letter states. “Based on our review of documents and interviews of relevant individuals, we have identified no evidence that Parler ever negotiated with anyone to provide former President Donald Trump with a personal ownership interest in the company.”
Parler went under leadership restructuring following its dispute with big tech. Former Parler CEO John Matze, who co-founded the company, said he was fired following a dispute with one of Parler’s investors, Rebekah Mercer, over content moderation. Matze said this week that he has filed a lawsuit against the company.
Commentary – TrevorLoudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics. He is best known for his book “Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress” and his similarly-themed documentary film “Enemies Within.” His recently published book is “White House Reds: Communists, Socialists & Security Risks Running for U.S. President, 2020.”
It’s the 1930s all over again. American communists are now treating the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with the same slavish reverence once reserved for Stalin and the mighty Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), once shamelessly subservient to the CPSU, has now completely transferred its loyalties to the CCP.
On March 10, a high-level delegation from the CPUSA met with senior CCP officials in Beijing. According to an article on the CPUSA website, the International Department of the CPUSA and the International Commission of the Central Committee of the CCP “held a bilateral meeting to celebrate and discuss the 100th anniversary” of the CCP.
Los Angeles-based Rossana Cambron, national co-chair of the CPUSA, and Houston, Texas, comrade Alvaro Rodriguez, the party’s International Secretary, led the U.S. delegation.
Despite being a small party (estimated 5,000 members), the CPUSA delegation was treated with considerable respect and interest by CCP officials.
Delegate Tony Pecinovsky, a CPUSA organizer and labor historian from St. Louis, Missouri, gave the CCP officials an overview of 100 years of party history.
Comrade Maicol David Lynch from New York explained to his Chinese hosts that “most young people have a positive attitude toward socialism, especially after the political election campaigns by Bernie Sanders. The CPUSA has attracted a lot of interest from young people and increasing numbers of young people are applying for membership.”
Comrade Zhou, the CCP’s international secretary, recounted a century of U.S.–China relations: “We remember how Americans came to help us during the War of Japanese Aggression, we remember the solidarity that the CPUSA showed the CPC during this time of resistance.”
Comrade Yinchun, a member of the CCP’s central committee and international commission, boasted of China’s recent eradication of extreme poverty: “Our socialist market economy has lifted millions out of dire poverty, and by 2035, they will have achieved an even higher standard of life.”
The CPUSA also contributed to the Wanshou Forum on Feb. 28, 2019, in Beijing, on the theme of “Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind and Development of Socialism in the World.” The address was prepared by Cambron, but because of illness was delivered by Ohio comrade Aleena Starks.
“Thank you for inviting our Party to participate in learning about the many important developments in your country. I bring greetings from our Party’s National committee, wishing you all the best in establishing socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
Then CPUSA chairman John Bachtell and New York comrade Carol Widom also toured China from May 26 to June 3, 2018, in a visit that included a conference on the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth.
Some CPUSA members work in China promoting the CCP’s propaganda line. Their copy is reminiscent of 1930s Western sycophants and their unabashed praise for Stalinist Russia’s great achievements.
Houston communist Ian Goodrum is a writer and digital editor for China Daily in Beijing.
In October 2018, Goodrum wrote in the CPUSA’s People’s World:
“China and other countries governed by communist parties stand alone in that they have been able to chart their own course and resist imperialist aggression. They have not been subject to the same stringent limitations which keep so much of the developing world languishing in poverty and debt, limitations following the same rules of profit extraction analyzed by Marx in Capital.”
Boston activist Dylan Walker, a member of the Walden Workers Club of the CPUSA, is a graduate student studying international politics at Beijing Language and Culture University.
On Oct. 14 and 15, 2017, comrade Walker and fellow Boston CPUSA member Wadi’h Halabi participated in the 8th World Socialism Forum of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. According to the Boston CPUSA, “The theme of the international gathering focused on the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia and applying lessons from it to an examination of the ‘Temporal Characteristics of the Great Transformation Era, and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.’”
In the same month, CCP mouthpiece the Global Times released an interview with Walker that, according to the Hong Kong Free Press, was viewed 78,000 times on Chinese video platform miaopai.
In the interview, Walker says he became inspired by former CCP leader Mao Zedong’s thinking during his first visit to China in 2012:
“I think communism is the most advanced and the ideal social and political system. We just want to make sure everyone can get access to basic welfare and rights. … When I came to China for the first time, I bought versions of the ‘Quotations from Chairman Mao’ in Chinese and English. I read it almost every day after going back to the U.S. I kept it with me during class and I read it when I had time after classes. If I hadn’t learned the quotations, I wouldn’t have joined the Communist Party USA. So, Chairman Mao and the Communist Party of China have a special place in my heart. …
“The CPC now is admirable for me. Especially since President Xi Jinping took office. The corruption crackdown has swept nationwide. … Every time when I browse the website of the People’s Daily and Global Times, I can see such reports almost every day as corrupt officials get arrested. … What’s terrible is that a communist might have doubts towards communism and socialism, and then loses this belief and faith. Just like what President Xi said before, some communist members lack ‘calcium,’ that is lack of belief in communism and Marxism.”
“Wahd’i has been a special consultant to the government of China the past dozen years. He travels to meet with high level personnel from the Communist Party of China to advise them on problems that loom in governing while maintaining the principals of not just Marxism, but the roots of power, the people.”
The March 2021 CPUSA delegation to China committed to working in “the interest of world peace, international solidarity, and cooperation rather than international confrontation.”
In communist terminology “world peace” simply means an absence of resistance to world Marxist-Leninist domination. What would the CPUSA do if the United States got into a full-scale military confrontation with China?
An advertisement for a CPUSA reading group at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Oakland on Dec. 4, 2010, answered the question this way:
“The United States government has been committing direct acts of provocation against China’s economy, and other aspects of its society, including its military. … If these confrontations are allowed to become full-blown, it … will demand from all of us new energies to struggle on yet another—perhaps the biggest—domestic front against U.S. Imperialism.”
In other words, the CPUSA would possibly fight for the CCP on U.S. soil.
If the Biden administration is truly serious about uncovering dangerous internal enemies in this country, it need look no further than the CPUSA.
Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics. He is best known for his book “Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress” and his similarly themed documentary film “Enemies Within.” His recently published book is “White House Reds: Communists, Socialists & Security Risks Running for U.S. President, 2020.”
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
A leading Chinese professor—who is also an adviser to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—laid out a comprehensive plan for the communist regime to overthrow the United States as the world’s superpower.
The professor’s multi-pronged strategy involves a range of malign actions to subvert the United States while strengthening the Chinese regime. They include: interfering in U.S. elections, controlling the American market, cultivating global enemies to challenge the United States, stealing American technology, expanding Chinese territory, and influencing international organizations.
The plan was explained in detail by Jin Canrong, a professor and associate dean of the School of International Studies at Beijing’s Renmin University of China, in a July 2016 speech on “Sino-U.S. Strategic Philosophy” given over two full days at Southern Club Hotel Business Class in south China’s Guangzhou City.
“We want to be the world leader,” Jin said, explaining Chinese Leader Xi Jinping’s desire for a “national rejuvenation” of the country.
Dubbed “teacher of the state” by Chinese netizens, Jin is a prominent scholar known for his fiery anti-U.S. rhetoric. He is an advisor to two powerful bodies of the CCP, the Organization Department, and the United Front Work Department, though it is unclear how close he is to Xi.
The strategy to topple the United States was composed of two broad components: weakening America through both internal and foreign sources; and strengthening the Chinese regime’s economic, military, and diplomatic power.
Using a metaphor of a company to illustrate the U.S.-China dynamic, Jin likened the United States to a company president, and China to a vice president who wants the top job.
“The United States is a middle-aged man, who is good looking, has strong capabilities, and support from most employees,” Jin said.
“[To replace it], we first need to create the conditions to make it easier for the United States to make mistakes. Second, we should make it as busy as possible [dealing with problems], to the extent that it will feel depressed and want to give up. Third, we should become intertwined with the United States, so that it can’t attack us.”
Jin said the CCP was thinking of many ways to weaken the United States, which he described as a “very difficult” task. The professor offered four practical tactics.
1. Manipulating Elections
Jin suggested that the CCP should interfere in U.S. elections to bring pro-Beijing candidates to power. He singled out races for seats in the House of Representatives as an easy target.
“The Chinese government wants to arrange Chinese investments in every single congressional district to control thousands of voters in each district,” Jin said.
He noted with a population (at the time) of about 312 million and 435 congressional districts, roughly 750,000 residents live in each district.
“The voting rate in the United States is about 30 percent, which means around 200,000 residents in each congressional district vote for the representative in that district,” Jin said. “Normally the difference of votes between two candidates is 10,000 or less. If China has thousands of votes on hand, China will be the boss of the candidates.”
Jin said China’s ambition is to control at least the House.
“The best scenario is China can buy the United States, and change the U.S. House of Representatives into the second Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress,” he said, referring to the committee that oversees the CCP’s rubber-stamp legislature.
2. Controlling the US Market
A container ship berthing at the port in Qingdao, in China’s eastern Shandong province on May 17, 2019. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Ramping up Chinese investments in the United States is another way to exert influence in the country’s political system, Jin said, noting that this tactic has the added benefit of enriching Chinese business people and the CCP.
“The investment opportunities in the United States are relatively good,” he said. “The U.S. market is open—more open than the Japanese and European ones,” he continued, adding that its benefits include its size, transparency, and stability.
He said the Chinese regime wants Chinese business people to control the U.S. market, and also for them to develop their businesses in the country.
To reach this goal, the Chinese regime had tried to negotiate with Washington for the U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). The agreement was actively negotiated for the decade prior to 2017, but fell off the agenda during President Donald Trump’s administration.
Some U.S. companies wishing to enter the Chinese market, and the U.S.-China Business Council have advocated for the signing of a BIT.
3. Fostering Enemies of the US
Intercontinental ballistic missiles are launched by the Vladimir Monomakh nuclear submarine of the Russian navy from the Sera of Okhotsk, Russia, on Dec. 12, 2020. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Jin said the CCP’s “strategic task” was to make sure the United States has not less than four enemies.
Four enemies are needed to stretch the United States’ resources while bogging the government down in domestic debates over which threat to prioritize, Jin said.
For instance, before WWII the United States had two adversaries, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. “The Americans debated over and over about who is the real threat,” he said.
“If the United States has four enemies, it will totally lose its direction.”
Analyzing the situation as of 2016, Jin concluded that the United States only has three adversaries: “Terrorism is definitely an enemy of the United States. Russia looks like another one … Definitely, the United States treats us as a competitor … It’s not enough.”
The professor said that in the past few years, the CCP had tried to develop Brazil into an adversary of the United States, but was unsuccessful because Brazil “didn’t want to be improved.”
He said the CCP had pumped a lot of investment into Brazil in the bid to get its support on global issues, including taking stances against the United States. Xi had visited Brazil in 2014 and agreed to invest in infrastructure in the country’s western region, as well as a railway to link ports in Brazil and Peru.
Jin said the Chinese regime has given up on this approach and is trying to find a candidate to develop into a U.S. adversary.
4. Causing International Problems for the US
Jin said the Chinese regime was at a strategic advantage due to the United States’ role as global enforcer: whenever there is a crisis in the world, the United States would have to intervene to maintain global stability, which in turn drains U.S. resources and diverts its attention away from China.
As examples, he cited the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which he described as “completely not strategically valuable” endeavors that cost the United States “$6 trillion and 10,000 soldiers’ lives.”
The result was that the United States “wasted ten years [without being aware of China’s development], and let China grow big,” Jin said.
Another possible tactic is to sell the CCP’s holding of U.S. Treasury bonds to precipitate a debt crisis, he said. According to the U.S. Treasury, China currently holds nearly $1.1 trillion in U.S. treasury securities.
Finally, engaging in drawn-out negotiations with the United States is also an effective strategy to bog down the United States, while giving the regime the time to focus on developing itself, according to Jin. During such negotiations, the United States wouldn’t take punitive actions against the CCP such as sanctions, and instead focus its energy on preparing and carrying out the talks. Meanwhile, the Chinese regime, which has no intention of negotiating in good faith, would use the breathing space given to it over the course of the negotiations to solidify its power both inside and outside of China.
Former deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger in February warnedof the CCP’s “negotiation traps.” Pottinger said years of successive formal dialogues between the two sides, such as the “Strategic Economic Dialogue” allowed the regime to “draw out the clock” and continue its economic assaults on the United States with impunity.
Strengthening the Chinese Regime
China’s first self-developed large passenger jetliner C919 is presented after it rolled off the production line at Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Co. in Shanghai, China on November 2, 2015. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
Jin said the Chinese regime has greatly relied on the U.S. trade and investments to spur its economic development over the past four decades. He highlighted four approaches to expand the CCP’s economic and political power at home and abroad.
1. Stealing US Technology
The professor admitted that the CCP has depended on stolen American technology to fuel its growth.
“China’s industry has a large output, but lacks certain technology,” Jin said. “In the past 30 years, we bought technology, 46 percent of which were from Germany. But the United States has the best technology, but it doesn’t sell to us.”
He added, “Americans think that Chinese hackers steal a lot of their things. This may very well be true.” Jin said key technology for China’s J-20 fighter jet and DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile was stolen from the United States.
The regime is also eager to get its hands on American space technology.
In June 2016, China’s Long March 7 rocket sent an orbital debris clean-up satellite Aolong-1 to space. Beijing claimed that Aolong-1 only brought space debris back to earth, but Jin suggested the satellite had another mission.
“The U.S. said that [Aolong-1] was collecting American satellites [from the space], and bringing them back to China,” Jin said. “We can disassemble [the American] satellites and reassemble them into Chinese ones.”
2. Expanding the Regime’s Territory
Jin believed that the Chinese regime would occupy the whole of the South China Sea and Taiwan in the near future.
The CCP lays claim to almost all of the South China Sea despite a 2016 ruling by an international court finding that its territorial claims were unlawful. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan also have competing claims in the waterways. Home to rich fishing grounds and potentially valuable natural resources, the South China Sea is also one of the world’s major shipping routes.
One of China’s man-made islands in the South China Sea, May 21, 2015. (U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters)
Beijing has sought to bolster its claims in the strategic waterways by building artificial islands in the area and building military outposts on them.
“In one and half years [in 2013 and 2014 under Xi’s administration], China has created more than 3,200 acres of territory. The other four claimant states have created only 100 acres in 45 years,” Jin said.
Jin predicted that the CCP would continue to create more features in the South China Sea.
He also boasted about the regime’s success in wresting control of the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012 with the help of Chinese fishing boats and coast guard vessels.
“Even if the Philippines wants the United States to take over the reefs [in the South China Sea], the United States can’t guard them,” Jin said. “If the United States stations an aircraft carrier there, China can simply send 2,000 fishing boats and surround the carrier. Then the carrier doesn’t dare to fire at the fishing boats.”
In relation to Taiwan, the CCP has more ways to bring the democratic island under its control, Jin said. The regime views the self-ruled island as part of its territory and has vowed to bring Taiwan under its fold with force if necessary. For instance, the regime could bribe Taiwanese politicians, ban trade and tourism from China, convince the few remaining countries that recognize Taiwan diplomatically to switch to China, blocking Taiwan’s participation in international organizations and meetings, and assassinating some Taiwanese to instill fear among the population.
3. Building Global Influence By Leading Projects
Xi’s global strategy to bolster the regime’s global power has two pillars, according to Jin. One is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the other is the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).
BRI, previously known as One Belt One Road, is a massive global investment strategy launched by the CCP in 2013 aimed at bolstering its economic and political influence across Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America. The project involves investments in infrastructure and natural resource projects in countries. It has been criticized by the United States and other countries as an example of “debt trap” diplomacy, that saddles developing countries with unsustainable debt burdens while allowing the regime to export its technology and governance abroad.
“The ultimate purpose of BRI is to team up with the industrial power Germany. Then there’s no position of the United States in the world’s industrial playing field,” Jin said.
Similarly, Jin said the FTAAP, a proposed free trade agreement between 21 Asian-Pacific countries, would also open a conduit of influence for the CCP in the region.
The professor also believed that Chinese-backed development banks, the New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, would work to Beijing’s advantage, as countries that received loans from the banks would then be beholden to the regime, Jin said.
“We are building up our friend’s circle in the world. We will be more powerful than the United States with more friends,” he said. “Then we can tell the United States that we are the only representative of the world.”
4. Influencing International Organizations
Jin also explained the CCP’s plan to exert greater influence over global bodies such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, Interpol, the International Monetary Fund, the International Olympic Committee, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The Chinese regime’s goal is for “all these international organizations to be controlled by China. We can appoint someone who speaks Chinese [who represents China] to be its leaders,” Jin said.
Chinese candidate to head the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Qu Dongyu addresses FAO members and delegates during the plenary assembly for the election of the new FAO Director-General held at the FAO headquarters, in Rome on June 22, 2019. (Vincenzo Pinto/ AFP via Getty Images)
During his speech, Jin emphasized that Xi was unlike his predecessors in his ambitions. Previous CCP leaders, such as Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao worked hard to develop the regime’s power but didn’t dare to use it, he said.
“No matter how much power you have, it’s nothing if you don’t dare to use it,” Jin said. “Chairman Xi dares to use it. [Xi’s authorities] have the power, dare to use that power, and all of its attacks make the other party bleed.”
Xi’s ambitions, however, cannot be revealed to the outside world, the professor said.
When Xi took power in 2012, he urged the country to realize the “Chinese dream.” This meant becoming a “moderately well-off” country by 2021, and then a “strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and modern socialist country” by 2049.
Jin explained that Xi’s target is actually to replace the United States as the world’s only superpower by 2049.
“[Chinese] Ministry of Foreign Affairs keeps on saying [at press briefings] that China loves peace. But no reporters at the press briefings believe this,” Jin said.
A health worker holds a vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Pfaffenhofen, Germany. CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP via Getty Images
Ever since the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for two new vaccines, employers, schools, and other organizations are grappling with whether to require Covid-19 vaccination.
While organizations are certainly free to encourage their employees, students, and other members to be vaccinated, federal law provides that, at least until the vaccine is licensed, individuals must have the option to accept or decline to be vaccinated.
Knowing what an organization can or cannot do with respect to Covid-19 vaccines can help them keep their employees, students, and members safe and also save them from costly and time-consuming litigation.
Much remains unknown about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine
Even though the FDA granted emergency use authorizations for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in December 2020, the clinical trials the FDA will rely upon to ultimately decide whether to license these vaccines are still underway and are designed to last for approximately twoyears to collect adequate data to establish if these vaccines are safe and effective enough for the FDA to license.
The abbreviated timelines for the emergency use applications and authorizations means there is much the FDAdoesnotknow about these products even as it authorizes them for emergency use, including their effectiveness against asymptomatic infection, death, and transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease.
Given the uncertainty about the two vaccines, their EUAs are explicit that each is “an investigational vaccine not licensed for any indication” and require that all “promotional material relating to the Covid-19 Vaccine clearly and conspicuously … state that this product has not been approved or licensed by the FDA, but has been authorized for emergency use by FDA” (emphasis added).
EUAs are clear: Getting these vaccines is voluntary
The same section of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that authorizes the FDA to grant emergency use authorization also requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to “ensure that individuals to whom the product is administered are informed … of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product.”
Likewise, the FDA’s guidance on emergency use authorization of medical products requires the FDA to “ensure that recipients are informed to the extent practicable given the applicable circumstances … That they have the option to accept or refuse the EUA product …”
In the same vein, when Dr. Amanda Cohn, the executive secretary of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, was asked if Covid-19 vaccination can be required, she responded that under an EUA, “vaccines are not allowed to be mandatory. So, early in this vaccination phase, individuals will have to be consented and they won’t be able to be mandatory.” Cohn later affirmed that this prohibition on requiring the vaccines applies to organizations, including hospitals.
The EUAs for both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require fact sheets to be given to vaccination providers and recipients. These fact sheets make clear that getting the vaccine is optional. For example, the one for recipients states that “It is your choice to receive or not receive the Covid-19 Vaccine,” and if “you decide to not receive it, it will not change your standard of medical care.”
What this means in practice
When the FDA grants emergency use authorization for a vaccine, many questions about the product cannot be answered. Given the open questions, when Congress granted the authority to issue EUAs, it chose to require that every individual should be allowed to decide for himself or herself whether or not to receive an EUA product. The FDA and CDC apparently consider this fundamental requirement of choice important enough that even during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic they reinforced that policy decision when issuing their guidance related to the Covid-19 vaccines.
This means that an organization will likely be at odds with federal law if it requires its employees, students or other members to get a Covid-19 vaccine that is being distributed under emergency use authorization.
State law often prohibits retaliating against an employee for refusing to participate in a violation of federal law. Organizations that require Covid-19 vaccination in violation of federal law may face lawsuits under these state laws not only to block the policy but also for damages and attorneys’ fees. Such potentially costly lawsuits can be avoided by refraining from adopting policies that require vaccination or penalize members for choosing not to be vaccinated.
Organizations are free to encourage vaccinations through internal communications, through educational events, and through other measures to urge employees to be vaccinated. They can take these measures so long as: (1) they are not viewed as coercive, (2) the organization makes clear the decision regarding whether to receive the vaccine is voluntary, and (3) the measures comply with the requirements in the EUAs and the related regulations for these products.
People across the world have had their lives upended during the last year. The urgency to return to normalcy is felt deeply by many. As decision-makers at organizations decide on their Covid-19 vaccination policy, they should be careful to not let this passion lead the organization to run afoul of the law.
Aaron Siri is the managing partner at Siri & Glimstad LLP, a complex civil litigation firm with its principal office in New York City. This article is not intended to provide legal advice but to offer broad and general information about the law.
On the campaign trail candidate Joe Biden promised to create a “fair and humane” immigration system. Instead, the Biden administration has created a system in which the criteria for being allowed into this country at the Southern border a deep, dark secret. Would-be immigrants show up at the border with no idea whether they will be allowed in or sent back to Mexico, nor why.
Is it humane for families to trek for months across dangerous, cartel-controlled expanses with no rationale expectation of being admitted?
According to an Associated Press account today, the Biden administration releases most children traveling alone to relatives in this country and gives them notices to appear in immigration court. “Nearly 9,500 such children arrived in February, up 60 percent from a month earlier,” the story relates.
But six out of 10 families picked up by the Border Patrol in February were sent back across the border. The number of family arrivals in February topped 19,200, more than double the previous month.
The anecdotal lede on the AP story recounts how one family from Honduras with children ages 3 and 5 were given bus tickets to Oklahoma to join an in-law, while a mother from El Salvador and her 8-year-old daughter was “being banished to a violent Mexican border city with no food or money and sleeping on the concrete of a plaza.”
What is our immigration law? Who knows? It is a secret. Customs and border officers deport immigrants from Hidalgo, Texas. (AP pix) http://dlvr.it/RwHJ6F
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) released several photos from an overflow tent facility in Donna, Texas, showing extremely crowded conditions as hundreds of illegal immigrants and minors pour across the border.
The photos show children sleeping on the floors along with makeshift beds.
Cuellar, whose office first shared the photos with Axios, told the news outlet that one “pod” held more than 400 unaccompanied male minors. The pods are supposed to hold a maximum of 260 people, he said.
The pods provide “terrible conditions for the children,” Cuellar added, saying these children should be moved to be housed and cared for by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Over the weekend, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas visited areas along the border, but his office restricted media access. A number of news outlets have said that their journalists and photographers have been denied access.
Cuellar told Axios that he didn’t visit the Donna facility himself, adding that the photos were provided to him as he attempts to raise awareness of the situation at the border.
Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agents are “doing the best they can under the circumstances” but are “not equipped to care for kids” and “need help from the administration,” he said. “We have to stop kids and families from making the dangerous trek across Mexico to come to the United States. We have to work with Mexico and Central American countries to have them apply for asylum in their countries.”
An overflow facility in Donna, Texas, in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Rep. Henry Cuellar’s office)An overflow facility in Donna, Texas, in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Rep. Henry Cuellar’s office)An overflow facility in Donna, Texas, in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Rep. Henry Cuellar’s office)An overflow facility in Donna, Texas, in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Rep. Henry Cuellar’s office)
White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to a question from a report about the photos.
“These photos show what we have long been saying, which is these border patrol facilities are not places made for children,” Psaki told reporters at the White House on Monday. “They are not places we want children to be staying for an extended period of time. Our alternative is to send children back on this treacherous journey. That is not in our view the right choice to make.”
“Children presenting themselves at our border who are fleeing violence, who are fleeing prosecution, terrible situations, is not a crisis,” she said in elaborating. “We feel it is our responsibility to humanely approach this circumstance.”
But over the past several weeks, Cuellar issued several warnings about the border crisis, saying that President Joe Biden’s administration needs to improve its messaging.
“You just can’t say, ‘Yeah, yeah, let everybody in’—because then we’re affected down there at the border,” he remarked, adding, “The bad guys know how to market this.” Cuellar’s district lies along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a series of TV interviews on Sunday, Mayorkas fielded questions about how the White House is dealing with the surge along the border.
“We are expelling families. We are expelling single adults. And we’ve made a decision that we will not expel young, vulnerable children. I think we are executing on our plans,” Mayorkas told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on March 21.
“We have a short-term plan, a medium-term plan, and a long-term plan, and the president and I have spoken to this repeatedly. Please remember something: That President [Donald] Trump dismantled the orderly, humane, and efficient way of allowing children to make their claims under United States law in their home countries,” the secretary stated in response to a question about whether Biden’s statements encourage illegal immigration, without elaborating.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House about the photos.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Facebook that requested the court intervene in a $15 billion class-action lawsuit alleging the firm illegally tracked the online activities of its users when they are not on the platform, thereby violating the federal Wiretap Act law.
“Facebook’s user profiles would allegedly reveal an individual’s likes, dislikes, interests, and habits over a significant amount of time, without affording users a meaningful opportunity to control or prevent the unauthorized exploration of their private lives,” the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a ruling (pdf) last year, saying that Facebook users suffered a clear invasion of privacy.
The “Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged a clear invasion of the historically recognized right to privacy,” the court ruled at the time. “Therefore, Plaintiffs have standing to pursue their privacy claims under the Wiretap Act, [the Stored Communications Act], and [the Children’s Internet Protection Act], as well as their claims for breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court denied Facebook’s appeal, meaning the suit can go forward.
The lawsuit alleged that the Menlo Park, California-based tech giant had secretly tracked users’ visits to websites that use Facebook’s features such as the “like” or “share” buttons, even if the users did not click on either of the two buttons.
The litigation also accuses the company of violating the privacy rights of its users under California law, but Facebook’s appeal to the Supreme Court involved only the Wiretap Act. The 1968 law has also been invoked in lawsuits against Google and Microsoft.
Four individuals filed the proposed lawsuit in California federal court seeking $15 billion in damages for Facebook’s actions between April 2010 and September 2011. The company stopped its nonconsensual tracking after it was exposed by a researcher in 2011, court papers said. They further argued that Facebook unjustly collected the data and sold it to advertisers for a profit.
Facebook, in response, said it maintained privacy standards and should not be penalized for communications that users partake in, saying that the data was collected to show users better content and more targeted ads on its platform. It has further said the data was not collected in an unfair manner.
“Facebook was not an uninvited interloper to a communication between two separate parties; it was a direct participant,” the company said in a legal filing.
Facebook now discloses that it collects data when people visit websites with the firm’s plug-ins. It reached a settlement over its practices with the Federal Trade Commission about a decade ago.
It is time to cast off our chains and free ourselves from slavery to the clock.
On Sunday morning we are required to spring our clocks forward an hour, if we wish to remain in sync with the rest of the nation, get to church and work on time and tune in at the proper time to our favorite radio and TV programs.
Mankind once worked from can till cain’t, as my ol’ grandpappy used to say — from the time you can see till the time you can’t — and farmers and ranchers such as grandpappy still do. But to make the trains run on time, we strapped ourselves to the clock, even though the clock is uniform and doesn’t change when the amount of daylight does.
Ol’ Ben Franklin, while serving as ambassador in France, accidentally figured out that this out-of-sync arrangement was somewhat uneconomical when he mistakenly arose one day at 6 a.m. instead of noon and discovered the sun was shining through his window. “I love economy exceedingly,” he jested, and proceeded to explain in a letter to a local newspaper how many candles and how much lamp oil could be saved by adjusting the city’s lifestyle to the proclivities of the sun.
Franklin observed:
“This event has given rise in my mind to several serious and important reflections. I considered that, if I had not been awakened so early in the morning, I should have slept six hours longer by the light of the sun, and in exchange have lived six hours the following night by candle-light; and, the latter being a much more expensive light than the former, my love of economy induced me to muster up what little arithmetic I was master of, and to make some calculations, which I shall give you, after observing that utility is, in my opinion the test of value in matters of invention, and that a discovery which can be applied to no use, or is not good for something, is good for nothing.”
Then he did the math, and exclaimed, “An immense sum! that the city of Paris might save every year, by the economy of using sunshine instead of candles.”
Thus, in 1918 in a effort to be more economical during the war, Congress borrowed from Europe the concept of daylight saving time — springing clocks forward during the summer and back in the winter. From shortly after Pearl Harbor until the end of the Second World War, the nation was on year-round daylight saving time, or war time, as it was called. National Geographic photo
Moving the clock forward in summer might well save a few kilowatt-hours in lighting, but in states like Nevada that savings is more than made up for with increased air conditioning costs and the fuel used to drive about more after getting off work.
One study found that springing forward causes enough sleep deprivation to cost the U.S. economy $435 million a year. The New England Journal of Medicine found an association between that one hour loss of sleep from daylight saving time and an increase in car accidents, as well as a 5 percent increase in heart attacks in the first three weekdays after the transition to daylight saving time, while an Australian study found an increase in the suicide rate.
In a probably futile gesture to end the charade, the state Legislature a couple of years ago passed Assembly Joint Resolution No. 4 that proposes to make Pacific Daylight Saving Time year-round.
“WHEREAS, Congress also found and declared that ‘the use of year-round daylight saving time could have other beneficial effects on the public interest, including the reduction of crime, improved traffic safety, more daylight outdoor playtime for children and youth of our Nation, [and] greater utilization of parks and recreation areas …’” AJR4 reads in part, also noting possible “expanded economic opportunity through extension of daylight hours to peak shopping hour. ”
It passed both the Assembly and Senate and was enrolled by the Secretary of State.
Changing to year-round daylight saving time might not save electricity, but it could increase productivity and prevent car wrecks.
Alas, as with everything else, the power to fix this lies in Washington, though I can’t seem to find this enumerated power in my copy of the Constitution. Perhaps it is outdated.
In another glaring example of the efficiency and sincerity of our elected officials, AJR4 passed, the morning newspaper reported that no one in Washington had ever heard of AJR4.
AJR4 concludes by beseeching Congress to amend The Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973 and allow each state to opt out, the same as Arizona and Hawaii have opted out, but rather than sticking with standard time, AJR4 would adopt Pacific Daylight Saving Time all year. Why should it get dark at 4:30 p.m. in the winter anyway?
Washington is in another century, much less a different time zone.
But the clowns in Carson City are dutifully at it again this year, working on legislation that might — if enough hoops are leapt through and the left coast Californians also indulge — keep Nevada’s clocks from hiccupping twice a year by staying on either standard or daylight saving time.
According to the Pahrump Valley Times, Senate Bill 153, if approved, has two prerequisites. First, moving Nevada to daylight time will only take effect with federal authorization. Also neighboring California must make the change, too. California voters OK’d the change in 2018 but the Legislature hasn’t acted.
The alternative of moving Nevada to year-round standard time also would happen only if California does the same.
Don’t hold your breath or waste much time contemplating the possibilities.
The national debate over the twice-a-year changing of clocks from standard to daylight saving time and back is so persistent and predictable that you could, er, set your clock by it.
The subject is back before the Nevada Legislature again this year, with a substantial chance that lawmakers will see daylight to approve a change.
If only that would turn out the lights on the matter.
Senate Bill 153 would put Nevada on a path to observe either daylight saving time or standard time year-round; one sponsor of the bill called the current semiannual change “archaic in today’s modern age.” A similar effort passed easily as a resolution in 2015. The nation switches to daylight saving time at 2 a.m. Sunday, moving clocks ahead one hour.
The Nevada bill awaits a hearing in committee and comes with a hitch: Federal law, which allows states to skip daylight saving time entirely and observe standard time all year, as Arizona and Hawaii do, does not similarly permit states to make daylight saving time permanent.
So the Nevada bill, if approved, has two caveats: Moving Nevada to daylight time will only take effect with federal authorization and if neighboring California also enacts the change. Golden State voters authorized the move in 2018 but the Legislature hasn’t acted yet.
Hence, Nevada’s bill attempts to separate night from day with the option to go either direction. By tying Nevada’s change to action by California, it also sidesteps a concern of those who oppose the change for fear that a fractured time zone map would complicate life for those who live in the Far West, and who make up a big part of Nevada’s drive-in casino customer base.
Simplify, and conquer
The tactic is exactly how the Utah Legislature moved a similar bill through in 2020. Supporters there conditioned its implementation on federal action and on approval by at least four other Western states. That has already occurred, with Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming among 16 states to date where laws, resolutions, or voter initiatives have passed since 2018. Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee round out the list.
Utah proponents also sought to simplify the debate, which gets complicated because there are actually three choices: switch to full-time daylight saving time, to full-time standard time, or leave everything as is. In gauging support, they cast the debate as of question of more or less functional daylight time.
Action in states and Congress
The National Conference of State Legislatures, which has a standalone policy page tracking state action on the subject, counted 85 pieces of legislation on the subject in 32 states last year. And this year, a Senate bill with bipartisan backing is again before Congress: The “Sunshine Protection Act,” with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, as a prime sponsor, would make daylight saving time permanent year-round except for states on permanent standard time.
“Americans’ lifestyles are very different than they were when Daylight Saving Time began more than a century ago,” another supporter, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said in a release. “Making Daylight Saving Time permanent will end the biannual disruptions to daily life and give families more daylight hours to enjoy after work and school.”
Business interests
The first appearance of daylight saving time in the U.S. dates to 1916. The move was never about farmers or agriculture — cows, after all, don’t wear watches, and farmers opposed the time change because it upset their schedules. Rather, business interests thought an extra hour of daylight would mean more customers.
Proponents also made the argument that daylight saving time saved energy; it was observed year-round in the U.S. during World War II and again during the 1974 oil crisis, though it was reversed amid concerns that included students having to go to school in the dark. In 2005, Congress extended annual daylight saving time observance from six months to eight, March to November.
Energy savings remains official federal policy for the clock switching. The U.S. Department of Transportation, on a webpage last updated in 2014, says more daylight means lower electricity consumption, in addition to fewer accidents and less crime.
But increasing concerns and studies in the U.S. and elsewhere cite potential health effects and contrary findings — some find more accidents and workplace injuries occurring, not fewer, because of people not adjusting to the time change. Studies also question energy savings.
“As a seasoned family practice doctor I believe Daylight Saving Time is archaic in today’s modern age and desynchronizes our circadian rhythm, resulting in adverse health effects such as an increase in cardiovascular diseases, injuries, mental and behavioral disorders, and issues with the immune system including rising cortisol levels,” said Assemblywoman Robin Titus, R-Wellington, the GOP Assembly caucus leader. She cited “numerous studies demonstrating this in the U.S., Sweden, Denmark, and Australia.”
Titus is a sponsor of the bill to pick one or the other, along with Republican Sens. Pete Goicoechea of Elko and Joe Hardy of Boulder City.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine comes down on the side of full-time standard time, saying daylight saving time “is less aligned with human circadian biology.” Proponents of year-round daylight saving time tend to be advocates for outdoor recreation and businesses that benefit from more activity, such as service stations.
Nevada’s 2015 effort, which called simply for a one-way move to daylight saving time but carried less weight as a resolution, passed easily in both the Assembly and Senate. In 2021, a more flexible proposal, this time in bill form, could take the state in either direction.
At the end of the day, that could make it just as likely to pass.
