'Warfighter ethos'

Through the alleged changes, Gerard lived rent-free from 2016 to 2024, saving around $63,500.

OXON HILL, Md.—A Hungarian conservative leader warned that while President Donald Trump has made great progress, the global “woke machine” remains an abiding threat, propped up by Hungarian American billionaire George Soros. Miklós Szánthó, who convenes conservatives for the Conservative Political Action Conference in Hungary, praised Trump for rooting out the U.S. government’s funding for leftist causes like gender ideology and open borders but warned that Soros and his allies uphold a globalist infrastructure that will continue to advocate these issues. He noted that Trump has paused international funding through the U.S. Agency for International Development but the Soros-founded Open Society Foundations will continue to fund similar projects. “Although, thanks to God, USAID is canceled, the Open Society Network still operates,” Szánthó told The Daily Signal in an interview at CPAC last month. “So the fight against the woke machine, against this big geopolitical manipulation machine, is not over.” Szánthó cited research from the Center for Fundamental Rights in Hungary—which organizes CPAC Hungary and is where he serves as president—that found that the Open Society Foundations has spent $1.4 billion in Europe in the past 10 years. He claimed that USAID and Open Society funneled “at least $20 million” to “Hungarian leftist media organizations, [nongovernmental organizations], think tanks, under projects like ‘human rights,’ ‘rule of law,’ ‘democracy,’ ‘climate change.’” The Trump administration has halted most foreign aid, but the White House has highlighted how funds directed through USAID and other federal agencies propped up gender ideology, climate alarmism, and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs overseas. USAID has many ties to the Left’s dark money network and to the activist groups that staffed and advised the Biden administration. My book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” lays out this vast influence campaign, much of which enjoys funding from Soros’ Open Society Foundations. “Even with USAID canceled, this woke hydra has four or five additional heads,” Szánthó warned. “This whole woke machine is so deep.” The Hungarian conservative contrasted Soros’ globalism with patriotism in Hungary and the United States. “George Soros is a very typical ‘anywhere guy,’” Szánthó explained. He dismissed the idea that Soros, who grew up in Hungary, at all represents the Hungarian people. “There are localists, sovereignists—’somewhere’ guys—and there are ‘anywhere guys’—the globalists.” He argued that Soros and his son, Alex Soros (who now runs the Open Society Foundations), are “typical ‘anywhere’ globalists, and although they speak about those ‘democratic values,’ what they really mean is liberal, progressive democratic values: open borders, gender policies, gender propaganda, weakening the family.” “I wouldn’t say that George Soros would be Hungarian or American,” Szánthó said. “He’s a globalist.” He emphasized that the current political dividing line “is not between the Left and the Right or progressives versus conservatives, but it’s between sovereignists and globalists.” He noted that former Vice President Kamala Harris represented the globalist campaign in the U.S., while Trump represented the sovereignist, patriotic side. Szánthó warned that some of the same bureaucrats and leaders who held positions of power under Soviet influence went on to become the leftist elites now backed up by Soros’ network. “Leaders, influencers, journalists who already worked 20, 30, 40 years ago—even before the Iron Curtain fell—now they are promoting, you know, ‘democratic values,’ ‘human rights,’ et cetera, but it’s the same people,” he said. “The very same people” are pushing “the very same content” with “the very same goal: to undermine normality, to undermine common sense, to undermine God, homeland, and family. But now, they found new brands, new slogans.” Szánthó also emphasized a “revolving door” between European Union bureaucrats and the nonprofits propped up by the Open Society Foundations—one similar to the Woketopus. “This Open Society network also finances several Europe-wide entities, NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], human rights groups, and their staff—their researchers, their experts. Now they work for a Soros NGO,” he explained. “Previously, they worked for the European Commission. Before that, they worked for the European Court. Before that, they worked for the European Parliament. Now, they are civil activists. But the next year, they will go back to the European deep state.” Szánthó described Hungary as “the island of freedom or island of difference” in the “liberal/progressive ocean that is Europe.” He urged conservatives to “combine forces” across national boundaries—with Trump in the U.S., President Javier Milei in Argentina, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary—to launch “a revival of the patriots.” The post GLOBAL WOKE MACHINE: Leader of CPAC Hungary Raises the Alarm About Soros appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz says “the gates of hell will open” against Hamas if the remaining hostages still in Gaza are not released soon.   “We will return to fighting and [Hamas] will face the [Israel Defense Forces] with strength and methods that it has not known, until [Hamas] is totally defeated,” Katz said while speaking at an event in Jerusalem on Monday, according to The Times of Israel.  “We will not allow Hamas to rule in Gaza,” he added.   Katz’s comments come after the initial six-week ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came to an end over the weekend. Despite some challenges along the way, phase one of the ceasefire when largely as planned and included the release of more than 30 hostages from Gaza, including Israeli American citizens Keith Siegel, 65, and Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36.   Hamas and Israel have not reached an agreement on the details of phase two of the ceasefire, but Israel has presented Hamas with a deal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire through the end of Ramadan on March 29, and Passover, which ends April 19.   U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff provided Israel with the framework for the deal to extend the current ceasefire, according to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.   The extension would include the release of about half the hostages remaining in Gaza upon Hamas’ agreeing to the plan. The remaining hostages would be released when the agreement concludes, providing a permanent ceasefire has been reached, The Times of Israel reported.   There are 59 hostages still in Gaza, at least 35 of whom are dead, according to the IDF.   Hamas has not yet agreed to extend the ceasefire and release the remaining hostages, and until it does so, Israel has stopped the delivery of all humanitarian aid into Gaza.   “Israel will not allow a ceasefire without a release of our hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement Sunday. “If Hamas persists in its refusal, there will be additional consequences.”  Just one day after the initial first phase of the ceasefire ended, a stabbing attack took one life and left four others wounded in Haifa, Israel. Hamas praised the attack, but did not claim responsibility.   Katz’s threat to open “the gates of hell” against Hamas if the hostages are not soon released echoes President Donald Trump’s repeated warning that there will be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if the hostages are not set free.   The Trump administration has taken multiple actions to demonstrate its clear support for Israel, including on Saturday when Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he had “signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel.” Rubio’s announcement is a sea change from the partial arms embargo on Israel set in place under the Biden administration.  The Biden administration embargo “wrongly withheld a number of weapons and ammunition from Israel,” Rubio said, adding that “Israel has no greater ally in the White House than President Trump.”   The post ‘Gates of Hell Will Open’ Against Hamas If Hostages Aren’t Released, Israel Warns appeared first on The Daily Signal.

This is the fourth in an eight-article series on “Restoring Trust in Public Health: Lessons from COVID-19.” Four years of the Biden-Harris administration has left Americans rightly skeptical of public health institutions. This series highlights key findings from several congressional oversight reports, including the final report of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and offers lessons for Congress and the new administration on ways to restore trust in public health. The Biden-Harris administration often issued recommendations related to the COVID pandemic that turned out to be confusing, false, misleading, or unsupported by scientific evidence. One of the most troubling examples was regarding the COVID-19 vaccines. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its final report in December detailing the numerous federal failures, including misinformation concerning COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness. In 2021, the administration persisted in claiming erroneously that the COVID-19 vaccines would prevent viral transmission. In March 2021, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention claimed COVID-19 vaccines were highly effective against infection and transmission, and that vaccinated persons could safely gather without wearing masks or practicing social distancing. Yet, this initial claim went far beyond the terms of the Food and Drug Administration’s December 2020 Emergency Use Authorization for the vaccines that explicitly denied that there was any evidence that they prevented person-to-person transmission. On Dec.11, 2020, when the Emergency Use Authorization was issued, the FDA explicitly stated that it could not affirm that the vaccines could prevent COVID-19 transmission: “At this time, data are not available to make a determination about how long the vaccine will provide protection, nor is there evidence that the vaccine prevents transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from person to person.” Nonetheless, on March 8, 2021, the CDC advised the public that fully vaccinated individuals could safely gather indoors with others who were fully vaccinated, without masks or social distancing. The CDC also stated that vaccinated individuals exposed to COVID-19 did not need to isolate or get tested unless they exhibited symptoms. In July 2021, the administration had to revise its messaging and concede that vaccination in fact did not always prevent infection or transmission. On Aug. 18, 2021, afterPresident Joe Biden announced booster shots would be released for all adults, top FDA scientists, Dr. Marion Gruber and Dr. Phillip Krause resigned because they believed that there was insufficient data to recommend all adults getting a booster shot eight months after the second shot. Following witness testimony under oath, the Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic reported, “evidence further indicates that the FDA may have allowed politics to interfere with what should have been a dispassionate and scientifically driven regulatory process. Dr. Gruber and Dr. Krause expressed legitimate concerns about the hyper-acceleration of the review of COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots and were ignored.” Then, going from bad to worse, in September 2021, without scientific evidence that the vaccines would prevent viral transmission, Biden announced the imposition of unprecedented federal vaccine mandates by falsely claiming that the COVID-19 pandemic was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Childhood Vaccination Despite evidence that the threat of serious COVID-19 illness, hospitalization or death was infinitesimal for healthy young children, the administration also persisted in promoting vaccinations and boosters for children. On Jan. 3, 2022, the FDA expanded its Emergency Use Authorization for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to include single booster doses for adolescents aged 12-15 years. Days after, on Jan. 5, 2022, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to extend eligibility for additional vaccination for this age group despite the lack of concrete evidence that boosters would provide meaningful protection against the virus. In fact, the meeting slides acknowledged the uncertainty over the “Impact of booster dose on neutralizing antibody or VE [vaccine effectiveness].” On May 17, 2022, the FDA extended booster eligibility to children aged 5-11 years. Soon after, on June 18, 2022, CDC recommended COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as six months to five years. Remarkably, these policies were being undertaken seemingly insulated from the public health assessments and the more sober policies of America’s European allies. In fact, as the Select Subcommittee notes, Team Biden’s approach rendered the United States a global outlier in pushing Covid vaccines and boosters for children and adolescents. Ignoring Natural Immunity The record also shows that federal officials downplayed or ignored natural immunity from a previously acquired Covid-19 infection. In fact, the Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic reported that when the Biden vaccine mandates were being implemented, 91 million Americans had already been infected with Covid-19. This dogma among our top federal public health officials was not in keeping with the traditional understanding of the strength of previous infection as a protection against illness, nor was it compatible with emerging data on the power of natural immunity. Global research, including major studies published in Italy, Israel and Britain, as well as American studies published by the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and the New England Journal of Medicine proved the strength and durability of natural immunity. In February 2023, for example, The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, published a major study showing that infection-acquired immunity cut the risk of re-infection by 78 percent after 40 weeks. Nonetheless, top federal officials apparently ignored its relevance and attempted to suppress dissenting scientists who held otherwise. Meanwhile, Team Biden continued its persistent pursuit of a vaccine mandate. Playing It Straight on Vaccine Effectiveness Based on his remarks at his confirmation hearings, the new HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. understands the crucial need for fully transparent and rigorous adherence to science. There is a great opportunity to restore public trust by not only requiring rigorous standards of scientific evidence in authorizing the availability and use of vaccines, but also in embracing full transparency in communicating clearly the scientific benefits, limits, and the risks to the public or certain cohorts of the public. Ana Sofia Santiago-Russe, a member of the Heritage Young Leaders Program, contributed research for this article. The post Restoring Trust in Public Health: Play It Straight on Vaccines Effectiveness appeared first on The Daily Signal.

We would all love fresh eggs daily but sometimes our hens just don't lay. Perhaps you get your eggs from the farmer's market and want to ration them accordingly. This article will show you how to freeze eggs in ice cube trays, silicone baking cups, and muffin tins. How to Freeze Eggs In 3 Simple Ways   What you'll need: Eggs A container to freeze your eggs in (muffin tin, silicone baking cups, ice trays, or plastic egg holders) What you'll need Photo by Fabulous Farm Girl Step 1: Place Eggs In A Container and Freeze Place Eggs In A Container and Freeze Photo by Fabulous Farm Girl When placing eggs in a container, take note that once the eggs are frozen it is difficult to separate them. It's best to determine ahead of time what you're planning on using your eggs for in the future. For example, if you're planning on using your eggs for baking homemade goodies that require just the whites or just the yolks, then you'll want to separate them before freezing. Tip 1: Muffin tins and plastic egg holders are good containers if you want to freeze your eggs whole because the slots are big. However, removing the eggs can be quite difficult. My advice would be to use cooking spray before putting the eggs inside the slots. Tip 2: Silicone cups are the easiest to use when freezing eggs. Just drop an egg per cup, no need to spray with cooking spray as the eggs won't stick in the cups. Tip 3: Ice cube trays are a lot smaller and therefore can't be used to freeze whole eggs. You can use ice cube trays to freeze separated eggs.   Step 2: Transfer the Frozen Eggs to a Freezer Safe Bag Transfer the Frozen Eggs to a Freezer Safe Bag Photo by Happy Money Saver Don't forget to label the bag or tray with the contents and the date. You can keep the eggs frozen up to a year!   Step 3: Use the Frozen Eggs https://www.instagram.com/p/BaACVgSnYov/?tagged=frozeneggs To use, just take out your desired number of eggs from the bag and thaw at room temperature. Do not thaw eggs in a microwave. Needless to say, placing the eggs in a microwave will definitely cook them. Thawing at room temperature will take about 1-2 hours, so thaw ahead of time. Use the eggs on your usual egg recipes. Enjoy!   Watch this video by Flannel Acres and learn another way to freeze eggs: Enjoy your eggs now and later! This is a great idea for preserving your resources. It's essential so nothing in your lovely homemade sustainable kitchen goes to waste. What are your thoughts about this step-by-step tutorial on how to freeze eggs? Have you tried freezing eggs before? Let us know in the comments section below! Up Next: Doing Dairy: Why Homemade Feta is Always Bettah!   Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on December 18, 2015, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.

Unsurprisingly, Americans Back Trump Over Zelenskyy

Christiane Amanpour is first and foremost an international affairs correspondent, but for Friday’s PBS edition of Amanpour & Co., she interviewed playwright Joe Murphy and actor Stephen Kunken at the Soho Place theatre in London, where the climate change message play Kyoto, cowritten by Murphy and starring Kunken, is being performed. Amanpour, who surely considers herself an intellectual, sounded like any other knee-jerk liberal when she again lauded the Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale (also featuring Kunken), the source for all the red cloak-white bonnet uniform of hundreds of unimaginative feminist protests in the Trump era. She called climate change “the existential crisis of our time.” There was praise for environmentalist and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who signed the Paris Climate Accords in 2016 as Secretary of State under President Barack Obama. Murphy: The temptation is to feel exactly that kind of despair. And I won't pretend I have not felt that at times, but I think it’s also important to remember that we would exist in a worse world if Kyoto had not happened. It feels like a slight cliche at the moment to say multilateralism is dead. Senator John Kerry was here the other day. Amanpour: He’s still fighting the good fight. Amanpour bluntly pushed simplistic U.S. partisan politics, taking advantage of actor Kunken's presence to harp on The Handmaid's Tale show. Amanpour: ….This play might not have been a protest play had Kamala Harris won. The Jungle or the Handmaid's Tale which you [Kunken] were in might not have been so incredibly difficult to bear had Hillary Clinton not lost when you are playing them and Trump had won with all of his misogyny and all the rest of it. The Jungle, which you [Murphy] did about refugees was also a protest play as to how the world was dealing with the most vulnerable amongst us. After a brief dip into the ostensible subject of Kyoto -- climate change talks -- Amanpour steered the talk back to The Handmaid’s Tale, based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian feminist novel, and tied it to anti-Trump politics, even harking back to Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016. (Seriously, liberals, read another book, or in this case, watch another show. Amanpour: ….Let's just go back to Handmaid's Tale. Because again it’s a real issue, the rights of women. And you can see with the new quote unquote manosphere, with the bros with all these people from Mark Zuckerberg and of course Donald Trump. I mean it’s what Margaret Atwood foretold. Tell me what it's like to play that when you thought maybe Hillary was going to win and then when she didn't and all of that progress was rolled back and is now being rolled back, a lot of it. Actor Kunken provided lefty handwringing. Kunken: Well, I had committed to do that part right before the election. And thought, and I think when I arrived we all believed that that was, we were making another cautionary tale and we arrived on the ground and it was a whole different reality. It’s hard. It's invigorating to work on those things. It’s interesting though, because we went through an entire cycle in the six years we made the show. We had the moment of protest. And then we came back out and we thought, "Wow, something was achieved here, these voices were heard." We saw those red outfits crimson clothes appear outside of Congress, and we were making an effect. And then the show has just wrapped and we’re in a different world again. And I think one of the pieces of solace that we can take in this moment is that time is long. You hit a certain age I think where you look at the cycles. And things will change. There is hope….

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared Sunday on the Fox News Channel’s MediaBuzz and debated host Howard Kurtz on a slew of subjects over two segments, including the Associated Press hubbub over its ban from the press pool (the smaller, rotating group of journalists that follow the President to smaller events and on Air Force One) and the press shop taking over the pool’s make-up. On the AP lawsuit and the Gulf of America/Gulf of Mexico name change, Kurtz framed the back-and-forth as “the White House trying to dictate the editorial stance of an independent media outlet,” but Leavitt countered this was keeping a promise she made in her first briefing that “we were going to hold news media outlets accountable if they were pushing lies.”     Leavitt pointed out the AP was who took this matter to court (thinking their lack of pool access was a danger to the First Amendment) and lost the first round with the judge ruling, in her summation, “it is not a right of any news organization to walk into the Oval Office[.]” She also emphasized the AP is still welcome on White House grounds, including the Briefing Room and that covering the White House is a “privilege,” not a right: The Associated Press still has their credentials. They are still loud — allowed to cover the White House. They are still in the brief room with me, I have taken questions from them. The only privilege that has been revoked is that privilege of going into the Oval Office, being part of that corps, 13 press pool members and not every outlet has the ability to go in there every single day like the Associated Press has for decades. It’s a privilege. We’re opening up that privilege to other outlets who deserve a seat at that table. Kurtz made clear his feelings about the pool from the top of the show, explaining the press and White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) were right to be “up in arms about a major change to the White House pool” because “White House officials will grant this privilege mainly to friendly reporters who have sympathetic questions.” He also argued the WHCA should remain in power of who gets access to the President because “the big media companies pay most of the charges for flying on Air Force One[.]”     At another point, Kurtz brought up the press pool and said she could be looking to bar “legacy media outlets as part of the pool, largely picking friendly reporters who will ask friendly question.” Leavitt said she’d “have to fundamentally disagree” noted two of their more recent poolers were vehemently anti-Trump outlets in The Independent and the Los Angeles Times on the print side and CNN as a TV pooler (on both Friday and Saturday). “This is not about revoking the right of — of biased news organizations to be in the Oval Office or to cover this President. It’s simply about ending the monetized monopoly that the White House Correspondents’ Association has had over press coverage at the White House...The [WHCA] began more than 100 years ago. Certainly, the media and digital age has changed since the nine — early nineteen hundreds and we are simply trying to reflect that change,” she added. Kurtz then defended the WHCA against claims of being “an elite group” because “its members are elected by the press corps at large to represent their interests and also there’s the question of who pays for flights on Air Force One as “a lot of people don’t know that the reporters are charged for that.” Leavitt addressed both plus whether she still believes legacy media outlets have a role in the press corps (click “expand”): LEAVITT: They are, yes, and they will continue to be. In terms of the issues that the White House Correspondents’ Association has since raised, saying that the Trump White House won’t be able to handle the logistics of this is frankly laughable to us. Because many of us inside of the Trump White House were just on President Trump’s historic campaign. There was no White House Correspondents’ Association helping us with that press coverage. KURTZ: Right. LEAVITT: We were putting together seven rallies a day across the country in multiple locations, and the press were traveling with us everywhere we went, so our team is well-equipped to burden these logistical challenges and we’ve already been doing that for several days throughout this week and we’ve opened up that access up to new voices while also maintaining the respect for the legacy media who have invested resources and who have covered this White House for decades — KURTZ: Yeah. LEAVITT: — and we respect that. KURTZ: You’ve rightly pointed out that the President provides endless access to the mainstream media. I mean, he makes news, you know, 10 times a day. LEAVITT: Every second. KURTZ: Okay, but he’s continued to do a number of podcasts as he did during the campaign. So, are the old-line news outlets much less important now from your point of view? LEAVITT: I think that they have a different place in this digital landscape and I think we need to recognize that Americans are consuming their news in very different ways than just tuning in to cable television at night and President Trump recognizes that as well, but very much — KURTZ: You don’t have a problem with tuning into cable, I hope. LEAVITT: — no, no, trust me, I have cable on my office at the White House all day every day. Kurtz closed by jokingly saying she “clearly [went] too far and cross[ed] the line in saying that you and the President are having fun, but the media don’t want you to have fun.”     Leavitt clapped back that “we are having fun” while “the media are having a hard time covering a President who is genuinely having fun when they do have an inherent bias against him” that’s “ingrained in their own personal opinions of the President.” To see the relevant FNC transcript from March 2, click here.

The Department of Government Efficiency will continue to send "What did you do last week" emails to federal employees despite some backlash from dissenters. The email raised some hackles after Elon Musk said that those workers who did not respond with five examples of work they completed would be dismissed from their employment. Several agencies said they had instructed employees to ignore the emails while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said more than a million workers responded to the email. 'If you have a pulse and two neurons, you can reply to an email. I think this is not a high bar.' Rather than back off over the criticism, Musk is leaning into it. The Office of Personnel Management sent another email on Friday to federal workers entitled "What did you do last week? Part II," asking them again to detail work items by Monday night by 11:59 p.m., according to the New York Times. The email asked those who worked on classified or sensitive activities to add the phrase "all of my activities are sensitive” in their response. The FBI, the Pentagon, and the State Department had instructed workers to ignore the first email sent out by the DOGE. Critics like Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California claimed the controversy over the email manifested the “uninformed, poorly executed, and chaotic" nature of the DOGE. When Musk was pressed by Blaze News senior editor for politics Christopher Bedford about progress on the email program, he offered a clarification. "Is there a timeline in place for next moves, for people being fired?" Bedford asked Musk. "When can the American people expect to see results from that?" "To be clear, I think that email was perhaps misinterpreted as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse-check review," Musk responded. "If you have a pulse and two neurons, you can reply to an email. I think this is not a high bar." He added that he was hopeful that the DOGE would be able to able to root out a trillion dollars' worth of savings in waste, fraud, and abuse from federal spending. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!