'Are these crimes preventable?'

The Defense Department doesn’t know how much money it sent directly or indirectly to Chinese entities to conduct research on viruses with potential to create a pandemic, according to a new report by the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General. The inspector general’s report found that the Pentagon has supplied Chinese entities—either directly or, via subgrants, indirectly—with taxpayer cash to research pathogens and their enhancement, but the exact figure is unknown because of “limitations” in an internal tracking system. Government funding for such research in China has come under scrutiny since the COVID-19 pandemic, which multiple government entities believe started when an engineered coronavirus leaked from a Chinese laboratory that was hosting U.S. government-backed gain-of-function research. “Incompetence, absurdity, insanity; it’s hard to find a word that adequately describes this. Of all the things that DOD tracks, funds for dangerous research that could find their way to a hostile regime should be at the top of the list of those they keep close tabs on,” Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, told the Daily Caller News Foundation regarding the report’s findings. “It makes you wonder if they really know where all our nuclear warheads are. The military is one of the few areas of government in which the public still maintains a modicum of trust, but, sadly, it looks like they are working hard to squander even that.” Due to limitations in the DoD's tracking systems, the full extent of DoD funds provided to Chinese research laboratories for research related to enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential is unknown. Read our new report now: https://t.co/Ts7V7C15V9— DoD Office of Inspector General (@DoD_IG) June 20, 2024 The inspector general’s review of this specific issue was required by the terms of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024, which President Joe Biden signed into law in December. The inspector general’s investigation sought to determine just how much taxpayer cash was routed via “grants, contracts, subgrants, subcontracts, or any other type of agreement or collaboration, to Chinese research labs or to fund research or experiments in China or other foreign countries that could have reasonably resulted in the enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential, from 2014 through 2023.” Specifically, the Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General learned from Army officials that 12 grant awards fit the description of what it was investigating, seven of which were subgrants or subcontracts provided to entities in China or other foreign countries for research involving or related to enhanced pathogens, the report states. The review also identified another $9.9 million in funding that reached Chinese entities for research purposes, though that research was unrelated to pathogens. “However, we did encounter significant challenges in searching for awards related to section 252 of the FY 2024 NDAA reporting requirement due to limitations in the DoD’s systems used to track contracts and grants,” the report states, referring to the National Defense Authorization Act. “Therefore, the full extent of DoD funds provided to Chinese research laboratories or other foreign countries for research related to enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential is unknown.” The issues with the Pentagon’s grant tracking systems created “significant constraints” for the Office of the Inspector General that “hindered [its] ability to conduct a thorough examination” of the Pentagon’s involvement in funding this specific type of research, the report states. The Government Accountability Office previously conducted a similar review of the Defense Department’s spending and Chinese entities receiving taxpayer dollars to conduct research on pathogens with pandemic potential. Its final report—published in September 2022—also detailed similar struggles with the department’s grant and subgrant tracking systems. Did NIH fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan? Dr. Tabak in 2024: "If you're speaking about the generic term, yes we did." Dr. Fauci in 2021: "The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute…" pic.twitter.com/VIi0PVhFa6— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 17, 2024 The Department of Energy has concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely began when the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, which was the site of gain-of-function research funded by the U.S. government via an organization called EcoHealth Alliance. Additionally, FBI Director Christopher Wray has acknowledged that the bureau reached a similar conclusion. Despite this, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has reiterated his position that a lab leak is the less likely scenario of the two> Fauci did so as recently as Tuesday. The COVID-19 pandemic killed more than 1 million Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and millions more globally. The U.S. policy response to the pandemic inflicted considerable economic and social damage on the general public. The Defense Department didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post ‘Incompetence’: Pentagon Doesn’t Know How Much Money It Sent to Chinese Entities for Risky Virus Research appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As the first presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden approaches, it’s a good occasion to settle another debate; namely, the long-running dispute over how to define conservatism. Since before Trump was elected, think tankers and pundits on the right have spent large sums of time and money sorting themselves into separate tribes and attacking their rivals. “Compassionate-conservatives,” “freedom-conservatives,” “national-conservatives”—the list of these hyphenated conservatisms goes on. But when I talk to grassroots Americans, many of whom plan to vote for Trump this November, they never talk about what type of conservative they are. They’re too busy telling me the urgency of saving the country. In fact, most of these Americans know that internal squabbling jeopardizes the conservative movement, making it easy for the establishment and the Left to prevail. That’s not to say we all have to agree on policy—quite the opposite. The debates we’re having on the Right over family policy, trade, technology, and other areas are long overdue. But instead of dividing us into factions, these debates should remind us of our common goals and lead us to be united against an increasingly radical Left. Russell Kirk wrote that “the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night.” Those permanent things include the American family, our founding, faith, our ways of life, and our shared traditions—things every conservative can agree on. Policy choices, while important, are necessarily temporary and must adapt to changing circumstances. For too long, the Right has been the side of “no,” defining itself by what it’s against, not what it’s for. The result is a movement so accustomed to opposition that it turns inward against itself and splinters. By defining ourselves in terms of what we love—the permanent things—we can unite our house and stand firm against the forces threatening our shared inheritance. The Heritage Foundation has worked hard to put this into practice. Last year, we convened hundreds of authors to write our Mandate for Leadership, a nearly 900-page list of policy proposals for the next president. We found a surprising amount of agreement from this diverse group, including on civil service reform, regulatory improvements, trade policy, and more. We welcomed the internecine debate as well: On trade and labor, we couldn’t find total agreement, so we presented two alternative views. While it’s easier to have rival conferences and trade white papers back and forth, the hard work of convening, debating, and working to save what we love is vital to our movement’s success. It’s no coincidence that in the post-Reagan years, the number of conservative “tribes” exploded while electoral victories dwindled. Voters want to see fresh ideas and a positive, unifying vision. Peddling old ideas while insulting your allies is an easy way to lose your audience. America is divided enough already. It is time for all conservatives to drop the hyphen, unite, and put the permanent things first. The post Let’s Leave the Hyphen off Conservatism and Unite appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Bella, a 6-month-old Mini Goldendoodle, has become an internet sensation thanks to an adorable video of her interacting with her owner, Scott. In the clip, Bella hears Scott call her name but can’t see him, leading to a charming display of confusion and curiosity. The video showcases the cleverness and responsiveness of Bella, making it... The post Mini Goldendoodle pup gives kisses to her dad through the security cam appeared first on Animal Channel.

Google is still at it. Just two days before the widely anticipated presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the tech giant buried Trump’s campaign website in its search results. But Biden’s appears at the very top for voters looking for information about him. “Google is blatantly interfering in the 2024 election,” said MRC President Brent Bozell.  MRC Free Speech America uncovered proof of Google’s bias and censorship through two separate sets of search queries. First, MRC researchers analyzed the Google Search results for the seven presidential candidates still in the race Tuesday. When searching for a candidate's name and the words “presidential race 2024,” Google completely buried Trump and elevated Biden as the first search result. In fact, the tech giant excluded the only two major pro-life candidates from the top-3 search results, singling out Trump and Constitution Party candidate for president Randall Terry. Every other candidate appeared in the top-three results. But the tech giant’s censorship didn’t end there. Google again buried Trump’s campaign website as the 39th result, while elevating Biden’s to the very top in a separate set of searches for “republican party presidential campaign websites” and “democratic party presidential campaign websites” respectively. This comes a little over three weeks after MRC revealed Google suppressing the Trump campaign website following a Manhattan, New York jury’s guilty verdict in the dubious case filed by George Soros-backed prosecutor Alvin Bragg. MRC Vice President Dan Schneider echoed Bozell’s remark about Google’s election interference: “Google has all but declared Joe Biden as the only major candidate running for president, or at least that’s what its search results suggest. Pushing Biden to the top of search results, while burying Trump just before one of the most consequential debates in our nation’s history is just the tip of the iceberg of this tech behemoth’s history of election-interfering censorship.” Google Buries Trump Campaign Website, Elevating Biden’s to First Result For the first set of search queries, Google shut out entirely Trump’s presidential campaign website, while pushing Biden’s up to number one on the results page in respective searches. But there’s more. The only two major pro-life candidates still in the race were excluded from the top search results entirely. Trump and Terry’s campaign websites were completely buried while all other candidates still in the 2024 race appeared in the top-three Google Search results.  The campaign websites of Biden, Independent candidate Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein each appeared as the first result for their respective searches. Meanwhile, Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver each appeared as the third result. Google Buries Trump Campaign Site Again in Second Set of Queries Focusing on Dems vs. GOP Candidates MRC researchers focused on the parties of the two leading presidential contenders for the second set of Google Search queries. In a search for “republican party presidential campaign websites,” Google buried Trump’s campaign website as the 39th out of 40 results shown. MRC Researchers found it just beneath the website link to democrats.org, which boasts of funds donated to Democrats being “put to use strengthening our efforts to defeat MAGA Republicans.” No other top Republican Party candidate’s campaign websites appeared in the search results, but a familiar face did appear in the top-10 results. GOP presidential candidate drop-out Will Hurd’s name-sake website appears as the sixth result, 33 spots above Trump’s campaign website. MRC researchers also analyzed the Google Search results for “democratic party presidential campaign websites.” Google Search results predictably elevated Biden’s campaign website to the top of the heap, making it the first result after the same democrats.org website link that appeared above Trump’s campaign website in the other search query. Google also posted a second link to the official Biden campaign website as the 19th result out of 40. One other Democratic Party candidate campaign website also appeared in the results. Marianne Williamson’s “Official Campaign Website” appeared as the sixth result. Unlike the search for “republican party presidential campaign websites,” when MRC researchers searched for “democratic party presidential campaign websites” not a single link appeared with their chief opposition party’s name in the headlines. The importance of where a link ranks in Google Search cannot be overstated. Google is the most used search engine worldwide with a global market share of nearly 92 percent. But even more pointedly, the higher a search result appears in Google Search results, the more likely it is that a user will click on a particular result, according to search engine optimization expert Brian Dean.  Dean conducted a study analyzing how often users click on various rankings of Google search results. His blog, Backlinko, reported in May 2023 that “The #1 Result In Google Gets 27.6% of All Clicks” and it has a “10x higher [Click Through Rate] compared to the #10 result.” A similar study by FirstPageSage showed that “Search Position 1” in Google Search results enjoys a 39.8 percent Click-Through Rate, while “Search Position 2” (18.7%) and “Search Position 3” (10.2%) show a precipitous dropoff that only worsens as you scroll down the results. Google Has Been Up to the Election-Interfering Censorship Game for a While Now This is by no means the first time Google has been involved in election-interfering censorship activities. Time and again Google has elevated its favored liberal candidate while suppressing the opposition. MRC Free Speech America compiled 41 times Google was caught interfering in U.S. elections, beginning in 2008, intensifying in 2016 and continuing into 2024. MRC researchers found carefully crafted studies and numerous reports (from 2008 through February 2024) that have consistently demonstrated the tech behemoth’s election meddling. At the time of that MRC study’s release, MRC founder and President Brent Bozell said of Google, The tech giant’s “massive and deliberate efforts to interfere in U.S. elections for the past 16 years is unacceptable and the biggest threat to American democracy today.” Methodology For this report, MRC Free Speech America analyzed the June 25 Google Search results for two separate queries. For the first query, researchers searched “joe biden presidential race 2024,” “donald trump presidential race 2024,” “robert f. kennedy jr. presidential race 2024,” “jill stein presidential race 2024,” “cornel west presidential race 2024,” “randall terry presidential race 2024,” and “chase oliver presidential race 2024.”  For the second query, researchers searched “republican party presidential campaign websites,” and “democratic party presidential campaign websites.” To determine bias, our researchers looked at Google’s results and recorded the rank(s) of each candidate’s campaign website. MRC Free Speech America created an algorithm to automate this process in a clean environment. A “clean environment” allows for organic search to populate results without the influence of prior search history and tracking cookies. To determine bias, our researchers looked at Google’s results and recorded the rank(s) of each candidate’s campaign website on the first page of results. Conservatives are under attack. Contact Google at 650-253-0000 and demand it be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

We recently caught Joe Scarborough humble bragging "I'm not good at this politics thing." At least, we thought he was humble bragging. Turns out, maybe Joe has plenty to be humble about. There was Scarborough this morning, now claiming that it is Trump who is very worried about the debate, with Scarborough actually suggesting that a "whining, whimpering" Trump is scared that Biden might "beat him really badly." This is a flip-flop from their earlier assertions that Trump was overconfident. Scarborough and his gang have been all over the Republicans for suggesting that Biden, with his loss of mental acuity, will stumble and fail at the debate. That culminated in Eugene Robinson claiming on yesterday's show that it will be a "massive victory" for Biden if he can manage to "remain upright!" Today, Scarborough's spiel keyed off a clip of Republican Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri facetiously suggesting that at the debate, Biden might be "jack[ed] up on Mountain Dew." Scarborough surprisingly missed the opportunity to mention that -- who knew? -- he himself is a former Congressman! In an attempted refutation of the notion that Biden has been a low-energy president, Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski ticked off a laundry list of Biden's supposed accomplishments.  You don't suppose the Biden campaign helpfully supplied a list of Joe's alleged achievements, do you?  Bonus Coverage:  Jonathan Lemire—The Fonz Wannabe? Morning Joe regular and host of the lead-in Way Too Early show Jonathan Lemire comes across as a rather mild-mannered fellow.  But beneath Jonathan's mild exterior, could a much more forceful persona be lurking? Check out Lemire's pompadour 'do on today's show. Could he be auditioning for a Happy Days remake? Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 6/26/24 6:00 am EDT ERIC BURLISON: Yeah, I think, you know, that any patient that truly -- or elderly individual, or someone who has dementia, they can find some moments of clarity, right? They can find moments throughout the day that they have energy and -- look. I think we should -- Trump's team should not underestimate Joe Biden and his team's ability to, you know -- whether they're gonna jack him up on Mountain Dew, or whatever it is, that, look, the State of the Union this year, he had a lot of energy for about an hour, or an hour-and-a-half, but it doesn't mean, you know, what we're seeing is, obviously, throughout the day, he can't carry that level of energy. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Okay, so, what's so amazing about that, Willie, is that that jacked up Mountain Dew theory did not come from some guy they picked up off the street, right? That was, like, rolling dice against the side of a wall or something. I'm sitting there halfway through going, who is this guy? He is an elected Member of Congress. WILLIE GEIST: Sure. SCARBOROUGH: Who is on the House Oversight Committee. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Wow. SCARBOROUGH: And he is talking about people being jacked up on Mountain Dew, and they better be careful because you know, even old, elderly people can be good every once in a while. MIKA: Just pop up out of the coffin! SCARBOROUGH: They can just, they can just hop up and suddenly turn around and suddenly have the largest NATO alliance in world history, and you have the best jobs numbers in 50 years. MIKA: That could happen, too. SCARBOROUGH: They can just, they can take a swig of Mountain Dew one moment, and the next moment the dollar could be at a 50-year high. They could just -- and on and on and on. MIKA: And pass more legislation than any other president in modern history. SCARBOROUGH: Who knows? Maybe they accidentally snort some of that Mountain Dew up -- because they're so old, it's coming out of the nose! And that gives them the inspiration, and they say to themselves, hey! I may be completely out of it but I'm going to do something that none of the preceding five presidents of the United States did. I'm going to put together more bipartisan legislation than any other president since LBJ. That's what I"m gonna do! MIKA: And lower the cost of diabetes medicine. Why not? I just woke up and did that. SCARBOROUGH: Willie, I mean, this is desperation. And like you say, like, you know, this shows how nervous they are. This is not how somebody who's confident acts. I never heard Larry Bird talking about, hey, Magic Johnson's probably going to be jacked on Mountain Dew. We're not going to be able to beat the Lakers -- no! Like, Trump is -- I can't believe I'm saying this. Trump is scared out of his mind. He's whining and whimpering because Joe Biden may, may just beat him really badly.

Scores of former intelligence officials ran block for Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election after the New York Post threatened his campaign with damning facts about his son's laptop and its contents. It turns out that active elements of the security state similarly conspired to cure the narrative and thumb the scales in Biden's favor. Background Less than a month ahead of the 2020 election, the New York Post reported about the incriminating contents of Hunter Biden's laptop and raised various questions about then-candidate Joe Biden, especially about his shady ties to Ukraine. The report noted, for instance, that a Burisma board adviser thanked Hunter Biden for introducing him to Joe Biden about a year before Biden allegedly extorted the Eastern European country as vice president to get the prosecutor investigating Burisma fired. The report also painted Joe Biden as untruthful and referenced other damning evidence on his son's laptop, such as videos of Hunter Biden having sex and smoking crack and suggestions of questionable business with China. Elements of the intelligence community antipathetic to President Donald Trump swooped in to shield Biden in the final weeks before the election, releasing a public letter on Oct. 19, 2020, asserting that the Hunter Biden laptop story had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" intended to hurt the Democrat's candidacy. Not one of the intelligence officials had apparently seen the evidence of which they spoke before signing the letter, and no signatory has since expressed regret. Biden used the misleading letter, which was further spun by the liberal media, to great effect. In his Oct. 22 debate with Trump, Biden said, "Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, he's accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said that this has all the characteristics — four — five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani." Michael Morell, one of the former CIA directors Biden referenced, later testified to Congress that he organized the letter to "help Vice President Biden," but more specifically, to help "him to win the election." Morell also made clear that the Biden campaign was involved and "helped to strategize about the public release of the statement." According to Morell, the call he received from then-Biden campaign official Antony Blinken got the ball rolling on the deception. 74% of Americans surveyed told the Technometrical Institute of Policy and Politics in a 2022 survey that the FBI and the intelligence community deliberately misled the public and voters. 79% of respondents said that a truthful interpretation of the laptop would have likely changed the election's outcome more in favor of Trump. The CIA versus Trump The House Committee on the Judiciary, its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a report Tuesday revealing that former CIA acting director Michael Morell and ex-CIA inspector general David Buckley were both active contractors with top secret clearances for the agency when they signed the letter. The congressional investigators reached this conclusion on the basis of information provided them earlier this year by Robert Dugas, CIA deputy general counsel for litigation and investigations. Morell has denied being a contractor at the time, telling the New York Post, "If you write that, you would [be] wrong." Beside the possibility that unnamed signatories were similarly active spooks, the report noted that others "had special 'Green Card' access to the CIA at the time of the statement's publication, allowing them to gain entry to secure CIA facilities." According to the report, former CIA chief of staff Jeremy Bash, the ex-husband of Thursday's moderator in the Trump-Biden debate, and former National Security Agency deputy director Richard Ledgett, were both serving the agency at the time they signed the letter as independent contractors with top secret clearances. Other active elements of the CIA were also peripherally involved. "High ranking CIA officials, up to and including then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, were made aware of the Hunter Biden statement prior to its approval and publication," said the report. The agency conveniently refrained from seizing upon the "opportunity at that time to slow down the CIA's process for reviewing publication submissions and ensure that such an extraordinary statement was properly vetted." The report suggested that the revelation about the active status of Morell and Buckley "raises concern that these officials abused the access of their positions to curate, promote, and received expedited approval of the statement." Indeed, the PCRB continuously requested quick decisions from officials within the CIA and partners at ODNI about the status of publication of the statement. This occurred after Morell specifically requested an expedited review process and during a time when he had contracting status and was under consideration to be named President Biden's CIA Director. The report also indicated that the signatories' decision to leverage their titles in favor of a narrative favorable to Biden "inappropriately embroiled the Agency in the domestic political process." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

In yet another attack on freedom of speech, a court-appointed trustee in Alex Jones’ bankruptcy proceedings has disclosed plans to effectively shut down Jones’ media platform, Infowars, and liquidate its inventory to pay some of the $1.5 billion he owes to the Sandy Hook victims’ families. This news comes in the wake of the recent verdict that Jones’ personal assets would be liquidated to contribute toward paying the astronomical judgment for spreading “misinformation.” Today he joins Glenn Beck to share his side of the story. The END of Infowars: What's Next? | Glenn Beck INTERVIEWS Alex Jones youtu.be “This is very historic,” says Jones. “The quote ‘families’ who are represented by high-power Democrat Party law firms, the same ones suing Elon Musk right now for defamation … went on CNN last week and said, ‘We do not want money. We want [Infowars] immediately closed.”’ “They don't want to sell the millions of dollars of inventory – books, films, T-shirts, supplements, water filters. They don't want anything; they want it immediately shut down, and they said ‘because we want to stop his speech,’” he tells Glenn. “It’s just outrageous how transparent this is.” Jones recalls when two years ago, two judges, one from Texas, the other from Connecticut, found him liable for “failure to give any discovery.” However, Jones swears he “gave them everything,” but “there was just no evidence of what they said [he] did,” so he was declared “guilty in default.” “I was not allowed to put on defense; I was not allowed to respond,” says Jones, adding that his lawyers “weren't allowed to [defend him].” Jones says he agreed to an “orderly liquidation,” so that “the stuff actually gets sold off,” which might allow him to give his employees some severance. However, “they immediately ran to the same judge that found me guilty without a jury trial in Texas and just in a summary hearing [with] no evidence said, ‘Seize all the assets,”’ Jones tells Glenn. “So now the federal trustee is in a fight with them trying to block them today, grabbing the bank accounts and having the sheriff’s department … come and lock the doors.” When Jones informed the public of the situation, the media, once again, deemed him “a conspiracy theorist.” “They've admitted in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNN – everywhere – that they're going to use this precedent against me in lawfare,” he says. “I'm guilty of plenty of stuff, I made plenty of mistakes, but I did not say 99% of what they said I said, but I couldn't defend myself,” Jones admits, adding that he did say the shooting was “totally staged” but “never sent anybody to [the families’] houses” and “never peed on graves.” According to Jones, after “the media [created] this illusion” that he was guilty of a long list of atrocities, they made it impossible for him to respond. “Every nightly news channel” and “hundreds of publications” were “saying things I never said, [but] I was unable to respond, so that's what's so scary about the situation,” he says. To hear Glenn’s response, check out the clip above. Want more from Glenn Beck?To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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