Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said this week that was completely comfortable allowing Elon Musk to have access to American’s “personal data” that is stored inside DHS. Noem made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” with host Dana Bash when asked about Musk’s role leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). When asked if she had authorized Musk and his team to have access to “Americans’ personal data that is housed inside DHS,” Noem responded: “I think it’s important. This is essentially an audit of the federal government, which is very powerful and needs to have happened.” When asked if she was comfortable with that, Noem responded: “Absolutely.” Bash noted that Republicans have traditionally been skeptical about the role of government and “unelected people having access to personal data.” “Well, we can’t trust our government anymore,” she responded. “That’s our — yes, oh, absolutely.” When Bash noted that Noem is the government now, Noem responded: “Yes, that’s what I’m saying, is that the American people now are saying that we have had our personal information shared and out there in the public.” .@Sec_Noem on Musk accessing Americans’ personal data: “The president has authorized him to have access to that.” BASH: “And you feel comfortable with that?” NOEM: “Absolutely.” BASH: “I remember a time when Republicans were very careful about and worried about the government,… pic.twitter.com/FybuULSukx — State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) February 9, 2025

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) claimed during an interview over the weekend that Republicans do not understand that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives make sure that the “best of the best” are hired for jobs — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Booker made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash when asked about the Trump administration taking “sweeping steps to reverse DEI initiatives across the United States.” “This is stunning to me, especially because they’re really charging this word DEI as if it’s something that undermines the ability for the government to hire the best people,” Booker said. “It’s actually the opposite of that,” he claimed. “When we’re trying to hire the best of the best, having a more inclusive search, to go to HBCUs or Hispanic-serving institutions, to find as big of an applicant pool as possible, to me, these are the kind of things that help us to hire the best of the best.” Bash noted that Booker’s claims of what DEI is was “not the perception of a lot of Americans” and that a lot of Democrats realize that it’s a big problem for the party. Booker responded by claiming that DEI was about making sure that “hiring processes should be inclusive of women and minorities, who often don’t get an opportunity to apply for the jobs because the search parameters are so narrow and so small.” WATCH: Cory Booker champions DEI: “They’re really charging this word DEI as if it’s something that undermines the ability for the government to hire the best people…it’s actually the opposite of that…To me, these are the kinds of things that help us to hire the best of the best.” ? pic.twitter.com/a1yPsiMr7O — Julia ?? (@Jules31415) February 9, 2025

National security adviser Mike Waltz rejected claims over the weekend that the Trump administration gutting USAID would allow America’s adversaries around the world to advance their interests. Waltz made the remarks during an interview with NBC News’ “Meet The Press” when asked about criticisms from a former government official who claimed: “This assistance is one of the most powerful tools Washington has to push back against Chinese and Russian influence and to prevent transnational threats such as disease and terrorism from reaching U.S. soil.” When asked if the U.S. would be allowing Russia and China to expand their influence around the world by cutting back, Waltz said: “No, absolutely not.” “And in fact, this is exactly what President Trump, Secretary of State Rubio, Elon Musk, myself and many others who have worked with USAID are talking about,” he said. “All too often these missions and these programs, number one, are not in line with strategic U.S. interests like pushing back on China. They’re doing all kinds of other things that, frankly, aren’t in line with strategic interests or the president’s vision, number one.” “Number two, often, all too often, only cents on the dollar actually makes it to people in need,” he continued. “Between the big contractors, the subcontractors, the local contractors, the dollars aren’t being used wisely. We need to take a hard look at it. We need to move quickly. And that’s exactly what’s being done.” Waltz said that when he was deployed in the Middle East he personally saw how USAID wasted money. “We saw a radio station with a big ‘Built by America USAID,'” he said. “We go inside and there is literally a black-turbaned mullah backed by Iran preaching anti-American hate. And yet, the USAID officer in charge told me, as a Green Beret, ‘Well, we’re just building radio stations. We’re just handing out food. That’s our job, to just be humanitarian.’ No, we need to realign their mission and line it up with the president’s foreign policy vision.” WATCH: .@MikeWaltz47 on USAID: All too often, these missions and these programs are not in line with strategic U.S. interests… Number two, only cents on the dollar actually makes it to people in need. pic.twitter.com/my76zaCF5L — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 9, 2025

National security adviser Mike Waltz would not directly answer over the weekend just how serious President Donald Trump was about the U.S. potentially taking over Canada. Waltz was asked about the matter during a Sunday interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” when asked about remarks that outgoing Canadian Prime Minister reportedly made last week to members of his government, warning them that Trump was serious about taking over Canada. “Is President Trump serious about planning to annex Canada?” Waltz asked. “Look, I think the Canadian people would – many of them would love to join the United States with no tariffs, with lower taxes, and I have all kinds of neighbors down in Florida that are Canadians that are escaping many of the liberal policies,” he said. Welker repeatedly interrupted Waltz and asked him to state “yes or no” on whether Trump was seriously going to annex Canada. “Well, I don’t think there’s any plans to invade Canada, if that’s what you’re talking about,” he said. “But there are a lot of people that like what we have in the United States and do not like the last 10 years of liberal progressive governance in Trudeau.” “But really what you’re seeing is a reassertion of American leadership in the Western hemisphere, from the Arctic all the way down to the Panama Canal,” he continued. “And that’s what we’re talking about, from Greenland to Arctic security to the Panama Canal coming back under the United States. America has avoided our own hemisphere where we have the energy, the food, and the critical minerals for way too long. And you’re seeing a reassertion of President Trump’s leadership.” Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz says there is no plan to invade Canada when asked if Trump is serious about annexing us. Waltz says many Canadians want to join the US and the US is asserting leadership from the Arctic to the Panama Canal. pic.twitter.com/wIt15IJPoD — Brian Lilley (@brianlilley) February 9, 2025

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said that the Trump administration’s buyout of tens of thousands of federal workers was only the first step in its mission to make the government more efficient and to reduce wasteful spending. Hagerty made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” when asked about the cuts and buyouts. “I think what President Trump is trying to do is be humane in the process of allowing them to make plans to find other employment, but I certainly think the government is far too big, far too bloated, and we’re on a path now to start to see it shrink,” he said. “This is the first step only, but we’re moving in the right direction.” He sad that each department and agency would conduct reviews to see where money was being wasted and ways things could be made more efficient. “This is not unusual, to take a hard look at these programs and also to look for opportunities to cut bloat and waste,” he said. “Look, we’re $36 trillion in debt. Clearly, the American — the American public need to see more accountability, more visibility, more performance for their taxpayer dollars.” Hagerty also addressed the administration’s plans to target the CFPB, which he argued has been “out of control for some time” and is effectively “unconstitutional.” “It has no oversight,” he said. “It’s been basically a reckless agency that’s been allowed to go way beyond any mandate that I think was originally intended. So it’s time to rein it in, and I’m applauding anything that we can do to bring more stability, more control to the federal government and take agencies like this back, you know, back into some sort of sense of accountability and oversight.” He also ripped USAID, saying that the organization was also out of control and had “refused” to be accountable for a long time. “I’ve, you know, asked them to be very clear about, for example, their role in funding Hamas in Gaza. They would not comply,” he said. “They will not tell us what they do. Now that we start to find out some of the programs that AID has been funding, if you think about it, sex change operations in Guatemala, LGBTQ programs in Serbia this is ridiculous. This is so beyond the pale.” WATCH:

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) advocated over the weekend for saving some foreign aid programs funded by USAID that he said help people around the world and provide a tremendous benefit for the U.S. by creating goodwill toward the U.S. amongst many of the world’s poorest countries. McCaul made the remarks during a Sunday CBS News interview with Margaret Brennan when asked about some of the spending cuts. He noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has already placed waivers on humanitarian assistance in PEPFAR, which he said was “the most successful global health program, initiated by President Bush.” “The peace through food program dates back to the ’50s, after the Marshall Plan,” he said. “It is to provide stability in fragile, unstable countries. It is to counter Russia, China, and terrorism. It is our diplomatic power. Otherwise, we’re talking about bullets, as Mattis talked about, and Lindsey Graham.” He said that there was a tremendous amount of waste being spent on bogus programs around the world, like drag shows in Ecuador, that he said should absolutely be cut. “I can always speak to the program that President Bush started, and it was to save millions of lives,” he said. “That is probably one of the — been the best goodwill missions in the United States — and put the best face, no pun intended, on the nation, overseas, with our adversaries, countering them, with these people. We’re saving their lives.” “The best global health program ever implemented by the United States was PEPFAR. I’d hate to see that go away,” he added. “It will sunset once we achieve the mission. However, programs like that, when you look at the National Security importance of USAID, need to be maintained. And I go back to why it was implemented in the first place.”

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Graying hair is a hallmark of aging and often considered an inevitable part of growing older. However, recent research from Nagoya University in Japan suggests that an antioxidant might suppress this process. Researchers Masashi Kato and Takumi Kagawa identified luteolin, an antioxidant found in vegetables, as being a potential anti-graying agent. Their findings pave the […] The post Scientists Find the Natural Vegetable Antioxidant Luteolin Could Prevent Gray Hair appeared first on Good News Network.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. In the UK, Channel 4 is thinking of its bottom line – as it should, but, the broadcaster appears to be trying to pass off the existential fear of facing the competition coming from non-legacy online media as a “think of the youths” moment – which it shouldn’t. Nevertheless, CEO Alex Mahon in late January gave a speech about Channel 4’s “latest research” – which opens with an attempt to dissect how “Gen Z” lives and what impacts their lives, to make several key points: one, they are getting their news through social media (i.e., independent creators and outlets). And, that (in reality, Covid measures imposed by authorities) had the effect of “delaying their (Gen Z’s) advance into adulthood.” Mahon says it makes young people the pandemic’s “collateral damage” – since it made their “views and identities remain flexible for longer.” Another negative, to Mahon’s mind, is that they will, to her apparent horror, “continue questioning norms and challenging authority far beyond their teenage years.” And internet/media-wise, at the center of all this, according to Mahon, is video content – and now, what to do about that. The real problem that legacy media are struggling with is the eroding trust from their audiences in general, and the hit their profits take as a consequence – but apparently, framing this as an “altruistic” concern for the young generation should help. But when Mahon gets down to what really bothers her, we hear ideas such as introducing regulation that would force social platforms to give “algorithmic prominence” to public service media, with large language models (LLMs) “trained with validated public service content, with public service values.” But it doesn’t stop at the elusive “values.” LLMs should also “help fund that content by paying fairly to license it” (that is, promote and pay legacy media without providing for any opt-out option). How else might the audiences and the industry give a helping hand, artificially prop up a failing segment of the media landscape? Mahon likes the idea of “trustmarks” – that would have legacy outlets like hers bestowed the status of “factual, trusted accuracy for content that emerges from professionally-produced, regulated media” – by, when all’s said and done, some arbitrary authority. Those who should be swayed by this “proof of authenticity” are “tech companies, their algorithms, their advertisers, and most importantly their audiences.” Until that happens, algorithms created and used by tech companies are presented as pretty much catastrophically harmful. “(They are) designed to elicit anger, surprise or outrage,” asserted Mahon. And she wasn’t above referring to the Southport killer’s case. “As Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Commons in the wake of the Axel Rudakubana trial last week, a young person viewing extreme violence online can become a killer in real life,” said Mahon. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post UK Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon Pushes for Regulations Forcing Social Media and LLMs to Promote and Fund Legacy Media appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Senator Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has escalated his scrutiny of Meta’s alleged suppression of COVID-19 vaccine injury discussions, demanding that CEO Mark Zuckerberg release internal records detailing Facebook’s content moderation practices. More: Facebook and YouTube Censored Victims of AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine In a letter dated February 4, 2025, Johnson specifically questioned Facebook’s removal of vaccine injury support groups, including A Wee Sprinkle of Hope, which was described in the book Worth a Shot? as the largest such group in the world before it was shut down just five days after Johnson’s June 28, 2021, roundtable with vaccine-injured individuals. We obtained a copy of the letter for you here. The letter also reiterated claims that Facebook engaged in shadow banning, appended warning labels to users’ posts about vaccine injuries, and even censored private messages. One particularly tragic case cited in Worth a Shot? described a woman who took her own life after her private messages seeking help from fellow vaccine-injured individuals allegedly went unnoticed due to Facebook’s restrictions on message visibility. The book in question: Worth a Shot? by Caroline Pover. Johnson’s letter followed recent remarks by Zuckerberg on The Joe Rogan Experience, where he acknowledged that the Biden administration exerted intense pressure on Facebook to suppress content about vaccine side effects. According to Zuckerberg, the government “pushed [Facebook] super hard to take down things that were honestly true” and even resorted to “yelling, cursing, and threatening repercussions” if the platform did not comply. The senator’s letter outlined a sweeping request for documents, including records of Facebook’s interactions with government agencies, vaccine manufacturers, and third-party groups involved in content moderation policies. He specifically asked whether any federal entity requested the censorship of vaccine injury support groups and demanded details on Facebook’s policies regarding the suppression or removal of posts related to vaccine injuries. Johnson has set a deadline of February 18, 2025, for Zuckerberg to comply with the request, emphasizing that the investigation seeks to uncover the full extent of the Biden administration’s involvement in what he characterizes as an aggressive censorship campaign in collaboration with Big Tech. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Senator Ron Johnson Demands Meta Releases Records on COVID-19 Vaccine Injury Censorship appeared first on Reclaim The Net.