After a unanimous House vote established the task force to probe the July 13 assassination attempt

The post Vet Clinic Is Closed, What Do I Do? 5 Vet Approved Steps & Options by Matt Jackson appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com. Click to Skip Ahead How to Know What Counts as an Emergency Options to Consider if Your Vet Is Closed Whether your pet has been involved in an accident, eaten something they shouldn’t, or has come down with some mysterious illness, an owner’s first port of call is typically their vet. But what do you do if your vet is closed? Not all illnesses and accidents occur within vet operating hours. Below, we look at the options available if your pet is ill and your usual vet is closed. First Things First: Is It an Emergency? The first thing to do is determine whether your cat needs urgent treatment. If they are suffering a mild illness or a problem that has reoccurred that can wait, your best bet is usually to wait until you can speak to your vet. However, if it is an emergency and your cat needs urgent care, you must try and find an emergency vet or an animal hospital. Here are some things that count as an emergency: Bleeding that won’t stop Bloated abdomen Collapse Inability to urinate Rapid or shallow breathing Seizures Severe pain or trauma Unconsciousness or lack of response The 5 Steps & Options to Consider if Your Vet Is Closed 1. Check Online If your cat is not experiencing any of the above signs but you are still unsure if they require emergency medical attention, you can look online for guidance. However, although there is a vast amount of advice available online, remember it is not always accurate or reliable. Look for information from reputable veterinary websites such as Cornell University’s Feline Health Center and avoid anecdotal advice. Check for articles written or reviewed by licensed veterinarians. The advice will not be tailored to your cat’s specific situation so you should also avoid self-diagnosing your cat’s condition and instead use the information as general guidance. Image Credit: Daisy Daisy, Shutterstock 2. Call Your Vet Office Even if you know your vet surgery is closed, give them a call. Some area veterinary centers rotate vets so there is always one vet on call. You might not be able to speak to your regular vet, but you could be put in touch with a colleague who can advise on the best course of action. Most vets have an answering service with a recorded message that details who you can contact. This message will usually include details of an out-of-hours or emergency number to contact. 3. Consider Online Vet Services When your vet clinic is closed, online vet services can be a valuable resource. These services allow people to consult with a licensed veterinarian through a video or voice call from their own home and discuss issues concerning their pet. Online vets can also help assess whether the concern is an emergency, or if you can wait and have your cat seen by your regular vet. Several telehealth services are available, but not all operate in the same way. For example, PangoVet has clients fill out a questionnaire, book a time slot, and pay the fee. After the call, you will receive an actionable report regarding the discussion about your cat. Speak To a Vet Online From the Comfort of Your Couch! If you need to speak with a vet but can’t get to one, head over to PangoVet. It’s an online service where you can talk to a vet online and get the personalized advice you need for your pet — all at an affordable price! Click to Speak With a Vet 4. Visit Another Vet If you want to bring your cat to a physical clinic, you might need to see if other clinics in your area are open. Some clinics may have shortened availability on the weekends or some public holidays. While a new clinic will not have the same familiarity, they will gather all the background information so they can help your cat. 5. Find an Emergency Vet Some vets don’t have enough cover to have professionals on call every night, but many areas have a rota of local vets and vet centers that stay open out of hours. If calling your own vet doesn’t elicit details of a suitable local surgery open out of hours, you can try calling other vets. Another surgery might have a more useful message, or you might find one that does offer emergency appointments and treatment. Conclusion If your pet is ill or has been in an accident, it is easy to panic, especially if you know your vet doesn’t work evenings or isn’t available for calls out of hours. However, there are solutions. Call the vet’s surgery and see if there is another vet on call or if the surgery has a recorded message that gives details of an emergency vet. Alternatively, find a local vet hospital or even a local vet college, as they should have an emergency department that you can use. You can also look for a vet who can provide consultations on the Internet, and some insurers even offer access to these as part of their pet insurance products. Sources AKC FDA Vets Now PDSA Featured Image Credit: Ro_ksy, Shutterstock The post Vet Clinic Is Closed, What Do I Do? 5 Vet Approved Steps & Options by Matt Jackson appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

If there’s one axiom, we all know about Washington, D.C., is that it’s full of well-intentioned policies and unintended (read: harmful) consequences. A recent reminder of unintended policy consequences is the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA was passed in August 2022, and according to its champions in Congress and the White House, it was intended to reduce the federal government budget deficit, make investments in renewable energy, lower drug prices, and fight inflation. Two years later, we’ve unfortunately re-learned that noble intentions don’t necessarily produce good policy. The IRA has failed to achieve its objectives in many ways. One significant problem involves the introduction of drug price controls, which take effect in 2026. Due to the IRA, the federal government now has wide-ranging authority to set the price of drugs through what’s known as the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program. A recent analysis warns that these pricing provisions will likely lead to higher costs for millions of seniors and disabled Americans who rely on Medicare Part D. This shouldn’t come as a surprise – price controls simply don’t work, and when they’re implemented, someone will eventually have to pick up the tab.  Nor should it be surprising that government spending doesn’t reduce inflation. History shows quite the opposite. The first group of impacted drugs includes ten medicines that have been selected to have a “maximum fair price” (MFP) set under the IRA. In 2024, Medicare beneficiaries typically pay fixed copays for most of these drugs. For millions of these beneficiaries, artificially fixed-drug costs will slow their progression toward their Part D out-of-pocket limit, making them pay more in out-of-pocket costs. For low-income beneficiaries, the out-of-pocket cost increases are significant – averaging 27 percent more. Asian and Black beneficiaries who rely on the medicines subject to an MFP could experience an average increase of 13 percent and 15 percent, respectively. As is too often the case, the most vulnerable among us will bear the brunt of bad policy. As bad as this all is, it gets worse. The predictable impact of price controls on goods and services is a well-researched topic in economics. This makes the typical combination of good intentions and unintended consequences a tough excuse to swallow. The question then becomes who knew what and when? Did HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure just fail to consider the impact of price controls on seniors’ prescription drugs? Government agencies rarely endorse legislation without conducting such forecasting, yet both Becerra and Brooks-LaSure were among the most vocal to endorse and boast about the IRA’s new price control mandate.  Progressive special interests whose long-term goal is abolishing private insurance in favor of a single payer health care system (e.g., Medicare for All) – as Kamala Harris proposed during her 2020 Presidential run – have also vocally supported price controls as a means of moving America toward government-run health care. What influence did these special interests have on the Department of Health and Human Services’ analysis when assessing the impact of the new law on Medicare drug prices? Did they suppress research that projected massive increases for the most vulnerable members of the Medicare program? Don’t forget about the independent experts that serve on an advisory committee known as MedPAC. Did they also fail to assess the impact of price controls or did progressive dreams of Medicare for All just silence any dissenting views? Scientific integrity only works when objective analysis is permitted to exist. Seniors deserve to hear answers as they are looking for new ways to afford skyrocketing prescriptions drugs at the hands of the Biden-Harris administration and the “well-intentioned” Inflation Reduction Act.  The most likely truth is that American seniors are being used as guinea pigs or, at best, eggs for the eventual single-payer omelette. My organization has asked these tough questions and is prepared to hold federal officials accountable if they refuse to provide answers. So far, it’s looking like we might just have to see them in court.  Let’s just hope it’s not too late for seniors asking who’s responsible for their increasingly unaffordable drug prices. The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. Originally published by the Real Clear Wire The post Biden-Harris Price Controls Causing Senior Drug Prices to Skyrocket appeared first on The Daily Signal.

When the U.S. Supreme Court issued its monumental decision in 2023 telling colleges and universities that “yes,” they did have to comply with the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment in their admissions policies, the question immediately arose of whether they would comply or cheat. With the latest admission numbers from schools such as Duke, Princeton, and Yale, however, we still don’t know the answer. In June of 2023, in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the Supreme Court held that the academy had to end its pernicious policy of discriminating on the basis of race in deciding whether to admit students.  The colleges argued they need to discriminate to achieve “diversity,” a practice based, as Chief Justice John Roberts said, on the “offensive and demeaning assumption that [students] of a particular race, because of their race, think alike.”   “Universities,” the court held, “have for too long” not treated students as individuals, but have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin.  Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.” SFFA v. Harvard, UNC 20-1199_hgdjDownload The response by the universities to the many criticisms of these discriminatory practices, which included their using overbroad, underinclusive, and arbitrary racial categories, said the court, was “trust us.” So, can we trust them, or have they been practicing a latter-day form of “massive resistance” to complying with the Students for Fair Admissions decision and the constitutional requirement to treat their students equally, without regard to skin color? Keep in mind that the students who sued Harvard and the University of North Carolina were Asian Americans, who were discriminated against to keep their numbers down in the admitted classes of schools such as Harvard, UNC, Yale, Duke, and Princeton, among many others. Despite having higher test scores and better academic credentials than other applicants, they were being disproportionately kept out of these schools, and by a wide margin. Duke, Yale, and Princeton, along with 13 other schools, filed an amicus brief in the case claiming that if the Supreme Court eliminated their ability to discriminate, they would not be able to maintain the diverse composition of their student bodies. Instead, they would have a “racially and ethnically homogenous class”—i.e., the proportion of minority students (anyone who isn’t Asian or white) within the student population would decrease.  Amicus in Defense of DiscriminationDownload The universities’ “consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions avoids this outcome,” they said, warning that if they could not consider race, there would be, for example, “a near 33% reduction in the number of African American students admitted” and similar reductions for other “underrepresented” minority groups. Relevant to all of this are the recent race statistics released by some schools for the Class of 2028.  Yale, for example, which was discriminating against Asian American students, just like Harvard and UNC, engineered a 6-percentage-point drop in the admission of Asian American students, which went from 30% in the Class of 2027 to only 24% in the Class of 2028.  On the other hand, the percentage of black and Native American students was unchanged. Similarly, at Princeton, the percentage of Asian American students fell from 26% to 23.8%, and at Duke, from 35% to 29%. These numbers suggest that the schools are either cheating, or that they lied to the Supreme Court when they said that a victory for Asian Americans at Harvard “would undercut [their] vital efforts to attain diverse student bodies.” As it turns out, the schools have had no trouble attaining what they call “diverse” student bodies; that is, a student body where fewer Asian American students get in than deserve to. So, did they lie to the Supreme Court? Or did they figure out how to cheat? There’s reason to think that they may be cheating. For one thing, influential left-wing deans and professors have been explicit about getting around the decision.   For example, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California at Berkeley Law School, and Timothy Lynch, general counsel of the University of Michigan, recently hosted an event in which they discussed how they hide their desire to racially balance their student bodies behind a “race-neutral explanation.” (Chemerinsky was previously caught on tape laughing about how he circumvents a law against using race in faculty hiring.) EXCLUSIVE: Berkeley Law School dean Erwin Chemerinsky explains how he has secretly enacted a policy of racial discrimination in faculty hiring—which is illegal in California."If I'm ever deposed, I'm going to deny I said this to you." pic.twitter.com/GYgtNZfhtb— Christopher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) June 29, 2023 Meanwhile, President Danielle Holley of Mount Holyoke College publicly declared that her school still thinks it’s important to racially balance its student body, and so the schools’ admissions process “will have to” be less transparent. What’s more, the Biden-Harris administration issued guidance to help schools carefully circumvent the ruling, and left-wing academics have begun acclimatizing the public to the idea of openly disobeying Supreme Court opinions they don’t like. Schools might be cheating in many ways. They might, for example, encourage applicants to disclose their race in essays. Or they might require or encourage applicants to submit photos or to do application interviews from which their race can be determined. Or universities might give advantages and disadvantages to applicants from ZIP codes or high schools where students of one race or another tend to congregate. The organization behind the Supreme Court victory against Harvard and UNC has put these schools on notice that they are its next target. And the next time that the Justice Department is controlled by people who aren’t racial ideologues, these schools may well be targets of the federal government, too. We hope, however, that these schools will agree, without coercion, that racial discrimination is illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral. But we aren’t holding our breath. The post Question for ‘Elite’ Colleges: Were You Lying Then or Are You Cheating Now on Race-Based Admissions? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Gov. Newsom Humiliated As His Months-Long Effort to Sabotage Prop 36 Completely Fails

Will the Harris Press Strategy Work? I Doubt It

It appears Democrat vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) has taken the Big Tech bait in calling for censorship of so-called "hate speech" and "misinformation." But former Independent candidate for president Robert F. Kennedy Jr. corrected Walz for his outrageous take on America's first principles. Walz claimed in Dec. 2022 on MSNBC’s The ReidOut that U.S. law does not protect supposed “misinformation” or “hate speech.” RFK Jr. slammed Walz’s argument in a Sept. 18 post on X, pointing out that there is, in fact, a protection for speech that leftists consider “hateful”: “It is called the U.S. Constitution.” As for the leftist buzzword “misinformation,” Kennedy retorted, “who decides what is true and what is false? The government? In authoritarian countries, yes, the government. That is why freedom of speech lies at the very heart of democracy.” Walz’s running mate Kamala Harris has called five times for her now-presidential opponent Donald Trump to be censored by Big Tech, including in a 2019 CNN interview. Big Tech platforms, including X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, have policies penalizing or banning alleged “hateful conduct,” “hate speech,” and/or “misinformation.” These platforms also use so-called fact checking to censor speech that, according to the left, is “misinformation” or “false information.” In the brief MSNBC clip, Walz appeared to echo Big Tech’s censorship rules, asserting: “I think we need to push back on this. There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or, or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” Kennedy corrected Walz in a post on the X platform, pointing out that the Constitution “is exactly what prevents the government from stifling dissent by labeling something ‘hate speech’ or ‘misinformation.’” Kennedy, who was running for president as an Independent before dropping out and endorsing GOP nominee Donald Trump, continued, “Yes, I understand, some forms of speech are repugnant, such as expressions of racial bigotry. Problem is, the category of hate speech expands to include everything the censors ‘hate.’”  Kennedy correctly points out the subjective nature of defining “hate” and discerning what should or should not be censored as misinformation online. For instance, leftist Big Tech censors have notoriously labeled scientific affirmations of two biological sexes as hate speech against LGBTQ individuals, as MRC’sCensorTrack database shows. For example, Vimeo deleted a 2023 video from the David Horowitz Freedom Center about transgender Adm. “Rachel” Levine, while X restricted a postlast June from The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh with a clip of Walsh’s “What Is a Woman?” documentary. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “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.

A participant in a pro-Trump boat parade explained to CNN why a good economy still matters to him even though he has enough money to own and operate a boat.CNN correspondent Elle Reeve asked Joe Harner which issue matters the most to him for the November election.'I want my money to go further.'"The economy, getting interest rates down, getting it to where we can afford to live in America. Right now, it’s too expensive," Harner replied."Okay, now let me maybe ask, like, a slightly impolite question. But, you know, if you can afford a boat, you‘re not hurting so bad, right? Because a boat costs a lot of money, and it’s a lot of upkeep," Reeve asked. “Listen, nobody gave me s**t," Harner shot back. "I earned everything that I‘ve got. I‘m retired military, retired power plant, and I am successful and retired with boats, jet skis, because I did it right. And everybody has that chance. Whether they choose or not, that‘s up to them.""I would never try to take anything away from you in that way. But what I‘m asking is, groceries are probably a smaller part of your budget than say, you know, someone who is, like, a little worse off," Reeve pressed. "I‘d think it‘s interesting that people who are a little bit more comfortable are still so concerned about the economy. Do you see what I‘m saying?” “Because I want my money to go further. I want inflation to go down. I want interest rates to go back down. I want all that. But that covers everybody in the economy, not just me, not just the poor, not just the rich. It covers everybody," Harner explained, noting he taught his children how to be responsible with their finances."Actually, they‘re doing better than me," he quipped. - YouTube youtu.be Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The America First Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit Thursday afternoon against the United States Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security, accusing the agencies of "illegally concealing government records" by slow-walking Freedom of Information Act requests it filed in July and August following the first attempted assassination of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump.According to the lawsuit obtained by Blaze News, AFL opened an investigation into the deadly Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting on July 13. As part of its probe into the USSS' preparedness and response to the attack, AFL submitted several information requests to the DHS.'Widespread and bipartisan acknowledgment that there were catastrophic failures.'The agencies were asked to produce documents and records regarding communications on the day of the assassination attempt, calendar entries for some USSS and DHS personnel in the month leading up to the incident, and USSS' hiring and employment standards and staffing levels.According to the complaint, all of the submitted FOIAs requested "expedited processing on the grounds that '[c]ircumstances in which the lack of expedited processing could reasonably be expected to pose an imminent threat to the life or physical safety of [President Trump]'" and noted that there was also "an urgency to inform the public about an actual or alleged federal government activity, if made by a person who is primarily engaged in disseminating information."AFL noted in its lawsuit that it received a letter from the USSS denying its request for expedited processing of information regarding the agency's staffing level. The USSS allegedly told AFL that it had not "demonstrated that there is a threat to the life or physical safety of an individual nor [had AFL] demonstrated there is a particular urgency to inform the public about the government activity involved in the request, beyond the public's right to know about government activity, generally.""Your letter was conclusory, in nature, and did not present any facts to justify a grant of expedited processing under the applicable standards," the agency reportedly responded.On September 15, after the USSS told AFL that it failed to demonstrate that there was an imminent safety threat, a second attempt was made on Trump's life at his Florida golf course.AFL Executive Director Gene Hamilton stated, "On July 13, the American people watched in horror as a lunatic attempted to assassinate former President, and current candidate for President, Donald Trump. Today, there is widespread and bipartisan acknowledgment that there were catastrophic failures that tragic day and in the weeks and months ahead of it.""We are committed to obtaining these records so that the American people can see for themselves exactly what senior DHS leadership was prioritizing in its mission, and why more resources were not devoted to the protection of President Donald J. Trump," Hamilton added.The USSS told Blaze News, "As a matter of longstanding policy, the U.S. Secret Service does not comment on pending or proposed litigation."The DHS did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reacted furiously to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters refusing to endorse the Democratic ticket, and the union president fired right back. The political world reeled on Wednesday after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said it would not endorse any president for November's election after endorsing Democrats for decades. The decision was seen as a victory for efforts by former President Donald Trump to court the union away from the left. 'She may want to focus on her job instead of mine.' Ocasio-Cortez had a histrionic response to the decision and bashed Sean O'Brien, the union president. "I'm very disappointed in Sean O'Brien's leadership. I have found it increasingly alarming all year," she said to Manu Raju of CNN. "When the Teamsters are in trouble, who do the call?" she asked. "When we need to make sure that Teamsters' pensions are bailed out, when we need to make sure that they have a fair shake at the negotiating table with rail? It was Sean O'Brien calling on Democrats for help." "Sean O’Brien has been boosting Republicans all year while supporting anti-worker, anti-choice Senate candidates," she added on X. O'Brien responded by firing right back at Ocasio-Cortez. “She should maybe get into her district where it voted far-right Republican,” he said, "and maybe find out what the problem is. When I have a problem at a worksite, and there is criticism, I get right in there and find out what it is." When he was pushed by CNN's Dana Bash by what he meant, he claimed that Teamsters members in her district voted overwhelmingly to support Trump. "So she may want to focus on her job instead of mine," he added. Ocasio-Cortez responded by posting the endorsement from Teamsters in the district for the Harris-Walz Democratic ticket. "The NY-14 Teamsters mentioned here have actually voted overwhelmingly to endorse Harris-Walz," she posted. " So let’s set the record straight: Teamsters Local 202 are all in for Harris." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!