Emord’s Sacred Fire of Liberty, Desantis channels Ron Paul, Supreme Court rejects affirmative action, RFK Jr ‘Proud’ Trump Likes him, Wars for democracy cancel democracy, Federal debt to soar, RFK Jr. Health Policy Roundtable, News Nation townhall, Tell the Truth No Matter What, WHO Aspartame warning and MORE!
June 29, 2023 3-5PM ET
Thursday on The Robert Scott Bell Show:
Sacred Fire of Liberty!
It’s that time of the week where we get to explore the political healing that this country needs so desperately! Jonathan Emord is back to help us dissect the latest political news that’s fit to print:
Ron DeSantis says he would eliminate four federal agencies if elected president Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that if he is elected president he would seek to close four federal agencies as part of an effort to reduce the size of government. “We would do Education, we would do Commerce, we’d do Energy, and we would do IRS,” DeSantis said in an interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum when he was asked whether he favored closing any agencies. “If Congress will work with me on doing that, we’ll be able to reduce the size and scope of government,” he added. “If Congress won’t go that far, I’m going to use those agencies to push back against woke ideology and against the leftism that we see creeping into all institutions of American life.” DeSantis’ campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for further details about his remarks. DeSantis has sought to distinguish himself from Republican front-runner Donald Trump, in part by moving further to the right of the former president on a variety of issues. On Tuesday, he issued an unexpected veto, rejecting a criminal justice reform bill that had received substantial bipartisan support in the Republican-led state Legislature.
Supreme Court rejects affirmative action at colleges as unconstitutional The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the affirmative action admission policies of Harvard and the University of North Carolina, which gave weight to a would-be student’s race, are unconstitutional. The ruling is a massive blow to decades-old efforts to boost enrollment of racial minorities at American universities. The majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, which all five of his fellow conservative justices joined in, said that both Harvard’s and UNC’s affirmative action programs “unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points.” “We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today,” Roberts wrote. The majority said that the universities’ policies violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal and African-American, in a dissent called the ruling “truly a tragedy for us all.” Proponents for affirmative action in higher education rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court before oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina on October 31, 2022 in Washington, DC.
RFK Jr.: I’m ‘Proud’ Trump Likes Me Even if We Don’t Agree on Most Issues Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. refused to attack former President Donald Trump and insisted that he is “proud” the former president likes him even if they disagree on “most” issues. NewsNation anchor Elizabeth Vargas noted that Kennedy has been “getting a lot of support from a lot of leading voices on the right like Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, former President Donald Trump,” during Wednesday’s town hall event. Vargas then highlighted Trump’s recent comments about Kennedy, praising the Democrat as a “common-sense guy.” “He’s been very nice to me. I’ve actually had a very nice relationship with him over the years. He’s a very smart guy and a good guy,” Trump said of Kennedy. “He’s a common-sense guy and so am I. So, whether you’re conservative or liberal, common sense is common sense.” “What kind of man do you think Donald Trump is?” Vargas asked Kennedy. “Here’s what I’m not gonna do in this race. I’m not gonna attack other people personally. I don’t think it’s good for our country,” Kennedy Jr. responded. Kennedy then said he strives to “bring people together” and to “try to bridge the divide between Americans” as his father, Robert F. Kennedy, tried to do.
Tucker Carlson: ‘Wars for Democracy Always Cancel Democracy in the Process’ Tucker Carlson blasted the establishment’s narrative that American support for the Ukraine war effort is about “democracy,” and claimed that “wars for democracy always cancel democracy in the process,” during the latest installment of his Twitter show. In an episode titled “Irony Alert: the war for democracy enables dictatorship,” Carlson played several clips of politicians like Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX), who claimed supporting Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine in the fight against Russia is about upholding “democracy.” “As Pelosi puts it, the Ukrainian people are fighting the fight for their democracy, and for ours as well. That’s right for ours as well. Without Ukrainian democracy, in other words, we can have no democracy here,” Carlson said. “If the Ukrainians aren’t free, neither are we. We must make sure they can vote in Kyiv. So we can continue to vote in Kansas City.” However, Carlson pointed out that Zelensky had just announced elections would only be held in his county if they won the war against Russia. “Will there be elections in Ukraine next year?” A reporter asked Zelensky in a clip Carlson played on his show. “This is a global question. If we win, there will be,” Zelensky responded, according to captions on the video. “So there will be no wartime (martial law), no war. Elections should be held in peacetime, when there is no war, according to the law.”
Federal debt to soar, CBO predicts, despite GOP-led spending standoff The U.S. debt is expected to soar to historic levels over the next 30 years,eventually reaching 181 percent of the country’s total economic output — even after Republicans drove a high-stakes standoff this spring to secure what they described as a major improvement in the nation’s fiscal health. A new forecast Wednesday from the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan spending scorekeeper on Capitol Hill, described the government’s long-term finances as slightly improved yet still “challenging,” and it raised the prospect that the bleak outlook could create a future drag on the U.S. economy. Over the next 30 years, the annual shortfall between what Washington spends on federal programs and collects in tax revenue — the gap is known as the deficit — is expected to fall as a share of the economy by 2027, then begin growing again, and by 2053 reaching levels not seen since World War II. The yearly deficit adds to the federal debt held by the public, and the CBO expects the debt to reach 107 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, a measure of economic output, by 2029 — surpassing its historical high. The debt is expected to continue to grow as a share of GDP to 181 percent by 2053.
Hour 2
Medical Freedom Leaders Ask RFK Jr.: How Would You Fix U.S. Health Policy? Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday hosted a roundtable discussion with leading critics of prevailing health policy who debated topics ranging from public health agency capture to climate change. Approximately 11,000 viewers watched live as Dr. Pierre Kory, Maureen McDonnell, Mikki Willis, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Patrick Gentempo, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, Sayer Ji and Del Bigtree asked Kennedy, founder and chairman on leave from Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a series of questions about how his administration would address key issues of concern to the medical freedom movement. “This is the moment when the collapsing center, the disintegrating center, the dysfunctional health system finally opens up and what has so long been ‘alternative’ might become a new mainstream that could transform the health of this country,” roundtable facilitator and author Charles Eisenstein said, kicking off the discussion. McDonnell, a holistic pediatric nurse and founder of Millions Against Medical Mandates, asked Kennedy how he would transform a healthcare system from one controlled by Big Pharma “where for every ailment there’s a drug and for every infection there’s a vaccine or one in the pipeline” to one that treats the root causes of the illnesses and chronic conditions plaguing the nation. Kennedy said Pharma’s “mercantile ambitions” have been allowed to overwhelm the healthcare system, and conflicts of interest have to be eliminated. That includes ending advertising by Pharma, redirecting grants toward studying chronic diseases, making public health data such as the Vaccine Safety Datalink available to researchers, and having the U.S. Department of Justice hold journals accountable for “racketeering with the pharmaceutical industry to systematically lie to the public,” he said.
RFK Jr. Claims ‘Vaccine Research’ Likely Responsible for HIV and the Spanish Flu Robert F. Kennedy Jr. convened a panel of health misinformation superstars on Tuesday evening for a roundtable discussion that suggested his medical conspiracism will be a key component of his 2024 presidential run. During the unfiltered conversation, he falsely suggested that millions of deaths in the Great Influenza (or “Spanish flu”) epidemic of 1918 could be attributed to vaccine experiments. The longshot candidate — known for promoting the debunked link between vaccines and autism, and opposing Covid-19 vaccination efforts — was joined in conversation by four doctors as well as several influencers and alternative medicine promoters, all of whom have gained notoriety for false claims about the dangers of vaccination. The live-streamed event aired on Rumble, a video streaming site favored by far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists, particularly those who have been banned by other platforms. During the discussion, Kennedy made several unfounded claims regarding the origins of infectious diseases and their relationships to vaccines. At one point, he baselessly asserted that vaccine research had been responsible for the creation of some of the deadliest diseases in human history, including HIV, the Spanish flu, and Lyme disease.
RFK Jr. says ‘I want my party back,’ defends vaccine claims Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would not pledge to support his party’s nominee, stood by his claims about vaccines and announced that “I want my party back” in his first national town hall presented by NewsNation on Wednesday. “I’m running because I feel like my party has lost its way,” Kennedy told NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas. Kennedy — an environmental lawyer and nephew of President John F. Kennedy — has positioned himself as a populist set on returning to the “exact values that would have been promoted by my father and uncle.” Despite never holding elective office, Kennedy’s campaign has generated attention within the party. Among Democrats, Kennedy is polling at 15%, according to a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll. Still, Biden is well ahead at 62%. In order to win the nomination, Kennedy will have to do something no primary challenger has done in modern U.S. history — unseat an incumbent president for their party’s nomination. Vargas asked Kennedy what he thought of Donald Trump after the former president praised him as a “common sense guy” in a recent interview. The Democratic hopeful said he’s focused on unity, not division. “I’m not going to attack other people personally,” he said. “What I’m trying to do in this race is bring people together.” Kennedy had the same attitude toward the current president. “You won’t hear me saying bad things about President Biden,” Kennedy said. “I’m not going to attack him as a man.”
Tell the Truth No Matter What In September 2022 it finally happened. The terrible humans who run LinkedIn finally took away my access to my account, an account I had only begun using once I began writing against lockdowns for a Catholic blog called Rorate Caeli. It is hilarious to look back at the grave delicts against the wisdom of Bill Gates that I stood accused of. Nothing which I posted was untrue. Masks still don’t work, LeBron James being placed in the NBA’s Covid protocol is still proof that it was idiotic to place religious faith in unproven mRNA shots, and it’s still true that our government conspired to spread actual misinformation while calling for the truth to be censored. Attempts to convince their Inquisition generally took this form: “If I have posted wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have posted rightly, why do you issue a strike against me?” with no actual answer ever being given. Presumably, it was the regime’s goal that such adverse actions taken against me and others like me would convince us to let our voices go silent. The opposite occurred; mere days later my first article would appear on Brownstone. By annoying me they gave me the motivation to yell even louder. I was reminded of this time at a recent Sunday Mass, as the Gospel contained the following command:
“Fear no one.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna (Mt 10:26-28).”
Speaking the truth loudly and clearly is an absolute moral imperative, not merely when it is safe to do so but especially when there are those who seek to silence truth. The story of 2020 is a story of many who failed to be truth-tellers because of fear of consequences, as well as others who worked especially hard to create that fear.
Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports A popular artificial sweetener used in thousands of products worldwide including Diet Coke, ice-cream and chewing gum is to be declared a possible cancer risk to humans, according to reports. The World Health Organization’s cancer research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), has conducted a safety review of aspartame and will publish a report next month. It is preparing to label the sweetener as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”, Reuters reported on Thursday. That would mean there is some evidence linking aspartame to cancer, but that it is limited. The IARC has two more serious categories, “probably carcinogenic to humans” and “carcinogenic to humans”. The move is likely to prove controversial. The IARC has faced criticism for causing alarm about hard-to-avoid substances or situations. It previously put working overnight and consuming red meat into its probably cancer-causing class, and listed using mobile phones as possibly cancer-causing. The IARC safety review was conducted to assess whether or not aspartame is a potential hazard, based on all the published evidence, a person familiar with the matter told the Guardian. However, it does not take into account how much of a product a person can safely consume. That advice comes from a separate WHO expert committee on food additives, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (Jecfa), which has also been reviewing aspartame use this year. It is due to announce its findings on the same day the IARC makes public its decision, on 14 July.
Remember Friends, The Power to Heal is Yours!
