Washington’s soft-touch jail policies have turned facilities into fentanyl hotspots, thanks to rules that make it harder to properly search inmates, according to Jason Rantz at 770 KTTH. 

Rantz writes this week that Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders recently sounded the alarm after two overdoses at his jail tied to drugs smuggled in body fat.

“Once the drugs made their way in, a different inmate consumed the drugs and overdosed,” Sanders said. “Life-saving efforts from jail staff prevented the overdose from being fatal.”

Days later, it happened again—this time, fentanyl was found under an inmate’s breast.

“A Corrections Sergeant observed an inmate acting oddly and immediately called for medical,” Sanders reported. “CPR was performed for 10 minutes… Narcan deployment… The inmate will be booked on new felony charges.”

In his piece, Rantz writes that that It shouldn’t be this easy for an obese inmate to sneak drugs into jail—but thanks to misguided policies, it is.

This stems from 2SSB 5695, a 2022 Democratic bill—ironically also backed by Republicans—that banned “dehumanizing” strip searches and mandated body scanners. But the Department of Health, tasked with setting scanner rules, imposed such weak radiation limits under WAC 246-230-040 that scanners can’t detect drugs hidden in body fat.

“The new rules under WAC 246-230-040, implemented in January 2025, force scanners to use laughably low radiation levels to appease activists screaming about ‘ALARA’ (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principles,” wrote Sheriff Sanders.

Lawmakers say the new rules protect inmates from radiation—but that claim doesn’t hold up.

The previous scan dose—2.00 µSv—was already safer than a dental X-ray. Sheriff Sanders pointed out it would take 1,000 scans to hit the annual limit. “Strip searches cannot be conducted on every inmate who is booked… but its [the scanner’s] effectiveness isn’t nearly what it was post-law change,” he wrote.

Strip searches were unpleasant but worked. Lawmakers scrapped them without ensuring the scanners could actually do the job. And the same Department of Health that insisted COVID vaccines stopped transmission isn’t exactly a reliable authority on radiation safety.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Supreme Court voted 7–2 on March 26 to uphold the Biden administration’s rule regulating so-called ghost guns that can be assembled at home.

The majority opinion in Bondi v. VanDerStok was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Gorsuch was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kavanaugh each filed concurring opinions.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito each filed dissenting opinions.

In October 2023, the Supreme Court reinstated the rule, which lower courts had blocked.

“Ghost gun” is a pejorative term used by gun control advocates to describe a homemade firearm that lacks a serial number and therefore can’t be tracked by law enforcement.

Although some states regulate homemade guns, gun control groups have been trying for years to ban or regulate homemade guns at the federal level but have failed to persuade the U.S. Congress to act.

Then-President Joe Biden defended the rule, claiming that privately made guns, which are often made with gun kits, are the “weapons of choice for many criminals.”

The government’s “frame or receiver” rule dates to April 2022. It requires individuals who assemble homemade firearms to add serial numbers to them. The rule also mandates background checks for consumers who buy gun-assembly kits from dealers.

Pieces of guns that are shipped are nonetheless guns subject to existing laws, the government argued.

In the majority opinion, Gorsuch wrote that the Gun Control Act of 1968 allows the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to regulate “some weapon parts kits and unfinished frames or receivers, including those we have discussed.”

After displaying a photograph of gun kit components supplied by seller Polymer80, Gorsuch wrote, “Plainly, the finished ‘Buy Build Shoot’ kit is an instrument of combat. No one would confuse the semiautomatic pistol pictured above with a tool or a toy.”

Several ultra-controversial issues have come to a head in Israel this week, sparking more huge protests outside the country’s Knesset and in various locations.

Israel’s Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz is warning alongside former Israeli army Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Israel is on the brink of civil war.

The mounting crisis was sparked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dismissing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar. “It’s true that there are many security challenges from abroad, but Israel’s security is at risk because of the internal division,” Gantz said at the start of the week.

There are moves to also dismiss Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara by Netanyahu after a ‘no confidence’ vote by the cabinet. This has outraged opposition parties and much of the population.

Alongside this, the deeply divisive judicial appointments bill will soon be voted on:

National Unity chair Benny Gantz met earlier today with Justice Minister Yariv Levin in a last-ditch attempt to convince him to abandon a highly controversial piece of legislation that will greatly increase political control over the judicial appointments process.

The meeting was held ahead of the final two readings in the Knesset plenum needed for the legislation’s passage.

During the meeting, Gantz told Levin that he would be making a “mistake” by bringing the legislation for final votes, Channel 12 reports, while Ynet says he warned Levin that Israel is on “the brink of a civil war.”

Gantz is pleading for Netanyahu to halt the legislation from progressing. “I’m appealing to you as someone who bears the responsibility of acting on behalf of all citizens of this country,” he wrote to in a letter to the prime minister.

Thousands protest outside the Israeli Knesset ahead of a final voting on a law that would further politicize the selection of Supreme Court’ judges pic.twitter.com/Ip9WC6OtrF

— Guy Elster גיא אלסטר (@guyelster) March 26, 2025

“Our society is wounded and bleeding, divided in a way we have not seen since October 6 [2023],” Gantz said. “Fifty-nine of our brothers and sisters are still captive in Gaza, and our soldiers, from all political factions, are fighting on multiple fronts.”

As a reminder, Netanyahu and his allies say the plan will restore a balance between the judicial and executive branches and rein in what they see as an interventionist court with liberal sympathies. But critics say the constellation of laws will remove the checks and balances in Israel’s democratic system and concentrate power in the hands of the governing coalition.

Amid all of this, families of kidnap victims are still leading protests demanding that a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal with Hamas get back on track.

Protesters outside the Knesset set up a mock “Qatari embassy” featuring multiple people in white robes fanning themselves with money as Arabic music plays in the background. One demonstrator uses ropes to control the arms of a person wearing a Benjamin Netanyahu mask pic.twitter.com/qMhiGYfBsy

— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) March 26, 2025

But the Israeli military looks to escalate, with reports it is in the preparation stage for annexing parts of the Gaza Strip. The IDF is also staging war drills in the north, preparing for possibly more clashes with Hezbollah. If the judicial overhaul bill passes, demonstrations in the streets will likely explode to historic proportions. 

By Ted Dabrowski and John Klinger of Wirepoints

Illinois politicians’ latest attempt to impose their will on homeschooling began with a single tragic story of one child’s abuse. Lawmakers took that case of parental neglect and twisted it, expanded on it, and turned it into an indictment of homeschooling in general. Now they want new legislation to control it.

Homeschooling risks truancy, they say. And abuse, educational neglect and poor accountability. That’s how lawmakers are fear-mongering about Illinois’ long-standing, hands-off approach to homeschooling in an attempt to gain more power over parents and children.

But if you know anything about Illinois’ public education system, you’ll recognize the rank hypocrisy immediately. Illinois schools are full of truancy, abuse, educational neglect and poor accountability. Yet lawmakers do little to nothing about that. Instead, they’ve turned their attention towards the last form of education they don’t control.

The bill at hand, House Bill 2827, would force homeschooling parents – and private schools – to annually submit a declaration form to their local school district, with the potential penalty of fines and even jail time if parents don’t comply. Among other items, the bill also requires administrative and curriculum standards.

The bottom line is, the proposed law is an infringement of the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children (see the Supreme Court case Troxel v. Granville).

Yet Illinois State Rep. Terra Costa Howard, the lead sponsor of the legislation, justifies her bill by saying homeschooled children “lose daily contact with teachers and others who are mandated to report abuse and neglect.” That’s coming from someone who’s said and done nothing to address the source of the state’s biggest sexual abuse problem: Chicago Public Schools.

And State Rep. Michelle Mussman, another bill sponsor said, “We really are looking for a better way to capture the small, the very important subset of kids who are…missing an education or worse.” But Mussman and most Illinois legislators have done little to address the state’s own public school literacy collapse. Six out of every 10 children statewide are unable to read at grade level – that’s more than 1.1 million public school students.

Below we lay out the many hypocrisies of the homeschool bill supporters.

1. Rampant chronic absenteeism in public schools. Lawmakers’ concern about “truancy” in homeschooling falls flat considering they consistently allow up to a quarter of Illinois public school students to be “chronically absent” (10% or more missed school days in a year) each year. That’s based on data straight from the State Board of Education’s annual report card.

Chicago’s numbers are far worse – over 40% of CPS students were chronically absent in 2024. These kids are at risk of “academic and social problems” according to the State Board of Education.

Absenteeism skyrocketed during the covid years and has remained at elevated levels since. 

Many Illinois teachers also consistently fail to show up for class, again based on state education data. Over a third of all teachers statewide were considered “chronically absent” in 2024, meaning they missed 10 school days or more during the year. The National Bureau of Economic Research warns that student outcomes decrease significantly when teachers are absent for 10 days or more.

Who are lawmakers holding accountable for this? And why aren’t they holding themselves accountable?

2. Ongoing sexual abuse in schools. If legislators really cared about the abuse of children, they would shut down Chicago Public Schools immediately. The district has recorded nearly 1,000 allegations in the last couple of years, many of them severe cases of molestation and abuse.

Here are some examples from the CPS Inspector General in 2024:

Case No. 20-01345. “A security guard sexually abused a 16-year-old student for approximately five months. In his capacity as a security guard, he pulled the student out of class to have sex in various locations in the school, such as storage rooms and janitor closets. He also sexually assaulted the student in his car and his home.” 

Case No. 20-01530. “An intoxicated teacher groped an eleventh-grade student twice on the buttocks while at the school’s graduation. The student disclosed the teacher’s conduct to a staff member, who notified DCFS and the school’s then-principal. However, the principal failed to notify the Law Department of the allegations as required.”

Case No. 21-00326. “An employee of a vendor after-school program sexually assaulted an elementary school student at the student’s school on multiple occasions between 2014 and 2017, when the student was seven to ten years old. The student disclosed three separate incidents: one in which the vendor employee touched and rubbed the student’s genitals under their clothes, and two in which the vendor employee touched and rubbed the student’s buttocks under their clothes. The abuse took place in the school’s gym and cafeteria.”

Those are but a few of the 446 cases that range from misconduct and sexual harassment to nonsexual conduct that raises “the appearance of impropriety or possible grooming concerns.” 

Illinois lawmakers have known about the rampant cases of abuse since the Chicago Tribune first exposed the depth of CPS’ crisis in 2018. The district should be under the same extreme public and political pressure as the Catholic Church was when its own sex abuse scandals broke. Yet lawmakers have done little to nothing about it. 

3. Public school students are unable to read or do math. Lawmakers’ supposed concerns about homeschool parents failing to provide an education to their children is particularly laughable given the dismal state of public education in Illinois.

Illinois lawmakers haven’t made any serious attempt to restore literacy and numeracy – the long term data backs us up on that. Instead, all they’ve done is throw billions upon billions of dollars at the education system to no effect.

Overall, just 33% of all 8th-grade Illinois students scored proficient in reading on the 2024 Nation’s Report Card test. In math, it was just 32%.

The results for the state’s minority children were far worse. Just 16% reading and 9% math proficiency for blacks. For Hispanics, it was just 24% and 18%.

In many districts, kids are far, far away from proficiency. Take the Decatur Public Schools. There a full two-thirds of black third graders scored at the lowest possible level on the state IAR test in 2024. Most of those students are grade levels away from proficiency.

Then look at Decatur’s 11th graders. It’s the exact same thing: 69% were at the lowest level. These children have been abandoned by the system.

And not a single kid can read proficiently at all in some schools. Last year, Wirepoints analyzed report card data directly from the Illinois State Board of Education and found 67 schools across the state, enrolling over 11,500 students, where not a single child could do math at grade level. There were another 32 schools where zero children were proficient in reading.

4. Unhelpful teacher evaluations. And for those lawmakers so concerned about accountability, there’s the open question about why they’ve done nothing to fix the state board’s broken “accountability” metrics for teachers.

Despite all the failures we’ve tallied above, the system allows virtually every teacher in Illinois to be rated “excellent or proficient” year after year. It’s apparent that lawmakers don’t truly care about accountability. 

This homeschooling bill is an attempt by lawmakers to take over the last part of education that isn’t under their explicit control – and a way for the teachers unions to squash another form of competition. 

It’s hypocrisy, and government overreach, at its worst.

Nearly all of the 70 people charged in a massive $250 million fraud case targeting federal child nutrition programs in Minnesota are Somali immigrants, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Between March 2020 and January 2022, they allegedly stole funds meant for feeding children, funneled through a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future. So far, 37 have pleaded guilty, and 7 have been convicted; the rest await trial.

The scam involved fake meal counts, rosters, and invoices submitted to the Minnesota Department of Education. “Feeding Our Future” acted as a sponsor for daycares and other sites, making it easy to file false claims during the COVID-era program expansion.

Minnesota, home to about 100,000 Somali immigrants—mostly in the Twin Cities—has long attracted refugees with “some of America’s most generous welfare and charity programs,” according to journalist Kelly Riddell. She also quoted professor Ahamed Samatar, who said, “Minnesota is exceptional in so many ways but it’s the closest thing in the United States to a true social democratic state.”

The FBI’s Minneapolis office has also dealt with terror-related concerns in the community, which has seen recruitment by ISIS and al-Shabab.

Between 2020 and 2022, Aimee Bock and a group of mostly Somali immigrants stole $250 million in federal nutrition funds through a scheme centered on the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. The group submitted fake meal counts and rosters to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), which had loosened oversight under COVID “waivers.” In 2021 alone, Feeding Our Future funneled nearly $200 million to sham sites and vendors.

The Washington Free Beacon says that despite red flags, MDE backed off after accusations of racism. But in April 2021, a whistleblower tipped off the FBI. Surveillance footage later revealed empty food sites that supposedly fed thousands daily. The scheme collapsed in January 2022 when federal agents conducted Minnesota’s largest-ever fraud raid.

Bock, Feeding Our Future’s founder, certified inflated claims from over 250 sites. Though she pocketed $1.9 million, many of her co-conspirators spent millions on luxury items and properties across the U.S., Turkey, and Kenya. “The fraud in this case is gross, disgusting, and despicable,” the report states.

Bock’s fake nonprofit included a board of unaware bartenders and a small-engine mechanic. “Yeah, big shoes,” one deadpanned in court when shown his name atop an organizational chart. The fraud ran so deep that 21 sites on a 1.8-mile stretch of Minneapolis’s Lake Street claimed to serve as many children as the city’s public schools.

Bock and accomplice Salim Said—whose restaurant, Safari, jumped from $600,000 annual revenue to “serving” 5,000 kids daily—were convicted on all 28 counts in just five hours. Said alone claimed over 3.9 million meals and took in $5.5 million.

Though most Somali defendants eagerly joined in, one voice stood out: Abdihakim Osman Nur, who once exposed Rep. Ilhan Omar’s fraudulent marriage, condemned the lavish corruption on Facebook. He posted a video describing gold trays gifted at a Feeding Our Future staffer’s wedding: “We cannot close our eyes to such corruption… when we only have a few bad apples.”

Yet state officials stayed silent. Gov. Tim Walz later claimed, “we caught it very early,” but ignored follow-up questions. Attorney General Keith Ellison, who once said, “I know a scam when I see one,” also declined to comment.

At the post-trial press conference, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson rightly called the case “the shame of Minnesota.” The prosecutors who brought it down, he added, are “the pride of Minnesota.

The Department of Education, much like USAID, is treated as if it’s a sacrosanct charity instead of a government institution subject to scrutiny and regulation.  The message surrounding government agencies and federal employees is generally unhinged these days; when did these people suddenly become saints and martyrs?  Most of them are, in fact, parasites feeding on taxpayer dollars and they serve no purpose.

To be sure, progressives often elevate bureaucracy in their minds to a sanctified level.  The Shadow Government is their god and the bureaucrats slithering through the dimly lit corridors of unaccountable power are treated like high priests.  The system is worshiped because it is at war with America’s foundations.  The left wants the west to die, and the bureaucracy is more than happy to accommodate while filling their pockets with easy cash. 

The Department of Education (ED) is particularly beloved by the political left because it is the mechanism by which public schooling is twisted into a propaganda machine.  The ED is the key to everything; in cooperation with teachers and teachers unions they are creating the next generation of woke adherents, and your kids are the target.  

But beyond the issue of political indoctrination there’s the obvious problem of obligation versus outcome – What does the ED actually do to fulfill its supposed duties?  In truth, it does absolutely nothing.  Lets examine five reasons why the Department of Education is a complete failure as an agency and why it deserves to be eliminated.

The More Money The ED Receives The Less Education American Students Get

In 2010 the ED’s budget was $94 billion, by 2024 it had ballooned to $268 billion (a 160% increase).  But what are US taxpayers getting for this massive chunk of change they are spending annually?  National testing averages in reading and math continue to decline dramatically in the past decade.  Scores barely eek out gains on testing results from the 1970s before the ED was founded.  

In other words, the more money Americans spend on the ED, the worse the results get.  Despite the agency enjoying a budget that surpasses the GDP of many countries, the US is 28th in the world for math, 24th in the world for science according to PISA results for high school age students.  It is also rated 36th in global literacy rankings. For the richest country in the world with the largest education budget in the world, this is abysmal.

The ED Has Even Failed To Help Minorities Despite DEI Programs

Some people argue that minority demographics (except Asians) consistently test lower and they are dragging US scores down compared to the rest of the developed world.  This is a fair point, however, with the amount of funding and fanfare paid to DEI by the Department of Education in recent years you would think those scores would be going up.  They haven’t.  More minorities than ever are getting college degrees but their testing scores continue to plummet. 

In inner city schools where minorities are the majority, the lack of effective education is stark.  In urban areas of Illinois, for example, at least 30 schools do not have a single student that can pass a reading proficiency exam. 

If the Department of Education’s real intention was to create “equity” for minorities in public schools, they have failed miserably.

Woke Propaganda And DEI Ideology In Schools

The ED had at least $600 million allotted for DEI and Critical Race theory programs for teachers, not to mention extensive programs for LGBT and gender studies.  Its not a coincidence that public schools across the nation started allowing gender ideology to invade the classroom all at the same time.  The Department of Education was a big part of the indoctrination push.  Incentivizing teachers and school districts with extra federal cash certainly helped things along.

Until the Supreme Court finally blocked “race conscious” admissions in colleges due to discrimination against Asians and Whites, the ED was highly active in promoting DEI based campuses.  The agency specifically encouraged equity based student admissions, allowing underqualified applicants access to top universities while rejecting high achieving applicants because of their race.

With the lowest common denominator getting easy access, it’s no surprise that American colleges are churning out far less desirable graduates and less workers with STEM degrees.  

The ED Has Driven Secondary Education Costs Into The Stratosphere

In 2024 the Department of Education spent around $160 billion on federal student aid grants and loans.  This might sound like a humanitarian effort that would expand America’s professional labor base, but that’s not the case.  In-demand career fields like those in STEM are desperate for qualified graduates.  Meanwhile, all that easy government cash has inflated college tuition costs beyond reckoning.

There is a direct correlation and causation between the ED’s increased grant programs and the rising costs of a college education.  

The ED Consistently Loses Money

For years, the ED vastly underestimated the true cost of the federal Direct Loan program. Between 1997 and 2021, ED expected these loans to generate more than $100 billion in government revenue.  Researchers and watchdogs have warned about the flaws in ED’s budget model for years – the agency did nothing to address these concerns. 

Federal student loans issued during this period cost taxpayers $200 billion, meaning ED’s faulty budgeting was off by more than $10 billion a year on average according to a GAO report in 2022. 

ED’s budget is consistently wrong due to incorrect assumptions about: 

The number of borrowers who would choose to enroll in Income-Driven Repayment (IDR).

The income growth for borrowers repaying loans through IDR.    

The probability that borrowers would default on their loans.    

The effects of new programs enacted by Congress and ED

Like most federal agencies the ED only serves to lose money while never actually accomplishing its supposed purpose.  It is a failure by every metric and should be shut down forever.  When an institution bombs this hard for this long, there’s no excuse.  The political left appeals to emotion by painting a picture of a dystopian future filled with uneducated American children without the guiding hand of the Department of Education, but the opposite is true.  They have already created an uneducated America, and now its time to remedy the problem.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said during a Cabinet meeting this week that she would eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

While providing a report on the border and Coast Guard operations, Noem said, “We’re going to eliminate FEMA.” 

She didn’t provide more details.

“That’s great. Great job,” President Donald Trump said in response to Noem’s remarks during the meeting.

Earlier this year, Trump suggested in public remarks that he may dissolve the emergency management agency—or at least overhaul it.

“I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA. I think, frankly, FEMA’s not good,” Trump said in January.

He mentioned it again when he visited the aftermath of wildfires in Los Angeles in January, saying: 

“I say you don’t need FEMA, you need a good state government. FEMA is a very expensive, in my opinion, mostly failed situation.”

After Trump said he wanted to overhaul or scrap FEMA, the agency’s acting head, Cameron Hamilton, wrote to staff and assured them that “FEMA is a critical agency which performs an essential mission in support of our national security.” Hamilton is a former Navy SEAL whom Trump appointed to temporarily lead the agency.

On March 19, Trump signed an order that seeks to hand over responsibility to state and local governments to deal with natural disasters or cyberattacks.

“Federal policy must rightly recognize that preparedness is most effectively owned and managed at the state, local, and even individual levels, supported by a competent, accessible, and efficient federal government,” the order said. 

“Citizens are the immediate beneficiaries of sound local decisions and investments designed to address risks, including cyberattacks, wildfires, hurricanes, and space weather.”

This order is designed to provide more power to “state, local, and individual” preparation efforts and will bring “common sense into infrastructure prioritization and strategic investments through risk-informed decisions that make our infrastructure, communities, and economy resilient to global and dynamic threats and hazards.”

FEMA has a workforce of 20,000 staffers that can increase to more than 50,000 active members during disasters, according to the agency website. The agency was officially created in 1979 and was placed under DHS in 2004.

Aside from FEMA, federal agencies have fired nearly 25,000 newer workers, officials said in court filings last week.

Eighteen agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, started terminating workers after Trump took office, and the Office of Personnel Management directed officials to fire probationary workers who were not critical to agency missions. Many did not disclose the number of workers who were terminated.

The Epoch Times contacted DHS for comment on March 26.

Got a few minutes?

Today’s entertaining exchange comes from NPR CEO Karoline Maher, who claimed that the network is unbiased, and somehow couldn’t remember a series of anti-white posts she made on social media when questioned by Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) during a a House DOGE (Delivering on Government Efficiency) subcommittee hearing titled: “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable.”

REP. BRANDON GILL: OK. Do you believe that white people inherently feel superior to other races?

KAROLINE MAHER, NPR: I do not.

REP. BRANDON GILL: You don’t? You tweeted something to that effect. You said, “I grew up feeling superior—ha, how white of me.” Why did you tweet that?

KAROLINE MAHER, NPR: I think I was probably on what it was to be—to grow up in an environment where I had lots of advantages.

REP. BRANDON GILL: It sounds like you’re saying that white people feel superior.

Watch:

Incredible: She told Congress she never read this article, even though she said she took an entire day off to read it. She either lied to score some virtue points in 2020, or lied to avoid looking like a mindless Robin DiAngelo replica in 2025. https://t.co/DrAd8gyF1R

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 26, 2025

Shortly before this exchange, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) also laid into Maher, slamming the network over the Russia collusion hoax, interviewing Adam Schiff (D-CA), their use of “far-right” to describe conservatives vs. “far-left,” and more. 

Watch:

REP FALLON: “In 2020, NPR branded Hunter Biden’s laptop story a ‘waste of time.’ Do you know how many times NPR interviewed Adam Schiff about the Russia Collusion hoax?”

NPR CEO: “Idk.”

REP FALLON: “25 times. How many times did NPR interview Chairman Comer about the Biden… pic.twitter.com/EoOGHAZrPW

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) March 26, 2025

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Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal law granting broad immunity to vaccine administrators and others does not preempt charges that a mother’s constitutional rights were violated when her son was given a COVID-19 vaccine without her consent, the North Carolina Supreme Court has ruled.

Emily Happel and her teenage son can proceed with a lawsuit against their local school board and a medical organization, according to the March 21 ruling. Happel’s son, Tanner Smith, who was 14 at the time, was given a COVID-19 vaccine in 2021 even though administrators did not obtain parental consent.

Lower courts found that a federal law, called the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act), preempted claims brought by Happel and Tanner. However, North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote for the majority that the law only provides immunity in situations typically involving tort law, such as serious injury, and not constitutional violations.

The PREP Act, signed in 2005, is triggered when the federal government issues a declaration during a health emergency, which it did during the COVID-19 pandemic. The act says that under a declaration, covered people such as vaccine administrators are protected from “all claims for loss,” with few exceptions.

Courts have generally found that the immunization preempts a range of state-level claims, while the top court in North Carolina concluded that it does not shield people who violated constitutional rights.

“The literalist interpretation defendants urge us to adopt today defies even the broad scope of the statutory text. Under this view, Congress gave carte blanche to any willful misconduct related to the administration of a covered countermeasure, including the State’s deliberate violation of fundamental constitutional rights, so long as it fell short of causing ‘death or serious physical injury,’” Newby said.

That interpretation, he said, would let a covered person vaccinate an unconscious patient or a nurse at a public school to intentionally exaggerate the benefits of a treatment. “The fundamental and paramount constitutional rights to bodily integrity and parental control would be discarded without second thought,” Newby wrote. “That simply cannot be what Congress intended.”

Definition of ‘Loss’ Under PREP Act

Congress, in the PREP Act, provided immunity to “all claims for loss.” Happel argued that her claims did not meet the definition of loss, which Congress detailed to include death and loss of property. The examples listed in the law are all associated with tort law, the North Carolina Supreme Court majority said.

“Because ordinary tort loss is distinct from constitutional loss, the tort-based examples included in the PREP Act suggest that Congress did not intend for the immunity to block state constitutional claims,” Newby said.

Workers with the Old North State Medical Society vaccinated Tanner, despite his refusal and a lack of consent from his parents, at a clinic promoted by the Guilford County Board of Education. The defendants had argued the conduct was immunized by the PREP Act, citing other cases in which courts concluded similar conduct was shielded by the federal law.

North Carolina Supreme Court justices said the rulings did not persuade them because they either did not deal with constitutional claims or did not separate alleged constitutional violations from other state law claims.

The new decision overturns rulings by a trial court, which sided with the defendants in 2023, and a state appeals court, which upheld that ruling the following year.

The appeals court said that it was “constrained to conclude the PREP Act preempts the protections” provided by state law.

The North Carolina Supreme Court remanded the case back to the appeals court, instructing it to decide on constitutional issues raised by the parties.

The state’s top court did affirm the lower court’s dismissal of battery claims brought by Happel and her son.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Philip Berger Jr., joined by Justice Tamara Barringer, said that the PREP Act immunity may appear limitless but “it is difficult to concede that the PREP Act confers immunity for outright wrongful acts.”

Dissenting Opinion

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Allison Riggs, joined by Justice Anita Earls, pointed out that the PREP Act says “the sole exception to the immunity from suit and liability” is “death or serious injury caused by willful misconduct.”

“It is not possible to square the majority’s reading with the purposes of the PREP Act and the almost uniformly broad language used to effectuate it,” Riggs said. She added later, “I would hold any constitutional claims raised by plaintiffs to be preempted by the PREP Act, rendering the defendants immune from suit.”

Riggs also wrote that the immunity only applies to civil suits and liability, not criminal charges or discipline from licensing bodies.

Parents Rights Implications

A lawyer for Old North State Medical Society declined to comment. The Guilford County Board of Education and one of its attorneys did not return inquiries by publication time.

Steven Walker, an attorney representing Happel and her son, told The Epoch Times in an email: “We are very pleased with the Court’s ruling. While we would have, of course, loved to see the battery claim reinstated as well, we believe that the Court decision was very favorable in the main on the case and have no real complaints.

“I believe the case is important even outside the issue of the PREP Act in that the Court gave its clearest explanation to date concerning the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children under the North Carolina constitution,” Walker said.

“The PREP Act has a purpose, and that purpose is to provide immunity protections in situations when it might be difficult to determine the safety of a countermeasure during a time of crisis. It was never intended to allow the government to trample on the clear constitutional rights of its citizens.”

We present readers with what may be one of the dumbest, most brainwashed, unhealthiest, lowest IQ, and unhinged Democrat yet—a morbidly obsessed activist who slammed his ATV into the driver’s side of a Tesla Cybertruck, an incident likely linked to radical far-left political grievances captured by the vehicle’s Sentry Mode security cameras. 

Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt wrote on X, “This guy was arrested today after ramming his mini four-wheeler into a Cybertruck,” adding, “Little did he know that the Cybertruck has 1.8mm bulletproof stainless-steel doors capable of taking some heavy hits. He was charged with one count of felony criminal mischief & failure to identify.”

This guy was arrested today after ramming his mini four-wheeler into a Cybertruck.

Little did he know that the Cybertruck has 1.8mm bulletproof stainless-steel doors capable of taking some heavy hits. He was charged with one count of felony criminal mischief & failure to… pic.twitter.com/acludqm3tq

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) March 26, 2025

On Saturday, the FBI released a statement warning about the “nationwide incidents—arson, gunfire, and vandalism targeting Tesla EVs, dealerships, and charging stations in 9+ states, linked to political grievances.” 

🚨PSA: FBI warns of nationwide incidents—arson, gunfire, and vandalism targeting Tesla EVs, dealerships, and charging stations in 9+ states, linked to political grievances. The #FBI urges vigilance and awareness around Tesla locations. https://t.co/1i97kbOgKB pic.twitter.com/jwWUKpvxoM

— FBI (@FBI) March 22, 2025

Democrats are being caught on camera destroying Tesla vehicles nationwide, and this is an optically displeasing look for the party, which is imploding with ratings at record-low levels. 

The destruction of private property by unhinged Democrats will haunt the party of Marxist radicals in the next election cycle because the ‘America First’ party will put all these clips into a montage of stupidity and remind the nation of who committed violent acts of domestic terrorism… 

There have been over a dozen violent attacks on Tesla stores and service centers across the U.S. that include shootings, arson and bombings.

Are we witnessing a rise in trans terrorism?

Subscribe and watch my new video: pic.twitter.com/euOQuqpjMg

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) March 21, 2025

🚨🇺🇸FBI NOW PROBING TESLA ARSON AS TERRORISM

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is now investigating a firebomb attack on Tesla’s Las Vegas facility after a suspect torched cars with Molotov cocktails and fired into vehicles.

Trump has vowed to treat Tesla vandals as… https://t.co/awbZITbhvF pic.twitter.com/vHCs5TYzgv

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 19, 2025

More idiots.  

Another lunatic liberal was caught on camera keying a Tesla..

Make him famous.. 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/JycN9NyPuW

— American AF 🇺🇸 (@iAnonPatriot) March 22, 2025

This guy drove up next to a Tesla just to key it and drove away in California. Make him famous on 𝕏 pic.twitter.com/NkGnwxvxul

— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) March 23, 2025

Another white liberal woman caught on camera keying a Tesla. pic.twitter.com/56hLFzyItv

— Derrick Evans (@DerrickEvans4WV) March 25, 2025

To combat far-left domestic terrorists, Tesla quietly updated the Cybertruck’s webpage to include a new Sentry Mode feature. These updates for Tesla vehicle owners are expected shortly. 

Meanwhile…

Anti-Musk NGO Behind Color Revolution Against Tesla “Mass Deletes Content Off Website” After Being Exposed https://t.co/D6t3WanLJo

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 26, 2025

. . .