South Dakota has issued an apology to a transgender advocacy group and must pay $300,000 under an agreement that settles a lawsuit against Gov. Kristi Noem and the state health secretary over a terminated contract.
The Transformation Project, a nonprofit that provides suicide prevention and other services to transgender people in South Dakota, sued Ms. Noem and Secretary of Health Melissa Magstadt last year after the state canceled a contract to hire and train a community health worker to connect members of the LGBT community to health services.
The contract included a $136,000 state-administered federal grant, of which the transgender group received roughly $39,000, according to its attorneys.
Lynne Valenti, South Dakota Deputy Health Secretary, alleged in the contract cancellation letter that the transgender group failed to perform certain contractual obligations.
Attorneys for the group accused Ms. Valenti of having canceled the agreement for political reasons.
U.S. District Judge Karen E. Schreier ruled on Feb. 5 to dismiss the lawsuit after the parties jointly asked for a dismissal after entering into a settlement.
As part of the settlement, South Dakota is required to pay $300,000 and issue a public apology.
“This settlement marks a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to civil rights advocacy,” Brendan Johnson, lead attorney representing the Transformation Project, said in a statement.
Ms. Noem’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the settlement.
Background
South Dakota’s contract with the Transformation Project was canceled on Dec. 16, 2023, after a reporter from The Daily Signal contacted her office to inquire about it.
“In a statement provided to The Daily Signal, Governor Noem stated ‘South Dakota does not support this organization’s efforts, and state government should not be participating in them,’” the transgender advocacy group wrote in its lawsuit, alleging that the contract cancellation was “based purely on national politics.”
According to the cited report from The Daily Signal, Ms. Noem terminated the contract after a reporter from the news outlet reached out to her office with questions about a “Gender Identity Summit” that South Dakota’s largest employer, Sanford Health, was set to jointly host with the Transformation Project.
The Daily Signal report cited in the complaint noted that the project “celebrates controversial medical interventions for minors and hosts events in which people ritually ‘burn’ their ‘old name or pronouns.’”
Ian Fury, a spokesperson for Ms. Noem, told The Epoch Times in December that the contract had been signed without the governor’s knowledge or approval.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks during the National Rifle Association annual convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, on May 27, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The Department of Health, which had originally awarded the contract, said in the cancellation letter that the group had violated contract terms.
The group disputed this claim, leading to the lawsuit, which alleged violations of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination in the administration of federal grants.
The transgender advocacy’s attorneys also accused South Dakota of having violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The lawsuit led to a settlement, under which South Dakota Secretary of Health Melissa Magstadt issued an apology letter, though the state did not have to admit to discrimination.
“On behalf of the State of South Dakota, I apologize that the Transformation Project’s contract was terminated and for treating the Transformation Project differently than other organizations awarded Community Health Worker contracts,” reads the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
Transformation Project Executive Director Susan Williams said in a statement that she feels vindicated and the settlement sends a “clear and strong” message that “discrimination against transgender people will not be tolerated in South Dakota.”
Noem Sigs Law Banning Trans Surgery for Youth
Ms. Noem, a Republican, has been a vocal opponent of transgender procedures for young people.
In February 2023, she signed the “Help Not Harm” bill into law, banning certain medical and surgical interventions, such as puberty blockers and genital surgery, for minors.
“South Dakota’s kids are our future. With this legislation, we are protecting kids from harmful, permanent medical procedures,” Noem said in a statement.
“I will always stand up for the next generation of South Dakotans.”
According to the text of the bill, health care professionals are prohibited from prescribing or administering certain medical and surgical interventions for minors to attempt to alter their appearance or perception of their sex.
These interventions include prescribing drugs to delay puberty and administering hormones in amounts greater than what is typically produced naturally in a healthy individual of the same age and sex, such as testosterone, estrogen, or progesterone.
The law also blocks doctors from performing sterilization surgeries or surgeries that artificially construct genitalia differing from the minor’s sex, and procedures that remove healthy or non-diseased body parts or tissue.
The law prohibits health care providers from violating the ban at risk of having their medical license revoked, and possible legal action.
Dr. Gregory Poland, the director of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, has called for more rigorous detection of vaccine adverse events after suffering a COVID-19 vaccine adverse event.
“While vaccines have an overwhelmingly positive safety profile, it’s essential to address concerns about potential adverse events comprehensively and compassionately,” Dr. Poland and his co-author Dr. Steve Black of the Global Vaccine Data Network wrote in their commentary published in the journal Vaccine.
“Some of these reactions are immediate and easily observable or measurable … Others however are not immediately obvious, or are even clinically ‘silent’ or cryptic, making them challenging to identify and link directly to a vaccine.”
Dr. Poland, the lead author, suffered from what he deemed a “cryptic” adverse event.
In 2021, soon after his second Moderna shot, Dr. Poland was driving back from the clinic when he suddenly heard a whistling sound in his ears.
“It was like someone suddenly blew a dog whistle in my ear,” he told MedPage Today. “It has been pretty much unrelenting.”
He has since attributed his tinnitus to the COVID-19 vaccine and become vocal in advocating for better vaccine adverse event surveillance programs.
“It is critical to be vigilant about rare, silent, or subtle reactions. Public health agencies and healthcare providers can play a much more favorable and vital role in establishing vaccine trust by enlarging the current vaccine safety paradigm,” Dr. Poland wrote.
Spectrum of Vaccine Adverse Events
Dr. Poland said a spectrum of adverse events exists; some are easily detectable, while others are far more hidden.
Swelling at the injection site and immediate fever, for example, are immediate, easily observed, and measurable. These are thus far easier to detect and link to the vaccine if the symptoms come on soon after vaccination.
Dr. Poland reasoned that an adverse event’s detectability differs by whether it can be measured or imaged, if biomarkers are present, and if the condition is responsive to treatment.
Guillain-Barré syndrome, for example, has a long history of being associated with vaccine adverse events. The condition may be detected using a spinal tap during the acute phase and looking for elevated cerebrospinal fluid (CFS) protein levels.
Myocarditis can be detected by looking for biomarkers and taking X-rays.
Hearing loss, while it cannot be imaged or tested for using biomarkers, can be demonstrated by running hearing tests.
However, Dr. Poland considers tinnitus a cryptic adverse event since it is inherently subjective, lacks biomarkers, can be psychosomatic, and may be caused by an underlying condition other than the vaccine.
But just as tinnitus is difficult to quantify, it can also be highly disabling, Dr. Poland wrote.
React19 co-founder Dr. Joel Wallskog, who was not involved in the commentary, said that people have been driven to suicide as a result of their tinnitus. React19 is an advocacy group for those injured by COVID-19 vaccines and sufferers of long COVID.
Ways to Detect Vaccine Adverse Events
Vaccine adverse events were first detected in the earlier vaccine clinical trials. However, some adverse events were missed.
Dr. Poland gave the example of menstrual irregularities, which have been strongly linked to COVID-19 vaccines but were not reported during the vaccine trials.
“Had investigators actively solicited information on such issues or symptomatology, it would have been detected and quantifiable,” he wrote.
He also suggested monitoring new symptoms discussed on social media to detect possible trends. This may help detect new symptoms that people have not yet linked to the vaccine.
After a vaccine rolls out, average citizens can report their adverse events to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
VAERS is a public database that allows anyone to check and report a vaccine adverse event. The system also has interventions put in place to reduce false reporting. For instance, the lengthy reporting process deters false reports. It is also a direct violation of federal law to make a false report, and those caught doing this may be fined or even imprisoned.
“Most adverse reactions are transient and self-limiting, although some may be serious or life-threatening. In my experience, however, even ‘transient’ conditions such as facial palsy may extend for months, if not years,” dentist and professor Dr. Nicola Cirillo at the University of Melbourne said in a statement on oral-facial adverse events post-COVID vaccine.
“It is important to inform vaccine recipients about these possible consequences,” he added.
Hundreds of Adverse Events Linked to COVID-19 Vaccines
These include myocarditis, tinnitus, death, and increased instances of health checkups.
Dr. Wallskog said that many VAERS reports have also become hidden.
In 2022, React19 surveyed 126 people who submitted VAERS reports. It found that only around 60 percent of VAERS reports are made available to the public.
Twelve percent of the VAERS reports were deleted, and 22 percent do not have permanent IDs and, therefore, could not be accessed by the public. The remaining 5 percent of would-be VAERS reporters could not file a report, or their report numbers were unknown.
Dr. Peter McCullough, cardiologist and a vocal critic of the COVID-19 vaccines, expressed disappointment that authors Drs. Poland and Black said that vaccines have an “overwhelmingly positive safety profile” in their conclusion, adding that safety data systems have recorded injuries, disabilities, and deaths related to the COVID vaccines.
US Warns Against Impending Israeli Assault On Refugee-Packed Rafah
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he has voiced “concerns” to Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) impending ground operation against the far southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
Hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees have until this point sought out the greater ‘safety’ of Rafah. But Al Jazeera observes that “Panic is growing in Rafah over an imminent ground invasion after Israel’s prime minister ordered his military to prepare to enter the city in the southern Gaza Strip that is sheltering 1.2 million people with nowhere else to go as he rejected Hamas’s truce plan and rebuffed US efforts to reach a deal.”
Initially almost the entire population of the northern half of the Strip moved south to the Khan Younis area, but after in past weeks it came under massive assault – as the IDF has sought to root out Hamas’ command structure from there – throngs of Palestinian refugees were forced further south, to the border with Egypt.
According to Axios, “Blinken also expressed concerns about the failures of communication between the IDF and international organizations and insufficient deconfliction, which led to the targeting of UN personnel who were delivering aid, the sources said.”
The report further indicates Blinken communicated the following to the Israelis:
The U.S. is concerned that an Israeli Defense Forces operation in the city without evacuating the civilian population to safe areas will lead to mass casualties.
It also fears that such an operation will push tens of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt. The Egyptian government has already warned the displacement of Palestinians to Egypt would lead to a rupture in its relations with Israel.
Of course, Israel has accused some of these organizations, especially the largest – the UNRWA – of being compromised by Hamas members and alleged associations with terrorists.
The White House on Thursday also issued statements saying truce negotiations are still “ongoing” – but the reality is that PM Netanyahu fully rejected the “delusional” Hamas demands, in particular the condition that Israeli troops must first completely withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
Both sides are still offering the other ‘non-starters’ which means the process in reality hasn’t gone anywhere. And from Hamas’ perspective, Israel is now only widening the war by bringing it to Rafah. According to the latest words of Netanyahu via the NY Times:
Israel’s prime minister said the military would soon go intoto an area of Gaza near the border with Egypt where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled, something the United Nations has said would be catastrophic.
Gazan health officials say that more than 27,000 people — many of them women and children — have been killed in Israel’s bombardment and ground assault of Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israeli troops had been directed to deploy in Rafah, near the southern border, and in camps in central Gaza, calling the areas “Hamas’s last remaining strongholds.”
Below: Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council…
An Israeli ground offensive on overcrowded Rafah in #Gaza would be a bloodbath, and a stain on both Israel and those nations providing arms.
We need an immediate ceasefire to reach the women, children, families who are at breaking point, with lifesaving aid. pic.twitter.com/XHsL2NdgLE
The United Nations is still pressing for urgent ceasefire. “It is time for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” UN Secretary General António Guterres said.
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, warned against a Rafah assault: “We can make clear what the law says. Under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas may amount to war crimes,” he told reporters in Geneva.
In a Congressional hearing last spring, Gil Cisneros, then-Under Secretary for Military Readiness, announced that the Pentagon was closing its newly formed Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within its K-12 school system and reassigning its controversial DEI chief after a ten-month internal investigation.
The Pentagon’s climb-down was a big win for OpenTheBooks.com. We had worked alongside whistleblowers, journalists, other investigative non-profits, and ranking members of Congress to expose alleged conflicts of interest, violations of military ethics policies, and radical ideologies being forced on the kids of servicemen and servicewomen.
Today, we are announcing Cisneros was actually faking. The radical curriculum was not dismantled. Instead, it was stealthily embedded into the lesson plans and classrooms throughout the entire school system.
The Pentagon, under Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, is preventing details of their DEI policies from coming to light by abusing the Freedom of Information Act. They bamboozled the public with window dressing in Congressional hearings while forcing woke extremism on the roughly 70,000 children of our military service members.
It’s critical that taxpayers understand the scope of the DEI philosophy within the DoD’s schools – deployed servicemembers often have no alternative but to use the Pentagon-run school system, called the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).
Troubling Curriculum
DOD relentlessly promotes DEI-ideologies to school children of serving families through educational contractors with millions of dollars of taxpayer funding.
Here are some examples of what’s happening in the Pentagon’s schools:
Chat rooms to facilitate teacher-student conversations that are closed off to parents about sexuality and gender, and likely without their knowledge or consent.
Engaging four-year-olds in LGBTQ+ conversations. Elementary schools are the “perfect time” to “really show students the diversity of the gender expression and gender activity.”
Solidarity with the neo-Marxist Black Lives Matter organization to encourage teachers to “challenge our beliefs, examine our own biases, and reflect on how we need to evaluate the structures and systems in our classrooms.”
Video content on “dissent” and “equity” to “help educators facilitate classroom conversations and much-needed discussions about implicit bias and systemic racism, human rights, equity, social justice, dissent, protest, and empathy.”
Marxist activism to dismantle systems of “power” and “privilege.” Suggesting a refusal to teach a “white-washed” curriculum and instead teach “social justice rather than heroes, holidays, and celebrations.”
A teaching handbook that recommends “critical conversations” with students about race, identity, and privilege and the way “injustice” affects our lives and society. These “explicit conversations” provoke “strong emotions” and crying students are expected.
The Pentagon is assiduously attempting to hide its biased left-wing extremist curriculum from public view. It is deleting public access to links, driving DEI infrastructure underground, and liberally redacting the most basic Freedom of Information Act requests.
For example, OpenTheBooks.com filed a FOIA request for the agency payroll just as we have at nearly 13,000 public schools across America. Stunningly, the DoDEA refused to disclose the individual salaries of its staff, unlike public schools nationwide and almost every other federal agency. No names, job titles, or compensation details on the $1.4 billion payroll.
It’s not just our organization having problems.
In September 2022, The Claremont Institute published a groundbreaking report on left-wing extremism in DoDEA classrooms, called “Grooming Future Revolutionaries.” The report highlighted content from dozens of video presentations from staffers at a 2021 “Equity and Access Summit” discussingwhat they were doing to turn schoolchildren into social justice activists.
Days later, all videos were taken down from the publicly available links and are no longer accessible. While the agency originally refused to release relevant documents via our FOIA request, we appealed, and the subsequent production confirmed that the videos were taken down in response to the report.
Last spring, at the Congressional hearing, Gil Cisneros announced that the Pentagon was dissolving the DoDEA’s DEI department and reassigning its chief. However, key documents we captured via FOIA suggest that DEI-ethos is still at the core of agency mission.
Here is what we were able to find out:
The Pentagon “integrated” DEI specialists into “four key divisions” in the agency last March while also launching a DEI Steering Committee. The committee is comprised of top executives including the agency’s CEO Thomas Brady, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Academic Officer, and twelve others.
We sought more information on the steering committee, but our DoD redacted, or, “hid”: 1. member names; 2. agendas, materials, minutes and discussions; and 3. impact the committee is having on the whole education environment at the Pentagon.
The extent of these redactions is so ridiculous that almost every slide from the 14-page slide-deck presented at a committee meeting had been redacted except for the title page and a page defining DEI.
The only non-executive staffer we can confirm attended these meetings is DEI Specialist Michelle Woodfork. See her redacted slide deck and calendar information here.
During the agency’s 2021 Equity and Access Summit, Woodfork made her devotion to the Pentagon’s DEI initiatives abundantly clear in her presentation:
“When headquarters published their initiative for REDI [an earlier name for DEI at DoDEA] I got heart palpitations because it felt so affirming of the work I’ve been doing for so long.”
Woodfork’s presentation centered on her then-role as a principal at a Pentagon school, where she led “equity audits” on school materials and practices.
The background and ideological orientation of Woodfork only underscores the need for the public and DoDEA parents to know who exactly is on this committee, and how much power they have over system-wide education.
DoDEA made headlines in recent years for practices like hiding “gender transitions” from parents, forcing children into “difficult conversations” about race, class, gender, and sexuality, and the antics of a self-described “woke” Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion chief who allegedly hawked her own books to her colleagues.
DoDEA’s focus on DEI, Thomas Brady said, is compelled by President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order 14035, which among other items charges all agencies with “assessing the current state of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility within their workforces.”
But even before EO 14035, Brady strived to inculcate DEI ideology at the agency, announcing on Juneteenth 2020 that DEI must be “embedded in everything we do.”
In December 2024 the National Defense Authorization Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden. The law delineates “rights” for the parents of children attending DoDEA schools, authored by Representative Elise Stefanik (NY-21) which will go into effect in two years.
The right to review all instructional materials used by their students
While these measures are certainly progress for military families, much can still be obfuscated. Teacher training, such as the Equity and Access Summit, should be included as well. And it is not clear if the full spectrum of tools included, such as the secret LGBT chatrooms, would be disclosed as “instructional materials.”
Moreover, if extremist materials are disclosed, there does not seem to be a recourse for opting children out of these lessons.
Secretary Austin and then-Under Secretary Cisneros devoted themselves to hiding their DEI bait-and-switch.
With the fanfare of a Congressional platform, Cisnero sought credit for shutting down DEI. But under our scrutiny, we found DoD instead made DEI a stealth weapon against the kids of our fighting men and women in service to an anti-American neo-Marxist ideology.
We have further found that DoD under Secretary Austin is leveraging public record laws to the hilt to prevent parents and the public from knowing details of its efforts, while spending millions of taxpayer dollars on objectionable content for school children.
DoDEA did not dismantle its DEI efforts. It redoubled those efforts and added deceit and dissembling to its mix.
Given DoDEA’s recent history and press regarding extremist content in schools, heads must roll, and the agency must provide full transparency of teaching methods and its DEI-related policy operations.
Parents, taxpayers, and the kids themselves deserve no less.
Note: We reached out to DoDEA and all educator employees who were quoted or gave presentations as referenced in this article. If they are no longer employed by DoDEA, we couldn’t reach them. We will update our piece if we receive a response.
Furthermore, no employee or vendor is accused of any breach or violation of statute, military policy, or agency policy. In fact, they just might be abiding by agency rules or Biden’s executive order, if anything.
Will Griffin, DoDEA Director of Communications responded to our comment request:
DoDEA remains committed to maintaining a school system where military-connected students can excel and prepare for success in college and careers and where all employees are treated with dignity and respect. We will continue to comply with all applicable Federal laws, Department of Defense policies, and applicable executive orders.
In search of answers, The Epoch Times interviewed veterans of the first Trump administration, reviewed writings from that time as well as the Trump campaign’s Agenda 47, and talked to those helping to provide a 2025 roadmap.
It seems the MAGA movement is now older, wiser, and better situated in Washington.
Preexisting conservative institutions such as The Heritage Foundation have tilted in former President Donald Trump’s direction. The former president will also have a deeper bench of possible appointees and real experience running the show. A more sympathetic Supreme Court and possible gains in Congress could also help him—and, unlike in 2016, the Republican establishment is consolidating behind his candidacy early in the primary season.
Yet many federal bureaucracies, legacy media organs, and other institutions can be counted on to put up resistance.
Additionally, the “sanctuary city” phenomenon—and, on the flip side, Republican states’ underreported solidarity with Texas in its battle with federal authorities over the border—offers a foretaste of how the Trump administration might clash with some cities, counties, and states during a second term.
And, as in the first term, neoconservatives, neoliberals, and other Washington non-neophytes who boast deep backgrounds in government but don’t share the MAGA vision may seek power for their own reasons.
During late 2016 and early 2017, the outsider whom Americans elevated to the presidency faced multiple challenges as he met with immediate and unprecedented hostility from the establishment, including scrutiny from the outgoing Obama administration and the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation before he was even elected.
President Trump is still marching into gale-force winds—and if he reaches the Oval Office, he will have little time for rest and almost no room for error.
The Americans who vote for him will demand the swift, efficient execution of MAGA agenda items that lay the groundwork for a lasting legacy—what Stephen Bannon described to The Epoch Times as the starting point for “50 years of MAGA policies.”
If President Trump is elected on Nov. 5, he’ll have until Inauguration Day—Jan. 20, 2025—to manage the transition from the Biden administration to a second Trump term.
The first Trump transition was rocky. President Trump came to Washington as an outsider after winning an election he was widely expected to lose.
New York City was the real estate mogul’s home turf, not “the swamp” along the Potomac River. He and a small group of loyalists were starting from scratch in what, to many of them, was a strange and hostile town.
“We didn’t have a deep bench,” recalled Mr. Bannon, a member of the transition team in 2016 who later served as the White House’s chief strategist.
“He [Trump] wasn’t versed in how Washington does business,” K.T. McFarland, a Trump administration deputy national security adviser who previously worked in multiple Republican presidential administrations, told The Epoch Times.
While earlier presidents were comfortable recruiting from prior administrations in the same party, President Trump was hesitant to take in George W. Bush administration veterans, particularly in national security roles. According to Ms. McFarland, President Trump felt the Bush crew had failed on that score.
As evidence of how President Trump shook things up, she cited his call with the president of Taiwan during the transition period. Much of the establishment was aghast—but, on Ms. McFarland’s account, the president-elect recognized the country’s value as a trading partner.
In “The Fifth Risk,” journalist Michael Lewis depicts a chaotic transition period. One chapter opens by describing how Department of Energy staff members awaited a Trump team the day after the election, in line with prior administrations. Thirty parking spaces that were cleared for the victor remained vacant all day—the expected delegation never materialized.
At least some of Mr. Lewis’s sources are Obama political appointees who, a critic might note, count as less than impartial authorities on their political opponents. For instance, he quotes the department’s deputy secretary, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, who is now President Joe Biden’s homeland security adviser.
Lawyer Paul Dans said that although he wasn’t in the mix during the transition, he was “trying to knock on the door to get on the team.”
He said he had “a really hard time getting into the federal government” despite his prestigious credentials, which include multiple degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and stints at top law firms such as Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP (later bought out by Locke Lord).
Mr. Dans ultimately served in multiple roles in the Trump administration, including as chief of staff for the crucial Office of Personnel Management (OPM)—the human resources hub for each presidential administration and the federal government as a whole.
Mr. Dans now leads The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, or Project 2025, a coalition of more than 90 conservative organizations seeking to line up the right people, policies, and priorities well ahead of any coming transition period. Project 2025 doesn’t officially endorse any presidential candidate.
Project 2025 partners include credible, experienced MAGA policy shops such as the Center for Renewing America, a think tank led by former Trump Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought. Stephen Miller’s America First Legal is another coalition member. The coalition’s playbook, “Mandate for Leadership,” is a hefty 920 pages.
The tome comes alongside other detailed instruction manuals for Republicans hoping to carry out a better presidential transition—for example, “Year Zero” by Chris Liddell, former White House deputy chief of staff under President Trump.
Mr. Dans’s own struggles hopping on the first “Trump train” have clearly influenced his thinking.
“It was really important in my view that the next president—and I believe that will be President Trump—needs to be supported by a team who knows day one what the game plan is—that they’re brought in, and they’re trained, and they’re ready to go to work,” Mr. Dans told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Bannon spoke about filling out a new Washington “ecosystem” more in keeping President Trump and his priorities than what came before.
“You have a broad base of super-competent people that are thinking these ideas through in a self-organizing way and will be there if the president is so inclined, but even if they’re not selected, they become part of this very important ecosystem in Washington,” he said.
Mr. Dans described ideal candidates for the “army of conservatives” the project aims to train as, among other things, “personable” and “willing to keep driving and problem-solving.”
The first Trump transition may have been heavier on generals than foot soldiers—and many of the strong personalities clashed over difficult problems.
More than a few current foes of President Trump were left in the wake of those early days and months.
“The transition would become a breeding ground for creatures who would inhabit the Washington Swamp,” Anthony Scaramucci wrote in “Trump: The Blue-Collar President.” Mr. Scaramucci, who served little more than a week as White House communications director in 2017, is now an outspoken supporter of President Biden.
Mr. Bannon recounted that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, now another intractable Trump foe, assembled the initial transition team after President Trump’s 2016 election.
The resulting work product was “a joke” and easily discarded, Mr. Bannon said. Incoming Vice President Mike Pence, now also a Trump critic from time to time, replaced Mr. Christie at the helm of the transition effort.
“Ivanka, Jared, and I were really pulling together to run the transition,” Mr. Bannon said. “The Obama administration was not particularly helpful in the transition.”
President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner became fixtures of the Trump White House.
“There’s no question that Jared was very involved,” Sean Spicer told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Spicer, who after working on the transition team served as the first press secretary, noted Sen. Bill Haggerty’s (R-Tenn.) involvement in making key appointments.
Mr. Spicer was among the more politically experienced people in the room, having previously served as the Republican National Committee’s communications director. But multiple memoirs covering the transition and early administration took aim at Mr. Spicer, including Trump official Cliff Sims’s “Team of Vipers” and journalist Jonathan Karl’s “Front Row at the Trump Show.”
Mr. Bannon is also criticized by some memoirists. Mr. Karl noted he was a “surprisingly accessible source.”
For his part, the former White House chief strategist said the clash of personalities early on was a positive, comparing it to the “team of rivals” in President Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet.
An anonymous Trump administration insider told The Epoch Times that the involvement of the Boston Consulting Group in the first transition was particularly jarring. The company is one of the Big Three management consulting firms and, like both McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company, a potent symbol of the establishment.
“It was ridiculous. It was the biggest fraud of the Trump presidency,” the insider said of the consulting group’s involvement, claiming that “the political loyalists had to defer to them.”
Mr. Spicer told The Epoch Times he hadn’t heard of any firm affiliates’ involvement in the transition. Yet reporting from the time identifies Boston Consulting Group staff on the transition team.
The group was also a part of the Trump–Biden transition.
A joint report from the group and the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition claims the two parties “played crucial roles in assisting all three of the major stakeholder groups throughout the 2020–21 transition.”
“Throughout 2020, we were able to build trusted relationships and provide critical support to three main audiences—the Biden transition team, Trump administration, and career agency officials,” a more detailed report from the Center for Presidential Transition reads. It describes Boston Consulting Group as the center’s “anchor partner on the transition.”
The 1st Days in Power
Kicking off the first term was President Trump’s inauguration speech.
A comparison between Mr. Kushner’s account of the speech and Mr. Karl’s version reveals just how differently the same few words resonated with different audiences.
Iraq Closer To Expelling US Troops After Drone Strike In Busy Neighborhood
The fallout continues in the wake of the Pentagon’s assassination by drone strike of at least one or more Kataib Hezbollah leaders in a crowded east Baghdad neighborhood Wednesday night.
Iraq’s government on Thursday condemned the violation of the country’s sovereignty, and warned it brings political leadership a big step closer to kicking American troops out of Iraq altogether.
Iraq’s military commander-in-chief condemned the “blatant assassination” of an Iranian-backed militia leader “in the heart of a residential neighborhood” in Baghdad, which could have killed many bystanders.The statement underscored that the US has shown “no regard for civilian lives or international laws.”
“By this act, the American forces jeopardize civil peace, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and disregard the safety and lives of our citizens,” the Iraqi military statement said.
There were large overnight protests outside the ‘Green Zone’ where the US Embassy is located in Baghdad. These protests will likely persist in the coming days and could grow violent, as has happened in recent years.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) statement which was issued within hours after the drone strike on the SUV claimed there were no civilian casualties:
There are no indications of collateral damage or civilian casualties at this time. The United States will continue to take necessary action to protect our people.
Still, the Pentagon is expected to mount more targeted attacks pm senior Iranian-backed militia commanders in the wake of last month’s drone strike on a US base along the Jordan-Syria border, which killed three US Army soldiers.
Currently, some 2,500 US troops remain in Iraq, ostensibly still there as part of a ‘counter-ISIS’ mission, though ISIS terrorists have long been driven underground. Likely there are many thousands more US contractors and security operators throughout the country, and especially in the north in Erbil.
The Iraqi military statement concluded by calling out the ambiguous “mission” and changing rationale for US troops remaining in the country. It said that “even more concerning is that the coalition consistently deviates from the reasons and objectives for its presence on our territory.”
One of the real reasons US troops are still in Iraq is to provide support for the occupation of Syria across the border.
American outposts on the Iraqi side assists with logistics and staging, and also has come under accusations of supporting the ‘oil theft’ happening in the Deir Ezzor region. In some cases tanker trucks have been seen crossing into Iraq from Syria, laden with Syrian oil.
Meanwhile in Iraq today…
A US drone roves the skies of Baghdad as a funeral for Kataib Hezbollah’s senior commander Wissam AlSaedi aka Abou Baqer is held. pic.twitter.com/QDtL94jsDF
A federal judge has rejected a request by former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro to be allowed to stay out of prison while he appeals a conviction for contempt of Congress.
Mr. Navarro was charged with contempt of Congress after defying a pair of subpoenas from the now-disbanded House committee that investigated the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which was controlled at the time by Democrats. He was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced last month to serve concurrent four-month prison terms.
The former adviser argued throughout the subpoena process, at trial, and again in his appeal that he had a good faith belief that testifying before Congress would have conflicted with President Donald Trump’s executive privilege. On Thursday, Judge Ahmit Meta of the U.S. District Court for Washington D.C. ruled that there is no “substantial question of law” for which Mr. Navarro warrants remaining out of prison.
Mr. Navarro’s legal team has argued that the questions he raised about executive privilege meet the major questions doctrine of legal interpretation. This doctrine states that courts should rely on relevant executive branch agencies to resolve significant regulatory policy questions.
Judge Mehta had rejected Mr. Navarro’s privilege claims earlier in the case, stating that during his trial, Mr. Navarro’s team never presented evidence that President Trump asserted a privilege claim over his testimony. Mr. Navarro had claimed President Trump had asserted his privilege verbally in a February 2022 phone call, but Judge Mehta ruled that he had “not carried his burden of establishing a formal claim of privilege from President Trump.”
In his Thursday ruling, Judge Mehta acknowledged that the exact requirements to invoke executive privilege properly remains an open question before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals but said, “After over a year of litigation, Defendant still has not offered what he thinks is required for a proper invocation of executive privilege.”
Judge Rejects Political Bias Argument
In addition to rejecting Mr. Navarro’s arguments about executive privilege, Judge Mehta also rejected the argument made by Navarro’s team during sentencing that his prosecution for contempt of Congress was motivated by political bias.
Mr. Navarro has argued that there was political bias in his case. He noted that three assistant U.S. attorneys who had organized a letter to then-Attorney General Bill Barr challenging allegations of fraud in the 2020 election ended up on the same prosecution team that investigated and charged him.
According to Mr. Navarro’s legal team, prosecutors injected an improper bias into his trial. They argued that this was done when the prosecutors associated his prosecution with the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021. Additionally, Mr. Navarro’s legal team claimed that the prosecutors continued to cast doubt on his case during the trial by insinuating that it had to do with a refusal to honor the historic U.S. tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.
Judge Mehta ruled Mr. Navarro’s legal team “offers no actual proof to support” their contention that political bias motivated the prosecution. Further, the federal judge argued that the record reflects the opposite of political bias because the Department of Justice had declined to prosecute two other former Trump advisors—former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino—for contempt of Congress.
“Defendant’s cynical, self-serving claim of political bias poses no question at all, let alone a ’substantial’ one,” Judge Mehta wrote.
Navarro Could Appeal Conviction Up to SCOTUS
In an interview with NTD’s “Capitol Report” last month, Mr. Navarro expressed his belief that his questions about executive privilege could eventually become an issue for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve.
Mr. Navarro said after he first raised the issue of executive privilege to the Jan. 6 committee, the committee should have reached out to President Trump to clear up any dispute over his privilege claims rather than proceed instead with moving to consider him in contempt and requesting his prosecution by the DOJ.
“I was more than happy to comply with that subpoena if they simply called the president and asked for a waiver of the privilege,” Mr. Navarro said at the time.
“And I think it tells the lie, in this whole case, that they never made one phone call, they never lifted a finger to call him to get the information they claimed they needed to have. Had they made that one phone call, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”
It remains to be seen how Mr. Navarro’s efforts to appeal his criminal conviction will play out. Whether he should remain out of prison during the appeal process is being treated as a separate issue for the court. In his Thursday ruling, Judge Mehta said unless the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacates his ruling, Mr. Navarro shall report to prison on time.
NTD News reached out to Mr. Navarro’s legal team about whether he will seek an appeals court ruling to remain out of prison while he appeals his underlying case. The attorneys did not respond by press time.
Last week, Tucker Carlson traveled to Rusia to interview President Vladimir Putin. This sent the left into hysterics – some of whom have called for the journalist to face sanctions, or worse.
Prior to the interview – which can be seen right now in its entirety at tuckercarlson.com, Carlson explained that it’s his job as a journalist “to inform people,” as “most Americans are not informed” as to what’s happening in Ukraine.
To that end, let’s get into it.
Tucker starts the interview by asking Putin why he invaded Ukraine, “and the answer we got shocked us.”
Putin proceeded to delve into the history of Ukraine, going back to the middle-ages. Tucker pushed back, saying “I’m not sure why it’s relevant to what happened two years ago,” to which Putin continued with the history lesson.
“But why didn’t you make this case for the first 22 years as president, that Ukraine wasn’t a real country?” Tucker asked.
“The Soviet Union was given a great deal of territory that had never belonged to it, including the Black Sea region. At some point when Russia received them as an outcome of the Russo Turkish wars, they were called New Russia or another Russia. But that does not matter. What matters is that Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, established Ukraine that way,” Putin replied. “For decades, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic developed as part of the USSR. And for unknown reasons, again, the Bolsheviks were engaged in Ukrainization.”
The trigger for the Ukraine war: “Initially, it was the coup in Ukraine that provoked the conflict… They launched the war in Donbas in 2014 with the use of aircraft and artillery against civilians. This is when it all started.”
NATO Expansion
Getting to the meat of the Ukraine war, Putin told Carlson that “The former Russian leadership assumed that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and therefore there were no longer any ideological dividing lines. Russia even agreed voluntarily and proactively to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and believed that this would be understood by the so-called civilized West as an invitation for cooperation and association.”
“We were promised no NATO to the east, not an inch to the east, as we were told. And then what? They said, well, it’s not enshrined on paper, so we’ll expand.”
“That is what Russia was expecting, both from the United States and this so-called collective West as a whole. There were smart people, including in Germany, Egon Bahr, a major politician of the Social Democratic Party, who insisted in his personal conversations with the Soviet leadership on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union, that they knew security systems should be established in Europe. Help should be given to unified Germany, but a new system should be also established to include the United States, Canada, Russia and other Central European countries. But NATO needs not to expand. That’s what he said. If NATO expands, everything would be just the same as during the Cold War, only closer to Russia’s borders. That’s all. He was a wise old man, but no one listened to him. In fact, he got angry once. If, he said, you don’t listen to me, I’m never setting my foot in Moscow once again. Everything happened just as he had said.”
The state of negotiations:
Vladimir Putin: I already said that we did not refuse to talk. We’re willing to negotiate. It is the western side, and Ukraine is obviously a satellite state of the US. It is evident. I do not want you to take it as if I am looking for a strong word or an insult. But we both understand what is happening. The financial support. 72 billion U.S. dollars was provided. Germany ranks second, then other European countries come. Dozens of billions of U.S. dollars are going to Ukraine. There’s a huge influx of weapons. In this case, you should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to a negotiating table, rescind this absurd decree. We did not refuse.
Tucker: Sure, but you already said it. I didn’t think you meant it is an insult because you already said correctly, it’s been reported that Ukraine was prevented from negotiating a peace settlement by the former British Prime Minister acting on behalf of the Biden administration. So, of course they’re a satellite. Big countries control small countries. That’s not new. And that’s why I asked about dealing directly with the Biden administration, which is making these decisions, not President Zelensky of Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin: Well if the Zelensky administration in Ukraine refused to negotiate, I assume they did it under the instruction from Washington. If Washington believes it to be the wrong decision, let it abandon it. Let it find the delicate excuse so that no one is insulted. Let it come up with a way out. It was not us who made this decision. It was them. So let them go back on it. That is it. However, they made the wrong decision. And now we have to look for a way out of this situation to correct their mistakes. They did it, so let them correct it themselves. We support this.
Tucker: So I just want to make sure I’m not misunderstanding what you’re saying. I don’t think that I am. I think you’re saying you want a negotiated settlement to what’s happening in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin: Right. And we made it. We prepared the huge document in Istanbul that was initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He had fixed his signature to some of the provisions, not to all of it. He put his signature and then he himself said, we were ready to sign it, and the war would have been over long ago. 18 months ago. However, Prime Minister Johnson came, talk to us out of it and we missed that chance. Well, you missed it. You made a mistake. Let them get back to that. That is all. Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else’s mistakes? I know one can say it is our mistake. It was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014, in Donbas. As I have already said by means of weapons. Lt me get back to furthering history. I already told you this. We were just discussing it. Let us go back to 1991, when we were promised that NATO would not expand to 2008, when the doors to NATO opened to the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, declaring Ukraine a neutral state. Let us go back to the fact that NATO and U.S. military bases started to appear on the territory, Ukraine creating threats to us. Let us go back to coup d’etat in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless, though, isn’t it? We may go back and forth endlessly, but they stopped negotiations. Is it a mistake? Yes. Correct it. We are ready. What else is needed?
Watch Putin explain that he had a signed peace deal (before BoJo arrived) here:
— Michael Smith 🇺🇸 Ceo of nothing. (@Shotgunhunter1) February 8, 2024
More:
On the negotiation process and its failure: “There have been [talks] they reached a very high stage of coordination of positions in a complex process, but still they were almost finalized. But after we withdrew our troops from Kiev… the other side threw away all these agreements.”
On his last conversation with Joe Biden: “Well, yes, he funds, but I talked to him before the special military operation, of course… I believe that you are making a huge mistake of historic proportions by supporting everything that is happening there, in Ukraine, by pushing Russia away.”
On the possibility of global conflict: “It goes against common sense to get involved in some kind of a global war and a global war will bring all humanity to the brink of destruction.”
On the concept of de-nazification: “De-nazification… means the prohibition of all kinds of neo-Nazi movements… We have to get rid of those people who maintain this concept and support this practice and try to preserve it.”
On Russia’s territorial ambitions: “We simply don’t have any interest [in Poland, Latvia, or anywhere else]. It’s just threat mongering.”
Elon Musk and Neuralink
Putin then suggested that Elon Musk is unstoppable, saying “He will do as he sees fit. Nevertheless, you’ll need to find some common ground with him. Search for ways to persuade him. I think he’s a smart person. I truly believe he is. So you’ll need to reach an agreement with him because this process needs to be formalized and subjected to certain rules. Humanity has to consider what is going to happen due to the newest development in genetics or in AI? One can make an approximate prediction of what will happen.”
Even more:
On the Nord Stream explosion: “People always say in such cases, look for someone who is interested. But in this case, we should not only look for someone who is interested, but also for someone who has capabilities… Who is interested and who is capable of doing it?”
Tucker: “Who blew up Nord Stream?” Putin: “You for sure.” Tucker: “I was busy that day. I did not blow up Nord Stream.” Putin: “You personally may have an alibi, but the CIA has no such alibi.“
On presenting evidence of NATO’s involvement: “In the war of propaganda, it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world’s media… We can simply shine the spotlight on our sources of information and we will not achieve results.”
On Germany’s silence regarding Nord Stream: “Today’s German leadership is guided by the interests of the collective West rather than its national interests.”
On global alliances and security: “Security should be shared rather than meant for the golden billion. That is the only scenario where the world could be stable, sustainable, and predictable.”
On the use of the US dollar as a political tool: “To use the dollar as a tool of foreign policy struggle is one of the biggest strategic mistakes made by the US political leadership.”
On the impact of sanctions and the shift away from the US dollar: “Even the United States allies are now downsizing their dollar reserves… It wasn’t us who banned the use of the US dollar. It was the decision of the United States to restrict our transactions in U.S. dollars.”
On the relationship with China: “China’s foreign policy philosophy is not aggressive. Its idea is to always look for compromise.”
On potential for change in US-Russia relations: “It is not about the personality of the leader. It is about the elites’ mindset, leader deal. If the idea of domination at any cost, based also on forceful actions, dominates the American society, nothing will change.”
On the nature of power in the US: “It is very difficult for us to sort it all out. Who makes decisions in the elections? Each state regulates itself… There are two parties that are dominant: the Republicans and the Democrats.”
On Christianity and violence: “It is very easy when it comes to protecting oneself and one’s family, one’s homeland. We won’t attack anyone… And we were protecting our people, ourselves, our homeland and our future.”
Tucker also asked about imprisoned WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich:
Tucker: I just gotta ask you one last question. And that’s about someone who is very famous in the United States. Probably not here. Evan Gershkovich who’s the Wall Street Journal reporter. He’s 32. And he’s been in prison for almost a year. This is a huge story in the United States. And I just want to ask you directly, without getting into the details of it or your version of what happened, if, as a sign of your decency, you would be willing to release
him to us and we’ll bring him back to the United States.
Vladimir Putin: We have done so many gestures of goodwill out of decency that I think we have run out of them. We have never seen anyone reciprocate to us in a similar manner. However, in theory, we can say that we do not rule out that we can do that if our partners take reciprocal steps. When I talk about the partners, I first of all refer to special services. Special services are in contact with one another. They are talking about the matter in question. There is no taboo to settle this issue. We are willing to solve it but there are certain terms being discussed via special services channels. I believe an agreement can be reached.
Global stocks of diesel and other middle distillates are below normal and prices could start to rise quickly if the industrial economies of North America and Western Europe emerge from their lingering recession in 2024.
Inventories of diesel, heating oil and gas oil were below the prior ten-year seasonal average across North America, Europe and Singapore in January, which has begun to exert upward pressure on fuel prices. Investors have already noticed and amassed a position equivalent to 56 million barrels in the two major futures and options contracts tied to middle distillates up from 20 million barrels in the middle of December.
Diesel and other distillate fuel oils are the workhorse of the industrial economy, widely used in manufacturing, freight transport and construction, and therefore the most sensitive fuels to the condition of the business cycle.
Recent data has confirmed manufacturers in the United States are poised to return to growth after a prolonged though shallow cyclical downturn in 2022/23.
European manufacturers have experienced an even longer and much deeper downturn caused by the surge in energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But in Europe too there are signs the worst of the downturn is now over and the sector will return to growth before the end of the year.
Traders anticipate both the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank will cut interest rates this year which would turbocharge the cyclical upswing. As a result, global distillate inventories are likely to remain below average and could easily tighten further, intensifying the upward pressure on prices.
In the United States, distillate fuel oil stocks amounted to 114 million barrels at the end of November 2023…
… the lowest for the time of year since 1951, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
U.S. distillate inventories were 22 million barrels (-16% or -1.42 standard deviations) below the prior ten-year seasonal average (“Petroleum supply monthly“, EIA, January 31, 2024).
Since then inventories have become more comfortable but they were still 10 million barrels (-7% or -0.54 standard deviations) below the seasonal average near the end of January.
In Europe, inventories were 20 million barrels (-5% or -0.80 standard deviations) below the prior 10-year average at the end of December, the most recent data available.
In Singapore, distillate stocks were an average of 3 million barrels (-33% or -1.95 standard deviations) below the 10-year average in January.
There has been no sustained accumulation of inventories in any of the regions despite depressed industrial activity over the last year.
Distillate supplies have been disrupted by Ukraine’s drone attacks on petroleum refineries in Russia and by Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden which have disrupted east-west flows.
Re-routing east-west tankers from the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to the much longer route around Africa has tied up millions of barrels of diesel and gasoil as extra inventories on the water.
Benchmark crack spreads for gasoil delivered in Northwest Europe in April 2024 have averaged $214 per tonne over Brent crude so far in February up from a premium of $174 in December.
More generally, gasoil cracks have been rising since the start of 2024, reversing the steady decline in the fourth quarter of 2023.
So far the impact on end-users has been muted because crude prices, which account for most of the total cost, have been fairly flat since the start of the year.
Gasoil cracks for April 2024 have surged 37% since the start of the year but crude prices have increased by just 2%; the combined impact has been an increase in gasoil prices of 9%.
But if gasoil inventories tighten further as the cyclical upswing proceeds, and Saudi Arabia and its OPEC⁺ allies finally obtain some traction over crude stocks and prices, there is potential for a sharp rise in diesel prices in 2024.
No Charges: Biden “Willfully” Retained Classified Documents; Special Counsel Says Biden “Elderly Man With Poor Memory”
The latest evidence of a two-tiered justice system and Democrats apparently above the law comes in a report released Thursday afternoon by the special counsel investigating President Biden’s mismanagement of classified documents, which decided against charging the president.
“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” according to a special counsel’s final report.
In the report, special counsel Robert Hur wrote, “Biden will likely present himself to the jury, as he did during his interview with our office, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Let me get this straight.
Biden is too cognitively impaired to be charged with a crime, but he’s not too cognitively impaired to be the Commander-in-Chief? https://t.co/XIS03okNi3
Despite the president’s mishandling of classified documents about foreign policy and the military and pages and pages of entries about national security, the special counsel concluded:
“We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter.
“We reach the same conclusion even if Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president.”
Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report has been released.
“Biden willfully retained” marked and unmarked classified documents at his home.
This “risked serious damage to America’s national security”
This report was released one year after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur as the special counsel to oversee the investigation into classified documents discovered at the president’s office and Deleware’s home in late 2022.
Wait, what?
In his interview with the special counsel, Biden “did not remember when he was vice president.” pic.twitter.com/wTrNTXEBUk
Earlier this week, The Washington Post frontran the report by saying the Biden Justice Department does not plan to pursue criminal charges against the president.
Meanwhile, former President Trump was charged with 40 criminal counts, including obstruction of justice and willful retention of classified documents.
Remember, Biden is 81. Democrats play the ole’ man card.
It’s not incompetence or crime.
Instead, you are either ageist, or sexist, or racist if you demand accountability. https://t.co/Zy10g8s6Lb
