Category: Guest Authors

Let Us Speak Of Penn And Its Skull Collection

Let Us Speak Of Penn And Its Skull Collection

By Bob Small

Our great University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin as America’s first university. Franklin’s last public act was to send to Congress a petition on behalf of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society asking for the abolition of slavery and an end to the slave trade.

Over the years, Penn has been responsible for producing many famous people and has otherwise contributed to the betterment of our society. However, one of its darkest continuing chapters began in 1830 and may be continuing.

Samuel Morton (1799-1851) Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) variously described as an anatomist, natural historian and, most importantly, a craniologist began in 1830 the gathering of the world’s largest collection of skulls, some 1,000.

Morton believed in the now -discredited theory of polygenism which considered the Bible to be incomplete. According to this, God created numerous races, rather than one man, the commonly accepted Biblical interpretation.

His research — which declared that Europeans had bigger brains than Africans — was meant to prove that Blacks were an inferior race.

When Darwin’s Origin of Species came out in 1859 it helped to discredit Morton’s theories.

Now, what to do with a collection of 1,000 skulls, the majority of which were black and/or from the Blockley Almshouse,a Quaker sponsored poor house. This later became Philadelphia General Hospital .

In 1966, the collection was moved to The Penn Museum Morton Cranial Collection.

They were finally buried on Feb. 3.

The delay and way the remains were put to rest, however, has led to blistering criticism.

As per a scathing article in The Guardian:

 Outside researchers and activists have accused the museum of ignoring the wishes of the local Black community, which wanted a more thorough investigation into the identity of the 19 individuals, who remain unidentified before their bones were interred, and for the Penn Museum to loosen its control over the restitution process.

The interment was at Collingdale’s Eden Cemetery, which is in Delco and not West Philly, and the Finding Ceremony and were not included in the process.

None of the esteemed graduates of this “Poison Ivy League” school, such as Ed Rendell or Mary Gay Scanlon, ever thought to comment on this.

Morton, Pa. is named after Major Sketchley Morton, a Revolutionary War officer and the son of John Morton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence .

Let Us Speak Of Penn And Its Skull Collection

Let Us Speak Of Penn And Its Skull Collection

Satchel Paige and The Dominican Dictator

Satchel Paige and The Dominican Dictator

By Joe Guzzardi

In 1937, the Dominican Republic’s President Rafael Trujillo, a one-time cattle rustler, forger, blackmailer, and then-dictator, decided that, in the name of national unity and to demonstrate his absolute power, he would create Hispaniola’s best baseball team. Trujillo, who preferred polo and sailing to baseball, turned over the Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo’s daily operations to Dr. Jose Aybar, a dentist. Aybar, fearful that failure to please Trujillo could lead to his untimely and permanent disappearance, reached out to the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays, teams which had many black American stars unfairly banned from Major League Baseball. In his book, “Satchel: the Life and Times of an American Legend,” author Larry Tye provided the details about Satchel’s decades-long baseball excellence.

Signing the Crawfords’ Leroy “Satchel” Paige was Aybar’s goal, and the tooth doctor left for New Orleans where the Crawfords were in spring training. Other Dominican teams also pursued Paige. In desperation, Aybar ordered his limo driver to block Paige’s vehicle. The agent, allegedly brandishing a pistol, offered the pitcher $30,000, or the equivalent of $675,000 in today’s money, the total to include six of his Crawfords’ teammates. Paige recalled that Aybar told him “You may take what you feel is your share.” Abyar’s offer represented more money for a month’s pitching than Satchel earned in a year of barnstorming. Rounding up other players proved unexpectedly challenging. Most Crawfords objected to Paige getting the largest cut, and others resisted betraying Crawfords’ and Grays’ owners Gus Greenlee and Cumberland Posey. Paige landed the Crawford’s Leroy Matlock, Sam Bankhead, Cool Papa Bell, Harry Williams, and Herman Andrews. Eventually Josh Gibson, recently traded to the Grays, came aboard. Greenlee, president of the Negro National League, struck back. He banned the deserters from ever returning to the Negro Leagues.

Upon their arrival in the Dominican Republic, Paige and his teammates got an abrupt awakening to Trujillo’s power and the extent to which the dictator would go to win. Provinces, mountains, buildings, and bridges were all named Trujillo. At an introductory press conference, a journalist pulled Paige aside, and told him “Trujillo won’t like it if you lose.” Trujillo assigned armed guards to follow the players around town — -at the beaches, restaurants, hotels, and at their games to assure that they follow the straight and narrow path that would culminate in a championship season.

The Dominican season consisted of forty-four fiercely competitive games, played on steaming hot weekend mornings. The police often intervened to settle fistfights among wagering fans over called balls and strikes. Satchel’s Dragones debut was inauspicious. The team prevailed, but another pitcher got credit for the victory. When Paige hit his stride, reporters called his pitching arsenal “black magic,” his curve ball “enigmatic,” his fastball “terrifying,” and his intelligence “highly developed.”

An eight-game series between Paige’s Dragones and the Santiago Aguilas would settle the Dominican championship. As Paige retold the events, winning was the difference between life and death. In a Colliers Magazine interview, Paige said that Trijillo’s henchmen, looking like “a firing squad,” armed with knives and rifles surrounded the field. Lose, Paige feared, and “nothin’ to do but consider myself and my boys passed over to Jordan.”

Paige entered the deciding game in the 9th inning and blew an 8–3 lead before the Dragones eked out an 8–6 win; local fans rated Paige’s overall performance as, at best, mixed. By the time Paige returned to the U.S, he found himself the target of bitter criticism from the NNL, and from the black press for abandoning friends and country. The Pittsburgh Courier, a black weekly, wrote that Paige was less dependable than “a pair of second-hand suspenders.” Since the NNL ban on the traitorous players was still in effect, Paige established the Satchel Paige All-Stars, and the team hit the road for a successful barnstorming tour.

In 1948 on Satch’s 42nd birthday, Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck signed Paige to a major league contract. Paige was MLB’s fourth black player; Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, and Roy Campanella preceded him. A record night-game crowd of 78,383 fans watched Paige make his first appearance in Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, a relief stint against the St. Louis Browns. Later, in his first starting role on August 3, he defeated the Washington Senators 5–3 in front of 72,434. During the season’s remainder, Paige posted a 6–1 record with a 2.48 ERA. He pitched two-thirds of an inning in Game Five of the World Series. At age 59, the oldest to pitch in a MLB game, Paige tossed three shutout innings for the Kansas City Athletics.

In 1971, the newly formed and controversial Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues elected Satchel Paige as its first Hall of Fame inductee. Many writers were outraged that the Hall had created a separate wing for black stars and would admit only one African American player each year. Nevertheless, Paige engaged the 2,500-strong, mostly white audience with his tales. Paige shared that he once pitched 165 consecutive days and concluded his remarks boasting that he was ‘the proudest man in the place.”

After Paige died from a heart attack in 1982, Washington Post baseball scribe Thomas Boswell wrote that through his excellence, Paige proved that “50 years’ worth of black-league players had been wronged more severely than white Americans ever suspected.”

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Satchel Paige and The Dominican Dictator

Satchel Paige and The Dominican Dictator

To 5G Or Not To 5G

To 5G Or Not To 5G

By Bob Small

One of the topics that followed me home from the 2023 Children’s Health Defense Conference was the rush to 5G and the results of that rush.  5 G is the fifth-generation mobile network. 

Delco is part of the whole push to 5 G but first let’s speak of the “alleged” advantages of it.  According to an article in Interesting Engineering 5Gs advantages are speed, reduced interference, reduced latency orresponses between devices, wider bandwidth, and “a revolution in how we communicate.”

Of course, there aren’t any health risks, right? 

Opinions differ.  

Just  one paragraph from the above article:  For example, citing a large body of research on the hazards of exposure to EMF, more than 240 scientists, who together have published more than 2,000 peer-reviewed papers on the effects of EMF, have appealed to the United Nations for urgent action to reduce EMF exposure emitting from wireless sources. These scientists also submitted a letter to the FCC, asking it to consider health risks and environmental issues before rapidly deploying 5th-generation wireless infrastructure.

The folks at Environmental Health Trust who attended the conference, organized because of these possible risks.  Dangers they cite include the need to build antennas closer to each other which will further an already existing impact on insect behavior, and an increased use of energy.

There are a number of federal bills that address the situation. These are HS 3557, HS 4141, HR 1338, HR 3565, HR 4510, HR 6492 and S 2855. You can review them here.

PECO has already begun their tree-cutting binge in Delaware County, including Swarthmore and Marple.

It’s especially egregious in Swarthmore, which has been designated as a “tree city” and also a “bird town”. 

Oh well, maybe we can be re-designated as a “5G Tower City.

To 5G Or Not To 5G

To 5G Or Not To 5G

Mayorkas Impeachment About Constitutional Crimes, Not Policy

Mayorkas Impeachment About Constitutional Crimes, Not ‘Policy

By Joe Guzzardi

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment has set off a barrage of error-infused stories which prove that print and broadcast journalists haven’t done their homework. Echoing the talking points of the three House Republicans that voted against Mayorkas’ impeachment, the nearly universal story line is that policy differences don’t merit his removal from the Cabinet.

Here’s how The New York Times described the vote: “It[impeachment] put Mr. Mayorkas in the company of past presidents and administration officials who have been impeached on allegations of personal corruption and other wrongdoing. But the charges against him broke with history by failing to identify any such offense, instead effectively declaring the policy choices Mr. Mayorkas has carried out a constitutional crime.”

The Times went on to further defend Mayorkas when it wrote that former DHS secretaries Michael Chertoff, Janet Napolitano and Jeh Charles Johnson labeled the House effort “groundless,”while the Fraternal Order of Police, the country’s largest police union, and several law experts denounced the impeachment as a blatant attempt to resolve a policy dispute with a constitutional punishment. All claimed that the House Republicans had presented no evidence that Mr. Mayorkas’s conduct rose to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, the standard for impeachment the Constitution requires.

The three Republicans who voted against impeachment reiterated the same narrative—Mayorkas committed no crimes; he just enacted policies that the House disagreed with. The dissenters are Ken Buck (Color.), Tom McClintock (Calif.) and Mike Gallagher (Wis.). Explaining their decisions, Buck said “maladministration or incompetence does not rise to what our founders considered an impeachable offense;” McClintock claimed that Republicans lacked the grounds to impeach, and Gallagher, in his Wall Street Journal op-ed wrote that “incompetence doesn’t rise to the level of high crimes or misdemeanors.” 

Had the House dissenters, Republican and Democrats alike, read H. Res. 863 Article I: “Willful and Systematic Refusal to Comply with the Law,” they may have come to a different conclusion. The resolution charged Mayorkas with violating hissworn constitutional oath to support and defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic and to well and faithfully discharge his office’s duties of his office. Mayorkashas willfully and systemically refused to comply with federal immigration laws. 

More from the Resolution: Throughout his tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security, Mayorkas has repeatedly violated laws enacted by Congress regarding immigration and border security. In large part because of his unlawful conduct, millions of aliens have illegally entered the United States on an annual basis with many unlawfully remaining in the United States. His refusal to obey the law is not only an offense against the Constitution’sseparation of powers, it also threatens our national security and has had a dire impact on communities nationwide. Despite clear evidence that his willful and systematic refusal to comply with the law has significantly contributed to unprecedented levels of illegal entrants, the increased control of the Southwest border by drug cartels, and the imposition of enormous costs on states and localities affected by the influx of aliens, Mayorkas has continued to act against U.S. interests. 

Specifically, the Resolution identified seven Mayorkas crimes, all impeachable offenses. Among them, he 1) refused to comply with the detention mandate included in section 235(b)(2)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and instead implemented catch and release; 2) refused to comply with the detention mandate set forth in section 235(b)(1)(B)(ii) of such Act, requiring that an alien who is placed into expedited removal proceedings and determined to have a credible fear of persecution “shall be detained for further consideration of the application for asylum,” and 3) willfully exceeded his parole authority set forth in section 212(d)(5)(A) of such Act that permits parole to be granted “only on a case-by-case basis”, temporarily, and “for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” Instead, Mayorkas paroled aliens en masse torelease them from mandatory detention.

The impeachable criminal offenses the House brought against Mayorkas are inarguable; Mayorkas has committed high crimes, not, as the pro-immigration lobby insists, carried out a border policy that Republicans disagree with. If stripped of partisanship and instead adhering to their constitutional duties, the senators would support the impeachment articles. But Capitol Hill insiders predict that, to avoid the ugly spectacle of a trial, Schumer will table the resolution which would be the first time in the nation’s 248-year history that such brazen disregard for a constitutional process has been attempted. 

But Schumer’s a figurative four-star general in Biden’s war to destroy America through the open border invasion. Schumer admitted his agenda when, in 2020, he said if the Democrats win the Senate “We will change America.” So far, Schumer has made good on his promise and, by blocking Mayorkas’ impeachment, is poised to deliver another blow to sovereign America.

Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@isfpp.org

Mayorkas Impeachment About Constitutional Crimes

Mayorkas Impeachment About Constitutional Crimes

The What If Question In The Presidential Race

The What If Question In The Presidential Race

By Bob Small

The question of what would happen if either of the two leading Presidential Contenders left the race keeps coming up.  This is due to Biden’s age and the continuing court dramas regarding Donald Trump.

My personal prediction is that neither of those candidates will be there in November. Of course, my prediction was that the Eagles would win the 2023 Super Bowl.  This is an article covering the various possibilities:   What if Biden or Trump suddenly leaves the 2024 race?

In the “another one bites the dust” section of the Political News, Marianne Williamson has left the Democratic race.

The 71- year old philosophized “I read a quote the other day that said sunsets are proof that endings can be beautiful, too,” the 71-year-old said. She had earlier said that the US “needed a season of repair”, but was unable to convince more than 4 percent of the Democratic voters that she was the person for the job.

In another report, she said  “As of today, we are suspending our campaign. While the level of our failure is obvious to all, a level of success is real nonetheless.”

Not sure what that means either. 

This lack of clarity may have been the story of her campaign or non-campaign.

Even as she was ending her campaign, she had a running battle with clarity

“As with every other aspect of my career over the last 40 years, I know how ideas float through the air forming ever new designs,” she said.

She finished with only 2 percent of the vote,

The only well-known Democratic candidate remaining is Dean Phillips, a Minnesota congressman, whose star may begin rising now, as it becomes clearer and clearer to the Democratic party that Jospeh Biden should not be running in 2024.  This may also help RFK, Jr, notwithstanding whether he runs as a Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, etc.  

Maybe the Dems need to review their options from among the Politics1.com Democratic Candidate list.   

The What If Question In The Presidential Race

The What If Question In The Presidential Race

Ambidextrous Harry Truman Threw Out First Post-War Pitch

Ambidextrous Harry Truman Threw Out First Post-War Pitch

By Joe Guzzardi

On September 8, 1945, six days after Japan surrendered and World War II officially ended, President Harry S. Truman went to Griffith Stadium to throw out the first pitch in a game between the Washington Senators and the St. Louis Browns. No president had attended a baseball game since Franklin Delano Roosevelt tossed the traditional first pitch at the April 14, 1941, opener, eight months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The savvy Truman knew his presence at Griffith Stadium would convey the message to America that peace had returned, and that World War II had indeed ended.

Truman saw the Senators beat the Browns 4-1 during a crucial game in a four-way race for the American League pennant eventually captured by the Detroit Tigers. The Browns, Senators and New York Yankees came up short.

On April 16, 1946, Truman assumed the presidential responsibilities of throwing out the first Opening Day pitch against the visiting Boston Red Sox. Accompanied by his wife Bess and daughter Margaret, Truman became the first lefty to toss out the inaugural pitch. In his seven and one-half years in the White House, Truman attended sixteen games at Griffith Stadium, more than any other president. Ambidextrous, Truman hurled some pitches lefty and others, righty. Truman’s Opening Day record was 4-3, and, overall, 8-8.

Over the years, Truman formed a close friendship with Senators’ owner Clark Griffith. Both hailed from Missouri, both represented up from the bootstrap’s successes, and were straight shooters. Griffith called Truman “Harry,” and the president was fine with his informal salutation. A contributor to Truman’s 1948 re-election bid, Griffith predicted, against all odds, that the incumbent would beat the Republican nominee, Thomas Dewey. The October 11 issue of Newsweek stated, “Fifty political experts unanimously predict a Dewey victory.”  Truman was nonplused. “Oh, those damned fellows. They’re always wrong anyway,” he countered. As Griffith summed up Truman’s unexpected win at a post-election victory party,” “Everyone is against Harry except the people.” Truman’s surprise re-election gave him four more opportunities to throw out the Opening Day first pitch.

In his youth, Truman was a slightly-built, bespectacled boy who never played baseball. His wife Meg, however, was the quintessential tomboy. Meg had grown up with three younger brothers who she strived to beat at mumblety-peg, baseball and whistling through her teeth. She had excelled at most sports — even in throwing the shot put — and she remained an avid baseball fan all her life.

Bess watched, listened to, and scored as many games as possible. “The boss is the real fan,” Truman said about his Sunday school crush. Truman had carried Bess’ books to school and watched her play a crackerjack third base as the only girl on an all-boys team. As First Lady, Bess attended games by herself or with her daughter, but always with her scorebook which she kept religiously.

When Truman left the White House in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower assumed the Opening Day tasks. That year, however, Eisenhower asked his Vice President Richard Nixon to stand in for him. Truman hated Nixon and sent his friend Griffith a telegram wishing him well but warned, “Don’t let him throw you a curve!”

Bess and Harry, now private citizens, returned to Independence, MO., and eventually adopted the Kansas City Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals as their new favorites. “May the sun never set on American baseball,” Truman said at a Cardinals game.

The Trumans lived long lives. In 1972, Harry died at age 88; Bess followed in 1982 at age 97. The couple are buried next to each other at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Ambidextrous Harry Truman Threw Out First Post-War Pitch

Ambidextrous Harry Truman Threw Out First Post-War Pitch

Rollan Roberts Has Left The Race

Rollan Roberts Has Left The Race

By Bob Small

Rollan Roberts has left the race.

The West Virginia businessman had been seeking the Republican nomination for president. A seventh-place finish in the Iowa Caucus along with an unfortunate viral video showing him not immediately rushing to his pregnant wife’s assistance meant that it was time to turn off the lights.

His wife, Rebecca Lea, when she collapsed while he was making an announcement.

She turned out to be fine and Rollan really didn’t seem to get what was happening.

It looked bad, though, and this, unlike his policy proposals, is what went all over the internet.

The 14 pages of “Policies of the Roberts Presidency”, include some rather striking ideas.

“No one will pay tax on the first $40-60,000 they earn depending on how they file,” Roberts says. “The Flat Tax Rate Table is paid only on monies earned in that range. “

“All existing student loan debt will be settled at a reduced rate and paid by the public endowments of institutions that used public money to enrich themselves,” Roberts says.

Hypocritical Harvard’s $50.9 billion endowment being used to make good on the poor suckers trapped in life-long debt after spending fortunes on worthless degrees?

We like that.

Roberts also wants to extend the school day until 5 p.m. for high school students. The high school stuff would be from 8 a.m. until noon and the college or trade school stuff the remainder.

Roberts “grew up in the holler of Beaver, West Virginia” and received his MBA from Liberty University, and DBA (Doctor of Business Administration) from California Intercontinental University.

He is the head of the U.S. Center for Diplomacy .

Roberts noted that Donald Trump is “the predominate front runner”.

Possibly some of his ideas will outlive his candidacy.

Rollan Roberts Has Left The Race

Senate Passes Ukraine Funding Bill Without Border Protection

Senate Passes Ukraine Funding Bill Without Border Protection

By Joe Guzzardi

On Super Bowl Sunday, shortly before kickoff, the Senate voted 67-27 to advance a $95.3 billion funding bill, a step toward its passage. Two days later, after an all-night session, the bill passed 70-27 but without the border security measures that the House had originally demanded.

The funding package includes $60 billion for Ukraine; $14 billion in security assistance for Israel; $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza, the West Bank and Ukraine; and $4.8 billion to support allies in the Indo-Pacific.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) spoke passionately about the urgent need for the bill’s approval. Schumer described Eastern Europe’s war-torn regions as dire as last seen during World War II. McConnell warned that failing to support Ukraine would put America’s allies at risk by giving China a “green light” to project power in Asia and the Indo-Pacific.

Highlighting the tension among Republicans that could culminate in the Senate minority leader’s removal, fellow Kentuckian GOP Senator Rand Paul called McConnell’s support for the bill “outrageous” and accused him, Schumer and President Joe Biden of “criminal neglect” by working to “send $100 billion overseas to fix someone else’s border before addressing our [own] border.” Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) charged Schumer with dictating which amendments he would be permit—“essentially all of them are not.”

To Paul’s point, days before the Senate voted to proceed on the Ukraine-Israel funding bill, it rejected a very bad immigration bill that, instead of including HR-2’s border protections, established an emergency authority to shut down the border when a 5,000 daily average alien encounters over a consecutive seven-day period is reached or 8,500 encounters occur in a single day. By law, a single alien’s entry violates immigration statutes. Worse, the Senate’s proposed bill allows Biden to suspend this authority at his discretion, which could allow for thousands more illegal immigrants to cross.

Schumer and McConnell’s urgency to help Ukraine protect its border with Russia is reflected in its unprecedented Super Bowl Sunday vote during a period when the Senate was scheduled to be on holiday. Neither Schumer nor McConnell cares about the southwest border invasion. McConnell, worried that China might interpret nixing Ukraine funding as a “green light” for aggression, is indifferent to the thousands of Chinese nationals pouring aggressively across the Southwest border.

Among the millions of migrants flooding the southern border, Chinese illegal immigrants made up the fastest-growing faction last year. In FY 2023, CBP apprehended 24,000 Chinese nationals, about 12 times the 1,970 arrests in the previous fiscal year. Since October 1 when fiscal year 2024 began, a staggering 20,000 Chinese nationals have crossed. If the 20,000 per fiscal year quarter influx continues, a projected 80,000 Chinese nationals will enter.

The annual 2023 U.S. Threat Assessment report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) warned that China’s Communist Party (CCP) will continue efforts to achieve President Xi Jinping’s vision to make China East Asia’s preeminent power, a major global threat that will undercut U.S. influence, and “drive wedges between Washington and its partners.” In his Wall Street Journal op-ed, former DNI  director John Ratcliff wrote that “Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically.” Resisting Beijing’s attempt to reshape and dominate the world is, Ratcliff concluded, the challenge of our generation. China, national security experts agree, is the U.S.’s biggest geopolitical enemy.

Assuming Ratcliff is right, the Biden administration is failing spectacularly to meet the challenge. In December, a large group of well-dressed, military-age Chinese crossed into San Diego and surrendered to immigration agents. The El Paso sector’s Chief Patrol Agent Anthony Good told the Homeland Security Committee during a private September hearing last year that his agents suspect that the Chinese aliens are active CCP operatives, and confirmed by committee chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.)  as a “massive” concern.

Despite the potential threat that Chinese nationals represent to America, the DHS makes no attempt to detain them or no effort to locate them after border officers release them into the interior. Schumer, McConnell and Biden continue to turn a blind eye to the risks China poses, and instead are determined to pour more good money after bad into the forever Ukrainian war.

Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Senate Passes Ukraine Funding Bill Without Border Protection

Our Right To Refuse

Our Right To Refuse

By Bob Small

There were numerous groups that I discovered in my dealings with Children’s Health Defense (CHD). 

Right to refuse is one of the more active.

Its mission statement is “Right to Refuse is a national campaign to help state organizations and grassroots advocates connect for the purpose of passing state laws that would protect the rights of individuals to make their own health decisions.”

According to their website,  as of Dec 31, “74 Right to Refuse Bills have passed into laws in 29 States.” 

In Pennsylvania, we have Pennsylvania Coalition for Informed Consent  

To quote from the above website  “The Pennsylvania Coalition for Informed Consent works to preserve the vital personal freedom and human right to informed consent, privacy, and choice for medical procedures in Pennsylvania. “  There is a listing of House and Senate Bills listed to either support or reject.

Related websites are Health Freedom Pennsylvania: Home which lists allied groups. The active ones are https://www.pavotersguide.com/  which should be updated soon for 2024 and https://rightforliberty.com/ . See also the listed 8 organizations listed under Resource Center.

According to their charts, there were three vaccines in 1960.

As of 2019, there were 56. (

In my youth, we were shown photos of children in iron lungs to encourage us to receive our polio shots which was a shot we all willingly received –after seeing the photos.

Right about here we should say that vaccines are an individual choice.  Having had shingles, a shingles shot seemed appropriate.  A few weeks after two Covid shots, I got Covid.  That’s when this person started to rethink his choices.

Some other related websites on this topic are:

Home | National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)PPPC.me  “Pennsylvania Parents Protecting Children believes that parents and legal guardians have the right to safeguard their children’s health. “

FREE PA – Home

We should all remember that we , as citizens,  have both a right and a responsibility to contact our State and Local elected officials on these issues along with any others.

Our Right To Refuse

US Workers Lose Ground To Foreign-Born In January

US Workers Lose Ground To Foreign-Born In January

By Joe Guzzardi

The monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics report should be called the original “fake news.” Such is the case with the January 2024 report which announced that the economy added 353,000 jobs. Each month, District of Columbia’s anonymous civil servants grind out much-anticipated jobs data that Wall Street and financial journalists latch onto as the nation’s financial health indicators. Market analysts tout the monthly data to reaffirm their existing economic beliefs, be they good or bad. The first BLS Commissioner, Carroll D. Wright, described the Bureau’s mandate as “the fearless publication of the facts.” The BLS website claims that “Just the Facts” is a core value. When asked, “Is the glass half empty or half full?” BLS responds elusively that it sees an 8-ounce glass containing 4 ounces.

A few years ago, a critic called the BLS report “the big lie” because among its other flaws the original monthly data was subject to revisions, often significant. These late changes concern Federal Reserve officials. We must make decisions in real time,” Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Christopher Waller said late last year. “Whatever data is released, that’s the data I have to use. The problem with data is it gets revised.”

Revisions, which can come more than months after initial reports are published, wouldn’t necessarily be so much of an issue if they were relatively small. However, many revisions over the past few years have been game-changers.

The January BLS report could trigger history’s biggest game-changing revision. Zero Hedge (ZH), which lists as one of its manifestos, “to skeptically examine and, where necessary, attack the flaccid institution that financial journalism has become” mocked the January release as a “clown show,” and as the election season heats up, fulfilling its mandate from the White House “to make the economy look double super good-good.” And, speaking of revisions, ZH noted that in January BLS conducted its “annual re-benchmarking and update of seasonal adjustment factors.” The bottom line—what was until December a decline in jobs, the BLS has now been miraculously transformed declines into gains. 

The glowing report ignored the following lay-offs as a total percentage of their workforce: Twitch, 35%; Hasbro, 20%; Spotify, 17%; Levi’s, 15%; Xerox, 15%; Qualtrics, 14%; Wayfair: 13%; Duolingo, 10%; Washington Post, 10%; eBay, 9%; Business Insider, 8%; PayPal, 7% Charles Schwab, 6%; UPS, 2%; Blackrock, 3%; iRobot, 31%; Citigroup: 20,000 employees and Pixar, 1,300 employees. This month, nearly all Sports Illustrated staffers received layoff notices from the Arena Group, devastating the 70-year-old magazine that once set the standard for sports journalism. Most staff received 90-day notices, but many were immediately laid off. 

More inconvenient truths ZH exposed: BLS reported that in January 2024, the U.S. had 133.1 million full-time jobs and 27.9 million part-time jobs. The totals may sound good but look back one year to find that in February 2023, the U.S. had 133.2 million full-time jobs, slightly more than the economy did one year later. Predictably, the job growth is in low-paying, part-time jobs, which have increased by 870,000 since February 2023 from 27.020 million to 27.890 million.

The mainstream media, which had 20,000 job losses in 2023 across broadcast, digital and print industries with more recent media layoffs that include CBC, Vice Media and others, mostly ignored the most important fact buried in the January BLS report. In January, the number of native-born workers tumbled again, sliding by a massive 560, 000 to just 129.8 million. Add to this the December data, and a near-record 1.9 million plunge in native-born workers has occurred in the past two months. Not only has all job creation in the past four years gone exclusively to foreign-born workers, but since July 2018 there has been zero job-creation for native-born workers. 

With the illegal alien invasion poised to continue throughout the remainder of Biden’s first term—eleven months—and legal permanent residents added at one million-plus annually, the labor market will expand by about two million foreign-born workers each year. The Biden administration has unlawfully given about one million aliens parole, an immigration status that includes work permission. 

Foreign-born workers displacing Americans is an ongoing and accelerating tragedy that President Biden willfully imposed on citizens. Biden’s malfeasance should provide talking points for the White House and congressional candidates that seek to remove office holders who support the status quo.

 Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

US Workers Lose Ground To Foreign-Born In January

US Workers Lose Ground To Foreign-Born In January