'Pro-death legislators' want euthanasia in Illinois — Canada reveals why that's a terrible idea



Democratic lawmakers in the Illinois legislature have passed a bill that would legalize doctor-assisted suicide across the state.

The bill now awaiting Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker's signature, SB 1950, originally started out as a measure concerning sanitary food preparation. The bill was, however, hollowed out then repurposed. Instead of keeping consumers healthy, the language was changed to expedite death — authorizing a qualified patient with a terminal disease to demand that their doctor prescribe a lethal dose of medication, thereby ending "the patient's life in a peaceful manner."

Catholic leaders in the state are among the bill's loudest critics.

'Now, they can prescribe death.'

In May, Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, wrote, "I have to ask why, in a time when growing understanding of the deteriorating mental health of the U.S. population — and particularly among our youth — caused the country to create the 988 mental health crisis line, we would want to take this step to normalize suicide as a solution to life's challenges."

Cupich stressed that the Illinois legislature should explore options that instead "honor the dignity of human life and provide compassionate care to those experiencing life-ending illness."

Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield stated after legislators ignored Cupich's counsel and passed the bill in a 30-27 vote on Friday, "It is quite fitting that the forces of the culture of death in the Illinois General Assembly passed physician-assisted suicide on October 31 — a day that, culturally, has become synonymous with glorifying death and evil."

RELATED: The total state will kill you for being old

Blaze Media Illustration

"It's also ironic that these pro-death legislators did it under the cloud of darkness at 2:54 a.m. Make no mistake: killing oneself is not dying with dignity. Doctors take an oath to do no harm. Now, they can prescribe death," the bishop continued. "Physician assisted suicide undermines the value of each person, especially the vulnerable, the poor, and those with disabilities."

The Illinois Catholic Conference warned on Wednesday that the legalization of assisted suicide in Illinois will put the "state on a slippery path that jeopardizes the well-being of the poor and marginalized, especially those in the disability community and have foreseeable tragic consequences."

The dangers and fallout of legalized assisted suicide are hardly hypothetical.

North of the border, Canada is weeks away from publishing its sixth annual report on so-called medical assistance in dying. While the official numbers have yet to be released accounting for all MAID deaths in 2024 nationwide, provincial data appear to indicate another year-over-year increase in state-facilitated slayings.

The federal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau passed the Medical Assistance in Dying Act in 2016, legalizing euthanasia nationwide. Originally, applicants had to be 18 or older and suffering from a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" causing "enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable" to them.

The state-facilitated suicide program has since been grossly liberalized such that the country's eugenicist-founded health care system can now effectively execute those struggling with anxiety, autism, depression, economic woes, PTSD, and other survivable issues.

In its first year, MAID offed 1,108 Canadians. That number tripled the following year, and by 2021, the number had climbed to over 10,000 assisted-suicide deaths in a single year.

The Canadian think tank Cardus revealed last year that "MAiD in Canada is no longer unusual or rare. Federal predictions about the expected frequency of MAiD have significantly underestimated the numbers of Canadians who are dying by this means."

As of 2022, MAID was tied with cerebrovascular diseases as the fifth leading cause of death in the country. The following year, state-facilitated suicide claimed the lives of 15,343 individuals, accounting for 4.7% of all deaths in the country.

'Feeling like a burden can play on a patient's decision to request and receive a MAiD death.'

Authorities in Nova Scotia, a province of just over 1 million souls, indicated to Blaze News that it saw a drop in completed MAID slayings last year. Whereas there were 380 slayings in 2023, there were allegedly only 169 in 2024, with 286 active cases and 71 recorded natural deaths prior to MAID.

This appears to be the exception, not the rule.

The nation's more populous provinces have alternatively seen continued increases in MAID slayings.

British Columbia's 2024 euthanasia data, for instance, indicate that there were 3,000 state-facilitated suicides in the province last year. While most of the victims were over the age of 65, 1.5% of those slain were between the ages of 18 and 45 and individuals who were not dying. In fact, among the conditions cited as reasons and/or contributing reasons for MAID were "frailty," dementia, mental disorders, and unstated neurological conditions.

The Euthanasia Prevent Coalition noted that MAID deaths in B.C. were up over 8% from the previous year and accounted for 6.7% of all deaths in the province last year.

Alberta, a province of just over 5 million souls, recorded 1,117 deaths in 2024, representing a year-over-year increase of 14.3% and making its total MAID kill count 5,646 victims since 2016.

Data obtained by the MAiD in Canada Substack indicate that in 2024, Ontario had 4,957 deaths, representing an increase of 6.8% and making its grand total 23,333 victims since 2016.

Quebec reportedly had 6,058 MAID deaths last year, representing an increase of 6.4% and making its grand total over 26,000 victims since 2016. In addition to the growing number of deaths, there is apparently a growing cohort of doctors willing to dish out lethal doses in Quebec. A recent government report indicated that over 2,000 physicians were involved in the slayings, representing an 11% increase over the previous year.

Rebecca Vachon, health program director at Cardus, told Blaze News that "based on current reporting from the most populous provinces, we expect to see more than 16,500 'medical assistance in dying' or euthanasia deaths in 2024, which is an increase from the 15,343 deaths reported in 2023. This will likely result in MAiD deaths constituting 5% of total deaths in Canada that year, which, as Cardus discussed in a report released last fall, is a far cry from the expectations set by the courts that MAiD would be for exceptional cases only."

RELATED: ‘Stone-cold communism’: Canadian government seizes hospice center when staff refuses to allow euthanasia

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

The Canadian government released a report in 2020 indicating that the previous year, MAID resulted in a net cost reduction of over $86 million for provincial governments. The report additionally noted that further liberalization of the MAID program under Bill C-7, which was passed in March 2021, would result in an additional $62 million reduction in costs.

When asked whether MAID is being championed in part as a way to cut costs for Canada's immigration-strained health care system, Vachon told Blaze News, "Regardless of intentions, the pressure that feeling like a burden can play on a patient's decision to request and receive a MAiD death should not be understated."

"For instance, Canadian MAiD providers report that almost 50% of the patients they helped die in 2023 reported feeling they were a burden on others — up 10% from the previous year," Vachon said.

'Illinois should be a state that offers compassion, care, and hope — not death — as the answer to human suffering.'

Polls conducted by Cardus in partnership with the Angus Reid Institute found that 62% of Canadians fear that those who are financially or socially vulnerable may consider state-facilitated suicide because of difficulties accessing adequate care, Vachon indicated.

The fear is justified given that 42% of all MAID deaths from 2019 to 2023 involved people who required disability supports. Of those victims, over 1,017 never received those supports.

"Canadians deserve care that alleviates their suffering and prevents it from becoming 'unbearable,'" Vachon said.

Blaze News has reached out for comment to Prime Minister Mark Carney's office as well as to the leaders of the New Democratic Party and Conservative Party, Don Davies and Pierre Poilievre.

While the slope has been greased in Canada and in states such as California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, and Washington, there's still hope that Pritzker may reconsider, especially after he noted on Monday, "It was something that I didn't expect and didn't know it was going to be voted on, so we're examining it even now."

Rather than sign the bill, the Illinois Catholic Conference has implored Pritzker to "expand and improve on palliative care programs that offer expert assessment and management of pain and other symptoms."

Bishop Paprocki noted, "Pray for Gov. Pritzker to reject this legislation. Illinois should be a state that offers compassion, care, and hope — not death — as the answer to human suffering."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

'Not. One. Story.' Liberal news outlets' silence regarding Biden's 'enemies list' is deafening



The liberal media wasted a great deal of airtime and ink over the past decade fearmongering about the Russian collusion narrative but clammed up earlier this year when the Trump administration produced receipts demonstrating that the basis of multiple investigations and numerous arrests was nothing more than a hoax perpetrated on the American people by the Obama administration.

In the wake of revelations this week about Operation Arctic Frost — chiefly about the Biden FBI's surveillance of Republican lawmakers and indiscriminate targeting of conservatives — the liberal media has once again proven strategically incurious, evidencing the unidirectional nature of their outrage.

'They screamed when Nixon's "enemy list" was exposed.'

The New York Times, for instance, has concern-mongered in recent weeks about personnel changes at the Justice Department and the Trump administration's alleged use of "the federal government’s vast intelligence gathering and law enforcement authority to cast the specter of criminality on Mr. Trump’s enemies."

However, with the apparent exception of an Oct. 7 article focusing on Republican denunciations of special counsel Jack Smith's covert collection of lawmakers' phone records and an Oct. 21 article boosting denials issued on Smith's behalf by his lawyers, the Times has avoided troubling itself with questions about Arctic Frost or the latest documents highlighting the Biden FBI's targeting of conservatives.

The Times was far from the only liberal publication to ignore the documents released this week by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) and the House Judiciary Committee revealing the massive scope of the Arctic Frost dragnet.

The Washington Post, CBS News, ABC News, and the Atlantic similarly appear to have largely ignored the matter, publishing little to nothing this week on the latest bombshells.

RELATED: Damning new docs reveal who's on Biden admin's 'enemies list,' expose extent of FBI's Arctic Frost

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

CNN's coverage this month appears to be limited to a piece boosting denials on Smith's behalf and an analysis piece by senior reporter Aaron Blake, who did his apparent best to downplay the finding that Smith had covertly obtained the phone records of Republican lawmakers.

Blake claimed that the "GOP is exaggerating the evidence"; that the evidence does not "fit what is traditionally understood to constitute 'spying'"; that the surveillance of lawmakers' communications is not unprecedented; and that "we certainly don’t have evidence that it was done for political purposes."

While MSNBC, NBC News, and Politico seemed interested in engaging with the story prior to this week, their efforts were apparently focused on downplaying the findings, portraying Smith as a victim, and painting Arctic Frost as an apolitical investigation and Republicans' concerns as unhinged.

Trump ally Roger Stone noted, "They screamed when Nixon's 'enemy list' was exposed. Why aren't the media and the Democrats talking about the Arctic Frost TARGET LIST — the ultimate weaponization of the criminal justice system?"

Tom Bevan, the president of RealClearPolitics, expressed amazement, writing on Thursday morning, "No mention of Arctic Frost in the NY Times or the Washington Post. These are not 'news' organizations any more."

Bevan added, "Same on CNN, ABC News, CBS News ... and NBC News. Not. One. Story."

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) said Wednesday that what is revealed in the latest document dumps regarding Arctic Frost "is nothing short of a Biden administration enemies list. I'm old enough to understand how toxic a term that was under Richard Nixon. This is far worse — far worse, orders of magnitude worse."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Scientific American attacks Jay Bhattacharya for prioritizing Americans' autonomy over 'the science'



Scientific American, a 179-year-old magazine published by the German-British Springer Nature Group, appears increasingly keen to dirty itself with politics rather than engage in clean science.

Just weeks after Laura Helmuth stepped down as the magazine's editor in chief after an ugly rant in which she effectively called over 77.3 million Americans who voted for President-elect Donald Trump both "fascists" and "bigoted," and months after the magazine pushed gender ideologues' pseudoscientific narrative, Scientific American published a piece claiming that Trump's choice of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to run the National Institutes of Health is "the wrong move for science and public health."

Extra to insinuating that Bhattacharya was not actually censored during the pandemic and arguing that the destructive approach championed by the scientific establishment during the pandemic was not authoritarian, the author of the piece, Steven Albert, concern-mongered that Trump's pick might prioritize Americans' personal autonomy if confirmed as head of the NIH.

Debate over therapeutics, health protocols, and the origin of COVID-19 was stifled during the pandemic. Bhattacharya, among the experts whose views were suppressed at the urging of Biden health officials, refused to uncritically accept the prevailing wisdom of medical establishmentarians who advocated for lockdowns, vaccine mandates, masking for kids, and other ruinous COVID-19 policies.

Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which suggested that geriatrics and other higher-risk groups should engage in shielding, whereas healthy individuals should "immediately be allowed to resume life as normal." According to the declaration, healthy individuals were better off catching the virus and developing natural immunity.

Scientific establishmentarians keen on coercive medicine and blanket lockdowns attacked Bhattacharya for proposing this alternative approach. President Joe Biden's former chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci called the declaration "total nonsense." Former National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins conspired to issue a "quick and devastating takedown" of Bhattacharya's criticism.

In the weeks since Trump announced that Bhattacharya would "restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research," establishmentarians have resumed their attacks on the esteemed epidemiologist both at home and abroad.

'Pitting personal autonomy against the application of science to policy is fine for vanity webcasts and think tanks.'

Steven Albert, Hallen chair of community health and social justice at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health, jumped on the bandwagon, griping in the pages of Scientific American about Bhattacharya's criticism of the "authoritarian tendencies of public health" and his advocacy for turning "the NIH from something that's sort of how to control society into something that's aimed at the discovery of truth to improve the health of Americans."

"The claims of authoritarianism are a screen for pushing a particular agenda that is likely to damage the NIH. Bhattacharya's science agenda is political: to set concerns for personal autonomy against evidence-based public health science," wrote Albert. "This is not appropriate for NIH leadership."

Albert expressed concern that Bhattacharya's apparent prioritization of Americans' God-given and Constitution-secured rights over health policy might prompt him to take a stand against "enforced vaccine requirements for children attending public schools" or perhaps even against the introduction of fluoride in drinking water, which the National Toxicology Program recently admitted can cause mental retardation in kids at the exposure levels seen in various places around the country.

"Pitting personal autonomy against the application of science to policy is fine for vanity webcasts and think tanks, but inappropriate for NIH leadership. If he would rather focus on promoting personal autonomy in pandemic policy, perhaps he is being nominated to the wrong agency," wrote Albert.

Albert further suggested — in the pages of a magazine that not only platformed the claim on the heels of a rushed vaccine rollout that "there is no question that the current vaccines are effective and safe" but also echoed the discredited thesis of a paper in its sister journal that the COVID-19 virus likely had zoonotic origins — that Bhattacharya's critical views "are one more unfortunate legacy of the COVID pandemic."

Albert defended the failed pandemic policies that Bhattacharya previously criticized, claiming that "science supported school closures, work-from-home policies, large gathering restrictions in public spaces, and face mask requirements as effective ways to lower hospital surges and buy time for vaccine development."

The "science" that Albert trusted in the case of school closures clearly needed the kind of second-guessing advocated by Bhattacharya, given that the closures put multitudes of school children years behind in math, reading, science, and general learning and have been linked to massive spikes in mental illness, suicide, and obesity.

After making the grossly ahistoric claim that "it is not authoritarian to use science for policy" and accusing Trump of dealing in falsehoods, Albert claimed that "income inequality and access to health care," not "authoritarianism in science or public health," were responsible for the devastation wreaked upon the country during the pandemic.

Albert wrapped up his hit piece by complaining about Bhattacharya possibly decentralizing the agency's functions and shifting NIH grant funding to the states; banning dangerous gain-of-function research and experiments using aborted baby parts; and depoliticizing science.

In response to Bhattacharya's nomination last month, Matt Kibbe, BlazeTV host of "Kibbe on Liberty" and "The Coverup," which recently featured the epidemiologist, noted, "Jay Bhattacharya was deemed a 'fringe epidemiologist' by former NIH Director Francis Collins, who demonized him for asking obvious questions about the government's authoritarian response to COVID. Now, Jay will take the helm at NIH and clean house of all those who corrupted public health and did so much damage to Americans during the pandemic. Karma is a b****."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here

CBS News finally responds to criticism of its 'deceitful' Harris edit — with an anti-Trump denial



CBS News broke its silence Sunday, addressing President Donald Trump and other critics' concern that its "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris was deceptively edited in hopes of portraying the vice president as more coherent than the original footage would otherwise suggest.

Rather than admit the difference between previews of the interview and the final that ultimately aired on Oct. 7 amounted to strategic changes in Harris' favor, CBS News instead suggested it was par for the course and that Trump was in the wrong.

"Former President Donald Trump is accusing 60 Minutes of deceitful editing of our Oct. 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. That is false," the network said in a statement, released just one week after Gallup revealed Americans continue to register record-low trust in the media.

Trump previously suggested:

I've never seen this before, but the producers of 60 Minutes sliced and diced ('cut and pasted') Lyin' Kamala's answers to questions, which were virtually incoherent, over and over again, some by as many as four times in a single sentence or thought, all in an effort, possibly illegal as part of the 'News Division,' which must be licensed, to make her look 'more Presidential,' or a least, better. It may also be a major Campaign Finance Violation. This is a stain on the reputation of 60 Minutes that is not recoverable — It will always remain with this once storied brand.

CBS News, which has yet to release the undoctored transcript, said further in its Sunday statement, "60 Minutes gave an excerpt of our interview to Face the Nation that used a longer section of her answer than that on 60 Minutes. Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response."

"When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point," continued the statement. "The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 21-minute-long segment."

'The extent of their deceptive edits must be SIGNIFICANT for them to refuse to release the actual transcript.'

Contrary to its suggestion, CBS News appears to have ventured beyond Harris' actual response for a usable answer in an effort to make the vice president come across as "clear, accurate and on point."

Blaze News previously reported that in one preview for the interview, CBS News' Bill Whitaker asked the vice president whether America lacks influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his strategic decisions in the Middle East.

After a labyrinthine response from Harris, Whitaker stated, "It seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening."

Harris then responded, "Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region."

The vice president's response was widely mocked as another word salad when previewed by CBS' "Face the Nation" — such that its absence was hard to miss when the final version was released the following day.

The final makes it look as if Harris responded by saying, "We're not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end."

Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for the Trump campaign, said in response to CBS News' Sunday statement, "60 Minutes just admitted to doing exactly what President Trump accused them of doing. They edited in a different response — from another part of her answer — to make Kamala Harris sound less incoherent than she really was."

Leavitt noted that "their statement is not a denial, it is an admission that they did exactly what they were accused of."

"Release the transcript!" added Leavitt.

Numerous other critics have demanded the release of the transcript and speculated about the true nature of Harris' responses.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has himself been subjected to deceptive edits on CBS News, wrote, "@60Minutes has now confirmed what we all know: they edited the video. Now release the FULL transcript and video."

"60 Minutes continues to conceal the unedited transcript of its interview with Kamala Harris. Here, they also lie about the controversy surrounding that transcript. The extent of their deceptive edits must be SIGNIFICANT for them to refuse to release the actual transcript," tweeted Federalist editor in chief Mollie Hemingway.

Curtis Houck, managing editor of News Busters, asked, "What are you all hiding?"

'When broadcasters manipulate interviews and distort reality, it undermines democracy itself.'

The Center for American Rights has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission over its edits to the Harris interview, noting that "CBS crosses a line when its production reaches the point of so transforming an interviewee's answer that it is a fundamentally different answer. This CBS may not do."

Daniel Suhr, President of the Center for American Rights, said in a statement, "This is about the public's trust in the media on critical issues of national security and international relations during one of the most consequential elections of our time. When broadcasters manipulate interviews and distort reality, it undermines democracy itself. The FCC must act swiftly to restore public confidence in our news media."

CBS News' treatment of Harris prompted a former guest to conclude the network is politically motivated.

"I can testify from our personal experience that @60Minutes is not honest in their journalism," wrote Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich. "They came to our interview with a predetermined narrative & when we pointed to truth they used tactics & editing to tell the story they were determined to tell."

Descovich and fellow Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice spoke to "60 Minutes" host Scott Pelley in October 2023 about their organization and its work reinforcing parental rights and combating grooming efforts in the classroom.

Noticeably absent from the final, released in March, was footage of Descovich and Justice describing the graphic sexual content contained in the books that Democrats wanted to keep in public school libraries — footage that would have damaged CBS News' preferred narrative.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Tech titan Larry Ellison teases AI-powered surveillance state that will keep you on your 'best behavior'



Oracle chairman and chief technology officer Larry Ellison, the world's second-richest man, recently revealed how his company could furnish authorities with the technological means to better surveil the populace and socially engineer those involuntarily living their lives on camera.

"Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on," Ellison said last week at the database and cloud computing company's financial analyst meeting. "It's AI that's looking at the cameras."

After discussing broadening and implementing surveillance systems in the health and education sectors, Ellison raised the matter of law enforcement applications and police body cameras.

'Truth is we don't really turn it off.'

"We completely redesigned body cameras," said the billionaire. "The camera's always on. You don't turn it on and off."

Whether an officer is having lunch with friends or in the lavatory, Oracle will never shut its eyes.

Ellison noted, for example, that if a police officer wants a moment of relative privacy so that he can go to the washroom, he must notify Oracle.

"We'll turn it off. Truth is, we don't really turn it off. What we do is we record it so no one can see it," said Ellison. "No one can get into that recording without a court order. You get the privacy you requested ... but if you get a court order, we will judge — I want to look at that, this so-called bathroom break."

"We transmit the video back to headquarters," continued the Oracle CTO, "and AI is constantly monitoring the video."

If AI spots behavior it has been trained to regard as suspicious, then it will flag it and issue an alert to the relevant authorities.

By constructing what is effectively a high-tech panopticon, Ellison indicated that police officers and citizens alike would be more inclined to behave as convention and law dictated they should "because we're constantly recording — watching and recording — everything that's going on."

Ellison indicated that this system of digital eyes on cars, drones, and humans amounts to "supervision."

The tech magnate framed these applications as benign — as ways to curb police brutality. However, Oracle has recently given cause to suspect that there is potential for abuse.

In July, Oracle agreed to pay $115 million to settle a lawsuit in which the company was accused of running roughshod over people's privacy by collecting their data and selling it to third parties, reported Reuters.

According to the plaintiffs, Oracle created unauthorized "digital dossiers" for hundreds of millions of people, which were then allegedly sold to marketers and other organizations.

Critics responding online to Ellison's remarks also expressed concerns over how such applications will all but guarantee a communist Chinese-style surveillance state in the West — something that's already under way in the U.K., one of the most surveilled countries on the planet.

'There isn't much not being watched by somebody.'

The U.K.'s former Home Office biometrics and surveillance commissioner Fraser Sampson told the Guardian before ending his term last year that AI was supercharging Britain's public-private "omni-surveillance" society.

"There was a lawyer back in 2010 who used the expression 'omni-surveillance,' and I think, yes, we are in that. There isn't much not being watched by somebody. The thing is, almost all of it's been watched by people on private devices. And they now share it, whether they want them to or not, with everybody, the police, the state, the foreign government, anybody," said Sampson.

"When all that needed a human to edit it, it wasn't an issue because no one was going to live long enough to get through 10 minutes. But now you can do it with AI editing. All of a sudden you can tap that ocean," added the watchdog.

The U.K. has ostensibly taken a turn for the worse under the current Labor government, which is working to greatly expand the use of live facial recognition technology.

While some have taken to keyboards to bemoan the growth of the Western surveillance state, so-called Blade Runner activists have, in recent years, taken to chopping down public and private cameras, including low-emission cameras.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Mark Zuckerberg 'comes clean' in damning letter about Facebook's election interference and pandemic censorship



Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the House Judiciary Committee Monday that he now regrets the major role his company played not only in helping the Biden-Harris administration censor Americans' protected speech, but in suppressing critical information ahead of the 2020 election.

While unwilling to acknowledge its impact on recent American elections, Zuckerberg also indicated he will be terminating his "Zuck Bucks" scheme — ostensibly to alleviate some lawmakers' concerns about deep-pocketed partisans' election interference.

Although it's unclear whether Zuckerberg's admissions will be of any real-world consequence — impacting, for instance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s censorship lawsuit against the Biden-Harris administration — the committee nevertheless characterized his letter as a "big win for free speech."

Suppressing dissenting voices

Zuckerberg said in his damning letter addressed to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that in 2021, senior officials from the Biden-Harris administration, including the White House, "repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't agree."

The committee has obtained ample evidence in recent months and years detailing the extent of Facebook's work with the Biden-Harris administration to silence criticism of the experimental COVID-19 vaccines, lockdown measures, and masking, along with other medically accurate information that undermined the Biden White House's preferred pandemic narrative, which it knew early on to be inaccurate.

'We own our decisions.'

For instance, an April 2021 email circulated by a Facebook employee, ostensibly on behalf of Zuckerberg and then-COO Sheryl Sandberg, noted that the Biden White House took issue with a "vaccine discouraging humorous meme," which it told the social media company to delete.

Blaze News previously reported that the verboten meme in question used the "Pointing Rick Dalton" template, borrowing a still from the 2019 film "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood," in which Leonardo DiCaprio's character points out something on television.

This meme, which the Biden White House wanted erased from the platform, was captioned, "10 years from now you will be watching TV and hear .... 'Did you or a loved one take the covid vaccine? You may be entitled ...'" and was apparently shared over 385,000 times.

Besides memes and medical facts, Facebook also dutifully censored content about the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, which is now the most credible account.

In his Monday letter, Zuckerberg admitted that despite knowing the "government pressure was wrong" and that his company could have told the Biden-Harris administration to pound sand, the company decided anyway to oblige the state, take content down, and censor users.

"Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of pressure," said Zuckerberg.

While Facebook was more than willing to comply with the Democratic administration's demands, Zuckerberg — possibly cognizant that he may soon be dealing with a Republican administration — indicated that the company is "ready to push back if something like this happens again."

Election interference

Zuckerberg also acknowledged in his letter Facebook's suppression of an accurate report in the newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton ahead of the 2020 election.

"The FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in the lead up to the 2020 election," wrote the Facebook CEO. "That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply."

"It's since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn't have demoted the story," added Zuckerberg.

Among the concerns raised in the New York Post's suppressed report was that a Burisma board adviser thanked Hunter Biden for introducing him to Joe Biden about a year before Biden allegedly extorted the Eastern European country as vice president to get the prosecutor investigating Burisma fired.

The report also hinted that Joe Biden, through his son and his own actions, may have been a compromised candidate and, at the very least, untruthful.

'Your enemies rigged the election and were rewarded with the White House.'

While Facebook worked to suppress the report, elements of the intelligence community antipathetic to President Donald Trump — including active elements of the security state — swooped in to shield Biden in the final weeks before the election, releasing a public letter on Oct. 19, 2020, asserting that the Hunter Biden laptop story had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" intended to hurt the Democrat's candidacy.

Michael Morell, a former CIA deputy director, later testified to Congress that he organized the letter to "help Vice President Biden" but, more specifically, to help "him to win the election."

Zuckerberg assured Jordan in his letter that Facebook, having helped deliver to Biden a firm grasp on the 2020 election-time narrative and possibly the White House, has since changed its policies and process "to make sure this doesn't happen again," noting that content is no longer temporarily demoted while so-called fact-checkers decide whether it's fit for public consumption.

The Facebook CEO also addressed the contributions he made during the last presidential election to "support electoral infrastructure."

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, dumped over $400 million into grants allegedly aimed at helping with election administration and voter accommodation. Critics have suggested that "Zuck Bucks" was alternatively a partisan scheme aimed at turning out more Democratic votes.

"They were designed to be non-partisan — spread across urban, rural, and suburban communities," wrote Zuckerberg. "Still, despite the analyses I've seen showing otherwise, I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other. My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another — or to even appear to be playing a arole. So I don't plan on making a similar contribution this cycle."

"Zuck Bucks" may not be necessary in this election cycle, given that the federal government is actively working on fulfilling Biden's Executive Order 14019, which may prove far more effective at mobilizing Democratic voters.

The response

While the committee called the letter a "big win for free speech," Blaze News columnist Auron MacIntyre noted, "No, a win occurs when your enemies pay a price. Is someone going to jail? Is someone getting impeached? Is anyone even getting fined? No, you just got a confession that your enemies rigged the election and were rewarded with the White House."

— (@)

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) similarly suggested that the letter was too little, too late, writing, "Facebook may have changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential race. Four years later, we get a letter saying 'sorry.'"

"Mark Zuckerberg comes clean and finally admits what everyone already knows he and META did to influence the 2020 election," wrote Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.)

Elon Musk responded to the letter, noting, "Sounds like a First Amendment violation."

Podcaster Patrick Bet-David speculated that there were three possible reasons Zuckerberg would have made these admissions: "1. He's being honorable[;] 2. He's done with the Dem party[; and/or] 3. He's getting ahead of a whistleblower."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Democrats claim Trump will weaponize the DOJ and FBI. These 3 realities suggest that's mere projection.



Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D) told fellow travelers at the Democratic National Convention Monday, "Donald Trump would be able to weaponize the Department of Justice to go after his political opponents! He could even turn the FBI into his own personal police force!"

"That is not how it works in America," added McMorrow.

This provocative claim — that President Donald Trump will weaponize the Department of Justice and the FBI against his political opponents — has been recycled numerous times by Democrats in recent months.

While Trump certainly has a history of suggesting in speeches that various Democratic officials should be "locked up" over their alleged improprieties, actions taken by the Biden-Harris administration have alternatively provided Americans with concrete examples of what precisely it is that Democrats fear will happen if and when the tables are turned.

What follows is a look at Democrats' rhetoric and record when it comes to the weaponization of federal law enforcement against their foes.

It is abundantly clear from the approach taken by the Biden-Harris DOJ and the FBI toward Trump allies, pro-lifers, and Trump himself that to realize Democrats' fears of weaponization, the Republican need only replicate their behavior.

Jail for thee, but not for me

Former Attorney General Eric Holder is among the various prominent Democrats to push the weaponization line. He told MSNBC talking head Joy Reid earlier this year, "A second Trump term would have a politicized, weaponized — forget politicized — weaponized United States Department of Justice."

"You have a president who is beyond the reach of law. You have a Justice Department that goes after political opponents on absolutely no basis. He's going to prosecute Joe Biden. Well, exactly for what? That's not going to bother them," said Holder. "You would have a United States of America that would be unrecognizable to us; that would be one that you would see more in Putin's Russia as opposed to the United States that we have come to all know and love."

It appears that Holder, like other Democrats, was largely engaging in projection. After all, just days after Holder made these remarks, Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House adviser, was sentenced to prison for contempt of Congress.

'The department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law.'

The Biden-Harris FBI investigated Navarro's case and the DOJ under Attorney General Merrick Garland prosecuted it.

An entirely different approach had previously been taken in the case of Holder, who was held in contempt of Congress in an overwhelming 255-67 vote in 2012 for refusing to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal.

The Obama DOJ let Holder skate, ostensibly for keeping former President Barack Obama's documents from the American people's elected representatives.

A different approach was also taken by the Biden-Harris DOJ this summer when it came to tackling Merrick Garland's own contempt of Congress.

The House voted 216-207 on June 12 to find the Biden appointee in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with lawful congressional subpoenas. Like Holder, Garland was unwilling to divulge potentially damaging materials linked to his Democratic president.

The DOJ subsequently made clear it would not prosecute Garland.

Weeks after the DOJ indicated it would not hold its own accountable, former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon reported to prison over 2021 contempt of Congress charges.

At the time the charges were filed, Garland said in a statement, "I have promised Justice Department employees that together we would show the American people by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law."

Disproportionately targeting pro-lifers

The Biden-Harris DOJ has made no secret of its pro-abortion bias, having gone so far as to create a "Reproductive Rights Task Force" to help advance radicals' abortion agenda.

This bias and the corresponding weaponization of the department against the administration's opponents on the issue became especially clear in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling, when scores of pro-life pregnancy centers, hundreds of Catholic churches, and various other pro-life institutions were attacked by leftist radicals.

Although in many cases the pro-abortion group Jane's Revenge claimed responsibility for firebombings and other attacks, the Biden-Harris DOJ — which was simultaneously attempting to force pro-life pharmacies to traffic abortion drugs — refrained from designating it a terrorist group.

As for the slew of individuals who executed the attacks on pro-life institutions, it appears only a handful were ultimately prosecuted. Those who were targeted by the DOJ appear to have been treated with kid gloves, as in the case of one pro-abortion domestic terrorist to whom prosecutors agreed to give a light sentence in April.

'It is very clear that the Biden Justice Department has politicized and weaponized the FACE Act to go after pro-life Christians.'

The Biden-Harris DOJ has taken an entirely different approach to peaceful pro-life activists, oftentimes seeking heavy sentences.

According to the legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, "the DOJ brought at least 26 charges against pro-life individuals under the FACE Act in 2022. What were the total number of charges against abortion activists who obstructed or vandalized pro-life pregnancy centers in the wake of the Dobbs decision that year? Zero."

The Washington Post indicated a year later that the department had continued with this lop-sided application of the law.

The DOJ, which has shown no signs of stopping its round-up of ideological opponents, announced Tuesday that seven of the pro-life activists it charged for staging a peaceful 2020 protest at an abortion clinic in Michigan have been convicted of civil rights offenses. Among them is Eva Edl, an elderly Christian woman who survived a communist concentration camp in post-war Yugoslavia and committed her life to fighting similar dehumanization.

Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, told Fox News Digital earlier this year, "It is very clear that the Biden Justice Department has politicized and weaponized the FACE Act to go after pro-life Christians praying outside of abortion clinics like Mark Houck while turning a blind eye to violent felons terrorizing and badly damaging Catholic churches like Maeve Nota."

Blaze News previously reported that Mark Houck, a father of seven and Catholic — a denomination whose members the FBI has targeted with "counterterrorism tools" — was arrested at gunpoint by multiple FBI agents after he shoved a Planned Parenthood "escort" who repeatedly tried to antagonize him and his son in October 2021.

"The Biden Justice Department tried to put Houck in prison for 11 years for defending his son while recommending no jail time for Nota after this deranged trans terrorist badly damaged a Catholic church, fought with the police, assaulted a church employee, and scared the hell out of a little old lady praying," Davis added.

Attorneys for Houck noted in the lawsuit he filed in May against the DOJ and FBI his arrest was "a shocking display of the political animus against the pro-life movement harbored at the highest levels of the Department of Justice."

Trying to take out Trump

The Biden-Harris DOJ has done its best to kneecap Trump ahead of the 2024 election.

Whereas the DOJ would ultimately take a deferential approach when investigating Biden over his admitted transport and possession of classified documents, Garland signed off on the August 2022 raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence by armed agents.

Despite the similarities between the allegations in the cases, of the two, only Trump was ultimately charged.

Although the Biden-Harris DOJ appeared keen on sticking Trump with 37 counts and potentially decades worth of prison time, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon determined that Garland unlawfully appointed Jack Smith as counsel and that Smith had no authority to bring the case.

The DOJ opened a separate investigation in November 2022, looking to slam Trump for supposed election interference in the lead-up to Jan. 6, 2021, as well as on that fateful day former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admittedly dropped the ball on Capitol security. Again, Garland tapped Jack Smith to take lead, and again Smith's handiwork resulted in a grand jury indictment, this time in the majoritively Democratic District of Columbia.

The case is presently in limbo, in part thanks to the July 1 Supreme Court determination that Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution for various actions taken as president.

There has been some suggestion that the Biden-Harris DOJ also put its thumb on the scales in New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg's (D) prosecution of former President Trump in the person of former senior Biden-Harris DOJ official Matthew Colangelo.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey told Blaze Media co-founder and nationally syndicated radio host Glenn Beck in late May, "The Biden Department of Justice has become a nerve center for a coordinated witch hunt prosecution of a political opponent, and it's not designed to obtain a legally valid conviction. It's designed to take anyone running against Joe Biden — in other words, president Donald Trump — off the campaign trail."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson consider whether American decline is by design and a prelude to authoritarian rule



Tucker Carlson revealed in a spirited conversation Tuesday with nationally syndicated radio host and co-founder of Blaze Media Glenn Beck that his tour of foreign nations has little to do with those destinations and everything to do with the United States — a nation he would like see restored to greatness or at the very least boosted back to the domestic and international prowess it apparently enjoyed circa 1993.

During his first interview in the U.S. since his return from Russia, the titular head of the Tucker Carlson Network broached various topics with Beck, nearly all linked back to the health and integrity of the United States.

Before the duo delved too deeply into matters directly affecting the U.S., Beck pressed Carlson on recent critiques over his Russian reportage, for which critics have pulled the Cold War term "useful idiot" out of retirement; forced parallels to the Soviet propaganda peddled by the New York Times' Pulitzer-winning Walter Duranty; made accusations of economic illiteracy; and, in the case of Bill Kristol, demanded Carlson's exile.

Carlson recently interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin, then joined Muscovites in traversing the Soviet-constructed Moscow Metro system, wherein he marveled at the Russian capital's apparently clean and orderly underground.

Carlson also visited a grocery store in hopes of ascertaining firsthand whether sanctions on the Slavic nation have had an impact on citizens' shopping experience.

"Coming to a Russian grocery store, the 'heart of evil,' and seeing what things cost and how they live — it will radicalize you against our leaders," Carlson said in the video. "That's how I feel, anyway: radicalized. We're not making any of this up, by the way. At all."

Beck told Carlson Tuesday that it would not be hard to replicate such cleanliness and order if one would allow for the kind of totalitarian overreach and bloodletting seen in nations like North Korea; that behind such glimmers of utopia lurk monstrous systems alien to America.

"There's a lot of people on the right and the left that are both saying, 'Screw the Constitution. We need a radicalized leader,'" said Beck. "When you look at Orban, I think Orban is great for his country. That's not our system. ... Moscow might be great. Love to visit. That's not our system," said Beck. "The only path forward for America is through the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution."

Carlson agreed, making expressly clear over the course of the interview that contrary to recent complaints leveled against him, he is neither a flack for Putin nor a fan of strongman authoritarianism. Rather, he suggested that the point of his foreign travels was to shake Americans out their resignation to the very domestic trends steering America off the path Beck mentioned and toward authoritarianism.

— (@)

"The people that run our country are destroying it, and they're doing it on purpose," said Carlson. "With what they've done at the border: completely changing the population, letting millions and millions of people who have no connection to the United States, can't possibly help our economy, can't possibly unify our very fractured civic culture ... whose loyalty and knowledge of the United States is completely in question. In fact, their identities are in question."

Carlson indicated that this engineered demographic upheaval is taking place amidst an imported opioid epidemic, costly multilateral initiatives abroad that overstretch the U.S., manufactured race hatred, and lawlessness.

He suggested to Beck that the destruction under way and the disenchantment that follows are altogether a means to break down resistance to a potential statist overcorrection and authoritarian regime.

"We have the laws. They're not being enforced on purpose. ... And of course the reason is because people will lose faith in liberal democracy, and they will welcome a strongman, and that's exactly what this about," said Carlson.

While quick to attribute this program to the left, Carlson also credited the "quisling right on Capitol Hill."

"The communists did it. It's the color revolution. And it's Cloward-Piven," said Beck. "It's happening right in front of our eyes."

According to Carlson, the result and aim of this alleged project is that "people are just going to give up. They're not going to vote, [thinking], 'They're going to steal the elections, just as they stole the last one,' which they did — sorry."

"And they're going to steal the next one, and people are just going to be like, 'You know what? I don't even care. I just totally give up. This is crazy. Just get the bums off my street. Some guy just exposed himself to my daughter, or my nephew just died of a fentanyl OD. Make it stop,'" continued Carlson.

"I don't want that. I want to live in the country we lived in in 1993 or 1985. Not ancient history. Post-Civil Rights Act. We can do that. Let's do it right now," added Carlson.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Community notes slap FBI's Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative post with reminder the bureau sought his ruin



The FBI joined other government agencies Monday in noting their newfound appreciation for civil rights legend Martin Luther King Jr., for whom the day was made a federal holiday in 1983. Now with Twitter under different management and X's community notes feature fully engaged, there was little chance of the bureau's commemorative post squeaking by unscathed.

"This #MLKDay, the #FBI honors one of the most prominent leaders of the Civil Rights movement and reaffirms its commitment to Dr. King's legacy of fairness and equal justice for all," said the Jan. 15 post.

The post was promptly slapped with community notes painting the FBI as the villain in King's story.

"The FBI engaged in surveillance of King, attempted to discredit him, and used manipulation tactics to influence him to stop organizing," said the community note. "King's family believe the FBI was responsible for his death."

While a jury determined in 1999 civil case that "government agencies" had been party to a conspiracy to assassinate King, the community note insinuating the FBI specifically had a hand in King's death does not appear to have been substantiated. The other damning claims about the FBI are, however, a matter of record.

The FBI's commitment

The FBI began surveilling MLK in December 1955 during his involvement with the Montgomery bus boycott, according to an FBI memorandum. Despite its understanding that King was an advocate of nonviolence, the bureau continued to execute covert operations against the civil rights leader for the remainder of his short life, which ended with his assassination on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was especially antipathetic to King, suggesting in one memo that he acted like "a tom cat with obsessive degenerate sexual urges," reported the New York Times.

Hoover's intense dislike for King appeared to have less to do with the activist's adultery and more to do with fears the activist might align himself with the Communist Party, according to MLK documentarian Sam Pollard.

Although King had a communist attorney and other leftists in his orbit, the FBI obtained evidence that King regarded communism as an "alien philosophy." Nevertheless, the bureau painted King as a "whole-hearted Marxist who has studied it [Marxism], believes it and agrees with it, but because of his being a minister of religion, does not dare to espouse it publicly."

The Senate's Church Committee on U.S. intelligence overreach later reported in the 1970s that "rather than trying to discredit the alleged Communists it believed were attempting to influence Dr. King, the Bureau adopted a curious tactic of trying to discredit the supposed target of Communist Party interest — Dr. King himself."

According to the Senate report, the big fear was that King would become a political "'messiah' who could 'unify, and electrify,' the movement."

After King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963, an FBI characterized him as "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country," reported Newsweek.

The committee also confirmed in 1975 that the FBI was responsible for the so-called "suicide letter" in 1964, which denigrated and dehumanized King, told him the "end is approaching," and stressed, "there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is."

— (@)

The bureau ultimately sought to prevent King from speaking, teaching, writing and publishing, and meeting — a tradition the FBI has continued to this day. For example, the FBI has in recent months and years targeted conservative Christians as "potential domestic terrorists" and apparently worked to suppress undesirable speech online.

Social media justice

The community notes on the FBI Martin Luther King Jr. Day post were widely celebrated.

Among those who found this check on the FBI amusing was All-American, all-female swim star Riley Gaines, who wrote, "X is the only platform where a government agency like the FBI can be fact checked in real time by regular ole people ... too good."

Matt Welch, the editor of the libertarian publication Reason, responded, "The only comment you should ever make on this holiday is an apology."

Doug Stafford, chief strategist for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), wrote, "In honor of #MLKDay the @FBI would like you to know they now spy on all Americans, not just civil rights leaders."

After getting ridiculed and mocked over its X post, the FBI told Fox News Digital, "The FBI has long acknowledged the abuses of power that took place under Director J. Edgar Hoover and the deplorable actions taken against Dr. King and others involved in the civil rights movement."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!