Paradise News

Tag: United States

  • Hospice provides more than end-of-life medical care

    Being referred to hospice is being referred to a team of healthcare professionals who are experienced, trained, and passionate about helping patients and their loved ones cope during a transitional time. The hospice team works closely with the patient’s attending physician to individualize the patient’s plan of care and stays in close contact with the physician throughout the patient’s care. The primary focus of hospice care at end of life is ensuring symptoms such as pain, insomnia, shortness of breath, depression, anxiety, agitation, nausea, and emotional/spiritual anguish are managed. By accomplishing this, hospice care enhances one’s quality of life to the greatest extent possible. Hospice aims to make patients as symptom free, alert, and as active as possible for as long as possible.

    Vickie Wacaster, Patient and Hospice Advocate with Aveanna Hospice (formerly Comfort Care Hospice)

    One benefit of hospice care is it utilizes a multi-discipline approach. Hospice does not focus only on the patient; it views the patient and family/caregivers as a unit. Because hospice believes that a patient is more than their medical diagnosis, it provides support that addresses the pt/caregiver’s fears, worries, end of life planning, emotional, and spiritual concerns. Visits are offered by not only a nurse, but an aide for personal care, a chaplain, and a licensed social worker.

    Hospice is cost-effective for the patient and family in many ways. Hospice professionals continually assess the need for equipment and supplies that will promote comfort for the patient. The hospice benefit provides medical equipment related to the hospice diagnosis, such as oxygen, hospital beds, bedside commodes, wheelchairs, over-the-bed tables, and walkers. Other supplies provided by hospice include incontinence, catheter, mouth care, skin care lotions, dressings, and wound care supplies.

    Also provided by the hospice benefit is payment for prescribed medications that is related to the primary hospice diagnosis and symptom management. For example, pain medication, medications for anxiety, constipation or diarrhea, and shortness of breath.

    Early in diagnosing a terminal illness, patients should talk to their physicians about the expected prognosis of their specific disease. In discussing the prognosis, the physician may suggest that hospice be considered a healthcare choice as the disease advances. By offering hospice, a physician is acknowledging there may come a time when it is more feasible to re-direct the focus of care. The family and the patient benefit most from a hospice program when the team has weeks or months rather than only days to assess and provide the desired services the patient and family need. Unfortunately, when enrolling in hospice for only the last week or last days, the hospice team does not have ample time to establish the desired relationship with patients and their loved ones.

    Medicare has disease-specific guidelines known as LCDs that list vital conditions that must be present when determining that a patient has declined to the level approved by Medicare for hospice admission.

    I am always available to speak to you or your family about hospice healthcare’s admitting criteria and benefits.

    “I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.” ~William Penn

    Vickie C. Wacaster, Aveanna Hospice (formerly Comfort Care Hospice) Patient and Hospice Advocate

    Source

  • Fact Check: Fact-checking college enrollment trends in West Virginia

    In recent months, West Virginia University’s administration has attracted national attention, and controversy, for making academic cuts driven by budget shortfalls.

    One of key factor hurting the university’s finances has been declining enrollment. Separately, PolitiFact West Virginia analyzed the statement that during E. Gordon Gee’s WVU presidency, “student enrollments have steadily decreased.” We rated that Mostly True.

    In a July 1 interview with The Daily Athenaeum, WVU’s student newspaper, the university’s then-assistant vice president of enrollment management, George Zimmerman, said declining college enrollment throughout West Virginia figured in WVU’s enrollment troubles.

    “We have a very small population in the state, and it’s getting smaller in terms of high school graduates,” Zimmerman said. “The percentage of students that are going to college has been declining for five years.” (In September, Zimmerman began a new job at Penn State University.)

    As for West Virginia having a “very small population,” he has a point: The state’s population has declined since 2012, with a 4% population loss in just more than a decade.

    But is Zimmerman correct that the rate of West Virginia high school students going to college is also declining?

    He’s very close.

    Data from the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission shows that the collegegoing rate has been declining even longer than five years. It’s been falling since at least 2012. 

    It dipped from 53.3% in 2012 to 45.9% in 2021. Enrollment ticked up during that span, but minimally, by just fractions of a percentage point. The declines accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic, when universities struggled to safely offer in-person education.

    The national college enrollment rate has fallen, too, but not as rapidly as West Virginia’s. Nationally, it has fallen from 66% in 2012 to 62% in 2021. West Virginia’s collegegoing rate has also been consistently lower than the national average during that span.

    Our ruling

    Zimmerman said, “The percentage of students that are going to college (in West Virginia) has been declining for five years.”

    It’s actually been declining for even longer than that. The rate has fallen from 53.3% in 2012 to 45.9% in 2021. A few years during that span saw increases, but they were minimal.

    We rate the statement Mostly True.



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  • Fla. man allegedly showed gun at football game because parent said their son was 'better than his'

    LEESBURG, Fla. (TCD) — Police took a 40-year-old man into custody after he allegedly retrieved his gun at a youth football game because a parent from the opposing team said their son was “better than his.”

    According to a probable cause affidavit, on Sept. 30 at 6:46 p.m., Leesburg Police responded to Leesburg High School after several people called to report a man carrying a gun on campus and threatening people. The suspect, who police identified as Quan Isom, allegedly tried to leave the scene in a gray Dodge pickup truck. Officers, however, arrived in time to conduct a traffic stop in the school’s parking lot.

    Police told Isom and his wife to get out of the car. His wife exited the vehicle, cooperated with commands, and informed police Isom had a gun. Isom allegedly began arguing with police and even threatened to kill the K9 on scene. Once he exited the car, he reportedly refused to get on the ground when ordered to by police, so he was “eventually escorted to the ground and detained.”

    The affidavit says Isom’s wife told police they attended the matchup because their young son plays in on a Pop Warner football team, a youth league. The game was going on at the same time as the Leesburg High School homecoming. Isom allegedly argued with parents from the opposing team, which is when the parent “made a remark about their son being better than his and it upset the defendant.”

    Isom allegedly walked back to his car and spectators in the area saw him retrieve the gun and place it in his waistband. The parents subsequently fled the scene.

    Police wrote in the affidavit Isom “carelessly and openly displayed the firearm during the school-sanctioned event of homecoming and the Pop Warner football game.” Isom’s wife reportedly “rushed to him and urged him to calm down and get in the truck.”

    His wife reportedly told the responding officers she made Isom place the gun under the driver’s seat. She said Isom was drunk, which police confirmed after finding empty beer bottles and whiskey. Police also located a revolver that was “ready to fire due to the location of the rounds in the cylinder.”

    Isom has 11 prior convictions, so by law he is not allowed to own a gun.

    Lake County Jail records show Isom was booked on charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a gun on school property, carelessly exhibiting a weapon, and resisting without violence. His bond is set at $40,000.

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  • Fact Check: No, a Bill Gates-funded COVID-19 vaccine won’t be released into the air

    Did Bill Gates fund a COVID-19 vaccine that will be released into the air without the public’s consent? Don’t hold your breath. This is misinformation.

    A vast majority of Americans have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines. But some social media users are claiming that soon people won’t have a choice about whether to get vaccinated.

    An Oct. 4 Instagram post shared a screenshot of an article with the headline, “Bill Gates mRNA ‘air vaccine’ approved for use against non-consenting humans.”

    The article included a photo of two people wearing medical coveralls and masks in a helicopter marked with the letters WFP, which stands for the World Food Programme, an international organization that fights hunger.

    This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    (Screengrab from Instagram)

    A search for this headline led to an Oct. 3 article published by The People’s Voice, a site that regularly shares misinformation. The article cited research conducted by a Yale University team y and claimed this “air vaccine will ‘indiscriminately’ force jab the entire planet with mRNA, delivering the toxic chemicals straight into a person’s lungs.”

    It said the “air vaccine” has been approved by multiple governments, but did not specify which ones.

    In August, Yale researchers published results from a study they conducted on whether a messenger RNA, or mRNA, COVID-19 vaccine could be administered without a needle. The researchers found that a vaccine delivered intranasally into animals’ lungs could effectively protect against COVID-19.

    This inhalable vaccine, made with nanoparticles carrying the COVID-19 vaccine, was tested on mice, not humans, said Mark Saltzman, a Yale biomedical and chemical engineering professor who led the study.

    “Contrary to reports on social media, this airborne technique would not work in humans,” Saltzman said. “Humans must receive a controlled dose that is administered directly into the nose.”

    Additionally, this type of vaccine would need approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration before it would be made available to the public.

    Saltzman said his research team did not receive funding from Microsoft Corp. co-founder and philanthropost Gates — who is often the subject of baseless conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 vaccine — or the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Instagram post and article did not provide any evidence to support this claim.

    The Yale University study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

    We rate the claim that a “Bill Gates mRNA air vaccine” has been approved for use “against non-consenting humans” False.



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  • Newsletter / 2023-10-06


    Newsletter / 2023-10-06

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  • Fact Check: No, this is not a real ABC News headline tying journalist death to Hunter Biden coverage

    A misleading social media post promotes what appears to be a news story that says a journalist covering Hunter Biden has been shot and killed.

    “Journalist covering the Hunter Biden case dies after being shot 7 times in his home; no arrests made,” read what looked like an ABC News headline featured in an Oct. 3 TikTok video that garnered thousands of social media interactions.

    The headline, however, is fake. 


    (Screenshot of TikTok)

    TikTok identified this video as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)

    On Oct. 2, ABC News posted a story headlined, “Philadelphia journalist shot and killed in his home; no arrests made.” The story is about the fatal Oct. 2 shooting of Josh Kruger, a former city of Philadelphia employee and freelance journalist. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he was shot multiple times in his home. On Oct. 6, police issued a warrant for the arrest of 19-year-old Robert Davis.  

    Several news outlets have reported that Kruger’s writing focused on LGBTQ+ issues, homelessness, and substance abuse issues — not Hunter Biden. In a review of Kruger’s published writing, PolitiFact did not find any articles about Hunter Biden; Kruger did occasionally comment on Hunter Biden on his social media.

    We found no ABC News story with this headline. Mark Osborne, the ABC News editor whose byline appeared in the TikTok screengrab, confirmed to PolitiFact that he never published a story with that headline. 

    ABC News has posted several stories about Kruger’s death with headlines such as “Slain Philadelphia journalist Josh Kruger allegedly shot by 19-year-old he was ‘trying to help’: Police,” and “Journalist who advocated for homeless and LGBTQ+ communities shot and killed at home.” 

    Fake or edited headlines are a common way to spread misinformation, so always double check a trusted news source.

    We rate the claim that an ABC News headline said Kruger died after covering Hunter Biden False.

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.



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  • 17-year-old accused of fatally shooting his sister-in-law and young nephews

    NORTHFIELD, N.H. (TCD) — A 17-year-old male stands accused of fatally shooting his sister-in-law and her two young children in their home last year.

    According to an Oct. 4 news release from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, a Merrimack County grand jury indicted Eric Sweeney on three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of 25-year-old Kassandra, 4-year-old Benjamin, and 23-month-old Mason Sweeney.

    The jury also indicted Sweeney on one count of falsifying physical evidence for allegedly trying to “alter, destroy, conceal, or remove” a Taurus .40 caliber handgun to intentionally compromise the investigation.

    On Aug. 3, 2022, shortly after 11:30 a.m., Northfield Police responded to 56 Wethersfield Drive and found the three victims. Each had died from a single gunshot wound. Police arrested Eric Sweeney on suspicion of their murders.

    According to WMUR-TV, due to the gravity of the charges, he was tried as an adult.

    Police logs obtained by the news source allege that Kassandra Sweeney’s husband called officials in July 2022 and expressed he was worried about his family’s safety. He reportedly told police he located a weapon in their garage, as well as others in the woods near their home.

    Eric Sweeney remains in custody. His arraignment has not yet been scheduled.

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  • Fact Check: Nikki Haley’s claim that Joe Biden added 20 million ineligible people to Medicaid is wrong

    Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticized President Joe Biden about entitlement program enrollment and claimed he’s responsible for adding millions of ineligible recipients to Medicaid.

    “Under Joe Biden, we now have more than 42 million people on food stamps and nearly 100 million people on Medicaid. That’s almost a third of the country. Biden sees that as an accomplishment,” the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador told a New Hampshire crowd Sept. 22. “He actually blocked states from moving people from welfare to work. And he put 20 million people on Medicaid who aren’t even eligible, then stopped states from taking them off.”

    For this fact-check, we’ll focus on the claim that Biden added 20 million ineligible people to Medicaid and stopped states from taking them off.

    The number of Medicaid participants reached record highs during the COVID-19 pandemic because of a provision in a 2020 law that stopped states from removing enrollees. 

    Biden extended the pandemic health emergency several times, which also extended the provision. But former President Donald Trump enacted the law, not Biden.

    Haley’s claim that 20 million are ineligible for Medicaid is inaccurate, experts told us. It’s based on estimates of how many people could have been removed once removals were permitted.

    The figure includes people who could be deemed ineligible because of procedural issues, such as failing to turn in or update paperwork. That sometimes occurs when states have outdated enrollee contact information or when enrollees don’t understand how to complete renewal packets within the allotted time frame.

    “The notion that this was President Biden’s doing is certainly a big lie and a radical oversimplification on the amount of people being ineligible,” said Leigh Ku, director of George Washington University’s Center for Health Policy Research. “How many are ineligible is yet to be determined; they are still being processed. It’s a huge undertaking in the states and they are slowly working through those claseloads.” 

    When contacted for comment, Haley’s campaign pointed to data showing that Medicaid rolls have ballooned since the pandemic’s onset and referred to reports that estimated around 18 million people would lose coverage by the end of the removal process. Neither is evidence that Biden is responsible for adding millions of ineligible people to the program.

    Continuing Medicaid enrollment started under Trump

    In March 2020, during Trump’s presidency, Congress passed the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act.” It included a policy that let states receive extra federal funds for Medicaid if they didn’t remove anyone from the program during the public health emergency. The provision is called continuous enrollment.

    During the health emergency’s three-year duration, people were not removed from state programs unless they voluntarily withdrew or moved out of state. During continuous enrollment, Medicaid enrollment grew from 71 million in February 2020 to 94 million in April 2023.

    In Congress’ fiscal year 2023 budget, the continuous enrollment provision was no longer linked to the public health emergency and ended April 1. Since then, states have resumed what is typically an annual process of reevaluating enrollees, removing those who don’t meet Medicaid’s requirements.

    The Biden administration extended the public health emergency several times before it ended May 11. Concerned that large numbers of people would lose health care coverage, and that moving too quickly could incorrectly disqualify would-be Medicaid recipients, the administration urged states to slow down their reviews.

    This concern proved prescient in September, when the federal government found that about half a million people — including a significant number of children — in 29 states had been improperly removed because of computer errors. Their coverage was restored. 

    How many are ineligible?

    States recently started reevaluating their Medicaid rolls, and it’s not yet clear how many people will be removed. Even if that number reaches or exceeds Haley’s 20 million figure, that doesn’t mean those people weren’t eligible when they signed up.

    “They were technically all eligible because the law extended their eligibility,,” Ku said. “Some of them would normally have fallen off eligibility because they got a job, or because they may have aged out of Medicaid or simply because they forgot to turn in their paperwork — that’s one of the major things that happens is people forget.”

    As of Oct. 2, around 13.2 million of the 94 million enrollees have had coverage renewed, while 7.8 million were removed, according to KFF. KFF found that around 73% of the people removed from Medicaid were for procedural reasons, not necessarily because they were no longer eligible.

    Our ruling

    Haley claimed Biden “put 20 million people on Medicaid who aren’t even eligible, then stopped states from taking them off.”

    A 2020 law included a policy that let states receive extra federal money for Medicaid if they didn’t remove any enrollees during the COVID-19 public health emergency. That was signed into law by Trump, not Biden.

    Haley’s claim that “20 million” are ineligible is based on the large number of people added to Medicaid during the pandemic, and some estimates of how many could be removed during reevaluations. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t eligible when they signed up, or that all are ineligible now. And some will be deemed ineligible for reasons such as failing to turn in paperwork.

    States are still reevaluating their Medicaid rolls and available data shows that, so far, about 7.8 million people have been removed. But most were taken off the rolls because of procedural errors, such as paperwork discrepancies, not because they didn’t meet eligibility requirements.

    We rate this claim False.



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  • Calif. man accused of fatally shooting missing girlfriend, dismembering and burning her body

    GILROY, Calif. (TCD) — A 31-year-old man faces a murder charge after his missing girlfriend’s remains were located and positively identified this week.

    Alyssa Salazar was reported missing to the Gilroy Police Department on Aug. 10, and her family said they had not seen her since July. KTVU-TV reports her last known sighting was July 26 as she left a library in Salinas and got into her boyfriend’s Honda Accord.

    On April 27, almost exactly three months prior to her disappearance, Salazar reportedly went to Gilroy Police and said her boyfriend, Iban Escobedo, assaulted and raped her. Police issued a warrant for his arrest. Around the same time, he allegedly contacted Salazar’s family and said he would kill them.

    According to the Mercury News, Gilroy Police issued a warrant for Escobedo’s arrest in May, but he was not taken into custody until late August. Police conducted a traffic stop after seeing his Honda Accord, and while looking at the vehicle, officers reportedly noticed “red-brown stains on the front passenger door frame and front passenger seat foam.” They also discovered a 9 mm handgun in the vehicle.

    Gilroy Police said detectives executed a search warrant on a property in unincorporated Santa Clara County and discovered human remains. The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Crime Laboratory positively identified the remains as Salazar’s.

    The Mercury News reports Escobedo’s sister has ties to the property. A witness nearby reportedly told detectives they saw a “fire burn for several days in barrels next to the trailer in late July 2023.” They located a barrel with “burned human bones including pieces of rib, skull, and hand” inside. Detectives also reportedly found blood evidence in a bathtub.

    Other witnesses allegedly told police Escobedo confessed to fatally shooting Salazar, dismembering her, and burning the remains.

    Officials sent the remains to a crime lab for DNA testing, which came back as a match for Salazar. The medical examiner officially declared her deceased after that.

    Investigators subsequently identified Escobedo, who was already in custody, as their primary suspect. He is now being charged with murder.

    Source

  • Biden Abuses His Dogs?!

    Judicial Watch Sues for Records of Attacks by Biden German Shepherd
    Judicial Watch Sues Education Department on Book Bans, Moms for Liberty
    San Francisco Prioritizes Guaranteed Income to Black/Latino Transgenders
    Menendez Corruption Case: Will He Beat the Rap Again?

     

    Judicial Watch Sues for Records of Attacks by Biden German Shepherd

    Biden’s dog is out of control.

    We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Secret Service for records of aggression and bites by President Joe Biden’s Dog, Commander (Judicial Watch Inc, v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:23-cv-02960)).

    We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Secret Service, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, failed to respond to a July 31, 2023, request for all records involving the “Biden family dog, ‘Commander,’ including but not limited to communications sent to and from [Secret Service] officials in the Uniformed and Non-Uniformed Divisions involved in White House operations and the Presidential Protection Division.”

    Acquired in December 2021, Commander, a pure-bred German Shepherd, replaced another German Shepherd, Major, which was reportedly “given to family friends” following a series of attacks on Secret Service and White House staff. In April 2022, we released records detailing multiple attacks and damages to Secret Service members by Major at both the White House and Biden’s lake home in Wilmington, DE.

    In July, we uncovered records from the DHS in a related lawsuit revealing 10 attacks by Commander on officers of the Secret Service between October 2022 and January 2023. In several cases, the agents required medical care, including at a hospital.

    The records included a November 5, 2022, email exchange between a Uniformed Division officer and the November 3 attack victim, the first officer asked, “Doing alright [redacted]? That’s freaking crazy that stupid dog – rolling my eyes [redacted].” The victim replied, “My leg and arm still hurts. He bit me twice and ran at me twice.” The colleague replied, “What a joke [redacted] – if it wasn’t their dog he would already have been put down – freaking clown needs a muzzle – hope you get to feeling better [redacted].”

    Commander reportedly has been removed from the White House after its most recent attack on a Secret Service agent and other White House staff. According to our source, President Biden has mistreated his dogs. We have learned that he has punched and kicked his dogs.

    It is beyond belief that even after we exposed attacks on 10 Secret Service personnel, Joe and Jill Biden have continued to let their dog menace and attack agents and White House staff. Let’s be blunt: the dangerous dog could kill someone. This continuing Biden administration cover-up is dangerous corruption.

     

     Judicial Watch Sues Education Department on Book Bans, Moms for Liberty

    Let this sink in: Biden’s Education Department and its union buddies are ganging up on America’s mothers. Read that again.

    We’ve gone to court to expose them. We filed a FOIA suit on behalf of the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) against the U.S. Department of Education (ED) for records regarding book bans, the organization Moms for Liberty, and Ron DeSantis (Daily Caller News Foundation v. U.S Department of Education (No. 1:23-cv-02768)).

    Our lawsuit aims to uncover the truth about the desperate new effort by the Biden administration and its leftist teachers’ union allies to smear and target parents who oppose sexually explicit and other extremist content being made available to schoolchildren.

    We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Department of Education failed to respond to separate August 8, 2023, requests for:

    • All email records (including attachments, URL links and electronic database links) of Miguel Cardona to or from (President of the National Education Association (NEA)) Rebecca (Becky) Pringle and (President of the American Federation of Teachers) Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten from June 1, 2023, to July 15, 2023, on the gov domain.
      • All communications about book bans or book banning.
      • All communications about Moms for Liberty and/or Ron DeSantis.

    And:

    • All email records (including attachments, URL links and electronic database links) sent and/or received by Miguel Cardona to or from any/all: President of the American Library Association Emily Drabinski, from June 1, 2023, to July 15, 2023, on the gov domain.
      • All communications about book bans or book banning.
      • All communications about Moms for Liberty.

    On July 4, 2023, EducationWeek reported on a speech Cardona gave on July 3 in Orlando, FL, at the NEA’s annual representative assembly. Cardona addressed statements regarding “woke ideology” and “indoctrinating” students made by Republican presidential candidates at the Moms for Liberty National Conference in the days prior to the NEA event:

    Cardona dismissed that type of rhetoric as “divisive drama,” slamming conservative policymakers who have pushed for book bans, restrictions on instruction about racism, limitations on the rights of LGBTQ+ students, and school choice policies that divert public money to private schools.

    Moms for Liberty was founded in 2021 in Florida by two former school board members. The group initially fought against mask mandates in Florida schools. The group then expanded its mission to support parental rights legislation to give parents more say in their children’s education. The parents group has come under increasing attack by the extremist left.

    “The Biden administration can’t be allowed to hide this information from the American people,” said Daily Caller News Foundation Editor-In-Chief Michael Bastasch. “Citizens have a right to know if their government is plotting against moms or working behind the scenes to keep pornographic books in schools.”

    Separately, we filed suit in June against the U.S. Department of Justice for all FBI communications from bureau officials using several systems and databases regarding investigations carried out after an October 4, 2021, memo from Attorney General Merrick Garland instructing investigators to target American parents due to an alleged “increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools”

     

    San Francisco Prioritizes Guaranteed Income to Black/Latino Transgenders

    If you’ve been worried about “financial insecurity” in “trans communities,” consider moving to San Francisco. Taxpayers there are funding, among other things, gynecological care for black/Latino transgenders (biological men) and support for trans and nonbinary people who engage in “survival sex trades.”

    We received 1,719 pages of records from the City of San Francisco showing the city prioritizes tax money for black/Latino transgenders (biological men) in a program that distributes free money to transgender individuals. The records show that the taxpayer-funded “Guaranteed Income for Trans People” (GIFT) program also allowed illegal aliens to apply; allowed people who “engage in survival sex trades” to apply; and the use of the funds by participants is virtually unrestricted.

    We obtained the records through a November 18, 2022, California Public Records Act (CPRA) request to the San Francisco Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector for:

    Records and communications regarding the application and approval process for transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and intersex individuals receiving Guaranteed Income for Transgender People (GIFT) benefits.

    Records identifying the legality or constitutionality of using transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and intersex status as a factor in deciding who receives GIFT benefits.

    We filed a follow-up request with the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector on January 10, 2023, for:

    Records and communications regarding the administration of funds to participants of the Guaranteed Income for Transgender People (GIFT) benefits.

    Records and communications regarding the development of eligibility requirements for GIFT benefits.

    Records and communications regarding financial literacy services and workshops associated with the GIFT program.

    Mayor London Breed announced the launch of the Guaranteed Income for Trans People (GIFT) program on November 16, 2022. The mayor’s office stated in a press release that the city will “provide low-income transgender San Franciscans with $1,200 each month, up to 18 months to help address financial insecurity within trans communities.”

    The program began disbursing funds in January 2023.

    An undated document from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, titled “Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development Pre-paid Card Policies and Procedures,” states:

    Selected participants in this program will identify as transgender and extremely low-income (<30% of Area Median Income, approximately less than $28,000 per year for a household of one person). Within this population, there will be a specific focus on Black and Latinx transgender women. A monthly $1,200 stipend will be provided to participants so they may focus on their basic physical and mental health and wellness without worrying about income. Prepaid cards are being utilized because some participants may not have bank accounts.

    ***

    [The Mayor’s Office] will purchase Prepaid cards with funding supported by the General Fund and dedicated specifically for the Transgender Basic Income pilot program.

    A March 2022 city document sets the program’s intended opening date as October 2022 and is titled “Guaranteed Income Program for Transgender People.” It details the criteria for guaranteed income eligibility and sets race and sexual identity quotas:

    The collaborative leading this program will focus on a target population of low-income transgender, non-binary, gender nonconforming and intersex (TGI) individuals residing in San Francisco County. The program will prioritize enrollment and retention of BIPOC [Black, Indigenous People of Color] trans and nonbinary people who also engage in survival sex trades, living with disabilities, elders, living with HIV/AIDS, undocumented, monolingual Spanish speakers, formerly incarcerated, and unhoused and marginally housed. [Emphasis in original]

    ***

    We will work collaboratively to create equity guidelines for enrollment, centered on the reality of how racism disproportionately disadvantages BIPOC, black trans women, and undocumented monolingual Spanish speakers. The program enrollment will ensure the 55 participants is 66% BIPOC, at least 30% Black Trans Women, and at least 20% Latinx Trans Women.

    Lyon-Martin Health Services will provide wrap-around peer-led services such as gender-affirming primary medical and holistic care, gynecological and sexual health care, mental health services, case management, crisis response services, financial literacy training and workforce development services, and outreach and harm reduction services, to the enrollees. [Emphasis in original]

    A November 2022 email chain among San Francisco government and Treasurer & Tax Collector’s Office (TTX) officials has the subject line “DRAFT — ReliaCard FAQ for GI [guaranteed income] recipients,” which includes concerns about the use of legal names (“dead” names) versus aliases (chosen names):

    Thanks! This looks great. I’d like to see if we can provide more nuance and explanation around the legal name question as this will be very important for the transgender pilot. My understanding is that the city will allow a provider to enroll participants using their chosen name vs legal name and it may be very challenging for someone to put their dead name on the card. So I think we can provide more context – “when you use the card in person you may be asked to verify your id. If you don’t have id that matches the name on the card, you could be turned away.”

    A February 2022 email from Kimmie Wu in the Treasurer & Tax Collector’s Office to her supervisor, Tajel Shah, details how the office hired a firm to push “diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging” training and hiring:

    TTX [Treasurer & Tax Collector’s Office] has hired a firm to advance our Racial Equity initiative. TTX has budgeted for these costs. The scope of the work includes the following:

    A. Executive Leadership Team Assessment and Training

    1. Racial equity assessment – Assess leadership competencies in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. This assessment should be leveraged to develop capacity building and lead to clear recommendations that help leaders lead with equity in mind.
    2. Customized facilitated learning sessions – Work with the varying levels of comfort and practice with concepts of structural and organizational equity including: coaching around racial equity in supervision and program delivery design, customer service, decision-making processes, communications and daily practices.

    B. All Staff Training Sessions

    1. Department wide training – Facilitate one to two Department-wide Racial Equity trainings for All Department Staff. The content will be based on discussions with the Core Team and the consultant assessment of the Department’s racial equity journey.

    C. Restorative Justice Dialogue and Reflection

    Facilitate restorative justice conversations in order to provide insight on how systemic and historic issues of racism and bias are inherently part of conversations, which is therefore limiting full participation and reflection on how work environments and systems of communication (Human Resources/Discipline/Performance) are being heard/interpreted. Garner insights from key conversations to alleviate immediate issues as well as reflect on changes to be made, which may include training.

    D. Hiring, Recruitment, and Promotion Strategy

    1. Address specific job classifications that lack racial diversity, including Managers, Administrative Analysts, Accountants and Auditors. The consultant shall develop recommendations for identifying barriers to application and employment within these job classifications with the aim to broaden diversity and inclusion throughout the hiring and employment cycle. Recommendations may be shared with the Central Department of Human Resources and/or Civil Service. The consultant will also interview the teams to identify group norms and biases within the sections that inhibit full participation by staff.
    2. Review current hiring and recruitment policies and make recommendations to ensure they align with ORE’s racial equity framework. The consultant will make recommendations to broaden recruitment strategies to increase diversity in candidate pools.
    3. Review current employee assessments tools and surveys and recommend the inclusion of questions to gauge sentiment on the department’s effort to address diversity and inclusion. The consultant will evaluate current exit interviews and recommend changes to questions to ensure a racial equity lens is applied.
    4. Review any current candidate exit interviews and propose new questions to gauge sentiment on the department’s effort to address diversity and inclusion and to solicit any feedback or recommendations in this area.

    E. Core Team Racial Equity Capacity Building

    1. Customized learning sessions on racial equity leadership & facilitation – interactive workshops and learning sessions that build capacity to lead with equity through dialogue, analysis and reflection. The sessions should build a foundational understanding and framework for racial equity in the workplace and basic terminology and definitions. The learning sessions must help the Core Teams to push beyond this shared understanding to address topics such as: the role of team members in leading organizational antiracist changes and make recommendations to transform practices that are heavily influenced by white-supremacist culture and practices. The learning sessions should address the specific racial equity work to be done by the cohort within the department building on the racial equity plan.
    2. Coaching, facilitation & technical assistance on racial equity plan implementation – Operationalizing the Racial Equity Action Plan as well as provide the Team with tools that help foster inclusion and racial equity across the Agency. The consultant will also provide coaching and support racial equity working groups including: barriers to hiring, supplemental questionnaires, minimum qualifications, etc.

    These disturbing new documents confirm how, among other leftist extremist policies, San Francisco is abusing tax dollars to give cash to individuals based on race and transgender quotas.

     

    Menendez Corruption Case: Will He Beat the Rap Again? 

    I’ll let you decide why Biden’s Justice Department has suddenly decided to go after Sen. Robert Menendez again for corruption. Could it possibly be that he’s voted the wrong way on matters important to the Biden administration, the Obama operation, and Deep State? Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, takes a look in Investigative Bulletin: 

    The government’s September indictment on corruption charges of Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, opened with a bang. Prosecutors displayed sensational photographs of gold bars, a Mercedes Benz, and piles of cash—more than $480,000—found at the home of Menendez and his wife, Nadine.

    Justice may endeavor to be blind, but the prosecution of politicians is inherently political. The Justice Department failed to convict Menendez in a high-profile 2017 corruption case and doubtless is eager to take another shot at him. And while reliably liberal on many issues, Menendez has taken a hard line on Cuba and Iran as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, often thwarting Biden—and earlier Obama administration—initiatives. He’ll have zero support from the White House and Democratic Party establishment as he fights the new charges.

    Menendez and his wife are charged with bribery, honest services fraud, and extortion. Also charged are three businessmen with ties to Egypt. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said the conspirators were engaged in “a corrupt relationship” that included payments by the businessmen to the Menendez couple of “hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes, including cash, gold, a Mercedes Benz, and other things of value—in exchange for Senator Menendez agreeing to use his power and influence to protect and enrich those businessmen and to benefit the Government of Egypt.”

    Corruption concerns have swirled around Menendez for decades. A product of the famously corrupt Hudson County, New Jersey, political machine, Menendez was schooled in the amoral world of Union City Mayor William Musto, who hired him as aide in the 1970s. By the early 1980s, he had turned on Musto and testified at the mayor’s corruption trial. By 1986, in a campaign touting his Cuban roots and “reformer” image, he was elected mayor of Union City. From there he rose through state government and into the halls of Congress.

    Judicial Watch has been ringing alarm bells about Menendez for more than a decade. In 2012, we put him on our list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” In 2014, we highlighted concerns about Menendez and a “never-ending saga of political corruption and cronyism.”

    In 2017, it looked like the jig was up for Menendez. The Justice Department indicted him and an old friend and benefactor, Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgan, on charges of bribery and honest services fraud. The government charged that the duo conspired to corruptly influence Menendez’s “official acts” and defraud the U.S. of the “honest services of a public official.” Sound familiar?

    In the new case, the government similarly charges that Menendez “agreed to take a series of official acts and breaches of his official duty” in return for bribes from the three Egypt-connected businessmen.

    First, the government charges, Menendez “improperly pressured” an Agriculture Department official about an Egypt-related business directly benefiting the co-defendants.

    Second, Menendez tried to “disrupt” a New Jersey state investigation related to the co-defendants.

    Third, Menendez recommended the appointment of a U.S. Attorney that he believed would be more friendly to one of the co-defendants under federal investigation.

    Back in 2017, Judicial Watch took a close look at that first Menendez federal corruption case. We noted that a year earlier, the Supreme Court had significantly narrowed the definition of official acts and honest services fraud in the McDonnell ruling. Prosecutors now needed to prove a direct “official action” connected to an illegal payment. An “official act” must be more than “setting up a meeting, talking to another official, or hosting an event,” the court ruled. We were skeptical that prosecutors in 2017 could meet that standard. It turned out, we were right. Menendez beat the rap.

    Will history repeat itself in the new Menendez prosecution?

    Let’s go back to those gold bars and piles of cash. The meaning of the photos is of course to suggest corrupt intent. How could gold bars and $400,000 in cash stashed at home not be corrupt? That’s a smart media play by the prosecution.

    But Menendez struck back. The cash and the gold? Blame the communists—blame Cuba—an argument that may find sympathetic ears at a jury trial. “For 30 years,” he told the media in a statement that highlighted his hardscrabble Cuban background, “I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.”

    Weightier perhaps is how Menendez will exploit McDonnell. We’ll have more to say on this as the trial nears, but based on the current indictment, the government could have trouble drawing a quid pro quo that will satisfy a jury. The co-defendants may have provided something (the quid, the cash, the gold) but what did they get in return (the quo)? Given what we currently know about the case, Senator Menendez appears to have been singularly unsuccessful in delivering for his friends.

     

    Until next week,

     

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