The Food and Drug Administration is supposed to inspect all factories, foreign and domestic, that produce drugs for the U.S. market. But a KHN review of thousands of FDA documents — inspection records, recalls, warning letters and lawsuits — reveals how drugs that are poorly manufactured or contaminated can reach consumers.

White House is preparing to REPLACE the ailing Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Trump aides are 'working on a list of nominations and gearing up for another Kavanaugh-style Senate fight' after the 85-year-old missed her first oral arguments in 25 years 

She's the subject of a Hollywood biopic and is very much alive, but the White House has been in contact with Senate Republicans about possible replacements for the ailing 85-year old Supreme Court justice. The White House is even working on a short-list of possible nominees to replace Ginsburg, who broke her 25-year streak when she began missing oral arguments on Monday. The White House counsel's office is even trading names with the office of new Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham. Politico published a list of them Thursday.

Revealed: Buzz Aldrin took Holy Communion on the MOON (but NASA kept it secret)

Former astronaut Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin may have been the second man to walk on the moon, but he was the first - and only - person to celebrate Holy Communion on it.

Inside the lunar module just hours before following Neil Armstrong onto the heavenly body in 1969, Aldrin celebrated the Christian sacrament with wafers and a bottle of wine - a fact the U.S. government reportedly refused to make public at the time.

The Apollo 11 astronaut's plan to broadcast the religious act back to Earth was blocked by NASA after an atheist filed a lawsuit complaining about a previous holy broadcast on the Apollo 8.

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to land on the moon, celebrated communion on the heavenly orb

 

Religious: Buzz Aldrin, pictured left in 1969, and right at age 83, was the first and only person to celebrated Holy Communion on the moon

Holy Communion is a Christian act of worship in which parishioners recreate the last meal Jesus had with his disciples, known as the Last Supper.

Before stepping out of the module, Aldrin pulled out a small plastic container of wine and some bread which he had brought from Webster Presbyterian church near Houston, where he was an elder. 

Aldrin had received permission from the Presbyterian church's general assembly to administer it to himself.

Armstrong, reportedly a deist, chose not to participate.

By Bob Barney

The prophecies of matthew 24, by Jesus Himself are the most important words in the entire Bible. If you could only read one chapter of the Bible, I would choose this one as one of the most important ones to read, as everything that one needs to know what is going to happen at the end times are explained here. Granted, there are many other portions of the Bible that expand on these prediction, giving us even more clarity on what is going to happen during the Great Tribulation, but just studying these words gives the reader a great deal of information. In fact, there is more information in this chapter than most have ever realized. In this series of short articles on Matthew 24, I am attempting to show, line by line, some of these lesser known aspects of this most important speech by Christ that are sometime overlooked.

English: Total Solar eclipse 1999 in France. * Additional noise reduction performed by Diliff. Original image by Luc Viatour. Français : L'éclipse totale de soleil en 1999 faite en France. * Réduction du bruit réalisée par Diliff. Image d'origine Luc Viatour. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Get ready for the Super Blood Wolf Moon: First full moon of the New Year will come with a lunar eclipse and appear amazingly close to Earth

On the night of January 20-21, the full moon will coincide with a total lunar eclipse, which will cause Earth's satellite to take on an eerie red glow in an effect that's come to be known as the Blood Moon. At the same time, the moon will sit at the closest point to Earth in its orbit, when it will appear massive in the night sky. It will make for a striking combination of both a supermoon and the Blood Moon, and marks the last total lunar eclipse we'll see until 2021.

The Ancients   <MORE>

What does the BIBLE say about Eclipses?

On July 26, 1775, Benjamin Franklin became the first postmaster general of the United States, a position he held under the British crown before the Revolution.

Franklin’s public career began when he organized Pennsylvania’s first volunteer militia during threatened attacks from Spanish and French ships.

He then proposed a general fast, which was approved by the Colony’s Council and printed in his Pennsylvania Gazette, Dec. 12, 1747: “As the calamities of a bloody War … seem every year more nearly to approach us … there is just reason to fear that unless we humble ourselves before the Lord & amend our Ways, we may be chastized with yet heavier Judgments, We have, therefore, thought fit … to appoint … a Day of Fasting & Prayer, exhorting all, both Ministers & People, to observe the same with becoming seriousness & attention, & to join with one accord in the most humble & fervent Supplications; That Almighty God would mercifully interpose and still the Rage of War among the Nations & put a stop to the effusion of Christian Blood.”

Franklin published evangelist George Whitefield’s sermons, thereby spreading the Great Awakening revival. He established a volunteer fire department, a circulating public library, an insurance company, a city police force, a night watch and a hospital. He set up the lighting of city streets and was the first to suggest Daylight Savings Time. He invented bifocal glasses, the Franklin stove, swim fins, the lightning rod and coined the electrical terms “positive” and “negative.”

Our hertitage at The Plain Truth goes all the way to Ben Franklin! Honest!

Plain Truth

Nearly all of Franklin’s printing and writing was undertaken for profit, but in the two months before his retirement in 1748, he devoted his press to a political cause: pressuring the Quaker-dominated Assembly to establish a militia for defense against marauding attacks by the French. Franklin employed all the skills he had learned as a writer and printer to promote self-defense, including broadsides, blank forms, lottery tickets, and pamphlets. He thus initiated a media campaign that brought together speech (meetings and sermons), printing, and manuscript (the signing of forms, petitions, and lottery tickets, as well as the writing of speeches and pamphlets.

The laboured and long-continued Endeavours [to make] Provisions for the Security of the Province having proved abortive, I determined to try what might be done by a voluntary Association of the People. To promote this I first wrote and published a Pamphlet, entitled, PLAIN TRUTH, in which I stated our defenseless Situation in strong Lights, with the Necessity of Union and Discipline for our Defense, and promis’d to propose in a few Days an Association to be generally signed for that purpose. The Pamphlet had a sudden and surprising Effect. I was call’d upon for the Instrument of Association. And having settled the Draft of it with a few Friends, I appointed a Meeting of the Citizens in the large Building before-mentioned.

The House was pretty full. I had prepared a Number of printed Copies, and provided Pens and Ink dispers’d all over the Room. I harangu’d them a little on the Subject, read the Paper and explain’d it, and then distributed the Copies which were eagerly signed, not the least Objection being made.

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography

A German cardinal on Friday provoked anger and controversy when he claimed the Catholic church was not responsible for sexual abuse by its clerics, and instead sought to pin the blame on homosexuality.

“What has happened in the church is no different from what is happening in society as a whole,” Cardinal Walter Brandmüller said. “The real scandal is that the Catholic church hasn’t distinguished itself from the rest of society.”

A study commissioned by the German Bishops Conference and published last year found that more than 3,600 children were sexually abused by Catholic clergy in Germany between 1946 and 2014.

But Cardinal Brandmüller claimed that only a “vanishingly small number” of clergy had committed abuses. He said the real problem was homosexuality and claimed it is “statistically proven” that there is a link between homosexuality and abuse.

Society “forgets or covers up the fact that 80 per cent of cases of sexual assault in the church involved male youths not children,” he told Germany’s DPA news agency in an interview a few days ahead of his 90th birthday.

Read More

by Steven Petrow, The Washington Post

Not that long ago, I would not have been able to tell you what the acronym "CBD" stood for, let alone what it was used for. CBD, or cannabidiol, is most commonly extracted from hemp, but it can also come from marijuana plants, which is why it is sometimes confused with its trippy chemical cousin THC. Unlike CBD, THC produces a high when smoked or eaten.

Today, we are living in a CBD world, with tinctures, ointments and vaping oils popping up everywhere. Celebrities from Gwyneth Paltrow to Willie Nelson are CBD believers, and if you frequent the right coffee shops, you can even get a shot of cannabidiol in your latte.

In my small North Carolina town, a flier at the local convenience store exhorts me to "experience the phenomenon" of CBD products, promising it can provide "relief from" diabetes, alcoholism, schizophrenia, back and knee pain, and other conditions.

"Everybody who buys the product comes back and raves about it - including my mother," the enthusiastic checkout clerk says.

And, I must add, including me.

I am now taking a CBD tincture daily. After all the hype, I wanted to see whether it might have a positive impact on my lifelong struggle against depression. (To be clear, the tincture I use is based on hemp-derived CBD, which contains less than 0.3 percent THC, which is short for tetrahydrocannabinol. That's not enough to get high even if I drank the entire bottle, several experts explained.)

Despite the growing popularity of CBD, the science supporting the claims remains pretty slim at this point. So why so much interest in a substance researchers still know so little about? I'd say hype, hope and big bucks. To date, the Food and Drug Administration has approved only one drug containing CBD, Epidiolex, for previously uncontrollable pediatric seizures. (To get the FDA's OK, a new drug must be rigorously studied in clinical trials.)

The Hemp Business Journal estimates that the hemp CBD market totaled $190 million last year in a category that didn't exist five years ago.

By 2022, the Brightfield Group, a cannabis and CBD market research firm, says sales are expected to reach $22 billion. The December passage of the 2018 farm bill will certainly help; the measure amended the term "marihuana" to exempt hemp as a controlled substance as long as it contains no more than 0.3 percent THC. Laura Freeman, chief executive of Homestead Alternatives, a Kentucky maker of CBD products, told me that "this is the first bright spot we've had in farming in a long time. We finally have a crop that has potential."

With that kind of enthusiasm, as one CBD-user asked me, "What's the harm?"   Read More

Political cartoonist A.F. Branco had a very funny illustration a few days ago:

image: https://www.wnd.com/files/2018/12/12-31-18-A.F.-Branco.jpg

Gore’s environmental hypocrisy is well-documented. Criticism of the former vice president’s lifestyle goes back over a decade. A 2007 ABC article entitled “Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’? – A $30,000 Utility Bill” shocked supporters and critics alike.

“If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn’t care,” said the president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research at the time. “But he tells other people how to live and he’s not following his own rules … he is not living the lifestyle that he advocates.”

Hilariously, the left sees attacks on Gore’s hypocrisy as unfounded. “I think what you’re seeing here is the last gasp of the global warming skeptics,” scoffed a former Gore adviser in response to criticism. “They’ve completely lost the debate on the issue so now they’re just attacking their most effective opponent.”

Most effective opponent? Really? Can’t you do any better than Gore as a spokesman for the green movement? People aren’t (necessarily) criticizing Gore because they’re climate change deniers; they’re legitimately criticizing him because he’s a hypocrite of the first order.

“While warning of the dire consequences if the rest of us don’t urgently dial back our energy consumption, Gore has not made those same sacrifices himself,” observes the Daily Signal.

Supporters will hastily assure us Gore’s 10,000 square foot home is “green” because he buys “carbon offsets.” How nice to know he’s excused from even pretending to follow his own advice because he’s rich enough to pay someone who claims they’re planting trees in Namibia.

Read more at https://www.wnd.com/

The Angels of Auschwitz: How a Polish midwife and a Jewish gynaecologist helped saved the lives of 3,000 women who gave birth in Hitler's hellish death camp (although only 30 of the babies survived)

Stanisawa Leszczyska (pictured right) was transported to Auschwitz (middle) in 1943 with her daughter Sylwia after the pair were caught delivering false documents and food to ghettoized Jews in ód, Poland. Ms Leszczyska was sent to work in the women's hospital when SS doctors discovered she was a midwife - a structure she later described as 'wooden barracks' with 'numerous gaps gnawed in the walls by rats.' Gisella Perl (left), a Jewish gynecologist, was sent to Auschwitz in 1944. Here, she saved thousands of pregnant women from being experimented on by Dr Josef Mengele.

Deafness could be reversed, research suggests.

Scientists have discovered how to regrow cells in the ear that are critical for hearing.

Viruses, genetics and even existing drugs could trigger little hairs to regrow in the inner ear, according to a study by the University of Rochester.

These hairs are the first step in picking up on noises and are not naturally replaced when killed off by age or overexposure to loud noise.

Deafness could be reversed as scientists discover how to re-grow lost cells in the ear (stock)

Humans do not regenerate hair cells in the inner ear once they are lost, which leads to permanent hearing damage.   MORE

A meme posted on the “Rowdy Republican” Facebook page, which has around three-quarters of a million followers, claimed Dec. 30 that “every Senate Democrat voted to suppport [sic] $46 billion for border security” back in 2013.

Verdict: True

A 2013 immigration bill that included $46.3 billion for border security was supported by all 52 Democrats in the Senate and only 14 Republicans. The bill was part of a bipartisan push for comprehensive immigration reform that included a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.

Fact Check:

The Rowdy Republican Facebook page shared the meme in response to the ongoing government shutdown, which centers on President Donald Trump’s insistence on, and Democratic opposition to, $5 billion in funding for a border wall.

“Do you think Democrats are hypocrites?” asked the post.

All 52 Senate Democrats, joined by 14 Republicans and 2 independent senators, did vote in favor of a 2013 immigration bill that included substantial funding for border security. The bill, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, was never voted on by the House of Representatives, which was controlled by the GOP at the time.

The bill, which sought to “provide for comprehensive immigration reform,” would have funded $46.3 billion in border security to be transferred from the Treasury to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Trust.

That spending included $30 billion to train at least 19,200 additional border patrol agents on the southern border and $4.5 billion to carry out a border security strategy developed by the Department of Homeland Security. The bill would have also given $8 billion for fencing, infrastructure and technology, as well as $750 million for E-Verify, a system to help employers ensure their employees are legally allowed to work in the U.S.

Republican support in the Senate was contingent upon increased border security, though 32 Republicans still voted against the bill. The legislation included a 13-year pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants, which led many detractors to refer to it as an “amnesty” bill.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said back in 2013 that a path to citizenship was necessary to secure Democratic support for the immigration bill.

MORE

Foreword to today's story on France:    What's going on in France is not the nationalist movement many Trump supporters are claiming. In fact, as time goes by, we will see that Russia, communist like George Soros' groups, and anarchist behind these riots.  Good will not result from these so-called "nationalistic" movements.  A Nazi-like Germany will spread all over Europe.  It is coming, and maybe sooner, rather than later!

Eiffel Tower is shrouded by smoke as Paris burns into the night: Iconic landmark shines through choking black pall after Yellow Vest protesters set cars ablaze for the seventh weekend as they call on Macron to go  Click here

The streets of Paris have been set ablaze during 'yellow vests' protests in Paris this evening leaving the Eiffel Tower shrouded in thick black smoke, after riot police fired tear gas at crowds earlier today. Protesters have set cars alight and left them to burn in the streets of the capital city, as protests against the French government's tax policies resumed for the seventh consecutive week.  Shocking images show the iconic tower masked by a covering of smoke and cars engulfed by burning flames sit abandoned on the roadside as demonstrators continued their stand off with authorities.

Tucker is 100% accurate in this commentary why America is in decline. The reason? Morality, or lack of it.  As God leaves our families, as the middle class goes broke, the nation begins to decline. That is what is happening. In the Bible, God claims that our nation is going to be destroyed from with. Read Lev 26, Deut 28, to understand this.   This is our fate. Neither Donald Trump, nor any man can stop it alone. Yes, maybe Trump has given us more time, but the decline in this nation is not stopping....

It is liberal communist Democrats that's really waging the war on women!

As Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders gears up for a potential 2020 presidential run, allegations regarding the mistreatment of women on his 2016 campaign may hinder his chances at the White House.

Former staffers on the Sanders campaign have been detailing instances of sexism and sexual harassment while working on his presidential bid in 2016, according to a New York Times report published Wednesday.

After a letter circulated in December referring to a “dangerous dynamic” between the men and women on Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, claims of rampant “sexual violence and harassment” have been on the forefront of discussions among former Sanders supporters.

The letter, which was signed by more than two dozen women, requested to sit down with the Vermont senator and his closest advisers to discuss the issue at hand. (RELATED: Bernie Sanders Team Met To Discuss ‘Bigger’ 2020 Campaign Strategy)

The Sanders campaign has also been hit with accusations of sexism stemming from the pay disparity between genders. Salary records reportedly show that male staffers earned thousands of dollars more than female staffers for the same jobs.

“Was it too male? Yes. Was it too white? Yes. Would this be a priority to remedy on any future campaign? Definitely, and we share deeply in the urgency for all of us to make change,” Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, told The NYT. “In 2016, as the size of our campaign exploded, we made efforts to make it a positive experience for people. That there was a failure pains me very much.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders attends a press conference on July 24, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The allegations of sexism and sexual harassment have raised questions among progressive Democrats as to whether a President Sanders would sufficiently fight for women’s interests, especially in light of the #MeToo era.

MORE

Beijing has a devastating plan to force the world out of the East and South China Seas — and it could cost the US 10,000 lives.

They’re the pride of the US fleet: enormous 100,000 tonne, 333m long nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. But Beijing thinks they’re Washington’s achilles heel.

Rear Admiral Lou Yuan has told an audience in Shenzhen that the ongoing disputes over the ownership of the East and South China Seas could be resolved by sinking two US super carriers.

Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reports Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue”.

RELATED: China’s island fortresses ‘impossible’ to defeat

His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.

“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.

He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.

“We’ll see how frightened America is.”

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman is silhouetted during a sunset. The ability of such ships to survive a modern battlefield is being questioned. Picture: USNSource:Supplied

FIGHTING WORDS

Rear Admiral Lou Yuan is deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences.

In his speech, he said there were ‘five cornerstones of the United States’ open to exploitation: their military, their money, their talent, their voting system — and their fear of adversaries.

Admiral Lou, who holds an academic military rank — not a service role — said China should “use its strength to attack the enemy’s shortcomings. Attack wherever the enemy is afraid of being hit. Wherever the enemy is weak …”

READ MORE

Christopher Steele, the former British spy who prepared the Russia “dossier” that has led to more than two years of investigations into President Donald Trump’s campaign, has told a London court that he was hired to provide a basis to challenge the legitimacy of the 2016 presidential election in the event that Trump won.

The Washington Times reported Monday (original links):

He said the law firm Perkins Coie wanted to be in a position to contest the results based on evidence he unearthed on the Trump campaign conspiring with Moscow on election interference.

His scenario is contained in a sealed Aug. 2 declaration in a defamation law suit brought by three Russian bankers in London. The trio’s American attorneys filed his answers Tuesday in a libel lawsuit in Washington against the investigative firm Fusion GPS, which handled the former British intelligence officer.

In an answer to interrogatories, Mr. Steele wrote: “Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie. It engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie LLP to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election.

“Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and HFACC Inc. (also known as ‘Hillary for America’) could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election.”

(Read the full Washington Times article here.)

Countless people, including a former federal prosecutor, seem oblivious to one of the greatest abuses, outrages, and tragedies of our criminal justice system: innocent people are forced to plead guilty every day.

Indeed, the Innocence Project alone has exonerated 31 people who spent a combined 150 years in prison on guilty pleas. That is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

This horrific injustice is solely attributable to the unchecked power of prosecutors who now function as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. They have unfettered discretion, no supervision, no limits, and most federal judges defer to them at every turn.   MORE

There are two judges who I know do not simply defer. One is Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the judicial hero of my book who will preside tomorrow over the proceedings against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

This story from Dec 10,2018 is being repeated, as more and more Trump just can't pick a loyal staff

Veteran pollster Pat Caddell told Breitbart News that President Donald Trump will not be re-elected if he does not change his White House team and “purge” the Republican Party of politicians and consultants “bought” by the “donor class.”

Caddell criticized Republicans for not holding accountable Democrats who, while campaigning, expressed opposition to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) speakership bid following the year’s midterm elections.

“A lot of these people were going to end up supporting her,” said Caddell. “They were lying that they weren’t going to support her. Now, the Republicans are responsible, in part, for this, because they don’t hold anybody’s fee the fire.”Caddell added, “I don’t understand why some of the Republicans don’t reach out across the aisle and say, ‘Look, we’ll deliver a bunch of votes if you run somebody and we’ll try to do a bipartisan House, the way Willie Brown was kept speaker in California, and the same thing also happened in Texas in another year. But the Republicans are so pathetic, it is beyond my description. They should be out there saying, ‘These people are lying. People who’ve run [against Nancy Pelosi] have already said they’re voting for her,’ and they’re not being harassed on social media or in any kind of campaign on Facebook, or online, or even in the newspapers, saying so-and-so lied, starting with the new senator from Arizona who came in and voted for Chuck Schumer as her first act, which she said she would not do.”

Caddell continued, “This is not what they promised. The point is they can be held responsible for what they said. Basically this is a cynical belief that the voters are too stupid to care about what they were promised and voted for, and the Republicans share in that cynicism. It’s a Washington phenomenon. The voters are so stupid, we can do whatever we want. It really opens up the question of exactly the kind of politics we have. … This is nothing but a way to be cynical. There are still votes that [Nancy Pelosi] doesn’t have, yet, but no pressure is being on brought on these people to say, ‘This is not what you promised. You can’t do this.’ The Republican Party is an incompetent political operation of the first order.”

“Assad must go, Obama says.”   So read the headline in the Washington Post, Aug. 18, 2011.  The story quoted President Barack Obama directly:

“The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. … the time has come for President Assad to step aside.”

France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s David Cameron signed on to the Obama ultimatum: Assad must go!

Seven years and 500,000 dead Syrians later, it is Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron who are gone. Assad still rules in Damascus, and the 2,000 Americans in Syria are coming home. Soon, says President Donald Trump.

Read more at https://www.wnd.com