Month: December 2019

A student at Mason High School in Mason, Michigan, is alleging that a teacher at the school did not like her “Women for Trump” pin and forcibly pulled it off her shirt. A police report has been filed, but when the school district’s superintendent addressed the situation in an email to parents, claiming that the incident “does not affect the safety of our students.”

“When your MALE teacher physically grabs your shirt and pulls your women for Trump pin off and wont give it back. So sick of public schools,” wrote 16-year-old Mason High School student Sadie Earegood on Facebook. “NO REASON I should have been assaulted and had my pin pulled off.”

The student told local media that the man involved in the incident is Paul Kato, who teaches media technology at the high school.

“He stood up and walked over to me and aggressively grabbed the pin that was attached to my jacket that said ‘Women for Trump,’” Earegood told Breitbart News. “I kept telling him no and stop but he wouldn’t. I was walking backwards trying to get away from him and then he kept coming towards me each time I took a step back.”

“He put his hands on my shoulder trying to get the pin off,” she added. “Then he took both hands and unlatched the pin from my jacket and put it upside down on his shirt, and said it belongs upside down.”

After Earegood posted about the alleged occurrence on social media, the school’s superintendent addressed the incident in an email to parents.

“This morning, there was an incident reported to the high school administration,” wrote Mason Public Schools Superintendent Ronald Drzewicki in an email to parents. “This incident does not affect the safety of our students or staff, but because the matter appeared on social media, we wanted to provide you with some information.”

“We have followed standard procedure by contacting law enforcement and conducting interviews to determine the facts of the situation,” continued Drzewicki. “Please trust that we are doing our very best to uncover the facts, and that we will take appropriate action when we have a complete understanding of the situation.”

Students say that Kato has not been seen at the school since December 5, the same day the alleged incident occurred, according to a report by WILX 10. The police confirmed to WILX that they are investigating the incident.

The report added that Kato is originally from Nigeria, where he spent ten years establishing a residential soccer school that officially opened in 2018.

Earegood told Breitbart News that while exposing Kato’s alleged behavior on has resulted in her being bullied by her peers at school and on social media, she has nonetheless refused to remain silent and will continue wearing her gear showing support for President Donald Trump.

“People are trying to silence my freedom of speech,” said Earegood to Breitbart News. “They won’t stop me from standing up for what I believe in.”

The student added that her family has filed a police report regarding the incident. The Mason Police Department has reportedly confirmed that police are looking into a report of an alleged assault.

Superintendent Drzewicki did not respond to Breitbart News’ request for comment or clarification on how the alleged incident of a teacher placing his hands on a student “does not affect the safety of students.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.

Doctors on Wednesday reported unusually good results from tests of two experimental drugs in women with an aggressive form of breast cancer that had spread widely and resisted many previous treatments.

One drug showed a particular ability to reach tumors in the brain, which are notoriously tough to treat.

The other pairs a sort of homing device for cancer cells with a payload of chemotherapy that’s released when it reaches its target.

“It’s a guided missile. It’s able to bring the chemotherapy directly to the cancer cell,” said the study leader, Dr. Ian Krop of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Results were disclosed at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium and in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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From 15 percent to 20 percent of breast cancers are “HER2-positive” — they have too much of a protein called HER2 on their cell surfaces, driven by an overactive gene that promotes cancer growth.

Krop led a study of 253 such women to test the guided-missile drug, called T-DXd, given as an infusion every three weeks. These women had tried on average six previous treatments before the experimental drug.

Different doses were tested, and 184 women got what turned out to be the best one. Among those women, 61 percent saw their tumors shrink at least 30 percent. In 6 percent of them, no signs of cancer were seen in at least two follow-up scans.

Although the experimental drug was not tested against others, the response rate is three to four times better than what’s usually seen in this situation, Krop said. The median time until cancer worsened was 16 months, and to see anything hold such serious cancers at bay for more than a year is exciting, he said.

Side effects were substantial, though. About 60 percent of women had low blood counts, nausea, anemia or fatigue, and 15 percent stopped treatment because of them. Most serious: Twenty-five developed lung inflammation, and four died of it.

This is a rare side effect with other drugs for this type of cancer, but it was much more common with the experimental drug. Doctors can watch patients closely and give anti-inflammatory medicines if it occurs, Krop said.

Because these cancers generally prove fatal, the drug “is still beneficial for most patients,” he said.

An independent expert, Dr. Jennifer Litton of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said it may be possible to give patients preventative anti-inflammatory medicines. It’s worth the risk because the drug’s benefit is so great, she said.

The study was sponsored by the drug’s developers, Daiichi Sankyo Inc. and AstraZeneca, and they are seeking approval for the medicine in the U.S., Japan and Europe. Krop consults for the companies.

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Dana-Farber’s Dr. Eric Winer helped lead a study of the other experimental medicine — tucatinib, from Seattle Genetics.

“It’s a drug that’s particularly able to get into the brain,” he said, and half of the 612 participants had cancer that had spread there.

“These patients had nothing” that worked, and they’re often excluded from tests of new drugs because their outlook is so poor, Litton said.

All were given usual treatments — Herceptin and the chemo drug Xeloda — plus tucatinib or dummy pills.

After two years, 45 percent of those on tucatinib were alive versus 27 percent of the others. Among the women whose cancer had spread to the brain, one quarter were alive with no worsening of those tumors a year later. None of the women in the comparison group achieved that.

Diarrhea, fatigue, nausea and some liver side effects were a little more common with tucatinib. About 6 percent of the tucatinib group stopped treatment because of side effects versus 3 percent of the others.

Litton said she put some patients on studies of the drug “and they did really well.”

Seattle Genetics sponsored the study and Winer and others consult for the company.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

We are frogs in boiling water.

When President Trump first blew the whistle — in a now-famous 2017 tweet that misspelled the word “tapp” — on the previous administration’s spying operation against his presidential campaign at the height of the election, Swamp creatures laughed. They ridiculed. They mocked.

It was a lie, they said. Never happened.

And the gaslight media backed them up. They whitewashed the whole thing for their friends in the Obama administration. And for their friends in the federal administrative state.

Today, after enduring two years of spinning, counter-leaks and relentless lies, we know officially what any sensible person knew from the beginning.

The FBI spied on an official they believed — or pretended to believe — was working inside the 2016 Trump presidential campaign on behalf of the Russian government to hijack the election and install a Manchurian candidate who would give America away to Moscow.

The FBI never alerted the Trump campaign to this grave inside threat, obviously, because the Department of Justice believed that the Trump campaign — including Mr. Trump, himself — was in on the giant con.

And therein lies the plotted coup.

Whatever you think of former President Barack Obama or Mr. Trump or Carter Page or James B. Comey or anybody’s foreign policy opinion regarding Russia or NATO or Mexico, only one thing matters in this situation. At the moment these decisions were being made to spy on the Trump campaign, Mr. Obama was president. His administration was at the controls of one of the most sprawling and sophisticated espionage apparatuses ever assembled on this planet.

At that time, Mr. Trump was an avowed political opponent. Any decision made by the Obama administration to spy on officials inside the Trump campaign was of massive, profound constitutional import. It is in these moments where a country is either a nation of laws or a banana republic.

It is either “equal justice under law” or a police state.

So, FBI agents — operating at the highest levels of DOJ authority — sought secret warrant applications normally reserved for our worst enemies such as active terrorists plotting to kill as many innocent Americans as possible.

They cobbled those secret warrant applications together with bad information supplied by — among others — Mr. Trump’s political opponents during the 2016 election. Much of that information was gathered abroad from America’s enemies seeking to sow discord in our elections.

The inspector general found specifically at least 17 “significant errors or omissions” in the FBI’s secret warrant applications.

Again, do not forget, the Obama administration took all these drastic and sloppy steps against a political opponent at the height of a presidential race — without ever alerting the campaign of this dastardly threat inside its campaign.

This is, literally, worse than Watergate. This is worse than the most egregious abuses of power by J. Edgar Hoover in his campaign of spying on political opponents.

The Obama administration officials responsible for this miscarriage of justice and trampling of the Constitution now step forward and admit they spied on political opponents at the height of an election — though they scramble to find softer-sounding terms for it.

And they bleat about how the inspector general found no evidence of “political bias” in their espionage campaign against the Trump campaign.

Give me a break.

First, there is plenty of evidence of deep-seated hatred of Mr. Trump spewed these biased jackboots. Second, what on earth is “political bias,” anyway? Wearing an “I’m With Her” T-shirt while applying for a secret warrant to spy on the administration’s political opponents?

Yeah, well, I am sure John Wilkes Booth was not motivated by “political bias,” either.

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

• Contact Charles Hurt at churt@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter @charleshurt.

More details are emerging following a shooting Wednesday in Jersey City, New Jersey, that left six people dead, including the two alleged shooters.

Officials are now saying that a Kosher grocery store where three of the four victims were shot was specifically targeted.

“There were multiple other people on the streets,” Jersey City Public Safety Director James Shea told reporters Wednesday, according to NBC News. “There were many other targets available to them that they bypassed to attack that place. So it was, clearly, that was their target, and they intended to harm people inside there.”

The shooting started at a nearby cemetery, when Jersey City Police Detective Joseph Seals approached two suspects who were in a van that been linked to a prior homicide.

Seals, an 18-year law enforcement veteran, was shot in the back of the head and later died, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.

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The suspects, who were armed with long guns, then took off in the van before parking outside a kosher grocery store.

A law enforcement official told The New York Times the suspects walked into the store while firing their guns. A pipe bomb was later found in their car, that official said.

A lengthy standoff ensued, with the suspects firing at both law enforcement officers who responded and innocent victims in the store.

While police had yet to name the other three victims, Rabbi Moshe Schapiro of the Chabad of Hoboken and Jersey City identified two of them as members of the Orthodox Jewish community — Leah Minda Ferencz, who owned the JC Kosher Supermarket with her husband, and her cousin Moshe Hirsch Deutsh, a rabbinical student who lived in Brooklyn, according to NorthJersey.com.

Miguel Jason Rodriguez, an Ecuadorian migrant who worked at the grocery store, was identified by his pastor as the final victim.

Officials are investigating the identity and motives of the suspects.

“Last night after extensive review of our CCTV system it has now become clear from the cameras that these two individuals targeted the Kosher grocery location on MLK Dr,” Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop tweeted.

Last night after extensive review of our CCTV system it has now become clear from the cameras that these two individuals targeted the Kosher grocery location on MLK Dr – the 2 JCPD officers that were on a foot post one block away immediately responded/engaged

— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) December 11, 2019

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As of early Wednesday afternoon, police had not yet publicly identified the suspects.

However, the law enforcement official told The Times that the suspects’ names were David Anderson and Francine Graham. A “manifesto-style note” was found in the van, though it did not provide a clear motive for the attack, The Times reported, citing two officials.

Four law enforcement sources also confirmed the suspects’ names to WNBC-TV.

Both outlets reported Anderson has been linked by investigators to the Black Hebrew Israelites, a black supremacy organization.

According to TheBlaze, the group was founded in the late 19th century and combined elements of both Judaism and Christianity to argue that African-Americans descended from the 12 tribes of Israel.

There are multiple offshoots of the group, though more extreme members are taught that “a vengeful black Jesus will soon return to earth to kill or enslave all white people,” the outlet reported.

Even the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center says the Black Hebrew Israelites “advocate the superiority of the black race and that African Americans represent God’s true ‘chosen people.’ As God’s ‘true’ Jews, BHI adherents believe that Jews who self-identify with Israel are ‘scam artists’ and imposters.”

Three sources told WNBC that Anderson was a one-time follower of the group.

A neighbor of Graham’s, meanwhile, told the outlet that Graham met Anderson after sustaining an injury at work.

“[The neighbor] says Graham turned into a ‘dark person’ after they met,” WNBC reported.

“The neighbor also claims Graham was coerced into a militant religion he could not identify; chanting and reading of the New Testament, translated into ‘evil,’ could be heard from her home, he said.”

Unnamed officials also said they had found anti-police and anti-Jewish postings connected to Anderson’s social media page.

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Anti-Christian insanity has officially reached new heights — and it should worry all of us.

Shields of Strength is a Beaumont, Texas, company that sells Christian-themed jewelry and accessories. It also makes replica dog tags with Bible verses on them.

So, imagine its surprise when the military came a-calling and demanded the retailer remove those verses or stop selling the dog tags.

“These are not the government-issued dog tags, these are replica dog tags,” Michael Berry of the First Liberty Institute said during a recent interview on the “Todd Starnes Show.”

“The government can’t discriminate against people and private businesses … on the basis of religion,” Berry said.

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The government disagrees.

“You are not authorized to put biblical verses on your Army products,” Army Trademark Licensing Program Director Paul Jensen told the small business, according to Fox News. “For example, Joshua 1:9. Please remove ALL biblical references from all of your Army products.”

According to the Washington Times, Shields of Strength has been making replica dog tags for 20 years under a licensing program with the Army. Now that business is in jeopardy.

First Liberty — which is representing the company in a lawsuit against the government — says the Army’s order is in violation of both the Constitution and the law.

“Your directive that SoS remove all Biblical references from its Army-licensed products is unconstitutional and violates [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act],” the group said in a Tuesday letter to the service.

Meanwhile, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation claims the company’s “proselytizing merchandise” is “a clear-cut violation” of Department of Defense policy on merchandising, according to the Army Times.

“Such craven utilization of American military logos and related symbology by this sectarian Christian group (Shields of Strength) not only viciously violates well established DoD regulatory law but also poisons the Constitutionally-mandated separation of Church and State,” MRFF founder Mikey Weinstein said in a statement.

Of course, buying the tags remains incredibly voluntary. The problem seems to be that the tags are also incredibly popular.

“If you walk on any military base, Fort Bragg, you name it, you’re likely to see someone wearing a Shields of Strength dog tag or if you go to the base exchange you can get them there,” Berry said, according to WTVD-TV.

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“I think having that on the back of the dog tag brings comfort during a time of need,” an Army vet told the outlet.

“Virtually every unit has contacted us and said, ‘Would you make us a tag with our unit on it?’ We’ve seen the fruit of the mission. Literally thousands of soldiers, airmen, marines, telling us with tears in their eyes how much it’s meant to them, and many times the Gold Star families to be in possession of the dog tag they wore,” Kenny Vaughn of Shields of Strength, according to Fox News. “I don’t understand it.”

Berry also criticized the Army for caving to the MRFF’s complaint.

“You would think the most powerful military in the world would be able to withstand the complaint of an activist group thousands of miles away, but apparently that’s all it takes to bring the military to its knees,” he said.

But on issues of religion, it seems there’s plenty of room for capitulation.

As Fox News reports, this issue has been percolating since July. The common-sense solution is to let the company make the dog tags, but when it comes to issues of religion, common sense can never prevail.

It’s almost entirely predictable. This is what always happens. There’s almost never an individual or entity that stands up for bedrock issues like freedom of religion, either under the Constitution or the First Amendment.

The MRFF has a history of this sort of thing, too.

“This is just a despicable cowardly act, really a publicity stunt, by Mikey Weinstein,” Berry said.

That’s not inaccurate. Organizations such as the MRFF and the Freedom from Religion Foundation survive on the oxygen afforded to them. If starved of that, they wither away.

They needed to be starved of that here and they weren’t. There’s still an opportunity, however, for common sense — and constitutionality — to prevail. Let’s hope the Army does the right thing here.

If it doesn’t, however, First Liberty and Shields of Strength are willing to fight on.

“Nobody who puts their life on the line defending our freedoms should not be able to enjoy those freedoms themselves,” Berry said. “We will not stop fighting for [Shields of Strength].”

Amen to that.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.