Day: January 2, 2023

House staffers can expect a hefty pay increase in 2023 — courtesy of outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would raise its maximum annual salary for staffers to $212,000 in a Friday “Dear Colleague” letter to fellow lawmakers.

Pelosi previously established a new minimum annual salary of $45,000 for congressional staffers, a policy she touted in the letter announcing the maximum salary increase.

The outgoing speaker pointed to the House’s need to “retain and recruit the best talent in our nation.”

The maximum pay is considerably more than the salary of most elected House members and senators, which is set at $174,000 a year.

NEW: Pelosi boosts max staff pay to $212k/year. That’s a lot more than members make, and part of a longstanding push to help retain Hill staff. pic.twitter.com/t0sB7APu2n — Chris Cioffi (@ReporterCioffi) December 30, 2022

In March, Bloomberg reported that staff turnover rates …

Ex-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund says a succession of government failures resulted in the Jan. 6 riot.

Sund, who resigned after the Capitol riot, makes the claims in a new book, in which he gives a firsthand account of the events on Jan. 6, 2021, according to The Washington Post.

He argued the federal government’s multibillion-dollar security network – built after 9/11 to gather intelligence about another possible attack – provided no such information about a potential riot.

Sund says the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Capitol Police’s intelligence unit had been alerted weeks earlier about so-called “chatter,” which is typical online, about right-wing extremists arming for an attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress was set to certify the 2020 presidential election results declaring Democrat Joe Biden the winner.

He says the intelligence community failed to take the basic steps to assess the alleged …

Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has filed a petition to transfer her appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court after her election fraud lawsuit was dismissed.

Lake filed the petition Jan. 1.

The state’s Maricopa County court last week dismissed eight of Lake’s 10 counts. Two of the counts, which involved Election Day ballot printing issues and procedural errors, were brought for a two-day trial that did not go in her favor.

“I am standing up for the people of this state,” Lake said on former White House adviser Steve Bannon’s “War Room” TV show on the Real America’s Voice streaming platform.

Lake has not allegedly widespread voter fraud cost her the election, but argues problems with the state’s election system contributed to her narrow loss.

Maricopa Judge Peter Thompson has also rejected a request by Democrat gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs, who has …

While the Biden administration has worked to demoralize America’s fighting force with draconian COVID vaccine mandates, the Washington Free Beacon continues to celebrate our brave men and women fighting on the front lines—and against the Democratic administration’s efforts to decimate the force.

Since the Biden administration implemented mandatory vaccine shots for all soldiers, an already strained fighting force has seen its numbers dwindle: Some 3,717 Marines, 1,816 soldiers, and 2,064 sailors have been discharged for refusing the vaccine. As if being vaccinated against a flu-like virus is necessary to fight in our important forever wars against enemies of freedom across the globe.

The administration was recently forced by Congress to drop its mandate, but no process was created for those who were lost from the force to be reinstated. And the White House still stands by its assault on the troops. …

Readers of this fine publication are well-versed in the fantastical misadventures of America’s First Son, Hunter Biden.

Hunter was 2019’s Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year and probably should have been for all subsequent years. And as much as he’s earned this year’s award, we just can’t bring ourselves to cheapen the prize by awarding him another trophy to toss in the back of his closet, next to the double-headed dildos and anal beads.

If we give him the title again, we’ll have to do it again in 2023, 2024, and beyond.

Because we know in our hearts that Hunter Biden will never stop being awesome.

He is the apex degenerate. Pure animal.

No one is ever going to consistently bring the goods to the highly secretive Man of the Year selection committee at the pace Hunter Biden does, year after year.

So we give up. No more deliberations, Hunter Biden is now and …

Though medical science has made significant advances in researching and treating mental health diseases and developed new drugs each year to control the conditions and symptoms, mental illness remains one of the most persistent issues in society today. “Mental health problems are the single largest cause of disabilities in the world,” reported the Pan American Health Organization in 2019, before the ravages of COVID-19. The organization writes that depression, dementia, anxiety, and alcohol abuse are some of the major disabilities caused by mental health problems.

Research into the root causes of mental health issues has provided promising solutions. Walsh Research Institute, for instance, has made significant breakthroughs in research to unravel the biochemistry behind mental disorders, including anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.

The successful application of research into nutrient-based therapy protocols and other alternative solutions …

You can’t watch TV these days without seeing advertisements for pharmaceutical treatments for depression. The current ads offer drugs to take in addition to the drugs you’re already taking that aren’t working. This would be funny if depression wasn’t widespread, incapacitating, and potentially fatal. It would be funnier still if these pharmaceuticals weren’t linked to an increased likelihood of suicidal or homicidal behavior. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV, commonly known as the DSM IV is the diagnostic manual used by mental health professional to classify mental illness. (It is currently undergoing revision and will soon be released as the DSM V).

There are several classifications for depression: Adjustment Disorder with Depressed Mood, Dysthymic Disorder (which the DSM V seeks to reclassify as Chronic Depressive Disorder), Major Depressive Disorders, and Bipolar Disorders. The DSM V proposes the inclusion of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. If you’ve been paying attention to big …

Although the race for House speaker remains unsettled, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is already moving into the speaker’s suite.

Sharing a video of a man carting a stack of blue containers in what appeared to be the U.S. Capitol, NBC News’ Haley Talbot reported McCarthy “has moved into” the suite of offices and will have to move all his stuff back out if he loses the vote Tuesday. In fact, boxes from McCarthy’s office were spotted being transported to the speaker’s suite as early as last week, per CNN.

GOP Leader McCarthy has moved into the speakers suite but if he fails to secure 218 he will have to move all his stuff back out ⁦@AllieRaffa⁩ pic.twitter.com/Lb2swMgQ2p — Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) January 2, 2023

The flurry of activity kicks off the new year in which Republicans take control of the House by a small margin. McCarthy did not get into …

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested that the United States and the rest of the world should cut off travel from China to prevent another global outbreak of a COVID variant.

The former Trump administration official appeared on Cats Roundtable, a local New York radio show hosted by John Catsimatidis, on Sunday and warned that a mass outbreak in China could cause a second COVID pandemic nearly three years after the first.

“We’re about to do the same thing again. The data is no good, but it sounds like we might have as many as one million – one million, John – Chinese people infected, fifty percent of their population traveling,” Pompeo said.

“There is no reason we should allow the Chinese to do this again, to send Chinese-infected persons around the world knowingly infecting people all across the globe. [Chinese President Xi Jinping] got away with this once. I regret that he wasn’t …