Idaho House Passes Legislation to end Taxpayer Funding for Teachers Unions

February 13, 2025  

(Boise) – The Idaho House of Representatives yesterday passed legislation to end taxpayer funding for teachers unions. Introduced by Rep. Judy Boyle (R-Midvale) [pictured here] and Sen. Ben Toews (R-Coeur d’ Alene), House Bill 98 passed by a vote of 40-29. Nineteen Republicans joined all 10 of the chamber’s Democrats in voting against the proposal. If adopted, this Freedom Foundation-supported proposal would make teachers unions more accountable .... 

Freedom Foundation testimony in support of HB 98 before the House State Affairs Committee:

using public payroll systems and personnel to deduct union dues from teachers’ paychecks; contributing taxpayer funds to a teachers union; providing teachers with paid leave to engage in union operations and activism, unless the union reimburses the district for the value of the teacher’s time out of the classroom; paying teachers’ union dues for them with taxpayer funds; providing more of a teacher’s personal information to a union than is disclosable under the Public Records Act, unless the teacher authorizes the disclosure; requiring teachers to meet or interact with a teachers union if they do not wish to do so; and distributing communications or membership solicitations on behalf of a teachers union.

Argentina Announces Withdrawal From WHO

By Owen Evens

The Argentine government has announced its decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) in response to the “catastrophic” economic impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

In a statement shared on social media platform X on Feb. 5, the office of Argentine President Javier Milei [president's photo pictured here] stated that the COVID-19 lockdowns were one of the greatest economic catastrophes in world history, citing the severe and lasting impact on global economies as Argentina’s primary reason for pulling out.

“The WHO was established in 1948 to coordinate global health emergency responses, but it failed its most significant test: it promoted indefinite quarantines without scientific backing during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the statement reads in English translation.

“These quarantines caused one of the largest economic catastrophes in world history.”

Vaccines Were Supposed to End the Pandemic. Excess Death Figures Tell a Different Story.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/vaccines-supposed-end-pandemic-excess-death-figures-different-story/?utm_id=20250207

By Michael Tomlinson

In the ongoing struggle to write the history of the pandemic years, nothing is more important than mortality — did the world’s governments save us from mass mortality or not?

The grand strategy (which as I have said before was neither grand nor strategic) was to lock down the population of whole countries as an interim measure “until a vaccine becomes available.”

This was a novel (and completely unproven) strategy to defeat a supposedly completely novel virus, on the grounds that no human had ever encountered anything like SARS-CoV-2 before so no one would have any preexisting immunity to it.

But the clue is in the name — SARS-CoV-2 was named after SARS to which it was closely related, sharing approximately 79% of its genome sequence according to this paper in Nature.

Montana Senate Eliminates Legal Protections for Assisted Suicide

By Darrell Ehrlick

Currently, physician-assisted aid in dying in Montana occupies a legal gray area. A 2009 Montana Supreme Court ruling said a physician can raise a defense in a homicide case, saying that a patient consented and sought out the drugs, but the high court said that it was ultimately up to the Legislature to make the final decision on the legality of physician assistance in suicide.

On Friday, the Montana Senate passed Senate Bill 136, which would disallow patient consent as a defense to physician-assisted aid in dying [assisted suicide], effectively giving physicians no legal protection if they participated in administering drugs that would end a terminally ill patient's life.

The measure passed 29-20, with all Democrats voting against the measure.  Three Republicans joined the Democrats... 

Sen. Carl Glimm, R-Kila, has carried a similar bill in previous sessions, and pointed to physician assisted aid in dying, often referred to by opponents as "physician suicide," in other countries, such as Canada and European, calling them "slippery slopes."

"It will just keep growing and growing," Glimm said, citing cases where a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder "was talked into suicide."...

Bill Seeking to Prohibit Legal Assisted Suicide Faces Third and Final Reading

Senator Glimm

By Alex Schadenberg

Montanans have a confusing legal situation concerning assisted suicide. 

In 2009, [Montana's] Baxter court decision declared that Montanans have a right to assisted suicide. The Baxter decision was appealed to the Montana Supreme Court where it was decided that there is not a right to assisted suicide in Montana[.]  ... [The Baxter court also] found a "defense of consent" meaning a Montana physician who assists a suicide must prove that there was consent [to death by the person who died.]

Senate Bill 136 legislatively declares that there is no defense of consent. ...

Delaware Residents with Money Will Be Rendered Sitting Ducks to Their Heirs (HB 140)

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

“Aid in Dying” has been a euphemism for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia since at least 1992.

Per the American Medical Association, "physician-assisted suicide" occurs when a doctor facilitates a patient’s death by providing the means or information to enable a patient to perform the life-ending act. "Euthanasia" is the administration of a lethal agent to kill another person.

Persons assisting a suicide or euthanasia can have an agenda. Reported motives have included: the “thrill” of getting other people to kill themselves; and wanting to see another person die.

The proposed Delaware Act (HB 140) has a formal application process to obtain the lethal dose. Once the lethal dose is issued by the pharmacy, there is no required oversight. No witness, not even a doctor or other medical person is required to be present at a patient's death.

Vermont Study Group Rejects Call by Naturopaths to take part in Medical Aid in Dying

A legislative committee is recommending against allowing naturopathic physicians to play a greater role in the state’s medical aid in dying program [also known as physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia].

The Vermont Association of Naturopathic Physicians last year asked lawmakers to allow naturopaths to prescribe the medicine that hastens death.

The group also wants the state to allow its members to sign an advanced directive, and advise patients during the signing of do-not-resuscitate orders.

The Legislature put a study group together to consider the changes to Act 39, Vermont’s medical aid in dying law, and that group recently published its findings, which recommended against making major changes to the law at this time.

Off Topic: Pacific Palisades Reservoir Was Closed and Empty When Los Angeles Wildfires Erupted

 01/10/25

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/01/10/officials-pacific-palisades-reservoir-was-closed-empty-when-los-angeles-wildfires-erupted

The Santa Ynez Reservoir is connected to the Los Angeles water supply system, and authorities said it was shut down for repairs at the time the fires erupted, “leaving a 117 million gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades,” the newspaper reported on Friday.

The news comes as people are questioning why firefighters ran out of water as they tried to save structures and communities from the blaze that has wreaked havoc across the Los Angeles area.

“Department of Water and Power [DWP] officials have said that demand for water during an unprecedented fire made it impossible to maintain any pressure to hydrants at high elevations,” the report noted.

Former DWP general manager Martin Adams said if the reservoir had been ready for operation, the water pressure would have reached the Palisades for a time but would not have fixed the issue entirely.

“It’s unclear when the reservoir first went offline. Adams said it had been out of service ‘for a while’ due to a tear in the cover and that DWP’s vast storage and supply infrastructure still provided water to residents without disruptions, until this week,” the Times report said.

Uruguay Debating Euthanasia

By Alex Schadenberg

The MercoPress reported on January 7, 2025 that Uruguay's future President Yamandú Orsi, the leader of the Broad Front party, who is taking office on March 1, 2025 supports the passing of a euthanasia bill.

Congressman-elect Federico Preve intends to introduce a bill that is similar to a previous euthanasia bill. The MercoPress reported:

According to Preve, the plan is to introduce a new bill that is as similar as possible to the previous one, in a move to speed up its approval. “I have great expectations that by the end of the year, or next year at the latest, Uruguay will have decriminalized euthanasia,” Preve stressed while recalling that Colorado Ope Pasquet's bill “did not even” get a “yes or no” after failing to make it through the Senate's Health Committee. In Preve's view, legal euthanasia is a much-needed alternative and “a right for many people who are in quite complicated situations.”

A bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide was introduced in the Uruguayan Congress on March 11, 2020. My assessment of that Uruguay bill was that it lacked definition allowing it to be widely interpreted.

Hawaii Police Department Opens Murder Probe After Alleged Violation of Hawaii’s Assisted Death Law

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2025/01/04/breaking-news/hpd-opens-murder-probe-after-alleged-violation-of-hawaiis-assisted-death-law

By Star-Advertiser staff

Jan. 4, 2025

Honolulu police said they have opened a second-degree murder investigation after a doctor allegedly administer a lethal prescription dose to an 88-year-old woman in violation of Hawaii’s assisted death law.

Hawaii’s Our Care, Our Choice Act of 2018 allows for the prescription of a lethal medication under certain requirements, including to self-administer the lethal medication for the purpose of ending a person’s life, according to police. “Self-administer” means that a person ”must perform an affirmative, conscious, voluntary act to take into the individual’s body the prescription medication to end the individual’s life,” police said

Police alleged Friday that in October in the Punahou area, a 73-year-old male doctor assisted in administering the prescribed medication.