ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The More Alarmists Talk, The More We Know Global Warming Is A Scam

Posted By on June 10th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/08/the-more-alarmists-talk-the-more-we-know-global-warming-is-a-scam/

It’s said that conspiracies can’t remain secret forever because someone eventually talks. This is certainly true of the global warming swindle. The climate fanatics have a habit of regularly revealing that they’re running a racket.

The most recent example occurred last month during a “Critical Climate Moment?” segment on CBS that featured its global warming “expert.” When asked why an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius in global temperature has been determined to be a tipping point, the network’s “climate specialist” admitted it’s a “symbolic” figure. 

“Because, I mean, humans chose it, we chose 1.5, we chose 2 degrees,” said meteorologist Jeff Berardelli, whose entire on-camera spiel was an exercise in fearmongering based on speculation.

So there it is. A number pulled out of the ether. No (real) science behind it. A benchmark used to do nothing more than frighten the public – a Menckenian hobgoblin.

It’s almost routine for the alarmists to give up the game. We’ve seen them inadvertently admit that the objective of the global warming scare is an opportunity to:

Abolish capitalism, “change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” and install a command-and-control economy. 
Change our political system.
Redistribute wealth.
“Build a better world” that will surely be based on economic and social central planning.
“Bring about major structural changes in economic growth and development.”
Pursue personal and religious ambitions – at the expense of others.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Fauci Is Starting To Look Guilty, Guilty, Guilty On ‘Gain Of Function’

Posted By on June 10th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/10/fauci-is-starting-to-look-guilty-guilty-guilty-on-gain-of-function/

As the “lab-leak” theory for COVID-19 gains increasing credibility, Dr. Anthony Fauci must answer for whether he had any role in supporting Chinese researchers who created this monster. So far, his answers aren’t exactly helping his case.

For those not following this story closely, it now appears likely that COVID-19 didn’t just happen in nature, but was the result of so-called “gain of function” research in a Wuhan lab, where scientists “spiked” a virus found in animals so it could infect humans. If true, the Chinese are directly responsible for the resulting pandemic’s massive economic and human cost.

Until just recently, the press and the “experts” – including Fauci – dismissed the lab-leak theory as a Trump-concocted conspiracy. Not anymore, and now there’s the question of Fauci’s involvement. What have we learned since? Nothing that exonerates him, that’s for sure. Here are the highlights:

Fauci’s Ever-Changing Story

Over the course of three weeks, Fauci has changed his tune three times when it comes to the question of whether he helped funnel taxpayer money to gain-of-function research.

When Sen. Rand Paul pressed Fauci on the question on May 11, he categorically denied it.

“The NIH has not ever, and does not now, fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute,” Fauci said.

Two weeks later, he told Sen. John Kennedy that he had no way of knowing whether the Chinese used grant money from the NIH for such studies.

Then last week Fauci dismissed the grant – which he said totaled $600,000 over five years – as insignificant.

“The Wuhan lab is a very large lab to the tune of hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. The grant that we’re talking about was … an average of about $125,000 to $140,000 a year.”

BOOKS Comments turned off

Sydney Williams: “Defying Hitler” by Sebastian Haffner

Posted By on June 10th, 2021

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

“It is this lack of self-reliance that opens the possibility of immense catastrophe of civilization, such as the rule of the Nazis in Germany.”   Sebastian Haffner (1907-1999)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       China in 2021 is not Germany in 1933, nor is the United States. History never repeats itself exactly. The past, despite Antonio’s remark to Sebastian in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, is not necessarily prologue. But knowledge of the past provides warning signs. The book is a cautionary tale to those who believe in the goodness of big government. They forget what evil people, in the name of the common good, can do.

In this personal, Orwellian-like memoir, Sebastian Haffner attempts to answer the question of why “no individuals ever spontaneously opposed some particular injustice or iniquity they experienced…”, an accusation, he wrote, that applied to himself. “What,” he asked, “became of the Germans?” Haffner was born in 1907, so his earliest memories are of the Great War, a war that was not fought on German soil. “It took place somewhere in distant France.” To a generation of German school boys, war was seen as a “great, thrilling, enthralling game between nations,” which became “the underlying vision of Nazism.” By the spring of 1919 the Nazi revolution was already fully formed and potent: “It lacked only Hitler.” He quotes Bismarck who once said that moral courage is a rare German virtue but “it deserts a German completely the moment he puts on a uniform.”

We read of the hyperinflation of 1923, the year Haffner turned sixteen: “The old and unworldly had the worst of it. Many were driven to begging, many to suicide. The young and quick-witted did well.” The decade of 1914-1923 was a time when a sense of balance, tradition and continuity were abandoned, and many youths turned nihilistic. How, for example, were elders to explain to the young why Germany lost the Great War. As the 1920s wore on, those like Haffner wanted to see the world they loved preserved, but they were becoming a minority: “We knew we could not talk with many of our contemporaries because we spoke a different language.” Hitler was master of promising “everything to everybody.” He evoked the glorious memories of pre-war 1914, as well as the triumphal, anarchic looting of 1923. In doing so, Haffner experienced the loss of “fun, understanding, goodwill, generosity and a sense of humor.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Deadly Results of Defunding the Police Makhi Buckly, 19, my colleague’s grandson, became a casualty on Memorial Day. By Robert L. Woodson Sr.

Posted By on June 10th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-deadly-results-of-defunding-the-police-11623259226?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The Woodson Center family lost one of our own on Memorial Day. Makhi Buckly, the 19-year-old grandson of Carl Hardrick, one of our most faithful leaders in youth violence prevention, was fatally shot in Hartford, Conn. Makhi was a student athlete in his freshman year at American International College in Springfield, Mass. When Carl called to tell me the terrible news, his words broke my heart: “It’s my job to keep kids safe, but I can’t even protect my own grandson.”

Our grief is shared by hundreds of minority families that have lost children to senseless violence over the past year. In June 2020, 3-year-old Mekhi James was killed on his way home from a haircut, riding in the back seat of a car in Chicago. A week later, 10-year-old Lena Marie Nunez-Anaya was killed after a stray bullet came through the window of her Chicago apartment. In July 2020, 7-year-old Natalia Wallace was shot in the forehead as she played outside, also in Chicago. Eleven-year-old Davon McNeal was struck by a stray bullet shortly after a Fourth of July peace cookout organized by his mother in Washington. In April, 11-month-old Dior Harris was shot and killed in the back seat of a car in Syracuse, N.Y. Two other children who were riding in the same car were also wounded.

Over the past few years, the deaths of unarmed black people at police hands—including the murder of George Floyd —have rightly generated national outrage. But the number of unarmed blacks killed by police represents a fraction of those who are killed each day in our neighborhoods. Many of these victims are children. In 2020 nearly four children and teens were shot and killed each day in America on average. Yet the national press habitually ignores any victim who isn’t killed by the police, distorting our understanding of what is really going on.

The movement to “defund the police,” which rose to prominence after Floyd’s death, has actually gotten innocent black people killed. As police have pulled back, our neighborhoods have been left unprotected. Crime has skyrocketed. Major American cities saw a 33% increase in homicides last year as a pandemic swept across the country. Preliminary Federal Bureau of Investigation data show that the U.S. murder rate increased by 25% in 2020. Between Dec. 11, 2020, and March 28, 2021 (after the Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved a budget that shifted $8 million from the police department to other programs), murders in Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed, rose 46% compared with the same period the year before.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Refugee Camp for Families of Islamic State Fighters Nourishes Insurgency Violent ideology and money-making schemes flourish at Al-Hol in Syria, which houses women and children; punishment for dancing is death By Isabel Coles and Benoit Faucon

Posted By on June 10th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/refugee-camp-for-families-of-islamic-state-fighters-nourishes-insurgency-11623254778?mod=hp_lead_pos5

The United Nations warned last year that Islamic State is trying to use al-Hol escapees to develop cells in Europe.

AL-HOL, Syria—A refugee camp set up to shelter women and children after the defeat of Islamic State has instead turned into a mini-caliphate itself, where female leaders nurture the group’s violent ideology and run money-making schemes that help keep the insurgency alive outside the razor wire.

Authorities have recorded more than 40 murders, at least 10 of them beheadings, in the 736-acre camp since the start of the year. Most of the victims were accused by Islamic State of collaborating with camp authorities, according to the Rojava Information Center, an independent volunteer-staffed research organization based in northeast Syria.

Late last year, an Iraqi woman was strangled in front of her children with an electric wire after she posted a video on Instagram of herself dancing in her tent, an activity forbidden under the strict Islamist doctrine imposed by the group, say people in contact with al-Hol prisoners. On March 20, another 18-year-old woman, also Iraqi, was shot dead after being accused of being an informant, these people said.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia responsible for guarding al-Hol, say they lack the resources to properly secure the camp, which has grown into a small city of more than 62,000. Most Western nations have refused to systematically repatriate citizens who moved to Syria during Islamic State’s rise and were trapped there after its collapse.

What remains of Islamic State is making the best of the international stalemate. In this slum-like camp dubbed “Europe’s Guantanamo,” the group enforces its hard-line version of Islam, exfiltrates some detainees to its strongholds in Syria and takes a cut on the millions of dollars raised by sympathizers to free them, according to a recent United Nations report.

“Everyone in the camp wants to get out,” said Amal Bilifad, a Moroccan mother who says she unwittingly followed her husband to Syria and tried in vain to flee the self-declared caliphate after he was killed in an airstrike.

In recent months, fugitives from al-Hol have made it back to Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Belgium, according to judicial records and counterterrorism officials.

Part of the difficulty in controlling the camp lies in its complex structure. It is both a detention facility and a haven for people who were displaced by the conflict and cannot return home. Its biggest section is made up of Iraqi families including men, almost half of the residents, closely followed by a separate area made up of Syrians.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Biden OMB Doubles Down on Redefining Mothers as ‘Birthing People’ in Budget Proposal By Caroline Downey ???!!!???

Posted By on June 10th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-omb-doubles-down-on-redefining-mothers-as-birthing-people-in-budget-proposal/

During a congressional hearing Wednesday, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Shalanda Young defended the 2021 Biden budget proposal’s redefinition of mothers as “birthing people.”

Republican Representative Jason Smith, a top-ranking member on the House Budget Committee, noted that the replacement of the word “mother” for the gender-ambiguous phrase, in reference to funding maternal health care, was unprecedented for a budget plan.

“The budget requests $26 million to reduce maternal mortality and eliminate race-based disparities in outcomes among ‘birthing people.’” Smith said. “This is a shift from recent budgets that referred to maternal health issues as women’s issues. I’ve never heard the term before, can you explain what it means?”

“There are certain people who do not have gender identities that apply to female and male, so we think our language needs to be more inclusive on how we deal with complex issues,” Young responded.

Incorporating jargon of both gender and racial inclusivity, Biden’s budget stipulates that over $200 million in funding will be allocated to reduce the high rate of maternal mortality and “race-based disparities in outcomes among birthing people.” The latter term is instead of “mothers,” which encompasses the strictly female capabilities of both child delivery and child-rearing.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Woke Inquisitors in the Medical World By Joel Zinberg

Posted By on June 10th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/woke-inquisitors-in-the-medical-world/

A recent ‘controversy’ reveals how politically correct ideology is harming health care.

Four hundred years ago, Italian astronomer Galileo was persecuted for advancing Copernicus’s theory that the earth and other planets rotate around the sun. This heliocentric theory violated the prevailing belief dating back to Aristotle and engrained in Christian theology that the sun and planets rotate around a stationary earth. Galileo was tried for heresy and placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life. Science would eventually vindicate Galileo.

Today’s scientists and physicians face a different orthodoxy that explains all disparate health outcomes as the result of structural or systemic racism. Doubters and those who investigate genetic and scientific alternative explanations face their own latter-day inquisition. Just ask Howard Bauchner, editor in chief of JAMA — the Journal of the American Medical Association — who was recently forced to resign. While the remaining JAMA editors offered fulsome praise in a farewell editorial citing his accomplishments, including a commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, make no mistake: He was purged for a thoughtcrime.

Dr. Bauchner’s offense was that he presided over JAMA when it aired a podcast titled “Structural Racism for Doctors — What Is It?” in late February. The podcast featured two white physicians — JAMA deputy editor Ed Livingston and Mitchell Katz, an editor at JAMA Internal Medicine, president and CEO of New York City’s public-hospital system NYC Health + Hospitals, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Katz described structural racism as societal policies or practices that perpetuate racial inequality, as opposed to individuals’ racist beliefs. Dr. Livingston wondered if “structural racism is an unfortunate term to describe a very real problem.” (emphasis added) He worried that people offended by being labeled racist would not address the societal barriers to equal opportunity. JAMA’s tweet promoting the podcast stated, “No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care? An explanation of the idea by doctors for doctors. . . .”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Coming Backlash against Woke Public Schools By Michael Farris

Posted By on June 10th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/the-coming-backlash-against-woke-public-schools/

Parents have had enough of the politicization of their local schools.

The reports coming out of the school systems of Portland, Ore., and its suburbs are simply terrifying. Children are being taught the narrative that America is fundamentally evil, and the rioters who continue to wreak havoc on that once-beautiful, quiet city are held up as heroes. As Christopher Rufo has reported, “The schools have self-consciously adopted the ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ as their theoretical orientation, activated through a curriculum of critical race theory and enforced through the appointment of de facto political officers within individual schools.”

And it is working. The schools have become, Rufo notes, “a school-to-radicalism pipeline.”

But it is not just in radicalized Portland or Seattle where these forces hold sway. In my own home county of Loudoun County, Va., the radicals have seized control and plunged with abandon in a radical direction, leaving much of our community gasping at the temerity of their tactics and shuddering at the implications for the future of our community and our nation should they succeed.

Loudoun is the school district that suspended its teacher, Tanner Cross, for having the audacity to speak for one minute at a recent school-board meeting in opposition to a proposed sexual/political mandate. Let that sink in. Before the policy was in place, a highly regarded teacher was suspended for simply disagreeing with a proposed policy.

The legal organization I lead, Alliance Defending Freedom, represents Tanner. I was astounded when, in the midst of a hearing seeking a temporary injunction to reinstate him, which the court granted Tuesday, the school district’s lawyer volunteered the fact that he was the eighth employee in the past two years who has been suspended for out-of-school speech. Apparently, consistently violating the First Amendment rights of its employees makes everything all right in the minds of this school district.

Parents know that the curriculum has recently turned hard to the left. Racial and sexual politics are the prime directive of the school system. Every child will be immersed. And every teacher will recite the party line. No dissenting allowed.

The school district seems oblivious to the fact that they are losing not just conservative parents, but the great bulk of the middle-of-the road families who simply want their children to get a quality academic education.

The leadership of the Loudoun County Public Schools may be woke, but they are blind. They do not seem to see the growing signs of an educational revolution that is stirring in communities all across the nation. Parents have simply had enough of the politicization of their local schools and the attempts to turn their children into young but full-throated activists for the progressive movement.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Poisonous Fruit of Appeasing Iran’s Mullahs by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on June 10th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17452/appeasing-iran-mullahs

The Arabs clearly see what the Biden administration, Britain, Germany and France are refusing to see — that Iran has ambitions not only to acquire a nuclear bomb, but also aggressively to export its “Islamic revolution” and terrorism on a global scale.

It is also important to note that one of the missions of Quds Force is to “liberate Jerusalem and Palestine,” a euphemism for the elimination of Israel.

“The Quds Force is in Yemen to launch attacks on Mecca and Medina and their surroundings [in Saudi Arabia]. The goal of the mullahs in Tehran is to attack Muslims and inflict the greatest possible harm on them.” — Walid Al-Ghamidi, Saudi writer, YouTube, June 5, 2021.

“The Houthi’s missiles and drones nearly hit the holy sites in Mecca and Medina. How can Iran invest in the bombing of Saudi Arabia while claiming… that it seeks to liberate Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque? Iran’s claim to support Islamic holy sites is not related to any religious beliefs. It is related to regional ambitions, expansionist dreams, and striving to export the Iranian revolution to various countries in the region.” — Mohammed Hassan Mufti, Saudi author, Okaz, June 3, 2021.

“There is no dispute among experts and political analysts that Iran is a direct cause of the complete destruction of at least four Arab countries”: Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. — Mohammed Hassan Mufti, Okaz, June 3, 2021.

“America’s entry into the Iranian nuclear agreement will…. enable the mullahs to obtain nuclear weapons and more than a billion dollars. Some of the money will go to Iran’s agents in the region.” — Bader bin Saud, Saudi columnist, Okaz, May 24, 2021.

“Does Iran want to liberate Jerusalem and give it to the Palestinians, or does it want to add it to the group of Arab capitals it occupies, such as Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and Sana’a?” — Faisal Al-Qassem, prominent Syrian writer and journalist, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, May 14, 2021.

Qassem also pointed out that some commentators have come to prefer keeping Jerusalem under Israeli control over its liberation by Iran: “Look at the capitals occupied by Iran: Baghdad has become, according to the United Nations, the dirtiest capital in the world, while Beirut has become the largest dumpster in the Middle East. As for Damascus, it turned into a ruin, while Sana’a returned to the Middle Ages.” — Faisal Al-Qassem, quoting an Arab in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, May 14, 2021.

“Jerusalem is not in the mind of the regime. Rather, what concerns Iran is killing Arabs and occupying their countries.” — Dr. Bahera Al-Sheikhli, Iraqi author, Al-Arab, May 21, 2021.

“The truth is that Iran established the Quds Force to occupy Arab countries, recruit Arab traitors into terrorist organizations to overthrow Arab governments, and threaten Arab national security.” — Abdel Munim Ibrahim, Emirati political analyst, Akhbar Al-Khaleej, May 12, 2021.

The Arabs, however, are sending a very different message to the Biden administration and other Western powers: Appeasing Iran by reviving the nuclear deal, lifting sanctions or giving it money will only assist the Iranian regime in perpetrating more crimes and increasing instability and terrorism in the region.

Iran is continuing to exploit the Palestinian issue to promote its expansionist schemes in the Middle East and meddle in the internal affairs of Arab countries, including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Denmark Cracks Down on Mass Migration “The Current Asylum System Has Failed” by Soeren Kern

Posted By on June 10th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17450/denmark-mass-migration

The Danish Parliament has passed a new law that will allow the government to deport asylum seekers to countries outside of the European Union to have their cases considered abroad. The legislation is widely seen as a first step toward moving the country’s asylum screening process beyond Danish borders.

“Denmark is committed to finding new and sustainable solutions to the present migration and refugee challenges that affect countries of origin, transit and destination. The current asylum system is unfair and unethical by incentivizing children, women and men to embark on dangerous journeys along the migratory routes, while human traffickers earn fortunes.” — Danish Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye.

“Gang crime in no way belongs in Denmark. When foreigners or persons to whom we in Denmark have granted Danish citizenship participate in the gangs’ ruthless crime, it is a fundamental expression of contempt for the society of which they are a part. Therefore, it is good news that Parliament has today passed the government’s bill to provide the opportunity to revoke citizenship in the event of serious gang crime to the serious detriment of the state’s vital interests. It is a goal for the government to ensure that Danes can be safe in their everyday lives.” — Minister of Justice Nick Hækkerup.

The Danish Parliament approved a first-ever Repatriation Law which authorizes the government to deport failed asylum seekers and other migrants illegally in the country…. The Danish government tightened citizenship rules…. The Danish government announced a package of new proposals aimed at fighting “religious and cultural parallel societies” in Denmark…. The Danish Parliament approved a new law that bans foreign governments from financing mosques in Denmark…. The Danish Parliament approved a ban on Islamic full-face veils in public spaces.

“We hope that people will stop seeking asylum in Denmark.” — MP Rasmus Stoklund.

The Danish Parliament has passed a new law that will allow the government to deport asylum seekers to countries outside of the European Union to have their cases considered abroad. The legislation is widely seen as a first step toward moving the country’s asylum screening process beyond Danish borders.

The law, proposed by the Social Democrat-led government, is aimed at discouraging frivolous asylum applications. It has been greeted with fury by those who favor mass migration, presumably out of fear that other EU countries may now follow Denmark’s lead.

Denmark, which already has some of the most restrictive immigration policies in Europe, is at the vanguard of European efforts to preserve local traditions and values in the face of mass migration, runaway multiculturalism, and the systematic encroachment of political Islam.