The Biggest Threat to Democracy by Nima Gholam Ali Pour

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19474/threat-to-democracy

[T]hose who took to the streets and protested the regime were all too aware that the most inhuman punishments and executions awaited them as retaliation for their struggle for freedom. Such courage and sacrifice for democracy and human rights must not be swept aside — these heroic people need and deserve immediate support.

More than 19,600 Iranians have been arrested during the protests; several have been executed. The information, coming from human rights organizations, about how Iran treats political prisoners is terrifying.

In addition, more than 1,000 schoolgirls have been poisoned as “retaliation” and to shut down schools in a move to stop education for girls. As the Wall Street Journal remarked, compared to Iran, Saudi Arabia is Switzerland.

Several members of parliament in Europe and North America have become political sponsors of political prisoners in Iran. The purpose of the political sponsorship is for parliamentarians to use their status and put pressure on the regime in Iran to release the political prisoners and draw attention to their cases. It is also a way to show the regime in Iran that the world sees and condemns them and cares — with action — about those Iranians who are fighting every day for the same freedom that we take so for granted.

This author has chosen to become a political sponsor for Soheila Hejab, who is now in prison after being accused of “propaganda against the state”, “gathering and collusion”, and “disrupting public order to create chaos”. Like many other prisoners in Iran, Hejab has not received medical care; her health is rapidly deteriorating.

This article is a plea for more parliamentarians in democratic countries sponsor political prisoners in Iran — to show that their protests are not in vain and that the world has heard their cries for freedom, democracy and human rights.

If the brave individuals who stood up to the mullahs are now ignored simply because the regime in Iran has a security apparatus that has temporarily succeeded in silencing them, fewer will feel compelled in the future to stand up to oppressors — in Iran or other dictatorships — thus empowering the normalization of dictatorships. When fewer people stand up to oppressors, dictatorships and oppression become “normal”: that is the biggest threat to democracy.

The best way, therefore, to work for democracy and human rights is to support those who today risk their lives to overthrow dictatorships such as the one in Iran. If these brave people are prepared to risk their lives and the lives of their families for democracy, the least we can do is to give them totally committed support from the West.

We need to label the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a Foreign Terrorist Organization and expel Iranian supporters of the regime from Western and European countries. In addition to that, individual parliamentarians can stand behind and “adopt” a political prisoner to draw attention to their cases, legitimize the democratic revolution and above all, delegitimize the savage, expansionist regime of Iran.

The protests in Iran against the regime’s Islamist dictatorship have largely been quelled for the time being, but the conflict remains. It is between a regime that implements medieval and barbaric laws and a young generation that wants to live in a modern and civilized society; and between a regime that rejects the notion of, and constantly defies, an international community, and the Iranian people, who are increasingly longing for Iran to become part of the international community.

DIANA WEST: “THE DEATH OF THE GROWNUP”

Today’s columns are filled with the ridiculous “trigger” warnings of perceived offense which drive millennial and GenY brats to “safe spaces” after heckling dissidents and disparaging every effort at adult debate on the critical issues of our times.

In 2008  Diana West wrote: The Death of the Grown-Up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization

It was prescient long before the brats became  legislators and academics.rsk

“But, the grown-ups are all gone. The disease that killed them was incubated in the sixties to a rock-and-roll score, took hold in the seventies with the help of multicultralism and left us with a nation of eternal adolescents who can’t decide between “good” and “bad”, a generation who can’t say “no”.

With insightful wit, Diana West takes readers on an odyssey through culture and politics, from the rise of rock ‘n’ roll to the rise of multiculturalism, from the loss of identity to the discovery of “diversity,” from the emasculation of the heroic ideal to the “PC”-ing of “Mary Poppins,” all the while building a compelling case against the childishness that is subverting the struggle against jihadist Islam in a mixed-up, post-9/11 world.

Fauci B.C. Long before COVID, the seeds of the pandemic were already in the ground. By Lloyd Billingsley

https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/19/fauci-b-c/

The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” explains FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab,” and from the first case of COVID-19 in the United States in January 2020, adds Wray, China has tried to “thwart and obfuscate” investigations into the origin of the pandemic.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic began with a leak from a laboratory in China. But Dr. Anthony Fauci didn’t think so. 

While repeating the claim that he has an open mind, Fauci sticks to the natural origin theory and charges that his critics, especially those who have called for him to be prosecuted, are “off the deep end.” That invites a deep dive on Fauci, all the way to the bottom. 

Born in 1940, Anthony Fauci earned a medical degree in 1966 but if he ever practiced medicine it was only for a short time. In 1968, to avoid treating wounded GIs in military hospitals, Fauci took a cushy “yellow beret” job with the National Institutes of Health. Fauci’s bio showed no advanced degrees in biochemistry or molecular biology, but in 1984 the NIH made Fauci director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Back in the 1990s Nobel laureate Kary Mullis, inventor of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR),  said Fauci “doesn’t understand electron microscopy and he doesn’t understand medicine. He should not be in a position like he’s in.” In other words, Fauci was unqualified, and it showed in his handling of AIDS.

French medical scientist Luc Montagnier, a Nobel laureate, discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which Fauci claimed was the sole cause of AIDS.  HIV, Fauci claimed,  overexcites some immune signaling pathways, while eluding the detection of others. And though the main target of the virus appears to be the famed helper T-cells, or CD-4 cells, which it can infiltrate and kill, the virus also ends up stimulating the response of other immune cells so inappropriately that they eventually collapse from overwork or confusion.

What Happened to Stanford? The list of serial embarrassments at Stanford reads like the suicides of Greek tragedy, where divine nemesis follows hubris. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/19/what-happened-to-stanford/

Stanford was once one of the world’s great universities. It birthed Silicon Valley in its prime. And along with its nearby twin and rival, UC Berkeley, its brilliant researchers, and teachers helped fuel the mid-20th-century California miracle.

That was then. But like the descent of California, now something has gone terribly wrong with the university.

Students at Stanford Law School recently shouted down visiting Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kyle Duncan. He had been invited to give a lecture by the school’s Federalist Society. 

The judge never even got the chance. The law school students drowned him out. They flashed obscene placards. They screamed that he was “scum.” One yelled he hoped the judge’s own daughters would be raped.

Others bellowed, “You’re not welcome here, we hate you!” “Leave and never come back!” “We hate FedSoc [Federal Society] students, f–k them, they don’t belong here either!” and “We do not respect you and you have no right to speak here! This is our jurisdiction!”

When the judge tried to reply, they drowned him out with “liar” and “scumbag.” Then, mission accomplished, they smugly stomped out.

Note these were ostensibly not teenaged undergraduates. Instead, they were wannabe adult professionals, in law school to learn jurisprudence and to enter the elite American legal system that is supposed to have protocols separating it from the mobocracies prevailing abroad.

One of those foundational principles is to honor the Constitution’s protection of free speech and expression—not to mention the ancient idea of respecting an invited guest, or the custom to treat with deference a federal judge, to say nothing of the duty to honor the codes and laws of the institution that they have chosen to join which prohibit disruption of lectures and any effort to drive out public speakers.

When an exasperated Justice Duncan called out for a university administrator to restore calm, his podium was instead hijacked by Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Tirien Steinbach. She then gave her own preplanned, scripted lecture that sided with the disruptive protesters! Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The diversity dean then turned on the speaker. She asked the startled judge whether it was even worth supporting his free speech rights, given he and his views were deemed abhorrent to the new absolutist Stanford.

Note well: DEI Deans normally do not attend law school lectures. She showed up because she apparently knew in advance that the law students would violate their own university’s codes of conduct and disrupt a speaker.

So she had planned, again in advance, to do nothing to stop them. Instead, she would prepare a performance-art speech for such a certainty, to chastise the speaker and defend the disrupters. She assumed correctly that none of the other administrators, who also strangely attended, would admonish her or the students for violating the laws of their own university. She apparently assumed, once more rightly, that her own leftist fides on campus would be enhanced.

So far neither the diversity dean nor the students have been disciplined by the university. When the dean of the law school, Jenny Martinez, offered an apology (but did not punish the students), most of her own class walked out on her. And dozens of Stanford’s law school students lined the corridor in attempts to intimidate her as if she was some sort of toxic pariah.

In a Soviet-style finale, the Acting Associate Dean of Students Jeanne Merino advised the Federalist Society students who were targeted by fellow law students that there were “resources that you can use right now to support your safety and mental health.” Then Merino directed them, inter alia, to none other than Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Dean Tirien Steinbach herself, the very dean who had taken over the podium to lecture Judge Duncan!

The debacle revealed four disturbing characteristics about the Stanford law students: One, they acted as if they were bullies and cowards. Videos of the mess showed how they turned mob-like in their chanting, flashing creepy placards, and, like Maoists, walking out on cue. Yet, when the judge fired back at their rudeness, like wounded fawns they took offense and pouted. And later, when there was mention that the names or photos of the protestors might be published, tit-for-tat, in the manner they themselves had put up posters of the Federalist Society members, they screamed that such exposure was unfair.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s viral take on the threat to arrest Trump By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/03/vivek_ramaswamys_viral_take_on_the_threat_to_arrest_trump.html

He continues to be an interesting candidate because he bypasses platitudes and focuses on issues that are core to American survival.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the businessman turned presidential candidate, has posted a not-quite-3-minute-long video in which he attacks DA Alvin Bragg’s efforts to use lawfare to kneecap Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election. Ramaswamy’s video has 3 million views on Twitter as of this post, and the numbers are going up—and no wonder. He says we what all fear: That the possible indictment of Donald Trump marks America’s official passage from a constitutional republic to a banana republic.

Here’s Ramaswamy:

This is about principle, not a person. This is about our country, not one man. The silence from the rest of the GOP field is deafening. pic.twitter.com/Jqi9o2d0wR

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) March 18, 2023

I continue to find Ramaswamy an interesting candidate, not just because he has a totally cool last name (which he does), but also because he speaks clearly, without political platitudes, about core American issues. Most conservative candidates don’t do this. Even Trump was incapable of doing so because that’s simply not how he thinks. He’s a pragmatic doer—and his second term could have been awesome—but he really never latched onto what makes America’s political system unique.

Ban Transgender Operations on Children What ethical consent can be given for lifelong harm? by John and Andy Schlafly

https://www.frontpagemag.com/ban-transgender-operations-on-children/

An emergency appeal reaches the U.S. Supreme Court from West Virginia, which is trying to safeguard girls’ sports teams against biological males pretending to be girls. A well-reasoned federal district court decision upheld its law against a constitutional challenge on behalf of an 11-year-old, a majority-Democrat panel on the Fourth Circuit suspended the good law.

This case is being called the most important yet in the transgender movement, which is suddenly invading nearly every school and government program. Chief Justice John Roberts ordered a response to West Virginia to be filed by noon next Monday, March 20, and already amicus briefs in support of West Virginia’s necessary law have been filed.

The lower federal courts held that transgenders are entitled to a heightened form of protection under the Constitution, and that issue is now before the Supreme Court. Two years ago, the Supreme Court ducked a case concerning an attempt by a school board to keep biological boys and girls out of each others’ restrooms.

In that lawsuit arising from Gloucester High School in Virginia, the Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari on this issue of forcing transgenderism on schools. That handed transgender activists a victory by leaving intact the Fourth Circuit ruling against the school board, which declared transgender conduct to be a new constitutional right and a Title IX federal right in schools.

Aided by desires to attract attention, hordes of children are declaring an interest in being transgender now. Last month it was reported that several 5th graders told their teacher that they wanted to become transgender, and when the teacher asked the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital for advice its response was to affirm the behavior, without suggesting that the parents be informed.

Poll: Half of U.S. Population Believes National Media ‘Intend to Mislead, Misinform’ By Ben Bartee

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/03/19/poll-half-of-u-s-population-believes-national-media-intend-to-mislead-misinform-n1679694

Gallup conducted a survey of Americans on their level of confidence in the benevolence and trustworthiness of American media.

The big takeaways from the study are that 23% of respondents “believe most national news organizations care about the best interests of their readers, viewers, and listeners.” A full 50% “feel most national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform, or persuade the public.”

Frankly, it’s amazing that, at this late date, given the endless parade of brazen lies on Russia’s non-existent meddling in the 2016 and 2020 elections, the debunked “safe and effective” mantra vis-à-vis COVID-19 shots, and a thousand other examples of duplicity — that apparently 50% of the country still puts any stock into the corporate media.

(Unfortunately, this study did not delineate between corporate media and independent media, which is a shame. I suspect the trust differential would be enormous.)

FBI Whistleblower Claims FBI Is Now a ‘Weaponized Apparatchik’ of the Biden Administration By Ben Bartee

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/03/19/fbi-whistleblower-claims-fbi-is-now-a-weaponized-apparatchik-of-the-biden-administration-n1679723

Via Epoch Times:

There’s a growing divide between the rank-and-file officers of the FBI and upper management, according to FBI agent-turned-whistleblower Steve Friend, and it’s those at the top who are pushing a political agenda…

“There are a lot of agents that sort of share that sentiment and just want to drive the mission forward. Unfortunately, there’s a big disconnect between the rank-and-file and the management class…

“I think there’s an argument to be made that the FBI has now just become a weaponized apparatchik of the presidential administration,” he added, holding that public trust in the agency has diminished largely as a result of the perception of political bias.”

As I have previously documented, it’s incontrovertibly true that the national security apparatus, including the FBI, is now politicized and weaponized against what the intelligence community terms “domestic extremists.”

This amorphic designation — “domestic extremist” — refers to the populist right, anti-establishment grassroots activists who oppose the silent coup that the Deep State has waged against the American people for several decades. It simply means opposition to the growing technocratic tyranny but, of course, is couched in post-9/11 language of “terrorism” and its alleged threat to “national security.”

Where Friend may be wrong is that the intelligence community does not ultimately serve the Biden administration. Biden is a disposable puppet who will be disposed of in due time when it becomes convenient. His current usefulness is his pliability and directability. He does not make decisions of consequence.

The true usurpers of power occupy the next level above even the elected portion of the executive branch — the proverbial “men behind the curtain,” which includes the likes of George Soros, Bill Gates, and their ilk. They operate across borders and are in the process of rendering the nation-state obsolete.

Joe Biden’s dangerous trans zealotry The US president claims it is ‘sinful’ to oppose the medical transitioning of children. Has he gone mad? Jenny Holland

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/03/18/joe-bidens-dangerous-trans-zealotry/

It is hard to tell which was the biggest lie Joe Biden told in his sit-down with Kal Penn, former stoner-movie actor turned Democratic Party lackey, earlier this week on the Daily Show.

Was it Biden’s claim that preventing minors from having genital-removing surgeries and harmful cross-sex hormones is ‘sinful’? Was it that he characterised as ‘cruel’ attempts to prevent these irreversible, dangerous and downright grotesque surgeries being conducted on children?

Or was it the outlandish story he told, about the time he was a senior in high school and he saw two ‘well-dressed’ men openly kissing on the street in Delaware? Or was it perhaps his claim that Biden Sr, a man who was born in 1915, had explained to Biden’s confused younger self that the two fellas snogging on the street just loved each other, and that it was no big deal? He even claimed that this scene led him to an ‘epiphany’ on same-sex marriage and that he has supported it ever since.

Far be it from me to question the veracity of anything that comes out of Amtrack Joe’s mouth, but there is literally no way this ever happened. For context, a personal anecdote: a gay family friend kissed his lover on the street in the 1980s, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, the birthplace of the American gay-rights movement. He was then beaten up so badly by a homophobic stranger that he carried a handgun for years afterwards. Two businessmen kissing, in the early 1960s, in Delaware? And Biden Sr was totally cool with it? No. I call BS. Not even the Washington Post’s supine ‘fact-checkers’ believe him, giving the verdict that there are ‘reasons to doubt’ Biden’s story.

Perhaps the cognitively declining Biden genuinely thinks that this happened (it’s a story he has used before). After all, he’s not a man at the top of his game, intellectually speaking. At one point, he told Penn: ‘My focus is just staying focussed.’

But Biden’s use of the words ‘sinful’ and ‘cruel’ to describe those who are opposed to giving children chemical and surgical sex changes cannot be brushed away with such generosity.

“That’s Not True”: President Biden Moves Toward the Evil Twin Family Defense: Jonathan Turley

https://jonathanturley.org/2023/03/19/thats-not-true-president-biden-moves-toward-the-evil-twin-family-defense/

President Joe Biden has repeatedly denied that his family received money from China. He has also denied any knowledge of his son’s foreign dealings despite direct evidence to the contrary, including a recorded message from the President to Hunter referencing the deals. The White House has simply refused to address the recording or photographs contradicting the President. Now, there is confirmation that millions were sent from China and then money from a third-party account was distributed to at least three, and possibly four, Biden family members. However, when confronted with the evidence on the way to Marine One, the President again declared “that’s not true.” Given that these are suspicious activity reports (SARs) from Biden’s own Treasury Department, it is unclear now what the President is suggesting beyond the possibility of an evil twin Biden family that is besmirching his good name.

After the GOP takeover of the House, the Oversight Committee demanded information long blocked by the Democratic leadership on the SARs related to the Biden family. The first such disclosure involved a Robinson Walker, LLC account that received $3 million from the State Energy HK Limited. Money was later distributed in incremental payments over three months to Hallie Biden and companies associated with Hunter Biden and James Biden. There was also an unknown bank account identified as “Biden.”

The House Oversight Committee is demanding to hear from the recipient of the transfer from China. Chairman Comer wrote John Walker that the panel “is investigating President Biden’s involvement in his family’s business practices” and “has identified you as a critical witness in this matter and has reviewed evidence showing you received millions of dollars originating from a Chinese energy company and elsewhere.” Walker can explain any connection between the Chinese transfer and the later distributions.