THIS IS NOT THE AMERICA I KNOW: Dozens of FBI Agents Raid Home of Catholic Pro-Life Activist as Children Scream in Terror By Paula Bolyard

https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2022/09/24/this-is-not-the-america-i-know-dozens-of-fbi-agents-raid-home-of-catholic-pro-life-activist-as-children-scream-in-terror-n1632019

What is going on in America? Every day it seems another story surfaces about an FBI raid on another conservative. This time, it was a Catholic pro-life activist in Pennsylvania. LifeSite News reports:

A well-known pro-life author, sidewalk counselor, and father of seven was the latest victim of a U.S. Department of Justice-sponsored SWAT raid and arrest — for supposed “FACE Act” violations — at his rural home as his children looked on “screaming.”

Mark Houck is the founder and president of The King’s Men, which promotes healing for victims of pornography addiction and promotes Christian virtues among men in the United States and Europe.

According to his wife Ryan-Marie, who spoke with LifeSiteNews, he also drives two hours south to Philadelphia every Wednesday to sidewalk council for six to eight hours at two different abortion centers.

Ryan-Marie, who is a homeschool mother, explained the SWAT team of 25 to 30 FBI agents swarmed their property with around 15 vehicles at 7:05 a.m. this morning. Having quickly surrounded the house with rifles in firing position, “they started pounding on the door and yelling for us to open it.”

The raid apparently stems from events in October 2021 at an abortion clinic. According to Ryan-Marie, on several occasions last year, Mark, 48, took the eldest of his seven children, then age 12, to an abortion clinic where he went to counsel mothers planning to abort their children. For “weeks and weeks,” a pro-abortion protester got in her son’s face, screaming “crude… inappropriate and disgusting things… such as, ‘Your dad’s a fag’” and other statements too vile for the Catholic mom to repeat.

America is Successfully Pursuing ESG = Extreme Shortages Guaranteed Ronald Stein

https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/america-is-successfully-pursuing-esg–extreme-shortages-guaranteed

Everything that needs electricity is made with the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil. In an all-electric world, there will be nothing to power without oil.

Energy growth, electricity AND the products made from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil and the fuels to power ships, planes, militaries, and space programs, are directly linked to prosperity and well-being across the globe.

Today, most of the energy the world consumes is from hydrocarbons, with crude oil being the dominant source of transportation fuels. Today, crude oil is the ONLY source for the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil that makes more than 6,000 products for society.

President Biden’s U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projections are that world energy consumption of crude oil, coal, natural gas, electricity from renewables, and nuclear will grow by 56 percent between 2010 and 2040. Without any replacements or clones to what fossil fuels can provide the EIA forecasts that fossil fuels will continue to supply nearly 80 percent of world energy use through 2040

President Biden and Sacramento leaders, from Governor’s Brown, Schwarzenegger, and now Newsom, have supported reductions of in-state oil production. And all remain supportive of Biden’s pledge that “we are going to get rid of fossil fuels”.

Another way to interpret Biden and Newsom’s pledge for an all-electric world:

Biden and Newsom are oblivious to the reality that everything that needs electricity is made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil. In an all-electric world with JUST wind and solar electricity from breezes and sunshine, there will be nothing to power.
Biden and Newsom believe that the products and fuels manufactured from fossil fuels, are supporting lifestyles and economies, are dangerous and polluting and is causing dangerous climate change.
Biden and Newsom believe that all the infrastructures developed in less than two centuries, from the products manufactured from crude oil, are not needed by future societies, such as medical, electronics, communications, and the many transportation infrastructures such as airlines, merchant ships, automobiles, trucks, military, the space program.
Biden and Newsom believe that an all-renewable electricity system from unreliable weather conditions, WITHOUT the products and fuels from fossil fuels, can work to support a modern economy.

An open letter to Ron DeSantis Why I, a lifelong Democrat, would vote for the Florida governor in a heartbeat.Lionel Shriver

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/09/22/an-open-letter-to-ron-desantis/

Dear Ron (if I may),

The commentator David Brooks asserts that once the FBI raided Donald Trump’s pleasure palace in August, and rallied the faithful to his persecuted side, your fledgling campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 was basically over. Formerly America’s Most Loveable Conservative and now a Biden Democrat in sheep’s clothing, Brooks may or may not enjoy the insider access to your people that he claims, so I’m going straight to the source. Please assure me that you’re not hanging up your hat, but reserving it to toss in the ring.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a disaffected registered Democrat. I voted for Joe Biden on the assumption that he was a boring, moderate placeholder who could steady the national ship after the nauseous high seas of the Trump presidency. Two years on, I’m still sick to my stomach. Biden is captive to a radical left that has made the party I joined at 18 unrecognisable. It is now intolerant, racially obsessed, fiscally incontinent, eager to encourage dependency on the state and politically high-handed. But I cannot stick putting 2016’s crude, anti-democratic boor back in the White House. So the prospect of facing down a none-of-the-above contest in 2024 – a Trump vs Biden redo, much less Trump vs that idiot Kamala Harris – makes me suicidal. I’ve never voted Republican in my life. But if you were to secure the nomination (admittedly dependent on whom you ran against), I could be tempted to defect for the first time in nearly 50 years.

They say you’re insufficiently ‘charismatic’. But have you seen the Democratic competition? C’mon man, what passes for eloquence from our current occupant of the White House-cum-care home is making the same lame statement, word for word, three times in a row (for instance, on Putin’s threatened use of nuclear weapons: ‘Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.’). Could this guy conceivably pass for charismatic? Is Kamala charismatic? Apoplectic loathing for the vice-president is about the only thing that unites the whole country right now. Is meek softy Mayor Pete charismatic? Or Gavin Newsom, the slick, vain huckster who has turned the Golden State into the world’s largest open-air pit latrine? Granted, the 2016 primary candidate, Amy Klobuchar, while hardly magnetic, is at least likeable. Yet she rarely appears in journalists’ speculative lists of credible alternatives to Biden. Moreover, I reject the characterisation of Trump as charismatic. People flock to him because he’s an arrogant bully, not because he’s so charming. Sure, Ron, you’re a bit stodgy, and not the most rousing speaker in the world, but in comparison with the rest of this lot, you’re Abraham Lincoln. Jesus, while we wish her the best, the UK’s new PM won the Tory leadership contest with the charisma of a cardboard box.

Scammers Stole an Insane Amount of Pandemic Unemployment Money Katie Pavlich

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/09/23/scammers-stole-an-insane-amount-of-pandemic-funding-n2613497

According to a new Department of Labor Inspector General report, scammers were able to steal nearly $46 billion in pandemic cash through state unemployment insurance [UI] programs. 

“Inspector General Larry D. Turner, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), announced that the Office of Inspector General’s (DOL-OIG) investigations have resulted in more than 1,000 individuals being charged with crimes involving Unemployment Insurance (UI) fraud since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.1 The DOL-OIG also issued an Alert Memorandum identifying $45.6 billion in potentially fraudulent UI benefits paid to individuals with Social Security numbers: (1) filed in multiple states, (2) of deceased persons, (3) filed with suspicious email accounts, and (4) of federal prisoners,” the Office of the Inspector General released this week.

The office also found pandemic relief programs were vulnerable for abuse given how much money the federal government was quickly pushing out the door without proper accountability and tracking programs or mechanisms in place. 

“Following the start of the pandemic in the United States in early 2020, unemployment compensation claims rose exponentially to historically unprecedented levels. Prior to the pandemic, numbers of UI claims were historically low. On March 14, 2020, the Department reported 282,000 initial claims. Within 2 to 3 weeks, initial claims rose to 10 times pre-pandemic levels, far higher than state systems were designed to handle. Within 5 months, through August 15, 2020, the Department reported 57.4 million initial claims, the largest increase since the Department began tracking UI data in 1967. The CARES Act provided significant funding to the federal-state UI program, which resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in additional payments,” the office explains.

Orbán’s Warning for Europe Sohrab Ahmari

https://compactmag.com/article/orban-s-warning-for-europe

If the United States were a serious power, it would pay heed to the warnings issuing from Hungary about the economic calamity facing Europe. Instead, Team Biden has dispatched a same-sex-married liberal activist as its envoy to Budapest in an apparent attempt to tweak the Hungarians’ conservative sensibilities. It’s the sort of stunt that would elicit little more than eye rolls—but for the fact that we live in deadly serious times.

At the ruling Fidesz party’s annual “picnic” last weekend in Kötcse, a village two hours’ drive southwest from the capital, the message was dire: The United States is driving its trans-Atlantic allies to ruin by globalizing a local, intra-Slavic conflict in Ukraine. And European leaders are going along, obstinately sticking with sanctions that have failed to force a rethink in Moscow, let alone “collapse” the Russian economy or trigger a palace coup against Vladimir Putin.

“Sanctions work when deployed by stronger actors against the weak,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told me as we sat down for a brief interview on the sidelines of the Kötcse conference. “Europe isn’t the stronger actor when it comes to energy. And so the sanctions aren’t working.” It seems like an obvious enough point, but these days, it takes the gruff rationality of the “black sheep” of the European family to voice the obvious.

Western leaders make-believe as if Moscow is some small-time Mideast “rogue regime,” which they can bring to heel by cutting it off from global trade and financial flows. There are only two problems. One is that this isn’t 1999 anymore: What Fareed Zakaria condescendingly called “the rise of the rest” means the rest of the world doesn’t salute when Washington and Brussels hand down sanctions diktats—“the rest” can afford to disobey.

ROSH HA SHANA SEPTEMBER 7 1945

On September 2, with the surrender of Japan World War 2 officially ended.  For the Jewish people the harsh truth unfolded on Rosh Ha Shana in 1945.  One third of our population was exterminated by the Nazis with the complicity of many nations whose policies and indifference trapped the Jews of Europe.

Three years later, in spite of the turpitude of those who opposed it-most notably Great Britain- Palestine was liberated on May 14th, 1948 and renamed with its historical and religious name “Israel”-the last words of the martyred who prayed “hear oh Israel.”

Fast forward to tomorrow night when we will gather to celebrate 5783 of Jewish survival now numbered at almost 15 million throughout the world with the largest population 6.9 million who live in Israel and speak, write, read and bicker in Hebrew, our restored ancient language.

Israel is the fount and the locus of Jewish survival and on this holiday we celebrate the unbroken chain which started in Hebron millennia ago and our privilege to live in America a most exceptional nation.

And then we eat and have a jolly time.

As we used to abbreviate in the Bronx, I wish everyone a “happy and healthy!” rsk

The Great Canadian Mass Graves Hoax Why so many journalists embraced a story as “true” even though it wasn’t real. Bari Weiss

https://www.commonsense.news/p/the-great-canadian-mass-graves-hoax?utm_source=email

Last year, The New York Times dropped a bombshell headline: ‘Horrible History’: Mass Grave of Indigenous Children Reported in Canada. As other outlets picked up the shocking story, marches, protests and riots erupted across Canada. One former Canadian minister called it “Canada’s George Floyd moment.”

But according to veteran journalist Terry Glavin, the shocking story about a mass graves wasn’t true.

And saying that—reporting that—came at a very high cost.

Terry Glavin has been a reporter for over 20 years. In that time, he’s had a particular focus on persecuted minorities. Both in faraway places like China, Afghanistan, Russia and Iraq, but also in his own backyard, where he has reported extensively on the First Nations of Canada and the abuses they have suffered at the hands of the state. So how is it that someone who has spent his career giving voice to the most vulnerable, found himself accused of genocide denial?

That’s what today’s fascinating and provocative conversation on Honestly is about. In the end, it’s about what happens when the truth no longer matters.

Woke Youth’s State-Sanctioned Rebellion All these woke youths have accomplished is to fundamentally transform themselves into blunt instruments shoved into the arsenal of the leftist establishment.  By Thaddeus G. McCotter

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/23/woke-youths-state-sanctioned-rebellion/

Though I know the cliché has lost its cache, I am, in fact, old enough to remember when youthful rebellion was organic, autonomous, and anti-establishment. Such is no longer the case amongst today’s woke youth, who have been indoctrinated to serve as tools of the leftist establishment.

Woke youth’s “rebellion” is not organic. This is not to say that woke youth’s rebellious streak isn’t innate. But their youthful “outrage” is conditioned; and their rebellious acts are channeled at progressivism’s opponents by the Left’s civil religion and its high priests—namely, the deep state, the Democratic Party power-brokers, woke corporations, and the dinosaur media and social media.

Encapsulated by the DIE cult (“diversity, inclusion, and equity”), the Left’s civil religion has been inculcated into woke youth from birth—in some cases, by their leftist parents, and/or by leftist institutions, such as public K-12 schools and those of “higher learning.” Ultimately, their “rebellious” streak continues to be honed by public and private institutions and, of course, corporate and social media. It is this external, controlling impact of these leftist entities that prevents woke youth from committing organic acts of rebellion. And it is by design. 

Because it is inculcated by the leftist establishment to serve its civil religion, woke youth’s “rebellion” is not organic and, ergo, it is incapable of being autonomous. The leftist establishment provides the targets, the rules of engagement, the propaganda and justifications, and the rewards for rebellious woke youth. Thus, woke youth have about as much autonomy over their rebellious acts as an “at will” employee. 

It is stunning how woke youth refuse to understand an elementary fact that is, however, not lost upon the objects of their rebellion—namely, that the Left are now the American establishment. In many ways, this has long been the case and it is the more so the harder the Left continues to deny it. Bluntly, they must. To concede they are the current establishment will destroy the Left’s most cherished, core myth: that they speak—and rebel—for the downtrodden and dispossessed. If one recognizes the Left is speaking, not for the poor, but to do the bidding of Bill Gates, Big Tech, the deep state, et al.—how outré! One knows this is the case, however, because their acts of rebellion garner not rebukes, but praise in the pages of the Washington Post and social media posts across cyberspace. Where is the “noble” rebellion in that? 

Is Biden deliberately destroying America’s military defenses? By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/09/is_biden_deliberately_destroying_americas_military_defenses.html

It’s not just the newest Air Force Academy initiative that explicitly bars straight men. It’s everything!

The Supreme Court has made clear that discriminating against people based on sex or sexual orientation is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. That has not stopped the Air Force Academy from initiating a new program explicitly closed to “cisgender men.” Horrible as that is, it pales compared to some of the other things Biden has been doing that will destroy America’s military readiness.

The Air Force Academy notified its cadets (i.e., students) that it is offering a new fellowship program—the Brooke Owens Fellowship—for “gender minorities” only, with straight men explicitly excluded:

If you are a cisgender woman, a transgender woman, non-binary, agender, bigender, two-spirit, demi gender, genderfluid, genderqueer, or another form of gender minority, this program is for you. If you are a cisgender man, this program isn’t for you… but we encourage you to check out our spin- off programs, the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program!

The Brooke Owens fellowship was established to encourage more women to enter the aerospace field. That kind of discrimination has long been accepted, although it shouldn’t be. The feeling was that it was still a necessary form of affirmative action for women. The program’s having morphed from women to myriad imaginary genders, though, blows apart any pretense that this is a women-only program. It’s now discriminating against both women and men.

Biden Administration Standing Idly By While Iran’s Mullahs Advance to Nuclear Bomb by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18925/iran-advance-nuclear-bomb

[M]ore than a year and half of negotiations seems to have benefited no one except the ruling and Islamist mullahs of Iran. The endless negotiations seem simply to have bought time for the mullahs, so that they could comfortably advance their nuclear program to their highest level ever. Not only has the Biden administration seen no urgency to change its disastrous path, it is actually redoubling efforts to for Iran talks, presumably after America’s mid-term election on November 8.

The Biden administration has even been ignoring a joint statement issued by the UK, France and Germany admitting that Tehran “has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon.”

The Biden administration needs to make it plain to Iran’s ruling mullahs that if Tehran advances its nuclear program further, severe military, political, diplomatic and economic options against Iran are on the table.

Economic sanctions, which will cut the flow of funds to the Iranian regime and the terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, must be imposed as well. The Biden administration also needs to stand firm against countries such as China, which are violating US sanctions by buying oil or trading with the Iranian regime.

It must be made unmistakably clear to the Iranian regime that the United States will not allow Iran’s current regime, a designated state sponsor of terrorism, to arm itself with nuclear weapons and emerge as yet another global nuclear threat, in the Middle East, in Europe and throughout South America.

The Biden administration implemented its agenda to revive the Obama nuclear deal after US President Joe Biden assumed office in January 2021. Now, more than a year and half of negotiations seems to have benefited no one except the ruling and Islamist mullahs of Iran. The endless negotiations seem simply to have bought time for the mullahs, so that they could comfortably advance their nuclear program to their highest level ever. Not only has the Biden administration seen no urgency to change its disastrous path, it is actually redoubling efforts to for Iran talks, presumably after America’s mid-term election on November 8.