Displaying posts published in

June 2021

ABIGAIL SHRIER: ON IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE

One hundred and forty-six people in Halifax, Nova Scotia wait on a list to borrow a library book. A question hangs over them: Will activists let them read it?

The book is mine — Irreversible Damage — and it is an investigation of a medical mystery: Why is the number of teenage girls requesting (and obtaining) gender reassignment skyrocketing in the United States, Canada, Scandinavia and Europe? In Great Britain, it’s up 4,400% over the last decade.

Though it shouldn’t be, this has become a highly controversial area of inquiry. The book is an exploration of why so many girls would, in such a short timeframe, decide they are transgender. And it raises questions about whether they’re getting appropriate medical treatment.

The book is not about whether trans people exist. They do. And it is not about adults who elect to medically transition genders. As I have stated endlessly in public interviews and in Senate testimony, I fully support medical transition for mature adults and believe that transgender individuals should live openly without fear or stigma.

Yet since publication, I have faced fierce opposition — not just to the ideas presented, challenged, or explored — but to the publication of the book itself. A top lawyer for the ACLU called for it to be banned. Powerful organizations like GLAAD have lobbied against it and pressured corporations — Target and Amazon among others — to remove Irreversible Damage from their virtual shelves.

There’s a pattern to such censorship campaigns. A fresh example presented itself this past week at Science-Based Medicine, which bills itself as “a group blog exploring issues and controversies in the relationship between science in medicine.”

On Tuesday, one of the blog’s long-time contributors, Dr. Harriet Hall — a family physician and flight surgeon in the Air Force with dozens of publications to her name — posted a favorable review of my book. She examined the scientific claims as well as the medical ones and wrote that the book “combines well-researched facts with horrifying stories about botched surgeries, people who later regret their choices and therapists who are not providing therapy but just validating their patient’s self-diagnosis.” Dr. Hall not only shared my criticisms of “affirmative care” — that is, immediately agreeing with a teen’s self-diagnosis of gender dysphoria and proceeding to hormones and surgeries — but also noted that many physicians and therapists feel the same way but are afraid to say so.

Recent History Suggests FBI Involvement in January 6 Sadly, the FBI is one of the least trustworthy agencies in the federal government—and that’s saying a lot. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/21/recent-history-suggests-fbi-involvement-in-january-6/

Remember Christopher Steele?

The author of the infamous 2016 “dossier” was an impeccably credentialed former British intelligence officer who, we were assured, had the goods on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. Nearly every major news and opinion outlet vouched for his reputation and reliable sources inside the Kremlin.

Steele frequently was described as an “ex-spy” in charge of a well-respected global consulting firm in London; he was alternatively a victim of Trump’s public taunts and a hero willing to risk his life and reputation to spare America the election of a Putin puppet.

Steele’s work was validated not only by the news media and Democratic politicians who described the dossier as “raw intelligence” but it also served as the key evidence in a FISA application sought by James Comey’s FBI to spy on a Trump campaign associate and, by extension, the Trump presidential campaign.

But it turned out the public profile of Christopher Steele was as credible as the series of memos bearing his name. Steele was a political operative, paid six figures by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee through a party-connected law firm.

It also turns out Steele was a longtime FBI source, a revelation confirmed by then-House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes’ February 2018 memo.

While Steele was being paid by the Clinton team and DNC in 2016, Comey’s FBI was paying the British citizen for his Trump-Russia collusion sleuthing. Further, Steele had easy access to the upper echelons of Barack Obama’s State Department, top staffers to both Republican and Democratic senators, and the C-suites of corporate newsrooms.

The central figure in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, a sting operation intended to discredit Trump’s presidential campaign and then sabotage his presidency, was an FBI asset and Democratic flack disguised as a respected international business consultant. His dossier was garbage, no evidence of collusion was found, and the FISA court later determined the FBI’s applications, which relied almost exclusively on it, were illegal.

The Steele saga is just one recent example why the Federal Bureau of Investigations does not deserve the benefit of the doubt when considering its potential involvement in the January 6 protest at the Capitol. In fact, the entire Russiagate scandal—whose high-level perpetrators remain unpunished to this day—should be a stark reminder of the extent to which the nation’s top law enforcement officials will go to take down anyone they perceive as political enemies.

Chicago Dyke March Flier Shows Woman in ACAB Undies Burning Israeli and American Flags By Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/21/chicago-dyke-march-flier-shows-woman-in-acab-undies-burning-israeli-and-american-flags/

A radical LGBTQ group is under fire after distributing event materials that advertise a decidedly anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-police stance.

The group, known as the “Chicago Dyke March,” is planning to hold its annual march in Chicago’s Palmer Square Park, this Saturday.

The group’s flier for the event features an overweight woman squatting on the hood of a burning police car clad in underwear that says ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards), and holding two burning flags; an Israeli flag, and an American flag.

The ACAB phrase became a far-left rallying cry during last summer’s George Floyd riots. In the caption, the Chicago Dyke March lists several far-left themes: Abolish CPD (Chicago Police Department), Abolish ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and “Abolish the Isra*li Occupation Forces.” The organizers ask that participants wear masks for the outdoor event.

After some pushback on social media, ChiDykeMarch deleted the picture and replaced it with one in which the flags are completely covered in flames.

The group also posted onto social media a graphic explaining to potential participants the various roles they can play in this year’s march, from the “peaceful protesters” they put on the front lines, to the violent rioters who attack the police and do property damage later at night.

One group of violent protesters “who come prepared to set fire to barricades and throw flammable projectiles” are called “FIRE MAGE” in the poster.

The group also also hopes to who enlist those who “use laser pointers to to obstruct surveillance cameras, drones, and police visors,” according to the image. A “range soldier” is said to be someone who throws “water bottles, umbrellas, and trash” at the police.

Germany’s Largest Right-Wing Extremist Group is Turkish, not German by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17486/germany-extremists-grey-wolves

The German Parliament and other federal agencies estimate that the true number Grey Wolves in Germany is above 18,000. This is five times more than the number of members (3,500) of Germany’s neo-Nazi party.

The ideology underpinning the Grey Wolves movement is a Turkish version of Aryanism and sets itself in opposition to anyone who is not Turkish or Sunni Islamic. It is anti-Christian and anti-Jewish, as well as anti-American, anti-Armenian, anti-Kurdish and anti-Greek.

The objective of the Grey Wolves is to unify all the Turkish peoples into a single country called Turan whose territory would stretch from Europe to China. The Grey Wolves also want to establish a new world order based on Islam that is led by Turkey; they are opposed to the assimilation or integration of Turkish immigrants into Western society.

“Supporters of the ‘Grey Wolves’ are responsible for a large number of murders of political opponents and members of minorities in Turkey and abroad.” — Die Linke, Parliamentary Resolution, November 2020.

“So, the CDU is in reality working with the right-wing extremist Grey Wolves, although it preaches that right-wing extremism is the greatest danger in Germany.” — Zara Riffler, Tichys Einblick.

“Erdogan despises the West and Western values. He says this openly at every opportunity…. One is not working here on integration, not even on a parallel society, but quite obviously on a counter-society…. Why can Merkel — and Germany — criticize Trump and the USA, but not publicly and unequivocally put Erdoğan in his place?” — CDU politician Ali Ertan Toprak, Tichys Einblick.

As German federal elections approach on September 26, the candidates hoping to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel are reiterating the need to thwart far-right extremism, particularly neo-Nazism, in Germany. In fact, the largest far-right extremist group in Germany is Turkish, not German, according to a new intelligence report on domestic threats to Germany’s constitutional order.

The Turkish neo-fascist movement Ülkücü (Turkish for “Idealists”) — popularly known as Grey Wolves — now has at least 11,000 active members in Germany, according to the new annual report (Verfassungsschutzbericht 2020) by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV).

The German Parliament and other federal agencies estimate that the true number Grey Wolves in Germany is above 18,000. This is five times more than the number of members (3,500) of Germany’s neo-Nazi party, the National Democratic Party of Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD).

The ideology underpinning the Grey Wolves movement is a Turkish version of Aryanism and sets itself in opposition to anyone who is not Turkish or Sunni Islamic. It is anti-Christian and anti-Jewish, as well as anti-American, anti-Armenian, anti-Kurdish and anti-Greek.

U.S., Allies Too Eager to Resume Nuclear Deal with Iran By Lawrence J. Haas

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/us-allies-too-eager-resume-nuclear-deal-iran-188016

With Tehran making significant progress on the nuclear front, Washington and its European allies seem engaged in an increasingly desperate effort to revive the 2015 global nuclear agreement with Iran, mirroring the earlier eagerness that helped produce the problematic agreement in the first place.

The operative question is whether – in reversing President Donald Trump’s 2018 exit from the deal and returning to the agreement, thereby presumably coaxing Tehran to adhere to its nuclear-related restrictions – Washington will find itself better placed in the long run to limit Iran’s nuclear pursuit, ballistic missile program, terror sponsorship, and regional expansionism.

Signs of Iran’s nuclear progress are mounting. For starters, Tehran announced on June 15 that it has enriched 6.5 kilograms of uranium to 60 percent purity (a short step to the weapons-grade purity of 90 percent) and another 108 kilograms to 20 percent – all far in excess of the agreement’s limit of 3.67 percent purity. Nor has Tehran become more transparent about suspicious activity at its undeclared nuclear sites, which is a problem that precedes the nuclear agreement and that has vexed international inspectors for many years. “The Iranian government has reiterated its will to engage and to cooperate and to provide answers,” Rafael Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency director-general, said as his agency’s board met in Vienna. “But they haven’t done that so far.”

Fox News, meanwhile, reported that satellite images since last fall at Iran’s Sanjarian site – where Iran is suspected of manufacturing work on “shock wave generators” (in order to miniaturize a nuclear weapon) – reveal vehicles, excavation work, and trenches that have prompted nuclear watchdogs to urge international inspections. In addition, Germany’s federal intelligence agency concluded in a new 420-page report that “the indications of proliferation-relevant procurement attempts by the Islamic Republic for its nuclear program increased in 2020.”

‘Disturbing Trend’: The Weaponization of The Justice System to Ruin Those With Whom Activists Disagree

https://harbingersdaily.com/disturbing-trend-the-weaponization-of-the-justice-system-to-ruin-those-with-whom-activists-disagree

The legal fight to ensure religious liberty protections for Colorado baker Jack Phillips continues after a state district judge ruled against Phillips in a case involving a request for a cake celebrating a gender transition.

Despite a favorable 2018 Supreme Court ruling for Phillips in a similar case, Colorado state District Judge A. Bruce Jones ruled Tuesday that Phillips violated the state’s anti-discrimination law when he refused on religious grounds to design a blue and pink cake to celebrate a gender transition for Autumn Scardina, a biological male who presents as female.

Jones, in his ruling Tuesday, argued Phillips’ refusal to fill Scardina’s request constituted a refusal to sell a product, not a case of compelled speech as Phillips has argued through his attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom.

In Phillips’ 2018 high court case, the justices, in a 7-2 decision, ruled that Colorado had used “clear and impermissible hostility” in prosecuting Phillips for declining to design a cake for a same-sex wedding in 2013.

But following that ruling, the state again pursued Phillips on grounds he had violated Colorado’s anti-discrimination law in refusing to comply with Scardina’s request. Scardina approached Phillips with his request on the same day in 2017 that the Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillips’ case.

Phillips countered with a lawsuit against the state, and Colorado dropped its case against him. But Scardina, a local attorney, responded with his own civil lawsuit against Phillips.

In his ruling, Jones wrote that anti-discrimination laws are intended to “ensure that members of our society who have historically been treated unfairly, who have been deprived of even the every-day right to access businesses to buy products, are no longer treated as ‘others.’”

Bibi Is Out, and They Are Back Want to kill the new Israeli government? Send in the peace-process clowns. By Leon Hadar

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/21/bibi-is-out-and-they-are-back/

“They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing,” is the way Talleyrand referred (supposedly) to the restored Bourbon dynasty after the abdication of Napoleon, encapsulating in a nutshell those who keep doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results.  

Such people believe that every intelligent person should recognize that their theory is the right one. The wrong circumstances had failed the theory, and if one would just give it another try, one would see that this time the theory would work. 

It’s difficult to imagine foreign policy wonks dancing in the streets of Washington, D.C., but my guess is that was exactly what they were doing in their favorite think tanks and editorial offices, not to mention in Foggy Bottom and the White House Executive Office Building (which houses the National Security Council) when they heard last week that their long-time nemesis, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu, was out of power. Now that the circumstances have changed, they imagined, they will have yet another opportunity to retry their theory, and this time it will work. 

The only person that liberal internationalists despise (and I mean, really despise) more than Netanyahu is, of course, his personal friend and diplomatic partner, former President Donald Trump. 

One can more readily comprehend the animosity toward the Archie Bunkered Donald among the cosmopolitan graduates of Ivy League universities who ran foreign policy for the Obama-Biden Administration and are now doing the same thing for Joe Biden.

But Netanyahu is an intellectual who graduated from MIT, who opens his day with the New York Times, and reads the same books they do.  

So it’s nothing personal in the end, and has more to do with politics, and possibly the notion that Israel was led by a conservative statesman who could have probably run as a Republican for the U.S. Senate if only his dad had not decided to return to Israel with his family. (After watching Bibi on TV, one of my Millennial students asked me whether he was the Republican governor of Israel). 

New Iran Prez Defends Mass Execution of THOUSANDS of Political Prisoners By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/06/21/iran-prez-elect-on-mass-execution-of-political-prisoners-i-have-always-defended-peoples-rights-n1455992

On Monday, the soon-to-be-president* of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, defended his role in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, claiming that he has “always defended people’s rights.” On the day Iran announced Raisi would become the next president, Amnesty International called for his investigation for crimes against humanity for the 1988 prison massacres, in which Raisi oversaw the executions of thousands of political prisoners and protesters.

“There are sanctions against you. Human rights organizations say thousands were executed whilst you sat on a committee that oversaw those executions in 1988. On the day you were elected, Amnesty International said you should be investigated for crimes against humanity,” an English-speaking reporter asked Raisi. “Do you think that these issues will be difficult for you when you interact with world leaders, especially western leaders?”

“From the start of my responsibility as a legal professional I’ve always defended people’s rights,” Raisi insisted.

“We should say to those who make accusations today, ‘We are the ones who should be making claims as those who speak up for human rights,’” the soon-to-be-president insisted. “Everything I’ve done in my time of holding office has been to defend human rights. In the face of those who disrupted people’s rights and engaged in Daeshi [ISIS-type] and anti-security moves, in the judiciary as a legal expert and as a judge, I have always stood up for people’s rights and defended human rights.”

“If a legal expert, a judge, or a prosecutor has defended the rights of people and the security of the society, he must be lauded and encouraged for preserving the security of the people against assaults and threats. I am proud that in my role as a prosecutor wherever I was I have always defended people’s rights, security, and tranquility,” Raisi declared.

The New Refuseniks by Izabella Tabarovsky

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/soviet-jews-stood-up-to-anti-zionism-once-before

Soviet Jews stood up to anti-Zionism once before. Now they are helping the younger generation of American Jews—including their own children—fight back against a wave of defamation and hate, while mainstream Jewish organizations wilt.

At a recent United Against Terrorism rally in Beverly Hills, Jennifer Karlan, 17, spoke passionately about why American Jews should stand for Israel. With remarkable confidence, she talked about a new form of antisemitism facing American Jews: “Today, they no longer say they hate the Jew; today they say they hate Zionists. Today they no longer say they hate the Jewish people; they say they hate the Zionist entity. But the hate is the same.” Some 2,000 people had gathered for the rally. Karlan drew cheers as she insisted that Jewish identity and Israel are deeply interconnected: “Israel is not just the name of the land; it is the name of our people. We are the people of Israel, each and every one of us: Am Yisrael Chai.” 

Karlan is a graduate of Club Z, a Zionist club for teens and quite possibly the most important American Jewish organization you’ve never heard of. Club Z was founded four years ago by Masha Merkulova, a Soviet Jewish immigrant from Minsk. Along with a handful of other organizations that Russian-speaking American Jews have started over the past few years, it is changing the conversation about Jewish identity, Jewish peoplehood, Zionism, and Israel. Disappointed with the way the United States’ organized Jewish community has treated these issues, and alarmed by the growing embrace of politically weaponized Zionophobia—the form of antisemitism that they know so well from their lives in the Soviet Union—these immigrants are taking matters into their own hands.

The recent Hamas-Israel confrontation unleashed an antisemitic onslaught on social media and in the streets of U.S. cities of a kind that American Jews had never seen before. It wasn’t just the intensity of the hate that was shocking—it was also its source and nature. Suddenly, violent antisemitism was coming at American Jews from the left. Suddenly, it was progressive politicians who were fanning the flames of antisemitism, while the Democratic Party—the political home of most American Jews—looked the other way. Nothing in American Jews’ background or system of beliefs had prepared them for this moment, and many did not seem to know how to respond.

In that moment of crisis, only a few individuals and groups stood out as they fearlessly fought hate and propaganda. They did not log off their social media accounts. They showed no signs of confusion, and they most certainly were not demoralized. They simply stood up and joined the battle against what they perceived as an assault not only Israel but on who they were as Jews. 

The Unusual New Israeli Government It is the most diverse – and most fragile – in Israel’s history. Joseph Puder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/unusual-new-israeli-government-joseph-puder/

The unusual happened at the Israeli Knesset (parliament) in Jerusalem on Sunday, June 13, 2021. The bloc of Change (the anti-Netanyahu bloc) was able to form a coalition government with less than the required 61 Knesset members voting their confidence in the government led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. The vote was 60 for the new government and 59 against. Lapid, the force behind the Change Bloc, and the alternate Prime Minister in rotation with Bennett, had to summon Labor Knesset member Emilie Moatti from her hospital bed to vote while lying on a stretcher, just to make it 60… The Arab Islamist list (Ra’am in Hebrew), part of the new coalition government, had one of its four members abstain. Without Moatti’s vote there would have been no Lapid-Bennett government. Naftali Bennett will be leading the most diverse coalition in Israel’s history.

Another unprecedented fact about the incoming government led by new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is that he leads a party of only six Knesset members in the unicameral Knesset of 120 members. The outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest serving PM in Israel’s history (15-years in total, and last 12 consecutive years) leads the largest party in the Knesset with 30 members. Amichai Chikli of Bennett’s Yamina party voted against his own leader, pointing out that he could not bring himself to sit in the same government with the far-left Meretz party that is part of the new coalition.

The new coalition government has one binding issue in common; all eight parties wanted to get Netanyahu out of office. There is little else they share. Yair Lapid’s (57) center-left party, Yesh Atid (17 seats in the current Knesset) has a liberal agenda on domestic-economic affairs; its platform says little on foreign and security affairs. Interestingly, while its platform calls for an effective government with no more than 18 ministers, the current Change Bloc that Lapid has concocted has 27 ministers. Yesh Atid, a secular, Tel Aviv centered party believes in drafting Haredi boys into the IDF, and the integration of the Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community into Israeli society. Lapid served as Finance Minister in 2013, under Netanyahu, who subsequently fired him. Lapid was also a member of the security cabinet. A former journalist and a TV host, Lapid shares President Biden’s commitment to a two-state solution with the Palestinians, but he opposes the division of Jerusalem. Lapid is now Israel’s Foreign Minister and is slated to rotate with Naftali Bennett and become the Prime Minister in 2023.