MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

A moral call to arms about the transgender revolution By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/08/a_moral_call_to_arms_about_the_transgender_revolution.html

People who do not follow conservative news are unaware that our entire medical system has joined teachers in embracing the fantasy of transgenderism, and this is true whether the people involved are true believers, power junkies, or enthralled by the possibility of the millions of dollars tied to drugging and surgically mutilating children. Whatever the motives, it’s time for ordinary people to push back very hard.

I have Libs of Tik Tok on my daily reading list. I go there regularly because it helps me remember why, sometimes at great personal cost, I don’t retire to knitting and travel but, instead, spend most of my waking hours thinking about politics and trying to persuade people to see politics as I do. The importance of Libs of Tik Tok is that she travels through the internet looking at what leftists are proud enough to boast about—and then exposes those boasts to a larger audience than the leftists intended.

A significant portion of the leftists whom Libs of Tik Tok exposes are members of the LGBTQ+++ community or their “allies.” Over the past few years, these people have been increasingly vocal about the goal of “transing” kids. Teachers boast about bringing pronouns to kindergarteners and making sure that their students know that the teachers, with their transgender grooming, are the students’ “real” parents. Crazed parents boast about raising gender-neutral children or realizing that, when their two-year-old son said, “I like pink,” he was desperately saying that he’s really a girl.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Status of Global War against Terrorism by Pete Hoekstra

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18811/war-against-terrorism

Many of us have never been fans of the term “War on Terrorism” — it is difficult to articulate a war against a tactic.

The successful surgical strike that killed Zawahiri, the successor to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden… and the drone strike and military operation that took out two ISIS leaders, demonstrated the resolve of the Biden Administration to keep a focus on terrorist groups…. These actions send a strong message to terrorist organizations, their supporters and our allies that the U.S. still considers fighting this threat a significant priority.

On the flip side of this record is the growing apprehension that the U.S. withdrawal once again has made Afghanistan a safe haven for radical terrorist groups to plan and train for attacks against the U.S. and the West.

Another major concern as we evaluate the war on terrorism is the porous southern border of the United States…. We are gambling with American lives by allowing millions of poorly- or unvetted aliens to come into the country: the open border crisis is a preventable national security threat.

The open border has been bonanza for the cartels who control human trafficking, often increasing America’s unacknowledged slave trade, as well as importing lethal drugs that, in 2021 alone, killed more than 100,000 people. Reports estimate that the cartels take in between $5 billion and $19 billion a year.

Lastly, distraction has become a major problem in the fight against overseas terrorist threats. Rather than prioritize the jihadist groups abroad who want to kill us, the Biden-led U.S. government has made the threat from supposed “domestic terrorists” a priority.

Federal law enforcement personnel have been pressured to regard “right wing” groups and hate crimes as priorities. In June 2021, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the first “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.” This document was developed through the coordination of multiple departments, including Defense, Homeland Security and State. To many, the document signaled the redirection of limited resources to an ill-defined threat that smacked more of politics than as a true threat assessment.

[D]evelopments in Afghanistan, along the southern border, and the redirection and prioritization for law enforcement towards alleged domestic threats should be cause for major concern…. [A] major attack against the homeland is the aspirational goal of transnational terrorist groups. I still believe this is the real goal for those who hate America…. [W]e may be entering a phase of vulnerability not seen since 9/11/2001. This, as we near the 21st anniversary of that tragic day, should alarm everyone.

As we approach 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, one year since Joe Biden’s disastrous and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan, and following shortly after a drone strike that killed al-Qaeda terrorist leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, it makes sense to ask: What is the status of the global war on terror that started in the immediate aftermath of 9/11? Is this so-called war over, and is the United States safe?

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Calling for the Death of Jews on Campus Israel-hating activists justify and valorize terrorism. Richard L. Cravatts

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/calling-death-jews-campus-richard-l-cravatts/

Anti-Semitism, disguised as anti-Zionism, is still Jew-hatred.

In their zeal to create “safe” campus environments, universities have attempted to create an educational environment where students from approved victim groups are coddled, nurtured, and shielded from any criticism or intellectual or emotional challenges.

So-called hate speech—which now includes any expression that contradicts the prevailing progressive orthodoxy on campuses—is said to be harmful, even violent, by those forced to listen to others’ ideas.

Not content with simply acknowledging disparities between races, the orthodoxy on campuses now forces everyone to confront racism—including their own—with talk of implicit bias, invisible racism, “white privilege,” and microaggressions, together with a consequential battery of programs and initiatives to protect minority students from this alleged bigotry: mandatory sensitivity training for all faculty and students, publicly announced, school-wide solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and campus-wide initiatives to increase the recruitment of minority students and faculty. Anyone who questions or challenges these sweeping, unproved allegations of systemic racism can be accused of white supremacy and the promotion of injurious hate speech which further marginalizes and harms a victim group.

Conservative speakers or faculty who challenge issues such as illegal immigration, abortion, gay rights, race-based admissions quotas, or even radical Islam can find themselves vilified, shouted down at lectures, censured and denounced by their academic departments or the university administration, or even purged from campus—all as a result of the belief that chosen student victim groups—LGBTQs, Hispanics, Muslims, blacks—have to be shielded from any critique and that anyone who “harms” these groups with alleged hate speech is unwelcome at the university.

There is, however, one victim group that is rarely protected from vilification and ideological assault, namely, Jewish students who are supporters of Israel.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Defense, Diversity, and the China Threat How “woke” experiments endanger our Armed Forces. William Kilpatrick

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/defense-diversity-and-china-threat-william-kilpatrick/

The FBI raid on Donald Trump’s estate has temporarily pushed the China threat out of the headlines.  But, of course, the threat is still there and so is the question of how to respond to it.

Teddy Roosevelt said that when dealing with hostile foreign powers one should “speak softly and carry a big stick.”  In other words, don’t provoke your enemies, but let them know that you possess sufficient fire power and personnel to handle any situation that may arise.

Roosevelt decidedly did not say, “shout loudly and carry a small twig.”  But there is a danger that some people, both in and out of government, may fall into the trap of thinking that tough talk by itself is a sufficient response.

Of course, I exaggerate when I use the term “a small twig.”  The U.S. still possesses a formidable military.  But there is evidence that, in comparison to China, it is no longer as formidable as it once was.

An article on missile defense systems in the March issue of National Defense outlines the problem.  It points out that in 2020, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) began fielding hypersonic weapon systems “with a high level of maneuverability” that makes it difficult for traditional missiles to defend against them.

Moreover, the PLA strategy “focuses on using offensive strikes to gain a military advantage at the beginning of a conflict.”  According to Timothy Walton, a fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, “they [the PLA] talk about conducting preventative attacks…and preemptive attacks of various kinds.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘Civil War’ Porn Those who warn most of some mythical civil war are those most likely to incite one. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/17/civil-war-porn/

As Joe Biden’s polls stagnate and the midterms approach, we are now serially treated to yet another progressive melodrama about the dangers of a supposed impending radical right-wing violent takeover. 

This time the alleged threat is a Neanderthal desire for a “civil war.”  

The FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Florida home, the dubious rationale for such a historic swoop, and the popular pushback at the FBI and Department of Justice from roughly half the country have further fueled these giddy “civil war” conjectures. 

Recently “presidential historian” Michael Beschloss speculated about the parameters of such an envisioned civil war.

Beschloss is an ironic source. Just days earlier, he had tweeted references to the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who passed U.S. nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union in the 1950s, in connection with the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.  

That was a lunatic insinuation that Trump might justly suffer the same lethal fate due to supposedly mishandling of “nuclear secrets.” Unhinged former CIA Director Michael Hayden picked up on Beschloss death-penalty prompt, adding that it “sounds about right.”                                                                                                       

Hayden had gained recent notoriety for comparing Trump’s continuance of the Obama Administration’s border detention facilities to Hitler’s death camps. And he had assured the public that Hunter Biden’s lost and incriminating laptop was likely “Russian disinformation”. 

So, like the earlier “Russian collusion” hoax, and the January 6 “insurrection,” the supposed right-wing inspired civil war is the latest shrill warning from the Left about how “democracy dies in darkness” and the impending end of progressive control of Congress in a few months. 

On cue, Hollywood now joins the civil war bandwagon. It has issued a few bad, grade-C movies. They focus on deranged white “insurrectionists” who seek to take over the United States in hopes of driving out or killing off various “marginalized” peoples. 

Pentagon grandees promise to learn about “white rage” in the military and to root it out. But never do they offer any hard data to suggest white males express any greater degree of racial or ethnic chauvinism than any other demographic.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Deplatforming Doctors, Distracting Parents Helen Roy (January 2022)

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://americanmind.org/salvo/deplatforming-doctors-distracting-parents/

The regime wants to replace you

This week, for wondering aloud why we are now approving medication for children with no trial data, medical doctor Steven Bishop was flagged by the Twitter commissars. Now, his tweet is labelled “misleading,” users cannot see any of the tens of thousands of likes and responses accumulated over the week, and further engagement is permanently limited.

Within the same week, YouTube removed Joe Rogan’s recent interviews with Drs. Robert Malone and Peter McCullough, skeptics of the covid regime, both of whom also highlighted the absurdity and abusive nature of the response in regard to children. Throughout history, the old have sacrificed for the sake of the young, Malone suggested in his interview. The way American adults have recklessly mismanaged the lives of young people, he went on, is not only out of line with the natural way of things, but it will likely generate dramatic, civilization-threatening consequences in the near future.

Big Tech must come down on this information for the same reason they have come down hard on Christopher Rufo. It is the kind of thing that can and should galvanize parents. Any parent who has not completely resigned themselves to being, as I put it last week, the “temporary and essentially fungible custodian of state property” would react to this information with righteous indignation. Yes, those parents are a diminishing minority. But the narrative that the managerial elite cooperate to uphold is part of the reason parents feel alone, vulnerable, and totally powerless.

I challenge my readers to think of a single avenue of public life where parental authority remains a legitimate claim over the life and well-being of children.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

How the Chinese Communist Party Steals U.S. Technology A Thousand Talents is 999 too many. By Paul Dabbar

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-thousand-talents-is-999-too-many-energy-department-china-technology-transfer-research-innovation-national-lab-conflict-of-interest-appropriation-11659980858?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

When I joined the U.S. Department of Energy in 2017, I was briefed about how pervasively the Chinese Communist Party had woven itself into the U.S. government’s research and innovation efforts. Traditionally, labs and academic institutions around the world and their researchers work on projects together. And periodically, foreign institutions, including in China, compensate Americans for their efforts. The Communist Party began to use these interactions to recruit people for their technology-appropriation programs.

I should have known. Before I joined the department, I was in the nuclear industry in the private sector, and served on an Energy Department advisory board. Chinese state entities often invited me to attend nuclear conferences and tour the country—all expenses paid. I always said no, because I was too busy. In retrospect, I certainly am glad I was. The invitations have resumed since I left the government, and my answer is a well-informed no.

I learned that people working at the Energy Department’s National Laboratories had significant engagements with China. Some were paid by one of the many Chinese Communist Party Thousand Talents Plans while concurrently working at sensitive U.S. government labs. These agreements often required technology transfer as well as support for recruiting more members to the TTPs. This was also happening at other agencies, and it was recently disclosed that these include nonscience and international institutions such as the Federal Reserve and the Inter-American Development Bank.

The weakness in the Energy Department’s compliance rules was that there were no disclosure or conflict-of-interest policies regarding foreign engagement or research and technologies other than those involving strategic weapons. There were no rules about research in quantum computing and artificial intelligence, which will have a large economic impact and defense applications.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Dubious Transgender Science As other countries turn away from hormones and surgery, the AAP won’t even allow a debate. By Julia Mason and Leor Sapir

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-american-academy-of-pediatrics-dubious-transgender-science-jack-turban-research-social-contagion-gender-dysphoria-puberty-blockers-uk-11660732791?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

A spate of headlines this month declared that America’s surge in transgender identification wasn’t being caused by a social contagion. These articles were prompted by a new study by Jack Turban and colleagues in Pediatrics, flagship journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The study claimed that social influence isn’t the reason that as many as 9% of America’s youth now call themselves transgender. Thus, Dr. Turban argues, efforts in conservative states to regulate on-demand puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery must be resisted.

Yet Dr. Turban’s study is deeply flawed and likely couldn’t have survived a reasonable peer-review process. The swift response from the scientific community made both points clear—with even those who support hormones and surgery for gender-dysphoric youth noting that Dr. Turban’s shoddy science undermined their cause.

Nevertheless, the media have promoted his work as a refutation of the claim that the wildfire spread of transgender identity is an example of social contagion—a phenomenon in which members of a group (mostly young and female) mutually influence one another’s emotions and behavior.

The Turban study rejects the social-contagion theory on the grounds that more biological boys than girls identified as trans in 2017 and 2019, according to data collected from 19 states by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey. But the researchers who helped design the CDC questionnaire explicitly warned that youths who identify as transgender may list their sex as their gender identity, making it impossible to discern who is male-to-female or female-to-male (a limitation Dr. Turban has acknowledged in the past).

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Twitter Becomes a Tool of Government Censorship: Vivek Ramaswamy and Jed Rubenfeld

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-becomes-a-tool-of-government-censors-alex-berenson-twitter-facebook-ban-covid-

Alex Berenson was kicked off the site at the White House’s urging. That’s a violation of the First Amendment.

Alex Berenson is back on Twitter after being banned for nearly a year over Covid-19 “misinformation.” Last week the former New York Times reporter settled his lawsuit against the social-media company, which admitted error and restored his account. “The First Amendment does not apply to private companies like Twitter,” Mr. Berenson wrote last week on Substack. But because the Biden administration brought pressure to bear on Twitter, he believes he has a case that his constitutional rights were violated. He’s right.

In January 2021 we argued on these pages that tech companies should be treated as state actors under existing legal doctrines when they censor constitutionally protected speech in response to governmental threats and inducements. The Biden administration appears to have taken our warning calls as a how-to guide for effectuating political censorship through the private sector. And it’s worse than we feared.

Facts that Mr. Berenson unearthed through the discovery process confirm that the administration has been secretly asking social-media companies to shut down the accounts of specific prominent critics of administration policy.

On July 16, 2021, a reporter asked President Biden: “On Covid misinformation, what’s your message to platforms like Facebook.” Mr. Biden replied: “They’re killing people.” (The president later said he meant users were killing people.) Later that day, Twitter locked Mr. Berenson’s account, and on Aug. 28 it banned him permanently.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

It’s The Culture Of The IRS To Target The Most Vulnerable Taxpayers Daniel Savickas

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/18/its-the-culture-of-the-irs-to-target-the-most-vulnerable-taxpayers/

The Senate recently passed the inappropriately named Inflation Reduction Act on Aug. 7 (yes, a Sunday). Aside from the fact that even non-partisan analyses show the bill will have a negligible impact on actual inflation, one specific provision is raising red flags. In the plan, the Internal Revenue Service gets a fresh $80 billion in funding, with $45.6 billion of that slated for “enforcement” measures. This will involve the hiring of more than 87,000 new IRS agents. If past is prologue, it’s reasonable to expect this spells bad news for lower income Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates this new investment in the IRS will generate an additional $203.7 billion over the next 10 years. A sum that large certainly casts doubt on the notion that this will only impact the super-wealthy.  It is especially concerning given the agency’s rates of audits across socio-economic classes in recent years.

According to IRS audit data, the most frequently audited county in the United States is Humphreys County, Mississippi. This rural county near the Mississippi Delta is known for catfish farming and has an average income of $18,000 per resident, making it among the poorest in the nation. Yet, Humphreys’ residents get audited far more often than those in cities such as New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles.