THE CDC MASSIVELY VIOLATES ITS PLEDGE TO AMERICANS. WHY TRUST IT NOW?

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/04/05/the-cdc-massively-violates-its-pledge-to-americans-why-should-anyone-trust-it-now/

(Since Big Tech is likely to try to censor this article, we encourage our readers to share it widely with friends by email, on personal websites, blogs, or however else you share information these days.)

One of the five items on the CDC’s “Pledge to the American People” is that it will “base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data that is derived openly and objectively.” Can anyone honestly say that it has lived up to this promise during the COVID outbreak?

Three recent events should make it abundantly clear that the answer is no.  

First, the CDC has been caught hiding vast amounts of scientific data regarding COVID. The New York Times, of all places, reported in late February that “For more than a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has collected data on hospitalizations for COVID-19 in the United States and broken it down by age, race and vaccination status. But it has not made most of the information public.” Why? Because the data, especially data on the efficacy of vaccines, “might be misinterpreted.”

Dr. Nicole Saphier, a physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering, tweeted in reaction to the news that: “The CDC’s response when questioned about their withholding of COVID data and lack of transparency is essentially ‘we don’t trust you to be able to understand the truth.’ The condescension is palpable.”

She added that “People who have blindly trusted the CDC the last 2 years are about to have their world turned upside down as the lack of transparency and manipulation of data become undeniably evident.”

So much for the CDC’s pledge to be “open and objective.” (This revelation also shows that the CDC has violated another of its pledges: to “treat all persons with dignity, honesty, and respect.”)

The Cult of Abortion Seth Barron

https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-cult-of-abortion/

As the Left abandons the meaningful existence of gender, abortion remains a sacrament reserved for women in the woke cathedral.

As we all have learned by now, women do not get pregnant and have babies—“birthing people” do. Women do not exclusively menstruate—both men and women have periods. And women do not nurse babies—“chestfeeders” do. But, so far at least, abortion is still exclusively a question of women’s health. 

In May of 2021, Representative Cori Bush testified in a congressional hearing about maternal death among black women and babies. “Every day,” she tweeted, “Black birthing people and our babies die because our doctors don’t believe our pain. My children almost became a statistic. I almost became a statistic.” But Bush, a radical socialist legislator who is sticking with “Defund the Police” as a mantra, was not using some arcane terminology in substituting “birthing person” for the usual “mother.” This substitution apparently reflects official U.S. government policy under the Biden administration, which used it in 2022 fiscal documents.  

Tampon companies have also embraced the idea that their products are, potentially, for everyone. “Fact: Not all women have periods,” Tampax tweeted. “Also a fact: Not all people with periods are women. Let’s celebrate the diversity of all people who bleed!” The ACLU has embraced “menstrual equity” as a matter of civil rights, asking, “How can we recognize that barriers to menstrual access are a form of sex discrimination without erasing the lived experiences of trans men and non-binary people who menstruate, as well as women who don’t?” Numerous colleges have installed tampon machines in men’s bathrooms, too. 

“Conformity – Death Knell for Freedom”- Sydney Williams

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

News sources seem unable to deal with more than one crisis at a time. Three months ago, and for the previous twenty-one months, airwaves were dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it is Ukraine. What has been happening in Ukraine is awful, but is it, as commentators on both Fox News and MSNBC have reported, the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II? Is it worse than China’s Cultural Revolution, which caused an estimated 20 million deaths? Is it worse than the Cambodian killing fields when the Communist-led Khmer Rouge slew as many as 3.0 million people? Does it compare to Islamic terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa where 3 million Christians have been displaced and 43,000 killed in Nigeria alone? Where is perspective? Evil is part of human nature. It was because of the existence of evil that the Founders put constraints on governmental power. Evil leaders – from Hitler, Hirohito and Stalin to Mao Zedong, from Kim Jong-un to Ali Khamenei, from Xi Jinping to Vladimir Putin – rule by forced conformity, with none of the restraints on their leadership necessary for people to live freely and securely. Dissent is not allowed. Opposition to prescribed doctrines threatens totalitarian leaders.

Lest one tags me as an anarchist, let me add that I do believe in conformity when it comes to adherence to civility – tolerance, decency and respect for others, regardless of opinions, gender or race. And I believe in the universal values, embedded in traditional concepts of virtue. It is not the superficial differences reflected in gender and race, but differences in the opinions we carry, that threaten progressives’ desire for conformity. The freedom to express those opinions in a civil manner is critical to a democracy. In his 2007 book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, Stanford Professor Philip Zimbardo wrote, “Research shows that the decisions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful; and creative when there is a minority dissent than when it is absent.” It is the premise behind the success of democracies versus the failure of authoritarian rule.

How Florida’s Newly Enacted ‘Parental Rights in Education’ Law Actually Protects Gay Students Leor Sapir

https://quillette.com/2022/04/01/how-floridas-newly-enacted-parental-rights-in-education-law-actually-protects-gay-students/

The White House has denounced a new Florida law as “cruel” and “harmful.” In an interview with CNN, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay cabinet member in American history, agreed that the law is “dangerous.” His husband Chasten, a best-selling author, was even more emphatic, declaring that “this will kill kids.”

The law in question does not lower the driving age to 12, permit teenagers to own guns, or eliminate funding for research on pediatric cancers. Instead, Florida’s newly enacted Parental Rights in Education law requires that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade three, or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

Another provision dictates that schools “may not discourage or prohibit parental notification of and involvement in critical decisions affecting a student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.” This latter provision has not attracted nearly as much attention (or criticism) as the former. But as discussed below, it will likely have a bigger impact on students—and a highly beneficial one.

Pete Buttigieg smirks to Americans to ‘go green’ or get used to soaring gas prices By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/pete_buttigieg_smirks_to_americans_to_go_green_or_get_used_to_soaring_gas_prices.html

Joe Biden’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, has a smarmy, smiling message for all of us pudknocker Americans who don’t quite buy into the ‘going green’ agenda of the Bidenites:

Here’s what he actually said:

…so, less dependent on foreign oil, and that protects us from shortages at fuel stations, but here’s the thing  to remember, even if all of the oil we use in the U.S.A. were made in the U.S.A., the price of it is still subject to powers and dynamics outside of the U.S.A. Which means that until we achieve a form of energy independence that is based on clean energy created here at home, American citizens will still be vulnerable to wild price hikes like we are seeing right now..

..which is smug, certain, smiling, and … and a very odd message to shill out to the American public as gas prices hit $5.85 a gallon on average in California and $4.26 nationally, and midterms beckon.

It’s an astonishingly ignorant and charlatan-like statement.

Buttigieg argues that domestically produced green energy is somehow not subject to global price swings, while only oil and natural gas somehow are.

How do we unpack this?

Compromised Biden Cannot Lead America or the World By Vasko Kohlmayer

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/04/compromised_biden_cannot_lead_america_or_the_world.html

Last week the Russian government held a press conference where it aired accusations of breathtaking corruption on the part of Joe Biden and his family.

Unfortunately, this event was no fake news Russian propaganda. The incriminating evidence presented at the event came straight from the hard drive that belonged to Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

As you may know, in 2019 Hunter Biden carelessly abandoned his laptop at a computer repair shop in Delaware. This was an act of astounding recklessness, since the emails, text messages, files, photos, and videos contained on that computer provided extensive record of greed, corruption, bribery and graft, not only on his part but also on the part of his father and other members of their family.

When the New York Post tried to report on the hard drive in October 2020, the America mainstream media and law enforcement authorities refused to acknowledge it or take appropriate action. Rather than commencing an investigation, the establishment falsely claimed that the hard drive was a product of “Russian disinformation.” They did this even though they knew it was real.  The staff of the New York Post conducted an extensive, multi-level authentication process to ensure that the hard drive was genuine, and they made the details of this process available to anyone who cared to check.

Amid a Crime Wave, the New York State Attorney General Gets Tough on . . . Reporters By A. J. Caschetta

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/amid-a-crime-wave-the-new-york-state-attorney-general-gets-tough-on-reporters/?itm_

Letitia James has used her office to thwart investigative reporters while sticking up for a group with intimate ties to Hamas.

New Yorkers are currently suffering through an epidemic of violent crime that is diminishing the quality of life of the nation’s most-burdened taxpayers. And what is state attorney general Letitia James doing about it? Pushing back against the so-called bail-reform laws that every day turn violent offenders back out on the street? Devising new ways to protect tourists and residents? Conducting a forensic investigation into all that missing Covid-19 relief cash that was stolen?

No, she’s coming to the defense of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in its efforts to stop its own members from talking to reporters about the potentially illegal activities of the group’s leaders. On April 1 (this couldn’t have been an April Fool’s Day joke, can it?), the Office of the Attorney General of the State of New York sent a cease-and-desist notification to Steven Emerson, founder and director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), ordering the end to “any ongoing or contemplated unlawful espionage operations against Muslims and Muslim organizations within the State of New York.”

The press release announcing the letter begins: “On the eve of Ramadan, New York Attorney General Letitia James today warned a known anti-Muslim hate group to stop spying on Muslim communities.” The second paragraph begins: “As we enter the holy month of Ramadan, it’s more important than ever that we show our support for our Muslim communities and stand up to Islamophobia and hate of any and every kind.”

Schools Push Radical Ideology under Guise of ‘Social-Emotional Learning,’ Parents Warn By Caroline Downey

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/schools-push-radical-gender-ideology-under-guise-of-social-emotional-learning-parents-warn/?utm_

During the pandemic, Traci Spiegel’s son and most of his Howard County, Md., classmates received virtually no mathematics instruction for five months.

What little ineffective virtual instruction he did receive didn’t prevent his grade from plummeting from an A to a C. So when he returned to the classroom as a high-school freshman, he became incredibly frustrated that he and his peers were asked to spend 40 minutes every Monday on so-called social-emotional learning (SEL).

Instead of spending as much time as possible making up the ground they had lost in math and other subjects, they were taught how to avoid committing microaggressions, how to use pronouns, and how to avoid offending gay people, according to Spiegel’s son.

Since conservatives at all levels of government embraced the fight against critical race theory, dissenting parents nationwide know how to recognize and counter racially divisive curricula. But a broader suite of radical ideas, couched in therapeutic language, is quietly being advanced under the banner of SEL, parents whose children have been exposed to such programming told National Review.

IDENTITY OR PERSONA BY ANDREW FILLAT

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/03/31/identity-or-persona/

“Nothing can change the fact that females have two X chromosomes and males have an X and a Y, and certain physical realties flow from that difference.”

Much has been made of the statement, “I am not a biologist,” by aspiring Supreme Court justice Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing when asked “What is a woman?” This has obscured the far more important point that she did not feel empowered to provide an answer. That is because the terms “woman” and “man” seem now to occupy a semantic nether land between identity (biological sex) and persona (gender).

The irony here is both rich and irritating. Progressive culture has been quick to jump all over “cultural appropriation,” often in relatively trivial matters such as dress, casual language, or even Halloween costumes. Yet allowing gender to displace sex is arguably the ultimate form of appropriation. Unlike culture, ethnicity, and even race, biological sex is all but absolute and easily determined (very rare cases of genetic anomalies notwithstanding).

By contrast, persona is at least partially elective, regardless of whether it is driven by a deep-seated psychological imperative, comfort, or simple preference. Claims such as “gender fluidity” eliminate any doubt about the presence of choice in gender. Even race and ethnicity are to some extent persona rather than identity. As many millions have learned by sending their DNA to sequencing services such as “23 and Me,” our genetic identity is often a stew of different racial, historical, and geographic elements. We then characterize ourselves based upon a perceived dominant genetic strain, our appearance, our affinities, or even family legends. That leaves considerable leeway for choice. Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren demonstrated this vividly by claiming a Native American persona despite a laughably tiny and murky genetic component. She adopted a persona (perhaps for mercenary reasons) with little connection to her genetic identity.

WILL HUNTER BIDEN SCANDAL FURTHER ERODE TRUST IN MEDIA? POLL BY TERRY JONES

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/04/04/will-hunter-biden-scandal-further-erode-americans-trust-in-media-ii-tipp-poll/

First, the good news: Public opinion of both the Traditional Media and the Alternative Media rebounded slightly in March. Now the bad news: Despite the slight gain, the media failed to arrest their slide in public opinion over the last year, data from the March I&I/TIPP Poll show.

Even worse news for the media comes as both The New York Times and Washington Post admitted in recent days that they failed for two years to cover signs of possible influence peddling by President Biden’s son Hunter, as revealed on Hunter’s lost laptop. It’s a major PR disaster for both outlets and for the mainstream media in general.

Will the public be forgiving? Or will the media’s long decline in public trust resume after March’s uptick?

First, some numbers. Each month, I&I/TIPP asks Americans two questions about the major media:

One, “Generally speaking, how much trust do you have in the traditional or established news media (Example: Washington Post, New York Times, NPR, CBS News, etc.) to report the news accurately and fairly?”

And two, “Generally speaking, how much trust do you have in the alternative news media (Example: New York Post, Washington Times, NewsMax, The Daily Caller, RealClearPolitics, etc.) to report the news accurately and fairly?”