Florida Law Defunds DEI in Higher Ed

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday signed three bills to excise woke ideology from state higher education institutions and promote productive education goals.

SB 266 will “prohibit institutions from spending federal or state dollars on discriminatory initiatives, such as so called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)’ programs,” the governor’s office summarized in a press release. HB 931 will “prohibit Florida’s public institutions from requiring students, faculty, or staff to take political loyalty tests,” and SB 240 will “expand workforce education programs and increase access to career and technical education (CTE) programs.”

The first of these laws doubles down on Florida Republicans’ efforts last year to crack down on woke ideology in institutions of higher education. SB 266 forbids “a Florida College System institution” to “expend any state or federal funds” on “any programs or campus activities that: (a) Violate s. 1000.05; or (b) Advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI], or promote or engage in political or social activism.”

The first prohibited category (violations of s. 1000.05) refers to a section of Florida law dealing with discrimination in K-20 public education, which the Individual Freedom Act (a.k.a. Stop Woke Act) modified last year. The Stop Woke Act added paragraphs stating that “it shall constitute discrimination … to subject any student or employee to training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such student or employee to believe any of the following concepts.” The list that followed included foundational tenets of critical race theory (CRT) and other leftist ideologies, such as “A person’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex.”

In October, a federal judge in the Northern District of Florida temporarily blocked Florida officials from enforcing this section of the law, on the grounds that it ran afoul of First Amendment Freedom of Speech.

Following this legal setback, Florida Republicans devised a different approach to achieve their original objective — eliminating woke programming on academic campuses. It began with Governor DeSantis ordering all state universities and colleges “to provide a comprehensive list of all staff, programs, and campus activities” related to DEI or CRT. Within days, the same parties who had challenged the Stop Woke Act complained that Florida was violating the judge’s preliminary injunction against portions of the Stop Woke Act. However, the judge denied the motion on the grounds that the injunction had not been violated.

Perhaps in an effort to avoid another free speech challenge, SB 266 does provide an exception from its DEI funding ban for “student fees to support student-led organizations” and “use of institution facilities by student-led organizations.”

SB 266 also enacted other DeSantis objectives for higher education. It directed the Board of Governors to review the mission and curriculum of each university, gave university presidents (as opposed to less accountable academic departments) final authority over hiring full-time faculty, and prohibited left-wing loyalty pledges as a condition of employment. These changes are among those DeSantis set forth in his January 31 education agenda “to focus on promoting academic excellence, the pursuit of truth, and to give students the foundation so they can think for themselves.”

In addition to SB 266, DeSantis also signed HB 931, which states that “a public institution of higher education may not … Require or solicit a person to complete a political loyalty test as a condition of employment or admission into, or promotion within, such institution.” It also bars universities and colleges from giving “preferential consideration” for employment, admission, or promotion based on “an opinion or actions in support of: a. A partisan, a political, or an ideological set of beliefs; or b. Another person or group of persons based on the person’s or group’s race or ethnicity or support of an ideology or movement … that promotes the differential treatment of a person or a group of persons based on race or ethnicity.” This prohibition encompasses university diversity statements (not academic diversity but identity diversity), which require university staff to affirm a DEI agenda as a condition of employment.

While DeSantis’ educational initiatives make headlines for countering woke ideology, they reflect a fundamentally positive vision, not one that is negative or contrarian. Rather, the goal is to remove politics from education, thus “empowering students, parents, and educators to focus on creating opportunities for our younger generations,” said DeSantis. This mission, to prepare young people to be productive members of society, is reflected in the third bill DeSantis signed, SB 240, which will “expand workforce education programs and increase access to career and technical education (CTE) programs.”

Unsurprisingly, left-wing activists like the ACLU of Florida dislike Florida’s higher education reforms, which demolish the barriers protecting left-wing academic hegemony. But every significant reform will face opposition. Ray Rodrigues, Chancellor of the State University System of Florida, said the legislature and DeSantis were “re-orienting our distinguished universities to missions that treat people as individuals, that reward merit and achievement, and center on recruiting excellent faculty while creating the talent pipeline necessary to fuel Florida’s future.” Making the right enemies is worth it, for the right reasons.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

America Must Not Just Survive, She Must Thrive!

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” ― John F. Kennedy, remarks on the 20th Anniversary of Voice of America on February 26, 1962.


Sadly, today its Mourning in America.

President Donald J. Trump’s campaign released a new anti-Biden/pro-American ad titled “Mourning in America,” which pays homage to the iconic Morning in America ad by President Ronald Reagan. The ad depicts the suffering felt by average Americans under President Joe Biden, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, ongoing inflation, an illegal alien surge at the southern border, transgender athletes competing in female sports and much more.

The new ad begins with these prophetic words, “It’s mourning again in America. And thanks to Joe Biden, our borders are now wide open for all to come. Why would we ever accept the incompetence and weakness of Biden when we could have the freedom, security, and economic prosperity we enjoyed just three years ago?”

WATCH: Mourning in America

Today America is Barely Surviving

Mark Twain wrote, It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

Today we have seen the native American criminal class expanded to include: the White House, first family, FBI, CIA, DOJ, DOD, DHS, and every other federal, state and local agency. From the school house to the White House we are witnessing an America where we the people have been, via public policy, put into the survival mode by the Nuevo Elected Criminal Class (NECC).

Today Americans can’t afford food, clothing, gasoline or a new car. Many can’t afford to buy a home in places like California and in the big metropolitan areas like Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, New York City and Detroit. Many newly graduated students find it difficult to rent an apartment to just live freely and pursue their chosen career and happiness. Today Americans are pursuing ways to survive until, hopefully, the NECC is drained from the swamp.

What is the swamp? It is a system of governance that wants power, absolute power.

In his dystopian novel 1984 George wrote, If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

People are living in fear. Fear of losing their job because they used the wrong personal pronoun. Fear of speaking out on social media. Fear of being labeled a domestic terrorist for telling the truth. Fear of being white, straight, Christian, Jew and because they stand up for the American flag with their hand over their heart and pledge allegiance to it. Patriots are now the enemy of the state.

Patriotic citizens fear their governments at every level from the local school boards to the halls of Congress, to the U.S. Supreme Court and finally to the White House.

We now live in a time when our government is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market. We now are ruled by a government that is afraid of its own people.

Americans are now not just barely surviving, and not thriving. Americans are now living in fear.

This is why there is “mourning” in America.

Make America Thrive Again

President John F. Kennedy said, “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”

Since the inauguration of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. there have been numerous persistent, persuasive and unrealistic myths that have led to and caused the decline in America’s prosperity and with it the ability of Americans to thrive.

These persistent, persuasive and unrealistic policies include:

  1. Mankind must control the climate in order to save the planet. This myth has lead to the Green New Deal and efforts to reduce the carbon, CO2, levels. This myth has lead to mandating the use of all electric vehicles, stopping efforts to drill for fossil fuels in America, importation of oil from foreign nations and even an attack on appliances such as stoves which use natural gas, a very clean form of energy. This myth has been totally debunked by a recent study titled World Atmospheric CO2, Its 14C Specific Activity, Non-Fossil component, Anthropogenic Fossil Component, and Emissions (1750–2018) which stated, Our results show that the percentage of the total CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming.” This lead to our asking: How many U.S. Soldiers lives will be needlessly lost after our military converts to an all Electric Military Fleet of Land Vehicles (EVMLVs)?
  2. People can choose their gender. This myth was created by the LGBTQIE+ community to educate, encourage, promote and recruit underaged children to become partners for adult sodomites. This agenda has gone on warp speed since the inauguration of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., who prides himself, no pun intended, on furthering the queering of every aspect of American life. Today using the wrong pronoun can get you fired, harassed, assaulted and even killed. Gender-Queer is becoming the new norm. Recently a ‘Gender Queer’  school counselor was arrested for grooming and assaulting a child. Zobella Brazil Vinik, a 29-year-old woman who identifies as trans reportedly groomed and molested a 15-year-old female student. Companies like Anheuser-Bush, Google, Disney Corporation have embraced sodomy, promoted sodomites and have lost billions of dollars doing so.
  3. All whites, and blacks who love white people, are racists. This myth began with the Black Panthers, Nation of Islam and now the Black Lives Matter movements. The Critical Race Theory (CRT) myth is promoted in our schools from Kindergarten to our colleges and universities. It, along with the New York Times’ 1619 Project, have lead to the myth that we should judge people by the color of their skins, not by the content of their characters. This has lead to convicted felons like George Floyd being idolized and statues of American leaders torn down, like Abraham Lincoln. Even the Department of Defense has fully embraced CRT and put into practice at every military academy, it is taught to new recruits and in various officers courses. Even military bases are being renamed to embrace the myths in CRT.
  4. Communism lead to Utopia Myth. This myth is the ongoing war against capitalism. It has not stopped despite the fall of the former Soviet Union. It is being embraced as a panacea when in fact it is a pariah. Communism kills. It kills families, cultures and eventually individuals by the tens of millions.
  5. Bigger government, more spending and taxation lead to equal outcomes myth. We now have Americans paying more taxes and the federal government spending more not to help we the people but rather to help other nation states and causes that are disturbingly anti-American. This has led to the largest national debt in U.S. history. It seems that neither pollical party has the will to stop the spending and reduce the debt on this and future generations.
  6. Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) myths. The policies driven by DIE are harming American workers and forcing companies to turn their attention away from serving their customers to complying with government ESG scores. DIE is now more important than equal protection under the law. DIE is a law unto itself that destroys the prosperity and ideal of America being a melting pot made up of all races, colors and creeds working toward making America a great and prosperous nation.

The above list is just the tip of the iceberg. We have not listed how non-profits, corporations, churches, synagogues, Mosques and many of the 20 political parties in the U.S. are harming our ability to thrive.

The 2024 presidential election takes on greater importance than any previous election. We as a nation will either continue down the narrow street to survival, or we get on the broader pathway back to prosperity and a thriving United States of America.

As JFK asked, “If not us, who? If not now, when?”

Choose wisely. Your, your children and grandchildren’s futures depend on it.

©2023 Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Elon Musk: Visionary Leader or Master Manipulator?

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • Rather than squabbling about controlled opposition, we would be better served by spending our time productively engaged in research, verifying and triangulating information to discern what is true and what is false
  • “Divide and conquer” is the primary way the control network maintains control, and all that’s needed to divide a previously unified front is insinuation and the seeding of doubt
  • As AI-equipped chatbots are getting more sophisticated and start to monopolize online searches and virtual assistants, state-endorsed propaganda may become the only information available
  • Narrative is the ultimate weapon; with a convincing-enough narrative, you can motivate entire populations to go to war or anything else that you want them to do
  • One of the most important strategies you can implement to prepare yourself for the likelihood of what they plan on throwing at us next lies with community, meeting like-minded people that share your views and complement your skills. It will also be wise to relocate from high density urban areas

In this video, I interview investigative journalist James Corbett about false narratives, the global takeover by technocracy, controlled opposition and the dangers of artificial intelligence, as well as the solutions to these and other challenges.

Corbett’s journalism career began in the aftermath of 9/11, when he became “overwhelmed to discover that we are constantly lied to through the mainstream media.” 9/11 was his “red pill” moment, and he hasn’t stopped digging for the truth since.

“The discrepancy between the things that I was finding online versus what was being reported on the evening news just started getting wider and wider,” he says, “to the point where I felt that … I had to insert myself in that conversation. So that’s the reason we’re talking today.”

In 2007, Corbett launched his website, CorbettReport.com. One of his hallmarks, both in his documentaries and regular reports, is impeccable citations of sources.

“I always put up the transcript with the hyperlinks to the source documents for every single quotation, every video clip, everything that I’m playing,” he says. “I want to direct people back to the source material so that they can research it for themselves.

I know, as a researcher myself who does this for a living, that’s incredibly valuable. I very much appreciate it when other people do it, so I’m trying to set that example in the alternative media.”

Can the Global Takeover Be Derailed?

Corbett is also featured on “Good Morning CHD” with Dr. Meryl Nass once a month, an online news show by Children’s Health Defense.

“It’s a valuable way, for both of us, to continue keeping our eye on the ball of the World Health Organization and its latest machinations … of the global pandemic treaty and the international health regulations (IHR) amendments that they’re working on right now, which really could be the hardwiring of the biosurveillance infrastructure,” Corbett says.

When asked whether he believes the pandemic treaty and/or the IHR amendments can be stopped, Corbett replies:

“Well, they are planning on unleashing the global pandemic treaty on the world at the World Health Assembly (WHA) next year, May of 2024. And preparatory to that, they’re going to be holding a World Health Assembly this month, at which they’ll be talking about the draft of the treaty and the draft of the IHR amendments and other such developments.

So, we’re looking at about a one-year timeline before whatever it is they’re cooking up will be foisted upon the world, unless there is some dramatic movement to stop that.

In the short run, it seems unlikely that the incredible institutional momentum is going to be derailed, but having said that, we could look at things that have happened in the past that have completely derailed agendas that seemed inevitable, including the 2009 edition of the UNFCCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

In 2009, the UNFCCC was being promoted and hyped — even by the then-president of the EU — as the potential for world government through a new climate accord that would completely rewrite the international rule books.

That was completely derailed by a couple of interesting incidents, one of which was Climategate … Squabbles between some of the developing nations versus the developed world … [also] helped to derail that 2009 conference.

There’s potentially a similar thing happening [now] with the WHO trying to foist regulations and restrictions on developing countries that can’t afford them. As we saw over the course of the past few years, it was the African countries that held out against the biosecurity state agenda, to a large degree.

And I think people who are interested in invoking a global biosecurity surveillance net probably are most concerned about how developing countries will or will not participate in this. So, there may be a similar sort of geo-economic squabbling or something else that might derail this, so I don’t think we should simply consign ourselves to the inevitability of it before it happens.”

Is Elon Musk Controlled Opposition?

Determining the trustworthiness of people within the alternative news space is a challenge everyone is faced with these days. Accusations of people being controlled opposition are common. The same goes for high-profile individuals in general. For example, some people, including Corbett and investigative journalist Whitney Webb, believe Elon Musk is likely controlled opposition. What led them to that conclusion?

“It’s a question that a lot of people have, so let’s dig into it,” Corbett says. On the one side you have people who believe Musk is exposing and undermining the military industrial intelligence complex. On the other are those who think he’s just playing a “good guy” role while surreptitiously furthering Deep State goals. As noted by Corbett, it’s hard to overlook the massive support Musk has received from the military industrial intelligence complex over the course of his career.

“We don’t have to speculate about that,” Corbett says. “That is a matter of public record. We can point to the half a billion dollars or so that the Department of Defense has awarded SpaceX in a series of contracts over the past few years to send satellites up into orbit of classified nature on unregistered, unreported missions that presumably have something to do with the DOD’s declared intention to make space into a war-fighting domain.

There’s the $3 billion in NASA contracts that SpaceX was awarded in 2021 to develop the human lander for the Artemis Mission, and the never-going-to-happen constantly delayed moon trip that the public is being promised. There’s the $750 million that was awarded to Solar City in 2016 by the state of New York to build a solar cell production facility.

This, again, is another aspect of the business opportunities that Musk is involved in that I think shrieks of grift — a boondoggle at the very least, constantly promising a technology that not only doesn’t deliver but actually is actively harmful to the environment. I think that’s something that needs to be stressed.

Then, there’s the $1.3 billion that Tesla got from the State of Nevada in 2014 to build the Gigafactory, etc., etc., etc. We could go through the list of such help, but perhaps more to the point was the fact that before Elon Musk got to launch SpaceX, he was part of a trip to Russia … to purchase old Soviet ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles]. That trip ultimately resulted in the starting of SpaceX.

Who was accompanying Elon Musk on that trip? Someone named Mike Griffin, who just happened to be the chief operating officer of In-Q-Tel, which is the CIA’s investment capital arm …

Griffin went on to become the administrator of NASA, who then chose SpaceX as the one company out of the 20 that was applying for it at the time, for this $400 million contract to start development of the new ISS resupply rocket in 2005, which basically launched SpaceX … and again awarded SpaceX $3.5 Billion in 2008 with a contract that Musk himself credits with saving the company.

So, there you go, the literal deep state connections couldn’t get much clearer. At every stage of Musk’s business career, he has been saved as need be with the deus ex machina of deep state agents like Mike Griffin swooping in with billions of dollars of contracts at just the right time.”

That’s why Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover and the release of the Twitter Files may seem to be a move against the military-industrial complex, but given Musk’s documentable ties to that very same military-industrial complex, we must be wary of placing faith in these developments.

After all, Twitter is a centralized platform that lends itself to censorship, algorithmic manipulation and information suppression, and Musk has openly stated that he wants to create a “WeChat”-like app capable of handling every aspect of its users’ digital life.

Why Did Musk Release the Twitter Files?

Corbett suggests that the best way to evaluate Musk’s ideas and contributions is to assess their outcomes.

“Is what Elon Musk advocating good or bad? Do we agree with it or do we disagree with it? Is it right or wrong? And why do we think so? That has to be the heart that we keep coming back to. So, we have to evaluate Musk’s ideas on that basis,” he says.

“For example, there are ideas that Musk promotes that I am 100% onboard with. He has talked about the overpopulation myth and the under-population crisis that humanity is facing. I very much agree with him on that assessment. When he talks about the ill effects of lockdowns … absolutely, I think he’s right about that.

However, when he talks about the imposition of a carbon tax in line with Bill Gates and Mark Carney and the like, I think he’s pushing a bad idea that is part of a plan for centralization of control in globalist hands.

When he gets on the stage of the World Government Summit and argues for universal basic income, again in line with any number of globalist operatives, I think he is promoting an idea that will be used for centralization of economic control in fewer hands.

When he talks about the … Neuralink brain chip … [he’s] exactly in line with what [World Economic Forum founder] Klaus Schwab has been arguing … I think that is a bad idea that is going to be used for control of the masses by a technocratic elite.”

As for Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and subsequent release of the Twitter Files, Corbett doesn’t think it’s a great surprise to find that the military industrial intelligence complex has been using it to monitor and manipulate people. He believes Musk’s job may well be to make the platform trustworthy again so that government agencies can continue using it for surveillance and control.

There’s other evidence pointing in this direction as well. Musk has said he wants Twitter to become the WeChat app of America. And what is WeChat? It’s a Chinese government-controlled app that monitors every aspect citizens’ lives, including their financial transactions, social transactions, communications, whereabouts and more.

It’s basically the foundation for the communist social credit system. So, while Musk claims to be a defender of free speech, he’s also talking about turning Twitter into THE central hub for the technocratic surveillance and control network.

Stop Looking for a Savior

As noted by Corbett, what we need to do is “take responsibility for our own lives rather than looking for saviors like Elon Musk to swoop in and save the day.” We can’t lay that burden on any given individual or group of individuals. We must all do our part.

“I think the conversation can get stuck on stupid because even though I tend to believe that Musk is some form of collaborator with the deep state that he pretends to oppose, I don’t have proof of that and I do not know that for a fact, in the same way that his defenders do not know for a fact that he is not part of that controlled opposition,” Corbett says.

“We can spend all our time and energy talking about this person and what we think their part is in all of this, or we could spend that time productively engaged in research, actually verifying, triangulating information, discerning what is true and what is not true.

When we take information down to that level, then it does not matter who is the person out there conveying that information to us. The important part is the information.”

It’s also important to understand that “divide and conquer” is the primary way the control network maintains control, and all that’s needed to divide a previously unified front is insinuation and the seeding of doubt. In the short-term, the globalist takeover seems to have an unstoppable momentum behind it, but seemingly inevitable moves toward tyranny have been derailed at the last minute in the past and we must not give up hope or stop resisting. As explained by Corbett:

“The term cognitive infiltration goes back to Cass Sunstein, the person who became Obama’s information czar … He co-wrote a paper about cognitive infiltration in which he openly stated:

‘The government maybe should send people into conspiracy spaces, conspiracy groups, with cognitive infiltrators who will go in there and conceal their identity as being affiliated with the government, but will try to insert facts that will break the narrative of the conspiracy theorists.’

And what was the result of that paper? Rather than anyone having been exposed as being that cognitive infiltrator on the payroll of the U.S. government, what it effectively did was give people ammunition to speculate endlessly.

‘This person is a cognitive infiltrator, that person is a cognitive infiltrator,’ to the point where, ultimately, I think Sunstein wins without even necessarily having to implement that system at all, because … the group fractures once the idea of pointing fingers at everyone becomes the norm …

That is, in fact, precisely how the FBI’s COINTELPRO program worked back in the 1950s and ’60s … One of the tactics they used was to put people into meetings in various spaces, the Black Panthers and others, in order to start spreading rumors and calling other people government agents.

The government agents were generally the ones that we’re calling other people government agents in order to disrupt the groups, so I think we have to keep that in mind and keep our eye on the real prize here, which is discerning fact from fiction, truth from falsity, productive ways forward from unproductive ways forward.”

ChatGPT and the Future of Propaganda

I’ve often marveled at the effectiveness of modern propaganda. Part of what makes it so effective is the availability of technology, from social media and search engines to large language model artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has taken the world by storm and companies across a range of industries are already talking about replacing large numbers of white collar workers with AI.

This, even though there are serious problems with this technology. For example, we’re finding chatbots have a tendency to lie and fantasize. Researchers are calling these instances “hallucinations.” Basically, the AI is concocting a fantasy based on the information available and reciting it as fact. And that’s in addition to the bias that can be built in by programmers. So, while it’s an incredibly exciting technology, we cannot be naïve about its risks.

One obvious risk is that state-endorsed propaganda can become the only information available to people, as this technology starts monopolizing online searches and virtual assistants.

There won’t be a multitude of answers anymore. There will only be one, and he who controls the AI will have the power to control the beliefs of the entire world. Of course, yet another risk is that no one will be able to control it and the AI will control itself. I don’t know which might be worse. Corbett comments:

“You introduced this topic with the concept of propaganda and potential uses of large language models for propagandistic purposes. We should go back to the man who wrote the book on propaganda called ‘Propaganda,’ Edward Bernays, who [said]:

‘The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country.’

That was Edward Bernays in 1928. His words are as true today as they were then, perhaps even more so. And the true ruling power of the country, of the world at this point perhaps, are those who can most effectively, consciously and intelligently manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses.

And I don’t think enough people have really stopped to cogitate on the fact that these large language models already starting to produce material that really cannot be distinguished from human-written material…

You don’t have to be a crystal ball prognosticator to see how this will extend out in the foreseeable future … [to] the point where you can have entire conversations, entire fields of interest and study that will be completely populated by artificial-created conversation

[ … ]

A large language model that is able to accurately and without much prompting be able to populate botnets to flood social media and other places will essentially be able to dominate that conversation, [and] will consciously and intelligently manipulate the habits and opinions of the masses. At that point, you are talking about the ultimate weapon.

The ultimate weapon is narrative, because with a convincing-enough narrative, you can get entire populations motivated to war or to anything else that you seek to get them to do, like say lock down the entire productive global economy on the back of a scare that was absolutely not warranted.

So, I think once we start getting these completely synthetically-generated narratives, that will start creating these entire events that are not happening in the real world. [These events] will be deep-faked through video and audio and everything else, to convince you of an entire reality that doesn’t exist.

We are really moving into some truly world historical changing times and I don’t know if enough people are really cognizant of … how this technology could be used for good or for ill …

I think there is a real threat, and it is probably underappreciated by a large section of the public that are not keeping abreast of the daily torrent of information on this subject … Some of the testing notes for ChatGPT-4 that were released showed there was a team that was tasking the chatbot with a certain task that would require it to do things that it was not programmed to do, or even authorized to do, including solving a CAPTCHA …

[The chatbot] actually went on Fiverr or one of those types of platforms and recruited a human being to do it for it, to the point where the human said, ‘Why are you recruiting me to do a CAPTCHA? How do I know you’re not a bot? Ha-ha-ha.’ To which it responded, ‘I’m blind, I’m visually impaired, I can’t do it myself.’ Ultimately, it ended up getting that CAPTCHA solved.

It does not take a great degree of imagination to see where that can go. I don’t know what kind of safeguards you can program into a technology like that, other than to completely keep it firewalled off from the internet and from any other computer system that it may be able to commandeer.”

Solutions Watch

On his website, Corbett has a section called The Solutions Watch, where he proposes action steps that you can take to address a given problem, both big and small. For example, on the smaller scale, he’s discussed the importance of filtering your water, and testing your water to ensure it’s being filtered properly.

“One thing that I think is sort of the foundation upon which we will have to build any thoroughgoing answer to the problems we’re facing is creating conscious community with others,” Corbett says.

“Of course, that can take the form of online and virtual community. I’m not going to pooh-pooh or disdain that. I think it is important to know like-minded people online. But increasingly, how can we trust what we are reading, seeing or interacting with online?

I think the real point is to try to build real community with real people in the real world. That could take the form of intentional communities that are created from the ground up as a physical location that people will relocate to … but I think it is extremely difficult to do that.

But at the very least, people can and should be finding like-minded people within their geographical proximity that they can meet up with, who will be there in emergencies, hopefully. But also that they can start forming small groups, that they can start teaching each other about various things that they may know and bringing solutions to the table.

I think that can be the core basis upon which we start erecting other things, because one thing that I’ve looked at over the years are some of these big, huge issues that seem utterly overwhelming and completely impenetrable to the average person, like the fundamental fraud that underlies the economy itself is the monetary system, which for people who haven’t looked into it, the money supply itself is very much controlled, and the creation of money is a tool that is used for enslavement.

It could be used for human flourishing, but is not in our current economy. How do we possibly combat a problem as thoroughgoing as that? [Many people] I encounter online have ideas about the perfect alternative currency … but [they] haven’t convinced anyone to use it. To me, that speaks to the fundamental problem.”

Build Community and Get Out of Metropolitan Areas

At the top of Corbett’s solutions list is building parallel communities. That’s really a foundational strategy because without it, many other solutions can’t work. To that, I would add the recommendation to move out of crime-ridden urban and metropolitan areas and into areas where this kind of community-building is more likely to succeed. As noted by Corbett:

“Until you have a community of people who are going to be working together on projects like an alternative or supplemental currency system, how are you going to launch something like that in a thoroughgoing manner?

I think the core of the solutions that we’re looking for lies with community, meeting like-minded people … I’m not into this Pollyanna thinking that it’s all going to be easy. It’s an incredibly, incredibly difficult task to start creating an alternate currency, an alternate power grid and the alternate society that we need to protect ourselves, to buffer ourselves from this encroaching biosecurity, technocratic enslavement grid.

That’s a pretty tall order, and I can’t offer any assurances that it’s going to turn out all right. But I do know that if we just lay down and continue on the course that we’re on, we are hurtling towards a brick wall of extinction, essentially. I really see this as a fundamental existential question that we are facing not just on the artificial intelligence front, but also on the genomic manipulation front, on the manipulation of the food supply.

If you are what you eat, then what does it mean that they’re going to start feeding us insects and other such unpalatable items?

It is absolutely a war that is taking place on every front, all at once, and we’re not going to get through this by ourselves. Unless you are the type of person that can go out in the woods and live by yourself for decades … I don’t think you’re going to escape this all by yourself, so I think creating community is sort of the core of all solutions.”

More Information

Corbett’s reports, Solution Watch and documentaries can all be found on his website, CorbettReport.com. He also does a weekly news update series with James Evan Pilato of mediamonarchy.com, in which they examine three news stories that are either trending or have slipped beneath the radar. “We try to draw attention to them and put them in the right context,” Corbett says.

Corbett’s work can also be found on BitChuteOdysseeRumbleRokfin and Substack. Other trustworthy news sources that Corbett recommends include but are not limited to:

Good Morning CHD The Last American Vagabond
The Conscious Resistance Network Iain Davis’s Substack
Off-Guardian.org Mediamonarchy.com
ActivistPost.com BlackListedNews.com

EDITORS NOTE: This MERCOLA column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Spotify on the Dirty Dozen List???

I have to admit: when I was first asked to research Spotify as a potential Dirty Dozen List target, I may have rolled my eyes a little bit. Spotify is just for streaming music and podcasts, right? How bad could it be?

. . . As it turns out, pretty bad.

Pornography on Spotify

To my shock, a single quick search on Spotify revealed that music and educational podcasts aren’t the only thing on the streaming app. There’s also an abundance of pornography.

This can be in the form of sexually explicit images (e.g. profile images, playlist thumbnails), audio pornography (e.g. recordings of sex sounds or sexually explicit stories read aloud), or written pornography (e.g. in the descriptions for pornography podcasts).

See more proof in this downloadable PDF

What really outraged me was that, for the most part, this pornography was not blocked by Spotify’s explicit content filter—even though the company assures parents that this filter will block any content which “may not be appropriate for kids.” The audio pornography is rarely caught by the filter, and the visual and written pornography is never caught by the filter, because it is not designed to block images or description. Opting to block explicit content will only stop kids from playing the content, but everything remains visible.

Spotify’s reviews on Common Sense Media are overwhelmingly of parents expressing shock and dismay after discovering pornography on the app. Many of these parents even paid for premium subscriptions in order to be able to control the explicit content filter on their child’s account—only to discover that, contrary to Spotify’s deceptive advertising, this filter does next to nothing to protect their children from pornography.

“Totally shocked and appalled by discovering porn podcasts are not sensored by the explicit content function. . . What on earth are Spotify thinking???”

“BEWARE! This app has PORN, not just PORN MUSIC, but sexually explicit podcasts and graphic images.”

“Parents need to be aware that the spotify “family plan” DOES NOT block explicit content as it claims. Innocent children just trying to listen to music can very easily and accidentally come across the audio porn and “podcasts” that spotify has on their site.”

Further, much of this content should not even be on Spotify to begin with, as the company claims to prohibit “pornography or visual depictions of genitalia or nudity presented for the purpose of sexual gratification.” However, it is clear that the company is doing little, if anything at all, to proactively enforce this prohibition. The sheer ease with which pornographic content can be found would suggest Spotify is not actively looking for it to remove. I also spoke to a podcaster who shared that Spotify always flagged any of her episodes which mentioned the COVID vaccine (regardless of what was said), but that episodes which had the word “pornography” in the title were not flagged. What this shows is that Spotify can and does rigorously monitor potentially problematic content in some cases but is not interested in doing so when it comes to their prohibition on pornography.

Child Sexual Exploitation on Spotify

As if the existence of pornography on Spotify isn’t shocking enough, the platform has also been used for the purpose of child sexual exploitation.

In January 2020, a high-profile case of an 11-year-old girl being groomed and sexually exploited on Spotify made news headlines. Sexual predators communicated with the young girl via playlist titles and encouraged her to upload numerous sexually explicit photos of herself as the cover image of playlists she made. They also exchanged emails via this method of communication.

When I looked for myself, I easily found multiple profiles on Spotify that seemed to be or have been dedicated to soliciting or sharing “nudes.” One of these profiles shared an email address and tagged other users in playlists, asking them to send nudes.

See also survivor-advocate Catie Reay’s TikTok video, which delves into the issue of grooming on Spotify

Further, when I was gathering evidence of pornography on Spotify, one of the first results was a pornography podcast for which the thumbnail appeared to be child sexual abuse material (CSAM, the more apt term for “child pornography”).

After reporting this content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), I attempted to report it to Spotify. What ensued was an appalling goose chase which, in sum, revealed that Spotify has no clear reporting procedure for child sexual exploitation. I was forced to make a general report for “dangerous content” and did not even have an option to add more details in the report explaining that it was for child sexual abuse material (The full, confusing process of me struggling to determine how to report child sexual exploitation on Spotify is documented in this downloadable PDF, under the section “child sexual exploitation”).

The report was made three weeks ago. Currently, the content is still active. 

Further, NCMEC’s 2022 annual report found that, more than 90% of the time Spotify reported content to them, the report “lacked adequate, actionable information.” In other words, the reports “contained such little information that it was not possible for NCMEC to determine where the offense occurred or the appropriate law enforcement agency to receive the report.”

This is incredibly egregious, especially considering the recent media attention over the sexual exploitation of the 11 year-old girl, to which Spotify responded that they take the problem of child sexual abuse material “extremely seriously” and “have processes and technology in place” to address it.

Earth to Spotify: Streamlined reporting procedures for child sexual exploitation is the most basic, bare minimum safety measure!

Content that Normalizes Sexual Violence, Abuse, and Incest

I and my colleagues were deeply disturbed by the horrific content we found on Spotify which normalized, trivialized, and even encouraged sexual violence, abuse, and incest. This content was appallingly easy to find, and even surfaced when we weren’t looking for it.

For example, one NCOSE researcher was attempting to search for rap music—but the term “rap” instead led her to content joking about “raping a pregnant b—ch.” In another case, she tried to search for the song “Boy’s a liar,” which is popular with teens. Simply typing the single word “boy” led her to results normalizing “step” incest. These results were on a newly made account for a 13-year-old, so search history was not affecting the results.

Other content we found included a podcast which walked people through the steps to commit rape and not get caught by the authorities, animated imagery of what appeared to be rape, audio pornography depicting child sexual abuse, content encouraging adults to roleplay child sexual abuse as a fetish, content normalizing cousins having sexual relations, and much more.

The more disturbing proof has been withheld but can be viewed in this downloadable PDF

On paper, Spotify prohibits “advocating or glorifying sexual themes related to rape, incest, or beastiality”—but again, these policies are clearly poorly enforced.

Why Spotify is on the Dirty Dozen List

By placing Spotify on the 2023 Dirty Dozen List, NCOSE is not making a statement that Spotify is the worst corporation out there. The Dirty Dozen List is not a “top 12” list and we weigh numerous factors in deciding which entities to feature. In the case of Spotify, we think it is important to raise awareness of the dangers as it is a platform that most people trust, making it easy for the harms to take kids and parents off guard. Further, we think Spotify can (and must) make some quick, easy changes to greatly improve safety on their platform. Placing them on the Dirty Dozen List allows you to join us in calling on them to make those changes!

ACTION: Call on Spotify to Clean Up Its Act!

Please take 30 SECONDS to complete this quick action form, calling on Spotify to better protect kids and to stop facilitating sexual abuse and exploitation!

EDITORS NOTE: This column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Sickening’: NIH Funds Transgender ‘Experiment’ on Mostly Minors, Leaving 2 Dead

On Tuesday, news broke that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded a study on mostly minors who purported to identify as transgender, in which they were given cross-sex hormones over the course of two years. Two of the study’s participants ended up committing suicide, and 11 more experienced suicidal ideation. Lawmakers and doctors are expressing outrage that taxpayer dollars were used to fund a study that caused death and irreversible harm to children.

The study, entitled “Psychosocial Functioning in Transgender Youth after 2 Years of Hormones,” was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in January and was conducted by the Boston Children’s Hospital, the University of California at San Francisco, and the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago under a $477,444 five-year grant from NIH. It studied 315 participants aged 12-20 who identified as transgender or nonbinary, 240 of which were minors.

Each participant was given cross-sex hormones over the course of the two-year study, meaning that they were given hormones of the opposite biological sex in order to appear more like the opposite sex. Despite claiming that “appearance congruence, positive affect, and life satisfaction increased, and depression and anxiety symptoms decreased” among the participants, the study went on to acknowledge that two people died by suicide and 11 people experienced “suicidal ideation” (“a broad term used to describe a range of contemplations, wishes, and preoccupations with death and suicide”).

“It is sickening that the federal government is preying on young people and using our taxpayer dollars to advance its radical gender ideology,” Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) told The Daily Signal. “We are rightfully demanding answers from NIH, and we are committed to holding those responsible accountable for this tragic loss of life.” Brecheen is one of 15 Republican lawmakers that signed a letter to NIH Acting Director Lawrence Tabak expressing “grave concerns” over the study.

“Despite overwhelming evidence that chemically transitioning children is not safe, the NIH plans to give more than $10.6 million to experiment on children and adolescents through 2026,” the letter states. “We are deeply concerned about your agency’s use of taxpayer dollars to advance experiments on children who will be irreversibly harmed by radical gender ideology.”

Doctors are also expressing serious concerns over the study. During Wednesday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a pediatric endocrinologist and former president of the American College of Pediatricians, pointed out that the study was conducted using questionable methodology.

“It’s a very unusual study in that it’s not like other studies where you have unified criteria across the centers, a set of consent forms that’s uniform for the whole project,” he explained. “[Most studies] are governed by an institutional review board that’s independent … and they require a very strict consent form for adolescents. They have a safety committee, which is a separate entity which has no financial interest in any way with those doing the study. So it’s a very clean and solid way to stop a study and examine it when things go wrong.”

“That does not apply to this study,” Van Meter continued. “For some reason, it’s not a standard study. Nothing was standardized by it. Each center was doing just what they wanted to do and what they continue to do. And they call it an ‘observational study’ to get out from under the regular kinds of regulations which [would] have stopped this study in its tracks. The sad thing is … the two deaths are unconscionable.”

Van Meter, who also serves as an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Morehouse School of Medicine, went on to note that a total of $5 million was originally granted for a five-year study.

“It’s perverse that they’re [publishing] this study [with] the first two years [of] data … as a study hailing success of their programs. It is an absolute sham with faulty reasoning [and] faulty representation. … I was at the Pediatric Endocrine Society meetings in San Diego just over this past weekend, and it was lauded by the interest groups as being one of the most concrete studies to show the benefits of their labor and their ideology. And clearly it doesn’t show that.”

Van Meter further detailed the health outcomes that result from giving minors cross-sex hormones.

“They will be sterilized, first of all, that’s the baseline of the horrific nature of the outcomes,” he underscored. “On top of that, there is the side effects of the medications that create disease. … We have known about [that] in medicine for as long as we’ve known about hormones and their effects going back into the early 1920s. … [T]here’s plenty of data from top to bottom to show that every one of the drugs they’re using has adverse consequences. The overall lifespan of the transgender population is half that of the U.S. population. … [T]hey’re creating medical problems that would not have otherwise existed. And these poor individuals not only are sterile, but they are sexually incompetent. They have no ability to have any real sexual function moving forward when their organs are fried by cross-sex hormones. Their brain [development is] adversely affected, and the adolescent age bone density is taken apart and they end up having frequent fractures in adulthood because of that.”

Van Meter continued, “It’s just a panoply of disease that otherwise would not have existed if the child had been counseled and walked through the process, which is the real international standard of care — to not medicalize this, but realize it’s based on mental health issues, and resolving those mental health issues essentially resolves the transgender affirmation or the transgender identification in [over] 90% of all these kids.”

The endocrinologist additionally emphasized how many European countries are “10 years ahead” of the U.S. in determining that there is “no proven benefit to mental health and likely a deterioration of mental health” due to gender transition procedures through the use of broad systemic reviews of the literature. In October, Van Meter highlighted the fact that the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, and France have all taken steps to restrict minors from being able to undergo irreversible gender transition procedures.

Perkins further observed that efforts like the NIH-funded study will likely be remembered with “shock and horror” decades from now, just as the Tuskegee syphilis study is today.

“You’re absolutely right,” Van Meter responded. “And hopefully it will be sooner [rather] than later that the real reality breaks forth and the world knows how evil this concept is of taking healthy children with mental health problems and throwing hormones and surgery at them to create a solution which does not work and never has worked. You know … there’s going to be maybe a million plus children around the world who have been permanently damaged. And that is the sad thing. You know, my heart says we need to do this yesterday and shut this down.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Americans’ ‘Health May be Undermined’ by Not Going to Church: Surgeon General

In a recent official government report, the Biden administration has warned that Americans’ “health may be undermined” due to their “decline in participation” in church services and other religious activities.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued the first-ever government advisory on the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” earlier this month, calling persistent isolation an “urgent public health issue” that impacts the physical and mental health of millions. “Research shows that loneliness and isolation are associated with a greater risk of heart disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death,” says Murthy in an online video released to coincide with the report.

Loneliness is as bad for individuals as smoking 15 cigarettes a day — a pack-and-a-half daily habit — and harms physical health “even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity,” the report notes.

Unfortunately, Murthy writes, Americans have become disconnected from one of the institutions that can forge deep and permanent social connections: church attendance. “Religious or faith-based groups can be a source for regular social contact, serve as a community of support, provide meaning and purpose, create a sense of belonging around shared values and beliefs, and are associated with reduced risk-taking behaviors,” Murthy writes. “As a consequence of this decline in participation, individuals’ health may be undermined in different ways.”

“Membership in organizations that have been important pillars of community connection have declined significantly,” including “faith organizations,” writes Murthy. “In 2020, only 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue, or mosque. This is down from 70% in 1999 and represents a dip below 50% for the first time in the history of the survey question.”

Experts have known about the fraying web of meaningful personal relationships for decades. For instance, the percentage of American men who said they have no close friends had increased 500% between 1990 and 2021. But a persistent sense of abandonment reached societal proportions during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Church attendance and health issues have an inverse relationship, according to multiple studies, including a new report released by evangelical pollster George Barna.

The percentage of millennials who attended a church worship service, either in-person or online, dropped by seven percentage points over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, says the study from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University (ACU), where Barna is director of research.

The retreat from faith has devastated young people, Barna told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” recently.

Separate ACU polls found that 75% of millennials “say, ‘I don’t know why I should get out of bed in the morning,’” said Barna. A majority “admit that every day they’re struggling with mental health issues, severe depression, anxiety, fear,” and “the highest suicide rate of any generation we’ve ever seen.”

That’s roughly the percentage of millennials who do not attend religious services: Only 28% take part in services in any way.

Conversely, Americans who believe in God and value marriage are more likely to be “very happy” than isolated secularists, according to a Wall Street Journal-NORC poll taken in March.

Young adults’ isolation persists despite the fact that millennials desperately yearn for meaningful social interactions at a core level. “They believe that relationships are vitally important. They want to be connected. They want to belong. They want to be part of a community,” Barna told Perkins. “But they say it’s not working. It’s not happening.”

In part, Americans became disconnected from churches because of the churches — and government policies shutting down churches while allowing marijuana dispensaries to remain open.

“The last three years have been a time of high anxiety for tens of millions of adults. It was an ideal time for the Christian church to provide wise guidance and emotional calm. Unfortunately, most churches agreed to the government’s dictate that they close their doors and remain mostly silent,” says Barna in a statement accompanying the ACU’s research.

“Obviously, that has not worked out so well,” Barna observes.

Millennials were not the only demographic to give up congregational worship. Generation X saw their church attendance fall 13 points, from 41% to 28%. Although 53% of the oldest American generation attends church, that’s a three-point drop from 2020. Only Baby Boomers became “more likely now than they were before COVID-19 to read the Bible, praise and worship God, seek and do God’s will, and attend church services,” says the report.

During the pandemic, “every generation turns to their worldview to navigate the challenges,” says Barna. “As a nation, we may be past the danger of COVID-19, but we’re in the thick of the danger brought about by people relying upon syncretism as their dominant worldview. Biblical churches must see this as a time for an urgent response to the direction society is taking.”

The surgeon general is not the first to find that frequenting a church increases longevity and improves overall health. “[A]ttendance at religious services had a dose-response relationship with mortality, such that respondents who attended frequently had a 40% lower hazard of mortality,” wrote researchers at Emory University in a 2017 research paper.

The correlation between a strong faith and psychological well-being is well-attested by social science. “Young-adult Gen-Xers in the strongly religious class across the three measurements generally reported better mental health when they reached established adulthood than those in the nonreligious class,” reported a 2022 study by a team of analysts from Syracuse University. “Findings suggest that religiosity may serve as an important resource for mental health in the transition to established adulthood.”

Barna says this is a perfect time for the church to proclaim the Christian message, for Americans’ spiritual and physical health. The Bible encourages deep connections to fellow believers across the boundaries of time, space, and culture. Scriptural anthropology begins with the observation that “it is not good that man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). The New Testament exhorts Christians to “consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some” (Hebrews 10:24-25).

“While the Left pursues the Great Reset, it is time for the Church to pursue the Great Renewal — leading people’s hearts, minds, and souls back to God and His life principles,” wrote Barna.

The full section of the surgeon general’s report reads:

Membership in organizations that have been important pillars of community connection have declined significantly in this time. Take faith organizations, for example. Research produced by Gallup, Pew Research Center, and the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey demonstrates that since the 1970s, religious preference, affiliation, and participation among U.S. adults have declined. In 2020, only 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue, or mosque. This is down from 70% in 1999 and represents a dip below 50% for the first time in the history of the survey question. Religious or faith-based groups can be a source for regular social contact, serve as a community of support, provide meaning and purpose, create a sense of belonging around shared values and beliefs, and are associated with reduced risk-taking behaviors. As a consequence of this decline in participation, individuals’ health may be undermined in different ways.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Trump Townhall Underscores Life as a 2024 Issue

The Trump administration was, decidedly, the most pro-life in our history. During his debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, former President Trump graphically described the brutality of the abortion procedure. A signal achievement was his appointment of three Supreme Court justices who support the Constitution as it was written, underscoring the sanctity of unborn life.

So, when President Trump’s spokesman recently said that “President Donald J. Trump believes … [abortion] is an issue that should be decided at the state level,” I was deeply concerned. That’s why, earlier this week, I joined Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, for a meeting in Florida to discuss the important topic directly with the former president.

Our sense of alarm has been growing. After last summer’s Supreme Court decision returned the power to defend life to the people, a number of Republicans heaved a sigh of relief. Many of them were glad to see the end of the fictional constitutional right to abortion, but some seemed more glad to kick the life issue back to the states than take any further action. More concerned with political consequences than protecting the unborn, their eagerness to abandon the pro-life cause was striking.

That’s not what they were saying before the Dobbs decision, which returned to them the power to defend life. Since the mid-1980s, the GOP has called for the right of the unborn to live to be recognized as the most fundamental of human rights. Overwhelmingly, Republican lawmakers have supported a human life amendment to the U.S. Constitution and called upon legislators and judges in the states to respect human personhood in the womb, where life begins. Science tells us that personhood begins in the womb. For years, Republicans at the federal level have taken a stance in defense of life, and presidential administrations have defended it. So what has changed now?

None of these proposals would prevent states from enacting pro-life legislation, whether protecting the unborn after they can feel pain, after a certain point in gestation, protecting American taxpayers from funding abortion, or anything else. I was a state legislator in Louisiana for many years and authored a number of pro-life measures. And no one is more committed to a constitutional understanding of the limits of the federal government and the broad authority of the states than me. Yet personhood in the womb is not just a state issue — it is the most profound of all human rights issues. It merits federal consideration — and protection.

During our meeting in Miami, Mr. Trump reaffirmed his commitment to protecting children who can feel pain and are actually sucking their thumb in their mother’s womb. His horror at late-term abortion and the incredible idea that some so-called “unwanted” children could be left to die after birth remains unchanged. That’s why we met with him: To encourage the former president to stay strong on the issue of the sanctity of human life. And I can report that Mr. Trump has not changed his position. He remains committed to his strong presidential track record of defending the unborn to the fullest extent of the executive branch’s authority.

During his Wednesday town hall in New Hampshire, he said of his pro-life record, “I am honored to have done what I did.” President Trump noted several times during the event that pro-abortion activists are radical. And radicals are unreasonable and never satisfied. This is why, in last November’s elections, Democrats spent at least $320 million in advertising to attack the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The Biden administration has authorized nearly half a billion dollars of taxpayer funds that can be used to subsidize abortions and abortion businesses. Republicans spend only a fraction of this amount celebrating unborn life.

I deeply appreciate the pro-life, pro-family policies that President Trump’s administration advanced. As we move into the 2024 presidential election cycle, my role will not be to endorse in the primary election but to work with the candidates, like President Trump, to ensure the issues impacting faith, family, and freedom are understood and advanced. My focus will be ensuring that the sanctity of human life, upholding the true, God-given purpose of human sexuality, and the myriad policies that affect the family — ranging from religious freedom to tax policy — remain front and center.

It is encouraging to see that Mr. Trump remains committed to defending the little ones in the womb. But how much more heartening it is to know the God Who gives us the privilege of protecting them and their mother from the abortion industry. That’s a high calling, and we’ll never retreat from it.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

STUDY: Only 12% of Atmospheric CO2 Added Since 1750 Is Man-Made, ‘Too low to be the cause of global warming’

The Man-Made Global Warming Myth Debunked.


Devastating for the climate narrative.

Carbon-14 dating shows only 12% of atmospheric CO2 added since 1750 is manmade. ‘Much too low to be the cause of global warming.’

Truth is the enemy to the left. They are destroying civilization, our very way of life, in their pursuit of a dark, miserable future.

World Atmospheric CO2, Its 14C Specific Activity, Non-fossil Component, Anthropogenic Fossil Component, and Emissions (1750–2018)

Abstract

After 1750 and the onset of the industrial revolution, the anthropogenic fossil component and the non-fossil component in the total atmospheric CO2 concentration, C(t), began to increase. Despite the lack of knowledge of these two components, claims that all or most of the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been due to the anthropogenic fossil component have continued since they began in 1960 with “Keeling Curve: Increase in CO2 from burning fossil fuel.” Data and plots of annual anthropogenic fossil CO2 emissions and concentrations, C(t), published by the Energy Information Administration, are expanded in this paper. Additions include annual mean values in 1750 through 2018 of the 14C specific activity, concentrations of the two components, and their changes from values in 1750. The specific activity of 14C in the atmosphere gets reduced by a dilution effect when fossil CO2, which is devoid of 14C, enters the atmosphere. We have used the results of this effect to quantify the two components. All results covering the period from 1750 through 2018 are listed in a table and plotted in figures. These results negate claims that the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been dominated by the increase of the anthropogenic fossil component. We determined that in 2018, atmospheric anthropogenic fossil CO2 represented 23% of the total emissions since 1750 with the remaining 77% in the exchange reservoirs. Our results show that the percentage of the total CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming. 

AUTHOR

RELATED VIDEO: Patrick Moore Co-Founder, former leader of Greenpeace: “Speaking Truth to Power Award”

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Pro-Life Leaders Meet with Trump to Reinforce Federal Strategy

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has shared the details about his meeting with former President Donald Trump amid media reports the Republican front-runner had backed away from the pro-life issue ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Last month, a Trump campaign spokesman told The Washington Post that Trump believes abortion “should be decided at the state level,” touching off media speculation that the candidate would take no federal action to protect life during a second term. Perkins met the 45th president alongside Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser on Monday afternoon.

“The purpose of the meeting was simply to encourage the president to stay strong on the issue of the sanctity of human life. And I can report that the former president, Donald Trump, has not changed his position,” Perkins told listeners of “Washington Watch” on Tuesday.

“There was some mischaracterizations of some things that he had said,” Perkins added.

The four leaders found common ground talking about the Republican Party platform, which Perkins has helped craft for the last four election cycles.

“We support state and federal efforts against the cruelest forms of abortion,” says the most recent Republican Party platform (emphasis added). The GOP’s guiding document also calls on Congress to pass a plethora of pro-life legislation ending abortions based on a child’s sex or disability diagnosis, as well as dismemberment abortions, and to adopt a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution “to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision does not preclude abortion-related legislation at the federal level. “It’s a states issue, but it’s also a federal issue,” Perkins explained. “The court said this is in the hands of elected officials, not judges.”

“I talked about that with him. And I said, ‘Look, that’s the standard. It was there before Roe was overturned. Why should it change?’” said Perkins. “When a baby feels pain and is sucking his thumb in his mother’s womb, that ought to be a place we can draw the line. We’ve got 67% of Americans who agree that abortion across the board should be outlawed after that.”

“I’m pleased to say that the president understood that,” Perkins told his audience.

Trump remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, holding a commanding a 29-point lead over his nearest challenger, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), according to the RealClear Politics average of national polls.

Perkins also noted that Trump was not the only — or even the first — presidential hopeful he had briefed on pro-life, pro-family issues.

“I’ve sat down with a couple of them already. This will be my third” candidate consultation meeting, Perkins revealed. “I will meet with any presidential candidate to have a discussion about the issues, and where they should be on these issues to connect with what we call SAGE Cons,” a term coined by pollster George Barna meaning Spiritually Active Governance Engaged Conservatives.

Perkins, a former elected official, made clear meeting with Trump did not constitute an endorsement in the 2024 presidential race. “I will not be endorsing a presidential candidate in the primary. I will be sitting down, talking with any and all” candidates who “want to talk about the issues that matter,” he said, specifying the sanctity of human life, human sexuality, tax policy that impacts the family, and religious freedom — “anything that touches the family.”

Democrats eked out a better-than-expected midterm election in 2022 in part by flooding the zone with abortion-related messaging portraying Republicans as extreme — largely without GOP pushback. That makes it pivotal for would-be office holders to grasp the issue thoroughly, said FRC Action Vice President Brent Keilen. “We have to remember that the science hasn’t change. And so the policies that the Republican Party has stood for over the last decades that were based and are based off of the science, should not change, either.”

While some in the GOP have advocated a states-only response to abortion, Democratic leaders have already tried to impose their permissive views on the entire nation. “Republicans are pushing for this to go back to the states,” said Keilen. “That is not at all what the Democrats are pushing for.”

The House of Representatives, then controlled by Democrats, passed the “Women’s Health Protection Act” by a near party-line vote last July. The bill would strike down most of the 1,381 pro-life protections enacted by state legislatures between 1973 and the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, including:

  • prohibiting sex-selective abortions;
  • barring many abortions after viability;
  • preventing abortions on babies 20 weeks or older, who are capable of feeling pain;
  • disallowing abortions undertaken without parental consent or notification;
  • prohibiting telemedicine abortion drug prescriptions, which involve no in-person medical examination;
  • banning unlicensed individuals from carrying out abortions;
  • allowing pregnant mothers to receive scientifically accurate information about their babies’ development, or to see an ultrasound or hear the child’s fetal heartbeat; and
  • allowing pro-life medical professionals the right to refuse to participate in an abortion.

The Democratic Party platform calls for taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand without restriction until the moment of birth as a matter of “health, rights, and justice.” Adopting that position has forced the U.S. to join a handful of rogue human rights abusers that place no federal limit on abortion, including North Korea and China. President Trump, who famously campaigned to “Make America Great Again,” “believes such a position is unworthy of a great nation and believes the American people will rebel against such a radical position,” Dannenfelser said.

“That is the standard position of the Democrat Party that is only supported by about one in five Americans, so you have 80% of the country, according to recent polling, that opposes” Democratic orthodoxy, said Keilen. Only 19% of Americans believe abortion should be permitted “in all cases, with no exceptions,” according to a 2022 Pew Research Center poll. “That doesn’t even get into the Born-alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which we have not been able to get passed, which would afford those protections to a baby who survives a failed abortion,” Keilen added.

“If you message on this well, the vast majority of Americans are with you on this issue,” said Keilen.

Eyeing a massive wedge issue, GOP leaders have encouraged Republican candidates to attack Democratic extremism. “We are the pro-life, pro-woman, pro-family party, and we can win on abortion. But that means putting Democrats on the defense,” said Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel after the initial Trump brouhaha.

Days later, Trump attacked “the extreme late-term abortionists in the Democrat Party, who believe in abortion-on-demand in the ninth month of pregnancy, and even executing babies after birth.” That rhetoric echoes Trump’s successful strategy in the 2016 presidential campaign. During the third and final debate on October 19, Trump said under Hillary Clinton’s policy, “you can take the baby out of the womb in the ninth month on the final day, and that’s not acceptable.”

That off-the-cuff remark became a revelation to pro-life leaders. “At that moment, I said, ‘He’s going to win this. He is going to secure the votes of pro-life voters.’ And he did,” said Perkins. “What’s more than that is: He actually followed through. … His policies were unprecedented when it came to advancing human life.” Trump named three of the six justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade last June, supported the Hyde Amendment, and signed numerous measures partially defunding abortion businesses such as Planned Parenthood.

After the latest media flare-up, Trump signaled his openness to signing the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” introduced by Graham, which protects babies from abortion after 15 weeks. “We’ll get something done” in a second term, Trump promised.

“Going forward, I think he’s going to be very clear on this. That’s my hope. That’s what I believe to be the case,” Perkins said.

“And we will not back up from this issue one bit,” Perkins assured his listeners. Effective promotion of pro-life protections, at any level of government, “will be the benchmark of how we evaluate conservative Bible-based candidates for office.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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Documents Show Biden Admin Considers Pro-Life Moms Potential Domestic Terrorists

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Artificial Intelligence Bots: Good for Mankind Or Not Good For Mankind—That’s The Question

I have lived thru the pre and post-Internet period. I have found that the Internet, which connects individuals, corporations and governments globally, has both its good and bad sides. It has both good and bad outcomes.

The current technological sea change is the use of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) to interact with the human race. A.I. Robots or A.I. Bots came on the scene in 2016. A.I. Bots imitate human behaviors and language — influencing our daily lives in sneaky, surprising and sometimes concerning ways.

Are A.I Bots Good for Mankind Or Not Good For Mankind?

Will this A.I. Bot technology, being used today by companies like Google and Wendy’s, be good or not good for mankind?

We spoke with some who are developing A.I. Bots and some who are young and use A.I. Bots to get some perspective on this question.

When I was young I read a book titled “I, Robot” by Issac Asimov. In his book Asimov created the following laws that robots (a.k.a. bots) must be programmed to adhere to in order to best serve mankind.

First Law
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Zeroth Law
A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

QUESTIONS:

  1. Are there similar rules for A.I. Bots like, an A.I. Bot may not harm humanity, or by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm?
  2. If not, should there be?
  3. And if so, what would mankind want these A.I. Bot rules to require?

A Short History of A.I. Bots

On August 15, 2016 VentureBeat.com published an article titled A short history of chatbots and artificial intelligence written by . wrote,

Starting in the 1980s, technology companies like Apple, Microsoft, and many others presented computer users with the graphical user interface as a means to make technology more user-friendly.

The average consumer wasn’t going to learn binary code to use a computer, so the great minds at these leading technology companies slapped a screen on technology and offered an interface that provided icons, buttons, toolbars, and other graphical elements so that the computer could be easily consumed by a mass market.

Today it’s hard to even imagine technological devices without a screen and a graphical presentation — until now.

Early in 2016, we saw the introduction of the first wave of artificial intelligence technology in the form of chatbots. Social media platforms like Facebook allowed developers to create a chatbot for their brand or service so that consumers could carry out some of their daily actions from within their messaging platform. This development of A.I. technology has excited everyone, as the possibilities for the way we communicate with brands have been exponentially expanded.

The introduction of chatbots into society has brought us to the beginning of a new era in technology: the era of the conversational interface. It’s an interface that soon won’t require a screen or a mouse to use. There will be no need to click or swipe. This interface will be completely conversational, and those conversations will be indistinguishable from the conversations that we have with our friends and family.

To fully understand the massiveness of this soon-to-be reality, we’d have to go back to the first days of the computer, when the desire for artificial intelligence technology and a conversational interface first began. [Emphasis added]

A.I. Aspirations—Good or Bad

in his 2016 article A short history of chatbots and artificial intelligence wrote,

Artificial intelligence, by definition, is intelligence exhibited by machines to display them as rational agents that can perceive their surroundings and make decisions. A rational agent defined by humans would be a computer that can realistically simulate human communication.

Are A.I. Bots truly “rational agents”?

Rational is defined as, “Consistent with or based on reason or good judgment; logical or sensible.”

Agent is defined as, “One that acts or has the power or authority to act. One empowered to act for or represent another.”

One developer of A.I. Bots said to us,

The challenge is we are limited in how we see ethics and rules…We can’t fathom how AI will evolve…so my guess is that it will be able to find justification in any action it deems necessary to achieve the goal.

Realize A.I. alone is not the real threat…It’s humans using A.I. That is the problem. A.I. is not in a silo…It can be used offline in the shadows and then deployed like a virus…So not sure if we can stop bad characters getting a hold of it.

Just like a gun doesn’t know it’s being used for evil purpose, nor will A.I. necessarily.

AGI [artificial general intelligence] is a tough thing to do. And even if they find a way…It will be very expensive to run…Like any new tech…So we have time to build bunkers and store cans of food before the apocalypse :).

Can A.I. Bots be used to create an apocalypse? Are A.I. Bots not just rational but moral agents?

Are A.I. Bots Moral?

The bigger question is do AI Bots have a moral basis?

One of our Gen Z fans wrote this about Asimov’s rules,

Although I agree in general with these [Asimov’s] laws, I’ve discussed these them (mainly the first law) with my Philosophy tutor and we both became aware of some of their immediate flaw[s], for instance; with the first law, who will determine/define what harm towards a human means. You might initially think of harm as a simple concept, but I believe that most of us understand harm through a distinctly human frame of reference, a subjective one at that, and thus quantifying harm into a machine learning would have to be human assisted. But of course, with human assistance comes human bias and human error. This is just the most obvious of flaws. I’m sure there are many I haven’t considered.

Laws have always been derived from the Bible. Western Civilization was founded on laws derived from the Ten Commandments.

Mankind has, since creation, been faced with a battle between good and evil.

Not to have laws for everything created by mankind, including A.I. and A.I. Bots, can lead to an apocalypse.

We must come to grips with the existential possibility that A.I. Bots have the potential for misuse and the abuse of mankind.

John Adams wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

We say that those who create A.I. Bots must be held to the same standard or evil will inevitably creep in.

©2023 Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Sen. Joe Manchin Vows To Block All Biden Nominees To Environmental Protection Agency

Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin will block all of President Joe Biden’s nominees to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the agency’s proposed rule regulating power plants, he announced Wednesday.

“This Administration is determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made it clear they are hellbent on doing everything in their power to regulate coal and gas-fueled power plants out of existence, no matter the cost to energy security and reliability. Just last week, before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, every FERC Commissioner agreed that we cannot eliminate coal today or in the near future if we want to have a reliable electric grid. If the reports are true, the pending EPA proposal would impact nearly all fossil-fueled power plants in the United States, which generate about 60 percent of our electricity, without an adequate plan to replace the lost baseload generation. This piles on top of a broader regulatory agenda being rolled out designed to kill the fossil industry by a thousand cuts,” Manchin said in a statement.

“Neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law nor the IRA gave new authority to regulate power plant emission standards. However, I fear that this Administration’s commitment to their extreme ideology overshadows their responsibility to ensure long-lasting energy and economic security and I will oppose all EPA nominees until they halt their government overreach,” he continued.

EPA administrator Michael Regan is scheduled to announce his agency’s new power plant regulations on Thursday. The new rules will reportedly require gas and coal power plants to employ carbon capture technology, according to The New York Times. Out of the 3,400 currently operational power plants in the U.S., fewer than 20 have the appropriate technology in place to comply with the rule. They would have to do so by 2040.

Republicans have made extensive use of the Congressional Review Act in the 118th Congress in a bid to push back against Biden administration rules and regulations. Manchin has signed on to resolutions that would roll back the COVID-19 pandemic emergency and a Department of Labor environmental, social, and governance investing rule. Congress could move to roll back the EPA regulation, although any passed resolution would be subject to a presidential veto.

Manchin has voted against Biden administration nominees more often than any other Senate Democrat. Most recently, he announced his opposition to a Department of the Interior nominee over concerns she would play “political games” with energy production. Manchin is still considering whether or not to support Labor Secretary nominee Julie Su.

The Senate is currently considering two nominees for EPA posts, and two others remain vacant, according to a Washington Post tracker.

AUTHOR

MICHAEL GINSBERG

Congressional correspondent.

RELATED ARTICLE: Manchin Sinks Biden Federal Reserve Nominee Who Drew Republican Boycott

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Wind turbines irreparable harm to our natural world: CFACT to NJ GOP legislators

Last week I participated in a hearing conducted by the New Jersey Senate GOP on the subject of offshore wind and whales.  During my testimony I spoke about the “irreparable harm” in store for both people and marine life from permitting these unbelievably massive offshore wind farms to spoil the Jersey Shore.

You can watch the entire hearing below.  My testimony starts at 1:07.

“It’s our contention that the reckless net zero energy policies that are currently being pursued by the Biden Administration as well as certain governors and agencies at both the national and state level” I said, “are doing irreparable harm to our natural world, and they should be halted until further research be undertaken to assess their impacts.”

The rush that federal and state officials are putting on to broom these offshore wind projects through is as stunning as it is irresponsible.  Our coasts are being spoiled without regard to the harmful impacts in store.  This may spell the end for the Atlantic Right Whale as well as other species.

“The decibel level of the sonar testing for the offshore wind, where you are at [New Jersey], is not far removed from that which the Navy used, often reaching near 200 decibels,” I explained, “the monopile driving to place the wind turbines into the ground can also reach that level or higher as well as the operational sound of giant wind turbines once they’re up and running according to our research. This presents a clear and present danger to all whale species, especially the Right Whale, of which there are only about 350 or so that remain in the wild.”

Offshore wind is an inefficient way to produce energy, but a very efficient way to wreck natural habitats. CFACT calls for a halt until all the impacts are thoroughly understood.

For nature and people too.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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Frozen wind turbines, wolf quota hunt, gun control — oh my!

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Injustice of Biden’s Equity Agenda

In a move that has critics crying “socialism,” the Biden administration created a new policy that will raise mortgage fees on low-risk borrowers so high-risk borrowers can pay less. The most affected group, those with credit scores between 720 and 759 who also have a downpayment of 15% -20%, would pay an additional $3,200 in fees.

Unlike other left-wing economic plans which transfer money from the wealthy to the poor, under this scheme, borrowers with good credit will pay more even if they have less money. In a sane world, this makes no sense. We understand that lending money comes with risk, and borrowers come with different risks. Someone who has paid their bills on time for the past 30 years presents less risk than a recent high school graduate. But we no longer live in a sane world, we live in a world led by those who want every group to experience the same outcome. They call it “equity.”

We’re very familiar with this dynamic when it comes to categories like race, sex, religion, and the suite of LGBTQ identity categories. Applicants to medical school are rewarded and punished based on their skin color as much as their competency, and male-dominated professions like computer science are seen as evidence of sexism, not evidence that women like different things.

The Biden administration’s new mortgage fee policy is just an extension of this logic as they attempt to “level the playing field” so those with bad credit will have the same outcome as those with good credit. What everyone other than the most zealous equity advocates immediately recognize, however, is that this playing field should not be leveled. We do not want to live in a world where responsible people are treated the same as irresponsible people. While equity demands groups be treated similarly, justice demands individuals be treated as individuals. This is why none of us would hire a convicted sex-offender to babysit our children.

We have a criminal justice system because we understand some individuals deserve to walk about freely in society, while others do not. While we should acknowledge the unfortunate ways race and wealth have been relevant in the criminal justice system, we should also acknowledge the entire purpose of the criminal justice system is to treat people justly, not equitably. If we had a criminal equity system instead, we would rotate people in and out of prisons based on their age, sex, or race — regardless of their criminal history — to ensure that no groups were over or under-represented in the prison population. An equity-based credit system is less harmful than an equity based criminal justice system would be, but it is just as unfair. So why do smart people propose it?

Modern sensibilities reject the idea that human nature is inherently sinful but acknowledge the world is broken. Since their starting assumption is that there’s nothing wrong with people, they blame the bad things people do on “systemic injustice.” The gospel tells us the systems will be fixed once hearts change, but modern progressivism tells us heart will change once the systems are fixed.

This is the reason Brandon Johnson, the recently elected Mayor of Chicago, came to the defense of hundreds of teenagers who destroyed property, beat bystanders, and got into gun fights with police in a recent Chicago riot. He said it was “not constructive to demonize youth who have been starved of opportunities.” If the problem is a lack of character, those kids need to take responsibility for what happened. If the problem is a lack of opportunity, everyone but the kids need to take responsibility for what happened.

Of course, there are things we can do to help each other. Life is a team sport best lived in community which means we each have power to help and harm each other. But when we misunderstand the source of our problems, we guarantee the solutions will be inadequate. The pursuit of equity discourages us from treating individuals based on the content of their character. Instead, it encourages us to see people primarily as members of a group and demands those groups be treated the same. So, we treat the guilty the same as the innocent and the capable just like we treat the less capable. And now we’re charging responsible people more for credit because it doesn’t feel right that one group should be treated differently than another.

It isn’t just or fair, but it is equitable.

AUTHOR

Joseph Backholm

Joseph Backholm is Senior Fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Climate Change: A Fairy-Tale Wrapped In Falsehoods Inside Fictions

The phony climate change narrative has had a rough time on Capitol Hill, lately.

David Turk, deputy secretary of the Energy Department, made a complete fool of himself in congressional testimony when he would not say how much it would cost to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.  He admitted it would cost trillions of dollars, but would not affirm credible estimates it would cost $50 trillion.  All he did was dance around the question and filibuster.  And what do we get for spending $50 trillion?  He was asked point-blank how much achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 would lower world temperatures and he NEVER ANSWERED THE QUESTION.  He went on and on about how it’s a global problem and the U.S. is 13 percent of it, blah blah blah, but he would not be pinned down on the effect of carbon neutrality on temperatures.  He didn’t even offer to provide the information later, as congressional witnesses commonly do.  He just sat there all smug, repeating his platitudes about how “this is a global problem” and how we need ‘fundamental transformation’.  No, what we need is to stop government by phony narratives and get rid of tyrants like Turk who invoke those narratives to rule over us.  According to this guy, we’re just supposed to spend trillions of dollars without asking any questions to reach climate goals he won’t specify because, one may reasonably conclude from his evasiveness, spending trillions of dollars won’t make any difference at all to climate change.

But make no mistake: the ruling over us has already begun.  The Biden administration has issued an avalanche of new rules in the name of climate change raising the cost of washing machines, dishwashers, microwaves, toothbrush chargers, and other household appliances, as well as degrading their performance.  Climate change is YOUR fault, you see, and you must be made to suffer.  Only if you submit and bow down to your new masters will we keep the planet from burning up.  What a crock!

Back to Capitol Hill, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was asked, “Are you aware that China controls, by proxy production, the supply chain of critical minerals that are critical to both the [electric vehicle] world and defense?  … Are you aware, by multiple studies, that in order to satisfy the present requirements of [electric vehicles] and critical minerals to defense, it would take an increase of 2,000% of mining for 20 years?”  She was tongue-tied.  She had no idea how to respond.  She had never heard this before, despite years of warnings from western land rights activists the federal government is locking up our minerals in national monument designations and making us completely dependent on China for our critical defense needs.    In addition, Haaland’s interior Department has been blocking critical mining projects in Minnesota and elsewhere that would reduce our dependence on China.

A recent World Bank study showed the world cannot possibly produce enough lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, or other minerals necessary to support a world green energy transition.

So what we have here is government by phony narrative, implemented by ignorant know-nothing fools who have no idea what they’re talking about and are totally out of touch with reality.  All these self-promoters can see is that they’ve made their careers pushing absolute nonsense and the path to further power and riches for themselves is to keep right on doing so, regardless of the consequences to others.

But, as economists like to say, things will continue until they can’t.  Someday, hopefully in the not-too-far distant future, it will become apparent to all the green energy transition is a pipedream completely impossible to achieve.  It will become apparent too many other important values like national security, expense, performance, and living standards are being sacrificed on the altar of climate change for no good reason – green energy regulations are all pain for no gain.  And when that day comes, the charlatans of climate change who want to rule over us will be exposed for what they are.  That day can’t come soon enough.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

‘Death with Dignity’ — Ha!

The Left loves its phony narratives and I’ve taken aim at several of them.  Today I take aim at ‘death with dignity’, the phony narrative the Left uses to sell assisted suicide and euthanasia.

I start with the spectacular story out of the Netherlands in 2019 where a court upheld the actions of a doctor who euthanized a woman with dementia against her wishes.  The doctor put sedatives in the woman’s coffee and had the family hold her down for the lethal injection.  The woman put up a fight.  Doesn’t sound like a very dignified death to me.

And it wasn’t very dignified what happened to the brother of a friend of mine.  The brother had his third stroke and was sedated.  His wife violated his written instructions by stopping all treatment and withdrawing all food and water.  The wife was heard to say she was tired of dealing with the situation and it’s also true the sooner he died, the more she stood to inherit.   A financial motive – how dignified is that?

To these two ugly stories, we can now add a third.  A palliative care nurse recently published the story you are about to hear so “eyes will be opened to the horrifying reality of euthanasia”:

  • They say euthanasia is a compassionate, dignified way to die. They say everyone should have the option, and that a life with suffering is not a life worth living. But that’s not what I’ve seen. I know Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) to be messier and more distressing than anyone cares to talk about.
  • Laura had picked out music to play in the background while she died, and had chosen which loved ones she wanted by her side. It was planned for 6 pm. She was alert and oriented, and had signed a waiver saying that if for whatever reason she was no longer judged to be of sound mind at the time of the MAID provision, she could be euthanized anyways. She thought she had complete control. Just a few hours before 6 pm Laura had a completely unexpected grand mal seizure. She wouldn’t stop seizing and required large doses of a sedating anticonvulsant. The time of the provision came, and she was confused and groggy from the sedating medication, and unable to properly confirm she wanted the euthanasia, or say goodbye to her family members. She tried to speak but no one could understand what she was saying. Laura was euthanized at 6 pm, according to the waiver she had signed. This was what she had requested, but the family came out of her room shaking, with eyes wide. They cried, and kept saying it should have never happened that way. They had no closure. There was no dignified, peaceful ending. Just their loved one, killed in the middle of trying to say something…. (H)er death was sudden, and traumatic, and the family went home right after without anyone to support them through the process…. (A) coworker sped out of the room shaking and crying,
  • I know multiple other nurses who have been through the same experience. Although they had no religious or moral objections to MAID, after witnessing it first hand they swore to never be in the room again while it happened. They were deeply unsettled, and their conscience told them what they couldn’t admit to themselves: the intentional ending of a life is wrong, no matter the circumstances.
  • Patients may think that choosing MAID relieves their family of the burden of waiting for their death, or seeing suffering. But in reality it steals time and closure, and replaces a natural process with an unsettling ending. From what I have seen, loved ones of euthanized patients appear to struggle more in their grief than loved ones of patients who die naturally.

Welcome to the wacky world of the Left, where ‘death with dignity’ means people being killed against their wishes, for unsavory motives like money.  Where the vendors selling assisted suicide are not killers.  Where the real cause of death – assisted suicide – is kept off death certificates.  Where death is considered ‘medical treatment‘ and medicine means a ‘substance to cause death’.   Where doctors push assisted suicide on vulnerable patients, elder abuse is common, agonizing deaths routinely occur from lethal drugs that don’t work as advertised, destructive social contagion takes over, and people are taught all of this is good when it could not be more evil.

If this is ‘death with dignity’, you can keep it.

©2023 Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays