France Betrays U.S. With $15 Billion Iran Bailout

France slapped the U.S. in the face with its $15 billion Iran bailout offer, which would serve to undo all the progress made by the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Iran. What should the consequences be?

Listen to Clarion’s National Security Analyst and Shillman Fellow Ryan Mauro discuss this on I24 News as well as the latest reports that Hezbollah has now moved its precision missiles intended for Israel into civilian areas.

Israel’s response to the Iranian and Hezbollah missile build up in Syria and Lebanon is now being publicly defended by Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Amid the missile build ups by Iran and Hezbollah have come the disclosure by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran performed experiments of nuclear weapons at a previously undisclosed site.

Watch here:

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Their Obsession with Death

It was a lovely, warm August afternoon in Jerusalem, 2001, a time when people strolled about, greeted neighbors, enjoyed a beverage or ice cream at an outdoor café, or lunch in the numerous restaurants.  It was a day when an Arab man, carrying a guitar case, entered the crowded Sbarro’s pizzeria, an eatery specifically selected for the large number of Jewish children it attracted.  He bought a slice of pizza and sat down among the Jews at one of the tables, contrary to the constant myth that Israel is apartheid.  Upon finishing his snack, he opened the case and ignited the “nail bomb” that the female terrorist and mastermind, Ahlam Tamimi, had smuggled into Israel.  The suicide terrorist, Izz Al-Din Shuheil Al-Masri, blew himself up along with 15 other people, including seven children (two Americans), and wounding about 130, some hideously, and one who remains in a coma.

Although Tamimi, the architect of the Sbarro massacre, had been apprehended, tried, convicted, and condemned to 16 life sentences in an Israeli court of law, she was released in an Israeli prisoner exchange.  Gilad Shalit, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), who had been kidnapped by Hamas militants in a cross-border raid via underground tunnels near the Israeli border, had been held captive for more than five years as a bargaining chip.  The Israelis were finally able to secure his release on October 18, 2011, but only as part of a complete prisoner exchange in accordance with the PA 2004 Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners, by turning over 1,027 Palestinians, including Ahlam Tamimi, who were collectively responsible for killing 569 Israeli citizens.

The terrorist’s mother was subsequently honored by Mahmoud Abbas with $910,823 (3.2 million shekels) for her glorious sacrifice – except that the sacrifice is suddenly no longer sacrificial, but a means to an end, the commercial enterprise required for fame and fortune in the Arab world.

  • Tamimi, then age 21 and Hamas’s first female terror operative, had been awarded $51,836, until her release from prison.  Now, a free and unrepentant terrorist, she is “exiled” to Amman, Jordan, home to her parents and most of her siblings, married and raising a family.  In opposition to the extradition treaty signed by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with Israel on March 28, 1995, followed by the exchange of instruments of ratification by Jordan and US President Clinton on July 29, 1995, Tamimi is free to travel under Jordanian protection throughout the Arab world. She speaks about her terrorist career and incites to murder Jews.  The US Department of Justice and the FBI recently revealed the serious terrorism charges against her, maintaining the still valid and binding “Treaties in Force” (page 252), but after two years, Jordan still blocks extradition of only Tamimi.
  • Her cousin/husband, another impenitent convicted terrorist-murderer who was also released in the Shalit trade deal, receives monthly payments from the PA.
  • The bombmaker, Abdullah Barghouti, earned $213,848 for several now-infamous bombings, and is currently serving 67 life terms in an Israeli prison.
  • The Sbarro terrorists and their families receive $7,321 monthly, generous stipends doled out by Mahmoud Abbas from the coffers of the world’s “humanitarian aid” given only to “Palestinians.”

Ilhan Omar’s infamous words, “It’s all about the Benjamins, Baby,” were another Arab tradition – the projection of their own blameworthy deeds on others.  

For an overall scope of the pay-to-slay business, remuneration to terrorists came to $134 million in  2018 alone, with individuals receiving from NIS 1,400 to NIS 12,000 per month, depending upon the length of their imprisonment in Israel.

How does the society produce these inhuman weapons of mass destruction?  Where should we place responsibility for the damaging construct of Islamic family life – the hierarchy, interaction, communication, commitment, the hopes and fears, the warped moral code, social relatedness, stress and crisis management?  The Koran defines them all.

In Islam, children are produced and raised for exploitation – objectified for the sake of fulfilling the demands of Allah and Mohammed and controlled in the shame/blame society. The children are restrained by shaming – taught they are defective, guilty of feeling they have done something wrong, and unworthy enough to be driven to suicide – to achieve honor for group acceptance. The young, prepubescent boy may be humiliated by the emotional and sexual abuse he is forced to endure by older men.  He is obedient and in a perpetual state of anger also at his mother for her subservience and for not protecting him.  His perpetual shame prevents him from becoming an autonomous adult and getting his needs met appropriately.  In order to cleanse himself, he projects that shame onto others, with an eagerness for revenge.  Addicted to rage and drilled in a variety of weapons, he is eager to do battle with Jews and Christians, to achieve martyrdom and glorification, his only release from the oppressive culture.

The girl feels the brunt of the shame/blame culture, as she is subject to the embarrassment, pain and possible lasting infection from the Female Genital Mutilation, and the constant reminder that she may be veiled, stoned and killed, and blamed for sowing disorder in the “ideal society.”  Consider the clothing restrictions to live almost completely covered; the ban against certain hairstyles and smoking; bans on socialization, travel, schooling, celebrations and music.  This society exists on domination and submission, on a lack of empathy and sexual misery, where rape plays a particularly unique role.  The girl may become one of four wives in a resentful, competitive household, a concubine or sex slave.  The male’s psychological fusion with his immature and frightened mother keeps him terrified of women and sex, programmed to “kill off his mother” by murdering other women in cold blood as well as their own mothers and non-Muslims.  The female cannot extricate herself from the confines of an  Islamic life of degradation, of marriage, neglect and violence, unless she emulates the boy’s role.  If she becomes a female jihada, she will earn praise, admiration, and be paid handsomely for her acts of terrorism, even for the final act of martyrdom.  Here are profiles of some infamous female terrorists:

  • Wafa Idrees was the first female suicide bomber, in 2002. Forced into marriage with a first cousin, delivered of a stillborn and divorced, she detonated herself with a 22-lb. bomb in Jerusalem, injuring more than 100 others.
  • Ayat al-Akhras was the third and youngest Palestinian suicide bomber, age 16 or 18, to detonate herself.  Losing family members to violence, and being left single and pregnant by a Farah operative, may have been the stimuli for her action.
  • Dalal Al Mughrabi, recognized as a martyred “Palestinian” fighter who contributed to the Coastal Road Massacre of 1978, her bus hijacking resulted in the death of 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, and 72 wounded.

And what happened to other murderers who were released along with Tamimi?  A select few are shown here:

  • Hasam Badran, a former leader and current international spokesman for Hamas, had been sentenced to 17 years for multiple lethal bombings, including the Sbarro, the Dolphinarian discotheque in Tel Aviv that killed 21, the Passover Seder at Park Hotel that killed 30 and injured 140, 20 seriously, was released and believed living in Qatar.
  • Bassel Himouni, who planned multiple shooting and roadside bomb attacks, was released, deported, and now lives in the Gaza strip.
  • Amir Dukan was involved in financing terrorism for Hamas. He was released to Gaza and remains in contact with Hamas and other terrorist groups.
  • Hisham Abd al-Qader Ibrahim Hijaz raised funds for terrorist activities, planned abductions and shooting attacks, and was responsible for the deaths of ten Israeli civilians and soldiers.  He was released and lives in Qatar. Saudi’s contribution of funds supporting Palestinians (terrorism) exceeded US $15 billion by July 2003,
  • Ayman IsmailSalalmeh Sharawneh was imprisoned for 38 years for multiple terrorist attacks, including injuring 19 in Beersheba.  Upon his release, he immediately returned to terrorist activity.  Re-arrested in 2012, and again released, he returned to terrorism

International aid to the Palestinians is a contentious issue.  Australia ended direct aid to the PA amid fears that money is going to terrorists (July 2018), America cut $200 million of its aid to Palestinians (August, 2018), and New Zealand suspended UNRWA funding (August, 2019), while Norway and Ireland (June 2019) increased theirs, as have a shocking number and variety of organizations.  In keeping with Mohammed’s mandates, the “free male Muslim is entitled to the spoils of battle when he has participated in a battle to the end of it.” (Reliance of the Traveller, o10.0) The dubious generosity of the European Union enables the Palestinian Authority to pay the rewards for terror to Palestinians, with no oversight on corruption of subsidies to convicted terrorists. A Times of London journalist wrote (October, 2013), “Billions of euros in European aid to the Palestinians may have been misspent, squandered or lost to corruption,” yet the euros continue to flow in.

Mahmoud Abbas never reveals that donors’ funds go to the PLO, and he assures the jihadis and their families that there will always be money for those “heroic” Palestinian Arabs who will slaughter the children and Holocaust survivors.  He also knows he can count on the Europeans to turn a blind eye to the misuse of funds as they continue their own eternal war against the Jews.

Acknowledgment: Frimet and Arnold Roth – http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com
In loving memory of Malki Roth HY”D and Michal Raziel HY”D and all who suffered and died at the hands of Islamic murderers.

© All rights reserved.

PODCAST: Swamp Ready To Pass Gun Control; Pundits cheering for a recession; Black Americans for a Better Future!

GUESTS

Dudley Brown President National Association for Gun Rights, has nearly three decades of professional experience in political activism with 25 years as a gun lobbyist, firearms instructor, and expert in American firearms laws and legislation. He founded Rocky Mountain Gun Owners in 1996, which is one of the most successful — and feared — state gun rights groups in the country. Throughout his career, Dudley has worked in the trenches of State Legislatures across the nation as a leader for gun rights.

TOPIC: D.C. Swamp Ready To Pass Gun Control!

Alfredo Ortiz is the president and CEO of the Job Creators Network, where he has led the defense of small businesses from the onslaught of bad government policies. Alfredo has testified before legislative committees about the impact of taxation and regulation on small business growth, and speaks frequently to business organizations across the nation about the need for job creators to seize responsibility for defending free enterprise.
He has been widely published in major media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CNBC, The Hill, and U.S. News & World Report and is a frequent guest on cable news networks and national radio talk shows, including CNN, Fox News, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, and the Dennis Prager Show.

TOPIC: Pundits cheering for a recession!!

Raynard Jackson is a Pulitzer Prize nominated columnist and President & CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates, LLC, an internationally recognized political consulting, government affairs, and PR firm based in Washington, DC. Jackson is an internationally recognized radio talk show host and TV commentator. He has coined the phrase “straticist.” As a straticist, he has merged strategic planning with public relations.

TOPIC: Black Americans for a Better Future

© All rights reserved.

Michelle Malkin: Sixty Reasons Why the U.S. Refugee Program is a Danger to Us!

Malkin’s timing is excellent because as I write this the Trump Administration is wrestling with an important legal requirement.  In the coming weeks they must decide how many refugees (if any!) will be admitted to the US in FY2020 which begins in 21 days!

Every year since the Refugee Act of 1980 was signed into law by Jimmy Carter, the President determines how many UN-selected refugees will be welcomed to a town near you.  Needless to say the refugee industry is in high gear putting pressure on the White House to get the numbers as high as they can (they are demanding 90,000) because the refugee contractors financial survival depends on high numbers!

Therefore, the timing of the release of Michelle Malkin’s new book couldn’t be better.

Here, at Breitbart, she pulls no punches and tells us about it and directs your attention to 60 reasons (60 Islamists we welcomed to become ‘new Americans’ while they came to do us harm.)

By the way, Trump can legally set the refugee ceiling for FY2020 at Zero!

Exclusive — Michelle Malkin: 60 Terrifying Reasons Trump Is Right to Reduce Refugees

Here are three facts that the most hysterical voices attacking the Trump administration’s proposal to radically reduce or freeze refugee admissions don’t want you to know:

1) They make billions of dollars off the federal refugee resettlement racket;

2) They are protected by the Open Borders Inc. media, which routinely whitewashes the gobsmacking financial self-interest of the “Let Them All In” leeches; and

3) They are never held accountable when untold numbers of the world’s most wretchedly violent and aggrieved refugees come here to sabotage the American Dream.

While left-wing religious groups, tax-exempt non-profits tied or allied to George Soros, and the amnesty-shilling Catholic Church scream “No hate, no fear, everyone is welcome here!” at the top of their lungs, American neighborhoods are being overrun by dangerous foreign criminals and jihad plotters.

David Miliband, president and CEO of International Rescue Committee, attacked the White House plan to slash refugee numbers from an Obama-era high of 100,000 to less than the current historic low of 30,000 as “inhumane.”

Is it because cutting the numbers would cut in to Miliband’s first-class travel and business lunch tabs? Malkin Truth-O-Meter: mostly likely true!

What Miliband neglects to mention in his diatribe against President Trump that his organization is one of 9 behemoth government contractors that works with the hostile United Nations and encrusted State Department social justice warriors to import thousands of new refugees every year with little input from the communities in which they are dumped. Miliband earns nearly a million-dollar salary*** and by one estimate, IRC has raked in nearly $900 million in refugee resettlement profits over the last decade. When you cut through the Statue of Liberty smokescreen of the open borders “charities,” the math is clear:

Reduced refugees means reduced cash flow.

Zero refugees means zero cash flow.

Why should taxpayers continue to see their hard-earned money siphoned away to feed the Trump Resistance Machine and Democrat Party’s Permanent Ruling Majority Project?

There are even more compelling reasons to throttle the refugee flow. According to the logic-twisting, ICE-doxxing cheerleaders at the New York Times, refugee reductions are the real threat to our nation because if we don’t keep importing hordes of Muslim translators from Iraq or Afghanistan, it would “undermine” our national security.

This is just plain ass-backwards.

Continue reading here to see the sixty reasons….

***And see my post here at RRW a few days ago about the push to admit more Iraqi and Afghan translators.   You will see the proof of Miliband’s obscene salary!

By the way, I am seeing a huge push by the contractors and their media lackeys to pressure the President at this very moment to agree to admit tens of thousands of UN-selected refugees to be your new neighbors.

***Alert***

Editor’s note:

In the near future, we will be moving ‘Frauds and Crooks’ to a new, secure hosting company. There will be times when the blog may be unavailable, but rest assured that we are not going away. Once we begin the move, it may take a few days to complete the move. Please be patient and check back.

In the meantime visit RRW by clicking here.

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Student of Environmental Science explains how it has gone from Science to Scientism

Posted by Eeyore

Direct link.

The Cure for Confused Male/Female Relationships

At our annual Labor Day family reunion, I surprisingly found myself in conversations in which male/female relations was a reoccurring theme.

A happily married female relative told me about five of her middle-aged girlfriends who are looking for husbands. She said they probably will not be successful because they are domineering women who refuse to respect a man.

A gentleman said he asked his wife to prepare him a plate of food from the buffet which she did happily. A radical feminist scolded his wife, “Why did you do that? There is nothing wrong with his feet and hands!” The gentleman told the bitter woman to stay out of their relationship.

A young female relative cornered me at the dessert table. She ranted about how her dating pool is filled with boys rather than real men like her dad. “I am so tired of wearing the pants in every relationship. I would gladly take off the pants and hand them over to a real man. I’ll even cut the pants off, turning them into shorts if it will make him feel better. I just want a responsible adult male that I can respect and depend on”.

At poolside watching the kids have a ball in the pool, a frustrated young father told me his vindictive ex-wife selfishly uses their 12 year old son as a pawn. Over the years, he has spent thousands in attorney fees for visitation rights. I praised him for fighting to stay a part of his son’s life whom he brought to the reunion.

Male/female relations are a mess folks. America is suffering the dire consequences of allowing radical feminists and progressives’ anti-biblical ideology to dominate our culture.

Progressive schools, radical feminists and Hollywood have absurdly taught young women that gender equality means they must reject their femininity and physically compete with men. Several ridiculous movies feature 100 pound women beating the crap out of 300 pound men. The absurd message is men and women are the same.

Consequently, far too many young women are clueless regarding the tremendous power of their God given femininity. Remember that song in the musical, “Flower Drum Song” titled, “I Enjoy Being a Girl”? Celebrating femininity is deemed offensive and oppressive today.

As a child, our choir was on a bus trip. The bus was ready to leave and some of the kids had not returned to the bus. Our choir director, Miss Robena said, “Lloyd you can run fast. Run back and tell the kids to hurry.” I ran as fast as I could because I wanted to please Miss Robena. That’s the power of femininity.

Progressives claim to be our superiors regarding advocating for people of color. And yet, progressives promote anti-biblical and irresponsible behaviors which produce problems that plague urban blacks. For example: The Oxygen channel produced a reality TV show titled, “All My Babies’ Mammas”. The show irresponsibly celebrated a black rapper who has 11 kids by 10 black women.

Fatherless households negatively impact urban blacks, causing a cycle of generational poverty, addiction to government dependency, black on black crime, gang membership, high incarceration and epidemic school dropout rates. The dirty little secret is Democrats’ insidiously evil game-plan is to keep their constituents on the government dependency plantation.

This is why every 2020 Democrat presidential candidate is promising free everything, including a monthly check to able-bodied Americans who simply refuse to work. Trump’s economy has created more jobs than there are people to fill them. Trump has reduced black unemployment to a historic low.

Black Entertainment Television (BET) is extremely hypocritical. While claiming to be super advocates for blacks, BET has partnered with progressives promoting debauchery which contributes greatly to the moral and cultural decay of urban blacks.

Due to politically correct mixed messaging, men and women are confused about how to relate to each other; rejecting their biological instincts. Feminist women magazines say it is insulting for the man to automatically pick up the check at dinner. They say the woman should have an opportunity to pay for the meal. However, if he allows her to pay, the woman should run from him.

Dad taught my three younger brothers and me that when we took a girl on a date, as men, it was our responsibility to return her home safely. Even at our peril.

Adding to the confusion about how males and females should relate to each other is the implementation of the LGBTQ curriculum in schools which teach kids to reject nature’s definition of male and female. Thank God hundreds of parents in California pulled their kids out of school in protest of the LGBTQ curriculum.

In progressives’ relentless war against nature, we are bombarded 24/7 with the glorification of same sex attraction. The TV cooking show “Chopped” would have us believe a third of America’s chefs are involved in same sex relationships which is an absurd lie. Only 2-3% of the population is homosexual.

Progressives’ latest attack on normal male/female relationships is a NBC News report, “Heterosexuality is just not working.” The report claims that men are so horrible that women are opting out of heterosexuality and choosing to become lesbians. Wait a minute. Haven’t LGBTQ activists insisted that people are born homosexual and it is not a choice?

While claiming they only want tolerance, the real agenda of LGBTQ activists is to demonize heterosexuality and throw people in jail who publicly disapprove of the LGBTQ lifestyle.

Our Creator has provided the perfect instructional manual to achieve happy and fulfilling male/female relationships. The Bible. Progressives despise God’s instructions and seek to implement their hideously evil and destructive perversion.

© All right reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Teacher Stands Ground Against Transgender Student, Now Whole Staff Faces Training – Report

The Moral Decay of the Democratic Party — It’s no longer the party of Thomas Jefferson

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus.” – Thomas Jefferson (Letter to William Canby, September 18, 1813).


Thomas Jefferson is considered the founder of the Democratic Party. Today you do not hear about President Jefferson. Why is that? Perhaps the quote above is the answer. Jefferson was a Christian and a believer in Jesus.

Why is the Democratic Party evil and immoral?

In an article titled The Equation That Explains Evil Dennis Prager presents a simple equation that inextricably leads to evil:

GI – W = E

Good Intentions (GI) minus Wisdom (W) leads to Evil (E).

Today’s Democratic Party has long used good intentions without wisdom to create new public policies. These public policies have lead to evil and an immoral society. The Democratic Party is at its core bad, black, dark, evil, iniquitous, nefarious, rotten, sinful, unethical, unlawful, unrighteous, unsavory, vicious, vile, villainous, wicked and wrong. Why? Because the Democratic Party lacks wisdom.

The Democratic Party is evil and immoral.

Let’s take a look at each of the Merriam-Webster synonyms for immoral.

BAD

The Democratic Party is simply bad because of its rejection of morality. This is particularly evident in how it treats those who disagree with them. Those who support the Democratic Party bully those both in the party and those not, by name calling. Members of the Democratic Party and their allies throw around words like: racist, misogynist, Nazi, deplorable, capitalist, homophobic, Islamophobic, 1%, etc. The purpose is to silence anyone who would not give them total power and control.

BLACK

Black is both a color and a race. Today blacks predominantly vote Democratic. The Democratic Party works daily to keep blacks within the fold by telling them that Republicans in general, and President Trump in particular, are racists. But who really are the racists? Who created the Ku Klux Klan? Who created the welfare programs that keep blacks dependent on government social programs? Who supports Planned Parenthood that kills more unborn black babies than any other race? Which party hates white people?

DARK

The Democratic Party has taken the dark road toward Socialism. Socialism leads to serfdom. The core of Socialism is greed, one of the seven deadly sins. Democrats constantly propose forcibly, via taxation, taking from those who work and giving to those who do not work. The Democratic Party is at its core greedy.

EVIL

At a CNN special on the Climate Crisis Senator Bernie Sanders, when asked by a teacher what he would do to control population growth, said women “in poor countries” should have access to birth control. This is population control via Eugenics.

INIQUITOUS

Iniquity is defined as a gross injustice. Can you name any Democrat, or one of their supporters, who has committed a crime, violated the public trust, used their public office for personal gain or broken the law who has not been brought to justice? Injustice is a gross iniquity.

NEFARIOUS

Nefarious is defined as flagrantly wicked or impious. The Democratic Party has embraced groups and individuals who are flagrantly wicked such as the LGBTQ activists, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffery Epstein, Bill Clinton, etc. Impious is not showing respect or reverence, especially for God. Can you name any Democrat that has publicly stated that God is no longer needed in our lives? Have you seen the Democratic Party ally like the ACLU work to remove God from the public square?

ROTTEN

Rotten means suffering from decay. Can you name any inner city controlled by the Democratic Party that is rotting? Can you name any city controlled by the Democratic Party that is infested with: diseases, acute poverty, lawlessness, rats, vermin, etc.?

SINFUL

Can you name any Democrat who has not violated at least one of the Ten Commandments? Perhaps the most nefarious (see above) is the Democratic Party’s violation of the 10th Commandment, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, nor his farm, nor his cattle, nor anything that is his!” The 10th Commandment warned everyone about the lure of Socialism/Communism/Marxism.

UNETHICAL

Can you name any Democrat who has been unethical? Violated the public trust recently?

UNLAWFUL

Think about the Russian collusion hoax.

UNRIGHTEOUS

Think about how supporters of President Trump have been attacked repeatedly. Some have even called a red hat as triggering.

UNSAVORY

Think about using government funding of abortion to cull the population of the world in order to stop climate change.

VICIOUS

Think about how viciously President Trump and his supporters are attacked daily by Democratic members of Congress, the media and the Democratic Party. Think about the confirmation hearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

VILE

Vile includes synonyms such as: foulnastyunpleasantbaddisagreeablehorridhorribledreadfulabominableatrociousoffensiveobnoxiousodiousunsavoryrepulsiveoff-puttingrepellentrevoltingrepugnantdisgustingdistastefulloathsomehatefulnauseatingsickening. Can you name any recent statement by a Democrat that fits one or more of these labels?

VILLAINOUS

Think of the words and actions that come out of the mouths of the supporters of Democrats in Hollywood.

WICKED

The Democrat mantra is wickedness. See evil above.

WRONG

Democrats are wrong about everything. Their policies, positions, history and embrace of Communism are just wrong. The Democratic Party forgets history and therefore is doomed to repeat it. The only historical fact is that Socialism has failed 100% of the time.

Conclusion

As Dennis Prager in his article The Equation That Explains Evil notes:

The problem with communists and with leftists who don’t consider themselves communists is not that none of them mean well. It’s that they lack wisdom. There are wise and foolish liberals, wise and foolish conservatives; but all leftists are fools. Every one of the Democrats running for president is a fool. This is not, however, a description of their totality as a human being. Fools may be personally kind and generous, may be loyal friends and devoted spouses, and of course, they may be well-intentioned. But in terms of making the world worse, there is little difference between a well-meaning fool and an evil human being. Tens of millions of well-intentioned Westerners supported Stalin. The Westerners who supplied Stalin the secrets to the atom bomb were not motivated by evil. They were simply fools. But few evil people did as much to hurt the world as they did. [Emphasis added]

In 2016, the Oxford Dictionaries selected “post-truth” as the “Word of the Year” and defined it as “a term relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

Today the Democratic Party is built upon the shifting sands of post-truth.

Anyone disagree? If so please leave a comment.

© All rights reserved.

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Autism –– Still looking for answers in all the wrong places

Updated from an April 2014 article on this issue.

According to 2018 statistics from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), about 1 in 59 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), up from the one in 68 in 2016.

PLUS ÇA CHANGE…

As always, the powers-that-be at the CDC trot out the age-old rationales to explain these disturbing statistics:

  • Greater awareness and therefore earlier and more accurate diagnoses
  • The role that being older parents play not only in the incidence of autism but also Down syndrome and other developmental disabilities
  • Genes
  • “Something” in the environment

Five years ago, a CDC study found that the incidence of autism in blacks “continues to lag behind whites and Hispanics,” which some experts attributed to racial bias––i.e., blacks lack equal access to medical care. But other experts say that blacks may simply be less vulnerable to autism for some unknown reason.

What is consistently omitted, however, is the role that ultrasound exams during pregnancy may and probably do play in the rapidly-escalating incidence of this lifelong condition.

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

Autism is a neurological disorder that affects the normal development of the brain, causing self-defeating behaviors and an inability to form social relationships. It usually appears before the age of three. Most scientists believe that autism is strongly influenced by genetics but allow that environmental factors may also play a role.

To be diagnosed on the autistic spectrum, a child must have deficits in three areas:

  1. Communication (most children can’t make eye contact; others can’t speak).
  2. Social skills (typified by disinterest in both people and surroundings).
  3. Typically “normal” behavior (many autistic children have tics, repetitive behavior, inappropriate affects, et al).

Those diagnosed on the autistic spectrum range from high-functioning, self-sufficient people––even geniuses––to those who need lifelong supportive help.

A LARGELY-DEBUNKED THEORY

The increased incidence of autism has been attributed by legions of parents and a number of professionals to the mercury-containing preservative thimerosol, used to prevent bacterial or fungal contamination in the vaccines babies and children routinely receive.

This is not backed up by hard science.

Thimerosol, which has been used in vaccines since the 1930s, has not been used in the U.S. since 2001 and the vaccine dosages containing the preservative that were given before then had about the same amount of mercury found in an infant’s daily supply of breast milk.

Numerous studies––by The CDC, The Institute of Medicine, The American Academy of Pediatrics, The World Health Organization, and The National Academy of Sciences, among other prestigious organizations––have found no autism-vaccine link, while other studies have shown an increase in autism in countries that have removed thimerosal from vaccines.

In fact, between late 1999 and late 2002, mercury was removed from most childhood vaccines, including DPT (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis), Hepatitis B, and Hib [Haemophilus influenza b]. The MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella), which is a live vaccine, is not compatible with thimerosal.

What appears significant, however, is the degree to which diagnoses of mental retardation and learning disabilities throughout the country have decreased at the same time as diagnoses of autism have risen, as reported in a May 2006 issue of Behavioral Pediatrics.

Some experts theorize that “diagnostic substitution” may explain this phenomenon. Diagnostic Substitution means that children who were diagnosed with other conditions––including ADHD and learning disabilities––are now diagnosed with autism.

MY THEORY

In the early ’70s, I worked as a delivery-room nurse at a university-affiliated hospital. It was a revolutionary time in obstetrics, when the Lamaze method of “prepared childbirth” and the use of sonograms to visualize fetuses in the womb were just gaining popularity.

Ultrasound technology was first developed in Scotland in the mid-1950s by obstetrician Ian Donald and engineer Tom Brown to detect industrial flaws in ships. But it was only in the early 1970s that it was used in American hospitals to check that the developing baby, placenta, and amniotic fluid were normal and to detect abnormal conditions such as birth defects and ectopic pregnancies, et al.

At the end of the ’70s, I became a certified Lamaze teacher and spent the next 22 years giving classes in my home. In a very real way, I had my own laboratory, as I learned directly from my clients about the increasing escalation of sonogram exams.

In the early 1980s, it was common for only one or two out of the 10 women in my classes to have a sonogram. In just a few years, every woman in my classes had had a sonogram. And in the late ’80s and ’90s, almost every woman had not one but often two or three or four or five sonograms––starting as early as three-or-four weeks of gestation and extending, in some instances, right up to the ninth month!

It was in the ’90s, in fact, that it began to occur to me that the scary rise in the incidence of autism might be linked to the significant rise in ultrasound exams. Over the years, I’ve posited my theory to a number of people and written letters to the editors of newspapers––including the NY Times, for which I wrote for over 20 years, but they still refused to publish my letter.

I contacted autism researchers Dr. Marcel Just and Dr. Diane L. Williams, who told me via e-mail that Dr. Pasko Rakic at Yale was, indeed, exploring the autism-ultrasound link.

AN AHA! MOMENT

Then, in 2006, I found an article in Midwifery Today: “Questions about Prenatal Ultrasound and the Alarming Increase in Autism,” by writer-researcher Caroline Rodgers.

“The steep increase in autism,” Rodgers wrote, “goes beyond the U.S.: It is a “global phenomenon”… that “has emerged…across vastly different environments and cultures.”

“What do countries and regions with climates, diets and exposure to known toxins as disparate as the U.S., Japan, Scandinavia, Australia, India and the UK have in common?” Rodgers asked.

“No common factor in the water, air, local pesticides, diet or even building materials and clothing can explain the emergence and relentless increase in this serious, life-long neurodevelopmental disorder,” she stated.

“What all industrial countries do have in common,” she added, “is …the use of routine prenatal ultrasound on pregnant women. In countries with nationalized healthcare, where virtually all pregnant women are exposed to ultrasound, the autism rates are even higher than in the U.S., where due to disparities in income and health insurance, some 30 percent of pregnant women do not yet undergo ultrasound scanning.”

The cause of autism, Rodgers continues, “has been pinned on everything from ’emotionally remote’ mothers…to vaccines, genetics, immunological disorders, environmental toxins and maternal infections, [but] a far simpler possibility…is the pervasive use of prenatal ultrasound, which can cause potentially dangerous thermal effects.

ENTER HARD SCIENCE

In August 2006, Pasko Rakic, M.D., chair of Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Neurobiology, announced the results of a study with pregnant mice undergoing various durations of ultrasound. The brains of the offspring showed damage consistent with that found in the brains of people with autism.

The research, funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, also implicated ultrasound in neurodevelopmental problems in children, such as dyslexia, epilepsy, mental retardation and schizophrenia, and showed that damage to brain cells increased with longer exposures.

Dr. Rakic’s study, Rodgers said, “… is just one of many animal experiments and human studies conducted over the years indicating that prenatal ultrasound can be harmful to babies.”

Jennifer Margulis, author of Business of Baby: What Doctors Don’t Tell You, What Corporations Try to Sell You, and How to Put Your Baby Before Their Bottom Linewrites that Dr. Rakic “concluded that all nonmedical use of ultrasound on pregnant women should be avoided.”

In her research, Margulis discovered that “there is mounting evidence that overexposure to sound waves––or perhaps exposure to sound waves at a critical time during fetal development––is to blame for the astronomic rise in neurological disorders among America’s children.”

PROBLEMS WITH SOUND AND HEAT

A 2009 Scientific American  article by John Slocum explains that sonar––Sound Navigation And Ranging systems––first developed by the U.S. Navy to detect enemy submarines, “generate slow-rolling sound waves topping out at around 235 decibels, [while] the world’s loudest rock bands top out at only 130. These sound waves can travel for hundreds of miles under water, and can retain an intensity of 140 decibels as far as 300 miles from their source.”

This is relevant because many mass deaths and strandings of whales and dolphins have been attributed to the sonar waves emitted from Navy ships. As many as 3,000 dead dolphins were found in Peru during the summer of 2012, which researchers attributed to the deep-water sonar by ships in nearby waters. And in June of 2008, four days after a Navy helicopter was using sonar equipment in training exercises off the coast of Great Britain, 26 dolphins died in a mass stranding.

Quick question: If sonar beams can kill fully-developed dolphins, what effect do they have on the developing brains of in-utero embryos and fetuses in the first three months of development?

WHAT DOES ULTRASOUND ACTUALLY DO?

Rodgers explained that ultrasound used in fetal imaging emits high-frequency sound waves that are converted into images and waves that can heat both tissue and bone.”

She cited a warning the Food and Drug Administration issued in 2004: “…even at low levels, [ultrasound] laboratory studies have shown it can have…`jarring vibrations’ – one study compared the noise to a subway coming into a station – `and a rise in temperature.’”

Imagine how these assaults affect the fragile brain of a developing fetus!

Just as concerning, as far back 1982, a study by the World Health Organization (WHO)––”Effects of Ultrasound on Biological Systems”––concluded that “…neurological, behavioral, developmental, immunological, hematological changes and reduced fetal weight can result from exposure to ultrasound.”

 

Two years later, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reported that when birth defects occurred, the acoustic output [of sonograms] was usually high enough to cause considerable heat.

And yet, in 1993, the FDA approved an eight-fold increase in the potential acoustical output of ultrasound equipment, ostensibly to enhance better visualization of the heart and small vessels during microsurgery. Clearly, the health and well-being of developing fetuses was not a consideration!

“Can the fact that this increase in potential thermal effects happened during the same period of time that the incidence of autism increased nearly 60-fold be merely coincidental?” Rodgers asks.

KEEPING THE HEAT ON (so to speak)

In 2010, Ms. Rodgers presented a lecture about autism and ultrasound entitled “The Elephant in the Room” at the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These were but a few of her shocking conclusions:

  • A worldwide autism boom was identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that began in 1988-1989.
  • Ultrasound use and autism are more prevalent among higher socioeconomic groups.
  • An increased prevalence of autism occurs among better-educated, more affluent communities. Among other things, women in these communities have more ultrasound exams.

Women who are at higher risk of bearing children with autism include:

  • Mothers who receive first-trimester care
  • Mothers with higher educations
  • Mothers with private health insurance
  • Older mothers

Rodgers concludes: Only increased exposure to prenatal ultrasound can explain all of the above.

THOSE WHO DISAGREE

Numerous studies “prove” fetal ultrasound exams are safe, like the recent study reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which essentially said no problem!

In addition, WebMD touts the benefits of the technology, including that sonograms depict 4D imaging which vividly presents “the baby’s in utero facial expressions.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tells prospective parents that ultrasound provides “a valuable opportunity to view and hear the heartbeat of the fetus, bond with the unborn baby, and capture images to share with family and friends.”

And the CDC denies any association between ultrasound and adverse maternal, fetal or neonatal outcomes.

SKEPTICISM, ANYONE?

And yet, Jim West, author of Ultrasound: Human Studies Indicate Extreme Risk, contends that the “subtle and not-so-subtle” biological effects of ultrasound “have set the human species on a tragic path” from which it may take generations to recover….a single exposure to ultrasound produces cellular and DNA damage similar to 250 chest X-rays—and damage [is] permanent and heritable for 10 generations and beyond.”

Ultrasound also uses non-ionizing radiation (used in cell phones, cell towers, etc.), which can cause cellular and DNA damage.

We also know that when there is a vested financial, professional, ideological or political interest in a certain result, scientific “experts” are quite susceptible to “shaping” their findings to fit the views of the people who are funding the study.

We’ve seen this with the tobacco industry and the sugar industry, and another perfect example, as written extensively about by Henry Payne in National Review––Global Warming–Follow the Money––are the climate change so-called scientists who always “shape” their results to their benefactors’ satisfaction.

Another reason for skepticism are the numerous examples of rosy promises that turned into disasters.

  • Diethylstilbestrol (DES), given to women from 1940 to 1970 to prevent miscarriages until catastrophic health conditions happened to the daughters and sons of the women who took the drug.
  • The Copper 7 intrauterine device (IUD), introduced in the mid-1970s, ultimately was found to cause pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancies, septic miscarriages, infection, et al.
  • Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), introduced in the 1940s to help women with symptoms of menopause, was highly effective until a front-page article in The Wall St. Journal (in about 2008) cited studies linking this therapy to a rise in metastatic breast cancer, effectively destroying the world’s best-selling drug, Premarin––a high-estrogen medication.
  • Vioxx, approved by the FDA in 1999 for pain relief and reducing inflammation of osteoarthritis, was pulled from the market in 2004 because of all the heart attacks and strokes it caused.

This is the very very very short list! But if you want more info on the drugs approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and then pulled off the market because of disastrous effects, Laima Jonusiene, M.D., spells it all out here.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

There is a vast human tragedy––a true man-made disaster––taking place before our eyes.

For whatever reasons––follow the money?––the mountain of evidence that points to a causal relationship between prenatal ultrasound exams and an escalating pandemic of autism is being completely ignored.

Could it have anything to do with the huge investments doctors and scientists have made in ultrasound technology, which, according to Jennifer Margulis, “adds more than $1 billion to the cost of caring for pregnant women in America each year”?

Could it have anything to do with the revenue now pouring like an avalanche into the coffers of diagnostic and treatment centers and classrooms?

Could it have anything to do with modern journalism’s complete abandonment of hard-nosed reporting and life-saving exposés?

As Caroline Rodgers said, there is an elephant in the room when it comes to the subject of autism. And that elephant is the worldwide blitzkrieg of ultrasound exams on pregnant women–– exams that have bombarded the babies they’re carrying with the brain-warping sound waves and heat that will affect them every second of their autistic lives.

 

What’s wrong with this picture? America has 320-million people. If even half that number are parents or grandparents, when will all of them start to demand accountability from our health experts, as well as answers––and action!––from our feckless politicians?

Liberals Propose First Gun Grab Since Lexington and Concord

One wishes the media would stop using absurdly lazy phrases like “mandatory gun buybacks.” Unless the politician they’re talking about is in the business of selling firearms, it’s impossible for him to “buy back” anything. No government official — not Joe Biden, not Beto O’Rourke, not any of the candidates who now support “buyback” programs — has ever sold firearms.

What Democrats propose can be more accurately described as “the first American gun confiscation effort since Lexington and Concord,” or some variation on that theme. Although tax dollars will be meted out in an effort to incentivize volunteers, the policy is to confiscate AR-15s, the vast majority of which have been legally purchased by Americans who have undergone background checks and never used a gun for a criminal purpose.

The “mandatory gun buyback” exemplifies the impracticality and absurdity of do-somethingism. Democrats want to turn millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals overnight for refusing to adhere to a law that retroactively transforms the exercise of a constitutional right into a crime.

And they do it without any evidence that it would curtail rare mass shootings or save lives.

While national confiscation would be unprecedented in American history, we already possess hard evidence that bans of assault rifles don’t alter gun violence trends. Gun homicides continued to drop steeply after an “assault weapons” ban expired in 2004.

It’s also worth noting that in 2017, the last year of available FBI data, there was a near-historic low of 7,032 murders with handguns, and 403 by “rifles” of any kind, not only “assault weapons.” To put that in perspective, there were 1,591 knife homicides during that same span, 467 people killed with blunt objects, and another 696 with fists and kicking.

Although a number of Democrats now unequivocally support a “buyback,” no one has explained how the procedure will unfurl. What will the penalty be for ignoring the “buybacks”? Fines? Prison terms? Will local police be tasked with opening case files on the 100 million homes of suspected gun owners who are armed with hundreds of millions of firearms, or will it be the FBI?

Maybe Democrats will propose “paying back” family members and neighbors who snitch on gun owners? How else will they figure out who owns these AR-15s? There is no national tracking of sales.

Then again, many Democrats support “universal background checks,” which would necessitate a national database. So subsequent confiscations would be far easier, I suppose. (I can remember a time not very long ago when liberals accused a person of being a tin-foil-hatted nutter for merely suggesting that anyone had designs on their guns.)

It’s unclear to me if every candidate supports mandatory buybacks. Imprecision, after all, is the hallmark of gun control rhetoric. Of course a noncoercive “buyback” program wouldn’t work either because no patriotic American is going to sell his firearms under market value. If you pay gun owners more than market value, they will surely turn a profit and purchase new weapons.

The criminal class and deranged would-be mass shooters have absolutely no incentive to participate, anyway. But you knew that.

Then there is the little matter of constitutionality. I’ve noticed an uptick in gun grabbers — a phrase that’s no longer hyperbole — arguing that Americans don’t need AR-15s to hunt, as if it mattered.

Although ARs are used by hunters, I’m certain nothing in the Second Amendment mentions hunting, because the right of self-defense — an individual concern, as well as a collective one — has nothing to do with shooting deer and everything to do with protecting Americans from those who endeavor to strip them of their inalienable rights.

The District of Columbia v. Heller decision found that the Second Amendment protected weapons “in common use by law-abiding citizens.” The AR-15 clearly meets both criteria. It’s one of the most popular guns in America. Its semi-automatic mechanism is the same mechanism found in a majority of other legal firearms in the nation.

The arguments for a ban on “assault weapons” — a purposefully elastic phrase that allows the liberal legislator’s imagination to run wild — is centered on aesthetics, on the false claim that the AR is a “weapon of war,” and on the firearm tastes of a handful of deranged, sociopathic murderers.

Democrats and their allies like to mock these sorts of arguments as nothing more than semantics; mostly because they need to conflate and euphemize terms to make their arguments work. It’s how they generate favorable polling. I’m sure you’ve heard about the popularity of gun-control measures. But like “Medicare for All,” and other vaguely positive sounding policies, once voters learn what specifics entail, those numbers tend to settle along the usual partisan lines.

If you think you’re going to have overwhelming support for “mandatory gun buybacks” when people learn that you’re really talking about “the confiscation of 20 million guns,” you’re fooling yourself.

COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

COMMENTARY BY

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist and the author of “First Freedom: A Ride through America’s Enduring History With the Gun, From the Revolution to Today.” Twitter:.

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If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

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PODCAST: Meet 17-Year-Old Conservative Activist Described as ‘Left’s Youngest Nightmare’

CJ Pearson says he has been conservative since second grade. Now a senior in high school, Pearson has gained national attention for his conservative activism.

On today’s episode of The Daily Signal Podcast, Pearson, 17, shares why he is fighting back against left-wing policies.

Listen to the full episode or read a lightly edited transcript below.

Rob Bluey: We are joined by CJ Pearson. He’s a young conservative activist located in Georgia. CJ, thanks for joining us.

CJ Pearson: Rob, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Bluey: Absolutely. We’re excited. It was great to see you recently at The Heritage Foundation, and appreciate you coming on The Daily Signal Podcast to share a little bit about your story.

I want to begin by introducing you as, of course, a high school senior. You’re somebody who’s gained national attention because of your conservative activism. In fact, you’ve been described as the left’s youngest nightmare. You were raised, though, in a liberal household. So, how did you become a conservative?

Pearson: You know, it’s an interesting story. And I do come from a house divided, which has certainly made for interesting dinnertime conversation and definitely has been the subject of much discussion. My videos are definitely the subject of much discussion within my household.

So, I think for me, when I was first embarking upon my journey in politics, I wanted to find myself. I wanted to find out what I believe, personally. I wanted to find my political values, and wherever that led, I was OK with it.

Where I started was with … [reading] the Federalist Papers, I read the Constitution, I studied the platforms of both of the major parties. I actually even read a couple white papers on The Heritage Foundation back then. And this was like when I was like 10 or like 12.

Of course my parents have always voted Democrat. But what I always tell people is that—and this is a common story within the black community—my parents may have voted Democrat, but the values they instilled within me from when I was a child were conservative values. They were pro-family, they weren’t traditional, they were about personal responsibility.

So moving toward conservatism wasn’t a difficult thing for me. It was how I was raised. And for me it was just about discovering the evidence and the things that support what I believe now. For example, pro-growth policies, fiscal conservatism, the right to life, all of those things. It took a thirst for knowledge for me to figure out, “Yes, these are my values.”

It all started kind of after the 2008 election. We had an assignment in class where … we had to do what every good citizen in the country was doing at the time, we had to research the candidates and then we would ultimately cast our vote.

I remember watching the debates, not necessarily understanding at that time—I was like 7—what Iran was doing that was so bad, or what health care reform [was]. But realizing that what they’re doing on that stage was really, really important. And that kind of gave me the political bug and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Virginia Allen: That’s great. You know, CJ, as Rob mentioned, you have gained so much national attention—largely in part due to your disapproval of left-wing policies. Was there maybe a specific policy or instance that really led you to engage in political discourse at such a young age?

Pearson: I think it was more so the debate story. … During that time, I was 7 years old. I had never thought about politics before in any way. I was your average 7-year-old kid. I was playing with Legos, watching cartoons every Saturday morning. I was living my best life as a 7-year-old boy. So, we get this assignment, I totally shrug it off in the beginning. I was like, “Oh my God, literally what is even politics? I don’t care.”

And then I just remember, though, watching the debate—this was back when Candy Crowley was back at CNN, so this was way back when. And I remember just watching it, hearing them talk about these really important issues, realizing that they were important.

But I think what really got me, like pushed me toward political activism … I don’t think it was a singular issue, but I think it was the overarching belief that I believe that young people have an obligation to fight for the future that we want in this country.

No one’s going to give that to us. No one’s going to hand it to us. And I think that unless we’re involved, we can’t complain. At the end of the day, the decisions that politicians today make are going to affect our generation for years to come. So we might as well have a seat at the table because if we don’t, we will most certainly be on the menu.

Bluey: And CJ, let me take you back to that period of time. How were you perceived among your classmates, teachers? What did they think of somebody who was not only well-educated and articulate about these policy issues, but also maybe coming from a perspective that differed from their own?

Pearson: I think when it first started out … I wasn’t really overtly political back in elementary school. It was something that interested me. I read the newspaper front to back every single morning with my dad. But that was pretty much it.

I didn’t really talk about it much in school because it never really came up. We were learning the Fact Families and things like that in math class. We weren’t really talking about politics yet.

But in fifth grade it was the 2012 election. We actually had another mock election. That year was Romney and Obama. And it was just a lot different.

So, we did have this political conversation, they did begin to start. And I think a lot of my classmates were just kind of baffled by the idea that I even found politics remotely interesting. But also that I kind of knew what I was talking about.

It’s definitely shifted now. … It’s not always easy, because people are more politically in tune now at this age. And they may not have the most informed opinion, but everyone has an opinion.

So, I think that there is a certain element of, I have to defend my beliefs more than I had to when I was younger. But there’s also the fact that I had to grow up doing that. I live in a household of card-carrying Democrats. If I have an opinion about Trump, I have to defend it. If I believe that this particular conservative policy is a good idea, I have to defend it.

It’s been something that I’ve welcomed. I welcome disagreement, I welcome people challenging my ideas. I think it makes me a stronger advocate for my ideas. It’s definitely been interesting growing up kind of in the spotlight, especially as it relates to politics. …

I think when … my first video went viral, all my friends were just kind of going crazy about the view count. And it’s very different, because it’s like most kids my age, they’re famous for snorting cinnamon and doing things like that. So, it’s like I kind of got internet acclaim for a very good reason. It’s definitely been an interesting journey.

Bluey: Walk us through your use of social media because I think that in many cases, you’ve certainly outmaneuvered a lot of people in … older generations in terms of your use of it and your ability to attract that following and generate some national attention.

First of all, tell us how our readers can find you, and how you were able to have so much success.

Pearson: For sure. You can follow me on Twitter, @thecjpearson, and also on Instagram, @thecjpearson. Or you can just go to my website, cjpearson.org, which will give you links to all of my social media profiles.

To answer your question about how I did it, really it was native to me. I know a lot of people sit around big conference tables in very important places and churn out long social media strategies. For me, I grew up using Instagram. I grew up using Twitter. I grew up using Snapchat. So, when I’m posting my ideas or I’m posting my beliefs, it’s really natural to me. There’s no strategy behind it, I don’t tweet a certain amount of times a day—I probably tweet too much.

I think what really benefited me was kind of knowing the contours of the platform in a way … that I’m uniquely able to do as someone who is my age, but also someone who didn’t take it too seriously and was more concerned about just the ability to take my message in places where it wasn’t before.

Yesterday I started using TikTok, which is like the crazy new app that everyone is using, everyone in Gen Z is using. So, everyone listening right now, … if you want your kid to think you’re really cool, download TikTok. Or if you just want to be in the know, download TikTok.

I started using TikTok for posting little funny political videos. And I did it because it’s a new audience, and everyone’s there. Everyone’s paying attention to that platform.

I think the biggest advice I can give to people is be receptive to the changes and the dynamic of the platform, but also just be natural. Your audience wants authenticity and they want simple, cool content. That’s definitely been something that I’ve strived to do.

Allen: Speaking of social media, on Aug. 20 you tweeted, “The left equates blackness with victimhood, but I chose to be a victor and it feels good.”

Can you elaborate a little bit on that tweet and what you meant by that?

Pearson: All the time the left is constantly talking about how black people have gotten the short end of the stick in this country. How we are the victims of the white man, and how we are still suffering the blows of slavery hundreds of years after and how we need all the help that we can get from the government. I disagree. I think what that has done is hobbled the black community to the point that we can’t survive without the government.

I had a great conversation with the president of The Heritage Foundation, Mrs. [Kay Coles] James. The point that she made was that after the Great Society, that’s really when we saw a type of dependency within the black community we had never really seen before.

The black community before then was very self-reliant. They were self-starters. They owned black businesses. It was a huge thing. They prided themselves upon their independence. But after the Great Society, it became a crutch.

For me, I think victimhood is laziness, and it’s just not something I ascribed to. I think that the way you advance in this world, the way that you move forward, is by putting in the work, grinding real hard, and just seeking opportunity.

I don’t need anyone to give me an unfair advantage. All I need is a fair shot. That’s all I need. That’s all I want. I don’t need the government to take care of me. I don’t need the government to pay my bills. All I need is opportunity. And I think that’s all a lot of people of color want. But all you hear from the left is ways for them to continue to … attach [the black community] more and more to government than actually freeing them from that dependency.

Bluey: Thanks for sharing that perspective, CJ. It’s really refreshing to hear you talk about that.

As a young person, I have to ask you about this recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, which we’ve covered on The Daily Signal Podcast before. It involved the younger generation, as particularly compared to previous generations when they were the same age as you, and changing views when it comes to patriotism, the importance of raising families, commitment to a religious faith, for instance. And we’ve seen all of those numbers decline.

Whereas other polls show some alarming statistics about the rise of socialism and other concerning things on the minds of conservatives, and probably many of our readers.

So, what can you tell us about your peers, and how we as conservatives might do a better job of articulating those values that we hold so dear?

Pearson: For starters, what I would say is that I wouldn’t read too much into those polls because I’ve seen the socialism statistic and most kids my age really don’t even know what socialism is. So, I think that that’s an education issue, right? We need to be educating our kids about what socialism is, what it entails, and the fact that it has literally devastated countries like Venezuela, like Cuba. And that socialism kills. It’s not something that makes everything equal. If it does make anyone equal in any regard, it makes us equally poor and equally unsuccessful. …

Also, from my own personal observation, I see—as far as attitudes go—one of the most conservative generations that I’ve seen in a long time. This is a generation that hates PC culture. We hate political correctness. Our memes are the most offensive things I’ve ever seen, but we love them and we pride ourselves on them. And cancel culture, we hate cancel culture. It’s literally asinine that we are bringing up things from 15 years ago and holding it over the heads of people who have changed and evolved.

… My advice to the right would be, let’s educate our young people, right? Let’s teach them that socialism is a bad idea. Let’s teach them a little about why the free market is the greatest pathway to success for them, their families, and their communities. Let’s talk to them about why President Trump isn’t the racist that the media constantly tries to depict him as, but is actually someone who signed into law the First Step Act, has led on criminal justice reform, and has brought about the lowest black unemployment rate in our nation’s history.

No one my age is hearing that. They’re not at all because they’re reading BuzzFeed, they’re on Snapchat all the time, or they get their news from Taylor Swift. And, love Taylor, but I just don’t know if she’s the best source for political news.

I think the biggest thing that we need to do as conservatives is meet young people where they are. We need to be on platforms like TikTok. We need to be on Instagram, we need to be on Snapchat, all those places. And we need to start educating young people about these issues. These issues are not just fancy little taglines, they have ramifications. They have consequences.

Socialism isn’t cool. Socialism is something that actually has devastated, again, country after country after country. I don’t think enough young people know that and it’s our obligation as conservatives to educate them on what those ramifications are.

Allen: CJ, thank you for sharing that.

You’ve just begun your senior year of high school, and it’s so exciting to watch everything you’ve done already at such a young age. Do you have any plans or thoughts for what you’ll do after you graduate?

Pearson: I’m open to a lot of different options right now. … I got into my first university, [I got] my first college acceptance earlier this month, that was really exciting. I’ll hopefully be hearing back from a few more colleges after December. But I really kept an open mind about it. I’m super excited to continue my activism, continue to fight to ensure that my generation has a seat at the table and that conservatism is advanced.

I think that what’s so important more now than ever is for people my age to rise up and speak out. Our country is at a crossroads where we will really have to decide what type of nation we want to be. Do we want to be a nation of open borders, of socialism, or a country where babies are allowed to be aborted post-birth?

I think the answer to that question is “no.” And I think that the only way that we ensure that that answer remains “no” is by being vocal, by being active, by being involved, and by ensuring that this next generation of Americans knows that conservatism is not the dirty word that their teacher said it was. It’s not the dirty word that Taylor Swift said it was. It’s something that is intrinsic to what it means to be an American. It’s a reflection of the values of our Founding Fathers who did the most audacious thing when they set out to found this country so that we could self-govern, which is one of the hardest things for any civilized society to do, but we’ve done it.

That is really what my ambition is after high school, to continue that work, to continue that effort to ensure that conservatism lives on, and that more young people are informed, are aware, and are educated about the most important issues that are shaping our society and our culture for years to come.

Bluey: Well, CJ, we certainly need you out there fighting that good fight, that happy warrior spirit that you bring. So, thank you for doing what you’re doing and we wish you the best as you finish out high school.

Remind our readers once again, if they want to follow you on social media or learn more about the work you’re doing, how best to go about doing that.

Pearson: Sure. Rob and Virginia, I want to first and foremost thank you guys for having me. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Great conversation. If your readers want to follow me, they can check me out @thecjpearson on Twitter, Instagram as well. And my website is cjpearson.org.

Allen: That’s great. Thank you so much, CJ. Really appreciate your time today.

Pearson: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

PODCAST BY

Rob Bluey 

Rob Bluey is executive editor of The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. Send an email to Rob. Twitter: @RobertBluey.

RELATED ARTICLE: Fellow Millennials: Here’s Why We Must Reject Socialism


Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY


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

Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on January 15, 2019, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C.


Seventy miles northwest of New York City is a hospital that looks like a prison, its drab brick buildings wrapped in layers of fencing and barbed wire. This grim facility is called the Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Institute. It’s one of three places the state of New York sends the criminally mentally ill—defendants judged not guilty by reason of insanity.

Until recently, my wife Jackie­—Dr. Jacqueline Berenson—was a senior psychiatrist there. Many of Mid-Hudson’s 300 patients are killers and arsonists. At least one is a cannibal. Most have been diagnosed with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia that provoked them to violence against family members or strangers.

A couple of years ago, Jackie was telling me about a patient. In passing, she said something like, Of course he’d been smoking pot his whole life.

Of course? I said.

Yes, they all smoke.

So marijuana causes schizophrenia?

I was surprised, to say the least. I tended to be a libertarian on drugs. Years before, I’d covered the pharmaceutical industry for The New York Times. I was aware of the claims about marijuana as medicine, and I’d watched the slow spread of legalized cannabis without much interest.

Jackie would have been within her rights to say, I know what I’m talking about, unlike you. Instead she offered something neutral like, I think that’s what the big studies say. You should read them.

So I did. The big studies, the little ones, and all the rest. I read everything I could find. I talked to every psychiatrist and brain scientist who would talk to me. And I soon realized that in all my years as a journalist I had never seen a story where the gap between insider and outsider knowledge was so great, or the stakes so high.

I began to wonder why—with the stocks of cannabis companies soaring and politicians promoting legalization as a low-risk way to raise tax revenue and reduce crime—I had never heard the truth about marijuana, mental illness, and violence.

Over the last 30 years, psychiatrists and epidemiologists have turned speculation about marijuana’s dangers into science. Yet over the same period, a shrewd and expensive lobbying campaign has pushed public attitudes about marijuana the other way. And the effects are now becoming apparent.

Almost everything you think you know about the health effects of cannabis, almost everything advocates and the media have told you for a generation, is wrong.

They’ve told you marijuana has many different medical uses. In reality marijuana and THC, its active ingredient, have been shown to work only in a few narrow conditions. They are most commonly prescribed for pain relief. But they are rarely tested against other pain relief drugs like ibuprofen—and in July, a large four-year study of patients with chronic pain in Australia showed cannabis use was associated with greater pain over time.

They’ve told you cannabis can stem opioid use—“Two new studies show how marijuana can help fight the opioid epidemic,” according to Wonkblog, a Washington Post website, in April 2018— and that marijuana’s effects as a painkiller make it a potential substitute for opiates. In reality, like alcohol, marijuana is too weak as a painkiller to work for most people who truly need opiates, such as terminal cancer patients. Even cannabis advocates, like Rob Kampia, the co-founder of the Marijuana Policy Project, acknowledge that they have always viewed medical marijuana laws primarily as a way to protect recreational users.

As for the marijuana-reduces-opiate-use theory, it is based largely on a single paper comparing overdose deaths by state before 2010 to the spread of medical marijuana laws— and the paper’s finding is probably a result of simple geographic coincidence. The opiate epidemic began in Appalachia, while the first states to legalize medical marijuana were in the West. Since 2010, as both the epidemic and medical marijuana laws have spread nationally, the finding has vanished. And the United States, the Western country with the most cannabis use, also has by far the worst problem with opioids.

Research on individual users—a better way to trace cause and effect than looking at aggregate state-level data—consistently shows that marijuana use leads to other drug use. For example, a January 2018 paper in the American Journal of Psychiatry showed that people who used cannabis in 2001 were almost three times as likely to use opiates three years later, even after adjusting for other potential risks.

Most of all, advocates have told you that marijuana is not just safe for people with psychiatric problems like depression, but that it is a potential treatment for those patients. On its website, the cannabis delivery service Eaze offers the “Best Marijuana Strains and Products for Treating Anxiety.” “How Does Cannabis Help Depression?” is the topic of an article on Leafly, the largest cannabis website. But a mountain of peer-reviewed research in top medical journals shows that marijuana can cause or worsen severe mental illness, especially psychosis, the medical term for a break from reality. Teenagers who smoke marijuana regularly are about three times as likely to develop schizophrenia, the most devastating psychotic disorder.

After an exhaustive review, the National Academy of Medicine found in 2017 that “cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.” Also that “regular cannabis use is likely to increase the risk for developing social anxiety disorder.”

Over the past decade, as legalization has spread, patterns of marijuana use—and the drug itself—have changed in dangerous ways.

Legalization has not led to a huge increase in people using the drug casually. About 15 percent of Americans used cannabis at least once in 2017, up from ten percent in 2006, according to a large federal study called the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. (By contrast, about 65 percent of Americans had a drink in the last year.) But the number of Americans who use cannabis heavily is soaring. In 2006, about three million Americans reported using cannabis at least 300 times a year, the standard for daily use. By 2017, that number had nearly tripled, to eight million, approaching the twelve million Americans who drank alcohol every day. Put another way, one in 15 drinkers consumed alcohol daily; about one in five marijuana users used cannabis that often.

Cannabis users today are also consuming a drug that is far more potent than ever before, as measured by the amount of THC—delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the chemical in cannabis responsible for its psychoactive effects—it contains. In the 1970s, the last time this many Americans used cannabis, most marijuana contained less than two percent THC. Today, marijuana routinely contains 20 to 25 percent THC, thanks to sophisticated farming and cloning techniques—as well as to a demand by users for cannabis that produces a stronger high more quickly. In states where cannabis is legal, many users prefer extracts that are nearly pure THC. Think of the difference between near-beer and a martini, or even grain alcohol, to understand the difference.

These new patterns of use have caused problems with the drug to soar. In 2014, people who had diagnosable cannabis use disorder, the medical term for marijuana abuse or addiction, made up about 1.5 percent of Americans. But they accounted for eleven percent of all the psychosis cases in emergency rooms—90,000 cases, 250 a day, triple the number in 2006. In states like Colorado, emergency room physicians have become experts on dealing with cannabis-induced psychosis.

Cannabis advocates often argue that the drug can’t be as neurotoxic as studies suggest, because otherwise Western countries would have seen population-wide increases in psychosis alongside rising use. In reality, accurately tracking psychosis cases is impossible in the United States. The government carefully tracks diseases like cancer with central registries, but no such registry exists for schizophrenia or other severe mental illnesses.

On the other hand, research from Finland and Denmark, two countries that track mental illness more comprehensively, shows a significant increase in psychosis since 2000, following an increase in cannabis use. And in September of last year, a large federal survey found a rise in serious mental illness in the United States as well, especially among young adults, the heaviest users of cannabis.

According to this latter study, 7.5 percent of adults age 18-25 met the criteria for serious mental illness in 2017, double the rate in 2008. What’s especially striking is that adolescents age 12-17 don’t show these increases in cannabis use and severe mental illness.

A caveat: this federal survey doesn’t count individual cases, and it lumps psychosis with other severe mental illness. So it isn’t as accurate as the Finnish or Danish studies. Nor do any of these studies prove that rising cannabis use has caused population-wide increases in psychosis or other mental illness. The most that can be said is that they offer intriguing evidence of a link.

Advocates for people with mental illness do not like discussing the link between schizophrenia and crime. They fear it will stigmatize people with the disease. “Most people with mental illness are not violent,” the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) explains on its website. But wishing away the link can’t make it disappear. In truth, psychosis is a shockingly high risk factor for violence. The best analysis came in a 2009 paper in PLOS Medicine by Dr. Seena Fazel, an Oxford University psychiatrist and epidemiologist. Drawing on earlier studies, the paper found that people with schizophrenia are five times as likely to commit violent crimes as healthy people, and almost 20 times as likely to commit homicide.

NAMI’s statement that most people with mental illness are not violent is of course accurate, given that “most” simply means “more than half”; but it is deeply misleading. Schizophrenia is rare. But people with the disorder commit an appreciable fraction of all murders, in the range of six to nine percent.

“The best way to deal with the stigma is to reduce the violence,” says Dr. Sheilagh Hodgins, a professor at the University of Montreal who has studied mental illness and violence for more than 30 years.

The marijuana-psychosis-violence connection is even stronger than those figures suggest. People with schizophrenia are only moderately more likely to become violent than healthy people when they are taking antipsychotic medicine and avoiding recreational drugs. But when they use drugs, their risk of violence skyrockets. “You don’t just have an increased risk of one thing—these things occur in clusters,” Dr. Fazel told me.

Along with alcohol, the drug that psychotic patients use more than any other is cannabis: a 2010 review of earlier studies in Schizophrenia Bulletin found that 27 percent of people with schizophrenia had been diagnosed with cannabis use disorder in their lives. And unfortunately—despite its reputation for making users relaxed and calm—cannabis appears to provoke many of them to violence.

A Swiss study of 265 psychotic patients published in Frontiers of Forensic Psychiatry last June found that over a three-year period, young men with psychosis who used cannabis had a 50 percent chance of becoming violent. That risk was four times higher than for those with psychosis who didn’t use, even after adjusting for factors such as alcohol use. Other researchers have produced similar findings. A 2013 paper in an Italian psychiatric journal examined almost 1,600 psychiatric patients in southern Italy and found that cannabis use was associated with a ten-fold increase in violence.

The most obvious way that cannabis fuels violence in psychotic people is through its tendency to cause paranoia—something even cannabis advocates acknowledge the drug can cause. The risk is so obvious that users joke about it and dispensaries advertise certain strains as less likely to induce paranoia. And for people with psychotic disorders, paranoia can fuel extreme violence. A 2007 paper in the Medical Journal of Australia on 88 defendants who had committed homicide during psychotic episodes found that most believed they were in danger from the victim, and almost two-thirds reported misusing cannabis—more than alcohol and amphetamines combined.

Yet the link between marijuana and violence doesn’t appear limited to people with preexisting psychosis. Researchers have studied alcohol and violence for generations, proving that alcohol is a risk factor for domestic abuse, assault, and even murder. Far less work has been done on marijuana, in part because advocates have stigmatized anyone who raises the issue. But studies showing that marijuana use is a significant risk factor for violence have quietly piled up. Many of them weren’t even designed to catch the link, but they did. Dozens of such studies exist, covering everything from bullying by high school students to fighting among vacationers in Spain.

In most cases, studies find that the risk is at least as significant as with alcohol. A 2012 paper in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence examined a federal survey of more than 9,000 adolescents and found that marijuana use was associated with a doubling of domestic violence; a 2017 paper in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology examined drivers of violence among 6,000 British and Chinese men and found that drug use—the drug nearly always being cannabis—translated into a five-fold increase in violence.

Today that risk is translating into real-world impacts. Before states legalized recreational cannabis, advocates said that legalization would let police focus on hardened criminals rather than marijuana smokers and thus reduce violent crime. Some advocates go so far as to claim that legalization has reduced violent crime. In a 2017 speech calling for federal legalization, U.S. Senator Cory Booker said that “states [that have legalized marijuana] are seeing decreases in violent crime.” He was wrong.

The first four states to legalize marijuana for recreational use were Colorado and Washington in 2014 and Alaska and Oregon in 2015. Combined, those four states had about 450 murders and 30,300 aggravated assaults in 2013. Last year, they had almost 620 murders and 38,000 aggravated assaults—an increase of 37 percent for murders and 25 percent for aggravated assaults, far greater than the national increase, even after accounting for differences in population growth.

Knowing exactly how much of the increase is related to cannabis is impossible without researching every crime. But police reports, news stories, and arrest warrants suggest a close link in many cases. For example, last September, police in Longmont, Colorado, arrested Daniel Lopez for stabbing his brother Thomas to death as a neighbor watched. Daniel Lopez had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was “self-medicating” with marijuana, according to an arrest affidavit.

In every state, not just those where marijuana is legal, cases like Lopez’s are far more common than either cannabis or mental illness advocates acknowledge. Cannabis is also associated with a disturbing number of child deaths from abuse and neglect—many more than alcohol, and more than cocaine, methamphetamines, and opioids combined—according to reports from Texas, one of the few states to provide detailed information on drug use by perpetrators.

These crimes rarely receive more than local attention. Psychosis-induced violence takes particularly ugly forms and is frequently directed at helpless family members. The elite national media prefers to ignore the crimes as tabloid fodder. Even police departments, which see this violence up close, have been slow to recognize the trend, in part because the epidemic of opioid overdose deaths has overwhelmed them.

So the black tide of psychosis and the red tide of violence are rising steadily, almost unnoticed, on a slow green wave.

For centuries, people worldwide have understood that cannabis causes mental illness and violence—just as they’ve known that opiates cause addiction and overdose. Hard data on the relationship between marijuana and madness dates back 150 years, to British asylum registers in India. Yet 20 years ago, the United States moved to encourage wider use of cannabis and opiates.

In both cases, we decided we could outsmart these drugs—that we could have their benefits without their costs. And in both cases we were wrong. Opiates are riskier, and the overdose deaths they cause a more imminent crisis, so we have focused on those. But soon enough the mental illness and violence that follow cannabis use will also be too widespread to ignore.

Whether to use cannabis, or any drug, is a personal decision. Whether cannabis should be legal is a political issue. But its precise legal status is far less important than making sure that anyone who uses it is aware of its risks. Most cigarette smokers don’t die of lung cancer. But we have made it widely known that cigarettes cause cancer, full stop. Most people who drink and drive don’t have fatal accidents. But we have highlighted the cases of those who do.

We need equally unambiguous and well-funded advertising campaigns on the risks of cannabis. Instead, we are now in the worst of all worlds. Marijuana is legal in some states, illegal in others, dangerously potent, and sold without warnings everywhere.

But before we can do anything, we—especially cannabis advocates and those in the elite media who have for too long credulously accepted their claims—need to come to terms with the truth about the science on marijuana. That adjustment may be painful. But the alternative is far worse, as the patients at Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Institute—and their victims—know.

COLUMN BY

Alex Berenson

Alex Berenson is a graduate of Yale University with degrees in history and economics. He began his career in journalism in 1994 as a business reporter for the Denver Post, joined the financial news website TheStreet.com in 1996, and worked as an investigative reporter for The New York Times from 1999 to 2010, during which time he also served two stints as an Iraq War correspondent. In 2006 he published The Faithful Spy, which won the 2007 Edgar Award for best first novel from the Mystery Writers of America. He has published ten additional novels and two nonfiction books, The Number: How the Drive for Quarterly Earnings Corrupted Wall Street and Corportate America and Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence.

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

TWO MUST SEE MOVIES: ‘Overcomer’ and ‘The Peanut Butter Falcon’

We normally review one movie at a time. However, we highly recommend that you see these two great films about friendship, compassion, redemption, humility and humanity.

The first is “Overcomer.”

Overcomer is directed by Alex Kendrick, who also plays the role of coach John Harrison, and produced by Stephen Kendrick

Overcomer is a very special and emotional journey of a troubled young black girl named Hannah Scott played by Aryn Wright-Thompson. Hannah must overcome the travails that life has given her. She must deal with her father abandoning her and the death of her mother from a drug overdose. The only thing she is good at is running, but she suffers from asthma, probably caused by her mother’s drug use during pregnancy.

Hannah’s life journey changes when her Christian high school principle Olivia Brooks played by Priscilla C. Shirer asks her to read Ephesians, the Tenth book in the Holy Bible. This causes Hannah to be born again. Hannah goes from being a victim to becoming a child of God.

It is hard to hold back the tears of joy as Hannah not only find herself, but so do many others.

The second is “The Peanut Butter Falcon.”

Much like “Overcomer” the film “The Peanut Butter Falcon” is about overcoming one’s disabilities and living one’s dream. The star is Zak played by Zack Gottsagen. Zak has down syndrome and has been institutionalized by his family. He is a ward of the state and the state doesn’t really care about Zak and his ambitions.

Zak escapes and here in begins his adventure to achieve his dream, to become a wrestler.

This film, despite its use of some harsh language and some violence, is about friendship, God and deliverance.

Both films left me asking myself who am I?

I highly recommend seeing both films. They will inspire you to be grateful for what you have.

From Cradle To Jihadi

It goes without saying that every child that arrives into this world is a helpless infant at the mercy of others, not only to be fed, cleaned and protected, but also to be informed about the bewildering life we face. The caretakers, parents and immediate family can teach the newborn only what they know and believe themselves which was handed down to them by the adults that raised them.

The development of a newborn in any family is importantly influenced by many factors, among them how hands-on the parents are; how religious they are, how severely they micromanage him in an attempt to make him not only a good person but also a person better than they themselves are.

Islam, from its inception, discovered the crucial secret of getting to the young mind early by adhering to the dictum: Instruction in early childhood is akin to carving in rock. In the same vein goes the Jesuit saying, “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man,” derived from the philosophy and theology of Saint Augustine. The immense importance of getting early to the young mind is also emphasized by non-religious doctrines as diverse as the Freudian psychoanalytic theory and Watsonian Behavioral psychology.

It is thus that millions of infants annually end up in the care of people who themselves are imbued with a pathological Islamist belief system rooted in the mores and practices of the primitives of the Arabian Peninsula.

From very early on, the young child is indoctrinated in the belief that there is an omniscient, ever-vigilant Allah who observes everything a person does and even everything he contemplates. Nothing whatsoever escapes this omnipresent all-knowing being. Allah keeps tabs, bestows incredibly desirous rewards if one behaves as told while dispensing unimaginably tortuous punishment if one strays.

Let me add that Islam itself is a culture of hate, rage and vengeance. The Prophet Mohammad created a brutal, hyper-masculine, barbarian, tribal warrior cult that glories in murder, mutilation, rape, genocide, terrorism, destruction and anarchy. Women, girls and all the feminine aspects of human nature are capitalized upon and subjugated. Islam is predatory, bullying, aggressively arrogant, swaggering wife-beating thuggery, which is the destroyer of all that is beautiful, spiritual, gentle, innocent and vulnerable.

The very young Muslim begins with the minute he can make some sense of the world, presents a bewildering array of mysteries, challenges, and enticements. There are questions at every step, fears, and hopes entangled with the need to survive and possibly thrive.

He is curious to know who he is? What is this world all about? What’s the purpose? What is he supposed to do and how? Where is he headed? People die. Where do they go? And on and on. The information booths available to him in the fairground of life provide him with answers that may help relieve his innate existential anxiety. And it is here that the Islamic religion plays its critical role and holds great appeal. Muhammad’s religion provides a surefire answer to those who are willing to take it on faith.

And these are precisely the kind of people, Western countries, including the United States have brought them from the 7th century to the 21st century America and settled them across the land without any consideration for the safety and security of the American people. What did they expect was going to happen once they rejected the West and declared Jihad against all infidels? In no time at all, America, the greatest superpower on the planet, slowly loses its own power from within to these future jihadists and out of fear of the racist label, they too, look the other way and remain silent.

And Islam is a powerful magnet for the masses that are unable to deal with the uncertainties of life and death on their own. It is from this population, many already thoroughly indoctrinated from birth that most diehard jihadists emerge.

According to his religion, it is the bargain the jihadist makes. He surrenders totally to the religion of surrender in exchange for blanket security. Islam gives him all the answers he really seeks for dealing with this world and promises him a most lush and eternal paradise of Allah once he leaves it. And leaving this world in perfect submission as the foot soldier of the paradise’s creator gives the faithful unimaginably glorious sensual eternal reward in his next life. It’s a bargain that some buy in whole, some in part, some refuse and seek other means of dealing with their questions and the unrelenting existential anxiety.

It is foolish to underestimate the dangers of Islamic mental manipulation. All Muslims share an Islamic cognitive repertoire with considerable variations. As is the case with any population distribution, a great majority forms the middle while minorities populate the extremes. Islamic apologists and many Muslims point to the middle as true Islam, thereby disassociating themselves from the two extremes and may even denounce them as not being Muslims.

At one extreme are the nominal Muslims. These Muslims adhere loosely to the Islamic precepts and practices which ordinarily pose little threat to non-Muslims, and may even reject some aspects of the religion.

At the other extreme are the diehard fanatical jihadists who present severe threats not only to non-Muslims but also to the so-called Moderate Muslims (Muslims in name only) as well as the nominal Muslims.

To this extremist group, nothing is out of bounds in furthering its cause. Dissimulation, deception, and all manner of violence are their Quran-sanctioned tools. As part of their scheme, this malevolent group has adopted highly effective strategies for subjugating the West, its people and its culture.  In keeping with their supremacist racist cult, their god, Allah is proclaimed as the greatest god—Allah-o-Akbar. Yet, in English, one hears only the deceptive translation—God is great, and not the actual Arabic—Allah is the greatest.

History documents the pivotal role of small groups, even individuals, in precipitating monumentally important events. It is the energized dedicated militant minority that often sparks movements and directs the course of human events. And it is the minority of Muslims, militant and highly motivated soldiers of Allah, who are on the march to defeat the non-believing world and establish the Islamic Caliphate.

VIDEOS: A half-century of Democrat rule has foisted unmitigated havoc on the inner city

After America being led for eight years by its first black president, here are a few headlines about the deplorable state of affairs in our inner cities near the end of Barack Obama’s second term:

Black pastors endorse Trump: “What do black folks have to lose?”

Despite $22 trillion spent on anti-poverty programs since the 1960s, millions of people in urban America are surrounded by crime and mired in chronic poverty. When the decent people of the inner city finally realize what six decades of liberalism has done to them, Democrats will be faced with a massive defection of black voters.

If you think things aren’t all that bad in America’s Democrat-run cities, the jobless black men in the 2014 videos below will tell you who the real racists are.

Chicago Unchained: Black Activists Slam Democrat Plantation.

I Got 15 Kids & 3 Babydaddys-SOMEONE’S GOTTA PAY FOR ME & MY KIDS!

WBFF: Free Phone Frenzy – abuse of the federal Lifeline program

VIDEO: Who are the real racists?

When Kiara appeared in this 2014 video, she was a 30-year-old mother of four in Baltimore. An exceptionally attractive, well-spoken and intelligent young woman obviously capable of making a success of herself, Kiara, now 35, has been on welfare since she was 18.

When asked in the video if she felt bad about not working, she replied, “I don’t need to look for a job because I get a check from the government every month.”

Watch the video, and if you’re angry at her attitude, don’t be angry at Kiara. She’s merely another in the long line of inner city residents who have been lured into welfare addiction by the party of government dependency.

Who are the real racists? Democrats.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: Bill Whittle – Racism – Democrats and Republicans switch sides?

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