The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) said Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York may have violated “standards of conduct” and “federal law” over “impermissible gifts” relating to her appearance at the 2021 Met Gala, according to a release by the House Ethics Committee.
“Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may have accepted impermissible gifts associated with her attendance at the Met Gala in 2021,” the OCE report said. “If Rep. Ocasio-Cortez accepted impermissible gifts, then she may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law.”
🚨BREAKING: The Office of Congressional Ethics has released a statement in which they say there is "substantial reason to believe" AOC "accepted impermissible associated with her attendance at the Met Gala in 2021" that violated "standards of conduct and federal law." pic.twitter.com/cR215TfY6J
Ocasio-Cortez wore a dress with the words “Tax the Rich” on it during the ritzy gala in September 2021, drawing an ethics complaint accusing her of improperly accepting free tickets to the event, which reportedly start at $35,000. Members of the House of Representatives may accept gifts of either “nominal value” or from relatives and friends, but any gift over $250 requires written permission from the House Ethics Committee.
“While regrettable, this matter definitively does not rise to the level of a violation of House Rules or of federal law,” an attorney for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez wrote to the House Ethics Committee.
“Though no Ethics violation has been found, the Office of Congressional Ethics (“OCE”) did identify that there were delays in paying vendors for costs associated with the Congresswoman’s attendance at the Met Gala,” Ocasio-Cortez’s office said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The Congresswoman finds these delays unacceptable, and she has taken several steps to ensure nothing of this nature will happen again.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2023-03-03 06:18:352023-03-03 06:18:35AOC Likely Violated Federal Law With Met Gala Theatrics, Congressional Ethics Office Says
Election integrity activists are placing renewed emphasis on cleaning up the voter rolls, and here’s why: no matter what scheme the Democrats come up with to steal elections, at the end of the day they still have to find enough records of voters who haven’t voted to put in enough fake votes to change the results of the election. This accounts for the puzzling behavior of Democrats who resist at every turn, in defiance of common sense, removing dead voters and people who have moved out of state from the rolls. About 8 percent of the population moves any given year. That’s a lot of voter records just waiting to be picked. The more voters on the rolls who are guaranteed not to vote, the easier it is for the Democrats to commit election fraud, plain and simple.
But we’re on to their tricks. Judicial Watch sued Democrat-run New York City and got a settlement requiring the city to remove over 440,000 ineligible names from the voter rolls and to maintain the rolls in the future. The city had only removed 22 names in the previous six years which is preposterous for a city of five and a half million people. Federal law requires elections officials to remove ineligible voters from the rolls and the good Democrats of New York City obviously weren’t doing it. Tammany Hall would be proud.
Judicial Watch and another group filed another lawsuit to clean up the rolls in Los Angeles. The suit concluded successfully with Democrat-controlled L.A. County removing 1.2 million ineligible voters from the rolls. The County sent notices to 1.6 million inactive voters who had not voted in two successive federal elections. The County revealed that 643,000 voters stayed on the rolls despite not voting for at least ten years, more inactive voters than anywhere else in the country. Yet, there they were, just waiting for the Democrats to make it look like they voted.
There’s more work to do. Six million Americans are registered to vote in two states, three percent of all voters. An estimated 60,000 of them illegally voted twice in 2020. Others just neglect to get off the rolls when they move, but some of this is strategic with many voters choosing where to cast a single vote where it will make the biggest difference for their side. It is estimated there were 317,000 such strategic voters with dual registrations in the 2020 presidential election. The study looking at this concluded, “Democrats outnumber Republicans 2:1 among double registrants.” Funny how that works. More Democrat fun and games.
More work needs to be done but some unfortunate features of federal law stand in the way and need to be fixed. A provision of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) prevents states from cleaning their voter rolls less than 90 days before a federal election. When you stack early voting for the general election on top of primaries, that’s a big chunk of the year. Another problem in federal law is the requirement election officials must wait two election cycles before taking people who move off the rolls. In addition, they must first send a notification which, if not done promptly, can result in people who move not being scrubbed from the rolls for six years. If you’re a Democrat, you’re saying ‘Goody! More voters who are pretty much guaranteed not to vote that we Democrats can use to cast fake votes and steal elections.’ You see the problem.
New tools have been created which could crack the nut of bloated voter rolls. One is a new interactive database available free to citizens and election integrity groups around the country to help them find deceased voters, people who vote more than once, and moved-away voters still on the rolls. Another is fractal technology now in use in 12 states that can spot fake voter registrations with hotels, post office boxes, skating rinks, and other bogus addresses. The technology can also ferret out other ruses like elections officials changing zip codes on voter records when mail ballots are sent out, making them undeliverable. The zip codes are changed back later, but the maneuver creates a huge stockpile of mailed ballots floating around out there that can be captured and voted illicitly.
Don’t fail to notice how many times today I’ve mentioned that Democrats are responsible for election fraud and the bloated voter rolls that enable it. Democrats call people like me the Deplorables. But what I’ve told you today about the Democrats and their election fraud schemes should make it easy for you to understand why I call the Democrats the Despicables.
A Biden administration official told Congress that “natural immunity is not something we believe in” for members of the U.S. military who have had COVID-19, just days after a British study showed prior infection protects people as well as or better than vaccination. The armed forces will instead continue to push service members to take the COVID vaccine “and boosters,” the military undersecretary and chief diversity officer announced, before denying an inspector general’s report that officials reviewed Christians’ requests for religious exemptions only 12 minutes before dismissing them.
“We don’t know about natural immunity there, as far as how it works and how effective it is,” replied Gil Cisneros, undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, after Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) raised the U.K. study during Tuesday’s congressional hearing.
“There’s no good evidence, and the research is still going on as to how we need to progress with this,” said Cisneros. “But as for right now, natural immunity is not something we believe in for this, and so we are still moving forward.”
The Lancet, a world-renowned U.K. medical journal, published a meta-study February 16 that concluded, “The level of protection afforded by previous infection is at least as high, if not higher than that provided by two-dose vaccination.” Numerous researchers have found natural immunity confers equal or “greater protection” against the novel coronavirus than the COVID shot.
The political appointee’s statement seemingly flies in the face of the Democrats’ longstanding claim to be the “party of science” due to their faith in man-made climate change, a status highlighted by Joe Biden in the last election. “We choose science over fiction!” Biden told voters on the campaign trail in August 2019. “We choose truth over facts!” Cisneros confirmed the Biden administration will extend its single-minded insistence on vaccination.
“The department continues to encourage service members and civilian employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and boosters,” said Cisneros, who is also Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer tasked with “ensuring the workforce is representative and inclusive.” He said Biden’s vaccine-centered “policies continue to succeed at protecting our people and the nation’s security.”
Only a “small fraction” of service members refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine “and approximately 8,100 were subsequently separated” from their employment involuntarily, Cisneros said. His numbers come in lower than figures compiled late last year and published the day of the hearing by the Associated Press. “More than 8,400 troops were forced out of the military” by Biden vaccine policies, the AP reported — including 3,717 Marines, 2,041 members of the Navy, 1,841 from the Army, and 834 from the Air Force.
“Are we stronger or weaker as a country” after thousands of soldiers left military service “because of the vax mandate?” asked Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
“Congressman, I would say we are as strong as ever,” Cisneros replied.
“How are we stronger after losing 8,400 service members?” demanded Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.), a combat veteran. The Biden administration had “unlawfully purged” these members from the service and should reinstate them “with their full benefits, with their back pay.”
Cisneros defended their dismissal as “appropriate disciplinary action” necessary “to maintain good order and discipline.”
Cisneros and Alford also clashed over the military’s mass denial of religious exemptions, often based on the fact that the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines were developed or tested on aborted embryonic fetal cells.
Multiple Biden political appointees overseeing the armed forces, including undersecretary for the Army Gabe Camarillo, testified Tuesday that each application for a faith-based exemption received “a careful and individualized review to ensure that we upheld constitutionally protected First Amendment rights,” which “considered the individual facts of each individual case.” Yet a memo from Inspector General Sean O’Donnell last June revealed the Biden administration engaged in “a trend of generalized assessments rather than the individualized assessment that is required by [f]ederal law.”
“The average review period was about 12 minutes,” O’Donnell said, which is “insufficient.”
“I don’t think it was done in 12 minutes,” replied Cisneros when confronted with the report.
“You’re on record saying the DOD inspector general is incorrect on this?” asked Alford.
“I think the DOD inspector general looked at some kind of numbers and kinda did it and wrote a letter to the secretary about his opinion,” Cisneros asserted without evidence.
Multiple officials refused to say whether they replied to religious exemption applications with form letters. But Cisneros — who entered politics after winning a $266 million MegaMillions jackpot and earned a 13% rating from FRC Action during his single term as a Democratic congressman — confirmed that the Biden administration only granted religious accommodations to those already scheduled to retire or otherwise leave the service within six months.
A review found 70% of those early in the Biden administration for refusing to comply with its vaccine mandate received a general discharge, rather than an honorable discharge, which usually indicates subpar performance — a possible red flag to future employers. Veterans wishing to dispute their discharge status must appeal to a military board of corrections.
Those fired over the COVID jab may now re-enlist, and stalled promotions may resume, but so far, interest has been low. The Navy had “single digits” of people who had been discharged from service and attempted to return to the service, Navy Undersecretary Erik Raven testified.
The termination of thousands of enlistees, including an unknown number of officers — the Biden appointees refused to answer how many — comes during a services-wide recruitment crisis. The Army missed recruitment goals by 15,000 soldiers last year. Critics cite the vaccination mandate, along with the Biden administration’s focus on teaching critical race theory and transgender pronoun usage, as contributing factors degrading military readiness. “We cannot afford the loss of any more soldiers,” Alford said.
Yet some Democrats lamented that the COVID-19 vaccination requirement had been lifted. “I have to tell you, the fact that we now do not make it mandatory gives me great pause,” said Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) during the hearing.
Religious liberty advocates hoped the subcommittee’s initial meeting will act as a first step toward bringing justice to pro-life Christians denied the right to live out their convictions while protecting their fellow Americans. “Repealing the COVID shot mandate for military members does not end the abuse our service members have endured. Our military members who love God and love America have been horribly abused and they must be honored again,” said Mat Staver, founder of the religious freedom watchdog Liberty Counsel, which filed class action lawsuits on behalf of Christian service members. “Hopefully, this hearing will be the beginning of rectifying the wrongs the Biden administration has done to our brave military heroes.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2023-03-02 15:00:032023-03-03 11:22:43‘Natural Immunity Is Not Something We Believe In’ for COVID-19: Biden Official
The study presents survey results of a representative sample of over 1,500 Americans aged 18-20. Their primary finding was that “Ninety-three percent of American 18- to 20-year-olds said that they had heard about at least one of eight [Critical Social Justice] concepts from a teacher or other adult at school, including ‘white privilege,’ ‘systemic racism,’ ‘patriarchy,’ or the idea that gender is a choice unrelated to biological sex.'” Also included on the list of Critical Social Justice (CSJ) concepts are the ideas that discrimination is primarily responsible for disparities, that America is built on stolen land, and that there are many genders.
This study is significant because, over the past two years, debates about education policy have occupied an increasingly prominent place in political discourse. In particular, ideas on the proper way to instruct on subjects like race and gender have been hotly disputed. Backlash over perceived indoctrination into extreme theories of race and gender — as well as the exclusion of parents in the educational process — have decided major elections in some states.
However, up to this point, there has been a glaring issue with these debates: they have been largely based on anecdotes. The findings of the Manhattan Institute’s study are important because they represent the first time we have been able to put some real numbers to phenomena that many have only observed anecdotally.
Thus, we should examine the findings in more detail to find out how we ought to move forward.
A Cause For Concern
Ever since journalists such as Christopher Rufo and Bari Weiss began highlighting examples of “institutional capture” of the education system by politically-driven actors, skeptics have often claimed that CSJ concepts are not being taught in schools. This assertion has been promoted by the leaders of teacher unions, cable news hosts, and politicians.
The issue is, and this study confirms, that their claim is simply not accurate. As noted, 93 percent of respondents affirmed that they had heard at least one CSJ concept “from a teacher or other adult at school.”
If these concepts were being introduced as one perspective among many, then there would be no issue with the fact students have been exposed to them. After all, if one wishes to give students an accurate picture of the competing visions of society, then it would be dishonest to exclude all CSJ concepts.
The issue is that the Manhattan Institute study confirms that K-12 schools are effectively indoctrinating students into radical — revolutionary, even — political ideologies. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said that, when taught, “These concepts are introduced as the only respectable approach to race, gender, and sexuality in American society.” This means various perspectives were not weighed against one another, but rather kids are being led to believe that only one view is legitimate. When one considers how impressionable K-12 students are, along with the fact teachers have a fair amount of sway over the way their students think, the issue here becomes apparent.
This is also concerning because CSJ presents a vision of America that is at best unorthodox and at worst destructive. In Critical Race Theory: An Introduction — which is among the most influential textbooks on the subject — the authors write that “critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.” In other words, critical race theory opposes the basic tenants of the American founding. Ibram X. Kendi, a leading “anti-racist” author — whose writing has been brought into many schools — has written that “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
There is simply no justification for schools across the country to present this as the only viable perspective.
The study demonstrates that the prevalence of CSJ concepts — and the way they have been introduced — is having real effects on students. Data presented in the report show that the more CSJ concepts kids have been exposed to, the more left-wing they are in their politics — as measured in a variety of ways in the study.
It should be clear that this approach is an improper use of the state — which should be educating, not indoctrinating, students. It not only gives children an incomplete picture of the world around them, but also creates a civil society that is more prone to intolerance of dissenting views. After all, if one was led to believe only one perspective was legitimate, then it is natural to then believe that it is important to shut out all “illegitimate” views — both socially and maybe even legislatively. This is concerning because pluralism and tolerance are indispensable to a healthy and vibrant political culture.
A Bigger Problem Than We Expected?
Critics of the educational approach detailed above often assume their enemies are the traditional public school system and public sector teacher unions. One thing that this study demonstrates, though, is that this problem is by no means exclusive to traditional public schools. Rather, this type of instruction on race and gender has made its way into private schools, parochial schools, and even homeschools; indeed, CSJ was shown to be just as prevalent in private schools as it is in public schools.
This observation is why the title of the study is “School Choice Is Not Enough.” The authors recognize that this issue is not relegated to traditional public schools, which means that advancing choice and privatization will not make the problem go away.
This is true, but it does not mean school choice should not still be promoted. After all, studies show that school choice programs are associated with better educational outcomes. Additionally, public sector teacher unions inflict considerable damage on the traditional public school system — and, by extension, the children in those schools. This means that we should recognize school choice as beneficial, but not as a panacea.
What Should We Do?
The fact that these ideas are being taught everywhere — not just in traditional public schools — suggests a deeper problem than is often assumed. It is not just about the traditional public school structure, but about an ascendant culture that — much like the instruction outlined — assumes that CSJ concepts are the capital-T Truth. Thus, in order to fight against it, and remove indoctrination in schools, it is important to address it on a cultural level. Private and parochial schools will only stop if, culturally, the tide turns decisively away from these ideas and towards those that have traditionally characterized American philosophy — ideas of liberty, virtue, pluralism, and meritocracy.
The significant exception to this “cultural argument” is when it comes to public schools. The reason is simple: the government decides the curriculum. Taking action on this front would therefore be a way of correcting government overreach. In particular, impartiality laws, curriculum transparency laws, and audits of existing instruction and employee training — as the study recommends — are reasonable measures to ensure the government is not being used as a tool of indoctrination for CSJ.
This would hopefully, in turn, help shift the culture towards a more balanced classroom in all schools.
This issue has been brewing for a long time, but only now do we have the data to back up our suspicions and anecdotal understanding. This study represents a comprehensive statement of the problem.
Jack Elbaum was a Hazlitt Writing Fellow at FEE and is a junior at George Washington University. His writing has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The New York Post, and the Washington Examiner. You can contact him at jackelbaum16@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @Jack_Elbaum.
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http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2023-03-02 14:45:092023-03-03 14:21:02Critical Race Theory And Gender Ideology Are Ubiquitous In U.S. Schools, New Study Shows
The United States has slipped to 25th place globally for economic freedom amid excessive government spending and a mounting debt crisis, according to The Heritage Foundation.
Another poison consequence of the Democrats’ war on America.
CBO warns US could face debt ceiling crisis by July
Fox News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram has more on the fiscal trajectory as the Congressional Budget Office warns the country could default sometime between July and September on ‘Special Report.’
The U.S. has fallen again in a recent index of global economic freedom that noted economic freedom worldwide has declined to its lowest point in two decades.
The Heritage Foundation’s 2023 Index of Economic Freedom, which evaluated economic policies and situations in 184 nations from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022, found a worldwide economy that is “mostly unfree,” according to an executive summary of the report provided to Fox News Digital.
The report made special note of the declining position of the U.S., which slipped to 25th place globally because of what researchers described as the country’s runaway government spending amid “mounting deficit and debt burdens.”
“This really should be a wake-up call if you’re looking at the United States,” Joel Griffith, a research fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital. “We’ve been doing this report now since the 1990s, and based on our metrics, this is the lowest the United States has ever ranked in the index as far as the total score.”
The U.S. federal government will accumulate $19 trillion in debt over the next decade, according to a recent estimate from the CBO.
The U.S. federal government will accumulate $19 trillion in debt over the next decade, according to a recent estimate from the CBO.
“Especially notable is the continuing decline within the ‘mostly free’ category of the United States, whose score plummeted to 70.6, its lowest level ever in the 29-year history of the Index,” researchers wrote. “The U.S. is now the world’s 25th-freest economy. The major causative factor in the erosion of America’s economic freedom is excessive government spending, which has resulted in mounting deficit and debt burdens.”
The U.S. dropped from the 20th to the 25th spot in the index since last year. Other nations experienced worse downward trends, which reportedly prevented the U.S. from sliding further down the rankings.
The U.S. federal government will accumulate $19 trillion in debt over the next decade, according to a recent estimate from the CBO.
Trump was right. And they knew. Now think about how many people, the best people, who were destroyed by the government (the FBI) and their stooges in the tech and corporate worlds for saying this very thing.
During an interview with the Fox News Channel released on Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray publicly confirmed that the FBI assessed that the COVID virus most likely originated from a lab by stating that the agency has, “for quite some time now, assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”
Wray said, [relevant remarks begin around 16:45] “[T]he FBI has, for quite some time now, assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”
He continued, “Let me step back for a second, the FBI has folks, agents, professionals, analysts, virologists, microbiologists, etc. who focus specifically on the dangers of biological threats, which include things like novel viruses like COVID and the concerns that, in the wrong hands, some bad guys, a hostile nation-state, a terrorist, a criminal, the threats that those could pose. So, here, you’re talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans, and that’s precisely what that capability was designed for. I should add that our work related to this continues, and there are not a whole lot of details I can share that aren’t classified. I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here…and that’s unfortunate for everybody.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2023-03-02 09:22:092023-03-02 09:22:09FBI DIRECTOR WRAY: FBI Knew ‘For Quite Some Time’ That COVID Came From A Lab
“It’s a horrible epidemic, but it’s an epidemic that’s been unleashed on purpose by the Sinaloa and the new generation Jalisco cartels,” Garland told Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who then pressed Garland about what Mexico was doing to combat drug trafficking.
“They are helping us, but they could do much more. There’s no question about that,” Garland responded.
Seizures of fentanyl by CBP jumped from about 4,800 pounds in 2020 to 14,700 pounds last year. At least 12,500 pounds of fentanyl have already been seized in the first four months of fiscal year 2023, which began last October.
Drug trafficking has risen hand-in-hand with illegal border crossings under President Biden’s administration. The U.S. saw roughly 100,000 monthly border encounters in Feb. 2021, when Biden took office, but now regularly sees well over 230,000 encounters, according to CBP data.
Gee, if only there were something we could do about those illegal border crossings…
Garland Orders the FBI to Investigate Alleged “Harassment, Intimidation, and Threats of Violence” by Parents Against School Administrators Who Promote Critical Race Theory & Radical Transgender Ideology
On October 4, 2021, Attorney General Garland, in an effort to federalize local school boards nationwide, ordered the FBI to begin investigating what he described as a recent spike in “harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school administrators. In a memo, Garland directed U.S. attorneys and the FBI to collaborate with local officials to identify and prosecute any perceived threats to such administrators. Said the memo: “In recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools…
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Discover The Networkshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDiscover The Networks2023-03-02 07:13:182023-03-02 07:19:42Garland: Drug Cartels Unleashed Fentanyl Crisis Here ‘on Purpose’
There is a growing war against the past. Our heroes of yesteryear, even George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, are under attack.
I was disheartened to see ads for Hulu presenting a series based on the discredited 1619 Project. As I’ve noted in a column many months ago, the 1619 Project postulates that America began in 1619, when the first black slaves were brought here—not 1776, when the founders declared independence.
Dr. Ben Carson writes on his website, www.americancornerstone.org: “In recent years,…many people in politics, academia, and the media have questioned the values of the American founding. They have focused on the faults of certain Founding Fathers— along with the undeniable fact that the rights they championed were not originally enjoyed by all Americans—and cast doubt upon whether any of their fancy words are important today.”
Let’s take the issue of slavery. The rewriting of American history is becoming increasingly commonplace. America’s founders, hailed by generations of Americans as heroes (albeit flawed ones), are today viewed as nefarious evildoers because of the sin of slavery.
Without question, chattel slavery is a horrific evil. But it is often treated by revisionist historians as if America invented it. Tragically, slavery was virtually universal at the time of the founders—and it existed in America despite some of the positive Christian influence among many of the late colonies.
As the late Dr. Walter Williams said in our Foundation of American Liberty series of films for Providence Forum: “Slavery has been mankind’s standard fare throughout his entire history. And even the word, slave, in most languages is Slav, that is because the Slavic people are among the first to be enslaved. And Africans were among the last to be enslaved. And the great thing about the Western world is that we spent many resources on eliminating slavery.”
What made the western Judeo-Christian systems in America and England unique is that they abolished slavery—something that still exists in many other places even today.
Founding father Thomas Jefferson, of course, wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, which says that we are created equal and are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. When I visited his estate in Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia, the tour guide seemed to throw our third president under the bus because he owned slaves.
I once asked Rabbi Daniel Lapin about Jefferson and slavery in my television interview with him for the Foundation series.
He said, “It’s always very disappointing that the intellectual level of those who constantly pose this question to me, it’s just frankly disappointing when people say, ‘Oh, you know, Jefferson was a slave owner’ or speaking of many of the other founders, as well as Jefferson, as if somehow to discredit these people.” Indeed, that attempted discrediting has become commonplace today. That’s why they tear down statues of him.
The rabbi concluded, “[I]t’s almost a childish and pathetic attempt to discredit these giants by the pigmy-like behavior of suggesting that, because their behavior at the time corresponded to the values at the time, that somehow retroactively from the vantage point of 200 years later, we can declare these people to have been invalid or we can cancel them…. This reflects far more on the critics than it does on the founders.”
Imagine saying to someone, “You’re under arrest.” “What for?” “For violating a law that will go into effect a century from now.”
Dennis Prager of PragerU told me this in an interview for the Foundation series: “People say, ‘Well, Jefferson had slaves,’ but that’s not the question. The question is: did Jefferson create a society that would abolish slavery? That’s the only intelligent question to ask. Not what did that person do that contravened their ideal.”
Prager went on to say, “When he wrote, ‘all men are created equal,’ he meant it, even though he had slaves. Did he violate his own beliefs that he had with regard to blacks? Yes, of course he did, but…look at what he unleashed, the freest country in human history. The least racist country in human history is the United States of America. This was unleashed by these people.”
Slavery was uprooted ultimately because of the framework the founders created in giving us self-rule under God.
I wonder: How will future generations view us, since so many treat so cavalierly the issue of abortion—the deliberate taking of baby’s lives, by the millions? And we have 4-D sonograms to boot.
In my view it’s time to stop this ongoing attempt to erase our history and dethrone our heroes– flawed ones no doubt, but heroes, nonetheless. Historian Dr. James S. Robbins wrote a book a few years ago called, Erasing America. The subtitle of that volume speaks volumes, “Losing Our Future by Destroying Our Past.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jerry Newcombe, D. Min.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJerry Newcombe, D. Min.2023-03-02 06:58:262023-03-02 06:58:26Losing Our Future By Destroying Our Past
Joe Biden campaigned on getting rid of fossil fuels. He said he would ban fracking and his Green New Deal proposal would completely replace fossil fuels with clean energy by 2035. He is also on record saying he plans “an incredible transition” of the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels, openly admitting that pain at the pump from high gas prices is part of the plan. His administration is rushing pell-mell into a green energy future, by, among other things, drawing on the $27 billion green energy slush fund in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.
There’s just one problem: the green energy future envisioned by the administration and other wild-eyed climate change fanatics is totally impossible and won’t ever happen.
There aren’t enough minerals on earth to make a green transition a reality. Copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt are limiting factors, especially if you think about sustaining all-green energy into the future.
Converting all big trucks, ships, and railroads to electric – even if such a thing were possible – would require 10 times the number of power plants we have now.
To deliver reliable power from unreliable solar and wind, and avoid blackouts, would require more electrical storage capacity than is physically feasible or economically viable. Before we transition everything to green energy, wouldn’t it make sense to demand to see a demonstration project succeed, first? Of course it would. It’s also not too much to ask for a “comprehensive quantitative system-engineering life-cycle analysis of an all-renewable energy system” before we jump into it sight unseen. Such an analysis would include the costs of materials, construction, operation, maintenance, decommissioning, and disposal. And let’s see an environmental impact statement, while we’re at it. Green energy is incredibly damaging to the environment, as some on the Left are beginning to recognize. Life-cycle and environmental analysis would undoubtedly show a green transition is not physically or economically feasible.
Green energy fanatics have blinders on that don’t let them see beyond the east and west coasts. The fact is, regardless of what the U.S. does, worldwide use of coal set a record last year and is expected to increase further this year. The U.S. could do somersaults and cartwheels for green energy, but it wouldn’t make one bit of difference to global climate change computer models.
The fanatics want to leave fossil fuels in the ground and stop all oil & gas projects now, but the fact is fossil fuels will still be needed for decades if we are to avoid energy shortages, supply disruptions, and wild price swings.
Another problem is toxic waste. What are we going to do with all the obsolete wind turbines, defunct solar panels, and dead batteries a green transition would entail? No one has figured this out yet. Put them in landfills and toxic minerals will leach into groundwater. Burn them and it will all go into the air.
What happens to electricity prices if you get rid of all natural gas stoves, furnaces, and appliances and require everything to run on green energy? What happens to electricity prices if you get rid of the internal combustion engine and require all vehicles to run on batteries? Parts of Australia where gas drilling and fracking have been all but banned are already seeing double-digit increases. Consumers in U.S. states with renewable energy quotas pay higher energy prices than they otherwise would. Call it the ‘green tax’.
Vegetables are being rationed in Britain because soaring energy costs from overreliance on renewables is causing farmers to switch off their greenhouses before they go bankrupt. That’s just one consequence that flows from unchecked green mania – not enough greens to eat.
Not only would a green transition place upward pressure on electricity prices, there’s another problem, as identified in E.M. Forster’s magnificent short story The Machine Stops: once you centralize everything into one system, everything comes to a grinding halt when the system fails. A single point of failure – like an exclusively all-electric energy system – is a fundamental error well-known to anyone who has studied strategic planning. Move everything to electricity and everything will stop if electricity becomes unavailable or unreliable. That doesn’t happen now with energy sources for power and transportation diversified among coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear, and renewables. There’s a lot to be said for keeping energy diversity and not letting green energy mania put the blinders on. Our food, economic, and national security depend on it.
What about DeSantis’s freedom video? Isn’t freedom worth fighting for? First of these freedoms is the freedom to gather, petition and the freedom of speech. Why stop the Villagers4Trump?
Watch this:
Now watch this:
Police officer outside of DeSantis book signing event: “anyone wearing Trump clothes needs to go.”
It seems that freedom is for anyone but Trump supporters?
MUST WATCH: I’m at the Leesburg, FL mall outside of Books A Million for my pro-Trump rally with @Villagers4Trump, & @GovRonDeSantis & his staff ordered the police to make “anyone wearing a Trump shirt” or anyone with any “Trump gear” to leave!
A group of Trump supporters and members of @Villagers4Trump showed up to my rally in front of Books A Million for @GovRonDeSantis book signing and we had the police called on us. As you can hear from the video, DeSantis told the police to kick out anyone in Trump gear! pic.twitter.com/12DmGzhbnE
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2023-03-01 08:59:482023-03-03 07:40:08TOP GOV. IS NOW TARNISHED: DeSantis Bans Villagers4Trump from Book Signing in Leesburg, FL
Escalation. Zelenskyy doesn’t just want our money and equipment. Now he wants our sons and daughters blood.
We have been warning our friends who support the Biden regimes support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy. We have warned that the war, like in Iraq and Afghanistan, would continue escalate.
Watch Zelenskyy call for the shedding of American blood in his defense.
Zelensky has no idea what he just did. HUGE mistake.
Taking our tax dollars is one thing. We are already not used to getting any of it anyways.
But now he is talking about taking the lives of the American children for his war?
When polled the American people overwhelmingly (80%) oppose the United States being the world’s policeman. When polled, again overwhelmingly, Americans believe we are involving ourselves in too many wars. And increasingly, America opposes the billions and militaria we are sending to a country they care little and no less about – Ukraine.
EDITOR’S NOTE: we are working to validate the translation of this clip, but multiple outlets are reporting it is accurate. If you are able to translate and confirm, please leave a comment. It is possible this is fake translation, and we are working to confirm. In the meantime, this is perhaps the worst video clip we have heard from Zelensky. -Noah
Here’s a related tweet that sees how Zelenskyy is using the Biden regime’s narrative that Russia won’t stop just with Ukraine.
Zelensky says it is "dangerous" for Americans to question the amount of aid being given to Ukraine because "if Ukraine loses, Russia is going to enter Baltic states, NATO member states and the U.S. will have to send their sons and daughters to war and they will be dying." pic.twitter.com/wB9VnIgrSh
Biden, the Department of Defense and Congress has fueled the current conflict in Ukraine. Funneling money and equipment to Ukraine while Americans want security on our borders and an America first strategy that keeps us out of war.
Currently Biden and his handlers have supported our enemies and ignored our friends globally.
If WW III begins it will happen either in the Middle East (Iran v Israel), Eastern Europe (Russian v Ukraine) or in the Far East (China v Taiwan or Japan). All of these conflicts could escalate into a nuclear conflict as the nation states in each theatre have nuclear weapons.
With Zelenskyy’s recent comments the most likely scenario for WWIII is now Russia v United States.
We truly are on the brink of WW III and it is unfolding before our eyes.
NEW—Zelensky warns the US what will happen if Ukraine loses:
“The US will have to send their sons and daughters exactly the same way as we are sending our sons and daughters to war… because it's NATO that we're talking about, and they will be dying." pic.twitter.com/rrI2LaiQas
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2023-03-01 07:59:372023-03-02 15:36:12Ukraine’s Zelenskyy: U.S. Must Now Send its ‘Sons and Daughters’ to ‘Fight and Die’ for Ukraine!
By: Justin Cooper, American Military news, February 28, 2023:
A memo issued Feb. 10 said it is no longer acceptable for troops to carry the U.S. flag horizontally, such as on the field at sporting events, or for the flag to land on the ground after flying behind a parachutist, Stars and Stripes reported.
The memo bars uniformed troops from directly participating in the “unfurling, holding, and/or carrying of giant horizontal U.S. flags.” It also prohibits military jump teams from using the flag in their performances if it “cannot be caught reliably and handled respectfully by ground personnel.”
“In recent years, some sporting events have asked military members to hold large, horizontal flags during events, and some military units have carried them in parades,” DoD spokesperson Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman said in a statement. “While many, including service members, find these events moving and patriotic, according to the code, the flag should never touch the ground or be carried flat or horizontally.“
Title 4 of the United States Code, also known as the Flag Code, specifies that “the flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.” That section also states that “the flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground.”
The new memo was sent to military public affairs offices. Chris Meagher, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, encouraged “public affairs officers to work with sponsors of community events to develop other ways to showcase the patriotism and capabilities of our military that comply with DoD policy.”
The Pentagon also revisited flag rules in 2020, when Secretary of Defense Mark Esper issued a military-wide policy specifying which flags can be flown at military installations, buildings and vehicles. That policy was seen as prohibiting the flying of Confederate flags without specifically naming them, as reported by Stars and Stripes.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2023-03-01 06:47:292023-03-02 14:37:22Pentagon Asks Troops to Stop Displaying Big U.S. Flags
Yellen said the American support “is motivated, first and foremost, by a moral duty to come to the aid of a people under attack.” So far, American lawmakers have so far earmarked more than $110 billion of moral duty from taxpayers to defend the border against a Russian invasion.
“Our work is not over. In fact, it is more vital than ever that we continue supporting the Ukrainians,” she continued. “Ukraine’s military resistance depends on a government that can function effectively, as well as a stable economy that can help finance defense efforts over the long term. By fortifying the ‘home front,’ our economic assistance is helping make possible Ukraine’s stalwart frontline defense against Russia.”
Yellen boasted that sanctions have “systematically degraded Russia’s military-industrial complex and reduced revenues that the Kremlin is relying on to fund its war. As demonstrated by our new actions last week, we will not rest until the war is over.”
Not a word was mentioned about the Biden administration defending America’s own borders from an ongoing invasion of millions of unvetted migrants, drug cartels, and society-crippling fentanyl.
During her Senate confirmation hearing, Yellen discussed her views regarding climate change, a phenomenon which she described as an “existential threat” to the economy. “Both the impact of climate change itself and policies to address it could have major impacts, creating stranded assets, generating large changes in asset prices, credit risks and so forth that could affect the financial system,” she said. “These are very real risks.” The notion that America should strive to replace its reliance on fossil fuels with a reliance on renewable energy sources instead has been a recurring theme in Yellen’s public statements over the years.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Discover The Networkshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDiscover The Networks2023-03-01 06:34:382023-03-02 15:37:19Yellen: U.S. Taxpayers Have ‘Duty’ to Defend Ukraine’s Border From Invasion
Neo-Marxism is a cultural cancer spreading through America and beyond.
“It’s an important part of society whether you like it or not,” lexicologist Tony Thorne, referring to “wokeness,” toldThe New Yorker’s David Remnick in January. That’s an understatement.
Wokeness is poisoning the Western workplace and constraining small and family businesses, midsized banks, and entrepreneurs while enriching powerful corporations and billionaires. It’s eating away at the capitalist ethos and killing the bottom-up modes of economic ordering and exchange that propelled the United States of America to prosperity during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It’s infecting Gen Z and millennials, who, suffering high depression rates and prone to “quiet quitting,” are not as well off as their parents and grandparents, and who feel isolated and alone even as they enjoy a technological connectivity that’s unprecedented in human history.
What, exactly, is wokeness, and how does it impact business and the wider society?
Subversion
The term as it’s widely used today differs from earlier significations. “Woke”, which plays on African American vernacular, once meant “awake to” or “aware of” social and racial injustices. The term expanded to encompass a wider array of causes from climate change, gun control, and LGTBQ rights to domestic violence, sexual harassment, and abortion.
Now, wielded by its opponents, it’s chiefly a pejorative dismissing the person or party it modifies. It’s the successor to “political correctness,” a catchall idiom that ridicules a broad range of leftist hobbyhorses. Carl Rhodes submits, in Woke Capitalism, that “woke transmuted from being a political call for self-awareness through solidarity in the face of massive racial injustice, to being an identity marker for self-righteousness.”
John McWhorter’s Woke Racism argues that wokeness is religious in character, unintentionally and intrinsically racist, and deleterious to black people. McWhorter, a black linguist, asserts that “white people calling themselves our saviors make black people look like the dumbest, weakest, most self-indulgent human beings in the history of our species.”
Books like Stephen R. Soukup’s The Dictatorship of Woke Capital and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Woke, Inc. highlight the nefarious side of the wokeism adopted by large companies, in particular in the field of asset management, investment, and financial services.
Hypocritical neo-Marxism
Wokeism, in both the affirming and derogatory sense, is predicated on a belief in systemic or structural forces that condition culture and behavior. The phrases “structural racism” or “systemic racism” suggest that rational agents are nevertheless embedded in a network of interacting and interconnected rules, norms, and values that perpetuate white supremacy or marginalise people of color and groups without privilege.
Breaking entirely free from these inherited constraints is not possible, according to the woke, because we cannot operate outside the discursive frames established by long use and entrenched power. Nevertheless, the argument runs, we can decentre the power relations bolstering this system and subvert the techniques employed, wittingly or unwittingly, to preserve extant hierarchies. That requires, however, new structures and power relations.
Corporate executives and boards of directors are unsuspectingly and inadvertently — though sometimes deliberately — caught up in these ideas. They’re immersed in an ideological paradigm arising principally from Western universities. It’s difficult to identify the causative origin of this complex, disparate movement to undo the self-extending power structures that supposedly enable hegemony. Yet businesses, which, of course, are made up of people, including disaffected Gen Zs and millennials, develop alongside this sustained effort to dismantle structures and introduce novel organising principles for society.
The problem is, rather than neutralising power, the “woke” pursue and claim power for their own ends. Criticising systems and structures, they erect systems and structures in which they occupy the center, seeking to dominate and subjugate the people or groups they allege to have subjugated or dominated throughout history. They replace one hegemony with another.
The old systems had problems, of course. They were imperfect. But they retained elements of classical liberalism that protected hard-won principles like private property, due process of law, rule of law, free speech, and equality under the law. Wokeism dispenses with these. It’s about strength and control. And it has produced a corporate-government nexus that rigidifies power in the hands of an elite few.
Consider the extravagant spectacle in Davos, the beautiful resort town that combined luxury and activism at the recent meeting of the World Economic Forum, perhaps the largest gathering of self-selected, influential lobbyists and “c suiters” across countries and cultures. This annual event occasions cartoonish portrayals of evil, conspiratorial overlords — the soi-disant saviours paternalistically preaching about planetary improvement, glorifying their chosen burden to shape global affairs. The World Economic Forum has become a symbol of sanctimony and lavish inauthenticity, silly in its ostentation.
The near-ubiquitous celebration of lofty Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategies at the World Economic Forum reveals a seemingly uniform commitment among prominent leaders to harness government to pull companies — and, alas, everyone else — to the left.
ESG is, of course, an acronym for the non-financial standards and metrics that asset managers, bankers, and investors factor while allocating capital or assessing risk. A growing consortium of governments, central banks, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), asset management firms, finance ministries, financial institutions, and institutional investors advocates ESG as the top-down, long-term solution to purported social and climate risks. Even if these risks are real, is ESG the proper remedy?
Attendees of the World Economic Forum would not champion ESG if they did not benefit from doing so. That plain fact doesn’t alone discredit ESG, but it raises questions about ulterior motives: What’s really going on? How will these titans of finance and government benefit from ESG?
Follow the money
One obvious answer involves the institutional investors that prioritise activism over purely financial objectives or returns on investment (for legal reasons, activist investors would not characterise their priorities as such). It has only been a century since buying and selling shares in publicly traded companies became commonplace among workers and households. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), created in response to the Great Depression, isn’t even 100 years old.
Until recently, most investors divested if they owned stock in a company that behaved contrary to their beliefs. They rarely voted their shares or voted only on major issues like mergers and acquisitions. In 2023, however, institutional investors such as hedge funds and asset management firms engage boards of directors, exercise proxy voting, and issue shareholder reports with the primary goal of politicising companies. As intermediaries, they invest pension funds, mutual funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds, 401(k)s and more on behalf of beneficiaries who may or may not know what political causes their invested assets support.
If a publicly traded company “goes woke,” consider which entities hold how much of its shares and whether unwanted shareholder pressure is to blame. Consider, too, the role of third-party proxy advisors in the company’s policies and practices.
Big companies go woke to eliminate competition. After all, they can afford the costs to comply with woke regulations whereas small companies cannot. Institutional investors warn of prospective risks of government regulation while lobbying for such regulation. In the United States, under the Biden Administration, woke federal regulations are, unsurprisingly, emerging. Perhaps publicly traded companies will privatise to avoid proposed SEC mandates regarding ESG disclosures, but regulation in other forms and through other agencies will come for private companies too.
The woke should question why they’re collaborating with their erstwhile corporate enemies. Have they abandoned concerns about poverty for the more lucrative industry of identity politics and environmentalism? Have they sold out, happily exploiting the uncouth masses, oppressing the already oppressed, and trading socioeconomic class struggle for the proliferating dogma of race, sexuality, and climate change? As wokeness becomes inextricably tied to ESG, we can no longer say, “Go woke, go broke.” Presently, wokeness is a vehicle to affluence, a status marker, the ticket to the center of the superstructure.
ESG helps the wealthiest to feel better about themselves while widening the gap between the rich and poor and disproportionately burdening economies in developing countries. It’s supplanting the classical liberal rules and institutions that leveled playing fields, engendered equality of opportunity, expanded the franchise, reduced undue discrimination, eliminated barriers to entry, facilitated entrepreneurship and innovation, and empowered individuals to realise their dreams and rise above their station at birth.
When politics is ubiquitous, wokeness breeds antiwokeness. The right caught on to institutional investing; counteroffensives are underway. The totalising politicisation of corporations is a zero-sum arms race in which the right captures some companies while the left captures others.
Soon there’ll be no escaping politics, no tranquil zones, and little space for emotional detachment, contemplative privacy, or principled neutrality; parallel economies will emerge for different political affiliations; noise, fighting, anger, distraction, and division will multiply; every quotidian act will signal a grand ideology. For the woke, “silence is violence”; there’s no middle ground; you must speak up; and increasingly for their opponents as well, you must choose sides.
Which will you choose in this corporatised dystopia? If the factions continue to concentrate and centralise power, classical liberals will have no good options. Coercion and compulsion will prevail over freedom and cooperation. And commerce and command will go hand in hand.
This article has been republished with permission from Mises Wire.
Allen Mendenhall is an associate dean at Faulkner University Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, executive director of the Blackstone & Burke Center for Law & Liberty, and Managing Editor of Southern… More by Allen Mendenhall
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexitieshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexities2023-03-01 06:17:372023-03-01 06:28:19The Power of Woke: How Leftist Ideology is Undermining our Society and Economy
Parents need to wake up to the possibility of LGBTQ+ indoctrination.
February 2023 is the month where the LGBTQ+ juggernaut ramped up its attempt to convert our children and to destroy any notion that heterosexuality has a God-given beauty.
Let’s start with WorldPride 2023.
In the run-up to the global fleshfest (and you’ll see why I chose that word as you read on), several stories have enraged local residents in Sydney, and rightfully so.
Public pornography
The first was the “gay bear mural” of a large hairy, naked man, dressed in bondage straps, with a teddy bear’s head smiling at onlookers. This was strategically positioned near to Wynyard, one of Sydney’s central city stations. This is hardly an image a healthy society would want little city kids to stare at on their way to school.
Someone took matters into their own hands and painted over the controversial gay pride mural, daubing over it with the words “leave the kids alone”. Of course, Australia’s leading gay newspaper denounced the defacers as “homophobic vandals”, and yet I have several gay friends who tell me they believe it was a wholly inappropriate image.
The next case was multiple identical images spread across the city of Sydney. Created by @Scottie.Marsh, they were a play on the angel wings mural street art now found in most cities. This one wasn’t heavenly focussed but was crudely called #dickwings. It was made up of 124 images of penises compacted together instead of feathers.
The distributors of this perverted image did not forget about the children. Oh, no. They were painted low enough for toddlers and children to pose in a rainbow of phallic symbols, a picture for the family photo album. Yes, the words “Man’s Best Friend” were placed alongside the lower mural so as to get distributors out of trouble, claiming it was meant only for animals at that height, but my Sydney friends speak of kids being pressured into being photographed by reckless adults — just “as fun” of course. Quietly and subtly, the kids are converted.
If this isn’t indoctrination, what is?
Impressionable targets
“Leave them kids alone”: this is exactly what LGBTQ+ activists don’t want to do. Minors are unquestionably their focus.
The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus told us this brazenly through their “Message from the Gay Community” in their video “We’ll convert your children” in 2021. If you never read their lyrics, then just some of them are as follows:
You think that we’ll corrupt your kids If our agenda goes unchecked Funny, just this once, you’re correct
We’ll convert your children Happens bit by bit Quietly and subtlely And you will barely notice it
Just like you worriеd They’ll change their group of friеnds You won’t approve of where they go at night Oh, and you’ll be disgusted When they start finding things online That you’ve kept far from their sight
We’ll convert your children Reaching one and all There’s really no escaping it
Pink Floyd had had us all screaming “Teacher, leave them kids alone” in their classic hit, “Another Brick in the Wall”. That was 1979. Unacceptable then — now it’s all but mandatory, and nowhere more visible than through the falsely-named ‘Safe Schools’ pro-LGBTQ+ material sown throughout many Australian students’ schooling years.
The never-ending LGBTQ+ propaganda machine, which operates on the three stages of desensitisation, jamming and conversion, is outlined in Paul Rondeau’s famous article, Selling Homosexuality to America. Its penultimate paragraph is:
“Gay rights is not about the attainment of truth nor social justice but the achievement of power. The battle centers on the control of public discourse through marketing and persuasion, to shape what society thinks about and how they think about it. Homosexual activists envision that a decision is ultimately made without society ever realizing that it has been purposely conditioned to arrive at a conclusion that it thinks is its own.”
Our kids are being indoctrinated online by videos from drag queens like Trixie Mattel and Katya. One of their hundreds of videos has nearly 7 million views. Its topic is “Straight People”. The drag queens say:
“… backpedalling to the true monsters — the heterosexuals”
“straight people are gross”
“I think of the oppression that we escape as gay people, and I think of straight people living it forever.”
Sometimes we hear the excuse that anything the LGBTQI+ community does and says is permissible: “Sorry, can’t help it — I’m gay!”. But public displays of perversion, intolerance, bigotry and hatred cannot be justified because of a minority’s sexual feelings. It appears that LGBTQI+ activists don’t know how not to be overtly sexual and how not to distribute and celebrate depravity.
Stifling choice
Anthony “Albo” Albanese prides himself on being the first Australian prime minister to march in Sydney’s Mardi Gras, claiming to news cameras, “Everyone should be respected for who they are and tonight’s a celebration of that, and it’s a great example of what an amazing country this is.”
Everyone should be respected, Albo? What about the disrespect shown to traumatised same-sex attracted or gender dysphoric citizens who want to pursue proven, life-giving therapy (and prayer) which has already been banned in one territory and two of Australia’s six states, with the remaining four states possibly on the way unless parents and concerned others speak up now?
These laws disrespect same-sex attracted and gender dysphoric people and cause them grave harm. They are already leading to greater mental anguish in the lives of those who can no longer access services which previously for some have made the difference between living life and existing on the brink of death.
I end with news coming out of the UK, which often experiences events that swiftly land on Australian soil.
Dr Bernard Randall, 50, a school chaplain, at a private Christian high school, Trent College, in Nottingham, has been sacked for defending the right of his students to question the new LGBT policies which were enforced upon them.
The school authorities decided that his sermon was harmful to pupils and secretly reported him to the anti-terrorism Prevent programme — which normally identifies those at risk of radicalisation. Then they fired him.
“We will appeal, so it takes up yet more of my life,” he said. “But it is only one battle in the war to preserve free speech and the liberal values which built our country.”
Disagreement with LGBTQ+ policies is terrorism? Every parent, grandparent, and safeguarder of children should be speaking up. I can assure that this Orwellian intolerance is on the way. As a former gay activist, I see WorldPride 2023 as a World Attack on Heterosexuality 2023. Australia has little to be proud of after hosting this event.
James Parker was a gay rights’ activist. He now facilitates True Identity, an informal network that supports those struggling with sexuality & gender identity issues. More by James Parker
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexitieshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexities2023-03-01 06:05:552023-03-01 06:29:18‘Leave them kids alone’, sang Pink Floyd in 1979. Now it’s: ‘We’ll convert your children’
