A SARASOTA, FLORIDA CASE STUDY: The Evolution of the ‘Political Grooming’ of Children by the State

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“If you can get a child when he is 7 and you’ll have him forever.” – Adolf Hitler

“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” – Vladimir Lenin

“Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.” – October 21, 2021 headline written by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire in the Washington Post

There is a growing movement in America by some educators, professors and governors to give control back to the parents of children in public schools.

The concern is that public schools are teaching children what to think, not how to think.

Ida Gazzola the concerned mother of 6 girls and one boy who lives in British Columbia, Canada wrote this:

In recent weeks, the following incidents took place, all involving people I know personally who live near me.

  • A middle-schooler was unable to focus at school where a female student who identifies as a boy identifying as a dog kept barking in class. The teacher refused to say anything about it.
  • A girl refused to use the school washroom all day because she didn’t want to use the gender-neutral washroom with boys. Using the girls-only washroom, which is out of the way, would single her out among her peers.
  • A mother was baffled when her teen started spouting words like “colonialism” and “patriarchy” while dressing down her father for not clearing his plate from the table.
  • A grad-year student looking into post-secondary options found the first required course for the local college’s fine arts program is “Intro to Critical and Cultural Theory,” a Marxist-based philosophy that subtly encourages aggression and division.
  • An elementary student borrowed a library graphic novel of Little Women in which Jo comes out as a lesbian and shares a kiss with another girl.
  • A Catholic high school teacher asked students to introduce themselves using their preferred pronouns.

History tells us that as government takes more and more control of a child’s education the family is left helpless to stop it.

Teaching children what to think is not new

Recently Florida rejected 41% of math books containing “Critical Race Theory” and other indoctrinating propaganda that were used to “politically groom” children.

Today, the Marxist/Leninist ideals of diversity, inclusion, equity (DIE) propaganda materials are not only in public school classrooms, but are also in text books and even in reference materials and novels available to children K-12 in public school libraries.

The grooming of children has been taken to a level where the next generation of Americans will not only be unable to read, write and cypher, but will be indoctrinated to hate America and all that it stands for.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are all on life support.

The Political Grooming of Children by the State

We wanted to take a look at the history of grooming children by the state and we found that a powerful way to take control of a child is via membership in youth groups or clubs.

Some of these youth groups are like the Nazis’ Hitler Youth and the former Soviet Union’s Young Pioneers.

Today, public schools have a number of organizations that are pushing Marxist/Leninist ideals of diversity, inclusion, equity (DIE) and the radical environmentalist’s agendas. One, it appears, is in Sarasota, Florida.

Sarasota High School – An Analysis

We decided to look at Sarasota High School (SHS) in Sarasota, Florida and the clubs that the principal and staff have approved. We went to the SHS website and pulled up the list of SHS Clubs and Sponsors for 2020-2021. While many of the clubs and sponsors were innocuous (e.g. ROTC, National Honor Society, The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, etc.),  we found, however, others that were potentially troubling.

Here are SHS Clubs and Sponsors that we found are “potentially politically grooming” SHS students:

  • ACLU – American Civil Liberties Union. Profile: A bi-partisan group concerned with educating students about their individual rights and responsibilities as established in the Constitution and the Bill of rights. Comment: The ACLU is not civil nor does it protect liberties as outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. One notable example was discovered by The New Tolerance Campaign that reported, “The New York Times recently published a scathing critique of an alleged racism incident at Smith College that turned out to be nothing of the sort. The ACLU championed the false claim and has yet to retract its statements or apologize for its misleading campaign that seriously harmed an accused janitor and cafeteria worker…In 2018, Smith student Oumou Kanoute claimed that white workers called school security on her while she was minding her own business and eating lunch on Smith College’s campus, where she was working over the summer. She claimed that it was a clear case of racial profiling, and the ACLU, Smith College, and many news outlets took her at her word. The ACLU created the ‘eating while black’ campaign, holding the incident up as proof of everyday racism. Three months later, a law firm hired by Smith College found out what really happened that day. A summer camp rented space from Smith College and thus for the sake of child safety, some areas became off-limits to everyone else. A cafeteria worker told Kantoute that the area was off-limits, but didn’t press the issue. A janitor saw that there was an unauthorized person in the area and followed protocol by calling security. A security guard showed up and politely asked her to leave.” So much for protecting the innocent.
  • Coexistence Club. Profile: Club members provide tours to K-8 student visitors to the Embracing Differences exhibit. While working within their respective schools and local community, these dynamic high school students promote EOD vision of creating a world that embraces diversity, respects differences and actively rejects hatred and prejudice, by helping to make their schools a safer and more inclusive environment for everyone. Comment: This club is designed to push the LGBTQ+ agendas of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. This club has the potential of grooming children from K-12 into the homosexual lifestyle and making underaged children available to pedophiles and pederasts. We have written about a similar club named the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) which promotes their Day of Silence in schools across America.
  • GSA – Genders & Sexualities Alliance. Profile: Purpose is to…crate a safe environment in schools to support students who have suffered homophobia, transphobia and other forms of aggression. Create a more educated environment about LGBTQ+ issues. To advocate for protection against discrimination, harassment and violence in schools. Comment: This group is clearly more into the “activist” role than is the Coexistence Club. They use the word “advocate” which is code for grooming children to become non-binary, gender queer, cis-gender, gay, lesbian and bi-sexual is telling. Protecting sodomy in public schools is their goal. GSA uses trigger words like “homophobia and transphobia” to show their full and unequivocal support for the dangerous LGBTQ+ agenda.
  • National Green School Society. Profile: To raise environmental awareness at Sarasota High School and in the community through service projects and educational opportunities. Comment: This Society appears to be dedicated to the Green New Deal and all that it entails. In November, 2021 the wrote this about Democrat Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, which is part of the Biden Build Back Better Agenda, “Happy to announce creation of a US Civilian Climate Corps is now in the Build Back Better Act,” the far-left congresswoman recently tweeted. Referencing the public works ‘job creation’ scheme first proposed as part of the Green New Deal, Ocasio-Cortez claimed the initiative will create 300,000 jobs while combating the ‘climate crisis’ and environmental injustice’…Simply put, a dollar spent paying a 19-year-old to plant flowers is a dollar not spent by a private company paying them to deliver food, and so on. So, there’s no reason at all to believe a Civilian Climate Corps would create jobs on net. Perhaps most damning, the Civilian Climate Corps would make a statistically negligible difference in reducing US carbon emissions, the stated goal of the Biden administration’s plans. Even halting all US vehicle emissions would barely make a dent in global emission levels, and make-work schemes like this would have no noticeable impact, simply as a matter of scale. Even many supporters of the idea acknowledge this.” Question: SHS’s National Green School Society a part of the Civilian Climate Corps?

NOTE: We did not add two groups that discuss political issues, one all male Junto and the other all female One-Nine. We were unable to determine if all political positions were discussed in an open forum and free speech environment.

The Bottom Line

In an April 22nd, 2022 Federalist article titled “Amid Public Concern About Grooming Kids, American Library Association Picks ‘Marxist Lesbian’ As President” Joy Pullmann wrote:

A large organization that drives the training of U.S. librarians and their use of public funds has chosen a self-described “Marxist lesbian” as its next president amid growing concern about libraries actively connecting children to sexually explicit activities and materials.

Emily Drabinski was elected president of the American Library Association last week by the organization’s members. She will take office in July 2023.

ALA’s approximately 54,000 members include librarians, libraries, library graduate schools, members of library boards and associations, and library students. The vast majority of its membership fees, therefore, are provided by taxpayer funds.

Sarasota High School is hosting a number of clubs, groups and societies that are eerily like those used in the past to further government political agendas.

QUESTION: Is this something that public schools should be doing?

We think not.

QUESTION: Are public schools working against the best interests of parents and our nation?

We believe so.

NOTE: We did not see any clubs dedicated to reading the Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution, and there are no groups that study religions or read the Old and New Testament nor did we find any group that was specifically focused on Conservationism.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Boston College Psychology Professor: “School Has Become a Toxic Place for Children”

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Self-directed education, grounded in play, is most beneficial for youth learning and development.

More families may be flocking to homeschooling and other schooling alternatives over the past two years, but Peter Gray has been urging families to flee coercive schooling since long before the pandemic began. The Boston College psychology professor wrote in his 2013 book Free To Learn: “The more oppressive the school system becomes, the more it is driving people away, and that is good.”

Gray joins me on this week’s episode of the LiberatED Podcast to talk about the harms of forced schooling and why self-directed education, grounded in play, is most beneficial for youth learning and development.

In our conversation, Gray explains that standard schooling today is a key factor in the continuous rise in rates of childhood and adolescent anxiety, depression, and suicide. Its imposed, one-size-fits all curriculum, reliance on reward and punishment as external motivators, and dismissal of natural childhood curiosity and creativity erode learners’ powerful drives for learning and discovery. Stripped of these drives, and increasingly deprived of opportunities to play, explore, and pursue individual interests outside of school without the constant hovering of adults, children and adolescents become more melancholic and morose.

“We adults are constraining children’s lives, in school and out of school,” says Gray in our podcast discussion. “School has become a toxic place for children, and we refuse to say that publicly. The research can show it but it almost never gets picked up in the popular press,” he adds.

Our discussion digs deeper into Gray’s research on the link between standard schooling and skyrocketing rates of diagnoses of ADHD, which Gray asserts is essentially “a failure to adapt to the conditions of standard schooling.” He talks about the disappearance of childhood play and the corresponding rise in childhood mental health disorders, as well as why parents shouldn’t be too concerned about their children’s screen time use.

Gray believes that parents should remove their children from standard schooling and embrace schooling alternatives that are centered on self-directed education. “I’m cheered by the ever-growing stream of people who are leaving coercive schooling for relaxed homeschooling, unschooling, Sudbury schooling, and other forms of education that allow children to control their own learning,” he wrote in Free To Learn.

The current exodus of families away from standard schooling and toward other, often freer, learning models, may have positive, long-term effects on young people’s intellectual development and emotional well-being.

Listen to the weekly LiberatED Podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher, and sign up for Kerry’s weekly LiberatED email newsletter to stay up-to-date on educational news and trends from a free-market perspective.

AUTHOR

Kerry McDonald

Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at FEE and host of the weekly LiberatED podcast. She is also the author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019), an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a regular Forbes contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column and podcast are republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

18 Spectacularly Wrong Predictions Made Around the Time of the First Earth Day In 1970. Expect More This Year.

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The prophets of doom were not simply wrong, but spectacularly wrong.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW INFOGRAPHIC: ANNUAL CO2 EMMISSIONS IN THE U.S. FROM ENERGY CONSUMPTION, 1992 TO 2017

Today (Sunday, April 22) is Earth Day 2018 and time for my annual Earth Day post…..

In the May 2000 issue of Reason Magazine, award-winning science correspondent Ronald Bailey wrote an excellent article titled “Earth Day, Then and Now” to provide some historical perspective on the 30th anniversary of Earth Day. In that article, Bailey noted that around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, and in the years following, there was a “torrent of apocalyptic predictions” and many of those predictions were featured in his Reason article. Well, it’s now the 48th anniversary of Earth Day, and a good time to ask the question again that Bailey asked 18 years ago: How accurate were the predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970? The answer: “The prophets of doom were not simply wrong, but spectacularly wrong,” according to Bailey.

Here are 18 examples of the spectacularly wrong predictions made around 1970 when the “green holy day” (aka Earth Day) started:

1. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

2. “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner in the Earth Day issue of the scholarly journal environment.

3. The day after the first Earth Day, the New York Times editorial page warned, “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”

4. “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 issue of Mademoiselle. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”

5. “Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born,” wrote Paul Ehrlich in a 1969 essay titled “Eco-Catastrophe! “By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”

6. Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”

7. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” declared Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for Earth Day, in the Spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness.

8. Peter Gunter, a North Texas State University professor, wrote in 1970, “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”

9. In January 1970, Life reported, “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”

10. Ecologist Kenneth Watt told Time that, “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”

11. Barry Commoner predicted that decaying organic pollutants would use up all of the oxygen in America’s rivers, causing freshwater fish to suffocate.

12. Paul Ehrlich chimed in, predicting in 1970 that “air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” Ehrlich sketched a scenario in which 200,000 Americans would die in 1973 during “smog disasters” in New York and Los Angeles.

13. Paul Ehrlich warned in the May 1970 issue of Audubon that DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons “may have substantially reduced the life expectancy of people born since 1945.” Ehrlich warned that Americans born since 1946…now had a life expectancy of only 49 years, and he predicted that if current patterns continued this expectancy would reach 42 years by 1980, when it might level out. (Note: According to the most recent CDC report, life expectancy in the US is 78.8 years).

14. Ecologist Kenneth Watt declared, “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”

15. Harrison Brown, a scientist at the National Academy of Sciences, published a chart in Scientific American that looked at metal reserves and estimated the humanity would totally run out of copper shortly after 2000. Lead, zinc, tin, gold, and silver would be gone before 1990.

16. Sen. Gaylord Nelson wrote in Look that, “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”

17. In 1975, Paul Ehrlich predicted that “since more than nine-tenths of the original tropical rainforests will be removed in most areas within the next 30 years or so, it is expected that half of the organisms in these areas will vanish with it.”

18. Kenneth Watt warned about a pending Ice Age in a speech. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

MP: Let’s keep those spectacularly wrong predictions from the first Earth Day 1970 in mind when we’re bombarded in the next few days with media hype, and claims like this from the Earth Day website:

Global sea levels are rising at an alarmingly fast rate — 6.7 inches in the last century alone and going higher. Surface temperatures are setting new heat records about each year. The ice sheets continue to decline, glaciers are in retreat globally, and our oceans are more acidic than ever. We could go on…which is a whole other problem.

The majority of scientists are in agreement that human contributions to the greenhouse effect are the root cause. Essentially, gases in the atmosphere – such as methane and CO2 – trap heat and block it from escaping our planet.

So what happens next? More droughts and heat waves, which can have devastating effects on the poorest countries and communities. Hurricanes will intensify and occur more frequently. Sea levels could rise up to four feet by 2100 – and that’s a conservative estimate among experts.

What you probably won’t hear about from the Earth Day supporters is the amazing “decarbonization” of the United States over the last decade or so, as the falling CO2 emissions in the chart above illustrate, even as CO2 emissions from energy consumption have been rising throughout most of the rest of the world. Energy-related carbon emissions in the US have been falling since the 2007 peak, and were at their lowest level last year in a quarter century, going back to 1992. And the environmentalists and the “Earth Day” movement really had very little to do with this amazing “greening” of America. Rather, it’s mostly because of hydraulic fracturing and the increasing substitution of natural gas for coal as a fuel source for electric power, see related CD post here.

Finally, think about this question, posed by Ronald Bailey in 2000: What will Earth look like when Earth Day 60 rolls around in 2030? Bailey predicts a much cleaner, and much richer future world, with less hunger and malnutrition, less poverty, and longer life expectancy, and with lower mineral and metal prices. But he makes one final prediction about Earth Day 2030: “There will be a disproportionately influential group of doomsters predicting that the future–and the present–never looked so bleak.” In other words, the hype, hysteria and spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions will continue, promoted by the virtue signalling ”environmental grievance hustlers.”

Reprinted from AEI.

AUTHOR

Mark J. Perry

Mark J. Perry is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus.

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

‘DEFEAT THE SPAM BOTS’: Musk Signals He Has All The Money He Needs To Take Over Twitter

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Elon Musk says he has the funds lined up to take over Twitter and is considering taking the offer straight to shareholders, according to multiple reports.

Musk, who is one the largest shareholders of Twitter, secured $46.5 billion to pay for his offer totaling $54.20 per share, according to Securities and Exchange (SEC) filings released on April 20.

“If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!,” Musk tweeted on Thursday. “And authenticate all real humans.”

Musk will finance the offer with the help of multiple banks who will provide him with debt to finance the deal, according to the SEC filings. The Tesla chief executive officer will provide his own $21 billion in cash and receive an additional $25 billion in debt from banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“The Reporting Person is seeking to negotiate a definitive agreement for the acquisition of Twitter by the Reporting Person and is prepared to begin such negotiations immediately,” the filing said.

To secure the bank loans, Musk will issue $62.5 billion, or one third of his ownership, of Tesla shares as collateral, according to the WSJ. In order for Musk to raise the necessary $21 billion in cash, Musk will most likely have to sell a large portion of his stock in his various businesses including SpaceX and Boring. 

The Twitter board is expected to reject Musk’s unsolicited offer after it used the “poison pill” to block Musk’s effort to buy the company, the WSJ reported. The poison pill prohibits Musk from owning over 15% of the company and allows investors to purchase shares at a discounted price, reducing the value in Musk’s ownership.

Tesla and Twitter did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

HARRY WILMERDING

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Is The Twitter Board Required To Accept Elon’s Offer?

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Biden Regime Unleashes ‘Total Transformation [Destruction] of the [Federal] Government’ With ‘Equity Action Plans’

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This. Is. Happening. Our universities, colleges, public schools, intel agencies (all government agencies, for that matter) – every sphere is being subsumed by this 21st century quasi-Nazism.

Woke Pentagon rolls out ‘equity’ plan | Fox News

The Department of Defense issued an equity report, aiming to equalize outcomes of employees and partners across racial, sexual and gender lines.

Biden Admin Unleashes ‘Total Transformation Of Government’ With ‘Equity Action Plans’

By Tim Meads • Daily Wire • Apr 20, 2022 •

On April 14, the Biden administration unleashed a “total transformation of government” — as described by the Department of Energy — arguably based on principles of Critical Race Theory.

Toward that end, more than 90 federal agencies announced “equity action plans” to supposedly address inequality in American society — but critics say that the plans will create a coercive bureaucracy intent on punishing certain Americans based on racial marxism and other progressive ideas that champion victimhood.

The White House recently noted that on his first day in office, President Joe Biden “signed Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government” which “directed the whole of the federal government to advance an ambitious equity and racial justice agenda” focused on creating “prosperity, dignity, and equality” for underserved communities.

Ryan Girdusky, founder of 1776 Project PAC, a non-profit focused on electing school board members opposed to Critical Race Theory-inspired curriculum, told The Daily Wire that Biden administration’s “plan towards equity is race-based Marxism with a different word.”

“The entire program is set to lower standards, dilute meritocracy, and have the first large-scale government-supported laws that discriminate against people based on their race since before Eisenhower was President,” Girdusky added.

Indeed, the Department of Energy explained in its equity action plan released last week that it has already started considering factors other than technical merit when doling out financial assistance via a pilot program through its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) office.

Starting back in March 2021, applicants seeking research and development funding from EERE have had to issue diversity, equity, and inclusion statements for their projects on their applications.

The purpose of such statements are to explain how their project would help and include “underserved communities” — which is taken to mean minority, non-white, non-heterosexual, non-male groups — in order to be considered for the taxpayer-funded grants……

Keep reading.

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

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Jenner: ‘Disaster’ Los Angeles DA Gascón is ‘Enemy Number One’

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Friday on Fox News Channel’s America’s Newsroom, Fox contributor Caitlyn Jenner blasted George Soros-backed, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón as an “absolute disaster” and public “enemy number one” for his harmful Progressive crime policies.

Gascón is facing a second recall effort for implementing policies like not seeking enhancement allegations, which can significantly extend prison sentences for violent offenders, and barring prosecutors from charging juveniles as adults, even those accused of serious crimes.

“This is happening in all cities across the nation, and they all have one thing in common, and that’s very liberal, progressive [District Attorneys],” Jenner said. “Here in Los Angeles, the exact same thing. Our D.A. George Gascón is an absolute disaster. He is actually enemy number one for the people because of what’s happening with the crime. He just doesn’t want to prosecute crime.”

Jenner said it’s gotten so bad, a friend who works in real estate in Beverly Hills said buyers often ask if prospective homes have a “safe room” to hide out in if there is a break-in. “This has to stop,” Jenner said. “The people of Los Angeles have to get together, and we have to get that guy out of here.”

George Gascón

10 Known Connections

Crime Rates Skyrocket in Los Angeles

Gascón’s approach to criminal justice led to swift and dramatic increases in rates of violent crime in Los Angeles. In 2021, for instance, there were 52 percent more homicides and 59 percent more shooting incidents than in 2019. Gascón gave those figures little importance, saying: “The reality is that we go through these cycles, and we go through the cycles for a variety of reasons…. In many ways we cannot prosecute our way out of social inequalities, income inequalities, the unhoused, the desperation that we have.”

To learn more about George Gascon, click here.

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

J.K. Rowling Compares Demand to Accept Transgender Wokeness to the Drive for Conformity in the Soviet Union

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She’s right, you know.

EDITORS NOTE: Obama Pushed Graphic Sex Education to 5-Year-Olds in 2007

J.K. Rowling Compares Transgender Wokism to Soviet Union, Quotes Anti-Communist Hero

by Kurt Zindulka, Breitbart, April 21, 2022:

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has compared the current climate of fear surrounding the discussion of transgender issues to the Soviet Union, quoting an anti-communist hero and leader of the Velvet Revolution.

“A spectre is haunting Eastern Europe: the spectre of what in the West is called dissent.”

These words were penned by playwright and Czechoslovakian President Václav Havel in his 1978 essay The Power of the Powerless to describe the brutal drive for conformity in all things enforced by the communist Soviet Union in his homeland, and elsewhere across the Soviet bloc.

Now, it seems, Havel’s words are being once again used by dissenters, but this time against the modern woke push for conformity in the ostensibly liberal West.

In a Twitter thread responding to a post declaring that the statement “trans women are women” is being used to force biological women into bowing before the woke mob, author J.K. Rowling shared Havel’s parable of a greengrocer who hung up the Marxist creed “Workers of the World Unite” in his shop window in order to passively conform with the groupthink of the Soviet Union.

Quoting from The Power of the Powerless, Rowling went on to post: “Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them… it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves.

“Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it.”…

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

FLORIDA: Jane Goodwin, Sarasota County School Board Chair, Orders Police to Forcibly Remove Parent and Mother of Four from Meeting

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Goodwin had the mother of four children forcibly removed by police because she was, “about to say something horrible…[about a School Board Member].”

School Board Member Bridget Zeigler in an email stated:

This week, Sarasota County School Board Chairman, Jane Goodwin, ordered three law enforcement officers to escort a parent out of the public meeting for something Goodwin predicted the mom was “about to say” concerning a sitting School Board Member. Yes… “about to say”…

Today, Fox News has published a national story covering the outrageous incident- and yes it is outrageous. Watching this unfold in person made me sad, frustrated, embarrassed and angry. I am positive most citizens agree.

This is not how government works. Taxpayers pay for our school district and parents are our customers. They ALL have a right to have their voices heard. And elected officials should know that hearing feedback – both positive and negative – is a requirement of the job. If they don’t like it, they shouldn’t have run for office and should consider resigning.

Lastly, I hope you’ll help me get our School Board back to working with – not against – parents by making sure to vote on August 23rd.

Statement from Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt A. Hoffman on the ejection of a mother of four, exercising her First Amendment rights, by Jane Goodwin:

Parent speaks after Sarasota School Board tosses her for what she was ‘about to say’

By Jessica Chasmar | Fox News

A Sarasota County, Florida, parent who was kicked out of a school board meeting this week for what she was “about to say” said Thursday that the board’s liberal majority is “destroying our school district, targeting parents and eliminating dissent.”

Melissa Bakondy, a mother of four, was surrounded by police officers and ejected from a Sarasota County School Board meeting Tuesday after calling out a board member by name over comments she allegedly made during a previous meeting.

“At the last meeting, Shirley Brown was caught on the microphone –” Bakondy said during the meeting before being cut off.

“Stop talking about school board members,” board Chairwoman Jane Goodwin interrupted. “You cannot go and expound on school board members. I’ve warned you several times.”

When Bakondy asked why, Goodwin responded, “You were about to say something horrible about Shirley Brown. … You’ve said things about me that were untrue. Leave, please.”

Goodwin then asked Bakondy, “Do you have children in our school district?”

The question prompted an audible gasp from conservative board member Bridget Ziegler, who fired back, “That is not appropriate. … You don’t get to ask people who come to a public meeting whether they have children or not. Period. You are way out of line.”

[ … ]

Speaking to Fox News Digital in an interview, Bakondy slammed Goodwin as “the queen of no public input.”

Read the full article.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Air Force Launches ‘Safe Space’ for Airmen and Navy Issues Maternity Flight Suits! What?

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I was recently sent links to two columns about our U.S. Air Forces and U.S. Navy.

First the U.S. Navy:

In an August 8th, 2021 Newsweek article titled “U.S. Navy Unveils First-Ever Maternity Flight Suit Prototype”   reported:

The U.S. Navy has unveiled a prototype for its first-ever maternity flight suit. [click here to see the maternity flight suit]

The suit is designed to accommodate pregnant aircrew during pregnancies by adding expandable panels to standard flight suits. That way, expectant mothers will need only the one suit throughout their pregnancy.

“Prior to the maternity flight suit, pregnant aircrew have generally collected larger-sized flight suits and gone up through additional sizes throughout their pregnancy, potentially needing three to five additional flight suits,” said Lieutenant Commander Jacqueline Nordan, who received the first maternity suit earlier this year, in a press release.

[ … ]

The project is being spearheaded by the Naval Air System Command’s Aircrew Systems Program Office at the request of the Commander, Naval Air Force Reserve.

Read the full article.

Second the U.S. Air Force:

In an April 19, 2022 Fox News article titled “Air Force launches ‘safe space’ for airmen” Bradford Betz reported:

The U.S. Air Force has launched a new initiative called “Airmen’s Time” which, among other things, aims to create a “safe space” where service members can share perspectives with their commanders.

“The intent of Airmen’s Time is to create a safe space, be present, and ensure that our Air Force culture invites healthy conversation for every Airman…anytime, anywhere,” reads a memo, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, that was recently sent to commanders.

The memo, written by Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Joanne S. Bass and General USAF Chief of Staff Charles Q. Brown, Jr., states “building trust and belonging is never a one-time event – it is a daily commitment to those we serve.”

Read the full article.

A former U.S. Marine friend of ours wrote the following:

Col

I wonder if today’s Air Force remembers the 1949 movie 12 O’clock High with Gregory Peck.

At Quantico, in 1981, at TBS, WOBC) we watched the movie 12 O’clock High then had group discussions about “Battle Fatigue” (PTSD today).

Marines leaning about combat from the Air Force.

The Air Forces safe space was a Bomber surrounded by German fighter planes.

Well the Air Force (DoD) was once full of real warrior leaders.  Wonder what General LeMay would have to say about today’s “Safe Spaces,”

Semper Fi

SteveB
Marine

Our patriot friend Joel wrote:

On 21 JAN 2025, I would really like to see President (Trump or DeSantis) make several announcements.

1. Anyone and everyone who wants to be an Army Ranger/Special Forces, Navy SEAL, Marine Force Recon, Air Force/Navy/Marine Corps fighter pilot can become one simply by applying. Want to be an Admiral, General, Sergeant Major? Astronaut? You can be whatever you want to be. Send in a $50 administrative fee to the appropriate branch of service and two weeks later, SHAZAM!!! You will receive in the mail, a certificate of completion, and any badges/tabs/insignia etc. to prove to your mother that you are an actual genuine hero. As a plus, you will never have to worry about stolen valor issues. There will be bundle packages for multiple certifications. And you can do it all from your mom’s sofa.

2. Effective immediately all US military facilities and equipment, worldwide, will be transferred to a new agency, the American Camping Club.

3. Effective immediately, all Flag Grade officers are retired. All current military personnel that are eligible for retirement are now retired. All other personnel will be given the appropriate discharge.

4. All diversity/inclusion/equity programs will be disbanded. All CRT training will be disbanded. All “moslems are better than you” programs will be terminated. Climate Change training will be handed over to FOX Weather Channel. And since no one has been able to document any Extremists/White Supremists etc. in the ranks, we can drop that stuff too.

5. The Department of Defense will be renamed, Legion of Heroes and will be based at the former Naval Air Station near Ottumwa, Iowa. The Secretary of Defense will now be re-branded as the Receptionist of Defense and will hold the classification of GS-7. The administration of the separate branches will be handled by a GS-5 and two GS-3s. This staff of ten civil servants can choose to be whatever military title/certifications they desire and the application fees will be waived.

6. The three service academies will be closed and the facilities and grounds will be transferred to the American Camping Club. They will be reopened as Hudson High, Canoe U, and Uncle Sky’s Flying Crown Ranch. Curriculum will be limited to various aspects of killing bad guys and blowing shit up.

7. Membership in the American Camping Club will be limited to males who are required to meet the USMC physical fitness standards for males in place during the Reagan administration. We will be creating a supporting auxiliary for medical services. Female persons desiring to join would have to meet the USMC physical requirements for females in place during the Reagan administration.

8. I realize this may cause some disruptions in the existing DOD. My answer is Let’s Go Brandon!

Thank you and I might add, Drill Baby, Drill.

Just my $.02

Joel

This statement by Biden is unbelievable:

The patriotic; extremely brave; totally competent; confident to the edge of arrogance (but not arrogant); hard charging; risk taking; combat mission oriented (but cared for their men); sometimes cussing and drinking; transformative leaders and manly men imbued with a warrior spirit of the pre-Obama/O’Biden military wouldn’t fit well with today’s top military leaders who often violate their oath of office.

My Dad, Col. Royal A. Brown Jr. (1923-2003) was one of the 5 Aircraft Commanders flying an HH 53 Jolly Green Giant at night (including mid-air refueling) into North Vietnam on the 1970 Son Tay POW raid, which was the highlight of his 33 years as a warrior spanning 3 wars (WW II, Korea, Vietnam). He and his crew sat on ground outside the POW camp for over an hour waiting to pickup any of the Raider team or diversionary attacking fighter aircraft shot down that night and;, in fact, picked up an F4 crew which was shot down.

Dad is appalled and rolling over in heaven at what has become of his once great Air Force which was chock full of real warriors.

Following is his patch from flight suit. Bottom of Mushroom – KITD/FOHS stands for “Kept in the Dark/Fed Only Horse Shit” symbolizing the 4 months he secretly trained in the wilds of Eglin AFB for the mission – OPSEC was so tight, they didn’t know exact time, place of mission until they took off for Vietnam. We were living in Florida and didn’t even know he was there since he was pulled from Danang, AFB to train for this mission and couldn’t phone us. Mail from him was even postmarked from Vietnam where he was stationed as a Jolly Green Squadron Commander. Too bad, the intelligence was off as POWs were moved a few days before BUT not a total failure since this raid scared NVA so bad they moved all POWs to Hanoi Hilton afterwards where they could better communicate with each other. Also, Son Tay Task Force security teams deployed along road leading to the camp, ambushed and killed a bunch of Chinese and Soviet Advisors living at a camp near Son Tay when they jumped into vehicles and came down road to see what was going on at Son Tay. This fact was classified for many years afterwards.

May God Continue to Bless America!

©Royal A. Brown, III. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Media Matters EXPOSED for playing part in Veritas’ Twitter ban

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*CLICK HERE TO TWEET OUT THE VIDEO*

Media Matters, a Soros-funded operation, often attacks and defames Project Veritas’ journalism.

Today, Project Veritas exposed Media Matters’ Deputy Director of External Affairs, Brennan Suen, who admitted to our journalist that Media Matters played a role in getting Project Veritas banned on Twitter.

“They’re blocked thanks to the work we’ve been doing.”

You can watch the video by HERE.

Why on earth is Twitter allegedly following Media Matters’ instructions?

What real claim does an organization like Media Matters have to censor Veritas’ journalism?

Fortunately, they still haven’t found a way to stop the Veritas Army. They have no solution for Distribution by Proxy.

Real journalism will survive and thrive, despite Media Matters.

*CLICK HERE TO TWEET OUT THE VIDEO*

EDITORS NOTE: This Project Veritas video report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

2022 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week focused on ‘rights, access, equity and inclusion’? What about equal justice under the law?

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We received a link to the DOJ’s Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) and their guidelines and events for the 2022 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week being held from April 24-30, 2022. Here’s some data on the crime of murder by race and gender.

Number of murder victims in the United States in 2020, by race/ethnicity and gender

Characteristic Total Male Female Unknown
Total 17,754 14,146 3,573 35
White 7,029 5,123 1,904 2
Black 9,913 8,469 1,440 4
Other race 497 340 157 0
Unknown race 315 214 72 29
Hispanic or Latino 2,847 2,377 470 0
Not Hispanic or Latino 11,347 8,993 2,350 4
Unknown 1,985 1,581 379 25

You would think that this week the DOJ and OVC would be highlighting victims of murder, sexual abuse, sex trafficking, grooming by organizations like Disney, Apple and TicTok. Instead they are focused on “rights, access…and ensuring equity and inclusion for all”?

According to USA Facts:

Violent crime was up 3.3% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to preliminary data from the FBI’s quarterly Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system. This includes a 25% increase in the homicide rate. The recent uptick in violent crime is a change from more than 30 years of decreases in property and violent crime. Data shows crime spiked across all categories in the early 1990s and have steadily decreased since with few exceptions. Meanwhile, property crime decreased by 7.9% in 2020.

Interestingly events are being held at the first three victim assistance organizations, all in Democrat controlled cities:

  • Bay Area Women Against Rape in Oakland, CA;
  • the DC Rape Crisis Center in Washington, DC;
  • and Aid for Victims of Crime (now the Crime Victim Center) in St. Louis, MO

Biden’s appointee to the Office of Victims of Crime Kristina Rose part of a group called Healing Justice. According to the Healing Justice website:

In our healing work, we create safe spaces and individualized support that enable us to tackle the complex grief and trauma caused by injustice, including issues of gender violence, racial inequity, and social marginalization.

Where is help for those who are victims of crimes?

It appears from Kristina Rose’s letter on 2022 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week the focus is not on crimes against humanity but rather “rights, access…and ensuring equity and inclusion for all.”

Rose’s letter states:

This year’s theme—Rights, access, equity, for all victims—underscores the importance of enforcing victims’ rights, expanding access to services, and ensuring equity and inclusion for all. By enforcing victims’ rights, victim service providers and other allied professionals promote a fair and balanced justice system that encourages respect, dignity, and meaningful participation among those most directly impacted by crime. By ensuring that equitable, inclusive, and culturally responsive services and meaningful compensation are available to survivors, we can help all victims find the justice and healing they seek.

We have written about Biden’s diversity, inclusion and equity (DIE) efforts which in effect marginalize certain groups while elevating other groups, particularly minorities and homosexuals. It appears that the OVC is lockstep with this agenda.

What happened to equal justice under the law? What happened to treat all victims of crimes equally? What has happened to the DOJ and OVC?

Answer: The DOJ and OVC has gone woke.

We believe that it is better to stop the crimes of murder, human trafficking, spousal abuse, grooming of underaged children, drug abuse and hate crimes.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: There Never Was A Mask Mandate — Only Anti-God Capitulation

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There is no “science” to any of these hyper-constitutional orders from government; there is only political, science fiction that is now permeating our Republic. In this edition of The Ledger Report – Post-Constitutional America, Graham Ledger details how to live by the commandment, Love Thy Neighbor, in the era of un-Godly and illegal mandates, like forcing people to muzzle their right to free speech on airplanes.

Please subscribe free to The Ledger Report by clicking here: www.GrahamLedger.com

©Graham Ledger. All rights reserved.

GOP lesson: DeSantis deployed states’ rights, and his popularity soared

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis won in 2018 over Andrew Gillum by 32,000 votes, or four-tenths of one percentage point. Very, very close in a big purple state. Since that victory, DeSantis has endured relentless attacks on every conceivable issue, non-issue and fake issue.

National outlets such as 60 Minutes and state publications in every market gaslit and flat-out lied about DeSantis, from Covid deaths to transgenderism in schools to the fictional “don’t say gay” bill. Late-night former comedians, Hollywooders, corporate cowards and the White House have all singled out DeSantis for vilification for years now. “DeathSantis” has trended on the media message board Twitter repeatedly.

And yet, three years later DeSantis has dramatically increased his popularity in Florida, as have Republicans in general if voter registration means anything. A recent St. Pete Poll conducted for Florida Politics, both left of center outfits, found Governor DeSantis with a plus-16 point approval rating —  54% to 38% of registered voters.

Further, a recent University of North Florida poll of registered Florida voters found giant margins for DeSantis over either of his Democrat contenders. He leads former Governor and party flip-flopper Charlie Crist by 19 points and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried by 21 points. Those numbers will close by November, of course. But the poll was of registered voters, which is not as good for Republicans typically as super voters. And DeSantis has nearly $100 million for re-election while his contenders each have a few million and a primary yet.

How is this stunning success in popularity among ordinary voters possible when every conceivable media, social media and cultural mover has vilified DeSantis for three years?

In a word: Interposition.

This is the states’ rights idea that any state in a federation such as the United States has a right and the authority to interpose itself between an overbearing federal government and the state. The Constitution is riddled with its implications in the separation of powers between the federal government and state governments. The Federalist Papers discuss it. It was an essential element of states rights federalism and used previous to the Civil War. That terrible conflagration became inevitable to rid the nation of the moral scourge of slavery, but the price was a rolling forth of power consolidating in Washington, D.C. at the cost of the states.

However, it’s not like interposition was ever outlawed. States could still practice it, but that requires spinal fortitude. And this fundamental states’ right now more than ever.

Never using the term “interposition” publicly, DeSantis nevertheless practiced this essential concept repeatedly during Covid. He stood between a federal shutdown and shutting down Florida. Even the three-week Florida “shutdown” was minimal as the list of who could remain open, including churches, was very long. He blocked the federal government from mandating shots in Florida, even keeping corporations from acting as fronts to enforce the mandates. When the federal government curtailed Florida’s access to monoclonals for what appeared to be petty personal reasons, DeSantis bypassed the federal stock and bought monoclonals on the open market.

Even in the latest kerfuffle over the Parental Rights in Education bill there is a form of interposition by the Republican Legislature and DeSantis because the U.S. Department of Education holds so much (extra-constitutional) leverage over school districts, and they have created a state legal bulwark against federal infringement.

Most recently, DeSantis challenged his own party leadership in the Legislature over long-time gerrymandered Congressional boundaries to provide a black district in North Florida. Legislative Republicans kept the district similar to what it had been, which also had the side-benefit of clumping a lot of Democrats into one district. DeSantis believes drawing districts based on race is openly unconstitutional. This is the sort of principled stand that wrong-foots so many in the political world, but is often appreciated by voters. More Republicans should understand this.

Naturally, the media lost its mind at every one of these actions, but the policies were relatively popular among Floridians. The fact that they have proven to be right in hindsight by the data is awesome for Floridians, but not the first point. The first point is that a state Governor had the kahonas to place himself and the authority of his state government between the federal government and the people of his state, executing this still-standing states’ right.

Every Republican Governor should take note, because blue states have practiced this with less popular policies, such as sanctuary states and cities. It’s the way a federalist government is to work. Time for GOP state leaders to see it and step up. They have a template.

There are two other key lessons for Republicans everywhere in the way DeSantis’ popularity has thrived while under constant elitist assaults.

  • Know what you believe and why, and be ready and willing to defend it. Principles may not matter with a lot of politicians and government statists, but they still matter with voters. Take note.
  • Do not shrink from confrontation, particularly with the media, but not with any other entity either. Obviously the Republican base loves to see its leaders punch back. Pugilistic President Trump made that clear, and DeSantis has done plenty of it himself, albeit in a different style. Based on polls, the appreciation of a Governor standing up for the rank-and-file residents of a state is also popular.

DeSantis may be the most visible and forward in this respect, but he is not the only one. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds comes to mind as acting similarly in a different personality. And while Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been a disappointment, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has interposed his office repeatedly in lawsuits, the most recent of which was against the Biden Administration’s mask mandates for airlines and airports in Texas.

This sort of Republican leadership is a no-squish zone. And that is where we live now. The old, rollover, play nice Republicans — you know who you are, Mitt Romney — who get bulldozed by Democrats and fear the media chattering classes, no longer work or are wanted by the voters.

©Rod Thompson, The Revolutionary Act. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: DeSantis Signs Bill, and the Mouse is NOT Happy

RELATED TWEETS:

Elon Musk on Lockdowns: ‘Sweden Was Right’

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Instead of rebuking Sweden and states such as South Dakota who exposed the failure of lockdowns, we should be thanking them.

When people think of polarizing countries, Sweden rarely leaps to mind. At least that was the case before 2020.

Sweden’s decision to take a “lighter touch” to the coronavirus pandemic—foregoing strict lockdowns and relying primarily on social responsibility to encourage social distancing—has made it a lightning rod for criticism.

Many commentators claimed Sweden was behaving recklessly and selfishly by refusing to enforce an economic lockdown like most other nations around the world.

Though its per capita death rate remained well below European neighbors such as the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Spain—each of which enforced strict lockdowns—Sweden became, as one CBS report claimed, “an example of how not to handle COVID-19.”

As I previously observed, however, the fact that Sweden was coming under fire had less to do with the results of its policies than the nature of its policies. There were far better “cautionary tale” examples than Sweden—such as Belgium, a nation with a similar population whose per capita death toll is 50 percent higher than Sweden’s.

Unlike Sweden, however, Belgium had a strict lockdown that, as the BBC reported back in May, was enforced with “drones in parks and fines for anyone breaking social distancing rules.” But nobody cared about Belgium because they had followed the lockdown script.

Months later, Sweden’s decision to avoid lockdowns only looks better. While much of Europe is experiencing a second wave of the virus, Sweden’s numbers are a stark contrast. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization and thousands of physicians and public health officials are now arguing against the use of lockdowns as a method of taming the virus.

The reason for this is obvious. While the harms of lockdowns are clear—trillions of dollars in economic losses, widespread mental health deterioration, and social decay—there is no compelling evidence that lockdowns reduced COVID-19 deaths or the spread of the virus.

The results of Sweden’s strategy become clearer with every passing week. And more people are beginning to notice.

“Sweden was right,” Tesla founder Elon Musk recently tweeted.

Musk, of course, has been suspicious of the efficacy of lockdowns for months.

In May, he took the bold step of restarting production of Tesla’s car plant in Fremont, California, in defiance of orders from government officials that the plant remain closed.

“Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules,” Musk tweeted. “I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”

Musk’s act of civil disobedience paid off. Alameda County health officials caved, reversing the shutdown order and providing provisional approval for the plant to reopen.

The toll of COVID-19 has been severe. As of mid October, nearly 1.1 million people worldwide have died, according to Johns Hopkins University data, including 216,000 Americans.

Unlike previous pandemics, however, the human costs have been accompanied by a global recession and an economic collapse unprecedented in modern history. (This would seem to confirm Musk’s early assessment that the danger of panic posed perhaps a greater threat than the virus itself.)

As Harvard economist David M. Cutler and former World Bank chief economist Lawrence H. Summers noted in a new study, the toll of the Pandemic of 2020 is unlike anything the modern world has seen before.

“Output losses of this magnitude are immense. The lost output in the Great Recession was only one-quarter as large,” the authors write. “The economic loss is more than twice the total monetary outlay for all the wars the US has fought since September 11, 2001, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.”

The economic results of the lockdown experiment are undeniable. Meanwhile, evidence is scant that they saved lives. In fact, new research suggests the lockdowns exacerbated the spread of the virus.

Unfortunately, many people still want to deny the data and the science. As one commentator recently put it in the Washington Examiner, the better Sweden’s numbers get, the angier people seem to become.

This is the danger of allowing a virus to become politicized. It obscures reality. Many seem intent on defending lockdowns because they were designed to help people (or perhaps because President Trump has resisted them), but such thinking should be avoided.

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously observed.

Instead of rebuking Sweden and states such as South Dakota who exposed the failure of lockdowns, we should be thanking them.

Without them, we may never have learned a truth that is becoming more obvious every day: the lockdowns failed.

AUTHOR

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

Sweden Now Has a Lower COVID-19 Death Rate Than the US. Here’s Why It Matters

Why Sweden Succeeded in “Flattening the Curve” and New York Failed

Sweden’s Actual COVID-19 Results Compared to What Modelers Predicted in April

BBC: Sweden’s Economy Is Doing Way Better Than the Rest of the EU During the COVID-19 Pandemic

5 Charts That Show Sweden’s Strategy Worked. The Lockdowns Failed

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

The Myth That the Polar Bear Population Is Declining

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The story of a resurgent polar bear population deserves to be told and applauded.

Many of us watched the viral video in horror. A starving polar bear scavenging for food on barren land, his ribs visible beneath a jaundiced white coat.

“This is what climate change looks like,” said National Geographic.

The magazine explained that because of melting sea ice, precipitated by climate change, more of these mammals are starving. They pointed to a new study in Science suggesting that polar bears require much greater caloric intake in their diet than previously believed.

The video, shot by photographers Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier on Somerset Island, sparked outcry over the decimation of polar bears due to global warming.

The footage was viewed by 2.5 billion people, National Geographic estimated. The video remains the most viewed on National Geographic’s website—ever.

While many remember the footage of the polar bear, fewer are aware of what followed.

As Michele Moses recently explained in The New Yorker, scientists accused National Geographic of “being loose with the facts.” There was no evidence, many pointed out, that the bear’s condition was the result of climate change. The bear simply could have been old, ill, or suffering from a degenerative disease.

Mittermeier admitted as much a year later.

“I can’t say that this bear was starving because of climate change,” she wrote in National Geographic.

Perhaps we made a mistake in not telling the full story—that we were looking for a picture that foretold the future and that we didn’t know what had happened to this particular polar bear.

Mittermeier was looking for visual evidence of the future she imagined, one ravaged by climate change. And she found it that day in a starving bear.

As Moses of The New Yorker points out, polar bears have become an “indisputable image of climate change.”

“The story of climate change has been told, in part, through pictures of polar bears,” Moses writes. “And no wonder: in their glittering icy habitat, they reflect the otherworldly beauty that rising temperatures threaten to destroy.”

That picture of a single starving bear arguably did more to advance the issue of climate change than any white paper or IPCC report could have. Unfortunately, the footage tells us relatively little about the actual state of the polar bear population.

While you’ll find no shortage of headlines declaring that polar bears face extinction, the numbers tell a different story.

Data from conservation groups and the government show that the polar bear population is roughly five times what it was in the 1950s and three or four times what it was in the 1970s when polar bears became protected under international treaty.

In fact, though polar bears were placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act in 2008 over concerns that its Arctic hunting grounds were being reduced by a warming climate, the polar bear population has been stable for the last three decades.

In 1984, the polar bear population was estimated at 25,000. In 2008, when polar bears were designated a protected species, The New York Times noted that number remained unchanged: “There are more than 25,000 bears in the Arctic, 15,500 of which roam within Canada’s territory.”

New estimates from the International Union for Conservation of Nature show a mid-point estimate of 26,500 (range: 22,000 to 31,000) in 2015. In The State of the Polar Report 2018, zoologist Susan J. Crockford says updates to IUCN data put the new global mid-point estimate at more than 30,000.

Even accepting the lower figure, the estimate is the highest since the polar bear became internationally protected in 1973.

CLICK HERE FOR THE NYT INFOGRAPHIC POLAR BEAR POPULAITON ESTIMATES 1950-2015

The health of the polar bear population runs counter to predictions from scholars who have said two-thirds of polar bears will disappear in coming decades because of warming temperatures and melting sea ice in the Arctic.

The good news that polar bears are thriving is unlikely to draw as much attention as images of a starving polar bear scrounging for food on Somerset Island. Nevertheless, the story of a resurgent polar bear population deserves to be told and applauded.

AUTHOR

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

RELATED ARTICLE: Twitter: Ads that ‘contradict the scientific consensus’ on climate change now prohibited

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