Thursday on MSNBC’s All In, unhinged host Chris Hayes said he believed Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was infringing on the freedoms of families with a Florida law banning sex change therapy for minors.
Hayes said, “Ron DeSantis’s dystopian, authoritarian vision is most apparent in the legislation he just signed yesterday. It bans all gender-affirming care for all minors in Florida, everyone 18 or younger. That law also empowers state courts to change custody agreements if a child is receiving or is at risk of receiving gender-affirming care. Meaning taking a kid away from a parent.”
Remember, “gender-affirming care” means the mutilation of children in the name of a gender ideology that has been imposed on an entire generation of schoolkids by Hayes’ Party.
“Telling parents how they can or cannot raise their own children is among the most authoritarian things that government can do. And now that is exactly what Ron DeSantis and the Republican Party in Florida and generally the conservative movement that endorses this are doing purely for ideological and punitive purposes.”
Remember, whatever the Democrat Party accuses its opponents of doing is exactly what the Democrat Party is guilty of doing.
After showing a clip of DeSantis telling Democrats, “If you’re coming after the rights of parents in Florida, I’m standing in your way,” Hayes became unhinged:
What a tough guy. You see all that swagger? He’s going to stand in your way if you’re coming after parental rights. If you try to tell a parent what they can do with their kids. That very same wing of the Republican Party embodied by Ron DeSantis and the government of the state of Florida, has now demanded and produced a situation in which the government that you saw there with the tough guy swagger about freedom? Is going to decide if your child. Who lives in your home that you gave birth to or raised, that you love your kid. What kind of care they can get. He decides. Care that, to be clear, the American Academy of Pediatrics supports and recommends.
Think about what this means right now as I’m speaking to their parents and families in Florida who have decided as a family, as parents, along with their doctors, that this health care, gender-affirming care, is the best care for their kids. You may not like it. But you know what? It’s none of your, excuse me, goddamn business! To me, that is what the courage to be free means. Freedom means that in my household, our family decides what kind of health care our child does or does not get. Not Ron DeSantis. Not the Republican Party. But that is no longer the case in Florida.
It’s Hayes playing the tough guy here, not DeSantis, who actually is a tough guy. Hayes is a pudgy, goggle-eyed propagandist for a party that preaches infanticide and the psychological and physical mutilation of children in the name of gender ideology. Citing the woke American Academy of Pediatrics as an authority on this issue is hilarious, because especially after the manufactured pandemic, Americans now know that the medical establishment has no integrity or truth whatsoever.
Hayes’ Party hates parental rights when they interfere with his Party’s Marxist grooming of younger generations. And they hate Ron DeSantis because he is showing other conservatives the way to stand against their demonic agenda.
In March 2018, NBC News published a piece by Hayes in which he cast America as a nation that was, and always had been, racist to its core:
“School segregation declined for decades and then sharply reversed, so that schools in all regions have been getting more segregated. In the South, the percentage of black students in majority white schools was 23 percent in 1968, rose to 44 percent in 1991 and by 2015 was back down to 23 percent. Meanwhile, the wealth gap between black and white families has exploded and the inequality gap between whites and blacks has also increased or held steady in everything from infant mortality to homeownership.
“All of this is the result of a political movement that has existed since the country’s founding, whose power waxes and wanes, but endures — always endures. That is the movement to preserve American racial hierarchy and white supremacy. It has gone by different names at different times, but it has not ceased to alter the trajectory of American history.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Discover The Networkshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDiscover The Networks2023-05-20 07:18:352023-05-20 07:47:43Hayes to DeSantis: Sex Change Treatment for Minors None of Your ‘Goddamn Business’
Gender Transition Surgery: Dreams Turned to Nightmares.
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Children are increasingly lured into “gender-affirming” hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgeries, are never given appropriate informed consent, and they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. Many adults even underestimate how difficult and painful it will be
All it takes for a young girl to start the gender transition process to become a boy is a letter of support from a therapist. Typically, the therapist will write a letter of support after just one or two visits. Next, she’ll be sent to an endocrinologist who, after a single visit, will prescribe her testosterone
Some gender transition centers don’t even require any kind of mental health assessment, and several Planned Parenthood clinics are apparently handing out hormone replacement therapy (HRT) prescriptions on the first visit
While some pro-trans advocates insist HRT is harmless and reversible once you quit taking the hormones, this simply isn’t true. The effects of testosterone on a girl can be both profound and permanent, and can be seen within a matter of months
The transgender movement is a stepping stone in the transhumanist agenda. Ultimately, the goal is to get rid of flesh and blood bodies altogether and have our existence either within a synthetic body or as disembodied avatar in cyberspace, or both. Turning humanity into misgendered people incapable of natural reproduction is merely a first step in that direction
In the video above, WhatsHerFace Entertainment dives into the “unspoken reality of transgender sexual reassignment surgery and all of the pain, regret and horrors it entails.”
Most clear-headed adults would realize that surgically and chemically altering your anatomy from male to female, or female to male, is a complex and painful process. The problem is that it’s typically not level-headed adults making the decision to undergo gender reassignment. It’s primarily children who are being pushed into it, and they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. Many adults don’t even realize how difficult and painful it will be.
As reported by WhatsHerFace, all it takes for a young girl to start the gender transition process to become a boy is a letter of support from a therapist. Typically, the therapist will write a letter of support after just one or two visits. Next, she’ll be sent to an endocrinologist who, after a single visit, will prescribe her testosterone.
While that’s alarmingly lax enough, some gender transition centers have cut through even that tiny bit of red tape. Some don’t require any kind of mental health assessment, and a number of Planned Parenthood clinics are apparently handing out hormone replacement therapy (HRT) prescriptions on the first visit.
Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) Is Not Harmless
While some pro-trans advocates insist that HRT is harmless and completely reversible once you quit taking the hormones, this simply isn’t true.1 As reported by WhatsHerFace, the effects of testosterone on a girl can be both profound and permanent and can be seen within a matter of months. Effects of high-dose testosterone treatment include:
Voice deepening
Facial hair growth
Hair loss, receding hairline, balding
Increased libido
Sexual dysfunction
Increased aggression and unpredictable moods
Sterility
Enlargement of clitoris
Vaginal atrophy
As noted by Cleveland Clinic,2 many of these changes persist even if you completely stop taking testosterone. Can a child or teenager fully comprehend what sterility might mean to them later in life? I don’t think so. I also don’t think they can comprehend how other physical and emotional changes might affect them, such as going bald.
Other types of hormone therapy include puberty blockers, which are given to children who have not yet entered puberty. These drugs delay the onset of sex characteristics associated with the gender you were assigned at birth.
What’s particularly shocking is that the adults steering them toward gender reassignment don’t make it a point to thoroughly inform them about the difficulties they might face. Overall, I don’t think children and teens are capable of making the decision to transition, and encouraging or facilitating it really ought to be illegal.
Double-Mastectomies Performed at 15
While you’re considered too immature to get a full, unrestricted driver’s license until you’re 18, and can’t drink alcohol until you’re 21, “gender-affirming” sex hormone therapy can begin as early as 14,3 girls who think they’re boys can get a double-mastectomy at the age of 15, and full sex reassignment surgery is available at age 17 or 18, depending on the procedure, although the World Professional Association for Transgender Health is advocating for surgeries as early as 15.4
The Boston Children’s Hospital requires you to be 17 to undergo vaginoplasty, where a boy’s penis, testicles and scrotum are removed and a vagina is created, and 18 to undergo phalloplasty, the surgical construction of a penis, or metoidioplasty, where testosterone is used to enlarge the clitoris, from which a small penis is then constructed. Prosthetic testicles are also added in both of those cases.
Understanding Female-to-Male Reassignment Surgery
When a biological woman decides to surgically become a man, she’ll undergo phalloplasty, which involves taking large sections of skin from her forearms and/or thigh to fashion a penis. As you can see from the images included in WhatsHerFace’s video, this will leave a very large unsightly scar on one or both forearms, and while the donation site heals, there’s always a risk of infection.
Since the donation site needs to be hairless, electrolysis must first be performed. If electrolysis fails and hair grows back in the donated skin, the trans male may struggle with painful hair growth inside his urethra for the rest of his life.
Trans men who are on testosterone also face gynecological challenges, especially vaginal dryness, and vaginal atrophy, which can be very painful. Pelvic pain and bacterial vaginosis are other commonly reported issues.5,6
Understanding Male-to-Female Reassignment Surgery
During vaginoplasty, which is where a biological male surgically transitions to female, the surgeon will use skin from the patient’s scrotum to create a vaginal canal. If additional skin grafts are needed, they’ll use skin from the sides of their abdomen.
Before the skin grafts are taken, he must undergo electrolysis on the chosen donor sites. However, electrolysis does not always permanently eliminate hair growth, especially not male hair growth, which tends to be more profuse, and if the hair grows back, the trans male can end up with hair growing in his vaginal canal.
Vaginoplasties aren’t always successful, and if they must be redone, a part of the patient’s colon will typically be used instead. A downside of this procedure, called colovaginoplasty, is an offensive discharge odor.
After vaginoplasty, the patient must then dilate the vagina on a daily basis. This basically entails stretching (dilating) the vagina using a lubricated dildo to prevent it from sealing shut. Your body basically views this new opening as a wound and will do what it can to heal it. Trans women must do this several times a day for the rest of their lives.
Dreams That Nightmares Are Made Of
Dilation is one of the challenges of male-to-female sex reassignment surgery (SRS) that most people underestimate. Here’s one testimony included in WhatsHerFace’s video.
“Three months ago, I started this ‘dream’ (nightmarish hell) that is SRS … Dilating is Hell, everything is sensitive or sore, my … leg movements are, while better than before, still pretty limited. I feel constant stinging and burning sensations pretty much around the clock in my crotch area.
This is probably the most suicidal I’ve ever been since before I actually transitioned. This ‘vaginal canal’ (which is actually a f***ing open wound) has given me nothing but grievances and Jesus f*** am I tired of it.
I’ve actually been considering asking my surgeon whether or not it’s possible to just close this pseudo-vaginal canal or just get rid of it all together. I wish somebody had told me even just a third of what a hellride this was going to be. But nobody did. And now I’m stuck with this nightmare.
I’m pretty much considering just stopping dilation. ‘The canal will shrink,’ so what? Maintaining it is pretty much keeping my whole … life prisoner of this thing. While I didn’t like what I had before, at all, it still allowed me freedom … For comparison, this shit is like going from parole straight into solitary confinement.”
Sure, you might think, but that’s just recovery. Eventually, all will be well. Maybe, maybe not. Here are the words of a trans female who is still struggling three years after her vaginoplasty.
“Suicidal thoughts. Three years post-op SRS and still having discharge and pain … I had SRS in 2016, August … and I’m experiencing discharge and pain again from my neovagina after it had gone away for two years. Orgasming is very difficult these days and when I do I feel less than half of what I used to feel down there.
I am normally a very strong person who doesn’t easily give up but over the last couple of weeks I find myself crying myself asleep almost every night. Wondering why I had to get this surgery.
Since the surgery I haven’t dated anyone and everyone I have been on a date with turned me down diplomatically when I came out and discussed that I have a neovagina. I’m not saying no one should get this surgery and I’m sure there are people who have amazing results but far too often I hear that people experience complications from SRS.
I find life very draining these days. I have to clean my vagina with isobetadine to keep smell away and to keep the discharge at bay. I have to dilate once a day still. I should have thought things more carefully through. I thought SRS was a wonderful end point to a difficult journey. It opened up a whole other can of worms.
I could have just had anal sex and left my genitals alone and maybe have the testicles removed. Doing something so taxing as having the tissues inverted turned out to be such a bad idea. I wish I could just have the vagina closed up at this point. I don’t see myself ever having sex again either way. I know I should be grateful for having had a surgery of 22,000 CAD paid for by the government. But I feel lied to. I feel so stupid.”
Parents Are Removed From the Equation
Consider those words, and then consider that pro-trans ideology is now being openly taught in kindergarten through high school across the U.S. Children are being brainwashed into thinking they can choose their own gender and that it’s as easy to switch genders as it is to switch clothes. It’s not.
Yet, the horrors of SRS are being so well hidden that neither parents nor their trans children understand what’s in store, both in the short and long term. While there are cases where everything goes right and the boy or girl finally feels “complete” after SRS,7 there seem to be far more cases where they end up even more miserable.
What’s worse, some states, like Washington, are considering laws that severely infringe on parent’s rights to be involved in their child’s decision to transition. For example, as reported by ZeroHedge:8
“April 12 [2023], House lawmakers debated Senate Bill 5599,9 which creates an exemption for the state that grants it the right to not be required to notify parents of minors who have left their homes because their parents wouldn’t let them pursue gender transition medical procedures …
Republican state Rep. Chris Corry said the bill ‘erodes parental rights in the state of Washington.’ ‘Essentially what the bill would do would be if a child left a parents’ home for certain medical care and went to a shelter or host family, that shelter or host family would not be required to notify the parents of their child’s whereabouts,’ Corry said.
‘This is obviously a fundamental violation of parental rights and something that’s deeply concerning for parents across Washington state.’ State Rep. Peter Abbarno, a Republican, said the crux of the debate over the bill was whether the state be permitted to ‘essentially hide where the child is.’
Most parents, Corry said, would ‘go to the ends of the earth to find their child’ if they disappeared after an argument. ‘And the fact that we have a bill that may become law that would say, ‘we’re not going to tell you,’ was really just a bridge too far for us,’ Corry said.
Corry told The Epoch Times that, under the bill, a disagreement between a child and parents over the child’s desire for a medical transition constitutes ‘abuse and neglect,’ only because the parent hasn’t ‘properly affirmed what the child wants.’
Corry said there are already laws that protect children from abuse and neglect in the state that require ‘solid and compelling reasons’ why children would need to be removed from their homes. ‘What’s frustrating is even in those cases, the parents still have a right to know where their kids are after they’ve been removed,’ Corry said. ‘In this case, parents would have no idea.’”
Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria: A Social Contagion
According to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, data from Western countries suggest gender dysphoria is now at 8% among children,10 compared to just a fraction of a percent among older adults.11
Kids who question their gender but aren’t good candidates for permanent transitioning may be as high as 1 in 5!12 In the U.S., research suggests 5% of 18- to 29-year-olds identify as trans, compared to 1.6% of 30- to 49-year-olds and only 0.3% of those 50 and older.13
How is this even possible? How is it that so many young people are suddenly gender confused? Social pressure appears to have a lot to do with it, and that includes pressure from adults, such as school teachers. But widespread trauma may also play a role.
According to a 2018 transgender identity study14 described in Psychology Today,15 “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD) “appears to be a novel condition that emerges from cohort and contagion effects and novel social pressures.”
As such, its etiology and epidemiology is distinct from conventional gender dysphoria described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Remarkably, 80% of the teens identifying as transgender were girls identifying as boys.
Not surprisingly for those of us who understand how the internet is being used to manipulate impressionable minds, 63.5% of parents reported that shortly before their child announced they were trans, they’d noticed a marked increase in social media consumption. In particular, parents had noticed their child was following popular YouTubers who discussed their transition.
Signs of Indoctrination
Among the many surprises discovered in that study, the investigator, Dr. Lisa Littman, a behavioral scientist at Brown University, found that one of the many beliefs espoused by these trans teens was that anyone who isn’t specifically transgendered is “evil,” including gays and lesbians. As reported by Psychology Today:16
“Parents further reported being derogatorily called ‘breeders’ by their children, or being routinely harassed by children who played ‘pronoun-police.’ The observation that they no longer recognized their child’s voice came up time and again in parental reports.
In turn, the eerie similarity between the youth’s discourse and trans-positive online content was repeatedly emphasized. Youth were described as ‘sounding scripted,’ ‘reading from a script,’ ‘wooden,’ ‘like a form letter,’ ‘verbatim,’ ‘word for word,’ or ‘practically copy and paste.’”
To me, the fact that trans teens sound like carbon-copies of each other is a sign of indoctrination. A script has been unleashed, and trans activists are repeating that script with the aim of indoctrinating its audience. We saw the same thing happen during COVID. Mainstream media repeated the script of the official COVID narrative, word for word, day in and day out. Repetition — that’s how you indoctrinate people.
Now, we also have the added pressures of corporations that view the trans agenda as a cash cow (although most who have gone that route are finding out the hard way that trans is still a tiny minority of their customer base, and the rest are not willing to encourage the fomentation of a mental health problem).
Even if corporate CEOs aren’t gung-ho about the trans agenda, many are lured in that direction because they want to optimize their corporate equality index (CEI).
Is Transgenderism a Maladapted Collective Stress Response?
That said, Littman hypothesized that ROGD may be a maladaptive coping mechanism for other underlying mental health issues or trauma. In essence, it may be a form of maladapted collective stress response. Psychology Today wrote:17
“It is clear from Littman’s study that the rise of rapid-onset gender dysphoria, which seems to predominantly involve natal females, points to a complex web of social pressures, changing cultural norms, and new modes of distress and coping that warrant further investigation. For parents, educators, and clinicians alike, caution is warranted in dealing with this growing phenomenon.”
Cui Bono?
So, who benefits from this maladaptive groupthink? Primarily, that would be hospitals, doctors and surgeons conducting gender reassignment surgeries, and, of course, Big Pharma. The cost for a complete sex change costs, on average, $132,000, but can run as high as $200,000 to $300,000 by the time everything is said and done.
Dr. Robert Malone18 recently calculated it would cost $102 billion to transition the current cohort of young adults (a total of 2.58 million kids, teens, and young adults between the ages of 10 and 24) who believe they’re trans. Right now, that’s an untapped market, and it’s quite clear the health care industry is chomping at the bit to get it going.
At present, insurance companies do not have to cover the cost of sex reassignment surgery, but that could soon change, as the Affordable Care Act website is actively encouraging trans people to sue for unlawful sex discrimination.19
What’s Behind the Trans Agenda?
In closing, it’s worth noting that many of the same people who attacked circumcision and fought against body shaming are now promoting transgenderism, which seems to be dehumanizing to the point of self-mutilation.
In the video above, self-proclaimed feminist and investigative journalist Jennifer Bilek discusses the forces behind the trans movement and “gender-affirming medical care” for children.
In short, it’s a stepping stone in the transhumanist agenda. Ultimately, the goal is to get rid of flesh and blood bodies altogether and have our existence either within a synthetic body or as disembodied avatar in cyberspace, or both.
Turning humanity into misgendered people incapable of natural reproduction is merely a first step in that direction. Next comes the melding of man with machine and artificial intelligence. Over time, the flesh and blood part of humans will be reduced while the synthetic parts will increase.
They want the younger generations to get comfortable with the transhumanist idea that gender is fluid and based on how you feel, rather than what you are, as well as the idea that you shouldn’t want to reproduce, because human reproduction will be outsourced to the tech industry.
As explained by Bilek, the trans ideology promotes the idea that you can choose your gender, even though that is a biological impossibility, because that’s a steppingstone to the grander ideology that you can exist without a body altogether, in cyberspace, where you can be whomever you want.
They want the younger generations to get comfortable with the idea that gender is fluid and based on how you feel, rather than what you are, as well as the idea that you shouldn’t want to reproduce, because human reproduction will be outsourced to the tech industry.
Over the past decade, Bilek notes, the trans argument has gone from “some people are born in the wrong body,” to simply advocating for the right to augment yourself in whatever way you see fit, to add or strip yourself of whatever appendages you don’t want. According to Bilek, it’s a fetish-based cult, and seemingly rational people are buying into it, not understanding what it’s all about.
I believe the transgender movement poses a severe threat to mental, emotional and physical health, and must be counteracted by level-headed discourse. How can anyone say they’re concerned about children’s health and welfare while simultaneously promoting irreversible surgeries that will pose lifelong risks to their health and render many of them sterile?
It’s one thing to change a child’s pronouns. It’s another to cut off their breasts and penises just because they say they feel at odds with their — for now — elected gender. The very idea that a child should be allowed to decide with such lifelong implications as mutilating their sex organs is incomprehensibly negligent.
And when you consider the hidden motive behind this movement, it reinforces the anti-human, anti-humane nature of it, because children, who are our future, are being physically and psychologically sacrificed to further an ideology that seeks to destroy the human species and turn it into something it’s not.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MERCOLA Take Control of Your Healthhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMERCOLA Take Control of Your Health2023-05-20 07:02:422023-05-20 07:03:20VIDEO: The Unspoken Horrors of Gender Transition Surgery
America is not only being bombarded with illegals, even terrorists, pouring across the formerly more secure Southern Border, but as you will learn in this SPECIAL REPORT on ARIZONA TODAY, a myriad of diseases are also coming into America with illegals from over 160-countries. I held with nationally known medical consultant Jean Rice, RN, BS/BA who has well over 40 years experience in the medical profession, this conversation is sobering, NOT theatrical or conspiracy theory but real and alarming!
Acute diseases now arriving with illegals and refugees: third-world types of bacteria and parasites, new forms of lice and worms. Americans have not been exposed to these types of aggressive agents. Doctors not trained to identify or treat these new diseases.
Tuberculosis cases are rising across America, including treatment resistant TB.
Costs for counties and states to treat these new illnesses are extremely high – and rising.
More than 17 states in horror as to what they are challenged with now; real concern with what’s to come in months ahead.
Unscreened refugees brought into U.S. are now being integrated into our communities: NO background checks, NO medical history recorded; NO education on sanitation and basic hygiene; NO formal medical screening conducted.
Public or elected officials are not informed so proper decisions and preparedness can be accomplished.
1 suspected and 1 confirmed case of Leprosy reported in Riverside, CA grade school
150 high school students in Manhattan, Kansas ill with unknown parasite
100 cases of Chlorine resistant bacteria were discovered in city swimming pool.
150 people in 2 counties in AZ contract aggressive form of measles.
2 dozen cases of TB reported in Kansas City high school after students came into contact with infected student.
I need your help to keep sending forward uncensored information that is founded on facts, not theory or mere sensationalism.
Please help me distribute the attached reports and the conversation. Go to your mailing lists and distribute…now! Americans need to become awake to this on- coming and serious assault to our health. Please also consider going to my website site: Arizona2Day.com and contributing by pushing the PayPal button. I have self-funded this show the past two years relying on the Lord to raise up contributors.
Thank you! Thank you most sincerely for distributing the content helping me to awake Americans.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.2023-05-19 15:52:132023-05-20 06:35:32SPECIAL REPORT: Diseases Coming Across the Southern Border
An assistant professor is suing a California university that allegedly requires faculty applicants to pledge their commitment to “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) policies and ideology.
The Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Dr. John D. Haltigan, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, against the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz alleging that institution violates faculty applicants’ First Amendment rights by requiring them to submit a statement displaying their support of DEI. Requiring a statement on increasing diversity along racial and ethnic lines forces faculty applicants to agree, or pretend to agree, with such values, the lawsuit alleges.
“UC Santa Cruz’ DEI statement requirement is nothing more than a rebranding of the unconstitutional loyalty oaths that proliferated during the Cold War,” Wilson Freeman, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, said in a press release. “Universities are not permitted to discriminate against applicants because of their political views. UC’s DEI statement screening is a thinly veiled attempt to do exactly that.”
Haltigan, who holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Miami, wished to apply for the institution’s tenure-track position in Developmental Psychology but did not because of the required DEI statement, the lawsuit shows. The application for the tenure-track position in Developmental Psychology allegedly tells applicants that its scoring rubric grants low scores to those applying if they “believe race and sex should not be used to judge individuals.”
“If Dr. Haltigan were to apply for this position, he would be compelled to alter his behavior and either remain silent about the many important social issues addressed by the DEI Statement Requirement or recant his views to conform to the dictates of the University administration,” the lawsuit alleges.
Throughout the country universities are requiring some sort of DEI statement from applicants outlining their competencies in diversity; in May 2022, Indiana University School of Medicine updated its standards mandating that professors who wish to be promoted, “show effort toward advancing DEI.” The University of Tennessee requires applicants to submit a diversity statement, which they are judged on, telling how they will help contribute to diversity and inclusion at the school.
“The University of California has adopted a modern day loyalty oath for professors who seek to join the faculty,” the lawsuit alleged. “Today’s loyalty oath does not demand a pledge that professors are not members of the Communist Party, but professed agreement with ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ policies and ideology.”
The University of California, Santa Cruz did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2023-05-19 13:56:132023-05-21 07:44:52Assistant Professor Sues University That Allegedly Forces Faculty To Pledge Commitment To Diversity
In our newest documentary Groomed, we tell the story of a mother fighting for her child against all odds.
Radical Trans activists are running rampant in our country and America’s kids are their primary target – especially online. Our exclusive film has the inside story on their scheme.
Our schools, TikTok influencers, and even anime cartoons are actively targeting kids, grooming them for transition.
Many people think this insidious mission is confined to sex-ed and corrupt, liberal school boards, but they couldn’t be more wrong…
The Chief Justice of Hawaii’s Supreme Court, who is hearing Honolulu’s lawsuit against oil and gas companies for climate damages, has worked with a D.C-based environmental group that has close ties to the plaintiff’s attorneys.
Honolulu’s lawsuit against Sunoco, Shell, Chevron and other companies is one of many lawsuits cities have filed against energy companies in an effort to extract alleged damages for the firms’ contributions to climate change; the Supreme Court declined to hear these lawsuits in April, pushing them back to state courts—meaning Honolulu’s case is now squarely before Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald. However, on May 9, Recktenwald disclosed that he engages in “educational presentations relating to environmental, energy, and natural resource issues” and has worked with the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), a group which routinely collaborates with environmental activists.
ELI co-founded the Climate Judiciary Project, which developed a climate science and law curriculum for judges handling environment litigation, and has worked closely with individuals who have consulted for or been employed by the environmental activist legal firm representing Honolulu in its lawsuit, Sher Edling LLP.
“Judges are supposed to not only be impartial, but to maintain the appearance of impartiality so that the public can have faith in their rulings,” Rob Schilling, Executive Director of Energy Policy Advocates, a nonprofit that works for transparency in energy policy, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It appears that the judge may have attended (or even presented at!) seminars organized for those on one side of this type of case. Those on the other side were not permitted to present their view, and the seminar took place outside of the courtroom and outside the protections provided by the rules of evidence.”
Recktenwald presented a remote course, “Rising Seas and Litigation: What Judges Need to Know About Warming-Driven Sea Level Rise,” in collaboration with the Environmental Law Institute on April 4, according to his disclosure. Recktenwald also presented at a December 2022 ELI webinar on “Hurricanes in a Changing Climate and Related Litigation and a 2020 symposium on “Judiciary And The Environmental Rule of Law: Adjudicating Our Future,” which was also in collaboration with ELI but was omitted from his May 9 disclosure.
Moreover, those connected to ELI and the CJP curriculum’s development have direct links to Sher Edling.
Ann Carlson, President Joe Biden’s nominee for National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) administrator who served on the board of directors for the Environmental Law Institute from 2016 to 2020, previously consulted for Sher Edling and solicited donations on behalf of the firm, according to Fox News.
Carlson, who is a professor at UCLA Law School’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Center, which previously hostedevents supporting the cause of climate lawsuits, was also an advisor for ELI’s curriculum instructing judges on how to examine climate-based cases.
She also used money from funds she had access to at UCLA, titled the “Ann Carlson Discretionary Fund,” to help fund a 2019 trip that allowed her to “encourage Hawaii to consider a nuisance lawsuit,” according to emails obtained by Climate Litigation Watch. Honolulu filed its lawsuit in March 2020.
Michael Burger, who currently works on climate cases at Sher Edling in his capacity as Of Counsel, has spoken at an ELI briefing and conference. Burger has also filed multiple amicus briefs in support of cities suing oil and gas companies as executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.
Former Sher Edling employee Meredith Wilensky was a Public Interest Law Fellow at the Environmental Law Institute before she joined the firm in 2017, according to LinkedIn.
Schilling said the connection to the law firm backing plaintiffs in these climate lawsuits is “clear.”
“In short, after the climate plaintiffs lost in California and New York, with one judge not only keeping the case in federal court but requesting a day of evidence on the science, the Environmental Law Institute scrambled to organize what became this running operation to get the plaintiffs’ case in front of as many judges as possible,” he said. “Their materials don’t even bother a nod at [subtlety].”
Northern District of California Judge William Alsup tossed climate cases from San Francisco and Oakland in June 2018, and Southern District of New York Judge John F. Keenan tossed a case from New York City in July 2018. The Climate Judiciary Project was launched in April 2019.
“As the body of climate litigation grows, judges must consider complex scientific and legal questions, many of which are developing rapidly,” its website states. “To address these issues, the Climate Judiciary Project of the Environmental Law Institute is collaborating with leading national judicial education institutions to meet judges’ need for basic familiarity with climate science methods and concepts.”
Modules in the Climate Judiciary Project’s curriculum from January 2023 include “Overview of Climate Litigation,” “Judicial Remedies for Climate Disruption: A Preliminary Analysis,” and “Procedural Techniques Available for Climate Litigation.”
Recktenwald notes in his disclosure that he also intends to present at a June 20 virtual event titled, “Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Disputes: The Use of Special Masters in Resolving Complex Litigation,” as co-chair of the Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee of the Conferences of Chief Justices and Chief Court Administrators. His notice asks “any party who has concerns” about his participation to object by May 19, 2023.
“And so, these seminars parade a series of plaintiffs’ witnesses and supportive amicus brief filers before potential judges,” Schilling said. “In fact, another activist seminar presenter, Prof. Charles Fletcher, just sought leave from the Hawai’i Supreme Court on Friday to file an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs.”
Recktenwald isn’t the only judge who has participated in ELI seminars. Two additional judges on the Hawaii Supreme Court, Associate Justice Sabrina McKenna and Associate Justice Michael Wilson, also participated in the 2020 symposium, along with judges on other Hawaii courts and from different states.
In March, the Hawaii Supreme Court found in a separate case that citizens have a right to a “life-sustaining climate system.”
Wilson wrote in a concurring opinion that we are facing a “climate emergency” that puts the “lives of our children and future generations” at stake.
“[T]he history of these seminars, from their timing and origins to the widespread and extremely active participation by judges hearing these cases — which of course was the seminars’ entire objective — is something that it is difficult to conceive is actually happening in the U.S,” Schilling said.
Recktenwald, Sher Edling, ELI and the companies being sued by Honolulu did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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The cavalry is coming to help Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). For months, the Alabama Republican has waged a fight against the Defense Department’s woke agenda by blocking the Senate’s approval of nearly 200 promotions for military generals and flag officers.
The military establishment, Senate Democrats, and the Biden administration have resorted to name-calling and unfounded warnings — even though Tuberville insists he won’t budge until the Pentagon reverses its policy subsidizing abortions.
Two weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), touted a letter from seven former secretaries of defense to make his case. Today, a significantly larger number of current and retired service members announced they’re backing Tuberville.
In a new letter shared first with The Daily Signal, more than 3,000 veterans and active-duty members of the U.S. armed forces are expressing their support for Tuberville and calling on the Pentagon to rescind its politically motivated abortion policy. Four members of Congress joined state lawmakers, national leaders and thousands of everyday Americans who have served their country in the military.
“The undersigned stand united in condemning this policy,” they write in the letter to Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “This policy is not just illegal, it shamefully politicizes the military, circumvents the authority of Congress, and exceeds the authority of the Department of Defense.”
The letter includes 593 individual names — including Reps. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) — plus 32 endorsers and partners with the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, which represents the position of over 2,500 military chaplains.
The Defense Department issued its policy Feb. 16, providing three weeks of taxpayer-funded paid leave and reimbursement of travel expenses for military personnel and dependents who are seeking an abortion. An estimate from Rand Corporation predicts the number of abortions would skyrocket from 20 to more than 4,000 each year.
Using his leverage as a U.S. senator, Tuberville is holding the nearly 200 military promotions. He’s earned the support of Republican colleagues, including influential Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) who said this week, “I regret that it’s necessary, but I think it is.”
Their letter directly refutes the claim by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his seven predecessors that Tuberville’s actions are affecting military readiness. Democrat senators, led by Schumer, have repeatedly made this assertion — without factual evidence — to attack Tuberville.
“Over the past few months, the senior senator from Alabama has singlehandedly hindered our national security by blocking hundreds of critical military appointments,” Schumer alleged Monday. “Those holds are hamstringing our military. According to former secretaries of defense who served presidents of both parties, this blanket hold ‘is harming military readiness and risks damaging U.S. national security.’”
Beyond broad warnings about military readiness, however, Democrats are unable to point to specific examples proving their case.
The letter from service members suggests the real readiness problem is a result of Austin’s actions as secretary and the “politicized agenda” of the Biden administration.
“The American people, including its service members, are disappointed by President [Joe] Biden and Secretary Austin’s recent decisions to mandate receipt of the COVID-19 vaccines, promote the radical LGBT agenda, and now subsidize abortion,” they write. “Because of these policies, the military now faces an unprecedented crisis of recruitment — missing its recruitment goal for the first time ever last year. The focus of our military must be on keeping the American people safe, not advancing the left-wing social agenda.”
Even when Democrats have pressed military leaders for evidence, they’ve come up empty.
At an April 20 hearing, Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) asked U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Cmdr. John Aquilino about the consequences of Tuberville’s hold on readiness in the region. Aquilino responded, “Operationally … no impact, because Seventh Fleet commanders are not going anywhere until the proper replacement is in place.”
Retired three-star Gen. Jerry Boykin, executive vice president at the Family Research Council, flatly rejected the idea when FRC President Tony Perkins asked him if Tuberville’s effort was endangering the U.S. military. Boykin responded, “No, it is not.”
“In the military,” Boykin added, “you don’t replace somebody until you have a replacement for them, which means the person holding that slot stays there until he has a replacement. This whole thing is more propaganda than anything else.”
And last week, three Heritage Foundation vice presidents — including retired Lt. Colonel James Jay Carafano, vice president of Heritage’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy — pointed to greater threats to military readiness than the failure to promote flag officers.
“America’s military readiness is of vital importance and one The Heritage Foundation takes seriously,” they wrote to Tuberville. “Each year, we publish an Index of U.S. Military Strength to gauge the U.S. military’s ability to perform its missions. This year, for the first time, we assess the military as weak and at growing risk of not being able to meet the demands of defending America’s vital national interests. While the reasons for this are many, your holds are not among them.”
Carafano was joined by two others from Heritage: John Malcolm, vice president of the Institute for Constitutional Government, and Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy.
Democrats could circumvent Tuberville’s hold by voting on each nominee individually. Doing so, however, would be a laborious process for senators who would rather approve the promotions as a group.
Just as he’s done several times already, Tuberville is prepared to continue his fight until the Pentagon changes course. Now, he has the backing of more than 3,000 service members and veterans.
“There is no truth more profound than the fact that all human life is sacred,” their letter concludes. “The mission of the United States Military is to defend and protect all American lives — not subsidize the practice of destroying innocent and vulnerable American children via abortion with taxpayer dollars. By pledging to hold these nominations to the Department of Defense until administration officials reverse course, Senator Tuberville is doing a great service for the American people — including its service members.”
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.
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While major banks downgrade Anheuser-Busch’s stock and Bud Light becomes a corporate punch line, a quartet of CEOs seem all too happy to join them. As the beer company implodes under the weight of a national boycott, their cautionary tale seems lost on four companies, who’ve decided to follow transgender advocacy straight to financial insolvency. Who are the brands foolish enough to ride Bud Light’s tattered coattails?
1. Target
One of the first companies to stick out their necks for the LGBT agenda, Target was woke before woke was a word. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the chain who introduced a controversial line of “Love Is Love” shirts way back in 2012 was ready to board the transgender train. Back then, retail analyst Britt Beemer warned that the Target strategy isn’t “very smart,” especially in conservative states, where it does the biggest business. “Anytime a retailer gets away from doing what they should be doing by being involved in a social cause, [they lose].”
Target got a taste of that last year, when the mega-retailer — who helped launch the war on gender six years ago with its mixed-gender bathrooms and fitting rooms — decided to fill its racks with merchandise to help young people reject the biological sex God gave them. From chest binders that strap down breasts to compression underwear to hide bulges for boys, Target is taking direct aim at America’s children.
Now, the soulless company is inviting new outrage with a trans line of clothes and books. With colorful messages like “Trans people will always exist!” “Queer! Queer! Queer! Queer!” “Cure transphobia, not trans people,” and “Ask me about my pronouns,” Target is putting itself in the bullseye. There are baby bodysuits, rompers, mugs, and a collection of books that would put most moms on the warpath. “My Sister Daisy,” which is about a boy learning to how to treat his younger brother’s “gender [transition] with compassion,” is recommended for 5 to 7-year-olds, while “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish” clocks in even younger (4-8).
The activist group Gays Against Groomers didn’t hold back their fury. “We hope there are enough parents out there that understand how wrong this is and show them that this garbage will not sell,” they urged their hundreds of thousands of followers. “The only thing these people understand is money. Target deserves the Bud Light treatment. We will work to put the pressure on them.”
2. Levi Strauss
Last fall, Jennifer Sey, a longtime Levi’s executive, wrote a blockbuster book about the radical undercurrent at America’s oldest jeans company called, “Levi’s Unbuttoned: The Woke Mob Took My Job But Gave Me My Voice.” Sey’s candid, behind-the-scenes tell-all made quite a splash, especially her frank assessment of upper management’s radical politics.
“Today’s executives reared these kids with an ‘I’m not your Dad, I’m your friend’ parenting philosophy, and they chase their children’s approval,” she writes. “They want to impress their woke kids with their own progressive bona fides.”
Their latest idea? A gender-neutral clothing line. CEO Chip Bergh announced the idea this month, dismissing any fears about “a Bud Light-type backlash” against the 170-year-old company. Unisex clothing, he argued, is the wave of the future in a supposedly trans-accepting society.
“We are building out slowly,” he explained to Axios. “It started with a small collection of gender-neutral or gender-fluid line, and there’s definitely consumer appetite for that,” Bergh claimed. “And we are here for that.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time Levi’s has rolled the dice on sexual politics. Its first foray into the trans market was 2017 with a collection called Line 8. Since then, they’ve only leaned harder into the fad, posting a guide to unisex shopping in 2019. (Like every other company on this list, their extremism also extends to abortion politics.)
As Sey warned, the tentacles of radicalism run deep at Levi’s — thanks in part to the younger generation of workers there, who she calls “ideological terrorists” who are “policing their peers and elders relentlessly.” Company leaders, she insists, “are unwilling to stand up to them.” “Most CEOs lack the moral courage to hold their ground,” Sey wrote. “Because they know, deep down, that they aren’t do-gooders, and they don’t want that curtain lifted.”
3. Starbucks
Anyone who’s ordered a cup from the iconic green mermaid has been fueling more than their caffeine fix — they’ve been financing the movement to trans our sons and daughters. After a divisive pronoun campaign in 2019 called #WhatsYourName, the mega-retailer one-upped America’s other woke CEOs last year by offering to ship employees’ children out of state to change their sex.
A statement from the company’s Sara Kelly announced that Starbucks is committed to the most outrageous forms of corporate activism — including paid travel for transgender surgery. “Regardless of where you live or what you believe, partners enrolled in Starbucks healthcare will now be offered reimbursement for eligible travel expenses when accessing abortion or gender-affirming procedures when those services are not available within 100 miles of a partner’s home.”
Now, a year later, Starbucks, whose philanthropic partners include an advocate for child sex-changes, is taking its campaign to mutilate children to the world.
On May 9, Starbucks India ignited a global firestorm after releasing an ad openly celebrating gender reassignment surgery. In the commercial, which has more than a million views, a mom and dad meet with their son, who now identifies as a girl, at the coffee shop. They all listen as the barista calls out a drink for “Arpita,” their son’s new name — meant to be a sign that his parents, who placed the order, accept his new female identity. “For me, you are still my kid,” the father says. “Only a letter has been added to your name,” he said, reaching out for his son’s hand.
Underneath, the Indian caption reads, “Your name defines who you are — whether it’s Arpit or Arpita. At Starbucks, we love and accept you for who you are. Because being yourself means everything to us. #ItStartsWithYourName.”
An Australian-based pundit, who’s watched Bud Light’s fall from grace, couldn’t believe Starbucks would be crazy enough to jump on the burning bandwagon. They’re going “full Bud Light,” he warned. “If saturating the market with a mediocre U.S. coffee brand wasn’t bad enough,” Rukshan Fernando tweeted, “now they are bringing their woke corporate culture to the Sub-Continent.”
Others pointed out the coffee company’s hypocrisy, since “Starbucks in Saudi [Arabia], UAE, and Qatar have been around much longer than India. Yet you will never see them place such ads there.” Then there was Indian celebrity Nuance Bro, who urged locals to walk away. “Alright India here’s your chance to resist properly. … Do not let this programming gain a foothold.”
But it’s not as if Starbucks’ agenda is a surprise. The liberal business has never truly cared about kids — not after spending thousands of dollars helping Planned Parenthood abort them — or working to deprive them of a married mom and dad. Still, if the wave of opposition to the trans agenda on both sides is any indication, something’s brewing at Starbucks — and that’s trouble.
4. Sports Illustrated
Men who pick up a copy of the 2023 swimsuit edition hoping to see actual women at the beach are in for quite a surprise with this year’s edition. Instead of a biological female on the cover, the woke magazine opted for Kim Petras, a busty man who underwent gender-transition surgery at age 16.
“I was so excited when I got the call to be in Sports Illustrated,” Petras, a German-born singer, told SI. “It’s very iconic, and a lot of very iconic people have done it before, so [it was a] big dream come true for me.” Asked about the pushback he might get, 30-year-old Petras replied, “It’s definitely a scary time to be transgender in America, but there’s also so much more representation than there’s ever been, and there’s so many things on the bright side.”
Back in 2006, the singer was considered “the world’s youngest transsexual” after he appeared on a television show describing his transition, which started with hormones at just 12 years old.
For Sports Illustrated, who’s no stranger to controversy, this isn’t the first time the magazine has pushed the envelope with a trans model. Leyna Bloom landed the cover job in 2021. Readers were irate — but the criticism obviously fell on deaf ears. “There is no theme [to this year’s issue],” Editor-in-Chief MJ Day explained this time around, “rather, there is a vision, a sentiment, a hope that women can live in a world where they feel no limitations, internally or externally.” These women share “certain common traits,” she insisted. “They’re constantly evolving.”
Evolving is one way to put it, critics lashed out. Is no space that’s historically been reserved for women — no traditions, jobs, sports, or products — sacred anymore? “The 2023 Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition cover model is a biological man with fake boobs,” Wisconsin activist Scarlett Johnson posted. “I really hope men are #Done with Sports Illustrated.” Over at Rebel News, Ezra Levant joked, “I guess the Bud Light ad wizards had to land somewhere.”
Meanwhile, consumers can’t help but wonder: who in their right mind would follow Bud Light down this fatal road? A single can with the wrong partner sent Anheuser-Busch into a nationwide tailspin — with no relief in sight. As other brands watch that five-alarm fire destroy the brand’s reputation, others are reaching for the same hot stove.
Why? Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm believes it’s because “progressives are true believers.” “They don’t just say the key to happiness is a world in which truth is personal and everyone gets to be who they want to be. They really believe it,” he told The Washington Stand. “They believe it so strongly they’re even willing to temporarily lose money along the way.”
“There’s actually a lot for Christians to learn here,” he insisted. “Do we believe the truth as much as they believe lies?”
For conservative, freedom-loving alternatives to every leftist coffee, denim, retail, and beer company, download the Public Sq. app and reward the businesses who share your values.
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.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday signed three bills to excise woke ideology from state higher education institutions and promote productive education goals.
SB 266 will “prohibit institutions from spending federal or state dollars on discriminatory initiatives, such as so called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)’ programs,” the governor’s office summarized in a press release. HB 931 will “prohibit Florida’s public institutions from requiring students, faculty, or staff to take political loyalty tests,” and SB 240 will “expand workforce education programs and increase access to career and technical education (CTE) programs.”
The first of these laws doubles down on Florida Republicans’ efforts last year to crack down on woke ideology in institutions of higher education. SB 266 forbids “a Florida College System institution” to “expend any state or federal funds” on “any programs or campus activities that: (a) Violate s. 1000.05; or (b) Advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI], or promote or engage in political or social activism.”
The first prohibited category (violations of s. 1000.05) refers to a section of Florida law dealing with discrimination in K-20 public education, which the Individual Freedom Act (a.k.a. Stop Woke Act) modified last year. The Stop Woke Act added paragraphs stating that “it shall constitute discrimination … to subject any student or employee to training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such student or employee to believe any of the following concepts.” The list that followed included foundational tenets of critical race theory (CRT) and other leftist ideologies, such as “A person’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex.”
In October, a federal judge in the Northern District of Florida temporarily blocked Florida officials from enforcing this section of the law, on the grounds that it ran afoul of First Amendment Freedom of Speech.
Following this legal setback, Florida Republicans devised a different approach to achieve their original objective — eliminating woke programming on academic campuses. It began with Governor DeSantis ordering all state universities and colleges “to provide a comprehensive list of all staff, programs, and campus activities” related to DEI or CRT. Within days, the same parties who had challenged the Stop Woke Act complained that Florida was violating the judge’s preliminary injunction against portions of the Stop Woke Act. However, the judge denied the motion on the grounds that the injunction had not been violated.
Perhaps in an effort to avoid another free speech challenge, SB 266 does provide an exception from its DEI funding ban for “student fees to support student-led organizations” and “use of institution facilities by student-led organizations.”
SB 266 also enacted other DeSantis objectives for higher education. It directed the Board of Governors to review the mission and curriculum of each university, gave university presidents (as opposed to less accountable academic departments) final authority over hiring full-time faculty, and prohibited left-wing loyalty pledges as a condition of employment. These changes are among those DeSantis set forth in his January 31 education agenda “to focus on promoting academic excellence, the pursuit of truth, and to give students the foundation so they can think for themselves.”
In addition to SB 266, DeSantis also signed HB 931, which states that “a public institution of higher education may not … Require or solicit a person to complete a political loyalty test as a condition of employment or admission into, or promotion within, such institution.” It also bars universities and colleges from giving “preferential consideration” for employment, admission, or promotion based on “an opinion or actions in support of: a. A partisan, a political, or an ideological set of beliefs; or b. Another person or group of persons based on the person’s or group’s race or ethnicity or support of an ideology or movement … that promotes the differential treatment of a person or a group of persons based on race or ethnicity.” This prohibition encompasses university diversity statements (not academic diversity but identity diversity), which require university staff to affirm a DEI agenda as a condition of employment.
While DeSantis’ educational initiatives make headlines for countering woke ideology, they reflect a fundamentally positive vision, not one that is negative or contrarian. Rather, the goal is to remove politics from education, thus “empowering students, parents, and educators to focus on creating opportunities for our younger generations,” said DeSantis. This mission, to prepare young people to be productive members of society, is reflected in the third bill DeSantis signed, SB 240, which will “expand workforce education programs and increase access to career and technical education (CTE) programs.”
Unsurprisingly, left-wing activists like the ACLU of Florida dislike Florida’s higher education reforms, which demolish the barriers protecting left-wing academic hegemony. But every significant reform will face opposition. Ray Rodrigues, Chancellor of the State University System of Florida, said the legislature and DeSantis were “re-orienting our distinguished universities to missions that treat people as individuals, that reward merit and achievement, and center on recruiting excellent faculty while creating the talent pipeline necessary to fuel Florida’s future.” Making the right enemies is worth it, for the right reasons.
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.
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“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” ― John F. Kennedy, remarks on the 20th Anniversary of Voice of America on February 26, 1962.
Sadly, today its Mourning in America.
President Donald J. Trump’s campaign released a new anti-Biden/pro-American ad titled “Mourning in America,” which pays homage to the iconic “Morning in America“ ad by President Ronald Reagan. The ad depicts the suffering felt by average Americans under President Joe Biden, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, ongoing inflation, an illegal alien surge at the southern border, transgender athletes competing in female sports and much more.
The new ad begins with these prophetic words, “It’s mourning again in America. And thanks to Joe Biden, our borders are now wide open for all to come. Why would we ever accept the incompetence and weakness of Biden when we could have the freedom, security, and economic prosperity we enjoyed just three years ago?”
Mark Twain wrote, “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”
Today we have seen the native American criminal class expanded to include: the White House, first family, FBI, CIA, DOJ, DOD, DHS, and every other federal, state and local agency. From the school house to the White House we are witnessing an America where we the people have been, via public policy, put into the survival mode by the Nuevo Elected Criminal Class (NECC).
Today Americans can’t afford food, clothing, gasoline or a new car. Many can’t afford to buy a home in places like California and in the big metropolitan areas like Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, New York City and Detroit. Many newly graduated students find it difficult to rent an apartment to just live freely and pursue their chosen career and happiness. Today Americans are pursuing ways to survive until, hopefully, the NECC is drained from the swamp.
What is the swamp? It is a system of governance that wants power, absolute power.
In his dystopian novel 1984 George wrote,“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
People are living in fear. Fear of losing their job because they used the wrong personal pronoun. Fear of speaking out on social media. Fear of being labeled a domestic terrorist for telling the truth. Fear of being white, straight, Christian, Jew and because they stand up for the American flag with their hand over their heart and pledge allegiance to it. Patriots are now the enemy of the state.
Patriotic citizens fear their governments at every level from the local school boards to the halls of Congress, to the U.S. Supreme Court and finally to the White House.
We now live in a time when our government is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market. We now are ruled by a government that is afraid of its own people.
Americans are now not just barely surviving, and not thriving. Americans are now living in fear.
This is why there is “mourning” in America.
Make America Thrive Again
President John F. Kennedy said, “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”
Since the inauguration of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. there have been numerous persistent, persuasive and unrealistic myths that have led to and caused the decline in America’s prosperity and with it the ability of Americans to thrive.
These persistent, persuasive and unrealistic policies include:
Mankind must control the climate in order to save the planet. This myth has lead to the Green New Deal and efforts to reduce the carbon, CO2, levels. This myth has lead to mandating the use of all electric vehicles, stopping efforts to drill for fossil fuels in America, importation of oil from foreign nations and even an attack on appliances such as stoves which use natural gas, a very clean form of energy. This myth has been totally debunked by a recent study titled World Atmospheric CO2, Its 14C Specific Activity, Non-Fossil component, Anthropogenic Fossil Component, and Emissions (1750–2018) which stated, “Our results show that the percentage of the total CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming.” This lead to our asking: How many U.S. Soldiers lives will be needlessly lost after our military converts to an all Electric Military Fleet of Land Vehicles (EVMLVs)?
People can choose their gender. This myth was created by the LGBTQIE+ community to educate, encourage, promote and recruit underaged children to become partners for adult sodomites. This agenda has gone on warp speed since the inauguration of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., who prides himself, no pun intended, on furthering the queering of every aspect of American life. Today using the wrong pronoun can get you fired, harassed, assaulted and even killed. Gender-Queer is becoming the new norm. Recently a ‘Gender Queer’ school counselor was arrested for grooming and assaulting a child. Zobella Brazil Vinik, a 29-year-old woman who identifies as trans reportedly groomed and molested a 15-year-old female student. Companies like Anheuser-Bush, Google, Disney Corporation have embraced sodomy, promoted sodomites and have lost billions of dollars doing so.
All whites, and blacks who love white people, are racists. This myth began with the Black Panthers, Nation of Islam and now the Black Lives Matter movements. The Critical Race Theory (CRT) myth is promoted in our schools from Kindergarten to our colleges and universities. It, along with the New York Times’ 1619 Project, have lead to the myth that we should judge people by the color of their skins, not by the content of their characters. This has lead to convicted felons like George Floyd being idolized and statues of American leaders torn down, like Abraham Lincoln. Even the Department of Defense has fully embraced CRT and put into practice at every military academy, it is taught to new recruits and in various officers courses. Even military bases are being renamed to embrace the myths in CRT.
Communism lead to Utopia Myth. This myth is the ongoing war against capitalism. It has not stopped despite the fall of the former Soviet Union. It is being embraced as a panacea when in fact it is a pariah. Communism kills. It kills families, cultures and eventually individuals by the tens of millions.
Bigger government, more spending and taxation lead to equal outcomes myth. We now have Americans paying more taxes and the federal government spending more not to help we the people but rather to help other nation states and causes that are disturbingly anti-American. This has led to the largest national debt in U.S. history. It seems that neither pollical party has the will to stop the spending and reduce the debt on this and future generations.
Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) myths. The policies driven by DIE are harming American workers and forcing companies to turn their attention away from serving their customers to complying with government ESG scores. DIE is now more important than equal protection under the law. DIE is a law unto itself that destroys the prosperity and ideal of America being a melting pot made up of all races, colors and creeds working toward making America a great and prosperous nation.
The above list is just the tip of the iceberg. We have not listed how non-profits, corporations, churches, synagogues, Mosques and many of the 20 political parties in the U.S. are harming our ability to thrive.
The 2024 presidential election takes on greater importance than any previous election. We as a nation will either continue down the narrow street to survival, or we get on the broader pathway back to prosperity and a thriving United States of America.
As JFK asked, “If not us, who? If not now, when?”
Choose wisely. Your, your children and grandchildren’s futures depend on it.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2023-05-14 09:11:492023-05-15 08:28:21America Must Not Just Survive, She Must Thrive!
Rather than squabbling about controlled opposition, we would be better served by spending our time productively engaged in research, verifying and triangulating information to discern what is true and what is false
“Divide and conquer” is the primary way the control network maintains control, and all that’s needed to divide a previously unified front is insinuation and the seeding of doubt
As AI-equipped chatbots are getting more sophisticated and start to monopolize online searches and virtual assistants, state-endorsed propaganda may become the only information available
Narrative is the ultimate weapon; with a convincing-enough narrative, you can motivate entire populations to go to war or anything else that you want them to do
One of the most important strategies you can implement to prepare yourself for the likelihood of what they plan on throwing at us next lies with community, meeting like-minded people that share your views and complement your skills. It will also be wise to relocate from high density urban areas
In this video, I interview investigative journalist James Corbett about false narratives, the global takeover by technocracy, controlled opposition and the dangers of artificial intelligence, as well as the solutions to these and other challenges.
Corbett’s journalism career began in the aftermath of 9/11, when he became “overwhelmed to discover that we are constantly lied to through the mainstream media.” 9/11 was his “red pill” moment, and he hasn’t stopped digging for the truth since.
“The discrepancy between the things that I was finding online versus what was being reported on the evening news just started getting wider and wider,” he says, “to the point where I felt that … I had to insert myself in that conversation. So that’s the reason we’re talking today.”
In 2007, Corbett launched his website, CorbettReport.com. One of his hallmarks, both in his documentaries and regular reports, is impeccable citations of sources.
“I always put up the transcript with the hyperlinks to the source documents for every single quotation, every video clip, everything that I’m playing,” he says. “I want to direct people back to the source material so that they can research it for themselves.
I know, as a researcher myself who does this for a living, that’s incredibly valuable. I very much appreciate it when other people do it, so I’m trying to set that example in the alternative media.”
Can the Global Takeover Be Derailed?
Corbett is also featured on “Good Morning CHD” with Dr. Meryl Nass once a month, an online news show by Children’s Health Defense.
“It’s a valuable way, for both of us, to continue keeping our eye on the ball of the World Health Organization and its latest machinations … of the global pandemic treaty and the international health regulations (IHR) amendments that they’re working on right now, which really could be the hardwiring of the biosurveillance infrastructure,” Corbett says.
When asked whether he believes the pandemic treaty and/or the IHR amendments can be stopped, Corbett replies:
“Well, they are planning on unleashing the global pandemic treaty on the world at the World Health Assembly (WHA) next year, May of 2024. And preparatory to that, they’re going to be holding a World Health Assembly this month, at which they’ll be talking about the draft of the treaty and the draft of the IHR amendments and other such developments.
So, we’re looking at about a one-year timeline before whatever it is they’re cooking up will be foisted upon the world, unless there is some dramatic movement to stop that.
In the short run, it seems unlikely that the incredible institutional momentum is going to be derailed, but having said that, we could look at things that have happened in the past that have completely derailed agendas that seemed inevitable, including the 2009 edition of the UNFCCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
In 2009, the UNFCCC was being promoted and hyped — even by the then-president of the EU — as the potential for world government through a new climate accord that would completely rewrite the international rule books.
That was completely derailed by a couple of interesting incidents, one of which was Climategate … Squabbles between some of the developing nations versus the developed world … [also] helped to derail that 2009 conference.
There’s potentially a similar thing happening [now] with the WHO trying to foist regulations and restrictions on developing countries that can’t afford them. As we saw over the course of the past few years, it was the African countries that held out against the biosecurity state agenda, to a large degree.
And I think people who are interested in invoking a global biosecurity surveillance net probably are most concerned about how developing countries will or will not participate in this. So, there may be a similar sort of geo-economic squabbling or something else that might derail this, so I don’t think we should simply consign ourselves to the inevitability of it before it happens.”
Is Elon Musk Controlled Opposition?
Determining the trustworthiness of people within the alternative news space is a challenge everyone is faced with these days. Accusations of people being controlled opposition are common. The same goes for high-profile individuals in general. For example, some people, including Corbett and investigative journalist Whitney Webb, believe Elon Musk is likely controlled opposition. What led them to that conclusion?
“It’s a question that a lot of people have, so let’s dig into it,” Corbett says. On the one side you have people who believe Musk is exposing and undermining the military industrial intelligence complex. On the other are those who think he’s just playing a “good guy” role while surreptitiously furthering Deep State goals. As noted by Corbett, it’s hard to overlook the massive support Musk has received from the military industrial intelligence complex over the course of his career.
“We don’t have to speculate about that,” Corbett says. “That is a matter of public record. We can point to the half a billion dollars or so that the Department of Defense has awarded SpaceX in a series of contracts over the past few years to send satellites up into orbit of classified nature on unregistered, unreported missions that presumably have something to do with the DOD’s declared intention to make space into a war-fighting domain.
There’s the $3 billion in NASA contracts that SpaceX was awarded in 2021 to develop the human lander for the Artemis Mission, and the never-going-to-happen constantly delayed moon trip that the public is being promised. There’s the $750 million that was awarded to Solar City in 2016 by the state of New York to build a solar cell production facility.
This, again, is another aspect of the business opportunities that Musk is involved in that I think shrieks of grift — a boondoggle at the very least, constantly promising a technology that not only doesn’t deliver but actually is actively harmful to the environment. I think that’s something that needs to be stressed.
Then, there’s the $1.3 billion that Tesla got from the State of Nevada in 2014 to build the Gigafactory, etc., etc., etc. We could go through the list of such help, but perhaps more to the point was the fact that before Elon Musk got to launch SpaceX, he was part of a trip to Russia … to purchase old Soviet ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles]. That trip ultimately resulted in the starting of SpaceX.
Who was accompanying Elon Musk on that trip? Someone named Mike Griffin, who just happened to be the chief operating officer of In-Q-Tel, which is the CIA’s investment capital arm …
Griffin went on to become the administrator of NASA, who then chose SpaceX as the one company out of the 20 that was applying for it at the time, for this $400 million contract to start development of the new ISS resupply rocket in 2005, which basically launched SpaceX … and again awarded SpaceX $3.5 Billion in 2008 with a contract that Musk himself credits with saving the company.
So, there you go, the literal deep state connections couldn’t get much clearer. At every stage of Musk’s business career, he has been saved as need be with the deus ex machina of deep state agents like Mike Griffin swooping in with billions of dollars of contracts at just the right time.”
That’s why Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover and the release of the Twitter Files may seem to be a move against the military-industrial complex, but given Musk’s documentable ties to that very same military-industrial complex, we must be wary of placing faith in these developments.
After all, Twitter is a centralized platform that lends itself to censorship, algorithmic manipulation and information suppression, and Musk has openly stated that he wants to create a “WeChat”-like app capable of handling every aspect of its users’ digital life.
Why Did Musk Release the Twitter Files?
Corbett suggests that the best way to evaluate Musk’s ideas and contributions is to assess their outcomes.
“Is what Elon Musk advocating good or bad? Do we agree with it or do we disagree with it? Is it right or wrong? And why do we think so? That has to be the heart that we keep coming back to. So, we have to evaluate Musk’s ideas on that basis,” he says.
“For example, there are ideas that Musk promotes that I am 100% onboard with. He has talked about the overpopulation myth and the under-population crisis that humanity is facing. I very much agree with him on that assessment. When he talks about the ill effects of lockdowns … absolutely, I think he’s right about that.
However, when he talks about the imposition of a carbon tax in line with Bill Gates and Mark Carney and the like, I think he’s pushing a bad idea that is part of a plan for centralization of control in globalist hands.
When he gets on the stage of the World Government Summit and argues for universal basic income, again in line with any number of globalist operatives, I think he is promoting an idea that will be used for centralization of economic control in fewer hands.
When he talks about the … Neuralink brain chip … [he’s] exactly in line with what [World Economic Forum founder] Klaus Schwab has been arguing … I think that is a bad idea that is going to be used for control of the masses by a technocratic elite.”
As for Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and subsequent release of the Twitter Files, Corbett doesn’t think it’s a great surprise to find that the military industrial intelligence complex has been using it to monitor and manipulate people. He believes Musk’s job may well be to make the platform trustworthy again so that government agencies can continue using it for surveillance and control.
There’s other evidence pointing in this direction as well. Musk has said he wants Twitter to become the WeChat app of America. And what is WeChat? It’s a Chinese government-controlled app that monitors every aspect citizens’ lives, including their financial transactions, social transactions, communications, whereabouts and more.
It’s basically the foundation for the communist social credit system. So, while Musk claims to be a defender of free speech, he’s also talking about turning Twitter into THE central hub for the technocratic surveillance and control network.
Stop Looking for a Savior
As noted by Corbett, what we need to do is “take responsibility for our own lives rather than looking for saviors like Elon Musk to swoop in and save the day.” We can’t lay that burden on any given individual or group of individuals. We must all do our part.
“I think the conversation can get stuck on stupid because even though I tend to believe that Musk is some form of collaborator with the deep state that he pretends to oppose, I don’t have proof of that and I do not know that for a fact, in the same way that his defenders do not know for a fact that he is not part of that controlled opposition,” Corbett says.
“We can spend all our time and energy talking about this person and what we think their part is in all of this, or we could spend that time productively engaged in research, actually verifying, triangulating information, discerning what is true and what is not true.
When we take information down to that level, then it does not matter who is the person out there conveying that information to us. The important part is the information.”
It’s also important to understand that “divide and conquer” is the primary way the control network maintains control, and all that’s needed to divide a previously unified front is insinuation and the seeding of doubt. In the short-term, the globalist takeover seems to have an unstoppable momentum behind it, but seemingly inevitable moves toward tyranny have been derailed at the last minute in the past and we must not give up hope or stop resisting. As explained by Corbett:
“The term cognitive infiltration goes back to Cass Sunstein, the person who became Obama’s information czar … He co-wrote a paper about cognitive infiltration in which he openly stated:
‘The government maybe should send people into conspiracy spaces, conspiracy groups, with cognitive infiltrators who will go in there and conceal their identity as being affiliated with the government, but will try to insert facts that will break the narrative of the conspiracy theorists.’
And what was the result of that paper? Rather than anyone having been exposed as being that cognitive infiltrator on the payroll of the U.S. government, what it effectively did was give people ammunition to speculate endlessly.
‘This person is a cognitive infiltrator, that person is a cognitive infiltrator,’ to the point where, ultimately, I think Sunstein wins without even necessarily having to implement that system at all, because … the group fractures once the idea of pointing fingers at everyone becomes the norm …
That is, in fact, precisely how the FBI’s COINTELPRO program worked back in the 1950s and ’60s … One of the tactics they used was to put people into meetings in various spaces, the Black Panthers and others, in order to start spreading rumors and calling other people government agents.
The government agents were generally the ones that we’re calling other people government agents in order to disrupt the groups, so I think we have to keep that in mind and keep our eye on the real prize here, which is discerning fact from fiction, truth from falsity, productive ways forward from unproductive ways forward.”
ChatGPT and the Future of Propaganda
I’ve often marveled at the effectiveness of modern propaganda. Part of what makes it so effective is the availability of technology, from social media and search engines to large language model artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has taken the world by storm and companies across a range of industries are already talking about replacing large numbers of white collar workers with AI.
This, even though there are serious problems with this technology. For example, we’re finding chatbots have a tendency to lie and fantasize. Researchers are calling these instances “hallucinations.” Basically, the AI is concocting a fantasy based on the information available and reciting it as fact. And that’s in addition to the bias that can be built in by programmers. So, while it’s an incredibly exciting technology, we cannot be naïve about its risks.
One obvious risk is that state-endorsed propaganda can become the only information available to people, as this technology starts monopolizing online searches and virtual assistants.
There won’t be a multitude of answers anymore. There will only be one, and he who controls the AI will have the power to control the beliefs of the entire world. Of course, yet another risk is that no one will be able to control it and the AI will control itself. I don’t know which might be worse. Corbett comments:
“You introduced this topic with the concept of propaganda and potential uses of large language models for propagandistic purposes. We should go back to the man who wrote the book on propaganda called ‘Propaganda,’ Edward Bernays, who [said]:
‘The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country.’
That was Edward Bernays in 1928. His words are as true today as they were then, perhaps even more so. And the true ruling power of the country, of the world at this point perhaps, are those who can most effectively, consciously and intelligently manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses.
And I don’t think enough people have really stopped to cogitate on the fact that these large language models already starting to produce material that really cannot be distinguished from human-written material…
You don’t have to be a crystal ball prognosticator to see how this will extend out in the foreseeable future … [to] the point where you can have entire conversations, entire fields of interest and study that will be completely populated by artificial-created conversation
[ … ]
A large language model that is able to accurately and without much prompting be able to populate botnets to flood social media and other places will essentially be able to dominate that conversation, [and] will consciously and intelligently manipulate the habits and opinions of the masses. At that point, you are talking about the ultimate weapon.
The ultimate weapon is narrative, because with a convincing-enough narrative, you can get entire populations motivated to war or to anything else that you seek to get them to do, like say lock down the entire productive global economy on the back of a scare that was absolutely not warranted.
So, I think once we start getting these completely synthetically-generated narratives, that will start creating these entire events that are not happening in the real world. [These events] will be deep-faked through video and audio and everything else, to convince you of an entire reality that doesn’t exist.
We are really moving into some truly world historical changing times and I don’t know if enough people are really cognizant of … how this technology could be used for good or for ill …
I think there is a real threat, and it is probably underappreciated by a large section of the public that are not keeping abreast of the daily torrent of information on this subject … Some of the testing notes for ChatGPT-4 that were released showed there was a team that was tasking the chatbot with a certain task that would require it to do things that it was not programmed to do, or even authorized to do, including solving a CAPTCHA …
[The chatbot] actually went on Fiverr or one of those types of platforms and recruited a human being to do it for it, to the point where the human said, ‘Why are you recruiting me to do a CAPTCHA? How do I know you’re not a bot? Ha-ha-ha.’ To which it responded, ‘I’m blind, I’m visually impaired, I can’t do it myself.’ Ultimately, it ended up getting that CAPTCHA solved.
It does not take a great degree of imagination to see where that can go. I don’t know what kind of safeguards you can program into a technology like that, other than to completely keep it firewalled off from the internet and from any other computer system that it may be able to commandeer.”
Solutions Watch
On his website, Corbett has a section called The Solutions Watch, where he proposes action steps that you can take to address a given problem, both big and small. For example, on the smaller scale, he’s discussed the importance of filtering your water, and testing your water to ensure it’s being filtered properly.
“One thing that I think is sort of the foundation upon which we will have to build any thoroughgoing answer to the problems we’re facing is creating conscious community with others,” Corbett says.
“Of course, that can take the form of online and virtual community. I’m not going to pooh-pooh or disdain that. I think it is important to know like-minded people online. But increasingly, how can we trust what we are reading, seeing or interacting with online?
I think the real point is to try to build real community with real people in the real world. That could take the form of intentional communities that are created from the ground up as a physical location that people will relocate to … but I think it is extremely difficult to do that.
But at the very least, people can and should be finding like-minded people within their geographical proximity that they can meet up with, who will be there in emergencies, hopefully. But also that they can start forming small groups, that they can start teaching each other about various things that they may know and bringing solutions to the table.
I think that can be the core basis upon which we start erecting other things, because one thing that I’ve looked at over the years are some of these big, huge issues that seem utterly overwhelming and completely impenetrable to the average person, like the fundamental fraud that underlies the economy itself is the monetary system, which for people who haven’t looked into it, the money supply itself is very much controlled, and the creation of money is a tool that is used for enslavement.
It could be used for human flourishing, but is not in our current economy. How do we possibly combat a problem as thoroughgoing as that? [Many people] I encounter online have ideas about the perfect alternative currency … but [they] haven’t convinced anyone to use it. To me, that speaks to the fundamental problem.”
Build Community and Get Out of Metropolitan Areas
At the top of Corbett’s solutions list is building parallel communities. That’s really a foundational strategy because without it, many other solutions can’t work. To that, I would add the recommendation to move out of crime-ridden urban and metropolitan areas and into areas where this kind of community-building is more likely to succeed. As noted by Corbett:
“Until you have a community of people who are going to be working together on projects like an alternative or supplemental currency system, how are you going to launch something like that in a thoroughgoing manner?
I think the core of the solutions that we’re looking for lies with community, meeting like-minded people … I’m not into this Pollyanna thinking that it’s all going to be easy. It’s an incredibly, incredibly difficult task to start creating an alternate currency, an alternate power grid and the alternate society that we need to protect ourselves, to buffer ourselves from this encroaching biosecurity, technocratic enslavement grid.
That’s a pretty tall order, and I can’t offer any assurances that it’s going to turn out all right. But I do know that if we just lay down and continue on the course that we’re on, we are hurtling towards a brick wall of extinction, essentially. I really see this as a fundamental existential question that we are facing not just on the artificial intelligence front, but also on the genomic manipulation front, on the manipulation of the food supply.
If you are what you eat, then what does it mean that they’re going to start feeding us insects and other such unpalatable items?
It is absolutely a war that is taking place on every front, all at once, and we’re not going to get through this by ourselves. Unless you are the type of person that can go out in the woods and live by yourself for decades … I don’t think you’re going to escape this all by yourself, so I think creating community is sort of the core of all solutions.”
More Information
Corbett’s reports, Solution Watch and documentaries can all be found on his website, CorbettReport.com. He also does a weekly news update series with James Evan Pilato of mediamonarchy.com, in which they examine three news stories that are either trending or have slipped beneath the radar. “We try to draw attention to them and put them in the right context,” Corbett says.
Corbett’s work can also be found on BitChute, Odyssee, Rumble, Rokfin and Substack. Other trustworthy news sources that Corbett recommends include but are not limited to:
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MERCOLA Take Control of Your Healthhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMERCOLA Take Control of Your Health2023-05-14 05:41:292023-05-14 05:50:45Elon Musk: Visionary Leader or Master Manipulator?
I have to admit: when I was first asked to research Spotify as a potential Dirty Dozen List target, I may have rolled my eyes a little bit. Spotify is just for streaming music and podcasts, right? How bad could it be?
. . . As it turns out, pretty bad.
Pornography on Spotify
To my shock, a single quick search on Spotify revealed that music and educational podcasts aren’t the only thing on the streaming app. There’s also an abundance of pornography.
This can be in the form of sexually explicit images (e.g. profile images, playlist thumbnails), audio pornography (e.g. recordings of sex sounds or sexually explicit stories read aloud), or written pornography (e.g. in the descriptions for pornography podcasts).
What really outraged me was that, for the most part, this pornography was not blocked by Spotify’s explicit content filter—even though the company assures parents that this filter will block any content which “may not be appropriate for kids.” The audio pornography is rarely caught by the filter, and the visual and written pornography is never caught by the filter, because it is not designed to block images or description. Opting to block explicit content will only stop kids from playing the content, but everything remains visible.
Spotify’s reviews on Common Sense Media are overwhelmingly of parents expressing shock and dismay after discovering pornography on the app. Many of these parents even paid for premium subscriptions in order to be able to control the explicit content filter on their child’s account—only to discover that, contrary to Spotify’s deceptive advertising, this filter does next to nothing to protect their children from pornography.
“Totally shocked and appalled by discovering porn podcasts are not sensored by the explicit content function. . . What on earth are Spotify thinking???”
“BEWARE! This app has PORN, not just PORN MUSIC, but sexually explicit podcasts and graphic images.”
“Parents need to be aware that the spotify “family plan” DOES NOT block explicit content as it claims. Innocent children just trying to listen to music can very easily and accidentally come across the audio porn and “podcasts” that spotify has on their site.”
Further, much of this content should not even be on Spotify to begin with, as the company claims to prohibit “pornography or visual depictions of genitalia or nudity presented for the purpose of sexual gratification.” However, it is clear that the company is doing little, if anything at all, to proactively enforce this prohibition. The sheer ease with which pornographic content can be found would suggest Spotify is not actively looking for it to remove. I also spoke to a podcaster who shared that Spotify always flagged any of her episodes which mentioned the COVID vaccine (regardless of what was said), but that episodes which had the word “pornography” in the title were not flagged. What this shows is that Spotify can and does rigorously monitor potentially problematic content in some cases but is not interested in doing so when it comes to their prohibition on pornography.
Child Sexual Exploitation on Spotify
As if the existence of pornography on Spotify isn’t shocking enough, the platform has also been used for the purpose of child sexual exploitation.
In January 2020, a high-profile case of an 11-year-old girl being groomed and sexually exploited on Spotify madenewsheadlines. Sexual predators communicated with the young girl via playlist titles and encouraged her to upload numerous sexually explicit photos of herself as the cover image of playlists she made. They also exchanged emails via this method of communication.
When I looked for myself, I easily found multiple profiles on Spotify that seemed to be or have been dedicated to soliciting or sharing “nudes.” One of these profiles shared an email address and tagged other users in playlists, asking them to send nudes.
See also survivor-advocate Catie Reay’s TikTok video, which delves into the issue of grooming on Spotify
Further, when I was gathering evidence of pornography on Spotify, one of the first results was a pornography podcast for which the thumbnail appeared to be child sexual abuse material (CSAM, the more apt term for “child pornography”).
After reporting this content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), I attempted to report it to Spotify. What ensued was an appalling goose chase which, in sum, revealed that Spotify has no clear reporting procedure for child sexual exploitation. I was forced to make a general report for “dangerous content” and did not even have an option to add more details in the report explaining that it was for child sexual abuse material (The full, confusing process of me struggling to determine how to report child sexual exploitation on Spotify is documented in this downloadable PDF, under the section “child sexual exploitation”).
The report was made three weeks ago. Currently, the content is still active.
Further, NCMEC’s 2022 annual report found that, more than 90% of the time Spotify reported content to them, the report “lacked adequate, actionable information.” In other words, the reports “contained such little information that it was not possible for NCMEC to determine where the offense occurred or the appropriate law enforcement agency to receive the report.”
This is incredibly egregious, especially considering the recent media attention over the sexual exploitation of the 11 year-old girl, to which Spotify responded that they take the problem of child sexual abuse material “extremely seriously” and “have processes and technology in place” to address it.
Earth to Spotify: Streamlined reporting procedures for child sexual exploitation is the most basic, bare minimum safety measure!
Content that Normalizes Sexual Violence, Abuse, and Incest
I and my colleagues were deeply disturbed by the horrific content we found on Spotify which normalized, trivialized, and even encouraged sexual violence, abuse, and incest. This content was appallingly easy to find, and even surfaced when we weren’t looking for it.
For example, one NCOSE researcher was attempting to search for rap music—but the term “rap” instead led her to content joking about “raping a pregnant b—ch.” In another case, she tried to search for the song “Boy’s a liar,” which is popular with teens. Simply typing the single word “boy” led her to results normalizing “step” incest. These results were on a newly made account for a 13-year-old, so search history was not affecting the results.
Other content we found included a podcast which walked people through the steps to commit rape and not get caught by the authorities, animated imagery of what appeared to be rape, audio pornography depicting child sexual abuse, content encouraging adults to roleplay child sexual abuse as a fetish, content normalizing cousins having sexual relations, and much more.
The more disturbing proof has been withheld but can be viewed in this downloadable PDF
On paper, Spotify prohibits “advocating or glorifying sexual themes related to rape, incest, or beastiality”—but again, these policies are clearly poorly enforced.
Why Spotify is on the Dirty Dozen List
By placing Spotify on the 2023 Dirty Dozen List, NCOSE is not making a statement that Spotify is the worst corporation out there. The Dirty Dozen List is not a “top 12” list and we weigh numerous factors in deciding which entities to feature. In the case of Spotify, we think it is important to raise awareness of the dangers as it is a platform that most people trust, making it easy for the harms to take kids and parents off guard. Further, we think Spotify can (and must) make some quick, easy changes to greatly improve safety on their platform. Placing them on the Dirty Dozen List allows you to join us in calling on them to make those changes!
ACTION: Call on Spotify to Clean Up Its Act!
Please take 30 SECONDS to complete this quick action form, calling on Spotify to better protect kids and to stop facilitating sexual abuse and exploitation!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00National Center on Sexual Exploitationhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNational Center on Sexual Exploitation2023-05-13 07:59:422023-05-13 07:59:42Spotify on the Dirty Dozen List???
On Tuesday, news broke that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded a study on mostly minors who purported to identify as transgender, in which they were given cross-sex hormones over the course of two years. Two of the study’s participants ended up committing suicide, and 11 more experienced suicidal ideation. Lawmakers and doctors are expressing outrage that taxpayer dollars were used to fund a study that caused death and irreversible harm to children.
The study, entitled “Psychosocial Functioning in Transgender Youth after 2 Years of Hormones,” was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in January and was conducted by the Boston Children’s Hospital, the University of California at San Francisco, and the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago under a $477,444 five-year grant from NIH. It studied 315 participants aged 12-20 who identified as transgender or nonbinary, 240 of which were minors.
Each participant was given cross-sex hormones over the course of the two-year study, meaning that they were given hormones of the opposite biological sex in order to appear more like the opposite sex. Despite claiming that “appearance congruence, positive affect, and life satisfaction increased, and depression and anxiety symptoms decreased” among the participants, the study went on to acknowledge that two people died by suicide and 11 people experienced “suicidal ideation” (“a broad term used to describe a range of contemplations, wishes, and preoccupations with death and suicide”).
“It is sickening that the federal government is preying on young people and using our taxpayer dollars to advance its radical gender ideology,” Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) told The Daily Signal. “We are rightfully demanding answers from NIH, and we are committed to holding those responsible accountable for this tragic loss of life.” Brecheen is one of 15 Republican lawmakers that signed a letter to NIH Acting Director Lawrence Tabak expressing “grave concerns” over the study.
“Despite overwhelming evidence that chemically transitioning children is not safe, the NIH plans to give more than $10.6 million to experiment on children and adolescents through 2026,” the letter states. “We are deeply concerned about your agency’s use of taxpayer dollars to advance experiments on children who will be irreversibly harmed by radical gender ideology.”
Doctors are also expressing serious concerns over the study. During Wednesday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a pediatric endocrinologist and former president of the American College of Pediatricians, pointed out that the study was conducted using questionable methodology.
“It’s a very unusual study in that it’s not like other studies where you have unified criteria across the centers, a set of consent forms that’s uniform for the whole project,” he explained. “[Most studies] are governed by an institutional review board that’s independent … and they require a very strict consent form for adolescents. They have a safety committee, which is a separate entity which has no financial interest in any way with those doing the study. So it’s a very clean and solid way to stop a study and examine it when things go wrong.”
“That does not apply to this study,” Van Meter continued. “For some reason, it’s not a standard study. Nothing was standardized by it. Each center was doing just what they wanted to do and what they continue to do. And they call it an ‘observational study’ to get out from under the regular kinds of regulations which [would] have stopped this study in its tracks. The sad thing is … the two deaths are unconscionable.”
Van Meter, who also serves as an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Morehouse School of Medicine, went on to note that a total of $5 million was originally granted for a five-year study.
“It’s perverse that they’re [publishing] this study [with] the first two years [of] data … as a study hailing success of their programs. It is an absolute sham with faulty reasoning [and] faulty representation. … I was at the Pediatric Endocrine Society meetings in San Diego just over this past weekend, and it was lauded by the interest groups as being one of the most concrete studies to show the benefits of their labor and their ideology. And clearly it doesn’t show that.”
Van Meter further detailed the health outcomes that result from giving minors cross-sex hormones.
“They will be sterilized, first of all, that’s the baseline of the horrific nature of the outcomes,” he underscored. “On top of that, there is the side effects of the medications that create disease. … We have known about [that] in medicine for as long as we’ve known about hormones and their effects going back into the early 1920s. … [T]here’s plenty of data from top to bottom to show that every one of the drugs they’re using has adverse consequences. The overall lifespan of the transgender population is half that of the U.S. population. … [T]hey’re creating medical problems that would not have otherwise existed. And these poor individuals not only are sterile, but they are sexually incompetent. They have no ability to have any real sexual function moving forward when their organs are fried by cross-sex hormones. Their brain [development is] adversely affected, and the adolescent age bone density is taken apart and they end up having frequent fractures in adulthood because of that.”
Van Meter continued, “It’s just a panoply of disease that otherwise would not have existed if the child had been counseled and walked through the process, which is the real international standard of care — to not medicalize this, but realize it’s based on mental health issues, and resolving those mental health issues essentially resolves the transgender affirmation or the transgender identification in [over] 90% of all these kids.”
The endocrinologist additionally emphasized how many European countries are “10 years ahead” of the U.S. in determining that there is “no proven benefit to mental health and likely a deterioration of mental health” due to gender transition procedures through the use of broad systemic reviews of the literature. In October, Van Meter highlighted the fact that the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, and France have all taken steps to restrict minors from being able to undergo irreversible gender transition procedures.
Perkins further observed that efforts like the NIH-funded study will likely be remembered with “shock and horror” decades from now, just as the Tuskegee syphilis study is today.
“You’re absolutely right,” Van Meter responded. “And hopefully it will be sooner [rather] than later that the real reality breaks forth and the world knows how evil this concept is of taking healthy children with mental health problems and throwing hormones and surgery at them to create a solution which does not work and never has worked. You know … there’s going to be maybe a million plus children around the world who have been permanently damaged. And that is the sad thing. You know, my heart says we need to do this yesterday and shut this down.”
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 Council2023-05-12 11:11:492023-05-12 11:11:49‘Sickening’: NIH Funds Transgender ‘Experiment’ on Mostly Minors, Leaving 2 Dead
In a recent official government report, the Biden administration has warned that Americans’ “health may be undermined” due to their “decline in participation” in church services and other religious activities.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued the first-ever government advisory on the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” earlier this month, calling persistent isolation an “urgent public health issue” that impacts the physical and mental health of millions. “Research shows that loneliness and isolation are associated with a greater risk of heart disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death,” says Murthy in an online video released to coincide with the report.
Loneliness is as bad for individuals as smoking 15 cigarettes a day — a pack-and-a-half daily habit — and harms physical health “even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity,” the report notes.
Unfortunately, Murthy writes, Americans have become disconnected from one of the institutions that can forge deep and permanent social connections: church attendance. “Religious or faith-based groups can be a source for regular social contact, serve as a community of support, provide meaning and purpose, create a sense of belonging around shared values and beliefs, and are associated with reduced risk-taking behaviors,” Murthy writes. “As a consequence of this decline in participation, individuals’ health may be undermined in different ways.”
“Membership in organizations that have been important pillars of community connection have declined significantly,” including “faith organizations,” writes Murthy. “In 2020, only 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue, or mosque. This is down from 70% in 1999 and represents a dip below 50% for the first time in the history of the survey question.”
Experts have known about the fraying web of meaningful personal relationships for decades. For instance, the percentage of American men who said they have no close friends had increased 500% between 1990 and 2021. But a persistent sense of abandonment reached societal proportions during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Church attendance and health issues have an inverse relationship, according to multiple studies, including a new report released by evangelical pollster George Barna.
The percentage of millennials who attended a church worship service, either in-person or online, dropped by seven percentage points over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, says the study from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University (ACU), where Barna is director of research.
The retreat from faith has devastated young people, Barna told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” recently.
Separate ACU polls found that 75% of millennials “say, ‘I don’t know why I should get out of bed in the morning,’” said Barna. A majority “admit that every day they’re struggling with mental health issues, severe depression, anxiety, fear,” and “the highest suicide rate of any generation we’ve ever seen.”
That’s roughly the percentage of millennials who do not attend religious services: Only 28% take part in services in any way.
Young adults’ isolation persists despite the fact that millennials desperately yearn for meaningful social interactions at a core level. “They believe that relationships are vitally important. They want to be connected. They want to belong. They want to be part of a community,” Barna told Perkins. “But they say it’s not working. It’s not happening.”
In part, Americans became disconnected from churches because of the churches — and government policies shutting down churches while allowing marijuana dispensaries to remain open.
“The last three years have been a time of high anxiety for tens of millions of adults. It was an ideal time for the Christian church to provide wise guidance and emotional calm. Unfortunately, most churches agreed to the government’s dictate that they close their doors and remain mostly silent,” says Barna in a statement accompanying the ACU’s research.
“Obviously, that has not worked out so well,” Barna observes.
Millennials were not the only demographic to give up congregational worship. Generation X saw their church attendance fall 13 points, from 41% to 28%. Although 53% of the oldest American generation attends church, that’s a three-point drop from 2020. Only Baby Boomers became “more likely now than they were before COVID-19 to read the Bible, praise and worship God, seek and do God’s will, and attend church services,” says the report.
During the pandemic, “every generation turns to their worldview to navigate the challenges,” says Barna. “As a nation, we may be past the danger of COVID-19, but we’re in the thick of the danger brought about by people relying upon syncretism as their dominant worldview. Biblical churches must see this as a time for an urgent response to the direction society is taking.”
The surgeon general is not the first to find that frequenting a church increases longevity and improves overall health. “[A]ttendance at religious services had a dose-response relationship with mortality, such that respondents who attended frequently had a 40% lower hazard of mortality,” wrote researchers at Emory University in a 2017 research paper.
The correlation between a strong faith and psychological well-being is well-attested by social science. “Young-adult Gen-Xers in the strongly religious class across the three measurements generally reported better mental health when they reached established adulthood than those in the nonreligious class,” reported a 2022 study by a team of analysts from Syracuse University. “Findings suggest that religiosity may serve as an important resource for mental health in the transition to established adulthood.”
Barna says this is a perfect time for the church to proclaim the Christian message, for Americans’ spiritual and physical health. The Bible encourages deep connections to fellow believers across the boundaries of time, space, and culture. Scriptural anthropology begins with the observation that “it is not good that man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). The New Testament exhorts Christians to “consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
“While the Left pursues the Great Reset, it is time for the Church to pursue the Great Renewal — leading people’s hearts, minds, and souls back to God and His life principles,” wrote Barna.
The full section of the surgeon general’s report reads:
“Membership in organizations that have been important pillars of community connection have declined significantly in this time. Take faith organizations, for example. Research produced by Gallup, Pew Research Center, and the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey demonstrates that since the 1970s, religious preference, affiliation, and participation among U.S. adults have declined. In 2020, only 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue, or mosque. This is down from 70% in 1999 and represents a dip below 50% for the first time in the history of the survey question. Religious or faith-based groups can be a source for regular social contact, serve as a community of support, provide meaning and purpose, create a sense of belonging around shared values and beliefs, and are associated with reduced risk-taking behaviors. As a consequence of this decline in participation, individuals’ health may be undermined in different ways.”
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 Council2023-05-12 10:58:022023-05-15 14:42:51Americans’ ‘Health May be Undermined’ by Not Going to Church: Surgeon General
