Abortion Pills: Risky Business

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New battlegrounds are taking shape after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.  One is abortion pills, which now account for more than half of all abortions.  Abortion advocates are determined to turn the nation’s 27,000 pharmacies into new abortion clinics.  Conservatives are working to keep that from happening.

Twenty Republican state Attorneys General warned Walgreens and CVS sending abortion pills by mail violates federal law despite Biden administration claims to the contrary.  Walgreens said it would not dispense the abortion pill mifepristone in Kansas after receiving a warning from the state’s Attorney General.  Texas filed a lawsuit to block a Biden administration rule requiring pharmacies to fill abortion pill prescriptions nationwide, even in states where abortion is illegal.  A conservative legal group sued the FDA for approving abortion pills on the pretext pregnancy is an ‘illness’ and without studying their safety.  Abortion activists have answered with a litigation trump card of their own, arguing in a case filed in West Virginia that states can’t ban drugs approved by the FDA.

The Biden administration has refused to divulge information about its decision to expand the use of the abortion drug mifepristone.  A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit has been filed to pry it loose, in the belief the administration did not appropriately review the evidence of the safety risks before moving ahead.

Advocates claim abortion pills are safe – “safer than Tylenol” they say – but that’s a typical Leftist con job.  The fact of the matter is abortion pills can kill you.  A 19-year-old woman died from septic shock after taking an abortion pill.  In the U.S., at least 28 deaths have been linked to abortion pills, so it’s Russian roulette when you pull the trigger.  Moreover, one in 17 women who take abortion pills end up needing hospitalization.

Death and injury are not the only risks of abortion pills.  There are reports of women being coerced into taking them against their will.  Boyfriends can slip abortion pills into a woman’s drink.  Women often misjudge how far along their pregnancy is, resulting in late-term babies being born alive at home after an abortion pill is taken.  Then there’s the trauma of seeing your aborted baby’s body after the abortion pill does its damage.  The psychological effects of chemical abortions are just beginning to be studied, but it’s already clear grief, shame, regret, and remorse can persist for years.

The Left doesn’t make full disclosure of these risks, because they don’t want you to know about them.  They don’t care if you die in the process, they just want you to push the ‘easy’ button and thank them with your vote for the privilege.  Not only do abortion advocates not talk about the risks of abortion pills, they go out of their way to perfect the art of the con.  They gladly sell abortion pills to girls as young as 15 through the mail without a medical exam that would determine how far along they are, and will do so without the parents’ knowledge or consent.  Heaven forbid anyone stop and think about the risks.   Abortionistas also leverage their control of government to expand the use of abortion pills without discussing the risks.  New York City gives them away for free.  The law in New York also requires health insurers to provide them as part of maternity coverage.

Here’s another thing abortion supporters don’t want you to know:  Women who take an abortion pill and experience regret right away can get help reversing a chemical abortion.  Over 4,000 babies have been saved this way in the last ten years.  The Abortion Pill Rescue Network (APRN) has 1,200 medical professionals who are committed to helping women and saving lives.  Why isn’t the Left talking about that?  So much for “choice” and “control over your own body”. 

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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The sudden dominance of the Diversity Industrial Complex

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Little more than a decade ago, DEI was just another arcane acronym, a clustering of three ideas, each to be weighed and evaluated against other societal values. The terms diversity, equity, and inclusion weren’t yet being used in the singular, as one all-inclusive, non-negotiable moral imperative. Nor had they coalesced into a bureaucratic juggernaut running roughshod over every aspect of national life.

They are now.

Seemingly in unison, and with almost no debate, nearly every major American institution – including federal, state, and local governments, universities and public schools, hospitals, insurance, media and technology companies and major retail brands – has agreed that the DEI infrastructure is essential to the nation’s proper functioning. From Amazon to Walmart, most major corporations have created and staffed DEI offices within their human resources bureaucracy. So have sanitation departments, police departments, physics departments, and the departments of agriculture, commerce, defense, education and energy. Organizations that once argued against DEI now feel compelled to institute DEI training and hire DEI officers. So have organizations that are already richly diverse, such as the National Basketball Association and the National Football League.

Many of these offices in turn work with a sprawling network of DEI consulting firms, training outfits, trade organizations and accrediting associations that support their efforts.

“Five years ago, if you said ‘DEI,’ people would’ve thought you were talking about the Digital Education Initiative,” Robert Sellers, University of Michigan’s first chief diversity officer, said in 2020. “Five years ago, if you said DEI was a core value of this institution, you would have an argument.”

Diversity, equity and inclusion is an intentionally vague term used to describe sanctioned favoritism in the name of social justice. Its Wikipedia entry indicates a lack of agreement on the definition, while Merriam-Webster.com and the Associated Press online style guide have no entry (the AP offers guidance on related terms).

Industrial strength diversity

Yet however defined, it’s clear DEI is now much more than an academic craze or corporate affectation.

“It’s an industry in every sense of the word,” says Peter Schuck, professor emeritus of law at Yale. “My suspicion is that many of the offices don’t do what they say. But they’re hiring people, giving them titles and pretty good money. I don’t think they do nothing.”

It’s difficult to know how large the DEI Industrial Complex has become. The Bureau of Labor Statistics hasn’t assessed its size. Two decades ago, MIT professor Thomas Kochan estimated that diversity was already an $8 billion-a-year industry. Yet along with the addition of equity, inclusion, and like terms, the industry has surely grown an order of magnitude larger. Six years ago, McKinsey and Company estimated that American companies were spending $8 billion a year on diversity training alone. DEI hiring and training have only accelerated in the years since.

“In the scope and rapidity of institutional embrace,” writes Marti Gurri, a former CIA analyst who studies media and politics, “nothing like it has transpired since the conversion of Constantine.”

Yet in our time, no Roman Emperor has demanded a complete cultural transformation. No law was passed mandating DEI enactment. No federal court ruling has required its implementation. There was no clarion call on the order of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “military industrial complex” warning. No genuine public crisis matched the scale of the response.

The history of “diversity”

The sources of this transformation are both deep and fairly recent. On one level, they can be traced back to the egalitarian movements that have long shaped American history – from the nation’s founding, through the Civil War and Reconstruction to the battles for women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement, and same-sex marriage. In other ways, the rapid transformation can seem no more explicable than an eccentric fashion trend, like men of the late 18th century wearing periwigs. However, a few pivot points of recent history bent its arc in DEI’s direction.

The push for affirmative action is the most obvious influence, a program first conceived during the Reconstruction era but then abandoned for nearly a century. Although triumphs for social justice, the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights acts of the late 1950s and 1960s didn’t stop discrimination; the country would need to take more affirmative steps toward assisting minority groups and achieving more equitable outcomes, proponents argued. A controversial policy from the start (with the Supreme Court expected to curb its use in college admissions this term), affirmative action was further complicated by immigration reforms that allowed for more non-European immigrants, setting off a seismic demographic shift that continues to reverberate.

The diversity movement of the early 1990s was in part an attempt to capitalize on the new multicultural reality. Stressing individual and institutional benefits rather than moral failings, early corporate diversity training programs hewed to traditional values of equality and meritocracy. Creating a diverse workplace, R. Roosevelt Thomas wrote in the Harvard Business Review, in 1990, “should always be a question of pure competence and character unmuddled by birth.”

And in many ways it appears to have worked. Just look at the tech industry, where immigrants from East and South Asia have flourished. Nigerian immigrants are perhaps the most successful group in America, with nearly two-thirds holding college degrees. Doors have opened wide to the once-closeted LGBT community.

But in other ways, the recent explosion of DEI initiatives reflects shortcomings of earlier efforts, as suggested by the headline of 2016 article in the Harvard Business Review, “Why Diversity Fails.” Even as high-achieving first- and second-generation immigrants have thrived in certain industries, particularly STEM fields, people of color remain scarce in senior institutional positions. There is also the deeper issue of what many in the post-George Floyd era have taken to calling systemic or structural racism, citing major disparities for black Americans in education, healthcare, homeownership, arrests, incarceration, and household wealth.

More recently, a spate of widely publicized police killings of unarmed African Americans has galvanized a growing belief, especially among progressives and especially since Donald Trump’s election, that America is an irredeemably racist nation. In 2020, in the wake of the Floyd murder and in advance of a fraught election, a moral panic set in. Having increased their ranks, social justice entrepreneurs and bureaucrats were poised to implement an ideological agenda and compound their institutional power.

The “DEIfication” of America”

Although no hard numbers exist on the exact size of the industry, the “DEIfication” of America” is clear. From Rochester, New York, to San Diego, Calif., cash-strapped municipalities have found the funds to staff DEI offices. Startups and small companies that once relied on their own employees to promote an inclusive culture now feel compelled to hire diversity consultants and sensitivity trainers to set them straight. The field is so vast it has born a sub-field: recruiting agencies for DEI consultants. So-called “authenticity readers” tell publishing companies what are acceptable depictions of marginalized groups and who is entitled to tell their stories. Master’s degree and certificate programs in DEI leadership at schools like Cornell, Georgetown, and Yale offer new and lucrative bureaucratic careers.

At Ohio State University, for example, the average DEI staff salary is $78,000, according to public information gathered by economist Mark J. Perry of the American Enterprise Institute – about $103,000 with fringe benefits. Not to be outdone by its Big Ten conference rival, the University of Michigan pays its diversity officers $94,000 on average – about $124,000 with benefits. Until he retired from the position last summer, Michigan’s chief diversity officer, Robert Sellers, was paid over $431,000 a year. His wife, Tabbye Chavous, now has the job, at the vice provost rank and a salary of $380,000.

For smaller organizations that cannot afford a full-time equity officer, there are other options for shoring up social justice bona fides – namely, working with any of the hundreds of DEI consulting agencies that have risen like mushrooms after a night’s rain, most of them led by “BIPOC” millennials. With some firms, the social justice goals are unmistakable. The Racial Equity Institute is “committed to the work of anti-racist transformation” and challenging “patterns of power” on behalf of big-name clients like the Harvard Business School, Ben & Jerry’s, and the American Civil Liberties Union. With others, the appeal has less to do with social change than exploring marketing opportunities and creating a “”with-it” company culture, where progressive politics complement the office foosball tables and kombucha on tap.

“Diversity wins!” declares the management consultancy McKinsey & Company. Certainly diversity officers have been winning, although opposition is building in Florida and elsewhere, where the wider woke agenda that includes DEI has advanced. Even minimally trained practitioners are in high demand, and signs of their influence abound.

Wells Fargo offers cheaper loans to companies that meet racial and gender quotas. Private equity and venture capital firms like BlackRock and KKR declare their commitment to racial “equity.” Bank of America tells its employees they are implicated in a white supremacist system. Lockheed Martin asks its executives to “deconstruct their white male privilege.” Major tech companies like Google publicly chart the “Black+ and Latinx+” people they’ve hired, and assure the public that Artificial Intelligence will prioritize the DEI political agenda. ChapGPT, an AI model that can generate remarkably cogent writing, is been designed with a liberal bias, summarily rejecting requests that don’t conform to the algorithm’s notions of “positivity, equality and inclusivity.” Disney instructs employees to question colorblind beliefs espoused by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others. Fire departments are told to lower their physical fitness requirements for women. Similarly, universities are dropping standardized tests to yield more admissions of certain minorities (typically not Asians). And the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, hoping to award more “films of color,” inspects Oscar-nominated films for cast and crew diversity. (Netflix has been a notable exception, last May laying off dozens of employees working on such issues. Under Elon Musk, Twitter is also flouting woke orthodoxies.)

In education, college students are required to take DEI-prescribed courses. Community college employees in California are evaluated on their DEI competencies. Loyalty oaths to the DEI dogma are demanded of professors. Applicants to tenure-track positions, including those in math and physics, are rejected out of hand if their mandatory DEI statements are found wanting. Increasingly, DEI administrators are involved in hiring, promotion, and course content decisions.

“Academic departments are always thinking, ‘We need to run this by Diversity,’” says Glenn Ricketts, public affairs officer for the National Association of Scholars.

Exclusion in the name of inclusion

The industry’s reach can also be seen in the many Orwellian examples of exclusion in the name of inclusion, of reprisals in the name of tolerance. Invariably, they feature an agitated clutch of activists browbeating administrators and executives into apologizing for an alleged trespass against an ostensibly vulnerable constituency. When that has been deemed insufficient or when senior executives have sensed a threat to their own legitimacy, they’ve offered up scapegoats on false or flimsy pretexts. That might be a decades-long New York Times reporter, a head curator at a major art museum, an adjunct art history professor, a second-year law student, or a janitor at a pricey New England college. (The list is long.)

Often enough, the inquisitions have turned into public relations debacles for major institutions. But despite the intense criticism and public chagrin, the movement marches on.

Laurice Walker, hired by racially calm Tucson as the youngest chief equity officer at age 28 — making $145,000 a year, nearly three and a half times the mayor’s pay.content.govdelivery.com

The expansion “happened gradually at first, and people didn’t recognize the tremendous growth,” Perry says. “But after George Floyd, it really accelerated. It became supercharged. And nobody wanted to criticize it because they would been seen as racists.”

Not playing along with the DEI protocols can end an academic career. For example, when Gordon Klein, a UCLA accounting lecturer, dismissed a request to grade black students more leniently in 2020, the school’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion office intervened to have him put on leave and banned from campus. A counter-protest soon reversed that. However, when Klein also declined to write a DEI statement explaining how his work helped “underrepresented and underserved populations,” he was denied a standard merit raise, despite excellent teaching evaluations. (He is suing for  defamation and other alleged harms.)

Scores of professors and students have also been subject to capricious, secretive, and career-destroying investigations by Title IX officers, who work hand-in-glove with DEI administrators, focusing on gender discrimination and sexual harassment. As writer and former Northwestern University film professor Laura Kipnis recounts in “Unwanted Advances,” individuals can be brought up on charges without any semblance of due process, as she was, simply for “wrongthink” – that is, for having expressed thoughts that someone found objectionable. With activist-administrators assuming the role of grand inquisitors, “the traditional ideal of the university – as a refuge for complexity, a setting for free exchange of ideas – is getting buried under an avalanche of platitudes and fear,” she writes. And it would appear that students and professors would have it no other way. By and large, they want more bureaucratic intervention and regulations, not less.

An ever-growing bureaucracy

As more institutions create DEI offices and hire ever more managers to run them, the enterprise inevitably becomes self-justifying. According to Parkinson’s Law, bureaucracy needs to create more work, however unnecessary or unproductive, to keep growing. Growth itself becomes the overriding imperative. The DEI movement needs the pretext of inequities, real or contrived, to maintain and expand its bureaucratic presence. As Malcolm Kyeyume, a Swedish commentator and self-described Marxist, writes: “Managerialism requires intermediation and intermediation requires a justifying ideology.”

Click here to view the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at Major Universities infographic from the 2021 Heritage Foundation report “Diversity University: DEI Bloat in the Academy.” Heritage Foundation

Ten years ago, Johns Hopkins University political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg found that the ratio of administrators to students had doubled since 1975. With the expansion of DEI, there are more administrators than ever, most of whom have no academic background. On average, according to a Heritage Foundation study, major universities across the country currently employ 45 “diversicrats,” as Perry calls them. With few exceptions, they outnumber the faculty in history departments, often two or three to one.

At Michigan, Perry wasn’t able to find anyone with the words “diversity,” “equity,” or “inclusion” in his job title until 2004; and for the next decade, such positions generally remained centralized at the provost level, working for the university as a whole. But in 2016, Michigan president Mark Schlissel announced that the university would invest $85 million in DEI programs. Soon after, equity offices began to “metastasize like a cancer,” Perry says, across every college, department, and division, from the college of pharmacy to the school’s botanical garden and arboretum, where a full-time DEI manager is now “institutionalizing co-liberatory futures.” All the while, black enrollment at Michigan has dropped by nearly 50% since 1996.

Despite the titles and the handsome salaries, most DEI administrative positions are support staff jobs, not teaching or research positions. In contrast with the provisions of Title IX, DEI is not mandated by law; it is entirely optional. DEI officers nevertheless exert enormous influence, in part because so few people oppose them. The thinking seems to be that if you’re against the expanding and intrusive diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda, you must be for the opposite – discrimination, inequality, and exclusion.

“By telling themselves that they’re making the world a better place, they get to throw their weight around,” says Ricketts. “They have a lot of money, a lot of leverage, and a lot of people who just don’t want to butt heads with them – people who just want to go along to get along. People who are thinking, ‘If we embrace DEI, nobody can accuse us of being racist or whatever.’ They’re trying to cover their backsides.”

Some organizations, it seems, are merely trying to keep up with cultural trends.

Consider Tucson, Ariz., where diversity is not a buzzy talking point but an everyday reality. With a population that is 44% Hispanic, 43% white and only 4.6% black, the city has had no major racial incidents in decades. Yet like hundreds of others communities, Tucson suddenly decided in direct response to the George Floyd murder 1,600 miles away that it needed an office of equity. To many observers, it seemed that the city was just “getting jiggy with it,”  pretending to solve a problem that didn’t exist. After a two-year search, it hired Laurice Walker, the youngest chief equity officer in the country, at age 28, with a salary of $145,000 – nearly three and a half times what Tucson’s mayor, Regina Romero, earns.

Kimberlee Archie, Asheville’s first equity and inclusion manager, likened  the largely black city council to “bobbleheads” with a “white supremacy culture.”www.ashevillenc.gov

Not that the mayor is complaining. “I think this position is about putting an equity lens into all that we do,” Romero said in May, by which she means – well, nobody is quite sure what “equity” means, particularly with respect to federal legislation clearly prohibiting positive and negative discrimination alike.

But trying to get out in front of the DEI train can also result in getting run over by it.

When the city council of Asheville, N.C., hired Kimberlee Archie as its first equity and inclusion manager, its members probably didn’t anticipate being accused of having a “white supremacy culture.” After all, city manager Debra Campbell is black, as are three of the seven women making up the city council. The council had cut police funding and unanimously approved a reparations resolution. Archie nevertheless complained that her colleagues still weren’t doing enough to advance racial equity. “What I describe it as is kind of like the bobblehead effect,” she said in 2020. “We’d be in meetings … and people’s heads are nodding as if they are in agreement. However, their actions didn’t back that up.”

The drama in western North Carolina illustrates a dilemma that organizations face going forward. They can pursue an aggressive political agenda in which white supremacy is considered the country’s defining ethos (per The New York Times’ “1619 Project“) and present discrimination as the only remedy to past discrimination (see Ibram X. Kendi). Or they take the path of least resistance, paying rhetorical tribute to DEI enforcers as the “bobbleheads” that Archie disparages but doing little more than that. After all, they still have universities, businesses, and sanitation departments to run, alumni and investors to satisfy, students to teach, research to pursue, roads to be paved, sewage to be treated, costs to be minimized, and profits to be maximized.

Is America irredeemably racist?

Perhaps, too, senior administrators and executives are beginning to realize that, despite the moral panic of 2020, the most culturally diverse country in the world might not be irredeemably racist, even if it’s no longer acceptable to say so. The United States twice elected an African American man named Barack Hussein Obama as president. His first attorney general was a black man, who would be replaced by a black woman. His vice president would pick a woman of mixed race as his running mate. The mayors of 12 of the 20 largest U.S. cities are black, including the four largest cities. Likewise, many of the people whom Americans most admire – artists, athletes, musicians, scientists, writers – are black. Lately most winners of MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants are people of color. Gay marriage is legal, and enjoys wide public support, even among conservatives. The disabled, neurodivergent, and gender-divergent are applauded for their courage and resilience. And nonwhite groups, particularly Asians, Latinos, and African immigrants, have been remarkably upwardly mobile (often without official favoritism).

Clearly, troubling disparities persist for African Americans. What’s much less clear is that racism, systemic or not, remains the principal cause of these disparities or that a caste of equity commissars will reverse them. And now, it would seem that narrowing these disparities runs counter to their self-interest.

“I don’t want to deny that there’s genuine goodwill on the part of some of these programs,” says Prof. Schuck, stressing that he hasn’t examined their inner workings. “But some of these conflicts are not capable of being solved by these gestures. They have to justify their own jobs, their own budgets, however. And that creates the potential for a lot of mischief. They end up trafficking in controversy and righteousness, which produces the deformities we’ve been seeing in policies and conduct.”

Still, to hear DEI officers, it’s they who are beleaguered and overwhelmed. Yes, they have important-sounding jobs and rather vague responsibilities. They are accountable to nobody, really. Rather than fighting “the man,” they now are the man, or at least the gender-neutral term for man in this context. But this also means that they are starting to catch flak, particularly as the evidence mounts that the institutions they advise and admonish aren’t actually becoming more fair, open, and welcoming. They’re not even becoming more ethnically diverse.

But at a recent association meeting, Anneliese Singh of Tulane University invoked Rosa Parks’ refusal to take a back seat to discrimination. Although Parks was a housekeeper and diversicrats have comfortable university sinecures, their struggles are analogously distressing, Singh suggested. The latter, too, are on the “front lines” in a harrowing war. However, she said, her colleagues needed to remember what mattered most: Looking out for themselves.

“It is not self-indulgence,” she said, now quoting the feminist and civil rights activist Audre Lord. “It is self-preservation. And that is an act of political warfare.”

For the moment, it’s a war Singh and her DEI colleagues are clearly winning.

This article has been republished from RealClearInvestigations with permission.

AUTHOR

Thomas Hackett

Thomas Hackett writes for Real Clear Investigations. More by Thomas Hackett

RELATED ARTICLE: 109+ Must-Know Workplace Diversity Statistics [2023]

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

It’s About Time: Transgender Clinic Investigated for Child Abuse

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Missouri’s Attorney General gave new details about his investigation into the St. Louis gender clinic where a trans whistleblower alleged medical providers are going way too far in pushing sex change drugs and surgery on kids.

The investigation is quite wide-ranging.  It involves multiple state agencies and promises to leave no stone unturned.  Investigators are looking for consumer protection infractions, professional license violations, Medicaid fraud, parental consent fraud, and crimes.  The validity of parental consent is at issue because parents were falsely told their children would commit suicide unless they were allowed to transition.  Coercion is not consent.  Valid parental consent was also lacking because clinicians did not make full disclosure about the long-term adverse health consequences of sex change drugs and surgery.  As for the criminal aspects of the investigation, the clinicians involved could end up facing child abuse charges.  School officials, who have a legal duty to report child abuse, may be complicit, instead.  The investigation will determine whether they conspired with clinicians to form a school-to-clinic pipeline of steady business for the clinic.  I hope the Attorney General looks at whether bribe money changed hands in that corrupt transaction.

Several other aspects of Missouri’s investigation are worth noting.  Children are getting confusing information about gender from Chinese-owned TikTok, advice that is overriding their own life’s experience with their own bodies.  The clinic pushes sex change drugs and surgery as a first resort without any thought to psychological assessments in individual cases.  The clinic does not follow transitioners long-term to see what the adverse consequences of clinic-prescribed treatment might be.  Puberty blockers are addictive and the clinic moves children into cross-sex hormones virtually a hundred percent of the time.

Other countries have pulled back from the gender affirmation model now ascendant in the U.S. for children.  These countries have restricted or banned dangerous treatments and now employ psychological evaluation as the first resort for minors presenting gender dysphoria.

Missouri’s investigation is an indication the tide may be turning but, for the moment, the phony transgender narrative just keeps getting crazier.  Social workers in Pennsylvania must now report whether newborns within their purview self-identify as ‘nonbinary’.  Huh?  You heard that right: “I have to ask clients, ‘Is your 10-day-old male, female, or nonbinary?,'” one social worker said.   Another crazy parent pushing transitioning on their kids came to light in recent days.  A mother is transitioning her 4-year-old boy because he likes to dress up and doesn’t want to play tee ball.  The story revealed the child’s daycare center may have been planting confusing thoughts about gender in the child’s mind.  In any event, this parent is engaged in child abuse because most children grow out of such temporary phases.

There are reasons to hope public sentiment on this issue will flip soon.  The New York Times finally had to admit gender transitioning is dangerous.  A long story cited other countries pulling back, doctors who won’t engage in the practice, increasing numbers of transitioners expressing regrets, and the pressure on government authorities coming from activists to approve sex change drugs and surgery for children before the ramifications were understood.  Another media outlet published a story on adverse consequences of vaginoplasty surgery including severe pain, difficulty urinating, and sexual dysfunction.

South Dakota just banned sex change drugs and surgery for youth.  Other recent moves to challenge the status quo have come from conservative activist groups who are gathering information, mounting publicity campaigns, and supporting litigation against schools for secret transitioning, as well as against medical providers and the Biden administration’s expansive gender identity rules.  A schoolteacher in California got fired for refusing to lie to parents to keep their child’s professed gender identity secret from them.  This teacher courageously stood up for her personal beliefs at the cost of her job.   More like her, please.

This story illustrates how the Left spreads its bad ideas under the radar using coercion, scare tactics, and pressure to adopt policies before anyone takes a close look at them.  We can only hope that everyone roped into the Left’s enterprise of gender transitioning for children will have second thoughts now that legal jeopardy is starting to attach.  Nothing like lawsuits and criminal charges to focus the mind.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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12-Year-Old New Jersey Boy DIES SUDDENLY During Football Practice

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Look at what the Democrats have done to our children all in their insatiable hunger for absolute power over our lives. And they are still promoting and mandating this RNA poison. When a nation kills their children, the nation is already dead.

12-Year-Old New Jersey Boy Dies Suddenly During Football Practice

Nu: Warner Todd Huston, Breitbart News, 19 Feb 2023:

A family in Newark, New Jersey, is left with questions after their 12-year-old son collapsed and died suddenly during football practice at a local field.

The boy, Elijah Jordan Brown-Garcia, was reportedly performing drills along with his team, the Essex County Predators, at the West Side Park football field when he collapsed.

Team officials say that Brown-Garcia was not engaged in heavy activity at the time, according to News 12.

“No contact. It was just drills running back and forth. He didn’t get hit,” said his mother, Raven Brown. “He was a healthy kid…I don’t know why Friday night was his day.”

“He was so happy to be there. He didn’t know that it was going to be his last day,” Brown added.
empty football stadium.

Brown added that her ten-year-old son, who was also at the practice, called her and told her that Elijah had collapsed and they were “fanning” him and pouring water on him.

The bereaved mother also says that even though there were at least three calls for an ambulance, it took. more than 40 minutes for one to arrive. In fact, she told the media that she beat the ambulance to the field when she rushed there herself.

“I beat the ambulance there,” Brown insisted. “Like 30-40 minutes. It took them a long time.”

Brown is also wondering why no one involved with the team or the league is CPR certified. She added that the coach admitted that no one on site was able to help.

“They are neglectful. You can’t run a team like that,” Brown insisted.

“I miss his face. I miss him dancing…I just miss him. I miss everything about him,” the boy’s mother said.
football player runs with ball – football stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images

A spokesman for the Big 21 league said that they didn’t have enough information about the incident to make any statements.

The teen’s school, KIPP Rise Academy, released a statement saying how much they will miss the boy.

“Elijah will be deeply missed by our KIPP students, families and educators, and we will remember him as a kind, outgoing student who was a friend to all,” said Jessica Shearer, a school spokesperson. “Elijah has a brother and an aunt learning and teaching within our school. To support the Brown-Garcia family as they navigate this tragedy, please donate to their GoFundMe.”

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

Ohio State Senator Calls for Incompetent Buttigieg to Resign

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In an interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday, Ohio State Senator Michael Rulli (R) said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg “needs to resign right now” over the train derailment in East Palestine.

“Buttigieg needs to resign right now. He is an embarrassment. He is incompetent, and he is actually getting people hurt by holding that position,” Rulli said. “The people in Congress, we need to impeach him. And it needs to happen right now.”

Referring to the diversity hire Buttigieg’s comments last week that there are roughly 1,000 train derailments each year, Rulli added that Buttigieg “had the gall to tell my people that he has 1,000 train accidents, and that this isn’t that bad. It is that bad.”

“[Buttigieg] doesn’t even understand, in that town, it’s half and half. You got half Democrats, you got half Republicans,” Rulli added. “They’re going to punish my people because they just think that we’re all Trump, and that’s it. That’s what they’re doing here.”

Pete Buttigieg

8 Known Connections

Buttigieg on Capitalism & Socialism

In March 2019 Buttigieg told MSNBC that he thinks of himself as a capitalist but believes the system should be changed. Specifically, he stated that big business is a threat: “The biggest problem with capitalism right now is the way it’s become intertwined with power and is eroding our democracy.” Buttigieg was less critical of socialism, telling the network that socialism “is a word in American politics that has basically lost all meaning” and “has been used as a kill switch to stop an idea from being talked about.”

To learn more about Pete Buttigieg, click here.

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

Chemical and Biological Military Activities

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“In the field of biological weapons, there is almost no prospect of detecting a pathogen until it has been used in an attack.” —  Barton Gellman, author and journalist

“I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas.” —  Winston Churchill

“We knew the world would not be the same.  A few people laughed, a few people cried.  Most people were silent.” —  J. Robert Oppenheimer, recalling in a 1965 documentary how he felt after watching the Trinity Test

Previously, I’ve mentioned how my mama used to read the Chicago Tribune to me after we ate dinner.  She started my political education when I was four or five years old and sat me atop the pink Formica table to listen.  I recall several articles, but one is easily remembered because my mother became so angry.  She read a small paragraph in the back of the then conservative Tribune; this was 1950-1951.  It stated that the government had sprayed a flu virus over the area where we lived to see how it traveled.

The American people have always been used as guinea pigs for the US government.  And we still are!

From the Protective Altruism Forum by Thomas W., is the history of chemical and bacteriological experiments on American citizens.  (Worth the full read!)

In September of 1950, a ship sailed by the Golden Gate Bridge. It carried a stockpile of Serratia marcescens bacteria, which it released in a huge plume over the city of San Francisco. Those onboard hoped to expose as many people as possible to the bacteria. Their mission was a success, and most of the city’s residents were exposed. 

The ship was not operated by a hostile foreign government or terrorist operatives, but by the United States Navy. Though Serratia marcescens is a “simulant” bacterium not known to cause harm, the test showed the potential for attacks with more deadly forms of bacteria. [1] Despite the “benign” nature of the bacterium, Stanford University doctors reported several bizarre cases of urinary tract infections at the time, leading eventually to one death.[2] The test was far from the only biological weapons test conducted in secrecy by the U.S. government from World War II until as late as 1968.

And 1968 wasn’t the end of the experiments, biological, chemical or medical.

Inside America’s Secret Biolabs written in 2015 by Alison Young and Nick Penzenstadler for USA Today, states:

Vials of bioterror bacteria have gone missing. Lab mice infected with deadly viruses have escaped, and wild rodents have been found making nests with research waste. Cattle infected in a university’s vaccine experiments were repeatedly sent to slaughter and their meat sold for human consumption. Gear meant to protect lab workers from lethal viruses such as Ebola and bird flu has failed, repeatedly.

Oversight of biological research labs is fragmented, often secretive and largely self-policing, the investigation found. And even when research facilities commit the most egregious safety or security breaches — as more than 100 labs have — federal regulators keep their names secret.

Of particular concern are mishaps occurring at institutions working with the world’s most dangerous pathogens in biosafety level 3 and 4 labs — the two highest levels of containment that have proliferated since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. Yet there is no publicly available list of these labs, and the scope of their research and safety records are largely unknown to most state health departments charged with responding to disease outbreaks. Even the federal government doesn’t know where they all are, the Government Accountability Office has warned for years.

And all those contrails.  Why in the world are they constantly spraying us? Video link. Unless you grow vegetables in a greenhouse, the spraying actually kills the plants with a fungal rot that starts at the roots.

Sars-CoV-2

The investment into weapons of infectious diseases has been promulgated since WWII.  The Wuhan National Institute of Virology (WIV) is nothing new. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has openly admitted we have exactly the same thing in the United States and it is run by the Department of Defense (DoD).

We know the origins of C-19 were here at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  Peter Daszak used scientific and professional connections to convince media and government officials of natural Covid-19 origins. He even secretly organized a statement in the prestigious medical journal, the Lancet, deeming the lab origin a “conspiracy theory.” Ralph Baric PhD, professor in the UNC epidemiology department was allowed to continue his “gain of function” work until it was transferred to the WIV with funding by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) through Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance.

Since its inception in 1994, the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD Center) has been at the forefront of research on the implications of same for U.S. security. Originally focusing on threats to the military, the WMD Center now also applies its expertise and body of research to the challenges of homeland security.

Biological and Chemical Weapons

The nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was a prominent feature of the Cold War. A lesser known but equally dangerous element of the superpower competition involved biological weapons (BW), living microorganisms that cause fatal or incapacitating diseases in humans, animals, or plants. By the late 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union had both acquired advanced BW capabilities.

The U.S. biological weapons complex, operated by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps, consisted of a research and development laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland, an open-air testing site at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and a production facility at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas that manufactured biological warfare agents and loaded them into bomblets, bombs, and spray tanks.

Soon after President Richard M. Nixon took office in January 1969, Members of Congress pressured the administration to clarify U.S. policies on the use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW), as there had been no comprehensive review of this issue in more than 15 years.  Here is the chronology from 1969 to 1997.

Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird decided to address the series of controversies that had been swirling around the Army’s Chemical Biological Weapons (CBW) programs.

A number of highly publicized events had sparked controversy over chemical weapons (CW), which were closely associated with biological weapons in the public mind.

Dugway Proving Ground was established during WWII where the US Army had been conducting testing.  In March 1968, an open-air test of the nerve agent VX had gone awry, causing the toxic cloud to drift off the test range and kill or injure more than 6,000 sheep in an adjacent grazing area.  That test came to be called, “The Skull Valley Sheep Kill.”  The farmers received remuneration for their losses, but an investigation by the US Army found that lethal chemical agents tested in Dugway on March 13, 1968, “may have” contributed to the sheep deaths.

Sound familiar?  Remember Agent Orange in Vietnam?

The Army had also secretly been disposing of obsolete and leaking chemicals by transporting them by train across the country and then scuttling them at sea.

Ultimately, President Nixon’s decision to renounce the U.S. offensive biological weapons program culminated in his signing of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) on April 10, 1972, the same day as Iran.

In recognition of these dangers, he continued, the United States had decided to destroy its entire stockpile of biological agents and confine its future biological research program to defensive measures, such as vaccines and field detectors.

The Convention bans bioweapon agents, toxins, equipment and the means of delivery. However, The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological, Biological and Toxic Weapons does not ban biodefense weapons.

It is doubtful the signees of the convention truly stopped their research inasmuch as no one is tasked to oversee compliance and countries rarely keep the honor system.

China has accused us of having 336 bioweapon labs in 30 countries under U.S. control, including 26 in Ukraine.  Just how many does China have?

Ohio Train Derailment, Chemical Spill and Fire

Ohio is rich Midwest farmland and is one of the states with a large number of organic farms. East Palestine, Ohio is also the home of over 30 meat processing plants.  Close by in Columbus, Ohio is one of the largest heirloom seed companies.

I lived in Ohio for many years.  It is a beautiful state, and part of our own breadbasket for America.  Was it targeted?  Was it planned?  Interestingly enough, a movie with the same plot was filmed nearby only a year ago.

If you doubt we’re fighting a war against communists and fascists, please read my previous two articles.  Here and Here.

The latest chemical nightmare, after the Pfizer, Moderna and J&J poisons, is the Ohio train derailment.  The toxins allowed in the air, water and soil have already killed birds, chickens, a man’s foxes and heaven knows how many pets and wildlife.  The map shows the areas affected via air and water pollution.

For more information as to how deadly this derailment truly is to those in the area, please see The Conservative Treehouse articles here and here.  There are videos within which show the total and complete devastation of what happened.

Sundance states, “In an Ohio town called East Palestine, a Norfolk Southern train pulling 150 cars derailed. 20 of those cars were carrying hazardous materials, including a liquified substance called ‘Vinyl Chloride.’”

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said on Monday, February 13th, that Norfolk Southern requested and was granted the controlled release of chemicals, including deadly vinyl chloride, following the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.  Norfolk Southern, whose top shareholders include BlackRock and Vanguard, told the government how they wanted this disaster handled.

Isn’t it interesting that only 11 days before this tragic derailment, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) changed the toxicity for vinyl chloride?

The railroad and the EPA released the full list of chemicals that were being transported.  Norfolk Southern did the “controlled breach” by starting the fires allegedly so the containers would not blow up. New footage has surfaced, in just a few days, of contaminated water in and around East Palestine, Ohio. Despite Governor DeWine’s statements reassuring Ohioans that the water is safe to drink, the chemical contamination is visible.

Here is the East Palestine Ohio Train Disaster in Numbers.  The following is from JTrudels Substack page.

  • 50 rail cars derailed on 3 February 23rd.
  • 11 rail cars carried hazardous materials.
  • 5 rail cars released Vinyl Chloride, a flammable, colorless liquified gas that causes liver, brain, and lung cancers.
  • 28-degree Celsius/82-degree Fahrenheit is required for Vinyl Chloride to become slightly water soluble.
  • One waterway was directly impacted, the Leslie Run. It feeds the Little Beaver Creek, a tributary to the Ohio River.
  • One billion plus animals of varying types, livestock and wildlife, depend on these waterways for life.
  • None of the waterway have ever hit a sustained 82 degrees F in human history.
  • 3500 fish and aquatic animals have died in the Leslie Run in the past week.
  • Almost all small livestock have died in East Palestine since Friday, 10 February 23, especially poultry.
  • 4800 residents call East Palestine home.
  • 94% of the residents are white
  • 81% of the 74 million Americans who depend on the Ohio River and associated waterways including the Mississippi for water for themselves and/or their livestock are white.
  • Zero FEMA officials have arrived in East Palestine as of 15 February 23.

Trudel states, “This does not appear to be an accident.  It appears to be genocide.”

A good portion of Ohio may be ruined for decades.  Link  The people who lived in that town are most likely about to lose everything, including their health.  Gov. DeWine told them it was safe to go home, but it obviously is not.  DeWine should be forced to live out the remainder of his term in East Palestine, Ohio.

EPA Administrator, Michael Regan, who visited the town on Thursday the 16th, asked the people to “trust the government.”

Yeah right, in your dreams.  President Reagan made a statement in the 1980s about “trusting the government.”

Has the EPA even checked the water, air or soil?  The EPA is also telling everyone it’s fine to return home.  The Environmental Protection Agency is more concerned about cow farts than the vinyl chloride poisoning of a third of America’s air, water and soil.

Where is FEMA to help these people and their animals?

Where is Biden?  Out to lunch 24/7!

Trump decides he’ll visit East Palestine and all of a sudden FEMA says they’ll show up.

These families all need new homes, new places to live, health checks, and new vehicles.  Where’s the federal funds to help them?

How about it President Trump?  You can get donations to give enough to all of these families to rebuild in  healthier environments that aren’t poisoned for the next century.

Glenn Beck interviewed a lady who lived there, and had a dog kennel and horses and had to evacuate all of them as well.  Needless to say, any animals left behind didn’t make it.  Crews conducted a “controlled spill” of these deadly chemicals.  Controlled?  Controlled to kill?  How insane is that to release a poisonous chemical into water and ground and then set it on fire?

Conclusion

I’ve heard another take on this from veterans who have handled some of these dangerous chemicals.

One said, This looks more like gross stupidity (way too many hazardous cars on a single train) and greed.  What was criminal was burying the damaged cars right in town without any attempt to decontaminate the entire wreck site and town.  The Governor received mucho campaign money from Norfolk Southern.  DeWine is complicit in that.  He ordered that burn so Norfolk Southern could relay track to get other trains moving.

That incident was awful, but I’m skeptical that there’s going to be a mass “Die Off” of the entire NE US.  There is much fear mongering going on, some very legitimate (especially for those near that town and along the Ohio River) wild speculation unsupported by hard data.

There have been half a dozen derailments and chemical burns in the last few weeks.  Coincidence?  Doubtful.  I’m just reporting what I’ve read, heard and seen.

Pray for these people, and if there’s a collection for them, give what you can.

©Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.

Congressman Says East Palestine Citizens Deserve Answers After Catastrophic Train Derailment

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A Norfolk Southern train derailment that occurred two weeks ago in eastern Ohio still has not received the attention it should have from the federal government, said Representative Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) February 17 on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” Those impacted by the disaster need answers, he insisted.

The February 3 incident and “controlled explosion” of leaking rail tanker cars by authorities in East Palestine, Ohio escaped the national media’s attention for days. Yet as a result of the derailment, 38 rail cars derailed, including 11 carrying hazardous materials, according to a National Transportation Safety Board press release.

The decision to drain and ignite the contents of the tankers, which carried vinyl chloride, prompted an intense explosion that sent a plume of dark smoke and particulates high over the town of nearly 5,000 people, has sparked controversy over the federal government’s response.

Citing the health and environmental concerns of those who live in the area, Johnson said the community remains in an “emergency phase.”

The Ohio congressman, whose district includes East Palestine, told “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice February 17 on “Washington Watch”that he has stood at ground zero of the train derailment and “controlled explosion.” “We can’t dismiss the claims of the community about some of the ailments that they’re seeing and the fears that they have for their children to go outside,” he said.

“My number one concern today is getting the people of this community the answers that they need,” Johnson emphasized. Johnson serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Budget Committee. He complimented the work of the state and federal Environmental Protection Agencies in responding to the incident. “While there is still a long way to go,” Johnson continued, “they are making progress.”

Yet Johnson said what has happened in East Palestine should not happen in any community in the U.S. “The people here are frightened. They’re scared. They’re not getting answers to their questions …” the congressman continued.

“They’re concerned about the air in their homes and the water that they drink. And there’s been a lot of confusion,” Johnson said.

Residents of the eastern Ohio town are extremely frustrated and have “more questions than answers,” Hice agreed, noting U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has indicated he has no plans to visit East Palestine and that the Biden administration determined the region fails to qualify for federal disaster aid.

Johnson said he was surprised that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) denied the request for disaster funding. “If this doesn’t qualify as a disaster, I don’t know what does,” he said, noting he has reached out for an explanation. The congressman said as well that he was shocked that Secretary Buttigieg has not visited the site. Johnson noted the National Transportation Safety Board is moving forward with their own investigation of the matter.

He called Secretary Buttigieg’s February 13 statement on the East Palestine tragedy an “outrageous comment.”

Buttigieg told Yahoo! Finance Live that “… while this horrible situation has gotten a particularly high amount of attention, there are roughly 1,000 cases a year of a train derailing.”

“The secretary has been AWOL, absent without leave,” Johnson argued. “He just has not been tuned into this at all.” The congressman said Buttigieg’s comment suggests he is being “very lighthearted” about the incident.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) announced late Friday evening FEMA has reportedly reversed course and will respond to the emergency situation in East Palestine with federal resources.

AUTHOR

K.D. Hastings

K.D. Hastings and his family live in the beautiful hills of Middle Tennessee. He has been engaged in the evangelical world as a communicator since 1994.

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

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.

Bad Train Optics: EPA Chief Regan Abruptly Cancels Africa ‘Climate Change’ Trip with Hollywood Celebrities

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Climate agenda hijacks real environmental issues.

Bad Optics: EPA Chief Michael Regan abruptly cancels Africa ‘climate change’ trip with Hollywood celebrities – As EPA Remains silent on who ordered controlled burn of toxic Ohio train

Actor and humanitarian Idris Elba and his wife Sabrina Elba will accompany Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan on Saturday to sub-Saharan Africa, the Grio exclusively reports.  The NAACP and Golden Globe award-winning star, Mrs. Elba and Regan will travel to Ghana and Sierra Leone to focus on the issue of climate change and ways to combat its devastating ripple effects around the globe.

Update Trip Cancelled: Editor’s note: “Since the publication of this report, EPA Administrator Micheal Regan has postponed his trip to Africa due to his department’s emergency response to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which has caused environmental concerns for its residents.”

[ … ]

Climate Depot’s Morano: “This aborted Africa trip is more evidence that the climate change issue has hijacked real environmental concerns! The entirety of the environmental movement has been obsessed with ‘climate change’ to the detriment of real green issues like pollution, clean air, and water. The Biden Admin and Sec. Pete has devoted themselves to wokeness and ‘climate change,’ and they are letting their real environmental duties, like addressing the toxic train derailment, fall to the wayside. It took Buttigieg 10 days to even talk about the derailment as he instead chose to talk about too many white construction workers. When your goal is climate change and renaming racist roads, real environmental protection gets ignored.”

How is that working out for you Pete? Watch: Transportation Sec Pete Buttigieg: ‘EVERY Transportation Decision in the 21st Century Is A Climate Decision’

By:  – Climate Depot

February 20, 2023 11:39 AM

EPA Administrator Michael Regan Flying to Africa Today with Actors to Address Climate Change, Silent on Who Ordered East Palestine, Ohio Controlled Burn

April Ryan of the Grio reported on Thursday that EPA administrator Michael Regan is flying to Africa Saturday, February 18 on a climate change mission, accompanied by a well known “actor and humanitarian.” Regan has yet to respond to inquiries from The Ohio Star about EPA’s role in the decision to execute a controlled burn of vinyl chloride on February 6 at the East Palestine, Ohio Norfolk Southern train derailment.

A source familiar with EPA Administrator’s travel schedule has confirmed the agency has spent more than $6,000 for Regan’s air travel to Africa on this trip,

Update Trip Cancelled: https://thegrio.com/2023/02/16/exclusive-idris-sabrina-elba-epa-regan-africa-climate/amp/

By April D. Ryan

Editor’s note: Since the publication of this report, EPA Administrator Micheal Regan has postponed his trip to Africa due to his department’s emergency response to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which has caused environmental concerns for its residents.

Actor and humanitarian Idris Elba and his wife Sabrina Elba will accompany Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan on Saturday to sub-Saharan Africa, the Grio exclusively reports. The NAACP and Golden Globe award-winning star, Mrs. Elba and Regan will travel to Ghana and Sierra Leone to focus on the issue of climate change and ways to combat its devastating ripple effects around the globe.

©Copyright © 2023 Climate Depot. All rights reserved.

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‘Lucrative Business’: The Child Sex Change Industry Is Exploding In The US

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  • The child sex change industry is massive and growing, and children undergoing cross-sex treatments can bring a massive cash influx to hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and others in the medical industry. 
  • From 2017-2019 at least 56 genital surgeries and 776 mastectomies were performed on minors as part of the gender transition process in the U.S., but even this figure is outdated and vastly underestimates the scope of the child sex change industry by excluding certain patients. 
  • “There is no question that financial rewards play a role in the adoption of gender affirming care. Hospitals and physicians generate substantial payments from insurers or self pay patients when children enter into the transition protocols,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, board chair of Do No Harm and former Associate Dean for Curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Child sex changes procedures, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries, have become a rapidly-growing, multi-million-dollar industry, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

While there is no comprehensive data set tracking the number of children undergoing cross-sex procedures, and the cost of these procedures varies widely, existing data and experts in the field have shed light on a highly profitable and quickly growing market offering largely irreversible procedures to minors. Mastectomies and breast augmentations cost about $10,000, cross-sex genital surgeries cost about $25,000, plus several thousand dollars for anesthesia and a hospital stay, and facial and other cross-sex surgeries range from $2,000 to $15,000, according to the Philadelphia Transgender Surgery Center’s (PTSC) 2019 price list; those prices have gone up in recent years, an employee told the DCNF, but the clinic has not released an updated list and wouldn’t disclose its new prices without a patient consultation.

“There is no question that financial rewards play a role in the adoption of gender affirming care,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, board chair of Do No Harm and former Associate Dean for Curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, told the DCNF. “Hospitals and physicians generate substantial payments from insurers or self-pay patients when children enter into the transition protocols.”

“No matter what other motives come into play, there is no way that the surgical and medical activities would be embraced by various gender clinics and hospitals if they were financially harmed by these clinical activities,” Goldfarb added. (RELATED: ‘Groomed And Preyed Upon’: Young Woman Was Pressured Into Mastectomy, Testosterone As A Child — Now She Regrets It)

About 300,000 children in the U.S. identify as transgender, according to the University of California Los Angeles Williams Institute, though not everyone who adopts a transgender identity seeks a medical transition. While many of these children undergo surgical procedures, particularly mastectomies, a larger portion receive puberty blockers and/or hormones, which provides a continuous stream of revenue to pharmaceutical companies and medical providers.

There are more than 100 gender clinics in the U.S. that treat children, according to Reuters, and each of these clinics would need to see at least 100 patients annually to be successful but are likely seeing as many as 300 a year, Goldfarb told the DCNF. By that estimate, there are likely at least 10,000 to 30,000 children undergoing some form of gender transition in the U.S. each year.

The overall cross-sex surgery market was valued at $1.9 billion in 2019 and is projected to rise to $5 billion by 2023, according to Grand View Research, which attributed rising market value to the increased prevalence of transgender identification and improved insurance coverage for the procedures. The rise in transgender identification has been heavily concentrated among the youth population.

The medical industry is acting on these financial incentives: Johns Hopkins Medicine has been lobbying the Maryland legislature to expand Medicaid coverage of transgender procedures to include a host of interventions typically considered cosmetic, such as Adam’s apple reduction, facial contouring and laser hair removal, according to a DCNF investigation. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, a professional association, has been fighting against state legislation restricting child sex change procedures and advocating for expanded coverage of trans procedures since at least 2017.

A woman identified as Dr. Shayne Taylor of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) reportedly touted the profitability of gender surgeries during a lecture in 2018, the same year VUMC opened its gender clinic, according to the Daily Wire. VUMC offered hormones and double-mastectomies to minors who identified as transgender to help them present as the opposite sex until it paused the procedures in late 2022 following pressure from the state legislature.

“This is only including top surgery, this isn’t including any bottom surgery, and it’s a lot of money. These surgeries make a lot of money,” Taylor said. “So a female to male chest reconstruction can bring in $40,000. A patient who just got routine hormones treatment who I’m only seeing a few times a year can bring in several thousand dollars without requiring a lot of visits and labs. It actually makes money for the hospital.”

From 2017-2019 at least 56 genital surgeries and 776 mastectomies were performed on minors in the U.S., though this data only includes minors who had formal gender dysphoria diagnoses and had their surgeries covered by insurance, according to insurance data analyzed by health technology company Komodo Health Inc and originally reported by Reuters. The data set doesn’t account for the likely much higher numbers of children undergoing such surgeries in more recent years amid skyrocketing rates of youth transgender identification.

“There’s money to be made, but not from the single cost of a procedure,” Mary Hasson, director of the Person and Identity Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute, told the DCNF. “The gender docs are creating a steady money stream by converting adolescents with healthy bodies into ‘consumers’ of drastic medical procedures that turn them into lifelong medical patients, dependent on additional drugs, surgery, and psychological help to live a stable life.”

“Unfortunately, as we know from the suicide studies, the promised long-term happy result is illusory,” Hasson said.

Based on PTSC’s estimates, the 259 minors annually undergoing top surgery prior to 2020 likely brought in about $2.6 million — and this only includes minors whose surgeries were covered by insurance and who had formal gender dysphoria diagnoses. Genital surgeries are rare for children, but if about 19 minors had those procedures annually prior to 2020, as Komodo’s data suggests, that would bring in $570,000 per year for child genital surgeries.

A sex change patient who begins treatments during puberty incurs massive costs immediately; the puberty blocker Lupron-Depot-PED costs about $2,000 a month, according to Drugs.com, so a youth patient who takes the drug from age 14 to 16 would spend $48,000 over two years of treatment. Cross-sex hormones, the next step of medical transition, are far less expensive than blockers. They’re typically offered at age 16, according to England’s National Health Service, and though some may eventually stop taking them, patients must continue treatments for the duration of their lives to continue seeing its full effects, according to Duke Health.

Hormones cost about $10 per month, according to Lurie Children’s Hospital; a patient who starts hormones at 16 and continues until age 80, would spend about $7,600 on the drugs over the course of a lifetime. The cost of routine medical visits to monitor a hormone patient would presumably be much higher; Taylor estimated hospitals rake in “thousands” each year from one patient taking hormones.

Advocates for child gender transitions argue that the procedures are medically necessary to address the mental health and suicide risks among transgender people and to allow them to live as their authentic selves. Several DCNF investigations and reviews have disputed claims that medical gender transitions reduce mental health problems and suicide risks.

“While transgender activists have tried to pass off their cause as a civil rights movement, it is more accurate to describe it as a profit-making machine,” Terry Schilling, president of American Principles Project, a group that opposes child gender transitions, told the DCNF. “‘Gender transitions’ are a lucrative business, enriching Big Pharma as well as numerous hospitals and clinics. And as the number of people claiming a transgender identity has exploded, so has the industry catering to their desires.”

AUTHOR

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social issues and culture reporter.

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

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.

Here Are The Sexually Explicit Books Florida Is Working To Remove From Public Schools

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  • Florida public school districts have removed over 100 books for containing content that is pornographic, violent or not age-appropriate, the Daily Caller News Foundation learned.
  • The books included “This Book is Gay,” “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It” and “It’s Perfectly Normal,” all of which include graphic references to sex.
  • Florida law requires librarians and media specialists to undergo training before selecting material that is age-appropriate, and it has a law prohibiting the distribution of pornographic material to minors.

Florida schools have removed more than 100 books that contain pornographic material during the 2022-2023 academic year in order to comply with state law, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

A survey of local school districts found that 153 of 175 books were removed the the district for including pornographic, violent or age-inappropriate content, according to a document obtained by the DCNF. The removed books included “This Book is Gay,” “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It” and “It’s Perfectly Normal,” all of which contain sexually explicit depictions according to snippets shared by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.

“This Book Is Gay” is described as an informational book about growing up in the LGBTQ+ community and includes a section about the “ins and outs of gay sex,” according to Sourcebooks. Taryn Feske, DeSantis’ communication director, shared a page from the book that defines sex terminology including “rimming,” “scat,” “scissor sisters” and “strap-on.”

Feske also shared pages from “Gender Queer,” an autobiography from author Maia Kobabe who uses e/em/eir pronouns, that depict two characters attempting oral sex by using a strap-on. The book also depicts the characters sexting, masturbating and tasting themselves.

“Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears,” the book description reads.

“Let’s Talk About It” includes an image of two people engaging in anal sex and a diagram of an anus, according to pages of the book shared to Twitter.

“When it comes to reproducing, the penis and the vagina can fit together to form the ultimate baby-making machine. Let’s take a peek right now and see how —” the book reads.

It also explains that “your genitals exist to let you feel pleasure with yourself or others (no matter which genitals they may have)” and promotes hookup culture.

“Sexual intimacy is a powerful way to feel good and bond with another person, whether it’s for a night or a lifetime,” the book reportedly reads.

“It’s Perfectly Normal,” advertised for children ages 10 and older, includes sections on masturbation, heterosexual and gay sex and all gender restrooms.

Only 23 districts out of 56 reported to remove books from the schools and a majority of books were removed from the schools’ media center and not classrooms. The number of books removed for having inappropriate content may be higher because 13% of reports did not include a specific reason for removal.

DeSantis signed legislation in March 2022 that requires school districts to be “transparent” about the material being taught in public schools. House Bill 1467 required those involved in selecting school library books to undergo training prepared by the state Department of Education beginning in January 2023 before selecting age-appropriate materials.

Florida law also prohibits distributing pornographic materials to minors under section 847.012, which reads that a person cannot distribute on school property “any picture, photograph, drawing, sculpture, motion picture film, videocassette, or similar visual representation or image of a person or portion of the human body which depicts nudity or sexual conduct” to minors.

Videos circulating on social media appeared to show empty book shelves at a Duval County public school, according to First Coast News. DeSantis challenged this video on Tuesday and said it was a “fake narrative.”

“That was not true,” DeSantis reportedly said, according to First Coast News. “This is trying to create some narrative as if that they hadn’t even put the books out yet to begin with. So there’s no need for all of that stuff. What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to act like somehow, you know, we don’t want books.”

Eighty-four percent of books removed from Duval County schools contained pornographic, violent or inappropriate content, according to data provided to the DCNF.

Tracy Pierce, Duval County Public Schools chief of marketing and public relations, confirmed to the DCNF the video was fake.

“Yes, this video is an outstanding example of deceptive and false narrative,” Pierce said. “The videographer took great care only to show a portion of the media center where books were removed. At that time, an extensive array of non-fiction books, biographies and reference materials remained in stock and accessible. In fact, well over half of the books in the library were still available to students.”

AUTHOR

ALEXA SCHWERHA

Contributor.

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School District Enlists ‘Black Lives Matter Task Force’ To Help Teach 7th Graders How They’re Implicitly Biased

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

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.

Greta Thunberg’s Solution For Climate Change — End Modern Life As We Know It

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In a book published Feb. 14 titled “The Climate Book,” climate alarm movement poster child Greta Thunberg says that the only way to avoid catastrophic global climate change is to end modern life as we know it.

In an excerpt published by Time Magazine on Feb. 10, Thunberg begins by saying, “The solution to this crisis is not exactly rocket science. What we have to do is to halt the emission of greenhouse gasses”. What that means to anyone who understands how the world works is a halting of economic growth, a halting of transportation, a halting of moving about and making things and feeding the world’s masses.

Literally every activity in which humans engage creates emissions of one form or another. For example, the ammonia that forms the essential ingredient to fertilizers that have enabled crop yields to rise to levels necessary to feed the world’s masses is produced from petroleum. If we shut down drilling for oil and gas, pipelines, refineries and chemical plants, as Thunberg wants to do, that means an end to adequate global food production.

Just ask the people of Sri Lanka about this. Their government tried to eliminate all ammonia-based fertilizers in 2021, and the result was an almost immediate, massive economic and societal collapse. It was so severe that rioters stormed the country’s capital and forced a change in government.

In the Time excerpt, Thunberg obsesses about atmospheric carbon dioxide, the basis of the climate alarm movement, noting that it has risen substantially in recent decades, and ultimately arriving at this truth: “ there is no silver bullet or magic technological solution in sight.” This is absolutely correct.

Electric vehicles, pushed as the “magic technological solution” to do away with internal combustion engines, can never really accomplish that mission due mainly to their gargantuan appetite for an array of critical energy minerals. It will be near-impossible for global production of minerals like lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel and others to rise to projected levels that would be necessary to enable such a magical transition to EVs.

Thunberg’s solution? We all need to give up our cars, of course.

The same is true in the electricity generation space, where the climate alarm movement pushes wind and solar as the “magic technological solution” to doing away with fossil fuels. Never mind the intermittency of wind and solar, they have consistently assured us that that shortcoming will be solved as soon as we’ve developed a “magic technological solution” in the form of viable, scalable backup battery storage.

The problem there is that those batteries for electricity storage are every bit as reliant on those same critical energy minerals as are the batteries that power all the EVs.

Thunberg’s solution? We all need to give up all our electric devices, adjust our thermostats and deal with only enjoying electric service for a few hours each day. After all, they’re already doing this in places like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other developing nations, and we see how that’s working out. To Greta, there is no reason why those in the developed world should be any different.

In fact, she contends, it’s all the fault of the developed world to begin with. “Beyond the very basics,” she contends in the Time excerpt, “our top priority must be to distribute our remaining carbon budgets in a fair and holistic way across the world, as well as to repay our enormous historical debts. That means those who are most responsible for this crisis must immediately and drastically reduce their emissions,” i.e., dramatically scale back the standards of living typically enjoyed in modern, western society.

“People keep asking us climate activists what we should do to save the climate,” Greta continues. “But maybe the question itself is wrong. Maybe, instead, we should start asking what we should stop doing.”

What she wants everyone in the developed world to stop doing is driving, taking vacations, being connected electronically, eating beef and other animal proteins, enjoying year-round fruits and vegetables imported from other parts of the world, watching TikTok videos and consuming news on iPhones, cooking with gas stoves and living a modern, 21st century existence.

Thunberg insists that making these sacrifices would, if done the “right” way, result in a society in which “we can make time and space for community, solidarity, and love — the true tenets of a good life.”

A far more likely outcome, though, would be the creation of populations preferred by authoritarian governments throughout history, ones that are immobile, isolated, under-nourished, uncomfortable, ignorant and scared. Not exactly how most people in any part of the world, developed or not, wish to live.

There simply must be a better way. If Greta wins, everyone else loses.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

DAVID BLACKMON

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialize in public policy and communications.

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

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.

Democrat to Biden: Ignore Court Ruling against Abortion Pills. It’s What Abraham Lincoln Would Do.

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A prominent Democratic senator has urged the Biden administration to “ignore” a potential federal court ruling that could impose a nationwide ban on abortion pills, comparing the “right” to abortion with Abraham Lincoln’s efforts to free the slaves.

“In a few days, a lawless Trump-appointed judge in Texas is expected to ban access to the abortion medication Mifepristone nationwide,” tweeted Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Thursday. Mifepristone, with misoprostol, forms the two-drug regimen that causes a chemical abortion. “Today, I’m calling on the FDA to ignore the ruling and keep this life-saving drug on the market.”

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is expected to rule in a case filed last November by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) that argues the FDA approval of the drug in 2000 was illegal and invalid. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, formerly served as deputy general counsel at the pro-life First Liberty Institute.

Wyden’s tweet encapsulated a 22-minute Senate speech claiming a pro-life ruling against the abortion-inducing drug would be “frightening,” “illegitimate,” and “clearly part of an effort to backtrack on a century of progress for American women and deprive them of fundamental rights.”

“The power of the judiciary begins and ends with its legitimacy in the eyes of the public,” Wyden said. In fact, courts derive their authority from Article III of the U.S. Constitution. “I have raised my hand and taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I do not intend to dishonor that oath,” Wyden claimed during the speech.

Wyden went on to invoke Abraham Lincoln’s defiance of the Dred Scott case and likened abortion expansion to the abolitionist cause, since both allegedly deal with “the advancement of rights versus the deprivation of rights.”

“Not only have abortion activists placed abortion ideology ahead of sound healthcare, but now they are even calling on the government to ignore federal laws. Senator Wyden directly calling on the FDA to ignore federal court rulings hasn’t been seen since segregationist senators called on politicians to ignore Brown v. Board of Education in 1954,” Connor Semelsberger, director of Federal Affairs at the Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. Exhortations for Southern leaders to engage in “massive resistance” against federal desegregation orders motivated segregationists from Lester Maddox to Bull Connor. In his “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. criticized Alabama Governor George Wallace for having “lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification.”

Wyden’s conservative colleague, Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.), replied that Biden and “his team do not need encouragement to break the law to promote DIY abortions — they’re already doing it.”

ADF has asked Judge Kacsmaryk to vacate the FDA’s approval in 2000 and all successive rule changes, which could take mifepristone off all national pharmacy shelves as early as the end of this month. “The FDA never studied the safety of the drugs under the labeled conditions of use, ignored the potential impacts of the hormone-blocking regimen on the developing bodies of adolescent girls, disregarded the substantial evidence that chemical abortion drugs cause more complications than surgical abortions, and eliminated necessary safeguards for pregnant girls and women who undergo this dangerous drug regimen,” said ADF. (Family Research Council, the parent organization of The Washington Stand, submitted one of 15 friend-of-the-court briefs in the case.)

Wyden protested that a statute of limitations on FDA review expired decades ago and that Congress signed off of all FDA drug approvals in subsequent legislation.

The Biden administration’s FDA dismissed the lawsuit’s allegedly “speculative allegations of harm” from the pill. “The public interest would be dramatically harmed by effectively withdrawing from the marketplace a safe and effective drug,” the Biden administration argued.

The Biden administration also stated that holding the FDA accountable if it failed to observe proper drug approval protocol would undermine “the pharmaceutical-drug infrastructure.”

But pro-life physicians say the documented harms of chemical abortion are all too real. “I’ve performed at least a dozen surgeries on women who experienced complications when the abortion pill regimen failed, including one emergency surgery just last month,” said Dr. Ingrid Skop, director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

“The safety of chemical abortion is greatly exaggerated. The largest and best available U.S. data shows that abortion pill-related emergency room visits have skyrocketed more than 500%,” noted Dr. James Studnicki, who also works at CLI. “Many of those abortion pill-related complications are being miscoded as natural miscarriage, which masks the true impact of the abortion pill and also makes those women twice as likely to be admitted for surgery for retained” aborted fetal tissue.

A life-affirming legal decision would protect 40 million women from the potential side effects of chemical abortions, according to numbers published in an analysis from NARAL Pro-Choice America. “Without medication abortion using mifepristone, the share of U.S. counties with an abortion provider could drop from 10% to as low as 8% and access to abortion would be compromised — or possibly disappear altogether — in about one in five US counties that currently have an abortion provider,” according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.

The president reportedly fears the political fallout and his inability to impose his will independent of checks and balances. “White House officials are privately worried about the far-reaching implications if the FDA’s mifepristone approval is struck down and what they see as the limited options they have for responding,” reported Politico. The Biden administration plans to appeal any ruling that harms the abortion industry’s interests immediately and has considered declaring a national health emergency, although officials “don’t believe that declaring a public health emergency would provide meaningful new resources in this fight,” said Jennifer Klein, co-chair of Biden’s Gender Policy Council.

Absent any effective alternative, the Biden administration plans to launch “a messaging response” that “Republicans are determined to ban abortion everywhere,” Politico added.

“The insistent push from pro-abortion politicians for nationwide, no-appointment access to dangerous chemical abortion pills demonstrates just how little these politicians care about protecting women’s health,” Semelsberger concluded.

Judge Kacsmaryk has extended the case’s deadline until next Friday, February 24.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

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

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.

87% of Books Removed from Florida Schools Were Pornographic, Violent, Inappropriate, Data Shows

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An overwhelming majority of books removed from Florida schools since the beginning of the academic year in September 2022 were pornographic, violent, or inappropriate for students’ grade levels, according to school district data submitted to the state’s Department of Education.

Twenty-three out of 56 school districts reported that they had removed a total of 175 books, while 33 districts (59%) said that they had not removed any books this academic year, according to data reviewed by The Daily Signal.

The data reveals that 164 of the 175 removed books were taken out of school media centers, rather than classrooms, and 153 of the books that were removed (87%) were taken out because the district discovered that the book was “pornographic, violent or inappropriate for the grade level for some other reason.”

The school districts in Duval County and St. Johns County removed the most books at 19 each, according to the Florida Education Department data. Duval County schools reported that they removed 16 out of the 19 books because they were pornographic, violent, or inappropriate.

The data comes amid a review of educational materials in Florida schools prompted by the state’s curriculum transparency bill and a national outcry over explicit conversations, books, and materials for school children.

Media outlets like The Washington Post have suggested that Florida is criminalizing nebulously defined books in schools, forcing teachers to get rid of all their books to avoid prosecution.

“There has been no state instruction to empty libraries or cover up classroom books,” Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press secretary, Bryan Griffin, said in a post on Twitter. “However, we ARE taking a stand against pornography and sexual material in the classroom.”‘

Griffin also denounced the idea that teachers in Florida would be committing a third-degree felony by having certain books and literature in classrooms.

“No. Not literature, not ‘certain topics’ — it’s pornographic material that carries the felony penalty,” he said. “NO classroom or school library should have pornographic material made available to children. Unfortunately, this is a real and ongoing problem. If you are confused about the law, you can review Statute 847.012, which has been the law in Florida for years.”

That statute specifically prohibits adults from knowingly distributing pornography, nudity, or sexual content to a minor on school property.

DeSantis signed a curriculum transparency bill in March 2022, which requires school districts to be “transparent in the selection of instructional materials, including library and reading materials.” The legislation aims at preserving the rights of parents to know and decide what their children are being taught.

“In Florida, our parents have every right to be involved in their child’s education,” DeSantis said at the time. “We are not going to let politicians deny parents the right to know what is being taught in our schools. I’m proud to sign this legislation that ensures curriculum transparency.”

This week, DeSantis officials took to Twitter to highlight some of the more horrifying books found in Florida schools. This includes the books “Let’s Talk About it,” “It’s Perfectly Normal,” and “Gender Queer,” which includes “shockingly obscene comics.”

This article was originally published by The Daily Signal.

AUTHOR

Mary Margaret Olohan

RELATED TWEET:

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

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.

Rubio Bill Would Restrict Gender-Confused from Military Service

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On Thursday, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced legislation that would prevent individuals who identify as transgender or who have gender dysphoria from serving in the military, with some exceptions. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) introduced companion legislation in the House. The lawmakers have emphasized that the bill’s purpose is to help the Pentagon stay focused on “military readiness” and not on complications that ensue from gender confusion in the ranks.

“The military has strict standards for who can and cannot qualify to serve,” said Rubio in a press release. “For example, under President Biden, you can’t serve with a peanut allergy. Biden has turned our military into a woke social experiment. It is a stupid way to go about protecting our nation. We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter threats like China, Russia, and North Korea and less time thinking about pronouns.”

The Ensuring Military Readiness Act would build on the requirements that former President Trump issued in 2018 that barred those with gender dysphoria or who were undergoing gender transition procedures from enlisting. Five days into his presidency, Biden rescinded the order. Rubio’s bill would restore the Trump-era regulations by restricting those who actively identify as transgender, who seek or have already undergone gender reassignment surgery, or who have a history or have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

Exceptions to the rule for troops with a history gender dysphoria include those who have been stable in their biological sex for 36 months prior to joining and those who are already serving and remain deployable according to the standards of their biological sex (who may receive medically necessary treatment, which would exclude transition surgery and hormone therapy).

Banks identified the need for the military to uphold its medical standards in order to ensure battle readiness.

“Americans who were treated for ADHD in the past two years must receive a waiver to enlist,” said Banks. “Our military holds recruits to stringent medical standards for a reason and the Biden administration’s special carveout for those suffering from gender dysphoria was purely political. Our bill ensures that [the] DOD puts lethality and readiness before far-left ideology.”

Research shows that allowing individuals who actively identify as transgender and who demand medical treatments such as gender transitions surgeries and hormone treatments to serve in the military could cost anywhere between $1.9 and $3.7 billion in taxpayer funds over 10 years.

In 2018, the Department of Defense released recommendations for why barring transgender-identifying individuals from the military was necessary. They cited mental health concerns, including high rates of anxiety, depression, substance use disorders, suicide ideation, attempts, and completion. They also noted that “Service members with gender dysphoria are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than Service members as a whole” and “nine times more likely to have mental health encounters.”

The DOD further emphasized physical health concerns, including the fact that combat deployments anywhere in the world are often part of military service without the expectation of specialized medical care, which is required for gender transition procedures. Also cited was the concern over duty limitations that gender transition procedures would cause. Research indicates that these procedures could cause troops to be nondeployable anywhere from 111 to 135 days.

Other issues highlighted by the DOD include the private spaces of one sex, such as bathroom and shower facilities, being open to the opposite sex, which the department argues would undermine the “reasonable expectations of privacy” that both sexes have. Additionally, the department pointed to problems that could arise from trans-identifying individuals of both sexes being held to the opposite military physical standards of their biological sex.

The DOD concluded that “exempting such persons for well-established mental health, physical health, and sex-based standards, which apply to all Service members, could undermine readiness, disrupt unit cohesion, and impose an unreasonable burden on the military that is not conducive to military effectiveness and lethality.”

Military experts are voicing similar concerns over the prospect of transgender-identifying individuals serving in the armed forces, particularly with the current global challenges facing U.S. troops.

“Senator Rubio’s efforts to deal with the issue of transgender-identifying individuals in the military are to be lauded,” said Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William G. Boykin, who serves as executive vice president of Family Research Council. “The senator clearly understands that at a time when China is flying surveillance platforms into our airspace and becoming more and more belligerent and provocative that our precious dollars and time need to go into preparing our military for war. The notion that we can continue prioritizing making our military more ‘woke’ is a specious notion.”

“Every decision made by the president and Congress regarding our military should be made with the readiness of our military in mind,” Boykin concluded. “What the senator is proposing would set us on a pathway to spend our time and money preparing for war with not only China but other adversaries that loom on the horizon.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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

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.

Biden Regime Is Tracking the Unvaccinated

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Communist government at work.

The Democrats are targeting critical thinkers, free thinkers and individuals who understand and cherish their individual rights enshrined in our beloved Constitution.

We know that the vaccines:

  • don’t prevent infection
  • don’t prevent transmission
  • current variants pose little risk to most people
  • pose serious vaccine side effects

The Federal Government Is Tracking the Unvaccinated

By: Joseph Mercola, The Epoch Times, February 16, 2023:

The U.S. government has been secretly tracking those who didn’t get the COVID jab, as well as those who aren’t up to date on their shots. Worse, it is recording the reason why. Now that the program has been widely adopted, know why it’s being done and how you can outsmart it.

Story at a Glance

The U.S. government has secretly been tracking those who didn’t get the COVID jab, or are only partially jabbed, through a previously unknown surveillance program designed by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The program was implemented on April 1, 2022, and adopted by most medical clinics and hospitals across the United States starting January 2023.
Under this program, doctors at clinics and hospitals have been instructed to ask patients about their vaccination status, which is then added to their electronic medical records as a diagnostic code, known as ICD-10 code, so that they can be tracked inside and outside of the medical system.
These new ICD-10 codes are part of the government’s plan to implement medical tyranny using vaccine passports and digital IDs.
The government is also tracking noncompliance with all other recommended vaccines using new ICD-10 codes, and has implemented codes to describe WHY you didn’t get a recommended vaccine. It’s also added a billable ICD code for “vaccine safety counseling.”

As recently discovered and reported by Dr. Robert Malone,1 the U.S. government has secretly been tracking those who didn’t get the COVID jab, or are only partially jabbed, through a previously unknown surveillance program designed by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The program was implemented on April 1, 2022,2 but didn’t become universally adopted by most medical clinics and hospitals across the United States until January 2023.

Under this program, doctors at clinics and hospitals have been instructed to ask patients about their vaccination status, which is then added to their electronic medical records as a diagnostic code, known as ICD-10 code, without their knowledge or consent so that they can be tracked—not just within the health care system but outside of it as well.
Secret Tracking Program Revealed

The new International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes were introduced during the Sept. 14–15, 2021, ICD-10 Coordination and Maintenance Committee meeting. The ICD committee includes representatives from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the NCHS.3

Below is a screenshot of page 194 of the agenda4 distributed during that meeting. According to the NCHS, “there is interest in being able to track people who are not immunized or only partially immunized,” and they figured out a way to do just that, by adding new ICD-10 codes.

As you can see below, ICD-10 code Z28.310 identifies those who have not received a COVID jab and Z28.311 identifies those who are not up to date on their shots.

Click here to view: IDC-10 Coordination and Maintenance Committee Meeting, September 14-15, 2021 Underimmunization for COVID-19

Tracking Unjabbed Is Part of the Biosecurity Agenda

Why do they want to track the unvaccinated? For what purpose? The short answer: to facilitate the implementation of vaccine passports. As noted by Malone:5

“Code Number Z28.310 listed above is not a code for an illness or diagnosis, but rather for noncompliance of a medical procedure … Once a person’s vaccination status is coded and uploaded into [a] large data base, it can be accessed by government and private health insurers alike.

“The administrative state officers at the CDC have not made immunization status a reportable disease (yet) but immunization status is listed as one of the reasons for mandatory reporting.6 They are just one step away from being able to collect this information without your permission. Ergo: Vaccine passports made easy. In this country, not having your vaccine records ‘up to date’ might mean:

“• The government will not restrict your travel, airlines will.

“• The government will not restrict your travel, other nations will.

“• The government will not restrict your travel, auto rental companies will.

“• The government will not restrict your travel, public transport will.

“• The government will not restrict your travel, private companies will.”
World Health Organization Signed Off on Tracking Codes

The ICD codes were created by the World Health Organization (WHO), and doctors—except those in private practice who don’t accept insurance—are required to use these codes to describe a patient’s condition and the care they received during their visit.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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