Fossil Fuels: Essential to Human Flourishing

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Despite the prevailing narrative, there are compelling arguments for the continued use of fossil fuels.

Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal and Natural Gas — Not Less By Alex Epstein | Portfolio, USA | 2022, 480 pages

Alex Epstein first shot to fame in 2014 with his counter-cultural bestseller, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.

In it, he provided an assertive defence of fuels which enable so many aspects of modern life, but which many suggest threaten our survival in the long-term.

His new work, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal and Natural Gas — Not Less, continues in the same vein.

In the decade since Epstein’s emergence on the fringes of the climate debate, concerns about rising temperatures have grown with the effect that governments have committed themselves to ever-more radical decarbonisation policies, in particular the increased use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

Epstein accepts the scientific evidence that the increases in greenhouse gas emissions in recent centuries due to human activity have increased the Earth’s temperatures. At the same time, he rejects the central premise of the modern environmental movement by maintaining that this does not threaten the survival of our species.

Instead, he convincingly argues that the widespread availability of fossil fuels has been crucial in leading to an unprecedented improvement in living standards in the developed world.

Counterintuitive

Not only do fossil fuels allow us to do more things and enjoy a more comfortable existence, Epstein also writes that they help humanity to guard against natural disasters and the negative impact of a gradually changing climate. For this reason, we need more fossil fuel use, not less. He writes:

“[M]ore fossil fuel use will actually make the world a far better place, a place where billions more people will have the opportunity to flourish, including: to pull themselves out of poverty, to have a chance to pursue their dreams, and — this will likely seem craziest of all — to experience higher environmental quality and less danger from climate.”

Epstein maintains that it is especially vital that the billions of people in what he calls the “unempowered world”, who currently use almost no energy, can enjoy the benefits which so many of us take for granted.

One example of the suffering which energy poverty imposes is the fact that almost 800 million people have no access to electricity, while around 2.4 billion people still rely on wood and animal dung to cook and heat their homes.

Without easy access to oil, gas and coal, people living in these environments will never escape an existence which involves so much daily hardship.

Energy use is clearly correlated with various measurements of human progress (such as increased life expectancy), and the author cites the examples of China and India whose economic rise has largely been fuelled by coal and other fossil fuels.

Their rise forms part of an often unheralded advance in living standards which has occurred in recent decades, in which the extreme poverty rate worldwide has decreased from 35% in 1990 to less than 10% today.

Epstein insists that this transformation could not have happened without fossil fuels, and he maintains that they enjoy a range of advantages including greater affordability, reliability, versatility and scalability.

Valid arguments

When it comes to the statistics he cites, again it is difficult to argue with Epstein’s stance.

Fossil fuels provide 80% of the world’s energy, whereas solar and wind power provide just 3%. Crucially, unlike wind and solar, fossil fuels are not an intermittent source of energy. They can be more easily stored and transported, and far more energy is concentrated within them.

Contrary to the claims of some commentators, they are also not running out: proven oil and gas reserves have increased in recent decades, thanks in part due to new technologies being used to extract them like fracking, which the green movement continues to fight against tenaciously.

In the area of mobile energy, oil is especially important, and is responsible for meeting virtually all humanity’s needs in the areas of shipping, aviation and heavy-duty trucking, without which the global economy would come to a shuddering halt.

Throughout the book, Epstein describes the multitude of other ways in which fossil fuels make life possible, including the powering of agricultural and industrial equipment and the use of fossil fuel materials in a wide variety of synthetic materials.

Perception

There is something more at the core of Epstein’s argument other than the evidence attesting to the importance of high-quality energy sources.

He is a philosopher by training, and he believes that the refusal of many to acknowledge the aforementioned facts stems from the popularity of an anti-impact worldview. Those who hold this viewpoint tend to seek to minimise if not eliminate the impact which humans have on a world they consider naturally safe and untainted. This also helps to explain why green activists have long opposed the use of nuclear or even hydroelectric power, neither of which contribute to emissions significantly.

Rejecting this view outright, Epstein proposes an alternative framework based around “human flourishing”, one which considers the negative impacts of carbon dioxide emissions in the context of the “climate mastery” benefits which come from having abundant supplies of energy available and being more prosperous.

This ability to cope with the vagaries of the world around us has resulted in climate-related deaths falling by 98% over the last century, even while carbon dioxide levels increased. In a similar way, technological improvements in the area of flood protection — many of which are made possible by the availability of fossil fuels — means that over 100 million now live below the level of high tide in their home area.

Epstein does not deny that the increased use of fossil fuels which he seeks will likely accelerate the pace of global warming. Instead, he simply maintains that the benefits of expanding access to energy greatly outweigh the drawbacks, while also elaborating upon the reasons why he believes many people exaggerate the risks which climate change poses.

There are many things to admire about Epstein’s central argument — in particular the insistence on recognising the importance of affordable energy to continued human prosperity and progress.

At a time when increasingly alarmist rhetoric is accelerating unwise policies, his calm and reasoned take (along with that of others like the author of False Alarm, Bjorn Lomborg) is more needed now than ever.

Quibbles

That being said, Fossil Future does not represent a major advance on Epstein’s earlier book. It covers much of the same ground and at times his analysis is too simplistic.

There are significant differences between different fossil fuels, for example, with natural gas producing only half the emissions produced by coal. Indeed, the shift from coal to gas in electricity generation in the United States has been the cause of major emissions reductions there.

Yet though he compares different energy sources, Epstein does not devote enough attention to the question of whether some fossil fuels should be favoured over others.

Even those inclined to agree with his arguments may also be perturbed by the lack of concern which Epstein has about the risks posed by climate change, compared to the attitude of Lomborg — who likens the process to having “a long-term chronic condition like diabetes — a problem that needs attention and focus, but one that we can live with.”

Epstein’s lack of scientific qualifications is another drawback, and even though he presents a cogent explanation for why the media may be overestimating the problem of climate change, many people will not take this argument seriously until it is made more firmly by specialists in the area of climate science.

In spite of this, Epstein has once again succeeded in focusing attention on facts which cannot be avoided.

“The fossil fuel elimination movement is powerful only because it has a moral monopoly, meaning that it is widely considered the only moral position,” he tells us. This is true, and by presenting readers with an alternative moral and philosophical framework with which we can examine these issues, Alex Epstein has again made a valuable contribution.

AUTHOR

James Bradshaw works for an international consulting firm based in Dublin, and has a background in journalism and public policy. Outside of work, he writes for a number of publications, on topics including… 

RELATED ARTICLE: It’s ‘Farmercide:’ Green Policies Create Planned World Famine

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

After Covid: Unhappiness is Worse Among Single and Non-Religious Americans

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Statistics from 2021 found the highest share of Americans who are “not too happy” ever measured.

The last two years have been hard on everyone, with numerous disruptions to life of many kinds leading many of us to feel, as the General Social Survey (GSS) might put it, “not too happy.” Pandemic disease, lockdowns, protests, riots, crime, divisive politics, shootings, deaths of despair, an epidemic of loneliness—the list of reasons for being “not-too-happy” seem to be legion.

Since 1972, the GSS has been asking Americans how happy they are, with three options: very happy, somewhat happy, and not too happy. That lowest option captures all those Americans who just don’t feel good about the world and their own place in it. Perhaps it is no surprise that the 2021 GSS round found the highest share of Americans who are “not too happy” ever measured.

Figure 1: Unhappiness Over Time by Age

From 1972 to 2018, no more than 18% of Americans ages 35 and over had ever claimed to be “not too happy,” and no more than 16% of Americans under 35 had done so. In every year ever measured, people over and under age 35 had similar levels of unhappiness.

But in 2021, unhappiness rocketed upwards for both groups, to 22% for those 35 and over, and a whopping 30% for those under age 35. These are both historic highs for each age demographic, but the unusually sharp increase for those under 35 points to a unique burden of unhappiness among young adults over the last few years. American young adults have begun to take an extraordinarily dim view of the world and their own lives. The path to understanding why unhappiness has risen so much more among young Americans begins by understanding the groups among whom it has risen the most.

Unhappiness by groups

Among young adults, different groups had different levels of unhappiness even before COVID. Thus, for example, only about 6% of married people said they were “not too happy,” versus 16% of unmarried young adults. However, the better question is how has happiness changed within various groups: did married people and unmarried people see the same spike in unhappiness in 2021? What about men and women, or liberals and conservatives? The GSS contains a wide variety of control variables, making it possible to compare the typical prevalence of unhappiness for a given group of young adults before COVID (in this case, 2012-2018) and after it (2021). Figure 2 below shows the share of each group who were “not too happy” before and after COVID, after controlling for each of the other variables listed.

Figure 2: Unhappiness by Social Group, Before and After Covid

Several things immediately stand out. First, unhappiness rose for almost every group: the red bars are higher than the light blue bars in almost every case. Thus, group-level traits mostly did not shield individuals from the unhappiness spike around COVID. Having kids or a college degree didn’t spare people from the difficulties of the last few years.

Secondly, the exact amount that unhappiness increased in 2021 varied. Social class didn’t protect people very much: unhappiness rose about 16% for people with highly prestigious jobs, and 15% for other people. People who attended college saw their unhappiness prevalence rise by about 16 percentage points, versus about 15 points for those who did not attend college. Being educated and having a prestigious career simply didn’t provide any buffer to peoples’ sense of well-being in the face of a huge social disruption.

Some demographic traits did matter more: men saw their unhappiness rise 18%, versus just 12% for women. Unhappiness rose about 17% for non-Hispanic whites, versus about 12% for racial and ethnic minorities. But these differences are not statistically significant; they could have arisen just from random noise.

For most people, family forms the core of their social support system. And this leads to one of the most important findings of this analysis: unhappiness rose just 8 percentage points for married young adults, versus 18 percentage points for the unmarried. In fact, given the sample sizes involved, the confidence intervals for married people before and after the pandemic actually overlap: it’s not certain that unhappiness actually rose for married people at all, after controlling for their other traits.

Marriage, then, served as a valuable buffer against unhappiness. Children, on the other hand, did not: childless young adults and parents saw similar increases in unhappiness (16 and 14 percentage points, respectively).

Finally, happiness changes varied in important ways across religiosity and politics. Among people who attended religious services at least two times per month, unhappiness rose only 4 percentage points, the smallest increase of any group. Among those who attended less often, unhappiness rose 15 percentage points. This difference was highly statistically significant, suggesting that participation in religious community may serve as a useful buffer against adverse events in life.

Relatedly, liberal Americans saw the largest increase in unhappiness of any group, at 19 percentage points. For moderates, it was just 15 percentage points, and for conservatives, 13 points. However, given the sample sizes involved, these differences are not statistically significant.

Conclusion

The COVID pandemic has made virtually everyone less happy. This effect is especially pronounced among younger Americans under 35. For young adults, the rise in unhappiness has been sharply felt, with pronounced rises across all socioeconomic and demographic groups, and throughout the ideological spectrum. The only factors that appear meaningfully protective against the post-COVID unhappiness spike are marriage and religious attendance. Married church-attenders are markedly happier than other young adults. Some of this may be selection bias, but some of it may also be causal effects of deeper social ties providing material and psychological resources for dealing with life’s challenges.

Unfortunately for the happiness of young Americans, whereas in 1972 about 24% of people under 35 were married churchgoers, in 2021 just 7% were, leaving more and more young adults exposed to life’s troubles with little help, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Americans Under 35 by Marital Status and Church Attendance

Meanwhile, more and more young Americans inhabit the unhappiest subgroup for their age: unmarried and not religious. Today, 60% of people under 35 fit this category. One possible result of this change, as we have seen these last few years, is that more young people lack the vital support of a spouse and a religious community, and thus new forms of adversity can rapidly lead to astonishingly severe levels of unhappiness.

This article has been republished with permission from the Institute of Family Studies blog.

AUTHOR

Lyman Stone is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, Chief Information Officer of the population research firm Demographic Intelligence, and an Adjunct Fellow at the American Enterprise… More by Lyman Stone

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

Abortion and the Soul of a Nation

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The founder of Planned Parenthood envisioned a world with no “tradition” or “moral taboos.”

Everyone from Biden to the media seized on the story of a 10-year-old girl’s abortion to defend the practice. They didn’t want to talk about the ugly details. And with good reason.

The girl, actually only 9, had been raped by an illegal alien. And, on camera, her mother defended the rapist. Rather than a story about abortion, it was another familiar case of children being abused by the men who pass through the lives of their mothers. And a commentary on the social dysfunction created by illegal migration and broken multicultural communities.

Despite the eagerness to make the faceless child into the face of the abortion movement, less than 4% of abortions involve underage girls. Most however involve broken families.

“I do not view abortion as a choice and a right,” Biden had said in 2006. “I think it’s always a tragedy. I think it should be rare and safe.”

Biden was echoing Bill Clinton’s statement that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare”. It was a position that most Democrats of a certain age had adopted to bridge the gap between the party’s pro-life and pro-abortion wings. Biden has since adopted the position that abortion is a feminist sacrament in a party that has jettisoned both women and its pro-life wing.

Bill Clinton, Biden and establishment Democrats of another era understood that abortion was a symptom of broken families and poverty. They still know that, they just won’t say it. It’s why Elizabeth Warren and other Senate Democrats are trying to ban the pregnancy centers that offer assistance to poor mothers. Those same pregnancy centers have faced a campaign of domestic terrorism from pro-abortion extremists which Biden’s DOJ continues to ignore.

Why burn pregnancy centers? Because Planned Parenthood’s clients aren’t feminists, just poor. Warren and her domestic terrorist allies are trying to take away any option other than abortion.

Women who seek out abortions are disproportionately poor and members of minority groups. 75% are low income and half are below the poverty line. 85% are unmarried, among those 61% had been shacking up with the baby’s father, and 61% already had one child. Those making over $100,000 a year have the highest rates of support for abortions and the lowest among those who make only $30,000. From Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, on down abortion is how the Elizabeth Warrens manage the social problems of the underclass.

Eugenicists were divided between the more extreme view, that poverty was a symptom of an inheritable genetic defect, and the more liberal view, represented by Sanger, that the poor were a mixture of genetic defects, who needed to be forcibly sterilized, and irresponsible ‘breeders’, especially minorities such as Italians, Jews, and blacks, who were poor because they had too many children. It was this liberal eugenics that is the pragmatic function of Planned Parenthood even as its ideology trumpets abortion as feminist empowerment for upper class women.

There’s little evidence that abortion has fixed social or economic problems. The multigenerational clients of Planned Parenthood continue to be poor minorities.

Sanger’s contempt for religion had misled her about the role of values in social stability. Children were not the cause of poverty. The poverty rate in 1974, a year after Roe v. Wade became law, was 11%. 5 years later, it was up to 15%. In 2020 it was back to 11%. In 1974, there were 24 million poor people in America. In 2020, there are 37 million.

The poverty rate for married couples is under 5%. It’s at 23% for female householders.

Rather than solving any of the social problems that Planned Parenthood claimed to be tackling, the annual mass sacrifice of babies only serves as a disposal chute for its victims. And so when a child is raped by her mother’s boyfriend, the answer is a speedy trip to an abortion clinic followed by assertions that this system is a vital civil right rather than a moral nightmare.

Democrats, including even Joe Biden, once understood that abortion was the fallout of a failed social system and its broken families, but now abortion can only be discussed as if it were a thing in and of itself, detached from any causes or consequences except perhaps the academic jargon about “pregnant bodies” and the “heteronormative patriarchy” that now infuses the Left.

Media outlets claim, with a mostly straight face, that abortion bans hit LGBT people the hardest.

Meanwhile, on the ground level, leftist activists are firebombing the pregnancy centers that offer an alternative to the mostly poor minority women who are the ones who actually have abortions.

“To effect the salvation of the generations of the future—nay, of the generations of to-day—our greatest need… is to cooperate in the formation of a code of sexual ethics based upon a thorough biological and psychological understanding of human nature,” Margaret Sanger wrote in 1922.

A code of “sexual ethics” based on a raw materialistic understanding of human nature has long since developed by the likes of Alfred Kinsey. The code has brought on an unrivaled hostility between the sexes, hookup culture, the #MeToo movement, STDs, pornography, single parent families, date rape, the sexualization of children and widespread misery and loneliness.

Not to mention abortion.

One wonders what Sanger, who died in 1966, would have made of the wonderful generations of the future she had only begun to witness at the height of Haight-Ashbury. The essence of Sanger’s argument was that nothing more could be expected of people than to live out their drives and society had to protect its own future by eliminating children from the equation.

Women, Sanger had claimed, would be empowered by this exciting new code of sexual ethics.

What that empowerment really adds up to is college students waking up after a drunken encounter wondering if it was rape and single mothers desperately holding on to a man even if he abuses their children, and the problem being “solved” at an abortion clinic.

Abortion has so often been reduced to a debate between the right to life and the autonomy of the mother that we ignore the fact that what we are really seeing is a side-effect of a social breakdown. The larger question is not whether murder is sometimes justified or not, but why do we even live? What is the purpose of our existence and do we even have one?

Sanger began her book with a quote from Walt Whitman that women “are the gates of the body” and the “gates of the soul”, before proceeding to reduce women to the body, the “great fundamental instinct of sex”, as she put it, “expressing itself in the ever-growing broods” of the working poor. “Prohibition” and “restraint” were futile, she warned, and would only lead to “insanity, hysteria, neuroses, morbid fears and compulsions”.

“Remove the moral taboos that now bind the human body and spirit, free the individual from the slavery of tradition,” she urged, and “most of the larger evils of society will perish.”

How is society doing without those taboos?

“I was thirty-nine and scared by the idea that I would not be reproducing the kind of heteronormative nuclear family I had grown up in,” Emily Witt wrote. So the New Yorker writer joined a dating app “for ‘open-minded singles and couples who want to explore their sexuality.’”

“Below the photos is a caption that might read, “31, transmasculine, gynesexual, 3 km away.”

After that, Witt turned in a plaintive article about “the only abortion clinic in North Dakota”.

This is Sanger’s world without the moral taboos or any prohibition and restraint. It’s also a world in which Witt admits that, “The older I’ve got, the more I’ve understood how often sexual freedom imposes itself on people who don’t seek it out.” The torrent of “insanity, hysteria, neuroses, morbid fears and compulsions” has only increased in this world with its alphabet soup of genders and sexualities with sky-high suicide and sexual assault rates.

Whitman failed to understand that the “gates of the soul” come before the “gates of the body”, but Sanger could not conceive of the soul as anything except psychological “chemistry”. And there’s Witt, their spiritual descendant, who browses a world of sexual fetishes and exploitation, along with her “unmarried and childless female friends”, “none of us very young” who “had been ‘hooking up’ with people for large swaths of our adult lives.”

Apart from the moral judgements, Sanger’s world is a lonely one filled with broken people, men who fear to be fathers and women who no longer believe they are women living in a digital ‘Nighthawks’. Abortion is in decline, not because of laws and regulations, but because people are less likely to connect to each other on even on the most casual level that would make a pregnancy possible.

Abortions, childbirths, pregnancies, relationships and marriages are all in a state of decline.

And that is the best of it in the upper tiers. At the bottom is the end of families, homes that aren’t broken, but never even existed, whose children either end up in abortion clinics or prisons.

Breaches of morality are also breaches of our humanity.

Changing all of that requires looking beyond the body and to the soul. According to Sanger, the soul was “nothing but a vague unreality except insofar as it is able to manifest itself in the beauty of the concrete.” She envisioned a humanity whose bodies were as perfect as those of “superb ships, motor cars or great buildings”. And yet our truths lie in what to Sanger was a mere “vague unreality” but whose absence has made all of the achievements a hollow tragedy.

Our ships and cars are better than ever. And our society is more broken than ever.

Abortion doesn’t only represent the death of a child, but of a family and a future. It isn’t only babies who die in abortion clinics, but the potential of two people and the soul of a nation.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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

Environmentalists Promising to Save Planet by Planting Trees Keep Starting Forest Fires

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We had to burn the trees to save the trees… from us.

On Monday, Dutch reforestation company Land Life started what has become a 35,000 acre forest fire in Spain.

These things happen. And happen.

This is the second forest fire started by Land Life in a month.

I’m starting to think that environmentalists and the rest of us have very different definitions of saving the planet.

Here’s what Land Life claims that it does.

Land Life is a tech-driven reforestation company planting trees at scale. We use a holistic approach and all of the wonderful minds of our employees, partners, and customers to create projects that remove CO2 from the atmosphere, rebuild ecosystems and work in collaboration with local communities.

Here’s what it does

“The fire started while one of our contractors was using a retro-spider excavator to prepare the soil to plant trees later this winter,” Land Life said in a statement on Thursday. “The operators alerted the emergency services. The emergency teams are working non-stop to control the fire and have fortunately established the fire perimeter. Nonetheless, we are devastated by the latest estimate that the damage will be around 14,000 hectares,” or roughly 35,000 acres.”

How many acres of trees did Land Life even plant?

 It’s not clear how many acres Land Life has actually planted trees in—one blog post suggested the company aimed to plant around 20,000 acres between 2020-2021.

This is like the time that Bernie Sanders got kicked out of the Kibbutz.

The fire has forced authorities to order the evacuation of five neighboring towns, as well as a nursing home. In total, around 2,000 people had to be evacuated. Javier Lambán, the president of Aragon, said the incident is “serious and concerning,” according to local media.

Sometimes you have to break a lot of eggs to make an omelet. Or burn a lot of trees to make a forest. Or crash a lot of computers to make an OS.

As of January 1, 2021 Ernst-Jan Stigter, general manager of Microsoft in the Netherlands, will join Land Life Company as the new CEO.

This explains too much.

I’m in favor of planting trees. Personally. We just probably shouldn’t let environmentalists do it. Or much of anything else. Like at the end of Rainbow Six, take everything, leave them in the jungle knowing that while they might all get eaten by anacondas and fire ants, at least that will remove their carbon emissions from the planet.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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

COVID Jabs Impact Both Male and Female Fertility

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How the COVID Vaccines May Act as a Depopulation Weapon.

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • The first COVID shots rolled out in December 2020, and it didn’t take long before doctors and scientists started warning of possible reproductive effects, as the jab may cross-react with syncytin and reproductive genes in sperm, ova and placenta in ways that might impair reproduction
  • According to one recent investigation, 42% of women with regular menstrual cycles said they bled more heavily than usual after vaccination; 39% of those on gender-affirming hormone treatments reported breakthrough bleeding, as did 71% of women on long-acting contraceptives and 66% of postmenopausal women
  • Other recent research has found the Pfizer COVID jab impairs semen concentration and motile count in men for about three months
  • Miscarriages, fetal deaths and stillbirths have also risen after the rollout of the COVID shots. In November 2021, Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), delivered 13 stillborn babies in a 24-hour period, and all of the mothers had received the COVID jab
  • Many countries are now reporting sudden declines in live birth rates, including Germany, the U.K., Taiwan, Hungary and Sweden. In the five countries with the highest COVID jab uptake, fertility has dropped by an average of 15.2%, whereas the five countries with the lowest COVID jab uptake have seen an average decline of just 4.66%

The first COVID shots rolled out in December 2020, and it didn’t take long before doctors and scientists started warning of possible reproductive effects.

Among them were Janci Chunn Lindsay, Ph.D., director of toxicology and molecular biology for Toxicology Support Services LLC, who in April 2021 submitted a public comment1 to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), highlighting the high potential for adverse effects on fertility.

I previously interviewed Lindsay in 2021. That article is not updated with the new information, but the interview (above) is a good primer for the information she shares below. In many ways, she predicted what we are now observing.

She stressed there’s credible evidence that the COVID shots may cross-react with syncytin and reproductive genes in sperm, ova and placenta in ways that might impair reproductive outcomes. “We could potentially be sterilizing an entire generation,” she warned.

Lindsay also pointed out that reports of significant menstrual irregularities and vaginal hemorrhaging in women who received the injections by then already numbered in the thousands, and that this too was a safety signal that should not be ignored.

4 in 10 COVID-Jabbed Women Report Menstrual Irregularities

As it turns out, early reports of menstrual irregularities were not a fluke. More recent investigations have confirmed that, indeed, many women experience menstrual irregularities after the shots. As reported by NBC News in mid-July 2022:2

“An analysis3 published Friday in the journal Science Advances found that 42% of people with regular menstrual cycles said they bled more heavily than usual after vaccination. Meanwhile, 44% reported no change and around 14% reported a lighter period.

Among nonmenstruating people — those post-menopause or who use certain long-term contraceptives, for example — the study suggests many experienced breakthrough or unexpected bleeding after their COVID shots.”

Other categories of people reporting abnormal breakthrough bleeding included 39% of those on gender-affirming hormone treatments, 71% of women on long-acting contraceptives and 66% of postmenopausal women.4

Older women, those who used hormonal contraception, had been pregnant previously, or had diagnoses of endometriosis, fibroids or polycystic ovarian syndrome were more likely to experience heavier bleeding than normal after their shots.

Are Menstrual Irregularities Inconsequential?

It’s worth noting that the COVID trials did not ask female participants about their menses, and didn’t collect any data on reproductive impacts. Yet, despite this clear lack of data collection, the official narrative is that everything is fine — the shots are safe and won’t impact fertility.

Just how do they know? They don’t, and that’s what makes such claims so egregious. Making matters worse, media reporting these findings continue to insist that post-jab menstrual irregularities are “normal” and not a sign that reproductive capacity is being impacted. For example, Science writes:5

“Clarifying the issue is vital. ‘It’s important to know about,’ says Victoria Male, a reproductive immunologist at Imperial College London. ‘Let’s say you got the vaccine and the next day you felt really dreadful the way some people do.’

If you hadn’t been informed of the chance of fever, muscle aches, and other effects that quickly dissipate, ‘you would be really worried,’ she said. Illuminating the chance of menstrual irregularities and confirming they aren’t a health risk also helps combat widespread misinformation that COVID-19 vaccines impair fertility, Male and others say.”

Again, no one knows whether the shots affect fertility or not for the simple fact that it hasn’t been studied. No study means no data, which means no knowledge. It’s that simple. Any claims to the contrary are based on pure guesswork, and guessing is not science.

And, while a woman’s menstrual cycle can fluctuate, abrupt changes have historically not been brushed off as inconsequential. On the contrary, suddenly abnormal menses has been listed as a potential sign of things like:6,7,8

  • Uterine and/or cervical cancer
  • Bleeding disorders
  • Thyroid dysfunction and/or pituitary disorders affecting your hormonal balance
  • Infection and/or disease
  • Perimenopause

Menstrual Cycle Length Is Also Affected

Research9 published April 1, 2022, in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, also found an association between the COVID jab and changes in menstrual cycle length. The change was small — about one day shorter than pre-injection after the second dose — and was not deemed to be of any great concern. Still, in my mind, the change indicates that something is happening. The question is what?

Infection Can Suppress Ovarian Function

Some investigators have suggested the menstrual irregularities seen in female COVID patients and the COVID-jabbed alike may be attributed to an immune response to the spike protein.

Back in January 2021, a Chinese study10 published in Reproductive BioMedicine Online found that 28% of unvaccinated women of reproductive age diagnosed with COVID-19 had a change in the length of their cycle, 19% had prolonged cycles and 25% had a change in menstrual blood volume.

The researchers hypothesized that “the menstruation changes of these patients might be the consequence of transient sex hormone changes” caused by a temporary suppression of ovarian function during infection.

Dr. Natalie Crawford, a fertility specialist, has suggested that the menstrual irregularities seen in female COVID-19 patients may be linked to a cellular immunity response, and since the COVID shot instructs your body to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which your immune system then responds to, the effects of the jab may be similar to the natural infection.11 In a 2021 BMJ editorial, Male, quoted by Science above, presented a similar view:12

“Menstrual changes have been reported after both mRNA and adenovirus vectored COVID-19 vaccines, suggesting that, if there is a connection, it is likely to be a result of the immune response to vaccination rather than a specific vaccine component. Vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) has also been associated with menstrual changes.

… Biologically plausible mechanisms linking immune stimulation with menstrual changes include immunological influences on the hormones driving the menstrual cycle or effects mediated by immune cells in the lining of the uterus, which are involved in the cyclical build-up and breakdown of this tissue. Research exploring a possible association between COVID-19 vaccines and menstrual changes may also help understand the mechanism.”

That doesn’t mean menstrual irregularities are of no consequence, though. After all, it appears we’re dealing with a manmade virus, and the mRNA in the shot that programs for spike protein production is genetically engineered on top of that.

Perhaps this is why a greater percentage of women report menstrual irregularities following the COVID jab, compared to the percentage of women who experience irregularities following natural infection?

It may also be worth looking into the parallels between the blood clotting disorders reported — both in some COVID-19 cases and post-COVID-19 jab — and Von Willebrand disease,13 a chronic condition that prevents normal blood clotting, thus resulting in excessively heavy periods.

Miscarriages, Fetal Deaths and Stillbirths Have Skyrocketed

Menstrual irregularities aren’t the only safety signal. Miscarriages, fetal deaths and stillbirths have also risen after the rollout of the COVID shots. In November 2021, Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), delivered an astonishing 13 stillborn babies in a 24-hour period, and all of the mothers had received the COVID jab.14

In a typical month, there may be one stillborn baby at the hospital, making 13 stillbirths in 24 hours highly unusual. Scotland has also experienced an unusual rise in infant death rates. During September 2021, at least 21 babies under 4 weeks old died — a rate of 4.9 per 1,000 births. Historically, the average death rate among newborns in Scotland is about 2 per 1,000 births.15

Yet, despite stillbirths going up after the introduction of the COVID jabs — as opposed to rising beforehand — studies linking stillbirths to SARS-CoV-2 infection have been used to encourage pregnant women to get the shot.16

So, basically, it’s been discovered that the infection itself can cause stillbirth (and we know the spike protein of the virus is the part that causes most of the problems), yet they want you to believe that the spike protein produced by the shot will somehow have a protective impact on pregnancy.

This line of reasoning falls apart even further when you consider that scientists are now saying post-jab menstrual irregularities are likely due to immune responses that arise in response to both the virus and the jab. If that’s true, then why would the COVID shot not also be able to cause stillbirths to the same or greater degree than the virus?

There Are No Data to Support COVID Jab for Pregnant Women

Health officials are adamant that pregnant women get a COVID-19 injection, but the data don’t support its safety. The CDC-sponsored study17 published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that was widely used to support the U.S. recommendation for pregnant women to get injected was corrected in October 2021, with the correction stating:18

“In the table footnotes, the following content should have been appended to the double dagger footnote:

‘No denominator was available to calculate a risk estimate for spontaneous abortions, because at the time of this report, follow-up through 20 weeks was not yet available for 905 of the 1224 participants vaccinated within 30 days before the first day of the last menstrual period or in the first trimester. Furthermore, any risk estimate would need to account for gestational week-specific risk of spontaneous abortion.'”

COVID Jab Affects Male Fertility Too

Other recent research19,20 has found the Pfizer COVID jab also “temporarily impairs semen concentration and motile count” in men. As noted by the authors:21

“The development of COVID-19 vaccinations represents a notable scientific achievement. Nevertheless, concerns have been raised regarding their possible detrimental impact on male fertility …

Thirty-seven SD [semen donors] from three sperm banks that provided 216 samples were included in that retrospective longitudinal multicenter cohort study. BNT162b2 vaccination included two doses, and vaccination completion was scheduled 7 days after the second dose.

The study included four phases: T0 — pre-vaccination baseline control, which encompassed 1–2 initial samples per SD; T1, T2 and T3 — short, intermediate, and long terms evaluations, respectively. Each included 1-3 semen samples per donor provided 15-45, 75-125 and over 145 days after vaccination completion, respectively …

Repetitive measurements revealed −15.4% sperm concentration decrease on T2 (CI −25.5%-3.9%, p = 0.01) leading to total motile count 22.1% reduction (CI −35% – −6.6%, p = 0.007) compared to T0.

Similarly, analysis of first semen sample only and samples’ mean per donor resulted in concentration and total motile count (TMC) reductions on T2 compared to T0 — median decline of 12 million/ml and 31.2 million motile spermatozoa, respectively … on first sample evaluation and median decline of 9.5 × 106 and 27.3 million motile spermatozoa … on samples’ mean examination. T3 evaluation demonstrated overall recovery without …

This longitudinal study focused on SD demonstrates selective temporary sperm concentration and TMC deterioration 3 months after vaccination followed by later recovery verified by diverse statistical analyses.”

As with women’s menstrual problems, the authors blame these adverse effects in men on a “systemic immune response” to the COVID shot. However, while they claim men’s’ reproductive capacity will recover in about three months, this could still be a tremendous problem.

Remember, the mRNA shots are recommended at three-month intervals for the original series, and boosters are now being recommended at varying intervals thereafter. If you destroy a man’s sperm for three months every time he gets a COVID shot, you’re significantly reducing the probability of him fathering a child for a good part of any given year.

Massive Depopulation Underway

Whether accidental or intentional, the fact of the matter is that we’re now seeing an abrupt drop in live births along with an equally sudden rise in excess deaths among adults. The end result will be a reduction in the global population.

That seems inevitable at this point, and the timing of these trends correspond with the release of these experimental COVID gene transfer injections. For example, Germany recently released data showing a 10% decline in birth rate during the first quarter of 2022.22

The live birth rate graph for Sweden looks much the same:23,24

Other countries are also seeing unexpected birth rate reductions, nine months after the start of the mass vaccination campaign against COVID. Between January and April 2022, Switzerland’s birth rate was 15% lower than expected, the U.K.’s was down by 10% and Taiwan’s was down 23%.25,26,27

In a July 5, 2022, Counter Signal article, Mike Campbell reported concerns expressed by Hungarian MP Dúró Dóra during a Parliamentary speech:28

“In January this year, something happened that has not happened for decades. The birth rate fell by 20% compared to the same period last year. And what is even more worrying is that the fertility has also fallen — something not seen since 2011 …

[A] researcher at the KRTK Institute of Economics points out that this drastic decline came just nine months after the COVID mass vaccinations began in Hungary.”

After looking into further, Campbell discovered that in the five countries with the highest COVID jab uptake, fertility has dropped by an average of 15.2%, whereas the five countries with the lowest COVID jab uptake have seen an average reduction of just 4.66%.

The U.S. is also showing signs of a drop in live births. Provisional data from North Dakota shows a 10% decline in February 2022, 13% reduction in March and an 11% reduction in April, compared to the corresponding months in 2021.29 Below is a chart from Birth Gauge30 on Twitter comparing live birth data for 2021 and 2022 in a large number of countries.

Take Responsibility for Your Health

At this time, women are not being warned about the risks for miscarriage, menstrual irregularities and the potential for fertility problems and stillbirths, even though all of these safety signals are glaringly obvious. As obstetrician-gynecologist specialist, Dr. James Thorp, told The Epoch Times in April 2022:31

“I’ve seen many, many, many complications in pregnant women, in moms and in fetuses, in children, offspring, fetal death, miscarriage, death of the fetus inside the mom… What I’ve seen in the last two years is unprecedented.”

Tragically, doctors are under a worldwide gag order. They steer patients away from the COVID shot at the risk of losing their medical license. This puts patients in an incredibly risky situation, as most rely on their doctors to tell them the truth. Few expect doctors to lie or hide life saving information from them simply to protect their own career. So, we’re in unprecedented times in more ways than one.

What this means is that you have no choice, really, but to do your own research and gauge the risks as best you can. There are tons of data out there — data that the mainstream media won’t touch, and if they do, they still insist adverse events aren’t a sign of danger. In such situations, you simply have to put on your thinking cap and think it through for yourself.

As of July 15, 2022, the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) had logged 1,350,947 adverse event reports following the COVID jab, including 29,635 deaths,32 and there’s evidence that reports are being deleted from the system by the thousands. You can learn more about that in “Thousands of Deaths and Adverse Reactions Deleted From VAERS.”

The safety signals coming from the COVID jabs exceed anything else in medical history. No drug or vaccine has ever been associated with as many injuries and deaths, including harm to the unborn.

At this point, it appears we’re looking at a certain depopulation event. The question then is, are you willing to accept the risks? Are you willing to risk your fertility, even if only temporarily? Are you willing to risk the life of your baby? Are you willing to risk your own? If not, the answer is simple. Don’t take the jab, and if you’ve already taken one or two (or three), never take another.

RELATED VIDEO: Short video with Pfizer crime boss, Albert Bourla

Sources and References

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

MICHIGAN: Sh*tty Kalamazoo Decriminalizes Public Defecation and Urination

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The Democrats work furiously to be even more themselves disgusting and debased then you thought possible. These primitives are destroying civilization.

Kalamazoo decriminalizes public defecation and urination over ‘equity’ issues, despite uproar from business owners

By: Carlos Garcia, The Blaze, July 22, 2022

The city of Kalamazoo, Michigan, has decriminalized littering, public defecation, and urination, despite various business owners decrying the policy.

On Monday, the Kalamazoo City Commission voted to water down some misdemeanor crimes so that they are merely civil infractions in the code of ordinances. Part of their reasoning was that people convicted of these crimes could have their lives negatively affected.

“One thing a lot of people don’t realize is a misdemeanor is for life as much as a felony. So many things come with a permanent record on somebody’s record,” explained Commissioner Chris Praedel.

The commission voted unanimously to accept the changes.

Praedel defended the decision to WXMI-TV.

“We’re not rolling out the welcome mat for crime in the city of Kalamazoo,” said Praedel. “We’re not rolling out the red carpet. We still want there to be accountability and guardrails, and it is still against the law for many of those things on there, to do those actions.”

Keep reading…..

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

Charging an All Electric Car Uses 4 Times the Electricity of a Home Air Conditioner

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Watch as Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) puts Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on the spot during a hearing on the cost to charge all electric vehicles on Tuesday, July 18th, 2022.

Congressman Massie states, “Numbers are important. It would take four times as much electricity to charge the average household’s cars as the average household uses on air conditioning. Do you think that could be — so, if we reach the goal by 2030 that Biden has of — of 50 percent adoption instead of 100 percent adoption, that means the average household would use twice as much electricity charging one of their cars as they would use for all of the air conditioning that they use for the entire year.”

Tesla Model charging
Tesla Model Energy required to charge battery (kWh) End charge of battery (kWh)
Model 3 Long Range 88.541 kWh 78.557 kWh
Model 3 Performance 94.242 kWh 80.818 kWh
Model S** 118.366 kWh 103.892 kWh
Model S Plaid 116.344 kWh 99.287 kWh

NOTE: Most air-conditioning units run on a cycle of 15 minutes twice per hour. The actual power consumption is at 7.7kWh.

CLICK HERE: Access the Global Energy Tracker on CFR.org

In a December 21st, 2021 column titled Electric Cars vs. Gas Cars: Is the Conventional Wisdom Wrong? Bill Wirtz reported,

Electric vehicle batteries need a multitude of resources to be manufactured. In the case of cobalt, the World Economic Forum has called out the extraction conditions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than half of the world’s cobalt comes from. Miners as young as seven years are suffering from chronic lung disease from exposure to cobalt dust. Not only does battery manufacturing account for 60 percent of the world’s cobalt use, but there are also no good solutions to replace it, which is something Elon Musk is struggling with.

This does not even address the extraction procedures, complications, ethical conditions, and emissions produced by the need for aluminum, manganese, nickel, graphite, and lithium carbonate.

With a European market estimated to reach a total of 1,200 gigawatt-hours per year, which is enough for 80 gigafactories with an average capacity of 15 gigawatt-hours per year, that need is set to increase exponentially.

The renowned German research institute IFO declared the eco-balance of diesel-powered vehicles to be superior to electric vehicles in a study released in April.

In an April 7th, 2022 column titled The Environmental Downside of Electric Vehicles Michael Heberling reported,

An electric vehicle requires six times the mineral inputs of a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle, according to the International Energy Agency.

At one time, “Saving the Environment” and “Fighting Climate Change” were synonymous. That is no longer true. The quest for Clean Energy through electric vehicles (EVs) epitomizes “the end justifies the means.”

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), an electric vehicle requires six times the mineral inputs of a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle (ICE). EV batteries are very heavy and are made with some exotic, expensive, toxic, and flammable materials.

The primary metals in EV batteries include Nickel, Lithium, Cobalt, Copper and Rare Earth metals (Neodymium and Dysprosium). The mining of these materials, their use in manufacturing and their ultimate disposal all present significant environmental challenges. Ninety percent of the ICE lead-acid batteries are recycled while only five percent of the EV lithium-ion batteries are.

The Bottom Line

All electric vehicles (EVs) are costly to manufacture, use exotic, expensive, toxic, and flammable materials, harm the environment and harm those children working in the mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than half of the world’s cobalt comes from.

Now we learn that Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has not idea what it costs the ordinary American family to own, charge and maintain EVs. If you purchase a Tesla is will cost $45 for their outlet, and an estimated  installation cost of between $750-$1500.

You see it’s not about the environment, saving the planet from climate change or what is best for the American family.

It’s all about their green agenda and its ideology. The ends justifying their nefarious means!

The American consumer be damned.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Lies, Damn Lies and Big Abortion

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“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” — Mark Twain

“Now is the time to make life for the unborn universal.” — Dr. Rich Swier

LifeNews.com in an email wrote the following:

They are liars. I don’t use that word lightly but there is no other way to describe Big Abortion, their liberal media cheerleaders and their Democrat allies in Washington.

And it’s no surprise because abortion activists have been lying to you since Roe v. Wade.

They lied about Norma McCorvey and used those lies to kill 63 million babies in abortions but their lies were exposed and her true story revealed.

They lied and claimed unborn babies are not human beings, but ultrasounds showed a window to the womb and proved a child before birth is an innocent baby.

They lied and claimed there was a Constitutional right to kill babies in abortions, but the Supreme Court made it clear there’s not and overturned Roe v. Wade.

They lied and claimed women would die if abortions are banned. But Texas has banned abortions for 326 days, Oklahoma has banned abortions for 60 days and several states have banned abortions for 30 days. ZERO women have died.

They lied and claimed women would die because abortion bans would stop treatment for topic pregnancies. But pro-life doctors exposed their lies and and showed how they care for women every day.

They lied and claimed women would die because abortion bans would stop treatment for miscarriages. But pro-life factchecks have proven these claims false over and over again.

In a July 22nd column titled BOYCOTT: Major Companies Providing Travel Expenses for Employees Seeking Abortions Royal A. Brown, III listed the following twenty-six companies who are part of Big Abortion, along with radical pro-abortion groups like Ruth Sent Us, Act Blue, Jane’s Revenge and the Democrat Party.

MICROSOFT

Microsoft (MSFT) extended its financial support for “critical healthcare,” including abortions and gender-affirming care, to include coverage for travel expenses for such services, after the draft opinion overturning Roe was first leaked.

APPLE

The company’s existing benefits package allows employees to travel out of state for medical care if it is unavailable in their home state, according to an Apple (AAPL) spokesperson.

META

The tech giant intends to offer travel expense reimbursement “to the extent permitted by law” for employees seeking out-of-state health care and reproductive services, according to a spokesperson. “We are in the process of assessing how best to do so given the legal complexities involved,” the Meta (FB) spokesperson said in a statement.

YELP

Yelp’s existing healthcare plan for US employees pays for women, family members and partners to travel out of states with strict abortion laws, such as Texas and Oklahoma, which ban abortions after 6 weeks.

“This ruling puts women’s health in jeopardy, denies them their human rights, and threatens to dismantle the progress we’ve made toward gender equality in the workplaces since Roe,” Jeremy Stoppelman, co-founder of Yelp (YELP), said in a statement Friday. “Business leaders must step up to support the health and safety of their employees by speaking out against the wave of abortion bans that will be triggered as a result of this decision, and call on Congress to codify Roe into law.”

DISNEY

Disney (DIS) employees who are unable to access medical care in one location will be given affordable coverage to access the same care in another location, according to a company spokesperson. The benefit covers family planning and pregnancy-related decisions.

UBER

Uber’s US insurance plans already cover reproductive health benefits, including abortion and travel expenses to access healthcare. The rideshare company will also reimburse any drivers sued under state law for providing transportation to a clinic through the app, according to an Uber (UBER) spokesperson.

NETFLIX

The streaming company offers travel reimbursement coverage for US full-time employees and their dependents who need to travel for healthcare treatments including abortions and gender-affirming care, a Netflix (NFLX) spokesperson told CNN. The company provides a lifetime allowance of $10,000 per employees (or their dependents) per service.

BUMBLE

Bumble (BMBL), a female-driven dating app, said Friday that it will support its employees’ ability to access “the healthcare services they need,” including abortion care. A Bumble spokesperson added that the company will donate to the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

“Abortion is healthcare, and healthcare is a human right. We are deeply troubled by the Supreme Court decision,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

MATCH GROUP

Dating app company Match Group (MTCH) in October established a partnership with Planned Parenthood Los Angeles to provide abortion access for its Texas employees and their dependents. The company is currently considering expanding that benefit to all its US staff, including remote employees in states with trigger laws that may soon ban abortions, according to a Match spokesperson. Match healthcare plans also help to cover travel and lodging costs for employees who need to travel to receive care, the spokesperson said.

BOX.COM

Box.com will cover employee travel and medical expenses incurred by employees while seeking reproductive services.

LEVI STRAUSS

The denim company said through The Levi Strauss Foundation that it is providing grants to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Afiya Center and ARC-Southeast which provides direct assistance to women and communities in need of care. The company previously said that under its benefits plan, employees can be reimbursed for travel expenses for services not available in their home state, including abortion. Part-time staff and others who aren’t included in the company’s benefits plan are also eligible for reimbursement, it said.

COMCAST-NBC UNIVERSAL

Comcast (CCZ) has an existing healthcare travel benefit for all employees that covers up to $4,000 per trip, up to three trips per year, with a maximum coverage cap of $10,000 per year. The amount paid out depends on the type of health care procedure, but abortion care is covered, according to the company.

WARNER BROS DISCOVERY

Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns CNN, on Friday expanded healthcare benefits options to include expenses for employees and their covered family members who need to travel to access abortions and other reproductive care, according to a company spokesperson.

CONDÉ NAST

The media company said Friday it will reimburse travel and lodging for employees who need abortion, infertility or gender-reaffirming services and cannot obtain them locally. CEO Roger Lynch said in an internal memo the Supreme Court decision was a “crushing blow to reproductive rights” and said the most powerful way the company can respond is through its content and journalism.

JPMORGAN CHASE

JPMorgan (JPM) on Friday said that its health care benefits have long covered abortion care. And starting in July, abortion will be included in the company’s health care travel benefit that covers services that can only be obtained far from home, according to spokesperson Joseph Evangelisti.

NIKE

The sportswear company said in a statement that it covers travel and lodging expenses in situations where healthcare services are not available close to home, according to a statement Nike (NKE) released Friday.

“No matter where our teammates are on their family planning journey — from contraception and abortion coverage, to pregnancy and family-building support through fertility, surrogacy and adoption benefits — we are here to support their decisions,” the statement reads.

STARBUCKS

The coffee company is providing employees enrolled in its healthcare plan a medical travel benefit to access an abortion, according to a public letter to employees by Sara Kelly, Starbucks (SBUX) acting executive vice president of partner resources.
“We all need to process this in our own way, and as you do, here is what I want you to know: no matter where you live, or what you believe, we will always ensure you have access to quality healthcare,” Kelly said in the letter.

DICK’S SPORTING GOODS

For employees who live in a state that restricts abortion access, Dick’s will provide up to $4,000 in travel expense reimbursement to travel to the nearest location where care is legally available, the company said in a statement Friday. The benefit will be provided to any employee, spouse or dependent enrolled in its medical plan, along with one support person.  Note that Dick’s is also a non-supporter of the 2A and stopped selling firearms in their stores.

KROGER

The grocer’s healthcare package includes travel benefits of up to $4,000 to facilitate access for reproductive healthcare services, including abortion and fertility treatments, according to a Kroger (KR) spokesperson.

ALASKA AIRLINES

Alaska Airlines said in a statement that it has always provided travel reimbursements for “certain medical procedures and treatments if they are not available where you live.”

“Today’s Supreme Court decision does not change that,” it said.

GOLDMAN SACHS

Goldman Sachs (FADXX) on Friday extended its healthcare travel reimbursement policies to include all medical procedures, treatments and evaluations, including abortion services, in areas where a provider is not available near to where its employees live, a benefit that will be effective July 1, according to an internal memo obtained by CNN.

ZILLOW

Zillow (Z) said in a statement Friday that its health benefits cover a wide range of reproductive health services, including abortions. The company said that as of June 1, its health plan has been updated to include a reimbursement of up to $7,500 “each time significant travel is necessary to access health care, including reproductive services.”

HP

The technology company said in a statement that its existing healthcare plan covers a “wide range of reproductive health services,” including abortion and related travel costs.

HPE

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which spun off from HP several years ago and moved its headquarters earlier this year from Silicon Valley to Texas, offers a medical plan that covers out of state care, including abortions and related travel expenses, according to a company spokesperson.

“Restricting a woman’s ability and choices in obtaining health care is inequitable and harmful to the advancement of women,” HPE CEO Antonio Neri said on Twitter Saturday.

ACCCENTURE

Accenture’s existing healthcare plan includes “a full range of reproductive healthcare benefits” and travel assistance for “covered medial services” that are not located within 100 miles of an employee’s residence, a company spokesperson told CNN.

CHOBANI

The yogurt company updated its healthcare policy for employees in May, following the leak of the draft opinion on Roe, to cover transportation and lodging expenses for any employee or dependent (as well as one caregiver) who needs to travel to receive specialized healthcare, including abortions. The policy also includes reimbursement for childcare costs incurred from the travel, according to a memo Chobani COO Kevin Burns sent to employees in May, which was shared with CNN.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Shocking New Studies On The Dangers and Serious Side Effects Of Covid Vaccine

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Disturbing new vaccine data:

TRANSCRIPT:

Good evening and welcome to “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” We’re still shocked. Everyone else seems to have moved on to the next thing, but we still can’t get over what we saw yesterday when Joe Biden stunned the world and announced during a press conference with no warning at all that he has a potentially fatal disease. “I have cancer, “Joe Biden said. “I got it from living in Delaware.”

It turns out that Joe Biden’s home state is so thoroughly polluted, so supernaturally filthy, that even lepers living in public sewers in Calcutta refuse to go there. It’s too unclean. How dirty is Delaware? It is so dirty, Joe Biden said, that when it rains, it rains oil. That’s why everyone in Delaware gets cancer. They get it from the oil rain. Now, Joe Biden has it, too.

Looking back, voters probably should have known a little more about Joe Biden’s Delaware-related risk factors before he became president. It’s too late now and it just got worse. Not only is Biden sick from Delaware oil rain, now he’s got COVID. The White House announced it today. So, it’s been a tough week, overall. Wednesday, it was cancer. Thursday, it was the coronavirus. Tomorrow, you’ve got to think it’s going to be monkeypox. If you or someone you know has recently had unsafe sex with Joe Biden, please seek precautionary medical attention. God knows what you might have picked up.

At the White House, they are genuinely upset by today’s news, not because they’re worried about Joe Biden’s health. Everybody who works at the White House already knows he’s so thoroughly unwell he can barely speak. These are the people who run his teleprompter. They’re the ones who put the little pieces of tape on the floor so he knows where the door is.

These are not people who have any illusions at all about Joe Biden’s condition. What they’re upset about is the fact that Joe Biden just stepped on their message and from day one, that message has been consistent and unrelenting: “Get the vaccine or else.” Get the vaccine or you can’t have a job or an organ transplant or Thanksgiving with your kids. Get the vax or you can’t visit your mom as she dies in the hospital. Get the vax, prole. It’s the most important thing that you can do and you’re a monster if you don’t.

So, people obey. They did it. “Okay,” they said, “We’ll take the vax. It doesn’t look like we have a choice, but are you sure it works? It’s pretty hard to make a successful vaccine against a coronavirus. In fact, nobody’s ever done it. We tried with SARs almost 20 years ago and that failed completely, so you are absolutely positive this stuff works? Are you sure it’s safe and effective?”

“Of course we’re positive,” screamed the mannequin. We’re the U.S. government. We know these things. We don’t make mistakes. Stop asking questions. Questions have no place in science. Just take this shot and you will not get COVID. That’s guaranteed.” Joe Biden said that. He didn’t just say it once. He said it many, many, many times.

BIDEN, OCTOBER 2021: The fact is, this has been a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Unvaccinated.

BIDEN, JULY 2021: The Delta virus, which is much more transmissible and more deadly in terms of non-unvaccinated people… The various shots that people are getting now cover that. You’re okay. You’re not going to, you’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.

BIDEN, JANUARY 2022: If you’re unvaccinated, you have some reason to be alarmed. Many of you will, you know, you’ll experience severe illness in many cases if you get COVID-19, if you’re not vaccinated. Some will die. We have in hand all the vaccines we need to get every American fully vaccinated, including the booster shot. So, there’s no excuse, no excuse for anyone being unvaccinated. This continues to be a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Yeah, there’s no excuse. And if you don’t get the vax, you’re going to die from COVID. You’re going to get COVID if you don’t get the vax. Now, if you’d said that once or maybe like 11 times, you could say he’s got dementia, whatever. He said it pretty much every day, and he’s not the only one. They all did, beginning with Lord Fauci.

So, it turns out once you get vaccinated, you can feel safe. You’re not going to get infected. You’re not like the dirty people who didn’t get the vax, the anti-science people who are all going to die, and when they do, we’re going to laugh at them because they deserve it. And by the way, it wasn’t just Biden who’s just reading the script. It wasn’t just Fauci who will say whatever it takes and is, of course, covering up his own role in creating the virus in the first place. Even actual doctors, even the head of the CDC, even Rochelle Walensky herself, said the same thing.

WALENSKY: Our data from the CDC today suggests, you know, that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick, and that it’s not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real world data.

Yeah, it’s not just in the clinical trials. It’s in real world data. Just look around observed reality. You don’t know anyone who’s gotten the vaccine and then got COV– oh, wait, everybody who got the vaccine got COVID. How does that work? Well, they never explained. They stopped telling you it was a pandemic of the vaccine because it was so obviously untrue.

You got the vaccine, you still got COVID, so they stopped saying anything at all, and they hoped you would forget about what they said for a full year and all the thousands of people whose lives they destroyed on the basis of that lie, but what they didn’t do ever was apologize for it. They hope they wouldn’t have to. But then last Friday, Joe Biden, again the president of the United States, became visibly symptomatic with something during a speech in Jerusalem. Watch.

BIDEN: I was making a speech and I had a terrible headache, excuse me, a terrible headache and sorry, but I had a terrible headache six years ago and I did a very stupid thing.

Remember, when you’re a kid, all the public health authorities try to stamp out cigarette smoking, and they printed these huge posters of up a wino dying of cirrhosis, tugging on a Pall Mall. They said smoking is very glamorous. In other words, don’t be this guy. Well, if we ever have another pandemic, let’s hope we don’t, but if we ever do, play that tape. That’s what you don’t do. Remember, the CDC in its guidance, when you develop symptoms, you isolate immediately.

You don’t cough on people at press conferences. Those are the rules that your kids lived by at school. That’s why they wore the little masks. They couldn’t breathe. Your children were also told to scan QR codes for contact tracing purposes if they ever developed COVID a dry cough, but today, Joe Biden gets COVID, and when reporters asked how he got it and why he didn’t isolate after getting symptoms, the response the White House press secretary was and we’re quoting here, and we’re quoting her, “I don’t think that matters.” It just doesn’t matter. Turns out it doesn’t matter. Go ahead and super spread if you want to.

So, if you’re on Air Force One yesterday or you went to a big press conference in Massachusetts or if you were the recipient of a fist bump in Saudi Arabia, you may have the Rona, but nobody cares. I don’t think it matters, says Karine Jean-Pierre, the president’s glass ceiling shattering publicist. So, obviously they’re hypocrites. Did you know that? Had you heard that before? Well, now you can mark that down as confirmed. That’s only part of the story and we don’t want to ignore the fact that the real story is the president of the United States is 79-years-old and has a, how to put it, complicated medical history and now he’s got COVID.

So, what does that mean? Well, sincerely, we hope he’s going to be okay. We do know he’s going to lose his sense of smell, maybe forever. What does that mean? No more sniffing little girls. If you’re Joe Biden and your main source of pleasure at this late stage in your life is sniffing the hair of unsuspecting, defenseless little girls and now you can’t even smell it, imagine that. Let’s say you’re riding your bike and you see a little girl and you think “I’d love to sniff her hair. Oh, man. No sense of smell.”

So, actually the costs of COVID are a little more profound than sometimes we understand. What’s kind of weird from a political perspective is that Biden got infected with COVID at exactly the moment his approval rating has reached its lowest ebb, not just with normal people, with Democrats. He’s 19% among Hispanic voters. Red alert, anyone and this also comes exactly the same moment that his son faces possible felony charges, huh? And also, needless to say, at the moment that his dementia has become so obvious that no one can possibly deny it.

I’m in Israel to honor the Holocaust, he just said. Oh, it’s so awful. So, what does this mean? Well, this incites the blood instincts of others in his party. Gretchen Whitmer, probably sitting in her rec room right now polishing her resume. “I could replace him,” but the real story here is the medical story. Joe Biden and a whole lot other people have gotten pretty sick with COVID after getting multiple shots. What is that about exactly? How did that happen? It’s easy to just mock that this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. That’s clearly untrue, but is there a connection between getting most multiple COVID vaccine shots and getting sicker?

Is it possible that the vaccine actually can hurt you, especially if you keep getting boosted? Can it weaken your immune system? Well, that looks possible. Multiple studies have looked into this. Just last month, the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology published the findings of several MRNA researchers and we’re quoting, “In this paper, we present evidence that vaccination induces a profound impairment in type one interferon signaling, which has diverse adverse consequences to human health.”

Well, that seems like a headline. Did you read that in The New York Times? No, you probably didn’t. Kind of weird since hundreds of millions of people got the shot. The researchers continue that in their studies of the COVID vaccine, “We identify potential profound disturbances in regulatory control of protein synthesis and cancer surveillance. These disturbances potentially have a causal link to neurodegenerative disease… myocarditis, Bell’s Palsy, liver disease, impaired adaptive immunity, impaired DNA damage response, etc.”

So, it’s possible. In fact, it’s looking likely that the vaccine might suppress the immune system. This fact, the authors concluded, will “have a wide range of consequences, not the least of which include the reactivation of latent viral infections and the reduced ability to effectively combat future infections.” Now again, we sincerely hope that’s not true, but it’s not just the conclusion of one scientific journal.

The Lancet may be the most famous scientific journal in the world, released similar findings in February. The Lancet’s piece was entitled “Risk of infection, hospitalization and death up to nine months after a second dose of COVID 19 vaccine.” A physician called Kenji Yamamoto made this observation about the data from The Lancet. He wrote this in a letter to the Journal of Virology and we’re quoting “The study showed that immune function among vaccinated individuals eight months after the administration of two doses of COVID 19 vaccine was lower than that among the unvaccinated individuals.”

Now your first response, if you’re a humane person to a line like that, has got to be deep sympathy because people were misled. They were forced. They were forced, medical ethics thrown out the window. People were forced to take medicine they didn’t want and some of them have been hurt by it and you don’t have to take this man’s word for it. Pull up the Lancet study yourself. You won’t find anything of the text of the article saying what Kenji Yamamoto said, which is weird. Why would the Lancet want to hide a major finding like that? We can’t say, but if you look at table three in the piece, here’s what you’ll find buried in the data.

Among people around the age of 80 who have been double vaccinated, that would include people like Joe Biden, the per capita rate of medical incidences, including hospitalizations for death, is nearly twice as high as the rate of serious incidence for the unvaccinated. This is 180 days after vaccination. What is that and why is no one interested? The piece also includes a chart showing negative vaccine efficacy for all ages after eight months for all participants in the study. So again, this is sad news for a lot of Americans, but it’s also a profound indictment, maybe the greatest indictment in our lifetimes of our leaders, their recklessness, their pig headedness, their dishonesty.

Given this, how is the D.C. government, among many others, still requiring schoolchildren, public and private schoolchildren, to get a COVID vaccine? That’s a question that no one asked at today’s White House press briefing. How are members of the U.S. military being dismissed without their pensions because they won’t take this same vaccine, in light of these study results. Is no one paying attention? How is this allowed? But instead, today at the White House briefing, all the questions are about the proof of life video that Joe Biden’s office released today. Here it is.

BIDEN: Hey, folks, guess you heard this morning I tested positive for COVID. But, I’ve been double-vaccinated, double-boosted. Symptoms are mild and I really appreciate your inquiries and concerns. I’m doing well, getting a lot of work done. I’m going to continue to get it done.

Here’s a question. Is there a single public statement Joe Biden has made since Inauguration Day that he did not read off a teleprompter? Is there one? Find it.

So, the question they come up at today’s press briefing was, after seeing that is who shot that footage? Is that person in danger?
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Well, once again, the president’s glass ceiling shattering publicist, Karine Jean-Pierre, was asked that question and she said it’s totally fine because the video was taken outside and there’s no risk outside that we will arrest you for paddleboarding in California. But then an hour earlier, to make this even messier because it’s inherently messy, because it’s Biden-related, the White House released this picture and it shows Joe Biden, brace yourselves, indoors at his desk, no mask.

So, who shot that picture? Is that person still alive? Does that person have monkeypox? Presumably, the White House photographer is vaccinated. That’s got to be a requirement working there. But as we just saw, that may make the photographer more vulnerable to infection and in fact, and we hate to say this, it might mean the photographer is now more likely to face serious health complications.

So, underlying all of this is a really ominous fact, and that is a lot of people have been hurt by this. You hate to say it. Germany’s Ministry of Health found that 1 in 5,000 Germans have suffered “serious side effects after a COVID 19 vaccine.”

Now, one in 5,000 may seem like a lot or a little, but extrapolate forward to the United States, a country with our population. That would mean that in the U.S., if that number holds constant across countries (and why wouldn’t it?) it would mean more than 100,000 Americans may have been seriously injured by the COVID vaccine.

Why does no one talk about them? Why does nobody care and what happens to them now? If Joe Biden accomplishes a single thing as president, it will be getting more people to ask that question today and it’s a fair question and to end, science is about questions. Science is questioning. So, anyone who tells you, you’re anti-science for asking a question doesn’t understand what science is.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

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Computing forever: A synopsis of the climate-Covid con for communism

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Australia: The More “Vaccines” You’ve Had, The Sicker You’ll Be

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

BOYCOTT: Major Companies Providing Travel Expenses for Employees Seeking Abortions

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Consider BOYCOTTING them — how WOKE can they go!

These are the states where abortion rights are still protected after Roe v. Wade

Here are some of the prominent companies offering expanded assistance to staff in states curtailing abortion care.

These US companies will cover travel costs for employees who need an abortion

Microsoft

Microsoft (MSFT) extended its financial support for “critical healthcare,” including abortions and gender-affirming care, to include coverage for travel expenses for such services, after the draft opinion overturning Roe was first leaked.

Apple

The company’s existing benefits package allows employees to travel out of state for medical care if it is unavailable in their home state, according to an Apple (AAPL) spokesperson.

Meta

The tech giant intends to offer travel expense reimbursement “to the extent permitted by law” for employees seeking out-of-state health care and reproductive services, according to a spokesperson. “We are in the process of assessing how best to do so given the legal complexities involved,” the Meta (FB) spokesperson said in a statement.

Yelp

Yelp’s existing healthcare plan for US employees pays for women, family members and partners to travel out of states with strict abortion laws, such as Texas and Oklahoma, which ban abortions after 6 weeks.

“This ruling puts women’s health in jeopardy, denies them their human rights, and threatens to dismantle the progress we’ve made toward gender equality in the workplaces since Roe,” Jeremy Stoppelman, co-founder of Yelp (YELP), said in a statement Friday. “Business leaders must step up to support the health and safety of their employees by speaking out against the wave of abortion bans that will be triggered as a result of this decision, and call on Congress to codify Roe into law.”

Disney

Disney (DIS) employees who are unable to access medical care in one location will be given affordable coverage to access the same care in another location, according to a company spokesperson. The benefit covers family planning and pregnancy-related decisions.

Uber

Uber’s US insurance plans already cover reproductive health benefits, including abortion and travel expenses to access healthcare. The rideshare company will also reimburse any drivers sued under state law for providing transportation to a clinic through the app, according to an Uber (UBER) spokesperson.

Netflix

The streaming company offers travel reimbursement coverage for US full-time employees and their dependents who need to travel for healthcare treatments including abortions and gender-affirming care, a Netflix (NFLX) spokesperson told CNN. The company provides a lifetime allowance of $10,000 per employees (or their dependents) per service.

Bumble

Bumble (BMBL), a female-driven dating app, said Friday that it will support its employees’ ability to access “the healthcare services they need,” including abortion care. A Bumble spokesperson added that the company will donate to the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

“Abortion is healthcare, and healthcare is a human right. We are deeply troubled by the Supreme Court decision,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Match Group

Dating app company Match Group (MTCH) in October established a partnership with Planned Parenthood Los Angeles to provide abortion access for its Texas employees and their dependents. The company is currently considering expanding that benefit to all its US staff, including remote employees in states with trigger laws that may soon ban abortions, according to a Match spokesperson. Match healthcare plans also help to cover travel and lodging costs for employees who need to travel to receive care, the spokesperson said.

Box.com

Box.com will cover employee travel and medical expenses incurred by employees while seeking reproductive services.

Levi Strauss

The denim company said through The Levi Strauss Foundation that it is providing grants to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Afiya Center and ARC-Southeast which provides direct assistance to women and communities in need of care. The company previously said that under its benefits plan, employees can be reimbursed for travel expenses for services not available in their home state, including abortion. Part-time staff and others who aren’t included in the company’s benefits plan are also eligible for reimbursement, it said.

Comcast-NBC Universal

Comcast (CCZ) has an existing healthcare travel benefit for all employees that covers up to $4,000 per trip, up to three trips per year, with a maximum coverage cap of $10,000 per year. The amount paid out depends on the type of health care procedure, but abortion care is covered, according to the company.

Warner Bros Discovery

Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns CNN, on Friday expanded healthcare benefits options to include expenses for employees and their covered family members who need to travel to access abortions and other reproductive care, according to a company spokesperson.

Condé Nast

The media company said Friday it will reimburse travel and lodging for employees who need abortion, infertility or gender-reaffirming services and cannot obtain them locally. CEO Roger Lynch said in an internal memo the Supreme Court decision was a “crushing blow to reproductive rights” and said the most powerful way the company can respond is through its content and journalism.

JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan (JPM) on Friday said that its health care benefits have long covered abortion care. And starting in July, abortion will be included in the company’s health care travel benefit that covers services that can only be obtained far from home, according to spokesperson Joseph Evangelisti.

Nike

The sportswear company said in a statement that it covers travel and lodging expenses in situations where healthcare services are not available close to home, according to a statement Nike (NKE) released Friday.

“No matter where our teammates are on their family planning journey — from contraception and abortion coverage, to pregnancy and family-building support through fertility, surrogacy and adoption benefits — we are here to support their decisions,” the statement reads.

Starbucks

The coffee company is providing employees enrolled in its healthcare plan a medical travel benefit to access an abortion, according to a public letter to employees by Sara Kelly, Starbucks (SBUX) acting executive vice president of partner resources.
“We all need to process this in our own way, and as you do, here is what I want you to know: no matter where you live, or what you believe, we will always ensure you have access to quality healthcare,” Kelly said in the letter.

Dick’s Sporting Goods

For employees who live in a state that restricts abortion access, Dick’s will provide up to $4,000 in travel expense reimbursement to travel to the nearest location where care is legally available, the company said in a statement Friday. The benefit will be provided to any employee, spouse or dependent enrolled in its medical plan, along with one support person.  Note that Dick’s is also a non-supporter of the 2A and stopped selling firearms in their stores.

Kroger

The grocer’s healthcare package includes travel benefits of up to $4,000 to facilitate access for reproductive healthcare services, including abortion and fertility treatments, according to a Kroger (KR) spokesperson.

Alaska Airlines

Alaska Airlines said in a statement that it has always provided travel reimbursements for “certain medical procedures and treatments if they are not available where you live.”

“Today’s Supreme Court decision does not change that,” it said.

Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs (FADXX) on Friday extended its healthcare travel reimbursement policies to include all medical procedures, treatments and evaluations, including abortion services, in areas where a provider is not available near to where its employees live, a benefit that will be effective July 1, according to an internal memo obtained by CNN.

Zillow

Zillow (Z) said in a statement Friday that its health benefits cover a wide range of reproductive health services, including abortions. The company said that as of June 1, its health plan has been updated to include a reimbursement of up to $7,500 “each time significant travel is necessary to access health care, including reproductive services.”

HP

The technology company said in a statement that its existing healthcare plan covers a “wide range of reproductive health services,” including abortion and related travel costs.

HPE

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which spun off from HP several years ago and moved its headquarters earlier this year from Silicon Valley to Texas, offers a medical plan that covers out of state care, including abortions and related travel expenses, according to a company spokesperson.

“Restricting a woman’s ability and choices in obtaining health care is inequitable and harmful to the advancement of women,” HPE CEO Antonio Neri said on Twitter Saturday.

Acccenture

Accenture’s existing healthcare plan includes “a full range of reproductive healthcare benefits” and travel assistance for “covered medial services” that are not located within 100 miles of an employee’s residence, a company spokesperson told CNN.

Chobani

The yogurt company updated its healthcare policy for employees in May, following the leak of the draft opinion on Roe, to cover transportation and lodging expenses for any employee or dependent (as well as one caregiver) who needs to travel to receive specialized healthcare, including abortions. The policy also includes reimbursement for childcare costs incurred from the travel, according to a memo Chobani COO Kevin Burns sent to employees in May, which was shared with CNN.

©Royal A. Brown. All rights reserved.

One Year Ago Joe Biden Said Vaccinated Cannot Get COVID

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“If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in an ICU unit, and you are not going to die…You’re not going to — you’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.” — Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.,  CNN town hall in Cincinnati, Ohio on 21 July, 2021.

Imagine if this were Trump, Imagine the media bonfire.

Nolte: One Year Ago Today, Joe Biden Said Vaccinated Cannot Get COVID

By: John Nolte

While we all wish Joe Biden a fast and full recovery from the coronavirus, let’s not forget all the COVID misinformation he has been spreading for years.

In fact, in a fit of irony, no one would believe in fiction; it was exactly one year ago — one year ago to the day — that Biden told the country the COVID vaccination would protect you from being infected.

On July 21, 2022, the White House announced that the twice vaccinated and twice boosted Joe Biden has the coronavirus.

On July 21, 2021, Joe Biden told the country that the vaccinated could not get the coronavirus.

But again, one last thing.  I — we don’t talk enough to you about this, I don’t think.  One last thing that’s really important is: We’re not in a position where we think that any virus — including the Delta virus, which is much more transmissible and more deadly in terms of non — unvaccinated people — the vi- — the various shots that people are getting now cover that.  They’re — you’re okay.  You’re not going to — you’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations. [emphasis added]

Biden spread that blatant misinformation during a CNN town hall event.

Naturally, the CNNLOL moderator, Don Lemon, did not challenge or correct Biden.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: BREAKING NEWS: Biden Has COVID

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

HHS Pays $40k to Study Why Kids ‘Favor Whiteness and Maleness Over Other Identities.’

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In yet another racial equity venture funded by American taxpayers, a private university is getting tens of thousands of dollars from the U.S. government to study the “developmental trajectory of children’s beliefs that white males—more so than black males, white females, or black females—best exemplify a person.” The three-year research project, to be conducted by academics at New York University (NYU), seeks to uncover why kids “favor Whiteness and maleness over other identities,” according to the grant announcement issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency doling out the cash for the study.

The project is part of a broader HHS Equity Action Plan designed to transform how the agency does business in order “to concretely advance equity.” Under the overhaul a Minority Health Social Vulnerability Index was launched to help identify racial and ethnic communities at the greatest risk for disproportionate impact and adverse outcomes due to COVID-19 and a Racial Equity in Postpartum Care Challenge was created to reduce disparities and improve outcomes for postpartum “Black or African American” women enrolled in Medicaid, the government’s insurance program for the poor. HHS has also doled out millions of dollars to “minority-serving institutions” charged with strengthening COVID-19 vaccine confidence among racial and ethnic minority groups as well as underserved communities.

In the agency’s latest racial equity endeavor, researchers at NYU will receive more than $40,000 to study “societal assumptions regarding typical personhood and their effects on reasoning development.” The HHS grant announcement further specifies that the goal is to “uncover the development processes by which children acquire the belief that white males represent the default person—a pattern rooted in ideologies of androcentrism (centering the experiences of men) and ethnocentricism (centering the experiences of white people) prevalent in the United States.” The document goes on to state that “despite national rises in racial and gender diversity, white men remain vastly overrepresented across a host of domains within the U.S., from media, to politics, to clinical research.” That overrepresentation poses severe costs to the rest of society, the nation’s health agency writes, identifying the victims as “women of all races, men of color, and gender-nonconforming individuals.”

The Biden administration is particularly concerned with embedded disparities in health, where clinical trials have historically prioritized the experiences, perspectives, and health outcomes of white men. “To address this issue, we must understand when and how the tendency to view white males as default people develops across childhood, as well as the environmental factors that underlie this phenomenon,” the HHS grant document states. Specifically, the government wants to know the developmental trajectory by which children’s default representations of people begin to favor whiteness and maleness over other identities, the domains across which children activate a white male default to guide social reasoning, and the sociocultural and ecological factors that can prevent the development of those beliefs. “Young children actively construct knowledge to make sense of their social environments,” according to the grant document. “As part of this process, children absorb complex streams of information from the sources around them, including parents, peers, and broader societal institutions (e.g., media).” HHS proceeds to explain that the beliefs children acquire tend to reflect the dominant ideologies embedded in their specific cultural contexts. In the U.S., those ideologies include the previously mentioned “androcentrism and ethnocentrism.”

The taxpayer-funded researchers are expected to clarify the scope of children’s beliefs about who best exemplifies a person by testing the consistency of the belief across domains and uncovering the features of children’s sociocultural and ecological environments that underlie beliefs about who best exemplifies a person. “The diversity afforded by this platform allows us to capture a holistic picture of the phenomenon in question and the mechanisms underlying it, broadening both the empirical rigor and real-world impacts of our findings,” according to HHS. It will only cost American taxpayers $40,391, though the agency could obligate more funding at any time.

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

When Intelligence is Stupid

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The smartest guy in the room is often not the most trustworthy or competent.

I’ve long engaged a group of close friends in political and theological discussion. As it happens, two of us agree on most topics and ally against the others. Mostly in banter, although not entirely so, we refer to ourselves as “Team Intelligence.” It’s friendly and jocular, even if somewhat ridiculous.

Who could be against intelligence? Who would wish to be dim-witted or slow; or worse, to be thought dim-witted and slow?

In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes intelligence or understanding (nous) as the intellectual virtue by which we apprehend first principles. Such principles are known, but as first, they cannot themselves be demonstrated or based on other more fundamental premises. The intellect grasps them as true by an insight that is neither an intuition nor a conclusion. Thus, all other theoretical reasoning depends on intelligence, which provides fundamental principles.

Nonetheless, it is obvious to any person of experience that intelligence is no guarantee of wisdom, morality, or even basic decency. The intelligent person may turn out worse than the dull precisely because he is clever and scheming. Just as one eventually concludes that interesting people are fine but solid and serious people make better friends, perhaps maturity requires moderating our admiration for the intellectuals, the clerks, and the clever types.

Stupidity’s varieties

Best known for his modernist classic, The Man Without Qualities, Robert Musil (1880–1942) gave a lecture in the anxious Vienna of 1937, “On Stupidity,” that is helpful here. The most “general notion of stupidity,” Musil suggests, is something like incapacity or inability. But at a time of “middle-class conventions,” the conception of stupidity is narrowed, confined to the domain of “mental work” and “rational achievements.” Stupidity is thus thought to describe “one who is ‘a little weak in the head.’” While a failure to understand may be the occasion of humor, Musil rightly notes there is nothing dishonorable in slowness. “Honorable stupidity is a little dull of comprehension, . . . is poor in ideas and words,” but also has “more than a little of life’s rosy cheeks” and is “charming.” Sam Gamgee comes to mind, or Bertie Wooster. They might need to count on their fingers, but there’s nothing dishonorable in doing so.

If honorable stupidity is a weakness of understanding, the dishonorable version “is by far the more dangerous.” It is not the absence of intelligence so much as “failure of intelligence.” Intelligence is present but out of balance and “misshapen and erratically active,” diseased in some manner. The “higher stupidity” is a “misculture” causing not dullness of mind but a kind of blindness or refusal to see.

Musil suggests three primary qualities of this kind of intelligent stupidity. First, it claims accomplishment and facility in matters beyond its competence. Second, it gives way to emotions at the expense of reason. Third, it is clever enough to invent rationalizations for its views, no matter how bizarre the view or silly the excuse. As a result, intelligence does not orient toward true knowledge of first principles and reality, as in Aristotle’s vision, but confuses the spirit. It results in a flight from reality, with all the cultural and spiritual pathologies attendant on living in an ersatz reality. Of course, given the unity of the human being, stupidity of this sort affects sensibility, causing taste and emotions to unmoor. Such intelligence becomes a dangerous disease of the mind and “endangers life itself.”

Culture of intelligence

Ours is certainly an age that privileges mental work, the creative class, the pundit, the intellectual, those of word and symbol; in short, ours is a culture of intelligence. The intelligent are valued, admitted, hired, promoted, and praised, and their product governs and directs us. But which sort of intelligence, honorable or dishonorable? Do our bright lights claim competence in what is clearly beyond the ability of policy and state? Are our best and most powerful governed by reason or emotions? Do our elites offer wild rationalizations for what is clearly bizarre? Do the most important institutions of our society harness and direct intelligence in service of reality or of misculture’s revolt?

Just now, the West comes across as dominated by enthusiasm. Our good institutions lack conviction, while the worst are frenzied with enthusiasm threatening our social order. The irrationality of our experts and their responses to COVID have wounded the education and well-being of our children, foisted a mental health crisis on us, fomented nihilistic violence, and destroyed wealth through inflation. An utterly destructive mania for human experimentation continues in the contagion of rapid onset gender dysphoria. We have no idea what puberty blockers will do long term, even as our cultural gatekeepers silence those asking the relevant questions. This is a plague of social disorder and chaos, much of it prompted by wild abstractions of the intelligent.

Roger Scruton suggested that many “grand liberal conceptions” about rights and freedoms are merely enthusiasms leaving “death and destruction in their wake.” For Scruton, conservative as he was, abstractions always have the whiff of higher stupidity about them, untethered from reality and invented as they are. Instead of cleverly constructed (and intelligent in their way) abstractions, Scruton suggested that “we rational beings need customs and institutions that are founded in something other than reason, if we are to use our reason to good effect.” This, he thought, is the “principal contribution that conservatism has made” to an understanding of human life, and an essential truth.

Seeking soundness

Given the confusion, the temptation among some on the right to respond to wrongheaded abstractions with abstract theories, projects, and grand schemes of their own is understandable. However, this mimics the “higher stupidity” responsible for fragmenting the institutions, structures, customs, and habits on which genuine reason depends, as Scruton has argued. Instead, we ought to value soundness far more than we do. We have become so accustomed to praising mental work, in Musil’s phrase, that we scout for smarts, recruiting and promoting and praising the bright kid while overlooking the solid youngster. Surely a person of good judgment, stolid character, and immovable rectitude is every bit as praiseworthy as the inventive and the quick—and in political and social life far more important.

The sound person is invariably a person of custom, of deference to the collected judgment of long experience, including experience of those long dead. They, after all, knew something and still exert judgment in the manners, mores, and habits of a people. The sound youngster possesses a sort of connatural knowledge of what is to be done, and so maintains stability, which is a basic condition for rational self-governance. Revolution and disruption—so cherished by the intelligent with their plans and projects—demand fluidity, liquidity, and suppleness, all skills of the highly intelligent, and all generally destructive of order and decent society. The disruptors of Silicon Valley flourish as San Francisco collapses, for example.

The sound person holds in trust the accomplishments of a civilization. It is no accident that Plato’s vision of education begins not with philosophy and the clever, but with formation of good judgment and taste. Eventually the philosopher ought to rule, he suggests, but the ruler emerges from those already educated in good judgment; that is, the ruler must first be considered sound, a sensible person, so he doesn’t succumb to the novel (but nonsensical) proposal that ruins social order and well-being. He maintains a high regard for the guards of civilizational inheritance, the not utterly brilliant teacher who knows he has been asked to bequeath a cherished tradition to his pupils rather than tear it apart.

For most, having their customary way of life “problematized” results not in insight and clarity but confusion and vertigo. Far too many young people have had the rug yanked out from under them by their intelligent teachers; unsurprisingly, the result is alienation, nihilism, anger, withdrawal, and helplessness. The “failure to launch” bedeviling so many, including fear of “adulting” and the rejection of growing up, marrying, and parenting, is worsened by the cleverest among us. We often rather lamely refer to this as the failure of the elites, but they have not failed so much as destroyed.

We’ve privileged intelligence far too much. Or, better, we’ve privileged an intelligence quite proper to the world of science—with its doubt and skepticism and experiment and theories—but that cannot understand the human things. Our attempts to force a perfectly good tool into another sphere have caused grave damage. Theoretical reason, so necessary and wonderful within its bounds, is worse than merely erroneous in social and political life. It becomes stupid, highly so. Consider the vicious abstractions harming so many of the most vulnerable and dependent among us—gender ideology and political utopianism, for just two examples.

Aristotle knew better. Different orders of reality require different orders of intellect proper to them, and what he terms the well-schooled man—the sound person—knows the difference. The practical wisdom of the sound person is intelligence of the proper sort, an intelligence about acting. The person educated in this way “knows first principles,” and, indeed, the sound person lives in accordance with “intelligence and right order,” in his phrasing.

Soundness is intelligence apprehending the principles governing action. Such principles are universal, governing all human acts. But they are not theoretical, and it is not the clever but the good who most easily apprehend them.

We have great need for sound men and women, and until we value and praise them as we esteem the clever, and until the sound govern and give law to the clever, we will experience no end of our troubles.

This essay has been republished with permission from Public Discourse.

AUTHOR

R.J. Snell

R.J. Snell is Editor-in-Chief of Public Discourse and Director of Academic Programs at the Witherspoon Institute. Previously, he was for many years Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Philosophy… More by R.J. Snell

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

Are We Living Under a Kakistocracy: Government by the Worst?

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In 1787, as Benjamin Franklin left the final session of the Constitutional Convention, he was asked what form of government the delegates had given America. “A Republic,” he answered, “if you can keep it.”

Spoiler alert: we didn’t.

In 1963, Leonard Read warned Americans that “our once-upon-a-time Republic” was degenerating into something else; “we are headed into a kakistocracy,” he wrote.

Kakistocracy means “government by the worst.” Read particularly liked James Russell Lowell’s definition: “a government… for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools.”

Looking at the state of America today, we seem to be subject to the kakistocracy Read foresaw.

Those holding the highest offices tend to be venal, abusive, and incompetent in their official conduct, and are frequently revealed to be dissolute—sometimes heinous—in their personal lives.

And the masses who foolishly elevated such people to power have paid dearly for it in lost liberty and tumbling living standards.

So a government “for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools” seems like an apt description for the state of the nation, as well as the world.

This is an intolerable situation, to be sure. And it is entirely justified to deeply resent the depredations of the kakistocrats lording it over us.

However, we should be mindful of that resentment, lest it lead us down dark paths. Although Leonard Read warned us of a “a political situation founded on knavery and foolish­ness,” he also cautioned:

“Let us never refer to any individual as a knave or fool. This is inferiority showing through in ourselves. Everyone errs, more or less. Hang labels only on notions which appear to be knavish or foolish.”

In other words, think of the struggle as against bad ideas and values more so than bad people.

Such a practice may seem overly gracious toward our persecutors, but it’s more for our own sake than for theirs.

When we demonize our political adversaries and define our struggle as against bad people rather than bad ideas and values, we become susceptible to the temptation to ourselves embrace bad ideas and values if doing so would aid our war against the “enemy class.” The more we think of others as nothing but knaves and fools, the more prone we will be to indulge in knavish and foolish behavior ourselves.

We may, for example, be tempted to endorse unjust government policies that we hope will harm our ideological enemies: to attack liberty in the name of defending it. The more we do that, the more we become what we hate.

“The line separating good and evil,” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart… even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains… an uprooted small corner of evil.”

First and foremost, we must guard against kakistocracy within ourselves as individuals; against letting ourselves be governed by our own worst impulses; against the tyranny of the knave and the fool that each of us harbors, more or less.

As Read argued, the only way to overthrow one kakistocracy without merely replacing it with another is a “rebirth of a natural aristocracy,” a notion he adopted from Thomas Jefferson. By this, he did not mean a ruling class enjoying government privilege, but individuals of virtue and talent who lead by example.

“When a society,” Read wrote, “is graced with a first-rate aristocracy—men of virtues and talents serving as exemplary models—foolish and knavish notions are held in abeyance. Why? People fear appearing as fools or knaves before those held in high esteem.”

This is why Read preached that the struggle for liberty was primarily a struggle for self-improvement that must be waged by each individual lover of liberty: especially “learning to understand and explain why freedom works.”

“When and to what extent will you or I strive for this required exemplarity—becoming an aristocrat?” Read asked. “This, and this alone, is all any person can do toward ridding the world of kakistocracy.”

Liberty is under siege—so are our livelihoods, and in some cases our very lives. Under such dire circumstances, it can be easy to develop a siege mentality. Sometimes in the fog of political war, even defenders of liberty can lose sight of what we are fighting for in the first place. But focusing on principles over personalities will help us keep our eye on the ball and keep us advancing toward a victory actually worth having.

AUTHOR

Dan Sanchez

Dan Sanchez is the Director of Content at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and the editor-in chief of FEE.org.

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

Why Does the Left Seem More Committed to Death Than to Life?

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Did you read in the news about the three mosques in the U.S. that were set on fire just the other weekend?

Did you hear in the mainstream media about the scores of attacks, including some firebombings, of the Planned Parenthood facilities by pro-life extremists?

Did you hear about the harassment of the pro-abortion politicians and judges for their pro-choice stance?

You didn’t? Neither did I, because none of those things happened. But the mainstream media has for the most part ignored the multiple churches and pro-life facilities that have been attacked in one way or another by pro-abortion forces in the last several weeks. Indeed, if they had been mosques or abortion providers, we would hear over and over about all this.

To add insult to injury, the loving services that the crisis pregnancy centers provide is being woefully distorted by many, including Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Senator Warren said last week: “In Massachusetts right now, those crisis pregnancy centers that are there to fool people who are looking for pregnancy termination help outnumber true abortion clinics by three to one. We need to shut them down here in Massachusetts, and we need to shut them down all around the country. You should not be able to torture a pregnant person like that.”

Pregnancy centers “torture” women? How blind can these people be? The crisis pregnancy centers, now in the cross hairs of the left, provide loving alternatives to abortion.

Through no help of the government, they provide millions of dollars of services—at no charge to the mothers they serve.

Micaiah Bilger of lifenews.com reports that “$266 million of free medical services and resources” are provided per year by these pregnancy centers.

The attack against pro-life churches and facilities was highlighted in the Capitol recently by Congressman Jim Jordan who read a litany of the dozens of attacks since the May 2 leak of the draft of the Dobbs decision. Yet a majority in the House of Representatives just voted against a measure to condemn these attacks.

Recently I spoke on a radio segment with Jim Harden, the president of Compass Care, a ministry that helps women with crisis pregnancies. Their center in Buffalo (technically, Amherst), New York, was firebombed on June 7th, and he told me that the perpetrators were “the pro-abortion terrorist group known as Jane’s Revenge. They’ve taken responsibility for scores of attacks on pro-life organizations since the leak of the Dobbs case.”

I asked Harden, isn’t it illegal to firebomb any building—say a candy factory, much less a charity providing loving services to those in need (although the left doesn’t view it as charity)? He answered, “An arson attack is just below murder in the criminal justice system because it carries too much potential damage and threat to life.”

He told our listeners that so far there have been no leads from the police or the FBI as to suspects. He said that friends in nearby offices were able to provide office space so that Compass Care could continue to serve the mothers in need. They did not miss a day serving, despite the firebombing.

In a follow-up call this week, he told me there have now been, all over the nation, “over 100 attacks where prolife people gather, with no arrests to date.”

His organization is dedicated to rebuilding the facility, which had to be gutted, costing $300,000-$400,000.

Crisis pregnancy centers are doing the Lord’s work, but today it is “open season” on them, thanks in part to the Marxist organization, “Jane’s Revenge.”

Meanwhile, there has been an on-going harassment against pro-life justices of the Supreme Court. These were illegal acts when the pro-death party was trying to intimidate them to change their opinion.

Now the left is even going after pro-life individuals at home.

Writer Alicia Powe notes, “An attorney who founded the Thomas More Society, a conservative Catholic law firm, was attacked as abortion activists threw smoke bombs and firecrackers at his house following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. The insurgents surrounded the home of pro-life lawyer Thomas Brejcha, in Evanston, Illinois.”

I’ve interviewed Tom Brejcha through the years. He once said of the pro-life cause in general: “This is a spiritual battle. This is not just a legal battle. And prayer is the ultimate resource. We need divine intervention…This is God’s work to protect the dignity and value of every human being.”

Is this the America the left is bringing to us, where the full force of government is on the side of death? This is indeed a spiritual battle. Our founders said that our first right granted by the Creator is the “right to life.”

But the left seems more committed to death than life.

©Jerry Newcombe, D. Min. All rights reserved.