A few months ago, Stephen Coughlin did a very interesting half hour on the Marxist attack on the family we all know as Feminism. He makes the case that feminism was always and has always been a weapon against the traditional Western family.
In previous interviews I have done with specialists in Feminism, a woman who’s name escapes me at the moment, once explained that the original suffragette manifesto was just the Communist manifesto by Marx, where proletariat was scratched out and women was written in its place as the oppressed group.
I am not totally sure how literally she meant it, but the point was well made.
Below is Stephen’s talk for those who have not seen it. If it seems dense at the start, stick with it. The point is worth waiting for and is clear as day.
Let’s have a look at what appears to be a reaction to feminism, but in fact is at least an equally effective attack on the family in a way that could be used to define controlled opposition. In fact even totally unwitting controlled opposition:
There are MANY many men who do this exact thing in different flavours. Each explaining the dangers of romantic relationships with women. And they do so to the great satisfaction of men who have been brutalized by a now Marxist legal system. One so lopsided that women would probably have a great deal of difficulty not taking advantage of their enormous power within it.
These videos, (and I don’t mean to pick on this one man below. There are many but it is these two examples that inspired me to set it to paper) why men should never commit to women in a relationship. More on that after the examples.
One might even wonder why something that appears to be so anti-women would be allowed on YouTube. And the hundreds or thousands of other videos that are well monetized which also carry the same messaging.
It all makes sense if you look at the net result. The end of love. Commitment. Perhaps most importantly, having character and the kind and amount of character it takes to sustain a loving relationship with someone through the trials and tribulations of raising children and other occasional hardships.
This along with Feminism’s tripling of what is expected of men and explaining to woman that any constraint whatsoever on anything they wish to do is oppression, In other words, to curtail one’s immensely powerful sexuality in all facets is being oppressed, while with men, any expression of masculinity or heterosexual normalcy is oppression. So the creation of videos such as the one above is a clear and logical consequence of the legal and cultural reality of the deconstruction of heterosexual relationships by a century of a Marxist line of operation.
Whether or not the creators of these videos are aware of what they are doing is irrelevant. None of them are doing anything to try and fix the situation. All of them are trying to make it worse. Destroy any residual trust. Increase the inertia of a system that has turned men and women against each other. Their insight is usually limited to the practical results of feminism and what may be the motive for women to take advantage of the system as it is. The word, “Hypergamy” can be heard often. But usually in a context that is negatively interpreted.
Same guy:
In the clip above, he warns men against women who want a traditional life because of a problem that is very likely true in many cases, without offering a solution to the problem. This is an attack on the family whether he knows that or not. And does the exact kind of damage feminism does, but from the other side of the dialectic. The counter-thesis.
And we do know solutions exist. Until recently, marriages mostly lasted till one person died. The surviving partner was usually torn in half by grief. A good indicator that they were well and properly bonded to their partner. Divorce was rare. Now jokes like, “Next time I feel like getting married I am just going to walk up to a strange woman and buy her a house”. Or: “When I go on a date with a man I ask myself, is this a guy I would want my future kids to spend weekends with?”.
The fact that the jokes work are pretty good indicators of where the culture is.
I want this to be short. So no lengthy explanations of how to solve these problems. But the answer lies in the culture, and willingness on all parties develop character. And this means specifically that one uses one’s freedom to choose a path, and then limit oneself in one’s subsequent choices after that initial decision to walk the path in order to achive success and overall happiness.
From a game theory point of view, one tends to value things proportional to the sacrifices you make for them. In no small part this explains our attachment to our children, along with the emotional attachments of course.
Having character means making sacrifices to make a relationship work, for the greater satisfaction and long term happiness that comes with success in that endeavour. So making the sacrifices for a relationship can make one value it more, with the right attitude. Of course, can also make you resentful with a bad one.
Taking issues with these proposed solutions is fine. I don’t pretend to expertise in this area. But the central point is the thesis-counter thesis, solution of feminism and male anti-relationship culture, who’s presence on YouTube makes a lot more sense if one sees it as the other side of the attack on the family, as opposed to criticism of women as an oppressed ‘minority’.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Vlad Tepes Bloghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngVlad Tepes Blog2024-11-29 06:39:002024-11-29 06:39:00VIDEOS: The Attack on the Traditional Family from Both Sides of the ‘Feminist Dialectic’
“Psychiatry is a science…and it has the tools and knowledge at its disposal to help us when our lives break down. This is the official story we hear, the one gaining airtime in the media, the ear of government policymakers, and widespread dissemination through celebrity chat shows and popular magazines. But what if the actual truth about psychiatry were not so sanguine or clear cut as we have all been led to believe? What if there is another more insidious story to be told, one that threatens all of our preconceptions? An alternative story certainly does exist—a deeper and far more maddening story.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
The public has been led to believe that the diagnosis of mental illness by psychiatrists, and the prescribing of psychiatric drugs, is a practice grounded in science. In this video, we explain why this is not the case. We look at the problems with the diagnostic methods of mainstream psychiatry and we explore how Big Pharma has infiltrated and corrupted the psychiatric industry.
In 1973, a groundbreaking experiment was organized by David Rosenhan of Stanford University. Seven academics checked themselves into different psychiatric hospitals across the United States. Each told the psychiatrist on duty that they were hearing a voice in their head that said the word “thud”. Other than this, they acted normally. All the academics were diagnosed with schizophrenia, admitted to mental hospitals, and given antipsychotic drugs. Most of the academics were held for weeks against their will, and a few for over two months. Confessing that they were subjects in a scientific experiment only solidified the psychiatrists’ conviction that they were insane. The only way the academics managed to be released was to agree they were mentally ill and pretend they were getting better.
Another study conducted in the 1970s presented the same patients to different American psychiatrists in different locations. It was discovered that two psychiatrists gave different diagnoses to the same patient almost half the time. Yet another experiment showed that psychiatrists in the United States and Russia were twice as likely to diagnose a patient as schizophrenic than psychiatrists in England and Europe. Regarding these three studies, James Davies writes that:
“…in the history of psychiatry, [these experiments] were considered game-changers. They plunged psychiatry into severe crisis in the 1970s by exposing that there was something terribly wrong with the diagnostic system. Psychiatrists were not only defining sane people as insane, but when two psychiatrists at any given time were faced with the same patient, they would assign different diagnoses nearly half the time…Psychiatry was making these errors because it possessed no objective way of testing whether a given person was mentally disordered, and if so, precisely what disorder he or she was suffering from. Without such objective tests, the diagnosis a psychiatrist would assign could be influenced by his subjective preferences, and as different psychiatrists were swayed by different subjective factors, it was understandable that they regularly disagreed about what diagnosis to give.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
Leaders in the psychiatric industry recognized that these experiments exposed a deep problem at the heart of psychiatry, which required a solution. The solution devised was to completely revamp the manual used to diagnose mental disorders. This manual is called the DSM, or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and as Herbert Pardes explains:
“If you don’t understand the history of the DSM, you cannot hope to understand modern psychiatry…the DSM contains every mental disorder with which you or I could be potentially diagnosed, and that’s its significance.”
Herbert Pardes, Quoted in James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
The second edition of the DSM, published in 1968, consisted of vague definitions of mental illness which left too much room for subjective interpretation. In the 1970s, psychiatrists put together a Taskforce to essentially tear up DSM-II and re-write a new manual – DSM-III. Allen Frances, Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University, explains how the release of DSM-III enormously impacted not just the psychiatric community but the public at large.
“DSM stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Until 1980, DSMs were deservedly obscure little books that no one much cared about or read. Then DSM-III burst on the scene—a very fat book that quickly became a cultural icon, a perennial best seller, and the object of undue worship as the “bible” of psychiatry. Because it sets the crucial boundary between normality and mental illness, DSM has gained a huge societal significance and determines all sorts of important things that have an enormous impact on people’s lives—like who is considered well and who is sick [and] what treatment is offered…”
Allen Frances, Saving Normal
DSM-III was an overnight sensation. It quickly sold out and the American Psychiatric Association took 6 months to print enough copies to catch up with the demand. This so-called bible of psychiatry became the default manual which psychiatrists across the world used to diagnose mental disorders. With its release and remarkable success, it appeared as if the field of psychiatry had overcome its diagnostic problems. However, as James Davies writes:
“…even as the influence of the manual spread, the truth about its construction remained obscure. Most professionals using the manual simply did not know (and still do not know today) the extent to which biological evidence or solid research failed to guide the choices the taskforce made.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
One of the updates to DSM-III was the inclusion of a checklist of symptoms purported to define each mental disorder. For example, DSM-III lists major depressive disorder as consisting of nine symptoms, and it specifies that if a patient exhibits 5 of the symptoms for two weeks, then a positive diagnosis of the disorder can be made. An obvious question is why the threshold for depression was decided to be 5 symptoms for 2 weeks. In 2010, Daniel Carlat interviewed the psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, the leader of the Taskforce which created DSM-III, and asked him this very question.
“Carlat: How did you decide on five criteria as being your minimum threshold for depression? Spitzer: It was just a consensus. We would ask clinicians and researchers, “How many symptoms do you think patients ought to have before you would give them the diagnosis of depression,” and we came up with the arbitrary number of five. Carlat: But why did you choose five and not four? Or why didn’t you choose six? Spitzer: Because four just seemed like not enough. And six seemed like too much. [Spitzer smiled mischievously.]”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
Commenting on Spitzer’s admission, James Davies writes:
“Wasn’t the whole point of Spitzer’s reform to make psychiatric diagnosis a little more scientifically rigorous? But what, you may ask, is rigorous about a committee drawing arbitrary lines between mental disorder and normality?”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
Lest one think this absence of research and scientific evidence was an exception in the creation of DSM-III, a member of the DSM Taskforce, Renee Garfinkle, recounts an instance where a decision was being made as to whether to include a specific symptom in the checklist for a mental disorder.
“On one occasion, I was sitting in on a taskforce meeting and there was a discussion about whether a particular behavior should be classed as a symptom of a particular disorder. As the conversation went on, to my great astonishment one taskforce member suddenly piped up, ‘Oh no, no, we can’t include that behavior as a symptom, because I do that!’ And so it was decided that that behavior would not be included because, presumably, if someone on the taskforce does it, it must be perfectly normal.”
Renee Garfinkle, Quoted in Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
In addition to adding a checklist of symptoms for each mental disorder, 83 new mental disorders were added to DSM-III. In an interview with Robert Spitzer, James Davies asked Spitzer about these new inclusions:
“So presumably, these disorders had been discovered in a biological sense? That’s why they were included, right?”, asked Davies. “‘No, not at all,” Spitzer said matter-of-factly….“No biological markers [for mental disorders] have been identified…Psychiatry is unable to depend on biological markers to justify including disorders in the DSM. So we look for other things…We have other procedures.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
One of these “other” procedures involved sending out questionnaires to select members of the American Psychiatric Association. The questionnaire asked the psychiatrists whether they thought a particular mental disorder should be included in DSM-III. If enough responded yes, the disorder would be presented to the Taskforce, who would then debate or vote about whether to add the disorder to the new manual. Donald Klein, a member of Spitzer’s Taskforce, explained that:
“…we had very little in the way of data, so we were forced to rely on clinical consensus, which admittedly is a very poor way to do things…There would be about twelve people sitting down at the table. And some would agree with the inclusion [of a specific mental disorder], and the others would continue arguing. If people were still divided, the matter would be eventually decided by a vote.”
Donald Klein, Quoted in Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
Needless to say, consensus does not constitute scientific proof. There are countless examples where the consensus opinion of a group or experts proved to be dubious or wrong. Or as James Davies writes:
“If a group of respected theologians all agree that God exists, this does not prove that God exists. All it proves is that these theologians believe it. So in what sense is psychiatric agreement different? Why, when a committee of psychiatrists agree that a collection of behaviors and feelings point to the existence of a mental disorder, should the rest of us accept they’ve got it right?”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
In 2012, James Davies interviewed the Harvard psychologist Paula Caplan, who was a consultant to two DSM committees, regarding her thoughts on the methods that gave rise to DSM-III.
“It was so methodologically flawed, that it would fail an undergraduate examination. In fact, it was so full of basic errors, that I actually decided to use it on an undergraduate exam in which I asked students to point out every conceivable methodological error, because it had so many…All Spitzer’s research proves is that a group of psychiatrists working in the same institution gave the same label—rightly or wrongly—to a given set of behaviors.”
Paula Caplan, Quoted in Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
In his book Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm than Good, James Davies explains how the general public and the psychiatric community at large has been fooled into thinking the DSM is a scientific manual.
“[People] do not know that the definitions of the disorders contrived, the validity of the disorders included, and the symptom thresholds people must meet to receive the diagnosis were not decided by serious scientific evidence but were the product of committee decisions…In short, most people do not know that the fundamental changes Spitzer brought to global psychiatry only required the consensus of an extremely small group of people.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
To make matters worse, many psychiatrists who have been members of DSM taskforces and committees have, and continue to, receive financial payoffs from pharmaceutical companies. This is concerning as pharmaceutical companies, driven by the profit motive, have an incentive to get as many people on psychiatric drugs as possible. If they can influence those who write the diagnostic guides, they can expand the market for their drugs through overly broad classifications of what constitutes mental illness. A study from the University of Massachusetts discovered that of the 170 panel members of DSM-IV, 56% received money directly from pharmaceutical companies. With respect to psychiatrists who took part in DSM committee meetings to discuss mental disorders for which psychiatric drugs are the default treatment, 88 percent had financial ties to drug companies.
“Today it is very difficult to find somebody or a large number of people who have not had some pharmaceutical support.”
Robert Spitzer, Quoted in Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
The renowned psychiatrist Loren Mosher was so appalled by the financial chains that bind psychiatrists to pharmaceutical companies, that at the turn of the century he resigned from the American Psychiatric Association, claiming that “psychiatry has been almost completely bought out by the drug companies.” In his resignation letter he wrote:
“After nearly three decades as a member it is with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment that I submit this letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association. The major reason for this action is my belief that I am actually resigning from the American Psychopharmacological Association. Luckily, the organization’s true identity requires no change in the acronym…”
Loren Mosher, Quoted in Anatomy of an Epidemic
Psychiatrists’ financial ties to drug companies can account for what is called the medicalization of everyday life, which James Davies defines as “the process by which more and more of our human characteristics are seen as needing medical explanation and treatment.” Without scientific justification, for the last 70 years psychiatrists have continued to expand the number of mental disorders included in the DSM. In the 1950s, the first edition of the DSM listed 106 mental disorders. The latest edition, DSM-V, lists over 450 mental disorders. One hundred years ago, one in a thousand people were diagnosed as mentally ill. In the 1950s, this number grew to one in a hundred. Today, it is reported that approximately one in four people suffer from at least one of the many DSM mental disorders in a given year.
Social factors, such as the compulsive use of smartphones and social media and the decline of communal forms of social support, are undoubtedly contributing to a rise in mental health problems. However, in medicalizing normal human experiences and emotions, such as fear, anxiety, sadness, or depression, psychiatry has created the illusion of a mental health epidemic that has turned tens of millions of normal human beings into consumers of psychiatric drugs.
“…psychiatry has not only expanded its jurisdiction over more of us (one in four of us apparently now suffers from a mental disorder) but has also, by inflating the number of mental disorders, created a huge market for psychiatric treatments.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
In a 2007 BBC documentary, Adam Curtis interviewed the leader of the DSM-III taskforce, Robert Spitzer:
“So you have effectively medicalised much ordinary human sadness, fear, ordinary experiences?, asked Curtis. “Ì think we have to some extent,’ responded Spitzer. `How serious a problem it is, is not known. I don’t know if it is 20 per cent, 30 per cent. I don’t know. But that is a considerable amount if it is 20 or 30 per cent”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
The psychiatrist Allen Frances, the leader of the taskforce that created DSM-IV, also acknowledged that through the DSM psychiatrists are medicalizing normal human experiences and promoting the mass-drugging of modern citizens.
“…the situation I think is only going to get worse. DSM-5 is proposing changes that will dramatically expand the realm of psychiatry and narrow the realm of normality—resulting in the conversion of millions more patients, millions more people from currently being without mental disorders to being psychiatrically sick. What concerns me about this reckless expansion of the diagnostic boundaries, is that it will have many unintended consequences which will be very harmful. The ones I am most particularly concerned about are those that will lead to the excessive use of medication…
Allen Frances, Quoted in Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
Or as Frances continues:
“Seven percent of Americans are now addicted to a legal psychotropic drug.23 Prescription drug abuse has become a bigger problem than illicit drug abuse. If there is a conceivable way to sell a new diagnosis so that people will incorrectly believe they have it, drug companies will have figured it out and will do it successfully—if sometimes illegally. ”
Allen Frances, Saving Normal
Surprisingly, it is not illegal for pharmaceutical companies to give money to psychiatrists, nor for psychiatrists to hide how much money they receive. As a few examples of how big a problem this is, the psychiatrist Frederick Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, received $1.2 million from the drug company GlaxoSmithKline to promote mood stabilizers for bipolar disorder. In an interview with the New York Times, Goodwin explained that he was only “doing what every other expert in the field does.” Over a period of 4 years the psychiatrist Melissa Delbello, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati, received close to half a million dollars from AstroZeneca. Charles Nemeroff, the chair of psychiatry at Emory University, who was called the “Boss of Bosses” by a leading psychiatric journal, received $2.8 million in personal income from the drug company GlaxoSmithKline, as well as a grant of $3.9 million to study psychiatric drugs made by GlaxoSmithKline. In 2000, editors at the New England Journal of Medicine tried to find a psychiatrist to write an editorial on depression, and found “very few who did not have financial ties to drug companies that make antidepressants.”
“Some of us, believe that the present system is approaching a high-class form of prostitution.”
E. Fuller Torrey, Quoted in Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker
And as Robert Whitaker explains:
“The pharmaceutical companies would not have been able to build a $40 billion market for psychiatric drugs without the help of psychiatrists…The public looks to doctors for information about illnesses and how best to treat them, and so it was the academic psychiatrists—paid by drug companies to serve as consultants, on advisory boards, and as speakers—who in essence acted as the salesmen for this enterprise.”
Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic
To make matters more corrupt, pharmaceutical companies are by far the biggest funders of clinical trials on the efficacy and safety of psychiatric drugs. James Davies writes that “nearly all research into psychiatric drugs—antidepressants, neuroleptics, tranquilizers—is now pharmaceutically financed (e.g., nearly 90 percent of all clinical trials in the UK are conducted or commissioned by the [drug] industry).”Those who receive funding from pharmaceutical companies, whether it be psychiatrists or researchers, must tailor their research, writing, and opinions to meet the demands of pharmaceutical companies, or else suffer financial and professional repercussions. As one example, the psychiatrist David Healy was offered the prestigious position of clinical director of the Mood and Anxiety Clinic at the University of Toronto. Before starting the position, he gave a lecture on depression and warned that antidepressants can provoke suicidal urges. Two months later, Healy received an email from the University of Toronto informing him that his offer had been revoked. Upon looking into the matter, Healy discovered that Eli Lilly, the makers of the antidepressant Prozac, fund 52 percent of the total budget of the Mood and Anxiety Disorder Clinic, and as Davies writes: “Healy began to suspect that the university pulled its offer because it feared that he, by critiquing Eli Lilly, would threaten an important funding source.” Or as Davies continues:
“…to palm from the pharmaceutical purse is to enter a Mephistophelian pact—one that gradually and often unconsciously erodes the recipient’s capacity to think and act objectively.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
Big Pharma is also one of the top buyers of TV advertisements, accounting for approximately 10% of all TV ad purchases. Many of these direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads entice people to take psychiatric drugs by communicating the debunk idea that mental illnesses are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. One recent ad for Paxil stated that “Just as a cake recipe requires you to use flour, sugar, and baking powder in the right amounts, your brain needs a fine chemical balance in order to perform at its best.” In the United States, the FDA does not assess these pharmaceutical ads before they are released, which means that these lies reach millions of people before coming under any sort of scrutiny – if they ever do at all.
“The fact that the chemical imbalance theory has never been proven does not seem to matter to these corporations, which have made their public assertions as though they were based on scientifically established certainties.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
Along with spreading lies to the public, the advertisements of pharmaceutical companies also exert pressure on news networks not to speak negatively about pharmaceutical drugs, or the companies that make them, so as not to bite the hand that feeds them. Hence why it is so rare for mainstream media personalities to shine a light on the deep corruption of Big Pharma or even communicate simple skepticism regarding pharmaceutical companies or their products.
In the 1970s, news reports revealed that in the Soviet Union psychiatrists were diagnosing political dissidents as mentally ill, and forcibly giving them antipsychotics that caused brain damage and turned them into vegetables. An article in the New York Times argued that this practice was a form of “spiritual murder”. What is happening in the West may be more disturbing. Psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies have successfully medicalized normal human experiences, such as fear, anxiety, depression, and sadness, and therein promoted the mass drugging not of political dissidents, but of tens of millions of ordinary men, women, and children. Or as Robert Whitaker writes:
“…in 2011 alone a staggering 254 million prescriptions of antidepressants were dispensed to the American public. The vast majority of these pills were not prescribed to the stereotypically “mad” characters depicted in Hollywood movies. No, most of their recipients were just like you and me, average people simply trying to make their way. Perhaps you are one of them. Perhaps someone you love is one of them.”
Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic
Ultimately, however, all the blame for this tragic problem cannot be placed on the lies spread by pharmaceutical companies, nor on the financial incentives psychiatrists receive from pharmaceutical companies. For a negative vision of suffering, which has infected the modern zeitgeist, is also contributing to the medicalization of everyday life and the mass drugging of modern citizens. This negative vision of suffering conveys the idea that all suffering is pathological and best dealt with by getting rid of it as swiftly as possible. In the final video of this series, we critique this vision and offer a positive vision in its place, so that we are better equipped to deal with the pains of life without considering ourselves mentally ill, engaging in unproductive behaviors, or taking psychiatric drugs that are at best ineffective and at worst dangerous to mental health. Or as James Davies writes:
“…the [negative] vision of suffering which now culturally dominates can explain why an increasing number of people have come to manage, understand and respond to their discontent in ways that are socially and individually disadvantageous…The growth of this [negative vision of suffering] is easily illustrated by figures that show how we are progressively managing our emotional troubles in contemporary life – not as potentially productive experiences to be engaged with and learnt from, but as harmful experiences to be removed with medication.”
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Academy of Ideashttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAcademy of Ideas2024-11-29 04:54:472024-11-30 06:29:27Psychiatry and Big Pharma Exposed — A Corruption Beyond Measure
Another day, another human trafficking scandal at Planned Parenthood.
Check out this report from the New York Post, if you’re feeling brave:
Stomach-churning emails show Planned Parenthood negotiating terms regarding the donation of aborted fetuses for medical research.
The emails discuss fetal tissue like any other commodity such as sugar or rice, nonchalantly negotiating for fetuses up to 23 weeks old from elective abortions.
A heavily-redacted so-called “Research Plan” submitted to the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Institutional Review Board and approved in 2018 states scientists wanted 2,500 fetuses from up to almost the sixth month of gestation for experimentation.
The emails came to light via the Center for Medical Progress’s David Daleiden, who still to this day is wading through 2010s lawfare launched by California’s erstwhile attorney general Kamala Harris.
As the Post points out, selling chopped-up unborn babies is a federal crime, but donating them and then receiving “reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage” for said babies is not.
In this case, Planned Parenthood employed an additional legal shield by drawing up contracts with UCSD that retained the “intellectual property rights” of the fetal tissue with the abortion giant.
Seeing past the statutory subterfuge, Daleiden told the Post, “These documents show that Planned Parenthood is supplying healthy babies who are old enough to survive outside the womb from late term abortions to the University of California’s royalty-generating experiments.”
Indeed, most healthy babies born at 23 weeks survive outside the womb with sufficient medical care.
Daleiden’s revelation also puts to lie the legacy media’s efforts to downplay the prevalence and gravity of late-term abortions.
Surreptitiously monetising unborn babies who were aborted for elective reasons and could have survived if given the chance might sound like a Mengelian monstrosity, but it’s business as usual for Planned Parenthood. As previously noted here at Mercator:
This is an organisation that allegedly sells human body parts, is likely the biggest supplier of transgender drugs in the United States, performs some 390,000 abortions each year, uses American taxpayer treasure to abort brown babies overseas, was founded by the racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger, boasts US$2.2 billion in assets, and is supported by some of America’s biggest and wokest corporate giants.
n a Wall Street Journalop-ed published the day before the latest Planned Parenthood scandal broke, DOGE architects Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy singled out the taxpayer-funded behemoth for special attention:
DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.
Pro-life groups have greeted the news with elation.
To be clear, the decision by Vivek and Musk is apparently a philosophical rather than a political one — that is, it arises from libertarian instincts, not conservative convictions. They explain:
The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long. That’s why we’re doing things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees…
We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America. This team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings.
The pair refer to the “decisive electoral mandate” of Donald Trump’s recent win and the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court as their impetus — and their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cut the clutter in Washington and free taxpayers from funding causes that would have horrified America’s Founders.
Horrified indeed would they have been at the dark arts of Planned Parenthood.
Mercifully, with the funding tap turned off, it will be a business in decline — and won’t future generations be thankful!
Do you think that DOGE will be regarded as a success by the time it winds up on July 4, 2026? Comment below!
Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate architect, a primary school teacher, a missionary, and a young adult pastor.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MercatorNet - A Compass for Common Sensehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMercatorNet - A Compass for Common Sense2024-11-29 04:33:012024-11-29 07:04:40One final scandal at Planned Parenthood as the DOGE axe falls
This is a continuation of my prior commentary (Part 1), which lets readers know about the deplorable situation in many US K-12 libraries. It was also a plug for the NC organization: Pavement Education Project (PEP): please peruse their website.
A logical question is: who is behind all this subversive K-12 reading material — literally manyhundreds of books? The most apparent answer is the American Library Association (ALA). Here is a good podcast/article discussing their role. Note that it states that the head of the ALA is a self-avowed Marxist…
Age Appropriateness —
Arguably the greatest concern about what books are in school libraries is their age-appropriateness. It follows that the fundamental issue with the ALA is that they have zero recognition of age-appropriateness! Read what their official position is:
Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors: “Library policies and procedures that effectively deny minors equal and equitable access to all library resources available to other users violate the Library Bill of Rights. The American Library Association opposes all attempts to restrict access to library services, materials, and facilities based on the age of library users.”
It is a non-sensical — and indefensible — position to say that a book appropriate to be read by 25-year-old adults, is also suitable for a 5-year-old. However, that is literally the position of the ALA!
Fortunately, in 2023 a new organization was created to be an alternative choice to the ALA: the World Library Association (WLA).
This offers States and schools a real choice. Instead of banning books, the State (or school district and their librarians) should resign from the ALA and become a WLA member. Books in school libraries would be those approved by WLA, which does utilize age-appropriateness in their criteria.
Arguments from the Left —
When it comes to promoting or defending their ideology, the Left is very good at messaging and terminology. In this case, progressives routinely dismiss all such questioning of books in K-12 school libraries as either: 1) a violation of the First Amendment (freedom of speech), and/or2) that the goal is to “ban books” (which purposefully makes it sound unreasonable, undemocratic, arbitrary, etc.).
My brief answers to these are:
1 – No one’s “freedom of speech” is being taken away, so this is a false flag. If writers choose to write smut for children, they are free to do so. However, there is no obligation to spend taxpayer dollars to buy such material for public school libraries. Clearly, no school has the funds to buy ALL the books written for K-12 students — so some criteria are already in place to make choices!
Public schools should make such decisions on: what is in the best interest of students! There is zero scientific research that such materials are a net benefit to children. Regarding benefits, in my prior commentary I listed fifteen (15) possible very serious negatives. What are the scientifically proven offsetting positives?
Lastly, if a parent believes there is a net benefit for their child to read such material, they are free to buy it for their offspring.
2 – Yes, the goal IS to ban books: those that are not age-appropriate for school children! Schools already have age-appropriate bans on other matters, so this should not be a problem.
For example, alcohol is banned from school cafeterias. Why? Because children are not mature enough to handle alcohol. Because alcohol would adversely affect children’s academic learning. Because alcohol would undermine children’s participation in extracurricular activities. Because alcohol would lead to multiple safety issues. Etc. (Note that these are very similar to the fifteen-point list of negatives that inappropriate reading material can cause, listed in my prior commentary.) In other words, alcohol is not an age-appropriate drink for K-12 children to consume.
As yet another example, North Carolina state law requires all public schools to have a written policy prohibiting the use of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, on campus and at school-related events.
The reasoning for this is that tobacco products compromise the smoking student’s health and the health of students experiencing secondhand smoke. Put succinctly, tobacco is banned in K-12 schools as it is not an age-appropriate activity! (Note: several NC school districts successfully sued JUUL and won large monetary settlements.)
Lastly, in most states, children must be 18 to donate blood, get a tattoo, buy a gun, sign a contract, vote, etc., etc.
The reasoning behind all of these is that children under 18 do not have the maturity and experience to be able to properly deal with alcohol, cigarettes, guns, etc. The exact same thinking applies to them reading about violence, sex, drugs, etc.
What books are in school libraries is only one part of this major problem. Additionally there are: a) things like pornography found on school issues electronic devices (e.g., here), b) counter-productive school messaging (e.g., like SEL), and c) corrupted academic content that undermines students’ critical thinking (e.g., like NGSS).
Some Fundamental Questions —
#1 is: What is the literary value of these books?
Shouldn’t that be the primary criteria for all books available to children? There are thousands of children’s books with classic literary value (e.g., here and here). Who has determined that UBC high-rated books are a superior option for our children?
#2 is: What is the age-appropriateness of these books?
Even if a book has redeeming literary value, that does not mean that it is age-appropriate for children ages 5 through 17. To be available in a school library, every book should meet both criteria.
#3 is: Why is a religion allowed to be communicated in public schools?
There are standards — of morality — that are being conveyed in these books. These standards are in contrast to (and in competition with) Judeo-Christian standards. In other words, they are promoting a religion. Why is that religion allowed?
#4 is: Are bad actions in books clearly shown to be wrong and have consequences?
In many of these higher-rated books, the answer is no. For instance, when a teenage boy rapes a teenage girl, it’s made out that it’s no big deal (e.g., everybody does it). Also, there is no penalty spelled out for the guilty party. These are not the type of irresponsible messages that we want to embed in our children’s heads.
#5 is: Why is one person allowed to make such monumental decisions?
What books are in a school library comes down to the personal choices made by one individual: the librarian. Considering the enormous implications of these choices, as a minimum, there should be a parental board overseeing them. As explained above, switching from ALA to WLA would likely solve the problem.
#6 is: Why isn’t banning books just as sensible as banning alcohol or tobacco?
Why isn’t beer an option in K-12 school cafeterias? Because: a) it is not age-appropriate for 5 to 17-year-olds, b) it would diminish a K-12 student’s focus on their academic education, c) it would lead to class disruptions, etc. All of these consequences — and more — are also likely results of allowing such books.
This is a historic clash between Right and Left, Good and Evil, Pro-America and Anti-America. We cannot let them bully us into allowing them to substitute their atheistic, relativist, Marxist standards for those that were an integral part of the founding of America. In other words, this is a hill worth dying on.
PS — Two upcoming commentaries will be about some amazingly perceptive insights of Eric Hoffer. Several of them apply to the people pushing these corrosive books!
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00John Droz, Jr.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJohn Droz, Jr.2024-11-28 07:03:292024-11-28 07:04:19Critically Thinking about Children’s Books — What’s in Your School? [Part 2]
“Threatening to facilitate a further, broader, binding international arms embargo.”
The Biden administration, the media and the rest of the political infrastructure are billing this as a ‘ceasefire’ deal. In reality, it’s a worthless agreement with Lebanon’s puppet regime which is controlled by Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has made it clear that it’s going to continue attacking Israel and is claiming victory.
Biden described this as a “proposal to end the devastating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah,” but it does no such thing. What it does is allow Hezbollah to rearm and launch the next wave of attacks.
So why did Israel agree to it?
“Obama-Biden officials pressured our Israeli allies into accepting the ceasefire by withholding weapons they needed to defend themselves and counter Hezbollah, and by threatening to facilitate a further, broader, binding international arms embargo through the United Nations. Obama-Biden officials are already trying to use Israel’s acceptance of this ceasefire to ensure that Hezbollah and other Iranian terrorist groups remain intact across Lebanon, and to limit Israel’s future freedom of action and self-defense,” Sen. Ted Cruz stated.
“While the Biden-Harris Administration celebrates this announcement, remember that it is STILL withholding weapons to Israel. This Administration put up roadblock after roadblock on Israel and dragged out this conflict. They repeatedly appeased Iran rather than show unequivocal support to our closest ally in the region. Israel’s military success has been in spite of the White House, not because of it,” Speaker Mike Johnson tweeted.
In his remarks, Biden made it clear that the next step is saving Hamas with yet another “ceasefire” proposal under its allies Qatar and Turkey.
Now that the election is over and the administration has nothing to lose, the campaign against Israel and for the terrorists is moving into full swing.
EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2024-11-28 06:07:312024-11-28 06:10:20Biden Regime Used Arms Embargo Threat to Save Hezbollah From Israel
“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Carr
“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.” — Cicero
“For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.” — Elie Wiesel
“O Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.” — William Shakespeare
On October 3, 1789, George Washington issued his Thanksgiving proclamation, designating for “the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving” to be held on “Thursday the 26th day of November,” 1789, marking the first national celebration of a holiday that has become commonplace in today’s households.
It is a Holy Day for all people of faith to stop and give thanks to our Creator.
Yes, saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality, and it blesses those you thank.
As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day with friends and family, we need to remember how truly fortunate we are to have been born in the USA!
If we could shrink the world population to a village of 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, this is how it would look:
There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere-both North and South America, and 8 Africans.
52 people would be female. 48 males.
70 would be non-white, 30 would be white.
70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian
6 people would possess 59 percent of the entire world’s wealth and all six would be from the United States.
80 people would live in substandard housing, 70 would be unable to read, 50 would suffer from malnutrition; 1 would be near death, 1 would be near birth, 1 would have a college education and 1 would own a computer (this one may have changed a bit).
Every day is a gift from the Lord, and so many of us forget to thank Him each morning for a new day. If you have your health and all five senses you are blessed, but, if you have faith, family and friends, people you love and who love you, you have everything.
And, if you can read, the world is open to you!
I know I am blessed because I have friends who love me, some family members who love me, and most of all a husband who loves me unconditionally.
Bless and You Will Be Blessed
Women love to hear compliments and so few of us gals open our mouths to strangers and compliment their hair, their outfits, their beauty, their jewelry, their children, etc. I learned long ago that anyone who complimented me actually blessed my heart and made my day. On my 70th birthday I was picking up a bushel of apples at a produce store I frequent and a gal in the parking lot next to me said, “I just want to tell you, you are really a beautiful woman.” She was older than me, but wow, what a compliment when you’re 70! I thanked her profusely and told her my age.
Years ago, I was in the local grocery and saw a tall, slender and absolutely beautiful young woman. She looked a bit lost. I asked if I could help her and she said no. I told her with her statuesque beauty she should be on the cover of every magazine, not rushing around in a crowded grocery. She blushed and said, “Oh thank you!”
Years later, when I was in a flower shop, she walked in. She recognized me, and tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me of what I had said to her so long ago. She told me that it was one of the worst days of her life and she felt so lost and alone and then some stranger tells her she beautiful, and it lifted her spirits. She said those few words changed her life. What are the chances the Lord would bring us together again?
Here’s another one…again in the local grocery, a good looking tall black man with a Vietnam veteran hat on his head was heading for the door and I said to him. “Hey brother, thank you for your service and welcome home.” I just saw him again the other day at the same store and we stood in the parking lot and talked for 20 minutes. He told me about his grandchildren and that they were in Seattle and they just got home from a visit. He said, “It’s wonderful to see your bright smile again.
One more…I was flying home from a conference back about six years ago and one seat up and across the aisle was the most handsome black fellow I’d ever seen, another Denzel Washington. When I got off the plane, I stopped and said to him, “I just wanted to tell you that you are one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen and believe me I have a gorgeous hunk of a fellow at home. We’d flown out of Chicago, and I told him I was raised in Chi town. He said he lived in Rogers Park, same area I was raised in until high school. I told him I was born in Evanston Hospital and he said he worked there and was flying on business. Really, what are the chances! He pulled up his phone and showed me a picture of his beautiful wife and their three babies. I said, “Looks like the two of you are very blessed.” He answered in the affirmative.
Can you imagine what this black fellow said to his wife when he got home? Some old lady on the plane told me I’m gorgeous! Grins!
One day when we’re in heaven, strangers may come up to us and remind us of a small kindness that helped them. Open your mouths to tell others what you admire about them. It is a blessing to both them and you.
Everyday I tell my husband over and over again how much I love him. Having friends, both male and female who have lost their life partners, please remember them in every way you can. Cards, flowers and notes and if they’re close, lunches! After the funerals, everyone leaves and the piercing loneliness is so difficult. That’s when our friends need us. The survivors usually adjust, but will never be the same…and that is where good friends come to the rescue.
Only one of my very close friends mourned herself to death. She was a brilliant corporate business woman who I had worked with for years, but after her husband passed, her life just spiraled down. She became agoraphobic and drank herself to death, certainly not what the Lord wanted. The rest of my friends have been strong enough through their faith to carry on, knowing their beloveds would want health, life and joy for them and that one day they’ll be together again.
Not everyone is blessed with wonderful life partners, which always surprises me because most of our friends have marriages so much like ours.
Not all marriages are healthy even when they’re together for life.
My sweetheart and I will walk our two little Miniature Schnauzer puppies, Abbie and Maggie whenever the weather is pleasant. One of our neighbors commented one day that it was weird that we still held hands after all the years of marriage. I said to him, “We love each other, why shouldn’t we hold hands.”
If you’ve been blessed with the things I’ve listed above, with a marriage to the most wonderful partner in the world and have family, friends, health and a comfortable home, don’t just take tomorrow to thank our heavenly father.
I know as we age that life takes a turn, but the Lord told us in I Thessalonians 5:18, “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God…” And Psalm 100:4, calls on all men to praise and worship the Lord. “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.”
Make it every day! Thank You Lord for all You have blessed us with!
“Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!” — Psalm 95:2
Thankfulness is a concept that appears often in the Bible as the faithful are called to give thanks to G-d for everything—and not only to be thankful but to rejoice:
Much like counting our blessings can uplift us, reading or reciting Bible verses about thankfulness to G-d has a way of filling us with hope.
Psalm 106:1
“Praise the L-rd. Give thanks to the L-rd, for He is good; His mercy endures forever.”
Psalm 107:21
“Let them give thanks to the L-rd for His unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for mankind.”
Psalm 69:30
“I will praise G-d’s name in song and glorify Him with thanksgiving.”
1 Chronicles 16:8
“Oh give thanks to the L-RD; call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples!”
Psalm 34:8
“Oh, taste and see that the L-RD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! ”
Psalm 86:12
“I give thanks to You, O L-rd my G-d, with my whole heart, and I will glorify Your name forever.”
Psalm 9:1-2
“I will give thanks to the L-RD with my whole heart; I will recount all of Your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.”
Psalm 28:7
“The L-RD is my strength and my shield; in Him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him.”
Psalm 13:5
“But I have trusted in Your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.”
1 Chronicles 16:35
“Say also: ‘Save us, O G-d of our salvation,
and gather and deliver us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to Your Holy Name,
and glory in Your praise.'”
Psalm 95:2
“Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!”
Psalm 92:1-2
“It is good to give thanks to the L-RD,
to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your steadfast love in the morning, and Your faithfulness by night.”
Psalm 97:12
“Rejoice in the L-RD, O you righteous, and give thanks to His Holy Name!”
Psalm 100:4
“Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him; bless His Name!”
Psalm 103:1
“Bless the L-RD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name.”
On this Thanksgiving, please give generous thanks to The Al Katz Center, 501(c)(3), which has tirelessly served since 2012 the interests of the State of Israel, Holocaust Survivors, vulnerable elders, families in crisis, pro-Jewish educational needs, and the Zionist community.
When virtually no other Jewish organization was alerting the community to unchecked antisemitic activities on college campuses, in American courts and public offices, in the halls of Congress, in the media, and in casual and official discourse locally, nationally, and globally, nd in casual and official discourse locally, nationally, and globally, The Al Katz Center led the way to public awareness of escalating antisemitism. Our staff is unpaid and scrupulously uses all revenues in our charitable missions of protecting Zionist and human rights matters however we can. Please give us your thanks today!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Beverly Newman, Ed. D.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngBeverly Newman, Ed. D.2024-11-28 04:50:582024-11-28 04:52:21Bible Verses About Thankfulness To Fill Your Heart With Gratitude
Following President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping victory in the election earlier this month, illegal immigrants in small town USA are fleeing to “sanctuary cities” and, in some cases, even “self-deporting.”
According to both CBS News and The Guardian, thousands of Haitian immigrants in the city of Springfield, Ohio are rushing to Chicago, New York City, and other “sanctuary” locations before Trump is sworn into office and initiates his pledged mass deportation program. Springfield, a city of less than 60,000, has been crippled ever since the outgoing Biden-Harris administration imported roughly 20,000 Haitian immigrants into the municipality starting in 2021. The city has seen a drastic rise in housing costs and traffic accidents and has been forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to accommodate the immigrants, who were granted temporary protected status (TPS) by the Biden-Harris administration.
Many Haitians in Springfield have taken Trump’s promise of mass deportations — to be enacted by his new “border czar,” former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director and immigration hardliner Tom Homan — seriously. Trump has vowed to terminate the TPS granted to the Haitians, causing many to leave the Ohio city that Trump mentioned during a presidential debate. Popular destinations for the immigrants include Chicago, New York City, Boston, Canada, and even Brazil, where many Haitian migrants had previously been granted temporary asylum before illegally entering the U.S.
In comments to The Washington Stand, Andrew Arthur, senior fellow in Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, said, “Just the threat of ‘mass deportation’ has changed the dynamics for the millions of illegal aliens currently present in the United States, many of whom were drawn here by the Biden-Harris administration’s promises of de facto amnesty and indefinite presence in the United States.” He continued, “Now that they are facing the real threat of enforcement and deportation, a significant number will simply decide to leave on their own, which will make Border Czar Tom Homan’s job of restoring credibility to the U.S. immigration system much easier.” Arthur added, “It’s the very definition of a ‘virtuous circle’ of enforcement and compliance.”
While many immigrants have indicated that they would flee to “sanctuary” cities, where officials refuse to deport illegal immigrants, Homan has warned that even these cities will be subject to mass deportations. A coalition of Democratic governors and mayors have already announced that they plan to resist Trump’s deportation program. Among them is Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who posited that he would use city law enforcement officers and 50,000 residents to block deportation efforts in what he called a “Tiananmen Square moment.” Johnston later retracted his comments about using police to oppose federal officials, but he did encourage citizens to “protest” deportation efforts and said that he was “not afraid” of going to prison.
In response, Homan said that Johnston would be “absolutely breaking the law.” He added, “Me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing: he’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.” Homan continued, “If he doesn’t want to help, that’s fine. He can get the hell out of the way. But we’re gonna go do the job. President Trump has a mandate from the American people, we’ve gotta secure this country, we’ve gotta save American lives.”
Heading into the election, immigration was consistently rated one of the top two concerns for voters, often closely following inflation. A majority of Americans also signaled at least some support for Trump’s proposed mass deportation program. But a new poll shows that nearly three-quarters of Americans want Trump to make mass deportations a “priority.” According to a CBS News/YouGov survey, 73% of American adults say that deporting illegal immigrants should be a “priority” for Trump’s administration, including 45% of Americans who say it should be a “high priority.” Additionally, nearly 60% of respondents said that they want Trump to initiate “a national program to find and deport all immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.” A majority (64%) also favor Trump mobilizing federal law enforcement agencies that don’t typically interact with immigration in order to assist with deportations.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2024-11-27 13:12:592024-11-27 13:16:51Haitian Immigrants ‘Self-Deporting’ ahead of Trump Inauguration
Turkeys aren’t the only things on the chopping block this week — so is woke policy. Americans, who are already celebrating a return to sanity after the elections, have to be equally ecstatic that after 19 months, conservatives are savoring another massive corporate surrender. In what Robby Starbuck calls “the biggest win yet,” the country’s number one employer, Walmart, is abandoning DEI in what may be the smartest holiday marketing decision so far.
For shoppers looking for an alternative to Target’s racks of chest-binding lunacy, it’s been disappointing to see how their largest competitor has become just as compromised on everything from Pride merch to abortion travel coverage. Now, in a shocking sea change, the brand is ditching its radical activism for market-friendly neutrality — just in time for the Christmas shopping season.
A jubilant Starbuck, who’d been in conversations with Walmart executives behind the scenes, said in a video announcing the change that he didn’t even know where to start, because, in his mind, “This is different than everything else we’ve done.” And maybe the most impactful. For weeks, the consumer activist was teasing the fact that he’d been investigating an enormous company. “Now I can reveal it was Walmart. But,” he emphasized, “something incredible happened.”
When headquarters realized Starbuck was looking under the retailer’s hood, they reached out to him. “This was critical and honestly turned out pretty fantastic for everybody involved in my opinion,” he explained. “We were able to have frank conversations with Walmart. And as I’ve said for a long time, I don’t ask companies to take on my political views. I am simply advocating for corporate neutrality. … [T]his is the future,” Starbuck insisted of the grassroots movement. And the iconic blue-and-yellow brand must agree, because “after various productive conversations, I am very proud to report to you guys that Walmart has decided on making some changes.”
The biggest, conservatives would agree, is that the company will no longer be participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s outrageous Corporate Equality Index, further frustrating the largest driver of the LGBT agenda in American brands. “I have to give their executives major credit,” Starbuck underscored, “because this will send shockwaves throughout corporate America.” Other changes the company pledged to make:
“Monitor the Walmart marketplace to identify and remove inappropriate sexual and / or transgender products marketed to children.
Review all funding of Pride, and other events, to avoid funding inappropriate sexualized content targeting kids.
Discontinue the Racial Equity Center which was established in 2020 as a special five-year initiative.
Evaluate supplier diversity programs and ensure they do not provide preferential treatment and benefits to suppliers based on diversity. We don’t have quotas and won’t going forward. Financing eligibility will no longer be predicated on providing certain demographic data.
End the use of ‘Latinx’ in official communications.
Cancel racial equity training through the Racial Equity Institute.
Stop the use of DEI as a term while ensuring a respectful and supportive environment.”
Walmart joins a long list of companies who are publicly rejecting the agenda that’s tanked the stocks and profits of unrepentant brands like Bud Light, Nike, and Disney. Sam Walton’s stores now join a consumer activist trophy wall that includes Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley Davidson, Polaris, Indian Motorcycle, Lowe’s, Ford, Coors, Black & Decker, Jack Daniels, DeWalt tools, Craftsman, Caterpillar, Boeing, and Toyota. Together, these companies represent an eye-popping $2 trillion dollars in market value.
Asked to explain the abrupt reversal, Walmart told Fox Business, ”[We are] willing to change alongside our associates and customers who represent all of America.” Striking a remarkably contrite tone, they added, “We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect, but every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers and to be a Walmart for everyone.”
Stephen Soukup, author of “The Dictatorship of Woke Capital” and vice president at The Political Forum, believes “what’s happening with Walmart is a big deal. And not just because it is the largest retailer in the world,” he told The Washington Stand. “I think Walmart’s decision confirms that American business stands poised on the precipice of a ‘preference cascade.’”
He’s referring to a concept that was invented by economics about 40 years ago to explain “how totalitarian regimes go from seemingly stable and in control to toppled and wiped out in a matter of days or weeks. In brief, everyone lies about their preferences in public for fear of being singled out for retribution by the regime or their peers. In time, however, the lies give way to reality. A spark of some sort alerts individuals to the fact that they are not alone, that everyone shares their hatred of the regime but has also been hiding it,” he explained.
And once that “signals to the masses that the false social support is teetering — once one person, then two people, then three people express publicly what they have long felt privately — the entire social structure collapses upon itself. One leads to two, which leads to three, which leads to a ‘cascade’ of thousands upon thousands.” In this instance, “The DEI regime — largely started and enforced by groups like the Human Rights Campaign — has been stifling for businesses, which nevertheless played along for fear of being singled out. … And so, a return to standard traditional business practices is something that’s really going to benefit shareholders,” Soukup told guest host Joseph Backholm on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch.”
Remember, Starbuck emphasized, “This won’t just have a massive effect for their employees who will have a neutral workplace without feeling that divisive issues are being injected but it will also extend to their many suppliers.”
This will all come as a relief to former Walmart CEO Bill Simon, who five years ago, lamented the liberal changes the company had made since he departed a decade ago. “Our view was always, ‘Let’s just run a business,’” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in 2019. “We’ll sell to anybody. We’ll try to stay out of the public eye on issues that can be confrontational.” Fast-forward to the last five years, when everything — including the marketplace — is polarized. It’s astonishing, he said on “Washington Watch,” to see the progression of corporations.
Even then, Simon thought it was only a matter of time before the next shoe would drop. “I think there’s going to have to be some kind of reckoning because businesses,” he predicted, “particularly one that trades in public markets on the stock exchange, has to be available to everybody and can’t exclude one political ideology just because [of] the ideology of the people who are currently running that business.”
In this instance, the mere threat of consumer backlash was enough to force Walmart to wave the white flag. And it’s because, as Starbuck celebrated, “We are a force to be reckoned with. … [T]he paradigm has changed. We are powerful and growing every single day.” And, he added, “We will not stop until we have eliminated wokeness in corporate America.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2024-11-27 12:56:382024-11-27 12:59:08Walmart’s Retreat on DEI This Thanksgiving Is Just Gravy
Transcript of President George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation from October 3, 1789.
By the President of the United States of America—A Proclamation
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their Joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us—and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
One vote can make an enormous difference. In Texas, it was a single vote that allowed biblical material to be included in the local public schools through the state-authored curriculum, Bluebonnet Learning (BL). On Friday, eight of 15 Texas State Board of Education members voted it through. Although it was not free from controversy, last week’s decision means the new curriculum will be available starting in the spring and likely put to use within the 2025 to 2026 school year.
Notably, the biblical material included in BL is optional. As The Texas Tribune summarized, “The curriculum was designed with a cross-disciplinary approach that uses reading and language arts lessons to advance or cement concepts in other disciplines, such as history and social studies.” Some of the specific Christian references and teachings integrated into BL is Jesus’s parable of “The Good Samaritan,” which can be found in Luke chapter 10, and the “Golden Rule,” found in Matthew 7. The Tribune noted that these parables are “about loving everyone, including your enemies.” The Golden Rule, as stated in the Bible, says, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.”
Those who voted against this curriculum included all four Democrats who are on the board, as well as three Republicans. According to The Daily Wire, several Democrats who voted against it felt concerned it would “force Christianity on public school children.” Of those Democrats, Staci Childs verbalized her belief that the curriculum will eventually find itself in court. She told NBC News, “[I]f a parent or a teacher who didn’t feel comfortable teaching this were to bring this up to a court, I believe they would be successful.” Childs also noted that, in her opinion, “these materials are [not] yet reflective of the experiences and the nuance of Texas students.”
Conversely, Republican board member Will Hickman celebrated the future of Texas public schools now that BL has been approved. “In my view,” he said, “these stories are on the education side and are establishing cultural literacy. … [R]eligious concepts like the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule and Moses [are ones] that all students should be exposed to.” Apart from the board members, it appears parents were also divided on the topic. However, The New York Times reported on one mother’s opinion, in which she stated that the incarnation of Jesus “is and always will be the hinge of all of history.” This mother also posed the question: “How would the canceling of such fundamental facts serve the education of our children or contribute to shape them morally?”
To add to the conversation, Joseph Backholm, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement, offered a comment to The Washington Stand. “The classroom will never be values neutral,” he said. “We’ve seen the aggressive way some classrooms have pushed the Sexual Revolution, which is essentially just a different religion. [So,] the fact that the curriculum includes biblical stories doesn’t mean its teaching Christianity, just that they aren’t pretending there is something dangerous about biblical stories anymore.”
Backholm agreed that “the history of America is largely Christian. It’s not possible to have a clear understanding of American history without understanding the role faith played in the lives and beliefs of our founders.” According to Backholm, “This is just one of the many ways that biblical knowledge is [simply] part of a basic education. If you learn American history, you’ll learn about the Bible.”
Ultimately, Backholm believes parents should “be the primary shapers and guardians of children, [but] we don’t want our fear of ‘religious instruction’ to make us afraid of giving a real education. [Because] in the American context, knowing about our history and culture requires knowledge of the Bible.”
FRC’s Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow of Education Studies, also weighed in with TWS. “The folks who are concerned about ‘teaching Christianity’ in classrooms have likely never batted an eye over mindfulness lessons or practice for children, Greek and Roman mythology, and other types of religious content in schools.”
She continued, “Biblical or overtly Christian content is too controversial for use in the classroom when viewed through the ‘lens of inclusivity.’” Agreeing with Backholm, she noted, “There is simply no way to separate America from its expressly Christian foundation, [even] though the educational industrial complex continues to try.” At the end of the day, Kilgannon said she’s “grateful for the Texas school board members who voted to support this measure. We must continue to pray for America’s schools, families, and school children. We must also support local leaders who take a stand for God and country.”
Kilgannon concluded, “Education has always been about state and local control. It’s our duty to pay attention to local matters and make sure our perspectives are heard.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)2024-11-27 08:46:312024-11-27 08:49:48Texas State Board of Ed. Approves the Bible in Public School Curriculum
While there aren’t a lot of familiar faces from Donald Trump’s first term, Americans are hoping there will be some familiar policies. From the border wall to tax cuts, voters have made it clear that the last thing they want is a continuation of Biden’s radical social agenda. And nowhere is that more critical than the United States military.
Of course, the president-elect is used to inheriting messes. (He spent four years cleaning up Barack Obama’s.) This time around, the repeat commander-in-chief will have his hands equally full. Morale is in the (gender-free) toilet, deadly conflicts blaze around the world, readiness and retention are in the basement, and our technology is about to become a distant second to China’s. Since the day Joe Biden walked into the Oval Office, he’s been too obsessed with advancing the culture war to fight the real ones. And until that changes, the shortfall of troops won’t either.
From everything (and everyone) Trump has appointed, the next administration has a good grip on the severity of the crisis. If the collective meltdown over Pete Hegseth’s nomination to head-up the Defense Department is any indication, the military is about to undergo a top-to-bottom overhaul. And not a moment too soon.
And based on the latest reports, the 47th president knows exactly where to start: with the rollback of Biden’s devastating transgender policy. Sources from inside Trump camp say priority number one is weeding out the thousands of gender-confused troops this administration welcomed into the ranks under the guise of “inclusion.” Unlike last time, when Trump tried to undo the Obama trans policy with tweets, the president-elect is said to be planning an executive order that would put the brakes on transgender service on day one.
According to The Independent, “The ban is expected to be wider ranging than a similar order made during his first term in office, when Trump prevented transgender people joining the armed forces, but allowed those already serving to keep their jobs. President Biden rescinded the order, but this time even those with decades of service will be removed from their posts, according to several sources.”
While no one has a real read on how many troops would be affected — liberal sources say upwards of 15,000 — the Pentagon counted 2,200 servicemembers who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2021 of the country’s 1.3 million active-duty personnel.
Though the Trump team refuses to confirm its plans on the policy, the Left is already in a panic, spinning a web of lies in advance of the change. “There is no money being spent,” Paulo Batista, one of the Navy’s trans-identifying analysts lied. “It’s just continued care.” But that “continued care” — at a bare minimum — includes a refrigerator full of hormones that costs upwards of $3,700 per person, per year, according to the National Library of Medicine. The actual transition surgery can range from an eye-popping $20,000 to more than $150,000 depending on the complexity of the operation.
No one has to guess where Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the DOD, stands on the topic. The young veteran has been extremely vocal about his frustrations with our woke military, calling the current leadership “weak” and “effeminate.” This whole idea of taxpayer-funded medical care for these troops (which FRC calculated before Bidenflation to cost the nation billions of dollars in hormones, surgeries, counselors, and lost service time) is “an extravagance the Pentagon cannot afford,” he argued. To waste this kind of money on such a small population is “trans lunacy,” Hegseth fumed, to say nothing of the “complications” it causes.
Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Robert Maginnis, FRC’s senior fellow for National Defense, made the point that if Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) supports single-sex facilities in the Capitol, “the same should be true for the U.S. military.” “For readiness reasons, all transgender persons ought to be booted out of the ranks,” he insisted.
Of course, as he explained, all of this has its roots in the past two decades of the Left’s “confused sexuality.” “Early in the 20th century, the military considered gender dysphoria a mental condition and refused to enlist such persons. Then in 1993, President Bill Clinton came to the White House promising to lift the Pentagon’s long-standing ban on homosexuals. Clinton’s directive resulted in the policy known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ … [Then], eventually, President Barack Obama pulled the plug on that policy promising sexual orientation was not a barrier to service in the military.”
Back then, Maginnis pointed out to The Washington Stand, “military personnel with common sense knew all too well that sex in an already limited-privacy setting, especially same-sex attraction, is a readiness issue and always will be. Unfortunately, the woke Left under President Joe Biden pretends otherwise and uses his political power to throw sanity overboard. Today, the Pentagon’s ranks include allegedly thousands of transgender personnel” that hinder America’s ability to fight and win wars.
Practically speaking, Biden’s policy doesn’t even make sense. A trans-identifying person needs a steady stream of hormones and drugs, “which means that he or she can’t deploy overseas and must remain under a doctor’s constant care. That’s an extravagance the Pentagon cannot afford because it detracts from combat readiness.”
Before the election, Trump vowed to scrap all of the wokeness plaguing our military, Maginnis continued, “which includes the transgender issue.” The reasons are obvious, he underscored: “Our service members have a full plate preparing for war, and any distractions or unnecessary drain on our precious resources must be eliminated. Besides, there are likely more healthy, well-adjusted people who would take their place in the ranks if the Pentagon dumps the woke nonsense and focuses on what’s important to our national defense.”
To those who say America can’t afford to lose thousands of personnel “at a time when the military can’t recruit enough people,” as one source complained, the administration didn’t think twice about booting 8,000 qualified men and women from the ranks when they refused the COVID vaccine. Where were the alarmists then?
In this instance, the impact can only be positive. As Maginnis reminds everyone, “Trans-identifying troops are non-deployable, and they create a health care burden. We only recruit and retain those who advance readiness.” In dangerous times like these, he cautioned, “We need every service member to be ready to deploy. For every non-deployable person like the trans soldier, another service member must be sent in their place. That creates additional burdens on an exhausted force and hurts morale.”
Not to mention, if the military can reject someone for a mild peanut allergy or flat feet or taking Adderall for six months as a child, why on earth would it accept the ongoing distraction of recruits with mental health issues and ongoing medical needs?
As Major General (Ret.) Joseph Arbuckle said on Monday’s “Washington Watch,” “There is no right to serve in the military. Nobody has that right. Standards drive performance, and if the trans community cannot meet those standards, and if they’re not prepared to deploy physically or mentally because of that, then they should not be serving. That’s the bottom line.” Congressman Mark Alford (R-Mo.), who was guest hosting the show, agreed. “The enemy doesn’t really care what your pronoun is.”
During an exchange with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a hearing, Alford remembers saying, “‘[I]f we go … right now across the Potomac, and we look down at those white tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery, would you be able to tell me the skin color or the gender or the pronoun of that person?’ And [Austin] said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘That’s because our diversity is not our strength. Our strength is from our unity of our common purpose.’”
When Trump strips DEI out of the military, he’ll restore a lot of morale that Arbuckle thinks is “suffering through the ranks right now, because the mission focus has been taken away.” “So I see the morale coming up. I see recruitment coming up. I see retention coming up. And our combat effectiveness. … That’s exactly what we need.”
At the end of the day, political correctness doesn’t win wars — and it’s time to put an end to policies that pretend it does.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2024-11-27 08:30:212024-11-27 08:42:04Trump Could Scrap Biden’s Trans Troops Policy ‘as Soon as Day One’
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announces she is stopping the migrant caravans from arriving at the U.S. southern border after Trump’s tariff threat.
The announcement came only 12 hours after President-Elect Trump’s announcing a 25% tariff on Mexican imports.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed U.S. President-elect Donald Trump‘s renewed threats of steep tariffs this week, asserting that migrant caravans are no longer reaching the U.S.-Mexico border.
Her remarks underscored growing tensions as Trump plans to tighten immigration policies and impose a 25 percent tariff on Mexican imports. Trump declared that the tariffs would remain in place “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
“Caravans of migrants no longer reach the border,” Sheinbaum said on Tuesday while presenting a letter she plans to send to Trump in the coming days. She also emphasized Mexico’s efforts to curb the flow of drugs, including the synthetic opioid fentanyl, while noting that it remains “a public health and consumption problem within your country’s society.”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s transition team for comment on Tuesday.
If Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy implemented just one single reform during their new cost-cutting government board, it could save taxpayers $1.7 trillion, enough to shave nearly one full year off of the national deficit, a congressman has revealed.
President-elect Donald Trump has tapped the two billionaires to oversee the soon-to-be-formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In addition to eliminating the perennial targets of waste, fraud, and abuse, DOGE promises to “delete” whole federal agencies, if necessary, to make government operate in taxpayers’ interests once again. Experts say streamlining the federal budget could yield the American people abundant savings year after year.
“If you were to set aside all the rules in place, put in place by the Biden administration and this bureaucratic state … you would save $1.7 trillion,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) told “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice last Friday.
Regulations added to the federal code during the Biden-Harris administration have imposed $1.7 trillion on the private sector over the last four years, “surpassing all predecessors,” according to a recent federal report.
The administration also imposed 300 hours of paperwork on businesses, according to the report titled “Death by a Thousand Regulations: The Biden-Harris Administration’s Campaign to Bury America in Red Tape,” released September 25 by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
A stunning $1.3 trillion of the $1.7 trillion (76%) in added regulatory burden comes from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the report found.
“To cement radical left-wing priorities, the Biden-Harris administration spared no expense and pushed a whole-of-government regulatory blitz on American businesses and consumers,” said House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.). “The Biden-Harris administration’s extreme regulatory overreach has only suffocated the American dream.”
“The Biden-Harris administration has added nearly 200 major regulations — those carrying an annual price tag of $100 million or more — to the books,” noted the Foundation for Government Accountability’s Liesel Crocker in August.
The regulatory state has grown so far out of control that tens of thousands of felonies were “rule-created by the bureaucracy — not created by Congress, but by the bureaucrats,” Biggs told Hice.
Eliminating just the Biden-Harris administration’s regulations would save nearly enough money to erase this year’s entire federal deficit of $1.8 trillion.
Within the last week, the U.S. national debt reached a record high of $36 trillion — $2 trillion higher than at the beginning of the year. Creating such a large federal deficit has moral implications, commentators say. Racking up “$36 trillion in debt is immoral,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Monday. “Spending money that does not belong to you and you have no intention of paying back is theft.”
President Donald Trump tried to curb regulatory power early in his first term, issuing an executive order mandating that, for every one new regulation added to the federal code, two must be eliminated. He seems poised to expand that margin in his second term. “I’m pledging today that in my second term, we will eliminate a minimum of 10 old regulations for every one new regulation,” President Trump told the Economic Club of New York in September.
The newly formed DOGE will also take a scalpel to the federal budget, its founders promise. In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Ramaswamy vowed to abolish the Department of Education and defund National Public Radio and Planned Parenthood. The abortion giant alone receives nearly $700 million in taxpayer funding each year.
At the same time, the House of Representatives plans to form a DOGE Committee, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), to assist the DOGE department’s efforts in Congress. The committee is “going to try and identify programs, agencies, departments that are redundant, that are wasteful and slip those over to the legislative branch, which is where we sit. And they’ll have hearings and introduce legislation that will decouple those wasteful programs and agencies from the federal government. And Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new chairwoman, has said that she expects to close agencies and fire people,” said Biggs.
Together, the two DOGE entities will create a “synergistic effect,” he said.
In the end, said Biggs, the House of Representatives must use the normal budgeting process to rein in out-of-control spending. “This is why the bureaucratic state is growing: Every time you do a continuing resolution, you keep funding the same programs at the same levels. Periodically there will be an omnibus that raises all that spending. You’re just on cruise control,” Biggs told Hice. “The way you stop it is you actually do your appropriations bills and you say, ‘We’re not going to fund Planned Parenthood. We’re not going to fund various DEI programs or woke programs in the military or anything else,’ that will be designated by DOGE or designated by Marjorie Taylor Greene’s subcommittee on Oversight.”
Despite America’s polarized nature, Biggs says he believes many of DOGE’s commonsense proposals will find bipartisan support. “Some Democrats have come up to me privately and told me they agree” that Congress has to “get some [power that resides in the federal government] back to the states, where it was always intended to be under the Constitution.”
“The focus is going to be on the fourth branch of government, which is the bureaucracy,” Biggs emphasized. “The federal government is so upside down big that it needs to be turned right side and made right-sized again.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2024-11-27 05:53:482024-11-27 05:55:41DOGE Could Save Taxpayers $1.7 Trillion, Congressman Reveals
President Donald J. Trump Proclaims Thursday, November 23, 2017, as a National Day of Thanksgiving
Issued on: November 17, 2017
On Thanksgiving Day, as we have for nearly four centuries, Americans give thanks to Almighty God for our abundant blessings. We gather with the people we love to show gratitude for our freedom, for our friends and families, and for the prosperous Nation we call home.
In July 1620, more than 100 Pilgrims boarded the Mayflower, fleeing religious persecution and seeking freedom and opportunity in a new and unfamiliar place. These dauntless souls arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the freezing cold of December 1620. They were greeted by sickness and severe weather, and quickly lost 46 of their fellow travelers. Those who endured the incredible hardship of their first year in America, however, had many reasons for gratitude. They had survived. They were free. And, with the help of the Wampanoag tribe, and a bountiful harvest, they were regaining their health and strength. In thanks to God for these blessings, the new governor of the Plymouth Colony, William Bradford, proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and gathered with the Wampanoag tribe for three days of celebration.
For the next two centuries, many individual colonies and states, primarily in the Northeast, carried on the tradition of fall Thanksgiving festivities. But each state celebrated it on a different day, and sometime on an occasional basis. It was not until 1863 that the holiday was celebrated on one day, nationwide. In the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, of one of the bloodiest battles of our Nation’s Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that the country would set aside one day to remember its many blessings. “In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity,” President Lincoln proclaimed, we recall the “bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come.” As President Lincoln recognized: “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”
Today, we continue to celebrate Thanksgiving with a grateful and charitable spirit. When we open our hearts and extend our hands to those in need, we show humility for the bountiful gifts we have received. In the aftermath of a succession of tragedies that have stunned and shocked our Nation — Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria; the wildfires that ravaged the West; and, the horrific acts of violence and terror in Las Vegas, New York City, and Sutherland Springs — we have witnessed the generous nature of the American people. In the midst of heartache and turmoil, we are grateful for the swift action of the first responders, law enforcement personnel, military and medical professionals, volunteers, and everyday heroes who embodied our infinite capacity to extend compassion and humanity to our fellow man. As we mourn these painful events, we are ever confident that the perseverance and optimism of the American people will prevail.
We can see, in the courageous Pilgrims who stood on Plymouth Rock in new land, the intrepidness that lies at the core of our American spirit. Just as the Pilgrims did, today Americans stand strong, willing to fight for their families and their futures, to uphold our values, and to confront any challenge.
This Thanksgiving, in addition to rejoicing in precious time spent with loved ones, let us find ways to serve and encourage each other in both word and deed. We also offer a special word of thanks for the brave men and women of our Armed Forces, many of whom must celebrate this holiday separated from the ones for whom they are most thankful. As one people, we seek God’s protection, guidance, and wisdom, as we stand humbled by the abundance of our great Nation and the blessings of freedom, family, and faith.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 23, 2017, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all Americans to gather, in homes and places of worship, to offer a prayer of thanks to God for our many blessings.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand seventeen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-second.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)2024-11-27 04:46:222024-11-27 04:55:37President Donald J. Trump’s 2017 Thanksgiving Message
