“Without Logos, the West is lost”

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Western society is crumbling as it loses the vital link between faith and reason.

This book provides a wonderfully accessible overview of the evolution of a concept which has been the key to the development of Western civilisation, or we might better say is the hallmark of Western civilisation: the mutual interplay of faith and reason. Gregg shows how this key was sought by the Greeks, found by Judeo-Christianity, and progressively lost during the Enlightenment. He examines the kinds of pathologies which are produced by both faith and reason respectively when they are decoupled from one another.

Gregg starts out with “The Speech That Shook the World” — the Regensburg Address of Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, in which Ratzinger warned of the danger of the uncoupling of faith and reason. The fact that Ratzinger hit the nail on the head with his words here were — sadly — borne out by the violent (and sadly in some cases fatal) reaction of fundamentalists across the Islamic world. But Ratzinger’s words were for the West as much as for anyone else, for the integration of faith and reason which had been the hallmark of the West has been in crisis for a long time now, and the disasters of recent Western history are the bitter fruit of that crisis.

Ancient Greeks

Western civilisation begins with a Greek word and concept: logos, which refers to rational order — one we embody in words. This is in a way the Greek discovery, and it unleashed their philosophical speculations. The irrationality of the gods of Greek religion always seriously trammelled philosophical speculation. Vastly different was the religion of the Jews with its supremely rational God, and the advent of Christianity revealed fully the hidden depths of this rationality (the logos was made flesh) and on the rationality of God is founded the rationality (and freedom) of man.

In the thought of St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), this synthesis of faith and reason is brought to a supreme realisation. At the very same time, however, significant fissures between faith and reason began to appear in the incipient rationalism of the Latin Averroists as well as the incipient fideism of elements within the Franciscan order.

Various developments

Gregg prefaces his discussion of the great disjunction between faith and reason which takes place in the Enlightenment with an important proviso. He cautions the reader against an overly simplistic dismissal of all of Enlightenment thought tout court as anti-Christian. He is at pains to point out that much of the Enlightenment movement was quite compatible with Christianity, citing the historian Ulrich L. Lehner as saying “only a small fraction of Enlighteners were anti-religious; the overwhelming majority were interested in finding a balanced relation between reason and faith.” He points out the critical engagement of many Catholic intellectuals with the Enlightenment.

Gregg also reminds us that there was not just one Enlightenment, but several, and they differed in their attitude to the faith. The Scottish Enlightenment for instance involved a number of particularly religious men, such as the Presbyterian minister Thomas Reid (1710–1796). The leaders of the American Enlightenment similarly, despite their declarations of separation of Church and State, were mostly very well disposed towards religion in general, and Christianity in particular.

This was, however, not the case in the French Enlightenment. Gregg quotes Joseph Ratzinger’s distinction between “the Anglo-Saxon trend [in Enlightenment thought], which is more inclined to natural law and tends towards constitutional democracy,” from that associated with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which “ultimately aims at complete freedom from any rule.”

New religions

And even though the work of such Englishmen as Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and John Locke never shares in the French animus against Christianity, they mark a decided shift away from metaphysical speculation in favour of utility and the empirical and so pave the way to scientism and the two great secularist ideologies of the nineteenth century: Marxism and liberalism. Ironically, although these two systems are prefaced on a rejection of religion (though in a much more virulent manner in Marxism), Gregg points out the quasi-religious character of both:

Like Judaism and Christianity, Marxism has its own canon of sacred books — the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, among others — which its adherents study as Jews and Christians study the scriptures. Marxists join a church-like organisation — the Party — with its own faithful (party members), clerical hierarchy (the Central Committee, the Politburo, the general secretary), theologians (Marxist theoreticians), saints (Che Guevara or Lenin, whose embalmed body is venerated in a shrine), and doctrines from which party members may not stray without compromising their orthodoxy.

Even the intellectuals that John Stuart Mill envisages overseeing the implementation of liberalism function as a kind of “clerisy”. It took Nietzsche of course to bring things to their logical conclusion: with the disappearance of God also goes any claim to objective truth (a delusion for the herd), and all we are left with is the will, and in particular the will to power.

Faith alone

In a sense, Nietzsche marks the culmination of the rationalist pathology stemming from the decoupling of faith and reason. The faith side of this binomial has a pathology of its own: fideism. In chapter five, Gregg discusses the origins and implications of the fideism which has come to dominate (as Ratzinger warns in this Regensburg address) the world’s greatest bastion of fideism, which is Islam.

He describes the fateful showdown which took place in Islam between the ninth and twelfth centuries, in which the pro-reason school — the Mutazilites — were defeated by the fideistic, voluntaristic school of the Ash’arites. The implications of this defeat went far beyond Islamic theology, into every aspect of the Islamic worldview, and in a dramatic way into political thought: the perceived mode of divine rule sets the standard for political rule, and so if God’s power is envisaged as tyrannical and mankind’s correct attitude is one of submission (“Islam” means submission) then similarly, political power is conceived of as despotic over a submissive population.

Gregg does not despair for Western civilisation. Decline, he thinks “ is not inescapable”. He considers that those who conceive of a reason as closed to faith must acknowledge that this view created Marx and scientism — with all the destruction they have wrought on the world. On the other hand, those more sympathetic to faith must acknowledge that the Enlightenment has been part of a bulwark against the kind of fideism which has come to dominate the Islamic world. But above all, there will be no recovery without the rediscovery of what made Western civilisation in the first place: the interplay of faith and reason. “Without Logos, the West is lost.”

AUTHOR

Fr Gavan Jennings

Rev. Gavan Jennings studied philosophy at University College Dublin, Ireland and the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome. He is co-editor of the monthly journal Position Papers. He teaches occasional… More by Fr Gavan Jennings

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

$30K a year, and my kid can’t tell the difference between a boy and a girl

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Parents must hold their local school systems accountable for what is taught to their children.

Everything has a price.

Like every American family, our family runs a constant cost/benefit analysis on our lives. There are the small decisions: is it worth the time to drive to Target for the cheaper diapers? Or should I just get the pricier ones at the grocery store? And there are the bigger ones: like, should I live in the suburbs and pay lower taxes but more for car expenses and gas? Or flip that decision?

For our family, one of the toughest decisions was where to send our kids to school. We could send them across the street to the poorly performing public school for free. They’d meet a wide variety of kids and learn some valuable self-advocacy skills, but they would not be academically challenged. For $30k, I could send them to the nearby private school, where they’d benefit from engaged teachers, kids, and families. We’d have to drop the music lessons and fancy trips, but hey — I don’t like Disneyland anyway.

So, with some scholarships, sacrifices, and family assistance, we made the choice to send our kids to a fancy private school. The benefits have been great: warm, caring, patient teachers; outstanding academics; beautiful buildings; even a pretty good lunch. But there’s been a hidden cost, beyond the incredibly painful tuition bills: my kids can’t tell the difference between a boy and a girl.

This seems shocking, I know. How can a concept so obvious, so instinctual that nearly every 2-year-old on the planet can master it, be an idea that my very expensively-educated children don’t understand?

Simple-minded educators

Because some teachers don’t understand it. Because some administrators don’t understand it. And this is where I have to remind myself of something true: half the world is dumber than average.

I know this sounds incredibly snobby. I know this sounds judgmental and awful, but this is true. And this fact helps me take a breath, find some compassion, and slow down.

These teachers are good people. They are kind. They like kids, and want the best for children. They believe that education can make the world a better place. And additionally, they were hired for their people skills: they are empathetic, good communicators, patient, and open-minded. Those are exactly the skills my tuition dollars are paying for.

But these teachers are not well-trained critical thinkers. They were not hired for their ability to analyse complex research studies, nor to follow the various paths of different complex scenarios. They are not philosophers, ethicists, or religious scholars. They are not lawyers or developmental psychologists. They are not endocrinologists or pediatricians. They are experts at connecting to kids and explaining the types of K-12 content that kids should learn. Thank god for teachers and their talents and skills. Our society needs them. But they are not the experts here. They are just trying to do their jobs.

So when faced with the concept of “gender identity” — the idea that “people have an innate feeling of being female or male,” the typical teacher will say “Sure — that makes sense. I’m female, I know it. That’s not a controversial idea.”

When faced with the diagnostic definition of “gender dysphoria”, the idea that “some people have great distress with their biological sex, and wish they were the opposite sex,” these teachers say, “Sure — I know about Jazz Jennings and Caitlyn Jenner. That’s a real thing.”

When faced with the fact of “Disorders of Sexual Development” (formerly known as Intersex conditions), the scientifically observed and natural phenomena of various biological sexual characteristics and markers, teachers say, “Yep — I learned about that once.”

And when urged to consider the negative impacts of the difficulty of being an outlier, and the impacts of social isolation and/or ostracism, the teachers say, “Not on my watch. My cousin was gay and poorly treated. I won’t let any of my kids be bullied or left out.”

So when teachers combine all these ideas and impressions and blend them into their natural “be nice” personalities and “open-minded” natures, they are primed to become believers and advocates of transgender ideology. If Johnny likes skirts and thinks he’s really a girl inside, who are we to judge? We really can’t blame the teachers. They were born this way.

So our society has laid yet another burden of expectation on teachers. They must educate kids, they must socialise kids, they must address and resolve the emotional and behavioural dysfunctions of these kids. And now they must be responsible for nurturing, protecting, and advocating for the “internal feeling of being female or male” for a kid, otherwise they’ll be held responsible for the kid’s ostracism.

This is nuts. These teachers don’t stand a chance.

To the top

So we can’t fight the teachers. We’ve got to get the administrators and school boards to stop, listen, and think. These people were hired to be critical thinkers, to balance different opinions, to consider the different consequences of different choices. They still aren’t likely to read the studies or think through the ethical or philosophical consequences of different complex scenarios, but they are primed to consider one thing above all: legal threats.

Right now, principals and school boards are hiding behind the guidelines that WPATH (an activist-led organisation), the American Psychological Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals have created. These organisations have good intentions, but they are also human and flawed (and remember — half their members are below average). Even the ACLU seems to have lost its mind on this topic.

I suggest American parents adopt the “Maya Forstater Approach.” This strategy, based on the case in England, relies on fundamental and constitutional American legal rights: free speech and free religion. I don’t care if you haven’t been to church ever. This is what you say to your school board:

“For scientific, religious, and social reasons, I do not believe that you can change your sex, and I do not want my children to be taught “gender identity”, the belief that you have a gendered soul, and that your gender soul feelings trump your biology. How is your school protecting my family’s religious beliefs and our right to be free from compelled speech?”

Ask your school’s principal this question every Fall. Send it as a statement to your kids’ teachers every fall. Tell them to inform you of any lesson on gender identity before it happens so that your children can have a substitute lesson. Ask them what their policy on requesting pronouns is, so that your child does not feel compelled to use certain speech. Ask them how they balance different opinions on this topic in the community.

I can guarantee you they do not see this as a religious issue, but as a social justice issue. Say the magic words “freedom of religion/freedom from religion” and “freedom of speech” and see if that works. We’ve got a long history of protecting underdogs in this country, and right now the culture glorifies the status of victim. Use this knowledge wisely.

And here’s the thing: this is going to cost you. Be ready. Do the cost/benefit analysis. Whether your kids are getting a free public education or an expensive private one, when you ruffle the feathers of the principal, the winds blow. Then again, if you remain silent, your kid may not understand that sex never changes. Be prepared. Everything has a cost.

This article has been republished from Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT).

BY

Anonymous author

In exceptional circumstances, MercatorNet allows contributors to publish articles anonymously. Sometimes the author’s privacy or safety might be at risk. More by Anonymous author.

RELATED ARTICLE: “Without Logos, the West is lost”

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

VIDEO: Utah Republican U.S. Senate Candidate Becky Edwards EXPOSED

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*CLICK HERE TO TWEET OUT THE VIDEO*

Project Veritas Action has published undercover footage of U.S. Senate Candidate, Becky Edwards (R-Utah), speaking candidly about her intention to “stand up” for abortion.

Here are some of the highlights from today’s video:

  • Project Veritas Action published undercover footage of U.S. Senate Candidate, Becky Edwards (R-Utah), who is seen expressing her willingness to “stand up” for abortion.
  • In the footage, Edwards is approached by a Project Veritas Action Undercover Reporter who initiated a conversation about support for abortion and Edwards says, “I can absolutely guarantee you, I’m your best bet and the only candidate who has even said anything other than, ‘joyful, happy, yay, answer to prayer,’ on what we’re seeing on [overturning] Roe.”
  • Edwards then says, “I’m going to stand up” in reference to abortion. She goes on to expresses her concern for Utah’s trigger law: “…and we have like a trigger law here in Utah that basically is going to make things really – I’m deeply concerned.”

You can watch the full video HERE.

In the footage, Edwards makes comments critical of states with similar laws planned to take effect. “No, no! Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, what the heck? Idaho even!”

Edwards is running to unseat incumbent Senator, Mike Lee. At the time of this writing, Edwards has not responded to a request for comment.

*CLICK HERE TO TWEET OUT THE VIDEO*

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

America’s Enemies Cheer as Pentagon’s Descent into Wokeness Continues

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Recent stories show the ideological subversion of the Pentagon is continuing.

We start with a look at the Navy’s professional reading list for personnel.  Last year, it led off with Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Anti-Racist” and other books which preach Marxist Critical Race Theory and the evils of white supremacy.  These books attacked free enterprise and supposed mass incarceration, and promoted Left-wing sexual agendas.  Contrary viewpoints and America’s founding values were not on the list.  The CRT readings taught service members to hate the country they’re supposed to be defending.  Moreover, they did nothing to advance service members’ understanding of their profession or enhance their war-fighting skills.  However, these books no longer appear on the list.  They were taken off after several Republican members of Congress expressed outrage.

Subversion may have been interrupted in the Navy, but it’s going full bore at West Point.  Critical Race Theory, with its tenets of white privilege and systemic racism, is being taught at West Point, according to official documents and course materials obtained in a records request.  The materials teach cadets “modern day slavery” still exists in America as we speak.  They also teach the astounding view that white people are the primary beneficiaries of civil rights legislation.  Students will graduate with an understanding of queer theory, “white rage”, and that the Republican Party is the home of white supremacy.  That will come as a shock, I’m sure, to Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina who is both Republican and black.

The Air Force is setting aside time and creating a safe space for service members to express their feelings and partake in “healthy conversation” to create “trust and belonging”.  Kumbaya!  I wonder what the Air Force will do when somebody speaks up and says all this Woke stuff is for the birds.

The Navy put out a video cautioning its personnel to be sure to use preferred pronouns.  In the Army, training on pronouns and gender identity is mandatory.  In addition, officers are coached on when to offer gender transition surgery to the soldiers serving under them.

The Air Force wished its members “Happy Pride Month!” in June.  The Marines and Space Force tweeted out similar messages.  But Pride Month celebrations didn’t stop the Air Force from cancelling Drag Queen Story Time for children at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.  A spokesman said the event didn’t go through the vetting process, so here we have another instance showing it’s possible to push back and stop some of the nonsense.

Now let’s pause and ask what’s motivating all this Wokeness and subversion at the Pentagon.  One theory holds the top brass are committed left-wing ideologues, birds of a feather with the extremist Biden administration which is using the whole of government to push Woke agendas.  A former Marine Lieutenant Colonel, however, is of the view high-level officers are just playing along with the politicians because the officers need Congress to promote them to top general positions.   A China expert, meanwhile, has written about the People’s Liberation Army’s “All-Army enemy disintegration work”.  [Kerry Gershanek, Political Warfare: Strategies for Combating China’s Plan to “Win Without Fighting”, at p.23]  Disintegration work derives from Sun Tzu’s maxim about defeating the enemy without having to fight them.  Subverting the Pentagon through Woke ideology fits right in.   Personally, I would say all three drivers are at work.

I’m encouraged by the fact people are starting to push back and trim the Pentagon’s Woke sails, as I noted previously.  In addition, Republican lawmakers are introducing measures to defund the military’s social justice initiatives and to keep the military from spreading its Woke agendas to military contractors.   But it’s easy to introduce bills and placate the conservative base that way.  The real question is how hard the bills’ sponsors will fight for their reforms.  I hope, in addition to introducing legislation, Republicans will haul top Pentagon brass up to Capitol Hill for hearings if Republicans take over the House or Senate in November.  The Pentagon needs to be pressed on how it makes sense to teach soldiers to hate their country and whether the Pentagon has any evidence America’s enemies care what pronouns American soldiers prefer.   If there are no such hearings, we’ll know Republican lawmakers aren’t serious.  And hearings should just be the start of fixing the damage that’s been done.

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©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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BREAKING NEWS: MindGeek Layoffs & Leadership Resignations!

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Thanks to you, nation and worldwide change is happening right now! The world’s largest sexual exploiter is crumbling before our eyes!

MindGeek, the parent company that owns Pornhub and many of the largest porn sites in the world is under intense pressure. This week, their CEO & COO fled the company and they laid off more than half of their employees!

With your help, NCOSE has been working for over a decade to destabilize this company and the whole exploitation industry. These actions prove that our plan is working! MindGeek is now facing millions of dollars in lawsuits that the NCOSE Law Center has filed and helped to spur!

With the help of thousands, we got mainstream companies to stop running ads on their flagship website – that was 50% of their revenue! We’ve impacted their payment processors & their distribution partners, getting nearly all “respectable” companies to cut ties with them. Together, we have moved governments to take notice and we expect criminal charges soon!

Your help—financially, in prayer, signing our endless number of petitions! – made this possible, Thank you!

What does all of this mean?

Change takes time, but this is happening faster than most thought possible. If we can keep the momentum going, it means:

  • The era of anonymous, affordable, accessible pornography will be over.
  • The endless amount of pornography available online will go away. Many millions of these detrimental videos causing great public health harm will be gone. (Remember, we already got Pornhub to delete 11,000,000 videos in 2020!)
  • The extreme violence, the child-teen themed, the racist, incest, voyeuristic and other extreme common themes In pornography will be drastically reduced.
  • With this business model failing, you won’t see as many of these giant websites.
  • The impunity enjoyed by the online pornography industry for decades is ending.
  • Soon, thousands of survivors of sex trafficking, rape, child sexual abuse and other non-consensually recorded/shared material will get their lives back and won’t have to live in fear that their abuse will be seen by their neighbors, coworkers, and families.

Please consider a donation to help continue this momentum!

©NCOSE. All rights reserved.

Chevron CEO Fires Back at Biden, Slams His Attacks And ‘Political Rhetoric’ in New Letter

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The Democrat USG is out of control – destroying our economy, our freedoms, our every way of life.

In the wake of Democrat-induced hyper inflation amid massive government spending, the Biden regime has gone on the attack against ……. business.

In this case, Chevron has responded, which is mighty brave. Speaking truth to power makes you an an enemy of the Biden regime — a suicidal act.

Biden last week blamed oil companies for contributing to high prices — arguing they aren’t refining enough oil after previously claiming they aren’t drilling enough on existing federal leases and slamming companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron for reaping massive profits as global prices rise.

Wirth pushed back on Biden’s portrayal of the companies as responsible for soaring gas prices, which last week hit an all-time average of more than $5 per gallon.

Chevron CEO Fires Back at Biden, Slams ‘Political Rhetoric’ in New Letter

By: Jack Phillips, June 21, 2022

The CEO of Chevron sent an open letter to President Joe Biden after Biden sent a letter suggesting that oil companies could face consequences and accusing them of not doing enough to increase refining capacity.

Mike Wirth, in the letter, called on the White House to end its hostilities toward the oil industry, saying there needs to be a change in its approach and policies before gas prices can drop.

“Addressing this situation requires thoughtful action and a willingness to work together, not political rhetoric,” Wirth said, adding, “Your Administration has largely sought to criticize, and at times vilify, our industry.”

More than a week ago, Biden attacked oil companies and claimed they’re making record profits before urging them to increase oil production to alleviate record-high gas prices. Targeting ExxonMobil specifically, Biden accused them of making “more money than God” and not drilling enough during comments he made in May.

Soaring Gas Prices

In recent months, Biden has taken criticism as regular gas prices have eclipsed the $5 per gallon mark. AAA data shows that prices fell for several days before rising again this week to $4.96 per gallon.

Since Biden took office, gas prices have been steadily increasing as the president issued a number of energy-related executive orders, including suspending new oil drilling leases and ending the Keystone XL pipeline.

“The U.S. energy sector needs cooperation and support from your Administration for our country to return to a path toward greater energy security, economic prosperity, and environmental protection,” Wirth said in the letter, adding that Chevron has increased production in recent years.

Oil companies “need clarity and consistency on policy matters ranging from leases and permits on federal lands, to the ability to permit and build critical infrastructure, to the proper role of regulation that considers both costs and benefits,” Wirth added.

“Most importantly, we need an honest dialogue on how to best balance energy, economic, and environmental objectives–one that recognizes our industry is a vital sector of the U.S. economy and is essential to our national security,” he said. “We can only meet these challenges by working together.”

When asked about the letter, Biden didn’t appear to try and tone down the tensions.

“I didn’t know they’d get their feelings hurt that quickly. We need more refining capacity. This idea that they don’t have more oil to bring up and refine is simply not true,” he told reporters.

Last week, ExxonMobil responded to Biden’s letter and said it had invested $118 billion in new oil and gas supplies compared to a net income of $55 billion.

“We kept investing even during the pandemic, when we lost more than $20 billion and had to borrow more than $30 billion to maintain investment to increase capacity to be ready for post-pandemic demand,” the company stated.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is slated to meet with oil industry executives on Thursday to discuss ways to reduce energy prices.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

Head of Islamic Child Rape/Trafficking Gang Served as a Council Welfare Rights Officer While Raping Young Girls

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Rest assured, this news story will die a quick death.

This is what we have been up against for well over a decade. Twenty-plus years later… this has been going on for decades, Muslim gangs sex trafficking upwards of a million non-Muslims British tweens and teens.

Anyone who spoke against this unfathomable evil was targeted, smeared and, in my own case, banned from the UK.

More Muslim child rape gangs here and here.

“Passed around like meat”

“I lost count of how many men I was forced to have sex with.”

Close to a million British non-Muslim tweens and tweens were treated with the same callous scorn and inhumanity in the cause of sharia and “islamophobia sensitivity.”

Here is what is never addressed. The underlying belief is the same: non-Muslim women exist for the pleasure of Muslim men. It’s in the Quran: Muslims can take “captives of the right hand” and use them for sex (4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30). And as long as it is not addressed, there will be more and more of these Muslim rape gangs, aided and abetted by hopelessly compromised British officials.

GROOMING GANG LEADER SERVED AS A COUNCIL WELFARE RIGHTS OFFICER WHILE RAPING YOUNG GIRLS

By: Kurt Zindulka, Breitbart, June 21, 2022:

The head of an infamous Pakistani child sex grooming gang has been revealed to have been serving as a welfare rights officer for the local government council, a major child sex abuse report has revealed.

Shabir Ahmed, who led the Muslim Rochdale child rape gang, has been identified as “Offender A” by Sky News in a child sexual exploitation in Oldham report this month, which showed that while he was abusing children, he was employed by the local Labour-run council. Despite the Greater Manchester Police force being aware of allegations against Ahmed and his position as a welfare officer for the council, the police force failed to notify the council
The convicted paedophile, who was jailed for 22 years for preying on vulnerable girls in the Northern English city of Rochdale, and for raping a young Asian girl 30 times for over a decade, was also revealed to have been dispatched by the council to the Oldham Pakistani Community Centre, where he would have had access to young children.
The report stated that if police had informed his employers of the rape allegations “it may have potentially avoided the tragic abuse of other children.”

Though the report claimed to have found no evidence of a coverup, it said that “some children had been failed by the agencies that were meant to protect them because child protection procedures had not been properly followed.”

For instance, some girls who were being drugged and violently raped were told by social workers that they were “putting themselves at risk,” rather than being protected from their abusers.

The current leader of the Oldham Council, Amanda Chadderton, said: “We fully accept the findings of this independent report. It highlights clear failings, where our services at the time were not good enough to protect vulnerable young people suffering the most awful abuse.

“For that, I am deeply sorry… I do hope, however, to offer some reassurance that, as a council, we haven’t stood still since the time period the review refers to.”

As has been seen in previous reports, fears of stoking racial tensions among the Greater Manchester Police force was a persistent issue.

The ‘Messenger’ service, which was established in 2006 to safeguard children from sexual abuse through a partnership of the local council, social workers, the children’s charity Barnardos, and the Greater Manchester Police was shown to have downplayed the role of ethnicity in the mostly Muslim Pakistani rape gang epidemic in the area.

According to the report, a 2012 “media strategy” developed by the service “articulated a concern that there could be assumptions in the media and the public at large that child sexual exploitation was carried out by men from ethnic minorities against White girls, which could create community tensions, and that Oldham’s Asian community could feel it was disproportionally associated with child sexual exploitation

“There were also, throughout this period, legitimate concerns by both the council and the police that the high-profile convictions of predominantly Pakistani offenders across the country could be capitalised on by a far-right agenda and lead to the victimisation of the Pakistani community,” the report added.

Despite this, the report claimed that the local council had not shied away from highlighting the role of Pakistanis in the grooming gang abuse of young girls, highlighting a blog post from “Leader A” of the Oldham council in 2014 and 2015.
“Anyone who shies away from accepting that in Rotherham, Oxford, Rochdale and here in Oldham – and that this particular form of abuse is predominantly Pakistani men targeting white girls – is not helping the victims, and nor is it helping the Asian community at large,” a blog post from unnamed councillor stated.

The report also highlighted the case of Sophie (not her real name), who began being abused by “predatory males” at just 12-years-old. The report claimed that there were “at least” two occasions in which safeguarding procedures should have been initiated to protect the young girl.

Despite authorities having “sufficient information” to begin investigating a rape in 2006 by convicted paedophile Paul Waites, the girl was told to come back with an adult and when she “was not drunk” by a desk officer.

As she left the station she was picked up in a car by Sarwar Ali after she asked him for directions. Ali then took Sophie back to his house where he raped the young girl.
Then, a taxi driver who promised to help her out of the situation, Shakil Chowdhury, took her instead to a house where she was raped by him and four other men.
The report stated that if police officers had offered an appropriate response required to protect her” she would have been “spared the ordeal she was subsequently subjected to”.

Responding to the findings, Stephen Watson, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, said: “I want to offer my sincere apologies to everyone affected by the events considered in the report.

“Our actions fell short of the help that they had every right to expect and were unacceptable. I am sorry for the hurt and ongoing trauma they have suffered because of what happened to them.

Former Greater Manchester Police detective turned grooming gang whistleblower, Maggie Oliver said: “Another day, yet another report about the failures of a police force to protect the most vulnerable in our society, even when there is irrefutable evidence to prosecute offenders and safeguard children.

“This report yet again clearly evidences catastrophic failings by the force and their repeated attempts to cover up and hide these failings both from the victims and from the public they serve, and that is extremely worrying.”

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Home Office Bureaucrats Accused of Burying Report on Ethnicity of Muslim Child Grooming/Gang Rapists

Top Cop Involved in Failed Muslim Child Rape Gang Investigation Promoted to Chief of Child Exploitation Unit

Detective says police chiefs should face charges over Muslim child sex trafficking gangs that saw 97 men left free to rape or abuse 57 young girls because officers feared arrests would be ‘racist’ and Islamophobic.

School CANCELS Event with Islamic Sex Slave Survivor Nadia Murad Saying It Would Offend Muslims

44 MORE ARRESTED: “HISTORICAL child sex grooming” in unending Muslim child rape/sex trafficking horrors

Muslim ‘Refugee’ Working as Anti-Rape Trainer is Arrested for Rape

Home Office Bureaucrats Accused of Burying Report on Ethnicity of Muslim Child Grooming/Gang Rapists

Top Cop Involved in Failed Muslim Child Rape Gang Investigation Promoted to Chief of Child Exploitation Unit

Detective says police chiefs should face charges over Muslim child sex trafficking gangs that saw 97 men left free to rape or abuse 57 young girls because officers feared arrests would be ‘racist’ and islamophobic.

School CANCELS Event with Islamic Sex Slave Survivor Nadia Murad Saying It Would Offend Muslims

44 MORE ARRESTED: “HISTORICAL child sex grooming” in unending Muslim child rape/sex trafficking horrors

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

WATCH: Trump Says Biden a Horrific ‘Combination of Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover’

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And we still have 2 plus years left to go. If President Biden’s dangerous and incompetent foreign policy precipitates World War 3, then he will have surpassed President Buchanan for the title of worst POTUS in American history.

WATCH: Trump Says Biden a Horrific ‘Combination of Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover’

By: The First, June 21, 2022

Donald Trump ripped Joe Biden during a speaking event this week, calling the President a horrific combination of “Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover.”

“Joe Biden is the worst president in the history of our country. He is now turning out to be a combination of Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover. Has anyone looked at the stock market lately?” asked Trump.

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1539235687773483009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1539235687773483009%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgellerreport.com%2F2022%2F06%2Fwatch-trump-says-biden-a-horrific-combination-of-jimmy-carter-and-herbert-hoover.html%2F

AUTHOR

Geller Report Staff

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Biden: We Need MORE Massive Spending For SECOND PANDEMIC

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

For 77 Minutes, Cops Never Even Tried to Enter Classroom, Police Could Have Stopped Uvalde Shooter ‘3 Minutes’ After Entering School

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UPDATE: Were Uvalde Police Officers Told to Stand Down?

This new Glazov Gang episode features Dr. Paul Alexander, a pandemic adviser in the Trump Administration. Visit him at drpaulalexander.com and palexander.substack.com.

Dr. Alexander discusses Were Uvalde Police Officers Told to Stand Down?, analyzing: Something very dark went down. Is it really a mystery why?

Uvalde cops never tried entering the classroom.

According to a Texas official for 77 minutes, on site police never even tried to enter the classroom. Police could have stopped the Uvalde shooter in ‘3 Minutes’ after entering the Robb Elementary School.

On Monday, KVUE and its news partners at the Austin American-Statesman exclusively obtained surveillance footage from inside Robb Elementary School on the day of the May 24 shooting.

The footage shows that multiple officers were inside the building with rifles and at least one ballistic shield, 19 minutes after the gunman arrived. They didn’t enter the classroom the shooter was inside for nearly another hour.

Who gave the stand down order?

And why are uni-party Republicans standing with gun control authoritarians when we all know it that is not the problem and gun control just disarms law-abiding Americans?

For 77 minutes, Uvalde police officers stood by as accused gunman Salvador Ramos rampaged through Robb Elementary School, killing 19 students and two teachers. New surveillance footage reportedly shows that those sworn to serve and protect didn’t even bother wiggling the door handle to get into the classroom.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

ULTIMATE BETRAYAL: Here are THE 14 Republicans who joined Democrats to seize our gun rights

Uvalde Cops Never Tried Entering Classroom

Damning New Uvalde Shooting Evidence, Parents & Reporters Kicked Out

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

Unschooler, Entrepreneur, Prodigy: The Story of Cole Summers

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“Don’t Tell Me I Can’t” by Kevin Cooper (aka Cole Summers) deserves a place in the alternative education canon.

Kevin Cooper, known to the internet as Cole Summers, was taken from this world far too soon—he tragically died on June 11 in a kayaking accident. But in his 14 years of life, he accomplished more than most of us do in a lifetime.

At age 6, his parents handed him the reins to his own education, giving him the freedom to choose what to study. (He chose Warren Buffet videos on YouTube, because he wanted to learn how to get rich).

At age 7, he started his own business, breeding meat rabbits and selling them to restaurants. He set up a corporation and became the majority shareholder, just like a Silicon Valley startup.

At age 8, he got his first truck through trade with a neighbor—and discovered that an 8-year-old can in fact get a vehicle titled in their name.

At age 9, he bought a 350-acre ranch for $130 per acre to expand his business into breeding meat goats.

At age 10, he bought a house, which he then renovated and sold for a profit. He learned flooring, roofing, cabinet making, painting, and electrical work – again, from YouTube.

At age 14, he wrote an autobiography about his education called Don’t Tell Me I Can’t, a fitting title for what is essentially an ode to kids pushing the limits of what adults think is possible.

Kevin Cooper was the most ambitious and inspiring unschooler I have ever met.

I found Kevin on Twitter this past spring, and I knew immediately he was an unschooling legend in the making. He was successfully running a holding company controlling multiple LLCs, including one for his rabbitry and one for his properties. He was helping support his disabled parents and brother. And he was working on a plan to tackle the environmental problems of industrial hay farming and aquifer depletion, which were threatening to make the valley where he grew up uninhabitable.

He was an unschooling success story, an alternative education inspiration, a shining example of what is possible for kids to accomplish. At 14, he had already done more for education than many education professionals do in their whole lives, just by being living proof of how far someone can go when they let their interests drive their education.

That’s what Kevin’s book is all about.

I started reading Don’t Tell Me I Can’t while I was waiting for a takeout order. I imagined I would read the introduction while I waited for my food and then go home. Instead, I ended up sitting at the restaurant counter reading the entire book cover-to-cover while my food grew cold (much to the amusement of the wait staff, I imagine). I was captivated. Kevin’s book was the most compelling story of homeschool possibility I had ever read.

Kevin wrote in his introduction:

“Like every other kid, I’ve had people tell me I can’t do something because I’m ‘just a kid.’ This silly, adult idea that being young makes us incapable and incompetent has discouraged so many kids from learning what they’re capable of and pursuing their dreams. But one of the biggest blessings in my life has been that every time I’ve heard that nonsense said to me, I can be sure of two things. First, it’s never my parents that said it. Second, my parents will not only allow me to work to prove whoever said it wrong, but they encourage me to do so.”

Kevin’s book is an argument for letting kids drive their own education and for letting them tackle life head-on in any arena they find interesting. His own story is proof that it works.

From first grade on, Kevin’s education was built around what he was interested in. First he wanted to know how people make money. After he and his dad started listening to Warren Buffet videos, they pivoted into mental models and learning how to think.

When he wanted to try making money for himself, he convinced his parents to let him start his rabbit farm, and he learned about business and math through bookkeeping and setting up his business’s legal entity.

After paying taxes for the first time, Kevin heard about Amazon’s $0 tax bill, and decided he wanted to learn about corporate tax law for 5th grade math so he could learn how to pay no taxes too. That was the first time he realized he was different:

“On the ride to Cub Scouts one time, my friends started talking about what they were doing in school. They were all joking around about having to memorize the names of all the planets in order. [My friend] Michael said “it’s stupid. Like, when will I ever need to know that?”

Then they asked me what I was studying. I started talking about how companies can pay certain expenses, like payroll, in stock, creating paper losses that reduce their taxes and maybe even create net loss carry forward. Wow, the looks I got from everyone. They told me they had no clue what I was talking about. I just shrugged it off and said “yeah, I’m weird,” but I was confused. I still thought back then that they did all the same stuff I did.”

This stark difference in Kevin’s education is what led to his extraordinary life. Because he was free to chase the things he cared about, he was able to achieve outcomes far beyond what most people think is possible for somebody who’s “just a kid.”

Kevin’s book was released in May of 2022. Less than a month later, the world lost more than we’ll likely ever know. Kevin was a giant in the making. He would have accomplished feats on a geographic scale, like reversing the disappearance of the Great Basin Desert’s supplying aquifer. He had ambitions to spearhead environmental change and advocate for unschooling, so more kids could be set free to chase their passions like he was – an endeavor his parents plan to carry on, as they shared when they broke the news of Kevin’s heart-breaking, untimely death.

Kevin’s book deserves a place in the unschooling and alternative education canon: an honest and beautiful case study of what’s possible when parents trust their kids, and when kids let their passions become the driving force of their education.

If you want to support Kevin’s family, a GoFundMe was set up in his memory. Kevin’s book is available for purchase on Amazon.

AUTHOR

Hannah Frankman

Hannah is a career development coach and a course instructor. She works as an advisor at Praxis and an instructor at The Objective Standard Institute. You can find her work at hannahfrankman.com.

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

Violence in the Name of “Jane’s Revenge”

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Ever since the unprecedented leak of an early draft of the Dobbs decision from the Supreme Court which may overturn Roe v. Wade, the “shock troops of tolerance” have been busy interrupting church services. And they have done much destruction of crisis pregnancy centers.

They claim to be “pro-choice,” but choice involves options. And these people want to make sure women make only one choice—the choice of abortion. When there’s only one choice, then “pro-choice” is an oxymoron.

Since May 2, when the draft decision was leaked:

  • There have been numerous disruptions of church services, usually Catholic ones. However, even Joel Osteen’s church service was interrupted by topless promoters of abortion.
  • There have been illegal protests in front of the homes of conservative Supreme Court Justices to intimidate them to change their opinion.
  • There have been at least 60 attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, which are all funded by private donations to provide loving alternatives to abortion. This is becoming a regular occurrence.

Many of these attacks have been done through an ad hoc organization called “Jane’s Revenge.”

The name would imply revenge on behalf of “Jane Roe” from the 1973 Supreme Court pro-abortion decision, Roe v. Wade.

Jane’s Revenge declares open season on crisis pregnancy centers across the nation: “From here forward, any anti-choice group who closes their doors, and stops operating will no longer be a target. But until you do, it’s open season, and we know where your operations are. The infrastructure of the enslavers will not survive. We will never stop, back down, slow down, or retreat.”

A friend of mine works in a crisis pregnancy center. She told me in an email over the weekend: “I worked in the Emergency Dept as a RN for 25 years with police security, but I never dreamed that working at a pro-life clinic would be a high risk job!”

And this damage is being done in the name of Jane Roe? As the record shows, Jane Roe’s identity was revealed in 1987, and her name was Norma McCorvey. It turns out McCorvey had not been raped (as claimed in the case). She had gotten pregnant from her boyfriend, and she just wanted an abortion.

ACLU attorney Sarah Weddington lied to her as she assured McCorvey she could get an abortion, but what Weddington really wanted was McCorvey’s participation in what became Roe v. Wade.

Then in the late 1990s, something amazing happened. Norma McCorvey made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and came to oppose abortion. Thus, Roe came to agree with Wade. Henry Wade had been the District Attorney of Dallas County, and Roe v. Wade challenged Texas’s pro-life law.

Norma McCorvey wrote her story in her 1997 book, Won By Love (with co-author Gary Thomas). The subtitle of that book is “Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade Speaks Out for the Unborn as She Shares Her New Conviction for Life.”

And now, in the name of Jane Roe, anarchists and ANTIFA-types are carrying out acts of vandalism and damage of pregnancy centers that simply exist to provide loving alternatives to abortion.

One man who knew McCorvey, who died in 2017, is Father Frank Pavone, the president of Priests for Life. He even baptized her and spent time sharing Scriptures and Church teaching with her.

I asked him for a comment on the former “Jane Roe” since these groups are doing damage to try and disrupt pro-life work in her name.

Father Pavone told me: “As for Norma McCorvey, hers was a life of repentance, not of revenge. She wouldn’t have needed to take ‘revenge’ on pro-life people anyway, because she was one of us. She would have abhorred the way the pro-abortion people are acting now. In fact, she didn’t like them even when she was on their side. She thought they were arrogant and disrespectful of her.”

He adds, “The abortion supporters were handed abortion-on-demand on a silver platter by Roe v. Wade. They didn’t have to engage in the laborious, tedious process of elections, lobbying, debating, persuading and lawmaking. Instead, a ‘constitutional right’ was just created for them.

Now that it is being taken away, they whine and stomp their feet like a child.”

Where is the U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in all this? When is he going to act against this intimidation? Our nation’s founders said that the Creator has endowed us with “unalienable rights”—first among these is “the right to life.”

Father Pavone has the final word: “Of course, their attacks on our churches are because when we restrict abortion, they perceive it as an attack on theirs. The abortion clinics are their churches, abortion-on-demand is their dogma, and abortion itself is their sacrament. May they be given the grace of repentance.”

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

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Louisiana Governor Signs Pro-Life Bill Banning Abortions

The Failure of Public Schooling in One Chart

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Public school spending has become a costly failure.

While I have great fondness for some of the visuals I’ve created over the years (especially “two wagons” and “apple harvesting“), I confess that none of my creations have ever been as clear and convincing as the iconic graph on education spending and education outcomes created by the late Andrew Coulson.

I can’t imagine anyone looking at his chart and not immediately realizing that you don’t get better results by pouring more money into the government’s education monopoly.

But the edu-crat lobby acts as if evidence doesn’t matter. At the national level, the state level, and the local level, the drumbeat is the same: Give us more money if you care about kids.

So let’s build on Coulson’s chart to show why teachers’ unions and other special interests are wrong.

Gerard Robinson of the American Enterprise Institute and Professor Benjamin Scafidi from Kennesaw State University take a close look at this issue.

…education is important to the economic and social well-being of our nation, which is why it is the No. 1 line item in 41 state budgets. …Schools need extra money to help struggling students, or so goes the long-standing thinking of traditional education reformers who believe a lack of resources – teachers, counselors, social workers, technology, books, school supplies – is the problem. …a look back at the progress we’ve made under reformers’ traditional response to fixing low-performing schools – simply showering them with more money – makes it clear that this approach has been a costly failure.

And when the authors say it’s been a “costly failure,” they’re not exaggerating.

Since World War II, inflation-adjusted spending per student in American public schools has increased by 663 percent. Where did all of that money go? One place it went was to hire more personnel. Between 1950 and 2009, American public schools experienced a 96 percent increase in student population. During that time, public schools increased their staff by 386 percent – four times the increase in students. The number of teachers increased by 252 percent, over 2.5 times the increase in students. The number of administrators and other staff increased by over seven times the increase in students. …This staffing surge still exists today. From 1992 to 2014 – the most recent year of available data – American public schools saw a 19 percent increase in their student population and a staffing increase of 36 percent. This decades-long staffing surge in American public schools has been tremendously expensive for taxpayers, yet it has not led to significant changes in student achievement. For example, public school national math scores have been flat (and national reading scores declined slightly) for 17-year-olds since 1992.

By the way, the failure of government schools doesn’t affect everyone equally.

Parents with economic resources (such as high-profile politicians) can either send their kids to private schools or move to communities where government schools still maintain some standards.

But for lower-income households, their options are very limited.

Minorities disproportionately suffer, as explained by Juan Williams in the Wall Street Journal.

While 40% of white Americans age 25-29 held bachelor’s degrees in 2013, that distinction belonged to only 15% of Hispanics, and 20% of blacks. …The root of this problem: Millions of black and Hispanic students in U.S. schools simply aren’t taught to read well enough to flourish academically.  …according to a March report by Child Trends, based on 2015 data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 21% of Hispanic fourth-grade students were deemed “proficient” in reading. This is bad news. A fourth-grader’s reading level is a key indicator of whether he or she will graduate from high school. The situation is worse for African-Americans: A mere 18% were considered “proficient” in reading by fourth grade.

But Juan points out that the problems aren’t confined to minority communities. The United States has a national education problem.

The problem isn’t limited to minority students. Only 46% of white fourth-graders—and 35% of fourth-graders of all races—were judged “proficient” in reading in 2015. In general, American students are outperformed by students abroad. According to the most recent Program for International Student Assessment, a series of math, science and reading tests given to 15-year-olds around the world, the U.S. placed 17th among the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries in reading.

This is very grim news, especially when you consider that the United States spends more on education – on a per-pupil basis – than any other country.

Here’s a table confirming Juan’s argument. It lacks the simple clarity of Andrew Coulson’s graph, but if you look at these numbers, it’s difficult to reach any conclusion other than we spend a lot in America and get very mediocre results.

Juan concludes his column with a plea for diversity, innovation, and competition.

For black and Hispanic students falling behind at an early age, their best hope is for every state, no matter its minority-student poverty rate, to take full responsibility for all students who aren’t making the grade—and get those students help now. That means adopting an attitude of urgency when it comes to saving a child’s education. Specifically, it requires cities and states to push past any union rules that protect underperforming schools and bad teachers. Urgency also means increasing options for parents, from magnet to charter schools. Embracing competition among schools is essential to heading off complacency based on a few positive signs. American K-12 education is in trouble, especially for minority children, and its continuing neglect is a scandal.

He’s right, but he should focus his ire on his leftist friends and colleagues. They’re the ones (including the NAACP!) standing in the proverbial schoolhouse door and blocking the right kind of education reform.

P.S. This is a depressing post, so let’s close with a bit of humor showing the evolution of math lessons in government schools.

P.P.S. If you want some unintentional humor, the New York Times thinks that education spending has been reduced.

P.P.P.S. Shifting to a different topic, another great visual (which also happens to be the most popular item I’ve ever shared on International Liberty) is the simple image properly defining the enemies of liberty and progress.

Republished from Dan Mitchell’s blog.

AUTHOR

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

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

3 Things Biden Has Done That Increased Gas Prices

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President Biden isn’t entirely to blame, but his anti-market policies have contributed to the problem.

Average gas prices recently passed $5 per gallon nationwide, setting a new record. This is bad news for workers’ budgets, and since it’s happening under President Joe Biden’s watch, it’s bad news for the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects.

The White House has tried to deflect blame for the insane surge in gas prices onto Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. And, to be fair, gas prices are definitely not completely within any president’s control. They absolutely are influenced by global factors, and the disruption in the global energy market caused by Putin’s invasion certainly has contributed to higher prices.

But Biden isn’t off the hook. Gas prices started rising long before the invasion, and the president still has direct responsibility for how his policies have contributed to this problem.

Here are three specific things Biden has done that have led to increased gas prices.

Since taking office, Biden has taken too many steps to count to limit domestic production. These include halting federal permits for oil and gas drilling and leasing shortly after taking office and blocking drilling in a major oil-rich Alaskan region.

To be clear, these decisions will mostly affect future production. But that does still significantly affect gas prices because companies factor in their expectations about the future into the decisions they make today.

“Some say that new leases … would have taken time and would not yet be online, but even so, there is evidence that expectations of increased future supply has a beneficial impact on current prices and expectations of future supply drying up has a negative impact on current prices,” the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Ben Lieberman said.

“At a day-to-day level, I am hearing from drillers that they are having a very hard time getting all the approvals they need from [the Environmental Protection Agency] and other agencies in order to produce on existing wells, and of course, new federal leasing has come to a halt,” Lieberman added.

It’s just basic economics that when the government throttles future supply in an industry, that will lead to higher prices both now and in the future. Biden was warned by many critics at the time that this would happen, but he proceeded anyway.

Speaking of basic economics, it’s well established that when businesses’ costs rise, that puts upward pressure on the prices they charge consumers. The oil and gas industry is no exception.

And unfortunately, the Biden administration has both proposed and implemented a wide array of regulations on the energy sector, inflicting billions in direct financial costs and incalculable indirect compliance costs — plus further harming expectations for the future.

“The regulatory chokehold imposed by the Biden administration on oil production in place of a Green New Deal has drastically raised gasoline prices, thereby hurting lower-income people the most,” said conservative economist Vance Ginn, who served in the Trump administration.

“This is yet another example of the high cost of big-government environmentalism when the better approach is to remove government barriers so that free markets can better let people adapt to changes in the environment at a much lower cost,” Ginn concluded.

Rhetoric matters. While words don’t literally do anything to change gas prices, the signals coming from policymakers absolutely do affect the long-term investment decisions businesses make.

And even as a presidential candidate, Biden sent very negative messages about what his leadership would mean for the gas industry.

In just one example, as Americans for Tax Reform pointed out, Biden said during a campaign stop: “We are going to get rid of fossil fuels. … We’re going to phase out fossil fuels.” Then, upon taking office, the president followed these words with actions such as canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, blocking leases, restricting imports, and pursuing regulations.

In general, Biden’s open hostility toward the oil and gas industry has almost certainly curbed investment into production that otherwise would’ve occurred.

“Such extinction rhetoric, coming from the now-president, has an unprecedented chilling effect on investment,” Lieberman said. To put it simply, less investment means less supply — which means higher prices.

It’s absolutely true that our high gas prices aren’t entirely Biden’s fault. But the president is not the helpless bystander his defenders would have you believe.

This article originally appeared in the Washington Examiner. 

AUTHOR

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

RELATED ARTICLE: Why High Gas Prices Are a Signal of (More) Inflation to Come

These Widespread Shortages Can’t Be Explained by Supply Constraints Alone

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Poorer markets can still clear. So why won’t they?

All sorts of shortages are now popping up in our economy. At the head of the list is undoubtedly infant formula, but there are literally dozens of other items in short supply. There are so many of them that I feel constrained to mention them in alphabetical order, lest I inadvertently miss one or engage in double counting.

Here they are, as best I can list them: aluminum, avocado, bicycles, blood collection tubes, blood for transfusions, canned vegetables, cat food, chlorine, Christmas trees, coal, coins, commercial air tickets, computer chips, cream cheese, dye used in CT scans, eggs, fuel oil, garage doors, gasoline, girl scout cookies, hand sanitizer, home covid tests, infant formula, juice boxes, liquor, lithium, lumber, maple syrup, meat, motorcycles, natural gas, paper towels, pet food, potatoes, semiconductors, soap, soda, sunflower oil, toilet paper, tomato paste and wine. Peanut butter has not yet been mentioned in this regard but will soon, undoubtedly, be added prominently to this list.

I’m not kidding: each and every one of these items has been mentioned in this regard in the major media. What is going on here? Has the economy gone crazy, or what? According to several headlines, that is just about what is occurring. Here are a few of them: “The world is still short of everything; get used to it.” “America is running out of everything.” “Product shortages and soaring prices reveal fragility of U.S. supply chain.”

If the shortage list is long, the presumed causes of this economic malfunction are almost as large. For peanut butter, it will be a recall due to contamination; a salmonella outbreak. But this is an input into many other products, such as fudge, chocolates and peanut butter sandwiches, which will also soon be hard to find. For many items on the list the antecedent is the Coronavirus, which has led to supply chain problems. Paying workers to stay home and earn as much or more than their salaries, a few months ago, also contributed. Blame was also laid at a harsh winter. Imports from abroad have been subject to sudden border closures. Ships stuck at harbors on the west coast have been vulnerable to shortages of truck drivers and regulations. Computer chips have been susceptible to supply inelasticity; new offerings as a result of higher prices take a great amount of time to become forthcoming. Consumers have been castigated for hoarding. Staffing problems have been held responsible for commercial air travel disruptions. Drought, the bird flu and the Ukraine war have been held culpable.

But we have had all of these things before, war, pestilence, disease, bad weather, ill health, government regulations, before. However, massive shortages, not of everything under the sun, but almost pretty close, have never before disrupted the economy to anything like the degree we are presently experiencing (apart from the two world wars, of course).

Where is the much-vaunted free enterprise system in all of this? Nowhere, that is where. Has it succumbed to so-called “market failure?” Not a bit of it. Rather, the difficulty is that public policy has made capitalism operate with one arm tied behind its back, and it has not been able to function when hemmed in by a plethora of restrictions, limitations and regulations.

Basic introductory Economics 101 teaches us that a shortage occurs when demand for an item exceeds its supply. What invariably occurs then? Why, prices rise. When this takes place, businesses are incentivized to produce more, buyers to purchase less. Voila, the shortage ends. Why doesn’t this occur under the Biden Administration? Why do we have so many shortages?

One possibility not at all in the public eye is that business firms are afraid to raise prices lest they be charged with price gouging. And why in turn might this be the case? The Bidenites are not exactly friends of the free enterprise system. Yes, to be sure, prices have indeed been rising. But are they increasing fast enough so as to quell shortages? Evidently not. Why not? This is possibly due to fear of being accused of gouging, and being subject to antitrust attentions. Wages, too, are on the incline. But likely not sufficiently so as to overcome the supply inelasticity difficulty. Why not? Firms may well be leery of so doing, in case they have to be decreased later on, and will be accused of exploiting, or victimizing laborers, or some such.

Prices and wages are typically somewhat sticky; that is, they are not instantaneously and fully flexible. But an anti-business philosophy of the sort now prevailing in Washington D.C. makes them even less able to perform the tasks for which we need them, than would otherwise be the case.

AUTHOR

Walter Block

Walter Edward Block is an American economist and anarcho-capitalist theorist who holds the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the J. A. Butt School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

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

Democrat Andrew Gillum Indicted On Charges Of Wire Fraud, False Statements To FBI

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A federal grand jury indicted former Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum and the National Black Justice Coalition chief executive officer Sharon Lettman-Hicks Wednesday for false statements, wire fraud and conspiracy.

The 21 count indictment, filed on June 7, alleges that Gillum and Lettman-Hicks conspired to commit wire fraud by obtaining funds from “various entities” and individuals through “false and fraudulent promises” between 2016 and 2019, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida announced in a press release. The funds were allegedly diverted to a company owned by Lettman-Hicks through third parties, then disguised as payments to Gillum for personal use.

Both are individually charged with 19 counts of wire fraud, the attorney’s office announced. Gillum is additionally charged with making false statements to the FBI in 2017 during a corruption investigation when he served as Mayor of Tallahassee and gubernatorial candidacy against then-Republican Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis.

“On or about June 14, 2017, in the Northern District of Florida, the defendant, Andrew Demetric Gillum, did knowingly and willfully make materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations in a matter within the executive branch of the Government of the United States, that is, during a criminal investigation of public corruption involving the City of Tallahassee conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the indictment said.

Assistant United States Attorneys Stephen M. Kunz and Andrew J. Grogan are prosecuting the case, according to the release.

Wire fraud and conspiracy can both lead up to 20 years imprisonment each, the release stated. Gillum could face an extra 5 years for his charge of making false statements.

They were both arrested by the FBI Wednesday and scheduled to make their first appearance in federal court at the United States Courthouse in Tallahassee in the Magistrate’s Judge’s Courtroom at 2 p.m., according to the release. The former Tallahassee mayor surrendered himself to FBI agents at 10 a.m., NBC News reported.

Gillum proclaimed his innocence of the charges against him in a Wednesday statement, accusing the case of being “political,” according to WFSU.

“I have spent the last 20 years of my life in public service and continue to fight for the people,” he said in a statement. “Every campaign I’ve run has been done with integrity. Make no mistake that this case is not legal, it is political. Throughout my career I have always stood up for the people of Florida and have spoken truth to power. There’s been a target on my back ever since I was the mayor of Tallahassee. They found nothing then, and I have full confidence that my legal team will prove my innocence now.”

His attorneys, Marc Elias and David Oscar Markus, released a joint statement vowing to fight for Gillum, the outlet reported.

“The government got it wrong today. The evidence in this case is clear and will show that Mr. Gillum is innocent of all charges. We look forward to putting this case to rest and giving Andrew and his family peace of mind once and for all.”

Gillum, who was married with three children, was discovered drunk inside a Miami Beach hotel room with gay porn star Travis Dyson in March 2020. Dyson was suspected to have been high on crystal meth at the time.

AUTHOR

NICOLE SILVERIO

Media reporter. Follow Nicole Silverio on Twitter @NicoleMSilverio

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